A Whole New Ballgame

Georgia Republicans pass new Jim Crow voting suppression laws, Major League Baseball reacts swiftly in response.

Major League Baseball announced Friday that it is moving the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to a new Georgia law that has civil rights groups concerned about its potential to restrict voting access for people of color.

The 2021 MLB draft, a new addition to All-Star Game festivities this year, will also be relocated.

In a statement, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the league is "finalizing a new host city and details about these events will be announced shortly." A source told ESPN that the 2022 All-Star Game is still planned for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and that that site won't be moved up to fill the void this summer.

"Over the last week, we have engaged in thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others, to listen to their views," Manfred said in his statement. "I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year's All-Star Game and MLB Draft.

"Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. In 2020, MLB became the first professional sports league to join the non-partisan Civic Alliance to help build a future in which everyone participates in shaping the United States. We proudly used our platform to encourage baseball fans and communities throughout our country to perform their civic duty and actively participate in the voting process. Fair access to voting continues to have our game's unwavering support."

The Atlanta Braves said they were "deeply disappointed" by the outcome.

"This was neither our decision, nor our recommendation and we are saddened that fans will not be able to see this event in our city," the team said in a statement. "The Braves organization will continue to stress the importance of equal voting opportunities and we had hoped our city could use this event as a platform to enhance the discussion. Our city has always been known as a uniter in divided times and we will miss the opportunity to address issues that are important to our community.

"Unfortunately, businesses, employees and fans in Georgia are the victims of this decision."

The Players Alliance, consisting of more than 100 current and former players who have united in an effort to empower Black communities, came out in support of MLB's decision with a statement that read in part: "We want to make our voice heard loud and clear in our opposition of the recent Georgia legislation that not only disproportionately disenfranchises the Black community, but also paves the way for other states to pass similarly harmful laws based largely on widespread falsehoods and disinformation."

 

Braves are upset. Gov. Kemp and Republicans are furious and are already talking about punishing the MLB in some way. This does however put Georgia Democratic senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in a bad spot. Ossoff already has come out against this.

We'll see how this plays out.

Meanwhile in Myanmar...

The military junta in control of Burma is now coming for ousted leader and Nobel laureate activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar’s deposed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been charged with breaking a colonial-era official secrets law, her lawyer said on Thursday, the most serious charge against the veteran opponent of military rule.

Myanmar has been rocked by protests since the army overthrew Suu Kyi’s elected government on Feb. 1 citing unsubstantiated claims of fraud in a November election that her party swept.

In a new measure to stifle communication about the turmoil, the junta ordered internet service providers to shut down wireless broadband services until further notice, several telecoms sources said.

Suu Kyi and other members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) have been detained since the coup and the junta had earlier accused her of several minor offences including illegally importing six handheld radios and breaching coronavirus protocols.

Her chief lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, told Reuters by telephone that Suu Kyi, three of her deposed cabinet ministers and a detained Australian economic adviser, Sean Turnell, were charged a week ago in a Yangon court under the official secrets law, adding he learned of the new charge two days ago.

A conviction under the law can carry a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

A spokesman for the junta did not answer telephone calls seeking comment. 

 

I mean it's not like Suu Kyi hasn't spent decades dealing with Burmese military juntas or anything.

 

She knows how this game goes, and so do her lawyers.

 

We'll see where it goes from here, but this is one of those Big Red Lines they always talk about.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

I warned you that attacks on the US Capitol were not over after January 6th. I wish I was wrong, but I'm not.

A Capitol Police officer was killed Friday after a man rammed a car into two officers at a barricade outside the U.S. Capitol and then emerged wielding a knife. It was the second line-of-duty death this year for a department still recovering from the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Video shows the driver of the crashed car emerging with a knife in his hand and starting to run at the pair of officers, Capitol Police Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman told reporters. The driver stabbed one of the officers, Pittman said. Authorities shot the suspect, who died at a hospital.

“I just ask that the public continue to keep U.S. Capitol Police and their families in your prayers,” Pittman said. “This has been an extremely difficult time for U.S. Capitol Police after the events of Jan. 6 and now the events that have occurred here today.”

Pittman did not identify the slain officer or suspect. Authorities said that there wasn’t an ongoing threat and that the attack did not appear to be related to terrorism, though the Capitol was put on lockdown as a precaution. There was also no immediate connection apparent between Friday’s crash and the Jan. 6 riot.

The crash and shooting happened at a security checkpoint near the Capitol as Congress is on recess. It comes as the Washington region remains on edge nearly three months after a mob of armed insurrectionists loyal to former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol as Congress was voting to certify Joe Biden’s presidential win.

