Portraits of Philly homicide victims’ families on display in City Hall – WHYY
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Yesterday, BB’s compelling post made me wonder if we would ever get out of the grip of the gun fetishists in this country. I found there are art projects around our country focused on ensuring the victims of gun violence–including their families–are not forgotten in this discussion.
Organizer Zarinah Lomax conceived the portrait project, which features 45 co-victims and will be on display until Oct. 15. She lost a family member to gun violence in 2018 and has been working with families affected by trauma since. Lomax is a host with PQ Radio 1, one of WHYY’s N.I.C.E media partners.
“A lot of the time we paint the victims,” she said to a packed room at the exhibit opening. “But these are faces you need to see, these are the victims that are still here.”
This is from the Oxford languages dictionary. “a person who affects a provocative or extreme persona, especially online (typically used of a man).”
Special to The Sun: The “Souls Shot Portrait Project” at Rowan College of South Jersey includes this portrait of gun violence victim Kevin Miller, made by Professor Eoin Kinnarney.
“edgelords act like contrarians in the hope that everyone will admire them as rebels”
I love this bit from Your Dictionary. “What’s an ‘Edgelord’ and Why Do You Never Want to Be One?” It’s written by Jennifer Gunner, M.Ed. Education.
An edgelord is someone with harsh opinions that they express in distasteful, offensive language to seem both edgy and aloof. As a 21st-century provocateur, an edgelord is especially attracted to taboo and controversial topics, which best showcase their would-be nihilism.
This person may dress in a provocative or shocking way, making them easy to spot. Unlike online trolls, who often are just normies trying to start trouble, edgelords set themselves apart from the norm in every way possible.
Well, that description and the “typically used of a man” thing lit up my mind with faces. However, I’d still say the High Priestess of QAnon strikes me as an Edgelady; back to the Vice article.
Since the beginning of the Biden Administration, the GOP has painstakingly attacked the Pentagon as a “woke” institution that’s somehow morphing the military and the nation into a soft power. Drag queen story hours and “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) training have become buzzwords for institutional rot, popping up on Fox News and in congressional committees as national security threats destroying the Department of Defense.
Then last week it was revealed that perhaps the most damaging unauthorized disclosure of U.S. intelligence since Wikileaks, wasn’t laid at the hands of some “woke warrior” but apparent Discord edgelord and national guardsman Jack Teixeira, highlighting what ideological beliefs might actually pose a threat to the U.S. government.
A gun and military gear enthusiast, Teixeira led a Discord server made up of young men and reportedly appears in a video firing a weapon while yelling antisemitic epithets (the chatroom was also reportedly rife with racist shitpostings). He was even touted as a posterboy for the extremist corners of the right, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene who called him “white, male, Christian, and anti-war”—a reference to the anti-Ukraine War sentiment among Republicans. Teixeira has been charged with the removal, retention, and transmission of classified documents and could face over a decade in prison if convicted.
While it isn’t exactly clear what Teixeira’s beliefs or motivations were, the behavior on the Discord certainly bears the hallmarks of an edgelord; usually very online, young men posting mock-shocking memes and comments for lols and kudos among each other. Someone allegedly taking classified information to impress their chaos-loving online friends is yet another security threat to a defense force that military sources say has yet to even properly handle individuals with anti-government or extremist beliefs.
“It highlights the need to screen harder in our clearance process,” said a veteran and Department of Defense worker who was not authorized to speak to the media. They said that even in the intelligence world, seeing people who voice support for the militia movement, long understood to be a veiled version of white supremacy and anti-governmentalism, isn’t shocking.
“I’m not saying Republicans can’t have clearances, but the amount of Three Percenters and Boogaloo guys I work with is untenable,” they said, referring to two extremist groups that were active during the attacks on January 6.
Well, alrighty then. These aren’t the suspects he works on or cases he’s investigating; these are his fucking co-workers in the DOD. Well, we’ve suspected that haven’t we? White Christian evangelicals have been the plague of the Air Force Academy for decades. I guess this is just the next extension. More from Vice.
It’s well established that there is a threat of rightwing extremist violence among a minority of both active duty servicemen and veterans, but they can also clearly be an intelligence threat. The latest leaks alone likely led to the delay of a multibillion dollar Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia and major headaches between Washington and some of its key allies.
“Right-wing extremists in the military pose security risks beyond their potential for violence,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, an expert on the far right at the Counter Extremism Project, a New York City-based nonprofit terrorism watchdog. “The recent leak case highlights the possibility that individuals could share sensitive information with a broader online audience or with potential extremists or other hostile actors. Ideological views that sympathize with a U.S. opponent might also heighten the risk of sharing sensitive information.”
If you read more, you will discover they love Baby-Face Rittenhouse, the poster child for getting away with murder. Please read more.
Here are some more headlines today that will make your stomach churn. How did things get so out of control? This is from the Washington Post. “Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: ‘I am your justice’. The former president is proposing deploying the military domestically, purging the federal workforce and building futuristic cities from scratch.” This doesn’t sound like Hitler. It sounds like Stalin and Big Brother. ”
Mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce and charging leakers.
Former president Donald Trump has steadily begun outlining his vision for a second-term agenda, focusing on unfinished business from his time in the White House and an expansive vision for how he would wield federal power. In online videos and stump speeches, Trump is pledging to pick up where his first term left off and push even further.
Where he earlier changed border policies to reduce refugees and people seeking asylum, he’s now promising to conduct an unprecedented deportation operation. Where he previously moved to make it easier to fire federal workers, he’s now proposing a new civil service exam. After urging state and local officials to take harsher measures on crime and homelessness, Trump says he is now determined to take more direct federal action.
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said in a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference and repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco a few weeks later. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
Trump’s emerging platform marks a sharp departure from traditional conservative orthodoxy emphasizing small government, which was famously summed up in Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Trump, by contrast, is proposing to apply government power, centralized under his authority, toward a vast range of issues that have long remained outside the scope of federal control.
This is from CNN’s Zach Cohen. “Exclusive: Text messages reveal Trump operatives considered using breached voting data to decertify Georgia’s Senate runoff in 2021.” That’s basically the Watergate break-in on steroids.
In mid-January 2021, two men hired by former President Donald Trump’s legal team discussed over text message what to do with data obtained from a breached voting machine in a rural county in Georgia, including whether to use it as part of an attempt to decertify the state’s pending Senate runoff results.
The texts, sent two weeks after operatives breached a voting machine in Coffee County, Georgia, reveal for the first time that Trump allies considered using voting data not only to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, but also in an effort to keep a Republican hold on the US Senate.
“Here’s the plan. Let’s keep this close hold,” Jim Penrose, a former NSA official working with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell to access voting machines in Georgia, wrote in a January 19 text to Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, a firm that purports to run audits of voting systems.
In the text, which was obtained by CNN and has not been previously reported, Penrose references the upcoming certification of Democrat Jon Ossoff’s win over Republican David Perdue.
“We only have until Saturday to decide if we are going to use this report to try to decertify the Senate run-off election or if we hold it for a bigger moment,” Penrose wrote, referring to a potential lawsuit.
The plot to breach voting systems in Coffee County, coordinated by members of Trump’s legal team including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, is part of a broader criminal investigation into 2020 election interference led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Willis’ office is weighing a potential racketeering case against multiple defendants and is actively deciding who to bring charges against, sources tell CNN. Willis has subpoenaed a number of individuals involved in the Coffee County breach, including the two men who carried it out who were in touch with Penrose and Logan.
From the Twin Cities Exhibit Art is my Weapon:A painting of Aniya Allen by Laura Kruchten titled “Sweet Baby.” Allen was shot and killed in 2021 while eating a Happy Meal in her parent’s car.
Most Republican primary voters say fighting “woke” ideology in schools and businesses is more important to them than protecting Medicare and Social Security from cuts, a new Wall Street Journal poll out today showed. Driving the news: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a potential 2024 candidate, has made conservative cultural issues in education a central part of his agenda, a move the poll indicates could help him with the GOP’s most ardent supporters.
He signed into law a ban on the instruction of gender and sexuality in elementary school, which was recently expanded to include middle and high school.
He also signed the “Stop WOKE” Act which would ban classroom and corporate trainings that make students or employees feel discomfort over their race. (The bill has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.)
