5/21/21 Giuliani's Mini-Me is a Candidate for Governor of New York

Whoever knew that Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudy Giuliani, wanted to go into politics? He doesn't plan to start at the bottom, either. His campaign is for governor of New York.

In a sign that he lives in a Trumpian Wonderland, Andrew seems to believe he is a successor to his Dad's kingdom of political influence. He also believes that he has five decades of political experience, though he's just 35 years old.

“Giuliani vs. Cuomo. Holy smokes. Its Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier!” Andrew G. said when he announced his candidacy. (Which one is Andrew? Your guess.) “We can sell tickets at Madison Square Garden!”

Gail Collins, NY Times columnist who captured the quote above, asks, "Do you remember the time Andrew was a student at Duke, and sued the golf team when he got kicked off [it] for throwing an apple into another golfer’s face?"

The article she cites elaborates. "He acknowledged that he may have misbehaved," because he also "flipped his putter a few feet, threw and broke a club and gunned his engine in a parking lot." Then, too, Andrew's reported score in one golf tournament put him in the bottom half of a team of 14.

Admittedly, this is minor news, not worth our time. But -- can you imagine?!
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/nyregion/25golf.html?fbclid=IwAR0VcJ9c4fThQpmnOffMBO5A5AKrohqCX8L8IRjaQdZv9O_-ZXTka5Ijq00

5/19/21 McCarthy Won't Take Yes for an Answer on the January 6 Commission

Kevin McCarthy is running scared. As the trumpiest Trumpist around, the House Minority Leader wanted to throw a wrench in the plans for a bipartisan commission to study the insurrection attempt on January 6.

He came up with three demands he figured would work: Equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, co-equal subpoena power and no "predetermined conclusions," a laughably vague statement. What McCarthy means is that anything that might touch Trump is verboten. McCarthy continues to say that the commission should also study violence in smaller American cities by groups like Black Lives Matter. Most Democrats are responding with the equivalent of a blast of kazoos.

Thanks to Democrats' canny decision to grant McCarthy his three wishes, House Republicans will be hard put to say No to the bill.

The 1/6 commission will be made up of 10 members with knowhow about law enforcement and national security. None will have a role in the current government. Each party will appoint five people. They'd finish their report by year's end. The deal is the brainchild of one of McCarthy's good friends, Rep. John Katko of New York. Katko is one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after January 6. Katko isn't happy that McCarthy is bucking the plan he hammered out with Democrats.

While McCarthy flails, a bill to set up the commission will go to a vote in the House on Wednesday, and it's expected to pass. As for the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says, "I think I'm safe in characterizing our conference as willing to listen to the arguments about whether such a commission is needed." Ominous words, for sure.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised that the bill on the 1/6 commission will go to a vote on the Senate floor.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/554201-gop-splits-open-over-jan-6-commission-vote?fbclid=IwAR0dNnFovMavhdDY5Ol8hofF8OBI_iHkNtkygIfRTbiPF-vULZ-h7SLoJOY What do you think McCarthy will do next to stall the bill?

What could Mitch McConnell or other Senators do to stall the bill?

Do you think the Democrats gave away too much on the commission makeup to pacify Republicans' concerns?

5/21/21 Could a January 6 Commission Name Politicians as Co-Conspirators?

In the face of Republicans' unmistakable bad faith on the January 6 commission -- both in House negotiations and now in the Senate -- it’s probably time to get rid of the filibuster so the Democrats can accomplish some things that need to be done.

Rumblings about the filibuster are starting to sound like an earthquake.

“It’s one more reminder that McConnell thinks he has a veto over anything that he wants to stop. That’s not what the founders thought when they wrote the constitution and it’s sure not what a Democratic majority should go along with now,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

With big bills from the Democrats in the offing, and the Republicans claiming (without being specific) that better broadband access and electric charging stations for cars are not infrastructure, it's going to be tough to get those bills through.

It will be embarrassing to the Republicans if they filibuster the 1/6 Commission, but it looks as though they'll do it.

So yes, Republicans are on the very edge of forcing Democrats to get rid of the filibuster. The Republicans did it already for SCOTUS nominations so that Democrats couldn't keep the neanderthals off the bench. They'd do it again in a heartbeat. The Democrats, despite all our scruples, should go first.

