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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
January 16, 2021
Instead, crickets.
If people inside the Capitol are guilty of helping the rioters, it’s likely that sleep is at a premium. A knock on the door could mean an arrest warrant for aiding and abetting sedition and quite possibly capital murder.
Why No "Innocent Explanation" for Pre-Riot Tours?
Damn good question.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/15/2009369/-Why-No-Innocent-Explanation-for-Pre-Riot-Tours
Why No "Innocent Explanation" for Pre-Riot Tours?
zbob
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Friday January 15, 2021 · 9:40 AM EST
By now, anyone following the still unfolding story about the Capitol riot knows about the complaint Rep Mikie Sherrill filed with the Capitol Police the day before. A complaint asking why there were all these tours being given in a building closed to tours since March because of C-19. Tours that might have been used to guide rioters in how to navigate the Capitol maze.
Sometimes a lack of response is telling. One would think that, had there been an innocent explanation for these tours, we would have heard it by now. A representative, or staff person, would have raised its hand and said something like:
Oh, that was us. This was a long planned tour with students from nearby universities to study the Capitol’s architecture, we got special dispensation to conduct the tour, and here’s a list of their names.
Instead, crickets.
If people inside the Capitol are guilty of helping the rioters, it’s likely that sleep is at a premium. A knock on the door could mean an arrest warrant for aiding and abetting sedition and quite possibly capital murder.
January 15, 2021
Thoughts on America
Richard Branson
Published on 15 January 2021
It’s hard to put in words how I felt watching last week’s violent raid on the US Capitol.
snip//
It saddens me just how many people are expressing sympathy for those bent on taking the law into their own hands. They continue to embrace the big lie of a “stolen election”, spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories shrouded in an idea of “patriotism” that rejects pretty much everything that truly makes societies and nations great, like tolerance, diversity, compassion, or solidarity.
One explanation for the outpouring of hate that is shared by many is that a large portion of America’s electorate is gripped by fear of a rapidly changing world and the dismantling of privilege and power generations of white people have come to take for granted, knowingly or not. There is a widespread sense of panic, of loss of control, both in economic and social terms. And because the complexity of a modern, globalised world is daunting and overwhelming, many turn to a more familiar, simpler narrative of good versus evil, us versus them. All nuance is gone. Rather than making America work for everyone, the goal seems to be to burn it down to its foundations. To what end?
I support accountability. Those responsible for the atrocious attack on American democracy must be brought to justice. Not to do so would further undermine the rule of law and raise the question just how much more Trump and his supporters can get away with. There won’t be unity without accountability.
snip//
I have protested and spoken up against US governments many times for foreign and domestic failings, from Vietnam to Iraq, from endemic racism and racial injustice to the death penalty and the so-called war on drugs. But I always did so because I refuse to believe that these challenges cannot be overcome. America’s best days can be ahead, projecting a resilient and unwavering democracy whose enduring principles, strong institutions and moral authority can once again be an inspiration for those struggling for human rights, equality, and the rule of law elsewhere in the world.
No one said this will be easy. But I am hopeful that Joe Biden will be President for Blue and Red, willing to build bridges and ensuring that these States remain United.
Richard Branson: Thoughts on America
https://www.virgin.com/branson-family/richard-branson-blog/thoughts-on-americaThoughts on America
Richard Branson
Published on 15 January 2021
It’s hard to put in words how I felt watching last week’s violent raid on the US Capitol.
snip//
It saddens me just how many people are expressing sympathy for those bent on taking the law into their own hands. They continue to embrace the big lie of a “stolen election”, spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories shrouded in an idea of “patriotism” that rejects pretty much everything that truly makes societies and nations great, like tolerance, diversity, compassion, or solidarity.
