This was the front-page, above-the-fold, righthand-corner rip from yesterday:
"Former Boston police union president Patrick M. Rose Sr. being tagged as a child sexual abuser was news to the city when he was arrested and charged last summer, but it wasn’t news to the Boston Police Department where Rose served for two decades as a patrolman. A Globe investigation has found that the Boston Police Department in 1995 filed a criminal complaint against him for sexual assault on a 12-year-old, and, even after the complaint was dropped, proceeded with an internal investigation that concluded that he likely committed a crime. Despite that finding, Rose kept his badge, remained on patrol for another 21 years, and rose to power in the union that represents patrol officers. Today Boston police are fighting to keep secret how the department handled the allegations against Rose....."
At the same time, they featured a mass-murdering state apparatchik as some sort of hero, and the Globe says we deserve to know about the sexual abuse charges.
While I would agree that all perverts in positions of power need to be outed, the Globe focus can be seen on several levels serving several agendas. It's notable that they are going after an officer of unionized labor as the overall agenda of defunding and reforming the police continues apace (see Maryland) and not the vast sex trafficking rings of the elite for which they run cover.
While on that, I have a noticed a drop of what I considered suspiciously explicit advertising since I made note of it as this is as racy as they have gotten since (I'm thankful for the change, btw).
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It was back to cultivating the racial divide when one flipped below the fold in what carries with a whiff of Zimbabwe (now step up for your shot).
That's my main takeaway from the daily obsession with the trial of Derek Chauvin. They will be putting the knee to the "neck area" of whitey instead, even though Floyd died from a drug overdose.
Of course, none of the evidence matters because for those in Boston watching the Chauvin case, ‘it’s like racism is on trial,’ and they see it as an opportunity to take measure of the whole criminal justice system (think O.J. and Rodney King for an analogy, if you will. Two wrongs make a right), especially throwing outside along the sidelines and leaving it up to an official call -- or else all hell will break loose if acquitted.
On the flip side, enormous agenda-pushing emphasis is being made regarding ostensible anti-Asian bias, probably because their parents try to keep race on the ‘down low,’ what with being ‘honorary whites’ and all, and “our history, it won’t and it can’t be forgotten” -- except it will, all because a Assata Shakur, a Black Liberation Army activist (who is wanted for escaping from prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973, something my print copy omitted) threatened to turn the monument into a toilet because White Lies Matter -- and it begs the question of whether we will soon be dancing to to the uncomfortable tune of foreign troops, probably Asian under U.N. command. That is what is ghosting the gun grab as they take aim at Texas.
Left out of the conversation is once again the red man, mostly because they one-up a certain cho$en group that has a ™on such things, but more on them later.
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Time to eat some pork:
"Biden’s Infrastructure Push Spurs a Flurry of Lobbying in Congress" by Emily Cochrane, Pranshu Verma and Luke Broadwater, April 11, 2021
WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have begun a frenzy of lobbying to ensure that their pet projects and policy priorities are included in President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, eager to shape what could be one of the most substantial public works investments in a generation.
Officials across the country are dusting off lists of construction projects and social programs, hoping to secure their piece of a plan aimed at addressing what the administration estimates is at least $1 trillion worth of backlogged infrastructure improvements, as well as economic and racial inequities that have existed for decades.
Senior lawmakers have started collecting lists of requests from their colleagues for what should be included in the bill, while top White House officials are fielding a torrent of calls from rank-and-file lawmakers, all of whom have their own ideas.
“My phone is blowing up,” Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, said in an interview. Nearly every lawmaker “can point to a road or a bridge or an airport” in his or her district that is in dire need of repair.
Or not!!
Could be a bridge to nowhere!
I would compare this to pigs at a trough, but that would be tremendously disrespectful and unfair to pigs.
This ab$olutely $tinks, and it's America in its death throes. The last thing a corrupt regime does is loot the place before being replaced.
On Monday, Biden is set to meet at the White House with eight Republicans and Democrats to discuss the plan, part of a push to forge a bipartisan compromise that may ultimately prove futile given G.O.P. resistance to the scope of the package. The five cabinet officials tapped to navigate the infrastructure package through Congress, including Buttigieg, are continuing to discuss the plan with both Republicans and Democrats.
I'm told the group of $ell-out traitors includes Senators Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, and Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, and Representatives David E. Price, Democrat of North Carolina, and Don Young, Republican of Alaska (did he know Ted Stevens?).
“The door is open,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Our hand is extended. Let’s find out where we can find our common ground. We always have a responsibility to strive for bipartisanship.”
My eyes rolled to the ceiling when I saw that outrageous falsity presented by that detestable creature here in print after the last four years.
The process is crucial to Biden’s strategy for maneuvering the far-reaching plan through a Congress where his party has minuscule majorities, at a time when the space for a bipartisan compromise is narrow and even Democrats differ on how to structure and pay for such a huge package. Buttigieg said Sunday on Fox News that Biden wanted to see “major progress in Congress” by Memorial Day, and lawmakers are eager to weigh in.
Representative Mikie Sherrill, Democrat of New Jersey, wants to tackle the Gateway rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
She is known as the “tunnel-obsessed congresswoman,” and I was taught that tunnel vision obsession is unhealthy.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, has suggested that surely the “functionally obsolete” Brent Spence Bridge in his state should receive funding, and progressive lawmakers have a five-part wish list that includes lowering drug costs and providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers. Representative Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the committee’s top Republican, Representative Sam Graves of Missouri, are also asking lawmakers to identify priorities in their districts.
Look at the f**king $cum McConnell shill for a bribe at taxpayer expense.
God damn them all to hell!
While infrastructure has long been hailed as the policy area with the ripest prospects for bipartisan cooperation, Congress has failed in recent years to agree on legislation that would fund long-term transportation projects beyond routine reauthorization of funding.
With Democrats newly in charge of both chambers of Congress and the White House, Biden is thinking much bigger. His proposal includes not just trillions in spending for highways, bridges and other physical facilities, but also huge new investments in areas that have not traditionally been seen as infrastructure, such as paid leave and child care.
“I think all of us would agree that we need a robust infrastructure package that focuses on roads, bridges, airports, seaports, water systems and broadband, but this proposal goes way beyond that,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a member of a bipartisan group searching for compromise, said in an interview. “It seems to me that our first goal should be to try to shape the package and reduce its cost.”
Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has suggested bringing back Build America Bonds created after the Great Recession to help states and cities borrow money for infrastructure projects. Senate Democrats have unveiled their own plans to pay for parts of the package by raising taxes on multinational corporations that stash profits overseas.
