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Who's the biggest loser: McConnell or McCarthy?
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For years, Capitol Hill reporters have assured Americans that privately, Republicans disparage Donald Trump and can’t wait to get rid of him.
Now we are finally getting some real audio to back that up, and what it exposes is exactly what a bunch of losers GOP lawmakers are—GOP leadership in particular.
The recordings, made in the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, were unearthed by two New York Times reporters, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, whose book This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future will be released next month.
The reporters released one piece of audio Thursday between House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and then-House GOP Communications Chief Liz Cheney. Friday, on CNN, they released two more pieces of McCarthy audio, one from a Jan. 10 phone call with an inner circle of House GOP leaders and another from a Jan. 11 call with the entire Republican caucus.
The phone calls reveal a man who is absolutely desperate to rid himself of Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“I’ve had it with this guy,” McCarthy tells the GOP leadership team on Jan. 10. “What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend it, and nobody should defend it.”
No one, that is, until he ran down to Mar-a-Lago three weeks later to beg Trump’s forgiveness.
On Jan. 11, McCarthy was a little less pointed in his conversation with the wider caucus, but still talking tough.
“Let me be very clear to all of you, and I’ve been very clear to the president: He bears responsibility for his words and actions. No ifs, ands, or buts,” McCarthy said.
No ifs, ands, or buts—until he ran his hiney down to Mar-a-Lago three weeks later to beg Trump’s forgiveness.
McCarthy then told the caucus that he asked Trump directly if he bore responsibility for what happened on Jan. 6 and if he feels badly about it.
“He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he need [sic] to acknowledge that,” McCarthy reported back to the caucus.
That will probably be news to Trump, the notion that he took responsibility for something—anything, really—let alone the violent Jan. 6 coup attempt.
Senate GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also had some choice words on Jan. 11, telling two advisers of the impending House impeachment, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.”
According to the Times‘ Martin and Burns, McConnell told the aides he expected the Senate would convict Trump, with a strong contingent of Republicans voting accordingly. At least 17 Republicans would be needed to seal Trump’s fate if all 50 Democrats voted in favor, and McConnell clearly thought he had the votes.
But once McConnell took the temperature of the caucus, he didn’t. And ol’ masterful Mitch also didn’t have the leadership skills to deliver the votes. As McConnell recently admitted publicly, “moral red lines” aren’t exactly his thing.
“He didn’t ascend to power by siding with the minority, he explained to a friend,” write Martin and Burns.
As for McCarthy’s leadership, just two days after that Jan. 11 call with the entire GOP caucus, he pretended it never happened at his weekly press conference.
“Did you tell House Republicans on their January 11 phone call that President Trump told you he agreed that he bore some responsibility for January 6?” a reporter asked.
“I’m not sure what call you’re talking about,” replied McCarthy.
Now there’s a guy with some unshakable moral fortitude.
And so here we sit in the spring of 2022 with Trump still the 2024 GOP favorite even as he complicates the path for congressional Republicans to retake the majority. In fact, it’s not exactly clear why he would want either McCarthy or McConnell to regain control of their chambers.
The biggest guessing game on Capitol Hill Friday morning was how hard Trump would come down on McCarthy. That seems doubtful. McCarthy is a useful idiot who will do absolutely anything Trump says in his desperate bid to become speaker of the House one day.
On Friday morning, McCarthy wasn’t running around trying to rehabilitate his public image, he was madly ringing up all his colleagues to assure them that Trump isn’t angry with him, according to Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman.
So who’s the biggest loser? Broadly speaking, both Mitch and Kev are epic losers in the leadership department. They both wanted to rid themselves of the Trump plague with every fiber of their being, and yet capitulated to him at a time when Trump was at his lowest, most vulnerable political moment since he had announced his 2016 candidacy for president.
Dooming Trump was completely within reach, and neither of them had the grit or determination to follow through. Thus, Trump is still ruling their world.
More specifically, who will be the biggest loser of Trump’s wrath? Likely McConnell, precisely because he’s not the exquisite bootlicker that McCarthy is.
McCarthy gladly and immediately laying himself belly up at Trump’s feet while McConnell doesn’t will simply remind Trump how deeply he loathes McConnell.
He’ll be coming for McConnell. Trump can throw McCarthy under the bus later.
This video of Marjorie Taylor Greene getting busted for lying in court is a must-see MAGA moment
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On Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene took the stand to give a foggy recollection’s worth of testimony in an Atlanta court hearing over whether she should be disqualified under the 14th Amendment from running for re-election this fall.
