That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
Jul 19, 2022
Q Stuff
Jul 18, 2022
Today's Tweet
Paranoid Mike says - yup.
(Ivana Trump died of ‘blunt impact injuries,’ medical examiner says)
When the cause of death is nonspecific 'blunt trauma to the torso' — when the mechanism of injury is falling down stairs, but there are:
— Dr. Jack Brown (@DrGJackBrown) July 18, 2022
No broken wrists?
No broken ankles?
No broken neck?
No head trauma?
No toxicology?
No witnesses?
You may be selling it, but I'm not buying.
Climate Change Stuff
Heat wave kills more than 1,000 people in Spain and Portugal
Over 1,000 people have died in Spain and Portugal from heat-related causes as an unprecedented heat wave moves through Europe.
Driving the news:
Driving the news:
- The ongoing heat wave could last a total of several weeks and has been accompanied by wildfires in France, Spain and Portugal, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes.Severe heat waves are of particular concern in Europe as they can often prove extremely deadly due to air conditioning being less ubiquitous than in the U.S.
- A complete death toll likely will not be available for weeks or more due to the difficulty in counting excess deaths in a heat event.
The big picture:
- According to Spain's Carlos III Institute, there were 360 heat-related deaths between July 10 and July 15.Portugal's Health Ministry announced late Saturday that there had been 659 heat-related deaths over the past week, primarily among the elderly, according to Reuters.
- The heat wave has now moved north into France and the UK where the temperatures are poised to break all-time national high temperature records, creating life-threatening conditions for thousands for people.
- "This heat wave has been well forecast for nearly a week, so the hope is that enough lead time will help limit the number of casualties — though, sadly, the toll is already quickly mounting," Steve Bowen, head of catastrophe insight for Aon, told Axios.Bowen added that a "notable portion" of European homes are not equipped to handle such heat and that this "really enhances the concern and risk to the most vulnerable segments of the population, such as the elderly or the homeless."
- Studies show that as the climate warms, the frequency of heat waves dramatically increases — as does the severity and longevity of such events, per Axios' Andrew Freedman.
Today's Wingnut
RWW Blog on YouTube - Alt-right activist Lauren Southern once accepted a complete stranger's offer to fly her to California only to find out he expected to sleep with her. She blamed "radical feminists," saying that if they had been more "reasonable," she might have listened to their warnings.
She acknowledges and validates every point "the feminists" are making, but then bails with the very tired cliché of "they're just too radical - they want too much too soon - if they could just go a little slower..."
(translating)
"I agree with everything you say, but maintaining my marketability requires me to differentiate myself, so I can never publicly go along with you - I must always always always find a way to make you sound wrong so I can sound right."
And in the end - trying to present herself as thoughtful and open-minded - she runs straight for the Middle Ground Fallacy. "...it was probably half my fault, half theirs, right?"
Which is very much in keeping with the Both Sides requirement.
ie: Your position may have every fact and all of reality going for it, but I have a right to voice my opinion no matter how stupidly false it is, so ... "Alright, we'll call it a draw."
Ukraine
Putin has to put a "win" up on the board, and he has to do it pretty soon.
After 4½ months (which seems a lot longer to us - imagine how long it seems to Ukrainians), Putin's chance to score the quick knockout is obviously way gone, and even though he's making some progress in Donbas, he's "losing by not winning".
Weapons and ammo being supplied from the west, and training, recruitment, and morale are all strong for the Ukrainians - and sanctions continue to bite - and the Russian economy can't be artificially propped up forever, so Putin has to rely on the western allies getting bored, and fatigued, and not wanting to be further inconvenienced for the sake of a bunch of non-NATO peasants.
Sky News - Mikhail Kasyanov (former Russian Prime Minister)
We can't let these people down
Слава Україні
🌎🌏🌍❤️🇺🇦
Meanwhile, let's check in with Malcom Nance.
Try to ignore his self-congratulatory shit and concentrate on what he's been trying to tell us for-fuckin-ever.
MSNBC - Joy Reid
The Jan6 Coup was not a failed attempt in that it hasn't stopped. The bad guys are still at large, and they're still well-organized and well-financed, and they're still determined to pull it off.
Putin gets more and more desperate to get the US out of Ukraine, and the Jan6 Gang is desperate to get the Democrats off their trail.
The fuckery will only intensify and accelerate as we go. We have to commit to being in this fight for the long run.
Jul 17, 2022
COVID-19 Update
Shit ain't over.
Kids’ coronavirus vaccines are hard to find in Fla. Many blame DeSantis.
The governor told parents they were ‘free to choose.’ But many say they’re struggling to find the shots.
When coronavirus vaccines for infants and young children were authorized for the first time last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned parents against the “baby jabs,” saying regulators had done insufficient testing and trials.
Still, he said he wouldn’t stand in parents’ way if they chose to vaccinate their kids. “You are free to choose,” he assured them.
Florida parents say it hasn’t turned out that way. Many are struggling to find places to vaccinate their children, and they blame DeSantis — noting he was the only governor to refuse to preorder the vaccines, and to prohibit county health departments from distributing or administering the shots. Waitlists at pediatrician offices stretch for weeks. Doctor’s offices that have managed to get doses are fielding calls from parents hundreds of miles away. Families debate road trips to neighboring states in the hope of finding shots for their kids.
“We heard that [the vaccine] was coming, and we were super excited. We saw a chance for some normalcy,” said Tampa mom Ashley Comegys, whose 1-year-old and 4-year-old sons are on a waitlist for the vaccines at their pediatrician’s office, which is likely to take about three weeks.
But even that timing is uncertain. After nearly a month, more retail outlets around the state began to offer the vaccines this past week, but many parents who want their child’s doctor to give the shot have long waits ahead.