One explanation for the outpouring of hate that is shared by many is that a large portion of America’s electorate is gripped by fear of a rapidly changing world and the dismantling of privilege and power generations of white people have come to take for granted, knowingly or not. There is a widespread sense of panic, of loss of control, both in economic and social terms. And because the complexity of a modern, globalised world is daunting and overwhelming, many turn to a more familiar, simpler narrative of good versus evil, us versus them. All nuance is gone. Rather than making America work for everyone, the goal seems to be to burn it down to its foundations. To what end?
I support accountability. Those responsible for the atrocious attack on American democracy must be brought to justice. Not to do so would further undermine the rule of law and raise the question just how much more Trump and his supporters can get away with. There won’t be unity without accountability.
snip//
I have protested and spoken up against US governments many times for foreign and domestic failings, from Vietnam to Iraq, from endemic racism and racial injustice to the death penalty and the so-called war on drugs. But I always did so because I refuse to believe that these challenges cannot be overcome. America’s best days can be ahead, projecting a resilient and unwavering democracy whose enduring principles, strong institutions and moral authority can once again be an inspiration for those struggling for human rights, equality, and the rule of law elsewhere in the world.
No one said this will be easy. But I am hopeful that Joe Biden will be President for Blue and Red, willing to build bridges and ensuring that these States remain United.
January 15, 2021
‘Strong evidence’ suggests Capitol rioters intended to ‘capture and assassinate’ officials, US prosecutors say
Capitol Riots
Brad Heath and Sarah N. Lynch/ Reuters
Posted: Jan 15, 2021 / 08:03 AM CST | Updated: Jan 15, 2021 / 08:03 AM CST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Federal prosecutors offered an ominous new assessment of last week’s siege of the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters on Thursday, saying in a court filing that rioters intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials.”
Prosecutors offered that view in a filing asking a judge to detain Jacob Chansley, the Arizona man and QAnon conspiracy theorist who was famously photographed wearing horns as he stood at the desk of Vice President Mike Pence in the chamber of the U.S. Senate.
The detention memo, written by Justice Department lawyers in Arizona, goes into greater detail about the FBI’s investigation into Chansley, revealing that he left a note for Pence warning that “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”
A public defender representing Chansley could not be immediately reached for comment.
more...
https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/dc-riots/strong-evidence-suggests-capitol-rioters-intended-to-capture-and-assassinate-officials-us-prosecutors-say/
'Strong evidence' suggests Capitol rioters intended to 'capture and assassinate' officials...
‘Strong evidence’ suggests Capitol rioters intended to ‘capture and assassinate’ officials, US prosecutors say
Capitol Riots
Brad Heath and Sarah N. Lynch/ Reuters
Posted: Jan 15, 2021 / 08:03 AM CST | Updated: Jan 15, 2021 / 08:03 AM CST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Federal prosecutors offered an ominous new assessment of last week’s siege of the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters on Thursday, saying in a court filing that rioters intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials.”
Prosecutors offered that view in a filing asking a judge to detain Jacob Chansley, the Arizona man and QAnon conspiracy theorist who was famously photographed wearing horns as he stood at the desk of Vice President Mike Pence in the chamber of the U.S. Senate.
The detention memo, written by Justice Department lawyers in Arizona, goes into greater detail about the FBI’s investigation into Chansley, revealing that he left a note for Pence warning that “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”
“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,” prosecutors wrote.
A public defender representing Chansley could not be immediately reached for comment.
more...
https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/dc-riots/strong-evidence-suggests-capitol-rioters-intended-to-capture-and-assassinate-officials-us-prosecutors-say/
January 15, 2021
Longtime Trump Advisers Connected to Rally
January 15, 2021 at 9:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard
Longtime Trump Advisers Connected to Rally
https://politicalwire.com/2021/01/15/longtime-trump-advisers-connected-to-rally/Longtime Trump Advisers Connected to Rally
January 15, 2021 at 9:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard
ABC News: “Three of the key advisers who helped engineer Donald Trump’s’ rise to the presidency in 2016, and who fell from grace under the weight of federal criminal charges, resurfaced during Trump’s final days in office to help engineer his ill-fated attempt to cling to power.”
“Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn all participated in efforts to promote the Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ event that ultimately devolved into a riotous and deadly melee at the United States Capitol, leaving five dead and causing Trump to become the only president to be impeached for a second time.”
“Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn all participated in efforts to promote the Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ event that ultimately devolved into a riotous and deadly melee at the United States Capitol, leaving five dead and causing Trump to become the only president to be impeached for a second time.”
January 15, 2021
Eric Boehlert: Politico's Ben Shapiro debacle -- zero lessons learned from the Trump era
Politico's Ben Shapiro debacle — zero lessons learned from the Trump era
Platforming a troll
Eric Boehlert
2 hr ago
On the morning after Trump made history by being impeached for the second time, Politico handed over its influential Beltway morning newsletter, Playbook, to Ben Shapiro a bigoted, bomb-throwing media defender of Trump. In his Politico contribution, Shapiro lied about Democrats in an effort to suggest they're being hypocrites about impeachment. Shapiro also stressed that Trump supporters were the real victims in the wake of last week's insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Promoting someone who has a decade-long history of trafficking in lies and deliberate misinformation, created an uproar both inside the publication and outside, as critics lambasted the outlet for glorifying and legitimizing voices like Shapiro's one week after a pro-Trump insurrectionist mob tried to stage a coup. "Whether it be promoting an us versus them mentality, or dismissing the murder of protesters and innocent children, Shapiro helped lay the foundations for today’s political violence," noted Media Matters.
The publication defended itself by pointing out that on Wednesday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes had been tapped as Playbook's guest writer. Apparently that made everything okay because Politico was giving voice to both sides of the debate; because bloody insurrections deserve a Both Sides analysis. It's true Hayes is a liberal and Shapiro is a conservative and that in theory Politico presented contrasting views on back-to-back days. But Hayes is also an honest and insightful analyst, while Shapiro is a congenital liar who delights in hate speech.
National Guard troops now camp out inside the Capitol as the nation braces for more possible political violence from Trump supporters. Yet it’s clear the Beltway press has learned little over the last four years in terms of normalizing radical, deceitful behavior from the right, while hiding behind the Both Sides shield to deflect criticism aimed at awful journalism decisions.
more...
https://pressrun.media/p/politicos-ben-shapiro-debacle-zero
January 15, 2021
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
1/14/2021
We Could Have Dealt With This Shit Years Ago If Republicans Hadn't Been Dicks About Their Extremists
I keep thinking about Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona who became Barack Obama's first Secretary of Homeland Security. In April 2009, Republicans and conservative groups were demanding that she resign because her department had so deeply insulted right-wing Americans. See, DHS's Extremism and Radicalization Branch (Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division) in coordination with the FBI, released a report titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," and it was pretty much straight up and down accurate in describing how nutzoid right-wingers, almost all of them white people, were becoming terrorists, driven to utter despair by the dual insults of the Bush-induced, severe economic downturn and the election of the first black president. To the writers of the report, those factors "present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment."
What pissed off Republicans? Well, truth be told, it's because they recognized even then that their base was made up largely of assholes who were part of this toxic soup of racism and delusion. But they said that it was because, as then-House Minority Leader John "Human Ashtray" Boehner put it, "When you look at this report on right-wing extremism, it includes ... about two- thirds of Americans, who, you know, who might go to church, who may have served in the military, who may be involved in community activities." The report actually warned that religion was one of the driving factors behind right-wing extremist violence, as seen by, oh, hell, the murders and bombings connected to clinics where abortions were performed.
snip//
But let's be clear that Republicans threw a shit fit at the idea that their base was a bunch of violent crackpots, racists, and assholes. Wait, lemme clarify that. They were upset that they would have to admit that their base was a bunch of violent crackpots, racists, and assholes. So they fucked over the country to score cheap political points and show how they could stand up to the black president. That's how we got dozens of right-wing extremist attacks in the last 12 years. That's how we got Charlottesville. That's how we got Trump being able to be openly, wildly racist with no consequences for that until this past week. That's how we got members of Congress afraid of other members of Congress harming them. If Republicans had seen that report and said, "Yeah, wow, fuck, that's bad. We should act on it," how different might things be now. Instead, they took it and shit on it and handed it back and said, "Go fuck yourself with it." And then they shot down just about every opportunity to really do something about the white terrorists who are their base because to admit they were terrorists was to admit that their whiteness wouldn't protect them.
