News bits: Fear paralyzes Biden; The radical right openly questions Democracy

PD comments about the increasingly dire Afghan refugee situation and Biden's paralyzing fear of the radical right:

To be fair the Afghan Adjustment Act does have broad bi-partisan support, but predictably those who opposed it are Republicans-- and they did so on bogus grounds. In particular, Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell went out of their way to make sure it was not included in the 2022 year-end spending bill. These are 2 of the most immoral politicians in the Senate, and they're good at being effective immoralists with decades of practice and chops behind them.

As Krish Vignarajah said in the PBS interview above, if one of the MAGA candidates becomes president [in 2024], these Afghan allies will be screwed beyond repair.

That said, even the Dems and Biden have been intimidated into slowing efforts to do the right thing by these right wing radicals you discuss so often. As Mark Hetfield, President and CEO of the Jewish refugee agency, HIAS (the world's oldest refugee agency) aptly stated, due to Republican pressure and criticism, "This [Biden] administration is scared to death of immigration issues." He compared current efforts to resettle those in emergency situations to "an ambulance that moves at a glacial pace." He points out that the Refugee Resettlement Act gives the executive all the powers Biden needs to resettle those who so badly need it in a way that results in a path to citizenship, yet they relied on temporary measures like "humanitarian parole" which is now set to expire. It expires after 2 years for those it covers, and so is NOT a long-term solution to a very long term problem. The Ukrainians have fared a little bit better, but not nearly enough. Again, we arm them yet fail to adequately respond to the staggering refugee crisis that ensues. And it's worse for non-Europeans and non-whites generally.

As Noah Gottschalk (Oxfam America) said,

Ukrainian refugees absolutely deserve protection. But [the White House is] basically creating a loophole for them by doing this while leaving mostly black and brown refugees out in the cold.

Biden needs to lead from principle and not from fear. Unfortunately, we can't change the crazies on the Right. We must bring more pressure to bear on the too-cautious Biden Admin when it comes to this issue. I understand there are real challenges when it comes to immigration, but we can-- and must-- do better than this. (info source: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/23/biden-russia-ukraine-refugees-00019829)

Once again, radical right bigotry and racism are poisoning American politics, policy and moral standing.

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America's slide into authoritarianism and theocracy continues: Politico writes about a terrifying trend among elite young radical right Republicans. They are now openly grappling with the concept of authoritarianism-theocracy over democracy and civil liberties:

The Federalist Society Isn’t Quite Sure About Democracy Anymore

After recent Supreme Court wins, the society’s youth arm debates the next stage for the conservative legal movement

It was the start of the second day of the Federalist Society’s National Student Symposium — an annual gathering of conservative and libertarian law students hosted by the conservative legal behemoth ....

“The people I met at student conferences a decade ago are now sitting federal judges,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law and a fixture of the Federalist Society speaking circuit. “The people you meet here and the networks you build up over years — they’re very, very important.”  

This year’s gathering was even more important than most. As the first student symposium since the Supreme Court handed conservatives a historic package of victories on gun rights, religious freedom, environmental deregulation, and, of course, abortion, the weekend offered a window into the shifting priorities and preoccupations of the youngest and most elite members of the conservative legal movement, at a time when the future of the movement as a whole is quietly unsettled. 

The first major clue about those preoccupations came from the symposium’s theme, which the organizers had designated as “Law and Democracy.” As the programming unfolded over the next day and a half, it became alarmingly clear that, even among the buttoned-up young members of the Federalist Society — an organization not known for its political transgressiveness — the relationship between those two principles is far from settled. From radical new theories about election law to outlandish-seeming calls for a “national divorce” the symposium-goers were grappling with ideas that raised fundamental questions about American democracy — what it means, what it entails, and what, if anything, the conservative legal movement has to say about its apparent decline.

That approach made sense for conservatives when they still saw the federal judiciary as a liberal force dragging the country to the left. But now that conservatives have secured a solid majority on the Supreme Court — and voters in several red states have soundly rejected hard-line positions on abortion — a spirited debate is underway within the Federalist Society about the wisdom of deferring to democratic majorities as a matter of principle.

