Wednesday, June 09, 2021
RUN TRUMP RUN!
… Trump really is likely to be the Republican nominee in the next election…
Trump-Gaetz?
Trump-Greitens?
COVID-19 BIDEN+140 (June 9)
Cases and Deaths continued their drunken toggle in this iteration of the metrics.
Cases leapt almost 800/day June 3-9; Deaths definitively declined from 438 to 417 average per day in the past seven days. Cases thus have been down, up, down and up in the last four iterations. Deaths up, up, down and down.
Over fourteen days Cases have declined 36%, it was down 42% June 2-8. Hospitalizations are steady descenders, -22% in yesterday’s it., -22% today, their line graph smooth as a black diamond ski slope without moguls. Deaths graph would break both legs, tear all the cruciates you got in your knees and paralyze you from the waist down if it were a ski run.
Un-oh
China Returns to Its Strict Covid Limits to Fight a New Outbreak
...Beijing struggles with variants and questions about its vaccines.
China appeared to get the coronavirus under control nearly a year ago. But hundreds of millions of Chinese people remain unvaccinated. New variants of the coronavirus have appeared, and questions remain about whether China’s self-made vaccines can stop them.
...The authorities have blamed the Delta variant, which has caused widespread loss of life in India.
[Oh, so it has a new name; it's not the Indian variant anymore.]
...
The early infections appear to have jumped from person to person at a cluster of eateries. Each infected person has infected more other people than in any previous outbreak that China has confronted...
...
The spread of the virus has raised fresh questions about the effectiveness of China’s vaccines, particularly against variants. The Seychelles last month and now Mongolia in the past three weeks have both had large numbers of infections despite high vaccination rates. Both have used the Sinopharm vaccine from China, although the Seychelles also relied partly on AstraZeneca vaccines.
The Delta variant now circulating in Guangzhou has also shown the ability in other countries to infect some people who had already been vaccinated, a phenomenon known as vaccine escape. Research elsewhere has found that to be a particular problem for people who have received only a first injection of a two-jab vaccine and are then exposed to the Delta variant.
Researchers in Britain have found that receiving only the first of two shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines may be only 30 percent effective in preventing infection with the Delta variant...
After two doses, effectiveness appears to rise to 60 percent with the AstraZeneca vaccine and 88 percent with Pfizer-BioNTech.
[Man. Pfizer rocks.]
Tuesday, June 08, 2021
COVID BIDEN+136 through 139 June 5 through 8)
Oh my. The Cases and Deaths 7-day daily averages have wobbled mostly up in the last four iterations of this metric.
Cases 7-day daily averages June 5-8: 14,123, 13,927, 15,098, 14,036.
Deaths: 419, 437, 459, 438.
Hospitalizations are still on a steady decline.
Vaccinations have averaged right around 1M/day in the last four 7-days.
The 14-day changes for Cases are down 42% today--striking--but Hospitalizations and Deaths have fallen half as far, 22% for H's, 20% for Deaths.
So what would cause these up-ish ticks? The country is nearly completely open now. Where I live people in major stores are still wearing masks, bless their hearts, I am not, and I bet a majority of two or three to one across the country are going out unmasked, unvaccinated, and going out more often and in bigger gatherings. Fifty-two percent of the country has gotten at least one dose of a vaccine; 64% of adults. But time is closing on POJO and his +18 70% goal. Remember my Herd Immunity Day? Know what the 90% date is now? March 10, 2023!
I’m Uncle Benny’s grand-nephew so this is a little over my head:
“It is necessary for the agency to pay attention to this case,” one exasperated district court judge wrote in March. Yet when the judge set another court date, in May, the agency in question, the Federal Election Commission, didn’t show up again.
It was not an accident.
For more than a decade, Democrats seeking more robust enforcement of election laws and transparency measures have been routinely routed at the F.E.C., the nation’s top campaign watchdog agency.
Now, the Democratic commissioners have stealthily begun to strike back by leveraging some of the same arcane rules that have stymied enforcement efforts for years — namely, that a bipartisan vote is necessary to do almost anything — to make the agency do even less. The goal appears to be to take a commission widely seen as dysfunctional and create further deadlock, compelling federal courts to fill the breach when it comes to policing federal election law.
...
[Bipartisan vote...That's what Manchin wants...create further deadlock...compelling federal courts to fill in. It's just a thought!]
The chief architect behind the strategy is Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democratic F.E.C. commissioner since 2002, who described it as something of a last-ditch effort after years of watching enforcement actions become sidelined in 3-3 split decisions...
Here is what has been happening behind closed doors, according to people familiar with the commission’s private executive sessions: First, the Democrats are declining to formally close some cases after the Republicans vote against enforcement. That leaves investigations officially sealed in secrecy and legal limbo. Then the Democrats are blocking the F.E.C. from defending itself in court when advocates sue the commission for failing to do its job.
Democrats’ Improbable New F.E.C. Strategy: More Deadlock Than Ever
Here is the inside story of how Democrats, after a decade of defeats at the nation’s top campaign watchdog, are trying to enforce election laws in part by losing on purpose in federal court.
