Skip to content

Bring it on

Saturday, December 16, 2023

So, the Republicans have initiated the impeachment process, all of them voting to do so, despite the fact that they have no evidence of wrongdoing. All the so-called “moderate” Republicans went along with it, though you can bet whatever part of your body you like that they did so unwillingly, but they all feel the necessity to hold onto the whackadoodle base that they have helped create. After all, if they don’t get their votes, they can’t win, particularly if their districts have a reasonable percentage of sane voters. They may not get those votes anyway, because I’m convinced that if Trump has been convicted of a crime and is unable to get the nomination of the fascist party, he will tell his people to stay home, and they will. In that event, voting for the impeachment resolution, and perhaps ultimately for impeachment, will surely cost them plenty of votes they might otherwise get in the swing districts they “represent”.

Among other things the Republicans nationally have been attempting to make sure that the history taught to our kids is a fantasy history, one in which, for instance, the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. At least we can give them credit for wanting to live in a world in which no one learns real history, even themselves, as they have clearly ignored it when it comes to impeaching Joe Biden.

They tried this before, though they don’t appear to have learned much from that history. They actually had a smidgen of dirt on Bill Clinton, though as most of the country agreed, it didn’t merit impeachment. What they seem to have forgotten is that they paid for it at the ballot box, and it’s quite likely it will happen again in 2024 if they spend a substantial part of the year spinning their wheels but kicking up no mud onto Biden.

The Democrats did not suffer from impeaching Trump for the simple reason that a majority of people in this country recognized that the impeachments were justified. If the Republicans proceed with the Biden impeachment, particularly if they bring it to a vote, it will simply provide ammunition for the Democrats, who, despite their overall inability to message well, can’t help but see the value of the gift the Republicans are giving them.

Filed in Crazies, Republicans | | Comments (0)

For once, it’s true that both sides are at fault

Thursday, December 14, 2023

I can’t quite get my head around the charges and countercharges about anti-Semitism related to the current war in Israel. Recently a college president was forced to resign because she incorrectly (according to the right wing-there actually was no right answer that the Republicans would accept) answered a gotcha question from a Trump Republican, who herself is a member of a party that is nothing but welcoming to anti-Semites, so long as they vote Republican. (Remember, Jewish space lasers?)

There are no good guys among the combatants in the war in Israel. What Hamas did was evil and an act of terror. What Israel is doing to the residents of Gaza is also evil and involves acts of terror. It appears to have resolved to push all the residents of Gaza out of their homeland to punish them for the acts of a group over which they exert little to no control. Israel’s policy toward the residents of Gaza was such that it created the conditions that almost guaranteed that some residents of Gaza would resort to violence against it. That doesn’t excuse the actions of Hamas, but it can’t be denied that a more enlightened policy on Israel’s part may have made a difference, and, if not, would have enhanced its moral standing.

It is hardly surprising that there are some people in this country who insist that all the evil is on one side. To a certain extent, when such talk takes place at universities by students, one can write it off to the typical tendency of young people to want to see things in black and white. It’s not a black and white situation, however. It’s shades of gray all over, but the fact is that those who see the Israelis as the sole bad guy are being lumped together with those who simply condemn Israel’s tactics. All such people are being tarred as anti-Semites, while those who insist that Israel can do no wrong, while it slaughters thousands of men, women and children that have done it no wrong, get a free pass.

Israel has become, over the last several years, the type of authoritarian state that America may soon become, if a certain criminal gets back in power. That is simply a fact and stating as such is not anti-Semitic. If it is, there are apparently plenty of Jews in this country that are anti-Semitic, because there are plenty that don’t like what Israel is doing in Gaza.

UPDATE: Just a few more links to illustrate some of the points I made above, here and here. Again, it must be pointed out that if Hamas had the resources they would do as the Israelis are doing and it should be kept in mind that they don’t much care how their decision to initiate this war is harming their own people.

Filed in Foreign Affairs | | Comments (0)

You can’t make this stuff up

Saturday, December 2, 2023

It’s pretty much a given that if Republicans are accusing anyone of anything, they are doing that thing themselves, but I have to admit that this particular example amazed me nonetheless:

The far-right Christian nationalist organization Moms for Liberty issued, then later deleted, a statement declaring support for its co-founder after her husband, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, was accused of sexual battery by a woman who allegedly has had a consensual “three-way sexual relationship” with the married couple.

“The Sarasota Police Department is investigating a sexual battery allegation against Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler,” The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. Bridget Ziegler, the Moms for Liberty co-founder and the spouse of Christian Ziegler, “has become a star within the MAGA movement,” the FLCGA notes.

“Christian Ziegler is also alleged to have secretly videotaped the sexual encounters between the couple and the woman, sources said,” the FLCGA added. Moms for Liberty was named an anti-government extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I won’t comment on the likelihood that these people did exactly as it is alleged, except to point out that there is a pattern of such allegations against Republicans turning out to be true. Just pointing that out. They are of course, innocent until proven GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!

