Mostly Monday Reads: Sisters are Doing it for Themselves!

Posted: February 5, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Tracy Chapman at the 2024 Grammys.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I can tell you from experience that being a woman musician is challenging. You rarely get to display your complete set of talents. This has been especially true of the Grammy Awards recognition. Last night, Joni Mitchell, a constant inspiration of my musical journey other than my concert pianist mother, finally got to perform on that Grammy stage.

My dad traded my flute for a guitar in the 8th grade, and I taught myself to play and pick “Both Sides Now.” That was 1968. She sang it last night at the age of 80.  Judy Collins first made it famous, but it was all Joni.   I saw Joni perform at my first Jazz Fest in New Orleans in 1995 before I started playing around town and doing sound for the Fest. I cannot tell you how much I wanted to see her live. I watched how she did all those alternative tunings. I played her album ‘Free Man in Paris’ in my first year at university. There I was, watching those fingers work their magic as close as I could get. I’d already worn the tracks off of ‘Blue’.

In 2024, the Grammys lived up to their often-dubious claim to being “music’s biggest night,” with highs like Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs’ “Fast Car” duet, lows like the shocking arrest of Killer Mike, and whoas like Album of the Year winner Taylor Swift announcing a new album titled The Tortured Poets Department. But for me, the highlight of the evening was a quieter, if no less historic moment: Joni Mitchell taking the Grammy stage for the first time, at 80, to perform her classic ballad “Both Sides, Now.” I’d like to think Swift—the woman of the hour, night, and year, as well as a Joni superfan who calls Mitchell’s Blue her favorite album—would agree.

The song began as a piano playing through darkness, out of which Mitchell emerged, spotlit and facing backstage in a regal Victorian chair. Decked out in her signature beret and braids, and surrounded by crystal chandeliers, she used a bejeweled cane to keep time. And as she sang the opening lines, voice deeper now than that of the soprano who trilled its high notes on her 1969 album Clouds, her throne revolved until she was staring straight at the audience. Seated around Mitchell, like acolytes at her feet, were younger musicians—Brandi Carlile, Jacob Collier, Allison Russell, SistaStrings, Blake Mills, and Lucius—accompanying her with guitar, strings, woodwinds, and backing vocals. She didn’t strain her voice, but she sounded strong and clear.

Joni Mitchell at the 2024 Grammys

If Joni ruled my guitar picking in the sixties and seventies, Tracy Chapman grabbed me in the 1980s. I jumped on singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman’s ‘Give Me One Reason’, a track from Chapman’s 1988 album, with a 5-year-old daughter sitting beside me. When I moved to New Orleans and started performing again, that older and mouthier daughter corrected my timing several times. Given my lack of interest in country music, some singer I’d never heard that recorded her song shared the stage with Mitchell at the Grammies last night. Her album that enriched my life has never been re-released. I bet it will now. It topped the iTunes Chart after her Grammy performance. She looks and sounds better than ever!

“Fast Car,” the folk anthem by Tracy Chapman, is continuing to have its renaissance moment.

Chapman joined country singer Luke Combs for a rare performance of the song at Sunday’s Grammys ceremony. Moments after, “Fast Car” shot to No. 1 on the iTunes Top Songs chart. Her 1988 debut album, Tracy Chapman, also sat at No. 1.

Chapman’s original song peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart following its release. She has performed the song on the Grammy stage before, when she won best female pop vocal performance for it at the 1989 Grammys.

Combs’ version peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart after it was released last year and was nominated for a Grammy this year, though it did not win.

Chapman was not listed as an official performer this year, and the crowd cheered loudly when she appeared onstage, providing one of the most powerful moments at a Grammys show that was packed with memorable moments. Artists Taylor Swift and Jelly Roll were seen standing and singing along, and Chapman herself beamed with a smile.

Chapman’s album won plenty of Grammy honors at the time.

Chapman has won four Grammys in the past, three of which were tied to her self-titled album, which included “Fast Car.” For that, she won Best Contemporary Folk Album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and Best New Artist in 1989.

And yes, Taylor was there. A shot of her standing, dancing, clapping, and singing ‘Fast Car’ is viral today. ‘I became a Swifty’ with her 2014 hit ‘Shake it off’. It got a lot of play during Hillary’s campaign. She was a Hillary supporter but never quite got around to “endorsing’ her. Here’s a typical headline for that time of my life. “Can Hillary Clinton Shake It Off?” was all over the media. It was a meme-worthy song once Clinton stood on a town hall stage with Stalking Donnie Dotard and actually shook off his hateful rhetoric.

Swift won her 4th Album of the Year last night with intense competition. This is from People Magazine. “Taylor Swift Makes History as She Wins 4th Album of the Year at 2024 Grammys: ‘Unbelievably Blown Away’.”

Taylor Swift was awarded album of the year at Sunday’s awards show in Los Angeles for her album Midnights, making her the only artist to ever win album of the year four times. Midnights, Fearless, 1989 and Folklore have all won the achievement.

Next up for Swift is watching  The Super Bowl and more grief on all those nutty conspiracy theories from the left-hand tail of the MAGA IQ charts. Don’t even ask where the mean sits for these freaks of nature. She’s reportedly turned down performances for its Half Time Program several times, according to Fortune.

