Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

There's little doubt that Trump is building an army of state and national Republicans to push his Big Lie after the November elections, and that the cost of his endorsement is for Republican loyalty to Trump himself and the Big Lie, not to America or even the party. Trump is therefore doing everything he can to purge the party of the insufficiently toadying, his latest target is an open threat against GOP Alabama Sen. Mo Brooks.

Former President Trump is reportedly considering revoking his endorsement of Rep. Mo Brooks’ (R-AL) for Senate and backing one his primary rivals instead as the incumbent GOP congressman struggles in the polls.

Lackluster polling is one thing — but Trump also said he was not thrilled with Brooks for telling voters it’s time to move on from the 2020 presidential election, a hill Trump will likely die on.

“Mo Brooks is disappointing,” Trump told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday evening. “I’m determining right now, has Mo Brooks — has he changed?”

Trump endorsed Brooks last year to replace retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL). Brooks thus far has failed to demonstrate strong support in recent polls, signaling he could fall to one of his Republican rivals: Katie Britt, Shelby’s former chief of staff, or Mike Durant, a businessman and military veteran.

Regardless, the former president seems to have gone cold on Brooks, telling the Examiner he has a particular bone to pick with the congressman.

Trump reportedly has doubts about his initial endorsement of Brooks, a flip-flop that follows the GOP congressman urging voters at a Trump rally last year to stop feeling “despondent” about 2020 and “look forward” to 2022 and 2024. Trump apparently took offense, as Brooks has remained an ardent pusher of the Big Lie of a “stolen” 2020 election for some time. Trump suggested his support for the congressman may be at risk if Brooks’ position on 2020 has truly changed.

“I’m disappointed that he gave an inarticulate answer, and I’ll have to find out what he means,” Trump said, referring to Brooks’ remarks at his rally in Alabama last year. “If it meant what he sounded like, I would have no problem changing [my endorsement] because when you endorse somebody, you endorse somebody based on principle. If he changed that principle, I would have no problem doing that.”

The mercurial former president did, however, indicate the relationship has not completely soured, saying he still thinks Brooks is a believer.

“I endorsed him because he felt strongly about election fraud. And he still does. But he was inarticulate in the way he said it,” Trump told the Examiner.

Trump added that he is “not particularly happy” with the “very tight race” between Brooks and his two primary rivals.

 

Brooks folded like a lawn chair in a hurricane back in August.

Let me be clear, the 2020 election was fraught with voter fraud & election theft on a massive scale. If only legal votes cast by eligible American citizens were counted, Trump won the election. I support audits of state 2020 election results, & I eagerly await their findings.

— Mo Brooks - Endorsed By President Trump 🇺🇸 (@MoBrooks) August 22, 2021

 

Apparently Brooks is going to have come crawling to his master like the dog he is once again.

Hiking The Rate Range

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter-point today, and expects several more rate hikes in the months ahead as part of combating inflation.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved its first interest rate increase in more than three years, an incremental salvo to address spiraling inflation without torpedoing economic growth.

After keeping its benchmark interest rate anchored near zero since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee said it will raise rates by a quarter percentage point, or 25 basis points.


That will bring the rate now into a range of 0.25%-0.5%. The move will correspond with a hike in the prime rate and immediately send financing costs higher for many forms of consumer borrowing and credit. Fed officials indicated the rate increases will come with slower economic growth this year.

Along with the rate hikes, the committee also penciled in increases at each of the six remaining meetings this year, pointing to a consensus funds rate of 1.9% by year’s end. That is a full percentage point higher than indicated in December. The committee sees three more hikes in 2023 then none the following year.

The rate rise was approved with only one dissent. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard wanted a 50 basis point increase.

The committee last raised rates in December 2018, then had to backtrack the following July and begin cutting.

 

It's the right thing to do, mainly because former Clinton and Obama Treasury Secretary Larry Summers thinks it's a horrible idea that will push us into stagflation.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave a virtual address to Congress this morning, citing Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as to why the US needs to enter the airspace over the country and enforce a no-fly zone.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to Congress for help directly Wednesday, telling US lawmakers "we need you right now" as he invoked tragedies in American history like the attack on Pearl Harbor and the September 11 terrorist attack. 

The historic speech given as a virtual address on comes as the United States is under pressure from Ukraine to supply more military assistance to the embattled country as it fights back against Russia's deadly attack. 

"Friends, Americans, in your great history, you have pages that would allow you to understand Ukrainians, understand us now, when we need you right now," he said through a translator at the start of his speech, though at the end of his remarks he spoke in English. 

"Remember Pearl Harbor, terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was black from the planes attacking you," Zelensky said. "Just remember it, remember, September the 11th, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn US cities into battlefields, when innocent people were attacked from air, just like nobody else expected it and you could not stop it. Our country experiences the same, every day, right now at this moment." 

While there is widespread bipartisan support for aid to Ukraine, many US lawmakers also believe the US should be careful not to be drawn into any kind of direct, armed conflict with Russia. 

Zelensky also cited his call for the US to help enforce a no-fly zone in Ukraine -- to protect civilians -- and provide fighter aircraft that the Ukrainians can use to defend themselves. 

