It's hard to spin that budget vote as anything but a solid win for Democrats

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Sunday October 01, 2023 · 7:13 AM PDT

2023/10/01 · 07:13

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 25: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) joins fellow House Democrats, some who are military veterans, for a news conference to highlight the potential negative affects a federal default could have on veterans benefits at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on May 25, 2023 in Washington, DC. Jeffries continued to insist that "extreme MAGA Republicans" are driving the Congress "down a dangerous road of default." (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) — Democratic House Minority Leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

It’s frankly astounding that facing a Republican-controlled House in the third year of his Presidency, Joe Biden would be in a position to happily place his stamp of approval on a stopgap government funding bill that, as Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin put it, gives the Democrats the “vast majority” of what they want. It’s even more astonishing when you take into account that the virulent conservative opposition to any agreement on funding the government was agitated by none other than Donald Trump, whose hold on the Republican caucus is an established and undeniable fact of life.

Dartagnan

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Friday September 29, 2023 · 9:03 AM PDT

2023/09/29 · 09:03

MAQUOKETA, IOWA - SEPTEMBER 20: 2024 Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a "Commit To Caucus" rally at the Jackson County Fairgrounds on September 20, 2023 in Maquoketa, Iowa. The event is the first of two Trump has scheduled in Iowa today. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) — The teeth are fake. The threat is not.

On November 10, 2016, two days after the election that inflicted Donald Trump on all of us, the Russian-American journalist and author Masha Gessen published their seminal essay, “Autocracy: Rules for Survival,” in the New York Review of Books. Gessen’s terse, cogent primer set forth six indefatigable rules for the American public about the autocratic nature of Donald Trump, what his ascent to power entailed for American citizens wholly unfamiliar with living under an autocratic personality, and how to cope with it if we wanted to preserve our democratic system.

That essay was read by millions, and routinely cited and referenced on this site and elsewhere, for one reason: It proved (almost immediately) to be disturbingly accurate. Of Gessen’s six rules, however, it is the first, “Believe the autocrat. He means what he says,” that has flummoxed those in the media who still, after seven years, cannot seem to internalize that, in Trump, we are dealing with a Hitlerian personality. (For those who might scoff at this comparison, I suggest they closely read Volker Ullrich’s “Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939.”) Trump is wholly intent on turning this country into an oppressive, quasi-fascist state, embracing lawlessness, intimidation, and violence as a means toward preserving its power.

Dartagnan

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Thursday September 28, 2023 · 1:46 PM PDT

2023/09/28 · 13:46

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 17: A mobile billboard calling for higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy depicts an image of billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos, near the U.S. Capitol on May 17, 2021 in Washington, DC. Organized by the group "Patriotic Millionaires," the mobile billboards are rolling through Washington, DC and New York City on Monday to mark Tax Day, calling for higher taxes for wealthy Americans. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

While House Republicans waste the nation’s time squandering taxpayer dollars on their Fox News-inspired, sham impeachment inquiry, the wealthiest people who they actually represent continue to thumb their noses at paying their own share of taxes. In fact, many of the nation’s ultra-rich simply refuse to file returns at all, often avoiding any tax payments for years.

For the most part, Republicans seldom (if ever) condemn the prevalence of this tax cheating among the country’s “elite;” in fact, they seem to condone it, probably because it dovetails well with their ultimate goal of crippling the federal government’s ability to function. In fact, the slogan “Defund the IRS” would probably be a key plank in the Republican party’s platform (if they ever bothered to write one). It’s pithy, mindless, and misleading: thus, it’s perfectly suited to their incurious base. As noted by Mark Sumner reporting earlier this month, it’s only when tax avoidance is committed by one of their political enemies—President Biden’s son, Hunter, for example—that Republicans find something of value about the Internal Revenue Service. In those circumstances, however, their argument turns on its head and instead of being demonized for being too intrusive, the IRS is castigated instead for not enforcing the law harshly enough.

