Mostly Monday Reads: Of Caucuses and Kings
Posted: January 15, 2024 Filed under: just because | Tags: 2, 2024, 3, 4, 6, and Inclusion, Black American Women Folk Artists, Courting White Iowa Crazies, diversity, Equity, Faith Ringgold, Iowa Caucuses, Jr., Malcah Zeldis, Martin Luther King, We Shall Overcome 6 Comments
Happy Martin Luther King Day, Sky Dancers!
Time to celebrate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion! It’s also time to remember our history so we can work together to form a more perfect union for every one of our citizens and citizens-to-be. The paintings today are the work of two African American Women Artists. Faith Ringgold, 93 years old, paints with various materials. She’s an intersectionalist artist who is most known for her narrative quilts. Malcah Zeldis, 92 years old, is known for art that reflects biblical, historical, and autobiographical themes. Zeldis has painted themes that present Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and his life and legacy. Both of these artists should be celebrated for their contributions to art and the lives it represents. Thanks to JJ, who sent me down this rabbit hole! Please spend some time with the links to their stories and art.
Today is also the Iowa Republican Caucuses. I find it odd they chose this day but probably felt that a holiday might increase turn-out. However, Mother Nature had a different idea. NBC reports this. “Highlights: Trump and Haley nabbed big endorsements in freezing Iowa. “The candidates braved record-low temperatures as they made their final pitches.” The Polar Vortex making its way here and will give us temps all day tomorrow in the 20s. Hence, I will be spending the afternoon wrapping pipes. Everyone farther north has the brutal cold.
I agree with this from Lakota Man on his threads feed. I’m not sharing his photos. I want it all to be about the images of these fabulous artists!
Ron DeSantis has banned Black authored books and African-American history from Florida schools. And Nikki Haley still won’t attribute the Civil War to slavery. So, any kind of MLK related statement they make today will be totally and completely full of shit and more Republican hypocrisy.
Trump is counting on the crazy vote. This is from Mike Wendling for the BBC. “Iowa caucus: Trump counts on evangelicals to carry him to victory.”
The video is bombastic, even by Mr Trump’s standards. Just consider the title: God Made Trump.
“God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,'” a voiceover intones over a minimalist piano track. “So God gave us Trump.”
The former president, according to the narrator, is carrying out the will of God. He’s “a shepherd to mankind” who will “fight the Marxists” with “arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state”.
The video is based on So God Made a Farmer, a 1978 speech by American radio host Paul Harvey which extols the virtues of simple rural American life.
Independently produced by a group calling itself “Trump’s Online War Machine”, the clip started to pick up steam a week ago when Mr Trump shared it with millions of followers on his Truth Social account. It immediately enraged some religious leaders here in Iowa.
“He’s not the saviour,” said Michael Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in the state capital. “Our allegiance as evangelicals is to Jesus, not to the Republican Party or to Donald Trump.”
But despite Mr Demastus’ insistence that many voters agree with him – and that a surprise is in store on Monday – opinion polls show a different story, with Mr Trump poised for a runaway victory over his Republican rivals.
Evangelical support is crucial here in Iowa, with born-again Christians expected to make up around two-thirds of all Republican caucusgoers.
They are a diverse voting bloc – made up of various denominations and including more traditional churchgoers along with others who may not even regularly go to a church, yet still define themselves as evangelical.
American People Series #4: The Civil Rights Triangle, 1963 ©Faith Ringgold
I first met these folks in 1980 when the Nebraska Chair of the Democratic Party sent me to try to stop the Republican Party’s foray into theocracy. I went to the County convention to save the platform from folks trying to remove support from the ERA and decimate Reproductive Health. Pat Robertson’s political campaign had ignited them. They had to be bussed in because they simultaneously showed up like some kind of cult army. They all carried the list of who and how they should vote on colored cards. The women were versions of each other. Hand-made pioneer=looking dresses of little floral prints, long dull hair, bowed heads and herded like sheep by men. I watched them later in 1992, screaming and yelling about ‘multicultural influences’ in the school curriculum. They never gave up, and here we are. They are angry, violent, and hateful. They are everything I always was taught that biblical Jesus was not.
This is from Politico. “Trump consolidates evangelical vote in Iowa. Kari Lake swooped into Bob Vander Plaats’ church on Sunday, a show of force — if not an outright troll — ahead of the caucuses.” Trump suits them to a tee.
Just as the Sunday morning service started here at Soteria church, a top Donald Trump surrogate and Arizona firebrand, Kari Lake, walked in.
To any political observer, it appeared to be an obvious troll. In a metro area rich with churches, Soteria has hosted several Republican presidential candidates in the past year. But the Baptist church, with its 1,300-member congregation, also has a well known parishioner: the Iowa social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats, who endorsed Ron DeSantis and angered Trump and his allies in doing so.
Lake said she woke up on Sunday and just wanted to go to church.
But it was also a flex. For all the attempts by DeSantis and his evangelical allies to court the conservative Christian vote, Trump not only remains dominant with the group, but is relying on it to fuel his massive lead in Iowa ahead of the caucuses on Monday. A critical faction of the GOP that once blocked his ascendance here in 2016, evangelicals are now a primary reason he is so far ahead.
“Of course I’m caucusing for President Trump,” said Judy Billings, a loyal member of the congregation, clutching her Bible as she entered the foyer. “I just love the guy. I think he’s a total hero, and he has my full support … I think he’s the only one that can win and lead our country.”
Some Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud now that Donald has made being openly racist cool again.
Malcah Zeldis, Martin Luther King, 1995
Elizabeth Spiers has a great Op-Ed up in the New York Times. “What Nikki Haley — and I — Learned at a Segregation Academy.”
After her failure to identify slavery as the cause of the Civil War generated a wave of criticism last month, Nikki Haley assured her potential constituents that she had Black friends, and that she understood the war’s origins. Growing up in South Carolina, she said, “literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery.” Conveniently producing Black friends is, alas, not surprising, but claiming she learned that the Civil War was a battle over slavery in second and third grade is.
Governor Haley attended a segregation academy, a type of private school established in the years after the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education by white parents who did not want their children attending school with Black children.
By 1975, the number of private schools in South Carolina grew more than tenfold, enrolling as many as 90 percent of the white children in some majority Black counties. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that discrimination on the basis of race wasn’t legal at private schools, either, but even today, many segregation academies remain overwhelmingly white.
Ms. Haley graduated in 1989 from Orangeburg Preparatory School. Orangeburg was the product of a merger between Wade Hampton and Willington Academy, also segregation academies, the former of which was named after one of the largest slaveholding families in South Carolina. At one point, graduates of Hampton received Confederate flag lapel pins, which were meant to symbolize resistance against integration. The year Ms. Haley graduated, her high school yearbook featured at most a handful of Black students.
I believe they refer to this as passing. No wonder Haley identifies as white on the census and other forms. While Haley haunts Iowa, our Vice President speaks at an NAACP conference in South Carolina. She also did this virtual speech.
Another black woman defending the rule of law in our country has taken the podium today.
Slave Rape #3: Fight to Save Your Life, 1972 © 2021 Faith Ringgold
Meanwhile, back in Iowa, John McCormack of The Dispatch reports this. “Courting the Kook Vote in Iowa, Vivek Draws the Ire of Trump. Ramaswamy is fourth in the polls, but top-of-mind for the former president.” I admit I’m giggling over these sparring bullies.
