Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

Sen. Mitch Mconnell set up Senate GOP negotiations on new gun legislation in the wake of Uvalde to fail miserably, knowing he'd need all ten Republicans to overcome a filibuster. But putting Texas Sen. John Cornyn in charge, the GOP's Number Two in the Senate, was a brilliant move, because now Mitch looks reasonable, and Cornyn, arguably the only person who could reasonably run against Mitch for leadership next year, looks like an incompetent negotiator compared to McConnell.

Frustration inside the Senate GOP conference is boiling among conservatives at the way Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is handling the bipartisan gun reform negotiations — putting the man who aspires to succeed Mitch McConnell as Republican leader in a political jam.

Why it matters: Some senators are viewing these negotiations as a test case for how Cornyn would fare as lead negotiator for the party should he replace McConnell one day.

Driving the news: Multiple sources with direct knowledge say the GOP senators who are uneasy about the negotiations include Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), among others.McConnell has thus far supported Cornyn's efforts, saying he's "comfortable" with the bipartisan gun deal and will support the bill if it "ends up reflecting what the framework indicated."

Behind the scenes: At Tuesday's private Senate GOP lunch, several senators questioned Cornyn about the proposal and pushed for specific details about what the legislation would entail.Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) "very vocally" requested more information from Cornyn on the substance of the framework. Those requests were rebuffed, three sources familiar with the lunch told Axios. 

The proposal to incentivize state red flag laws has been especially unpopular among conservatives. Sens. Crapo, Cruz and others have voiced their concerns to leadership about it potentially becoming too easy to strip Americans of their right to bear arms. 

And Scott, the chairman of the Senate Republicans' campaign arm, feels snubbed by the bipartisan group after holding early talks with Cornyn and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
"No one's telling me anything. I've just asked for the text, and I haven’t gotten anything," Scott told Axios. "My whole goal is that we shouldn't be rushing something like this through; we should take our time."

Hawley told Axios he's "not a big fan of the framework as it's been announced ... I'm tracking what's been reported in the press. I understand the framework is shifting. But you know, I'm not a huge fan of it.""I'm at a disadvantage because I'm not part of the negotiations," Hawley added. "I don't know where they are. All I know is what I read secondhand from you all."

Between the lines: Several senators feel they've been shut out of the negotiating process and kept in the dark about crucial details, and will be asked to take a politically tough vote without enough time to digest the bill.One GOP senator, speaking to Axios on the condition of anonymity to be candid about his concerns, branded Cornyn's approach: "Shut up, and vote." 

"There's considerable unhappiness in the conference that we seem to be approaching a bill that will unite all the Democrats and divide the Republicans," said another senior Republican with direct knowledge of the internal talks. 

The senior Republican mentioned that Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked Cornyn during one lunch, "Are we focusing on gang violence and inner-city murders? And the response was, 'No, we're not focusing on that' ... And more than a few of us wondered why the hell not?" 

"It would be prudent, and I think Sen. Cornyn knows this … it would be prudent to give senators plenty of time to read the bill and research the issues," Kennedy told Axios.

"We're being told that Schumer wants to vote next week," the senior Republican added. "And that the Republicans engaged in negotiations are fine with that. Even though nobody's seen bill text, nobody's seen anything more than a couple of bullet points on a one-pager."

 

Keep in mind nothing was ever going to pass.  It was always going to be smoke and mirrors run by Actual Senate Majority Leader Mitch from behind the stage. But now Mitch gets to blame John Cornyn and Chuck Schumer, and he keeps his hands clean again. The one thing McConnell would allow a vote for was red flag laws, and he doesn't even have ten votes for that.

So in a couple of weeks or so, we'll see headlines like "Senate Fails Again To Pass Gun Laws" and most Americans won't know or care that Mitch and the GOP set this up to fail.

Just another day in Gunmerica.

Last Call For When It Rains...

Major flooding this week in Michigan has once again shuttered the Abbott baby formula plant in Sturgis, meaning that shortages will continue well into July.

Abbott has stopped production of EleCare formula in its Sturgis, Michigan, plant after severe storms led to flooding inside the plant, the company said, probably delaying production of new formula for a few weeks.

Production at the plant had restarted less than two weeks ago following a months-long closure that helped drive a nationwide formula shortage.

"Severe thunderstorms and heavy rains came through southwestern Michigan on Monday evening, resulting in high winds, hail, power outages and flood damage throughout the area," Abbott said in a statement Wednesday night. "These torrential storms produced significant rainfall in a short period of time -- overwhelming the city's stormwater system in Sturgis, Mich., and resulting in flooding in parts of the city, including areas of our plant.

"As a result, Abbott has stopped production of its EleCare specialty formula that was underway to assess damage caused by the storm and clean and re-sanitize the plant. We have informed FDA and will conduct comprehensive testing in conjunction with the independent third party to ensure the plant is safe to resume production. This will likely delay production and distribution of new product for a few weeks."

