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Sunday, February 11, 2024

AP - How Biden and his allies are pushing back against a special counsel’s claims about his memory

Let me remember why I wanted to post this. Oh. Right. It matters:

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies are launching an aggressive defense against a special counsel’s explosive claims that the 81-year-old president couldn’t remember major milestones in his life, trying to diminish the significance of the prosecutor’s allegations that Biden was too forgetful to be charged for mishandling classified material.

Biden set the angry tone hours after special counsel Robert Hur’s report was released, dismissing the report’s conclusions about his memory and insisting he hadn’t forgotten the year his son Beau died, as Hur claimed. Democrats on Capitol Hill and around the country quickly followed.

“Republicans saying that Biden is old is the least surprising thing in American politics,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said. “It’s all they’ve got.”

Democrats plan to answer the widespread questions about the 81-year-old president’s age and readiness by affirming that Biden is capable of being commander in chief and trying to discredit people who portray him as enfeebled. Key to that strategy is drawing a contrast with former President Donald Trump, the heavy Republican front-runner who is himself 77 and has also confused names and facts while also facing four indictments and multiple multimillion-dollar civil judgments.

There is an engaging simplicity to, "It's all they've got."

He's running the country while a lawyer named Hur insinuates he's unfit to run the country. Jim Jordan would say so also. That, and cash, will buy a latte at Starbucks.

I believe Trump is saying Nikki Haley is unfit to run the country, and he used to say that about DeSantis.

Grow up folks. It will be Biden as the Dem candidate, Trump as the GOP candidate, and irrelevant independent people, one a Kennedy.

Hur is not running for any office. His mandate with its Special Counsel paycheck has expired. Where he goes next to keep food on his table might be an interesting thing to try to follow. If MSM cares to do any follow-up.

Actually, his career has highlights. AG Garland tapped him out of privater practice, GibsonDunn, Jan. 12, 2023, as Biden documents special counsel, and he wrote a lot in a short time. He will do okay after that writing effort. He has the credentials.

Hur

[...] was a law clerk from 2002 to 2003 to then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a staunch conservative who was nominated to the court by President Richard Nixon and nominated for promotion to chief justice by Reagan.

According to federal campaign filings, Hur has donated to at least three Republican political campaigns. He donated $500 to former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, a Republican, in January 2022, when she was in the GOP Senate primary in Vermont, which she went on to lose. According to OpenSecrets, Hur also donated $200 to Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan in 2017 and $201 to GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona during his presidential campaign in 2008.

Hur was also involved with Trump’s law enforcement agenda to crack violent gangs like the group MS-13. He appeared in the White House briefing room in 2017 alongside then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to preview a trip Trump was set to make to Long Island to discuss the goal of eradicating MS-13.

[...] As Hur was set to leave the federal government in 2021, Maryland's Democratic senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, praised him for his "excellent service" as the U.S. attorney for the state. They said Hur "upheld the finest traditions of the office and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and faithfully followed the facts and the law."

Whatever his history, he was of no help to Joe Biden while deciding that declining any prosecution of Biden re classified documents was proper --- via a classic it's not what you say but how you say it effort. Leaving Dems in mop-up mode.

___________UPDATE__________

As part of the dilemma, but without suggesting much time be spent on scan reading, an NYT item carried by SeattleTimes; beginning:

Former President Donald Trump has praised Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, for his leadership of Turkey, and confused Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. President Joe Biden has named dead former European leaders when describing his contemporary peers, and referred to Egypt as Mexico.

The episodes might have raised parallel concerns about age and mental acuity. Instead, while Biden, 81, has been increasingly dogged by doubts and concerns about his advancing years from voters, Trump, 77, has not felt the same political blowback.

The response suggests profound differences not only between the two men, but in how they are perceived by the American public, and in what their supporters expect of them — a divide that could play a major role in the coming presidential election.

The item gets into quoting "experts" on presentation and demeanor; and it all hangs together very much less that ageism used against Biden where by din of repetition the Republican machine wants to make "truth" from unending "assertion, reassertion." Or as the Hawaiian gentlemen put it into a nutshell, "It's all they've got."

With that, segue to Digby, (it almost rhymes), 

Another Day Another Hit Job

When will Democrats understand that they get no points for being nonpartisan?

