Last Call For The Big Lie, Con't

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis is letting multiple state Republicans know they could face indictments soon in the state's case against Donald Trump's 2020 electoral fraud.

In the latest sign that she is moving rapidly in her investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has sent so-called “target” letters to prominent Georgia Republicans informing them they could be indicted for their role in a scheme to appoint alternate electors pledged to the former president despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state, according to legal sources familiar with the matter.

The move by Willis, a Democrat, threatens to have major political implications in a crucial battleground state with high-profile races for governor and the U.S. Senate this fall. Among the recipients of the target letters, the sources said, are GOP state Sen. Burt Jones, Gov. Brian Kemp’s running mate for lieutenant governor, David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, and state Sen. Brandon Beach.

Jones and Shafer were among those who participate in a closed-door meeting at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in which 16 Georgia Republicans selected themselves as the electors for the state, although they had no legal basis for doing so. Shafer, according to a source who was present, presided over the meeting, conducting it as though it was an official proceeding, in which those present voted themselves as the bona fide electors in Georgia — and then signed their names to a declaration to that effect that was sent to the National Archives.

The offices or spokespersons for Jones, Shafer and Beach did not respond to requests for comment. Willis, in an interview, declined any comment on the target letters. But she confirmed she is considering another potentially controversial move: requesting that Trump himself testify under oath to the special grand jury that is investigating his conduct.

“Yes,” said Willis when asked if there was any chance Trump will be called to testify. “I think it's something that we’re still weighing and evaluating.” She also said she spoke to Dwight Thomas, a veteran local defense lawyer who has been retained to represent Trump, as recently as Thursday. She declined to say what they talked about. Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Willis has previously said that any legal proceedings will be paused during the state's early voting period, but there's months to go before that happens, and she's making every second count.

 

Who's willing to go to prison for Donald Trump?

 

We're about to find out.

The Road To Gilead Goes Through Missouri, Con't

Women who are pregnant and married in Missouri cannot get a divorce until the "status of the unborn child is determined". In a post-Roe America, that means women in the state can't get an abortion, either, meaning women in bad relationships are stuck until forced birth and then the custody battle begins.

December 2020 was a turbulent month for Danielle Drake, 32, of Lake of the Ozarks. On December 1, her husband said he was going out with a friend, but he lied. He was actually having an affair. She filed for a divorce less than a week later, on December 7.

Then, not long before Christmas, Drake found out she was pregnant.

Drake knew immediately she had to file a second, amended petition for divorce. She also knew the impact her pregnancy would have on the divorce proceedings. Drake, who earned a law degree from University of Missouri Kansas City has been practicing family law for two years, was well aware that in Missouri, women who are pregnant can't get a divorce.

Missouri law states that a petition for divorce must provide eight pieces of information, things like the residence of each party, the date of separation, and, notably, “whether the wife is pregnant.” If the answer is yes, Drake says, "What that practically does is put your case on hold."

There is a lot of disagreement online about whether pregnant Missouri women can get divorced. The RFT spoke to multiple lawyers who handle divorce proceedings and they all agreed that in Missouri a divorce can't be finalized if either the petitioner (the person who files for divorce) or the respondent (the other party in the divorce) is pregnant.

Dan Mizell, an attorney in Lebanon, Missouri, who has been practicing law since 1997, says that certain aspects of the divorce can proceed, but everything having to do with custody of the unborn child is frozen in place until birth or a pregnancy-ending event like a miscarriage. The court can issue temporary orders related to things like dividing up property, Mizell says. "But they can't do a final decree of divorce until she delivers the baby."

Drake says that this is true even in the case of a divorce that is completely uncontested. "If the couple is not fighting, and they're just saying, ‘Nope, she's gonna take the baby and 100 percent of the things’ they still cannot go before a judge and have that finalized until after there's a baby born," she says.

"It is a shock to some people," Mizell adds. "Sometimes it comes up at the very last minute, because the wife is usually asked to say under oath whether she is pregnant or not, which can be offensive at times, and also a bit ridiculous at others."

Drake also points out what seems to be a double standard in regards to how the state treats an unborn child in a divorce proceeding compared to in abortion law. 

She says that the whole basis for Missouri putting the pause on a divorce proceeding until a child is born is because Missouri divorce law "does not see fetuses as humans."

"You can't have a court order that dictates visitation and child support for a child that doesn't exist," she says. "I have no mechanism as a lawyer to get that support going. There's nothing there because that's not a real person."

This aspect of Missouri divorce law has gotten more attention in the weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, triggering a ban on abortion in Missouri except in cases of medical emergency. Though what is meant by medical emergency is still ambiguous.

So yeah, it's more property law than anything else. The husband effectively has the right to the fetus at this point in the state.

It gets worse.

"This all goes back to the fact that we don't trust women," says Jess Piper, an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights who is running as a Democrat to be the state representative for the 1st District, in the rural northwest corner of the state. "I've heard actual reports of women who have been in domestic violence situations where their husbands withheld birth control from them, purposely creating a pregnancy so that she can't leave."

Piper adds that for some women, the new abortion law in Missouri will be just another obstacle in what can already be a fraught process of leaving a marriage.

Drake and Mizell both say the law is in need of updating.

Mizell says that even if the woman is pregnant by a man other than her husband, the divorce is still on hold.

 

This is all about control, legal control of a woman's body, rights, and future. We'll be fighting this war for decades, along with basically ever other civil rights issue, again and again and again.

The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

President Joe Manchin won't support any new climate initiative spending, nor will he allow the wealthy to be taxed, so basically screw your planet, West Virginia control's the world's largest economy and the world on environmental issues, and the other 8 billion people on the planet have to deal with it.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) told Democratic leaders Thursday he would not support an economic package that contains new spending on climate change or new tax increases targeting wealthy individuals and corporations, marking a massive setback for party lawmakers who had hoped to advance a central element of their agenda before the midterm elections this fall.

The major shift in negotiations — confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the talks — threatened to upend the delicate process to adopt the party’s signature economic package seven months after Manchin scuttled the original, roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act, which President Biden had endorsed.

But Manchin told Democratic leaders he is open to provisions that aim to lower prescription drug costs for seniors, the two people said. And the West Virginia moderate expressed support with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the party’s chief negotiator, for extending subsidies that could help keep health insurance costs down for millions of Americans, one of the sources said.

“Political headlines are of no value to the millions of Americans struggling to afford groceries and gas as inflation soars to 9.1 percent,” said Sam Runyon, a spokeswoman for Manchin. “Senator Manchin believes it’s time for leaders to put political agendas aside, reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire.”

A spokesman for Schumer declined to comment.

The stunning setback late Thursday came despite weeks of seemingly promising negotiations between Schumer and Manchin in pursuit of a broader deal that would have delivered on the promises that secured Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and the White House in 2020. Without Manchin, the party cannot proceed in the narrowly divided Senate, since Democrats need all 50 votes in the caucus, plus Vice President Harris’s tiebreaking vote, to use the special process known as budget reconciliation to overcome Republicans’ expected filibuster.