But that happens rarely, because the people most literally “invested” in cheating on their taxes are the same people the Republican party exists to protect. And now we have some real numbers that clarify just how much that protection costs the rest of us, who actually try to obey the law.

Dartagnan

Community

Tuesday September 26, 2023 · 9:43 AM PDT

2023/09/26 · 09:43

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 19: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to a crowd at the North Charleston Coliseum on April 19, 2023 in North Charleston, South Carolina. The Governor's appearance marks his first official visit to the "First in the South" presidential primary state amid mounting anticipation of his 2024 presidential candidacy. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

The attempted erasure of LGBTQ+ people is accelerating in the state of Florida, thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis, his Republican colleagues in the Florida Legislature, and compliant school officials. As reported by journalist and attorney Judd Legum, writing for Popular Information, in Charlotte County, Florida, an entire school district has banned all library books containing any LGBTQ+ individuals, regardless of whether any “sexual” or sexuality-affirming content is involved.

The school district apparently did not publicize its action. Legum reports that the guidance for the district’s librarians, purportedly issued in late July of this year, was obtained through a public records request submitted by the Florida Freedom to Read Project, known as FFTRP. That organization provided “a document memorializing a July 24 conversation” between district Superintendent Mark Vianello and the Charlotte district librarians. According to those documents, the policy includes the removal of all books that include or depict an LGBTQ+ person.

Dartagnan

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Monday September 25, 2023 · 8:45 AM PDT

2023/09/25 · 08:45

A member of the US military visits Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, May 24, 2019, ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. - Section 60 is the final resting place for US soldiers killed in America's most recent wars, especially Iraq and Afghanistan. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

No one in this country would contest or doubt the sacrifices made by veterans of the two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, launched by the George W. Bush administration in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Nor can or should anyone ignore the fact that many of those veterans made the ultimate sacrifice, some permanently maimed, blinded or disfigured as a consequence of fulfilling their duty, and many, of course, by paying with their own lives. Those heroes fallen in the line of their service in particular are every bit as deserving a memorial on our hallowed ground than any killed in Vietnam, Korea, or the two world wars of the 20th century.

What they don’t deserve, however, is to be memorialized in the name of a purely political construct called the “Global War on Terrorism.” In particular, to suggest that the 4431 American troops killed in Iraq died in the pursuance of an amorphous “war on terror” is simply a whitewashing of the genesis and rationale for that war, an attempted justification for something patently unjustifiable. On one level it is an unfortunate consequence of this country’s tendency to reflexively treat its own history as something noble rather than to face a much less pleasant reality. On another level it’s even insidious because, by wrapping itself in a cloak of patriotism, it actually distorts and misrepresents that history.

Dartagnan for Kitchen Table Kibitzing

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Saturday September 23, 2023 · 5:30 PM PDT

2023/09/23 · 17:30

This is rather disturbing, even for those of us who (by now) are not so easily disturbed.

From Andrew Paul, writing for Popular Science:

On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s controversial brain-computer interface startup Neuralink announced it received an independent review board’s approval to begin a six-year-long human clinical trial. Neuralink’s application for quadriplegic volunteers, particularly those suffering from spinal column injuries and ALS, is now open. Less than a day later, however, a Wired investigation revealed grisly details surrounding the deaths of the monkeys used in Neuralink’s experiments–deaths that Elon Musk has denied were directly caused by the implants.

Almost simultaneously a medical ethics organization focused on animal rights filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission urging SEC to investigate Neuralink for alleged “efforts to mislead investors about the development history and safety of the device.” In Thursday’s email to PopSci, the committee urged potential Neuralink volunteers to reconsider their applications.

Dartagnan

Community

Thursday September 21, 2023 · 12:06 PM PDT

2023/09/21 · 12:06

THE VILLAGES, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 03: President Donald Trump speaks with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during an event at the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center on October 03, 2019 in The Villages, Florida. President Trump spoke at the event about Medicare, and signed an executive order calling for further privatizing of it. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Donald Trump has done something remarkable over the past week: He’s actually remained focused on something. During Sunday’s “Meet The Press” debacle, he told his hapless interlocutor, Kristen Welker, that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had made a “terrible mistake” in signing a six-week abortion ban. He also vaguely claimed that, if reelected in 2024, he’d be able to negotiate a “compromise” and impose some type of national abortion prohibition acceptable to everyone.

