“Martha-Ann Alito is single-handedly making flags great again.” John Buss, @repeat1968
The best thing about reading is learning new things and possibly finding a new word. I’ve always aced the university exams’ sections on vocabulary, and the Grammarly app hoisted upon me by Purdue weekly reminds me I still hang in the top users for nerdy words and tone. Don’t ask me about punctuation, though. Grammarly reminds me daily that I don’t use enough commas. So today, The Atlantic‘s Peter Wehner gave me the present of a new world. According to Meriam Webster, nescience is a noun that means a lack of knowledge or awareness. Its closest synonym is the word ignorance. I wish I had known there was a great synonym out there for the word ignorance when I was writing on all the crap coming out of the Supreme Court last week, along with the Alito lies around his wife’s red-flaggery (with apologist to A. de Blácam.)
Now for today’s example use. “The Motivated Ignorance of Trump Supporters. They can’t claim they didn’t know.”
Motivated ignorance refers to willfully blinding oneself to facts. It’s choosing not to know. In many cases, for many people, knowing the truth is simply too costly, too psychologically painful, too threatening to their core identity. Nescience is therefore incentivized; people actively decide to remain in a state of ignorance. If they are presented with strong arguments against a position they hold, or compelling evidence that disproves the narrative they embrace, they will reject them. Doing so fends off the psychological distress of the realization that they’ve been lying to themselves and to others.
Motivated ignorance is a widespread phenomenon; most people, to one degree or another, employ it. What matters is the degree to which one embraces it, and the consequences of doing so. In the case of MAGA world, the lies that Trump supporters believe, or say they believe, are obviously untrue and obviously destructive. Since 2016 there’s been a ratchet effect, each conspiracy theory getting more preposterous and more malicious. Things that Trump supporters wouldn’t believe or accept in the past have since become loyalty tests. Election denialism is one example. The claim that Trump is the target of “lawfare,” victim to the weaponization of the justice system, is another.
I have struggled to understand how to view individuals who have not just voted for Trump but who celebrate him, who don’t merely tolerate him but who constantly defend his lawlessness and undisguised cruelty. How should I think about people who, in other domains of their lives, are admirable human beings and yet provide oxygen to his malicious movement? How complicit are people who live in an epistemic hall of mirrors and have sincerely—or half-sincerely—convinced themselves they are on the side of the angels?
Throughout my career I’ve tried to resist the temptation to make unwarranted judgments about the character of people based on their political views. For one thing, it’s quite possible my views on politics are misguided or distorted, so I exercise a degree of humility in assessing the views of others. For another, I know full well that politics forms only a part of our lives, and not the most important part. People can be personally upstanding and still be wrong on politics.
But something has changed for me in the Trump era. I struggle more than I once did to wall off a person’s character from their politics when their politics is binding them to an unusually—and I would say undeniably—destructive person. The lies that MAGA world parrots are so manifestly untrue, and the Trump ethic is so manifestly cruel, that they are difficult to set aside.
If a person insists, despite the overwhelming evidence, that Trump was the target of an assassination plot hatched by Biden and carried out by the FBI, this is more than an intellectual failure; it is a moral failure, and a serious one at that. It’s only reasonable to conclude that such Trump supporters have not made a good-faith effort to understand what is really and truly happening. They are choosing to live within the lie, to invoke the words of the former Czech dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel.
One of the criteria that need to be taken into account in assessing the moral culpability of people is how absurd the lies are that they are espousing; a second is how intentionally they are avoiding evidence that exposes the lies because they are deeply invested in the lie; and a third is is how consequential the lie is.
It’s one thing to embrace a conspiracy theory that is relevant only to you and your tiny corner of the world. It’s an entirely different matter if the falsehood you’re embracing and promoting is venomous, harming others, and eroding cherished principles, promoting violence and subverting American democracy.
This is the rant part of this long read, with plenty of examples and sources to back this up. It’s brilliant, so forgive me if it is considered an excessively long quote for ‘fair use.’ I’m also feeling better because Grammarly flagged a lot of comma mishaps in the article, which made me feel even more comfortable with its author. I’ve got the Oxford comma down and am happy about that accomplishment. Go read the backup to the rant. It’s important.
In this monolithic divided between those choosing nescience over knowledge, there’s still a group of undecideds. It’s difficult to believe. I’m using a Washington Post article today, and we’re about to see if Katherine Graham’s legacy will end shortly as some of the worst of Fleet Street do a hostile takeover. “The 2024 ‘Deciders’: Who are they and what makes them tick? Six in 10 key state voters turn out sporadically or are not firmly committed, Post-Schar poll finds.” Politics has been my blood sport of choice since Junior High School. I confess total nescience and disinterest in anything remotely sportISH. My role model was Shirley Chisholm, and I couldn’t wait to get my chance to vote.
In a nation where many voters have made up their minds, Denning and Etter are among the voters whose decisions about the presidential race are neither firmly fixed nor whose participation is wholly predictable. As a group, these voters do not exactly fit the description of being undecided. Some lean toward a specific candidate. Some even say they will definitely vote for that candidate. But age or voting history or both leave open the question of how they will vote in November — if they vote at all.
The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University surveyed 3,513 registered voters in the six key battleground states. The survey was completed in April and May,before a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts in the hush money trial involving an adult-film actress. Of the 3,513 surveyed, 2,255 were classified as “Deciders” — those who fit into one or more categories: They voted in only one of the last two presidential elections; are between ages 18 and 25; registered to vote since 2022; did not definitely plan to vote for either Biden or Trump this year; or switched their support between 2016 and 2020.
They are also classified as Deciders because they will have enormous influence in determining the winner of what are expected to be another round of close contests in the battleground states.
In 2020, a shift of about 43,000 votes from Biden to Trump in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin would have changed the outcome. As a result, it is common to see suggestions that the 2024 presidential election will not only be decided by just six states but by a relatively few voters in those states. While it is broadly true that a fraction of the total electorate will decide the election, the universe of voters whose behavior is not truly predictable is fairly large. By the definitions used in this survey, 61 percent of voters in those six states can be called Deciders. That includes 33 percent who are sporadic voters and 44 percent who are uncommitted to Biden or Trump, with 17 percent fitting both of these categories.
This article in the Independent shows how amazing science can be. It also gives us a window into the concept of gender. “Woman who is ’95 per cent genetically male’ gives birth to twins. Woman had no ovaries and 95% male genes, but was fertilised using IVF.”
A woman who is “genetically male” has had twins, after three years of pioneering treatment.
The new mother looks like a woman, but has 95% male chromosomes.
Though she has no ovaries and has never menstruated, doctors in India were able to help the woman conceive and give birth to the children through treatment that helped develop her uterus, which was described as infantile.
“This is something similar to a male delivering twins,” Sunil Jindal, the infertility specialist who administered the treatment, told the Times of India.
The woman herself did not know she had the condition, according to Sky News. She was “flabbergasted” when she was told but her husband was supportive.
The mother’s condition is known as XY gonadal dysgenesis. That means that the woman has external female characteristics, but doesn’t have functional gonads or ovaries. Those organs are usually necessary for reproduction, helping to create the eggs from which babies will grow.
Instead, doctors developed embryos using a donor egg and then placed that in the uterus, after it had been treated. That allowed the woman to become pregnant.
Doctors then had to help the woman carry the pregnancy “in a body not designed for it”, as Anshu Jindal, medical director at the hospital that delivered the babies, described it to the Times of India.
The two babies, one boy and one girl, were delivered through caesarean section.
There have only been four or five cases where women with this condition have been able to give birth, according to experts. Even in women without the condition, assisted reproduction has a success rate of about 35%-40%.
I can only imagine what Alito and Thomas would make of a court case brought up by some fetus fetishist judge in nowhere Texas. So, there appears to be a bit of a rebellion in the news department of The Washington Post over its new overlords from across the pond. “Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting. Unpublished book drafts and other documents raise questions about Robert Winnett’s journalistic record just months before he is to assume a top newsroom role.”