Vivek Ramaswamy was just going through his implausible plan for firing 75 percent of the federal workforce—“the first four agencies we’re going to shut down outright are the FBI, the ATF, the CDC, and the U.S. Department of Education”—when he was interrupted by a man in the crowd.
“What about the CIA, sir?” asked an Iowan named Nathen Trausch. “That’s where all the pedophiles are.”
“Well, CIA is a major problem, but they shouldn’t even exist outside of the military,” Ramaswamy replied. He tried to turn the conversation back to his plan to slash the federal government before Trausch interrupted him again.
“Department of Defense has 5,000 pedophiles in it that in 2019 got arrested by Trump,” Trausch said.
“Well, you know, they deserve to actually be held accountable,” Ramaswamy replied. He later promised Trausch that he would arrest even more child sex-traffickers than Trump did.
It was par for the course for Ramaswamy, who in recent weeks has made an aggressive play for the kook vote. At the December 6 GOP presidential primary debate—the last he qualified for—Ramaswamy emphasized that he was the only candidate on stage who would say that “January 6 now does look like it was an inside job.” He spent the last week campaigning with Candace Owens, a media personality who has made headlines in recent months for her anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, and former Iowa congressman Steve King, who was stripped of his committee assignments and defeated in a GOP primary following his comments questioning whether white supremacy should be considered “offensive.”
What does Ramaswamy have to show for it? The final Des Moines Register poll conducted by the highly respected J. Ann Selzer found Ramaswamy ticking up a few points since December, from 5 percent to 8 percent, while Donald Trump ticked down a few points, from 51 percent to 48 percent.
Malcha Zeldis (NY/Israel 1933-) Peaceable Kingdom
Vivek, however, evidently can’t pass as white. This is from The Independent. “Voter tells Vivek Ramaswamy’s wife that some Iowans don’t support him because ‘they think he’s Muslim’. The presidential hopeful’s religion and skin colour are still factors that prospective voters are considering, locals told Apoorva Ramaswamy.” I also wonder about the current hatred of immigrants among Republicans impacting the few bits of diversity we find in its presidential candidates.
Some voters in Iowa are still hesitant to throw their support behind Vivek Ramaswamy because they “think he is Muslim”, according to supporters of the presidential hopeful.
Mr Ramaswamy’s religion and skin colour are still factors that prospective voters are considering, locals told his wife Apoorva Ramaswamy at a recent campaign event.
According to polling by FiveThirtyEight, Mr Ramaswamy lags far behind his three Republican rivals on both a national and state level – commanding just 6.6 per cent of the vote in the latter survey – ahead of the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
At a campaign meet-and-greet on Thursday, Ms Ramaswamy asked supporter Theresa Fowler “what do people say” about why they were not supporting her husband.
“Well, the only one I have and I couldn’t even remember who said it to me, but they mentioned his dark skin and they think he’s Muslim,” Ms Fowler said.
“I kind of set them straight on that. I don’t know if they believe me or think I was covering for him, I don’t know.”
Ms Ramaswamy replied: “Not much we can do about that one.”
No, there’s not much you can do about that one. It’s why we need to up the Voting Rights Act, which is something Republicans abhor. Why be a part of that? Why put your children through that? Why teach your children to be like that?
Have a wonderful day! Those Caucuses have coverage tonight, but I’ll be doing something else. I can’t imagine listening to the press interview any Iowa Republicans these days. It makes my stomach churn just thinking about it. Anyway, I’m off to load up on some hot steel oats and take on those pipes and faucets.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Prepare for a Toxic Election Season
Posted: July 17, 2023 Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, corporate money, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, corruption, Right Wing Angst, Tax Evasion and offshore banking | Tags: @repeat1968, Jr., RFK 7 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I can assuredly say that everyone I know has been so worn down by the Trump years that I cannot imagine this election season could get any worse than the last four. But, the more Trump wannabes enter races and the likelihood that Trump will prevail in the Republican party means that Republicans will amp up the campaign rhetoric as well as the trash passed by the House. Their infighting spills into the news also. Get ready to stock up on all your comfort items! It’s not even Labor Day, and the Crazy Train has left the station.
There are also the usual gadflies running to the left of Joe Biden. They’re not only attracting gasps from the Democratic party, they attracting Republican Donor money in the hopes they can cut into Biden’s lead. This is from Michael Tomasky, writing for The New Republic. “This Is the Time for Quixotic, Corrosive Campaigns? Seriously? Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and No Labels are effectively surrogates for Donald Trump’s 2024 bid.”
You might think, in a two-party democracy where the man who is a dead-on bet to be the presidential nominee of one of those parties has all but pledged to wipe out said democracy and promised to use his second term to destroy all internal enemies, that the rest of the society would band together to try to prevent that from happening.
That Donald Trump has so pledged is, to everyone who is not a supporter of his, beyond dispute. He has stated many times some version of his belief that “the greatest threat to Western civilization” is “some of the horrible, USA-hating people” in our midst, by which he means the many millions who disagree with him. When he was president, his people were preparing a plan for a possible second term that involved firing thousands of government employees and replacing them with staff loyal to him. He called for the termination of the Constitution’s rules that allowed Joe Biden to win in 2020, even though those rules worked properly to elect the person who won. He led a riot against the U.S. government to overthrow the election results. He calls the press the “enemy of the people.” There’s no telling what a new Trump term would bring. Our democracy would be disfigured at best and, at worst, destroyed.
You’d think people would take that pretty seriously. If we were all watching a Star Trek episode in which a teetering democratic society faced an imminent, dangerous threat, we’d be cheering for the society to come to its senses and work in unison to defeat the threat. That’s what should be happening in real life. But instead, a lot of people have chosen this moment, when the democracy is hanging by a few tattered threads and its future depends directly on the result of next year’s election, to say, Hey, let’s have some fun! This is all a game anyway.
Well, it’s not a game. And it’s astonishing to me that people can be so blithe about it. Let’s look at four (or four and a half) examples.
First, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has decided that this is the right time to run a quixotic and corrosive presidential campaign whose end result can only be to fuel cynicism not just about Biden but about the whole system. That’s the inevitable outcome when a crackpot conspiracy theorist who spouts nothing but lies is given a platform like the one Kennedy now has.
His latest WTF moment, that Covid was “targeted to attack Caucasian and Black people” and that Jewish and Chinese people were most immune, may finally have signaled to the political-media establishment that this guy should not be indulged any further. Let us hope so. He won’t come close to winning the nomination. His support has slipped since the spring—he’s been polling at single digits in some state polls.
That isn’t the threat. The threat is that his out-there beliefs and cuckoo theories and refusal to denounce expressions of support from right-wing extremists up to and including Alex Jones (in his recent interview with David Remnick) lend support to the Trumpian view of the world. If his Democratic support ends up being a disgruntled 6 or 7 percent, without him on the November ballot, won’t the bulk of that 6 or 7 percent turn to the guy who sounds most like him? And in Wisconsin, Georgia, and a few other close states, that could be the ball game.
