Law, Power, and Justice

Tuesday 19 September 2023

Just home from surgery to remove two parathyroid glands, I am being well taken care of by a house full of former feral cats.  They take turns staying near me to supervise healing.  The after-effects of the surgery are actually less than the after-effects of a hard slip and fall incident a day before the surgery.  My foot flipped out from under me, throwing me violently backward.  I landed with the center of my back hitting a cement planter.  I wouldn’t advise trying to repeat this.  It hasn’t turned out well.

I hope I will be a more frequent and a better blogger now.  Like everybody else, I’m just trying to figure it out.

Night to those who aren’t Republicans or Republican enablers. 

Authoritarianism

• India.  Canada has accused India of being involved in an assassination of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil.  India has maintained that the West is harboring separatist terrorists.  There is argument in the press that Modi is attempting to fan the flames of sectarian violence and resentment in order to maintain power.  (NYT article)

Wednesday 20 September 2023

• Merrick Garland.  Garland was a disastrous choice as Attorney General.  First, he is a Federalist Society fellow traveler. Second, he will not fight.  Third, he put off prosecuting Trump until he had no other choice.  His delay made the prosecution look even more political than it had to.  Fourth, Attorney General is not a consolation prize to be given for people who were mistreated by the Republicans.  I would like him to be fired.  He was part of creating the political situation we are in by supporting Republicans and Republican legal strategies and he is making it worse.  This was a horrible failure of Biden.
• Polling on Biden.  On the subject of not being able to or willing to fight: The discussion last night on MSNBC was that even though 90% of non-whites supported Biden in 2020, new polling shows 70% or lover.  According to the NYT (Cohen, 9/6/23) Biden’s “…support among Black Hispanic and other nonwhite voters is well beneath previous lows for Democrats in pre-election polls over the last several decades – including the polls from the last presidential election.”   Democrats insist on running just like they have run in the past, refusing to call out Republicans for the fascists they are, refusing to fight.  The snake Chris Coons, is putting out ads supporting “bipartisanship.”  This is just bullshit.  Coons is a good example.  It was in part due to Coon’s arrangement of a fake FBI investigation of Kavanaugh, that Kavanaugh was appointed to the Supreme Court.  Democrats (and many others) do not want change, they want to go back to “the way things were.”  We will never, ever go back to the “way things were.”  The enormous popularity of Ramaswamy after a showing of ignorance about public policy rivaled only by Trump, demonstrates that candidates cannot continue to run on the “focus group” testing of every word that comes out of their mouths.  As one of the MSNBC commentors said: The stakes are so high and the margins are so thin.  Yes, because Democrats refuse to accept reality and fight for democracy and justice.
• Trump Trial.  I never cease to be astounded at the array of people with nothing to say used as commentators on the nightly corporate news.  Clare McCaskill is an excellent example.  Clare McCaskill couldn’t even beat Josh Hawley.  Now, because she kisses the ass of Nicolle Wallace, she is on MSNBC news almost every night.  She has nothing to say, nothing.  People like Eli Mystal and Keith Olbermann and Sarah Kenzior who aren’t afraid to say what they think, who are not afraid to think, are never part of a discussion.
• MSNBC and the Justice Department.  Once again, Nicolle Wallace assembles a panel to talk about the Justice Department full of current and former DOJ employees.  She even has on the former spokesperson for the DOJ.  Three who depend in varying degrees on the good favor of the DOJ, asked to talk about it. The fourth panelist is the husband of Wallace, a reporter who is never identified as her husband and who makes frequent appearances.
•  Tomorrow
• Azerbaijan
• McKenzie