tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34757605999849415392024-03-16T11:53:16.102-07:00Fair and UnbalancedPolitics, law, social justice, music, baseball and miscellany, and not necessarily in that order.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.comBlogger1695125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-43686718216858953632024-03-04T09:51:00.000-08:002024-03-04T10:58:45.672-08:00A Republic, If You Can Keep It<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidnDI0aTB2iPtgYbS_JYiJTH7Z582dQgs-X8a0rWEokp_lH-wYpsuBXE5VRUuY7htMe-bPChVeLamE9EPZJLBtdYTr5tDZsWXSWMVLy9F7WAJMuS91LpWkEmj9p-z7nJV5-W9GkVIvdh_LJO6g41WWaktgkKMc0aS0clGd45RdkhS4kjBgXyXipgrDNohW/s2000/NPG-NPG_87_43.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1625" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidnDI0aTB2iPtgYbS_JYiJTH7Z582dQgs-X8a0rWEokp_lH-wYpsuBXE5VRUuY7htMe-bPChVeLamE9EPZJLBtdYTr5tDZsWXSWMVLy9F7WAJMuS91LpWkEmj9p-z7nJV5-W9GkVIvdh_LJO6g41WWaktgkKMc0aS0clGd45RdkhS4kjBgXyXipgrDNohW/w261-h320/NPG-NPG_87_43.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br />It’s been pretty easy to take our democracy and its constitutionally-guaranteed rights for granted. Unlike our Western allies, we have never seriously been threatened or occupied by a foreign power. So, there’s a sense of security -- invincibility, really -- that other countries don’t share. Moreover, we, as a nation, have long bought into the myth that we really are the land of the free and home of the brave. We have never come to grips with our wholesale denial of human rights, much less civil rights, to wide swaths of our population for most of our existence. Obviously, and most egregiously, is the utter resistance to a meaningful reckoning -- through a truth & reconciliation commission or any genuine consideration of reparations -- with the genocide of native peoples and the fact that our country’s wealth and power were built -- literally -- on the backs of enslaved people, whose descendants continued to be brutalized and denied equal rights. There was the imprisonment of anti-war protestors during World War I. There was the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. There was McCarthyism. There was the FBI’s infiltration of the civil rights and anti-war movements. There was the widespread wiretapping after 9/11. The list goes on. But when our government has overreached, we routinely refuse to ensure accountability. The assumption has always been that there’s no need -- that our constitutional democracy is resilient enough to be pulled back from the brink. So, Ford pardoned Nixon. Bush I pardoned those responsible for Iran Contra. Obama determined not to hold Bush II accountable for torture and the aforementioned wire-tapping. <p></p><p>And so here we are. We keep hoping that somehow, this time will be different. It feels different. Trump’s unrelenting malfeasance has been so blatant, so utterly indefensible. Unjust enrichment. Financial fraud. Rape. Insurrection. Stealing classified documents. Surely, in a democratic nation such as ours justice will be done. </p><p>Yet despite multiple indictments, it looks increasingly likely that Trump will be able to hold off going to trial on most of the cases against him until after an election that, if he wins, will empower him to make it all go away. We can thank the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court. But also, there’s Biden’s ill-fated appointment of the ponderous Merrick Garland as Attorney General, who predictably slow walked the investigation of January 6. There are, of course, Trump’s enablers in the Republican Party, who rely on minority rule, and therefore believe they must cling to his coattails to stay in power. </p><p>And, critically, there are the Democrats – with their fetish for bipartisanship and compulsion to stay above the fray, who have completely abdicated from exposing and highlighting Trump’s past perfidies as well as the existential danger he poses if he returns to power. As always, they have ceded the narrative to the Republicans. Which is just fine with the mainstream press, which has yet to grapple with how to cover politics where one of the two candidates is a demented fascist, and one of the two political parties is facilitating a Christian theocracy. It maddeningly continues to focus on the odds, not the stakes, obsessing about Biden’s age, while ignoring Trump’s incoherent rambling and his all-too-coherent plan for mass deportations, the replacement of civil servants with loyalists, and taking revenge on his political enemies. </p><p>It is long past time to recognize that our democracy has always been fleeting and fragile, and that Trump and his Party are eager to sweep it all away. </p>Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-54170755291651962252023-07-18T13:39:00.001-07:002023-07-18T13:48:23.828-07:00It Can Happen Here -- It Is Happening Here<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx-Frd6ek_NOXcJxeFgcvHBeixY-aMYFkrLONWEJwxNCQwlDQR7AlyD8U7EZlcq-EtzpzkNO2Wd-7LcWBDsKpCQkjmIOqkt4itr0c_qvAHsIfzqC6xvlXuZG8nqfG6bXYZYhgO4nsxl_5e66tpNHf4PAl1LOmVo8SmCVaQNpA8kXPnoLYDu3t7tf3ZoLoq/s350/ee14d3e6c61c0f18860d4829fb3507e54a1a12ef.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="234" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx-Frd6ek_NOXcJxeFgcvHBeixY-aMYFkrLONWEJwxNCQwlDQR7AlyD8U7EZlcq-EtzpzkNO2Wd-7LcWBDsKpCQkjmIOqkt4itr0c_qvAHsIfzqC6xvlXuZG8nqfG6bXYZYhgO4nsxl_5e66tpNHf4PAl1LOmVo8SmCVaQNpA8kXPnoLYDu3t7tf3ZoLoq/s320/ee14d3e6c61c0f18860d4829fb3507e54a1a12ef.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><blockquote><p>Why, America's the only free nation on earth. Besides! Country's too big for a revolution. No, no! Couldn't happen here! -- Sinclair Lewis<br /></p></blockquote>Whether or not you approve of President Biden, he is not going to destroy the pillars of democracy. Say whatever you want about him, he is not a fascist. Yes, it's a low bar, but this is why he must be re-elected. Republican Party officials are through with democracy. From voter suppression to gutting fundamental rights, they are all in on or (to give some the benefit of the doubt) are afraid to oppose a white, Christian, patriarchal society controlled from the top. They keep telling us this. But we continue to treat them as a legitimate political party merely with different policy goals. This is how democracies die. <div><br /></div><div>This is why it is so dangerous to entertain third party candidates who (as we have seen before) can help Republicans win office. This is why the mainstream media must eschew both reflexive bothsidesism and the compulsion to view Republican proposals through the prism of "the horserace" rather than report on their disastrous impact. And, most importantly, this is why the Democratic Party needs to make clear to voters -- every day -- what kind of government the Republican Party envisions for this country.<div><p>The United States has been a stable democracy that has withstood a civil war, constitutional crises, and, most recently, an insurrection. We take for granted that we will always be a democracy with three co-equal branches of government, even as we see the Supreme Court going rogue, the House being taken over by MAGA extremists, and Trump's first term (and attempted coup) not that far in the rearview mirror. But what will happen if Trump (or some reasonable facsimile) wins in 2024? We don't have to guess.</p><p>As Masha Gessen wrote in November 2016, "Trump is the first candidate in memory who ran not for president but for autocrat—and won." In her remarkably prescient piece, "<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival/" target="_blank">Autocracy: Rules for Survival</a>," Gessen gave us a set of rules necessary to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which this country is based. The first rule: "<a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2018/01/on-resisting-scandal-fatigue-and.html" target="_blank">Believe the Autocrat</a>." As we are now all too familiar, Trump relentlessly spews ignorant and malevolent nonsense that one would not expect from any rational human being, much less the purported leader of the free world. Gessen stressed back then that while it is human nature to assume he was exaggerating and to reach for a rationalization, it was critical to believe that he meant what he said. We barely survived one term. </p><p>And here we go again. Trump and members of his Republican Party keep telling us what they plan to do if they seize control of the executive branch. They publicly extoll as their model for electoral success and governance none other than Hungary's Victor Orban. As <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/" target="_blank">Heather Cox Richardson</a> describes it, Republicans have disavowed the fundamental tenets of democracy -- "equality before the law, free speech, academic freedom, a market-based economy, immigration," which they believe "weaken a nation by destroying a 'traditional' society based in patriarchy and Christianity." Instead, they prefer Orban's "“illiberal” or “Christian” democracy, which uses the government to enforce their beliefs in a Christian, patriarchal order." This is not a secret.</p><p>Then there's DeSantis, Trump's competition, who is experimenting with his own version of a mini-fascist state in Florida. He recently announced the activation of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/15/us/florida-state-guard-desantis.html" target="_blank">State Guard</a>, purportedly to aid in disaster relief, but which is apparently being trained as a heavily militarized force. And, as Cox Richardson reminds us, "DeSantis has pushed through laws that ban abortion after six weeks, before most people know they’re pregnant; banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity (the “Don’t Say Gay” law); prevented recognition of transgender individuals; made it easier to sentence someone to death; allowed people to carry guns without training or permits; banned colleges and businesses from conversations about race; exerted control over state universities; made it harder for his opponents to vote, and tried to punish Disney World for speaking out against the Don’t Say Gay law. After rounding up migrants and sending them to other states, DeSantis recently has called for using “deadly force” on migrants crossing unlawfully." This is not a secret.</p><p>An explosive article in the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/us/politics/trump-plans-2025.html" target="_blank"> New York Times</a> this week (with a typically tepid headline: Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025) essentially describes Trump's plan to become dictator if he wins the next election (or is otherwise able to seize power). It is beyond alarming. It describes Trump's plan to “to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House." Again, this is not a secret. </p><p>The plan couldn't be more clear: (1) bring independent agencies (like the FTC and FCC) under direct presidential control; (2) revive the practice of “impounding” funds (i.e., refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress) -- which was banned after Nixon abused; (3) strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to the Trump agenda and remove officials from intelligence agencies, the State Department, and the defense bureaucracies who, according to Trump, "hate our country." Russell T. Vought, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump White House says of the plan: "what we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.” </p><p>Yes, it can happen here. </p></div></div>Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-43878970432912635452020-11-06T09:35:00.000-08:002020-11-06T09:35:52.637-08:00Investigate, Prosecute, "Lock Him Up"<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr84IFDzJLsC5ByupItK1Ulwh_4MvP11mks01QinPIQsfH7uYxwp8QXvdKxH8MNQfw2nPy9cb9ct8CRBZZU1TnCWfk4zlYfHD0Ts6o4OtyGOUWo_gxlaBvaCFCSUaKehpLJmRB7-u3NP7s/s750/safe_image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="750" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr84IFDzJLsC5ByupItK1Ulwh_4MvP11mks01QinPIQsfH7uYxwp8QXvdKxH8MNQfw2nPy9cb9ct8CRBZZU1TnCWfk4zlYfHD0Ts6o4OtyGOUWo_gxlaBvaCFCSUaKehpLJmRB7-u3NP7s/w400-h208/safe_image.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><blockquote>For years I've regarded his very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad.” -- Hunter S. Thompson (on Richard Nixon)</blockquote></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for "all offenses against the United States," he stated </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">that it was out of concern for the "immediate future of this great country." Next came Iran-Contra, which culminated in the pardon by the first President Bush (with the support of then-Attorney General Barr) of several key participants who had been indicted and whose trials would likely have dispelled the notion that Bush was, as he claimed, "out of the loop." </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">More recently, President Obama refused to seek any investigation of Bush II's "War on Terror," despite substantial evidence that wiretapping laws were broken and torture was authorized at the highest levels. Much like President Ford, Obama claimed that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” </span></div></span><p></p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And now that the end is nigh for the malevolent orange shit-gibbon, there are the frustratingly familiar calls for abstaining from investigating and prosecuting the myriad acts of abuse of power and corruption that have marked this horrid presidency from Day One. The argument goes that we should be grateful that we are rid of this "mentally deranged U.S. dotard," as dear leader Kim Jong-un calls his dear friend -- that, in the words of President Ford, "our long national nightmare is over." </span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Accordingly, we are supposed to maintain our democratic cred by not engaging in political retribution against those who have lost power. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Further, given the immediate attention needed to address the economic, environmental and, most urgently, public health, disasters that will have been left in the disastrous wake of this disastrous presidency, we must, as President Obama said about his predecessor, "look forward as opposed to looking backwards." </span></div><div><br /><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">In <i>The Atlantic</i>, my old high school classmate (and favorite Republican), <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/case-criminally-investigating-ex-president/616804/">Paul Rosenzweig</a>, </span>gamely tried to thread the needle, arguing <span style="font-family: inherit;">that any investigation and prosecution of Trump should be limited to his conduct before and after his presidency, and that declining to pursue him for his actions as president is "the price we pay for the routine peaceful transition of power." In Rosenzweig's view, going after Trump for his acts as president would result in an "ever-escalating cycle of retribution," with each administration prosecuting its opponents -- that "in</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">dicting one former president risks making a habit of doing so, and reducing America to little more than a revolving-door banana republic." As Rosenzweig put it, if we think "lock her up" is wrong to say about Hillary Clinton, then "lock him up" is equally improper. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">First, the notion that Democrats should not launch legitimate investigations into the most corrupt administration in history out of fear that Republicans would respond in kind once they are again in control of the White House assumes, wrongly, that the GOP is not a nihilistic, anti-majoritarian cabal. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The modern Republican Party is not constrained by civility or norms or any notion of decency. As Mitch McConnell made clear in completing his theft of the Supreme Court, the GOP will always put party over country and wield whatever power they can, while they still can. Indeed, if they manage to hold onto the Senate, stay tuned for their shameless obstruction of Biden's efforts to restore the economy or deal responsibly with COVID or climate change, their refusal to pass any meaningful legislation or confirm judicial and executive nominees, and their bogus investigations of Hunter Biden and others in order to sabotage the new Administration. </span>The Pelosi/Schumer/Feinstein non-confrontational approach (e.g., limited investigations, narrowly-drawn impeachment, docile SCOTUS confirmation opposition) does nothing but embolden Republicans, who know that Democrats default to compromise and appeasement. </div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Second, there is a world of difference between fevered cult-inspired cries at Trump rallies for locking up Hillary Clinton, who was never found to have committed any criminal wrongdoing, with the reasonable investigation and pursuit of justice in response to the unprecedented level of corruption committed by, what S</span>arah Kendzior so aptly calls, "a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government." <span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><div>Rosenzweig agrees that the tax and mortgage fraud, campaign finance violations, and sexual assaults that occurred pre-presidency are all fair game. But he would stop there, although he concedes that "the discretionary policy of not prosecuting an ex-president for acts committed while in office ... would have to yield in extreme cases." But if this isn't an extreme case, I'm hard pressed to imagine what would be. Trump's pervasive malfeasance as president has been far more egregious and has posed a far greater threat to our nation than anything he did before he slithered into office. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>Under normal circumstances it is certainly not ideal to go after a leader who has been justly defeated in a popular election. BUT THESE ARE NOT NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES. There has never been a more corrupt president and the bill of particulars grows larger every day. Indeed, we have only recently learned about Trump's interference with a criminal case against a state-owned Turkish bank at the urging of Turkey's authoritarian leader and presumably so as not to jeopardize Trump business interests there. More details are emerging about Trump's unfettered self-enrichment while in office and reports of millions of dollars that taxpayers have paid to Trump-owned entities. He appears to have worked with Russian disinformation operations to taint his opponent, used the resources of the government in his reelection campaign and undermined the efficacy of the Post Office to thwart the timely arrival of mail-in ballots. And he's got a couple of months to do even more damage.</div><div><br /></div><div>There has been a disturbing pattern of Republican Administrations, beginning with Nixon, to engage in abuse of power, violate of the Constitution and federal law, and break formerly-sacrosanct norms. Each time we are persuaded it would be unseemly and undemocratic to hold them accountable. This has led us to this moment and to this presidency. </div><div><br /></div><div>And as <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-election-shows-america-is-a-broken-country/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links">Kendzior recently lamented</a>: </div><div><blockquote>The current American crisis is in part due to those officials who refused to curb Mr. Trump’s worst behaviour. When organized crime hijacks government, officials must act aggressively, transparently, and immediately. They cannot waste time like Robert Mueller did with his plodding, placating probe. They cannot “impeach at the ballot box,” which Nancy Pelosi – a staunch opponent of impeachment until she buckled to pressure from her colleagues and the public – suggested throughout 2019. They cannot go by the book when the book is burning.</blockquote></div><div>We need to hold Trump, his family and his cronies accountable because their brazen wrongdoing demands it. But we also have to come to grips with how easy it was for this "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/30/donald-trump-dismissed-as-carnival-barker-at-major-democrat-fundraiser">fascist carnival barker</a>" to undermine our system of government. All it took was a political party willing to follow him in lock step and a compliant media that normalized his pathology. And so, a full accounting of all the ways our institutions have been corrupted is essential so we can figure out how to better protect the nation from the next wannabe kleptocrat -- one who may not be as clownish and incompetent as this one. </div></div></div></div></div>Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-63977914537705905272020-09-02T17:30:00.000-07:002024-03-12T13:11:18.522-07:00Remembering Tom Seaver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"There is actually a good argument that Tom Seaver should be regarded as the greatest pitcher of all time ... Seaver pitched for eight losing teams, several of them really terrible, and four other teams which had losing records except when Seaver was on the mound." —Bill James, <i>The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract</i>, 2001</blockquote><div><i>Tom Seaver passed away today. 2020 keeps getting worse. This piece was written in March 2019, when it was announced that Tom was suffering from dementia. RIP to my childhood hero.</i></div><div><br /></div>
For Met fans of a certain vintage -- those old enough to have rejoiced in the first of (only) two Met championships -- Tom Seaver will forever hold a special place in our hearts. We love everyone from that team -- from the key players (Cleon Jones, Tommie Agree, Donn Clendenon, Jerry Koosman) to the more obscure (Rod Gaspar, Duffy Dyer, Jim McAndrew). But Tom Seaver was on a different level altogether.<br />