These two controversial options divide lawmakers, with Republicans more hawkish about giving Ukraine jets, but some Democrats -- and the White House -- concerned Russia could consider such a move an escalation and potentially draw America into war. 

Lawmakers of both parties say they are wary of a no-fly zone at this time because they think it could pit the US directly against Russia in the skies over Ukraine. 

President Joe Biden plans to detail US assistance to Ukraine in a speech of his own later in the day Wednesday.

 

President Biden is expected to announce $800 million worth of direct military aid going to Ukraine this week, on top of last week's $13.6 billion humanitarian aid package, but as I've said before, a no-fly zone means a shooting war with Russia, a nuclear power.

That's what Putin has wanted since day one of this invasion.

Last Call For Time, Out, In The Senate

Today the US Senate passed by unanimous consent a measure to make Daylight Savings Time permanent starting next March. If the measure passes the House and President Biden signs it, no more clock changes. The problem is as the Washingtonian's Andrew Beaujon points out, we've tried this before and everyone in the country hated it. 

The sun rose at 8:27 AM on January 7, 1974. Children in the Washington area had left for school in the dark that morning, thanks to a new national experiment during a wrenching energy crisis: most of the US went to year-round daylight saving time beginning on January 6. “It was jet black” outside when her daughter was supposed to leave for school, Florence Bauer of Springfield told the Washington Post. “Some of the children took flashlights with them.”

The change would benefit Americans in the long run, predicted Steve Grossman of the Department of Transportation. Yes, accidents in the morning darkness may become more common, he said, but longer daylight hours could mean eliminating the hazards of evening commutes: “stress, anxiety, and many drivers have had a couple of drinks,” as he told the Post. Outside the capital, others vowed defiance: Robert Yost, the mayor of St. Francis, Kansas said his town’s council “felt it was time to put our foot down and stop this monkey business.”

Now as the idea of permanent daylight saving time has gained some political momentum, it’s probably worth a look back to another period when the US tinkered with time.

Congress had voted on December 14, 1973, to put the US on daylight saving time for two years. President Nixon signed the bill the next day. The US had gone to permanent daylight saving time before, during World War II. Then, too, the measure was enacted to save fuel. Permanent DST wasn’t close to the wackiest idea about time floating around—Paul Mullinax, a geographer who worked at the Pentagon, came up with the idea of putting the continental US on a single time zone. “USA Time” would apply from Bangor to Barstow, eliminate jet lag, and standardize TV schedules. His idea even got traction in Congress, via a bill from US Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii. “The human being is a very adaptive animal,” he said. “There is no reason we have to be a slave to the sun.”

And yet the early-morning darkness quickly proved dangerous for children: A 6-year-old Alexandria girl was struck by a car on her way to Polk Elementary School on January 7; the accident broke her leg. Two Prince George’s County students were hurt in February. In the weeks after the change, eight Florida kids were killed in traffic accidents. Florida’s governor, Reubin Askew, asked for Congress to repeal the measure. “It’s time to recognize that we may well have made a mistake,” US Senator Dick Clark of Iowa said during a speech in Congress on January 28, 1974. In the Washington area, some schools delayed their start times until the sun caught up with the clock.

The factual picture was a bit more complicated. The National Safety Council reported in February that pre-sunrise fatalities had risen to 20 from 18 the year before. In July, Roger Sant, then an assistant administrator-designate for the Federal Energy Administration, wrote a letter to the Post that noted a 1 percent energy saving achieved by going to DST equated to 20,000-30,000 tons of coal not being burned each day. Further, he wrote, accidents had fallen in the afternoons.

By August, though, as the Watergate scandal caused the Nixon administration to crumble, the country was ready to move on from its clock experiments. While 79 percent of Americans approved of the change in December 1973, approval had dropped to 42 percent three months later, the New York Times reported. Seven days after President Nixon resigned, US Senator Bob Dole of Kansas introduced an amendment in August that would end the DST experiment. It passed. A similar bill passed the House. In late September, the full Congress passed a bill that would restore standard time on October 27. President Ford signed it on October 5. Energy savings, a House panel noted, “must be balanced against a majority of the public’s distaste for the observance of Daylight Saving Time.”

 

In other words, Watergate made sure clock changes would continue to happen for nearly the next 50 years.

I expect the measure ill pass the House again and become law, but I'm also betting we're going to have a near permanent fight on our hands to change things back by November 2024 or so.

Watch.

America Goes Viral, Con't

 Republicans in Congress (and more than a few Democrats) have decided that COVID-19 is over despite dire White House warnings.

The White House is preparing to "stop critical COVID response efforts" as additional funding for COVID-19 relief sits stalled in Congress, a person familiar with the plan told ABC News.

Biden and his administration have warned for weeks that there was not enough money left to support critical COVID-19 response efforts, including testing at the current pace, purchasing more COVID-19 treatments and acquiring more booster shots.

But pleas for Congress to allot billions more in its latest funding bill fell short last week, leaving government relief efforts in a "dire" place, the White House said.

While it’s not yet clear which response efforts will get cut back, the White House is expected to lay that out in a letter to congressional leadership later Tuesday, according to the person familiar with the White House’s plans.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki previewed the cuts on Monday, warning reporters that "some programs, if we don't get funding, could abruptly end or need to be pared back."

