"We are past the point where special treatment and multiple chances make sense"

 

Yesterday afternoon, federal District Judge Emmet Sullivan did something unexpected. Noting that courts, “In cases in which sensitive materials may be in issue,” have the “inherent authority to review such material ex parte, in camera as part of its judicial review function,” Judge Sullivan gave acting Attorney General Todd Blanche five days to provide him with unredacted copies of documents in the Epstein Files that the Justice Department continues to withhold. 

In camera review refers to a process where the Judge would review documents in chambers, without the public or the press present, and an ex parte proceeding in this context is one where the judge reviews sensitive information in the possession of one party without the other party present to determine what, if anything, should be turned over.

Judge Sullivan asked for the following items:

Eight emails along with supporting documentation to confirm DOJ’s representation that the names that are redacted in the published version of the documents are the names of victims.

A document with the names in the “to” and “from” lines redacted, and documentation to support DOJ’s claim that those names are of law enforcement personnel.

A document along with support for DOJ’s claim that the names that are redacted in the published version are the names of victims.

This is in the case filed by Katie Phang, which we discussed here.

The order can be found here.

The Judge previously entered an order that required the government to turn over specific categories of documents it was required to make public by the Epstein Files Transparency Act that became law on November 19, 2025, but has so far failed to disclose. Instead of complying with the court’s order, DOJ asked for two additional months, writing that the government “strongly disagrees” with the court’s order.

Of course, many litigants disagree with decisions judges make. The proper course of action is appealing them. Unless that judge or a higher court issues a stay, the government, like any other party, is obligated to comply.

Before Trump and during the Biden administration, courts were able to rely on representations made by the Justice Department. Every lawyer for the government understood they owed the courts a duty of candor; everything they said in court must be true to the best of their knowledge and swiftly corrected if they subsequently became aware of additional information. The government obeyed court orders, even the ones it disagreed with.

But that’s no longer the case. The presumption of regularity is essentially no more. The presumption is the “‘general working principle’ that means courts will ‘insist on a meaningful evidentiary showing’ before entertaining doubts about the integrity of official acts or documents.” It was commonly used to advance the idea that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, courts should presume government employees, including DOJ lawyers, acted properly in the execution of their duties. Now it’s on life support and Judge Sullivan’s order is another nail in its coffin.

This most recent order suggests that Judge Sullivan doesn’t believe the government when it says something is the case, even when that “something” is as simple as the identity of the person in a “to” line in an email. But the government has acted like it has something to hide, even after Congress passed the Transparency Act and Trump signed it into law. 

So, the Judge isn’t accepting what the government has represented to it as truthful, and is requiring documentation to support its claims. Under any other president, the Attorney General would have been disturbed by the suggestion prosecutors couldn’t be trusted. There would be disciplinary review. But here, the acting Attorney General is the defendant in the case. It’s paradigmatic of how far DOJ has fallen.

Phang v. Blanche is significant because it’s the only lawsuit seeking to enforce the Epstein Files Transparency Act that is moving forward. But it also is taking its place on the list of cases where the courts have found reason to distrust the Justice Department; everything from the deportation case where Judge Boasberg in the District of Columbia opened contempt proceedings against the government (whether they can proceed is currently pending en banc review before the Court of Appeals) to the slush fund case where a court concluded DOJ was party to a settlement designed to benefit Trump in his family in a lawsuit that was a “sham.”

When I was an Assistant United States Attorney, I argued cases in front of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals frequently. One of my favorite judges would always point to the lights the court used to keep track of the lawyers’ time: green meant you could keep talking, yellow meant you were almost out of time, and red meant stop. This Judge liked to emphasize that last part, telling lawyers that when the red light came on, they were out of time and needed to stop arguing. Knowing that some lawyers would try to keep going, he would emphasize, with a hint of a smile, that “The red light is not aspirational.”

His gentle humor took some of the tension out of the room. But the advice holds in a much more serious context, minus the levity: Complying with the law and with court orders isn’t aspirational either. It’s one of the bedrock principles that makes our democracy possible. It’s been that way for 250 years.

