The Vax Of Life, Kentucky Carnage Edition

Kentucky's Supreme Court ruled unanimously today against Gov. Andy Beshear, finding that he has no legal challenge to the laws that the KY legislature passed earlier this year stripping him of nearly all emergency powers, and that Republican lawmakers can now end the state's school mask mandate immediately.

In a momentous legal defeat for Gov. Andy Beshear, the Kentucky Supreme Court in a rare Saturday decision ruled on the Democratic governor’s challenge of Republican-backed laws that limit his authority to enact emergency orders to help control the coronavirus pandemic.

In a 34-page order, the state’s highest court unanimously said Franklin Circuit Court abused its discretion in blocking the new laws from taking effect and sent the case back to the lower court to dissolve the injunction.

The challenged legislation was lawfully passed and the governor’s complaint “does not present a substantial legal question that would necessitate staying the effectiveness of the legislation,” the seven-member court ruled.

The Supreme Court had heard nearly two hours of arguments in the case on June 11, a day before Beshear repealed many of his emergency regulations.

The most prominent he has in place now is his Aug. 10 executive order requiring almost all teachers, staff and students in K-12 schools, child care and pre-kindergarten programs across Kentucky to wear a mask indoors. It applies for 30 days and leaves open the indefinite possibility for renewal. A U.S. district judge’s ruling Thursday temporarily blocked that order. Beshear has asked that it be dissolved.

The state Board of Education on Aug. 12 implemented its own emergency regulations requiring a mask mandate for students for most of this school year, and the Department for Public Health did the same for child care facilities. A legislative panel has since found those regulations deficient, but Beshear overrode that decision. One of the new laws in question would eliminate Beshear’s ability to override such decisions.

Saturday’s Supreme Court ruling came as the Delta variant of COVID-19 is raging across the state.

The state Supreme Court last year unanimously ruled that Beshear’s orders were legal, but that was before the legislature passed laws earlier this year restricting the governor’s powers.

They were Senate Bill 1, which limits Beshear’s ability to issue orders during a state of emergency to 30 days unless extended by the General Assembly; House Bill 1, which allows businesses, schools, nonprofits and churches to stay open if they meet COVID-19 guidelines set by either the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or Kentucky’s executive branch, whichever is least restrictive; and Senate Bill 2, a companion bill to SB 1 to give the legislature more power over administrative regulations issued during an emergency.

So, unless the CDC issues masking guidelines in schools, Kentucky schools will be maskless. Individual school districts have already been stripped of the power to enforce mask rules and now so has Beshear's office. Religious schools have already been exempted from mask mandates, now all schools will be.

I expect that with tens of thousands of kids sick across the state this fall and winter, the state legislature may let Beshear do something. Sadly, I expect the only thing they will do is consider impeachment again.

Thousands of Kentuckians are going to die from a preventable disease in the next several months.

You can thank Kentucky Republicans for that.

Retribution Execution, Con't

All Republicans want to be The Former Guy™ and to get away with as much criminality, grifting, and proto-fascist overlording as possible, especially in states they are trying to steal from the Democrats, states like Minnesota.

 

Minnesota Republican leaders forced Jennifer Carnahan out as head of the state party on Thursday, turning a page on a scandal that threatened to consume GOP politics ahead of a pivotal election year.

Carnahan leaves as chair of the party amid allegations that she created a toxic workplace environment, one that blurred personal and professional lines, ignored concerns about sexual harassment and retaliated against employees who didn't fall in line.

The party's 15-member executive board voted 8-7 to give Carnahan a severance of three months salary, roughly $38,000, to leave her role. Carnahan, who attended the meeting virtually, was the deciding vote to give herself severance on the way out. The board also approved investigations into the party's finances and human resources protocols.

"It hs been the honor of a lifetime to serve as chairwoman for the Republican Party of Minnesota," Carnahan said in a statement after the vote. "However, I signed up for this party to help us elect Republicans and I want to ensure that we can continue to do that."

The drumbeat for Carnahan to step down began a week ago over her close relationship with GOP donor Anton "Tony" Lazzaro, who was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges. But allegations against her quickly expanded, prompting nearly 20 legislators and three Republican gubernatorial candidates to call for investigations and her immediate resignation.

Carnahan initially resisted the calls to resign, saying the allegations were part of a "coup" by her detractors. On Thursday, she continued to push back on the claims, saying she had no knowledge of sexual harassment accusations and a "mob mentality came out in this way to defame, tarnish and attempt to ruin my personal and professional reputation."

