In this relentless shit-storm, there is so much of great portent that we miss. I just caught up with this maddening decision from a month or two back.

This detail, the Supreme Court’s cursory decision allowing Republlcans in Wisconsin to overrule the governor, and prudence, in ordering an immediate in-person election during a pandemic– provides a vivid example of how skilled lawyers become clever judges. These creatures have long fucked the people by framing large issues of justice and prudence as a strict, narrow question of law.

The privileged few, particularly those unappealable giants of the Supreme Court, often pretend to decide a highly partisan case only on the merits of the narrow question in front of them, surgically applying the exact letter of the law. The question of enforcing the rights of recently freed slaves, rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment? A narrow question of law nullifying those rights, which are, in fact, not even implicated in this case at bar.

Here’s fucking Trump appointee, and rabid long-time partisan, Boof Kavanaugh at work, read it and retch.   Here’s a small slice of Kavanuagh’s 5-4 decision, summarily overruling, the day before the election in dispute, the two lower federal courts:

The dissent is quite wrong on several points [1]. First, the dissent entirely disregards the critical point that the plaintiffs themselves did not ask for this additional relief in their preliminary injunction motions. Second, the dissent contends that this Court should not intervene at this late date. The Court would prefer not to do so, but when a lower court intervenes and alters the election rules so close to the election date, our precedents indicate that this Court, as appropriate, should correct that error…

Of course, ever supremely reasonable, Kavanaugh adds this in his second to last paragraph:

The Court’s decision on the narrow question before the Court should not be viewed as expressing an opinion on the broader question of whether to hold the election, or whether other reforms or modifications in election procedures in light of COVID–19 are appropriate. That point cannot be stressed enough.

That point cannot be stressed enough.

And “Boof” is, of course, merely a reference to flatulence, not to the practice of forcing a large quantity of alcohol into the anus through a tube for purposes of getting outrageously drunk.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg clearly sets out the issues Mr. Kavanaugh does not need to reach with his “narrow” reading:

The Court’s order requires absentee voters to postmark their ballots by election day, April 7—i.e., tomorrow—even if they did not receive their ballots by that date. That is a novel requirement. Recall that absentee ballots were originally due back to election officials on April 7, which the District Court extended to April 13. Neither of those deadlines carried a postmark-by requirement. While I do not doubt the good faith of my colleagues, the Court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement. A voter cannot deliver for postmarking a ballot she has not received. Yet tens of thousands of voters who timely requested ballots are unlikely to receive them by April 7, the Court’s postmark deadline. Rising concern about the COVID–19 pandemic has caused a late surge in absentee- 4 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE GINSBURG, J., dissenting ballot requests. ___ F. Supp. 3d, at ___–___, 2020 WL 1638374, *4–*5.

The Court’s suggestion that the current situation is not “substantially different” from “an ordinary election” boggles the mind. Ante, at 3. Some 150,000 requests for absentee ballots have been processed since Thursday, state records indicate.2 The surge in absentee ballot requests has overwhelmed election officials, who face a huge backlog in sending ballots. ___ F. Supp. 3d, at ___, ___, ___–___, ___–___, 2020 WL 1638374, *1, *5, *9–*10, *17–*18. As of Sunday morning, 12,000 ballots reportedly had not yet been mailed out.3 It takes days for a mailed ballot to reach its recipient—the postal service recommends budgeting a week—even without accounting for pandemic induced mail delays. Id., at ___, 2020 WL 1638374, *5. It is therefore likely that ballots mailed in recent days will not reach voters by tomorrow; for ballots not yet mailed, late arrival is all but certain.

