The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I had actually heard about that ransom ware attack. And I still didn't make the connection. But I'm a little slow on the uptake.

[River]

So Vladimir Putin wants Americans to become vegetarians?

I suspect he just wants to make a mess.

I am a vegetarian and my husband is cutting back hard on red meat because bloodwork. The cyber attack on JBS had/will have no impact on our household. We also live in the West and he drives a hybrid and I drive an electric so the Colonial Pipeline attack had no impact on our household.

A cyber attack that did affect me hit my employer some months back. The attack got thwarted because our IT people basically disconnected us from the internet. For a couple weeks, we could access the intranet and our email on the company network. Then slowly we got the web back. It was actually a huge pain. Aside from losing access to cat videos and reddit, we also lost access to PubMed, Google Scholar, and websites for suppliers. Fortunately, all of this was available on the guest network. Unfortunately, the company intranet is not accessible from the guest network so if we needed that we had to log off the one and log onto the other. Even now, there are some web-based email services we can't access from the company network, but the cat videos, reddit, PubMed, Google Scholar, and online shopping are back. With some added security measures, but that's okay. So long as we don't have to ransom our data in cryptocurrency, I'll take it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Even now, there are some web-based email services we can't access from the company network, but the cat videos, reddit, PubMed, Google Scholar, and online shopping are back.

And the Hall of Fire, let us not forget.

[elengil]

I keep wondering why sensitive infrastructure computers are not required to be isolated from the internet. Keep secondary computers that don't run anything connected but not networked to sensitive things.

[River]

Even now, there are some web-based email services we can't access from the company network, but the cat videos, reddit, PubMed, Google Scholar, and online shopping are back.

And the Hall of Fire, let us not forget.

True.

el, I have no idea. It was grossly inconvenient when the measures dropped on us but...

[N.E. Brigand]

Joe Biden needs to explain why his administration got a gag order on the publishers of the New York Times on March 3, preventing them from saying publicly what the Dept. of Justice told them then: that in 2020-2021 both the Trump and Biden admnistrations were attempting to obtain (from Google) the email records of four Times reporters in order to uncover their sources. Google fought back, the government was unsuccessful, and a court just lifted the gag.

But this should never have happened in the first place. And one can't simply point to delays in staffing the DOJ. Merrick Garland was sworn in as Attorney General on March 10, almost three months ago.

Edited to add: Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary, says that no one in the Biden White House knew about this gag until yesterday. It seems to me the Attorney General has an obligation to tell the President when he is muzzling the free press. Should Merrick Garland be fired for sitting on this information for three months?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The real story here is that the Justice Department under Merrick Garland is ending the long-standing policy that has existed under administrations of both parties (but was brought to a greater extreme under the last administration) of using court orders to seek journalists information in lead probes.

Justice Dept. vows to end court orders seeking journalists' data in leak probes

From my perspective, the Garland DOJ has done a good job of ramping down and ending the previous policy. As that article notes,

the DOJ's in-court moves under Biden apparently amounted to narrowing the initial gag order which seemed to preclude any disclosure to the Times, delaying the deadline to turn over the information, and eventually dropping the matter, according to Ted Boutrous, an attorney who worked with the Times on the issue.

As for the question of Garland and his team keeping the president informed, one of the most important things that he has done is reestablished the Justice Department's independence, which is a crucial feature that was so terrible threatened under the previous administration (one of the stories that came out in the past couple of days was Mark Meadows, Trump's last Chief of Staff, trying to pressure the DOJ to overturn the results of the election.

Indeed, Psaki's statement highlights this very fact.

"As appropriate given the independence of the Justice Department in specific criminal cases, no one at the White House was aware of the gag order until Friday night. While the White House does not intervene in criminal investigations, the issuing of subpoenas for the records of reporters in leak investigations is not consistent with the President’s policy direction to the Department, and the Department of Justice has reconfirmed it will not be used moving forward."

[N.E. Brigand]

A) It would be helpful if you could provide a link or at least explain what you are referring to.

B) Some Americans already are vegetarians/vegans, and it wouldn't be a bad thing in many different ways if more joined us. But that is perhaps a topic for a different discussion. Or discussions.

Just a bit of levity. I have nothing against vegetarianism! Earlier this week, one of the world's largest meat producing companies, JBS, which plays a large role in the supply of beef to U.S. retailers, was hacked and temporarily shut down by a criminal group alled REvil. This has resulted in a few days' disruption in the U.S. beef supply chain, and may briefly make it harder to get hamburgers from some sources, like McDonald's. Like many such ransomware organizations, including the one that shut down a U.S. pipeline a few weeks ago, REvil operates out of Russia, with the tacit approval of the Russian government. There is even some suspicion that both attacks were approved in advance by Putin in order to undermine the Biden presidency (by somewhat immiserating Americans via shortages).

