News bits: Tax increase myths; Court decides on interest conflict; About Sotomayor

Robert Reich debunks 12 popular myths about tax increases for wealthy people. 

Thanks to MC63 for bringing this video to my attention.

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The Hill reports about the judge’s decision to let prosecutor Fanni Willis remain on the case even though her sex affair created an appearance of a conflict of interest:

Georgia Judge Scott McAfee has provided a pathway for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) to move forward with criminally prosecuting former President Trump, but he also gave her a scolding reprimand over a romance with a top prosecutor.

McAfee said Trump’s election interference case can proceed with Willis at the helm so long as her once-romantic partner, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, steps aside. [which he has now done]

His 23-page decision went on to criticize the district attorney at multiple turns — both over the romance itself and her public comments — saying Willis created an appearance of a conflict.

“Our highest courts consistently remind us that prosecutors are held to a unique and exacting professional standard in light of their public responsibility — and their power,” McAfee wrote. “Every newly minted prosecutor should be instilled with the notion that she seeks justice over convictions and that she may strike hard blows but never foul ones.”

While the judge didn’t outright call anyone a liar, he did note “reasonable questions” that Willis and Wade weren’t truthful when they testified under penalty of perjury.

“However, an odor of mendacity remains,” McAfee wrote. “The Court is not under an obligation to ferret out every instance of potential dishonesty from each witness or defendant ever presented in open court. Such an expectation would mean an end to the efficient disposition of criminal and civil proceedings.”

The bit about the odor of mendacity is troubling. DJT is probably going to use this to slow the proceedings. Presumably he will appeal all the way up to the USSC if that is possible. In the end, the Georgia election interference case could just blow up and go away.  

The MAGAlandia propaganda Leviathan is already demagoguing this:

Graham rips ‘nonsensical’ ruling on Fani Willis disqualification: 

‘Today is a sad day for Georgia’

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) criticized Georgia Judge Scott McAfee’s “nonsensical” ruling not to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) for once having a romantic relationship with a prosecutor she appointed to the case against former President Trump.

Graham said “politics” is hanging over the election interference case against Trump and his allies, and McAfee’s decision “reinforces” the narrative of a “two-tiered” justice system going after the defendants.

This decision is not nonsensical. But it is helpful to DJT’s court case and MAGA propaganda generally. Willis really screwed the pooch and all of us she she decided to have sex with a guy she put on the prosecution team. What an idiot move.

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A month or so ago, we all remember that I posted about Sonya Sotomajor pulling a Ruth Bader Ginsberg and dying while DJT was in office again. She travels with a medic in case of a medical emergency. That fact prompted me to instantly think, ‘Aw crud! Here go again. Another RBG is just waiting to happen.’ Welp, fellow worry warts (and other kinds of warts), someone else has the same concern. Bloomberg Law writes: 

Quiet Fears About Sotomayor Echo Ginsburg Retirement Concerns

Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a point of describing how “tired” she is at a recent public event and how she’s working harder than expected on the eve of turning 70.

But the nation’s first Latina on the US Supreme Court has faced little public pressure from progressives to retire ahead of the November election in which Republicans could regain control of the White House, Senate—or both.

Progressives similarly felt uneasy calling for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to step aside while Barack Obama was in office. Some regretted that silence when her death from pancreatic cancer at 87 mere weeks before the 2020 election paved the way for a 6-3 conservative court.

As was the case with Ginsburg, a feminist icon, there is a sensitivity in pushing for the retirement of the first woman of color to serve on the Supreme Court, said Paul Collins, a legal studies and political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“The optics of that don’t look great in many progressive circles,” said Collins, who co-authored a book on the impacts of race and gender in Supreme Court confirmations.

If the RGB scenario comes to pass, the Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party (formerly the GOP) will have a 7-2 majority. And this time the 7th vote will not be a product of Leonard Leo. It will be a product of a corrupt, bigoted authoritarian horror that DJT and MAGAlandia elites dredge up out of the sewer.

Just my humble opinion.

DJT’s next nominee in action 😮

A THREAD ABOUT A WEAK WEST

 I have long been amused and disheartened by the west's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Here I am, a liberal Snowflake, typically against military interventions, wondering how in the world we could have lost our hawkishism. One reason, maybe the only reason, we may have needed a Nikki Haley.