 

NBC is reporting that the suspect has died from injuries suffered ramming the vehicle into the police officer, and that his name was Noah Green.

 

BREAKING / NBC News: Multiple senior law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation say Noah Green, 25 year old male, from Indiana is the person who attacked the Capitol today.

Reported by @PeteWilliamsNBC @jonathan4ny and myself.

— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) April 2, 2021

 

As inevitable as the tides, and more attacks will be coming, because we have a nation of dangerous, armed, radicalized cultists.

Last Call For You Interstated In The Wrong Neighborhood

The Biden Administration is serious about making the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ a working concern again after Republicans keep dismantling it, and that means that, you know, recognizing that federal highway projects through Black neighborhoods might be systemic racism.

President Joe Biden's Department of Transportation is invoking the Civil Rights Act to pause a highway project near Houston, a rare move that offers an early test of the administration's willingness to wield federal power to address a long history of government-driven racial inequities.

DOT's intervention follows complaints from local activists that the state's proposed widening of Interstate 45 would displace an overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic community, including schools, places of worship and more than 1,000 homes and businesses.

It also comes as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has identified racial equity as a major priority for his department — after decades in which federal highway money has paid for projects that leveled minority and low-income communities.

"I think this project is the poster child for [the administration's] policies," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat representing the Houston area, who has joined local officials in challenging the project. 

In a March 8 letter to the state, the Federal Highway Administration, citing complaints from local activists and Jackson Lee, requested that the Texas Department of Transportation hold off on its expansion of I-45, including initiating more contract solicitations, until the federal DOT has time to review civil rights and environmental justice concerns.

Federal officials could ultimately allow the project to proceed, but the action to freeze it at all, and in particular DOT's use of civil rights laws to underpin that decision, has buoyed activists on the ground and surprised even seasoned regulators in Washington.

“This is a big deal,” said Fred Wagner, an attorney who served as general counsel at FHWA for three years during the Obama administration. "It just doesn’t happen very often."

 

Try "never". 

 

Post-Trumpism Joe Biden is turning out to be the real deal.

I couldn't be happier.

Meathead Matt's Me Too Moment, Con't

Things actually keep getting worse on a daily basis for Republican sex pest Matt Gaetz, now apparently facing accusations of not only sexual assault on underage women, but using campaign money to pay women and openly bragging of his sexual conquests to other lawmakers by showing them nude photos of his partners. 

 

Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican being investigated by the Justice Department over sex trafficking allegations, made a name for himself when he arrived on Capitol Hill as a conservative firebrand on TV and staunch defender of then-President Donald Trump.

Behind the scenes, Gaetz gained a reputation in Congress over his relationships with women and bragging about his sexual escapades to his colleagues, multiple sources told CNN. 

Gaetz allegedly showed off to other lawmakers photos and videos of nude women he said he had slept with, the sources told CNN, including while on the House floor. The sources, including two people directly shown the material, said Gaetz displayed the images of women on his phone and talked about having sex with them. One of the videos showed a naked woman with a hula hoop, according to one source. 

"It was a point of pride," one of the sources said of Gaetz. 

There's no indication these pictures are connected to the DOJ investigation. 

Gaetz, 38, who was elected to Congress in 2016, has been at the center of a number of controversies in his four-plus years in Congress. But he's now embroiled in easily his biggest scandal yet, after the Justice Department began investigating him in the final months of the Trump administration under then-Attorney General William Barr as part of a larger investigation into another Florida politician. Federal investigators are examining whether Gaetz engaged in a relationship with a woman that began when she was 17 years old and whether his involvement with other young women broke federal sex trafficking and prostitution laws, two people briefed on the matter said. 

Gaetz has denied the allegations, saying "no part of the allegations against me are true," and he claimed Tuesday that he was the victim of an extortion plot, which the FBI is separately investigating.

 

And yes, this is starting to look like Gaetz was openly paying women to have sex with them on top of all of this, using campaign and taxpayer money.

A Justice Department investigation into Representative Matt Gaetz and an indicted Florida politician is focusing on their involvement with multiple women who were recruited online for sex and received cash payments, according to people close to the investigation and text messages and payment receipts reviewed by The New York Times.

Investigators believe Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector in Seminole County, Fla., who was indicted last year on a federal sex trafficking charge and other crimes, initially met the women through websites that connect people who go on dates in exchange for gifts, fine dining, travel and allowances, according to three people with knowledge of the encounters. Mr. Greenberg introduced the women to Mr. Gaetz, who also had sex with them, the people said.

