ShazzieB
ShazzieB's JournalNeal Katyal: Why the Trump trial should be televised.
I've seen some comments at DU expressing that the J6 trial in DC should not be televised. I could not disagree more, and this opinion piece by Neal Katyal in the WaPo explains why better than I ever could.
Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, served as acting solicitor general of the United States from 2010 to 2011.
While many states allow cameras in courtrooms, federal courts generally do not. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53 states: “Except as otherwise provided by a statute or these rules, the court must not permit the taking of photographs in the courtroom during judicial proceedings or the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom.” Whatever the virtues of this rule might have been when it was adopted in 1946, it is beyond antiquated today. We live in a digital age, where people think visually and are accustomed to seeing things with their own eyes.
A criminal trial is all about witnesses and credibility, and the demeanor of participants plays a big role. A cold transcript cannot convey the emotion on a defendant’s face when a prosecution witness is on the stand, or how he walks into the courtroom each day.
Most important, live (or near-live) broadcasting lets Americans see for themselves what is happening in the courtroom and would go a long way toward reassuring them that justice is being done. They would be less vulnerable to the distortions and misrepresentations that will inevitably be part of the highly charged, politicized discussion flooding the country as the trial plays out. Justice Louis Brandeis’s observation that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” is absolutely apt here.
MORE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/03/trump-trial-tv-broadcast/
Non-paywall/gift link: https://wapo.st/3Qkr7Xr
I am 100% convinced that televising the trial is the right choice. We need to let the American people and the rest of the world see for themselves how America handles the prosecution of our most crooked criminal president ever.
Frederick Douglass: Belfast statue of black anti-slavery activist unveiled
Mr Douglass, a former slave, was a leading member of the abolitionist movement to outlaw slavery in the US. He visited Belfast a number of times in the 1840s at the invitation of the Belfast Anti Slavery Society.
The lord mayor of Belfast described the unveiling of the statue as a "positive news story for the city". "His writings and his values are just as relevant today as they were in the 19th century when he was touring Ireland," Ryan Murphy said.
*snip*
Historian and tour guide Tom Thorpe said the statue was appropriate, describing Belfast as an "anti-slavery city". He said that while "many people in Belfast did own slaves", an attempt to set up a slave ship company in the city in 1786 failed due to opposition in the city.
"Slavery never established itself here in the way that it did in Liverpool, London, and Bristol," Dr Thorpe added.
More, including additional photos: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-66358247
I thought my fellow DUers might enjoy a piece of uplifting news for a change. This was an eye opener for me, as I had no idea Douglass had such a connection with Belfast or with Ireland as a whole. Good job, Belfast!
(Note: Belfast is in Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, but when Douglass was visiting in the 19th century, all of Ireland was still part of the British Empire.)
What I miss most of all is feeling safe in the assumption that someone who loses an election
will graciously accept the decision of the voters, concede their loss, and fade into the background.
I was a nervous wreck in 2020, scared to death that TFG might be reelected. Silly me, that was actually the only thing I was worried about. I was actually naive enough to believe that if Biden won the election, we would be rid of Trump! It never entered my mind that a concept like "the will of the people" would mean nothing to someone with a mob boss mentality like his.
Never in my worst nightmares could I have conceived of something like the Big Lie, much less an actual plot to interfere with the certification of the election results and overthrow the US government! Even now, looking back, so many of the events that occurred after the election seem surreal to me.
I am absolutely delighted that skilled and detemined prosecutors like Jack Smith and Fani Willis are going after him with such alacrity. The only thing worse than having TFG hovering over the 2024 primaries like a cloud of poison gas would be having him hover over the 2024 primaries like a cloud of poison gas without the constant and imminent thread of prosecution. I don't mind hearing about him nearly as much when most of what I'm hearing is about indictments for the various crimes he's committed.
I've been wrong before, but I really don't see how he can survive all this. He's already staggering under the documents indictments (which Jack Smith has, pardon the pun, jacked up to an even higher level with the additional charges that were just added). Indictments from Georgia will be coming down probably next week, no doubt closely followed by more indictments for the J6 coup and God know what else. TFG is going to be reeling from the impact of all of that.
I know that he's gotten away with a hell of a lot in his misbegotten lifetime, but none of that can begin to compare with the weight of what's coming. He's NOT indestructible, much as he would love to believe he is. I have to believe that, because if I didn't, I'd lose my freaking mind.
I think the term "neo Nazi" makes sense in a historical context.
I'm pretty sure it was coined to differentiate the original Nazis of Nazi Germany from copycat white nationalist groups that have sprung up since WWII, groups based on similar ideology that have no direct connection with Nazi Germany or the original Nazi Party.
