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Greg Olear: Six Justices Doing Their Best to End American Democracy

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2024 //
23

Greg Olear writes a terrific blog called PREVAIL about whatever he wants.

He writes about the Supreme Court’s latest decision placing the President above the law, freeing him to commmit crimes with absolute immunity from prosecution. He notes that they ignore history and the clear-cut intentions and writings of the Framers of the Constitution.

He is not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar. He explains in plain language how extreme this decision is by citing the dissenting Justices.

He writes:

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
—Declaration of Independence

As a lapsed novelist with a robust imagination, I can come up with all kinds of creative ramifications regarding the Supreme Court’s shit-awful ruling in Donald J. Trump v. United States: the so-called Immunity Case.

This is, alas, a waste of time. 

Whatever the MAGA narrative about his alleged crime family, President Biden is as honest as politicians come, and regardless of his newfound kingly powers, he’s not going to recommission Alcatraz and send Trump there, or nationalize Fox News, or deport Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch and Peter Thiel, or sic SEAL Team Six on SCOTUS. The guy won’t even pardon his son—the obvious victim of a humiliating political witch hunt—because he thinks it would be inappropriate. So it’s safe to say he’s not gonna go John Wick on Donald anytime soon. Brandon only runs so dark.

Furthermore, I am neither attorney nor law school graduate nor Supreme Court Kremlinologist. Legal texts bore me. Like, I don’t even like court procedurals. So I’d be lying if I told you I had any idea what the decision augurs for the FPOTUS, the election, or the future of the country. I’m going to defer, instead, to the experts who do know: three sitting Supreme Court Justices.

“The main takeaway of [yesterday]’s decision is that all of a President’s official acts, defined without regard to motive or intent, are entitled to immunity that is ‘at least…presumptive,’ and quite possibly ‘absolute,’” Sonia Sotomayor wrote, in a dissent for the ages. “Whenever the President wields the enormous power of his office, the majority says, the criminal law (at least presumptively) cannot touch him.”

We must presume a POTUS is immune from, basically, any potentially criminal act committed while he was in office. Ah, and who determines what he isn’t immune from? The Supreme Court! Fancy trick, that.

“In sum,” Sotomayor continues, “the majority today endorses an expansive vision of Presidential immunity that was never recognized by the Founders, any sitting President, the Executive Branch, or even President Trump’s lawyers, until now. Settled understandings of the Constitution are of little use to the majority in this case, and so it ignores them.”

In her own addendum to the dissent, Ketanji Brown Jackson discusses the IRL impact the decision will have:

In short, America has traditionally relied on the law to keep its Presidents in line. Starting today, however, Americans must rely on the courts to determine when (if at all) the criminal laws that their representatives have enacted to promote individual and collective security will operate as speedbumps to Presidential action or reaction. Once selfregulating, the Rule of Law now becomes the rule of judges, with courts pronouncing which crimes committed by a President have to be let go and which can be redressed as impermissible. So, ultimately, this Court itself will decide whether the law will be any barrier to whatever course of criminality emanates from the Oval Office in the future. The potential for great harm to American institutions and Americans themselves is obvious.

Obvious to anyone who is not a Leonard Leo radical Catholic reactionary weirdo on Harlan Crow’s payroll, that is.

And speaking of Leonard Leo radical Catholic reactionary weirdos, there is an “Easter egg” in the decision! In his concurrence, Clarence Thomas—who violated the law by not recusing from the case, not that Dick Durban gives a shit—shared his unsolicited opinion, clearly directed at the corrupt judge Aileen Cannon, that the Office of the Special Counsel should not exist, constitutionally speaking.

You might want to take your heart medication before reading this excerpt from Thomas’s little addendum, because this is next-level—which is to say, Kremlin-worthy—trolling:

I write separately to highlight another way in which this prosecution may violate our constitutional structure. In this case, the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States. But, I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been “established by Law,” as the Constitution requires. Art. II, §2, cl. 2. By requiring that Congress create federal offices “by Law,” the Constitution imposes an important check against the President—he cannot create offices at his pleasure. If there is no law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution. A private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former President.

Wow, someone really doesn’t want that case to go to trial! One can’t help but wonder, reading that oddly specific wording, what Clarence and/or his insurrectionist-adjacent wife might be hiding in regards to January 6th. Does Trump have something on them? Are they trying to protect themselves from eventual prosecution? Are they bona fide True Believers? Or is there something even more insidious happening chezClarence et Ginni?

Thomas may as well have borrowed Trump’s Sharpie and scrawled I AM A TRAITOR—or, better yet, я предател—on the hard copy of the decision. The man is an adenocarcinoma on the prostate of democracy. At this point, we must question, if not fully doubt, Thomas’s allegiance to the United States. 