 

So maybe, maybe we'll get prescription drug price relief, but probably we'll get nothing. As I said a few days ago, Manchin was waiting for the opportunity to kill Build Back Better once and for all, and he's essentially signed the death certificate himself.

The only way around Manchin is to pick up at least two senate seats in November, one for Manchin and one for Sinema, rendering the both of them powerless.

We've got a lot of work to do and only a few months to get it done. If we don't hold the line here, the game, and the planet, are both over.

Last Call For Hearing Aides For America, Con't

The Bigger Than Watergate crimes keep being bigger than Watergate.

A government watchdog accused the U.S. Secret Service of erasing texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after his office requested them as part of an inquiry into the U.S. Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to lawmakers this week.

Joseph V. Cuffari, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees indicating that the text messages have vanished and that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack were being hindered.

“The Department notified us that many U.S. Secret Service (USSS) text messages, from January 5 and 6, 2021 were erased as part of a device-replacement program,” he wrote in a letter dated Wednesday and obtained by The Washington Post. The letter was earlier reported on by CNN.

Cuffari emphasized that the erasures came “after” the Office of Inspector General requested copies of the text messages for its own investigation, and signaled that they were part of a pattern of DHS resistance to his inquiries. Staff members are required by law to surrender records so that he can audit the sprawling national security agency, but he said they have “repeatedly” refused to provide them until an attorney reviews them.

“This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced,” he wrote, and offered to brief the House and Senate committees on the “access issues.”

The Secret Service’s text messages could provide insight into the agency’s actions on the day of the insurrection and possibly those of former president Donald Trump. A former White House official last month told the House select committee investigating the assault on the Capitol that Trump knew his supporters were armed, wanted to lead the mob to the Capitol and physically assailed the senior Secret Service agent who told him he could not.

 

So, three things:

The January 6th Committee has these texts. The OIG for Homeland Security mentions that all the cover-up did was delay his office getting the texts. Whatever incriminating evidence those texts reveal, the January 6th Committee knows about. My guess is that they involve former VP Mike Pence's detail and the plans that day to remove him from the Capitol to "protect" him, meaning he couldn't certify the electoral ballots, throwing the country into chaos.

Number two, if you wanted to know why Trump-appointed Secret Service director James Murray announced his retirement last week, it's because he knew this was coming. There's no way Murray would have survived this story, Biden would have fired him over the weekend. He was told this was coming and given a choice to retire or get canned.

Three, the Service who participated in this coup need to be expelled from the agency. Murray fell on his sword, but the USSS is clearly still rife with Trumpists. All of them need to go, and then face charges of obstructing justice in the investigation.

This all make's next week's prime time hearing more important. I'm going to bet we hear testimony.involving the plot to take Pence.

We'll see.

The Road To Gilead Goes Through Indiana, Too

Less than 24 hours after a Columbus, Ohio man was arrested for the rape of a ten-year-old girl who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion, a story the right said was a hoax up until yesterday's arrest, mind you, the same right-wing noise machine is now going after the Indiana doctor who performed the abortion, with the intent of prosecution or vigilante, George Tiller-style execution.

Indiana’s Republican attorney general said on Wednesday that his office planned to investigate the Indiana doctor who helped a 10-year-old rape victim who crossed state lines to have an abortion.

Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indianapolis, has told multiple outlets that she provided care to the 10-year-old after a child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted her. The child was six weeks and three days into the pregnancy, Bernard said. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, a wave of state-level abortion restrictions took effect, including in Ohio, a state that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

“We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it’s a crime … to intentionally not report,” state Attorney General Todd Rokita said on Fox News on Wednesday night. “This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18 or really any woman is having abortion in our state. And then if a child is being sexually abused, of course parents need to know. Authorities need to know. Public policy experts need to know.”

Abortion in Indiana is banned after 22 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions for medical emergencies. There are strict reporting requirements in both Ohio and Indiana for abortions and rape allegations.

 

So, problem number one, Ohio has banned all abortions after six weeks. Indiana hasn't had time to institute a similar law yet, but they will.

Two, Indiana AG Todd Rokita is literally saying that the state has a public interest in every abortion performed in the state. 

Three, Rokita is now going to find a way to put Dr. Barnard in jail.

Four, FOX News all but called on people to take Dr. Bernard out if she's not jailed.

This is how Dr. George Tiller was killed in Kansas more than a decade ago, gunned down in his church congregation while attending services, after Bill O'Reilly went after him for performing abortions. Naming and shaming abortion providing doctors in 2022 is a call for assassination. We know because it's happened before.

It's happening now.

The Kids Are Not Alright, Con't

 Voters under 30 want politicians over 70 gone, all of them, in both parties.

Alexandra Chadwick went to the polls in 2020 with the singular goal of ousting Donald J. Trump. A 22-year-old first time voter, she saw Joseph R. Biden Jr. as more of a safeguard than an inspiring political figure, someone who could stave off threats to abortion access, gun control and climate policy.

Two years later, as the Supreme Court has eroded federal protections on all three, Ms. Chadwick now sees President Biden and other Democratic leaders as lacking both the imagination and willpower to fight back. She points to a generational gap — one she once overlooked but now seems cavernous.

“How are you going to accurately lead your country if your mind is still stuck 50, 60 or 70 years ago?” Ms. Chadwick, a customer service representative in Rialto, Calif., said of the many septuagenarian leaders at the helm of her party. “It’s not the same, and people aren’t the same, and your old ideas aren’t going to work as well anymore.”

While voters across the spectrum express rising doubts about the country’s political leadership, few groups are as united in their discontent as the young.

A survey from The New York Times and Siena College found that just 1 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds strongly approve of the way Mr. Biden is handling his job. And 94 percent of Democrats under 30 said they wanted another candidate to run two years from now. Of all age groups, young voters were most likely to say they wouldn’t vote for either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump in a hypothetical 2024 rematch.

The numbers are a clear warning for Democrats as they struggle to ward off a drubbing in the November midterm elections. Young people, long among the least reliable part of the party’s coalition, marched for gun control, rallied against Mr. Trump and helped fuel a Democratic wave in the 2018 midterm elections. They still side with Democrats on issues that are only rising in prominence.

But four years on, many feel disengaged and deflated, with only 32 percent saying they are “almost certain” to vote in November, according to the poll. Nearly half said they did not think their vote made a difference.

Interviews with these young voters reveal generational tensions driving their frustration. As they have come of age facing racial strife, political conflict, high inflation and a pandemic, they have looked for help from politicians who are more than three times their age.

Those older leaders often talk about upholding institutions and restoring norms, while young voters say they are more interested in results. Many expressed a desire for more sweeping changes like a viable third party and a new crop of younger leaders. They’re eager for innovative action on the problems they stand to inherit, they said, rather than returning to what worked in the past.

“Each member of Congress, every single one of them, has, I’m sure, lived through fairly traumatic times in their lives and also chaos in the country,” said John Della Volpe, who studies young people’s opinions as the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. “But every member of Congress has also seen America at its best. And that is when we’ve all come together. That is something that Gen Z has not had.”

