StupidiNews!

• Southwest Airlines blamed bad weather and short staffing for the cancellation of over 1,000 flights on Sunday, stranding thousands of people at airports across the US.
• Lava tumbled down the La Palma hillsides of Spain on Sunday as aftershocks of last month's Cumbra Vieja volcanic eruption continued into their third week.
• Australia is emerging from COVID-19 lockdown this week as fully vaccinated customers are now able to eat out and visit stores.
• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is "confident" that Congress will ratify compliance with a global corporate tax agreement by 136 countries to set a minimum tax of 15%.
• Microsoft is embracing right-to-repair for XBox and Surface hardware, but precisely how much may not be worked out until next year.
  

Sunday Long Read: Silly Con Valley

Streaming giant Netflix says it wants to help address the nation's racial inequalities, but as Victor Luckerson at Wired Magazine asks in our Sunday Long Read, why should anyone bother to take any tech company seriously on issues of race and especially Black America?

IN THE SPRING of 2020, folks in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward started flocking to the Sankofa food pantry on Dauphine Street however they could—by car, on bicycles, rolling pushcarts on foot. The lines were brisk but constant as the cascading effects of the coronavirus pandemic swept through the neighborhood of pastel-colored houses. Some people had lost jobs. Others were caring for loved ones sick with the virus, or picking up food for people under quarantine. For Rashida Ferdinand, the director of the nonprofit that operates the pantry, the crush of demand posed a series of dilemmas—beginning with the fact that she could no longer allow people inside the building. But one thing was sure: Shutting down the pantry was out of the question. No matter what, Ferdinand says, “we knew we needed to stay open.”

After circulating undetected through the city during much of Mardi Gras, the coronavirus had overwhelmed New Orleans with unprecedented speed, and it was killing more people per capita there than nearly anywhere else in the United States. Under lockdown, almost 100,000 people in the Crescent City had been thrown out of work as businesses were forced to shutter and tourism ground to a halt. In the Lower Ninth Ward, where a third of residents work in either food service, lodging, or retail, and where household incomes are half the parish average, the need for aid was especially acute. In so-called good times, about 350 people relied on Sankofa’s services. Now Ferdinand’s organization was furnishing more than 800 people a month with milk, eggs, canned beans, and other staples.

To meet the need, Sankofa stretched itself. The pantry went from being open two days a week to four. It began delivering food to people who could not collect it in person. When some of Ferdinand’s employees started working from home for fear of contracting the virus, she started handing out food herself. With sheets of plexiglass purchased from Ace Hardware, she improvised a Covid-safe storefront on Sankofa’s patio deck. Inside, nearly a dozen red and black metal shelves took over most of the headquarters’ open floor plan. “Our whole front office became the pantry,” she says.

But then the next dilemma reared up: Sankofa was running out of money. The nonprofit employed about a dozen people and was racking up expenses faster than usual, while sources of grant funding were drying up in the financial uncertainty of the pandemic.

Relief seemed to be on the way from the federal government. In late March, Congress authorized $349 billion in forgivable loans to help small businesses and nonprofits maintain their payroll amid the shutdown. To access the funds, business owners had to go through financial institutions. So Ferdinand immediately called Capital One, where Sankofa had banked for 10 years and maintained a typical account balance of around $300,000. But a representative told her the bank could not process her loan application. “I don’t know what was going on with Capital One, but we were disregarded,” Ferdinand says. “There wasn’t a person set up to actually move this needle forward and work with small business owners.”

So Ferdinand began researching other lenders that might be able to help her. She ultimately turned to Hope Credit Union, a Black-operated financial institution based in Jackson, Mississippi, which took on her loan application right away.

Now in its 26th year of operation, Hope’s mission is to serve low-income communities and people of color left behind by the traditional banking system. The organization has weathered disasters in the Deep South before, from Hurricane Katrina to the Great Recession. In fact, Hope tends to gain customers during such events, which lay bare the ways in which the US economy devalues Black life and Black ambition. “I think crises have catapulted our growth,” says Bill Bynum, Hope’s CEO. “Unfortunately, very few organizations are providing financial services to those who have the greatest need.”

As the pandemic continued to unfold, Hope also got an infusion of capital from an unlikely source: Silicon Valley. In June 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Netflix announced that it would place a $10 million deposit at Hope, the largest sum the credit union had ever received from a single customer.

