Holidaze Week: Water's The Matter With Jackson?

The months-long, if not years-long, municipal water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi continues as the mostly Black residents suffer from neglect this holiday season, thanks to the state's Republican government.

 

City officials in Jackson, Mississippi, on Christmas Day announced that residents must now boil their drinking water due to water lines bursting in the frigid temperatures.

“Please check your businesses and churches for leaks and broken pipes, as these add up tremendously and only worsen the problem,” the city said in a statement, adding: “We understand the timing is terrible.”

The problems come months after the water system in Jackson — the state capital with about 150,000 residents — partially collapsed. Most of Jackson lost running water for several days in late August after flooding exacerbated longstanding problems in one of two water treatment plants. Residents had to wait in lines for water to drink, cook, bathe and flush toilets.

Along with the order to boil drinking water, city officials said some residents also have reported low water pressure or no water pressure. The city’s water system saw “fluctuating” pressure beginning on Saturday amid frigid temperatures.

The Christmas Day announcement said crews were working to make repairs, but it did not give an estimate on how long the disruption might last.

 

GOP Governor Tate Reeves certainly doesn't care. He'd rather scream at Jackson residents for not fixing the water supply and blame the city's Black Democratic mayor and the city council, while the state's Black residents are dealing with a state legislature that gerrymanders Republican wins to disenfranchise the state's 38% Black population.

 

And let's not forget that every House Republican in the state voted against the omnibus spending bill, which included $600 million in federal money to fix Jackson's water crisis.

The problems in Jackson are yet another example of systemic environmental racism in America. White Republicans would rather let Black residents rot than fix the goddamn water.

Holidaze Week: A Little Christmas Music, Please

It wasn't Christmas growing up without Zandardad breaking out the BEST HOLIDAY ALBUM OF ALL TIME.

Holidaze Week: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates, and keep warm this Sunday if you don't. Have a good holiday season for you and yours.

Me, I don't ask for much, but if you've enjoyed my posts over the year, try dropping a few bucks in the tip jar. 

Several of you have over the years, and it's been appreciated.

 

Be safe.

Holidaze Week: Lake Woe? Be Gone!

Kari Lake just lost her ridiculous "voting fraud" case in Arizona, and she gets nothing but coal (and hopefully crushing legal and financial sanctions) for Christmas.

An Arizona judge on Saturday rebuffed an effort by Kari Lake, the defeated GOP candidate for governor in Arizona, to reverse the outcome of her November election, ruling against her after a two-day trial that showcased speculation about systematic malfeasance at the polls but failed to prove it.

The finding was in line with recent judgments against Abe Hamadeh and Mark Finchem, the unsuccessful candidates for attorney general and secretary of state, respectively, who also sought to challenge their losses. Taken together, the rulings show how the judiciary in Arizona, a state rife with distrust in the democratic process, rejected challenges to election results and affirmed the will of voters.

Lake, a former television news anchor and acolyte of former president Donald Trump, lost the Nov. 8 election by more than 17,000 votes. After making election denialism a centerpiece of her campaign, she refused to concede, even after the result was certified on Dec. 5. Days later, she sued her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, as well as officials in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and more than half the state’s voters.

Lake’s complaint, which asked that she be declared the winner, centered on problems with printers in Maricopa County. Those problems required some voters to wait in line, travel to another polling place or deposit their ballots in secure drawers for tabulation at a central location. County officials have said the problems resulted from insufficient printer heat settings. They also acknowledged at trial that “shrink-to-fit” settings at several voting locations caused ballots to be rejected, though they were all duplicated and ultimately counted. A deeper analysis is still underway, they testified.

A judge found on Election Day that the mechanical issues did not prevent anyone from voting. But in a 69-page filing, attorneys for Lake used a grab bag of unproven assertions and anecdotal accounts to argue that “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election in Maricopa County.”

The claims reached far beyond the administration of voting to include conspiratorial allegations about efforts to combat election misinformation, which the filing deemed an “unconstitutional government censorship operation,” as well as evidence from the 2020 election.

The judge hearing Lake’s case, Peter A. Thompson of Maricopa County Superior Court, earlier tossed most of her assertions but allowed arguments to proceed on two claims — that employees at Maricopa County’s ballot contractor stuffed extra ballots into the system and that the printer problems on Election Day were intentional.

