Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd had a column in yesterday’s New York Times entitled “Apocalypse Right Now,” that sends a climate change distress signal.  She starts by stating that we are seeing the first few minutes of a disaster movie that could be entitled  “The Day After Tomorrow Was Yesterday.”  Here is an excerpt:

“Heat waves are getting hotter. Forests are ablaze. Floods are obliterating. An iceberg nearly half the size of Puerto Rico broke off from Antarctica.

Florida’s fleurs du mal, algal blooms known as red tide, have become more toxic because of pollution and climate change. They are responsible for killing 600 tons of marine life, leaving beaches strewn with reeking dead fish.

It’s Mad Max apocalyptic. Crazy storms that used to hit every century now seem quotidian, overwhelming systems that cannot withstand such a battering.

The heat wave that stunned the Pacific Northwest, killing nearly 200 people, was followed by a bolt of lightning igniting the dry earth in Oregon. The Bootleg Fire has now devoured 400,000 acres, with flames so intense, they are creating their own weather pattern capable of sparking new fires. The smoke has traveled from the West to the East Coast, tainting the air.”

She concludes:

“But there are still plenty of Republicans shilling for Big Oil and pushing back against climate change provisions in the big legislation before Congress. As we go through the debilitating politics of Covid, we have to go through the debilitating politics of the environment. Scary plagues are ravaging the planet while drivelers drivel.”

Ms. Dowd is sending an important message!

Her entire column is below.

Tony

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The New York Times

Apocalypse Right Now

By Maureen Dowd

July 24, 2021

WASHINGTON — Holy smokes.

It feels like we are living through the first vertiginous 15 minutes of a disaster movie, maybe one called “The Day After Tomorrow Was Yesterday.”

Heat waves are getting hotter. Forests are ablaze. Floods are obliterating. An iceberg nearly half the size of Puerto Rico broke off from Antarctica.

Florida’s fleurs du mal, algal blooms known as red tide, have become more toxic because of pollution and climate change. They are responsible for killing 600 tons of marine life, leaving beaches strewn with reeking dead fish.

It’s Mad Max apocalyptic. Crazy storms that used to hit every century now seem quotidian, overwhelming systems that cannot withstand such a battering.

The heat wave that stunned the Pacific Northwest, killing nearly 200 people, was followed by a bolt of lightning igniting the dry earth in Oregon. The Bootleg Fire has now devoured 400,000 acres, with flames so intense, they are creating their own weather pattern capable of sparking new fires. The smoke has traveled from the West to the East Coast, tainting the air.

As Angela Merkel and President Biden touted a climate and energy partnership on her recent visit here, nature mocked them. While the two leaders had dinner, rains submerged huge swaths of Germany, including medieval towns.

The deluge in Henan Province in central China was so fierce that it crippled a large hospital, left subway riders up to their necks in water, affected three million people, displaced 250,000 from their homes and killed at least 33. Flash flooding had Brits wading in waist-high water in the London Underground. More scenes of devastation are unfolding in India, where at least 112 are dead after a monsoon triggered landslides.

As a New York Times story pointed out, whether systems were refurbished, like New York’s subways after Hurricane Sandy, or operating on fumes from the Victorian era, like London’s drainage system, it didn’t matter. The storms overwhelmed both the new and the old.

There are wildfires raging in Siberia, and California is becoming Crematoria.

After Jeff Bezos shot 65 miles above Texas in his priapic rocket, the richest earthling marveled about our atmosphere: “When you get up above it, what you see is, it’s actually incredibly thin. It’s this tiny, little fragile thing, and as we move about the planet, we’re damaging it. That’s a very profound — it’s one thing to recognize that intellectually. It’s another thing to actually see with your eyes how fragile it really is.”

Remember when the weather was just a matter of small talk, or a cool lyric for a Cole Porter song, “Too Darn Hot,” or a great double entendre title for a Billy Wilder comedy, “Some Like It Hot”? Now, the scariest thing on TV is the Weather Channel.

