Thursday Reads: They Go Low

Posted: May 4, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , | 22 Comments

John (repeat1968) Buss
@repeat1968 Move along. Nothing to see here. Again. #ClarenceThomas

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

ProPublica has released new, damning information on Uncle Clarence Thomas and his Cash Crow.  “Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition. Crow paid for private school for a relative Thomas said he was raising “as a son.” “This is way outside the norm,” said a former White House ethics lawyer.”

In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”

Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow.

The payments extended beyond that month, according to Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at the school. Crow paid Martin’s tuition the entire time he was a student there, which was about a year, Grimwood told ProPublica.

“Harlan picked up the tab,” said Grimwood, who got to know Crow and the Thomases and had access to school financial information through his work as an administrator.

Before and after his time at Hidden Lake, Martin attended a second boarding school, Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia. “Harlan said he was paying for the tuition at Randolph-Macon Academy as well,” Grimwood said, recalling a conversation he had with Crow during a visit to the billionaire’s Adirondacks estate.

According to former prosecutor Glenn Kirshner, the development is “impeachable.”

I had to laugh at this tweet from my friend Caitlin:

Two other stories are also in the headline today. Trump’s deposition for the E. Jean rape case was entered into testimony. What a freaking moron! This is from Mitchell Epner at  The Daily Beast.  “Donald Trump’s Rape Trial Goes From One Disaster to Another.”

Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, Carroll’s attorneys were able to pick the worst parts of Trump’s deposition to play for the jury. They presented a large number of obvious lies, including Trump claiming that he:

  • “Did not know whether he saw women outside of [his first] marriage” (although his affairs were legendary);

  • Almost never went to Bergdorf Goodman (despite testimony from the store manager that he was frequently there); and

  • “Never saw” E. Jean Carroll’s book (although he made numerous public comments about it).

The verdict in the Proud Boys Seditious Conspiracy cases came in.  Joyce Vance had this to say.

This is from the Washington Post. “Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio, 3 others guilty of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged defendants viewed themselves as Donald Trump’s army, intent on keeping him in power through violence.”

Former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and three other members of the extremist group were found guilty Thursday of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A jury deliberated for seven days in Washington before finding Tarrio, 29, and the others guilty on 31 of 46 counts. The jury handed down not guilty verdicts on four counts and returned to deliberate on a remaining 11 counts. The result was another decisive victory for the Justice Department in the latest of three seditious conspiracy trials held after what it called a historic act of domestic terrorism.

Over nearly 15 weeks of trial, prosecutors alleged that the Proud Boys on trial saw themselves as Trump’s “army.” Inspired by his directive to “stand by” during a September 2020 presidential debate and mobilized by his December 2020 call for a “wild” protest when Congress met to certify the election, prosecutors said the men sought to keep Trump in power through violence.

I think I hear the sound of chickens coming home to roost.  Well, in my case, it’s actually Yellow-crowned Night Herons, but they make quite a show of coming on to the Oak Trees to nest on my street too!

A few more headlines that will make you smile are below.

Liam Stack / New York Times:
Judge Dismisses Trump’s Lawsuit Against The New York Times

Former President Donald J. Trump, who had sued The Times, three of its reporters and his niece over an investigation into his tax returns, was ordered to pay The Times’s legal expenses.

Brandon Gage / Alternet.org:   ‘Unparalleled in its audacity and scope’: Herschel Walker implicated in ‘jaw-dropping’ wire fraud scheme

Late Wednesday evening, The Daily Beastexclusively reported that Walker solicited “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from billionaire benefactor Dennis Washington in March of 2022 “for his own personal company—a company that he never disclosed on his financial statements.”

Signe cartoon
TOON19
Proud Boys Men

One more exciting probe into Trump World.  CNN has this exclusive. “Special counsel probing Trump Organization’s handling of Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage

Prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith have been asking questions in recent weeks about the handling of surveillance footage from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after the Trump Organization received a subpoena last summer for the footage, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

The handling of the footage, and how employees within the Trump Organization responded to the Justice Department’s demand for it, have prompted a new round of grand jury subpoenas to top Trump employees in the last few weeks, the sources told CNN.

Longtime Trump Organization executives Matthew Calamari Sr. and his son Matthew Calamari Jr. are expected to appear Thursday before the grand jury investigating possible mishandling of classified documents brought to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, sources said. Prosecutors are expected to ask them about the handling of the surveillance footage and Trump employees’ conversations following the subpoena, according to the sources.

There’s news in the Culture Wars too.

From Jared Gans writing at The Hill: “North Carolina House approves measure banning abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy”

The North Carolina state House passed a bill on Wednesday that would ban abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, sending it to the state Senate for approval.

The House vote came just a day after Republicans in both legislative chambers announced they had reached an agreement on legislation to further restrict abortion access from the state’s current 20-week limit.

From the  Associated Press: “Oregon Republicans stay home ahead of abortion, guns votes”.

Republican state senators in Oregon didn’t show up to work on Wednesday, denying the Democrats who control the chamber a quorum and casting doubt on planned votes later this week on legislation pertaining to gun safety, abortion rights and gender-affirming health care.

The boycott comes as several statehouses around the nation, including in Montana and Tennessee, have been battlegrounds between conservatives and liberals. Oregon has been increasingly divided between the liberal population centers like Portland and Eugene, and its mostly conservative rural areas.

From Sam Wilson at the Missoulian: Gianforte signs 5 anti-abortion bills, plans to sign more  —  Gov. Greg Gianforte signed into law five bills aimed at restricting abortion access in Montana on Wednesday, triggering a legal request from Planned Parenthood of Montana later in the day to block one of the bills.