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He wasn't just a great Met. He was one of the greatest pitchers in Major League history. And he was ours. His pitching form was a thing of beauty -- both powerful and graceful. He was called "The Franchise" because of how he transformed the Mets' identity, from a joke -- albeit a lovable one -- to World Series winner (until they became a less lovable joke once again). He did it with his brilliant pitching and with his no-nonsense, brash professionalism. <br />
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I treasured pretty much every start in those years -- watching on a black & white TV or listening on the radio or, occasionally, getting to see him live at Shea. I would check out the box score in the paper the next day and diligently recalculate his E.R.A. after every game he pitched. <br />
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We all have our favorite Tom Seaver memory. For many it is his near perfect game against the Cubs in 1969 or the 10-inning complete game victory in Game #4 of the 69 Series or any of the over 60 shutouts in which he simply dominated opposing hitters. My favorite memory is being at Shea Stadium on April 22, 1970, when he tied what was then a record of 19 strikeouts in a game and set a record for striking out the last 10 hapless Padres hitters in a row. Simply epic.<br />
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Yes, he changed the perception of the Mets, but even with the miraculous World Series win in 1969, they remained a feeble-hitting team (some things never change), and Seaver had to consistently pitch flawlessly to keep his team in games, often losing heartbreakers 2-1 or 1-0. (Jake deGrom can relate -- but try doing it for a decade.) Typical was 1971, when he led the league in ERA (1.76) and strikeouts (289 in 286 innings), pitched 21 complete games and still lost 10 games, going 20-10. Had Seaver played with a decent team for the bulk of his career, his remarkable numbers would be off the charts.<br />
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And as a recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/sports/tom-seaver-memories.html"><i>New York Time </i>article</a> pointed out, in stark contrast to the current game, where starting pitchers rarely go more than six or seven innings, Seaver excelled in finishing what he started, getting even better as the game wore on. His lifetime ERA in the last three innings was 2.75, and in 1969, he pitched in the ninth inning 17 times without giving up a run.<br />
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Seaver continued to pitch brilliantly for a mostly awful team, and then, on June 15, 1977, came the "Midnight Massacre" -- the worst in a very long list of dismal management decisions. The penurious Mets refused to renegotiate Seaver's contract and shipped him off to the Cincinnati Reds for a collection of mediocre players. I attended his return to New York, where, looking positively surreal in a Reds' uniform, he faced off against his old teammate and fan favorite, Jerry Koosman. Along with the rest of the crowd, I was cheering for Seaver, who beat the Mets that day. <br />
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Seaver continued his great career as a Red, including the strike-shortened season in 1981, when he led the league with 14 wins and came in second in the Cy Young voting. And then came some measure of redemption. Seaver was traded back to the Mets for the 1983 season. It was indescribable to see him pitch a shutout on Opening Day. But at 38 years old, it didn't seem he had much left. He didn't have a great year -- and neither did the Mets -- but with Seaver wearing his familiar number 41, the Mets seemed like a team on the rise, with promising young pitchers, a Rookie of the Year in Darryl Strawberry, and the acquisition of Keith Hernandez. <br />
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But it was not to be. The Mets would have to rise without Seaver. Incredibly, before the 1984 season began, the Mets left the 40-year old Seaver off the protected list, assuming no other team would want him. The White Sox quickly scooped him up, leaving Met fans distraught once again. Seaver won 15 games for the White Sox in 1984 and 16 in 1985, including his 300th. In 1986, he finished an injury-plagued season with the Red Sox. (A bad knee prevented him from playing against the Mets in the World Series.) <br />
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The Mets tried to atone once more, hoping to bring Seaver back to the Big Apple to finish his storied career where it began. But after pitching a few exhibition games in June 1987, Seaver realized he had nothing left and announced his retirement. <br />
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3 Cy Young Awards -- and deserving of at least another in 1971, 311 wins, 61 shutouts, 3,640 strikeouts and a 2.86 E.R.A. In 1992, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A career of remarkable moments and incredible milestones marred only by stupid, short-sighted management decisions -- including, more recently, the failure to honor Seaver with a statue at Citi Field. <br />
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In devastating news, it was announced yesterday that Tom Seaver is suffering from dementia. His family announced he will no longer make public appearances. As the Mets gear up for the 50th anniversary of the 1969 team, his out-sized presence as a Met icon, a baseball legend, and a childhood hero to so many of us will be felt even more deeply and the memories he's given us will be held even more tightly.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-90424870335887457822020-08-11T13:30:00.000-07:002020-08-11T13:30:56.318-07:00Kamala's People<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVU5hSqiBgcUoqxmfkE7yKA-ZveIqpwlIeZEcXL9jhtcqse0L0GpOzrkrGt7ZvvJ2sNtbZiw0oQy_DS0tsCoEccVw92OvAuPMeE9NX9pBgI8q-bUCOeHVD3xcemW3Z0r1zuAxWJGbFAXtb/s1600/kamala_harris_for_the_people.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="955" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVU5hSqiBgcUoqxmfkE7yKA-ZveIqpwlIeZEcXL9jhtcqse0L0GpOzrkrGt7ZvvJ2sNtbZiw0oQy_DS0tsCoEccVw92OvAuPMeE9NX9pBgI8q-bUCOeHVD3xcemW3Z0r1zuAxWJGbFAXtb/s400/kamala_harris_for_the_people.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><i>Originally posted Jan. 29, 2019</i></div><div><br /></div>
I met Kamala Harris about 15 years ago and she was very impressive. I was on the board of an anti-death penalty organization that gave her an award when she was the San Francisco D.A. for courageously refusing to seek the death penalty in a cop-killing case despite intense political pressure (Sen. Feinstein pushed for the death penalty at the officer's funeral!) She was not only extremely personally engaging but she also gave a powerful speech about how the resources spent on death penalty cases could be better spent to ensure public safety. <br />
<br />
But as California's Attorney General she was a disappointment. As did her predecessors (including Jerry Brown), Harris essentially deferred to the deputy AGs in the death penalty unit, who vigorously defended every death penalty case, no matter how suspect. Under Harris's watch, the AG's office used every procedural technicality to prevent the courts from considering the underlying merits of cases, defended truly egregious cases of prosecutorial misconduct, refused to acknowledge cases of actual innocence, and vigorously appealed a federal court decision that found the death penalty law unconstitutional. Harris also refused to support California ballot propositions that sought to reform the criminal justice and replace the death penalty with life without parole.<br />
<br />
Harris claims to have been a progressive prosecutor, but that phrase is really something of an oxymoron. In my three decades as a defender of death row inmates, I admit to a long-standing bias against prosecutors who, generally, seem to care more about securing convictions than doing justice. Even the more thoughtful or "progressive" ones still by and large see the criminal justice system as fair and just -- despite the overwhelming disparity in resources between the government and the defendant, and despite the built in bias against the poor and people of color. And they view the way to solve society's ills through the prism of the criminal justice system, as Harris's history of threatening parents with prosecution for their children's truancy when she was D.A. suggests.<br />
<br />
By using the slogan "Kamala Harris for the People" for her presidential campaign, Harris is explicitly linking her history as a prosecutor to her strengths as a candidate. But the phrase "for the People" is a fraught one, as least from a criminal defender perspective -- after all, my clients were people too. A prosecutor really represents an agency within the government. But invoking the phrase "for the People' implies something different; it misleadingly suggests that the community at large wholly supports the prosecution of a given defendant, providing an unfair rhetorical advantage from the get go.<br />
<br />
So, I don't buy the progressive prosecutor thing. But at the same time, I find Harris to be an extraordinarily compelling candidate. She is brilliant, a dynamic presence and a compelling speaker. She is fearless and has put her prosecutorial skills to great use on the Judiciary Committee, where she skewered Trump nominees, from Jeff Sessions to Brett Kavanaugh. She is unabashedly and consistently taking progressive positions on health care, climate change, immigration, equality and even criminal justice reform. And the zeitgeist calls for a woman -- and a woman of color -- to run for president against an incumbent and a political party that have fully succumbed to misogyny and white nationalism. And, at least according to <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-kamala-and-beto-have-more-upside-than-joe-and-bernie/">Nate Silver</a>, she appeals to the widest coalition of Democratic voters at this point.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure how to reconcile Harris's history and her candidacy -- but I'm not sure I have to. After all, there is not a candidate seeking or thinking about seeking the presidency who isn't flawed. Indeed, our search for ideological purity last time is no small reason why we are where we are. So although I'm wary of the embrace of a prosecutor's perspective as Harris's slogan suggests, I will support whoever has the best chance to take back the White House. It's early, but it very well might be Kamala Harris.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-7772115011802307802020-03-04T18:00:00.003-08:002020-03-05T14:59:57.059-08:00Super Tuesday Post Mortem<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAtUg7hxUmyz4Y07c-ws-X5AE9DSkjaoV1vPXidCcpqnPNeiW_bfKs8gYxmn26sCMwc4HRAs37UaE2NYmI3ZJ6HHzltHpdKMFlMTt-ckF8x_4zrVnw3pOa03_SMJmU_FXnow-2-Iia-lb/s1600/Super-Tuesday-860x484.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="860" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAtUg7hxUmyz4Y07c-ws-X5AE9DSkjaoV1vPXidCcpqnPNeiW_bfKs8gYxmn26sCMwc4HRAs37UaE2NYmI3ZJ6HHzltHpdKMFlMTt-ckF8x_4zrVnw3pOa03_SMJmU_FXnow-2-Iia-lb/s400/Super-Tuesday-860x484.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><br />
<blockquote>
So if you leave with only one thing,
it must be this: Choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when
things get tough — and they will — you will know that there is only one option
ahead of you. Nevertheless, you must persist. -- Elizabeth Warren, March 5, 2020<o:p></o:p></blockquote>
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With the notable exception of Barack Obama, no one I've supported to win the Democratic primary has ever won it (except for George McGovern when I was 12 -- and that didn't turn out so well). And here I am again. Elizabeth Warren is/was my candidate -- and Barack included, I have never felt more passionate about a candidate or believed more strongly about their strength, brilliance, competence and sincerity -- ever. I think she not only could have crushed the malevolent orange shit-gibbon in the general election (like she unmercifully fileted Bloomberg), but would have gone on to be a great president. (See <a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-elizabeth-warren-would-be-best.html">Why Elizabeth Warren Would Be The Best President</a>)<br />
<br />
As Rebecca Solnit put it: "Perhaps Warren's greatest strength is her commitment to listening and listening to many constituencies; she is a candidate speeding up the journey of ideas by making space to hear and plans that respond to what she heard. By shortening the distance between the grassroots and the center of power." Jodi Jacobson is right: Warren is "once in a lifetime. She not only
knows how to wield power, she is unafraid of doing so. She knows how government
works and has worked it to our advantage. She has moral clarity. She has the best plans for addressing debt, bank
corruption, corporate corruption, government corruption, climate crises, race
and class analyses, the goddamn coronavirus epidemic and everything else you
can imagine. SHE GETS SHIT DONE."<br />
<br />
Despite all this Warren couldn't seem to gain traction, particularly on what should be the most compelling issue facing the country -- corruption and the erosion of democracy in the Age of Trump. I wholeheartedly agree with her that we can't address other critical issues from climate change to gun control until we deal with the corrosive effects of corruption in Washington and the corrupting power of wealth. But, alas, it is not to be. There were perhaps some strategic missteps, but I think it was a combination of a whole lot of misogyny, a panic-stricken electorate fleeing to the perceived safety of the center, an "establishment" -- in the media and the Party -- that reinforced the nonsensical (and misogynist) concept of "electability," and the mainstream media's incomprehensible erasure of her that doomed her candidacy.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31250037/elizabeth-warren-drops-out-2020-race/">Charles Pierce</a> nails it: "This is not a country that is ready for what she called,
endlessly, 'big, structural change.' This is a country fearful of any kind of
change at all, a country longing for a simpler time—which, these days, does not
mean the flush 1950s or the pastoral 1850s, but 2015. The election of Donald
Trump has lodged in so many minds a longing for the status quo ante that
there’s no room for intelligent experimentation." As Pierce says, "we have been rendered such a timorous people that even
someone as open and lively and welcoming as Elizabeth Warren was considered too
much of a risk." She will, of course, remain a formidable leader and critical progressive voice, but I will always feel an enormous sense of loss for what could and should have been.<br />
<br />
I've liked Bernie since he was first elected mayor when I was a senior in college in Burlington, VT. I wrote admirably about him on this blog ten years ago. (See <a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/vermonts-finest.html">Vermont's Finest</a>) He has an inspiring, compelling message about inequality that should resonate across multiple demographics. But as Tuesday demonstrated, he doesn't seem able to expand his base to include African Americans -- the most critical of Democratic voters (although he has impressively garnered support from Latinx communities) -- and his key strategy of energizing new, young voters seems to be flailing. And, yes, his abusive, divisive supporters, including those who have official positions high in the campaign, are dangerously alienating wide swaths of progressive-minded people.<br />
<br />
But that leaves Biden -- who I still can't believe has parlayed Jim Clyburn's South Carolina endorsement into front-runner status. The dude can rarely complete a coherent thought, much less a sentence. How bizarre that all those debates I suffered through in which he seemed so tired and lost didn't matter. (I want those hours back.) He barely campaigned, instead relying on Obama's coattails (notwithstanding Obama's silence) -- and it's fucking working. I think he's an awful candidate who is not only cognitively compromised but has never really reckoned with much of his record, in particular, his unforgivable performance as chair of the Judiciary Committee that humiliated Anita Hill and put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. (<a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/joe-bidens-apology-to-anita-hill-is-too.html">See Joe Biden's "Apology" To Anita Hill Is Too Little, Too Late And Too Lame</a>). I believe he is dangerously naive when it comes to the perfidy of the Republican Party, which is baffling given he was Obama's Vice President when Merrick Garland was denied a confirmation vote, not to mention their continued bad-faith Ukraine investigation.<br />
<br />
I feel that those who are certain that Biden is the most electable candidate were also sure that Hillary Clinton would win, as would John Kerry and Al Gore. Are we really going to do this again? Are we really going to choose our nominee based on fear. It shows a remarkable lack of imagination, a failure to understand that we are living in a far different world than we were living in even four years ago. We need someone who can capture the zeitgeist, energize voters and articulate why Trump is such a danger to our survival. I seriously doubt that person is Joe Biden, who just wants to return us an imagined normalcy -- to the halcyon days of bipartisanship and smoked-filled rooms. Maybe it could be Bernie Sanders, but he still hasn't shown the ability to embrace a wider constituency. But what the fuck do I know?<br />
<br />
I do know that it is critical that the nominee, whoever it is, must pick a running mate who can actually capture the zeitgeist -- someone who can begin to transform the Party away from one that is still led by old white men. It needs to be a woman. It needs to be a person of color. It needs to be someone who is brilliant and vibrant and progressive. Stacey Abrams seems the obvious choice. I could get excited about that. I'm sure there are others.<br />
<br />
At bottom, we need to enthusiastically support whoever the candidate is, no matter how flawed. No more of this purity bullshit. (See <a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2016/05/nevernader-reminder-about-perils-of.html">#NeverNader: A Reminder About The Perils Of Purity</a>) Yes, I love Elizabeth Warren. I do not love Bernie or Biden. But it doesn't matter. It's time to retire that tired old cliche about how Democrats fall in love, but Republicans fall in line. We don't have to love them. We have to get in line and do whatever we can to win in November.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-60996601029139180762019-08-05T09:04:00.001-07:002019-08-06T14:06:45.235-07:00The Democratic Presidential Candidates Need To Unite Behind Common Principles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJnbL_FQkvbQRSm4tQwRmPhpOYmrMeIbC0Rf1sHKUuKPZXcrBTSzjQvpWg8PqF1j33p70WQ7emNjYSRBHo6S8MtJ7Pi7qForKGh0EGuVQ7C7xCr4CvcEXNyB-CuAjeAxPU9HlliBuJ5yp/s1600/190405-campaign-design-2020-main-kh_626aaae0bd721a1ba19e0e0762d2f054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="897" data-original-width="1600" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJnbL_FQkvbQRSm4tQwRmPhpOYmrMeIbC0Rf1sHKUuKPZXcrBTSzjQvpWg8PqF1j33p70WQ7emNjYSRBHo6S8MtJ7Pi7qForKGh0EGuVQ7C7xCr4CvcEXNyB-CuAjeAxPU9HlliBuJ5yp/s320/190405-campaign-design-2020-main-kh_626aaae0bd721a1ba19e0e0762d2f054.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
Viewers watching the recent network-sponsored debates, with the focus on spectacle and conflict, could be forgiven for failing to absorb a key point missing from most of the coverage: The Democrats generally agree on the goals for the United States that align with the majority of Americans, although they may not fully agree on how to reach them. But it is the Republican Party and their leader who are dangerously out of touch. It is they who are embracing white nationalism, condoning the separation of families at the border, reversing efforts to combat climate change and failing to reckon with the Russian attack on our elections.<br />
<br />
There is plenty of time for the Democratic candidates to highlight their differences and challenge each other's policies and vision. But not now. These are not normal times and this is not a normal election. We are facing an existential crisis and the Democrats need to unite to demonstrate, collectively, what is at stake. They should sign a statement of common principles in order to illustrate the stark differences between the two parties on fundamental principles that often get muddied in the daily discourse. Such a document would demonstrate why the 2020 election is so critical.</div>
<div>
<br />
Perhaps something like this:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
1. We condemn white nationalism, and Trump's rhetoric that has emboldened a white nationalist movement. We support common sense gun control reform, including mandatory background checks and banning assault-style weapons. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
2. We believe in the urgency of addressing global climate change and the irrefutable science that warns of the dire consequences of inaction. We support rejoining the Paris Climate Accords immediately, and taking meaningful and substantial steps to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the United States.</div>
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<br /></div>
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3. We are horrified by the cruelty of Trump's immigration policies which have led -- and continue to lead -- to the needless and tragic separation of families at our southern border, and have imposed extreme hardship and trauma on those seeking escape from violence and injustice in their home countries. We support immigration reform that will protect our borders while ensuring that those seeking political asylum and refugee status are provided with a safe, fair and timely process.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
4. We believe in a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body, including the right to have an abortion. We strongly oppose efforts by Republican lawmakers at the state and federal level to undermine <i>Roe v. Wade</i>, and place obstacles in the way of women -- particularly poor women -- seeking abortions. We will pursue policies to ensure full access to abortion rights and reproductive health for all women. </div>