Back to the 1/6 commission: Republicans once initiated a bill for a commission about the insurrection attempt, but didn't follow through. Now, McConnell and other bitteratti of the Right are talking about not needing an investigative group at all based on an ongoing investigation that doesn't exist. Some don't even need excuses; they simply refuse to cooperate. Thanks to Ms. Pelosi's brilliant decision to meet all the Republicans' demands for the commission, they haven't got an excuse or a leg to stand on.

We've all assumed that Republican politicians are clinging to Trump because the voters are clinging to Trump. We've assumed that it's a naked pursuit of reelection for all those politicians.

It's also fear, as Liz Cheney said, for their personal protection and the protection of their families and homes. Trump added to those fears today by bitching about the Republican House members who voted for the commission along with the Democrats.

But there's more. The Republicans' extreme level of obstruction is starting to look like self-protection. Republicans were and still are backing Trump and all his lies. Because they spread and supported those lies throughout the presidential campaign, it's possible that Trumpists are afraid that they'll be blamed as co-conspirators in the insurrection.

I don't mean that Republican politicians will be charged with crimes. I mean that their anti-patriotic, even treasonous actions will be widely recognized by the public. I suppose that scares them in the same way Trump does.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/january-6-commission-filibuster_n_60a69467e4b0a24c4f797681?fbclid=IwAR2p0Mv96de8Ufouzdnxk7FTqFeuehpG4dXk_h0Ufr3LAupHTUFH0jz-4nA

Is it time to deep-six the filibuster? Do you feel any scruples about it? Does it scare you a little?

Do you think that Republicans fear being called co-conspirators in the insurrection?

What would it take to keep Trump from continuing to damage our democracy?

5/20/21 The House Passes the Jan. 6 Commission Bill. Now Comes the Hard Part.

The January 6 commission went to the House today, and to nobody's surprise, it passed. All the Democrats and 35 Republicans voted “Yes.”

The commission, if the bill survives the Senate, would have ten members, five appointed by Dems, five by Repugs. Both parties would have subpoena power. Commission members would be nongovernment (during the commission, at least). They'd be experts in policing, security, counterterrorism and other relevant fields. The report would be due by the end of the year.

Did you see the forest of "woulds" in that explanation? That's because the Senate Republicans have no intention of letting the bill go through. Even though the bill mirrors a Republican proposal for a bipartisan commission, introduced in January. Even though Bill Katko, Republican House member from New York, wrangled an agreement with the Democrats that included everything the Republicans said they wanted. Katko isn't a Trumper. He voted for impeachment after January 6. But still.

Before the vote, Katko said, “I urge all of you in the body, all of you on both sides — not just my side, not just your side, all of us — to set aside politics just this once ... and pass this bill."

In the Senate, Mitch McConnell is laying down a thick layer of obstruction. “After careful consideration," he said on the Senate floor, "I've made the decision to oppose the House Democrats’ slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission.”

The "other commission" was the aforementioned proposal from January, which was a major effort to obfuscate the fact that Donald Trump literally tried to take over the U.S. Government in a coup attempt. "Slanted and unbalanced" refers to the Republicans' wanting the commission to investigate a sprawling list of events that would allow Republicans to criticize Democrats and water down Trump's insurrection.

I think that if the Senate tries to kill this commission bill, it's time to end the filibuster and pass it. The Trumpists' position is disgraceful. It's unpatriotic. It's CRAZY. But that's the Republicans under the influence of Donald Trump.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/554450-house-approves-jan-6-commission-over-gop-objections?fbclid=IwAR320W2rYg8vICwFlQDJ4-MWuk7ZBLefWCovwmOuvom-76BZQrYiY2sQWHw

How would you feel if the bill is killed in the Senate? What would you do?

What should happen?

What do you expect will happen?

And why does it matter?

5/16/21 Is Fairness Overrated?

Lester Holt, a big-name broadcast journalist at NBC, recently received a lifetime achievement award from Washington State University. That's the alma mater of Edward R. Murrow, a journalist's journalist in the World War II era.

The canon of Murrow's day was to cover all points of view objectively. Holt, in his remarks, tossed that canon aside, saying, “I think it’s become clear that fairness is overrated.”