If you have been hiding from the news for a while, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a fake business person who earned her money the old-fashioned way—her parents had a successful business that she inherited and then was bought out of. Since cherry-picking a blood-red enclave of Georgia to lay down her carpetbag, she has risen in the MAGA GOP, in no small part due to her shameless use of invective and fascist oratory.
The case against MTG is a simple one: Is she qualified, according to the Constitution, to hold public office? Today’s hearing is in response to a challenge from Free Speech For People, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to “reclaim our democracy” in the wake of Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that allows corporate influence of policy through campaign donations.
Free Speech for People are attempting to establish Greene’s disqualification from holding office in this hearing through Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which stipulates:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
It’s compelling stuff. Rep. Greene is a mediocre liar, at best. In one exchange, Greene attempted to lie before realizing evidence was about to directly refute that lie. She retreats immediately, but the exchange is typical of interactions with Greene, and a clear window into how easily prosecutable people like Greene are.
After affirming that Greene and Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi do not agree on a lot of things, the prosecutor gets to the point.
Lawyer: In fact you think that Speaker Pelosi is a “traitor” to the country, right?
Greene looked off toward her lawyer, presumably, before attempting to evade the question by saying, “I’m not answering that question. It is speculation.” The lawyer for Free Speech For People tries to jog Greene’s memory, “You have said that, Ms. Greene. That she’s a traitor to the country, haven’t you?” To which Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene lies:
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: No. No, I haven’t said that.
At this moment, the lawyer, without words, reminds Greene that she is in a court of law and this isn’t an appearance on some right-wing white supremacist softball news show. Greene shifts in a way that can only be described as “aggressively agitated” as the lawyer asks for a presentation of “plaintiff’s Exhibit 5, please.”
Before we can watch the video below, where Greene says Speaker Pelosi is “guilty of treason” and that her guilt is “punishable by death,” Ms. Greene says, “Oh, no, wait.” That’s the moment in the screenshot atop this story. She then says something about how she did maybe say that when she said Pelosi had violated her oath of office regarding immigration.
How? Who the fuck knows?
The entire exercise we are watching is whether or not our country can enforce our most fundamental laws of democracy.
POC students call for racist University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Wax to be held accountable
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Calls to suspend a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor have increased nationwide as the professor, identified as Amy Wax, continues to spread her hateful rhetoric on national television. At least three organizations on campus have come together—the National Black Law Students Association, National Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, and North American South Asian Law Association—to ensure Wax not only is prevented from teaching, but from generally speaking to students.
According to NBC News, the student organizations released a letter on Wednesday detailing and condemning Wax’s comments. In several recent interviews, Wax not only expressed that the U.S. would be “better off with fewer Asians,” but that “Blacks” and other POC individuals are resentful of “Western peoples’ outsized achievements.”
The comments came on two separate occasions: once during an interview on The Glenn Show, and in another incident during an interview with Tucker Carlson.
“That Wax has been permitted to teach, supervise, and ridicule minority law students for over twenty one years is alarming,” the letter said. “Few understand how much more burdensome law school is for students who continuously receive the message that they are ‘less than’ or do not belong.”
Amid her racist comments, students even called into question whether her grading of students of color has been fair in the last two decades at the university. In the letter, students demanded she not only be held accountable but investigations into her actions be transparent to students.
“It’s a bit scary thinking about the impact that she’s had teaching at Penn for so long,” Dillon Yang, president of the National Asian Pacific American Law Student Association and a second-year law student at Notre Dame University, told NBC News. “Professors are supposed to teach the law in a neutral way, in ways that law students can form their own thoughts about the law. But clearly she doesn’t hide what she truly feels about the different minority groups in America. It’s hard for me to believe that it wouldn’t shine through in a classroom setting.”
What’s worse is that Wax defended the bigotry she has perpetuated in another interview with Gad Saad in January.
“My case is on some level not about me. I’m just roadkill, I’m a casualty in the culture wars,” Wax told Saad. Saad’s YouTube channel has more than 230,000 subscribers.
“What I see being said and done with respect to me is truly alarming. It is a total repudiation of the very concept of academic freedom.”
Over the last year, multiple students from other universities have expressed how harmful Wax’s comments have been to students.
“She was using verbiage from the late 1800s or early 1900s, speaking about students as ‘the Blacks,’” said Richard Garzola, chair of NBLSA and a second-year law student at Georgetown University. “I wonder, when is that cloud of tenure going to stop protecting folks at legal institutions?”