Abbott said that once the plant is re-sanitized and production resumes, it will restart EleCare production, followed by specialty and metabolic formulas. New formula being produced since the plant reopened was not yet available to consumers, and production had not started on popular brands available at grocery stores. Abbott said it will "work to restart Similac production at the plant as soon as possible."

In tweets Wednesday night, US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said, "We know Abbott is working quickly to assess the damage and will be reporting its progress to us in the days ahead. Once the company establishes a plan, FDA will be back in the facility working to ensure that they can restart producing safe and quality formula products quickly."

 

It's nowhere near Biden's fault, but he'll be blamed anyway.  Republicans will certainly find a way to do it. It depends on who listens.

Hearing Aides For America, Con't

Ginni Thomas, GOP activist (and apparently part-time conspirator) and wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had a far more important role in the January 6th insurrection conspiracy than previously revealed.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has obtained email correspondence between Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and lawyer John Eastman, who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, according to three people involved in the committee’s investigation.

The emails show that Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election were more extensive than previously known, two of the people said. The three declined to provide details and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The committee’s members and staffers are now discussing whether to spend time during their public hearings exploring Ginni Thomas’s role in the attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, the three people said. The Washington Post previously reported that the committee had not sought an interview with Thomas and was leaning against pursuing her cooperation with its investigation.

The two people said the emails were among documents obtained by the committee and reviewed recently. Last week, a federal judge ordered Eastman to turn more than 100 documents over to the committee. Eastman had tried to block the release of those and other documents by arguing that they were privileged communications and therefore should be protected.

Thomas also sent messages to President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and to Arizona lawmakers, pressing them to help overturn the election, The Post has previously reported.

While Thomas has maintained that she and her husband operate in separate professional lanes, her activities as a conservative political activist have long distinguished her from other spouses of Supreme Court justices. Any new revelations about Thomas’s actions after the 2020 presidential election are likely to further intensify questions about whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases related to the election and attempts to subvert it.

 

The Committee isn't leaning against dealing publicly with Thomas, GOP Committee co-chair Liz Cheney is against doing so, yet another reason not to trust her going forward. Outside of Trump's conspiracy itself, Ginni and Clarence Thomas's involvement in the insurrection is arguably the most vile revelation of the entire mess here, especially since Justice Thomas continues to hear and decide cases directly involved with efforts to use alternate slates of electors to overturn elections and who gets the final say in sending those elector slates to Washington.

This is far more damaging that what Trump tried and failed at, because it would give the next GOP presidential candidate, Trump or otherwise, a way to maintain power permanently.

Luckily, Liz Cheney isn't in charge. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is.

 

What they’re saying: “We think it’s time that we, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told Axios.Thompson said of the committee's reasoning,

"We have discovered in those Eastman [emails] some information that refers to Ginni Thomas," but declined to go into further detail about what she'll be asked.

Asked when the invite will go out, Thompson said, "Soon."

 

Get the popcorn for that one.

The Big Lie, Con't

New CNN President Chris Licht has decided that abandoning the truth and going the FOX News route is the only hope for the cable news network, starting with siding with Trump when it comes to the Big Lie about the 2020 election.

New CNN president Chris Licht discouraged staff from using “the big lie” to refer to former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, Mediaite has learned.

On a Tuesday conference call with management and show executive producers, Licht was asked for his thoughts on “the big lie,” and said he preferred that staff avoid the term. He made clear this was a preference, not a mandate, but staffers have taken it as a clear directive from the new boss.

He encouraged producers to instead use the terms “Trump election lie” or “election lies” in banners and graphics.

According to a source, Licht argued that using “the big lie” makes the mistake of adopting branding used by the Democratic Party, thereby weakening the objectivity of the network.

The term, which was first coined by Adolf Hitler and later used to describe Nazi propaganda efforts, was recently adopted by critics of Trump in response to his relentless promotion of the false claim he won the 2020 election.

The term has become ubiquitous on CNN. “Big lie” has been mentioned on the network 168 times this month, according to media monitoring service TVEyes.

The guidance, which comes as a House select committee holds hearings investigating Trump’s election lies and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol they inspired, has rankled some at the network.

“It’s worrisome that we’re being told how to talk about one of the worst things that ever happened to American democracy,” a CNN insider told Mediaite. “We have to call lies, lies, whether they’re small lies or big lies. Is there any lie bigger than that lie?”

They speculated that the directive could be coming from Warner Bros. Discovery board member John Malone, who has criticized CNN’s approach to news under former boss Zucker.

“It seems to indicate where things are headed,” they added. “We didn’t have this problem until John Malone was sitting on the board of this company.”

 

The Village is betting heavily upon the return of Republican control of Congress in January, and they are all re-establishing their Trump-era postures now in order to reap the ratings and access they anticipate next year.

The media won't save us from the fascists. If anything they'll encourage them.

Last Call For State Of The Keystone

A lot can happen between now and November, and almost certainly will, but for now, Pennsylvania Democrats John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro are leading two of the worst Republicans running this year.

A USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll in Pennsylvania released this week suggests a clear U.S. Senate frontrunner -- with a tighter race for governor.

