Sunday Night Owls: Excerpts from the March edition of the Harper’s Index. (And a vaccine poll)

Posted on February 15, 2021 (Updated February 15, 2021) by Meteor Blades

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

Selected excerpts from the March edition of Harper’s Index (not yet on-line):

Percentage increase last year in use of the phrase “technical difficulties” during corporate earnings calls: 310

In use of the phrase “you’re on mute”: 1,000

Of the phrase “unprecedented times”: 70,830

Estimated portion of countries that will be poorer in 2100 than they would have been without climate change: ¾

Projected percentage change in average income by 2100 in the poorest 20 percent of countries: -75

In the richest 20 percent of countries: 0

Percentage of parents aged 27 to 45 who have “a negative vision of the future”: 92

Who regret having children: 6

Percentage increase in the mortality rate in large U.S. jails over the past decade: 35

Portion of inmates who died during that period who were awaiting trial: 2/3

Estimated percentage increase in the number of U.S. deaths last year: 15

Year in which the United States last saw so great an increase: 1918

Percentage of Americans who believe that 2021 will be better than 2020 for them personally: 44

Who believe that 2021 will be better for the world: 37

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

Unity Over Bipartisanship, by Tom Perriello. Genuine bipartisanship is largely illusory. To deliver for Americans, Democrats need unity.

Lindsey Graham Predicts Kamala Harris Impeachment if GOP Retakes House, by Justin Baragona. The South Carolina senator also said that the Republican Party needs to fully embrace Trump and make him the face of the party if they want to win moving forward.

The Environmental Threat You’ve Never Heard Of, by Doug Johnson. It’s called coastal darkening, and scientists are just beginning to explore its growing threat to all sorts of marine life.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES

TWEET OF THE DAY

LIFE IMITATES ART Republicans: "Trump was acquitted twice!" Chicago gangster Big Jule in the musical Guys and Dolls: "I used to be bad when I was a kid, but ever since then I've gone straight, as has been proved by my record: Thirty-three arrests and no convictions!"
— Victor Laszlo (@Impolitics) February 14, 2021

QUOTATION

“It is one thing to overthrow a dictator or to repel an invader and quite another thing really to achieve a revolution.” ~~James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1953)

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2012—Orrin Hatch claims abortion is '95 percent' of what Planned Parenthood does:

Sen. Orrin Hatch is a hardcore old-school conservative. For much of recent history he was considered a conservative stalwart in the senate. That's not good enough for modern conservatism, however, which is predicated on being so absolutely batshit regressive that Ronald Reagan looks like a communist by comparison, and so Hatch has had his work cut out for him lately trying to placate a base that considers him a traitor to the cause.

Which might explain statements like this, from Hatch:

Look, we all know that Planned Parenthood does 400,000 abortions a year or more, and yet that's supported by the federal government. They claim that money isn't, uh, they don't use federal funds, well, about 95 percent of all they do, from what I understand, is abortion.

Oh! In the senate playbook we call that "Pulling a Kyl." Last year, on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Jon Kyl famously declared abortion was "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does." It was an assertion so obviously and profoundly false that his office could do nothing but issue a now-famous press statement that his claim was "not intended to be a factual statement." Then, after becoming a national laughingstock (well, more so, anyway) Kyl "revised his remarks" in the congressional record to erase the claim, which you can do if you are a senator, and which I think senators believe alters the fabric of spacetime in such a way as to make the thing not have ever happened.

Monday through Friday you can catch the Kagro in the Morning Show 9 AM ET by dropping in here, or you can download the Stitcher app (found in the app stores or at Stitcher.com), and find a live stream there, by searching for "Netroots Radio.”

Thursday Night Owls: Some media seem to have forgotten that first impeachment was cut and dried, too

Posted on February 12, 2021 (Updated February 12, 2021) by Meteor Blades

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

Alex Shephard at The New Republic writes—The Press’s Strange Memory-Holing of Trump’s First Impeachment. His second impeachment trial is being presented as a cut-and-dried case, in contrast to its predecessor. But the first impeachment was cut-and-dried, too:

No piece of Covid-era filmmaking has been praised quite as much as the 13-minute montage that opened the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. CNN’s Chris Cillizza argued that it was “unfathomable that any senator—Republican or Democrat—could watch that 13-minute video and not be changed by it.” The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan noted that “every second seemed as terrifying as the day it was recorded. More so, in fact.” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes opened his television show by playing it in its entirety.

It is undoubtedly a powerful piece of filmmaking (as was the video, never before seen, that was featured on the second day of the trial). Consisting of footage captured by security cameras, cell phones, and uncharacteristically frightened television cameramen, the video distilled the events of January 6 into a concise and harrowing narrative: A mob, spurred on by the president, attacked the Capitol and came astonishingly close to harming or even killing members of Congress and members of the executive branch. It provided an irrefutable account of the president’s role in an event that left seven dead and threatened the peaceful transition of power.

The video was so damning that it short-circuited political reporters’ hard-wired impulse to equivocate, water down, and, above all, hear both sides. The visual evidence on display—aided, it should be added, by the incompetent performance of Trump’s defense attorneys—made the Republican case irrelevant. How could they compete with such stirring documentary evidence? The video got such rave reviews that it would surely have a 100 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes had it been given a theatrical release. Trump’s own impeachment lawyers praised it during their opening statements. Even Steve Bannon was impressed!

The video was so convincing, however, that it led reporters and analysts into some erroneous historical revisionism. The second impeachment trial is an open-and-shut case, they said; the first one, not so much. The truth was that the first impeachment trial was also open-and-shut, and the fact that it is no longer seen as such reveals the extent to which the Republican narrative continues to dominate coverage of Washington. [...]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

The Pandemic Has Unmasked America’s Deepest Inequities, by Edwin Rios and Dave Gilson. COVID’s disparate racial impacts, by the numbers.
California's rainfall is at historic lows. That spells trouble for wildfires and farms, by Katherine Gammon. Precipitation fills reservoirs, limits fire danger and feeds important crops. But the state has seen only 30% to 70% of what it would expect.
American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread, by Vann R. Newkirk II. Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES

TWEET OF THE DAY

I’ve closely studied every impeachment trial in our history. No impeachment has ever been as ably prosecuted in the Senate. In no prior impeachment has a conviction been as overwhelmingly justified. Now the Senate is on trial. To acquit itself, it must convict Donald J. Trump.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) February 11, 2021

QUOTATION

“Many social justice activists--many feminists--continue to work against one form of oppression while feeding the flames of another, without noticing that the blow torch behind the flames must be tuned off before we can have any hope of putting out the resultant fires.” ~~Lisa Kemmerer, Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice (2011)

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2008—Laura Bush: Hillary's Criticism is Out of Bounds:

Mrs. Bush, forgive me if I think Mrs. Clinton faced a bit more personal humiliation and vitriol from the "compassionate conservative" side of the aisle during President Clinton's term of office than your husband faces today (and with a lot more grace and class than he does, I might add). Her intimate life was combed over with glee by opponents during and after the Lewinsky scandal; she was—and remains to this day—the target of some of the most misogynistic, woman-loathing rhetoric on the American scene.

Many wives in Mrs. Clinton's circumstances would have dumped their philandering spouses and slunk off to a corner of Montana to float the rest of their lives away in a lake of chardonnay. Instead, she ran for political office and won. She's not a member of some mythical Former First Ladies Club in which you, Mrs. Bush, can call in chits, nor did she ever position herself to be.

She's a working opposition senator, and calling your husband's administration on its lies, deceptions and ineptitude is her job as part of those quaint checks and balances.

Tuesday Night Owls: The case for providing guaranteed income to foster kids aging out of the system

Posted on February 10, 2021 (Updated February 10, 2021) by Meteor Blades

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

Mark Courtney and Shanta Trivedi at The Appeal write—The Case for Providing Guaranteed Income to Kids Aging out of Foster Care:

More and more in America, young adults rely on their parents and other relatives for housing and financial support well into their 20s. That trend was already growing, and now the COVID-19 pandemic and dire economic conditions have further increased the need for young adults to lean on their families for resources. With soaring unemployment, stagnant wages, and historic income inequality, the transition from living at home to financial independence is often a long and arduous one, and perhaps impossible without a family safety net.

That transition is even more difficult for children in foster care. Foster children face disadvantage from the start—they are more likely, for example, to become entangled in the criminal legal system, and less likely to graduate from college—and those who age out of the system without placement into a permanent home are abruptly abandoned, left to fend for themselves between the ages of 18 or 21. The government functions as their parent, and then swiftly extinguishes financial support, depriving foster kids of the safety net that so many of their peers increasingly find necessary. This added disparity compounds the systemic disadvantage that foster kids already endure, and puts them at heightened risk for poverty, homelessness, and incarceration.

States and localities can address this crisis by providing a regular stipend to young people as they transition from child welfare systems to life as independent adults. Direct cash payments are immediate and flexible. Recipients can apply payments to their most pressing needs, and the stipends are not, nor should be, encumbered by restrictions like unemployment. A regular income pays for basic needs like education, groceries, rent, or healthcare, depending on the person’s circumstances at the moment. For young people who suddenly find themselves without a meaningful support system, this type of initiative can be a lifeline, with benefits for both the recipients and their communities. [...]

The federal government has increasingly recognized the moral imperative of supporting foster care children into adulthood. For instance, the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program provides funds to help with everything from education to emotional support, and it authorizes Congress to provide states and tribes with training vouchers of up to $5,000 per year for youth likely to experience difficulty as they transition to adulthood. In addition, the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act provides federal funding to states that extend foster care up to age 21. To date, 28 states and the District of Columbia have taken up the option to extend care. In light of pandemic-created hardships, some states have gone further, using their own funds to allow youth to remain in care past their 21st birthday during the pandemic. [...]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

“We did the worst job in the world”: Lawrence Wright on America’s botched Covid-19 response by Sean Illing. The three moments that doomed the U.S. effort to combat the coronavirus.