“They told us that because the state didn’t preorder, that put Florida at the end of the line, so we don’t know when it will come in,” Comegys said. “The hypocrisy is infuriating. With DeSantis, it’s all ‘your choice to wear a mask, your choice to get a vaccine.’ But now he’s making that choice for me and my children by making the vaccine so hard to get.”
Florida was the only state that declined to preorder the vaccines. “That’s not something that we think is appropriate, and so that’s not where we’re going to be utilizing our resources,” DeSantis said at a June 16 news conference.
The challenges are greatest for poor families who have traditionally relied on county health clinics now barred from administering the pediatric vaccine. That means underserved kids, especially in rural areas, are left with few options. Small pediatricians’ offices, which usually order their vaccines through county health departments, are also affected.
Meanwhile, state officials have sought to limit debate about their decisions, sidelining a prominent doctor who spoke out, even as state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says the vaccines are not needed by healthy children — contradicting the advice of pediatricians and infectious-disease experts.
Lisa Gwynn, president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was removed from the state’s Healthy Kids board of directors after she criticized the failure to preorder the vaccines or offer them to families through local health offices.
“For them, it’s not about science, it’s about politics,” Gwynn said. “But when the state decided not to preorder — and then to not distribute these vaccines to local health departments — that’s when it became a health equity issue. This was real. This was cutting off the supply to those children.”
An estimated 33,000 children in the state get their health care from state-run county health departments, Ladapo said in a statement to the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. State and county health personnel can’t administer the pediatric vaccine under the state policy, but they can tell parents where they might find them, said Florida Department of Health spokesman Jeremy T. Redfern.
“There is not a high demand, and I want to make sure you are not depicting a narrative where parents are lining up to get kids vaccinated,” Redfern said in an email. “That is factually untrue.”
West Palm Beach pediatrician Tommy Schechtman said his practice submitted a pediatric vaccine order through its supplier soon after the shots got a green light on June 18. He said the doses arrived within a week, and he has fielded phone requests from across the state in Tampa and Lakeland, and as far away as Jacksonville, 285 miles north — including from his niece.
“We had parents lined up for appointments as soon as we got it,” said Schechtman, a former president of the state chapter of the pediatric society. “These are parents who have been waiting for more than two years for this.”
Nationwide, more than 549,000 children younger than age 5, or 2.8 percent of the population, got their first coronavirus shot as of July 13, according to federal data. The rate was less than half that in Florida, where 14,421 children, or 1.3 percent in that age group, got a first shot. Sixteen states vaccinated a smaller percentage of children than Florida — with Mississippi and Alabama at the bottom, giving first shots to 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of young children, respectively.
DeSantis was not always so disapproving of coronavirus vaccines. When the first adult shots first became available in late 2020, he spearheaded a successful effort to get them to the state’s elderly population. But last September, he appointed a new surgeon general, Ladapo, who has played down the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines generally and recommended against vaccinating healthy children younger than 18.
Then in November, as some businesses and governments, including the Biden administration, sought to mandate vaccines, DeSantis signed a law that forbade both vaccine or mask mandates by any public or private entity in the state.
DeSantis, who is seen as a likely 2024 presidential candidate, has garnered nationwide support among Republicans for his “freedom first agenda” in dealing with the pandemic, as well as for his barbed criticisms of President Biden and his chief medical adviser, Anthony S. Fauci.
![]()
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has contended that regulators did insufficient testing of the pediatric vaccine. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Recently, DeSantis has picked up a talking point popularized by anti-vaccine groups, arguing that close ties between the government and pharmaceutical companies explain the push to vaccinate people against the coronavirus.
“The criticism of the FDA is that they’re basically a subsidiary of Big Pharma,” DeSantis said on July 8. “So they’re acting in ways with the baby vax, the baby jabs, that is something that obviously would cause more of those to be sold.”
Jay Wolfson, an associate dean at the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida who has advised several governors, said DeSantis’s coronavirus vaccine policy “has not been as clear and as useful as it might have been” but noted that many consider the coronavirus to be endemic now.
“That makes it an awful lot more like the flu,” Wolfson said. “For the most part, the state’s policy was not only economically favorable, but health-favorable, as well.”
But a pediatrician who has advised the Florida health department said the state’s messaging on coronavirus vaccines goes against public health standards.
“What we should be doing is trying to get everybody vaccinated,” said the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by state officials. “It feels like the Department of Health is being run by a 26-year-old who watches Fox News all day long and then puts out health rules on Twitter.”
Organizations that help serve disadvantaged children say the conflicting messages from state and national leaders have confused parents and led to low demand for the pediatric shots. Many of their parents rely on county health departments for outreach, but because of the prohibition on administering the vaccines, they’re not hearing about it, said Louisa McQueeney, program director for Florida Voices for Health.
That confusion is widespread.
“With all of this misinformation, and the state’s decision not to distribute it through local health departments, there are some families that think it’s actually against the law to get the vaccine for their children,” said Gwynn, the state president of the pediatric society who also runs a mobile health clinic in Miami-Dade County. “I had to have a meeting with my nurses to allay their fears that they would be doing something illegal if they gave the vaccines to young children.”
Even parents who follow the issue closely say the state’s reluctance to facilitate the distribution of the vaccines has caused problems for them.
“It’s just been a waiting game, and trying to track down rumors of who has it, and how we can get an appointment,” said Stephanie Novenario, a Jacksonville mother whose two children are both younger than 5. “We’re supposed to have a choice about whether to get the child vaccines, but the choices are very slim.”
Cases, Deaths, and Hospitalizations are all up.
Biden officials urge use of booster shots, antivirals against BA.5
‘The tools we have continue to work’ against new variants, says White House coordinator
‘The tools we have continue to work’ against new variants, says White House coordinator
Biden administration officials warned Tuesday that the latest coronavirus variants are driving a new wave of cases across the country and urged Americans to take precautions to protect themselves against infection, reinfection and serious illness.