Now that the "original" Nazis are all dead or very close to it, it may no longer seem necessary to ďifferentiate, but it still makes sense to me. Why? Because from a historical standpoint, these neo (meaning new) Nazi groups are just that: new groups inspired by the earlier, original one.
Neo Nazis are not members of the National Socialist German Workers Party that existed in German in the 1930s and 1940s. Even though they espouse much of the same ideology, they are completely separate organizations formed by people who were mostly not even born when the "real" Nazi Party was in existence.
Calling them "Nazis" for short is fine, imo, but I think it's still a good idea to differentiate, so that we don't lose sight of what they really are: copycats and pretenders. These are guys (almost exclusively males, afaik) who get off on emulating a bunch of (very) bad guys from the past, strutting around in their fake Nazi outfits and sig heiling each other because it makes them feel important.
Are they dangerous? Absolutely, not just because they use the name and symbols of the Nazi Party, but because ALL white supremacist/white nationalist groups are dangerous and a threat to this country. Calling them "neo Nazis" doesn't make them any less dangerous, and it exposes them for the cosplaying fakes that they are.
As Republicans elevate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his polls sour
The move was, of course, impossible to separate from conservative media’s own effort to play up Kennedy’s campaign. Fox News has devoted extensive attention to Kennedy on the air and its website, publishing more than 80 articles and videos about him since his campaign launch in April. This despite President Biden’s leading Kennedy by upward of 50 points in polling.
This attention has been predicated on Kennedy’s supposedly surprising strength in the primary. But as we argued back in April, Kennedy’s support appeared largely inflated by his famous last name. And even as he was about to testify, there came evidence that the effort was fizzling.
Kennedy’s support in the Democratic primary is down slightly from those unexpected early polls, which pegged him around 20 percent. But more significant than that, Democratic voters have perhaps predictably turned on him as they actually learn about him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/20/robert-kennedy-jr-polls/
No paywall: https://archive.ph/2023.07.20-211232/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/20/robert-kennedy-jr-polls/
That's right, he's dipping in the polls with everybody except Republicans. Democrats who were initially dazzled by the Kennedy name are noping out as they learn what he's really about. Which is pretty much what a lot of us thought would happen, iirc.
Jack Smith meme
I made something to celebrate today's news about the upcoming January 6 indictment(s). It all started with this post: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218098327 (thanks, Joinfortmill), which included the following quote from Jeff Tiedrich: "Jack Smith is making America great again, one indictment at a time."
I loved it so much I decided to make a meme (changing the wording only slightly):
If you like this, Feel free to steal and post anywhere and everywhere!
The Deep-Down Truth of Why Evangelical Christians Can't Stand Drag
This article is a few months old but I don't think it ever got posted here. I think it's still very timely, and it actually cleared up a few things for me, so here it is:
*snip*
... why do these [anti-drag] bills garner such emphatic support among those on the Christian right? As sociologists who study conservative Protestants’ discussions of faith, gender, and sexuality, we believe the answer lies not so much in claims about drag performers and trans people (distinct but sometimes overlapping groups) as it does in conservative Protestants’ own sense of themselves.
In a 10-year ethnographic study of the religious experiences of LGBTQ and allied conservative Protestants conducted with Theresa Tobin, Dawne Moon has noticed a number of seeming paradoxes: The all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe is threatened by trans and intersex people’s existence, even though Jesus had no problem with eunuchs. Pastors at a megachurch turned a blind eye to a married straight man hitting on women at church, but confronted a gay man, whom they required to be celibate, because someone had reported seeing him “on a date” (meaning eating at a restaurant with a friend who was a man). And “Lisa,” a 29-year-old lesbian from Texas, told us that growing up, she learned that being gay “was the one thing that you never, ever wanted to be as a Christian. To me, I felt like the church thought it was the worst sin ever. Higher than murder or something.” Lisa and many others we spoke with learned from church that murderers can be forgiven, but being LGBTQ is uniquely unforgivable.
All of these paradoxes make more sense when you realize that for a lot of conservative Protestants, rigid gender roles are not just the traditional default, but a commandment upon which all of creation rests—more important, in practice if not on paper, than the Ten Commandments, including loving God and neighbor. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor James M. Hamilton Jr. has said that complementarity—the belief that God assigns different, “complementary” roles to men and women through biology—is like gravity in a story about a plane crash: the force that makes everything possible and gives life meaning. In the same book, STBS President Albert Mohler calls gender complementarity “the Bible’s most fundamental revelation about what it means to be human.”