I would like to honor these two women in the category of causing all other female artists to have hope and awe. They are Annie Lennox and the late Sinead O’Connor. I love to tell this story of what the neighborhood kids said about me when I was in the skinny as hell and even balder stage of having chemotherapy in 1980. They went around telling everyone that I was a big music star! They thought I was Sinead! That’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten!

This is from Rolling Stone. “Annie Lennox Calls for Gaza Ceasefire During Sinéad O’Connor’ Grammys Tribute.”

ANNIE LENNOX CALLED for a ceasefire in Gaza during her tribute to Sinéad O’Connor at the Grammys.

After performing “Nothing Compares to U” on Sunday, the singer became the first artist to call for a ceasefire in Gaza at a major awards show this year.

“Artists for a ceasefire. Peace in the world,” Lennox said with her fist in the air, as an image of O’Connor displayed in the background.

Fans celebrated the Eurythmics icon for making the bold statement and honoring O’Connor in the “most meaningful and honest way.” O’Connor, who was also known for speaking up, famously ripped an image of the Pope to call out the Catholic church’s approach to clergy child sex abuse while performing on Saturday Night Live in 1992.

Oh, Annie of THAT voice! She killed it. The song written by Prince has one of the more gut-wrenching melodies and lyrics you’d ever want to croon.

So, anyway, that’s all I want to do today. I am glad that these female singer-songwriters are finally getting their due at the Grammys.   Okay, I’ve shared my inner fan girl and inspirations with you. You probably need more coffee now.

Have a great week! And go on!   Listen to their music!

Here’s a bonus: Annie with the Queen of Soul singing that funky music in 1985. It’s Aretha!!!

Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: February 3, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Biden Harris 2024, cat art, Cats, caturday, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift

On Wednesday, I wrote about the insane right-wing conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift. Here’s an update from Politico: Pentagon to MAGA world: You need to calm down over Taylor Swift.

National security officials are used to shaking off absurd conspiracy theories, but the latest rumor that’s gripped MAGA world just hits different.

The claims by Fox News and far-right influencers that pop star Taylor Swift is part of a Pentagon “psychological operation” to get President Joe Biden reelected, and somehow rig the Super Bowl to benefit Kansas City Chiefs tight end (and Swift’s boyfriend) Travis Kelce, has been met with forehead slaps in the national security world.

“The absurdity of it all boggles the mind,” said one senior administration official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. “It feels like one of those ‘tell me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist, without telling me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist’ memes.”

Let’s go back to December: A wild theory gained traction on far-right corners of social media after Swift was named Time magazine’s person of year on Dec. 6. Last month, Fox News host Jesse Watters did a segment about the idea, playing a clip from a NATO conference that he said backed up the theory that Swift was part of a Pentagon “psy-op,” or psychological operation, for combating online information.

“It’s real. The Pentagon psy-op unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online,” Watters said.

Robert Downey Jr.

Robert Downey Jr.

The Pentagon responded at the time, but the rumors continued to proliferate on social media. Influential MAGA types are now promoting the dizzying notion that Swift’s relationship with Kelce — another right-wing anti-hero after appearing in an ad for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer promoting the Covid and flu vaccines — is part of a plot by the NFL and Democratic Party for Swift to endorse Biden at the Super Bowl.

Faced with an onslaught of journalist questions about the theory, spokesperson Sabrina Singh was ready for it.

In the name of being honest, Singh vehemently denied Swift is part of a DOD operation.

“We know all too well the dangers of conspiracy theories, so to set the record straight — Taylor Swift is not part of a DOD psychological operation. Period,” Singh told POLITICO.

I’m sure MAGA world will just find a way to work this denial into their nutty theories. Unfortunately, Swift is going to need serious protection from the Trump crazies.

In more serious news, yesterday President Biden ordered strikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria and Iraq. ABC News: U.S. strikes more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in initial barrage of retaliatory attacks.

The United States launched attacks Friday against 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian forces and Iran-backed militants, its first retaliatory strikes for the killing of three American soldiers in Jordan last weekend, U.S. officials said.

U.S. military forces struck targets at seven facilities tied to attacks on U.S. personnel in the region, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. U.S. Central Command said the facilities included command and control operations, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, and drone storage sites.

Sstephen King

Stephen King

“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”

The military action is a significant escalation in Washington’s bid to deter the growing threat from Iran-backed groups across the Middle East — a step fraught with risk abroad and at home, as Biden seeks to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider conflict while working to secure his re-election.

The Biden administration had made clear that the U.S. would take military action after the drone attack by Iran-backed militants at a remote U.S. base in Jordan, in which more than 40 others were wounded. Biden attended the dignified return of the three slain U.S. soldiers at Dover Air Force Base earlier Friday.

Also yesterday, Biden met with families of three dead soldiers. The HIll: Biden attends solemn ceremony for troops killed in Jordan drone strike.

President Biden met Friday with the families of American service members killed last month in a drone strike in Jordan and participated in a dignified transfer, a solemn ceremony in which the troops’ remains return to the U.S.

The president and first lady Jill Biden attended the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base along with other U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. C.Q. Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The president and first lady looked on with their hands over their hearts as three flag-draped coffins were removed from a C-5 plane and taken by military personnel to a van.

The Pentagon on Monday identified the soldiers, who all served in the Army Reserve and were assigned to Georgia’s Fort Moore. The soldiers are Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Ga.; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Ga.; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Ga.