According to the Suffolk University Political Research Center, Democrat John Fetterman holds a 9-point lead over Republican Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania's closely watched U.S. Senate race. The two are seeking to fill the seat being vacated by Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey.

In the state's gubernatorial race, Democrat Josh Shapiro has a 4-point advantage over Republican Doug Mastriano, which is within the poll's plus or minus 4.4-percentage-point margin of error. Green Party candidate Christina “PK” DiGiulio and Libertarian Party candidate Matt Hackenburg are polling at just 1% each.

The early leads for Fetterman and Shapiro come despite a Republican surge that's reduced Democrats' registration lead from 8 percentage points to 4 percentage points since 2018 in the state.

Fetterman and Shapiro also seem to be bucking the headwinds of a poor economy and disapproval of President Joe Biden. More than 44% of poll respondents said economic conditions in Pennsylvania are poor, while 36% said they are fair and just 16% said they are good.

"I use the words 'thread the needle' because I always think of campaigns as patchwork, as a political fabrics," Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos said. "It's really a fine line given Biden's disapproval rate and the dire state of the economy."

 

Democrats are winning despite the economy in PA because the Republicans are so awful that they are largely unelectable. Dr. Oz is a quack huckster and Mastriano is a Trumpian lunatic on par with MTG or Boebert. People don't want to put them in charge, imagine that.

 

Midterm Madness, Con't

The special election for TX-34 went to Republican Mayra Flores outright, and Republicans are now predicting the end of the Democratic party and a permanent Hispanic voter shift to the GOP. Chickens are being counted before hatching, I suspect.

 

A U.S. House district in South Texas will send a Republican to Congress for the first time in its 10-year history.

Mayra Flores, a Republican and respiratory-care health aide, scored a significant victory in a special election on Tuesday for the party, which has been trying to capitalize on its successes in 2020 in the Democratic stronghold of the Rio Grande Valley. She will be the first Latina Republican from Texas in Congress.

Ms. Flores defeated three opponents in the special election to replace former Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who retired this year before the end of his term. She captured more than 50 percent of the vote in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, according to The Associated Press, and will avoid an expected runoff with Dan Sanchez, a Democrat and former commissioner in Cameron County.

Her win may only be temporary, however.

The special election was held to determine who would fill the remainder of Mr. Vela’s term until the end of this year. Voters in the general election in November will decide who will become the district’s permanent representative beginning in January. Representative Vicente Gonzalez, who currently represents a neighboring district, is the Democratic nominee for November, and is widely favored to win the race against Ms. Flores, who is also running to fill the seat permanently in November.

Republicans have directed enormous sums of money and attention to the race in recent weeks, seeking an early victory in a district that includes the border city of Brownsville. Ms. Flores raised 16 times the amount of money that Mr. Sanchez did. And she and her allies have spent more than $1 million on television advertisements, while Democrats have largely stayed off the air.

Republicans believe they have found an ideal candidate for the region in Ms. Flores, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a young child. Her parents spent years working as migrant farmworkers in Texas. She is the wife of a Border Patrol agent and has campaigned on strict immigration enforcement in the overwhelmingly Mexican American district.

 

SO It's all over, the Dems are doomed, no reason to vote, permanent GOP control, etc, except for the fact that Texas's redictricting for November's election actually makes it more likely a Democrat will win in November because of gerrymandering.

 

Dems did miscaulculate here on the special, narrowing their margin in the House for now, yes.

I bet November here has a different result. Indeed, Larry Sabato still rates this a leans Democratic win...but not a safe one by any means.

Vote like your country depends on it.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

The dry run for the 2022 GOP effort to disenfranchise millions of Democratic votes begins this week in New Mexico, where Republicans in Alamagordo are refusing to certify votes in the GOP primary because of "Dominion voting machines".

Votes in a New Mexico community are at risk of not counting after a Republican-led commission refused to approve primary election results over distrust of Dominion vote-tallying machines.

Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the three-member Otero County commission to certify June 7 primary election results to ensure voters are not disenfranchised and that political candidates have access to the general election ballot in November.

On Monday, the commission in its role as a county canvassing board voted unanimously against certifying the results of the primary without raising specific concerns about discrepancies, over the objection of the county clerk.

“I have huge concerns with these voting machines,” said Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt on Monday. “When I certify stuff that I don’t know is right, I feel like I’m being dishonest because in my heart I don’t know if it is right.”

Dominion’s systems have been unjustifiably attacked since the 2020 election by people who embraced the false belief that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. The company has filed defamation lawsuits in response to incorrect and outrageous claims made by high-profile Trump allies.

New Mexico’s Dominion machines have been disparaged repeatedly by David and Erin Clements of Las Cruces in their review of the 2020 election in Otero County and voter registration rolls at the request of the commission. The Clements are traveling advocates for “forensic” reviews of the 2020 election and offer their services as election experts and auditors to local governments. Election officials including County Clerk Robyn Holmes say the Clements are not certified auditors nor experts in election protocols.