Just an observation, but if you’re going to run an organization dedicated to persecuting gay people, but you want to engage in gay sex yourself, you probably oughtn’t to preserve your encounters on tape. Just saying.

Yet another piece of evidence that when they tell you they are for liberty, they are really saying they are “for liberty for me but not for thee”.

This is yet another of those stories that one would never hear the end of if the actors involved were Democrats, but it’ll fade away in no time, if it gets much attention from the media at all. I mean, poor George Santos had to lie with every breath he took, and commit crimes on a daily basis before he could grab their attention. Also, yet another one of those stories which, were it in a piece of fiction, would be criticized as far too improbable.

Filed in Hypocrisy | | Comments (0)

Everything (Republican) is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Just before he died, John Lennon did an interview with Playboy, and he observed that “everything is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?”. It may not be universally true, but it’s mostly true about anything Republicans or their fascist allies say or claim to do. Case in point is the aptly (for Republicans) named Moms for Liberty in that the group exists solely for the purpose of imposing their “values” on the rest of us. Of course that is completely consistent with the right wing conception of the word “liberty” in that they fervently believe that liberty consists of the right of the powerful to oppress those with little or no power. You know, like corporations should be allowed to smash unions, cheat consumers, or poison the environment because that’s liberty or like people who call themselves Christians, despite their scorn for just about everything Christ advocated, should be allowed to impose their “religion” on everyone else, even forbidding women with life threatening pregnancy complications to get the treatment they need to save their lives. So you see, liberty is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?

What brings this to mind is this post at Crooks and Liars, where we learn that the Wisconsin GOP gerrymandered legislature is preparing to ban books at the instigation of the aforementioned Moms for Fascism Liberty.

All over the country these fascists are trying to make sure that our children don’t have access to any book that fails to reinforce their political viewpoint, including, of course, any book that fails to relate a fictional history of this country in which all slaves were happy and really a bit disappointed to be freed, and, among other things, in which “in every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterwards”. The latter statement is true if you don’t count the countless wars against Native Americans, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, the theft of the Panama Canal Zone, and several other instances noted at the link.

The one hopeful note in all this is that Moms for Fascism Liberty (oops, screwed up again) took a drubbing at the polls this November. We can only hope that the Democrats will make an issue out of book burning, which, when I was a kid, had a bad reputation, and, I think, still does.

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism, Hypocrisy | | Comments (0)

Is this really a big deal?

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Multiple other media outlets I’ve read seem to agree with Truthout that Former Trump Lawyer’s Revelation is ‘Devestating for Trump, Legal Experts Say. This refers to the leaked proffer testimony of Jenna Ellis summarized as follows:

Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis told prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., that a senior aide to the former president told her he was “not going to leave” the White House even after losing numerous legal challenges.

Ellis in a video of a confidential proffer session with prosecutors obtained by ABC News and The Washington Post said that Trump aide Dan Scavino told her “the boss” would refuse to leave the White House even though she told him that their cause was “essentially over.”

“And he said to me, in a kind of excited tone, ‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave,’” Ellis recalled. “And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said ‘Well, the boss’, meaning President Trump — and everyone understood ‘the boss,’ that’s what we all called him — he said, ‘The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.’”

Now, I haven’t seen the whole video but I’ve seen her testimony characterized the same way multiple times. As I said in a recent post, maybe times have changed a lot since I was a practicing lawyer, but I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out why this is devastating.

First, I should state that I have no doubt that what she said was a true recounting of her experience, and that Scavino was absolutely conveying what Trump had said, either to Scavino himself or to others with whom Scavino had talked. But there’s still a slight problem. Herewith the definition of hearsay from the Oxford English Dictionary:

the report of another person’s words by a witness, which is usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law

Now, there are exceptions to the hearsay rule, but I don’t believe any apply here. Ellis would essentially be testifying that someone told her what someone else said. You could use that testimony against Scavino for any part he may have played in the plot to overthrow the government, but you can’t use it against Trump. There are good solid reasons for the hearsay rule, as if hearsay were allowed, there would be no way to subject the testimony to any type of substantive cross-examination, as the witness could simply maintain that he or she was simply repeating what she was told.

An interesting question about the Ellis testimony has to do with the identity of the leaker. I can’t see that anyone working for Fani Willis would have an interest in leaking it. I have the impression that the tapes would be shared with the various defendants, though I don’t know if that happened yet, and I suppose Ellis herself might have a copy. It certainly seems possible that, if they have it, the Trump people might have leaked it so they could make some sort of argument to the effect that it was leaked by the prosecution and therefore the charges should be dismissed or testimony excluded.

