…ever have one of those days where you worry that if you start asking “what’s the point?” you might find it hard to stop?
If North Korea wanted to get America’s attention, it seems to have worked.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-makes-splash-for-biden-with-ballistic-missile-salvo
[…]
“We’re consulting with our allies and partners, and there will be responses,” Biden said during his first news conference as president Thursday. “If they choose to escalate, we will respond accordingly.”
[…]
Though Biden described North Korea as his biggest threat, it is likely not his top priority in a presidency dominated so far by domestic coronavirus recovery and clashes with China on the global stage.
Republican senator Ted Cruz mocked for documentary-style trip to US-Mexico border [Guardian]
Republicans are outraged – outraged! – at the surge of migrants at the southern border. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, declares it a “crisis … created by the presidential policies of this new administration”. The Arizona congressman Andy Biggs claims, “we go through some periods where we have these surges, but right now is probably the most dramatic that I’ve seen at the border in my lifetime.”
Republicans have taken up the politics of bigotry, putting US democracy at risk [Guardian]
The aggressive pitch to Republican contributors comes as the number of independent money operations connected to Trump — some directly associated with the former president, others that have his tacit blessing — has been rapidly expanding since he left office.
The groups, which include both nonprofits and big-money super PACs, are seeking to capitalize on Trump’s fundraising firepower, which drove a record $2.2 billion into the three Republican Party campaign committees during his time in office, campaign finance records show.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-gop-money/2021/03/27/story.html
[…]
Some in the GOP are bracing for a nasty fight. “There is going to be a war,” said a senior Republican involved in discussions about the future of the party, “It is inevitable.”
…because this might be one of those
After several weeks at a plateau, Covid-19 cases in the United States are rising again, the clearest warning sign yet that the country could face another “avoidable” surge, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-19-cases-are-rising-states-are-opening-anyway
It turns out that a majority of Americans will experience poverty firsthand. In research I’ve conducted using a large nationally representative sample, 59 percent of Americans will spend at least one year below the official poverty line between the ages of 20 and 75. That number rises to 76 percent if it includes people who are near the poverty line. The reason these percentages are so high is that, over the course of a lifetime, unanticipated events — losing a job, families splitting up, getting sick, weathering a pandemic — strike people from all walks of life. Research from the Federal Reserve shows that 37 percent of Americans in 2019 did not have $400 to cover an unanticipated emergency. Unsurprisingly, then, when these changes occur, there may be little to protect families from poverty.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/5-myths-about-poverty/2021/03/25/story.html
The federal government’s response to Covid-19 has allowed millions of Americans to defer payments on their mortgages, rent, student loans and utility bills.
But as more people are vaccinated and the country sees a return to normal life on the horizon, payments on trillions of dollars of those debts could resume soon, even if debtors remain out of work or in financial distress because of the economic crisis the outbreak wrought.
Consumer finance and regulatory experts, as well as Democratic lawmakers, warn that the coming debt crisis will be catastrophic for many people and that they could be a huge windfall for predatory financial institutions like debt collectors and payday lenders — industries regulated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, which President Joe Biden is trying to rebuild after it was hollowed out under former President Donald Trump.
“As the pandemic winds down, there is a lot of debt overhang: deferred rent, deferred mortgages, deferred student loans. We’ve basically been living in suspended animation until the pandemic ends,” said Harvard Law School professor Howell Jackson, an expert on financial regulation and consumer protection who was a visiting scholar at the CFPB from 2013 to 2015.
“And at some point there is going to be an extraordinary number of people out there who are very vulnerable with debt, and we are going to have major debt collection issues,” he said. “We have already seen issues during the pandemic with payday lenders.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/payment-deferrals-were-a-lifeline-for-millions-during-covid-what-happens-when-those-end
…or maybe so many of those days in a row that you wonder if the whole pandemic lockdown thing has segued into groundhog day when you weren’t looking?