Section 230 is 25 years old, and it’s never been more important by Adi Robertson. The real questions behind reform.

How Biden Can Bring Back Manufacturing Jobs by Roger Bybee. The president’s plan to reinforce the Buy American Act is the first step in reviving the U.S. industry.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

YouTube Video

UCLA gymnast Nia Dennis clinches the win for the Bruins with a 9.95 floor exercise performance against Arizona State.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES • THE BRIEF

TWEET OF THE DAY

Really, stories like this are going to be the primary thing that gets me through this impeachment. https://t.co/fTu1DatmiP
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) February 9, 2021

QUOTATION

“This is obviously the most serious crime against our country and Constitution of any president in history, and the fact that it took place in the last month doesn't make it less serious.” ~~Rep. Adam Schiff, Jan. 17, 2021

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2013—Drug tests for welfare bills come to three more states:

Looking at the range of drug testing-for-benefits bills being pushed in state legislatures across the country, you almost have to suspect Republicans of some kind of urine fetish. In addition to all the states that are debating or have passed bills requiring people applying for unemployment insurance benefits to pee in cups, drug-testing bills aimed at welfare applicants are being introduced in three states. The specifics would be ripe for comedy if we weren't talking about a concerted effort by the powerful to stigmatize vulnerable people as drug addicts, as if that's the only reason a person might need help in an economy in which there are still more than three job-seekers for every job opening:

The Ohio State Senate held a second hearing Thursday night on a proposal to establish pilot drug-testing programs in three counties. Under the proposal, applicants would be required to submit a drug test if they disclose that they have used illegal substances. The proposal was first introduced in the spring, but pressure from opponents led Gov. John Kasich to squash the bill in May.

Virginia Republicans are also reviving a bill that was shelved earlier this year. The 2012 version failed after the state estimated it would cost $1.5 million to implement while only saving $229,000. The bill’s sponsor, Delegate Dickie Bell, has not introduced the updated version yet, but says he’s found more cost effective options.

Those would have to be some pretty damn significant changes to the cost structure to erase a nearly $1.25 million deficit.

Friday Night Owls: Summers does it again, worrying about too much stimulus instead of not enough

Posted on February 6, 2021 by Meteor Blades

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute writes—The Biden rescue plan is neither risky nor a distraction from structural issues:

Economist Larry Summers raised fears today that the Biden administration’s economic rescue plan might go too far, leading to economic overheating or squandering political and economic space for long-run reforms down the road. Neither of these fears are very compelling.

On the first–the danger of economic overheating–there’s not much more to add to what I and several others have already said on this: The U.S. economy has run far too-cool for decades, and this has stunted growth and deprived millions of potential job opportunities and tens of millions of potential opportunities for faster pay raises. Frequently, those worried about overheating cite current estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) of the “output gap”—the gap between income generated in today’s economy and what could be generated (or potential output) if there was no downward pressure on spending by households, businesses, and governments (aggregate demand). These current CBO estimates look relatively small compared to the Biden rescue plan’s fiscal support. But, these current estimates are almost certainly too-small. To provide just one piece of evidence—these estimates suggest that the economy was running above potential output in 2019 before COVID-19struck. But there was no evidence of overheating that year—price inflation was tame and wage growth actually decelerated.

If the vaccines take hold and there is a significant relaxation of social distancing measures in the coming year, the economic relief we’ve provided so far through this crisis and the Biden plan could combine to see the economy spring to life and generate a recovery far faster than what we’ve seen in the past few recessions. If this happens, and if the unemployment rate falls far beneath what it was in the pre-COVID period and stays below this for a few years, this will be an affirmatively good thing, not something to fear.

To be really clear about this—the unemployment can fall quite a ways beneath estimates of the so-called “natural rate” (or, the lowest rate of unemployment thought to be consistent with stable inflation in the long-run) for extended periods of time without disaster striking—look at the years before 1979 on this chart—we spent lots of time beneath the natural rate and had substantially faster growth (and more equal growth) than we’ve had since. [...]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

How the Deep Roots of Farm Labor Solidarity Helped Wisconsin Survive the Pandemic, by Hannah Faris. A century of agrarian organizing pays off.
Martellus Bennett Exposes the Rotten Underbelly of NFL Football: 'It’s a Traumatic Experience,’ by Jay Connor
Would Trump Have Won if Not for Impeachment? by Jonathan Chait. A Pro-Trump Journalist Thinks So.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES

TWEET OF THE DAY

Timeline cleanser: You didn’t know you needed to watch penguins being weighed today - but you so did... pic.twitter.com/eGBykYZsWh
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) February 5, 2021

QUOTATION

“When you want to know how things really work, study them when they’re coming apart.” ~~William Gibson

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2012—Posters, billboards and white privilege:

Though a lot of attention has been focused on the racism and privilege inherent in recent remarks made by Republican presidential candidates, designed to garner support from the party's southern and tea party base, and the actions of elected officials like Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, too often, fingers are unfairly pointed at our warmer climes as being the sole site of racist activity and/or attitudes. Frankly, the history of racism in the U.S. has no regional boundaries; it was embedded in our roots from the moment indigenous occupants were attacked and removed. Hand in hand with systemic racism goes what those engaged in civil rights struggles and the academic study of racial disparity have dubbed "white privilege," which is a cornerstone of the academic discipline of Critical Race Theory.

A northern case in point is Duluth, Minnesota, where there has been controversy over a recently launched campaign designed to confront racism and white privilege.

Tuesday Night Owls: Billionaires’ gain$ since March could fund Biden’s relief for working families

Posted on January 27, 2021 (Updated January 27, 2021) by Meteor Blades

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

Chuck Collins at the Institute for Policy Studies reports—U.S. Billionaire Wealth Surpasses $1.1 Trillion Gain Since Mid-March:

The $1.1 trillion wealth gain by 660 U.S. billionaires since March 2020 could pay for:

All of the relief for working families contained in President Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue package, which includes $1,400 in direct payments to individuals, $400-a-week supplements to unemployment benefits, and an expanded child tax credit. (See table below)

A stimulus check of more than $3,400 for every one of the roughly 331 million people in the United States. A family of four would receive over $13,000. Republicans in Congress resisted sending families stimulus checks most of last year, claiming we couldn’t afford them.

[...] Tax reform that ensures the wealthy pay their fair share—the principle the Biden tax plan is built on—would transform a good chunk of those huge billionaire gains into public revenue to help heal a hurting nation. But getting at that big boost in billionaire fortunes is not as simple as raising tax rates: tax rules let the rich delay, diminish and even ultimately avoid any tax on the growth in their wealth. What’s needed is structural change to how wealth is taxed.

The most direct approach is an annual wealth tax on the biggest fortunes, proposed by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, among others. Another option is the annual taxation of investment gains on stocks and other tradable assets, an idea advanced by the new Senate Finance Committee chair, Ron Wyden. Even under the current discounted tax rates for investment income, if Wyden’s plan had been in effect in 2020, America’s billionaires would be paying hundreds of billions of dollars in extra taxes this spring thanks to their gargantuan pandemic profits last year.

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

The Weekly Planet: Why Biden is Buying 645,000 New Cars, by Robinson Meyer. The president’s most interesting climate proposal yet hasn’t appeared in an executive order.
McConnell: It Was Too Soon to Impeach Trump, Now It’s Too Late, by Jonathan Chait. And there was a perfect moment but they were on vacation.
The Rise of One of the First Video Game Workers Unions, by Sarah Jaffe. What began as a Facebook group, and then a chat on Discord, soon became a massive campaign to remedy grueling working conditions across the industry.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES • THE BRIEF

TWEET OF THE DAY

Some Republicans in Congress seem confused about what “unity” means. They seem to think that if you don’t give them what they want, you’re not for unity. ⁰That’s not unity, that’s my way or the highway. We're in a crisis and Americans need help. Let’s unite around that.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 27, 2021

QUOTATION

“The same rule of self-destructive financial calculation governs every walk of life. We destroy the beauty of the countryside because the un-appropriated splendors of nature have no economic value. We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend.” ~~ John Maynard Keynes, “National Self-Sufficiency,” 1933

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2020—John Bolton: Trump explicitly said Ukraine aid freeze was tied to investigations into Democrats:

Former national security adviser John Bolton has refused House demands that he testify on the events surrounding the freezing of military aid to Ukraine and the efforts by Donald Trump’s allies and administration officials to pressure the Ukrainian government into announcing an investigation into potential Trump election opponent Joe Biden. Bolton is instead writing a book on his tenure.

In the now-circulating manuscript for that unreleased book, reports The New York Times, Bolton writes that Donald Trump personally told him he would continue to freeze the nearly $400 million in aid until Ukrainian officials aided his desired investigations into “Democrats” and “the Bidens.”

Bolton’s manuscript alleges direct involvement in the scheme to falsely smear and remove U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, reports The Times, and Pompeo both knew the claims to be false and suspected Giuliani was “acting on behalf of other clients.” Bolton also says he personally spoke with Trump Attorney General William Barr to inform Barr that Trump had identified him as part of Rudy Giuliani’s efforts on his now-infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Barr’s office had previously denied that he knew about that call until much later.

Thursday Night Owls: You-know-who is gone, but authoritarian foundations are still in place

Posted on January 22, 2021 (Updated January 22, 2021) by Meteor Blades

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

At The Nation, Rafael Khachaturian writes—Trump Has Left the Building, but the Foundations Are Still in Place. Attention has rightly been paid to his malign influence. But the shift to the right started before his presidency, and promises to continue after it:

It has been an ignominious close to a historical moment that will be measured by its impact for years to come. Already long before the 2016 election, many saw Trump’s rise as a turning point of American politics toward authoritarianism, or even fascism. For some, the Trump presidency was an “aspirational autocracy,” while for others, it was an example of tyranny. Many debated the applicability of the fascist label. Yet, for others still, these concerns overlooked the persistent illiberal and antidemocratic tendencies that ran like a thread through all of American history. According to these more skeptical arguments, focusing on Trump’s would-be authoritarianism both mythologized the pre-Trump years and obscured just how ineffective and weak his time in office had been.