Biden spoke Tuesday with the families of the fallen service members to express his condolences, and he met with them in person Friday.

“They risked it all,” Biden said Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast. “And we’ll never forget [their] sacrifices and service to our country.”

The three troops were killed, and roughly 40 others were injured in a drone strike in Jordan near the Syrian border Sunday. The White House has attributed the attack to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group that contains different militias backed by Iran.

Dick Van Dyke

Dick Van Dyke

Trump didn’t care for these ceremonies when he was in the White House. From HuffPost:

In the world of President Donald Trump, he has paid his respects to “many, many” returning soldiers killed in the line of duty, with daughter and top presidential aide Ivanka Trump adding that “each time” she has stood by his side at one of these ceremonies, it has hardened his resolve to bring troops home.

In the real world, Trump has traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware exactly four times ― fewer than half as many times as his vice president ― and avoided going at all for nearly two years after getting berated for his incompetence by the father of a slain Navy SEAL, according to a former White House aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bill Owens, the father of William “Ryan” Owens, refused to shake Trump’s hand at that Feb. 1, 2017, encounter, the aide said, and then told Trump that he was responsible for his son’s death for approving the disastrous raid in Yemen without bothering to understand the risks.

“He refused to go back for two years, he was so rattled,” the aide said, adding that the main reason Trump had approved the raid just five days after taking office was that predecessor Barack Obama had refused to do so.

What’s more, Trump made the decision at a social dinner that included his son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, and then-chief strategist Stephen Bannon, rather than his National Security Council staff.

“You can count on one hand the number of times Donald Trump has been to Dover,” said Jon Soltz, chairman of the progressive political group VoteVets and an Iraq War veteran. “There simply is no bottom when it comes to what he’ll lie about. I wish there was more outrage about Trump lying about the dignified transfer of the fallen for political reasons, because as a veteran it really disgusts me.”

Just a reminder of the embarrassment to his country Trump was and is.

Before I get to the new about Trump’s legal woes, I was amazed that The New York Times actually published a somewhat positive story about Vice President Kamala Harris: Kamala Harris Bolsters Biden for 2024 and Lays Groundwork for 2028, by Reid Epstein and Maya King.

When President Biden pushed Democrats to place South Carolina first on their presidential primary calendar, the geography for the party’s political strivers changed. They are now working to build support not in mostly white Northern places but in a Southern state with a predominantly Black primary voting base that better represents the modern Democratic Party.

So when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived on Friday in Orangeburg, S.C., for her ninth visit to South Carolina since taking office, she came as a known quantity. While she and Mr. Biden are running for renomination without serious challengers, the relationships she has developed in the state are expected to play a part in lifting their ticket to a comfortable triumph on Saturday in the party’s first recognized primary election.

Sigourney Weaver

Sigourney Weaver

Ms. Harris’s trip, as well as her college tour last year and an ongoing circuit to defend abortion rights and promote the Democratic agenda, also served two larger purposes: working to shore up Mr. Biden’s lingering vulnerabilities with Black voters and young voters, and keeping the first woman and first woman of color to serve as vice president at the forefront for the next presidential contest in 2028.

Perhaps the most influential Democrat in South Carolina is already on board with Ms. Harris as a future White House candidate.

“I made very clear months ago that I support her,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, whose 2020 endorsement of Mr. Biden before his state’s primary election helped rejuvenate the former vice president’s struggling campaign and carry him to the nomination. “That’s why we got to re-elect the ticket. Then you talk about viability after that.”

Ms. Harris, who ended her 2020 presidential campaign months before the South Carolina primary, has sought to deepen her ties here.

“There is an unspoken language between the vice president and African American women in this state,” said Trav Robertson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “She doesn’t have to go into a room and say things — because they already know they have a shared experience.”

Read the rest at the NYT.

The legal news is kind of depressing–Trump is succeeding with his delay tactics. 

NBC News: Judge delays Trump’s federal trial as court considers his presidential immunity claim.

Former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference trial in Washington, D.C., will no longer begin on March 4, Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in a court order released Friday.

It is unclear when exactly the trial will now start, but the case has been on pause for nearly two months — Trump’s team requested a stay on Dec. 7, and it was granted on Dec. 13 — which would mean the soonest the trial could start would likely be late April or early May.

A start date in early May could easily mean the trial won’t conclude until after the Republican National Convention, scheduled for July 15-18 in Milwaukee.

In a previous order, Chutkan reiterated that a total of seven months was “sufficient time” for Trump to prepare for trial, not including the time the case has been on pause.

Friday’s ruling comes as the D.C. Circuit Court has not yet decided on whether the former president is immune from prosecution. A panel of federal appeals court judges heard oral argumentson Jan. 9, and the case is on an expedited schedule.

“The court will set a new schedule if and when the mandate is returned,” said the court orderfrom Chutkan.

About that “expedited schedule”: 

Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage at The New York Times: After Speedy Start, Appeals Court Slows Down on Trump Immunity Decision.

In December, when a federal appeals court agreed to hear former President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping claims to be immune from charges of plotting overturn the 2020 election, it laid out a lightning-fast briefing schedule, asking the defense and prosecution to file their papers on successive Saturdays during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also moved with unusual alacrity in setting up a hearing for arguments on the issue, scheduling the proceeding on Jan. 9, just one week after all of the papers were submitted — a remarkably short window by the standards of the judicial system.