Who would ever want to invest in this untru$tworthy regime that is bankrupt?
“I think everyone realizes that we have to come together because failure is not an option,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said in an interview.....
Now, WHY would that be Chuck?
Your $tring-pulling payma$ters demand it?
I was further told towns, cities and states around the country already have designs on the funds because bridge projects face a nearly 40-year backlog of repairs(??!!).
Where did all the billions go over all the years?
Related:
I didn't have the energy to post the details of the settlement that ensures that a battery plant in Georgia will go forward as more than 100 corporate executives held a call to discuss halting donations and investments to fight controversial voting bills:
"More than 100 corporate executives hold call to discuss halting donations and investments to fight controversial voting bills" by Todd C. Frankel Washington Post, April 11, 2021
The sub-headline was "Seek united effort to wield influence" -- as if they didn't have enough already!
This is the Communi$t corporate oligarchy that will survive the destruction of small business.
More than 100 chief executives and corporate leaders gathered online Saturday to discuss taking new action to combat the controversial state voting bills being considered across the country, including the one recently signed into law in Georgia.
Executives from major airlines, retailers and manufacturers — plus at least one NFL owner — talked about potential ways to show they opposed the legislation, including by halting donations to politicians who support the bills and even delaying investments in states that pass the restrictive measures, according to four people who were on the call, including one of the organizers, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor.
While no final steps were agreed upon, the meeting represents an aggressive dialing up of corporate America’s stand against controversial voting measures nationwide, a sign that their opposition to the laws didn’t end with the fight against the Georgia legislation passed in March.
You know, the $ocially-woke $hit was never meant to shutdown the money machine and these same corporations gave more than $50 million to those who passed it.
It also came just days after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned that firms should “stay out of politics” — echoing a view shared by many conservative politicians and setting up the potential for additional conflict between Republican leaders and the heads of some of America’s largest firms. This month, former president Donald Trump called for conservatives to boycott Coca-Cola, Major League Baseball, Delta Air Lines, Citigroup, ViacomCBS, UPS and other companies after they opposed the law in Georgia that critics say will make it more difficult for poorer voters and voters of color to cast ballots. Baseball officials decided to move the All-Star Game this summer from Georgia to Colorado because of the voting bill.
More hollow words have never been spoken.
The online call between corporate executives on Saturday “shows they are not intimidated by the flak. They are not going to be cowed,” Sonnenfeld said. “They felt very strongly that these voting restrictions are based on a flawed premise and are dangerous.”
Don't like the ta$te of your own medicine, 'eh?
Leaders from dozens of companies such as Delta, American, United, Starbucks, Target, LinkedIn, Levi Strauss and Boston Consulting Group, along with Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, were included on the Zoom call, according to people who listened in.
The discussion — scheduled to last one hour but going 10 minutes longer — was led at times by Kenneth Chenault, the former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, who told the executives that it was important to keep fighting what they viewed as discriminatory laws on voting. Chenault and Frazier coordinated a letter signed last month by 72 Black business executives that made a similar point — a letter that first drew attention to the voting bills in executive suites across the country.
The call’s goal was to unify companies that had been issuing their own statements and signing on to drafted statements from different organizations after the action in Georgia, Sonnenfeld said. The leaders called in from around the country — some chimed in from Augusta, Ga., where they were attending the Masters golf tournament.
The $tinking hypocrisy is historic and golf's historic racism remains unmentioned and unexamined.
“There was a defiance of the threats that businesses should stay out of politics,” Sonnenfeld said. “They were obviously rejecting that even with their presence (on the call), but they were there out of concern about voting restrictions not being in the public interest.”
The premi$e is ridiculou$ as the entire lobbying indu$try is ignored!
One Georgia-based executive talked about how the final version of Georgia’s legislation — which Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has said actually expands voting access, a claim that many have challenged — was much worse than expected, and how that should serve as a warning to other chief executives as more states consider adopting their own voting bills, according to people on the call.
Access to the polls has emerged as a major national issue. Republican state lawmakers are trying to pass legislation they say is designed to combat voting fraud — which Trump has baselessly and frequently claimed is a problem.
Can you really blame him?
He won more of the Democrat demographics than any Republican, ever, and yet we are told he still lost.
GOP-backed bills in various statehouses aim to ban ballot drop boxes, limit voting periods, restrict absentee voting or stiffen requirements for voter identification. Five bills with new voter restrictions have been passed nationwide so far, with 55 restrictive bills in 24 states being considered by legislatures, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute
Companies have jumped into hot-button political debates before, such as the corporate backlash to a 2016 North Carolina bill banning transgender people from using the public restroom that corresponds with their gender identities. After the Capitol riot in January, many companies pledged to stop donating to politicians who spurred doubts about the outcome of the presidential election.
Now, it is voting rights. Many of the corporate leaders who joined the call seemed to view the voting restrictions as attacks on democracy, rather than as a partisan issue, according to people who listened in.
Mike Ward, cofounder of the Civic Alliance, a nonpartisan group of businesses focused on voter engagement, said he felt there was a broad consensus at the end of the call that company leaders plan to continue working against voting bills they think are restrictive — “to lean into this, not lean away from this.”
That is the very antithesis of "democracy."
As u$ual, the Globe's concern is what's in it for us:
"Biden wants to spend billions on transportation infrastructure. What’s in it for Mass.?" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, April 10, 2021
Maybe this is the chance to get rid of dirty diesel trains and go all-electric on the commuter rail, or extend train service to Springfield? New cars for the Green Line, and how about that long-sought tunnel to connect the Red and Blue lines? Don’t forget those mega-projects in Allston and over the Cape Cod Canal.
With President Biden proposing an infrastructure package featuring hundreds of billions of dollars for transportation, officials and advocates in the industry are hurriedly drawing up plans in anticipation of a gusher of money flowing to their states’ roads and rails, but in a country that has been clamoring for a big infrastructure bill for years, the wish lists are sure to get crowded, and the competition for the money fierce.
Massachusetts has a notorious reputation for its aging roads and rails, as well as the stifling pre-pandemic traffic congestion and endless hand-wringing about how to fix it. Debates about major projects often stretch years with no resolution in sight, and projects that do get underway can take years to complete.
Where did all that money go (answer, patronage and perks for qua$i $tate employees)?
If Congress buys into Biden’s pump-priming proposal, Massachusetts may no longer have money as an excuse for why it can’t fix at least some of the transportation issues that have dogged the state for so long.
