A Very Negotiable "Faith"

The magazine of Decision, "The Evangelical Voice For Today," reported in January, 2019 that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's pastor at Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas remarked

We love Mike and Susan. Susan is warm and inviting, smart and caring. Both are followers of Jesus. Mike was a small business owner when he served as deacon. He was a humble, competent and hard-working man who cared about his employees, his family and his church.

The truth, not so much.  According to The Washington Post. after an interview with NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly in January, 2020, Pompeo launched a profane tirade in which

“He asked me, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ ” she continued. “He used the f-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes; he called out for his aides to bring him a map of the world with no writing, no countries marked. I pointed to Ukraine; he put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this.’ ”

Despite an email chain which preceded the interview, Pompeo "accused Kelly of having 'lied to me, twice,' first in setting up the terms of the interview and then again in agreeing to keeping the 'post-interview conversation' off the record. "  Moreover

The statement ended with a vague, unexplained assertion — “It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine” — that seemed to imply Kelly, who holds a master’s degree in European studies from Cambridge University, got her geography wrong.

A week after the election, Pompeo was asked by a reporter at a news conference "is the State Department planning to engage with the Biden transition team...?  He responded in part "there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump Administration." That didn't happen.

 

Moreover, now-private citizen Mike Pompeo is not done. 

Ben Rhodes told @J_Insider that @netanyahu — and all Jews — are “corrupt and cruel.” While this view is taking root among some Democrats, does President Biden agree? I hope not.https://t.co/43aFOqgeC2

— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) February 18, 2021

The article itself to which Pompeo helpfully linked described the podcast hosted by Ben Rhodes, who served in the National Security Council under President Obama, in which

Rhodes speculated on what drives Netanyahu’s world view: “Maybe the view is, ‘Jews have been screwed throughout history, by a corrupt cruel world. And so you know what, we just have to be corrupt and cruel ourselves. That’s the only way to survive in this world.’”

Yet for Pompeo, that somehow became Rhodes stating "all Jews are 'corrupt and cruel.'"

The fawning article in Decision was entitled "Mike Pompeo's Non-Negotiable Faith."  It seems, though, that Mike Pompeo's most abiding faith is in (pardon the redundancy) deceit and Donald Trump.   

 

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Hypenated Leadership

I had intended in this post to criticize Kamala Harris' response to Today Show's Savannah Guthrie to questions about the pandemic. However, a New York Post video takes care of that better than I would.

When interviewed by Savannah Guthrie on Wednesday, Vice-President and ex-veteran prosecutor Kamala Harris failed to give a straight answer about whether former President Trump should be prosecuted by the Justice Department. Additionally, she weaved and dodged when questioned about the pandemic.

Yet the exchange exposed (or should have) something which threatens to have a grave impact upon USA government over the next four years- and maybe beyond. It came about, when in response to a question about the pandemic, the Vice President replied

You're right, we're four weeks in as an Administration but we have during these four weeks done a lot about a national protocol for getting the vaccines to folks. Supporting the states who needed that kind of coordination and support. We have a whole program that now is- that we've rolled out, getting one million vaccines to pharmacies. We are getting vaccines to community health center, very important, to supplement what the states are doing.

We want to make sure we get it directly into communities, 13.5 million a week going out as quickly as we're producing it, we're getting it out. Let's talk about- we want to  say, please, everybody, get vaccinated. We'll do whatever is in each one's ability to do in the interim, wear a mask, social distance, and wash  your hands and do it frequently.

In that one response, the Vice President- the Vice President- used, standing alone or as part of a contraction, the term "we" eleven (11) times. More tellingly, she mentioned "Joe Biden" or "the President" only once, and then as "I think they ought to be a priority; the President believes they should be a priority." She included herself when referring to "as an Administration."

And it's not only Harris who is talking this way. In her interview- or, rather chat- with Chris Hayes later Wednesday, Assistant Presidential Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (in a segment beginning at approximately 27:32 of the video below) also declined to give a straight answer about vaccinations. And she, too, downplayed the presidency, remarking "that the Biden-Harris Administration is trying to move forward with...."

During the presidential campaign, there were many references to the Obama-Biden Administration. However, that was for strategic political purposes only and Obama and Biden had been out of office for approximately three years. While Barack Obama was President, it was President Obama, not "we"; the Obama Administration, not the Obama-Biden Administration. Vice-President Joe Biden never suggested or implied that he was equal in power, influence, or stature to the President.

It is different now, and not because times have changed.  Presently, there are people in Washington, D.C., employees of the federal government (including, at times, President Biden) or not, who want us to know with the terminology they use that this is the Biden-Harris Administration and not the Biden Administration. If this were going to be a co-presidency, it would have been decent to notify us before the election. On second thought: 4+ more years of President Trump would have been awfully hard to take.

