and now we wait...

 

h/o to mother jones...

The Final Days...

 yes, things are a bit stressful here in the U S of A.  so, with that I leave you this...

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian...

 

According to Le Monde, "Donald Trump torpille son premier débat". Torpedoing his debate was one way to describe a comprehensive disaster in which the president displayed his usual unbearable rudeness, continuously interrupting and insulting Biden, and lying ceaselessly. 

One writer wondered if it was Donald Trump's Senator McCarthy moment, another found it was a good debate for revealing the president's character.  

Trump was probably Covid-19 positive as his family and other hangers-on attended the debate, without face-masks, contrary to agreed rules. Within days, Trump's Covid hospitalisation engulfed the news and opinion. As the president's polls plunged and re-election prospects dimmed, the Lawfare blog posted helpful "Rules for Displacing an Ailing Presidential Candidate."

Most other news is very bad: as America's most vulnerable election approaches, the Reichstag is burning, and it's a six-alarm fire. Will the election finish the US? The Atlantic and the New Yorker are sounding the alarm. A constitutional coup is not impossible.

The Republican party seems afflicted by madness, not unlike the malignant normality of its candidate, a man who refuses to say he will accept the results of the election and whose personality traits portend disaster. He's a man who, if he loses, may not leave office, and could go to jail if he does. He has his own Praetorian guard, and his die-hard supporters, some violent, are already disrupting early voting.

As a minority party, Republicans must be ruthless in order to maintain office. Historically, they have had to cheat to win elections, and this year, it's all hands on deck to impede an honest election November 3rd.

The Republican-controlled states are doing their bit. The vote-suppressing Texas governor ordered each county to limit its drop-off  box for ballots to one location. Democratic-leaning Harris County (Houston), with 4.7 million residents and one sixth of Texas' population, will have a single drop-off point. 

In the swing states that Trump unexpectedly won four years ago, postal ballot sabotage is underway, and planning for polling-day intimidation, reminiscent of Mr Trump's 2016 black voter deterrence. 

READ THE REST HERE...

REST IN PEACE RUTH BADER GINSBURG

 A HERO OF THE HIGHEST CALIBER. WE MUST WIN THIS ELECTION TO PRESERVE HER LEGACY.  RUTH CRIED POWER TOO.

Lest we forget...

 His story becomes even more important as my country resorts to the old tactics-- like polling taxes.

Oh yeah.... it is 9/11

 The pandemic has eclipsed 9/11 not only in the number of dead on that particular day (65 X more than 9-11 as of this moment in time...-- of course if we look at all of the people killed in response to 9-11 the war on "terror" wins as of this moment in time) but if the talking dog is correct (and I have no doubt he is) the economic cost of 19 years of "the war on terror" is already eclipsed by the pandemic.

But I digress... I always turn to my friend the talking dog on 9-11 because he was actually in NY - a block away from the towers.

Once again... where was I? I guess I was trying to point out that our various handlings of September 11th, a catastrophic global war on everyone, everywhere whose "war prize" seems to be holding 40 Muslim men (some were captured as boys) in a Cuban gulag with the occasional "flawed" ersatz judicial proceeding (both military commissions and what passes for habeas corpus), to the financial crisis of 2007-9 (something like zero bankers and those responsible facing actual jail), or of course, the current pandemic (disastrous handling of everything leading to nearly 200,000 American deaths and counting) show that we are damaged goods as a society (I attribute it to American Exceptionalism in my book of that title), and to the point, seem to know the monetary cost of everything, but the value (or in the reverse case, the actual risks) of nothing.

Hence, the pathological focus on a far-off vaccine for no other reason than it will be expensive and money will be made, rather than on developing a population with its own improved immune systems to lower risk at a lower cost (you might try vitamins B complex, C and D, especially D, zinc, selenium and quercetin, with N-A-C and elderberry optional-- at least those are my go-to supplements now). Or of course, "mixed messaging" on mask wearing, even now.

