““No Mortal Man is Above the Law,” sayeth the Supremes. Enjoy your Independence Day; if the Conflicted Convicted Felon is elected, it’ll be our last.” John Buss, Repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday, and it’s my youngest daughter’s too. When we lived in the Quarter, we would always walk our 2 blonde labs to the Mississippi River Bank and watch the left and east bank boats launch a huge fireworks display. Down here in the Bywater, it’s still the same short walk to the riverbank, but the Poland Avenue Wharf or the newest Crescent Park are the favorite places to go. Cars always turn to our local NPR station for patriotic music and blast it loud. You can tell when it’s time for the display because all the bars and houses empty into the streets and head south to the banks of the Mississippi River. I have always wondered what past celebrations were like, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.
I spent the pre-show hours with friends listening to his industrial band livestream their efforts while sitting in their driveway patio. It seemed like a normal fourth. While everyone headed to the river, I headed home to Temple to let her dig a burrow under me to hide from the noise. No displays for me in the last 10 years. Just time at home in bed comforting Temple. The weird thing this year was the fireworks didn’t seem to bother her, and she spent most of the time spooning me. Maybe she sensed that my fear was far greater than hers today. It’s a thought.
Twilight’s last gleaming from last night at my neighbor’s driveway patio.
The swiftboating of the democratic candidate season has begun. My friend who owns the bar on the corner told me she’s hearing from others besides me who are looking for places to become expats. Given the Le Pen elections, I’m researching the south of France right now, although they may soon have their counter-revolution. Russia is happy about that one. I’m sure they have high hopes for us.
If you haven’t seen this little speech, you really should. “Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution. Kevin Roberts said the revolution will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” This is from the AP but sourced at Politico.
The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.
His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.
“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”
James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.
“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.
Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress. The New Republic‘s Parker Malloy has a good point here. “Why Does the Media Insist on Helping Steve Bannon Act the Martyr? NBC and ABC snagged pre-prison interviews with the far-right globalist. But to what end? They became tools in his propaganda machine.” The press just falls right in line by normalizing this behavior.
NBC News’s Vaughn Hillyard and ABC News’s Jonathan Karl recently made a journalistic misstep by interviewing Steve Bannon right before he reported to prison. This move, which might seem innocuous at first glance, actually elevates Bannon’s “political prisoner” narrative, a misleading storyline that does little but bolster the War Room host’s victim complex.
By interviewing Bannon just before he heads to prison, both NBC and ABC are essentially giving him a platform to paint himself as a martyr.
It allows Bannon to control the narrative. This plays directly into the hands of Bannon and his supporters, who are eager to cast any legal action against them as part of a broader conspiracy to silence dissent. It’s a classic tactic: position yourself as a victim to garner sympathy and rally support.
But Bannon is not going to prison for his political beliefs or his support for Donald Trump. He’s going to prison because he defied a congressional subpoena. By allowing Bannon to put some focus on his claims of political persecution, these interviews shift attention away from his actual misconduct and the legal consequences of that misconduct. This undermines the rule of law and gives credence to the idea that powerful individuals can evade accountability by crying foul.
Beyond that, it normalizes extremist rhetoric. In his interview with Karl, Bannon doubled down on his inflammatory language, discussing “retribution” and the need for investigations and potential imprisonments of political figures. Bannon listed former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr as people who should be “very worried” about prosecution under a second Trump administration. Bannon defended his use of the slogan “Victory or Death!” at the recent Turning Point Action convention and rolled his eyes at Karl for even asking him about his 2020 comments about beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church.
“Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.
In all this, Robinson appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left, though he wasn’t exactly clear on which “folks” are the ones who “need killing.”
Robinson, a self-described “MAGA Republican,” has a long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments. He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, among many other things.
President Joe Biden will hold a rally Friday in Wisconsin and then sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance last week, events could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.
The interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes moments for a president or a candidate in many years. Democratic elected officials, donors and voters will be closely watching to see whether he can still deliver in an adversarial setting and turn in a performance worthy of being the party’s nominee to defeat Donald Trump this fall.
The interview will “air in its entirety as a primetime special” at 8 p.m. ET Friday, ABC said, adding that a “transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day.”
Before that, Biden is expected to speak this afternoon at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. At the rally, Biden will “underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy,” a campaign official said. Also speaking will be Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., among others.
The White House said the interview team from ABC “will be with us all day in Wisconsin” and able to cover the rally event and to observe the president as he participates in his schedule, and said it has “some flexibility” around the length of the sit-down but “no exact estimate” of the duration of the conversation.
Read the next paragraph, which I will not print here, and try not to bang your head against your desk, wall, or coffee table. Law Professor Richard W. Painter is floating a Constitutional Amendment on X.
Const. Amend. 28: “The President and the judges of the United States courts including the Supreme Court, shall be bound by the criminal laws of the United States and also by financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws enacted by Congress.” So who votes against?
So, I have to share this one from the New York Times even though I’m about to cancel my subscription. “Biden Tells Governors He Needs More Sleep and Less Work at Night. The president’s opening remark to a group of key Democratic leaders — that he was in the race to stay — chilled any talk of his withdrawal, participants said.” The usual suspects, Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Haberman, reported it.
