;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 22, 2014
Internal links removed.
Charles Pierce linked to this video of CBS News's early coverage of President Kennedy's assassination. Audio bulletins repeatedly break into the "regularly scheduled program" -- the banal "As the World Turns" & its commercials. The news video feed doesn't come in till about 30 minutes in:
White House: "In this week's address, the President laid out the steps he took this past week to fix our broken immigration system. Enacted within his legal authority, the President's plan focuses on cracking down on illegal immigration at the border; deporting felons, not families; and accountability through criminal background checks and taxes":
... Michael Shear & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "President Obama opened up a campaign for his executive actions on immigration on Friday as he told an audience of mostly Latino students at a high school rally [in Las Vegas, Nevada,] that Congress had to revamp what he called the nation's broken immigration system.... The president said that he had urged Mr. Boehner to let the Senate bill come to a vote on the floor of the House, but to no avail. 'I cajoled and I called and I met,' Mr. Obama said. 'I told John Boehner: "I'll wash your car. I'll walk your dog. Whatever you needed to do. Just call the bill." And he didn't do it.'... Around the country, Mr. Obama's critics began searching for ways to block his action."
... Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Diane Black (R-Tenn.) have introduced legislation to prohibit funding to implement President Obama's executive action on immigration. Their bill, titled The Separation of Powers Act, would block the use of funds for deferring deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally or providing work permits." ...
... Liberal Professor Encourages Tea Party Radical"s. Law Prof. Peter Schuck, in a New York Times op-ed: "... the pro-impeachment Republicans are right: There is a plausible case for ... impeachment..., [which] is a political accusation and initiates a political remedy, not a legal one. It is pretty much up to Congress to define and apply 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' and no court would second-guess it. The next Congress could find that the president had violated his oath to 'faithfully execute' the laws.... But even if Congress has constitutional authority to impeach the president, that doesn't mean it should.... However truculent Mr. Obama's defiance may be on this issue, Congress has other ways to stymie it -- for example, barring the action by statute. Such tactics are within the normal give-and-take of interbranch disputes." ...
... CW: Thanks, Pete. I'm sure those "pro-impeachment Republicans" will appreciate your "on-the-other-hand" nuance, there. Excellent work. At least President Biden may think so. ...
... Sen. Ron Johnson (RDumb-Wisc.) & Jonathan Turley (who characterizes himself as "a liberal academic," failing to mention his Fox "News" gig & alluding in only the most oblique way [a link to another article] to his new job as lawyer for House Republicans suing the President), in a Washington Post op-ed: "Now is the time for members of Congress and the judiciary to affirm their oaths to 'support and defend the Constitution' and to work to re-establish our delicate constitutional balance. It will not be easy, but the costs of inaction are far higher. We need to look beyond this administration -- and ourselves -- to act not like politicians but the statesmen that the framers hoped we could be." CW: In the "Annals of 'Journalism'" department, the Post itself does not bother to mention Turley's outside interests, either. And of course the link will not appear in the print edition. ...
... Hey, Let's See What the Most Interesting Man in Politics Thinks. Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) likened President Barack Obama's decision to take executive action on immigration to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt's executive order authorizing putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II. '... there are instances in our history where we allow power to gravitate toward one person and that one person then makes decisions that really are egregious,' Paul said. 'Think of what happened in World War II where they made the decision. The president issued an executive order. He said to Japanese people 'we're going to put you in a camp. We're going to take away all your rights and liberties and we're going to intern you in a camp. We shouldn't allow that much power to gravitate to one individual. We need to separate the power.'" ...
... CW: Yes, Randy, because granting reprieves & imprisonment are pretty much the same thing. Also, never mind that Roosevelt received "considerable pressure" to intern ethnic Japanese from, um, members of Congress and that Congress gave authority to the military to decide whom should be interned (Public Law 503 of the 77th Congress) And never mind that in a series of cases, the Supreme Court upheld the actions of the President, the Congress & the military in regard to interning Japanese-Americans. Yup, "separating the power" was really, really important when it came to this brand of "ethnically cleansing" the West Coast. Let me put it another way: Rand Paul, you don't know WTF you're talking about. Maybe you should start plagiarizing again, so you can get some facts right. ...