We’ve been living in a culture of dread for a long time now. Republicans have been weaponizing fear, trying to scare us about gays and transgender rights and ambitious women and people with darker skin.

When fear doesn’t have a basis in reality, it is deeply irresponsible and causes great social damage.

Republicans invent things to provoke paranoia. But when it comes to climate, the fear has a basis in reality. We should be scared out of our minds watching the weather run amok.

“Everything we worried about is happening, and it’s all happening at the high end of projections, even faster than the previous most pessimistic estimates,” John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, contended in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.

It may be too late for negotiating incremental change. We just went through four years of proudly unscientific Donald Trump, who once told me, “I’m not a believer in man-made climate change.” (Who can forget when he attacked Greta Thunberg and told her to “chill!”) As the planet sizzles, many Americans have gone from not caring to glazing over, from indifference to fatigue.

There have been spots of progress. Antediluvian Republicans can no longer destroy opponents who worry about climate change by mocking them as sandal-wearing tree-huggers. In January, G.M. rocked the auto industry when it revealed plans to phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and move to zero-emission vehicles by 2035. The Times story about it was a pre-obituary for gas guzzlers, saying, “The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.”

But there are still plenty of Republicans shilling for Big Oil and pushing back against climate change provisions in the big legislation before Congress. As we go through the debilitating politics of Covid, we have to go through the debilitating politics of the environment. Scary plagues are ravaging the planet while drivelers drivel.

Some hope technology can save us.

In Dubai, scientists are plotting to combat heat waves in several ways: sending aircraft to fire chemicals such as silver iodide into clouds to spur precipitation, and sending drones to zap an electrical charge into the clouds to trigger rain.

Making waterfalls in the desert sounds cool until you think about it. Torquing Mother Nature to clean up our messes can’t end well.

Après moi, le déluge.

Adam Kinzinger

Dear Commons Community,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday  appointed Representative Adam Kinzinger to the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, adding a second Republican.

The move, which expands the committee’s bipartisan credentials, came after Ms. Pelosi rejected two Republicans who are among Mr. Trump’s most vociferous defenders in Congress from joining, saying their conduct suggested they could not be trusted to participate.

Mr. Kinzinger, a six-term congressman from Illinois who has drawn censure from his own party for disavowing Mr. Trump and the conspiracy theories the former president perpetuated, said in a statement that he had accepted the post.  As reported by The New York Times.

“While this is not the position I expected to be in or sought out, when duty calls, I will always answer,” said Mr. Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump. “This moment requires a serious, cleareyed, nonpartisan approach. We are duty bound to conduct a full investigation on the worst attack on the Capitol since 1814 and to make sure it can never happen again.”

Ms. Pelosi, who has final say over the committee’s membership, has already given one of the eight seats normally reserved for the majority party to Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming. Ms. Cheney was ousted from House leadership in May for criticizing Mr. Trump and his actions before and during the riot.

About 140 police officers were injured on Jan. 6 as Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol, where Congress was meeting to formalize President Biden’s election, chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” stalking the halls for Ms. Pelosi and forcing lawmakers to evacuate their chambers.

Ms. Pelosi began seriously considering unilaterally appointing Mr. Kinzinger last week after she blocked Representatives Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio. Both had amplified Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud, joined their party’s efforts to challenge Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6 and made statements that undermined the select committee’s work and mission.

Ms. Pelosi, however, said she welcomed the three other Republicans whom Representative Kevin McCarthy of California had nominated to join the panel.

“We have to ignore the antics of those who do not want to find the truth,” she said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” reiterating her rationale for barring Mr. Banks and Mr. Jordan.

Her decision to reject the pair drew an angry response from Mr. McCarthy, the minority leader, who announced that all his picks would boycott the panel. He has described Ms. Pelosi’s intervention as confirmation that the investigation was nothing more than a political exercise to hurt the G.O.P.

