;)
Sunday
Jul032022
July 3, 2022
Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post looks at the Secret Service's role in the January 6, 2021, coup attempt. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Washington Post Editors: The DOJ has no choice but to investigate Donald Trump and others for their parts in the January 6, 2021, coup plot. "The Justice Department has investigative powers that the Jan. 6 committee does not, and there are critical questions that remain unanswered. [AG Merrick] Garland should have no higher priority than using these powers to investigate all of those involved in one of the darkest days in American history."
Fox "News" Makes Viewers Crazy & Stupid. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "A whopping 68% of Fox News viewers blame the Jan. 6 attack on 'Left-wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad,' the most of any viewership group by almost double.
Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Attempting to recover from their staggering loss in the Supreme Court, abortion rights groups have mounted a multilevel legal and political attack aimed at blocking and reversing abortion bans in courts and at ballot boxes across the country. In the week since the court overturned Roe v. Wade, litigators for abortion rights groups have rolled out a wave of lawsuits in nearly a dozen states to hold off bans triggered by the court's decision, with the promise of more suits to come. They are aiming to prove that provisions in state constitutions establish a right to abortion that the Supreme Court's decision said did not exist in the U.S. Constitution. Advocates of abortion rights are also working to defeat ballot initiatives that would strip away a constitutional right to abortion, and to pass those that would establish one.... And after years of complaints that Democrats neglected state and local elections, Democratic-aligned groups are campaigning to reverse slim Republican majorities in some state legislatures...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: While this campaign is a necessity that is all well & good, only the last item on the agenda -- winning majorities in state houses -- gets anywhere near the heart of the problem. Even that is just chipping at the edges of the crisis. As shocking and inhumane as overturning Roe is, the Dobbs decision is just the start of the confederate Supremes' extreme, radical agenda. Confederate Supremes have been chipping away at voting rights for years, and they have just taken a case that -- if they rule for the state, as four of them have suggested they might -- will essentially eliminate voting rights altogether. Clarence Thomas has a plan to overturn gay rights & gay marriage as well as the right to contraception. It is not just abortion rights that must be restored; the entire Court apparatus must somehow be rejiggered. I wish I could see a clear path to getting that done, and at this point I cannot. This country is undergoing an existential crisis, and too few of us have figured that out. Moreover, from what I can see from my window, the vast majority of voters do not have the intellectual capacity or the interest to understand what is happening. So restoring abortion rights, yes. But that is not nearly enough.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... thanks to legislative gridlock, Congress very seldom responds these days to Supreme Court decisions interpreting its statutes -- and that means the balance of power between the branches has shifted, with the justices ascendant.... Congress has largely fallen silent as a partisan stalemate has gripped Capitol Hill, aggravated by the increased use of the filibuster, which has blocked almost all major legislation in an evenly divided Senate.... There are many ... cases in which the court merely interprets statutes enacted by Congress. Its task in those cases is to determine what a law means, not to test its constitutionality. If Congress disagrees with the court's interpretation, it is free to override the decision.... But if recent practices are any guide, congressional action is unlikely." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is very bipartisany of Liptak, but the problem lies principally with Republicans, whose refusal to act on Supreme Court rulings to repair laws, largely because Republicans like the rulings that strike down the laws. The Republican party is an anti-government, states-rights, corporation-loving party, and Republicans will do nothing to clarify laws that give them or the administration authority to oversee or regulate activities of the states and private entities. ~~~
Leah Litman, et al., in a Washington Post op-ed: In a North Carolina "case, Moore v. Harper, the justices will review a North Carolina Supreme Court decision holding that the state constitution prohibits extreme partisan gerrymanders. The Supreme Court's choice to take the case could presage yet another decision that will undermine democracy, by prohibiting other government institutions -- here, state courts -- from protecting voting rights and democracy. Just three years ago, a 5-to-4 Supreme Court prohibited federal courts from addressing whether extreme partisan gerrymandering violates the Constitution. But don't worry, the court said, state courts can curb the practice if they conclude it violates state constitutions. Harper invites the Supreme Court to go back on that promise." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The authors write that "... even if the court embraces the revanchist [independent state legislature theory], that would not permit state legislatures to throw out votes already cast to appoint presidential electors of their choosing. The federal Constitution prohibits states from disregarding votes already cast, no matter what the court might say in Harper." Their assertion gives me no confidence whatsoever. I promise you Clarence Thomas & Co. can think up "reasons" to disregard or "reinterpret" this Constitutional provision. Just this last week, they had no trouble at all disregarding the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, one of the best known guarantees in the Bill of Rights. ~~~
~~~ Sam Levine of the Guardian cites some legal experts, including Litman, who opine that the Court has gone bonkers and is just making up stuff to back up its radical rulings: "The court's turn has prompted glaring warnings, both to the public and to history, from its three liberal justices, who have been in the minority in all of the major cases. In December, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered aloud whether the court would be able to survive the 'stench' that would come from overturning Roe v Wade and the perception that the court is a political body. She said she didn't think it was possible the court would survive. Months later, when the court did overturn Roe, Stephen Breyer, writing on behalf of the three liberal justices, quoted Thurgood Marshall and wrote: 'Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court's decisionmaking.'"
