The Conversation -- August 13, 2023
David Goodman & Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: "A 3-year-old child died while traveling on a bus chartered by the state of Texas as it transported asylum seekers from the border city of Brownsville to Chicago as part of Gov. Greg Abbott's program to send migrants from Texas to Democratic-run cities in other states, officials said."
Zachary Cohen & Sara Murray of CNN: "Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump's legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.... New evidence has slowly been uncovered about the role of Trump's attorneys, the operatives they hired and how the breach, as well as others like it in other key states, factored into broader plans for overturning the election.... Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 select committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020, that included Trump.... The messages and documents appear to link [Rudy] Giuliani to the Coffee County breach, while shedding light on another channel of communication between pro-Trump attorneys and the battleground state operatives who worked together to provide unauthorized individuals access to sensitive voting equipment."
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Trump Crime Blotter
Sara Murray, et al., of CNN: "An Atlanta-area prosecutor has notified at least two witnesses to appear before a grand jury early next week, the most significant indication of her intention to seek indictments in the investigation of how Donald Trump and others tried to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Former Georgia Lt. Gov Geoff Duncan, a Republican, said Saturday on CNN that he has been told to appear Tuesday before a Fulton County grand jury to testify about the efforts by Trump and his allies. Independent journalist George Chidi posted on social media later Saturday that he'd been told to appear before the grand jury on Tuesday, too. The upcoming appearances signal that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is moving forward with a grand jury presentation where she's expected to seek charges against more than a dozen people stemming from her investigation into the efforts to overturn the 2020 election." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Last week I learned on the teevee that a criminal felon convicted in Georgia has no chance for a pardon before serving his sentence. Saturday I learned on the teevee that Georgia RICO charges, which Fani Willis may bring, have a minimum mandatory sentence of five years. So let's just assume that Trump is found guilty (yeah, I know that's so wrong, but I heard Trump on the phone muscling Brad Raffensperger, and I know Mark Meadows was on the call; ergo, a conspiracy -- so innocent, my ass), and loses his appeals. There are still a lot of "ifs," but I'd say the SOB has a better chance of being fitted for an orange jumpsuit in Georgia than anywhere else. Again, I'll bet the Georgia jails suck.
Giselle Ewing of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday blamed his political enemies for legal fees he's incurred over the course of three recent indictments. Trump's Save America PAC shrank from over $100 million at the beginning of last year to $3.6 million after bankrolling legal fees for the former president and his allies.... 'The Lunatic Left, working closely with Crooked Joe Biden and his corrupt DOJ, is not only focusing on Election Interference, but on getting the Trump Campaign to spend vast amounts of money on legal fees, thereby having less to spend on ads showing that Crooked Joe is the WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY!' Trump wrote Saturday on the way to the Iowa State Fair." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump is right. If Joe Biden had not beat him by 302 - 232 in the Electoral College & 7MM votes in 2020, Trump and his mob might not have had to break so many laws. It's all Biden's fault.
Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "... Richard Hanania [is] a rising star among conservative writers and intellectuals. For years before appearing in the pages of newspapers and publications like this one, Hanania wrote articles for white supremacist publications under a pseudonym.... Hanania no longer writes for those publications.... [But] he still makes explicitly racist statements and arguments, now under his own name.... More interesting than either Hanania ... or his rancid views are his backers." They include Harlan Crow and Silicon Valley billionaires Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel & David Sacks, a close associate of Elon Musk.