... Your Louie Gohmert Weekly Reader. Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "In an interview yesterday with Dan Cofall, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, accused President Obama of using immigration and the Ferguson case to provoke violence."
(... CW: Here's something I did learn from Louie: "If you look at the conservative gatherings, we even pick up our own trash." A brief Google exploration reveals this particular perfect-us-v.-them point is a conservative meme. So, libruls, start picking up after yourselves. Seriously. ...)
... Jonathan Chait: "Immediately after the election, when John Boehner asked Obama to hold off on unilateral action, reporters asked if he would promise to bring an immigration bill to the House floor. He refused. A senior administration official pinpointed this as the moment when any chance of delay ended.... There are no serious legal questions about the administration's plan.... After years of legislative muddle, [President Obama] was able to detach himself completely from Congress and articulate his own values." Read the whole post. ...
... Juan Cole: Obama "punked ... the party of skinheads." ...
... Ezra Klein: "Instead of coming up with their own immigration policy, [Republicans have] been able to just unite against Obama's. But fury isn't a policy.... One way or another, Republicans need to decide what to do with the 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country now.... They are, arguably, the governing party -- they will soon control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, most state legislatures, and more governorships. And the governing party needs to solve -- or at least propose solutions -- to the nation's problems.... Republicans don't seem to want to do anything except stop Obama from solving the problem." ...
... Steve Benen: "There's a striking asymmetry, not just between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to presenting policy solutions, but between Republican responsibilities and Republican intentions -- they're a post-policy party with an aversion to governing, which is a problem for a party that has been given broad authority by voters to shape policy and govern." ...
... Even Politico Notices the GOP's Got Nuthin'. Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim: "The lack of a unified response from the GOP risks further fracturing the party just as Republicans prepare to take over Capitol Hill and attempt to prove themselves a responsible governing majority. And Obama's nationwide tour pitching his plan threatens to blunt Republicans' momentum and messaging heading into a long holiday recess, exposing frustrations by both conservatives at a lack of direction on how to respond to Obama's moves and of party elders who worry the GOP's right flank will overreact to the immigration action with talk of impeachment and government shutdowns. Republicans, for now, have offered little other than rhetorical criticisms and a variety of suggestions not yet endorsed by GOP leaders...." CW: You can, of course, forget that part about "prove themselves a responsible governing majority." That was never a GOP goal. ...
... CW: There's an excellent, if discouraging, discussion in yesterday's Comments of the media's coverage of President Obama's immigration order & the GOP's reaction toward it. Apparently, the MSM, en masse, is more impressed with cries of imperialism than with granting reprieves -- apparently legally -- to millions of undocumented residents.
Ashley Parker: "House Republicans filed a long-threatened lawsuit Friday against the Obama administration over unilateral actions on the health care law that they say are abuses of the president's executive authority." ...
... Paul Waldman: "The actual complaints in the suit were always strange -- they're suing Obama for delaying the employer mandate, a provision they despise. If they won, he'd be forced to speed up implementation of the mandate, even as Republicans are pressing to eliminate it altogether. And by the time the suit wends its way through the courts, the issue will probably be moot.... As for the other of the suit's complaints, on cost-sharing subsidies, if Republicans are successful in killing them it would mean that poor people would have to pay more in copays and deductibles.... So apart from the satisfaction some Republicans might receive from making life harder for the working poor, even if they win this lawsuit they won't have dealt the ACA a serious blow. Legal experts who have looked at this suit haven't found much merit in it...." ...
... Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg View: "The suit is likely to fail. The first issue is 'standing.' To get into court, the House would have to prove that it was damaged by the way the administration carried out the ACA, and courts have consistently rejected that idea. Beyond that, it's far from clear that the administration's actions ... were beyond the normal discretion the executive branch has to carry out laws. Just because some Republicans want to pretend that before January 2009 presidential power had been limited to pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys doesn't mean they are right. And if Republicans win, it would be terrible for Congress.... In effect, it says that the courts, not Congress, should have the last word when there's a dispute between branches." ...
... Michael Lynch & Rachel Surminsky elaborate in a Washington Post article on the many reasons the House lawsuit is likely to fail. ...
