Leverage

Alexander Sammons in The American Prospect explains that progressive groups have been startlingly willing not to pressure President Joe Biden on their priorities, and have been rewarded with very few wins. However

In rare moments and on fairly niche issues, progressive groups have called out Biden publicly, and it’s worked. When news leaked that the president had chosen to go back on a campaign promise and would not raise the refugee limit from its Trump-era lows of 15,000 people per year, there was broad outcry from progressive and humanitarian groups. Biden quickly reversed course.

When "progressive groups have called out Biden publicly.... it has worked."  One of those issues- the most important one- on which the left has failed to twist the President's arm is voting rights, which Biden was asked about in his recent town hall meeting with CNN's Don Lemon. New York Times columnist Charles Blow noted the President stated

“What I don’t want to do is get wrapped up, right now, in the argument of whether or not this is all about the filibuster or — look, the American public, you can’t stop them from voting. You tried last time. More people voted last time than at any time in American history, in the middle of the worst pandemic in American history. More people did.”

This is patently false. You absolutely can stop people from voting. We have seen this over and over again throughout American history. And, these laws won’t harm all Americans. They’ll harm minorities in America. They are aimed at liberal cities where the populations are often heavily Black and Latino.

Biden is basically saying here what Black America has heard forever: No matter how high they make the hill, your only choice is to climb it. I applaud your ascension. My God, aren’t your legs strong.

As Blow noted also, President Biden has been emphasizing other elements of his agenda far more than voting rights, notwithstanding that "Black people gave all to save Joe Biden’s candidacy, but Joe Biden refused to give all to protect their right to vote. Reciprocity is not compulsory."

After three states- Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada- held their primary or caucus, Biden was gasping for air, nearly dead in the water. But as was oft-repeated, we had not heard from African-Americans. Then Jim Clyburn unqualifiedly endorsed the former vice president and with more blacks than whites voting in the South Carolina primary, Biden creamed Bernie Sanders and was off to the races.

"Black people gave all to save Joe Biden's candidacy" is a short and sweet recap of Democratic primary season and the winner cannot be so dense as not to realize it.  Yet, there are ways to respond to the President going all out to get a bipartisan infrastructure bill and giving little more than lip service to voter rights.

Most effective probably would be the Congressional Black Caucus explaining that the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and HR 1 are their highest- not high, but highest- legislative priorities. The CBC could imply a little political blackmail, noting that the GOP is favored to win back the House (also, the Senate) and that if it does, it will move to impeach the President. And oh, by the way- if that happens, the first black vice president will be waiting in the wings and black members of the House may be conflicted. A little intimidation from immigration rights activists persuaded Joe Biden earlier this year. Clarence Thomas knows how that works.

Implying they would not have the President's back if Articles of Impeachment were introduced in the next Congress might seem like an idle threat. Alternatively, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus merely can remind Biden "we made you, we can break you."   Of the larger black community: they did, and they can.

 

Share |

The "Trump Vaccine"

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, press secretary to President Donald Trump and now GOP candidate for governor of Arkansas, has written an op-ed explaining why she decided to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Expert opinion and the experience of millions of other Americans be damned, she took the shot(s) on the advice of her doctor. And she argued

When the Trump administration initiated Operation Warp Speed in May 2020, the president stated that a vaccine would become available by December of that year at the very latest. From the moment he made his announcement, the "expert" class tried to undermine those statements with baseless fear-mongering.

The New York Times ran an opinion piece claiming that whatever the Trump administration released would likely be a dangerous political stunt. CNN did the same. But no one did more to undercut public confidence in the vaccine than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Biden doubted that the vaccine would be "real," while Harris said in a nationally-televised debate that she would not take any vaccine the Trump administration had a hand in creating.

Sanders has conveniently forgotten that in early October of 2020 Trump asserted

 “no president’s ever pushed” the Food and Drug Administration like he has as concerns mount that the administration is pressuring the agency to quickly authorize a vaccine for the coronavirus.

The FDA on Tuesday published new guidance for vaccine manufacturers that said they need to provide at least two months of follow-up safety data after vaccinating trial participants to apply for emergency use authorization. That makes the authorization of a vaccine before the Nov. 3 presidential election highly unlikely.

“We’re going to have a great vaccine very, very shortly. I think we should have it before the election, but frankly the politics gets involved and that’s OK. They want to play their games,” Trump said in a video posted on Twitter. “The FDA has acted as quickly as they’ve ever acted in history. ... No president’s ever pushed them like I’ve pushed them either, to be honest with you.”