Presidential Race 2024
What Can the Matter Be? Ronnie's So Long at the Fair! Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "It's been said that a bad day at the fair is always better than a good day at work. For Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, those two ideas collided on Saturday in Iowa.... Ahead of the Florida governor's appearance with Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa at a "fair-side chat," a plane flew overhead with a banner that read 'Be likable, Ron!'... The joke was a reference to advice given to Mr. DeSantis before a 2018 debate during his first run for Florida governor. Then, during the interview, a small group of liberal protesters with cowbells and whistles sought to interrupt the conversation with Ms. Reynolds.... Mr. DeSantis was trailed for much of the day by Trump supporters with placards trumpeting Mr. Trump as a 'back-to-back Iowa champ' in 2016 and 2020. Mr. Trump ... did not win the 2016 Iowa caucuses.... He never conceded defeat.... As Mr. DeSantis finished flipping pork chops [at the fair], [Donald] Trump's plane appeared overhead, circling the fairgrounds ... and prompting chants of 'We love Trump' from supporters in the crowd.... [Some fairgoers] jeered him with cries of 'Loser!' 'Fascist!' or 'DeSanctimonious (a favored insult of Mr. Trump's), which Mr. DeSantis ignored. One woman hurled an expletive at him...." A Politico story is here.
Alabama. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "A man accused of using a chair to attack others during a brawl in Montgomery, Ala., last weekend turned himself in to the police on Friday, the authorities said, becoming the fifth person charged in a fight that captured national attention largely because of the racial overtones."
~~~ Marie: Here's the story behind the brawl, according to the Times article: "The altercation began at [Mongomery]'s popular Riverfront Park after a pontoon boat docked in a space designated for the Harriott II, a riverboat cruise that was returning from a trip on the Alabama River. For 45 minutes, the captain of the Harriott II instructed the pontoon boat via the public announcement system to move out of the way, to no avail. Instead, the white boaters responded with gestures, cursing and taunting, the police said." The dock appears to be in the heart of a major city. The jerks in the pontoon boat seemed to be docked in a spot reserved for the riverboat. So why is it that in 45 minutes, the riverboat captain didn't call the police? Something is wrong with this picture.
Kansas. Freedom of the Press? Nah. Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "Local law enforcement in Marion, Kansas, seized cell phones, computers, and other material from the office of the Marion County Record, its reporters, and the home of its publisher, according to reporting from the Kansas Reflector, a nonprofit newsroom. Eric Meyer, the Record's publisher and owner, said the raid came after an anonymous source leaked information about a local restaurant owner to the paper.... All five officers from the city police force, along with two sheriff's deputies, took 'everything we have,' Meyer said. According to the Reflector, the search may have violated federal protections for journalists: 'The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists.'" Weirdly, law enforcement seized the paper's assets -- including ads & legal notices meant to be published this week -- because of a story the paper did not publish because the editor had concerns about the source.
Wisconsin. How to Neuter (and Remove) an Elected Supreme Court Justice. Daily Kos: "... when liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz trounced her conservative opponent in the state Supreme Court election in April, it was a big win -- not just for those who care about reestablishing their reproductive rights, but for anyone who genuinely cares about representative democracy.... Fair legislative maps looked achievable for the first time in more than a decade.... On Friday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos [R] hinted that impeachment could be on the table if Protasiewicz votes to disrupt the GOP's plans for a permanent white minority rule [in Wisconsin].... As The Journal Sentinel points out, Republicans now have the power to hold impeachment trials after having attained a supermajority in the state Senate -- largely thanks to gerrymandered maps. And if they do, they could theoretically sideline Protasiewicz in order to protect those same maps." MB: This story is poorly-written, but the Journal Sentinel story is firewalled, so this is the best I can access.
Marie: Here's something to cheer you up. Or bring you to tears. Thanks to RAS for the link. See also dog stories at the end of yesterday's thread.
News Lede
AP: "As the death toll from a wildfire that razed a historic Maui town reached 93, authorities warned Saturday that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages. It's already the deadliest U.S. wildfire for over a century.Crews with cadaver dogs have covered just 3% of the search area, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said." New York Times live updates are here.
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This sermon was delivered locally midweek...
"The weekend "Skagit Valley Herald" offered a fine tutorial on the nature, prevalence, and limitations of belief. One article notes that a recent survey found that sixty-nine percent of the American adult population believes in angels. Another looked at a recent House hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, commonly known as UFO’s. Are angels and UFOs real or not?
