A Cause for Celebration

 

The deal we made to bring home wrongfully detained Americans would not have been possible without our allies.

They stepped up and stood by us.

So for anyone who questions whether allies matter, today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world. pic.twitter.com/KSikbcgnUA

— President Biden (@POTUS) August 2, 2024

In an historic multinational effort months in the making, 16 prisoners detained in Russia were exchanged for eight people held in the US, Germany, Poland and Slovenia. It is a testament to the power of diplomatic relationships and teamwork, and a great day for the former prisoners and their loved ones. 

The above message from President Biden acknowledges our allies, but let's give him his due--this is his expertise and dedication in negotiations finalized while he was making the decision to end his candidacy, knowing there was yet more things he wanted to accomplish and irons that might be left in the fire. This is a man who may be old, but doesn't live in the past and has done his part to try to shape the future. 

A swap like this doesn't occur overnight, and Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva would not have been released without Russia getting prisoners of their own in exchange. It speaks volumes about the nature of the negotiations that Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian dissident was part of the exchange, and that Alexei Navalny could have been (was he murdered so as never to be released--one can't help but wonder). It shows the concern for Russia's pro-democracy possibility.

This diplomatic success is a cause for celebration.

TWGB: Von Shitzinpantz

 

Trump: I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order pic.twitter.com/4qeH81ERWo

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 2, 2024

It's hard not to view Trump's latest lie--that being under a gag order means he can't testify in his hush money trial--as living down to Michael Cohen's charming nickname for him: "Von Shitzinpanz". One could very well assume he's chickening out, knowing full well that nothing he says will actually help him. But does his reluctance to testify mean he is, literally or figuratively, shitting his pants over it?

Although it's desperately unethical, I can imagine a world where exhausted lawyers just give Trump the impression that the gag order does so mean he can't testify because it's simpler than telling him he's a great big dotard and no competent lawyer would put him on the stand. Maybe his lack of campaign events (other than the two on Wednesday, where he navigated sentences in his mother tongue as if said tongue had come to a shocking fork) is also a tricky bit of advice--sure. The gag order. Because having most of one's campaign fundraising money go to legal fees means not holding as many events and certainly not for the purpose of screwing himself harder by yapping freely about why having suspected Democrats on the jury is jamming him up. 

It's a dangling dagger, a sword of Damocles, a sharp set of scissors for a toddler to be running with--today, he gets fines, but it really could be jail if he keeps it up. 

Derek Chauvin Stabbed in Prison

 

BREAKING Derek Chauvin stabbed in federal prison: report https://t.co/1vLjsSdfnv

— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 25, 2023

Is there a ten minute video of how that happened or no? Because I watched ten minutes of this SOB more than once and it didn't make me actually feel any kind of way about the sort of things that just might happen to him in prison. It led me to suspect there were lots of ways people would be prejudiced as hell about his ass in prison. And AFAIAC, this outcome is not unexpected. I am not offering an endorsement. I am just saying--

This is not unexpected. 

TWGB: Arraignment Eve

 

Exclusive: Trump to be formally arrested and charged with 34 Class E felonies for falsification of business records tomorrow. But he will not be handcuffed, placed in a jail cell or subjected to a mug shot, per a source debriefed on Tuesday's procedures. https://t.co/3cqbNJD8VS

— Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff) April 4, 2023

It's a wild thing to consider in TrumpWorld: Is it better to surrender oneself and not have the mugshot. or is losing the mugshot losing an opportunity to have Trump mugshot-branded swag? On one hand, a mugshot is very bad because a president shouldn't be a felon. On the other hand, the market is there. And it would be the manliest mugshot the world has seen. (Lie: that would be the mugshot of Francis Albert Sinatra who was booked for the charge of seduction--and his hair was perfect.) 

This Holy Week, the transit of Stunato Mundi is truly a representation of the Stations of the Ass and It's Foal he rode in on and no one's palms are clean. Between you, me, and the whole entire internet, I am going to be sick that the arraignment of Trump on April 4th will give Christianist Doomsday heads some Maranatha energy and lets total racist assholes make MLK analogies. People are seriously covering his willing surrender in NYC (his hometown) as if it was notable that he didn't, I dunno, abscond to Argentina. It's for the drama. Trump is a thirsty bitch who lives for the drama. He could have done this by Zoom.  He wanted a display of pretend martyrdom.

