Last Call For Time For Some Traffic Problems On The Border

Former GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's infamous "Time for some traffic problems" in Fort Lee email kicked off the Bridgegate scandal in 2014. Now 8 years later, GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is doing the same thing with all truck traffic entering the country through the state from Mexico, in an effort to cause massive problems for Joe Biden and for America.

 

A new Texas policy to have state officials inspect every truck entering from Mexico has prompted a massive protest among drivers, backing up cargo for miles and leaving loads of fruit, vegetables and other material sitting idle for days.

Freight operators are panicking about the ramifications of the delays, as much of the United States’ produce this time of year is imported from Mexico. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) last week said the “enhanced safety inspections” of all commercial vehicles were necessary because he alleged federal officials were not stopping drugs and criminals from entering the United States. Now, trucking officials say, little is entering the country at all.

“This isn’t a regional issue, or that the city of Laredo is not getting their produce at grocery stores,” said John Esparza, president of the Texas Trucking Association. “We are seeing delays that will be felt across the country. There are a half a dozen divisions of trucking [affected]. There’s the refrigerated segment of trucking, there’s household goods, forestry, fuel tankers, commodities for trade goods — this is about General Motors, Ford and everything coming out of Mexico, our trade partner.”

Strawberries, asparagus, avocados, tomatoes and other spring favorites are sitting in lines of refrigerated trucks many miles long as growers and shippers scramble to reroute and grocers hustle to find products from elsewhere to avoid empty shelves.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Abbott’s “unnecessary and redundant” inspections of trucks at ports of entry between Texas and Mexico have disrupted food and automobile supply chains, delayed manufacturing, impacted jobs and further raised prices for American families. She said trucks are facing lengthy delays exceeding 5 hours at some border crossings and commercial traffic has dropped by as much as 60 percent.

“The continuous flow of legitimate trade and travel and Customs and Border Protection’s ability to do its job should not be obstructed,” Psaki said. “Governor Abbott’s actions are impacting people’s jobs and the livelihoods of hardworking American families.”

Abbott last week moved to impose the new border restrictions, alleging that the Biden administration had “open-border policies” that “paved the way for dangerous cartels and deadly drugs to pour into the United States.”

He said Texas “will immediately begin taking unprecedented action to do what no state has done in American history to secure our border,” which means each truck will be inspected by the Texas Department of Public Safety for human trafficking, weapons, drugs and other contraband.

The governor’s plan to have state officials scrutinize each truck means that up to 80 percent of perishable fruits and vegetables have been unable to cross since Friday, said Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas.

This is causing losses of millions of dollars a day for employers and employees who have been idled, he said, with customers unable to load product from their Texas suppliers. It also means transportation shortages are increasing as available trucks are stuck waiting in line to cross the border, all of which will continue to drive up the price of produce at American grocery stores.

“These trucks are already inspected by Customs and Border Protection — scanned and X-rayed and drug-dog sniffed,” Jungmeyer said. “These new inspections are redundant. At numerous ports of entry, Laredo, Pharr, Eagle Pass and others, Mexican drivers are starting to protest.”

Abbott’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The line for trucks to cross at the Pharr bridge has been reported at up to 7 or 8 miles long, said Rod Sbragia, vice chair of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas and director of sales and marketing for Tricar Sales, a grower and shipper of Mexican produce. He said somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 trucks stand nose to tail waiting for entry. Refrigerated trucks, he said, have about six or seven days of fuel to run their refrigeration units. After that, spoilage is certain.

 

Which of course is the point. Abbott and the GOP are gleefully causing supply chain disruptions, empty shelves, and higher food costs for stores and restaurants, not to mention parts shipments for cars and trucks, clothing, and everything else. He's deliberately hurting truckers and shipping companies in an effort to drive them out of business, too.

Greg Abbott is going to try to seriously damage the economy, and then blame Biden for it. Given the flap over gas prices and inflation in general, Abbott's going to get away with it, too.

Republicans hate America so much that they are deliberately hurting millions of people in order to cause political harm to the Democrats, and they don't care how many suffer in their wake.

Besides, the Texas inspections aren't stopping drugs or human trafficking at all.

Case in point. Texas’ safety troopers have removed 646 trucks from service out of 2,685 inspected so far. But not because they found dangerous drugs or humans hidden in compartments or among the goods being hauled from Mexico.

Nope. The taxpayer-funded troopers instead are taking trucks out of service for violations that include “burned-out headlights or taillights, defective brakes or flawed tires,” according to The Wall Street Journal and other media reports.

Abbott, who’s made drug and immigration crackdowns top issues of his reelection campaign, has said that “cartels use vehicles, many of them dangerous commercial trucks, to smuggle immigrants, deadly fentanyl and other illegal cargo into Texas.”

That may be the case. But are Abbott and his people dumb enough to think the cartels would actually continue to use commercial trucks after he made a huge public circus out of his operation?

The governor and his people are, of course, mum now about the fact that their inspections have produced no drugs nor humans being smuggled into the country inside those trucks.