Trump wanted to make the vaccine available before the election. If he couldn't he could at least make voters believe that if they stuck with him, it would be here very shortly.

In her piece, Huckabee Sanders twice referred to the "Trump vaccine" and once to the "Trump vaccine plan." That's three times more than the ever-modest Trump has referred to a "Trump vaccine."

That's not by accident.  It has been widely reported that nationally the vast majority of individuals who have chosen to avoid the vaccine are Trump supporters. Sanders claims

If President Biden, Vice President Harris, and others on the left truly care about increasing the vaccination rate and saving lives, they should admit they were wrong to cast doubt on Operation Warp Speed and give President Trump and his team the credit they are due for the development of a safe and effective vaccine in record time.

But of course, that's ridiculous. It's widely speculated that many people refusing the vaccine are doing so precisely because Democrats- especially the incumbent President- are vigorously encouraging them to do otherwise. If Biden, Harris, and "others on the left" gave more credit to Trump for Operation Warp Speed, they actually might sow doubt in the latter's supporters that the former President is responsible for development of the vaccine.

There is no reason Biden, Harris et al. should bend over backwards to give Donald Trump credit for something he himself doesn't want to take credit for.  Moreover, Trump's actions over the past eighteen months and statements over the course of his adult life suggest the most likely reason he doesn't want to be closely associated with the vaccine. If he boasted in it, a lot of his supporters currently resistant probably would change their mind and get the vaccine.

Additional people would be saved from contracting Covid-19 and its variant. Fewer people would be hospitalized and fewer would die. That would undermine President Trump's objective of culling the herd. Can't let that happen.

 

Share |

Tweet Of The Day- American Government

Leave it to a New York comedian to recognize, and encapsulate in forty words or fewer, American government:

 

USA was basically set up like an honor system farm stand. The kind where u leave a couple bucks in a jar and take some apples. Except Trump took the jar, all the apples and burned down the farm stand.

— NoelCaslerComedy (@CaslerNoel) July 24, 2021

The only slight- very slight- inaccuracy is that Donald Trump tried to burn down the farm stand.   It was only a split-second, righteous decision by an officer of the Capitol Police Department in shooting Ashli Babbitt that prevented an incursion by insurrectionists which probably would have resulted in the murder of a whole lot of people in the Capitol on January 6. It was an act so bold that the name of the officer hasn't been released, no doubt in part to spare him and his family many of the death threats that will come his way once his name is revealed.

President Trump tried to burn down the farm stand that day and but for one police officer may have done so. Of course, if Casler had said all that, the tweet would have been far less pithy and memorable and would have little impact. Instead, he captured perfectly (or nearly perfectly) not only what has transpired in the federal government the past four-and-a-half years but the fragility of our representative democracy. 

It all can be brought down by one thoroughly evil and remarkably charismatic individual. Throw away conventional American history as traditionally taught. Throw away also the 1619 Project and critical race theory as a vehicle for teaching American history. Start with " the USA was- no, is- set up like an honor system farm stand in which you leave a couple of bucks in a jar and take some apples."  That captures the essence of our political system. Take it from there and our country's past and future would be fairly, honestly, and comprehensively taught.

Car Rant Vol 25, Trump Truths: Qatar, Kushner & 666 5th. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/9cA0s3fQwq

— NoelCaslerComedy (@CaslerNoel) July 23, 2021

Share |

Our F.B.I. And Donald Trump

Something is rotten in Washington, D.C., something including, but extending beyond, the stench Donald J. Trump and his henchmen left behind.

In June, 2018 The New York Times' Jim Dwyer recalled "two weeks before the 2016 election, Mr. Comey disclosed that the F.B.I. discovered a laptop that had not been examined in the original investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s emails."

After most of the damage was done, FBI director Jim Comey announced that those were among the emails already reviewed. Amid speculation that Comey announced discovery of the emails because he feared that anti-Clinton agents in the NY office would have leaked them otherwise. Dwyer noted

On Oct. 25, 2016, three days before Mr. Comey’s stunning announcement, Mr. Giuliani appeared on a Fox morning television show.

“We got a couple of surprises left,” Mr. Giuliani said.

He chortled, and when asked to expand on the subject, replied, “And I think it’ll be enormously effective.”

On Thursday, Oct. 27, Mr. Giuliani appeared on another Fox show and said he was talking about “pretty big surprises.” He added, “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”

The news of the reactivated email inspection arrived the following day and may have helped propel Mr. Trump closer to the presidency.

It probably was the determining factor in the election. Nate Silver, then of FiveThirtyEight, would explain

Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton’s lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College.

