30.June.2024

Deeply upsetting

Catching up on the flood of post-debate observations and opinions, ever-focused on the mysterious "undecideds." (How could you be?) Shall we have straight-up fascism to serve a criminal, or a semblance of normality? We've had a dose of each, and other than in +rump's Bizarro world of projected accusations (and for the 1%, making out like bandits), Biden has outperformed for the rest of us. One hopeful item, in Joyce Vance's Thursday in the Courts blog post, below Tim O'Brien's tweet stating the obvious (that +rump's prime motivation for running for president is to escape multiple criminal prosecutions):

"I asked some young people if they and their friends were paying attention to the debate. The bottom line was that while some of them wanted to watch it, most people weren’t paying attention—the election is still too far away. But when I asked whether they were going to vote for Biden, the response was clear: “Of course.” Sure, they think Biden is old. They don’t like all of his policies. But, “We’re not stupid,” they told me. “We understand what’s at stake.” These young people, who get that they have the most to lose if Trump wins, are prepared to do what’s necessary in November.

"That’s an important point to make in conversation as we head into the Fourth of July holiday; understanding what’s at stake. Not only abortion, but birth control and IVF. LGBTQ and trans rights. The fight against Russian expansionism and our continued participation in NATO.

"It’s obviously about more than that. It’s about whether we’ll continue to be a democracy."

That's not hyperbole. This is now the third campaign in which +rump has been asked directly whether he'd accept the result of the election, and for the third time, his answer is, in essence, "only if I win." We saw what happened when he lost in 2020. "You can’t run a democracy if you won’t commit to the democracy."

29.June.2024

The Philadelphia Inquirer gets it exactly right

To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race. (Well almost exactly right; Trump has no concept of "service," so the preamble doesn't quite work. Every Republican with a shred of integrity should insist that Trump leave the race.)

"Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that? To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.

"Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.” “People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

"...The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

"Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

"Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.... The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be."

28.June.2024

Debate debrief

Just to put things in context: 4 years ago, having been impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, for extorting Ukraine by trying to make military aid contingent on them manufacturing dirt on his likely 2020 opponent, and then being acquitted by the increasingly perfidious Republican Party, Donald Trump was continuing is campaign to suck up to Russia's dictator. We were so saturated in scandals during his term in office (and in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic), that Trump's attempt to get Russia back into the G7, and remove troops from Germany a couple months after he would have known Russia secretly offered Afghan militants bounties to kill US troops has not really persisted in the news, or our consciousness.

Going back to the end of my blog for June, 2020 is more than a little surreal, 4 years on. Then what happened? On July 1st, his press secretary assured us "the president does read, and he also consumes intelligence verbally." In August, I quoted Elizabeth Mika from four years earlier still:

"As a narcissist does not understand what other people feel and experience, he must rely on projection (a self-defense mechanism where he denies the existence of his faults while attributing them to others) during those rare occasions when he may try to grasp what others feel and think (of him and his winning schemes, of course — the most fascinating and the only, really, subject that interests him). And what he projects onto others is fairly consistent: fear, jealousy, contempt, rage, hatred, and a desire for revenge....

"Ultimately, there is no escape from the ruthless, paranoia-infected world in which a narcissist finds himself immersed over time, other than through a total destruction of it and/or himself. ... [H]e destroys everything he comes in contact with — relationships, projects, organizations, countries."

Trump went on to lose the 2020 election, but could never accept that he lost, going so far as to incite an insurrection to try to subvert the election and stay in power. He was impeached again. The vast majority of Republicans in the Senate refused to hold him accountable.

He's now been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for $half a billion, more or less, for defamation and other bad acts, and there are more indictments and trials grinding through the court system, unlikely to break free of his delaying tactics before November's election.

He's shown himself to be utterly incapable of recognizing or telling the truth.  (He does stumble upon a nugget now and then, if only by accident.) And his every accusation of his opponent is a projection of his own flawed self. As Robert Reich observes:

"It is difficult to summarize his lies because they suffused every sentence. He said historians judged him the best president (they judged him the worst), that every legal scholar wanted Roe v. Wade overturned (they overwhelmingly urged that it not be), that the U.S. provided more aide to Ukraine than Europe (the opposite is true), that migrants crossing the southern border are criminals and rapists (their rate of crime is significantly lower than the crime rate of people born here), that Biden is a criminal and liar, and on and on and on."

Trump lacks the faintest shred of decency and integrity to do it, but for the good of the country, he should refuse to accept the Republican Party's nomination for another term. (The party seems fresh out of decency and integrity, too.)

Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity and Dignity in the Digital Age

That's the subtitle of the book in my preliminary book report last month, OUR BIGGEST FIGHT. The library wants it back, and I'm not prepared to rewrite the whole thing, but a couple of spots have bookmarks in them, so a postscript.

It's not news that "influencer" is a thing now, but I hadn't really considered it as a career choice. I've considered blogging to be a form of influencing since the get-go, but emphasis on pictures, and then video changed the game. The authors say that a 2023 Morning Consult poll found "57% of Americans ages thirteen to twenty-six" aspire to be a TikTok or Instagram influencer, but decry the trend toward conformity in it. Instead of each of us finding our "unique voice, appearance, and expression," everyone's trying to match the hatch? I certainly don't spend enough time following to know if that's really so.

You might want to jump to the chase on page 70, the section with the proposal for DSNP, a "Decentralized Social Networking Protocol," which would be a single-login that somehow puts you in control of information about you, with a "decentralized universal social graph" "no longer [] treated as a proprietary resource for centralized platforms to use in ways that brought out our worst antisocial instincts."

They talk about how the U.S. government could back the effort (even as "it's up to us, the citizens, to ensure that our operating system for the AI era ... is compiled in such a way that it serves humanity's long-term interest." And,

"It's worth noting that if we succeed in achieving this redesign, it would dash CHina's hopes for geopolitical supremacy over the United States."

Greatly preferable to the "madness" of the U.S. trying to beat China by developing its own "state-led model of digital autocracy." So, a choice:

"Either we we stay on the current path, that of a private, corporate autocracy, or we take a new path [toward] liberty, dignity and the resurrection of the American Project."

