As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
James Downie offers more evidence that Senate Republicans are dealing in bad faith on a January 6 commission, and that Sens. Manchin and Sinema should smell the coffee. Here's a lengthy excerpt:
On “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) was full of flimsy excuses. “Commissions often don’t work at all,” he said. “And when they do work, like the Simpson-Bowles Commission produced a good result, nothing happened as a — as part of that result.” By that standard, we might as well not have laws, because some don’t work. He also argued that “it’s too early to create a commission” because the widely lauded 9/11 Commission didn’t begin its work until late 2002. That’s true, but why couldn’t this new commission start its work earlier? [snip]
[Maine Sen. Susan] Collins’s answer on ABC’s “This Week” got off to an encouraging start for Manchin and company. “I strongly support the creation of an independent commission,” she said. But then came the conditions: “One has to do with staffing, and I think that both sides should either jointly appoint the staff or there should be equal numbers of staff appointed by the chairman and the vice chairman,” she told host George Stephanopoulos. “The second issue is, I see no reason why the report cannot be completed by the end of this year.” Both of Collins’s conditions have also been suggested by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) — another senator who would be on any 10-vote list Manchin might draw up.
The staffing objection is silly: As Philip D. Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission’s executive director, told The Post, the staffing language in the bill is essentially identical to the language establishing the Jan. 6 commission. The only difference is that President George W. Bush selected the 9/11 Commission’s chair, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would select the Jan. 6 commission’s chair. Yet Collins, who was a senator when the 9/11 Commission was established, did not have a problem with that commission. What could possibly have changed?
More damning was Collins’s insistence, echoing McConnell, that the commission needs to keep its work out of an election year. At least Blunt’s main objection has historical precedent, and leaves open the possibility of a commission down the line if congressional and Justice Department investigations don’t succeed. [snip]
Inquiries maintain influence and credibility in the public’s eyes only when they produce damning, incontrovertible findings — think Watergate. Senate Republicans know this, so the only explanation for their opposition to the commission is: 1) They know a full accounting of that terrible day will shame the GOP; and 2) They’d rather once again put their party over the country.
Sens. Manchin and Sinema, this isn’t McConnell telling you there aren’t 10 reasonable Republicans. This is Collins (and Romney) all but screaming it. Ideally, the two Democrats would accept where this road is obviously heading and back filibuster reform now, before the unnecessary theater of trying to sway the unswayable. But at the very least, they should get ready to support changes as soon as the negotiations break down — which they will.
These aren't people committed to a functioning democracy. They're careerists who place a far higher value on their turkey necks than on the fate of the country. We can only hope that the public reluctance of some Democrats to come to grips with this reality is only performative, and that they understand the danger and will act with fellow Democrats to do what's right and protect our democracy.
Speaking of negotiations that will likely break down, this re- bid on infrastructure might also be performative on the Administration's part, but it's making some of us nervous:
As the Biden administration’s infrastructure negotiations with Senate Republicans picked up with a $1.7 trillion counteroffer on Friday, some congressional Democrats are getting antsy.
“We move as quickly as we can on going big, we move as quickly as we can on negotiations,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told Vox on Wednesday. “At some point, if they won’t go where we believe the country needs to go and where the country seems to want to go, then we take off.”
President Biden issued his opening bid last month — the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan — and the GOP responded with a $568 billion infrastructure counteroffer a few weeks ago. (Separately, the White House also introduced a $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, focusing on child care and education.)
The new $1.7 trillion White House counteroffer settles for the $65 billion Republicans floated for broadband funding, and pares back the amount of funding for roads and bridges from Biden’s initial proposal of $159 billion to $120 billion in new investment. It also cuts research and development from a proposed package, vowing to put it in other congressional bills going forward. But the president’s counter keeps funding for clean energy, removing lead pipes from America’s drinking water systems, and boosting long-term care workers.
The Administration's infrastructure plan polls in the stratosphere. We're with Sen. Brown (as usual): we give them a shot, and when they come back in bad faith, we take off.
Looks like Belarus President Alexander "Mini Putin" Lukashenko's forcing a commercial airliner to land in order to arrest a critic is going to have consequences:
European leaders on Monday were considering a plan to sever Belarus from the rest of the continent's airspace, a day after Belarusian authorities forced a commercial airliner to land and arrested a dissident journalist who had been flying from Athens to Lithuania.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that AirBaltic, a major airline in the region, would no longer fly through Belarusian airspace after a Ryanair flight was forced to land Sunday by a Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet. The plane was nearing Vilnius, Lithuania, on Sunday before Belarusian authorities turned it around, made it land in their capital, Minsk, and arrested journalist Roman Protasevich, the founder of an opposition media outlet. He faces at least 12 years in prison.
Rinkevics said he would push for a European ban on flights from Belavia, the Belarusian national airline, as well as a tough package of sanctions against Belarusian authorities. European Union leaders plan to meet Monday evening at a previously scheduled summit in Brussels, where the reaction to Belarus will now be the top priority. A ban on Belavia would be a blow to Belarus’s already shaky economy.
The EU needs to step up and show Mini Putin he crossed a big red line.
On the coronavirus front, this is the kind of babbling, venomous talk that gets people killed:
Pastor Greg Locke urged his followers not to get vaccinated, claiming that "political elites" pretend to get vaccinated by getting injected with "sugar water" instead.
Locke, head of the Baptist Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee, previously predicted on multiple occasions that former President Donald Trump would remain in office—even after it was clear that President Joe Biden had won the election. Earlier this month, Locke claimed that Biden is a "fake president" and that he "stole" the election. During a Sunday sermon this week, the pastor took aim at COVID-19 vaccines.
"I have not changed my stance. I haven't softened my stance. I have strengthened, strictly my stance against the [COVID-19] vaccine," Locke asserted. Right Wing Watch first reported the pastor's remarks.
"I don't care what Pfizer—I don't care what any of the four groups do out there. Look, if you think... for one minute that those political elites actually got that vaccination, you are smoking meth in your mama's basement," the pastor argued, drawing loud applause from those attending the religious service. "Bunch of fake liars is what they are. They didn't shoot nothing in their arm but a bunch of sugar water," Locke insisted.
We're admittedly torn here, given the people involved: reason won't work, so do we let Darwin do his thing?
We close by again strongly recommending a visit to Infidel 753's link round-up to interesting posts from around the Internet. Make his blog a regular stop on your web surfing adventures.
