Month: March 2021

Philip Bump of the Washington Post gets straight to the point:

By early May 2019, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani must have looked like the international espionage equivalent of a wide-eyed tourist walking around with his wallet hanging out his back pocket. He’d announced his intention to travel to Ukraine and seek out derogatory information about Joe Biden, then a newly announced presidential candidate and someone well positioned to face President Donald Trump, then Giuliani’s boss, in the 2020 election. For any Russian officials interested in finding a conduit for misinformation that both cast their geopolitical rival Ukraine as corrupt and that bolstered Trump’s chances of reelection, Giuliani must have been an irresistible target.

A report released by the Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday strongly suggests that this is exactly what happened.

I didn’t need to read a report from the Intelligence Community to know this because it was completely obvious and I spent a good part of two years writing about Giuliani being a conduit of Russian disinformation that went straight to the president of the United States.

At one point, I called what Giuliani was doing the biggest scandal in the political history of the country, and I think that’s been borne out even if the reaction is strangely muted. He’s been a witting agent of a foreign power who has simultaneously looked at every turn to make a buck. I’m not going to through the history again right now. Follow the links if you need a refresher. I’ve never seen anyone more in similarly prominent position more in need of jail time than Giuliani, and I hope it doesn’t take too much longer for the Department of Justice to hand down a phone book’s worth of indictments.

Hi,

Another midweek, another post. Here’s something recent that Kim Gordon dropped:

In the COVID era, making music videos is a bit of a challenge. One solution? Find a fairly abandoned looking shopping area, and turn the casting into a bit of a family venture – that’s Coco Gordon Moore (Kim Gordon’s daughter) starring, and Kim herself making an appearance in this vid. It’s also a nod to the old No Wave era of the end of the 1970s, as well as to some of the better work that Sonic Youth did back when that band was still viable. Maybe a good thing Kim Gordon and her ex don’t share a stage or recording studio these days. Kim’s still challenging her listeners, even with the occasional nod to her past.

The jukebox is on and the bar is open. Make yourself at home. I’ll set the speakers to eleven if there’s no one talking. Take care and stay safe.

Cheers!

Two things should be clear about Irvine, California sophomore congresswoman Katie Porter. As a freshman lawmaker, she was an absolute star on the Financial Services Committee and the reason she no longer serves on that committee is entirely her fault.

Educated at Phillips Academy and Yale, Porter is a professor and attorney with a Harvard law degree. She’s also a 47 year old single mother of three whose politics are decidedly progressive, especially for the traditionally Republican Orange County district she represents.

In the U.S. Congress, she quickly gained notice through her sharp questioning of Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. She humiliated Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Kathy Kraninger by exposing their ignorance about issues under their purview.

Her compelling performances went viral and earned her a dedicated following, helping to explain why she was one of the top fundraisers in the 2020 election cycle. However, as Jennifer Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times explains,  behind the scenes Porter clashed with committee chairwoman Maxine Waters:

The first time Porter tried to use a poster board in the committee, Waters upheld a Republican objection, citing committee rules. When Porter came back to another hearing with a “Financial Services bingo” board, Waters again told her to take it down. “We’ve talked about this before,” she said.

Porter balked at Waters’ ruling. “Are we adding additional committee rules at this time?” asked Porter, whose use of such props was not an issue on the House Oversight Committee. In a show of her emerging political star power, Porter eventually got to display the bingo poster — on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

If you’re familiar with the no-nonsense Chairwoman Waters, you can imagine how the Seth Meyers incident went over with her. But it wasn’t showing up her boss that cost Porter her spot on Financial Services. It also wasn’t punishment for taking on banking executives, as some progressives have suggested.

To understand what happened it’s necessary to know how committee assignments are doled out by the Democratic House leadership. There are four highly coveted “exclusive” committees (Appropriations, Energy & Commerce, Financial Services, Ways & Means). Serving on any of them involves an above-average time commitment which is offset somewhat by the ease with which members can raise money once they’re in a role that oversees government taxing, spending or economic regulation. For these reasons, if a Democrat serving on an exclusive committee wants any additional committee assignments, they must obtain a waiver.

Handled by the House Steering Committee, the waivers are frequently granted. Without one, Porter could not have served on the Oversight Committee during her first term. Yet, as Porter should have known, the waivers are not automatic.

The most important fact in this debate is that Porter did not tell the Steering Committee that Financial Services was her first choice committee. She didn’t even tell them it was her second choice committee.