Even as these most recent events confirm a political defeat for Trump and the restoration of a shaky centrist-progressive coalition, the United States continues to experience a slow-burning legitimacy crisis that shows no signs of abating. While the 2016 election did not create an immediate political crisis of the state, it exacerbated antidemocratic and authoritarian tendencies that were already ingrained in American society and political institutions.

These tendencies were decades in the making. The American security state, already nurtured on decades of anti-leftist funding and training, had taken on a new gloss with the War on Terror. The lasting fallout from the Great Recession of 2008 played a major role in the 2016 crisis of the political establishment and Trump’s unexpected rise to the top of the Republican Party. This year alone, the mismanagement of Covid-19 has led to the deaths of over 400,000 people, exposing essential workers and the vulnerable to a deadly disease and fraying the country’s already tattered social institutions, at the same time as structural racial violence brought millions of people to the streets in the midst of this pandemic.

These factors have accumulated to create the most serious legitimacy crisis since the late 1960s. We still do not have enough distance to evaluate the long-term effects of the Trump administration. Nevertheless, we should not try to make sense of the Trump years by approaching them as a radical break with what has come before. Instead, they continued broader and preexisting authoritarian tendencies in American politics—a tide that will be only temporarily stemmed by Trump leaving office. [...]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

When Medicare Helped Kill Jim Crow, by Mike Konczal. By making health care broadly available, the government helps ensure our freedom.
An Impeachment Trial is Less About Trump and More About White Supremacy, by Martin Longman. The Republicans worry that they cannot win without Trump’s base, but they may not be able to win with it.
The Wreck He Left, by Andrew Cockburn. Biden and the Coming Economic Crisis.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES

TWEET OF THE DAY

I am honored to be the first male spouse of an American President or Vice President. But I'll always remember generations of women have served in this role before me—often without much accolade or acknowledgment. It’s their legacy of progress I will build on as Second Gentleman.
— Douglas Emhoff (@SecondGentleman) January 21, 2021

QUOTATION

“They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a peoples Government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people.” ~~Franklin D. Roosevelt, State of the Union, Jan. 3, 1936

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2009—Obama Administration Sides with Bush’s DOJ in Spy Case:

A sensitive civil liberties case that has been working its way through the courts for nearly four years is in the news again as the Obama administration "fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants." The case involves the now-defunct, Oregon-based Saudi charity, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.

According to David Kravets at Wired:

With just hours left in office, President George W. Bush late Monday asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to stay enforcement of an important Jan. 5 ruling admitting key evidence into the case.
Thursday's filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless-eavesdropping program. The former president approved the wiretaps in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"The Government's position remains that this case should be stayed," the Obama administration wrote in a filing that for the first time made clear the new president was on board with the Bush administration's reasoning in this case.

Given that it has adopted the Bush administration's position in this case, the question now to be answered is what role "unitary executive" philosophy will play in the Obama administration.

Thursday Night Owls: Poll: More Republicans support the sacking of the Capitol than oppose it

Posted on January 8, 2021 (Updated January 8, 2021) by Meteor Blades

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

13 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE

Kenny Stancil at Common Dreams writes—Poll Shows Nearly Half of GOP Voters—Lied to by Right-Wing Media—Approve of US Capitol Ransacking:

A new poll released in the aftermath of Wednesday's violent coup attempt—incited by President Donald Trump and enabled by Republican lawmakers who questioned the legitimacy of President-elect Joe Biden's victory—shows that nearly half of GOP voters approve of the pro-Trump mob's storming of the U.S. Capitol, findings that observers say are inseparable from how right-wing media outlets are lying about the insurrection.

YouGov Direct conducted the survey on Wednesday night between 5:17 pm and 5:42 pm. A majority (62%) of the 1,397 registered voters who had heard about the day's events told pollsters that they consider the pro-Trump mob's actions a threat to democracy. But while 93% of Democrats and 55% of Independents perceive what happened as a threat to democracy, only 27% of Republicans see it that way.

In fact, a greater percentage of Republicans (45%) actively support the storming of the Capitol than oppose it (43%). Overall, 71% of registered voters are opposed to the coup attempt, including 96% of Democrats and 67% of Independents.

Among voters who erroneously believe that the presidential election was fraudulent enough to affect the outcome, 56% say the invasion of the halls of Congress was justified.

A majority of registered voters (55%), including 90% of Democrats and 51% of Independents, believe "a great deal of the blame" lies with Trump. Yet, in the eyes of GOP voters, President-elect Joe Biden is the biggest culprit, with 52% assigning some degree of blame to Biden compared to 28% attributing the debacle to Trump.