The BA.4 and BA.5 variants now make up 80 percent of circulating virus in the United States, according to federal data, and their greater transmissibility and immune-evading ability have raised alarms as cases and hospitalizations have increased.
Hospital admissions for covid, while far lower than they were in January, are at about 5,100 per day, a doubling since early May, according to federal health data. Many people who were infected with omicron earlier in the pandemic “really don’t have a lot of good protection against BA.4 or BA.5,” said Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser for the coronavirus response.
White House coronavirus coordinator Ashish Jha said the administration’s strategy to manage BA.5 relies on vaccination, antiviral treatments, testing, masking and improved indoor ventilation, measures that have worked to keep people out of the hospital and from dying.
“If we do the things that we know, that we have learned over the last two years, we can get through whatever Mother Nature throws at us in the next four, six, eight weeks ahead,” Jha said. “And also whatever Mother Nature throws at us this fall and winter.”
“Even in the face of BA.5, the tools we have continue to work,” he added.
In particular, officials urged eligible Americans, especially those 50 and older, to get a booster.
Those 5 and older should get their first booster five months after their initial vaccinations. “Do it now,” Jha said. Getting a booster shot this summer will not preclude people from getting a very specific vaccine later in the fall or winter, when vaccines targeting omicron are expected to be available, he said.
For those 50 and older, “my message is simple,” he said. “If you have not gotten a vaccine shot in the year 2022, if you have not gotten one this year, please go get another vaccine shot.”
Many Americans are under-vaccinated, with only 28 percent of those 50 and older having received their second booster dose, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky. The risk of dying from covid-19 for people 50 and older who have received one booster dose is four times the risk for those who have had two or more booster shots, she said.
WaPo:
Biden officials urge use of booster shots, antivirals against BA.5
‘The tools we have continue to work’ against new variants, says White House coordinator
‘The tools we have continue to work’ against new variants, says White House coordinator
Biden administration officials warned Tuesday that the latest coronavirus variants are driving a new wave of cases across the country and urged Americans to take precautions to protect themselves against infection, reinfection and serious illness.
The BA.4 and BA.5 variants now make up 80 percent of circulating virus in the United States, according to federal data, and their greater transmissibility and immune-evading ability have raised alarms as cases and hospitalizations have increased.
Hospital admissions for covid, while far lower than they were in January, are at about 5,100 per day, a doubling since early May, according to federal health data. Many people who were infected with omicron earlier in the pandemic “really don’t have a lot of good protection against BA.4 or BA.5,” said Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser for the coronavirus response.
White House coronavirus coordinator Ashish Jha said the administration’s strategy to manage BA.5 relies on vaccination, antiviral treatments, testing, masking and improved indoor ventilation, measures that have worked to keep people out of the hospital and from dying.
“If we do the things that we know, that we have learned over the last two years, we can get through whatever Mother Nature throws at us in the next four, six, eight weeks ahead,” Jha said. “And also whatever Mother Nature throws at us this fall and winter.”
“Even in the face of BA.5, the tools we have continue to work,” he added.
In particular, officials urged eligible Americans, especially those 50 and older, to get a booster.
Those 5 and older should get their first booster five months after their initial vaccinations. “Do it now,” Jha said. Getting a booster shot this summer will not preclude people from getting a very specific vaccine later in the fall or winter, when vaccines targeting omicron are expected to be available, he said.
For those 50 and older, “my message is simple,” he said. “If you have not gotten a vaccine shot in the year 2022, if you have not gotten one this year, please go get another vaccine shot.”
Many Americans are under-vaccinated, with only 28 percent of those 50 and older having received their second booster dose, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky. The risk of dying from covid-19 for people 50 and older who have received one booster dose is four times the risk for those who have had two or more booster shots, she said.
In addition, one-third of Americans live in communities where the CDC recommends people mask indoors to protect against infection, Walensky said.
The Washington Post reported Monday that administration officials are weighing a plan to allow all adults to receive a second booster shot to provide greater protection against the latest surge — a move requiring sign-off from the Food and Drug Administration as well as the CDC. Officials are concerned about waning immunity within several months of the first booster shot. Swiftly expanding access to booster shots also would enable people to receive reformulated shots that target newer virus variants when those become available later this year. In addition, officials want to use vaccine doses that are reaching their expiration dates and would otherwise be discarded.
“I know that the FDA is considering this and looking at it,” Jha said. “And I know CDC scientists are thinking about this and looking at the data as well.”
Fauci said the latest variants have a greater ability to evade virus-fighting antibodies induced by vaccination and infection. But there’s no evidence that vaccine effectiveness against severe disease is substantially reduced, he said.
Fauci also stressed the importance of keeping virus levels low. Preventing the virus from replicating and spreading gives it fewer chances to mutate.
“If the virus circulates globally and in this country, we should not let it disrupt our lives,” he said. “But we cannot deny that it is a reality that we need to deal with.”
“I know that the FDA is considering this and looking at it,” Jha said. “And I know CDC scientists are thinking about this and looking at the data as well.”
Fauci said the latest variants have a greater ability to evade virus-fighting antibodies induced by vaccination and infection. But there’s no evidence that vaccine effectiveness against severe disease is substantially reduced, he said.
Fauci also stressed the importance of keeping virus levels low. Preventing the virus from replicating and spreading gives it fewer chances to mutate.
“If the virus circulates globally and in this country, we should not let it disrupt our lives,” he said. “But we cannot deny that it is a reality that we need to deal with.”
WaPo: (pay wall)
Kids’ coronavirus vaccines are hard to find in Fla. Many blame DeSantis.
