Month: February 2022

I haven’t read Andrew Weissman’s book s o I don’t know if this is anything earth-shattering but it’s interesting nonetheless:

An unpublished investigative compilation sometimes referred to as the “Alternative Mueller Report” has been located in Justice Department files and could be released soon, according to a letter filed in federal court Thursday.

A top deputy to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, revealed in a book he published last year that the team he headed prepared a summary of all its work — apparently including details not contained in the final report made public in 2019.

“At least for posterity, I had all the [team] members … write up an internal report memorializing everything we found, our conclusions, and the limitations on the investigation, and provided it to the other team leaders as well as had it maintained in our files,” wrote Weissmann in “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation.”

The reference prompted the New York Times to submit a Freedom of Information Act request for the document in January and to follow up in July with a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan told Judge Katherine Polk Failla in a letter Thursday that officials have figured out what document Weissmann was alluding to and have begun reviewing it for possible release.

“Since Plaintiff filed its complaint, Defendant has located and begun processing this record and intends to release all non-exempt portions to Plaintiff once processing is complete,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Jude wrote. “Defendant estimates that primary processing of the record will be complete by the end of January 2022 at which time Defendant expects to send the record to several other DOJ components for consultation.”

Jude did not provide an estimate of how long those consultations could take, but proposed updating the court by mid-February.

I don’t know if there is anything revealing in this. This report apparently refers to the Manafort case (that was Weissman’s “team”) and he’s been pardoned. And it’s possible that the DOJ will retract portions of it anyway. Still, it could fill out the historical record a bit and that seems to be the best we can hope for with anything Trump.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard that the febrile right wing is in a froth over something that appeared in a filing as part of the still ongoing “investigation of the oranges of the investigation” run by John Durham. It’s very obscure and very complicated, so naturally Fox News and the wingnut media are running with it despite the fact that it is actually a big nothing.

There are several explainers out there, starting with Emptywheel, who has been covering the Durham mess from the beginning and is the starting place for all things complicated. I think this one at Wonkette is the quickest way to understand what’s going on.

The New York Times Charlie Savage has one out this morning as well which deftly dismantles the arguments. :

When John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel investigating the inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, filed a pretrial motion on Friday night, he slipped in a few extra sentences that set off a furor among right-wing outlets about purported spying on former President Donald J. Trump.

But the entire narrative appeared to be mostly wrong or old news — the latest example of the challenge created by a barrage of similar conspiracy theories from Mr. Trump and his allies.

Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.

The latest example began with the motion Mr. Durham filed in a case he has brought against Michael A. Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to the Democratic Party. The prosecutor has accused Mr. Sussmann of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.

The filing was ostensibly about potential conflicts of interest. But it also recounted a meeting at which Mr. Sussmann had presented other suspicions to the government. In February 2017, Mr. Sussmann told the C.I.A. about odd internet data suggesting that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.

Mr. Sussmann had obtained that information from a client, a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Another paragraph in the court filing said that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and that he and his associates “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.

Citing this filing, Fox News inaccurately declared that Mr. Durham had said he had evidence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid a technology company to “infiltrate” a White House server. The Washington Examiner claimed that this all meant there had been spying on Mr. Trump’s White House office. And when mainstream publications held back, Mr. Trump and his allies began shaming the news media.

“The press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Monday. “This in itself is a scandal, the fact that a story so big, so powerful and so important for the future of our nation is getting zero coverage from LameStream, is being talked about all over the world.”

There were many problems with all this. For one, much of this was not new: The New York Times had reported in October what Mr. Sussmann had told the C.I.A. about data suggesting that Russian-made smartphones, called YotaPhones, had been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.

The conservative media also skewed what the filing said. For example, Mr. Durham’s filing never used the word “infiltrate.” And it never claimed that Mr. Joffe’s company was being paid by the Clinton campaign.

Most important, contrary to the reporting, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era. According to lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped develop the Yota analysis, the data — so-called DNS logs, which are records of when computers or smartphones have prepared to communicate with servers over the internet — came from Barack Obama’s presidency.

“What Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, both lawyers for Mr. Dagon. “The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr. Joffe said that “contrary to the allegations in this recent filing,” he was apolitical, did not work for any political party, and had lawful access under a contract to work with others to analyze DNS data — including from the White House — for the purpose of hunting for security breaches or threats.

So, basically, the right wing press is lying and saying that this fellow was “spying” on the Trump White House when, in fact, he was investigating malware in the Obama White House. That’s how bogus this story is.

The real story is that the Durham investigation is ridiculous. He has been working for over three years now and has come up with nothing but a case that a Clinton lawyer allegedly lied to the FBI which close observers like Marcy Wheeler say is likely to fail in court. It’s all froth.

Whatever Durham’s personal deal is (I think I know) his purpose has always been to produce obscure materials that, whatever they say, can form the basis of mass GOP lies. And this basic method describes the party’s approach to politics generally. https://t.co/3HmRVI9aYN

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) February 15, 2022

But that is not to say it isn’t getting the job done.

It should go without saying, but this is NOT what the Durham filing says.

This is what happens when a network willingly runs with Kash Patel's wild spin and misrepresentation as fact, and all the hosts feel the need to one-up each other. https://t.co/1UJCU8fFvD

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 15, 2022

And then there’s this:

It sounds like he’s calling for the execution of Hillary Clinton and asking for the government to give him reparations. That’s how nuts this is.

I will say that I think the media has been more responsible with this than usual. In general the mere mention of Hillary Clinton would have had them racing to put the bogus story on the front page. Perhaps it’s the arcane nature of these charges that made them hold back but whatever it is, it’s welcome. After all, this isn’t the first ridiculous Clinton pseudo-scandal the right’s come up with. Maybe they’ve learned something after all.

Is #DemsDeliver an Effective Strategy? asks Dan Pfeiffer, citing Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer who said recently,

I want every Democrat to run as ‘Democrats who deliver.’ Point to the record. Point to what was done.”

This from the congressman who a dozen years ago pitched the oh-so-memorable “Make It In America”? No doubt from the same hot-shot messaging shop as “Build Back Better.”

Pfeiffer likely remembers:

This is a sentiment you hear from a lot of Democrats. It’s why Democratic activists work so hard to make hashtags like #DemsDeliver trend on Twitter. It is a very understandable impulse. President Biden and Congressional Democrats accomplished more legislatively and turned the economy around faster than most expected just a year ago. Polling also shows that voters either don’t know or are unpersuaded by what Democrats have delivered.

Getting insufficient credit for significant accomplishments is the perennial frustration for Democratic politicians. In response, there is a tendency to double down and try to retroactively re-educate the electorate about what happened. But is that a good strategy? Is it possible to run as “Democrats who deliver?”

The Democrat who was still pitching “Make It In America” ahead of the disatrous 2014 mid-terms is probably not the one to ask. And retroactive re-education as a strategy does not exactly soothe my anxieties.

The American Rescue Plan remains popular, yet Democrats are not getting the credit. It may be that as the pandemic wears on (and the culture war it spawned) Americans’ lives are still too disrupted by work, school, and inflation worries to ponder who gets credit for the normal they are not experiencing.

People don’t vote based on polls or slogans. They vote (if at all) based on how they feel. Even if policies from Washington Democrats are popular on paper, with all the social upheaval right now and Russian troops massing against Ukraine, how do any of us feel?

Pfeiffer wonders:

Yet, these popular legislative accomplishments are not translating into political support. There is a 20-point gap between support for what Biden has done or wants to do and the President’s approval rating. The question is why aren’t Democrats getting more credit (and what can they do about it)?

People’s unease cannot be messaged away with a slogan. They cannot be convinced to feel differently than they do. Barack Obama ran on hope at a time people needed some. He delivered too little in the end, but his unique ability to inspire worked for him in 2008. Post-Trump, I have no idea what can inspire Democrats ahead of November 2022. People don’t need their minds changed. They need their moods changed.

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For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.

Protesters smash windows while protesting Nazis or police violence and it becomes fodder for right-wing vilification of the broader left for years. Conservatives demand a police or military crackdown. But when a “Freedom Convoy” disrupts $300 million a day in trade between Canada and the U.S., halting auto production across the country? The right-wing celebrates and sends money.

Paul Krugman assesses the financial and political implications of the “embrace of economic vandalism and intimidation” by the same people who roundly condemn racial justice protests. “What we’re getting here is an object lesson in what some people really mean when they talk about ‘law and order.’”

Krugman does not reference composer Frank Wilhoit, but that’s where he’s going.

In fact, it is not really truckers behind the vaccine mandate protest in Windsor, Ontario. Ninety percent are already vaccinated. Krugman notes, “Last week a Bloomberg reporter saw only three semis among the vehicles blocking the Ambassador Bridge, which were mainly pickup trucks and private cars; photos taken Saturday also show very few commercial trucks.”

Teamsters who represent truckers on both sides of the border condemned the protest. The blockade may already have inflicted a couple of billion dollars in economic damage:

That’s an interesting number, because it’s roughly comparable to insurance industry estimates of total losses associated with the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the killing of George Floyd — protests that seem to have involved more than 15 million people.

This comparison will no doubt surprise those who get their news from right-wing media, which portrayed B.L.M. as an orgy of arson and looting. I still receive mail from people who believe that much of New York City was reduced to smoking rubble. In fact, the demonstrations were remarkably nonviolent; vandalism happened in a few cases, but it was relatively rare, and the damage was small considering the huge size of the protests.