Ginsburg’s quite correct dissent, ends, after correcting several of Kavanaugh’s misleading statements:

The majority of this Court declares that this case presents a “narrow, technical question.” Ante, at 1. That is wrong. The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic. Under the District Court’s order, they would be able to do so. Even if they receive their absentee ballot in the days immediately following election day, they could return it. With the majority’s stay in place, that will not be possible. Either they will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others’ safety. Or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own. That is a matter of utmost importance—to the constitutional rights of Wisconsin’s citizens, the integrity of the State’s election process, and in this most extraordinary time, the health of the Nation. —————— 5Memorandum f:

“Boof” to be flatulent, defiantly and to nauseatingly stinking effect.

[1] The dissent begins, framing the issue in way Kavanaugh flatly dismisses as “quite wrong” in overturning the decisions of the two lower courrts:

JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE BREYER, JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting.

The District Court, acting in view of the dramatically evolving COVID–19 pandemic, entered a preliminary injunction to safeguard the availability of absentee voting in Wisconsin’s spring election. This Court now intervenes at the eleventh hour to prevent voters who have timely requested absentee ballots from casting their votes. I would not disturb the District Court’s disposition, which the Seventh Circuit allowed to stand.

We know that logic loses against rage, blind faith, hatred, a loaded gun, a sword, a bullwhip, a lynch mob and so forth.    Still, let us apply a small bit of basic logic to the claim that highly organized left-wing extremists have any motive to turn peaceful protests against an unbroken pattern of legalized lynchings into headline- grabbing, senseless violence.  

We apply what Martha Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court justice’s mother, a judge, famously taught her son:  use common sense.  Does it smell right or does it smell bad?   Who stands to gain?   Who has the motive to break the law or lie?

The nation witnesses a slow suffocation murder by police over the course of almost nine agonizing minutes.   Witness videos show a police officer kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed man who is on the ground.  The New York Times might write that the “arrested man died after being placed in police restraint,” but few who watch that video would use that convoluted passive voice to describe the cold-blooded killing we can all watch for ourselves.  A cop, acting with depraved indifference (at best), had his knee on a handcuffed man’s neck (his neck!) for almost three minutes after the man was unconscious.   With the active assistance of three police colleagues.

It took about a week, and massive nationwide protests during a pandemic, but eventually all four of the officers who killed the handcuffed man were arrested and charged in his murder.   We note that all four killer cops were immediately fired by their police department.   Not suspended with pay or placed on administrative leave pending hearings, fired outright.   Very unusual, unprecedented, maybe.

There has been tremendous mass outrage, rightfully so, and protests in all fifty states as well as in cities around the world.    In some places there has been looting, stores ransacked and set on fire, police cars and police stations set ablaze.   This is beyond dispute.  The city I live in has an 8 pm curfew because of looting.    The mayhem is a terrible thing, and it also detracts from the power of the peaceful, legal protests using protected expression to demand an end to unaccountable deadly violence by police against unarmed civilians.   

Now comes the Martha Kavanaugh test of common sense and basic logic:

Who stands to gain by shifting the conversation from the righteous demand that police be held accountable when they kill an unarmed person (usually black) to the question of rioting, lawlessness, violent anarchy and direct, tangible, terrifying threats to our civilized American way of life?

Attorney General Barr had an immediate and forceful answer: lawless, organized left-wing extremists and violent anarchist agitators who, in a concerted national strategy, crossed state lines to incite violence in protest after protest turned riot.   These dangerous criminals, he promised, will be prosecuted and jailed under anti-terrorism laws.   Trump tweeted about designating Antifa as a terrorist organization for purposes of using all the tools of counter-terrorism to wipe them out.

source

Who stands to gain by turning peaceful mass protests into violent events that require police violence to contain?

Antifa (short for anti-fascist), an umbrella term for groups without any central leadership, is modeled on the armed groups who fought Nazi thugs and other violent fascist gangs in the streets of nations faced with an imminent fascist future.   Public violence is a well-known tactic of the right, and of fascists in particular.   Fascism glorifies masculine strength and the imposition of will by violence.   Fascists like nothing more than bloodying the faces of their hated enemies.   Picture political demonstrations in any pre-fascist nation, you see blood.