The alleged offense was trying to steal a soon-to-be-released copy of former prime minister Tony Blair’s memoir.
The suspect arrested by London police in 2010 was John Ford, a once-aspiring actor who has since admitted to an extensive career using deception and illegal means to obtain confidential information for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. Facing potential prosecution, Ford called a journalist he said he had collaborated with repeatedly — and trusted to come to his rescue.
Winnett moved quickly to connect Ford with a lawyer, discussed obtaining an untraceable phone for future communications and reassured Ford that the “remarkable omerta” of British journalism would ensure his clandestine efforts would never come to light, according to draft chapters Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018 that were shared with The Post
That journalist, according to draft book chapters Ford later wrote recounting his ordeal, was Robert Winnett, a Sunday Times veteran who is set to become editor of The Washington Post later this year.
Winnett, currently a deputy editor of the Telegraph, did not respond to a detailed list of questions. Ford, who previously declined to be interviewed, did not respond to questions about the draft book chapters.
Winnett is now poised to take over the top editorial position in The Post’s core newsroom, scheduled to start after the November U.S. presidential election. He was appointed by Post CEO and Publisher William Lewis, who has mentored Winnett and worked with him at two British papers. Lewis is also mentioned in Ford’s draft chapters.
NPR’s David Folkenflik had an interesting take on this information, linking it to Rupert Murdoch. “New ‘Washington Post’ chiefs can’t shake their past in London.” BB pointed me to this story last night.
A vast chasm divides common practices in the fiercely competitive confines of British journalism, where Lewis and Winnett made their mark, and what passes muster in the American news media. In several instances, their alleged conduct would raise red flags at major U.S. outlets, including The Washington Post.
Among the episodes: a six-figure payment for a major scoop; planting a junior reporter in a government job to secure secret documents; and relying on a private investigator who used subterfuge to secure private documents from their computers and phones. The investigator was later arrested.
On Saturday evening, The New York Times disclosed a specific instance in which a former reporter implicated both Lewis and Winnett in reporting that he believed relied on documents that were fraudulently obtained by a private investigator.
Lewis did not respond to detailed and repeated requests for comment from NPR for this article. Winnett also did not reply to specific queries sent directly to him and through the Telegraph Media Group.
The stakes are high. Post journalists ask what values Lewis and Winnett will import to the paper, renowned for its coverage of the Nixon-era Watergate scandals and for holding the most powerful figures in American life to account in the generations since.
“U.K. journalism often operates at a faster pace and it plays more fast and loose around the edges,” says Emily Bell, former media reporter and director of digital content for the British daily The Guardian.
Allegations in court that Lewis sought to cover up a wide-ranging phone hacking scandal more than a dozen years ago at Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers are proving to be a flashpoint for the new Post publisher.
On at least four occasions since being named to lead the Post last fall, Lewis tried to head off unwelcome scrutiny from Post journalists — and from NPR.
In December, before he started the job, Lewis intensely pressured me not to report on the accusations, which arose in British suits against Murdoch’s newspapers in the U.K. He also repeatedly offered me an exclusive interview on his business plans for the Post if I dropped the story. I did not. The ensuing NPR piece offered the first detailed reports on new material underlying allegations from Prince Harry and others.
Immediately after that article ran, Lewis told then-Executive Editor Sally Buzbee it was not newsworthy and that her teams should not follow it, according to a person with contemporaneous knowledge. That intervention is being reported here for the first time. The Post did not run a story.
Lewis has denied the hacking coverup claims and is not a defendant in the lawsuits. Nor is he being criminally prosecuted. Lewis has said he acted to ensure people who were hacked by Murdoch’s papers were compensated.
As previously reported, on separate occasions in March and May, Lewis angrily pressured Buzbee to ignore the story as further developments unfolded in court.
You may read more salacious details at the link. One more article about nescience. This one is from Amanda Marcotte, who writes at Salon. “A tradwife drops a racist slur: Why the right’s trolling economy made Lilly Gaddis’ rise inevitable. Cashing in as a “cancel culture” martyr is getting harder, so attention addicts have to get more extreme.”
Let’s stipulate up front that it is theoretically possible that Lilly Gaddis, wannabe “tradwife” influencer, did not realize what she was doing when she used the n-word in a recent cooking TikTok. Her defenders, far more numerous now than in her more anonymous past, offer an “innocence by ignorance” excuse. But even not knowing the story, you’d be right to be skeptical. After all, she didn’t just let the word slip — she filmed, edited, and posted the content online. If you actually watch the clip that has gone viral, it becomes even harder to ignore the likelihood that it was a deliberate word choice
In the video, Gaddis is decked out in the standard tradwife gear of a cleavage-baring sundress and a cross necklace to justify the sexualized marketing. She is vaguely arranging food while providing a rant tailor-made to tickle the reactionary male brain. She accuses immigrants and Black women of being “gold-diggers,” while insisting Christian white girls like herself will love you, pathetic male viewer, solely for your masculine might, even if you are “broke.” She is going for maximum shock value, dropping not just the n-word, but other five-dollar curses that are clearly meant to to offer a transgressive thrill, coming from a young woman playing at being a more scantily clad June Cleaver.
But just in case there was any lingering doubt that this was a deliberate play for attention, Gaddis soon confirmed it in a tweet responding to the outrage: “Thanks black community for helping to launch my new career in conservative media! You all played your role well like the puppets you are.”
This wannabe Christian influencer is so obviously out for attention, so it’s tempting to ignore this story in hopes of not letting her have it. Still, Gaddis is an important illustration of the vicious cycle of greed and far-right radicalism driven by the social media ecosystem. The field of strivers wishing to be America’s next top troll is growing faster than can be maintained by the existing audience of incels, white supremacists and other miscreants radicalized online. Becoming the next big thing means attracting the coin of the authoritarian realm: liberal outrage. Yet as liberals get numb to the constant barrage of fascist provocation, the trolls have no choice but to up the ante. So this is how we get a woman in an apron pretending to cook on TikTok while dropping the most notorious of racial slurs.
I think I have done enough damage today. Fortunately, we’ve had a few days of rain and clouds, so the heat is off its highs from the 90s. Unfortunately, the humidity is oppressive. Thank goodness for long, billowy, cotton sun dresses. I hope you have a good week. BTW, “Trump challenges Biden to cognitive test, but confuses name of doctor who tested him.” This happened last night. Donnie Demento is just getting worse and worse with every rally.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
“Oops. Hunter Biden guilty.” John Buss, @repeat1968
It’s getting pretty obvious that Stare Decisis is dead. The usual suspects in the Supreme Court went out of their way to ignore evidence that bump stocks turn guns into machine guns and lots of decisions and laws in place to keep machine guns out of the hands of criminals. The most interesting thing about this decision is it overturned a Trump-era ban that even the NRA supported at the time.
Between this decision and the gutting of Roe v, I can only determine that these guys don’t care about how many living, breathing innocents die as long as they perpetuate the dominion of their overlords. This also comes after the Democratic leadership of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee found receipts of more private airplane jaunts around the globe by Thomas bought and paid for by religious extremist Harlan Crow.
Did you know that a flock of crows is called a murder? I think that the angry black-robed guys are just trying to taunt us now about how miserable they can make our lives without being held to account.
I don’t think you need to be a Constitutional lawyer to figure out how thinly reasoned the Garland v. Cargill case was decided. This is from NBC, as reported by Lawrence Hurley. “Supreme Court rules gun ‘bump stocks’ ban is unlawful. The ban was imposed by the Trump administration after the accessory was used during the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.” I assume Justice Sotomayer is crying for humanity in her office today.
In a loss for the Biden administration, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that a federal ban on “bump stocks,” gun accessories that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more quickly, is unlawful.
In a 6-3 ruling on ideological lines, with the court’s conservatives in the majority, the court held that an almost 100-year-old law aimed at banning machine guns cannot legitimately be interpreted to include bump stocks.
Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a firearm equipped with the accessory does not meet the definition of “machinegun” under federal law.
Like Uncle Thomas knows about the mechanics of anything except hearing his master’s voice.