The bills include Senate Bill 154, which attempts to override the Montana Supreme Court’s longstanding recognition of abortion rights in the state. Known as the “Armstrong decision,” it holds that the state Constitution’s right to privacy protects access to abortions in Montana up to the point of viability.

And lastly, Andrew Atterbury at Politico writes: “Florida Republicans pass bill targeting transgender bathroom use.”

Florida Republicans passed legislation Wednesday that would make it a misdemeanor trespassing offense for someone to use certain bathrooms that don’t align with their sex at birth.

The bill, now headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature, is limited to people using restrooms and changing facilities in state and local government buildings, schools, colleges and detention centers.

And that’s it, except for my song choice today.

… folk singer Pete Seeger performed the controversial anti-war song “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour show on CBS television. The story of that appearance, and that song, illustrates the tumultuous political tensions of the era and was a bold act of defiance against corporate media power.

Seeger, who died in 2014, is now viewed as a legendary figure in American history. But when Tom and Dick Smothers invited him on their show, many people still viewed him as a dangerous radical, marginalized by the nation’s political, business, and media establishment.

…

Tom and Dick Smothers were among many musicians inspired by Seeger’s artistic and political contributions. In 1967, CBS invited the brothers to host their own variety show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which became a huge success, appealing to young viewers by inviting major rock and folk artists as well as comedians who reflected the political and cultural rebelliousness of the era. One sketch that lampooned President Lyndon Johnson so upset the president that he phoned CBS founder William S. Paley at home at 3 a.m. to complain.

The brothers had requested that Seeger be invited to perform, but CBS refused. Midway into the first season, however, the show’s popularity gave the Smothers more leverage with the recalcitrant network executives. Network chief Paley agreed on the condition that Seeger avoid singing any controversial songs—a demand that was, from the outset, guaranteed to provoke the Smothers brothers’ and Seeger’s defiance.

Seeger showed up to tape the second season’s opening show on September 1, which was scheduled to air September 10. At the taping, Seeger sang “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” a song he had written earlier that year, inspired by a photo of American troops slogging through a deep river in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

The song tells the story of a platoon of soldiers wading into the mud of a river while on a practice patrol in Louisiana in 1942. The captain, whom Seeger calls a “big fool,” ignores his sergeant’s warnings that the river is too deep to cross. The captain drowns and the sergeant orders the unit to turn back. The song doesn’t mention Vietnam but the “big fool” obviously refers to Johnson who got the country deeper into the quagmire in Southeast Asia.

Understandably nervous about offending Johnson again, CBS executives erased Seeger’s song from the tape of the show. The censors had no objection to his performance of the African song “Wimoweh” (in classic Seeger style, he had the whole studio audience singing along), the Cuban song “Guantanamera,” and “This Land Is Your Land.”

This seems like a good day to remember and watch the erased performance.

What’s on your blogging and reading list today?

 

 

Monday May Day Reads (Double-entendre implied)

Posted: May 1, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , | 30 Comments

Happy Beltane Sky Dancers!

I lived in a small Iowa town when I was a young child.  One of my favorite things was making May Day Baskets and filling them with hand-picked flowers and small candies. We used to get the wallpaper books the store was about to toss to create the “basket.”  Picking newly blossomed violets was the best ever since they were my favorite color!  Although, depositing them on the stoop, ringing the doorbell, and running to hide was terrific fun too. It was only less fun when one of my neighbors tried to crown the May Queen (in this case, the Virgin Mary) on my very high slide.  Mother ran her off and announced we’d have none of that here. Mother preferred the unco-opted version of the old pagan holiday, so pretending to be fairies or goddesses was okay.

I rather like this explanation of May Day. 

Flora from a Roman mural at Pompeii

‘Lewd men and light women…’

Some primal instinct to bring garlands and greenery in to the city, to dance and make music, featured in Oxford’s Maytime celebrations long before choirs sang the Hymnus Eucharisticus from Magdalen Tower. Indeed, that instinct to welcome the summer with green, carnival gaiety even predates any records of morris dancing.

The Magdalen tradition is only documented from 1695 when the great diarist of Oxford, Anthony Wood, first recorded the ritual as an invocation to the summer: ‘the choral ministers of this House do, according to an ancient custom, salute Flora every year on the first of May, at four in the morning, with vocal music of several parts. Which having been sometimes well performed, hath given great content to the neighbourhood and auditors underneath’.

There is no mention of the Hymnus; nor any suggestion by Wood that church music was sung at all. Rather, May Day was greeted with secular part songs dedicated to Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers.

Beltane is the Gaelic version of May Day and is celebrated with bonfires to celebrate the transition from Spring to Summer. The bonfires are dedicated to the Gaelic god Bel of Fire.  If you read about the traditional celebrations, you can see why the Puritans were so after the holiday, and the Romans were so vested in changing into a holiday more styled in its Christian traditions.

Poster by the artist Walter Crane. In 1890 May Day was celebrated as International Workers’ Day, a day of protests in support of an 8-hour working day. It has remained a special day for campaigning in the labour movement.

Mayday is a distress signal based on the phonetic equivalent of “M’aidez,” which is the French for “Help me.” It originated sometime in the 1920s in a London Airport. It’s been used as the supreme distress signal for flights ever since.  Perhaps we must use it when the Republicans try to crash and burn our democracy, constitutional rights, and economy. May Day is also International Labor Day.  May Day is my kind of holiday.

