Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

I really should read my own blog.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Sweet Summer

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Sweet Summer

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… The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service signed the cooperative agreement on Saturday with five tribes that have inhabited the region surrounding Bears Ears National Monument for centuries: the Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and the Pueblo of Zuni.

“Today, instead of being removed from a landscape to make way for a public park, we are being invited back to our ancestral homelands to help repair them and plan for a resilient future,” Carleton Bowekaty, co-chair of the Bears Ears Commission and lieutenant governor of the Pueblo of Zuni, said in a statement.

Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement that the agreement is “an important step as we move forward together to ensure that tribal expertise and traditional perspectives remain at the forefront of our joint decision-making for the Bears Ears National Monument.”

The move comes as Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary — works to repair the federal government’s relationship with tribes, which has been tarnished by instances of federal officials removing Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands…

In October, President Biden used executive orders to protect 1.36 million acres in Bears Ears — slightly larger than the original boundary that Obama established. The orders also reversed Trump’s cuts to the 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante monument. And they reestablished the Bears Ears Commission, which comprises one elected officer from each of the five tribes.

Pat Gonzales-Rogers, executive director of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which represents all five tribes, said Saturday’s agreement could set a precedent for arrangements with other tribes and communities of color across the country…

Hardly sweet, but hopefully significant:

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

     

    Nothing but truth

    ⚖️ Shapiro/Davis for PA Gov/PA Lt. Gov (@Needle_of_Arya) tweeted at 6:52 AM on Tue, Jun 21, 2022:
    The “both sides” people who are out here begging us to not judge Trump voters and call them all bigots and racist and ignorant, don’t have an answer as to how speak to the ones who supposedly weren’t motivated to vote for him due to bigotry and racism.
    (https://twitter.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1539214574641102848?t=16oTrio8F6F5tH557FUlWg&s=03)

  9. 9.

    mrmoshpotato

    NEIL DIAMOND SINGING SWEET CAROLINE AT FENWAY. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE.

    Even my white ass is going “How pasty is TSN’s Twitter intern?”

  13. 13.

    Soprano2

    Good morning, everyone. Yesterday was a tough day – my husband had to ID his son from two black and white pics that evidently were taken when they found his body. Hope you never have to do anything like that. The officer apologized to us for having to make us do it, but it wasn’t him – it was the medical examiner who insisted we do it. His son kind of looked like he was sleeping, but we knew he wasn’t. It appeared that he had bruises on his face, although since it was B&W it was harder to tell for sure. Definitely one of the top 10 worst experiences of my life, to have to help him do that.

  15. 15.

    Kay

    They’ll take testimony on this today:

    s Donald Trump’s campaign sought to overturn his shocking loss of the state of Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, it hatched a conspiracy theory.
    At its center were two masterminds: a clerical worker in a county election office, and her mom, who had taken a temporary job to help count ballots. The alleged plot: Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and mother Ruby Freeman cheated Trump by pulling fake ballots from suitcases hidden under tables at a ballot-counting center. In early December, the campaign began raining down allegations on the two Black women.
    Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, falsely claimed that video footage showed the women engaging in “surreptitious illegal activity” and acting suspiciously, like drug dealers “passing out dope.”

    Lots of you have been pollworkers so you’ve seen these rigid plastic wheeled cases they use for ballots. They look nothing like a “suitcase”. These women were so terrorized by Donald Trump’s employees they called the police, over and over.
    The Trump people are thugs.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I don’t remember the media covering that harassment.  That’s much worse than calling racists deplorable.

  19. 19.

    narya

    Got myself out early today for my run, partly to avoid the brutal heat that’s coming, but partly to be out for the solstice sunrise. There were way more folks than usual along the beach, even at 5 am, so apparently I’m not the only pagan-ish person around here. Gonna go out even earlier, later this week, so I can see the planet lineup, if possible.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    TFG’s got all these guys bringing him coffee? If that were true, he’d have been a more active POTUS. He certainly wouldn’t have spent his one term watching TV till noon.

