In Case You Missed It (v100)

Gather 'round, friends - it's time for your recap of last week's posts, in case you missed anything.

The week started with your Sunday School lesson, from ABC's This Week, with Jon Karl sitting in for George Stephanopoulos. Rep. Adam Kinzinger was one of the guests. Karl talked about AG Merrick Garland's statement that no one is above the law, not even a former president. Kinzinger agreed that it seems "more likely now" that we'll see the prosecution of a former president, and that he "hopes they're moving forward on it." 

Here's what came next.

Karl's response? 

So, you -- you hope that there will be a prosecution of Trump himself. Even -- I mean, this is -- I mean, you just have to take a step back here. This is a guy who is sounding like he’s going to run again, so he would be being prosecuted by the president that he is potentially running against.

Kinzinger was clear when he answered.

Look, I worry about everything that has happened for the last few years. And really, I worry about everything that could happen in the future, and that includes things like, you know, what happens if a president’s running for office and he’s indicted, how does that feel? But, the converse of that is, what happens if we don’t do anything? What happens if we look and say, well, he’s running again, we’re concerned how it’s going to look, so that, like, whole coup attempt thing, let’s just up that behind us and hope it never happens again? Because it will happen again.

We all should be worried about this, including those in the House and Senate who were active participants. 

For your Extra Credit, we checked in on Karl's chat with term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD); I've often referred to him as my favorite Republican, mostly because he is a Republican, not a Trump-pandering RINO. Here's a bit of the conversation after Karl's comments about one of them, Dan Cox (Hogan's called him a "QAnon whackjob"). He won the GOP gubernatorial primary.

Cox had support from the moronic Democratic Governors Association, and after playing one of the DGA ads, Karl said that even though the ad was "a cynical effort" voters responded to it.

Hogan said that's not quite correct. 

So, first of all, only 20 percent of the people in Maryland are Republican, and 20 percent of them showed up to the polls. So about 2 percent of the people in Maryland voted for this guy. It's not going to be the same in November, I can tell you that. So, it's not a big win. It's really a loss. 

And, obviously, Hogan won't be supporting Cox.

I would not support the guy. I wouldn't let him in the governor's office, let alone vote for him for the governor's office.

Hogan's planning on staying involved after he's out of office, which I think is good. 

On Tuesday, I did a Quick Take on the failure of the Secret Service to secure texts (and frankly, who knows what else) from December 2020 and January 2021. It's inconceivable to me that, in response to a DHS OIG request, there was only a single relevant text during that time period.

The Secret Service submitted the responsive records it identified, namely, a text message conversation from former US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to former Secret Service Uniformed Division Chief Thomas Sullivan requesting assistance on January 6, 2021, and advised the agency did not have any further records responsive to the DHS OIG's request for text messages.

For a full month, there was only one text? Seriously? And that text was from a former employee of the Capitol Police to a former Secret Service employee? How incredibly convenient that all seems.

I've done so much wondering lately - way more than makes it into the weekly Wondering on Wednesday posts. This week, I decided to give myself a break from the head-banging and from doing any heavy lifting about the House Oversight Committee's hearing with gun company execs. 

Instead, I shared a few memes from my files; here's one of them.

I also included some clips from the hearing, including a couple from Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).

On Thursday, I shared a throwback Sunday School post from July 28, 2019. Why that post? Because it featured two people who are currently in the news. 

One's Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) who appears to be lobbying to become the next Speaker of the House, assuming the Dems hold their majority and that Nancy Pelosi stays true to her word to not stay in the role. Back in 2019, though, he was talking about impeachment. 

The other? Andrew Yang, then a presidential candidate, and now one of the founders of the Forward Party. His conversation with Chris Wallace, former host of Fox News Sunday, was interesting, and it's in keeping with his vision for the new party.

Wallace wondered if Yang would attack the front-runners, as a way of getting more air time.

 I don't think that we benefit if I'm throwing rocks at other candidates when, frankly, I agree with them on many, many issues. And I think right now my focus really is on introducing myself to the American people. 