The stream of allegations against Carnahan intensified by Wednesday, after multiple women detailed in social media posts experiences where they said they were sexually harassed or spoken to inappropriately by staff in the party.

The same day, four former executive directors of the party released a statement saying Carnahan "ruled by grudges, retaliation, and intimidation" in the party, aiding candidates she preferred and lashing out against those who spoke out against her.

Those staffers — Becky Alery, Andy Aplikowski, Christine Snell and Kevin Poindexter — said they were able to speak out after the party's Executive Board voided nondisclosure agreements that Carnahan allegedly used to silence staff.

Carnahan's ouster comes a year ahead of the pivotal 2022 midterm election, in which the governor's office, all 201 legislative seats and Minnesota's eight congressional seats are on the ballot. Republicans are trying to end a 15-year losing streak in statewide races, but campaign finance reports show the party has a major financial disadvantage to the state DFL Party.

It also abruptly halts the rapid rise of Carnahan, a small-business owner who attended her first-ever GOP caucus meeting in 2016 and ran for a Minneapolis state Senate seat that fall. By 2017, she unexpectedly vaulted to the helm of the state party, the first person of color to lead the party's grassroots activists.

 

The rotten, Trump-like behavior is all there: staff intimidation, up to and including non-disclosure agreements, taking public money for their own, and blaming a "coup" when caught. The problem was never Trump, the problem was that the GOP made acting like Trump acceptable. Jennifer Carnahan was part of that result, a monster elevated to state party chair precisely because she was a vicious Trump acolyte in a Trump party.

 

I'll Take Scandals For $2,000, Mike

Jeopardy! executive producer (helpful for naming yourself host, that is) Mike Richards is stepping down as the late Alex Trebek's replacement after people repeatedly brought up the point that Richards has a long history of antisemitism and sexism.

 

Mike Richards is out as “Jeopardy!” host, just nine days after he was tapped to succeed the legendary Alex Trebek as the face of the beloved quiz show.

Richards, who is also executive producer of “Jeopardy!,” saw his hold on the job undone with astonishing speed after unflattering and downright ugly details surfaced about his past conduct and statements he made on an eight-year-old podcast series. He will remain the show’s executive producer and episodes that Richards shot on Thursday in his first and only day as “Jeopardy!” permanent host will run as scheduled to start off the new season on Sept. 13.

On Friday, Sony Pictures TV confirmed that Richards had agreed to step aside as host. In a statement, Richards said the backlash had created “too much of a distraction for our fans and not the right move for the show.”

“Jeopardy!” has no choice but to run the Richards-hosted episodes taped Thursday because of the need for contuinity among contestants, given that the winner of each episode continues to compete on the following episode.

Richards’ hasty exit as host came a day after the Anti-Defamation League called for an investigation after a report surfaced in The Ringer that Richards made disparaging remarks about Jews, women and other groups in episodes of the comedy podcast “The Randumb Show” recorded in 2013 and 2014.

In the podcast, Richards had asked his female assistant and his female co-host whether they had ever taken nude photos, or in his words, “booby pictures.” In another episode, he called his co-host a “booth ho.”

In the end, Sony concluded that Richards’ image was too battered for him to take the helm of one of television’s most prestigious and popular brands. The irony is that the studio moved in his favor because he was seen as a neutral personality rather than an established name that might overshadow the show and its famously rapid fire, answers-in-the-form-of-a-question format.

“We support Mike’s decision to step down as host,” Sony Pictures TV said. “We were surprised this week to learn of Mike’s 2013/2014 podcast and the offensive language he used in the past. We have spoken with him about our concerns and our expectations moving forward.”

But the studio also voiced support for him remaining in his role as executive producer. A new round of guest hosts will be tapped to tape episodes to launch the show’s 38th year in syndication next month. Richards began his first day of taping as permanent host on Aug. 19, which turned out to be his last day in the role.

“Mike has been with us for the last two years and has led the ‘Jeopardy!’ team through the most challenging time the show has ever experienced. It is our hope that as EP he will continue to do so with professionalism and respect,” Sony said.

 

The fact that Richards gets to remain on as executive producer leaves a very sour taste in my mouth, and guest hosts or not, I have little to no interest in watching the show anymore knowing that Richards is still going to be a jackass of a boss with an axe to grind directly on the skull of whomever gets the permanent job.

 

Get rid of Richards, then we'll talk, Sony.

 

 

 

Landlording Over It All

The good news: President Biden's eviction moratorium is keeping families in rental homes and apartments and driving out bad landlords.

The bad news: the bad landlords are being replaced by horrific, corporate monstrosities that are creating rent monopolies across the country and jacking up rent by double-digit percentages per year.