As a long-time supporter and activist for the ERA, it was sad to see Senate Republicans block a vote for it. The sticking points used to be backasswards red states, but now it’s from all those embedded anti-democratic forces in government. This is from the Anchorage Daily News. “After failed Senate vote, Murkowski says the Equal Rights Amendment remains ‘long overdue’.”

The U.S. Senate this week failed to pass a resolution to remove barriers to ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, 100 years since the amendment was first proposed in Congress. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who led the effort to pass the measure, expressed disappointment after the vote.

“It is just long overdue,” Murkowski said of the ERA in an interview Thursday. “The simple fact that we do not have embedded in our Constitution equal protections for women under the law is, I think, wrong and needs to be addressed.”

Murkowski spearheaded a resolution to advance the Equal Rights Amendment with Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. She is a rare Republican advocate for ratifying the ERA, which would codify equal rights for women in the U.S. Constitution and ban discrimination based on sex.

Her support for the amendment sets Murkowski apart from most members of her party, some of whom have fretted that the ERA could open up abortion availability and transgender women’s access to spaces like locker rooms. Other Republicans raised concerns about the precedent Murkowski’s resolution would set for the constitutional amendment process.

A painting of two people dancing around a Maypole to celebrate Beltane.

Oh, these stories should raise a Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!  World’s oldest democracy crashing! This is from the AP.  “Hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law, feds say.” This was written by Amanda Seitz.

Two hospitals that refused to provide an emergency abortion to a pregnant woman who was experiencing premature labor put her life in jeopardy and violated federal law, a first-of-its-kind investigation by the federal government has found.

The findings, revealed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, are a warning to hospitals around the country as they struggle to reconcile dozens of new state laws that ban or severely restrict abortion with a federal mandate for doctors to provide abortions when a woman’s health is at risk. The competing edicts have been rolled out since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion last year.

But federal law, which requires doctors to treat patients in emergency situations, trumps those state laws, the nation’s top health official said in a statement.

“Fortunately, this patient survived. But she never should have gone through the terrifying ordeal she experienced in the first place,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said. “We want her, and every patient out there like her, to know that we will do everything we can to protect their lives and health, and to investigate and enforce the law to the fullest extent of our legal authority, in accordance with orders from the courts.”

Artist Cicely Mary Barker, A Little Book of Old Rhymes – A May Day Rhyme.

So, what better way to stop Federal Agencies from protecting us than to send a lawsuit that would cripple them to the current Supreme Court?  This is written by Robert Barnes for the Washington Post. “Supreme Court accepts case that challenges authority of federal agencies. Conservatives have long wanted to overturn the precedent known as the Chevron doctrine.”

The Supreme Court on Monday said it would take up a case that could do away with a decades-old precedent that tells judges to defer to federal agencies when interpreting ambiguous federal laws, a deference long targeted by conservatives concerned about the power of the administrative state.

As the Supreme Court has become more conservative, the justices have grown less likely to defer to federal agencies under the 1984 precedent in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. But lower courts are bound to rely on the precedent because the Supreme Court has never officially renounced it.

A split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit used the Chevron doctrine in deciding the case the Supreme Court added to its docket Monday: whether the government can force herring fishermen off the coast of New England to fund a program that provides federal monitors for their operations. The program is overseen by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Two fishing companies told the court in their petition that the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires vessel owners to make room on board for federal monitors, without requiring the owners to pay those monitors.

“But without any express statutory authorization, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has decided to go one very large step further and require petitioners to pay the salaries of government-mandated monitors who take up valuable space on their vessels and oversee their operations,” the petitions state.

Carlotta Marie Bonnecaze (1887)

Well, at least a few are speaking out against linking Christianity with White Christian Nationalism. “Pro-Trump pastors rebuked for ‘overt embrace of white Christian nationalism.’ Mainstream Christian leaders criticize Pastors for Trump for distorting religious teachings and endangering democracy.  This is from The Guardian.  Now if they’d only ask for the protection of all minority communities and women.

A far-right religious group with ties to Donald Trump loyalists Roger Stone and retired Army Lt Gen Michael Flynn is planning events with pastors in swing-state churches in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to spur more evangelical backing for the former US president’s 2024 campaign.

But the group, Pastors for Trump, is drawing sharp rebukes from mainstream Christian leaders for being extremist, distorting Christian teachings and endangering American democracy by fueling the spread of Christian nationalism.

The Oklahoma-based evangelical pastor and businessman Jackson Lahmeyer leads the fledgling Pastors for Trump organization. Lahmeyer told the Guardian it boasts over 7,000 pastors as members and that he will unveil details about its plans on 11 May at the Trump National Doral in Miami, an event Trump will be invited to attend.

Stone, a self-styled “dirty trickster” whom Trump pardoned after he was convicted of lying to Congress, is slated to join Lahmeyer in speaking on 11 May, according to the pastor. Lahmeyer added he will talk more about his pro Trump group at a ReAwaken America evangelical gathering on 12 and 13 May at the Doral.

Lahmeyer said the pastors group intends to sponsor a “freedom tour” with evening church meetings in key swing states this summer, an effort that could help Trump win more backing from this key Republican voting bloc, which could prove crucial to his winning the GOP nomination again.

Lahmeyer described the genesis of Pastors for Trump in dark and apocalyptic rhetoric that has echoes of Trump’s own bombast.

“We’re going down a very evil path in this country,” he said. “Our economy is being destroyed. It’s China, the deep state and globalists.

“China interfered in our 2020 elections,” he added. “This is biblical, what’s happening. This is a spiritual battle.’

But those ominous beliefs have drawn sharp criticism.