President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m., according to two people who participated in the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.
The remarks on Wednesday were a stark acknowledgment of fatigue from the 81-year-old president during a meeting intended to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of his job and capable of mounting a robust campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.
But Mr. Biden told the governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he was staying in the race.
He described his extensive foreign travel in the weeks before the debate, something that the White House and his allies have in recent days cited as the reason for his halting performance during the debate. Initially, Mr. Biden’s campaign blamed a cold, putting out word about midway through the debate amid a series of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.
Mr. Biden said that he told his staff he needed to get more sleep, multiple people familiar with what took place in the meeting said. He repeatedly referenced pushing too hard and not listening to his team about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what took place at the meeting.
After Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a physician, asked Mr. Biden questions about the status of his health, Mr. Biden replied that his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with what took place — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, according to a person close to her. But at least one governor did not, and was puzzled by it.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he had said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly making a joke.”
So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried. I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription. I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too. None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.
This is from a poll taken in April and reported by the AP on May 1. “Half of US adults mistrust media coverage of 2024 elections, a poll finds. About half of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. According to a poll, 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. (AP Video: Serkan Gurbuz)”
I think it’s likely that if they redid that this month, they’d find a statistically significant increase in the number of people saying that. However, I admit that I live in the Southern City that promptly surrendered when Captain David Farragut of the Union Navy bombed two forts and arrived at the port. We are a haven for the GLBT community. We also have a strong Jewish presence and are well known for being a place of refuge for many diasporas. Our new governor hates us and wants to take away our city charter, which is the legal means by which we don’t become the rest of the state. You have to wonder how many cities like ours will come under direct attack if MAGA either gets its way or doesn’t.
The only way out of this is to VOTE and get everyone you know to VOTE because our lives depend on it.
I really hope you got to enjoy a little celebration on Independence Day. I’m still on board with ensuring liberty and justice for all. I am also standing by the Biden/Harris ticket. Again, you realize that I have had a lot of gripes in the past about Biden and what happened to Anita Hill. It is somewhat karmic that what is going on now is somewhat built in by the bad decision he, Teddy Kennedy, and John Kerry made about Clarence Thomas. Forty-eight percent of the Senate was against his confirmation. He should’ve been Borked. That, unfortunately, is toxic water under the bridge of democracy, but we have what we have now, and it is what it is. Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin and fight for it. The Roberts Supreme Court just took down the republic.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
–Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can’t stand the scene And I’m neither left or right I’m just staying home tonight Getting lost in that hopeless little screen But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags That time cannot decay I’m junk but I’m still holding up This little wild bouquet Democracy is coming to the U.S.A
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“The compromised Supreme Court has created a monster.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It certainly isn’t morning in America by any usual standards. The Roberts Court continues its attack on precedent. The first line of Justice Sotomayer’s dissent is chilling. Today, I am crying in my office with her.
“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” – Justice Sotomayor.
This is her warning.
“When [the president] uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
Notably, Judge Sotomayor does not use the adverb “respectfully” before she closes her dissent. She’s appropriately disgusted with the majority opinion.
“The nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority; he is also entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts; there is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
“Bottom line: This case is not going to trial any time soon. There is the possibility of additional appeals as Judge Chutkan makes some of the decisions about official versus private conduct, etc. It’s a mess.”
As we finally reach the end of another harrowing US Supreme Court term, one overarching theme has emerged: this Court doesn’t believe in the separation of powers.
Three decisions from last week highlight the remarkable success of the right-wing justices in accruing control, drastically shifting power away from the executive and legislative branches.
Think of the separation of powers as having two layers. One is the power of each branch: the legislative branch makes the laws, the executive branch enforces the law, and the judicial branch interprets the law. The other layer is the checks and balances part. Congress passes laws, but that power is checked by the president’s ability to veto them and the judiciary’s ability to invalidate unconstitutional ones. The president’s ability to appoint a cabinet requires the approval of Congress, and the executive branch’s authority to enact regulations and executive actions can be invalidated by the courts.
And then there’s the courts. Where the courts can interpret and invalidate both laws and regulations, there is no similar power to undo a court ruling absent significant friction. In theory, the check from the executive is that the president has the power to nominate judges, and the check from Congress is that it can approve or reject those appointees. You’ll note that neither of those checks allows the legislative or executive branch to easily unwind a specific court decision, but instead only to commit to a long-range course of action of nomination and approval to slowly change the composition of the judiciary.
Another check is that Congress could pass laws that alter the power and composition of the federal courts, such as expanding the courts by creating new courts and increasing the number of judges. Again, however, that’s a long-range plan that requires massive effort and the agreement of the executive branch.
Meanwhile, six unelected right-wing justices, all of whom have a lifetime position, have pulled off what is likely the biggest power grab in American history, knowing full well there’s no way that the other two branches can get it together enough to stop them.
