DL Open Thread: Friday, October 29, 2021

Biden’s Agenda: How Not To Negotiate.  Cut it in half, then beg:

“The House and Senate majorities and my presidency will be determined by what happens in the next week,” Mr. Biden told the lawmakers during the hourlong session, according to a person who was at the meeting.

Mr. Biden and his aides gambled on Thursday, effectively calling for a final decision on his economic and environmental agenda and daring holdout Democrats not to back it. Senior administration officials said that the decision to go all-in was a product of the president’s belief that he had exhausted all avenues in the talks and secured the best possible package he could — and, crucially, that the package could command support from all corners of a fickle Democratic caucus.

Duly noted by Senators Manchin and Sinema, who still have the axes to take to the proposals.

That Idaho Mall Shooter, Exactly What You’d Suspect.  Hey, he proved you can even walk into the Governor’s office with a piece strapped to your hip.

Delaware Chicken Plants, Salmonella, And You.  Perdue of Georgetown and both Allen Harim plants prove a threat to your health.  That Perdue Georgetown plant is a salmonella factory.  Why are they still in business, he asked rhetorically, fully knowing the answer.

The Future Of America In Microcosm.  They’re building an army.  They’re not gonna be a subservient minority of white mouthbreathers:

On a glorious Saturday morning in October, about 75 people are gathered inside an airy warehouse on the wooded grounds of Foam Works, a local insulation company on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The mostly white, middle-aged crowd sports Trump 2024 hats and T-shirts extolling the Second Amendment, but no masks. Parked on the grass outside are cars scrawled with window paint warning about the evils of the “New World Order.” They’ve come from around the region for a “citizen summit” organized by a Maryland state trooper and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) to educate “we the people” about the Constitution, and how a county sheriff could help them “resist government overreach.” CSPOA’s founder Richard Mack came from Maricopa County, Arizona, to headline the all-day seminar.

Mack’s organization, CSPOA, is made up of hundreds of elected county sheriffs and their supporters who promote the idea that sheriffs have the power to refuse to enforce laws they deem to be unconstitutional—like, say, virtually all gun control laws. Mack believes that county sheriffs have more power than the president of the United States.

What’s also new for Mack, and especially troubling to civil rights advocates, is that this year, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) approved CSPOA to provide official trainings that officers need to maintain their proficiency certificates. So have 10 other states, according to Mack, including Virginia, Montana, and South Carolina. This is happening even as the FBI has been warning for years that extremists have been trying to infiltrate law enforcement to pursue their ideological goals. Those efforts became apparent at the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol; at least 20 current or former law enforcement officers have been arrested on charges relating to the riot, along with more than 20 members of the far-right militia group, Oath Keepers, a group Mack co-founded in 2009. Yet TCOLE has empowered CSPOA to train law enforcement across the state.

Vague Law Works Against McGuiness Legislative Ouster:

Instead, they (the House) appear to prefer a proposal from the Senate to ask the courts for advice on how to execute the constitutional law that sanctions the removal process, which has not been touched in living memory.

That path offers many lawmakers a political “out,” Wilson-Anton said.

“It’s giving cover to legislators that either don’t want to do anything or want to protect Kathy,” Wilson-Anton said. “So now we’re playing wait-and-see.”

Legislative leaders had responded earlier this week to the proposed Nov. 1 vote by citing confusion over the three-sentence law that describes the removal process, arguing that they need to do more research before they try to boot McGuiness out of office.

Cali Condors Survived Via Virgin Birth?  Hey, it gives male condors more time to join militias:

So it was quite a shock when, a few years ago, scientists conducting DNA tests as part of routine research found two condors with unexpected paternity. These two birds—known by their studbook numbers as SB260 and SB517—were not related to the fathers recorded in the studbook. Actually, they had no fathers at all. A full 100 percent of their DNA had come from their respective mothers. “We were confronted with this inexplicable data set,” says Oliver Ryder, a conservation geneticist at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

The only possible explanation was a strange one: The eggs that produced these two condors must have essentially fertilized themselves without any sperm. The phenomenon is known as parthenogenesis or, colloquially, “virgin birth.” (The two mothers in this case weren’t technically virgins; they had previously produced normal chicks with the male they were housed with. As I said, not much sexual privacy when you’re a California condor.) Parthenogenesis has been studied in other birds, like turkeys and chickens. It’s also been documented in snakes, lizards, sharks, rays, and bony fish—both in captivity and more recently in the wild. Many of these discoveries were accidental, and all of these accidents have scientists wondering if parthenogenesis is not as rare as once thought.

Al’s been on a Paul Simon kick lately, so…:

The melody was written by Peruvian composer Daniel Alomia Robles.  You don’t get this stuff on any other political blog’s open thread!

What do you want to talk about?