Whenever the left held a rally in Weimar Germany, it would be broken up by squads of violent Nazis, breaking heads.   Without men on the left, willing to slug it out with Nazis, there is only Nazi violence and the rule of terror.   Antifa groups attended the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville a few years back, were among the “very fine people on both sides” with the alt-klan, the alt-Nazis and the various other alt-right white nationalist groups.   A group of angry young white men surrounded the outspoken professor Cornell West at one point.   West was rescued by a group of Antifa fighters who intervened to get him out of danger.   He expresses gratitude to them to this day.

People who come to peaceful mass protests armed with bats, wearing helmets, and masks, with molotov cocktails, may have varying motives.  It’s impossible to tell members of one group from the other without catching them and investigating who they are.   

But strictly as a matter of logic — why would a group whose aim is to counter fascism, particularly in this perilous moment in human history when the USA is ruled by a rigidly authoritarian president who admires and emulates strongmen like that murderous clown in the Philippines, like his lover in North Korea, his close authoritarian ally in Brazil  — conspire to turn widespread peaceful protests against authoritarian unaccountability into riots?   

The only purpose of turning a peaceful assembly into a looting mob is to make them look like dangerous criminals on the news and give the authorities every excuse to break the heads of black people, and whites of conscience, who are assembling and marching with them.  Tear gas, flash-bangs, rubber bullets, beatings with truncheons, are the least these wild animals deserve.

The simple answer is that Antifa and “left-wing extremists” and “violent anarchists” have no motive whatsoever to incite violence at these peaceful demonstrations.  It would be counter to their mission of fighting fascism.  The “plan” to create a massive law enforcement emergency requiring the national guard and all the weapons of counter-insurgency would be an absurd one, advancing no left-wing, anarchist or antifascist purpose.    Fomenting violence and creating a public perception of peaceful protesters as enraged, out-of-control lawbreakers, can only have the opposite effect, as you realize thinking about it for even half a minute.

The only people with a motive to encourage crowds to smash store windows, throw incendiary devices and overturn police cars are the other “very fine people” —  the hardcore, gun-toting core of our mad, pathetic president’s hellbent white nationalist base.   

We also note here that al-Qaeida means “the base” in Arabic —

القاعدة

Not for nuttin’.

to paraphrase the old cliche about showing always being better than telling:

A friend sent me this cartoon today, along with another, that made a beautiful duet, with the perched shit bird pointing to the distraction that turns out to be him furiously distracting, as the death toll mounts and his chances for reelection now depend strictly on the votes of insane people (or successful mass suppression of the vote during an opportune plague):

Not only is this openly corrupt, supremely powerful man nasty, unpleasant, a fool, a liar and a thin-skinned, vindictive, churlish child, he’s also, essentially, a mass murderer in constant denial about his actual repellant nature and inclinations.    He continues to incite hatred and violence (as any good president should, particularly during an international health emergency), and even open rebellion against sections of his own government who are not nice to him.     He takes no responsibility for the predictable results of anything he says or does.   Like millions of morally vacant, inchoately enraged Americans who love him for it.   

Now, like his heedlessly murderous dictator colleague in the Philippines,  he’s threatening to order the military to shoot frustrated protesters turned violent (sometimes in response to peaceful demonstrations met with police tear gas).   The recent police killing in Minneapolis and protests brought out the poet in the president [1] who, after referring to the protesting “n-words” and their SJW sympathizers as “thugs”, tweeting  provocatively “…these THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd and I will not let that happen” then waxing poetic with “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”  [2]   

Twitter responded by flagging Trump’s tweet, warning, “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.” 

source

This pugnacious glorification of violence from the CEO of a brutally divided country ruled by people blind and deaf to the endless, un-prosecuted police murders of civilians who pose no threat  — even when the killing is cold-blooded, irrefutably depraved and well-documented as in the recent suffocation death of the handcuffed and unresisting George Floyd. 

