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Friday Night Music makes a reappearance

Friday, August 11, 2023

Along with some musings on our uncertain future.

I chanced upon this video a few months ago. It features Rhiannon Giddens and Paul Simon singing Simon’s American Tune. I put it on my to-do app to post the following Friday, and I’ve been putting it forward a week ever since, for reasons too diverse to go into.

I remember listening to this song when Simon first released it many years ago, thinking how relevant it was to those times. Little did I know that the road we were traveling down then hardly prepared us for the road on which we find ourselves today.

I saw an old friend for the first time in years today, and our conversation was pretty much dominated by the state of our world, more specifically the country in which we live.  Try as we might, it’s not easy to be “bright and bon vivant” in what is clearly the “ages most uncertain hour” as the climate deteriorates and half the country embraces fascism.

The song is well worth the listen. In my humble opinion Giddens is a fantastic singer.

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There’s nothing new about the Republican drive toward fascism

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to beat Driftglass on this one, yet another example of Never-Trumpers rewriting history to, among other things, obscure their own roles in bringing us to the sorry state in which we find ourselves. Charlie Sykes and Joe Scarborough can’t figure out why Trump supporters are willing to destroy Democracy.

“I think where we’ve come since 2015, what’s happened to the American conservative movement, think what’s happened to our political culture,” Charlie Sykes said.

“It’s easy to dismiss Donald Trump as this narcissistic clown, but it is hard to understate the impact that he’s had on our political standards. and to your point, look, you are seeing a full-out attack, not just on the culture of facts, which we had back in 2016, but now on all of the institutions of our constitutional republic. There’s great piece in the Washington Post that talks about how all the other Republican candidates are going after the courts, the system of law, the deep state, sowing distrust in any institution that might challenge or hold someone like Donald Trump accountable.

I’ve put the most blatant fantastical language in bold. The fantasy is that the Republican Party was a party based on a “culture of facts” until Trump came along. Nothing could be further from the Truth. Sykes himself was a Limbaugh wannabe until 2016, feeding right wing paranoia to his radio listeners. Fox “News” has been spreading lies on behalf of Republicans for decades, and Republicans have been happily embracing those lies. Scarborough himself had Trump on his show multiple times in 2016, giving him a platform to spread what every thinking person knew were lies at that time, not to mention that every thinking person knew then that Trump was a budding fascist.

Ever since Ronald Reagan, and perhaps all the way back to Nixon, Republicans have realized that the only way they can win elections and further enrich their rich backers is to lie and divide. That’s what they have been doing since Nixon adopted his Southern Strategy and Reagan announced his candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi talking about state’s rights. For years they figured they could garner those votes without going full crazy, but the whackos were bound to take full control, as they now have, at some point. Why I even remember some obscure blogger predicting back in 2012 that the next Republican candidate for President would not be the Romney type “moderate” who would throw enough red meat at the base to garner their votes, but a full on nutjob. I was wrong only in the sense that Trump has no real principles, he’s just a skilled grifter and he saw how to work the grift. It would never have worked had the ground not been prepared for years.

For in depth documentation, subscribe to Driftglass and peruse his posts on the subject.

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Do I meander? Very well then, I meander

Monday, August 7, 2023

It has been several weeks since I’ve posted anything, primarily because we have had family visiting here or in Vermont for the last several weeks. We returned from Vermont Saturday, and spent most of Sunday taking my brother in law to the Providence airport as he began his trip back to Paris.

We spent a week in Vermont, experiencing the still lingering effects of the flooding that took place in July. We actually own a little house in Chester, Vermont, but that’s currently occupied by one of my sons, his wife and their two kids. Every summer we rent a lake house for a week, cram it full of relatives and have a good time. This year was no exception, though the lake was full of detritus from the floods and had a brown cast to it, so both boating and swimming were discouraged. As we normally do little of either, we didn’t much care.

One thing I did do a lot of was biking, so I saw a lot of the Vermont roads. Several major roads were shut down completely, and it was often impossible to know whether a minor road was completely passable. The lake is in Ludlow, which was among the hardest hit areas, so we saw a lot of closed businesses and flood damage.