27.June.2024

Confidence men

In the daily firehose of news—some good, I have to say, and some not so good—it's not always easy to recognize which events do or will matter most. While reading through the list in Heather Cox Richardson's most recent daily, I found the Supreme Court burbling up to the top.

Fifteen Januarys ago, in his first State of the Union address, President Obama, brought up the topic of "a deficit of trust, deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works," and mentioned a few things to begin to address that deficit. Posting White House visitor logs online, excluding lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions, calling for a requirement for lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with the administration or with Congress. "It's time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office," he said. And he called out the high court for its recently issued Citizens United decision.

"With all due deference to separation of powers, last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.

"I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps correct some of these problems."

Associate Justice Samuel "Sam" Anthony Alito Jr. broke out of stone face to shake his head "no," and let us read his lips saying "not true." Perhaps he was taking an exception to the "century of law" part, which Linda Greenhouse pointed out wasn't quite right. But floodgates part has been proven out over the years.

Fast forward six years from that, to Jon Schwarz's banner headline, SUPREME COURT ELIMINATES POLITICAL CORRUPTION! (BY DEFINING IT OUT OF EXISTENCE). They overturned the bribery conviction of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, with Chief Justice John Roberts holding his nose and waving it through. From Adam Liptak's NYT item at the time:

“There is no doubt that this case is distasteful; it may be worse than that,” [Roberts] wrote. “But our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and ball gowns. It is instead with the broader legal implications of the government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute. A more limited interpretation of the term ‘official act’ leaves ample room for prosecuting corruption, while comporting with the text of the statute and the precedent of this court.”

Boundless interpretation?! The McDonnell gifts list might make Clarence Thomas blush, if he were capable of experiencing shame. A jury listened to five weeks of testimony before finding McDonnell guilty on 11 corruption counts and his wife guilty on 8.

"In their briefs to the Supreme Court, Mr. McDonnell’s lawyers relied on the Citizens United decision in 2010, in which the Supreme Court said that “ingratiation and access” were “not corruption.” That year, the court ruled in favor of a former Enron executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, saying that a federal anticorruption law governing “honest services” applied only to bribes and kickbacks."

Schwarz noted that Citizens United set the bar to "straightforward bribes, and then in 2016, it "decided that only a carefully defined subset of bribes qualify."

Shoveling out the stables of their latest term, the activist, oligarch-loving majority of the court has now greenlighted "gratuities"; "gifts and payments meant to reward actions taken by state and local officials" are A-OK as long as they're delivered after the fact. The mayor of an Indiana city said the $13,000 was for "consulting services," and the jury didn't buy it, and neither did the appeals court. But The Six did! See if you can drive a $220,000 garbage truck thorugh the "nuance" loophole:

"Although bribes are frowned upon as inherently corrupt, the majority noted, federal, state and local governments have treated gratuities with more nuance.

"In its reasoning, the conservative majority said it relied on statutory history and text, among other factors, to find that the federal statute focused on bribes, not gratuities."

Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh clutched his pearls over taking a college professor out to dinner, or a football game, or tipping your mail carrier, or "gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos or the like." Or a fat envelope with $13,000 in it? Or rides on a private jet and luxury vacations? We've got some "statutory history and text" that says all that is ok, and don't you dare call it corrupt.

And speaking of the end of term, and the destructive legacy of the Roberts court, the Supreme Court just lit a match and tossed it into dozens of federal agencies. "SEC v. Jarkesy could render much of the federal government unable to function." Leonard Leo is going to chortle himself to sleep tonight.

26.June.2024

The antidote: The Quiet New Deal

L O L G O P proposes we make a little more noise about the Biden administration's economic initiatives, and the results they're generating. Lots of new solar generating capacity, nearly doubled spending on manufacturing construction, a surge in "clean investment," a resurgence in unions, and gains in reducing income inequality. Why is The Quiet New Deal so quiet? Give its three big bullet points a shout-out:

• A massive investment in America’s infrastructure and manufacturing capacity focusing on clean energy to drive down the price and accelerate the transition from fossil fuels.
• A new commitment to workers’ rights and enabling their ability to organize and profit from their labor.
• A strategic focus on making government work better in ways that taxpayers notice by reducing administrative burdens and eliminating excessive personal burdens, such as education debt.

Follow that, and more on earlyworm.

Reading Project 2025

Has end-of-democracy fatigue set in so strongly than people have stopped paying attention? Joyce Vance invites us to Let's Read Project 2025 Together, which feels like we probably should, even though John Oliver's half-hour go at it was easier. At least start with that.

Vance first wrote about it last November, Frogs Boiled: What Trump is Planning for a Second Term. More than half a year later she notes "the problem" that voters (mostly) haven't heard of Project 2025, as shown in Navigor Research polling in mid-May, when more than three-fourths of a small sample (100 registered voters, only?) said they'd heard "a little/nothing" about the "series of conservative policy proposals aimed at reshaping the executive branch of the federal government if a Republican is elected president in 2024." It's the "unitary executive" dream writ so largely fascist that even Dick Cheney won't endorse it. With the title Mandate for Leadership; the Conservative Promise, it starts with "Taking the Reins of Government," at the White House (Rick Dearborn wrote that section), the Executive Office of the POTUS (Russ Vought, infamously), and "Managing the Bureaucracy" a team effort.

The last/worst of Trump I enablers are well-represented; Hans A. von Spakovsky writing about the Federal Election Commission caught my eye in the table of contents. (He was an FEC commissioner "from 2006 to 2007" the bio blurbs tell us.) The advisory board is a compendium of the metastasizing right-wing "think tanks" that have been driving policy into a ditch. America First Legal Foundation, Claremont Institute, Family Research Council, FreedomWorks, The Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, Liberty University, and 47 more, names ranging from generic to ones that would make Orwell blush (the "Honest Elections Project").

And this two-ream tome is just the "opening salvo" of the transition project to "dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people," the first of four Pillars. (Chances are good, dear reader, that you are not one of the select "American people" intended there.)

• Pillar II is a personnel database that allows candidates to build their own professional profiles and our coalition members to review and voice their recommendations. These recommendations will then be collated and shared with the President-elect’s team, greatly streamlining the appointment process.
• Pillar III is the Presidential Administration Academy, an online educational system taught by experts from our coalition. For the newcomer, this will explain how the government functions and how to function in government. For the experienced, we will host in-person seminars with advanced training and set the bar for what is expected of senior leadership.
• In Pillar IV—the Playbook—we are forming agency teams and drafting transition plans to move out upon the President’s utterance of “so help me God.”