In the U.S., at least, there is some tendency to associate vegetarianism with the left, and Joe Biden's predecessor Donald Trump in particular was famously known as a fan of burgers, so it would be ironic if it was Putin, upon whom Trump at times seemed to dote, who was making it harder for Americans to eat them.

The Dept. of Justice today announced that they have recovered $2.6 million of the $4.3 million that Colonial Pipeline paid a few weeks ago to the Russian cyber-criminal organization DarkSide. Somehow DOJ obtained a private key needed to access the Bitcoin account holding those funds.

(I have no understanding of cryptocurrency, so I apologize if I'm characterizing that process incorrectly.)

[N.E. Brigand]

I just can't agree with Attorney General Merrick Garland, who apparently believes -- else why would the Dept. of Justice under his leadership appeal a lower court's ruling against the federal government? -- that Donald Trump was performing his official duties as President when he defamed E. Jean Carroll.

Again, President Joe Biden needs to stand up for candidate Joe Biden, who said during the 2020 presidential campaign the William Barr was wrong to do this. Biden has a moral obligation to say that Biden was correct, and that Garland is therefore wrong.

Or if Joe Biden feels that Joe Biden was wrong, he must say so.

Joe Biden can't have it both ways.

I mean, eight years from now, when Biden is no longer President, is he going to say that DOJ was wrong to follow this course?

Joe Biden 2020: It's wrong for the Dept. of Justice under Donald Trump to do this.

Joe Biden 2021: I have nothing to say about what the Dept. of Justice is doing.

Joe Biden 2029: It was wrong for the Dept. of Justice under Joe Biden to do that.

If he thinks it's wrong, he has the power to do something about it now. What good will it do for him to wait eight years?

As someone wrote last week: there's a difference between returning from bad acts to normalcy and normalizing those bad acts by defending them.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not at all surprised that the Garland DOJ would take that position, but in this case I disagree with it. As Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan said, "The DOJ's position is not only legally wrong, it is morally wrong since it would give federal officials free license to cover up private sexual misconduct by publicly brutalizing any woman who has the courage to come forward. Calling a woman you sexually assaulted a 'liar,' a 'slut,' or 'not my type,' as Donald Trump did here, is not the official act of an American president."

That having been said, I still agree with Biden not getting involved. There are some thing that I think a president can and should direct the Attorney General to do or not do (for instance, Obama instructing Eric Holder to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act), but this is not one of them.

[N.E. Brigand]

Speaking strategically: I hope that Joe Biden's hands-off policy with DOJ pays off in the form of further indictments (when legally appropriate) against Donald Trump and his cronies.

[Frelga]

Does anyone know what's happening with the supposed influx of illegal immigrants across the border that has some people Very Worried? I haven't seen anything in the headlines, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything either way.

[N.E. Brigand]

In 2019, Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, was one of 46 sponsors of the For the People Act.

The Senate was then in Republican control, so there was never a vote.

Now that Democrats control the Senate, Manchin has announced that he will vote against the For the People Act.

It's the same bill that he previously sponsored.

His reason? He says he can't support the bill if no Republicans will vote for it.

A poll this week found that 79% of West Virginia voters support the For the People Act.

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Curiously, NBC's Chuck Todd and others in a new Meet the Press article say that savvy political observers always knew that the bill never stood a chance, and that "It’s hard to think of an issue where there’s been a bigger disconnect between the activist left and Democratic leadership, especially when Democrats have controlled both the White House and Congress."

And yet just this morning, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, issued a statement to Democratic house members saying that the bill "must be passed now." Is she part of the leadership or part of the activist left?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Speaking strategically: I hope that Joe Biden's hands-off policy with DOJ pays off in the form of further indictments (when legally appropriate) against Donald Trump and his cronies.

I would be beyond shocked if the DOJ indicted Trump or any of his cronies, with the possible exception of Giuliani. I do think an indictment from the Manhattan D.A is possible, but most likely only against the Trump Organization. I think the biggest wild card is New York Attorney General Letitia James. I really can't predict what she will do.

A poll this week found that 79% of West Virginia voters support the For the People Act.

Vice President Harris was in Guatamala yesterday and made a speech essentially telling undocumented immigrants to stay away.

