unraveling

31.July.2024

Building bridges

The Interview in the NYT Magazine middle of the month featured Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone. I didn't get around to reading that when it was fresh out (as an essay in 1995, and then a book at the turn of the millennium). Turns out, he was spot-on about a lot of stuff, and is not feeling great about so much turning out as he predicted.

One pithy definition embedded in the flow prompts me to shout it out. It was in his explanation of why things have gone badly in our social network, the third of three variables (after political polarization, and inequality). It's also a teaser for his new book, written with "a brilliant young woman named Shaylyn Romney Garrett." In The Upswing,

"[W]e looked at long-run trends in connectedness, trends in loneliness ... over the last 125 years. And the short version is, it’s an upside-down U curve. We were socially isolated and distrustful in the early 1900s, but then there was a turning point, and then we had a long upswing from roughly 1900 or 1910 till roughly 1965, and that was the peak of our social capital. People were more trusting then, they were more connected then, they were more likely to be married then, they were more likely to join clubs then, etc. And then for the next 50 years, that trend turned around. “Bowling Alone” looked at that single trend, but this new book not only extends the length of time but also looks at three other variables....

"[T]he third variable that we look at is harder to discuss and measure, but it’s sort of culture. To what extent do we think that we’re all in this together, or it’s every man for himself, or every man or woman? And that has exactly the same trend. What caused that? I am trying to get to the issues of causation because it turns out to be morality, according to my reading of this evidence. What stands upstream of all these other trends is morality, a sense that we’re all in this together and that we have obligations to other people."

There's nothing in that definition about enforcing your beliefs on other people, which is to say declaring other people have obligations, to you. That's what one of our two major parties is about right now, with the country split half-way between continuing our 250-ish year experiment with democracy, and ending it, at the direction of a psychopath, a doddering con-man who wanted the biggest prize he could imagine, and made us all losers by winning it, once. If he wins (or steals) it again, there will be hell to pay.

The only way out is bridging the divide, somehow. It seems impossible right now, and continuing a quiet, decent, generous, tolerant, accepting, moral life does not seem like enough, but it must be the starting point. Tolerance is not unbounded. Trangressions require accountability, and corrective action. Our currently roiled system, demonstrably corrupt at some of its highest levels (hello Clarence and Sam), replete with the means for abuse by the wealthy and powerful, is having mixed results to date.

The next few months will be incredibly important in deciding whether our way forward is some form of togetherness, or civil war.

30.July.2024

À ta santé!

One of the odder moments in the rise of christian nationalism is the performative outrage at the depiction of "a scene" in the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. I'm not sure how much attention I was giving to the show, but what I remember seeing just seemed like an odd get-together on a bridge to me, and the show floated on by, the FESTIVITÉ. In case you missed the whole kerfuffle, it's been boiled down to a quickmeme:

"The people who confused the Last Supper with Greek Mythology are the same people who want to eliminate the Department of Education."

It was two days ago that George Rasley spluttered up his Conservative HQ screed generator for what he liked to call The Despicable And Blasphemous Display In Paris. I was thinking, ok, there has to be an update, or retraction, or quiet take-down, but nope, it's still there. Since there was also something something DRAG QUEENS (an expression which he repeated 11 times), the outrage will not be dissipating any time soon, I suppose. But no, there was not a "drag queen parody of the Last Supper" in attendance.

There was French theatre director Thomas Jolly's Tableaux 8 (one of 12 tableaux), called "Festivité," referencing the pagan traditions of Ancient Greece, which you might recall was where the Olympic Games originated, as Snopes explains for the credulous and easily incensed. In the context of that other thing, the appearance of a blue Dionysus on a serving platter must've been a little confusing?

I imagine the incensed will continue to insist that it was too a parody, and they are too outraged, in order to save face, or something.

No joke

Have to hand it to Jason Sattler, aka LOLGOP, for capturing the Zeitgeist with his blog post in The Cause: Telling people to have kids is just *weird*. "And forcing them to give birth is an atrocity." A sample:

"If I actually thought having kids was basically mandatory, I’d focus on a million other real things that are MY BUSINESS: like fixing the HUGE problem of America being the richest country in the world yet being the only rich country without mandated parental paid leave.

"Also, I’d make sure every American had health insurance.

"Also, I’d pass the child tax credit that Republicans let lapse that brought millions of kids out of poverty.

Update:
Did not see this coming. A new video of J.D. Vance has surfaced, with him saying people who don’t have children are more likely to be “sociopathic,” “psychotic” and “deranged.”

26.July.2024

PSPS PS

Ok this time it is a postscript, about the Public Safety Power Shutoff I wrote about yesterday. In their email to customers with "Answer to 'what is a PSPS?'" they reported that "about 25,000 customers saw outages on Wednesday, around 9,000 of which were due to the PSPS."

Why haven’t these happened before?

Idaho Power has had a PSPS plan in place for three summers, but this was the first event we had to implement due to the combination of a strong wind event—gusts reached up to 60 mph in the Boise area—and increased fire risk. Most utilities in the west have PSPS programs in place as we encounter extreme weather events more often.

BoiseDev filled in a few more details, inluding this snippet in the "coulda been worse" dept., about storms in the Missoula, Montana area: "The Missoulian reported downed powerlines “electrified” creeks and other bodies of water, creating a risk for electrocution."

That prompted me to look up the Camp Fire, started by an electric transmission line in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. That was six years ago now. Definitely better to be safe than sorry.

In our local weather news, the air is still "widespread smoke," but the temperature has moderated, down to the delicious low 60s last night, and mid-70s now past noon.

MAGular degeneration

There's a guest essay up on the NYT, on the subject of "an escalation in both the frequency of [the former guy's] lies, and the outrageousness of his distortions." Since here we are near the end of the month and I've got free gifts to hand out before they expire, here you go: Don't Take Trump's Word for It. Check the Data.

Before reading the NYT piece and scrutinizing the datagraphics, I'm here to shout out Kiel Mutschelknaus's brilliant animated graphic for the guest essay hero splash. It's a spinning word/letter salad-black hole that inspired my headline above. Worth the price of admission I paid for you.