 

When my generation said the same thing 30 years ago, we got Ross Perot. He got 19% of the vote in 1992, and Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote for Poppy Bush's 37.5%. Famously, none of the candidates managed to get 50%+ in any of the 50 states.

The youngest candidate in touch with voters my age at the time? Clinton, who was 46 back then and appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show with his saxophone.

But I'm looking at this poll and I still see that folks 18-29 want major change, and half of them say there's no reason to vote.

So guess what? If you vote, you may not get what you want, but you'll make a difference. You don't vote, the people who do decide your fate. My answer to these kids is this: you know who does vote and who does get what they want?

People over 70.

Still hasn't occurred to the kids yet. It might after this midterm, I dunno.

We'll see.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead Goes Through Ohio, Con't

The Right-Wing Noise Machine™ has spent this week attacking an Ohio doctor who was forced to refer a ten-year-old child who was sexually assaulted and impregnated to get an abortion out of state in Indiana because of Ohio's "Heartbeat Bill" six-week ban on abortions reinstated by the state's GOP Attorney General, Dave Yost, the day after Roe v Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court.  Several right wing news outlets called the story a hoax, even the Ny Times and Washington Post openly questioned the validity of the story.

Yost himself went on FOX News last night to say there wasn't a "whisper" of evidence that the story was true, that there wasn't a "damn scintilla of evidence".

Less than 24 hours later, a Columbus man was arraigned on those exact charges.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost appeared on Fox News this week, casting doubt on the veracity of Dr. Caitlin Bernard's account that a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim needed to travel to Indiana for an abortion.

Yost, a Republican, doubled down on that in an interview with the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau on Tuesday.

"Every day that goes by the more likely that this is a fabrication. I know the cops and prosecutors in this state. There's not one of them that wouldn't be turning over every rock, looking for this guy and they would have charged him," he said. "I'm not saying it could not have happened. What I'm saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence. And shame on the Indianapolis paper that ran this thing on a single source who has an obvious axe to grind.""

After news broke Wednesday of an arrest in the case, Yost issued a single sentence statement: "We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets."

He later added that he's "absolutely delighted that this monster has been taken off the street. If convicted, he should spend the rest of his life in prison."

Gershon Fuentes, 27, of Columbus, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child. He is charged with rape.

Yost is endorsed by the Ohio Right to Life PAC.

The same day that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Yost went to federal court to lift a stay on an Ohio law that bans abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, usually about six weeks into a pregnancy.

Called the "heartbeat" ban, the new law prohibits abortions, including in cases of rape or incest. The only exception is if the life of the mother were in jeopardy.

Democrat Jeff Crossman, Yost's opponent in the AG's race, said the attorney general misrepresented the law, indicating a 10-year-old would qualify for an exception when there is no exceptions for rape and incest. "He doesn't care about the facts."

Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called the child rape case a "tragedy," but didn't weigh in on the law he signed that barred her from getting the procedure in Ohio.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for DeWine said the governor has no further comment.

"And he has said that if the evidence supports, the rapist should spend the rest of his life in prison," said DeWine press secretary Dan Tierney.

Former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, who is running against DeWine for governor, called on both DeWine and Yost to apologize for questioning the validity of the case.

The DeWine campaign called Whaley's statement misleading and false, saying "At no point did he express anything but empathy and compassion and demanded justice for the child victim."

 

Which is another lie.

 

If Yost is lying, and he is, it shows just how awful Ohio's new abortion ban is going to be.

 

But you know what? if he was actually telling the truth, the same thing would apply.

 

 

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

 Or...don't vote, and maybe you'll be okay, but probably not, I guess.

 

A majority of American voters across nearly all demographics and ideologies believe their system of government does not work, with 58 percent of those interviewed for a New York Times/Siena College poll saying that the world’s oldest independent constitutional democracy needs major reforms or a complete overhaul.

The discontent among Republicans is driven by their widespread, unfounded doubts about the legitimacy of the nation’s elections. For Democrats, it is the realization that even though they control the White House and Congress, it is Republicans, joined with their allies in gerrymandered state legislatures and the Supreme Court, who are achieving long-sought political goals.

For Republicans, the distrust is a natural outgrowth of former President Donald J. Trump’s domination of the party and, to a large degree, American politics. After seven years in which he relentlessly attacked the country’s institutions, a broad majority of Republicans share his views on the 2020 election and its aftermath: Sixty-one percent said he was the legitimate winner, and 72 percent described the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as a protest that got out of hand.

The survey results come as the House committee investigating Jan. 6 revealed new evidence this week that Mr. Trump and his aides had a hand in directing the mob to the Capitol to try to maintain his hold on the executive branch.

Among all voters, 49 percent said the Capitol riot was an attempt to overthrow the government. Another 55 percent said Mr. Trump’s actions after the 2020 election had threatened American democracy. As with so many other issues, voters saw the riot through the same partisan lens as other issues.

Seventy-six percent of Republican voters said Mr. Trump had simply been exercising his right to contest his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Asked if Mr. Trump had committed crimes while contesting the election, 89 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independent voters said yes, while 80 percent of Republicans said he had not.

“If I’d have been Trump, I’d have been very pissed off about the whole situation,” said Charles Parrish, 71, a retired firefighter from Evans, Ga.

Among Democrats, 84 percent said the Capitol attack was an attempt to overthrow the government and 92 percent said Mr. Trump threatened American democracy.

Democrats’ pessimism about the future stems from their party’s inability to protect abortion rights, pass sweeping gun control measures and pursue other liberal priorities in the face of Republican opposition. Self-described liberals were more likely than other Democrats to have lost trust in government and more likely to say voting did not make a difference.

 

What Democrats mean by overhaul is filibuster reform, SCOTUS reform, voting rights across the country, and reforming the electoral college.

 

What Republicans mean is "those people can still vote, so let's not let them anymore." 

But yeah, for folks 18-29 in this poll, 48% say there's no reason to vote at all because it won't make a difference.

 

We've saw record heavy turnout in 2018's midterms, but we're still only 8 years removed from 2014, which saw the lowest turnout since WW II.

2022 could still go either direction.

Running The Numbers, Con't

June year-over-year inflation was the worst yet, with a 9.1% rise in prices over the last twelve months.

Shoppers paid sharply higher prices for a variety of goods in June as inflation kept its hold on a slowing U.S. economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of everyday goods and services, soared 9.1% from a year ago, above the 8.8% Dow Jones estimate. That marked another month of the fastest pace for inflation going back to December 1981.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core CPI increased 5.9%, compared to the 5.7% estimate.

On a monthly basis, headline CPI rose 1.3% and core CPI was up 0.7%, compared to respective estimates of 1.1% and 0.5%.

Taken together, the numbers seemed to counter the narrative that inflation may be peaking, as the gains were based across a variety of categories.

Energy prices surged 7.5% on the month and were up 41.6% on a 12-month basis. The food index increased 1%, while shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the CPI rose 0.6% for the month and were up 5.6% annually. This was the sixth straight month that food at home rose at least 1%.

Rental costs 0.8% in June, the largest monthly increase since April 1986, according to the BLS.

Stock market futures slumped following the data while government bond yields surged.