What Holt is talking about is whether there’s value in giving the point of view of all sides when one of those sides is a blast of hot air. As Holt put it, “The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in. That the sun sets in the west is a fact. Any contrary view does not deserve our time and attention.”

The point of Jeffrey McCall's op-ed, attached, is that that perspective is wrong. Mentioning points of view is not distributing misinformation, he says. Worse, if you dismiss an opinion that you think is nonsense, you're assuming that you do know the truth. You're also dumbing down the news by keeping people from evaluating other sides.

If you're covering Trump Republicans, you're covering conflict rather than substance. Do you really need that point of view stuck into a story about, say, immigration? Writers and Holt are saying no. McCall is saying yes.

When you turn aside from a point of view that you think is ridiculous, you're also turning aside from people who agree with it. And that's why right-wing voters can't stand the mainstream media. https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/553719-journalism-dies-in-newsroom-cultures-where-fairness-is-overrated?fbclid=IwAR1ru5xnmv-HshGzSY_pZmxXcfeSyykx1GxHOPRd84AaTWWAdQ_Op5mHpoU&rl=1

Do you agree with Holt or McCall? Are we missing "On the other hand..." in the news?

Do you think that the media is deliberately brushing aside right-wing views? Or are right-wingers simply demanding a bias that they agree with?

What kind of nonsense does the Right believe in that you think should NOT be reported?

5/17/21 Liz Cheney: Is She Salome, Boudicca or Joan of Arc?

Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has gone to war against Trumpist liars.

On the Sunday morning talk shows, Cheney said that only a small number of her GOP colleagues actually believe the election was stolen from Trump, but they're mum because they're scared.

“We now live in a country where members’ votes are affected because they’re worried about their security, they’re worried about threats on their lives,” she said. That is, some yahoo could take a shot at them and/or their families or staff.

Legislative backbones are fully dissolved, I'm guessing, since that video of Marjorie Taylor Greene was resurrected -- the one where she's hectoring Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz through an office mail flap.

And the apologists turning January 6 into a picnic? "The notion that this was somehow a tourist event is disgraceful and despicable," Cheney said in a pre-recorded interview on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." She was speaking of House member Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who had made that claim.

"And, you know, I won't be part of whitewashing what happened on Jan. 6. Nobody should be part of it. And people ought to be held accountable," she said, calling out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), her replacement in leadership, for lying for Trump.

The talking heads' wisdom this morning included guessing whether Cheney should run for president. It's a way to keep her assault on the crapmeisters alive and on the front page, for sure. One interviewer mentioned that Cheney's former vice-president Dad, Dick ("Darth-Vader") Cheney, thought she should run. Cheney didn't answer that question.

She did say, however, that "I will do everything that I can to make sure [Trump's] not the nominee [during the next Presidential election] and, you know, everything necessary to make sure that he never gets anywhere close to the Oval Office again." Now, that is a woman I can get behind, Republican or not.

Problem is, Cheney is throwing her hat into a specialized ring: Women who lead the charge. It does not always go well for them.

Is she like Salome, trying to get some well-connected man to put Trump's head on a platter? (Indulge me here.) Not likely. She's driving the charge herself.

Is she like Boudicca, that revolutionary Celt who drove Rome out most of England? Cheney wants to lead principled Republicans to push out Trumpists, the way Boudicca's swarm of followers pushed Rome out of England for a while. Unfortunately, Boudicca lost most of her tens of thousands of followers to Roman battle tactics on a single day.

Or is Cheney like Joan of Arc, who'll win her war with the help of Democrats only to be burned at the stake after she wins?

Or is she going to be a rare bird, a woman who succeeds spectacularly in American public office?

This is going to be really interesting! As long as Trump is vanquished, that is.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/16/cheney-capitol-riot-republicans-488687?fbclid=IwAR1edGDIMX9GOSwnvXYMuYzGxc7UOthl9i0ZhWuR052Sys_fXPb1ktnGMwY

5/15/21 "Disinformation Dozen" Drive COVID Vaccine Lies

Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate have managed to track down just 12 accounts that are responsible for the bulk of the misinformation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

This diabolical clutch of fraudsters are responsible for *65%* of the shares on the three social media sites, according to the CCDH's Imran Ahmed, the group's CEO.