 

If these inspections were actually about completing Abbott's stated goal of "finding human trafficking or illegal drugs" then we'd be hearing it all over the news. Instead, Abbott is doing this all for show, with the added benefit of causing food shortages and inflation hikes on Mexican produce and food imported. Texans will be hurt first.

We'll see how long this keeps up.

Private (Slush Fund) Benjamin

As I said earlier today, there are some Democrats that are corrupt, but not the entire party like the GOP. Unfortunately, the bad Democrats that are absolutely corrupt are real doozies.

Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin of New York resigned on Tuesday, hours after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment implicating him in a brazen scheme to enrich his political campaigns with illegal donations.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who selected Mr. Benjamin to be her lieutenant governor less than a year ago, announced that he was stepping down immediately “while the legal process plays out.”

“It is clear to both of us that he cannot continue to serve as lieutenant governor,” she wrote in a statement Tuesday evening.

The five-count indictment charging Mr. Benjamin said that while he was a state senator, he had conspired to direct $50,000 in state funds to a Harlem real estate developer’s charity. In exchange, the developer gathered thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to Mr. Benjamin’s 2020 Senate campaign and his unsuccessful 2021 bid for New York City comptroller, the indictment said.

Mr. Benjamin, who pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, was also accused of offering to help the developer, Gerald Migdol, obtain a zoning variance if he made a $15,000 donation to a separate fund for State Senate Democrats. The developer was arrested on federal charges in November and pleaded not guilty at the time.

“This is a simple story of corruption,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news conference before Mr. Benjamin’s resignation. “Taxpayer money for campaign contributions. A quid pro quo. This for that. That’s bribery, plain and simple.”

The resignation of Mr. Benjamin could prove to be a serious political liability for Ms. Hochul, who took office last year after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in disgrace. Although she was not implicated in any of the allegations against Mr. Benjamin, the indictment of her handpicked No. 2 threatened to undercut Ms. Hochul’s vow to turn the page on an era of scandal in Albany.

The indictment — the result of an investigation by federal prosecutors, the F.B.I. and New York City’s Department of Investigation — accuses Mr. Benjamin of engaging in a “series of lies and deceptions to cover up the scheme,” including falsifying campaign donation forms, misleading city authorities and giving false information as part of a background check to become lieutenant governor last year.

Mr. Benjamin entered his not guilty plea at a brief appearance in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, and was released on a $250,000 bond under terms that require him to get special permission to travel to Albany. He left the courthouse without comment.

Ms. Hochul can select a new lieutenant governor in the coming weeks, but it will be far more difficult to replace Mr. Benjamin on the Democratic primary ballot in June. Because he was designated as the Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, election rules stipulate that his name can only be removed at this point if he were to move out of the state, die or seek another office.

Mr. Benjamin said last week that he had been cooperating with investigators, after news outlets, including The New York Times, reported details of the investigation. Accompanied by his lawyers, he met with prosecutors last week, according to a person who was briefed on the meeting and not authorized to discuss it, and his top aides were privately reassuring allies that he expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing.

 

So there's a really good chance that Benjamin's bribery scandal leaves him on the ticket, something Republicans are going to have a field day with in November, and it might very well put a racist asshole like Rep.Lee Zeldin in the Governor's Mansion come 2023.

Dems, do better. Please. The country can't afford more Republicans.

The Wrath Of Ravnsborg

By one vote, South Dakota's state House has impeached state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg over his fatal accident that killed a pedestrian in 2020.

The South Dakota House on Tuesday impeached state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg over a 2020 car crash in which he killed a pedestrian but initially said he might have struck a deer or another large animal.

Ravnsborg, a Republican, is the first official to be impeached in South Dakota history. He will at least temporarily be removed from office pending the historic Senate trial, where it takes a two-thirds majority to convict on impeachment charges. The Senate must wait at least 20 days to hold its trial, but has not yet set a date.

Ravnsborg pleaded no contest last year to a pair of traffic misdemeanors in the crash, including making an illegal lane change. He has cast Joseph Boever’s death as a tragic accident.

In narrowly voting to impeach the state’s top prosecutor, the Republican-controlled House charged Ravnsborg with committing crimes that caused someone’s death, making “numerous misrepresentations” to law enforcement officers after the crash and using his office to navigate the criminal investigation. A Senate conviction would mean Ravnsborg would be barred from holding any state office in the future.

“When we’re dealing with the life of one of your citizens, I think that weighed heavily on everyone,” said Republican Rep. Will Mortenson, who introduced the articles of impeachment.

Ravnsborg said in a statement he is looking forward to the Senate trial, “where I believe I will be vindicated.”

Meanwhile, Tim Bormann, the attorney general’s chief of staff, said his staff would “professionally dedicate ourselves” to their work while Ranvsborg is forced to take a leave.

Ravnsborg, who took office in 2019, was returning home from a Republican dinner in September 2020 when he struck and killed Boever, who was walking along a rural highway. A sheriff who responded after Ravnsborg called 911 initially reported it as a collision with an animal. Ravnsborg has said he did not realize he hit a man until he returned the next day and found the body.