 

Some owners are taking advantage of a red-hot housing market to sell their units to deep-pocketed investors willing to wait out the moratorium or to families who plan to live in them. Buyers are increasingly out-of-town investors or equity funds, whom critics fear will renovate the properties and market them at much higher prices.

“A lot of landlords are disgusted. They are selling at losses. They are getting out period,” Reid said of the dozens of investors he talks with.

Even those sticking with the property business say the moratorium has forced them to change their operations.

Some are leaving apartments vacant for months at a time, either because they lack the money to renovate or fear being stuck with nonpaying tenants. Some aren’t buying any new properties as long as the moratorium is in place; others will only buy in wealthier neighborhoods.

Still others are bolstering their screening process and giving extra scrutiny to someone who was unemployed for long stretches during the pandemic or saddled their previous landlord with months of back rent.

“If somebody stiffed their previous landlord out of 12, 15 or 18 months rent, I don’t want to rent to them,” Reid said.

This could result in fewer places to live for low-income tenants facing eviction when the moratorium lifts.

“It makes it worse for everyone. It’s worse for tenants, in particular, because we are going to lose affordable housing,” said Stacey Johnson-Cosby, who with her husband owns 21 units in the Kansas City, Missouri, area.

“The investors are going to come. They are going buy the property, put money into it, renovate it and rent it at a higher amount.”

Rick Martin anguished over just that before selling two of his five buildings in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Before that the 62-year-old left most of them vacant due to the moratorium, depriving him of thousands of dollars in rent.

“The minute they enacted the moratorium, that trigged my decision to sell the properties,” Martin said. “I did not want someone moving in whom I could never get rid of if they didn’t pay rent. That would make the financial situation worse.”

Martin said he was torn about the decision to sell to investors. One has turned a building into condos. Another has already doubled the rent on a three-family building.

“Honestly it’s a very difficult decision,” he said. “I want the small property owners to flourish and grow. But because of this moratorium, we are having everything cut out from beneath us.”

 

There are many reasons why Republicans are trying to prolong the COVID-19 pandemic nationwide, but one of the biggest is driving out small landlords and sick renters and property owners, so that real estate can be bought for bargain prices by those who have to sell, to have move out, or pass away. 

More corporations aren equity firms are going to move in to your neighborhood, and they are going to cause their own massive real estate bubble, loot the place, then head for the exits before the next crash.

Then 10-15 years down the road they'll do it all over again.

Last Call For The Good Package, Con't

Both Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are "advising" House moderates to do the dirty work of stabbing Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the back on the infrastructure bill, so that the two senators don't have to take the fall for killing The Good Package™.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are privately advising the nine House centrist lawmakers trying to force Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold a quick vote on the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure deal, lawmakers and aides tell Axios.

Why it matters: The two moderates who've stirred the biggest frustrations and held the most sway in their party over the infrastructure negotiations are helping allies in the House to stake out — and defend — their centrist position. They're offering encouragement and advice on how to negotiate with the White House and congressional leadership. 

Their behind-the-scenes support also indicates the degree to which Manchin and Sinema have prioritized getting the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal to final passage and in front of Biden for his signature.

The big picture: The conversations are bolstering House centrists' resolve. Since publicly demanding last Friday that Pelosi first bring the infrastructure bill to the floor before considering a larger package through a $3.5 trillion budget plan, the nine lawmakers have been subject to a combination of private scorn and public pressure. Pelosi referred to their tactics as “amateur hour” in a leadership call earlier this week, Politico reports. 

On Tuesday, the White House released a statement endorsing Pelosi’s approach, expressing “hope that every Democratic member supports this effort to advance these important legislative actions.” Pelosi quoted from that statement in a “Dear Colleague” letter she sent to reiterate her position. 

Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, and Louisa Terrell, the head of legislative affairs, Shuwanza Goff, the House liaison, as well as Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, have been contacting lawmakers, urging them to vote for the rule.
So far, the nine lawmakers are withstanding pressure and remain committed to their strategy.

Between the lines: Both Manchin and Sinema have longstanding relationships with some of the centrist lawmakers including members of the "Problem Solvers" who worked together on COVID-19 relief bills in 2020.

Go deeper: The nonpartisan group "No Labels" is launching a six-figure ad by on national cable to give some air cover to the nine lawmakers."This unbreakable nine is showing America that we can still do amazing things," says the ad's narrator.

 

The poor bastards don't even hear the train coming. 

 

Killing The Good Package™ is the entire point, so that furious House progressives then turn around and murder the bipartisan bill, Democrats take 100% of the blame for turning a deal in hand into a flaming dumpster fire, and Democrats lose 60+ seats in the House next year and Pelosi retires.  There are plenty of forces in Washington that want to make this happen, and not all of them are Republicans.

