WED 3/9/22
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (at right, above) last night thanked the U.S. for banning Russian oil imports.
Biden Bans Russian Oil, Natural Gas Imports – No American relishes the added hike to prices -- currently more than $120 per barrel according to NPR -- that will be caused by President Biden’s ban on oil imports from Russia, the world’s largest exporter, in an executive order announced Tuesday. Biden also banned natural gas and coal imports. Republicans looking to boost gains expected in this year’s midterms already have attempted to paint the White House’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as weak, even as former President Trump and a faction on Fox News continue to fawn over Vladimir Putin.
Pump Gas: Average price for a gallon of regular unleaded nationwide has reached $4.25 per gallon according to AAA, NPR’s Morning Edition reports Wednesday, with prices averaging over $5.50 per gallon in car-happy California.
GOP Arguments: This is no time to subsidize electrification and renewable energy sources (as found in the “green” provisions of Biden’s stalled Build Back Better plan), but instead we should drill our way back to energy independence.
“Democrats want to blame surging prices on Russia,” The New York Times quotes House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “But the truth is, their out-of-touch policies are why we’re here in the first place.”
Biden’s Counterpoints: Oil companies operating in the U.S. “have 9,000 permits to drill now. They could be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year,” Biden said in announcing his ban Tuesday, (NYT). “They have 9,000 to drill offshore that are already approved. So let me be clear. They are not using them for production now. These are the facts.”
Other Support: Great Britain has pledged to phase out imports by the end of the year, and the executive arm of the European Commission intends to make itself independent of Russian oil in the coming years – even if that’s too little, too late. Moderate conservatives are lining up behind Biden, including the group Republicans Against Trumpism, which tweeted a copy of the ex-president’s “Save America” message from yesterday calling out the “highest gas prices in history,” which asks, “Do you miss me yet?” To which Republicans Against Trumpism tweeted, “NO.”
Also: The U.S. has been an oil exporter for most of the century, with oil supplies playing on the price-setting global market. American refineries built in the ‘00s mostly treat Brent Crude from other oil-producing countries so much of low-sulfur sweet crude from the U.S. is exported.
A Mess for Texas?: A potential bright spot for Democrats this year is that the high oil prices likely will benefit states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota that were hit by historically low oil prices over the past few years, especially when prices turned negative briefly early in the pandemic.
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American Authoritarian In-Waiting? – Former press secretary for the Trump White House Stephanie Grisham on ABC TV’s The View Tuesday, (per The Hill): “I think (Trump) feared (Putin). I think the man intimidated him. I also think he admired him greatly. I think he wanted to kill whoever spoke out against him.”
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Would the Wall Have Helped? — A 30-year-old U.S. citizen was arrested at the San Ysidro border with Mexico trying to smuggle 52 live reptiles into the U.S. that he had placed in bags and secreted on his body, the AP reports. Included were nine snakes and 43 horned lizards.
Note: “I would build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively,” said you-know-who. Would that have stopped this creepy-crawly case? Probably not.
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Insurrectionist Convicted – Guy Reffitt, a recruiter for the extremist group Texas Three Percenters, was found guilty on all counts for his actions in the January 6 Capitol insurrection. He is the first insurrectionist to go to trial for the riot. Jurors deliberated for two hours before finding Reffitt guilty of five felonies in the federal case, The Washington Post reports:obstruction of an official proceeding, interfering with police in a riot, transporting a firearm for that purpose, armed trespassing and witness tampering. Reffitt faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years.
Also: Longtime Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was charged with conspiracy in the Capitol insurrection Tuesday.
Plea Deal Warning: While Reffitt’s son testified against him during the three-day trial, Reffitt’s wife stands by him, saying “This fight has just begun,” according to NPR’s Morning Edition. “Do not take a plea,” Nicole Reffitt said. “They are making a point out of Guy.”
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods
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TUE 3/8/22
‘I’m not leaving Kyiv…I’m not hiding and I’m not afraid of anything.’ –Volodymyr Zelenskyy (at right, above). President Biden today announces a ban on Russian oil, natural gas and coal imports.
Welcome to the 20th Century – The Senate passed by unanimous voice vote the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act late Monday to send it to President Biden’s desk for a certainly quick signature (per UPI). The bill makes lynching a federal hate crime.
“After more than 200 failed attempts to outlaw lynching Congress is finally succeeding in taking a long overdue action” by passing the act, says Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “Hallelujah, it’s long overdue.”
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Meanwhile, back in the late 18th Century -- Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and consequently important to confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as justice to the Supreme Court, put out a statement yesterday regarding the vetting procedure (which, from the outside, looks more like a meet-and-greet that an elementary school teacher might conduct with parents before a full-blown conference, wherein Mrs. Wilbur explains why Johnny’s behavior is too disruptive. . .) that is underway:
“Vetting a nominee for a lifetime appointment to the high court is serious business. The American people rightly expect a full and thorough vetting process. We should not sacrifice the integrity of our constitutional advice and consent responsibility to meet an arbitrary timeline.”
The Court’s next term doesn’t begin until October, so there’s absolutely no need to rush.” (Hat-tip, Punchbowl PM.)
