US Politics: Infrastructure Week End

[Zorral]

The funding of politics in NY state is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.  We do know though that rethug coalitions have been formed and aimed at other Dems over the last 4 years.  It has been reported.

But yes, Cuomo did enough to sink himself -- but only if people chose to go after him for it, which until the last year they didn't.

Here is this, which is pretty bad too:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/andrew-cuomos-war-against-a-federal-prosecutor

[paywalled so the first paragraphs]

Quote

 

In April, 2014, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo placed a call to the White House and reached Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama. Cuomo was, as one official put it, “ranting and raving.” He had announced that he was shuttering the Moreland Commission, a group that he had convened less than a year earlier to root out corruption in New York politics. After Cuomo ended the group’s inquiries, Preet Bharara, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, issued letters instructing commissioners to preserve documents and had investigators from his office interview key witnesses. On the phone with Jarrett, Cuomo railed against Bharara. “This guy’s out of control,” a member of the White House legal team briefed on the call that day recalled Cuomo telling Jarrett. “He’s your guy.”

Jarrett ended the conversation after only a few minutes. Any effort by the White House to influence investigations by a federal prosecutor could constitute criminal obstruction of justice. “He did, in fact, call me and raise concerns about the commission,” Jarrett told me. “As soon as he started talking, and I figured out what he was talking about, I shut down the conversation.” Although Cuomo fumed about Bharara’s efforts, he did not make any specific request before Jarrett ended the call. Nevertheless, Jarrett was alarmed and immediately walked to the office of the White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, to report the conversation. Ruemmler agreed that the call was improper, and told Jarrett that she had acted correctly in ending the conversation without responding to Cuomo’s complaints. “I thought it was highly inappropriate,” the member of the White House’s legal team told me. “It was a stupid call for him to make.” Ruemmler reported the incident to the Deputy Attorney General, James M. Cole, who also criticized the call. “He shouldn’t have been doing that. He’s trying to exert political pressure on basically a prosecution or an investigation,” Cole told me. “So Cuomo trying to use whatever muscle he had with the White House to do it was a nonstarter and probably improper.”

Cuomo’s outreach to the White House may have opened him up to sanction for violating state ethics rules and could be relevant in an ongoing impeachment inquiry by the New York State Assembly. “It’s highly inappropriate and potentially illegal,” Jennifer Rodgers, a former prosecutor in Bharara’s office and an adjunct clinical professor at N.Y.U. Law School, told me. Jessica Levinson, the director of Loyola Law School’s Public Service Institute, added, “If he, in fact, called a U.S. Attorney’s bosses and implied, ‘Stop this guy from looking into me,’ that could easily amount to an impeachable offense.” (Shortly after publication time, Cuomo announced that he would resign as governor of New York.)

White House officials at the time believed that prosecutors might want to interview Jarrett and assess whether the call had risen to the level of illegality. Instead, the Department of Justice notified Bharara. “Everybody basically just said we’re not going to do anything—we’re not going to stop Preet,” Cole said. “The investigation is the investigation, and I don’t care if Andrew Cuomo calls us or not.” Bharara’s office chose not to pursue charges, but he recalled being alarmed. “Andrew Cuomo has no qualms, while he’s under investigation by the sitting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, trying to call the White House to call me off,” Bharara told me. “Trump did that. That’s an extraordinary thing, from my perspective.” . . . .

 

This is a bad look for those of us who don't want to believe, "all politicians".  

[Mindwalker]

I'm starting to get an identity crisis.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

I see at least 3,000 troops are being sent back to Afghanistan, to protect embassy staff during evacuation. The Taliban have moved much faster than expected.

Who’d a thunk it, eh?

Wrote about this in the International News thread. The Taliban now controls roughly 2/3rds of the country after capturing their 10^th provincial capital, the latest being the third largest city in the country. Kabul may fall pretty soon. Once the Taliban completely surrounds the city there will be now way for them to bring in the supplies needed to keep it afloat.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The funding of politics in NY state is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.  We do know though that rethug coalitions have been formed and aimed at other Dems over the last 4 years.  It has been reported.

But yes, Cuomo did enough to sink himself -- but only if people chose to go after him for it, which until the last year they didn't.

Here is this, which is pretty bad too:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/andrew-cuomos-war-against-a-federal-prosecutor

[paywalled so the first paragraphs]

This is a bad look for those of us who don't want to believe, "all politicians".  

