Finally Friday Reads: Testing the Limits of our Constitutional Democracy

Autumn Symphony, 1947, Birger Sandzén

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s been a lousy news season since Orange Caligula rode that elevator down to infamy.  Whenever there’s something nice, religious fundamentalists and their feckless leaders come along to ruin it.  I remember not being able to even buy creme de menthe in Omaha on a Sunday when I was just in need of some to make a grasshopper pie for my mother-in-law. I had to find a bootlegger friend who just happened to have one. Now, there are all kinds of things you won’t find in many states because of these fundamentalist buzzkills. I’m thinking I  may move to Colorado to set up a “camping ground” for young southern women who need to get away.  I hope to get someone to build a venue for Wayward Drag Queens and a library for banned books.  Perhaps an inclusive wedding venue and weed store would be appropriate, too. There’s even a Buddhist university–Naropa–in Boulder, so other than having to avoid using grocery stores because of mass-murdering shooters, I’m set with that.  Oh, wait.  I also must avoid movie theaters, planned parenthood, and wherever Boebert hangs.  I still have to admit I’ve been in love with the state since I was a kid, and there’s nowhere to hide from deranged white men and their military-grade weapons going on hate-filled shooting sprees.

Birger Sandzén, Glimpse of Rocky Mountain National Park, 1919. Swedish-born Sandzén first visited the Rockies in 1908. He returned every summer for 15 years, creating landscapes using thick paint in bold, bright color combinations.

Just how the fuck did we arrive at this place? I have an idea.  I think the same folks giving death threats to Representative Bacon and his wife from Lincoln, Nebraska, are the same folks that threatened my toddler–the one who is now safe in Colorado–in 1992. It’s a combination of the Southern Strategy and Reagan and Pat Robertson dragging fundies into the party and letting them run amok. They’ve just evolved into much more dangerous and well-armed hooligans due to the various movements united by drinking orange Kool-Aid.

I’m slipping in some wisdom from Chamtral Rinpoche on Karma this morning.

As Padmasambhava said, “The eagle that is flying high in the sky should not forget that it will come down one day to see its shadow.”

Thankfully, Karma is catching up with the Trump Family Crime Syndicate.  The rest is a work in process.  Deep Breath Time, Sky Dancers!  We may see a Speaker of the House indicted eventually.  Some things take longer than others to sort out.

Let’s start with that karma. Newsweek’s Nick Mordowanec analyzes the court’s decision to force Ivanka to Testify in the New York State Trump fraud case. “Ivanka Trump Has Fifth Amendment Problem.” This should be interesting.

What Ivanka Trump could say or not say if called as a witness against her father and brothers may add some weight to the state’s civil fraud case while potentially implicating herself.

Last week, her lawyers filed a motion requesting the New York Attorney General’s office to quash a subpoena that forces her to testify, arguing that she was dismissed from the lawsuit initially filed by Attorney General Letitia James. The suit accuses Donald Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization, of inflating assets by up to $2.2 billion to boost net worth and get favorable bank and business deals in return.

The claims of the suit, of which Ivanka was dismissed in June due to a statute of limitations, have been refuted and denied by the former president and others. Trump, the current 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner who has routinely been present in the courtroom, has claimed the case is politically motivated and intended to damage his reputation.

Ivanka Trump’s lawyer, Bennet Moskowitz, wrote in a motion filed October 19 that she should not have to take the stand for multiple reasons. One is that she was never deposed, and another is that she has not been part of the Trump Organization since 2016 and has not legally been a New York resident for nearly seven years.

Moskowitz, who was contacted by Newsweek via email, also argued that the summary judgment in the case “limited the trial to damages and causes of action for which Ms. Trump’s testimony is unnecessary due to being redundant of matters already in the record or immaterial to the issues still in the case.”

New York-based attorney Andrew Lieb told Newsweek via email that should she be forced to testify, Ivanka can plead the Fifth Amendment if the answer to a question could incriminate her regardless of whether she’s a current defendant in the case and regardless of if criminal charges currently exist against her.

“However, given that she is being called as a witness in a civil trial, taking the Fifth will result in a negative inference where her testimony will be presumed to be averse to [Donald] Trump,” Lieb said. “Therefore, she has minimal options if she is forced to testify and does not want to hurt her father and brothers.

Birger Sandzén, At The Timberline, Pike’s Peak, Colorado

There’s also some Karma-related news about Congressm Santos. “US congressman Santos pleads not guilty to new felony charges.” Let’s see how he fairs in a court of law with all his known shenanigans and falsehoods.  This is from Reuters.

 U.S. Representative George Santos pleaded not guilty on Friday to a 23-count indictment accusing him of an array of corruption, including 10 felony counts that federal prosecutors added this month.

Santos, 35, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip, New York, on Long Island. A trial is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2024.

The Republican first-term congressman had in May pleaded not guilty to 13 charges, including laundering funds to pay for his personal expenses, illegally receiving unemployment benefits, and lying to the House of Representatives about his assets.

His additional charges included accusations that he charged donors’ credit cards without their consent, and reported a bogus $500,000 campaign loan.

The plea came one day after fellow Long Island Republican congressman Anthony D’Esposito called on the House to expel Santos, saying Santos was “not fit to serve his constituents.”

Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote. Republicans hold a 221-212 majority in the House, and at least several dozen would have to vote against Santos for him to be expelled.

We’ve dropped a few bombs in the current version of the Israel-Palestein conflict. I heard more bombers and fighters flying low over my home on Saturday. I assume more troops are being sent in that direction. This is from ABC News. “US strikes back at Iranian-backed groups that attacked troops in Iraq and Syria: Pentagon. The airstrikes follow more than a dozen attacks on bases in the Middle East.”

U.S. military aircraft have carried out strikes in eastern Syria against facilities associated with Iranian-backed militant groups believed to be responsible for more than a dozen rocket and drone attacks on American troops in Iraq and Syria that injured 21 service members, the military said Thursday night.

“Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted self-defense strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a statement.

“These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17,” he said.

“The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests,” he added.

The retaliatory operations were carried out at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, in the wake of Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and U.S. concerns about preventing that conflict from enveloping the rest of the region.

BIRGER SANDZÉN, ROCKS AND PINES, BOULDER, COLORADO

Just when you thought we were mainly on the sidelines of the two hot wars in the world right now, BOOM! Here’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s Statement on U.S. Military Strikes in Eastern Syria.

Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted self-defense strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups. These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17. As a result of these attacks, one U.S. citizen contractor died from a cardiac incident while sheltering in place; 21 U.S. personnel suffered from minor injuries, but all have since returned to duty. The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.

The United States does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop. Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them. If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.

These narrowly tailored strikes in self-defense were intended solely to protect and defend U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria. They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict. We continue to urge all state and non-state entities not to take action that would escalate into a broader regional conflict.

Sven Birger Sandzén, Smoky River, ca. 1919

All right, then.  At least we have this to be thankful for. “Trump’s Vanishing Act: Why Trump Rallies Are Going Extinct. Trump has been holding about two rallies per month. That’s way down from his previous campaigns, like in 2016 when he held 323 rallies, or 70 rallies during COVID.” This is by Jake Lahut at The Daily Beast.

This time around, Trump’s rally schedule has been significantly diminished, settling at around two per month in the run up to Iowa.

It’s a reduction due to a confluence of factors, ranging from his legal peril and crowded court schedule to the cost savings and messaging upside of keeping the MAGA festivals to a minimum. His events are increasingly billed as speeches instead of rallies, with the next one scheduled for Nov. 8 at Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah, Florida on the night of the third GOP debate, marking only his seventh major venue rally this year.

“Honestly, given he has legal risk on many fronts, I’d probably do the same just to minimize anything that would fuck up his legal defense,” a former senior Trump adviser told The Daily Beast. “Let everyone else flame out. Then hit the gas.”

Although Trump’s once cash-flush and now cash-strapped “Save America” leadership PAC can cover legal expenses for himself and his allies, that flexibility comes with a major drawback. While candidates can use leadership PACs to pay for pretty much anything, the tradeoff is they can’t use them to pay for their own campaign activity. Once Trump became a candidate again—officially announcing in November 2022, though some legal experts contend he’d already been in the race for a long time—Save America, which had raised more than $140 million, couldn’t pay the bills for his events. Those expenses fell to his new campaign committee, which didn’t have the kind of cash he’d stashed in Save America. He had to start fresh, more or less.

While the rallies have been crucial to Trump’s relationship with the base, they are not cheap. The rallies can run anywhere from the low- to mid-six-figure range—all the way up to $2 million. (The most notable pricy example was his botched Tulsa rally during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, which set his campaign back $2.2 million.)

So, let me end with the idiot from Northwest Louysiana that is now the Speaker of the House because he’s about the worse they could get, which is probably why they went for him.  I am going to collect all the shit I can from my Shreveport friends and dump it on Monday. But let me start with some of the folks on top of this.  Joy Reid’s show last night was brutal.  The Reid Out blog has this insight from Ja’han Johnson. “Speaker Mike Johnson embodies Trump’s media obsession.  Former TV host Donald Trump backed former radio host Mike Johnson’s bid for House speaker. The MAGA movement has gone all in with extremist media figures.” Yes, folks. He was a right-wing radio freak not so long ago. He’s actually never had a real job. He’s primarily lurked in extremist organizations incredibly dedicated to getting rid of abortion access and taking out the GLBT community.