When it came time to request committee assignments in the new year, Porter raised eyebrows once again. She requested to remain on Oversight and join the Natural Resources committee as her top two choices. Then she asked for a waiver to continue on Financial Services.

That was a bass-ackwards way of filling out her preferences. If she had made Financial Services her first choice she would still be sitting on Financial Services. It’s doubtful that she would have been denied a waiver to sit on Oversight again and she may well have been granted another for the Natural Resources slot she coveted. But she wanted to make a point that service on Financial Services shouldn’t be exclusive.

For some Democrats, the biggest snub came late last year when Porter lobbied to take Financial Services off the list of exclusive committees. That top-tier designation comes with a price: members may not serve on any other committee unless they receive a waiver.

Such waivers are not rare. But if Financial Services were no longer exclusive, it would be easier for new members like Porter to remain on the committee while also branching into other areas without the need for special permission.

The freshman lawmaker did not convince the House leadership to change the exclusivity system. So, instead of requesting a waiver to sit on committees other than Financial Services, she requested a waiver in order to serve on Financial Services.

It was a ridiculous decision and the House leadership treated it that way. They gave her two top choices but denied the waiver request. They also approved a gavel for Porter on the Natural Resources Oversight & Investigations subcommittee where she can put her superb interrogating skills to good use.

Porter wasn’t wronged by the House leadership. They gave her what she said she wanted for her top two committee assignments. It’s true that she might have been granted the Financial Services waiver if she hadn’t run afoul of Waters and made waves about the assignment rules, but she would not have been kicked off the committee if she’d made it her first choice. There are a lot more congresspeople seeking to serve on Financial Services than there are slots, so Porter was betting that her star-turn on the committee would intimidate the Steering Committee into bending to her will.

Porter likes to buck the system which is admirable and has earned her some hard core fans, but she has no one to blame but herself for how things turned out in this case.

The Catholic Church just reiterated its refusal to bless gay marriages, which should surprise exactly no one but is still causing outrage. The opinion was released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office responsible for expounding on official doctrine.

Their reasoning is entirely consistent with the Church’s understanding of human sexuality going back millennia.

…it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.

The Holy See would have to abandon its conception of the purpose of marriage in order to give approval to marriages that cannot “bear fruit.” If you’re really interested in all the doctrinal obstacles involved here, you’ll have to delve into the role of “sacraments” and “sacramentals,” and that’s explained in the Vatican’s letter. The short version is that a “blessing” isn’t considered a casual thing that can be issued just to be polite or on the right side of public opinion. They can’t bless something that flagrantly contradicts their doctrine.

Consequently, in order to conform with the nature of sacramentals, when a blessing is invoked on particular human relationships, in addition to the right intention of those who participate, it is necessary that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord. Therefore, only those realities which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of the blessing imparted by the Church.

So, again, this comes down to marriage. What is it for? The Church says “by its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory.”

Marriage is “ordered to procreation” and is fundamental. All else flows from it.

Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

This language comes across as harsh and almost nonsensical. How is a marriage between a same-sex couple not “even remotely analogous” to a marriage between a man and a woman? It comes down to sex.

Sex is only permissible if there is at least an openness to procreation involved, and only within the confines of a sanctified marriage. Were the Church to reconsider this doctrine, it would have to alter its position on a lot more than gay marriage, and they are not prepared to do that.

As a Protestant-raised agnostic, I have no bone in this fight. People can belong to the Church and accept its understanding of marriage and human sexuality or they can fight to change it. Others can leave the faith for another more compatible with their beliefs. It’s makes no difference to me.

But it’s important to understand that this isn’t a small thing the Church is being asked to alter. It’s bedrock stuff that implicates everything from birth control, celibacy, sex outside of marriage, the marriage sacrament, the purpose of marriage, and the role of sacramental blessings. It’s really a way of looking at human beings’ role in the universe that can’t be tweaked to accommodate a modern understanding of human sexuality and relationships.

If you’re down with this worldview, then Catholicism is the religion for you. If you’re not, then gay marriage isn’t by any means the only area where you’re going to be disappointed on sexual matters within the faith.

Having said that, Pope Francis has been significantly more tolerant and welcoming of the LGBT community than any of his predecessors. Even this ruling, which he approved, sounds apologetic in its overall tone.

The declaration of the unlawfulness of blessings of unions between persons of the same sex is not therefore, and is not intended to be, a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them.

The Christian community and its Pastors are called to welcome with respect and sensitivity persons with homosexual inclinations, and will know how to find the most appropriate ways, consistent with Church teaching, to proclaim to them the Gospel in its fullness.