She also stressed that the U.S. needs to be ready to respond to a potential increase in cases like the upticks currently happening in the U.K. and China due to the BA.2 variant, which is a more transmissible strain of omicron, and said that any reduction in the United States' COVID-19 response could hamper the country's ability to fight back to this variant or future ones.

 

Nobody cares. War! Inflation! March Madness is here!

 

Ahh, but we've now reached the fourth time in two years that we've beaten COVID down, then let it come back again because "COVID is now over!"

A wastewater network that monitors for Covid-19 trends is warning that cases are once again rising in many parts of the U.S., according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by Bloomberg.

More than a third of the CDC’s wastewater sample sites across the U.S. showed rising Covid-19 trends in the period ending March 1 to March 10, though reported cases have stayed near a recent low. The number of sites with rising signals of Covid-19 cases is nearly twice what it was during the Feb. 1 to Feb. 10 period, when the wave of omicron-variant cases was fading rapidly.

It’s not clear how many new infections the signs in the sewage represent and if they will turn into a new wave, or will be just a brief bump on the way down from the last one. In many parts of the country, people are returning back to offices and mask rules have been loosened — factors that can raise transmission. At the same time, warmer weather is allowing people to spend more time outside, and many people have recently been infected, which may offer at least temporary protection against getting sick again – factors which would keep cases down.

“While wastewater levels are generally very low across the board, we are seeing an uptick of sites reporting an increase,” Amy Kirby, the head of the CDC’s wastewater monitoring program, said in an email to Bloomberg. “These bumps may simply reflect minor increases from very low levels to still low levels. Some communities though may be starting to see an increase in Covid-19 infections, as prevention strategies in many states have changed in recent weeks.”

Bloomberg reviewed data for more than 530 sewage monitoring sites, looking at the most recent data reported during the 10-day window from March 1 to March 10. Out of those sites, 59% showed falling Covid-19 trends, 5% were roughly stable, and 36% were increasing. Rises or declines are measured over a 15-day period.

 

In fact the Omicron BA.2 variant is now very much in play in Europe and spreading globally.

Covid cases are rising in Europe, with an increasing number being attributed to the prevalence of a "stealth" subvariant of the omicron strain.

Covid cases have increased dramatically in the U.K. in recent weeks, while Germany continues to mark record high daily infections with more than 250,000 new cases a day. Elsewhere, France, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands are also seeing Covid infections start to rise again, aided and abetted by the relaxation of coronavirus measures and the spread of a new subvariant of omicron, known as BA.2.

Public health officials and scientists are closely monitoring BA.2, which has been described as a "stealth" variant because it has genetic mutations that could make it harder to distinguish from the delta variant using PCR tests, compared with the original omicron variant, BA.1.

The new subvariant would be the latest in a long line to emerge since the pandemic began in China in late 2019. The omicron variant — the most transmissible strain so far — overtook the delta variant, which itself supplanted the alpha variant — and even this was not the original strain of the virus.

Now, Danish scientists believe that the BA.2 subvariant is 1½ times more transmissible than the original omicron strain, and is already overtaking it. The BA.2 variant is now responsible for over half of the new cases in Germany and makes up around 11% of cases in the U.S.  

That number is expected to rise further, as it has in Europe.

 

Going to be a bad spring again. We still have 1,500 or so people dying from COVID a day. We're coming up on one million US COVID deaths.  That's only going to get worse, and possibly much worse as even basic prevention is now history. Omicron BA.2 is most likely going to be another wildfire in the weeks and months ahead.

So of course Republicans are going to block COVID funding and watch America get sick again so they can blame Biden.

You were warned.  We all were.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The January 6th terrorist attack on the US Capitol was really supposed to be the January 6th terrorist attack on multiple DC buildings, according to a document in evidence against indicted Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

A document found by federal prosecutors in the possession of a far-right leader contained a detailed plan to surveil and storm government buildings around the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year, people familiar with the document said on Monday.

The document, titled “1776 Returns,” was cited by prosecutors last week in charging the far-right leader, Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys extremist group, with conspiracy. The indictment of Mr. Tarrio described the document in general terms, but the people familiar with it added substantial new details about the scope and complexity of the plan it set out for directing an effort to occupy six House and Senate office buildings and the Supreme Court last Jan. 6.

The document does not specifically mention an attack on the Capitol building itself. But in targeting high-profile government buildings in the immediate area and in the detailed timeline it set out, the plan closely resembles what actually unfolded when the Capitol was stormed by a pro-Trump mob intent on disrupting congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory.

Many questions remain about the document, including who wrote it and how it made its way to Mr. Tarrio, according to prosecutors, on Dec. 30, 2020, as President Donald J. Trump was engaged in a series of overlapping schemes to keep himself in power. The people familiar with the document said other evidence the government has gathered suggests that it may have been provided to Mr. Tarrio by one of his girlfriends at the time.

Prosecutors have not accused Mr. Tarrio of using the document to guide the actions of the Proud Boys who played a central role in the Capitol attack. Nor do the charges against him offer any evidence that he shared the document with his five co-defendants: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, Charles Donohoe and Dominic Pezzola.