The Highway Patrol concluded that Ravnsborg’s car crossed completely onto the highway shoulder before hitting Boever, and criminal investigators said later that they didn’t believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements.

The House rejected the recommendation of a GOP-backed majority report from a special investigative committee, which argued that anything wrong he did was not part of his official duties “in office.” But even Republican lawmakers who argued his actions did not meet constitutional grounds for impeachment said Ravnsborg should resign.

“He should have stepped down, should have done the honorable thing,” said House Speaker Spencer Gosch, who oversaw the House investigation and voted against impeachment.

 

Observations:

 

1. Jason Ravnsborg killed a man.
2. He should be in jail for vehicular manslaughter, because he killed a man. 
3. He should, at the bare minimum, resign from public office.
4. That public office is Attorney General, resignation here is a requirement.
5. He lied to the cops about it. I know prosecutors lie to cops all the time, but he's AG.
6. So yes, he now deserves impeachment, removal, and disbarment from public office.
7. He won't be convicted and removed because Republicans are the party of corruption.
8. Resignation months ago would have saved the state GOP a lot of hassle, apparently.
9. But Ravnsborg is going to make people remove him.
10. Finally, he's not running for reelection in November but he still can in the future.

 

 Republican make laws that don't apply to them, enforced selectively by them, and in every case used to enrich them. Some Democrats do that too, but not the entire party.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Con't

Abortion is now illegal in Oklahoma, and Republicans gleefully plan to make sure it's illegal everywhere.

Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday signed a bill into law that makes performing an abortion illegal in the state, with an exception only in the case of a medical emergency. 

"As governor, I represent all 4 million Oklahomans and they overwhelmingly support protecting life in the state of Oklahoma. We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country. We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma," the governor said. 

Senate Bill 612, which cleared the state Senate last year and the House earlier this month, makes performing an abortion or attempting to perform one a felony punishable by a maximum fine of $100,000 or a maximum of 10 years in state prison, or both. The law does not provide exceptions in cases of rape and incest. 

Under the measure, the woman would not be criminally charged or convicted for the death of her "unborn child." The legislation does not prohibit the use, sale, prescription or administration of contraceptives. 

The governor was joined at the signing by members of the Oklahoma legislature, faith leaders from across the state, as well as representatives from anti-abortion advocacy groups.
"I know this bill will be challenged immediately by liberal activists from the coast, who always seem to want to come in and dictate, and mandate, and challenge our way of life here in the state of Oklahoma. The most important thing is to take a stand and protect the unborn and protect life in the state of Oklahoma," Stitt added. 

Stitt's signature on the legislation made Oklahoma the latest Republican-led state to approve new restrictions on abortion access in recent weeks. Last month, Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law a ban on most abortions in the state after 15 weeks, similar to a Mississippi law that's before the US Supreme Court, and South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has signed legislation that further restricts access to medication abortions in the state.

 

That third paragraph, where the mother won't be charged, and use of contraceptives won't be a crime, is not in this bill, true.

 

Those will be in the next bill, after the SCOTUS ruling that destroys Roe. 

I've been running this series of posts for years, and traveling down this road you can see the outskirts of Gilead in the distance.

We don't have much farther to travel, and much further to fall.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

NYPD are looking for a suspect who used a smoke device to cover their shooting of multiple people at the 36th Street Station in Brooklyn.

Eight people were shot and eight others were injured in a mass shooting in a Brooklyn subway during Tuesday morning rush hour, according to FDNY spokesperson Amanda Farinacci.

A preliminary investigation shows a possible smoke device was detonated, according to a senior law enforcement official. The NYPD said afterward that there are no active explosive devices.

The attack occurred at about 8:30 a.m. when the Fire Department of New York was called to the 36th Street subway station in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood for a report of smoke.

A male suspect possibly wearing a gas mask and orange construction vest fled the scene, police said, citing a preliminary report.

First responders encountered gunshot victims throughout the subway station and others who had been injured in the ensuing chaos, though it's not clear how the others were injured. Authorities haven't released detailed information on how the shooting unfolded yet.

The mass shooting comes amid a rise in shootings in New York over the past two years and a particular rise in violence on the subway that has become a focus of Mayor Eric Adams' administration. There have been 617 crime complaints so far this year on the transit system, a 68% increase from this point last year, NYPD data shows.

The incident is the second mass shooting, defined as at least four people shot, in Brooklyn this year and the fourth in New York State, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The first Brooklyn mass shooting of the year was on January 13 at a Brooklyn event hall.

 

Here's hoping they catch the bastard, but the planning here may signify a terrorist attack of some sort. We'll let the authorities find out for sure. 

Here's what I do know: firearms outnumber people in this country, and more will die every day.

It's A Gas Gas Gas, Con't

As highway robbery by energy companies continue, pushing up prices everywhere, the Biden administration is finally realizing that if they're not seen actively trying to lower the cost of fuel now, voters are going to raise the cost of being a Democrat in November.

President Biden will announce plans for the Environmental Protection Agency to allow a blended form of gasoline that uses ethanol, known as E15, to be sold this summer — a measure long resisted by some energy and environmental groups that could help deliver short-term relief at the pump.