In late 2016, when Putin and Trump had put up the unexpected "W," the president-elect applied his inimitable business acumen to utterly break the transition, because he didn't want "his money" spent on something he couldn't put his hands on. (Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk seems a lifetime ago; it's only been 6 years since that debrief came out.) What they have in mind is much larger than random vandalism on the cheap.

"As monolithic as the Left’s institutional power appears to be, it originates with appropriations from Congress and is made complete by a feckless President."

(Feckless? Careless and irresponsible? Feeble or ineffective? Spiritless, weak, worthless? Oh, but given the magical Rx Ronny "Johnson" couldn't concoct but can still imagine, Joe turns into a hulking Dark Brandon.) The crusade is against "the Great Awokening," my emphasis added to "Promise #2" on page 9 (after the 30-some pages of front matter):

"A conservative President must look to the legislative branch for decisive action. The Administrative State is not going anywhere until Congress acts to retrieve its own power from bureaucrats and the White House. But in the meantime, there are many executive tools a courageous conservative President can use to handcuff the bureaucracy, push Congress to return to its constitutional responsibility, restore power over Washington to the American people, bring the Administrative State to heel, and in the process defang and defund the woke culture warriors who have infiltrated every last institution in America."

24.June.24

The days of miracles and wonder

Woke at early light, from a dream about beautiful blueprints, some of them with color, and then in the stillness, an owl burbled, and a few moments later, the sound of a departing jet from BOI. I thought of Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble," and its lyrics.

These are the days of miracles and wonder
This is a long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slow-mo
The way we look to us all

The apparently "official" video to go with it is a time capsule from when we were young and dark-haired and spinning in space, in wonder. Present-day miracles include a domain "songmeanings.com" wherein people from decades past can explain the literal and oblique meanings within. "He seems to be exploring the dual nature of the advances in technology," b-rad1796 wrote 18 years ago. Yeah.

In my dream, I was extolling the precision and artistry of those blueprints created with computer-aided drafting, seemingly flawless, and state of the art. I wasn't looking at the content, as such. In the twilight, with the owl calling and the jet passing, I thought of my corporate career, now further in the rear-view mirror than it lasted, bridging the early Reagan years to George W. Bush launching a war on Iraq for no good reason. (Wolfowitz said it would pay for itself, so why not give it a go?)

Of all the precepts of the vaunted HP Way that I took to heart, the most memorable one was that "we conduct our business with uncompromising integrity." First codified in 1957, with principles "emphasizing good citizenship, ethical business practices and respect for the individual alongside provisions designed to foster sound business strategy," the people I worked with took the principles to heart.

HP's corporate history site has a too-much, all-at-once collection of vignettes, including Bill and Dave briefly reflecting on the 50th anniversary, back when "the people we employed were our best assets," and oh by the way, "it was fun." Dave Packard put it in book form, eventually, long after he was in the day-to-day, and after I'd left. By then, the staid engineering company that was lampooned as marketing sushi as "cold, dead fish" had been jazzed up by an outside hire for CEO, an impressive self-marketer who never really connected with the soul of the company, as large pieces were spun off, and new chunks of the computer business were pasted together.

Our miracles have moved on, to social media dispensing news-like substances, now with "Artificial Intelligence"! and capable of advancing oligarchy and worse, promoting whatever for little men behind the curtain. There's Vlad and Kim striding into a bloody future together; déjà vu of Country Joe McDonald, "next stop is Vietnam." (Here's Joe reminiscing about that more than 50 years after the song was new, thanks to the Victoria and Albert Museum if you can believe it.)

"It kicked the door down... in attitude. It was a revolutionary moment, a cultural moment for Anglo-Saxon English-speaking Western world."

And now the christian nationalist troupe of Reagan-era reactionaries is planning its own revolutionary moment, Project 2025, heralded by the good old boys of Louisiana, mandating (but not paying for; you can't make this up) The Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom, "from kindergarten to state-funded universities." That'll show 'em!

Of course the esteemed legislators dictated the exact version of the 10C that shall be displayed, unironically (we suppose) including the one to Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, Thou shalt not kill, and the others that have so befuddled the current leader of the Republican Party

Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his 11 cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."

Public Dollars Belong in Public Schools observed that "Seems like maybe Louisiana would be better served requiring the multiplication tables be posted in every classroom," and The Other 98% is providing a number of alternatives, including Kurt Vonnegut's pitch for the Beatitudes (you know, Jesus rather than Moses), and what came from "the Rethink Prize, a crowdsourcing competition to rethink the Ten Commandments. The contest drew more than 2,800 submissions from 18 countries and 27 U.S. states. Winners were selected by a panel of judges," 9 years ago. Thank you, Wikipedia!

1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
4. Every person has the right to control of their body.
5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
9. There is no one right way to live.
10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

Juneteenth, 2024

Tender offer

Mailpiece had that "something important" look without shouting, fold-together window envelope that you had to tear off the perforated end tabs and "slide finger under this edge" to open. Through the window, I could see it was "Pay to the order of" me (sort of), and enough of the written out number that I could see it was Large.

I wasn't expecting a large check, with just a PO Box return address, but the barrier to entry was low enough, I took a look inside. We Buy Houses says "we are a professional Idaho real estate investment firm. We specialize in fast, hassle-free, fair, transactions." No person's name in it, just the same machine-drawn 5-loop squiggle as signature under the "letter" and on the "check."

The six-figure "check" isn't a real check, of course, says there down at the bottom (below the MEMO "Cash offer for" our address) in small, but bold DISCLAIMER: This is not a real check. In spite of its "SECURITY FEATURES LISTED ON BACK" where there's an endorsement block, and very fine, not-bold print assuring me that security features seen and unseen were present, "exceed[ing] industry guidelines."

I'm supposed to call them if I'm ready to turn this into a "LIVE CHECK." A new entry in the genre of I/WE WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE pitches that have come our way incessantly by postcards, door hangers, phone calls, texts, random guy at the front door. Give 'em credit for the most artfully deceptive presentation to date. (They rendered my name as "Thomas West Vonalten," a novel form providing still more means to disclaim the fake bait if I were to take it to a credulous bank.)