Maybe now. Maybe at last. Maybe this dam finally broke.
So there should be no fucking mercy anymore for the Republicans who abetted this madness. It's all out there now, motherfuckers. You decided to sow. Now reap that shit and accept that you deserve to be tossed into the political trashcan.
Rude Pundit: We Could Have Dealt With This Shit Years Ago If Republicans Hadn't Been Dicks...
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2021/01/we-could-have-dealt-with-this-shit.htmlThe Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
1/14/2021
We Could Have Dealt With This Shit Years Ago If Republicans Hadn't Been Dicks About Their Extremists
I keep thinking about Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona who became Barack Obama's first Secretary of Homeland Security. In April 2009, Republicans and conservative groups were demanding that she resign because her department had so deeply insulted right-wing Americans. See, DHS's Extremism and Radicalization Branch (Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division) in coordination with the FBI, released a report titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," and it was pretty much straight up and down accurate in describing how nutzoid right-wingers, almost all of them white people, were becoming terrorists, driven to utter despair by the dual insults of the Bush-induced, severe economic downturn and the election of the first black president. To the writers of the report, those factors "present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment."
What pissed off Republicans? Well, truth be told, it's because they recognized even then that their base was made up largely of assholes who were part of this toxic soup of racism and delusion. But they said that it was because, as then-House Minority Leader John "Human Ashtray" Boehner put it, "When you look at this report on right-wing extremism, it includes ... about two- thirds of Americans, who, you know, who might go to church, who may have served in the military, who may be involved in community activities." The report actually warned that religion was one of the driving factors behind right-wing extremist violence, as seen by, oh, hell, the murders and bombings connected to clinics where abortions were performed.
snip//
But let's be clear that Republicans threw a shit fit at the idea that their base was a bunch of violent crackpots, racists, and assholes. Wait, lemme clarify that. They were upset that they would have to admit that their base was a bunch of violent crackpots, racists, and assholes. So they fucked over the country to score cheap political points and show how they could stand up to the black president. That's how we got dozens of right-wing extremist attacks in the last 12 years. That's how we got Charlottesville. That's how we got Trump being able to be openly, wildly racist with no consequences for that until this past week. That's how we got members of Congress afraid of other members of Congress harming them. If Republicans had seen that report and said, "Yeah, wow, fuck, that's bad. We should act on it," how different might things be now. Instead, they took it and shit on it and handed it back and said, "Go fuck yourself with it." And then they shot down just about every opportunity to really do something about the white terrorists who are their base because to admit they were terrorists was to admit that their whiteness wouldn't protect them.
Maybe now. Maybe at last. Maybe this dam finally broke.
So there should be no fucking mercy anymore for the Republicans who abetted this madness. It's all out there now, motherfuckers. You decided to sow. Now reap that shit and accept that you deserve to be tossed into the political trashcan.
January 15, 2021
Feds Edge Closer to Sedition Charge In Capitol Riots
If it walks like a duck...
https://politicalwire.com/2021/01/15/feds-edge-closer-to-sedition-charge-in-capitol-riots/
Feds Edge Closer to Sedition Charge In Capitol Riots
January 15, 2021 at 7:51 am EST By Taegan Goddard
“Federal prosecutors on Thursday for the first time described last week’s assault on the U.S. Capitol as a ‘violent insurrection that attempted to overthrow the United States Government’ — and one they consider to still be underway,” Politico reports.