But after sending up what appeared to be clear signals that they intended to swiftly resolve this phase of the immunity dispute — which lies at the heart of both the viability and timing of Mr. Trump’s trial on the election subversion charges — the appeals court judges have yet to issue a decision….

The disconnect between the expectations set up by the panel’s early moves to expedite the case and the weeks that have now accumulated without a ruling has captured the attention of some legal experts who are closely watching the case.

It has also caught the eye of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, who have been watching from the sidelines with something akin to quiet glee. Each day that passes without a ruling bolsters their strategy of seeking to postpone the trial until after the presidential race is decided.

So what’s going on? It seems there could be another judge like Aileen Cannon trying to help Trump.

“It is surprising, given how quickly they moved to have this appeal briefed and argued, for the court to not yet have issued a decision,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a University of Texas at Austin law professor who specializes in federal courts. “It’s surprising both just because of how fast they moved and because of the broader timing considerations in this case — both the March 4 trial date and the looming specter of the election.”

It is impossible at this point to gain real insight into what is going on among the members of the panel, which is composed of two judges appointed by President Biden and one placed on the bench by President George H.W. Bush.

The latter judge, Karen L. Henderson, had previously dissented from expediting the immunity appeal and has voted in Mr. Trump’s favor in several previous politically charged cases. As the panel’s senior jurist, Judge Henderson has the authority to write the opinion if she is in the majority. And she faces no deadline to complete the job.

Professor Vladeck said that many people in the legal community had been speculating about what Judge Henderson’s role in the delay might be, though he also noted that no formal rule prevented the other two judges on a panel from moving ahead in issuing a ruling on their own.

While that would be a “breach of judicial decorum,” he said, Judge Henderson’s colleagues — Florence Y. Pan and J. Michelle Childs — could in theory release a decision without her.

So far that’s not happening–just more obstruction. And after this court gives their opinion, the case might go to the Supreme Court for more delays. 

Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro

Judge Cannon is stalling the stolen documents case, and the case in Georgia is also facing difficulties. It’s looking like the first criminal trial Trump will face is the one over paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. From The Washington Post:

Trump’s legal team had already been preparing for the New York case to be first, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal strategy. Some Trump advisers view the New York case as the weakest of the four and believe that indictment last March helped Trump rebuild support among Republicans, these people said. Many advisers think the GOP reaction to Trump’s criminal charges would have been different if another case — related to possession of classified documents — had come first.

So instead of hearing evidence about efforts to block a U.S. election or improperly keep highly classified U.S. secrets, the first jury to weigh alleged crimes by Trump as he again runs for president could be focused on sordid allegations of a long-ago sexual encounter with an adult-film star. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

“This was the first indictment of Trump but quickly became seen as the runt of the litter, compared to bigger, more consequential cases,” said Ronald Kuby, a veteran criminal defense lawyer in New York. He said the New York trial may be a “garden-variety fraud case,” but its simplicity is also its saving grace.

“Unlike the D.C. case, this does not involve any question of presidential immunity. Unlike the Florida documents case, this does not involve the lengthy proceedings that are needed in cases where classified information is at issue, and unlike the Georgia case, it is not a sprawling indictment of 18 people — there’s one defendant,” Kuby said. “And the evidence that has been made publicly available is compelling.”

I guess one criminal conviction is better than none.

This is crazy: I guess some FBI agents didn’t want to do a surprise search of Mar-a-Lago, and when they did do it, they may have missed something important.

ABC News: Special counsel questioned witnesses about 2 rooms FBI didn’t search inside Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence: Sources.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called “hidden room” inside former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn’t check while searching the estate in August 2022, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

As described to ABC News, the line of questioning in several interviews ahead of Trump’s indictment last year on classified document charges suggests that — long after the FBI seized dozens of boxes and more than 100 documents marked classified from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — Smith’s team was trying to determine if there might still be more classified documents there.

According to sources, some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that the closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked.

As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet’s lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Trump’s alleged efforts to conceal classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney are a key part of Smith’s indictment against Trump in Florida.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Benedict Cumberbatch

Jordan Strauss, a former federal prosecutor and former national security official in the Justice Department, called the FBI’s alleged failure to search the closet “a bit astonishing.”

“You’re searching a former president’s house. You [should] get it right the first time,” Strauss told ABC News.

In addition to the closet, the FBI also didn’t search what authorities have called a “hidden room” connected to Trump’s bedroom, sources said.

Smith’s investigators were later told that, in the days right after the search, some of Trump’s employees heard that the FBI had missed at least one room at Mar-a-Lago, the sources said.

According to a senior FBI official, agents focused on areas they believed might have government documents.

One more on the stolen documents case from Politico: Special counsel mounts forceful — and unusual — defense of Trump classified documents case.

Special counsel Jack Smith used a routine legal filing Friday to offer a forceful public rebuttal against Donald Trump’s claims that his criminal prosecution for allegedly hoarding classified documents has been infected by politics and legal impropriety.

The 68-page document began with what Smith’s team described as an effort to correct false assertions the former president had made about the nature of the case against him.

“It is necessary to set the record straight on the underlying facts that led to this prosecution,” the prosecutors argued. “The government will clear the air on those issues … because the defendants’ misstatements, if unanswered, leave a highly misleading impression.”