Floyd’s killing sparked widespread protests in the streets and calls for racial justice in Fortune 500 boardrooms. But while corporate America’s official responses often felt like crisis PR disguised as philanthropy, Netflix’s approach stood out. The company’s deposit at Hope was just one small part of a plan drawn up by a mid-level HR executive who had been researching Black-operated banks in his spare time. Following his advice, the company pledged to invest 2 percent of its cash holdings in financial institutions and organizations that directly support Black communities—a proportion of the company’s wealth that, at the time of the announcement, amounted to about $100 million. As Netflix’s fortunes rose, the theory went, so too would those of Black businesses and nonprofits like Ferdinand’s.

Netflix’s announcement also included a call to action. The streaming giant challenged other firms to follow its lead and dedicate some share of their cash to Black economic initiatives. “This is not charity,” says Aaron Mitchell, the human resources director at Netflix who spent months devising the Black banks proposal. “This is not one time.”

Whether Netflix’s move is sufficient is a different kind of question. This summer a handful of tech companies—Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Tesla—reached a collective valuation of $9.6 trillion, about a quarter of the entire S&P 500. Meanwhile, Black communities have weathered decades of disinvestment, struggling in a segregated economy that has persisted long since the eradication of Jim Crow, and the nation’s wealth is more unevenly distributed today than at any time since before the Great Depression. Hope, with Netflix’s help, aims to reverse that flow of inequality. “We’re looking to basically import deposits, import capital, into these wealth-starved communities,” Bynum says. But will Netflix keep faith with those communities?

 

Ten million isn't nothing, but it sure buys a lot of good will and a lot of free press, and not much else. We'll see if Netflix and the rest of the techbros can follow through, but I frankly don't see it happening for much longer, particularly once the federal government starts asking very uncomfortable questions about their revenue streams, digital monopolies, and other things with intent to maybe break up some trillion-dollar corporate monsters.

We'll see.

The Austrian Gambit

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has resigned as the massive corruption and bribery probe investigating the right-wing leader and his government made his continued leadership impossible.

In a televised address, the 35-year-old premier denied the allegations against him but recommended leadership be handed to Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. He said he would stay on as head of his party and take the position of leader of his conservative bloc in parliament.

“My country is more important to me than my person,” he said. “I want to make space to prevent chaos and ensure stability.”

Pressure had been building on Kurz since his offices, the headquarters of his Austrian People’s Party and the Finance Ministry were raided in recent days. Prosecutors said the chancellor and nine of his close associates were being investigated on criminal charges including breach of trust, corruption and bribery.

Kurz became the youngest head of government in the world when he took office as chancellor in 2017 at age 31. He mixed sleek, media-savvy flair with populist rhetoric.

But investigations are looking at whether his rise was bolstered by illegal means.

Between 2016 and 2018, he and members of his inner circle are accused of being involved in using federal funds to pay for polling that appeared favorable to Kurz — and was published in the media without being declared as advertising.

It is the latest in several scandals to tarnish the Austrian chancellor.

His last government was toppled in 2019 when the “Ibiza Scandal” triggered a breakup with his far-right coalition partner. He became the country’s first postwar chancellor to be removed in a vote of no confidence.

Kurz made his political comeback in snap elections — returning as chancellor early last year — but investigators have continued to probe corruption allegations. Last month, he was questioned for more than five hours over allegations that he committed perjury by lying to a parliamentary committee, a charge that can bring a prison sentence.

But the latest revelations — with text messages between the chancellor and his associates gathered in the investigation published in Austrian newspapers — had left his government hanging by a thread.

 

Kurz was elected, kicked out two years ago, won snap elections and now is resigning, all before the age of 36. Not too many politicians get a third bite at the world leader apple, especially at that age. But I expect even if he serves time, he'll be back pushing his right-wing racist anti-immigrant "purity" hate again. 

 

You know those young, charismatic Austrians...

Last Call For School Of Hard Right Knocks, Con't

Senate GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is fully on board with the white supremacy agenda in the nation's schools and for mob rule school boards by white parents.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Saturday told Attorney General Merrick Garland that parents "absolutely should be telling" local schools what to teach amid a debate over mask and vaccine mandates, the role of racial equity education and transgender rights in schools that has become a flash point ahead of the 2022 midterms. 

"Parents absolutely should be telling their local schools what to teach. This is the very basis of representative government," McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, wrote in a letter. "They do this both in elections and -- as protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution -- while petitioning their government for redress of grievance. Telling elected officials they're wrong is democracy, not intimidation." 

CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment. 

The letter from the Senate Minority Leader comes in response to a Justice Department effort to address the increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in public schools. Earlier this week, Garland directed the FBI and US attorneys' offices to meet with federal, state and local law enforcement leaders "to discuss strategies for addressing this disturbing trend," the department said in a news release. 

"Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation's core values," Garland wrote in a memo about the directive. "Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety." 

The National School Boards Association had asked the Biden administration for assistance in dealing with threats against educators for approving mask policies aimed at protecting against Covid-19 and threats over false "propaganda" about critical race theory being taught in classrooms even though that "remains a complex law school and graduate school subject well beyond the scope of a K-12 class."

 

Not only does McConnell subscribe to the notion that the federal government has no business telling parents what their kids should learn, he goes on to say that protecting school board members from those same angry, racist parents who want to harm or even kill school board members is...intimidation of the parents!

It's the same nonsense we heard when McConnell was a kid 60 years ago. It was racist then, and it's racist now.

Taiwan In The Crosshairs

Chinese President Xi Jinping is making it increasingly clear that the "peaceful reunification" of Taiwan into mainland China is going to happen whether Taiwan wants it or not.

Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on Saturday to achieve "peaceful reunification" with Taiwan, and did not directly mention the use of force after a week of tensions with the Chinese-claimed island that sparked international concern.

Taiwan responded to Xi by calling on Beijing to abandon its coercion, reiterating that only Taiwan's people could decide their future.

Democratically ruled Taiwan has come under increased military and political pressure from Beijing to accept its sovereignty, but Taipei has pledged to defend its freedom.

Speaking at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Xi said the Chinese people have a "glorious tradition" of opposing separatism.

"Taiwan independence separatism is the biggest obstacle to achieving the reunification of the motherland, and the most serious hidden danger to national rejuvenation," he said on the anniversary of the revolution that overthrew the last imperial dynasty in 1911.

Peaceful "reunification" best meets the overall interests of the Taiwanese people, but China will protect its sovereignty and unity, he added.

"No one should underestimate the Chinese people's staunch determination, firm will, and strong ability to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Xi said. "The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled, and will definitely be fulfilled."

He struck a slightly softer tone than in July, his last major speech mentioning Taiwan, in which he vowed to "smash" any attempts at formal independence. In 2019, he directly threatened to use force to bring the island under Beijing's control.

 

The difference now rather than in 2019 is now Xi and China are not above actually using economic and political as well as military force. 

China’s ambitious leader, Xi Jinping, now presides over what is arguably the country’s most potent military in history. Some argue that Mr. Xi, who has set the stage to rule for a third term starting in 2022, could feel compelled to conquer Taiwan to crown his era in power.

Mr. Xi said Saturday in Beijing that Taiwan independence “was a grave lurking threat to national rejuvenation.” China wanted peaceful unification, he said, but added: “Nobody should underestimate the staunch determination, firm will and powerful ability of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Few believe a war is imminent or foreordained, in part because the economic and diplomatic aftershocks would be staggering for China. Yet even if the recent flights into Taiwan’s self-declared air identification zone are intended merely as political pressure, not a prelude to war, China’s financial, political and military ascendancy has made preserving the island’s security a gravely complex endeavor.

Until recently, the United States believed it could hold Chinese territorial ambitions in check, but the military superiority it long held may not be enough. When the Pentagon organized a war game in October 2020, an American “blue team” struggled against new Chinese weaponry in a simulated battle over Taiwan.

China now acts with increasing confidence, in part because many officials, including Mr. Xi, hold the view that American power has faltered. The United States’ failures with the Covid-19 pandemic and its political upheavals have reinforced such views.

Some advisers and former officers in China argue that the United States no longer has the will to send forces if a war were to break out over Taiwan. Under the right conditions, others suggest, the People’s Liberation Army could prevail if it did.

“Would the United States court death for Taiwan?” Teng Jianqun, a former Chinese navy captain, said in a recent interview on Chinese television.

 

Putin's Russia may excel at the long con, but China is the undisputed master of it. If they are moving now on Taiwan, and making it clear that reunifying is the goal to their own people, something's about to happen. The wheels are in motion, and once set, well...

2021 may be a far longer year than we thought.

The Road To Gilead, Texas Edition, Con't

It took less than 48 hours for Texas AG Ken Paxton to find Trump-appointed appeals court judges to reinstate Texas's ridiculous abortion ban after a federal judge blocked it on Thursday, and as of this morning, anyone can once again take out a $10,000 state-sponsored bounty on anyone else involved in an abortion in the state.