UPDATE: Apparently Fani Willis is fairly sure that no one in her office was the leaker. She wants a protective order, claiming that the “release of these confidential video recordings is clearly intended to intimidate witnesses in this case, subjecting them to harassment and threats prior to trial”. She’s right about the intimidation. I hadn’t cited that as a reason for the leak, probably because, once again, it wasn’t the sort of thing that was done back in the olden days when I practiced law.

Filed in Lawyer stuff, The Very Stable Genius | | Comments (0)

New trends in lawyering

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

I’ve only been retired from the law for a few years, but it is becoming clear to me that the practice of law has changed dramatically since my days before the bench.

In the olden days, if you were taking a legal position in a case, you would try to convince the judge that your legal position was correct, or at least a reasonable expansion on existing law, and you would do so in a way that showed respect for the judge, since after all, it was he or she that would make the ultimate decision.

Apparently, it doesn’t work that way anymore, at least if the behavior of Donald Trump’s lawyers is any indication. Consider the latest. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure bar cameras in the courtroom. A number of media outlets have asked Judge Chutkan, the judge in DC, to nonetheless allow cameras in the courtroom. Trump’s lawyers have joined them, but they have apparently adopted a strategy consisting of citing no law in support of their position, announcing in advance that they intend to play to the television audience which is precisely what the Department of Justice said they would do, and insulting the judge, as a few excerpts from their brief establish:

“Every person in America, and beyond, should have the opportunity to study this case firsthand and watch as, if there is a trial, President Trump exonerates himself of these baseless and politically motivated charges,” said the filing.

It accused Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s team of violating Trump’s constitutional rights and attacked Chutkan for allowing “these attacks,” thereby “placing the interests of his political opposition” above his legal protections.

“These proceedings should be fully televised so that American public can see first hand that this case…is nothing more than a dreamt-up constitutional charade,” it said.

Bear in mind that they are asking the judge to set aside a decades old rule and make an exception in this case, so it seems a bid odd that in doing so they pretty much promise to disrupt the proceedings precisely because they are being televised, thereby causing precisely the harm the rule is meant to prevent.

The only conclusion one can reach, if one rejects the possibility that all of Trump’s lawyers are totally incompetent, is that, knowing they have no legal basis for their request, they are doing what they can to make their increasingly senile client happy and furnishing some lines he can use later to grift more money from his base.

Filed in Lawyer stuff, The Very Stable Genius | | Comments (0)

Election reaction

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

I spent all of yesterday registering new voters here in Groton. A slow day on that front, but to be expected, given the fact that there were only local elections taking place. I’ll be doing the same thing next year, and I very much doubt I’ll be able to play multiple Sudoko games, read a book, and engage in extended uninterrupted conversations with my co-workers, as I did yesterday. Last year we had a steady stream of new voters, and I expect next year will be a repeat of that, particularly if a certain very stable genius is not yet in jail, though the new provisions for early voting may offset that a bit.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the fact that it seemed likely that the Democrats here in Groton would do well, while the Republicans might get shut out, and I wondered if it was indicative of things going on, if not nationwide, then in the portions of the country where the Zeitgeist is still somewhat sane.

Bear in mind that before the advent of the aforementioned genius, local politics here in Groton was usually dominated by the Republicans.

Yesterday the Democrats swept in an unprecedented fashion. The only seats the Republicans won were those set aside for minority representation. Even the Independent Party, which I mentioned in my previous post, which was composed primarily of Republican wolves in the sheep’s clothing of a third party, failed to elect a single candidate. That really surprised me, as their signs were ubiquitous, and some of their names well known. Though I have no hard data to back this up, I really think that the extent of that victory reflects the fact that quite a few people are so turned off by Republicans generally that they are not going to consider voting for a Republican, at least as long as the Republicans are the party of the crazies.

Nationally, it appears that Democrats did pretty well, though I note from some of the blogs I follow that the major media must emphasize that they did so despite Joe Biden’s unpopularity, an unpopularity that I would guess is evanescent and will disappear once people come to terms with the fact that it’s him, Trump, or whatever idiot the Republicans nominate if Trump is in jail.

If Republicans were rational they’d try to drift a bit toward sanity and giving people what they want, but that’s not likely to happen. If next year’s election isn’t stolen, and it very well may be (they always do what they accuse others of doing) I think we’ll do well.

UPDATE: My wife just got a tweet from Chris Murphy. He says that the Dems flipped Danbury, Fairfield, Wethersfield, Newington, Old Lyme, Cromwell, Clinton, Brookfield and Colchester on Tuesday, and that’s only a partial list of the flips. Again, I have no evidence to back this up, but I suspect this has little to do with the quality of the local candidates, but a lot to do with the fact that national Republicans are turning people off and the locals are paying the price. As they should. The Republican Party is now the party of fascism, and there’s no excuse for affiliating with it. People generally, at least in the sane states, are starting to get it.