A former TV host turned president (who chose a former radio host as his VP) wanted another former radio host to be speaker of the House of Representatives. What could go wrong?

Electorally? A lot, actually.

After Donald Trump gave his approval Wednesday, House Republicans unanimously elected little-known Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to serve as speaker.

Johnson, who is in his fourth term of Congress, is the most junior House member to serve as speaker since the 1800s. But he does have some experience that the former president appears to cherish: As a Trump-aligned lawyer and former right-wing talk radio host, he seems skilled in the art of packaging Trumpian talking points in ways that are relatively polished. What he lacks in legislative experience, he appears to make up for with MAGA moxy, as far as Trump is concerned.

It’s easy to see why Trump could be drawn to Johnson. The Louisiana Republican played a key role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and he served on House Republicans’ pro-Trump defense team during Trump’s first impeachment. But perhaps most importantly to Trump, Johnson is being touted among the MAGA faithful as a skilled communicator of extremely conservative values. (I’ll admit his seemingly quiet demeanor and folksy twang have the feel of an off-brand Paul Harvey.)

And there’s ample evidence that Trump likes to keep media tacticians of this sort in his inner circle.

Back in 2018, John Wagner wrote for The Washington Post about Trump’s tendency to hire people at the White House — like Larry Kudlow and John Bolton — after watching them on TV:

Being a pundit is becoming a tried-and-true pathway into the Trump administration, as a ­reality-show president seeks to surround himself with people who’ve been auditioning for their jobs on television — whether they realize it or not.

Johnson has embodied the MAGA movement with his press appearances in the past, by sharing views that play well among diehard conservatives but could turn off voters who aren’t as decidedly right-wing. Trump may approve of his politics and his presentation, but the more we learn about the new speaker’s record, the clearer it becomes that the GOP just elevated an extremist to serve as the face of House Republicans.

Within hours of Johnson’s election, disturbing previous comments of his were brought to light — including this clip, in which he suggested the U.S. is not a democracy, but rather a republic founded in line with a “biblical admonition.”

It’s always the mousy ones you have to watch.  This is from Brian Beutler. “Make Mike Johnson Famous. If Republicans vote for a medieval insurrectionist, and nobody knows, does it count?” Beutler tries to understand what the media will do with the public face of Mike Johnson.  He provides some rather appalling examples of folks who have really missed the biography.

What won’t fade as easily is an indelible caricature. Like Gore the exaggerator again, or Jimmy Carter as the prophet of malaise. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) became a meme when the January 6 Committee released footage of him (daintily, fearfully) fleeing the insurrection he helped inspire. Well here’s Mike Johnson, MAGA Ayatollah, running away from questions about his involvement in the failed coup and support for a national abortion ban.

When Johnson is absent or unavailable for any reason, it must be because he’s hiding from yet more questions about his election lies. Or maybe he’s trying to arrest a gay couple, or a woman who terminated a pregnancy. With him it’s always one or the other.

..

Without that kind of ratatat the public will pick up on the din of some other concerted messaging campaign. Mike Johnson’s extremism and corruption, along with his unwillingness to defend either, have to become social knowledge, and repetition is central to that process.

After I sent Wednesday’s newsletter, the drivers of the #GenocideJoe hashtag that’s gone viral on the left mobbed my Twitter feed (as I suspected they would), which is mildly annoying, but ultimately just a symptom of how ideas, even wrongheaded ones, take root in modern polities.

The American progressives who’ve become convinced they’re witnessing a Joe Biden-supported genocide didn’t get that idea from “lived experience” or “material reality” or “Democrats endorsing an unpopular activist idea.” They live here in the U.S., the material reality is that Biden does not support genocide and one is not underway, and the Biden policy is to insist on restraint in a horrible war. No, what happened is some fringe leftists made some memes and engaged in giddy slander on their popular podcasts, and that was enough to make it an unquestioned assumption in whole thought communities, including among people who say they voted for Biden once and will never again. Politics didn’t drive the media; the media drove politics.

The same aphorism applies here. House Republicans won’t pay much of a price for electing Johnson unless Johnson is understood, at a population level, to be a malign actor, where when you say the name “Mike Johnson,” it conjures a predictable image in the mind of whomever you’re talking to.

Sven Birger Sandzén, Sunset”‘n the Mountains, 1’17.

This is from The Guardian. “‘Go pick up a Bible’: Speaker Mike Johnson defends anti-LGBTQ+ views. Republican House speaker, who has advanced extreme views as attorney an’ legislator, says ‘I am a Bible-believing Christian.'” This is a man who ignores the establishment clause of the U. S. Constitution’s first amendment.  Ayatollah Mike wants us to join him in believing the world is only 6000 years old. This is written by Margaret Sullivan.