RFK, Jr. belongs in the Loony Tunes universe right next to the QAnon creeps. Think of what Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner could do to them! That’s why Junior is managing to get Republican support. I also believe that he’ll drive the narratives in the press of the BothSiderists. You know who they are. This article from Politico is a depressing look at political funding by billionaire Republicans. “RFK Jr.’s secret fundraising success: Republicans. A POLITICO analysis shows donor overlap with DeSantis and Trump supporters.” This analysis was written by Jessica Piper.
The top contributors to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign included donors who typically give to Republicans, according to campaign finance filings — underscoring the extent to which Kennedy, running as a Democrat, is resonating with the other party.
Kennedy’s campaign committee reported raising $6.3 million since his April launch, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday. He spent $1.8 million and had $4.5 million cash on hand as of June 30.
Some of that money came from donors who have more recently supported Republicans. Kennedy’s campaign raked in at least $100,000 from donors who previously gave to committees associated with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former President Donald Trump, according to a POLITICO analysis of federal and state campaign finance filings. The analysis is based solely on Kennedy’s itemized donations, although he also raised more than $2 million from small-dollar donors, whose names the campaign does not have to disclose.
Such crossover giving is unusual, but Kennedy is running on a platform that includes opposition to efforts to vaccinate against Covid-19, which is increasingly resonating with the Republican base. Though there has been an uptick in vaccine skepticism in recent years, the biggest increases tend to be among voters who identify as Republican.
Kennedy has also been a frequent guest on Fox News since launching his campaign in April, criticizing President Joe Biden on issues including the war in Ukraine and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the donors who maxed out donating to Kennedy despite having recent histories of giving to Republicans is banking executive Omeed Malik, who Axios reported is hosting separate fundraisers for DeSantis and Kennedy in the Hamptons this summer.
We can always hope he drains voters from DeSantis, but DeSantis is doing a great job of that on his own.
https://twitter.com/SIfill_/status/1680371100583182337
This is from the Traister analysis. “RFK Jr.’s Inside Job. How a conspiracy-spewing literal Kennedy posing as a populist outsider jolted the Democratic Party.”
But they aren’t the only ones who took exploitative advantage of the suffering of millions: Kennedy’s vilification of Fauci as a fascist sold more than 1 million copies, and his public profile grew with his every outsize utterance, including that vaccine mandates “will make you a slave” and that “even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” a nadir so low that even his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines, had to issue a statement condemning it.
But however off-kilter he sounded — indeed, precisely because he was extra off-kilter in his attacks on lockdowns and vaccines and masks — Kennedy’s COVID performance became the springboard that launched his current campaign against Biden for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2024. Kennedy kicked off his bid in Boston in April, addressing a roomful of people cheering and holding signs with his name in the air. He had the look of a man getting the reception he’d been waiting for his whole life, and his extemporaneous remarks stretched to almost two hours, his expensive education and resemblance to his famous forebears covering for quite a bit of rambling. “He can look and sound so thoughtful and contemplative,” said one person who has known him a very long time. “And he’s just bursting with madness.” Kennedy soon began polling at an eye-catching nearly 20 percent in multiple surveys, and though a recent New Hampshire poll showed him at 9 percent in June, he earned higher favorability numbers in an Economist-YouGov poll than either Biden or Donald Trump.
He has spent the summer traveling to every dark-web–cancel-cultured–just-asking-questions–anti-woke whistle-stop that’ll have him, appearing on podcasts with Bari Weiss, Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, and Jordan Peterson, among others. He can count among his reply guys and fans (and, in some cases, early endorsers) a clutch of Silicon Valley CEOs and financiers, including hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman; venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks; and Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, the current and former overlords of Twitter, respectively. He has been friendly with many in the media, including Salon founder and former editor-in-chief David Talbot and Rolling Stone co-founder and longtime editor Jann Wenner. Kennedy’s campaign manager is Dennis Kucinich, the former Cleveland mayor and Ohio congressman. A super-PAC called American Values 2024 has reportedly raised millions in support of Kennedy’s campaign, and Sacks held a fundraising dinner for him in June for which diners paid $10,000 a ticket. Kennedy’s drive to speak his mind has been praised by those on the far right, including Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, and some on the self-described left, like Matt Taibbi and Max Blumenthal.
Kennedy crowed to me about his horseshoe coalition gathered round a campaign he views as fundamentally populist. And it’s quite a band he has put together: crunchy Whole Foods–shopping anti-vaxxers, paunchy architects of hard-right authoritarianism looking to boost a chaos agent, Nader-Stein third-party perma-gremlins, some Kennedy-family superfans, and rich tech bros seeking a lone wolf to legitimize them. Their convening can give the impression of weightiness, but if you so much as blew on them, the alliance would shatter into a million pieces. The only thing that seems to bind them is Kennedy, the current embodiment of a warped fantasy of marginalization and martyrdom that has become ever more appealing — and thus politically significant — in an age of disinformation and distrust in government and institutions.
Que Susan Sarandon, or does she only hate Hillary? At least Marianne Williamson is running out of cash. FiveThirtyEight asks the question. “How Seriously Should We Take Marianne Williamson And Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?”
But nobody who covers elections (including us) seems to be taking Williamson and Kennedy particularly seriously. So I come to the FiveThirtyEight brain trust with two questions today:
- There’s plainly some kind of appetite for a non-Biden candidate on the Democratic side — so why are oddball candidates like Williamson and Kennedy the only ones who have jumped in?
- Are we underestimating Williamson and Kennedy’s ability to make Biden’s life difficult as we get closer to the Democratic primaries?
nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): Interesting, Amelia, I’m not sure I agree with your premise there! I think a lot of people are taking Williamson and Kennedy more seriously than I’d like them to.
ameliatd: ((Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior reporter) Ooh, we’re bickering already! I love it. Please say more …
nrakich: Basically, they’re being covered like serious candidates. Reporters are going to their rallies and writing exposés on them. Even if they say they are extreme long-shot candidates, they aren’t treating them that way. Actions speak louder than words.
The Republicans are just vile. This is from Lawyers, Guns, and Money. “The decline and decline of Pudding Ron.” These signs were noticed by Scott LeMieux in the New York Times.
All the signs of a campaign flameout are there:
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has started cutting campaign staff just months into his presidential bid, as he has struggled to gain traction in the Republican primary and lost ground in some public polls to former President Donald J. Trump.
The exact number of people let go by the DeSantis team was unclear, but one campaign aide said it was fewer than 10. The development was earlier reported by Politico.
The dismissals are an ominous sign for the campaign and also underscore the challenges that Mr. DeSantis faces with both his fund-raising and his spending, at a time when a number of major donors who had expressed interest in him have grown concerned about his performance.
[…]
Mr. DeSantis’s struggles appear to be not just about the numbers, but also with the campaign’s message. Late last week, two top DeSantis advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, were announced to be leaving to join an outside group supporting Mr. DeSantis.
Mr. DeSantis’s campaign finance disclosure with the Federal Election Commission shows he raised roughly $20 million but spent almost $8 million, a so-called burn rate that leaves him with just $12 million in cash on hand. Only about $9 million of that cash can be spent in the primary, with the rest counting toward the general election if he is the nominee.
The filing indicated a surprisingly large staff for a campaign so early in a candidacy, particularly for one with a super PAC that has made a show of how much of the load it is prepared to handle. More than $1 million in expenditures were listed as “payroll” and payroll processing.
Ah, the “burning tons of cash to go backward” trajectory. To be fair, there is no precedent for a Florida Republican becoming an establishment darling, raising lots of money, and having his presidential campaign become a pathetic joke.
Speaking of Pathetic Jokes … “The Standoff Between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert Is Worse Than You Think” from The Daily Beast. This report is by Zachary Pitrizzo.
It’s no secret that the relationship between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert has never been worse. The two U.S. representatives yelled at each other on and off the House floor. Greene recently called Boebert a “little bitch” to her face. And Boebert supported Greene’s removal from the Freedom Caucus.
But, lawmakers told The Daily Beast, the situation between the two is still even worse than most people think.
“A fistfight could break out at any moment,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told The Daily Beast.
Burchett, who later clarified that he was serious, said he was enjoying the standoff as a “professional wrestling fan.”
“I am friends with both of them. It’s entertaining to think that a fistfight could break out at any movement. I kind of dig that,” he continued.
Burchett isn’t the only person who thinks the feud could turn even nastier.
Yeah, “men” just love a catfight. So here’s one for them between Pudding Ron and Orange Caligula. They’re such nasty men. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign calls Iraq veteran ‘lily-livered’ for flipping to DeSantis.” Why Does he hate our Military so much?
Former President Trump’s campaign described Iowa state Sen. Jeff Reichman (R) as “lily-livered” for flipping his endorsement to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) following Trump’s attack on Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) earlier this week.
In a statement to The Hill, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung stated, “There is no room for weak-kneed and lily-livered people on Team Trump.”
Reichman, an Iraq veteran, announced Thursday he would be flipping his endorsement of Trump, and backing DeSantis instead. The state senator, who is serving his first term in Iowa’s upper chamber, was included on a list of around a dozen Iowa officials who the Trump campaign considered early endorsers of the former president.
In his statement, Cheung goes on to claim DeSantis is “so desperate that he’s willing to offer buyouts in the form of fundraisers for endorsements.”
“The truth is that those who have been promised financial support are now regretting their deal with the devil because none of them have been able to schedule fundraisers with DeSantis,” the statement continued.
DeSantis’s campaign said earlier this month it raised $20 million during the second quarter of 2023, while the Trump campaign hauled in more than $35 million in the second quarter, the Trump campaign confirmed to The Hill.
Reichman’s decision to flip support comes days after Trump lashed out at Reynolds on Truth Social on Monday for not endorsing a presidential candidate in the 2024 election. The social media post followed a New York Times report describing the Trump campaign’s frustration with Reynolds’s multiple appearances with DeSantis during his stops in Iowa.
My final offering today is from ProPublica, which is still investigating the roles of Billionaires in Political and SCOTUS decisions. “In lavishing gifts on the Supreme Court justice, the billionaire GOP donor may have violated tax laws, according to tax experts.” And how about Uncle Thomas?”
Crow’s lawyer argues that Congress has no authority to probe the GOP donor’s generosity and that doing so violates a constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the Supreme Court.
Members of Congress say there are federal tax laws underlying their interest and a known propensity by the ultrarich to use their yachts to skirt those laws.
Tax data obtained by ProPublica provides a glimpse of what congressional investigators would find if Crow were to open his books to them. Crow’s voyages with Thomas, the data shows, contributed to a nice side benefit: They helped reduce Crow’s tax bill.
The rich, as we’ve reported, often deduct millions of dollars from their taxes related to buying and operating their jets and yachts. Crow followed that formula through a company that purported to charter his superyacht. But a closer examination of how Crow used the yacht raises questions about his compliance with the tax code, experts said. Despite Crow’s representations to the IRS, ProPublica reporters could find no evidence that his yacht company was actually a profit-seeking business, as the law requires.
“Based on what information is available, this has the look of a textbook billionaire tax scam,” said Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “These new details only raise more questions about Mr. Crow’s tax practices, which could begin to explain why he’s been stonewalling the Finance Committee’s investigation for months.”
Crow, through a spokesperson, declined to respond to ProPublica’s questions.
So, ‘Ain’t That Pretty at All.’
Well, I’ve seen all there is to seeAnd I’ve heard all they have to sayI’ve done everything I wanted to do . . .I’ve done that tooAnd it ain’t that pretty at allAin’t that pretty at allSo I’m going to hurl myself against the wall‘Cause I’d rather feel bad than not feel anything at all
Warren Zevon
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Caturday Reads: Outrage Builds Over Trump’s Attacks on the U.S. Post Office
Posted: August 15, 2020 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Jr., Louis DeJoy, Post Office, Rep. Bill Pascrell, U.S.P.S., voter suppression 11 Comments
Good Morning!!
On Thursday and Friday, Dakinikat and I wrote about Trump’s assault on the U.S. Postal Service, in hopes of suppressing Democratic votes in November. Last night the story began building into a five alarm fire of public outrage. Rachel Maddow focused on the story on her show last night.
Media columnist Margaret Sullivan at The Washington Post: Trump’s attacks on the Postal Service deserve sustained, red-alert coverage from the media.
Listen to President Trump long enough, and, despite his penchant for falsehood, you’ll eventually hear some unvarnished truth.
That happened Thursday when he stated his intentions clearly in an interview with Fox Business Network. He doesn’t want to approve billions in emergency funding for the cash-strapped and struggling U.S. Postal Service for a simple reason: Democrats want to expand mail-in voting during the pandemic.
His words were stark: “Now, they need that money in order to have the Post Office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.” He added that holding back funding means “they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it.”
In other words, he doesn’t want American citizens, fearful of exposure to the coronavirus, to have every opportunity to vote in November.
It’s not his first effort to cripple the Postal Service, one of the most essential — and popular — institutions in America. His statements Thursday came after he installed a Republican megadonor, Louis DeJoy, as the new postmaster general. In turn, DeJoy has unseated dozens of veteran postal officials. He and his minions have banned overtime and told carriers to leave mail behind at distribution centers, letting it pile up for days. Sorting machines that speed mail processing have been removed.
“Things are already going wrong,” Philip F. Rubio, an expert on the Postal Service and history professor at North Carolina A&T State University (and a former letter carrier himself), told Politico. There are “widespread mail slowdowns of all kinds of mail — first-class, marketing mail, parcels. Even the Veterans’ Administration has complained that veterans are not getting their medications on time.”
Read Sullivan’s commentary on the media coverage and why they need to “turn up the heat” at the WaPo link.
Today the news is full of stories about Trump’s attempted sabotage of a beloved American institution that is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. As Maddow said last night, “pressure works.
In a statement Friday night, Rod Spurgeon — a USPS spokesperson for the service’s the Western region — told CNN that the service will stop the removal of letter collection boxes in 16 states and parts of two others until after the election.
That means, according to Spurgeon, the USPS will stop collecting the letter collection boxes only in: Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska and small parts of Wisconsin and Missouri.
It’s not clear if the removal freeze would go into effect across the nation. Kim Frum — a spokeswoman for USPS based at headquarters — could not say if the freeze would go into effect across the country and would not comment on the freeze in the Western region.
Officials say that in the last week the USPS has removed letter collection boxes in at least four states: New York, Oregon, Montana and Indiana. The USPS has also begun notifying postal workers in at least three states — West Virginia, Florida and Missouri — that they will start to reduce their retail operating hours, according to union officials.