The Trump administration doesn’t seem to see it that way. For them, the law is at best a speed bump in the road when it gets in the way of what they want to do. Court orders are mere suggestions. There is a great deal of concern about the moment where a court directly orders the government to do something and it refuses to. 

But the reality is, we have been dancing on the precipice of that moment virtually since this administration got underway. There is no longer anything to be gained by bending over backward to give the administration multiple chances to comply. Courts may not have armies to enforce their orders, which is, perhaps, why they have tried to avoid a direct confrontation. But the government must comply with the law, just as all other litigants must follow a judge’s dictates. We are past the point where special treatment and multiple chances make sense.

Thanks for being here with me at Civil Discourse and for your support and subscriptions, which make the newsletter possible. At this time last year, many people were asking whether we were approaching or in a constitutional crisis. My answer then was yes. The fact that courts are still struggling, a year later, with what they can do to convince the Trump administration to comply with the law confirms it. Your commitment to understanding these issues and sharing what you know with people in your circle as the midterm elections approach is essential. A Republic, if we can keep it.

We’re in this together,

Joyce Vance

 

Trump’s rambling gala address included insults, potshots and quip about a third presidential term

 

Trump joked around with the room of journalists who he again accused of producing “fake news” as he hurled insults at his political enemies in a speech at the White House correspondents’ dinner. A day after the Trump administration abandoned, for now, an extraordinary bid to subpoena reporters over their coverage, the US president attended the rescheduled White House correspondents’ dinner – an annual celebration of press freedom – in Washington on Friday evening.

It came three months after the original event was scrapped in April when a man fired a shotgun at a security checkpoint outside the ballroom. The Trump’s hour-long speech was mostly lighthearted and sarcastic, with occasional swipes at the news media, a profession he eventually said he respected, praising journalists for doing an “amazing job”.

Later in the speech, Trump, who has regularly attacked the press over its coverage of his presidency, insisted his war on Iran was going “extremely well”. He told a room full of journalists: “Don’t believe the fake news.”

Trump and his officials joined hundreds of reporters at the Waldorf Astoria, a smaller venue than the vast Washington Hilton ballroom that was evacuated when shots were fired in April, in a suspected targeting of the president and his administration.

The speech included a handful of scripted jokes, one at the expense of Robert F Kennedy Jr, his health secretary who he quipped had personally run over the cow that became the evening’s “very delicious beef tenderloin”. Kennedy has championed the health benefits of beef tallow and animal protein.

Trump also mocked the weight of Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and Jerry Nadler, the New York congressman, imagining the two wrestling over a piece of cheesecake. He ridiculed the appearance of his critics, including Bruce Springsteen who he said “looks like hell” and took aim at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who had been honored earlier for her White House coverage, saying she does not smile enough. Trump said he “hated” Adam Schiff, a Democratic California senator, and one of his most prominent congressional critics, while mocking the size of his head and neck.

At one point, after a joke about term limits fell flat, Trump broke the fourth wall, asking the audience whether anyone understood “this whole freakin’ stupid speech that they wrote”. Trump ended his remarks with a joke that landed awkwardly, declaring that he planned to run and win a fourth election – a reference both to his false claim he won the 2020 election and to his repeated suggestion that he could seek a third term, despite the constitution’s two-term limit.

“I won three times, now I’m going to do it again,” the president said, sarcastically, placing a red “Trump 2028” hat on his head.

 

The room of journalists watches as Donald Trump delivers his speech. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Before Trump spoke on Friday, a series of journalists who published revealing stories on the president and his administration – including the team behind the Wall Street Journal story alleging he had sent a “bawdy” letter to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 – received awards on stage. Trump has sued the Journal over its reporting.

Weija Jiang, outgoing president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, had sought to underline the importance of duty – both for those in the White House, and the people who cover them. “No matter how complicated or tense the relationship is between the press and the presidency, what we share is far more important than anything else and that is our duty: to serve the American people,” Jiang told the dinner.