“Speaker Pelosi’s rejection of the Republican nominees to serve on the committee and self-appointment of members who share her preconceived narrative will not yield a serious investigation,”

Pelosi’s appointment of Kinzinger is a good move on her part.  It would also benefit her and the committee’s credibility to make sure that Kinzinger and Liz Cheney have substantive and prominent roles to play during deliberations.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press has a featured article this morning on the the Yoyogi National Stadium that was designed by Kenzo Tange and is described as “the elegant symbol of Tokyo’s 1964 Summer Olympics.”

Combining modern technique and Japanese tradition, it will be used as the venue for several events during this year’s Summer Olympics. The comparison of Tange to Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí in the article is fitting.

Below is an excerpt!

Tony

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“Tange was awarded the Pritzker prize in 1987 — architecture’s highest award — and the citation described Yoyogi as “among the most beautiful buildings of the 20th century.”

It remains so. Simple. Striking. Timeless.

It went up just 19 years after Japan’s defeat in World War II, a time when building materials were in short supply in the country. It offered an early glance into a modernizing Japan that included tiny transistor radios, bullet trains, and ubiquitous labels that read “Made in Japan.”

Yoyogi’s sweeping roof is anchored to earth and held up by steel cables — like a suspension bridge — and connects modern, western design with forms found in Japanese temples and shrines.

“It’s kind of a miracle,” said professor Souhei Imamura, who teaches architecture at the Chiba Institute of Technology. “It combines structure, form and also function. Each is unique and they are blended. Dynamism was required at the time because Japanese society wanted to change, to evolve. The dynamism was also needed for those Olympics.”

Yoyogi endures like a 500-year-old European cathedral and sits next door to the sprawling park and Meiji Shrine in central Tokyo. Small by today’s standards, Yoyogi was the swimming venue in ’64 where American teenager Don Schollander won four gold medals. He was the Mark Spitz or Michael Phelps of Tokyo 57 years ago.

This time it’s the venue for team handball, and was also used for a gymnastic event last year when organizers began testing anti-COVID-19 measures they might use in order to hold the Olympics during a pandemic.

Tange also designed a companion building next door — usually called the Annex — that was the basketball venue in ’64 where the Americans won gold with players like Bill Bradley, Jeff Mullins, and Jerry Shipp.

“Like the Meiji Shrine, most of the traditional buildings in Japan have a big roof. The symbol is the roof. It’s quite different from western building where the emphasis is mainly on the facade,” Imamura explained.

Besides Yoyogi, the Nippon Budokan is the other well-known venue being being used from ’64, again for judo. Budokan literally translates in English as “martial arts hall.”

A series of Beatles’ concerts in 1966 gave the Budokan its world fame, probably more so than the ’64 Olympics.

American architect James Lambiasi, who has worked for 26 years in Japan, has described Yoyogi as the “pinnacle of modern architecture.” He pointed out that Tokyo was a wooden city recovering after the war and, the concrete and steel contributed to the city’s rebirth.

“When you describe a building as iconic, or really representing its time, it’s not just one thing about it, it’s like this perfect storm of different conditions coming together that make it really special,” explained Lambiasi, who practices architecture it Tokyo at teaches at Temple University in Tokyo.

“It’s the way in which Tange was able to have something completely modern and yet somehow reflecting the cultural design and the spirit of Japan.” Lambiasi added. “That’s where it became this iconic building and checked all of the boxes.”

He likened Tange to Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí whose organic, modernist buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century populate Barcelona with buildings like the church of Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila.

“It’s not the same thing, but the spirit of it is very, very similar,” Lambiasi said. “Gaudi was the genius who didn’t follow any rules. He came up with new, incredible things that came out of nowhere.”

Lambiasi also pointed out the era in which Tange worked. This was before computer graphics or computer modeling, when architects and engineers worked on a drafting table with a T-square and slide rule. Tange added imagination to those basic tools.