The governor told parents they were ‘free to choose.’ But many say they’re struggling to find the shots.
When coronavirus vaccines for infants and young children were authorized for the first time last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned parents against the “baby jabs,” saying regulators had done insufficient testing and trials.
Still, he said he wouldn’t stand in parents’ way if they chose to vaccinate their kids. “You are free to choose,” he assured them.
Florida parents say it hasn’t turned out that way. Many are struggling to find places to vaccinate their children, and they blame DeSantis — noting he was the only governor to refuse to preorder the vaccines, and to prohibit county health departments from distributing or administering the shots. Waitlists at pediatrician offices stretch for weeks. Doctor’s offices that have managed to get doses are fielding calls from parents hundreds of miles away. Families debate road trips to neighboring states in the hope of finding shots for their kids.
“We heard that [the vaccine] was coming, and we were super excited. We saw a chance for some normalcy,” said Tampa mom Ashley Comegys, whose 1-year-old and 4-year-old sons are on a waitlist for the vaccines at their pediatrician’s office, which is likely to take about three weeks.
But even that timing is uncertain. After nearly a month, more retail outlets around the state began to offer the vaccines this past week, but many parents who want their child’s doctor to give the shot have long waits ahead.
“They told us that because the state didn’t preorder, that put Florida at the end of the line, so we don’t know when it will come in,” Comegys said. “The hypocrisy is infuriating. With DeSantis, it’s all ‘your choice to wear a mask, your choice to get a vaccine.’ But now he’s making that choice for me and my children by making the vaccine so hard to get.”
Florida was the only state that declined to preorder the vaccines. “That’s not something that we think is appropriate, and so that’s not where we’re going to be utilizing our resources,” DeSantis said at a June 16 news conference.
The challenges are greatest for poor families who have traditionally relied on county health clinics now barred from administering the pediatric vaccine. That means underserved kids, especially in rural areas, are left with few options. Small pediatricians’ offices, which usually order their vaccines through county health departments, are also affected.
Meanwhile, state officials have sought to limit debate about their decisions, sidelining a prominent doctor who spoke out, even as state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says the vaccines are not needed by healthy children — contradicting the advice of pediatricians and infectious-disease experts.
Lisa Gwynn, president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was removed from the state’s Healthy Kids board of directors after she criticized the failure to preorder the vaccines or offer them to families through local health offices.
“For them, it’s not about science, it’s about politics,” Gwynn said. “But when the state decided not to preorder — and then to not distribute these vaccines to local health departments — that’s when it became a health equity issue. This was real. This was cutting off the supply to those children.”
An estimated 33,000 children in the state get their health care from state-run county health departments, Ladapo said in a statement to the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. State and county health personnel can’t administer the pediatric vaccine under the state policy, but they can tell parents where they might find them, said Florida Department of Health spokesman Jeremy T. Redfern.
“There is not a high demand, and I want to make sure you are not depicting a narrative where parents are lining up to get kids vaccinated,” Redfern said in an email. “That is factually untrue.”
West Palm Beach pediatrician Tommy Schechtman said his practice submitted a pediatric vaccine order through its supplier soon after the shots got a green light on June 18. He said the doses arrived within a week, and he has fielded phone requests from across the state in Tampa and Lakeland, and as far away as Jacksonville, 285 miles north — including from his niece.
“We had parents lined up for appointments as soon as we got it,” said Schechtman, a former president of the state chapter of the pediatric society. “These are parents who have been waiting for more than two years for this.”
Nationwide, more than 549,000 children younger than age 5, or 2.8 percent of the population, got their first coronavirus shot as of July 13, according to federal data. The rate was less than half that in Florida, where 14,421 children, or 1.3 percent in that age group, got a first shot. Sixteen states vaccinated a smaller percentage of children than Florida — with Mississippi and Alabama at the bottom, giving first shots to 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of young children, respectively.
DeSantis was not always so disapproving of coronavirus vaccines. When the first adult shots first became available in late 2020, he spearheaded a successful effort to get them to the state’s elderly population. But last September, he appointed a new surgeon general, Ladapo, who has played down the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines generally and recommended against vaccinating healthy children younger than 18.
Then in November, as some businesses and governments, including the Biden administration, sought to mandate vaccines, DeSantis signed a law that forbade both vaccine or mask mandates by any public or private entity in the state.
DeSantis, who is seen as a likely 2024 presidential candidate, has garnered nationwide support among Republicans for his “freedom first agenda” in dealing with the pandemic, as well as for his barbed criticisms of President Biden and his chief medical adviser, Anthony S. Fauci.
Recently, DeSantis has picked up a talking point popularized by anti-vaccine groups, arguing that close ties between the government and pharmaceutical companies explain the push to vaccinate people against the coronavirus.
“The criticism of the FDA is that they’re basically a subsidiary of Big Pharma,” DeSantis said on July 8. “So they’re acting in ways with the baby vax, the baby jabs, that is something that obviously would cause more of those to be sold.”
Jay Wolfson, an associate dean at the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida who has advised several governors, said DeSantis’s coronavirus vaccine policy “has not been as clear and as useful as it might have been” but noted that many consider the coronavirus to be endemic now.
“That makes it an awful lot more like the flu,” Wolfson said. “For the most part, the state’s policy was not only economically favorable, but health-favorable, as well.”
But a pediatrician who has advised the Florida health department said the state’s messaging on coronavirus vaccines goes against public health standards.
“What we should be doing is trying to get everybody vaccinated,” said the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by state officials. “It feels like the Department of Health is being run by a 26-year-old who watches Fox News all day long and then puts out health rules on Twitter.”
Organizations that help serve disadvantaged children say the conflicting messages from state and national leaders have confused parents and led to low demand for the pediatric shots. Many of their parents rely on county health departments for outreach, but because of the prohibition on administering the vaccines, they’re not hearing about it, said Louisa McQueeney, program director for Florida Voices for Health.