When it comes to removing Trump from office as a result of what happened at the Capitol—an option that is gaining support among federal lawmakers—50% of registered voters, including 83% of Democrats and 47% of Independents, are in favor. Conversely, 85% of Republicans consider immediate removal inappropriate. [...]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

The Last Two Northern White Rhinos On Earth, by Sam Anderson. What will we lose when Najin and Fatu die?
What the San Francisco Bay Area Can Teach Us About Fighting a Pandemic, by Jay Caspian Kang. The region’s hyper-local response has lessons for us as we confront the winter wave and begin to distribute vaccines.
The Most Important Step Biden Can Take to Secure Reproductive Rights, by Galina Espinoza. President-elect Joe Biden can commit to combatting disinformation campaigns that have targeted reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice issues.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES

QUOTATION

“The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership.... a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures.” ~~J. William Fulbright,

TWEET OF THE DAY

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—Economic Outrage du Jour: Emails Exposed:

Hugh Son at Bloomberg reports that e-mails forced into the light show that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, parts of whose job is supposedly to be curtailing bankers' riskiest impulses, told American International Group to conceal information about its payments to banks while the financial crisis was unfolding:

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. ...

"It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information," said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers "deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.”

You won't hear any applause in this corner for the obstructionist, ultra-wealthy Darrell Issa. His self-funded recall petition encumbered us Californians with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the governorship, a position Issa himself hoped to capture. His support for English-Only laws, right-wing attacks on ACORN, dissing of the 9/11 widows and other antics since his self-funded campaign put him in Congress epitomize the politics progressives are duty-bound to grind into dust.

But, frankly, if the disclosures in those emails are what Bloomberg and Reuters and others are saying, congressional Democrats ought to be on top of this issue. Must we depend on the richest man in Congress to engage in an oligarch vs. oligarch battle to give us the skinny about what's going on?

Monday Night Owls: San Antonio’s energy utility vows climate action, but is still plugged into gas

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Meteor Blades

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

30 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE

Dana Drugmand at DeSmog writes—San Antonio's City-Owned Energy Utility Is Paying a Quarter Million Dollars a Year to Gas Industry Groups:

Deep in the heart of Texas, by far the nation's top oil producer, the city of San Antonio is starting to grapple with its reliance on fossil fuels.

But the key player in implementing the Alamo City’s energy transition — the local energy utility CPS Energy — remains committed to carbon-based fuels like coal and natural gas, even while it begins to invest more in renewable alternatives. Climate and clean energy advocates in the community have become fed up with the city-owned utility, which is not only stalling in efforts to phase out its fossil fuel portfolio, but is actively funding two gas industry trade associations to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars each year.

According to records obtained by the watchdog Climate Investigations Center and shared with DeSmog, CPS Energy pays over $50,000 in annual membership fees to the American Public Gas Association (APGA), and over $200,000 annually in membership dues to the American Gas Association (AGA). Both groups lobby for continued dependence on methane gas, such as direct use of gas in buildings for things like heating and cooking, and oppose efforts to slash emissions by electrifying sectors like buildings and transportation. Their members and sponsors include large energy utilities and pipeline and fossil fuel companies like Duke Energy, Enbridge, TransCanada, and BP.

As DeSmog previously reported in this “Unplugged” series, the California city of Palo Alto is also helping to fund the American Public Gas Association via membership dues amounting to over $20,000 annually and which are paid by the city’s municipally owned utility. Some in the community said they see this funding as a conflict with Palo Alto’s ambitious climate goals.

Similarly, several environmental activists from the community in San Antonio told DeSmog that their municipal utility’s funding and support for the methane gas lobby does not seem to square with San Antonio’s goal, prescribed in a new city climate plan, to reduce the city’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

“To have a goal of being carbon neutral by 2050, while at the same time paying money to a gas association whose primary goal is to keep us hooked on fossil fuels, yeah, absolutely that’s a conflict,” said DeeDee Belmares, a San Antonio resident and climate justice organizer with the nonprofit organization Public Citizen. […]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

The CIA Is Running Death Squads in Afghanistan, by Jeet Heer. Reports of atrocities supported by the American intelligence agency underscore the need to end America’s longest war.
In Chile, Scientists Scrutinize Lithium Mining, by Ian Morse. In October, Chilean citizens voted to rewrite their constitution, setting the stage for a dramatic reassessment of the nation’s relationship with the environment. The country’s classification of lithium brine could have consequences for ecosystems, communities, and the powerful mining industry.
Arkansas Could Give Amy Coney Barrett Her Big Abortion Moment, Rachel Cohen. The "Unborn Child Protection Act" was filed ahead of Arkansas' next legislative session meant to more directly challenge Roe v. Wade.