The lie-spinners are well-known to the social networks, too. They're a mishmash of "natural health" boosters, anti-vaxxers, sellers of supplements and books, and even doctors. They don't care where their misinformation comes from. They'll pick up stories from anywhere and exaggerate, twist, and misrepresent them in whatever way serves their purpose. What's more, many of these people have been at it for years!

There can be no doubt that they've contributed to the "vaccine hesitancy" that is keeping so many Americans from getting COVID-19 shots.

Since the news went public two days ago, Facebook has removed 16 accounts (including Instagram accounts) and stymied 22 others by preventing users from recommending the accounts, as well as blocking the accounts' ads, and so forth. A spokesman said FB had ditched more than 16 million "pieces of content."

Twitter suspended two of the hucksters' accounts, had other accounts delete some tweets, and made the tweets impossible to share. The company says it's removed more than 22,400 tweets for violating its COVID-19 policies.

In what we hope are the waning weeks of the pandemic, let's hope the social media companies become more diligent -- and stay that way.
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes?fbclid=IwAR2ahtYTQYRvYELnkIOIxkYdo7Na6GHwWJB2VyuQfVLAauyJAS47C89bRm4

5/14/21 Gaetz Loses His "Wingman" to the Other Side

We don't know a lot of of the sordid details of Congressman Matt Gaetz's sex crimes, but that's about to change: Gaetz's wingman in puerile pursuits has turned fed's evidence, and so has Gaetz's former girlfriend.

The "wingman," as Gaetz himself called him, is Joel Greenberg, former tax collector for Seminole County, Florida. Greenberg faces 33 charges. We'll find out Monday, when he faces an Orlando magistrate, whether the chargees changed as part of his deal.

If Gaetz's former girlfriend also strikes a deal, then Gaetz's goose may be well and truly cooked.

Those who have the stomach to read more about Gaetz's peccadillos can check out the article linked below. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/13/key-player-in-federal-probe-into-gaetz-set-to-plead-guilty-488045?fbclid=IwAR1UjEef09mc_j6XV27b-35uUsaZMhIZ9A1uvvUp0JZGp3aOZHjWe6eS50I

5/14/21 Hollerin' Greene Chases AOC Down a Capitol Hallway

If anyone knows how to pick a fight, it's Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). On Wednesday, she tried to start something with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when both left the House chamber about the same time.

"Hey, Alexandria!" Greene shouted twice as AOC scurried away, according to two Washington Post reporters.

We don't know if Greene actually ran, but she caught up with AOC and started shouting about her "radical socialist" agenda and why AOC supports the "terrorist" groups Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Then Greene shouted about AOC's refusal to debate her in public.

AOC didn't respond, although she did turn around once and throw her hands in the air.

Greene shot more flaming arrows by talking to the reporters, saying "She's a chicken. She doesn't want to debate."

Ocasio-Cortez's office later asked for security measures to "make Congress a safe, civil place for all Members and staff."

One Representative, Cori Bush, has already moved her office to get away from Greene's after a short but unpleasant conversation when Bush asked Greene to wear a mask.

Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi said Greene's attack was "It's so beyond the pale that you wonder, it probably is a matter for the Ethics Committee."

In a business setting, it would be a matter for Human Resources. If the average private company can handle inappropriate behavior, then Congress should be able to handle it too.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-just-sank-to-a-new-low/ar-BB1gHuJh?ocid=ob-fb-enus-1541512262291&fbclid=IwAR39NFmwF5z7LHeZToxYBwU2bwsGTl4_-geqtm90RLMgbUm639_vRlSwxgk

5/13/21 The GOP May Split Into Rationals and Radicals After Cheney's Ouster

You may remember Miles Taylor, the former Homeland Security official who anonymously criticized then-President Trump. On Thursday, he says, he and other true-blue Republicans will launch a movement to pull the GOP out of its wildly out-of-true orbit -- the one that circles Donald Trump.

The opening salvo is a letter that reiterates pre-Trump ideals of conservatism and threatens to form a new, third party unless the GOP pulls away from the Velveeta Voldemort. There are said to be more than 100 signatories who are big name Republicans, ex-Republicans, and independents.