 

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Comment Requested

"Oh, that's a great question," replies Kamala Harris near the close of an appearance on Wednesday's Today Show. Industry standards probably required a puff question from Savannah Guthrie to ease the vice-president's discomfort lest she refuse to return for an appearance on NBC.. Shortly before that, Guthrie had asked (in a segment beginning at 10:34 of the video below)

I have to ask, on the subject of impeachment, the President was acquitted in the Senate trial. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, though, had harsh words, saying he didn't get away with anything, yet, and that civil and criminal liability was still a possibility. I ask you, do you think that President Trump should be criminally charged?

Harris responded

You know, right now, Savannah, I'm focused on what we need to do to get relief to American families, and that is our highest priority. It is our Administration's, it is our job, it is the job we were elected to do, and that's my focus.

You were elected to do more than one thing, Madame Vice-President. Of course, the pandemic is your focus but the questions about that came earlier in the segment. Thus, Guthrie continued "You're a former prosecutor, so I have to ask you, is that a strong case against the President, a criminal case that Mitch McConnell raised as a possibility?"

McConnell's sincerity is questionable. However, he is the GOP's leader in the Senate, head of the non-insurrectionist wing of the Republican Party and he did imply the former President should be prosecuted.  Nonetheless, Harris replied

I haven't reviewed the case through the lens of being a prosecutor. I'm reviewing the case through the lens of being the Vice President of America.

That's the United States of America, an ironic omission from a member of an Administration which believes the border between the USA and Mexico should be somewhat, euphemistically speaking, permeable.

More on-topic: the Vice President needs to do a better job, politically and otherwise. She owes the country a more complete answer as to whether the ex-President should be prosecuted than "I haven't thought about it." Harris is an ex-prosecutor and can presumably use her experience with, and knowledge of, the justice system to formulate a coherent answer to a reasonable question.

Alternatively, she can answer the question in the capacity of vice-president, to which she clings here as an excuse for avoiding a response. The answer should be something along the lines of 

That's a decision for the Justice Department. Unlike the last president, this Administration believes that the Attorney General of the United States of America doesn't serve the political interests of the President but serves the American people.  The Justice Department will take all appropriate factors into consideration and make a decision the American people can be proud of.

There. That shouldn't be so hard. Not only does it answer the question, it makes clear there is a new sheriff in town, one who believes in the independence of the Justice Department and will work for the people and not himself.  If Vice President Harris can't pull that off, President Biden should have send to the media someone who will. That is, unless it's not accurate.

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Wrong And Wrong

Condemning the two-time impeachment and trial of Donald J. Trump, Lindsay Graham has charged

And we've opened Pandora's Box to future Presidents and if you use this model, I don't know how Kamala Harris doesn't get impeached if the Republicans take over the House because she actually bailed out rioters and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody's head open.

Republicans will try to impeach a Democratic president for anything. They've already done so for the commission of consensual sex, of which Graham should be aware because he was a vocal advocate of convicting the impeached Bill Clinton in the Senate in 1999. Moreover, this will not open a Pandora's Box for Democratic legislators because they now fully realize that no more than a handful of Republicans ever will vote to impeach a Republican President. Or at least they won't unless witnesses are called, which Democrats won't because they live to be intimidated.

The Minnesota Freedom Fund puts up the bail for many individuals, and it raised copious amounts of money after the protests which followed the murder of George Floyd. One of the defendants benefiting was Jaleel Stallings, arrested on May 30, 2020 in Minneapolis. According to the Hennepin District Court, there is a jury trial scheduled for March 27, 2021 for two counts of Attempted Second Degree Murder, one count of Assault, and other charges, which appear to be three felonies carrying a lesser maximum sentence. 

However, more likely Graham was referring to

A 32-year-old Minneapolis man, who was bailed out of jail by the Minnesota Freedom Fund in July after an alleged assault, is accused in another assault that left the victim with a traumatic brain injury.

According to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, Lionel Timms faces one felony count of third-degree assault — causing substantial bodily harm — in connection to the Aug. 14 incident.

Yet, in neither case was Timms arrested for an incident arising from the racial  justice protests. Further

all but three of the 170 people arrested during the protests between May 26 and June 2 were released from jail within a week. Of the 167 released, only 10 had to put up a monetary bond to be released; in most cases, the amounts were nominal, such as $78 or $100. In fact, 92 percent of those arrested had to pay no bail — and 29 percent of those arrested did not face charges. (The American Bail Coalition is a trade group of insurance companies who profit from underwriting bail bonds.