If Democrats eliminate the filibuster, there is one senator who would have an outsized impact in the 50-50 chamber on issues that could reshape the nation’s future: infrastructure, immigration, gun laws and voting rights. That senator is Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.
There is also a senator whose opposition to eliminating the filibuster is a significant reason it may never happen. That senator, too, is Mr. Manchin.
In Washington, Policy Revolves Around Joe Manchin. He Likes It That Way. [NYT]
As everyone from President Joe Biden to the conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin to liberal groups now push to reform the Senate’s rules, the defense of the filibuster goes something like this: by design, our nation is a republic, not a direct democracy, and therefore we must create institutional obstacles to empower a minority of Americans to prevent the whims of the majority from being too hastily enshrined in legislation. By this logic, we must keep the Senate’s cloture rule, which requires 60 of the Senate’s 100 members to end a filibuster and move a bill to a vote.
Those who make this case seem to love sounding like erudite constitutional scholars steeped in the grandeur of American history, and they purport to be pluralists worrying about minority rights.
[…or…to quote the caption on the header image of the article]
‘The filibuster means that about 11% of the voting-age population has successfully elected Republican senators who can theoretically block anything that the other 89% of us might want.’
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/26/just-how-severe-will-americas-minority-rule-become
…luckily for the rest of you, though, my timekeeping sucks so I’ll probably have to post this before I go entirely off the rails
Newly released body camera footage shows two Maryland police officers handcuffing and berating a 5-year-old boy who had allegedly left school without permission.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-maryland-police-handcuffing-berating-5-year-old-boy
Maryland police video shows officers threatening, screaming at crying child [Guardian]
If the moustache, trimmed narrowly in the style of Adolf Hitler, don’t give it away, then the antisemitic YouTube rants, the testimony of 34 colleagues and the neo-Nazi reading material certainly do.
Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a US army reservist, is – according to court documents – an “avowed white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer”.
Capitol insurrection charges highlight white supremacists in US military [Guardian]
…but however you look at it
A Republican lawyer who advised Donald Trump on his campaign to overturn the 2020 election results is now playing a central role coordinating the Republican effort to tighten voting laws around the country.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/27/key-republican-voter-restriction-effort-advised-trump-overturn-2020-results
I think about this graph from the Economist’s Elliott Morris every few days.
I think about this graph because it appears to illustrate one of the subtexts to American politics, the link between reshaping House districts and the performance of political parties. From 1976 to 2010, it suggests, the percentage of House seats won by the Democratic Party (the vertical axis) relative to the percentage of the votes the party won (horizontal) was higher than the percentage from 2012 on. What changed? Well, after the 2010 Census, states redrew House district lines, generally to the advantage of whichever party was doing the drawing.
As is the case when I see an interesting graph, I occasionally want to re-create it. So I re-created the one above, pulling data from the House website and using Cook Political Report’s 2020 House vote tracker. Instead of looking at Democratic vote share, I decided to look at Republican share, a shift that in practical terms doesn’t matter, given that the vast majority of House seats are held by one of the two parties.
I also decided to go back a bit further, from 1962 forward. In other words, to compare each decade’s vote-to-seat ratio. Then I broke out each decade (from the first election after a redistricting to the year of the following Census) and looked to see what happened.
This happened.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/26/since-1994-gop-is-getting-lot-more-bang-house-seats-its-buck-votes/
REPUBLICANS IN Congress did not use to make the case that residents of the District of Columbia deserved no representation in Congress; the issue was only how to do it. “Let’s be real, how can you argue with a straight face that D.C. should not have some direct congressional representation?” was the challenge put forward by then-Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) in 2004 during a House hearing on four different ways to give D.C. direct representation in Congress. Now, the Republicans’ position seems to be not only to oppose statehood. They also believe D.C. residents — taxpayers, volunteers in the military, citizens — should have no voice in their government whatsoever.