Stop there. No reader should miss that twenty minute video showing who we REALLY are dealing with, GOP dirt-bagging aside; hence it's embedded here.

Each of us should hope to show such acuity in a one-on-one conversation with an equally intelligent conversant. Biden's not lost it, not at all! 

Do not read past that video without viewing it. An imperative sentence, not a polite request, a demand.

Digby continuing:

Perhaps someday Democrats will learn their lesson but I’m not holding out much hope at this point. I’m referring, of course, to their inexplicable habit of allowing only Republicans to hold the job of Special Prosecutor. This has been going on for decades now and the results have been predictable.

The idea is to prove how noble and non-partisan they are in comparison to the hacks on the GOP side and it just ends up coming back to bite them. The habit goes back to Watergate after President Richard Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, a Democrat, in the Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon had Cox replaced with one of his supporters, Texas Judge Leon Jaworski, whom everyone assumed would be sympathetic to the president. As it turned out he was appalled by what he saw and issued subpoenas for the tapes which wound up in the Supreme Court as US v Nixon. However, it was later revealed that Jaworski didn’t agree with the Grand Jury’s recommendation to criminally indict the president and resigned from the job just as the cover-up trials began. As we know, it all became moot when President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon.

When the Reagan White House came under investigation for the Iran-Contra Affair a Republican judge named Lawrence Walsh was appointed by a three judge panel under the new Independent Counsel statute. He was a pretty zealous prosecutor and uncovered quite a bit of dirt but in the end was thwarted by President George H. W. Bush and his Attorney General William Barr who pardoned all the possible defendants just before Bush left office in 1992. Funny how that worked out for Republicans again.

During the Clinton years, Attorney General Janet Reno named Republican Robert Fiske as special prosecutor to investigate the Whitewater scandal and he was later replaced in the job by ultra conservative Republican judge Kenneth Starr after Clinton himself signed the re-authorization of the Independent Counsel Act giving a three judge panel of right wing partisans the ability to assign one of their cronies.

I’ll never forget when Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans put the Starr Report, sight unseen, on the internet only to find out that it was a downright pornographic romance novel (partly written by the man who became Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh) which had as much resemblance to a legal document as a grocery store receipt. It ushered in a new era in right wing hit jobs that ended up backfiring on the Republicans but not before causing massive damage to the lives and reputations of dozens of people.

Fast forward to 2016 and the Russia Investigation, headed by yet another Republican, former FBI Director Robert Mueller. The GOP Department of Justice knew it wouldn’t be right to have a Democrat investigate a Republican president. Why they might be partisan!

Special Counsel is a Republican job, no matter what. Until the appointment of Jack Smith who has been assiduously apolitical during his career, there has never been anything but Republicans in the job since Archibald Cox and it’s a problem.

I bring this up because yesterday the special prosecutor assigned to investigate whether President Joe Biden committed any crimes by retaining some classified documents from his time as a senator and Vice President announced that he was declining to prosecute for lack of evidence that Biden had willfully taken them or obstructed the investigation as Donald Trump had done. Like VP Mike Pence, it appears that he unknowingly took some classified documents when he left office which is apparently not all that uncommon. What is uncommon is for someone to try to hide them from the authorities and refuse to give them back as Trump has been indicted for doing.

But Special Prosecutor Robert Hur is a Republican, Trump-appointed Justice Department holdover who, once again, was appointed by a Democratic Attorney General in order to prove just how “non-partisan” the department is. So Hur wrote a voluminous 388 page report which most legal observers believe could have been done in 50, if not less. He could have simply said he declined to prosecute and left it at that but what he did was nothing less than a partisan hit job masquerading as a prosecutorial declination.

Despite laying out in detail that he could find no evidence that Biden committed any crime, making it clear that what he did do was far less egregious than what Trump is accused of doing and declaring that he would not prosecute Biden even if he were out of office, Hur wrote what amounts to a chatty little novel about what he thinks of Biden’s personality and mental capabilities. [...