“I just cannot imagine doing that building without a computer,” Lambiasi said. “And the fact they were able to calculate all the movement going on; everything being calculated out by hand, basically.”

Despite the engineering complexity, the Yoyogi’s design is basic. Lambiasi joked that many engineers working with Tange “earned PhDs” trying to turn his designs into reality.

“Yoyogi is like a tent where you have two poles and the cable goes from the ground to the top of the pole — and then between the poles — and back to the ground,” Lambiasi explained. “Being anchored to the ground keeps everything up. The concept is very primitive, very simple. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.”

Dear Commons Community,

Turnbull has it right about Murdoch and Fox News!

Tony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF_Fy41lLnY

Dear Commons Community,

As international singers performed John Lennon’s “Imagine,” the athletes of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were treated to a stunning drone show that resulted in a revolving globe (see video above) in the sky. 

It was  the best moment of the Opening Ceremony, which officially kicked off the rescheduled competition yesterday. As more than 11,000 athletes from 206 countries looked skyward, 1,824 drones lit up to form the Tokyo 2020 emblem. And within a few minutes the drones had turned into a revolving globe. 

The theme of the Games this year is “United by Emotion” and is meant to reflect the unifying power of sports. The drone globe was a never-before-seen visual display that was raved about on social media Friday morning. 

Let the games begin!

Tony

https://twitter.com/i/status/1418565355472101378

Dear Commons Community,

After more than 100 years, Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team is getting a new name — Guardians — replacing  Indians.

The ball club announced yesterday (see video above narrated by Tom Hanks) that at the end of the 2021 season, the Indians will transition from the name they’ve been known as since 1915 and replace it with Guardians, one they hope inspires a new generation of fans.

The name change, which has its supporters and critics among Cleveland’s fan base, ends months of internal discussions triggered by a national reckoning for institutions and teams to drop logos and names considered racist. As reported by the Associated Press.

“We do feel like we’re doing the right thing and that’s what’s driving this,” the Team’s owner, Paul Dolan, said following a news conference at the ballpark. “I know some people disagree, but if anything I’ve gotten more and more comfortable that we’re headed in the right direction.

“And actually, the selection of the name solidifies that feeling because of the values that the name represents.”

The organization spent most of the past year whittling down a list of potential names that was at nearly 1,200. It was a tedious process, which included 140 hours of interviews with fans, community leaders, front office personnel and a survey of 40,000 fans.

Dolan has said last summer’s social unrest, touched off by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, spurred his intention to change the name — a move that came a few years after the Indians stopped wearing the Chief Wahoo logo on their game jerseys and caps.

Cleveland’s new name was inspired by the large landmark stone edifices — referred to as traffic guardians — that flank both ends of the Hope Memorial Bridge, which connects downtown to Ohio City.

As the team moved closer to making a final decision on the name, Dolan said he found himself looking closely at the huge art deco sculptures.

“Frankly, I hadn’t studied them that closely until we started talking about them and I should emphasize, we’re not named after the bridge, but there’s no question that it’s a strong nod to those and what they mean to the community,” he said.

The team did not reveal the names of any of the other finalists, but Brian Barren, Cleveland’s president of business operations, said trademarking issues eliminated several potential candidates.

In the end, the team felt Guardians was a perfect fit.

“We think Guardians is unique and authentic to Cleveland,” Barren said. “It’s less about the Guardians of Traffic and more about what the Guardians represent and that idea of protection. For us and our research, Cleveland folks are very protective of one another.

“They’re protective of our city, they’re protective of the land and everything about it. That’s one key component, the resiliency of people here in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio and the loyalty.”

Cleveland’s name change comes as the Washington Football Team continues to work toward a similar makeover. The franchise dropped its contentious Redskins name before the 2020 season and recently said it will reveal a new name and logo in 2022.