That confusion is widespread.
“With all of this misinformation, and the state’s decision not to distribute it through local health departments, there are some families that think it’s actually against the law to get the vaccine for their children,” said Gwynn, the state president of the pediatric society who also runs a mobile health clinic in Miami-Dade County. “I had to have a meeting with my nurses to allay their fears that they would be doing something illegal if they gave the vaccines to young children.”
Even parents who follow the issue closely say the state’s reluctance to facilitate the distribution of the vaccines has caused problems for them.
“It’s just been a waiting game, and trying to track down rumors of who has it, and how we can get an appointment,” said Stephanie Novenario, a Jacksonville mother whose two children are both younger than 5. “We’re supposed to have a choice about whether to get the child vaccines, but the choices are very slim.”
Jan6 Stuff - Kinda
Steve Bannon seems archetypical of the Bluff-n-Bluster school of How To Succeed By Being A Raging Asshole.
Facing trial, Bannon vows to go ‘medieval,’ but judge says meh
After a judge sharply limits Bannon’s planned defenses for contempt, the refusenik Jan. 6 witness faces long odds at a short trial
Former Trump adviser and right wing podcaster Stephen K. Bannon promised the contempt of Congress charges against him would become a “misdemeanor from hell” for the Biden administration, but after judicial rulings against his proposed defense, legal experts said his trial set to start Monday could be more of a quick trip through court.
At a recent hearing that left Bannon’s legal strategy in tatters, his lawyer David Schoen asked U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols, “what’s the point of going to trial if there are no defenses?” The judge replied simply: “Agreed.”
The exchange was a remarkable comedown for the combative, bombastic Bannon team that live-streamed his declaration, “we’re taking down the Biden regime” as he surrendered to the FBI in late 2021 on charges he had illegally flouted the House committee probing Jan. 6.
The judge’s response was a lawyerly way of urging Bannon to seek a plea deal with the government, rather than face long odds at a short trial, said Randall Eliason, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor.
“Obviously everyone’s entitled to a trial, but usually if you go to trial there’s some kind of legal or factual dispute that needs to be resolved,” Eliason said. “The judge’s point is, there aren’t really any here … In those instances, going to trial becomes what prosecutors sometimes call a long guilty plea.”
Bannon’s case, while high profile and politically significant, is a legal rarity. Over the last four decades — even when Congress referred such an instance of alleged contempt of Congress to the Justice Department for prosecution — they were rarely charged, and those that did lead to convictions or pleas came undone. But this trial comes amid highly-watched televised hearings of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — the panel that Bannon refused to speak to, or provide documents to, leading to his criminal charges.
Bannon is one of two former Trump aides to face criminal charges in connection with rebuffing the committee, along with former White House trade adviser Peter K. Navarro. On the same day Navarro was indicted in June, the Justice Department disclosed that it would not charge former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and communications chief Daniel Scavino Jr.
On July 10, members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack discussed the impact of testimony on future public hearings. (Video: The Washington Post)
Unlike Bannon and Navarro, Meadows and Scavino engaged in months of talks with the committee over the terms and limits of potential testimony and executive privilege claims. Meadows also turned over thousands of text messages and communications with members of Congress and other White House aides before ending negotiations and withdrawing his appearance for a deposition. And unlike the other three men, Bannon left the Trump White House in 2017 and was a private citizen at the time of the 2020 election and subsequent presidential transition.
Bannon’s lawyers have argued that former president Donald Trump invoked executive privilege to shield the conversations from congressional inquiry — but the judge in his case noted that it’s not at all clear Trump did invoke the privilege. Even if he did, it’s not clear that a former, rather than current president can assert the privilege, or how such a claim could apply to Bannon, who had been out of government for years by the time period in question.
In past cases involving battles for information between executive branch officials and Congress, claims of executive privilege are as much a negotiating posture as a legal principle — a way of bargaining for limits on what is turned over to Congress. In Bannon’s case, however, there was little to no negotiation, and the judge has warned his lawyers that the only potential defense to the charge of contempt is whether he knowingly missed or just misunderstood the deadline set for responding to the panel’s demands.
The judge noted that before Bannon was charged, Trump’s attorney had instructed him to cite any immunity or privilege with the committee “where appropriate” — not that Bannon could simply refuse to answer every question or provide any document. Nichols also cited a letter from Trump attorney Justin Clark to Bannon’s lawyer stating that he “didn’t indicate that we believe there is immunity from testimony for your client. As I indicated to you the other day, we don’t believe there is.”
Jury selection in the case is due to begin Monday, and the trial is likely to be brief — prosecutors say their case will take a day, and given the judge’s limitations on which witnesses Bannon can call and what issues he can raise, it’s unclear how long Bannon’s own case may take, or if he will testify.
In issuing a subpoena to Bannon, the committee said it wanted to question him about activities at the Willard Hotel the night before the riot, when Trump supporters sought to persuade Republican lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election results. The committee said Bannon spoke with Trump by telephone that morning and evening, the last time after Bannon predicted “hell is going to break loose” Jan. 6, and the committee’s report recommending that he be found in contempt said the comments indicated he “had some foreknowledge about extreme events that would occur the next day.”
But charging Bannon and taking him to trial significantly decreases the odds he ever provides evidence to the committee.
“Other than having the satisfaction of getting a conviction, there’s not really an enforcement element to the case, and it seriously complicates any attempt to use him as a witness,” said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel who represented Scavino in his dealings with the committee. “Any legal lessons may come much later with any appeals.”