He opens the report with what amounts to a character study of Biden that suggests he has delusions of grandeur because he saved papers early in his career because he thought he might be president someday. Then he embeds in the the report a fatuous rationalization that he personally believes that if he were to bring the case to a jury — a case which he has already stated he could not find the evidence to prove — they would feel sorry for Biden because he is a “well-meaning, elderly gentleman with a bad memory.” He dug deep to find a way to get that in there. He pretty much implies that the president is demented because he didn’t perfectly remember dates from the past, something which defense lawyers commonly tell their clients to be careful about trying to do under oath.

It’s a nasty piece of slander that Hur no doubt believed served the purpose of preserving his place in MAGAworld without him having to recommend charges based on nothing. As one of president Obama’s top advisers put it:

This reaction from Tennessee GOP Senator Marsha Blackburn is typical:

That woman, by that web posting, proves herself clearly too ignorant to be a janitor in the Senate, yet, Tennessee - she is a Senator there.

Digby's wrapup -

It’s hard to imagine House Republicans would use this heavily padded tome as the basis for an impeachment article since it would also put Trump’s stolen documents case back on the front burner again but they might just do it. Lord knows the rest of their case is going nowhere. If I were a conspiracy minded person I might even think that Hur took a page out of Ken Starr’s bodice-ripper and wrote it just for that purpose. If so, they might want to check in with Newt Gingrich about how well that worked out for them.

This was a shamefully inappropriate cheap shot against President Biden but in the end, despite the media’s febrile “but her emails” reaction, I doubt that this changes much in the dynamic as long as the Republicans are all genuflecting to the man whose memory is so bad that he mistakenly identified his rape victim as his former wife during a deposition. They have much bigger problems on their hands,

Well. Do not only watch that interview video, tell others about it. Newspapers are contracting, corporate ownership by a few firms expanding, and "journalists" who depend on the paycheck, first and foremost, meet the deadline. It can be however long as space allows, editors are not what they used to be, and the easy way clearly is better than the hard way, that being real journalism *and* meeting the deadline. 

What could be easier than to read Hur's executive summary, not even scanning any of the report, and then paraphrase. Calling that reporting the report, off to the bar for cocktails. Yo, folks - the man said Biden is too confused to prosecute because a jury would say, "What a nice elderly man" and excuse him of crime - coincidentally, crime of which I, Special Prosecutor reporter, have no evidence of. Yeah, I admit that, but only after trashing the man's memory and Gestalt in a way appropriate for the take-it-easy journalists to meet their deadlines.

Digby does have a fine point about why in the world Dems appoint Republicans as Special Prosecutors.

Also, there is much else worth reading:

https://digbysblog.net/author/digshullabaloo/

 

Saturday, February 10, 2024

It's the economy, stupid.

LATimes, days ago this month. Earlier, Nov. 2023

From the recent item:

The turning point in Americans’ perception of the economy — that despite months of doom-colored predictions of a looming recession — may have occurred on Jan. 25.

That was the day that Fox Business economic commentator Larry Kudlow, a former official in the Trump White House and consistent dispenser of grim economic predictions during President Biden’s term, went on Fox’s “America Reports” telecast and acknowledged that the Biden economy was, you know, good.

That day, government figures had been released showing a 3.3% annual increase in the gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2023, on top of a 4.9% growth rate for the third quarter.

Instead of contracting, the economy has continued to grow....Inflation has come down significantly. ...The labor market is healthy.

— Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen

Candidly, if a bit glumly, Kudlow stated, “It was a good quarter, don’t get me wrong, and the last quarter was a good quarter, 4.9.” Biden, he said, “gets his due. If I were he, I’d be out slinging that hash too, no problem.” Asked by the host if this meant that the economy was not as bad as he had been saying, he answered, “I would say, probably, I would agree.”

Fox being Fox, Kudlow couldn’t resist sticking the shiv in: “Wages are rising more slowly than prices,” he said, which doesn’t happen to be true: Wages and benefits for rank-and-file workers have grown faster than prices throughout the post-pandemic period.

The bottom line, however, is that if the bad-economy camp has lost even Larry Kudlow, they’re on the wrong side of the argument.

[...] Administration officials have been trying to spread the word. “Instead of contracting, the economy has continued to grow,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Economic Club of Chicago on Jan. 25. “It now produces far more goods and services than it did before the pandemic. ... Inflation has come down significantly. ... The labor market is healthy.” The unemployment rate, she noted, “has been below 4% for 23 months now, a stretch that has not been seen during the last 50 years.”