While dropping Indians, Cleveland will keep its red, white and navy team colors and the Guardians’ logos will incorporate some of the team’s lettering style on past uniforms as well as architectural features found on the bridge.

Numerous Native American groups have protested Cleveland’s use of the Wahoo logo and Indians name for years, so the latest development brought some comfort.

“It is a major step towards righting the wrongs committed against Native peoples, and is one step towards justice,” said Crystal Echo Hawk, executive director and founder of IllumiNative, a group dedicated to fighting misrepresentations of Native Americans.

The name change has sparked lively debate among the city’s passionate sports fans. Other names, including the Spiders, which is what the team was called before 1900, were pushed by supporters on social media platforms.

Dolan knows there’s a portion of Cleveland’s fan base that may never accept the change.

“I’m 63 years old, and they’ve been the Indians since I was aware of them, probably since I was 4 or 5 years old, so it will take a long time,” he said. “But we’re not asking anybody to give up their memories or the history of the franchise that will always be there. And for people my age and older, most our life is going to be living as an Indian and not as a Guardian.”

Manager Terry Francona’s ties to the ballclub run deep. His father, Tito, played for the Indians in the 1960s.

Francona, who is in his ninth season as Cleveland’s on-field leader, planned to show the video above to his players before last night’s game. Francona has gotten some negative backlash about the change, but feels the team is doing it for the right reasons.

“What’s important is how people that are different — not less, just different — how they feel about this,” he said. “We’re trying to be respectful and trying to be unified. And change is not always easy, I get it, it doesn’t happen overnight.”

Guardians is the fifth name in franchise history joining the Blues (1901), Bronchos (1902), Naps (1903-1914) and Indians (1915-2021).

Play ball!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Kelli María Korducki, a writer and editor based in New York City, has a guest essay in today’s New York Times entitled, Milwaukee Needed This Win, that comments on the Milwaukee Bucks’ triumph in the National Basketball Association championship on Tuesday night. The game, the final series and the entire NBA playoffs have to rate among the best of all time with excellent basketball played throughout.  Korducki concludes that Milwaukee which has had its share of urban issues related to race and economics and a basketball win won’t solve the city’s problems,  but it can become “a catalyst for renewed investment in a more equal and united urban fabric.” Her entire essay is below.

Congratulations to the Bucks and the city of Milwaukee!

Tony

———————————————————————————–

The New York Times

Milwaukee Needed This Win

Kelli María Korducki

July 22, 2021

When Giannis Antetokounmpo signed on with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2013, he was a scrawny 18-year-old rookie from Greece, brimming with untapped potential. The Bucks, meanwhile, were a flailing N.B.A. franchise. Somehow, it was a match made in heaven.

“This is my home, this is my city,” Antetokounmpo wrote of Milwaukee in an Instagram post last December, announcing his decision to ink a new five-year deal with the Bucks.

As Milwaukee erupted Tuesday night in celebration of the Bucks’ N.B.A. championship victory — the team’s first title win in 50 years — I found myself seeking parallels between the unlikely Cinderella story of the league’s star player and the onetime manufacturing hub where he has proudly put down roots. For both Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee, this is a triumph over what looked like insurmountable odds.

Any Milwaukeean (including me, a Milwaukee native) would tell you that this win will resonate profoundly for the city. A team stacked with exemplars of work ethic and heart, the Bucks have come to personify a spirit of civic optimism in a city that could sorely use something to celebrate.

Nobody could have engineered a more fitting hero to lead the charge than Antetokounmpo, a forward. Born in Greece to undocumented Nigerian immigrants, he was legally stateless when, as a teen, he joined a Greek amateur basketball league. He nodded at his improbable journey from the slums of Athens to the halls of N.B.A. superstardom in his speech after Tuesday night’s win. “Eight and a half years ago, before I came into the league, I didn’t know where my next meal would come from,” he said. “My mom was selling stuff in the street.”