In Saturday’s 10-page ruling, Thompson said the court “acknowledges the anger and frustration of voters who were subjected to inconvenience and confusion at voter centers as technical problems arose during the 2022 general election.”

“But this Court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” he wrote. “It is to subject plaintiff’s claims and defendants’ actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.”

 

Katie Hobbs' defense team was not nearly as sanguine.

A lawyer for Hobbs told the court that Lake’s lawsuit represents what is “rotten in Arizona.”

“For the past several years, our democracy and its basic guiding principles have been under sustained assault from candidates who just cannot or will not accept the fact that they lost,” said the lawyer, Abha Khanna. “The judiciary has served as a bulwark against these efforts to undo our democratic system from within, and we ask this court to assume that role once again.”

In a closing statement, Khanna said, “Kari Lake lost this election and must lose this election contest. The reason she lost is not because of a printer error, not because of missing paperwork, not because the election was rigged against her, and certainly not for a lack of a full opportunity to prove her claims in a court of law.”

“Kari Lake lost the election because, at the end of the day, she received fewer votes than Katie Hobbs,” Khanna added.

 

Sadly, I don't think we've seen the last of Kari Lake. I think she's going to lose her bolts and come apart, right up until the Arizona State Capitol Police decide to detain her for threats made on the life of Hobbs. 

On the other hand, Arizona Republicans, narrowly controlling the state legislature, can certainly try to make Hobbs' life miserable. We'll see if this Lake drowns in her own misery.

 

 

 

Holidaze Week Begins

OK folks, we're hibernating until 2023 with limited posting.

As usual, I'll have my prediction scorecard for 2022 graded, and I'll make my 2023 predictions on December 31.

Have a good holiday season!

Last Call For Insurrection Investigation, The End

The January 6th Committee's investigation of Donald Trump's clumsy attempt to overthrow the U.S. Government and install himself as President has come to an end, as the Committee released its final report on the matter late Thursday night.

Far-right extremists who believed they were answering Donald Trump’s call to stop the transfer of presidential power didn’t just join the Jan. 6 mob — they led it.

The first wave of rioters to enter the Capitol during the siege, according to the Jan. 6 select committee’s final report released Thursday night, was disproportionately comprised of members of the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, QAnon fanatics and so-called “Groypers” loyal to Nick Fuentes, the former president’s racist and antisemitic recent Mar-a-Lago dinner guest.

Among the central findings of the select panel’s report: Trump’s incendiary lies about the 2020 election activated an extraordinary coalition of far-right militants and conspiracy theorists who not only joined the mob but were its vanguard smashing through police lines. Those extremists chose Jan. 6, the report outlines, in large part because Trump told them to in a now-infamous tweet: “Be there. Will be wild.”

“The January 6th attack has often been described as a riot — and that is partly true. Some of those who trespassed on the Capitol’s grounds or entered the building did not plan to do so beforehand,” the committee found. “But it is also true that extremists, conspiracy theorists and others were prepared to fight. That is an insurrection.”

The interplay between Trump world and shadowy right-wing extremist networks dominated the voluminous final report cataloging Trump’s multi-part bid to subvert the 2020 election and prevent Joe Biden from taking office. The document emerged nearly two days later than initially anticipated, as the select panel raced to wind up its work with a dwindling staff footprint in the waning days of its mandate from departing Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But the unspoken alliance Trump developed with those who would go on to do violence and destruction in his name stands out as a central conclusion of the committee’s year and a half of investigative work.

Pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the select committee found, texted with Proud Boys Chair Enrique Tarrio — now charged with seditious conspiracy — during the attack on the Capitol. In addition, Jones’ sidekick Owen Shroyer texted with other Proud Boys charged alongside Tarrio, including leaders Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs, who would later breach the Capitol.

Those communications happened after Trump, confronting a failed effort to unravel his loss to Biden, exhorted allies to descend on Washington and pointed an angry crowd to the Capitol, where outnumbered and underprepared police officers quickly became prey.

The select committee has spent months outlining the former president’s bid to subvert the 2020 election, concluding that Trump committed multiple crimes in his quest to corruptly seize a second term. But its final report sheds new light on the nexus between Trump boosters and members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, as well as other groups.

That in-depth analysis is the product of nearly 1,200 witness interviews and reams of hard-won documents, arriving just days after the select panel held its final open meeting to approve the report’s release. It’s likely the last public action from the select panel, which is set to expire at the end of this Congress.