Beyond that, the Times' headline is, well, obviously, or as I tooted yesterday, in response to Talking Points Memo's reporting on the FBI director throwing carefully worded shade on the story of the bullet Former Guy supposedly "took" for America in testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, it is more likely than not that any story he has told over the course of his lifetime is not true.

Since I can't move you past the TPM paywall, you can have a look at the C-SPAN video, conveniently starred for the "point of interest," labeled "Ear Grazed by Either a Bullet of Shrapnel," one hour into the hour and a half part 3. Chairman Jim "Gym" Jordan has just asked the FBI director to account for all 8 bullets in space and time. "Where did all eight bullets go?" He said he didn't have that information at hand, but could "circle back" with it, "if we have it." And then added:

"[W]ith respect to former president Trump, there is some question about whether or not it is a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear so it is conceivable, as I sit here right now, I don't know whether that bullet in addition to causing the grazing could have also landed somewhere else. but I believe we have accounted for all of the shots and the cartridges."

That led the former guy to go after the messenger, predictably, ranting on his Tantrum platform, “There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a ‘bullet wound to the ear,’ and that is what it was.”

Our language lacks the careful subjunctive that German has for tainting hearsay. Trump said what "the hospital" said, but has not (as far as I've seen) shared any actual medical information he's been given directly with the public. (And no, the former physician, and former Admiral, now unlicensed and Capt. [ret.] Ronny L. "Candyman" Jackson's memoes don't count.) The New York Times shared its conclusions from "detailed analysis" anyway. They're going with the first bullet, grazing the ear. (Did they scoop the FBI?)

It's OK (a good idea, even) for the FBI director to be careful in stating conclusions before all the facts are in, a point lost on the millions of people prepared to comment on social media with scant or no evidence.

In other campaign news, the former guy is getting cold feet over the prospect of debating Kamala Harris, with his spox Steven Cheung citing "political chaos" (gee, where did that come from?), and that Democrats "very well could still change their minds" about who's going to be their nominee. He wishes! That was yesterday, just before Barack and Michelle Obama endorsed Harris.

25.July.2024

PSPS

No, not a postscript postscript, it's the new thing (new to me, at least, as of yesterday) in reponse to the expanding summer fire season: the Public Safety Power Shutoff. That page explains a PSPS

"is when a company like Idaho Power proactively turns off power to an area where wildfire risk is high due to extreme weather conditions. The outage is an effort to keep our customers, communities, employees, and equipment safe. Customers outside impacted PSPS areas may also experience outages due to high winds and increased protection settings on our lines that help prevent wildfire ignitions when a fault is detected. In either case, outages may last longer than normal since we’ll need to inspect the lines to make sure we can re-energize them safely.

"A PSPS is a last resort to prevent wildfires. Our goal is to minimize the risk of fire while balancing the impact outages have on our customers and communities."

A new (to me) form of notice, and talk of a last resort grabs attention. We had "an event" coming our way, down through the Blue Mountains and into the Snake River basin yesterday. A text message Tuesday evening, "Idaho Power Weather Alert," said:

"We are tracking a storm system moving into the region tomorrow, July 24, bringing with it the possibility of high winds. Please prepare in case of wind-related outages and keep an eye on local weather forecasts."

The outagetips page had lots of specific suggestions for things to do ("learn how to manually open garage door") and gather ahead of time, and a link to the interactive outage map I'd never seen before. Outage markers were marching down the I-84 corridor from Baker City toward Boise.

The PSPS page has its own embedded ArcGIS interactive map, showing an outlined service area from eastern Oregon and through southern Idaho, with red traces for "Active" areas, where "customers should prepare for an outage, but power may not yet be out." The red marks had lots of connections, branches and disjunctions, a pattern that would make sense if I knew (a lot) more about the topology of the Idaho Power distribution network. But of immediate interest, did it include our house?

It did not; in the Boise area, the places marked "active" were mostly on the north side of the Boise River, and up into the foothills. Big cluster near Ontario Oregon, near the bottom/other end of the Treasure Valley, where the Snake goes north.

Now that the storm system did its thing and moved on, the service area is scrubbed clean. (As was our air this morning, although it's back to smoky again, fed by the Durkee Fire, now past a quarter million acres, and in the news for being the largest in the nation at the moment.)

We're going to be up near or at 100°F again today, but Friday through Monday, the hires are forecast in the low to mid-90s. Balmy! The lows are forecast in the low 60s, the natural diurnal air-conditioning which we rely on this time of year, versus the last couple of nights, where the temperature didn't get below 80. After two and a half weeks at and above 100° highs, we are so ready for a change.

Another historic day

President Biden's swan song last night felt like what was needed for the moment, and confirmation that he'd made the right decision as well. Being president is no small thing, and 4 years takes a toll. This morning, I read two accounts of it, from Heather Cox Richardson, and from Joyce Vance. The president "told us that history is in our hands," Vance began.

"[H]e told us in plain language what matters the most: Donald Trump is a singular threat to our democracy.

"That is a fact we live with, as difficult as it is, until this election is over. It’s hard to live under a constant threat. But ignoring it will not make it go away. So, Joe Biden has sacrificed his own hopes and dreams in order to serve all of us, to serve the country, one last time."

As she does most every day, HCR artfully put the speech in the context of the sweep of history.

Speaking from the Oval Office from his seat behind the Resolute Desk, a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, Biden recalled the nation’s history. He invoked Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence; George Washington, who “showed us presidents are not kings”; Abraham Lincoln, who “implored us to reject malice”; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who “inspired us to reject fear.”

And then he turned to himself. “I revere this office, but I love my country more,” he said. “It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president.” But, he said, the defense of democracy is more important than any title, and democracy is “larger than any one of us.” We must unite to protect it.

Both posts on substack are relatively short reads, and highly recommended. Aside from the quotes highlighted above, I'll just note that Vance also provided the snapshot of the republican candidate's response, posted on his personal social whine seller:

"Crooked Joe Biden's Oval Office speech was barely understandable, and sooo bad!"

