1/22/24

 Wednesday, January 22, 2025

D+76

1938 "Our Town", Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-winner of small-town life in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, premieres (NJ)

1973 The US Supreme Court legalized most abortions (Roe v. Wade)

In bed at 8:45, awake at 3:45, up at 4:00.  The temperature outside is 3° with a wind chill of 16 below zero.  I'll be taking Geri for physical therapy at 9 by which time it is expected to be a balmy 10°.   Geri got up at 5:45 and is engaged in her walking exercise.

Prednisone, day 278, 5 + 2.5 mg., day 15.  Prednisone at 4:30.  My shoulders are only a little sore this morning.  Mere variability and chance or the injection taken yesterday?  Probably the former.    2.5 mg prednisone at 4:45 p.m.

Republican presidents and The Rule of Law hypocrisy.  Trump's wholesale pardoning and commuting of the January 6th insurrectionists and the Republican Supreme Court's infamous presidential immunity decision, aptly captioned Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024), remind me of how patently lawless Republican presidents have been in my life.  I'm thinking not so much of Dwight Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush, but of Nixon's Watergate, Jerry Ford's pardon of Nixon, Ronald Regan's Iran-Contra mess, and George W. Bush's "War on Terror"  with its invasion of Iraq and authorization of 'renditions' and torture of prisoners. And now the culmination, the epitome, the avatar of lawlessness, Donald J. Trump.  I started this blog back in 2007 as a means of saving the frequent comments I was posting on news articles in the Washington Post, usually but not always, comments about various outrages from the Bush government, like these:

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

NeoNixonism and Bush

[My comment] In the last post, I paraphrased Richard M. ("I am not a crook") Nixon's (in)famous assertion "If the president does it, it's not illegal" in his (in)famous 1977 interview by David Frost. It seemed prudent to review that interview again in light of George Bush's scary assertions of presidential powers. The parallels between Nixon's philosophy of presidential powers and Bush's are rather startling. Especially scary are the implications of the Nixon/Bush thinking in an era of endless war. Nixon, Bush, (and Abraham Lincoln?) claimed extraordinary powers to commit otherwise illegal acts because of the exigencies of war. The Vietnam War and the Civil War, however, were wars involving sovereign nations in the one case and a sovereign nation and its semi-sovereign states in the other. The wars were going to end at some point. There were governmental representatives to negotiate with or from whom to accept surrender. None of that is true of Bush's endless 'WAR ON TERROR.' Under the Bush Doctrine, the extraordinary powers claimed by Nixon and Lincoln would be ordinary powers. Quaere whether this has already occurred in light of the Democratic Congress' unwillingness to consider impeachment of Bush and of the nearly thoroughly Republican federal judiciary. If it has, we can kiss goodbye the notion of civil liberties and 'the land of the free.

and

Chickens Coming Home to Roost?

Spy v. Spy

Andrew Cohen, Bench Conference, Washington Post

So much for keeping secrets. We learned this weekend that there's an internal dispute at the Central Intelligence Agency over the legality of the agency's interrogation and detention programs.

[My comment] The President, may beets grow in his belly, blew off the anti-torture legislation not only with his "I'm the Decider, nobody tells me what to do" signing statement, but with the secret, made-to-order legal opinions from Gonzales' 'Yassuh boss whatever you say boss" Justice Department. It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for torturers, even our own, but I confess to having some for the CIA operatives who did what they were told by the White House probably thinking, pace Richard Nixon, that 'if the president orders it, it's OK.' It may be that someday the chickens will come home to roost and someone will be punished for engaging in torture, but I doubt it. The recent action by the federal courts, including the Supremes, in dismissing the suit by the alleged German kidnap and torture victim on the 'state secrets' ground suggests that no one will ever be held to account for the criminal acts ordered by Bush and supported by Cheney, Addington, Gonzales et alia. So it looks like Nixon will ultimately be proved right, albeit 35 years too late to help him. If the President does it, it's OK. So much for the Rule of Law. Bush, like Nixon and France's King Louis XIV, could all say 'L'etat, c'est moi.' And Bush and his henchmen, like the later Louis XV, can add "Apres nous, le deluge." The nation will be paying for his hubris and essential stupidity for many, many years. One is reminded of Thomas Jefferson writing "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | October 15, 2007 02:36 PM

