Former Pres. Biden tells #TheView he "wasn't surprised" by Pres. Trump's win in 2024

How did I fail to notice this before?

"Merrick Garland is Getting a Bum Rap"

Those are not my words, but the words of Harry Litman, whose article for Substack I will be quoting from, and who, with Michael Popok, is one of two attorneys who are features by Meidas Touch. Sine Ben Meiselas, the eldest brother, is a lawyer himself, I take that to imply that he respects the judgments of both. and has good reason to do so.

https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/merrick-garland-is-getting-a-bum

He starts this way:

"Get ready for a contrarian entry that will no doubt provoke the ire of many supporters, as did the shorter piece that ran yesterday in The New Republic. If you find yourself reflexively opposed before you even look at it, I can only say you’ve got a lot of company and ask you to make your best efforts to suspend judgment and evaluate the evidence. Thanks."



After another paragraph or so in which he assesses the potential tarnishing of Garland's legacy, he dives in:

"The storyline that Garland let moss grow on the investigation—some say until Smith came aboard, others until the work of the January 6 Committee embarrassed the Department—doesn’t survive scrutiny.

Within days of being sworn in as Attorney General on March 21, 2021, Garland gathered prosecutors working on any aspect of the Trump investigations—including U.S. attorneys, the national security division, and the public integrity section—and instructed them to 'follow the connective tissue upward.' He told them to aggressively follow the money in pursuit of connections between the January 6 marauders and Team Trump. Garland charged the entire team to proceed without restrictions, even if it led to Trump himself."

As the New York Times recently reported, this line of investigation didn’t pan out, but it was a reasonable approach and shows that Garland and his deputy, Lisa Monaco, were focused on the Trump trail from day one."



Having now slightly exceeded the customary three-paragraph limit, I will now do my best to summarize.

Litman goes on to address the criticism of lack of imagination, the criticism that he merely "piggybacked" on the Select Committee's work, the claim of "if only", and the claim that, had the cases been brought sooner, sad gone to court before the election, they would have changed the outcome of that election. Then he puts forward what he calls the "smartest" criticism he has heard, that "Garland walked into the wrong movie." He even discusses the potential effect on the country had Garland been more aggressive.

It's not as long as I have probably made it sound, and it's not technical; it's an easy read. And I hope you will read it and at least consider it. Of course, as always, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Full disclosure: I've felt all along that Garland was doing the best he could.

"Scream Church"

Photographs from Nazi occupied Paris

This is from NPR - Idid check to make sure no one else hd posted it (and was kind of surprised no one had.)

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5157701/france-wwii-war-photos-mystery

What will it take for a woman to be president? by Errin Haines, the 19th

Originally published by The 19th
This column first appeared in The Amendment, a biweekly newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to Election 2024 analysis.
In 2016, America couldn't vote for that woman. In 2020, the country couldn't vote for those women. 
In 2024, the same answer: Not her, either. 
I have said this election would be about who we are as much as it was about both of the candidates running for president. So who are we?
The democracy that still has not put a woman in the White House. 
Will we ever be ready? What will it take?
The first woman to run for president seeking a major party nomination, Shirley Chisholm, died in 2005. She did not live to see Hillary Clinton make history as the Democratic Party's first woman nominee, who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. Four years later, Kamala Harris became the first woman vice president, giving the country a chance to normalize the leadership of a woman of color at the highest levels. 
Harris was a worthy, capable and qualified adversary who put together a remarkable campaign in only 107 days. Much will be written about her shortcomings and the mistakes of the Democratic Party. But this is less an outcome about what Harris did wrong and more about Donald Trump’s strength and enduring power within the Republican Party, which I don't know that any candidate could've overcome. 
This raises questions about electability and the barriers that remain for women seeking our nation's highest office. 
Who will try again after the country has twice rejected the woman at the top of the ticket? Adding insult to injury, voters both times chose instead the same man, one with a history of racism and misogyny, who has been credibly accused of sexual assault, who admitted to groping women without their permission and who kept his vow to end federal protections for abortion. 
To win, he relentlessly and repeatedly insulted his women opponents -- a strategy that resonated with far too many of his supporters. In some cases, they encouraged him; in others, they looked away. 
For the second time in eight years, his behavior has been reaffirmed by half of the American electorate, and we are faced with a reality: that much of the country still wants to be who we have always been, incapable of putting a woman in power.  
Trump’s campaign was based on appeals to masculinity. He went on podcasts whose audiences are overwhelmingly men, and largely young men. Wrestling and mixed martial arts appeared at his convention and at his victory night party. His Make America Great Again movement hearkens to a time when women held less power. 
Trump lost — but felt empowered to run again. After losing the Democratic primary in 2008, Hillary Clinton ran again in 2016, winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College and the presidency. It is unclear whether Harris, who pledged in her concession speech to keep fighting, and who ran unsuccessfully in 2020, will run again in four years — or ever. 
To be a first is to be a pioneer; to come up short is to be a pariah. For the women who have come achingly close to the presidency, to lose is not just about one race; it is about the door closing for the next person, the next cycle, indefinitely.