That Antetokounmpo would twice achieve N.B.A. M.V.P. status as part of a scrappy Rust Belt operation while pointedly eschewing the superteam fast track to accolades and fortune makes his ascent all the more remarkable.

Milwaukee, 90 miles north of Chicago on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, entered the 21st century in a state of crisis. From 1967 to 2001, four of the city’s 10 largest employers closed shop, and it lost nearly 83,000 manufacturing jobs. The factories and breweries that remained had withered to a shadow of their former selves, with staffing to match. The city has yet to recover from the blow of deindustrialization; while many other midsize American cities have gained population in recent years, Milwaukee’s continues to decline. It has been a rough few decades.

For the city’s Black community, the half-century since the last Bucks win has been nothing short of catastrophic. Milwaukee is consistently ranked among the most segregated cities in the nation, and since 1979, its Black median household income has dropped by 30 percent, when adjusted for inflation. This has left the city’s Black population “exceptionally impoverished,” according to a 2020 study by Marc V. Levine at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which declared that the city “represents the archetype of modern-day metropolitan racial apartheid and inequality.”

While the ugly reality of Milwaukee’s racial landscape is hardly news to residents, the subject has been difficult to broach in the divided city. But in recent years, the Bucks have taken a vocal stand against the status quo — “Midwestern nice” sensibilities be damned.

In 2016 the Bucks’ president, Peter Feigin — a native New Yorker — made national news when he bluntly described Milwaukee as “the most segregated, racist place” he had ever seen. “It just is a place that is antiquated,” he reportedly told a Rotary Club gathering. “It is in desperate need of repair.” He added, “One of our messages and one of our goals is to lead by example.”

Tensions came to a head in January 2018, when a Bucks player, Sterling Brown, who is Black, was shocked with a stun gun and arrested by the Milwaukee police. He filed a police misconduct lawsuit against the city, which was recently settled.

And in 2019, the Bucks’ shooting guard Malcolm Brogdon doubled down on Feigin’s criticism. “I’ve never lived in a city this segregated,” said Brogdon, who is Black, in an interview with The Guardian. “Milwaukee’s very behind in terms of being progressive. There are things that need to change rapidly.” (Shortly thereafter, he left Milwaukee to play point guard for the Indiana Pacers.)

If the Bucks have forced Milwaukeeans to take an uncomfortable look at the magnitude of their city’s racism, the team has also served as a model for unified resistance.

Last summer, Antetokounmpo was among several Bucks players to march against anti-Black brutality after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. The point guard Jrue Holiday redirected $5.5 million of his salary to social justice causes, Black-owned businesses and historically Black educational institutions.

And in August, after a police officer in neighboring Kenosha shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in front of three of his children, the Bucks refused to come out of their locker room at their next playoff game and released a joint statement calling for accountability and criminal justice reform. The move kicked off a wave of similar actions across professional sports teams.

On Tuesday, as the Bucks’ parable of grit and determination unspooled, this divided city celebrated as one. In a place as fractured as Milwaukee, that counts for something.

“It shows us we can come together when we choose to,” said Marcelia Nicholson, the chairwoman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, in a recent interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We just have to continue to find those common goals, those common principles.”

A basketball win won’t solve the city’s problems. But it can become a catalyst for renewed investment in a more equal and united urban fabric. In the meantime, the Bucks and Antetokounmpo have given the world reason to root for an underdog city — as it learns to root for itself.

Dear Commons Community,

The NFL will be enforcing a “get tough” policy with NFL teams that experience a COVID-19 outbreak among nonvaccinated players that could result in forfeited regular-season games, with players on both teams not getting paid.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell warned the 32 teams yesterday in a letter obtained by The Associated Press that no games would be rescheduled under such circumstances. Instead, forfeits could happen.  As reported by The Associated Press.