One of the women who had sex with both men also agreed to have sex with an unidentified associate of theirs in Florida Republican politics, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. Mr. Greenberg had initially contacted her online and introduced her to Mr. Gaetz, the person said.

Mr. Gaetz denied ever paying a woman for sex.

The Justice Department inquiry is also examining whether Mr. Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl and whether she received anything of material value, according to four people familiar with the investigation. The sex trafficking count against Mr. Greenberg involved the same girl, according to two people briefed on the investigation.

 

The big giveaway that this is a real and devastating problem for Gaetz is that basically nobody is defending him, not even his fellow Republicans.

The Great Biden Jobs Job

The US economy added nearly a million new jobs in March alone as President Biden and the Democrats are getting America back to work after the Trump Depression.

Job growth boomed in March at the fastest pace since last summer as stronger economic growth and an aggressive vaccination effort contributed to a surge in hospitality and construction jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 916,000 for the month while the unemployment rate fell to 6%.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an increase of 675,000 and an unemployment rate of 6%.

A more encompassing measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons dropped to 10.7% from 11.1% in February.

The labor force continued to grow after losing more than 6 million Americans at one point last year. Another 347,000 workers came back, bringing the labor force participation rate to 61.5%, compared to 63.3% in February 2020.

There are still nearly 5 million fewer Americans employed than a year ago while the labor force is down 2.2 million.

Leisure and hospitality, a sector critical to restoring the jobs market to its former strength, showed the strongest gains for the month with 280,000 new jobs. Bars and restaurants added 176,000 while arts, entertainment and recreation contributed 64,000 to the total.

Even with the continued gains, the sector remains 3.1 million below its pre-pandemic total in February 2020.

With students heading back into schools, education hiring boomed during the month as well. Local, state and private education institutions combined to hire 190,000 more employees for the month.

Construction also saw a healthy gain of 110,000 new jobs, while professional and business services added 66,000 and manufacturing increased by 53,000.

In addition to the powerful gains for March, previous months also were revised considerably higher. The January total increased 67,000 to 233,000, while February’s revisions brought the total up by 89,000 to 468,000.

So yes, with the upward revisions in January and February, we added over a million new jobs this month.

 

One million. And yet we still have millions to go to get us out of the mess Donald Trump, the "CEO of the United States" made. We'll need another five or six months like this just to get back to a year ago, and for a generation of younger workers, a lifetime of economic damage has already been done.

But never tell me again Republicans have any idea what it means to grow an economy.

Last Call For A Supreme Disappointment, Con't

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court delivered a major Kavanaugh-authored opinion finding the FCC has the right to relax media ownership rules, as the determination of what determines media ownership by law rests with the FCC.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the FCC was within its legal authority to relax a series of media ownership rules in 2017, when Republicans still held the majority.

In a unanimous opinion written by Brett Kavanaugh, the justices held that the FCC in 2017 “made a reasonable predictive judgment based on the evidence it had” in changing the rules. Back then, the commission, in a party line vote, lifted a ban on owning a broadcast station and newspaper in the same market. The FCC also made it easier for companies to own two of the top four TV stations in the same market, along with a series of other measures.

The public interest group Prometheus Radio Project challenged the changes, arguing that the FCC had failed to adequately consider the impact that they would have on minority and female ownership of media outlets.

Kavanuagh noted that “the FCC acknowledged the gaps in the data sets it relied on, and noted that, despite its repeated requests for additional data, it had received no countervailing evidence suggesting that changing the three ownership rules was likely to harm minority and female ownership.

“Prometheus also asserts that the FCC ignored two studies submitted by a commenter that purported to show that past relaxations of the ownership rules had led to decreases in minority and female ownership levels. But the record demonstrates that the FCC considered those studies and simply interpreted them differently,” he wrote.

He wrote that the Administrative Procedure Act, which spells out how agencies can set regulations, “imposes no general obligation on agencies to conduct or commission their own empirical or statistical studies.”

“In light of the sparse record on minority and female ownership and the FCC’s findings with respect to competition, localism, and viewpoint diversity, the Court cannot say that the agency’s decision to repeal or modify the ownership rules fell outside the zone of reasonableness for purposes of the APA,” he wrote.

 

The unanimous decision is disappointing, but it's one of those "the law is what the law is" things. The FCC gts to make its own determinations and deliberations on the field where they hold legal sway, because that's what the law says is supposed to happen.