The letter isn’t the only reason that Clinton lost. It does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020.

But the effect of those factors — say, Clinton’s decision to give paid speeches to investment banks, or her messaging on pocket-book issues, or the role that her gender played in the campaign — is hard to measure. The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast. At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has long been curious about the "investigation," first suggested by then-GOP Senator Jeff Flake, into the allegations against President Trump's nominee for the US Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. The New York Times has found

In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I. assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh’s past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear.

The letter left uncertain whether the F.B.I. itself followed up on the most compelling leads. The agency was conducting a background check rather than a criminal investigation, meaning that “the authorities, policies, and procedures used to investigate criminal matters did not apply,” the letter said.

Ms. Tyson’s letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Coons to the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, posing questions about how the F.B.I.’s review of Mr. Kavanaugh was handled.

So the Federal Bureau of (non-) Investigation received tips in their (non-) investigation and instead of looking into them, turned them over to the White House, which the FBI knew wanted to whitewash the case. Tyson's letter can only be generously labeled a response to the Whitehouse-Coons letter, given that the agency ignored it during the Trump Administration.  The Justice Department and the White House no longer are under corrupt leadership.

Trump followers have for years bleated about the "deep state."  Maybe the Administration was the party overwhelmingly responsible for the Kavanaugh sham. However, the FBI certainly was a willing partner, running interference for a guy who probably wouldn't have gotten to the White House without its help.

 

 

Share |

Tweet Of The Day- HRC

Please, someone, give Bob Dole a cookie.

Where are media calls for Trump to go away Maggie? https://t.co/3ulgpFX3rm

— Jacqueline Zavala (@sweetnfreee43) July 22, 2021

Haberman is impressed by how blunt Dole is when the the self-described "Trumper" stated "He lost the election and I regret they did, but they did." After six months of the Biden presidency, what could possibly have been his first clue?

There is no law that says that Donald Trump- or any losing presidential nominee- must go away. None, that is, unless the loser is Hillary Rodham Clinton (below in November, 2018 but it could have been at any time).

Share |

Tweet Of The Day- Open Carry

And also the ability of people to show up in public places with them. That way, when we do see one, we know to run. https://t.co/mh3iruL8qp

— Rachel Bitecofer 📈🔭🍌 (@RachelBitecofer) July 21, 2021

The Washington Post reported in late June

After a gunman ambushed and killed a police officer last week in a midday attack in a Denver suburb, most witnesses scattered, ducking behind cars as they ran for safety. But 40-year-old John Hurley moved toward the shooter, pulling out his concealed handgun and firing at the attacker.

After the gunman fell, Hurley picked up the rifle the shooter had been carrying. Moments later, police pulled up to the scene and one of the responding officers shot and killed Hurley with the rifle still in hand.

“The threat to our officers and our community was stopped by a hero named Johnny Hurley,” Arvada Police Chief Link Strate said in a Friday statement, releasing more details of the June 21 shooting that left three people dead. “Johnny’s actions can only be described as decisive, courageous and effective in stopping further loss of life.”

That's debatable, probably motivated to be comforting to the family and friends of the deceased, and promoted by the pro-gun groups which would be sought after by the media in such an incident.

Hurley was a hero- a hero who probably would not have been killed on a summer afternoon in that open carry state if his open possession were prohibited.

Philando Castille possessed a firearm, legally, in June 2017 and therefore was killed in his car by an evidently panicked police officer in suburban Minnesota.  In March of 2020 in Kentucky, Kenneth Walker opened fire with a legally registered firearm on police officers, whom he believed were intruders, serving a no-knock warrant. Returning fire, one of the cops shot and killed Walker's girlfriend, Breonna Taylor.

These three incidents had something in common. It isn't race- and usually isn't- because Taylor and Castille were black and Hurley was white. Hurley, acting unselfishly, was a hero and innocent victim while Taylor and Castille simply were tragic victims.

Here is the dirty little secret, completely ignored by news media, politicians, activists, and pundits: as far as we can tell, if there were no weapon possessed that day by civilians, these three innocent people still would be alive.

Open carry was not an issue in the incident which led to the killing of Breonna Taylor because Taylor and her boyfriend, the latter exonerated of criminal charges, were in Walker's home.  However, Castille was in his automobile and Hurley had transported his weapon, legally carried it out of his car, and was shot dead by a police officer.

Not coincidentally, all three episodes occurred in open carry states. We are often reminded that in most states in this most exceptional country of all time, people of any racial background have the freedom to be accidentally shot dead.

