Glenn Kirschner – At his NY fraud trial, Trump sits quietly in court then, during breaks, steps to the cameras & LIES!
The Lincoln Project – Faith
Thom Hartmann – To Stay In Power These Politicians Will Take Away This Fundamental Right…
John Fugelsang – Breaking News: The Trump China Tapes! (a tribute to a certain comedy duo)
Teenager Sneaks Lost Puppy Into His House When His Parents Fall Asleep
Beau – Let’s talk about Rudy’s trouble in Georgia….
All of the legal vloggers (the usual suspects?) are off ba;lance just now. This is from last Friday, but it’s all I could find that was short enough to share, and it’s not without interest.
Department of Justice – This Week at Justice – October 6, 2023
The Lincoln Project – In Memory McCarthy
MSNBC – Hayes: ‘I can’t believe this needs to be said,’ but the GOP is to blame for the GOP chaos
John Fugelsang – “The Way of the Sidekick” with Ed McMahon
Guy Sees Puppies Dumped On Busy Highway
Beau – Let’s talk about Biden, walls, and laws…. (There is also a follow up to this here – I don’t have space for both, but the full picture really needs both)
Yesterday, the radio opera was brand spanking new – the world premier (which was recorded, and that’s what we heard) was within the last three months – in July, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. The composer was Sir George Benjamin, and the title is “Picture a Day like This.” The premise is that a woman whose child dies is offered a chance at a miracle if she can find one person who is truly happy and cut a button from that person’s sleeve. I was not familiar with any of the singers, but the composer was, and wrote it specifically for their voices. There is no way of knowing at a premier whether or not an opera is going to “take off” – become part of the repertory – but still, it feels like listening to history – being present when history is made. I found it easy to listen to. It’s in a single act with seven scenes, and runs under an hour and a quarter (the program was almost an hour and a quarter but that includes all the opening summary and credits and closing credits.) It was a good day for the opera to be a short one, because later in the day I was able to watch and listen to Margaret Atwood reading her story “Patient and Impatient Griselda,” loosely based on “Patient Griselda” from the Decameron but told as it should have happened, through a narrator, an alien who looks like an octopus. It was Zoomed thanks to Theater of War productions, as part of their new domestic violence project. So I ended up spending almost three hours chained to internet entertainment after all. (I did get my next 2 weeks of pills bottled, though.) The House also got something done – voted to delay a shutdown for a month and a half. Let’s see how fast the Senate can get it to Joe to sign. I decided to tell “A Tale of Two Jamies” today. I’m very glad Raskin is on our side. Dimon, of course, is on no one’s side but his own.
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Short Takes –
Robert Reich – When Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, phoned me
Quote – So I want to talk about something else that’s brewing that could become an equally large problem: another banking crisis — and how powerful monied interests on Wall Street are opposing attempts to ward it off. When interest rates rise as fast as the Fed has raised them, banks have to pay more for deposits or borrowing. But what the banks earn on their loans and bonds they own hasn’t risen nearly as fast. This is causing a huge squeeze. With the shift to working from home, commercial real estate is a disaster — and another giant headache for the banks. Banks may not have enough capital on hand to weather an economic storm. The near failure of several middle-sized banks last March shows the continued frailty of the financial system.
Click through for narrative. I’m not a banker myself, but the Reich on the left makes it uncomplicated to see what’s going on. I don’t think we should be expected to bail out these jerks – AGAIN – when it can be avoided.
AlterNet – Raskin rips GOP over impeachment inquiry: ‘Flying monkeys on a mission for the wicked witch’
Quote – Congressman Raskin, a former constitutional law professor who served as the lead prosecutor for the second impeachment of Donald Trump, told the Committee, “like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump’s followers in the House now carry his messages out to the world: shut down the government, shutdown the prosecutions. But the cultmaster has another command for his followers, which brings us here today.”
Click through for details. The first rule of insulting effectively is, don’t call them whay you hate most. Call them what they hate most.” That’s no doubt why so many Democrats are picking up on calling MAGA “children” (with or without qualifying adjectives.) I doubt whether “Wicked Witch” and “Flying Monkeys” will do it – but “Cultmaster” might hit hard. The very best insults get picked up and used over and over until eventually they change meaning- “villain” today, for instance, has only a shadow of its original punch when it meant “country bumpkin” – including all the attributes that go with that stereotye: poorly dressed, poorly washed, poorly mannered, and poorly educated.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump urges Republican to shut down government to STOP the prosecutions against him.
