August 21, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court temporarily blocked Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, on Sunday from testifying in the investigation into efforts by ... Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. The appeals court instructed a lower court to determine whether Mr. Graham should be exempt from answering certain kinds of questions, given his status as a federal lawmaker. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit gives a temporary reprieve to Mr. Graham, who has been fighting prosecutors' efforts to bring him before a special grand jury.... Mr. Graham has argued, among other things, that he should be exempt from testifying under the U.S. Constitution's speech and debate clause, which prohibits asking lawmakers about their legitimate legislative functions. The appeals court laid out further steps on Sunday that must be taken before Mr. Graham gives any testimony." ~~~

     ~~~ According to a Politico story by Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney, two of the judges were Trump appointees & one was a Clinton appointee. "The appeals court called its Sunday morning action a 'limited remand' and said the subpoena would essentially be put on hold while the possibility of constraints on the scope of questioning of Graham is hashed out at the district court." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm sorry, but "Throw out a bunch of votes in your Democratic-leaning counties" is not a legislative function of the U.S. Congress.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Last Days of the Donald. Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: Donald Trump's "unwillingness to let go of power, including refusing to return government documents collected while he was in office, has led to a potentially damaging, and entirely avoidable, legal battle that threatens to engulf the former president and some of his aides. Although the White House Counsel's Office had told Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump's last chief of staff, that the roughly two dozen boxes worth of material in the residence needed to be turned back to the archives, at least some of those boxes, including those with the Kim [Jong-un] letters and some documents marked highly classified, were shipped to Florida. There they were stored at various points over the past 19 months in different locations inside Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump's members-only club, home and office, according to several people briefed on the events." The article goes on to describe what staff did & mostly did not do to preserve documents strewn around the offices Trump used. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: One of the photos accompanying the article is of a couple of young men in suits, each carrying two unsealed boxes out of the White House, on Trump's last day in the White House. If, by chance, there are officers guarding the boxes, those officers are out-of-shot. Are there classified docs in those boxes? Do these young men have the appropriate security clearance to handle classified docs? I don't know. But unless the contents of those boxes in nothing but tschotskes (Russian nesting dolls?) that are the personal property of Donald & Melanie, there is a security breach AND a theft of public property happening in plain sight. Moreover, once the clock strikes noon and Joe Biden takes the oath of office, Donald Trump has no right to view any classified docs that might be in the boxes. ~~~

~~~ Marie: As we read the many diverting stories about what Trump is now calling the "break-in" at Mar-a-Lardo, we should keep a couple of things in mind. The first is that the documents & other items Trump stole from the White House, he stole from us. The second is this: Donald Trump does not have a right to even look at secret government documents, much less to keep them "in different locations inside Mar-a-Lago." Trump never had security clearance per se. Nobody vets the president to "clear" him for access to secret material; rather, every POTUS or POTUS* can view classified documents by virtue of his Constitutional position. But the day a president leaves office, that right disappears. In modern times, every past president could receive classified briefings when and if he needed them, say, when he was planning to travel abroad. Every past president, that is, except Donald Trump. President Biden "took the unprecedented step early in his term of cutting off Trump's access to intelligence briefings, a courtesy previously extended to all former presidents." In a November 2020 article, Ken Dilanian of NBC News surveys some former intelligence officials who explain why Biden would cut off Trump's access to briefings.

Little mike pence
Sat on a fence,
Eating his humble pie.
He stuck in his thumb
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a good boy am I." ~~~

~~~ Thomas Beaumont of the AP: "Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he didn't take any classified information with him when he left office."

Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "Donald Trump is expected to seek the appointment of a special court official to determine whether materials that the FBI seized from his Florida resort can be used in a criminal investigation, according to his lead attorney Jim Trusty and two sources familiar with the matter. The motion would be the first formal legal action by the former president after federal agents last week confiscated about 30 boxes of highly-sensitive documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort in connection with an investigation into the unauthorized retention of government secrets. Trump would argue that the court should appoint a special master -- usually a retired lawyer or judge -- because the FBI potentially seized privileged materials in the search, and the justice department should not itself decide what it can use in its investigation, the sources said."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "An associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani ... tried to pass a message to Mr. Trump asking him to grant Mr. Giuliani a 'general pardon' and the Presidential Medal of Freedom just after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a new book. The associate, Maria Ryan, also pleaded for Mr. Giuliani to be paid for his services and sent a different note seeking tens of thousands of dollars for herself, according to the book ... by Andrew Kirtzman, who had covered Mr. Giuliani as a journalist. The New York Times obtained an advance copy of the book, which is set to be released next month. Bernard B. Kerik, Mr. Giuliani's close adviser and the New York City police commissioner for part of his time as mayor, stopped the letter from getting to Mr. Trump. And it is unclear if Mr. Giuliani, who ... has repeatedly insisted he did not seek a pardon shielding him from potential charges, was involved in the request."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Blake Hounshell & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: Chris Stirewalt was part of the Fox "News" team that called Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020, much earlier the AP & other networks did. The call infuriated Donald Trump & his supporters, and Fox subsequently laid of Stirewalt. Now Stirewalt has written a book in which "he describes how, over his 11 years at the network, he witnessed Fox feeding its viewers more and more of what they wanted to hear, and little else. This kind of affirming coverage got worse during the years that Trump was president, he says, and turbocharged the reaction of Trump supporters once Fox called Arizona for Biden.... Stirewalt ... [takes] particular aim at Tucker Carlson...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It occurs to me that the country's two Biggest Whiney Babies -- TuKKKer & Trumper -- both have little whiney-baby voices. Maybe there's a reason for that. Back in the good ole days when men were men & so forth, America's reprobates looked to fake he-men like John Wayne & Charlton Heston as their role models & fake heroes. Our generation(s) of reprobates seems to prefer Whiney Babies. These 21st-century reprobates don't dream of charging up San Juan Hill or around the Colosseum or whatever; they would rather just bitch & moan in comfort. Pathetic.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. In Ever-so Loco Parentis. Steven Walker of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: "Hundreds of dictionaries earmarked for donation from a Venice [Florida] Rotary Club sit collecting dust, precluded from being given to Sarasota County students.... Ahead of the 2022-23 school year, the Sarasota County School District stopped all donations and purchases of books for school libraries while it waits for additional guidance from the Florida Department of Education about how to navigate the effects of new education laws.... The freeze comes as HB 1467 took effect July 1, requiring all reading material in schools to be selected by an employee with a valid education media specialist certificate. The district was still looking to hire three media specialists to vet books as of Friday." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In yesterday's thread, Akhilleus expressed somewhat bemused amazement that schools would ban dictionaries the Rotary Club had donated. But Akhilleus is just not thinking this through. I mean, what if some preciously kid was looking up "trans-por-ta-tion" in his Rotary Club dictionary and came across "transgender"? Oh, my. Or an innocent child was looking for "radio" when he came upon "racism"? Or "koala bear" only to find "Koran"? Dictionaries are subtle but dangerous woke indoctrination tools, and school districts are so right to protect the children. From words.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Sunday are here: "The daughter of the key Putin adviser Alexander Dugin referred to as 'Putin's brain' was killed in a car explosion overnight in the Moscow region, according to Russia's main investigative authority, which said it was opening a criminal murder investigation. Daria Dugina, 29, was reportedly driving her father's car from a festival they attended when the vehicle erupted in flames, per Russia's state-run media outlet Tass. Dugina was sanctioned by the United States as part of a list of Russian elites and Russian intelligence-directed disinformation outlets, alongside her father who has been designated for sanctions since 2015. Drone attacks, including one on the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet, were reported in Crimea on Saturday.... Ukraine paraded defunct Russian tanks through the streets of Kyiv on Saturday. The display of 'rusty Russian metal is a reminder to all dictators how their plans may be ruined by a free and courageous nation,' Ukraine's armed forces said."