But, we had a good time. Especially fun was a dinner on the porch of the Fullerton Inn in Chester on Thursday, the 3rd. The concert scheduled for the green, which abuts the Inn, was moved indoors due to predicted bad weather that never came, but that was minor compared to the fact that we were able to celebrate yet another Trump indictment.

So now this post finally gets around to politics. The indictment itself made fun reading, though I think I can honestly say there was very little in it that I didn’t know already. The only thing that jumped out as new was Trump telling Pence he was “too honest”, with subsequent events seeming to establish that Pence has concluded he’s not going to be president, so he no longer has a reason to hold back on criticizing Trump.

I did almost no criminal law when I practiced, but even I know that the defenses proffered by Trump’s lawyers should not get them anywhere. Maybe Aileen Cannon would buy into the “free speech” defense, but the judge he drew in DC will give it short shrift. Just as a hypothetical, I’m fairly sure that a person who directed an accomplice to shoot someone would be found guilty of some felony. In fact, he or she would likely be found guilty if it was just a strong suggestion. But maybe I’m wrong. If John Eastman were to get his way, future law students will be told that Justice Holmes was simply wrong when he said that “you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater”.

Okay, I promise the next post will be a little more coherent.

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Every allegation is a confession, part 1000

Monday, July 17, 2023

There’s probably not a single liberal type blogger who hasn’t commented about the fact that every time a Republican accuses a Democrat, or Democrats, of something heinous, it is a sure bet that it is something Republicans are already doing or planning to do. I suppose it’s possible that someone in the mainstream media, possibly Paul Krugman, has commented on this fact as well, but it mostly goes unremarked because, after all, one must maintain objectivity, which means one must never mention certain obvious facts about our budding fascists, including the fact, now that I think about it, that they are budding fascists.

Case in point. We have the idiotic Gym Jordan heading a committe on the “weaponization” of the government against conservatives, a charge he has, to date, failed to back up with enough evidence to establish a whiff of suspicion, never mind, probably cause.

But of course this means that when given the chance Republicans intend to weaponize the government against their own foes, including, sooner or later, unless I miss my guess, the hapless media that fails repeatedly to call them out for what they are.

Today’s New York Times provides proof. Trump wants to make himself dictator if he’s reelected.

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

It goes on. It’s quite clear that the objective is to allow the president (provided he or she is a Republican) to use the machinery of government to subvert the law and attack political opponents. In fact, based on the quotes in the full story, they’re being fairly upfront about it.

It’s a good story, but not surprisingly, the fact that Republicans are accusing the Democrats of weaponizing the “deep state” is never mentioned. Perhaps it would help if someone wrote a book documenting each time the Republicans have confessed their sins by accusing Democrats of committing them.

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Want to discriminate? Blame Jesus!

Friday, July 14, 2023

I’m sort of beating a dead horse here, but I like to think the horse was a Republican.

A short while ago I asked how Clarence and his pals would explain why it’s okay for someone to refuse service to a gay couple but not an interracial one.

Now we learn that the same folks that brought us the right to discriminate against gays decision are pushing it even further. A Texas justice of the peace is claiming she can refuse to marry gay couples because of her “sincerely held religious beliefs”. She will undoubtedly win her case, if not in the state courts, then in the federal when she files suit in the court where that crackpot Trumper sits.

The correct legal decision in this case is a no-brainer. If you put yourself forward to hold a public office, then you commit yourself to following the law that relates to that office. If your religion forbids you to perform your duties, then don’t assume the office. A policeman, for instance, can’t refuse to arrest a criminal out of a sincere religious belief that the act should not be a crime. Or I guess I should say, that it has always been the case that a policeman must enforce the laws as written, but we are, after all, entering a new legal era.

There is a distinction between the justice of the peace case and the one the court just decided, in that in the new case you are talking about a state actor. That should make all the difference, but I suspect it won’t. We are well on the way to the establishment of a state religion in which the “sincere religious beliefs” of those with whom the Supreme Court right wing justices agree trump (small “t” but maybe I should capitalize it) all else.