The Leonard Leo Six will certainly get their gratuities this summer. They’ve essentially crippled Federal Agencies. I say this as I sit through my 3rd consecutive year of record-setting temperatures while watching two record-setting hurricanes take aim at the Gulf. NPR’s Nina Totenberg has just posted this analysis on the Absolute immunity debacle. “Supreme Court says Trump has absolute immunity for core acts only.” Was Trump ever doing official acts? That’s my first question.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, ruled that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers — and is entitled to a presumption of immunity for his official acts, but lacks immunity for unofficial acts. But at the same time, the court sent the case back to the trial judge to determine which, if any of Trump’s actions, were part of his official duties and thus were protected from prosecution.
That part of the court’s decision likely ensures that the case against Trump won’t be tried before the election, and then only if he is not reelected. If he is reelected, Trump could order the Justice Department to drop the charges against him, or he might try to pardon himself in the two pending federal cases.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s decision, joined by his fellow conservatives. Dissenting were the three liberals, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Monday’s decision to send the case back to trial Judge Tanya Chutkan all but guarantees that there will be no Trump trial on the election interference charges for months. Even before the immunity case, Judge Chutkan indicated that trial preparations would likely take three months. Now, she will also have to decide which of the charges in the Trump indictment should remain and which involve official acts that under the Supreme Court ruling are protected from prosecution.
Even after Judge Chutkan separates the constitutional wheat from the chaff, Trump could seek further delays, as immunity questions are among the very few that may be appealed prior to trial.
Monday’s Supreme Court decision came months after the court agreed to hear the case Feb. 28 and scheduled arguments for two months later. Court critics have noted that the justices could have considered the case as early as in December, when Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith unsuccessfully sought review of the same questions later put forward by Trump.
Mere hours after the Supreme Court sharply curbed the power of federal agencies, conservatives and corporate lobbyists began plotting how to harness the favorable ruling in a redoubled quest to whittle down climate, finance, health, labor and technology regulations in Washington.
The early strategizing underscored the magnitude of the justices’ landmark decision, which rattled the nation’s capital and now appears poised to touch off years of lawsuits that could redefine the U.S. government’s role in modern American life.
The legal bombshell arrived Friday, when the six conservatives on the Supreme Court invalidated a decades-old legal precedent that federal judges should defer to regulatory agencies in cases where the law is ambiguous or Congress fails to specify its intentions. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. described the framework as “unworkable,” at one point arguing in his opinion that it “prevents judges from judging.”
Many conservatives and businesses long had chafed over the legal doctrine, known as Chevron deference after a case involving the oil giant in the 1980s. They had encouraged the Supreme Court over the past year to dismantle the precedent in a flood of legal filings, then rejoiced when the nation’s highest judicial panel sided with them this week — paving the way for industry to commence a renewed assault against the power and reach of the executive branch.
“This means that agencies are going to have a hard time defending their legal positions,” said Daryl Joseffer, the executive vice president and chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center, which filed an amicus brief in the case. “That means it will be easier to challenge some regulations than it used to be. That obviously has a real impact on whether it’s worth bringing some cases.”
We are truly fucked. Independence Day has been overturned. We should spend the 4th of July wondering what we did to give away the promise of our country’s founding and its continual forward march to giving all of us liberty and Justice. Corporations now have more power. SCOTUS has more power. Donald will be hypercharged with power if he is re-elected. This power grab needs to stop. There is no way that Alito and Thomas should decide anything concerning January 6th, given that their wives are deeply caught up in the treason. I look forward to the response from both the President and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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“I’ve got the real debate covered, so you can watch baseball this debate night. Here it is in one screenshot. You’re welcome.” John Buss, @Repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancing!
The last thing I remember about the debate last night was Donald spewing the usual christofascist lies about abortion. At some point, I refilled my wine glass, turned it all off, and fell asleep looking at real estate in Mexico. I even tried to comment at the start, but it became too shocking for me to continue with that at some point. I didn’t get a live thread up last night. I woke up at 5 a.m., unable to process what I had seen.
I remember why I never watch CNN anymore, and I’m more firmly committed to that decision. Here’s the best they could do this morning. It’s a healthy dose of bothsiderism. “Fact-checking the CNN presidential debate — Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump made false and misleading claims during CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday – but Trump did so far more than Biden, just like in their debates in 2020. — Trump made more than 30 false claims at the Thursday debate.”
The American people lost the debate last night, and it was more painful than usual to watch the parade of platitudes and evasions that worked in the debate format run by CNN. The network’s glossy pundit-moderators started by ignoring the elephants in the room – that one of the two men standing at the podiums was a convicted felon, the leader of a coup attempt, an alleged thief of national security documents who was earlier this year found liable in a civil court for rape, and has promised to usher in a vengeful authoritarian regime if he returns to office.
Instead they launched the debate with the dead horse they love to beat in election years, the deficit and taxes. Throughout the excruciating evening, Joe Biden in a hoarse voice said diligent things that were reasonably true and definitely sincere; Donald Trump in a booming voice said lurid things that were flamboyantly untrue. The grim spectacle was a reminder that this is a style over substance game.