Beginning his remarks, Trump claimed the speech he had originally prepared was “gonna be a doozy”, suggesting he would pare back his attacks at the rescheduled event: “Just like my presidency, the second time is always better – and the third time will be better yet … I’m only kidding.”

The usually celebratory dinner was dedicated in part to Victor Gonzales, a Secret Service officer who was shot and wounded at the original correspondents’ dinner in April while helping stop the gunman, and hotel staff who helped guests during the attack.

The man charged for the shooting, Cole Allen, has pleaded not guilty to attempting to assassinate the president.

 

US Secret Service personnel outside the venue during the dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

An advance team spent weeks putting together a security plan for the new venue, and Sean Curran, the US Secret Service director, told reporters this week that agents were braced for trouble even at the black-tie dinner.

While it is customary for presidents to address the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, Friday’s speech is the first Trump has made at the event in either of his two terms. He boycotted the dinner throughout his first term, and has long attacked the press corps, including many of the journalists in the room.

“It matters that you came here tonight,” Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent at ABC News, told the president on stage. Trump has sued multiple news organizations over their coverage of him, and routinely dismisses unfavorable stories as “fake news”. Trump’s administration has gone further still, barring the Associated Press from the White House press pool and limiting other journalists’ access to the Pentagon.

Missing from the guest list this time: Melania Trump, the US first lady; JD Vance, the vice-president; and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. All had been present in April.

-The Guardian

Democrats Stick It to Hegseth

 

Senate Democrats do not always shine when interrogating Trump regime flunkies at public hearings. But this week, a full court press at the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed the extent of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dishonesty and incompetence. One after another, Senate Democrats skewered his disastrous mismanagement of an illegal, catastrophic war. Democrats pressed their advantage as we learned the Trump team has been lying about its military success.

“Iranian attacks on nine U.S. locations across the Middle East in the two weeks since the ceasefire broke down show that the country maintains an ability to inflict damage on precise targets, despite the Trump administration’s repeated claims that Iran’s military capabilities have been diminished or destroyed,” the New York Times reports. 

Hegseth testified during a week that Donald Trump reprehensibly claimed that dead service personnel supported his catastrophic war and disgusted millions of Americans by noting on social media that the 18 military deaths due to his fruitless war wasn’t nearly as high a count of fallen soldiers as other historic wars (including Vietnam). 

Meanwhile, the Trump crew maintained a tight lid on casualty statistics, lest Americans learn the extent of our unpreparedness and the accurate toll Trump’s folly has taken. Ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) was in top form at the Armed Services hearing: Reed noted that the Pentagon had spent years planning for a potential military campaign against Iran — and that any such plan would have assumed the strait could be closed.

“Were you unaware of that?” Reed asked. Hegseth did not dispute it. Of course, the Strait of Hormuz was front and center in every single aspect of that,” Hegseth replied before defecting by attacking the Biden administration. “We had U.S. boats that surrendered to Iranian ships under the Biden administration,” the defense secretary argued.

“Listen, we’re talking about the war you started,” Reed said, cutting him off. “Not a situation in which oil was flowing freely,” he continued. “There was no conflict. We weren’t losing personnel as a result of Iranian actions. So, your fallback to the Biden administration is just a very, very obvious excuse for what I think is probably — as you described so often — gross negligence.”

“You did not fully inform the president that you would be in a situation where the Strait of Hormuz could be effectively closed, oil prices could surge, and effectively, the Iranians could maintain their ability to strike back as they are right now. They just killed some of our servicemen last weekend.”

When Hegseth resorted to slobbering praise of Donald Trump, Reed interjected: “Excuse me,” Reed replied. “He should be praised for starting a war without authority, creating a situation in which the world economy is suffering tremendously [?] We have to have extra money for our farmers, and we have no outcome — at least no realistic outcome — in sight yet.”