The different organizations told NBC News they released the letter in order to put pressure on Penn to take more action than they have.
“As descendants of enslaved ancestors, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and persons holding multiple identities among these, we reject Amy Wax’s hateful rhetoric that we and our communities are dangerous, inferior, do not belong, have made fewer contributions, and are inherently less able to utilize the law because of our skin colors or heritages,” the letter read. “Minority law students belong in the spaces they occupy.”
According to the law school’s website, Wax is currently teaching two courses but has been removed from teaching a mandatory first-year course. At this time, Wax is facing a faculty senate review that could result in sanctions against her. However, her being protected by tenure has made it difficult for the university to blatantly let her go.
“The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School has previously made clear that Professor Wax’s views do not reflect our values or practices,” said Meredith Rovine, a spokesperson for the law school. “In January 2022, Dean Ruger announced that he would move forward with a University Faculty Senate process to address Professor Wax’s escalating conduct, and that process is underway.”
Human beings are in an evolutionary race with SARS-CoV-2, and we need all the help we can get
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On Thursday, the BBC reported that a patient who had tested positive for COVID-19 a record 505 straight days had died. Also on Thursday, NBC News reported that a woman in Spain had contracted the omicron variant of COVID-19 just 20 days after contracting an infection from the delta variant.
These situations are at the extremes. The patient with the extremely long case of COVID-19 had serious medical conditions that suppressed their immune system. The woman with the two cases in less than three weeks was a health care worker whose job placed her at high risk of exposure. But there is something to draw from both these cases—something that was true a year ago, and is still true today.
Every person infected brings around 10,000,000,000 new examples of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into existence. Every single one of those is subject to mutations. Those mutations then get winnowed by the one evolutionary pressure that faces viruses: getting that R0 number ever higher. …
COVID-19 is a brand new disease when it comes to people. No one, but no one, has a natural immunity. There is no handy closely related but mild infection (ala cow pox) that might provide some with protection. The newness of COVID-19 makes it almost infinitely more threatening that diseases we’ve been dealing with for ages.
COVID-19 is still engaged in a process in which unguided mutation is searching out the best way to infect human cells. The newness of that process can be seen in the huge gains being made in each generation of variant. Alpha was twice as infectious as the original variant that ravaged Europe and the U.S. Delta is over twice as infectious as Alpha. You do not see that kind of change in well-established, long-term disease.
That was written before the omicron variant appeared. By best estimates, omicron BA.1 is 3.19 times more infectious than delta. Omicron’s BA.2 subvariant is about 30% more infectious than the BA.1 subvariant. That puts estimates of the basic reproductive number (R0) for COVID-19 at around 16 to 18, putting it on par with pertussis and measles, which were the most infectious viruses in circulation. The version of COVID-19 that first appeared in China before moving on to other countries had an R0 value of between 2.0 and 2.5. The rapid increase in that number shows that this is a virus that still has a lot of potential for explosive growth. It’s still learning to get around the immune system, and that includes learning how to get past the effects generated by both vaccines and previous infection.
This is still a very new virus with an association with Homo sapiens that is just getting started. And it’s never been more important to limit the number of infections, reduce the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ opportunities to produce trillions of new attempts to break barriers, and not let everything that’s happened so far become only a prelude.
Before going further, it’s worth pointing out that SARS-CoV-2 is neither malicious nor aware. It’s not capable of making plans. It doesn’t “want” anything. It is a quasi-living particle capable of reproduction with changes that are driven by a combination of random chance and selective pressure. To a large extent, that’s true for every living thing, but nowhere is it more true than with viruses.
In a 2013 paper, researchers from the University of Valencia said this: “RNA viruses are among the fastest mutating and evolving entities in nature.” SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. Compared to a DNA virus like the variola virus behind smallpox, it changes more rapidly. And, in large part because the time of contact between human beings and SARS-CoV-2 is so brief, those changes can have significant effects.
Here is a quick look at just one measure of how rapidly SARS-CoV-2 is changing.
In two years, SARS-CoV-2 has moved from being a virus with rate of infection that was roughly 50% greater than the flu, to one that matches up with the most infectious viruses known. There is no guarantee that this represents its upper bound. In fact, the drastic improvements seen from alpha to delta and delta to omicron suggests that there may be still quite a lot of “headroom” for SARS-CoV-2 on this single vector.
Of course, infectiousness isn’t everything. Smallpox is sitting back there at the bottom of the chart, barely twice as infectious as the flu, but no virus in history may be responsible for more human deaths than smallpox. In just the last 100 years before it was driven to extinction by a worldwide campaign of isolation and vaccination, smallpox accounted for an estimated 500 million deaths. That’s enough to cover everyone in the United States. And Canada. And Mexico. With another 10 million or so left over.
That’s because around 30% of people who caught smallpox died. For COVID-19, that number is around 1.2%. One person in 100 dying out of sight in a hospital is simply easier to overlook than a third of your family expiring after being consumed by pus-spewing sores.
Notice that there is no guarantee it will remain that way. The influenza virus—another of those pesky, rapidly changing RNA viruses—had been infecting humans for thousands of years before a version appeared in 1918 that greatly kicked up both the R0 and the mortality.
There’s nothing in any of these viruses driving them toward being significantly more lethal or significantly less lethal. Smallpox killed a high number of those infected, year in and year out, for thousands of years. If killing off a third of those infected had generated a significant selective pressure on the virus to be less lethal, you can bet the number would have dropped. It didn’t.
(Side note: For Ebola virus, increased lethality may actually be the result of selective pressure, as this virus is often transmitted by the handling of dead bodies.)
Right now, we’re still at the beginning of our relationship with SARS-CoV-2. We’ve already passed through a kind of Dunning–Kruger stage were we thought, or at least pretended, that we understood this virus and the disease it generates. We’re just starting to squeak past that to a point where we can admit our ignorance. We don’t know what kind of sequela are waiting for us years down the road. We’re only starting to become aware of horror stories like the one novapsyche covered in this diary.
A study from Tulane has come out that strongly suggests that, even in mild forms or onsets of the disease, even with asymptomatic presentation, the brain may experience diffuse yet profound insult in the form of “innumerable” microbleeds.
All of this just means that the idea that we should “just live with” COVID-19 and pretend that it doesn’t exist is an invitation to disaster of inestimable scale. That patient who tested positive over 505 days didn’t just have a persistent infection from SARS-CoV-2, they had a “unique” infection. Every single person infected generates unique infections, with genetic structures that are subtly different from the virus they had going in. If one of those unique versions happens to be more infectious, it stands a chance of being the next variant of concern, and what it does to us, from brain bleeds to death, barely matters.
It’s a race. And we can’t afford to stop running.
Ukraine update: This is not the World War III you expected. Let's hope it's the only one you get
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What’s happening in Ukraine is not World War III. Or at least, it’s not the World War III anyone anticipated. But with every day that goes by, the importance of what’s happening in Ukraine and the scope of what’s at stake seem to increase.
When Vladimir Putin committed Russia to an invasion of their western neighbor, it wasn’t obvious that this would be a pivot point in history; one of those moments where the outcome affects international relations, world economies, and such apparently unconnected issues as the climate crisis for decades to come. Maybe it should have been, because all that is certainly clear now. Every day, as Russia pushes in more forces, and the West responds by abandoning any pretense when it comes to providing Ukraine with the weaponry to fight back, the do-or-die nature of this conflict becomes more clear.
If Russia is successful in achieving its stated goals of capturing eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea coast all the way to Moldova, it won’t just embolden Putin to keep up his brutal assaults on civilian populations as a tactic of war, it will put paid to the idea that the West can in any way hope to stop Russia without “getting their hands dirty.”
Ukraine is a nation with a population greater than California. It is being armed with every system that seems applicable in the effort to halt Russian ambitions. What should be clear, to the United States and every other western nation, two months into this conflict, is that if this isn’t enough to stop Putin, we will have to do it ourselves. We win this war, or we will get another.
So, every one of those nations has a huge stake in seeing that this is, in fact, enough.
As Markos has made clear for weeks, there’s almost no end to the things Russia is doing wrong. Whether it’s their graft-ridden chain of logistics, an incredibly top-heavy command structure, an organization structure that makes their units extremely fragile, or a simple lack of competence that limits the scope of their operations, Russia’s approach would get them flunked from any war college in the West. The only tactic they have been able to engage that has been by any definition successful is that they have committed war crimes at a scale and pace not seen since World War II.
Russia doesn’t have the ability to engage successfully with a peer military. It does have the ability to bomb the shit out of children, hospitals, and blind grandmothers. It has the ability to slaughter whole civilian populations and toss them into enormous mass graves. Russia can’t execute intelligent tactics to win battles in the field, but it’s perfectly capable of grinding forward with dumb tactics that pulverize cities and lives.