Marina Lopes of the Washington Post: "One of the worst droughts on record in Europe has parched the continent's major waterways, revealing relics such as a long-submerged village and World War II-era battleships. This week, low water levels on the Serbian section of the Danube River exposed a graveyard of sunken German warships filled with explosives and ammunition. The vessels, which emerged near the port town of Prahovo, were part of a Nazi Black Sea fleet that sank in 1944 while fleeing Soviet forces. More ships are expected to be found lodged in the river's sandbanks, loaded with unexploded ordnance.... In July, a Roman bridge built during the first century B.C. was uncovered in the Tiber River, and ... earlier this week, the unrelenting heat wave that left the Iberian Peninsula drier than any time in the last 1,200 years also exposed dozens of prehistoric stones [known as the 'Spanish Stonehenge' --] in a reservoir in central Spain."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

The story about ‘Merica’s Mayor (*snicker-snicker*), Rudy Giuliani, begging for a blanket pardon from Trump for all his criming includes an extra tidbit that has come to bite that big fat Trumpy ass. Rudes was also begging that Fatty pay him what he was owed, or at least what Runny Hair Dye Man claimed he was owed. I’m pretty sure I would be disinclined to pay a whack job like Giuliani for worthless legal advice, but he was Trump’s barking little doggie in trying to overturn the election, which has lost him his license in New York, so there’s that.

The larger problem is that Fatty is a cheapskate who doesn’t pay his bills, an even bigger issue now that he is being investigated by about a hundred different agencies. Trump has long bragged, as is his wont, about all the world class law firms and famous attorneys fighting over who will have the honor of representing him. But au contraire, fat ass.

According to MSNBC, the Orange Monster is currently “…represented by a legal defense team that includes a Florida insurance lawyer who’s never had a federal case, a past general counsel for a parking-garage company, and a former host from a propagandistic cable outlet.” That doesn’t include the night court chick from Fuckaloopa, Arkansas I mentioned yesterday. Oh, he might find a couple of recent graduates from the Sidney Powell Kraken School of “Law”, but he ain’t gettin’ no Clarence Darrow.

Big firms are giving Fat Ass the big thumbs down. Why? For one, he refuses to pay up. Also, he lies. All the time. And he’ll expect them to lie too. But that shit gets you disbarred. Just ask Rudy, or Sidney. On top of that, he’s the client from hell. He doesn’t do what attorneys tell him to do, even if it’s in his best legal interest. He knows more than anyone.

So now, cheapie can weepy.

[Victoria]

In the WaPo article about the emerging things on river beds, there is a link to drone images of the “Spanish Stonehenge.” From above, one can see that the very large edge is a perfect circle. At first the stones inside the outer circle seem imperfect - not like other henges at all. But then I realized it does very closely resemble ….. a uterus. Check it out.

[Marie Burns]

@Victoria: I did, and I do see it now, though I would not have done so had you not pointed it out. IF the ancient people who built this stone circle understood the function of the uterus, it would make sense that they would worship the it as a Mother-Earthy symbol.

BTW, I also found out that you can sign up for free access to Reuters on-line, so I did that. Reuters went subscriber-paywall several months ago, and I haven't used it since then, but I'll go back to it now. The sign-up, as is often the case, is a bit of a hassle.

[P.D. Pepe]

How the phrase, THE AMERICAN DREAM, became a partisan battleground. Watch this video the Times has put together that illustrates this message. Listen to Fatty extolling this dream at one point, then later telling us "The American Dream is dead!"––emphasis on the word, "dead."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/us/politics/republicans-american-dream.html

Thinking, thinking till my thinker was sore, I pondered this question––dead or alive? I came to the conclusion since we have never had equality for all, the phrase is just as it says–––a dream---something to strive for. James Baldwin told us what that dream meant for Blacks and when Obama was elected we hoped James was wrong; he wasn't. Given today's political environment the dream is more of a nightmare yet at the same time one of the most important bills has passed that puts a hell of a lot of reality into that thing called a dream. So I'd say we are where we have always been–––a work in progress.