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<br /></div>
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5. We may differ on the details, but we believe that health care is a human right and oppose Republican attempts to sabotage Obamacare, including their pursuit of a federal lawsuit that would eliminate insurance for pre-existing conditions. We all believe in policies aimed at expanding, not reducing, health care coverage for all Americans.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
6. United States intelligence agencies and the Mueller investigation have documented Russia's interference in our elections, which we consider an attack on our country. Special Counsel Mueller has warned in his recent testimony that this remains a serious threat for 2020. Yet, the president refuses to acknowledge it and the Senate Majority Leader refuses to allow bills on election integrity and security to come to the Senate floor for a vote. We believe it is urgent to safeguard democracy by implementing immediately the measures that passed the House of Representatives. In addition, we support efforts to stop voter suppression schemes, gerrymandering, and the proliferation of dark money that have undermined the time-honored principle of one person, one vote.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
7. The President of the United States has committed several documented instances of obstruction of justice that impeded the Special Counsel's investigation into Russia's interference with the 2016 election. He was not indicted because of a Department of Justice policy that bars indictment of a sitting president. That policy must be re-examined. He also has refused to release his tax returns or divest from his many business entanglements with private and foreign interests. He and his administration are stone-walling legitimate attempts at Congressional oversight. Trump's conduct is rife with conflicts of interest and he has lied to the American people over 10,000 times, according to a study by the Washington Post. There has never been a more corrupt president and we believe it is far past time to restore dignity and the rule of law to the presidency.</div>
Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-25126774472520076002019-07-31T14:23:00.001-07:002019-07-31T14:23:42.971-07:00Abandoning The Dog Whistle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<blockquote style="background-color: white; border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-image: initial; border-style: dotted; border-width: 1px 0px; color: #335577; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0.75em 0px; padding: 5px 15px;">
You start out in 1954 by saying, "Ni***r, ni***r, ni***r." By 1968, you can't say "ni***r" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Ni***r, ni***r." -- Lee Atwater, 1981</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">Turns out St. Ronnie was a racist. A <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/">new audio</a> that has been obtained of a conversation between then-Governor Reagan and another racist Republican, President Nixon, gives up the game. To wit:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">The day after the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China, then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had sided against the United States. “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Nixon gave a huge laugh.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;"><span style="font-size: 12.61px;">But what was key to St. Ronnie's political success and that of his Party was that he kept his more overt racism on the down low. He was, instead, </span>the ultimate master of dog whistle politics. Recall he launched his first presidential campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a place notorious for the 1964 slaying of three civil rights workers, and gave a speech about states' rights: "I believe in states' rights.... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment." What Reagan was really signaling by talking about states' rights in that particular venue was that he was squarely on the side of White America. It presaged his unceasing hostility to civil rights and voting rights, and his opposition to entitlements for the poor, particularly, African Americans, who he famously disparaged with classic dog whistles -- the "Cadillac-driving welfare queen" and the "strapping young buck" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;"><span style="font-size: 12.61px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;"><span style="font-size: 12.61px;">And ever since Republican politicians have become expert at using coded language to tap into anxiety of white middle and lower class Americans about losing ground culturally and economically to African Americans and immigrants. Could there be a more perfect segue than from Reagan's presidency to Bush I's famous Willie Horton campaign ad? Support for states' rights, calls for curbing federal assistance programs, blaming poverty on a "culture problem," referring to "illegal aliens," expressing fear of the spread of Shariah law, and framing opposition to LGBT rights as "religious liberty" all get the message across without sounding overtly racist, bigoted, xenophobic or homophobic. The references to "Barack Hussein Obama" and relentless questions about Obama's birth certificate -- pioneered by one Donald J. Trump, of course -- tapped into the code as well. </span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">But Donald Trump discarded the dog whistle during his campaign in 2016. He referred to Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and rapists. He argued for discriminatory treatment of Muslims. He asserted that the judge presiding over the Trump University fraud cases, born in Indiana but of Mexican heritage, must be biased against him in light of Trump's proposal to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">And then he won the presidency, anyway -- or, more likely, because of it. And after that, he brought white nationalists into the White House to be key advisors and installed them in his cabinet. He sought to impose a travel ban on Muslims. He redirected a counter-terrorism program to focus solely on "radical Islamic extremism" and no longer target white supremacists. And when w</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">hite nationalists armed with torches and Nazi flags felt emboldened by him to rally in Charlottesville, he talked about the fine people on both sides. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">And it has only gotten worse, most recently with unhinged racist attacks on members of Congress. With such hate-filled vitriol aimed at people and communities of color being tweeted out almost daily, it is getting harder for Trump's fellow Republicans to defend him. But they keep trying. They have to because if they admit that Trump is racist, then they will have to concede that Trump policies that the Republican Party stands behind -- most notably his </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">unconscionable border policies -- </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">stem from racism and a white nationalist agenda rather than simply hard-line pragmatism. In other words, Trump's racist rants have proven -- as if we really needed more proof -- that his efforts to thwart asylum seekers and radically reduce the number of refugees isn't about national security, border safety or providing a more fair and orderly process -- it's about keeping black and brown people out of the country.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px;">Now that the truth is undeniable -- 51% in a recent poll believe Trump is racist -- Trump and his Republican enablers may hope that his unmitigated racism will energize a base that is otherwise low energy because it has not benefited from his purported economic miracle. But it looks like there actually may be a whole lot fewer deplorables than Trump thinks there are. Suburban voters, particularly white women, appear to be recoiling from Trump's white nationalism. It seems that abandoning the dog whistle may very well backfire. Maybe Trump should have tried to be more subtle like St. Ronnie.</span>Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-29661401485528444262019-06-28T12:10:00.001-07:002019-06-28T16:49:57.622-07:00The Mets: Amazing Then, Appalling Now<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMCO-ZRJaXm-qoaYfWlSs0dkcxrfE0foP6e4yEkYIYHG-Aa0aqS9NFZeo81cv5Y0AkvLjB4hpqJmk2uayCVoe0HR1Hh0mqN0ofE5tcbUkgav5Z6RcmWLo24jkhCxF76AU1ZkoxDpprQUi6/s1600/sad+mr+met.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="277" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMCO-ZRJaXm-qoaYfWlSs0dkcxrfE0foP6e4yEkYIYHG-Aa0aqS9NFZeo81cv5Y0AkvLjB4hpqJmk2uayCVoe0HR1Hh0mqN0ofE5tcbUkgav5Z6RcmWLo24jkhCxF76AU1ZkoxDpprQUi6/s400/sad+mr+met.jpg" width="357" /></a></div>
The Mets are really bad at honoring their history. Given that the franchise is younger than me with only two World Series wins and a handful (or two) of iconic players, it shouldn't be that hard to celebrate our modest amount of glory. But their stadium, Citi Field, completed in 2009 and patterned after old Ebbetts Field, was more of an homage to the Brooklyn Dodgers -- unless (with all due respect to Jackie Robinson) the big number 42 in the rotunda was meant to honor Butch Huskey or perhaps Ron Hodges. Only two players' numbers have been retired. There are no statues of their stars as at other stadiums, much less a Monument Park like they have in the Bronx.<br />
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But with this being the 50th Anniversary of the magical, miraculous season of 1969, it seems that management has been shamed into doing the right thing. They finally commissioned a statue for their greatest player, <a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/remembering-tom-seaver.html">Tom Seaver</a>, and also renamed the stadium's address 41 Seaver Way. This weekend there are a host of festivities scheduled with commemorative giveaways and tributes, and many former players will be in attendance. It should be a sweet, sentimental ride.<br />
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But painful too. Painful because of the stark difference between the joyful highs of the 1969 season and the agonizing lows halfway through 2019.<br />
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I'm reminded of the 10th Anniversary. The Mets honored the 1969 team at an Old Timers' Day game on July 14, 1979. As the Met announcer, the great Bob Murphy, introduced members of the 69 squad, they each came out of the dugout and onto the field in their old uniforms -- a little tighter to be sure, but only ten years out, most of old Mets still looked more or less like ballplayers. The fans went wild, boisterously cheering their beloved heroes, which included most of the heart of the team: Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, Donn Clendenon, Jerry Grote, Art Shamsky, Ron Swoboda and several others. Ed Kranepool, who was still on the Mets, joined his former mates. They played a couple of innings against a team of aging stars from an earlier era, including several former Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. Gary Gentry started for the Mets (since the aces, Seaver and Jerry Koosman, were still active and playing elsewhere). It wasn't too hard -- especially if you were in the upper deck -- to imagine having been transported back in time -- Agee pounded his glove before smoothly catching a fly ball, Cleon Jones crushed a double (albeit against a much older Ralph Branca) and Swoboda, swinging from his heels, smashed a ball against the outfield wall that was just foul. I was there with my best pal, Michael, and we couldn't have been happier, lapping up the nostalgia.<br />
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And then it was time for the real game. The 1979 version took the field with the likes of Willie Montanez, Richie Hebner and the detritus from the brutally painful Tom Seaver trade two years earlier. We left before game began. We simply couldn't bear the contrast with our cherished 1969 team. (Indeed, the Mets would lose 99 games that year for a last place finish, although I looked it up and they actually won that day, with Tom Hausman outpitching the Giants' Vida Blue for one of his 15 career victories, aided by RBIs from the aforementioned detritus, Doug Flynn and Steve Henderson.)<br />
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Which brings us to today. The Mets have again become unwatchable. A poorly constructed roster assembled by their new general manager, baffling moves by their deer-in-the-headlights field manager, dysfunction throughout the organization and the bizarre mishandling of injuries, has undermined what looked to be an exciting season and a promising future. True, unlike the 79 team, there is some hope thanks to a core of exciting young players who have yet to be beaten down by the team's toxicity -- particularly, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil and Michael Conforto (and maybe Amed Rosario and the now-injured Brandon Nimmo). And last year's Cy Young Award winner, Jacob DeGrom, is a true star. But their starting pitching is wildly inconsistent, their defense is atrocious and their bullpen is a nightmare (more blown saves than saves!) Every day seems to bring another gut-wrenching loss caused by a late inning defensive miscue and/or a bullpen meltdown. And there is talk about trading once-promising players at the trading deadline for prospects, in other words, conceding that's its time to rebuild, again.<br />
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Every year Met fans hope that somehow everything will fall into place and we will become champions once more. Such optimism (some would say delusional thinking) is surely due to our formative Met experience in 1969, which has led us to believe that a miracle can happen again. And then every year, sometime in June or July, it becomes clear that this isn't going to be the year for a miracle.<br />
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And that's where we are. There's nothing to do but enjoy the festivities, revel in the nostalgia for the 1969 team, and then go home.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-29463823063025255552019-05-24T11:20:00.002-07:002019-05-24T11:29:18.958-07:00This Shit Is Getting Real<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The press is the enemy of the people and can be prosecuted for espionage if they publish leaked national security information. Federal law enforcement officials are traitors who can be tried for treason for investigating a foreign power's efforts to interfere with U.S. elections if it leads to all (or some) of the president's men. Moreover, the president's <i>de facto</i> personal attorney, formerly known as the Attorney General of the United States, has been given sweeping powers to declassify any intelligence from any agency regarding the impetus of that investigation and, as his prior conduct suggests, will selectively provide that information to the public in a way that favors the president and undermines the investigation.<br />
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Meanwhile, the president has instructed his staff -- past and present -- to ignore Congressional subpoenas and has refused to cooperate with any attempts at legitimate oversight by the Democratic-led House of Representatives. Instead, he is relying on incendiary rhetoric and court challenges. As to the latter, perhaps not fast enough to serve his purposes, he is stocking the federal judiciary at an unprecedented rate -- already over 100 judges and two Supreme Court justices -- in the hope that this will provide a bulwark against challenges to his authoritarianism. </div>
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This shit is getting real.</div>
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The Democrats in Congress sound the alarm on the one hand, but go back to business as usual on the other. They rail about Trump's authoritarianism, corruption and unfitness for office, but believe it is more important to pass poll-tested bills in the House that the Senate will not even take up. As Democrats act calmly, rationally and reasonably in the face of rampant abuses of power, they not only betray weakness and political calculation, but are nevertheless tarred as partisan enemies of the people. </div>
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The cautious, disjointed response by the Democratic leadership since the Mueller Report was released that focuses on process, not substance, has allowed Trump, AG Barr and the GOP to create a false narrative that exonerates the president. Sure it is outrageous that Barr is withholding the unredacted report and the administration is refusing to honor subpoenas -- and this must be challenged -- but we can't lose sight of the fact that there is already plenty in the redacted version, in the public record, and in Trump's continued authoritarian moves that warrant an impeachment inquiry -- an inquiry that could more easily obtain this information.<br />
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Democrats' avoidance of the "I" word signals that they don't believe there is enough to go forward. If there isn't enough now -- if there isn't at least a <i>prima facie</i> case of high crimes and misdemeanors --what would it take, FFS? Does Trump really have to stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone? Shall we take another poll to find out if it would be worth it then?<br />
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While Democrats dither, Trump's latest move of aggressively investigating the investigation will now put Democrats on the defensive, where holding impeachment hearings would have the opposite effect.<br />
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Once an impeachment inquiry is launched, a committee would subpoena documents and call witnesses (with heightened powers to compel) and weigh the evidence before proposing specific articles of impeachment to be considered by the House. If the House votes to impeach, then the proceedings would move to the Senate where, after a trial, it would take two-thirds of the Senate to remove him. While it is virtually impossible at this point to envision the Senate Republicans putting country over party, they should be required to stand up in the face of what is sure to be overwhelming evidence and explain to the American people why they continue to support this palpably unfit miscreant. And even if the Senate fails to convict, the process itself will impede Trump's ability to pursue his destructive agenda as well as cause him deep and lasting political damage.</div>
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Michelle Goldberg concludes in her recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/opinion/trump-pelosi-impeachment.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">New York Times op-ed</a>:</div>
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<blockquote>
The point of impeachment is not to remove Trump before the 2020 election. It is to make clear, in the starkest possible way, why Democrats believe he should be removed. The remainder of his term should be consumed by a formal, televised presentation of all the ways he’s disgraced his office. It’s true that were Trump to be re-elected after such a reckoning, he might be even further unleashed. But were Trump to be re-elected in the absence of impeachment, it would still be seen as a vindication for him, and would leave Democrats humiliated by their excess of caution.</blockquote>
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Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-80739838463481139762019-05-22T10:45:00.007-07:002024-01-04T12:20:49.453-08:00Teach Your Children: The Essential Films<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAuZkPHaOUsv0-EwuRCic-GJ4zXjGoPgDdVmJ7z_SHEncPfr-ihXwMd0viYTY2xyDljUnNIuBPShVEVjfRq9Mz0aZjfM4L34ukj9I3QmElKPgmWWhFwnf8SDzxSnCJWDiDb2igkFTobiIh/s1600/512TlHihQSL._SY445_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="311" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAuZkPHaOUsv0-EwuRCic-GJ4zXjGoPgDdVmJ7z_SHEncPfr-ihXwMd0viYTY2xyDljUnNIuBPShVEVjfRq9Mz0aZjfM4L34ukj9I3QmElKPgmWWhFwnf8SDzxSnCJWDiDb2igkFTobiIh/s400/512TlHihQSL._SY445_.jpg" width="278" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
is incumbent upon parents to teach their children core values: love,
kindness, self-respect and respect for others, fairness and justice, family culture/tradition and tolerance for those of others, appreciation of nature and the need to protect the planet, openness to the spiritual or magical, cultivation of healthful habits and self-sufficiency, the power of literature and music, the importance of baseball, and how to eat a slice of pizza.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Then there are the movies -- those essential 20th Century American films that our kids should be familiar with before moving on into the world. These are not necessarily the ones you would see in a film class (although several you might) but those iconic gems that say something fundamental about ourselves and our culture. Here's my initial attempt at a list that probably says more about me:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">1. </span>Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, Animal Crackers </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sullivan's Travels</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Maltese Falcon,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Casablanca, Treasure of
Sierra Madre </div><div class="MsoNormal">5. Double Indemnity</div><div class="MsoNormal">6. Harvey</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">7. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Notorious</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Searchers<br />9. Bridge on the River Kwai</div><div class="MsoNormal">10. 12 Angry Men</div><div class="MsoNormal">11. Some Like It Hot, The Apartment</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">12. Lawrence of Arabia </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>13. The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The Train <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