Unless, of course, someone makes them stop. Which is where we are now. Not “Does Ukraine have the weapons it needs to stand against Russia in a fair fight?” but, “Does Ukraine have what it needs to destroy Russia’s ability to kill civilians in their homes?” Which is a very different thing.
To stop the slaughter, Ukraine isn’t going to just need Javelins to halt the advance of Russian tanks, or Stingers to take down helicopters buzzing over Ukrainian territory. It needs armor, artillery, and air support—in the form of fighters, helicopters, and drones—that will allow it to eliminate the weapons Russia is firing into Ukrainian towns and cities. So when word comes that Ukraine now has more tanks in theater than Russia, or that the U.S. is sending another massive order of artillery their way, that’s just a start. There literally is no way we can give them too much.
To really win this thing, Ukraine can’t fight the Russian army to a draw or force them to halt their advance. Ukraine has to destroy the Russian army in a way that keeps it from committing mass murder of civilians, not just right now, but for a long time to come. That is a very big task.
What’s happening in Ukraine is not World War III. Except in the sense that it will define the world we all live in for a long time to come. Which … okay, maybe it is.
Friday, Apr 22, 2022 · 5:35:20 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
We saw video of at least two helicopters and multiple drones, which makes this seem like a pretty reasonable — if amazing — count.
Friday, Apr 22, 2022 · 5:36:22 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
How committed is the U.S. to the outcome of this fight? This committed.
Not one, not two, but three states Mark Meadows registered to vote in
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It hasn’t even been two weeks since we reported that Mark ‘Big Lie’ Meadows was removed from voter rolls in North Carolina after it was discovered he was registered in both Virginia and North Carolina.
Now it seems there’s yet another state the former President Trump lackey has registered in: South Carolina.
RELATED STORY: Mark ‘Stop the Steal’ Meadows removed from voter roll in North Carolina amid voter fraud probe
According to records obtained by The Washington Post, Meadows was registered in three different states for about three weeks.
Let’s not forget that Meadows serves as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), a think tank devoted to “restor[ing] election integrity safeguards” the “left is trying to tear down.”
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As first reported by The New Yorker in September 2020, about three weeks before North Carolina’s voter registration deadline for the general election, Meadows—a devout Stop the Stealer—claimed to be living in a 14-foot-by-62-foot mobile home in North Carolina, where he never actually lived. But he voted absentee using that address in the 2020 general election. Meadows, a former Asheville resident and Western North Carolina congressman, was living in Virginia at that time.
In March, an investigation into Meadows’ possible voter fraud was launched by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.
“The allegations, in this case, involve potential crimes committed by a government official,” Macon County District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch wrote in a letter to the attorney general’s office on March 14, CNBC News reported.
Melanie Thibault, Macon County Board of Elections director, told the Asheville Citizen Times on April 12 that she consulted with the North Carolina Board of Elections staff after discovering that Meadows was registered in North Carolina and Virginia. The board removed him from their voter rolls.
“What I found was that he was also registered in the state of Virginia. And he voted in a 2021 election. The last election he voted in Macon County was in 2020,” Thibault said.
In March 2022, Meadows registered to vote in South Carolina—while he was already registered in Virginia, where he voted in a 2021 election, while he was already registered absentee in North Carolina, where he voted in the 2020 general election. My head is spinning.
The issue is that when he registered to vote in South Carolina, he should have let the state know he was registered in Virginia. But according to Angie Maniglia Turner, the general registrar and director of elections in Alexandria, Virginia, neither Mark nor Debra Meadows had changed voter registration status in Virginia.
Come on, Mark. Get it together, man. One state, one vote. That’s how this whole process works.
Biden to request more Ukraine aid when Congress gets back next week
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President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the U.S. is sending another $800 million in lethal aid and security assistance to Ukraine, and $500 million in economic assistance “to help stabilize their economy, to support communities that have been devastated by the Russian onslaught, and pay the brave workers that continue to provide essential services to the people of Ukraine.”
“With this latest disbursement, I’ve almost exhausted the draw-down authority I have that Congress authorized for Ukraine and a bipartisan spending bill last month,” Biden said. He announced that he will send a supplemental budget request to Congress next week “to keep weapons and ammunition flowing without interruption to the brave Ukrainian fighters and to continue to deliver economic assistance to the Ukrainian people.”