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "New civics training for Florida public school teachers comes with a dose of Christian dogma, some teachers say, and they worry that it also sanitizes history and promotes inaccuracies. Included in the training is the statement that it is a 'misconception' that 'the Founders desired strict separation of church and state.' Other materials included fragments of statements that were 'cherry-picked' to present a more conservative view of American history, some attendees said.... Some slides in a presentation pointed out that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson repudiated slavery; unsaid is that both men held enslaved people and helped worked toward a Constitution that enshrined the practice.... Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has made civics teaching a cornerstone of his education policy, and he says he's fighting back against 'woke indoctrination' of students by teachers from kindergarten to colleges." (Also linked yesterday.)
Texas. Shimon Prokupecz, et al., of CNN: "Uvalde school district police chief Pedro 'Pete' Arredondo has resigned his separate position on the Uvalde city council in the wake of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in May, according to a statement attributed to him in Saturday's Uvalde Leader-News.... Arredondo's resignation from the city council 'is the right thing to do,' the city said in a news release Saturday responding to the Leader-News' report. But no one from city government 'has seen a letter or any other documentation of his resignation, or spoken with him,' the release reads.... [Arredondo] had not yet attended any public meeting [of the council]. Council members unanimously voted to deny him a leave of absence from future sessions, leaving open the possibility that he could have been removed from office if he continued to miss meetings.... Arredondo was placed on leave from his job as school district police chief by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District last week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's ware on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates are here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Sunday are here: "... in the early hours Sunday, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said explosions in the Russian city of Belgorod killed three people and injured four.... Russia runs supply and communication lines into Ukraine from Belgorod, about 25 miles from the border."
~~~ Dan Lamothe & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The shifting nature of the war in Ukraine has prompted a split among analysts and U.S. lawmakers, with some questioning whether American officials have portrayed the crisis in overly rosy terms while others say the government in Kyiv can win with more help from the West.... 'I don't know ... how it's going to end,' [President Biden] said [Thursday], 'but it will not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine.'... U.S. officials have downplayed [Russian] gains, calling them halting and incremental, while highlighting the significant number of Russian military fatalities that have come as a result.... Scrutiny [of the U.S. assessment] is fueled by U.S. government assessments of other wars, notably in Afghanistan, where U.S. officials habitually glossed over widespread dysfunction and corruption and sidestepped questions of whether battlefield successes were not only achievable but sustainable."
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Reader Comments (12)
BRING FATTY'S FEET TO THE FIRE:
Jill Wine-Banks of Watergate fame––says the best crime for Trump is Title 18 of the U.S. code--section 2383–--the crime of rebellion or insurrection aganst the U.S.
“My favorite crime would be 2383 — not the seditious conspiracy” charge, which is Section 2384, she added. “The reason is that the penalty for 2383 is not just jail; it is being barred from ever holding federal office again,” Wine-Banks explained. “And for me, that would be a more important goal than jailing the former president.”
Had a bit of a romp last night watching the Martha Mitchell documentary–--such fun! What a sassy girl –– so spirited and so right about the corruptions going on. She drove Nixon crazy along with her husband, John, who sold his soul to the wrong person. I remember her being interviewed by a reporter and she appeared half in the bag–-thought then she was some kind of looney. How very wrong I was.
