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Another modest proposal

Saturday, April 15, 2023

Now that we have evidence that Clarence Thomas has committed a crime by failing to report the “sale” of his house to his rich benefactor, who proceeded to let Clarence’s Mom continue to live there (rent free I’m sure) while paying for improvements to the place and the property taxes, it would seem that Clarence should get the same treatment any other criminal should get. Of course we wouldn’t want politics to factor in, so appointment of a special prosecutor would seem the thing. I think John Durham is still busy, so we’d have to find someone else, but I’m sure there’s someone out there of Durham’s stature (or even greater stature!) who can take on the case.

Poor Clarence. It must be terrible to be subjected to the unfair attacks on him. I mean he’s telling everyone that he never discussed pending cases with Harlan Crow, and we should all believe the guy who told us that he prefers to vacation at Walmart parking lots.

I’m not practicing anymore, but had I known that a judge hearing a case of mine was enjoying a lifestyle costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year subsidized by a person whose interests might be adverse to the position I was taking, I would worry that the judge in question might not want to jeopardize that flow of money by ruling against his or her rich benefactor’s interests. That’s just me, I guess, since Republican politicians are assuring us that Thomas has no conceivable conflict of interest.

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Fellow alum makes good

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

I am quite proud of the fact that Justin Pearson, one of the two legislators thrown out of the Tennessee legislature, apparently for the crime of being black, is a fellow alum of Bowdoin College, as is Deray McKesson, a well known Black Lives Matter activist.

Speaking of Black Lives Matter, I seem to recall that when it began, the right wing response was to quibble that “all lives matter”. Pearson and his fellow legislator were thrown out of the Tennessee house because, in addition to being black, they were joining in a demonstration the subtext of which was that all lives do matter and that they certainly matter more than a fictional constitutional right to own guns.

The legislators in Tennessee have merely demonstrated once again that as far as Republicans are concerned, No Lives Matter.

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A trip down memory lane

Saturday, April 8, 2023

The recent news about Clarence Thomas’s corruption (I assume the reader will know of what I speak, so no link) reminded me of something that happened many years ago.

It seems there was a time when Republicans cared about the appearance of financial impropriety on the part of a Supreme Court justice, even when there was only a whiff of impropriety. Of course even then it was only when their target was a Democrat. Years ago there was a Supreme Court Justice named Abe Fortas. He was a liberal and a Jew, two strikes against him. LBJ nominated him for Chief Justice, but racist (and presumably anti-Semite) Strom Thurmond led the charge against him:

Fortas’s acceptance of $15,000 for nine speaking engagements at American University’s Washington College of Law became a source of controversy. The money had come not from the university but from private sources that represented business interests connected to 40 companies; Senator Strom Thurmond raised the idea that cases involving these companies might come to the Court, and Fortas might not be objective. While the fee was legal, the size of the fee raised much concern about the Court’s insulation from private interests, especially as it was funded by former clients and partners of Fortas. The $15,000 represented more than 40 percent of a Supreme Court justice’s salary at the time, and was seven times what any other American University seminar leader had ever been paid.

He was subsequently hounded off the court due to another “scandal” that paled into insignificance next to what Thomas has done.

You can argue that Fortas’s actions had the “appearance of impropriety”, but they never actually appeared as improper as what Thomas has done. But rest assured Thomas will remain on the court until he dies or chooses to leave at such time as he can be replaced by another fascist.

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It’s Good Friday again

Friday, April 7, 2023

Almost forgot to keep up the tradition.

This year I am going to dedicate this video to a certain very stable genius whose followers keep comparing him to Brian by claiming he’s being crucified. Maybe he should follow Eric Idle’s advice instead of constantly confessing to his crimes on his failing twitter rip-off.

As to the rest of us, Happy Easter if you celebrate it.

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Nothing wrong with a “politically motivated” prosecution if the defendant is guilty

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

One of the Republican talking points about the indictment of a certain very stable genius is that the prosecution is “politically motivated”. I won’t belabor the obvious point that this is rich coming from a party that has called for the prosecution of its political opponents (“lock her up”, “Hunter’s laptop”, etc.) on a routine basis. One obvious difference between the Republicans and the current situation is that the targets of the Republicans did nothing wrong, while Trump is obviously guilty.

But there’s a kernel of truth in the claim that this prosecution is “politically motivated”.