The eight-chapter report traces each element of the last-ditch effort by Trump and his allies to undercut the election. Four appendices to the document break down security and intelligence failures leading up to Jan. 6, the money trail of the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse, and an analysis of foreign actors’ capitalization on Trump’s election disinformation.

Juxtaposed with the magnitude of the report was its somewhat chaotic conclusion: The select panel had originally targeted a Wednesday release, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s last-minute trip to Washington likely complicated the schedule. Then, the select panel abruptly released the report Thursday evening, with a placeholder date left on its cover page.

 

The 800+ pages lay out in excruciating detail how Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 Presidential election by using January 6th as a bloody flag to force Congress and Mike Pence out of certifying the electoral vote.

 

It was very nearly successful.

The Road To Gilead Goes Through Kentucky, Con't

This week the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Louisville's abortion clinic 10-foot buffer ordnance, saying it was a violation of the free speech of people harassing clinic patients, not that Kentucky has any these days.

 

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled in favor of blocking the enforcement of a Louisville ordinance that allows 10-foot-wide buffer zones outside health care facilities, including a local abortion clinic where protesters have often gathered.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supported a preliminary injunction because the buffer zone legislation's "limits likely violate the First Amendment" and instructed a U.S. district court to prevent the enforcement of the ordinance for now.

This is the latest decision in a court case filed last year by plaintiffs that include two anti-abortion groups, Sisters for Life and the Kentucky Right to Life Association. The case challenges a Louisville Metro Council ordinance passed in May 2021 that prohibits people from lingering in or obstructing a health care facility's buffer zone and from obstructing someone else's entrance to or exit from that facility.

Abortion access in Kentucky has been severely limited in the past six months. The procedure is banned, with exceptions only for life-threatening health risks, under state law following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

A Kentucky Supreme Court ruling is expected anytime concerning whether to temporarily reinstate some abortion access while a separate lawsuit challenging two highly restrictive anti-abortion laws continues.

 

There's a very good chance that the case will end up before the Roberts Court in the fall, leading to the end of clinic buffer zones in all states, and giving the Gilead Chuds free reign to assault clinic personnel and patients even in states where abortion is still allowed.

 

I like how abortion clinics in Kentucky were all but regulated out of existence with nuisance health regulations, but a regulation to actually protect people at a health clinic from having their access physically blocked by raging assholes is a free speech and not a safety issue. 

And we get one step closer along the road.

 

Shutdown Countdown, Con't

The omnibus spending bill to keep the government open passed easily in the Senate, despite Republican efforts to sabotage the bill with poison pill amendments. The better news is several long-awaited and badly-needed pieces of legislation were added to the bill, including the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and the big one, the Electoral Count Reform Act.

The bill overcame a last-minute snag late Wednesday over a GOP-demanded amendment to keep the Trump-era Title 42 border policy in place. Democrats agreed to hold a vote on their amendment alongside a Democratic alternative. Both failed, and the delicate coalition for the bill stayed intact. Other amendments were approved.

After a yearslong fight, senators approved including the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act as part of the omnibus package, offering protections against discrimination for pregnant workers. The last-ditch effort was led by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Richard Burr, R-N.C., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Bob Casey, D-Pa.

“For far too long, too many workers excited about welcoming a new baby had to worry about losing their jobs — all because their employers could deny them basic, low-cost accommodations like a bathroom break or a stool to sit on,” Murray said in a statement, calling the measure “a big and important step forward.”

Another bill to expand accommodations for pumping in the workplace also passed as part of the tranche of amendments, cementing another victory for pregnant women and new moms. It was offered by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

In a statement, Murkowski called the amendment's passage “good progress toward ensuring no mother ever has to choose between a job and nursing her child.”

The omnibus bill moved forward 75-20 in the Senate on Tuesday, overcoming staunch opposition from conservative Republicans to win the 60 votes necessary to ensure passage. Before the final vote Wednesday, the Senate defeated a series of amendments that GOP members had demanded in exchange for dropping their threats to drag out the bill for days.

One of those opponents, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, pushed back against McConnell's view. “I don’t understand how that’s a big win for Republicans,” he said. “I do think this is harmful to Republicans. We have a Republican leader in the House and a Republican leader in the Senate taking diametrically opposed positions. And I’m with McCarthy on this one.”

GOP leaders in the House are pressuring members to vote against the bill, which will have to rely on mostly Democratic votes to pass.