Nothing good is going to come from this.

Don't Make Me Turn This Airplane Around, Kids

The FAA is getting extremely serious about levying civil fines against nasty, violent airline passengers in 2021, to the tune of a cool million dollars total, more than $10,000 per incident, and Democrats in Congress and airline unions want even harsher penalties.

The Federal Aviation Administration's announcement Thursday of $531,545 in fines against 34 passengers accused of being unruly on board is the single largest announcement of federal fines since the start of a nationwide crackdown earlier this year, bringing this year's total to more than $1 million. 

Of the incidents detailed by federal investigators for the first time, nearly two-thirds involve passengers accused of violating the federal transportation-wide mask mandate, which was just extended by the Transportation Security Administration to remain in place through January 18. 

Federal documents show that nine of the 34 incidents involve a passenger accused of touching or hitting another person on the plane, including crew members. Eight passengers are accused of illegally drinking alcohol they brought on board the plane. Half of the incidents involve flights to or from vacation destinations in Florida. 

With this announcement, the FAA has now proposed fines against nearly 80 passengers after receiving nearly 3,900 reports of incidents. The FAA said on Tuesday that based on the reports, it has opened 682 investigations into possible violations of federal laws. 

House Transportation Chairman Peter DeFazio told CNN this week that he would like to see punishment that's even harsher than fines, with those accused of in-flight violence facing prison time. 

"The first time we take one of these jerks who is assaulting flight attendants or attempting to take an aircraft down -- and they go away for a few years and they get a massive fine-- I think that will send a message," the Oregon Democrat said. 

But the FAA points out it does not have the authority to file criminal charges. Instead, it proposes civil fines that the accused violators may pay or dispute. 

The largest flight attendant union, the Association of Flight Attendants, has also called for more prosecutions. 

"If you interfere with a crew member's duties and put the rest of the plane in jeopardy, or assault the crew member, you're facing $35,000 in fines for each incident and up to 20 years in prison," association President Sara Nelson told CNN. "People need to understand there are severe consequences here."

 

The biggest fine so far has been $45,000, but these incidents happen weekly. I have to agree with Rep. DeFazio and the union: the first time one of these assholes ends up facing a decade in federal prison or so, the number of incidents will drop like a rock.

Make it happen, guys.

The Vax Of Life, Con't

Two for one in today's edition of recent COVID-19 news, first, President Biden announced on Wednesday that nursing homes and other elder care facilities that cannot prove employees are vaccinated will lose Medicare/Medicaid eligibility, along with other policies that will be taking effect at the federal level.

Biden said he is directing the Department of Health and Human Services to draw up new regulations making employee vaccination a condition for nursing homes to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. The decision on nursing home staff represents a significant escalation in Biden's campaign to get Americans vaccinated and the tools he is willing to use, marking the first time he has threatened to withhold federal funds in order to get people vaccinated. 

"Now, if you visit, live or work at a nursing home, you should not be at a high risk of contracting Covid from unvaccinated employees. While I'm mindful that my authority at the federal government is limited, I'm going to continue to look for ways to keep people safe and increase vaccination rates," the President said during a speech at the White House. 

Additionally, the President announced that he is directing Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to use "all of his oversight authorities and legal action, if appropriate, against governors who are trying to block and intimidate local school officials and educators" who want children to wear masks in the classroom. 

The President indicated that American Rescue Plan funds can be used to pay educators who have their paycheck cut by local and state governments if their schools implement mask mandates. 

The new actions announced by the President Wednesday afternoon come the same day the Biden administration said it would roll out a plan to provide booster shots to American adults beginning this fall.

 

Meanwhile in Florida, the state's largest school district, Miami-Dade County, is defying GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis's order against mask mandates and will order schools to enforce them for all students and staff.

The school board in Miami-Dade County voted to approve a face mask mandate that will be in place when the new school year begins next week.

The board voted 7-1 in a meeting Wednesday, creating a similar policy to the one in Broward County designed to protect students and faculty against COVID-19.

The policy allows for a medical exemption but defies Gov. Ron DeSantis’ order against mask mandates. It is DeSantis’ position, and that of the state board of education, that parents should have the choice whether their children wear masks at school.

Lubby Navarro was the only Miami-Dade school board member to vote against the mandate. Board member Christi Fraga was not present.

Public school starts Monday in the largest school district in Florida.

 

This effectively means all of Florida's largest school systems have now called DeSantis's bluff on cutting education funding. We'll see if he follows through.