... CW: Lynch & Surminsky don't mention the main reason the suit will flop because they don't acknowledge its real purpose: to distract or assuage Congressional Tea Party flamethrowers. Good luck with that, Orange Man. (Or as Zandar puts it in Balloon Juice, "Please proceed, gentlemen. It's a lose-lose and you know it, as the case will get laughed out of court and will never satisfy the red meat cravings of INPEECH OBUMMER Teabaggers.") My belated congrats to Jonathan Turley for wasting our taxpayer dollars in pursuit of a quixotic farce. You're a great American, Turkey. (Sorry, the "l" is right next to the "k". You all know I'm a typo queen.) ...
... Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "In a clearly coordinated campaign against what Republicans have labeled as Obama's 'imperial presidency,' Boehner announced the filing of the lawsuit minutes after he publicly denounced Obama's executive action on immigration. And later in the day, the first legislative hearing on the immigration order was scheduled." CW: The report also covers Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III's speech at the Heritage Foundation. ...
... Ave, Imperator! Jeff Sessions, in a USA Today op-ed: "Apparently, America now has its first emperor." Blah-blah-blah. (Paraphrase.) ...
... CW: I forgot "Mean Girls" pre-splained today's GOP. Via Susie Madrak:
Mark Mazzetti & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "President Obama signed a secret order in recent weeks authorizing a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year. Mr. Obama's order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year...."
Ali Watkins, et al., of the Huffington Post: "The White House's briefing [by Chief of Staff Denis McDonough] to Democrats on immigration Thursday erupted instead into a confrontation over the Senate's classified torture report, Senate sources told The Huffington Post. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, waited for the immigration discussion to end and then pulled out a prepared speech that she read for five or six minutes, making the case for the release of the damning portrayal of America's post-9/11 torture program." ...
... "Time Is Running Out." David Firestone of the New York Times: "Republicans take over the Senate in just a few legislative days. And when they do, they will probably snuff out the last possibility of releasing a huge report on the use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Bush-Cheney Administration.... The incoming chairman of the committee, Richard Burr of North Carolina, thinks the report amounts to a political hit job on the Bush years. Mr. Burr has said the report is full of unspecified inaccuracies. He not only opposes its release, but also all public hearings of the Intelligence Committee.... [Jay] Rockefeller [D-W.Va.] said he feared any senator who tried [to read the report on the Senate floor] would be 'grabbed' and hauled away. Presumably he's referring to the exceptions in the Constitution's speech or debate clause, which says members can't be arrested while speaking in either chamber, except in cases of treason, felony and breach of the peace. But someone -- possibly Mark Udall, who will not be returning as a senator from Colorado -- should consider testing that clause. Is it treason to inform the public how government officials broke international law and permanently stained the country's moral reputation?"
Your Friday Afternoon Docudump. "House Intel Panel Debunks Many Benghazi Theories." Ken Dilanian of the AP: "A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.... Many of [the report's] findings echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May." ...
... CW: I don't believe Fox "News" will be going big with this one. Wonder if the report covers the fake hacking of Sharyl Atkisson's computers. However, Politico did manage to take a gulp & report the committee's findings. ...
... Lauren French of Politico: "Some Republicans in Congress have continued to cling to initial reports that surfaced after Ambassador Chris Stevens and two others were killed in the attacks.... But Rogers' committee has long said its investigation would disproved those myths. The report, released quietly on a Friday night, dismisses the bulk of the most damning critics against the administration." ...
... Update. Charles Pierce "interrupt[s] your regularly scheduled weekend with this special report.... A few things should happen now, though I do not believe all of them will.... Sharyl Atkisson's newly minted career as a martyred truth-teller should experience something of a downturn although, rising to her defense, the burble caucus has retrenched on Fast And Furious, which is an even deader parrot. The Sunday Showz should apologize to America for wasting time on this thing. And, please god, Chris Stevens and the other people who died at the consulate finally can rest in peace. And to that, all say amen."