The thing would have gone straight to the bin unremarked, were it not for the features bullet list on the inside. Check it out:

• We buy your house "as-is", no repairs
• Pick Your Closing Date (5 days to 5+ months)
• Tenants OK- No Problem
• Leave behind unwanted items
• Zero Commissions to sell your home (Save 6+%)

Pretty sure Price, Price, Price comes before Location, Location, Location, and their offer just happens to be more than 8% below the 2024 assessed value our county publishes (along with their unredacted assessment notices) *. So, Zero Commissions, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Anyway, I love the "Leave behind unwanted items" part of the offer. There are a few things... can we just make a heap in the back yard?

* Must [I Agree] to the county's TOU, to use it for REFERENCE PURPOSES ONLY with no warranty of ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR TIMELINESS, and disclaimer of ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, including, SPECIFICALLY, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Take only as directed, and use AT HIS/HER/ITS OWN RISK.

18.June.2024

Life on Mars

Good art inspires me; experiencing someone else's creativity makes me feel more creative. And who doesn't love a love story? During this morning's random walk, the web tingled for a story titled Tau = 10.8 from the "This is Love" podcast, and it's a beautiful thing.

"...a story from out of this world, about two robots on Mars who just would not die. And the people whose job it was to check on them every day, who started to think about them as family."

It's hard for me to sit still and listen for a whole 49 minutes (unless I'm sitting in a not-still driver's seat, in a weird parallel for this particular tale), but this is so well done, and so interesting, I couldn't resist.

It's well known that using a tool expands your kinesthetic sense of self to envelop the tool. The brain expands its sense of "body" to include the familiar tool: the sweet spot of the bat, the center of the racket strings, the socket at the end of the wrench, the teeth at the end of a pole saw, and yes, the rover at the end of a telecomm channel that varies from 3 to 22 light-minutes long, which is to say, 6 to 44 minutes between asked, and answered.

What's it like to be a rover driver? To sing a wake-up song (or last lullaby) to your "child" on another planet? To work on Mars? Give a listen, and start to find out.

"Wherever you get your podcasts" for me is just finding stuff on the web. I found the link to Snap Judgment (above) on my Mastodon feed, and then the episode on This is Love from that. Props to the Blue Dot Sessions catalog for 17 perfect musical components, and whoops, they forgot a credit for "I'll Be Seeing You" by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal, sung by Billie Holiday in 1944.

Update
After that story and its wistful end-of-mission, here's unexpected news from nearby interstellar space: Veeger is back to conducting normal science operation, after a half-year hiccup, more than 15 billion miles from home. Voyager 1 and 2 "will mark 47 years of operations later this year." Bravi tutti.

Father's Day, 2024

"Contortions of the politics of impotence"

Another corker of a blog post by Timothy Snyder top of my inbox today, Felon Seeks Vice.

"Usually, vice-presidential candidates are selected for virtues. They are expected to bring new voters in November, to complement the presidential candidate, and to be qualified to be president in case of emergency.

"Donald Trump is searching, quite literally, for vice."

Someone who won't upstage him, most of all. Given that "he does not contemplate ceding power at any later point," there's no need for actual qualifications beyond parroting the Big Lie of the 2020 election, and the basic capacity of a lickspittle.

He handicaps the "front runners" for chief toady rather brutally, none more than J.D. Vance:

As a senator, Vance has modeled a politics of impotence extremely well. In both domestic and foreign policy, his line is that American government is helpless. In international relations, he repeats Russian propaganda claims about Ukraine, in the service of the doomer view that no one can resist Russia and that we should all give up. But it is a booming sort of dooming: Vance likes to get in front of microphones, puff out his chest, and present impotence as masculinity. There is guile in this performance: the manly pose substitutes for manly action. A tough guy à la Vance returns to the safe space of provoking cultural anxiety by choosing enemies within his own country.

The only problem is that he's a little too good at what he does, and too young.

You've probably heard about the semi-triumphant return to the Capitol for the first time since he was frustrated by the Secret Service on Jan. 6, 2021. The Republicans gave him ovations. Idaho's junior senator, Jim Risch, was in one of the scenes. I wonder that feels like, cashing in your legacy for a psychopathic conman?

15.June.2024

Dark side of the Moon

The Idaho Republican Party is having their state convention up in Coeur d'Alene this weekend, and what news we're allowed to see from it is more whack than ever, under the whimsical rule of Dorothy "Dot" Moon. The lead story from day 1 (yesterday), is that the news media were barred from observing the goings-on. (And Moon said "access will be her decision" for the rest of the convention. She didn’t like the way some reporters covered the event two years ago, is the main thing.)

During an interview Thursday outside Coeur d’Alene Resort, a reporter with the [Idaho Capital] Sun asked Idaho Republican Party Chairwoman Dorothy Moon, “When we talk about transparency, is that part of the equation at all?”

“Yeah, not really,” Moon said, laughing. “Not in my mind. In my mind, this is a private group. It’s a private association. And, no, I don’t want to sit here and give you all of our platform changes or any rules or resolutions, such as our strategy on fighting ranked-choice voting, because then the Democrats have that information and then they are going to try to counter us.”

It's a private association that just happens to have a super-majority running our public Idaho Legislature, often making its decisions in closed caucuses. Democracy dies in darkness.

The story goes on to quote one Republican legislator who ventured off the reservation to call bullshit on Madame Chairman.

“Who in their right mind thinks it is a good idea to lock the press out?” Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, said in an interview in the convention hallway.

“I think (keeping the press out) is reflective of a lot of things going on in the state,” Mickelsen added. “Anytime you don’t want the press to shine light on what you are doing, I think there is a problem. I think the people get a better process when we have press involved.”

“You can say they are right or left or whatever,” Mickelsen said. “But at the end of the day, an informed electorate — which is what we need the press for — helps us and constituents and the people in this state get good information to make good decisions. I think one of the things that people have lost is their constitution of truth. By journalists not being allowed to be a part of and view and report that back, it’s kind of scary honestly.”

Censure from a (closed door) meeting of District 32 precinct committeepeople seems likely, even if the closing election of chairman boots Moon and replaces here with Mary Souza.