14. To Kill A Mockingbird </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
15. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
16. The Great Escape, The Guns of Navarone, Stalag 17, Von Ryan's Express</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
17. Dr. Strangelove<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
18. The Pink Panther, A Shot in the Dark </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
19. The Graduate </div><div class="MsoNormal">20. In The Heat of the Night</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">21. Planet of the Apes </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">22. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid<br />23. Little Big Man<br />24. Harold and Maude</div><div class="MsoNormal">25. Fiddler on the Roof</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
26. The Godfather & The Godfather II </div><div class="MsoNormal">27. Jeremiah Johnson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
28. Young Frankenstein<br />
29. Chinatown<br />30. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</div><div class="MsoNormal">31. Three Days of the Condor</div><div class="MsoNormal">32. The Outlaw Josey Wales</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">33. Annie Hall </div><div class="MsoNormal">34. The Last Waltz</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">35. Apocalypse Now <br />36. Airplane</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">37. This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman</div><div class="MsoNormal">38. Stranger Than Paradise</div><div class="MsoNormal">39. Bull Durham, A League of Their Own, Eight Men Out</div><div class="MsoNormal">40. Midnight Run<br />41. Do The Right Thing</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">42. My Cousin Vinny </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">43. Groundhog Day </div><div class="MsoNormal">44. Pulp Fiction</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">45. The Big Lebowski, Fargo</div>
Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-34995137261870145592019-05-02T16:55:00.001-07:002019-05-02T18:31:35.794-07:00The Frog And The Shit-Gibbon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwjDxYdOYgocP288pybsBJPIVVdMlsiZLOD0rEyep8sP4CL__GuzRdQILY4Js78_M3AEgCaFfT7w7pkteMTWp9_cAY763zFWIu60jcvh61KHqvxWQrFn2n_lxAj_5s7MR8Om-FRhNaOHaN/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwjDxYdOYgocP288pybsBJPIVVdMlsiZLOD0rEyep8sP4CL__GuzRdQILY4Js78_M3AEgCaFfT7w7pkteMTWp9_cAY763zFWIu60jcvh61KHqvxWQrFn2n_lxAj_5s7MR8Om-FRhNaOHaN/s400/download.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
With the daily onslaught of lies, corruption and abuse of power from the Trump Administration, it is not possible to maintain a meaningful perspective on the scope and magnitude of its horror. The latest outrage is dutifully reported while the traditional media and the political establishment mostly give a collective shrug because it simply confirms the already baked-in view that the president is a lying, corrupt scoundrel. And we move on to the next outrage the following day, one that would be a massive scandal in any other Administration. There is no sense of urgency from Democratic leadership -- no sense that we are in a true national emergency -- no sense that without immediate, drastic action, the Administration will: (1) stall, obstruct and distract to avoid accountability for this term, and (2) use corrupt means (e.g., doubling down on voter suppression and foreign interference while investigating its political opponents) to remain in office for another term.<br />
<br />
But never mind. After all, it's Infrastructure Week (again). So the Democratic leadership dutifully meets with Trump with a plan for a compromise infrastructure bill in its never-ending quest to appear reasonable and responsible in the face of insanity. Couldn't they have slipped him a subpoena while they were there? Sure, Nancy Pelosi, the House Majority Leader, says Trump's conduct is "worse than Nixon's," but she and her fellow Democrats don't act as if he is anything like Nixon. They continue to argue about whether opening an impeachment inquiry would be politically prudent while dithering over requests for testimony and documents from Trump officials. 'OK,' they say, 'this is your last chance to appear voluntarily and if you don't, we will ... mock you by eating buckets of fried chicken.' Maybe next week they will issue subpoenas or contempt citations. Or maybe the week after that -- and if that doesn't work, maybe then they might revisit the impeachment question, but only after checking the polls. Or, they'll just wait to see what happens in November 2020, as if that won't embolden Trump to turn up the malfeasance meter to 11.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Trump dangerously promotes an egregious lie about Democrats relishing the execution of newborns, proposes new rules to create even greater hardship for political asylum seekers, and provides cover to racists by re-framing Charlottesville as nothing more than a good-faith dispute over a Civil War statue. Trump's 10,000th lie milestone was greeted mostly with jokes from late night comedians rather than any kind of shock or outrage. Indeed, the numbers no longer mean anything. Neither it seems do facts. He lies so often and so brazenly that he has successfully created an alternative universe for his base that cannot be penetrated by reason or logic.<br />
<br />
And speaking of his base, Trump continues to encourage white nationalist-inspired violence -- not only in his speeches and rhetoric that give legitimacy and comfort to white supremacists and anti-semites, but in defunding and disbanding the Dept. of Homeland Security's branch that had previously focused on domestic terrorism. Imagine the scandal that would have ensued if there had been spike in domestic terrorism during the Obama Administration after funding for domestic terrorism had been cut to assuage Obama's constituency. For Trump, in the wake of more shootings by white supremacists, it is barely a one-day news story. <br />
<br />
How about this frightening statistic: the Senate has just confirmed Trump's 100th nominee to the federal bench, virtually all of whom are extremely young and extremely conservative, having been incubated in Federalist Society dogma. These are lifetime appointments, jammed through the Judiciary Committee without meaningful hearings. Along with stealing a Supreme Court majority, the Republicans are successfully skewing the entire federal judiciary for a generation or more. The consequences are dire. But the lack of any urgency to win back the Senate is demonstrated by the number of potentially formidable Democratic senatorial candidates deciding they are better off running for president. This is madness.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly, the Mueller Report, augmented by AG Barr's creative interpretation of it, failed to fulfill the always unrealistic hope that our thoughts and prayers would be answered -- that there would finally be a definitive determination of Trump's perfidy that would inexorably lead to his removal. Although the report itself provides incriminating bombshells and a tantalizing roadmap for further investigation -- indeed, impeachment -- by Congress, Barr did what he was undoubtedly appointed to do. He provided -- and continues to provide -- the necessary sound bites and obfuscation for Trump to claim vindication. It is plain, after Barr's remarkably disingenuous testimony, that Trump will not only use Barr and the DOJ as a shield to avoid any Congressional oversight, but -- like any good dictator -- as a sword to go after the investigators and Trump's political opponents. Get ready for bogus but overly-reported "scandals" involving whichever Democratic presidential hopeful appears to be gaining traction. First up: Joe Biden and the Ukraine.<br />
<br />
This is all like the fable about the slow boiling of a frog -- where we, as the frog, fail to notice our doom because of the gradual heat being brought to bear. The daily lies and reports of corruption and abuse of power slowly add up. The drip, drip, drip of disclosures about
Russia simply don't have the dramatic impact of having learned about all of it at once. Had we been dropped in boiling water -- confronted with the sum total of Trump's malevolence -- we surely would have collectively jumped. That's where <a href="http://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/impeach-expletive-deleted.html">impeachment hearings</a> would come in handy -- putting it all in one scalding pot.<br /><br />
There's another frog story -- the one about the frog and the scorpion, where the scorpion, after promising not to sting the frog if it carries the scorpion across the water, does so anyway, even though it meant that both the frog and scorpion would drown. When the frog protests, the scorpion helplessly replies, "I can't help it, it's in my nature."<br />
<br />
It is in Trump's nature to be willfully ignorant, to be cruel and to degrade and corrupt everything he touches. It is in his nature to not just lie but to make the truth meaningless. It is in his nature to use threats, lawsuits and the levels of power at his disposal to avoid accountability. And it is in his nature to to be an authoritarian bully. The key is that we recognize the danger, amplify it and fight against it -- and to do so expeditiously -- and not allow ourselves to go down with him.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-48956224748063069452019-04-30T10:21:00.000-07:002019-04-30T10:25:53.866-07:00Joe Biden's "Apology" To Anita Hill Is Too Little, Too Late And Too Lame<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lg2UvkjO2eyPFC2qfM2H6rB2B6aZWah-8i1VPLmIfG2gYggdRkKVmOln-Hxc3ZGdMjM1DVRlbN-OIy4Ep0BGVI4Pw7F8EOTc9WUqao1rbMg5-SU4IeozNGNFSeWA7f997EpXozWueTGa/s1600/GTY_joe_biden_1991_cf_160414.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lg2UvkjO2eyPFC2qfM2H6rB2B6aZWah-8i1VPLmIfG2gYggdRkKVmOln-Hxc3ZGdMjM1DVRlbN-OIy4Ep0BGVI4Pw7F8EOTc9WUqao1rbMg5-SU4IeozNGNFSeWA7f997EpXozWueTGa/s400/GTY_joe_biden_1991_cf_160414.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<em>This piece was originally written in 2017, but is unfortunately more relevant than ever. Biden's inability -- still -- to come to grips with his responsibility, not only for the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, but for the rigged process he agreed to that isolated and humiliated Anita Hill, is deeply troubling as he trots out the Aw Shucks Kindly Uncle Joe routine on the campaign trail. With both his non-apology to Anita Hill about how she was treated and his statements about not intending to creep out the women whose shoulders he rubbed and hair he sniffed, Biden repeatedly fails to distinguish between his purportedly benign intent and the far-from-benign impact. In my view, this is a disqualifying blind spot.</em><br />
<br />
Joe Biden was the chair of the Senate's Judiciary Committee during Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings in 1991. In contrast to his more recent incarnation as the beloved elder statesman and erstwhile sidekick to Barack Obama, Biden played a singular role in delivering Anita Hill into a lion's den of misogyny and ensuring that her testimony that Thomas sexually harassed her when she was in his employ at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would be ridiculed.<br />
<br />
Biden was a well-ensconced member of the Old Boys' Network aka The United States Senate, and did his level best to be a neutral arbiter, which allowed the more aggressive, overtly-sexist Republicans to control the proceedings. (Sound familiar?) In his efforts to be unstintingly fair to Thomas -- to the detriment of Thomas' victims -- he repeatedly assured him that "you have the benefit of the doubt," despite the lack of any legal justification for such an assurance. This was not a judicial proceeding, it was a confirmation hearing. <br />
<br />
Biden had the power to permit expert testimony on sexual harassment but he refused. He had the power to restrain the insulting and humiliating questioning of Hill but failed to do so -- and got into the act himself (asking Hill about how she felt during an alleged sexually-charged interaction with Thomas, “Were you uncomfortable, were you embarrassed, did it not concern you?”) And, worst of all, he reached a private compromise with Republican senators -- a classic back room deal -- not to call witnesses who would have corroborated Hill, most importantly, Angela Wright, another former employee of Thomas at the EEOC who also claimed to have been sexually harassed by him. <br />
<br />
Thomas was confirmed by a painfully slim margin, 52–48, with the help of 11 Democrats. Although Biden voted against Thomas, his shameful performance as Judiciary Chair is directly responsible for one of the most reactionary Supreme Court justices in U.S. history.<br />
<br />
Now that we are seemingly at a watershed moment in which sexual misconduct by men in power is coming under scrutiny, questions about Clarence Thomas and how the sexual harassment allegations against him were addressed are getting a well-needed second look.<br />
<br />
In an interview with <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/joe-biden-anita-hill">Teen Vogue</a>, Joe Biden was asked about his role in hearings. He focused on his inability to control his "Republican friends," stating "my one regret is that I wasn’t able to tone down the attacks on her by some of my Republican friends. I mean, they really went after her. As much as I tried to intervene, I did not have the power to gavel them out of order. I tried to be like a judge and only allow a question that would be relevant to ask."<br />
<br />
I'm gonna call bullshit. First, Biden was not a judge, he was the chairman of the committee and certainly had the power to "gavel" the unwarranted attacks on Anita Hill as out of order. But what Biden conveniently elides is his pivotal role ahead of the proceedings in rigging things in favor of the nominee in a way that would undermine the credibility of Anita Hill -- failing to set parameters for questions and failing to allow corroborating testimony.<br />
<br />
Anita Hill recently told the Washington Post that she believes that Biden still doesn't get it -- that he fails to “take ownership of his role in what happened.” As she said: "he also doesn’t understand that it wasn’t just that I felt it was not fair. It was that women were looking to the Senate Judiciary Committee and his leadership to really open the way to have these kinds of hearings. They should have been using best practices to show leadership on this issue on behalf of women’s equality. And they did just the opposite.”<br />
<br />
Biden concludes in his Teen Vogue interview: "I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill. I owe her an apology." You sure do, Joe.<br />
<br />
<i>Follow Fair and Unbalanced on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/FairUnbalanced1"><span style="color: #225588;">@FairUnbalanced1</span></a> and on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fairandunbalanced/"><span style="color: #225588;">Facebook</span></a></i>
Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-87248842140334489582019-03-21T13:50:00.000-07:002019-03-21T13:50:59.121-07:00Time Begins On Opening Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2q3hyHj0XsgZ5cjHuVaoeoxCEjxv3z8SM0wx3_u3Q7fwFZ0KYvolkjBj6HGDZWSPu0gOvhCEuD3Yp8fYlXb44w84Z3m-TQZYsoe9Dmtr6sDvS2eUPQjpi9w78la9YfEE2QYgy_FtZLxI1/s1600/baseball_450x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="400" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2q3hyHj0XsgZ5cjHuVaoeoxCEjxv3z8SM0wx3_u3Q7fwFZ0KYvolkjBj6HGDZWSPu0gOvhCEuD3Yp8fYlXb44w84Z3m-TQZYsoe9Dmtr6sDvS2eUPQjpi9w78la9YfEE2QYgy_FtZLxI1/s400/baseball_450x300.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<blockquote>
You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end
it turns out that it was the other way around all the time. -- Jim
Bouton</blockquote>
Thomas Boswell, the long-time sportswriter for the <i>Washington Post</i>, wrote a timeless piece collected in a book of the same name, <i>Why Time Begins On Opening Day</i>,
published in 1984. Boswell muses on the "resolute grasp" that baseball
maintains for so many of us" and why our "affection for the game has
held steady for decades, maybe even grown with age." He asks what
baseball is doing among our other "first-rate passions." And, indeed,
when one looks over the posts on this blog, it could seem incongruous to
have baseball pieces interrupting the rants on politics and pleas for
social justice. <br />
<br />
Boswell explains that "in contrast to the unwieldy world which we hold
in common, baseball offers a kingdom built to human scale. Its problems
and questions are exactly our size. Here we may come when we feel a
need for a rooted point of reference." It is not that baseball is an
escape from reality, "it's merely one of our many refuges <i>within</i> the real where we try to create a sense of order on our own terms." <br />
<br />
This refuge has never seemed more urgent than this season. What Boswell
wrote more than thirty years ago speaks volumes today: "Born to an age
where horror has become commonplace, where tragedy has, by its
monotonous repetition, become a parody of sorrow, we need to fence off a
few parks where humans try to be fair, where skill has some hope of
reward, where absurdity has a harder time than usual getting a ticket."<br />
<br />
Yet there are a growing number of naysayers. There are those, including the current MLB Commissioner, who are determined to use various gimmicks and quick-fixes to address three purported problems with the game: 1) the umpires blow too many calls; 2) the pace of play is too torpid; and 3) pitchers are too dominant.<br />
<br />
With regard to the first perceived problem, the solution appears to be not only more reliance on instant replay, but also an automated strike zone. What's next? Robot umpires? The original instant replay rule, designed to
review home runs, made some sense. New-fangled ballparks with unusual angles and
idiosyncratic seating make it much more difficult to discern with the
naked eye when a ball is actually hit out of the park. But the success
of the original rule has led to the inevitable slippery slope
-- expanded replay into many more areas of the game. And now, the possibility of replacing home plate umpires with an electronic strike zone. Instant replay already upsets the flow of
the game at pivotal moments. But more significantly, it attempts to eliminate chance and human error, which are woven into the game's history where the best team doesn't always win. There is the bad hop eluding a fielder that should have been an easy out, a bloop hit on a check-swing despite the pitch badly fooling the hitter, and, inevitably, the missed call from the umpire. These are essential parts of the game and those who insist on perfection are missing the point.<br />
<br />
The game is slow, but not TOO slow. As Roger Angell puts it, "each inning of baseball's slow, searching time span, each game of its long season is essential to the disclosure of its truths." But, fine, I'm willing to compromise -- shorter commercial breaks between innings, hitters staying in the batters box between pitches, a pitch clock, and restrictions on the number of mound visits the catcher can make. But did we really need to do away with the intentional walk? The geniuses running Major League Baseball keep trying to remove its
idiosyncratic charms under the guise of speeding its pace. They need to slow down. <br />
<br />
Fifty years ago, after the "Year of the Pitcher," the mound was lowered from a height of 15 inches to 10 inches to give pitchers less of an edge. There is talk of lowering it further. Or worse, moving the mound back, which arguably would help hitters, but probably would cause injuries to pitcher's arms. One of the delightful, remarkable things about baseball is that for generations, the sacred measurements between bases (90 feet) and between the pitching rubber and home plate (60 feet, six inches) have remained the same no matter how players have grown in size and strength. You can't mess with this. Another proposal, apparently going into affect next year, is requiring relief pitchers to pitch to at least three batters or until the end of an inning. This would prevent managers from using three or four relief specialists in an inning, which not only dampens the offense but does, admittedly, slow down the game in the late innings considerably. I'm OK with this. Just don't move the mound.<br />
. <br />
Behind many of these proposals seems to be an effort to accommodate purportedly impatient, distractible
millennials who love basketball and football, but are bored by baseball. But these fixes will not magically bring more fans to the ballpark. Making
the game more robotic and removing the game's traditional quirks are self-defeating. (MLB should pour funds into youth baseball -- and fairly compensate minor leaguers -- if it truly wants to have a long-term impact.) A few tweaks here and there are acceptable, but we need to have faith that baseball
is just fine the way it is. The arc of the baseball universe is long. As Yogi or Casey or (actually) Bob Veale said, "good pitching will always stop good hitting and <i>vice versa.</i>" Sure, right now pitchers have the upper hand, there are more strikeouts, and fewer balls in play. Eventually hitters will adjust, and the balance of power (literally) will shift. <br />
<br />
Boswell reminds us how baseball "offers us pleasure and insight at so
many levels and in so many forms." There is history -- an "annual
chapter each year since 1869." At the ballpark itself there is "living
theater and physical poetry." And perhaps, "baseball gives us more
pleasure, more gentle unobtrusive sustenance, away from the park than it
does inside it," pouring over box scores, crunching statistics,
debating players and teams with our cohorts, and watching games and
highlights on TV. "The ways that baseball insinuates itself into the
