That's the undertow that comes beneath the glee, or maybe it is just me:
"It is always funny listening to politicians, of all people, and especially Washington pols, of all politicians, invoke God and Jesus and religion in general. So it was especially amusing that Thursday’s congressional hearing on what to do with Marjorie Taylor Greene, that self-styled God-fearing, Jesus-loving congresswoman from Georgia, who’s in favor of assassinating Democrats and thinks Jews shoot laser beams from space to start wildfires in California, began with a prayer. Margaret Grun Kibben, the House chaplain, implored God to “lift up our eyes to your grace. We commit to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,” the good chaplain prayed, and then the crazy lady from Georgia got up and said Facebook made her do it and she compared the mainstream media to the QAnon conspiracy kooks she has long embraced......"
Don't fall for the straw man, and I want to know why the hell is the fabricator is still drawing a check.
The Globe doesn't just want to bury her, they want her arrested and executed before being consigned to the dustbin of history:
In 2020, the Senate voted to acquit President Trump, bringing to a close the third presidential trial in American history," and Happy Birthday Football Hall of Famer Roger Staubach.
Then I saw these and wondered why the mask and no mask given the science, and seeing those kids play ball with masks on is enough to choke on.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"House Exiles Marjorie Taylor Greene From Panels, as Republicans Rally Around Her" by Catie Edmondson New York Times, Feb. 4, 2021
WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday exiled Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from congressional committees, blacklisting the first-term Georgian for endorsing the executions of Democrats and spreading dangerous and bigoted misinformation even as fellow Republicans rallied around her.
The House voted 230 to 199 to remove Greene from the Education and Budget Committees, with only 11 Republicans joining Democrats to support the move. The action came after Greene’s past statements and espousing of QAnon and other conspiracy theories had pushed her party to a political crossroads.
The vote effectively stripped Ms. Greene of her influence in Congress by banishing her from committees critical to advancing legislation and conducting oversight. Party leaders traditionally control the membership of the panels. While Democrats and Republicans have occasionally moved to punish their own members by stripping them of assignments, the majority has never in modern times moved to do so to a lawmaker in the other party.
I can't help but see the situation as a sexual assault on her, and because the #MeToo era is now over, you ladies have been put on ice.
In emotional remarks on the House floor, Greene expressed regret on Thursday for her previous comments and disavowed many of her most outlandish and repugnant statements. She said she believed that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks “absolutely happened” and that school shootings were “absolutely real” after previously suggesting that aspects of both were staged, but wearing a mask emblazoned with the phrase “Free Speech,” Greene did not apologize over the course of her roughly eight-minute speech......
Well, it wasn't an AA meeting, was it?
Well, whatever happens going forward, she's a martyr now for calling out the evil!
The Globe feels justice has been done and pity poor Kevin McCarthy, the true rogue in the Republican Party.
Related:
It's enough to make you see Red:
"Biden strikes tough tone on Russia in diplomatic push" by Aamer Madhani, Matthew Lee and Darlene Superville Associated Press, February 4, 2021
WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday said the days of the US “rolling over” to Russian President Vladimir Putin are gone as he called for the immediate release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
During his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden issued his strongest condemnation of Putin as large protests have broken out throughout Russia following the jailing of Navalny. Thousands of protesters have been arrested.
The new American president was also seeking to make clear to the world that he’s making a dramatic turn away from Putin following the presidency of Republican Donald Trump, who avoided direct confrontation and often sought to downplay the Russian leader’s malign actions.
So when does the nuclear war begin, Joe?
That's the only way to save the dollar, huh?
Navalny, an anticorruption campaigner and Putin’s most determined political foe, was arrested Jan. 17 upon returning from a five-month convalescence in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning, which he has blamed on the Kremlin.
“I made it clear to President Putin, in a manner very different from my predecessor, that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions — interfering with our election, cyber attacks, poisoning its citizens— are over,” said Biden, who last week spoke to Putin in what White House officials called a tense first exchange. “We will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia and defend our vital interests and our people.”
Thanks for the warning regarding another war based on lies, Joe.
Biden’s comments on Russia came as he asserted a broad reset of American foreign policy, including reversing Trump’s order to withdraw US troops stationed in Germany, ending support for Saudi Arabia’s military offensive in Yemen, and promising to support LBGTQ rights as a cornerstone of diplomacy.
Using the visit to outline how his foreign policy would differ from that of his predecessor, Biden called for a return to the “grounding wire of our global power.” He sought to buck up the diplomatic corps, many of whom were discouraged by Trump’s policies and tone.