You can read more about his new idea in our TGIF entry, where I credited him with a mixed week. Another in the same boat? Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. He spoke at a conference in Rome, hosted by Notre Dame, the university in Indiana, and talked about the global reaction to his decision in the Dobbs case.

He also spent time talking about religious liberty, saying

It is hard to convince people that religious liberty is worth defending if they don’t think that religion is a good thing that deserves protection...  Our hearts are restless until we rest in God. 

So, what list did he end up on? 

Alito the man had a good week, I guess, for finding a place where his beliefs are widely accepted. Alito the justice? Bad week. As with the other justices, the less time they spend before partisan groups espousing their beliefs, the better.

I'll see you back here later with a Quick Take or two, Sunday School, and maybe more.

TGIF 7/29/22

It's good week/bad week time again. Let's dive in; I'll tell you which list I put them on, and you're welcome to chime in with your opinions.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke earlier this month in Rome  at a conference sponsored by the University of Notre Dame. During his keynote address, Alito was heard "mocking foreign leaders who lamented his opinion doing away with a half-century of federal constitutional protection for abortion rights in the US." 

He also spent time talking about religious liberty, saying

It is hard to convince people that religious liberty is worth defending if they don’t think that religion is a good thing that deserves protection...  Our hearts are restless until we rest in God. 

His personal beliefs are fine, but they're none of my business - not to mention that millions of Americans disagree with him. The problem with him expressing them is the appearance that they influence his decisions, as could his appearance at a conference sponsored by the Religious Liberty Institute at Notre Dame. The article notes that "The institute or its faculty members have filed amicus briefs in at least five Supreme Court cases on religious freedom issues."

Alito the man had a good week, I guess, for finding a place where his beliefs are widely accepted. Alito the justice? Bad week. As with the other justices, the less time they spend before partisan groups espousing their beliefs, the better.

Andrew Yang, former presidential and NYC mayoral candidate, has officially formed a third party - the Forward Party - with two Republicans: David Jolly, a former Florida congressman, and Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey. 

The linked New York Magazine article notes the Forward Party relies on polls showing dissatisfaction with the current situation in the US, and "showing that “roughly half” of Americans would call themselves independents." Using That Guy from Vermont as an example, the author points out how labels mean different things to different people. 

And, while support for a third party is high, according to Gallup, "that doesn’t mean that many people will actually join one.

Yang, Jolly, and Whitman have their work cut out for them. I'll give them a mixed week - they're trying, and people are talking about them, even if what's being said is not all good. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is having a bad week. There's her husband's stock activity, and there's her Asian trip, and a potential visit to Taiwan, which is causing agita on both sides of the Pacific.

But instead of treating the trip like a regular one-off congressional visit... which usually prompts a sternly worded letter from the Chinese Embassy, China has responded to the potential of Pelosi visiting the island by repeatedly upbraiding American counterparts, leaving the Biden administration wondering if Beijing is serious about provoking another crisis in the Taiwan Strait over the speaker’s arrival. 

Stateside, she's "left President Joe Biden's team in a no-win situation - even if it doesn't prompt a serious crisis." Even some Dems are questioning it, as are Republicans.

To the degree that it’s not exactly in America’s interest to drive a crisis right now, then that probably wasn’t particularly well chosen.

To me, it's a mess of her own making, and completely unnecessary for her, and for us.

Will Smith made a video. You can decide for yourself how this is helpful, and to whom.

Donald Trump had a bad week, for two reasons. 

First, he stuck his bone spurs in it with comments about 9/11. Trump's hosting the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour at his Bedminster, NJ course, which is not all that far from the site of the former World Trade Center. Families of 9/11 victims condemned his hosting the tourney in a letter which told of their "extreme pain, frustration, and anger," and quoted Trump's own words from 2016:

 … Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis – it was Saudi. Take a look at Saudi Arabia. Open the documents. We ought to get Bush or somebody to have the documents opened because frankly, if you open the documents, I think you are going to see it was Saudi Arabia … 

But what's he saying now, when he's got the world's attention (and plenty of Saudi money flowing to his business)?

Well, nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately, and they should have, as to the maniacs that did that horrible thing to our city, to our country, to the world, so nobody’s really been there. But I can tell you there are a lot of really great people that are out here today and we’re going to have a lot of fun and we’re going to celebrate.

Staying with the tournament, it seems Bedminster is again using the Presidential Seal "on various items, including golf carts," despite previous complaints, and despite a law against using it this way.

Federal law prohibits knowingly using the printed or other likeness of the presidential seal “for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States.”   

Given the previous complaints, it seems "the Trump Bedminster golf course is aware of, or  should be, that using the seal is illegal, but is using it anyway."  What a surprise.

TGIF, everyone.

Wondering on Wednesday 5/4/22

Ready... Set... Wonder!

If you're like many folks, no matter where you stand on the opinion outlined in the Alito draft suggesting that Roe v. Wade is being overturned, you're probably wondering who leaked the darn thing in the first place. 

Many on the right assumed it was a liberal justice's clerk, trying to rally the troops and get folks riled up to either (a) change the presumed outcome of the decision, or (b) change the presumed outcome of the midterm elections. And, of course, they did the whole "we're the victims here" because someone stole their thunder, or something. 

Me? I wondered which of the justices leaked the draft. My first guess? 

I think it was Ginni Thomas in Clarence's office with a spatula who flipped the Roe-killing draft out the window into the hands of a reporter who had been snooping around trying to figure out if there was any medical reason for Clarence to have spent a week in the hospital at the exact time that Ginni was in the headlines because of her life-and-death January 6th text messages to Trump's 4th Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the guy who wants us to believe his permanent address is a rusty old trailer on top of Scaly Mountain.

That the reporter happened to be there with an open catcher's mitt is pure chance.

And now we'll have to wait to see how long before Clarence goes back into the hospital - or until Ginni goes into the hospital, leaving Clarence to text his CPAC friends for some suitably conservative recipes to cook while Ginni is indisposed.

And my second? 

Or, maybe it was Kavanaugh, by the keg, who used the draft to mop up a mess created by his leaving the tap open when he went to check his calendar from 6th grade to see whether he needed go to the gym on the first Monday in May.

Finding out that was not the case - it's the first Monday in October that's relevant now - he over-served himself, and tossed the damp draft and a bunch of Red Solo cups into the trash on his way to bed, where soon dreams of Renate danced in his head. He might have even sung the Renate Alumni fight song in his stupor, but I can't say for sure.

And that's where the draft was found - in the dumpster with the cups and their residual draft -by the reporter from Politico, who had a nose for news - and beer - and sniffed out the story of the year.

If you had to wonder, who do you think let the draft see the light of day? And, perhaps more importantly, why?

Other wondering on this week's big story? What else will fall? If the standard is things that are deeply rooted in our history, clearly additional attacks on voting rights will be affirmed, and encouraged.

Inter-racial marriage? It's hard to imagine that surviving, right? Consider our 'deeply rooted history' of enslaving blacks to do the work that was beneath us, and how young black girls became the sexual targets of their white overseers. And who could forget the murder of blacks for the offense of looking at white women, or speaking to them? How could we possibly allow them to marry into our families, with this deeply rooted history of ours?

Similarly, I wonder how long before we say that marriage equality has no deep roots in America? Any bets on that? And, I wonder, do people know how many states still have laws on the books banning and/or refusing to recognize same-sex marriage? Sure, they're being ignored since the Obergefell decision, but they're still on the books.

Another issue about which we can wonder? Can any of the alleged privacy protections in the Constitution actually protect women who want to use contraception? I mean, think about it. 

• Our life expectancy is falling. 
• The birth rate is falling. 
• We're projected to be a minority-white country - by 2045.  

Is it really beyond our wildest imagination, I wonder, for some red-state pseudo-religious legislature to decide that what we need more than anything is more cute white babies, and act to make sure that happens by restricting access to contraception?

I know Alito said, in the draft, that this was just about abortion, but we know we can trust that about as far as we can throw him, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or Coney Barrett.

What's got you wondering tonight?