“FBI and Justice Department officials have emphasized that more serious charges are on the horizon, after an initial round of lesser charges were leveled to ensure they corralled some of the most dangerous offenders.”
“FBI and Justice Department officials have emphasized that more serious charges are on the horizon, after an initial round of lesser charges were leveled to ensure they corralled some of the most dangerous offenders.”
January 15, 2021
Law Prof Who Spoke at White House Rally Abruptly Retires Amid Calls for His Firing
John Eastman reached an agreement to immediately retire from Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law.
By Karen Sloan | January 14, 2021 at 11:01 AM
Chapman University law professor John Eastman, who appeared at the “Save America” rally that preceded last week’s Capitol Hill riot and who assisted in filing several lawsuits challenging the presidential election results, has left the law school amid criticism of his role in stoking the violent attack.
University officials announced late Wednesday that Eastman had retired effective immediately, the result of discussions with university leaders over the past week. He had been on the faculty since 1999.
snip//
Eastman, a former clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, stepped down as Chapman law dean in 2010 to pursue an unsuccessful run for California attorney general but remained on the law school faculty. In addition to that position at the law school, he is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, the litigation arm of the conservative think tank The Claremont Institute.
Eastman is among a small cohort of legal academics who have come under scrutiny for their alignment with Trump. Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz has become a frequent defender of the outgoing president on social media and cable news shows. Meanwhile, Regent University law dean Mark Martin, the former chief judge of the North Carolina Supreme Court, reportedly made the case to Trump that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn the Electoral College vote count, an argument Pence rejected.
Law Prof Who Spoke at White House Rally Abruptly Retires Amid Calls for His Firing
https://www.law.com/therecorder/2021/01/14/law-prof-who-spoke-at-white-house-rally-abruptly-retires-amid-calls-for-his-firing/Law Prof Who Spoke at White House Rally Abruptly Retires Amid Calls for His Firing
John Eastman reached an agreement to immediately retire from Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law.
By Karen Sloan | January 14, 2021 at 11:01 AM
Chapman University law professor John Eastman, who appeared at the “Save America” rally that preceded last week’s Capitol Hill riot and who assisted in filing several lawsuits challenging the presidential election results, has left the law school amid criticism of his role in stoking the violent attack.
University officials announced late Wednesday that Eastman had retired effective immediately, the result of discussions with university leaders over the past week. He had been on the faculty since 1999.
snip//
Eastman, a former clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, stepped down as Chapman law dean in 2010 to pursue an unsuccessful run for California attorney general but remained on the law school faculty. In addition to that position at the law school, he is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, the litigation arm of the conservative think tank The Claremont Institute.
Eastman is among a small cohort of legal academics who have come under scrutiny for their alignment with Trump. Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz has become a frequent defender of the outgoing president on social media and cable news shows. Meanwhile, Regent University law dean Mark Martin, the former chief judge of the North Carolina Supreme Court, reportedly made the case to Trump that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn the Electoral College vote count, an argument Pence rejected.
January 15, 2021
Rex Tillerson is speaking out, and ooh boy, the stories he’s telling about Donald Trump
Walter Einenkel
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday January 14, 2021 · 1:59 PM EST
When former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson was tapped by Donald Trump to become his administration’s first secretary of state, the only positive thing anyone could say was that Tillerson was someone who had some knowledge of the world. Tillerson is a crumb bum. But he does have thoughts articulated around what he believes are clear goals. We vote in order to have people other than Tillerson in positions to make national security and globally important political advisory decisions. The bar, of course, was set so low with Trump as president that having anyone not named Trump, Kushner, Bannon, or Miller in any position seemed to be a step up. That being said, Tillerson’s interests in being Trump’s secretary of state were closely tied to his fossil fuel view of the world and world politics. After he was fired by Trump, a steady stream of stories leaked out about Tillerson describing Donald Trump as something of a lazy moron. None of those stories were surprising.