Montana Senator John Tester appeared on Maddow’s show last night to discuss the removal of mailboxes in his state. KLUR 8.com: Montana officials ask for answers from USPS Postmaster General following removal of blue mail drop-off boxes.
BIG SANDY, Mont. – U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, Sen. Steve Daines, Rep. Greg Gianforte and Gov. Steve Bullock asked for answers from the U.S. Postal Service Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, after the USPS removed blue mail drop-off boxes in some Montana towns.
Sen. Tester confirmed the reports of the U.S. Postal Service’s removing of the blue mail drop-off boxes throughout Montana on Friday, releasing the following statement:
“Since ringing the alarm on the removal of collection boxes from communities across Montana, it has become clear that these reports are accurate. These actions set my hair on fire and they have real life implications for folks in rural America and their ability to access critical postal services like paying their bills and voting in upcoming elections. Postmaster General DeJoy must immediately provide Montanans with an explanation for the actions of the USPS, or he can do it under oath before a Senate Committee.”
Sen. Tester and Sen. Daines also sent out statements saying the USPS has paused its removal of mail collection boxes in towns across Montana.
New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. made a criminal referral to the New Jersey Attorney General last night. Pascrell appeared last night on MSNBC’s The Eleventh Hour with substitute host Ali Velshi.
The Daily Beast: NJ Rep, Inspector General Investigate What the Hell Is Going On With USPS.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) made a criminal referral to the New Jersey Attorney General on Friday night, asking him to impanel a grand jury to look at possible breach of state election laws by President Trump, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and others for “their accelerating arson of the post office,” he said. Alarming headlines have emerged in recent days as many states prepare to facilitate widespread mail balloting due to the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump openly admitted he was withholding federal aid from the postal service to prevent mail-in voting, and USPS has notified 46 states and D.C. that it will struggle to deliver some mail ballots on time.
Pascrell’s announcement came after USPS’s internal watchdog said it would review policy changes and potential ethical conflicts under DeJoy, a Trump donor who owns a $30 million stake in a competitor to USPS. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and other Democratic lawmakers requested a review into DeJoy’s actions, like eliminating overtime and slowing certain types of mail delivery, and whether he “met all ethics requirements.”
Attorneys General from several other states, including Washington, Connecticut, Arizona, and Maine, are considering taking action on the issue and the Post Office inspector general is getting involved. CNN: Exclusive: Postal service inspector general reviewing DeJoy’s policy changes and potential ethics conflicts.
The internal watchdog at the United States Postal Service is reviewing controversial policy changes recently imposed under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and is also examining DeJoy’s compliance with federal ethics rules, according to a spokeswoman for the USPS inspector general and an aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who requested the review.
Lawmakers from both parties and postal union leaders have sounded alarms over disruptive changes instituted by DeJoy this summer, including eliminating overtime and slowing some mail delivery. Democrats claim he is intentionally undermining postal service operations to sabotage mail-in voting in the November election — a charge he denies.
Agapi Doulaveris, a spokeswoman for the USPS watchdog, told CNN in an email, “We have initiated a body of work to address the concerns raised, but cannot comment on the details.”
Last week, Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and eight other Democratic lawmakers asked the inspector general to launch an inquiry into DeJoy on a number of fronts, including the nationwide policy changes he’s made since taking over in June, as well as whether DeJoy has “met all ethics requirements.” [….]
It’s unclear if the inspector general has launched a full-scale investigation into possible politicization at USPS by DeJoy, a Trump ally and Republican donor, or if it’s just reviewing the matter for Congress.
CNN first reported earlier this week that DeJoy still owns at least a $30 million equity stake in his former company — a USPS contractor — and that he recently bought stock options for Amazon, a USPS competitor. These holdings likely create a major conflict of interest, ethics experts told CNN, though DeJoy and USPS maintain that he has complied with all federal requirements.
At The Week, Ryan Cooper writes: Trump’s Post Office meddling is plainly illegal.
Trump now openly admits he is sandbagging the Post Office to prevent Americans from voting by mail. Obstructing the ability to vote of the American people is a crime at the federal level and in every state. Not for the first time, the president has confessed to criminal acts on television.
First, the president does not get to prevent certain kinds of voting just because he alleges there is fraud happening. Election administration is largely governed at the state level, and several states — like Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Utah — have had universal mail-in voting as the foundation of their systems for years (where it has worked just fine). Trump’s throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of the Post Office is a likely unconstitutional infringement of state authority to run their own elections, in addition to being directly criminal (see below).
Second, Trump is lying. We know he’s lying because countless studies have found mail-in voter fraud to be virtually nonexistent compared to the number of ballots cast, because it doesn’t even make sense as a way to commit election theft, and most of all because Trump himself has voted through the mail repeatedly — in 2017 and 2018 in New York, and just this week for the primary election in Florida. His argument is a scam and obviously so.
Third, we can also see what the game is by how new postmaster general Louis DeJoy, who met with Trump last week and is undeniably a partisan lackey, is slashing the Post Office’s baseline capacity. As David Dayen argues at The American Prospect, even 100 percent mail-in voting would barely burden the agency at all, given that it delivers 182 million pieces of mail every day (or used to, anyway), and most ballots have a very short transit route — from county election offices to homes and back again. That is why DeJoy is ending postal carrier overtime, destroying automated letter-sorting machines that cost millions of dollars, and pulling up hundreds of outdoor mailboxes. Voting by mail is so trivial for the USPS that it is necessary to seriously damage the agency to render it incapable of carrying it out. Sure enough, the agency has already warned that mail-in ballots could fail to be delivered in time in nearly every state….
The point of hamstringing the Post Office is to prevent as many people from voting by mail as possible, because 72 percent of Democrats say they are likely to vote by mail, as compared to 22 percent of Republicans. Trump and his stooge are using their federal power to forcibly disenfranchise American citizens. We have it straight from the horse’s mouth.
Let’s compare that behavior to 18 U.S. Code § 594, which states: “Whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose” in a federal election faces fines and up to a year in prison. (By the way, someone who “knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail” also faces fines and up to six months in prison.)
Cooper writes that there are also state laws against “stealing elections.” Read the whole thing at the link.
Charles Pierce writes that Trump is violating his oath of office:
Let’s all not sprain something pretending that this is simply some “sweeping organizational and policy overhaul” wha-dee-doo-dah. It’s ratfcking under color of law, pure and simple—a more complicated version of the “accidental” Election Day water-main break in front of the mayoral challenger’s headquarters. (Hi, Jim Curley!) Except, of course, this little monkey-wrenching keeps veterans from getting their prescription medicines, and rural customers from sending or receiving their packages. It also is a clear violation of the president*’s oath of office. He promised to take care that even the postal laws are faithfully executed. That doesn’t mean having your fat-cat apparatchik slow-walk the U.S. Mail to get you re-elected. Impeachable offenses are exhausting to carry around.
Read the rest at Esquire.
Protesters were outside DeJoy’s home this morning, according to WUSA9.
A group of protesters staged a “noise demonstration” Saturday morning outside of United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s home in Northwest D.C. amid allegations of limiting mail-in voting for the 2020 Presidential election.
The demonstration was organized by the direct action group Shut Down D.C. They gathered in Kalorama Park in Adams Morgan on the corner of Kalorama Road and 19th Street and marched towards DeJoy’s home.