Yeah, at least Democrats can say they stood up to Cuomo.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

If a state had literally no rules at all, including no rules about having congressional districts be contiguous, then all this doesn't matter. They could individually place each building in whatever district they wanted; and the only constraint on them would be how many Republican vs. Democratic voters there are statewide. But I don't think any state is that loose with their laws.

It should also be noted that even if a state did have literally no rules at all (which I agree I'm not aware of), the extensive case law on gerrymandering means it would still have to abide by certain restrictions.  While the current court has infamously refused to rule on partisan gerrymandering cases, prior racial gerrymandering cases effectively mandate there has to be some semblance of contiguousness and compactness:

Quote

Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993) 

Significance: Legislative and congressional districts will be struck down by courts for violating the Equal Protection Clause if they cannot be explained on grounds other than race. While not dispositive, “bizarrely shaped” districts are strongly indicative of racial intent.  [...]

Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952 (1996)

Significance: If you want to argue that partisan politics, not race, was your dominant motive in drawing district lines, beware of using race as a proxy for political affiliation. To survive strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause and avoid being struck down as a racial gerrymander, a district must be reasonably compact.

ETA:  For those interested, here's a very useful source on the varying redistricting rules - 

Quote

Contiguity is the most common rule imposed by the states: by state constitution or statute, 45 states require at least one chamber’s state legislative districts to be contiguous. 18 states have similarly declared that their congressional districts will be contiguous. (The smaller number reflects the fact that few states have any express legal constraints on congressional districting. In practice, the vast majority of congressional districts — perhaps every one in the 2020 cycle — will be drawn to be contiguous.)

A district is contiguous if you can travel from any point in the district to any other point in the district without crossing the district’s boundary. Put differently, all portions of the district are physically adjacent. Most states require portions of a district to be connected by more than a single point, but don’t further require that a district be connected by territory of a certain area.  [...]

The next most common state rule is a requirement to follow political boundaries, like county, city, town, or ward lines, when drawing districts. By state constitution or statute, 34 states require state legislative districts to show some accounting for political boundaries; 15 states impose similar constraints on congressional districts. Most often, state law concerning political boundaries leaves a fair amount of flexibility in the mandate — one common instruction is to keep to political boundaries “to the extent practicable.” And like all other state redistricting law, this rule must bend where necessary to federal equal population or Voting Rights Act constraints.

 

[argonak]

29 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Wrote about this in the International News thread. The Taliban now controls roughly 2/3rds of the country after capturing their 10^th provincial capital, the latest being the third largest city in the country. Kabul may fall pretty soon. Once the Taliban completely surrounds the city there will be now way for them to bring in the supplies needed to keep it afloat.

While I do not think we should have stayed in Afghanistan anymore, I'm also of the opinion that we should have told all the democracy loving Afghans that they were welcome to move to America, and we'd find room somewhere for them.  after what we put them through, seems like the least we could have done.

[Zorral]

44 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yeah, at least Democrats can say they stood up to Cuomo.

I remain unhappy about his successor being who she is.  The more about her I'm learning the more uneasy I get.  But woo, is she wired into northern - western NY political groups, and her husband's quite a persona grata with the corporations. She's already said she's running for governor in the next election.  Of course she is.   She didn't even need to tell us. It's clearly killed her all this time to be Cuomo's subordinate., so she can't wait to take over.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

42 minutes ago, argonak said:

While I do not think we should have stayed in Afghanistan anymore, I'm also of the opinion that we should have told all the democracy loving Afghans that they were welcome to move to America, and we'd find room somewhere for them.  after what we put them through, seems like the least we could have done.

Oh 100%. I'm not going to put a number on it because I have no clue, but we left many people behind who are going to get slaughtered. And as everyone expected, Afghan women are already being forced into a horrific situation. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

https://m.startribune.com/feds-allege-minneapolis-gop-strategist-trafficked-minors-for-sex/600087348/?clmob=y&c=n

 

GOP strategist Anton Lazaro arrested on 5 counts of sex trafficking of minors.  

Qanon must have seen this coming, right?

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

37 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

https://m.startribune.com/feds-allege-minneapolis-gop-strategist-trafficked-minors-for-sex/600087348/?clmob=y&c=n

 

GOP strategist Anton Lazaro arrested on 5 counts of sex trafficking of minors.  

