21 November 20
A Large Dedicated Audience Averse to Supporting The Project
We have a unique problem. A large dedicated audience that is averse to supporting the project. While there may be reasons, good and bad the net effect is a constant headache for everyone.
To expect that 1% of the subscribers would respond to the funding appeals seems like a modest aspiration.
We are going to have to find a way to raise the level of participation. You apparently rely on RSN, and we clearly rely on you.
Need to find a way to make this work.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
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20 November 20
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Charles Pierce | Emily Murphy Needs to Do Her Damn Job, Just Like Brad Raffensperger Has
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "This means handing over the keys to the president-elect, whose margin of victory looks more decisive by the day."
here is no better illustration of how deeply perverse is the Republican denial of the reality of the 2020 presidential election than this inexcusable whitewashing from CNN of the performance of Emily Murphy. As the boss of the General Services Administration, Murphy is single-handedly gumming up the transition, as well as the efforts by the gathering Biden administration to hit the ground running on any issue, most notably the pandemic.
Sources who spoke to CNN could not say whether Murphy has been in touch with the White House on the issue. "She absolutely feels like she’s in a hard place. She’s afraid on multiple levels. It’s a terrible situation," one friend and former colleague of Murphy’s told CNN. "Emily is a consummate professional, a deeply moral person, but also a very scrupulous attorney who is in a very difficult position with an unclear law and precedence that is behind her stance..."
Democrats are furious with Murphy for playing into Trump’s false fantasies that the election was stolen from him. At the same time, Republicans are pressuring her to stand firm and not sign the ascertainment. Previous colleagues of Murphy told CNN that despite being a political appointee, she was not an avid Trump supporter or loyalist. "She’s going to be really thoughtful about both the letter of the law, any guidelines, explicit guidance, any precedence, as well as the overall intent. She comes out of contracts, where that is the whole nature of the work," the friend and former colleague said.
What the hell? On the one hand, we have Murphy's clear duty, which is to hand over the keys to the president-elect so he can get on with the business of the nation, a duty that is as important this year as it ever has been. On the other hand, we have...what? Mean tweets? A presidential tantrum? The sad, pathetic thrall in which a vulgar talking yam still holds alleged public servants in the national legislature? Do your job, as Bill Belichick once said. If Murphy needs inspiration, she can call Brad Raffensperger down in Georgia, who's taking unspeakable heat because he insists on Doing His Job. Then, there's this.
Former Republican Missouri Sen. Jim Talent told CNN he has known Murphy 25 years and that she worked for him when he chaired the House Small Business Committee during the Clinton administration. Talent praised Murphy's integrity, blaming the law for putting the onus on the GSA. "Something is wrong with the system where the responsibility for declaring the winner of a Presidential election seems to devolve upon the General Services Administration -- it's the Government's landlord. They buy furniture," Talent said. "I understand people's frustration, but the problem is an electoral system that cannot come to a finality. It's not Emily or the GSA."
The electoral system has achieved finality. Joe Biden is the president-elect because he won by a margin that looks more decisive by the day. Soon, he will assume the presidency of a country in which citizens are dying by the carload. I don't know what Talent is talking about here, or what Murphy thinks she's doing, but public service seems pretty far from the reality of it.
Former president Barack Obama has mostly remained out of the public fray since leaving office. (photo: Ashlee Rezin Garcia/AP)
Barack Obama: I Could Not Believe How Easily the Republican Establishment Caved to Trump
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic
Goldberg writes: "In an exclusive interview, the former president identifies the greatest threats to the American experiment, explains why he's still hopeful, and opens up about his new book."
EXCERPT:
arack Obama was describing to me the manner in which the Mongol emperor and war-crimes innovator Genghis Khan would besiege a town. “They gave you two choices,” he said. “‘If you open the gates, we’ll just kill you quickly and take your women and enslave your children, but we won’t slaughter them. But if you hold out, then we’ll slowly boil you in oil and peel off your skin.’”
This was not meant to be commentary on the Trump presidency—not directly, at least. In any case, Obama has more respect for Genghis Khan than he has for Donald Trump. He raised the subject of Genghis Khan in order to make a specific, extremely Obama-like point: If you think today’s world is grim, simply cast your mind back 800 years to the steppes of Central Asia. “Compare the degree of brutality and venality and corruption and just sheer folly that you see across human history with how things are now,” he said. “It’s not even close.”
We were sitting at opposite ends of a long table in his office suite in the West End district of Washington. The offices were empty, except for a couple of aides and a discreet Secret Service detail. Obama was in a good mood, happy to discuss the work that has consumed him for more than three years: the writing of A Promised Land, his presidential memoir—or what turns out to be (because he has much to say about many things) the first of two volumes of his presidential memoir. The first volume’s 768 pages carry him from childhood to the bin Laden raid of 2011. A publication date for the next installment, which will presumably cover such issues as the Syrian civil war, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Iran nuclear deal, has not yet been announced.
A Promised Land is an unusual presidential memoir in many ways: unusually interior, unusually self-critical, unusually modern (this is the first presidential memoir, I believe, to use the term ethereal bisexual to describe an unrequited love interest), and unusually well written. The book does suffer at times from a general too-muchness, and it has its arid stretches, although to be fair, no one has yet invented a way to inject poetry into extended explanations of cap-and-trade, or Mitch McConnell’s motivations.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, has been criticized by fellow Republicans who claim he ran a flawed election. (photo: Nicole Craine/The New York Times)
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's Top Election Official, Certifies Biden's Victory: 'Numbers Don't Lie.'
The New York Times
Excerpt: "Georgia's secretary of state certified President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory in the state on Friday, dealing a blow to President Trump's bid to overturn the vote in a half-dozen battleground states and with it the national election that Mr. Biden won decisively."
READ MORE
Chicago Police. (photo: AP)
Protesters Sue Chicago Police Over 'Brutal, Violent' Tactics
Don Babwin, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Dozens of activists who protested in Chicago over George Floyd's death and the killing by police of other Blacks across the U.S. have filed a lawsuit alleging they were attacked by police and falsely arrested."
READ MORE
McDonald's restaurant. (photo: Leah Frances/The New York Times)
Millions of US Workers for Walmart, McDonald's and Other Corporate Giants Rely on Food Stamps and Medicaid
Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times
Schuhrke writes: "A new report commissioned by Bernie Sanders shows that corporations are soaking up profits - while paying workers so little they depend on government assistance to survive."
READ MORE
Scott Wiener is still in the early phases of putting together his bill, and is working out the fine details. (photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
'The War on Drugs Failed': California Lawmaker Will Push to Decriminalize Psychedelics
Vivian Ho, Guardian UK
Ho writes: "The movement to reform drug policy celebrated a number of victories in the recent election, with voters across America opting to legalize marijuana and decriminalize narcotics in an unprecedented overhaul."
READ MORE
Cori Bush, the Democratic candidate in Missouri's 1st District, meets with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in her Capitol Hill office. (photo: ABC News)
Biden Be Bold: AOC and Cori Bush Join Climate Protest Outside DNC Urging Activists to "Bring the Heat"
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "Indigenous, racial justice and climate activists staged an occupation outside the Democratic National Convention in Washington Thursday, calling on President-elect Joe Biden to take immediate climate action and to approve the Green New Deal."
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