Again, we must look forward to see whether Clarence will attempt to explain how this doesn’t apply to his marriage or he will remain silent. I predict silence, but the issue will ultimately come up. I can’t wait. On a related note, I often wonder how a certain local Republican squares the legalization of discrimination against gay people with his own sexual orientation. Just wondering!

Another thing: Yes, it’s illegal to engage in affirmative action if you are looking to recruit black students, though affirmative action for legacies, children of large donors, and athletes is perfectly okay. But what if the school in question engages in affirmative action out of a sincere religious belief that it is a moral imperative? Shouldn’t that make it okay? My guess is that anyone who tried that one would utlimately be mystified by the fact that the court would refuse to defer to their sincere religious beliefs.

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Are the Republicans flailing?

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

I’ve been reading a lot about the efforts Republicans are making to smear Joe Biden. You know, with “credible” whistleblowers that just got indicted for spying for China, etc.

My overall impression is that they’re not getting much traction, even with a media that is usually anxious to prove it’s impartiality by hyperventilating over stories about Democrats that they’d ignore if the same things were done by Republicans. They don’t seem to be getting much traction with voters, either. In fact, the general impression is that they’re preaching to the MAGA choir and nothing they’re saying or doing is having much impact anywhere else.

It’s almost as if the non-MAGA types have all accepted the fact that these types of attacks are just Republicans doing what they do, lying their asses off and imposing a double standard so obvious that it just doesn’t work anymore.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just looking on the bright side.

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Something missing from the White House cocaine reporting

Saturday, July 8, 2023

I should start this by saying that I haven’t read everything out there about the cocaine discovered in the White House, but what I have read leaves me wondering: why isn’t the most obvious possible source of the cocaine being bandied about, rather than focusing on Hunter Biden or Joe?

The cocaine was found in an area where tourists are supposed to leave their cell phones, etc. In other words, a location accessible to anyone and a location it is unlikely that Hunter would be required to visit. It also seems unlikely that the cocaine was left there by accident.

There are only two plausible explanations. One, is that a cocaine sniffing tourist decided he or she should leave their cocaine, which he or she inexplicably took with them to the White House, somewhere it was most likely to be found, rather than keep it in their pocket as they strolled through the White House. The other is that a right wing type left it there precisely so it could be blamed on the Bidens. Personally, I go with option two. Whoever left it there wanted it to be found.

In a not so distant past the “it must be Hunter” story would have had no legs, but we are now at the point where any unhinged story, no matter how easily it is to logically destroy it, will have legs with a large percentage of the folks Driftglass refers to as “reprogrammable meatbags”. But logic has no place in the American discourse anymore. Why can’t I come to terms with that?

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A challenge for Clarence

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

In most of the mainstream media coverage of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing a person who has never been asked to design a website for a gay couple to refuse to design a website for a gay couple, an obvious corollary to the court’s ruling is never mentioned.

If I can refuse services to a gay couple out of a sincere religious objection to gay marriage, why can’t I refuse services to an interracial couple out of sincere religious objections? There is absolutely no rational distinction, and lets put aside any claim that no one has such sincere religious objections, because what was manufactured in the case just decided, can be manufactured again.

It may be that as the fascists continue their assault on democracy and equality, they will exempt interracial marriage from the assault, at least temporarily, to spare Clarence Thomas, their willing tool, from having to come up with a reason why it’s okay to discriminate against everyone else, but not okay to discriminate against him. I’m sure he could come up with some distinction without a difference, though it would be interesting to see if the other fascists on the court go along with him.

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Somewhat good news?

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

So, the Supreme Court has rejected the so called “independent state legislature” theory, , a legal argument so flimsy that in my law school days, had anyone attempted to make the argument in a constitutional law class, he or she would have failed. But, all is not lost for the fascists and racists pushing this theory:

The ruling soundly dismissed the theory, one that an unusually diverse array of lawyers, judges and scholars across the ideological spectrum viewed as extreme and dangerous. Adopting the theory, they warned, could have profound consequences for nearly every aspect of federal elections, including by erasing safeguards against partisan gerrymandering and curtailing the ability to challenge voting restrictions in state courts.

But some election law specialists cautioned that Tuesday’s decision elevated the power of federal courts in the process, allowing them to second-guess at least some rulings of state courts based on state law.