empty corner, cheering up the odd hour, are almost too ingrained to
notice." Let's not fuck it up.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-19135748915836951412019-03-13T10:18:00.003-07:002021-12-16T12:55:09.735-08:00The Moratorium On California's Death Penalty Should Be Celebrated, But It Comes Too Late For Some<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>Thank you Gavin Newsom for imposing a moratorium on the death penalty in California. And thank you to all my friends, colleagues, comrades who worked so hard for so long to create the political space for him to make this happen. My thoughts go to the 13 men who were executed under this discriminatory, arbitrary and barbaric system that, at least for now, has been ground to a halt -- especially Tom. This piece was originally titled The Arbitrary Execution of Tom Thompson, and was written on December 18, 2015.</em><br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>* * * *</em><br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>I knew if I wanted to see Tom one last time I had to leave for the prison soon. It was already late in the afternoon and at 6:00 pm, he would be taken from the visiting area to the death watch cell for his last meal. There he would remain until 25 minutes before midnight when he would be led to the execution chamber next door. There wasn’t anything left for me to do anyway, so I left my San Francisco office and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to San Quentin State Prison.<br /> <br /></em><em> The parking lot to the East Gate of the prison is just a few yards from the San Francisco Bay. Even after countless visits the contrast between the sweeping vista of the coastline and the grim reality inside the prison’s peach colored concrete walls is striking. I passed through security and walked slowly down the long path leading to the Main Visiting Room. I was let in through the two sets of heavy doors, and saw Tom, surrounded by family and close friends, presiding over a gathering that could only be described as surreal. Tom had been on death row for fourteen years, and the prison guards who knew him well seemed as traumatized as everyone else. They were overly solicitous, awkward, almost apologetic. Instead of the usual vending machine fare there was a platter of cold cuts for sandwiches and sodas on a long table. Although in a matter of hours he was going to be strapped to a gurney and lethally injected with poison, it was Tom who was trying to keep things light, with the corny jokes and over-the-top impersonations – Steve Martin as the “Wild and Crazy Guy” and Mike Myers as Austin Powers – with which I had become all too familiar. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Behind his silliness, Tom was thoroughly depleted from being the center of a spectacle that surrounded him as the fifth man about to be executed in California since the death penalty was re-instituted in 1977. A physically healthy 43 year old was going through the process of dying, and it was disorienting and unbearably stressful. He had been enduring emotionally-charged visits from his friends and loved ones, for whom he felt the need to constantly perform. He met often with me and other members of the legal team to approve a list of execution witnesses (he was entitled to five) and to be kept abreast of last minute developments – of which there were few. He had been under 24 hour surveillance from guards for the past five days, making sleep impossible. In accordance with prison rules, he had been stripped of his “non-legal property.” He had no reading or writing material. He was denied his art supplies, which he had used for surprisingly impressive paintings over the years, including a portrait of Billy Idol he had given me a few months earlier. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>We had been preparing for this moment for far too long, having gone through a similar process one year earlier when, despite a stay of execution, prison personnel proceeded methodically with its execution protocol until, with six hours to spare, they were finally assured that the Supreme Court would not disturb the stay. There was not much left to say. Tom, although hampered by waist chains, enveloped me as best he could in a big bear hug, and thanked me for all I had done. He told me that I should feel proud about putting up such a good and righteous fight. I replied that it had been an honor to have worked with him. I exchanged tearful goodbyes with his sister and mother. I walked out of the prison and returned to my office where I continued to file court papers with little chance of success and railed to reporters about injustice. All to no avail. Six minutes after midnight on July 14, 1998, Tom Thompson was dead.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>* * * *</em><br />
<br />
Tom Thompson had no criminal record or history of violence when he was tried for the murder of Ginger Fleischli in 1984. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death based largely on the false testimony of jailhouse snitches and the failure of his trial lawyer to challenge the bogus evidence of rape invented by the prosecutor. (The rape special-circumstance provided the basis for the death penalty.)<br />
<br />
An explosive scandal involving the Orange County D.A.'s office has only recently shed light on the extent of the unethical behavior routinely engaged in by its prosecutors to secure death sentences. And Michael Jacobs -- the prosecutor in Tom's case -- has been revealed to be one of the more notorious. Jacobs was fired in 2001 for insubordination and dishonesty. The litany of his misconduct over several cases includes presenting false testimony, using unreliable informants, and hiding exculpatory evidence -- all of which he did in Tom's case. And there was more. Jacobs used contradictory evidence and arguments in two separate trials to convict first Tom and then Tom's roommate, David Leitch -- the victim's former boyfriend and a man with a violent past -- on inconsistent theories. The reliability of many other Orange County cases has been called into question since the D.A. scandal broke -- and one murder conviction based on the false testimony of one of the very same snitches who testified against Tom has been reversed. Of course, this all comes too late for Tom.<br />
<br />
There are approximately 750 men and women on death row in California. Tom Thompson is one of 13 who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated 40 years ago. While others sentenced to death around the same time languished on death row (several of whom continue to languish), his case jumped to the head of the class for no discernible reason. And then a series of safeguards designed to ensure that the death penalty is fairly and reliably imposed -- state and federal appellate review and clemency -- completely and utterly failed. <br />
<br />
All death sentences in California are automatically reviewed by the California Supreme Court. Tom's appeal was heard in 1988, two years after three liberal justices were recalled by the voters and replaced by an ultra-conservative governor with ultra-conservative justices. The Court was thereby transformed almost overnight from one that was appropriately open to reversing cases based on meritorious claims to one that essentially rubber-stamped death penalty cases by finding virtually every error alleged in virtually every case to be harmless. Accordingly, Tom's conviction and sentence were affirmed.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The case then moved to federal court, where in 1995, Tom's death sentence and rape-related charges were reversed based on a finding of ineffective assistance of trial counsel for counsel's inexcusable failure to adequately rebut the snitch testimony and other evidence that purported to establish rape. The state appealed this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the composition of the randomly drawn three-judge panel in the federal appellate courts is the most important factor in determining the life and death of a condemned inmate. If at least two of the judges on the panel are essentially liberal, the death penalty will likely be reversed; if they are conservative it usually will be upheld. It is simply luck of the draw and, unfortunately, Tom got a very, very bad draw. Despite what at the time was a majority of liberal judges on the Ninth Circuit, all three judges on Tom’s panel were extremely conservative Reagan appointees. It was therefore not surprising -- but wholly arbitrary -- when the panel reversed the district court's ruling in 1996.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To mitigate such arbitrariness is another important safeguard -- en banc review, in which an 11-judge Ninth Circuit panel has the option to review a 3-judge panel's ruling. Court papers were filed requesting rehearing en banc, which can only be granted after one of the active judges who sits on the Ninth Circuit calls for a vote and a majority of those judges then vote in favor of rehearing. Given the number of liberal judges on the Ninth Circuit at that time it would be unusual for there not to at least be one judge calling for a vote in a death penalty case. However, on March 6, 1997, an order issued stating that the request for en banc review was denied because not one judge asked for a vote to rehear the case. After the U.S. Supreme Court denied review, an execution date was set for August 5, 1997. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the months that followed, evidence surfaced that corroborated Tom's long-standing version of events -- that he and the victim had consensual sex on the night of her death. This included a statement from Tom's roommate, David Leitch, that was never turned over to the defense. Such evidence completely undermined the prosecutor's rape-murder theory and called into question the credibility and integrity of the prosecutor's entire case. Unfortunately, presenting this new evidence was severely hampered by a federal law that had just been enacted in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") was designed to thwart "frivolous appeals" but it cast far too wide a net and created virtually insurmountable hurdles to presenting new claims in federal court. Another problem was that the federal judge who had originally granted relief had passed away and the case was assigned to a far more conservative judge who was completely unreceptive to this new evidence and rejected the claim. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Another purported safeguard is clemency, a process in which the governor is empowered to act when the judicial system breaks down. No California governor since Ronald Reagan, however, has seen fit to grant clemency in a capital case, and in Tom's case, Governor Pete Wilson proved no exception. Despite powerful and emotional pleas from family and loved ones, the lack of any prior criminal history, testimonials from prison guards about Tom's exemplary conduct at San Quentin, and serious doubts raised regarding the fairness of the trial and the subsequent judicial proceedings, Wilson denied clemency. He ultimately based his decision on nothing more than a determination that Tom could not prove his innocence ("But at the end of it all, I am absolutely confident that he raped and murdered Ginger Fleischli").</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On August 3, 1997, one night before Tom's execution was scheduled to take place, an 11-judge en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit issued a dramatic order. The court explained that it was taking the highly unusual step of ruling after its earlier denial of review because of “exceptional circumstances” caused by a malfunction in the court’s review process -- a glitch in the court's communication system that resulted in the failure of any judge voting to review the case en banc the first time -- and because “we are convinced that the panel committed fundamental errors of law that would result in a manifest injustice.” The Ninth Circuit then vacated the three-judge panel opinion, and reversed the death sentence, holding that trial counsel's ineffectiveness was prejudicial and that the prosecutor’s use of fundamentally inconsistent theories at Tom and David’s separate trials was fundamentally unfair. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The state sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court, while the prison proceeded with its execution protocol. With six hours to spare, the Supreme Court refused the state's invitation to summarily reverse the Ninth Circuit and allow the execution to go forward. But it did agree to hear the state's appeal on December 9, 1997. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The grand stairway of 53 steps, the massive Corinthian marble columns, the grandeur of the Great Hall, and all the pomp and circumstance attending the Supreme Court are surely designed to give lawyers a sense of awe and wonder as they go through the red-curtained entrance into the courtroom and sit just a few short feet from the nine justices. One comes completely down to earth, however, as it becomes clear that at least a majority of those justices intend to make sure one’s client is executed. This seemed like a foregone conclusion in Tom’s case. When the high court decides to intervene in a Ninth Circuit case that has reversed a death sentence it is usually not to approve its ruling. And thus, another safeguard proved ephemeral. On April 29, 1998, by a bare 5-to-4 majority, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and ordered it to reinstate Tom's death sentence. Justice Kennedy (a former Ninth Circuit judge, himself) wrote the majority opinion, finding a “grave abuse of discretion” in the Ninth Circuit’s handling of the case, and stressed the importance of “finality” of state judgments. Thus, even though Tom was not at fault, the Court rejected Tom’s claims on the technicality that the Ninth Circuit had waited too long to grant en banc review. The Court never even addressed the validity of Tom’s substantive claims. A new execution date was set for July 14, 1998.<br /><br /> The last hope was the separate appeal of the federal judge's rejection of the newly discovered evidence of innocence. The case was heard by the same en banc panel that had granted relief earlier, but the court was no longer receptive. It seemed chastened by the lashing it had received by the Supreme Court and shackled by the barriers to relief imposed by AEDPA. At 11:00 p.m., on July 11, 1998, the court denied relief. Tom was executed two nights later.</span><br />
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* * * *<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom Thompson was represented by a trial lawyer who failed to take the steps required to afford minimally competent representation in a capital case. He was convicted and sentenced to death in a county where a cynical prosecutor could pick and choose among jail inmates who were willing and able to manufacture evidence to support the prosecution’s theory of the case. His death sentence was affirmed by a state court that at the time refused to meaningfully review death penalty cases. Relief in federal court was first denied because he unluckily drew a conservative panel and later because of legal technicalities that had nothing to do with the merits of his claims. Despite obtaining new evidence that suggested he was innocent, Tom was precluded from obtaining a new trial because of insurmountable legal procedures and the paramount importance of closure.<br /><br />Twenty years later, poor defense lawyers, unsavory prosecutors, disinterested courts and impenetrable procedural hurdles remain all too common elements in capital cases. They are inherent aspects of an irreparably broken system. Apart from the barbarity of the death penalty, the absence of meaningful safeguards to ensure that death sentences are not unreliably and arbitrarily imposed and carried out should be deeply disturbing to anyone who cares about fairness and justice. </span></div>
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(<em>Originally published on December 18, 2015; here are other </em><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>pieces on Tom Thompson -- </em><a href="http://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-opposite.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em><span style="color: #225588;">My Opposite</span></em></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em> and </em></span><a href="http://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/final-hours.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em><span style="color: #225588;">Final Hours</span></em></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">)</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></div>
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Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-39561436409988472772019-02-25T08:17:00.001-08:002019-02-25T10:25:39.837-08:00Why Elizabeth Warren Would Be The Best President<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It remains to be seen who will be the best candidate to take on the malevolent orange shit-gibbon in the general election. All those who have declared or are likely to declare have baggage of one kind or another -- and even if they didn't, the Republican attack machine would invent some. What is clear is that a whole lot of crazy shit has transpired since 2016, and the zeitgeist calls for a sharp break from politics as usual -- it isn't the time for an old white man who has previously run for the office; it isn't the time for a traditional campaign that calls for moderation, pragmatism and a move towards the political center. With both our democracy and the planet in dire straits -- a true national emergency, for fuck sake -- we need a candidate who can articulate how broken things are, how corrupt and destructive Donald Trump has been, and how to start putting the country back together -- in short, how to Make America Sane Again.<br />
<br />
Some of the candidates probably meet this criteria while a few clearly don't. (That said, it should go without saying that we must unite behind whoever the Democratic candidate ultimately is; that the candidates themselves must not tear each other or the Party down during the primaries and beyond -- I'm looking at you, Bernie.)<br />
<br />
But beyond who might be the best candidate, a separate but related question is who would be the best president. I think the answer overwhelmingly is Elizabeth Warren.<br />
<br />
From a policy perspective, no one has better chops. As a brilliant Harvard law professor, she argued for a new agency to protect consumers
before the 2008 financial crisis hit. She chaired the Congressional
Oversight Panel tasked with investigating the bank bailout, where she took
on the financial giants as well as the government. She essentially created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which, before it was gutted by Trump, provided real relief for consumers against predatory practices by financial institutions and credit card companies.<br />
<br />
Warren has already released a number of well-developed policy positions that address systemic economic inequality and would wrest a measure of economic control from corporations and the super wealthy while shifting some of their massive resources to workers, consumers and communities.<br />
<br />
This includes Universal Child Care, which would guarantee child care for every child up to 5-years-old with families paying no more than 7% percent of
their income in fees. The cost would be paid for by another of Warren's proposed policies -- the Ultra-Millionaire Tax -- which would impose a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1 billion. This proposal would raise about $2.75 trillion over 10 years.<br />
<br />
And there's Warren's Accountability Capitalism Act, which provides a powerful contrast to the Republican tax bill -- and, as she puts it, seeks to "help eliminate
skewed market incentives and return to the era when American corporations and
American workers did well together." It "aims to reverse the harmful
trends over the last thirty years that have led to record corporate profits and
rising worker productivity but stagnant wages." It would require that: (1) corporations with over $1 billion in revenue must obtain a federal charter requiring its directors to “consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders” beyond shareholders, including employees, customers and communities; and (2) workers of large corporations would elect 40% of the board of directors.<br />
<br />
These aren't your typical wonky proposals from liberals addressing piecemeal issues, but are bold, game-changing policies. Together with the Green New Deal and some variation of Medicare for All -- that Warren and most of the other Democratic candidates support -- they should not only have wide appeal for voters during the campaign, but would provide an essential new direction for the next administration.<br />
<br />
A critical, overarching issue for both the campaign and the next administration is race -- particularly how institutional racism continues to impact every aspect of American society while the Republican Party has become the unapologetic party of white nationalism. This is one reason (among many) why Democratic candidates of color -- Kamala Harris and Corey Booker -- are such compelling candidates. They not only have the potential to energize African American voters who are key to a Democratic victory, but they bring necessary perspectives on race and racism drawn from their personal experiences and family histories. <br />
<br />
Warren comes at racism from a more academic perspective. But she understands, as she stated in her commencement address at Morgan State, a historically black college, “[w]e need to stop pretending the same doors open for everyone.” She points to "generations of discrimination” as the reason for economic inequality between white and black households. At Morgan State, she acknowledged that “rules matter, and our government — not just
individuals within the government, but the government itself — has
systematically discriminated against black people in this country,”
with “two sets of rules: One for white
families, and one for everyone else.”