Much of inflation rise came from gasoline prices, which increased 11.2% on the month and just shy of 60% for the 12-month period. Electricity costs rose 1.7% and 13.7%, respectively. New and used vehicle prices posted respective gains of 0.7% and 1.6%.

Medical care costs increased 0.7% on the month, propelled by a 1.9% increase in dental services, the largest monthly change ever recorded for that sector in data that goes back to 1995.

Airline fares were one of the few areas seeing a decline, falling 1.8% in June though still up 34.1% from a year ago. The meat, poultry, fish and eggs category also fell 0.4% for the month but is up 11.7% on an annual basis.

 

The good news is that July numbers are already better, with a sharp drop in oil prices this month so far.  Oil is down $25 from its June highs of $120 a barrel, but that still means oil is $95 right now, and gasoline prices still remain remain high.  They are falling too, finally, with the national average down 40 cents from $5 average highs.

But we'll almost certainly see more major rate cuts in the weeks ahead, another three-quarter percent or even a full percent point is not out of the question.

Last Call For Hearing Aides For America, Con't

The 7th hearing of the January 6th Committee today laid out the case that the white supremacist domestic terrorists involved in the deadly terrorist insurrection were of course there at Trump's bidding.

The day after an explosive Oval Office meeting in which a motley crew of outside advisers clashed with White House lawyers over a plan to seize voting machines, then-President Donald Trump turned his focus to riling up his supporters for the Jan. 6 push to stop the counting of electoral votes, according to evidence presented in Tuesday's House committee hearing.

Two longtime Trump advisers, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, were in contact with leaders of the violent extremist groups The Proud Boys and The Oath Keepers, according to text messages and photographs produced by the committee — though Stone, through a lawyer, disputed participating in a group chat. The two groups began working together for the first time after Trump issued his call for a Jan. 6 rally in Washington, the panel said.

One witness, Stephen Ayres, who has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after entering the Capitol Jan. 6, said he didn't plan to march until Trump called on the crowd at a "Stop the Steal" rally to march to the Capitol to encourage Republican lawmakers to block certification. Ayres said he went thinking that Trump would accompany the mob.

"We basically just followed on what he said," Ayres said. "I think everybody thought he was going to be coming down. ... I believed it."

The evidence presented by the committee Tuesday is designed to fit into its broader case that Trump resorted to inciting violence after learning that he had lost the election and had no legal means to prevent a peaceful transfer of power. In that effort, the panel portrayed the weeks after the November 2020 election as a time of desperation for Trump, during which he considered strategies his own lawyers viewed as detrimental to the nation and his close confidants encouraged the extremist groups that led the attack on the Capitol.

 

Trump's own inner circle told him that the game was up on several occasions. Trump turned around and tweeted a call to armed insurrection.

On Dec. 19, just hours after the meeting ended, Trump tweeted to his followers that they should come to the nation’s capital.

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Be there, will be wild!”

That turned into a “call to action” for some and a “call to arms” for others, said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., a member of the committee.

Some Trump supporters came to see Jan. 6 as the last chance to stop his ouster by voters — and a moment that begged for violence, according to videos and online posts the committee played.

There was at least one reference to a “red wedding” — the scene from the HBO show “Game of Thrones” in which members of a leading family are slaughtered by enemies.

“I’m ready to die for my beliefs,” one person posted on social media in reference to Jan. 6. “Are you ready to die police?”

In a group chat dubbed “The Ministry of Defense” Proud Boys and Oath Keepers discussed strategic and tactical plans for Jan. 6, including pinpointing police locations, according to the committee. Kelly Meggs, a leader of the Oath Keepers, directly discussed security with Stone on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Raskin said.

 

And at the end of the day's testimony, Rep. Liz Cheney hinted at what's coming next. 

 

The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 revealed that they told the Department of Justice that former President Donald Trump contacted one of its witnesses who hasn’t publicly testified yet.

“After our last hearing. President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings,” Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, said on Tuesday.

“That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us. And this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice,” she added.

A spokesman for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

 

The Committee has now referred Trump to the Justice Department for investigation into federal witness tampering, folks.  Already, the info from this hearing has pushed Thursday's prime time hearing back until next week.

We'll see.

Sittenfeld This One Out, Con't

After his arrest on federal bribery and corruption charges in November 2020, former Cincinnati City Councilman and rising Democratic party star PG Sittenfeld was convicted last week on two of those charges and now faces prison time.

 

Former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who at one point was widely considered to be the next mayor, was found guilty Friday of federal corruption charges.

Sittenfeld, 37, was convicted on felony charges of bribery and attempted extortion. But he was acquitted on four other counts, including honest services fraud.

Sittenfeld dipped his head and slumped forward in his seat after hearing the verdict. His wife, Sarah Coyne, and at least one other woman in the packed courtroom started to cry.

No sentencing date was set. Those are often set weeks after verdicts in federal cases.

Federal sentences are determined by calculating numerous factors. Chase College of Law professor Kenneth Katkin, who attended nearly every day of the trial, calculated a possible sentence range between 15 months and 3½ years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Cole could depart from that range, but he would have to have a specific reason for doing so.

Sittenfeld's attorney, Charles M. Rittgers, declined to comment after the verdict.

Mike Allen, a former prosecutor who practices in federal court, said he expects an appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"This isn’t over," said Allen, who is now a defense attorney. "The 6th Circuit will be looking at this closely."

U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker said in a statement: “Democracy requires politicians to uphold their oath with the highest standards of integrity and respect. In this case, we worked alongside the FBI to hold Mr. Sittenfeld accountable for abusing his oath and, ultimately, the trust that the citizens of Cincinnati placed in him.”

The jury convicted Sittenfeld of bribery and attempted extortion that took place between Sept. 21, 2018 and Dec. 17, 2018.

He was acquitted of alleged crimes that took place between July 8, 2019 and Feb. 5, 2020 – all of which involved interactions with undercover FBI agents.

Before the trial began, Sittenfeld turned down a plea deal that would have capped his possible prison term at two years and allowed him to argue for probation only.

 

The number of bad decisions made by Sittenfeld over the last few years almost guaranteed this outcome.  The Feds have been cleaning up Ohio corruption in both parties over the last few years, and Sittenfeld destroyed his career over a stupid bribery move.  He then refused a plea deal, and now he's stuck looking at two or three years in prison. If he had taken the deal in 2021, he'd probably have gotten away with probation.

Even if the guy gets out of the clink and makes another stab at Ohio politics, he's a convicted felon now. People tend to not vote for those.

This dumbass did it all to himself.

Don't Read All About It

America has tuned out the news in 2022 so far, and if you're wondering why the only thing voters care about is $5 gas, it's because nobody really wants to look at the damn news anymore.

Engagement with news content has plunged during the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2021 and in some cases has fallen below pre-pandemic levels.

Why it matters: Americans have grown exhausted from the constant barrage of bad headlines that have replaced Trump-era crises, scandals and tweets.

The big picture: The level of news consumption in 2021 took a nosedive following historic highs in 2020. Despite a slew of major stories, readers have retrenched further in 2022.The war in Ukraine, a series of deadly mass shootings, the Jan. 6 hearings and the Supreme Court's revocation of abortion rights haven't been able to capture the same level of attention spurred by the onset of the pandemic and the 2020 election.