Think about this for a minute: The radical right openly questions the wisdom of deferring to democratic majorities. What, exactly, is that? It is authoritarianism speaking loud and clear, fascism in my opinion. The authoritarianism can be some form of fascism, brass knuckles capitalism, and/or Christian nationalist theocracy. Those are the main ideologies currently on the table the radical right is dining at. 

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Beyond shameless hypocrisy: The Guardian writes:

Trump deregulated railways and banks. He blames Biden for the fallout

In true hypocritical manner, the ex-president has quickly forgotten why the two sectors are in shambles

“Hypocrisy, thy name is Donald Trump and he sets new standards in a whole bunch of regrettable ways,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “For his true believers, they’re going to take Trump’s word for it and, even if they don’t, it doesn’t affect their support of him.”

Not my fault, Joe Biden did it!

Hillary did it! No Joe! No Barak Hussein!

No HUNTER BIDEN did it!

History of Iraq Since US Invasion of March 19, 2003

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Retrospective pieces of varying length,  depth and quality are everywhere in news outlets. The following 10 minute video by Al Jazeera provides a concise overview of the history of Iraq from the invasion of March, 2003 to present. It is less concerned with re-litigating the decision to invade (as many media pieces do) than with showing the impacts on Iraq over the period of time covered. Of course, large books on this topic exist, but I thought this vid managed to pack a lot of important content into a short video essay. Many may remember the war, but increasingly those approaching their prime years in the US have few memories of these events, and many who were adults then never really paid much attention to the multiple perspectives of, and impacts on Iraqis themselves. The extent of the damage left in the wake of the invasion, which  is usually neglected by MSM here, is not only a cautionary tale about bellicose US foreign policy gone awry, but just as important, an opportunity to think about the plight of those for whom the consequences of the war cannot be shunted to the side and ignored like yesterday's news, because its ongoing legacy constitutes the fabric of everyday reality in what is arguably a failed state. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9qe5rWiyNc

Oddly, the video does not show up in Blogger's search engine for youtube links, and pasting it directly does provide a link, but does not make it possible to view on this page. So for those interested, I am placing this excellent short (12 min.) video in a Disqus comment box directly below this OP.

Germaine edit: Here's the video.

Is Donald Trump likely to be arrested soon? Will he be indicted?

 Former President Donald Trump predicted Saturday morning that he will be arrested next Tuesday for his role in making an alleged $130,000 hush money payment to an adult film actress in the waning days of the 2016 election to silence her about claims she'd had an affair with him. 

More:Donald Trump claims he will be arrested Tuesday in Manhattan probe, calls for protests

A spokesperson said Trump has gotten no specific notification that he would be indicted.

The speculation about Trump's potential legal trouble as an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's office nears its conclusion has put law enforcement and the political world on edge. If Trump's claims prove true, it would mark the first time in U.S. history that a former president has faced criminal charges, legal experts say.

Will he be taken into custody or indicted by a grand jury soon? Here's what we know:

Here’s why Trump's indictment may be imminent 

Trump says he’ll still run for president again if he’s indicted in any of the several current investigations into his conduct. But in one of those probes – in the hush-money case in New York – there are new indications that criminal charges might be imminent, according to new information that’s come to light this week. 

• Trump himself predicted on his social media site Truth Social that he'll be arrested Tuesday in connection with the investigation conducted by the Manhattan District Attorney's office and called on his supporters to protest ahead of a possible indictment by the grand jury hearing evidence in the case. 

Trump has denied wrongdoing, and federal investigators ended their own inquiry into the payments in 2019.

Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for Manhattan's District Attorney's office, declined to comment Saturday on Trump's statement. But there are other indications that an indictment may be imminent. 

• Trump ex-lawyer Michael Cohen's cooperation

Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, spent two days last week testifying before the grand jury against his former boss. Cohen, who has already served prison time in connection with this and other cases, reiterated his claims that Trump personally instructed him to pay Daniels so it would not hurt his chances of defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

A source familiar with the investigation told USA TODAY that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team are relying on a wealth of evidence to bolster Cohen’s testimony.

