Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[y66]

It's ok, I suppose, for SNL to do a comedy routine about the trial, comedy is what they do, but two people are dead so it's not really all that funny.

A lot of the stuff SNL spoofs isn't funny. "Tragedy and comedy - same damn thing Jack" -- Chesterton to Langrishe in "Deadwood"

[kenberg]

A lot of the stuff SNL spoofs isn't funny. "Tragedy and comedy - same damn thing Jack" -- Chesterton to Langrishe in "Deadwood"

 

There is probably something to that. But I watched one episode, or maybe three-fourths of one episode, of Deadwood and that was enough. I've heard it was good. Anyway, I can enjoy SNL in short bits and pieces.

Nonetheless, I hope we can find a good way forward.

[pilowsky]

The funny thing about SNL is that it isn't.

[Chas_P]

The funny thing about SNL is that it isn't.

At one time it was.

[Gilithin]

At one time it was.

Good grief, that was less funny than most of the Trump sketches. The canned laughter doesn't exactly help its cause.

[pilowsky]

The electoral system in Australia is different from the USA system in some ways but not others.

We have six states and two Territories. The Australian Electoral Commission runs the Federal election and determines the boundaries of the seats.

The AEC is so non-partisan that nobody in Australia would be able to tell you how to get on to it or who runs it.

Today, Zali Stegall - the independent conservative who unseated Tony Abbott (unrelated to but similar in outlook to the Texan) - proposed a "truth in political advertising bill" (to be administered by the AEC).

The idea is to prevent misleading advertising by politicians.

My question is: is it possible to be misled by a politician?

Wouldn't you have to assume they always told the truth first?

I think the Tucker (obviously I'm lying) Carlson defence would apply.

Our current Prime Minister has such a reputation for mendaciousness that journalists - and the public in general - would be suspicious if something fell out of his mouth that appeared on its face to be truthful.

[Chas_P]

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

[kenberg]

Well, we are having a gathering tomorrow. Not huge, 14 including us, but that's the largest in the last couple of years or so. Three of them are 6 and under. The six-year-old gets her shot next Monday, the other two are not yet eligible. All the rest of us have our shots, we older ones have had our booster. We won't be masking but I think we are ok.

Political and social views probably vary among us but we are all sane. It's nice to have simple issues to think about. Eg Becky bought me an early Xmas present, the 1951 Duke Ellington Masterpiece album, but I am far from sure that the 20 somethings would think of Mood Indigo as proper background music. And maybe it isn't. It is very good to have such things be the biggest problem to deal with.

Come Friday, or maybe Saturday since some might be staying overnight, I'll get back to explaining why Joe Biden should do what I tell him to do. But for the moment he is on his own.

Best wishes to all.

[y66]

No Mood Indigo but lots of fun at local parks, in the kitchen and at the table. Everyone in our extended family has made it through the pandemic so far so a lot to be grateful for. Someone put on Keith Jarrett Tokyo '96 while the adults did the dishes.

[kenberg]

No Mood Indigo but lots of fun at local parks, in the kitchen and at the table. Everyone in our extended family has made it through the pandemic so far so a lot to be grateful for. Someone put on Keith Jarrett Tokyo '96 while the adults did the dishes.

 

I just tried to get Keith Jarrett's Mona Lissa but apparently, I have to sign up for something, perhaps even pay some money. I might do that, it has always seemed a bit like ripping off the artists to just click YouTube. Still, I do it.

My daughter and her husband enjoyed Mood Indigo, so did their two kids, the twenty-somethings.

The six-year-old, the oldest of Becky's som's kids, wanted some kid's music that I didn't have so I went to YouTube for Cow Cow Boogie

She danced to it and admired the woman's dress. The younger siblings followed her lead as best they could.

It's easy to think of pop music from the 1950s as being either Doris Day (and Perry Como and so on) or Elvis Presley (and Bill Haley and so on) but that oversimplifies it. I keep meaning to make a list of some of my favorites. Mood Indigo (yes, composed in 1930, I know, but played in the 50s and forever) would be high on the list.

[Chas_P]

I am far from sure that the 20 somethings would think of Mood Indigo as proper background music.

They probably wouldn't think much of Beethoven's Symphony #5 either. Pity. Different strokes for different folks.

[y66]

I just tried to get Keith Jarrett's Mona Lissa but apparently, I have to sign up for something, perhaps even pay some money. I might do that, it has always seemed a bit like ripping off the artists to just click YouTube. Still, I do it.

My daughter and her husband enjoyed Mood Indigo, so did their two kids, the twenty-somethings.