The shifting defenses offered by Trump’s lawyers for the part he played in the January 6th insurrection and in the fake elector plot raise the same question. Each shares the same reliance on our willingness to believe. Do we buy them or not?
According to one argument, if Trump truly believed the election was stolen, then his actions, while illegal, might have some justification. He was not running a scam to stay in office. He was honestly wrong. More recently, one lawyer tried a version of “Belief Lite”, when he said Trump was not telling Pence to pause the Senate electoral count. He was only expressing an “aspiration” (nytimes.com), wishing, not believing, that Pence would.
Aspiration is certainly not foreign to Republicans. They rely heavily on wishing. If only white people could vote. If only women didn’t fuss when men made their reproductive decisions. If only cutting taxes on the rich really helped everyone’s pocketbook. Often, when wishing is not enough to satisfy, they produce “aspirational facts” to support their wishes.
While the article on angels didn’t identify the political bent of those who believed in angels, it did say the belief comforted them. That’s why more believe in angels than in devils.
The author of the UFO article remained sensibly skeptical about aliens among us. He prefers facts to belief.
In deciding Trump’s guilt or innocence, whether we think him a devil, angel, alien, or man, we should do the same."
After training their stooges for more than a generation to blame irrelevant factors rather than the rich leaching every spare new pence from the economy, Britain's Tories are having a hard time marketing themselves sufficiently as heartless bastards to guarantee garnering enough votes from the permanently scarred. The current right-wing bogeyman is the European convention on human rights.
"The EU withdrawal agreement depends on staying in the ECHR, so leaving would mean losing all cooperation on crime, terror and people smuggling, in a world where only international collaboration keeps people safe. In Northern Ireland, the consequences would be dire: the Good Friday agreement is contingent on belonging to the ECHR: withdrawing would breach an international agreement, its terms guaranteed by Ireland and monitored by a caucus in the US congress. Any chance of a trade deal with the US would vanish.
"Those overwhelming arguments win the day – once they get a hearing. But we have learned the hard way from the Brexit referendum that reason and facts are easily blown away by the breathtaking mendacity and downright dishonesty of the right."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/10/european-convention-on-human-rights-brexit-tories-conservatives-election
Believing ten impossible things before breakfast is something that religion tries to instill in us at an early age. It’s a feature. No wonder the evangelicals are so supportive of Trump. Even otherwise non-religious people often say that a high Power was looking after them when they escape injury is a horrific traffic pileup or a raging forest fire. Too bad about God not looking after that baby that died (original sin you know) or the man who founded a foundation to feed hungry people. I guess they weren’t worthy. Who knew? Funny how God gets all the credit for good and someone else get all the credit for harm.
I understand the idea of how there are no atheists in a foxhole. Of course feeling that something powerful has got your back is comforting, but to do that one must turn into a pretzel to get past the contradictions. The scary thing is when people who have been conditioned to place blind trust in a person, idea, or institution (I’m looking at you (Tdump, constitutional originalism, or the Republican Party) successfully become pretzels to manage the contradictions. I just watched a video on Crooks and Liars (cooksandliars.com ) where an business owner who installs solar panels admits that business is booming and it’s due to President Biden, BUT he will still vote for Tdump whom he personally does not like. I think it must be because fascists from from Hitler to Putin to Tdump have tapped into the religious promise of having your back and creating a heaven before they actually create a hell. Otherwise how could people fall for the “Only I can solve the problem” and “I am being persecuted for you” schtick. Even the liberals have Dark Brandon which for most is satiric but also is a powerful entity having your back. Religious belief, even when it isn’t overtly about religion is a hard thing for most people to overcome.
@Donna: Yep, if you and your friends are out in a boat in a wicked storm and the Coast Guard comes out and saves you, it's one thing to thank God for your salvation -- and forget to mention the Coast Guard.