The office of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told Republicans the bill was "designed to sideline the incoming Republican House Majority by extending many programs for multiple years" and criticized its "large funding increases" for Democratic priorities.

The legislation also includes a rewrite of an 1887 federal election law to close loopholes that then-President Donald Trump and his team sought to exploit on Jan. 6, 2021, to make it harder for presidential candidates to steal elections. It would also grant extra funds to the Justice Department for Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Schumer said the election measures in the bill would “preserve our democracy for generations to come.”

Trump said it was "probably better" to reject the election changes.

"I don’t care whether they change The Electoral Count Act or not, probably better to leave it the way it is so that it can be adjusted in case of Fraud," he wrote on his social media platform, arguing that the desire in Congress to clarify the law validates his belief that the vice president had the power to overturn the 2020 result.

Proponents of the changes say that the 1887 law is poorly written and that it was never intended to give the vice president such power — and that the new legislation would make that abundantly clear.

“It’s going to stop the kind of stuff we saw on Jan. 6, where a sitting president tried to take the election and become dictator of this country,” Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, a moderate Democrat, said Wednesday on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe." “It’s an important piece of legislation that was worked on in a bipartisan way.”

 

The fight's not over, however. House Republicans have vowed to scuttle the bill Friday and shut down the government on Christmas Eve, but they'll need Democratic votes to do it. And frankly, the legislation locks funding into place for a lot of programs for two years, meaning Kevin McCarthy and the Dumbass Crew won't be able to take things apart this time next year.

No, I expect Nancy Pelosi's final act as the most effective and powerful House Speaker in generations will be to guide the House to pass the Senate version and hang up her gavel as the GOAT one last time.

America will miss her when it comes to whatever Republican takes her job in a couple weeks, because whoever it is, they are doomed. And I still say that it won't be McCarthy.

Last Call For Fantasma Santos, Con't

On Monday, I asked how Democrats could have possibly missed the fact that NY-3 GOP Rep. George Santos was a pathological liar and given the House seat away to this clown.

So he lied about his work at Goldman Sachs, he lied about his Baruch College degree, he lied about his family business, and oh yeah he's wanted for bad checks back in Brazil.

 

That Democrats in the state left Tom Suozzi's seat open for this clown to win it over Robert Zimmerman, figuring Zimmerman would win by osmosis or something, should serve as a critical lesson to the state's cancerous Democratic state party.

The fact that this level of scrutiny was not given to Santos until after her won with the rank lies and fabrications is a failure of the NY Times itself. This white supremacist clown should have been exposed months ago.

But the NY Democratic Party should have had this oppo research ready to go. Even an afternoon of work would have cost Santos the race, and they just didn't care to do basic due diligence.

 

At the NY Times, professional Democratic opposition researcher Tyson Brody offers a defense. 

 

Let’s go through the opposition research process. A junior researcher is tasked to write a “book” — a comprehensive report laying out a buffet of opposition research attacks on a given opponent. Then a senior researcher oversees and edits the book. As the Democratic candidate was not chosen until Aug. 23 in a district Democrats won comfortably in 2020, this process probably started late and was rushed.

Think back to that animal-rescue nonprofit, which reportedly was not registered as a charity. How did Mr. Santos get away with that unnoticed? He didn’t, exactly. We have a copy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s research book on Mr. Santos, polished for public consumption and posted online in August. Sure enough, we see that Mr. Santos’s charity is documented as unfindable in an I.R.S. database.

Documented, too, are evictions during the 2010s and instances of undisclosed personal finances that appear in the Times story. They’re in small sections interspersed through a nearly 90-page document, yet they’re there. Maybe given more time, the researchers could have gone further to confirm the nonprofit’s lack of state filings or could have contacted his former landlords.

What about Mr. Santos’s apparently lying about his employers and education? The Times reported that Baruch College could not confirm that he graduated in the year he claimed, and companies he has listed, such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, found no record of his employment. Often, opposition research is the dark art of searching databases and copying and pasting information so you can write prompts for reporters. You’d be shocked to know what a 20-something given enough time and direction can find out about a person. But oppo researchers are not private investigators, and it’s helpful to consider their sources. During their work, a researcher may notice there’s not a single piece of evidence outside of the candidate’s own claims about his or her history.

