Yesterday, TFG announced that he has received a target letter from Jack Smith regarding the January 6 insurrection. Let’s see, how long was it in the documents case between the target letter and the indictment dropping? Does anyone recall? Also yesterday, Michigan dropped indictments on 16 fake Trump** electors. Lots of people entering the “find out” phase.
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The Daily Beast – Closing Guantanamo Bay Prison Won’t Erase the Crimes Committed Against Muslims
Quote – Guantanamo was not created as a place for justice—especially not for the Muslim men detained behind its bars. Just as soon as these men were captured, they were labeled as suspected terrorists—thus precluding any ability for them to be seen as innocent until proven guilty. From the long years spent behind bars awaiting charges and convictions that never came, to torture, and even murder, the U.S. government has, at every conceivable step of the way, sought to entrench the perception of their inherent guilt. This perception has been shaped by the deployment of strategic narratives that have been carefully constructed and maintained to paint the men as irredeemable terrorists. Click through for article. The headlne is true. But it still needs to be closed. Just not forgotten. And, yes, there needs to be justice.
Letters from an American – July 17, 2023
Quote – “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” said Russell T. Vought, who ran Trump’s Office of Management and Budget and who now advises the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. They envision a “president” who cannot be checked by the Congress or the courts. Trump’s desire to grab the mechanics of our government and become a dictator is not new; both scholars and journalists have called it out since the early years of his administration. What is new here is the willingness of so-called establishment Republicans to support this authoritarian power grab. Behind this initiative is “Project 2025,” a coalition of more than 65 right-wing organizations putting in place personnel and policies to recommend not just to Trump, but to any Republican who may win in 2024. Project 2025 is led by the Heritage Foundation, once considered a conservative think tank, that helped to lead the Reagan revolution. Click through for details. I have read about all of this – stuff – piecemeal. This is the first time I have seen it all in one place, discussed by a person who is both competent and unafraid to put it all together and call it out – as well as the people behind it.
Yesterday, it became public that the Georgia Supreme Court has declined Trump**’s request to quash Fani Willis’s work and case. I’m not totally surprised at the decision, but I am at its speed – that was fast. Impressive. ALso yesterday, Judge Cannon advised the Trump** team that at today’s CIPA hearing, they need to be prepared to discuss trial datees seriously. It wasn’t exactly worded terribly forcibly, but it might be promising.
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The Daily Beast – Can We Please Make Presidential Elections Shorter and Less Stupid?
Quote – All Congress needs to do is add three dates to our campaign law: one for the earliest launch of campaign exploratory committees, one for the launch of campaigns proper, and one for a universal primary vote and caucus day. The crucial question, of course, is what those dates should be. I’d suggest a pretty aggressive schedule of a month for exploration, a month for primaries, and a month to pick the winner. Working back from the election in early November, we wouldn’t be in election mode until—at the earliest—Aug. 1, 2024. I’m practically salivating at the thought. Click through for full opinion. The length actually bothers me less than the stupidity. Keeping Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates under heavy scrutiny for two years prior to allowing them to take office would give the electorate time to find out what kind of people they really are – provided there was not so much stupidity. But I do realize that as things are now, revealing people’s identity is not likely to happen, let alone to break through voters’ rigid ideologies if it did happen.
Robert Reich – I knew Robert F. Kennedy, and you’re no Robert F. Kennedy
Quote – According to a poll last week by The Economist and YouGov, Kennedy Junior now has higher favorability numbers than either Biden or Trump…. Let me paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s remark to Dan Quayle during the vice-presidential debate in 1988: I knew Robert F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is no Robert F. Kennedy. I worked in Robert F. Kennedy’s Senate office in 1967. It was not a glamorous job…. But I did have a chance to get to see Bobby Kennedy close up. Click through for full article (as always click popup to keep going). Its a combination of fact, argument, and memoir which makes me feel how Bobby and Ethel would weep. (Jr.’s sister, who runs the RFK Foundation, has some choice words for him also.)
Yesterday was the first really hot day we have had this year. It reached 95°F in my area, and it’s often – usually, TBH – wormer in Pueblo than here, but that’s not predictable. However, I would not be surprised if it broke 100°F there. But the AC was working just fine, so I wasn’t uncomfortable.. Sometime in the last couple of weeks the facility had found some cards somewhere, so we played cribbage. The deck was not new, but it was complete, and it worked. Virgil returns all greetings. At home, I have finished the Nancy Pelosi Barbie but have no pictures yet. Doing an image search it appears I also have never posted any pics of the Kamala Harris Barbie. That at least I can do. RBG will take a lot longer because of the robe being satin, and the rayon thread being so fine it will take at least as many stitches as a sweater for a tall human, and I’ll have to be on constant guard against them sliding off and needing to be picked up – shiny rayon is slippery. And Michelle Obama will take longer yet because of the need for working in beads (I decided on the first inaugural.) Here’s hoping I live long enough!