But this is what really gets me: a person who is one of the few survivors of a major catastrophe, thanks God & declares, "God had a plan for me." I get that the person is speaking to some stupid reporter who just asked, "How does it feel losing everything?" I get that the person is under incredible stress and may be in shock. But do not thank God for slaughtering all the neighbors but singling you out so you can do something great (which you'll never do) . You are no better than they were, fella. The tornado just happened to miss your trailer.
Thanks Donna. We've arrived at a climate juncture where believing in reality matters, and anything that distracts from reality is a luxury. When magical thinking is touted as an unreconstructed good rather than a choice, the damage isn't limited to one's choice of whether to assign divine providence to the Tennessee Titans or the children who might otherwise die when the next migrant boat capsizes in the Mediterranean.
It's a real root canal to separate oneself from the entirety of one's origins, and the apparent reward for doing so is seeing the world awash in guns and wildfires and blazing temperatures while those who clearly know better defend those who conflate natural causes and divine will. It's funny how mental illness isn't seen as a boon to society unless it's in the service of some theology or other.
Speaking of religion, an odd thing happened in the garden one day
last week. A youngish gentleman stopped for a tour saying he visits
here every month or so to see how the garden has changed. I hadn't
seen him before though.
The second words out of his mouth were "I want you to know that I'm
a devout Christian but I have no problem with your lifestyle, and I
would never try to convert you. Our church doesn't do that."
After I recovered from that statement, I kept wondering which lifestyle
he was referring to. I didn't have a glass of wine in my hand in the
garden. I didn't make a pass at him.
Anyway, he got the usual garden tour and his questions about plants
were answered.
Yesterday he came back with wife and kids to show them the garden.
He also brought 216 succulent plants. Seems he's a grower and sells
to big box stores.
So I gave him the pick of hostas that I propagate every spring.
Most tourists come back with candy or wine or the like, but there's
nothing like giving plants to a gardener. Now where to put them.
@Forrest Morris: I think he meant you had a lifestyle that included too few succulents.
We end up doing "Religion? What the hell's it good for? Absolutely nothin' " here every now and then. Most of us here are sure that there is no argument about religion ... faith is faith, not reason, logic or proof, which are unavailable as arguments to support religion. And that "religion" is different from "god."
But Blaise Pascal, an inveterate gambler, came up with a different approach. The Cliff Notes version: Bet that there is a god, for the infinite upside if right, and no loss if you're wrong. Betting against it could result in infinite loss. (It's actually more complicated, but -- Cliff's Notes, right?)
I'm not recommending anything, but have always found Pascal's Wager to be flawless logic.
On Pascal's wager:
Years ago, I wrote a long piece for the Templeton Foundation essay contest that featured this thought. I get Pascal's logic, but given that belief belies logic, which implies an irrational life, I suggested a deathbed conversion was the only sensible way to cover one's bases.
Templeton, who had far more money than sense, apparently didn't like it. I never heard back.
Pascal’s Wager is a pretty clever idea, I’ve always liked it, but it’s more a thought experiment suggesting that it’s better to live a good life than a proof of the existence of god. Even the Ontological Argument, first offered by Anselm, is not a true proof, although it too is a pretty neat concoction. As Patrick indicates, logic is one thing, faith is another. Even Kant said there’s a limit to how far you can go with pure reason.
And none of that suffices as a reason for organized religion.
But back to Pascal. If there’s the slightest bit of truth to his idea, (live a good life, you get rewarded in the hereafter, act like an asshole, you get the fiery pit) we can expect an eternity of horrible crap for lifelong crooks and liars like Donald Trump. At least that’s my wager.
Ak: Your penultimate sentence above is a reminder that, every now and then, it is tempting to think that hell exists.
And I would readily admit that my sixty years of agnosticism has never entirely erased an ethical substrate I'd attribute to a very Catholic childhood...
Am I mostly a nice guy, or still running scared because I do at some level still believe in hell?
Patrick,
Quite.