 

Last Call For Af-Gone-Istan, Con't

President Biden now admits that the "chaos" in Kabul was unavoidable as the US pulled out, and always would have been part of the result.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, and the president's first since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, President Joe Biden stood firm in his defense of the United States' withdrawal, but asserted for the first time that he believes the chaos was unavoidable.

"So you don't think this could have been handled -- this exit could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes?" Stephanopoulos asked Biden.

"No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that, we're gonna go back in hindsight and look -- but the idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened," Biden replied.

"So for you, that was always priced into the decision?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"Yes," Biden replied, but then amended his answer.

"Now exactly what happened, I've not priced in," he said. "But I knew that they're going to have an enormous -- Look, one of the things we didn't know is what the Taliban would do in terms of trying to keep people from getting out. What they would do. What are they doing now? They're cooperating, letting American citizens get out, American personnel get out, embassies get out, et cetera, but they're having -- we're having some more difficulty having those who helped us when we were in there."

Biden's decision to withdraw has led to scenes of pandemonium in Afghanistan, with as many as 11,000 Americans and tens of thousands of endangered Afghans scrambling to evacuate the country. Scenes of civilians swamping planes on the runway at the Kabul airport, desperate for escape, have triggered bipartisan criticism that the Biden administration handled the hasty exit poorly.

Biden grew defensive when Stephanopoulos referred to the scenes of distress.

"We've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed in a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling --"

"That was four days ago, five days ago!" Biden interjected.

"What did you think when you first saw those pictures?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did," Biden said.

The U.S. said late Tuesday it has successfully evacuated 3,200 people from Afghanistan, including all U.S. Embassy personnel, except for a core group of diplomats at the Kabul airport. Officials have said they hope to ramp up to being able to evacuate 9,000 people each day.

But the U.S. government is not currently providing American citizens in Afghanistan with safe transport to the airport, and it remains unclear how many will be able to safely reach the airport, as Taliban checkpoints continue to harden.

So the continued success of the Biden administration's Kabul airlift depends on a lot of factors. Republicans of course want to see the operation fail, because they believe it will help them in the midterms.

Pay very close attention who is publicly hoping for a disaster to capitalize off of.

 

The Vax Of Life, Kentucky Edition

As the court battles over mask mandates and emergency powers continues here in Kentucky, with local Republicans trying to slaughter as many Kentuckians as possible to blame Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, our state's hospitals are now starting to run out of room.

Issuing yet another plea for Kentuckians to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as hospitals fill with unvaccinated patients around the state, Gov. Andy Beshear on Tuesday said the state is nearing a tipping point.

“The Delta variant continues to burn through our population here in Kentucky,” the governor said at the state Capitol, adding that the state is seeing the “most rapid rise in cases that we have seen to date. We’re at an alarming point, and we’re rapidly approaching critical.”

Hospitals across the state continue to fill with largely unvaccinated coronavirus patients. Some, including in western Kentucky, are nearing or have hit capacity, Beshear said, adding that the Bowling Green Medical Center is reporting a full intensive care unit; the coronavirus patient influx at Jennie Stuart Health Center in Hopkinsville has grown by roughly 500% over the last two weeks; and Baptist Health hospitals in Paducah and Madisonville are nearing capacity.

As the virus rages and further burdens the state’s health care systems, Beshear said he’s not considering “any type of shutdown or capacity restrictions,” but reinstituting a statewide mask mandate is “under active consideration.”

The state is on track to exceed its mid-December record of 1,817 people hospitalized with coronavirus later this week. “By the end of the week, we expect to have more Kentuckians in the hospital battling covid than at any point in this pandemic,” Beshear said.

On Monday, 1,528 had been admitted to health care systems across the state — an increase of more than 100 over the weekend. Intensive care units are also nearing record capacity. At most during the winter surge, 460 people filled Kentucky’s ICUs. On Monday, that number was up to 429.

“There’s no sign it’s abating,” Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said, adding that a record 17 children or teenagers under age 18 are currently hospitalized with coronavirus in Kentucky. The incidence rate in younger Kentuckians has exploded by more than 400% over the last month, from 133 on July 16 to 548 on August 16. “What we’re finding across the state is this version of [COVID-19] is hitting people harder, they are getting sicker, and they are younger,” Stack said.

Many hospitals are taking steps they didn’t have to take last year, when vaccines weren’t yet available and the virus hit its peak. Over the weekend at St. Claire Healthcare in Morehead, hospital staff needed to “make room” for a continued influx of coronavirus patients, so they repurposed a post-anesthesia care unit into a COVID-19 ICU surge unit — a step the hospital did not have to take in the winter.

