Brennan Center – Politics Plus

Monday was the fourth anniversary of “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” (Malcolm was there, in Ukraine.) And “go fuck yourself” was not a completely accurate translation from Ukrainian. (“Go find a dick” is closer.) Hopefully remembering that can inspire us. Maybe not as much as it inspired Ukraine at the time, but there is a whole lot of room beneath that extremely high level. Also, Eric Swalwell announced he will resign from Congress but provided no effective date.

Here is incontrovertible evidence that some Muslims are better Christians than some Christians – translated from Farsi (not by me): “Your Excellency Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex), on behalf of the great nation of Iran, I condemn the insult to Your Excellency and declare that the desecration of Jesus (peace be upon him), the Prophet of peace and brotherhood, is unacceptable to any free person. I wish glory for you from Allah.” – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (quoted by Daily Kos)

What the Brennan Center for Justice is doing now to protect the midterms in November, by Michael Waldman.

If you are looking for an exact moment when we lost the Iran war, the closest you can probably come is the moment we started it. MajGen Paul Eaton (Ret), the leader of VoteVets analyses pretty much everything we have done wrong, which is pretty much everything we have done. Unless, of course, you are an insider trader, in which case you can laugh all the way to your Trumpcoin.

Murdoch beats Trump’s suit on WSJ’s Epstein exposé: What’s next?

Yesterday, April Fool came early for me. My email client was experiencing problems – by 2 pm I had only received four emails, and that is deflinitely not normal. When something like that happens, the first thing I do is try a different browser. I tried a total of four – no joy. I kept refreshing my main browser. Meanwhile, I went through Substack to get to some of my main sources. I have not been looking forward to today.

On Monday, Malcolm pointed out that everything he has pointed out might be possible in the war has subsequently showed up in the national news (NYT, WSJ, WP, etc.) not soon enough for them to have gotten the stories from him directly, but rather, in a time frame for someone to have suggested to Kegsbreath and him to – at least verbally – run with it. And Netanyahu is now poisoning Iran’s and other Gulf states’ water (a war crime, in case anyone didn’t know. (We did it to Kishem Island a couple of weeks ago – Just one of our war crimes.) I am beginning to understand, not just with my brain, but with my heart, why many Jewish people, Israeli and diaspora alike, think it is antisemitism to criticize Israel. When people anywhere in the world, including within the US, criticize the US, even though my brain knows it is the Saffron Sauron and his orcs and nazgul they are criticizing and not me personally, I can’t help feeling sad and a little hurt.

I know we are all worried about the Supreme Court, and we all know something is needed to change it. But we don’t all agree on what needs doing – and I don’t think we really have so much as a concept of a plan as to how the necessary changes can be accomplished. So you may be as encouraged as I am by this conversation between former US Attorney Joyce Vance and Brennan Center Senior Fellow Jesse Wegman (who was essentially hired by Brennan to address the Supreme Curt, but also has a book out about the Electoral College.) It’s 28 minutes, and if that’s too long, there’s a transcript.

I did mention this, but there is much more information here. May Day is the day.

Yeah. Well, that’s the headline. But I’m not seeing them voting that way, or even saying much about it. Certainly not in the numbers needed to make it happen.

It’s been a minute since we had an episode of this series, and this sounds like the final one. My father (who served in WWII, but as a telegrapher) was not in this one, having been medically discharged prior to November 1944. (If he had been there, I almost certainly would not be here.) I could wish that more people remembered – if not from life, at least from education – how important this war was for all of us.