In all of the hullabaloo of the past week’s events—insurrection and attempted coup and all—an interview with Tillerson for Foreign Policy slipped by with little fanfare. In it, Tillerson gives his usual run through of trying to be as helpful to President Trump and the country as possible, but he also articulates some of his “frustrations” with Trump. Those frustrations include Donald Trump being an ignoramus, acting like an ignoramus, listening to other ignoramuses, and being an inscrutable ignoramus. Tillerson explained that one of the fundamental hurdles he had to overcome in communicating his global policy ideas to Trump was the fact that Trump’s “understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.” This might be the nicest thing Tillerson said about the president during the interview.
Tillerson went on to illustrate how he began his tenure trying to bring “four or five things I needed to talk to him about,” and very quickly comprehended that a victory was getting to talk to Trump about two or three things. This gave way to Tillerson realizing he needed to bring visual aids like charts or images. “If I could put a photo or a picture in front of him or a map or a piece of paper that had two big bullet points on it, he would focus on that, and I could build on that.” We knew this but man, what a bummer. Asked how Trump made informed decisions if it was so difficult to make him informed, Tillerson said he didn’t think Trump made many “informed decisions.”
Another issue Tillerson said he faced was that the many handlers (and possibly Fox News) would get to the president before Tillerson met with him, filling him with fact-free opinions and information. Having a conversation with someone who believes things that aren’t real makes for a difficult discussion. Asked about Trump’s friendliness towards authoritarian leaders and antagonism towards allies, Tillerson said he couldn’t tell you what was going on in Trump’s mind. But, as Tillerson went on to explain, nothing ever panned out. We are in no better place with Russia or with North Korea, our issues with China have only become exacerbated, and our relationship with Turkey is even more messy.
Rex Tillerson is speaking out, and ooh boy, the stories he's telling about Donald Trump
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/14/2009152/-Rex-Tillerson-is-belatedly-speaking-out-about-Trump-s-limited-understanding-of-well-everythingRex Tillerson is speaking out, and ooh boy, the stories he’s telling about Donald Trump
Walter Einenkel
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday January 14, 2021 · 1:59 PM EST
When former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson was tapped by Donald Trump to become his administration’s first secretary of state, the only positive thing anyone could say was that Tillerson was someone who had some knowledge of the world. Tillerson is a crumb bum. But he does have thoughts articulated around what he believes are clear goals. We vote in order to have people other than Tillerson in positions to make national security and globally important political advisory decisions. The bar, of course, was set so low with Trump as president that having anyone not named Trump, Kushner, Bannon, or Miller in any position seemed to be a step up. That being said, Tillerson’s interests in being Trump’s secretary of state were closely tied to his fossil fuel view of the world and world politics. After he was fired by Trump, a steady stream of stories leaked out about Tillerson describing Donald Trump as something of a lazy moron. None of those stories were surprising.
In all of the hullabaloo of the past week’s events—insurrection and attempted coup and all—an interview with Tillerson for Foreign Policy slipped by with little fanfare. In it, Tillerson gives his usual run through of trying to be as helpful to President Trump and the country as possible, but he also articulates some of his “frustrations” with Trump. Those frustrations include Donald Trump being an ignoramus, acting like an ignoramus, listening to other ignoramuses, and being an inscrutable ignoramus. Tillerson explained that one of the fundamental hurdles he had to overcome in communicating his global policy ideas to Trump was the fact that Trump’s “understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.” This might be the nicest thing Tillerson said about the president during the interview.
Tillerson went on to illustrate how he began his tenure trying to bring “four or five things I needed to talk to him about,” and very quickly comprehended that a victory was getting to talk to Trump about two or three things. This gave way to Tillerson realizing he needed to bring visual aids like charts or images. “If I could put a photo or a picture in front of him or a map or a piece of paper that had two big bullet points on it, he would focus on that, and I could build on that.” We knew this but man, what a bummer. Asked how Trump made informed decisions if it was so difficult to make him informed, Tillerson said he didn’t think Trump made many “informed decisions.”