Moreover, Yellen said, the current recovery has been “the fairest recovery on record,” with wage and employment gains for the middle class and demographic groups such as Black and Hispanic workers. And the U.S. recovery from the pandemic has outstripped those of other developed countries: “The increase in real wages is unique to our country’s recovery: in other economies, real wages have declined since 2019.”

Earnings vs inflation
Hourly earnings growth for rank-and-file workers (blue line) has exceeded inflation (red line) since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. Gray stripe signifies a recession.
(Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Unionized workers have been among the leading beneficiaries of economic growth, achieving strong improvements in wages and working conditions at unionized auto plants and United Parcel Service.

The Fed holds sway over interest rates, and could move in a way reversing this trend. That reality stands against boasting too much. But can't we let Joe boast a little?

 

A guy named Hur - a lawyer - wrote a report. WaPo uses it to attempt to gin up ongoing drama where we already know the 2024 Presidential election will be Biden vs. Trump, redux. There are tawdry things afoot.

WaPo, here. Ginning and spinning. Thin on actual content. 

The Hur report is dissected by the EmptyWheel crowd, https://www.emptywheel.net/ who primarily favor Biden more than Trump, by a sizable majority, but the main dissection is attentive to things more material, less superficial, than WaPo might ever publish. Read the several Hur posts at EmptyWheel, and the commentary there. One quote - from commentary:

  1. Michael Collins says:

    “Hur’s mandate ‘was to judge whether a crime was committed… not speculate on what the jury would do, not to speculate on how full or sharp Joe Biden’s mind is,’ Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) similarly said.

    Garland’s special counsel Hurl [sic] damned Pres Biden with a feint and insincere praise. He didn’t charge Biden who he called a really nice man with serious memory problems; a man so nice rhe [sic] special counsel didn’t think he could get a jury to convict. Hur thinks we’re morons. The clear message is that Biden is too out of it the country and doesn’t deserve a second term.

    Maybe Garland and the rest of the geniuses who made the appointment missed these obvious clues that Hur was a ringer:

    Hur was a legal clerk for the ethically challenged former SCOTUS Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a supporter of the “separate but equal” doctrine that justified school segregation.

    Hur wasn’t required to clerk for Rehnquist, he chose to.

    Hur was a legal clerk for disgraced Judge Alex Kozinski. The judge fled to retirement after multiple harassment and porn-related charges.

    Hur wasn’t required to clerk for Kozinski, he chose to.

    Hur was a senior advisor to Trump Deputy Attorney General Rod “obstruction of justice” Rosenstein.

    ANOTHER VOLUNTARY CHOICE BY HUR.

    Hur did his job, which was to smear Biden. Garland, his staff and the lazy faction of the corporate media failed at theirs.

    Reply
  2. BryanInWNC says:

    The most likely reason for random classified documents ending up with Biden and Pence is that the VP’s office is a limited access area (LSA) certified for documents below SCI. Untrained staffers then packed everything, especially if the cover pages were not in place.

    With Trump it appears that the removal of the documents was deliberate. A whole ‘nother kettle of fish.

    The [Biden] dairy is potentially a sign of another issue: unwillingness of the staff to gently remind Biden that what goes into a SCIF doesn’t come out without classification review. If standard classification procedures were followed a derivative classifier would have checked the notes. Except for emails you don’t do the checks yourself. I’ve been in a meeting on a classified project where I took notes on schedules, the schedules were unclassified but needed to be reviewed before they could be taken out of the facility.

    [Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. Please be sure to use the same username and email address each time you comment. /~Rayne]

    Reply
  3. SelaSela says:

    This morning, on the way back home after getting the kids to school, I listened to NPR reporting on the report. It sounded extremely damaging to Biden. They said the report found evidence of willful retention of classified documents, but not enough to press charges. And then they talked a whole bunch about Biden’s health and memory. And that was NPR. Not conservative news media.

    I know better than taking such report at surface value, so I got here and saw that just as I suspected, it was a bunch of baloney. But I’m afraid that in this world where fact don’t matter, only soundbites and spins, this report would be very damaging to Biden, and everything Trump wanted. It provides all the soundbites they need.