The ruling prompted a vigorous dissent from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she wrote in reference to bump stocks enabling semiautomatic rifles to operate like machine guns. Sotomayor also took the rare step of reading a summary of her dissent in court.
Even with the federal ban out of the picture, bump stocks will still not be readily available nationwide. Eighteen states have already banned them, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun-control group. Congress could also act.
Nevertheless, gun control advocates decried the ruling.
“We’ve seen bump stocks cause immense destruction and violence,” said Esther Sanchez-Gomez, litigation director at Giffords Law Center. “The majority of justices today sided with the gun lobby instead of the safety of the American people. This is a shameful decision.”
The Trump administration imposed the prohibition after the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, in which Stephen Paddock used bump stock-equipped firearms to open fire on a country music festival, initially killing 58 people. Then-President Donald Trump personally called for the accessory to be banned.
“All he had to do was pull the trigger and press the gun forward. The bump stock did the rest,” she wrote.
The ruling, she added, “hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machineguns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”
In a concurring opinion, conservative Justice Samuel Alito, conceded that in practical terms, a weapon equipped with a bump stock is very similar to a machine gun and said Congress could act to ban the accessory.
The “horrible shooting spree” in Las Vegas showed how “a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun,” strengthening the case for legislative action, he added.
The Supreme Court in 2019 declined to block the regulation. The already conservative court has tilted further to the right since then, with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, replacing liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020.
Conservatives now have a 6-3 majority that has backed gun rights in previous cases.
The National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 to regulate machine guns in response to Prohibition-era gangster violence.
The lawsuit was brought by Texas-based gun owner Michael Cargill, a licensed dealer who owned two bump stocks before the ban went into effect and later surrendered them to the government.
Hard to imagine a person who’s less suited to interpret the rules of law than Thomas OfHarlan. He can’t even follow the straightforward instructions. This is from the Washington Post. “New documents show unreported trips by Justice Clarence Thomas. According to documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, ” Justice Clarence Thomas took three previously unreported trips paid for by conservative Texas billionaire Harlan Crow.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took three previously unreported trips paid for by conservative Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, according to new documents released Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Details of the private jet flights between 2017 and 2021 were obtained as part of an investigation the committee has been conducting into reports of lavish undisclosed travel and perks provided to justices by Crow and other wealthy benefactors that have sparked calls for reform.
“Crow released the information after the committee issued subpoenas in November for him and conservative activist Leonard Leo to provide information to the body. The subpoenas have never been enforced.
Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the documents provided necessary transparency and the trips should have been reported on financial disclosures.
Thomas suggested that meals and accommodations don’t have to be reported as the law exempts “personal hospitality.” I’m not sure that this level of personal hospitality is what that law actually had in mind. It’s like he’s constantly off living the lives of the rich and famous while simultaneously ensuring his master’s voice sneaks into every decision, impacting the grizzled old real estate developer’s interests. Newsweek has a straightforward list of the Crow Grift, although ProPublica has uncovered most of it. Just Ice Alito was recently recorded railing against ProPublica for uncovering his grift. This is the lede in the Newsweek report. “Clarence Thomas: Full List of Free Luxury Trips Revealed.” The story is reported by Darragh Roche.
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas took three trips that he did not include in financial disclosure forms, the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Thursday.
Thomas, a conservative and the longest-serving member of the present Court, has faced significant criticism over accepting luxury trips from billionaire Republican Party donor Harlan Crow.
The three trips cited by the Senate Judiciary Committee include a private jet flight from Missouri to Montana in May 2017; a second private jet flight from Washington, D.C., to Georgia and back in March 2019; and a further flight from D.C. to California in June 2021.
Senator Dick Durbin, chair of the Judiciary Committee, said the trips in question were listed in information provided to the committee by Crow. The new information has led to criticism from Democrats and renewed calls for Thomas to resign.
The weasel words from these two are just unbounded. What makes it worse is that they use weasel words when writing their damned decisions. I bet they think we don’t even notice it. I love this analysis by Ali Velshi of MSNBC. “‘He’s lost the thread’: Chief Justice Roberts’ out in the wind’ amid conservative supermajority.”
If the Supreme Court is a “messy reality show,” you have to wonder what to call the House of Representatives, which took their felon to work yesterday. Senate Republicans bent the knee like the thralls they’ve become. Yesterday’s news was full of examples of Republicans in Congress that once showed spine when it came to Trump but now seem uniformly to be Trump’s bitches. House Republicans made an absolute mess of a defense bill that now contains every icky culture war item you’ve seen in your nightmares. I hope moderates are paying attention because we’re about to lose all kinds of personal rights. This is reported by Politico. I never thought living in this country would be quite so depressing. “House Republicans narrowly pass defense bill loaded with culture war issues. The tactic represented a gamble for Speaker Mike Johnson, who could have pushed to pass a more bipartisan version with the help of Democrats.”
The House narrowly cleared defense policy legislation on Friday after Republicans tacked on divisive provisions restricting abortion access, medical treatment for transgender troops and efforts to combat climate change.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s move to permit culture war amendments to the annual National Defense Authorization Act turned a widely bipartisan bill into a measure supported almost entirely by Republicans. The tactic represented a gamble for Johnson, who could have pushed to pass a more bipartisan version with the help of Democrats, but instead catered to a sliver of his right flank.
That gamble ultimately paid off for Johnson as enough Republicans united to win the final vote. But the most conservative parts of the House defense bill stand no chance in the Senate, and the dispute likely won’t be sorted out until after the November elections.
The 217-199 vote saw all but six Democrats oppose the $895 billion bill. Only three Republicans broke ranks to oppose it. The outcome was far from certain, though, as lawmakers and aides speculated the vote would come down to attendance at the Friday session.
It’s the second year in a row House Republicans have elected to pass a hard-right Pentagon bill.
Johnson — who survived an attempt to oust him in May in part over his reliance on Democrats to pass a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — avoided stoking more GOP infighting as Republicans look to keep their slim House majority and help reelect Donald Trump in November. Facing the possibility that just a few hardliners in his narrow majority could block the bill, Johnson opted to grant votes on a variety of socially conservative amendments to unite Republicans.
Blogging is really getting difficult in this environment. I used to decorate every post with beautiful artwork. Now, the only way I can offset these topics is to show appreciation to all the political cartoonists who put this into perspective for us. I think I should just write about all the good economic news on Monday because there is so much and little conversation about it. Meanwhile, we head into another weekend. The Gulf Hurricane Season is kicking off earlier and more pronounced than usual. We just got the news in Louisiana about chemicals being used in Cancer Alley that are worse than previously thought. This is actually published by the Insurance Journal. All these negative spillovers from operating nuisance businesses will soon make the entire state uninsurable. It’s awful now. Two years ago, I had to triple the deductible for my homeowner’s policy to stop my home payment from doubling. One item like that can make you feel like you’re being swallowed up by inflation even though inflation is declining.
I hope y’all are doing well and can find moments of peace and contentment! Oh, it’s Flag Day. Don’t be a Martha-Ann! Here’s some editorial cartooning I got from JJ this morning. It’s from the Daily Cartoonist. “CSotD: Whose flag is it, anyway?”
Clay Bennett (CTFP) marks Flag Day with a display of US flags flown respectfully over the years, contrasted with the improper display of the flag currently practiced by the New Confederacy.
Respect for the flag is a tradition, not a law, but if you read the current United States Flag Code, you’ll find all sorts of ways people violate it.
I’m now convinced he is who we knew he was. John Buss, @repeat 1968″
We’re having 2 weeks of unpleasantly hot weather here. This weather is usually reserved for the Dog Days of Summer, not the precursor to Summer. We have another 10 days before it’s officially Summer. When we got KKKLandry for Governor, we got a Climate Change denier who is even trying to run one of the great Climate Change Science researchers in the country out of one of our state universities. I’m reminded of this from The Guardian, published three months ago. “What has Louisiana’s governor done his first month in office? Boost fossil fuels. Republican Jeff Landry, who has labeled climate change ‘a hoax’, has elevated fossil fuel executives to key environmental posts.” MAGA Republicans simply don’t care about anything but their corporate overlords and the donations they receive from them. They all are massive, selfish narcissists, as far as I can tell.