What followed was a lengthy recitation of the events that led prosecutors to suspect Trump had been squirreling reams of classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Rather than the bloodthirsty partisan endeavor Trump describes, prosecutors say federal officials from the National Archives, intelligence community and White House counsel’s office took “measures” and “incremental” steps to retrieve the documents — often in coordination with some of Trump’s own designated advisers — before escalating the matter as the former president continued to resist.

The approach taken in the legal brief is somewhat unusual for the Justice Department. Though the filing was submitted to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, at times it sounded like an opening argument to a jury Trump could face in the future or the first chapter of a report meant to detail investigative findings to the public.

It’s unclear whether the “misimpressions” prosecutors say they’re trying to correct are ones they fear Cannon could fall prey to, whether the target audience for the brief is a larger one, and how the Fort Pierce, Fla.-based Trump appointee will respond to the tactic.

The substance of the prosecution brief is aimed at countering the demands by Trump and his two co-defendants — Walt Nauta and Carlos DeOliveira — for access to a broad range of documents from across the government that the defense attorneys contend could be useful in defending their clients. They’ve asked Cannon to consider massive executive branch agencies and the White House as appendages of Smith’s prosecution team — a decision that could open their files to defendants beyond the typical evidence-sharing that occurs for witnesses in criminal proceedings.

Sam Elliot

Sam Elliot

Here’s the most shocking part of the brief:

The brief is also peppered with factual claims that make Trump’s behavior sound more serious and egregious. When discussing the defense’s request for more information from the Secret Service, prosecutors assert that their interaction with the federal agency that guards the president and his family underscored Trump’s recklessness in keeping a large volume of classified information at his Florida home, which also serves as a social club and a site for political and social events with lengthy guest lists.

The Secret Service reported that “of the approximately 48,000 guests who visited Mar-a-Lago between January 2021 and May 2022, while classified documents were at the property, only 2,200 had their names checked and only 2,900 passed through magnetometers,” the prosecution filing says.

All while Trump left secret documents in a bathroom, on a ballroom stage, and in a storage room located near the swimming pool.

One more unbelievable piece from Philip Bump at The Washington Post: Most Republicans aren’t aware of Trump’s various legal issues.

There is an assumption, probably particularly among those who cover the news and those who read it, that Donald Trump’s legal travails are common knowledge. We talk about things like the potential effects of a Trump conviction on the 2024 presidential election with the assumption that this would be an event that rose to the nation’s consciousness, triggering a response from both his supporters and detractors.

But this is a sort of vanity: Just because it is interesting to us certainly doesn’t mean it is interesting to others. Polling released by CNN on Thursday shows that only a quarter of voters seek out news about the campaign; a third pay little to no attention at all.

As it turns out, even major developments often fly under the average American’s radar. New polling conducted by YouGov shows that only a bit over half of the country on average is aware of the various legal challenges Trump faces. And among those Republicans on whose political support he depends? Consistently, only a minority say they are aware of his lawsuits and charges.

YouGov presented American adults with eight legal scenarios to judge the extent of the public’s awareness. Two were invented: that Trump faces charges related to emoluments or related to drug trafficking. Happily, less than a quarter of respondents said those legal threats actually existed.

The other six were real. The one that was familiar to the most people was the federal classified-documents case that is moving forward in Florida; 6 in 10 Americans said they were aware of that case. The one that had the least awareness was the civil suit in New York in which a judge determined that he’d fraudulently inflated the value of his assets. Just under 50 percent of Americans knew about that.

But the pattern among Republicans is clear. At most, 45 percent of Republicans said they knew about legal issues: specifically, the documents case and his being found liable for assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll. Only a quarter knew about the value-inflation suit, and only 4 in 10 knew about the criminal charges in Manhattan related to the hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

And with that, I’ll turn the floor over to you. What’s do you think about all this? What else is on your mind?

Wednesday Reads

Posted: January 31, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Good Morning!!

taylor-coverI’m an old lady now, and I haven’t followed popular culture for years. For example, I’ve never watched a reality TV show or any recent situation comedies. I don’t have that much time left on earth; and I’d rather focus on things I care about, like reading good books and following politics.

Obviously, I’ve heard of Taylor Swift, I know what she looks like, but I’ve never heard her music. It would be difficult not to know that she’s dating a member of the Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelce. But now I’m learning more about her, because she has become the focus of the latest insane MAGA conspiracy theories.

HuffPost: The Right’s Newest Conspiracy Is The Super Bowl-Taylor Swift-Joe Biden ‘Psyop.’

It’s a conspiracy involving the deepest of deep states: The world’s most popular entertainer, America’s most popular sporting event and the president of the United States. Its goal, according to theories circulating in the outskirts of MAGA world, is to covertly compel fans to throw the 2024 election to the Democrats.

Right-wing speculation reached a fever pitch this week around pop mega-star Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce after Kelce’s team, the Kansas City Chiefs, qualified for Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, a victory the two celebrated with much-photographed postgame smooch. A day later, The New York Times ran a piece noting President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is hoping for Swift’s endorsement.

Those two seemingly unrelated events — and the possibility that Swift would use her massive star power and huge online reach to help Biden beat Donald Trump — are driving right-wing media into a meltdown. And that one of the country’s biggest celebrities will use her fanbase to help Biden is already being treated as inevitable by some of the right’s biggest influencers….