 

We'll see what this means, but what this should mean is "stop electing Republicans to the White House, America".

 

Disinformation Innoculation

The Atlantic's Derek Thompson shreds COVID-19 vaccine disinformation con-man Alex Berenson, who remains FOX News's chief source of anti-vax bullshit "medical expert" when he's really just a former New York Times reporter turned Trumpist jackass.

The pandemic has made fools of many forecasters. Just about all of the predictions whiffed. Anthony Fauci was wrong about masks. California was wrong about the outdoors. New York was wrong about the subways. I was wrong about the necessary cost of pandemic relief. And the Trump White House was wrong about almost everything else.

In this crowded field of wrongness, one voice stands out. The voice of Alex Berenson: the former New York Times reporter, Yale-educated novelist, avid tweeter, online essayist, and all-around pandemic gadfly. Berenson has been serving up COVID-19 hot takes for the past year, blithely predicting that the United States would not reach 500,000 deaths (we’ve surpassed 550,000) and arguing that cloth and surgical masks can’t protect against the coronavirus (yes, they can).

Berenson has a big megaphone. He has more than 200,000 followers on Twitter and millions of viewers for his frequent appearances on Fox News’ most-watched shows. On Laura Ingraham’s show, he downplayed the vaccines, suggesting that Israel’s experience proved they were considerably less effective than initially claimed. On Tucker Carlson Tonight, he predicted that the vaccines would cause an uptick in cases of COVID-related illness and death in the U.S.

The vaccines have inspired his most troubling comments. For the past few weeks on Twitter, Berenson has mischaracterized just about every detail regarding the vaccines to make the dubious case that most people would be better off avoiding them. As his conspiratorial nonsense accelerates toward the pandemic’s finish line, he has proved himself the Secretariat of being wrong:

• He has blamed the vaccines for causing spikes in severe illness, by pointing to data that actually demonstrate their safety and effectiveness.
• He has blamed the vaccines for suppressing our immune systems, by misrepresenting normal immune-system behavior.
• He has suggested that countries such as Israel have suffered from their early vaccine rollout, even though deaths and hospitalizations among vaccinated groups in Israel have plummeted.
• He has implied that for most non-seniors, the side effects of the vaccines are worse than having COVID-19 itself—even though, according to the CDC, the pandemic has killed tens of thousands of people under 50 and the vaccines have not conclusively killed anybody.

Usually, I would refrain from lavishing attention on someone so blatantly incorrect. But with vaccine resistance hovering around 30 percent of the general population, and with 40 percent of Republicans saying they won’t get a shot, debunking vaccine skepticism, particularly in right-wing circles, is a matter of life and death.

Berenson’s TV appearances are more misdirection than outright fiction, and his Twitter feed blends internet-y irony and scientific jargon in a way that may obscure what he’s actually saying. To pin him down, I emailed several questions to him last week. Below, I will lay out, as clearly and fairly as I can, his claims about the vaccines and how dangerously, unflaggingly, and superlatively wrong they are.

Before I go point by point through his wrong positions, let me be exquisitely clear about what is true. The vaccines work. They worked in the clinical trials, and they’re working around the world. The vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson seem to provide stronger and more lasting protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants than natural infection. They are excellent at reducing symptomatic infection. Even better, they are extraordinarily successful at preventing severe illness from COVID-19. Countries that have vaccinated large percentages of their population quickly, such as the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Israel, have all seen sharp and sustained declines in hospitalizations among the elderly. Meanwhile, countries that have lagged in the vaccination effort—including the U.K.’s neighbors France and Italy, and Israel’s neighbor Jordan—have struggled to contain the virus. The authorized vaccines are marvels, and the case against them relies on half-truths, untruths, and obfuscations.

 

Thompson's resulting takedown is a master class in dismantling a scam artist and grifter like Berenson and long overdue.

 

We need more Thompson and less Berenson, for sure.

 

Meathead Matt's Me Too Moment, Con't

The sexual assault scandal surrounding Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz just keeps getting worse, as the federal probe into his misconduct with an underage girl, itself sparked by a case against former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, now involves "at least one minor" and also apparently involves misconduct outside Florida as well.

 

The federal investigation into Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is focused on allegations that the junior congressman had a sexual relationship with at least one minor, and is scrutinizing the Republican's conduct not only in Florida but outside the politician's home state too, three sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News.

The investigation, first reported by the New York Times Tuesday and confirmed by ABC News, has sent shockwaves through Republican circles, particularly among close associates of former President Donald Trump, who considered Gaetz a staunch ally and loyal friend.