The big picture: Former President Trumphas attacked DeSantis over his past support for changes to Social Security and Medicare.
But 55% of Republicans say that fighting “woke ideology in our schools and businesses” is more important than protecting entitlement programs from cuts, per the Journal poll.
27% of Republican voters say protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits from cuts is more important to them.
However, 49% of all voters said they would support a candidate who pledged to keep entitlements as they are rather than push for cuts.
Zoom out: The poll also shows DeSantis trailing Trump 51% to 38% among likely Republican voters in a hypothetical matchup.
Sadly, we’ve learned to expect mass shootings on a regular basis in this country. Americans are no longer safe from gunfire in schools, supermarkets, malls, movie theaters, music festivals, churches, mosques, and temples.
Over the past few days, we’ve learned that it can be dangerous to make mistakes like knocking on the wrong door, turning into the wrong driveway, opening the door of a that you mistook for your own, or even accidentally letting the ball you and your child are playing with roll into a neighbor’s yard.
Will this nightmare ever end? It sure doesn’t look that way.
Hundreds of miles apart, the two men stood in courtrooms, accused of shooting at someone who had made a wrong turn.
In a courthouse in Fort Edward, N.Y., Kevin Monahan, 65, was denied bail on Wednesday in a case where prosecutors say he fatally shot Kaylin Gillis, 20, after she and a group of friends mistakenly drove up his driveway while looking for another friend’s house.
In a small courtroom in Liberty, Mo., Andrew D. Lester, 84, carried a cane as he pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, 16, who had come to Mr. Lester’s door mistakenly thinking it was the address where his younger siblings were waiting to be picked up.
The two shootings were among recent cases involving gun attacks on individuals who were simply lost, or had seemingly made a minor misstep during an everyday task. On Tuesday, in Elgin, Texas, two teenage cheerleaders were shot just after midnight after apparently trying to get into the wrong car in a supermarket parking lot. The police said Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, was charged with deadly conduct, a felony.
Lester told authorities that he was “scared to death” when he saw Yarl outside his door. (Yarl is black and Lester is white).
Monahan’s lawyer claimed that Monahan saw “several vehicles speeding up his driveway.” The lawyer also said that Monahan “feels terrible that someone lost their life.” Right. He feels so terrible that police only arrested him after a “standoff.” See this story at the New York Post.
Back to the NYT article:
Neighbors said that Mr. Monahan, a self-employed builder and longtime resident whose home sits on about 40 mostly wooded acres, had a reputation as a sometimes surly character who loved dirt bikes and largely kept to himself….
Adam Matthews, who lives next to Mr. Monahan and has known him for decades, said his neighbor could be aggressive and intimidating. “He was a difficult guy,” Mr. Matthews recalled, adding he was “known to have altercations with people.”
Édouard Manet, Tama, the Japanese Dog (circa 1875).
He added that Mr. Monahan was “always concerned with trespassing” and that the wide opening of his driveway resembled a road to some drivers. At one point, he said, Mr. Monahan had draped a chain across the mouth of his driveway, though the chain was no longer there last weekend….
Mr. Lester lives in a modest beige house outfitted with surveillance cameras, though city data shows there is relatively little crime in his quiet neighborhood near the northern edge of Kansas City. Neighbors said that his wife was recently moved to a nursing home, leaving him alone in his house. He spent considerable time at home in a living room chair, watching conservative news programs at high volume, a relative said….
Klint Ludwig, a grandson, said in an interview that he and his grandfather used to be close. The two had become estranged in part, Mr. Ludwig said, because Mr. Lester had embraced right-wing conspiracy theories.
Mr. Lester used to tell his grandson about serving in the military decades ago, and recount stories of working as a mechanic in the airline industry. They celebrated holidays together with extended family who lived in the Kansas City area. Mr. Ludwig, who described himself as left wing, said that Mr. Lester kept a large number of firearms in his home, including rifles and handguns.
But at a family gathering during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Ludwig said, Mr. Lester began sharing a conspiracy theory involving Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious disease expert.
“I was like, ‘Man, this sounds crazy,’” recalled Mr. Ludwig, 28. “I told him it was ridiculous.”
The two have not had a relationship since, Mr. Ludwig said.
Lester’s former wife of 14 years told the NYT that their marriage was “troubled,” and that he was violent. “I was always scared of him,” she said.
I saw the grandson on CNN this morning, and he said that Lester watches Fox News all day long.
A grandson of the man charged with shooting a Black teen in Kansas City’s Northland last week said he was “appalled” and “disgusted” at his grandfather’s actions and is thankful Ralph Yarl is recovering.
“I was horrified. I thought it was terrible,” Klint Ludwig said of his immediate reaction to hearing about the shooting of the 16-year-old. “It was inexcusable. It was wrong.
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Evening (1939).
“I stand with Ralph, and really want his family to achieve justice for what happened to them. Their child or grandchild or nephew’s life was fundamentally changed forever, over a mistake and someone being scared and fearful.” [….]
Ludwig, who lives in the Kansas City area, told The Star on Wednesday that he also was disgusted at the way authorities handled the case.
He was critical of the way both police and the Clay County prosecutor conducted the initial investigation, releasing Lester and not charging him after he was first brought in. “The only reason why he is now receiving charges and an investigation is being held was because of community outreach to bring attention to this,” Ludwig said. “The response has been great. It’s been amazing to see this solidarity and coming together as a community.”
On the Fox News connection, Ludwig said he used to be close to his grandfather.
“But in the last five or six years or so, I feel like we’ve lost touch,” he said. “I’ve gotten older and gained my own political views, and he’s become staunchly right-wing, further down the right-wing rabbit hole as far as doing the election-denying conspiracy stuff and COVID conspiracies and disinformation, fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line. I feel like it’s really further radicalized him in a lot of ways.”
Ludwig said his grandfather had been immersed in “a 24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia.”
“And then the NRA pushing the ‘stand your ground’ stuff and that you have to defend your home,” he said. “When I heard what happened, I was appalled and shocked that it transpired, but I didn’t disbelieve that it was true. The second I heard it, I was like, ‘Yeah, I could see him doing that.’”
Two Texas cheerleaders were shot, and one of them critically injured, early Tuesday after one girl mistakenly got into the wrong car in a grocery store parking lot, she said.
The Elgin, Tex., shooting is the third headline-making incident in less than a week in which someone was shot while approaching a person they apparently did not know.
Edvard Munch, St. Bernard Dog
Elgin police responded to reports of gunshots outside an H-E-B supermarket at 12:15 a.m. Tuesday, authorities said in a news release. They arrested and charged Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, in what they called “an altercation … in the parking lot of HEB” in which “multiple shots were fired into a vehicle.”
One of the victims was identified by a coach as Payton Washington, an 18-year-old high school senior and cheerleader for the Round Rock Independent School District, near Austin. Washington “sustained serious injuries” when she was shot in the back and one leg, police said. She was transported to a hospital by helicopter and is in critical condition, they said. A GoFundMe for Washington says she is “stable in the ICU and will have a long road to recovery.”
The other cheerleader struck by gunfire, Heather Roth, suffered a graze wound on one of her legs and was released from the scene of the shooting, authorities said.
At a Tuesday night vigil shared to Instagram Live, Roth said she and three other cheerleaders with Woodlands Elite Cheer Co. had just completed their Monday night practice when they arrived at the H-E-B parking lot, which their carpool used. When Roth got into a car she thought was a friend’s, she realized that a man was in the passenger seat and quickly got out, she said. After Roth got into her friend’s car, she said, she saw Rodriguez approach and rolled down her window to apologize….
“He pulled out a gun, and then he just started shooting at all of us,” Roth said, according to KHOU, an CBS affiliate in Houston. She added, “Payton opens the door, and she starts throwing up blood.”
A manhunt is underway near Charlotte, North Carolina, for a man who reportedly shot and seriously wounded his 6-year-old neighbor and her dad when a basketball rolled into his yard.
Robert Louis Singletary, 24, should be considered armed and dangerous, Gaston County Police said. He’s 6-foot-2 and about 223 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair.
Two-poodles,1891, by Pierre Bonnard
The shooting began after kids had been “playing basketball, and a ball had rolled down that way and had rolled into the yard and they went to go get it,” neighbor Jonathan Robertson told CNN affiliate WBTV.
