Good equipment and clever doctrine reveal little about how an army will perform in a war.
Let me tell you a story about a military that was supposedly one of the best in the world. This military had some of the best equipment: the heaviest and most modern tanks, next-generation aircraft, and advanced naval vessels. It had invested in modernization, and made what were considered some of Europe’s most sophisticated plans for conflict. Moreover, it had planned and trained specifically for a war it was about to fight, a war it seemed extremely well prepared for and that many, perhaps most, people believed it would win.
All of these descriptions could apply to the Russian army that invaded Ukraine last month. But I’m talking about the French army of the 1930s. That French force was considered one of the finest on the planet. Winston Churchill believed that it represented the world’s best hope for keeping Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany at bay. As he said famously in 1933, and repeated a number of times afterward, “Thank God for the French army.”
Of course, when this French army was actually tested in battle, it was found wanting.
This report from the Congressional Research Service is terribly disappointing and avoids the important questions. No acknowledgement of the great failure of most of the defense establishment to accurately assess the Russian and Ukrainian militaries. https://t.co/oDme9XZ4nB
Journalism inevitably flattens reality, since we can tell only a tiny part of any story. How framing can make that situation better or worse.
As a reminder: framing involves the assumptions that go into the who, what, where, why, how of a story—all of which generally make a bigger difference than obvious expressions of bias. What deserves coverage? Which stories should a news organization stick with week after week? Which ones, by contrast, become old news—“we’ve already covered that”—once they’re a few days in the past? What are the “sides” of a disagreement that deserve a platform and attention? Which can be dismissed? The endless stream of such decisions constitutes “news judgment.” As they mount up they shape the view of the world that journalism offers.
Here are a few recent illustrations of how the complexities of the world can be artificially flattened by habits of framing. The first two may seem tiny but are “tells” of deeper attitudes.
This is profoundly true. And consequential because poor military analysis leads – and has consistently led – to poor policy. I think an audit is overdue: wouldn’t you agree @PhillipsPOBrien? https://t.co/vMUxC7xGHd
Yeah, this CNN story has been covered. But there is so much here:
‘We need ammo. We need fraud examples. We need it this weekend.’ What the Meadows texts reveal about how two Trump congressional allies lobbied the White House to overturn the election.
“Sydney Powell is saying that she needs to get in to see the president, but she’s being kept away from him,” Lee wrote to Meadows on November 7. “Apparently she has a strategy to keep things alive and put several states back in play. Can you help get her in?”
Lee then sent Meadows Powell’s cell number and her email.
Telling that every time Walker is caught in a lie — and this happened too just days ago with the CNN story about his academic credentials — his campaign’s response never refutes the reporting. They just attack the reporters for “supporting Warnock.” https://t.co/oXpok3HEfT
Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers
Ukrainian officials say the use of facial recognition software could help end the brutal war. But some experts call it ‘classic psychological warfare’ that sets a gruesome precedent.
I didn’t include this because I approve. I include it to indicate the level of brutality in this war that Putin started and can’t win.
WHAT ARTILLERY AND AIR DEFENSE DOES UKRAINE NEED NOW?
Ukrainian forces have done an outstanding job denying air superiority to the Russian air force using man-portable air-defense systems provided by NATO. They have also succeeded in using Javelins to stop tanks in their tracks. However, Ukraine has no effective options to counter a prolonged Russian artillery offensive. This should trouble those who want to see Ukraine prevail as Russia can rely upon an extensive supply of artillery platforms and munitions that it will likely use to lay waste to large swaths of eastern Ukraine and thwart a Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake the country.
NEW: Ukraine’s growing appetite for tanks—and the push from Western officials to send more of them—is also being driven by the flatter battlefield in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where tanks are easier to maneuver. (w/ @RobbieGramer & @ak_mack)https://t.co/2pSSh5kihT
Republican Senator Blurts Out That He Hates Democracy
Last night, livetweeting his thoughts on the 2020 vice-presidential debate, Republican senator Mike Lee decided it was an opportune moment to share one of his edgier political beliefs: Democracy is bad.
Lee is articulating a view that has long been in vogue on the American right but which Republican politicians were generally hesitant to express openly.
Can’t let the little people interfere with property rights.
Mike Lee and the “Good Republicans” Were No Different Than the Crazy Kraken Lady
Clowns to the left of me. Clowns to the right.
According to a new book by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, Mitch McConnell went so far as to say that “everybody around [Trump], except for clowns like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, are trying to get him to do the right thing.”