“America is back. Diplomacy is back,” Biden told State Department staff before delivering his foreign policy speech. “You are the center of all that I intend to do. You are the heart of it. We’re going to rebuild our alliances.”
You have been warned, world!
With Biden’s most public diplomatic effort of his young presidency, White House officials said he was hoping to send an unambiguous signal to the world that the United States is ready to resume its role as a global leader after four years in which Trump pressed an “America First” agenda.
He offered a list of issues where he said he would reverse Trump’s policies or forge different priorities, including scrapping the former president’s plan to withdraw about 9,500 of the roughly 34,500 US troops stationed in Germany. Trump announced the pullback after repeatedly accusing Germany of not paying enough for its own defense, calling the longtime NATO ally “delinquent” for failing to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense, the alliance benchmark.
No reductions or changes have been made to US troop levels since Trump’s announcement. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hinted at a likely reconsideration of the order in a conversation with his German counterpart last week, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
So Trump, as commander-in-chief, orders a reduction in troops and is ignored by the MIC and Deep $tate, huh?
The timing of Biden’s visit so early in his term is deliberate, as much symbolic as it is a nod to his interest in foreign policy and his years as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he represented Delaware.
“I promise I will have your back,” Biden told the department staff, “and I expect you to have the back of the American people.”
So they can SHOOT YOU IN IT!
Biden said he would also issue a presidential memorandum that will address protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals worldwide. As a candidate, Biden pledged to prioritize LGBTQ rights on the international stage, promising to use “America’s full range of diplomatic tools” to promote equality.
Biden also announced plans to increase the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the United States to more than eight times the level at which the Trump administration left it.
Biden also announced he was appointing a longtime US diplomat for the Middle East, Tim Lenderking, as his special envoy in Yemen. The move comes as Biden is searching for a diplomatic end to the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign that has deepened humanitarian suffering in the Arabian peninsula’s poorest country.....
The New York Times is on top of that for you.
Also see:
"It is still early in his term, but President Biden seems to have broken out of the red-blue trench warfare of public polling of the Trump era — hitting the 61 percent approval mark in an A.P.-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll released Thursday. The poll, which is roughly in line with other recent surveys, shows that Biden’s popularity is powered by his commitment to tackling the pandemic and other problems by consulting advisers and experts, along with near-universal approval among Democrats. Unlike former president Trump, whose approval never moved beyond his conservative base, Biden is making modest inroads with Republicans — earning a 27 percent approval rating, up from the low teens or high single digits in most polls taken during the 2020 campaign. Independents, who swung for Biden in his race against Trump, approved of him by a 58-to-39 percent mark, the survey found. Recent polls from other organizations have shown Biden with a somewhat lower approval rating, in the low- and mid-50s, with an aggregated 54.3 percent approval rating, according to RealClearPolitics.com, but there are indications that Biden’s honeymoon could be provisional....."
Given the armed camp that is D.C., that NYT poll cannot possibly be true -- like all of them, for remember, they had Biden winning by double digits -- and it turns out that Americans who answered the AP poll were broadly split into three nearly equal camps — those who support him, those who oppose him, and those who are taking a wait-and-see approach.
You can read the Times while you wait:
"The New York Times set a record for its subscription business in 2020, a year when a pandemic, social unrest, and a bitterly contested presidential race made headlines, the company said in an earnings report Thursday. After adding 2.3 million digital-only subscriptions in 2020, more than in any previous year, The Times exceeded 7.5 million subscriptions for its digital products and print newspaper, The New York Times Co.’s fourth-quarter report said......"
I wonder if they will review this book:
"Hunter Biden is publishing a memoir about his struggles with addiction and drug abuse — from his first sips of alcohol as a child, when he was dealing with the aftermath of family tragedy, to his crack cocaine use. The book, titled “Beautiful Things,” is scheduled to be published in the United States on April 6 by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It has already drawn praise from high-profile writers including Anne Lamott, Dave Eggers, Bill Clegg, and Stephen King, who in a blurb called it “both heartbreaking and quite gorgeous.” Gallery declined to disclose the financial terms. A lawyer and former lobbyist, Hunter Biden, 51, is President Biden’s oldest surviving child, and he has been a favorite target of conservatives, including former president Trump, who openly pressed the Justice Department to investigate Hunter and his father. In addition to recounting Hunter Biden’s substance abuse, the book will also describe how the Biden family coped with a series of staggering losses: the deaths of Hunter’s mother and younger sister, who were killed in a car crash when he was a toddler, and the death of his older brother, Beau, from brain cancer. (The book’s title comes from a phrase Beau and Hunter would say to each other after Beau was diagnosed.) Its release could bring additional scrutiny to Hunter Biden’s business relationships and finances, which were a source of controversy during the 2020 presidential campaign."
