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The January 6th Committee’s letter to Kevin McCarthy is a good reminder of what Republicans were saying shortly after January 6th, 2021. For example, on January 13th, 2021, McCarthy said the following in a speech to the House:

The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate actions by President Trump: Accept his share of responsibility. Quell the brewing unrest. And ensure President-Elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term.

What we saw last week was not the American way. Neither is the continued
rhetoric that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president. Let’s be clear, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the President of the United States in one week because he won the election.

On January 19th, 2021, Mitch McConnell said the following (video here):

…There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.

And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

…President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen, unless the statute of limitations has run, still liable for everything he did while in office, didn’t get away with anything yet – yet.

We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.

It’s worth reading the full speech. It’s no wonder that McConnel (tepidly) supports the January 6th committee.

The Republican Party had a perfect opportunity to rid themselves of Trump, but chose not to. Just don’t forget what they said before cooking up a cynical strategy of denial about January 6th.

Just a quick post on the anniversary of the insurrection of 1/6/21. On that day, I wrote to my congressional rep, Rep. Seth Moulton, asking him to impeach Trump. That would be the first and only time I’ve contacted my rep to date.

For those who are uninformed, misinformed or disinformed, it’s worth watching Liz Cheney on Fox talk about the investigative committee. She deftly refutes all of the right-wing arguments Bret Baier throws at her. Just make sure to use an ad blocker to avoid giving Fox money. https://video.foxnews.com/v/6290371010001#sp=show-clips

Being a near life-long Beatle fan, I loved Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary. Though it was not my intention when I started, I ended up binging the whole thing in one evening. I watched the Let It Be movie a million years ago and I have previously heard audio outtakes from these sessions. Just a few thoughts and observations below…

The best of Get Back is in the Beatles’ humor. One of my favorite moments is in the second episode after Peter Sellers drops by (around 34:15). Peter Sellers is assiduously not funny and escapes at the first opportunity. John tells an absurd story directly into the camera. I got the impression that the group might have smoked a joint shortly before this interlude. John is weird and funny, and seems to be trying to provoke others in a performance artist sort of way. Paul gets deep and philosophical while expressing concern about their future. Ringo tries not to fall asleep. John manages to make Paul laugh with a joke about masturbation despite the tension between them. All of this is awkward and funny and poignant.

The documentary accurately shows the creative process, at least as I understand it. Very rarely do great works of art just come into existence fully formed, and most artists have to work more than people realize to make something good. The Beatles were very good at this process in that they were willing to try many different things to see what worked. This takes patience and perseverance. The performance of music is somewhat like a magic trick–the “trick” being that it’s effortless. The trick is accomplished by hiding all of the repetitive practice entailed.

Watching the John/Paul/George dynamic was both painful and inspiring, sometimes intermittently, sometimes simultaneously. John and Paul are obviously very tight after their many years collaborating together. This is beautiful to see in action. But George rightly feels like an outsider to this relationship. Ringo is everybody’s buddy and we never see him escalate any confrontation at any point. Oh, Ringo. I doubt they would have played on the roof if Ringo hadn’t said he wanted to do it.

I think both Paul and George had good points in their famous argument. George wanted some space to noodle around while Paul wanted to nail the basics of the song before laying in George’s guitar. John and Ringo stayed out of the argument but it might have helped to have some sort of outside arbiter. But who could stand up to the Beatles at this point? Probably only George Martin. All that said, by the end of the doc, the band seems to genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

Speaking of George Martin, man, is he a cool cucumber or what? It seems he should have been credited. And they should have let him produce the album instead of Phil f*cking Spector.

Paul came off looking better than I would have thought given my previous knowledge. Yes, he was pushy and a domineering. But the rest of the band seemed somewhat apathetic in the beginning and needed prodding. They just seemed tired of trying to top themselves (and everyone else). Also, Paul’s little speech defending Yoko’s presence was enlightening.