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New York Times (no paywall) – A Federal Judge Asks: Does the Supreme Court Realize How Bad It Smells?
Quote – Reasonable people may disagree on this. The more important, uncontroversial point is that if there will not be formal ethical constraints on our Supreme Court — or even if there will be — its justices must have functioning noses. They must keep themselves far from any conduct with a dubious aroma, even if it may not breach a formal rule. The fact is, when you become a judge, stuff happens. Many years ago, as a fairly new federal magistrate judge, I was chatting about our kids with a local attorney I knew only slightly. As our conversation unfolded, he mentioned that he’d been planning to take his 10-year-old to a Red Sox game that weekend but their plan had fallen through. Would I like to use his tickets? Click through for full opinion. This article was gifted to me (and therefore to us) by one of the Substack authors I subscribe to. It’s not long, and it’s very well written. I hope it helps – but you can’t shame people who have no shame.
Crooks & Liars – Progress Action Fund: Ohio Republicans In Your Bedroom
Quote – As Ohio prepares to vote on August 8 on Ohio Issue 1 a Democratic super PAC put out this titillating ad. How it registers with voters remains to be seen. Generally speaking, voters giving away their rights for nothing isn’t that popular but Ohio Republicans have made a concerted effort to convince voters otherwise. Click through for story and ad. Yes, I know I’ve posted about this election in Ohio before, in both threads. But this ad – well.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I apologize for picking a topic which is presented in a podcast – but with MTG (and other) beginning to call for “deadly force” to “defend out borders,” darn it, it’s important. Let me quickly go over the material here which is being presented. First the podcast itself, which runs 38:37 including credits. then there is the accompanying column, which summarizes the three interviews with the three experts, but does not include all details.
The above is if you listen to the podcast on this page (or at all really.) But I tracked down the precise YouTube link to this particular podcast, and discovered, as I hoped, that it has CC. That means you can watch the captions as you listen, or alternatively you can click the three dots to the right of the “Save” button, select “show transcript” from the short dropdown menu, and quickly load the full transcript. It isn’t perfect – the name “Mend Mariwany” gets transcribed as “ment marijuani,” for instance, and I have no idea what he means by “and Medellin” except that it has to be French to be pronounced that way – but it is more detailed than the summary, by all means. I know, it’s annoying, but there really is a way to get the information, regardless of one’s abilities or preferences.
Around the world, borders between countries are getting tougher. Governments are making it more difficult to move, especially for certain groups of vulnerable people. This comes with a message, subtle or not: that people are moving to higher-income countries to take advantage of the welfare system, or the jobs of people already living there.
But evidence shows that much of what we think about migration – particularly those of us in Europe, North America and Australia – is wrong. Political narratives, often replicated in the media, shape the conversation and public attitudes toward migration.
As the researchers we speak to in this episode of The Conversation Weekly tell us, these narratives are not the full picture. Our interviewees explain what migration really looks like around the world, what drives people to uproot their lives and move, and how some countries in Africa are welcoming refugees.
Challenging the narrative
Heaven Crawley, a researcher at UN University Centre for Policy Research based in New York, has been interested in migration since the late 1980s. Then, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia caused what was often referred to as a refugee “crisis” in Europe.
Language like “crisis” has been a part of the discourse on migration for years. But Crawley thinks of this in a particular way: “It’s absolutely fair to say that there is a crisis associated with migration. It’s normally for the people who are actually moving, because they’re often in situations where there are huge inequalities in the right to move.”
Crawley shared that migration, while “intrinsic to our economies and the way we function”, is not actually the norm. Most people don’t migrate, and those who do mostly move within their country of origin.
She explained how, in Europe especially, perceptions of those who do migrate are often clouded by a narrative that people who move, legally, for work are “good” migrants. Conversely, people who move without visa permission or through clandestine means are viewed as “bad” migrants.
In reality, people moving for any reason is usually a force for good for the country they move to and the people they encounter, Crawley suggested. “People are coming to realise that actually, migration can be very positive in terms of their day-to-day lives, who they mix with, who their family are married to.”
When people decide to migrate, whether seeking economic opportunities or to escape violence or persecution, there are a number of factors influencing where they go. Valentina Di Iasio, a research fellow at the University of Southampton in the UK, has researched what makes people choose one country over another.
Di Iasio and her colleague Jackie Wahba wanted to investigate the theory of the “welfare magnet”, that people choose to migrate to countries where the welfare state is more generous.