But the document could help explain why prosecutors chose to charge Mr. Tarrio with conspiracy, even though he was not at the Capitol during the attack. And it appears to be the first time that prosecutors have sought to use evidence of a specific written plan to storm and occupy government buildings in their wide-ranging investigation into the attack and what led up to it.

Mr. Tarrio’s lawyer, Nayib Hassan, declined to comment.

Broken into five parts — Infiltrate, Execution, Distract, Occupy and Sit-In — the nine-page document recommends recruiting at least 50 people to enter each of the seven government buildings and advises protesters to appear “unsuspecting” and to “not look tactical,” the people familiar with it said.

After ensuring that crowds at the buildings are “full and ready to go,” the document suggests that “leads and seconds” should enter and open doors for others to go in, “causing trouble” to distract security guards, if necessary.

Should the crowds fail to gain entrance to the buildings quickly, the document suggests pulling fire alarms at nearby stores, hotels and museums to further distract guards or the police, the people said. It then says protesters should occupy the buildings and conduct sit-ins, even recommending slogans for people to chant, like “We the people” and “No Trump, No America.”

The document also makes suggestions for the days leading up to Jan. 6, the people said, advising protesters to “scope out” road closures near the seven target buildings. On the morning of the protest, they added, the document suggests having “scouts” drive around the buildings to look for “roadblocks.”

While much of the document is marked for “internal” use, the people said, it contains a section, known as the “Patriot Plan,” that appears to have been meant for public distribution. This part of the document suggests that crowds begin to gather at the seven buildings at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6, the people familiar with it said. Thirty minutes later, the public part of the plan calls for the crowds to await a “signal from lead” and then to “storm” the buildings.

 

Things could have been far, far worse on that day 14 months ago.  We need to make sure it doesn't happen again, because if a crapload of people don't end up in prison for seditious conspiracy including multiple Republican members of Congress, the next time it'll be successful.

Last Call For The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

President Joe Manchin has all but killed another Fed nominee, and it's back to the drawing board for Biden and company.

 

Sen. Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, said Monday that he opposes one of President Joe Biden's nominees to the Federal Reserve, leaving her candidacy to join the central bank with the slimmest of hopes.

"I have carefully reviewed Sarah Bloom Raskin's qualifications and previous public statements. Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing an all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation's critical energy needs," Manchin said in a statement.

"I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to support her nomination to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board," he added.

Manchin's formal opposition all but dooms Raskin's bid to be the Fed's next vice chair for supervision, one of the most powerful banking regulators in the world. While it's possible Raskin could garner support from a moderate Republican, a Senate split 50-50 means anything but a unified Democratic party makes the odds of success for any presidential nominee perilous at best.

"Sarah Bloom Raskin is one of the most qualified people to have ever been nominated for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors," a White House spokesperson told CNBC. "She has earned widespread support in the face of an unprecedented, baseless campaign led by oil and gas companies that sought to tarnish her distinguished career. We are working to line up the bipartisan support that she deserves, so that she can be confirmed by the Senate for this important position. "

Manchin, who last week said that his own party should advance Biden's four other Fed nominees without Raskin, has for weeks worked to support the U.S. energy industry as the prices of oil and gasoline climb thanks to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Biden has also nominated Jerome Powell to a second term as Fed chair, Lael Brainard as vice chair, and Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson as Fed governors.

 

Manchin is killing Raskin's nomination over her remarks that the US and the world will continue to have unstable economies as oil gets more expensive and climate change continues to wreck the planet. This is "too political" for her to be on the Fed, according to Manchin, and basically ever other Republican will go along with this.

It's possible that Romney or Collins might save this nomination, but not likely. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska certainly won't.

Joe Manchin continues to know when and how to hurt Biden, and he's done so expertly for the last 13 months.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

A week after I told you GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar would get away with being featured speakers at last month's white supremacist domestic terrorism conference put together by known domestic terrorist Nick Fuentes, it seems that Ukraine has given the both of them cover to completely ditch what should be a career-ending scandal. Steve Benen:

For a brief moment, it appeared Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar had pushed their luck. The pair were already recognized as two of Congress’ most radical members, but when they appeared at a white nationalist event nine days ago, it created a challenge for GOP leaders: Was the party prepared to do something?

A week ago this morning, the possibility of action seemed almost plausible. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told CNN and Punchbowl News that it was “appalling and wrong” for Gosar and Greene to attend the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC).

“There’s no place in our party for any of this,” the House GOP leader said. “The party should not be associated any time, any place with somebody who is anti-Semitic.... This is unacceptable.” McCarthy added that he planned to discuss the “appalling“ matter with the right-wing duo.

 

Of course, your readers knew this was laughably wishful thinking.

A week later, there’s reason to believe Republican leaders are prepared to accept that which they saw as unacceptable. Politico reported this morning:

It’s not yet clear when Kevin McCarthy will have his promised conversation with two divisive House conservatives who spoke at a white nationalist event — and whenever he does, the talk likely won’t amount to much.... McCarthy’s office confirmed to POLITICO that he hasn’t yet spoken to the two but still plans to.

As we discussed last week, the party has some options. McCarthy & Co. could, for example, kick Gosar and Greene out of the GOP conference. The party could also announce that it will not support the members’ re-election campaigns — akin to what the party has already done to Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, because of their efforts to help lead the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack. Republicans could also agree to censure the duo.