"This is a first step," said Taylor, who is one of the organizers. “[We] think that the situation has gotten so dire with the Republican Party that it is now time to seriously consider whether an alternative might be the only option.”

He continues, “[I]f we can’t get the G.O.P. back to a rational party that supports free minds, free markets, and free people, I’m out and a lot of people are coming with me.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/us/politics/republicans-third-party-trump.html?fbclid=IwAR3aihydOUShY8EB8w8j07J29LSI9s3bkAQ0g_Bg66IBn9mDZJyHQsHIVrw

5/13/21 While Workers Got Laid Off, Big Shots Got Bigger Bucks

After reviewing 100 companies' pay practices from last year -- companies that have lots of low-wage workers -- the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies determined that 51 of those companies goosed up executive pay by an average of 31%, while the lower-paid workers got 2% less in compensation.

Magical accounting malleability does complicate the picture. One auto-parts firm, Aptiv, reportedly increased its CEO's pay to $31 million, but a spokesman there said that it looked that way because of an accounting adjustment, and the CEO actually got less than $14 million. On the other hand, the average pay for employees was down 19% for the year, to $5,906. That startlingly low number includes workers who are part time and those who work overseas.

A Bloomberg report says that the "metrics" for CEO pay changed in more than 300 companies in the S&P 500 stock index last year. That meant that execs "as a whole" got huge bonuses that more than compensate for any accounting adjustments. Then, too, executive pay is usually based on the stock market, which seemed immune from COVID19 even as the disease sickened the economy for everyone else.

"When you compensate CEOs based on share prices," an AFL-CIO honcho says, "it incentivizes destructive behavior, but also contributes to economic inequality." IPS simply says the system is rigged.

It's nice to be boss -- especially when the Republicans have your back on tax rates.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chief-executive-officer-pay-pandemic/?fbclid=IwAR2Y7p8x9bNmz6Xtv1VnMCO4qtHzAchYLpXG_XtXPrDdTLFzyv-XUmVVtEc

5/10/21 Congress Hears Testimony for a "Momnibus" Bill to Tackle Black Maternity Issues

The United States has long had a birthing problem. The number of deaths among Black women giving birth is so high that it's beyond horrific -- they die during or shortly after childbirth at three times the rate that white mothers do -- and even the rate for white moms is not exemplary among wealthy nations.

For Black families, poverty, inequitable access to health care, simple racism are all at fault. And since almost a quarter of Black moms report poor treatment, significantly high stress is also a factor. An increase in the numbers of black "doulas," or midwives, hasn't been enough to turn things around.

On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee heard testimony from Black moms and dads about their experiences at hospitals during the births of their children. The stories were horrific, starting with testimony from one of their own: Representative Cori Bush of Missouri. Bush had four months of intense vomiting, but her doctor brushed it off. A week later, Bush gave birth 17 weeks early. The baby spent five months in the hospital. Bush's doctor apologized and asked for another chance.

When Bush went into labor early again with her second child, the doctor on duty said, “Just go home. Let it abort. You can get pregnant again because that’s what you people do.” He left the room, and Bush's sister, who was with her, picked up a chair and threw it down the hall just to get someone else's attention. "That's what desperation looks like," Bush said. This time, her doctor intervened, and in short, Bush's daughter was born full term.

Bush's story is one of three laid out in the Slate article with the link below. One father, whose wife developed internal bleeding after the birth but had to wait 8-1/2 hours for care, said "There’s no statistic that can quantify what it’s like to tell an 18 month old that his mommy’s never coming home."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/05/congress-faces-the-gut-wrenching-facts-of-the-black-maternal-mortality-crisis.html?fbclid=IwAR2Y2JS2J9AIVMoqDaiMbdMDJhWa68NjqWsXEX7JwO7-vQy_m3nXnKivoeU

5/11/21 One More Senator Speaks Up for Cheney

Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa spoke up in Liz Cheney's defense today, adding one more to Cheney's tiny circle of supporters, which includes Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

"I feel it's OK to go ahead and express what you feel is right to express," she told reporters, likening Cheney's treatment to cancel culture. "Unfortunately, I think there are those that are trying to silence others in the party."