But there’s more to this than the possibility of a Swift nod swinging a close election. For years, right-wing conspiracists have pushed the notion that Swift, who began her career in the conservative world of country music and was once referred to as “Aryan goddess” by white supremacists, is somehow a Democratic “agent” because she endorsed Democrats in the 2018 midterms and Biden in the 2020 presidential election. (Swift has admitted she regrets not getting involved in 2016.)

“There have been have claims for several months that she’s a psyop, that she’s a Pentagon asset, that she’s a political weapon,” said Brennan Suen, the deputy director of external affairs for Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog. “The claims have gotten completely wild.” [….]

Kelce, for his part, appeared in a Pfizer commercial promoting the COVID vaccine. COVID shots have long been the subject of right-wing conspiracies, with adherents falsely believing the government is covering up adverse reactions or that the vaccines harbor microchips.

Now, high-profile conservative figures are promoting the unfounded idea that Swift, the NFL and the Democratic Party are together involved in a “psyop” campaign to deliver the election to Biden. Fox News host Jesse Watters recently suggested that Swift was a “front for a covert political agenda” and bizarrely called her a “Pentagon asset” — which, of course, the Pentagon denied….

By that logic, Swift’s appearances at Chiefs games isn’t to cheer on her boyfriend or even to promote her tour — it’s really to get the country to vote blue in November.

There’s more nutty nonsense at the HuffPost link.

LuckovichRolling Stone: Trump Allies Pledge ‘Holy War’ Against Taylor Swift.

Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift hasn’t even endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection yet. That hasn’t stopped members of MAGAland’s upper crust from plotting to declare — as one source close to Donald Trump calls it — a “holy war” on the pop megastar, especially if she ends up publicly backing the Democrats in the 2024 election.

According to three people familiar with the matter, Trump loyalists working on or close to the former president’s campaign, longtime Trump allies in right-wing media, and an array of outside advisers to the ex-president have long taken it as a given that Swift will eventually endorse Biden (as she did in 2020). Indeed, several of these Republicans and conservative media figures have discussed the matter with Trump over the past few months, the sources say.

While Swift has not yet issued an endorsement in the 2024 race, The New York Times reported Monday that Swift is a key name on Biden aides’ “wish lists of potential surrogates.” A potential Swift appearance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already prompted the MAGA right’s culture-war pugilists into a conspiracy-fueled froth about how this NFL season has been rigged to boost Biden.

Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. In recent weeks, the former president has told people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has also privately claimed that he is “more popular” than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone.

Last month, the source close to Trump adds, the ex-president commented to some confidants that it “obviously” made no sense that he was not named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year — an honor that went to none other than Swift in December.

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice: Why Trumpers are losing it over Taylor Swift.

Swift is not running for election and is not really a political figure. Thus targeting her seems at best pointless and at worst counterproductive for a political movement.

But the conservative media marketplace often has different incentives than the Republican Party — which is part of why the Republican Party is such a mess. Swift’s music now effectively functions as the soundtrack for the GOP crawling into a dumpster and setting itself on fire….

Why have Republicans chosen this moment for their much-more-than-two-minutes Swift hate? Well, this week Swift released a provocative album titled The GOP Sucks and So Does Donald Trump.

Travis-Kelce-and-Taylor-Swift-012824-6-f7719b5c03c94159bad4f1ec08ee6f9fHa ha. No, she didn’t do anything like that at all. Instead, her sin was … attending a football game. Last Sunday, she went to see the Kansas City Chiefs/Baltimore Ravens matchup because she’s dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — who has been reviled by the right for making ads for the Pfizer covid vaccine and (gulp) alleged woke beer brand Bud Light. The Chiefs won, giving them a berth in the Super Bowl and destroying right-wing talking points about Swift being the Chiefs’ Yoko Ono.

During the game, cameras kept panning to catch Swift’s reaction, which makes sense since she’s a massively famous pop star and her presence at NFL games this season is driving huge TV ratings.

Swift didn’t ham it up for the cameras to try to make herself a focus of attention. Nonetheless, her presence annoyed right-wing punditry, which saw Swift and collectively started gibbering and snorting like rabid warthogs.

“End Wokeness,” a large right-wing account that Elon Musk is fond of, tweeted that “What’s happening with Taylor Swift is not organic and natural. It’s an op.” [….]

As this newsletter is being readied for publication late Tuesday, examples of right-wing figures revealing that Swift has given them a terminal case of brainworms are so plentiful that it would be impossible to cite them all.

Newsmax host Greg Kelly went as far Monday as to accuse Swifties of “elevating her to an idol … and you’re not supposed to do that. In fact, if you look it up in the Bible, it’s a sin!” Another Newsmax host dismissed the Swift-Kelce relationship as “fake.”

Meanwhile, one of Fox News’ “hard news” shows devoted a segment to attacking Swift, her fans, and Kelce, who a commentator derisively referred to as “Mr. Pfizer.”

But that was nowhere near as wild as a segment earlier this month during which Fox News host Jesse Waters described Swift a “Pentagon asset” developed at a NATO meeting and deployed to help Democrats.