A funny thing keeps happening in federal court. An arm of the government has not been showing up to defend itself against lawsuits. Some judges appear confused, and less than amused, by the unusual absences.“It is necessary for the agency to pay attention to this case,” one exasperated district court judge wrote in March. Yet when the judge set another court date, in May, the agency in question, the Federal Election Commission, didn’t show up again.
It was not an accident.
For more than a decade, Democrats seeking more robust enforcement of election laws and transparency measures have been routinely routed at the F.E.C., the nation’s top campaign watchdog agency.
Now, the Democratic commissioners have stealthily begun to strike back by leveraging some of the same arcane rules that have stymied enforcement efforts for years — namely, that a bipartisan vote is necessary to do almost anything — to make the agency do even less. The goal appears to be to take a commission widely seen as dysfunctional and create further deadlock, compelling federal courts to fill the breach when it comes to policing federal election law.
...
[Bipartisan vote...That's what Manchin wants...create further deadlock...compelling federal courts to fill in. It's just a thought!]
The chief architect behind the strategy is Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democratic F.E.C. commissioner since 2002, who described it as something of a last-ditch effort after years of watching enforcement actions become sidelined in 3-3 split decisions...
Here is what has been happening behind closed doors, according to people familiar with the commission’s private executive sessions: First, the Democrats are declining to formally close some cases after the Republicans vote against enforcement. That leaves investigations officially sealed in secrecy and legal limbo. Then the Democrats are blocking the F.E.C. from defending itself in court when advocates sue the commission for failing to do its job.
[How are they declining to close cases? By not voting? If the cases are not CLOSED they're sealed, you can't get any info on them. I understand that. Same is in a police investigation in street crime. How are we blocking the F.E.C. from defending itself in court? It's just a question! Two questions. Since the investigation is still "open" the Republican F.E.C. can't reveal anything?]
Lee E. Goodman, a Republican former F.E.C. chairman who stepped down in 2018, said the tactic amounted to “sandbagging federal judges” by making them believe deadlocked cases are unresolved.
[If they're DEADLOCKED three Fascists--three Party of God then since the vote has to be bipartisan how are they unresolved? Are we noot voting?]
...
The combination of moves takes advantage of existing provisions in campaign law to essentially open the door for outside advocacy groups to directly sue campaigns in federal court...
“If I don’t believe the case ought to be dismissed, why would I vote to dismiss?” Ms. Weintraub said of leaving cases pending. “I’m just trying to get the law enforced.”
[If they're DEADLOCKED three Fascists--three Party of God then since the vote has to be bipartisan how are they unresolved? Are we noot voting?]
...
The combination of moves takes advantage of existing provisions in campaign law to essentially open the door for outside advocacy groups to directly sue campaigns in federal court...
“If I don’t believe the case ought to be dismissed, why would I vote to dismiss?” Ms. Weintraub said of leaving cases pending. “I’m just trying to get the law enforced.”
[Wouldn't you vote to not dismiss?]
The Republican commissioners are livid.
[See, I like this because I like Ellen because she's a Democrat and I hate Republicans. So I like that Republicans are livid but this is all visceral on my part, my viscera is not informed by my brain.]
Commissioner Sean J. Cooksey has warned his Democratic colleagues that they are going down “a very, very dark road” and revealed in a recent memo that there are now 13 such unclosed cases, calling them “zombie matters — dead but unable to be laid to rest.”
“They are on the losing end of the 3-3 votes, and they think that by concealing the information from the courts, they’ll get a different ruling,” [Swine Republican Commissioner Trey] Trainor said.
“They are on the losing end of the 3-3 votes, and they think that by concealing the information from the courts, they’ll get a different ruling,” [Swine Republican Commissioner Trey] Trainor said.
[HOW ARE THEY CONCEALING INFO? (However you're doing it, Ellen, I like it.)]
...Democrats pushed sweeping election legislation through the House this year, but the bill has stalled in the Senate. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has made loosening campaign finance rules a priority in his career, and the legislation lacks unanimous support from Democratic senators.
[So McConnell deadlocked it in the Senate...We're deadlocking it at the F.E.C....]
...
“If they break it so much that federal courts are intervening, that would seemingly be an intolerable situation to Mitch McConnell,” [Adav] Noti said.
...
“If they break it so much that federal courts are intervening, that would seemingly be an intolerable situation to Mitch McConnell,” [Adav] Noti said.
[Okay, well I really like that. So, McConnell doesn't want the F.E.C. to enforce the law so he's happy as a fascist pig in shit with a deadlocked, do-nothing F.E.C. He doesn't want democracy in America, he wants a Fasco-Christian theocracy so he's happy with a deadlocked Senate on the voting rights bill. Hmm. Did you see that quote from McConnell that I reprinted yesterday? “an agenda transparently designed to fail — and fail they will.” I only emphasized the "fail they will" because I didn't understand, assumed he misspoke, the "transparently DESIGNED TO FAIL" part. My newest crush Ellen is transparently designing to fail--in order to get into federal court and WIN! Did God's Party deliberately put everything and the kitchen sink into the voter bill so it would get deadlocked in the Senate and then have the states sued by us in federal court? I don't believe that that is so, there was too much real angst over Meathead Manchin's op-ed, but the parallels here are striking.]