Facing predictable hand-wringing and consternation from his fellow Republicans, on Wednesday Trump did what he always does: He doubled down, telling an audience in Iowa that Republicans need to learn how to “properly talk about abortion,” and warning Republicans that they could lose the House majority “and perhaps the presidency itself” if they kept pushing more violent and draconian intrusions into people’s personal reproductive lives.

First, let’s be clear on one thing: As Adam Serwer concisely puts it in the title to his latest essay for The Atlantic, “Trump Is the Reason Women Can’t Get Abortions,” and, of course, that’s true for anyone who may become pregnant.

Dartagnan

Community

Wednesday September 20, 2023 · 3:36 PM PDT

2023/09/20 · 15:36

Donadl Trump speaks at rally in Greenville, NC, on Oct. 15, 2020 — Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Twenty-seven years ago, Fox News made its first appearance on American television screens. In October 1996, it would have seemed foolhardy to assume that this tacky corporate creature—an embarrassing facsimile of actual journalism, patently dedicated to serve as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party—would eventually metastasize into an impermeable, alternative universe for millions of Americans. Few would have guessed that within two decades we’d actually witness the core functions and operations of our government appropriated, coopted, and bastardized simply to promote that network's constant spigot of inflammatory lies and misinformation, even when the very lives of its own viewers were literally put at risk as a result.

That transformation reached its apotheosis during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Fox’s fountain of rank COVID denialism was duly parroted day after day, month after month, by elected Republicans. As the pandemic spread into the so-called “heartland” of America, the bacillus of Fox News proved itself as insidious as the virus itself, with its viewers absorbing and internalizing its preposterous science denial and anti-vaccination rhetoric. This doubtlessly led (as suggested by several studies conducted afterward) to the sickness and premature death of many Americans.

The saddest and most depressing aspect of all this, however, was that no one seemed surprised. By that time, Fox’s tentacles had already infiltrated nearly all of our nation’s institutions, transforming our entire political system with a malignancy that has proved impossible to eradicate. Even now, the remainder of our media seem unwilling to acknowledge the wholesale degradation Fox has inflicted on this nation, its discourse, its politics, and its institutions.

During his entire tenure, Donald Trump huddled with and spoke through his willing vessels at Fox News; the Republican Congress has conducted pointless, wasteful political show trials based on Fox-driven fantasies; and even the conservative federal judiciary began to blatantly regurgitate Fox’s hyperbolic, fact-challenged talking points in its legal opinions. Yet, despite its corrosive influence, the media continues to treat Fox News as simply another legitimate player in the information ecosystem, something to be envied, even emulated, occasionally criticized, but never truly called to account. The first rule about Fox News for the rest of the media, it seems, is that you don’t talk about Fox News.

Now it appears likely the American people are about to witness the consequences of that neglect, in the form of a wholly contrived, factually baseless presidential impeachment, with no purpose other than to satisfy Fox News’ hyperpartisan fever-dream agenda. It remains to be seen, what, if any, response the “reality-based” journalistic community is prepared to give to this coming travesty.

Dartagnan for Community Contributors Team

Community

Friday September 15, 2023 · 6:30 AM PDT

2023/09/15 · 06:30

LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 23: Items from a collection of metal plaques and sculptures taken from modern-day Nigeria in 1897, commonly referred to as the Benin Bronzes, are seen in a gallery of African relics in the British Museum on August 23, 2023 in London, England. British Museum officials launched an investigation into the theft of its artefacts after discovering that stolen items, comprising of gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and glass valued at up to Â£50,000, were being sold on eBay for as little as Â£40. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images) — Items from a collection of metal plaques and sculptures taken from modern-day Nigeria in 1897, commonly referred to as the Benin Bronzes, are seen in a gallery of African relics in the British Museum on Aug. 23, 2023, in London, England.

Bélizaire was a young man of mixed-race lineage, enslaved by the family of the banker and merchant Frederick Frey in early 19th-century Louisiana. He was about 15 years old when the famous French neo-classical portraitist Jacques Guilliaume Lucien Amans arrived at the Frey home on Royal Street in the French Quarter to paint a portrait.

Like other wealthy Louisiana families, the Freys were probably thrilled to commission a painting of their young family as an emblem of their status among New Orleans' elite. They'd owned Bélizaire since he was 6, and with the Freys having sold all of his siblings (save one) in the span of time since then, it seems clear that the young man knew no other family. He'd spent nearly a decade taking care of their precious children, picking up after them day after day, playing games with them, and serving as their sitter and caretaker. He was indeed a valued and even beloved possession, if not an actual member of the family. The year was (probably) 1837, and in the free-thinking spirit of the times, the Freys must have felt, why not include him in the painting?

RELATED STORY: Florida looked for 'opposing viewpoints' on slavery

Dartagnan

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Thursday September 14, 2023 · 7:33 AM PDT

2023/09/14 · 07:33

MONTGOMERY, AL - MAY 19: A protestor dressed as a character from the Hulu TV show "The Handmaid's Tale," based on the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, walks back to her car after participating in a rally against one of the nation's most restrictive bans on abortions on May 19, 2019 in Montgomery, Alabama. Demonstrators gathered to protest HB 314, a bill passed by the Alabama Legislature last week making almost all abortion procedures illegal. (Photo by Julie Bennett/Getty Images)

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the potential timeline for U.S. adoption of tests that identify if a patient has taken mifepristone or misoprostol; a previous headline incorrectly stated that the tests were already available in the United States.

The prospect of modern medical technology and science being wielded by religious fanatics to enforce their dogma sounds like something out of dystopian fiction. However, thanks to some Polish scientists, elected Republicans in red states will soon have a new tool to identify people who seek medical abortions despite forced-birth laws they’ve imposed ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

A simple blood test can now detect the presence of mifepristone, the progesterone-blocking medication colloquially known as the “abortion pill.” The test can be administered by any competent lab technician or medical practitioner who may suspect that their patient has taken the drug to terminate (or try to terminate) an unwanted pregnancy. Likewise, a tissue test has been developed to detect the presence of misoprostol, the uterus-emptying drug used in tandem with mifepristone. Both tests were developed by researchers in Poland—a nation which has effectively outlawed abortion and has imposed surveillance and threats of prosecution towards anyone suspected of violating the prohibition.

Dartagnan

Community

Wednesday September 13, 2023 · 2:04 PM PDT

2023/09/13 · 14:04

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 13: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) speaks with reporters during a series of the votes at the U.S. Capitol Building on February 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. Officials announced over the weekend that for the fourth time in two weeks U.S. forces had shot down a high flying object in North American airspace. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

McKay Coppins, a journalist and staff writer at The Atlantic, is the author of a forthcoming biography about Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney. That book, “Romney: A Reckoning,” appears to dovetail quite well with the senator’s plans to retire, announced Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Coppins published a piece in The Atlantic featuring some excerpts from his book. They are eye-opening, to say the least, not so much for what they reveal about Romney himself, but for their frank and brutal assessment of Romney’s Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate, particularly their slavish fealty to Donald Trump.

According to Coppins, when he and Romney began to meet privately for the book in 2021, the senator had not advised any other senators that he’d begun working with a biographer, meeting most often at Romney’s Washington, D.C., residence. Coppins acknowledges that he didn’t expect the level of candor Romney exhibited towards him.

From acknowledging that a “very large” segment of the Republican party “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution,” to his frank accounts of other Republican senators’ true feelings about Donald Trump, Romney doesn’t appear to have held anything back from his biographer, often providing unedited texts, emails and documents for Coppins’ thorough perusal. Even though Romney had privately advised Coppins early on that he wasn’t going to seek reelection, Coppins came away with the impression that there was something “beyond his own political future” that accounted for his startling honesty.

