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Nothing new under the sun

Friday, January 13, 2023

My professorial son got me Stacy Schiff’s The Revolutionary Sam Adams for Christmas. It’s actually the third Adams biography I’ve read, but being the geezer that I am, I can’t recall whether the previous biographies emphasized the part of Adam’s history about which I’m writing now.

Adams was a prolific writer/propagandist. He started what might be considered a news service that distributed newspaper articles throughout the country. Based on what Schiff writes, and I’m sure it’s accurate, it is no exaggeration to say that Adams dealt in what we would today call misinformation. For example, when the British occupied Boston he would publicize any misdeeds of the British troops, often (to borrow a term from champion liar George Santos) embellishing them to maximize their impact on an audience that, by and large, had no other source of information. It worked, as his aim was to get all the colonies behind the Bostonians, and united in opposition tactics, such as non-importation of British goods.

In a sense, he had things better than today’s purveyors of untruths, in that he had a near monopoly on information disbursal, though there were, albeit much less popular, purveyors of Tory misinformation. Journalists were comparatively honest. They didn’t even pretend to be objective.

Today people get their misinformation from the internet, but you can pick and choose your information source, and some of us actually try to exclude the obvious fabricators. It is also the case that Adam’s misinformation was typically in the nature of exaggeration of actual events, rather than outright fabrication.

It all worked out to the good so far as Adam’s propagandizing is concerned, as the one thing we can say at the moment is that as bad as things are here at the present time, they are worse in today’s England. I tend to doubt that we’ll be able to say the same things about the results of modern style disinformation campaigns. That probably has a lot to do with the ambitions of the misinformers. Adams was sincerely trying to protect the rights of Americans, while much of what we currently see by way of misinformation (lying, in other words) is done with the objective of destroying the republic and ushering in fascism.

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Sometimes being a lawyer can be fun

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Every once in a while even a lawyer gets the opportunity to let his or her snark flag fly. I really got a kick out of the letter Dr. Dre’s (real name Andre Young) lawyers sent to Marjorie Taylor Greene after she used some of his music in a twitter video she made. You can read the whole thing here.  

The paragraph quoted on Above the Law here, is fun reading, but so is this one:

Andre Young is the owner of the copyright in “Still D.R.E.,” with the exclusive right to exploit same. Mr. Young has not, and will never, grant you permission to broadcast or disseminate any of his music. The use of “Still D.R.E.” without permission constitutes copyright infringement in violation of 17. U.S.C. § 501. (Emphasis added)

The “and will never” was entirely unnecessary, but who could resist? In case you’re too lazy to follow the link, here’s the paragraph quoted in Above the Law, which follows hard upon the one I’ve quoted:

The use of “Still D.R.E.” without permission constitutes copyright infringement in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 501. One might expect that, as a member of Congress, you would have a passing familiarity with the laws of our country. It’s possible, though, that laws governing intellectual property are a little too arcane and insufficiently populist for you to really have spent much time on. We’re writing because we think an actual lawmaker should be making laws not breaking laws, especially those embodied in the constitution by the founding fathers.

The opportunity to have that kind of fun doesn’t come around every day. I’m sure Howard King, who wrote that letter, enjoyed doing so immensely.

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Good points

Saturday, January 7, 2023

Thursday night we celebrated the 15th anniversary of the New London Drinking Liberally group that I helped found what seems like eons ago. We’ve had folks come and go, but there’s some who have been coming for all of those 15 years.

Last night one of those veterans brought me an article he had printed off the net. It is on a subject about which I’ve bloviated in the past, so he thought I’d be interested. He said he had difficulty getting a link, so that’s why he printed it. This morning I managed to track it down, and while there are some minor discrepancies between what he gave me and what I found, it’s by the same author and the substance is the same.

The bloviatable (new word) subject is the woeful inability of Democrats to come up with messaging that works. The writer, a fellow by the name of Joe Petrillo who goes by a pen name of Trenz Pruca (no idea why) makes some good points, so I’m passing the link along. It’s a few months old, but new to me.

The gist of it is that we should simplify our message while addressing the issues people care about. Here’s a for instance:

the Democrats will save your children from the threat of death from government supported weapons of war.