Your perception depends to an extent on whose ox is being gored. Particularly if you watch right-ring news outlets. They portrayed Black Lives protests as an existential threat to peace and stability, and the trucker protest as a culture-war cause célèbre.

Krugman concludes:

Recent events have confirmed what many suspected: The right is perfectly fine, indeed enthusiastic, about illegal actions and disorder as long as they serve right-wing ends.

Antifa vandalizes buildings: bad.* Kyle Rittenhouse shoots dead BLM protesters or antivaxxers vandalize the economy of two countries: good.

BREAKING:

RCMP make two more arrests near the Coutts border crossing and seize more weapons. #Yeg #yyc #ableg #Covid19ab pic.twitter.com/YMFj63It8r

— Courtney Theriault (@cspotweet) February 15, 2022

The right is also perfectly fine with gun violence so long as its partisans are holding the guns.

South of Calgary at the Coutts border crossing between Montana and Alberta, Canadian Mounties confiscated an assortment on Monday:

Mounties in Alberta say they swept in to make arrests and seize weapons and ammunition as an already tense blockade near the Coutts border crossing was about to escalate dangerously.

The RCMP said they had arrested more than a dozen people by Monday evening in and around Coutts who were associated with the protest, had access to a large collection of guns and were willing “to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disrupt the blockade.”

“We knew what was about to happen or inevitably to happen, and we acted as soon as we could,” Supt. Roberta McKale told media.

A number of investigations, including “conspiracy to attempt to commit murder” and those related to possession of weapons are taking place, she said.

Brian Beutler just days ago summed up the politics of the right’s self-styled patriots:

Underlying all the brazen lawlessness and antisocial conduct on the political right is an implicit threat, especially unsubtle among far-right men, to make the country ungovernable if they don’t get their way, let alone if they face any kind of consequences for their actions.

Underlying those implicit threats is a conservative premise Frank Wilhoit stated succinctly in 2018:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

* And, yes, left-wing vandalism is bad.

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For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.

Ok, this is really concerning:

When Natalie Hollabaugh tested positive for Covid-19 in March 2020, her recovery felt extremely slow. Eighteen months later, she was still suffering from a litany of symptoms, including fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches and joint pain. She saw a cardiologist and a pulmonologist, who both ruled out other health problems, she said. And they advised her to start exercising, suggesting that some of her symptoms may have been a result of being out of shape. So Ms. Hollabaugh dutifully began using an exercise bike, speed walking on a treadmill and walking her dogs several miles a day.

But instead of helping, her new exercise regimen only exacerbated her symptoms. “I had never felt worse,” said Ms. Hollabaugh, 31, a lawyer who lives in Portland, Ore. She found she had to start taking daily naps, that her heart rate would skyrocket even when she was at rest and that she was so tired she couldn’t concentrate.

As one of the many Americans suffering from long Covid, a condition characterized by new or lingering symptoms that can be felt for months after a coronavirus infection, Ms. Hollabaugh is not alone in experiencing setbacks with exercise. Natalie Lambert, a biostatistician and health data scientist at the Indiana University School of Medicine, has collected self-reported data from more than a million long Covid patients through a collaboration with Survivor Corps, a Facebook support group for Covid survivors. Patients frequently report that their doctors have advised them to exercise, she said — but many say that when they do, they feel worse afterward.

“The research that I’ve done has shown that inability to exercise is one of the most common long-term symptoms,” Dr. Lambert said. Some people are simply too tired to exercise, she said, while others experience debilitating symptom relapses like increases in fatigue, brain fog or muscle pain. This worsening of symptoms after engaging in even just a little bit of physical activity — what is sometimes called “post-exertional malaise” — seems to be common among long Covid patients. When researchers performed an online survey of 3,762 people with long Covid, as part of a study published in August, they found that 89 percent reported post-exertional malaise.

[…]

In one small study published in January, for example, Dr. Systrom and his colleagues compared 10 long Covid patients who had trouble exercising with 10 people who had never tested positive for Covid-19, but who had unexplained shortness of breath after exercise. The researchers found that nobody in the study had abnormal chest CT scans, anemia or problems with lung or heart function, suggesting that organ injury wasn’t to blame for their symptoms. Yet when the long Covid patients exercised on a stationary bicycle, Dr. Systrom found that some veins and arteries were not working properly, preventing oxygen from being delivered efficiently to their muscles.

Nobody knows why these blood vessel problems occur, Dr. Systrom said, but another one of his recent studies suggested that long Covid patients experience damage to a certain kind of nerve fiber involved in how organs and blood vessel function.