“As we learned last year, we can play a full season if we maintain a firm commitment to adhering to our health and safety protocols and to making needed adjustments in response to changing conditions,” Goodell said.

He added that the league does not anticipate adding a 19th week to accommodate games that need to be moved because of coronavirus issues.

“If a game can’t be rescheduled and is canceled due to a COVID outbreak among non-vaccinated players on one of the competing teams, the team with the outbreak will forfeit and will be deemed to have played 16 games for purposes of draft, waiver priority, etc,” Goodell added.

For purposes of playoff seeding, the forfeiting team would be assessed a loss and the other team a win.

If there is a virus outbreak because of a “spike in vaccinated individuals, we will attempt to minimize the competitive and economic burden on both participating teams,” the memo said.

The NFL has not made vaccinations mandatory. The league and the NFL Players Association, however, are strongly urging team employees and players to do so.

Last year, in the height of the pandemic, the NFL completed its season, the playoffs and Super Bowl on time. But it had contingency plans for an 18th week to play makeup games if needed. There were several postponements but no cancellations.

For the 2021, the regular season has been expanded to 17 games.

The league says more than half its teams currently have COVID-19 vaccination rates greater than 80% of their players, and more than 75% of players are in the process of being vaccinated. All training camps will be open by the end of next week.

Nearly all clubs have vaccinated 100% of their Tier 1 and 2 staffs — essentially players, coaches and other club members who have direct contact with the players. Teams have appropriate protocols set up for staffers who have not been vaccinated, consistent with the guidance given last April.

The players’ union, in response to Goodell’s memo, reminded its players that “the same basic rules applied last year.”

“The only difference this year is the NFL’s decision to impose additional penalties on clubs which are responsible for the outbreak and the availability of proven vaccines,” the NFLPA memo said Thursday.

“The protocols we jointly agreed to helped get us through a full season last year without missing game checks and are effective, when followed.”

Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, who was stricken with the coronavirus last year, called getting the vaccine “a touchy subject,” though he added he has been vaccinated.

“You can’t really tell someone what to do with their body,” Elliott said at Cowboys training camp. “I grew up in a family where we didn’t get vaccines so it’s kind of hard to tell someone who their whole life their mom and dad tell them not to get vaccines to go get vaccinated. So I mean I don’t know, it’s everyone’s body, you can’t tell them what to do.”

As for potential forfeits, he added:

“A check is only monetary, you can’t put a price on someone’s health or what they think will make them feel good or not make them feel good. Like I said, you’re kind of walking a tight line. ”

Other key points in the league’s memo:

— If a game is canceled due to a virus outbreak, players on both teams would not receive their weekly salary and the club with the outbreak would be responsible for any financial losses incurred by the opposing team. Teams with outbreaks could also face additional sanctions.

— If a vaccinated person tests positive and is not symptomatic, he or she will be isolated and contact tracing will promptly occur. The positive individual will be permitted to return to duty after two negative tests at least 24 hours apart, and will thereafter be tested every two weeks or as directed by the medical staffs. Vaccinated individuals will not be subject to quarantine as a result of close contact with an infected person.

— If an unvaccinated person tests positive, the protocols from 2020 will remain in effect. The person will be isolated for a period of 10 days and will then be permitted to return to duty if not symptomatic. Unvaccinated individuals will continue to be subject to a five-day quarantine period if they have close contact with an infected individual.

— Those who had a previous COVID-19 infection will be considered fully vaccinated 14 days after they have had at least one dose of an approved vaccine.

Congratulations to the NFL.  The country needs tough COVID policies.

Tony

 Nancy Pelosi

Dear Commons Community,

The main political news yesterday was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejection of two Republicans tapped by House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy to sit on a committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection.  McCarthy said the GOP won’t participate in the investigation if Democrats won’t accept the members he appointed.