...the new maneuver drastically accelerates and smooths the way for outside groups to pursue campaign finance challenges in the federal courts — a far less predictable and partisan place.
Instead of waiting for years for the commission to deadlock, and then filing long-shot lawsuits to appeal the F.E.C.’s split decision, the law allows advocates to sue the commission far sooner for defaulting in its basic duties. Then, because the agency isn’t defending itself in those lawsuits, groups have a mostly clear path to sue candidates and campaigns directly.
[Don't understand how they're not defending themselves.]
The tactic will work only as long as all three commissioners in the Democratic bloc agree not to close an investigation and not to defend the F.E.C. in court on a particular case.
There is another important, if obscure, legal factor in play. Currently, the federal courts give almost total deference to the F.E.C. when it decides not to pursue cases — even in the event of a 3-3 split — if commissioners cite “prosecutorial discretion” in their reasoning. Such cases are, more or less, not eligible for legal appeals.
“All the Republican commissioners need to do is include the magic words ‘prosecutorial discretion’ and a court will then decline to review the action,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president for litigation at Common Cause, who has regularly filed F.E.C. complaints.
Indeed, Republican commissioners recently deployed that exact phrase — twice — in dismissing an investigation into whether Mr. Trump violated election laws with the payment of $130,000 to the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her from publicly discussing her relationship with him.
The twist in the raft of unclosed cases is that they remain formally under active investigation and are thus confidential, meaning that Republican commissioners are unable to tell the courts what has happened and why. In other words, they can’t cite their own “prosecutorial discretion.”
[A-HA!]
“We can’t even tell the court under seal that we’ve handled a particular case,” Mr. Trainor said, calling the Democratic maneuver “completely unethical.” “In all of the cases where we’re not showing up, the judges are getting a one-sided story.”
[Wa-wa! Cry you little bitch.]
Ms. Weintraub said she hoped that leaving cases open would spur compromise, however unlikely that seems. “I’m hoping that my colleagues aren’t going to be quite so obstinate,” she said. “Maybe this provides some incentive for us to go back to the drawing table.”
[And that is PRECISELY the reasoning of Meathead Manchin! Deadlock yields compromise.]
Monday, June 07, 2021
Three of my ancestors there. That's Uncle Benny on the left. Oh God.
"Uncle Benny was not right" my mother said many times.
"DID YOU NAME ME FOR HIM?!" No, she assured me.
"THEN WHY DID YOU NAME ME 'BENJAMIN', MOTHER?!"
"Benjamin FRANKLIN," she countered. I don't know if I believe her.
"Franklin was Uncle Harry's middle name."
Uncle Harry was a doctor. He delivered me. Uncle Harry also dispatched Uncle Clyde to the next world.
"WHO WAS TOM NAMED FOR?"
"My uncle Tom."
"SO WE HAVE AN UNCLE THEME GOING ON IN THE NAMING OF CHILDREN. IT MAKES MORE SENSE, MOTHER, THAT YOU WOULD HAVE NAMED ME FOR TWO UNCLES THAN FOR ONE UNCLE AND AN INVENTOR!"
I don't remember if she had a response to that.
Oh God.
Unequivocal statements from Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia on Sunday that he would oppose a broad voting rights bill and never vote to end the legislative filibuster cast a cloud over a Washington tenuously controlled by Mr. Manchin’s party. They forced Democrats to weigh a two-track strategy in which they would be reduced to holding symbolic votes to spotlight Republican intransigence on their highest priorities and limiting their legislative hopes to whatever could be muscled through under fast-track budget reconciliation rules.
...they were rethinking how to move forward in a 50-50 Senate where their most important swing vote had effectively declared that he would not support any measure that lacked Republican support.
...
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has set up a series of votes in the next three weeks that he says will test Republicans’ willingness to compromise, including on pay equity between men and women and the voting rights measure. Leaders will also take up Mr. Manchin’s suggestion that they proceed on a more limited voting rights bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, though that measure lacks the support of the 10 Republicans who would be needed to advance it past a filibuster.
...
“We do need to start testing this idea that the filibuster promotes bipartisanship,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who is trying to find 10 Republicans to back legislation imposing universal background checks on gun buyers. “I would hope that everyone is open to having their theories proved wrong if they don’t have evidence to prove their theories right.”
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, dismissed Democrats’ strategy as “an agenda transparently designed to fail — and fail they will.”
For several months, work on a range of issues beyond voting rights, including climate change, immigration and pay equity, was proceeding as if the Senate could change the rules on the filibuster if necessary. A separate effort was underway to bring Mr. Manchin on board as the 50th vote for the voting rights measure.
[That's weird.]
...
“My colleagues need to be put on the record and held accountable,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said on Monday.
...
Democrats had to concede that their initial efforts to sway Mr. Manchin on perhaps their highest priority — the voting rights measure — had fallen flat after a weekslong effort...small groups of senators reached out to him privately to identify his substantive concerns with the voting rights bill and what could be tweaked or jettisoned to win him over.
But Mr. Manchin did not lodge any specific policy objections that could be resolved. He simply wanted at least one Republican to support the bill — effectively handing a veto to the minority party.