That’s not quite right.
The real story is that the circus was in town and even the supposed “good Republicans” were happy to put on their clown make-up.
But also adds that from their calculation, the Russians pretty much have all the effective military forces they can in theatre. That’s it. No more to come. If true, clock is well and truly running on the Russian invasion unless Russia raises a new army, starting now. pic.twitter.com/eN99kpmbh0
It is Friday. There is good news and bad news this week. The good news consists of Jan. 6’s attempted coup d’etat defendants taking a few steps closer to receiving their just deliverance; Donald Trump continues to fail both in business and in endorsements; and gas prices have begun to come back down from the stratosphere. The bad news is that the Democratic Party needs to message better and do more from the top down domestically.
In the span of a few weeks, the tilt of the geopolitical world has shifted so quickly that perhaps Americans just haven’t had enough time to digest how fortunate they are Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. Doubtlessly the Ukrainians are aware, and those living in the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are as well because their very lives would have been entirely forfeit or at grave risk right now. But given the soothing comfort of its giant pick-up trucks, guns, and doorbell cameras, it might be asking too much of American culture to pause and consider the alternative reality we could all be living in.
Still, many—both in this country and elsewhere—would gleefully embrace that reality with open arms. Even as Vladimir Putin’s appalling army systematically rapes,tortures, and beheads helpless civilians in its murderous invasion of Ukraine, the Russian dictator has found a fawning ally in the French far-right, with the re-emergence of Marine Le Pen. Last week, Ms. Le Pen drew 23% of the vote in France’s splintered election, forcing a runoff on April 24 between herself and French President Emanuel Macron, who garnered approximately 28%.
On Wednesday, Le Pen—apparently unperturbed by what is now aptly characterized as a genocidal campaign by Russia to eradicate the Ukrainian population—pledged to effectively abandon the 70-year-old NATO alliance in order to ratify Putin’s brutality, should the French people vote her into the presidency.
PARIS — Rejecting a “herd-like conformity” with the Biden administration, Marine Le Pen, the French far-right candidate for the presidency, said Wednesday that France would quit NATO’s integrated military command if she were elected and would seek for the alliance “a strategic rapprochement” with Russia.
As reported by Roger Cohen for the Washington Post, Le Pen’s rationale for accommodating Putin’s aims echo the same sentiments espoused by Donald Trump, who, according to former aides, was also intent on appeasing Putin by withdrawing the U.S. from the NATO alliance had he managed to be re-elected. This brand of Putin-envy appears to be particularly common among more autocratic, fascist-leaning politicians who have traditionally applauded the Russian despot as exemplifying what they call “strength” and resolve. In reality, they admire and envy the lack of any real constraints on his power, which they all shamelessly covet. We now see the end product of that lack of constraints playing out in Ukraine.
As Cohen observes, Le Pen’s agenda, to the extent she has one, mirrors Trump’s in all its essentials.
Dismissing multilateralism, blasting Germany, criticizing the European Union, relegating climate issues to a low priority, attacking “globalists” and maintaining a near silence on Russia’s brutal assault in Ukraine, Ms. Le Pen gave a taste of a worldview that was at once reminiscent of the Trump presidency and appeared to directly threaten NATO’s attempts to arm Ukraine and defeat Russia.
The similarities between Le Pen and Trump were evident in the first days of the latter’s administration. As James Traub observed in a column written for Foreign Policy, Le Pen’s xenophobic brand of so-called “populism” (by now simply a more pleasant word for “fascism”) and the race-baiting lies she espoused to support it were simply more glib and soothing in their delivery than Trump’s general penchant for crudeness and bombast:
Le Pen repeated Donald Trump’s canard that Barack Obama had “banned” immigrants from Iraq; denied, despite vast evidence to the contrary, that her supporters routinely fire off racist and homophobic tweets; and claimed, wrongly, that immigrants can automatically gain French citizenship through marriage. And then there were the Trumpian delusions: that a policy of “economic patriotism” penalizing French companies that move abroad would not raise the cost of French products but rather would foster a “virtuous circle” boosting growth and employment.
As Traub points out, Le Pen’s calculated delivery of her trademark nationalism and bigotry largely stems from her need to distance herself in the French public’s eyes from her ultra-radical and unabashedly antisemitic father, Jean Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front party she now leads. Still, Le Pen and Trump appear to be cut from basically the same cloth, even where Le Pen will, as Traub puts it, “demonize Muslims with a gracious smile instead of a vicious Twitter tirade.” Both are adept at cynically manipulating their public through fear of the “other.” Both display an instinctive aversion to the very idea of cooperation between nations, which they perceive only as a means to undercut their own aspirations for control and power.