As we have come to expect, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) was devastating in his takedown of Hegseth. Ossoff repeatedly used Hegseth’s own baseless bravado to reveal he had grossly exaggerated about our military accomplishments (e.g., destroying Iran’s missile program):

Ossoff demolishes Hegseth -- then Hegseth has an epic crash out Sen. Jon Ossoff used Hegseth's premature declarations of victory against him during his Senate testimony, repeatedly reading back statements Hegseth made in March and April about Iran's military being "destroyed"

That helped set the stage for Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), who lambasted Hegseth. “You, sir, are the failure. Not the men and women who are on that front line. Not the men and women who hold up their honor with distinction. But if there’s a lack of a winning strategy, they’re in harm’s way. Their leaders have failed them.” Peters continued, “You don’t have a strategy. You don’t have a long-term plan to actually win this war.”

Democrats also didn’t hesitate when going after Hegseth for making an exorbitant funding request. Underscoring the $37.5B the Pentagon burned through on a senseless war, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) demanded to know: “At what point do you stop asking Americans to foot the bill for a war they don’t support, on top of an inflated budget request and billions in reconciliation funds that you still haven’t spent?”

Hegseth, unsurprisingly, was out of his depth and lacked any cogent answers. When he tried to filibuster with a canned Islamophobic rant, Shaheen was ready: “I don’t want to hear your speech because I have limited time. So, if you can’t answer my question, then I will move on to my next question.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) also pressed Hegseth on the funding issue, pointing to Americans’ fury at spending billions on a war they never wanted rather than on critical items they desperately need. “You are asking for unlimited money for bombs when people can’t feed their families, and I don’t know how this administration intends to defend those decisions to the American people,” she said. She also blasted his conflicting claims:

“We just don’t know which version of the war to believe,” she observed. Democrats’ persistence seemed to shame at least one Republican into pressing Hegseth for real answers. When Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine danced around questions about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) couldn’t conceal his frustration:

HEGSETH: This is a regime hell-bent on nuclear ambitions. And...

JOHN KENNEDY: Guys...

HEGSETH: President Trump’s...

KENNEDY: We need straight answers.

HEGSETH: ...Been willing to go after this.

KENNEDY: We need straight answers.

Frankly, Democrats should demand straight answers from Kennedy and his Republican colleagues: Was it a mistake to confirm Hegseth, an abjectly unfit nominee? Why didn’t they demand his removal after Signalgate? Why have they allowed Hegseth to repeat obvious lies without consequences? Why are they not demanding his resignation now?

On Wednesday, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) appeared on PBS and summed up the situation. “We have provided billions of dollars to this Defense Department. The fact is that Hegseth has not managed it well, and this administration has taken us into a war that has no strategy,” she said. “It has no justification. 

It has no exit strategy. And now they are asking us, the taxpayers, through Congress to spend literally billions of more of our taxpayer dollars.” She added, “It is hurting our military readiness. It is misusing our defense spending and our troops who are fighting for us, and it is hurting Americans’ pocketbook in many ways.”

She also let Hegseth have it for blaming Joe Biden, who left office more than 18 months ago. “Hegseth’s … in fact, many of the Cabinet members’ go-to responses if they don’t have a good response, blame Biden,” she said.

“Look, Biden did not get us into this war. Trump and Hegseth started this war, and they refuse to take responsibility for it. I find that appalling.”

In sum, undaunted Senate Democrats on the Armed Services Committee demonstrated unwavering and unrelenting grilling of Trump’s grossly unfit flunkies, effectively revealing the extent of their unfitness — and the degree of culpability that Trump’s congressional enablers bear for serial, catastrophic failures. In the case of Iran, they must continue to hold the Trump regime and its Republican collaborators responsible for the rising death toll, soaring costs, and diplomatic/geopolitical disaster unfolding before our eyes.

The Contrarian is community-supported. Help fund bold journalism and critical lawsuits to stop Trump’s corruption by becoming a paid subscriber. Join the fight now.

 

Democrats Cannot Blow It in 2028!

 

As the only pro-democracy national political party, the Democrats have the awesome responsibility of selecting a 2028 presidential ticket that can win the election convincingly, rescue the White House and executive branch from the most noxious and destructive regime in history, and forge a path to restore and bolster our democracy.