The minority leader, who vowed in November to reward Greene and Gosar with new committee assignments in the next Congress, could even announce that he’s changed his mind about what he said four months ago, and he will no longer support giving Greene and Gosar committee assignments in the next Congress.

None of this has happened, and by all appearances, it seems unlikely that GOP leaders will do much of anything.

 

With Ukraine, inflation, and a new COVID variant loose in Europe, nobody cares about white supremacist Republicans being white supremacists.

It's been normalized with a big hand from both Trump and Putin.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Axios's Alexi McCammond asks:

A big-time Maryland donor recently raised a lingering question in some corners of the Democratic Party: Can Black candidates run for and win statewide races?

 

The funny thing is that she answered her own question a few paragraphs down:

The questions come despite unprecedented representation by officeholders and candidates, from the vice president to members of Congress and mayors. 

A snapshot: There are 57 Black U.S. House members, the most ever; Black women are mayors of seven of the 100 most-populous cities; three Black candidates were among the primary contestants for the Virginia governor's race last year, and three are currently competing in Maryland Democratic gubernatorial primary.

 

So while Black gubernatorial candidates in Maryland, a pretty narrow subset of total Black candidates mind you, have lost races, it's not a national problem.

 

The question becomes why is Axios making it one?

 

Of course we have an answer to that too, published the same day: 

Top Democratic operatives see expanding defections by Hispanic voters to the GOP, worsening Democrats' outlook for November's midterms.

Why it matters: Democrats had hoped this might be a phenomenon specific to the Trump era. But new polling shows it accelerating, worrying party strategists about the top of the ticket in 2024.

A Wall Street Journal poll last week found that by 9 points, Hispanic voters said they'd back a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat. In November, the parties were tied.

What's happening: Democrats saw evidence of this shift in 2020 in House races in south Florida, Texas and southern New Mexico. 

Key factors, operatives say, include skepticism among Hispanic voters about programs they view as handouts. And many Hispanics are social conservatives, with what L.A. Times columnist Gustavo Arellano has called a "rancho libertarianism streak." The national party also needs to do better with messages that distinguish among Americans whose families hailed from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico or Central America, several Democrats tell me.

Our thought bubble: Latinos, especially Mexican Americans, still lean Democratic. But Democrats have been losing ground among these voters in recent elections because the party hasn't been paying enough attention to them.

 

That's weird, that's the same exact reason why Democrats have "lost" white voters.  Not enough "attention" and Black candidates can't win even though they've won.

It's almost like Axios wants the Dems to lose.

Badly.

Now there's your burning question: why?

And we know why.

Last Call For The Convoy's Long Haul

 The conventional wisdom on "The People's Convoy" is that the event earlier this month was an unmitigated disaster, a rolling tire fire of a failure, and a cosmic joke that shows that the only people the far-right rabid Trumpies can ever really own are themselves.

But the vehicle convoy part was never the actual goal, it was the street fair aura of "come check us out" for Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem™ and on that lone premise, it was one of the most successful recruiting events in the post-Capitol attack era, as UMBC history professor Terry Bouton reports.

It’s hard to take the "People’s Convoy" trucker caravan seriously. Starting as a protest against Covid mask and vaccine restrictions, it launched after most mandates had been lifted. Many of the convoy’s big rigs, pickups and SUVs are covered with QAnon conspiracy references. Convoy organizers promised to shut down Washington D.C. Instead, they parked their trucks at a stock-car racetrack in western Maryland and then did a few gaffe-filled laps around the D.C. Beltway. The convoy has been lampooned in late-night talk show monologues and newspaper op-eds, and parodied in countless memes. The consensus is that it has been a complete failure.

That’s the wrong conclusion. I spent four hours walking around the convoy’s Hagerstown, Maryland, encampment last Saturday. Make no mistake: the "People’s Convoy" has been a great success as a movement-building event for the far-right. And it should be taken seriously, despite its absurdities.

The far-right was well represented at the convoy. Members of white supremacist and anti-government groups that were at the center of the Capitol insurrection have been heavily involved in its planning. Erik Rohde, a national leader of Three Percenters, was a “consultant” to the "People’s Convoy." (In return the "People’s Convoy" official Telegram account urged supporters to donate to a protest march on the Washington state capitol that Rohde was organizing). Three Percenter and Proud Boy Telegram channels have organized support and raised money for the "People’s Convoy." In Wisconsin, convoy organizers called on the Oath Keepers to provide security.

When I visited the Hagerstown encampment, numerous people wore Proud Boys sweatshirts or had Three Percenter patches on their jackets. I was told that other members of both groups were there in street clothes. One guy I spoke to claimed to have entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The Hagerstown encampment soft-pedaled the hate and the convoy’s far-right ties, camouflaging them in a carnival-like atmosphere that drew thousands of people from the surrounding region. Entire families turned out to see the trucks and walk around the giant Speedway parking lot. There was free food and drinks, DJs, a band, quality fireworks, a ceremony with headlights and giant flags. Drivers let kids pull their horns, rev their engines and sign trucks with Sharpies. There was even funnel cake.