Questioned about comments and actions deemed by many to be homophobic, the new Republican US House speaker, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, told Fox News his worldview was: “Go pick up a Bible.”

Speaking on Thursday, Johnson said he “genuinely love[d] all people regardless of their lifestyle choices.

“This is not about the people themselves. I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘… People are curious. What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it – that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe and so I make no apologies for it.”

Johnson added: “That’s my personal worldview.”

Johnson’s rise to the speakership was confirmed on Wednesday, as the fourth candidate since Kevin McCarthy was ejected by the actions of a clutch of far-right representatives in his own congressional conference earlier this month.

The Louisianan, 51, won his final vote without Republican dissent but is a controversial pick nonetheless. Before entering Congress in 2016, he was an attorney for rightwing Christian groups and a state legislator. In both roles he advanced extreme views, particularly against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Johnson’s work for the Alliance Defending Freedom has attracted widespread attention. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors far-right activity, calls the ADF a hate group – a label it rejects.

Nonetheless, the SPLC says the ADF has “supported the recriminalisation of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults in the US and criminalisation abroad; defended state-sanctioned sterilisation of trans people abroad; contended that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to engage in paedophilia; and claimed that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society”.

Johnson’s host for Thursday’s interview, Sean Hannity, said: “Comments you made both in writing and advocacy for this group about homosexuality, calling it sinful, destructive and not supporting gay marriage, quote, ‘No clear right to sodomy in the constitution.’ You have been getting hammered on this and I … wanna know … where you stand.”

Johnson said: “I don’t even remember some of them. I was a litigator called upon to defend the state marriage amendments.

“If you remember back in the early 2000s, I think there [were] over 35 states … that the people went to the ballot in their respective states and they amended their state constitutions to say marriage is one man and one woman. Well, I was a religious liberty defense and was called to defend those cases in the courts.”

Earlier, CNN unearthed editorials for a newspaper in Shreveport, Louisiana, in which Johnson said homosexuality was “inherently unnatural”, would lead to legalised paedophilia and could destroy “the entire democratic system”.

“Homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural,” Johnson wrote in 2004, “and, the studies clearly show, are ultimately harmful and costly for everyone.”

Legalising gay marriage, he said, meant “we will have to do it for every deviant group. Polygamists, polyamorists, paedophiles and others will be next in line to claim equal protection. They already are. There will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet.”

Johnson also called same-sex marriage, which would be made legal across the US in 2015, “the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic”.

Here are some more depressing headlines.  You may want to follow Robert Mann. He’s got a lot of insight into Lousyana Politics and Ayatollah Mike.

From the New York Times: ‘Could Mike Johnson, the New House Speaker, Undermine the 2024 Election?  The Louisiana Republican played a pivotal role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But his elevation to the top post in the House does not give him special powers in the certification process if he tries again.’

From Axios: ‘Speaker Johnson on shootings: “Problem is the human heart, not guns”‘

From Bloomberg: ‘House Speaker Mike Johnson’s First Big Bill Cuts Biden’s Climate Change Funding

• Measure would end rebates for energy-efficient appliances
• Slashes funds for other programs to counter climate change’

From Phillip Bump and the Washington Post: ‘Mike Johnson points to a Biden impeachment, even if the facts do not.’

From Politico: “He Seems to Be Saying His Commitment Is to Minority Rule’. A Q&A with historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez on the Christian nationalist ideas that shaped House Speaker Mike Johnson.’

On Wednesday, when newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson gave his first speech in that role, he quoted British statesman and philosopher GK Chesterton, who once said, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded upon a creed,” and that it is “listed with almost theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”

“That is the creed that has animated our nation since its founding and has made us the great nation that we are,” Johnson said.

That line caught the attention of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a historian who specializes in evangelical Christianity and politics. The idea that America is founded on a creed is a common one among evangelicals, and it was a sign to her that Johnson adheres to a worldview that can be described as Christian nationalist.

Johnson, a Shreveport, Louisiana, native, entered politics after spending more than two decades defending conservative Christian causes as a litigator at the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, and throughout his career, he has argued in courts and drafted legislation to outlaw same-sex marriage and restrict abortion.

Be as afraid as I am of leaving the confines of Orleans Parish. This man is more nutty than Justice Alito, and that’s a hard achievement.

So, you will be reading more of me on this subhuman piece of shit.  He job hops a lot and leaves a paper trail. If we’d have had the election maps drawn the way they should’ve, he probably wouldn’t be sitting in the House. They gave him much of the East part of Lousyana that would be better placed in East Texas.

Take care and be careful out there! The country is awash with people who love to hate others and are unafraid to act on it.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?