But the true evil genius of Trump v. United States, if you’re fash, is in the shielding of POTUS communications, such that, even if an act is deemed personal and unofficial, most of the available evidence to prove criminality isn’t admissible in court.

“Not content simply to invent an expansive criminal immunity for former Presidents,” Sotomayor explains, “the majority goes a dramatic and unprecedented step further. It says that acts for which the President is immune must be redacted from the narrative of even wholly private crimes committed while in office. They must play no role in proceedings regarding private criminal acts.”

In her dissent, Sotomayor lays out what the majority—which is to say, the aforementioned Leonard Leo radical Catholic reactionary weirdos—decided, why it’s “atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable,” and the malefic impact it will have on our democracy: (Note: I’m removing the references that appear after every other sentence, to make it easier for us non-lawyers to read.)

Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent….

The Court now confronts a question it has never had to answer in the Nation’s history: Whether a former President enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution. The majority thinks he should, and so it invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law. The majority makes three moves that, in effect, completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability. First, the majority creates absolute immunity for the President’s exercise of “core constitutional powers.” This holding is unnecessary on the facts of the indictment, and the majority’s attempt to apply it to the facts expands the concept of core powers beyond any recognizable bounds. In any event, it is quickly eclipsed by the second move, which is to create expansive immunity for all “official act[s].” Whether described as presumptive or absolute, under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless. Finally, the majority declares that evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him. That holding, which will prevent the Government from using a President’s official acts to prove knowledge or intent in prosecuting private offenses, is nonsensical. 

Argument by argument, the majority invents immunity through brute force. Under scrutiny, its arguments crumble. To start, the majority’s broad “official acts” immunity is inconsistent with text, history, and established understandings of the President’s role. Moreover, it is deeply wrong, even on its own functionalist terms. Next, the majority’s “core” immunity is both unnecessary and misguided. Furthermore, the majority’s illogical evidentiary holding is unprecedented. Finally, this majority’s project will have disastrous consequences for the Presidency and for our democracy.

What Trump v. United States does, as I am hardly the first to point out, is turn the president into a king. This is ironic, because for all of Alito’s and Thomas’s bluster about “originalism,” where they ask WWJD (where “J” stands for “Jefferson”), the one thing we Americans—even little kids, ffs!—know for sure about the Founders is that they did not want another king. How do we know this? They wrote a whole fucking letter about it and posted it to George III. You can see a copy at the National Archives Museum.

Anyway, said Troll King of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, worked the George III stuff into his reasoning that Jack Smith has no more authority to indict Donald Trump than Jack White, Jack Black, Jack B. Nimble, or Jack B. Quick. “In fact, one of the grievances raised by the American colonists in declaring their independence was that the King ‘ha[d] erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance,’” Thomas writes, no doubt pleased with himself for working “erect” and “eat out” into a concurrence.

“The Founders thus drafted the Constitution with ‘evidently a great inferiority in the power of the President, in this particular, to that of the British king,’” he continues, noting that they “broke from the monarchial model by giving the President the power to fill offices (with the Senate’s approval), but not the power to create offices. They did so by ‘imposing the constitutional requirement that new officer positions be “established by Law” rather than through a King-like custom of the head magistrate unilaterally creating new offices.’”

In short, Clarence Thomas is attempting to eighty-six Jack Smith on the grounds that the Founders explicitly rejected a “monarchial model,” while simultaneously arguing that Trump should be given kingly powers.

These bought-and-paid-for fascists are just fucking with us at this point.

The last six paragraphs of Sotomayor’s dissent are, in a word, chilling. Again, I’ve not read many Supreme Court decisions, but I’d be surprised if this were not the first one that mentioned the possibility of a president tapping SEAL Team Six to whack a political rival. 

There’s no way to sugarcoat it: this is the senior liberal justice on the Supreme Court freaking the fuck out about what Roberts and his reactionary chums have unleashed. Lines from this section have been quoted in every article published about the decision, but I’m going to include the entire excerpt, for maximum impact:

Looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution, the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation. The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

The majority’s single-minded fixation on the President’s need for boldness and dispatch ignores the countervailing need for accountability and restraint. The Framers were not so single-minded. In the Federalist Papers, after “endeavor[ing] to show” that the Executive designed by the Constitution “combines . . . all the requisites to energy,” Alexander Hamilton asked a separate, equally important question: “Does it also combine the requisites to safety, in a republican sense, a due dependence on the people, a due responsibility?” The answer then was yes, based in part upon the President’s vulnerability to “prosecution in the common course of law.” The answer after today is no.

Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

Six weeks ago, Sotomayor spoke at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where she was honored with an award. She was remarkably candid about her experience working with six fascists. “There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” she said. “There have been those days. And there are likely to be more.”

I wonder if the immunity case was one of the times Sotomayor wept in her office—or if the ugly future it portends was too horrifying for the tears to come.

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Photo credit: George III and an admirer.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, History, Trump

Jamelle Boule: “If the President Does It, It’s Not Illegal”

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2024 //
28

Jamelle Bouie is an opinion writer for The New York Times. He writes with exceptional insight and clarity. In this column, he explains the radical, unprecedented nature of the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. The majority claims to be “originalists,” paying strict attention to the meaning of the words of those who wrote the Constitution, but this decision clearly demonstrates their complete indifference to the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution. The Framers created a strong balance of power among the three branches of the Federal Government; this Court negates those checks and balances.

With this ruling, Trump vs. US, the six member majority of the Supreme Court has shown that they are rank partisans. Their overriding objective was to protect Trump, first, by dragging out their decision as long as possible; second, by remanding the case to a District Court, where it may require months of hearings and appeals to determine which acts are official and which are not; and third, by affirming Trump’s once-absurd claim that the President can do whatever he wants and it’s not illegal.

The Roberts Court is a disgrace.

Jamelle Bouie writes:

In 1977, nearly three years after leaving office in disgrace, President Richard Nixon gave a series of interviews to David Frost, a British journalist. Of their hourslong conversations, only one part would enter history.

“When the president does it,” Nixon told Frost, defending the conduct that ended his presidency, “that means that it is not illegal.” He went on to add that if “the president approves an action because of the national security — or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude — then the president’s decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out to carry it out without violating a law.” Otherwise, Nixon concluded, “they’re in an impossible position.”

Yesterday, in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, the Supreme Court affirmed Nixon’s bold assertion of presidential immunity. Ruling on the federal prosecution of Donald Trump for his role in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the president has “absolute immunity” for “official acts” when those acts relate to the core powers of the office.

“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” Roberts writes. “At least with respect to the president’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity.”

The majority divides official conduct from “unofficial conduct,” which is still liable for prosecution. But it doesn’t define the scope of “unofficial conduct” and places strict limits on how courts and prosecutors might try to prove the illegality of a president’s unofficial acts. “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president’s motives,” Roberts writes. “Such an inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose, thereby intruding on the Article II interests that immunity seeks to protest.” In other words, the why of a president’s actions cannot be held as evidence against him, even if they’re plainly illegitimate.

Roberts tries to apply this new, seemingly extra-constitutional standard to the facts of the case against the former president. He says that the president “has ‘exclusive authority and absolute discretion’ to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime” and may “discuss potential investigations and prosecutions” with Justice Department officials, effectively neutering the idea of independent federal law enforcement. Turning to Trump’s attempt to pressure Mike Pence into delaying certification of the Electoral College, Roberts says that this too was an official act.

Having made this distinction between “official” and “unofficial” conduct, Roberts remands the case back to a Federal District Court so that it can re-examine the facts and decide whether any conduct described in the indictment against Trump is prosecutable.

The upshot of this decision is that it will delay the former president’s trial past the election. And if Trump wins he can quash the case, rendering it moot. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court has, in other words, successfully kept the American people from learning in a court of law the truth of Trump’s involvement on Jan. 6.

But more troubling than the court’s interference in the democratic process are the disturbing implications of the majority’s decision, which undermines the foundations of republican government at the same time that it purports to be a strike in defense of the constitutional order.

Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution does not exist in the Constitution, Justice Sonia Sotomayor observes in her dissent. The historical evidence, she writes, “cuts decisively against it.” By definition, the president was bound by law. He was, first and foremost, not a king. He was a servant of the public, and like any other servant, the framers believed he was subject to criminal prosecution if he broke the law.

And while the majority might say here that the president is still subject to criminal prosecution for “unofficial acts,” Sotomayor aptly notes that the chief justice has created a standard that effectively renders nearly every act official if it can be tied in some way, however tenuously, to the president’s core powers.

If the president takes official action whenever he acts in ways that are “not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority” and if “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president’s motives,” then, Sotomayor writes, “Under that rule, any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt purpose indicated by objective evidence of the most corrupt motives and intent, remains official and immune.”

A president who sells cabinet positions to the highest bidder is immune. A president who directs his I.R.S. to harass and investigate his political rivals is immune. A president who gives his military illegal orders to suppress protesters is immune.

These examples only scratch the surface of allowable conduct under the majority’s decision. “The court,” Sotomayor writes, “effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding.” When he uses his official powers in any way, she continues, “he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s SEAL team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune.”

The bottom line, Sotomayor concludes, is that “the relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”

If the president is a king, then we are subjects, whose lives and livelihoods are only safe insofar as we don’t incur the wrath of the executive. And if we find ourselves outside the light of his favor, then we have find ourselves, in effect, outside the protection of the law.

Roberts says that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution is necessary to preserve the separation of powers and protect the “energy” of the executive. But the aim of the separation of powers was not merely to create exclusive spheres of action for each branch — if this were true, the Senate, which ratifies treaties and confirms executive branch appointments, would not exist in its current form — but to prevent the emergence of unchecked authority. Roberts has reversed this. Now separation of powers requires the absolute power of the executive to act without checks, without balances and without limits.

In their relentless drive to protect a Republican president and secure his power for a future administration, the conservative majority has issued a fundamentally anti-republican opinion. In doing so, it has made a mockery of the American constitutional tradition.

By the end of his time in the White House, Nixon was a disgrace. But to the conservative movement, he was something of a hero — hounded out of office by a merciless liberal establishment. One way to tell the story of the Republican Party after Nixon is as the struggle to build a world in which a future Nixon could act unimpeded by law.

Roberts has done more than score a victory for Trump. He has scored a victory for the conservative legal project of a unitary executive of immense power. Besides Trump, he has vindicated the lawlessness of Republican presidents from Nixon to George W. Bush. The Nixonian theory of presidential power is now enshrined as constitutional law.

This time when the president does it, it really won’t be illegal.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, History, Injustice, Trump

The Worst Supreme Court Decision in Our Lifetime

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2024 //
109

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the President of the United States has absolute immunity for criminal acts committed in his official capacity. He may order the Department of Justice to prosecute his political opponents. He can organize a coup against the government. He may order the military to assassinate his enemies. He may, as Trump did, send a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and seek to stop the certification of the man who won the election and to murder elected officials. He may take a bribe for appointments or pardons.

The Court laid the groundwork for authoritarianism. For fascism. It eroded a basic understanding of our democracy. The six reactionary justices obliterated the bedrock principle of our government that “no person is above the law.” Under this ruling, the President is above the law. He is a King. The Founders would be appalled by this decision. Under this ruling, Richard Nixon need not have resigned.

This court is a threat to democracy. The majority is not conservative. It overrules precedent without hesitation, as it did in Dobbs (the abortion decision) and as it does in this decision.

Read the decision and the dissents yourself.


Categories Accountability, Biden, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Justice, Trump

Sabrina Haake: “I’ll Take an Old Man Over a Conman Any Day of the Week”

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2024 //
83

Sabrina Haake is a veteran journalist who writes a blog called “The Haake Take.” This is her take on the debate. Read it and subscribe.

I watched the debate in horror, like millions of moderates.  Here was a slick conman with a national bullhorn- sans fact checking- next to a decent man who tells the truth but can’t get his words out.  

Even Republicans know Trump’s performance was a firehose of lies, but after the fact fact-checking is just background noise, irrelevant to all but political junkies. (We know who we are.) His base also knows Trump is a serial liar, which they consider a feature, not a bug. Whattaya do with that?

The sad reality is that facts vs. lies and the grave geopolitical risks facing us have now been upstaged by Biden’s pauses, weak voice and halting delivery, all of which seemed to confirm supporters’ fears about his age. Biden’s style, rather than the substance delivered by either man, dominates all the headlines. 

Why o why didn’t Biden open with, ‘folks, I have a cold, bear with me, my voice is rough, but we’ll get through it…’? Instead, his voice gravelly and barely audible, he bumbled, even though most facts were on his side. 

The whole cringe fest was a Fox News fantasy come to life. I cried for my country, popped an Ambien, and went to bed. 

I realize, at this point, pundits are just echoing each other. No one really knows what the fallout will be, or how the undecideds felt about the debate. I have some shred of hope that Americans are smart enough to cut through the slick lies vs. bumbling truth and consider what both men actually said. But honestly, MAGA exists because about 30% of us want a show more than sound governance; violence and retribution are sexier than policy Every. Single. Time. 

Also, morons get juiced by hate, which stimulates the brain like an opioid. Hate is the brain’s most powerful motivator- right up there with fear- which means hate-filled people vote in higher numbers than complacent moderates. This, very simply, is why the stupidest 20% of the U.S. has been able to impose minority rule, aligned with the morbidly rich seeking to avoid regulations and taxes. (Darwin suggests we get real serious about real education, real fast.) 

A silver lining?

Maybe, since SCOTUS just gutted the administrative state, stripping the federal government of most of its power to fight climate change, we’ll see violence from the left this time. The absurdity of letting morons like Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch substitute their personal, lay opinions for those of trained experts is worse than partisan– it’s suicidal. (Thomas recently shot down the AFT’s expert opinion that bump stocks keep firing the trigger like a machine gun, while Gorsuch confused an air pollutant with nitrous oxide—ie, laughing gas– when gutting protections for the environment.) 

Even peaceful leftists will get violent when their lives are threatened. Since the Court has also ruled that it’s ok to storm federal buildings, maybe climate activists will take a clue from the J6 mob. (Not advocating violence, just opining on its likelihood, which I learned from Fox News. Maybe when MAGA idiots clamoring for civil war finally get a taste of blood they’ll retract their claws. But veep candidate  JD Vance told us most of them are on crack or drunk, so they’re probably itching for entertainment, what’s a few bodies? I’m just saying their mental vacuums need to be filled with something, and Trump rallies, Fox and stoning their neighbors can only fill so many hours.

The gaslighting got upstaged, but it was masterclass

Biden, far more forceful at a North Carolina rally right after debate, freely admits he stumbled. “I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said, but “I know right from wrong.” 

And that’s the thing: what he’s done in office in three and a half years should count far, far more than a bad 90 minute performance. As Vice President Kamala Harris said in her post-debate interview, “I got the point that you’re making about a one and a half hour debate tonight. I’m talking about three and a half years of performance in work that has been historic…”

And she’s right: if this is a contest on the merits, on substance, Biden wins hands down. 

When Trump said Hamas attacked Israel and Putin attacked Ukraine because Biden is weak, I worried, because low information voters won’t think it through. No one needs any spin; Putin himself  has said his invasion goes back to the 17th century, Peter the Great, and his personal power-lust for restoring the Soviet Empire. 

The complexities of the Israel-Hamas war are even deeper. They far exceed Trump’s cranial capacity, going back decades, marginally beginning with Hitler’s atrocities. Israel’s history exceeds most voters’ attention spans, including mine. Biden has walked a tightrope, empathizing with suffering on both Israeli and Palestinian sides. He has forcefully denounced and criticized Netanyahu’s cruelty, and immediately denounced the naked brutality of Hamas. No one alive could do a better job navigating Israel’s scorching complexity. 

Suffering Palestinians deserve all the aid, support and compassion they are getting– far more– students on the left are right in that regard.  But where they’re wrong is in failing to understand that if Biden cut off support to Israel, Trump would collect billions of dollars in PAC donations overnight and storm back into power, and few people would ever hear or care about Palestinian suffering again.

 Trump’s mendacity is unprecedented in US presidential history, and the damage he has caused already will linger for decades. His offenses are too numerous to list, including ending abortion, adding $8 trillion to the deficit, robbing the poor for tax cuts to billionaires, selling the climate to big oil, blah blah blah.  It’s redundant already.

Military generals and  experts who worked with Trump are warning us

Biden is running for re-election not to stay out of prison or engage in retribution, but to save America from Trump and his army of sycophants addicted to power. They are dangerous. Now is not the time to start over, but to armor up.

During his awful debate performance, Biden managed to reference— albeit far too softly– that in a national survey conducted by the University of Houston and Coastal Carolina University, peer-reviewed academic and social science researchers, along with qualified historians and political scientists rated Trump the worst president in the history of the United States. Ever. According to America’s historians. Don’t trust your own instincts after the debate? Let that sink in. 

Not enough?  Consider that Trump’s closest military and domestic advisors have warned us how dangerous it would be to return him to power….

I’ll close with Robert DeNiro’s words because I really can’t top them. Here’s what he just wrote in a post-debate  email:  

Over the years, I’ve played my share of vicious, low-life characters. I’ve spent a lot of time studying bad men. I’ve examined their characteristics, their mannerisms, and the utter banality of their cruelty. Donald Trump is a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics who will do whatever he can to obtain power. As an actor, I could never play him. There’s not a shred of humanity to hang on to. I strongly support Joe Biden. He’s a lifelong public servant with great personal integrity. I trust him completely to run the country. He puts you first. Trump cares only about himself.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Categories Biden, Character, Democracy, Elections, Trump

Philadelphia Inquirer: Donald Trump Should Get Out of the Race!

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2024 //
26

Many pundits and editorialists said that President Biden should withdraw from the presidential race because of his poor performance.

The Philadelphia Inquirer does not agree. Its editorial board says that Donald Trump should drop out of the race! Trump is a liar, a danger to democracy, and unfit for office. I’m with them.

Hurrah for the editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer! Every newspaper and media outlet in the nation should read this editorial, published on June 29.

President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.

But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.

In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that?

To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.

Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.”

“People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”

After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.

Trump spent chunks of time watching TV, tweeting, and hanging out at his country clubs. Over his four-year term, Trump played roughly 261 rounds of golf.

As president, Trump didn’t read the daily intelligence briefs. He continued to use his personal cell phone, allowing Chinese spies to listen to his calls. During one Oval Office meeting, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

Trump’s term did plenty of damage and had few accomplishments. The much-hyped wall didn’t get built. Infrastructure week was a recurring joke. Giant tax cuts made the rich richer, while fueling massive deficits for others to pay for years. His support for coal, oil drilling and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement worsened the growing impact of climate change.

Trump stacked the judiciary with extreme judges consisting mainly of white males, including a number who the American Bar Association rated as not qualified. A record number of cabinet officials were fired or left the office. The West Wing was in constant chaos and infighting.

Many Trump appointees exited under a cloud of corruption, grifting and ethical scandals. Trump’s children made millions off the White House. His dilettante son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudi government for his fledgling investment firm even though he never managed money before.

Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. He boasts about stacking the Supreme Court with extreme right-wingers who are stripping away individual rights, upending legal precedents, and making the country less safe. If elected, Trump may add to the court’s conservative majority.

Of course, there were the unprecedented two impeachments. Now, Trump is a convicted felon who is staring at three more criminal indictments. He is running for president to stay out of prison.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Trump allegedly stole classified information and tried to overturn an election. His plans for a second term are worse than the last one. We cannot be serious about letting such a crooked clown back in the White House.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best.

Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.

Biden has surrounded himself with experienced people who take public service seriously. He has passed major bipartisan legislation despite a dysfunctional Republican House majority.

Biden believes in the best of America. He has rebuilt relationships with allies around the world and stood up to foes like Russia and China.

There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.

Categories Biden, Democracy, Elections, Trump

Thomas Goff Sums Up the Debate Best: Have We Gone Completely Nuts?

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2024 //
62

Reader Thomas Goff posted this wise comment:

Yes, we live in a different world, one in which the decent man who holds our highest office is, in effect, now being asked to hand over the White House to a convicted criminal who will abandon Ukraine, kowtow to Putin, trash our environmental regulations, strip away the rights of women, BIPOC and LGBTQ people, and establish a right-wing dictatorship. Have we gone completely nuts?

Categories Biden, Character, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Trump

My View: How Should We Judge the Debate: Biden v. Trump?

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2024 //
66

Now that the initial shock of Biden’s poor performance in last night’s debate is fading, there are several bottom-line facts that should not be overlooked.

Biden has been an excellent President. Trump was a failed President, impeached twice, who inspired an insurrection intended to overthrow the government and the Constitution. Historians have judged Trump to be the worst of all presidents.

Biden has many legislative accomplishments: the Infrastructure bill, which directed billions of dollars to repair our nation’s crumbling bridges, tunnels, roads, and other vital parts of the economy. His CHIPS act brings high-tech jobs back to the U.S. and has already encouraged more than $300 billion in new investments. His efforts to create good union jobs and to revive unions strengthen the middle class. He has also relentlessly tried to reduce the massive debt that college students are saddled with.

By contrast, Trump’s only legislative accomplishment was a massive tax cut for the 1% and corporations.

Biden has aggressively promoted action to curb climate change. Trump opposed any effort to deal with climate change, forbade the use of the term, and insists that it is a hoax.

Biden appointed highly accomplished people to his cabinet, with few exceptions; Trump appointed rightwing extremists and had a high turnover among the few qualified people he appointed.

Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who were prepared (though they didn’t admit it in their hearings) to overturn Roe v. Wade and to gut gun control. if re-elected, he will have the opportunity to appoint more extremists to the Supreme Court who want to roll back the New Deal.

Biden has revived NATO. Trump wants to withdraw from NATO.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden rallied Europe to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression. Trump wants to abandon Ukraine and let Putin take whatever he wants in Europe.

Biden respects the Constitution. Trump does not. Trump refuses to admit that he lost the 2020 election, despite losing more than 60 court decisions against his claims. Trump refused during the debate to accept the results of the 2024 election. Trump undermines respect for the Constitution, the electoral system, the judicial system.

Biden is not a good speaker. He is not a good debater. He has a slow gait. He is a good President. He is actually a GREAT President.

And Trump is a demagogue, a world-class liar, a wannabe Fascist, and a danger to the nation and the democratic institutions that are the soul of our nation.

I repeat, Biden has been a great President. If he doesn’t step aside, as many nervous people urge, I will support him. With my heart, my soul, and my wallet.

Categories Biden, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Lies, Trump

Tim O’Brien: Biden Should Consider Stepping Aside

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2024 //
27

Tim O’Brien is executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. He was formerly a writer and editor for The New York Times. His book TrumpNation caused Trump to sue him for saying that Trump was not a billionaire. Trump’s lawsuit was dismissed by the courts.

O’Brien wrote:

Joe Biden could have started writing the final chapter of his political career a year or so ago, when he still controlled the narrative.