That includes volumes of emails, texts and other documentation gathered during search warrants of Cohen’s premises and electronic devices, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. 

• Porn actress Stormy Daniels' cooperation

Daniels, who claimed to have an affair with Trump in 2006, was also asked by prosecutors from Bragg’s office to meet with them, and did so by Zoom with her lawyer last Wednesday.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, also agreed to be a witness before the grand jury – and during a trial if Trump ultimately is charged with a crime in connection with the payments.

A second source familiar with the investigation said at least seven DA prosecutors and investigators have been involved in the discussions with Daniels and her lawyer, and that she is prepared to share some form of corroborative documentation of her own from the time period in question.

Daniels’ lawyer, Clark Brewster, told USA TODAY he could not comment on what he and Daniels discussed with prosecutors. But he said it was not the first time he has been in touch with them about the case during his representation of Daniels, which began in 2019.

Brewster had no comment on whether Daniels has actually testified before, or has been asked testify, before the Manhattan grand jury that would hand up an indictment in the case.

But Brewster said that Daniels “would make an excellent witness,” citing her cooperation and testimony in the trial of her former lawyer Michael Avenatti.

• Trump's own lawyer's comments

Trump himself was invited to testify before the grand jury, which prosecutors say is a sure sign that the investigation is in its final stages and likely to produce an indictment. After that invitation came to light, Trump's own lawyer in the case, Joe Tacopina, acknowledged the possibility of a looming indictment.

“You know, it's becoming more probable, I think now,” Tacopina told News Nation in an interview Tuesday night, adding, “But the one thing I still hold on to is hope that justice will prevail.”

• Trump's own admissions

Trump himself has, in recent days, admitted to making the payment to stop Daniels from publicly disclosing an alleged affair with him just before the election. Previously, Trump denied complicity in a series of public statements.

“I did absolutely nothing wrong, I never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, nor would I have wanted to have an affair with Stormy Daniels,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media platform. “I relied on counsel in order to resolve this extortion of me.”

Some former prosecutors, including Glenn Kirschner and Paul Pelletier, told USA TODAY that such comments could potentially implicate Trump in the suspected criminal wrongdoing under investigation by the DA's office, including making illegal campaign donations. 

Will Trump be handcuffed and arrested if he is indicted?

Kirschner told USA TODAY on Saturday that authorities often negotiate the surrender of a high-profile defendant like Trump to avoid the spectacle of a “perp walk” in which the person is paraded before the media as they enter the courthouse or police station.

“There will be no reason to cuff him and walk him into police headquarters to be booked," Kirschner said.“There will still be a mug shot, fingerprints and lots of paperwork filled out as part of the booking process. So we will see a mug shot of a former President of the United States but I do not think we're going to see a perp walk.”

Trump’s spokesperson told USA TODAY there has been “no notification” related to the timing of possible criminal charges. But the former president’s call for protests caused concern for law enforcement involved in preparing for such an event.

The appeal for demonstrations, said one official familiar with the arrangements, may immediately require a larger security footprint in New York and more agents assigned to shadow the movements of the former president.

Will Trump's call for protests by supporters lead to violence?

Kirschner said authorities should take seriously Trump’s call to action, saying it could potentially result in the kind of widespread rioting that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“This is a play right out of Trump’s playbook,” said Kirschner. “We started with ‘Stand back, standby.’ We then moved to ‘Come to DC on January 6 , it’ll be wild.’ Now we have ‘Come to Manhattan for my arraignment. Protest, take our country back.’"

But Kirschner said he doubts Trump’s effort will have the same result this time.

“On January 6, people were aggrieved because they had been told their vote was stolen. So they took it personally. Here. I don't think there's that kind of personal motivator the way there was on January 6,” Kirschner said.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/18/what-we-know-donald-trump-indictment/11498610002/

Thoughts:

1. Is Kirschner right OR will there be blood in the streets?

2. Is this going to hurt or help Trump politically?

3. Being charged for hush money but not for Jan. 6 or Georgia might appear  petty in comparison  - but is it better than nothing?