The administration will do this by having the EPA issue an emergency waiver for the summer sale of E15. Typically, E15 cannot be sold in most of the country between June 1 and Sept. 15 because of air pollution rules. The White House has argued that the use of E15 can shave 10 cents off each gallon of gasoline. E15 is currently sold in 30 states at more than 2,300 gas stations, the Energy Department has said, but that is just a fraction of the more than 150,000 gas stations in the United States.

The news will come during a day the president is set to visit the Poet ethanol plant near Des Moines as the administration pushes Congress to approve new energy subsidies aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on foreign fossil fuels.

The flurry of activity around gas prices will come just hours after the federal government is scheduled to release an inflation report that could show prices rising by as much as 8 percent relative to last year, despite the Biden administration’s months-long efforts to bring inflation down. High prices have emerged as a nettlesome political problem for the White House, lowering Biden’s popularity even as the United States sees a boom in job growth and economic output.

 

That CPI inflation report came in at 8.5% inflation, with gasoline up a third from last year. The hope is that this is peak inflation for this cycle, but who knows the answer to that.

Biden's at least taking action.  Republicans will attack him anyway.

Last Call For America Goes Viral Yet Again, Con't

As the COVID Omicron.BA2 variant sweeps across the country, with wishful thinking somehow not stopping the pandemic as we enter year three of widespread infections, cities are suddenly realizing that mask mandates are necessary. For cities still allowed to take action still instead of being made to suffer by Republican governors and state legislatures, a return to indoor mask mandates will be inevitable this spring, and Philadelphia is just the first US city to reinstate them.

With new coronavirus cases low but rising sharply in recent days, the city of Philadelphia announced on Monday that it will reinstate an indoor mask mandate a little more than a month after lifting it, becoming the first major U.S. city to do so.

“This is our chance to get ahead of the pandemic,” said Cheryl Bettigole, the city’s health commissioner, in a news conference. She acknowledged that the average number of daily new cases, currently at 142, is still nowhere near what it was at the beginning of the year, when the Omicron variant was pushing the seven-day average to nearly 4,000.

But she said that if the city failed to require masks now, “knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations, and then a wave of deaths, then it will be too late for many of our residents.” Over the past week, the city reported that the number of residents who had died of Covid-19 passed 5,000.

The mandate will go into effect next week. A spokesman for the city’s health department said it would end when case numbers and rates go beneath a certain threshold.

The decision comes as cases are ticking up across the country, fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant, known as BA.2. While the national increase is so far relatively small — about 3 percent over the last two weeks — the growth in cases in Northeastern cities like New York City and Washington, D.C., has been significantly steeper. Some colleges in the Northeast, including Columbia, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins, have reinstated indoor mask mandates in recent days.

Speaking at a virtual news conference on Monday afternoon, Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said that he would follow the advice of his health team in making any determination on reinstating mask mandates in spite of his positive test result on Sunday, rising virus cases in the city and Philadelphia’s decision.

“I am not special as being the mayor. What happens to me personally should not determine how I make policies,” Mr. Adams said. “It should be what happens to the City of New York.”

“I feel fine, no fever, no running nose, no aches and pains,” the mayor said, adding that with his health history of diabetes, “I would probably have had different outcomes if I was not vaccinated and boosted.”

Under Philadelphia’s Covid response plan, mitigation measures are triggered when caseloads or case trajectories pass certain thresholds. Since early March, as Omicron swiftly receded, the city had been at Level 1, or “all clear,” meaning most mandatory measures — including indoor mask mandates as well as proof-of-vaccine requirements in restaurants — had been lifted. Masks have no longer been required at city schools, though people visiting hospitals or riding public transportation still have had to wear them.

The indoor mask mandate is reinstated automatically when the city rises to Level 2, in which average new daily case counts and hospitalizations are still low but “cases have increased by more than 50 percent in the previous 10 days.” The health departments spokesman said over the last 10 days case the average number of news cases had risen nearly 70 percent.

Philadelphia’s system “allow us to be clear, transparent and predictable in our response to local Covid-19 conditions,” said Mayor Jim Kenney in a statement after the announcement was made. “I’m optimistic that this step will help us control the case rate,” he added.

 

Philly made it clear what the criteria is for reinstating mask measures, and the city has exceeded those numbers.

Expect more major cities to follow suit in the weeks ahead.

The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

Rolling Stone's Andy Kroll documents the atrocities of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, and how he made sure the Voting Rights Act will be left unprotected from the GOP assault as soon as they get power back, something already happening in GOP-run states.

 

“Giddy” is not a word people use to describe Jon Tester. The towering senior U.S. senator from Montana is blunt and pragmatic. In the halls of Congress, he’s one of the last surviving rural Democrats. When he’s not in Washington, D.C., Tester runs a dirt farm in Montana that’s been in his family for three generations.

A dirt-farming rural Democrat knows better than to overhype. So it came as a surprise when, one day this winter, Tester showed up visibly excited at the office of his friend Michael Bennet, one of Colorado’s two Democratic senators, to share a tantalizing piece of information.