  22. 22.

    steppy

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  Eastman had better wake up to the fact that he is being set up to be the fall guy. When TFG gives you the covfefe boy treatment, you’re about to go overboard.

    Maybe a conversation with John Dean about next steps might be in order.

  23. 23.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay:

    I hope she and her family get protection after her testimony.

    TFG is and always has been a thug, and he has unleashed the thuggish underbelly of this country to act out violently. As Baud suggested, maybe just a wee bit worse than calling people deplorable.

  25. 25.

    sdhays

    @narya: The media really doesn’t give a shit when “little people” are threatened. That’s why the gun violence that is just a constant here is considered a one day story and not a crisis, until it’s bigger catastrophe and they can talk about it for a few days.

  28. 28.

    Anyway

    Summer OT and mention of Fenway —

    I was at the Phillies game last Wednesday where they had the walk-off 3R HR win against the “Miami” Marlins. It was so sweet – Bottom of the 9th, 2 Outs, 2 strikes — almost no hope and boom! Stubbs’ hit landed in the seats in front of us – about 8 ft away.

    Phils are having a decidedly lackluster season it was just fun to experience that.

  29. 29.

    lowtechcyclist

    It may be officially summer now, but here in southern Maryland, I’m wearing jeans and long sleeves because it’s freakin’ cold this morning.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    Good morning, Summer Jackals.

    So, today is Must Watch TV at 12:30. These J6 committee hearings are habit-forming. What new info will we learn today? Tune in, log on.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    Yes, the hearings start at 1 EDT. But first we get Supreme Court opinions at 10.

  35. 35.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Soprano2:

    How awful. The loss of a child is terrible, and having to go through this is so much worse. Heartfelt sympathies to you and your husband.

  38. 38.

    Eric S.

    @Kay:  Wasn’t there a similar accusation during the 2000 FL recount? This sounds awfully familiar.

  41. 41.

    Elizabelle

    @Immanentize:

    But first we get Supreme Court opinions at 10.

    Oh, for the days that sentence did not strike terror into one’s heart.

    I hope Biden starts to build consensus for expanding the Court.  This is an illegitimate one, and its actions endanger too many of us.  No putting it off; the USSC can endanger all the good Biden and his administration are trying to do.   And that previous administrations have accomplished.

    There is likely more support for Court expansion than one would think, once the case is made.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    Racist degenerate (and two term mayor of NYC) constantly referred to AA pollworkers as drug dealers:

    As the threats continued, Giuliani told the Dec. 10 hearing of Georgia lawmakers that he would “like to focus on the two people that are involved in this” – Freeman and Moss. In addition to “stealing votes,” he accused them of hacking into Georgia’s voting machines while passing USB thumb drives between them, “as if they’re vials of heroin and cocaine. I mean it’s obvious to anyone who is a criminal investigator or prosecutor, they’re engaged in surreptitious illegal activity.”

    Might be another humiliating day of testimony for Rudy. Absolute scumbag.

  43. 43.

    narya

    @Anyway: Displaced Phillies fan here . . . that must have been awesome. I was just recounting to a friend that my first game was at Connie Mack (yes, I AM old), then many games at Vet, and maybe one at the most recent ballpark, I think? Also: Bruuuuce at the Vet in 84.

  44. 44.

    narya

    For the SCOTUS nerds among us, I highly recommend two podcasts: “Strict Scrutiny,” with Leah Littman, Kate Shaw, and Melissa Murray, and “Boom! Lawyered” with Imani Gandy and Jessica Pikelow.

    ETA: No, I do not know why I am apparently in commenting overdrive today; apologies!

  49. 49.

    Immanentize

    @debbie: july 1 (Friday) is my prediction. Back in the 90s we had some late issue days, but they have rarely gone past the fourth of July. So, Friday July 1 we will get Dobbs.

  50. 50.

    Ken

    @Kay: Giuliani is in “Tell me you’ve never voted without…” territory there. Or if he has voted, he’s never bothered to watch how the poll workers control the ballots, or noticed that there are both Republicans and Democrats involved.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Rudy can’t be humiliated. He worked for trump and that’s about as humiliating as it can be.

  53. 53.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle: Decision days used to be so unremarkable for most of the country. Sure, lawyers and litigants had cases they were completely focussed on (like death penalty and crim procedure cases for me). But those were like the release of small roast coffees. Today, it is waiting on moments of societal change which will have consequences no one can fully foresee.

    I hate it.

  54. 54.

    brendancalling

    I got a job offer for a school in Philly last week, and have two more interviews this week. One starts right when the hearings do, so hopefully it’s quick and to the point!

    I was supposed to go on tour in Arizona this past week, from 6/15-6/20, but it got canceled. So instead, I made a trip to RI that was schedule for early July (an old flame invited me down). I arrived Sunday, it’s now Tuesday AM and I’m still here. And I guess in a few weeks, I’ll be back in Philly.

  55. 55.

    Anyway

    @Ken:

    Generalizing a little here — Rethugs tend not to care about the details of voting procedures and arcana of Election day rules followed by poll workers — easier for them to gaslight and allege misdeeds. I say this as a poll worker the last 4 cycles — there are so many rules to be followed and it is clearly laid out but in talking to my R friends (yes, I have those) either they refuse to believe there are rules that are followed or they don’t take take time to understand the procedures.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Ken: 

    There’s a lot of ignorance around voting process. I don’t think ordinary people should be stuck with the job of bringing conservatives up to speed on how it works.
    The “cyber ninjas” in Arizona would send lists of stupid questions to actual election officials and the officials would be tasked with laboriously explaining how it works to them over and over. No one has time for this. There are pollworker trainings all over this country. Maybe high profile Republicans could take one? Two hours- free. Maybe a remedial course for the lowest performers.

  57. 57.

    Immanentize

    @brendancalling: good luck on the job hunt! You just reminded me that I have received three truly useful cookie fortunes in my life. One was:

    Never return to the past to revive an old relationship.

    Rhode Island is beautiful right now. Hope that helps.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    The DOJ and some of the less corrupt jurisdictions are prosecuting some of the Trump thugs for threatening poll workers. If I were the sentencing judge I would mandate 60 hours of training in election process, in addition to any jail term. They’re a menace.

  59. 59.

    germy shoemangler

    From the Independent UK:

    January 6 committee has obtained previously unknown film of Trump and family at time of riot

    Filmmaker Alex Holder will sit for a deposition on Thursday and has provided the select committee ‘raw footage’ taken on the day of the Capitol attack

    The House January 6 select committee has taken possession of recently discovered video footage shot by Alex Holder, a documentary filmmaker who had access to former president Donald Trump, former vice president Mike Pence, Mr Trump’s children and other confidantes in the months leading to the Capitol riot.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    I mean, most people don’t know how it works, specifically, really. Most people aren’t poll workers, which is fine. The difference is they aren’t on Hannity making shit up. Either learn how it works or stop talking about it.

  64. 64.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Immanentize: Yes, the hearings start at 1 EDT. But first we get Supreme Court opinions at 10.

    @Elizabelle:  Oh, for the days that sentence did not strike terror into one’s heart.

    Indeed.

    This court is totally illegitimate. Dismissing decades’ worth of precedents on an issue ought to be a rare thing. This Court does what it feels like doing, regardless of what’s been settled law for decades.

    We really do need to expand the supreme court.  ‘All’ it takes is an act of Congress, but of course with the entrenched tradition that the Supreme Court consists of nine Justices, that’s going to be a heavy lift.  I wonder if anyone’s tried to identify how many Dem Senators would vote to expand the court, so Biden could tell the voters, “if we can hold the House and get X more Dem Senators, we’ll expand the court with people who will respect the law.”

  65. 65.

    japa21

    Starting my 4th quarter century today. Not sure I’ll finish it. Brutally hot day and I’ll have to miss the hearing. Sigh…

  67. 67.

    Anyway

    @Kay:

    I mean, most people don’t know how it works, specifically, really. Most people aren’t poll workers, which is fine. The difference is they aren’t on Hannity making shit up. Either learn how it works or stop talking about it.

    Exactly! Pisses me off that “journalists” and media people don’t take the effort to understand the procedures but have no problem pontificating. Gaslighting is all they do.

  69. 69.

    PAM Dirac

    @narya:

    my first game was at Connie Mack

    I hear you. My first game was at the Polo Grounds in year 1 of the NY Mets. Back when Memorial Day was always May 30th and single admission for two games double headers was a thing. It also was the first game the LA Dodgers played in NY.

  70. 70.

    Paul in KY

    @Elizabelle: If FDR couldn’t expand the court back in his heyday, there’s absolutely no way Pres. Biden could ever get that accomplished.

  71. 71.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Spanky: Our turn in the broiler will come.

    I’m actually good with that.  Remember how hot it was Friday? I went out and mowed the lawn. I’m very much a hot-weather guy, at least for as hot as it gets around here.

  72. 72.

    Burnspbesq

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I see TFG is now claiming he “barely knows” John Eastman. LOL

    There really isn’t a downside to this for Trump. Judge Carter has already determined that there was no attorney-client relationship, and it’s hard to imagine the Ninth Circuit determining that that finding of fact was clearly erroneous.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I think Freeman is the same poll worker who was threatened and hassled by a woman who claimed she was Kanye West’s publicist. She told Freeman she must confess to rigging the election to avoid jail. I hope the alleged publicist and the “high profile individual” she said sent her are also being investigated and referred for prosecution.

    IMO, it’s as important to go after people who threatened and harassed poll workers as it is to pursue the insurrectionists and the suits behind them, up to and including Trump. People who harass poll workers are fucking with a load-bearing pillar of democracy, and that can’t be tolerated.

  74. 74.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Immanentize:

    Decision days used to be so unremarkable for most of the country. Sure, lawyers and litigants had cases they were completely focussed on (like death penalty and crim procedure cases for me). But those were like the release of small roast coffees. Today, it is waiting on moments of societal change which will have consequences no one can fully foresee.

    I hate it.

    As the tag line says, ‘Fuck these interesting times.”

  77. 77.

    germy shoemangler

    Larry Summers — who the president said he spoke with today — publicly saying a 5% unemployment rate is necessary to combat inflation. To state the obvious, a 5% unemployment rate would mean devastating joblessness for millions of poor American workers pic.twitter.com/wsSB9zmBy9

    — Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) June 20, 2022

    The president speaks with a lot of people. I’m not surprised he spoke with Summers. But people like Summers, it’s better to talk to them than to listen to them.

  78. 78.

    brendancalling

    @Kay: Good quote and wise words, so thank heaven we’re not doing that! Just lots of swimming, seafood, and other stuff.

  83. 83.

    germy shoemangler

    #FACTS

    Biden has:1. Reduced the deficit… (Trump increased it)

    2. Increased domestic oil production…(Trump cut it)

    3. Record low unemployment… (6.3% under Trump vs 3.6% under Biden)

    4. Re-opened America for business… (shutdown due to Trump’s pandemic lies/mismanagement)

    — LeGate☮️ (founder @ GoodPillow™) (@williamlegate) June 21, 2022

  84. 84.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @rikyrah:  Also, if it’s wrong okay to call Trump voters “racist” why is it okay to call Mexicans “rapists” and all LGBTQ people “groomers?”

  86. 86.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Elizabelle:

    Republicans added seats to the Arizona and Georgia state supreme courts and Republicans packed SCOTUS with partisan hacks. expand SCOTUS to unpack

  87. 87.

    Yutsano

    @Soprano2: ​I know I haven’t said anything to you yet, but I don’t really have words. Even though you weren’t his biological mother you both still lost a child. Please don’t give up trying to find out what happened. No matter how brutal his death was, it will give you some peace. Love and healing light to both of you.

  89. 89.

    Elizabelle

    @BlueGuitarist:  I agree.

    If at first you don’t succeed (FDR) …  I think a lot of Americans are quite aware of what the “Captains of Industry”/Masters of the World types want for us.  And they do not want it, and want a functioning Supreme Court.

    We want the right to vote.  We want the right to privacy, and to marry.  We want to not get shot up in a school, church, mall, workplace, theatre, gas station, restaurant …

  90. 90.

    brendancalling

    @Elizabelle: I grew up here as well. We moved here in 1974, the yer I turned 4, and moved in 1991, right before I turned 21. I come back regularly—I still have lots of friends here.

  93. 93.

    Elizabelle

    @brendancalling:  My dad was at the Naval War College for a year or a little longer.  We lived at Fort Adams.  Our houses do not exist any more — military housing built on slabs, removed, and now it’s a beautiful park with a million dollar view.  (We had that view when living in those tiny homes.

    Newport is a magical place.  Please enjoy some fresh seafood for me!  Get in a very chilly swim (if it’s not too early in the year).

  97. 97.

    Immanentize

    @Omnes Omnibus: It is. The difference in sentence is something like 20 years vs. 30 years. Gorsuch is taking in the grumpy Scalia crown vis a vis attempts to expand the power of the state in criminal cases. I don’t know how many people this will help, but saying it is not a “crime of violence” means it may not be a deportable offense.

  99. 99.

    Layer8Problem

    What is the sense among the legal types around here, academic and otherwise, about pushback within the legal system against the legal system being gamed with right-wing partisans and know-nothings? I get it that it’s not as simple as saying “this isn’t the law, you’re doing it wrong.” We’ve had op-ed pieces by Yale Law types saying “not to worry about <fill in Supreme Court justice candidate here>, they’ll be fine” and few follow-up pieces from them saying “boy is my face red, who’da thunk?” after they proceed to do exactly what the likes of us expected. I’ve seen people saying the 32-year-old nutbars with zero relevant experience elevated to the federal bench will get bored with the procedural minutia or blue from the lack of the big bucks and step down Real Soon Now. We need to trust the courts and the law, but long term, what happens if we get to “nothing to be done, they just don’t like that statute any more?”

    On marches and protests I remember the National Lawyers Guild folks with the green hats standing by in case of untoward stuff happening, and thanking them for being there. Are there similar-minded people in the bar associations and the law schools, hell, in the regular legal salt mines of white-shoe firms and small-town practices saying “fuck this, we gotta do something?” Really hoping I don’t sound full-BJ-Worrier here.

  100. 100.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BlueGuitarist: I saw something the other day that indicated that Mandela Barnes (one of several candidates running for the the D nom and my current choice) is up 10 points on Johnson.  I did not see details, so grain of salt and all that.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Oh Lordy, there are tapes!

    The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has subpoenaed a documentary filmmaker who had extensive access to Donald Trump and his close associates during the crucial days of the last presidential election. Alex Holder, who is believed to have shot footage of Trump and his inner circle for months beginning on the campaign trail in September 2020, is expected to fully cooperate with the panel. […] “We understand you have raw footage depicting the January 6th attack and of President Trump and others discussing the November 2020 presidential election results,” the summons reads. It then goes on to demand that Holder hand over any footage shot in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, along with any interviews shot with Trump, his children, or Vice President Mike Pence.

  102. 102.

    lowtechcyclist

    @UncleEbeneezer:  if it’s wrong okay to call Trump voters “racist” why is it okay to call Mexicans “rapists” and all LGBTQ people “groomers?”

    Damned good question!

    It’s not OK, of course, but your question is really, why do people in the media jump on the former while letting the latter slide?

    Worthless gits.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @BlueGuitarist: The people begging Johnson to break his two-term promise could have been Democrats. I thought that Wisconsin Republicans had a stronger candidate to take Johnson’s place had he retired.

  107. 107.

    JanieM

    @BlueGuitarist: Hey, what’s he worried about, Susan Collins broke her term limit promise without a backward glance. Precedent! /s

    From Wikipedia, and my own memory:

    Collins was elected to the Senate in 1996. During the campaign she pledged that, if elected, she would serve only two terms.[19]

  108. 108.

    lowtechcyclist

    @BlueGuitarist: But is the moon in the seventh house (whatever that is)?

    I thought the big deal was that all five of the visible planets were supposed to align.  I’ve been out there a couple of mornings, but I haven’t seen Mercury yet.

    It doesn’t help that, with the Chesapeake Bay immediately to my east, there’s a bit of a haze near the eastern horizon at this time of year.  So Mercury not only has to rise before the sun washes it out of view, it’s got to clear the haze as well.  I’m told that Friday’s my best bet.

  109. 109.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @lowtechcyclist: I see a lot of this shit from online trolls too.  Upset that somebody, somewhere said White People have privilege or are racist.  And how DARE you make generalizations about a group?!! etc.

    The best response is to point out all the countless stereotypes that Republicans have been pushing for decades and ask them if they got upset about those?  Did they speak out against them?  Show some receipts etc.  Otherwise, all evidence suggests that they only care when it (rarely) happens to white people, men etc., but they don’t give a fuck when it’s actual marginalized groups.

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Immanentize: Shoop v. Twyford is another chance for the AEDPA to fuck things up.  OTOH, even prior to the AEDPA, this case was probably a reach for an post-Warren Court.

  113. 113.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Random aside: we know that a LOT of people hate Trump and don’t want to see him reelected in 2024, including Swing Voters, Trump->Biden voters and people who may not turn out in mid-terms.  We know that several state candidates for various positions have promised to ratfuck the 2024 election from the state level.

    It seems like a good Dem tactic would be to make 2022 about 2024 by specifically mentioning that AG/SS/Governor etc., candidate X will “throw out your vote in 2024 and hand the election to Trump, if you don’t vote against them in November 2022” in the crucial states that could likely decide 2024.  Anyone know if groups are using this specific scare tactic for states like MI, WI, PA etc.?

  114. 114.

    JML

    @BlueGuitarist: Just as long as no one in WI starts thinking this should be the primary line of attack. Secondary mockery, used as a way of showing why RonJohn can’t be trusted to work for the average Wisconsonite, etc is fine. But much like fundraising, breaking a term limit pledge doesn’t convince voters to vote against someone. It’s simply fodder for the converted.

    (Found this one out the hard way in a congressional race when people still thought it was a high value play; poor job by pollsters in testing intensity. I hope to hell they’re doing better at it now)

  116. 116.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to st Petersburg

    @Layer8Problem:

    Personally, I’m going with outspoken criticism when due and pedestal-lowering in all circumstances as a reminder they’re just lawyers who happened to win an election or game an appointment, and that it is simply a job.

    Judges I know get referred to by first name outside their courtrooms – and that includes all appellate levels. If I don’t know them on that personal a level, I treat them as I would any new person or casual acquaintance.

    Leveling is important. Eliminating the sense of entitlement and grandeur is important. Public criticism when due is important, even if it crosses the stupid line of “bringing the bench and bar into disrepute”.

  117. 117.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JML: The line against Johnson has been that he’s making himself rich[er] by backing policies that are bad for Wisconsin.

  120. 120.

    Kristine

    @Anyway:

    I say this as a poll worker the last 4 cycles — there are so many rules to be followed and it is clearly laid out but in talking to my R friends (yes, I have those) either they refuse to believe there are rules that are followed or they don’t take take time to understand the procedures.

    Also was a poll worker and yup to everything you say.

    I’ve started to think that poll work should be a mandatory requirement. I’m sure there are legal reasons why it would never fly,

  123. 123.

    BlueGuitarist

    @JML:

    intriguing parenthetical comment! (newsletter?)

    OO indicated main criticism.

    “Oath Breaker” and “Moscow Ron” could reinforce the corruption message.

    Do you know of any good down-ballot candidates?

  124. 124.

    trollhattan

    Unsurprising, and a bad precedent. Your USSC.

    June 21, 2022 at 10:45 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

    “The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Maine may not exclude religious schools from a state tuition program,” the New York Times reports.

    “The decision, from a court that has grown exceptionally receptive to claims from religious people and groups in a variety of settings, was the latest in a series of rulings requiring the government to aid religious institutions on the same terms as other private organizations.”

    “The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s three liberal justices in dissent.”

    Washington Post: “The case involves an unusual program in a small state that affects only a few thousand students. But it could have greater implications as the more conservative court relaxes the constitutional line between church and state.”

    “Congress shall establish…oh, never mind.”

  125. 125.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to st Petersburg

    @Immanentize:

    You fancy Latin-talking lawyers and your big brains….

    Give me my pleasant “shoot from the hip and ignore statutes and case law” family court any day…..

  126. 126.

    trollhattan

    @Kristine: I’ve started to think that poll work should be a mandatory requirement. I’m sure there are legal reasons why it would never fly,

    Any reason it couldn’t be set up like jury duty?

    I’d like to see the federal general election be a national holiday. That’s not happening either.

  127. 127.

    scav

    @trollhattan: The right of (certain) religions to suck on the government teat shall not be abridged. Unlike those necessarily deadbeat individual non-corporate people.

  128. 128.

    JML

    @BlueGuitarist: 

    I spent almost 10 years as a political consultant, mostly doing challenger races. (including some work in WI) In one race we convinced ourselves for a long time that people cared about our opponent breaking his self-imposed term limit pledge. Turned out it was one of those things that polled well (people didn’t like it) but wasn’t something that actually moved their vote. I’ve found the exact same thing on “candidate X took money from organization Y!” stories. They play to the converted, not to the undecided, and they’re not enough to make the other side stay home.

    Josh Kaul in WI for the AG race is a great down-ballot candidate in WI (it’s an important office and he’s a good dude). But where WI really needs help is in the state legislative races, where the WI GOP has gerrymandered the &^*#@%$* out of the state and their control of the legislature is incredibly dangerous. Need to boot as many of their crappy legislators as possible…

  130. 130.

    James E Powell

    @JML: 

    Turned out it was one of those things that polled well (people didn’t like it) but wasn’t something that actually moved their vote.

    There are quite a few issues like this. I believe abortion rights is one of them.

  131. 131.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JML: ​ @BlueGuitarist:
    Yes, Kaul is a good choice. Sarah Harrison for Dist 13 is another I would mention. I don’t know her, but I know the guy she hired to run her campaign and he is a good guy.

  133. 133.

    Citizen Alan

    @trollhattan:

    I look forward to ayatolah alito explaining why explaining why this reasoning should not be applied to Wahabbi (sp?) Muslim madrassa schools.

  134. 134.

    Geminid

    @UncleEbeneezer: Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is a hep cat. He’ll probably use that line of attack against his opponent in the Governor race. Republican Mastriano is an unabashed vote suppressor and election thief.

  136. 136.

    Barbara

    @scav: I don’t like this decision either but the underlying program seemed kind of extraordinary to me, that a state would subsidize private schools like this.  It’s just a testament to how difficult low density population states like Maine are coping with the need to provide basic services.

  137. 137.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @JML:

    I’m especially interested in overlapping competitive down-ballot districts. Just starting to look at WI now.

    Democrats flipped 2 seats in 2020: WI-A-13 and 23. Redistricting made 23 bluer and 13 redder (from Biden +9 to -6; Baldwin +3 to -16, so looks like some anti-Trump Rs, voting R for everything else.)

    WIA-13 overlaps WIS-05 which seems at a quick glance one of the best WI Senate opportunities.

  138. 138.

    Captain C

    @JanieM: 

    Collins was elected to the Senate in 1996. During the campaign she pledged that, if elected, she would serve only two terms.[19]

    Presumably that was before she found out the extent of the grifting possibilities available to her and her family.

  139. 139.

    sdhays

    @Paul in KY: FDR didn’t fail to expand the Court, the Court was sufficiently scared of his efforts succeeding that they stopped shitting over everything he was trying to do. If they had remained recalcitrant, the Court would likely have been expanded.

  142. 142.

    debbie

    @germy shoemangler:

    I’m fond of this one:

    Opinion | If dying by Covid isn’t taking workers out of the work force fast enough, we must increase unemployment by other means.

    by Lawrence Summers
    — New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) June 21, 2022

  143. 143.

    Barbara

    @Citizen Alan: The dissent of William O. Douglas in Yoder v. Wisconsin was prescient in this regard and the Court is likely to tie itself into knots when it gets a case involving a religion it doesn’t like:

    I think the emphasis of the Court on the “law and order” record of this Amish group of people is quite irrelevant. A religion is a religion irrespective of what the misdemeanor or felony records of its members might be. I am not at all sure how the Catholics, Episcopalians, the Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unitarians, and my own Presbyterians would make out if subjected to such a test. It is, of course, true that, if a group or society was organized to perpetuate crime, and if that is its motive, we would have rather startling problems akin to those that were raised when, some years back, a particular sect was challenged here as operating on a fraudulent basis. United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78. But no such factors are present here, and the Amish, whether with a high or low criminal record, [Footnote 3/5] certainly qualify by all historic standards as a religion within the meaning of the First Amendment.

    The Court rightly rejects the notion that actions, even though religiously grounded, are always outside the protection of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. In so ruling, the Court departs from the teaching of Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 98 U. S. 164, where it was said, concerning the reach of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,

    “Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.”

    In that case, it was conceded at polygamy was a part of the religion of the Mormons. Yet the Court said, “It matters not that his belief [in polygamy] was a part of his professed religion: it was still belief, and belief only.” Id. at 98 U. S. 167.

    Action which the Court deemed to be antisocial could be punished even though it was grounded on deeply held and sincere religious convictions. What we do today, at least in this respect, opens the way to give organized religion a broader base than it has ever enjoyed, and it even promises that in time Reynolds will be overruled.

    Wisconsin v. Yoder

  144. 144.

    Paul in KY

    @sdhays: My read is that the court expansion would have never passed even with the majorities he enjoyed and that after that episode he never got any more of his pre-WW2 ‘big idea’ great depression fighting bills passed.

    It very well may have motivated a couple of justices who had been voting against his proposals to give them a 2nd look and to start voting differently.

  146. 146.

    Baud

    @germy shoemangler:

    Larry Summers — who the president said he spoke with today — publicly saying a 5% unemployment rate is necessary to combat inflation. To state the obvious, a 5% unemployment rate would mean devastating joblessness for millions of poor American workers

     

    It’d be cool if those millions of Americans voted to support Biden this November for putting workers first.

  148. 148.

    Layer8Problem

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to st Petersburg: Personally, I’m going with outspoken criticism when due and pedestal-lowering in all circumstances as a reminder they’re just lawyers who happened to win an election or game an appointment, and that it is simply a job.

    Trying to fit this in the context of Robert Bolt’s Thomas More. 

  150. 150.

    Soprano2

    Thanks, everyone. I’m glad I have this place to vent; I can’t talk about it on FB because there are other family members on there, and I really don’t feel comfortable talking much about this in public. Maybe I’ve watched too many detective shows, but I don’t understand why they couldn’t do the ID through DNA testing. Surely they had to be something in his room with his DNA on it that they could have used to spare my husband having to do that. Maybe someone here knows more about it, could it be a money thing?

  152. 152.

    Barbara

    @Soprano2: It could be a money thing, yes, and it just could be that they have not yet officially adopted a policy of proving ID through DNA.  I know it sounds like it should be a no-brainer, but adoption and misidentified paternity, to name two issues, might make it more complex than you would think.  Unless his DNA had already been analyzed, they would have to do at least two DNA tests, and there would have to be chain of custody documentation and so on and so on.

    I am really sorry though.  It sounds like it was a horrible ordeal.

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