“We never expected anybody would break a gun out amongst all those kids,” he said. “I mean that was insane.”
The 6-year-old girl said she was shot in the cheek and described to WBTV her understanding of what happened.
“I couldn’t get inside in time so he shot my daddy in the back,” she said.
The incident was another case this week alone in which young people were shot after seemingly ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time, including two teen cheerleaders mistakenly approaching someone else’s vehicle in a Texas grocery store parking lot, a 16-year-old who rang the wrong doorbell in Kansas City and a 20-year-old who turned into the wrong New York driveway.
The shootings reflect the consequences of a country with more civilian guns than people, according to the Small Arms Survey, and the toxic stew of fear, paranoia and distrust that influences so many and leads to violence.
William White, the father of the child is in the hospital with “serious injuries.”
I suppose these types of shootings have happened in the past, but now they are being highlighted because four of them happened in over a brief time period. Mass shootings are seem to be happening more frequently too.
The number of mass shootings in the United States on Saturday was higher than on any other day so far in 2023, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks US gun-related violence.
They spanned across six states, killing at least 10 people. The most deadly was in Alabama, where a shooter targeted a Sweet 16 party, killing four people between the ages of 17 and 23, and injuring an additional 28. Another two people were killed in a shooting at a park in Louisville, Kentucky, where the community was still reeling from a mass shooting at a bank on April 10.
Both CNN and GVA define a “mass shooting” as a shooting that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.
Before this weekend, the most mass shootings on any day this year was New Year’s Day, which saw six mass shootings, according to GVA.
But seven mass shootings in one day is not the highest this country has seen in recent years. Over each Fourth of July weekend between 2020-2022, there was at least one day with mass shootings in the double digits.
In 2020, the 15 mass shootings that occurred across 13 states on July 5 made for the highest number of mass shootings in one day since 2013, according to GVA.
I hate to say this, but it really looks like we’ve lost the battle to stop gun violence. There are so many guns out there. How will we ever reverse this trend? I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ll see an end to this in my lifetime. And we can blame the NRA, the Supreme Court and yes, Fox News. Please convince me I’m wrong. This next article makes me want to slit my wrists, but I’m afraid Brynn Tannehill may be right, even though I hope and pray she’s wrong.
Bather with a Griffon dog Lise on the bank of the seine, Pierre Auguste Renoir
I wrote this article long before the latest mass shooting that just happened, this time in Louisville, Kentucky, because we all know the pattern, and it never changes. There’s a mass shooting and dead innocents, often children. Angry calls for Republicans to do something, and nothing gets done. The incident fades from the 24-hour news cycle, and we resume the waiting game for the next one. It’s Sisyphus with a boulder that rolls downhill and crushes him over and over for eternity.
That’s something that people who support gun control measures need to understand: The war is lost. There is no conceivable way for things to change for the better within the next 20 to 30 years, short of a national divorce. There is no way to change hearts and minds of Republicans or the courts. There is no way to change who is in office in most states. There is no way to replace who sits on the courts quickly or change conservative disdain for stare decisis.
In reality, mass shootings will only become more and more common over the next few years as Republicans have decided that the only solution to gun violence is adding as many guns as possible to the mix.
At the state level, gerrymandering ensures that red states will never put in place elected representatives who would pass gun control. With the primary system as it is, there is zero chance that Republican primaries in these states would suddenly start producing candidates who would support limiting access to guns, much less taking away assault rifles.
In blue states, they already know that there is no hope that the courts will uphold the laws they pass. The Supreme Court effectively overturned the California law that limited magazine size, after ruling in 2022 that states can do little to prevent anyone from buying a gun in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The conservative Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, ruled in 2023 that the Second Amendment prevents the government from taking guns from people under restraining orders for committing domestic violence. Nor is the government allowed to prevent them from buying guns.
Some Republicans still want to pretend that they’re engaging with the subject seriously: blaming mental health issues, video games, lack of prayer in schools, and transgender people for mass shootings. But this is simply a distraction: Other countries have all those things, but they don’t have mass shootings. The United States is the only country where people have such ready access to hundreds of millions of firearms, and we are the only country where mass shootings happen with such grim regularity….
Short of a national divorce, there is nothing that can be done at this point. Mass shootings, and the accompanying piles of dead bodies, are as American as Mom and apple pie. Continuing to pretend that our current system can fix this is tantamount to accepting the status quo. This is going to upset a lot of people and make them angry. I could be wrong; I’m not a psychic. However, no one has proposed a plausible way to get meaningful gun reform through. It’s not for lack of trying either: Every effort for the past decade has failed despite public outcry after each horrific mass shooting. If there was a way, someone would have already found it. But the truth hurts when it means changing your whole worldview: that the war is lost, and your country cannot be saved from not only what it has become but what it chooses to be.
Read the rest at the link if you can stand it.
There is a lot more news happening today, so please share links to stories on any topic that interests you. Take care and stay safe everyone.
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The big news this morning is that the Fox News/Dominion lawsuit is going forward! Numerous media sites, including NBC News, The Washington Post, and The New York Times are providing live updates, and reporters are live tweeting.
Here’s the latest on the Fox-Dominion trial.
Jurors are getting their first look at Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in a trial that will test First Amendment protections and expose the network's role in spreading the lie of a stolen 2020 election. https://t.co/N2TfO5EmCWpic.twitter.com/vJK7EBwvv1
A jury was seated Tuesday to hear a voting machine company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in a trial that will test First Amendment protections and expose the network’s role in spreading the lie of a stolen 2020 presidential election.
Jury selection came a day after the judge granted a one-day delay that offered time to see if the two sides could work out a settlement.
Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems aims to hold Fox accountable for airing false allegations of election fraud that continue to roil U.S. politics.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis gave no explanation for the brief delay. But he suggested the companies try to mediate their dispute, according to a person close to Fox who was not authorized to speak publicly about the lawsuit’s status and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The case will put under scrutiny the libel standard that has guided U.S. media outlets for nearly six decades, reveal behind-the-scenes activity at Fox News in the weeks after the 2020 election and shed light on the flow of misinformation that turned into a tidal wave after the election, which then-President Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.
Fox News stars such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, as well as company founder Rupert Murdoch, are expected to testify during the six-week trial, but it’s unclear whether any witnesses would be called Tuesday.
Dominion claims New York-based Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., essentially bulldozed the voting company’s business and subjected employees to threats by falsely implicating it in a bogus conspiracy to rig the election against Trump.
n the weeks after Election Day, prominent Fox News hosts brought on Trump allies who falsely claimed that Dominion’s machines were programmed to snatch votes away from the Republican incumbent and pad the Democratic challenger’s total.
Many of Fox’s hosts and executives didn’t believe the claims but allowed them to be aired nevertheless.
"Complicating matters for Fox, buying litigation peace with Dominion wouldn’t end its legal exposure stemming from its postelection broadcasts," the @WSJ notes, pointing to Smartmatic's pending lawsuit. https://t.co/5pKV8jt3Ix
Both Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News face legal risks if their heavyweight defamation battle goes to trial beginning Tuesday, but any last-minute settlement talks would need to overcome two years of intense legal hostilities that so far have put an agreement out of reach.
Both sides gained an extra day Monday to consider their positions as Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis delayed the start of the trial until Tuesday….
University of Georgia law professor Sonja West said both sides will have to weigh how much of a risk they are willing to take in going to trial.
“Even when a party believes it has a persuasive case, juries can be unpredictable,” Ms. West said. “There’s always an element of rolling the dice. Both Fox and Dominion have a lot on the line.”
Fox and Dominion each face potential strengths and weaknesses in their cases.
Dominion comes to court armed with reams of internal Fox communications indicating that hosts, producers and executives were deeply skeptical—and in some cases disdainful—of the election-fraud claims, yet they continued to broadcast them. That could help Dominion establish its claims that Fox acted with actual malice, the legal standard for defamation. Under that standard, Dominion has to prove that Fox knowingly published false material or proceeded with reckless disregard for the truth.
The public release of Fox’s internal discussions has painted the network in an unflattering light, and the spotlight on its operations could grow brighter during live testimony. A trial could require high-profile Fox figures to take the witness stand, including Fox CorpFOX -0.32%decrease; red down pointing triangle. Chair Rupert Murdoch and Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson.