“I think we’re gonna get this voting-rights thing done,” he said to Bennet.

“You got to be kidding me,” Bennet said.

Tester said that Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a critical swing vote on sweeping voting-rights reforms, had signaled his support for the bill and, more crucially, the parliamentary-rules change needed to bypass a Republican filibuster of that bill. “I think it’s gonna happen,” Tester said.

For the previous six months, Tester and two of his colleagues, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Angus King of Maine, had lobbied Manchin on voting rights and the fate of the filibuster. On weekends and holidays, on conference calls and huddled in one another’s hideaways in the bowels of the Capitol, Kaine, King, and Tester had urged Manchin to support his party’s proposal for overhauling the country’s voting laws.

They needed him, with Senate Democrats holding onto the barest majority possible — 50 votes, with Vice President Kamala Harris acting as tiebreaker. Not a single Republican had said they would support the voting bill, which left Democrats with only one path to passage: Change the filibuster, the procedural tactic that requires a 60-vote majority to advance most types of legislation. Manchin had remained steadfast in his opposition to this plan, arguing that the filibuster protected small states like his and forced lawmakers to seek bipartisan compromise. Yet during months of conversations with Kaine, King, and Tester, Manchin had increasingly lamented the dysfunction in the Senate. He wanted, as he put it, “some good rule changes to make the place work better.”

By early January, Manchin had given the impression — at least according to his colleagues — that he was ready to amend the filibuster in a way that would open a path to passing voting rights. At the end of one of their calls, Tester recalls saying that with everyone in agreement on a filibuster deal, all they had to do was put the finishing touches on the voting legislation itself and they were ready to proceed. “Yeah,” Manchin replied, according to Tester.

A “yes” vote from Manchin could not have been more critical for free and fair elections. The Republican Party responded to Joe Biden’s victory with a backlash on the right to vote. Last year, GOP-run legislatures passed 34 laws in at least 19 states that limit access to voting, put partisan operatives in charge of running elections, and make it harder to participate in American democracy. At the same time, a belief that the last election was somehow stolen or fraudulent — the so-called Big Lie — has become an article of faith for many Republicans.

In response to this onslaught, Democrats in Congress introduced multiple pieces of legislation and vowed to pass the bills in time for the 2022 midterms. In public, Democratic leaders spoke in existential terms about the need for reform. “Failure is not an option,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. In private, lawmakers and activists predicted victory, arguing that the importance of the issue would overcome the challenge of unifying a 50-member caucus.

They were wrong.

Rolling Stone interviewed more than 30 key figures inside and outside of Congress to understand how the most ambitious voting-rights bill in generations and the Democratic Party’s main policy response to the Jan. 6 insurrection ended in failure. The blame for this defeat, sources say, lies with multiple parties: Manchin either strung along his party for months with no intention of actually supporting the reforms or gave indications to his colleagues that he was on board only to reverse his position on multiple occasions. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, miscalculated that if they could flip Manchin, another swing vote, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, would follow his lead. As for the White House, these sources say, President Biden — despite saying as a candidate that “one of the first things I’ll do as president” is restore the Voting Rights Act — never seemed fully committed to passing voting-rights legislation. When Biden, who had vowed to run an “FDR-sized presidency,” did inject himself into the negotiations late in the fight, his contributions did more harm than good.

Manchin spokeswoman Sam Runyon says the senator “never said he was open to eliminating the filibuster.” If his colleagues believed that, she adds, they were mistaken. The White House responds by saying just because “we didn’t get the result we wanted, we can’t say the power of the presidency wasn’t behind it.” Nevertheless, a question lingers: Why did Democrats’ efforts fail?

“It was like riding a roller coaster,” Sen. Tester tells Rolling Stone. “There were many nights when I went to bed and I thought, ‘This thing is done. We just have to hammer out the details.’ But then something would always happen,” he added. “I don’t know what happened. I can guess. But I don’t know.”

 

Manchin and Sinema will never allow passage of bills like this. Biden fucked up the White House effort, such as it was. I can't remember the last time a President was afraid of pissing off a Senator, but Biden has been since day one in the White House.  Maybe because of his decades as a Senator himself, he knows all too well how much trouble Manchin could cause by making good on his threats to jump party.

Jared, The Galleria Of Crime, Con't

Donald Trump's son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudis for his "investment firm" despite serious concerns about ever seeing a dime in profit from it, because the point was to pay off the Trump Crime family.

Six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, a close ally during the Trump administration, despite objections from the fund’s advisers about the merits of the deal.

A panel that screens investments for the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund cited concerns about the proposed deal with Mr. Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, previously undisclosed documents show.

Those objections included: “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, according to minutes of the panel’s meeting last June 30.

But days later the full board of the $620 billion Public Investment Fund — led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and a beneficiary of Mr. Kushner’s support when he worked as a White House adviser — overruled the panel.

Ethics experts say that such a deal creates the appearance of potential payback for Mr. Kushner’s actions in the White House — or of a bid for future favor if Mr. Trump seeks and wins another presidential term in 2024.