Unlike Cheney, Ernst supports Trump, and did not vote to impeach him earlier this year. Ernst is the Senate GOP's conference vice chair. While she doesn't see eye to eye with Cheney, she says, "I still think we shouldn't be trying to cancel voices." Instead, "What we can do is come together and try to win seats in 2022."

However, Ernst, like Romney, can't vote to keep Cheney in House leadership.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has scheduled a vote for Wednesday to oust Cheney as the #3 Republican in Congress. Like many or most Senate Republicans, he has pledged his troth to Donald Trump and his fantasy of a "stolen" election. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/552734-top-female-gop-senator-compares-cheney-ousting-to-cancel-culture?fbclid=IwAR2b7Yjs794y9DFRx0FWgguD-W1gJrK-OJGJjVvATF4_SSXEA6Fx_vj6bYM

5/12/21 FTC Loses Half Its Teeth in Unanimous SCOTUS Decision

In recent years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has clawed back money for defrauded consumers by taking people who scammed those consumers to court. The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of one such scammer by saying that the FTC was using the wrong method to get that money back.

For decades, the FTC has taken a shortcut by assuming the power to demand restitution. According to the text of the applicable law, though, the FTC is supposed to earn the right to demand restitution: It has to demonstrate that the case merits restitution by issuing injunctions and holding hearings. Only after that can it take the case to court to get the money back.

The FTC's shortcut saves a lot of time and money, but SCOTUS has ruled unanimously that the FTC has to do things the hard way. The liberal justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion!

Unfortunately, the SCOTUS decision benefits a scumbag, a Kansas payday loan operator who controlled multiple loan companies. Payday lenders typically wind up getting far more cash back from its borrowers than it extends to them. (The author of our source article, below, calls the business a "quicksand machine that exists to siphon money from the poor and bury consumers in debt.") This payday-loan entrepreneur, Scott King, scammed multiple customers into signing up for recurring loans that ruined their financial lives. The court originally told King to repay $1.3 billion. Now, he doesn't have to.

Moreover, 24 FTC cases now in the works are in jeopardy -- including Facebook's. The FTC filed its lawsuit against Facebook in federal court, where several states were also suing the company. The FTC wants Facebook to divest its acquisitions of two other social-media companies. SCOTUS decided the case in April, and Facebook has already moved to have its FTC lawsuit dismissed because of the SCOTUS decision. The ruling hasn't yet been made.

Another badly weakened lawsuit is the FTC's case against the creepy pharmaceutical exec Martin Shkreli, who with others is accused of inflating the price of a drug called Daraprim by 5,000%. (The drug fights toxoplasmosis, and it's especially helpful in immunocompromised patients, such as AIDS patients.)

It's as if SCOTUS pushed over a wall of a fort with fleeced and gullible people sheltering inside. Under the current political climate, there's no cavalry coming -- yet.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/05/supreme-court-payday-facebook-martin-shkreli.html?fbclid=IwAR2zAWmrCjDXq8gammgnJdXRqsb2JgSUdkteNFD503SHXoprJn532XkFhD0

How quickly do you think Congress can get its "act" together to pass legislation that will shore up the FTC's enforcement power?

Are there particular antitrust situations that worry you? What about attempts to rein in Facebook's power over our privacy? Will you phone your representative in Congress about this situation?

5/10/21 Ransomware Attack Shuts Down a Major Pipeline to the East Coast

We all know that cyber warfare is on the rise, but the Colonial Pipeline's ransomware saga is showing the cost in real time. Persons so far unknown hacked into Colonial Pipeline's business operations systems, and the company shut down the entire 5,500-mile pipeline so it wouldn't get hacked too. The pipeline runs from Texas to New Jersey and feeds 45 percent of the East Coast's energy needs.

Energy experts are already debating how much the attack will add to the cost of gasoline on the East Coast if Colonial doesn't get service set to rights pronto -- say, midweek. But nobody's suffering yet, and Texas refineries plan to keep running on full capacity till the following week. Meanwhile, Colonial is bringing back parts of the pipeline piecemeal.

Even before the attack this weekend, Washington DC was looking into the problem. Last month, the Justice Department started a ransomware task force, and the Department of Homeland Security made ransomware the focus of its first 60-day "cybersecurity sprint" (whatever that is). In the House, the Homeland Security Committee’s panel on cybersecurity held a hearing on ransomware last week, and legislation to help state and local governments fight cybercrime is in the works.