If convicted, Bannon’s potential punishment is unclear. The two misdemeanor contempt charges are each punishable by at least 30 days and up to one year in prison. Court records show that the three similar contempt of Congress cases that have been charged in D.C. federal court since 1990 all resulted in guilty pleas, but none of those individuals received jail time under plea deals with prosecutors. Two were pardoned by a president of their party and the third was allowed to withdraw his plea and admit to a lesser charge in a sentencing mix-up by prosecutors.
Bannon, however, is a different sort of defendant than those past government officials.
A former media executive who boasted of creating a “platform for the alt-right,” Bannon has championed a “populist-nationalist” movement since chairing Trump’s campaign for part of 2016. While he has denied responsibility for the Jan. 6 riot by Trump supporters, he considered himself an ideological architect of the efforts to overturn the election and the Jan. 6 Trump rally.
Bannon’s podcast was kicked off YouTube after Jan. 6 but remains one of the country’s most popular on Apple’s platform, with more than 200 million total downloads. In September 2020, Bannon began outlining how Trump could claim election fraud and throw the outcome to the House of Representatives, and continued predicting that Trump should just declare victory regardless of results on Nov. 3 before promoting the baseless idea that the election was stolen in more than 120 podcasts episodes leading up to Jan. 6.
The apocalyptic denunciations continued as Bannon unsuccessfully sought for a delay in his trial and offered this month to speak to the committee at a time and place of his choice. Prosecutors called that effort a ploy to avoid accountability that showed further contempt for the court and government by wasting their time as well as Congress’s. The committee said it would not negotiate until Bannon produced subpoenaed documents first.
“Pray for our enemies, because we’re going medieval on these people. We’re going to savage our enemies,” Bannon said in a podcast as the trial neared, adding, “Who needs prayers? Certainly not Stephen K. Bannon.”
Prosecutors had warned that Bannon’s desired legal defenses, such as calling prominent Democrats as witnesses, would have turned the trial into a “circus,” and the judge’s rulings seem to have cut off many of the avenues for doing so.
But Bannon has shown he is more than happy to try to make his case outside the courthouse as well as in it.
Eliason, the law professor, said one possible reason for Bannon to fight on through a long shot trial is to preserve his rights to appeal. But the pugilistic podcaster may have other motives.
“Maybe it’s just a show to him, one where he can play the MAGA martyr and use it to raise his profile,” said Eliason. “That’s not a legal reason to go to trial but it may be enough of a reason for him.”
Also typical of that personality is the total inability to keep their mouths shut about what they're trying to pull and what a total bollix they've made of it when their little plots are exposed - it all goes Ka-Flooey, but they're never done; they can't let go of it.
WaPo: (pay wall)
Facing trial, Bannon vows to go ‘medieval,’ but judge says meh
After a judge sharply limits Bannon’s planned defenses for contempt, the refusenik Jan. 6 witness faces long odds at a short trial
Former Trump adviser and right wing podcaster Stephen K. Bannon promised the contempt of Congress charges against him would become a “misdemeanor from hell” for the Biden administration, but after judicial rulings against his proposed defense, legal experts said his trial set to start Monday could be more of a quick trip through court.
At a recent hearing that left Bannon’s legal strategy in tatters, his lawyer David Schoen asked U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols, “what’s the point of going to trial if there are no defenses?” The judge replied simply: “Agreed.”
The exchange was a remarkable comedown for the combative, bombastic Bannon team that live-streamed his declaration, “we’re taking down the Biden regime” as he surrendered to the FBI in late 2021 on charges he had illegally flouted the House committee probing Jan. 6.
The judge’s response was a lawyerly way of urging Bannon to seek a plea deal with the government, rather than face long odds at a short trial, said Randall Eliason, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor.
“Obviously everyone’s entitled to a trial, but usually if you go to trial there’s some kind of legal or factual dispute that needs to be resolved,” Eliason said. “The judge’s point is, there aren’t really any here … In those instances, going to trial becomes what prosecutors sometimes call a long guilty plea.”
Bannon’s case, while high profile and politically significant, is a legal rarity. Over the last four decades — even when Congress referred such an instance of alleged contempt of Congress to the Justice Department for prosecution — they were rarely charged, and those that did lead to convictions or pleas came undone. But this trial comes amid highly-watched televised hearings of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — the panel that Bannon refused to speak to, or provide documents to, leading to his criminal charges.
Bannon is one of two former Trump aides to face criminal charges in connection with rebuffing the committee, along with former White House trade adviser Peter K. Navarro. On the same day Navarro was indicted in June, the Justice Department disclosed that it would not charge former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and communications chief Daniel Scavino Jr.
On July 10, members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack discussed the impact of testimony on future public hearings. (Video: The Washington Post)
Unlike Bannon and Navarro, Meadows and Scavino engaged in months of talks with the committee over the terms and limits of potential testimony and executive privilege claims. Meadows also turned over thousands of text messages and communications with members of Congress and other White House aides before ending negotiations and withdrawing his appearance for a deposition. And unlike the other three men, Bannon left the Trump White House in 2017 and was a private citizen at the time of the 2020 election and subsequent presidential transition.
Bannon’s lawyers have argued that former president Donald Trump invoked executive privilege to shield the conversations from congressional inquiry — but the judge in his case noted that it’s not at all clear Trump did invoke the privilege. Even if he did, it’s not clear that a former, rather than current president can assert the privilege, or how such a claim could apply to Bannon, who had been out of government for years by the time period in question.
In past cases involving battles for information between executive branch officials and Congress, claims of executive privilege are as much a negotiating posture as a legal principle — a way of bargaining for limits on what is turned over to Congress. In Bannon’s case, however, there was little to no negotiation, and the judge has warned his lawyers that the only potential defense to the charge of contempt is whether he knowingly missed or just misunderstood the deadline set for responding to the panel’s demands.