Qanon must have seen this coming, right?

 

 

I swear part of the goal of QAnon was to get people who cared to look in all the wrong places so the real traffickers could do their evil work.  :/

[Fragile Bird]

Well, did you see the story about the California surf store guy taking his two toddlers across the border into Mexico and murdering them with a spear gun? He realized through his reading of QAnon sites that his wife had the seed of Satan and he had to kill his demon children to save the world from their future evil deeds.

[Zorral]

Mentioned that in the covid thread.  That's how dangerous to everyone These sorts are.

[Ormond]

13 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

Well, did you see the story about the California surf store guy taking his two toddlers across the border into Mexico and murdering them with a spear gun? He realized through his reading of QAnon sites that his wife had the seed of Satan and he had to kill his demon children to save the world from their future evil deeds.

It's a bit of a stretch to just blame this just on QAnon, since his actions were based on the "lizard people" conspiracy theory which predates QAnon by many years, though some QAnon sites have endorsed it. Plus he says he was receiving "visions" about this so he almost surely had mental illness problems which were a main factor here. QAnon sites may have given him the idea that "lizard people" exist, but I doubt if they encouraged him to think his own wife and children had lizard people DNA.

https://news.yahoo.com/christ-qanon-father-allegedly-confesses-213235328.html

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

So, I just saw a report that we’re putting 8000 (5000 more than initially reported) back into Afghanistan.  We’re looking at the “Fall of Saigon 2.0” aren’t we?

How are we going to get the troops out after the Civilians are evaced?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

21 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, I just saw a report that we’re putting 8000 (5000 more than initially reported) back into Afghanistan.  We’re looking at the “Fall of Saigon 2.0” aren’t we?

How are we going to get the troops out after the Civilians are evaced?

Funny you brought up the Fall of Saigon. The Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary on Vietnam was shown on TV the past couple of days. [Yes, I enjoy watching documentaries].

While there are some striking similarities, like the faulty assumption that the Afghans could hold off the Taliban without US support (while it essentially was a stalemate with Nato troops), I'd think getting the US troops out after getting the civilians out should be doable. Military technology has advanced quite a bit. Drone strikes are somewhat more precise than the old bombers. Congress will probably not pull the plug like it did under Nixon/Ford.

So if the US are quick enough with their evacuation mission, I'd give it a 50-50 chance that the Taliban won't bother trying to take the city, while there are still American troops there. The city will fall easily enough once you are out, a month or two might not be worth the blood price. Ofc, that's assuming rational actors, and religious fanatics are not exactly that. But rational, waiting some time, before retaking Kabul sounds preferable to getting a shit ton of drone strikes dropped on you, or running the minimal risk of drawing the US fully back in.

But being forced to put troops back in, after such a short amount of time is rather embarassing, and the predictability of it all doesn't make it better.

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, Ormond said:

It's a bit of a stretch to just blame this just on QAnon, since his actions were based on the "lizard people" conspiracy theory which predates QAnon by many years, though some QAnon sites have endorsed it. Plus he says he was receiving "visions" about this so he almost surely had mental illness problems which were a main factor here. QAnon sites may have given him the idea that "lizard people" exist, but I doubt if they encouraged him to think his own wife and children had lizard people DNA.

https://news.yahoo.com/christ-qanon-father-allegedly-confesses-213235328.html

Oh, I have no doubt this guy has some serious mental problems, but the role of Satan certainly is a theme of QAnon. We have often talked about how dangerous ludicrous posts can be, because not everyone reading them has the capacity (for whatever reason) for distinguishing fact from fiction. 

[Zorral]

12 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

he role of Satan certainly is a theme of QAnon.

The guy who shot the innocent people in UK's Plymouth was also a Qnon  kool aid drinker.  USA exports at work, YAY, USA, we're so great!