What is typical in leftist circles, is something left over from failed wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. We shouldn't be interfering in the affairs of other nations.

All of the above and below are my own personal observations. I will not be posting any links to any publications to give me the ideas I have circulating around in my head. So here goes..........

The west has gone soft. Dangerously soft. In my opinion. Iran may well achieve it's goal of building a nuke. Israel may well take care of that problem on it's own. Because we in the west don't have the balls any longer to stop Iran from doing so. If Israel does so the west will turn even MORE against Israel than it already has. That is how we roll now. 

When Russia invaded two territories belonging at the time to Georgia, the west barely blinked. Ditto when Russia invaded Crimea. The west kept believing, as did the leftist snowflakes, that surely that would be the end of Putin's adventurism. Guess what? And yet we keep hearing from the same leftist snowflakes that Russia will stop after they have taken Ukraine. 

Here is how Russia should have been dealt with and can still be dealt with. Be prepared. You are going to hear things from this liberal snowflake you would never have expected to hear from him.

After the invasion of Crimea, massive amounts of weapons, including offensive weapons, should have been shipped to Ukraine. NATO forces should have been stationed in Ukraine. Massive financial aide should have been given to Ukraine. Pre-emptive. 

Next: why do we still have pro-Russian regimes like Cuba still on our doorsteps? It would only take a minimum effort to remove the commies once and for all from Cuba. Ditto with Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Go in full force, take the governing regimes out. Would help enormously with illegal immigration as well. Those invasions would actually be humanitarian since people suffer in those countries.

But too late now. So what can the west do now? 

They could still take out the commie regime in Cuba at the bare minimum. Get it done!

And get this - Russia has now shipped nukes to Belarus and barely a blink from the west. Again acting like chickens. If Russia can ship nukes to Belarus then the west can ship some nukes to Poland, the Baltics, Finland. 

The west can also send combat troops to Ukraine. Never mind that congress is tying up aide to Ukraine. NATO can send troops. They do not need to be employed offensively but employed to defend the Capital of Ukraine and it's larger cities. Even offensively, what is Russia going to do, threaten us with nukes? THAT threat alone has already caused the lilly livered west to quake in their boots. Seriously?

Clearly we need another John F. Kennedy who had no problem facing the Ruskies down. Putin is bluffing. If the west had nukes placed in NATO countries bordering Russia, I think that would send a clear message. The counter-argument would be "but that would only provoke Putin." Imagine how Putin must be laughing at us. Mind you, the US had to be dragged into WWII because peaceniks didn't want us involved. Only an invasion on Pearl Harbor woke us up from our slumbers. 

What will it take this time? NK hitting us with a nuke? Russia invading a NATO country? When will the west grow a spine?

BTW, none of this rant is about making a suggestion about who should be Prez. Biden, in this department has been weak. Congress is just as or more weak. Trump would be worse. Bring on Nikki Haley or someone on the D side (if there is anyone) with the determination to take on Putin. 

BEFORE IT'S TOO DAMN LATE!

News chunk 'n bits: Trickle down economics trickles up; The Biden impeachment

A WaPo opinion by Jennifer Rubin discusses the evidence that trickle down economics cause wealth to flow up to the top, increasing inequality:

‘Trickle-down economics’ is a scam that ignores decades of evidence

Like climate change denial, the claimed economic benefits of tax cuts for the rich don’t hold up under scrutiny. .... Republicans often reply: “But look at the growth and jobs!” Actually, we have seen a steady stream of evidence debunking this rationale.

Last July, NEC Director Lael Brainard laid out the overwhelming evidence that “trickle-down” economics — defined as “cutting taxes for big businesses and those at the top” — has been a bust.

“Economic inequality increased, many communities suffered from sustained disinvestment, and earnings growth for many Americans failed to keep pace with the cost of necessities like health care, housing, and education,” she said. “Investments in infrastructure and vital industries stagnated.”

This isn’t new evidence, either. A 2020 paper by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London examined “18 developed countries — from Australia to the United States — over a 50-year period from 1965 to 2015,” CBS News reported. “The study compared countries that passed tax cuts in a specific year, such as the U.S. in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on the wealthy, with those that didn’t, and then examined their economic outcomes.” It turns out that “per capita gross domestic product and unemployment rates were nearly identical after five years in countries that slashed taxes on the rich and in those that didn’t, the study found.”