In the mean time, Dotty was tossing off excuses like party favors. "There's no room" she said at one point. They don't even have enough space for their "own people"? And media could be "a distraction."

“I don’t want people to be playing for the cameras or playing for the media,” Moon added.

You can see why they irk her, what with the verbatim quoting and all. Laura Guido's coverage for the Idaho Press managed to extract more of the dodgy goings-on, including efforts by Branden Durst to ramp up the loyalty testing. He knows something about people who can't be trusted to show party loyalty, as a former "Democrat."

The increasingly unhinged party platform shall be the tool for Republican lawmakers to be “judged, measured and held accountable for the next years.” And to censure them if they don't measure up! Idaho's strictest abortion laws need to be stricter! And "universal school choice" is to override the state consitution's requirement for a system of public education to whatever. But only through high school. Who needs higher education, really? It's just a nexus of troublemakers.

The platform committee has approved an amendment adding to the existing plank of the platform that says the party strongly supports technical and continuing education programs to include the statement, “but do not support using taxpayer funding for programs beyond high school.”

13.June.2024

Zeitgeist explainer

Today's must read: Timothy Snyder translates current events for us, as "Mrs. and Mr. Alito" explain modern revenge culture. The Shamans and the Chieftan. ICYMI, here's what she said, to start:

"The other day, Mrs. Alito gave us a good exhibition of revenge culture: “I’m German. I’m German. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m going to give it back to you. And there will be a way. It doesn’t have to be now. But there will be a way – they will know." Those remarks about the delights of revenge related to her choice to fly an insurrectionist flag after Donald Trump's attempt to overthrow American constitutional order in January 2021.

"The political theory of Trump's coup attempt is that all that matters is the chieftain. He does not have to win an election, because the chieftain has the right to rule simply because he is the chieftain. Requiring Trump to win an election is thus a provocation. The claim that he should leave office when he loses an election justifies revenge. And of course retribution is Trump's platform."

And the black-robed shamans interpret the new reality for us.

"The legal theory of Trump's coup attempt, made explicit in argument before the Supreme Court, is that the chieftain is immune to law. There is magic around the chieftain's person, such that he need respond only to himself. The words "presidential immunity" are an incantation directed to people in black robes, summoning them to act as the chieftain's shamans and confirm his magical status.

"Some of the people in black robes, Supreme Court justices, like being shamans. Our shamans are allowed to take bribes from those who support the chieftain, and also allowed to claim that as magicians, people unlike others, they are unaffected by them. If there is any doubt, our shamans tell us, they can be trusted to be judges in their own case."

12.June.2024

Remorse, mental state, and character

We didn't get to watch on TV, but the now-convicted felon former guy met with his probation officer for the first time on Monday, as the judicial system considers what sentence is appropriate for the 34-time offender. Seth Myers has clips from Don jumping sharks in an electric boat, and former US Attorney Barbara McQuade going over the standard questions, including one that "seems like an easy question for a presidential nominee to answer":

"Do you understand that you will be prohibited from associating with anyone with a criminal record?"

But that's everyone he knows! is now our national punchline. The new disinvite list will have to include Steve Bannon, Michael Cohen (who, ok, was not on the invite list), Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Allen Weisselberg, Rick Gates, George Nader, Elliot Broidy, George Papadopoulos, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Peter Navarro, and Scott Hall, at least.

Christina Bobb, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows are on the check back later list, while Arizona's indictments for election rigging get sorted out.

11.June.2024

Beware the (self-)righteous

Last month marked two years since "one of the worst breaches of trust" in the history of the US Supreme Court, the premature ejaculation of Sam Alito's opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. We never did get to the bottom of that. ("The report did not say whether the justices themselves were interviewed." Nor their spouses, reading between the lines.) That was a lot of strut and splutter that signified nothing, other than the ossified religious righteousness driving the right wing.

Filmmaker Lauren Windsor made the Supreme Court Historical Society dinner a week ago Monday a little more historical by eliciting further remarks from Alito. As retold by Robert Reich:

After Windsor told Alito that, as a Catholic, she couldn’t see herself getting along with liberals in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end, and that the Supreme Court should be about “winning,” Alito responded:

“I think you’re probably right. On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”

When Windsor said people must fight to return our country to a “place of godliness,” Alito said, “I agree with you. I agree with you.”

Stare decisis be damned, Alito had been ticking all along to blow up the half century old, settled case, with more than six dozen pages to justify his decision, "[b]ut not once did he admit that his personal religious convictions influenced him." Unsurprisingly.

"The[se latest] remarks signaling his religious bias are like the flags flown in front of his houses signaling his political partisanship. But what is lost in these revelations is the naive hope that justices of the Supreme Court put reason over personal bias, logic over religious preference, and public duty over partisanship. This hope is invaluable in maintaining public confidence in the Supreme Court."

"It's not like you're going to split the difference," Alito opined to Windsor, after he did exactly that, by saying that it would be up to the individual states to decide how much bodily autonomy we grant to half the population. Joyce Vance wonders (as do we all),

"If Justice Alito is making comments like this to a random person at a public dinner, what is he saying to his close confidants? What is he doing on the bench? How can he possibly deliver impartial justice when he so casually expresses these views? Judges are supposed to conduct themselves in a manner that ensures questions like these are never asked about them...."

"A statistic about Alito's jurisprudence that has stuck with me has to do with his rulings on the doctrine of standing—whether a particular party is entitled to bring their claims to court. “An empirical analysis of the Court’s ‘standing’ decisions ... found that Alito rules in favor of conservative litigants 100% of the time & against liberal litigants in every single case.” Alito has been described as the Court’s “most reliable partisan.” No Judge in our country should embrace that description of him or herself. But with his comments at dinner, Justice Alito did so.

"Any other federal judge would be facing a judicial ethics inquiry at this point and the certainty of forced recusal. But because the Supreme Court lacks an enforceable ethics code, there is technically no one who can force Justice Alito to do anything. It’s Sam Alito versus the integrity of the Court, and if his colleagues don’t step in and do something about it, our institutions and our country face serious trouble."

10.June.2024

Back to religious rule? God-emperor?

The photo of Russ Vought at the top of the Washington Post story from Saturday makes him look like yet another wonky DC insider, a regular guy. His "vision" for the second coming of the former guy (WaPo gift link) looks like a nightmare.