"I have not had a relationship with a 17-year-old. That is totally false," Gaetz told Fox News' Tucker Carlson in an interview Tuesday night. "That is false and records will bear that out to be false."

Sources told ABC News the investigation has been going on for months and began during the Trump administration. Former Attorney General Bill Barr was briefed on the investigation's progress several times, the sources said.

One source told ABC News that federal authorities have already interviewed multiple witnesses as part of their probe.

Gaetz has reportedly told confidants he is considering retiring from Congress and possibly joining the right-wing media outlet Newsmax, according to an Axios report earlier Tuesday.

Yet within the last several weeks Gaetz started reaching out to prominent attorneys, according to one source. The source said that one of the attorneys Gaetz asked to represent him was Washington attorney Bill Burck, who represented Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Don McGahn during the Mueller probe. Burck turned down the case, according to a person familiar with the decision.

 

This is a terrible story and Gaetz should immediately resign, frankly.

 

Politically though, I can't stress enough that Bill Barr knew about this for months and didn't say a word. The Trumpies seemed shocked by it all too, indicating Donald Trump wasn't told about it. Since Trump can't keep a damn secret, especially if it gives him leverage over someone, he would have blurted it out on Twitter months ago if he had.

Makes you wonder what other secrets that Bil Barr hid from Trump...and what current Biden AG Merrick Garland now knows...

Last Call For Cuomo's Mary Jane Moment, Con't

Regardless of whether you believe Andrew Cuomo cut the most progressive marijuana legalization deal with NY Dems in order to stave off repercussions of his twin massive sexual harassment and COVID-19 nursing home scandals (and I absolutely do believe that), it is a major victory for criminal justice in the state, and the NYPD is already howling, promising that they maybe just won't stop any other "crimes" either in order to own the libs or something.

New York’s move to legalize marijuana will create a “significant shift” in policing and everyday quality of life, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Wednesday as he voiced concerns over people being allowed to smoke marijuana in public.

“I hope I’m missing something but it appears (the bill) is legalizing the smoking of marijuana outside,” Shea said on PIX11. “That’s not something that most other states did. They legalized marijuana but it was still illegal to smoke outside and in public.”

On Wednesday, Gov. Cuomo signed the legislation legalizing adult use of marijuana.

The bill, passed by both the Democratic-led Senate and Assembly on Tuesday, removes cannabis from the list of controlled substances and will eventually legalize, tax and regulate recreational pot for adults over 21. It also expunges past pot convictions.

A large percentage of tax revenue will be set aside for community reinvestment grants and social equity for minorities who have faced harsh penalties for marijuana possession.

The NYPD fields “10s of 10s of 10s of thousands” of complaints from the public about people smoking marijuana in public, Shea said.

Now it’s not going to be a police matter and that’s troubling,” Shea said. “I don’t know what we’re going to be telling New Yorkers when they call up and say there’s people smoking in front of my house or apartment building or I take my kids to a parade, whether its on Eastern Parkway or on Fifth Ave., and there are people smoking marijuana next to me as I try to enjoy the parade.”

“It’s a significant shift,” Shea added. “You pass new laws and you always worry about what the unintended consequences are. I have no doubt that they think they are doing the right thing but these are some of the things I worry about and New Yorkers are worried about.”

This is prety much "Would sure be a shame if anything happened to your nice city" territory, and Cumo and Mayor Bill de Blasio should tell Commissioner Shea that if he can't get his cops to do the job, he'll be replaced by somebody who goddamn well can. 

And guess what? their job is not to harass weed smokers anymore.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

President Joe Biden heads to Pittsburgh today to sell his $2.2 trillion infrastructure plan paid for with corporate tax hikes, and it has absolutely zero chance of becoming law unless the Senate parliamentarian agrees to the bill being part of a budget reconciliation "revision" or the filibuster is destroyed.

President Biden will unveil an infrastructure plan on Wednesday whose $2 trillion price tag would translate into 20,000 miles of rebuilt roads, repairs to the 10 most economically important bridges in the country, the elimination of lead pipes and service lines from the nation’s water supplies and a long list of other projects intended to create millions of jobs in the short run and strengthen American competitiveness in the long run.

Biden administration officials said the proposal, which they detailed in a 25-page briefing paper and which Mr. Biden will discuss in an afternoon speech in Pittsburgh, would also accelerate the fight against climate change by hastening the shift to new, cleaner energy sources, and would help promote racial equity in the economy.