A federal appeals court late Friday reinstated the nation’s most restrictive abortion law, which bars the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit granted a request filed Friday afternoon by the Texas attorney general to temporarily suspend a judge’s order blocking the law, which has halted most abortions in the state.

Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) had asked the appeals court to reverse the injunction by U.S. District Judge Robert L. Pitman, who sided with the Biden administration Wednesday night and characterized the abortion ban as an “unprecedented and aggressive scheme to deprive its citizens of a significant and well-established constitutional right.”

A three-judge panel of the conservative-leaning court gave the Justice Department until 5 p.m. Tuesday to respond to the appeal.

Paxton told the appeals court that the Justice Department has no legal authority to sue the state and said the appeals court must intervene immediately to lift the injunction. The lower-court judge overstepped, Paxton said, by halting a law that is enforced by private citizens, not state government officials.

“A court ‘cannot lawfully enjoin the world at large’ let alone hold Texas responsible for the filings of private citizens that Texas is powerless to prevent,” the filing states.

It asked the court to rule on that issue by Tuesday morning and to temporarily suspend Pitman’s injunction “as soon as possible.”

The brief order from the 5th Circuit, issued about five hours after the appeal was filed, did not rule on the merits of the state’s request. Any decision from the 5th Circuit could put the issue back before the Supreme Court, which declined to block the law when it took effect Sept. 1 but said it raises serious constitutional questions.

 

"You can't stop us because we're only allowing citizens to enforce the law and not the state!" is so stupidly, wildly dangerous that it constitutes codified mob rule. Texas could turn anything into a citizen-enforced bounty: law enforcement, border enforcement, school protection, voting observation, whatever.

In a state with open carry like Texas, it's a recipe for absolute vigilante law, only the state's willing to pay up taxpayer funds for letters of marque. It's state-sponsored terrorism of women.

Of course Trump Republicans love it.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

As President Biden restored the Trump-era cuts to three Obama-expanded national monuments (as Republicans wanted to sell the land rights to developers and Trump was always up for racist, petty garbage) this week, next week he will be the first US President to observe Indigenous Peoples' Day over Columbus Day.

President Joe Biden on Friday issued the first-ever presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, lending the most significant boost yet to efforts to refocus the federal holiday celebrating Christopher Columbus toward an appreciation of Native peoples.

The day will be observed Oct. 11, along with Columbus Day, which is established by Congress. While Native Americans have campaigned for years for local and national days in recognition of the country’s indigenous peoples, Biden’s announcement appeared to catch many by surprise.

“This was completely unexpected. Even though we’ve been talking about it and wanting it for so long,” said Hillary Kempenich, an artist and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. In 2019, she and other tribal members successfully campaigned for her town of Grand Forks, N.D., to replace Columbus Day with a day recognizing Native peoples.

“I’m kind of overwhelmed with joy,” said Kempenich. She was waiting Friday afternoon for her eighth-grade daughter, who grew up challenging teachers’ depictions of Columbus, to come home from school so Kempenich could share the news.

“For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures,” Biden wrote in the Indigenous Peoples’ Day proclamation. “Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.”

In a separate proclamation on Columbus Day, Biden praised the role of Italian Americans in U.S. society, but also referenced the violence and harm Columbus and other explorers of the age brought about on the Americas.

Making landfall in what is now the Bahamas on Oct. 12, 1492, Columbus, an Italian, was the first of a wave of European explorers who decimated Native populations in the Americas in quests for gold and other wealth, including people to enslave.

“Today, we also acknowledge the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities,” Biden wrote. “It is a measure of our greatness as a Nation that we do not seek to bury these shameful episodes of our past — that we face them honestly, we bring them to the light, and we do all we can to address them.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden “felt strongly” about recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day. Asked if Biden might seek to end marking Columbus Day as a federal holiday, she replied, “I don’t have any predictions at this point.”

John Echohawk, executive director of the Native American Rights Fund, said the president’s decision to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day was an important step.

“Big changes happen from each small step, and we hope this administration intends to continue making positive steps towards shaping a brighter future for all citizens,” Echohawak said.

 

Biden's commitment to Native issues didn't just stop at appointing Rep. Deb Halaand as Interior Secretary, it's being followed by beefy executive action, more than Obama was allowed to take, and certainly more than Trump would ever get off his orange ass to do.