Witness some of the truly ridiculous arguments advanced this week at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on a bill that would make D.C. the country’s 51st state. A Republican witness said D.C. residents already impact the national debate, noting the yard signs and bumper stickers posted in support of D.C. statehood. “Where else in the nation could such simple actions reach so many members of Congress?” he asked. GOP lawmakers pointed to the paucity of car dealerships in the District and noted that the District doesn’t have an airport, a landfill, manufacturing or an agricultural sector. “A normal state” was the phrase used by one congressman who suggested the District simply doesn’t merit a seat at the table.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-dc-statehood-nonsense-arguments/2021/03/26/story.html
[…]
There are reasonable arguments about the constitutionality of the bill now before Congress that is likely to win House approval but faces an uphill battle in the Senate. No court has ever ruled on this matter, and it is difficult to predict how — or even whether — a court would rule on it. The problem posed by the 23rd Amendment giving the District three electoral votes, and what happens to those votes if the District becomes a state with a carved-out federal enclave, needs to be confronted.
This column, however, is not about the pros and cons of D.C. statehood.
My attention is fixed on McConnell’s assertion that making the District the 51st state would create, for him, a world-class anathema, i.e., “two Democratic senators.” With McConnell, party registration determines voting representation. That’s undemocratic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitch-mcconnell-needs-to-remember-why-republicans-are-in-such-poor-standing-in-dc/2021/03/26/story.html
…there’s been a lot happening
Insurgents seized control of much of a town in Mozambique on Saturday, after a three-day siege that has left at least several people dead and hundreds of other civilians unaccounted for as government forces try to regain control, according to private security contractors in East Africa and news reports.
Insurgents Seize Mozambique Town, Killing Several People; Fate of Hundreds Unknown [NYT]
The killing by Myanmar’s military of more than 100 pro-democracy protesters in the single deadliest day since February’s coup has drawn outrage from across the world, and calls for a stronger global response.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/28/myanmar-military-killing-calls-global-action
When Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup last month, a 32-year-old woman named May quickly became part of the resistance.
Her work carries an added risk: Her husband is a soldier in the very army that deposed the civilian government. He is unaware that she is aiding those resisting against his commander in chief, now also head of state, and fellow soldiers, she said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/myanmar-military-dead-protesters-family/2021/03/27/story.html
[…]
The wives of other soldiers have warned May, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition that a nickname be used and her location not be disclosed for security reasons, that her support of the protests could put her husband’s career and their lives at risk.
An explosion shook a Roman Catholic cathedral compound in the eastern Indonesian city of Makassar on Sunday morning, shattering the calm of Palm Sunday, a holy day for Christians.
Explosion Rocks Indonesian Church Compound on Palm Sunday [NYT]
…&…well
Putin foe Navalny once described prison life with dark humor. Now his messages are just dark.
…a lot of it is
An inmate was killed and a correction officer was injured after being taken hostage at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in Oklahoma City on Saturday, law enforcement officials said.
Inmate Is Killed in Hostage Standoff at Oklahoma Jail [NYT]
A police officer fatally shot a man in an encounter that capped a chaotic night of violence on Friday in Virginia Beach, where a woman was also killed by stray gunfire, the authorities said.
Eight other people were wounded by gunfire in a separate shooting that resulted in three arrests, the police said.
2 Killed, One of Them by Police, in ‘Chaotic Night’ in Virginia Beach [NYT]
A mother of six children was fatally shot in North Carolina during a case of road rage on Thursday as the woman and her husband were on a getaway trip, the authorities said.
Mother of 6 Fatally Shot in Road Rage Episode, Police Say [NYT]
…not good
Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the US which makes hundred of millions of dollars in profits, is shutting down grocery stores and laying off scores of employees in response to local hazard pay rules for essential workers even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/26/krogers-us-supermarket-chain-stores-closed-layoffs
The report, in which the average patient age was 43, underscores the emerging understanding that for many people, long Covid can be worse than their initial bouts with the infection, with a stubborn and complex array of symptoms.