The couple has highlighted problems during sporadic, hourslong presentations to the commission this year. Local election officials dispute many of the findings as mistaken or unfounded.

Members of the Otero County commission include Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who ascribes to unsubstantiated claims that Trump won the 2020 election. Griffin was convicted of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds — though not the building — amid the riots on Jan. 6, 2021, and is scheduled for sentencing later this month. He acknowledged that the standoff over this primary could delay the outcome of local election races.

County canvassing boards have until June 17 to certify election results, prior to state certification and preparation of general election ballots.

Under state law, county canvass boards can call on a voting precinct board to address specific discrepancies, but no discrepancies were identified on Monday by the Otero commission.

“The post-election canvassing process is a key component of how we maintain our high levels of election integrity in New Mexico and the Otero County Commission is flaunting that process by appeasing unfounded conspiracy theories and potentially nullifying the votes of every Otero County voter who participated in the primary,” Toulouse Oliver said in a statement. She accused the commission of willful violations of the state election code.

New Mexico uses paper ballots that can be double-checked later in all elections, and also relies on tabulation machines to rapidly tally votes while minimizing human error. Election results also are audited by random samplings to verify levels of accuracy in the vote count.

The Otero County commission voted last week to recount ballots from the statewide primary election by hand, remove state-mandated ballot drop boxes that facilitate absentee voting and discontinue the use of Dominion vote tabulation machines in the general election.

On Monday, Holmes said those instructions from the county commissions conflict with state and federal election law, and that she would only recount the election by hand under a court order.

“The election law does not allow me to hand tally these ballots or to even form a board to do it. I just can’t,” said Holmes, a Republican. “And I’m going to follow the law.”

Holmes noted that the state-owned vote tabulation machines from Dominion are tested by Otero County officials in public view and that the machines also are independently certified in advance. Griffin said he and fellow commissioners don’t see the process as trustworthy.

“That’s a source that we don’t have any control or influence over,” he said.

Mario Jimenez of the progressive watchdog group Common Cause New Mexico said the public can view testing of vote-tallying machines prior to elections in every county, and that certification notices are posted on every machine where voters can see them.

“They have no basis — other than ‘we just don’t trust the machine’ — for not certifying the election,” Jimenez said of the Otero County commissioners.

 

Understand that Republicans will be refusing to certify, or blocking certification, in multiple states in November, and every one of these refusals to certify will be of large, urban counties. Otero County, New Mexico doesn't seem like much, but if Republicans are able to block certification here, other Republicans may do the same in the months ahead.

There's no reasonable basis to refuse to certify, but that's not going to matter in November.  Tossing out millions of Democratic ballots will. Only by voting in numbers so huge that they can't get away with it is the cure.

Last Call For The Orange Coup-Coup Birds

Depositions from Trump's former cabinet staffers are pointing the fingers at Trump White House Deputy AG Jeffrey Clark, who had a plan for a coup in hand three days before he January 6th insurrection.

Three days before Congress was slated to certify the 2020 presidential election, a little-known Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark rushed to meet President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss a last-ditch attempt to reverse the results.

Clark, an environmental lawyer by trade, had outlined a plan in a letter he wanted to send to the leaders of key states Joe Biden won. It said that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” for Congress to approve.

In fact, Clark’s bosses had warned there was not evidence to overturn the election and had rejected his letter days earlier. Now they learned Clark was about to meet with Trump. Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen tracked down his deputy, Richard Donoghue, who had been walking on the Mall in muddy jeans and an Army T-shirt. There was no time to change. They raced to the Oval Office.

As Rosen and Donoghue listened, Clark told Trump that he would send the letter if the president named him attorney general.

“History is calling,” Clark told the president, according to a deposition from Donoghue excerpted in a recent court filing. “This is our opportunity. We can get this done.”

Donoghue urged Trump not to put Clark in charge, calling him “not competent” and warning of “mass resignations” by Justice Department officials if he became the nation’s top law enforcement official, according to Donoghue’s account.

“What happens if, within 48 hours, we have hundreds of resignations from your Justice Department because of your actions?” Donoghue said he asked Trump. “What does that say about your leadership?”

Clark’s letter and his Oval Office meeting set off one of the tensest chapters during Trump’s effort to overturn the election, which culminated three days later with rioters storming the U.S. Capitol. His plan could have decapitated the Justice Department leadership and could have overturned the election.

Clark’s actions have been the focus of a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation and an ongoing probe by the Justice Department’s inspector general, and now are expected to be closely examined during June hearings by the House committee investigating the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.

 

Conspiracy to commit fraud and sedition against the United States of America. 

Prosecute it.

Transcending The Hate

More than a dozen GOP states have outlawed transgender women in school and college sports, and a new poll from the NY Times finds that the majority of Americans agree with the legislation.

 

The poll, conducted May 4 through 17 among 1,503 people across the United States, finds 55 percent of Americans opposed to allowing transgender women and girls to compete with other women and girls in high school sports and 58 percent opposed to it for college and professional sports. About 3 in 10 Americans said transgender women and girls should be allowed to compete at each of those levels, while an additional 15 percent have no opinion.