There are a lot of people who aren’t terribly thrilled about the fact that their kindergarten aged kids have to go through armed shooter drills. Fire drills are one thing, the prospect of being shot is another. Republicans appeal to the shooters, we should appeal to the shootees, so to speak. The list goes on and we can only hope that some Democrats will start thinking in these terms.

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Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy

Thursday, January 5, 2023

It’s been rather delicious watching the Speaker battle play out. McCarthy is an amoral sleaze, and he deserves all the humiliation he can get.

This is a unique situation. I usually have a decent idea of how things will end up as things unwind in Washington, or at least I have an opinion, but in this case I haven’t the slightest. It looks like the nutjobs (they’re almost all nutjobs, but the ones in question are the Grade A nutjobs) won’t give in, so we may be watching Speaker votes for quite some time. I know this is wishful thinking, but wouldn’t it be nice if five of the Republicans from districts that Biden won decided to switch parties?

One prediction about which I’m fairly confident. The media will at some point decide that it simply must find a way to blame both sides for this debacle.

In the meantime, it’s fun to watch McCarthy (to bring back a Watergate phrase)twist slowly, slowly in the wind.

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Tom Paine to get his due

Sunday, January 1, 2023

I just stumbled upon this article, which I consider somewhat shocking (given our current march toward fascism) but great and long past due news.

The Thomas Paine Memorial Association (TPMA) is pleased to announce that on December 27, 2022, President Biden signed a congressional bill to endorse a monument dedicated to the life and work of Founding Father Thomas Paine.

Under the leadership of Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (R-Indiana), House Bill 6720 was included in the 2022 Omnibus Package. The package was passed by both the House and Senate in late December 2022.

TPMA will now begin working with the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission (NCMAC) on advancing the project with a goal of unveiling the monument in 2026, which would coincide with the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

First, a digression: When I was in fourth grade the nun at Our Lady of Sorrows School told us she’d give a prize to the person who submitted the most book reports in the course of the year. Whenever you submitted a report she’d put a little book shaped piece of paper next to your name on one of the walls in the classroom, so you could see where you stood in the competition.

I knew I’d be in a tough fight to win the prize, as there was a girl in my class who I knew would be stiff competition. I think I read at least 60 books in the course of the year, just barely edging her out (if memory serves). I think in the end both of us got a prize-a holy picture or something, hardly worth the effort. The next year, after summer vacation, I got back to school and couldn’t read anything on the blackboard. All that reading got me my first pair of eyeglasses.

But back to Tom Paine. At some point during that year I found a copy of Howard Fast’s Citizen Tom Paine amongst a number of other books in a cabinet in our basement. I don’t think any other book I’ve ever read had anywhere near the impact on me as did that book. In retrospect I wonder if the nun was a little unhappy that I had read a biography of the guy that Teddy Roosevelt dismissed as that “filthy little atheist”. It certainly reinforced my already considerable religious doubts. Within a few years I’d read all his major works, including Common Sense, the Age of Reason, and The Rights of Man.

Fast’s book is one of my most treasured possessions. I’ve kept it with me ever since, though I would hesitate to read it again, as who knows if it would live up to my memories. In any event, from the day I read it, Tom Paine has been my political hero, a guy who was consistently right (in the sense that he was consistently politically left) who had the courage to buck not only the British government but the prevailing religiosity of his times. He wasn’t an atheist, but he likely would have been had he the benefit of today’s science. He endured imprisonment in France because he refused to back the execution of the king and was ostracized when he returned to the U.S, despite all he had done for this country. He stuck to his principles, refusing until the end to disavow The Age of Reason despite the numerous religionists that hectored him on his deathbed. (I should add that while this is something I remember from Fast’s book, I don’t vouch for its historicity.)

Besides pushing the nation toward independence, and opening the minds of the educable to reason, he proposed a system of benefits akin to social security, was against slavery and unlike others who questioned slavery never owned one (looking at you, Jefferson), and was for women’s rights. No one deserves a memorial in Washington more than does Paine. Of all the Founders, he most closely practiced what he preached. I can only say I’m surprised that any Republican signed on to the memorial, but perhaps that speaks to their historical illiteracy. I recall being livid when Reagan quoted him, which he did on many occasions, because I was absolutely sure that Thomas Paine would have abhorred St. Ronnie. In any event, it’s good to see that the Confederate statues that are coming down in the Capitol may be replaced by that of at least one person who truly believed in human equality, religious freedom, and democracy.