Nixon and Bush II laid the groundwork for Trump.  The Catholic/ Republican  Roberts/Trump Supreme Court (itself lawless in its own way, witness Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization among other cases), put the icing on the cake with Trump v. United States.  Bush II previewed the Matt Gaetz as America's attorney general fiasco by appointing his myrmidon attorney Alberto Gonzales as AG.  I remember the IG investigation into Gonzalez's mid-term firing of 7 US attorneys leading to Gonzales's resignation along with the resignations of his Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney general, his chief of staff, deputy's chief of staff, and the DOJ liaison with the White House.   The IG's report contained "substantial evidence" that party politics drove a number of the firings, and IG Glenn Fine said in a statement that Gonzales had "abdicated his responsibility to safeguard the integrity and independence of the department."  How quaint those findings seem now in the Era of Trump.  My thoughts at the time:

As I watched and listened to the Gonzales hearing on C-Span 3, I got to thinking of all the congressional hearings I have watched over the years, starting with the Army-McCarthy hearings in the 50s. I've seen a lot of hearings over the last 50 plus years but never in my life have I seen anything as preposterous and pathetic as yesterday's clown show before the Judiciary Committee.

This is the guy that all the federal prosecutors report to? This is the guy that the FBI reports to? This is the guy in charge of protecting the civil rights of Americans?

What does it say of George W. Bush that he put such a man in charge of the Department of Justice? What does it say about George W. Bush that that told the nation that he was "very pleased" with Gonzales' wholly incredible testimony?

Surely, Gonzalez' testimony, more than anything else, has strengthened the suspicion that the firings had everything to do improper partisan abuse of federal prosecutorial power and nothing to do with legitimate management concerns. This was a classic cover up at a very high level. It wasn't Sampson, Battle, and the others at DOJ who determined who made "the list" and who didn't, it was Karl Rove and his minions, including Harriet Miers. The purpose of the replacements was not to remediate problems of the past but to gear up for the next election in key swing states. Why would Rove want one of his own political deputies in the US attorney's office in Little Rock in the period leading up to the next national election? Because he's "very well qualified" as Gonzales testified, or to have the power of a federal grand jury to harass Hillary Clinton?

Gonzales' torment by the senators was so embarrassing that there were times when I almost felt sorry for him. When those feelings started to surface, I reminded myself that this is the guy who routinely blew off clemency appeals when he was the Decider's pardon counsel in Texas and who provided the torture opinion that let Bush and Rumsfeld bring shame upon the nation "under advice of counsel." Berto/Gonzo/Fredo has so much blood on his hands, I'll save my sympathy for his many, many victims. Any honor that attended his name is long gone. Good riddance. Sic transit gloria mundi.

and

Gonzalez' testimony was so unenlightening that it leaves me with no reasonable doubt that the impetus for these firings originated and was maintained not in the Department of Justice, but in the White House with the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis of evil. The issue was never the administration of justice or management skills, but the preservation of executive power and regaining of legislative power, i.e., the 2008 elections and using the powers of federal prosecutors to further Republican power interests. Recall the DOJ memo about preparing for the political firestorm that would predictably result from the firings. These folks would not be willing to trigger the expected negative fallout from the firings if the only gain were increased managerial efficiencies at local US attorneys’ offices or fine tuning prosecutorial discretion on how to allocate prosecutorial resources. Power is the coin of the realm in politics: gaining it, keeping it or regaining it. Power is what the White House mob was after and Gonzales' role was essentially that of the mob lawyer.

Bush II and Trump, deja vu but worse. 

Cleaning house.  Senior officials at the Justice Department have been ousted and at the National Security Council, long-term career staff members were ousted from the building.  The officials, known as aides or detailees, were told Wednesday in a brief call conducted by Waltz’s chief of staff, Brian McCormack, that they were to leave the building immediately, go home, and be “on call.” They were given instructions to return only if asked by their supervisors — senior directors appointed by the Trump administration.  This is the beginning of what we have every reason to believe will be a truly massive firing of highly experienced government employees and their replacement with Trump loyalists.  

Trump and Washington's Episcopal Bishop.  Trump was unhappy with the homily delivered by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde at yesterday's National Prayer Service.  Here's his Truth Social Post:

"The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA," Trump declared in the post on Wednesday.

"Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!" he asserted.

 We watched the homily.  It does seem like one long admonishment and rebuke of everything Trump stands for and is.  It was standard Christian stuff about love and respect and children of God and all that, but Trump is about as un-Christian as a man can be so of course he took offense.  The homily was ballsy for the bishop, speaking truth to power,  but I suppose it was rude, calling out Trump to his face and in front of a cathedral full of his family and friends.