Democrats do have options. They could, for instance, break the For the People Act into separate measures to expand voting rights, rein in campaign finance abuses and restore ethical standards and transparency in the executive branch shattered by Donald J. Trump.
...they were rethinking how to move forward in a 50-50 Senate where their most important swing vote had effectively declared that he would not support any measure that lacked Republican support.
...
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has set up a series of votes in the next three weeks that he says will test Republicans’ willingness to compromise, including on pay equity between men and women and the voting rights measure. Leaders will also take up Mr. Manchin’s suggestion that they proceed on a more limited voting rights bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, though that measure lacks the support of the 10 Republicans who would be needed to advance it past a filibuster.
...
“We do need to start testing this idea that the filibuster promotes bipartisanship,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who is trying to find 10 Republicans to back legislation imposing universal background checks on gun buyers. “I would hope that everyone is open to having their theories proved wrong if they don’t have evidence to prove their theories right.”
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, dismissed Democrats’ strategy as “an agenda transparently designed to fail — and fail they will.”
For several months, work on a range of issues beyond voting rights, including climate change, immigration and pay equity, was proceeding as if the Senate could change the rules on the filibuster if necessary. A separate effort was underway to bring Mr. Manchin on board as the 50th vote for the voting rights measure.
[That's weird.]
...
“My colleagues need to be put on the record and held accountable,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said on Monday.
...
Democrats had to concede that their initial efforts to sway Mr. Manchin on perhaps their highest priority — the voting rights measure — had fallen flat after a weekslong effort...small groups of senators reached out to him privately to identify his substantive concerns with the voting rights bill and what could be tweaked or jettisoned to win him over.
But Mr. Manchin did not lodge any specific policy objections that could be resolved. He simply wanted at least one Republican to support the bill — effectively handing a veto to the minority party.
Democrats do have options. They could, for instance, break the For the People Act into separate measures to expand voting rights, rein in campaign finance abuses and restore ethical standards and transparency in the executive branch shattered by Donald J. Trump.
[Then do that! Blumenthal doesn't want to do that. What does he want to do? You better have a brainstorm, Blumenthal.]
...
Another option would be to expand the reach of the voting rights law that Mr. Manchin says he does support, the John Lewis Act, which would restore federal oversight of state voting laws to protect minority groups that might be targeted.
[Bullshit, Quasis. Your just wrote...What carpel tunnel afflicted wretch wrote this?...Bullshit, Jonathan Weisman and Katie Rogers. You just wrote, "Leaders will also take up Mr. Manchin’s suggestion that they proceed on a more limited voting rights bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, though that measure lacks the support of the 10 Republicans who would be needed to advance it past a filibuster." What, did one of you write "Leaders" and the other "Another option"?
...
“The stakes are really high right now; this country is having a conversation with itself about whether we want to be a democracy,” [Senator] Murphy said.
“Do we have to pass every single provision in the For the People Act to save democracy?” he added. “No, but we’re getting closer to a scenario in which we do none of it, and that is potentially cataclysmic.”
...
But liberal Democrats and voting rights groups on Monday flashed frustration, not just with Mr. Manchin but with the White House, which they see as insufficiently engaged in an issue that they believe has democracy in the balance. The nightmare scenario liberals are putting forward is that Republicans seize control of Congress and expand their control over state governments next year, in part because of restrictive voting laws. Then they use their new power to nullify the results of close state contests in 2024 to deliver the White House back to the G.O.P.
...
Another option would be to expand the reach of the voting rights law that Mr. Manchin says he does support, the John Lewis Act, which would restore federal oversight of state voting laws to protect minority groups that might be targeted.
[Bullshit, Quasis. Your just wrote...What carpel tunnel afflicted wretch wrote this?...Bullshit, Jonathan Weisman and Katie Rogers. You just wrote, "Leaders will also take up Mr. Manchin’s suggestion that they proceed on a more limited voting rights bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, though that measure lacks the support of the 10 Republicans who would be needed to advance it past a filibuster." What, did one of you write "Leaders" and the other "Another option"?
...
“The stakes are really high right now; this country is having a conversation with itself about whether we want to be a democracy,” [Senator] Murphy said.
“Do we have to pass every single provision in the For the People Act to save democracy?” he added. “No, but we’re getting closer to a scenario in which we do none of it, and that is potentially cataclysmic.”
...
But liberal Democrats and voting rights groups on Monday flashed frustration, not just with Mr. Manchin but with the White House, which they see as insufficiently engaged in an issue that they believe has democracy in the balance. The nightmare scenario liberals are putting forward is that Republicans seize control of Congress and expand their control over state governments next year, in part because of restrictive voting laws. Then they use their new power to nullify the results of close state contests in 2024 to deliver the White House back to the G.O.P.
[No sane person can doubt that that is exactly what the Grand Old Phasicists will do, and what they have been up to since the presidential election in passing restriction after restriction after restriction in state after state after state.]
Last week, Mr. Biden directed Vice President Kamala Harris to pursue voting rights protections. She promptly headed to Central America...
[That is pretty funny in a grim way.]