Without an investigation, it cannot be determined what donations from whom went to which offenders. However, the vast majority of the money collected by the MFF, including a sum contributed by then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, was not used to bail out Lindsay Graham's "rioters" but to gain the release of other alleged offenders.

Lindsay Graham, ideologically-charged political opportunist: meet Kamala Harris, judgment-impaired Vice President.

The South Carolina senator has chosen to distort wildly a controversial issue as his rationale for defending a President who instigated a riot for the purpose of overturning a free and fair election. Senator Harris gave to a fund which was used overwhelmingly not to free (before trial) protestors or rioters but individuals with motives completely unconnected to any ideas of racial justice or police reform.

On June 1, 2020, Harris (apparently successfully) encouraged a torrent of contributions to the Minnesota Freedom Fund by tweeting "If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.”

She was hired twice as a prosecutor, later was elected as District Attorney of San Francisco, and thereafter as Attorney General of the State of California. Yet as far as we know, she assumed the contributions to this organization would bail out peaceful protestors.

It turns out that most of that money was not applied to peaceful protestors, as Harris implied, nor to rioters, as implied by Lindsey Graham and many other Republicans.

If conservatives had a problem with the Black Lives Matter protests, they had a duty to specify their disagreement with the policies or perspective of the movement. Instead, intimidated by the slogan "black lives matter," most of them hid behind baseless accusations. On the other side of the partisan aisle, if an ex-prosecutor (let alone ex-state Attorney General) wants to support an organization helping peaceful protestors, she should know to find out a little about the organization first.

 

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Lie And Be Rewarded

Down is up, up is down and

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the public face of the battle against the pandemic in the United States, was the recipient of a $1 million Dan David Prize, an award headquartered at Tel Aviv University and dedicated this year to outstanding contributions in public health.

The Dan Davis Prize is awarded annually, for a total of $3 million, in three categories- the Future, the Past and the Present. Dr.

Fauci, 80, won in the “Present” category for his scientific contributions, including his research and his efforts to inform the public about the pandemic. He “leveraged his considerable communication skills to address people gripped by fear and anxiety and worked relentlessly to inform individuals in the United States and elsewhere about the public health measures essential for containing the pandemic’s spread,” the organizers of the Dan David Prize said in a statement.

Dr. Fauci certainly has "considerable communication skills," as does his former boss, Donald J. Trump, who probably kept Fauci on for two reasons:  a) the latter is excellent on television, a major priority of the former President; and b) for each, candor is negotiable.

Forgotten, it appears is the time in early spring, as Americans were unsure of the value of face masks, that Fauci stated they were not necessary. He did so, he later claimed, because there was an insufficient number of N95 masks and surgical masks  and "we" wanted to make sure that health care workers received them.

The earlier advice is what is generally referred to as a "lie." A conservative Republican, State Senator Tom Davis of South Carolina, has argued "timely dissemination of the truth on the efficacy of masks would have led to a reallocation of productive capital so the supply of masks could meet demand." Alternatively, the President could have invoked the Defense Production Act, as explained here,  "to direct the production and distribution of materials that are deemed essential to national defense."

The federal government could have gone right with the free market, to the left with critical government action, or have its mouthpiece lie to the American public.

Early in the pandemic, Dr. Fauci indicated that 60-70 percent of the public would have to be vaccinated for herd immunity to be reached.  In November, it was "70, 75 percent," and a few weeks later, "75,80,85 percent" and "75 to 8-plus percent." It's tough keeping numbers straight when truth is optional so

Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

He has treated the American people as children, unable to handle the truth. Evidently, he found nothing in the past four years sufficiently unacceptable to be worth sacrificing the position he has held for over 36 years.

The Dan Davis Prize claims Fauci "has been widely praised for his courage in speaking truth to power in a highly charged environment." If Fauci had talked truth to power, he would have been fired long ago by President Trump, and he probably wouldn't have endeared himself to President Biden. If courage in government officials working in the public health or national security field were so highly prized, it's not hard to find:

 

 

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Unserious Senator

I don't subscribe to the modern instinct, especially popular on the left, to demand everyone with whom there is a disagreement to "resign." However, if I did, my nominee would be Delaware senator Chris Coons, closely allied with Joe Biden. He appeared Valentine's Day on 'This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, at which time

"So you don't believe that a full trial, more witnesses, more documents giving us a sense of what was going on in the inside the White House, would have better served the cause of justice and accountability?" Stephanopoulos asked Coons.

Coons said he was impressed with the 57 votes that Democrats managed to get, the most bipartisan impeachment in the history of the country.