Such is what passes as a surrealDonaldTrump "Truth." Whatever the limitations of Biden's speaking style these days, the "barely understandable" problem is lodged under Trump's squirrelly coiffure. He can barely understand what it means to serve the country, let alone to do it for a number of years. (Never mind five decades.) He demonstrably failed at the last test of his presidency: graceful concession, and facilitating the peaceful transfer of power to his successor.

As I've said, and many others have said, he's unfit for the office. He was always unfit for the office. No one needs more proof at this point, but that 12-word blurt demonstrates the painfully obvious as well as any full-length editorial.

Update
The San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board nails it in the hed: Aging, incoherent felon refuses to drop out of presidential race.

24.July.24

On the plus side

Kelley Packer, Laurie Lickley and Tara Malek, board members of the Idaho Contraception Education Network, had a guest exhortation in Tuesday's paper also: Stop treating contraception like a partisan issue.

According to the recent survey they commissioned, "83% of Republican voters agreed that access to contraceptives should be maintained or expanded in our state." Nationally, "a 2023 Gallup poll showed that close to 90% of Americans believe birth control is morally acceptable, including 86 percent of Republicans."

They extol this year's Senate Bill 1234, led by Senate Minority leader Melissa Wintrow, after a similar bill narrowly failed in 2022. This year, it passed the Senate 19-16, then squeaked out of the House Business Committee (the, ah, business of contraceptives?) on a 9-7 vote, and finally passed in the House by a single vote. 35-34-1, with Farmer/Rancher/Representative Steve Miller (R-Fairfield) absent.

Funny what an "overwhelming consensus" turns into after it goes through the Idaho legislative sausage mill.

ICEN's news round-up includes a link to the Washington Post's national view that was part of the motivation for the organization's founding, targeting "legislators who do not understand the science behind how contraception works." Here's a WaPo gift link to the June 4 piece: Conservative attacks on birth control could threaten access. "Far-right conservatives are sowing misinformation that inaccurately characterizes IUDs, emergency contraception, even birth-control pills as causing abortions."

Paranoia monologue

Greg Pruett, freedom bro, and Mr. Idaho Second Amendment Alliance ("a no-compromise organization" that "fights to restore [sic] the Second Amendment") says he also does "everything I can to stop the progressive, liberal disease that is mobilized in Idaho and trying to turn us into California."

To that end, his screed sandwich was published in the Idaho Press on Tuesday. Ranked choice voting a threat to Idaho gun rights, he says, without actually mustering an argument between that headline and the closing exhortation to "ignore the gaslighting that it isn't." He demurred from taking on RCV directly in spite of "the mountain of reasons" he says it's a terrible election system. Halfway in, he moves from baseline us good-them bad, to his first-person report of speaking to "one of the Reclaim Idaho's volunteers" collecting petition signatures.

"...I asked her about the effort and what they wanted to get done. After the usual pitch she was used to doing, she ultimately admitted that it would help Democrats and it would make Idaho more “moderate,” or in other words, more liberal."

Or in other words, less extremist. For Pruett, you are either a true believer ("conservative"—for which half of the state Republican party need not apply), or "other." He could have looked up the Reclaim Idaho website, featuring their full statement on the Open Primaries Initiative, and attempted to address the "two big reasons" they spell out:

• More freedom. It’s wrong that Idaho blocks independent voters from participating in elections unless they join a political party. The Open Primaries initiative will give all voters, regardless of party affiliation, the freedom to vote in all elections.
• Better leadership. By giving voice and power back to Idaho voters, the Open Primaries initiative will help elect more independent-minded leaders who are focused on solving problems, not wasting time with distractions and controversies that turn us against each other.

But instead, from a tiny snippet of his one conversation with one volunteer, Pruett went into mind-reading mode:

"That Reclaim Idaho volunteer knows that passing more solid pro-2nd Amendment legislation will be much more difficult after RCV is implemented. She also knows that implementing RCV will make passing gun control much easier. She knows that conservatives will lose at the ballot box under RCV."

Followed by his precooked complaints about "the real objective of liberals and far-left extremists pushing RCV."

He'd have a hard time tracking down a "far-left extremist" to talk to around here. Far-right extremists are easier to find, and Pruett happily shines his "conservative" badge for the category. If RCV wins the day, Idaho's legislature will surely become less populated by extremists. The secret is out!

22.July.2024

In a nutshell

There is a lot of ink being spilled about the presidential race, and I'm not sure what I have to add that's pithy or interesting. Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from the race is a fitting cap to his long career of service, demonstrating an integrity that his opponent can't begin to approach, let alone match. One long-time columnist for the WaPo sounded enamored with the former guy for those precious first minutes of his acceptance speech on Thursday, before it went off-script, and off the rails. "Unity" is a heavy, heavy lift for the Don. What jumped out at me was this pithy summary:

"He rambled about pet peeves and supposed triumphs; the longer he continued, the less coherent he became."

More to the point of where we find ourselves, HCR's pithy wrap for her July 21, 2024 Letter from an American (which, as usual, is worth reading in full):

"In a time of dictators, Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and install himself in power against the wishes of the people. President Joe Biden voluntarily turned away from reelection in order to give the people a better shot at preserving our democracy.

"He demonstrated what it means to put the country first."

21.July.2024

Dark turns and the funnel to authoritarianism

From my Mastodon bookmarks, Heidi Li Feldman's threaded pair of toots with a link to Jamison Foser's Finding Gravity post, The totalitarian tell in Trump's 'unity' speech. "Kim Jung Un and Victor Orbán are role models for a type of unity, but not the type you would enjoy." Also Putin, his "unity" government isn't the typed we'd enjoy. First of all,

"[T]he fact that Trump is the most intentionally divisive politician in modern American history; that he regularly incites violence and peddles racism and sexism....

"While the media was quick to adopt the Trump campaign’s preferred talking points, the most important passage in Trump’s speech has received almost no media attention: Trump rambled on at length about his fondness for Viktor Orbán and Kim Jung Un — both of whom, Trump suggested, want him back in the White House.

"Victor Orbán is the Hungarian authoritarian who has become something of a role model for the Republican Party (as I have previously explained.)

"Kim Jung Un is, of course, the North Korean dictator4 known for ordering the executions of political figures including members of his own family....