“He said he’d use every tool at his disposal and he would ‘fight like heck.' Now is the time.”-Stephen Spaulding, Common Cause on POJO.
Last week, Mr. Biden directed Vice President Kamala Harris to pursue voting rights protections. She promptly headed to Central America...
[That is pretty funny in a grim way.]
“He said he’d use every tool at his disposal and he would ‘fight like heck.' Now is the time.”-Stephen Spaulding, Common Cause on POJO.
Rejecting Biden’s Win,
Rising Republicans Attack
Legitimacy of Elections
Not just Biden's election, elections generally as the standard for legitimacy. This is the attack on democracy.
Sunday, June 06, 2021
Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said on Sunday in no uncertain terms that he would not vote for the Democrats’ far-reaching bill to combat voter suppression, nor would he ever end the legislative filibuster, a written promise that imperils much of President Biden’s agenda.
The bill, which all the other Senate Democrats had supported and the party had portrayed as an urgent effort to preserve American democracy, would roll back dozens of laws being passed by Republican state legislatures to limit early and mail-in voting and empower partisan poll watchers. The measure, known as the For the People Act, would also restore many of the ethical controls on the presidency that Donald J. Trump shattered.
...
With Mr. Manchin’s vow, passage of the full For the People Act appears to be impossible, though parts of it could pass in other ways if Democrats are willing to break up the bill, a move that they have resisted. Mr. Manchin’s blockade of filibuster changes makes other Biden initiatives far less likely to pass, including any overhaul of immigration laws, a permanent expansion of the Affordable Care Act, controls of the price of prescription drugs and the most serious efforts to tackle climate change.
Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to end debate and break a filibuster on policy legislation. Republican and Democratic Senates have chipped away at the filibuster, ensuring that most executive branch appointees and judicial nominees can be confirmed with a simple 51-vote majority. A budget rule, called reconciliation, has also been stretched to pass ambitious legislation under the guise of spending and taxation. Major tax cuts pressed by President George W. Bush and Mr. Trump were passed with simple majorities as budget bills, as were parts of the Affordable Care Act and a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill this year.
But bills that are purely policy oriented are still subject to a 60-vote majority in the Senate, and all 48 Democrats and both liberal-leaning independents would have to align to change that rule.
[Arcane, isn't it? "Pure policy": 60 votes; executive and judicial personnel, "reconciliation," "budget bills," and changing the filibuster rule: 51 votes.]
Mr. Manchin said instead that he would support passage of another bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore federal oversight over state-level voting law changes to protect minority groups that might be targeted. He cited one Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as a supporter of the measure, which would give the Justice Department powers to police voting rights that the Supreme Court took away in 2013.
Nothing wrong with that that, right? Yes, there is something wrong with that. You still need 60 votes to pass the John Lewis bill, voting rights falling under "purely policy," not the appointments-nominations, budget bills-budget rules-reconciliation razmatazz.. Chronic traumatic encephalopathic Joe cites ONE Republican, Murkowski, who would favor John Lewis. Joe can still count, at least from 51 to 60, he knows that's a difference without a distinction.
If Mr. Manchin believes killing the more expansive voting rights bill would make 10 Republicans more altruistic toward the more limited one, he has yet to show any movement on that front.
...
The House and Senate versions of the For the People Act were always something of a legislative Hail Mary. Democrats stitched together long-cherished goals such as advancing statehood for the District of Columbia; changes to redistricting laws in anticipation of a redrawing of House districts after the 2020 census; mandating early voting for 15 days before an election, 10 hours a day; and ending voter identification requirements.
This was not the time nor the place for a fucking Hail Mary. Pass a goddamn bill you think has a chance, not a goddamn wish list.
...even some members of the Congressional Black Caucus worried that its prohibition on partisan gerrymandering would end up costing Black representation in the South.
...
Still, Democrats greeted Mr. Manchin’s words incredulously....
For in the end it all falls on the head of Block Head Joe:
Democrats privately expressed frustration with Mr. Manchin’s insistence that even stripped-down bills would need at least one Republican to get his support. Senators had been working on securing Mr. Manchin as a co-sponsor of the For the People Act, getting the bill to a symbolic 50 supporters, pleading with him to tell them what he could accept. But the senator has effectively given Republicans veto power, saying he does not oppose the substance of the legislation, only its lack of bipartisan support.
That says it all. For Manchin, no matter the threat to democracy in America, no protective legislation will get his vote unless a Republican joins him. He's a Republican senator unless a Republican senator becomes a Democrat on a bill. Oh my God.
The undersigned has written numerous times previous to this that to get full understanding of The New York Times one has to read closely. They don't print all that they know, they print all that "fits."
Having practiced what I preached for many years now I take it as a "sign" that today, in the most-read edition of the newspaper, there are not one, not two, but three articles on a Kamala Harris presidency. Signs that POJO, at 78, will not stand for reelection in 2024? I take them as signs of that, yes I do.
Manchin Vows to Block
Democratic Voting
Rights Bill and
Preserve Filibuster
“I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” Mr. Manchin wrote in The Charleston Gazette-Mail, his home state capital’s newspaper.
Well, we're fucked. Fucking hate that inbred, brain-dead, appeasing bitch.