Debates are a rite in which not truth but showmanship wins the day, and in which participants get judged as though it was a sporting event – which it pretty much is, in high school and college debate events. Before 2016, presidential debates were relatively decorous events in which the participants slammed each other, but more or less within the parameters of the true and the real with maybe a little distortion and exaggeration.
Then came Trump. You cannot win a debate with a shameless liar, because what you’re supposed to be debating are facts and positions. A lie is a kind of poison; once it’s in the room it makes an impression that is hard to undo, and trying to undo it only amplifies it.
Trump’s positions on anything and everything shift and slide at will, and he lies about his own past with pathological confidence – in this debate he both denied that he had sex with Stormy Daniels and that he praised the white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville in 2017. More substantively he lied – unchallenged, except by Biden – about his role in the January 6 coup attempt, and the CNN pundits did not trouble him further about his crimes. Trump talked about whatever he wanted – asked about the opiates crisis, he reverted to the lurid stories about sex crimes and open borders that obsess him and inflame his followers.
Most outrageous of all, and of course utterly unchecked, was one of the falsehoods Trump has been pushing for years – the claim that abortion continues on into infanticide, that doctors and new mothers are murdering babies at birth. That one candidate has long supported reproductive rights and the other has led the attack on them was not something you would learn from this debate.
I will also share this analysis by Historian Heather Cox Richardson from her substack Letters from an American.
Tonight was the first debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and by far the most striking thing about the debate was the overwhelming focus among pundits immediately afterward about Biden’s appearance and soft, hoarse voice as he rattled off statistics and events. Virtually unmentioned was the fact that Trump lied and rambled incoherently, ignored questions to say whatever he wanted; refused to acknowledge the events of January 6, 2021; and refused to commit to accepting the result of the 2024 presidential election, finally saying he would accept it only if it met his standards for fairness.
Immediately after the debate, there were calls for Biden to drop out of the race, but aside from the fact that the only time a presidential candidate has ever done that—in 1968—it threw the race into utter confusion and the president’s party lost, Biden needed to demonstrate that his mental capacity is strong in order to push back on the Republicans’ insistence that he is incapable of being president. That, he did, thoroughly. Biden began with a weak start but hit his stride as the evening wore on. Indeed, he covered his bases too thoroughly, listing the many accomplishments of his administration in such a hurry that he was sometimes hard to understand.
In contrast, Trump came out strong but faded and became less coherent over time. His entire performance was either lies or rambling non-sequiturs. He lied so incessantly throughout the evening that it took CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale almost three minutes, speaking quickly, to get through the list.
Trump said that some Democratic states allow people to execute babies after they’re born and that every legal scholar wanted Roe v. Wade overturned—both fantastical lies. He said that the deficit is at its highest level ever and that the U.S. trade deficit is at its highest ever: both of those things happened during his administration. He lied that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency; there were many. He said that Biden wants to quadruple people’s taxes—this is “pure fiction,” according to Dale—and lied that his tax cuts paid for themselves; they have, in fact, added trillions of dollars to the national debt.
Dale went on: Trump lied that the U.S. has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has when it’s the other way around, and he was off by close to $100 billion when he named the amount the U.S. has provided to Ukraine. He was off by millions when he talked about how many migrants have crossed the border under Biden, and falsely claimed that some of Biden’s policies—like funding historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and reducing the price of insulin to $35 a month—were his own accomplishments.
I refuse to listen to calls for Joe to quit. Me, the nagging naysayer about Joe’s days in the Senate.
The Supreme Court on Friday curtailed the power of federal government agencies to regulate vast swaths of American life, overturning a 40-year-old legal precedent long targeted by conservatives who say the government gives unaccountable bureaucrats too much authority.
Writing for the majority in the 6-3 ruling, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that framework has proved “unworkable” and allowed federal agencies to change course even without direction from Congress.
The court is finally ending “our 40-year misadventure with Chevron deference,” Roberts said, reading parts of his opinion from the bench.
The court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented, with Kagan writing that the majority has turned itself into “the country’s administrative czar,” taking power away from Congress and regulatory agencies.
“A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris,” she said, reading part of her dissent from the bench.
The precedent, established in 1984, gave federal agencies flexibility to determine how to implement legislation passed by Congress. The framework has been used extensively by the U.S. government to defend regulations designed to protect the environment, financial markets, consumers and the workplace.
Federal prosecutors improperly charged hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants with obstruction, a divided Supreme Court ruled on Friday, upending many cases against rioters who disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
After the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors charged more than 350 participants in the pro-Trump mob with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding. The charge carries a 20-year maximum penalty and is part of a law enacted after the exposure of massive fraud andshredding of documents during the collapse of the energy giant Enron.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the government’s broad reading of the statute would give prosecutors too much discretion to seek a 20-year maximum sentence “for acts Congress saw fit to punish only with far shorter terms of imprisonment.”
The first question about January 6 was asked at minute 41.
Donald Trump replied with a barrage of crazy lies, ending by seeming to blame Nancy Pelosi’s documentarian daughter.
Then, just to be fair, CNN moderator Jake Tapper followed up with a question to President Joe Biden. Did he really mean to imply that Trump’s voters were a danger to democracy?