“This kind of overt embrace of white Christian nationalism continues to pose a growing threat to the witness of the church and the health of our democracy,” said Adam Russell Taylor, the president of the Christian social justice group Sojourners.

One last read, and I’m off to grade case studies. This is also from WAPO. “Why are Americans shooting strangers and neighbors? ‘It all goes back to fear.’” Did I mention grading case studies means I can stay inside? I’m getting more fond of holing up inside than ever!

Across the country this month, at least four men have opened fire on someone who’d stumbled upon their space, resulting in one death, two injuries and a car pocked with bullet holes. The apparent acts of snap-aggression have reinvigorated the debate around the prevalence of “stand your ground” laws in the United States and a pressing question: Why are people so quick to pull the trigger on strangers?

Why did a 65-year-old man kill a 20-year-old woman who had accidentally pulled into his Upstate New York driveway? Why did an 84-year-old man fire two bullets into a 16-year-old boy who had mistakenly knocked on his door in Kansas City? Why did a 43-year-old man in South Florida allegedly shoot at a 19-year-old Instacart delivery driver and his 18-year-old girlfriend who had arrived at the wrong address?

Experts blame a cocktail of factors: the easy availability of guns, misconceptions around stand-your-ground laws, the marketing of firearms for self-defense — and a growing sense among Americans, particularly Republicans, that safety in their backyard is deteriorating.

Since 2020, the share of Republicans who said that crime is rising in their community has jumped from 38 percent to 73 percent, according to the latest Gallup numbers from last fall. Among Democrats, that same concern climbed only 5 percentage points to 42 percent, marking the widest partisan perception gap since the polling firm first asked the question a half-century ago.

Reality is more complicated. A Washington Post crime analysis of 80 major police departments’ records found that reported violence across the country in 2022 was lower than the five-year average.

The difference between the Wiccan myths of Beltane and Republican Myths is that Republican Myths kill people (Mayday, Mayday, Mayday).

So, have a great May Day!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: Justices Gone Wild

Posted: April 28, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

Three Judges, Georges Rouault. ca. 1938

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s no surprise to any of us that now Justice Kavanaugh–Grand Old Perv–was rushed through the approval process just as Clarence Thomas to avoid more discovery of sex pest acts.  The Guardian‘s Stephanie Kirchgaessner has this headline. “Revealed: Senate investigation into Brett Kavanaugh assault claims contained serious omissions. The 2018 investigation into the then supreme court nominee claimed there was ‘no evidence’ behind claims of sexual assault.” It turns out that the lack of evidence was the desired result and not the real result of any investigation.

A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to new information obtained by the Guardian.

The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was “likely” mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.

The suggestion that Kavanaugh was the victim of mistaken identity was sent to the judiciary committee by a Colorado-based attorney named Joseph C Smith Jr, according to a non-redacted copy of a 2018 email obtained by the Guardian. Smith was a friend and former colleague of the judiciary committee’s then lead counsel, Mike Davis.

Smith was also a member of the Federalist Society, which strongly supported Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination, and appears to have a professional relationship with the Federalist Society’s co-founder, Leonard Leo, whom he thanked in the acknowledgments of his book Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.

Smith wrote to Davis in the 29 September 2018 email that he was in a class behind Kavanaugh and Ramirez (who graduated in the class of 1987) and believed Ramirez was likely mistaken in identifying Kavanaugh.

Instead, Smith said it was a fellow classmate named Jack Maxey, who was a member of Kavanaugh’s fraternity, who allegedly had a “reputation” for exposing himself, and had once done so at a party. To back his claim, Smith also attached a photograph of Maxey exposing himself in his fraternity’s 1988 yearbook picture.

The allegation that Ramirez was likely mistaken was included in the Senate committee’s final report even though Maxey – who was described but not named – was not attending Yale at the time of the alleged incident.

In an interview with the Guardian, Maxey confirmed that he was still a senior in high school at the time of the alleged incident, and said he had never been contacted by any of the Republican staffers who were conducting the investigation.

“I was not at Yale,” he said. “I was a senior in high school at the time. I was not in New Haven.” He added: “These people can say what they want, and there are no consequences, ever.”

The revelation raises new questions about apparent efforts to downplay and discredit accusations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh and exclude evidence that supported an alleged victim’s claims.

A new documentary – an early version of which premiered at Sundance in January, but is being updated before its release – contains a never-before-heard recording of another Yale graduate, Max Stier, describing a separate alleged incident in which he said he witnessed Kavanaugh expose himself at a party at Yale.

It has previously been reported that Stier wanted to tell the FBI anonymously during the confirmation process that he had allegedly witnessed Kavanaugh’s friends push the future judge’s penis into the hand of a female classmate at a party. While Republicans on the Senate committee were reportedly made aware of his desire to submit information to the FBI, he was not interviewed by the committee’s Republican investigators.

The committee’s final report claimed there was “no verifiable evidence to support” Ramirez’s claim.

Alexander Arshansky, “Judges”, 2013

This report follows a month of reports of possible criminal misconduct by Justice Uncle Clarence Thomas of not reporting favors from a billionaire with cases before the court.  We’ve also discovered similar faulty reporting by Neil Gorsuch.  We’re already aware of leaky Allito’s mishaps too.  None of the Nine Supremes think additional oversight is needed, however.  ABC News reports, “All 9 Supreme Court justices push back on oversight: ‘Raises more questions,’ Senate chair says. In a rare joint statement, the justices said they want to “provide new clarity.”

There’s no conservative-liberal divide on the U.S. Supreme Court when it comes to calls for a new, enforceable ethics code.