MAGAS: Donald Trump is not your bridegroom, Gurl. Just drop that like it's hellfire hot. He's also not a martyr for any damn cause and isn't being denied going to the mountaintop of a second term. He's a twice-impeached pussy-grabbing, mafia-adjacent, seditionist who is wildly earning all the indictments. Get a whole grip on reality. The man looks bad right now because he's been bad forever and never got good. 

His campaign boasts that he's raised $7 million or so since the indictment. If I believe that: good. That money could have gone to actually viable Republican candidates instead of this guy. That money is several $$$ less in MAGA hands. 

What a Fool Believes

AG Barr seems to tells ABC news that the President’s tweets make it impossible for him to do his job pic.twitter.com/aEe59s5JRC

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) February 13, 2020

So, where I left the Trump saga in the last post, he had just actually Tweeted an extortion about New York state:

which is one of those borderline situations people used to talk about back in 2016: Are we supposed to take him literally, or are we supposed to take him seriously, or what???

At this point, I don't see how one can not take it for what it is (I guess we'll hear more from the governor). But as to the claim from Bill Barr that he sure finds Trump's Tweets make it hard to do his job and undermine his Department if Justice, goldarnit, color me a bit skeptical. My interpretation of that, at face value, is like the whinge of GOP senators who feel called out from doing business as usual, he resents being put on the damn spot. Can't he get somewhat through at least one cover-up before Trump is either openly congratulating him on it or starting a new crime wave? What's next, telling everyone he sanctioned whatever Giuliani is doing in Ukraine because he doesn't trust the US intelligence apparatus not even a little bit? Hoo boy.

But because I assume Barr has a little more on the ball than the impulsive Mr. Trump, I think it's more of a bit of public relations CYA on his part. People are calling for Barr's head, and it does look like he's performed with no small amount of impropriety on Trump's behalf. The NYC bar is calling into question Barr's partisan, Trump-protecting activity. His desire to weigh in regarding the prosecutorial work of DA's in progressive communities has been blasted by many professionals. (The remarks on his part, to this effect, fit into a general pattern of the RW taking against all things George Soros is involved with, even though supported by people like Charles Koch as well, and are referenced positively by President Trump--if awkwardly and sandwiched between ruminations on killing drug dealers.)

Trump's Immigration Policy is Dangerous, Not a Joke

NEW w/@nickmiroff: Trump has told immigration & Army Corps officials to ignore enviro regulations & seize land in rush to build wall, saying he would pardon those who follow. (Asked for comment, a White House official says pardons were joking.) https://t.co/eY6GsuGfNG

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) August 28, 2019

We're famously alleged to be a "nation of immigrants" and a "melting pot", per part of our quickly dissipating lore. "E Pluribus Unum", not "In God We Trust", was supposed to be our motto. Our bronze lady lifted her lamp beside the golden door to get the world's "tired, their poor, their wretched refuse" but now, Trump wants only the extremely employable to enter our country, which I guess is some kind of answer to the charge that "immigrants are taking all our jobs oh no!" But to be consistently wretched to immigrants, he's also penalizing the immigration status of people who need to utilize assistance programs because, for the time being, they are the poor and wretched. After all, why should anyone who takes the trouble to come here access the American dream, when those born here barely do, right? Why should foreign-born people come here for medical treatment and expect to be treated well, when our own folk ration their meds, or take prescriptions intended for animals?

(Or maybe we all should be able to expect these things.)

But Trump does not believe in the strength of this nation coming from our many parts. Why else would his administration challenge the immigration status of even vets who chose to serve this country and might need assistance? Why would he deny birthright citizenship to the children of US military and other government services living abroad? This seems to me to be a test-run at birthright citizenship itself, which Trump has recently gassed on about. My husband was the US-born child of two green-card holders. You better believe this means something to me--what's next? Make denying citizenship retroactive? Conditional upon being the "right kind" of citizen?