Members of the group came together to protest against DeJoy’s leadership ahead of mail-in voting for the 2020 Presidential election.
The organization believes DeJoy is “dismantling” the U.S. Postal Service in favor of President Donald Trump’s re-election. They said his actions contribute to voter suppression.
“DeJoy has fired or reassigned much of the existing USPS leadership and ordered the removal of mail sorting machines that are fundamental to the functioning of the postal service. Meanwhile, mail delivery is slowing down under other decisions made by DeJoy, such as eliminating overtime for postal workers,” the group said in a statement.
Let’s hope all this outrage will continue until Trump and DeJoy are forced to back down and/or are prosecuted. Of course that won’t stop Trump from trying to steal the election. Democrats are going to have to fight back like never before.
Have a great weekend, Sky Dancers!! Take care and be kind to yourselves, other people, and animals.
Lazy Saturday Reads: D-Day Edition
Posted: June 6, 2015 Filed under: Civil Rights, Crime, Criminal Justice System, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Adolf Hitler, D-Day 71st anniversary, Dennis Hastert, Josh Duggar, Jr., Lonnie Franklin, sexual molestation, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, The Longest Day, World War II 38 Comments
Allied ships, boats and barrage balloons off Omaha Beach after the successful D-Day invasion, near Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France on June 9, 1944. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)
Good Morning!!
Today is the 71st anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. I found some stunning original color photos at The Denver Post, and I thought I’d share a few of them here. Go to the link to see the entire collection. I’ve also gathered some interesting articles on the “longest day” along with remembrances from survivors.
From The Charlotte Observer: D-Day: Only the beginning – with the end nowhere in sight, by David Perlmutt.
With Saturday comes another anniversary of D-Day as the light continues to dim on the generation that fought it.
Seventy-one years have passed since Carolinians such as Andy Andrews of Black Mountain and Walter Dickens of Monroe got their first taste of combat when they rushed ashore at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, the pivotal day historians tag as the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
It was more of a beginning than an end. Long after D-Day’s first anniversary, the bullets would continue to fly in the Pacific theater and other parts of the world.
A year ago, I wrote a series of stories to honor the 70th anniversary of D-Day through the eyes – and distant memories – of Andrews, Dickens and others like paratroopers Harold Eatmon of Mint Hill and E.B. Wallace of Waxhaw. The fighting took another 11 months and horrific losses during battles in countries such as France, Holland, Belgium and ultimately Germany before the Germans surrendered.
Planes from the 344th Bomb Group, which led the IX Bomber Command formations on D-Day on June 6, 2014. Operations started in March 1944 with attacks on targets in German-occupied France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. After the beginning of the Normandy invasion, the Group was active at Cotentin Peninsula, Caen, Saint-Lo and the Falaise Gap. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)
Fighting continued in the Pacific, where my Dad was stationed, for a long time after June 6, 1944. He was on a ship traveling to Japan when the U.S. dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He said they celebrated–not knowing the horror the bombs would unleash–they were saved. My Dad might not have come home if those bombs hadn’t been dropped.
A year after D-Day, thousands of U.S. Marine and Army troops were still two weeks away from capturing Okinawa, the last in a hopscotch of islands that Allied forces needed for a plan to force Japan’s unconditional surrender. Offshore, U.S. Navy ships absorbed daily attacks by Japanese kamikaze (suicide) planes as their guns pounded hills above the landing beaches. Army Air Forces planes bombed targets inland to soften the Japanese defense.
As they fought to take control of Okinawa, hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers, Marines and sailors prepared to take part in what would have been history’s greatest battle – Operation Olympic, code-named Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese homeland.
They knew the fighting would be fierce.
Much more at the link. It’s a very good piece.
British Navy Landing Crafts (LCA-1377) carry United States Army Rangers to a ship near Weymouth in Southern England on June 1, 1944. British soldiers can be seen in the conning station. For safety measures, U.S. Rangers remained consigned on board English ships for five days prior to the invasion of Normandy, France. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)
CNN: He got to witness ‘The Longest Day,’ by Val Lauder.
Cornelius Ryan was a 24-year-old war correspondent when he had a chance to see a defining moment in the defining event of the 20th century — the Allied landings on the coast of France to retake France and bring down Hitler.
Ryan at first witnessed the invasion from a bomber that flew over the beaches. Then, back in England, he scrambled to find the only thing he could that was going to Normandy. A torpedo boat that, he learned too late, had no radio. “And if there’s one thing that an editor is not interested in,” he said, “it’s having a reporter somewhere he can’t write a story.”
Recalling those five hours off the coast, watching the struggle on the beaches, he remembered “the magnitude of the thing, the vastness. I felt so inadequate to describe it.”
But today, as the 71st anniversary of D-Day approaches on June 6, Ryan is most likely to be remembered for being the one who did describe it, who told so many millions the real story of what happened that day, in his book which became the famous movie, “The Longest Day.”
Lauder was a young woman headed to journalism school at Northwestern when the invasion took place.
In September 1962, I interviewed Cornelius Ryan before the New York premiere of the film. Ryan had become the authority on the events of June 6, 1944, following publication of his book. And as he himself noted, in the 10 years it took him to research and write the book, he became “a veritable depository of D-Day memorabilia.”
He shared some of what he’d learned as we talked in the study of his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, that Sunday afternoon.
Read her remembrances at the CNN link.
The 1st Infantry Division of the United States Army (The ‘Big Red One’) in Dorset, United Kingdom on June 5, 1944 before departing for Omaha Beach. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)
The Christian Science Monitor: D-Day June 6, 1944: How did Hitler react?
Considering the pivotal nature of June 6, 1944, how did Hitler react to the attack? Did he rant, did he rail? Did he move with focused calm to try and repel the invaders? [….]
In the early days of June Germany’s Fuhrer was at The Berghof, his residence in the Bavarian Alps. Everyone there knew an invasion was likely in the near future, but the atmosphere was not nervous, according to contemporary accounts. To the contrary it was relaxed, and in the evening, almost festive. A group of guests and military aides would gather at the complex’s Tea House and Hitler would hold forth on favorite topics, such as the great men of history, or Europe’s future.
On the evening of June 5, Hitler and his entourage watched the latest newsreels, and then talked about films and theater. They stayed up until 2 a.m., trading reminiscences. It was almost like the “good old times,” remembered key Hitler associate Joseph Goebbels.
When Goebbels left for his own quarters, a thunderstorm broke, writes British historian Ian Kershaw. German military intelligence was already picking up indications of an oncoming Allied force, and perhaps landing troops, in the Normandy region. But Hitler wasn’t told. The Fuhrer retired around 3 a.m.
German headquarters confirmed that some sort of widespread attack was in progress shortly thereafter. At sunrise, around 6 a.m., the defenders knew: Allied ships and planes were massed off the French beaches in astounding strength, and men were beginning to come ashore. It was a sight many would never forget.
But the German reaction was slow and befuddled. Was this the real thing, the main invasion? Or was it a feint, with the real force to land elsewhere, probably Calais?
Read more at the link.
A U.S. Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) filled with invasion troops approaches the French coast from the sea in June of 1944. The GIs wear life vests in preparation for the landing. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)
More D-Day stories:
The Daily Mail, D-Day heroes’ courage remembered.
AP via The Miami Herald, Vets, visitors return to Normandy to mark D-Day anniversary.