The convoy’s entire journey has had a similar festive feel, drawing large crowds across the heartland. People flocked to overpasses to hold signs and wave as the convoys passed. Homeschooling mothers brought their kids as part of civics lessons. Convoy stops were often mobbed with visitors and were inundated with food and drink donations.

Meanwhile, membership in dozens of public and private Convoy Facebook groups and Telegram channels has exploded. Convoy drivers upload reports, sometimes with videos shot as their trucks pass cheering crowds. Supporters post pictures and video taken from overpasses and roadsides along the route. Most people just write messages of support and thanks.

This is how social movements are built. The glue that binds people together is events just like the convoy, where strangers unite through a shared sense of belonging and purpose. They reinforce commitments and forge new bonds as people talk, share contact information, network and recruit. The man I spoke to who claimed to have entered the Capitol became emotional just talking about the convoy’s arrival in Hagerstown, comparing it to a joyous July Fourth parade.

Politicians on the right have also been moved — at least enough to get their pictures taken with the truckers. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita spoke at a large convoy rally. The main convoy organizers met with members of Congress and Sens. Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson. Cruz later went to the Hagerstown Speedway, flanked by national media, and rode in the passenger seat of the lead truck, giving convoy organizers exactly the media win they wanted.

 

And I know the first thing I'll see in the comments is "stop giving these assholes credit by pushing their propaganda, they didn't recruit anyone" to which I reply "You're not the Black guy in Kentucky who removed his Biden magnet from his car the day he won, either."

 

They're not going to be a danger to most folks right off the bat. It's always folks like me who have to deal with the first wave of movements like this, and having seen this coming in 2015 when Matt Bevin won here in KY and it only getting worse from there, I can tell you this feels like 2015 all over again.

 

Liberals weren't the target audience. Never Trump Republicans and independents were, and on that point, it brought some into the extremist fold.

 

That's not a good thing.

 

 

 

Factory Fresh Tuckerganda

FOX News polyp Tucker Carlson isn't just the most watched cable TV fish in America, he's apparently very popular in Russia these days, too, as Mother Jones reporter David Corn informs us, especially with Russia's psy-ops and disinformation mavens.

On March 3, as Russian military forces bombed Ukrainian cities as part of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of his neighbor, the Kremlin sent out talking points to state-friendly media outlets with a request: Use more Tucker Carlson.

“It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” advises the 12-page document written in Russian. It sums up Carlson’s position: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.” The memo includes a quote from Carlson: “And how would the US behave if such a situation developed in neighboring Mexico or Canada?”

The document—titled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)”—was produced, according to its metadata, at a Russian government agency called the Department of Information and Telecommunications Support, which is part of the Russian security apparatus. It was provided to Mother Jones by a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified. The source said memos like this one have been regularly sent by Putin’s administration to media organizations during the war. Independent media outlets in Russia have been forced to shut down since the start of the conflict.

The March 3 document opens with top-line themes the Kremlin wanted Russian media to spread: The Russian invasion is “preventing the possibility of nuclear strikes on its territory”; Ukraine has a history of nationalism (that presumably threatens Russia); the Russian military operation is proceeding as planned; Putin is protecting all Russians; the “losing” Ukrainian army is shelling residential areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia; foreign mercenaries are arriving in Ukraine; Europe “is facing more and more problems” because of its own sanctions; and there will be “danger and possible legal consequences” for those in Russia who protest the war. The document notes that it is “necessary to continue quoting” Putin. It claims that the “hysteria of the West had reached the inexplicable level” of people calling for killing dogs and cats from Russia and asks, “Today they call for the killing of animals from Russia. Tomorrow, will they call for killing people from Russia?”

A section headlined “Victory in Information War” tells Russian journalists to push these specific points: The Ukrainian military is beginning to collapse; the Kyiv government is guilty of “war crimes”; and Moscow is the target of a “massive Western anti-Russian propaganda” operation. It states that Russian media should raise questions about Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s state of mind and suggest he is not truly in charge of Ukraine. And it encourages these outlets to “broadcast messages” highlighting the law recently passed by the Russia Duma that makes it a crime to impede the war effort or disseminate what the government deems “false” information about the war, punishable for up to 15 years in prison. This portion instructs Russian journalists to emphasize that these penalties apply to anyone who promotes news about Ukrainian military victories or Russian attacks on civilian targets.

This is the section of the memo that calls on Russian media to make as much use as possible of Tucker Carlson’s broadcasts. No other Western journalist is referenced in the memo.

 

Now I'm betting this landed in the inbox of Carlson's bosses, and they told him to knock it off, explaining his recent shift from "Putin is great" to "Putin is terrible but so is Ukraine". 

Of course, it also explains him blaming everything on Joe Biden, too.

Sunday Long Read: Racking Up The Points

Jackson Hole, Wyoming is famous as a ski resort town and home of the Fed's yearly symposium where the government's central bankers hang out with the richest people in the country to talk shop, but there are other attractions to the storied town, namely the National Elk Refuge. The sanctuary serves as a gold mine every spring when the elk bulls shed their antlers, and a new type of hunter emerges on to public lands around the sanctuary looking to really rack up in this week's Sunday Long Read from the New Yorker's Abe Streep.