Both are also intolerant of any dissent. Just as Trump encourages his rabid base to attack journalists and protesters at his rallies, Le Pen exhibits a similar hostility against perceived political enemies:
Le Pen is currently expected to lose the run-off election, mainly because the majority of those who originally voted for the far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon will be unable (at least in theory) to stomach a Le Pen victory. And even if she wins, the NATO alliance will most likely remain standing, albeit with France as a thoroughly diminished and unreliable presence.
But suppose the 2020 U.S. election—which Trump may have lost simply because of his dismal handling of the COVID-19 pandemic—had gone the other way. What would have been left of American strategic power and influence in this world would have withered and died on the vine in brutally short order, probably from the moment Putin sent troops into Ukraine. It’s impossible to know how much resolve to assist Ukraine would have existed among the remainder of NATO, but without a credible leader, it’s difficult to imagine how that response would have been effective. The world has never seen a nuclear-armed pathology like Putin invade a peaceful neighboring country for wholly irrational reasons, wielding his nuclear capability as a threat against any country that dares to oppose him, and even worse, vowing to continue his efforts until he is stopped. History suggests that such countries will not stop until they encounter an immutable opposing force.
And Trump would not have delivered that force. A mercurial buffoon with no grasp of (or interest in) foreign policy or even a basic understanding of what NATO stands for—and against—might have been cajoled into reluctant action by an exasperated military. But the sheer weakness of that position would have been evident to anyone paying attention. And Putin, for all his now glaringly apparent flaws, pays attention.
Law professor Alan Rozenshtein, writing for Lawfare, described the “nightmarish” scenario that this country would have faced if Trump were still in office:
From this perspective, it is sobering, if not downright terrifying, to think of how Trump would have handled this current crisis, had he won in 2020. Consider first the question of loyalty. Trump’s infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he responded to the Ukrainian president’s request for more Javelin anti-tank missiles (which have proved vital for the Ukrainian defense) by asking for Ukrainian help in digging up dirt on his main political rival, betrays a disloyalty to the national interest whose geopolitical implications are now all too clear.
Nor is it clear that Trump would even feel that it was his responsibility to rally the world to confront Russia, as the Biden administration has skillfully done. After all, Trump’s response to criticisms of his administration’s early missteps in handling the coronavirus pandemic was to say “I don’t take responsibility at all.” Why expect that he would feel different about a war half a world away, or that he wouldn’t simply have delegated weighty foreign policy decisions to informal advisors, thereby maintaining distance and plausible deniability, as when Rudolph Giuliani effectively ran the White House’s Ukraine policy. Even worse, given Trump’s personal affinity for Vladimir Putin, which he reiterated even as Russian forces entered Ukraine, is the very real possibility that Trump would have supported Russia’s invasion.
The world we all still live in—the world of liberal democracies with a legitimate transfer of power untainted by autocratic, fascistic propaganda, coercion, and repression—is now sitting atop a knife-edge, susceptible to one misguided election by an apathetic, self-absorbed and frankly historically ignorant electorate. Racist demagogues like Le Pen and Trump are perfectly willing to push us off into the abyss simply to realize their dreams of power—the rest of the world be damned. They are both aided by a radicalized base that sees no problem with simply watching the world burn if only to validate its own delusional, stoked-up grievances.
In 2020 we dodged a bullet. But that gun is still pointed at us. If Democrats can’t wake Americans up to that reality, no one else is going to.
Editor’s Note: This story’s lead image has been changed.
Whenever I think about former Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, I can’t help but picture him living in a little wren’s nest inside Donald Trump’s neck wattle, occasionally poking his head out to catch cascading donut sprinkles on his lolling lemur tongue as he fecklessly plots his enemies’ downfall from the safety of his Lilliputian villain’s lair.
It’s no big revelation that Nunes—whom Trump tapped to run his latest business venture because he was the only thin-skinned dairy farmer left in his Rolodex—loves to sue both people and make-believe ungulates. Similarly, it’s no surprise when he loses the suits. Though it is effing hilarious.