While a winning presidential ticket can certainly emerge from a chaotic, poorly designed nominating process and, conversely, a losing ticket can certainly emerge from a pristine nominating system, Democratic Party members and those concerned about the fate of our nation must maximize chances of winning by a non-contestable majority. Putting in place a coherent system of governance that does not create its own headaches officially begins this week.

“Members of the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee are meeting at the Salamander Hotel on Thursday and Friday to recommend which states should ‘receive waivers to hold early nominating contests,’” The Hill reported. States that do not follow the calendar will lose all delegates and face a stiff $270,000 fine.

Twelve states divided among four regions (East, West, South, Midwest) are vying for 4-5 spots that would get the early position in the weeks before Super Tuesday. Whatever the Rules and Bylaws Committee decides, its decision will require approval by the full DNC in August.

Governors and U.S. senators whose names are already part of the 2028 buzz (Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock), 2020 winners in the early state contenders, and favorite sons (e.g., Pete Buttigieg, who won Iowa in 2020 and now resides in Michigan) would certainly like their states in the mix. 

However, for that very reason, the likelihood that the DNC picks a state that favors one or more obvious contenders reduces the likelihood that the state will get an early position. States with diverse electorates — such as South and North Carolina, Nevada, or New Mexico — that do not obviously favor one or more specific contenders will certainly be favored to snag a spot in the pre-Super Tuesday lineup.

“As the DNC considers its presidential primary calendar, it’s important that they build a calendar that allows the party and the candidates to hear from a broad cross-section of Americans, because listening to voters and understanding and responding to the issues that matter to them is essential to victory,” Lavora Barnes, the former Democratic chair of Michigan, told me. “This is why states with populations that look like all of America should be prioritized.”

Democrats should also look beyond the specific early primary states chosen. Zero energy should be expended trying to dissuade various candidates not to run. Having the largest, most robust debate at the start makes it less likely any segment of the electorate will feel disenfranchised or ignored. Who cares if you think Kamala Harris will never win (Turn the page! She had her shot!) or that no one outside the legacy media pays attention to Rahm Emanuel. 

Let them run; the voters will sort it out. What is clear is that even if they were to weigh in, party elders (or those purported to know what the electorate will want in 2 and a half years, or crotchety moderates who incorrectly foresaw disaster if Zohran Mamdani ran for office, or a sliver of the electorate that lives on Bluesky) carry no weight with voters.

The staid format of debates, especially the trite podium line-up of a dozen or more candidates ready to chime in with canned responses, also does not serve voters well. Rather than promoting nasty soundbites or reducing candidates to playing pundit (What makes you think you can win?), Democrats would be smart to innovate with different formats, special topics, subgroups of candidates, and nontraditional moderators. (I would love to hear Heather Cox Richardson ask candidates about their vision of American democracy or Paul Krugman discuss economic inequality with candidates in a small roundtable setting).

Allowing billionaire or corporate-owned legacy media — which has enabled Trump and evidenced scant understanding of the existential threat to democracy we face — moderate debates is foolish in the extreme. “They forced Democrats [in 2020] to distinguish themselves from each other on questions that there’s no hope of actually being able to accomplish in the short term, like Medicare for all,” Michael Podhorzer, former AFL-CIO political director and progressive political analyst, told me. That just forced Democrats to “exaggerate their differences.” 

Left to their own devices in 2027--2028, those same media figures will almost certainly “want to create internecine battles over issues of less relevance to most voters,” Podhorzer explained, leaving some candidates racing to take sides with Republicans (to prove their “moderate” bona fides) and leaving everyone aggrieved over issues of little import. Democrats should pledge not to repeat that experience.

There are enough journalistic refugees from legacy media, highly skilled independent media interviewers, and engaging think-tank gurus to sideline the corporate media crowd, thereby giving candidates room to shine while helping to rejigger the media landscape to benefit pro-democracy forces.