At the youth level, 49 percent are opposed to transgender girls competing with other girls, while 33 percent say they should be allowed to compete and 17 percent have no opinion.

The poll was taken as an increasing portion of Americans, particularly younger ones, identify as transgender and the issue of whether transgender females should compete against cisgender women and girls has become a point of social and political debate.

Last week, Louisiana joined at least 17 other states in banning transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams. Much of that legislation across the country has been passed in the past year, led by Republican lawmakers. The Louisiana ban, which applies to all public and some private elementary and secondary schools and colleges, became law after the state’s Democratic governor declined to sign it or veto it.

The issue has become politicized despite the small share of people who identify as transgender and the limited number of specific situations in which participation has raised concerns.

A Pew Research Center poll released last Tuesday found that 0.6 percent of Americans identify as transgender, but among people age 18 to 29, the share rose to 2 percent. An additional 1 percent of Americans said they are nonbinary — neither a man nor a woman, or not strictly one or the other — a share that rose to 3 percent of people 18 to 29.

A 2021 Gallup telephone poll found 0.7 percent of adults identifying as transgender, while a slightly larger percentage identified as gay (1.5 percent), lesbian (1.0 percent), bisexual (4.0 percent) or another non-heterosexual identity (0.3 percent).

Among athletes, the controversy has centered on transgender females, in particular. Critics say they have an unfair physical advantage against cisgender females because of factors such as generally having a greater muscle mass and larger skeletal frame, bone density and testosterone levels, which can help boost athletic performance.

Critics of the bans say they deny transgender athletes’ right to compete in a space that aligns with their gender, further stigmatizing children who are at greater risk of mental health problems. Critics also say the bans overestimate the extent of trans girls’ and women’s participation in athletics.

The Post-UMD poll finds over two-thirds of Americans, 68 percent, say that transgender girls would have a competitive advantage over other girls if they were allowed to compete with them in youth sports; 30 percent say neither would have an advantage, while 2 percent say other girls would have an advantage.

A slim 52 percent majority say they are “very” or “somewhat” concerned that transgender girls’ mental health will suffer if they are not allowed to compete with other girls in youth sports; 48 percent are “not too” or “not at all” concerned about this.

Despite being mostly opposed to their participation in sports, the Post-UMD poll finds Americans’ general attitudes toward transgender people to be more positive than negative.

The poll also finds that 40 percent of Americans say greater social acceptance of transgender people is “good for society,” while 25 percent say it is “bad for society,” and another 35 percent say it is “neither good nor bad.” The percentage saying transgender acceptance is bad for society is down from 32 percent in a Pew Research Center survey one year ago.

 

Of course, the goal is to establish a baseline that it's okay to classify trans women as second-class citizens. Once you can get away with that, you can then classify trans women as, you know, illegal non-citizens, which is what several states are trying to do, notably Texas and Missouri.

The GOP continues to push issues like this in order to break the Obama coalition permanently, and frankly it's working, only this time it's going to lead to the deaths of trans women across the country.

Trans rights are human rights.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Russian sanctions have pretty much completely failed at this point, because Putin correctly predicted that American energy companies will keep oil at $120 a barrel for months, if not years. Higher oil prices have more than offset losses to sanctions, and if anything, Russia is now in better financial shape than before the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered global condemnation and tough sanctions aimed at denting Moscow’s war chest. Yet Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels, by far its biggest export, soared to records in the first 100 days of its war on Ukraine, driven by a windfall from oil sales amid surging prices, a new analysis shows.

Russia earned what is very likely a record 93 billion euros in revenue from exports of oil, gas and coal in the first 100 days of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to data analyzed by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a research organization based in Helsinki, Finland. About two-thirds of those earnings, the equivalent of about $97 billion, came from oil, and most of the remainder from natural gas.

“The current rate of revenue is unprecedented, because prices are unprecedented, and export volumes are close to their highest levels on record,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who led the center’s research.

Fossil fuel exports have been a key enabler of Russia’s military buildup. In 2021, revenue from oil and gas alone made up 45 percent of Russia’s federal budget, according to the International Energy Agency. The revenue from Russia’s fossil fuel exports exceeds what the country is spending on its war in Ukraine, the research center estimated, a sobering finding as momentum shifts in Russia’s favor as its forces focus on important regional targets amid a weapons shortage among Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukrainian officials again called on countries and firms to halt their trade with Russia completely. “We’re asking the world to do everything possible in order to cut off Putin and his war machine from all possible financing, but it’s taking much too long,” Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, said in an interview from Kyiv.

Ukraine has also been tracking Russia’s exports, and Mr. Ustenko described the research center’s numbers as seeming on the conservative side. Still, the underlying finding was the same, he said: Fossil fuels continue to fund Russia’s war. “You can stop importing Russian caviar and Russian vodka, and that’s good, but definitely not enough. You need to stop importing Russian oil,” he said.

Though Russia’s fossil fuel exports have started to fall somewhat by volume, as more countries and companies shun trading with Moscow, surging prices have more than canceled out the effects of that decline. The research found Russia’s export prices for fossil fuels have been on average around 60 percent higher than last year, even accounting for the fact that Russian oil is fetching about 30 percent below international market prices.

Europe, particularly, has struggled to wean itself from Russian energy, even as many countries send military aid to Ukraine. The European Union made most progress on reducing its imports of natural gas from Russia, buying 23 percent less in the first 100 days of the invasion than the same period the previous year. Still, income at Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas giant, remained about twice as high as the year before, thanks to higher gas prices, the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air found.

The European Union also reduced its imports of Russian crude oil, which declined 18 percent in May. But that dip was made up by India and the United Arab Emirates, leading to no net change in Russia’s oil export volumes, the research showed. India has become a significant importer of Russian crude oil, buying 18 percent of the country’s exports over the 100-day period.

The United States has made a dent in Russia’s earnings, banning all Russian fossil fuel imports. Still, the United States is importing refined oil products from countries like the Netherlands and India that most likely contain Russian crude, a loophole for oil from Russia to make its way to America.

Overall, China was the largest importer of Russian fossil fuels over the 100-day period, edging out Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. China imported the most oil; Japan was the top purchaser of Russian coal.

 

China is buying Russia's oil, and there's no way to stop it.

 

At this point further sanctions would only wreck the already shaky supply chain and hurt American consumers. Sanctions are starting to hurt the US more than Moscow. I appreciate that there are real lives on the line in Ukraine and Europe at risk.

But as I said last week, the current situation is untenable for Biden, and Putin has no reason to change the calculus.

Biden needs to come up with that reason and soon, or we're headed for a serious, back-breaking recession or worse.

Last Call For Hearing Aides For America, Con't

Day two of the January 6th Committee Hearings got underway today, as the panel focused on key members of Trump's inner circle: Rudy Giuliani and Bill Barr.

Barr, who served as U.S. attorney general until late December 2020, emerged as a main character in making the committee’s case that Trump had been repeatedly told there was no evidence for the claims of fraud that he was peddling.

In his interviews with the committee’s investigators, the former head of Trump’s Department of Justice repeatedly slammed those election-fraud conspiracy theories as “bulls---” and “crazy,” among other terms. He testified that he said as much to the then-president’s face.

In one clip, Barr recounted an Oval Office meeting a few weeks after the Nov. 3, 2020, election, in which he had to tell Trump that the DOJ “is not an extension of your legal team” and can’t be used to “take sides in elections” by investigating fraud claims.

“We’ll look at something if it’s specific, credible, and could have affected the outcome of the election, and we’re doing that and it’s just not meritorious, they’re not panning out,” Barr recalled saying to Trump.

The former head of the DOJ also said he told Trump “that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public was bulls---. I mean, that the claims of fraud were bulls---. And he was indignant about that.”

“I reiterated that they’d wasted a whole month on these claims on these Dominion voting machines, and they were idiotic claims,” Barr said.

Barr said he found those claims, that Dominion voting machines were rigged to flip votes to Biden, “disturbing” in that “I saw absolutely zero basis” for them. But “they were obviously influencing a lot of members of the public” even though they were “complete nonsense,” Barr said.

He added: “I told him that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that and it was doing a grave disservice to the country.”

Barr said Trump gave him a copy of a report filled with election fraud claims. Trump said the report showed that he would get a second term, but “to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me,” Barr said.

“I was somewhat demoralized, because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” Barr said.

When Barr would tell Trump how “crazy” some of these claims were, “there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were,” the former attorney general said, laughing.

 

Aww, Orange Guy is funny!

 

Not as funny as Rudy, though.

 

In another clip of witness interviews, ex-Trump campaign aide Jason Miller said that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” on Election Night 2020 when he said at the White House that Trump should simply declare victory.

Miller said that he noticed Giuliani was inebriated when he and other officials, including former campaign manager Bill Stepien and then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, gathered at the White House to listen to what Giuliani wanted to tell Trump to say.

“The mayor was definitely intoxicated, but I did not know his level of intoxication when he spoke with the president, for example,” Miller said as part of an interview with the select committee, clips of which were played in the hearing.

“There were suggestions by, I believe it was Mayor Giuliani, to go and declare victory and say that we’d won it outright,” Miller said. Giuliani was effectively saying, ”‘We won it, they’re stealing it from us, where’d all the votes come from, we need to go say that we won,’ and essentially anyone who didn’t agree with that position was being weak,” Miller told the investigators.

Trump, in the early hours of Nov. 4, 2020, falsely claimed, “frankly, we did win this election.”

A spokesperson for Giuliani, who also sent along a conspiracy theory and typo-ridden statement from the former Trump lawyer, denied Giuliani was drunk on Election Night.

 

Seems to me that Rudy should stick to the drunk defense.

 

We'll see who gets prosecuted.

Powell-ing Through Inflation

The markets believe Fed Chair Jerome Powell will announce a 75-basis point hike in interest rates on Wednesday instead of 50 as the reality of trying to stop runaway corporate greed and price hikes falls on his shoulders.