Increasingly in the coming weeks, hospitals will be forced to retrofit spaces and resources to accommodate a projected influx of patients. “The health care capacity is going to get really difficult here in the weeks ahead,” Stack said. “This will cascade and it will get worse.”

 

Kentucky, like Louisiana, is a southern state with a Democratic governor, and like Louisiana, Kentucky's biggest problem is a GOP legislature fighting tooth and nail for the "right" to not wear masks and not get vaccinated, and ending up in the hospital, lungs drowning in fluid.

Beshear is already asking the Biden administration for help, but only 54% of Kentuckians have had even one shot, and that number isn't expected to get much better. In the rural west and Appalachian east, these figures are below 30%, and we're seeing delta crush county after county here.

Beshear needs to issue a mask mandate. Biden needs to issue a vaccine mandate and a mask mandate. People are dying, and the deaths are preventable.

The Good Package, Con't

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling the collective bluffs of both the Squad and the Blue Dogs by cutting short the House's August recess and bringing the $3.5 trillion infrastructure reconciliation bill to the floor next week for a vote.

 

House Democratic leaders told members of their caucus on Tuesday that they plan to press ahead with a vote advancing a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint next week, disregarding warnings from moderate Democrats who said they will oppose that legislation without first voting on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

The House is set to return to Washington in the middle of a scheduled August recess in part to advance the budget, after the Senate passed both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the budget plan earlier this month.

The budget resolution would allow Democrats to craft a subsequent economic package with funding for health care, child care and education provisions and tax increases on wealthy corporations and people, without fear of a Republican filibuster. But in a statement on Sunday, nine moderate Democrats remained adamant that “we simply can’t afford any delays,” saying they first wanted a vote on the bipartisan deal.

But liberal lawmakers have repeatedly emphasized that their support for the $1 trillion bipartisan deal is contingent on passage of the final social policy package, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has publicly said she will wait to take up the bipartisan bill until the far more expansive package clears the Senate. That package is not expected to be finalized until the fall, provided the House approves the budget blueprint.

Should all nine moderates — a group that includes Representatives Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Jared Golden of Maine and Henry Cuellar of Texas — vote against the budget blueprint, it will fail, given that all Republicans are expected to oppose the package. Despite just a three-vote margin, Ms. Pelosi has shown little willingness to change her plans, telling her top deputies privately on Monday that “this is no time for amateur hour,” according to a person familiar with the comments, which were first reported by Politico.

“For the first time America’s children have leverage — I will not surrender that leverage,” she added. “There is no way we can pass those bills unless we do so in the order that we originally planned.”

In a private call on Tuesday, she again insisted that “we must build consensus,” according to a person on the call who disclosed the comments on condition of anonymity. She has instead proposed a procedural move that could allow the House to advance both the budget blueprint and the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Monday with one vote.

“I know that we have some arguments about who goes first, and the fact of the matter is that we will be doing all of the above,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, told Democrats, according to a person on the call, who disclosed the comments on condition of anonymity. “Remember the psychology of consensus.”

 

So Pelosi is going ahead with the blueprint for the Good Package™ andtelling the Blue Dogs to stick it.

 

The problem of course is that they very well could stick it, and stick it right in Pelosi's back.

 

We'll see if there's one last magic gavel bang in her hand.

Last Call For The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

Yet another white male Republican voter gets caught committing full-on intentional voter fraud, and gets a slap on the wrist for it, while Crystal Mason, a Black woman, continues to serve hard prison time for accidentally doing so.

 

In the wake of Donald Trump's defeat last fall, Republicans launched a desperate search for illegally cast ballots to help justify the GOP's conspiracy theories. But as regular readers know, despite all the hysterical rhetoric, only a handful of legitimate allegations have been raised -- and some of the most notable examples involve Republicans casting illegal ballots on behalf of dead relatives.

Take Pennsylvania's Robert Richard Lynn, for example. The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre reported yesterday:

A man from Forty Fort said he used "poor judgement" and regrets using his deceased mother's name on an application for an absentee ballot for the 2020 presidential election. Robert Richard Lynn, 68, of Center Street, pleaded guilty to a third-degree misdemeanor charge of violations relating to absentee or mail-in ballots during a court proceeding before Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Vough on Monday.

The recent pattern is pretty amazing. Revisiting our earlier coverage, we learned in May, for example, about Pennsylvania's Bruce Bartman, who cast an absentee ballot in support of Trump for his mother -- who died in 2008. Bartman pleaded guilty to unlawful voting, conceded he "listened to too much propaganda," and was sentenced to five years' probation.