That “something,” Coppins believes, was “not just about the decomposition of his own political party, but about the fate of the American project itself.”

RELATED STORY: Romney is rare Republican who bucks Trump, but he's no hero

Dartagnan

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday September 12, 2023 · 6:06 PM PDT

2023/09/12 · 18:06

FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY - DECEMBER 30: Tagreed Husain (R), Employee of the German Red Cross, prepares syringes with Moderna vaccine against Covid-19 in a mobile vaccination station in a street tram during the novel coronavirus pandemic on December 30, 2021 in Frankfurt, Germany. Approximately 71% of people in Germany are now fully vaccinated and 36.6% have received a booster shot. Meanwhile Germany has confirmed over 10,000 infections with the Omicron variant, a number health experts predict will rise rapidly in coming weeks. (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

Hear ye, hear ye, this PSA.

From the Washington Post:

Virtually all Americans should get an updated coronavirus shot, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Tuesday, with the vaccine expected to become available within 48 hours — as the respiratory illness season looms.

Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC, advised that anyone 6 months and older should get at least one dose of an updated shot. Her broad recommendation came after the agency’s expert advisers voted for a universal approach to seasonal coronavirus vaccination. The shots are intended to bolster defenses as the nation heads into the fall and winter virus season, when influenza and RSV are also primed to be on the rise.

Cohen said the reformulated vaccines can restore protection and provide “enhanced protection” against variants currently responsible for most infections and hospitalizations in the United States. Cohen followed the lead of the agency’s vaccine experts who earlier in the day voted for the universal vaccination policy

The CDC press release is here:

Most Americans can still get a COVID-19 vaccine for free. For people with health insurance, most plans will cover COVID-19 vaccine at no cost to you. People who don’t have health insurance or with health plans that do not cover the cost can get a free vaccine from their local health centers; state, local, tribal, or territorial health department; and pharmacies participating in the CDC’s Bridge Access Program. Children eligible for the Vaccines for Children program also may receive the vaccine from a provider enrolled in that program.

Those recently vaccinated should allow two months before getting the updated shot. Those who have been recently infected can get it “as soon as they’re feeling better,” per the CDC, and according to the Post article.

The move paves the way for some clinicians, pharmacies and other providers to begin administering the shots by later this week. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 13-1 to recommend updated shots from Moderna and from Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, for anyone 6 months and older.

[...]

The CDC recommends that everyone 5 and older receive a single dose of the updated vaccine regardless of whether they have gotten a vaccine before. Children 6 months to 4 years old who have not received a coronavirus vaccine are advised to receive a primary series with two Moderna doses or three Pfizer-BioNTech doses. The doses should be from the same manufacturer. People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised and haven’t been vaccinated against the coronavirus should receive three doses of the updated vaccine.

It’s going to be a long winter. Get the shot.

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It's hard to spin that budget vote as anything but a solid win for Democrats

'Be outraged': The New York Times finally acknowledges the dangers of Trumpian Fascism

Over 1.4 million of wealthiest Americans didn't bother to file required tax returns from 2017-2020

Florida school district bans all library books containing LGBTQ characters, says they 'cannot exist'

With respect, it shouldn't be called a 'Global War on Terrorism' memorial

Kitchen Table Kibitzing 9/23/23: Brain damage, Elon Musk, and 12 monkeys

Trump's messy abortion switcheroo is latest proof he and Republicans are running scared

Coming soon: A sham impeachment, brought to you by Fox News

Painted out of existence, Bélizaire is just one example of erasure of Black figures in history

Are tests that identify use of the 'abortion pill' coming to a red state near you?

Romney reveals what he really thinks about Trump, GOP senators, but it's too little, too late

CDC says everyone over 6 months old should get updated COVID vaccine, will be available in 48 hours