Biden fumbled the answer, as he fumbled so many other answers. The octogenarian president delivered a fiasco of a performance on the Atlanta debate stage. But the fiasco was not his alone.
Everything about the event was designed to blur the choice before Americans. Both candidates—the serving president and the convicted felon—were addressed as “President.” The questions treated an attempted coup d’état as one issue out of many. The candidates were left to police or fail to police the truth of each other’s statements; it was nobody else’s business.
Today, CNN is hinting a producer thinks it was just terrific. But as Frum states, this is not a choice between Colgate and Crest, which is basically how the Nixon-Kennedy debate was presented back in the days of real Don Drapers. David Kurtz of Talking Points Memohas a similar analysis. How can you present a debate highlighting a sociopath with a proven performance of madness as just another presidential choice regardless of the presumed issues with President Biden?
I’m going to the dentist this afternoon. It’s a nice, mundane thing to walk down the street, head into the office, and sit in the waiting room with everyone else. Not my favorite mundane thing, but mundane none the less. I’m going to try escapism again like retired Lt. General Honore. I’m not sure what the form will be, but I enjoyed seeing all those nice little houses in Mexico.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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“Meanwhile… at Mar-a-Lardo, debate prep is in full swing for the convicted felon and presumptive Republican presidential candidate.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The media might finally be waking up to the threat to democracy and our country that Donald, his thralls, his plan, and the people who have planted themselves around him pose. Perhaps their short attention spans have turned toward the Thursday Presidential Debate. It’s also possible that the more you know about Project 2025, the more you realize how dangerous these people are. More news outlets are beginning to report on it.
From his home office in small-town Kentucky, a seasoned political operative is quietly investigating scores of federal employees suspected of being hostile to the policies of Republican Donald Trump, a highly unusual and potentially chilling effort that dovetails with broader conservative preparations for a new White House.
Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They’re relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including workers. In a move that alarms some, they’re preparing to publish the findings online.
Today, Donald will be in Sleazy Steve Scalise’s district for fundraising. I can only imagine which of the outstate Republicans will come to lay out his trough. This is reported by nola.com, the remnants of the once-great Times-Picayune. “Donald Trump to visit New Orleans on Monday to raise cash for his presidential campaign.” I imagine our new D’ohvenor will be there to take the knee. The Oil and Gas Companies down here will shovel cash in his direction, and there will be White Christian Nationalists to encourage his angry, hateful, bigoted tirades.
Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit New Orleans on Monday for a fundraiser, less than a month after he was convicted on 34 felony charges in a New York courtroom.
The first criminal conviction of a U.S. president seems to have only cleaved supporters to him even closer.
Business owner Boysie Bollinger, who is hosting Trump at his Uptown New Orleans home, said organizers were originally hoping to raise $2 million but now believe they’ll collect $5 million.
“The obvious abuse by the (legal) system has got people upset,” Bollinger said. “It’s empowered people and made them feel stronger about him having a viable chance to run a good race.”
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, whose district includes the slice around Tulane University that includes Bollinger’s home, will be the special guest at the event.
“The stakes have never been higher,” said Scalise, the number two Republican in the U.S. House. “The Democratic Party has moved so far to the left under Biden that Barack Obama looks like a moderate.”
Trump’s visit takes place only three days before he and President Joe Biden engage in the first televised debate of the 2024 campaign. Tens of millions of people are expected to watch the 90-minute telecast on CNN.
There’s some good news on the polling front, at least. However, it’s still too early to count on anything. This is from Politico, as reported by Adam Wren. “Trump is on a fundraising blitz. But there are other warning signs for Republicans. For the first time this year, the Fox News poll had Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by two points, within the poll’s margin of error.”
For Republicans who spent much of the year crowing about Joe Biden’s weaknesses, Donald Trump’s massive fundraising haul looked like an affirmation, with the former president erasing Joe Biden’s longstanding cash advantage.
But outside of the money race, a series of other developments in recent days have left even Republicans with the impression that November may not be quite as good for the GOP as it once seemed.
First came the GOP’s underperformance in a special House race in a deep-red swath of Ohio that included a swing county. Then, after Republicans over the weekend nominated a far-right candidate for lieutenant governor in Indiana, a top national GOP lawyer predicted a “serious” threat to the top of the ticket even in the heart of MAGA country.
For the first time this year, the poll has Biden leading Trump by two points, 50-48, within the margin of error.
Trump may be raking in donations. But across the country, the mood of Republicans has dimmed, according to nearly a dozen Republican operatives, county chairs and current and former GOP officials. It comes amid ongoing concerns about the effect of abortion on Republican candidates. And it follows defections from Trump in the primaries and, most recently, polling that has found Trump’s conviction in his New York hush-money trial hurting him with independents.
There’s also evidence that young voters back Biden/Harris in another poll reported by The Hill. “Young voters backing Biden over Trump by 23-point margin: Poll.” However, this news is no reason to be complacent about anything. Back to Project 2025. The Guardian Explaineris one source to get basic information. “What is Project 2025, and what does it have to do with a second Trump term? Conservatives have created a guide for how Trump and allies could dismantle the US government if he wins the election.” This is from May of this year. Remember, the AP is already reporting they’re preparing to implement the plan.