The spending in the plan would take place over eight years, officials said. Unlike the economic stimulus passed under President Barack Obama in 2009, when Mr. Biden was vice president, officials will not in every case prioritize so-called shovel ready projects that could quickly bolster growth.

But even spread over years, the scale of the proposal underscores how fully Mr. Biden has embraced the opportunity to use federal spending to address longstanding social and economic challenges in a way not seen in half a century. Officials said that, if approved, the spending in the plan would end decades of stagnation in federal investment in research and infrastructure — and would return government investment in those areas, as a share of the economy, to its highest levels since the 1960s.

The proposal is the first half of what will be a two-step release of the president’s ambitious agenda to overhaul the economy and remake American capitalism, which could carry a total cost of as much as $4 trillion over the course of a decade. Mr. Biden’s administration has named it the “American Jobs Plan,” echoing the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that Mr. Biden signed into law this month, the “American Rescue Plan.”

“The American Jobs Plan,” White House officials wrote in the document detailing it, “will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race.”

While spending on roads, bridges and other physical improvements to the nation’s economic foundations has always had bipartisan appeal, Mr. Biden’s plan is sure to draw intense Republican opposition, both for its sheer size and for its reliance on corporate tax increases to pay for it.

Administration officials said the tax increases in the plan — including an increase in the corporate tax rate and a variety of measures to tax multinationals on money they earn and book overseas — would take 15 years to fully offset the cost of the spending programs.

 

This bill will be the true test. It may not even pass the House. AOC is already calling $2 trillion over 8 years "not hardly enough", Blue state Dems in NY and IL want the SALT deduction restored before they'll even consider the bill, and climate advocates are pissed they have to wait until the second bill, which will deal with climate change and education, a bill that has even less chance of passage.

 

We'll see if Dems can get it together. 

Meathead Matt's Me Too Moment

So this story dropped yesterday morning about Florida GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz suddenly wanting to retire.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has privately told confidants he's seriously considering not seeking re-election and possibly leaving Congress early for a job at Newsmax, three sources with direct knowledge of the talks tell Axios.

Why it matters: Gaetz is a provocative figure on the right who's attracted attention by being a fierce defender of former President Trump. The Republican also represents a politically potent district on the Florida panhandle.

What we’re hearing: Gaetz has told some of his allies he’s interested in becoming a media personality, and floated taking a role at Newsmax. One of the sources said Gaetz has had early conversations with the network about what a position could look like.

The backdrop: Many Republicans turned to the network after Fox News called Arizona early for President Biden. Some critics now say Fox is not conservative enough for their tastes, providing an opening for Newsmax and the One America News Network (OANN).

Gaetz has previously toyed with the idea of running for higher office.

I mean the right-wing noise machine does run the GOP's day-to-day operations, but Gaetz has a safe seat and Republicans freely say they're going to take the House back in 2022. Either Gaetz knows something we don't know, or he's looking for the exits fast from the House GOP.

Turns out, it's both of those, as his next job may be "convicted federal sex offender".

Federal authorities are investigating potential sex trafficking violations by U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a probe that emerged from the prosecution of former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, according to a report by the New York Times.

Citing three people briefed on the matter, the Times reported Tuesday that Justice Department investigators are looking into whether Gaetz, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him.

The probe of Gaetz reportedly stemmed from the investigation of Greenberg, who faces a slew of charges including sex trafficking of a child. He is currently slated to stand trial in June.

The Times report noted that many details of the Gaetz probe remain unclear, including how the congressman allegedly met the girl. The encounters allegedly occurred about two years ago and the investigation began in the final months of the Trump administration under then-Attorney General William P. Barr, the report said.

No charges have yet been brought against Gaetz. Neither the congressman nor his office could be reached for comment.

But in an interview with the news website Axios, Gaetz described himself as a generous romantic partner who had “absolutely” not dated underage girls.

Except there's enough smoke there for Bill Barr, the most corrupt AG in American history, to not kill a federal probe into it, and the investigation has been going for several months now. Gaetz hasn't been charged yet. The key word of course is "yet".

As with Andrew Cuomo, if there's enough for a federal investigation already, Gaetz should absolutely retire. 

Last Call For Florida Goes Viral Again, Con't

More evidence unfolding that Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis undercounted COVID-19 deaths by nearly 5,000 as the state now faces a fourth viral surge in new cases.

New research published earlier this month in the American Journal of Public Health argues that Florida is undercounting the number of people who died from COVID-19 by thousands of cases, casting new doubt on claims that Gov. Ron DeSantis navigated the coronavirus pandemic successfully.