Finally, voters, activists, and engaged pundits really should drop the entire subject of “electability.” No one knows. Donald Trump has won twice, Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, and countless incumbents lost in primaries. Trying to game out in advance which candidates will match up well against a yet-to-be-determined Republican nominee on issues not remotely clear years in advance is entirely pointless.

It makes for lazy punditry, but worse, it promotes an ‘if the other guy wins, we are doomed’ or ‘we cannot win unless my gal wins’ mentality, which is intellectually dishonest and the last thing a big tent party charged with building a giant coalition needs.

In sum, as the first stages of officially constructing the 2028 presidential primary process get underway this week, the stakes will be astronomically high for the DNC, party activists, candidates, and voters. However, by abiding by the political equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath (don’t make the primary system the province of a tiny number of overwhelmingly white states, don’t chase people out of the race, don’t let legacy media run the show, don’t fall into the “electability” trap), Democrats can avoid some of the pitfalls of past election cycles. 

Above all, the greater pro-democracy coalition must remember that — whenever the nominee is chosen — past grievances must be put aside. Our democracy’s future depends upon it.

-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian is community-supported. Help fund bold journalism and critical lawsuits to stop Trump’s corruption by becoming a paid subscriber. Join the fight now.

 

Telltale signs of Trump’s pathological lying

Behavioral analysts and body language experts note that Donald Trump’s physical affect and speaking style often exhibit distinct patterns when he is making false or misleading statements. These indicators—which are regularly analyzed in political and psychological studies—include: 

The "Accordion" Hand Gesture: When discussing complex topics or delivering highly questionable claims, he frequently moves his hands up and down in an accordion-like motion, which experts identify as a way to physically "package" information he is trying to sell to the audience.

Rapid Head Shaking: He often performs quick, subtle "no" head shakes while simultaneously saying "yes" to a claim, a physiological mismatch often linked with subconscious deceit. 

Defensive Language and "DARVO": When challenged, his effects shift from performative to aggressive.

The Guardian strategy: Deny the accusation, Attack the accuser, and Reverse the Victim and Offender to divert scrutiny. 

"Duping Delight" and Smiling: Observers have noted that he will sometimes display "duping delight"—a fleeting, self-satisfied smile that occurs when he is successfully misleading the room or repeating a fabricated attack.

Increased Vocal Projection: When presenting false narratives, his voice frequently becomes more monotone and noticeably louder, relying on volume and repetition to force the point rather than nuanced persuasion.

Psychologists have also observed that his Constant Repetition of Falsehoods creates an "emotional adaptation," leading to a lack of traditional "guilt" cues, which makes his lying behavior uniquely difficult to read compared to conventional politicians. Consider his habitual glancing down every time he lies and fluttering his eyes to avoid eye contact with the camera or his interviewer as well. He doesn’t realize what a poster child he is as a pathological liar who “suffers” from malignant Narcissism.

-FB & YouTube Video

A Commentary That Is Still Relevant Today:

So, why do some people support this lying scoundrel? According to neuroscientist Bobby Azarian, “Some people support him out of ignorance. Basically, they are under-informed or misinformed about the issues at hand.”

Consider when he still redundantly states the 2020 election was stolen, and they simply take his word for it. This is called “The Dunning-Kruger Effect. [In other words], the problem isn’t just that they are misinformed; it’s that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed, which creates a double burden [for them]. Studies have shown that people who lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise [or knowledge and intelligence].”

“As psychologist David Dunning wrote in an op-ed for Politico years ago, ‘The knowledge and intelligence that are required to [understand an issue at hand] are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is [unwitting] — and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains [completely oblivious] and is [incapable of understanding complex issues]. This includes political judgment: These people cannot be reached because they mistakenly believe they are correct [without the use of logic, inferential and divergent thinking, analysis, synthesis, common sense, evidence and facts].”

Moreover, why do MAGA politicians still support him? They want to hold on to their power, despite the consequential destruction of our democracy and the Constitution. There are also people who continue to support him because of their selfish greed. Why did they vote for him a second time? When he was in office, their idiotic rejoinder was usually “It’s the economy.” Of course, they did not care about millions of people who suffer while he continues to abet the American oligarchy. 