Details: Engagement with news content across all platforms declined significantly in the first half of 2022.Cable viewership across the three major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — is, on average, down 19% in prime time for the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2021. Those losses skew heavily toward CNN and MSNBC, which are down 47% and 33%, respectively. Fox's ratings are up 12% in that six-month span.  

News app sessions for the top 12 mainstream most-trafficked publishers dropped 16% in the first half of 2022, according to data from Apptopia. Website visits for the top 5 news websites in the U.S. by unique visits tracked by Similarweb dropped 18% in the first half of 2022. Engagement on social media with news articles cratered over the past six months, dropping 50% since the first half of last year, despite more articles published, according to data from Newswhip. Engagement is measured by interactions with articles posted, which includes likes, comments and shares.

Yes, but: The steep drop-off in social media engagement with news was likely influenced by Facebook's de-emphasizing news in the News Feed as it seeks to move news consumption to its News Tab.

Zoom out: In some cases, engagement has fallen below pre-pandemic levels — a news diet "whiplash."Among the top 12 news apps, sessions in the first half of 2022 are down 13% compared with the first half of 2019, per Apptopia.Engagement with news articles on social media has cratered from the pre-pandemic rate, according to NewsWhip data, with interactions down 42% in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of 2019. 

The pre-pandemic comparison for cable news viewership also shows a drop, with numbers for the three major cable news networks in primetime down 15% in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of 2019. Fox News is up slightly, but MSNBC and CNN are down 16% and 35%, respectively.

Be smart: Interest in the presidency has declined considerably under Biden compared to his predecessor, fueling some of the engagement declines.Trump and Biden have generated the same level of Google searches in the time since Biden took office. In the year and a half after Trump took office in 2017, he generated 7 times more search interest than former President Obama.

The big picture: Survey data shows Americans have grown weary amid what feels like a never-ending cycle of bad news.

 

This seems like a confession to me. "We're flooding America with bad news, Biden and the Democrats are greatly suffering because of it, and nobody cares about Biden's accomplishments....nobody."

I think the second half will see more of America turning in as the midterms get closer, but the real story here is that the news industry desperately wants Donald Trump back and are at this point openly pulling for Republicans so that they can get more coverage, controversy, and clicks.

Maybe tuning out the news is a good idea at this point.

Racist Bannon Strikes Again, Con't

As January 6th hearings resume this week, including a primetime hearing Thursday night, Donald Trump needs a way to slow down or derail the testimony train, and the perfect candidate for that is living trash elemental Steve Bannon. Marcy Wheeler on why Bannon, why now:

Back on June 29 (less than two weeks ago), Bannon moved to delay his trial until October, claiming — as many other accused January 6 criminals have — that publicity associated with the January 6 Committee makes it impossible to get a fair trial. It was a reasonable claim for the Proud Boys to make. But thus far, Bannon has no more figured in the hearings than other passing faces in the mob.

Indeed, DOJ mocked Bannon’s claim, noting that he had been mentioned just twice in more than fourteen hours of hearings, one of which was just a description that he had blown off the Committee subpoena.

In fourteen hours of hearings, Bannon merited no more than thirty seconds of attention.

Presciently, DOJ noted that no one but Steve Bannon and his lawyers are talking about Steve Bannon.

Bannon responded on July 6, just four days ago, presenting entirely irrelevant data that counted how many times his name has shown up in the press, then attributing all of that to the Committee, and not his own big mouth.

Then he opened his own big mouth and caused what he claims he’s trying hard to avoid: a press torrent of mostly inaccurate reporting.

Two weeks ago, Steve Bannon needed to be something more than a thirty second man in hopes of delaying his trial. And multiple outlets jumped to do his bidding.

 

So now Bannon almost certainly will accomplish multiple things if he really does have a deal with the January 6th Committee to testify: a reason to delay his own trial, a voice to attack the credibility of other committee witnesses, a way to fill the news cycle with bullshit to cloud the truth, and a way to get back in Trump's good graces.

Keep in mind this isn't about Bannon's legal fees. Trump isn't paying them, supposedly, but that doesn't mean Bannon doesn't have the money. No, this is about mutual self-interest at the expense of the nation.

Bannon's case judge is not impressed one bit.

 

A judge said he would not delay the contempt of Congress trial of Steve Bannon on Monday, just one week before it is set to begin.

Bannon was indicted last year for refusing to answer questions from the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Bannon, who had stonewalled the committee since October 2021, had a last-minute change of heart over the weekend, a decision his lawyer attributed to a letter from former President Donald Trump that waived a purported claim of executive privilege. The Justice Department maintains that Bannon's offer to testify was nothing more than a “last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability.”

Trump's own lawyer, Justin Clark, according to the Justice Department, told the FBI that Trump “never invoked executive privilege over any particular information or materials" and offered no basis for Bannon's "total noncompliance" with his subpoena.

Judge Carl Nichols, who previously ruled that Bannon could not argue that he was not guilty because he was relying upon the advice of his lawyer, ruled Monday that Bannon cannot present evidence that he relied upon old opinions from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) regarding executive privilege either.

 

Oops.

 

Slovenly little carbuncle.

 

We Don't Need No Education, Con't

As I've been saying for years now, one of the major goals of the GOP is to get rid of public education as we know it and replace it with for-profit charter and private schools as well as publicly-funded religious education. Public schools as we know them will be eliminated, replaced with the promise of "top quality schools" that of course will have limited numbers of students, leaving everyone else out in the cold with no promise of even being able to attain education.  

It's why Republicans want to force parents to pay for schools directly with charter school schemes that have failed only due to scope, and those who can't afford schools will find that work ages have been lowered so that kids can still be sent to do the jobs that nobody else wants to do for less than minimum wage.

And the newest testing ground for this total workhouse replacement mess? The state of Arizona under Gov. Doug Ducey. 

As Gov. Doug Ducey signed Arizona’s universal school voucher expansion into law Thursday, public education advocates geared up for a petition drive to block the effort, promising once again to use a public referendum to halt universal access to the Empowerment Scholarship Account program.

The program is now the largest school voucher program in the country. It changes the very nature of how families in Arizona can spend public education dollars by opening up the option for all students to spend a portion of tax funding initially allocated to public education at private schools.

Ducey, who will complete his term as governor in January, celebrated the law.

"This is a monumental moment for all of Arizona’s students. Our kids will no longer be locked in under-performing schools," he said in a statement Thursday. “With this legislation, Arizona cements itself as the top state for school choice and as the first state in the nation to offer all families the option to choose the school setting that works best for them."

Public education advocates called it a disaster for Arizona schools.

“Arizona voters will be eager to reject HB 2853 (Universal ESA Voucher Expansion) once and for all on the November 2024 ballot, sending a clear message to national privatizers that Arizona voters overwhelmingly support public schools and want our lawmakers to prioritize them,” said Beth Lewis, Save Our Schools Arizona director.

She said the group would start printing petitions the moment the bill went into law and distribute them among volunteers across the state already doing voter outreach work.