“The reputational damage has already been suffered,” said Jonathan Wald, a former senior executive at MSNBC and CNN. “Settling is a way to cut that off and move forward.”
Fox lawyers previously sought to keep Mr. Murdoch from having to appear in person, but Judge Davis has said he would require him to appear as a witness if Dominion formally requested his testimony at trial.
Complicating matters for Fox, buying litigation peace with Dominion wouldn’t end its legal exposure stemming from its postelection broadcasts. The network is separately facing another defamation lawsuit from a different voting-machine company, Smartmatic USA Corp., which is seeking $2.7 billion in damages.
Read more at the WSJ. I didn’t encounter a paywall when I clicked a link at Memeorandum.
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote a great post on the decline and fall of the Republican Party in the post-Trump era. Today, the news is again full of Republican pratfalls that prove the party as we once knew it is dying. Bumbling Kevin McCarthy keeps trying to engage President Biden over the debt ceiling, but he can’t even get his own caucus to go along with his ideas.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has such a tenuous grip on his own conference that the debt-ceiling hostage-taking he is attempting to pull off has all the hallmarks of the bumbling kidnapping capers you see in the movies:https://t.co/c4gYTMKgwh via @TPM
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has such a tenuous grip on his own conference that the debt-ceiling hostage-taking he is attempting to pull off has all the hallmarks of the bumbling kidnapping capers you see in the movies:
The House GOP can’t agree amongst themselves what to ask for as ransom.
They can’t get the White House to take them seriously enough as a ragtag band of kidnappers to engage in negotiations.
They keep threatening dire consequences for not taking them seriously but are repeatedly hobbled by their own lack of consensus.
At this point, McCarthy wants the House to vote by the end of the month on a package that combines the debt ceiling with draconian spending cuts, but he clearly doesn’t have (i) internal agreement on those cuts or on how much to raise the debt ceiling by; or (ii) the votes to push a package through as early as next week.
McCarthy is preparing to bypass the House committees altogether and cobble together a package on the floor himself, Punchbowl reports. If wishing and hoping were a plan …
One word of warning: Political reporters are doing McCarthy a favor by calling what he’s presenting publicly, including in his speech yesterday to the NYSE, a “plan.” It’s not a plan yet. It skews the coverage to pretend it is a plan. McCarthy is taking advantage of this journalistic failure to try to leverage pressure on the White House. The White House ain’t stupid and isn’t biting.
McCarthy doesn’t have a plan or the votes. Until that changes, that’s really all you need to know.
The spending-cut proposals unveiled by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday could fall hardest on people in Republican-leaning states, a Reuters analysis of federal spending data found.
McCarthy’s plan, which he presented as a condition for raising the United States’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, calls for cutting some agency budgets by 7% this year and capping their growth by 1% annually after that.
It also would impose stiffer work requirements on some benefit programs, which could reduce the number of people who receive them.
McCarthy only laid out broad contours on Monday, rather than unveiling finished legislation, which makes it difficult to determine the proposed cuts’ precise toll.
But a Reuters analysis of federal spending data indicates that his proposed domestic-spending caps could be felt most acutely in the states that backed Republican President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Those 25 states received roughly $172 billion in the last fiscal year for highway construction, housing, public health and other purposes, amounting to $1,196 per person.
The 25 states plus the District of Columbia that backed Democrat Joe Biden received $205 billion, or $1,079 per person.
More Republican high jinks:
The McCurtain County sheriff and other Oklahoma officials have been asked to resign after they were caught on audio talking about killing local reporters and bemoaning the fact that they can't hang Black people with a “damned rope.” https://t.co/jZuUGgCSjY
The governor of Oklahoma has called for the resignations of the sheriff and other top officials in a rural county after they were recorded talking about “beating, killing and burying” a father/son team of local reporters — and lamenting that they could no longer hang Black people with a “damned rope.”
Gov. Kevin Stitt called for McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, county Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning, and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix to step down after the McCurtain County Gazette-News published an article over the weekend about what was captured on the recording.
“I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Stitt said in a statement released Sunday. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office.”
Stitt, a Republican, said he has ordered the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to “initiate an investigation to determine whether any illegal conduct has occurred.”
Bruce Willingham, who works for his family-owned newspaper, has turned the full audio over to the FBI and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office, his lawyers said.
Meanwhile, dozens of county residents angered by the officials’ comments picketed Monday outside the headquarters of the McCurtain County Commissioners in the town of Idabel, which is about 200 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, NBC affiliate KFOR of Oklahoma City reported.
You know how MAGA Republicans are always accusing Democrats of pedophilia? Check out this story about Ali Alexander, the guy who organized Trump’s Stop the Steal Rally on January 6, 2021 that led to the insurrection.
New: Pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander has apologized after being accused of asking teenagers for dick pics.
In one message, Alexander allegedly complained that a 15-year-old wasn’t sending him “Jack off material.” https://t.co/pL9GMRgXCe
A key figure in the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” campaign has apologized after being accused of asking teenage boys for sexual pictures.
Ali Alexander has become one of the most ubiquitous figures in the MAGA movement. Trump himself reportedly requested that Alexander speak at his rally before the riot, with his appearance only quashed by a last-minute intervention from Trump’s aides. But this week, Alexander stands at the center of a scandal that raises questions about how powerful men in the far-right treat their younger acolytes.
“This is too gay,” Alexander said in a statement issued Friday night that addressed the allegations in broad terms.
Alexander, who has described himself as bisexual in the past, added that he was “battling with same-sex attraction.”
The budding online scandal has also roiled the pro-Trump and white supremacist “America First” movement, just months after it reached new levels of notoriety after its leader, Nick Fuentes, dined with Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago. Now Fuentes is facing backlash from his own supporters over whether he ignored warnings that Alexander, his friend and ally, was allegedly soliciting nude pictures from young men within Fuentes’s movement.
On Friday night, Alexander—who was questioned by the House Jan. 6 Committee about his role organizing a canceled rally dubbed the “Wild Protest” outside the Capitol, which drew crowds to the building right before the riot began—issued a statement Friday offering a general apology.
“I apologize for any inappropriate messages sent over the years,” Alexander wrote, adding later, “When I’ve flirted or others have flirted with me, I’ve flexed my credentials or dropped corny pick up lines. Other times, I’ve been careless and should’ve qualified those coming up to me’s (sic) identities during flirtatious banter at the start.”
And then there is Ron De Santis, who is in a pitched battle with Disney over the company’s support for LGBT rights.
Maybe Disney should consider moving across the border to southern Georgia? Weather is pretty similar and The business climate is much better. DeSantis is NUTZ!
DeSantis, in Latest Volley Against Disney, Suggests Punitive Steps – The New York Times https://t.co/dmAQmGIC8Y
In what has taken on the trappings of a grudge match, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida punched Disney anew on Monday, announcing new legislation that would override the company’s recent effort to sidestep state oversight of its theme parks.
Mr. DeSantis also suggested a variety of potential punitive actions against Disney — the state’s largest private employer and corporate taxpayer — including reappraising the value of Walt Disney World for property tax levies and developing land near the entrances to the resort.
“Maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks — someone even said, like, maybe you need another state prison,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference near Disney World.
Two weeks ago, Mr. DeSantis — a leading Republican presidential contender although he has not officially declared that he is running — floated the idea of raising taxes on Disney hotels and imposing tolls on roads that lead to its theme parks. He has also requested an investigation by Florida’s chief inspector general into Disney’s efforts to circumvent his authority….
Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, previously characterized Mr. DeSantis as “anti-business” and “anti-Florida” for his actions. Mr. Iger has also signaled that future investment in Disney World could be at risk if the governor continued to use Disney as a political punching bag; the company has earmarked more than $17 billion in spending at the resort over the next decade, growth that would create an estimated 13,000 jobs at the company.
Disney has to be bringing in plenty of money for Florida by attracting visitors from around the world, but De Santis seems to be willing to drive them out of the state because they are friendly to LGBT people who have money to spend.
