11.29 Lara Logan on Dr. Fauci on Fox New: “He represents Josef Mengele … the Nazi doctor who did experiments on Jews during the Second World War in the concentration camps. And I am talking about people all across the world are saying this! Because the response from COVID. What it has done to countries everywhere. What it has done to civil liberties. The suicide rates. The poverty.”
11.28 George Clooney in the Sunday Times (London): “Just because you’re a boss, it doesn’t mean you get to shit on people. . . I’ve been the boss and the guy being shat on. You can’t get away with being a dick anymore — you’d get ratted out. Now there’s sometimes an overcorrection, where everyone points fingers, but that will settle. It always does. And I can’t imagine some producer having a casting session alone in his hotel room with a young girl anymore. It’s moving in the right direction.”
11.28 Dr. Anthony Fauci, on Face the Nation, Dr. Anthony Fauci responding to a comment from Sen. Ted Cruz that Fauci should face federal prosecution over some of his testimony before Congress. “Yeah. I have to laugh at that. I should be prosecuted? What happened on Jan. 6, senator?”
11.26 Stephen Sondheim dies at 91.
11.26 Omicron
11.24 Duane Swierczynski quotes from a 1905 newspaper article that appeared in the Philadelphia Times and Brooklyn Eagle, describing ideal workers for sugar refineries: “The Christian Pole is dull, not very shrewd or progressive, not invariably as honest as a bank cashier, but he is faithful to his family, gets drunk principally at weddings and funerals and christenings [sic], hence he likes to have these things happen as often as possible; lives miserably in order to save money, and he is a good workman at any task that does not require such skill or intellect…”
11.26 MDR, taking a swipe at GKH in a tweetL “Time to shift with the times — ribbon cuttings and photo ops drinking beers in UES bars maskless won’t get this job done,” Melissa DeRosa. The tweet was later deleted.
11.19 Nancy Pelosi, just before the House passed the Build Back Better plan: ““”Under this Dome, for centuries, Members of Congress have stood exactly where we stand to pass legislation of extraordinary consequence in our nation’s history and for our nation’s future. In the original House Chamber, now Statuary Hall, where Lincoln served, is Clio, the muse of history. Clio reminds men and women in these hallowed halls that we are part of history, that our words and actions will face the judgment of history and that we are put – a part of the long and honorable heritage of our democracy. With the passage of the Build Back Better Act, we – this Democratic Congress – are taking our place in the long and honorable heritage of our democracy, which – with legislation that will be the pillar of health and financial security in America. It will be historic in forging landmark progress for our nation. ”
11.19 Washington Post: Growing at unprecedented rates, and shaped by forces both familiar and new, dozens of African cities will join the ranks of humanity’s biggest megalopolises between now and 2100. Several recent studies project that by the end of this century, Africa will be the only continent experiencing population growth. Thirteen of the world’s 20 biggest urban areas will be in Africa — up from just two today — as will more than a third of the world’s population.
11.18 Senator John Kennedy to Biden currency nominee Saule Omarova: ‘I don’t know whether to call you professor or comrade.’
11.18 David Brooks in the Times: “The Biden $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed and has been tremendously successful. It heated the overall economy. The Conference Board projects that real G.D.P. growth will be about 5 percent this quarter. The unemployment rate is falling. Retail sales are surging. About two-thirds of Americans feel their household’s financial situation is good. But the best part is that the benefits are flowing to those down the educational and income ladder. In just the first month of payments, the expanded child tax credit piece of the stimulus bill kept three million American children out of poverty. Pay for hourly workers in the leisure and hospitality sector jumped 13 percent in August compared to the previous year. By June, there were more nonfarm job openings than there had been at any other time in American history. Workers have tremendous power these days. The infrastructure bill Biden just signed will boost American productivity for years to come.
11,18 Michelle Cottle in the Times: “`”Under Mr. Trump, the Republican Party has undergone a fundamental shift, swapping a fixation on character and morality and so-called Family Values for a celebration of belligerence, violence, and, yes, toxic masculinity. Greg Gianforte won his 2017 House race after “body slamming” a reporter who asked an unwelcome question. Charged with assault and sentenced to anger management classes and community service, Mr. Gianforte was praised by Mr. Trump as “my kind of guy” for his violent display. Last year, Montanans elected him governor. This tendency is not restricted to the G.O.P.’s men. Just look at the way MAGA extremists like Representatives Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene play up their swaggering, gun-toting images to the delight of the base. Before arriving in Congress, Ms. Greene got her kicks indulging social media fantasies about killing Democratic leaders. Speaking of that, just this week, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, a 62-year-old former dentist desperate to be known as a MAGA butt-kicker, got himself censured and stripped of committee assignments for posting an animated video depicting him slashing the throat of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York progressive. All but two of his Republican colleagues stuck by him. Ms. Boebert took to the House floor to deliver a barn-burning defense. Whatever the misconduct of individual Republicans, the larger scandal is in the party’s collective group shrug.
11.17 According to Bloomberg, during the pandemic, 49% of people aged 18 to 29 lived with theor parents.
11.17 Rep. Paul Gosar was censured by the House of Representatives for posting an anime video depicting him killing fellow lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden. The House also voted, largely along party lines, to strip him of his committee assignments. Gosar remained defiant and refused to apologize.