On the other hand, there are those who still support him and choose to ignore his seditious and treacherous behavior, his reprehensible ignorance, egregious incompetence, intentional maliciousness, anti-social personality disorder, pathological narcissism, psychopathic dominance, impulsivity, remorselessness, cheating and lying. One can assume they continue to support him today because of their own illogic, xenophobia, fear, resentment, racism, hatred, anxiety, insecurity, avarice, credulousness, submissiveness, and powerlessness.

from September 29, 2020

-Glen Brown

$60 Billion More for Funding Iran War

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on the House Budget Committee advanced a $95 billion package Thursday for the Iran war, farm aid and President Donald Trump’s push for strict new voter ID requirements, moving forward on a party-line vote despite trouble in the full House — and the Senate.

Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington framed the proposal as one last push to deliver for voters ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. It advanced on a vote of 20-14. “We are rallying to finish what we started when the American people sent us here,” said Arrington, R-Texas.

With Iran war funding making up the bulk of the package, some $60 billion, Arrington acknowledged that people could debate “why we’re there” in the overseas conflict. But he said the money is needed for basic supplies — “just the bombs, bullets and battlefield readiness for our men and women in uniform to finish the fight successfully and return home safely — that’s it.”

The resolution, which sets out instructions for the various congressional committees to draw up proposals, also calls for $13 billion for Intelligence, $12 billion for Agriculture, and $10 billion for Administration, which handles voting and elections.

-AP

Depending on how it is directed, $60 billion could fully fund universal free preschool across the U.S. for years, triple the nation's annual federal medical research budget, or make tuition-free public college a reality for nearly half of all full-time undergraduate students. [1]

Here is a breakdown of what that sum translates to today:

In Healthcare: It could double the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to accelerate cures for cancer and heart disease. Alternatively, it covers more than a year of total federal spending on the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). [1, 2]

In Infrastructure: It would be enough to clear the maintenance backlog of the entire U.S. mass transit system, or construct thousands of miles of high-speed rail lines connecting regional hubs like Chicago and the Midwest.

In Global Relief: It could fund the entirety of the United Nations' annual humanitarian and peacekeeping operations for over five years or wipe out the national debts of several developing nations.

In Corporate Value: It matches the recent order backlog of AI hardware makers like Super Micro Computer or the annualized sales of Amazon Business. [1, 2, 3]

In the broader scope of U.S. federal outlays, $60 billion equates to roughly 0.8% of the federal budget, or just over half of what the U.S. spends annually on primary and secondary public education combined.

 -AI Overview

 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr.

 

You might think that an arch-conservative who has used his lifetime seat on the Supreme Court to send U.S. law back to the 1920s would take a victory lap and maybe chill just a bit. But no. Despite his success in helping to dismantle  abortion rights, attacking public-sector labor unions, elevating gun rights, promoting “religious liberty,” and destroying the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. is still seething mad, motivated by ideological extremism and a stack of personal grievances, some dating to his childhood in Trenton, New Jersey. 

Alito’s well-established pattern of outbursts was on full view during the court’s June 26 announcement of several late-term rulings. He set the tone for the session by reading a summary of his cruel 6-3 majority opinion that denied political asylum seekers the right to enter the country before reaching the U.S.-Mexico border (Mullin v. Al Otro Lado). 

Finishing quickly, he paused before moving on to summarize another of his opinions. Justice Soto Sotomayor apparently took the break in the action as a cue to read a synopsis of her dissent. Dissenters often refrain from reading their summaries, but there is nothing unusual about them opting to speak up, provided they give advance notice of their intentions.  

Sotomayor blasted Alito’s handiwork. “The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” she said. “More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not.” Her remarks apparently enraged Alito, making him look, in the words of NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nine Totenberg, like “he had just bitten into a lemon.” 