About a month later, Edward Snodgrass, a local Republican official in Ohio, admitted to forging his dead father's signature on an absentee ballot and then voting again as himself. NBC News noted at the time that Snodgrass struck a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to three days in jail and a $500 fine.

This new example is notable in part because of the amount of effort the Republican voter in Pennsylvania invested in his scheme. This guy used a typewriter to complete an absentee ballot application -- pretending to be his deceased mother, Lynn claimed to be "visiting great grand kids" around the time of the election -- before signing the dead woman's name.

It wasn't long before election officials flagged the ballot, when a database showed that the voter in question died six years ago.

The defendant faced up to two years behind bars. He instead received a sentence of six months' probation.

As we've discussed, there are a handful of ways to look at incidents like these. My first thought is of Crystal Mason, who cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 while on supervised release for a federal conviction. She didn't know she was ineligible to vote, and her ballot was never counted, but Mason -- a Black woman -- was convicted of illegal voting and sentenced to five years in prison.

It's hard not to notice that White men like Robert Richard Lynn, Edward Snodgrass, and Bruce Bartman received vastly more lenient sentences, despite the fact that they knowingly hatched schemes to cast illegal ballots on behalf of dead relatives.

 

But of course, we know why. A Black former felon who served her time and voted because she didn't know that as a felon she had lost the vote (even though she was no longer a felon) was thrown back in prison, while white men who deliberately and fraudulently voted on purpose, with intent?

Slap on the wrist.

Food For Thought, Con't

Lost in all the noise about delta variant, Afghanistan, Haiti and Obama's birthday party, the Biden administration permanently increased SNAP benefits by 25% over pre-pandemic levels, which is a huge, huge boost for getting rid of poverty and food insecurity.

The Biden administration approved on Monday the biggest boost to food assistance benefits in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a reform that could impact as many as 42 million Americans.

Starting in October, SNAP benefits will increase by an average of 25% above pre-pandemic levels. That will be the first time the purchasing power of the aid has changed since the program’s creation in 1975.

“Ensuring low-income families have access to a healthy diet helps prevent disease, supports children in the classroom, reduces health-care costs and more,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. “And the additional money families will spend on groceries helps grow the food economy, creating thousands of new jobs along the way.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the updated benefits formula is based on current food prices, what Americans typically eat, dietary guidance and the nutrients in food items. A study by the government in June found that 88% of SNAP recipients were struggling to achieve a healthy diet.

The average benefit, which was $121 before Covid, will increase by $36 a month under the new policy, according to the USDA.

During the pandemic, all SNAP recipients got a 15% boost to their benefits, but that additional aid expires at the end of September.

Even as the economy improves from the worst of the pandemic, 10% of U.S. households continue to report not having enough food to eat, including 17% of Black families.

 

SNAP/food stamps are basically my age, and they're only now being updated with a better, more accurate formula. After 45 years.

 

But Biden did what had to be done, when Bush and Trump wouldn't, and Clinton and Obama couldn't.

 

 

The Vax Of Life, Con't

As expected with the delta variant of COVID-19 raging across the unvaccinated South and America as a whole crossing the million new cases per week mark again on Monday, the Biden administration today will be advising most vaccinated Americans to receive vaccine booster shots starting as early as next month.

The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions.

Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant that is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of additional shots.

Officials said they expect that recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also require an additional dose. But they are waiting for the results of that firm’s two-dose clinical trial, expected later this month.

The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents, health care workers and emergency workers. They would probably be followed by other older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year, then by the general population. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received.

The decision comes as the Biden administration is struggling to regain control of a pandemic that it had claimed to have tamed little more than a month ago. President Biden had declared the nation reopened for normal life for the July 4 holiday, but the wildfire spread of the Delta variant has thwarted that. Covid-19 patients are again overwhelming hospitals in some states, and federal officials are worried about an increase in the number of children hospitalized just as the school year is set to begin.

For weeks, Biden administration officials have been analyzing the rise in Covid-19 cases, trying to figure out if the Delta variant is better able to evade the vaccines or if the vaccines have waned in strength over time. According to some administration experts, both could be true, a distressing combination that is re-energizing a pandemic that the nation fervently hoped had been curbed.

Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told “Fox News Sunday” that “there is a concern that the vaccine may start to wane.” That, combined with the Delta variant’s ferocity, could dictate boosters, he said.

Federal health officials have been particularly concerned about data from Israel suggesting that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s protection against severe disease has fallen significantly for elderly people who got their second shot in January or February.