[P.D. Pepe]

I was reading an essay on Nora Ephron who became a symbol of snappy romances (except on the script for "Heartburn" based on her disastrous marriage to Carl Berstein, he of Watergate fame). Her real fame, however, was how words could bring people together––-or drive them apart. Her Sally, not one to "lay down"easily, used words like the following to convey no compromise, no substitutes.

“I’d like the pie heated, and I don’t want the ice cream on the top, I want it on the side, and I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream but only if it’s real. If it’s out of a can, then nothing.”

And I was thinking how this kind of thing works in politics, not only that words matter but how to work with those that for whatever reason won't budge or change their stance even a little bit. We saw the struggle with Man-chin and Sin-a-ma and a different kind of struggle with Bernie who went the way of doing what was best that was possible––he'd go for canned whipped cream if he had to just to get part of the pie. The GOP doesn't even figure here––they are the ones who fake organisms ––-and make people say, "I want what they have" cuz it sounds so RIGHT. and looks so bold. The ignorance of many of these republicans who are running for office astounds me––McConnell came out of his shell the other day and worry beads were dripping down his cheeks–––he sees the danger of these nincompoops messing up their taking over the senate or the House. Did he say, "not everyone can get the best piece of pie"? One can only dream.

[Victoria]

@Marie: We have to remember that most archaeological sites have been led by men. But it's entirely possible that the older populations were matriarchal, not patriarchal at all. However, if only men look at the stones, on the level or from above, what is in plain sight would not be immediately understood. Chatalhuyyuk (spelling is not the Turkish spelling) was one of the first discovered ancient cities, and it was definitely matriarchal. And, regarding recognizing the function of the uterus, let's just say that midwives have existed forever, and Caesar definitely was not the first caesarian delivery.
I just had that thought when I saw the site. My perspective is a woman's perspective and doesn't have to be correct. But this type of input is not welcome in many dig sites. It strikes me that this thing of men not being interested in women's insights is having a terrible destructive effect on women today.

[Patrick]

The Speech Clause:
"They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place."

A constructionist, originalist, or textualist will find no reason to prevent US senators from being subpoenaed as a witness by a Federal grand jury. The recent cases involving senators' speech immunity all affirm that political activity is not covered by the S&D Clause. It seems pretty clear that those two Trumpy judges failed their good citizen test and showed their partisan asses at the same time.

[Marie Burns]

@Patrick: Yes, the last time I read the Speech & Debate Clause was probably in connection with Lindsey's original get-out-of-subpoena attempt. It seemed to me at the time that if Lindsey had wanted to invoke the clause, he would have had to go into the Senate while it was in session, gained access to the floor, turned on his mic, called up Raffensperger and said something like, "Listen, Brad, we want you to throw out all of the ballots in counties with the highest failure to match signatures to envelopes. And I'm trying to figure out what kind of federal legislation we can pass to make sure that you and other states do that every time."

Of course, Lindsey's testimony might be less necessary if there were a public recording of what he said to Raffensperger.

[Marie Burns]

@Victoria: Yes, matriarchal societies make a great deal of sense when you consider that, until recently, it was easy to know who the natural mother of a child was and nearly impossible to know for certain who the father was. So any society in which heredity governed or influenced social status would benefit from a matriarchal orientation. I suppose that's a reason some religions, like Judaism, adopted the maternal line of descent to "prove" heritage.

I mean, imagine the bad vibes if a group figured out their king was the mason's son & not the former king's son.

[Ken Winkes]

Back in time to squeeze in this thought about the missing manly men of yore:

Think the absence of such in their leadership and pet talking heads is what has the scurrying and scurrilous Her-Haw in such a state about "masculinity" and/or why the camo-ed and tattooed Right Wing militia groups (mostly males, it seems) have adopted the deliberately scruffy look they think that along with their big trucks and guns makes them look tough?