Fulfilling Today's Gossip Quota. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Administration and congressional officials have argued that the transgressions of [Harry Reid's top aide David] Krone -- publicly challenging the president, betraying the Oval Office code of silence and acting more like a senator than a staff member to one -- have damaged Democratic unity at a time when the party can least afford it, as its numbers in Congress dwindle and the president sorely needs discipline in his ranks to advance what is left of his agenda.... Aides in Speaker John A. Boehner's office, who avoid emailing Mr. Krone because of an earlier breach, said that the aide has 'burned both sides of the aisle.'... One person who did not seem bothered at all was Mr. Reid." Krone is married to "Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former West Wing staff member who is extremely close to the president.... In an interview, Mr. Krone acknowledged that his battles with the White House and his recent speaking out had put his wife 'in a tough spot.' Ms. Mastromonaco ... this week announced that she had taken a job at Vice, the Brooklyn-based media company...."
Annals of "Justice," Ctd. New York Times Editors: "Richard Nixon was president when Albert Woodfox landed in solitary confinement, along with another inmate, both convicted of the 1972 murder of a Louisiana prison guard named Brent Miller. He is still there. Mr. Woodfox, now 67 years old, has maintained his innocence of the murder from the start. He has been held in isolation longer than any prisoner in the United States, and perhaps in the nation's history." CW: This is unconscionable. Whether he is guilty or not, Woodfox should be removed from Bobby Jindal's jurisdiction.
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has expressed concerns privately to Missouri officials this week about their recent actions in advance of a grand jury's decision in the Michael Brown case. A top aide to Holder called the office of Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) earlier this week to express Holder's displeasure and 'frustration' that the governor had declared a state of emergency at a news conference and activated the National Guard in advance of the grand jury decision in the Ferguson shooting, expected to be announced in the next few days, according to a Justice Department official. 'Instead of de-escalating the situation, the governor escalated it,' said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... 'He sent the wrong message. The tone of the press conference was counterproductive.'" ...
... Josh Margolin of ABC News: "The FBI has sent about 100 agents to the St. Louis area to help deal with any problems that could arise from the grand jury decision in the police shooting of Ferguson teenager Michael Brown. In addition to the FBI, other federal agencies have also mobilized staffers to get to St. Louis today, sources told ABC News. A decision by the grand jury is expected soon, but St. Louis authorities said today that the grand jury is still meeting." ...
... Daniel Wallis of Reuters: "Prosecutors made preparations to announce the eventual decision by a grand jury on whether to charge a white police officer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager and some local schools said on Friday they would close next week in anticipation of unrest."
Loose Lips Sink Contracts. Mark Binker of WRAL Raleigh: North Carolina "State Auditor Beth Wood has terminated a contract with MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber after the health care policy expert came under fire for controversial comments involving how the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010.... The same comments that have caused a firestorm among conservatives prompted Wood, a Democrat, to dismiss Gruber on Wednesday."
Sarah Larimer & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The death toll from a monster blizzard is still rising in western New York, where structural damage from the heavy snow is making roofs creak and officials in and around Buffalo are bracing for possible flooding, according to reports.... The extreme lake-effect storm, which has dumped as much as 85 inches of snow on the area, has claimed 13 victims so far. Most of them, the [Buffalo] News reported, were killed by 'cardiac issues when victims attempted to shovel snow or push vehicles.'" ...
... "Jet Stream Weirdness." Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "There's growing evidence that global warming is driving crazy winters."
Nick Madigan & Lorne Manly of the New York Times: "The uproar over allegations that Bill Cosby had molested or assaulted several women, in some cases years ago, was almost nowhere in evidence on Friday night during a sold-out performance by the 77-year-old comedian on a college campus [in Melbourne, Florida].... Outside the theater, however, three protesters held signs criticizing 'victim shaming,' while another sign said, 'Rape is no joke.' The protesters were kept more than 200 yards from the theater and next to a main road, on orders from the police. Earlier on Friday, three women -- Renita Chaney Hill, Angela Leslie and Kristina Ruehli -- were the latest to publicly detail their experiences with Mr. Cosby, all telling similar stories of being given drugs or alcohol before being sexually assaulted."