“Arizona voters are fed up with majority lawmakers who are prioritizing their wealthy donors and greedy special interests over the Arizona students, parents, and citizens they are supposed to represent."

The tug of war between laws passed by Arizona’s school choice-minded state leaders and public education groups like Save Our Schools Arizona is far from new, but there is no promised outcome.

If Save Our Schools Arizona and its supporters can secure 118,823 valid signatures before September 24, the voucher expansion will be placed on hold until November 2024, when voters get a chance to weigh in.

A similar voucher expansion was successfully stopped through a public referendum in 2018.

But the most recent voucher expansion, as well as court rulings like the one that killed Proposition 208, the voter-approved tax increase for education, show how those efforts can be curtailed. The Legislature could also repeal the voucher law next year and replace it with a similar bill, thus nullifying the referendum effort.

 

The problem, as with so many other Republican-created disasters that we're dealing with now. is supply.

There are only X number of seats in the top-performing schools. Those will go to those already paying to live close to top-performing local schools. Everyone else gets their second, or third, or fourth, or...their last choice. It's reverse busing.

And this is all going to require lots of non-union teachers, you see.

The education requirement for teachers in Arizona has changed. Under legislation Gov. Doug Ducey signed earlier this week, a person only needs to be enrolled to get their college degree to begin teaching in public schools. It’s a big change, and it’s been met with mixed reactions.

Jens Larson said there was a teacher shortage back when he joined the profession in 2000. “I was hired as an emergency certified teacher. I had a degree but I didn’t have the teacher credentials that were needed,” Larson said.

For 14 years, he worked at the Phoenix Union High School District. He said the low pay, lack of respect, and resources led him to leave. Since leaving, he started Phoenix Youth Circus Arts Program and continues to work with children. “I have more fun teaching circus than I do teaching geometry, I have to admit that,” he said.

But this new change, SB 1159, he said, was a stretch. “The situation will be even worse if you’re dealing with either younger people or even less well-educated people,” Larson said.

“It could work, obviously there’s no one size fits all plan,” said Christopher Ramsey, a Phoenix teacher. Ramsey also benefitted from the teacher shortage years back. “I’m a teacher, and I taught for two years while doing an accelerated master’s program, so I didn’t have my teacher’s degree,” he added. He said if you have the right person, it could work.

The Arizona Educators Association, or AEA, fought this legislation. “You have to have some experience. It’s going to allow people to do on the job training, and that’s where it’s scary,” Marisol Garcia, the President of the AEA, said. 

Charter schools are going to hire all sorts of "teachers" under this plan, but what they won't be is unionized. Arizona's public education system is going to collapse spectacularly in the next few years, and it's only a matter of time before red states follow suit with this awful scheme.

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

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin only has to waste another four weeks with posturing over a deal that will never happen before the Senate's month long August recess and campaign season beginning Labor Day, and he'll have successfully, singlehandedly, killed Biden's Build Back Better plan completely, as intended.

Senate Democrats are redoubling their efforts to finalize a new spending package that could lower health-care costs and combat climate change, hoping to hammer out a long-elusive deal with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and bring it to the chamber floor later this month.

A new sense of optimism — and urgency — has set in among party lawmakers nearly seven months after their last attempt to pass a sweeping bill ended in stunning defeat. Piece by piece, Democratic leaders in recent days have started reconstructing their economic ambitions as they race to deliver on a staple element of President Biden’s agenda before the midterm elections in November.

So far, top Democrats have worked out with Manchin new agreements that would cut drug costs for seniors, improve the financial health of Medicare and close a tax loophole that benefits the wealthy. They even have advanced talks around addressing the challenges posed by a faster-warming planet, raising the prospect that they can secure a limited initiative to penalize methane emissions.

Those early agreements have set the stage for Senate Democrats to make an upbeat return to the Capitol on Monday. Manchin is expected to have his next private meeting with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) early in the week, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the deliberations. They are set to discuss climate as Democrats try to bring one of their thorniest fights with the moderate West Virginian to an end.

Plenty remains unresolved, including the fate of a key program that lowers insurance costs for millions of Americans, raising the prospect that the latest round of talks could collapse much as they did before. Adding to the challenge, Republicans have intensified their opposition in recent days, hoping to apply enough political pressure on Manchin that he walks away from the talks again.

“To my friend Joe Manchin from West Virginia, whose vote is going to be necessary for this, I would remind him Joe Biden’s popularity in that state is as low as it is in Wyoming, only 17 percent.,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), leader of the Senate Republican Conference, said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” He added that Manchin “shouldn’t walk the plank for Joe Biden” politically.

Even if Manchin and members of his party manage to strike a deal, it is guaranteed to be far smaller than Democrats’ original, roughly $2 trillion package, known as the Build Back Better Act, which the senator scuttled last year. The cuts might have been unthinkable earlier in the debate, but many Democrats have come to acknowledge them as the costs of compromise — and feel more hopeful than ever that there is now a pathway to achieve it.

“We’re making real progress, we’re picking up steam, and the central reason is we’re focused on cutting costs and addressing these real pocket book issues on the minds of Americans,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the tax-focused Finance Committee.

“I’m not saying it’s all done, it’s all over and the like,” Wyden later added, “but I do feel more confident about the progress that has been made.”

 

So when President Manchin and Senate Majority Leader McConnell finally destroy this bill over the next few weeks, remember that I told you wrecking any meaningful economic progress to help the Democrats in 2022 was Manchin's goal all along.

He just has to yank the football away one last time, and he can then do whatever he wants after that, switch parties, retire, run again, either way he'll get what he wants.

He's a lot better at this game than people realize.

 

 

Playing Near Gasoline WIth An Open Flame

The Biden administration is trying to find a sweet spot between keeping Russian sanctions on oil and causing a massive jump in oil prices to $200 a barrel or more, and one wrong move could blow up the global economy completely.

Relief at the gas pump coupled with this past week’s news that businesses continue to hire at a blistering clip have tempered many economists’ fears that America is heading into a downturn.

But while President Biden’s top aides are celebrating those economic developments, they are also worried the economy could be in for another serious shock later this year, one that could send the country into a debilitating recession.

White House officials fear a new round of European penalties aimed at curbing the flow of Russian oil by year-end could send energy prices soaring anew, slamming already beleaguered consumers and plunging the United States and other economies into a severe contraction. That chain of events could exacerbate what is already a severe food crisis plaguing countries across the world.

To prevent that outcome, U.S. officials have latched on to a never-before-tried plan aimed at depressing global oil prices — one that would complement European sanctions and allow critical flows of Russian crude onto global markets to continue but at a steeply discounted price.

Europe, which continues to guzzle more than two million barrels of Russian oil each day, is set to enact a ban on those imports at the end of the year, along with other steps meant to complicate Russia’s efforts to export fuel globally. While Mr. Biden pushed Europe to cut off Russian oil as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine, some forecasters, along with top economic aides to the president, now fear that such policies could result in huge quantities of Russian oil — which accounts for just under a tenth of the world’s supply — suddenly taken off the global market.

Analysts have calculated that such a depletion in supply could send oil prices soaring to $200 per barrel or more, translating to Americans paying $7 a gallon for gasoline. Global growth could slam into reverse as consumers and businesses pull back spending in response to higher fuel prices and as central banks, which are already raising interest rates in an effort to tame inflation, are forced to make borrowing costs even more expensive.

The potential for another oil shock to puncture the global economy, and perhaps Mr. Biden’s re-election prospects, has driven the administration’s attempts to persuade government and business leaders around the world to sign on to a global price cap on Russian oil.

It is a novel and untested effort to force Russia to sell its oil to the world at a steep discount. Administration officials and Mr. Biden say the goal is twofold: to starve Moscow’s oil-rich war machine of funding and to relieve pressure on energy consumers around the world who are facing rising fuel prices.

To transport its oil to market, Russia draws on financing, ships and, crucially, insurance from Britain, Europe and the United States. The European penalties, as currently constructed, would not only cut Russia off from most of the European oil market but also from those other Western supports for its shipments. If strictly enforced, those measures could leave Moscow with no means of transporting its oil, at least temporarily.

The Biden administration’s proposal would not affect the European ban, but it would ease some of the other restrictions — but only if the transported Russian oil is sold for no more than a price set by the United States and its allies. That would allow Moscow to continue moving oil to the rest of the world. The oil now flowing to France or Germany would go elsewhere — Central America, Africa or even China and India — and Russia would have to sell it at a discount.

Some economists and oil industry experts are skeptical that the plan will work, either as a way to reduce revenues for the Kremlin or to push down prices at the pump. They warn the plan could mostly enrich oil refiners and could be ripe for evasion by Russia and its allies. Moscow could refuse to sell at the capped price.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen plans to push for more support for the cap when she meets with fellow finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations — including Russia’s — in Asia in the next week. The American delegation will have no contact with the Russians, a Treasury official said.

But even some skeptics say that the price cap could, if nothing else, keep enough Russian oil pumping to avoid a recession-triggering price spike.

Administration officials say privately that there are signs in oil markets that even in its infant stages, the cap proposal is already helping to reassure traders that the world could avoid abruptly losing millions barrels of Russian oil per day at the year’s end.

 

And I see we're conducting war with the Rational Actor Theory again, where the White House assumes that Putin is in this for the money. If oil overheats, the argument goes, oil would collapse economies, a global recession would occur, and oil would drop back to $20 again. Putin will then go along with the price cap because not doing so would hurt him far more than the West.

That's a hell of a bet, that Putin will be an active participant in his own punishment.

If it fails, we're looking at a nightmare just as elections are coming up here.

We'll see.

Sunday Long Read: Out Of Africa

The Guardian's Eve Fairbanks gives us our Sunday Long Read this week, as she details her experiences with Black farmers in post-apartheid South Africa, and if you think Black farmers in America are being driven out of business in favor of white farmers, remember that South Africa has all but perfected that move.

The tiny plane banked and headed north. It was a sunny morning in 2015, and the pilot and I were flying out of a Johannesburg airfield towards the Zimbabwe border. Having lived in South Africa for six years, I wanted to see from the air a problem I had often thought about: a problem proposed by the end of apartheid, when black people had to enter into and possess a world that white people believed they had created.

Two decades earlier, in 1994, Nelson Mandela had been inaugurated as the country’s first black president. He’d gripped the hand of FW de Klerk – its last white president – and said in Afrikaans, his former jailers’ language: “Wat is verby, is verby!” (“What is past, is past”). These words had expressed the hope for the country’s transition: that with the right attitudes – repentance from white people and forgiveness from people of colour – the damage that segregation had done could be left in the past.

And some parts of South Africa did look miraculously transformed. Apartheid was the most rigid form of legalised racial segregation history has ever known. Now, on the new high-speed train that connects Johannesburg with its airport, white men stood and yielded their seats to black women who were doing business deals on their iPhones.

But it also felt like a dread was hanging over the country. In one newspaper, I read a letter written by a black South African who warned that the country’s level of dissatisfaction would soon “make the burning of Mississippi” – the unrest in the Jim Crow-era American South – “look like a little bonfire”. And I noticed how much of the past was still present. Many roads were still named after Afrikaner heroes, and mine dumps still divided mostly white-dominated neighbourhoods from the ones black people lived in. But the view from the plane was the most graphic manifestation of this division. From the air, Johannesburg’s dense suburban developments gave way to equestrian estates, then to the folds of the Magaliesberg mountains. And then, beyond the mountains, farmland began. And suddenly I saw it. It was so stark.

Apartheid leaders had tried to carve South Africa into multiple countries: a “white” country and a handful of black “homelands”, which they insisted were completely different, sovereign nations. Politically, that was always a farce. The homelands had puppet rulers and no local economies; they commanded little loyalty among their so-called citizens. Most of their residents still commuted to white areas to work.

No foreign country ever recognised the demarcation between white and black South Africa as real. And yet over time what began as an absurdist proposition had become real.

As segregation deepened throughout the 20th century, much of the fertile, rain-washed land had been given to white people, while the barren peaks and hot, dry, malaria-ridden lowlands were given to black tribal leaders. From our little plane, the borders between white and black landscapes were clearly visible: green was white South Africa and dust brown was black South Africa. Different patterns of habitation had emerged: in black South Africa, regularly placed little metal-roofed homes dotted the dun-colored earth. White-owned areas were large sweeps of unbroken pasture or cropland.

Intensive farming had been a pride and a fixation for white South Africans. The degree to which they made the land yield harvest was supposed to be their justification for keeping it. The apartheid government not only stripped black South Africans of the right to privately buy land, but poured massive amounts of money into assistance programmes for white farmers. From the air, the country looked as if a child had cut up travel-magazine pictures of some pastoral English fantasy and spliced them with pictures of the Sahel desert to make a collage.

I was curious to hear from black farmers what it was like to take over formerly white-owned farms. The intense association between whiteness and hi-tech agriculture posed a sharp challenge to black South Africans. Finally able to possess the land they had so long been denied, they felt driven to prove they could farm just as well or better. Land reform was one of the flagship policies that Mandela’s political party, the African National Congress (ANC), instituted after apartheid’s end. It set up a process to buy whites out of their farms and pass them to black people.

The ambitious goal was set to transfer at least 30% of South Africa’s white-owned agricultural land to black people. From 10,000ft up, though, I saw how challenging it would be. When I zoomed in on the lives of the people trying to make it work, I saw that it might be impossible.

 

South Africa learned a lot from Jim Crow America, and just as a new Jim Crow is sweeping across the US right now, South Africa is discovering that the structural racism in the country makes it far easier to have a new era of de facto apartheid.

 

We're headed there ourselves.

Indepen-Dunce Week In Review

So far in the last 72 hours we've seen the ouster of PM Boris Johnson in the UK, the assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe in Japan, and now the absolute collapse of Sri Lanka's government as the country's financial reserves have been plundered so badly that it has run out of money for importing basic goods like food, fuel, and medicine.

 

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose family has dominated politics in Sri Lanka for much of the past two decades, was asked by the country’s political leaders to step down on Saturday after months of protests accusing him of running the island nation’s economy into the ground through corruption and mismanagement.