Update: It now appears that Good Samaritan Hurley killed with a concealed handgun Ronald Troyke, who had semi-automatic shotgun in the open. That would validate Terry McAuliffe's concern about assault weapons.

Share |

That Brady Boy

Besides being the winningest quarterback in NFL history, Tom Brady, ex- (probably "ex") supporter of Donald Trump, knows how to deliver a great comedic line:

President Biden welcomed Super Bowl Champions Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the White House today. Tom Brady related to Biden by cracking a few jokes about election denial and the time he was called "Sleepy Tom." pic.twitter.com/8DSVwjM9Ha

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) July 20, 2021

However, NBC News reported in January of 2019

Ace Davis, a fifth-grader at Millcreek Elementary School in Lexington, engineered a winning science fair project by answering the question that fans of 31 NFL teams already know the answer to: "Is Tom Brady a cheater?"

Davis and his family inflated footballs at various levels of pressure per square inch (PSI) and found that they threw them with greater accuracy at lower measures....

“The Patriots were found guilty of doctoring football [sic], thus losing $1,000,000 and future draft picks. Tom Brady is indeed a cheater,” Davis scrawled at the end of his three-panel science fair project, complete with graphs and charts.

Brady, the five-time Super Bowl champion quarterback for the New England Patriots, was suspended for four games in the 2016 season after the league concluded he and team employees had arranged to use footballs at PSI levels below the NFL rules.

The accusations came after the Patriots' 45-7 victory in the AFC title game over Indianapolis in January 2015, when Colts linebacker D'Qwell Jackson intercepted a Brady pass and noticed the ball seemed underinflated.

That led to an NFL probe that uncovered two Patriots employees regularly discussing how Brady likes footballs to be underinflated so he can get a better grip and throw them more accurately.

Brady was nevertheless permitted to play in the Super Bowl, won by his New England Patriots. The "greatest of all time" quarterback was suspended for the first four games of the following season, three of them somehow won by the Patriots.

NBC added "the "Deflategate" scandal hasn't done much to sidetrack Brady's career."

Truer words may never have been spoken. Since then, Brady's teams, the Patriots and now the Buccaneers, have won two more Super Bowls, the latter one in part because, as we learned (then forgot) in June of 2020

Ignoring the recently issued advice of the NFL Players Association that its members discontinue private workouts because of “the increase in Covid-19 cases in certain states” — of which Florida is one — Brady and other members of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were seen practicing together Tuesday morning.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a completely virtual offseason for NFL teams, which have had to conduct training sessions remotely. The Buccaneers began allowing their coaches to return to the team’s facility last week, but players are still ordered to stay away unless they are receiving medical treatment.

After ending his decorated, 20-year career with the New England Patriots in March, Brady signed as a free agent with the Bucs, replacing the turnover-prone Jameis Winston. As soon as Florida began lifting stay-at-home orders in May, he started organizing informal practices, at least some of which have been held at Tampa-area high school fields.

That was the case Tuesday, as the soon-to-be-43-year-old quarterback and other Tampa Bay players were spotted at Berkeley Preparatory School, which is about a 20-minute drive away from where Brady is renting a home from Derek Jeter.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Brady’s favorite pass-catcher while with the Patriots, new Bucs tight end Rob Gronkowksi, was also on hand, as was Pro Bowl wide receiver Chris Godwin and several other players who have been regulars at the practices. In fact, the newspaper reported, attendance Tuesday appeared to be swelled by the participation of some Tampa Bay defensive backs.

When asked for comment, an NFL spokesman pointed The Washington Post to a statement the league made in May: “Everyone associated with the NFL should follow the recommendations and guidelines of state and local authorities and medical experts, including the NFLPA.”

On Saturday, the NFLPA posted a message from its medical director, Thom Mayer, who said, “Please be advised that it is our consensus medical opinion that in light of the increase in COVID-19 cases in certain states that no players should be engaged in practicing together in private workouts. Our goal is to have all players and your families as healthy as possible in the coming months.

“We are working on the best mitigation procedures at team facilities for both training camps and the upcoming season, and believe that this is in the best interest of all players that we advise against any voluntary joint practices before training camp commences.”

This is the National Football League, consciously moving ever closer to full parity among all teams, in which any little advantage is likely to be decisive. Never stupid, Brady took advantage of the novel coronavirus in the most effective way possible and reaped the rewards.

The late, great Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher is credited with popularizing the expression "nice guys finish last." If that's valid, probably the ones without integrity finish first, and Tom Brady, winner of seven Super Bowls, demonstrates the wisdom of the phrase better than anyone.

Share |