Conservatives have celebrated DeSantis for his handling of the pandemic, which has killed more than 30,000 residents of the state. Critics of the combative governor, meanwhile, say that many of those deaths would have been prevented if he had listened more diligently to health experts. DeSantis resisted lockdowns, downplayed masks and has made it increasingly difficult for localities to institute public health measures of their own.

And the state could be on the cusp of a new coronavirus surge.

The impact of the pandemic in Florida “is significantly greater than the official COVID-19 data suggest,” the researchers wrote. They came to that conclusion by comparing the number of estimated deaths for a six-month period in 2020, from March to September, to the actual number of deaths that occurred, a figure known as “excess deaths” because they exceed the estimate.

There were 400,000 excess deaths across the United States in 2020, a spike closely correlated to the coronavirus pandemic.

The lack of testing early in the pandemic may also have undercounted COVID-19 deaths, explains Daniel Weinberger, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health who has also studied the coronavirus and excess deaths.

The issue was further complicated because each state has its own death-counting methodology. “Some states classify a death as due to COVID if a positive molecular test was obtained, while other states allow the death to be classified as due to COVID if there is a suspicion that it was caused by COVID (even without a molecular test),” Weinberger wrote in an email to Yahoo News.

Polymerase chain reaction tests — another name for the molecular tests Weinberger referenced — are the most reliable way to tell if a person, dead or living, has been infected with the coronavirus.

In the case of Florida, the researchers say, 4,924 excess deaths should have been counted as resulting from COVID-19 but for the most part were ruled as having been caused by something else, thus lowering Florida’s coronavirus fatality count. That’s possible because people who die from COVID-19 often have comorbidities, such as diabetes and asthma. That leaves some discretion for medical examiners, who have sometimes struggled with conflicting science and been subject to political pressures during the pandemic.

In Florida, the state’s 25 district medical examiners are directly appointed by the governor. Last spring, the DeSantis administration was accused of trying to keep those medical examiners from releasing complete coronavirus data. (In August, the state said coronavirus deaths no longer required certification from a medical examiner.)

 

In other words, DeSantis, like a dozen other Republicans (and even a few Democrats, looking at you Andrew Cuomo) fudged the COVID-19 numbers to look better.

They can't stop lying about this, because none of these governors can admit the fact that the GOP failed miserable at the local, state, and national level when it came to COVID. If they do, they're done, and they know it.

So they lie, we get articles like these on a regular basis, and it becomes a "both sides disagree" issue, only it's about hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.

It's barbaric.

Blowing Back Beshear

Kentucky Republican state lawmakers, with both a two-thirds supermajority in the state House and a three-fourths chunk of the state Senate, have had no issue this year overriding Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear's vetoes on a raft of bills that strip his office of most of its regulatory and appointment powers not locked in by the state constitution. The latest override: giving the state legislature sole power to name candidates to replace a US senator should they no longer be able to serve.

The Republican-run Kentucky legislature on Monday easily overrode Gov. Andy Beshear's veto of a notable bill that restricts his ability to fill any vacancies that arise if one of the state's U.S. senators dies or leaves office early.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the commonwealth's powerful senior senator, threw his support behind Senate Bill 228. That sparked speculation that the 79-year-old statesman, who just got reelected last fall, might be eyeing the exits.

However, Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, SB 228's lead sponsor, has said the longtime senator plans to stick around and McConnell himself has never given any public indication he doesn't plan to serve out his new six-year term.

Historically, Kentucky's governor has been able to choose anyone — of any political party — to fill in temporarily if a vacancy pops up in the Senate, whether that happens by the senator's choice, expulsion or death.

SB 228 changes that appointment process in key ways. Most notably, it requires the governor to pick a temporary successor who shares the same political party as the departing senator.

It also makes them select that person from a list of three names provided by the executive committee of the departing senator's state party.

SB 228 also includes fresh stipulations about how long the governor's appointment to the Senate can last before voters get to elect someone to take over that seat — which depend largely on when the vacancy happens — as well as new rules about how such elections would work.

Kentucky hasn't had a Democratic senator since January 1999, when former Sen. Wendell Ford retired. And with the state's increasingly conservative electorate, SB 228 is designed to ensure the governor can't appoint a Democrat to what's likely to be a safe seat for Republicans.

When Beshear vetoed SB 228 earlier this month, he claimed the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's 17th Amendment, which aimed "to remove the power to select U.S. senators from political party bosses."