I didn’t realize that John played some odd instruments on the album because they were trying to avoid overdubs. Thus, we get John playing slide guitar on “Yer Blues” and bass on “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road.” This was fun to watch. I also liked his joke about not being allowed to do guitar solos anymore because of *insert guitar thrashing here*. I miss John.

Dan Froomkin writes about the frequent and pervasive failures of modern political journalism on his site, PressWatchers.org. In my opinion, his points are spot-on: political journalism, particularly as practiced by so-called “liberal” media outlets, is so contorted by profit motives, the drama of day-to-day politics, and a desire to appear objective that it often fails to inform citizens. Even worse, it sometimes misinforms them. Dan highlights examples and pulls them apart meticulously.

He also rightly points out that Fox “News” is not really a news organization but rather a propaganda outlet that only exercises true journalistic practices in decreasingly rare cases.

I highly suggest visiting the site regularly. And if you’ve got a few extra bucks, donate so they can keep the endeavor going. They’re an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so you can get a tax break while helping Dan give the political media a much-needed kick in the butt.

It is interesting to watch Trump’s authoritarian instincts clash with some strongly held views of his most ardent supporters. Many people have wondered why Trump refuses to mount a vigorous federal response to COVID-19. My hypothesis is that the Trump team knows that, if they were to enact a nation-wide stay-at-home order, his far-right base would freak out and direct their anger at the federal government, including maybe Trump himself. Instead, Trump demurred and let governors issue such orders, thus deflecting any potential anger to them (and, in particular, states governed by Democrats). This prevents the far right from turning on Trump while simultaneously creating grief for democratic governors. We can see this playing out now. This is a sound political strategy if one ignores the loss of life that’s the logical result.

See:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-foments-resistance-to-democratic-imposed-shutdowns-but-some-republican-governors-are-also-wary-of-moving-too-fast/2020/04/17/5595e5fa-80c2-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/17/trump-states-stay-at-home-orders-192386

On Thursday, 4/2/2020, Jared Kushner said the following regarding the national stockpile of medical supplies:

“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use,” he said. “So we’re encouraging the states to make sure that they’re assessing the needs, they’re getting the data from their local situations, and then trying to fill it with the supplies that we’ve given them.” (emphasis mine)

So, if not the states, who does “our” refer to? Is the intent for the federal government to distribute masks themselves, bypassing the states? If so, how, when and, maybe most importantly, why?

According to POLITICO, the Strategic National Stockpile website was updated to align with Jared’s remarks shortly after he made them. The website previously said: “Strategic National Stockpile is the nation’s largest supply of lifesaving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out.”

Given the situation with COVID-19, I was reminded of a Politico article from earlier this winter describing a feud between Seema Verma and Alex Azar, both now members of the COVID-19 “task force” led by Pence:

Azar, Verma battle for Trump’s favor amid White House showdown

and

White House prepared short list to shake up HHS leadership

This might help to explain the Trump administration’s clusterf*ck of a response so far. Putting someone who doesn’t believe in evolution in charge of the task force likely didn’t help (though I’m sure everyone appreciates his prayers). And maybe the president’s inability to understand–well, anything that doesn’t fit on a post-it note–might be contributing to the confusion.

This article is a good read:

How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality

It contains some historical points about the New Deal that I didn’t know, and describes the emergence of the so-called “submerged state” I’ve written about previously.

While reading “The Bertrand Russell Collection: 8 Classic Works” last night, I accidentally read this sentence:

That some risk of error remains must be admitted, since human beings are fallible.

…as…

That some risk of error remains must be admitted, since human beings are infallible.

I received a copyright infringement notice letter from CBS today referring to my computer conversion of the old FASA Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator game. Consequently, I’ve taken the site down and the game is no longer being distributed. I guess FASA’s alternate universe got swallowed by a corporate black hole. Here’s hoping that Star Trek: Beyond will return to the roots of the series (morality plays set in the future) and doesn’t end up as another generic sci-fi setting.