Filed in Politics, Ramblings | | Comments (0)

Another legal mystery

Sunday, November 5, 2023

Okay, this is sort of a continuation of yesterday’s post, inasmuch as once again I can’t quite wrap my head around whatever legal theory the plaintiff will be relying on in this case:

Mark Meadows got a hefty payday for his book about the 2020 election, but it looks like the publisher is having buyers remorse and now wants all their money back – and then some.

The Hill is reporting that the publisher, All Seasons Press, filed a lawsuit arguing that Meadows “violated an agreement with All Seasons Press by including false statements about former President Trump’s claims surrounding the 2020 election.” They went on to say the following:

“Meadows, the former White House Chief of Staff under President Donald J. Trump, promised and represented that ‘all statements contained in the Work are true and based on reasonable research for accuracy’ and that he ‘has not made any misrepresentations to the Publisher about the Work.

Meadows breached those warranties causing ASP to suffer significant monetary and reputational damage when the media widely reported … that he warned President Trump against claiming that election fraud corrupted the electoral votes cast in the 2020 Presidential Election and that neither he nor former President Trump actually believed such claims.”

Now, it’s entirely possible that Meadows did make such a “warranty”, but won’t it be just a bit hard for All Seasons Press to prove that they relied on that warranty, inasmuch as they were surely aware that the book was full of lies, unless you chose to ignore the opinions of multiple judges that the election had not been stolen, not to mention the fact that it was widely known that the multiple lawyers that were making these claims had failed to come up with a shred of evidence to support them. In fact, wasn’t that the point of the book: to feed lies to the Trumpers they hoped would buy the book.

Methinks that All Seasons is looking to get its money back because they paid Meadows a heap of money for a book that nobody wanted to buy.

Okay, they may have a better argument than Ivanka had for getting out of her subpoena, but that’s an easy hurdle to jump.

Filed in Lawyer stuff | | Comments (0)

Today’s rant

Saturday, November 4, 2023

I know this is fairly trivial, but I’m having trouble containing my astonishment, so here goes.

I’m no longer practicing law, but I do remember how things worked, and I still can’t get over the fact that Ivanka Trump actually found a lawyer willing to argue that she shouldn’t have to obey a subpoena because it would make it hard for her to pick up her kids after school. I know these people feel entitled, but isn’t it a lawyer’s job to explain to the entitled that things don’t work that way, at least not in New York, where the fascists are far from taking over?

I think back to my distinguished career and have to wonder whether maybe I made a mistake in the early years, when I mainly represented folks who were being evicted. We did what we could to delay the inevitable so they could find other housing, but it never occurred to me to argue that they shouldn’t have to go to court on weekdays when their kids were in school, and of course they couldn’t come on weekends either (not that the courts were in session on weekends) nor could they come during the vacation periods because it was even more necessary to keep an eye on the kids during those periods.

Maybe it never occurred to me because had I tried it on any judge I’ve ever appeared before, even those most sympathetic to poor tenants, I would, at best, have been laughed out of court, with the real possiblity that I would have been referred to the state bar association for some kinds of discipline. For that matter they may have felt it necessary to take a good look at my law school to see if it really deserved accreditation.

What’s truly amazing about this is that it seems to be par for the course for the lawyers representing the Trumps. Over at the Palmer Report they always speculate that the lawyers are simply performing for the Trumps, knowing full well that their arguments have no merit. Again, one must wonder where these lawyers come from, particularly since Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro might have some lawyerly advice to give them.

Filed in Rants | | Comments (0)

Roots in the past

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I’m proofreading my son’s new book, which is about, in part, the national conversation among politicians and intellectuals just before, during, and shortly after the Civil War.

He relates that one strand of thought was to the effect that, after the Civil War, it was necessary to elevate the ex-slaves to full equality not just because it was morally right, but because a failure to do so would allow the South to create an unequal society that would undermine democracy throughout the nation, and possibly lead to another Civil War. The latter hasn’t yet happened, but the former has, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the post-Reconstruction failure of the Nation to impose democratic norms and institutions on the Southern states has had long term negative effects on the nation as a whole, which may very well be bearing its ultimate fruits in the present, for the Southern ethos has now captured (more exactly, recaptured) the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives, if not quite the Senate. It has also captured much of the media (e.g., Fox, Newsmax, et. al.) and internet, which has enabled the infection from the South to spread through large sections of the rest of the country.

The new Speaker of the House is yet another manifestation of this trend. A fascist of the first order. It remains to be seen if the media that is not in the pocket of the right will do its job and expose him, or continue in the both sides tradition. I have to admit that, despite my Good Friday repetitious postings, I sometimes find it difficult to look on the bright side.

Then again, somewhat on the bright side: Happy Halloween!

Filed in Ramblings | | Comments (0)