Oh!
the lowest daily average since March 27, 2020. That's the molehill! Don't spin not reaching 70%, "Well, we're rounding up from 68%." Don't do that. You didn't hit it, you set that as your goal, you thought--really, really thought--that was attainable, and you didn't. Stop the free beer and live with it. What people care about is a number like 14,123, not a reasonable but arbitrary 70%.
Saturday, June 05, 2021
POJO Has Lost His Mojo
The fifty Grand Old Phascists in the Senate are united. POJO’s infrastructure bill won't get a single of their votes. There are good reasons for opposing it, the Republicans don't have them of course, but there are reasonable concerns. The job market has underperformed two straight months, it was better in May than April, but still did not meet forecasters expectations. And inflation. Inflation is the third rail of U.S. economic policy. You got it, you're fucked. We have some. The Bidens say both job gains and inflation decline will occur in the fall or winter or in 2022 when kids are back in school, the epidemic is further in the rear view mirror and return to normal life, here a full return to pre-epidemic economic life, occur. But the Bidens also said the modern American post-industrial, high tech economy is too big for inflation, that we can spend and spend and spend some more and we'll have no inflation. Well, we got some. Cautious economists and politicians are wary about the last two months numbers and Biden has had to pare down his infrastructure bill to hold even his fifty votes in the Senate.
As important as a restructuring of the economy is, it has to take back seat to the continuation of democracy in America. It has to. Who wants a booming economy with an authoritarian, non-democratic, Christian theocracy? That has replaced COVID-the economy as Job One and the House passed a voting bill that would nullify the draconian restrictions on voting enacted by dozens of states since the 2020 election. But to get that bill passed POJO still needs sixty votes, which there is no way he will get, or fifty-one votes to abolish (or modify it so that this bill can get passed) the filibuster. He has got at best forty-nine on the filibuster. Sinema from Arizona and Manchin from Deliverance are four-square opposed to doing away with (or waiving) the filibuster, even for the existential threat to democracy of neo-Jim Crow voting roadblocks. Other moderate Senate Dems have got squeaky bums at the idea of doing away with or diluting the filibuster. Senate Dem leadership's current plan is to hold vote after vote after vote to force every filibustering fool to go on public record stymieing legislation to make Sinema and Manchin realize the limits of bipartianship. That's what Harry Reid did during the Obama administration. But Harry had a bigger majority, fifty-five. The pressure shock wave caused by the constant stonewalling then was enough to get enough senators to waive the filibuster in the case of judicial nominees.
Manchin has got substantive problems with the voting bill in its current form; "too broad," he says. And it may be, the undersigned does not know, or if he did know in more detail at one point he has done forgot, but whatever the bill contains that causes Manchin loose bowels, Biden should look to pare it down too.
The pare level is crystal clear, at least in my mind. Return state voting rules to what they were in 2016. Yeah, that simple. We don't have a right to epidemic voting rules. It's reasonable, again to me, to say to Joe and Kristen, okay, we'll return them to 2016 levels since we don't have the epidemic that caused so many states to expand mail-in voting and other ease-of-vote laws. "You will now deliver your anti-filibuster vote please." If they refuse to even do that, well, then Dems are permanently fucked. Sinerwoman and Deliverance Joe and should be kicked out of the caucus (if that can be done), deprived of committee appointments, pushed to become Republicans. Dems should be done, done, done with them.
Friday, June 04, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+135 (June 4) Mini-Recap
Cases declined a whopping 47% in the two weeks ending June 4; Hospitalizations fell 22% on the metric, and Deaths dropped a huge 30%.
Deaths three-iteration trend upward on the 7-day daily average metric ended with the newest period, May 29-June 4. An average 414 per day were killed in the last week, down from 428 May 28-June 3.
COVID-19 BIDEN+132, 133, 134 June 1-3)
The 7-day daily average number of Deaths rose from 356 in the June 1 iteration to 397 in June 2’s to 428 in the June 3. A three-iteration of anything is a trend, this is a three-iteration weekly average of daily Deaths, so covering nine days, that is a bad trend.
On the 14-day change metric Cases dropped 48%, Hospitalizations -22% and Deaths -28%. It does not seem reasonable to me that Deaths have fallen more sharply than Hospitalizations over two weeks when H’s 7-day line has been on a continuous down slope and Deaths line has jagged up but those are the figures.
Thursday, June 03, 2021
Wednesday, June 02, 2021
In places where cases are increasing, scientists have observed an inflection point with vaccinations, after which cases, hospitalizations and deaths start to fall dramatically.
“It appeared to be at the 40 to 50 percent first-dose rate. After that, things started plummeting.”-Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
But the real test will likely come this week when the city begins to lift some of its restrictions.
...
"The final test when you achieve herd immunity is not being in lockdown and not having mitigation procedures," Gandhi said.
On May 5, the date of this article, there were 15 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in SF. Since restrictions were to be lifted that week and we are almost a month later, what are the latest COVID numbers in the city?
Six. Daily average of 13. Okay?
Nationally, 51% of the entire population has received at least one dose. we have now vaccinated 51% of all people. Forty-one percent have been fully vaccinated; both numbers at (actually, just over) the levels at which Dr. Gandhi said on May 5 San Francisco "things started plummeting."