<br /><br />
A recent <i>New York Times </i>article described Warren's and Kamala Harris's "morally driven policy goals" as reflective of a "shift in the importance of race and identity issues in the
Democratic Party." Warren told the <i>Times </i>that "[w]e
must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned
discrimination in this country that has had many consequences, including
undermining the ability of black families to build wealth in America
for generations.” She explained that “[w]e need systemic,
structural changes to address that." And it isn't just talk. In addition to her childcare proposal which, as the <i>Times </i>notes, "could particularly affect black and Latino communities, where informal child-care arrangements are more common," Warren also supports the government provision of special home-buying
assistance to residents of communities that were historically subject to redlining, i.e., discriminatory mortgage practices. <br />
<br />
Of course, no Democratic proposal has any chance of passing the Senate -- even if Democrats win back the majority -- unless Republicans are stripped of their ability to obstruct everything. That means we must take back the Senate and Democrats must eliminate the filibuster if they take over. Unfortunately, most of the other Democratic candidates, particularly Warren's fellow Senators, are skittish about messing with Senate rules. They fundamentally fail to grasp how the Republicans have destroyed traditional norms in their pursuit of unfettered Republican control over the government. Warren understands this. She has declared with regard to eliminating the filibuster, “Everything stays on the table. You keep it all on the table. Don’t take anything off the table,”<br />
<br />
And, finally, a President Warren is not likely to pull an Obama and insist on "l<a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/its-all-obamas-fault.html">ooking forward</a>" while refusing to go after the malfeasance of her predecessor. While several other candidates seem to be determined to ignore the orange elephant in the room and focus solely on Democratic issues, Warren shows that she can walk and chew gum at the same time, outlining policy proposals while calling out Trump's lies, racism and corruption. With a lifetime of experience devoted to going after the rich and powerful, there is no one better positioned to take on Trump's abuse of power. As she said recently on the campaign trail, “by the time we get to 2020, Donald Trump may not even be president. In fact, he may not even be a free person.” But if he is still free, you can be sure that Warren will seek accountability.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the press has already shown that it has learned nothing from the 2016 debacle and will continue to treat a Democrat's relatively minor gaffes and missteps as equivalent to Trump's mind-blowing number of impeachment-worthy scandals. They will continue to buy into Trump's framing and distort the issues surrounding Warren's claim of Native American ancestry, making some voters skittish about her electability. Hopefully, as the campaigns get going, there will be more focus on substance. If that happens, Warren could prove to be a formidable candidate. She would certainly be a formidable president. Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-47101411355058202472019-02-21T10:46:00.000-08:002019-02-21T10:46:19.875-08:00Resist Trump -- Play Ball!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As the <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a42493/christie-endorses-trump/">vulgar talking yam</a> lurking in the White House seeks to delegitimize the very notions of truth, justice and the American Way, it is critical that we #resist by protesting, mobilizing and organizing. We must insist on truth and push relentlessly for justice, but we also can't forget to celebrate the American Way -- by which I mean reveling in those profoundly American institutions that cannot be tainted by that malevolent<a href="https://slate.com/culture/2017/02/how-daylin-leach-s-trump-insult-shitgibbon-rose-to-prominence.html"> shit-gibbon</a> who is befouling just about everything else. For me those sacred institutions include <span style="color: #225588;"><span style="color: #225588;">jazz (see<a href="http://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/streamin-jazz.html"> Streamin' Jazz</a>)</span></span>, <span style="color: #225588;">movies</span> (see <a href="http://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/deeper-into-movies.html">Deeper Into Movies</a>) and, of course, baseball. <br />
<br />
And so spring and Spring Training could not come too soon. <br />
<br />
<i>Cue the Ken Burns music and read the next paragraph in a deep baritone voiceover</i>.<br />
<br />
Spring training, like spring itself, is a time of renewal and rebirth; a time when even the lowliest team has hope for the season ahead. Critical trades and free agent signings over the winter have bolstered the team's weaknesses. Players coming off injury-plagued seasons are returning in the best shape of their careers. Hitters have corrected the flaws in their swing and pitchers have discovered devastating new pitches. <br />
<br />
It may be hackneyed and trite, but I buy it every year. <br />
<br />
As a Met fan, for most of the last decade or three, after enduring yet another dismal season filled with heartbreaking losses, underachieving performances, devastating injuries, and mind-boggling player moves or non-moves, I would nevertheless approach Spring Training with a naïve optimism that would endure at least until Opening Day. <br />
<br />
I would then delude myself through much of a hopeless baseball season that my team could pull it together and make a run for the playoffs down the stretch. I refuse to face reality until sometime in August -- or, last year, in June -- when forced to accept the inevitability of a losing season, I would be stuck watching a team play uninspiring baseball for the last month or so, with little to root for other than spoiling another team's playoff run and the individual achievements of favorite players. With a team going nowhere, much of the luster and lyricism of the game was lost -- at least until the spring, when it all begins again.<br />
<br />
And here we are. Perhaps due to the <a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2018/01/stop-normalizing-orange-and-blue.html">ghost of Bernie Madoff</a>, Mets ownership refuses to act like a major market team that spends money for players that could put them over the top. Instead, they hope to placate the fans by doing just enough to make the team competitive so that if everyone stays healthy and they get a little lucky, they can squeak into the playoffs -- never mind that they never stay healthy and they haven't been lucky since 1986. <br />
<br />
But wait -- there is no room for skepticism. It's Spring Training. And, besides, the Mets actually did bolster the team with the acquisition of solid, if a wee bit past-their-prime players, including Robinson Cano and Jed Lowrie. They added a big bat behind the plate in Wilson Ramos, strengthened their bullpen and added some important depth. Their great young pitchers are all feeling good and ready to blow away hitters. They have budding stars in Michael Conforto and Amed Rosario. Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil are the kind of gritty players that great teams need. And there are high hopes for rookie Pete Alonso.<br />
<br />
If everyone stays healthy and they get a little lucky, the Mets could have a magical year.<br />
<br />
As for the fate of the country? If we protest, organize and mobilize, and if we continue to protect our precious institutions, as the late, great Joaquin Andujar described both America and baseball "in one word: you never know." <br />
<br />
<i>Follow Fair and Unbalanced on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/FairUnbalanced1"><span style="color: #225588;"><em>@FairUnbalanced1</em></span></a><em> and on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/fairandunbalanced/"><span style="color: #225588;"><em>Facebook</em></span></a> Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-1218308460384317852019-01-18T10:20:00.000-08:002019-01-18T10:36:37.498-08:00Impeach The [Expletive Deleted]<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG2LzgMTDmSJM_IDRcEFRA-ygMVL9Uy0C9c9l1ldOZKjHmSFg1LFIbo0ldehXmYKlM38B9HcZ7Q0L942dOzms_pBDS6CdDspUfDbHAYTk0q8MEto_Tlhc8GZWRMQxJVFnKVCiHvPZaiTLI/s1600/9986899_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="1350" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG2LzgMTDmSJM_IDRcEFRA-ygMVL9Uy0C9c9l1ldOZKjHmSFg1LFIbo0ldehXmYKlM38B9HcZ7Q0L942dOzms_pBDS6CdDspUfDbHAYTk0q8MEto_Tlhc8GZWRMQxJVFnKVCiHvPZaiTLI/s400/9986899_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Many of us fantasize that Special Counsel Mueller will soon wrap up his investigation and produce a wide-ranging and scathing report that will result in Trump's ignominious demise. I suppose that's possible. But it is far more likely that Mueller will accede to Justice Department policy not to indict a sitting president and will ultimately submit a narrowly-focused, restrained report that will encompass only some of Trump's misdeeds. We can expect the administration to aggressively attempt to quash wide swaths of the report with broad claims of executive privilege that will have to be adjudicated in court, perhaps before Trump-appointed judges. And there is also the question of whether the soon-to-be-appointed Attorney General, to whom the report will be submitted, will release it to the public and to Congress, or, as his confirmation testimony suggests, will disclose only a distilled and abbreviated version.<br />
<br />
This means that the Democrat-controlled House cannot simply wait for Mueller to save the day. Nor should it leave the task of investigating Trump's myriad scandals to a scattershot investigation by its various committees and subcommittees. As Yoni Appelbaum thoughtfully and, to my mind, quite persuasively argues in his must-read article in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/impeachment-trump/580468/">The Atlantic</a>, Congress must impeach Trump now: "It must immediately open a formal impeachment inquiry into President
Trump, and bring the debate out of the court of public opinion and into
Congress, where it belongs." Indeed, "only by authorizing a dedicated impeachment inquiry can the House begin
to assemble disparate allegations into a coherent picture, forcing
lawmakers to consider both whether specific charges are true <i>and</i> whether the president’s abuses of his power justify his removal." Impeachment proceedings will reframe and refocus the narrative and make
it harder for Trump to change the subject as he is so adept at doing. <br />
<br />
I previously agreed with the Democratic Establishment that it was premature and politically unwise to push for impeachment. It seemed to make more sense to let Congress methodically exhaust all investigative avenues to prove Trump's malfeasance first. But this recalcitrance was based on a misconception about impeachment. What Appelbaum makes compellingly clear is that the impeachment process does not require proof before going forward. On the contrary, impeachment hearings are an appropriate vehicle for developing evidence to establish whether impeachable offenses have been committed. As Appelbaum helpfully reminds us, Nixon's impeachment hearings began
before discovery of the so-called smoking gun tape recording of Nixon
authorizing the CIA to shut down the FBI investigation. In other words, damning
evidence against Nixon that led to his resignation was developed in the
course of those hearings.<br />
<br />
Here, it is without question that there is already probable cause to go forward with an impeachment inquiry on a myriad of issues that include profiting off of the presidency, colluding with foreign powers and obstructing justice. And now we have a new report that Trump may have suborned perjury of his attorney regarding the extent of his efforts to cut a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow. As Trump hastens to destroy the country, what are we waiting for?<br />
<br />
Once an impeachment inquiry is launched, a committee will subpoena
documents, call witnesses and weigh the evidence before proposing
specific articles of impeachment to be considered by the House. If the House votes to impeach, then the proceedings would move to the Senate where, after a trial, it would take two-thirds of the Senate to remove him. While it is virtually impossible at this point to envision the Senate Republicans putting country over party, they should be compelled to stand up in the face of what is sure to be overwhelming evidence and explain to the American people why they continue to support this palpably unfit miscreant. And even if the Senate fails to convict, Appelbaum convincingly contends that the process itself will impede Trump's ability to pursue his destructive agenda as well as cause him deep and lasting political damage.<br />
<br />
The mid-term election has given Democrats an opportunity to safeguard the country. They need to seize it.
Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-3419027084523010682019-01-11T12:23:00.001-08:002019-01-11T12:23:31.713-08:00On The Importance Of Remaining Outraged <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2SjGdAU0yzgs8RHJ-lNienQpOHjB-VWWJgdG5VH3o-nHAmPxLDtvGxpLVVdglZ6dxCJjKSHi8mBb3wmNyoNDl5o8vF06waPDfmId0V5b_ZGV1ZfpP5JSfWOdlZI9VEG1wE1xcWmndS4Hv/s1600/benito-mussolini11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="914" data-original-width="652" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2SjGdAU0yzgs8RHJ-lNienQpOHjB-VWWJgdG5VH3o-nHAmPxLDtvGxpLVVdglZ6dxCJjKSHi8mBb3wmNyoNDl5o8vF06waPDfmId0V5b_ZGV1ZfpP5JSfWOdlZI9VEG1wE1xcWmndS4Hv/s320/benito-mussolini11.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>
<em>Revised from January 2, 2018</em><br />
<blockquote>
But Trump is anything but a regular politician and this has been anything but a regular election. Trump will be only the fourth candidate in history and the second in more than a century to win the presidency after losing the popular vote. He is also probably the first candidate in history to win the presidency despite having been shown repeatedly by the national media to be a chronic liar, sexual predator, serial tax-avoider, and race-baiter who has attracted the likes of the Ku Klux Klan. Most important, Trump is the first candidate in memory who ran not for president but for autocrat—and won. --<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival/"><span style="color: #225588;"> Masha Gessen, New York Review of Books</span></a>, Nov. 10, 2016</blockquote>
Two years ago, after the unthinkable happened and a malevolent orange shit gibbon became the President of these United States, Masha Gessen wrote an essential piece entitled "Autocracy: Rules for Survival." She criticized Obama, Clinton and other leaders of the Democratic Party for their far too conciliatory post-election reactions that pretended Trump was a "normal" politician to be given the benefit of the doubt. She sharply observed that their magnanimous responses may have been meant to ensure a peaceful transfer of power but effectively closed off any alternative to despair and acquiescence by implying that there was no daylight between acceptable, indeed necessary, peaceful protest and a violent insurgency. <br />
<br />
After two years of enduring the complete abdication of political norms, the relentless attacks on our democratic institutions, the corruption and self-enrichment, the racism and xenophobia, the pathological lying and incoherent rambling, the obstruction of justice and abuses of power, so-called reasonable, mainstream pundits and politicians continue to call for calm, measured responses. They insist that we should keep our collective powder dry for when Trump creates a true national emergency, as if we haven't been living in one. <br />
<br />
How pitiful was the reaction of establishment folks who reached back for their fainting couches when Rashida Tlaib, a newly-elected congresswoman, had the audacity to say what we all should be thinking -- that we should "impeach the motherfucker." How self-defeating that they also want to rein in another, the refreshingly brilliant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose bold progressive policy proposals and stunningly effective rhetoric should be celebrated -- and emulated.<br />
<br />
To those who call for modulating our outrage and lecture us to remain civil at all costs, it is well worth revisiting the six rules Gessen provided after the election, which are more relevant than ever:<br />
<br />
Rule #1. <em>Believe the autocrat</em>. <br />
<br />
Trump says a lot of ignorant and provocative things that one would not expect from any rational human being, much less the purported leader of the free world. While, as Gessen pointed out, it is human nature to assume he is exaggerating and to reach for a rationalization, it should be clear by now that Trump means what he says. When he threatens to shut down the government indefinitely, we should not assume he is bluffing. When he uses white nationalist rhetoric harkening back to the Jim Crow Era and dog whistles harkening back to Reagan, we should not assume he is merely firing up his base. And when he repeatedly disparages the Justice Department, nominates acting and non-acting AG's who have expressed skepticism of the Mueller investigation, and interjects comments to and about key witnesses, we should not assume he is merely venting and won't foment a constitutional crisis when the walls start closing in further. <br />
<br />
Rule #2. <em>Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.</em><br />
<em><br /></em> The bar is so low for Trump that anytime he reads complete sentences from a teleprompter without going on an off-the-cuff rant and drooling all over himself, the media is quick to remark that, at long last, Trump has acted presidential. Mainstream pundits and politicians yearn, as we all do, for a calm, rational leader and many continue to engage in magical thinking, believing that any time now Trump will moderate his behavior and transform from mentally and morally unfit to fit. But we can't be fooled by the occasional, although increasingly rare, appearance of reasonableness. As Gessen wrote: "Panic can be neutralized by falsely reassuring words about how the world as we know it has not ended. It is a fact that the world did not end on November 8 nor at any previous time in history. Yet history has seen many catastrophes, and most of them unfolded over time. That time included periods of relative calm."<br />
<br />
Rule #3. <em>Institutions will not save you</em>. <br />
<br />
The White House press corps and other media entertain the musings of Trump aides and former aides (without noting their non-disparagement agreements) who enable the President by translating spontaneous tweets and crazy gibberish into something less insane and inane, and by spewing lies (i.e., alternate facts, unfortunate misstatements) that are then dutifully reported. Trump himself refers to the media as "the enemy of the people" and has threatened to shut down those outlets that he deems to be unfair -- or disloyal -- to him. (<em>See above</em>: believe the autocrat.) This has all had a corrosive effect on the public's view of what constitutes not only real news, but real facts. As for other institutions, Congress, until recently completely controlled by Republicans, undermined investigations that could have led to revelations of the Trump campaign's connections to Russia while pursuing trumped up scandals to undermine those revelations. Republicans blithely ignored Trump's corruption and unfitness for office in favor of tax cuts, deregulation and appointing right wing judges. And speaking of those judges, the courts, are being stocked with lifetime appointees at a record rate, filling vacancies left open by unprecedented Republican obstruction during the Obama Administration. And then there's the Supreme Court, which now boasts two Trump nominees. This surely will come in handy for Trump and his cabal when they mount court challenges to the nature and scope of the myriad investigations that will finally originate in the House now that Democrats are in control. And don't assume that Mueller will save us. (<em>See above: </em>believe the autocrat.) <br />
<br />
Rule #4. <em>Be outraged.</em><br />
<br />
Every day there is something -- often more than one thing -- to be outraged about. It is hard to resist scandal fatigue. It is hard not to become inured to the arrogant abuse of power, the daily madness, the destruction of formerly accepted norms, the lies, the corruption, the cruelty, the ignorance and the instability. The drip, drip, drip of the Russia scandal. The nomination of unqualified judges who are avatars for the culture war. The senselessly harsh and aggressive immigration tactics that are still tearing families apart. The attempts to sabotage the ability to obtain affordable health insurance. The ethics violations from virtually every cabinet member when they are not otherwise destroying the agencies they were appointed to run. The efforts to mine, drill, frack and otherwise exploit public lands while ignoring climate science and destroying the environment. The self-enrichment and business deals by Trump's family in the face of massive conflicts of interest. And on and on and on. It is impossible to keep up. But, as Gessen reminds us, "in the face of the impulse to normalize, it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock"<br />
<br />
Rule #5. <em>Don’t make compromises.</em><br />
<em><br /></em> We have already seen virtually the entire Republican Party sell their already very dark souls. It is essential that we ensure that the Democrats -- particularly now that they have won the House -- resist and refuse to cooperate with an illegitimate president -- one who has still not disclosed his tax returns (but, hopefully, will be compelled to soon) or revealed his myriad business interests and conflicts of interest; who, the mounting evidence suggests, cooperated with a foreign power to get elected; who is catering to a white nationalist agenda; and who has complete disdain for constitutional principles, democratic institutions and conventional norms. "Those who argue for cooperation will make the case, much as President Obama did in his speech, that cooperation is essential for the future. They will be willfully ignoring the corrupting touch of autocracy, from which the future must be protected."<br />
<br />
Rule #6. <em>Remember the future.</em><br />
<br />
I can't say it any better than Gessen said two years ago: "Failure to imagine the future may have lost the Democrats [the presidential] election. They offered no vision of the future to counterbalance Trump’s all-too-familiar white-populist vision of an imaginary past. They had also long ignored the strange and outdated institutions of American democracy that call out for reform—like the electoral college, which has now cost the Democratic Party two elections in which Republicans won with the minority of the popular vote. That should not be normal. But resistance—stubborn, uncompromising, outraged—should be."<br />
<br />
<em>Follow Fair and Unbalanced on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/FairUnbalanced1"><span style="color: #225588;"><em>@FairUnbalanced1</em></span></a><em> and on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/fairandunbalanced/"><span style="color: #225588;"><em>Facebook</em></span></a> Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-30585850464323477882018-12-03T12:54:00.000-08:002018-12-03T12:54:39.734-08:00The Slippery Slope From Bush I to Individual I<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVMEi6nfcnd610qwlDlungjclXVK6mnKmNSLWQ2eRDax_nqqhtPEWGKN_O_F66UrHabqcav90566yAHPHfN0XmBg5SJFqiu4i4liBMCnK49aCLpWHrOoNEZzeoe_0QmzN87Mg8k-BeX2IP/s1600/bush.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="800" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVMEi6nfcnd610qwlDlungjclXVK6mnKmNSLWQ2eRDax_nqqhtPEWGKN_O_F66UrHabqcav90566yAHPHfN0XmBg5SJFqiu4i4liBMCnK49aCLpWHrOoNEZzeoe_0QmzN87Mg8k-BeX2IP/s400/bush.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
Hagiography of dead U.S. presidents is a long-held tradition (see, e.g., <a href="https://fairandunbalancedblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/reagan-years-mourning-in-america.html">St. Ronnie</a>). But at least we used to have Hunter S. Thompson around as a necessary corrective. His off-the-hook <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3475760599984941539#editor/target=post;postID=3058585046432347788">obituary of Richard Nixon</a> is brutal. Here's just a taste: "If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket
would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty
into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a
jabbering dupe of a president ... Richard Nixon
was an evil man -- evil in a way that only those who believe in the
physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without
ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him ... and honest historians will remember
him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship."<br />
<br />
Crucially, Thompson acknowledged that his Nixon obit may have been over the top but insisted that journalists must avoid the urge to paint the recently departed leaders with sentimental, revisionist strokes: "Some people will say that words like <i>scum</i> and <i>rotten</i> are
wrong for Objective Journalism -- which is true, but they miss the
point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma
that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place."<br />
<br />
Which brings us to George Herbert Walker Bush. The white-washing of his tenure and the praise for his decency is getting out of hand. Sure, he appeared to put the good of the country -- at least as he saw it -- above personal financial gain. As far as we know he didn't pay off porn stars. And he was capable of compromise and ideological flexibility on occasion. But that's a pretty low bar. <br />
<br />
So before we get too maudlin as we look back on those less vulgar days of bipartisanship, good fellowship and the rule of law, let's talk about Iran Contra. The Reagan Administration sold weapons to Iran, ostensibly to secure the
release of hostages, and then used the money from the arm sales to fund
the Nicaraguan Contras. However, there was an embargo on arms sales to
Iran and legal prohibition against funding the Contras. The ensuing
scandal revealed evidence of money-laundering, arms smuggling and drug
trafficking. Bush, who was then Vice President Bush, famously claimed he was "out of the loop." But he stonewalled the independent counsel's investigation -- refusing, for example, to turn over his diary -- and when he became president, he pardoned six participants, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Cap was about to go to trial, and the pardon thwarted the ability to determine Bush's role among others in the scandal.<br />
<br />
Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel, issued a scathing statement condemning Bush's actions: "President Bush's pardon of Caspar Weinberger and
other Iran-contra defendants undermines the principle that no man is
above the law. ... The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for
more than six years, has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar
Weinberger....This office was
informed only within the past two weeks, on December 11, 1992,
that President Bush had failed to produce to
investigators his own highly relevant contemporaneous notes, despite
repeated requests for such documents....In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are
gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to
Congress and obstructed official investigations."<br />
<br />
Then there's Bush's classic use of dog-whistle racism in his presidential campaign in 1988 -- the famous "Willie Horton ad" used to scare white people into believing that if Bush's purportedly soft-on-crime opponent, Mike Dukakis, won the presidency, black rapists would be let loose on the country. And he repeatedly sought to question Dukakis' loyalty to the United States, using McCarthy-ite innuendo, stating, for example, "I am not a card-carrying member of the ACLU. I am for the people."<br />
<br />
Finally, there's Clarence Thomas. In one of the most cynical moves in modern politics, Bush nominated the most anti-civil rights African American he could find to replace civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. Thanks to a condescending bunch of misogynists on the Judiciary Committee, Thomas was confirmed despite light-weight judicial credentials and credible allegations of sexual harassment. And in the close-to-three decades he has been on the Court, Clarence Thomas has arguably been the Court's most conservative member. <br />
<br />
In sum, Bush I undermined an independent investigation into government malfeasance by
refusing to cooperate while abusing the power of the pardon. He appealed to the Republican base by using racist tropes and questioning the patriotism of his opponents. And he put on the Supreme Court a far-right extremist with a history of inappropriate behavior towards women. Any of this sound familiar?<br />
<br />
RIPLovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-5051591195864350122018-09-29T17:58:00.000-07:002018-09-29T17:58:59.502-07:00The Quintessential Met<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Baseball is filled with heartbreaking stories about potential superstars who never reach the promise that seems within their grasp. The Mets have had their share. Dwight Gooden was a sensation when he burst onto the scene at age 19 as a once-in-a-generation talent, but injuries and substance abuse tragically derailed his career. His teammate, Darryl Strawberry, also never lived up to his limitless potential. Then there was the trio of can't miss pitchers dubbed Generation K in the mid-1990s --Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson -- who all suffered major arm injuries before they even got started. More recently, Matt Harvey, another dynamic pitcher, dubbed the Dark Knight, has had his path to almost-certain greatness stalled by injuries before being unceremoniously shipped out of town.<br />
<br />
David Wright is not exactly in this category. He is one of the
greatest Met players of all time -- their greatest position player. He is the career leader in pretty
much every offensive category (except home runs in which he is 10 behind
Darryl Strawberry). But a series of injuries over the last several years took their toll on what could have been a Hall of Fame career. <br />
<br />
An<a href="https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/injuries-continue-to-ruin-what-couldve-been-david-wrights-hall-of-fame-career/"> article</a> by
sportswriter Matt Snyder plausibly claims that at age 30, Wright looked
like he was on his way to the Hall of Fame. At age 27, after six
full seasons (2005-2010), he was a five-time All Star, with two Gold
Gloves. He, rather than Jimmy Rollins, arguably should have won the
National League MVP in 2008 (he came in fourth in the voting). Wright
had two other top-ten MVP finishes in that span. His career at that
point was comparable to George Brett, Chipper Jones and Ron Santo --
three Hall of Fame third basemen -- when they were that age. The
following year, 2011, Wright suffered a stress fracture to his back, and
missed two months of the season. He rebounded in 2012, with another
MVP-caliber season (finishing sixth in the voting) but hasn't had a full healthy season since. Wright couldn't play at all
last year and the two years before then he appeared in a total of 75
games. <br />
<br />
As Snyder points
out, through 2013, his age 30 season, Wright had pretty much maintained the great numbers
he had been putting up throughout his career, with totals that
included a .301 batting average, over 1500 hits, almost 250 doubles, 222
homers, 876 RBIs and 853 runs scored. According to Snyder, with a relatively healthy
next six-to-eight years, Wright likely would have amassed somewhere
between 2500-3000 hits, 550 doubles, 350-400 home runs and 1500 RBIs
and runs -- in other words, Hall of Fame numbers. Sadly, since
then, he has either played hurt or was too hurt to play.<br />
<br />
David Wright could have gone elsewhere after 2012, but remained
loyal to the Mets, and signed a 7-year contract extension. As a result,
he is one of the few Met stars to have played his entire career with
the team -- actually, with all due respect to Ed Kranepool, he is the
only Met star to have played his entire career with the team. In 2013, he was named team captain, and has been a steadfast presence with a remarkably positive outlook despite relentless setbacks to his recovery and generally disappointing play by his teammates.<br />
<br />
With remarkable self-sacrifice and determination, Wright tried relentlessly to overcome the back, neck and shoulder injuries that have plagued
him, and as another dismal season is nearing its end, he was hoping to take the field with the team either for a well-deserved swan song or perhaps as a stepping-stone to a more expansive comeback next year. He played in some rehab games before the end of the minor league season and a few simulated games but it became clear that his body would not allow him to go forward at the major league level.<br />
<br />
Met management has mismanaged so much over the decades but they deserve enormous credit for how they ultimately handled the end of David's career -- which ended today. He was activated for this weekend. He pinch hit yesterday and started the game today. After two at bats (a walk and a foul out), he trotted out to third one last time and was then taken out of the game, leaving the field to an emotional ovation by his adoringfans at a sold out Citi Field.<br />
<br />
Wright's career has spanned a period of hope and failure all too familiar to Met fans. The devastating loss to the Cardinals in Game #7 of the 2006 playoffs, the two historic collapses to miss the playoffs the next two years (despite his stellar play), followed by six straight losing seasons and then a World Series appearance in 2015, which the team squandered, losing in 5 games. Wright couldn't play at all these last two years and neither, it seemed, could the Mets.<br />
<br />
So much of David Wrights' baseball career -- the injuries, the team's awful play and ownership's problematic decisions -- have been out of his control. But he ended his career on his own terms. He deserved it. Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-17050176776349528532018-09-28T15:02:00.001-07:002018-09-28T15:02:34.063-07:00Democrats Need To Seize The Kavanaugh Narrative<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNVWJPLpZ8oULfnP5c3zuLXgxWQhkU21BriOZgbiouMrBBoXB9SCgcOLQ1AX-FC5CuR1dFEPwgw8U8qtyLRCSOuSCyCQUWoKZHGkG969wiFWZmKTjubw9aOxlT4EUW1Vg5ALAZlasXIRE/s1600/1042081236_jpg_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNVWJPLpZ8oULfnP5c3zuLXgxWQhkU21BriOZgbiouMrBBoXB9SCgcOLQ1AX-FC5CuR1dFEPwgw8U8qtyLRCSOuSCyCQUWoKZHGkG969wiFWZmKTjubw9aOxlT4EUW1Vg5ALAZlasXIRE/s400/1042081236_jpg_0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Originally posted at <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/28/1799755/-Democrats-Need-to-Seize-the-Kavanaugh-Narrative">Daily Kos</a><br />
<br />
The questioning of Brett Kavanaugh before the Judiciary Committee was
painful to watch — and not just because he came across as an evasive,
entitled, intemperate, partisan bully. The structure, tightly
controlled by Sen. Grassley and giving each Party alternating five
minutes, provided Republicans the ability to simply bloviate while
Democrats were repeatedly interrupted by Kavanaugh’s self-aggrandizing
filibustering. This was hardly a process designed to get at the truth.
And the Democrats didn’t help themselves by lacking a well-coordinated
attack. By design, the day’s second half successfully drowned out Dr.
Ford’s powerful, wholly credible first half.<br /><br />
But now that it appears that there will be a week before a floor vote
while the FBI conducts an investigation, the Democrats have an
opportunity to reset the conversation in order to bolster Dr. Ford as
well as Kavanaugh’s other accusers, and further undermine Kavanaugh’s
credibility.<br /><br />
As a minority party they lack subpoena power and are not empowered to
hold an official hearing. But they can do plenty that is unofficial.