It’s much too early to know how much money Massachusetts would get, and how much of it would be restricted to certain uses, and, though infrastructure spending is typically bipartisan popular, the current political climate suggests the president has a way to go to get it passed. For now, Biden’s proposal is just a set of ideas that still need to be written into legislative language, which will be subjected to months of political wrangling and debate about how to best direct the funding; yet for all of Massachusetts’s well-documented transportation needs and hopes, few of the state’s highest-profile concepts are at the point in the planning process that they could quickly get underway......
Why are they tapping the brakes?
Related:
"White House communications director Kate Bedingfield sought Thursday to play down the impact of an op-ed from Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, insisting on bipartisanship on the prospects for President Biden steering his $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure package through the chamber. In the op-ed, published by The Washington Post, Manchin decried efforts to eliminate the filibuster and also lamented the use of the budget reconciliation process by both parties to pass legislation without the support of senators across the aisle. Republicans used the process to pass tax cuts and changes under the Trump administration and in a failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Democrats used it to pass Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and are viewing it as a vehicle for additional spending and tax proposals on a range of issues, including infrastructure, though Manchin voted for the COVID relief bill and did not rule out supporting such a legislative maneuver again. Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Bedingfield said Biden expects “a little bit longer” process on his jobs and infrastructure bill and wants to work with Republicans. “This is how the process plays out,” she said. “This is how it’s supposed to work. Senators raise their issues and concerns, and we’ll work through the process. I mean, President Biden has said himself many times that his preference is to do this through regular order. The only thing that is unacceptable to him is inaction,” she added. “So he’s ready to work through the process.” Asked what specifically the White House has done about Manchin, Bedingfield said, “We have done a lot of outreach. I assure you there is a lot of conversation between not only Senator Manchin’s office and the White House but members all across the Hill,” she said....."
Turns out they worked around him and won't need him anyway:
"Democrats might not have the votes to gut the filibuster, but they were just handed the procedural keys to a backdoor assault on the Senate’s famous obstruction tactic. With a ruling on Monday that Democrats can reuse this year’s budget blueprint at least once to employ the fast-track reconciliation process, Democrats can conceivably advance multiple spending and tax packages this year alone without a single Republican vote as long as they hold their 50 members together. It is a means of weakening the filibuster without having to take the politically charged vote to do so. Democrats insist that they have made no decisions about how to use the tool. “It is always good to have a series of insurance policies,” Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, said about the possibility that Democrats could repeatedly duplicate last month’s party-line passage of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief legislation should they not be able to work out deals with Republicans, but whatever strategy they employ, it is clear that the decision by the Senate parliamentarian to agree with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, that a musty 47-year-old budget provision could be used more than once in a fiscal year widens President Biden’s path to enacting his emerging infrastructure plan by shielding it from a filibuster if need be. It also means other Democratic initiatives could become filibuster-proof moving forward, and that is already spurring creative efforts among lawmakers and activists to imagine other priorities that could be stuffed into reconciliation packages. The filibuster — which takes 60 votes to overcome — remains an obstacle for many of the cutting-edge policies Democrats would like to enact, such as a sweeping campaign finance and voting rights measure as well as new gun laws. But if stymied by Republicans on measures that they can protect under reconciliation — which applies to policy changes that directly affect federal spending and revenues — Democrats will now have more opportunities to move ahead on their own if they choose. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is the minority leader, said Democrats were being driven to twist the process by their inability to win Republican support for their plans and the fear that they will lose the majority next year. Republicans can be expected to put up as many roadblocks as possible to what they see as an attempt to exploit a loophole. Given the vast ideological differences between the two parties, many progressives have been urging Democrats to use their bare majority to take steps to weaken, if not eliminate, the filibuster so that Democrats can overwhelm Republican resistance, but a handful of Democrats — notably Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have resisted. They argue that by requiring a supermajority, the filibuster forces bipartisan compromise, and that upending it would destroy the fabric of the Senate, but reconciliation is another matter entirely......"
I'm sure they will be able to shepard it through, and anyone who believes in reconciliations lives in a land of delusion after Trump voters were called a virus after the contrived chaos on Capitol Hill that was a blessing in disguise for Democrats (will wonders never cease?)
Just more wrong turns, folks, as they literally drive us into lockdown again:
"Massachusetts officials are urging residents to conserve water as drought conditions impact much of the state. The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs said Friday that significant drought has been declared in the southeast region of Massachusetts, which includes Norfolk, Plymouth and Bristol counties. A mild drought has been declared in the rest of the state, except for the islands. Officials say precipitation totals are 1.5 inches to 3 inches below normal. “It is important that we all take water conservation steps now to lessen its potential impacts on our environment and water supplies, and to take extra precautions when using an open flame or cooking on a grill to prevent wildfires,” Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides said in an emailed statement. Officials are encouraging residents to reduce their water use indoors and outdoors and be especially careful when using things charcoal grills and other open flames outside because of the increased risk of brush and wildland fires."
I'm sick of being right all the time, and I'm glad it is raining today.
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Opening today's paper finds a stand-alone Nation page for the first time in over a year, and the lead is Trump the troublemaker:
"Republicans dance around ‘complication’ of a lingering Trump" by Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman New York Times, April 11, 2021
The first spring donor retreat after a defeat for a political party is typically a moment of reflection and renewal as officials chart a new direction forward, but with Donald Trump determined to keep his grip on the Republican Party and the party’s base as adhered to him as ever, the coming together of the Republican National Committee’s top donors in South Florida over the weekend is less a moment of reset and more a reminder of the continuing tensions and schisms roiling the party.
I'm not a member of either and yet I recognize he is the legitimate President of the United States and a victim of vote fraud and a coup. That's why the world is the way it is.
The same former president who last month sent the RNC a cease-and-desist letter demanding they stop using his likeness to raise money on Saturday evening served as the party’s fund-raising headliner.
“A tremendous complication” was how Fred Zeidman, a veteran Republican fund-raiser in Texas, described Trump’s lingering presence on the political scene.
Well, reality is like that -- as is controlled opposition, which is what we have here.
The delicate dance between Trump and the party — after losing the House, the Senate, and the White House on his watch — was evident in some actual shuttle bus diplomacy Saturday as the party’s top donors attended a series of receptions and panels at the Four Seasons Resort before traveling to Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private club, to hear Trump speak.
The former president’s insistence on leading the party “affects every member,” Zeidman said, as lawmakers and would-be elected officials jockey for a Trump endorsement that is as powerful in a Republican primary as it could be problematic in a general election.
“He’s already proven that he wants to have a major say or keep control of the party, and he’s already shown every sign that he’s going to primary everybody that has not been supportive of him,” Zeidman said. “He complicates everything so much.”
As donors and Republican leaders looked Saturday night, Trump quickly cast aside his prepared remarks and returned to his false claims that the election was stolen from him.