So, Hur wrote from a background. His report - in full - is online here, (document cloud), and here (pdf). Readers should at least read the cover letter and executive summary to indirectly get an idea of things. 

Hur clerked for a Republican, and was appointed to DOJ by a Republican, Trump, 

Garland likely appointed him to vet Biden re classified documents to avoid any calls of setting things up to exonerate Biden rather than to investigate and decide, prosecute or decline. 

Hur's bottom line, don't prosecute. 

But he insipidly added more, things arguably uncalled for, things hurtful toward Biden. Things likely worded from the perspective of his own background belief system. Go figure.

Strib locally reported of Minnesota politicians and their reactions, (paywalled, unfortunately). PiPress had not reported on the Hur report's release and/or implications when examined. Per Strib: Tina and Amy both said they'd spent personal time with Biden, and he is sharp and cogent and atop issues. Stauber and Emmer threw stones, but neither said he'd spent substantial time with Biden. It is unilikely either did.

The tempest rages, with Strib embedding a video on YouTube here. Strib headlining, and lead two paragraphs:

Minn. Democrats defend Biden after report questions his memory. Republicans say he's unfit to serve

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, Rep. Betty McCollum accuse special counsel of having a political agenda. 

Some Democratic congressmembers from Minnesota defended President Joe Biden on Friday after a special counsel who investigated his handling of classified materials raised concerns about his memory.

Minnesota Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, on the other hand, said he thinks the report demonstrated Biden is "unfit for the Oval Office." And Democratic U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, who's challenging Biden for the presidential nomination, said the president "cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term."

Emmer, you expect that. Phillips, different story. Quoting coverage re Senator Smith:

"Being so blatantly disrespectful as to suggest the President misremembered the death of his son is despicable beyond imagination," Smith said. "I have 100 percent faith in the President. I spent a full day with Joe Biden less than a month ago – got on the plane with him early in the morning, had a grueling travel day, three different events, and I watched him perform at the very top of his game all the way through it, both in private and in public. Among those who actually see him in action, President Biden's ability to connect with people and stay on top of policy issues has never been in doubt for a moment."

She's a middle of the road politician, not a progressive by any measure Crabgrass would apply, while formerly heading a Planned Parenthood effort before aiding Governor Dayton and others -- that before her appointment by Dayton to fill the balance of the Al Franken term after his resignation, and her subsequent election to that Senate seat. However, in all her history nobody has suggested she does anything but honestly speak her mind when publicly speaking. In effect - What she said is how it is. She doesn't bullshit.

Phillips:

[...] who represents suburbs west of Minneapolis and is running for president, was more critical of Biden than other Democrats. Phillips said the report marks "another sad day for America and particularly for President Biden and his family."

"The Report simply affirms what most Americans already know, that the President cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term ending January 20, 2025," Phillips wrote in a text message to the Star Tribune. "Already facing the lowest approval numbers in modern history and losing in each of the key battleground states, this Report has all but handed the 2024 election to Donald Trump if Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee — and I invite fellow Democrats to face the truth."

That's horseshit. The guess here is Phillips will bond with the No Labels crowd because as a Democrat candidate he is tanking.

Healthwise, Biden vs Trump who are contemporary in age, Trump's body mass suggests he's the more likely of the two to be unable to fulfill a full term because of demands placed on his heart to support the rest of him. 

Biden's people have been infinitely better than the people Trump's utilized (Jarad Kushner, Mnuchin, need we say more). Biden gaffes often. Trump bloviates and lies. 

And Trump led an insurrection - protest - conspiracy on a phony claim he'd won an election where Joe got more votes. 

More popular votes for Joe. More electoral votes for Joe. Joe won. More of the nation wanted Biden, and not more Trump. Red sloganeering baseball caps do not equate in any sense with gaining a majority of votes. They identify cap wearers that way, and nothing else. That there are many such cap wearers around is unfortunate, but a fact we are forced to live with today.

IN NOVEMBER: You decide who's the more fit to lead the nation, one more term. My vote's Joe. A Republican lawyer going beyond where he needed to go in making a prosecute/decline decision declined. That's the bottom line. But he biased his reporting with slanted language beyond stating the clear fact that he found a lack of evidence that Biden had intentionally broken any law whatsoever. 

