Category: Politics

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Wednesday/ what the hell 😡

I made it my after-dinner stroll to walk down to the QFC on Broadway to buy a bread.
From a block away I could see a commotion going on.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked someone coming from the store.
There were two guys arguing right next to him, he said.
Then one of them pulled out a gun and said to the other ‘Do you want to die?’.
At this point everyone got the hell away from them, and soon after that the store was evacuated.

I later learned that the gunman (age 42) then compounded the two very bad decisions he had already made— 1. bringing the gun into QFC and 2. brandishing it in public during a heated argument—
by holding eight people hostage at the Gold’s Gym next door.
Geez.
He surrendered to the police soon after that and is now in custody.

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Sunday/ at the Pride parade 🌈

Here are a few pictures of Seattle’s 49th annual Seattle Pride Parade along 4th Avenue in downtown.
That’s Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell in the middle of the first picture.

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Tuesday/ ‘some birthday’ 🥳

“Some birthday,” Mr. Trump grumbled on Tuesday as he visited Versailles, a popular Cuban coffee shop in Miami. “Some birthday.”
– Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman reporting for the New York Times (Trump turned 77 today).

Trump is technically in federal custody, after his indictment in a federal courthouse in Miami today. He was booked, a procedure that included digital fingerprints. However, he was not in handcuffs, nor was his passport surrendered or travel limits placed on him.

The scene in Miami as Trump’s motorcade arrived for his arraignment at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr.  U.S. Courthouse*. The crazy people were out there, but the crowd was a lot smaller than many had anticipated, and there was no violence.
(Were hard lessons learned in the wake of the thousand-or-so perpetrators that had been arrested after the Jan. 6 insurrection?)
A man walked around with a real pig’s head on a stake. Some Trump supporters had ‘I stand with Trump’ signs; others ‘Trump-DeSantis 2024’ signs.
*Judge Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. (1938-2003) was the first African-American to be appointed to the Dade County Circuit Court. As a trial judge, he made a landmark ruling precluding the systematic exclusion of blacks from juries. That ruling led to important appellate decisions recognizing the impropriety of such discrimination in the court system.
[Picture from the Washington Post]
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Thursday/ as the ceiling flew away 💸

We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
The crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
The waiter brought a tray
And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale
– From ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, song by the English rock band Procol Harum that was issued as their debut record on 12 May 1967.

10.58 pm, Washington DC
From the New York Times:
The legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 63-36, ensuring the federal government will not run out of money to pay its bills on Monday. It now goes to President Biden to be signed.

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Saturday/ are we getting there? 🤝

With days to spare until a government default, President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Saturday evening announced a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling and fund the government for the next two years.
– Jeff Stein reporting for the Washington Post

Excerpts from Jeff Stein’s reporting in the Washington Post:

Raises the debt ceiling beyond the 2024 election
For Biden, one upside of the deal — assuming it passes — is that he will not have to deal with the debt ceiling again until after the next presidential campaign, because the agreement raises the debt ceiling until 2025.

Largely holds funding flat for domestic programs
The biggest sticking point in negotiations has been funding levels for part of the federal budget — separate from Social Security and Medicare — that funds hundreds of domestic programs, such as scientific research, rental aid and nutritional assistance for mothers.

Claws back some money for the IRS
Despite sparing domestic programs from cuts, the Biden administration agreed to do so in part by paring back some portion of the $80 billion it approved last year for an expansion of the IRS.

Slight funding boosts for the military, veterans affairs
The deal also meets the requests in Biden’s budget to increase spending for the military and veterans affairs in line with inflation.

New work requirements on federal programs
Meeting a GOP priority, the deal increases work requirements on federal food stamps and on family welfare benefits.

Out of the deal: Closing tax loopholes, cutting student debt relief
Negotiators on both sides agreed to drop key demands.

Now it’s over to the House and the Senate to finalize the details and get this over and done with.
Just to reiterate— this is completely upside-down, inside-out, the-horse-has-bolted-from-the-stable insane.
Congress (the Republican Party) failed to agree on the nation’s spending priorities, overspent— and is now holding the world’s financial systems hostage, while haggling over what the money should have been spent on.

And lest you forget, Congress: the 14th amendment in the Constitution of the United States say
‘The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned’.

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Thursday/ be afraid, be very afraid 😵‍💫

If you’re not afraid yet, you should be.
-Catherine Rampell, writing in the Washington Post about the latest debt-ceiling increase showdown in Washington (Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen raised the alarm earlier this week, saying the U.S. government could be out of options to pay its bills by June 1)

Apparently it was not enough that the Republican Party had pushed t****  and his now-convicted seditionist supporters on us for four years.

Now the House Republicans and Speaker Kevin McCarthy want military veterans, social security recipients— and really every American in some way— to pay for the previous Republican administration’s tax cuts.

Here are some scenarios that that will likely play out if the United States indeed defaults on its debt (as reported by Catherine Rampell in the Washington Post):
1. U.S. Treasurys get downgraded — as does virtually every other asset on earth.
2. Interest rates rise further for U.S. consumers, businesses and the government.
3. Global investors likely would sell U.S. dollar-denominated assets as confidence in them evaporates; the dollar might lose value in foreign-exchange markets.
4. Stock markets plummet.
5. Companies holding Treasurys suffer hits to both revenue and balance sheets.
6. There might be a scramble to close out trades that people would otherwise hold.
7. Some of the infrastructure underpinning large parts of the financial system (called “central counterparty clearinghouses”) could essentially get overwhelmed and go down.

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Tuesday/ Tucker Carlson’s text 🤮

The New York Times published the text message that got Tucker Carlson fired.

According to the New York Times:
The text alarmed the Fox board, which saw the message a day before Fox was set to defend itself against Dominion Voting Systems before a jury. The board grew concerned that the message could become public at trial when Mr. Carlson was on the stand, creating a sensational and damaging moment that would raise broader questions about the company.

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Thursday/ a lot of trouble 😵

What is unbelievable is that this man, this immoral creature, still has sway over so many Americans. It would be comforting to imagine that a verdict in Carroll’s favor could break that spell, but we have learned the hard way: nothing will.
-Ruth Marcus, Associate Editor for the Washington Post

Trump’s trial for the rape & defamation of E. Jean Carroll started today.
Also— Last month Trump was charged in a New York State Supreme Court indictment with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniel.
Also— Just today, Trump’s VP Mike Pence testified before a grand jury as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn 2020 the election results.
Also— The culmination of a more than two-year investigation into Trump’s election interference in Georgia is expected this summer, led by a local prosecutor, Fani T. Willis of Fulton County.

We are told by the pollsters that this guy will likely be the Republican Party’s candidate for President of the United States for the 2024 general election.
Really?

E. Jean Carroll arrives to federal court in New York on Thursday. Carroll testified today that Trump had raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in New York three decades ago.
[Picture by Seth Wenig/AP]
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Tuesday/ off to the races 🚌

It’s official: President Joe Biden (80) is running for 2024.
He already has my vote.
Where’s my ballot? Oh— there’s still 566 days to go.

Cartoon by Michael de Adder for the Washington Post.
Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg in the Washington Post, commenting on Biden’s ‘disapproval rate’:
‘The facts are that the country is better off. We’ve come out on the other side of Covid. We’ve seen the lowest peacetime unemployment rate since World War II, the lowest poverty and uninsured rates in American history. We’ve made future-oriented investments in infrastructure and tackling climate change. There’s an enormous amount to work with here’.
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Thursday/ war and peace ✌

This poster on a lamp post calls for Peace in Ukraine, a cause which we can all support— but when one takes a closer look, it quickly gets very complicated.
Yes, the US should not have invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Does that mean the US should also not supply weapons to Ukraine? Only food and shelter with heat, now that all the cities are getting destroyed by Russia’s invasion?
I don’t think so.

There’s a logo at the bottom of the poster that says ‘Party for Socialism and Liberation’. Is that an American political party? Yes.
Wikipedia: The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a communist party in the United States, established in 2004.
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Wednesday/ early days for 2024 🐘

Nikki Haley announced her bid for President for the 2024 election.
She was South Carolina’s governor from 2011 to 2017, and appointed as US Ambassador to the United Nations by Trump and served there from Jan. 2017 through Dec. 2018.
Right now, she is the only official GOP candidate other than The Leader Of The Cult.

.
I don’t know what Mike Pence is saying. Does it matter? Even if he tried, there is just no way he will win the Trump Party’s nomination for 2024.
[Posted by Devin O’Malley @devin_omalley on Twitter and captioned ‘The lights are bright @PizzaRanch in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’]
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Tuesday/ the State of the Union 🇺🇸

President Biden bragged nearly a dozen times about his administration’s accomplishments, but said he had more to do.
[Picture by Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times]
President Biden has not yet officially announced that he is running for a second term in 2024. He seemed energized tonight during the State of the Union address, though— taking on Republican shouters with ‘sharp retorts and even a sense of humor in some moments’, as the New York Times put it.

Further reporting from the New York Times:
President Biden delivered a plea to Republicans on Tuesday for unity in his second State of the Union address, but vowed not to back off his economic agenda and offered no far-reaching, new ideas in a speech filled with a familiar litany of exhortations from more than four decades in political life.

Reading rapidly through his prepared remarks and occasionally sparring with his congressional adversaries in real time, Mr. Biden — at 80 the oldest president in history — used the biggest platform of his office to frame his argument for an expected re-election bid by portraying Republican policy proposals as out of step with most Americans even as he offered to work across the aisle.

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Tuesday/ Senator Warnock wins

Senator Raphael Warnock (D) prevailed over Herschel Walker (R) tonight in Georgia’s run-off election.
That means democracy in Georgia still works, more or less.
(Walker did not lose by much, even though he is utterly unqualified to be a US Senator. Today, election day, a work day, the polls were open only from 7 am until 7 pm. Georgia election officials, supported by the Republican Party, tried to prevent 70,000 citizens from voting early on Saturday Nov. 26. At the end, 13 judges had rejected Republicans’ effort to restrict voting, and the voters won back their right to cast early votes).

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Tuesday/ trumpeting another run🎺

The caption says 2024 is Trump’s third bid, but it’s really his fourth. He ran in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate and withdrew after 5 months. (And then again in 2016 and in 2020, of course).

It’s a long road to Nov. 2024, but this should never have happened. Trump should have long been impeached (and found guilty) or have been indicted.
What a sorry shambles for the Republican Party, the Department of Justice, and for the citizens of the United States.

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Saturday/ it’s clear: no red wave 🌊

It’s now official: the Democrats are holding the Senate.
News broke late on Sat. night that Catherine Cortez Masto (D) from Nevada has enough votes to hold her Senate seat.

So the Democrats have reached 50 in the Senate, and there is still the run-off election in Georgia on Dec. 6.
The House is still a toss-up.
Trump is toast, no matter what his ‘big announcement’ next Tuesday may be.

Artist Barry Blitt illustrating the ‘red wave’ that wasn’t, on the cover of The New Yorker magazine.
(The elephant is the mascot of the Republican Party. Or is that Trump, the elephant in the room for Republicans?).
The race in district WA03 drew national attention.
The result: Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, a Democrat, prevailed over Joe Kent, a Republican endorsed by Trump. This is the former seat of Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican who had voted to impeach Trump* and consequently had lost the 2022 Republican primary to Kent.
*Beutler voted NO for Trump’s first impeachment, and YES for the second impeachment post-Jan. 6, 2020.
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Wednesday/ the midterm election results, so far 🗳

The cover of today’s New York Post.
Many Trump-backed candidates lost or were faring poorly.
Pennsylvania: Democrat Josh Shapiro beat Republican Doug Mastriano for governor. Democrat John Fetterman defeated Mehmet Oz.
Michigan: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer defeated Tudor Dixon.
Arizona: Kari Lake & Blake Masters, “America First” candidates in Mr. Trump’s mold, were both behind in their races for governor and Senate, respectively.

How could you look at these results tonight and conclude Trump has any chance of winning a national election in 2024? -Scott Jennings, one of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s former deputies

The Republican red wave in the 2022 mid-term election that Fox News ‘pundits’ had predicted did not materialize. (It does appear that the Republicans will win the House by a slim majority).

Control of the Senate may very well come down to the Dec. 6 run-off election in Georgia between incumbent Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R).

A summary of the status of the Senate and House as of late Wednesday night.
[Infographic by the Washington Post].
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Sunday/ Georgia’s senators

Here are Georgia’s two senators (both Democrats), working the crowds at this weekend’s Atlanta Gay Pride Festival.
Looking sharp !

Sen. Raphael Warnock (53) on the left, and Sen. Jon Ossoff (35) on the right.
Sen. Warnock is running against ex-football star Hershel Walker (60) in what should not even be a close race (Warnock leads by 4% or so in the polls). Walker has zero political experience, and is an anti-abortion rights candidate accused of paying for a former sexual partner’s abortion in 2009 (she has the receipt and a get-well card from him).
Sen. Ossoff will be up for reelection in 2026.
[Photo posted by Jon Ossoff @ossoff on Twitter]
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Saturday/ one month to the mid-term election 📃

The 2022 mid-term election is one month away.

Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House, Democrat) said on The Stephen Colbert Show recently that the Democrats will keep the House.
Karl Rove (political consultant) concluded in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that ‘The three most plausible scenarios are a 50-50 Senate, 51-49 Republican or 51-49 Democrat. A 52-48 Senate either way is possible but unlikely’.

It’s not just about control in the House and Senate, though.
Some gubernatorial races (for governor of a State) are neck-and-neck, and if 2020 Election Outcome Deniers (Republicans) win those, it could make for serious trouble in the 2024 general election.
In Arizona and Georgia, the Republican gubernatorial candidates say they would not have certified Biden’s win in 2020. (The incumbent Republican governors both did.)

The cover of The New Yorker magazine 4 years ago, after the 2018 mid-term elections.
The artist is Barry Blitt. The description was ‘Welcome to Congress: Newly elected, diverse group of Representatives come through the door into a colorless line drawing of current white male members of congress’.
We still need more women to vote, more women to become representatives and senators, and of course:  we still have not had a female president in the United States.