It's heartbreaking, all right, and is he trying to sabotage his father so Harris can assume office?
Whatever happened to his laptop anyway, and WTF is with the title of the book?
Is it supposed to be in-our-face insulting, and what is with the fawning from the $cum writers?
So the crime family is off limits?
"All members of the Capitol Police will be vaccinated against Covid-19, the acting chief of the force announced on Thursday, almost a month after the deadly riot at the Capitol that killed one officer and injured others. “The department expects delivery of the vaccines to occur shortly,” Chief Yogananda Pittman said. Pittman took over the top post at the department when her predecessor resigned following the riot at the Capitol on Jan 6. Several members of Congress who took shelter in the Capitol during the riot have since tested positive for the coronavirus, and there have been complaints that some members and their staffs have been heedless about mask-wearing....."
She HAS apologized for the staged and scripted false flag, and everybody knows it.
They did arrest this guy:
"As coronavirus cases rose last spring and the federal government’s supply of protective gear ran perilously low, an Arlington Air Force veteran said his business could help. Robert Stewart Jr. told procurement officials he had millions of coveted N95 masks “on hand,” waiting to be used. He was quickly given $40 million in contracts from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but Stewart, 35, did not have the specialized masks and had no ability to get them, he admitted in Alexandria federal court Wednesday....."
Thought he was a wi$e guy:
"Smartmatic files $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox News over bogus election-fraud claims" by Jeremy Barr and Elahe Izadi Washington Post, February 4, 2021
An election technology company has filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and several of the network’s most prominent commentators, alleging that they “decimated Smartmatic’s future business prospects” by accusing the company of helping to steal the Nov. 3 election from former president Donald Trump.
Following a weeks-long series of legal threats and warnings, Smartmatic filed the nearly 300-page lawsuit Thursday in New York State Supreme Court.
"Fox is responsible for this disinformation campaign, which has damaged democracy worldwide and irreparably harmed Smartmatic and other stakeholders who contribute to modern elections," Smartmatic chief executive Antonio Mugica said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
The company said it has identified "100 false statements and implications" about Smartmatic and its services made on Fox’s programs. The lawsuit singles out Fox News hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and Jeanine Pirro, as well as two guests who repeatedly appeared on their shows in the weeks around the election: Trump-affiliated lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.
Powell and Giuliani made a tour of conservative news outlets after the election, repeating Trump’s false claims that nefarious actors had infiltrated the US election and fabricated millions of votes for his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, who won the election. The two lawyers were also involved in lawsuits seeking to overturn election results in swing states, every one of which was either dropped or thrown out of court." Giuliani and Powell needed a platform to use to spread their story," the lawsuit states. "They found a willing partner in Fox News."
Problem is, that is exactly what happened despite the WaCompo hyperbole.
The complaint claims that the network had been losing the faith of Trump’s political base and losing audience to smaller and more bombastic right-wing channels such as Newsmax and One America News. "Fox News needed a way to reclaim its favored status with President Trump and his followers. Enter Giuliani and Powell."
Among the dozens of examples cited in the suit is a Nov. 12 episode of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," in which Giuliani claimed that Smartmatic was founded by three Venezuelans close to former dictator Hugo Chávez "in order to fix elections." Dobbs thanked Giuliani for being "on the case," which the host said "has the feeling of a coverup in certain places."
Smartmatic said in the lawsuit that the company performed work in only one county during November’s election, helping officials in Los Angeles implement a pandemic-safe voting system. The alleged smear campaign nevertheless succeeded in making Smartmatic "known by voters in the United States and abroad as a criminal that stole the 2020 US election," leading to lost business partners, strained client relationships, and the estimated loss of more than $500 million in future profits, according to the complaint. "Even the 14-year-old son of one of Smartmatic’s executives received a harassing phone call," the lawsuit states.
So that is how they intend to bankrupt Fox and get them off the air, huh?
In a statement in response to the lawsuit, Fox News said it "is committed to providing the full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion," adding, "We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court."
I was very unhappy with it.
The network has been preparing for a lawsuit for weeks. In December, Smartmatic put Fox News on notice with a letter demanding "a full and complete retraction of all false and defamatory statements and reports published by Fox News." In response, Fox aired a short segment on several shows that aimed to address misinformation about Smartmatic.
That clearly didn’t satisfy Smartmatic, which wrote in the lawsuit that "even with a full retraction from all Defendants, Smartmatic will spend years rebuilding its reputation and battling the perception that it was involved in election fraud."
The lawsuit comes months after Fox News reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum with the parents of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. After Rich was killed in what police described as a botched robbery in 2016, Rich’s parents sued Fox for emotional distress over a false story suggesting he had been murdered for political purposes.
The Clintons black bagged him because he was the Wikileaks leaker.
Smartmatic’s lawsuit may test whether a network can be held financially responsible for things said by political commentators, or even by their guests. Neither Powell nor Giuliani works for Fox News. Dobbs and Pirro are both members of the network’s opinion division, where they get more latitude to express their personal views than the network’s reporters and anchors.
Will the pre$$ now finally stand up for free speech?
Powell and Giuliani, who were sued for similar reasons by another election technology company, Dominion Voting Systems, did not immediately return requests for comments.
Other lawsuits might be in the pipeline. Smartmatic has sent legal demand letters to Newsmax and One America News over fraud accusations made on their shows but has not yet indicated whether it will sue them. “We are taking a measured approach to pursuing our claims,” the company said.
I bet they will eventually drop them as the perception has been made.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Biden’s Asian allies may balk at sanctions against Myanmar military; A number of them have extensive business interests in the country, a genuine belief in engagement, and a desire not to cede strategic ground to China" by Simon Denyer The Washington Post, February 4, 2021
TOKYO — President Biden has vowed to rally the United States’ partners to respond to Myanmar’s military coup, but convincing Asian allies to support sanctions or moves to isolate the regime will be no easy task, given extensive business interests, a genuine belief in engagement, and a desire not to cede strategic ground to China.
This is surreal!
The implication, experts said, is that if Myanmar's generals thought they could manage the diplomatic and economic fallout from their ouster on Monday of the civilian-led government of Aung San Suu Kyi, they were probably right. On Thursday, faced with domestic resistance to its power grab, the military regime blocked Facebook and other messaging apps.
Trump, Twitter.
In threatening new economic sanctions this week, Biden warned that the United States was “taking note of those who stand with the people of Myanmar at this difficult hour,” but in Asia, there is a sense that two decades of sanctions in the 1990s and 2000s during Myanmar's earlier period of military rule simply pushed the junta closer to China, while ordinary people languished in poverty.
This calculation limits Biden's options.
“Sanctions will help make the US feel better psychologically about having whacked the generals, but it won’t mean much in economic terms if America’s friends and allies in Asia keep working with the junta,” said Murray Hiebert, a senior associate in the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Japan is a key player. The most important American ally in Asia also prides itself on its close historical ties to Myanmar. Tokyo didn't join in with international sanctions during Myanmar's previous period of military rule and wouldn't support sweeping sanctions now, experts said.
Economic ties boomed after Myanmar began a transition to quasidemocratic rule last decade. More than 400 Japanese companies do business in the country, according to the Japan External Trade Organization, an eightfold increase since 2011, making products such as cars and beer.
Japan is a major aid donor and Myanmar’s fourth-largest trading partner behind China, Thailand, and Singapore, as well as the fourth-largest direct investor in the past five years behind Singapore, China, and Hong Kong, United Nations and Myanmar government data show.
"The Japanese government is very disappointed with the coup," said Nobuyoshi Nishizawa, a professor at the University of East Asia in Shimonoseki, "but Japan will not want to ruin its friendly relationship with Myanmar, so they will only make a soft response."
Deputy Defense Minister Yasuhide Nakayama told Reuters it was important to maintain communication with Myanmar's generals and warned against suspending Japan's partnership program with the military. "If we do not approach this well, Myanmar could grow further away from politically free democratic nations and join the league of China," he said. "I think that would pose a risk to the security of the region."
Toshihiro Kudo, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo who specializes in Southeast Asia, argues that Japanese investment and aid have helped ordinary people. "Unlike 10 years ago, Myanmar is integrated into the supply chain in the region," he said, "and people don't want to sacrifice their economic opportunities."
While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is unlikely to take a firm stance against the coup, Washington will probably look for more from another ally, South Korea, the sixth-largest direct investor in Myanmar. If so, it may be disappointed.
“South Korea, because of its sizable investment in Myanmar, cannot afford to take a firm stance on the tensions there,” said Kim Sung-won, a Myanmar specialist at Busan University of Foreign Studies in South Korea. “Seoul is walking on eggshells while observing whether Washington ramps up pressure on Myanmar.”