Mr. Kushner played a leading role inside the Trump administration defending Crown Prince Mohammed after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that he had approved the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post and resident of Virginia who had criticized the kingdom’s rulers.

 

So a $2 billion bribe from Prince Hacksaw of the Desert. Here's the real question: would you trust Jared Kushner with $2 billion, given his long track record as a grifter, thief, slum landlord and con man?

No sane person would. Look, investing 10 million or so is a big risk. Investing $2 billion in anything is alarming. Investing $2 billion in a member of the Trump family is laughably illegal. And how do we know it's a payoff and not an investment? The real investment money went to Trump's money guy, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The Saudi fund agreed to invest twice as much and on more generous terms with Mr. Kushner than it did at about the same time with former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — who was also starting a new fund — even though Mr. Mnuchin had a record as a successful investor before entering government, the documents show. The amount of the investment in his firm, Liberty Strategic Capital — $1 billion — has not been previously disclosed.

A spokesman for Mr. Kushner’s firm said of its relationship with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, “Affinity, like many other top investment firms, is proud to have PIF and other leading organizations that have careful screening criteria, as investors.”

A spokesman for the Saudi fund declined to comment on its investment process. If any additional discussions about the deal took place, they were not reflected in the documents and correspondence obtained by The New York Times.

The Times reported last fall that Mr. Kushner had been seeking a Saudi investment. Now, the internal fund records and correspondence obtained by The Times show the outcome, scale and timing of his firm’s deal as well as the debate it aroused. Those documents and other filings indicate that at this point Mr. Kushner’s venture depends primarily on the Saudi money.

Mr. Kushner planned to raise up to $7 billion in all, according to a document prepared last summer for the Saudi fund’s board. But so far he appears to have signed up few other major investors.

 

Weird how Kushner can't get anything else other than the Saudi money in his firm. It's almost like other folks in Trump's orbit don't think it's a wise financial investment. After all, a firm the Saudis are willing to give $2,000,000,000 to ought to be a shoe-in for RoI, right?

I mean it's not like this is a huge, massive bribe right in front of our eyes that happened ten months ago, right? And surely these billions in overseas money would never end up in Trump's campaign coffers, going forward, yes?

Oh well. The documents that showed all this weren't on Hunter Biden's laptop, so nobody gives a good good god damn I guess.

Last Call For January 6th Justice

Some Democrats on the House January 6th Committee are afraid to refer Trump for Justice Department prosecution because it would look partisan, and at this point I have to ask "Did any of you actually look at Washington for the last 30 years, because Republicans are going to be coming after all of you anyway."

The leaders of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack have grown divided over whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department of former President Donald J. Trump, even though they have concluded that they have enough evidence to do so, people involved in the discussions said.

The debate centers on whether making a referral — a largely symbolic act — would backfire by politically tainting the Justice Department’s expanding investigation into the Jan. 6 assault and what led up to it.

Since last summer, a team of former federal prosecutors working for the committee has focused on documenting the attack and the preceding efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election. The panel plans to issue a detailed report on its findings, but in recent months it has regularly signaled that it was also weighing a criminal referral that would pressure Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to open a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump.

But now, with the Justice Department appearing to ramp up a wide-ranging investigation, some Democrats are questioning whether there is any need to make a referral — and whether doing so would saddle a criminal case with further partisan baggage at a time when Mr. Trump is openly flirting with running again in 2024.

The shift in the committee’s perspective on making a referral was prompted in part by a ruling two weeks ago by Judge David O. Carter of the Federal District Court for Central California. Deciding a civil case in which the committee had sought access to more than 100 emails written by John C. Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump on efforts to derail certification of the Electoral College outcome, Judge Carter found that it was “more likely than not” that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman had committed federal crimes.

The ruling led some committee and staff members to argue that even though they felt they had amassed enough evidence to justify calling for a prosecution for obstructing a congressional proceeding and conspiring to defraud the American people, the judge’s decision would carry far greater weight with Mr. Garland than any referral letter they could write, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.

The members and aides who were reluctant to support a referral contended that making one would create the appearance that Mr. Garland was investigating Mr. Trump at the behest of a Democratic Congress and that if the committee could avoid that perception it should, the people said.

Even if the final report does not include a specific referral letter to Mr. Garland, the findings would still provide federal prosecutors with the evidence the committee uncovered — including some that has not yet become public — that could be used as a road map for any prosecution, the people said.

 

Well holy shit, isn't that the point of an investigation, to gather fucking evidence?

 

Jesus wept, folks. The GOP is already calling you partisan. 

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy says he has no regrets about having Republicans boycott the special committee probing the Jan. 6 riot, dismissing the investigation as a political hit job.

“This is nothing but a political show,” McCarthy told NBC News in an interview last week just off the House floor. “They already have the report written and they’re trying to create a narrative for it instead of trying to get to the truth.”

But with the Jan. 6 committee preparing to shift next month from the investigative phase to public, televised hearings, McCarthy’s decision last summer to shun the panel will face perhaps its biggest test.