Let’s start with stipulating that it’s pretty obvious that Trump has been committing crimes throughout his lifetime, and he came to what he thought was the justifiable conclusion that he was exempt from criminal prosecution. In fact, the kind of crime in which he engaged during his business career is routinely ignored by the authorities, who much prefer to go after the little guy.

A criminal of Trump’s sort who had a tad more prudence in his or her intellectual arsenal would avoid running for political office. Buying politicians is one thing, but actually being one puts you in a spotlight that you’d rather avoid and might just attract too much attention to stuff you’d just as soon keep under wraps.

Had Trump merely remained the comic self promoter that he was before running for office he would not be subject to criminal charges today, no matter the extent of his crimes. It was his entry into politics, the spotlight that entry cast on his criminal nature, and the obvious fact that he committed crimes while in office (he did attempt to overthrow the government, after all) that “motivated” prosecutors to go after him.

So, there’s a bit of truth to the charge that Trump’s prosecution is politically motivated. The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with that, particularly because that motivation is impelled by the imperative need to save the country from fascism. What we should really be worried about is the fact that there may be more Trumps out there, routinely breaking the law without consequence, awaiting their turn to destroy our democracy.

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Time to check out the diners

Sunday, April 2, 2023

There’s been a lot of breathless bloviating by our media about how unprecedented and foreboding it is to have an ex-president indicated indicted, though I don’t recall such bloviation when an obvious career criminal was elected in the first place. We have been and will be treated to a lot of reaction from the genius’s deluded followers. The diners in the Midwest are no doubt filling up with Trumpers waiting to be interviewed by the New York Times.

I’m not really sure why it is that only Trumpers go to diners in the heartland. There’s a diner in Chester Vermont that my wife and I visit regularly when we’re staying at our second home up there, and I’d be willing to bet that many of the diners are Democrats, but possibly I’m deluding myself. In any event, the Times wouldn’t send its reporters to Vermont to find out what real Americans think, since you can only find real Americans in Trump country.

I wonder if the Times has given any thought to going to other venues to interview people who think that Trump’s indication indictment is a good thing. There do seem to be such people, like the people who cheered like crazy when Stephen Colbert mentioned it in his opening monologue the night of the indication indictment (sorry, it’s such an easy mistake to make!).

Anyway, I’ve given it some thought, and it seems to me that even in the Midwest one might find such people if you looked in the right places. A few venues pop to mind: bookstores and museums for example. Universities and colleges not of the Hillsdale variety. I’m sure there are others. I don’t expect the Times to seek these people. The diner stories, after all, have an underlying subtext. These people, the Times wants us to know, exist, and isn’t it odd that they are out there in such numbers? Whatever could explain it? Surely our readers are more interested in these oddities than they would be in hearing from people who are rational and have not had their brains neutralized by Fox.

I look forward, by the way, to the media amplifying the argument that surely the jury should be well stocked with Fox addicts, because, after all, he deserves a jury of his peers.

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Happy Holiday!

Friday, March 31, 2023

Happy Indictment Day to all! May you celebrate this day at least twice more this year!

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Leave TikTok Alone!

Thursday, March 30, 2023

I’m not a TikTok user or fan, but I agree with a common take on the current attack on TikTok by Washington politicians of both political parties. TikTok may in fact be spying on Americans, but as the other social media giants might say: “Who among us isn’t?”. TikTok is being attacked because it has succeeded where Mark Zuckerberg has failed, and Mark wants it out of the way and is lobbying heavily. Washington politicians of both parties are so out of touch they have no idea how unpopular banning TikTok would be, and that goes double for Democratic politicians.

Particularly for the Democrats, this brouhaha shows how the Washington bubble keeps our “representatives” ignorant of both our wants and our needs. The Democrats have the most to lose by backing this movement, but it appears that most of them are blissfully unaware of the political downside to this self destructive move. It reminds me of something that happened years ago, when Democrats lined up to condemn Moveon (I think it was Moveon) for running an ad that criticized David Patreus (remember him?) by, among other things, using the term Betrayus (it rhymes, don’t you see). It was, a no lose proposition for the Republicans, but it was a lose-lose proposition for the Democrats, as it turned off some of the folks who they should consider their base. Banning TikTok is likely to have a similar effect, except it will likely cause more harm to the Democrats than the Patreus situation.