With the usual potpourri of fervid accusations ("we are living in a post-Constitutional time" because the Left has taken over everything), he's ready to justify autocracy—the Founders' worst nightmare—as a corrective. And make it a religious autocracy.

Last time FG ran for office, the Republican Party decided it didn't need a platform. "Whatever he says" was enough, incredibly. This time, Vought will be in charge, as "policy director" for the 2024 RNC platform committee. One element of the plans:

"Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order to strip the civil service protections of up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."

Vought also did what he could to block the transition to the Biden admninistration in the closing days of +rump. All part of what Steve Bannon describes will be coming: “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”

Heather Cox Richardson fills in the background with her inimitable historical style, including considering the foundation of religious pluralism in the "right of conscience" James Madison believed all men were entitled to. (Women, back then, not so much.)

I'm reminded of visiting Torda (now in Romania) not long after the celebration of the 450th anniversary of an edict declaring (among other things) that "no one shall be reviled for his religion by anyone." The idea of a MAGA-led return to a state religion (pronounced and led by vulgarians) is anathema.

8.June.2024

Spoiler alert (good news)

There's a lot of news (and history) we keep hearing in various forms, but that doesn't seem to rise firmly to the collective consciousness. (Not that I have a line into the CC, but you know, what makes the news?) Thinking about that while reading Heather Cox Richardson's latest daily about more economic good news, and the why behind it. (As best we can surmise.) Economics is always a bit difficult to explain, it seems, as we focus on "how much does gas cost?" and "what's my grocery bill?"

"The Biden administration has quite deliberately overturned the supply-side economics that came into ascendancy in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan took office and that remained dominant until 2021, when Biden entered the White House. ..."

A 40 year try, that should be enough to judge its efficacy, hmm?

"...Cutting business regulations and slashing taxes would create prosperity, they said, by concentrating wealth in the hands of individuals who would invest in the economy more efficiently than they could if the government interfered in their choices. That smart investment would dramatically expand the economy, supporters argued, and everyone would do better.

"But supply-side economics never produced the results its supporters promised. What it did do was move money out of the hands of ordinary Americans into the hands of the very wealthy. Economists estimate that between 1981 and 2021, more than $50 trillion dollars moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%."

The not so good news for the rest of us, with another booming jobs report, and wage growth exceeding inflation (which remains stubbornly higher than we'd like it to be) is that the determined forces to keep the money flowing ever upward are not giving that up any time soon. "Republicans worked to make it extraordinarily difficult for Congress to pass laws making the government do anything," other than maintaining their obstructive control of Congress and taking over state legislatures.

With the help of the increasingly corrupt Supreme Court. After Clarence Thomas finally disclosed some of the gifts his good friend Harlan Crowe has been showering upon him for decades (Thomas said he "inadvertently" left them off his reports), George Conway would like a word:

“It’s long past time for there to be a comprehensive criminal investigation, and congressional investigation, of Justice Thomas and his finances and his taxes. What he has taken, and what he has failed to disclose, is beyond belief, and has been so for quite some time.” ... over a chart of the monetary value of the gifts Thomas has accepted, Conway added: “I mean. This. Is. Just. Nuts.”

Buffing history

One of my regular pleasures is doing various kinds of puzzles, including the NYT weekly news quiz, and the Flashback quiz. The latter involves placing 8 events in chronological order, around one that they provide to anchor the timeline. I'm not quite sure how they divvy up 28 points for that, but I biffed this week's with only 5 of 8 events correct.

They've got a little gimmick to add interest after the fact, which caught my eye this week, due to all my red pixels. It's a sometimes quirky connection of history to current events. For example: the item about Qin dynasty in China destory books on philosophy and history, "one of the first recorded cases of book burning" has the postscript:

"Now China's Internet is disappearing, as the coutnry recently erased a decade's worth of online information."

Creepy. Other connections this week were between Cleopatra's "astronomical wealth" and executive pay; the first and current immigration to New Zealand; going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, and BMX riders; the Electric Slide, the Macarena, and TikTok hilarity of "parents dancing like it's the 1980s." I wonder if China (and/or the Congress) will let ByteDance keep that sort of thing around.

6.June.2024

D-Day

80 years ago today, the Allies coordinated an epic battle to begin the defeat of authoritarianism in Europe, "the largest seaborne invasion in history" landings in Normandy that began the arduous liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe.

No one on the Republican side has—yet—romanticized the losing side, but give it time. It's been 20 years since Doug Wilson pontificated on how slavery wasn't so bad, sometimes, preaching to us about moral relativism from an absolutist point of view. (If you disagree with him, shame on you for your "boring and ugly hypocrisies.") There is such a thing as a just war, too, as we remember today.

Meanwhile, the inestimable Rep. Byron Donalds, in the running for chief toady, had a look at the bright side of Jim Crow on Tuesday.

“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together,” Mr. Donalds said. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — because Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively.”

Actually, "more Black people" were kept from voting at all between the Civil War and the 1950s. To enlist them in the cause of "cultural conservatives" is some special kind of perverted fantasy.

At the same time as Donalds' boss man is working to destroy the justice system (or more particularly, use it for revenge) on the way to establishing his own totalitarian state, the "white grievance industry" is trying to use it to stamp out the faintest whiff of affirmative action. Judd Legum's Popular Information blog reports on some "winners" (The American Alliance for Equal Rights) and losers (Stephen Miller's America First Legal) in the fight against any sort of formal preference for non-white people.

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said...

And Senator Marco Rubio demonstrating the perfect pitch of projection brought up the subject of "a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people," always a popular topic on Xitter.

The increasingly demented man who can't remember when he said "Lock Her Up" 8 years ago, and who, while president, "repeatedly told aides he wanted the Justice Department to indict his political enemies" is hoping for another shot at that. His enablers are pushing their way to the front of the line.

"Among those calling for eye-for-an-eye prosecutions is John C. Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor best known as the author of once-secret Bush administration legal memos declaring that the president can lawfully violate legal limits on torturing detainees and wiretapping without warrants.

“In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents,” Professor Yoo wrote in an essay published by The National Review.

"He added: “Only retaliation in kind can produce the deterrence necessary to enforce a political version of mutual assured destruction; without the threat of prosecution of their own leaders, Democrats will continue to charge future Republican presidents without restraint.”