Where do they get this stuff? It’s so difficult for me to comprehend the way these people think.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that historian Rick Perlstein is now writing a column called “The Infernal Triangle” for The American Prospect. His focus is on the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. Today he quotes a letter he received from a reader in Arkansas:

Oh, Rick, you get it … My husband and I are old and sitting right slap dab in the middle of red Arkansas with MAGA friends and family all around. They try to pull us into their discussions but we change the subject. I stopped going to church because the churches no longer teach Christ’s message, but Trump’s message. We are too old to move but if I was young I’d get out … Even if Trump doesn’t win, his followers will take up arms (Our relatives love to show off their assault rifles) much worse than Jan. 6 so either way we are screwed … Will my son lose his job as a government inspector? Will my black, gay, openly political blue neighbors be imprisoned or simply lynched the way it was done here in the ’50s or ’60s? And if so, how do I stay neutral while horrible things are happening to good people? I have no fight left in me … Sorry to rant on so long so I’ll wrap this up now. I could use your help though. How do we prepare in a practical sense? How will this affect my everyday life? How do people in Russia go on about their lives and jobs? I assume I will have to kiss ass like in North Korea in order to live but then there are some things worse than death!

I won’t quote the rest of the piece–it’s about the need for fiction that spells out what could be coming if Trump wins and democracy dies. But this letter shows what it’s like for ordinary people in red states who can’t accept the MAGA brainwashing. Dakinikat and J.J. have a better idea what it’s like; here in blue Massachusetts, I have no direct contact with Trump crazies. Reading that letter from Arkansas brought home to me the danger we face.

More interesting reads from today’s news:

Elie Mystal at The Nation: Texas Is Spoiling for a Civil War.

Many Democrats treat the Empire of Texas as an alarming sideshow. Sure, the state executes the most people in the country, places bounties on those who smuggle pregnant people out of state to receive reproductive care, and uses migrants for target practice—but for many liberals Texas is just a sick joke that can be disregarded until Ted Cruz shows up for a football game. Even now, as the state openly repudiates federal laws, the most common refrain from the “always-online” liberal community is “Good: Give Texas back to Mexico.”

Texas border razor wire

Razor wire at the Texas border

That is not the right answer. First of all, Texas doesn’t want to leave. It wants to invade the rest of the United States and remake the country in its own Christofascist image. Moreover, as is typical with these “states’ rights” types, the definition of “freedom” envisaged by the white guys running Texas is one where they are the only ones forever free—and they are allowed to subjugate women and people of color in their grabbable areas. But most important, allowing a state like Texas to thumb its nose at human rights and federal authority does nothing but give aid and comfort to other would-be rebel states to do the same.

Texas is not a sideshow; it is ground zero in the battle to reassert states’ rights over individual rights and the federal government. And, with the help of Republican judges and a Democratic administration that still seems bound by a rule book Texas is eager to torch, Texas is more or less winning the first battle in this Civil War reenactment.

The flash point for this crisis is, of course, the border. I have written before about Eagle Pass, Tex., as a place along the Rio Grande where it is popular for immigrants to make the crossing. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has erected a series of sadistic obstructions across this part of the river—including buoys ringed with razor wire and underwater traps—meant to maim and even drown people trying to swim across the river. Should people, and their children, survive Abbott’s gauntlet, Texas officials on the other side have been accused of pushing them back into the river, or denying the survivors medical aid or even water.

In response to this murder-barrier, which is in clear violation of both federal law and international human rights laws, US Attorney General Merrick Garland… filed a lawsuit. Because when a rebel force erects a literal death trap on federal lands, the right answer is to use the slow and plodding legal process instead of sending, I don’t know, a Zumwalt-class naval destroyer into the river to clear the obstructions. The lawsuit is still pending while people drown, of course.

Read the rest at The Nation.

Whether Donald Trump faces a potential prison sentence in 2024 is at the mercy of a federal appeals court that’s operating on its own schedule — at a time when every day matters.

More than 50 days have elapsed since Trump’s criminal proceedings in a Washington, D.C., trial court — on charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 election — were paused indefinitely. They won’t resume until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and, most likely, the Supreme Court resolve the question hanging over the entire case: whether Trump, as a former president, is immune from criminal prosecution.

Even if those courts ultimately reject Trump’s immunity arguments — an outcome that most legal experts expect — the protracted delays help the former president, whose strategy across his various trials has been to drag them out for as long as possible. Lengthy delays in his federal criminal cases create the possibility that, if he wins the presidency this November, Trump could avoid the charges altogether by having the Justice Department end the prosecutions or perhaps even by pardoning himself.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal election case, has tried to keep it on an expeditious track, and the trial is officially slated to begin on March 4. Chutkan, though, has strongly suggested she’ll push back that start date to account for each day of delay caused by Trump’s immunity appeal.

Even if the appeal were resolved this week against Trump, that calculation would put his earliest trial date in late April. But if the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court take additional weeks or months to deliver a final ruling, the opening days of Trump’s trial could be pushed to the summer or fall.

If, at that point, Trump retains his grip on the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, he and his allies are certain to exert intense pressure to postpone the trial until after the election. Chutkan, an Obama appointee, could plow forward with a trial anyway — and she’s repeatedly indicated that the campaign calendar has no bearing on her own.

The New York Times: Trump’s PACs Spent Roughly $50 Million on Legal Expenses in 2023.

Donald J. Trump piled up legal expenses in 2023 as he was indicted four times, spending approximately $50 million in donor money on legal bills and investigation-related expenses last year, according to two people briefed on the figure.