Then he thanked Congress ”Democrats and Republicans—for their support for the people of Ukraine.” We’ll see how much thanks Republicans deserve with this next request, which Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says will be coupled with the administration’s other urgent supplemental funding request for COVID-19 pandemic funds.
The White House has been clamoring for weeks for more funding—for vaccines, treatments, and research and development funding for vaccines—warning that they wouldn’t be able to respond to a potential autumn surge or new variant without the assistance. In early March, they were asking for $22.5 billion, it’s now been whittled down by Republicans to $10 billion, and they keep finding poison pills to delay passing it.
The obvious path, which Schumer intends to take, is to tie the Ukraine aid with “funding to address Covid-19 and food insecurity globally” and to pass it as soon as possible when Congress is back next week. Republicans will continue to resist, with a likely assist from jittery Senate Democrats.
“If that [Covid aid] discussion is going to take a matter of weeks, we have to make a decision on Ukrainian support in a matter of hours or days,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told reporters on a call from the Balkans. On the same call, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) showed she’s wobbling. “I support a package to address continued research and investment and therapeutics and vaccinations that we need for Covid … but I also think it’s very important to get this aid out to Ukraine as quickly as possible.”
Some Democrats have also been a problem on that COVID-19 funding, helping Republicans fight Biden in ending Title 42, the Trump-era policy created by Stephen Miller “that has for more than two years used the pandemic as an excuse to stomp on U.S. asylum law,” as Gabe Ortiz explains.
Senate Republicans derailed a COVID-19 package just before Congress left for the Easter recess, refusing to allow a vote on the aid unless they get an amendment vote to force Biden to reinstate the Title 42 restrictions.
Republicans also dragged out important Russian sanctions bills ending that nation’s permanent normal trade status with the U.S., but finally passed it the day before they headed off for their two-week recess. Dragging all this critical legislation out is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s only election strategy—to prevent Biden from achieving things as much as possible.
As far as Biden’s request for more Ukraine aid goes, on Thursday Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised a quick vote next week. “We want to do more. The president said he will be asking Congress for more. We will learn about that in the next day or so, to be taken up as soon as we can next week,” Pelosi said. Her spokesperson Drew Hammill cautioned that there was “no specific timeline for a floor vote at this time,” pending Biden’s request. Nevertheless, the House is poised to act, which will put more pressure on the Senate.
But Schumer’s plan on COVID-19 funding will have to be worked out with Pelosi, as well, since the two have ceded critical ground on the funding for it—they’ve agreed that new money can’t be appropriated and it will have to come out of the previous funding packages. Which means clawing funding back from somewhere. House Democrats scuttled the first effort when leadership tried to rush through a bill that would have stripped already-budgeted funding from about 30 state and local governments.
Funding for Ukraine (and for the defense industry) won’t be a hard fight—money for guns is never a hard fight. Fighting a global pandemic, however, is not something Republicans are interested in. So Democrats should make it politically painful for them to refuse funding.
The best way to do that is to cry “fraud, waste, and abuse” by private corporations in the previous rounds of emergency spending. There’s been plenty of that. Where that money should come from is the likely $76 billion claimed fraudulently in pandemic Paycheck Protection Program loans. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan. Not fraudulently.)
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DeSantis likely to sign new congressional map that hands Florida a 71% advantage in the House
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Like his political doppelganger, former President Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis is making all the moves to ensure his state becomes as Republican as possible. The latest is a gerrymandered map of the state as red as a broken blood vessel.
DeSantis, a predicted GOP presidential candidate, presented his congressional map Thursday. The Florida House voted 68-38 in favor and sent it to DeSantis’ desk for his signature. The state Senate signed off on the map Wednesday; both voted along party lines.
Though the map will likely be challenged in court, it offers four more GOP-leaning districts and virtually erases Democrats’ gains in redistricting.
RELATED STORY: While Trump bashes him, Kemp calls legislators to a special session on redistricting Georgia
DeSantis’ new map would create 20 Republican seats total and leave just eight Democratic ones, giving the GOP 71% control of Florida. The Times reports that in 2020 Trump carried the state with a 51.2% in Florida.
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The map also splits Florida’s 10th Congressional district held by Rep. Val Demings, a Black Democrat who’s currently running for Senate. And if the map is upheld, it would all but end Rep. Al Lawson’s congressional role by slicing up a district that extends through North Florida and merges Black neighborhoods in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, The New York Times reports.