By the way, if you want to donate to the Memorial Association, you can do so here.

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A liar of Trumpian proportions

Saturday, December 31, 2022

I confess to being somewhat fascinated by the saga of George Santos. If we discover much more, we have to confess that he makes Trump look like a truth teller.

If you’ve been following the story you already know that one of the lies drawing the attention of prosecutors is his claim on financial disclosure documents that he “loaned” his campaign $700,000.00, despite the fact that there is ample evidence that he does not have access to anywhere near that amount of money.

This article is somewhat speculative to be perfectly honest, but it is more probable than not that it will turn out to be true. Santos, who has spoken out against aid to Ukraine, has in the past benefitted from Putin connected money:

And it emerged this week that Santos was the recipient of some $56,100 in various campaign contributions from Andrew Intrater and his wife. Intrater is or has been an investment adviser to his cousin, Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vekselberg was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2018 for his ties to Putin and the Russian computer hacking group indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 election. Vekselberg was stopped by FBI agents at Teterboro Airport in 2018 and questioned about his ties to the Russian government. His cell phone was also seized.

The article goes on to make the case that the source of that loan may very well have been that Russian connection. Bear in mind that if the Santos campaign repays the “loan” to Santos, it becomes, in effect, a $700,000.00 bribe.

Also, why am I not surprised that he lied about the one thing some people have figured was the only thing he hadn’t lied about: his name.

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January 6th transcripts-Roger Stone

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

This is my third post reviewing, one by one, the transcripts released by the January 6th committee. This time it’s Roger Stone.

This will be short and sweet. I think at some point that I’ll get to the transcripts in which witnesses give substantive answers. Stone took the fifth to each and every question he was asked, except those in which he admitted that he was the Roger Stone to whom the subpoena was directed.

All of the observations I made about John Eastman’s use of the fifth apply here, so I won’t repeat them. I’ll just end with this laughable quote from Stone’s lawyer, Grant Smith:

May I just say something?

Mr. Stone is here to answer each and every question that you may have. You may not appreciate the answer, but he’s here to give a response to each and every question. So, if you have more questions, I don’t want it to be deemed that he’s giving a blanket answer to a series of questions. He’s here to answer each and every question.

This, after both he and Stone had made it clear that Stone would answer each question by taking the Fifth, after Stone and he had made clear that they would not state the grounds for which they were taking the fifth, followed by Stone taking the fifth to each and every question he was subsequently asked. So in other words, he’s saying: Don’t just assume we’ll take the fifth to each question, make us do it.

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January 6th transcripts, John Eastman

Monday, December 26, 2022

Much to my surprise I have gotten through the second transcript recently released by the January 6th committee.

This is an easy one. It was the deposition of John Eastman, the lawyer who came up with the bullshit theory that the Vice President could throw out the electoral votes of any state he chose in favor of electors not certified by the various states.

Eastman basically pled the 5th in answer to every question, including questions in which it was clearly inapplicable.

Stepping back a second, it might be a good idea to replicate the text of the fifth amendment which is at issue. The amendment provides that no person shall “be compelled in any criminal proceeding to be a witness against himself” (Emphasis added).

So, going purely by the text, in a non-criminal proceeding such as the committee’s hearings, the fifth amendment does not even apply, though for reasons that are fairly obvious, the courts have ruled that one can seek it’s protections in a civil proceeding since any testimony from such a proceeding could be introduced in a criminal proceeding. However, it is also the case that an “adverse inference” arises in any civil proceeding if a party or witness takes the fifth. In other words, a civil jury can assume that someone who relies on the fifth to refuse to say whether he rammed his car into the plaintiff probably did, in fact, ram his car into the plaintiff. So, it quite follows, at least in my opinion, that Eastman did in fact attempt to overthrow the government of the United States, given the nature of the questions he refused to answer.