Former UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Lee Yang-hee took issue with South Korea’s “unprincipled and questionable investments” in the country in a tweet on Wednesday and urged Seoul to “speak out against the coup d’etat.”
Japan was also criticized for abstaining from a 2019 vote at the UN Human Rights Council condemning the Myanmar military’s atrocities against the Rohingya minority.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said he hopes that public pressure could spur Tokyo into action. Diplomatically, Robertson argued, Tokyo has enough sway to make a difference, but few believe that's going to happen.
“It is easy to talk about a values-based approach, but when you are confronted with this coup, it exposes that as empty rhetoric,” said Daniel Sneider, an East Asia specialist at Stanford University, referring to Japan’s regional strategy that emphasizes free trade along with democracy and human rights.
Indeed, Myanmar's generals would have known that when they seized power this week.
"They knew there would be consequences, but I think they calculated, of course taking China into account, that they could manage the international impact," Kudo said.....
Looks like we have been checkmated in Asia, no?
Looks like Game over:
"The Reddit rebellion against Wall Street overlords was short-lived. The stock has tumbled this week, closing Thursday at $53.50, a one-day decline of 42 percent. Even as the air rushes out of the GameStop bubble, regulators are trying to piece together what happened — and whether any securities laws were violated......"
The champagne corks are popping as the party continues!
"Sales at US department stores grew for the first time in more than a year after stimulus checks and holiday returns drove Americans back to the mall. After a difficult 2020 that saw consumers eschew brick-and-mortar shopping in favor of delivery giants like Amazon and Walmart, department-store sales rose 1.5 percent in January, marking the first positive month since December 2019, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. In fact, every retail sector — other than apparel — posted positive year-on-year gains in January, it said. The hardware and furnishing sectors saw the biggest growth in January, with Americans still spending to improve the homes they’ve been stuck in throughout the pandemic, but even department stores logged a rare month of growth, attributed to holiday gift-card redemptions and in-person gift returns — which often translate into a new, bigger sale. Department stores performed better in the Southwest and on the West Coast, with the double-whammy of weather and COVID restrictions weighing on East Coast retail."
Of course, the US job market continues to struggle, held back by the coronavirus, the slow rollout of vaccines, and the loss of overall economic momentum, and the latest data strengthens the argument for more stimulus, economists say, a key policy position of the Biden White House -- according to Schwartz of the New York Times
Don't worry, though, for the Democrats are going to fix it:
"Democrats pitch antitrust revamp for ‘too big to fix’ Deals" by David McLaughlin and Ben Brody Bloomberg, February 4, 2021
Senator Amy Klobuchar is proposing a sweeping reform to US antitrust laws that would curtail the power of dominant companies across the economy by making it harder for them to buy competitors and flex their muscles over markets.
This is exhibit A for the closing the barn door after the $camdemic hor$e has gotten out!
Klobuchar, who is the incoming chairwoman of the Senate’s panel on antitrust law and competition, introduced legislation that would change current merger law to make it easier to stop deals in court and target conduct by dominant companies that thwarts competition from rivals.
Klobuchar’s past antitrust efforts failed to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate, but now Democrats are looking to capitalize on their party’s control of Congress and the White House to put more teeth into competition laws. Progressives have come to see competition policy as a mechanism to combat economic woes like income inequality and stagnant wages that some see as tied to increased concentration across industries.
The bill’s cosponsors are Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and Brian Schatz of Hawaii. Democrats will need 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate, forcing them to secure Republican support for any bill, yet some Republicans have said they back antitrust reform.
Under current law the onus is on antitrust enforcers to convince courts that a deal is illegal. Klobuchar’s bill would place the burden on companies.....
Flipping justice on it's head and making companies prove their innocence!
That will be 21st-century AmeriKan Ju$tu$ under the Democrats.
Right, it'sall funny, and I didn't post the photo because I don't want her grotesque mug on my blog.
Related:
"A broad rally on Wall Street Thursday added to the market's solid gains this week and pushed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite to all-time highs. Strong company earnings and optimism that Washington can reach a deal for another round of fiscal stimulus for millions of Americans who need it has kept investors in a buying mood this week. The S&P 500 rose 1.1%, eclipsing the benchmark index's last record high set early last week. The three major stock indexes are on track for weekly gains above 3%, an encouraging start to February after a late fade in January. EBay rose 5.3% and PayPal climbed 7.4% after both companies reported results that blew away Wall Street's expectations. “We’re really impressed with how corporate America has come through earnings season so far,” said Jeff Buchbinder, equity strategist at LPL Financial....."
They are the ma$ters of the univer$e and the new oligarchs!