All nine justices, in a rare step, on Tuesday released a joint statement reaffirming their voluntary adherence to a general code of conduct but rebutting proposals for independent oversight, mandatory compliance with ethics rules and greater transparency in cases of recusal.

The implication, though not expressly stated, is that the court unanimously rejects legislation proposed by Democrats seeking to impose on the justices the same ethics obligations applied to all other federal judges.

“The justices … consult a wide variety of authorities to address specific ethical issues,” the members of the high court said in a document titled “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices.”

It appears to be the first time an entire court has publicly explained its approach to ethics issues and attested to specific parts of federal law governing their conduct.

“This statement aims to provide new clarity to the bar and to the public on how justices address certain recurring issues,” they wrote, “and also seeks to dispel some common misconceptions.”

Here Comes the Judge
TED ELLIS

Senator Dick Durbin is not letting Chief Justice Roberts Sandbag the Senate Judiciary.  This is from NBC News. “Judiciary Committee Dems call on Chief Justice Roberts to clarify Supreme Court ethics rules. The chairman and Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said a statement of principles the chief justice sent to the panel earlier this week is insufficient.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin and the panel’s other Democrats are calling on Chief Justice John Roberts to answer follow-up questions about ethics principles guiding the Supreme Court.

The senators said in a letter to Roberts on Thursday that a statement of principles that he attached to a letter to the committee this week is insufficient on its own.

“The statement of principles raises more questions than it resolves, and we request that you respond to several key questions,” they said, adding that Roberts’ answers would help the committee’s work on legislation to deal with the justices’ ethical obligations.

In the letter, Roberts declined to testify at a Judiciary Committee hearing next month about ethics rules governing the high court.

Senators on Thursday listed several questions that they want Roberts to answer by Monday, asking, for example, when justices subscribed to the Statement on Ethics Principles and Practice and if they previously followed a different version.

The lawmakers noted the statement provided by Roberts says the justices “consult a wide variety of authorities to address specific ethical issues,” and asked, “What guidance do Justices receive on which authorities to consult, and how is this consultation process and any final decision on a particular matter documented?”

They also asked if there has “ever been any censure, reprimand, admonition, sanction, or other penalty imposed on a Justice for failure to abide by any of the principles and practices?”

“If so, what types of penalties have been, or may be, imposed?” they asked. “Is there a process by which the public may file, and the Supreme Court may receive, complaints that a Justice has failed to abide by these principles?”

The senators suggested in his letter that Roberts’ decision to decline the committee’s invitation, or to designate another justice to appear, goes against a long history of justices testifying before Congress.

Judge, Woman and Child, Honore Daumier

The reputation of the court has declined since Roberts took over. It is historically unpopular.

The “North Carolina Supreme Court clears way for partisan gerrymandering. This sets up a process that allows national Republicans to expand their majority in the House.”  Voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering are the only way the (t)Rump part continues to rule.  This year’s docket basically endorsed both.

The North Carolina Supreme Court has overturned its own past ruling that said partisan gerrymandering is illegal, clearing the way for Republicans there to redraw the state’s congressional lines in a way that heavily favors the GOP.

This sets up a process that allows national Republicans to expand their majority in the House of Representatives by as many as four seats.

ABC News shows how quickly we’re getting to the bottom of the Trump Voter Fraud Scam. “2nd firm hired by Trump campaign to look into voter fraud claims subpoenaed by special counsel. The founder told ABC News that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

The Honourable Mr Justice Rests, Emily McCormack

A firm contracted by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in November 2020 to investigate claims of voter fraud has been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating those claims, the founder of the firm told ABC News.

Ken Block, the founder of Simpatico Software Systems, said he was subpoenaed to turn over documents related to his work with the Trump campaign.

The firm was the second one hired by the campaign that reported it found no widespread evidence of voter fraud.

The subpoena came from special counsel Jack Smith. Smith is investigating not only the potential crimes resulting from the Jan 6 insurrection at the Capitol, but also claims by the Trump campaign that there was voter fraud after the election.

The New York Times has the story from the nation’s heartland. “Abortion Bans Fail in South Carolina and Nebraska  —  South Carolina and Nebraska, two conservative states that have been pushing to ban abortion, on Thursday both failed to pass new bills prohibiting the procedure, preserving wide access to abortion in those states and handing surprise victories to abortion rights advocates.”

South Carolina and Nebraska, two conservative states that have been pushing to ban abortion, on Thursday both failed to pass new bills prohibiting the procedure, preserving wide access to abortion in those states and handing surprise victories to abortion rights advocates.

In Nebraska, a bill to ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — a strict prohibition that would outlaw the procedure before most women know they are pregnant — failed to advance in the state legislature, making it unlikely to move forward for the remainder of this year’s legislative session.

The bill fell one vote short of the 33 needed in order to advance, after two senators did not vote. Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican who had supported the bill, said after the vote that it was “unacceptable for senators to be present not voting on such a momentous vote.” Mr. Pillen, who described himself as “a staunch defender of life,” said he was “profoundly disappointed” by the outcome.

In South Carolina, the senate rejected a bill that would ban most abortions in the state. The bill had already been passed by the House, but the Senate’s five women — three of whom are Republicans — opposed the bill and spoke forcefully against it.

More background and analysis are at the link.

So, can we get some Justice in this country anymore or equal representation?  That’s the big question for me today.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: All Tuckered Out!!!

Posted: April 24, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , | 36 Comments

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Fox gave Tuckums the boot today.  All bets are on as to where he goes now.  The best thing is that it will be a channel in the right-wing propaganda desert and not at Fox.  This is from Jeremy Barr and Sarah Ellison, writing for the Washington Post. “Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News after Dominion lawsuit disclosures. The bombastic conservative was the network’s most-watched prime-time host. Private communications made public in a recent lawsuit revealed his sharp criticism of Fox management.”