But there was one significant difference: “The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.” Oops.

Well, what about the huge tax cuts passed by MAGA Republicans in 2017? Were those any different? “Mr. Trump’s tax cuts have lifted the fortunes of the ultra-rich,” the report found. “For the first time in a century, the 400 richest American families paid lower taxes in 2018 than people in the middle class, the economists found.”  

But economic growth made up for this handout, right?! Not so fast. Wages for average Americans did not keep up with the cost of living. Worse, “Even before the pandemic, income inequality had reached its highest point in 50 years, according to Census data,” as CBS News reported. And, before Biden came into office, income inequality worsened as the pandemic hurt the less-well-off more severely than it did the rich.

We all knew it, but a reminder is useful.

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The NYT reports that House TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party) elites are getting worried that they will never be able to impeach president Biden. Instead, they want to send a slew of criminal referrals to the DoJ against Joe and his family in a desperate move to save face and make it look like they are not being “political.” 

Mr. Armstrong said he believed criminal referrals were the much more likely outcome. Mr. Armstrong suggested House Republicans could make referrals regarding alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act in connection with international business deals by Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and suggested that the Justice Department investigate accusations of obstruction.

“I’m still interested in why we haven’t gotten better answers on the whole-of-government approach to obstructing all of these investigations,” Mr. Armstrong said.

Given how jaw-droppingly incompetent and politically stupid Merrick Garland is, he will probably comply and start investigations so as not to look political. The disaster called the TTKP is un-effing believable. So is Garland. 

I still remember those 4 or 5 slam dunk obstruction of justice felonies that DJT committed to subvert the Mueller investigation. Garland still has not lifted a finger to prosecute America’s loud and proud Felon-in-Chief. Fire Garland. Lest we forget, here is a four felony obstruction analysis that Law Fare published in 2019:

And here is a five felony analysis by a different attorney:

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Crackpottery from Lindellandia: This is sort of about the 2020 stolen election lie, more or less. Raw Story reports that Mike Lindell backed away from showing the public explosive evidence that would shatter modern civilization and destroy everything, leaving Earth a lifeless ball of rock, microplastics and Teslas (Teslae?) with discharged battery packs:

“The Supreme Court case, the lawyers will be turning it in later on on Thursday,” Lindell said of his purported evidence. “We were going to do it right on-site at the Supreme Court, but they said, no, Mike, it's too risky.”

“It’s going to be too dangerous,” he added. “The evidence we’re going to put in this case has never been seen before. And the only reason we’re able to do it is because they kicked this case out on standing. Had they not done that, we wouldn’t be able to add this new evidence.”

“And it is so explosive.”

One might have realized from this blither that the nutter Lindell is well past bat guano crazy. Maybe people have to go to Lindell’s personal website, where they may or may not be asked to buy pillows, before they can see the explosive evidence. Maybe the evidence will cause people’s computers to explode. Who knows? One peanut in the gallery commented astutely: This guy is so full of shit his breath stinks!

Also note, that the USSC does not determine the actuality or legal relevance of evidence. That is the job of trial courts and discovery demands. American politics has officially hit ludicrous speed!

What ludicrous speed looks like

Direct threats from Christianlandia: 

“The government doesn’t make the law. The people rise up, power rises up from the people and the people make the law. And that law should be in accordance with God’s word and the conscience. And these federal laws are restricting both of those things. So when this authority – namely the federal government – commands what God has forbidden or has not required, second – whenever it forbids what God commands or has not forbidden, third – whenever it oversteps its constitutional jurisdiction, or fourth – binds the conscience that God alone has jurisdiction, we – those who are their authority – we are the authority for the federal government in this situation, we are not to obey them whenever they take tyrannical action.” – Christian nationalist Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers.

Notice the nonsense in Deevers’ deranged blither? The people make the law but God makes the law and those [mostly White males] who claim God’s authority are God’s authority, whatever that might be. Or something like that.

And that is all the politics fit to print. Hi yo Silver, ludicrous speed away!