The June edition of The Nation also provided a primer on what the plans will do. “Why Trump’s Second Victory Would Be Worse. There’s now a real, organized effort to transform his resentments and impulses into policy. It’s called Project 2025.” This effort was organized by Robert L. Borosage.
How far might Donald Trump go, if given a second chance? The estimates range from dictatorship to a rerun of his first term, when indolence, ignorance, and incompetence mitigated his menace.
But this time promises to be different—and far worse. Trump’s tempestuous stump performances, which meld vaudeville with venom, provide a clue. He has repeatedly promised to round up and deport millions of immigrants, pardon the January 6 offenders, prosecute his persecutors, impose tariffs on all imports—perhaps higher than 60 percent on goods from China—and “Drill, baby, drill!”
What’s different this time, as this special issue details, is that there is now an organized effort to transform Trump’s resentments and impulses into policy. Trump’s MAGA acolytes have not only dethroned the Republican establishment in Congress and red-state legislatures; they have taken over the party’s think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, once the bastion of Reagan conservatism.
Now these MAGA operatives are, in the words of Heritage president Kevin D. Roberts, intent on “institutionalizing Trumpism.” The foundation’s Project 2025 includes a 900-page book, Mandate for Leadership, that lays out a Trumpist agenda for every corner of the government; a still-secret 180-day Transition Playbook for the first six months in office; a right-wing version of LinkedIn to recruit and vet candidates for political appointment; and a Presidential Academy to train them.
The essays in this issue describe core aspects of what is more assault than agenda, revealing how Project 2025 turns Trump’s insults and grievances into policy predicates. The result is a chilling guidebook to a second Trump term.
Back on September 19, 2018, then DC Chief Judge Beryl Howell denied a motion brought by an Egyptian bank to quash a subpoena for information on a suspected $10 million payment made to then-candidate Trump in fall 2016. That set off litigation that continued, at the District, Circuit, and Supreme Courts, for at least nine months.
As CNN described in 2020, not long after the investigation got shut down under Bill Barr, investigators had been trying to see whether Egypt (or some entity for which Egypt served as go-between) provided the money that Trump spent on his campaign weeks before the election.
For more than three years, federal prosecutors investigated whether money flowing through an Egyptian state-owned bank could have backed millions of dollars Donald Trump donated to his own campaign days before he won the 2016 election, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.
The investigation, which both predated and outlasted special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, examined whether there was an illegal foreign campaign contribution. It represents one of the most prolonged efforts by federal investigators to understand the President’s foreign financial ties, and became a significant but hidden part of the special counsel’s pursuits.
The investigation was kept so secret that at one point investigators locked down an entire floor of a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, so Mueller’s team could fight for the Egyptian bank’s records in closed-door court proceedings following a grand jury subpoena. The probe, which closed this summer with no charges filed, has never before been described publicly.
Prosecutors suspected there could be a link between the Egyptian bank and Trump’s campaign contribution, according to several of the sources, but they could never prove a connection.
It took months of legal fight after Judge Howell denied that motion to quash before the Egyptian bank in question complied, and once they got subpoena returns, prosecutors repeatedly complained that the bank was still withholding information, which led prosecutors to reopen the investigation with a new grand jury.
That much we know from documentation unsealed back in 2019 (part one, part two, part three), in response to a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press request for unsealing.
On August 17, 2023, while she was still Chief Judge, Beryl Howell ordered the government to post newly unsealed sets of some of the orders she issued during the litigation. On Thursday, Chief Judge Boasberg ordered that newly redacted set of opinions to be released. While Howell released six opinions in June 2019 along with the other materials from the case — with redactions done digitally, thereby hiding the length of redactions — just three new versions of her orders got released last week:
These may be limited to orders incorporated as appendices in prior appeals, which might also explain why the first two appear twice in the newly-released materials.
Much of the newly unsealed material pertains to a fight over how much Alston & Bird, the law firm representing the Egyptian bank, could say about the litigation publicly
Feeling any better? So, not only Russia but also China was actively backing Trump in the 2016 election. ABC News has some more background on the Documents case, which is languishing in Loose Cannon’s court. “Special counsel probed Trump Mar-a-Lago trip that aides ‘kept quiet’ weeks before FBI search: Sources. One witness was told Trump was “checking on the boxes,” sources said.”
A trip to Mar-a-Lago taken by former President Donald Trump that aides allegedly “kept quiet” just weeks before FBI agents searched the property for classified materials in his possession raised suspicions among special counsel Jack Smith’s team as a potential additional effort to obstruct the government’s classified documents investigation, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The previously unreported visit, which allegedly took place July 10-12 in the summer of 2022, was raised in several interviews with witnesses, sources familiar with the matter said, as investigators sought to determine whether it was part of Trump’s broader alleged effort to withhold the documents after receiving a subpoena demanding their return.
At least one witness who worked closely with the former president recalled being told at the time of the trip that Trump was there “checking on the boxes,” according to sources familiar with what the witness told investigators.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get them back. His longtime aide, Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira pleaded not guilty to related charges.