But still he's going to be hated, because the media tells you he's "incompetent". Biden is at his best doing truly meaningful things like this, from the heart. It's why I voted for him, and not just against Trump.

More of this, please.

 

A Nobel Pursuit, Con't

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to two dissident journalists, Maria Ressa of the Philippines, and Dmitry Muratov of Russia, for their work in exposing corrupt autocrats and expanding a free press in countries where doing so can be fatal.

Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their fight to defend free expression in the Philippines and Russia.

Ressa is the co-founder of the investigative digital media company Rappler, which has focused on the brutal war on drugs waged by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Muratov is a co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper holding power to account in President Vladimir Putin's increasingly authoritarian Russia.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it recognized the pair for their "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

More broadly, the committee said it wanted to highlight the plight of journalists across the globe who are operating in what watchdogs say is an increasingly repressive environment.

"This prize will not solve the problems that journalists and freedom of expression is facing," Berit Reiss-Andersen, the committee's chairwoman, told a news conference.

"But it will help shed a light on the importance of the work of journalists, and how dangerous it is not only in places facing war and conflict, but all over the world."

Reacting to the news, Ressa told a live broadcast by Rappler, "I am in shock."

She has been at the forefront of documenting Duterte's war on drugs, which Human Rights Watch says has led to the deaths of more than 12,000 Filipinos, some 2,500 killed by police.

Ressa was also recognized for her work documenting how social media has been used to spread disinformation and harass political opponents.

As editor of Novaya Gazeta, Muratov leads a rare independent news source in Russia. His journalists have faced harassment and threats, and six of them have been murdered, including Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building in 2006.

"Despite the killings and threats, editor-in-chief Muratov has refused to abandon the newspaper's independent policy," the Nobel Committee said in a statement.

 

Compare that to our own "free press" which cozies up to autocrats all over the world in the name of "access journalism". 

 

We need our own Ressa and Muratov. They're certainly not found among our Beltway "betters", who only want to sell books, get rich, and be famous. This all just stands as a punishing reminder as to how our own press is a s bad as Putin and Duterte's propaganda outlets 99% of the time.

StupidiNews!

• Ten Republican senators joined GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and all 50 Democrats to extend the debt ceiling until December 3, but this sets up a massive government shutdown fight.
• A Wall Street Journal report finds that a small group of US special forces troops have been in Taiwan for over a year training local forces to deal with a Chinese invasion.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he will move the electric car's corporate HQ from California to Texas after threatening to do so over the state's COVID lockdown of the company's Fremont factory.
• President Biden once again called for more businesses to mandate vaccination against COVID-19 in a speech in Illinois, Biden said that "My message is require your employees to get vaccinated."
• Moon samples from China's Chang'e-5 lunar probe missions reveals that Luna could have had volcanic activity one billion years more recent than previously suggested by other data.
  

Last Call For The Big Lie, Con't

The insane gaslighting of the Big Lie continues in North Carolina, where Trump Cult Republicans are of course threatening to use armed force to take voting machines in heavily Black Durham County for "inspection" whether the County complies or not.

A group of Republican House members announced Thursday that they are launching a fraud investigation into North Carolina elections and said they would start by inspecting voting machines in Durham County, with or without the cooperation of state or county election officials.

Rep. Jeff McNeely, R-Iredell, conducted a "random drawing" of a county name out of a hat, and Durham County was chosen. Perhaps coincidentally, Republicans have accused Durham County of voter fraud in the past, especially in 2016, when a late vote tally there swung the governor's race in favor of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper over then-incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.

Citing "many, many millions of accusations" of "machine tampering and votes being switched because of modems," McNeely said at a news conference that lawmakers intend to see for themselves whether the machines have modems in them.

Voting machines in North Carolina do not have modems and are not connected to the internet, by state law.

"We look forward to working with them, proving that our elections were true and were valid and there was nothing wrong with them. If that's not the case, then we look to do an investigation, and if there needs to be criminal charges, they will be filed," McNeely told reporters.

"We will also be accommodated and assisted by the [General Assembly] police in our investigation, and they will be the ones that will help us go and find any evidence and help us secure it," he added.

McNeely brandished a roll of red evidence tape that he said would ensure voting machines at the Durham County Board of Elections office could be secured "so that nothing could go forward from here," until his group can conduct an inspection with a technician from the voting machine manufacturer.

