www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/09/russia-wagner-ex-convicts-free-committing-new-crimes/
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SUNDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2023
Things on my mind this morning:
- Two very good articles about Russia and Putin in the September issue of Foreign Affairs.
- The corporate media seems determined to ask every living person in the country why they think Fani Willis didn’t indict some of the people recommended for indictment by the grand jury.
- The novel “Laura” by Vera Caspary and the movie that was based on the novel. Caspary was a fascinating woman. There is a very good book on Caspary’s fiction.
- One edition of “Laura” was published by the Feminist Press. It has an introduction and epilogue that point out Caspary’s feminism evident in the 1942 novel.
- Otto Preminger pretty much removed all the feminist elements in the 1943 movie. Caspary was not happy about it. She told Preminger in a screaming argument years after the movie was released that he had turned Laura into a “cute business girl.”
- I’m doing a seminar about “Crime and the Movies of Gene Tierney.” The subject was suggested by one of our members. I didn’t expect to enjoy it nearly as much as I have. If you have seen the movie, pick up a copy of the novel. It is worth reading. The novel is very much about class and gender roles. Caspary was interested in character rather than the details of the murder. She changed the character of the detective novel.
- Gene Tierney is also an interesting woman. She virtually worked herself into an institution. Because of the reckless belief in the effectiveness of shock therapy, she was given dozens of shock therapy sessions in two separate institutions. She lost entire years of memory. She wrote afterward that she even forgot what foods she liked.
- The Ukrainian counteroffensive effort is painfully slow and there is not much specific information online about it.
- I am repeatedly shocked to read Americans whining online about the funding of the Ukrainian effort. Who are these people?
- Saw a video of young men standing on a bridge over an expressway waving Nazi flags. Who are these people? I am glad my father, who fought in WWII, is not alive to see such a thing. It would have made him furious.
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Ronan Farrow reports on how the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.
— Read on www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule -
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, a trove of so-called “dark money” was about to be unleashed. Two activists prepared to seize the moment.
— Read on www.politico.com/news/2023/09/10/ginni-thomas-leonard-leo-citizens-united-00108082Excerpts
From those early discussions among Leo, Thomas and Crow would spring a billion-dollar force that has helped remake the judiciary and overturn longstanding legal precedents on abortion, affirmative action and many other issues. It funded legal scholars to devise theories to challenge liberal precedents, helped to elect state attorneys general willing to apply those theories and launched lavish campaigns for conservative judicial nominees who would cite those theories in their rulings from the bench.
Many people trace the start of the conservative legal movement to 1982, the year of the founding of the Federalist Society, which provided a forum for law students and professors with conservative ideas to incubate their theories.
But the movement that has had such a profound impact on the courts today — one that involves money and politics, more than legal theories or principles — gained steam in the wake of the Citizens United decision.
JEP was becoming a major vehicle for filing amicus briefs on behalf of the conservative legal movement seeking to influence the Supreme Court. More than just expressions of support for one side or the other, these briefs often encompassed extensive fact-finding and analysis, spanning scores of pages. The goal was to offer conservative justices arguments that they could incorporate into their opinions.
The lead attorney on the first amicus brief JEP joined was former Thomas law clerk John Eastman, who would later advise Trump on theories for overturning the 2020 election.
When Conway joined the White House as an adviser to new president, with a hand in judicial nominations, Leo helped facilitate the sale of her polling firm to a Virginia company where he is now chairman.
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What Are Erdogan’s Foreign-Policy Goals for Turkey?
— Read on foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/26/turkey-erdogan-nato-eu-sweden-future-goals-europe/ -
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has come under fire from Ukraine after it emerged he thwarted a major attack on the Russian navy in Crimea by refusing his Starlink satellite network be turned on.
— Read on www.aol.com/ukraine-furious-elon-musk-thwarting-111545777.html
Law, Power, and Justice 