So how do you verify? There are sources like yearbooks and services used by employers for education checks, or you can always try asking politely. Employers and universities are under no requirement to share this information with anyone who calls — including a random person asking for the sake of political research. (Though I stress: The odds are better than you think if you ask.) An alternative solution is to bug newspaper reporters to ask those questions and hope their paper’s reputation compels an answer.

Reporters asking questions is what happened to Mr. Santos, as employers and schools spoke with The New York Times. Whether anyone else tried to this extent before, we don’t know. Certainly this story shows why researchers — and reporters — should kick the tires on even small claims by a candidate.

Let’s return to the research process: After a book is completed, communications staff members, campaign officials and consultants are briefed on the best hits the researchers could find for pitching to reporters and for advertising purposes. We can see one outcome of those briefings in a research-packed news release from the D.C.C.C. that blasted Mr. Santos as a “shady Wall Street bro.” Specifically, it highlights the absence of the nonprofit in the I.R.S. database and his previously undisclosed personal finances. It’s not the exact story, but months ago, a Democratic operative had the thought to call him “untrustworthy.”

Then what happened? The D.C.C.C. research department probably moved on to the next project. This year, as they do every two years, Democrats competed in hundreds of House races. The junior staff member may even be moved to a position at a technically distinct division and be legally unable to communicate with his or her former co-workers. That’s how some lines of inquiries never progress beyond PDF files.

Gently, however, I would suggest that the rest of the prepared Democratic research is quite compelling. Mr. Santos claimed he was at the Ellipse at the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, claimed in a video captured by trackers to have assisted with legal fees for Capitol rioters and said he supported a national abortion ban. Heavy stuff! That’s along with your standard politically toxic Republican agenda of cutting taxes for the rich while pursuing some form of partial privatization for Social Security.

We’re waiting for the final data, but Republicans probably carried this New York district for governor and senator. And that’s despite Senator Chuck Schumer’s spending $41 million to his opponent’s $545,000 statewide. Perhaps a stronger attack on Mr. Santos as a possible fraud would have allowed his Democratic opponent to escape such gravity.

And while NY Democrats absolutely dropped the ball on following up on Santos's fraudulence, I don't expect NY AG Tish James to be anywhere near as lenient.

 

The New York Attorney General’s Office said it is “looking into a number of issues" surrounding Congressman-elect George Santos, who was the subject of a bombshell New York Times investigation that questions whether the incoming Republican lawmaker fabricated much of his biography, including his education, work history and financial dealings.

The office, however, did not confirm whether it had opened an official investigation into Santos and declined to comment further on the matter.

A lawyer for Santos, Joe Murray, told NBC News in an email Thursday afternoon that he had "not been contacted by anyone" from the New York Attorney General's Office.

"I have nothing further to add at this time," he said.

 

I'd wish this jackass a Happy Hanukkah, but he lied about being Jewish too.

Weed, Feed, And Need

Turns out that even recreational marijuana is a secondary expense in states where weed is taxed, because unlike murderously addictive nicotine products, when inflation is high and people have to tighten their belts, getting baked takes a back seat to getting baked goods.

Marijuana tax collections dropped in several states this year as the cannabis industry struggles with low prices and a drop in demand.

California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington all collected less marijuana tax money in fiscal 2022 than the year before, according to a report from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a joint venture between two Washington, D.C. think tanks. Most states end their fiscal years on June 30.

That means those states had millions less this past fiscal year to pay for school buildings, drug treatment programs, law enforcement and other services partly funded by taxing pot sales.

Tax revenue may fall even further this fiscal year. Some analysts say the downturn is a reminder that cannabis is an agricultural crop, not a guaranteed moneymaker.

The potential tax revenue “was always oversold as sort of a panacea to state budgets,” said Adam Koh, editorial director of Cannabis Benchmarks, a company that tracks wholesale cannabis prices.

Colorado collected about $370 million in marijuana taxes in fiscal 2022, about 13% less than fiscal 2021.

“We’re anticipating another pretty sizable decline for [fiscal 2023] as well, close to 16%,” said Jeff Stupak, a senior economist with the Legislative Council Staff, a nonpartisan team that advises the Colorado legislature.

 

So like cigs, lotteries, and vaping, vice taxes only work when people have the money to pay for vices.  And when you tie education, library, and other public good funding to vices, well, they get underfunded when the appetite for it goes down.

It's a trap, but here we are.