On the National Elk Refuge, only the staff and local Boy Scouts are permitted to collect antlers, which are sold in an annual auction. But though the elk may eat the refuge’s alfalfa, they don’t have much use for arbitrary jurisdictional boundaries, so they frequently wander onto adjacent public lands, which are managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Each year, on the first of May, those lands open to shed hunters. “You get to put your hands on something no one else has ever touched,” a shed hunter from Minnesota told me. “And then you get to take it home!”

The May hunt is feverish, and occasionally dangerous. It used to begin at midnight, but in 2015 a shed hunter on horseback tried to cross a river and was swept away. The man survived, but the horse drowned. The derby’s start has since been amended to 6 a.m.

On April 30, 2021, shed hunters began arriving in southwest Jackson, at the Teton County Fairgrounds, a designated waiting area twenty-five minutes from where the hunt would take place. They drove trucks with window stickers that said “rise and shed” and “shed life”; some hauled horse trailers. Many of them were locals, while others had come from Utah and Idaho, New York and Wisconsin. Nearly all of them were men, a good number of whom were dressed in camouflage—an unnecessary choice, given that antlers don’t run. But many shed hunters are also proud hunters, and the physical demands of the two sports are similar: both can require endurance in rough, mountainous terrain. Amid thick deadfall in the high country, every root and bleached cow femur can resemble an antler. Some shed hunters use trained dogs; others rely on expensive optics. That afternoon, workers from a cheese-processing plant in Utah played with a spotting scope—a device that can detect sheds from hundreds of yards away. Nearby, a coed group from Kansas was huddled around a pickup truck, where a twenty-seven-year-old Pfizer employee was holding court. He told his friends that he had run more than seven hundred miles in the past nine months to prepare for antler season.

As night approached, people drank beer and prepared to sleep in their cars. Early the next morning, police officers began escorting vehicles to the east end of town, where the road turned to dirt. The cars sped off, dust and headlights creating eerie weather. A man led his horse, yelling, “He’s gonna go like a son of a bitch!” Many of the hunters headed for Flat Creek, a stream running through hills. They raced across the water and ascended into tawny meadows. One rider was bucked off his horse and injured himself. A teen-ager from Montana alleged that someone stole an antler he had spotted first. One of the shed hunters from Kansas saw a bull elk running full tilt, its tongue lolling. “I felt bad for him,” she said later. “You could tell that he’d been pushed by all these people.”

Back on the road, more vehicles kept arriving until the parking line was half a mile long. A few riders returned from the hills, their horses hauling dozens of antlers. Near a red pickup truck with Wyoming plates, a young man was standing by the head of a dead bull. The man, who said that his name was McKay, had found the bull’s carcass in the creek and decapitated it with a knife. “I got lucky,” he said. The bull’s antlers were crooked, or nontypical, which potentially made them more valuable than a normal set—they could be worth several thousand dollars. But he couldn’t leave his trophy unguarded, meaning that his day was essentially finished. “It’s over already,” he said, glumly. “It’s too bad.”

There are more than a million wild elk in North America, mostly clustered throughout the western United States and Canada. Bulls that live in forests of cedar and fir, like those in northwest Montana or in the Canadian Rockies, often color their antlers with deeper shades than those in, say, the deserts of southern Nevada. Elk wandering through old burns can rub against char-covered trees until their antlers are nearly black. Roosevelt elk and tule elk, subspecies found in Oregon and California, respectively, have shorter antlers than Rocky Mountain elk. Nontypical antlers can result from genetics or trauma; an injury to a right rear leg can result in a warped left antler, a discovery that has mystified biologists. “They’re like snowflakes,” Kevin Monteith, a wildlife biologist at the University of Wyoming, said of antlers. “Every one is unique.”

It's certainly better than poaching and killing the elk, but it still can be dangerous. Still, this is a pretty wild story, as there's a whole pile of green to be made on May 1.

Big Chuck's Big Week

As I said earlier this week, I give Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer a lot of crap about two things in particular: not getting things passed and looking like an idiot, and not bragging about the things he does get passed. Apparently I'm not the only one, because this week Chuck is on a roll.

Passed by the Senate this week:

Emmett Till Antilynching Act

Postal Service Reform Act

The Budget Agreement

Aid to Ukraine

The Reauthorized Violence Against Women Act

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 11, 2022

Well now. This has been a list of badly needed legislation for over a year now, and Chuck cleans it up in a week.

The problem remains though that without a comprehensive voting rights bill, a bill to protect abortion as health care, and the provisions of Build Back Better, very little of this will matter in the future.

We need more of this, Democrats.

A lot more of this.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

We've definitely reached the "Assad regime chemical weapons" phase of the Ukraine invasion, and it's here that things get ugly within hours if they go wrong.

The United States and its allies have intelligence that Russia may be preparing to use chemical weapons against Ukraine, U.S. and European officials said Friday, as Moscow sought to invigorate its faltering military offensive through increasingly brutal assaults across multiple Ukrainian cities.

Security officials and diplomats said the intelligence, which they declined to detail, pointed to possible preparations by Russia for deploying chemical munitions, and warned the Kremlin may seek to carry out a “false-flag” attack that attempts to pin the blame on Ukrainians, or perhaps Western governments. The officials, like others quoted in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter.