How about basing it upon political beliefs? Because this was in part, where Trump said he meant to go. There was the idea of a "Muslim ban" because of a belief that people from majority Islamic countries might have a propensity for anti-American thought, but in practice, this goes further than mere religious bigotry or racism. The idea of just who has unacceptable beliefs or practices becomes very subjective. This includes activists and journalists who once might have considered our commitment to the first amendment their own shield. This denies a future even to people who might have friends with "wrongthink".

This country should not be a place that privileges Trump's fake border disaster over real crises, or where we are discussing the validity of indefinite detention for young families whom we might otherwise merely have deported if we did not want them here, for what messed-up capitalist purpose I shudder to guess at. I mean, if we undo the 14th Amendment, what the hell prevents us from also going back to slavery, and if Trump can just pardon people after the fact for breaking laws, what the hell, what even are laws for?

Fuck this Trump era for every un and anti-American thing it stands for, for its lack of virtue and its meanness, for its carelessness with life and liberty, and its dismissal even of the Constitution which, even more than for the flag, we should stand. He is wrecking this country's future by denying it the immigration that has been our growth and the diversity that is our strength.

The Trump administration can pretend they are joking about their racist and bigoted policies, but we must bear witness to them all and must call them what they are.

HRC Meets BLM

There is a real difference, maybe in part a generational one, looking at this as mostly a dialog between Baby Boomer-era politicians and Millennial-era protesters, but also as Betty Cracker explains it at Balloon Juice, a conflict between how idealists and pragmatists look at the problem--but I think I can kind of define the dialog here as: they are both right.

Some of Hillary Clinton's language is probably jarring--"I don't believe you change hearts" is actually sensible when you realize she is saying you can't actually make total racists shut up and love black people--all you can do is change the paradigm in which they operate and make it less acceptable for them to wantonly destroy black lives. Many of her suggestions about racial inequality still shake out along a different argument than the Black Lives Matter movement is trying to make--yes it would be better if there were better schools, better access to jobs, better housing opportunities, and de-segregating neighborhoods would be really awesome--and those are perfectly good 60's and 70's answers that totally didn't happen.

Now the message of today's protestors is a little more distinct: Black people would highly prefer that their being killed is recognized as a problem. Whether it's from police brutality or just negligence, or whether civilians think they can go vigilante justice on black people without any real basis and get away with it, there actually needs to be an awareness shift that killing black people is wrong and leaving aside all "change the subject" stuff about black-on-black violence, we just agree that if something is killing black people in society a lot, it is bad and we shouldn't have it.

Raif Badawi May be Facing a Death Sentence--Again

Just as thousands have begun to mourn the passing of Avijit Roy, a freethought blogger who was highly critical of the negative influence of the irrational in religious thought (and our sympathies at the Strangely Blogged household also go out to his spouse Rafida Ahmed Banna, who was also wounded in the attack), there's word that the Saudi Arabian blogger, Raif Badawi, who was sentenced a brutal and physically treacherous 1000 lashes, may be facing trial once again for the crime of apostasy,  which would mean death by beheading.

This is a reminder that if religious extremism in itself is bad, as it no doubt is when practiced by self-appointed judges and executioners, it can be equally terrible when the extremists actually are the government--except wholly lawful.

A Moment to Consider Raif Badawi

While we considered the freedom of speech rights of the murdered cartoonists and journalists and editors and others slain by probable associates of AQ in Yemen, a heartfelt consideration of what freedom of speech means in some Islamic countries among Muslim artists and writers--like Raif Badawi, who was recently the recipient of 50 lashes.   With a whip. (PS--godawful video--seriously. I'm sure there's repercussions for filming and all, but this wasn't great, actually.) But seriously, Saudi Arabia has held and even executed people for "sorcery".  As a blogger and sometimes alternative path practitioner, that is seriously heinous to me. People should have the right to comment upon their government, their community, their religion and the things that matter to them. How else can they right wrongs or address injustices so that they can be corrected? Shutting people up is saying "might makes right"--and that means, even wrong can be right, if only the mighty so decree it.

For blogging in a way that was irreverent about religion, his body was displayed to be publically seen and abused. This is to say, that his body is not his body at all, but a thing owned by the government of Saudi Arabia to prove some point about his kind of speech. As in--"don't you other people think about blogging like he did".

That is appalling.