I’m glad more details on the Crime Spree, which is the Trump Campaign, are coming out. It may not impact the red state thralls, but it sure would play well with Independents and young voters if the Biden/Harris campaign can motivate them to turn out.
Anyway, Happy Monday! We’ll have a live thread on the night of the debate. However, WordPress has had endless problems lately since they made changes involving Jet Pack. It’s getting impossible for me to even comment on my post. I’ll try to call them on Wednesday, which is a day off from student time for me.
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The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the government may disarm a Texas man subject to a domestic violence order, limiting the sweep of its earlier blockbuster decision that vastly expanded gun rights.
That decision, issued in 2022, struck down a New York law that put strict limits on carrying guns outside the home. It also established a new legal standard for assessing laws limiting the possession of firearms, one whose reliance on historical practices has sown confusion as courts have struggled to apply it, with some judges sweeping aside gun control laws that have been on the books for decades.
The new case, United States v. Rahimi, explored the scope of that new test. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the majority opinion in the 2022 decision, dissented.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that Second Amendment rights had limits.
“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may — consistent with the Second Amendment — be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect,” he wrote. “Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”
The case started in 2019 when Zackey Rahimi, a drug dealer in Texas, assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, leading her to obtain a restraining order. The order suspended Mr. Rahimi’s handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.
Mr. Rahimi defied the order in flagrant fashion, according to court records.
He threatened a different woman with a gun, leading to charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Then, in the space of two months, he opened fire in public five times.
Now, if gun dealers would just follow the law. We’re still waiting for the big decision on absolute immunity. It’s now unlikely Donald will be put to trial for his insurrection. We also remember the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner as they fought for voting rights. If you haven’t watched the movie Mississippi Burning, you really should. Here’s a link to the FBI site and information on the case.
60 years later, we still struggle to achieve the ability to vote for every eligible voter.
And in other news, the state of Louisiana is getting national attention for going after the separation of Church and State. When people think of Louisiana, they usually think of good food, music, and fun! It’s a beautiful, diverse state in terms of geography and people. Now we’re in the headlines for this utter idiot that a very small number of people voted into the Governor’s House. The biggest lesson here is to go vote no matter what! Despite SCOTUS’s decisions over the years, he’s itching to take this case to court. Governor Klandry wants the state to create posters of the White Christian Nationalists’ version of the 10 commandments in every Louisiana public school classroom. The funny thing is the bill that’s now signed into law has 11 commandments. There are so many versions that you wonder why the Calvinist version always takes precedence. Oh, yes, White Christian Evangelicals want the ones positing the most control.
Still, I wonder if having a rainbow in your classroom is “grooming,” why is having to explain adultery to a kindergartner something else? Given the Dobbs Anniversary today, I’m not sure we rely on stare decisis. Remember when the late and not-so-great Roy Moore tried to get them displayed at Alabama courthouses? That didn’t go over so well with the court. Neither did the attempt to put them in classrooms in 1978. This current law violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent and the First Amendment. Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court overturned a similar state statute. The finding stated that the First Amendment bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. That was over 40 years ago. But remember, they ignored all kinds of precedents to dump Roe and are gunning for birth control. We need to vote and be vigilant
I found this CNN interview with Louisiana State Representative Lauren Ventrella conducted by Boris Sanchez. She actually makes Marjorie Taylor Greene seem a bit less unhinged. She screams and interrupts so much that it’s difficult to watch. At one point, she attacks the interviewer personally. (Check the tape at 2:54) I can’t believe these Republican women are getting more obnoxious than Michelle Bachman. At least this one wears professional clothing well do performance politics. Moses was that the first historical law giver. That would be Babalyonia’s Hammarubi about 500 years prior to the entire mountain event. The first time I went to the Louvre I had my exhusband take a picture of me standing next to a stone displaying his code. He presented 282 case laws over all kinds of subject areas too. That’s how impressed with it I was when I was studying ancient history in grade school and at university.
Much of the political press is yammering on about Trump’s big fundraising leap and speculation about the VEEP Sweepstakes with folks even saying Marco Rubio might be a game changer. However, let’s not forget the main point about Trump which is what my state did when the looked at the last govenor’s race and sat it out. his is from Stephen Robinson writing at Public Notice. ” Don’t be gaslit: Trump’s corruption is unparalleled. His egregious self-dealing is disqualifying no matter how much Republicans yell about Hunter Biden.” The author calls the move “classic swift-boating.”
“While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses,” Trump tweeted on November 30, 2016.
It quickly became clear, however, that Trump’s divestment plan was a joke: He merely turned over active control to his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric, which hardly satisfied ethics experts. For instance, Richard Painter, former ethics counsel to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, argued that Trump should “put all his conflict-generating assets in a true blind trust run by an independent trustee.”
Trump held a press conference a week before his inauguration that was supposed to clarify how he planned to hand the family business over to his sons. However, the documents placed next to him as evidence of his complex financial preparations were just props, binders filled with blank paper.