An essay on the origins of TTKP lethality

TTKP: Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party

An essay that Thom Hartmann wrote for Daily KOS asks this interesting question: “How Come Everything the Republican Party Stands for Involves Other People Dying?”

Republican-controlled “Red” states, almost across the board, have higher rates of: Spousal abuse, Obesity, Smoking, Teen pregnancy, Sexually transmitted diseases, Abortion, Bankruptcies and poverty, Homicide and suicide, Infant mortality, Maternal mortality,  Forcible rape, Robbery and aggravated assault, Dropouts from high school, Divorce,  Contaminated air and water, Opiate addiction and deaths, Unskilled workers, Parasitic infections, Income and wealth inequality, Covid deaths and unvaccinated people, Federal subsidies to states (“Red State Welfare”), People on welfare, Child poverty, Homelessness, Spousal murder, Unemployment, Deaths from auto accidents, and People living on disability.

But are all these things, along with widespread GOP support for dictators like Putin, Orbán, and Xi, happening because Republicans hate their citizens and worship poverty, death and disease?

Or is there something in the GOP’s core beliefs and strategies that just inevitably leads to these outcomes?

It turns out that’s very much the case: these terrible outcomes are the direct result of policies promoting greed and racism that the GOP has been using for forty+ years to get access to billions of dollars and win elections.

Using racism as a political strategy while promoting and defending the greed of oligarchs always leads to widespread poverty, pollution, ignorance, and death regardless of the nation it’s done in. 

The GOP first openly embraced racism in 1964 when the party’s presidential candidate that year, Barry Goldwater, proudly refused to support the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It was a huge shift for the party of Lincoln, and when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law on July 2, 1964, the South did a collective “what the hell?!?”

But racism alone can’t explain the entire list above. There had to be something else.

The second element embraced by the GOP that filled out the rest of the list above happened in 1980 when they hooked up with religious grifters and greedy, morbidly rich people.

Prior to that election year, George HW Bush and his wife Barbara were big advocates for Planned Parenthood and a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, had signed the nation’s most liberal abortion law and was also an outspoken supporter of Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood.

The 1980 election saw the first major merger in American history between a political party and a religious movement largely run by grifters. Something that would have both shocked and horrified the Founders of our country and the Framers of the Constitution.

Republicans started talking about God (the word appeared in their platform for only the second time since the Party’s formation in 1856), and preachers and televangelists began to openly push GOP candidates from the pulpit in defiance of nonprofit law and the IRS.

As the GOP went deeper down their religion-induced rabbit hole, their hostility to science was logically accompanied by a hostility to education and educated people. George HW Bush and Rush Limbaugh began talking about “pointy-headed liberals in ivory towers,” openly trashing higher education to bring blue-collar voters into the party.

That was followed by a sustained Republican attack on public education itself by pushing for-profit privatized “charter schools” and vouchers, an ironic position in that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower had probably done more to advance public education than any president in the 20th century.

Thus was set up the GOP’s 2020 hostility to masks and Covid quarantines, sex education and birth control, and their 2021 attacks on vaccination. And their continuous denial of global warming.

The other big turning point for the GOP in 1980 was Reagan’s open embrace of America’s oligarchs.

Just four years earlier, in their Buckley v Valeo decision, conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled that when a rich person showered so much money on a politician that that politician pretty much only voted the way the rich person wanted, that was no longer bribery but, instead, First Amendment-protected “free speech.”

In 1978, in a Republican-appointee-only decision written by Lewis Powell (of Powell Memo fame), the Court extended that right to buy politicians to American corporations (it was extended to international billionaires and corporations in 2010 by Citizens United.)

The result of this whole sad history is that Red states have been turned into sacrifice zones for Reagan’s racial and religious bigotry and the neoliberal raise-up-the-rich and crap-on-unions economic policies he inflicted on America.

In the years since the Reagan Revolution, TV preachers have become multimillionaires with private jets, their parishioners have slid deeper and deeper into poverty and addiction, and the unholy alliance of church and state that Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton warned us about is now arguably — behind great wealth — the second most powerful political force in America.

That is sobering. The evolution of the morally rotted TTKP is loaded with toxic radical authoritarians and shameless grifters. Hm, that sounds a lot like the evolution of the morally rotted DJT.