Unlike the first Trump impeachment hearings in 2019, loyalists of the former president will not be in a position to “run interference,” in the words of one GOP source, during the Jan. 6 panel proceedings. Specifically, they won’t be able to aggressively cross-examine witnesses, rebut or interrupt Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and other Democrats, or introduce their own evidence.

Instead, the hearings will be tightly controlled and well-choreographed, focusing on areas like the plot to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory; intelligence and security breakdowns related to the attack; and what former President Donald Trump and his inner circle were doing during the hourslong riot that claimed several lives.

That's opened McCarthy up to criticism from some fellow Republicans.

“I would say it’s absolutely a strategic mistake,” said a senior House GOP aide. “You’re going to have a united front, you’re not going to have a sideshow.

“One of the reasons Democrats’ impeachment hearings failed so spectacularly in 2019 was because you had [GOP Reps.] Elise Stefanik and Jim Jordan and Doug Collins and Mike Turner — all of them running interference because they were sitting on the panels," the aide added. "And they were able to push back on whatever Democrats were trying to press Gordon Sondland and Fiona Hill about. They’re not going to have that this time.”

McCarthy’s decision to yank his members off the Jan. 6 panel — a response to Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocking two of his picks — means pro-Trump Republicans largely have been left in the dark about what's in store for the public hearings. Other than public reporting, Republicans aren't aware of leads the committee is chasing, what witnesses are saying in the 750 depositions the panel has conducted in private, and what’s in the nearly 90,000 documents received by the panel.

“That’s an error,” the GOP aide said. “If Republicans were on a committee and were able to participate in any of this right now, they could be leaking things, they could be setting their own narratives.”

 

GOP aides bragging about using the press, and the press covers it approvingly.

 

We're in so much trouble.

 

The Big Lie, Con't

The Big Lie is the driving force of the GOP campaign in 2022, with Republican after Republican not only repeating the Big Lie in order to win in November, but implying that if they win, that they will do everything they can to make sure no Democrat will ever be allowed to claim victory again.  Nearly 18 months after the 2020 election, Alabama GOP Gov. Kay Ivey is running on this exact platform.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by “the fake news, Big Tech and blue state liberals” in a campaign ad released Monday, making her the latest high-profile candidate to support unfounded conspiracy theories that the election was illegitimate.

“The fake news, Big Tech and blue state liberals stole the election from President Trump, but here in Alabama, we are making sure that never happens,” the governor says in the ad, titled “Stole.” “We have not, and will not, send absentee ballots to everyone and their brother. We banned corrupt curbside voting, and our results will always be audited. I’m Kay Ivey. The left is probably offended – so be it. As long as I’m governor, we’re going to protect your vote.”

The ad did not elaborate on why Ivey believed the election was stolen from Trump.

There has been no evidence to suggest the 2020 election was stolen.

Ivey campaign manager William Califf said in a statement that the governor would ensure that Alabama’s elections are secure if she wins re-election.

“Gov. Ivey stood with Trump and fought to secure our elections. Here in Alabama, we didn’t have the issues they had in other states,” Califf said. “Gov. Ivey will continue to stand strong and make sure that our elections are secure so that what happened to President Trump in other states will never happen in any election in Alabama.”

 

Now this is Alabama, a state where Democrats don't have a prayer anyway thanks to racist white Republicans dominating the state for years.  Black Democrats have all been stuffed in Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell's 7th District connecting Birmingham and Montgomery for the last decade, and the rest of the state's six districts all have a 30-point GOP lean. 

Which means there's no threat of a close election, and Kay Ivey is running on The Big Lie because she thinks the people of her state are stupid.

Thing is, stupid people have a vote, too.

For now.

Sunday Long Read: The Day The Curtain Fell

Our Sunday Long Read comes to us from Michele Berdy, the Arts editor for the independent Moscow Times, who had lived in Moscow for more than 40 years, as she recounts her career and her escape from Russia as she mourns the future of journalism in Putin's regime.

The day before Russia launched its war against Ukraine, I was in the seaside city of Sochi in southern Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border, attending an arts festival and enjoying a break from the dark and snowy Moscow winter among palm trees and verdant hillsides.

Sochi is on the Black Sea, as is Ukraine. My colleagues and I had been talking for months about aerial photographs that showed a build-up of troops near Russia’s borders with Ukraine, apparently threatening a new invasion. Was it preparation or intimidation? Nothing seemed to be happening, even as the U.S. started warning of an imminent attack.

I work at The Moscow Times, an independent newspaper founded in 1992 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union that publishes online in both English and Russian. As the paper’s arts editor, I was planning to attend the Sochi Winter International Arts Festival beginning on February 16. A few days before I was to leave, I asked my editor if I should go — would it be safe for me to be on the Black Sea coast if war broke out?

“You’ll be in a group,” she said, “and I don’t think it will start.” I said, “I don’t either, but the thing is — I didn’t think Russia would annex Crimea in 2014.” She said, “I didn’t think they’d invade Georgia in 2008.”

I recognize now that the dots were all there. We just couldn’t connect them. We couldn’t imagine a full-scale invasion because a full-scale invasion was unimaginable.