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES

QUOTATION

“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, 'although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,' wrote Orwell, tends to be 'uninterested in what happens in the real world.' Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism 'has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.' A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.” ~~Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017)

TWEET OF THE DAY

John Kelly is wrong. These were not good people. “The number of senior officials who quit on principle is close to zero. The number of former Cabinet officials who came forward during the impeachment to give testimony is zero.” https://t.co/TNKNpgHS10
— Charles H Norman (@dovnorman18) December 22, 2020

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Republicard: spend like there’s no tomorrow:

Introducing the Republicard. First practiced under the record deficit-spending of the Reagan-Bush administrations, and now re-issued under the fiscal wreckage of George Bush with a trifeca of Republican-rule to again spend like theres no tomorrow. Miles, the creator of the card:

Last week I was hearing about a proposal that had been introduced into Congress to honor Ronald Reagan by putting him on the dime coin. Aside from the fact that FDR, creator of the "March of Dimes", certainly deserves to stay on that coin (and Nancy Reagan agrees)... it occurred to me that if someone were to honor George W. Bush, given his enormous deficits, the most appropriate place to do so would be... a credit card. So I imagined what it might look like, and came up with the RepubliCard: (This idea simultaneously occurred to political cartoonist Tom Toles who had a cartoon on this theme appear the very next day).

Sunday Night Owls. Mayer: Why Trump can’t afford to lose

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Meteor Blades

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

Jane Mayer at The New Yorker writes—Why Trump Can't Afford to Lose:

The downfall of Richard Nixon, in the summer of 1974, was, as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein relate in “The Final Days,” one of the most dramatic in American history. That August, the Watergate scandal forced Nixon—who had been cornered by self-incriminating White House tape recordings, and faced impeachment and removal from office—to resign. Twenty-nine individuals closely tied to his Administration were subsequently indicted, and several of his top aides and advisers, including his Attorney General, John Mitchell, went to prison. Nixon himself, however, escaped prosecution because his successor, Gerald Ford, granted him a pardon, in September, 1974.

No American President has ever been charged with a criminal offense. But, as Donald Trump fights to hold on to the White House, he and those around him surely know that if he loses—an outcome that nobody should count on—the presumption of immunity that attends the Presidency will vanish. Given that more than a dozen investigations and civil suits involving Trump are currently under way, he could be looking at an endgame even more perilous than the one confronted by Nixon. The Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said of Trump, “If he loses, you have a situation that’s not dissimilar to that of Nixon when he resigned. Nixon spoke of the cell door clanging shut.” Trump has famously survived one impeachment, two divorces, six bankruptcies, twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits. Few people have evaded consequences more cunningly. That run of good luck may well end, perhaps brutally, if he loses to Joe Biden. Even if Trump wins, grave legal and financial threats will loom over his second term. [...]

Barbara Res, whose new book, “Tower of Lies,” draws on the eighteen years that she spent, off and on, developing and managing construction projects for Trump, also thinks that the President is not just running for a second term—he is running from the law. “One of the reasons he’s so crazily intent on winning is all the speculation that prosecutors will go after him,” she said. “It would be a very scary spectre.” She calculated that, if Trump loses, “he’ll never, ever acknowledge it—he’ll leave the country.” [...]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

“It’s the Most Outrageous Thing I’ve Ever Seen,” by Michael Hall. DNA evidence proved Lydell Grant’s innocence. So why won’t the state’s highest criminal court exonerate him?
Data Disappeared, by Samanth Subramanian, Michael Hobbes, Jonathan Cohn, Kate Sheppard, Alex Kaufman, Delphine D’Amora, Chris D’Angelo, and Emily Peck. Data is the lifeblood of a functioning government. Over the past four years, the Trump administration has destroyed, disappeared, or distorted vast swathes of the information the nation needs to protect the vulnerable, safeguard our health, and alert us to emerging crises.
Remember What They Did, by Hamilton Nolan. One day soon, the most visible phase of this nightmare will end. The current occupants of the White House will leave, and all of their assorted enablers will disperse back into the world like fungus spores floating on the wind, all hoping for a cozy spot to flourish anew. It is our job, as a society, to deny them that. To deny them acceptance, peace, and the unearned sheen of respectability. To always, always, remember what they did.

TOP COMMENTS

QUOTATION

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ~~Elie Wiesel, Nobel lecture (Dec. 11, 1986)

TWEET OF THE DAY

Are you anxious and afraid right now over what might happen in the next few days? pic.twitter.com/9uiG3AVNLk
— Cara Zelaya - 🦇 Scare-AH! ZelAAAAH!ya 🦇 (@carazelaya) November 1, 2020

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2016—Democrats point out Comey's 'blatant double standard' as Justice clamps down on further news:

FBI Director James Comey believed that early October was too close to Election Day for the government to announce that the Russian government was trying to interfere in our elections, a second source has confirmed to Huffington Post. Weeks later, of course, Comey relied on much more speculative information in announcing that the FBI had come across emails possibly relevant to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server. As Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook says, “It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard.” And, as Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon says, “Director Comey owes the public an explanation for this inconsistency.”

It’s unlikely the public will get that explanation any time soon, though, both because Comey doesn’t seem inclined to make his actions make any sense whatsoever and because the Justice Department is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, saying it will move quickly on investigations but will not give out any further information while it does so.