That the Republicans put Amy Coney Barrett in the big chair in 30 days doesn’t seem to be precedent.
But here’s something to think about vis-à-vis the Iowa senator’s position. Grassley said, when opposing Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he wasn’t “satisfied” that she “will adhere to the Constitution as originally understood.”
Yes, there is a school of thought of Constitutional originalism. But look at that: “as originally understood.”
How can anyone in the 21st century claim that he can get into the mindset of someone from the 18th century?
Did Grassley ride a horse from Des Moines to Washington? Does he work a pump in order to get water? Does he light his house with whale oil? Does he own more than one pair of breeches?
To claim that one can understand how someone thought in 1788 is, well, disturbing.
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No More Can-Kicking? – The House of Representatives expects to pass the fiscal year 2022 appropriations budget Wednesday, with the Senate following shortly after, Roll Call reports. House and Senate appropriations committees were making progress Monday on the 12 annual appropriations that compile the bulk of the budget. The third continuing resolution since the fiscal year began last October 1 is set to expire this Friday.
According to Roll Call, COVID-19 aid is one of the few major items still being negotiated Tuesday. If the House and Senate can resolve that, we’re good until this coming October 1, just a month ahead of the mid-term elections.
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Republicans Can’t Redraw Maps in NC, PA -- …for now. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block state courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania from throwing out their Republican legislatures’ congressional maps gerrymandered toward their party in favor of redrawn maps of the state courts’ own, according to SCOTUSblog.
Republican legislators in both states took their cases to the Supreme Court arguing their state courts do not have the authority to redraw their maps. SCOTUS declined to intervene without explanation in the North Carolina case and turned down Pennsylvania Republican legislators’ request in a two-sentence order, the website says, though four conservative justices on the Supreme Court signaled intent to return to the issue on a later date. It’s a Democratic Party victory in both states that may stanch, at best, their losses in the midterms.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics
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MON 3/7/22
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (right) and fellow soldiers fight to hold off Russia’s invasion. Russia has set another "cease-fire," but keeps hitting civilians.
Trump’s Harvey -- According to WebMD, about 65% of children have imaginary friends at some point prior to age seven. The site notes, “Many children know that these friends don’t actually exist, but they experience real feelings of comfort thanks to the friendship.”
Although it probably doesn’t take the form of an imaginary person or animal per se, it is almost as though Donald Trump’s continued fixation on how the 2020 election was “stolen” from him is predicated on him having an imaginary pal who is continuing to tell him that lie.
A reasonable person would think that after having lost more than a year ago, after failed lawsuits and recounts that showed his opponent actually gaining more votes Trump would have given up on this. How else to explain this other than his imaginary friend consistently telling him he is a winner making the only explanation for his not having won is because he was cheated out of his imaginary victory?
While it might seem to be a bit excessive to suggest that the former president of the United States has the cognitive capabilities of a pre-K student, a comment that he made at a Republican donors’ event in New Orleans on Saturday seems to belie that.
The Washington Post, which obtained a tape of the speech, quotes Trump as describing Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) as a “watermelon head. . .because his head is shaped like a watermelon.”*
This is how a grown-up describes someone? The Wharton School ought to consider revoking his diploma.
One more thing from WebMD: it describes “Having an imaginary friend beyond age 12” as a “concerning” sign.
Indeed.
*It is perplexing to imagine that these wealthy Republican donors, women and men who have become successful in their given fields, serious people, could listen to a childish remark like this with anything but horror. Those among them who have children would undoubtedly tell Suzy or Johnny that such name-calling is completely unacceptable. Yet the line undoubtedly received laughs and applause, further goading the lengths to which Trump’s imaginary friend will take him.
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Ex-Prez: Don’t Buy This Book -- Donald J. Trump sent Lester Holt a letter because the NBC newsman interviewed former Trump Administration attorney general Bill Barr. The interview, broadcast last night on NBC and excerpted everywhere, was predicated on Barr’s book, One Damn Thing After Another, which will be released tomorrow.
Trump, who seems not to have done too well vis-à-vis leaders in the Department of Justice, calls Bill Barr “a big disappointment to me as Attorney General [sic], he was afraid to act, and usually didn’t,” in a letter filled with his typical superfluous capitalization. The letter was obtained by Axios.
Conservative and liberal pundits alike say no one should buy it, because Barr raises serious issues about Trump’s competence that he should have voiced while the ex-president was still in the White House. Perhaps there is some concern that sales of Barr’s book might take away from the demand for Our Journey Together, Trump’s word-un-intensive picture book, which the Republican National Committee purchased to hand out at last weekend’s fundraiser in New Orleans.
Trump did not feel it necessary to read the book before reviewing it for Holt: “I would imagine that if the book is anything like him, it will be lazy, slow and very boring.”
No word on whether Jeff Sessions has read the tome.
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Meanwhile … Up on the Hill – GOP lawmakers are attempting to pre-emptively stop the current attorney general, Merrick Garland, from carrying out prosecution of Donald J. Trump based on an expected referral by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, The Hill reports.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) said such a referral “would probably have as much political taint on it as you can get. … To me, it’s politically driven.”
--Edited by Gary S. Vasilash and Todd Lassa