@P.D. Pepe: I thought the series was pretty good. I absolutely did not recognize Sean Penn. And kudos to Julia Roberts for being willing to play decidedly unglamorous roles. I don't have a subscription to StarZ, but my cable carrier had a free week about a month ago, so I saw all but the last episode, which had not been released at that time. I'm hoping the next time there's a free week, the last episode will be available, as I think the series is worth watching.
"... thought then she was some kind of looney ... "
As did we all. Then. She became a standard character in the news, a dipso wife of an important man, a man whose tolerance and forbearance were noble and long-suffering. I mean, he even smoked a pipe!
It was pretty easy to pigeonhole ladies like Martha back then, without much thought or effort given to the reality. Even reporters and people who knew her well could not erase that image of a dipsydoodle at the time. And 99% of the reason was because she was a woman. We used to put women like that ("incorrigibles", "hysterics") into asylums, on the signature of the husband. And people thought that was OK.
Every time you think things are screwed up now (and they are), realize that things used to be worse (they were.)
Marie: I was referring to an actual documentary which is free, by the way, which takes us back to the real players in the Nixon game of thrones. Since we can't watch the Gas-lit––-the film you are referring to unless we pay for it, we'll wait until later when it might be free. We are cheap people––feel we pay enough for Comcast so will not pay to see a bloody film to boot. Small potatoes but ya gotta stick to your guns about something!
A Republican bumper sticker:
It doesn't matter who votes, it's who counts the votes.
Bob Burnett covers familiar territory, but a good summary of where we are today and how we got here:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/2/2107951/-The-New-Civil-War-The-50-year-Conservative-Plan?
Just reviewed the news from the week we missed. Hardly uplifting.
Before we left town, though, came across a feel-good book that impressed me enough to write a review of it. Call it a departure from the standard, often grim, Sunday Sermon.
http://www.populist.com/28.12.Winkes.html
@Ken Winkes: Ken, I think we'd better tie you to your chair. It seems to me every time you go away, there's really terrible news. This last week, the confederate Supremes burnt down the nation. The nitwits who stormed the Capitol did some serious harm, but the Supreme nitwits. in their snippy, arrogant way, did worse. And their plans, apparently, are getting worser & worser.
@Patrick: I remember Martha Mitchell, and at the time I did think she was a lush. But I thought her husband must be, too, or else he would not have said, even in the middle of the night, to Bernstein that Kate Graham was going to get her tit caught in a wringer. I figured both of them got drunk a lot and made bad judgment calls.
But you are completely right about the way Martha was treated, including apparently being beat up & kidnapped by the administration's goons. That kind of treatment of women as "hysterical" was nearly universal, and Nixon was a practitioner. And Nixon later blamed the whole Watergate fiasco on Martha, claiming that it never would have happened if John Mitchell had not been "distracted" by Martha.
BTW, a friend of mine, who was a network reporter, was on the plane with the Nixons the day Nixon resigned, and my reporter friend told me Pat got roaring drunk on the plane back to California. Funny, my friend -- a man -- didn't say anything about the disgraced president, and you can bet he had a few, too. That's the way it was.
Patrick's "Every time you think things are screwed up now (and they are), realize that things used to be worse (they were.)" gave me just the best sense of yeah, you betcha! thank you!
And Ken–-what a wonderful review––so inspiring and again that sense of decent human beings fighting for other's rights and winning!!!
Had to laugh at Marie's wanting to tie you to a chair cuz every time you leave things get worse. Perhaps next time you travel forth you could put a dummy look alike in a chair just to scare off those nitwits that begin their evil play when you are away. Oh, if only!!!!
I was going through some old papers and came across a print out of a Bizarro cartoon from 18 June 2001.
A car speeding by a billboard: "Welcome to Florida" Controlling the nation's destiny with chaos and ineptitude".
Things haven't changed much, have they?
OK, so things are screwed up now. But what about the things that were screwed up before? Remember those? Yep, they're still screwed up.
Things are so bad you gotta laugh. This will help. The puppets of Ian Bremmer's GZERO World sing a wickedly funny ditty about The Really Bad People.