Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s danger continues: he posts Obama’s home address; armed Trump supporter heads to the address
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – July 3, 2023
Robert Reich – Republicans Don’t Own Patriotism
Parody Project – Court for Sale
Sister Cats Take Turns Being Moms To Their Eight Kittens (I’m not sure whether they are blood sisters or “frosted” sisters – Dodo tends to “humanize” relationships)
Beau – Let’s talk about Chris Christie’s campaign….
Yesterday (I’m calling it yesterday because it came in after midnight, but she probably wrote it the day before), Joyce Vance took on the subject of “legacy admissions.” Legacy admissions refers to preference given to children of alumni (and alumnae.) But she also points the three other categories which receive preferential consideration: children of big donors, children of faculty and staff, and athletes. Of course one thinks “football,” but, at least in the “ivy league”, most athletic admissions are for sports not played in minority high schools (e.g., fencing.) This essentially comes down to money. Not only athletes, but also faculty and staff are recruited, and those policies are a recruiting tool. And in the case of big donors and legacies (small donors) the connection is even more obvious. I knew that private schools did these things, but I wasn’t aware it had come to the point where state colleges and universites were so starved for cash that they needed to adopt the practices. Another reason the far right wants to abolish the Department of Education.
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Daily Beast – This Melting Planet May Reveal How Venus Became a Hellscape—and Why Earth Was Spared
Quote – Venus, the second planet from the sun, isn’t just Earth’s neighbor. It’s roughly the same size as Earth—and rocky, like Earth is. But while Earth evolved into the wet, breathable planet we know and enjoy, Venus apparently got so hot that its oceans evaporated. Poisonous carbon dioxide vapor then blanketed the planet, trapping the heat and making everything even hotter: a process of runaway global warming that gives climatologists here on Earth nightmares. Why Venus got hot and toxic while Earth stayed relatively cool and liveable (for now) is one of the big mysteries of the solar system—and one with immediate implications for us as we pump more and more carbon into Earth’s atmosphere and risk our own greenhouse-gas calamity.
Click through for details. I think it’s safe to say that no carbon life form is ever going to survive on Venus any time soon. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to know how it got to that point.
Crooks & Liars – Buttigieg Drops Truth Bomb On The GOP About Biden’s Economy
Quote – Well, look, we’re seeing extraordinarily low unemployment, some of the most job creation under any president ever,” Buttigieg said. “We’re seeing, by the way, with that also unusually high rates of job satisfaction. We’ve seen inflation falling. We’ve seen manufacturing returning to the U.S. Now, obviously, a lot of effort and a lot of money goes into negativity to try to get people focusing on other things, like some of the things that we’re talking about in the culture wars that certain figures are bringing to the fore again and again, I think because they don’t want to talk about the economic work that they’re doing.”
Click through for story (and short video). Secretary Pete is very good at this. But I think this goes beyond just messaging. See Robert Reich’s take.
Robert Reich – Competence isn’t enough. Biden must also confront America’s economic bullies
Quote – Biden has framed that choice as competence or craziness. His new “Bidenomics” blueprint makes clear that America has done well under his quietly competent leadership — featuring significant public investment, taming of inflation, and rebirth of manufacturing. Trump has framed the choice as strength or weakness. I’d rather have someone in the White House who’s competent (even if weak) than someone who’s crazy (even if strong). But I fear voters may choose strength over competence. Strength is one of the central narratives of America. In the mythic telling, America was borne from grit, guts, and gumption.
Click through for his rationale. Messaging, yes – but more than that. I think Bob is on to something. Unless – do you suppose Joe could claim the mantle of the myth by messaging “Good old American know-how”?
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Biden says world leaders ask him why Trump has not been held accountable for Jan. 6 insurrection
The Lincoln Project – Raging Ron
Thom Hartmann – Unmasking the Ring Leader: Is Mark Meadows Pulling the Strings Behind the Scenes?
Parody Project – Happy Happy 4th of July (CC by creators, and full lyrics here )
The Tiniest Puppy Grows Up Wrestling With His Cat Foster Brother
Beau – Let’s talk about Kremlin games and generals….