But I digress. This here blog started a week after 9-11. On that day, I was, of course, working a block north of the WTC and got a ringside 16th floor window view of events, which, I confess, have probably traumatized me less than many people who watched it on television. I lost a couple of people I knew, and I lost my job (proximity!) But maybe because it was such a useful event to justify a military action that was already baked into the cake, there seemed to be a consensus that this was "a national moment," as good-wishes poured into NYC from everywhere, all over the country and all over the world.

Read the whole thing here.

From our Friends down under at Justinian...

 

Reelecting the thief-in-chief

ROGER FITCH ESQ • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

US elections ... Republican plots to steal the outcome ... Supreme Court in the wings ... Declaration of an election "emergency" ... Prospects of state and federal criminal indictments ... Fictions at the Republican National Convention ... Long-term Washington hand Roger Fitch reports 

With eight weeks to go, America is lurching towards electoral disaster. In 15 years covering Washington, Fitch has seen a lot, but the extraordinary crimes of Donald Trump, the institutional damage he has inflicted, go far beyond George Bush's criminal mischief. They threaten the republic itself, at least the part that survived Bush v Gore, the supreme court's notorious intervention in the 2000 election: partisan meddling that could happen again. 

In the light of Bush v Gore, maybe the eighteenth century republic never made it into the twenty-first: in either one, Trump qualifies as the worst, most dishonest president in American history. Even petty grifts are assiduously pursued. What else can one expect? He assumes everyone is as venal as himself, including political appointees and government hires. As New York Magazine observed in 2018:

"It is hardly a coincidence that so many greedy people have filled the administration's ranks. Trump's ostentatious crudeness and misogyny are a kind of human-resources strategy. Radiating personal and professional sleaze lets him quickly and easily identify individuals who have any kind of public ethics and to sort them out ... Trump is legitimately excellent at cultivating an inner circle unburdened by legal or moral scruples. These are the only kind of people who want to work for Trump, and the only kind Trump wants to work for him."

READ THE ENTIRE POST HERE.

 

Guantanamo Forever...

 Well it sure seems that way to my client who is one of the 40 remaining at Guantanamo. My client is being held because he was in a guesthouse where an individual that my government thought was an al qaeda operative was also staying. Seems my country was wrong about that guy but that doesn't matter because based on 2nd and 3rd level hearsay my client was a bad guy. And that is what happens when you don't have to charge people with crimes or prove anything to just hold someone forever...

The sad shape of our judiciary in the Trump era tells the rest of the story. Read it here.

h/o to Don for sharing the article.

The continuing battle against the International Court...

 So my country is now sanctioning the prosecutor of the International Court because she is continuing to "target" americans! And here I thought it was Putin who was targetting Americans... and even offering bounties.

Well, almost every day we reach new lows in this here country of mine and not much surprises me.

You can read about the sanctions here.

TODAY IN MY COUNTRY....

 We have been moving in this direction for a long time but tonight the republican party will formally nominate a openly white supremist for president of the United States (they have nominated several in past years who were not quite as open about their racism).

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

 •   •   •

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, congress explicitly rejected a federal police force in the US, but Donald Trump, aided by his servile (Acting) Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney Gerneral William Barr, is busy using a back door to create one.

Trump established the first beachhead in Portland, Oregon, with heavily armed, unidentified and camouflaged federal agents "stretching the limits of their authority", as the New York Times delicately put it. 

It was a manufactured crisis, quickly seen by some as "made-for-TV fascism" and "performative authoritarianism". 

With electoral doom increasingly likely, Donald Trump has ignited multiple Reichstag Fires (perhaps literally, in the case of the Democratic headquarters in Arizona) in Democratic-governed cities, with Portland the first regional sortie, following his unsuccessful assault on Washington, DC.

Unmarked federal agents in Portland

Chicago and Philadelphia remain particular targets of  Mr Trump. Just as Herr Hitler must have cracked down first on unreliable cities such as Hamburg and Dresden, Mr Trump has in his sights every city and state with elected Democrat leadership. Some Democratic officials are calling him out on "fascist tactics". 

Portland reminded Michael Dorf of Putin's Crimean manoeuvres, while Steve Vladeck pointed out the likely illegality and Neil Buchanan feared Chilean-style desaparecidos. 