Democrats, meanwhile, continue to pressure Comey over Trump’s possible Russia ties

Wednesday night owls: ‘Letting the Pentagon Loose With Your Tax Dollars’

Posted on March 5, 2020 by Meteor Blades

Night Owls, a themed open thread, is a regular feature at Daily Kos .

Mandy Smithberger is the director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). At TomDispatch, she writes—Letting the Pentagon Loose With Your Tax Dollars. Creating a National Insecurity State. Spending More, Seeing Less:

Hold on to your helmets! It’s true the White House is reporting that its proposed new Pentagon budget is only $740.5 billion, a relatively small increase from the previous year’s staggering number. In reality, however, when you also include war and security costs buried in the budgets of other agencies, the actual national security figure comes in at more than $1.2 trillion, as the Trump administration continues to give the Pentagon free reign over taxpayer dollars.

You would think that the country’s congressional representatives might want to take control of this process and roll back that budget—especially given the way the White House has repeatedly violated its constitutional authority by essentially stealing billions of dollars from the Defense Department for the president’s “Great Wall” (that Congress refused to fund). Recently, even some of the usual congressional Pentagon budget boosters have begun to lament how difficult it is to take the Department’s requests for more money seriously, given the way the military continues to demand yet more (ever more expensive) weaponry and advanced technologies on the (largely bogus) grounds that Uncle Sam is losing an innovation war with Russia and China.

And if this wasn’t bad enough, keep in mind that the Defense Department remains the only major federal agency that has proven itself incapable of even passing an audit. An investigation by my colleague Jason Paladino at the Project On Government Oversight found that increased secrecy around the operations of the Pentagon is making it ever more difficult to assess whether any of its money is well spent, which is why it’s important to track where all the money in this country’s national security budget actually goes.

The Pentagon’s “Base” Budget

This year’s Pentagon request includes $636.4 billion for what’s called its “base” budget—for the routine expenses of the Defense Department. However, claiming that those funds were insufficient, Congress and the Pentagon created a separate slush fund to cover both actual war expenses and other items on their wish lists (on which more to come). Add in mandatory spending, which includes payments to veterans’ retirement and illness compensation funds and that base budget comes to $647.2 billion.

Ahead of the recent budget roll out, the Pentagon issued a review of potential “reforms” to supposedly cut or control soaring costs. While a few of them deserve serious consideration and debate, the majority reveal just how focused the Pentagon is on protecting its own interests. Ironically, one major area of investment it wants to slash involves oversight of the billions of dollars to be spent. Perhaps least surprising was a proposal to slash programs for operational testing and evaluation—otherwise known as the process of determining whether the billions Americans spend on shiny new weaponry will result in products that actually work. The Pentagon’s Office of Operational Test and Evaluation has found itself repeatedly under attack from arms manufacturers and their boosters who would prefer to be in charge of grading their own performances. [...]

TOP COMMENTS

QUOTATION

"Feminism isn't about making women stronger. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength." ~~G.D. Anderson

TWEET OF THE DAY

It's not just the food service industryÃ¢Â�Â�27% of private-sector workers in the U.S. don't have the ability to stay home from work without losing a paycheck. We need to make sure our response to the coronavirus includes solutions that protect workers, their families, & communities. https://t.co/suV0mzUscM
— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) March 4, 2020

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—FDR’s “Hundred Days” Honeymoon—1933:

Whether you count from the inaugural or, as historians do, from March 9, the Hundred Days, like the Hundred Years’ War, didn’t actually add up to a hundred, but they have nonetheless been the measure—usually in negative terms— for what succeeding administrations have accomplished. A study has even gone so far as to determine how effective presidents before Roosevelt were in their first 100 days. None came close. During the emergency session of Congress FDR called 15 major laws were passed and signed, all by June 16.

That legislation—some of it conservative, most of it moderate, none of it radical, all of it experimental—derived from no over-arching plan, and certainly not from any liberal ideology that Roosevelt presented during the campaign and brought with him into the White House. Rather than a package of legislation, as implied by the Hundred Days label, what Roosevelt and his "Brain Trust" of academics and economic theorists produced was a mish-mash, exactly what would be expected of experimentation in the face of a daunting crisis. "The notion that the New Deal had a preconceived theoretical position is ridiculous," said Frances Perkins, who would become FDR’s, Secretary of Labor from 1933-45, the first woman ever to serve in the Cabinet.

The experiments worked not just for what they actually achieved—which was a mixed bag—but also for how their very coming into being changed the nation’s somber mood. As Roosevelt said at his inaugural: "This nation asks for action, and action now"; "We must act, we must act quickly"; People want "direct, vigorous action." As Jonathan Alter wrote in The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, "In the argot of a later age, Roosevelt was relentlessly on message." He spurred hope in the face of despair by force of personality.

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: What's so super about Tuesday? Well, Joan McCarter, for one thing. And you probably weren't expecting Sexy Vinyl Vixen Brit Hume! How Trump's been gaming the FVRA. Coronavirus, continued. Impeachment vs. pardons: Let's all say we believe it!

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