Pelosi cited the “integrity” of the probe in refusing to accept the appointments of Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, picked by McCarthy to be the top Republican on the panel, or Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. The two men are outspoken allies of former President Donald Trump, whose supporters laid siege to the Capitol that day and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s win. Both of them voted to overturn the election results in the hours after the siege.

Democrats have said the investigation will go on whether the Republicans participate or not, as Pelosi has already appointed eight of the 13 members — including Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a Trump critic — and that gives them a bipartisan quorum to proceed, according to committee rules.

I don’t know if Pelosi did the right thing here.  On the surface, it appears she gave the Republicans a reason not to participate. We will see.  Below is an excerpt of an article written by Mary Clare Jalonick for the Associated Press on Pelosi and her decision.

Tony

 —————————————————————————————————————-

“With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these members, I must reject the recommendations of Representatives Banks and Jordan to the Select Committee,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi has the authority to approve or reject members, per committee rules, though she acknowledged her move was unusual. She said “the unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision.”

The move is emblematic of the raw political tensions in Congress that have only escalated since the insurrection and raises the possibility that the investigation — the only comprehensive probe currently being conducted of the attack — will be done almost entirely by Democrats. The House voted in May to create an independent investigation that would have been evenly split between the parties, but Senate Republicans blocked that approach in a vote last month.

McCarthy said Pelosi’s move will damage the institution of Congress.

“Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts,” McCarthy said.

It is unclear how McCarthy would lead a separate investigation, as the minority does not have the power to set up committees. He said the panel has lost “all legitimacy” because Pelosi wouldn’t allow the Republicans to name their own members.

Most in the GOP have remained loyal to Trump despite the violent insurrection of his supporters that sent many lawmakers running for their lives. McCarthy wouldn’t say for weeks whether Republicans would even participate in the probe, but he sent the five names to Pelosi on Monday.

Pelosi accepted McCarthy’s three other picks — Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, North Dakota Rep. Kelly Armstrong and Texas Rep. Troy Nehls. But McCarthy said that all five or none would participate.

Like Jordan and Banks, Nehls voted to overturn Biden’s victory. Armstrong and Davis voted to certify the election.

Banks recently traveled with Trump to the U.S.-Mexico border and visited him at his New Jersey golf course. In a statement after McCarthy tapped him for the panel, he sharply criticized the Democrats who had set it up.

“Make no mistake, Nancy Pelosi created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda,” Banks said.

Democrats whom Pelosi appointed to the committee earlier this month were angry over that statement, according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with the private deliberations and who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss them. They were also concerned over Banks’ two recent visits with Trump, the person said.

Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, was one of Trump’s most vocal defenders during his two impeachments and last month likened the new investigation to “impeachment three.” Trump was impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate both times.

The back-and-forth came after all but two Republicans opposed the creation of the select committee in a House vote last month, with most in the GOP arguing that the majority-Democratic panel would conduct a partisan probe. Only Cheney and another frequent Trump critic, Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voted in favor of the panel.

Cheney told reporters she believes that the rhetoric from McCarthy, Jordan and Banks is “disgraceful” and she agrees with Pelosi’s decision to reject the two Republicans.

“At every opportunity, the minority leader has attempted to prevent the American people from understanding what happened — to block this investigation,” Cheney said of McCarthy.

The panel will hold its first hearing next week, with at least four rank-and-file police officers who battled rioters that day testifying about their experiences. Dozens of police officers were injured as the violent mob pushed past them and broke into the Capitol building.

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the panel, said the committee would carry out its duties.

“It has been more than 6 months since the attack, we owe it to our democracy to stay the course and not be distracted by side-shows,” Thompson said in a statement. “That is exactly what we will be doing next Tuesday, when the bipartisan committee members take testimony from frontline heroes who put their lives on the line to protect our democracy.”

Seven people died during and after the rioting, including a woman who was shot by police as she tried to break into the House chamber and three other Trump supporters who suffered medical emergencies.

Two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed, and a third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and later died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner determined he died of natural causes.