They Had Mild Covid. Then Their Serious Symptoms Kicked In. [NYT]
…here & there, though
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-american-official-shows-his-military-scars-during-meeting-asks-is-this-patriot-enough
A group of House Democrats on Friday introduced legislation to prohibit the Postal Service from lengthening mail-delivery windows and require it to adhere to present service expectations. They named the bill the Delivering Envelopes Judiciously On-time Year-round Act, or DEJOY Act.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/26/usps-dejoy-act/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/postal-banking-alcohol-delivery-could-save-u-s-postal-service-experts-say
The question is whether congressional Democrats and the White House can agree on how sharply taxes should rise and who, exactly, should pay the bill. They widely share the goal of reversing many of Mr. Trump’s tax cuts from 2017, and of making the wealthy and big businesses pay more. But they do not yet agree on the details — and because Republicans are unlikely to support their efforts, they have no room for error in a closely divided Senate.
Under Biden, Democrats Are Poised to Raise Taxes on Business and the Rich [NYT]
California can no longer detain people because they can’t pay bail [Guardian]
The project is essentially a vast re-plumbing scheme aimed at replicating as nearly as possible the historical flows of fresh water from Lake Okeechobee — flows that a pioneer advocate named Marjory Stoneman Douglas called the River of Grass — that once made South Florida a biological wonderland. These flows slowed to trickle starting in the late 1940s when Congress ordered up a massive flood control project to protect Florida’s booming cities, which looked like a smart idea at the time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/opinion/biden-environment-everglades-florida.html
Several key executives left the organization in the past two years, including the NRA’s former top lobbyist Chris Cox, who resigned in 2019. And political spending dropped significantly last year compared with the previous cycle. In 2016, the NRA spent $54.4 million on political advocacy, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2020, that spending fell to $29.4 million.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nra-political-clout/2021/03/26/story.html
Jacob Blake, the Black man who was partially paralyzed after he was shot seven times in the back by a White police officer in Kenosha, Wis., last summer, is suing the officer on a claim of excessive force, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/26/jacob-blake-lawsuit-kenosha/
…still…at least it seems like there’s some stuff we don’t have to worry about today
Nasa has given Earth the all clear on the chances of an asteroid called Apophis hitting our planet any time in the next century, having worried space scientists for over 15 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/27/much-feared-asteroid-apophis-wont-hit-earth-for-at-least-100-years-nasa-says
on the rona thing…over here we’ve been locked down with a curfew since before christmas and our cases are rising…by quite a bit
would it be worse if we werent shut down?….eeeh..well…i assume so (i mean…probably not in my little part of the country..coz anti social farmers….just avoid the christians and you are pretty safe here)
but you could certainly make a case for locking down isnt working now
(or you could say…huh…hey how come we are locked down but kids have to go to school?..oh wait yeah i forgot..they cant catch or transmit it…i guess rising cases has nothing to do with that then…)
can we hurry up with the fucking vaccines plox?
the farscy cant take much more stupid
I very much enjoy my little bubble and am in no hurry to go back to ‘normal’.
Convo yesterday with someone that every person in their household has a gun [yes even the guy that is high 24/7], and now the son wants a concealed carry permit. [Yes, the son who left a permanent dent in the fridge in a fit of anger]. Oh, but no worries, it can’t happen to me, or here, or in my city, county, state. Until it does, of course. Muricans are either smug or stupid or smugly stupid or delusional, I never can figure out which.
oh my bubble wouldnt change much if things went back to normal… im an anti social bastard…
really…i just want to be able to go out and buy a can of fucking wd40 without having to mail order it….and maybe grab a terrace somewhere..or go to the beach
i dont really miss the seeing people part
good luck with the gun thing….thats pretty much my sticking reason for never moving to the states… irreconcileable differences of opinion about who should own guns
@Sedevilc All of the above
I was interested to learn that Kroger’s is the largest supermarket chain in the US, as I have never seen one. Sure enough, they own Ralph’s, which is all over Southern California, among lots of other things. None of what they own is anywhere near me except for one thing: they own Murray’s Cheese. When did this happen? I suppose I could look this up.