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Is the earth round? Opinions differ!

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

When I was in college it was a given that the function of a teacher, particularly a science teacher, was to teach the facts. For instance, the earth is an orb, flattened at the poles a bit, but basically round. It was pretty much understood that if a student insisted on maintaining that the earth was flat, or that the sun orbited the earth despite what Galileo may have said or Copernicus may have proven, he or she would get a failing grade. But, at least in Ohio, that is no longer the case. Apparently a student may reach whatever conclusion he or she might like, without fear that that conclusion may be judged to be contrary to established science.

Ohio college and university instructors could be barred from teaching climate science without also including false or misleading counterpoints under a sprawling higher education bill that received its first hearing Wednesday.

Senate Bill 83, or the Higher Education Enhancement Act, seeks to police classroom speech on a wide range of topics, including climate change, abortion, immigration, and diversity, equity and inclusion — all of which would be labeled “controversial.”

On these and other subjects, public colleges and universities would need to guarantee that faculty and staff will “encourage and allow students to reach their own conclusions” and “not seek to inculcate any social, political, or religious point of view.” 

Full story here.

Now, you can almost see the argument on some of those subjects, but at this point there is no scientific basis for denying the reality of climate change. Why would you encourage a student to feel free to draw a conclusion that flies in the face of established science? Isn’t the point of science education to teach people about objective reality?

This, by the way, is coming to us from the same people who are mandating that we not consider points of view that may “hurt the feelings” of a single student, like, for instance, exposing them to the possible conclusion that this country is infected with systemic racism.

End of rant.

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Fox argues again: we can’t commit libel because no sane person believes us

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Fox is once again defending a libel suit by claiming that no reasonable person could believe what they were hearing on its programs.

Erin Murphy, the lawyer, was defending Fox against a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems in response to the network’s post-2020 election coverage. Dominion alleges that Fox knowingly and deliberately aired false information about the company’s voting machines and software, in a bid to win back viewers who were fleeing to right-wing competitor Newsmax.

Dominion claims that Fox attempted to draw those viewers in by indulging their incorrect belief that the 2020 election was rigged, a position held by former President Donald Trump and his lawyers. Private communications at Fox News revealed through the lawsuit show that on-air talent and top executives – including Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son and Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch– knew that Trump’s conspiracy theories about the hacked election were false, but aired them anyway.

Much of Murphy’s defense of Fox rested on her argument that a “reasonable viewer” could discern that Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and others at the network who provided a platform for Trump’s lawyers were merely covering newsworthy allegations, rather than presenting the false claims as statements of fact.

But Murphy’s defense of an interview that top star Tucker Carlson conducted with Lindell took a different tack. Lindell’s appearance on Carlson’s January 26, 2021, program, she argued, was so incoherent that Fox News’ audience would be confused enough to find him inherently unreliable.

A “reasonable viewer would be puzzled on anything he is talking about,” Murphy told Judge Eric Davis, who is presiding over the case.

Fox actually got a cases involving Tucker Carlson thrown out by arguing that no reasonable person would believe that when Tucker Carlson states something as fact that it is fact, fact.

While I don’t pretend to know or remember all of the elements of a libel claim, I can see how the “reasonable person” (usually phased as “reasonable man”, of which there are fewer and fewer nowadays) standard made sense in the long gone days when those elements were first developed.

While I don’t hold out any hope it will happen, it would appear the time is ripe for revisiting those standards, because it is the unreasonable person from whom the libeled person has the most to fear. For while the reasonable person may think twice about what Tucker, Maria or the rest of them may say or implicitly endorse, the unreasonable person eats it up, and is quite likely to direct his or her ire against the person libeled. The unreasonable person is, after all, Fox’s target audience, especially after Fox had the temerity to tell the truth (for once) about the Arizona election results.

How many of the individuals exposed to baseless attacks, such as the poll workers in Georgia or the Newtown parents here in Connecticut, have been subjected to death threats and other forms of harassment committed for the most part by what we must conclude are unreasonable people?

Fox made an intentional decision to stoke the baseless rage of unreasonable people by amplifying and implicitly endorsing the views of people Fox knew were lying. There should be a remedy for that. There would be, if the “liberal media” were doing it, but don’t hold your breath waiting for the Supreme Court to hold Fox and other lying right wing media accountable.

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