 

Just one month ago, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said that the central bank was not "actively considering" raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point to fight inflation. But after Friday's consumer price index report showed inflation is rising faster than expected, Wall Street is worried that Powell may have to change his tune. 

Stocks plunged Friday and were down sharply again Monday across the globe. The yield on the benchmark US 10-year Treasury bond rose to 3.27%, the highest level since November 2018. 

Investors are nervous because the Fed could be heading into uncharted territory. A three-quarter point rate increase would certainly show that the Fed is really worried about inflation. 

But a move of that magnitude, although not unprecedented, is exceedingly rare. The last time the Fed hiked rates by 75 basis points was in the Alan Greenspan era: November 1994.  

To be sure, the market still has some doubts that the Fed will be that aggressive at this Wednesday's meeting. According to fed funds futures listed on the CME, traders are pricing in a 60% chance that the central bank will raise rates by only a half point. But expectations for a three-quarters-of-a-point increase have gone up from just 3% a week ago to 40% now. 

Economists at Barclays think the Fed will announce a three-quarter-point hike Wednesday "to reinforce credibility and get ahead of inflationary pressures. The broader game plan will likely be to raise rates as expeditiously as possible." 

Jefferies economists have also now joined the 75 basis point camp, saying in a report over the weekend that "inflation isn't peaking, it isn't even plateauing. It is still accelerating, and it will likely do so again in June." 

The Jefferies economists added that even though "the Fed hates surprising the market ... the sharp increase in inflation expectations" is "an escape clause and gives Powell an out."

 

I would bet on the 75-point hike, and more in the future, and since the real cause of "inflation" is record profiteering by corporations, the rate hikes are going to stop the Biden Boom in its tracks.

 

Things are going to get bad in the months ahead.  

Abrams, Elementary

In Georgia, the race for Governor between Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams is suddenly all about who will for paying teachers more.

Democrat Stacey Abrams proposed raising the minimum salary for Georgia public school teachers to $50,000 a year if she’s elected governor, part of a four-year plan that would hike the pay of K-12 educators by $11,000.

Abrams said Sunday she would finance the estimated $412 million annual cost over each of the next four years by relying upon revenue from Georgia’s budget without increasing taxes or imposing new fees. She framed the $1.65 billion plan as essential to retain teachers and improve the state’s education system.

“When our pipeline is thinning and our exodus is increasing, we are losing the fight for our children’s future,” said Abrams. “We need a governor who does not see education as an election-year gimmick but sees our responsibility as a guarantee for the strongest future for our people.”

The Democrat’s proposal would more than double Gov. Brian Kemp’s pledge in 2018 to hike annual teacher pay by $5,000, a promise he made weeks before the election that became a central part of his appeal to a broader set of voters after a bruising primary.

At the time, Abrams derided the Republican’s proposal as a “gimmick” and said he couldn’t be trusted to carry it out. Kemp signed a record $30.2 billion budget earlier this year that included the final installment of the promised pay hike.

In a scathing response, Kemp’s campaign predicted that Abrams was understating the price tag of her proposal and asserted that she would have to levy new taxes to pay for it.

“Following the lead of her pals in the Biden administration, Stacey Abrams’ latest Hail Mary proposal for over $2 billion in new state spending annually joins an ever-growing pile of pie-in-the-sky plans that would make inflation worse and require higher taxes on Georgia families to pay for it all,” said Kemp spokesman Tate Mitchell.

Abrams rolled out her proposal in tandem with the endorsement from the Georgia Association of Educators, an influential advocacy group that represents roughly 23,000 teachers. Lisa Morgan, the association’s president, assailed a Republican-backed school policy overhaul that Kemp engineered.

“Adjusted for inflation, our educators are making less now than they did in 1999,” Morgan said outside the group’s headquarters, adding: “It’s not just about salaries. It’s about educators being treated as the professionals they are.”

 

So if I'm reading this right, Kemp used COVID relief money that Republicans voted against to raise minimum teacher salaries from $34k to $39k, and he wants a gold medal for it.

I can't imagine why Georgia, like just about every other red state who refuses to pay teachers more money because they don't want public education at all, continues to have a critical teacher shortage.

Please note Kemp's response is not that teachers shouldn't earn more than $39k, it's that somebody has to pay for it.

Here's an idea. Maybe move around some of those billions thrown at policing every year to buy surplus military gear to use against Georgians, particularly Black Georgians.

Again, just an idea.

Last Call For Brazil Nuts, Con't

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is going down the Trump "stolen election"route as he faces a vote later this year, but unlike Trump, it looks like Bolsonaro may actually get his military coup plan should he lose.

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has for months consistently trailed in the polls ahead of the country’s crucial presidential race. And for months, he has consistently questioned its voting systems, warning that if he loses October’s election, it will most likely be thanks to a stolen vote.

Those claims were largely regarded as talk. But now, Mr. Bolsonaro has enlisted a new ally in his fight against the electoral process: the nation’s military.

