soldierant
soldierant's JournalWillie Mays died yesterday...
https://theconversation.com/saying-a-final-goodbye-to-willie-mays-baseballs-say-hey-kid-220173I seldom follow sports, but as a native of San Francisco, I did note this.
Short quot from link:
Mays, who died on June 18, 2024, at the age of 93, was not only the greatest baseball player of the last 80 years, and quite possibly ever, but he was an enormously important figure in American sports, culture and history. His journey from the segregated Deep South of his childhood to being honored by President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom spans much of Americas racial history in the 20th and early 21st century.
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 Trumps 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 nations 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 Trumps 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 Id defend Attorney General Merrick Garland I can understand. If you read my stuff youve seen me rip him to shreds almost every time. Even IM 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 (Ill 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. Thats what Attorney General Merrick Garland said on 60 Minutes Sunday night. He choked up saying it, perhaps because its so out of reach these days, or perhaps because he has relatives who died in the Holocaust simply because they were Jews and thats an integral part of who he is. Lets not fault anyone whos emotional on occasion about the fate of our countrywe should all be at this point.
Other important things happened in Merrick Garlands wide ranging interview. Although its easy to set him aside as the Attorney General who was too slow to act when it came to Trump, we now know that its complicated. Garland walked a careful balance on a knifes 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 doits 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, its serious business, and its important to hear him say it out loud.
Joe Bidens 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 countrys confidence in the Department.
[snip]
PoliticsGirl: Please Don't Move
There's been a fair amount of discussion on this topic here. This video is one opinion (certainly a passinate one.) To me, such a decisin is so personal I won't take a side - at least not today.
Al Franken
I know there are a lor of people her who miss him. So when I found his email in my inbox that he is hosting The Daily Show this week, I thought I would post.
Dear Person Who Still Opens My Emails,
I wanted to call your attention to something Ill be doing this coming week: hosting The Daily Show. Since Trevor Noah left the show after seven excellent years, theyve been having guest hosts filling in. Hosts like Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, D.L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, Hasan Minhaj, Marlon Wayans, and Kal Penn.
Now, its me! The first white male host! Exciting! Huh!?
Hugh McKean, Colorado's House Minority Leader, dead at 55
Source: Colorado Public Radio
Hugh McKean, Colorados Republican House Minority Leader, died Sunday morning at the age of 55.
The Republican from Larimer County leaves behind two children, Aiden and Hanna McKean, and his partner, Amy Parks.
McKeans cause of death has not yet been determined, however state Republicans described his passing as sudden and tragic. A public funeral is being planned and details will be released when finalized.
McKean was first elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 2016. He was elected state House minority leader in November 2020. Before his death, McKean was running for reelection to represent District 51.
Read more: https://www.cpr.org/2022/10/30/hugh-mckean-colorados-house-minority-leader-dead-at-55/
My first thought was "nine days before the election ... cue conspiracy theories in 3... 2... 1... An d that may well happen, But reading the full article, he may have been appreciated more by Democrats than by his own party. This is sad news.
NEW Randy Rainbow --- !
The song, from "A Chorus Line," on which this is based is called "Cance 10, Looks 3" But that is its SFW name. It also has an NSFW name which iactually have heard more often. LOL!!!
Edited to say it appears most people aren't familiar with the original. I'snothing to do with swearing. It's about plastic surgery and the effects on one's life (and how it makes much more of a difference than "Thoughts and Prayers." I just feel knowing that adds a tiny bit of humor to what is already funny without it.
Thoughts about the holiday
Today, I read Robert Reich's and Heather Cox Richardson's Fourth-of-July essays, which came in, one late last night, and one very early this morning. In a way they say the same thing in different words. And in a way, both are wrong - not in the wrong direction, but not going far enough. It was this that struck me in Richardson's piece (referencing the Gettysburg Address): "the Civil War was 'testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.' It did, of course." No. It didn't. The same issues which divided us in 1776 and 1865 and 1964 have never gone away. We just managed to push them underground for a few years (a trifle longer the second time). And Trump** did not bring them to a boil. They were always at a boil. All he did was give the wrong side permission to speak.
If we are ever going to heal this divide, we have to do more than trying harder, because that isn't working. The most recent time around (the 1960s), psychology had become a science, and there have been all kinds of psychological studies about perceptions which have provided new information about the states of mind of Americans - but not one (and no combination) has given any insight into what to do to make it go away. Now, again, some states are talking about seceding. And some progressives are saying (and more are secretly thinking) perhaps we should let it happen (at least some of us are talking about the need to rescue sane people from the departing states, and how difficult that would be.) We already have a Civil War on our hands now - right now. It's not yet a shooting war. But that doesn't mean it won't be. And way too few appear to realize it.
Oddly, it may be Steve Schmidt who puts it the most clearly: "Then [the beginning of the Civil War, speaking of Congress] like now, there were some who looked at the empty desks and saw crisis in the absence not [in] the cause of the absence." But I wish I could share his optimism.
Sources
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/on-this-july-4-the-true-meaning-of
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-3-2022
https://steveschmidt.substack.com/p/dont-be-troubled-i-guess-we-shall
Historian Heather Cox Richardson on Guns and the People who Love Them
Heather Cox Richardson is a respected historian, whom you may have seen recently on Amanpous and Company on PBS.* You may also be familiar with her daily substack blog, "Letters from an American."
In response to Uvalde, she published what was essentially a three-part series on the history of Americans and guns, each part of the series focusing on a different aspect. All are eminently quotable, but I think stronger together. Please let me introduce you to them if you haven't already seen them.
In the first one, she discusses America and guns through the lens of Constitutional language and historical language uses. Just a short quote.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution, on which modern-day arguments for widespread gun ownership rest, is one simple sentence: A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Theres not a lot to go on about what the Framers meant, although in their day, to bear arms meant to be part of an organized militia.
As the Tennessee Supreme Court wrote in 1840, A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.
In the second, she discusses America and guns through the lens of all of American politics and how that has changed, with us changing with it. Again, just a short quote.
How have we arrived at a place where 90% of Americans want to protect our children from gun violence, and yet those who are supposed to represent us in government are unable, or unwilling, to do so?
This is a central problem not just for the issue of gun control, but for our democracy itself.
It seems that during the Cold War, American leaders came to treat democracy and capitalism as if they were interchangeable. So long as the United States embraced capitalism, by which they meant an economic system in which individuals, rather than the state, owned the means of production, liberal democracy would automatically follow.
In the third one, she turns to the lens of the culture of rugged individualism, and how that is related to the America relationship with guns, and how even gender identities have been affected. Yet again, just a short quote.
Beginning in the 1950s, those opposed to government regulation and civil rights decisions pushed the imagery of the cowboy, who ran cattle on the Great Plains from 1866 to about 1886 and who, in legend, was a white man who worked hard, fought hard against Indigenous Americans, and wanted only for the government to leave him alone.
That image was not true to the real cowboys, at least a third of whom were Black or men of color, or to the reality of government intervention in the Great Plains, which was more extensive there than in any other region of the country. It was a reaction to federal laws after the Civil War defending Black rights in the postCivil War South, laws white racists said were federal overreach that could only lead to what they insisted was socialism.
And on the fourth day, she rested (for which I for one, cannot blame her. All three of these articles are worth attention. They are not as long as they may at first appear, because when she gets to the word "Notes:" she is finished - what follows is her sources. But also, they present one problem with three distinct visions. I don't suppose we all need to be deeply familiar with all of them - but we should at least know which one most resonates with ourselves and with people to whom we may be speaking - being aware that one can't well share what one doesn't own.
Thanks for reading. *The Amanpour clip is here -
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