Skating on Thin Ice

Hate Update:  Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust screw up and resulting two week suspension from The View has received a lot of attention but the hate story that should be front and center concerns the bomb threats that targeted and disrupted life at more than a dozen historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) earlier this week.  It’s probably no coincidence that those threats took place at the beginning of February, African American History Month. The FBI reports that they’ve tracked the threats to six technically proficient minors.  The good news is that no bombs were found, but how disgusting is it that those minors, probably teens on the cusp of adulthood, harbor so much hate that they think that targeting Black colleges, or any college, is okay. Hopefully at some point we’ll learn more about the offenders, but don’t be surprised if members of the right wing hate squad rise to their defense, describing them as just a bunch of misdirected practical jokers, a group of Kyle Rittenhouse’s sans guns.  While its too early to know if those minors will face anything more than a hand slap for their actions, a Black ex-Felon in Tennessee was recently sentenced to six years in jail for trying to register to vote, something ex-Felons can’t do in her state.  If that seems harsh, its because it is, people are rarely imprisoned for voting related crimes, at least white people rarely are. Then there’s the outrage about President Biden’s as yet unnamed Supreme Court pick. The usual group of Republican and right wing pundits continue to throw shade at her even though they don’t know who she will be. Louisiana’s Republican Senator John Kennedy, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a media go to guy because of his catchy down home homilies said that he wants “a nominee who knows a law book from a J Crew catalog” and one who is not going to try to rewrite the Constitution every other Thursday to try to advance a woke agenda.”  The “woke agenda” comment is a typical Republican talking point but the J Crew comment is not, it is a not so subtle reference to Michele Obama, the kind of smart and articulate Black woman that Kennedy finds threatening and intolerable, especially on the Court.  Lastly, don’t even get me started about what’s going on at the NFL, but whatever it is it sounds very racist. By the way has anyone seen Colin Kaepernick throw a football lately?

Election Shenanigans:  We keep learning more about the FG’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In addition to trying to get the Department of Justice, the US Military and the Department of Home Land Security to confiscate voting machines, his team also tried to get the National Security Agency involved. To that end some of his supporters circulated a memo that called for him to enlist the NSA in order to obtain the electronic data compiled by the agency to find “proof” of election fraud. In addition, apparently he also tried to convince the Michigan and Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers that he called to the Oval Office for steak, fries and champagne right after the election to get law enforcement officials in their states to grab some of their voting machines. We thought he had “just” been trying to get them to prevent the certification of Biden’s electors, now we know the plan also involved the machines and that both the machine plan and the electoral college switcheroo started way earlier than previously reported.  As to the House investigation into January 6, Jeffrey Clark, the former DOJ Civil Division attorney who promised to help the FG overturn the election if only he would first appoint him as acting Attorney General, finally showed up in person to testify.  By most accounts he didn’t say much, he mostly took the Fifth in contrast to Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes, the one eyed Yale law school grad who’s been indicted for seditious conspiracy.  He testified remotely from his prison cell for about six hours. Though he too plead the Fifth a bunch of times, he also did a lot of talking.  So far former VP Pence has not been invited to speak to the January 6^th Committee though the Committee has requested that the National Archives share some of his records.  It’s not clear whether the Committee will call Pence in but the former VP is scheduled to speak about constitutional authority and the rule of law this weekend  in Salt Lake City at the RNC’s winter meeting. That should be interesting, well maybe? As to the RNC, apparently though they won’t be kicking Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger out of the Republican House conference, they do plan to vote on a statement, one that is being characterized as unprecedented, censuring them for cooperating with the “socialist” enemy by participating on the January 6^th Committee because not kowtowing to the Former Guy has consequences.  The January 6^th Committee has also subpoenaed Arizona GOP head Kelli Ward’s phone records. Ward who was one of Arizona’s faux electors also tried to get officials to stop counting ballots on election day, especially the ones from Biden strongholds. When not disrupting elections and pressing a right wing agenda, she is an osteopath so she is asserting privilege, saying that handing over those phone records would violate her patients’ rights.  How convenient.

Media Madness:  You’d be excused for missing that there’s a program on Fox TV called The Masked Singer. Though I’ve been known to watch a junk show now and again, I’ve missed this one but from what I hear it involves celebrities in head to toe, identity concealing costumes singing in front of a panel of judges who then try to guess who they are. It turns out that one of this season’s “celebrities” was none other than Rudy “Colludy” Giuliani who, following in the footsteps of Sarah Palin who appeared in a prior year, must really be desperate for some cash. Nothing like watching entertainment TV helping a wannabe insurrectionist launder his reputation. On the subject of reputation, CNN head Jeff Zucker is now out of a job. Something to do with him failing to disclose his long term personal relationship with CNN’s Chief Marketing Officer Allison Gollust who still has her job but may not for much longer. Zucker failed to mention their long term relationship to lawyers at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and then when he did claimed that it had just started up during COVID, an assertion that a number of people in the know quickly knocked down as a bigly lie.  Cravath is helping CNN prepare for its dispute with former star Chris Cuomo who is trying to force CNN to ante up some if not all of the money he lost when he was fired for helping his brother former NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo.  Worth noting, though Andrew Cuomo is most definitely no longer Governor, he is not going to be prosecuted for any of the alleged harassment that caused him to step down because it turns out that though he might be a creep he didn’t break any laws.

And….:  Biden authorized a raid on Syria that took out the leader of ISIS early yesterday and at least so far the Russians have not invaded Ukraine though they do appear to be cozying up to China where the Winter Olympics have officially started without a lot of diplomat in attendance because of their treatment of their Uyghur minority.  Though COVID in the US is on the decline, there were 3022 US Covid related deaths yesterday so it’s a bit too early to declare victory.