Smoke Signals

Sometime on Tuesday, an enormous dark cloud eased over the Bay Area, casting a foreboding shadow not unlike the alien spaceships in the movie Independence Day, minus the soundtrack.

At our house, we employed the only defenses we have against this particular invader, shutting all the windows and turning on the fans and air filters.

Of course it wasn’t an alien spaceship that had arrived overhead, but a broad layer of wildfire smoke from fires further up north in both California and Oregon. By evening, the Western sky loomed like one giant layer cake stretching end to end, one light layer topped by a much darker one.

***

The foreboding became clear Wednesday as the hearing by a Congressional committee chaired by Republican Jim Jordan with Attorney General Merrick Garland as the witness got underway. Bluntly, it was a sham. I’ve attended a number of such hearings over the years, covered several, and testified as a witness —and all of those were legitimate proceedings.

But Jordan is a grandstanding hypocrite fronting for Donald Trump, while Garland is a dignified public servant with a long list of distinguished accomplishments and does not deserve the disrespect Jordan and his Republican colleague dished out. It makes you wonder why anyone would wish to hold a government appointment under these circumstances.

It is disheartening to see the Congressional oversight process degraded by imposters like Jordan, who is deeply compromised ethically on a number of levels. If anything, Jordan belongs in the witness box himself, to be grilled about his role in a long list of criminal acts, including the Jan. 6th riot.

So while it may be wildfire smoke that is the proximate cause of the bad air quality in these parts, it is the likes of Jim Jordan who portend even darker days ahead for our American democracy.

HEADLINES:

• Attorney General Garland testifies before GOP-led House Judiciary Committee (CNN)

• Rupert Murdoch to retire from Fox (Poynter)

• House flounders as GOP fails to appease hard-right members on funding (WP)

• ‘Weak,’ ‘Lying like a dead dog': McCarthy faces Republican attacks amid looming shutdown (Politico)

• Democrats face big decision on McCarthy (The Hill)

• McCarthy faces an almost impossible task trying to unite House GOP and fund the government (AP)

• MAGA Lawyer Lin Wood Flips Against Trump in Georgia Racketeering Case (TNR)

• A group of California lawmakers is exploring a new method for potentially removing Donald Trump from the state’s ballot over the former president’s alleged 14th Amendment violations. [HuffPost]

• How likely is a government shutdown and who will be affected? What you need to know. (USA Today)

• The UAW threatened to expand its strike if talks don’t progress by Friday. The UAW and companies remain far apart on terms for a new four-year contract. (WP)

• Smoky, bad air expected to stick around the Bay Area (SFC)

• Wildfire smoke is eroding decades of air quality improvements, study finds (WP)

• Azerbaijan halts Karabakh offensive after ceasefire deal with Armenian separatists (Reuters)

• Biden Aides and Saudis Explore Defense Treaty Modeled After Asian Pacts (NYT)

• India warns citizens on Canada travel amid row over Sikh leader’s murder (Al Jazeera)

• Here Come the Glow-in-the-Dark Houseplants (Wired)

• Rolling Stone's rock 'n' roll gatekeeper is telling on himself (MSBNC)

• Fathers have ‘unique effect’ on children’s educational outcomes, study finds (Guardian)

• Telling AI model to “take a deep breath” causes math scores to soar in study (Ars Technica)

• Galileo offers new tools to explain why your AI model is hallucinating (Venture Beat)

• ChatGPT Can Now Generate Images, Too (NYT)

• Amazon brings generative AI to Alexa (TC)

• AI’s existential threat is a ‘completely bonkers distraction’ because there are ‘like 101 more practical issues’ to talk about, top founder in the field says (Fortune)

• Report: Habsburgs Stopped Inbreeding One Generation Short Of Producing Perfect Human Specimen (The Onion)