“I’ve capped my long journey in public service by defeating Donald Trump, revivifying our economy and moving the US past the Covid era,” he might have said. “Therefore, I’ve decided not to seek a second term so the next generation of Democrats can succeed me and secure the White House and democracy for the American people.”

Instead, a humiliating and unsettling debate performance on Thursday night is now writing Biden’s final chapter for him. He shuffled onto the debate stage like the old soul that he is, rarely answered questions with more than a whispering rasp, often looked bewildered and failed to land enough memorable blows. Biden was so abysmal that Donald Trump, a convicted felon and sexual predator, effectively mastered the debate’s momentum and left Biden appearing like little more than a punching bag.

It may be time for Biden to consider moving on — and an intervention might be necessary to speed that along before the Democratic National Convention in August…

Biden ran for president three times before finally winning in 2020, and his ego may prevent him from letting go. He has spent most of his adult life in the Senate and the White House. He also took an admirable, courageous and necessary gamble by choosing to debate Trump so early in the election cycle, which I noted in a previous column this week. Biden wagered that he could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump and prove he was more vital and acute.

Biden lost that bet.

While Trump lied broadly and shamelessly throughout the debate, he was sharp-tongued and much faster on his feet than he has been in recent campaign appearances. He overshadowed Biden and the president’s loping, nebulous presence, reinforcing doubts about his ability to steer the ship of state.

None of this means Trump is fit for higher office. Biden’s Cabinet is populated by judicious and talented people, and the president himself has been purposeful throughout his career. Trump is a dangerous and unpredictable anarchist who has rarely attracted top-flight talent into his orbit.

But this is an election, not a management report card. Voters often respond to candidates emotionally, and perceptions of leadership can be deeply subjective. In that universe, Thursday’s debate was a monumental and debilitating setback for Biden. He failed to give full-throated and linear arguments for where he stood on core issues such as abortion and immigration. Some questions that he initially handled effectively, such as one about inflation and the economy, wound up following a meandering, perplexing path.

Biden’s most loyal supporters may forgive all of this, just as Trump fans have endless patience for his predations, lawlessness and buffoonery. But moderate and independent voters in swing states have had little patience for either man, and the debate may leave them permanently wary of Biden.

The president put on such a petrifying show that Trump got away with all of his usual atrocities.

Trump was impeached twice as president, and he was recently found guilty in three different courtrooms of sexual assault and criminal and civil fraud. He faces three other criminal prosecutions. Yet he managed to try labeling Biden a “criminal” during the debate.

Trump is a pathological liar who has dissembled with gusto for most of his 78 years. During the debate he offered a list of fabrications, including claiming Biden wants to quadruple personal tax rates and has been bribed by China; that the federal deficit is the biggest it has ever been; that he passed the Veterans Choice bill; that Biden indicted him; that more than 18 million undocumented immigrants have entered the US during Biden’s presidency; that the US footed 100% of NATO’s defense spending prior to his own presidency; that no terrorist attacks occurred during his presidency, and that states led by Democrats allow babies to be executed after they’re born.

Yet Trump tried labeling Biden a “liar” during the debate.

Biden, on the other hand, was spot on when he told Trump that he has “the morals of an alley cat” for romancing a porn star during his third marriage. Trump himself also briefly indulged the truth when he said he wouldn’t accept the outcome of this year’s election should he lose.

Trump also mentioned during the debate that he was running for the presidency because he thought Biden has been a singularly bad executive. I suspect the primary factor motivating Trump’s bid is his belief that a second White House stay will allow him to escape the multiple legal prosecutions bearing down on him.

Trump’s sordid business and political history, and his statements during the debate, are all reminders of how imperative it is that voters don’t send him back to the Oval Office. He and Biden are slated to debate again in September, and perhaps Biden envisions that as an opportunity to turn around his candidacy. It may be too late, alas.

The US is in perilous waters and Biden has always recognized that. He’s also done enormous good in protecting and preserving democracy at home and abroad. But he’s had his chance and he’s now come up short. He should consider stepping aside.

Categories Biden, Democracy, Elections, Lies, Politics, Trump

The Debate: A Big Downer

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2024 //
207

I couldn’t watch it continuously. It was too painful. Joe Biden mumbled and misspoke; Trump lied nonstop. The CNN moderators could have, should have stepped in to correct blatant misstatements by both candidates. They didn’t. Watching Trump call Biden a criminal who should be in jail, watching Trump blame Nancy Pelosi for the January 6 insurrection, was more than I could bear to watch.

This was a good night for Trump, and a bad night for our democracy.

Categories Biden, Democracy, Elections, Trump

Thom Hartmann: We Need Protection from Religious Zealotry

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2024 //
13

Thom Hartmann warns that the growing power of religious extremists threatens democracy. The Founders knew the danger of organized religion and inserted guardrails against its zealotry in the Constitution

He wrote:

Twenty-eight states, nearly all Republican-controlled, are now spending billions of taxpayer dollars to support indoctrinating children in religion through voucher programs that can be used for mostly Christian schools. Five Republican-controlled states are in the process of letting vouchers ghettoize their entire public-school systems.

As The Washington Post noted yesterday:

“Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.”

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, flies an “Appeal to Heaven” flag outside his official congressional office that, since 2013, has been the semi-official logo of a militant arm of charismatic Christianity involved with January 6th. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito flew a similar flag outside his summer home.

Another man flying that flag is outspoken Catholic evangelist Leonard Leo, who now controls over a billion dollars and helped run the process that selected Trump’s picks for the Supreme Court as well as hundreds of federal bench nominees. As ProPublica pointed out in a story about “the man that remade the American judicial system”:

“Leo is a major supporter of the [Catholic Information Center], and its unabashed projection of political power aligns with the central role of religion in Leo’s political project.”

Proselytizers for evangelical Christianity believe they are on the verge of taking over our country, from our schools to our courts to Congress itself. History warns us — as did the Founders and Framers of the Constitution — that, if successful, this will be deadly to American democracy.

Religious evangelism can be a deadly thought virus. It explicitly posits that, “There is only one right way to live and we know what it is” along with, “There is only one true god and he is the one we worship — and now you must, too….”

But now America finds itself under assault by a new, zealously evangelical movement called the New Apostolic Reformation (among other names) that seeks to use the force of law and the power of billions in untaxable dollars to create a new, two-tiered society in America.

At the top of this new America are the Catholic conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Speaker Mike Johnson and his followers in Congress, and an army of televangelists who claim moral superiority by virtue of their religion. They’re backed up by a small army of fundamentalist billionaires and politicians like Donald Trump who are willing to give them power and wealth in exchange for support at the ballot box.

Under them are the rest of us Untermenschen, whose opinions are tolerated so long as we don’t take away their nonprofit tax status (ensuring we must continue subsidizing them), stop their takeover of our schools, or correctly point out that the Founders were horrified at the prospect of America ever becoming a “Christian nation.”

But that is exactly what the majority of this nation’s Founders feared. It’s why they wrote a Constitution that forbids a religious test to hold office and put into the First Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

It’s why George Washington refused to say publicly whether he was a Christian or not, and authored the Treaty of Tripoli that begins with, “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…”

It’s why Ben Franklin fled Massachusetts as a teenager to avoid mandatory church attendance and wrote, “I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.”

It’s why James Madison, one of the few actual Christians among that core group of Founders and the “Father of the Constitution,” made his first veto as president in 1811 against a bill that would have given government money to a Washington, DC church to run a poorhouse. It would, he said, “be a precedent for giving to religious societies, as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.”

Madison added, in a July 10, 1822 letter to his old friend Edward Livingston:

“We are teaching the world the great truth, that Governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson: that Religion flourishes in greater purity without, than with the aid of Government.”

It’s why Jefferson took a razor blade to the Gospels and cut out all of the stories of miracles, producing The Jefferson Bible that presents Jesus as a wise philosopher instead of a god. The book is still in print and, to this day, a best-seller.

The cancer of evangelicalism now has its sights on literally every aspect of American society with its “Seven Mountain Mandate,” which argues that evangelical Christians must assert control over every other religion, every family in America, the US government itself, all public and private education, the arts and entertainment, all American media, and ultimately regulate all commercial business in our nation.

And they’re succeeding in every realm, even commerce. Recently, Southwest Airlines fired a flight attending for spamming their internal message boards with hostile anti-abortion messages and calling the company’s CEO “a murderer” because he supported women’s abortion rights. A Trump-appointed judge ruled in the flight attendant’s favor and required the company’s senior executives to take “religious liberty training” from an evangelical rightwing anti-abortion group. 

Once today’s Christian Taliban made common cause with the 1980 Reagan campaign, the first great mission they undertook was seizing control of the rest of the Republican Party. Now that that has been accomplished, they’re coming for the rest of us.

As the tribal people who first occupied this land would tell you, this is the Great Sin. It turns religion from a spiritual exercise into a social, cultural, and political cancer that continually grows while devouring everything in its path. 

Like biological cancer, it ultimately kills its host — as America’s founders knew well from the experience of Cromwell in England and seventeenth-century Salem here.

And now it’s made an unholy alliance with the billionaires behind Project 2025 and our rapist-in-chief, Donald Trump, the modern incarnations of the Roman empire and Prefect Pilate, who ordered Jesus crucified.

G-d help us all if they succeed.

.

Categories Bigotry, Democracy, Education Reform, Religion, Separation of church and state
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