Finally, two horrific gun violence stories:
This breaks my heart. He had to go to 3 houses to get help then forced to keep his hands in the air while waiting for an ambulance. Ralph Yarl Case: 84-Year-Old Is Charged in Shooting of Black Teenager – The New York Times https://t.co/43pCld8D3D
Ralph [Yarl], a Black 16-year-old in Kansas City, Mo., had been sent to pick up his younger twin brothers at a friend’s house on Thursday evening, his family said. But he mixed up the address, finding himself in front of a house on Northeast 115 Street, instead of Northeast 115th Terrace.
The white man who answered the door there shot him in the head and again in the arm after he fell, according to prosecutors. Somehow, Ralph made his way, bleeding, to another nearby house. There, he was told to lie on the ground while someone called for help, his family said.
The homeowner who shot him, Andrew D. Lester, 84, was taken into custody by the police for 24 hours, then released without charges on Friday. Over the weekend, anger began to spread in the community. Protesters marched on Mr. Lester’s home on Sunday, while the Kansas City police chief, Stacey Graves, acknowledged the public frustration at a news conference. The teenager was released from the hospital on Sunday evening, his father said.
As pressure mounted on Monday afternoon, the Police Department said in a statement that it had submitted the case file to the Clay County prosecuting attorney’s office. The prosecutor, Zachary Thompson, publicly identified Mr. Lester a few hours later and announced that he had been charged, saying what many already believed: “There was a racial component to the case.”
Mr. Thompson said Mr. Lester had been charged with assault in the first degree, a class-A felony, and could face life in prison if convicted. He also was charged with armed criminal action, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, Mr. Thompson said.
It was not clear if the teenager had knocked on Mr. Lester’s door or if he rang the doorbell, but he did not “cross the threshold” into the man’s home, Mr. Thompson said. The shots from a .32-caliber handgun were fired through a glass door, the prosecutor said, adding that there was no indication that “any words were exchanged.”
Fortunately, Yarl survived and has been released from the hospital, although he will have a long recovery. Twenty year-old Kaylin Gillis was not so fortunate.
Kaylin Gillis: A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed in upstate New York after accidentally turning into the wrong driveway, officials say – CNN https://t.co/C9aUvPNwih
— Immah Not Confused Bey ✨ (@Charvettebey) April 18, 2023
A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed Saturday after she and three others accidentally turned into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house in rural upstate New York, authorities said.
The woman, identified as Kaylin Gillis, was a passenger in a vehicle when a man fired two shots from his front porch, one of which hit the vehicle, Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy said in a news conference Monday. Gillis was struck by the gunfire and later died, the sheriff said.
The man, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with her death, Murphy said Monday. It is unclear whether Monahan has retained an attorney yet.
“It’s a very rural area with dirt roads. It’s easy to get lost. They drove up this driveway for a very short time, realized their mistake and were leaving, when Mr. Monahan came out and fired two shots,” Murphy said, adding that the area has poor cell phone service….
After the shots were fired, Gillis and the rest of the group drove away from the house in the town of Hebron looking for cell phone service, and then called 911.
They were found around 5 miles away from the home in the nearby town of Salem. First responders began administering CPR but Gillis was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene, Murphy said.
Police officers later responded to the home from which shots were fired and found Monahan to be uncooperative, Murphy said, adding he “refused to exit his residence to speak with police.”
He was taken into custody hours later with help from the New York State Police Special Operations Response Team, according to a press release from the Washington County Sheriff’s office.
No one is believed to have exited the car and there was no interaction between Monahan and anyone in the vehicle before shots were fired, Murphy said.
I have to believe that Republican fear-mongering played a role in both of these tragic cases.
That’s it for me today. Have a great Tuesday!!
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John Buss nailed his cartoon today. Poor, poor pitiful Orange Caligula has taken the Airing of The Grievances to new heights. So, I borrowed it bigly. Thanks, John, for the daily smile! Poor me will write about it, I needed that smile! It also gave me a reason to think of my late ninth-ward neighbor, Fats Domino. I loved every moment of watching him play at every place possible here! Plus, he made great hog’s head cheese!
Take a breath. It’s the airing of the Grievances at the Donnie Dotard Club!
I’ve read a lot of American History in my day, and I’ve now lived a portion of it enough to say I don’t recall any Presidential Campaign being a Revenge Tour. But then, we’ve never had a President–and hopefully, never again–like Trump. That appears to be what today’s Republicans want, according to Sarah Longwell, writing today at The Bulwark. “You Have to Think of Trump’s Election as Year Zero. Because Republican voters say they don’t want any part of a Republican party that looks anything like it did before 2016.”
THERE ARE EVENTS SO EPOCHAL that they create clear periods of before and after: Hiroshima; the fall of the Berlin Wall; 9/11. Eight years after he declared his intention to run for president, it’s now clear that we should consider Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign not as part of America’s political continuum but as one of these temporal dividing lines.
In American politics, there were conventions and candidates that existed in 2015 Republican politics as the before times. 2015 BT. Before Trump.
Before the escalator and “grab ’em by the p***y.” Before Muslim bans and a wall Mexico would never pay for. Before we’d heard of Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Lauren Boebert, or the QAnon shaman. Before an American president sided with Vladimir Putin over his own government’s intelligence network. Before Donald Trump became the first president to turn his back on the peaceful transfer of power.
This period has existed outside of nearly all established norms, yet many Americans seem to believe that it is an interregnum. An aberration. An accident of history that will undo itself—soon—as norms and the old equilibrium return.
I think this view misunderstands the true nature of what has happened to the Republican party because it does not see what has happened to Republican voters.
I’ve sat through hundreds of focus groups with GOP voters over the last four years and one thing is perfectly clear: The Republican party has been irretrievably altered and, as one GOP voter put it succinctly, “We’re never going back.”
IT’S EASY TO IDENTIFY people who don’t realize the transformation undergone by GOP voters. Many of them, in fact, have been talking about running for president. Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pompeo—these are Before Trump (BT) politicians who don’t quite realize they’re living in an After Trump (AT) world.
Rock ‘n’ roll legend Fats Domino’s two-home compound at Caffin Avenue and Marais Street has been a landmark of the Lower 9th Ward since 1960.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis narrowly leads President Joe Biden in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to a poll of a hypothetical matchup between the two men in the 2024 presidential race. The same survey, however, finds Biden leading former President Donald Trump in the two swing states, albeit by tight margins. The poll, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by McClatchyDC, should bolster the argument from many DeSantis supporters that the Florida Republican is more electable than the former president. Trump lost reelection in 2020 and has continued alienating some moderate voters with his ongoing false claims that the race was stolen from him
The Louisiana GOP wants to prohibit the study of racism at state colleges and universities.
A GOP resolution, seen by NOLA.com, claimed the “inglorious aspects” of American history were too divisive.
It comes amid a nationwide GOP effort to scrub race issues from public schools and public life.
Republican officials in Louisiana are proposing a ban on teaching about racism at the state’s higher education institutions — the latest move amid a wave of legislation across the country aimed at legislating curriculum in the nation’s classrooms.
GOP Party officials in the state want Louisiana lawmakers to prohibit the study of racism at colleges and universities, claiming the “inglorious aspects” of American history are too divisive, according to NOLA.com, which cites a GOP resolution on the matter.
The state GOP leadership also wants to nix diversity, equity, and inclusion departments at colleges and universities, claiming without evidence that such agencies stir political tensions on campuses and have overgenerous budgets, NOLA.com reported. A third of Louisiana residents are Black, according to the US Census Bureau.
Two articles on the front page of today’s New Orleans Times-Picayune. One about a new memorial to the victims of the 1873 Colfax Massacre. Another on how the Louisiana GOP wants to stop colleges from teaching about “inglorious aspects” of US history – like the Colfax Massacre. pic.twitter.com/ELQXHxMmxe
In an all-caps post on Truth Social, Trump urged Murdoch to “EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION.” Fox is the defendant in a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion, which says that Fox knowingly amplified false claims about the company in order to promote Trump’s disproven theories about how the election was stolen from him and handed to Joe Biden. According to Trump, Fox’s acknowledgement that the election was not stolen from him represents a legal liability.
“FOX NEWS IS IN BIG TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION. THEY SHOULD DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR AMERICA. WHEN RUPERT MURDOCH SAYS THAT THERE WAS NO CHEATING IN LIGHT OF THE MASSIVE PROOF THAT WAS THERE, IT IS RIDICULOUS AND VERY HARMFUL TO THE FOX CASE,” argued Trump, before addressing Murdoch directly. “RUPERT, JUST TELL THE TRUTH AND GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLLEN…YOU KNOW IT, & SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE!”