Other research on exercise intolerance implicates problems with how the heart rate responds to exercise. In one study published in November, researchers from Indiana studied 29 women who had tested positive for Covid-19 about three months earlier. When these women underwent a six-minute-long walking test, their heart rates didn’t accelerate as much — or recover as quickly — as the heart rates of 16 similar women who had not been infected with Covid-19.

“Clearly, there’s something going on that’s interfering with that normal response,” said Stephen J. Carter, an author of the study and an exercise physiologist at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Public Health.

These heart problems associated with long COVID are bad news. (This study from the other day is downright scary.) I think I’ll keep my masks handy for a while.

It looks like we are going to be dealing with some serious long term health challenges for quite a while. Let’s hope this is something that goes away over time.

Oh boo hoo hoo:

Wealthy Americans were far better equipped to weather the pandemic recession. Yet they’re now the gloomiest as the economy continues to rebound.

While the latest data shows the US squarely on the mend, Americans aren’t feeling great about the recovery. The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index plummeted to 61.7 from 67.2 in a preliminary February reading, according to a Friday report. That’s the lowest print since October 2011 and down 15.1 points from levels seen one year ago. Expectations for the economy also cratered to the weakest level in a decade.

The latest leg lower was entirely fueled by souring sentiments among households with incomes of at least $100,000, Richard Curtin, chief economist at the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, said. While the final February reading could show sentiment falling among other groups, the early data signals wealthier Americans are feeling the greatest pressure as the economy heals.

To be sure, they have plenty to be upset about. The stock market only partially recovered January losses in the first weeks of February and has traded with greater volatility. Since wealthy adults are the most likely to hold their cash in stocks, the market turbulence likely hampered optimism.

Soaring prices continued to drag on moods. Data out Thursday showed inflation accelerating in January to its fastest pace since 1982. One-third of surveyed adults cited higher inflation and its effect on personal finances for their weak sentiments, Curtin said. Nearly half of all adults expect their inflation-adjusted earnings to drop in the next 12 months, he added.

Americans’ inflation fears also worsened through the first weeks of February, according to the University of Michigan survey. Adults now expect inflation to trend at 5% over the next year, up from January’s reading of 4.9%. They also expect prices to climb at an annual rate of 3.1% over the next five to 10 years, well above the Fed’s target of 2% inflation.

Dwindling confidence in the government also knocked sentiments. Inadequate economic policy was mentioned by 51% of surveyed adults, according to the report, marking the largest share since 2014. Pessimism toward government policy has plagued sentiments since late 2021 when it became clear the Build Back Better plan lacked a path forward. With Sen. Joe Manchin and GOP senators still opposing the social-spending package, it’s unlikely the Biden administration approves major economic policy in the near term.

Yet the weak Friday data hint the country might need more support soon if consumers’ darkening moods lead to changes in real economic activity. The recent declines in sentiment now signal “the onset of a sustained downturn in consumer spending,” Curtin said. Spending already tumbled in December, with retail sales unexpectedly dropping 1.9% through the month despite holiday-season shopping. Worsened sentiments could lead to a prolonged drop in spending and weaken broad economic activity.

Just how deep spending slumps depends on several factors, Curtin said. Households could still have unspent stimulus cash to deploy, and the pandemic’s continued disruption to work and spending patterns could either prolong or shorten the decline. There could be a lessened need to save and a greater push toward discretionary spending if the health crisis improves, Curtin added.

The outlook for the pandemic is promising. The seven-day average for daily virus infections hit the lowest since Christmas on Thursday, and cities that first faced the Omicron variant have seen case counts drop even faster. Yet with wealthy Americans powering the latest drop in sentiment, look to stocks, not infections, for the first signs of fresh optimism. 

Puhleeze. The stock market has been volatile the last couple of months but the run-up was exceptional. These spoiled people need to get a grip and STFU. They have plenty of purchasing power and if they have to cut back 5% because they’re really strapped, they can easily do that. I have no patience for this stuff anymore.

This piece by David French is making the rounds and for good reason. This is just creepy:

On Thursday night in Castle Rock, Colorado, a group called “FEC United” (FEC stands for faith, education, and commerce) held a “town hall” meeting that featured a potpourri of GOP candidates and election conspiracy theorists. Most notably, the event included John Eastman, the Claremont scholar who authored the notorious legal memos that purported to justify the decertification and reversal of the 2020 election results.

During the meeting, a man named Shawn Smith accused Colorado secretary of state Jena Griswold of election misconduct. “You know, if you’re involved in election fraud, then you deserve to hang,” he said. “Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.” 

“I was accused of endorsing violence,” he went on. “I’m not endorsing violence, I’m saying once you put your hand on a hot stove, you get burned.” As soon as he said, “you deserve to hang,” an audience member shouted “Yeah!” and applause filled the room. You can watch the moment here. 