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

The obviously sudden departure — Carlson gave no indication he was leaving in his last appearance Friday, and the network was still running promos for his show this morning — came less than a week after Fox settled a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued the network for false claims about the 2020 election. Carlson was among several on-air personalities expected to testify.

Many of Carlson’s private messages were released in motions filed by Dominion, revealing that the host was skeptical of many of the election-fraud claims made on-air by Trump-affiliated attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.

But it was Carlson’s comments about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion case, that played a role in his departure from Fox, a person familiar with the company’s thinking told The Post.

Notably, Carlson was not allowed back on air to say goodbye to the mammoth audience he had amassed in his years as a primetime host.

This is from Aiden McLaughlin at Mediaite. “BREAKING: Tucker Carlson OUT at Fox News in Shocking Shakeup.”   (You would not believe the number of headlines with some form of shock in them.)

Carlson found himself embroiled in serious controversy throughout his time at Fox News. In recent weeks, a lawsuit from a former booker at the network, Abby Grossberg, accused Carlson’s staff of making anti-Semitic jokes, liberal use of the word “cunt” in the office, and casual misogyny.

Sources at Fox News told Mediaite the news hit like a bomb inside the network, shocking even staffers close to the ex-prime time host.

CNN’s news is being totally buried by the news of the fall of Tuckums. Mediaite also has this breaking news.  “BREAKING: Don Lemon Announces Firing From CNN in Scathing Statement Blasting Network Leadership.”

CNN This Morning host Don Lemon announced on Monday that he has been terminated at the network.

Lemon announced his firing on Twitter, blasting the network’s management and saying “it is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”

“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play. With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I have worked with for an incredible run. They are the most talented journalists in the business, and I wish them all the best.”

Lemon’s firing was confirmed by CNN Chairman Chris Licht in a company memo, which was also shared in part by the network’s PR team …

Well, this is certainly an interesting double-header of sorts.  But, another drama continues on Twitter.  Everyone has the Blue Check Blues there.

Here are some interesting headings.

“These celebrities ‘subscribed to Twitter Blue.’ Except they’re dead.”   This is from the Washington Post.

“Twitter Restores Blue Check Marks For Many High-Profile Accounts—But Some Celebrities Don’t Want Them.”  This is from Forbes.

I couldn’t resist this one via Alex Kirshner at Slate.  “Elon Musk’s Weekend-Long Masterclass in Business Failure.”

It’s not that easy to get a hold of LeBron James’ people. Few celebrities are accessible, but James occupies a rarefied stratum of fame in which even getting his representatives to acknowledge you on some matter or another isn’t a given for most reporters. There are thousands of journalists and millions of other people who would like to ask LeBron something at any given time. Many reporters with serious questions might not even be able to obtain a no comment.

So consider what it must have taken for a reporter from the Verge, a technology website that has essentially nothing to do with the NBA, to quickly get a concise, newsmaking response from James’ people on Thursday. LeBron had previously tweeted that he would not pay for Twitter Blue, the subscription product that Elon Musk is now hawking in order to make a tiny dent in Twitter’s financial woes while alienating large numbers of the platform’s users. But when “legacy” verification check marks started to disappear on April 20, as the emoji purportedly became exclusive to paying subscribers, LeBron’s check did not disappear. He or his retinue apparently wanted to be rapidly clear with a Verge reporter about this fact:

LeBron’s media adviser then went on the record that James did not pay, and Musk confirmed thereafter that he was paying for some Blue subscriptions himself, upsetting some of his new fans, who are incensed that their populist champion has decided celebrities should get for free a product for which the plebs pay $8 a month. But the celebs look even less happy. On Saturday night, many accounts with more than 1 million followers—maybe all of them—were slapped with Twitter Blue subscription badges. Dead people got them too, with Musk or someone on his team deciding that Anthony Bourdain, Kobe Bryant, and Jamal Khashoggi should be branded as having paid for Twitter. Living famous people worked furiously to let people know that they had not paid for checks. Chrissy Teigen figured out that by changing her Twitter handle, she could make it go away. Lil Nas X swears “on [his] soul” that he did not buy Twitter Blue. Jason Alexander is exasperated. Sorta-famous media and political figures offered similar clarifications. CNN’s Daniel Dale noted the restored check mark on his account (which has since been unrestored) and said: “Obviously did not do this.”

 

So, here is a new poll concerning Women’s Reproductive Care.   First, this is a new Marist Poll. “Medication Abortions and the U.S. Supreme Court. NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll. Nearly Two in Three Oppose Banning Abortion Pill… Many Believe in FDA’s Final Approval of Prescription Drugs.”

With the U.S. Supreme Court weighing in on access to mifepristone, a prescription drug used to perform medication abortions, nearly two in three Americans say they oppose laws which ban access to medication abortions, and many believe federal judges should not have the right to overturn the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a prescription drug. The Supreme Court’s decision comes at a time when Americans’ confidence in the Court is at a low, and nearly seven in ten residents nationally say justices appointed to the Supreme Court should have limits placed on their tenure on the Bench. These findings are part of a larger survey on the issue of abortion which will be released on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Here is a new poll out of Arizona that has me in stitches from Laura Bassett at Jezebel.  “Kyrsten Sinema Has a Net Favorability of -23, Per New Statewide Poll.”

