Notwithstanding various iterations the saying has undergone, the late mayor and police chief of Philadelphia Frank Rizzo is credited with arguing "a liberal is a
conservative who got mugged the night before."
That is not universally valid, in part demonstrated by the mercy many victims, or family members of victims, express toward
their victimizers. Nonetheless, it still reflects the generally valid notion that views often depend on whose ox is being gored. That seems to
apply to the extreme conservative, sexually odd Associate Justice of the
nation's High Court. As reported by Politico
Justice Clarence Thomas argued in a concurring opinion
released on Friday that the Supreme Court “should reconsider” its past rulings
codifying rights to access contraceptives, same-sex relationships and same-sex
marriage.
The sweeping suggestion from the current court’s
longest-serving justice came in a concurring opinion he authored in response to
the court’s ruling on Friday revoking the constitutional right to an abortion. In his opinion, Thomas wrote that the justices “should
reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,
including Griswold, Lawrence,
and Obergefell”
— referring to three cases having to do with Americans’ fundamental privacy,
due process and equal protection rights.
Since last month, when POLITICO published an initial draft
majority opinion of the court’s decision on Friday to strike down Roe
v. Wade, Democratic politicians have repeatedly warned that such a ruling
would lead to the reversal of other landmark privacy-related cases.
In his opinion, Thomas wrote that the justices “should
reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,
including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell”
— referring to three cases having to do with Americans’ fundamental privacy,
due process and equal protection rights.
Justice Clarence Thomas argued in a concurring opinion
released on Friday that the Supreme Court “should reconsider” its past rulings
codifying rights to access contraceptives, same-sex relationships and same-sex
marriage.
Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. You know what one case
in the sexual/gender area is Clarence Thomas is omitting. That would be Loving v. Virginia, in which
A unanimous Court struck down state laws banning marriage
between individuals of different races, holding that these anti-miscegenation
statutes violated both the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
If the Court knocked down Loving v. Virginia, it would
imperil the marriage of the black Justice to his white wife, the
insurrectionist and ironically named Virginia. His ox, in all likelihood, would
be gored.
On the other hand, there are five fingers, also this:
SCOTUS strikes down Roe noting abortion isn’t mentioned in our Constitution.
Also not mentioned: Marriage, banks, corporations, work (other than slavery), travel, and perhaps most important of all privacy, although it’s implied in the first, third, and fourth amendments.
On Tuesday, Rusty Bowers, Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, became another Republican to give public testimony to the select committee investigating the attempted coup of January 6, 2021.
There's a whole heartland full of people to whom Bowers truly spoke. Part of why his testimony was so powerful is BECAUSE he spoke to them in a way they might accept. Part of that come from acquiescing to ways where he is a lot like them. In this case, it's GOOD he said that.
"Duty To Warn" is an anti-Trump "association of mental health professionals." However (or therefore) DTW fails to understand that the message which can be reasonably taken form Bowers' testimony s that the President's actions were not so heinous that he wouldn't enthusiastically support him again as leader of the Free World (or as Chris Hayes unironically and inaccurately refers to him as then "the most powerful man in the world").
Bowers need not have endorsed Trump to spare himself the kind of harassment indirectly brought to him and his family by the guy to whom he was given a thumbs up. He could have reinforced the idea that he is a conservative Republican by saying that he wouldn't vote for Trump again but would happily support any other conservative Republican for President. If the ex-President were nominated for anther term, Bowers might have added, he would vote for any other conservative on the ballot. Anything but "run, Donald, run."
Noting Bowers' position on 2024 is not "a pointless hypothetical" and Chris Hayes explains why:
Rusty Bowers embodies a key part of this story because there are a few people, more than a handful, faced with a great moral test, who acted with integrity and ultimately that was what saved our democracy in the end.
But the other part of the story is that the Republican Party as a whole, as an institution, in American political life, is a continuing threat to the republic even if some of its members did the right thing when called to against great odds and great pressure. and Mr. Bowers summed that all up when after that testimony he gave, he told the Associated Press that despite everything that happened to him, his family, his community, and the assault on the capital on January 6, he would vote for Trump again. "If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I'd vote for him again," Bowers said "simply because what he did the first time, before COVID, was so good for the country. In my mind it was great."
Maybe that's posturing but you know, I believe him. Mitch McConnell has said the same thing. I believe him. So has Bill Barr. I believe Bill Barr.
That's it in a nutshell, the problem that we all face. the distance between the genuine individual integrity that Rusty Bowers showed and the nature of this broader force that no one, not even Donald Trump, really fully controls. In the end, then the whole is greater nd worse the the sum of its parts. The whole really is, right now, a mortal threat to our democracy.
On the one-year anniversary of the insurrection, Grace
Panetta in Business Insider recalled
On November 22, 2000, a group of well-dressed Republican
protesters descended on a government office building in Miami. They were there
to protest the Miami-Dade County Canvassing Board's recount in the disputed
presidential race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush. They
wanted to stop what they regarded as a steal, and they were prepared to resort
to violence to do it.
The Brooks Brothers riot revived a new blueprint for
electoral disputes, one that openly deployed violence and intimidation to
frighten officials into discarding legitimate votes. Like the January 6, 2021
pro-Trump siege on the US Capitol, it was sought to replace the rule of law
with mob rule.
And like that brazen assault on democracy, it was
orchestrated at the top levels of the GOP. The weapon-toting, MAGA hat-clad
insurrectionists of 2021 directly descend from the buttoned-down,
stop-the-steal rioters of 2000.
The participants of the demonstration, primarily organized
by senior Bush campaign official Brad Blakeman, became irate that the
three-member canvassing board had gone to an upstairs room out of the public
view and entered the building to vocally protest the process.
When local Democratic official Joe Geller went downstairs to
get a blank sample ballot to demonstrate something to his colleagues, he was
surrounded by the protesters who loudly accused him of stealing a voters'
ballot and hounded him all the way back upstairs.
Both he and then-Democratic operative Luis Rosera got caught
up in a scuffle and described being kicked and punched by the increasingly
unwieldy crowd, The New York Times reported, with sheriffs' deputies having to
intervene to quell the brouhaha and escort the canvassing board to safety.
At this link, you will find that the
Times at the time reported
The subsequent demonstrations turned violent on Wednesday
after the canvassers had decided to close the recount to the public. Joe
Geller, chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, was escorted to safety by
the police after a crowd chased him down and accused him of stealing a ballot.
Upstairs in the Clark center, several people were trampled, punched or kicked
when protesters tried to rush the doors outside the office of the Miami-Dade
supervisor of elections. Sheriff's deputies restored order.
When the ruckus was over, the protesters had what they had
wanted: a unanimous vote by the board to call off the hand counting.
Panetta added
The incident, which is now often referred to as the Brooks
Brothers riot or rebellion, intimidated the board into suspending their already-scaled
back recount altogether, resulting in many votes going uncounted and lost in
the "what-ifs" of history.
Nicole Wallace was not involved in the effort to stop a recount which would have contributed to determining who was legitimately elected President of the USA. However, she was part of the recount travesty in Florida in 2000 as press secretary for Governor John Ellis Bush ("JEB"). She proceeded to join the George W Bush administration, then served on Bush's re-election campaign and afterward in the second Bush administration.
It is said "confession is good for the soul." Alas, it rarely benefits a professional career. Nicole Wallace could confess her own role in creating the modern Republican Party, which is a mere exaggeration- not a perversion-- of the Republican Party she happily and profitably participated in. But with her popularity riding high among MSNBC viewers, there is no practical reason for her to admit her complicity in the muck and mud that is- and has been- the Republican Party.
Weep not for Representative Dan Crenshaw, Republican from
Texas, although as HuffPost reports
Far-right activists at the Texas GOP Convention hurled
criticisms toward Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) one day after a Republican
senator faced boos during his speech.
Activists, including some who were recording, approached
Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost his right eye to a bomb while deployed to
Afghanistan, with remarks such as “eyepatch McCain” and “globalist RINO
[Republican In Name Only],”
Other remarks made toward the lawmaker included claims that
Crenshaw is a “traitor” and calls that he be “hung for treason.”
A witness told Mediaite some of the activists “got physical
with multiple people, including hitting them with cameras.”
Some of the remarks echoed the words of Fox News host Tucker
Carlson, who called Crenshaw “eye patch McCain” after the lawmaker said sending
help to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion wasn’t a factor in the U.S. baby
formula shortage.
This was reprehensible behavior from "far-right"
activists toward a far-right legislator. However, Dan Crenshaw will survive,
either continuing as a congressman or in some lucrative capacity following a
career in the House of Representatives.
Huffington Post continues
Alex Stein, one of the activists who approached Crenshaw and
posted video of it on Twitter, and others were taken out of the building and a
number of arrests were made at the convention, an anonymous source at the
convention told Mediaite. Witnesses told Mediaite some of those involved were
wearing Proud Boys gear.
On a positive note, some of the reactionary radicals were
arrested, presumably, and hopefully, to be prosecuted. But there being a First Amendment, which
boundaries are being constantly tested by the Republican Party, this guy won't
be arrested:
After former Missouri governor Eric Greitens was charged with violent sexual misconduct, his ex-wife says he bought and hid a gun. He also threatened to shoot himself unless she supported him publicly. Now he’s threatening to kill his political opponents. pic.twitter.com/5Ty98ghxb3
This is an ad from MO-Sen candidate Eric Greitens about
hunting human beings, played up completely in earnest.
“The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes
of cowardice…There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire
until we save our country.”
Eric Greitens is not the Republican "base" nor the
Republican street. He is not your next-door neighbor, a mere
"activist," relatively inconsequential as most of us are. He is a
disgraced politician who was somewhat of a longshot in his primary race and now
evidently leads the pack. He wants to be
a member of an exclusive club- the USA Senate- and of an even more exclusive
club, the roughly 50 members of his party's caucus there. The Republican
nominee, whomever it may be, will be a strong favorite to win in solidly
conservative Missouri.
Greitens aspires to be a leader of men and women and was not dragged kicking and screaming by GOP voters
to threaten violence against his political enemies. It is what he believes or
pretends to believe, and it may not matter which. Victory could be interpreted that Republican officials may target their enemies for death without penalty. Greitens will have been given license to respond
accordingly, with or without a firearm.
There are radicals, extremists, even would-be murderers,
everywhere. The first two descriptions apply
to most GOP senators but the third, largely not. That appears to be changing and sarcasm helps explain why:
Just signed on to Twitter, having trouble finding what must surely be scores of prominent Republicans denouncing the Greitens ad.
Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Senate in
Georgia, who has been a frequent critic of absentee fathers, especially in
Black households, has acknowledged that he is the father of a second son he had
not previously mentioned publicly, as well as an adult daughter who was born
when he was in his early 20s.
The revelation, reported on Thursday by The Daily Beast, is
the second this week about children Mr. Walker has fathered but did not
publicly disclose. The outlet reported on Tuesday about a 10-year-old son of
Mr. Walker’s with whom he is not in contact.
It's fair to say that Walker has a sketchy association with
the truth. His dishonesty has no bounds and
Walker has also been called out for lying about graduating
from the University of Georgia. He left after his junior year. He also said
that he was a member of law enforcement in Cobb County and trained with the
FBI. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found no evidence this was true. The Cobb
County Police Department, a county neighboring Atlanta, also said it “had no
record of involvement with Walker,” the newspaper reported.
So of course he was received enthusiastically at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference this weekend.
The quote in this tweet begins at approximately 3:26-29 of the video
below and as you can hear, is incomplete because the recording from the
conference is unclear and Walker's words particularly so. The candidate was
responding to a question posed by host Ralph Reed, who falsely stated (at 3:26-02) that
Democratic senator Raphael Warnock "says he's pro-abortion" because
Reed long has been a right-wing supporter of plutocracy posing as a believing
Christian.
Herschel Walker says Sen Warnock is a “false prophet” because he’s pro-choice: “I’m from the womb to the tomb .. I’m confused, because if a pastor says something like that .. is he like a false prophet? In the 10 Commandments, does it not say, ‘Thou shall not kill?’ pic.twitter.com/eDSHofqj5e
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 19, 2022
Herschel Walker says Sen Warnock is a “false prophet”
because he’s pro-choice: “I’m from the womb to the tomb .. I’m confused,
because if a pastor says something like that .. is he like a false prophet? In
the 10 Commandments, does it not say, ‘Thou shall not kill?’
Consistently applied, that reason would lead Walker to
oppose both capital punishment and all wars.
However
There are several strong arguments for the case that the
sixth commandment should be translated as “Thou shalt not murder.” First, the
verb used in the Torah commandment is “ratsah,” which generally is translated
as murder and refers only to criminal acts of killing a human being. The word
“kill” generally refers to the taking of life for all classes of victims and
for all reasons. This generalization is expressed through a different Hebrew
verb “harag.”
Another compelling argument against the “Thou shalt not
kill” translation is that there are many places in the Hebrew scriptures that
command or condone warfare, the sacrifice of animals, and several methods of
capital punishment.
Most, albeit not all, theologians realize the command is
"Thou shalt not murder." Thus understood correctly, neither capital
punishment (where authorized) nor abortion (where legal) is
murder.
In what by now, 2022, should be no surprise, attendees at a
"Faith and Freedom Coalition" conference have little knowledge of the
Bible they claim to revere. Neither does their chosen candidate, Herschel
Walker, for that US Senate seat in Georgia.
But neither does he seem to have much knowledge about anything, which
increasingly appears to be an asset for Republican candidates.
By contrast, thistweeter demonstrates that annual production by USA oil
companies has been higher under President Biden than under the previous five
Presidents. That doesn't prove that the incumbent has done a better job at
encouraging oil production than the others, nor that he has done a particularly
good job.
However, it does prove that he is not the problem. Let us
recall that in April of 2020, a mere five months before he left (kicking and
screaming) the presidency
As the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and
its allies came to an agreement on a record cut in oil production, U.S.
President Donald Trump may have struck his “biggest and most complex deal,”
according to oil expert Dan Yergin.
“What was so interesting — among many, very interesting
things in this unprecedented event — was the turnaround, the pivot by Donald
Trump,” Yergin, who is vice chairman at IHS Markit, told CNBC’s “Street Signs”
on Monday.
Just a few weeks ago, Trump had said the early-March plunge
in oil prices were “good for the consumer” as it meant lower gasoline prices.
That drop in crude prices had been triggered by an oil price war between Saudi
Arabia and Russia after Moscow rejected a proposal by OPEC to cut 1.5 million
barrels of production per day.
The sharp decline in oil prices spurred giant capex and job
cuts across the U.S. shale industry, which has some of the highest production
costs in the world.
But Yergin said: ”(Trump) came to see this as a national
security issue, also an employment issue, and a very important factor in the
U.S. economy … and he just jumped in.”
Let's hope this Yergin character, a member of the National Petroleum Council who claims less oil production is good for national security, never gets close
enough to sniff a governmental policymaking position. Expansion of renewable
energy is good for national security. Cutting oil production internationally
raises costs to the consumer and most assuredly does not promote national
security.
But Jordan and company are little interested in reducing the
price of fuel and other forms of energy. If they were, they wouldn't have been
unanimous in opposing (as did four Democrats) in the House of Representatives
the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act, which "would grant the
president authority to issue emergency energy proclamations and make it illegal
to increase gas and energy prices in excessive and exploitative ways. It would
also expand the Federal Trade Commission's power to investigate and address
possible price gouging by oil and gas companies." (It's expected to die in the Senate.)
With gas in short supply, less can be sold and yet,
miraculously, oil companies are reaping record profits. There is nothing like
taking advantage of an international crisis to gouge the public. So it must be
Biden's fault.
Rumor has it that there will be elections throughout the
country in November. Most Republicans are standing in firm, many in enthusiastic, support, of a fellow who as President tried to get the Vice
President killed and to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. It shouldn't be
surprising that, with high gas prices imperiling a Democrat majority in
Congress, they would be standing with Big Oil and against the American public.
Fox News, joined by Bill Maher, wants you to know that
traditional media has downplayed the reported attempt upon the life of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. On June 11, Joseph A. Wulfsohn wrote
Earlier this week, a man named Nicholas John Roske was
arrested outside the justice's home carrying a gun and a knife. He admitted to
police that he had traveled from California to Washington, D.C., to kill
Kavanaugh because of his apparent intention to overturn Roe v. Wade following
the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion. Roske was charged with attempted
murder.
However, the Times shrugged off the assassination attempt,
keeping it off the front page, which drew ire on social media.
During his panel discussion on Friday night, Maher also did
not give the Times a pass, calling it a case of "media bias."
"The New York Times buried this," Maher said.
"If this had been a liberal Supreme Court justice that someone came to
kill, it would have been on the front page."
"And that's what's so disappointing about a paper like
The New York Times because they just wear their bias on their sleeves, and if
it's not part of something that feeds our narrative, f--- it, we bury it,"
Maher added.
Three days earlier, Fox News reporter Bradford Betz hadmaintained
In the following days after the assassination attempt,
mainstream media largely underplayed the news, instead suggesting that
"both sides" of the abortion debate are guilty of violent rhetoric.
By Sunday morning, the story was ignored by all the major
Sunday shows except for "Fox News Sunday."
Betz added
Roske had a Glock 17 pistol, ammunition, a knife, zip ties,
pepper spray, duct tape and other items that he told police he would use to break
into Kavanaugh's house and kill him, according to a criminal complaint and
affidavit filed in federal court in Maryland. Roske said he purchased the gun
to kill Kavanaugh and that he also would kill himself, the affidavit said.
Roske, 26, told police he was upset by a leaked draft
opinion suggesting the Supreme Court is about to overrule Roe v. Wade, the
landmark abortion case. He also said he was upset over the school massacre in
Uvalde, Texas, and believed Kavanaugh would vote to loosen gun control laws,
the affidavit said.
The circumstances of this offender's arrest were rather
unusual, as
When he got out of the taxi, Roske was spotted by two U.S.
Marshals who are part of round-the-clock security provided to the justices
following the leak of the draft opinion last month. But Roske was only
apprehended after he called 911 in Montgomery County, Maryland, and said he was
having suicidal thoughts and planned to kill Kavanaugh, having found the
justice's address online. Roske was still on the phone when Montgomery County
police arrived on the scene, according to the affidavit.
Roske outed himself and turned himself in before killing the
judge. Were it that this Judge had been so lucky:
A former Wisconsin judge found dead from gunshot wounds at
his home Friday had once sentenced the suspect in the shooting to six years in
prison.
Retired Juneau County, Wisconsin, Judge John Roemer, 68, was
found dead and zip tied to a chair at his New Lisbon, Wisconsin, home, WISN
reports. The suspect, Douglas K. Uhde, 56, was found in the basement with an
apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a June 4 press release from
the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Uhde was taken to a hospital, where he was in critical
condition Saturday. He was declared brain dead the same day but was kept on
life support to allow for organ donation, report CNN and a press release. Uhde
died Tuesday.
The person who called police had left the home and gone to a
neighbor’s house. A neighbor told the Wisconsin State Journal that Roemer lived
with two of his sons, and both fled. His wife and another son had died in
recent years.
This was not a random hit. Just as the perpetrator, in the Kavanaugh case purportedly from the left, was politically motivated
Uhde reportedly had a hit list of other targets who included
Republican U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Democratic
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers,
according to Reuters.
For those keeping score at home, that would be three
Democrats and a Republican. But Mitch McConnell, despite his effectiveness, is despised by Donald Trump and
the far right which typically characterize him as a traitor or Republican in Name Only.
Unlike Brett Kavanaugh, Roemer never ascended to the federal
judiciary nor was he an active judge. Uhde had carried a grudge for over a decade against a judge who
had sentenced Uhde on a burglary charge in 2005 to six years
in prison and nine years of extended supervision. Roemer got the case after an
appeals court ruled that another judge had failed to follow the state’s truth
in sentencing rules, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Uhde was
released from prison in 2020.
Roemer was first elected to the bench in 2004. He retired in
2017 because of his wife’s health problems.
A judge was murdered for sentencing an individual, who had committed armed robbery and had an "extensive prison record," to a mere six years in prison. He was not a "hanging judge."
But he was not among the nine Supreme Court justices. When Nicholas Roske
was arrested- before harming a Justice- Congress immediately added security for
the chosen nine, in part because of the outcry over the incident. The Democratic Attorney General stated "threats of violence and actual violence against the justices of course strike at the heart of our democracy and we will do everything we can to prevent them and to hold people who do them accountable."
Not the inclusive "judges" but the exclusive "justices." Yet, Bill Maher and Fox News complained that the threat to
Brett Kavanaugh was ignored. John Roemer
and the tens of thousands of active and retired judges across the nation, serving the public without the power of the conservative media machine behind them, should be so lucky.