The moment, almost entirely ignored by the national media, is worth noting on its own terms, but perhaps the most ominous aspect of the evening was its location—a church called The Rock. 

If you think it’s remotely unusual that a truly extremist event (which included more than one person who’d called for hanging his political opponents) was held at a church, then you’re not familiar with far-right road shows that are stoking extremism in church after church at event after event. 

Last week, the New York Times’s Robert Draper wrote a must-read profile of former President Donald Trump’s one-time national security adviser Michael Flynn. Before January 6, Flynn advocated military intervention, including martial law, to assist in overturning the election results.

During the Biden administration, he’s taken his show on the road, launching a “ReAwaken America” tour that features conferences that combine “elements of a tent revival, a trade fair and a sci-fi convention.” It is striking to see Flynn’s use of Christian channels and venues to spread his apocalyptic message of election corruption and national doom.

Draper caught up with the tour at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, where 3,500 people had shown up to see Flynn and his collection of speakers. Flynn, Draper says, is “the single greatest draw besides Trump himself” in the “parallel universe” of the Make America Great Again movement.

Intrigued by the Dream City Church reference in Draper’s article, I went to the ReAwaken America tour page to see where Flynn was headed next. The first thing you notice is that the tour is sponsored by Charisma News, a charismatic Christian outlet. The next thing you should notice is the list of upcoming venues: Trinity Gospel Temple in Ohio, Awaken Church in California, The River Church in Oregon, and Burnsview Baptist Church in South Carolina.

I wish I could say that this surprises me. But the Christian right has been a toxic influence on this country’s politics for many a year. I’m not even sure it’s about religion anymore. I think it’s just pure tribalism at this point and the only ideology driving them is loathing for “the other” whoever that may be. And they are losing touch with reality.

I wrote yesterday about the need for Democrats to take on the price gouging that’s driving some of this inflation. This piece takes a look at how monopoly power is contributing to the problem:

Larry Summers, the former US Treasury secretary and longtime Democratic economic advisor, has been adamant that the anticompetitive behavior of America’s corporate cartels and monopolies is not a cause of the recent inflation surge. Last month, he even claimed that Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s push to crack down on illegal mergers and protect small businesses is “disturbing” and would actually increase prices.

But Summers is wrong. High corporate concentration, and the anticompetitive conduct it facilitates, does contribute to inflation. And there is no doubt that inflation is high right now. Last month, inflation jumped to 7.5%. In some industries, prices have surged even higher. But these increases cannot be fully explained by “normal” increases in the cost of raw material, production, labor, transportation, or by increased demand. In the US, many industries are controlled by just a few massive companies, and when only a few companies control a single industry, they have the power to push up prices arbitrarily because consumers have few other options for these goods.

While there are many components that go into soaring prices, Summers is wrong to dismiss corporate concentration as a contributing factor to our record-high inflation, and he is equally incorrect to dismiss the idea that taking action against America’s new monopolies and oligopolies would help drive down consumer costs.

Monopolistic power pushes up prices

Supply-chain chaos has caused shortages of a wide variety of items across the country, leading to prices of some goods to go up to match the increased demand. Hard-to-find at-home COVID-19 tests are a good example of this. When demand surges due to shortages, prices go up to match what consumers are willing to pay. But some corporations across the economy are taking advantage of the broader supply-chain crisis to raise prices significantly — even where no bottleneck or shortage seems to exist. Some companies, like Procter & Gamble, even brag about it openly to their shareholders.

Basic economics tells us that market power allows firms to raise prices. When there is a small number of companies producing a product, it’s easier for them to move in lockstep to raise prices without losing many customers to one another or to other products. Two companies can do this more easily than four companies, and four can do it more easily than eight. A temporary bottleneck or shortage can give consolidated firms the ability to raise prices significantly more than when the market had more active participants. 

This consolidation often arises through company mergers. In his book “Controlling Mergers and Market Power,” economist John Kwoka has documented that our overly lax merger policy — which encourages the creation of megacorporations and reduces the number of firms competing in a given field — has led not to the efficiency gains that Summers expects, but to higher prices.

The beef industry is one of the more egregious offenders. A White House briefing report from September shows that half of the spike in grocery bills in the last year came from higher meat prices — beef prices alone have risen by 14% since the pandemic started. But is this increase due to higher prices paid to farmers? The data shows that wholesale prices have risen even as prices paid for cattle have at best stagnated. So the increase isn’t caused by farmers charging processors more for cattle

Another possibility is that prices increased not because meat-packers had to pay farmers more, but because the cost of processing meat increased due to COVID shutdowns and workers getting sick. But that doesn’t track either: Profits for meat processors hit record highs last year. One of the largest meat-processing companies, Cargill, saw a net income increase of 64% in 2021 — the most profitable year in its history. Profit margins for beef-packing companies also hit record highs during COVID. The White House report says it best: “While factors like consumer demand and input costs are affecting the market, it is the lack of competition that enables meat processors to hike prices for meat while increasing their own profitability.” Forty-five years ago, the four largest beef-packing companies controlled a quarter of the market — today they control more than 80%.       

A similar situation is happening in the firearm-ammunition industry. According to Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for a firearm-industry trade association, “Ammunition for an AR-15 used to be about 33 cents a round … Now you’re looking at closer to almost a dollar a round.” One retailer similarly noted: “Before all this kicked off, we were selling 9mm — a good-quality brand, 50 rounds — for $15.99. Right now, I’ve got it from $39.99 to $49.99.”

While demand for ammunition has spiked in the last two years, a price increase this steep raises questions: Are these price increases caused only by higher demand, or are they in part related to the fact that there are only two major US manufacturers of ammunition — and they’ve been accused of colluding with one another? (Vista Outdoor, one of those manufacturers, saw massive profit margins last year.) Is their control over the market responsible for prices suddenly rising upward of 300%? We can’t know for sure unless we give the antitrust enforcers enough resources to take a serious look.

It is imperative that the Democrats take this up. The stock trading bill as well. If they want to turn this inflation problem around I am convinced that this is the ticket both on the substance and the politics.

Those of you who’ve been around a while will remember former RNC Chairman Marc Racicot as a major George W. Bush supporter. He is a partisan as they come.

He wrote a letter to the current RNC Chair, Ronna McDaniel.

Dear Chairwoman McDaniel,

It is a sad day, indeed.

Having held the same position that you presently occupy two decades ago, I would never have imagined that the day would come when the chair of the Republican National Committee and its members would rebuke and desert two GOP members of the United States House of Representatives, who, consistent with the Constitution, their oath of office and their conscience, have been performing their assigned Congressional duties with honor and integrity pursuant to the lawful passage of a House Resolution.

The resolution in question, of course, concerns the Select Committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021. I have carefully reviewed that document, House Resolution 509 (hereafter HR 509), as well as the Republican National Committee’s “Resolution To Formally Censure Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger” (hereafter RNC Resolution). In order to get the facts straight, let me summarize the two resolutions as I understand them.

HR 509, after establishing the Select Committee, enunciates the purposes of the Committee, namely “to investigate and report the facts, circumstances and causes,” of the “attack on the Capitol.” In addition, HR 509 calls for a review of intelligence and law enforcement preparations and responses in order to identify corrective measures to prevent future acts of violence, improve the security posture of the Capitol and strengthen the security and resilience of democratic institutions against violence.

The RNC Resolution provides that “Winning back the majority in Congress…in 2022 must be the primary goal.” That achieving that goal “must not be sabotaged by Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger who have demonstrated…that they support Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump” and, therefore they must be denounced for deliberately jeopardizing victory in November, 2022 even though, it is alleged in the Resolution, the Democrat Party’s prospects are “bleak.” And finally, before articulating the severe and formal censure, the RNC Resolution asserts that Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger “are participating in a…persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

I must confess, it is difficult to even know where to begin.

First of all, I would like you to know that confronting you and the Committee with the thoughts and observations contained herein is not something, for me, easily done. Knowing my own imperfections and mistakes, I initially contemplated refraining from preparing and dispatching this missive and critique. At the same time, my heart tells me that, as a citizen, a former elected state official and former Chair of the Republican National Committee, I must try to do what I can to take care of and protect our democracy and way of life.

Based on my decades of engagement in Republican politics, my intuition tells me that you and the other members of the RNC will come to regret, if you don’t already, the passage of the RNC Resolution. It appears possible, and maybe even probable, that the RNC Resolution, with its incendiary language and histrionics, has advanced the very threat that you accuse Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger of creating, namely the diminution of the chances for Republican electoral success in 2022.

I believe you, and the members of the Committee, have substantially underestimated the Great Middle of America and what’s happening with all of those good and decent people from sea to shining sea. Made up of Democrats, Republicans and independents, the Great Middle is in the process of organizing itself with a higher goal, quietly but surely, not by express agreement or party affiliation, but by standards of decency, integrity, honor and faithfulness to the best interests of the Republic.

Many intensely loyal Republicans, more polite and less dangerous than those who breached the Capitol, are, in larger and larger numbers, quietly but persistently looking for alternatives in the form of political movements and candidates of conscience, character, conviction and courage. They’re not suggesting, hopelessly, a return to simpler times. They’re calling, hopefully, for a return to simple, timeless and enduring values: presuming the best of each other, listening in good faith before acting or responding, exuding generosity and grace, self-correcting our own mistakes and being ambitious to accomplish something, not to be somebody.

In the Republican National Committee’s search for power for its own sake and its obsession with winning at any cost, you have sacrificed, by your proclamation and its revelation of the presently existing soul of the party, the allegiance of a great many, and a growing number, of your most ardent and long-time supporters. Regrettably, it appears, “you have hitched your wagon to the wrong star.”

But more important than ephemeral political calculations, in the political life of the United States there is no greater or higher loyalty as a citizen or an officeholder than a shared loyalty to the nation and the Constitution. Every citizen agrees to that premise as a condition of the social contract between the people and their government.

Hence, loyalty to a political party or candidate never trumps allegiance to the Republic.

The Oath of Office taken by every member of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, as well as the president, requires those office holders to “solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic [and] that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” The Oath concludes with a solemn promise that “I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Bearing true faith means maintaining fidelity to the preservation of the union, fidelity to our fellow citizens, fidelity to a shared set of values and fidelity to the law and the Constitution. That transcendent fidelity or faithfulness to the Constitution is demonstrated by our continuing and unequivocal loyalty, first and above all else, to the United States of America, without interruption, without condition, without exception, without avoidance, without arrogance, without deceit, without connivance and without obfuscation.

The faithfulness referred to in the Oath of Office presumes not just faithfulness to the actual words of the Constitution, but faithfulness to its spirit as well. A spirit recognized and requited by humility, respect for others and the rights of others, honor, decency, integrity and self-discipline. Fidelity is the exact opposite of seeking power for its own sake or craving victory at any cost, each of which history has revealed time and time again to be a fool’s errand.

All of the above is to say that I have discovered no facts nor evidence, anywhere, of the “sabotage” or “persecution” or efforts to “destroy” the former president that serve as the basis for the accusations cited in the RNC Resolution and lodged against Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger. Quite the opposite, the evidence reveals two Republican members of the House of Representatives honorably performing their investigative duties and searching for the truth as members of a duly constituted investigative committee. In other words, they’re doing their job with fidelity and loyalty to the Constitution.

Parenthetically, it appears that the House Republican leadership not only made the wrong decision by refusing to participate in the legitimate business of the Select Committee, they made a serious tactical error as well. Now, having forfeited their opportunity to provide input into the Select Committee’s work and deliberations, they are left with only one available option, namely, to close their eyes to the truth and curse the darkness.

How is it that an official inquiry undertaken to pursue and determine the truth can be so threatening? How is it that faithfulness to one’s country and fellow citizens can be so precipitously and eagerly sacrificed in exchange for political victory, or the pursuit of power, or both? How is it that the responsibility to assess accountability, if the facts establish it, can be so easily dismissed? There has been no honest and reasonable answer to any of those questions.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the 2020 presidential election and the efforts of the unsuccessful candidate to overturn the results.

Although it is ever so neat and tidy to blame the defeat of the former president on the existence of decisive and widespread fraud, there is not even a scintilla of evidence, anywhere, to support such piffle. The former president didn’t experience defeat in 2020 because of fraud. The truth is quite the opposite. The defeat of the former president is explained by the fact that legions of responsible citizens, part of that Great Middle of America, voted the way they did because they embraced the very fidelity to their country and its Constitution that the RNC claims to embrace in its Party Platform.

So what can be done now? My suggestion and request is that you lead the Committee through the process of withdrawing and dismissing the RNC Resolution rebuking and deserting Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. I urge the pursuit of this remedy with the understanding that we’re human, that politics is a competitive enterprise and that sometimes we make mistakes. But I also believe in such a situation the final measure of our character is whether we have the insight and courage to humbly and honestly correct them.

Respectfully submitted,

Marc Racicot

Ouch.

But yeah, that’s not happening.

It appears that the GOP establishment is pursuing one of its typically lame quixotic attempts to see if it might be possible to oust Donald Trump from the leadership of their party. Or, at least, they are working hard to persuade the mainstream media to tell all those suburban swing voters that they’re trying.

We’ve seen multiple articles in recent days making the case that Trump is weakening and that GOP leadership is taking a strong hand to the party in advance of the 2022 election. Some ambitious politicians even took to the Sunday shows to proclaim their independence.

Tapper: "The battle for the soul of the Republican Party – are you losing it ?"@GovLarryHogan: "We've made tremendous progress because we went from about 80-something percent that wanted to re-elect Donald Trump to 50. That's a huge drop." pic.twitter.com/IxE93GUtxu

— The Hill (@thehill) February 14, 2022

Did I mention they were lame?