I should really have devoted a few thousands of my pandemic-induced free time trying to study the food biosphere in Manhattan. We have tons of chains but there are lots that we do not. Over on the Takeout there are endless discussions about fast-food and fast-casual restaurants that I’ve never heard of. We have one Olive Garden but it’s in Times Square so no. I think we have a handful of Chik-fil-A’s, including, notoriously, on the campus of one of the wokest universities on the planet, NYU, but I’ve never been to one. Apparently we have 10 Taco Bells, a Takeout obsession, but I’ve never seen one. We have two Arby’s, and one I’ve actually been to, it’s in a really dreary block just south of Port Authority, and I only went in because I was walking by and thought the chain had gone out of business decades ago. We have Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods but apparently not enough, because, at least pre-pandemic, the lines were out the door and the experience inside was one of almost unfathomable passive aggression on the part of the shoppers.
I’m incredibly bored, just thought I’d share.
@Cousin Matthew’s Tingling Leg Do you order from Murray’s Cheese? I have been getting my cheese from igourmet and looked into Murray’s and thought the prices were high. I probably should take another look factoring in shipping because igourmet charges alot for shipping.
I don’t actually order online from them, I used to haunt their original location, in Greenwich Village. They are pricey but they have amazing variety. And the resident cheesemongers were/are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful and not at all snobbish. Years ago I used to come in with recipes I had cut out of The NY Times or a food magazine (!) and ask if they had this obscure cheese mentioned. Most of the time they did, but if they didn’t, only once did they not answer, “We don’t, but we do have its equivalent,” and they’d explain why it was basically the same. I wish I could remember that one cheese that stumped them. “This magazine recipe is written in French. It’s possible we don’t have it in this country. Can I ask you where you got this?” “Oh, we were just in France, and I needed something to read on the long flight back, so I stocked up on local magazines. In the intro it says that it’s a new and delicious way to use the cheese, so maybe the cheese itself is new.” “Hmmm. Let me write this down.” And then I forgot about it but Murray’s, I assume pre-Kroger’s, used to publish cheese guides, I have a couple of old ones here somewhere, and maybe my find made it into a subsequent edition!
Fred Meyer in the PNW is owned by Kroeger & is biggest chain here. When I would visit Texas, Kroeger was huge.
I also didn’t know Kroger’s owned Food4Less. I’m in the Midwest and our one F4L closed years ago. I shop at Jewel (Albertsons owned) or Aldi.
And every Arby’s is dreary. I’ve never been in one that had more than one other person in it. I have a nostalgic appeal for the roast beef and curly fries but how tf do they stay in business? There’s actually a conspiracy theory they’re a front for something, a la Mattress Firm.
Had a zoom call with some university friends for the first time in almost a year. Ironically, we were trying to organize an actual F2F meetup just before the pandemic blew everything up.
My mom got her first CovID shot this week, but she’s an irritable annoying passive aggressive mess driving my sister crazy.
Like everything else muricans manage to make getting vaccinated into some competitive sport. I happened to mention that I got an email from the women’s health care group offering vaccine appointments and my ‘friend’ went on and on about why I got that email and she didn’t, she must have obsessed about that, a couple of days later she sent me three(?) emails with details of when she was getting hers. Maybe it’s me but whatevs, congrats for getting vaccinated before me? Anyway, I figured out how to deal with people so that I’m not lying in bed gnashing my teeth over what I should have said, I just keep knitting, pay enough attention to ask little questions now and then and since they don’t have undivided attention, they kind of drift away. Are they pissed? I neither know nor care, I’m getting a good night’s sleep and made progress on my sweater!