There’s no way we can face any more of his monkey business in the Oval Office. However, there’s another court trying slow down the application of Justice. This is from Politico. “Is Jack Smith’s appointment constitutional? Trump’s Florida judge is set to decide. A hearing starting Friday will delve into Trump’s claim that the special counsel lacks authority.” It’s hard to see such frivolous issues tie things up. This is written by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Donald Trump for allegedly stealing national security secrets is on trial Friday — just not in the way Smith intended.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has punted the case indefinitely and seems many months away from preparing it to go before a jury (assuming the case even makes it that far). Meanwhile, she has scheduled a multi-day hearing in her Fort Pierce, Florida, courtroom focused on whether Smith, the prosecutor leading the case, was unconstitutionally appointed or is otherwise acting without legal authority.
The claim is a far-fetched bid by Trump to scuttle the case altogether. Numerous courts have rejected nearly identical constitutional challenges to other special counsels.
And in a case that has moved like molasses for a year, Cannon’s decision to devote substantial time and resources to the argument is just the latest, and perhaps most blatant, example of her unusual approach. Her management of the case has frustrated the special counsel’s team and prompted critics to accuse her of being in the tank for Trump, who appointed her to the bench during his final year in office.
And in a case that has moved like molasses for a year, Cannon’s decision to devote substantial time and resources to the argument is just the latest, and perhaps most blatant, example of her unusual
The hearing on Trump’s challenge to Smith’s authority is set to begin Friday and to continue Monday morning. Later on Monday, Cannon plans to hear arguments on Smith’s request for an order barring Trump from lying about the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago that led to the criminal charges in the case. And then, on Tuesday, Cannon has scheduled an additional hearing on another Trump motion that could derail the case.
This comes after it was reported that at least two colleagues approached her to ask her to not take the case. Here’s some information on that. This is from LA Magazine. “Judge Aileen Cannon Rebuffed Senior Colleagues’ Plea to Step Aside From Trump’s Classified Documents Case. Cannon is the first judge in American history to preside over a criminal trial of the president who nominated that judge.”
New reports came out Thursday from the New York Times that Judge Aileen Cannon was encouraged to step aside by senior judges from her position as the assigned judge to ex-president Donald Trump’s classified documents case.
In June 2023, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon was just two years and seven months into her tenure as a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, her first job as a judge, when she was assigned one of the highest-profile cases of our time — namely, the prosecution of Donald Trump in the classified documents case.
After Cannon was assigned the case a year ago, private expressions of Cannon-related concerns were raised across the courthouse due to her experience and lack of impartiality by her own colleagues.
Two senior judges — Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga was one — waged an extraordinary effort to privately urge Cannon to step aside and allow a judge with more time on the bench to take over the case. Cannon refused.
Since then, Cannon has slow-walked pretrial motions and delayed the trial indefinitely — declining to set to a date for the trial to begin — although prosecutors have said they are prepared to start.
Well, that’s it for me! Have a great weekend!
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress. 
Also, from TNR is this headline about the black man running for governor on the insanity platform. 
If you want a real shock, go see The Economist Cover Picture today with the heading “No way to Run a Country.” 
So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried. I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription. I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too. None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.
Lisa Needham sums up the court’s disastrous year with this headline in Public Notice. 
The Leonard Leo Six will certainly get their gratuities this summer. They’ve essentially crippled Federal Agencies. I say this as I sit through my 3rd consecutive year of record-setting temperatures while watching two record-setting hurricanes take aim at the Gulf. NPR’s Nina Totenberg has just posted this analysis on the Absolute immunity debacle. 
Tony Romm of the Washington Post writes that the Corporate Overlords are already busy forming laws suits with the Chevron decision. 
I will also share this analysis by Historian Heather Cox Richardson from her substack
I refuse to listen to calls for Joe to quit. Me, the nagging naysayer about Joe’s days in the Senate.
The second decision announced today was an Appeal from one of the January 6th rioters. This is from the Washington Post.
One last debate thought from David Frum’s article today for the Atlantic. 
Today, Donald will be in Sleazy Steve Scalise’s district for fundraising. I can only imagine which of the outstate Republicans will come to lay out his trough. This is reported by 
There’s some good news on the polling front, at least. However, it’s still too early to count on anything. This is from 
There’s also evidence that young voters back Biden/Harris in another poll reported by 
Please check it out. Donald and his minions and thralls are always up to something. BB pointed me to
Feeling any better? So, not only Russia but also China was actively backing Trump in the 2016 election. 
Now, if gun dealers would just follow the law. We’re still waiting for the big decision on absolute immunity. It’s now unlikely Donald will be put to trial for his insurrection. We also remember the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner as they fought for voting rights. If you haven’t watched the movie Mississippi Burning, you really should. 
Much of the political press is yammering on about Trump’s big fundraising leap and speculation about the VEEP Sweepstakes with folks even saying Marco Rubio might be a 
There’s no way we can face any more of his monkey business in the Oval Office. However, there’s another court trying slow down the application of Justice. This is from 
This comes after it was reported that at least two colleagues approached her to ask her to not take the case. Here’s some information on that. 
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