Should his - Hur's - gratuitous additional impressions beyond that decision be taken seriously? You decide. This Hur report will fade into obscurity as we get closer to the general election. Decisions among voters will be based on things more immediate and less impressionistic one way or another to the mind of a Republican leaning lawyer.

__________UPDATE__________

Breitbart and Republican spin meisters are spinning. Gary Gross too, here and here. If that's your flavor, enjoy the Koolaid.

When people read that short "easy read" stuff instead of the report itself, and ignore the background of the report author, who did his share of spinning while admitting a prosecution of Biden for anything lacked any basis, and when the press takes the easy path instead of the principled analytical one, misconceptions can become entrenched.

Yes, Trump could win. The nation is resilient enough to survive four more Trump years if that is our fate. We withstood eight Reagan years, eight of little Bush, and four already of Trump. TRUMP --- Who promised a lot and delivered nothing but an inadequate pandemic response. In 2016 he touted his "health plan." He had none. 

Four years of Trump later, the Obama passage of Romneycare was still all we had. Because Trump had no plan despite lying to say he did. In 2016 Trump promised a wall. Mexico would pay for it. He still promises after four years of in office doing nothing beyond pardoning crooks like Roger Stone that he will build a wall. He's dropped Mexico paying. They didn't and won't. 

Now there is some prescription drug relief under Biden. Not medicare for all, but a step. Highway 10 in Ramsey where I live is being upgraded with a large part of an upgrade within Anoka County finished because Biden's administration and his congressional allies put through the funding. 

Biden delivered the goods. Trump delivered bullshit, and is still at that delivery stage with a zero likelihood of anything beyond the lie. If people vote for him despite who he is, we can survive.

We will get by. We will survive. It's a song. Hopefully four more Biden years will moot the worry Trump poses. And instead of getting by - we prosper.

__________FURTHER UPDATE_________

Watching again this video, I recall Jesse Ventura's term while Governor of Minnesota. "Jackals of the Press." Yelling. The final impromptu "Over the top" characterization adding proof Biden knows Gaza, and knows Netanyahu and his cabinet.

"Over the top" is a gentle phrasing for the tactics and death rates. Shooting three escaped hostages dead, as done by the IDF, under some rule of engagement? Flesh that out in your mind.

_________FURTHER UPDATE________

Biden's biggest mistake was how he chaired the Clarence Thomas hearings. How he treated Anita Hill's revelations. Minimizing Hill, and not having her corroborating witnesse(s) testify, women who had evidence against Thomas. We got the end result we have and it's a pile on Joe's doorstep. 

In a way goes around - comes around exists at play. Clarence was fed his "high-tech lynching" line to employ and he was allowed to employ it, and now Hur is giving Biden a "low-class ageism lynching" while admitting there was no document crime.

Senatorial courtesy to John Danforth in place of decency toward Anita Hill ruled the day. Moreover, Thomas during his EEOC tenure suppressed age discrimination litigation. So --- Now Biden is an ongoing victim of aggressive ageism entering his mind and outlook too late. 

Goes around, comes around.

Other side of the coin. Trump green lighted sulfide mining in perilous places. Federal attention since Biden took office, Corps of Engineers and EPA, has been responsible, instead

In a Biden vs. Trump redux election, figure that issue out. Especially with Gov. Walz doing or trying to do a straddle on the sulfide mining issue. Agreeing with his friends.

BOTTOM LINE: The Boundary Waters and the Rainy River watershed need a Biden reelection. 

End of story.

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

My bet is Jeff Bezos has a bigger luxury yacht than Harlan Crow, but like Harlan, he does not charter it.

Search = Bezos yacht 

Since the post is about Harlan Crow and not Bezos, leave it there and move to look at current events concerning Clarence Thomas's good buddie, Crow.

ProPublica reports of Senate attention toward Crow, e.g., here and here.

Related to a not-chartered yacht. Crabgrass took notice while online seeing a statement, "Billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow may have taken illegal tax deductions for a yacht he used to entertain family and friends, including Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court, the leader of the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday, citing new evidence."

Some things are interesting of themselves, and if you see a hint, you decide to search for more information.