4. What are YOUR plans for Tuesday?

A rebuttal to "Who is most at fault for the mess?"

My post yesterday was based on this 11 minute video by Steve Schmidt, a former radical right Republican operative. 

PD strongly criticized the video because of Schmidt's culpability in fostering the rise of the radical right wing in the Republican Party. 

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Comment: This brought to you by a former Republican and former chief of staff for Presidential candidate John McCain. Someone who saw it change from the inside. He knows of what he speaks.

PD's response and criticisms: I also find it difficult, and at times enraging to hear Schmidt's pious history lectures. Though he once admitted the gravity of his role in the problem he's discussing, he has become fabulously wealthy while conveniently revising the real history of Trumpism which begins with Sarah Palin. When the HBO movie Game Changer came out in 2012, Schmidt confided that watching himself (played by Woody Harrelson) on the screen gave him a "little bit of PTSD." He succinctly spoke a very important truth in a TV interview-- one that is simply left out of the history lesson above:

The experience on this[2008] campaign is that there are worse things than losing…. I think the notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly. And I played a part in that.

It's a severe understatement, and he didn't bother to lay out the depth of that "game change" in legitimizing, as he now puts it, "all those [bigoted] forces that William F Buckley had worked hard to expunge from the Republican Party" (paraphrase fr above vid). A few corrections are in order.

1) The extremist group Schmidt credits Buckley with evicting from the party was called the John Birch Society. Russell Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind, and Buckley met with soon-to-be presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater. Russell Kirk, a Christian "traditionalist" conservative, was adamant about there being no place for the conspiracy theories and proto-fascistic tendencies of The JB Society in the GOP. He said, Buckley later recalled, “The John Birch Society should be renounced by Goldwater and by everyone else — Kirk turned his eyes on me — with any influence on the conservative movement.” 

Goldwater protested (much as Trumpists would do with the poisonous militias, Qanon and others that made JB Society look moderate) that renouncing JB Society would "alienate his base." The Arizona Senator said, "every other person in Phoenix is a member of the John Birch Society." As for the supposedly ethical Buckley, he had accepted donations from the Birch Society's founder/leader, Robert Welch-- a man who had accused Eisenhower (!!) of being a communist puppet. This had not prevented St. Buckley from accepting his donations. 

Now, scared of alienating Welch's followers (the JB Soc itself), Buckley suggested they criticize Welch, suggesting he was not fit to run JB Society. The compromise was designed to NOT alienate JB members, by putting all the emphasis on the leader which in the end would hopefully influence some members to leave the group, while those remaining would become discredited by association. Conservative authors often portray this as high-minded idealism, but it was all about PR and a viable path to the White House for Goldwater who would have preferred it if he could have gotten away with running AND accepting the endorsement of JB Society. Pure calculation; not a sudden burst of ethical insight by those who would fight against civil rights laws and then desegregation in the coming years. 

So, Schmidt's version of history as a Southern Lost Cause takeover (while partly true) is vastly simplified. The powerful New Right forces were not from Jim Crow states, but racist, WF Buckley of Conneticut wealth who wrote God and Man at Yale; Russell Kirk self-professed Christian Conservative philosopher from Michigan with advanced degrees in Literature; Barry Goldwater, senior senator of Arizona, an Episcopalian, self-styled radical Right Libertarian who hated New Deal Liberalism, labor unions and fought against Civil Rights-- the man Martin Luther King declared unfit to become president if the racial divide was to be healed. Oh, and he talked somewhat glibly about using nukes in Vietnam, much as McCain who proudly took his seat in the Senate in the 80s would later talk about "bombing Iran." So, the "conscience of conservativism" opposed civil rights, desegregation, the New Deal and all social programs for the disadvantaged while supporting a vast military industrial complex that would make nukes that should not be limited to deterrence but seriously considered for use against countries like Vietnam. Yeah, I get it now.

