DL Open Thread: Saturday, March 4, 2023
Biden Chooses Reelection Over DC Self-Rule. Once a politician…:
President Joe Biden changed course on Thursday, informing Democrats that he will not veto a Republican-sponsored resolution overturning a new Washington, D.C., criminal-sentencing law. It’s a decision that annoyed many D.C. statehood and home-rule advocates, as well as their House Democratic allies, while relieving electorally vulnerable House and Senate Democrats. The new law, which overhauled penalties for long-imprisoned inmates to reduce over-incarceration, was enacted over a veto from D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser. Congressional Republicans eagerly seized on D.C. to show their crime-fighting zeal and put Democrats who oppose federal interference with home rule in a bind.
The GOP resolution gained 31 House Democratic votes, mostly from members in vulnerable seats, and its Senate passage was guaranteed when Democratic senators Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, and Bob Casey publicly supported it. The White House clearly calculated that giving ammunition to the Republican claim that Democrats were “soft of crime” was too high a price to pay for upholding the abstract principle of home rule.
There’s nothing abstract about it. DC remains the slave-quarters of the Federal government.
North Carolina Becomes ‘Go-To’ Destination For Abortions. Hmmm, wonder if Disney World would like to relocate there:
Clinic by clinic, county by county and up to the highest levels of state government, no state embodies the nation’s post-Roe upheaval like North Carolina.
In the eight months since the federal right to abortion was eliminated, leaving states free to make their own abortion laws, North Carolina, where the procedure remains legal up to 20 weeks, has become a top destination for people from states where it is banned or severely restricted. North Carolina experienced a 37 percent jump in abortions, according to WeCount, an abortion-tracking project sponsored by the Society for Family Planning, which supports abortion rights. Providers in the state performed 3,190 abortions in April 2022. That number soared to 4,360 in August, after Roe fell. It was the biggest percentage increase in any state.
Nikki Haley: “Wokeness Is A Virus More Dangerous Than Any Pandemic.” We know that ‘wokeness’ is the likely Frank Luntz focus-group-tested buzzword that most causes slack-jawed idiots to get their collective dander up. Hating ‘wokeness’ presumably gives cover to those who hate minorities, hate immigrants, hate the LQBTQ community, hate Jews, and the like. Don’t know that it’s killed 1.13 million Americans yet, but you never know:
Nikki Haley said the Democratic Party is now ‘socialist’ and said ‘wokeness’ is more dangerous than any public health crisis in a speech Friday.
‘The Democratic Party is now a socialist party. Bernie Sanders and AOC are at least honest about it,’ the told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). ‘Socialism is weakening our country at the worst possible moment.’
And after a coronavirus pandemic that has killed 1.13 million Americans, Haley said, ‘wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic – hands down.’
Ho-kay. She wants us to believe that she believes it, so I believe that she believes it.
Jim Jordan’s ‘Whistleblowers’ Being Paid By Trump Lackey. Mostly ex-FBI agents who brought conspiracy theories, but no facts, to Jordan’s sham committee:
The theory is based almost entirely on video snippets showing Epps talking about going inside the Capitol and saying something to a man who then fought police. It’s thin evidence for an extraordinary claim to begin with, but Epps, a roofing contractor and Trump supporter in Arizona, repeatedly told investigators last year, under penalty of perjury, that he wasn’t acting as an FBI informant or under the direction of any law enforcement agency.
Democrats said another suspended FBI agent, Garrett O’Boyle, wouldn’t tell them why he’d been suspended, except to say his suspension notice claimed “an unidentified person … made an allegation that [he] had been making unprotected disclosures to the media.” Democrats’ report says O’Boyle did share more than 50 documents with the committee’s Republicans, however.
Since getting suspended and sharing their stories with Republicans, both O’Boyle and Friend told the committee they received cash payments from Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official who now operates as a Republican fundraiser. Friend said Patel also hooked him up with a new job at the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit helmed by former Trump budget director Russell Vought.