Rep. Patti Minter, D-Bowling Green, likewise cited the 17th Amendment Monday night when she objected to overriding the veto. She also noted how SB 228 is part of a batch of bills GOP lawmakers have passed lately that strip Beshear of power.

"It wouldn't be happening if we had a Republican governor," Minter said of SB 228. "It’s a blatant power grab, and it’s something that strikes right at the heart of what people dislike about the political system."

The issue for me is that the General Assembly in the commonwealth is being run like there's going to be a permanent GOP supermajority for the rest of time. They are laying down the foundation for single-party rule for decades, if not generations.

It's the arrogance that really burns me, a tacit admission that Democrats simply don't matter. In fact, unlike other states, Republicans here aren't threatened at all by expanding voting rights, because they know it will help them win by even larger margins.

The Kentucky General Assembly passed significant legislation Monday night that will make three days of widespread early voting a regular part of the state's future elections and expand people's access to the ballot in other ways while also instituting new security measures.

The state House of Representatives' Republican and Democrat members overwhelmingly voted late Monday night, in a 91-3 decision, to give House Bill 574 final passage and send it to Gov. Andy Beshear's desk.

As long as the governor doesn't veto it, HB 574 will make significant changes to state law, including:

• Establishing three days of in-person early voting on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Election Day;
• Letting people "cure" their absentee ballots if a problem, such as a mismatched signature, would otherwise cause it to be thrown out;
• Making the online portal through which Kentuckians requested — and government officials tracked — absentee ballots in 2020 a standard feature of future elections;
• Letting counties offer vote centers where residents from any precinct can cast their ballot;
• Allowing for secure drop-boxes where people can turn in their absentee ballots;
• Requiring counties to gradually phase out electronic-only voting systems and switch to equipment that can process paper ballots;
• Letting state officials quickly remove someone from the voter rolls if they're notified that person moved to and registered to vote in another state.

Beshear and Secretary of State Michael Adams made notable but temporary changes to Kentucky's elections last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. HB 574 will adopt some of those things, such as no-excuse early voting and the online portal for absentee ballots, for the long term. 

Adams, who advocated heavily for HB 574, recently told The Courier Journal this legislation significantly revises the commonwealth's election system, which dates back to the "horse-and-buggy era."

"My campaign slogan was 'make it easy to vote and hard to cheat,' and this bill does both," he said. "We take a model based in the 1800s and update it to the modern reality of people’s busy lives, and we do it in a way that actually makes the elections more secure than they used to be."

And again, Republicans are happy to pass legislation like this here in Kentucky because they saw that the early voting and absentee ballot changes in 2020 gave Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump even larger margins of victory. 

It's the arrogance.

The Separation Of Church And State

The most recent Gallup poll on Americans and religion finds that for the first time in recent history, church-going Americans are now a minority of American adults.

Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.

U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades, before beginning a steady decline around the turn of the 21st century.

As many Americans celebrate Easter and Passover this week, Gallup updates a 2019 analysis that examined the decline in church membership over the past 20 years.

Gallup asks Americans a battery of questions on their religious attitudes and practices twice each year. The following analysis of declines in church membership relies on three-year aggregates from 1998-2000 (when church membership averaged 69%), 2008-2010 (62%), and 2018-2020 (49%). The aggregates allow for reliable estimates by subgroup, with each three-year period consisting of data from more than 6,000 U.S. adults.

The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference. Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.

As would be expected, Americans without a religious preference are highly unlikely to belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, although a small proportion -- 4% in the 2018-2020 data -- say they do. That figure is down from 10% between 1998 and 2000.

Given the nearly perfect alignment between not having a religious preference and not belonging to a church, the 13-percentage-point increase in no religious affiliation since 1998-2000 appears to account for more than half of the 20-point decline in church membership over the same time.

Most of the rest of the drop can be attributed to a decline in formal church membership among Americans who do have a religious preference. Between 1998 and 2000, an average of 73% of religious Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. Over the past three years, the average has fallen to 60%.

 

People my generation or younger are not churchgoers. That trend has continued to the point that the national average is now under 50%. I don't see it recovering anytime in my lifetime either, now with the way evangelical Christian outfits are being run today with their open antagonism towards LGBTQ+, Hispanic, and increasingly, Black communities. Oh, and let's not forget decades of Catholic church sexual predator scandals involving kids.

It seems these days, that pastors, priests, and bishops, and even a few imams and rabbis, are more interested in telling you who they don't want to be part of their various congregations. And that's fine with me, I haven't attended a religious ceremony in two decades and I have no desire to do so.