But looking specifically at asylum seekers, they found that the strongest “pull factor” attracting people to particular countries is social networks. In other words, it’s not about the economy or welfare state, it’s about “having the possibility to rely on a community that is already there and already established”.
Di Iasio also noted that many countries have policies preventing asylum seekers from working when they first arrive. But she said these policies often backfire, both for people arriving, and the host country’s overall economy: “If you ban asylum seekers from employment, this leads people … to become more dependent on public spending in the short term, and this is not good for anyone.”
Migration in the global south
It’s impossible to understand the global picture of migration if we only look at specific routes – for example, from India to the UK, or from Mexico to the US. According to Crawley, about one third of global migration happens within the global north (Europe, North America, Australia and parts of Asia), one third happens within the global south (South America, Africa and parts of Asia), and the remaining third is between the two.
With that in mind, we spoke to Christopher Changwe Nshimbi, a researcher at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, about a region with frequent movement across borders. He studies the relationship between migration, development and regional integration (countries forming economic and trade relationships with each other) in Africa.
Nshimbi said that more open borders are beneficial to regional integration in Africa. They allow people to move where their skills are needed, and to send remittances (money) back home to family, often within the same region.
And yet, some countries are tightening their migration policies. Part of this, Nshimbi explained, is even influenced by attitudes in the global north. For example, development funding from the European Union is often tied to efforts to curb migration from Africa to the EU. Nshimbi said that when migrants are seen as a threat to high-income European countries: “The tendency seems to be to try and influence the movement … of Africans within the African continent.”
But he said this approach is misguided, and that funding development in low-income countries “doesn’t necessarily translate into people stopping migrating”. In some cases, this funding to stop migration has been used in a way that causes instability and violence – and ultimately, more migration.
Looking toward the future
Nshimbi is now researching how the effects of climate change, such as extreme weather patterns, are leading people to migrate. While this will present challenges for governments, Nshimbi said the history of migration on the continent gives him reason to be optimistic.
He said he wonders why European countries talk about refugee “crises” when countries in Africa regularly host many more refugees. Citing the example of Uganda, he said: “There are shining examples on the continent of countries that, though poor, host large numbers of refugees.”
Again referencing Uganda, Nshimbi said that some countries are used to hosting refugees, providing them with land and resources so they can participate in local economies until they move elsewhere: “A poor country, but they take care of them.”
Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly to learn more about migration around the world, what factors drive people to move, and what some countries in Africa are doing to welcome refugees.
This episode was written and produced by Avery Anapol and Mend Mariwany, who is also the executive producer of The Conversation Weekly. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, it’s sad but not really surprising to learn that virtually no one, anywhere in the world, has a government which unanimously grasps the value which migration provides to society – any society. And it is much easier to piggy-back on people’s perfectly normal fear of the unknown and turn that into bigotry than it is to actually research, learn, and turn that learning into education which produces welcoming attitudes and thereby helps everyone. Helping everyone attracts neither big donor money not votes.
Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “I Lombardi alla prima crociata” (the Lombards in the First Crusade), his next opera published after “Nabucco,” which I only bring up because it’s the one whihich contains “The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” which pretty much became an international incident. “I Lombardi” contains a chorus a bit reminiscent of the Nabucco one, but which, though it was aso tremendously popular in its day, did not come down through the centuries (well, almost two centuries) as the first one did. I’ve heard of I Lombardi, but till now I had never heard it. There are no big names in this production, and I’ll need to be careful not to tell Virgil today that there exist two recordings of it with José Carreras, because there is no way I can send him any audio, and it would just be tormenting him. Being early Verdi, the music is as much bel canto as it is what we expect to hear from Verdi. He was getting closer to finding his voice, but not quite there yet. Certainly well worth a listen. Off to see Virgil now; I’ll comment when I get home.
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The 19th – The first over-the-counter birth control pill has been approved by the FDA. What will it cost?
Quote – Perrigo is planning to introduce some form of coupon program for people who want to buy Opill but cannot afford the cost. The company offered few details as to how that program will work in practice, so it’s hard to say how significantly it could expand access to the drug. Depending on Opill’s price, health insurance may choose to cover the pill, said Cynthia Cox, a vice president at KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization. But given how new the drug will be, and the availability of other prescription-based generic options, it’s hard to imagine many plans will voluntarily do so. Currently, the emergency contraception Plan B pill is only covered when prescribed by a doctor. Cox also agrees that it’s not clear that any existing federal law — including the ACA — could be interpreted to guarantee coverage of an over-the-counter birth control drug. Click through for story. Good thing for me I don’t need it, since there’s just about no way I would do anything at the same time every day. I would suggest that, regardless what insurance does, FSAs and HSAs I am confident will cover it. Normally that doesn’t make it free, but it does make it tax-free.