"Trump’s praise for Victor Orbán and Kim Jung Un was the most important part of his speech not only because it foreshadows what America would be like under a Trump regime but also because it explains what Trump really means when he talks about “unity.”

“Uniting our Nation,” to Donald Trump, means declaring Donald Trump above the law. That isn’t unity, it’s autocracy.

Foser quotes a CNN piece from last December, seems a lifetime ago. They've been telling us who they are all along. Oliver Darcy: Trump and his allies are threatening retribution against the press. Their menacing words should not be ignored.

"In a particularly disturbing conversation [last December], Trump’s former top political strategist, Steve Bannon, and former National Security Council adviser, Kash Patel, openly discussed plans to target the press. Bannon, who underscored that such promises are “not just rhetoric” and that they are “absolutely dead serious” about seeking revenge against journalists, asked Patel, who would likely serve in a second Trump administration, whether he could “deliver the goods.” Patel responded affirmatively, vowing that a re-empowered Trump would indeed “come after” the press."

Both Sides: the Faith of our Times

Timothy Snyder: "Both-Sidesism is the habit of reducing the world into two perspectives, treating the two as fundamentally alike, and then ignoring or adjusting the data."

"If one of the two aspects of Both Sides seems to have done a great evil, the priests of Both Sides always ritually vituperate the other side. The price of the restoration of mystical equality is the rehabilitation of the criminal and the degradation of the blameless."

Recommended reading.

Dark turns and WWE neokayfabe

Not sure what I can add to Heather Cox Richardson's recap of the Republican national convention this week, but the shorter is that the supposed "call to unity" in the acceptance speech from the day one dictator in waiting lasted about as long as he could read from the script on the teleprompter, about 10 minutes. (Plus what came up in newspaper headlines written before the actual delivery.) Maybe that was half, or a third of the "original," but the rest of what ran more than 90 minutes (a record!) was apparently stream-of-psychosis that "outlast[ed] the interest of the audience, some of whom fell asleep."

of course it was "his usual litany of lies" and persecution complex, and appeal to retribution, xenophobia and demonizing the opposition. the scripted "no victory in winning for half of america" is the same little sop as him saying "peaceful" once in his inciting an insurrection on january 6, 2021. anyway, to my headline: it had long slipped my mind that our tangerine palpatine had been inducted into the world wrestling entertainment hall of fame, and that he'd appointed the wife of the owner of wwe to head the small business adminstration back in the day. you can't make this stuff up. i hadn't cared enough to learn that pro wrestling's beginning was "a circus sideshow in the late 19th century," but that certainly fits, nor that it was vince mcmahon who bought the world wresting foundation (wwf) from his father in the early 1980s (certainly more than a decade after i'd watched any of it on our black and white tv) and remade it into super-hero "sports entertainment" and confessed it was fake, to dodge regulations in the late 1980s. it was "a remarkable, lucrative and dangerous breakthrough" that revived the dying stepchild offshoot of vaudeville. from hcr, with her footnoted link brought inline (and made a gift link for you):

"Kayfabe is the performance aspect of professional wrestling, in which the actors play out relationships and scenes in which there are good and evil, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal. According to journalist [and a Vince McMahon biographer!] Abraham Josephine Reisman, in old-school kayfabe the actors never let their masks slip, and while the audience knew what they were seeing must be fake, they played along with the illusion.

"But in the 1990s, the barrier between reality and illusion blurred as wrestlers and promoters tried to increase the viability of the fading industry by tossing reality into the performances: real-life insults—the more outrageous the better—and real-life events. Decoding what was real and what was not drove engagement until in 1999, an estimated 18% of Americans, about 50 million people, called themselves fans. This “neokayfabe,” Reisman wrote in the New York Times in 2023, “rests on a slippery, ever-wobbling jumble of truths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods, all delivered with the utmost passion and commitment.”

Ain't that the truth.

"Neokayfabe and politics came together again [Thursday] night at the Republican National Convention, as Linda McMahon, wrestler Hulk Hogan, and musician Kid Rock, whose music has been featured at wrestling events and who is also a member of the WWE Hall of Fame, all participated."

There's also this little bit of political theater still to unwind:

"Since [last] Saturday’s shooting, it has been notable that there has not been a medical review of Trump’s injuries, although he has said he was injured by a bullet that ripped through his ear. This matters not only because of the extent of his injuries, but also because Trump has made the story part of his identity without any fact check, and the media appears simply to be letting it go on Trump’s say-so, something that adds to the sense that media outlets are treating Trump and Biden differently."

19.July.2024

Fascist creeps

"Paul Manafort walking onto the floor of the Republican National Convention yesterday..." should be the setup for a bad joke, but no, it's how Heather Cox Richardson's daily for July 18 started. You may remember Manafort's act from 8 years ago, when his felonies were still gestating in his shady Russian deals, and the Republican platform "mysteriously" began the betrayal of Ukraine. Cutting to the chase:

"Manafort was convicted of a slew of criminal charges for his work with Ukraine and obstruction of the investigation into the connections between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and was serving a seven-year sentence when Trump pardoned him in December 2020. Now he is back at the center of Trump’s MAGA Party.

"Before 2016 the Republican Party stood staunchly against Russia, and getting Republican voters to forget that history required adopting the argument of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is aligned with Putin and Trump, that democracy has ruined the United States. In this argument, the central principle of democracy—that all people must be equal before the law, and have a right to a say in their government—destroys a country by making women, people of color, immigrants, members of religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals equal to heteronormative white men and permitting them to influence government. In place of democracy, they want to impose their version of Christianity on the nation, banning abortion, rejecting immigrants, and curtailing the rights of gender, religious, and ethnic minorities....

"Their rejection of democracy requires a strongman at the head of the government, and in Milwaukee that man is Trump, who will be the first convicted criminal nominated for president by a major party."

Marcy Wheeler had a few words about Manafort returning to the scene of the crime too. "Among all the other criminals and insurrectionists, Manafort no longer sticks out."