Everyone knows it was, yet the pre$$ continues with its false claims (nothing new there, be it Iraq WMD or anything else).
Trump praised loyalists like Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, while lashing his enemies — among them Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker; former President Barack Obama, whom he called “Barack Hussein Obama”; Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser; and Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, whom he berated anew for not helping overturn Biden’s win in the state.
He saved much of his vitriol for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, calling him a “dumb son of a bitch” and a “stone cold loser,” according to the attendee. A “real leader,” he said, would never have accepted the results of that election.”
Then he isn't a real leader because he has also accepted the results as he lives large in Mar-a-Lago.
Late in his remarks, Trump praised the crowd that attended his rally on Jan. 6, admiring how large it was, the attendee said. Trump added that he wasn’t “talking about the people that went to the Capitol,” though hundreds of the rally attendees left the rally at the Ellipse to go to the Capitol.
Among other things, Trump is considering running again in 2024. Although few of his allies believe he will follow through, his presence could have a chilling effect on other potential candidates.
If he can't win reelection as an incumbent with a landslide victory stolen in broad daylight, then what makes him think he wins in 2024?
The country will no longer exist by then. That's the point of this propaganda and all the pre$$ space devoted to politics. Gets you to sit by and be inactive waiting for the next "election."
“The party is still very much revolving around” Trump, said Andrea Catsimatidis, chair of the Manhattan Republican Party and a donor who attended the retreat. “He was the one who very much revived the party when we weren’t winning.”
See how much gratitude they showed him?
Enjoy the forever minority, a$$holes.
Also inescapable is the fact that Trump has quickly built a political war chest that rivals that of the RNC. An adviser to Trump said he currently had about $85 million on hand, compared with nearly $84 million for the RNC.
Just a reminder that he kept us out of any new foreign entanglements while the Pentagon sabotaged his plans to withdraw from Afghanistan and Syria.
For party officials, the goal is keeping the energy that has propelled Trump to success inside the Republican tent while not entirely allowing the former president to dominate it. Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chair whom Trump supported for a second term, has vowed to remain neutral in a potential 2024 primary should Trump run again.
They are insane if they think the bulk of the base of the Republican Party is coming back in after the ultimate betrayal of a string president, and there is no room in the Biden tent, either.
“It is a difficult balancing act,” said Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committeeman from New Jersey who has been critical of Trump.
“The president certainly has devoted followers,” Palatucci said, “but he also more than offended a lot of people with his conduct since the November election, which culminated in his helping to incite the riot on Jan. 6.”
PFFFFT!
Among donors, the jockeying for favor and financing extends beyond Trump and the RNC. On Thursday and Friday, a separate but overlapping gathering for Republican contributors was held at Trump’s private club: an “investors meeting” of the Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit organization. Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, is now a senior adviser for the group, and Caroline Wren, who used to fund-raise for the former president, is raising money for it.
Donors are being pitched on a dizzying array of Trump-adjacent projects, including a new political advocacy group from former Vice President Mike Pence as well as new entities being started by Ben Carson, Trump’s former housing secretary; Stephen Miller, his former White House adviser; and Russell Vought, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget. Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016, is said to be involved with efforts to start a Trump-aligned super PAC as well.
The RNC had initially planned for its entire retreat to be held nearby in Palm Beach, but organizers moved the final Saturday evening events to Trump’s resort, meaning the party will again be paying the former president’s private club to use its space.
“This is all about the Trump circle of grift,” said Barbara Comstock, a former representative from Virginia who is close to another high-profile Republican — and a frequent target of Trump’s — who was also notably absent: Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Comstock said that the Republicans keeping their distance were wise to “build their own coalitions” and “not get sucked into Trumpism, which has a limited and short-term appeal with demographics dying in this country.”
What about Gaetz?
Henry Barbour, an influential RNC member from Mississippi, said that the party was still in a transitional phase since Trump’s loss.“When you lose the White House, you kind of figure it’s going to take a little bit of healing, and I think probably first quarter has hopefully got us moving on a better path,” Barbour said. Trump, he said, is a “big force in the party, but the party is bigger than any one candidate, including Donald Trump.”
Not when the vast majority of the base is with him!
Enjoy the permanent minority, a$$hole, and I'm $ure he will.
Just a day earlier, the Globe told me his power was waning:
"Trump addresses GOP as power to shape national debate wanes" by Jill Colvin The Associated Press, April 10, 2021
WASHINGTON — Former president Donald Trump insists he’s enjoying his life off Twitter. The press releases his aides fire off on an increasingly frequent basis are more “elegant,” he says. Plus there’s no risk of backlash for retweeting unsavory accounts, but since Trump was barred from major social media channels after helping incite the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, his power to shape the national conversation is being tested.
Yeah, the "former" president of the United States doesn't have free speech -- and the pre$$ seems not to care at all about the cen$or$hip.
Trump transformed from a reality television star to a politician and president by bending the tools of communication and the media to his will. He still connects with his supporters through his releases and appearances on Fox News and other conservative outlets, where he repeats misinformation about the 2020 election, and he remains a powerful force in the Republican Party, with a starring role Saturday at a Republican National Committee event that will be held at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Yeah, the pre$$ will never forgive him for usurping their role.
Still, the sway over American life he once enjoyed appears to be eroding — at least for now.
“It’ll never be the same for Trump unless he’s a candidate again," said Harold Holzer, an historian who is director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute and wrote a book about presidents and the press. “I don’t think it's unnatural for coverage to diminish. I'm sure it’s tough on his ego, given how much oxygen he sucks up and how much ink he generates, but it's not unnatural for an ex-president to get less attention.”
One thing we do know: television ratings and new$paper circulations are down at least 10% since he left, and I noticed Saturday that I'm the only one buying a Boston Globe. They send three, and two were still on the shelf Saturday night.
It's been a dramatic adjustment nonetheless. Trump’s tweets used to drive the news cycle, with CNN, MSNBC and Fox News often spending dozens of hours a week combined displaying his missives, according to a GDELT analysis of television news archives. Since he was barred from Twitter and other platforms, Trump can no longer speak directly to large swaths of his audience and must now rely on his supporters and conservative and mainstream media to amplify his messages.
To compensate for the ongoing blackout, Trump aides have been pumping out statements and endorsements that often sound just like the tweets he used to dictate.
Actually, a team wrote them for approval if Globe reporting is accurate (meaning this report is deceptive) as he gets the last laugh after all.
At the same time, Trump has been ramping up his appearances on conservative media — even sitting down with his daughter-in-law for her online program, but few of those comments have reverberated as mainstream outlets, long criticized for allowing Trump to dictate coverage, have become increasingly wary of repeating his falsehoods, especially pertaining to the 2020 election.