What I found amusing was his lawyer’s implied argument that one should not apply such an adverse inference, because an innocent person could take advantage of the fifth as well as a guilty person. Theoretically true, but….

He and Eastman also appeared to argue that he did not have to say that an answer to any given question might incriminate him, because the constitution provides merely that he can not be compelled to be a witness against himself. That sort of misses the point, because by taking the fifth he is necessarily stating that by answering the question he would be a witness against himself.

He also said that he was taking the fifth in order to protect himself in disbarment proceedings in California. Again, disbarment proceedings are not criminal matters, and my guess is that a refusal to answer gives rise to an adverse inference.

It was also the case that he took the fifth in response to questions to which it clearly would not apply in a court of law. For instance, he refused to say whether a Vice President “has ever exercised unilateral authority to reject electoral college votes coming from a particular State before in American history”.

He also claimed that he could take the fifth to avoid saying why he was taking the fifth.

It seems to me that he’s ripe for picking by the Justice Department. He’s one of the folks the committee referred for prosecution. My guess is that once he’s indicted the fifth will no longer be an impediment to his testifying, so long as he can cut a good deal to testify against the genius.

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January 6th transcripts, Jeffrey Clark part 1

Friday, December 23, 2022

I have set myself the task of reading and digesting each of the newly released transcripts from the January 6th committee. We’re I a betting man I would bet that I’ll never complete the task, but one never knows.

It’s my understanding that the released transcripts are a subset of all the transcripts from the committee depositions. I’m not sure about the selection criteria employed to determine the early releases, but I’m guessing at least one consideration is to illustrate the extent of criminality in which Trump and his cohorts were engaged.

Each transcript’s title is prefaced by a number such as 20211105, meaning that the deposition in question was taken on November 5, 2021, so I’m taking them in chronological order based on the titles.

First up is Jeffrey Clark. For reasons that will become apparent, Mr. Clark had occasion to return to the committee, but I shall cover his second appearance (if I ever do) as it comes up chronologically.

Clark, you will recall, is the guy Trump wanted to elevate to acting attorney general as he had indicated a willingness to commit treason in Trump’s behalf, a plot frustrated by the threat from a host of Justice Department folks that they would all resign in protest.

I’ll begin by noting that once again I am stunned by the sheer audacity of the lawyers that have become involved in these cases. Clark was apparently noticed for his deposition for a week prior to the date it was held (November 5, 2021), but the committee gave him a week’s continuance because he had just gotten a new lawyer, a fellow named Harry MacDougald.

Minutes prior to the deposition, MacDougald gave the committee a letter in which he explained that Clark simply could not answer any of their questions because any question they might ask would involve some sort of privilege. Among the questions raised by the committee in response to this rather startling assertion:

  • What specific privilege are you citing in response to, for instance, Congressman’s Schiff’s query about the aspects of your January 6th involvement that Clark divulged to a reporter but about which he refused to testify to the committee?
  • What specific privilege prevented him from responding to a question from Liz Cheney asking him when he first met Congressman Scott Perry?
  • Why are you refusing to answer specific questions and delineate the specific privilege upon which you are relying?
  • Why are you claiming a privilege that your superiors at the Justice Department never asserted.
  • Why are you refusing to answer questions about which it is clear that there is no conceivable privilege?

The list goes on. Suffice to say that he refused to answer a single substantive question or to explain the legal grounds for failing to do so, constantly relying on the letter that his lawyer had delivered to the committee minutes before the hearing, a letter that the committee had not had time to review.

When the committee proposed to take a recess to review the letter, Clark, who was under subpoena, declared his intention to simply walk out and not come back when they reconvened, a threat on which he made good. In the world where Republicans are not the subject of subpoenas, such a move would likely land the scofflaw in jail.

The committee’s counsel (his or her name is redacted) sums up the gist of it:

Mr. MacDougald, with all due respect, Mr. Clark has been subpoenaed to appear before this committee. It is a legal obligation, on a date certain, to answer questions. That does not include a legal obligation by the committee to negotiate, or to set forth in advance particular subject matters. It’s a legal obligation to show up and answer questions, or to assert a privilege in response to specific questions. My understanding is that despite that legal obligation and an offer to through the questions and assert a privilege point by point, he’s refusing to answer any such questions. I just want to make clear that is his position.