Donald Trump may have “dropped” to 50% support from Republicans polled but that would still translate into a primary election landslide. (And I suspect that Larry Hogan is not a serious threat to Donald Trump in today’s GOP in any case.) According to an NBC News poll, just before the 2020 election, 54% of Republicans said they were more a supporter of Donald Trump than the Republican Party and only 38% said they were supporters of the GOP. In January of this year, the numbers are almost reversed with 56% saying they are supporters of the Republican Party and 36% saying they identify as Trump supporters.

Again, the problem is that the third of the party who consider themselves Trump uber allies adds up to a lot of people — and they are the most active and energized. And a majority of Republicans still like Trump and will happily vote for him in a general election anyway. Nonetheless, there are some hairline cracks in the coalition.

TIME magazine recently reported that one of the little fractures in the GOP foundation is around vaccines. Apparently, a lot of Trump’s followers are truly offended that he promoted vaccines. They quote one supporter saying, “why lose half your base over a faulty vaccine actively being used to take away rights?” and another saying, “I love Trump but this shit is getting intolerable.”

We know he wants desperately to be given credit for the vaccines and possibly be given the Nobel Prize or perhaps even granted sainthood for this great personal achievement. Some of his advisers believe it’s a good issue for him going into 2024, as well. But his followers aren’t having it and it appears he’s backed off and has joined the right’s febrile caterwauling about “mandates” to cover for it, prompting one of his supporters to say after one of his recent rallies, “not hearing President Trump pushing the ‘vaccines’ was my favorite part of last night’s speech.”

Perhaps more concerning to Trump, Republican polling firm Echelon Insights released a poll this month that showed Republicans would prefer Trump over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by 57% to 32% — down from 62% to 22% in October. It’s still a big lead, but it’s not quite the juggernaut it was a year ago. Echelon’s Kirsten Soltis Anderson told the New York Times that many of the people she polled showed “a shocking level of ambivalence” about voting again for Trump. She said they liked his policies (whatever they are) but are finally expressing a bit of what sounds to me like “Trump fatigue” after all this time.

These numbers are inspiring headlines like the Washington Post’s on Sunday which said, “A weakened Trump? As some voters edge away, he battles parts of the Republican Party he once ran.” Reporters Michael Shear and Josh Dawsey write:

The former president’s power within the party and his continued focus on personal grievances is increasingly questioned behind closed doors at Republican gatherings, according to interviews with more than a dozen prominent Republicans in Washington and across the country, including some Trump advisers. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity because there remains significant fear of attracting Trump’s public wrath.

I think we can see the problem with this entire thesis, right there, can’t we? These people who are “questioning” Trump’s power are still terrified of his wrath. It seems to me that’s the very definition of power.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz explains further that the real problem lies with the defection of independents, telling the Post, “He is still God among Republicans, but independents don’t want him to run again. They have had enough.” That’s a problem for Trump. No one of either party can win without independent votes.

The article contends that this is all a matter of diverging priorities: Trump wants to wreak revenge on Republicans he believes have crossed him and put in place sycophants and cronies while Republican leaders want to find “palatable candidates most able to win in November.” I would suggest that those aren’t just diverging priorities. They are completely at odds.

Certainly, Mitch McConnell seems to think so.

On Sunday, the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin reported on the machinations behind the scenes to topple Trump from his perch atop the Republican Party once and for all and it’s not going well. McConnell, the GOP’s leader in the Senate, is having a terrible time recruiting good candidates for the midterm and Trump has been flexing his muscle in a number of Senate races, pushing “goofballs” as McConnell sees them. It’s anyone’s guess how many of those goofballs will succeed in their primaries and how well they will do in a general election.

It’s clear that Trump has lost some altitude over the past few months. It’s understandable since he’s no longer in the public eye every day and has lost his connection to his base through social media as well. The mainstream media outlets aren’t covering his rallies live and he is irrelevant to the legislative sausage making that’s consumed much of the political coverage of the past few months.

However, this may end up being a silver lining for him if he can allow himself to tone down the obsessive stolen election mantra and concentrate on the “policies” his followers allegedly love so much: degrading their political enemies and demeaning immigrants and people of color.

Being out of the spotlight allows Trump to re-enter the scene and offer up something new for his followers, some fresh insults, some new lies. His tedious rambling about stolen ballots has its place among their list of grievances but they need some new red meat.

I don’t know if he’s capable of pulling himself out of his funk and doing what needs to be done. And frankly, I’m not sure it really matters all that much. For all of this whispering among the establishment good old boys and the faint murmurs among some Republicans and Independent voters, it’s hard to see how he can lose if he decides to run even if half the Party just wishes he would go away, It’s the other half, the half that can’t get enough of him, that’s driving the bus. And they will run right over anyone who stands between them and their Dear Leader. 

Salon