The effort appears to mimic "audits" by Republicans in other states, notably Arizona, to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election and election integrity in general.

Asked whether they believe President Joe Biden was duly elected, McNeely and Rep.
Bobby Hanig, R-Dare, said they didn't know. Rep. Larry Pittman, R-Cabarrus, said no.

State elections director Karen Brinson Bell has repeatedly told the House Freedom Caucus that no unauthorized person, least of all elected officials, is allowed to "inspect" voting machines.

Asked if that's changed, McNeely said he believes state law gives them that authority.

"So, we will start with that," he said, "and if we have to use, like I said, our escorts and the [General Assembly] police to help us, we will do whatever it takes to go about our mission."

 

I grew up in NC, folks. If you believe out of NC's 100 counties that Durham County, one of the largest heavily Black populated counties in the state, was chosen at random, well...buy some lottery tickets yourself. Let's remember the same NC GOP had multiple redistricting maps tossed out multiple times for obvious racial discrimination.

The Big Lie will never, ever end.

The Coup-Coup Birds Come Home To Roost, Con't

Yes, Donald Trump tried to engineer a coup to stay in power after he lost in 2020, according to a new Senate Judiciary Committee report made public this week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday released a sweeping report about how former President Donald Trump and a top lawyer in the Justice Department attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump directly asked the Justice Department nine times to undermine the election result, and his chief of staff Mark Meadows broke administration policy by pressuring a Justice Department lawyer to investigate claims of election fraud, according to the report, which is based on witness interviews of top former Justice Department officials.

The Democratic-led committee also revealed that White House counsel Pat Cipollone threatened to quit in early January as Trump considered replacing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ lawyer who supported election fraud conspiracies.

Cipollone called the plot a "murder-suicide pact," according to the committee's investigation.

After the eight-month investigation, the findings highlight the relentlessness of Trump and some of his top advisers as they fixated on using the Justice Department to prop up false conspiracies of election fraud. The committee report called Trump's repeated demands an abuse of presidential power.

Soon after the release of the report Thursday morning, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley's office issued a GOP version, which pushes back on the Democrats' findings and defends Trump, saying he "listened to his senior advisors and followed their advice and recommendations."

Appearing on CNN's "New Day" Thursday morning, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said the US was a "half a step away from a constitutional crisis, a full-blown constitutional crisis" and explained the events unfolded in three phases.

"First phase, Trump goes to court. Loses every lawsuit, which claims there was voter fraud in the election. Next, he decides he has to take over the Department of Justice and the attorney general, and have the attorney general push this narrative on to the states to tell them to stop from sending in their Electoral College vote totals. When that failed -- and our report goes into graphic detail of the efforts that were made -- the third step was to turn the mob loose on the Capitol the day we were counting the ballots," he said, referring to the January 6 riot.

The report released by Senate Democrats slams the actions of Clark, who they say became a crucial player in Trump's attempt to use the Justice Department for his political gain.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Thursday they were referring him to the DC Bar for a review of his professional conduct, citing rules that bar attorneys from assisting in fraud and interfering with the administration of justice.

The committee said it has not yet made findings of possible criminality, since their investigation is not complete. Clark has not been charged with any crime, and an attorney for Clark didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Clark was not interviewed by the committee. Instead, top Justice Department officials described in interviews his and Trump's plans to overturn the election.

Clark had pushed Rosen and Richard Donoghue, then the second-in-command at the Justice Department, to use the Justice Department to announce election fraud investigations and and ask state leaders in Georgia to appoint electors, potentially disregarding the certified popular vote. Clark began making the pitch in late December after speaking with Trump directly, the committee found.

The Senate committee wrote he may have had assistance from "lower-level allies" within the Justice Department and even attempted to bargain with Rosen on his plan, saying he would turn down a chance at taking Rosen's place if Rosen would agree to support his Georgia elector initiative.

"Clark's proposal to wield DOJ's power to override the already-certified popular vote reflected a stunning distortion of DOJ's authority: DOJ protects ballot access and ballot integrity, but has no role in determining which candidate won a particular election," the committee wrote.

Donoghue and Rosen both testified to the committee.

 

The coup failed only because it was too much for some Republicans to go along with. 

VP Mike Pence refused to go along with Trump and Clark's alternate slate of electors plan.

 

The people at the state level who said "No, we won't do this" in 2020 to alternate electors and decertifying Democratic wins will have long been replaced with Trump loyalists in 2024 who will say yes when told to do this again. 