*snip*
But what about drag? The conservative Protestant worldview insists that differences between men and women are dictated by God and embedded in biology, and generally speaking, drag challenges this assumption, highlighting how “masculine” and “feminine” qualities can overlap, being more like a spectrum than a stark opposition. Drag reveals, in the words of social theorist Judith Butler (whom conservatives namecheck disparagingly more often than you might think), that gender is a “copy of a copy, for which there is no original.” For centuries in Western culture, drag has played with gendered ideals, showing that some men can do the same things women do to look feminine—put on makeup, wigs, high heels, and push-up bras and shapewear, and walk and talk in “feminine” ways—and often approximate the feminine ideal more closely than many women. Drag plays with gender, revealing the invisible work that makes masculine and feminine seem like natural opposites.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/04/evangelical-drag-bills-theology.html
After reading this, I think I finally kind of get what they're so upset about. I still think their positions on LGBTQ issues are odious and their hysteria about drag is ridulous, and I don't really have an idea what to do about any of this (excerpt elect more Democrats, which goes without saying). But I find it helpful to better understand what is driving all these attacks on trans folks and on drag. Some may not concur, but I'm posting this for those who, like me, may find it helpful.
'Kids died.' The story of RFK Jr., anti-vaxxers, and a measles outbreak: Mehdi's deep dive
Don’t call RFK Jr. a “political maverick” or “vaccine skeptic.” As Mehdi notes, his anti-vaccine effort has real-life consequences. For proof, just look at the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa, where dozens of children died thanks to a steep drop in vaccinations. Mehdi’s deep dive looks at the deadly cost of the anti-vaccine movement Kennedy has boosted.
https://www.msnbc.com/mehdi-on-msnbc/watch/-kids-died-the-story-of-rfk-jr-anti-vaxxers-and-a-measles-outbreak-mehdi-s-deep-dive-187033157936
Video is at the above link; I can't figure out how to embed it.
John Roberts Is Already Frustrated With the Response to SCOTUS Killing Student Debt Relief
The title of this post is the actual title of an article in Slate today! What a whiney crybaby Roberrs is. He needs to make his decisions and own them (yes, even the shitty ones, which is most of them lately), and act like an adult when people disagree and fellow justices dissent. Because that's what adults do. Any decision the court makes, somebody will disagree with it, and pouting when that happens looks incredibly childish. Anyway, here's the article...
More: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/john-roberts-supreme-court-kills-student-debt-relief.html
Personal affront, my ass! Grow tf up, Roberts!
Yes, yes, yes.
Especially the part about using terminology like "terrible choice" or "heart-breaking/agonizing decision." I don't even like it when people refer to abortion as a "difficult" choice/decision. I know it's difficult for some, and I sympathize with anyone who has been taught to regard abortion as a horrible thing and has to wrestle with that conditioning when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. But it is NOT a "heart-breaking" or even particularly difficult decision for everyone. It wasn't for me, when I was a pregnant college student. As soon as my period was late, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and the only really hard part was figuring out how to scrounge enough money to fly to New York where it was legal.
Hard as it may be for some to comprehend, I was never taught to regard abortion as something "sinful," evil, or horrific. I wasn't raised Catholic, which as far as I know was the only branch of Christianity that heavily opposed abortion at that time. The evangelical and fundamentalist churches didn't jump on that bandwagon until long after I had left the denomination I was raised in, so I never received those kinds of messages, or any message equating abortion with "murder." I never even heard the word "abortion" until I read it in a magazine article at the age of 14 or 15. I asked my mom what it meant, and her reply was very matter of fact, because she had never received any of those messages, either.
That was in the mid-60s, when second wave feminism was getting underway. By the end of that decade, I had started reading about the movement, absorbing its principles, and adopting them as my own. One of those principles was the need to legalize abortion and give women control of their own bodies. My reaction to that idea was, simply, "Of course!"
So when I (a first generation, full time college student, attending school on financial aid plus the earnings from a part-time job) unexpectedly fell pregnant in 1972, it was clear to me what choice I was going to make. I didn't have the financial resources to raise a child without dropping out of school, which was unthinkable to me.. Roe hadn't happened yet, but the state of New York had legalized abortion in 1970 and become a popular destination for anyone in need of abortion who could finance the trip. I proceeded to make my plans accordingly.
At that point, I didn't even know it was supposed to be a "difficult" decision, much less a controversial one. As far as I was concerned, I was simply making the most sensible and practical choice that was available to me. My father, bless him, helped me with the money, and I made the trip and returned to school afterwards, confident that I had made the right choice for me and relieved to be able to continue with my studies as planned.
When people use "scare" words like terrible, agonizing, and even difficult, to describe the choice to terminate a pregnancy, it feels like a judgment against people like me who didn't see it as something requiring a struggle. It implies that the reason we shouldn't judge a woman for having an abortion is. because it's such a terrible, hard choice. I don't think any woman should be judged for having an abortion, period. Whether it was a difficult choice or not is completely beside the point.
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Name: SharonGender: Female
Hometown: Chicago area, IL
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Member since: Tue Mar 26, 2013, 04:18 AM
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