"[Co-campaign manager Chris] LaCivita was denying Manafort’s centrality as vigorously as he is now attempting to deny the (Orbán-aligned) Project 2025, as vigorously as Steve Bannon denied Manafort’s ongoing role in 2016, in spite of receiving plans on how to secure the victory, plans which led Bannon to worry about the appearance of Russian involvement in the victory.

"But all these pieces go together.

"That is, Trump is running not just as someone who explicitly wants to be a Dictator from Day One, someone who supports all the same policies as a Project that targets divorce and birth control along with the very idea of civil service.

"He is running with Russian help on a plan to give Russia what it wants, starting, but not ending, with Ukraine on a silver platter.

"Trump, and the guy Trump pardoned for lying about what happened with Russia in 2016, are simply picking up where things left off."

18.July.2024

The gentler side of fascism

Won't be tuning into the RNC this evening (as I haven't done all week), because lord a'mercy, life is too short for that. The gaslighting is so thick, I'm surprised the Milwaukee Fire Marshall hasn't declared the thing a safety hazard and pull the plug.

Saw today that Tucker Carlson popped up, all chatty with his former cow-orkers and the big guy. Not only did it not get drained, the swamp might be all that's left when we try to figure out what just happened.

Anyway, after the assassination attempt, and the remarkable experience of having a bullet whiz by you (or "punctured his ear," as he's claimed, without any corroboration, let alone elaboration), that could change you, right? Somebody on Xitter tweeted out that "there appears to be a new softness to Donald Trump" if you can believe that. Also a potpourri of random associations, "existential," "serene," "emotional" and even "spiritual."

I'm too meh to look up the Politico link to pick at the leftover stew of funk, starting with the pitch for the new Charmin. Settled back from the FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT photo op, has he? I guess we'll hear about it in the ad-libbing around Stephen Miller's latest horror show tonight.

In the meantime, one of the few accounts I really miss after leaving Elon Musk's Springfield dump tire fire, the New York Times Pitchbot, threw in the towel. H/t this guy.

15.July.2024

STOP, THIEVES!

Speaking of obstruction of justice, +rump's loose Cannon fired for some effect today, after a parade of dilatory rulings delaying the case against the former guy and two of his lackeys for document theft and obstruction of justice. Now she's said, you know what, the whole "Special Counsel" thing is right out, taking the hint from Clarence Thomas' breezy concurrence in Trump v. United States (that "total immunity" job), writing that "I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been “established by Law,” as the Constitution requires."

So, case dismissed and the fact that +rump made off with national security documents, and obstructed the legal process to get them back is just bygones? It's outrageous and unconscionable, and just another day in the Bizarro world we now inhabit. Should Lord Orange finagle his way back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., he'll weaponize the DOJ to bury all that, and kick off the Retribution Tour, bigly.

We're never going to get to the questions about who all got to see those stolen documents, or how much they paid to play peekaboo.

Political violence, reconsidered

The big news from Saturday—the attempted assassination of a former president—seems like it could get lost in the ongoing drama of the Republican Party's slide into playing sycophant to an aspiring dictator. What with the convention kicking off today? There are some things that need to be said. I noted quite a few folks attempting to lower the temperature by declaring that "political violence has no place in America" or the like, and, well, seriously? It would be nice, but that's not the way it is. What Jake Tapper said, "would that that were true." Just a sampling:

"In 2011, then-Democrat Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head and nearly killed by a gunman at a constituent event. Other innocent people were killed.

"A 2017 shooting at a Republicans' congressional baseball practice left Congressman Steve Scalise in critical condition. Then, of course, there was the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that year. In 2020, violence exploded in protests after George Floyd's horrific murder, then, on January 6, 2021, an attack on the U.S. Capitol and that aftermath, which left multiple Trump supporters and Capitol Police officers dead.

"An individual who left pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee buildings, that individual has still not been identified. In 2022, former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, was attacked with a hammer in his own home by an intruder searching for the former speaker."

That's just a few of the personal incidents. In the big picture, I think about the war we launched on Iraq two decades ago, because chickenhawks in the W. Bush administration figured it had more targets than Afghanistan, and as Paul Wolfowitz famously mispredicted, the invasion would be "self-financing." If it pays for itself, political violence is fine? Necessary, even, because they had "weapons of mass destruction." Or so it was imagined. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the multidimensional wars in the Middle East get pushed off the front page in favor of political intrigue.

Gil Duran and George Lakoff write in the FrameLab that "no one has done more to inject violence into our political discourse than Trump."

"He demonizes his political opponents as “animals,” “scum” and “vermin.” He calls for jailing his opponents without cause and forcing them to stand before military tribunals. He speaks of the “bloodbath” that will occur if he loses the election. When a deranged man attempted to murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer, Trump mocked the incident as his audience laughed.

"Trump creates serious fear in the minds of many Americans with his promises to destroy democratic norms and become a dictator on “day one” if he gets re-elected president. On January 6, 2021, he urged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol and did nothing as they launched a violent insurrection to overturn the 2020 election. At the Capitol, Trump's followers hunted Nancy Pelosi and chanted "hang Mike Pence."

"None of this justifies the attempt on his life – or any kind of political violence against anyone. Yet Trump has continually framed American politics as a violent struggle requiring bloodshed. Trump regularly charges up his supporters by using destructive and violent rhetoric. But such language also triggers deep emotions in his opponents, many of whom view him – based on his own words – as an existential threat to democracy and freedom....

"[H]is own close call with gun violence should impress on Trump the fact that the power of violent language far exceeds mere words. Such language changes brains and can result in real world consequences. Violent language invites violence."

Trump's own brain has been changed by his endless campaign. Before he was herded off the stage, he wanted to stick his face—and fist—in the air for the cameras. "FIGHT" he said, over and over. There was a moment of "stand united and show our true character," and then it was gone. Some Republicans didn't let their ignorance stop them from turning up the temperature. In the purest of projection, and without any hesitation, Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia tweeted that "Joe Biden sent the orders." Apparently Collins hasn't been following the Supreme Court, because he also called for charges to be filed against the president.