After extensive litigation and bad publicity (war-zone surveillance aircraft circulating overhead), the Trump incursion backfired spectacularly, and a withdrawal of federal forces from Portland was negotiated.

READ THE REST HERE.

RIP John Lewis

John Lewis's last words should inspire all of us. 

"Together, you can redeem the soul of our nation

 though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe."

Read the whole thing here.

John Yoo returns... and is advising Trump

Seems our famous torture lawyer-- the one who advised GW Bush on how to "legally" torture people is back to advising presidents on legally dubious (and immoral) prinicples...  Now professor Yoo -- yes for those who don't know it -- the morally corrupt (in my opinion) Yoo has tenture at Berkely law school. So it seems Yoo is advising our morally corrupt president on how to rule by decree--- because hey, following the actual law is cumbersome for the likes of criminals like Trump and Yoo is the perfect person for this job.
You can read more here and here.

The fact that Yoo is even in the position he is in is a failing of Obama (and of course Berkely law schhol) who decided to look forward... and not hold any of the torturers responsible.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian...

Let's start with the good news:

A gangster in the White House

ROGER FITCH ESQ • WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020

SCOTUS rules on Electoral College voting ... Sexual identity and civil rights ... Native-American reservations ... Dreamers ... Presidential tax records ... The power of theocrats and churches ... Some helpful rulings, others less so ... Justice Department habitually supporting Trump's personal battles in court ... Curious belief that a mentally unfit president could be reelected ... Maybe it is possible ... Roger Fitch reports from Washington 

The 2019 supreme court term has ended. Here's who won and who lost.

First the good news. 

"Faithless electors" can be punished; the decision was unanimous - dealing with situations where members of the Electoral College seek to defy the will of a state's voters. 

In a Louisiana case, the court ended non-unanimous jury verdicts in state felony trials. Linda Greenhouse was fascinated by the hidden agendas revealed in the individual opinions.

In Bostock, a majority supported a literal reading of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 so as to cover sexual identity and orientation. The conservative Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch joined the court's liberals and wrote the opinion. The Atlantic recounts the fortuitous presence of the word "sex" in American anti-discrimination law.

Bostock will affect overtly discriminatory Health and Human Services regulations recently announced by Trump and under legal attack, but religious zealots hope to use their claims to circumvent the new ruling. Some observers suspect Gorsuch laid landmines in Bostock to further future conservative initiatives.

In Indian Country (as we say) there was the momentous McGirt decision, again featuring Justice Gorsuch, who affirmed the enduring validity of Native-American reservations covering vast areas of eastern Oklahoma.  

In the DACA decision (Trump v NAACP), Chief Justice Roberts joined the court's liberals in finding that the Trump administration's efforts to abolish President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals  failed, not because it couldn't be done, but because of the sloppy way it was attempted. 

Citing respect for precedent, the newly-fluid CJ also joined a liberal majority in June Medical Services v Russo, striking down a Louisiana abortion restriction almost identical to one found unconstitutional by a differently-composed court in 2016. 

READ THE REST HERE.

Trumps war against the International Criminal Court

I have been meaning to write about this for over a month but things keep getting in the way....All of the men at Guantanamo (past and present) are victims of US war crimes.

Bush jr pulled us out of the International court (ICC) as one of his first acts when he was "elected" back in 2000.  Obama ignored the issue when he could have reinstated the US (when he had a majority in both houses) and of course Trump would never recognize the ICC.

So it looked like the US was going to get away with its war crimes in Afghanistan. However, Afghanistan is a member of the ICC and when the prosecutor started to look into the war crimes it was with Afghanistan's blessings. 

So now the US can be held accountable for our war crimes in Afghanistan even if we have not signed on to recognize the court. Bad news for the US but good news for justice.

Of course the Trump administration is vehemently opposed to any scrutiny by the ICC -- the US believes it is not accountable to anyone, nevertheless the ICC. And so the bullying begins.....or I guess I should say, the bullying continues. 

More here.