I've heard enough.
While Trump still garners coverage, Google search results for his name are at their lowest point since 2015, as noted this week by The Washington Post, and on late night TV, some have tried to scrub him out entirely, with “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert refusing to say his name.
If you look up irrelevant in the dictionary, there is a picture of Colbert.
After five years of wall-to-wall Trump, the contrast is jarring.
"He was unlike any prior president in the amount of oxygen he sucked up, but he increasingly resembles many former president in how little oxygen he now gets," said Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary to George W. Bush. While that is the reality for any former president, Fleischer argued that Trump continues to “loom large” in the party and could return to the spotlight if he chooses to run again, and though his dominance of cable news has dropped precipitously from its peak in fall 2016, when he was mentioned tens of thousands of times a month, per GDELT data, he remains a presence on cable news channels nonetheless.
That's the "expert" they chose for commentary?
He is watching what he is saying after disowning Trump!
“Two months out of office, he’s still roughly where he was in March of last year when the pandemic largely displaced him,” said Kalev Leetaru, the project's creator. “It shows that even two months out of office, he’s still looming large.”
While most of Trump's statements garner relatively little coverage, some, like one that blasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack,” dominated news coverage, with CNN, in particular, running with it for more than 44 minutes.
“President Trump is the greatest news generator in American history," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said, insisting, "There was never this type of media interest in the post-Presidential careers of Clinton, Bush or Obama.”
Others see it differently.
GOP strategist Alex Conant argued Trump's power “is waning by the day" as other Republicans make plans to run in 2024, and said Trump could be taking a more strategic approach if he wants to remain part of the daily conversation.
"When you're president of the United States, it's very easy to insert yourself into every news cycle, but once you've left office, it has to be more strategic," Conant said, arguing Trump could have announced a book, sat for primetime interviews, or delivered a series of major speeches about the future of the party.
Fleischer, too, argued Trump could have greater influence by following in the footsteps of presidents Bush and Obama, whose statements garner attention because they are rare.
“The risk for a former president is you risk starting to be seen as former senators or former congressman or contributors who are on TV on a somewhat regular basis. A former president should be at an elevated posture,” he said, “but Donald Trump has always done things differently with some success.”
Until 2020.
Anybody hear a pop?
"Investigators from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, acting on a grand jury subpoena, took possession of financial records Thursday morning from the apartment of Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of a top Trump Organization officer. Jennifer Weisselberg was married to Barry Weisselberg — the son of Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg — from 2004 to 2018. She has previously said that she had seven boxes of financial records from both her ex-husband and his father, some of which were obtained through divorce litigation. On Thursday, she loaded three boxes and a laptop computer onto a valet cart and wheeled them from her building to a black Jeep outside. The move by District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. appears to be the latest sign that Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s highest-ranking corporate officer who is not a member of the Trump family, is a key focus of the ongoing criminal probe into former president Donald Trump’s financial dealings."
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Time for a purge:
"After Capitol Riot, Pentagon Announces New Efforts to Weed Out Extremism Among Troops" by John Ismay and Helene Cooper New York Times, April 9, 2021
WASHINGTON — One young soldier said that for the first four months after he joined his Army unit, a flag representing the right-wing militia the Three Percenters hung in the entry hall of his barracks.
A Black Marine described feeling sick when he saw the iconic red-and-gold flag of his military service being waved by rioters during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
A white brigadier general fretted privately about whether service members could get in trouble for supporting former President Donald J. Trump. A Black Army sergeant described having no one to talk to in his office after the death of George Floyd in police custody.
The Pentagon last week concluded its 60-day “stand down” to address extremism in the military. With a handful of exceptions, every unit in the armed forces has now had some sort of discussion about why white supremacy and extremism — laid bare by the number of veterans who took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — have no place in the American military, but as the Pentagon on Friday presented its path forward — a working group will be set up to examine how to better vet recruits and how to better educate service members who may be targeted by extremist organizations — senior Defense Department officials acknowledged that one thing is clear: Rooting out extremist views from a military of 1.3 million active-duty troops drawn from Alaska to Florida will be an uphill slog.
The military brainwashing is about to get even more sever.
“The vast majority of those who serve in uniform and their civilian colleagues do so with great honor and integrity, but any extremist behavior in the force can have an outsized impact,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a memo on Friday.
The Pentagon is directing all of the military services to ask recruits a standardized set of questions about extremism in its screening questionnaires to help weed out those who might take part in extremist organizations, but that, by itself, will be difficult to enforce — because the Pentagon does not specifically ban membership in many of those groups.
Austin’s memo says that the updated screening questionnaires will nonetheless better enable officials to “clarify that any demonstrably false answers provided in response could form the basis for punitive action for fraudulent enlistment.” A Defense Department official said the Pentagon was still trying to figure out how to avoid running afoul of the First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
The phrase “stand down” is used in the military to refer to any issue that the defense secretary decides is important enough that it needs to be addressed through discussions across the force. In the past, “stand downs” have been employed to address topics as varied as safety concerns, sexual assault and suicide.
Hey, you get used to a culture of sexism and 22 suicides a day.
That's why the pre$$ rarely mentions it save for a Pentagon report being issued.
Then it is back to the battlefield.
The latest “stand down” was ordered up by the first Black defense secretary, to remind the country’s military personnel that the oath they took to support and defend the Constitution means that they cannot storm the Capitol to stop lawmakers from certifying election results they do not like.
The “stand down” sessions, said John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, demonstrated that “the force wants better guidance about what extremist activity really is,” calling it “a hunger for more information and context.”
Mr. Kirby said the department would also work on how to better prepare service members leaving the military to re-enter civilian life.
Lest they commit suicide?
“In some cases, when you retire, they tell you how to pick out a suit and a tie,” he said during a news conference, “but there’s nothing in there, not consistently anyway, about this particular problem.” He said that extremist groups were “seeking the kinds of skills, the kinds of leadership that our men and women exude.”
Shouldn't have lowered the requirements to allow in fascists, criminals, and gang members a few years back when enlistment for the forever wars was low then, but that is also down the war pre$$ memory hole.
Defense Department officials and enlisted service members interviewed for this article said that the sessions led to some painful conversations, but the process was sometimes characterized by a scripted, forced delivery from some commanders and senior leaders who seemed uncomfortable with their task.
The Marine Corps released a video last month featuring top leaders that some Black Marines, in private chats, characterized as seeming forced. In other messages to the force, some senior leaders struggled to balance standard rally-the-troops talk with the realities laid bare by the Capitol riots’ exposure of extremism in the military.