J.D. Vance—just declared to be the second coming of Mike Pence, in spite of "no governing experience... no foreign policy experience, no diplomatic experience, no nothing" as Watergirl tooted—piled on as well. Apparently Joe Biden's not so sleepy if his incendiary rhetoric "led directly to [the] attempted assassination."

13.July.2024

Decline and fall

Our big anniversary is coming up, 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Indepedence. Semiquincentennial we're going to call it? One thing you can count on, there will be plenty of fireworks. (It's not too soon to enact a large tariff against Chinese imports!) As our continental weather map turns orange and red, fire, floods, hurricanes, and infrastructure failures abound, why not go out with a bang?

This past term's Supreme Court really kicked it into high gear, turning its lust for corrupt power into a lit fuse. No more need for the "originalism" loincloth, they have promoted our executive branch to the once-upon-a-dream "unitary" status that Dick Cheney and friends cooked up. Be careful what the worst among us wish for. He and his daughter (and the rest of us) are now experiencing karma. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. It's in the Bible, people, 59 times, give or take.

After helping out with the Bush-Gore theft in 2000, John Roberts was awarded by the adjudicated winner with a lifetime appointment for whirlwind sowing. His confirmation hearings assured enough of us that another middle aged white guy who knew baseball analogies could be trusted to take care and do all. In 2020, the loser tried to flip the script, but "Trump is Gore" prevailed (for a time), in spite of a violent insurrection that shocked a lot of consciences for a few news cycles and then faded into pepper-scented mists of time.

Remember when Mitch McConnell stood up on his hind legs and assured us that “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one”? The Supreme Court just said, actually, they are immune. As long as the court allows it. And as long as the Republican Party's will to power trumps the will to maintain even a semblance of the rule of law. The party that rose up to put a stop to Richard Nixon's cover-up of dirty tricks and a third-rate burglary is dead and gone.

As a parting gift for the 2024 term, Roberts and his radical cohort rewrote the past into a dark future. First delaying the possibility of pre-election accountability for the Perpetrator-in-Chief until after the election, and then announcing that they had both thumbs and eight bloody fingers on the scale, declaring total immunity for the president against any accountability at all. An independent Department of Justice? No. Any enforceable regulation against corruption of supreme court justices? No. Reliable member of NATO? No. Any meaningful progress to blunt climate change? No. Environmental regulation will be over.

If the former guy pulls off the steal this time, he won't need a get out of jail free card; he'll have a "jail is never for you" card. This is Roberts' bid for infamy:

"He eliminated, in practice, any distinction between a lawful or unlawful exercise of presidential authority. And Roberts did this, he says, to preserve the separation of powers and the integrity of the executive branch.

"Presidential impunity for criminal behavior isn’t the issue, Roberts suggests. The real problem, he says, is the “more likely prospect of an executive branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive president free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next.”

"Waving away the ugly circumstances of this case — Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election — Roberts writes that without immunity, “prosecutions of ex-presidents could quickly become routine. The enfeebling of the presidency and our government that would result from such a cycle of factional strife is exactly what the framers intended to avoid.”

Exactly what the framers intended to avoid was having an American king. Roberts and his radical fellows usurped the power of judicial supremacy, "impos[ing] new meaning on the Constitution, according to what [they want] it to say rather than what it says," and have likely scheduled a coronation. Trump broke every norm and all sorts of laws in his first bullish tour of the American china shop. Just imagine what he'll do with his scotus-punched "Article II power to do whatever I want."

11.July.2024

Unfit to Lead

The NYT Editorial board took a break from its efforts to torpedo Joe Biden's bid for re-election to consider his leading opponent. Credit where due, they got the headline right for their interactive opinion: DONALD TRUMP IS UNFIT TO LEAD.

"Next week, for the third time in eight years, Donald Trump will be nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate for president of the United States. A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great. ...

"Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency. He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him.

"He is, quite simply, unfit to lead."

They break it down in 5 sub-sections. MORAL FITNESS; PRINCIPLED LEADERSHIP; CHARACTER; A PRESIDENT'S WORDS; RULE OF LAW. On his utter lack of moral fitness:

"He lies blatantly and maliciously, embraces racists, abuses women and has a schoolyard bully’s instinct to target society’s most vulnerable. ... Mr. Trump is a man who craves validation and vindication, so much that he would prefer a hostile leader’s lies to his own intelligence agencies’ truths and would shake down a vulnerable ally for short-term political advantage. His handling of everything from routine affairs to major crises was undermined by his blundering combination of impulsiveness, insecurity and unstudied certainty.

"This record shows what can happen to a country led by such a person: America’s image, credibility and cohesion were relentlessly undermined by Mr. Trump during his term.

"None of his wrongful actions are so obviously discrediting as his determined and systematic attempts to undermine the integrity of elections — the most basic element of any democracy — an effort that culminated in an insurrection at the Capitol to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power."

There's more. Read it.

Update:
Marcy Wheeler wasn't won over by what she sees as the NYT laundering their agency.

Enemies of the state

One of the most reliable tropes on the ConservativeHQ screed mill is "our friend." On July 2, for example, CHQ editor George Rasley writes that "Our friend Stephen K. Bannon" reported to prison to start his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. The headline asks whether you, dear reader, "would have the moral courage to join him?"

Well, if Congress wants me to testify something, I would show up and do it, so it's kind of a stupid question. But only posed to launch the diatribe against Congress generally, and Democrats in particular. Never mind that Bannon dragged his feet, kicking and screaming the whole way, and after being convicted, delayed his sentencing as long as he could. But suddenly it's the Democrats who finessed the timing to be "the four months before the 2024 election." The case was about the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and Bannon's refusal to answer a lawful subpoena to answer questions from the House committee investigating it.

Questions like "what did you mean when you said on January 5, 2021 that 'all hell was going to break loose' the following day? What did you know about the plans, and such?" But didn't he battle mightily to avoid accountability?

"Steve took his battle all the way to the Supreme Court and to the halls of Congress, but one man against the entire Democrat legislative and legal establishment was hardly a fair fight, especially without a unified Republican Party behind him."