Case in point: Another of Nunes’ goofball lawsuits has been unceremoniously slapped down—this time by a majority of Trump-appointed judges. The 2nd U.S. District Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled on Thursday that Nunes “failed to seek a correction fast enough” in his $435 million (!) defamation suit against CNN, according to a Reuters report. The report also noted that Nunes was unable to show he deserved “special” economic damages. As a result, his suit was dismissed with prejudice.
Nunes sued over a Nov. 22, 2019 article that said Lev Parnas, a then-indicted associate of former Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, was willing to testify before Congress that Nunes met in 2018 with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss “digging up dirt” on [Joe] Biden, a Democrat and now U.S. president.
The former Republican congressman also objected to a broadcast of CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” where the reporter and host Chris Cuomo discussed his alleged role in “looking for dirt” on Biden and his son Hunter.
Nunes denied the accusations, said his reputation was damaged, and branded CNN “the mother of fake news.”
But don’t laugh. Somewhere in a stark white room at the edge of eternity, a team of chimps banging on typewriters is almost certainly putting the finishing touches on a Nunes lawsuit against you. Because you get a lawsuit, and you get a lawsuit, and you and you and you!Everybody gets a lawsuit!
Presumably, all you have to do is say Trump’s floundering Truth Social platform, which Nunes is spearheading, is marginally less interesting than trying to chart the precise momentum, velocity, and trajectory of the Ping-Pong ball in Devin’s head.
Eventually, Nunes will run out of people to sue and be forced to focus on the business he’s presumably running. And after that fails, he can sue his mother for repeatedly dropping him on his head before his skull had fully fused. (Note to Devin: I don’t really think your mom dropped you on your head as a baby, so please don’t sue me. It would make me sick to my four-chambered stomach. Truly.)
The Biden administration has been working hard to make the Affordable Care Act, and health insurance in general, work better. They’ve lowered premium payments all the way down to zero for many people in Obamacare (a measure that needs to be passed again before the November election to avoid a bad October surprise of premium hike notifications). They’ve implemented the regulations to end surprise billing for people with insurance, and they’ve worked with credit reporting agencies to get them to stop reporting medical debt. They’re getting rid of the family glitch in the ACA that has made insurance too expensive for many families.
Earlier this week, Vice President Kamala Harris announced new efforts from the White House to ease the burden of unpaid medical bills. “I have met so many people in so many communities in our nation who are struggling with this burden. Many of whom are managing an illness or an injury at the same time and who stay up at night, staring at the ceiling wondering if they’ll ever be able to pay off their medical debt,” Harris said at a press briefing. “No one in our nation should have to endure that. No one in our nation should have to go bankrupt just to get the health care they need.”
In addition to stopping medical debt from wrecking credit scores, the administration is ensuring that it won’t be a barrier to getting a federally-backed housing loan, and will use the CFPB to investigate credit reporting companies and debt collectors who aggressively harass and intimidate people who owe to hospitals and other providers. The CFPB will also provide more consumer education tools to help patients navigate medical debt and billing. The administration is also moving to help get veterans’ medical debt forgiven.
That’s all very good stuff, but it’s almost all going to just help people with insurance. For people without insurance, medical debt and collections and harassment—it’s still a problem, as WBEZ reports.
They feature 52-year-old Elma, an undocumented immigrant who didn’t share her last name. She is uninsured—the $500/month premium for insurance from her husband’s job was too expensive for the family to keep, so they dropped it. Because she’s undocumented, she can’t get coverage through Obamacare. She had an emergency gallbladder removal that cost more than $50,0000 at MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, Illinois. Because of her low income, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights worked with the hospital and Elma to get 100% of that bill written off. However, she still owes more than $8,000 to the providers who are independent of the hospital system. They operate as separate businesses and can charge basically what they want.
For someone with insurance, there’s a fix for that now that the surprise billing law has been implemented. “One of the things that’s frustrating about this is that it’s just enough money to be devastating to the patient, and very little money for the health system to collect,” said Carrie Chapman, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Legal Council for Health Justice in Chicago. She advised on Elma’s case. “Relatively speaking, it’s less than a rounding error in their budget.”
Many people, like Elma, have bills from $10,000 to $20,000 which for a large hospital system is not going break the bank, but will wear a patient living on the margins completely down. “Solo cuando estoy dormida siento paz,” Elma told WBEZ. “Porque nada más despierto y siento, ‘Cómo se va a pagar todo eso?’” (“The only time I feel any peace is when I’m asleep. The moment I wake up, I’m asking myself, ‘How are we going to pay all this?’”)