Definitely in the "Well, when the president does it... that means that it is not illegal" school. Also on the retribution team, Ronny Jackson, once an Admiral, downgraded to Captain, once a presidential physician, downgraded to Republican member of the House, is being put on the House Intelligence Committee by Speaker Mike Johnson—the guy calling for his friends on the Supreme Court to "step in" and unfelonize the Don. Jackson is keen to set about the weaponization of the federal government ASAP.

“President Biden should just be ready because on Jan. 20 of next year when he’s former President Joe Biden, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Jackson said on Newsmax.

“I am going to encourage all of my colleagues and everybody that I have any influence over as a member of Congress to aggressively go after the president and his entire family, his entire crime family, for all of the misdeeds that are out there right now related to this family.”

Laura Loomer says "Not just jail, they should get the death penalty."

4,414 men are rolling uneasy in their graves today.

4.June.2024

Nonsensical on its face

That phrase out of HCR's daily, in regard to former guy's team "insist[ing] that the guilty verdict will help him."

As political consultant Stuart Stevens put it: “I worked in five presidential races and helped elect Republican governors or Senators in over half the country. I have never heard anything more transparently desperate than a party trying to spin that there is some non-MAGA pool of voters who can't wait to vote for a convicted felon.”

Next up, Washington state's law that prevents felons from running for office, and a "heavily edited" Fox and Friends interview. Faux & friendly has been the Don's safe space for a while; you can feel the walls closing in on him. He lied about never saying "lock her up"; will the crowds who chanted that while he egged them on get amnesia too? Presumably. The story's dribbling over into the sports world too:

[O]n Saturday, top sports talk host Colin Cowherd pushed back on the idea that the trial was rigged, telling his listeners: “If everybody in your circle is a felon, maybe it’s not rigged. Maybe the world isn’t against you.” “Donald Trump is now a felon,” Cowherd said. “His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager, his personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his National Security Adviser, his Trade Advisor, his Foreign Policy Adviser, his campaign fixer, and his company CFO. They’re all felons. Judged by the company you keep. It’s a cabal of convicts.”

Speaking of criming, ProPublica reports that the family/business is providing "significant financial benefits" to potential witnesses against him, the noteworthies including Boris Epshteyn, Susie Wiles, Margo Martin, Dan Scavino, Jennifer Little, Evan Corcoran, and Allen Weisselberg. Not all marquee names to me, but the article fills in the details. For example, Susie Wiles and Margo Martin were aides who "allegedly witnessed Trump showing off what he described as a secret military document, got a significant raise not long after the classified documents case heated up with the search at Mar-a-Lago."

According to the indictment, Trump told Martin and others the military plan was “secret” and “highly confidential.” “As president I could have declassified it,” he allegedly told the group. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

"It feels very shady, especially as you detect a pattern," former US Attorney Barbara McQuade notes, along with the fact that it's hard to prove a case for witness tampering.

"Trump’s attorney, David Warrington, sent ProPublica a cease-and-desist letter demanding this article not be published. The letter warned that if the outlet and its reporters “continue their reckless campaign of defamation, President Trump will evaluate all legal remedies.”

In local political opinion, you can fell the slack-jawed incredulity in long-time conservative observer Chuck Malloy's column talking about Republicans "celebrating" Trump's convictions, calling them "a ticket to a second term," and "might as well be 34 Olympic gold medals." The partisan word salad from the Republican Parody includes "disgusting spectacle" (ok, it was that), "a national tragedy" (yes, that too), and "makes the American judicial system a laughingstock," what?

That was from former Idaho Attorney General Dave Leroy, who said it was the judge and prosecutors who were interfering with elections, not the golden man-child. And just wait till he's sentenced on July 11, we'll see how phony it all was. “There probably is, in the traditional sense, no appropriate sentence that the judge can render that does not further underscore the mockery of this case,” he said.

In the traditional sense? The traditional idea of law and order, that is? Republicans have well and truly lost the plot. Credit to Malloy for raising the more salient issues (which in all likelihood have been successfully retarded to come due only after this fall's election) by defense pettifogging, an embarrassingly friendly judge in Florida, and the corrupt wing of our Supreme Court).

"I can think of worse things Trump has done. My list starts with what Trump did, or didn’t do, during every waking moment on Jan. 6. A close second was his call to the Georgia secretary of state, demanding that he flip the election results in that state."

And don't forget the wholesale theft of national security and other documents, taken to his golf clubs for brag points, and possible treason to the highest bidders. That's kind of high on my list.

“Your premise is correct,” Leroy said, according to Malloy. There are more serious matters. Just like Al Capone's tax evasion wasn't the worst of his crimes.

Last but not least, the New York Times has an op-ed from George Grasso [NYT gift link], retired New York City adminstrative judge and Police Department first deputy commissioner, who starts with his bona fides of almost 13 years in the sometimes "thankless and frustrating" job "supervis[ing] judges presiding over a wide spectrum of cases, dealing with complex legal issues, angry victims, difficult defendants and intense media scrutiny" in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.

"But for all the cases I saw, I never encountered anything remotely as challenging as what Justice Juan Merchan faced in his Manhattan courtroom while presiding over the first criminal trial of a former president. And since Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 counts, Justice Merchan has come under further vicious attack.

"As a retiree, I was able to attend each day of the Trump trial. What I saw was a master class in what a judge should be — how one can serve fairly and impartially for the prosecution and the defense, and above all remain a pillar for the rule of law in America."

The facile and scurrilous attacks that the true believers are directing at the New York prosecutors, court, and expanding them to include the entire justice system are, as Judge Grasso points out, "reckless, dangerous and irresponsible." (They're also the long-time modus operandi of one of the most infamous criminals this country has ever known; working to break the system that threatens to hold him accountable.) Grasso concludes:

"I am aware of the deep divisions in our country as to the wisdom and strength of this case. But I am certain that Americans were well served by Justice Merchan."

2.June.2024

Three and a half questions

From emptywheel, which is currently swept up with NSFW headlines, because, you know. (via Laffy, edited to suit me): Instead of polling whether Trump's 34 felony convictions make you more or less likely to vote for him, try these:

• "Does the GOP's wholesale attack on the rule of law make you more or less likely to vote for it?"
• "Does the fact Trump has been found guilty of defrauding charity donors, university students, banks, and NY state make you more or less likely to vote for him?"
• "Does fact Trump pardoned Steve Bannon for defrauding his own supporters make you more or less likely to vote for him?"

