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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Monday
Mar042024

The Conversation -- March 5, 2024

Hannah Knowles & Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump is poised to continue his march to the GOP presidential nomination on Tuesday, when 15 states will vote to award more than a third of the party';s delegates and test how quickly Republicans are coalescing behind the former president." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is live-updating Super Tuesday developments.

Imagine a second-born son who rises to prominence in the wake of his older brother's death. Considered dashing in his youth, this son is a narcissist who at last has his father's eye. The son spends more lavishly than the father ever imagined, has a series of loveless marriages that are more for show, rises to lead his country and becomes a fat, ill-tempered old man who feels no limit on his power and strikes fear in his subordinates... This is Henry VIII, of course. Who did you think I was describing? -- Anonymous. Thanks to RAS for the link

** Arizona. Alexandra Marquez & Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Tuesday that she will not run for re-election this year, leaving the Senate after one term that saw her paint Arizona blue, leave the Democratic Party and play a key role in numerous legislative negotiations in a tightly divided Senate.... Sinema's decision paves the way for a tough and expensive fight for her seat -- though it will be more straightforward than the messy three-way contest she would have prompted by staying in. The leading Republican, 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, and the leading Democrat, Rep. Ruben Gallego, are already running hard to replace Sinema. In her video, Sinema said partisan warfare has carried the day."

Arizona. Jack Healy of the New York Times: "Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona vetoed a bill on Monday that would have authorized the state police to arrest undocumented immigrants. It was the first veto of the year from Ms. Hobbs, a Democrat who shot down a record number of bills passed by Arizona's Republican-controlled Legislature in 2023 dealing with abortion, elections, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and other hot-button issues."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo: :The New Yorker [Monday] morning offers a peek behind ... closed doors. John Harwood tweets that the interview, like his own last fall, 'shows talk of his alleged mental decline as utter bullshit.' Evan Osnos writes: 'If you spend time with [President] Biden these days, the biggest surprise is that he betrays no doubts. The world is riven by the question of whether he is up to a second term, but he projects a defiant belief in himself and his ability to persuade Americans to join him.'... Republicans mean to fuck you over and gut your freedoms. What are you prepared to do about it? At a minimum, get off your ass." MB: If you can access New Yorker articles, this would be a place to do so. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Now, this guy, this guy is reading from a teleprompter: ~~~

     ~~~ Stephen Colbert has some commentary here.

     ~~~ Marie: I'll admit I don't listen to many Trump speeches, but if the clips they play on the teevee are any indication, Trump's ability to speak is deteriorating significantly. This isn't about a little glitch like talking about using the word "oranges" for "origins." Trump had trouble with finding single words back then. Today he loses whole clauses in the middle of a sentence he's reading from the teleprompter. I hate picking on sick people, but for the good of the nation, a Biden PAC should be running these clips in ads.

CBS/AP: "Donald Trump won the North Dakota Republican presidential caucuses on Monday, adding to his string of victories heading into Super Tuesday. The former president finished first in voting conducted at 12 caucus sites, ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley."

Supreme Court Rules for Trump re: Colorado Ballot. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that states may not bar ... Donald J. Trump from running for another term, rejecting a challenge from Colorado to his eligibility that threatened to upend the presidential race by taking him off ballots around the nation. Though the justices provided different reasons, the decision's bottom line was unanimous. All the opinions focused on legal issues, and none took a position on whether Mr. Trump had engaged in insurrection, as Colorado courts had found.... The five-justice majority, in an unsigned opinion answering questions not directly before the court, ruled that Congress must act to give Section 3 force.... In a series of unusual moves, the court did not announce that it would issue an opinion until Sunday and did not take the bench to do so on Monday, instead simply posting the decision on its website. The decision was the court's most important ruling concerning a presidential election since George W. Bush prevailed in Bush v. Gore in 2000."

The New York Times liveblogged the ruling as it came down. The CNN liveblog of the Supreme Court's decision is here. Politico's report is here. The Washington Post's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ You can read the decision & concurring opinions here, via the Court. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: To see how the Court got to its 9-0 decision, see yesterday's Comments, where -- near the end -- RAS links to a Mark Stern column in Slate. Based on what he calls "Supreme Court metadata," Stern asserts that Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent, that Justices Kagan & Jackson later signed onto in what the three agreed would be a concurrence.

Robert Chariato, et al., of the New York Times: "... reaction to the ruling showed that the challenges to Mr. Trump's candidacy had hardened political dividing lines and angered Republicans who saw the lawsuits as an antidemocratic attempt to meddle in the election. And the ruling was handed down as voters in more than a dozen states prepared for Super Tuesday primaries.... The former president had remained on the ballot in the three states to disqualify him -- Colorado, Illinois and Maine -- while he appealed those rulings. The Supreme Court's opinion provided a final resolution.... 'I believe Colorado should be able to bar oath-breaking insurrectionists from our presidential ballot, but the U.S. Supreme Court disagrees,' said Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state and a Democrat. 'So in accordance with that, Donald Trump is an eligible candidate and votes for him will be counted in the state of Colorado.' Shenna Bellows, Maine's Democratic secretary of state who ruled in December that Mr. Trump was not eligible to appear on the state's primary ballot, issued an updated ruling on Monday reflecting the Supreme Court decision."

David French of the New York Times: "It's worth noting that ... the court did not exonerate Trump from participating in an insurrection. But instead..., the court went with arguably the broadest reasoning available: that Section 3 [of the Fourteenth Amendment] isn't self-executing, and thus has no force or effect in the absence of congressional action. This argument is rooted in Section 5 of the amendment, which states that 'Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.' But Section 5, on its face, does not give Congress exclusive power to enforce the amendment. As Justices Elena Kagan, [Sonia] Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out in their own separate concurring opinion, 'All the Reconstruction amendments ... "are self-executing," meaning that they do not depend on legislation.'... It's extremely difficult to square this ruling with the text of Section 3. The language is clearly mandatory.... Section 3 now stands apart not only from the rest of the 14th Amendment, but also from the other constitutional requirements for the presidency."

Ku Klux Kourt. Manisha Sinha in a CNN opinion column: "The framers of the 14th Amendment meant for it to be binding -- if they didn't, they would not have made it a part of the fundamental law of the country. A constitutional mandate is, most importantly, self-enforcing. It does not require a law or a trial to enforce it.... In ruling that Trump should stay on the presidential ballot of 2024, the Supreme Court has delivered a mortal blow to Section 3 that basically eviscerates its power altogether. In doing so, the court is living up to its sorry 19th-century history of emasculating Reconstruction federal civil rights laws and constitutional amendments.... For the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to ignore this historical testimony is tantamount to betraying their own principles of constitutional interpretation, originalism that looks to the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. For them, it's strict construction for thee but not for me.... The interracial democracy of Reconstruction was overthrown not just by domestic terror in the postwar South perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and similar racist groups, but also by a series of reactionary judicial decisions rendered by the Supreme Court in [the 1870s, '80s & '90s]...."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "... to this date -- including this date, in fact -- Trump has in no significant way been held accountable. That includes government institutions that are the product of our democracy proving unwilling or unable to implement any accountability.... One would assume that a democratic system predicated on checks and balances would have some process in place to enforce punitive measures when democracy itself was threatened or undermined, but it does not. It has decisions from motivated actors, enough of whom agree politically or ideologically with Trump that ... anything short of Trump retaining power [illegally and/or by force] doesn't count as a substantive challenge to democracy and, therefore, that his participation in the democratic process should be defended." Thanks to RAS for the link.

Monday was a good day in court for others in Trump's insurrection gang, too:

~~~ Wisconsin. Sophia Tareen of the AP: "Two attorneys for ... Donald Trump orchestrated a plan for fake electors to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit settlement reached Monday that makes public months of texts and emails. Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme's origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election. The agreements settle a civil lawsuit brought by Democrats in 2022 against the two attorneys and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake electors. The Republicans settled in December." (Also linked yesterday.)

AND in Nevada. Ken Ritter of the AP: "Six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of Nevada's 2020 presidential election won't be standing trial until early next year, a judge determined Monday. Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus pushed the trial, initially scheduled for this month, back to Jan. 13, 2025, because of conflicting schedules, and set a hearing for next month to consider a bid by the defendants to throw out the indictment. The defendants are state GOP chairman Michael McDonald, national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid, Clark County party chair Jesse Law, Storey County clerk Jim Hindle, national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: That's great. Now, instead of being convicted felons, they all can be fake electors again! Justice delayed ...

AND in Georgia. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Defense lawyers in the Georgia election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump say they want to put someone on the stand whose testimony could back up their assertion that Terrence Bradley, a witness in their effort to disqualify the prosecutors running the case, gave misleading testimony. The new information comes from Cindi Lee Yeager, a deputy district attorney in neighboring Cobb County, Ga., whom the defense lawyers said they spoke to on Friday about conversations she has had with Mr. Bradley.... The filing stated that according to Ms. Yeager, Mr. Bradley told her that 'Mr. Wade had definitively begun a romantic relationship with Ms. Willis during the time that Ms. Willis was running for district attorney in 2019 through 2020.'" The NBC News story is here.

BUT in New York.... Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Allen H. Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to ... Donald J. Trump, pleaded guilty to felony perjury charges in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, the latest twist in his tortured legal odyssey. Mr. Weisselberg, who for years has remained steadfastly loyal to Mr. Trump in the face of intense prosecutorial pressure, is not expected to implicate his former boss. That unbroken streak of loyalty has frustrated prosecutors and already once cost him his freedom. Mr. Weisselberg, who was led into the courtroom in handcuffs wearing a blue surgical mask and a dark suit, conceded that in recent years he had lied under oath to the New York attorney general's office when it was investigating Mr. Trump for fraud." This is an update of a story linked earlier yesterday. The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Forbes Magazine outted Weisselberg, who testified in two depositions and on the stand that he "never focused" on the size of Trump's Trump Tower apartment, which the Trump Org claimed to lending institutions was about triple the size it actually is. "Yet soon after [his trial testimony], Forbes magazine, which compiles a list of America's richest people, published an article citing emails and notes showing that Mr. Weisselberg 'played a key role in trying to convince Forbes over the course of several years' of the apartment's value."

Marianna Spring of the BBC: "BBC Panorama discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting [Donald Trump].... But there's no evidence directly linking these images to Mr Trump's campaign. The co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group which encourages black people to vote, said the manipulated images were pushing a 'strategic narrative' designed to show Mr Trump as popular in the black community.... Unlike in 2016, when there was evidence of foreign influence campaigns, the AI-generated images found by the BBC appear to have been made and shared by US voters themselves." MB: So gratifying to know we're in another post-Sputnik-type era, where U.S. "scientists" catch up with and eventually may surpass Russian technological advances. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! (Also linked yesterday.)


Julie Weil of the Washington Post: "After weeks of testing, the IRS's new government-run website for free tax filing is now open for the rest of this year's tax season to users in 12 states. The Direct File website, the Biden administration's attempt to test a free competitor to commercial software like Intuit's TurboTax, is debuting midway through tax season, at a time when more than two-thirds of all households have yet to file their returns. Taxpayers who live in the participating states and whose taxes are simple enough to qualify can create an account on the site and file their taxes any time, starting Monday, the IRS announced. For this year, Direct File excludes some groups of taxpayers, including the self-employed and those with wages of more than $200,000 a year."

AP: "A civilian U.S. Air Force employee has been charged in federal court in Nebraska with transmitting classified information about Russia's war with Ukraine on a foreign online dating platform, the Justice Department said Monday. David Franklin Slater, 63, who authorities say retired as an Army lieutenant colonel and was assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, was arrested Saturday on charges of illegally disclosing national defense information and conspiring to do so. Prosecutors say Slater attended briefings between February and April 2022 about Russia's war with Ukraine and, despite having signed paperwork pledging not to disclose classified information, shared details about military targets and Russian capabilities on an online messaging platform with an unindicted co-conspirator who claimed to be a woman living in Ukraine."

Leslie Josephs & Rebecca Picciotto of CNBC: "JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines on Monday said they were terminating their merger agreement weeks after losing a federal antitrust lawsuit that challenged the deal." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Florida. Anumita Kaur of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a ruling that blocked Florida from enforcing a law, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, that restricts how private companies teach diversity and inclusion in the workplace. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Monday that the 'Stop Woke Act' 'exceeds the bounds' of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression in its attempts to regulate workplace trainings on race, color, sex and national origin. The appeals court upheld a federal judge's August 2022 ruling that said the same.... The 'Stop Woke Act' prohibits trainings in workplaces, public schools, colleges and universities that could lead someone to feel guilty or ashamed about the historic actions of their race or sex."

Florida. Mike Schneider of the AP: "Gov. Ron DeSantis has a new job for the man who has led Walt Disney World's government since his allies took it over -- elections supervisor in Orange County, long one of Florida's most reliable sources of Democratic votes. Glen Gilzean was appointed Monday by the Republican governor to oversee voting in Florida's fifth-largest county, where more than 1.4 million residents live among the largest theme park resorts in the U.S. Just last May, Gilzean was chosen to be administrator of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Committee after DeSantis' allies took over the Disney World governing district.... In a joint statement, a group of federal and state Democratic lawmakers in the Orlando area, including U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, said Gilzean's appointment was just the latest example of DeSantis naming unqualified loyalists to elected positions 'so he can control every part of our state and local governments and warp our democracy to his will.'" MB: As far as I can tell from other reporting, Gilzean is a Republican. Gilzean has not experience running elections; the job pays $400K/year.

Texas. Acacia Coronado & Lindsay Whitehurst of the AP: "Texas' plans to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. illegally and order them to leave the country is headed to the Supreme Court in a legal showdown over the federal government's authority over immigration. An order issued Monday by Justice Samuel Alito puts the new Texas law on hold for at least next week while the high court considers what opponents have called the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago. The law, known as Senate Bill 4, had been set to take effect Saturday under a decision by the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Alito's order pushed that date back until March 13 and came just hours after the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to intervene."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "U.N. experts said in a report that they have 'reasonable grounds to believe' some victims of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel were raped and sexually assaulted, and that some of the hostages taken into Gaza have been subjected to sexual violence and torture that 'may be ongoing.' The United States is planning more airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza and working on a maritime route for ship deliveries, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.... [Benny] Gantz, a political rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will meet Tuesday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), accused Israel of 'a deliberate and concerted campaign' aimed at undermining the agency’s operations. In a statement to the U.N. General Assembly, he also criticized Netanyahu for 'openly stating that UNRWA will not be part of postwar Gaza.' Israel has alleged that about a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attack and that many are also members of Hamas." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates for Tuesday are here.

Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "Vice President Harris has begun taking a more public role in the Biden administration's effort to handle the Gaza war, bluntly criticizing Israel on Sunday for limiting humanitarian aid and meeting Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief political rival. Monday's White House meeting with Benny Gantz -- a centrist member of Israel's war cabinet who traveled to the United States in defiance of Netanyahu -- came after Gantz previously spoke with various American officials who have visited Jerusalem. But a Washington visit, particularly one that included a meeting with Harris, was seen as twisting the knife, given Netanyahu's own strained relations with the president.... Although Harris's calls for a cease-fire echoed President Biden's comments over the past week, she took a notably sharper tone, which comes as a growing number of Democrats are voicing their displeasure over Biden's handling of Gaza in television interviews, protests, sternly worded statements -- and at the ballot box. 'People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane,' Harris said [Sunday in Selma, Alabama, in a speech delivered to commemorate 'Bloody Sunday.'] 'And our common humanity compels us to act.'"

France. Liberté, Egalité, Sororité. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "With the endorsement of a specially convened session of lawmakers at the Palace of Versailles, France on Monday became the first country in the world to explicitly enshrine abortion rights in its constitution -- an effort galvanized by the rollback of protections in the United States. The amendment referring to abortion as a 'guaranteed freedom' passed by a vote of 780 in favor and 72 against, far above the required threshold of support from three-fifths of lawmakers, or 512 votes." This is an update of a story linked yesterday.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (18)

Not only is the Fat Fascist not being held accountable, he’s being helped along immeasurably by the Fascist Activist Court which sees insurrection as a piffle, a trifle. And in deciding that there’s no hurry in making sure Justice prevails, and that the Constitution is there only for right-wing cherry picking, they’ve sent a clear message to the traitors that if they are unable to steal the next election (and it appears they’re going at it hammer and tong), that another insurrection would be just hunky-dory. But this time, get it right, okay?

And don’t miss one of little Johnny Roberts’ favorite card tricks. “Congress has to fix this problem! I’m just an umpire calling balls and strikes.” Congress, hamstrung as it’s been for years now by Republican intransigence, incompetence, and treason, couldn’t successfully put two Lego blocks together, with instructions, and a 10 year old Lego master as a coach. Roberts knows this. Has always known it. Saying “Congress has to fix this” is like saying “Trump can’t lie anymore.” It’s never gonna happen.

As for that balls and strikes thing, how come whenever confederates are up to bat, every pitch right down the pike is a ball, but when Liberals are up, balls in the dirt are ruled perfect strikes? The fix is in. It’s always been in.

And I realize that horse is dead, and well and truly beaten, but thank you again Merrick Garland for your non-service to the country.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Not the first time this SCOTUS has decided the Constitution does not mean what it says. For the R's on the nation's highest bench, for the so-called Originalists among them in particular, it a Constitution of
Convenience.

But in the Colorado decision where they acknowledged what the Constitution in fact says, they add the Congressional Caveat they have become so fond of. It's not the language of the Constitution that prevails; it's the enabling legislation that they know we'll never get.

Hence, nada.

It's the same act they have put on before and we can expect more of. No enforcement of rules that are not explicitly spelled out in legislation.

And since no one expects a divided Congress in which lobbyists have vast influence to come up with regulatory legislation that covers every base, again nada.

This Court specializes in Nihilism by inches.

Don't know if anyone has told them or if they've thought it out and it's what they want, but Nihilism is one sure path to Autocracy.

And that's not the Rule of Law.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Nicky Guy's post late yesterday of the New York Times account of what the R's have "gained" in the budget negotiations included a provision that seemed designed to make it easier for suicidal veterans to kill themselves.

In the name of gun rights, of course.

Now that would be a hill for the R's to die on.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Life on the Möbius Strip

You go forward, but you can’t. Forward is sideways. Sideways is back where you started. You’re caught in a loop that repeats itself forever. Out.Of.Control.

Fucksticks on Fox fall all over each other marveling at the powerhouse speechifying machine that is the Donald.