Sinema Verite', Con't

Normally I'd say going after a woman Democratic senator with charges that she expects her staffers to treat her like a rock star with a concert venue rider for all green M&M's in her contract was insulting and bordering on misogyny. But the Senator in question is Kyrsten Sinema, who has made a habit if not a political career out of outlandish grandstanding, up to and including quitting the Democratic party this month. The criticism is very much deserved.

 

Always have a “room temperature” bottle of water on hand for her at all times. Make sure you get her groceries. And book her a weekly, hour-long massage.

These are just a few of the tasks, framed in a dizzying array of do’s and don’ts, that have fallen to the staffers for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), according to an internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast.

The 37-page memo is intended as a guide for aides who set the schedule for and personally staff Sinema during her workdays in Washington and Arizona. And while the document is mostly just revealing of Sinema’s exceptionally strong preferences about things like air travel—preferably not on Southwest Airlines, never book her a seat near a bathroom, and absolutely never a middle seat—Sinema’s standards appear to go right up to the line of what Senate ethics rules allow, if not over.

One section of the staffer guide explains that the senator’s executive assistant must contact Sinema at the beginning of the work week in Washington to “ask if she needs groceries,” and copy both the scheduler and chief of staff on the message to “make sure this is accomplished.” It specifies Sinema will reimburse the assistant through CashApp. The memo also dictates that if the internet in Sinema’s private apartment fails, the executive assistant “should call Verizon to schedule a repair” and ensure a staffer is present to let a technician inside the property.

The Senate ethics handbook states that “staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others.”

Craig Holman, a congressional ethics expert with the nonprofit group Public Citizen, said Sinema’s apparent demands that staffers conduct personal tasks amount to a clear violation of Senate ethics rules, and would typically warrant a formal reprimand by the Senate Ethics Committee.

Sinema spokesperson Hannah Hurley told The Daily Beast that “the alleged information—sourced from anonymous quotes and a purported document I can’t verify—is not in line with official guidance from Sen. Sinema’s office and does not represent official policies of Sen. Sinema’s office.”

Hurley added that Sinema’s office “does not require staff to perform personal errands.”

The Daily Beast did not share the document itself with Sinema’s office, and is not printing it in its entirety over concerns that doing so may reveal who shared the memo. However, The Daily Beast was able to independently corroborate the veracity of the document, which is at least a couple of years old but could still reflect current policies.

The Daily Beast sent Sinema’s office a detailed list of claims and quotes sourced from the memo and intended for publication.

While the memo may not represent the most up-to-date scheduling practices for Sinema, the document reflects long-running guidelines as well as commitments of the senator’s that have remained consistent. Moreover, the memo is clear that, even if Sinema and her chief of staff never signed off on the document itself, both were to be alerted when the senator’s executive assistant had procured her groceries—or completed a number of other tasks.

Sinema rarely does interviews or comments publicly about how she approaches the day-to-day work of being a senator. The scheduling memo offers a rare glimpse into how one of the Senate’s most inscrutable—and most scrutinized—members approaches her job and runs her office.

 

This is not "Oh Kamala Harris is so difficult" or "Amy Klobuchar is mean to her staff" or any other "imperious Hillary Clinton" nonsense, this is a straight up violation of Senate ethics standards if true. It's also yet another example of Sinema's attention-grabbing narcissism that has dropped her popularity in Arizona to negatives among every single voting group.

 

 

 

These latest ethics allegations aren't exactly going to help her make new friends, I suspect. Nor should they.

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

One of the big takeaways from the release of Donald Trump's taxes (besides the fact the man is clearly a tax cheat) is the fact that the IRS never actually audited Trump's tax returns until after Democrats took over the House in 2019, which was required by Watergate-era law.

 

The House Ways and Means Committee in its own report said it found that only one audit was started while Trump was in office and no audits were completed.

This is in violation of standing IRS policy.

"The Committee expected that these mandatory audits were being conducted promptly and in accordance with IRS policies," Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement. "However, our review found that under the prior administration, the program was dormant. We know now, the first mandatory audit was opened two years into his presidency. On the same day this Committee requested his returns."

In a vote split along party lines, the Democrats on the panel voted in support of the release while Republicans voted against the measure.

Whether or not to release the former president's tax records has become a point of contention, with Republicans arguing that doing so would set a dangerous precedent.

Democrats on the panel had argued that the president's tax returns were necessary for the panel to evaluate the IRS's presidential audit program. In response, Trump filed an emergency application on Oct. 31 to block the release. But the the Supreme Court denied Trump's request to block the committee's request, clearing the way for the records to be released.

"We anticipated the IRS would expand the mandatory audit program to account for the complex nature of the former president's financial situation yet found no evidence of that," Neal said. "This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hope to find."

In the committee's separate report, it made recommendations for the future of the IRS presidential audit program and stated: "Congress should codify the mandatory audit program to require the IRS to conduct mandatory audits while a President is in office and publicly disclose related returns and return information."

This is, because, in the words of the Democrat-led panel, "Americans must have confidence that no taxpayer is able to operate above the law. This, of course, extends to the President of the United States, who is the single most powerful public official in the country."

Democrats' fight for Trump's tax returns on a legal front have been ongoing for more than three years, beginning in 2019.

Neal had requested the IRS turn over then-President Trump's tax returns spanning 2013 to 2018, but was denied by the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS. The department said the request was not supported by a legitimate legislative purpose, NPR previously reported, and was "pretextual."

 

In other words, the audit itself was skipped for Trump's first two years, and he never would have been audited if Democrats hadn't won the House back in 2018. The audit then became the excuse to block the release of Trump's fishy-ass tax returns, because the audit was then never completed.

 

Trump ordered this done 100%.

 

Hopefully the Senate will take up the challenge, which they can finally do in a 51-49 scenario which would give committee chairs subpoena power with a simple majority. 

It however remains true that if Democrats hadn't won the House in 2018, we would have never known that the required audits of Trump's taxes were not being done.

And yes, it means Trump lied to everyone about his audits. Yet more possible criminality to explore, as at every turn, Trump wanted the actual trail of his illegal proceedings removed and eliminated. Recall that Presidents Obama and Biden have gotten audited for every year of their terms and there were no issues.

Trump hid everything. He cannot be allowed to hold office again.

Last Call For Ukraine On The Stage, Main

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a whirlwind visit to Washington DC today, meeting with President Biden at the White House and addressing a joint session of Congress.

The United States is the first country since Russia’s invasion that the Ukrainian president has visited. Zelenskyy, in some senses, was overdue for a visit, especially given that Biden and his team have mobilized unprecedented military and financial assistance for Ukraine.

In his evening address to Congress, Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude for America’s staunch support and received bipartisan applause. “I thank every American family which cherishes the warmth of its home,” he said. “I thank President Biden and both parties in the Senate and the House for your invaluable assistance.”

By speaking in English, the Ukrainian president was savvy in ensuring his message would reach Americans directly, and occasionally offered a little bit of punch. (“Ukraine didn’t fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking,” he said.) There was even a gift exchange: Zelenskyy brought a Ukrainian flag that soldiers on the frontlines in the Donbas had given him the day prior, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presented him with the US flag that had flown above the Capitol today.

Above all, Zelenskyy made a case to lawmakers that Ukraine’s struggle is part of a global fight for freedom and democracy. He also emphasized that the threat of Putin’s violence transcended Ukraine — and that Iran’s delivery of drones to Russia poses a larger challenge to America and its allies.

“Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy,” Zelenskyy said.

Congress is on the verge of approving another $45 billion in aid to Ukraine and NATO allies, in addition to more than $65 billion in humanitarian and military aid that has already been sent since the conflict began. In conjunction with Zelenskyy’s visit, Biden also announced a $1.85 billion military package featuring a Patriot missile battery to bolster Ukraine’s defenses against Russian attacks. “Thanks from our ordinary people to your ordinary people,” Zelenskyy said earlier at the White House.

 

It was an important visit, but also a last-ditch effort to convince the incoming House GOP that blocking aid to Ukraine next year will come at a price.  Still, I expect any future assistance to Ukraine will now become a major issue for the House GOP, and especially for those inclined to not vote for McCarthy as Speaker.

 

We'll see. At the very least I expect the cost for McCarthy to earn votes from the nutjob crowd is to publicly say he'll sabotage further aid to Kyiv.

 

 

(Un)Vaccination Nation, Con't

Last year I warned that Ohio Republicans throwing out vaccination requirements for everyone, not just for Covid, but for childhood diseases like measles, mumps, rubella and whooping cough, would cause mass suffering as the state's vaccination rate dropped below herd immunity percentages.

 

Ohio already allows parents to exempt kids from vaccinations out of choice (and the state's vaccination level among children has dropped to 88%), but this would essentially reverse decades of medical science and thousands would end up suffering from preventable diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella.