2) More serious are Schmidt's own sins of omission above. Did Trump really open the floodgates to all manner of formerly marginal racist, conspiracist, gun-toting, government hating far Right groups and individuals? NO. His approach built very consciously on the inroads of one Sarah Palin who tarred Obama as an American Hating socialist who "pals around with terrorists." She brought gun violence explicitly into election ads while MTG and Boebart were still in High School, with one ad putting House democrats on a map as targets of shootings. One of the targets--Gabrielle Giffords-- was later shot leading to a controversy over the possible role of the ad. The Alaskan, speaking-in-tongues, extremist Christian Nationalist, sharp shooter, who Trump admitted inspired his approach, also threw her support behind Trump's disgusting entry to mass politics as a central proponent of Birtherism. Although she had said that Obama was probably born in Hawaii, she also said cryptically that:

[T]here is something there that the president doesn't want people to see on that birth certificate. [adding that]....I appreciate that The Donald wants to spend his resources on something that so interests him and so many Americans, you know more power to him.

In 2016, Palin's endorsement of Trump was billed by Trump as the "most special of all endorsements." Palin was still wildly popular, a symbol of everything the "alt-right" and Trumpism would soon take to the White House.She was then a darling of such hateful figures as Pat Buchanan and David Duke. Her proudly held adherence to Pentacostal and prosperity gospel (not unlike that of Trump's WH appointee for chair of the evangelical advisory board, Paula White) has since become a staple of the GOP base, and its Christian Nationalist bent. We saw more crosses than American flags on 1/6-- and the flags were used as weapons to injure the police.

I can't read minds, and I don't know with any certainty just how much contrition Schmidt (and for that matter Nicole Wallace who mentored Palin) feel in retrospect. Ironically, they have both built careers as moral "truth-tellers" when it comes to the state of the GOP. 

I hope my comment here has made it clear that there was no "golden age" of enlightened Republicanism in which people like WF Buckley, Goldwater, Reagan, and McCain represented "decent" and "ethical" conservatism. 

I hope its clear that The John Birch crazies were displaced reluctantly and only in order to clear a viable path to the White House for the radical Right Wing ideologue, Barry Goldwater who MLK warned Americans against. There are plenty of good histories of the "New Right" for those who want a more honest and long-term accounting of the nihilism and ironic government bashing Republicans who (while bashing gov't as "the problem and not the solution") captured many of its leading institutions, dragging in to their coalition all manner of religious and ideological crazies. It was new in the late 60s and early 70s and culminated in the merger of Christian Nationalists like Falwell, Cold War hawks, Federalist Society radicals, and et al.  

I hope it is abundantly clear that there's a reason the book and movie on Palin was called "Game Changer," as she was the first nut-case ideologue with no education to be cleared by the GOP as a reliable PRESIDENT should the aging and cancer-striken McCain die in office had he been elected. That means she cleared a bar that otherwise would have remained (at least for a while longer) a barrier for would be inexperienced, ignorant and hateful radical Right Wing candidates.

So, who recommended her in order to help a very flawed candidate (McCain)? Who interviewed her and argued that she was the Hail Mary pass that Team McCain needed? That would be 2 young Republican operatives, both seen widely as paragons of morality today, viz. Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace.

If they had actually admitted the calamitous effects of their choices, rather than rewriting history along the lines of the video above, I might welcome their conversion to sanity and acceptable ethics. But to my knowledge, and based on the above, they are self-righteous (esp. Schmidt) in ways I find disturbing given the roles historians will someday assign them for ushering in right wing populism with a vengeance via Palin. 

Until then, I do think they are useful as anti-Trump/never-Trump propagandists. But their analyses are self-servingly myopic and superficial as far as the roots and causes of our political moment go. Anyway, that's what I believe to be the case, and with much evidence to support such an interpretation. Maybe this should have been an OP rather than a long comment.

(some minor edits are made to increase ease of reading)

Who is most at fault for the mess?

Here's one view of it (11 min. video).

That sounds basically right to me. The radical right no doubt vehemently rejects it. I vehemently reject the radical right's vehement rejection.