In the end, though, they are compelled to call homosexual acts and same-sex marriage “sinful,” because there’s no doctrinal way to avoid that conclusion that’s consistent with its holistic view of God’s plan for humanity.

As I said above, anyone who wants to change this is facing a big challenge. They’ll have my respect and best wishes. For me, though, I can’t find anything significant to fault in the latest ruling that wasn’t already baked in the cake before it. It’s a religion-a way of understanding the world and our place in it. Their way is not my way but that’s easy for me to say because I wasn’t brought up in that faith.

As an outsider, I think Pope Francis has done a lot to modernize the Church’s position and I hope he can find ways to do more. I won’t bash him for this ruling even if it’s obviously disappointing. The Church’s way of thinking about sex and marriage is nearly set in stone and hard to change, but how it treats people is very flexible. Pope Francis understands this and he deserves credit for it.

As an American, I’ve been in denial about how the world perceives us after Trump was elected president and then received 74 million votes in his failed bid for reelection. I’m horrified by the nearly 600,000 of my fellow citizens who have died of COVID-19, but I often forget how big this failure looks from the outside, particularly when paired with our nation’s reputation for scientific excellence. I probably am also treating the recent improvement in pandemic conditions here as somewhat inevitable rather than the result of changes in policy under President Biden.

But I’m disabused of my complacency when I read about what’s going on in Brazil, the country where the Trumpist president never left.

Tom Phillips of The Guardian reports from Rio de Janeiro:

t was midway through February when André Machado realized Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe was racing into a bewildering and remorseless new phase. “The floodgates opened and the water came gushing out,” recalled the infectious disease specialist from the Our Lady of the Conception hospital in Porto Alegre, one of the largest cities in southern Brazil.

Since then, Machado’s hospital, like health centres up and down the country, has been engulfed by a deluge of jittery, gasping patients – many of them previously healthy and bafflingly young.

Part of the problem is no doubt a new variant of the virus that is both more infectious and more lethal, especially to younger populations. But, remember, variants arise when the virus is spreading widely, which is what happens when you adopt Trumpist pandemic policies that discourage masks and social distancing and raise doubts about the seriousness of the disease.

At the end of last year Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro – a Donald Trump-worshiping populist who has gleefully sabotaged Covid containment efforts – declared his country had reached “the tail end” of what was already one of the world’s worst outbreaks.

Bolsonaro was wrong.

Three months later Latin America’s largest nation has lost almost 100,000 more lives – taking its total death toll to more than 275,000, second only to the US – and been plunged into the deadliest chapter of its 13-month epidemic.

It hurts to read that paragraph and understand that as bad as Brazil has done, “they’re second only to the US.” But it’s also a possible image of where this country would be right now if Trump had been reelected.

In truth, the situation in Brazil is not just a catastrophe there, but a potential catastrophe for the whole world. As we race to contain the virus with vaccines, Brazil’s lax policies have already resulted in a nasty variant. It appears that the Pfizer vaccine, at least, can defeat the Brazilian strain, but more could arise that our vaccines cannot handle. This is why President Biden said that Texas and Mississippi leaders are “neanderthals” for doing away with COVID-19 containment efforts before our inoculation efforts are complete. We don’t want to live in Brazil’s alternate reality:

This week, as a record 2,349 daily deaths were reported, the former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva castigated Bolsonaro’s “moronic” handling of the crisis and urged citizens to confront their incompetent “blowhard” leader. “This country is in a state of utter tumult and confusion because there’s no government. I’ll repeat that: this country has no government,” Lula declared, blaming Bolsonaro’s “uncivilised” leadership and rejection of science for the scale of Brazil’s disaster.

“So, so many lives could have been saved,” Lula claimed, warning: “Covid is taking over the country.”

Our country had “no government” until noon on January 20. Looking at Brazil, it’s easy to see how badly we were doing before that and how fortunate we are that we changed course and elected Biden.

Edward-Isaac Dovere asks what it would be like to have Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman “lumbering around the Senate.” Fetterman seems larger than his official height of 6’8″ and his body is filled with tattoos, including of every victim murdered in Braddock, the run-down mostly black municipality outside Pittsburgh, during the 14 years he served there as mayor. With his “biker-bar bouncer’s chin beard” and enormous head, Fetterman is frightening at a distance, but a real softy once you get to know him. He’s the kind of man who could be best friends with progressive stalwarts Sen. Mazie Hirono or Sen. Bernie Sanders while simultaneously making Sen. Rand Paul quake in his loafers.