Constitution Daily, Ten fascinating facts on the 71st anniversary of D-Day.
The Daily Beast, The Stacks: A D-Day Vet Shows Normandy to His Son.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Veterans of D-Day mark 71st anniversary: 4 will be honored today at Heinz History Center.
The Nation on what was happening in Congress on D-Day–a bunch of nonsense, just like today. June 6, 1944: D-Day Invasion of France.
Heavy, D-Day Invasion: Top 10 Best Quotes & Sayings.
A Recommendation
Before I get to the rest of the news, I want to highly recommend an HBO documentary I watched a few days ago called Tales of the Grim Sleeper. It’s the story of how serial killer Lonnie Franklin, Jr. murdered as many as 100 African-American women in South Central LA over more than 20 years while the LAPD ignored what was happening.
This isn’t the story of a serial killer–it’s about police attitudes toward the poor and people of color; and it fits right in with recent events in places like Ferguson, Cleveland, Staten Island, and Baltimore and with the Black Lives Matter movement.
This story could have happened in a poor neighborhood in any major American city. In fact, there was a similar case in Cleveland where Anthony Sowell murdered poor black women for years without getting caught because the crimes weren’t taken seriously.
If you have HBO or can get access to it, please watch this outstanding film.
Other News, links only
News News
Brian Beutler at The New Republic, Hillary Clinton’s Grand Strategy to Beat the GOP: Take Bold Positions Early and Often.
Politico, 2016 field descends on Iowa for Joni Ernst shindig.
New York Times, Beau Biden Funeral Draws Many Mourners, Including Obama.
LA Times, LAPD finds officers were justified in fatal shooting of mentally ill man, sources say.
Politico, Anti-war activist confronts Sen. Tom Cotton.
Paul Krugman, Lone Star Stumble.
Voice of America, Death Toll Jumps to Nearly 400 in China Ship Sinking.
BBC News, President Vladimir Putin tells West not to fear Russia
Sexual Molestation News
AP, via AOL, Sister: Brother had sexual relationship with Hastert.
NBC News, Dennis Hastert Case: Abuse Group Wants Congressional Portrait Removed.
Huffington Post, Dennis Hastert Hid His Skeletons As He Helped Push GOP’s Anti-Gay Agenda.
Fox News, Jessa: Josh Duggar was ‘in puberty and a little too curious about girls.’
ABC News, Duggars Put Locks on Doors as a Safeguard Following Alleged Molestation.
Is a crime still “alleged” after the perpetrator and his parents acknowledge that he did it? Just asking.
Time, Josh Duggar’s Sister on Molestation: ‘It Wasn’t Like a Horror Story.’
Yibada, Josh Duggar’s Sister Jill Dillard: My Parents Did Such An Amazing Job.
Gawker, The Truth About Josh Duggar’s Sham Cult-Center “Counseling.”
What else is happening? As always, treat this as an open thread.
Thursday Reads
Posted: July 11, 2013 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Alexander Kouzminov, Boston Bombings, Bradley Manning, Don West, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Ed Fucarile, Edward Snowden, George Zimmerman, J.W. Carney, James "Whitey" Bulger, John Guy, Jr., Judge Debra Nelson, Kevin Weeks, Marc Fucarile, Mark O'Mara, Oleg Gordievsky, Trayvon Martin 66 Comments
Good Morning!!
There’s been quite a bit of legal and courthouse news this week, so I’m going to focus on that today.
Yesterday was a big day at the Boston Federal Courthouse as the Whitey Bulger trial was briefly eclipsed by the first court appearance of Boston Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. From The Boston Globe:
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shuffled into the courtroom, appearing confident despite the ankle chains and an orange jumpsuit so big on him that it made him appear younger than his 19 years.
As federal prosecutors read the charges against him Wednesday in his first appearance since being captured in April, Tsarnaev repeatedly looked over his shoulder at the packed courtroom, at one point blowing a kiss to his sisters, one sobbing and another holding a baby.
He leaned into the microphone in the hushed courtroom to tell Judge Marianne B. Bowler with an accent that he pleaded not guilty to 30 charges, including use of weapons of mass destruction. More than 30 victims of the Marathon bombings and about a dozen supporters who say they believe Tsarnaev is innocent watched intently as the accused terrorist yawned and stroked the side of his face, which appeared swollen from a wound.
Tsarnaev, who could receive the death penalty, fidgeted in his seat as he listened to the charges, one of his attorneys patting him on the back gently several times. He had a visible scar just below his throat and had a cast on his left arm.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
ABC News talked to survivors of the April 15 bombings who showed up to watch Tsarnaev’s court appearance.
Friends and family members of people whose lives were shattered when two homemade bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 packed three rooms in a federal courthouse on Wednesday as suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to a 30-count indictment.
But the fleeting courtroom encounter brought little relief to Bostonians who said the 19-year-old —accused of conducting the deadly bombings with the help of his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev —showed little feeling.
“He came out and he smirked at the families,” said Ed Fucarile, 64, outside of the John Joseph Moakley federal courthouse along the water in South Boston. “The lawyers put their hands on his shoulders like it was going to be all right.”
Fucarile wore a Boston Strong t-shirt with the name of Marc Fucarile, his son who lost his right leg and still carries shrapnel in his body, the father said.
Marc Fucarile, 34, was standing near the second blast when it went off. He still has more surgeries to go, and has spent every day of the nearly three months since receiving medical care, his father said. Members of the family have taken weeks off work so that someone is always at Marc’s bedside, he said.
Read more survivors’ stories at the link.
Bulger defense team: J.W. Carney Jr. and Hank Brennan
At the Whitey Bulger trial, there was a bit of comic relief as Bulger flew into a rage toward the end of testimony and exchanged curses with his former close friend and partner Kevin Weeks. It was reminiscent of a scene from Sopranos.
Bulger’s lawyer, J.W. Carney, tried to portray Weeks as an opportunist who knew how to manipulate the system, someone who cut a deal with prosecutors to serve just five years in prison for aiding and abetting five killings, several of which, Weeks testified, he saw Bulger commit.
“You won against the system,” said Carney.
“What did I win? What did I win,” Weeks said, his voice sounding strained and tired. “Five people are dead.”
Asked whether that bothered him, Weeks shot back, “We killed people that were rats, and I had the two biggest rats right next to me …”
At that, Bulger turned and hissed, “You suck.”
“F— you, OK,” snapped Weeks.
“F— you, too,” shouted Bulger as the jury watched.
“What do you want to do?” said Weeks, his eyes locked on Bulger, who was flushed and staring right back.
At one point Weeks even threatened Carney, asking him if he’d like to step outside.
Weeks grew belligerent and threatening as Carney accused him of lying, challenged his motivation for cooperating, and suggested that Weeks, not Bulger, was a rat.
“You can’t rat on a rat,” said Weeks, adding that he lives in South Boston and walks the streets without being called a rat.
When Carney asked Weeks what he would do if someone did call him a rat, Weeks snapped that if he stepped outside the courthouse he’d show him.
James Bulger and Kevin Weeks
Yesterday the testimony was even more grotesque and sickening, as forensic expert Ann Marie Mires testified about remains of murder victims Arthur Barrett, Deborah Hussey, John McIntyre, and Paul J. McGonagle. I’ll spare you the descriptions; you can go to the links and read more if you’re interested.