“There is much that I would have added to my bench statement had I known there would be a dissent read,” Alito said, uttering remarks that, in the staid confines of the nation’s most august judicial body, were veritable obscenities that prompted audible gasps from spectators and reporters in the gallery. A court spokesperson later clarified that Alito was in fact notified of Sotomayor’s plans, but to date, he has not publicly apologized. Like the president whose policies he almost always supports, Alito invariably overreacts and never recants. 

Justice Samuel Alito Jr. is still seething mad.

Who can forget Alito sneering on live TV during Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address, mouthing the words “not true” as the president decried the court’s Citizens United opinion and the impact it would have on future elections, including greater foreign influence? 

Since then, Alito has only gotten more unhinged and offensive, becoming a regular featured speaker at Federalist Society events, railing against the legalization of gay marriage, labeling the Second Amendment and freedom of religion as “unfavored” constitutional rights, and condemning liberals as a threat to civil liberties.   

In September 2021, Alito went ballistic after The Atlantic magazine staff writer Adam Serwer penned a column accusing the court’s right-wing majority of releasing a 5-4 shadow-docket ruling on Texas’ newly enacted vigilante abortion law in the middle of the night to minimize public outcry. In an hour-long live-streamed speech delivered at University of Notre Dame, he excoriated the press for portraying the court’s conservatives as “a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its ways,” and for feeding “unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution.”

In June 2023, Alito again went off the rails with an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that lambasted a ProPublica report that in 2008 he took a luxury fishing trip to Alaska, flying for free aboard a private jet owned by Republican megadonor Paul Singer. The problem, according to ProPublica, wasn’t just that Alito had failed to recuse himself from reviewing lawsuits involving Singer’s hedge fund, but that he also failed to note anything about the excursion on the annual financial disclosure forms required under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Claiming he had no duty to reveal the junket, he argued that his spot on the private jet “would have otherwise been an unoccupied seat” if he had not accepted the billionaire’s offer of a free ride, and that gifts of “hospitality” need not be reported. In a follow-up interview with the Journal, he added, “Congress did not create the Supreme Court” and “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.”

Alito’s official court opinions have been equally acerbic and hyperbolic. They arguably reached a crescendo in his 2022 majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization). Not content with simply overruling the 50-year-old precedent on which U.S. women had come to rely as an essential part of their health care, he wrote: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” 

When used by a high court justice, the phrase “egregiously wrong” is an insult and a sign of contempt. And to add further insult, Alito reached deep into the bowels of Anglo-American common law to override Roe, citing the work of Henry de Bracton, a 13th-century English cleric and judge who condemned abortions as homicide, and a 17th-century English jurist who sentenced at least three women accused of using witchcraft to death.

So many of his hang-ups have become the law of the land.

What’s behind Alito’s fury and habit of issuing norm-breaking invective? As Georgia State University law professor Eric Segall told The Wall Street Journal in an article published this month, “Alito thinks of the other side as the enemy.” And true to Segall’s observation, Alito unwittingly admitted as much at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner in 2024, when documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor asked whether there was any way the country could overcome its terrible polarization, then surreptitiously recorded Alito’s answer that “there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.” 

Like most extremists, Alito has views that derive not just from his abstract political beliefs, but from his lived experiences growing up in a predominantly white Christian community as the son of deeply religious Catholic Italian immigrants, and later as an out-of-place right winger at Princeton University and Yale Law School. 

In a revealing new biography, Revenge for the Sixties: Sam Alito and the Triumph of the Conservative Legal Movement, journalist Peter S. Canellos offers a compelling psychological portrait of Alito as a man dismayed by the demographic and secular changes that have transformed and, by his estimation, degraded the country of his boyhood. Alito has been on a mission to reverse those trends ex cathedra from his perch on the Supreme Court.

The problem is not that Alito has personal hang-ups — we all do — but that so many of his hang-ups have become the law of the land. On June 30, NPR’s Totenberg erroneously reported that Alito planned to retire so that President Donald Trump might nominate a younger right-wing zealot to the bench. The story turned out not to be true and was promptly retracted. Too bad for her — and even worse for the country.

-Bill Blum, Truthdig