The call for Mr. Rajapaksa’s departure was confirmed by two lawmakers and came after protesters entered the president’s residence and his office, ​and thousands ​more ​descended on the capital, Colombo, to register their growing fury over his government’s inability to address a crippling economic crisis.

By the evening, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office only in May and was also facing demands to resign, said he would step down, saying he had “the safety of all citizens” in mind. Protesters entered his private home late Saturday and set it ablaze, said Dinouk Colombage, a spokesman for the prime minister, adding that Mr. Wickremesinghe was not at home at the time.

Sri Lanka has run out of foreign-exchange reserves for imports of essential items like fuel and medicine, and the United Nations has warned that more than a quarter of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people are at risk of food shortages.

The economic crisis is a major setback for the island nation that was still grappling with the legacy of a bloody three-decade civil war. That conflict, between the government and the Tamil Tiger insurgents who had taken up the cause of discrimination against the ethnic minority Tamils, ended in 2009. But many of its underlying causes have remained, with the Rajapaksa family continuing to cater to the majority Buddhist Sinhalese.

At least 42 people have been injured in clashes with security forces in the city, health officials said, after the police used tear gas and water cannons against protesters and fired shots into the air to try to disperse them.

A Sri Lankan television station said four of its journalists were attacked by security forces outside the residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Saturday evening. In a video released by News 1st, the Colombo-based media outlet on Twitter, officers in riot gear can be seen using sticks to repeatedly beat a man holding a camera, even after he falls to the ground. The station said all four of its journalists were rushed to the hospital after the incident.

Local news media showed footage of protesters breaching parts of the presidential residence as well as his secretariat, a separate building that houses his office.

Videos on social media showed protesters jumping into the pool in Mr. Rajapaksa’s residence, resting in bedrooms, and frying snacks in the presidential kitchen.

“I came here today to send the president home,” said Wasantha Kiruwaththuduwa, 50, who had walked 10 miles to join the protest. “Now the president must resign. If he wants peace to prevail, he must step down.”

 

The last three years in the US has been unprecedented.

So have the last 3 days around the world.

Indepen-Dunce Week: Georgia On My Mind Once Again

The Democrats' most bunerable senator remains Raphael Warnock, who is neck and neck in his battle with human concussion tackling dummy/sperm donor Herschel Walker.

Georgia is already a hotbed of political spending as Democrats try to maintain their momentum in the state—and a new poll shows the race between former NFL player Herschel Walker (R) and incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) is neck-and-neck.

A survey by Data for Progress conducted between July 1 and July 6, exclusively shared with The Daily Beast, shows Walker narrowly leading Warnock by 49 percent to 47 percent. Both candidates fell into negative favorability ratings, as Walker received a -3 favorability while Warnock received a -7.

The Georgia Senate seat is one of the Democrats’ top priorities this year as they hope to maintain power in Congress’s upper chamber. But with the party forecast to face massive headwinds during the midterm elections while President Joe Biden’s favorability continues to spiral, Democrats in Georgia, like many other states, could be facing an uphill battle.

But there have been glimmers of hope for Warnock’s re-election bid. Walker has been plagued by scandals, most recently reports by The Daily Beast that he has at least three children he’d kept secret from the public, despite speaking against absentee fathers throughout the campaign. And other polls have shown Warnock and Walker as tied, while another had Warnock leading by 10 points.

Though the latest poll shows Warnock down from those previous numbers, Data for Progress founder Sean McElwee told The Daily Beast he sees it as “a more accurate reading of the race,” noting their research shows Republicans are invested in economic issues this cycle while Democrats continue to focus on party values.

Walker has consistently hammered economics as a tenet of his campaign, railing against Democrats for inflation and gas prices throughout his candidacy.

The gubernatorial race between Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams and Republican incumbent Brian Kemp is not nearly as close, according to the poll. The survey found that 53 percent of respondents said they’d vote for Kemp compared to only 44 for Abrams. Kemp also had a +3 favorability rating, compared to Abrams’ -9.

Previous polling shows Kemp and Abrams in a close matchup, with a June Quinnipiac poll having them tied.

 

If there's any caveat here, it's that in 2020, state polling was across-the-board abysmal, as it was in 2018 and 2016. Especially for Senate contests, races that were thought to be close were double-digit wins for Republicans like Susan Collins, Joni Ernst, Thom Tillis, and Roger Marshall.

Of course, those state polling errors went the other way too, that both Georgia Dems won as well in 2020.

Here's hoping that Warnock can hold on.

 

Indepen-Dunce Week: Shinzo Abe Assassinated

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot in the back at a political rally for his party yesterday and succumbed to his injuries.

Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, a towering political figure at home and abroad, died after being shot at a campaign event Friday, doctors said, shocking a nation where firearms laws are among the world’s strictest and gun violence is rare.

Abe, 67, was stumping for a fellow politician from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Nara, near Osaka, on Friday morning when a gunman opened fire with what police described as an improvised weapon.

Hidetada Fukushima, head of the emergency center at the Nara Medical University Hospital, said Abe had no vital signs when he arrived there at 12:20 p.m. Friday. Doctors found two gunshot wounds to his neck, and one of the bullets had reached his heart, Fukushima said. Despite efforts to save him, including a transfusion, Abe died of blood loss less than five hours later.

The assassination of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, and a staunch U.S. ally, sent shock waves throughout the country ahead of elections for the upper house of parliament on Sunday.

Police arrested a suspect, a man from Nara in his 40s named Tetsuya Yamagami, and seized a gun. Yamagami was a member of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years, defense officials told Japanese media.

Footage of the event showed Abe giving a speech, then a plume of smoke forming behind him as he collapsed. Officials ran to apprehend the shooter, who appeared to be positioned behind Abe. Videos showed a chaotic scene with Abe, unmoving, lying on the ground as attendees yelled for an ambulance. The bullet wounds were found in the front of Abe’s body, Fukushima said.

Abe, who came from a prominent political family, was the youngest person to become prime minister of postwar Japan. His popularity soared after he resigned from office in 2020, and he remained a power broker who frequented campaign events to support other LDP politicians.

At an emotional news conference after Abe’s death, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida praised his former colleague as “a dear friend who loved this country.”

“To lose such a figure in this manner is absolutely devastating,” he said.

Kishida said Sunday’s upper house election would continue as planned but with enhanced safety measures, saying it was important to protect the democratic process and not allow violence to change its course.

“Elections are the foundation of democracy, which we must defend. We cannot give in to violence. For this reason, we will continue to fight the election campaign until the very end. I hope the people of Japan will think about and work hard to protect this democracy,” Kishida said.

 

It's nearly incomprehensible for this to happen in a country like Japan, it's like the start of a particularly cynical and depressing anime series where things only get worse in the country. Japan doesn't have nearly the amount of reactionary fascist types that America or Europe does, and Abe was still killed, the equivalent of America losing President Obama or Clinton to a bullet, or German Chancellor Angela Merkel falling to an assassin.

If this is happening in a country like Japan, the world is in real trouble.