Trump’s mid-morning missive on Monday followed a 2:39 AM post in which he submitted that “IF FOX WOULD FINALLY ADMIT THAT THERE WAS LARGE SCALE CHEATING & IRREGULARITIES IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WHICH WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THEM, & FOR AMERICA, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED AT ALL, WOULD BE GREATLY WEAKENED.”
“BACK UP THOSE PATRIOTS AT FOX INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM UNDER THE BUS,” continued the former president. While various reporters and anchors — including Bret Baier and Jacqui Heinrich — have taken care to debunk Trump’s claims of widespread fraud, others, including star opinion host Tucker Carlson, have doubled down on them.
Why does the Saint of Grievances always use ALL CAPS? Certainly, the Faux New Network All-Stars know better.
Fox News' trial for the Dominion defamation case is set to begin Monday. Text messages released in the lawsuit show how hosts like Tucker Carlson went from privately criticizing Donald Trump's false voter fraud claims to giving them significant airtime. https://t.co/jVMuTaYQrx
In a statement, the company said that “the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution” and protected by legal precedent. It added, “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”
But if a jury looks at the messages from Fox hosts, guests and executives and concludes that people inside the network knew what they were putting on the air was false, it could find Fox liable and reward Dominion with substantial financial damages.
On Nov. 7, 2020, Mr. Carlson told Mr. Pfeiffer that claims about manipulated software were “absurd.” Mr. Pfeiffer replied later that there was not enough evidence of fraud to swing the election.
A graphic of a text exchange between Pfeiffer and Carlson.
Said privately on Nov. 7, 2020
Carlson to Pfeiffer
The software shit is absurd.
Nov. 8, 2020
Pfeiffer to Carlson
I dont think there is evidence of voter fraud that swung the election.
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a letter last week to postpone the trial in the lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, scheduled to start April 25, until the end of May. Carroll’s lawsuit alleges that Trump raped her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, which Trump has repeatedly denied.
Tacopina argued that his client should be allowed a “cooling off” period following his recent historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, which drew a surge of media coverage.
In a 10-page opinion denying Trump’s request on Monday, Kaplan wrote that “there is no justification for an adjournment.”
“This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution,” Kaplan wrote. “The suggestion that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment — coverage significantly (though certainly not entirely) invited or provoked by Mr. Trump’s own actions — would preclude selection of a fair and impartial jury on April 25 is pure speculation. So too is his suggestion that a month’s delay of the start of this trial would ‘cool off’ anything, even if any ‘cooling off’ were necessary.”
Kaplan also rejected the notion that delaying the trial would decrease the possibility of “negative publicity” before the trial. In the request to delay the trial, Tacopina argued that the influx of media coverage of Trump’s indictment and arraignment could taint the jury pool.
Kaplan wrote, “It is quite important to remember [also] that postponements in circumstances such as this are not necessarily unmixed blessings from the standpoint of a defendant who is hoping for the dissipation of what he regards, or says he regards, as negative publicity. Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse.”
Kaplan also noted that “at least some portion” of recent media coverage of Trump’s indictment “was of his own doing” and that the alleged sexual conduct at the heart of the Manhattan district attorney’s case, which involves adult film star Stormy Daniels’ allegations that she had an affair with Trump — accusations that Trump denies — and was paid to keep quiet, is “dramatically different” from Carroll’s allegations of rape by the former president.
House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are exemplifying the lengths they are willing to go to discredit Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump with a Monday New York field hearing on Bragg’s home turf.
House Republicans are seeking to make the case that Bragg is more focused on going after Trump for political reasons than addressing crime in New York City, a claim Bragg vehemently denies.
Democrats are pushing back, arguing that Republicans are acting as an extension of Trump’s defense team and saying they should focus instead on public safety issues like gun violence. A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office said in a statement ahead of the hearing that the event is a “political stunt.”
The hearing, billed as focusing on crime in New York, comes as the legal drama between Bragg and House Republicans has intensified in recent days. Bragg sued House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and sought to block him from taking certain investigative steps, arguing that Congress doesn’t have oversight authority over state-level criminal prosecutions.
t serves as the latest example of how Trump continues to wield enormous power on Capitol Hill as House Republicans seek to curry favor with the former president, coming to his defense through their investigations and routinely updating him and his closest advisers on their progress. In the wake of his indictment, Trump called up members of House GOP leadership and key committee members to shore up support on Capitol Hill, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan opened Monday’s hearing by going after Bragg for being “soft on crime.”
“Here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics. For the District Attorney, justice isn’t blind. It’s about looking for opportunities to advance a political agenda, a radical political agenda rather than enforcing the law,” Jordan said in his opening remarks.
Maybe Jordan suffers damage from multiple piledrivers?
So, this has been a bit of a weird post, but then, we live in weird times. Thankfully, my therapeutic shoe therapy shopping results arrived at the door today!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Yesterday I told Dakinikat that I wished I had a feel good story for today’s post. I was asleep when she called last night and left a message about a New York Times article that was discussed on Stephanie Ruhl’s MSNBC show. It was about Ukrainian mothers who traveled thousands of miles to recover their children who had been kidnapped and taken to Russian-controlled territory. Of course it’s a heartbreaking story, but it’s also a heartwarming story of the power of a mother’s love. It also includes powerful photos of the women and their children. I hope you’ll go read it. Here’s just a bit of it.
For weeks after Russian troops forcibly removed Natalya Zhornyk’s teenage son from his school last fall, she had no idea where he was or what had happened to him.
Then came a phone call.
“Mom, come and get me,” said her son, Artem, 15. He had remembered his mother’s phone number and borrowed the school director’s cellphone.
Ms. Zhornyk made him a promise: “When the fighting calms down, I will come.”
Artem and a dozen schoolmates had been loaded up by Russian troops and transferred to a school farther inside Russian-occupied Ukraine.
While Ms. Zhornyk was relieved to know where he was being held, reaching him would not be easy. They were now on different sides of the front line of a full-blown war, and border crossings from Ukraine into Russian-occupied territory were closed.
But months later, when a neighbor brought back one of her son’s schoolmates, she learned about a charity that was helping mothers bring their children home.
Since it is illegal for men of military age to leave Ukraine now, in March Ms. Zhornyk and a group of women assisted by Save Ukraine completed a nerve-wracking, 3,000-mile journey through Poland, Belarus and Russia to gain entry to Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine and Crimea to retrieve Artem and 15 other children.
Then they had to take another circuitous journey back. “Come on, come on,” urged Ms. Zhornyk, as a cluster of children, laden with bags and suitcases, emerged hesitantly through the barriers at a border crossing from Belarus into Ukraine. She had crossed with her son just hours earlier and pushed forward impatiently to embrace the next group.
“There are no words for all the emotions,” Ms. Zhornyk, 31, said, describing her reunion with Artem. “I was full of emotion, and nervous, nervous.”
Cat on a chair, by Theophile Alexandre Steinlen
There are more details about what happened to the children in the article. Some background:
In the 13 months since the invasion, thousands of Ukrainian children have been displaced, moved or forcibly transferred to camps or institutions in Russia or Russian-controlled territory, in what Ukraine and rights advocates have condemned as war crimes.
The fate of those children has become a desperate tug of war between Ukraine and Russia, and formed the basis of an arrest warrant issued last month by the International Criminal Court accusing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Maria Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children’s rights, of illegally transferring them.
Once under Russian control, the children are subject to re-education, fostering and adoption by Russian families — practices that have touched a particular nerve even amid the carnage that has killed and displaced so many Ukrainians….
No one knows the full number of Ukrainian children who have been transferred to Russia or Russian-occupied Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has identified more than 19,000 children that it says have been forcibly transferred or deported, but those working on the issue say the real number is closer to 150,000.
Again, there is much more at the NYT link.
I hope you’ll forgive me for highlighting a local Boston story today. This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The marathon will take place on Monday. Although only three people were killed in the explosions, there were hundreds of horrific injuries–limbs blown off, terrible burns, traumatic brain injuries.
It has been 10 years since the Boston Marathon bombings killed three people and injured hundreds more during the 2013 Boston Marathon, and the city is hosting several events in remembrance of the day.