More particularly, Laffy's toot encouraged me to visit Marcy Wheeler's emptywheel blog, which I don't do often enough. Her level of detail can be a little intimidating to follow (and even more so when you open up the comments, which are far above average in their signal to noise ratio). I didn't find the polling question suggestions, but this is excellent: “Swept Up!” The Russian Payments that Led to Trump’s Felony Conviction.

After reviewing just a tiny bit of the performative ignorance from Trump supporters, quoting historical opinions on prosecutorial overreach, she comes to the NYT reporters' comments about gee, where did this case come from? And Maggie Haberman's use of "swept up," as if Michael Cohen's dodgy work for Trump just accidentally got him investigated.

"Importantly, this predication — a [bank's Suspicious Activity Report,] SAR implicating a politically exposed person about big payments from a foreign company — is far more than what predicated the investigation, and now six years of non-stop attention from the GOP, into Hunter Biden. That investigation started from a SAR about sex workers, from which an IRS agent fished out Hunter Biden’s name and then spent seven months digging before using Burisma to predicate a grand jury investigation.

"If mouthpieces for Trump’s DOJ have a problem with this [Cohen>Trump] investigation, then they should be speaking out even more loudly about the investigation into Hunter Biden in which Bill Barr personally tampered."

But yeah, no, that is not going to happen.

1.June.2024

Sham-wow

On my two hour bike ride yesterday, I didn't notice much civil unrest. Close to home, one fellow punched his manhood machine and coal-rolled me a little bit (on Veterans Memorial Parkway, no less), speeding up to the point I thought he might lose control on the curve. Then there was another manly pickup sporting a big American flag off its tailgate, the flapping declaration of a new white supremacy, an elephant that's lost its parade. But mostly, it was just a pleasant, sunny day in May.

"If they can do this to me, they can do it to you!" our 34-time felon groused from the safety of his sparkly lobby, celebrating the Festivus Airing of Grievances early this year.

That's kind of the point, you know. No one is above the law. For the man who made a career of skirting accountability, and slept (or "meditated") through much of his trial, it was a rude awakening. And we haven't even come to the more important cases: trying to rig the 2020 election in Georgia, the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, stealing government documents on the way out of the White House. The delays, pettifogging, and judicial activism of the Supreme Court has melded those into a perverse reelection campaign, the likes of which we've never seen before.

Maureen Dowd is in fine form for her debrief, including a sibling check-in. The less trumpy sister said she wasn't going to vote for the former guy, "but now I am because I thought this whole thing was a sham." And Kevin recapitulated the greatest hit of the Brett Kavanaugh-Lindsey Graham duo, "be careful what you wish for." He thought the jurors should have slow-played their white smoke "to show they had really considered it." Yes, I'm sure that would have assuaged the shamleaders.

"It’s remarkable to watch the luminaries of “law and order” contort themselves to undermine Trump’s conviction, dues for what Cohen called a “dumpster cult.” The party of law and order evidently doesn’t like any law it didn’t order.

"...Speaker Mike Johnson called for the Supreme Court — “I know many of them personally” — to jump in and reverse the verdict."

The NYT's sampling of How Trump’s Most Loyal Supporters Are Responding to the Verdict ("a sense of grievance erupt[ing] as powerfully as the verdict itself") has a truly mind-blowing dek: "Many saw in the jury’s finding a rejection of themselves, of their values and even of democracy itself."

Which values, now? Hiring a sleazy fixer? Having an affair? Entering into nondisclosure agreements and paying a tabloid to catch and kill stories about you don't like? Trying to make a mockery of our whole system of justice? Election fraud? Franklin Graham, "the evangelist" (please) is worried about "what kind of nation we are leaving" his 13 granchildren.

"The guilty verdict was “the dark spot of politics in America in my lifetime,” said Phillip Neff, 80, a retired businessman in Dalton, Ga. Mr. Trump “may be a clown in some ways, but he’s not a devil,” he said."

Yeah, the jury's still out on that one. A lot of something, something Constitution. And fundraising. Chip in to the really, really rich guy who can't buy a break. And hey, speaking of the religious angle, try this on for size:

"Richard Steele, 82, a pastor and retired building contractor in Dalton, Ga., which is in the district of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right House member and Trump loyalist, praised the former president as a “gentleman” who does not flaunt his wealth, and an “honest man” — despite the thousands of documented lies or misleading claims he has made over the years. Mr. Trump, he said, was cloaked in “Godly armor.”"

Then there's the retired stockbroker who thought the charges were too complicated. “Can you actually tell me what he got convicted of?” he said. “Can anybody tell me that?”

Yes. Falsifying business records in furtherance of another crime. I guess they didn't cover that in stockbroker school.

Postscript:
Heather Cox Richardson's May 31 Letter provides a rundown of the "desperate attempt[s] to shape a narrative that is spinning out of [] control" to counter the GUILTY headlines. Stephen Miller shouting against "communists" on Fox News. Indiana's Rep. Jim Banks trying his hand at scatology. "Gym" Jordan wanting to get Alvin Bragg before the House weaponization subcommittee.

Utah's Sen. Mike Lee whipped up a petit manifesto for the treason caucus, J.D. Vance, Tommy Tuberville, Eric Schmitt, Marsha Blackburn, Rick Scott, Roger Marshall, Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, and Ron Johnson saying they're going on strike, essentially. (How will we notice if the Senate grinds to a halt?) Because “[t]he White House [?!] has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways.” Because... why now?

"Ten senators said they would not do the federal jobs they were elected to do because private citizen Trump was convicted in a state court by a jury of 12 people in New York, a jury that Trump’s lawyers had agreed to. The senators attacked the rule of law and the operation of the federal government in a demonstration of support for Trump. A number of the senators involved were key players in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

"Awkwardly, considering the day’s news, a video from 2016 circulated today in which Trump insisted that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who he falsely insisted had committed crimes even as he was the one actually committing them, “shouldn’t be allowed to run.” If she were to win, Trump then said, “it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.”

raveling

Tom von Alten