So, apparently, at least as I interpret it, Clark rather desperately wanted to avoid taking the fifth, and his lawyer came up with a ton of bullshit to help him avoid doing just that.

From a practical if not legal point of view, the entire exercise amounted to an implied admission, given the nature of the January 6th committee, that he had been involved in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Addendum: I just took a quick look at his second deposition, and my surmise was correct. He took the fifth to every question, including some to which it appeared to be clearly inapplicable, such as whether he was working for the Justice Department on January 6th.

Extra added attraction: Back in the day, when the genius was president, I would add a few paragraphs a day to a diary I keep on my Ipad about his latest doings. I thought it might be a good idea for this series (if it continues) to cull some snippets from the “On this Day” feature, just to remind us what these people were trying to inflict upon us. Here’s one from four years ago today. A bit of criminality, and a bit of childishness. Vintage Trump:

On the Trump front, he has demanded that Mattis leave by the 1st of January, rather than the end of February date that Mattis had put in his resignation letter. Apparently, he learned from television that the resignation letter was a not very thinly veiled attack on him, inasmuch as it pretty much alleges that he is acting as a Russian agent.

He probably didn’t read the letter when it was tendered, and, if he did, was not smart enough to read between the lines.

Next episode may be a few days from now, if ever. There’s a holiday coming up.

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It’s always okay if you’re a Republican

Friday, December 23, 2022

Ever since I started blogging, which was many moons ago, bloggers on our side of the fence have used the acronym IOKYAR to refer to what has become almost a legal rule in this country. It’s simply okay to transgress moral or legal norms if you’re a Republican. It is particularly okay so far as Republicans themselves are concerned.

That’s why I beg to differ with the folks over at the Palmer Report who seem to think there will be some sort of fallout, possibly even a resignation, after the revelations that Congressperson-elect George Santos (R-Naturally) has lied about everything in his past except possibly his name.

This merely makes him a potential star among Republicans, all of whom routinely lie. (Okay, maybe there’s an exception, but give me an example, please.) His Republican colleagues will simply look the other way for so long as it takes the media to lose interest, and the newly empaneled House Ethics Committee will implicitly rule, if it is even asked, that Ethics rules do not apply to Republicans. The media will certainly play along, as it has long since learned that different rules apply for Republicans, so whereas they would never forget this sort of thing were a Democrat involved, they’ll simply write this off as yet another Republican being a Republican. Stop and think of the tremendous number of long forgotten scandals in which Trump, his family, and his hanger-ons were involved, not to mention stuff like Gym Jordan protecting a sexual assailant.

What’s particularly galling about this is that not only do the same rules not apply to Democrats, Democrats don’t even get to be treated in what would be considered an equitable manner in other circumstances. I still seethe when I think about the fact that Al Franken had to resign due to a cooked up “scandal” in which he was presumed guilty with no chance to prove his innocence. even more galling was the fact that a number of Democrats seized the opportunity to apply the “Democrats are presumed guilty and must suffer consequences” rules in order to further their own careers. (Looking at you, Kristin Gillibrand, who, at least, found that you don’t become president by destroying the career of a popular possible opponent.)

In the case of Santos the only question is how long it will take for his fraud to be forgotten. I’d say a couple of weeks. It may hamper his re-election bid, but it will not affect his treatment by other Republicans. Democrats, being Democrats, will soon stop talking about it instead of harping on it as would Republicans were there a Democratic fraud of that sort. Meanwhile, we must ask, how could the Democratic candidate who lost to this guy in a Dem leaning district have failed to do some fairly basic opposition research that would have uncovered his lies when it would have done some good.

Afterword: I understand from a reliable source that the Democrats were aware that this guy was a serial liar, but apparently failed to act on their knowledge. It almost seems, sometimes, that the Democrats themselves have decided that IOKYAR.

Second Afterword: I know that the Palmer Report is in many respects simply a guilty pleasure. However, I’ll say once again that while I don’t buy into their analyses, the facts they report are accurate.

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