The coup was being planned by Trump and the DoJ.

It almost succeeded.

We came that close to losing the country.

Remember that.

The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

Republicans continue to hold the country hostage, and President Manchin continues to do everything he can to assist them.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Wednesday that he remains opposed to changing the Senate’s legislative filibuster, dealing a blow to progressive hopes to use a rules change as an escape hatch from a fight over the nation's borrowing limit.

“I’ve been very, very clear where I stand on the filibuster. Nothing changes,” Manchin told a gaggle of reporters outside of his Senate office.

Manchin's comments come as the idea of an debt ceiling exemption from the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation, has gained steam within the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Democrats discussed the idea, as well as other potential backup plans, during a closed-door caucus lunch on Tuesday, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) confirming that talks were underway.

And moderate Democrats, long viewed as wary to a rules change, indicated that they would support it.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he could support a “pause” on the filibuster for the debt ceiling vote.

“There ought to be some way to suspend” the filibuster for a debt ceiling vote, Warner said.

But changing the legislative filibuster even just for a narrow carveout on the debt ceiling was a heavy lift for Senate Democrats, given entrenched opposition to making changes to the 60-vote rule from Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

To invoke the "nuclear option," Democrats would need total unity from their 50-member caucus and Vice President Harris in the chair to break a tie. A spokesman for Sinema didn't immediately respond to a question on Wednesday about if she would support creating a carveout from the filibuster for the debt ceiling.

Manchin said as recently as Monday that he didn’t view changes to the filibuster as an option on the debt ceiling.

“The filibuster has nothing to do with debt ceiling. Basically, we have other tools that we can use and if we have to use them we should use them,” Manchin said at the time.

 

President Manchin continues to hold court and decree from his throne. Republicans make sure he can, but so do Democrats.

 

And nothing will improve until his power is removed by electing more Democrats in the Senate. The second Dems can get 53 or more seats, Manchin and VP Sinema become irrelevant.

 

But the odds of that happening in 2022 are rapidly diminishing. Manchin has no reason to cut his own throat by complying, and Republicans are 100% united on blocking everything.

 

Better Democrats, yes. But right now, we're learning that More Democrats are also necessary to keep the worse ones in line. 

In the back of the room, you can hear Mitch McConnell cackling.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge has blocked Texas's six-week abortion ban, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says the state will immediately petition the 5th Circuit to remove the injunction.
• MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says she has skin cancer removed, a malignant mole was removed from her neck last week and a full recovery is expected.
• At least 20 people are dead after a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in southern Pakistan, the epicenter was near a rural village where several mud homes were destroyed.
• Peruvian President Pedro Castillio is replacing his Prime Minister in an overture towards conservatives, leftist Guido Bellido tried unsuccessfully to nationalize Peru's largest gasfield. 
• Idaho GOP Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin waited until GOP Gov. Brad Little was traveling to Texas to order an end to school vaccine mandates in the state, Little reversed the order within hours.
  

Last Call For Insurrection Investigation, Con't

Team Trump is apparently daring Rep. Bennie Thompson and the January 6th Commission he chairs to come and get them when it comes to subpoenas.

The former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top aides subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack are expected to defy orders for documents and testimony related to 6 January, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The move to defy the subpoenas would mark the first major investigative hurdle faced by the select committee and threatens to touch off an extended legal battle as the former president pushes some of his most senior aides to undercut the inquiry.

All four Trump aides targeted by the select committee – Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – are expected to resist the orders because Trump is preparing to direct them to do so, the source said.

The select committee had issued the subpoenas under the threat of criminal prosecution in the event of non-compliance, warning that the penalty for defying a congressional subpoena would be far graver under the Biden administration than during the Trump presidency.

But increasingly concerned with the far-reaching nature of the 6 January investigation, Trump and his legal team, led by the ex-Trump campaign lawyer Justin Clark the former deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin, are moving to instruct the attorneys for the subpoenaed aides to defy the orders.

The basis for Trump’s pressing aides to not cooperate is being mounted on grounds of executive privilege, the source said, over claims that sensitive conversations about what he knew in advance of plans to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory should remain secret.

Philbin appears less convinced than Trump about the strength of the legal argument, the source said, in part because the justice department previously declined to assert the protection for 6 January testimony, suggesting it did not exist to protect Trump’s personal interests.