The city of Boston and the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) will host remembrance events on Saturday, April 15 — One Boston Day. The events will honor the victims, survivors, and first responders of the 2013 Boston Marathon.
The city will host an early-morning private gathering and wreath laying at the memorial sites for the families who lost loved ones. Honor guards — including the Boston Fire Department, Boston Police Department, Boston Emergency Medical Services, and Suffolk County Sheriff Department — will be present at the memorial sites throughout the day.
At 8 a.m.,the BAA 5K, featuring 10,000 participants, will begin and end in Boston Common. After the B.A.A. 5K race, the city will open Boylston Street between Dartmouth and Fairfield streets so that members of the public can visit the sites.
At 2:30 p.m., the public is invited to a dedication of a new commemorative Boston Marathon finish line, the ringing of bells, and the unveiling of a One Boston Day marker on Boylston Street along with Gov. Maura Healey, Mayor Michelle Wu, B.A.A. leadership, members of the One Fund community, members of the 2013 Red Sox team, first responders, hospital leaders, and local running groups.
“Every year we come together on One Boston Day to remember the courage, strength, and resilience shown by our city’s people in 2013,” Wu said in a statement. “As we mark 10 years, we will gather together in community on April 15 to remember the lives that were lost, the many injured, and the spirit of humanity displayed that day. As we honor those forever impacted, people in all corners of our City will be giving back in a number of ways, and I encourage everyone to get involved.”
There will also be many local and neighborhood events; and of course, the Red Sox will mark the day at their traditional Marathon Day game and will be wearing their bright yellow home uniforms.
The Red Sox will mark the 10 year milestone by partnering with JetBlue to distribute more than 40,000 blue and yellow Red Sox City Connect hats to students and staff at Boston Public Schools on Friday, April 14. Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez will assist with the distribution. The team will then wear blue and yellow City Connect jerseys during Friday night’s game in Fenway Park agains the Angels.
Painting by Chen Pei Yi
As previously mentioned, the 2013 Red Sox team will join city and state officials and first responders on Saturday, April 15 for the ringing of the bells and the unveiling of the One Boston Day marker. At Saturday’s game, there will be a pre-game ceremony commemorating One Boston Day and the 76th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. Fans should be in their seats by 3:30 p.m.
On Sunday, April 16, a reunion of members of the 2013 Red Sox World Series Championship team will take place during pregame ceremonies. Fans should be in their seats by 1 p.m.
On Patriots Day, Monday, April 17, Hall of Famer David Ortiz will serve as the Grand Marshal for the 127th Boston Marathon. Players will wear home jerseys that say “Boston” on the front, as they did for the first time during the Marathon tribute at Fenway Park on April 20, 2013. Fans are asked to be in their seats by 10:45 a.m. for the ceremony. All fans will receive a Boston Strong t-shirt.
Leading up to the 10-year anniversary of the bombing at the Boston Marathon—and the ensuing manhunt and investigation that was the FBI’s largest terrorism case since 9/11—the special agent in charge of FBI Boston asked his entire office to pause and reflect on the crucible of that massive investigation as they prepared for this year’s 127th running.
Leading up to the 10-year anniversary of the bombing at the Boston Marathon—and the ensuing manhunt and investigation that was the FBI’s largest terrorism case since 9/11—the special agent in charge of FBI Boston asked his entire office to pause and reflect on the crucible of that massive investigation as they prepared for this year’s 127th running.
Three people were killed on April 15, 2013, when two pressure-cooker bombs detonated 11 seconds apart on Boylston Street near the finish line of the iconic 26-mile race. More than 500 people were physically injured, including 17 who suffered amputations. The bombers also took the life of Sean Collier, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police officer who was executed while on patrol.
Large images of the victims were arrayed in a conference room last month at the Boston Field Office, along with a whiteboard agents used to sketch out their plans and the wanted posters that helped identify the suspects, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. A moment of silence preceded the remembrance ceremony….
…[H]e also wanted to enlighten the office’s large cadre of young agents, analysts, and professionals—many not around 10 years ago—who may not fully appreciate the all-hands-on-deck response required in major cases like this.
“Internally, I wanted to give my personnel a real good idea, with some granularity, about what it means when a critical incident occurs,” he said, “what is expected of all of us to step up, and how we work toward a common goal.”
The article reviews the positive steps that made the investigation a model for the future.
Ten years after the explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line that forced doctors to amputate part of Heather Abbott’s leg, she says the biggest change in her life is her work with the foundation she built to help other amputees. “If someone had told me that I would be doing this ten years ago, I never would have believed them,” Abbott said. “But it’s been an unexpected blessing, I think, for me.”
Cat sleeping on a chair, by George Atsametakis
The creation of the Heather Abbott Foundation is also a blessing for its beneficiaries. The foundation helps amputees pay for prosthetics that insurance won’t cover-which includes almost anything beyond the most basic option. Running blades, swim legs, high heels-these are all vital to helping people live full lives. But insurance companies don’t consider them “medically necessary.” (Prosthetics typically have to be replaced every three to five years.)
Heather delights in sharing the news with beneficiaries that they have been chosen to receive a special prosthesis. “Not only is it incredibly rewarding to hear somebody on the other end of the phone when you tell them that you’re going to give them this prosthetic device,” Abbott said. “But then to hear about the things they’re able to do with it and how it’s changed their life provides me a huge sense of joy.”
Marc Fucarile was supporting a friend at the 2013 Boston Marathon when the second bomb went off and instantly amputated his right leg. Now, ten years later, he’ll return to the marathon to thank the city and the people who have supported him.
“You never want to be on the receiving end of generosity because that means something bad happened, but it’s emotional knowing that complete strangers care about you,” Fucarile tells PEOPLE.
Before the 2013 tragedy, Fucarile was an athlete. “I played football, track, and hockey, and it was my first time at a marathon in 35 years,” he says. “The second bomb was right next to me.”
The bomb blew out Fucarile’s ear drums, burned the majority of his lower body, and forced him to undergo years of surgeries. “I did the remainder of 2013 in and out of hospitals with smaller, different surgeries, monitoring scrap metal that lodged in my heart, that took a ride up to the artery and lodged in my right atrium area.”
Fucarile has “skin grafts all over” the lower half of his body and in his hands from “taking off my belt when I was still on fire,” he explains.
Because he sustained a traumatic brain injury, Fucarile says his tolerance for noise and stimulating environments is low, which has affected his relationship with his 15-year-old son….
On the tenth anniversary, he’ll be riding in honor of the community that supported him through the 2013 tragedy. “I’m riding to show my thanks for all the support we received as survivors of such a horrific event,” he says. “The community outpour of support was amazing.”
When he participates in the marathon on Monday, Fucarile says he’ll be representing more than just his own resilience. “I’m riding in the hand cycle to show people, and to show my son, that you can really accomplish anything you put your mind to,” he explains.
A handcyle is a kind of tricycle that is powered by hands rather than your feet.
In politics news, Clarence Thomas has finally been caught breaking an actual law–as opposed to ethics rules, which he has completely ignored–when he sold property to Harlan Crow and failed to report the transaction. He needs to be called to account and forced off the Supreme Court.
The Department of Justice and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court should investigate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from and property sales to billionaire donor Harlan Crow, according to a complaint sent today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to the Department of Justice and Chief Justice John Roberts.
According to reporting by ProPublica, Thomas and his wife have accepted luxury travel and vacations for 20 years from “real estate magnate and Republican megadonor” Crow, who befriended Thomas after he joined the Supreme Court, without disclosing them as gifts or travel reimbursements on his financial disclosures filed under the Ethics in Government Act. Thomas also reportedly sold his and other family members’ properties to Crow in 2014 for more than $100,000 without reporting the sales on his financial disclosure reports.
“Justice Thomas’s acceptance of and failure to disclose these repeated, lavish gifts and shocking real estate sales not only undermines public trust in his ability to serve impartially on the Court, it undermines confidence in the Supreme Court as an institution,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said.