In Guatemala, Harris Tells Undocumented to Stay Away From U.S. Border

Regarding Manchin and the For the People Act, I was not aware that he had previously sponsored the bill. Do you have a link that indicates that? As for the poll that says 79% of West Virginians (and 84% of Arizonians) support the bill, I can't find anything that shows actually how the poll question was asked. This is the memo about the poll:

https://endcitizensunited.org/wp-conten ... 5.8.21.pdf

While I strongly support the For the People Act, I am not a big fan of using partisan polls to skew data. N.E.B., do you have any other information about the poll that gives more information about how it was conducted and what the actual questions that were asked were?

[N.E. Brigand]

Speaking strategically: I hope that Joe Biden's hands-off policy with DOJ pays off in the form of further indictments (when legally appropriate) against Donald Trump and his cronies.

I would be beyond shocked if the DOJ indicted Trump or any of his cronies, with the possible exception of Giuliani. I do think an indictment from the Manhattan D.A is possible, but most likely only against the Trump Organization. I think the biggest wild card is New York Attorney General Letitia James. I really can't predict what she will do.

Sadly, I also would be pretty surprised if Garland & Co. do the right thing. Just on the Russia scandal: Robert Mueller laid out multiple instances of obstruction of justice, and the only reason that he wouldn't say that Donald Trump should be prosecuted for them is that he accepted the DOJ policy saying that Trump couldn't be prosecuted while he was president.

But not prosecuting now just encourages future presidents to obstruct justice.

Regarding Manchin and the For the People Act, I was not aware that he had previously sponsored the bill. Do you have a link that indicates that? As for the poll that says 79% of West Virginians (and 84% of Arizonians) support the bill, I can't find anything that shows actually how the poll question was asked. This is the memo about the poll:

https://endcitizensunited.org/wp-conten ... 5.8.21.pdf

While I strongly support the For the People Act, I am not a big fan of using partisan polls to skew data. N.E.B., do you have any other information about the poll that gives more information about how it was conducted and what the actual questions that were asked were?

I don't have any more information about how the poll was conducted. I saw it referenced on MSNBC last night, and the same poll apparently asked West Virginia voters about the infrastructure plan. That also had strong support, but only in the 60s, well behind this bill. I was surprised.

As for Manchin sponsoring the bill in the previous Congress, I can't get a direct link to the search results at Congress.gov to work, but if you go to that site, search for Manchin, select the 116th Congress, select legislation sponsored, and then go to the second page of results, you'll find S. 949.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks! Sinema was also a co-sponsor. Manchin's name even has an asterisk next it, indicating that he was an "original co-sponsor".

(I don't disagree with you about charging Trump for obstruction, among other things, by the way.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Deal Reached!!!!

Just kidding.

Biden ends infrastructure negotiations with Republican senators

So does that mean that the Democrats will go it alone? Of course not.

The president will now turn his attention to a bipartisan group of senators preparing their own infrastructure proposal. Psaki said he has spoken with Senators Sinema, Cassidy, and Manchin, and he plans to stay in touch with the lawmakers while he's in Europe.

A bipartisan team led by Republican Senator Mitt Romney, of Utah, had been working on an alternative to the offer by Capito's group as a backup in case its talks with the White House foundered.

And then this tidbit.

Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, told reporters didn't see much evidence of compromise from Mr. Biden during the negotiations.

"The closest we ever were was the day we were in the Oval Office with the president," Barrasso said Tuesday. "He has never really moved toward us, in terms of core infrastructure he had lots of broad requests for things that the American people don't see as infrastructure, then he's never backed away from his desire to continue to want to raise taxes."

This despite the fact that the president moved far more in his position than the GOP negotiators, coming down $600 million dollars from his initial position, while Sen. Capito (ironically of West Virginia) who was negotiated on behalf of the Republicans only moved $50 million.

Eventually it will come down to trying to do it alone under budget reconciliation, at which point they are likely to run into another road block from West Virginia.

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks! Sinema was also a co-sponsor. Manchin's name even has an asterisk next it, indicating that he was an "original co-sponsor".

Also these screenshots from Manchin's website show that he used to favor reforming the filibuster.

[N.E. Brigand]

Art Laffer, the supply-side economist who served in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and and was awarded the the Presidential Medal of Freedom two years ago by President Donald Trump, said the quiet part out loud tonight on Fox News:

For those people who are coming into the labor force fresh, not oldtimers -- the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, those with less education, young people who haven't had the job experience -- these people aren't worth $15 an hour in most cases.

Yes, tell us more about the wages that "minorities" deserve.

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks! Sinema was also a co-sponsor. Manchin's name even has an asterisk next it, indicating that he was an "original co-sponsor".

Also these screenshots from Manchin's website show that he used to favor reforming the filibuster.

Also just five months ago, Joe Manchin was calling for a $4 trillion infrastructure bill.