The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

The final list:

93-2 Lloyd Austin, Defense -- confirmed Jan. 22, 2021
92-7 Tom Vilsack, Agriculture -- Feb. 23, 2021
87-7 Denis McDonough, Veterans' Affairs -- Feb. 8, 2021
87-13 Pete Buttigieg, Transportation -- Feb. 2, 2021
84-15 Janet Yellen, Treasury -- Jan. 25, 2021
84-15 Gina Raimondo, Commerce -- Mar. 1, 2021
78-22 Antony Blinken, State -- Jan. 26, 2021
70-30 Merrick Garland, Attorney General -- Mar. 10, 2021
68-29 Marty Walsh, Labor -- Mar. 23, 2021-Mar. 11, 2023
66-34 Marcia Fudge, Housing and Urban Development -- Mar. 10, 2021-Mar. 22, 2024
64-35 Jennifer Granholm, Energy -- Feb. 25, 2021
64-33 Miguel Cardona, Education -- Mar. 1, 2021
56-43 Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security -- Feb. 2, 2021
51-40 Deb Haaland, Interior -- Mar. 15, 2021
50-49 Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services -- Mar. 18, 2021

Again, that's setting aside other Cabinet-level positions.

Marcia Fudge, the Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, has announced that she is retiring effective next week Friday, by which point she will have served for three years and twelve days. She is Biden's second Cabinet Secretary to leave office. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh resigned last year to take a job leading the professional hockey players' union. Last month, President Biden nominated Walsh to join the board of governors of the U.S. Postal Service. Julie Su, who had been the Deputy Labor Secretary since 2021, has been the Acting Secretary since Walsh's departure. Biden nominated Su to permanently succeed Walsh last year, but Sen. Joe Manchin delayed (but did not outright block) the confirmation process, and Biden renominated her again in January.

At this point in Donald Trump's presidency (Mar. 11, 2020), nine of his fifteen original Cabinet heads had departed:
-Tom Price, Health and Human Services (Sep. 29, 2017)
-David Shulkin, Veterans' Affairs (Mar. 28, 2018)
-Rex Tillerson, State (Mar. 31, 2018)
-Jeff Sessions, Attorney General (Nov. 7, 2018)
-James Mattis, Defense (Jan. 1, 2019)
-John Kelly, Homeland Security (Jan. 2, 2019)
-Ryan Zinke, Interior (Jan. 2, 2019)
-Alex Acosta, Labor (July 19, 2019)
-Rick Perry, Energy (Dec. 1, 2019)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The one and only Jon Stewart.

[RoseMorninStar]

I watched that yesterday and it's spot on. Even before watching it I'd given 'Patriotism' thought; how often it is used as a weapon of division as only one side claims it as a banner they wish to wrap themselves in (and deny to others).

Patriotism is a love for one's country and it's people. What it is often confused and conflated with is Nationalism which is the devotion to an ideology, a person, idea, &/or political movement. Not the same thing.

[Frelga]

"Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery."

Leo Tolstoy

[RoseMorninStar]

Well said, but I'd say that (when it is used by the government or a political wing) is Nationalism, not patriotism. But yeah, I get the point.

[N.E. Brigand]

Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of "all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors said he orchestrated a scheme to steal as much as $10 billion from his users."

Yesterday, prosecutors asked that convicted crypto-currency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried be sentenced to 40-50 years in prison. This followed the probation office recommending a sentence of 100 years' imprisonment. As noted above, late last year, a jury found Bankman-Fried guilty of $10 billion in fraud in a scheme lasting about five years. A lot of commentators are describing the government's request as extreme. I'll just note a comparison: Bernie Madoff, who pleaded guilty in 2009 to a Ponzi scheme that defrauded some $65 million over what he said was 18 years (but which prosecutors believed started earlier than he claimed), was sentenced to the maximum of 150 years in prison. (He died in 2021.)

As Bankman-Fried's scheme was falling apart in late 2022, he drafted a list of possible strategies to mitigate the damage, including this:

3. Go on Tucker Carlson, come out as a Republican:
--a. While public contributions show one thing, you see another thing, including Super-PACs
--b. Come out against the woke media
--c. Talk about how the cartel of lawyers is destroying value and throwing entrepreneurs under the bus to cover up the incompetence of lawyers

As we discussed at the time, some on the right (and Elon Musk) had argued that Bankman-Fried would never be prosecuted because his political donations had gone to Democrats. HIs financial partners, however, had supported Republicans. Add to that his support of Republican PACs mentioned here, plus the letter I cited more than a year ago, and what we see is mostly a political opportunist. But it's interesting that when he thought of pleading his case in public, his first thought was of Fox News (Tucker Carlson wouldn't be fired from that network for another six months).

[N.E. Brigand]

House Republicans held a public hearing in their ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry, and Fox News didn't cover very much of it. Even the right is growing tired of it.

Of course, it didn't help Fox that Democrats were able to invite Lev Parnas to testify, and he went after Donald Trump and Bill Barr hard.

And one of the Republicans own star witnesses, Tony Bobulinski, threw out some red meat but continues to be shady as hell.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Federal Reserve board today voted to hold interest rates at their current level, as they have done since last summer, after raising the rate eleven times over the previous fifteen months to fight inflation. It's generally expected that they'll start making cuts this summer.

The Fed also revised up their GDP projections for late 2024 and early 2025, which indicates that they continue to believe a "soft landing" is in progress. That means a return to normal inflation without a recession.

[N.E. Brigand]

House Republicans held a public hearing in their ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry, and Fox News didn't cover very much of it. Even the right is growing tired of it.

Of course, it didn't help Fox that Democrats were able to invite Lev Parnas to testify, and he went after Donald Trump and Bill Barr hard.

And one of the Republicans own star witnesses, Tony Bobulinski, threw out some red meat but continues to be shady as hell.

Some bits did air, though:



(That should read "Unindicted Co-conspirator 1". The number is missing.)

Democrats on the committee today flatly invited Republicans to vote to impeach President Biden: "but you won't, because you don't have the votes."

[N.E. Brigand]

Earlier this week, the publishers and top editors at several major media outlets met with the Dept. of Justice to push for better treatment of the press, in response to recent revelations about how DOJ had obtained subpoenas for reporters' records in the course of leak investigations (investigations that may have been politically motivated). There were some calls this week among other journalists for those media bigwigs to use the meeting as an opportunity to demand that the Justice Dept. drop its charges against Julian Assange, on the grounds that he too is a journalist deserving the freedoms afforded by the First Amendment.

I agree that sometimes, perhaps even usually, the work that Assange has done is legitimate journalism of the same basic kind as the New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers, which were illegally leaked to them by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, and I am concerned that successful prosecution of some of the crimes that the U.S. initially charged Assange with could have a chilling effect on the free press. But as shown in this analysis, which helpfully quotes from the relevant paragraphs of the decision a few months ago by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser in the U.K. (which denied the U.S. extradition request on compassionate grounds: the judge ruled that U.S. prison conditions are too harsh for a person in Assange's mental condition), Assange's actions went beyond just receiving and publishing materials. He provided potential hackers with instructions and tools. That would be like the Times in 1971 giving Ellsberg a stolen key to the file cabinet where the Pentagon Papers were stored, or the Times surveilling the office where the cabinet was located and telling Ellsberg that the night watchman took a coffee break away from his post each evening at 10:30 p.m.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the U.S. Dept. of Justice is in discussions with Wikileaks about getting Assange to plead to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified classified information, which he could enter without setting foot in the U.S. and which would result in a sentence of time served. Marcy Wheeler thinks Assange is unlikely to agree because DOJ will want a full statement of facts and he won't be willing to admit to everything he's done.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Federal Reserve board today voted to hold interest rates at their current level, as they have done since last summer, after raising the rate eleven times over the previous fifteen months to fight inflation. It's generally expected that they'll start making cuts this summer.

The Fed also revised up their GDP projections for late 2024 and early 2025, which indicates that they continue to believe a "soft landing" is in progress. That means a return to normal inflation without a recession.

In response to this update (and as reported tonight on Fox News), the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq, and S&P indices all reached new records highs.

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, says of the Biden impeachment inquiry: "We’re not going to have the votes. That’s clearly the case. And I don’t think we ever did."

[N.E. Brigand]

The Federal Reserve board today voted to hold interest rates at their current level, as they have done since last summer, after raising the rate eleven times over the previous fifteen months to fight inflation. It's generally expected that they'll start making cuts this summer. The Fed also revised up their GDP projections for late 2024 and early 2025, which indicates that they continue to believe a "soft landing" is in progress. That means a return to normal inflation without a recession.

In response to this update (and as reported tonight on Fox News), the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq, and S&P indices all reached new records highs.

It happened again. On two successive days, all three major U.S. stock market indices closed at a new record. Today:

Dow -- 39,789.58 (+0.70%)
S&P -- 5,243.10 (+0.35%)
Nasdaq -- 16,407.05 (+0.23%)

Video at the link from Fox Business.

The Dow reached 1,000 in November 1972 and 5,000 in November 1995, followed by:
--10,000 -- March 1999
--15,000 -- May 2013
--20,000 -- January 2017
--25,000 -- January 2018
--30,000 -- November 2020
--35,000 -- July 2021

It sure looks like 40,000 is on the horizon.

[N.E. Brigand]

NBC: "The U.S. crime rate is still dropping, FBI data shows."

"The new fourth-quarter numbers showed a 13% decline in murder in 2023 from 2022, a 6% decline in reported violent crime and a 4% decline in reported property crime. That's based on data from around 13,000 law enforcement agencies, policing about 82% of the U.S. population, that provided the FBI with data through December."

However, "the drop in crime does not appear to be well understood by large majorities of Americans, according to polls. A Gallup poll in December found that 77% of Americans believe crime rates are worsening." A criminologist says, "The perception doesn't match the actuality in a lot of places because people are bad at perceiving risk." The media largely doesn't help. This is, however, not new: "it’s been since 2001 that a majority of Americans have continued to believe their communities are becoming more dangerous, even as crime was dropping." In fact, crime dropped pretty consistently from 1995 to 2020, but the public claims not to know it.

[N.E. Brigand]

New York Times: "Chasing Clicks in the Jungle: Right-Wing Influencers Descend on the Darién Gap."

The right is obsessed with immigrants who happen to be "military aged men," even though many immigrants over the centuries have been that.

[N.E. Brigand]

I think Will Stancil is probably right that one reason the public has been resistant to economic good news is that the most influential traditional media and social media figures fall into the highlighted categories on the right side of this chart:

[N.E. Brigand]

"Biden has now made you live longer."

(A new CDC report says U.S. life expectancy rose by 1.1 years in 2022. That said, it's still well behind that in many other developed nations.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Interesting indeed:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That would be very interesting if facts actually mattered anymore!

[N.E. Brigand]

Overnight, a container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, by which Interstate 695 crossed the Baltimore Harbor. I says "crossed" not "crosses" because the bridge collapsed. They're searching for survivors. This will cause major disruptions to port activities and to traffic. Here's video of the collapse: