This is the kind of Hail Mary motion that should have been dispatched quickly after Trump’s lawyers filed it in February. But that’s not the Cannon way. Instead — four months later, and more than a year after Trump was indicted — she is holding a day and a half of oral argument on the issue. She will be hearing not only from Trump and prosecutors but, unusually, also from outside parties contending for and against the legitimacy of the special counsel.
Wednesday Reads
Posted: June 19, 2024 Filed under: Juneteenth | Tags: Judge Aileen Cannon, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Russia, Special Counsel Jack Smith, stolen documents case, Vladimir Putin 4 CommentsGood Morning!!
Celebrating freedom on Juneteenth
Today is Juneteenth, so I’ll begin with some writing about the holiday that celebrates freedom from slavery.
The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board: Editorial: Juneteenth isn’t a holiday just for Black people. Everyone should celebrate freedom.
Juneteenth is no more a holiday just for Black people than the Fourth of July is a holiday just for white people. It recognizes and celebrates a profound milestone in American history — the declaration of freedom for an entire race of American people who had been held in bondage for centuries.
Although the day itself, June 19, 1865, was far less life-changing than it should have been.
Juneteenth commemorates the arrival of Union Army Major Gen. Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas, with General Order No. 3 telling the people of the westernmost Confederate state that “all slaves are free.” Although the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect in 1863, it couldn’t be implemented until the Civil War ended and Confederate states surrendered.
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865 in Virginia, but other Confederate troops further south and west continued fighting, surrendering only in the months afterward. The 13th Amendment abolishing slavery would be ratified in December 1865.
Enslaved people in Texas were the last ones in the Confederacy to find out they were freed. But the news didn’t filter across the state immediately. And some slave owners didn’t obey the order right away, waiting to see who would enforce it.
Texas may have been the last Confederate state to get word of emancipation, but in 1980 it became the first U.S. state to make it an official holiday.
Juneteenth is now a federal holiday. It’s also recognized as a state holiday in more than 25 states and the District of Columbia.
A bit more:
The 1865 announcement of freedom didn’t end systemic racism and its discriminatory effects in housing, employment and education. It didn’t stop the violence Black people faced day after day, and still do. Black people make up 13% of the U.S. population but account for 37% of the prison and jail population. Similarly, Black people are 37% of the homeless population nationwide….
But there are reasons to celebrate this holiday. Juneteenth is about honoring fortitude, perseverance and, yes, optimism. Those are traits Americans have always had. And they are traits Black Americans have demonstrated in abundance for centuries — otherwise, no Black people would have survived here. And Black communities have held celebrations big and small for Juneteenth since 1866.
Consider Opal Lee. The former teacher is often called “the grandmother of Juneteenth” for her decades of activism to get it designated a federal holiday. When she was a young girl, a mob of white supremacists attacked her Texas home and burned the furniture on Juneteeth in 1939.
In 2016, a month before she turned 90, Lee set off on a four-month walk from her hometown of Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to publicize her cause. In 2021, Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support passed a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday, and President Biden signed it into law.
Last month, at 97, Lee stepped across the floor at a White House ceremony to be embraced by Biden as he placed the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, around her neck.
The Guardian: As Juneteenth grows in US, southern states cling to Confederate holidays.
Juneteenth has been recognized as a US federal holiday since 2021 and acts as a day to celebrate the end of slavery in the country – but millions of Americans will not have the day off today, 19 June, to mark the occasion.
At least 30 states – including most recently Rhode Island and Kentucky – and the District of Columbia recognize Juneteenth as an official public holiday, according to the Pew Research Center.
Portrait of Opal Lee by Sedrick Huckaby
Yet as the number of states to legally declare Juneteenth a holiday rises, other states continue to cling to holidays that honor the Confederacy.
Ten states – all in the American south – have at least one day commemorating the Confederacy, according to Axios, and six former Confederate states do not officially recognize Juneteenth: Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Mississippi and Alabama each celebrate three Confederate holidays – paid holidays for state employees: Confederate Memorial Day; the birthday of Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy; and Robert E Lee Day, to commemorate the leader of the Confederate army. In both states, Robert E Lee Day is also used to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr Day.
In Alabama, the Republican governor, Kay Ivey, has authorized this year’s Juneteenth as a state holiday for a fourth year, amid faltering legislative efforts to make it a permanent holiday.
A bill proposed earlier this year would have added Juneteenth as a permanent holiday in the state, but state employees would have been allowed to choose between taking that day or Jefferson Davis’s birthday off from work. The Alabama house of representatives approved the bill, but it did not get a vote in the state senate.
Read more at The Guardian.
At MSNBC, Hayes Brown has a think piece about why the Juneteenth holiday is just another sop to Black Americans instead of the government working to advance real equality: The vibes are very off this Juneteenth.
It’s Juneteenth 2022 and I am uncomfortable on a New York City beach. It’s not that the sun is too hot,which it isn’t, or that the water is too cold, though it is. The discomfort I feel comes from looking around the crowded sands and realizing how few faces look like mine on what’s meant to be a day celebrating us.
When President Joe Biden signed a bill declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021, it was one of the few tangible changes that was put into place after a wave of protests for racial justice that had rocked the country the previous year. In theory, the holiday recognized a turning point in America’s history as the last slaves learned of their freedom. But as I sat on that beach, I couldn’t help but wonder: “Who is this really for?”
Juneteenth, by Kalunda Janae Hilton
Texas first made Juneteenth an official holiday in 1980. After decades as a more regional celebration, the holiday quickly gained awareness nationally over the last decade, especially after it was featured on the ABC sitcom “black-ish” in 2017. But it was the civil rights protests of 2020 that truly propelled it into the mainstream, as millions took to the streets to demand an end to police brutality against Black Americans following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Lawmakers seized on boosting Juneteenth as a way to show that those millions of voices weren’t being totally ignored….
But it’s seeming more and more like this was a gilded token. Hopes of federal police reform were dashed when Republicans realized they could hammer Democrats for being in favor of “defunding the police.” Support for Black Lives Matter has plummeted since 2020, with only a narrow majority backing the movement compared to the two-thirds support that was once there.
And when you look at who is getting to enjoy the newly established holiday, it’s clear that the benefit is not evenly distributed. Consulting firm Mercer found that the share of private employers that made Juneteenth a paid holiday surged from 9% in 2021 to 39% in 2023.
We then must consider that roughly a quarter of Black households in America are earning less than $25,000 per year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That puts then in the bottom 10% of earners, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A Center for American Progress analysis of BLS data shows that among the lowest 10% of earners, 47% have no access to any form of paid time off, a number that falls to 38% when looking at part-time workers. Taken together, that means there’s a major chunk of the Black population that’s likely getting no benefit at all from Juneteenth.
Read the rest at the MSNBC link above.
Judge Aileen Cannon is back in the news, as she prepares to hear arguments on why the Trump stolen documents case should be dismissed. On of those arguments is that Special Counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed. Yes, that’s a ridiculous notion that has already been adjudicated and rejected.
The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case will kick off a series of hearings this week on motions to dismiss the case. One of the hearings is expected to focus on a legal theory pushed by conservative legal critics of special counsel Jack Smith that seeks to invalidate his appointment.
Judge Aileen Cannon’s court calendar related to this case has become increasingly logjammed in recent months – as she has scheduled hearings on legal maneuvers by Trump and his co-defendants that other judges would not typically entertain.
Legal experts have raised questions over whether her decisions are simply a product of inexperience or in some instances show outright favoritism towards Trump — who appointed Cannon to the bench in 2020.
Judge Cannon, for example, has set aside all of Friday for a hearing on Trump’s motion arguing that Smith’s appointment was unlawful – an issue other courts have largely rejected.
On Monday, Cannon will kick off her court schedule with another hearing related to Smith’s appointment – a motion brought by Trump challenging the funding of the special counsel’s office. The same day, Cannon will hear arguments over Smith’s request for a gag order limiting Trump’s rhetoric about law enforcement involved in the search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
Next Tuesday, she is scheduled to consider Trump’s request to throw out evidence gathered during that search as well as testimony provided by Evan Corcoran, his former lead attorney who Smith has alleged Trump misled as part of his efforts to obstruct the government’s investigation.
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling at The New Republic, via Yahoo News: Judge Aileen Cannon Confusingly Does Jack Smith a Massive Favor.
Judge Aileen Cannon appears to be sick and tired of nonparties attempting to intervene in Donald Trump’s classified documents trial—even though she’s the one who allowed them to do so in the first place.
Aileen Cannon and Jack Smith
The Trump-appointed judge issued a paperless order Monday, rejecting without explanation a couple dozen Republican attorneys general and their proposed brief opposing special counsel Jack Smith’s pending gag order on the former president, which they decried as “presumptively unconstitutional.”
Attorneys general representing the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming had all signed on to the amicus curiae. In it, they argued that the tabled gag was an affront to the First Amendment rights of everyday Americans, who have a right to hear Trump push back against legal prosecutors.
The fierce opposition arose after Smith argued for a change in Trump’s bond conditions, claiming that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s Truth Social posts were “grossly misleading” and “inflammatory.” Smith argued Trump’s posts put law enforcement and potential trial witnesses in legitimate danger.
“Those statements create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents—falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him—and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment,” Smith said in May.
As noted above, she will still hear arguments from outsiders, just not from a bunch of right wing attorney generals.
At The Washington Post, Ruth Marcus has and opinion piece about Judge Cannon: Judge Aileen Cannon: What will she think of next?
From the start of the investigation into Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon has seemed inclined to act in favor of the president who appointed her. Now, Cannon might be poised to issue her most audacious ruling yet, on Trump’s far-fetched bid to have the indictment dismissed on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment is constitutionally invalid.
Perhaps, in the end, Cannon won’t take the plunge and kill the case. (Such a ruling shouldn’t jeopardize the election interference case pending in Washington.) But at this point, after months of vacillating between slow-walking the case and issuing rulings favorable to Trump, Cannon can’t be underestimated.
The essence of Trump’s claim — backed by, among others, former attorneys general Edwin Meese III and Michael Mukasey — is that Smith’s naming as special counsel violates the Constitution’s appointments clause. That provision requires that “Officers of the United States” be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But the appointments clause allows Congress to give the “Heads of Departments” — in this case the attorney general — authority to appoint “inferior officers.”
“The Appointments Clause does not permit the Attorney General to appoint, without Senate confirmation, a private citizen and like-minded political ally to wield the prosecutorial power of the United States,” they write. “As such, Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action.”
Smith “wields extraordinary power, yet effectively answers to no one,” says the brief filed on behalf of Meese and Mukasey. “He has no more authority to represent the United States in this Court than Tom Brady, Lionel Messi, or Kanye West.”
It’s true that the Supreme Court has bolstered the reach of the appointments clause in recent years. Still, the problem with the anti-Smith argument is threefold: text, history and precedent.
First, the law empowers the attorney general to make such appointments. For example, 28 U.S.C. §533 authorizes the attorney general to “appoint officials … to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States.” Likewise, 28 U.S.C. §515 provides that “any attorney specially appointed by the Attorney General under law, may, when specifically directed by the Attorney General, conduct any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal … which United States attorneys are authorized by law to conduct.”
And by the way, under the special-counsel regulations, Smith is bound to follow Justice Department rules and is subject to being overruled, or even removed for cause, by the attorney general.
Read the rest at the WaPo.
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin traveled to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong Un. The two dictators agreed to help each other militarily. The New York Times: Putin and Kim Sign Pact Pledging Mutual Support Against ‘Aggression.’
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, revived a Cold War-era mutual defense pledge between their nations on Wednesday, signing a new agreement that calls for them to assist each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.
The Russian president, in a briefing after the two leaders signed the document, did not clarify whether such assistance would require immediate and full-fledged military intervention in the event of an attack, as the now-defunct 1961 treaty specified. But he said that Russia “does not exclude the development of military-technical cooperation” with North Korea in accordance with the new agreement.
The pact was one of the most visible rewards Mr. Kim has extracted from Moscow in return for the dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 shipping containers of munitions that Washington has said North Korea has provided in recent months to help support Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine.
It also represented the farthest the Kremlin has gone in throwing its weight behind North Korea, after years of cooperating with the United States at the United Nations in curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program — a change that accelerated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This is a truly breakthrough document, reflecting the desire of the two countries not to rest on their laurels, but to raise our relations to a new qualitative level,” Mr. Putin added. Neither North Korea nor Russia immediately released the text of the new agreement.
Mr. Putin denounced the United States for expanding military infrastructure in the region and holding drills with South Korea and Japan. He rejected what he called attempts to blame the deteriorating security situation on North Korea, which has carried out six nuclear test explosions since 2006 and tested intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the United States.
“Pyongyang has the right to take reasonable measures to strengthen its own defense capability, ensure national security and protect sovereignty,” Mr. Putin said.
Mr. Kim called the pact a “most powerful agreement” and praised the “outstanding foresight” of Mr. Putin, “the dearest friend of the Korean people,” the state-owned Russian news agency RIA Novosti said.
I wonder if they also discussed ways to help put Trump back in the White House, where he would certainly withdraw the U.S. from NATO.
CNN: Putin says Russia and North Korea will help each other if attacked, taking ties to a ‘new level.’
Vladimir Putin said Russia and North Korea have ramped up ties to a “new level,” pledging to help each other if either nation is attacked in a “breakthrough” new partnership announced during the Russian president’s rare visit to the reclusive state.
Thousands of North Koreans chanting “welcome Putin” lined the city’s wide boulevards brandishing Russian and North Korean flags and bouquets of flowers, as Putin kicked off his first visit to North Korea in 24 years with a finely choreographed display of influence in the dictatorship.
The pair then signed the new strategic partnership to replace previous deals signed in 1961, 2000 and 2001, according to Russian state news agency TASS. “The comprehensive partnership agreement signed today includes, among other things, the provision of mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement,” Putin said after the meeting.
He said the deal encompasses the “political, trade, investment, cultural spheres, and the security sphere as well,” calling the pact “truly a breakthrough document.”
Putin said joint drills involving the United States, South Korea and Japan were “hostile” toward North Korea,” characterizing the US policy as “confrontational.” Kim, meanwhile, called the new “alliance” a “watershed moment in the development of the bilateral relations.”
But the deal between the two autocrats raised many questions, too – including whether Russia’s nuclear deterrent now extends to North Korea, and vice versa, or whether the two nations will now hold joint military drills….
Putin was met with exuberant celebrations at a welcome ceremony with his counterpart at Kim Il Sung Square in the heart of the North Korean capital, where mounted soldiers, military personnel and children holding balloons cheered against the backdrop of large portraits of the each leader.
The two leaders presented their respective officials and stood together as the Russian national anthem played before riding off standing shoulder to shoulder in an open-top limousine as they smiled and waved to the crowds.
More interesting stories to check out:
BBC: China is the true power in Putin and Kim’s budding friendship.
The Washington Post: Heat wave to scorch Eastern U.S. with record high temperatures.
CNN: Why some scientists think extreme heat could be the reason people keep disappearing in Greece.
The New York Times: Trump Wasn’t Going to Stay in Milwaukee. Then Reporters Asked.
NBC News: Trump says business executives should be ‘fired for incompetence’ if they don’t support him.
The Daily Beast: Roger Stone Caught on Tape Discussing Trump’s Plan to Challenge 2024 Election.
Politico: Amy Coney Barrett may be poised to split conservatives on the Supreme Court.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon: Another evangelical abuse scandal: It’s a big reason why they worship Trump.
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This latest shit with Russia and North Korea…is bringing old Axis of evil feeling back. Only this time I can see trump joining up with the Putin side of things.
Amanda is spot-on about evangelicals. They have no problem with Trump because they’re a hotbed of child molesters and rapists themselves.
oh yeah!
The Roger Stone stuff…. I hope _somebody_ in the FEC is checking up on these thugs and making sure to prevent the mess they hope to make!
And I hope Lauren Windsor has serious security!