This morning Carney asked the judge for a break in the testimony so the defense team could catch up.
The defense team for James “Whitey” Bulger is asking the judge to suspend testimony until next week so they can catch up on evidence.
Defense attorney J.W. Carney filed the motion with the court on Thursday.
“Simply put, the defendant’s counsel have hit a wall, and are unable to proceed further without additional time to prepare for upcoming witnesses,” the motion reads. “Counsel have struggled mightily to be ready for each day of the trial since it began on June 3, 2013, working seven days a week and extraordinarily long hours.” [….]
“A major problem has been the delay in the receipt of discovery from the prosecution,” the motion reads, citing examples of receiving binders of documents pertaining to testimony to be given by witnesses the evening before they take the stand.
Yesterday defense teams rested in both the Bradley Manning and the George Zimmerman trials.
From the Guardian via Raw Story: Bradley Manning defense rests its case after calling just 10 witnesses
Having called just 10 witnesses over the space of three days, the defence phase of the trial was brought to a close far quicker than expected. The defence had indicated in earlier hearings that it intended to call more than 40 witnesses, although many may yet still be presented in court during the post-verdict sentencing stage of the court martial.
By contrast, the prosecution took 14 days to make its case, drawing on 80 witnesses.
On Wednesday, the defence team lead by the civilian lawyer David Coombs, focused its attentions on the most serious charge facing the Army private – that he “aided the enemy” by transmitting information to WikiLeaks knowing that it would be accessible to enemy groups notably al-Qaida. Manning faces a possible sentence of life in military custody with no chance of parole under this single charge.
The final defence witness called, the Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler, delivered blistering testimony in which he portrayed WikiLeaks as a legitimate web-based journalistic organisation. He also warned the judge presiding in the case, Colonel Denise Lind, that if the “aiding the enemy” charge was interpreted broadly to suggest that handing information to a website that could be read by anyone with access to the internet was the equivalent of handing to the enemy, then that serious criminal accusation could be levelled against all media outlets that published on the web.
Prosecutor John Guy with dummy
Yesterday was quite a theatrical one in the Zimmerman trial, as a mannequin was brought into court and both a prosecutor and defense attorney Mark O’Mara got down on the floor and straddled the dummy in effort to act out what might have happened during an alleged altercation between Zimmerman and his victim Trayvon Martin.
As professional images go, what followed in the courtroom was probably not something for which Mark O’Mara would most like to be remembered.
Hitching up his pant legs and straddling a life-size human mannequin, Zimmerman’s lead defense counsel got down and dirty on the courtroom floor and proceeded to demonstrate for jurors the “ground and pound” move that they have been told Martin exerted on the accused.
Coming a day after he encouraged one of his witnesses, gym owner and mixed martial arts trainer Adam Pollack, to “step down from the stand to give me an example of a mounted position,” prostrating himself on the floor and asking Pollack, “Where do you want me?” the episode made for an awkward role play, leaving court observers snickering and biting their lips in the midst of an otherwise tragic plot.
Earlier in the day, prosecutor John Guy—described by one public observer in the courtroom on the trial’s opening day as “the supermodel of attorneys”—had also hopped on the mannequin for a similar demonstration in front of the all-female jury.
Don West and George Zimmerman
Later Judge Debra Nelson had a “testy exchange” with defense attorney Don West as she asked Zimmerman whether he planned to take the stand. Zimmerman seemed unsure, and West tried to step in.
West repeatedly challenged Nelson’s decision to press Zimmerman for a clear answer. The judge repeatedly slapped him down, her voice gathering volume every time.
“The court is entitled to ask Mr. Zimmerman about his determination as to whether he wants to testify,” Nelson insisted tersely after West objected to her line of questioning.
She looked back at Zimmerman: “How long do you think you need before you make that decision?” she inquired again, as the defendant—who had a minute earlier been made to raise his hand and swear under oath that any decision whether to testify would be his—turned to his counsel for help.
“I object to the court inquiring of Zimmerman about his intention to testify,” West whimpered for a second time.
“I object to the court inquiring of Zimmerman about his intention to testify,” West whimpered for a second time.
“And I have O-VER-RULED” Judge Nelson spat back—several times—as the objections kept coming.
Finally Zimmerman haltingly said he did not want to testify. I think he actually wanted to–if only. What a disaster that would have been for his attorneys! Closing arguments are scheduled to begin this afternoon.
In other news, I can’t resist sharing this article from Time Magazine about what former Russian spies think is probably happening to Edward Snowden in Russia.
In the summer of 1985, KGB colonel Oleg Gordievsky was called back to Moscow from the Soviet embassy in London, where he was serving as a resident spy. As a pretext, his commanders told him that he was going to receive an award for his service. But in fact the KGB suspected him of being a double agent — which he was — and they were looking to interrogate him. So upon his arrival, his KGB colleagues, still concealing their suspicions, took him to a comfortable country estate in the suburbs of the Russian capital, much like the one where Gordievsky and other former spies believe Edward Snowden, the NSA whistle-blower, has spent the past few weeks….
The official story coming from the Russian government since then is that Snowden has been holed up in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, waiting for some third country to grant him asylum. But few experts or officials in Moscow still believe that to be true. The accepted wisdom, unofficially acknowledged by most Western and Russian sources, is that Snowden was taken soon after his arrival — if not immediately — to a secure location run by some arm of the Russian government.
Experts and former spies who have dealt with the Russian security services are sure that agents would want to get the encryption keys to the data stored on Snowden’s four laptops. The only way to do that would be to get Snowden to give them up.
So Gordievsky believes Snowden would have gotten roughly the same treatment that the KGB spy got back in 1985. “They would have fed him something to loosen his tongue,” Gordievsky says by phone from the U.K., where he has been living in exile for nearly three decades. “Many different kinds of drugs are available, as I experienced for myself.” Having been called back to Moscow, Gordievsky says his KGB comrades drugged him with a substance that “turned out his lights” and made him “start talking in a very animated way.” Although the drug wiped out most of his memory of the incident, the parts he did recollect horrified him the following morning, when he woke up feeling ill. “I realized that I had completely compromised myself,” he says.
One of the substances the KGB used for such purposes at the time was called SP-117, which is odorless, tasteless and colorless, according Alexander Kouzminov, a former Russian intelligence operative who describes the drug’s effectiveness in his book, Biological Espionage. Now living in New Zealand, Kouzminov worked in the 1980s and early 1990s for the Foreign Intelligence Service, the spy agency known as the SVR, which handles undercover agents, or “illegals,” stationed in foreign countries. In his book, Kouzminov writes that various drugs were used periodically to test these operatives for signs of disloyalty or diversion. Once the drug had worn off, the agents would have no recollection of what they had said and, if their test results were satisfactory, they could be sent back into the field as though nothing had happened.
Yesterday, Snowden announced through Glenn Greenwald that “I never gave any information to Chinese or Russian governments.” I guess he assumes that Chinese and Russian officials don’t read The Guardian, The Washington Post, or the South China Morning Post. Anyway now it’s not clear if he would even remember if he gave them anything.
For all you Snowden and Greenwald fans out there, this information comes from an article in Time Magazine based on interviews with people who have actual experience with the ways Russia deals with spies. Don’t shoot the messenger.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments