Could be Nothing, But...

 

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly hid free yacht trip to Putin's hometown https://t.co/8yf1w7OMJe

— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 10, 2024

I mean, it was 20 years ago. However, it was part of 20 years of corruption and undisclosed gifts on Thomas' part, so even if it doesn't mean something more sinister--how bad does it need to look?

I'm not sure how far AOC filing articles of impeachment against Thomas and Alito will go, or how far a request for the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Thomas's possible tax violations will go, but something has to give.

(This post is a nice place to remind everyone that when 13 years of Justice Thomas's financial disclosure forms were amended about a dozen years ago, it was because he failed to include his wife's income from Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation. We've obviously been hearing a lot about the Heritage Foundation lately)

SCOTUS and the Conclusions

 

It's really not hard to draw an obvious and unpleasant conclusion regarding the conservative justices' rulings regarding effectively legalizing bribery and privileging the opinions of courts over subject matter experts in government agencies with respects to regulatory matters, and to keep this blog post terribly brief, let me just sum it up this way:

The Republican-appointed justices have shown us what they are, and all that's left is billionaires haggling over the price. I'm sure putting it this way would offend Sam Alito and his missus, so to also keep this blog post brief, I will refrain from suggesting what else they can run up a flagpole if they don't like it.

I really shudder at conservative justices using their slapdash "textural" approach to the law as a "public service" to overrule agency decisions based on science. What this means for climate change, curbing pollution, food and drug regulation....

Vergogna!

 

EXCLUSIVE UNDERCOVER AUDIO:
Martha-Ann Alito Unfurled

"I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month." pic.twitter.com/okNsW7SPlu

— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) June 10, 2024

There's a lot to unpack in the conversations that undercover reporter Lauren Windsor had with the Alitos. The verification of Samuel Alito's sense of culture war driving his juris-imprudence doesn't entirely surprise me. Does he endorse the return of our country to "a place of godliness? So he does!

It seems to me he must be using his own personal notes for what he thinks godliness means--as for myself, I'm less ambitious, and would like to see the Supreme Court be a place of cleanliness, which would, I am told, be the next best thing and a bit closer to his job. 

But it's Mrs. Alito's sense of an ax to grind over Pride flags, her desire for revenge against the media (how dare they report unpleasant things--like her squabble with the neighbors, or the way her family's security detail may be threatening them), her combination of privilege and aggrievement, that fascinates me. It's her unselfconscious use of the term "feminazis". It's her reference to her German heritage. How she intends to get even. Eventually.

Justice Alito Should Pack it In

 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is facing calls to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 presidential election after reports emerged of an inverted American flag flown outside his home days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. pic.twitter.com/BumAk9E8y1

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) May 17, 2024

If ultra-conservative SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito (and family) feels so thin-skinned about the burden of the public commenting on the job he's doing (which affects all Americans, and no shit people are rightly concerned) , so much so that the US flag, inverted, was flown on his lawn like a cry for help or a signal that it was time for a revolution (or insurrection), if his bias has become so apparent that people deem it fit that he recuse himself from the most important cases relating to the preservation of our republic and the continued relevance of the Constitution as well as the court on which he sits (what the whole hell else is the "presidential immunity" question?), then he can really do us a favor and retire. 

Before the election, thanks. Because apparently, elections make him just too emotional, and as a nation, we've already had two long national nightmares over that sort of thing. 

TWGB: This Situation is not Hypothetical

 

In today's SCOTUS hearing, Samuel Alito argued that immunity for former presidents is good, actually, because without it, ex-presidents might refuse to leave office peacefully if they lose reelection...

Make it make sense. https://t.co/HepJVcgN2Q

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) April 25, 2024

If I were to take Justice Alito as a good-faith interrogator adhering to the actual facts of the Trump presidency--the actual president this case is about, and not some future generic president we're just having a classroom thought-experiment about, are we supposed to play along and imagine a path where 1/6 does not happen because Trump can rest safe in his bed at Mar-a-Lago certain that no ill shall befall him, because he had immunity. So, he just gracefully turns over the keys to the established firm:

And maybe that even means he is just fine keeping those documents from the White House that he doubtless acquired during his presidency--several boxes of, in fact--and selling them, because we are just going to assume a president does official things officially, and not shady-ass criminal stuff because one has always been a shady-ass criminal? 

On a day where Justice Brown-Jackson noted that immunity (or should we rather call it, impunity?) would turn the Oval Office into a center of criminal activity, we received testimony that Hope Hicks and Sarah Huckabee Sanders were in contact--via their White House offices, with David Pecker regarding the election interference/hush money cover-up scheme. 

Justice Thomas and the Supplemental Income

 

You know, until now, stories about the largesse bestowed upon Justice Clarence Thomas almost sounds like he got appointed to the Court, ran the gantlet of his hearing, and then suddenly, he had all these friends he just wouldn't like to disappoint. And yet this story from ProPublica makes a reciprocal point--

There he was, just in debt as heck in 2000 (the year he would decide on Bush v, Gore, as a matter of fact, because that's not something I can refrain from mentioning) he looked over his public servant's salary and said out loud, "Gee, I sure hope my wealthy friends don't disappoint me or they may well get disappointed."

Genuinely:

After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV. 

 At the resort, Thomas gave a speech at an off-the-record conservative conference. He found himself seated next to a Republican member of Congress on the flight home. The two men talked, and the lawmaker left the conversation worried that Thomas might resign. 

Congress should give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, Thomas told him. If lawmakers didn’t act, “one or more justices will leave soon” — maybe in the next year.

I'm not calling it extortion. All I'd like to point out is, his public servant salary got supplemented with a good deal of private money--and Thomas was very well aware what it was worth to his benefactors for them to do so.  

 

The Best Friends You Could Have

 

Yesterday's early news began with word that Clarence Thomas' good friend, Harlan Crow, paid for his nephew's $100K-plus tuition, and this was undisclosed (in the way the gifts of various trips and the real estate transaction regarding his mother's house, where she resides rent-free were undisclosed) and ended with news that he also obviously very good friend Leonard Leo arranged to make payments to his wife, Ginni, as a consultant via KellyAnne Conway as a cut-out, so as to keep the payment, uh, shall we say, hush?

Who in the world has such generous friends?

Thomas has his strong defenders and I've seen all the "whatabouts", but that so many of these transactions were sub rosa paints a less-than rosy picture--and shouldn't it?  They didn't want the appearance of impropriety, but Ginni and Clarence Thomas took the money nonetheless. 

I stared at the blank blog page wondering what I had to say about this, and I'm shocked anything needs to be. Thomas should be ready to resign, and if not, Senate Democrats should be ready to hold hearings and yes, even subpoena wealthy privileged people who don't want to show up if it comes down to that. 

All this time, we've seen Republicans go on the offensive even when they are holding trash cards. When Democrats have legitimate beef, I never hear sizzle. 

It gets tired. Put conservatives on the back foot. Get on them. It's the only damn way.

SCOTUS Focus

 

I don't love that I'm revisiting this again so soon, but the entire Supreme Court has an ethics problem, as in they don't think they've got an ethics problem and they actually should be the first to see it. Their unanimous joint statement of clarity is pretty clear--who is supposed to check them?  

But what if every indicator suggests these mere mortals are not exactly reliably self-checking?

We are called to mind again of the genuine likelihood of conflicts of interest via spousal income--this time in the form of Chief Justice Roberts' wife's $10 million from making job placements with lawyers to assorted law firms. The kind of firms that are going to be heard in her husband's court? Well, yeah, Obviously. 

The sordid story regarding Justice Kavanaugh's 2018 confirmation hearing was also once again revisited today, with the report that his Senate investigation, just like his FBI investigation, was faulty. The GOP Senate never wanted to know the real story with regards to Kavanaugh because it never mattered to them, 

And of course Sam Alito was heard from, because he won't be ignored. He thinks he knows that the Dobbs leaker was definitely not a conservative. Also, he still claims the leak could have gotten him killed.

Who Checks and Balances the Court?

 After so much reporting of Justice Clarence Thomas' relationship with Harlan Crow, not to mention his wife's openly partisan political activity, we now have news of a troubling real estate transaction taking place between Neil Gorsuch and the CEO of Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that regularly brings cases before the Court. A property that was up for sale for two years suddenly was purchased nine days after Gorsuch was confirmed. 

Sure, Gorsuch can say he doesn't know the man or never met him, but the thing of it is--doesn't that make "how to deliver a bribe" seem so effortless? Use cut-outs. Hell, do favors for family. Be linked in all kinds of ways, some obvious, some not. 

Is the problem that people are making the insinuation, or is the problem the cozy relationships that make the insinuations extraordinarily probable? And isn't it even more of a problem when the Chief of one of our main branches of government offers absolute hogwash when asked to discuss court ethics with another branch of government?

If the members of the Supreme Court are in the least concerned about the reputation of that body, they should think of the historical example of the wife of Caesar. In low-level positions of government, ethics rules limit so much as the acceptance of a free lunch. And yet it appears that Supreme Court justices can accept anything their hearts desire--because who is going to check them? 

Despite the call on the left to restore the balance of the Court by expanding it, there has been no move to do so. At the bare minimum, Congress should feel empowered to at least act as a check on whether these parties are ethical stewards of their charge to uphold the law especially because they represent it.  And yes, that should even extend to impeachment if bribery/influence can be demonstrated. 

That means that yes--the member of the Court should be subject to questions. Confirmation shouldn't be the last word between the members of the court and Congress. And if all is kosher, why not both ensure that there are clear guidelines and be willing to communicate that they are followed? 

Look, not all weird financial things to do with SCOTUS are necessarily signs of corruption. But there should be some aim for transparency, and leaving important details off of disclosure forms does open up questions--it's kind of natural. 

Tempest in a Very Peculiar Teapot

 

The discussion of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas' benefactor's unusual collection of Nazi memorabilia amongst his other bits of art are probably most charitably described as tacky and eccentric. Amusingly, he received vociferous support from a variety of conservative pundits, who he had also cultivated and collected over the years. 

In the words of Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."  If that doesn't describe a lot of right-wing media, I don't know what does. 

When I was a kid, I had an uncle who got me interested in numismatics, and I collected things like buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes. The little coin shop where I poured over affordable collectibles sometimes had antiques--small historical artifacts, like medals and patches from someone's grandaddy's old footlocker. Anyway, I remember one time there was a patch with a swastika, and I just wanted to see it for a minute. 

The owner asked me did I know where it was from, and I was all of ten or eleven and I knew. Would I like to buy it?  And I decided it was interesting, but I didn't want to own a part of what it was. I was fascinated that I could touch it and handle a symbol I knew was associated with a great evil. But actually bringing it into my parents' house would have felt like doing something wrong to me. I knew what it was; that was enough. 

Justice Thomas has Very Dear Friends

 

The owlish device of Bohemian Grove says" Weaving spiders come not here" and this is the crux of the story--weaving spiders be everywhere when a Supreme Court Justice is accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts from politically involved billionaires.  Why, yes, that story was from 2011. Clarence Thomas has told on himself when he admits his dear friendship with Harlan Crow has been for something on the order of 25 plus years, when he has been on SCOTUS for nearly 32 years. 

Did he get endeared by this very good friend after having become a SCOTUS? and wouldn't any one of you find the lavishing of multi-million-dollar trips and so on very endearing? Of course, you are dear friends--now. 

Now, where this stands in the current court, where a leak was probably covered up, shouldn't we worry? Don't we respect this court though, all warts and blemishes aside?

TWGB: They Aren't Joking

 

There's a funny thing about Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that if she and Steve Bannon were at the head of the 1/6 insurrection, they would have won, and they would have been armed: she says she was joking, now. But she certainly was not.  We know this because we know her record. She was explicit about what she stood for--talking about "the price of blood" pre-election.  We know in December 2020 she was at the White House meeting with other GOP electeds. We know some 1/6 insurrectionists actually were armed.  What she seems to be saying, and pretending to walk back, is that she would want more bloodshed of Capitol police and possibly her own colleagues in congress. 

Ha ha. The conservatives are getting better at humor, and the libs don't like it, indeed. (See latest iteration thereof.)  Actually, we know what "only joking" means to fascists. (Can't you take a joke? Why are you punching yourself? I'm not the problem, you have no sense of humor. etc.)

When the NY Young Republicans, who I used to think were just twenty-somethings who looked like forty somethings and had the values of the 1950s and wanted to undo the civil rights movement, has VDARE's Brimelow and Posobiec, I start to think we've got people in their thirties and forties who look like they are traitors and have the values of would-be herrenvolk and want to undo Reconstruction. 

So, color me pretty alarmed by that. Also alarmed by Justice Kavanaugh hanging out with the Schlapps, you know, the CPAC wanna-be domestic terrorist Orban enthusiasts. Just a Supreme Court justice hanging out in the most partisan and kinda-fash-leaning crowd, and we're supposed to shrug about that? (And shouldn't RW SCOTUS justices be more on guard about their propriety since we know they are cozy as hell with activists? I mean, Clarance Thomas' wife is a whole activist, which is as cozy as things get.)  

It isn't a joke. 

Jesus, Guns, Babies, SCOTUS

 

The Dobbs bomb dropped today, and it was already quite a week for SCOTUS conservative signifying. There was an elevation of the free exercise concept regarding religious liberty over the establishment clause, which feels sloppy as hell. Free exercise doesn't to my mind imply taxpayer-funded exercise. We have now introduced a situation in which, having opened the door to funding some religious-operated schools, would the state government be determining a cut off at some point?  All religious schools? Scientology, Hare Krishna, Church of Satan? 

(Look, I'm not a Mainer or Maine's mom or anything, but why do you have such a thing as areas that don't have an actual public school? Instead of offering tuition to anyone, just do a school. I think the world would be a better place if there were more schools. Figure out where there is a gasping need, build it. I don't know how a community exists that doesn't think there is a need for a local school, but okay, village, if you don't build it, the state can just step in that way. Shrug. Of course, I don't believe in private or homeschool education because there's a risk of things being way off standard. Ever see the Abeka curriculum? Yikes on bikes.)

We also saw a radical dismantling of gun control, also pretty bizarrely decided, with Justice Thomas telling us somberly that Justice Taney had some good points in the Dred Scott decision. Wait.. Have we retired the idea that you absolutely do not have to hand it to the Dred Scott decision; because I feel like I missed a memo. Last I checked we were not handing anything to the Dred Scott decision. 

But while the conservative justices were feeling extra cute with their decisions (history might delete later) it's no surprise that Thomas once again added to the obvious furor that the Alito-written Dobbs decision was going to cause by actually saying the unravelling part out loud--yeah, we're coming for Obergefell, Lawrence and Griswold.  (Who is going to check us, bitch? he did not add.) You don't have a private life that isn't dictated by the state. We can control your vertical and horizontal--the outer limits of your physical choices. You will fornicate inside the lines. God will decide if child will issue or not. If you die, you die. 

An Unravelling Thread

 

The Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and obtained by POLITICO.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito writes. https://t.co/nl3JFLx9xg

— POLITICO (@politico) May 3, 2022

A perusal of Twitter shows that many conservatives are more concerned with the leak of Justice Alito's draft of the decision to reverse Roe v. Wade than the decision itself, which takes aim not just at the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, but at the right to contraception and the right to marry the adult partner of one's choice. It's as if the privacy of the Supreme Court to make these personal decisions for millions of Americans matters more than the privacy of those decisions for the individual.

They know full well that many people today have no intention of "lying back and taking it". The leak concerns them because it gives people an insight into the game plan (as if the game had not already been quite clear).  We should have always known our rights hung by this thread, but if anyone had not--there it is: the right of the state and the people who run it over your right to run your own life. 

The folks who go around saying they like small government and freedom are dirty liars. They just despise oversight and responsibility. But when they let you know they despise your personal pursuit of happiness, the right to medical care (such as the termination of an ectopic pregnancy, etc.) that can preserve your life, and gives you choices--liberty! They stand against you. 

Forced labor (how else to describe a state-mandated pregnancy?) is violence. It cannot stand. 

The Country is Held Hostage By the Fifth Dentist

 

Whenever I think about the 27% crazification factor (as an old-head blogger), I think about the vintage commercials about "four out of five dentists" thing when I was a kid. You don't know that fifth dentist in the survey. Maybe he just doesn't endorse products. Maybe he thinks chewing gum at all is a disgusting habit. Survey questions don't actually tell the whole tale of what the respondents believe, and that's a large part of why I feel like making a big deal out of polling can be kind of stupid. 

You can get poll numbers for people who blame Obama for the Katrina response. You aren't getting a snapshot of what people know. You are getting a snapshot of what they don't know but definitely feel. You are learning where the public messaging needs to concentrate and do better at factual/useful information. This is why polling about whether Biden could do more about fuel prices is stupid. You aren't gauging a fact--but the degree to which people understand the facts that we are not a socialist economy, and Biden doesn't control fuel prices. 

It would be great, I think, if actual journalists who cared whether they were doing a good job or not, actually used these polls as a yardstick to whether they were doing a great job of getting facts out there. Maybe poll numbers that deviate from reality aren't a partisan problem, so much as a failure to break out of "both-sidesing" stories to play pretend impartiality as opposed to the real thing of exposing absolute partisan shitbaggery. Maybe truth is the job of journalists to promote, not the job of partisans to correct the record. 

And yeah, I'd like it if Democrats could message better to overcome this shit, But I get why they haven't. It's so pervasive.

TWGB: There's Something About Ginni

 

The thing that makes TrumpWorld what it is, is the sense of an alternative reality. It almost feels like they aren't drinking the same water or breathing the same air. I've been fascinated with Ginni Thomas as an activist in a world where we presume some degree of judicial impartiality but also consider SCOTUS justices based on partisan lines--and how she is an unabashed conservative warrior. A Tea Partisan. A supporter of Project Veritas. A conspiracy theorist. 

So, it doesn't actually surprise me that Thomas texted White House COS Mark Meadows running the full QAnon gamut regarding the Venezuelan voting machines, Italian satellites, Chinese thermostats, German servers, green clovers, blue diamonds, and the evil liberals who were after Trump's lucky charms and were definitely going to go to GITMO and face a military tribunal. 

She's been out there where the buses don't run for more than a minute. 

What is concerning is that she was talking with her "best friend"--her spouse, the temporarily, one presumes, hors de combat Justice Clarence Thomas, who was in a capacity to rule on matters concerning the contested election, and on matters concerning what documents became available to the 1/6 Committee.  And knowing of his wife's various intercessions on this issue, never thought to recuse. 

But the thing of it is, people like Ginni Thomas are still at work. Now, Mo Brooks, now that his endorsement by Trump has been rescinded, might be saying that despite Trump's continued entreaties, he was determined to draw the line at the impossibility of the election being somehow rescinded or done over after 1/6!? But ask yourself, how many other people besides Mo Brooks who have made the political pilgrimage to Mar-A-Lago to kiss the hem of the golf pants of St. Don might have vowed a path of continued fuckery?  After all, there are Trump supporters to this day who might acknowledge that Biden is president but draw the line at calling him "duly-elected". 

And as for the mindset of Trump himself, he has taken it upon himself to sue everyone for the "rigging" of....2016?  The election he actually won? Because he blames the "Russia, Russia, Russia" thing for his uneasy time in a job he was not especially suited for. 

So clearly, more alternative reality, there, folks. It's a plague in TrumpWorld, you see. Or it's just a grift to garner attention and donations in that particular case. 

And don't get me started on all the reasons why Trump wanted to stay in the White House, but seems just as protected outside of it. I will scream. 

TWGB: Hiding, and Also in Plain Sight

 

Former Trump campaign strategic adviser Boris Epshteyn to @AriMelber: "Yes, I was part of the process to make sure there were alternate electors."https://t.co/v06GFV4vpO

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 22, 2022

It's kind of funny, that, on one hand, we're hearing about secret meetings that happened in the White House with Mark Meadows and other conspirators to overturn the 2020 elections, and we've seen Trump fight releasing White House docs to the January 6th Committee all the way to the Supreme Court (and lost, 8-1, about which, hmmm), but on the other hand, I can't even bat an eyelash about Boris Epshteyn admitting to the alternate elector scheme and describing Rudy Giuliani as having spearheaded it because, well--yes. Obviously?

It actually is pretty shocking to see the actual draft of an EO to seize the voting machines and appoint a special counsel. But there was already solid reporting that Flynn and Powell proposed exactly this (with a strong likelihood that Powell is the author and proposed special counsel pick) and the thing is, they also said that's exactly what they wanted to anyone who would listen. 

It's sort of like when mail boxes and sorting machines were being stowed back before the election--you could see what they were doing. Trump both decried voter fraud (since 2016!) and actually encouraged Republicans to do it (they apparently heard him in The Villages).  It's overt and intended to shock you into compliance with it. Because in the mind of the Trumpists, nothing they do can be wrong, whether it's the extortion of world leaders or election officials. 

They would have a soft coup over basically an uploading error in Antrim Co. for "national security" making American great. But they wouldn't mind thug tactics and head cracking from RW militias along the way. It's a sick joke. 

I am nearly past laughing, though.  Except for gallows humor. 

Whether to Bury or Praise

There is something fortuitous in the historical placement of George Bush in wherever he happened to be in the course of his long life. He was fortunate in being born privileged, he was fortunate in surviving a brutal war. He was fortunate in politics, after a fashion. He married the love of his life, and one of his sons followed him in the White House. As lives go, it wasn't half bad. He was surrounded with admiration and love at the end of his life, and that's nothing to scoff at. We could all hope to do so well. 

He also benefited by being neither so wretched as Nixon or crass as Trump, and the halo of his dedication was in part burnished by the haplessness of his son's time in office, and the bar of doing politics had dropped to where service and decency, just by being part of one's make-up, were all that needed to be present to gloss over really harsh truths. But his record was mixed, and a pretty damn comprehensive blog post of the not-great bits was served by Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, & Money, so I'd say check that out for the stuff already said, and better than I would have, by him. 

As for me, I still simmer over 1988. This was the first presidential election I paid attention to, occurring after Iran-Contra, and in some way, my innocent soul thought Republicans should have been over, for at least this round. How in the world does a country accept Bush was "out of the loop" as a former head of CIA, and not think his principal job in taking office in the White House was to tidy up loose ends? I was all of sixteen and livid at the "pledge of Allegiance" nonsense and the entire crock of referring to Dukakis as an "ACLU card-carrying liberal" as if sticking up for the Bill of Rights was something to sneer at. Stupid wedge issue content (and maybe not the most competent campaign waged by Dukakis and Bentsen) dictated a win, and a pardon for several folks who participated in that debacle of literally extralegally arming a country that we considered a supporter of terrorism, to also extralegally support a faction in a war that wasn't any of our business. And cite the reason for these pardons as "patriotism". 

I still to this damn day don't know what American principles or interests were served by this thing. As with Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, it sits poorly with me as a violation of the concept that no one should be above the law. 

And the nomination of Clarence Thomas, whatever we think of his qualifications today or his sexual harassment concerns, was a slap in the face of civil rights legend Thurgood Marshall, whose seat he filled. As if this bland patrician looked on this black conservative, and gave no fucks for the vast difference in viewpoint but saw a certain blatant commonality, and rolled with it. 

I do not know the family or personally, any friends of George Bush. I knew I was slipping as a blogger when I tried to silver-lining the life of his beloved spouse. The War on Drugs,  and whatever crap example he set that made George W. Bush and Jeb Bush the politicians they were,  his poor response to the AIDS crisis, his feints to hardcore conservatism to try and obviate the claim he was a "wimp" which in some ways proved it--all stay in my memory as things that were part and parcel of his legacy, that should not be forgotten. 

And yet, in retrospect, he could have been so much worse. And he wrote lovely notes, and his family doesn't all suck, and his friendship with Clinton and Obama....? 

He was human, and we are all a mixed lot, and have redeeming features. He did his thing for charity, and I will allow I consider some of what people say about Carlyle Group and the defense industry and drawing arrows here and there from Halliburton/Dressher to the exploits in Iraq seems a bit paranoid. I can't dispute that the end of the Cold War would have been something difficult for any president to navigate. 

His family will bury him, and they can praise him as well. As well as can any of his loved ones. I am not in that circle, and I will tell the truth if I please. His civility was admirable. But we should not hurry to polish the reputations of those who have died when their legacies are still ongoing. And the stupid political postures of 1988 still resound in 2018. I can't shrug that off, or forget that Roger Ailes, who made Fox News, was one of his campaign advisors back in the day, and of course, the episode of peak Les Atwater--the Willie Horton ad. 

I am dry-eyed and unromantic about his legacy. We are here in it. And my Trump obit will definitely be even worse, come the day. I wish peace of mind to his surviving loved ones. (But not without clear memories.)

UPDATE: And just one other damn thing--he was for Brett Kavanaugh, and fuck him and his son and Brett Kavanaugh. But not the all the way, because none of them deserve the satisfaction. 

Defending Liberty? Is *THAT* What They Call it?

Wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, @GinniThomas, presenting an award to @JamesOKeefeIII today for "defending liberty." pic.twitter.com/bWXFgWa36x

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) December 6, 2017

I always called it grifting. Ah, well.

UPDATE: So, this shindig happened at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. and was put on by United For Purpose. Trump donated more than a little bit to good old Project Veritas,  as did some of his main backers, the Mercers.  I couldn't find any darn thing about a group called "United For Purpose". (I don't know anything about that group--I did a search and found a "United In Purpose", but I have no idea if there's any connection.) Anyhow, Fox News' Sean Hannity and Judicial Watch got some participation trophies for fucking up mainstream media's shit, too.

O'Keefe was, in a way, humbled to the point of near-honesty:

O'Keefe appeared to acknowledge the operative was working for Project Veritas in a fundraising email after the Post's report.

“Following months of undercover work within The Washington Post, our investigative journalist within the publication had their cover blown,” O’Keefe said at the time.

“This is how undercover work goes. This isn’t the first time that has happened, and it won’t be the last time.”

Yes, folks, please send them money. They are only explicitly busted most of the time, and that's how the cookie crumbles. Otherwise, just invest in mallets to hit yourselves in the nards with. Same deal.

Ginni Thomas is, as I shouldn't neglect to point out, the spouse of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, and is a conservative activist, which should only trouble you if you pay attention to such things, and maybe there's reasons.  Clarence Thomas and his accuser, Anita Hill, represent how we used to talk about sexual harassment, when it was still new to do that.  I still believe Anita. And I'd still kind of like Clarence Thomas to "retire".

Does Church and State Separation Have a Prayer?

All things considered, I've never really taken public prayer that personally, myself. I don't believe or make a habit of prayer, but I have no problem with enjoying a moment of reflection. If something gets too preachy, I just engage in a moment of impure thoughts and I'm fine. But that doesn't mean I'm fully on board with the SCOTUS decision regarding public prayer, if only because I feel like it might be heading past mere acceptance of expressions of spirituality (which I don't mind and even endorse--let a thousand flowers bloom!) to an imposition of a custom on others. I don't feel that it's right to dragoon people into sentiments with which they are not copacetic.

It seems that "coercion" was the test used, and they determined that public prayer wasn't specifically coercive, because, as in my personal example, one could simply tolerate it, so long as it contained no abusive or derogatory components. But I can see where this can set a precedent for prayer or religious proselytizing in other spheres where, because of institutional hierarchy, the boundary between coercion and endorsement becomes blurred.  It could set  a bad precedent.  I'm thinking of things like school or workplace impositions of at least tacit endorsement of spirituality.

(Not that the justices of the future should feel themselves bound to stare decisis anymore than, say, Justice Scalia does--even for his own previous decisions. Whosoever would be a man, must be a non-conformist, and consistency is the hobgoblin of etc. And also, what is the sense of looking for original principles if you then have to apply them consistently? Vide Whitman--does he contradict himself? Well then he contradicts himself; his head is large and it contains multitudes.)

But anyway, I just want to point out the really screwed-up part--Justice Thomas' opinion regarding state sanctioning of establishments of religion such as prayer as not being subject because the 1st Amendment should only pertain to Federal, not state activity just strikes me as wrong, although I'm not really a Constitutional scholar, as such. I thought the supremacy clause would pertain here?  And what would that even mean for other Bill of Rights protections like the Fourth or Fifth Amendment--are they sunk in state prosecutions because it isn't a "federal case"?  I don't even know--it just seems like he's out on a limb of the law that should be struck off.