"They could have had 500 more witnesses, it wasn't going to change the outcome. Once Mitch McConnell made it clear he intended to acquit even despite the compelling evidence, what the House managers needed wasn't more witnesses or more evidence, what we all needed was more Republican courage," Coons said. "I, frankly, at that time did not think that spending months fighting over additional witnesses would have changed the outcome of this trial one bit."

Sen. Chris Coons defends decision to not have more witness testimony at Trump's impeachment trial: "What we needed was more Republican courage." pic.twitter.com/MdWwSivkNe

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 14, 2021

Senators need not have spent months fighting over additional witnesses.  Even if Republicans had demanded a hundred or more to slow the process, Democrats could have balked. That's what control of the Senate means- or at least does when Republicans control it, as they did when Mitch McConnell decided at President Trump's first impeachment that there would be no witnesses.

Moreover, the rough consensus going into Saturday morning was that there would be five (though possibly even fewer) Republicans voting to convict Trump. Instead, there were seven, suggesting that Democratic senators could not be certain that with the personal, passionate and emotional testimony of witnesses there would have been an acquittal. (That's apart from any other reasons to call witnesses.)

However, that was Coons' explanation for the decision of Democrats to unfurl the white flag of surrender. Or at least it was on Sunday morning after he got his lines straight because on Saturday morning

Frustrations rose among Senate Democrats. One Democrat familiar with the internal discussions said “it was clear the managers had no plan” and “didn’t know what their next step was.”

Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a close ally of President Biden’s, visited the managers’ room off the Senate floor, according to a House aide. He told the managers any delay would cost Republican votes to convict — and potentially Democratic votes, too.

“The jury is ready to vote,” he told them. “People want to get home for Valentine’s Day.”

The Senate could have put off trial-related work till Tuesday, especially because Valentine's Day, 2021 is a Sunday, a fortuitous fact which seems to have escaped Coon's attention.

Valentine's Day is a swell day for an elite group- a mere 100 individuals entrusted with the work of governing the nation- to be home with their "significant others." So, too, would the wife of Howard Liebengood, of Jeffrey Smith, or of Brian Sicknick prefer to be with her husband on this occasion. However, due to the deaths of those law enforcement officers, closely related to the insurrection of January 6, they will be denied the privilege enjoyed by United States Senators.

 

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Adverse Inference

Asked by Bill Maher two weeks ago on Real Time whether there is a 50-50 chance that SARS-CoV-2 originated in a lab, evolutionary biologist Brad Weinstein, appearing with wife and colleague Heather Heyer, remarked

it’s far more likely than that. I think I said last June that the chances it came from a lab were about 90%. This was never a conspiracy theory. In fact that term was used to simply make it go away. It’s an obvious hypothesis that is in need of testing, and we are only now, a year [into the pandemic], getting to the point where we can discuss it out loud without being stigmatized.

However stigmatized or not, when a scientist or a comedian questions the virtue of the mainland Chinese regime (3:17 of the video), the race card is always not far behind. And if Twitter is the land of bad takes, this guy is king:

Like a lot of the other racist assholes, Bill Maher secretly wants to be a comedian. https://t.co/dL2CdFeKO8

— Guy Endore-Kaiser (@GuyEndoreKaiser) February 13, 2021

Timing can be so unfortunate. This fact-free defense of the Beijing regime ironically appeared less than a day after we learned

Chinese scientists refused to share raw data that might bring the world closer to understanding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, independent investigators for the W.H.O. said on Friday.

The investigators, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to the Chinese city of Wuhan, said disagreements over patient records and other issues were so tense that they sometimes erupted into shouts among the typically mild-mannered scientists on both sides.

China’s continued resistance to revealing information about the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the scientists say, makes it difficult for them to uncover important clues that could help stop future outbreaks of such dangerous diseases.

“If you are data focused, and if you are a professional,” said Thea Kølsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist on the team, then obtaining data is “like for a clinical doctor looking at the patient and seeing them by your own eyes.”

Following this second impeachment of President Donald Trump, Lead Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin invited Trump to testify in the impending trial. He wrote "if you decline this invitation, we reserve any and all rights, including the right to establish at trial your refusal supports a strong adverse inference regarding your actions (and inaction) on January 6, 2001."

Failure to cooperate supports a strong adverse inference regarding your actions. The company line throughout has been that SARS-CoV-2 originated at a wet market in Wuhan. However, despite- or because of- mounting evidence that it instead came out of a laboratory in that city, Chinese authorities have denied investigators from the World Health Organization access to patient records, access to vital lab employees, and other "issues" necessary to prove or disprove the official line of the totalitarian regime in Beijing. 

It's time to take a strong adverse inference regarding claims from mainland China, meanwhile rebuffing charges of racism for questioning a modern fascist state.

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