The current Supreme Court wouldn't even help him out, imagine that. So, he gets to be a shambolic MAGA martyr, and, if Trump gets a second term, a stay out of jail free card to add on top of the pardon for his felonies for money laundering, conspiracy, and fraud. His co-conspirators got years for that; he got a pardon from his felonious friend who's now the führer of the rump Republican party.

If the Dems were as good at timing as Rasley's disingenuous imagining, the head of the insurrection would have been off to the crossbar hotel a while ago. Instead we now have Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency employee, billing himself as the “future secretary of retribution.” Raw Story reports that a target list of 350 (intelligence officials, members of Congress, witnesses, journalists, "all considered political enemies of Trump") has been circulating since January.

"Raiklin is seeking to enlist so-called “constitutional” sheriffs in rural, conservative counties across the country to detain Trump’s political enemies. Or, as he says, carry out “live-streamed swatting raids” against individuals on his “Deep State target list.”

Raw Story notes his recruiting doesn't seem to be producing much return—yet—and that "the false reporting of an emergency to garner a response from law enforcement for the purpose of harassing a target is illegal." At present, anyway.

H/t to Thom Hartmann for bringing this item to my inbox, and connecting the dots with the fascist playbook of Viktor Orbán. It can happen here. It's a work in process.

Update:
LOLGOP points out "one important thing about that list of 350 people Trump would immediately arrest is that John Roberts basically gave him permission to do it." Total immunity.

9.July.2024

Dehumanizing journalism

Thom Hartmann's got his finger on the pulse of the new yellow journalism, and its unending bias for SPECTACLE, tracing it back to the Reagan era and the ending of the Fairness Doctrine. It's worth your time to read the details.

"Why wouldn’t American media at least try to balance their coverage of two “flawed” candidates? After all, Trump has been disowned by the former head of his own party (Michael Steele), something like half of his own former cabinet officials (including his Defense and Intelligence officials), and even his own former vice president.

"There is nothing like a movement or groundswell that size on the Democratic side; virtually all of the calls for Biden to step aside have come from the media and not one current or former administration official has gone on the record against Biden.

Shouldn’t the GOP calls for Trump to step aside, be replaced, or be defeated — from old-line conservative Republicans like Liz Cheney to mainstream Republicans like Michael Steele to organized Republican movements like the Lincoln Project — at least be mentioned every time a story is written or a report done on Biden’s struggle to hang onto his candidacy?

"Shouldn’t Trump’s crimes and anti-American behavior be at least mentioned whenever Biden’s age is criticized?"

They should. Dana Milbank's contribution to the WaPo pundit roundup for "if not Biden, who?" isn't exactly going to break the spell, but it does start to describe it:

"Yes, I think Donald Trump should step down as his party’s presidential nominee. He is manifestly unfit to serve, both dangerously incompetent and clearly out of his mind."

The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board weighs in on the fact that there's more than one question about the leading candidates. With demands for Biden to "convince voters he has the mental acuity to do the toughest job in the world" (as he has been doing, quite well, so far). They note that "the same bar does not exist for Trump, who loses no points for incoherence or incompetence."

"The rules have always been different for Trump. Recall when seven members of Trump’s team used private email accounts, including his daughter and son-in-law, it barely caused a ripple....

"But little attention has been paid to Trump’s incoherent debate performance because he is often incoherent. Trump told more than 30 lies in 90 minutes during the debate like it was another day at the office."

Now we've got a clown shown from the New York Times (after the New York Post "scooped" them to boot) led by Peter Baker, about supposedly too many visits by a neurologist to the White House.

Marcy Wheeler fired for effect: Peter Baker Argues Joe Biden Is Unfit because Peter Baker Is Too Lazy to Read the Homework. And as usual on Emptywheel, the comments make interesting reading. ExRacerX left an interesting one:

"As familiar as the phenomenon of compulsive projection on the part of Trump and his cronies has become, with the hue and cry for Biden to step down increasing to a fever pitch, I’m starting to suspect Trump must be hiding a serious physical and/or mental health issue.

"Just a hunch based upon past behavior, of course."

Not that the demented elephant in the room is that hard to find. Have you heard the one about the e-boat and having to choose between electrocution and jumping a shark? That was a seriously whack performance.

"So I said, ‘So there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here, do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking? Water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?’."

Then there's the Project 2025 plan for "deconstructing the administrative state" and having a fascist takeover, put together by a who's who of MAGAs that all of a sudden Don the Con is denying all knowledge of. It slipped his mind? It beggars "incredible."

Independence Day, 2024

"We removed your post"

Not sure Facebook has seen fit to edit me before, but on this holiday celebrating freedom and stuff, they saw fit to remove a post from Aug. 25, 2023. That's pretty weird timing; who's going to see something from my news feed from 10 months ago anyway? According to their notice, it started like this:

"The one common theme in each of Trump's indictments is the central role that lawyers play in facilitating, excusing or covering up his malfeasance. The are his enablers, co-conspirators and now co...

Must've been co-defendants, eh, and then whatever else. It's not clear if they added quotation marks on my text, or if those were in the original, but that opening is all factual. I clicked the [ See why ] button. It shows me the same truncated snippet and declares that "It looks like you tried to gather sensitive information from others." And, "this goes against our Community Standards on cybersecurity." "See rule" shows me examples of things they don't allow:

• Trying to get access to someone's accounts or data, with or without permission
• Encouraging someone to give away their password or username
• Using phishing tactics to get someone's login info

Of course, I've never done or attempted to do any of those things. They have a more voluminous cybersecurity policy that I did not read in full just now. They warn me that repeatedly breaking our rules can cause more account restrictions, offer to show me (some of) How we made this decision, but they show me nothing of the sort, beyond mentioning "our technology." Which is to say, their hallucinatory algorithm did it. I can request review, and for that they ask me Why do you want another review? without giving me a chance to state the obvious: they haven't "reviewed" it yet, it was just their technology running amok, unsupervised.

I searched up the date: that was 11 days after the former guy and 18 others were indicted on 41 criminal counts in Georgia for their attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election in that state. (There were 30 other unindicted co-conspirators mentioned.) Aug. 25 was the deadline for defendants to surrender to authorities, and the day after Trump turned himself in and collected his mug shot.