CW: Maybe the real reason there are so many nonviolent drug offenders in jail is that nonviolent drug offenders are fucking stupid. Jessica Roy of New York: "Two doofuses in Worcester, Massachusetts, thought they were being super slick by staging their drug deal outside in broad daylight.... A Fox 25 anchor was reporting on a local snowstorm when two dummies walked up behind him, did a couple of sketchy maneuvers that could really only be interpreted as a drug-and-cash swap, then casually parted -- all while the cameras were rolling.... The anchors back in the studio couldn't stop laughing":
Presidential Election
Michael Kazin of the New Republic: "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, I think Sherrod Brown should run for president. I know that, barring a debilitating health problem or a horrible scandal, Hillary Clinton is likely to capture the Democratic nomination. I realize too that Brown, the senior senator from Ohio, has never hinted that he may be tempted to challenge her.... Yet, for progressive Democrats, Brown would be a nearly perfect nominee. During his two decades in the House and Senate, he has taken strong and articulate stands on every issue which matters to the party's broad, if currently dispirited, liberal base." CW: I share Kazin's pipedream.
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Reader Comments (12)
In yesterday's Comments, @Akhilleus shared some of David Brooks' brilliant analysis of Obama's Emancipation Proclamation. Akhilleus wrote, in part, "Golly gee, folks, right thinking Americans (as opposed to Kenyans and anyone else here who can't trace their ancestry back to Gov. Bradford) will never be able to put that genie back in the bottle!"
While it's true that Obama doesn't trace his ancestry to Gov. Bradford, he comes damned close. One of Obama's ancestors is Samuel Hinckley, the father of Thomas Hinckley. Samuel Hinckley & his wife Sarah Soole (and some of their children) sailed on the Mayflower, so Obama is a Mayflower descendant. Their son Thomas Hinckley (not Obama's ancestor) became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (the same job Bradford held earlier) in 1680. Susannah Hinckley -- Samuel & Sarah's son & Thomas's sister -- is Obama's ancestor.
Obama, like many (or most) of the earliest settlers to New England & Virginia, traces his ancestry back to European royalty -- you know, the ancestors of those present-day kings & queens who hobnob with Scott Brown, future Senator for Maine.
Marie
I read the jet stream weirdness article. Don't send it to Sen. Inhofe. There is no chance in hell he could actually understand what it says. It involves a level of complexity that might give him a heart attack.
@Marvin Schwalb: Maybe Inhofe can understand the next story I linked, which begins, "Two doofuses in Worcester, Massachusetts...." Not much complexity there.
Marie
My comment on the Shuck op-ed. It's short.
Says Shuck. "The problem is, the pro-impeachment Republicans are right: There is a plausible case for taking that step."
"So right. The problem is exactly that. With Republicans--the party that wouldn't bring the Senate passed immigration compromise to a vote in the House, the party that thinks climate change is a hoax, the party that still claims that lower taxes on the rich will shower manna on the masses, the party that shouts "Benghazi" at the top of their collective lungs, despite seven "investigations" that have found no cause for their faux alarm --deciding what's "plausible," plausibility as it is commonly understood will surely play no part in their decision."
My duty to the Times complete, I'm off to bed.
So send it, Marvin, send it!
And to add just a little to what will sometime soon become even more of an issue than immigration, human activity dumps more than 40 billion tons of CO2 in the air every year. That of course does nothing. Second, the arctic is melting because polar bears are peeing to much.
Third, global warming is just a theory, you know like evolution.
And does anyone notice that the evening news is turning into the weather channel.
But the real thing that will get everyone's attention on the issue is the fact that weather changes are seriously reducing the worlds supply of chocolate!
And is anyone surprised that the country with the highest level of public denial on climate change is the USA.
And Gloria, I was hoping the the piece of paper would be delivered to Inhofe by a tornado.
The remarks by Rand Paul is another example of not paying attention, when a wee lad, to Sesame Street's catchy jingle lesson of "one thing is not like another"––a regular feature in the show's format. But as I've mentioned before many of our representatives seem to have missed this segment. To realize that this man, our curly headed libertarian who has set his eyes on the prize, doesn't know the history of the Japanese internment is appalling and then uses it to compare Obama's executive action on immigration would be, I would think, fodder for anyone running against him. Hey, folks, this guy is NOT ready for prime time––got it? And all the people go, la,la,la de dah.