The judge noted that before Bannon was charged, Trump’s attorney had instructed him to cite any immunity or privilege with the committee “where appropriate” — not that Bannon could simply refuse to answer every question or provide any document. Nichols also cited a letter from Trump attorney Justin Clark to Bannon’s lawyer stating that he “didn’t indicate that we believe there is immunity from testimony for your client. As I indicated to you the other day, we don’t believe there is.”
Jury selection in the case is due to begin Monday, and the trial is likely to be brief — prosecutors say their case will take a day, and given the judge’s limitations on which witnesses Bannon can call and what issues he can raise, it’s unclear how long Bannon’s own case may take, or if he will testify.
In issuing a subpoena to Bannon, the committee said it wanted to question him about activities at the Willard Hotel the night before the riot, when Trump supporters sought to persuade Republican lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election results. The committee said Bannon spoke with Trump by telephone that morning and evening, the last time after Bannon predicted “hell is going to break loose” Jan. 6, and the committee’s report recommending that he be found in contempt said the comments indicated he “had some foreknowledge about extreme events that would occur the next day.”
But charging Bannon and taking him to trial significantly decreases the odds he ever provides evidence to the committee.
“Other than having the satisfaction of getting a conviction, there’s not really an enforcement element to the case, and it seriously complicates any attempt to use him as a witness,” said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel who represented Scavino in his dealings with the committee. “Any legal lessons may come much later with any appeals.”
If convicted, Bannon’s potential punishment is unclear. The two misdemeanor contempt charges are each punishable by at least 30 days and up to one year in prison. Court records show that the three similar contempt of Congress cases that have been charged in D.C. federal court since 1990 all resulted in guilty pleas, but none of those individuals received jail time under plea deals with prosecutors. Two were pardoned by a president of their party and the third was allowed to withdraw his plea and admit to a lesser charge in a sentencing mix-up by prosecutors.
Bannon, however, is a different sort of defendant than those past government officials.
A former media executive who boasted of creating a “platform for the alt-right,” Bannon has championed a “populist-nationalist” movement since chairing Trump’s campaign for part of 2016. While he has denied responsibility for the Jan. 6 riot by Trump supporters, he considered himself an ideological architect of the efforts to overturn the election and the Jan. 6 Trump rally.
Bannon’s podcast was kicked off YouTube after Jan. 6 but remains one of the country’s most popular on Apple’s platform, with more than 200 million total downloads. In September 2020, Bannon began outlining how Trump could claim election fraud and throw the outcome to the House of Representatives, and continued predicting that Trump should just declare victory regardless of results on Nov. 3 before promoting the baseless idea that the election was stolen in more than 120 podcasts episodes leading up to Jan. 6.
The apocalyptic denunciations continued as Bannon unsuccessfully sought for a delay in his trial and offered this month to speak to the committee at a time and place of his choice. Prosecutors called that effort a ploy to avoid accountability that showed further contempt for the court and government by wasting their time as well as Congress’s. The committee said it would not negotiate until Bannon produced subpoenaed documents first.
“Pray for our enemies, because we’re going medieval on these people. We’re going to savage our enemies,” Bannon said in a podcast as the trial neared, adding, “Who needs prayers? Certainly not Stephen K. Bannon.”
Prosecutors had warned that Bannon’s desired legal defenses, such as calling prominent Democrats as witnesses, would have turned the trial into a “circus,” and the judge’s rulings seem to have cut off many of the avenues for doing so.
But Bannon has shown he is more than happy to try to make his case outside the courthouse as well as in it.
Eliason, the law professor, said one possible reason for Bannon to fight on through a long shot trial is to preserve his rights to appeal. But the pugilistic podcaster may have other motives.
“Maybe it’s just a show to him, one where he can play the MAGA martyr and use it to raise his profile,” said Eliason. “That’s not a legal reason to go to trial but it may be enough of a reason for him.”
Today's Stoopid Fuckin' Republican
There is only one organ in a woman’s body “that is not there to serve a purpose for her and that is her womb.”
“I’m not going to apologize for saying that,” Tschida told MTN. “I think that’s exactly what it’s there for. It welcomes in a new life and that’s what it’s there to do, to nurture and sustain that life.”
So, if her womb is there to serve as an incubator for new life, but it's not there to serve any other purpose for a woman, then who's purpose are you insisting it's there to serve?
Gosh - lemme see - maybe that purpose is all about a man taking sole province over a woman's reproductive decisions. That's it, isn't it, you arrogant dominionist assholes?
Seriously now, guys - fuck off and leave people alone.
WaPo: (pay wall)
GOP lawmaker: Womb has ‘no specific purpose’ to a woman’s ‘life or well-being’
As millions of Americans protest restrictions that preclude abortions, even when the life of a woman is at risk, Montana state Rep. Brad Tschida (R) is arguing that a woman’s womb “serves no specific purpose to her life or well-being.”
Tschida, a former Montana House majority leader who is running for the state Senate, wrote an email this week to more than 100 legislators citing a podcast featuring a woman who is an antiabortion advocate, according to the Daily Montanan.
“The womb is the only organ in a woman’s body that serves no specific purpose to her life or well-being,” Tschida wrote on Monday, according to MTN News, the first to report the news. “It is truly a sanctuary.”
The false claim goes against long-accepted science surrounding the pear-shaped organ and how it helps in women’s reproductive health and function. The uterus plays a critical role not just in the growth and development of a fetus during pregnancy but also menstruation and fertility. Conditions and diseases of the uterus can cause painful symptoms that require medical treatment, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Tschida’s remarks were met by backlash from Democrats who accused the lawmaker of holding “antiquated, and frankly offensive beliefs.” Among those critics was state Rep. Willis Curdy (D), Tschida’s state Senate opponent, who decried the comments as “absolutely ludicrous and flat-out creepy.”