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jake-davison-suspected-mass-shooter-said-he-was-an-american-trump-supporting-virgin

~~~~~~~~~~~

The thing about Cuomo I really appreciated, is he was able to essentially strong-arm de Blasio, a/k/a Mr Really Blank About Everything, into canceling the 2020 St. Patrick’s Day beer and howl wallow in NYC.  De Blasio was determined to have it no matter what. There’s nothing about Hochul’s past that I can point to and say, “I appreciate.” Even an obvious puff piece like this one in the NYT can't be bothered to come up with any damned specific thing to point to that allows me to think her version of being NY governor is even an improvement on Handy Andy's beyond the specific women's issues of course.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/opinion/kathy-hochul-governor.html?

 

[Martell Spy]

Opinion: How to fix our rigged tax system

Opinion by Elizabeth Warren

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/12/elizabeth-warren-tax-system-infrastructure/

Quote

 

First, it’s time to start taxing wealth, not just income. When Jeff Bezos takes a joyride to space, he isn’t paying for it with his declared income of $80,000. Bezos, who owns The Post, and lots of other billionaires have gamed the system so they have plenty of spending money and close to zero tax obligations. The best option to stop that is a two-cent wealth tax that applies only to the wealthiest 100,000 U.S. households — with a few cents more for the billionaires. Such a wealth tax would raise roughly $3 trillion in revenue over the next decade, without raising taxes on 99.95 percent of Americans. It’s supported by 68 percent of the country, including a majority of Republicans. And there are lots of ways to advance this principle — including a one-time wealth tax that would raise over $1 trillion.

Second, let’s turn to highly profitable giant corporations. In the three years following the 2017 Republican tax cuts, 39 megacorporations, including Amazon and FedEx, reported more than $122 billion in profits to their shareholders while using loopholes, deductions and exemptions to pay zero in federal income taxes.

These companies boosted their stock prices and increased CEO pay by telling their shareholders they raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, while simultaneously telling the Internal Revenue Service that they don’t owe any taxes. The president supports taxing the profits that large companies report to their shareholders. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and I have a plan that mirrors his. We would require any company that earns more than $100 million in profits to pay a 7 percent tax on every dollar earned above that amount. Only about 1,300 public companies would pay the tax, raising nearly $700 billion over 10 years.

Finally, rules don’t mean anything if nobody enforces them, so let’s enforce the law.

 

 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, I just saw a report that we’re putting 8000 (5000 more than initially reported) back into Afghanistan.  We’re looking at the “Fall of Saigon 2.0” aren’t we?

How are we going to get the troops out after the Civilians are evaced?

This isn't true.  The 8000 number includes 1000 being sent to Qatar to help process SIV applicants and the rest being deployed Kuwait as, basically, reservists in case things get even worse.  See here:

Quote

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed Thursday afternoon that more 3,000 military personnel are being sent to Kabul in the next 24-48 hours, plus an additional 1,000 personnel to Qatar to help with the processing of Special Immigrant Visa applicants in the coming days. [...]

In addition to the personnel in Kabul and in Qatar, the Pentagon is sending an Infantry Brigade Combat Team to Kuwait to be prepared if there is additional security needed at the airport. 

The Pentagon anticipates having to facilitate the airlift of embassy personnel and the forward movement of Special Immigrant Visas applicants and is working through the final plans now, according to Kirby. 

In total, the Department of Defense is sending around 8,000 personnel to assist with drawing down some civilian personnel from the embassy and processing the Special Immigrant Visa applications. At the start of the drawdown, there were approximately 2,500 personnel in Afghanistan.

A State Department official told CBS News there are about 4,200 staff at the U.S. Embassy, including Americans and Afghans.

Now, the State Department spokesman also insisted yesterday they were committed to maintaining a skeleton staff at the Embassy even afterwards.  That...seems dubious.  While the US does have experience maintaining embassies in dangerous places (e.g. Baghdad), they've been quite reticent to do so since Benghazi.

It also remains to be seen what exactly the Taliban's strategy is on Kabul - whether they plan a direct assault or if they plan to simply surround and isolate it in the expectation the government collapses on its own.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

This isn't true.  The 8000 number includes 1000 being sent to Qatar to help process SIV applicants and the rest being deployed Kuwait as, basically, reservists in case things get even worse.  See here:

Now, the State Department spokesman also insisted yesterday they were committed to maintaining a skeleton staff at the Embassy even afterwards.  That...seems dubious.  While the US does have experience maintaining embassies in dangerous places (e.g. Baghdad), they've been quite reticent to do so since Benghazi.

It also remains to be seen what exactly the Taliban's strategy is on Kabul - whether they plan a direct assault or if they plan to simply surround and isolate it in the expectation the government collapses on its own.

Thank you for the clarification.  Still if it gets hairy in Kabul pulling those troops out is going to be a tall order.  How much abandoned US Materiale has the Taliban pick up in the last two weeks?