Gen. James C. McConville, the Army chief of staff, sought to bridge that divide.
It will likely prove a bridge too far.
In fact, as Pentagon leaders are quick to say, the military cannot be a reflection of the United States without hosting the same kinds of people and allegiances that are embedded in the population as a whole, but while the military is one of the country’s most diverse institutions — some 43 percent of those on active duty are people of color — Defense Department officials acknowledge that the views of its white service members skew conservative.
Uncle Sam no longer wants you!
Thanks for the service!
On American bases around the world, televisions are often tuned to Fox News. This was particularly so during the Trump administration; since President Biden was inaugurated, CNN and MSNBC have started showing up more.
Does it make a difference really?
All of them are war channels that serve the interests of you-know-whos.
Officials with the Biden administration have expressed concerns about certain broadcasts targeting troops. On March 2, Kirby ordered a review of programming on the American Forces Network, which caters to service members and families abroad.
While the military can limit what kinds of programs are broadcast in public areas on bases, the Pentagon could run into First Amendment issues as it tries to vet recruits and even active-duty troops.
On Jan. 29, Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, sent a letter to Biden, Austin and Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, asking them to update the military’s background investigation process. She said that it should incorporate a review of service member’s social media profiles to identify ties to white supremacists or violent extremists, as well as establish procedures to review the social media activity of recruits before they join the armed forces.
She owes her position to Jim Jones in the sense that she was wrapped up in that CIA mind control experiment and now has the seat Ryan once held, and just remember, you are FIGHTING for FREEDOM against TYRANNY!
Experts note that asking someone if they are an extremist is hardly the solution. Deborah Carrington, a former federal investigator with the Defense Security Service and the Office of Personnel Management, said asking people “questions about being part of a terrorist organization or being involved in terrorist activities,” was rarely productive.
“They won’t admit to it,” she said. “The only way to find out is to interview someone who was involved in those activities with him.”
Like the East Germans would have!
Now be sure to report the insurrectionist and conspiracy theorist next door, especially if they be veterans.
Meanwhile, in Ma$$achu$etts the career journalists are looking to shine a new light on corruption -- as long as they are certain Republicans getting phat on the “same type of donations to political committees that Democrats have been making for generations” -- as an insurance policy after auto insurers reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in extra profits during the pandemic, and in the latest of a half-dozen letters, the grand$tanding state AG urged the state Division of Insurance to “stop” insurers from “continuing” to “overcharge” consumers.
So why no charges have been brought?
Time to close down the Capitol as slain Capitol Police Officer Evans lies in honor (did that event ever disappear quickly from the media coverage, eh?) -- all because whites fear losing out like in Ireland.
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Speaking of overseas, I was greeted with a stand-alone World page as well, with these two leads:
"Blackout strikes Natanz nuclear facility, and Iran calls it sabotage" by Farnaz Fassihi and Rick Gladstone New York Times, April 11, 2021
The Natanz nuclear facility in Iran mysteriously lost power Sunday in what Iranian officials called an act of sabotage, a development that comes amid new negotiations aimed at salvaging the nuclear deal repudiated by the Trump administration three years ago.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, described the blackout as an act of “nuclear terrorism” and said the international community must confront this threat.
I'm sure it was just a twitch in the grid, and let's pray it doesn't lead to a Fukushima-type event like last time.
“The action this morning against Natanz enrichment site shows the defeat of those who oppose our country’s nuclear and political development and the significant gains of our nuclear industry,” Salehi said, according to the Iranian news media. “The incident shows the failure of those who oppose Iran negotiating for sanctions relief.”
Iranian officials did not specify whom they blamed, but suspicions immediately fell on Israel, which has sabotaged Iran’s nuclear work previously with tactics ranging from cyberattacks to outright assassinations. A US official confirmed an Israeli role in the power outage at Natanz on Sunday but said details were still very sketchy.
Then it is an ACT of WAR, and from what I read elsewhere U.S. officials immediately reached out to Iran after the event.
Israel is believed to have orchestrated the killings of several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years, including a deadly ambush of a key developer of its nuclear program in November. Israel, as a matter of policy, neither confirms nor denies such actions.
They must be above the law then.
The blackout hit Natanz barely a week after the United States and Iran participated in new talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement abandoned by former president Trump. It was not immediately clear if the blackout would affect the resumption of the talks, but Iran now faces a complicated calculation on how to respond, especially if it concludes that Israel was responsible.
“Tehran faces an extremely tricky balance,” said Henry Rome, an Iran analyst at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. “It will feel compelled to retaliate in order to signal to Israel that attacks are not cost-free.”
At the same time, Rome said, “Iran also needs to ensure that such a retaliation does not make it politically impossible for the West to continue pushing forward with [nuclear treaty] reentry.”
Yeah, who benefits by throwing monkey wrenches into the issue?
The blackout came less than a year after a mysterious fire ravaged part of the Natanz facility, about 155 miles south of Tehran, the capital. Iranian officials initially played down the effects of the fire but later admitted it had caused extensive damage. Further raising suspicions, the blackout came a day after Iranian officials lauded the inauguration of new centrifuges housed at a site constructed following the Natanz fire. It was not clear from the announcements Sunday whether those new centrifuges were adversely affected by the power failure.
Some Iranian experts dismissed the idea that a cyberattack could have caused power outages at Natanz. The complex there has its own power grid, multiple backup systems, and layers of security protection to prvent a cyberattack that would abruptly shut down its system. “It’s hard to imagine that it was a cyberattack,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. “The likely scenario is that it either targeted the facility indirectly or through physical infiltration.”
That is a strange statement to make after the WEF Warned of a Cyber Attack Leading to Systemic Collapse of the Global Financial System in their tabletop exercise called Operation Cyber Polygon!
Word of the Natanz power loss came as Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, was in Israel on Sunday for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s defense minister, Benny Gantz.
The United States and Israel have a history of covert collaboration, dating to the administration of former president George W. Bush, in disrupting Iran’s progress toward developing nuclear energy. The best-known operation under this collaboration, which was code-named “Olympic Games,” was a cyberattack disclosed during the Obama administration that disabled nearly 1,000 centrifuges at Natanz and that was believed to have set back Iran’s enrichment activities by many months.
Was that the infamous Stuxnet virus(!) created by Israel?
Of course, it was primarily the Israelis who fed us all the lies and garbage about Iraq, too.