The accusations surfaced as Russia repeated claims that the United States and Ukraine were operating secret biological weapons labs in Eastern Europe — an allegation that the Biden administration dismissed as “total nonsense” and “outright lies.”

Any use of poison gases in Ukraine would violate a decades-old international treaty banning such weapons, and represent a dangerous turn in Russia’s two-week-old military offensive against its neighbor. Russia, which possessed vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons during the Cold War, has used outlawed nerve agents in at least two assassination attempts against political foes of President Vladimir Putin in the past three years, including at least once outside its borders, Western intelligence agencies concluded.

Because the U.S. and European officials declined to describe the nature of the intelligence pointing to a possible Russian chemical attack in Ukraine, it was impossible to determine how significant it might be. U.S. officials have been warning publicly for days that Russia might carry out a false flag operation, after the Kremlin alleged the United States had supported a bioweapons program in Ukraine.

“It’s more than an urgent concern,” one European official said of the prospects for a Russian chemical attack. “Clearly there’s been an increase in the threat.”

A senior NATO official added that Russia “is preparing the ground for a chemical or bioweapons attack.”

 

Now, I'd be remiss in saying that over the last 20 years that the Washington Post (and the NY Times) haven't always been the most reliable sources of intel when it comes to enemies of America using NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons. I can't help but think of the late Colin Powell's UN presentation about Saddam's "mobile chemical labs" in Iraq, which was 100% bullshit and that the world took seriously when it was made up out of whole cloth.

On the other hand, we have seen somebody willing to absolutely use chemical weapons on his own people before, and that's Syria's Bashar al-Assad. After 11 years, he's still very much in charge of the country, and it's because he got help in flattening any resistance from...Vladimir Putin.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin first launched airstrikes inside Syria in fall 2015, the Syrian conflict was in its fifth year. Armed rebels, who opposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on civilians, were gaining ground; ISIS was on the rise; and Assad had acknowledged his army was on the retreat.

Russia had said its military was targeting ISIS and other terrorist groups. But in the days, months and years to come, Russian airpower reportedly exacted a stark toll on Syrian civilians. Putin’s military intervention — including aiding his ally Assad in besieging opposition-held areas of Aleppo and bombing hospitals, ultimately helped Assad regain territory and stay in power.

Now civilians in Ukraine are coming under Russian bombardment, with hospitals reportedly in the line of fire, according to Ukrainian officials. The New York Times has described “indiscriminate slaughter by an invading Russian army that has increasingly targeted heavily populated civilian areas.”

“You look at the bombing of Kyiv today, or Kharkiv, and it echoes the destruction of Aleppo that was carried out by Russian forces under the direction of Vladimir Putin,” The New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser told FRONTLINE in an interview with producer Mike Wiser for the upcoming documentary Putin’s Road to War.

 

The parallels are too big to ignore. Assad too warned that the people he was fighting were going to use chemical weapons, and hey, chemical weapons certainly got used...by Assad. 

In this case, yeah, I actually believe the Post.

But It's For The Children, Con't

And now the court battle over Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's order to track down trans kids and their families like dogs and round their parents up for "child abuse", as a state court has halted the order as unconstitutional.

 

Investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse were temporarily halted across Texas on Friday after a state court ruled that the policy, ordered last month by Gov. Greg Abbott, had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution.

The injunction, issued by Judge Amy Clark Meachum in Travis County, stemmed from a legal challenge by the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl. Her family was among the first to be investigated by the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services under Mr. Abbott’s order, which directed state officials to consider medically accepted treatments for transgender youth — including hormones and puberty-suppressing drugs — as abuse.

In issuing the ruling, which came after a day of testimony, Judge Meachum said the governor’s actions, and those of the agency, “violate separation of powers by impermissibly encroaching into the legislative domain.” She said there was a “substantial likelihood” that plaintiffs would prevail after a trial on the merits because the governor’s order was “unconstitutional.”

The ruling applied to all investigations initiated across Texas under Mr. Abbott’s order, which the court said could no longer be enforced pending a trial on the issue, set for July.


Though it was not clear how many inquiries had already been initiated, several parents of transgender children had come forward in recent weeks to say they had been contacted by officials from the state agency about the treatment their children had received. A spokeswoman for the department did not respond to a request for comment.

Judge Meachum last week temporarily halted the investigation of the family, which was named only as John, Jane and Mary Doe in court papers, but had left the question of the policy’s broader legality open until the hearing.

“The judge understood loud and clear the harms being experienced by families like Jane Doe’s,” said Karen Loewy, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, which represented the plaintiffs along with the American Civil Liberties Union. “She heard also loud and clear that this was an unauthorized action by the governor,” she added, “unilaterally changing the way that child abuse is interpreted.”

The state immediately appealed the decision.

 

So, victory for now, sparing Texas trans children and their parents from the genital police, but don't expect the reprieve to last for long. Abbott and AG Ken Paxton will find the necessary appellate judges to rubber stamp his gestapo, and if the appeals court won't do it, the state supreme court almost certainly will. 

Add another front on the battlefield as Republicans try to criminalize and crucify anyone who isn't like them.