The leaders of Brazil’s armed forces have suddenly begun raising similar doubts about the integrity of the elections, despite little evidence of past fraud, ratcheting up already high tensions over the stability of Latin America’s largest democracy and rattling a nation that suffered under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.

Military leaders have identified for election officials what they say are a number of vulnerabilities in the voting systems. They were given a spot on a transparency committee that election officials created to ease fears that Mr. Bolsonaro had stirred up about the vote. And Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army captain who filled his cabinet with generals, has suggested that on Election Day, the military should conduct its own parallel count.

Mr. Bolsonaro, who has spoken fondly about the dictatorship, has also sought to make clear that the military answers to him.

Election officials “invited the armed forces to participate in the electoral process,” Mr. Bolsonaro said recently, referring to the transparency committee. “Did they forget that the supreme chief of the armed forces is named Jair Messias Bolsonaro?”

Almir Garnier Santos, the commander of the Brazilian Navy, told reporters last month that he backed Mr. Bolsonaro’s view. “The president of the republic is my boss, he is my commander, he has the right to say whatever he wants,” Mr. Garnier Santos said.

With just over four months until one of the most consequential votes in Latin America in years, a high-stakes clash is forming. On one side, the president, some military leaders and many right-wing voters argue that the election is open to fraud. On the other, politicians, judges, foreign diplomats and journalists are ringing the alarm that Mr. Bolsonaro is setting the stage for an attempted coup.

Mr. Bolsonaro has added to the tension, saying that his concerns about the election’s integrity may lead him to dispute the outcome. “A new class of thieves has emerged who want to steal our freedom,” he said in a speech this month. “If necessary, we will go to war.”

 

Unlike America, Brazil has been under a military dictatorship before for a couple of decades, and seems to be heading right back for another round. 

Republicans are absolutely paying attention here.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

Senate GOP Minority Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan to maneuver Democrats into taking 100% of the blame for the failure of any meaningful gun safety legislation in the wake of multiple mass shootings in the last month is working as intended.

The emerging package is anchored around extra scrutiny for gun buyers under the age of 21, grants to states to enact so-called red flag laws and new spending on mental health treatment and school security. While translating the agreement into legislation will take time, the group of senators is expected to announce that a significant number of lawmakers in both parties are behind their proposal responding to rising gun violence.

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) are the lead negotiators on the proposal, which would need 60 votes to reach the Senate floor once legislative text is completed.

More senators are poised to back the bill to demonstrate its breadth of support — to that end, a broader bipartisan group has held its own regular meetings on guns over the past three weeks since the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Those talks have included Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

The most significant piece of the proposal would subject gun buyers 21 and younger to scrutiny of their criminal records as juveniles. It’s proved tricky to write because each state has different laws governing juvenile records. The package is also expected to close the so-called boyfriend loophole, broadening firearms restrictions on those who have abused their romantic partners.

The emerging framework comes nearly three weeks after 19 children and two teachers died in the Uvalde shooting. The killings in Texas occurred roughly a week after a racist mass shooter killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. March for Our Lives, a gun safety group founded after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., held nationwide demonstrations on Saturday urging Congress to address gun violence.

While Sunday’s announcement is a major breakthrough, translating a framework into an actual bill often proves challenging. During last year’s bipartisan infrastructure negotiations, for example, more than six weeks passed between negotiators’ announcement of a framework and Senate passage of the resulting bill.

While the nascent framework is modest compared to Democrats’ long-running push for expanded background checks, it could result in a high-water mark for GOP support for any level of gun restrictions. And at the moment, it’s the closest the chamber’s been to a broader gun safety deal since 2013, when Manchin and Toomey wrote bipartisan legislation in response to the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Most Republicans and a handful of Democrats blocked the Manchin-Toomey legislation. And while the Senate tried again in 2019 to reach a deal after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, then-President Donald Trump disengaged amid the House impeachment inquiry. The most significant recent new gun law came from Murphy and Cornyn, which strengthened the background check system.

Democrats would have preferred to expand background checks to more prospective gun buyers and ban assault rifles, though those moves lack the necessary support among Republicans. A handful of Republicans are supportive of raising the age to purchase assault rifles to 21, something Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed personal openness to, but neither McConnell nor Cornyn have pushed that as part of the package, and the idea may not get the 60 votes needed to survive a GOP filibuster.

Given those challenging dynamics, Senate Democratic leaders are willing to take a more modest deal than the sweeping restrictions most in President Joe Biden’s party support.

 

Observations, as usual: first, there's nowhere in the article that mentions the ostensible leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer.  The fact that he's not listed as being involved in talks (when he absolutely is) is a HUGE clue that Politico here knows this is all window dressing and that McConnell is running the show.

Again.

Second, there are so many outs here that Mitch can take that you'd think this was a Joe Manchin project. For now, the framework has 60 senators and that means any single one can scuttle the entire deal and blame the other side.

We've been here before, at the "agreed upon framework" stage, and it's all gone to hell.  See: Build Back Better.

Just another day in Gunmerica.