Watch that clip that Marie embeds above (either of them). Just a few seconds. Insane, right? This is a guy making less sense than a two year old in a high chair banging for his baba. At least the baby you can understand. Fatty? Not a chance. But one thing stands out. What a poor victim he is. Attacked, chased by demons sent by Joe Biden. And why? He’s perfect, never done anything wrong. You do have to work hard however, to get past the incomprehensible babbling.

And yet on Fox, he’s hailed as a master of the language. Oh, and one other thing?

He never plays the victim. I am not even kidding, this is what they claim. Of course, this is after one particular dickhead compares Trump to god.

These idiots are so far around the bend, that ass they see up ahead is their own.

But back to the victim thing. Psychologist and psychoanalyst Michael Bader, who has for years pursued an interest in psychology and politics, makes some interesting points about this weird combination of superiority and victimhood (another Möbius Strip) that Trump shares with the MAGAts. :

“Let’s look more carefully at exactly how Trump’s victimhood functions. What is the point of making yourself out to be a victim? Psychologically speaking, what does it accomplish? The answer is that it counteracts feelings of guilt. I use the word guilt to include feelings that someone has done or is doing bad things and feelings of being a bad person. In this sense guilt includes feelings of shame. In the end, it’s all about feeling like a bad person, either by virtue of a person’s actions or shortcomings.

Feeling and proclaiming that you are a victim, when objectively you are not, is a way of restoring a feeling of innocence, a feeling that you are good—and, therefore, not bad. And once guilt is negated and innocence restored, the victim can then go about hurting others and doing bad things again.”

Which he certainly does.

And then there’s that narcissistic demand that everyone see him as perfect and wonderful…

“Starting from the premise that the mind seeks out ways to diminish guilt and shame, Trump’s grandiosity—his presenting himself as ‘perfect’—easily fits this same bill. Thus, feelings of victimization and superiority are easily compatible.

Since his basic instincts are to cheat, lie and disparage others, Trump’s psyche needs a cover story. As a result, his presidency rests on his claims that he is being persecuted by Democrats, the media, and the deep state. These claims are necessary to enable him to act in cruel and reckless ways without guilt. This, of course, is why impeachment is so potentially traumatic to him. [So is any suggestion that he is a loser…consider his tantrum at being beaten by Haley in the DC election. He couldn’t stand it.]

The world is pointing a finger of accusation at him which he cannot escape. He’s consumed with retaliatory and sadistic rage. And, thus, as a result of the increased threat of guilt and shame, he has to become more and more of a victim, which permits him to be even more cruel.”

I’m not really sure that he ever considers himself a bad person, but perhaps there is some kernel of doubt in the subconscious that creates a sense that he truly is a fraud and a piece of shit. I dunno. I can’t climb on that Möbius strip. I’ll leave that to Fox douchebags.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus: I agree that Trump's feigned victimhood is overcompensation for feelings of inadequacy. In Trump's case, there are a couple of extra twists.

One is that Trump has been able -- for reasons I cannot quite fathom -- to plug his personal sense of victimhood into the rank-and-file's general sense of victimhood: they have failed to achieve whatever their aims might have been, not because of their own shortcomings but because of some outside force. So Trump has made a potent political argument of his vast personal failure.

The other is the way in which Trump and his loser base deflect responsibility not just from themselves but from other "reasonable" explanations for their failure (or sense of failure). A real reason for Trump's failure was probably the way his father treated him; I can't imagine that Fred Trump was anything but a cruel master. Yet Trump, at least publicly, does not blame his father; he has hunted down other fake causes for his failures. It used to be crooked vendors or crooked banks or crooked politicians; whoever. Now those outsiders who are at fault must be ... Democrats! And that works for his loser followers, too. Democrats don't believe in "real America." And they're Black. Or "illegals"! The irony of course is that Democrats have traditionally done far more to help middle- and lower-income people than Republican officials would even contemplate.

I don't know where the sick stops and stupid starts, but it takes a dollop of both to accept false "explanations" for personal failure.

March 5, 2024 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Trump also projects his victimhood onto his followers. "They are coming after me, but you are next." So they don't have to feel guilty because the government and radical lefties are unfairly targeting them and so preemptively fighting back is justified in those circumstances. It is a green light to be awful in the face of the future injustice that the others want to perpetuate against them. Trump told them so.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Guess who

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Salon

""They frankly laugh behind the backs of their own voters": How Republicans bamboozle rural whites