Israel can in some ways be viewed as a template for the United States because it vaccinated more of its population faster and has almost exclusively used the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that made up much of the U.S. stock. Unlike the United States, though, Israel has a nationalized health care system that allows it to systematically track patients.

The latest Israeli data, posted on the government’s website on Monday, shows what some experts described as continued erosion of the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine against mild or asymptomatic Covid-19 infections in general and against severe disease among the elderly who were vaccinated early in the year.

 

Extra protection against the delta variant is a good idea, and that means a booster shot early next winter for me. I hope we're in a situation where it's clerical work rather than a necessity, but I fear that another variant this winter could unleash this circus all over again because we have too many clowns in this country who refuse the vaccine.

 

At some point, we're going to have to make a choice: vaccinate people, mask mandates, and a national response, or live with the virus killing half a million of us a year or more.

 

Last Call For Af-Gone-Istan, Con't

 TPM's Josh Marshall sums up the Afghanistan situation perfectly:

The perpetual effort to stand up an Afghan government that could exist on its own did not work. That doesn’t mean the decision to topple the Taliban government in 2001 was a mistake. But that was twenty years ago. We are living in a dramatically different world today. We have been in a perpetual occupation in pursuit of no clear national security interest of the United States. At a certain point you have to realize that and act accordingly. I find convincing this suggestion that Biden refused a more phased or circumstances-based withdrawal precisely because he had seen up close how Barack Obama had been rolled by the Pentagon a decade ago.

In 122 AD the Emperor Hadrian built what history knows as “Hadrian’s Wall,” which bisects Britain. You can still see it today. It marked the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire. On this side Rome; on that side the tribes of Caledonia. Some twenty years later in 142 AD the Emperor Antoninus Pius, frustrated with the marauding and managing the tribes north of wall, constructed a new wall roughly one hundred miles further north into what is now Scotland. This was the Antonine Wall. Rome would garrison and pacify the region between the two walls. Twenty years later in 162 AD, the year after Antonius Pius died, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius abandoned the new territory and withdrew back to Hadrian’s Wall. Not everything works.

The intensity of the current handwringing over the fall of Kabul is an almost perfect measure of the denial about the failure of the current mission. Indeed, they are two sides of the same coin. What was keeping us there this long? THIS! Look at it around you today. The collective unwillingness to endure this reality is what has kept the US in the country for at least a decade. Processing ten years of denial in ten hours is rough.

We’ve been in Afghanistan for either ten or twenty years because no one in authority was ready to endure this moment and not look back. I don’t know if Biden will pay a domestic political price for this denouement. But watching it all unfold I’m even more certain he made the right decision than I was a day ago. Does anyone think we’ll look back a year from now and think, wow, I wish we were still garrisoning Afghanistan? I doubt it.

Someone had to make the decision that Bush, Obama and Trump did not and apparently could not. Biden did.

 

Biden did the right thing.  The swift fall of Kabul only makes the point clear: this was always how it was going to end, because we've been propping up a Potemkin village for a decade now.

Cuomo's #MeToo Moment, Con't

Outgoing NY Dem Gov. Andrew Cuomo is nowhere near out of the woods, even with his resignation the investigation by NY state lawmakers will continue.

New York state lawmakers announced Monday that the investigation into Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) will continue days after initially saying it would end following his resignation.

Carl Heastie (D), the speaker of the New York State Assembly, and Charles Lavine (D), chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that the committee would issue a final report on the investigation into sexual harassment claims against the third-term governor, whether Cuomo used state resources while landing his multimillion-dollar book deal, and if data on nursing home deaths had been misleading.

The governor’s alleged actions — which could lead to civil suits and criminal charges related to the sexual harassment allegations — are also being investigated by at least five district attorneys.

Heastie previously said the Judiciary Committee’s investigation of Cuomo would be moot after the governor leaves office later this month since its purpose was to determine if Cuomo should remain in office.

The governor announced last week that he would resign following a report from the state attorney general, which found that he had sexually harassed 11 women. Cuomo initially bucked calls to resign from friends, allies and even President Biden, but eventually announced that he would step down from office after reports that New York state lawmakers were preparing to start impeachment hearings.

Heastie’s announcement about the end of the investigation was met with a negative response from Democrats and Republicans in the legislature.

“The taxpayers paid for this investigation, and I think the taxpayers deserve to see what the Assembly has found,” tweeted Sean Ryan, a Democratic New York state senator. “Release all the evidence to the public.”

 

This is 100% the right thing to do. Cuomo still faces possible criminal and civil charges, and frankly the guy needs to spend some time behind bars. Good job here, NY Dems.