Wednesday News & Notes
SEPTEMBER 15, 2021 -- LEHMAN BROTHERS DECLARES BANKRUPTCY, TRIGGER TO GREAT RECESSION, 2008
•North Korea fired two ballistic missiles off its east coast Wednesday, toward the Korean peninsula’s east coast, South Korea said, and landed in waters outside the Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone (Politico).
•The House of Representatives’ Ways & Means Committee holds its fourth and final day of markup for the $3.5 trillion social spending budget reconciliation package today (The Hill).
Book: Austin, Blinken Called for Slower Afghanistan Withdrawal – Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed for a slower withdrawal from Afghanistan, but President Biden ignored them, says The Hill Wednesday via a CNN book report on Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post.
Blinken in March changed his recommendation about removing all U.S. troops at once after a meeting with NATO ministers, according to the report. Austin proposed a “gated” withdrawal in three or four stages that would have allowed for more negotiations, the book indicates. Biden initially proposed full withdrawal by September 11 but moved the deadline up to August 31 and actually announced completion a day earlier. Former President Trump had proposed a March 1 deadline before he thought he would be named winner of last November’s elections.
CNN is among the news media outlets that have an advanced copy of Peril, which goes on sale next Tuesday. …
Democrats Are as Critical as Republicans of Afghanistan Withdrawal Explanations: Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, told NPR’s All Things Considered he was very troubled by Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller’s testimony in a classified, closed-door hearing. He is not satisfied with the White House’s responses – and lack thereof – to questions and concerns about the poorly handled withdrawal.
Trump Brought Democracy Closer to Destruction than We Knew, Book Says: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley twice took measures to block Trump from the possibility of launching nuclear weapons against a perceived enemy.
Per CNN’s advanced copy of Peril, Chris Cuomo said:
•Milley contacted his Chinese counterpart to warn him not to react to Trump’s bellicosity.
•Milley instructed his top military officers to make sure he was consulted before responding to any orders by President Trump to launch missiles. Milley reportedly saw the officers’ compliance as “an oath.”
In addition, Trump spoke with Mike Pence on January 5 about how the vice president could upset the formal Electoral College count in Congress the next day. Pence said he wouldn’t want any one person to have that power, but Trump replied: “Wouldn’t it almost be cool to have that power?”
No, the Veep replied – he had apparently consulted fellow Hoosier former Vice President Dan Quayle on the matter – “I’ve already (considered) every way around it. It’s simply not possible.” To which Trump replied, “I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you can’t do this.”
Pro-Trump insurrectionists constructed gallows for Pence outside the Capitol the next day.
The Milley Judgment: Is Gen. Milley a military hero or his own kind of megalomaniac who overstepped his bounds in warning China about a potential military strike, and should he have resigned to reveal Trump’s apparent treason?
Laura Ingraham considers Milley a traitor for having tried to wrest the military from civilian control and took time on her eponymous Ingraham Angle on Fox News Tuesday night to sneer at MSNBC hosts and contributing pundits for lionizing Milley.
Had Ingraham paused her remote at CNN on her way to MSNBC, she would have found more nuance. Alexander Vindman, the retired European Affairs director at the National Security Council who blew the whistle on Trump’s “perfect call” of pressure on Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden, told host Chris Cuomo; “Mark Milley must resign if he usurped civilian power over the military” without accountability.
Prior to Vindman’s segment on Cuomo Prime Time, Miles Taylor, author of A Warning, and the chief of staff to Trump’s Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said cabinet members and staff had plotted similar checks on Trump’s power as early as 2017. But Taylor declined judgment on Milley (chairman since October 2019) until more details come forth.
Note: Milley will have to step down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the distracting weight of this publicity alone. Trumpists will condemn Milley while giving no consideration to the book’s allegations of the former president’s treason.
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Trump Loses California Again – Should Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom be recalled? Californians voted “no,” 64.2% to 35.8%, according to the Los Angeles Times, and so the top challenger to replace him on the second part of the ballot, right-wing radio talk show host Larry Elder, has conceded the race.
That’s the buried headline.
Newsom’s campaign successfully painted Elder as the Trumpist Republican on the ballot’s second question, and his gracious concession Tuesday night contrasts with charges he made prior to the election that the recall election already was rigged. Trump more recently echoed those baseless claims. Elder did not rule out the possibility he will run for governor again in November 2022, when Newsom’s first term actually expires. “Stay tuned,” he said.
For his part, Newsom, who was recalled largely because of state-imposed shutdowns responding to the pandemic, and his own poorly timed violation of social distancing with a dinner party at Napa Valley’s French Laundry restaurant, has not announced whether he will run for re-election. The former San Francisco mayor said in his victory speech Tuesday; “’No’ is not the only thing that was expressed tonight. I want to focus on what we said ‘yes’ to. We said ‘yes’ to science, we said ‘yes’ to vaccines, and we said ‘yes’ to ending this pandemic.” (AP)
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French Health Care Workers Require Vaccinations — French medical care, home care, and emergency workers must have had at least one COVID-19 vaccination, or they will not be paid as of today, the Associated Press reports. This is the result of approval by the country’s parliament this past summer. A judicial ruling prevents the unvaccinated health care workers from being fired. There are some 300,000 health care workers who have not been vaccinated in France.
Note: The AP story quotes Christophe Prudhomme, emergency room doctor and CGT union member, as saying, “We are raising the alarm ... if you insist on implementing this measure your beds will be closed, thus reducing chances (of survival) for a number of patients.” A sentiment that is repeated by some in the U.S.
Two points: (1) the R0, the number of people that someone can inflect, was calculated as being 3 for the original virus (one person can infect three people on average) and, as of April, between 4 and 5, according to a mathematics professor at the Sorbonne, so that “health care” can be problematic; (2) where are these unvaccinated workers going to get jobs? Even restaurants in Paris require vaccine passports.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods