Sunday, February 9, 2025
D+94
1950 MULS alum Joseph McCarthy charged that the State Department was infested with 205 communists
1964 First appearance of the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show"
1987 Former US national security adviser Robert McFarlane attempted suicide by overdosing on Valium hours before his scheduled testimony before the panel investigating the illegal arms-for-hostages "Iran-Contra" affair
2021 Second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump began
In bed at ???, awake and up at 4:05 with an earworm of Cats' "Memory" tune but no lyrics, thinking I saw this musical in New York with ASC but the only time we were there together was with the kids for her MSO Chorus performance at Carnegie Hall, May 17, 1980, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky with our seats in the loge and Andy sleeping on my lap throughout the performance. It was Armed Forces Weekend and the fleet was in town. We took the kids to the tops of the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building, stayed in a hotel on Central Park West. 18° outside with a wind chill of 7°; glad I filled the bird feeder yesterday evening.
Prednisone, day 294, 5 mg., day 5, Kevzara, day 5/14. 2.5 mg., prednisone at 5 a.m. and 4:35 p.m.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are those who are persecuted for doing right, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Mattew 5: 7,10. Another WaPo article is titled "Attacks on Catholics, Lutherans suggest new Trump approach on religio: Allies of the president are leveling attacks on religious groups, including Catholics and Lutherans, and questioning their efforts to help migrants" by Michelle Boorstein.
In 1999, then-presidential candidate George W. Bush called for the funding of religious groups that fed the hungry and housed the homeless, part of what he called the “armies of compassion.” During his first month in office, in 2001, the Republican unveiled an office to help faith-based groups partner with government, calling them “some of the finest America has got to offer.”
One Republican president later, high-level members of the Trump administration and allies of the president are leveling attacks on religious groups, including Catholics and Lutherans, who do the same work Bush praised, questioning their efforts to help migrants. These attacks may signal a new political approach toward religion, some experts say, one comfortable belittling faith groups — despite President Donald Trump’s self-described brand as a champion of Christians. More broadly, it has aligned some Republicans against religious groups that in some cases propelled their rise to power, Trump’s included.
The gospel reading at Catholic masses today is from Luke 5:1-11, in which Jesus leads Peter Simon and his brothers out on Lake Gennesereth where they catch almost more fish than they can handle after striking out all the night before. Jesus tells them "Be not afraid. From now on, you will be catching men." The Catholics and Lutherans and other religious refugee/migrant relief agencies are "catching men" in their way; the American government is doing the same in its way, with ICE, the American military, detention camps, Guantanamo, and deportation flights. In many Jewish shuls this weekend, the scriptural reading told the story of the parting of the Red Sea, allowing Moses to lead his people - as refugees and migrants - on their journey to the Promised Land of milk and honey, “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt."
Last month, Vice President JD Vance criticized the U.S. Catholic Church’s efforts to help immigrants and refugees, suggesting the Church is motivated by money, and alleged without evidence that it works with millions of “illegal immigrants.”
On Sunday, on the social media site X, right-wing Trump ally Mike Flynn accused Lutheran organizations that receive federal grants to help the needy of committing “money laundering.” Flynn put quote marks around the word “Lutheran” — one of America’s largest Protestant groups — in the post.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s then shared Flynn’s post, calling “illegal” multiple Lutheran organizations that work in the United States to provide health care to homeless people, run food pantries, and help migrants and refugees.
So it goes with the "Christian Nation" fallacy and the myth of America being based on Judeo-Christian values.
Guantanamo Redux. First it was the Republicans "W," Cheney, and Rumsfeld, now the Republicans Trump, Musk, Noem, and Hegseth. This morning's WaPo lead: "Why lawyers worry migrants sent to Gitmo are entering a ‘legal black hole’: The Trump administration has released scant information on the migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay. Lawyers are demanding they be allowed access to legal counsel." Excerpts:
Their names have not been released. Their exact crimes are unknown. The more than three dozen immigrants being held at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba have entered what lawyers are calling a “legal black hole.”
Four days ago the Trump administration flew the first migrants from Fort Bliss, Texas, to Guantánamo Bay. The officials said the detainees were “dangerous criminals,” “the worst of the worst” and alleged members of a violent Venezuelan gang, holding them in a prison on the U.S. naval base created for suspected terrorists after Sept. 11, 2001. But administration officials have released almost no other information. . . .
For the migrants who recently arrived at Guantánamo, four lawyers who are familiar with the military prison say the Trump administration is breaking the law by denying them access to legal counsel — something the suspected terrorists detained in Guantánamo have obtained. Even if the migrants are confirmed as members of the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, as the Trump administration contends, the lawyers say the migrants do not qualify to be held in the high-security area of the base that some prisoners have described as a “tomb above ground.”
“It is essential to know who is there, what legal claims they have and whether they want attorneys,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said. “This is the normal ICE lack of transparency on steroids.” A Department of Defense spokesperson did not answer questions about migrants’ legal access or other information about them. The Homeland Security and State departments did not respond to requests for comment.
So it goes with 'the rule of law' under Republican governments.
Shameful schadenfreude. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the Jets have informed Aaron Rodgers that won't be needing his services next season.
Constitutional crisis in the making? From the NY Times;
Vice President JD Vance declared on Sunday that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” delivering a warning shot to the federal judiciary in the face of court rulings that have, for now, stymied aspects of President Trump’s agenda.
The statement, issued on social media, came as federal judges have temporarily barred a slew of Trump administration actions from taking effect. They include ending birthright citizenship; giving associates of Elon Musk’s government-slashing effort access to a sensitive Treasury Department system; transferring transgender female inmates to male prisons; and placing thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development employees on leave.
Mr. Vance, a 2013 graduate of Yale Law School, has repeatedly argued in recent years that presidents like Mr. Trump can and should ignore court orders that they say infringe on their rightful executive powers. While his post did not go that far, it carried greater significance given that he is now vice president.
The post may also offer a window on the administration’s thinking toward the orders against it as Mr. Trump has openly violated numerous statutes, like limits on summarily firing officials and effectively dismantling U.S.A.I.D. and folding it into the State Department. It also raised the question of whether the administration would stop abiding by rulings if it deemed them to be illegitimately impeding his agenda.
Mr. Vance’s post did not cite any specific ruling. But many of Mr. Trump’s allies have denounced an order early on Saturday prohibiting Trump political appointees and associates of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency initiative from gaining further access to the Treasury Department’s payments system.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Vance reshared a post by Adrian Vermeule, a Harvard Law School professor who has argued for strong presidential powers, and who wrote, “Judicial interference with legitimate acts of state, especially the internal functioning of a co-equal branch, is a violation of the separation of powers.”
Professor Vermeule appended his comment to a post by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, who called the order about the Treasury Department “outrageous” and branded the judge who had issued it an “outlaw” who should be barred from hearing additional cases involving the Trump administration.
Notably, however, Mr. Cotton did not call for Mr. Trump to defy the order. Rather, he said an appeals court should “immediately reverse” it.
“The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”
Is this where we are headed, where Trump simply ignores court orders the way he ignores Congress's laws? I won't be surprised. Scared, but not surprised.
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