The six-year-old, the oldest of Becky's som's kids, wanted some kid's music that I didn't have so I went to YouTube for Cow Cow Boogie

She danced to it and admired the woman's dress. The younger siblings followed her lead as best they could.

It's easy to think of pop music from the 1950s as being either Doris Day (and Perry Como and so on) or Elvis Presley (and Bill Haley and so on) but that oversimplifies it. I keep meaning to make a list of some of my favorites. Mood Indigo (yes, composed in 1930, I know, but played in the 50s and forever) would be high on the list.

My son has many friends in the music business. His opinion is that Tidal does a decent job of sharing their revenue with artists.

[y66]

Words and deeds

The most effective way to achieve racial justice can sometimes be to downplay race.

 

That may seem like a counterintuitive idea. And it can certainly feel unsatisfying to people who are committed to reducing the toll of racism in the United States. But it is one of the lessons of the murder convictions last week of three white men in Georgia, in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man.

 

I want to revisit the case this morning, because it has a broader relevance to American politics.

 

By now, you’re probably familiar with the basic facts. Arbery was in a predominantly white neighborhood near his home in coastal Georgia on Feb. 23, 2020, when three men in pickup trucks chased and shot him.

 

Racism played a clear role in the killing. One of the defendants used a slur shortly after the shooting, according to another defendant. All three had a history of sending online messages tinged with white nationalism.

 

Nonetheless, the prosecutor in the case, Linda Dunikoski, decided mostly to ignore race during the trial. She accused the defendants of having a racist motive only once, in a single line of her closing argument. She instead portrayed them as lawless figures who killed a young man.

 

Before the verdicts, some observers criticized the strategy, saying that Dunikoski was weakening her case by ignoring the defendants’ motive. “There were a lot of people who thought that it should have been very central to her argument,” said The Times’s Richard Fausset, who covered the killing and the trial. One law professor accused Dunikoski of “whitewashing” the facts. Another professor said that her strategy would be blamed if the defendants were acquitted.

 

No doubt, it would have been. Dunikoski was deliberately leaving out a big part of the story. But she was doing so for a reason. (Or so it seems; she has not publicly discussed her strategy.) She evidently believed that emphasizing race would be a gift to the defense.

 

It could cause the jurors — all but one of whom were white — to retreat to their ideological corners. Conservative jurors would be reminded that they often disagree with allegations of racism. Many political moderates disagree sometimes, too, especially if they’re white. On the other hand, any jurors likely to be appalled by the racial nature of the case — three white men killing a Black man in broad daylight — would recognize the role of race without needing to be told about it.

 

The anti-Bannon strategy

It was a miniature version of a tension that runs through American politics.

 

Progressive activists often point out — accurately — the central role that race and racism play in the U.S. Polls show, for example, that a large percentage of Americans feel racial animus. That animus helped fuel Donald Trump’s political rise, starting with his promotion of the lie that Barack Obama was born in Africa. And racial discrimination continues to shape our economy, schools, criminal justice system and more.

 

Yet when activists try to combat racism by calling it out, they often struggle to accomplish their goals. Focusing on Trump’s racist behavior did not keep him from winning the presidency. The Black Lives Matter movement has mostly failed to implement its policy agenda on policing. Affirmative-action programs generally lose when they appear on the ballot — including a landslide loss in California last year, helped by opposition from many Latino and Asian voters.

 

Race-based strategies are especially challenging in a country where living standards have stagnated in recent decades: Working-class families of all races have reason to distrust the notion that they enjoy a privileged lifestyle. No wonder that Steve Bannon, the far-right political figure, once said that he wanted liberals “to talk about racism every day.” When they do, Bannon said, “I got ’em.”

 

‘Attack the design’

The Arbery trial offers a reminder that calling out racism is not the only way to battle it. Sometimes, a more effective approach involves appealing to universal notions of fairness and justice.

 

Another example is child poverty. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey was an early advocate of baby bonds — universal savings accounts for children, an idea that helped shape President Biden’s focus on reducing child poverty. The beauty of the policy, Booker told me, is that it substantially reduces racial gaps in child poverty (because children of color are more likely to be poor) while still being inclusive.

 

“It’s very hard to undo centuries of racial policies by suddenly saying, ‘I’m now going to not be conscious of race in America,’” he said. But, he added, “This is a policy that I think can be embraced by you, whoever you are, whatever your background.”