In "White Rural Rage," Paul Waldman and Thomas Schaller reject the narrative that treats Trump voters like children"
By AMANDA MARCOTTE

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

NBC News

"Scanners that spot smuggled fentanyl at the border sit unused because Congress hasn't provided the cash to install them
The money to install the screeners was in the supplemental funding request Republicans blocked."

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Biden

"The Biden administration on Thursday announced a new rule that will reduce child care costs for more than 100,000 American families over the next few years.

The actions proposed on Thursday will cap child care copayments at 7% of a family’s income for those who get federal child care assistance via the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).

The measure will also make it easier for states to eliminate co-payments for certain populations, such as for families with incomes below 150% of the poverty level, families of children with disabilities, children in foster care, and children experiencing homelessness."

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Here is a good essay from Timothy Snyder, about how Ukraine's success is critical to the future of democracies, and how Bible Mike (BM) is in the chain of submission (Putin-Trump-MAGAs-Johnson) working to undermine Ukraine.

Snyder wrote the history "Bloodlands" (2010), which was possible because of post-Soviet Union access to files from behind the Iron Curtain. It is about the history of Nazi, Soviet, and local depradations in the lands between Russia and Germany from the early '30s to '50s. It is a terrifying account of the extended horror of weaponized and organized ideological autocracy, acting alone (e.g. Russians starving and exiling Ukrainians; Nazis eliminating Jews and "untermenschen") and in conflict (Soviet v. German WW2 conflicts).

Everyone who can get through it (some can't; it is highly depressing) should read that book, to see just how bad things do get (not "can get"; "do get") when the a-holes run things on a massive scale.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

But Henry VIII was an overweight glutton, and a womanizer, a
serial maryer, spent more money than he had, was very egotistical,
and, and, and.

Oh, now I get the comparison. One would think that MAGAts would
also get it. But then, history is verboten in the land of MAGAts.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterForrestMorris

If you would like access to The New Yorker (and many other periodicals) try your public library. Through Libby I was able to read the recommended Osnos article. I also just borrowed "Bloodlands"

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterLinda in Denver

@Linda: Thanks for the tip. I've been planning to check with the library here for a couple of years!, but never seem to get around to it.

March 5, 2024 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Would add to my earlier comment: It's not the rule of law....

it's the rule of lawlessness, which is exactly what the predatory wing (more than half) of Republicans want. Narcissism boiled down to its essence.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

@Ken Winkes: The whole fre-e-e-dumb thing is about freedumb to be an ass. It's the Rand-Paul idea that you aren't going to make me wear a mask (to protect everybody from my illnesses) or use a lo-flo toilet or energy-efficient light bulbs, or buy an electric car or or or. This is hardly anything new. It's little Donnie Trump telling his German nanny he won't behave.

And of course it's freedumb for me but not for thee: I can eat chocolate pudding with my fingers if I want to, but your children can't read books about African-Americans that make me "uncomfortable." My vote counts; your votes don't count or are "illegitimate," and if your guy wins, it's because he rigged the election.

And the Supremes are in on the program, as Akhilleus pointed out early today. Oh, let us bend over backwards to make sure Donald Trump, insurrectionist, gets every benefit of justice under the law -- and then some -- and avoids being tried for attempting to use his position to steal justice from the rest of us.

March 5, 2024 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

There are also a number of archive sites that allow you to read paywalled or older articles, such as archive.is

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

NPR

"Racial disparities in voter turnout have grown since Supreme Court ruling, study says

The turnout gap between white and nonwhite voters in the U.S. is growing fastest in jurisdictions that were stripped of a federal civil rights-era voting protection a decade ago, according to a new study."

Here is the story of a Black Texas man who is afraid to vote now after being targeted by Paxton over and over again for voting when he thought he was eligible but wasn't because he was still on parole from a previous conviction. It's the same thing we've seen in Florida. Make people too afraid of losing their freedom to cast a vote even when they are eligible.

March 5, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS
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