Another issue Tillerson said he faced was that the many handlers (and possibly Fox News) would get to the president before Tillerson met with him, filling him with fact-free opinions and information. Having a conversation with someone who believes things that aren’t real makes for a difficult discussion. Asked about Trump’s friendliness towards authoritarian leaders and antagonism towards allies, Tillerson said he couldn’t tell you what was going on in Trump’s mind. But, as Tillerson went on to explain, nothing ever panned out. We are in no better place with Russia or with North Korea, our issues with China have only become exacerbated, and our relationship with Turkey is even more messy.
January 15, 2021
Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid stimulus plan, explained
Biden has unveiled his opening bid in a proposal to rescue the economy.
By Emily Stewartemily.stewart@vox.com Jan 14, 2021, 7:40pm EST
President-elect Joe Biden has unveiled his opening bid on Covid-19 relief and economic recovery: a $1.9 trillion stimulus deal meant to help the United States address the health and economic crises induced by the global pandemic.
The proposal, called the American Rescue Plan, is divvied up into three buckets: $400 billion for dealing with the coronavirus, including vaccines and testing; $1 trillion in direct relief to families; and $400 billion in aid to communities and businesses. It includes money for testing, vaccines, and public health workers; $400 a week in extended federal unemployment insurance through September; rental assistance; emergency paid leave; and funding for schools reopening, among other items.
And, as Democrats promised when campaigning in Georgia, it would send out another a $1,400 in stimulus checks, bringing the total this year to $2,000.
snip//
Overall, this is a big deal. The $1.9 trillion in relief Biden is proposing is more than double the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that Democrats passed in 2009 in the wake of the Great Recession. The size and scope of this proposal is a reflection of some lessons Democrats have learned: In 2009, many lawmakers believed they’d have a chance at another bill to deliver more help, but they never did. And so the recovery was slower and more uneven than it could have been had they been more ambitious at the outset.
With that in mind, many Democrats and progressives plan to push the Biden administration and congressional leaders to go even further. Their mantra is increasingly that the real risk is doing too little — not too much.
more...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22231808/joe-biden-economic-stimulus-proposal
Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid stimulus plan, explained
Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid stimulus plan, explained
Biden has unveiled his opening bid in a proposal to rescue the economy.
By Emily Stewartemily.stewart@vox.com Jan 14, 2021, 7:40pm EST
President-elect Joe Biden has unveiled his opening bid on Covid-19 relief and economic recovery: a $1.9 trillion stimulus deal meant to help the United States address the health and economic crises induced by the global pandemic.
The proposal, called the American Rescue Plan, is divvied up into three buckets: $400 billion for dealing with the coronavirus, including vaccines and testing; $1 trillion in direct relief to families; and $400 billion in aid to communities and businesses. It includes money for testing, vaccines, and public health workers; $400 a week in extended federal unemployment insurance through September; rental assistance; emergency paid leave; and funding for schools reopening, among other items.
And, as Democrats promised when campaigning in Georgia, it would send out another a $1,400 in stimulus checks, bringing the total this year to $2,000.
“We need to tackle the public health and economic crises we’re facing head on,” Biden said in a tweet on Thursday. “That’s why today, I’m announcing my American Rescue Plan. Together, we’ll change the course of the pandemic, build a bridge toward economic recovery, and invest in racial justice.”
snip//
Overall, this is a big deal. The $1.9 trillion in relief Biden is proposing is more than double the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that Democrats passed in 2009 in the wake of the Great Recession. The size and scope of this proposal is a reflection of some lessons Democrats have learned: In 2009, many lawmakers believed they’d have a chance at another bill to deliver more help, but they never did. And so the recovery was slower and more uneven than it could have been had they been more ambitious at the outset.
With that in mind, many Democrats and progressives plan to push the Biden administration and congressional leaders to go even further. Their mantra is increasingly that the real risk is doing too little — not too much.
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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22231808/joe-biden-economic-stimulus-proposal
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