11.17 Jacob Chansley, `the `QAnon Shaman’ who prosecutors called the “public face of the Capitol riot,” was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
11.16 On Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, Sen. Ted Cruz attempted to insult Rep. Liz Cheney when he accused the Wyoming congresswoman of being more like a Democrat because of the way she has spoken out against Trump. “I think she falls into the category of people who Donald Trump just broke, just shattered,” Cruz said. “She hates Donald Trump so much that it just has overridden everything in her system. She’s lashing out at Trump and Republicans and everything, and she’s become a Democrat….It is Trump derangement syndrome.” Cheney responded on CNN: . “Trump broke Ted Cruz. A real man would be defending his wife, and his father, and the Constitution.”
11.16 Washington Post: The Post-ABC poll finds 27 percent of Americans say the court should overturn Roe, while 60 percent say it should be upheld, attitudes that are consistent in polls dating to 2005. More broadly, three-quarters of Americans say abortion access should be left to women and their doctors, while 20 percent say they should be regulated by law.
11.15 President Biden signed a sweeping $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to upgrade the nation’s roads, bridges, water systems and broadband, touting the measure’s passage as evidence for his insistence that bipartisanship can work even in a bitterly polarized time
11.13 Sam Huff dies at 87.
11.13 Lunch at Two Spear in Nyack with Ginny, Molly, Cara, Ivy and Connor.
11.12 The Times: From congressional offices to community meeting rooms, threats of violence are becoming commonplace among a significant segment of the Republican Party. Ten months after rioters attacked the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, and after four years of a president who often spoke in violent terms about his adversaries, right-wing Republicans are talking more openly and frequently about the use of force as justifiable in opposition to those who dislodged him from power.
11.12 Steve Bannon indicted for Contempt of Congress
11.12 Hunter Welker in New York: “The closer senior aides were to Cuomo, the more they tended to emulate him and his approach to politics. “You can’t talk a nail into going into a board. You can’t charm the nail into a board. It has to be hit with a hammer,” as Cuomo put it during a post-resignation interview with New York. James’s report described his senior aides acting similarly inside his office, ruling by intimidation. “To say he’s, like, an intense person doesn’t quite capture it,” said a former Cuomo administration official who requested anonymity because they still fear his wrath. Further outside the inner circle, some former aides like this one struggle to reckon with what they did on Cuomo’s behalf. “You’re always at war. You’re battling COVID or you’re battling de Blasio,” the ex-official said. Often it was “war for the sake of war itself” with no definition of victory. “We’re losing our weekends, and we’re having this family strife, and we’re really giving up all this, engaging in this mental agony and stress because we believe this is somehow the magic that makes it work,” the ex-official continued. Cuomo’s rise to national fame over his handling of COVID to his scandalous fall left many who worked for him traumatized. “After all these years, people are starting to question it and saying we didn’t have to go through that pain to accomplish what we accomplished,” the former official said. “It went from such a high — it was one of the best brands just a year and a half ago — and now it’s an embarrassment.” While Cuomo and his die-hards are still fighting, other veterans of his war are trying to find peace. In group text-message chains and on emotional phone calls, Cuomo’s former soldiers have talked about going to therapy. Others headed to the bar. “I’ve been on a lot of these calls, whether it’s over the phone or many alcoholic beverages, trying to think about, What does this all mean? How should we think about the last ten years?” the former official said. “Is it an embarrassment for staff or just for the principal?”
11.10 Lunch with John Maggiore in the Concourse
11.7 Terry Bradshaw blasted Aaron Rodgers on FOX: “It would’ve been nice if Aaron came down to the naval academy and learned to be honest. Learned not to lie. Because that’s what you did, Aaron. You lied.”
11.5 The House passed, 228-206, a $1.2 trillion “hard infrastructure” bill, with massive investments in roads, bridges, broadband and more. The bill, passed by the Senate in August, now goes to Biden for signing. AOC voted no.
11.5 The Economist: writes that Dems’ “unpopularity with non-college-educated whites costs them large tracts of the country outside cities and suburbs”: To win the electoral college, the House and the Senate they need a greater share of the raw vote than any party in history. Winning under these conditions, while simultaneously repairing national institutions and making progress on America’s problems, from public health to climate to social mobility, is a task for a politician of superhuman talents.
11.4 The United States had the second-steepest decline in life expectancy among high-income countries last year during the pandemic. The only country studied that saw a starker overall trend was Russia. U.S. men saw life expectancy fall by nearly 2.3 years, from about 76.7 to 74.4. Women lost more than 1.6 years of life expectancy, from about 81.8 to 80.2.
11.2 Tom Matte dies at 82
11.2 The Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros 7-0, winning the World Series in six games
11.2 Mike Pence, replying to a questioner in Iowa who wanted to know who convinced him “to buck President Trump‘s plan and certify the votes?”: ““”James Madison.”
11.1 Busy day. Lunch at Laguna Osteria with Tom, Phil, Steve, Noah, Mac, and Will Burns, and then to a memorial gathering at the Society of Illustrators for Bruce Jay Friedman, with Drew Friedman, Chris Policano, Alan Zweibel, Richard Kind, Amy Sohn and many more. Bruce was quite a gentleman.