 

Representative James Clyburn, the highest ranking Black Democrat in Congress, made a similar argument when explaining why he favored a version of slavery reparations that would also help poor white families. “Race is the reason income is what it is,” he told The Washington Post. “This is by design. So attack the design.”

 

The downside of this approach is clear enough. Given the long history of intense racism in the U.S., universal programs will never fully solve the problem. Of course, policies that fail to get enacted accomplish much less.

 

Dunikoski’s trial strategy may have felt uncomfortable to anybody repulsed by the defendants’ racism. But imagine how uncomfortable an acquittal would have felt.

 

Arbery’s family members, notably, were not among Dunikoski’s critics, as Richard Fausset has reported. Even before the verdict, the family liked the prosecution’s approach.

 

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20211130&instance_id=46576&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=59211987&segment_id=75658&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Faf13e2f1-57a8-5e62-9c70-c5fa1362648f&user_id=2d8b72dd84a9ff194896ed87b2d9c72a

[kenberg]

I often think we would get better results by going easy with the race card, as Leonhardt is suggesting. Try this:

 

In the Rittenhouse case, at least the first person that was shot was chasing Rittenhouse. So, the chaser could have avoided the final confrontation, Rittenhouse could not.

 

In the Arbery case, three guys stopped Arbery and made it very clear that he would not be going anywhere. Avoiding the confrontation was not an option for Arbery, it was an option for those who shot him.

 

This difference can be described without ever mentioning who was Black and who was White. Most people, I think, would agree that this described difference has at least some bearing on a legal claim of self-defense.

 

Making such observations does not preclude us from making some obvious observations about race. In the Arbery case, the shooters should have been put under arrest immediately and charged. And the outcome should never have been in the slightest doubt. Surely race played a role there. So yes, race, well, was critical.

 

We can acknowledge the critical role that race played, and still conclude, or not conclude, that, because of the very different sequence of events, both juries got it right.

 

I am not claiming that Leonhardt would agree with what I am saying here, he can speak for himself. But Leonhardt is saying that we might get better results if our first and maybe only argument was not based on race. He has a point.

[Winstonm]

I often think we would get better results by going easy with the race card, as Leonhardt is suggesting. Try this:

 

In the Rittenhouse case, at least the first person that was shot was chasing Rittenhouse. So, the chaser could have avoided the final confrontation, Rittenhouse could not.

 

In the Arbery case, three guys stopped Arbery and made it very clear that he would not be going anywhere. Avoiding the confrontation was not an option for Arbery, it was an option for those who shot him.

 

This difference can be described without ever mentioning who was Black and who was White. Most people, I think, would agree that this described difference has at least some bearing on a legal claim of self-defense.

 

Making such observations does not preclude us from making some obvious observations about race. In the Arbery case, the shooters should have been put under arrest immediately and charged. And the outcome should never have been in the slightest doubt. Surely race played a role there. So yes, race, well, was critical.

 

We can acknowledge the critical role that race played, and still conclude, or not conclude, that, because of the very different sequence of events, both juries got it right.

 

I am not claiming that Leonhardt would agree with what I am saying here, he can speak for himself. But Leonhardt is saying that we might get better results if our first and maybe only argument was not based on race. He has a point.

I read today that it was a conscious decision of the prosecutor not to use race or racism as a factor in the Arbery case.

[kenberg]

I read today that it was a conscious decision of the prosecutor not to use race or racism as a factor in the Arbery case.

 

Yes, I heard that several times.

Very sensible I think.

They shot the guy.

Focus on that.

 

Ok, maybe that's a little too quick. But here is the point:

Sure, the fact that Arbery was Black had a lot to do with it. But if you make that part of your case then someone can say "How do you know that is true?" And then it gets difficult. If you just say

A: He shot him

B the self-defense claim is a travesty

then you are done.

[Winstonm]

Yes, I heard that several times.

Very sensible I think.

They shot the guy.

Focus on that.

 

Ok, maybe that's a little too quick. But here is the point:

Sure, the fact that Arbery was Black had a lot to do with it. But if you make that part of your case then someone can say "How do you know that is true?" And then it gets difficult. If you just say

A: He shot him

B the self-defense claim is a travesty

then you are done.

 

The same article stated the Arbery family were supportive of the decision. The key takeaway is that no matter who the bad guys cornered and killed it was criminal so no point in claiming a racial motivation.

[Gilithin]

In the Arbery case, three guys stopped Arbery and made it very clear that he would not be going anywhere. Avoiding the confrontation was not an option for Arbery, it was an option for those who shot him.

 

This difference can be described without ever mentioning who was Black and who was White. Most people, I think, would agree that this described difference has at least some bearing on a legal claim of self-defense.

You might think so and this is how it works in most of the world. In an increasing number of US states though it is not. You no longer have to look to avoid a confrontation in order to be able to use lethal force. In many states, as long as you are not committing a felony in provoking a confrontation, you only have to feel personally threatened by the response for lethal force to be justified. If you are waving a gun around, it's rather easy to reach that bar.

 

So my suggestion to American women who are considering a divorce. Don't see a family lawyer, instead get an open carry permit. Then have an argument with your husband and when he moves towards you (possibly for a hug to calm things down but who cares?) feel threatened about his ability to overpower you and take the gun. Shoot. Instant divorce. Easier and cheaper than going the more traditional route.

 

PS: someone please forward this message to Melania.

[pilowsky]

[y66]

Lawfare is launching The January 6 Project, which compiles Lawfare’s coverage, analysis and resources related to the legal and policy issues arising out of the Jan. 6 attack and the government response. At its homepage, Confronting the Capitol Insurrection, you can find a collection of Lawfare articles and podcasts, as well as a repository of significant documents, congressional hearings, case information and other materials related to Jan. 6.

[y66]

Where are the clowns? They're here.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/us/politics/boebert-greene-mace.html

 

WASHINGTON — Hostilities between the Republican far right and its typically muted center burst into the open on Tuesday, highlighting deep divisions that could bedevil the party’s leaders if they capture a narrow majority in the House next year.

 

Initially prompted by the anti-Muslim comments of Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, the Republican-on-Republican war of words on Tuesday was remarkably bitter and an indication of a brewing power struggle between an ascendant faction that styles itself after President Donald J. Trump and a quieter one that is pushing back.

 

First, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called her freshman colleague Nancy Mace of South Carolina “trash” for condemning Ms. Boebert’s remarks in a television interview.

 

Ms. Mace then used a series of emojis — a bat, a pile of excrement and a crazy clown — to describe Ms. Greene, then kept up a steady stream of social media attacks, calling her a liar, a grifter and a nut.

 

Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, came to Ms. Mace’s defense, calling Ms. Greene “unserious circus barker McSpacelaser” — a reference to a social media post that she once circulated suggesting that wildfires in the West had been started by lasers owned by the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family.

 

Mr. Kinzinger added that Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader and would-be speaker who has done nothing to discipline rank-and-file members of his conference for bigoted and violent statements, “continues his silent streak that would make a monk blush.”

 

Then Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, an ally of Ms. Greene’s, took to Twitter to amplify an attack by the right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec denouncing Ms. Mace as a “scam artist” for promoting coronavirus vaccinations on CNN.

 

The carnival-like behavior would amount to little more than a sideshow if it did not have real implications for midterm campaigns and, possibly, a fractured Republican majority in 2023. Party leaders again chose to remain mum as their backbenchers brawled, and Democrats took full advantage of the spectacle.

[kenberg]

From the NYT article cited above;

Michael Steel, a former spokesman for Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the former Republican speaker, said the party's leaders should be working behind the scenes to calm dissent and keep members focused on building a platform and an argument for control.

 

"The top priority right now should be for everyone in the canoe to have their rifles pointing outward, not at each other," Mr. Steel said. "And the focus should be on addition, not subtraction. That means keeping all the frogs in the wheelbarrow, even if some of those frogs are pretty ugly."

 

 

 

I am impressed with the ability to get canoes, rifles, frogs, and wheelbarrows all into a single metaphor. But I don't think the ugly frogs are about to turn into princes.

 

When I was a child we spent several days at a lake cabin I had caught a bunch of frogs and placed them in a large container, looking forward to bringing them home. When we got home, the frogs were not in the container I had left them in. My father explained that they had turned into mud. We can hope for a similar transformation.

[Winstonm]

Drom the NYT article cited above;

 

 

I am impressed with the ability to get canoes, rifles, frogs, and wheelbarrows all into a single metaphor. But I don't think the ugly frogs are about to turn into princes.

 

Somethin' tells me it's all happening at the zoo

I do believe it

I do believe it's true

The monkeys stand for honesty

Giraffes are insincere

And the elephants are kindly but they're dumb

Orangutans are skeptical

Of changes in their cages

And the zookeeper is very fond of rum

Zebras are reactionaries

Antelopes are missionaries

Pigeons plot in secrecy

And hamsters turn on frequently

What a gas, you gotta come and see

At the zoo

[y66]

Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?

[pilowsky]

Any takers?

Only $10,000 AND includes a photo with the one on the left.