In my opinion, Fetterman is the most attractive Senate candidate I’ve seen in years, and the best ever in my home state of Pennsylvania. His appearance, politics, personality, and regional base would be a perfect contrast and complement to Sen. Bob Casey Jr.  One bland, buttoned-up, non-descript. The other profane, unconventional, an imposing presence in any setting. One socially conservative and economically liberal, and the other known for his bold support of gay rights and his push to legalize marijuana. One based in the East, the other in the West.

I have nothing against North Philly state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta who is running against Fetterman for the Democratic nomination. Either would be infinitely preferable to the retiring Pat Toomey. But this is a no-brainer for me. I’ll all aboard the Fetterman bus.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Connor Hotel in Jerome, Arizona. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 9×9 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

Forging ahead with the painting, I have now added another layer to the hotel’s upper story and the first real color to the lower. The street, cars and awning have all received some attention. Note the building to the far rear as well. It’s starting to become unified.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

If you’re a geek like me, there are some things that you don’t properly value until they’re gone and then, after a while, you forget they ever existed. That’s what happened to me with State Department press briefings. They were always there so I didn’t pay a ton of attention to them unless something big was on the horizon. Then Trump came along and ended the regular briefings.  Suddenly, it was next to impossible to learn what our diplomats were doing. This actually bothered me quite a bit, especially because Trump was doing so many unorthodox and destructive things, like buddying up to North Korea, ripping up the Iran Nuclear Deal and Paris Climate Accords, and relentlessly attacking NATO and the European Union. The Department was never the driver for most of this, especially prior to Mike Pompeo leaving the CIA for State in April 2018, and they often were doing little more than clean-up duty. But that actually made their work more intriguing than normal and, yet, their activities were opaque.

Anthony Blinkin took the reins from Pompeo in late-January and is just now getting started on implementing Biden’s foreign policy agenda. It begins with a trip to Japan and South Korea next week. Blinkin and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will meet their counterparts and set the table for visit from Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga, who will be the first foreign official to visit President Biden in the White House.

Curious about this, I visited the State Department website and quickly found a transcript of Thursday’s press briefing. Conducted by Ned Price, the department’s spokesperson, it was chock full of interesting information. It was only then I realized just how much I had missed the access these briefings provide. Our allies and adversaries were also missing it. The briefings are an indispensable tool in how governments communicate with each other, and with the public.

I’ve been preoccupied with domestic politics for a while, and it was only through reading the transcript that I learned that ISIS is causing mayhem in Mozambique where 670,000 people have been run out of their homes by the violence. Similar problems are vexing the Congo. I also got some insights on how the Quad (United States, Australia, India and Japan) are being organized to confront Chinese influence in the Far East.

If you’re willing to take the time to read this material for yourself, it beats having it distilled by the beat reporters. They ask good questions, especially compared to what we typically see asked at White House press briefings, which are mainly efforts to go viral for the nightly broadcasts.

Anyway, I’m just grateful to see our diplomatic efforts resuming a familiar form, even if I’m a little embarrassed that I took so much of this for granted in the pre-Trump days.

Hi photo lovers.

This photo is definitely not one of my best, but it is a reminder that spring is not that far away. Just a few short weeks ago, we were wondering if the Arctic weather we experienced would, in the short term, lead to power outages and shortages of supplies once the roads became semi-passable. It crossed my mind that some long term loss of plant life could occur as well. Sure enough, I see some evergreen plants and trees that have probably been killed off. I am wondering if our rose bush has any life left in it. We’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, it looks like our tree near the garage will be just fine. It’s already showing those tentative early signs of blossoming.

I am still using my same equipment, and am no professional. If you are an avid photographer, regardless of your skills and professional experience, you are in good company here. Booman Tribune was blessed with very talented photographers in the past. At Progress Pond, we seem to have a few talented photographers now, a few of whom seem to be lurking I suppose.

I have been using an LG v40 ThinQ for over two years. It seems to serve me well, for now, but I know that the lives of these devices are limited. Most of my family seems to be gravitating toward iPhones, so I suspect I may eventually have to succumb and go to the Dark Side of The Force. In a recessionary environment, my default is to avoid major purchases for as long as possible. So, unless something really goes wrong with my current phone, I’ll stick to the status quo for as long as possible. Keep in mind that my last Samsung kept going for over four years (the last year was a bit touch and go). Once I do have to make a new smart phone purchase, the camera feature is the one I consider most important. So any advice on such matters is always appreciated. Occasionally I get to use my old 35 mm, but one of my daughters seems to have commandeered it. So it goes.