“He is literally telling women what is and isn’t theirs and what they can and cannot do with their bodies,” Curdy tweeted.
But Tschida, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday, doubled down on his remarks to local media, and pointed to a comment from the antiabortion activist in the podcast episode he had referenced: There is only one organ in a woman’s body “that is not there to serve a purpose for her and that is her womb.”
“I’m not going to apologize for saying that,” Tschida told MTN. “I think that’s exactly what it’s there for. It welcomes in a new life and that’s what it’s there to do, to nurture and sustain that life.”
The Republican’s comments come as the country continues to navigate through the first weeks of a post-Roe landscape — a stretch dominated by protests, lawsuits, court rulings and a man’s arrest in the case of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who traveled to Indiana for an abortion. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced Thursday that he was suing the Biden administration over federal rules that require abortions be provided in medical emergencies to save the life of the mother, even in states with near-total bans. The lawsuit follows new guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services that asserted federal law requiring emergency medical treatment supersedes any state restrictions on abortion in cases where the pregnant patient’s life or health is at risk.
While abortion remains legal for now in Montana due to protections in the state constitution, Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) has said previously that he would call a special legislative session on abortion if Roe was overturned. As Gianforte joined other Republicans on June 24 in celebrating what he called “a historic win for life, families, and science,” the governor tweeted that he was “in discussions with legislative leaders on next steps as we work to protect life in Montana.” Any legislative change to end the abortion protections would require a voter-approved amendment.
Tschida, who has represented Missoula in the state House since 2015, is running for a state Senate seat in a district that Democrats narrowly won in the previous two elections. The seat has been held by Democratic state Sen. Diane Sands, an outspoken advocate for women’s reproductive rights who recently spoke at a White House roundtable discussion on abortion access with Vice President Harris. Sands’s term ends next year.
In an email sent Monday to legislators, Tschida referenced an episode of a podcast featuring a professor who supported abortion rights debating with a woman who held antiabortion beliefs. Although Tschida told local media that he did not recall the name of the podcast, the Republican noted how the professor asked his antiabortion guest whether a woman should have to “sacrifice her organs because someone else told her to do so.” After thinking on the question, Tschida wrote, the woman expressed her opinion that “the womb is a place set aside for another person who arrives as a result of a choice of a man and a woman to procreate.”
“That single factor has struck me since I heard that commentary,” Tschida wrote.
The Republican told the Daily Montanan that the message he took away from the uterus exchange was comparable to a time he saw a doe fend off birds of prey from eating her dead fawn.
“We’ve got a mother that’s a wild animal that’s trying to protect her offspring who’s already dead, but we don’t have the same concern generally speaking for unborn in humanity,” he said. “I thought that was a pretty interesting parallel or dynamic.”
The Republican argued that voters cared about other issues more than abortion — such as inflation, the high cost of gas and election security — and that his views on women’s rights and their bodies would not be a factor in the November election.
“I’ve told people what I believe. I’ve told them how I would vote,” he said to the newspaper. “That’s up to the individuals.”
Today's Lesson
Allan Savory is a Zimbabwean scientist, livestock farmer, and president and co-founder of the Savory Institute. He originated Holistic management, a systems thinking approach to managing resources.
Savory advocates using bunched and moving livestock to what he claims mimics nature, as a means to heal the environment, stating "only livestock can reverse desertification. There is no other known tool available to humans with which to address desertification that is contributing not only to climate change but also to much of the poverty, emigration, violence, etc. in the seriously affected regions of the world."
Savory advocates using bunched and moving livestock to what he claims mimics nature, as a means to heal the environment, stating "only livestock can reverse desertification. There is no other known tool available to humans with which to address desertification that is contributing not only to climate change but also to much of the poverty, emigration, violence, etc. in the seriously affected regions of the world."
"Only livestock can save us." He believes grasslands hold the potential to sequester enough atmospheric carbon dioxide to reverse climate change. Praised by cattle farmers, his controversial ideas have sparked opposition from academics; ranging from debate on evidence for treatment effects to the scope of the potential impact for carbon sequestration.
Savory received the 2003 Banksia International Award and won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Prince Charles called him "a remarkable man" and noted farmer Joel Salatin wrote, "History will vindicate Allan Savory as one of the greatest ecologists of all time."
In contrast, James E. McWilliams described Savory as having "adherence to scientifically questionable conclusions in the face of evidence to the contrary". George Monbiot said of him, "his statements are not supported by empirical evidence and experimental work, and that in crucial respects his techniques do more harm than good." However, this comment has been subject to criticism in a later article published in The Guardian by Hunter Lovins, titled "Why George Monbiot is wrong: grazing livestock can save the world".
Savory received the 2003 Banksia International Award and won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Prince Charles called him "a remarkable man" and noted farmer Joel Salatin wrote, "History will vindicate Allan Savory as one of the greatest ecologists of all time."
In contrast, James E. McWilliams described Savory as having "adherence to scientifically questionable conclusions in the face of evidence to the contrary". George Monbiot said of him, "his statements are not supported by empirical evidence and experimental work, and that in crucial respects his techniques do more harm than good." However, this comment has been subject to criticism in a later article published in The Guardian by Hunter Lovins, titled "Why George Monbiot is wrong: grazing livestock can save the world".
TED Talk - "Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert"
It sounds perfectly logical, and definitely something we should be trying, even though "mimicking nature" is a pretty tall order, and often a pretty good indication that we're being almost naively hubristic thinking we can just "do as nature does" when we can't possibly know everything nature knows.
That said, we have to take a very broad approach, and at least be willing to consider practically every idea.
BTW: I can't think of the last time I heard an environmentalist admit he arranged for the killing of 40,000 elephants, and then go on to say straight out that it was a fucked up stoopid thing to do.
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