What does the case graph look like nationally?
Not as pretty but if SF is the 10 in the beauty contest, nationally we're at at least an 8. The 7-day average is the lowest since March 29, 2020! You don't have to hit herd immunity levels (70%?, 80%?, 90%?) to start experiencing the "effects" of herd immunity at 40%-50% vaccination rates. San Francisco did, and we are nationally.
The Biden administration is vaccinating about 1.25M people/day. The president's stated goal is first-dose immunity for adults of 70% by July 4. We are at 63% today with 52% fully vaccinated. He is going to hit 70% and when he does, "Anheuser-Busch to give away free beer when America hits its vaccination goal." What's the harm in vaccinating 70%? It's Anheuser-Busch's money, what do I care? I am on record as calling the free beer, the $1M lottery and similar efforts as "unseemly." I stand by that. So? Who cares what I think? I find beer unseemly (not scotch). Listen to the CDC, NOT ME! Such gimmicks are also, imo, unnecessary. I mean, c'mon, just look at the graphs. If the CDC came out with a statement endorsing free beer--I'd take a name change to Coors-Dixie-Corona--I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They haven't pushed back on it, though, which is tacit. Okay FINE! Go ahead! Leave me alone.
Tuesday, June 01, 2021
The Greatest Hockey Team I Ever Saw
I voluntarily submit to struggle session. I have said, orally and in writing, that the Soviet Union was the better team in the 1972 Summit Series against Team Canada; that the only reason Team Canada won was because of their street-thug violence, instantiated by Frank Mahovlich’ mugging of Vladislav Tretiak and especially by Bobby Clarke’s vicious two-hand slash that broke Valeri Kharlamov's ankle. I have said and written that tiki-taka began in hockey, in this series, in the play of the Soviets, and that it revolutionized North American hockey. Only that last sentence is true. In Game Two play-by-play Foster Hewitt is heard describing the Soviet style as he did in Game One and was to do in Game Four:
"They are still playing tic tac toe with that puck."
A few years ago I watched, or thought I had, the entire eight games in the series. If so I must have been asleep when I watched Game Two in Toronto, won by Team Canada 4-1.
They are the greatest hockey team I have ever seen play and this was the greatest hockey game I ever saw played. Team Canada coach Harry Sinden made wholesale lineup changes for Game Two and had clearly studied the film from Game One in which T.C. was made dizzy and exhausted chasing the bees of the Soviet Union. He instructed his players on three things: skate like you have jets on your feet; skate vertically, in constant attack; and use your size advantage, ~10 lbs/man, and lean on the Soviets. They did all three. It was a clean, but hard-checking, game and while the Soviets gave as good as they had they could not give as good as they got. T.C.'s physicality wore down the Soviets.
My abiding interest in these games was historical. The aesthetics of Soviet “tic-tac-toe” were the only aesthetics that made an impression on me. That is, before I watched Game Two.
I here link to the Youtube video of the entire game with full awareness that no one is ever going to watch two hours of a hockey game played forty-nine years ago: not for its historical importance; nor for the sublime Soviet play that revolutionized North American hockey; nor, most sadly, for the Canadians transcendent aesthetic brilliance. But all of that is what Game Two was, in a nutshell, the greatest game ever played by the greatest team ever to play it: Team Canada.
BoomeRL
The kids who play Rocket League are incredibly skilled athletes. They are also the the sweetest people. The kids of my favorite Rocket League team, Guild, who are based in England, sent this BoomeRL a team hoodie for my insane reaction to their insanely skillful play! 🧎🏻🙏🏻 Thank you guys, soo much. I am soo touched🥺
Monday, May 31, 2021
Memorial Day, 1889
Where Johnstown had once been, was a lake.
-John Bach McMaster, "The Johnstown Flood," in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 57:211 (1933).
Thus we find that from three unnatural causes we have suffered. First, and seriously enough, though only slight in comparison, from the narrowing of the streams; second from the building of the big stone bridge, with its ponderous arches taking up room that should have been free for the rush of water; and third from the Reservoir which dealt the final blow...The Cause
How much was SFFHC at fault?
The Western Reservoir, aka South Fork Dam, had been there since like 1853. The Club made it more dangerous, no doubt. But so the question has to be restated:
Would that earthen dam, up 404 feet and 14 miles as the fish swims from Johnstown, have broken with similar catastrophic results under this incredible storm had SFFHC never touched it? Well, it did break before Lake Conemaugh was even a mirage in the Pittsburgh peoples’ eyes. In 1862. Badd break too. But then South Fork Dam had lain in neglect for a decade and was only half full. And it broke at the BASE where the culvert with the cast irin drain pipes were. It DID NOT break from water running over the top.
Had it been full 💯? Would the Great Storm of May 1889 have caused the 1862 dammed water to rise from half to full capacity and run over the top and burst the dam and loose 20,000,000 tons of water on the Conemaugh Valley?
Wouldn’t you think that if a much less severe storm had caused a half-filled dam to break in 1862 that the greatest storm in Pennsylvania history would have caused the water to rise to full capacity and beyond and to break with comparable violence to 1889?