A new poll out of Arizona by a well-trusted, independent national pollster, Public Policy Polling, shows that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I) stands to lose re-election badly in virtually any potential matchup this November and is deeply unpopular among voters.

The survey results, first obtained by Jezebel via an internal Ruben Gallego campaign memo, show that just 27 percent of voters in the state view Sinema favorably and want her to run again, compared to 50 percent of Arizonans who view her unfavorably and 54 percent who say she shouldn’t run again. Rep. Gallego (D-Ariz.), her likely Democratic challenger, has a net positive favorability, with 39 percent of voters approving of him and 28 percent disapproving.

 

I have to say it’s a pretty good news day for a Monday these days.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: Rightwing Edgelords and Homegrown Terrorism

Posted: April 21, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , | 15 Comments

Portraits of Philly homicide victims’ families on display in City Hall – WHYY

Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Yesterday, BB’s compelling post made me wonder if we would ever get out of the grip of the gun fetishists in this country. I found there are art projects around our country focused on ensuring the victims of gun violence–including their families–are not forgotten in this discussion.

I will start with the Philadelphia project, but please follow the caption links to see more. I want to ensure that we don’t glorify the works of Rightwing Edgelords and those inducted into the Gun Cult by Fox and other right-wing media personas. “‘Faces you need to see’: Loved ones of violence victims share grief in new art exhibit. A new art exhibit at City Hall features gun violence co-victims, or people who’ve lost someone to homicide — stories often lost in the daily homicide count”. This was on display in 2022.

Organizer Zarinah Lomax conceived the portrait project, which features 45 co-victims and will be on display until Oct. 15. She lost a family member to gun violence in 2018 and has been working with families affected by trauma since. Lomax is a host with PQ Radio 1, one of WHYY’s N.I.C.E media partners.

“A lot of the time we paint the victims,” she said to a packed room at the exhibit opening. “But these are faces you need to see, these are the victims that are still here.”

I learned something new from VICE today. “Rightwing Edgelords Are the Real Threat to National Security. “The amount of Three Percenters and Boogaloo guys I work with is untenable,” said one Department of Defense worker.” My first that was  what is an Edgelord exactly?

This is from the Oxford languages dictionary.
“a person who affects a provocative or extreme persona, especially online (typically used of a man).”

Special to The Sun: The “Souls Shot Portrait Project” at Rowan College of South Jersey includes this portrait of gun violence victim Kevin Miller, made by Professor Eoin Kinnarney.

“edgelords act like contrarians in the hope that everyone will admire them as rebels”

I love this bit from Your Dictionary. “What’s an ‘Edgelord’ and Why Do You Never Want to Be One?” It’s written by

An edgelord is someone with harsh opinions that they express in distasteful, offensive language to seem both edgy and aloof. As a 21st-century provocateur, an edgelord is especially attracted to taboo and controversial topics, which best showcase their would-be nihilism.

This person may dress in a provocative or shocking way, making them easy to spot. Unlike online trolls, who often are just normies trying to start trouble, edgelords set themselves apart from the norm in every way possible.

Well, that description and the “typically used of a man” thing lit up my mind with faces. However, I’d still say the High Priestess of QAnon strikes me as an Edgelady; back to the Vice article.

Since the beginning of the Biden Administration, the GOP has painstakingly attacked the Pentagon as a “woke” institution that’s somehow morphing the military and the nation into a soft power. Drag queen story hours and “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) training have become buzzwords for institutional rot, popping up on Fox News and in congressional committees as national security threats destroying the Department of Defense.

Then last week it was revealed that perhaps the most damaging unauthorized disclosure of U.S. intelligence since Wikileaks, wasn’t laid at the hands of some “woke warrior” but apparent Discord edgelord and national guardsman Jack Teixeira, highlighting what ideological beliefs might actually pose a threat to the U.S. government.

A gun and military gear enthusiast, Teixeira led a Discord server made up of young men and reportedly appears in a video firing a weapon while yelling antisemitic epithets (the chatroom was also reportedly rife with racist shitpostings). He was even touted as a posterboy for the extremist corners of the right, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene who called him “white, male, Christian, and anti-war”—a reference to the anti-Ukraine War sentiment among Republicans. Teixeira has been charged with the removal, retention, and transmission of classified documents and could face over a decade in prison if convicted.

While it isn’t exactly clear what Teixeira’s beliefs or motivations were, the behavior on the Discord certainly bears the hallmarks of an edgelord; usually very online, young men posting mock-shocking memes and comments for lols and kudos among each other. Someone allegedly taking classified information to impress their chaos-loving online friends is yet another security threat to a defense force that military sources say has yet to even properly handle individuals with anti-government or extremist beliefs.

“It highlights the need to screen harder in our clearance process,” said a veteran and Department of Defense worker who was not authorized to speak to the media. They said that even in the intelligence world, seeing people who voice support for the militia movement, long understood to be a veiled version of white supremacy and anti-governmentalism, isn’t shocking.

“I’m not saying Republicans can’t have clearances, but the amount of Three Percenters and Boogaloo guys I work with is untenable,” they said, referring to two extremist groups that were active during the attacks on January 6.

A mural of Melissa Ortega, an 8-year-old victim of gun violence in Chicago, painted by artist Milton Coronado.
From my own home New Orleans and WWNO: Opinion: Painting the smiles of people we know, love and will never see again

Well, alrighty then. These aren’t the suspects he works on or cases he’s investigating; these are his fucking co-workers in the DOD. Well, we’ve suspected that haven’t we? White Christian evangelicals have been the plague of the Air Force Academy for decades. I guess this is just the next extension. More from Vice.