That last linked item is a letter from Sen. Wyden to Harlan Crow's lawyer, concerning Crow and his yacht, and that lawyer is Michael Bopp, with ties to Federalist Society, a bio on his firm's website, and ties to Susan Collins. I.e., likely a Republican. (And not to be confused with James Bopp, another likely Republican.)

You find the damnedest things online, by happenstance. Tweaking wealth and questioning its decision making.

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

He wasn't immune from catching Covid either.

Guardian. EmptyWheel - the analysis there is tight and expansive. There is no need for commentary here.

Israel has their version of Cancun Cruz.

Seattle Times carries the AP feed, Far-right Israel official suggests Trump would give more US support to offensive in Gaza

So, Putin and the Russians interfere too much in U.S. politics we are told. Gee.

This guy should be toast. Fired from the cabinet. Expelled from the Knesset. Bibi was quoted in the article, as were others. And Biden has taken much heat for U.S. policy (which Crabgrass dislikes)  in favor of the war crimes, to have this happen:

The Biden administration has skirted Congress to rush weapons to Israel and shielded it from international calls for a cease-fire in the four months since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. But the White House has urged Israel to take greater measures to avoid harming civilians and allow more aid to besieged Gaza.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Biden was hindering Israel’s war effort.

“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel (to Gaza), which goes to Hamas,” Ben-Gvir said. “If Trump was in power, the U.S. conduct would be completely different.”

What an asshole. NOT his first provocation without a cause; with AJ giving detail from a bit over half a year ago. This current situation, same AP item continuing:

His remarks drew fire from Benny Gantz, a retired general and member of Netanyahu’s three-man War Cabinet, who said Ben-Gvir was “causing tremendous damage” to U.S.-Israeli relations. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, also posting on X, said Ben-Gvir’s remarks prove that he “does not understand foreign relations.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned Ben-Gvir’s comments as “racist” and called for international sanctions against him, saying he threatens the region’s stability.

Netanyahu, without mentioning Ben-Gvir by name, appeared to refer to his remarks during a weekly Cabinet meeting. “I am not in need of any assistance in navigating our relations with the U.S. and the international community,” he said.

Pissing Bibi off by being too much a vocal throbbing hemorrhoid, given Bibi's status that way, is beyond the pale. More from the AP report:

Ben-Gvir and other key members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition have threatened to bring down the government if they believe he is too soft on Hamas. Netanyahu said the military was carrying out “very aggressive raids” in northern and central Gaza while dealing with remaining Hamas battalions around Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.

[..] The war in Gaza has leveled vast swaths of the tiny enclave, displaced 85% of its population and pushed a quarter of residents to starvation. The Health Ministry in Gaza said 127 bodies had been brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall death toll to 27,365. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says most of those killed are women and children.

A Crabgrass suggestion, draft the SOB, give him a rifle and gear, and place him in Gaza to show how things should be done. He'd last part of a day and then no longer be a hate monger, instead, a former hate monger.

Yes, that is not said seriously as a realistic option. Yet there is a charm to the thought, nonetheless. Bibi is bad enough. Adding such dreck to his governing coalition is/was a precursor to the Hamas incursion into Israel. 

BOTTOM LINE: We must fully and honestly understand situational realities when considering U.S. policy toward Israel.

_________FURTHER UPDATE________

Times Of Israel, Jan. 2023, re the Ben Gvir government ministerial visit to the Al-Aqsa - Temple Mount site.

Breitbart, re urban tunnel warfare. Yet another dimension of the Hamas - Gaza situation, where  -  Israel is there now, ground troops, so what is next and how should Americans see things? The air war was excessive and absurdly one-sided. It was butchery. Now the world watches. And Biden wants it wrapped up quickly?

Situational realities exist.

Sunday, February 04, 2024

The South Carolina Dem primary results are in. Biden won.

source: nbcnews.com

 

Williamson drew more votes than Dean Phillips. She is better on policy.

cbsnews has begun its horserace coverage - posting which will continue in one form or another on multiple MSM outlets until both parties lock in nominees, i.e., Biden and Trump. As if an ongoing count is news. 

It is validation of an outcome nobody doubts, and such an outcome is not news. News will be ours in November, no earlier, when electors are tallied after the general election vote. May news then be good news.