Under the Ethics in Government Act, Thomas is required to disclose travel and other gifts, with the source and a brief description, including the value. The Guide to Judiciary Policy for Financial Disclosure in effect at the time the trips were taken makes it clear that these trips were covered by the reporting requirements. While Thomas claims a hospitality exemption, that exemption would not apply to a private plane or yacht. Under the EIGA and Guide to Judiciary Policy for Financial Transaction, Thomas was required to report the sale of the properties to Crow and could not claim a personal residence exemption on disclosing them, as they were always referred to as rental properties on his disclosures and never lost their investment nature even when the houses on two of the properties were later torn down.
When news broke last week, by way of dogged reporting in ProPublica, that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted decades’ worth of hospitality from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow, that this same donor had funded his wife’s legal and political activities and in fact helped pay her salary, and that Thomas had disclosed none of this, our suggestion that the justice had clearly broken the law was dismissed as left-wing “smear.”ProPublica’s new reporting, dropped on Thursday, showed that the same billionaire donor, Harlan Crow, spent $133,363 purchasing several properties co-owned by Thomas, and that these sales were never disclosed. As our colleagues at Slate confirmed this week, Thomas’ mother actually still lives in the property owned by Crow, to which he has made valuable improvements (in addition to buying the house next door and dispensing with previously troublesome neighbors). Unlike the rules around the undisclosed luxury travel reported last week, ProPublica could not find a single ethics expert willing to squint and hop on one foot in a way that would make the failure to report the real estate transaction seem arguably lawful. The court has not responded in any way to the latest revelations. Defenders of Justice Thomas somehow continue to urge that this is a smear campaign by liberals.
Painting by Suzanne Valadon
In a way, the fact that money went from Harlan Crow’s pocket to Thomas’ mom’s house seems less horrifying than last week’s superyachts and half-million-dollar luxury air travel. Who among us wouldn’t want a billionaire to evict the noisy neighbors who were keeping our mothers up late? But it helps to parse out what mattered about both Thomas stories and what is mostly a distraction. That Thomas is a “hypocrite” for claiming to like parking outside Walmarts to commune with real people while secretly indulging his taste for luxe global travel? Doesn’t really matter. Harlan Crow’s penchant for cunningly little embroidered Nazi table linens? Weird, surely, but materially inconsequential….
What mattered last week and what still matters this week is whether the Crow/Thomas dealings can be seen as classic quid pro quo (or perhaps quid pro Crow)corruption. We too often think this can only happen in a scene in which cartoon ducks with big sacks of cash pay politicians to do their bidding, which is never how this actually happens. And the longstanding defense to those claims is that Justice Thomas is too independent a thinker and jurist to be influenced by gifts of bibles and vacations and rent-free housing. But what this new reporting shows—and what actually matters—is that Crow and those like him, who have poured billions of dollars into funding cases before the court, campaigns to seat certain justices on the court, and crusades to keep other justices off the court, turn out to just own the whole building. In tandem with the Leonard Leos and Mark Paolettas who have been rendered in art for all eternity, the Harlan Crows are the actual landlords of the houses where the six conservative justices seemingly get to live rent-free.
f you’re defending Thomas’ unlawful refusal to disclose these transactions by saying he’s too famous/powerful/important/busy/put-upon to disclose these transactions, you are missing the point. Disclosure laws aren’t tawdry “gotcha” traps that form the basis of smear campaigns. Disclosure rules are the only means of transparency in a world of increasingly broken democratic systems. Citizens United and its dismantling of campaign finance reform? Justified on the grounds that disclosure rules suffice to ferret out corruption. We don’t demand that public figures deal honestly with the public because we are mean; we do it because law and democracy rise and fall on knowing who paid who for what.
ProPublica’s report last week is jaw-dropping. In the end it shows this: Thomas used to report his gifts from right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow. Then they became a little controversial. So what did Thomas do? Stop accepting the gifts? That’s what you or I would do, or at least make them far less frequent and ostentatious. But Thomas doesn’t think like you or I do. He thinks: How I can twist the dagger into the liberal establishment’s flesh even further? So rather than stop accepting the gifts, he just decided to stop reporting them. Which ProPublica says is against the law.
Can he be impeached? Not now, with the GOP in control of the House. If that changes, sure, they can try, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others have suggested. Of course, he would be acquitted in the Senate, where two-thirds are required to convict (indeed, Samuel Chase survived).
But that’s no reason for Democrats not to do it. In fact, as I suspect AOC understands, the way partisanship works today in this country, that’s precisely an excellent reason to do it: Have a long hearing that lays bare every instance of his and his wife’s corrupt activities in a high-profile venue that Americans will watch; make the case to swing-voting Americans that he is dishonoring the court’s name and reputation; drive his approval ratings into the toilet (in a 2022 YouGov poll, Thomas already had the highest “very unfavorable” rating of the nine justices, at 32 percent); and force the Republican senators to vote to keep this clearly undeserving, mediocre, arrogant, unscrupulous hornswoggler on the court.
Make him a political issue (not in time for 2024, alas, but in general). Destroy his reputation. If nothing else, ensure that he goes down in history the way he deserves, as one of the most unqualified Supreme Court justices ever, who has gone on to leave as light an intellectual footprint as someone serving three-plus decades could leave. Make him—and his wife, Ginni, who is also completely without scruples in the way she, as the spouse of a Supreme Court justice, entangles herself in our public life—a metaphor for every insidious thing the far-right wing has done to this country.
Painting by Vanessa Stockard
It’s really up to the Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin to start the process of investigating Thomas, but does Durbin have the guts to do what needs to be done? I don’t think so. He needs to be forced into it by public outrage. I got a newsletter about this from Tomasky in my email today. I can’t find it online, but here’s some of it:
Earlier this week, I wrote in response to ProPublica’s first report that the Democrats need to destroy Thomas’s reputation by holding hearings on his dealings, which of course is something they’ve never done. “Have a long hearing that lays bare every instance of his and his wife’s corrupt activities in a high-profile venue that Americans will watch,” I wrote. “Make the case to swing-voting Americans that he is dishonoring the court’s name and reputation; drive his approval ratings into the toilet (in a 2022 YouGov poll, Thomas already had the highest ‘very unfavorable’ rating of the nine justices, at 32 percent); and force the Republican senators to vote to keep this clearly undeserving, mediocre, arrogant, unscrupulous hornswoggler on the court.”
Now the case for action is even clearer. But action by whom? There’s only one serious contender: the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s controlled by the Democrats, and they can do whatever they are prepared to do. But what exactly is that?
Last Monday, after the first ProPublica report, committee Chairman Dick Durbin vowed that the committee “will act.” He did not elaborate on that. Later, he urged Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate Thomas. Then I saw on cable news Thursday night (I can’t find anything online Friday morning) that he called on Merrick Garland to do something.
Mr. Chairman: Stop tossing the football around. You have a gavel, and you have subpoena power. Subpoena Clarence Thomas. Next week.
What? Horrors! Subpoena a Supreme Court justice? Can that even be done?
Yes it can, but only if the Democrats have the guts to do it.
The other big story today is about 21-year-old leaker of top secret documents, Jack Teixeira. Here are the latest stories:
It is hard to predict how the case against Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old Air National Guardsman accused of leaking classified documents to friends on a gaming server, will play out — both because the matter is still very preliminary and because the facts are so unusual that there is limited value in comparing it to the general pattern of leak cases.
By Steve Hanks
Based on the charging documents in his case, Airman Teixeira does not appear to have been acting as a foreign agent, differentiating him from classic spying cases. He also does not appear to have been acting as a whistle-blower or otherwise trying to educate the general public by sharing secrets with the news media for publication, making his case different from another sort that has become more common in the 21st century.
He also does not fit a third category of past cases of mishandling classified information: the hoarder. Prosecutors have charged people who are neither spying nor trying to enlighten the public for taking files home and keeping them. But because Airman Teixeira is accused of transmitting large numbers of files to other people who were not authorized to see them, his case is more serious.
These differences show how past cases may be poor guides for how this will play out.
Defendants also have an incentive to make a deal so they can ensure a shorter sentence than the threat they are facing under the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the unauthorized retention and disclosure of national-security secrets. It carries a sentence of up to 10 years per count, and each leaked document could be its own count. Plea deals in leak-related cases have typically resulted in a few years of prison.
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.
Remind me who the snowflakes are again? 
Nowhere is the front line for Trump revival duty failing more than at this debacle’s New York City location. 
Maybe Jordan suffers damage from multiple piledrivers?
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