On my blog for the date (note to self: look there first next time), the answer: I was quoting Marc Elias' Democracy Docket from the day before, A Stain Not Easily Removed. Maybe I shared his post, or a link to his post as well as excerpting it? If anyone was harvesting user data (I mean, other than Facebook), it could've been DD, I suppose. But that just isn't my line of business.

And now, 10 months on, the platoon of quisling Republican lawyers' damage pales in comparison to the damage done by quisling judges. Such is our lot swimming in the shit-flooded swamp of festering fascism.

The 4th of July Parade

Given our current batch of imprudent jurists, some of us are wondering if this will be the last Independence Day. I paged down through Facebook's infinite scroll to find a certain meme (that I'm sure I engaged with), but Team Zuck decided it was no longer relevant to me. Each time I got side-tracked with other interesting bits, the length (and top) of the scroll resets.

Infinity isn't what it used to be. I did note offerings from The Other 98% and Occupy Democrats, and worked that vein. Peter Falk's Columbo for the oldsters in the audience, "One more thing Mr. Roberts... the only reason why a person would need immunity is because he committed a crime, right?"

That is right, except for the relentless counter-meme gaslighting about how all the cases against our king-in-waiting were politically motivated. In the parade today, just as we and the Idaho Democratic Party parade-goers were walking in front of the reviewing stand, facing our Capitol, the gal announcer was saying something about how today was not about politics, before she announced that look there, the Idaho Republican Party had entered a float and so they would be getting a $2,000 prize to the charity of their choice. Maybe they'll give it to the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

But who knew that Independence Day was not about politics? Ah, here we go, it was yesterday, so "old news" already. "Tomorrow, we celebrate that we are not to be ruled by a King. Go figure." There are many others to choose from. Including (thanks for the reminder from The Other 98%) Justice Sotomayor's dissent in TRUMP v. UNITED STATES:

"...the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation.... Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

"Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

"Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law."

Occupy Dems quotes Timothy Snyder, whom more people should be listening to. (I would've seen the original, perhaps, but it's on Xitter, and I don't go there any more.) What he said:

"Unless Trump loses, America ends. The Supreme Court has made this clear. As has Trump himself. Over and over. Our foreign enemies know this, which is why the all, without exception, support Trump. We must ALL act, each of us doing what we can, trusting one another, making contact. If we each do, this Republic will go on, and this Republic will get better."

This morning's parade around downtown was a fairly jolly event. It helped that the weather was cool, and the parade relatively short. (We were queued and waiting about as long as we were walking when it was done; about an hour of each.) People were smiling, waving, waving flags, cheering, clapping, kids were getting candy and beads and bubbles, some National Guard equipment did minor damage to the street, horse dung was distributed, and the bagpipers were around some corner from us so we couldn't hear them. The Democrats' banner wished people a happy 4th of July. The Idaho GOP's banner (right behind us) declared WE ARE IDAHO.

We had FREEDOM TO READ and FREEDOM TO CHOOSE palmcards, the GOP's young pups at the front of the line chanted FREEDOM TO LIVE from time to time. The gal next to me, near the DMZ between the two groups wondered what they were chanting, I told her, and she told me the story of when she had two kids and was miscarrying her third pregnancy, and she needed a D&C, and was able to get one. Back in the day. I put my arm around her and said "I'm glad you're here." She thanked me, said "no one's said that to me before," and that she doesn't tell many people her story. It's a story that needs to be told before the freedom to live is nullified by a misbegotten meme.

2.July.2024

The beginning of the end

One of the most chilling aspects of what just happened, in the words of Marc Elias, talking to Brian Tyler Cohen:

"The Supreme Court knew exactly what they were doing, both with respect to impacting the pending cases, but also what it means if Donald Trump wins again. Donald Trump is saying he'll be a dictator for a day. Donald Trump is saying that he'll exact retribution. Donald Trump is working with Project 2025 and others to allow him to take over the entire executive branch...

"This is the result they wanted."

In Joyce Vance's July 2 reaction to the SCOTUS decision (Actually, Presidents Are Kings), she linked to a November, 2021 WaPo analysis, by William Howell and Terry Moe, that accurately forecasted where we were headed: Big government vastly expanded presidential power. Republicans use it to sabotage the administrative state. And here we are, fast-forwarded by a corrupt and compliant supreme court. With all the links in the WaPo original:

Presidents as threats to democracy

"The unitary executive theory provides a veneer of legal authority for an authoritarian-inclined president to engage in a range of anti-democratic behaviors. By the time George W. Bush had shown what the unitary executive could justify — torturing prisoners, surveilling ordinary citizens, ignoring congressional statutes — constitutional scholars were already pointing to presidents as the chief threat to American democracy.

"With the rise of right-wing populism and the election of Trump in 2016, this threat was magnified by the accompanying transformation of the Republican Party itself, with its elites in Washington and around the country abetting Trump’s authoritarian behavior in office, protecting him against charges of inciting an insurrection, embracing his dishonest “stolen election” claims, passing dozens of new laws to restrict voting, and more. The Republican Party is now an anti-democracy party, and its future presidents — empowered by the unitary executive theory — threaten the fundamentals of the U.S. democratic system."

Thom Hartmann's response headlines the end of all prosecutions of Trump, but that buries the lede. With his link, and emphasis:

"The parallels between last week’s Supreme Court decision and Germany’s Enabling Acts — which were similarly ratified by the German Supreme Court right after Hitler took power in March, 1933 — are startling.

"That collection of laws ruled that whatever Hitler said in the context of an “official act” instantly became the law of the land. For all practical purposes, as the nation’s leader he became immune from prosecution under the laws that applied to every other normal German or elected politician.

"In a very real sense, therefore, one could argue that the six corrupt, bought-and-paid-for Republicans on the Supreme Court just initiated the process of the Nazification of America...."

"We now live in a new America that would be unrecognizable to Washington, Jefferson, Paine, Hamilton, or Adams."

Update
Heather Cox Richardson: "Today the United States Supreme Court overthrew the central premise of American democracy: that no one is above the law. ... There is no historical or legal precedent for this decision."

raveling

Tom von Alten