“It’s so blatantly partisan,” Matthew Isbell, a leading Florida-based Democratic data consultant, told NBC News. “The only way you can create a 20-and-8 map … was to basically say, ‘Screw Black representation.’”
Kelly Burton, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee told theTimes, “Governor DeSantis is bullying the Legislature into drawing Republicans an illegitimate and illegal partisan advantage in the congressional map, and he’s doing it at the expense of Black voters in Florida. … This blatant gerrymander will not go unchallenged.”
Here’s a little gerrymandering background from the History Channel:
“In March 1812, the Boston Gazette ran a political cartoon depicting ‘a new species of monster’: ‘The Gerry-mander.’ The forked-tongue creature was shaped like a contorted Massachusetts voting district that the state’s Jeffersonian Republicans had drawn to benefit their own party. Governor (and future vice president) Elbridge Gerry signed off on his party’s redistricting plan in February, unwittingly cementing his place in the United States lexicon of underhanded political tricks.”
CNN reports that several Black members of the Florida House protested the debate Thursday prior to the vote that ultimately approved the map—many of them wearing shirts that read “Stop the Black Attack.”
State Rep. Angie Nixon said from the floor, “I am occupying the Florida House chamber floors to ensure that Black people will not be forgotten about. We are here to stay. We are occupying the floor; we’re doing good trouble. Ron DeSantis is a bully; Ron DeSantis does not care about Black people.”
State Sen. Rosalind Osgood of Broward County, the second-most populous county in Florida, told the Times, “It does appear to be politically motivated, and it does not take seriously the hard-working Black people in the state.”
The Florida GOP presently holds a 16-11 upper hand in the U.S. House.
Rep. John Lewis must be turning in his grave.
Just 3 in 10 voters know the U.S. created more jobs than it lost last year
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Here’s a stunning fact: President Joe Biden created more jobs during his first year in office than any other president on record, and yet only 3 in 10 registered voters correctly believe the U.S. gained jobs in 2021.
In fact, the U.S. economy added about 6.6 million jobs in Biden’s first year. But according to new polling from the progressive consortium Navigator Research, while 30% of voters said the U.S. gained jobs, 17% said it lost as many jobs as it gained, 24% weren’t sure, and 29% said the country lost jobs. In other words, 70% of voters either got it wrong or didn’t know.
At the same time, Biden is 15 points underwater on his handling of the economy at 41% approve, 56% disapprove. The president’s overall job approval is 6 points underwater at 46% approve, 52% disapprove in the survey.
Inflation remains a dominant concern for voters based on focus groups GBAO conducted in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Nevada. More people report hearing about negative economic news than positive news, and many in the focus groups see positive economic indicators as being at odds with their personal experiences, according to the report.
If there’s good news, it’s that voters generally feel positive about the president’s handling of the pandemic, with 52% approving and 45% disapproving of it.
Americans are also generally feeling optimistic about the state of the pandemic, with a bare majority of 51% for the first time agreeing the pandemic is “over for me” while 45% say it’s still impacting their lives in significant ways. Of the sample, 57% of voters also believe the worst of the pandemic is over—a trend that has been ticking up for the last several weeks—while just 25% say the worst is yet to come.
So while voters are generally feeling better about the pandemic and approve of Biden’s efforts to get it under control, they are either not impressed or unaware of the enormous comeback the economy has made under the president’s stewardship.
Tarrio and Proud Boys may see August trial; more Jan. 6 arrests announced
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Buckle up. It’s been a busy day.
In Washington, D.C., a federal judge on Thursday got closer to putting Proud Boy ringleader Henry Tarrio and his “ministry” of extremist co-defendants on trial for conspiracy to obstruct Congress from certifying the 2020 election, and a slew of other charges tied to the attack of the U.S. Capitol.
Another Proud Boy, Barry Ramey of Florida, accused of pepper-spraying police on Jan. 6 and subsequently threatening the FBI agent investigating him, was arrested.
In yet another courtroom on Thursday—also in Florida, as it were—a judge agreed to put Oath Keeper and ex-Special Forces soldier Jeremy Brown on trial later this summer for almost a dozen charges. After spending days planning his assault and replete in tactical gear, Brown, prosecutors allege, entered a restricted area with a pair of trauma shears strapped to his chest and had to be pushed back by police with batons on Jan. 6.
And right-wing troll and activist Anthime Gionet, who is charged with a single misdemeanor of parading after he livestreamed his breach of the Capitol, appears to be on the cusp of striking a deal with the Department of Justice after a judge set a plea hearing for May.
Proud Boys
Henry Tarrio may want out of jail before his trial, but whether U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly will grant him that wish remains to be seen. And if the judge denies that request, that will put Tarrio in detention through the summer, after new developments Thursday.
Judge Kelly proposed setting Aug. 8 as the new trial date for Tarrio and co-defendants Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola. All have pleaded not guilty.
Another conference will be held in a few weeks on May 19 to sort out lingering discovery issues, but with the docket in D.C. rapidly filling up and this trial already delayed once, Kelly pushed to get something on the calendar.
An attorney for Dominic Pezzola, who prosecutors say used a police riot shield to break into the Capitol, angled briefly to push the trial to September or October but eventually acquiesced to the August date.
John Hull, attorney for Proud Boy Joseph Biggs, said Thursday that Biggs is in solitary confinement and has had difficulty preparing for trial because he has had limited access to a laptop or tablet that would let him review evidence for his defense.
Hull and Kelly both acknowledged in court Thursday that Biggs may have been placed in solitary because if he is to review evidentiary material on a device, being in the general population could become problematic since he must be supervised when accessing those materials.
Judge Kelly said he would get the U.S. Marshals service at the Alexandria, Virginia, facility where Biggs is detained to assist.
Biggs Solitary Confinement Report by Daily Kos on Scribd
Elsewhere, another member of the Proud Boys network, Barry Bennett Ramey of Plantation, Florida, was arrested Thursday.
He faces multiple charges including assault of police with a deadly or dangerous weapon, obstructing police, entering a restricted area with the intent to impede law enforcement, engaging in physical violence while using a deadly or dangerous weapon, and physical violence on Capitol grounds.
Ramey, according to charging papers, assaulted multiple cops on Jan. 6 when he doused them with pepper spray as he joined a crush of rioters on the west flank of the Capitol.
Under the shadow of scaffolding that would soon be used to inaugurate President Joe Biden, Ramey screamed at U.S. Capitol Police who blocked him and other rioters from entering a stairwell. As they yelled in unison to “push” past the police line, Ramey allegedly sprayed one officer in the eyes and face with pepper spray. Moments later, he sprayed another officer in the face.
Ramey’s alleged brazenness, however, wasn’t limited to his conduct on Jan. 6.
According to an affidavit by an FBI agent, just a few weeks ago, Ramey allegedly called the special agent tasked to investigate him. The agent had left his business card with an associate of Ramey’s just a month earlier when trying to schedule an interview.
Ramey Statement of Facts by Daily Kos on Scribd
On the April 8 call, the agent said he recognized Ramey’s voice.
The agent said Ramey asked him to identify himself, then asked him if he still lived at his current address.
“Who is this?” the agent replied.
The caller hung up. Moments later, the agent received a text message from the same number. It included the VIN number for a car the agent previously owned. The agent sent back a response.
“????” he wrote.
“Check that VIN number. ;)” the reply stated.
According to court documents, with the help of multiple confidential informants, the FBI’s division in Miami determined that Ramey was also listed on a master list of Proud Boys membership.
Oath Keepers
Oath Keeper Jeremy Brown will go to trial on Aug., 1, according to an order issued by a federal judge in Florida on Thursday.
Brown—who once ran for a congressional seat in Florida—was originally hit with just two charges related to Jan. 6 including entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct. But when Brown posted a photo of his Florida home for sale on Zillow in October, it was a whiteboard with a series of curious notations that triggered additional charges.
In the picture, the whiteboard displayed multiple columns including one for “food,” “clothing,” and “shelter.” There were also sections labeled “currency,” “move,” “communicate” and “shoot.”
Under the “shoot” column, a series of weapons and explosives were listed including “flash bangs.” Another notation beneath it read, “on hand.”
After doing a quick check, the agent discovered Brown did not have the flashbangs registered, nor many of the other explosives and weapons found in his Tampa home.
Brown was charged with nine new counts just a week ago including charges for the unregistered explosives and 8,000 rounds of ammunition. When authorities searched his home, they also found a small stack of classified documents.
The records appear to be those Brown may have kept from his time in the military and are unrelated to his alleged conduct on Jan. 6. They include frequency reports on explosives from Afghanistan in 2004, IED reports from 2005, spider device testing procedures from 2004, and fragmentary orders from 2005.
Per the typical protocol for such cases, federal prosecutors asked the judge handling Brown’s case to appoint a classified information security officer. The judge agreed.