Ken,
People who act nice out of fear deserve pity but don’t necessarily deserve kudos for those actions.
I’d say you’re a good guy because that’s your nature. I grew up Catholic as well, altar boys, 12 years of Catholic schooling, the whole nine yards, but I’d say my moral core was developed far more by my parents than priests, nuns, and missals. When I’ve behaved in less than proper ways in my life, I’ve regretted it not out of fear of black marks on my eternal soul, but out of disappointment in myself. Disappointment that prompted resolves to do better next time.
When I was in high school back in the day, I took a survey on whether people believed in god. I did not make friends or influence people. However a number of people who probably feared for my immortal (immoral?) soul came up with Pascal's idea of hedging your bet. I am confident they had never heard of, much less read Pascal. The Emperor Constantine who killed most of his family in succession scandals did purposely wait until his deathbed to confess his sins and toddle off to heaven.
Ken and Akhilleus : If you went the whole altar boy and parochial school route, you no doubt had at least one retreat where at least one sermon was given by a Redemptorist priest. Their specialty seemed to be to scare the bejeezus out of adolescent boys. You may recall the build-up to the immensity of eternity -- a small bird lands on an iron mountain every century, and when that wears down the mountain eternity has not even really begun.
Whatever your outlook today, some part of your lizard brain probably retains that image.
Even though you shaped your life on many things and arrived at the utility of ethical living, that bit of Ligourian juju lurks in memory.
re Pascal's wager.
How is this supposed to work? I find it impossible to believe, but on his advice, I'll go through the motions.
Then, I die, and whaddaya know, it was all true, and there I am, facing the Big Skipper. What do I say?
"Ha Ha! Fooled You! I didn't believe, but I said I did. I said the magic words, I jiggled the beads, I ate the cracker, so you gotta let me in! Ha Ha."
Really? Can you con God? Lie your way into heaven?
If God exists, then he must know what's in my mind -- that I find it impossible to believe in anything magical or supernatural.
On the other hand, I am a Christian, in that I earnestly believe that the world, and all of us in it, would be vastly better off if we did what Jesus told us to do: welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the sick... re Matthew 25:35-40.
Patrick,
You ain’t kiddin’. Those retreats were scary weird. I do remember that the scariest were the mission priests who would show up a few times a year to mount the pulpit like Captain Ahab and, in stentorian tones, demand that we all grab an oar and get ready to hurl our harpoons (and dimes and quarters) at Satan. These could be Franciscans, Ursulines, or some other out-there order, but the craziest were the Jesuits. The Society boys were both smart and manipulative. They knew how to whip it up, to let you in on the little secret that Satan had us all by the short hairs whether you knew it or not. Next stop: PERDITION!
Whew. It’s a wonder we all survived. Call me Ishmael.
A devout skeptic
Exactly. Live a good life, be a decent person, help others, all that good stuff. But you can—and should—do that without guys in funny hats lowering the boom on you in Latin encyclicals.
As for the whole forgiveness thing, I used to wonder about that myself. Say you’re a Mafia hitman, or a Donald Trump lawyer (same thing, really). Seconds before you die, you say “Soooorry”. Does that really clear your sheet? Could Trump say “I’m sorry I lied and let a million people die so I could win an election” and next day be shooting craps with St. Peter at the golden gate?
I’m with you. I think an all knowing god would say “You know what? I don’t think so.” and pull the lever on the Straight to Hell trapdoor.
As Patrick said earlier…almost makes you want to believe in hell.
My late wife used to say that the worst punishment she or her siblings ever received, or could have received, was a frown on her father's face. It was debilitating to her/them. I had a hard time understanding that. I was one subject to leather belts against bare asses, broken wooden spoons against same, Pfaltzgraff dinner plates broken over my head for less than murderous infractions. I survived, but never had kids to subject to such currently felonious punishment.
Those were the days.
i forgot to mention, Catholic vs. Lutheran behavior.