Of course, Iran is no better than anyone else when it comes to tyrannical government:
"Iran on Saturday began a 10-day lockdown amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections, state TV reported, a worrisome trend after more than a year of the country battling the Middle East’s worst outbreak. Iran’s coronavirus task force, charged with determining virus restrictions, ordered most shops closed and offices restricted to one-third capacity in cities declared as “red-zones.” The severe surge in infections follows a two-week public holiday for Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Millions traveled to the Caspian coast and other popular vacation spots, packed markets to shop for new clothes and toys and congregated in homes for parties in defiance of government health guidelines....."
The new lockdown also affects all parks, restaurants, bakeries, beauty salons, malls and bookstores, and there appeared to be no respite in sight to the virus’s spread as Iran’s vaccine rollout lags and they suffer the highest day death toll from virus as the currency plunges.
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Time to hit the beach!
"Amid tensions with Iran, Pentagon chief says alliance with Israel ‘ironclad’" by Robert Burns Associated Press, April 11, 2021
TEL AVIV — US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday declared an “enduring and ironclad” American commitment to Israel, reinforcing support at a tense time in Israeli politics and amid questions about the Biden administration’s efforts to revive nuclear negotiations with Israel’s archenemy, Iran.
I suspect the real reason he was there was to tell Israel to stop screwing around!
How long before an Israeli sub sinks a US carrier in the Persian Gulf a la Gulf of Tonkin, folks?
If not, he is signaling we will be fighting another one of Israel's wars for them.
Austin’s first talks in Israel since he became Pentagon chief in January come as the United States seeks to leverage Middle East diplomatic progress made by the Trump administration, which brokered a deal normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab states.
After meeting with Defense Minister Benny Gantz in Tel Aviv, Austin said he had reaffirmed that “our commitment to Israel is enduring and ironclad.” Austin made no mention of Iran. Gantz, in his own remarks while standing beside Austin, said his country views the United States as a “full partner” against threats, “not the least, Iran.” Neither official took questions from reporters.
Iron can rust.
“The Tehran of today presents a strategic threat to international security, the entire Middle East, and to the state of Israel,” Gantz said in his prepared statement. “We will work closely with our American allies to ensure that any new agreement with Iran will secure the vital interests of the world and of the United States, prevent a dangerous arms race in our region, and protect the state of Israel.”
Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Austin’s visit is important in part because it is the first by a member of President Biden’s Cabinet.
“They want to show that they did come here with clean hands and they want to listen,” Guzansky said. “They want to listen to Israel’s worries and perhaps other partners’ worries about the negotiation about Iran.”
The blood is all over his hands, but at least the Globe makes you think.
Austin is steeped in the finer points of Middle East defense and security issues. He served four years as head of US Central Command, capping a 41-year Army career that included commanding US forces in Iraq.
Flying overnight from Washington, Austin arrived in Tel Aviv in the tense aftermath of the country’s fourth inconclusive election in the past two years. President Reuven Rivlin of Israel last week gave embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the difficult task of trying to form a new government.
The key backdrop to Austin’s visit is the Israeli government’s concern about the Biden administration’s attempt to work out an arrangement to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, which in Israel’s view is fatally flawed. Netanyahu has for years described Iran as an existential threat to his nation due to Iran’s alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon and its support for militant groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Yup, Israel has a concern and Austin steps and fetches!
Netanyahu, leading a state with its own secret nuclear weapons program, has accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons to use with its ballistic missiles. Iran has maintained its nuclear program is peaceful. Netanyahu has also kept up his criticism of the Iran nuclear deal, which, if followed, strictly limits Tehran’s ability to enrich and stockpile uranium, blocking it from being able to make a weapon. “History has taught us that deals like this, with extremist regimes like this, are worth nothing,” Netanyahu said last week.
That's called projection, when you yourself are guilty of the very conduct of which you accuse others.
By coincidence or not, Austin arrived as Iran reported that its underground Natanz nuclear facility lost power Sunday just hours after starting up new advanced centrifuges capable of enriching uranium faster. If Israel caused the blackout, it would further heighten tensions between the two nations, already engaged in a shadow conflict across the wider Middle East. Last week, an Iranian ship said to be acting as a Revolutionary Guard base off the coast of Yemen was struck by an explosion. Iran blamed Israel for the blast.
That is no coincidence! Israel has a long history of sticking a thumb in the eyes of Americans, just6 to show the world who is REALLY calling the shots.
In addition to repeated assurances by Republican and Democratic administrations that the United States will endeavor to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge over its regional adversaries, Washington for years has invested heavily in helping Israel develop missile defense technologies.
Iron Dome is one of the most-touted successes in Israel missile defense. It is a mobile anti-rocket system developed to intercept short-range unguided rockets. It has shot down more than 2,000 projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip since it was deployed a decade ago. The US. Army recently bought two Iron Dome batteries at the request of Congress to counter cruise missiles.
After the U.S. government funded the Israeli effort to create the "Iron Dome."
So where are they being deployed, Capitol Hill?
Nothing is more important than dead Israeli soldiers, 'eh?
The New York Times catches a whiff of Saudi involvement in the palace intrigue, leading one to believe that King Abdullah isn't on board with an attack on Iran.
There is also the overwhelming stench of regime change coming from Myanmar, but there are happily allies in the fight:
"People across Britain flocked to shed shaggy locks and browse for clothes, books and other “non-essential” items as shops, gyms, hairdressers, restaurant patios and beer gardens reopened Monday after months of lockdown. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people to “behave responsibly” as the country that has had Europe’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak took a big step on its roadmap toward a resumption of normal life. The prime minister had promised to visit a pub for a pint to mark the occasion, but postponed the celebratory drink after the death of Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, on Friday at age 99. Indoor drinking and dining won’t be allowed in England until May 17 at the earliest, and theaters, cinemas, nightclubs and most other venues remain closed, while indoor socializing is tightly restricted and foreign holidays remain banned....."
I say hoist a pint and then piss on his grave!
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The only place on the place that avoided the last World War:
"April is shaping up to be Brazil’s darkest month yet in the pandemic, with hospitals struggling with a crush of patients, deaths on track for record highs and few signs of a reprieve from a troubled vaccination program in Latin America’s largest nation. The Health Ministry has cut its outlook for vaccine supplies in April three times already, to half their initial level, and the country’s two biggest laboratories are facing supply constraints. The delays also mean tens of thousands more deaths as the particularly contagious P.1 variant of COVID-19 sweeps Brazil. It has recorded about 350,000 of the 2.9 million virus deaths worldwide, behind only the U.S. toll of over 560,000. Public health experts blame President Jair Bolsonaro for refusing to enact strict measures to halt infections and for clashing with governors and mayors who did....."