Yeah, vaccine one-upmanship is a bit weird here. Of course Florida is top-heavy with senior citizens, so younger people who want the vaccine have been frustrated. This took the form of dozens of workarounds or outright scams to get into the vaccination lines. Two women dressed up as elderly ladies (we’ll call that the Mrs. Doubtfire technique).
Others have, somewhat more legitimately, leveraged any loophole (chronic conditions, tangential relationship to education career – “I coached kids soccer in 2018,” tangential relationship to medical career – “I work on the weekend answering service for a veterinary clinic,” etc.) to get a slot. Some people flew to the Caribbean to get shots (I’m not kidding). People pass around stories about how they “beat the system.”
I have asthma and could’ve gotten a letter from my doctor, but I just waited my turn. Too much effort to shave two weeks off, and I have things to do.
Florida opened it to 40 and over now and it’s going to go to 18 and above on April 5. So all those people jockeying for slots look pretty silly now.
Do you need a letter from a doctor? I don’t know how different states are doing it, but in MA my husband just had to “attest” (electronically sign) on a document saying he had two qualifying conditions. Here they’re not allowed to ask for proof from a doctor.
Things finally got opened to pre-register here even if you’re not yet in a qualifying group, and my hand hovered for a while over the checkbox saying I worked in childcare… But I didn’t do it. I really hope I don’t have to wait forever for my shot though.
We have to present a Determination of Extreme Vulnerability form signed by a doctor to get the shot IF you’re not in the approved age bracket. It just says “This person is medically vulnerable” more or less, I assume to get around ADA rules. Kind of like a handicap sticker — you don’t know what’s wrong with a person who has one, just that they have a qualifying condition.
Of course, scamming handicap stickers is huge here too. Old people will do damn near anything to park up by the front door. I’m like, park far away and walk. You need the exercise.
Here’s my observations from first air travel since Pandemic, bizarre. Travel is back…at least to Hawaii. I booked flight 2 months ago & flight was empty, yesterday was completely full. We got a wristband to show we passed all Covid protocol which was helpful until rental car on other side needed to see my QR code to prove I didn’t have to quarantine. On flight, they are strict on wearing mask correctly until they served food & drinks then all bets are off. Once food gone masks were up & all compliant. On Oahu, many tourists not masking but many Hawaiians are enforcing it themselves, which can be problematic. If you are at beach, nobody wears masks but you can socially distance. Restaurants are taking temps to get seated & had to jump through hoops to get to see my mom but we’ll worth it. Groups are limited to 10 now which will be interesting as I am going to play volleyball with old friends & family. Most are already vaccinated so pretty safe. Strange experience.
I have many questions for people like Manchin, Romney, Sinema, Collins, etc., but primarily this: what should disqualify a law abiding citizen from being able to vote?
Then: what basis should states be allowed to use to disqualify law abiding citizens from voting? Is a clerical error reason enough to disenfranchise people? How about the ability to put time and money aside and pay for an ID they would otherwise not use? Homelessness? Mental capacity? If ID is the issue, would you support a bill where the Federal Government fully funds all state ID and make the time lost mandatory PTO?
The only thing I things I think should legally keep someone from voting are convictions for the white collar crimes involving politicians trying to rig the systems in their favor.
Like I’m okay with people in prison for violent crime voting, but some politician uses their connections to fuck around? Fuck ’em.
I’m so upset about what happened to that little 5 yr old boy. That was fucking ridiculous and harmful.
…yeah…I can’t see how there could possibly be a reason for that to have happened…I know it’s not the same thing as police officers killing people when it seems like they didn’t have to but honestly I’m inclined to think it also means those people shouldn’t be police officers?
Right? Let’s start with the obvious.
I read that the mother is suing the county, the police dept, and the board of education and I hope she gets a good payout and then takes her family and moves the fuck out of Maryland.