But Republicans are bound and determined to kill as many Ohioans as possible. Everyone has to suffer and die for their utter stupidity. DeWine, for his part, is trying to stop this bill, but he can easily be overridden.

We'll see if Ohio becomes a third world country.

 

Surprise! The largest outbreak of measles in America right now is in Columbus, Ohio as dozens of cases are being reported in Franklin County, and the epidemic is only going to get worse this winter.  

The country's largest measles outbreak is happening in Central Ohio — with no signs of slowing down. Of the 106 nationwide cases reported as of Thursday, 75% were in Franklin County.

Why it matters: Until this outbreak, our area hadn't confirmed a measles case in 20 years.The highly contagious respiratory disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but dipping vaccine rates during the pandemic have revived it among unvaccinated pockets.

Threat level: The CDC and WHO said last month that measles is "an imminent threat in every region of the world," Axios' Jacob Knuston reports.Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes, with a signature rash appearing three to five days later.
Serious complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis are possible.

By the numbers: Of the 81 local cases confirmed as of Monday, none were fully vaccinated and 36% were hospitalized. All are kids younger than 18. 27% are under 1 year old, meaning they're too young to be vaccinated and were relying on herd immunity for protection.

State of play: Measles likely arrived in Columbus after four unvaccinated travelers separately went to measles-endemic countries from June to October, Columbus Public Health commissioner Mysheika Roberts tells Axios.The CDC was here for the two weeks after Thanksgiving and is offering support.

Of note: The two-dose measles vaccine is 97% effective.The challenge is reaching the small number of Central Ohioans spreading the virus by not vaccinating their children.

What they're saying: "It's very frustrating, knowing that it's preventable with a vaccine — a safe, effective, accessible vaccine," Roberts says. The health department is ready to administer shots, but only half a dozen parents have brought kids in since the outbreak started this fall.

 

So ballpark math from the US Census quick facts page for Franklin County, 1.3 million people, 23% kids, is 300K kids. Only 86-88% are vaccinated, so that's 40-45 thousand kids without the vaccine. Let's say 5K are under 1 and too young to be vaccinated, that's still 40,000 unvaccinated kids facing measles in Franklin County. 

So yes, the epidemic is only beginning.  Flu, Covid, now measles.

But for god's sakes, don't wear a mask or get vaccinated, because that makes yo a pussy cuck beta loser.

A sick or dead one, but hey.

 

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

The House Ways and Means Committee yesterday voted to release a report on Donald Trump's taxes during his term in the Oval Office. What exactly that report will consist of, well, we don't know. Yet.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to make six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns public — potentially ending years of speculation about what they might reveal about his business dealings and personal wealth.

The panel voted along party lines to make the returns available and information could be available as soon as Wednesday — the day the House Jan. 6 committee is set to issue its final report on the riot at the U.S. Capitol — which will be the final days of Democratic control of Congress before Republicans take over the House in January.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Penn., said the vote will make public the tax returns and a separate report about Trump's tax information.

"The actual returns themselves will also be transmitted to the full House and become public, but I was told it will take a few days to a week in order to redact some info that needs to be redacted,” Boyle said.

The information that must be removed is personal in nature.

“The staff is authorized to make technical corrections to the report and to redact sensitive personal identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, street addresses, personal identification numbers and banking information," committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said.

The Ways and Means Committee had spent hours in a closed-door session before taking the vote.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking member, criticized the Democrats’ move and said committee members did not know “exactly what we are releasing” when they voted.

The move is could spark threats of some sort of retaliation from Republicans, who have already vowed to launch probing investigations into President Joe Biden and his family. Some Republicans have already accused Neal of seeking the returns solely for political reasons.

Neal defended the vote immediately afterward.

"This was not about being punitive, it was not about malicious, and there were no leaks from the committee," he said. "We adhered carefully to the law."

Brady told reporters ahead of the meeting that Democrats were pushing an "unprecedented action that will jeopardize the right of every American to be protected from political targeting by Congress."

"No party in Congress should hold that power. It is the power to embarrass, harass or destroy a private citizen through disclosure of their tax returns," Brady said.

 

But of course Republicans and Kevin Brady will regularly use that power against Democrats over the next two years. And note that Richard Neal successfully kept anything from being leaked to the press about Trump's returns other than speculation.

 

Republicans will leak information to FOX all day.  Watch.