The David Krone story has the flavor of a House of Cards wannabe. Harry might want us to "get over it" but the Krone guy is evidently rubbing many the wrong way and when it's the White House that's being wrongly rubbed David's headaches might get even worse. I found Harry's, "David is someone I can say, and it doesn't affect my manhood at all––I love David Krone," amusing; that caveat most interesting.
Sherrod Brown! Sherrod Brown! Love him, love his wife, and I'm disappointed to learn he's happy where he is and harbors no inclination to run for president.
I'm especially impressed that he appears in public, attending town halls, and answering questions. In contrast to the presidential wannabe I know best, Scott Walker, who in four years has attended NO town halls and who stopped all public appearances, except those carefully managed by his handlers, after being heckled a few times in 2011.
However, I've become deeply cynical about fawning descriptions of pols from any point on the spectrum. Any politician can look good with such fluffups (Wisconsin journalistic term deriving from coverage by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Just let them appear before the public and defend their positions and let us draw our own conclusions.
3 d/o but spot on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/presidents-wall-street-nominee_b_6188324.html
I haven't finished reading this 2008 T.N. Coates Atlantic article on Bill Cosby, but I want to post it because he (Coates) talks about aspects of black conservatism that I hadn't considered and sort of rocked me. I hope you get a chance to read it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/05/-this-is-how-we-lost-to-the-white-man/306774/?single_page=true
Here's a small excerpt:
For all the woes of segregation, there were some good things to come out of it,” Cosby and Poussaint write. “One was that it forced us to take care of ourselves. When restaurants, laundries, hotels, theaters, groceries, and clothing stores were segregated, black people opened and ran their own. Black life insurance companies and banks thrived, as well as black funeral homes … Such successes provided jobs and strength to black economic well-being. They also gave black people that gratifying sense of an interdependent community.” ....
When political strategists argue that the Republican Party is missing a huge chance to court the black community, they are thinking of this mostly male bloc—the old guy in the barbershop, the grizzled Pop Warner coach, the retired Vietnam vet, the drunk uncle at the family reunion. He votes Democratic, not out of any love for abortion rights or progressive taxation, but because he feels—in fact, he knows—that the modern-day GOP draws on the support of people who hate him. This is the audience that flocks to Cosby: culturally conservative black Americans who are convinced that integration, and to some extent the entire liberal dream, robbed them of their natural defenses.
********************************
That shook me up. Maybe that explains Clarence Thomas.
So the women expressing their feelings about rape have to stay 200 feet from the theater where Cosby is performing, yet the Supreme Court overturned a law that required protesters to remain 35 feet away from the door if an abortion clinic? Of course we don't know the particulars of the site in Florida, nor in fact whether the Court would rule the police order legal. Still, forgive me for harboring a cynical suspicion that the boys on the Court would be just fine with that. One thing they're good at is justifying things. Another is ignoring precedent, including their own cases.
@Haley Simon-Thanks so much for posting the T.N. Coates link on the Bill Cosby article. The last sentence in the excerpt affirms my beliefs about Cosby--and about that off-the-wall conservative, Clarence Thomas. That their speech is offensively moralistic while their behavior is offensively abusive, tells me they possses what in psychology is called a "superego lacuna."
To quote Otto Kernberg: "A superego lacuna is a psychoanalytic term for a gap in the superego. It helps to conceptualize how an area of conduct can be outside of an individual's internalized morality."
And it also explains how an anti-social person can act in reckless and destructive ways because of an overwhelming need for narcissistic gratification.
I know that Thomas was raised in an abusive family and had a very stern father/grandfather. Not sure about Cosby, but it would make sense. I think of this as a character issue which can develop with the "fertilizer" of severe abuse. Of course, not all abused children become abusers, but many do. And most see themselves as moral and upstanding--hello denial!
Conservatism as practiced by the wing nuts, IMHO, incorporates an unempathetic, judgmental, narcissistic view of the world--without self-awareness or forgiveness of human foibles, except one's own. Liberals are seen as weak, mushy and unrealistic, because we do not go with the "bootstrap" approach.
I do not think our system of justice has any clue about how to think about anti-social people like Cosby and Thomas, since they have attained such a degree of success, and power. Like the men themselves, our system is in denial and cannot admit the reality of their pathology when it is exposed.
Amen.