The dangerous crime Floyd was pulled out of his car and summarily executed for was an allegation he’d passed a counterfeit twenty dollar bill.   Three cops stand by keeping order as a fourth brutally kneels on a prone, unresisting, handcuffed man’s neck, for long minutes, as the man begs for mercy, as members of the public take cellphone videos and try to intervene. [3]   Actually, it turns out one stood guard, the other two held George Floyd’s legs as the fourth cop kneeled on his neck until he died.

The policeman who did the actual killing, an experienced nineteen year veteran, kept his knee on the man’s neck until after the handcuffed man was unresponsive, perhaps dead.   He continued to apply his weight to the prone body and did not remove his knee until almost three full minutes after his colleague told him the man on the ground had no pulse, according to the criminal complaint (for third degree murder [4] and manslaughter)  against former officer Derek Chauvin.

The complaint determined that Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds total. Two minutes and 53 seconds of that time was after Floyd became unresponsive.

source

Spin that one for your Flawed Vessel Christian master, moral giant and pious Christian Bill Barr.   Oh, he’s already on it:

Attorney General William Barr issued a statement Friday afternoon, saying:

The video images of the incident that ended with death of Mr. Floyd, while in custody of Minneapolis police officers, were harrowing to watch and deeply disturbing.  The state prosecutor has been in the process of determining whether any criminal charges are appropriate under state law.  On a separate and parallel track, the Department of Justice, including the FBI, are conducting an independent investigation to determine whether any federal civil rights laws were violated.  Both state and federal officers are working diligently and collaboratively to ensure that any available evidence relevant to these decisions is obtained as quickly as possible.  Under our system, charging decisions must be, and will be, based on the law and facts.  This process is proceeding quickly.  As is the typical practice, the state’s charging decisions will be made first.  I am confident justice will be served.

source

 Of course, that confident, unprincipled, fat bastard wouldn’t know justice if it came up, called him by name and gently blew him (as if Justice would ever do such a thing!).

As for the Flawed Vessel itself, to paraphrase the great George Lopez, on the same subject: “fuck that klansman puto.”

[1]  We might assume it was the president’s own prose, though it could have been the creation of fellow poets Stephen Miller or Jared Kushner– but actually it turns out to be an unattributed quote from a racist Miami Police Chief of the late 1960s who coined it in response to “hoodlums in the slums” during the era of  widespread civil rights protests.   

[2]  Thug, or “son of a bitch” are Trump’s  preferred workarounds for the more popular “nigger”– a hateful term which, frankly, he’d use if he had any balls.

[3]  During the  long minutes of the handcuffed man’s agonizing death, witnesses tried unsuccessfully to intervene:

EYEWITNESS 1: You have your knee on his neck.

EYEWITNESS 2: You’ve got your knee right on his neck, officer.

EYEWITNESS 1: He ain’t even resisting arrest.

GEORGE FLOYD: I cannot breathe.

EYEWITNESS 3: Are you having fun?

GEORGE FLOYD: I cannot breathe.

EYEWITNESS 1: You’re just a grown — you’re a tough guy. You’re a tough guy, huh?

OFFICER TOU THAO: What’s that?

EYEWITNESS 1: I said he’s a tough guy. He’s not even resisting arrest, bro.

OFFICER TOU THAO: Did you get the whole part when we fought with him?

EYEWITNESS 1: But, bro, why are you just sitting there? He ain’t doing nothing now. Put him in the car.

GEORGE FLOYD: Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.

[4]  “Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree,” Minnesota statue says.

Determination can be a great thing, as when someone is not deterred by fear, cold water, darkness, the tremendous odds against success, in diving into a raging sewage drain to save the life of a drowning child.    Determination can just as easily go the other way, as when someone like billionaire oil-baron Charles Koch is unalterably determined to leave the world a much worse place than it was when he came into it.    In the second case, determination seems grim and maniacal.

We have a man of grim and maniacal determination at the head of our nation at the moment.   Here are some notes he made on Air Force One, notes he clutched in his hand as he forcefully defended his innocence, arguing strongly to the American public that abuse of power is no crime, no vice, nothing to see.  The notes of his key talking points were photographed, no doubt, by a vicious traitor.

What he wanted, of course, as he said more than once in his famously “perfect” call (as shown clearly even in his “transcript”), was a public announcement from new Ukrainian President Zelensky that the Ukrainians were launching a criminal investigation of Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s apparently corrupt job for Ukrainian oligarchs.  This in exchange for that, the announcement for the arms Congress had already earmarked for Ukraine, or in the Latin, quid pro quo.   

Our CEO, who employs his own unqualified children as senior government advisers, corruptly held up a shipment of arms to our besieged ally for months, as leverage, in an attempt to shake the young president down.  He reminded himself, in his ALL CAPS NOTE, to tell America “THIS (strong denial) IS THE FINAL WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.” 

As it turned out to be when the Republican Senate refused to allow witnesses, documents or testimony introduced at the president’s impeachment trial.  (After Nancy Pelosi bullheadedly refused to connect the dots with an indictment for Obstruction of Justice, which our CEO has done, and continues to do, seamlessly, tirelessly since at least May 2017.)

He is supremely determined to exert his will, and as he rules by fear of swift, ugly, public reprisal, taking his Bully Pulpit quite literally, he has the shameful, obedient support of his staunch loyalists in government.  This man comes by his grim determination naturally, the fourth of five children [1], not the smartest, not the most promising, not his parents’ favorite by any means.  He needed to establish his dominance by any means necessary — he did so by sheer determination to dominate.

He waves red meat in front of his enthusiastic base constantly.   Having many zealously religious Christian supporters, though he himself is as openly irreligious a man as has ever strode the earth (a “flawed vessel” in the words of his Christian apologists), he makes sure to throw them a nice bloody flank from time to time.  On Friday, this:

President Donald Trump: “Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential but have left out churches and other houses of worship. It’s not right. So I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential.”   source

This strong move was in the context of needing an assurance from the treasonous governor of North Carolina, where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held, that he could have a huge arena filled with screaming supporters.   As Amy Goodman reported today:

Trump is threatening to move August’s Republican convention from Charlotte, North Carolina, if the state’s Democratic Governor Roy Cooper doesn’t guarantee he can have a packed arena. On Monday, Trump accused Cooper of being “still in Shutdown mood.” The Twitter attack came just two days after North Carolina registered its largest daily increase in coronavirus cases.
On Friday, Trump said all houses of worship are essential, and threatened to override governors who refused to lift restrictions on them if restrictions weren’t lifted by the weekend.

Of course, if we allow ourselves the indulgence of a moment of logic:  a liquor store can require masks, and allow one or two customers in at a time, same with an abortion clinic.  Medical offices and most food stores all have procedures in place to minimize the spread of this deadly virus. By maintaining space between people, requiring masks and taking other precautions, services can be provided without increasing the  risk of infection.

Obviously, a church is a completely different story, the whole point of a congregation is to congregate.   Same with an arena full of cheering partisans who refuse to wear masks, as their hero refuses, even while touring a mask factory the other day.  If they’d stay in the church, or the packed arena, I’d say God bless ’em, let their savior look after them.   They don’t stay in their churches or arenas, they demand freedom to be free of all restrictions, to infect whoever they damned well please, if this virus is even a real thing!

Look, it’s clear that this grimly determined man is nuts.  He is determined to do whatever is necessary to keep his solid 39% base believing that he is looking out for them, has their backs, always speaks truthfully for their justifiable rage and fear.  Look at the delicious carcasses he is continually tossing to them!   Obamagate!    Traitorgate!    Spaceforcegate!   Sessionsgate!   Comeygate!    Schiffgate!   Muellergate!    Anti-Trump talking head Joe Scarboroughgate!!!   

That traitorous so-called Republican (Scarborough, keep up here, America) who is constantly badmouthing me, murdered a staffer years ago, killed her in cold blood, yet he has the temerity to criticize me?    A murderer!   THE DOJ WILL INVESTIGATE ALL OF THESE SICK AND DANGEROUS INDIVIDUALS, SUCH SERIOUS CRIMES WILL NOT GO UNPUNISHED!!!  If Twitter tries to delete my truthful tweets I WILL DELETE TWITTER!!  (Twitter quickly backed down, as corporate entities will always do, given the right profit incentive).

As for so-called Joe Biden’s so-called female “running mate”?   Get me Mike Flynn!  Mike!  Mike!   Here he is, let’s hear it for this great American hero, completely and totally exonerated by our great Attorney General!   Ready, Mike?     “LOCK HER UP!  LOCK HER UP!!!!” 

The people have spoken!

[1]  The Fuhrer himself was the fifth of six children, also of a ruthless and abusive father, and was, if you can picture it, an even more determined man than our current CEO. 

The president revealed to a gaggle of reporters yesterday that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine for the last couple of weeks, even though he keeps testing negative for COVID-19, in the tests he gets regularly.   

President Donald Trump: “Good things have come out about the hydroxy. A lot of good things have come out. And you’d be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the frontline workers, before you catch it. The frontline workers, many, many are taking it. I happen to be taking it. I happen to be taking it.”

Reporter 1: “Hydroxychloroquine?”

President Donald Trump: “I’m taking it, hydroxychloroquine.”

Reporter 2: “Right now?”

Reporter 3: “When?”

President Donald Trump: “Right now, yeah.”

Reporter 3: “Yeah, when?”

President Donald Trump: “Couple of weeks ago, started taking it.”

Reporter 4: “Why, sir?”

President Donald Trump: “Because I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories. And if it’s not good, I’ll tell you right: I’m not going to get hurt by it.”

source

Hydroxychloroquine is the antimalarial drug  FOX and Trump were enthusiastically promoting a while back as a COVID-19 cure, even though the drug was untested for that use.   Since then:  

Multiple studies have concluded that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 and can in fact have dangerous side effects, including a high risk of cardiac arrest. The FDA issued a warning about self-medicating with the antimalarial drug last month following Trump’s repeated remarks touting its effectiveness. On Monday, Fox News host Neil Cavuto warned viewers about the dangers posed by the drug just moments after the president’s remarks were broadcast.

Neil Cavuto: “If you are in a risky population here and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus, or, in a worst-case scenario, you are dealing with the virus and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kill you.”

source

The president will, no doubt, deal with the traitorous Neil Cavuto later, and I have nothing more to say about that.   Why get involved?   

I just point out, if this is a rare instance when our president is not lying (and we note that he is almost always compelled to lie), and he is actually taking this drug that is known to cause cardiac arrest — “O, sir, to willful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters,” as the Bard had a wicked woman say insightfully of a stubborn fool in one of his greatest plays.

It is most likely that Mr. Trump is lying about taking ‘the hydroxy’, since much of what he says is a lie.   He is, famously, unable to stop himself from lying  about most things (except, presumably, the size of his perfectly adequately-sized penis).   He’s almost certainly lying about his use of hydroxychloroquine, but, forgive me if I do not give him a pass for this lie that will — as surely as a studied drug noted to cause heart attacks in  vulnerable patients causes heart attacks  — kill people who follow his lying example.

The actual fascist in charge of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, an angry militarist and former member of a coup whose only regret about the coup that ended democracy in Brazil for a time a few decades back, is that top coup leaders did not follow his advice and do what was necessary to keep power permanently: execute perhaps 20,000 dangerous intellectuals, leaders and activists.    Now Bolsonaro, who dismisses the virus and opposes quarantine efforts,  is also touting hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure, as his country is currently number three worldwide for coronavirus infections and death.   