Thom Hartmann – Will You Vote For Puppy Killers? Why The GOP Is Betting On It
MSNBC – A general reporting to an unstable president’: Report exposes challenges for Milley under Trump
Farron Balanced – Terrified Trump Is Asking His Lawyers How Bad Prison Will Be For Him
Rescue Cat Lives In Liquor Store
Beau – Schumer, Tuberville, and turnarounds….
Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s media interviews, his continued lies & the need for a gag order to protect the jury pool.
The Lincoln Project – Senile
PoliticsGirl – What is Going on with our Media?
Brent Terhune – They Kicked Lauren Boebert out of Beetlejuice
Puppy Who’s Been Through So Much Loves Her New Family
Beau – Let’s talk about Susanna Gibson and Virginia….
Yesterday, Peter Navarro was found guilty of contempt of Congress. Yay! Now we just need a decent sentence. Numerous other stuff happened in various court filings in multiple cases also. I won’t even try to list them all. If I find a comprehesive list, i’ll definitely pass it on.
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Robert Hubbell – One more time with feeling: Ignore the polls!
Quote – [M]ajor media outlets and respected commentators treat the polls as if they are meaningful and predictive. They are neither. Instead, they are clickbait wrapped in statistics that misleads by confusing precision and truth. If someone tells you that the universe will end in 3,198,642,971.25 years, that is a “precise” prediction. Whether the prediction is “true” is a different question entirely. So, too, with the polling…. For those of you tired of reading my response to such polls, I apologize for the repetition. You may want to set aside this newsletter and start afresh with tomorrow’s newsletter. To those of you who need reassurance, read on! Because we will see many similar polls over the next fourteen months, I will use the WSJ poll as an example of how pollsters can distort the truth and why we should generally ignore the polls.
Click through for article. It appears that the stakes just keep getting higher and higher, which makes it very tempting to follow polls closely. But he makes good points. Also, it’s not really possible to think productively or do the things that need to be done, and that’s even if the polls are in good faith. I recently saw a story about a poll published by the Wall Street Journal hich came up with a low approval rate for Biden. What the publication did not include, and that the author of the article critiquing it did, was that the participants included two Republicans for every Democrat polled (and a sample size of only about 1,000.) Remember this poll for tomorrow’s OT. This is Substack so you’ll need to do a little clicking to read it all.
HuffPost – A 2024 Trump-Biden Rematch Isn’t Boring. It’s Something Entirely New.
Quote – The likely 2024 Biden-Trump contest should be viewed less as a rerun and more as the rare reboot that actually ups the stakes: Compared with each man’s first successful run for the presidency, both are taking positions that repudiate past governing commitments of the American state in ways that we probably haven’t seen before. In pursuit of a national hand in economic policymaking, Biden is rhetorically attacking the neoliberal paradigm that has dominated American domestic and foreign policy for the past 40 years. His Democratic predecessors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did so too at times, but Biden is also enacting actual policies that turn the page on this era. Trump, on the other hand, is running to turn the presidency into something akin to a monarchy. He has deemphasized the old conservative “tax and spend” discourse in favor of an all-out attack on government depth. Yes, he still embraces cutting taxes for the rich and slashing government spending. But the policy that he and his allies are emphasizing most in pursuit of conservative aims is placing the administrative state and its 2 million-plus workers, including law enforcement and investigatory bodies, under his direct control by gutting civil service protections and the independence of agencies. If you can’t cut the size of government, you can at least make it bend to your wishes, or so the thinking goes.
Click through for (IMO well-founded) opinion. The thought that an election, or any other event, upon which one’s life depends, could possibly considered boring, simply boggles my mind. But here we are.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, quiet again, and a little cooler. My big project was getting trash and recyclables out to my carts so that today I can put them out for pickup tomorrow. That’s not what I consider a rewarding job. No new object to admire. No new space to walk in or put things in (the trash/recyc containers are just as big emoty as ther are full). Changing a light bulb at least provides more light. But taking out discard has to be done, or they will take over everything. I did get it done before sunset, though. The recyc cart is going to be heavy today – I may pull instead of push, but it’s still heavy. The trash cart will be no problem.
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The Daily Beast – Ignoring Bad Faith Right-Wingers Doesn’t Work Anymore. Debate or Debunk Them.
Quote – I had seen this type of attitude so many times before. My earlier career was as a conservative political media consultant. I spent years trying to get Republicans to think seriously about public policy and be respectful of people who weren’t straight white Christians. Finally, I realized it was a doomed effort because the current GOP is more interested in identity politics than in serving the public. I decided to critique Republicans from the outside rather than the inside. I took a major financial hit as a result, but I enjoy having a clean conscience.
Click through for article. This may work on those who are less practiced, and it’s probably worth trying. But those seasoned operative who just keep moving the goalposts so smoothly that it’s almost indetectable are not so easily debunked before an audience of cultists.
ProPublica – Why the Destruction of a Black Neighborhood Matters to Me — and Should Matter to Everyone
Quote – As a high school sprinter in Virginia’s Tidewater region, I often participated in meets at Christopher Newport University’s Freeman Center, which had one of the few indoor tracks in the area. I won 500-meter races against top runners, and my high school was team champion. Track and field was a huge part of my identity. I looked forward to crossing the Monitor-Merrimac bridge over the James River to Newport News, and I saw the opportunity to display my skill at Christopher Newport as a way to impress colleges and earn an athletic scholarship. It wouldn’t be until 20 years later that I understood the underlying irony. The construction of Christopher Newport, where Black athletes like me competed alongside our white counterparts, had displaced Black homeowners whose hopes and aspirations were dashed by racism.
Click through for investigation. Republicans have no inerest in protecting black, brown, LGBTQIA children from anything whatsoever. Their only interest is in protecting straight white children – males from anythng which might undermine their privilege, and females from anything which might interfere with their subservience to patriarchy.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, Ohio’s victory was all over the news (as it should be!) Steve Schmidt in his Substack quoted the same Garfield speech which Heather Cox Richardson quoted Sunday (and which I quoted from her quote on Tuesday.) Steve quoted slightly different parts of it, and between them, they made me want to look up the whole speech. And I found it quickly in the Library of Congress. Garfield, besides being an anti-racist, was an interesting fellow. He was not just ambidestrous, but “could write a sentence in Latin with one hand while simultaneously writing the same sentence in Greek with the other.” (The History Channel thinks that may be a slight exaggeration, but whatever he did, it definitely impressed people.) When one looks at all the Americans who have been assassinated, and I don’t mean Presidents only, but other leaders, I have to wonder how many of these killings were done for money, and how much of that money came from greedy plutocratss. I’m not a historian, and I’m not a trained researcher, but I can look into history as far as a couple thousand years and see at least some assasinations which were quite convenient for the wealthy of the time. I wish someone who is a historian would take this on.
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HuffPost – Alabama Boaters Charged After Attack On Black Co-Captain Spurred Riverfront Brawl
Quote – [A] massive brawl in Montgomery, Alabama, … began when white boaters attacked the Black co-captain of a riverboat…. The incident began at around 7 p.m. on Saturday after the riverboat, The Harriott II, attempted to dock in its usual spot but was blocked by a pontoon boat. The riverboat, which was carrying more than 200 passengers, waited nearly 40 minutes for the smaller boat to move, Albert said…. Multiple videos show the moment [Damien] Pickett[, the co-captain of The Harriott II] is attacked, which led to an all-out brawl as others, including workers with The Harriott II, came to Pickett’s defense. That included a 16-year-old identified as Aaren, who was seen on video jumping into the water and swimming to Pickett to defend him.
Click through for details – such as they are. I have to say it’s nice to here that the white attackers were arrested and charged (although – misdemeanor?) in Alabama, particularly after other recent news from there. Illegal parking on land is problematic enough – illegla parking on water – well, let me put it this way. Boaters who aren’t aware that harbors and docks have assigned parking for good reason may not be competent to be on a boat at all. I might just add that earlier reports, including the video showing Aaren, identified Pickett as a “deckhand.” I mean, either way, he was doing his job – but thats a heck of a thing to call a captain.
The Daily Beast – ‘Green Jim Crow’ Is a Ridiculous Insult to Black Communities
Quote – Black and Brown communities face the brunt of failed climate action and lackluster environmental policy. But there are those who believe it’s actually government efforts to ease the effects of calamitous effects of climate change that are to blame for the hard times of lower income communities. They’re calling it “Green Jim Crow.”… Though there are some compelling arguments in [self-described left-leaning environmental and civil rights lawyer Jennifer] Hernandez’s study—such as the proposed new housing map designed to increase the use of public transit only serves to reinforce segregative housing policies of the past—the premise of the idea is simply wrong.
Click through for article. I hadn’t heard the term, but, since everything with Republicans and racists is projection, I can’t claim to be surprised. This verbiage was bound to be picked up by them, since it solves nothing.
Food For Thought