The Democrats wrote that “there is a strong likelihood that Kash Patel is encouraging the witnesses to continue pursuing their meritless claims, and in fact is using them to help propel his vendetta against the FBI, Justice Department, and Biden administration on behalf of himself and President Trump.”
Man, This Donald Trump Jr. He makes Hunter Biden almost look–respectable:
GOP strategist Mike Murphy slammed the Conservative Political Action Conference for being “a scam, pure and simple, top to bottom” in a fiery message during an MSNBC appearance on Friday.
Murphy, who has advised such Republicans as the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney, weighed in on the state of CPAC after a clip aired of Donald Trump Jr. calling on the crowd at its annual conference this week to use the Christian conservative cellphone service Patriot Mobile.
MSNBC anchor Alex Wagner noted that the company has rented excess capacity from other cell providers, including AT&T, a company that Trump Jr. criticized at the conference for “weaponizing” consumers’ money.
On Friday, Murphy took his own jab at Trump Jr. along with the CPAC gathering he admitted he used to attend.
“First of all, I join fellow patriot Donald Jr. in urging our listeners, the true patriots out there, to make a check today out to ‘Christians Against Secular Humanism,’ or ‘CASH,’ because this is a grift pure and simple,” Murphy said. “They ought to put a fence around CPAC and put a bunco charge on all of ’em, it’s unbelievable. I didn’t know God had an opinion about cellphone companies.”
More of Mike Murphy, please.
More Dirty DuPont Dealings. Sold Louisiana plant to avoid liability for toxins:
The US Justice Department has sued the two petrochemical giants behind a facility in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” responsible for the nation’s highest cancer-risk rates caused by air pollution—a major lawsuit that seeks to substantially curb the plant’s emissions.
Unveiled on Tuesday, the lawsuit alleges emissions at the Pontchartrain Works facility in Reserve, Louisiana, violate the Clean Air Act and “present an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and welfare.”
The move marks a significant escalation of the Biden administration’s enforcement action in the Cancer Alley region, and was instantly hailed by members of the predominantly Black community around the plant as a major victory in their ongoing campaign for clean air.
The lawsuit also names a subsidiary of the US chemicals giant DuPont, which constructed the Pontchartrain Works facility as a neoprene plant and operated it for over half a century. DuPont sold the plant to Denka in 2015 in a secretive deal, which the Guardianlater revealed was motivated by concerns from DuPont that it would face heavier regulation after the EPA’s decision to classify chloroprene as a likely human carcinogen. The revelations were part of a years-long Guardian series examining air pollution in Reserve and throughout Cancer Alley.
DuPont remains the owner of the land beneath Denka’s facility and acts as a landlord, according to the complaint, meaning DuPont may need to grant permissions in order for emissions to be reduced. (DuPont did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
(Nor will they gradually respond to a request for comment.)
Ethically-Bankrupt DuPont Heiress Has Reputation Whitewashed Post-Death. Happy for the money, but don’t forget the notoriety of the person behind it. The DuPonts are to reputation-washing what the Saudis are to sportswashing. Money cures all ills–and cleanses those who murder.
What do you want to talk about?
WDEL is not licensed for Europe. Can you give a synopsis of that story?
Oh, and the non-MAGAt who says CPAC is a scam? Really? He just now noticed? Like everything on the right, it’s been a scam from jump.
Here are the first 2 grafs:
“The Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation announced a $78 million donation to Nemours Children’s Hospital on Thursday, March 2, 2023, to fund the Institute for Cancer and Blood Disorders in the name of the du Pont family heiress who died in 2016.
“This generous gift will help us ensure that all children cared for at Nemours will receive cutting edge care in a patient focused environment that will create an experience of care like no other,” said Nemours President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Larry Moss.”
No mention is made in the story about her misadventures.
According to its listing on NonProfit Explorer, that’s about two-thirds of the foundation’s entire net worth.
I’m perfectly willing to overlook the old harridan’s misadventures in the name of putting that money to better use.
Judge ye not the rich, until thy doth procure and secure their money, at which surely at that point they shall surely rise unto heaven. Or just take the same long dirt nap as the rest of us. Suspect that really pisses them off.