Willie Mays died yesterday...

How to understand next week's Trump criminal felony trial

(or "Don't call it the hush money case." )
by Robert Reich

Although this case is commonly called the “hush money” case and referred to as Trump’s “coverup of a sex scandal,” this way of describing it minimizes its importance.

This case is really an election interference case — just as are the criminal cases charging him with seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Together, they establish an ongoing pattern: Trump will do anything to gain and keep power, even if his actions violate the nation’s laws.

This case alleges that in 2016 Trump arranged to pay off an adult entertainer in order to hide his affair with her from the public. The important thing to keep in mind is that the money was given to protect Trump’s campaign for the presidency — not to protect his marriage or protect him from personal embarrassment.

The entire purpose of the payoff was to help Trump become president.

snip

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/dont-call-it-the-hush-money-case

"AG Garland Had No Choice But To Release Hur's Political Report"

IANAL not am I an archivist. I was in the miltary for 10 years, but the author of this article for PolitiZoom served longer and more recently than I did, and in fields more closely related to law than I did. I had wondered whether something like this was in the background but, not being qualified, I didn't write anything about it. But Denis Elliott has, and I have to agree.

https://politizoom.com/ag-garland-had-no-choice-but-to-release-hurs-political-report/

Just the first paragraph:

If you find it surprising that I’d defend Attorney General Merrick Garland I can understand. If you read my stuff you’ve seen me rip him to shreds almost every time. Even I’M surprised to find myself writing this. Still, for all the ugly and inappropriate statements Special Counsel Robert Hur included AG Garland had not choice but to release what Hur handed in. Yes, it was in my opinion (and lots of others) a political hit job geared at trashing the President and providing ammunition for his fellow GOPers in the 2024 campaign. Yes, it ignored longstanding DOJ policy (I’ll get to that) in “style” and Hur damn well knew it. But despite all that Garland had no choice but to release it as written.

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance: About Merrick Garland

[I'm generally slow to read Joyce, so I checked with the search tool before posting. If this is a duplcate, I apologize]
=====================================

“The American people must protect each other.” That’s what Attorney General Merrick Garland said on 60 Minutes Sunday night. He choked up saying it, perhaps because it’s so out of reach these days, or perhaps because he has relatives who died in the Holocaust simply because they were Jews and that’s an integral part of who he is. Let’s not fault anyone who’s emotional on occasion about the fate of our country—we should all be at this point.

Other important things happened in Merrick Garland’s wide ranging interview. Although it’s easy to set him aside as the Attorney General who was too slow to act when it came to Trump, we now know that it’s complicated. Garland walked a careful balance on a knife’s edge and only history will be able to assess whether he got it right. But there is much to like about his commitment to democracy and his willingness to give the type of interview few attorneys general do—it’s easier, given the nature of the work, to stay cloistered on Pennsylvania Avenue, giving talks only at carefully chosen venues. This interview was an effort to reach out beyond that and to speak to people who might not otherwise hear from him.

Asked about his objective as Attorney General, Garland said it was to “pass our democracy on, in working order, to the next generation.” That would have been mere pleasantry from any of his predecessors. For Garland, it’s serious business, and it’s important to hear him say it out loud.

Joe Biden’s Attorney General was always going to be in a tight spot, no matter who he chose for the job. The weightiest of choices, whether to indict a former president, was always going to rest on their shoulders. And that decision was going to be made in the context of a Justice Department that had lost much of its credibility with the public despite the diligence of its employees, due in no small part to the deliberate efforts of Donald Trump to undermine the country’s confidence in the Department.