They can hold an extended press conference over the course of several
days, bringing forward witnesses, including the other victims of
Kavanaugh’s sexual assaults, former classmates who can describe his
drinking and belligerence, others who can expose his lies about his high
school yearbook, experts on trauma to corroborate Dr. Ford’s testimony
and others. They can also present witnesses to flesh out his
dissembling to the Committee about his activities while working in the
Bush Administration.<br /><br />
It would be a missed opportunity for the Democrats to sit back and do
nothing this week in the hope that the FBI conducts the kind of
thorough investigation that will provide dispositive evidence sufficient
to persuade Senators Flake, Collins and Murkowski to vote Kavanaugh
down. They need to be aggressive, creative and change the narrative.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-71466506795840852622018-09-27T17:49:00.000-07:002018-09-28T08:35:03.862-07:00Republicans Weren't Borked; Democrats Were Garlanded And Are About To Be Kavanaugh'd<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFEog-McXmGxbPAPOnMrGSLrpIZczbJ8cWjRRN2S-8lmHwTb4vwsTHocCDdsgzfKNje524hy2-cpRmhZ3pYAhzpeynyo2eUBi9LvVrmywQR95SGKIo1sXmeLg3ewNiPHU5_T3zJOPyk7Y/s1600/angry-kavanaugh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFEog-McXmGxbPAPOnMrGSLrpIZczbJ8cWjRRN2S-8lmHwTb4vwsTHocCDdsgzfKNje524hy2-cpRmhZ3pYAhzpeynyo2eUBi9LvVrmywQR95SGKIo1sXmeLg3ewNiPHU5_T3zJOPyk7Y/s400/angry-kavanaugh.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Brett Kavanaugh railed hysterically against the Democrats who "borked" him during the first round of confirmation hearings and tearfully protested that, worse than that, he was now the victim of "revenge on behalf of the Clintons." Right, he is the victim here. Steeped in Republican conspiracy theories, this rage-fueled rant did not exactly show the even-handed <span class="st">temperament of a fair-minded, non-partisan judge.</span><br />
<br />
"Bork," of course, is grossly misleading shorthand for the politicization of the judicial nomination process. Republicans are fond of citing Robert Bork's confirmation hearing as the <i>casus belli</i> for rancorous and partisan battles over Supreme Court nominees. But let's set the record straight. Ronald Reagan nominated Bork, a radical jurist whose views on the federal government's role in
protecting civil rights, voting rights and reproductive rights were far
outside the mainstream. He opposed 1960's landmark civil rights legislation on the ground
that government coercion of “righteous” behavior is “a principle of
unsurpassed ugliness.” Not only opposed to <i>Roe v. Wade</i>, he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s 1965 decision in <i> Griswold v. Connecticut</i> which struck down as a violation of the right to privacy a law that prohibited married couples from using contraceptives. And he did not believe that the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause
should apply to women.<br />
<br />
Importantly, Democrats did not filibuster Bork's nomination; he was
afforded a full, if incredibly contentious, confirmation hearing, after
which six Republicans voted with the Democrats to reject him. After Bork's Supreme Court nomination was scuttled, the vacancy went to
Anthony Kennedy. Imagine if Bork hadn't been borked.
He would have cemented an an extremely frightening and very
solid majority that would have very quickly eviscerated rights for women,
minorities, labor and criminal defendants, erected insurmountable barriers
for challenging the actions of corporations, and gutted federal regulations protecting the environment. Kinda what we will be facing if Kavanaugh is confirmed.<br />
<br />
Reagan's post-Bork nominees -- Kennedy and Scalia -- were confirmed unanimously. And even
after the Democrats regained control of the Senate, the first President
Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas (to replace Thurgood Marshall, no
less) was confirmed despite Thomas's extreme conservatism, well-founded
and disturbing allegations of sexual harassment and a thin judicial
resume. Thomas won by a painfully slim 52–48 vote, with the help of 11
Democrats.<br />
<br />
And Samuel Alito, the choice of the second President Bush to replace
Sandra Day O'Connor, and a justice probably farther to the right than
Scalia and Thomas, was confirmed despite enough Democratic Senators
voting against him to have successfully filibustered and prevented an
"up or down" vote.<br />
<br />
When Justice Scalia left the building, as it were, President Obama called the Republicans' bluff and nominated not a
left-leaning progressive to the Supreme Court but, rather, Merrick
Garland -- a centrist with a reputation for fairness, civility and
following the rule of law. Judge Garland was someone GOP leaders agreed
would be acceptable until Obama nominated him. Then this unassailable
jurist was unable to muster even the traditional courtesy meetings with
Republican Senators much less confirmation hearings or a vote.<br />
<br />
Ignoring the fact that Obama had almost a year left in his second term
when Garland was nominated, Republicans contended that the next
president should decide who should fill the Supreme Court, an argument that had no basis in history or logic or
convention, but they stuck to it. Well, they stuck to it until it
appeared that Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency, when Republican leaders such as John McCain and Ted
Cruz began arguing that the Court didn't really need a ninth justice
after all. Unwittingly or not, they revealed the Republican plan to
refuse to allow Clinton -- or any Democrat for that matter -- to appoint
the next justice. <br />
<br />
That question became moot when the unthinkable happened and the malevolent orange shit gibbon became president. He nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat stolen from the Democrats. <i>The New York Times</i>, on its handy liberal-to-conservative chart, put Gorsuch to the
right of Alito and Scalia, but to the left of Thomas. Smarting from the Garland debacle, the Democrats filibustered the confirmation vote, but the Republicans voted to get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court, and Gorsuch was confirmed by a vote of 54-45, with three Democrats joining all the Republicans<br />
<br />
Republicans (and some apologist Democrats) like to say that the Republican removal of the filibuster for the Supreme Court was fair play after Democrats voted to eliminate it for lower court nominees. But the Democrats reluctantly voted to get rid of the filibuster only
after the Republican's unprecedented obstruction culminated in stopping
Obama's three nominations to the D.C. Circuit based on the specious
argument that Obama was engaged in "court packing" when he was merely
seeking to fill existing vacancies. If the Democrats hadn't taken action, not only would Republicans have voted to eliminate the filibuster anyway when they returned to power, but they would have many more judicial vacancies to fill.<br />
<br />
So, here we are. Justice Kennedy retired and Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh. The initial hearing was marked by the Republican refusal to allow Democrats -- or the American people -- to know the
content of hundreds of thousands of documents from Kavanaugh's time as
White House staff secretary in the Bush Administration. These documents
could have shed light on any number of critical issues, including the extent
of his involvement in crafting the Bush-Cheney policy on torture, his role in using stolen strategy memos from Democrats and his role in preparing certain right wing judicial nominees for their confirmation hearings. Indeed, the few documents that were disclosed provide pretty convincing evidence that he lied to Congress about these issues.<br />
<br />
Then, today, a truncated hearing on one of the several sexual assault charges against Kavanaugh -- with only the accuser and the alleged perpetrator permitted to testify. Again, the Republicans thwarted any wider inquiry that could have gotten us closer to the truth. But we know the truth and it doesn't matter to Republicans. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was utterly convincing in her measured, credible testimony about what Kavanaugh and his accomplice, Mark Judge, did to her when they were in high school, as well as how it has traumatized her. Then Kavanaugh came on with a Trump-inspired performance consisting of vitriol, conspiracy-mongering and lies. He was evasive and remarkably hostile to questions from Democrats -- especially from the women Senators who had the audacity to question his qualifications for a position he considers his birthright<br />
<br />
And in an utterly demoralizing redux of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearing, a woman's compelling story was shouted down by an aggrieved man and his enablers, while she was ignored. Kavanaugh pleased Trump, thrilled the deplorable base of the GOP, and apparently gave Republican Senators enough cover to plow his nomination through.<br />
<br />
Republicans believe that the third, purportedly
co-equal branch of government belongs to them. For Republicans, this is
apparently akin to the legal principle of adverse possession -- where
one acquires title to property simply by virtue of being in possession
of it for a certain number of years. The Supreme Court has firmly been
in conservative hands ever since President Nixon replaced members of the
Warren Court.
And they intend to keep it that way.<br />
<br />
Until we stop them.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-5943126120871819112018-09-21T13:31:00.000-07:002018-09-21T13:31:52.742-07:00The Kavanaugh Fight Is the Republican Party's Death Rattle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8MWbA1l1tVFDlK2ptamDPdXIQEDxl1PL-bD0DsvQUd87BcPd96RKaTiJ9UInySQHJ_XK-HzFvdqZ_wMlL6f0_rT537aA18FPk5oOQTLqJZJHqqKLrf6uSBL47LhoJjEbhMe_KFgrJ2QM/s1600/170621_JURIS_ThomasJustice_jpg_CROP_promo-xlarge2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="1180" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8MWbA1l1tVFDlK2ptamDPdXIQEDxl1PL-bD0DsvQUd87BcPd96RKaTiJ9UInySQHJ_XK-HzFvdqZ_wMlL6f0_rT537aA18FPk5oOQTLqJZJHqqKLrf6uSBL47LhoJjEbhMe_KFgrJ2QM/s400/170621_JURIS_ThomasJustice_jpg_CROP_promo-xlarge2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
The confirmation of Clarence Thomas provides the closest parallel. The demeaning treatment of Anita Hill by a condescending bunch of misogynists on the Judiciary Committee whose failure to fairly and meaningfully consider that Thomas engaged in sexual harassment and lied about it was a galvanizing moment in our history. It brought issues about how women were treated in the work place into the public discourse. It gave other women the space to talk about their own experiences. And it spurred women to run for office and in many cases to win seats in both the Senate and the House.<br />
<br />
But Clarence Thomas was confirmed (52-48). And while those of us who believed Anita Hill then or do so now will always look at Thomas as someone who does not deserve to sit on the high court, there he sits. He doesn't say much when he's on the bench but for over 25 years he has provided an ironclad conservative vote.<br />
<br />
The integrity of the Supreme Court was supposed to take a hit after the Thomas confirmation, or after the travesty of <em>Bush v. Gore</em>, or <em>Citizens United, </em>or after Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat from Democrats by refusing to hold a hearing for Merrick Garland. And political pundits are now speculating that confirming Brett Kavanaugh without the disclosure of his substantial paper trial or meaningfully resolution of questions about his actions while in the Bush Administration or, more recently, sexual assault allegations, will be a blow to the Court's credibility. <br />
<br />
But the Court has proven to be impervious to attacks on its reputation. As designed, the Supreme Court, even at it has become more partisan, remains insulated from partisan attacks. The justices have lifetime appointments, and their legacies are generally not sorted out until long after they have left the bench. In real time, criticism no matter how harsh or justified can't really touch them. So if and when Brett Kavanaugh -- or a right wing doppleganger -- is confirmed it won't matter how he (or she) got there. Like Clarence Thomas, he (or she) will be there for life. And with Thomas, Gorsuch (the beneficiary of the Garland theft) and Bush II picks Alito and Roberts, the new justice will anchor a right wing majority that will transform the country's legal landscape.<br />
<br />
And that's the end game for conservatives. They don't care that the president is an amoral, ignorant monster as long as he nominates judges and justices who will please Evangelical Christians, the Koch Brothers and Wall Street. They probably don't really care whether they keep the House or even the Senate in the midterms if it means cementing a right wing majority on the Court.<br />
<br />
They would see that as a pyrrhic victory for Democrats. They understand that the country's evolving demographics are not on their side and that their base of non-college educated white men is dwindling. But they don't need a majority if they control the courts. They can come back and win elections with court-approved unregulated campaign funds, gerrymandering and voter suppression. And they know that even if the Democrats control Congress, the courts as in the days of yore, can strike down progressive legislation. <br />
<br />
But what the Republicans are not counting on is the magnitude of the blowback. As happened after the Thomas hearings, the despicable treatment of Kavanaugh's accuser by hamfisted Senate Republicans will further energize and empower current generations of women and non-deplorable men.<br />
<br />
One would think that Trump's misogyny and history of sexual misconduct, GOP support for other sexual predators, and their War on Women, from attempting to defund Planned Parenthood to voting against renewing the Violence Against Women Act, would be enough. But their uncompromising support of Kavanaugh and trashing of Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser, should be the last straw. If Kavanugh is confirmed despite credible and corroborated evidence that he sexually assaulted a 15-year old girl -- and then lied about it -- the level of outrage should propel Democrats to victory this November.<br />
<br />
But that's not all. Kavanaugh's confirmation, as well as the chipping away of <em>Roe v. Wade</em> and other disastrous court decisions that Kavanaugh's confirmation ensures, will continue to resonate in 2020 when Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and others will have potent arguments for why women need to lead this country in the White House as well as in state and federal legislatures. <br />
<br />
In 2020, Clarence Thomas will be 72. He will not be on the Court forever. When he goes, the Democrats will be in power and replace him, resulting in a liberal majority on the Court for the first time since the Warren Court was dismantled during the Nixon Administration. The old white men of the Republican Party will eventually be gone too -- replaced by a progressive majority that truly represents the diversity of the country.<br />
<br />
That's our end game.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3475760599984941539.post-57542721987294437502018-09-18T15:01:00.001-07:002018-09-18T15:01:18.327-07:00Merrick Garland Never Sexually Assaulted A 15-Year Old Girl (Just Sayin')<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtnX2PNeH7mHXNfdeFSQSa4SSsz3ACorw40mMlyj2ILGM4OnyaSC8J_iTzzogE2HWoweTLDdMSzKs-KRjuyemZIfbZYV2upeatRDJMDJCAnHyc9tT8e_R6hkiIoPsJdAdiqLsAFQPDvos3/s1600/Borowitz-MerrickGarlandSCOTUS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="649" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtnX2PNeH7mHXNfdeFSQSa4SSsz3ACorw40mMlyj2ILGM4OnyaSC8J_iTzzogE2HWoweTLDdMSzKs-KRjuyemZIfbZYV2upeatRDJMDJCAnHyc9tT8e_R6hkiIoPsJdAdiqLsAFQPDvos3/s400/Borowitz-MerrickGarlandSCOTUS.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Brett Kavanaugh was hand-picked by the Federalist Society to provide a fifth vote on the Supreme Court to overturn <i>Roe v. Wade </i>and protect Big Business from regulation and accountability. His confirmation would cement a right wing majority for a generation or more and transform the country's legal landscape. As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/opinion/kavanaugh-supreme-court-confirmation.html">New York Times </a>summarized in a recent editorial: "That means, for starters, making it harder for minorities to vote, for workers to bargain for
better wages and conditions, for consumers to stand up to big business
and for women to control what happens to their bodies. It also means
making it easier for people to buy and sell weapons of mass killing, for
lawmakers to green-light discrimination against gay, lesbian and
transgender Americans, for industries to pollute the environment with
impunity, and for the wealthy to purchase even more political influence
than they already have."<br />
<br />
Elections, however, have consequences. The fact that the Republicans control the presidency and the Senate means that absent extraordinary circumstances they should be able to choose a justice who aligns with their policy preferences -- and Kavanaugh is as aligned as any potential justice could be. Without more, liberals and progressives would be entitled to strenuously object and make their case to the American people but, in the end, the Republicans would get their man.<br />
<br />
But there is so much more.<br />
<br />
There are the unanswered questions about Kavanaugh's spending habits, his debts, and who paid off his debts or financed his lavish lifestyle. As a recent <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/09/the-many-mysteries-of-brett-kavanaughs-finances/">Mother Jones</a> article noted "no other recent Supreme Court nominee has come before the Senate with so many unanswered questions regarding finances."<br />
<br />
There are his false and misleading statements during his sworn confirmation testimony about his involvement while in the Bush Administration in the vetting of particularly controversial judicial nominees, his knowledge of and reliance on confidential strategy memos regarding judicial nominees that were stolen from Democratic Senators, and the extent of his role in such fraught Bush-Cheney policies as torture and illegal wiretapping. When the model of decorum-to-a-fault, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/leahy-says-kavanaugh-was-not-truthful-about-democratic-documents/2018/09/07/babfb4aa-b2d9-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html?utm_term=.4290c2615b68">Senator Patrick Leahy,</a> says Kavanaugh was "not truthful," it means Kavanaugh must have been lying his ass off.<br />
<br />
There is the fact that the President and Senate Republicans have expedited the hearing and suppressed tens of thousands of documents that have thwarted Democrats' ability to shed further light on Kavanaugh's tenure in the Bush White House. Given the damning information that has been leaked, what explosive shit are they still hiding? <br />
<br />
Most recently, there are credible, corroborated allegations that when he was a 17-year old prep school student he sexually assaulted a 15-year old girl who, not surprisingly, was deeply traumatized by the experience. And while there are some who may believe that what one does as a 17-year old is inconsequential when considering their qualities as an adult, the lies of a 53-year old about his conduct when he was 17 is sure as hell relevant.<br />
<br />
And, of course, there's Merrick Garland. There is always Merrick Garland. <br />
<br />
If Kavanaugh's nomination is not withdrawn despite all of the alarming questions and concerns about his nomination it is because Trump knows he needs him: Kavanaugh's views on
executive power suggest he does not believe a sitting president can
be investigated much less indicted for criminal conduct. As the <i>Times </i>points
out, if confirmed, Kavanaugh "will be in a position to rule on any case involving Mr. Trump or
his associates, a disturbing scenario even before you consider his
alarmingly permissive views on presidential power and authority." And that is the reason that makes him most unfit.Lovechildehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011368670254954013noreply@blogger.com0