This series of posts is in honor of a number of our ancestors. At one point, there were some seriously great photographers who graced Booman Tribune with their work. They are all now long gone. I am the one who carries the torch. I keep this going because I know that one day I too will be gone, and I really want the work that was started long ago to continue, rather than fade away with me. If I see that I am able to incite a few others to fill posts like these with photos, then I will be truly grateful. In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and I am sure between Booman and myself we can pass along quite a bit of knowledge about the photo flog series from its inception back during the Booman Tribune days.

Since this post usually runs only a day, I will likely keep it up for a while. Please share your work. I am convinced that us amateurs are extremely talented. You will get nothing but love and support here. I mean that. Also, when I say that you don’t have to be a photography pro, I mean that as well. I am an amateur. This is my hobby. This is my passion. I keep these posts going only because they are a passion. If they were not, I would have given up a long time ago. My preference is to never give up.

Peace.

To prepare for his bid to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, Marco Rubio is apparently trying to sell himself as the “idea man” of the GOP. In many ways, he is affirming that the traditional economic policies of his party have failed, and he’s doing his best to lay out some new ones. Here’s his starting point:

[Rubio] thinks the “American carnage” that Donald Trump described is real: Corporations are unbolting and shipping factories overseas at an alarming rate; global competitors such as China are all too happy to gorge on the remains; and the federal government does little to bind up the wounds of the workforce left behind, let alone prepare them with the skills needed to get ahead…

“So my argument is that we have to have a capitalist economy,” Rubio explains, “but it has to be a capitalist economy guided by the principle that the market exists to serve the people, not the people to serve the market.”…his approach is that “we need to use the power of incentives to drive the market to reach outcomes that are good for America.”

That is what Rubio calls “common good” conservatism. George Will says it’s basically “anti-capitalist” conservatism. To my ear, it sounds an awful lot like what some people—including Joe Biden—refer to as “stakeholder capitalism.”

During a speech in July, President-elect Joe Biden said that “It’s way past time to put the end to the era of shareholder capitalism. The idea [that] the only responsibility a corporation has is its shareholders—that is simply not true …They have a responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country.”

Whatever Rubio calls his approach, his policy ideas sound downright socialist.

Rubio has also called for an industrial policy to create partnerships between the state and private businesses wherever national security is involved…Rather than let a global market determine which company to support — lest that corporation go overseas in search of lower labor costs and higher profit margins — the senator would have the federal government prop up domestic manufacturing in critical sectors. Think steel, semiconductors components and, of particular concern during the pandemic, pharmaceuticals.

Frankly, being an “idea man” in the Republican Party right now is a challenge. Their agenda failed miserably, which is why they are once again resorting to culture wars, voter suppression, and xenophobia. As I’ve noted previously, the dearth of a policy agenda is why we’re seeing things like Sen. Romney proposing a universal child allowance and Sen. Hawley an alternative to raising the minimum wage. Following up on Trump’s supposed “populism,” the GOP is trying to sell itself as “the party of steel workers and construction workers and taxi drivers and cops and firefighters and waitresses,” as Sen. Cruz suggested.

The problem Republicans face with branding themselves as the party of workers is that they remain mired in an economic agenda that has always focused on redistributing resources upward to the wealthy and pretending that the benefits will trickle down to the working class. It never seems to work out that way, though.

In oder to capture the difference between the two major parties in this country, all we need to do is reference a chart put together by the Tax Policy Center. They compared the benefits of the 2017 Republican tax cuts to the recently passed coronavirus relief bill.

The Republicans who are attempting to sell themselves as champions of working class Americans voted for the 2017 tax cuts and against the American Rescue Plan. Now, many of them (including Rubio and Cruz) have signed on to a bill that completely eliminates the estate tax, something that would benefit married couples who inherit over $23 million.

It’s way too early to start talking about the 2024 presidential election. But it is already clear that several potential Republican contenders are going to try to outdo each other with a so-called “populist” message touting their support for working class Americans. But they can’t support anything Democrats try to do, which doesn’t leave them much to work with. So if you’re Marco Rubio, you wind up promoting partnerships between the federal government and private businesses to challenge China’s dominance of critical manufacturing sectors…whatever that means.

Regardless of what these Republican presidential hopefuls propose, if you pull back the curtain and actually look at what they do, you’ll find them more concerned about how much wealthy people pay in inheritance taxes than they do with ensuring that every working American is paid a living wage. In other words, it still looks like the same old Republican Party.