What is forgotten is the Brazilian hospital that was broken into by politicians who found there were no people there and the building was still under construction.
Are you sick of the lies yet?
"Ecuador’s runoff features leftist candidate Andres Arauz, who led the first round of voting with more than 30 percent on Feb. 7, and former banker Guillermo Lasso, who edged into the final by finishing about half of a percentage point above environmentalist and Indigenous candidate Yaku Pérez. Arauz is backed by Correa, a major force in the troubled Andean nation despite a corruption conviction. He has proposed making the wealthy pay more taxes, backing away from agreements with the International Monetary Fund, and finding legal mechanisms to force the repatriation of deposits that Ecuadorians have abroad, while Peru’s election has turned into a popularity contest in which a candidate has even addressed how he suppresses his sexual desires....."
I had none for the rest of the article, and I doubt Arauz will win the run-off.
If he does, it will just be another explosion in the region, and the real rumble is unvaccinated are not being allowed to leave.
"While millions of Americans are now getting vaccinated, undocumented migrants are still struggling to sign up for their own inoculations. In some cases that’s because pharmacies require IDs to make appointments. In others, it’s because the migrants worry that going to a vaccination site could lead to deportation. As a result, they’re still dying disproportionately of covid-19 — and the Mexican consulates are still receiving calls....."
Don't worry. I'm sure the kids don't have COVID and their is a prize at the end of the trip if you make it.
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Time to say a prayer and turn out the lights:
Five times they did, and the compromised Roberts is now a member of the liberal wing.
The majority said California had violated the Constitution by disfavoring prayer meetings. “California treats some comparable secular activities more favorably than at-home religious exercise, permitting hair salons, retail stores, personal care services, movie theaters, private suites at sporting events and concerts and indoor restaurants,” the opinion said. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said the majority had compared in-home prayer meetings with the wrong kinds of activities. “The First Amendment requires that a state treat religious conduct as well as the state treats comparable secular conduct,” Justice Kagan wrote. “Sometimes finding the right secular analogue may raise hard questions, but not today. California limits religious gatherings in homes to three households,” she went on. “If the state also limits all secular gatherings in homes to three households, it has complied with the First Amendment. And the state does exactly that: It has adopted a blanket restriction on at-home gatherings of all kinds, religious and secular alike.” California need not, she wrote, “treat at-home religious gatherings the same as hardware stores and hair salons.” She added that “the law does not require that the state equally treat apples and watermelons.” Chief Justice Roberts voted with the dissenters but did not join Justice Kagan’s opinion. He did not set out his reasoning. Last year, before the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court allowed the governors of California and Nevada to restrict attendance at religious services. In a pair of 5-to-4 orders, Chief Justice Roberts joined what was then the court’s four-member liberal wing to form majorities. The court changed course in November, after the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a case from New York. The majority barred restrictions on religious services in New York that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had imposed to combat the coronavirus....."
Thank God for Gorsuch!
And with that, the lights went out:
"Turn the Lights Out. Here Come the Birds" by Christine Hauser New York Times, April 10, 2021
Dozens of American cities are being transformed this spring, enveloped in darkness as the lights that usually brighten up their skylines are turned off at night to prevent birds from fatal impacts during their annual migrations.
Each year, an estimated 365 million to one billion birds die by smacking into reflective or transparent windows in deadly cases of mistaken identity, believing the glass to be unimpeded sky.
They keep coming, wave after wave.
“These birds are dying right in front of their eyes,” said Connie Sanchez, the bird-friendly buildings program manager for the National Audubon Society, which for two decades has asked cities to dim their lights from about mid-March through May, and again in the fall, under its Lights Out initiative.
Since late last year, at least six cities have joined forces with the 35 other places where the society, local organizations, ornithology experts and some of the nation’s largest companies have been helping birds navigate in urban centers. The efforts are gaining ground in cities including Chicago, Houston and New York City, which are among the top 10 in the United States for light pollution.
The timing of the lights-out campaign varies based on location. In Texas, whose coastal lands are the first that birds encounter after they cross the Gulf of Mexico, buildings will go dark in Dallas from mid-March through May. In Fort Worth, at least 11 of the city’s most prominent buildings will dim their lights from midnight to 6 a.m. through May 31.
In Jacksonville, Fla., where migration started in mid-March, building owners and managers are examining data from volunteers who walk the city, collecting carcasses and documenting where birds have fallen. Buildings in Philadelphia have also joined the nationwide effort, a step that experts hope will help to avoid a repeat of the deaths of more than 1,000 birds last October, an event reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer as one of the largest such avian fatalities in decades.
Bird populations are already imperiled by climate change, habitat loss and cats. Turning lights out at night can mitigate one more risk to their lives, experts say, but before a city knows if a lights-out campaign will work, it first has to know how many birds it might help. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has used radar data to identify abnormal bird densities. In some cities, the approach is old-fashioned shoe leather.
Three days a week, at about 7 a.m., volunteers hit the streets of Jacksonville, Fla., peering into shrubs or searching the bases of the city’s tallest buildings. In the week of March 14, they found two warblers and a dove. The tiny bodies were put into bags and handed over to the zoo for analysis.
Then the business of forensics begins. As in any cause of death investigation, clues must be extracted from their surroundings. In the case of birds, the only certainties are flight, gravity and thin air.
Moments after a fatal impact, birds plummet to sidewalks, drop onto high-rise ledges inaccessible to the public, or sink into bushes on private land until discovered there inexplicably dead, throwing the possible answers to the who, what, when and where of their deaths into disarray.
Sometimes, stunned by the impact, they keep flying before they fall, making the place of their original blow difficult to trace. Often, cleaning crews sweep up carcasses before the volunteers can document them.
Bird strikes against buildings have been recorded for decades in Philadelphia. The first recorded window kills date back to the 1890s, when City Hall was lit up, said Nate Rice, the ornithology collection manager at Drexel’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Modern architecture has accelerated the problem as sky-piercing, reflective structures are illuminated at night.
Birds use stellar navigation, and twinkling lights, especially on overcast nights, can confuse them, leading them to fly in circles instead of proceeding along their route. Others drop exhausted to the ground, at risk of predators, cars or smacking into glass when they take wing again. Some crash into buildings if they see a plant in the window or a tree reflected in the glass.
Every year in New York City, the twin beams of light in the tribute to 9/11 victims are turned off at peak times to help free birds that have been drawn to the lights, and in St. Louis, exterior lights at the Gateway Arch landmark are turned off at night to avoid disorienting birds during migration in the first two weeks of May, when warblers and other birds fly from Canada to Central and South America.....
The place will soon look like Mars, with buildings no bigger than a breadbox.