Donnie Dotard said the quiet part out loud in the 105-degree F heat of Nevada yesterday at a rally. This is from The New Republic, as reported by Talia Jane. “Trump Finally Admits What He Thinks of His Supporters. Donald Trump revealed exactly how he feels about his supporters at his campaign rally in Las Vegas.” How is this not a “horrible thing”?
“The press will take that and they’ll say ‘he said a horrible thing,” Trump accurately predicted after telling supporters in Nevada on Sunday, “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote. I don’t care.”
The comments came as Trump remarked on a passing breeze during a scorching outdoor rally in Las Vegas where temperatures climbed above 100 degrees. Six people were hospitalized, and 24 more were treated by EMTs on-site for heat-related illness. Sunday’s rally followed a similar event in Arizona on Thursday where at least 11 people were hospitalized for heat exhaustion, which Team Trump wrote off as “enthusiasm.”
Trump’s recent rallies, which either occur outdoors or involve long lines outside waiting to be let in, have been punctuated by people boiling in the sun. Team Trump has taken no efforts to mitigate the heat for his followers—and in fact booked the Nevada rally after his supporters collapsed in Arizona. This comes despite the fact that a third of Trump’s supporters are those most sensitive to heat.
Though Trump’s sun-fried supporters let out laughs at his remark, Trump has a history of despising his supporters. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump expressed gratitude for the highly contagious disease because it meant he didn’t have to shake hands with “these disgusting people.”
“He talked all the time about the people themselves being disgusting,” Olivia Troye, former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, told The New York Times in 2020 while discussing Trump’s view of his supporters. “It was clear immediately that he wanted nothing to do with them.”
Eleven people were transported to hospital with heat exhaustion in Arizona. The event happened at an overcrowded Mega Church. The Nevada Rally goers were a bit smarter. A lot were walking out before his speech was over. Maybe they were tired of his shark tales. This is from Newsweek, as reported by Ewan Palmer. “Donald Trump Mocked Over ‘Bizarre Rant’ About Sharks.”
Donald Trump has been mocked online after going on a tirade against sharks and sinking boats during his recent campaign rally in Las Vegas.
During his speech in the key swing state of Nevada on Sunday, the former president posed a hypothetical scenario in which a boat with a large battery sinks while a shark was nearby.
“If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking, do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted?” Trump said. “Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?”
Author and frequent Trump critic Stephen King was one of those who criticized the former president for his remarks.
“This is like listening to your senile uncle at the dinner table after he has that third drink,” King posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Writer Ian Fraser described the moment as a “bizarre rant.”
The Independent also has delicious coverage of the event from Jim Bowden. “Trump tells rally-goers not to die in searing Vegas heat: ‘I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.’ Remark get laughs at the rally – but also draws raised eyebrows on social media as critics argue Trump was being truthful.”
Despite his humor, the ex-presiden’t couldn’t resist complaining about the heat as his rally went on.
“It’s 110, but it doesn’t feel it to me,” Trump said. “I’m up here sweating like a dog. They don’t think about me. This is hard work.”
Yes, yes, it’s always only about you. Amanda Marcotte, writing for Salon, has this to say about recent outreach by Donald and his surrogates to black voters. “Donald Trump and Byron Donalds racial stunts are for white racists, not “outreach” to Black voters. Trump’s alliances with rappers and Donalds praising Jim Crow are about validating MAGA’s racist stereotypes.”
Because we keep hearing so much about how convicted felon Donald Trump is doing “outreach” to Black voters, much of the press assumed that was what was going on with a recent Bronx rally where Trump made a big deal of appearing with a few D-list rappers who are facing criminal charges of their own. “Courting Black Voters, Trump Turns to Rappers Accused in Gang Murder Plot,” declared the headline at the New York Times, which characterized the event as “clumsy” while taking Trump’s purported overtures to Black voters at face value. Most outlets did, even though the rally itself was rather small.
This follows Trump and his media allies repeatedly claiming that his 2023 mug shot, from his arrest in Georgia on charges related to his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election, would endear him to Black voters. “That’s why the Black people like me,” Trump said of his mug shot,” because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.” Fact check: While there are a couple of Black defendants who were in the conspiracy, the vast majority of people charged with crimes related to the coup or the January 6 insurrection are white.
Trump’s invocation of “the Black people” should be your first clue, but despite all the “outreach” chatter, such stunts and rhetorical gambits are not really meant to appeal to Black voters themselves. Sure, Trump would like to grab a few people of color caught up in these theatrics, but that’s not the intended audience for this. The actual target was neatly illustrated last week when dopey white bro icon, Joe Rogan, gloated on his disturbingly popular podcast, “So many rappers are showing support for Trump now. It’s crazy. Cause now he’s got a felony.” Fellow pasty white “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe, in a cloud of marijuana smoke, replied on behalf of the Black community with, “I don’t think they were counting on the black voter” supposedly relating to Trump being convicted for leading an election interference conspiracy.
In reality, polls show the opposite: 20% of Black voters who previously said they were backing Trump say they are now switching to Biden.
Here’s another public insanity display from Donald, reported by The Daily Beast. “Trump Demands Biden Remove Ad of Him Calling Dead Soldiers ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers.’ The former president said only a “psycho” or a “very stupid person” would’ve made such statements.”
Donald Trump on Sunday called for President Joe Biden to take down an attack ad featuring a series of quotes attributed to the Republican in which he mocks dead soldiers.
The former president’s demand came on the same day that Biden honored fallen troops in a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France, the burial ground that Trump chose not to visit in 2018 and was later reported to have done so while describing the site as “filled with losers.” Trump has denied making the remark—and another in which he allegedly called more than 1,800 Marines “suckers” for being killed—ever since The Atlanticfirst published his purported words in 2020.
Those denials continued Sunday, first at a rally in Las Vegas. “He said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers, the dead soldiers from World War I,’’ Trump said, referring to Biden. He went on to claim the whole episode was “made up” and, despite the Biden campaign knowing it’s “phony,” they still “took an ad using it—these are sick people.”
Trump appeared to be referring to an attack ad launched by the Biden campaign on Friday during the president’s visit to Normandy for ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The video featured the reported “suckers” and “losers” quotes, along with audio of Trump mocking the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as being thought of as a “war hero” because he was captured during the Vietnam War. “I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump added.
“Donald Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about service to his country,” read a post on Biden’s X account featuring the clip.
The Rolling Stone has a not-so-shocking story on Just Ice Alito. “Justice Alito Caught on Tape Discussing How Battle for America ‘Can’t Be Compromised.’ In a new, secret recording, the Supreme Court justice says he “agrees” that the U.S. should return to a place of godliness. The exclusive is reported by Tessa Stuart and Tim Dickinson. You can read the basic information as reported by David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement. “‘Godliness’: Alito in Secret Recording Says No Compromise for ‘Fundamental’ Moral Differences;” This should surprise no one.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in a secretly recorded conversation about morality in America says there are “fundamental” differences between the left and the right that “can’t be compromised,” and agreed the nation needs to return to “godliness.”
The 74-year old Bush-43 appointee who has served on the nation’s highest court since 2006 was recorded by documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor, who also secretly recorded him in 2023. Windsor shared her audio on social media (below) but also exclusively with Rolling Stone.
Justice Alito spoke casually and unguardedly, prompted by Windsor who, according to audio she published, reminded him of their conversation last year “about the polarization in this country,” and, “everything that’s been going on in the past year.”
She identified herself “as a Catholic and as someone who like really cherishes my faith,” and added, “I just don’t, I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end.”
“I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning,” she concluded.
The Justice responded, saying, “I think you’re probably right.”
“On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know,” Alito continued. “I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
Agreeing with him, Windsor adds, “I think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument, like people in this country who believe in God, have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.”
“I agree with you,” Alito tells her.