And so I went to Sochi, what now feels like a thousand years ago, and spent every night in the city’s seaside Winter Theater watching the best of Russian and foreign culture, a mix of traditional and very untraditional musical and theater performances, with standing ovations and curtain calls and the local babushkas holding the hands of grandchildren while whispering instructions on proper theater etiquette.

I flew back to Moscow on the evening of February 23. The next morning the war began.

Everything changed in the blink of an eye. Within two weeks, I would find myself in a minivan with a driver and six people, three dogs and mountains of suitcases and bags, getting ready to cross the border out of Russia. I would be the last one of the Moscow Times staff to leave the country, part of an exodus that included most of the foreign correspondents in Russia and thousands of Russians.

I was leaving a place I’d lived for more than 40 years.

 

It's amazing to me that journalists who had lived in Moscow for decades simply didn't see -- or refused to see -- Putin's invasion plans and his military invasion of Ukraine. His goal was always to rule Russia as a new czar, and to reconstitute the Soviet Empire.

I'm glad Berdy was able to escape, but such lotus-eating globally is how we got here in the first place.

Last Call For The Cold Man's War

Republicans threaten people all the time, it's what they do, the question is how and when they make good on those threats, and who suffers - or dies - in the process. But I don't recall a sitting Republican governor threatening an entirely different state if a Democratic governor was elected there before.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday warned of a coming “Cold War” between Florida and Georgia if Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams wins the gubernatorial election in the latter state.

During a press conference in Gulf County, located in northwest Florida, DeSantis referenced the ongoing Masters golf tournament in Georgia, using it as an apparent segue into discussing the state’s elections.

DeSantis said he “really appreciates our Georgians” but that voters would have to “take care” of the 2022 election to prevent Abrams from winning.

“If Stacey Abrams is elected governor of Georgia, I just want to be honest, that will be a cold war between Florida and Georgia,” he said. “I can’t have [former Cuban communist leader Raul] Castro to my south and Abrams to my north, that would be a disaster. So I hope you guys take care of that and we’ll end up in good shape.”

The Hill has reached out to DeSantis’s office for comment.

 

He can't have a Black woman as a neighboring state governor. What's he going to do, cut off orange juice shipments?

 

In all seriousness though, this is just more posturing and trolling because this is what you have to do in order to get ahead in GOP politics: threaten Democrats. Frankly, if both Abrams and DeSantis end up in office, I fully expect things to get much worse on the border than just words.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

The difference between simple racism and white supremacy as a power structure in America is Republicans can do racist things like call for the lynching of a Black Secretary of Defense, and white supremacy as a power structure means that racist gets to keep his job.

 

A Republican official in Virginia is refusing to step down after a racist Facebook post he apparently authored last year surfaced recently.

The post attributed to Hampton, Virginia Electoral Board Chair David Dietrich was added to the platform in February 2021 and is just coming into public view for some reason.

The post appeared to be prompted by an effort by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, to expunge White supremacists and other far-right elements in the United States military.

Dietrich specifically mentioned Austin, who is Black, and claimed the measure was in fact a plot “to remove conservative, freedom-loving Americans from the roles.”

He added, “These so-called ‘leaders’ are so vile and racist, there’s no way to describe them other than in terms their own people understand. They are nothing more than dirty, stinking ni***rs.

“We are being forced into a corner by these enemies of the People. If it is a civil war they want, they will get it in spades. Perhaps the best way to pull us back from the brink is a good public lynching.”

In response, the head of the Hampton GOP has called on Dietrich to resign. The group also called on Dietrich to resign in a Facebook post on Thursday, which included a screen shot of the offending remarks.

 

Thing is, Dietrich says he's not going anywhere.  Republican want an excuse to start shooting Black folk in the street. They want a civil war. They want their racist power fantasies to come true in an ocean of blood. And they're doing everything they can to make it happen.

Georgia Republican candidate Kandiss Taylor goes full theocracy explaining her “Jesus, guns, and babies” slogan:

“Don't talk to me about separation of church and state.”

“We are the church and we run the state.”

“[Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists] don't get to silence us.” pic.twitter.com/9nkkn3JRbM

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) April 9, 2022

 

When I say Republicans want a white Christian ethnostate, this is what I mean.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

The first woman arrested in Texas for determining what her own body should be doing now faces felony charges and prison under the state's new Gilead laws, and she will not be the last.

Lizelle Herrera, 26, was arrested on Thursday by the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and charged with murder.

According to a sheriff’s office spokesperson, Herrera was arrested after it was learned she “intentionally and knowingly cause the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”

Herrera remains in the custody of the Starr County Sheriff’s Office at this time on a $500 thousand bond.

There aren't more details as of yet, but it could be that Herrera had a medical abortion, and that somebody who knew about it informed the police in order to collect the state's bounty money. If that's actually what happened, it's as vile as it comes.

I would expect Gov. Greg Abbott to gleefully demand that she be made an example of.

 

My biggest fear of course is that by the end of the summer there's going to be hundreds, if not thousands joining her.