The former president’s lawyer, the source said, instead seems to view the strategy more as an effective way to slow-walk the select committee, which is aiming to produce a final report before the 2022 midterm elections, to keep the inquiry non-partisan.

It was not clear on Tuesday whether Trump would push aides to defy all elements of the subpoenas, the source cautioned – access to some emails or call records demanded by the select committee might be waived.

But Trump’s strategy mirrors the playbook he used to prevent House Democrats from deposing his top advisers during his presidency. The former White House counsel Don McGahn, for instance, only testified to Congress about the Mueller inquiry once Trump left office.

 

It's already October 2021. The Committee isn't going to get much work done for the rest of this year at this rate, and that's the point. Once 2022 rolls around, you can bet the GOP plan will be "Help us take the House back so we can stop the witch hunt! They'll be after YOU next!!!11!"

The entire point is to stonewall until the January 6th investigation can be ended by a GOP House speaker with nothing to show for it, and there really isn't much we can do in the meantime. If Thompson pushes for criminal prosecution, the story becomes criminal prosecution, not the investigation itself.

That's what Trump wants, and most likely he'll get it. If you want this investigation to continue, elect Democrats in 2022.

All The Disinformation That's Fit To Stream

One America News Network has been a player in the new right-wing disinformation swamp for a couple of years now along with NewsMax under Trump, all with the basic heading of "When Fox News is too liberal for you!" It's been one of the most vile cable boutique purveyors of Qball right-wing conspiracies, too much for even YouTube to deal with, while its terrible white supremacist contributors are encouraging violence while on the loose.

Well, turns out OANN has a major corporate bankroller and distribution patron in AT&T, who quite literally commissioned the channel for its DirecTV service and provides some 90% of the network's revenue stream.

 

One America News, the far-right network whose fortunes and viewership rose amid the triumph and tumult of the Trump administration, has flourished with support from a surprising source: AT&T Inc, the world's largest communications company.

A Reuters review of court records shows the role AT&T played in creating and funding OAN, a network that continues to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic.

OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.

“They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”

Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.

Herring has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value “would be zero.”

“They told us they wanted a conservative network. … When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”OAN founder Robert Herring Sr in a 2019 deposition

Dallas-based AT&T, a mobile-phone and Internet provider, also owns entertainment giant Warner Media, which includes CNN and HBO. AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 and in August spun off the satellite service, retaining a 70% share in the new, independently managed company. AT&T’s total U.S. television subscriber base, including satellite and streaming services, fell from 26 million in 2015 to 15.4 million as of August.

AT&T spokesman Jim Greer declined to comment on the testimony about OAN’s revenue streams, citing confidentiality agreements. He said that DirecTV broadcasts “many news channels that offer viewpoints across the political spectrum.”

“We have always sought to provide a wide variety of content and programming that would be of interest to customers, and do not dictate or control programming on channels we carry,” Greer said. “Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.”

Although the contracts are confidential, in court filings Herring cited monthly fees included in one five-year deal with AT&T. According to an AT&T filing citing Herring’s numbers, those fees would total about $57 million. Greer said that figure is inaccurate, but declined to say how much AT&T has paid to air OAN, citing a non-disclosure agreement.

Herring and his adult sons own and operate OAN, a subsidiary of their closely held San Diego-based Herring Networks. Their AT&T deal includes Herring’s other network, a little-watched lifestyle channel, AWE. The Herrings declined interview requests.

Herring, who just turned 80, is a self-made businessman who amassed a fortune in the circuit board industry, then turned to television and boxing promotion. OAN’s influence rose in late 2015, when it began covering Trump rallies live, at a time when some of the media still saw the New York celebrity businessman as a longshot presidential contender. The network continues to shower Trump with attention and often provides a friendly platform for his Republican allies.

As president, Trump frequently urged supporters to watch OAN. In his final two years in office, Trump touted the network, known as @OANN online, to his 88 million Twitter followers at least 120 times.

 

So in addition to owning a national mobile carrier, HBO, CNN, TBS, TNT, Animal Planet, the Discovery Channel and TLC, plus DC Comics, Warner Pictures, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network, Hanna-Barbera and a couple of video games studios to market all those characters, AT&T also secretly created, all but owns and all but runs one of the most vile, awful, racist white supremacist propaganda conspiracy outlets in America, beloved by Trump himself.

As a consumer, you get to choose which company you give your dollars to (for the most part.) AT&T decided a long time ago to make the choice that Donald Trump was good for business.

You want to maybe consider making such a choice yourself here.