Read this article at The Atlantic and ask yourself why no one sees this? “The U.S. Economy Reaches Superstar Status’ No, really.” This is written by Rogé Karma. I’ve selected a few choice bites here. The big story is usually the GDP growth rate, which is super.
A recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that from the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the lowest-paid decile of workers saw their wages rise four times faster than middle-class workers and more than 10 times faster than the richest decile. A recent working paper by Dube and two co-authors reached similar conclusions. Wage gains at the bottom, they found, have been so steep that they have erased a full third of the rise in wage inequality between the poorest and richest workers over the previous 40 years. This finding holds even when you account for the fact that lower-income Americans tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on the items that have experienced the largest price increases in recent years, such as food and gas. “We haven’t seen a reduction in wage inequality like this since the 1940s,” Dube told me.
Pay in America is becoming more equal along race, age, and education lines as well. The wage gap between Black and white Americans has shrunk to its lowest point since at least the 1980s. Pay for workers younger than 25 has increased twice as fast as older workers’ pay. And the so-called college wage premium—the pay gap between those with and without a college degree—has shrunk to its lowest measure in 15 years. (The gender pay gap has also narrowed slightly, but far less than the others.)
What explains this sudden boost in lower- and middle-class wages? The answer lies in the post-pandemic American labor market, which has been unbelievably strong. The unemployment rate—defined as the percentage of workers who have recently looked for a job but don’t have one—has been at or below 4 percent for more than two years, the longest streak since the 1960s. Even that understates just how good the current labor market is. Unemployment didn’t fall below 4 percent at any point during the 1970s, ’80s, or ’90s. In 1984—the year Ronald Reagan declared “It’s morning again in America”—unemployment was above 7 percent; for most of the Clinton boom of the 1990s, it was above 5 percent.
Could it be this good news that’s making Trump’s base boiling mad and causing CEOS to run towards him despite everything? This is from Sam Sutton, who writes for Politico. “The Mooch’s warning to Trump’s new pals on Wall Street.”
Republicans on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley have reopened their hearts (and wallets) to former President Donald Trump. They should not expect a tranquil relationship, says former Trump supporter and hedge fund executive Anthony Scaramucci.
“I have empathy for them. I was there. I did it. I did exactly what they’re doing,” said Scaramucci, who was one of the first financiers to back Trump during the 2016 campaign. “I did the hopeless equivocation. I did cognitive dissonance. I’ve been through the cycle.”
Scaramucci was fired as Trump’s communications director in the White House after just 10 days in 2017. Two years later, the SkyBridge Capital founder publicly broke with Trump, saying he’d become too erratic and divisive to effectively lead. After supporting former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Republican primary in 2024, Scramucci is now backing President Joe Biden in the general election.
Among GOP financiers, that political position has become exceedingly rare.
As your host reports, “Many high-dollar donors at banks, hedge funds and other financial firms had turned their backs on Trump as he spun unfounded claims that the 2020 election had been stolen and savaged the judicial system with attacks. Today, they’re setting aside those concerns, looking past qualms about his personality and willingness to bulldoze institutional norms and focusing instead on issues closer to the heart: how he might ease regulations, cut their taxes or flex U.S. power on the global stage.”
Three years after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, Trump’s return to the good graces of top-tier Wall Street financiers is a direct rejoinder to Biden’s claim that the former president poses a danger to the legal system that underpins the U.S. economy and its markets.
But many Republican donors – including those who had said they’d never support Trump again after Jan. 6 — believe the current regulatory climate for businesses is also an existential danger. Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City — a nonprofit organization representing the city’s top business leaders — said Republicans have conveyed to her that they consider that “the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.”
One of these days, people will drop the philosophical rantings of the early 18th and late 17th centuries and realize there’s no such thing as capitalism or communism. We all live in mixed markets, and ours is doing reasonably well even with the corporate greedos.
Anyway, that’s it for me today. Have a great week, and see you on Friday!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Filling a void while living the dream. John Buss, @repeat1968
Back in 1982, I was finishing up my first Masters in 1982, taking a much-needed vacation to Europe to celebrate the event, trying to save the Savings and Loan Industry after the rug was pulled out of fixed rate assets with 30-year obligations, yet Congress decided in 1980 to let their liabilities be “open to the market” which was running amok with double-digit inflation. I also was pregnant with my oldest. I had a modest two-story, two-bedroom townhouse with a 30-year loan fixed at 16.7% but mercifully put to 12% because I worked at the Lender. I also could do nothing to stop them from heading to bankruptcy. I’d worked at a small commercial bank where the problem was having to pay interest now on checking accounts. This upset of the status quo left over from the Depression Days basically threatened homeownership and business. Repricing their liabilities more to market was a killer but considered necessary because savings funds were going to money market accounts. I also spent some time trying to explain these things to Congress. The only good advice I got there was never to get in an elevator with Strom Thurmond. The eighties economy was a mess, but you’d never know if you had read anything besides economic studies in journals. It didn’t really get better until we got what we call a regime change.
I planned on attending law school, taking the exams while noticeably pregnant with my oldest daughter, getting accepted to several, etc. I visited the University of Chicago as an undergrad. All I could think was there were too many damn lawyers around the country. So, I became a Financial Economist with eyes on my doctorate. I missed this seminal event in American History where a group of people worked to undermine the Justice System to benefit the wealthy. The Federalist Society, nicknamed FedSoc, was founded that same year. I don’t often rely on Wikipedia, but when I do, I make sure they’ve got citations.
The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 by a group of students from Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, and The University of Chicago Law School with the aim of challenging liberal or left-wing ideology within elite American law schools and universities. The organization’s stated objectives are “checking federal power, protecting individual liberty and interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning”,[1] and it plays a central role in networking and mentoring young conservative lawyers.[5] According to Amanda Hollis-Brusky, the Federalist Society “has evolved into the de facto gatekeeper for right-of-center lawyers aspiring to government jobs and federal judgeships under Republican presidents.”[8] It vetted President Donald Trump‘s list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees; in March 2020, 43 out of 51 of Trump’s appellate court nominees were current or former members of the society.[10]
In 2018, Politico Magazine wrote that “it is no exaggeration to suggest that it was perhaps the most effective student conference ever—a blueprint, in retrospect, for how to marry youthful enthusiasm with intellectual oomph to achieve far-reaching results.”[13] The society states that it “is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”[2]
The society looks to Federalist Paper Number 78 for an articulation of the virtue of judicial restraint, as written by Alexander Hamilton: “It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature … The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.”
“Trump is an expert in lawfare, and his life has revolved around manipulating the judicial system. He’s out on bail while facing 54 more criminal charges and awaiting sentencing for conviction of 34 felonies. It is entertaining listening to MAGA whine about the corrupt DOJ while the corruption is all Trump.” John Buss @repeat1968
That sounds almost mundane, doesn’t it? The virtue of judicial restraint? Protecting individual liberty? However, we now have judges so far off the rails of restraint that it’s not even funny. Some of them are now vehemently anti-MAGA and Donald, but they’re still very much at the root of the problem. I found this ironic when I read it last year at WAPO. “Conservative Case Emerges to Disqualify Trump for Role on Jan. 6. Two law professors active in the Federalist Society wrote that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment makes Donald Trump ineligible to hold government office.”
Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.
The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”
He summarized the article’s conclusion: “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.”
Yet, this is the same group that vetted all of Trump’s appointments. But it didn’t start there, and it doesn’t end there. This is from The New Republic. “Clarence Thomas Is Hiding Even More Money Than We Knew. The justice has received millions of dollars worth of gifts, far more than his colleagues, but only reported a fraction of it.” These judges are not only activists whose findings are not based on anything in the Constitution or precedent, but they take cash for their positions. The news on Clarence Thomas is so bad that I cannot believe Dick Durbin won’t open an investigation or call him and his enablers to a hearing.
Crime doesn’t pay, but it seems that Justice can get you millions.
A new report from Fix the Court, a judicial watchdog and advocacy group, found that justices on the U.S. Supreme Court received close to a total of $3 million in gifts, at least, over the last 20 years—with more than $2.4 million of those gifts being directed solely to Justice Clarence Thomas.