46df8261-703d-4179-b32d-58cb25c320d8_1920x1080It is a staggering sum. His lone remaining rival in the 2024 Republican primary, Nikki Haley, raised roughly the same amount of money across all her committees in the last year as Mr. Trump’s political accounts spent paying the bills stemming from his various legal defenses, including lawyers for witnesses.

The exact figure spent on legal bills will be reported on Wednesday in new filings to the Federal Election Commission. But even those totals can be imprecise depending on how certain expense items are categorized by those doing the paperwork.

The broader picture expected to be outlined in the documents is one of a former president heading toward the Republican nomination while facing enormous financial strain….

Mr. Trump, who has long been loath to pay lawyers himself and has a history of stiffing those who represent him, has used funds in his political action committee, known as Save America, to underwrite his legal bills. The account was originally flooded with donations that were collected during the period immediately after the 2020 election when he was making widespread and false claims of voting fraud.

But with Save America’s coffers nearly drained last year, Mr. Trump sought to refill them through a highly unusual transaction: He asked for a refund of $60 million that he had initially transferred to a different group, a pro-Trump super PAC called MAGA Inc., to support his 2024 campaign.

In addition, Mr. Trump has been directing 10 percent of donations raised online to Save America, meaning 10 cents of every dollar he has received from supporters is going to a PAC that chiefly funds his lawyers.

Mr. Trump has paid legal expenses through both Save America and a second account, called the Make America Great Again PAC, which is an outgrowth of his 2020 re-election committee. In the first half of 2023, Save America transferred $5.85 million to the Make America Great Again PAC, which spent almost all of that sum on legal and investigation-related costs….

The net result was redirecting $42.5 million from a super PAC devoted to electing him as president to a committee now chiefly devoted to paying his lawyers. The refund was nearly equal to the $43.8 million the super PAC spent on so-called independent expenditures, such as television advertising, to shape the 2024 primary last year.

Raw Story: Trump pressured prosecutor to ‘blow up’ Hunter Biden’s gun plea deal: court filing.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers working to dismiss their client’s gun case argued Tuesday far-right extremists and former President Donald Trump unduly pressured prosecutors once willing to cut a deal.

A new filing in Delaware’s federal court — where Hunter Biden stands accused of lying about drug use to purchase a firearm he kept for fewer than two weeks — contends political motivations tainted special counsel David Weiss’ case after a plea deal was in the works last year.

bbe4e398-bd03-48fd-89e9-b242e8fa2986-medium16x9_AP24010069538951“In response to that outcry from former President Trump, extremist House Republicans, and right-wing media looking to make Mr. Biden’s fate a political issue in the next presidential election, the prosecution blew up that deal,” his lawyers write.

“[Weiss] now has brought felony charges against Mr. Biden both here in Delaware and in California and is seeking a heavy prison sentence for charges the prosecution was willing to resolve for probation just months ago.”

The deal in question would have seen President Joe Biden’s 53-year-old son plead to two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and agree to certain legal stipulations, reports show.

After it fell apart in July, Weiss charged Biden with three gun charges in Delaware and nine tax charges in California.

Biden’s lawyers now say those charges would not have been brought had their client’s father not been Trump’s primary opponent in the 2024 presidential election.

Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast: The ‘Profound Influence’ of Christian Extremists on Mike Johnson.

A Daily Beast investigation of [Mike Johnson’s] affiliations, influences, and public statements shows that Johnson’s worldview was forged in a radical theological tradition—the leaders and adherents of which have disputed some of the country’s most important constitutional principles, including amendments that freed the slaves and extended basic rights to all citizens.

That may sound dramatic, but Johnson’s connections to one particular strain of Christian fundamentalism elicit legitimate questions about the speaker’s biblical and constitutional interpretations. Those questions are all the more pressing given how open leaders of this movement have been about using anti-democratic means to achieve their desired religious ends—and given Johnson’s own prominent role in the GOP effort to overturn the 2020 election.

speaker-mike-johnson-ap-jt-231111_1699738016425_hpMain_16x9_1600While Johnson’s legal endeavors to keep Donald Trump in office have been well documented, so, too, have his ties to that fundamentalist strain, known loosely as Christian dominionism.

In a definitional sense, Christian dominionism is the belief that Christians should hold “dominion” over things like media, culture, and politics. In practice, it’s a radical theology—unifying a number of fundamentalist ideologies—advocating for biblical interpretations of law and society and hard-line views on issues like abortion and marriage.

More broadly, Christian dominionism seeks to establish the United States as a Christian nation governed by biblical law. And several leaders in the dominionist movement have had a profound impact on Johnson personally—by Johnson’s own admission.

In December 2021, for instance, Johnson publicly praised David Barton, a Christian nationalist whose historical studies have been rejected as wildly inaccurate. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s entry on Barton notes that he has repeatedly “demonized LGBTQ persons and communities, arguing that HIV and AIDS are god-given consequences for living out one’s LGBTQ life.”

And yet, Johnson said just two years ago that Barton has had “a profound influence on me, and my work, and my life, and everything I do.”

Those comments came at a national gathering of Christian lawmakers in North Texas, where Johnson said he was first introduced to Barton and his ministry “a quarter-century ago.”

Read the rest at The Daily Beast.

Those are my recommended reads for today. What stories are you following?