We’re number one.  Putin’s Russia is number two.  Number three is fascist ruled Brazil.   Way to go, boys.

You could say it would be fitting for these three, denying the deadly virus is a threat, claiming they are personally impervious to it as they force millions to be exposed and many to die from it, contracted the virus and were incapacitated, unable to stand at a podium and spread the contagion of their ignorance and hatred.   

Say Jair and Donald both actually were taking “the hydroxy”, prophylactically, and Vladimir too, and suppose all three suddenly had the symptoms the lying FDA has warned of.   Imagine the worst– all three clutching their chests, striking a heroic pose, perishing of cardiac arrest.  A fitting outcome?

The freedom-loving Americans who refuse to remain locked down, insist on going out, getting back to work, to play, who will die in larger numbers than if they followed the advice of our best experts — same deal.   If half of the people who would vote for Trump, Bolsonaro, Putin, all follow their leaders’ advice, go out, contract the deadly disease, die — a fitting outcome?

I am too prejudiced to judge that fairly.  Perhaps you can.

I don’t agree at all with the larger political and social vision of these conservative folks, but I admire their conviction and their determination to liberate their party from a deadly, irrational, reality TV cult leader.  I also admire their skill in making powerful spots.   

Check this one out, in your face, Mr. Trump, sir:

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the federal judge presiding over the Mike Flynn case, the prosecution Bill Barr has now decided was launched by possible criminals in his own department, took a bold, creative and highly principled step in considering the DOJ motion to drop the Flynn prosecution.  The DOJ request is unprecedented, a bit of supreme creativity by innovative provocateur Bill Barr; never has someone who pleaded guilty under DOJ prosecution had the case against them dismissed.    Judge Sullivan counter-moved with equal flair.   I salute a judge who stands up for the rule of law this way.   Principled individuals in positions of power are democracy’s only defense against unprincipled individuals in positions of power. 

Flynn’s new defense team, working closely with Barr’s DOJ, insisted to Judge Sullivan that he had no choice but to dismiss the case against their client.   As a matter of law, this may be so.   If the prosecutor drops the criminal case, the case is over.   Flynn’s lawyers told Sullivan that the proper venue for those who have a critique of the DOJ’s admittedly novel move (kidding, they didn’t admit the move was novel, why would they?) is the op-ed page, a place where critics are free to whine and carp about the DOJ’s unappealable decision to their hearts’ content.   The law, they said, is clear.   DOJ prosecutes, DOJ can end prosecution at any time, for any reason– case closed.

Op-ed, you say?    Retired Judge John Gleeson (another judge with a reputation for a sturdy spine) had co-written an op-ed in the Washington Post the other day, very skeptical of the way Barr has suddenly reversed the DOJ’s stance on a close Trump ally who pleaded guilty under oath to lying to the FBI about illegal contacts with foreign governments.    It turns out Flynn didn’t lie to the FBI once, he lied repeatedly, that the FBI gave him numerous opportunities to correct his lies, Flynn continued to lie.  Flynn admitted his guilt under oath, claimed God had told him to repent, move on with his life.   Now, with a new legal team, Flynn claims he was misled by his original legal team into taking the guilty plea, he actually didn’t mean to admit jack shit, he wants to withdraw his guilty plea, retract his sworn statements to the court.   

This presents an interesting legal question:  did Flynn commit perjury when he swore that he had lied to the FBI and then changed his story to say he never meant to admit lying to the FBI?  To simplify this sticky legal conundrum, Barr decided to simply step in and dismiss the case against Flynn.   Judge Gleeson is apparently not convinced that Flynn is not now guilty of the separate felony of perjury.   Judge Sullivan wants to hear more from Judge Gleeson about Flynn’s possible perjury and other issues.  He appointed Gleeson to oppose the Justice Department’s motion to drop the Flynn prosecution.   Much better than even the fiercest op-ed, I’d say!

You can read the lying New York Times story at this link, for more details.