“This gives the U.S. Supreme Court the ultimate say over the meaning of state law in the midst of an election dispute,” Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at UCLA, wrote in a blog post. “This is a bad, but not awful, result.”

We all remember that Roberts, who wrote the decision, wanted to avoid outright reversing Roe v. Wade, preferring instead to proceed, as the Wicked Witch counseled, “SLOWLY”. Roberts wanted to let the right to abortion die of a thousand cuts rather than kill it off immediately, and my take is that he feels the same way about killing off democracy.

Look for this court to green light extreme gerrymandering, except in the rare instance when it benefits Democrats. It has already refused to do anything about it on its own, and we will now begin to see it “second guess” any state court that actually tries to do something about it.

This decision was probably the best the court liberals could get, but they’ll be in the minority in future cases. I hope I’m wrong. It’s a small victory at the moment, but bear in mind that all the court did was reject a legal theory that was absurd on its face, which still got three dissents.

As an aside, how absurd is the New London Day’s headline for this article?

Supreme Court Rejects Election Reforms

A legal theory designed to subvert democracy is hardly a reform. If you don’t believe me, here’s the OED on the subject:

make changes in (something, especially an institution or practice) in order to improve it.

I’ve always suspected that whoever pens the headlines for the Day is a right winger, and this buttresses my theory.

Update: Joe Patrice, over at Above the Law got there before me, but in my defense, I didn’t read his post until after I posted the above.

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Bad Moons Rising

Sunday, June 25, 2023

This article, discussing the ongoing pogrom in Israel, reminds us that we’re not the only country in which a fascist future is a real threat. It’s one of history’s ironies that Israel is far ahead of us on that front.

Off the subject a bit: this is just one of many stories that the media feels is less important than the deaths of five entitled rich people who decided (with the exception of one who was pressured by his father to go) to board an unsafe submarine.

The Israeli pogrom, and this historical moment generally, happen to mesh a bit with a book I’m currently reading, and a PBS series my wife and I are currently binge watching on my Ipad, it being the first quasi-television viewing we’ve done in years.

The book is The Rope, by Alex Tresniowski, which I picked up at a gift shop in Deerfield. It’s about a murder of a little girl in Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1910, the quick arrest of a black man against whom they had no evidence, the attempt to lynch him and the ongoing threat to do so, Ida Well’s campaigns against lynching, and the efforts of an honest detective to find the real murderer.

The PBS series is Seaside Hotel, a Danish series (sub-titled). We’re currently in the 5th of nine seasons. It takes place at a hotel in Denmark, where the same guests come each summer. Each season is a summer. It started in 1928 and it’s now 1933, and Hitler has taken over in Germany.

Tresniowski describes a number of lynchings, which certainly find their echo in the events in Israel. It seems that when the white folks decided to lynch a black person, the authorities would either step aside, put up a feeble and meaningless defense before letting the lynch mob get its quarry, or, in the case where the event was a white mob attacking communities of black people, like the Israelis are currently attacking the Palestinians, direct the forces of the law against the black people defending themselves instead of the white people doing the attacking. Like Netanyahu, the white politicians would, of course, condemn the violence, but for various reasons, the perpetrators could never be identified. You can be sure that the same will hold true in Israel.

In Seaside Hotel, only one character appreciates the Nazi threat. He tries to convey his concerns to the others, but they all pretty much ignore him, as they have other things to worry about and, anyway, Hitler can’t possibly be that dangerous, can he? It will all turn out okay in the end! It reminds me too much of the present attitude of so many in our country, particularly in the media, where the threat of fascism is ignored (witness the media’s now somewhat abandoned lavish praise for Ron DeSantis and his great -tough ultimately disastrous- response to COVID), and/or its proponents (Boebert, Greene, Gaetz) mocked. The fact that these very people have virtually full control of the Republican Party (see, e.g., the recent censure of Adam Schiff and the ongoing subservience to full on fascist Donald Trump) rings no alarm bells. We may be lucky, and avoid a fascist future, but we can’t do it without recognizing the threat.

Once again, it should go without saying, that the Democrats have to start calling this out for what it is.

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