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 13% of uninsured adults are more likely to report having significant medical debt than insured adults, at 9%. The burden of high debt also falls disproportionately on Black and brown people—27.9% of households led by a Black person have medical debt, compared to 21.7% of households led by a Hispanic person, and 17.2% of households led by a white person.
These are among the lowest-income communities, as well, and are the people more likely to have significant debt. Kaiser found that “12% of adults with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level report having significant medical debt. (In 2019, the federal poverty line was $12,490 for a person living on their own and $25,750 for a family of four.)”
These are also the people who have more health problems and/or disabilities, as debts pile up for their complex care. Kaiser found that “adults living with a disability are more likely than those without a disability to report owing over $250 in medical debt (15% vs. 7%). Similarly, people who report their health status is ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ are more likely to say they owe significant medical debt than those who say they are in ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ health.”
The moves the administration has made are good, they will help millions of people be freed of the worst of the burdens of medical debt. But having your debt not reported and not damaging your credit isn’t the same as having your medical debt erased. It won’t solve the problem of high deductibles that force patients to go into debt even when they have insurance or provider billing practices that make costs so high.
As far as it’s gone, the Biden administration is doing good stuff. But there’s still a long way to go—including whatever it takes to get Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to agree to let the health care stuff in the Build Back Better plan (larger subsidies for insurance, a Medicaid expansion workaround for states that have refused it) go forward.
Ultimately, until the United States joins every other advanced nation in the world and decides to provide state sponsored health care as a basic right, these inequities will still exist. They can be minimized, but they can’t be eliminated as long as health care is treated as a commodity.
Wind power is slowly but surely cementing its importance to the energy grid. Last month marked a particular milestone for wind power generation, with turbines generating 2,017 gigawatts in the lower 48 on March 29—the first day in recorded history that wind surpassed both coal and nuclear, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Wind power accounted for 19% of power generation on that day, while nuclear was just a fraction under. Coal power generation stood at 17%. March 29 certainly offered the right conditions for wind power to flex its might: According to the EIA, wind power generation generally hits its high point in the spring.
Nuclear and coal power facilities also tend to undergo maintenance during the season due to lower overall power demand. The EIA noted another moment in which, for an hour during last month, wind accounted for the most substantial power source in the lower 48. The agency does not believe wind will give coal and nuclear power a run for its money just yet. According to the EIA, it is improbable that wind will surpass both in a given month in 2022 or 2023. Still, developments in wind power have certainly been encouraging.
Wind power did not come online at a commercial scale in the U.S. until the 1980s, though its growth has of late has been substantial. In 2021, wind led the pack in added power grid capacity as more and more turbines came online. Copiouswind farmprojects are either being pulled together or in the early proposal stages across the country. And, according to the climate think tank Ember, the entire world seems to be on the right track with wind power. A recent report found that renewables overall reached record growth, accounting for 38% of all power generation on the planet. These developments indicate that we very well may be on the right track when it comes to using renewable energy to reach net-zero goals.
As for the two states not included in the EIA’s data—Alaska and Hawaii—both seem to be starting to embrace renewables like wind power. A fact sheet from the Hawaii Energy Office notes that 2019 saw wind account for 4.9% of the state’s energy production. Alaska appears to be slowly growing its wind power output, with wind accounting for 7% of Alaska’s renewable energy output, or 2.14% of the overall power generated in the state. Interior wind farms have been especially of interest in Alaska, where rural communities are looking to renewables to power their towns instead of the usual emission-heavy diesel generators.
“In a new interview, Donald Trump said that he wanted to join the January 6 march on the Capitol, but that the Secret Service wouldn’t allow it. Also keeping him from storming the Capitol: steps.” —Michael Che, SNL
“Turns out Russian troops are sabotaging themselves. Back in February Russia occupied Chernobyl, and now we’re learning that those soldiers stole dangerously radioactive items from the nuclear plant to keep as souvenirs. Well, of course—you can’t go to Chernobyl without checking out the gift shop. ‘Look, Hon, they have a t-shirt that says I Had A Nuclear Blast At Chernobyl. It’s got five arm holes!'” —Stephen Colbert
Continued…
You are now below the fold, where everything is made of chocolate.
“Health officials in Washington D.C. confirmed that a fox that bit a congressman near the Capitol had rabies. Officials suspect the fox contracted rabies when it was bitten by Marjorie Taylor-Greene.”
—Colin Jost, SNL
“[Mick Mulvaney] was very recently the budget director and acting chief of staff in the most corrupt administration since the Lannisters. CBS…baby…I know you’re trying your best. But the next time Hannibal Lecter isn’t available for a segment, maybe just use a haunted ventriloquist doll.” —Samantha Bee
Meme of the week. Took me forever to notice that’s a farmer…
“Covid is ripping through Washington D.C. right now. It’s just nice to see the Capitol overrun by something that doesn’t smear feces in Nancy Pelosi’s office.” —Trevor Noah
“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, and I can’t believe I have to say this: Brett, that champagne was for everybody!” —Seth Meyers
Can I blame autocorrect for things like tax evasion? —Conan O’Brien via Twitter
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 15, 2022
Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, the Easter Bunny will be on a junket in Abu Dhabi this weekend. In its place will be Good King Wenceslas in a bunny costume. (He needs the off-season work. Uber just isn’t cutting it.) —Mgt.
Date the federal travel mask mandate expires after being extended a couple weeks: 5/3/22
Estimated number of glorious Russia battle tanks for homeland and leader Putin that have been destroyed by Ukrainian soldiers, farmers, and grandmothers so far:500
Percent that Amazon—one of the world’s most comfortably-profitable companies—will start charging sellers who use their fulfillment services as a “fuel and inflation” surcharge:5%
CHEERS to space invaders. It’s Friday night of Easter weekend, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and I don’t feel like force-feeding you the latest crappy news. Suffice it to say all the sociopathic and genocidal billionaire maniacs continue making Planet Earth a living hellscape by design, and none of it matters because unstoppable cosmic forces are still on track to turn our little blue marble into a white dwarf the size of a Menthos and suck on us ’til we’re gone. But while you’ve got cosmic forces on your mind, here are three updates on space stuff that’ll make you drop your Ensure and cry out “Holey moley, I hope I’m around when that shit goes down!”
» First, a reminder that we’re just two years away from the next full solar eclipse in the U.S., which will sweep across Maine, making it an April 2024 eclipse-tourism hellscape, and if you people park on the illegal side of our street to watch it from the Back Cove you’ll return to find nothing but a pile of lug nuts.
I’ll pause while you compose yourself after busting a gut over this brilliant sight gag I spent 8 hours thinking up.
» A giant comet named Fluffy is visiting our solar system in 2031. It won’t be passing near us, so they say. But if it does, I suggest we all watch the comet-destroying-the-Earth dramedy Don’t Look Up again…and then do the opposite of whatever the hell they did.
» And finally: it’s now confirmed that the space rock known as “The Earl of Tinkleberry,” which splashed down in New Guinea eight years ago, did in fact come from another solar system. But they say it’s not the first “interstellar meteor” to visit us, and since coming in second place means you’re a loser, we’re launching it back into space with a series of Anthony Robbins video seminars so it can develop a winner’s attitude before returning.
The above summary items have been reviewed and approved by Space Force. Mainly because they have absolutely nothing better to do with their time.
CHEERS to holiday fevuh! 2022 years ago today (or thereabouts), a bunch of Roman thugs nailed a rabbi to a cross while the filthy rabble with six teeth among them and a combined IQ of 12 allegedly watched Jesus Christ suffer and moan and dehydrate and bleed to death in the baking sun. I’ll never understand why Christians call it “Good Friday.” Sounds more like Monday to me.
Passover is gets underway tomorrow through next Sunday. For Jewish people it’s a celebration of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. For conservatives, it’s a celebration of what modern-day Republicans do to competent people.
Then, two days from today is Easter Sunday, which is notable for two things: the day the aforementioned Christ the Savior rose from the dead, and the day Lenny the tomb attendant checked into rehab.
Oh, and we should probably mention that, due to his delivery truck being detained at the border for 150 unnecessary vehicle inspections by Texas governor Greg Abbott, the Easter Bunny is unable to deliver candy and eggs this year. For your safety, please lock your family in the bathroom until his replacement, the Easter Python, has left your home. Also for your safety, it’s probably a good idea to take the eggs the Easter Python leaves in your Easter baskets to the reptile hut curator at your nearest zoo. Quickly.
JEERS to the coin-tosser-in-chief. Sixteen years ago tomorrow, George W. Bush, in yet another moment of detachment from reality, proclaimed after 5½ years of utter incompetence: “I’m the decider and I decide what’s best.” If history may weigh in on that, sir? You sucked at deciding.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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A 360-degree view of the Moon’s surface in high resolution captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. Credit: LRO/ASU/NASA pic.twitter.com/26Qm2MMFga
Full moon tomorrow night. Make a note to get yer butt
in the back yard, look up, think of Neil Armstrong and
Michael Collins (Buzz still walks among us), and give it a wink.
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to the unsinkable ship—the one that’s in the process of sinking over yonder. 109 years ago this morning, the Titanicplunged to the icy depths of the Atlantic after scraping an iceberg. Today it seems an apt analogy for the Republican party: a once-proud icon thought to be invincible that, because of poor design, shoddy workmanship and an air of arrogance on the part of the people in charge, is sinking because it wasn’t looking where it was going and will eventually end up a rusting hulk stuck in the mud and you can’t do anything with it but re-arrange the deck chairs. But the movie was okay.
CHEERS to home vegetation. No matter how much you adjust your rabbit ears, you won’t find a whole lot to hippity-hop about on the tube this Easter weekend. Our picks tonight are the latest on Ukraine from MSNBC, a The Office marathon on Comedy Central, and a breakthrough in cat toys on Shark Tank.
Yay Red Sox on my TV. Boo everyone else’s team.
Meanwhile the most popular movies and home videos, new and old, are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. The NHL schedule is here, the NBA schedule is here, and the Major League Baseball schedule is here. Lizzo hosts SNL. I don’t know if Pope Francis is doing his Easter morning service or not, but if he is it’ll be aired on every channel starting around 3am. (Do tell me how much you enjoyed it when we meet up here Monday morning.)
On 60 Minutes: a report on the future of flying vehicles that “may soon have people soaring over bumper-to-bumper traffic.” (Sure…what could go wrong?) No Simpsons or Family Guy Sunday night because of a NASCAR thing, but Jane Lynch hosts a new edition of Weakest Link Sunday at 9. And John Oliver wraps up the weekend with another edition of Last Week Tonight at 11 on HBO. Now here’s your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: White House Covid-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha; Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer; Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).
This Week: NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell; NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
Maybe he’ll sink another Russki ship during this interview.
Face the Nation: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kalebo; Sister Norma Pimentel, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Executive Director; Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE); David Beasley, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme; Former commander for U.S. Army forces in Europe Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Ben Hodges.
CNN’s State of the Union: Ukraine Badass Volodymyr Zelensky; Dave Matthews unveils a new song in support of refugees, causing Greg Abbott’s ears to bleed.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Traitor to his country Kevin McCarthy (The Cult-CA); White House Covid-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 15, 2012
CHEERS and JEERS to deeds of varying levels of derring-do-ness. Thinking of someone other than himself, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker saves a woman from a burning house. Meanwhile, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, thinking of no one but himself, saves the Hudson River Tunnel from a burning need. Film at 11.
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And just one more…
Duncan Black, aka Atrios. One of bloggerdom’s original freedom fighters and creator of the catchphrases “Heh indeedy” and “Preznit giv me turkee.”
CHEERS to the Baby Blue Cherub. Everybody stop by and say “Heh indeedy” to Atrios (aka millstone-around-Philadelphia’s-neck Duncan Black) Sunday on the 20th anniversary of his Eschaton blog. Few dirty fucking hippies can reduce the traditional media and punditry’s wankery to one or two lines of cool-as-a-cucumber snark like this communist peacenik can, and he’s been one of my blogger north stars for the duration. He was especially ahead of the curve on the ‘08 economic meltdown and the Iraq debacle, and he led the charge to expand Social Security. His latest crusade: predicting the inevitable doom ofdriverless cars and picking on poor, poor Elon Musk. Besides that, his is a classic, old-fashioned blog that looks the same as it did during the Dark Times of 2002 (although he happily embraced the twitter revolution early on). By the way, this was the moment on April 17, 2002 when he flicked the switch for the first time:
Is this thing on?
by Atrios at 22:13
0 comments
Yes, it’s still on. And if it ever shuts down, civilization is doomed.
Have a great weekend. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
After two Sikh men were attacked, robbed, and had their turbans ripped off in Queens, New York, this week, police arrested two men in connection with that attack as well as another that took place days earlier. The first suspect, identified as 20-year-old Hezekiah Coleman, was charged with robbery, assault as a hate crime, aggravated harassment, and two counts of robbery as a hate crime on Tuesday.
The second suspect, 19-year-old Vernon Douglas, was arrested Thursday and was also charged in the case with two counts each of robbery as a hate crime, robbery, hate crime, and aggravated harassment. According to police, both were connected to attacks on April 3 and April 12, CBS News reported.
The April 12 attack took place in the same intersection where Nirmal Singh, an elderly man visiting from India, was beaten during a walk near his temple last week. The latest attack also involved two men, aged 76 and 64. According to police, both suffered minor injuries to the head and body after being hit with fists and a stick. All three victims were not familiar with Douglas or Coleman.
In the second incident, Coleman and Douglas attacked the individuals, removed their religious headwear, and took money from them, police said.
After his arrest, Nirmal Singh’s son, Manjit Singh, issued a statement in which he noted how grateful he was for the arrest since the attackers “cannot harm others.”
“My father is very grateful that his attacker has been identified and arrested so that he cannot harm others,” Manjit Singh said.
“Our family sees this sad incident as an assault not just on him, but on all who wear turbans and other articles of faith,” he added. “Successfully investigating and prosecuting this as a hate crime should send a clear message: All of our elders—regardless of religion, race, or any other characteristic—deserve to be able to walk the streets without fear.”
According to data compiled by the FBI, between 2019 to 2020, attacks against the AAPI community rose by 73%. Additionally, last year, a Sikh Coalition analysis of FBI data found that anti-Sikh hate crimes in 2020 were at their highest level since they were first tracked in 2015. The data also indicated that hate crimes against all people of color had seen the highest increase this year.
“Sikhs have repeatedly faced this kind of violence—now multiple times in this same place in this month alone,” said Nikki Singh, a senior policy and advocacy manager at the Sikh Coalition. “As an organization that works to combat and prevent hate, we continue to stand with the Sikh community in Queens, as well as all impacted New York City communities who routinely experience these hate crimes.”
“This targeted hate violence is not only deeply traumatizing to the individuals involved—it’s traumatizing to those entire communities,” Nikki Singh added. “We must keep fighting for justice to send the message that violent hate will not be tolerated.”
New data continue to demonstrate the strength of the U.S. labor market and the nation’s continued economic recovery under the stewardship of President Joe Biden.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report Friday showing that March unemployment rates had dropped in 37 states while remaining stable in the other 13 states and the District of Columbia. Compared to March 2021, “all 50 states and the District had jobless rate decreases,” noted the report.
The national rate, 3.6%, declined slightly from the month previous but was fully 2.4 points lower than in March 2021. Fifteen states also logged unemployment rates lower than the national rate of 3.6%.
In addition, 12 states hit record-low rates. Among those all-time lows, Nebraska and Utah logged the lowest rates in the country at 2% each. Very close behind were Indiana at 2.2% and Montana at 2.3%. The other states hitting all-time lows included: Alaska (5.0%), Arizona (3.3%), Georgia (3.1%), Idaho (2.7%), Mississippi(4.2%), Tennessee (3.2%), West Virginia (3.7%), and Wisconsin (2.8%).
Relative to last year, Nevada has seen the largest drop (-4.2%) in its unemployment rate to 5.0%.
The news sparked a round of local headlines across the country, some of them in important midterm swing states:
CBS Miami: Report: Florida Workers Shifting To Higher-Paying Jobs As Unemployment Rate Dips To 3.2 Percent In March
CarsonNow: Nevada adds jobs in March; Reno employment at new all-time high
Governors in many states were quick to take credit for their booming economies, but, by and large, this was a Biden recovery fueled in no small part by the American Rescue Plan that every single Republican in Congress voted against.
“Americans are getting back to work in every corner of the country in record numbers. Right now, 17 states are at or tied with the lowest unemployment rate they’ve ever had—and 20 states have jobless rates below 3%,” read a White House statement from the president. “This wasn’t an accident: this was the direct result of my economic plan to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out.”
That the U.S. economy is running hotter than virtually every other economy in the world might be finally starting to sink in with Americans. On Thursday, a report from the University of Michigan showed that U.S. consumer sentiment had begun to rebound for the first time since December. In fact, the consumer sentiment index made the biggest one-month jump since 2006.
The following graph provides a sense of just how quickly the U.S. economy is recovering under President Biden compared to other recent recoveries.
If you liked this chart last month, you’ll like it even more this month. We are on track to have our first prime-age employment recovery–in many decades–that will not be generationally disastrous. Don’t take this recovery for granted…. pic.twitter.com/xFpjQtPbYI
Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America, defined “generationally disastrous” in a follow-up tweet as, “Taking over a decade to see a recovery from a recession seems pretty bad (2010s). Not completing the recovery is even worse (2000s).”