Yesterday, It was, of course, a holiday, which was a good thing, since I was still having trouble with my shoulder. (Not that a holiday normally affects my schedule, but the drop-off in emails and news was a serious help.) I hadn’t slept much Monday night on account of my left shoulder – I could probably get to sleep with/sleep through that level of pain if it stayed level, but instead it was intensifying and dropping off at intervals of 1-2 seconds. Knowing the next twinge was coming, over and over, kept me focused on that. Finally I gave up and got up for a couple of hours, dealt with some email, found a short take or two, and after about an hour noticed that the twingeing was gone. So I went back to bed, and got back up in mid-afternoon. I don’t know whether anyone noticed Nameless’s comment telling me I had scooped Daily Kos with a video I posted of a flying squirrel faking his own death and setting up a crime scene? Well, yesterday Ilearned that I had also scooped Crooks and Liars with the story on the hundredth-birthday dog parade. I did end up looking up the “Capitol Fourth” on PBS (same people who organize the Memorial Day Concert, but different cast and different ambiance.)
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PolitiZoom – Neal Katyal Asserts Colorado AG Can Force SCOTUS to Rehear 303 Creative Case
Quote – [F]ormer Obama Solicitor General Neal Katyal appeared on Michael Steele’s MSNBC show today to assert that in light of new evidence that the Colorado web designer who brought the 303 Creative case, and who in fact does not design web-sites, willfully misrepresented the basic facts of her complaint, that the Attorney General of Colorado can force SCOTUS to rehear matter.
Click through for details, why and how. Neal just argued and won Moore v. Harper. I’d listen to him. My AG’s “Contact” website was borked, but if necessary, I’ll send him a snailmail.
John Pavlovitz
Quote – But there are times and there are events that defy this idea. Some things are bad and we cannot and should not minimize their implications on people or the planet. This has been a bad week for diverse humanity. It has been a bad week for vulnerable people. It’s been a bad week for racial equity. It’s been a bad week for people buried in debt. And, it’s been a bad week for those of us who grieve the erasing of so much progress in such a short time, even if we saw it coming, even if it felt like a foregone conclusion. Nothing really prepares you to see your worst fears realized.
Click through for full article. This is John’s email for the Fourth (which actually arrived on the third) and, while this message is always good to remember, I agree there are many decent Americans who really need to be reminded right now.
Food For Thought
In lieu of Glenn’s June recap – not a lwayer, but a legal discussion.
MSNBC – Ending affirmative action: the result of a 50-year Republican passion project
The Lincoln Project – Other Than His Crimes
CBS – Man arrested near Obama’s D.C. home for alleged threats
Parody Project – Fourth of July Special – A New Verse for the National Anthem
Foster Dog Refuses To Leave Her Crate For Weeks
Beau – Let’s talk about Trump, Smith, and a pair of Queens….
Yesterday, I seriously overslept – by choice – but it did cut into my working time. I’ve been having some issues with pain cutting into both my sleeo time but, even more to the point, into the amount of actual rest/recovery I get when I am asleep. I ran the TENS for extra time today, which has helped – I don’t suppose this will resolve the issue, so I’ll keep on it. On a brighter note, The New Yorker decided to run a group of 9 Name Drop quizzes together, all of them on literary figures (which helped up front), and I actually got all of them. Not spectadularly – five of the nine on the las clue and the rest somewhere between the socond and the fifth – but I’m still quite pleased about it. (I bombed the daily one, though.)
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Axios – Scoop: Hunter Biden’s lawyer roasts IRS whistleblowers in message to GOP chair
Quote – Why it matters: The White House has been struggling to answer questions about the IRS agent transcripts over the past week, but Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell is now taking the lead in fighting back against the Republican-led committee. The letter comes after Chair Jason Smith last week released transcripts of interviews with two IRS agents who claimed that the investigation into Hunter Biden was improperly handled along with a purported WhatsApp message that showed Hunter leveraging his father to close a business deal.
Click through for article (and full 10-page letter). I’m glad they are pushing back – no that anything we say will get through to MAGAt cultists, but there are sane people out there who need to get exposed to facts.
Letters from an American – June 30, 2023
Quote – It turned out that limiting the Fourteenth Amendment to questions of race and letting states choose their voters cemented the power of a minority. The abandonment of federal protection for voting enabled white southerners to abandon democracy and set up a one-party state that kept Black and Brown Americans as well as white women subservient to white men. As in all one-party states, there was little oversight of corruption and no guarantee that laws would be enforced, leaving minorities and women at the mercy of a legal system that often looked the other way when white criminals committed rape and murder. Many Americans tut-tutted about lynching and the cordons around Black life, but industrialists insisted on keeping the federal government small because they wanted to make sure it could not regulate their businesses or tax them. They liked keeping power at the state level; state governments were far easier to dominate. Southerners understood that overlap: when a group of southern lawmakers in 1890 wrote a defense of the South’s refusal to let Black men vote, they “respectfully dedicated” the book to “the business men of the North.”
Click through for full letter (as always, click “Continue reading”). It’s an historian’s view of the SCOTUS’s recent prejudicial decisions in the context of out history.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – One after another, Republicans witnesses are meeting with Jack Smith and incriminating Donald Trump
The Lincoln Project – Just Like Every Other Politician
PoliticsGirl – Don’t Get Confused about the Trump Indictments
Liberal Redneck – Boo, SCOTUS, Boo
Neighbor’s Cat Visits This Woman’s House At 5am Every Single Day!
Beau – Let’s talk about why malaria is in the US….
Yesterday, I saw Virgil; he is well and returns all greetings. We did play Scrabble, but the letters were so weird that we had to use abbreviations, acronyms, slang, and foreign words to fill the board, in all the games, and we only got three in, as opposed to four on the previous visit. The weather was just about perfect – sun and warmth (but not so much warmth as to delay the car’s air conditioner from coming full on), a little cloud cover, but not too much, and sunset is not ging to get any later than it was yesterday. As I got off the interstate, my car said it was hungry, so I stopped and filled it. So I got home a bit after 4:30 instead of a but before. When I see Virgil, I don’t eat aything from the vending machines, on account of food allergiues (Yes, the stuff is labelled, but it’s not possible to read the ingredients until after getting it out of the machine, and I do hate waste.) So when I get home I’m more than ready for dinner. In the interests of saving a little time, I turn on the living room laptop rather than going all the way back to my desktop. It is slow turning on and slow bringing up theinternet – I use that time for changing into more comfortable clothing, putting stuff away, and then for starting the microwave – so I’m usually home for a half hour or even a little more before I get a comment posted. So please don’t anyone panic if my “home safe” message isn’t up right at 4:30 Mountain.
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Robert Hubbell – Brute Force in the Service of Religious Nationalism
Quote – I will briefly address the constitutional issues below, but before I do, it is appropriate to set aside legal arguments to discuss the human dimensions of the majority’s ruling in 303 Creative. The majority ruled that a business offering creative services to the public can refuse to provide those services to LGBTQ people if the business claims doing so will impair its right to free speech. Forget the procedural background and the judicial arm-waving designed to distract us. At root, the decision authorizes American business owners to discriminate against LGBTQ people. Period. It is a first step, taken in bad faith and wrapped in lies.
Click through for more. He is an attorney in Los Angeles to whom my cousin pointed me. He has opened a comments section to paying, non-paying, and non-subscribers to this post only. Today and tomorrow I am featuring this and another Substack column, the other being from Heather Cox Richardson, who is an historian (and just as angry as Hubbell about this.)
Crooks & Liars – Dark Brandon Won’t Let SCOTUS Stop Student Debt Relief
Quote – “I love the concern for the privileged,” Biden said with a sarcastic chuckle. He didn’t mention how privileged the conservative wing of the court is but he didn’t really have to given all the publicity about how they are raking in the undisclosed gifts, luxury travel and more from their wealthy pals hoping – and getting – favorable rulings.
Click through for the story (and a short video). I’m glad Joe is our President.
Food For Thought