The US is already behind the other global big guys in cybersecurity, and it faces obstacles. Some 85 percent of the country's energy system is owned and managed by private companies -- businesses that can't (and don't really want to) put in the money to do the job as the federal government can. Natch, the government doesn't want to share its cybersecrets with multiple companies in the private sector, either.

Then there are the homegrown threats. If you'll recall, the last blackout on the East Coast started because a length of elevated power line in Ohio sagged into the trees and overheated, and the rest of the grid went down like dominoes.

China and Russia have both made cyberattacks on the United States, as we know. Ransomware is usually carried out by criminals with no other motive but money. Those are the enemies from without.

Tired linesmen and computer wonks, venal politicians (think: Texas freeze), and endless complexity in the ad hoc connections within the energy system are the enemies from within.

Thank goodness it's not a shooting war, but it is a war nonetheless. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/10/colonial-pipeline-cyber-486726?fbclid=IwAR3VzzX6cHDY12VVCuwPA0XOj8ZuOe7HW5s1p-KntuPJUTFgfrBZ8ugPVrM

What do you think needs to happen to make the energy system reliable and safe from hackers?

Will it hinge on adding multiple redundancies in the connections in the grid?

Will the U.S. have to recruit and train an army of computer scientists?

5/10/21 Two Lawmakers Have the Guts to Back Cheney in Public

While Trump has his claws in the great majority of Republican legislators, a few -- Mitt Romney among them -- are willing to speak up to defend Liz Cheney.

A Representative from Wyoming and the daughter of a former vice president, Cheney has been adamant in refusing to go along with Trump's lies about how he "really" won the 2020 election. While I admire her guts, it's liable to cost her her leadership position as #3 among House Republicans.

The second Cheney supporter is Adam Kinziger of Illinois. On Face the Nation on CBS yesterday, he called on his fellow Republicans to "Tell people the truth and quit peddling in conspiracies, because that's what we've seen in this party." Words like that, it seems, are enough to make Trump shriek for revenge.

"What the reality is as a party, we have to have an internal look and a full accounting as to what led to January 6," the Illinois Republican said. "Right now, it's basically the Titanic. We're like in the middle of this slow sink. We have a band playing on the deck, telling everybody it's fine, and meanwhile as I've said, Donald Trump is running around trying to find women's clothing to get on the first lifeboat."

He continued, "I think there's a few of us saying, 'Guys, this is not good, not just for the future of the party, but this is not good for the future of this country.'"

Let's hope that the "few of us" number more than two! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adam-kinzinger-liz-cheney-gop-peddling-in-conspiracies-face-the-nation/?fbclid=IwAR2ahtYTQYRvYELnkIOIxkYdo7Na6GHwWJB2VyuQfVLAauyJAS47C89bRm4

5/9/21: Maryland Pardons Lynching Victims --Those Who Were Convicted

We don't think of Maryland as a hotbed of lynching. It wasn't even in the Confederacy. And yet in the 75 years from 1858 to 1933, 40 people were sacrificed to rage and Jim Crow. One victim is known only by his first name, Frederick. Another, Howard Cooper, was 15 years old when he was convicted of rape; a crowd of angry white people dragged him out of the county jail and hanged him.

Yesterday, Governor Jim Hogan, a Republican, took a novel step in acknowledging the victims of this form of terrorism: Gov. Hogan pardoned every lynching victim who was convicted. (Seven others hadn't even made it to trial. Being unconvicted, they weren't eligible for clemency.)

It was good PR, for sure. Hogan signed the pardons at the unveiling of a historical marker for Cooper in Towson. He also pointed out that Maryland is the first state to pardon its victims. “The state of Maryland has long been on the forefront of civil rights, dating back to Justice Thurgood Marshall’s legal battle to integrate schools,” Hogan said. “Today, we are once again leading the way as we continue the work to build a more perfect union.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maryland-larry-hogan-lynching-victims-pardon_n_60970212e4b0aead1b847689?fbclid=IwAR3J-Ck-DIdkL-6oiZXGuUHij3I2U9WLnbIzZZD4gI8mb8x2FoiP1OBR7as