It’s well established that there is a threat of rightwing extremist violence among a minority of both active duty servicemen and veterans, but they can also clearly be an intelligence threat. The latest leaks alone likely led to the delay of a multibillion dollar Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia and major headaches between Washington and some of its key allies.

“Right-wing extremists in the military pose security risks beyond their potential for violence,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, an expert on the far right at the Counter Extremism Project, a New York City-based nonprofit terrorism watchdog. “The recent leak case highlights the possibility that individuals could share sensitive information with a broader online audience or with potential extremists or other hostile actors. Ideological views that sympathize with a U.S. opponent might also heighten the risk of sharing sensitive information.”

If you read more, you will discover they love Baby-Face Rittenhouse, the poster child for getting away with murder. Please read more.

Here are some more headlines today that will make your stomach churn. How did things get so out of control? This is from the Washington Post. “Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: ‘I am your justice’. The former president is proposing deploying the military domestically, purging the federal workforce and building futuristic cities from scratch.” This doesn’t sound like Hitler. It sounds like Stalin and Big Brother. ”

Mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce and charging leakers.

Former president Donald Trump has steadily begun outlining his vision for a second-term agenda, focusing on unfinished business from his time in the White House and an expansive vision for how he would wield federal power. In online videos and stump speeches, Trump is pledging to pick up where his first term left off and push even further.

Where he earlier changed border policies to reduce refugees and people seeking asylum, he’s now promising to conduct an unprecedented deportation operation. Where he previously moved to make it easier to fire federal workers, he’s now proposing a new civil service exam. After urging state and local officials to take harsher measures on crime and homelessness, Trump says he is now determined to take more direct federal action.

“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said in a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference and repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco a few weeks later. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Trump’s emerging platform marks a sharp departure from traditional conservative orthodoxy emphasizing small government, which was famously summed up in Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Trump, by contrast, is proposing to apply government power, centralized under his authority, toward a vast range of issues that have long remained outside the scope of federal control.

This is from CNN’s Zach Cohen. “Exclusive: Text messages reveal Trump operatives considered using breached voting data to decertify Georgia’s Senate runoff in 2021.” That’s basically the Watergate break-in on steroids.

In mid-January 2021, two men hired by former President Donald Trump’s legal team discussed over text message what to do with data obtained from a breached voting machine in a rural county in Georgia, including whether to use it as part of an attempt to decertify the state’s pending Senate runoff results.
The texts, sent two weeks after operatives breached a voting machine in Coffee County, Georgia, reveal for the first time that Trump allies considered using voting data not only to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, but also in an effort to keep a Republican hold on the US Senate.
“Here’s the plan. Let’s keep this close hold,” Jim Penrose, a former NSA official working with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell to access voting machines in Georgia, wrote in a January 19 text to Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, a firm that purports to run audits of voting systems.

In the text, which was obtained by CNN and has not been previously reported, Penrose references the upcoming certification of Democrat Jon Ossoff’s win over Republican David Perdue.

“We only have until Saturday to decide if we are going to use this report to try to decertify the Senate run-off election or if we hold it for a bigger moment,” Penrose wrote, referring to a potential lawsuit.

The plot to breach voting systems in Coffee County, coordinated by members of Trump’s legal team including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, is part of a broader criminal investigation into 2020 election interference led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Willis’ office is weighing a potential racketeering case against multiple defendants and is actively deciding who to bring charges against, sources tell CNN. Willis has subpoenaed a number of individuals involved in the Coffee County breach, including the two men who carried it out who were in touch with Penrose and Logan.

From the Twin Cities Exhibit Art is my Weapon:A painting of Aniya Allen by Laura Kruchten titled “Sweet Baby.” Allen was shot and killed in 2021 while eating a Happy Meal in her parent’s car.

To the ice floes, all you grannies and grampies out there! Poll: GOP voters say fighting “woke” ideology more important than stopping Social Security cuts. This is from Axios. Look to your left. Look to your right. One out of three Americans are Republican, and they may be out to kill you. This is written by Erin Doherty.

Most Republican primary voters say fighting “woke” ideology in schools and businesses is more important to them than protecting Medicare and Social Security from cuts, a new Wall Street Journal poll out today showed.
Driving the news: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a potential 2024 candidate, has made conservative cultural issues in education a central part of his agenda, a move the poll indicates could help him with the GOP’s most ardent supporters.

He signed into law a ban on the instruction of gender and sexuality in elementary school, which was recently expanded to include middle and high school.

He also signed the “Stop WOKE” Act which would ban classroom and corporate trainings that make students or employees feel discomfort over their race. (The bill has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.)

The big picture: Former President Trump has attacked DeSantis over his past support for changes to Social Security and Medicare.
But 55% of Republicans say that fighting “woke ideology in our schools and businesses” is more important than protecting entitlement programs from cuts, per the Journal poll.

27% of Republican voters say protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits from cuts is more important to them.

However, 49% of all voters said they would support a candidate who pledged to keep entitlements as they are rather than push for cuts.

Zoom out: The poll also shows DeSantis trailing Trump 51% to 38% among likely Republican voters in a hypothetical matchup.

Here are some other bits of Republican Fuckery.

Washington Post: Abortion ban states see steep drop in OB/GYN residency applicants
Associated Press: Once-a-week nightmare: US mass killings on a record pace
Zack Beauchamp / Vox: Why so many top Republicans want to go to war in Mexico
Politico: The Threat of Civil Breakdown Is Real
Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker: Fox News Doesn’t Do Apologies

Just as a short note, Buzzfeed is shutting down.

.
“I’ve taken all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more.” to quote my first-grade hero.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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