There is no room for compromise about facts and little room for bickering about true truths. The democracy-killing bickering commences with reasoning.

News bit: What are the limits of professional, responsible journalism?

A day or two ago, Ron DeSantis sent out a press release. A professional reporter at Axios, Ben Montgomery, called it propaganda. Axios fired Montgomery for being tainted by stating his assessment that the press release was propaganda, not news. My initial reaction was the same as how Esquire describes it:

A point of personal privilege: Ben Montgomery is a friend, a vastly talented reporter and writer, and a member of an informal group of writers to which I am proud to belong. By contrast, Axios stands revealed as a creepy little band of Beltway-drunk dilettantes who, taken together, don't have the courage God gave the average assistant night city editor at a 30,000-circulation daily. If there's one thing I despise most in this business, it's suits who don't stand behind their reporters in the face of unjust, performative outrage and flinch before they're hit.

On Wednesday, Axios fired Ben. From the Washington Post: 

The news release sent Monday afternoon said DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, had hosted a roundtable “exposing the diversity equity and inclusion scam in higher education.” It also called for prohibiting state funds from being used to support DEI efforts. “We will expose the scams they are trying to push onto students across the country,” DeSantis said in the statement. Montgomery, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, replied to the email three minutes after getting it. “This is propaganda, not a press release,” he wrote to the Department of Education press office. About an hour after that, the Education Department’s communication officer, Alex Lanfranconi, shared Montgomery’s reply on Twitter, where it has since been viewed more than 1 million times. Montgomery said the news release had “no substance,” adding that he “read the whole thing and it was just a series of quotes about how bad DEI was.”

Here's the news release. If anything, Montgomery understated his case.  

(I have a long-standing hatred for the rules of “objectivity” when they are used as an excuse for timidity and professional ass-covering by said echelons.) But this was a private communication between a reporter and a government official that the official shared in a public forum. Even the most hidebound traditional journalism ethics don't touch this. It's the apparatchik who should be fired for sharing a private communication for, yes, propaganda purposes.

But the official did so in the hope that Axios would prove to behave like the thoroughgoing chickenshits they've proven themselves to be. Presto! A Pulitzer finalist is out of work. The manipulative desk jockey probably will get a raise.

The press release is shown below:

Questions

So, did DeSantis put out propaganda or actual news? What if it is ~50% news and ~50% not news or not truths or sound reasoning? Is it responsible journalism to call out propaganda or not when it exists? Is there such a thing as propaganda? Did Axios goof or not?

Context

In my opinion, this raises a critically important point about dark free speech, modern American politics and the mainstream media. It took the MSM months and months and thousands of of lies before a few in the MSM slowly, tentatively started calling Trump's lies lies. Before then they were usually called false or misleading statements. Lies differs from false because it asserts intent to deceive. It took me about a month in the weeks before before the 2016 election to realize that Trump was not ignorant or sloppy. It was obvious that he was a blatant liar. I had that figured out by May or June of 2016 after it became clear that Trump might win the GOP nomination. It took the MSM another ~18-24 months to figure it out, and some arguably still have not fully figured this out.

In those early days, every time I pointed out a Trump lie at a radical right politics site, I got vicious blowback and plenty of rancid insults. I was accused and vilified for allegedly lying about Trump being a liar. The radical right base rejected it completely, even when I cited and linked to the sources of my information.

Now here we are in 2023. Inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning are now routinely rejected out of hand by an authoritarian radical right political movement. The morally rotted radical right wealth and power movement routinely deploys copious amounts of divisive, polarizing, profoundly mendacious dark free speech, i.e., propaganda. 

As far as I can tell, there really is such a thing as effective propaganda in politics. It does exist. And, it is undeniably enormously damaging to democracy, civil society and respect for inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning.

Questions again

Does that context put this in a different light? Did DeSantis put out propaganda or actual news? Is it responsible journalism to call out propaganda or not when it exists? Is there such a thing as propaganda? Did Axios goof or not? How should things like this be analyzed?