Thomas has repeatedly been the focus of ethical scrutiny over reports that he received exorbitant gifts and vacations from Republican billionaires, never paid back a loan for his beloved R.V., and cavorted with the Koch brothers, while failing to adequately disclose many of the perks he’s received. All of this has been reported on extensively by publications such as ProPublica. Now, Fix the Court has worked to add it all up.
Fix the Court was able to identify 103 gifts that Thomas received between 2004 and 2024, totaling a value of $2,402,310. Overall, it found 193 when counting some gifts that were received before that period. These gifts could be a number of things: often meals or lodging, with a free flight counting as one gift and a round-trip journey counting as two.
The court’s gift-reporting threshold has slowly risen over the course of 20 years. In 2004, it was $285, and in 2023, it was $480. Of those 193 gifts, Thomas only disclosed receiving 27.
Fix the Court was also able to identify 101 “likely gifts”—mostly trips to exclusive clubs Bohemian Grove and Topridge—Thomas received during those 20 years, which added an additional value of $1,787,684. Including those “likely gifts,” Thomas has reportedly received $4,189,994 worth of perks.
For context, in January 2001, an associate Supreme Court justice like Thomas would’ve made $194,300, a sum that has since risen to $285,400, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. Through gifts, Thomas has roughly doubled his official published income from the last 20 years, which would sit at approximately $4,747,700. To Thomas, being bought and paid for appears to be a second job altogether. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
When counting “likely gifts” furnished to Thomas, justices seated on the U.S. Supreme Court received an astounding 445 gifts valued at $4,780,720. Without those “likely gifts,” the justices’ tallies still hit 344, worth $2,993,036.
Here’s the report from Fix the Court, which details the massivCourtunts of grift. Of course, it’s the darlings of FedSoc that run amok with the bribes.
The tally captures the value of Thomas’ yacht trips to Russia, the Greek Isles and Indonesia, as well as some new information on the Thomas flights Tony Novelly paid for and the Scalia and Alito fishing trips Robin Arkley paid for that’s included in the congressional record. The value of the gifts Scalia received on his ill-fated trip to Marfa, Tex., in 2016 are also included.FTC estimated the value of most of the medals, plaques and trophies the justices received over the years and didn’t list on their disclosures — and there were several dozen, including 62 accepted by O’Connor — at $200, i.e., under the gift-reporting threshold. Several similar awards were accepted by Ginsburg, many of which have been auctionedoff by the Potomack Company to benefit various charities. That said, in some instances — namely for three of Ginsburg’s recent awards, two of which appear to be above the reporting threshold — FTC reached out to the gift-givers to inquire about value and is waiting to hear back.
Other awards unearthed by FTC include a blanket and gift basket Minnesota Law gave to Chief Justice Roberts; personalized Louisville Slugger bats given to Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center; silver julep cups given to Gorsuch by UK’s Heyburn Initiative; and football “gear” (likely a sweatshirt) and a skybox ticket given to Justice Kagan by the University of Wisconsin. Vague gifts from FTC’s open records requests — a photograph UF Law sent to Thomas, an “engraved gift” URI sent to Sotomayor and a something UW sent to Kagan — are also included.
FTC notes that several entities Thomas listed on his 2000 and 2002 disclosures as “reimbursing” him for “private plane” travel did not, in all likelihood, own private planes at the time (e.g., high schools, small colleges, civic organization, etc.). Those flight-legs were then gifts, 20 in total.
A fairly significant portion of several justices’ gift haul came in the form of honorary memberships at various golf, tennis and social clubs. These types of free memberships were largely outlawed by a law Congress passed in 2008, which is why they mostly drop off the tally after that year.
The reason FTC is focusing on the last 20 years is two-fold: first, it was 20 years ago that the L.A. Times filed its oft-referred to report on the justices’ gifts, and second, the record of the justices’ disclosures gets a bit fuzzy before 2004, since throughout the 1980s and 1990s and into the early 2000s, the justices’ disclosures were typically only available for inspection at the Supreme Court and were only later distributed by the judiciary on paper, in a thumb drive or on a database.
In terms of crunching the numbers, the tally counts “meals” and “lodging” as two separate gifts, and FTC counted each leg of a round-trip flight as one gift, so it’s two gifts per round-trip. Unless otherwise stated, FTC assigned the cost per hour of a flight on a private plane to be $10,000 (can range from $5,000 to $25,000-plus, depending on plane size and other circumstances). Awards accepted by retired justices were not included.
Newsweek has three charts that give you an idea of who was a crook and who took their job more conventionally.
According to Fix the Court’s analysis, Justice Clarence Thomas received the largest portion of gifts, identifying 193 for the George H.W. Bush appointee who has served since 1991.
Second was the late Sandra Day O’Connor with 73, who died last year. O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, by then President Ronald Reagan, and served from 1981 to 2006.
The late Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were third and fourth with 67 and 61 identified gifts respectively. Scalia served 29 years on the court, and Ginsburg 27.
David Souter, who spent 18 years on the court before he retired in 2009, and Brett Kavanaugh received just one gift, according to the findings.
Thomas led here as well, with likely gifts totaling $4,042,286.
Justice Samuel Alito is alleged in the findings to have received just over $170,000 worth of gifts.
The Supreme Court justices with the lowest total value of gifts were Kavanaugh, Souter and Amy Coney Barrett, with $100, $349, and $500 respectively.
More importantly, the Newsweek report shows the split between disclosed and undisclosed gifts.
According to Fix the Court, Thomas was the worst offender on this front. The watchdog believed he openly disclosed just 8.5 percent of all gifts he received.
Kavanaugh and Barret disclosed none of their gifts, however, the report estimates the pair only received $600 worth of gifts between them.
Souter and the late John Paul Stevens were the only two SCOTUS justices to disclose 100 percent of their gifts.
Thomas filed his disclosure report last week. Here’s the coverage from the Washington Post. “Justice Thomas discloses two 2019 trips paid for by Harlan Crow. 2023 financial disclosure reports for Supreme Court justices also show six-figure book payments for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Jackson.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has disclosed for the first time trips to Bali and to a private club in California in 2019 paid for by his friend and benefactor, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, according to financial disclosures released Friday for eight of the nine justices.
The required annual reports, covering activity in 2023, also show three justices — Brett M. Kavanaugh, Neil M. Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson — received six-figure book payments.
Jackson also accepted four tickets worth nearly $4,000 from Beyoncé to one of her concerts, and two pieces of art worth $12,500 to display in her chambers.
“Justice Jackson is Crazy in Love with Beyoncé’s music. Who isn’t?” said court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor reported a star turn as a cartoon character on the PBS children’s show “Alma’s Way,” an animated series about a Puerto Rican girl and her family from the Bronx. The justice was paid about $1,900 for voice work on one episode in which she played herself.
The reports show several justices earning additional income from teaching at law schools and accepting free travel to speak at events at universities and legal organizations.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension to file his report, as he has received in past years.
Many Judges and Justices take their jobs seriously and do not go in with a political agenda. As BostonBoomer has reported, Judge Loose Cannon is one of those Judges who seems devious and incompetent simultaneously. This is from CNN. “Isolated and inexperienced: A portrait of the judge overseeing Trump’s documents case from veterans of her courtroom.”
Since Trump was first indicted a year ago, Cannon has dragged out the proceedings in ways that have flummoxed legal scholars and put a trial initially scheduled to begin last month on hold indefinitely.
Several attorneys who have practiced in front of Cannon – and who spoke to CNN for this story – pointed to her isolation as one explanation for her conduct. Cannon’s solitary post in the Fort Pierce courthouse, one that rarely sees high-profile action, deprives her of the informal, day-to-day interactions with more seasoned judges who sit at the other courthouses and could offer her advice, the lawyers told CNN.
They also said Cannon’s lack of trial experience, both as a lawyer and a judge, is apparent. In her seven years as a Justice Department attorney, Cannon participated on the trial teams of just four criminal cases. And on the bench, she’s only presided over a handful of criminal trials – and Huck took over one of them.
For this account of Cannon’s judicial demeanor, CNN spoke to ten attorneys who have had cases – both criminal and civil – before her. The lawyers spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because of the professional and ethical risks of speaking to press about a sitting federal judge in front of whom they practice.
To corroborate their characterizations of Cannon’s approach, CNN reviewed the public dockets of scores of cases that have traveled through her courtroom.
The attorneys described Cannon as extremely diligent and well prepared, a tough questioner who accepts nothing at face value, and thoughtful in her rulings. But they also said that some of her habits that have raised eyebrows in Trump’s case have plagued her approach from the bench more generally.
Those tendencies include a penchant for letting irrelevant legal questions distract from core issues, a zero-tolerance approach to any technical defects in filings, and a struggle with docket management that allows the type of pretrial disputes that other judges would decide in weeks go unresolved for months.
“She is not efficient,” said one attorney who practices in south Florida. “She is very form over substance.”
Another attorney described her as “indecisive.”
A third attorney who’s had cases before Cannon said, “She just seems overwhelmed by the process.”
The Senate needs to take its review of judges much more seriously. This has been going on since Thomas sat on the court, and it’s the one thing I can never forgive Biden for, along with his coziness with Southern Senators on the busing issue, which also bothered me. We’ll lose more personal liberties if we don’t do something now. One more interesting article which outlines the results of a study. This is from PsyPost. “Why do Republicans stick with Trump? New study explores the role of white nationalism.”
A new study explores why many Americans, particularly Republican voters, continue to support former President Donald Trump despite serious charges against him. Researchers found that white nationalism and political views play crucial roles in shaping public attitudes towards these charges. The study, published in The British Journal of Criminology, sheds light on the interplay between racial attitudes and political allegiances in contemporary America.
The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by Trump supporters resulted in significant consequences, including fatalities, injuries, extensive property damage, numerous arrests, and psychological trauma. The subsequent investigation by the United States House Select Committee aimed to determine the role of Trump in inciting this attack and whether criminal charges were warranted.
Despite the evidence against Trump, polls indicated that a significant portion of Republican voters continued to support him. The study aimed to understand why this segment of the population remained loyal to Trump despite the serious allegations.
This introduction is followed by a thorough list of their control variables. Here are some of the specific findings.
The results demonstrated a clear interaction between participants’ racial and political views and their support for the Select Committee’s recommendations. White nationalists and individuals with conservative political views showed strong support for the Committee when it found no evidence against Trump and recommended no charges. However, their support drastically declined when the Committee recommended criminal charges based on incriminating evidence.
On the other hand, individuals who did not hold white nationalist views and those with liberal political views were overwhelmingly supportive of the Committee’s recommendations when charges were proposed but showed little support when no charges were recommended.
For example, 82% of white nationalists supported the Committee if it found no evidence against Trump, but only 35% to 39% supported the Committee when charges were recommended. In contrast, 76% to 80% of participants without white nationalist views supported the Committee when it recommended charges, but only 34% supported it when no charges were recommended.
The researchers found that right-wing political views mediated the relationship between white nationalism and support for the Committee. White nationalist attitudes were strongly associated with right-wing political views, which in turn influenced reactions to the Committee’s findings. This suggests that individuals with white nationalist beliefs are more likely to align themselves with conservative politics, and this political alignment significantly shapes their responses to the Committee’s recommendations.
“Our experiment suggests that for a non-trivial number of Americans, the desire to keep the United States a ‘white nation’ appears to be stronger than their desire to ensure that the country is led by a law-abiding president,” the researchers concluded.
John Buss has been a roll, and I’m using it! Lucky John graduated with Ginnie Thomas from our high school. I only had to put up with it for about a year. But wow, she was a hot mess then. She didn’t rebel against her Bircher parents, that’s for sure. What should be done with her and Alito’s wife? Ginnie’s help with the insurrection should be investigated. I have a feeling that a few of those leaks from the SCOTUS came from Martha Bombthrower.
Anyhow, have a great weekend, and see you on Monday!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
“Felonious trump is angry, the deep state wouldn’t let him use his golf cart..” John Buss, @repeat1968
For the first time since moving here, I’ve got a bout of agita that’s gone to my stomach. I’m thankful for my meditation training from doctors, sangha, and teachers. It really helps. However, surfing Samsara has gotten more difficult these days. You may need to sit on a mat after reading some of the things I will share today. I’m going to go dig in the soil once I finish this. There are a lot of weeds to pull. I can visualize who represents which weed.
Public Notice has this headline today, as reported by Lisa Needham. “Mike Johnson says the quiet part on Fox.'”The justices on the court — I know many of them personally … they’ll set this straight.”
It was a given, of course, that Trump backers would spring to his defense following his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Trump’s supporters are trying to dox the jurors, a sheriff is saying that it’s time we put a felon in the White House, and a bunch of MAGAs are flying the American flag upside down (though we have no update from the Alitos on the status of their flagpole). One of Trump’s lawyers and his legal spokesperson have both gone on Fox News and called on the Supreme Court to get their client off the hook. (More on that later.)
But one statement stands out in all this sound and furor: GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson’s call for SCOTUS to “step in.”
The morning after the conviction, Johnson went on Fox & Friends to reassure Trump supporters that he has the ear of the justices.
“I think that the justices on the court — I know many of them personally — I think they’re deeply concerned about [Trump’s conviction], as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight, but it’s going to take awhile.”
Johnson went on to say “this will be overturned, guys, there’s no question about it. It’s just going to take some time to do it.” (Watch below.)
This remarkable statement highlights how Republicans have come to — correctly — count on the federal courts to ensure they stay in power.
The Supreme Court already overturned Colorado’s decision to remove Trump from the ballot and agreed to hear his outrageous absolute immunity claim in the January 6 case after refusing to hear it on an expedited basis when asked by prosecutor Jack Smith. That foot-dragging resulted in the March 4 date for Trump’s DC trial being removed from the calendar, and it’s exceedingly unlikely there will be a new trial date before the election.
So why wouldn’t Johnson look to the conservatives on the Supreme Court to save Trump this time around?
Too bad David McCullough passed recently. We’ll need a narrator for this version of Ken Burns’ Civil War. Burns gave the commencement speech for undergraduates at Brandeis University. It’s worth a listen or read. Burns has documented a lot of our recent history and knows us well.
Another voice, Mercy Otis Warren, a philosopher and historian during our revolution put it this way, “The study of the human character at once opens a beautiful and a deformed picture of the soul. We there find a noble principle implanted in the nature of people, but when the checks of conscience are thrown aside, humanity is obscured.” I have had the privilege for nearly half a century of making films about the US, but I have also made films about us. That is to say the two letter, lowercase, plural pronoun. All of the intimacy of “us” and also “we” and “our” and all of the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the US. And if I have learned anything over those years, it’s that there’s only us. There is no them. And whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life that there’s a them, run away. Othering is the simplistic binary way to make and identify enemies, but it is also the surest way to your own self imprisonment, which brings me to a moment I’ve dreaded and forces me to suspend my longstanding attempt at neutrality.
There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route. When, as Mercy Otis Warren would say, “The checks of conscience are thrown aside and a deformed picture of the soul is revealed.” The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems. When in fact with him, you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction, “a bigger delusion”, James Baldwin would say, the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesies. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.
The lies are more evident than ever, but they’re directed at an audience with no interest in the truth. Here’s another one from Senator Tim Scott via Axios. And yes, I’m quoting William Kristol again.
Sen. Tim Scott wants you to know: 2024 is not an abortion-policy election.
“The Supreme Court has already ruled that this is a states’ issue. President Trump and Speaker Johnson have both said that this will remain a states’ issue,” Scott said yesterday on Fox News Sunday. “That is a settled issue for our party, and frankly, it is one that takes that issue off the table for the Democrats, who have the most extreme position on abortion
Here’s some truth via Pro Publica. “Witnesses in the various criminal cases against the former president have gotten pay raises, new jobs, and more. If any benefits were intended to influence testimony, that could be a crime.” The Trump Family Crime Syndicate just can’t stop criming. Here comes another set of charges that will be hard to get through trial before November.
Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.
The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.
These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plum position on the board of Trump’s social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed but before he testified.
Significant changes to a staffer’s work situation, such as bonuses, pay raises, firings or promotions, can be evidence of a crime if they come outside the normal course of business. To prove witness tampering, prosecutors would need to show that perks or punishments were intended to influence testimony.
Here’s one from Amanda Marcotte–writing for Salon–that will once again show how far the fetus fetishists will go to control women and deny them bodily autonomy. “Texas professors sue to fail students who seek abortions. Men are using abortion bans to control and abuse women in their lives for “consensual sexual intercourse”
A pair of Texas professors figured out that their female students have sex and, boy, they do not like it. So now the philosophy professor and finance professor are suing for the right to punish their students who, outside of class, have abortions.
“Pregnancy is not a disease, and elective abortions are not ‘health care,'” University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac sneers in a federal court filing with professor John Hatfield. Instead, Bonevac writes, because pregnancy is the result of “voluntary and consensual sexual intercourse,” students should not be allowed time off to get abortions. If the students disobey and miss class for abortion care, the filing continues, the professors should be allowed to flunk students. Additionally, Bonevac asserts that he has a right to refuse to employ a teaching assistant who has had an abortion, calling such women “criminals.”
The sexual hang-ups of abortion opponents are rarely far from the surface, but even by those low standards, the unjustified male grievance on display in this new Texas lawsuit is a doozy. At issue are federal regulations, called Title IX, first signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972. They currently bar publicly funded schools from discriminating on the basis of sex or gender. This means that schools cannot penalize students for health care based on sex. As a male student would be granted leave if he had to travel for surgery, so must a female student, the federal statute requires. The two men argue that granting students an excused absence in such cases violates their First Amendment rights.
Even though the plaintiffs suing for the right to flunk female students for abortion include boilerplate arguments in which they feign concern that abortion is “killing,” the legal filing makes it clear that what really outrages Bonevac and Hatfield is that Title IX prevents them from controlling the private lives of students. Along with their anger about abortion, they grouse about not being allowed to punish students “for being homosexual or transgender.” They also argue they should be able to penalize teaching assistants for “cross-dressing,” by which they appear to mean allowing trans women to wear skirts.
It’s really difficult to describe these angry Christian white nationalists with any label but utter shitgibbons. If they can’t quote the Beatitudes, then they’re not really dealing with the historical Jesus. A shake-up at the Washington Post may make me finally cancel my subscription. This is the summary of the state of affairs by Politico today. “Playbook: The Trump Verdict Lands on the Hill.”
WAPO SHOCKER — SALLY BUZBEE is out as the Washington Post’s executive editor after a three-year run, to be immediately replaced by former WSJ editor in chief MATT MURRAY and, after the election, by the Telegraph’s ROBERT WINNETT. Both have previously worked under WaPo Publisher and CEO WILL LEWIS.
The announcement came in an 8:38 p.m. news release and landed as a thunderbolt to the Posties we spoke to, who were uniformly shocked by the sudden timing of Buzbee’s departure, if not necessarily by the fact of it. It was an unusually abrupt transition for the Post, where top leadership transitions are typically announced months in advance. (The newsroom did not immediately have a story ready to publish and, adding insult to injury, the NYT managed to get theirs up first.)
The buried lede: After Winnett takes over the “core” newsroom in November, Murray will lead a “third newsroom … comprised of service and social media journalism and run separately from the core news operation. The aim is to give the millions of Americans — who feel traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed — compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want.”
It’s all about the clicks these days. Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an Op-Ed from one of Alito’s former clerks. “I was a law clerk for Justice Alito. He must recuse himself from hearing cases involving Donald Trump. Flying the U.S. flag upside down, once a signal of distress, has become a symbol of those who reject the results of the 2020 presidential election. When Alito did so, it was indeed a distress call.” These are the thoughts of Susan Sullivan.
As a former law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., I often admired him as a person for his integrity and honesty. As a progressive liberal, however, I vehemently disagreed with the approach he takes to reading the Constitution, the narrow interpretation he adopts, and his reverence for the framers’restrictive intent.
Over the years, I became increasingly distressed with the results of his decisions. And then came Dobbs.
By striking down the rights of women to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy, the decision last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which he wrote, eviscerated women’s fundamental right to self-determination. Dobbs is not just about abortion; it is about setting the clock back and undermining the core protections enshrined within the Constitution of liberty, equality, and access to justice.
And then came the flag.
Flying the American flag upside down, formerly a signal of distress, is now understood to unequivocally telegraph support for those who have co-opted and corrupted its original intent. It has become the symbol of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol in a violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, who challenged — and continue to deny — the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election. It is the emblem for the “Stop the Steal” Trump factions, the symbol now held hostage by those who attacked our democracy at its very core.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that Justice Alito flew an upside-down flag at his home in Fairfax, Va., and another controversial flag at his beach house on Long Beach Island — acts that are widely accepted as an abhorrent affront to anyone who respects our constitutional democracy. So, when that flag is flown upside down by a member of the nation’s highest court, it is indeed a distress call.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether a president’s actions while in office are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution, irrespective of whether they concern the legitimate business of the office. Donald Trump has been indicted in state and federal courts in Washington, D.C., Florida, Georgia, and New York, alleging fraud as well ascrimes in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, the mishandling of classified documents, election interference, and more.
If the Supreme Court decides that he has blanket immunity — a decision expected any day now — these criminal charges, and any others, disappear. This means a president could commit serious crimes while in office, having nothing to do with the legitimate function of government, without facing any consequences. A president could theoretically hire an assassin to kill a competitor with impunity.
Justice Alito must recuse himself from having any role in the decision of these cases.
You may continue to read her rationale at the link. Meanwhile, this is an interesting read at The Guardian. “The reich stuff – what does Trump really have in common with Hitler? Comparisons between the ex-president and the 20th-century Nazi leader are controversial but a new book says they resemble each other as political performance artists.”
WhenDonald Trump shared a video that dreamed of a “unified reich” if he wins the US presidential election, and took nearly a full day to remove it, the most shocking thing was how unshocking it was.
Trump has reportedly said before that Adolf Hitler did “some good things”, echoed the Nazi dictator by calling his political opponents “vermin” and saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”, and responded to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville by claiming that there were “very fine people on both sides”.
The Hitler-Trump analogy is controversial. “Some of Trump’s critics – including Biden’s campaign – argue that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and authoritarian behavior justify the comparison,” the Politico website observed recently. “Meanwhile, Trump’s defenders – and even some of his more historically-minded critics – argue that the comparison is ahistorical; that he’s not a true fascist.”
The former camp now includes Henk de Berg, a professor of German at the University of Sheffield in Britain. The Dutchman, whose previous books include Freud’s Theory and Its Use in Literary and Cultural Studies, has just published Trump and Hitler: A Comparative Study in Lying.
In it, De Berg compares and contrasts Hitler and Trump as political performance artists and how they connect with their respective audiences. He examines the two men’s work ethic, management style and narcissism, as well as quirks such as Hitler’s toothbrush moustache and Trump’s implausible blond hair.
In a Zoom interview from his office at the university campus, De Berg quotes the American comedian and actor George Burns: “The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” He adds: “The most important thing in populism is authenticity. The moment you’re able to fake that, you’re in.”
De Berg, 60, happened to be renewing his study of National Socialism, and rereading Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf, just as Trump was first running for the White House in 2015. “Obviously, there are massive differences,” he acknowledges. “Hitler was an ideologically committed antisemite who instigated the second world war and was responsible for the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews died.
“But then I looked at their rhetorical strategies and their public relations operations and I began to see how similar they are in many ways. So I thought, OK, why not do a book looking at Hitler from the perspective of Trump?
Well, it’s another Monday in this version of the United States.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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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.
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