Or, were some improvements made between 1862 and 1889 that prevented the dam from collapsing again at half capacity? A half-full dam would have been a damned sight better to break at any time than a full-and-beyond dam!
Was John Parke correct to think about a cut that would result in a “controlled break”?
I have had impressed upon me as never before the uniqueness of the Great Storm. It was biblical. Otherwordly. More like the Great Storm on Jupiter than anything on Earth. I hadn’t realized. The description of it in Kansas on May 28 is the same description as in Johnstown the night of May 30. Those WERE tornadoes that ripped up the fields in Johnstown! Just as that was a tornado that killed a family and tore a man’s and a woman’s limbs off in Kansas.
Not knowing anything I would answer my own questions just from common sense as,
1) No. What SFFHC did made the dam infinitely more dangerous. They removed the only way to get water out of the dam (without a full break). They raised the volume of water; they reduced the height of the breast relative to the water level
and made it lower at the center, its weakest point, than at the ends.
A decent storm, not necessarily the Great Storm would have caused the water to run over the top and the dam to fail.
2) No! When SFFHC took control in 1879 they removed the drain pipes, stuffed the hole of the culvert and quickly brought the lake level up way beyond half-full to four feet from the top of the dam. It didn’t burst for ten years at near full capacity!
3) Yes, with the confidence that the Great Storm did cause water to run over the top, bursting the dam when no storm between 1862-1889 caused water to run over the top, even when from 1879-1889 the dam was at close to full capacity.
4) I don’t know but manifestly the dam didn’t break when beyond half capacity, nor when at near full capacity. Stands to reason that Ruff did a helluva job patching that hole at the base. Which caused the lake to fill without bursting and run over the top and destroy Johnstown. Good job Ruff, bad result.
5) No! Parke’s fleeting thought of a controlled break came to him when the water was level with the top of the dam. The dam was full already. Too late, Parkey! If he had had the thought and acted on it first thing in the morning of May 31, mebbe. The controlled break then would not have been as bad but the water level was still way over where it was in 1862.
Tom Swank is wrong that Johnstown had got through the heavy weather. The Great Storm continued through June 2. If there had not been an earthen dam up there, yes, of course, they wouldn’t have become Lake Johnstown. But there was.
The “warnings.” Deary me, those were dreary warnings, notifications, tips, whatever. Not clear, not unambiguous, not timely. Where was the local government? The mayor? I think I remember mention of the mayor’s name once in McCullough, not in connection with spearheading lookout of the dam situation. Tom Swank seems to have been the de facto mayor. There was no coordination of intel reconnaisance, no official advisement, no means of desseminating intel to the populace. It was a company town, I guess is the reason. All of the “warnings” were composed by men of the companies who had a financial interests in town or lake: Pitcairn’s men, Parke, Unger, Swank but less so. Swank was as close as it got to an Official Johnstown.
Ad hoc, no responsibility. Ergo no accountability after. Club members “simply moved away” and never came back, were never held liable, never made to give testimony.
This is mystifying to me: What is it with the Commonwealth and Cambria County building goddamned earthen dams on mountains above cities? Are you fucking stupid?! Pennsylvania is a verdant, well-watered body of land transected southwest-to-northeast by a mountain range with corresponding valleys. It is also in a west-to-east storm corridor, much like the east coast of Florida is in an east-to-west hurricane alley from the coast of Africa. Great storms from the west regularly visit the former as hurricanes regularly visit the latter. Why with this topographical and meteorological profile would it ever occur to intelligent beings to construct dams on mountains? And folks, this is not quarterbacking 131 years of Mondays afterwards. The. Same. Thing. Happened. In. 1977. Laurel Dam. Earthen. Watchtower abandoned. “Storm of the Century”. Say goodbye, Tanneryville. I was there after the 1977 flood. Went as part of a relief convoy from Pittsburgh, told the story many times. Johnstown looked like a whole mountain of shit had been thrown against a gigantic ceiling fan. (And by the by I was also in Boston for the Blizzard of ‘78). “Mud Arround” on the theater marquee, in place of “Surround Sound”. Mud turning to dust right before our eyes and noses and throats, blowing in the gentlest breeze. whisp whisp Rasp, rasp, rasp. THAT much dust will kill your ass. You didn’t know where to start to help out. And you know what? The people of Johnstown didn’t know where to start either. So they didn’t. They moved out, presumably to a place that didn’t build earthen dams on mountains. Most of those living in Johnstown at the time of the 1977 flood had been around for the 1936 flood. A few had been there for the 1889 flood. That was it, 1977 was the straw that broke the dam’s back for Johnstown. It has never recovered.
Anyway, no earthen Western Reservoir, no South Fork Dam, no catastrophic floods in 1889 and 1977; no opportunity for Lewis Clarke to practice his photography on Lake Conemaugh with the other rich and famous, no Lewis Clarke—who was at the Lake on May 31!—to escape to New York City and tell the New York Herald that “there was great doubt among the engineers” that it was his Lake Conemaugh that had burst its seams. Perhaps it was a dam in Lily which broke? Clarke disinformed.
They "simply moved away" and never went back.
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