Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

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

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

So very ready.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The revolution will be supervised.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Afternoon Fill In the Blanks Open Thread

Tuesday Afternoon Fill In the Blanks Open Thread

by | 101 Comments

This post is in: 

So many things to write about, but no time today.

Beau’s podcast last night talked about research from Johns Hopkins about the impact of their awful abortion law from 2021 or 2022.  8% increase in infant mortality overall.  23% increase in deaths of children born with birth defects.  There aren’t words bad enough for people who put women and families through this.

Judge Cannon clearly has whisperers in her ear about just how far she can go without doing something to allow jack Smith to appeal to the 11th Circuit. Exhibit # 50-million of this going on this week.

And so much more.

Anyway, fill in the blanks and choose your topics!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

101Comments

  3. 3.

    WaterGirl

    @TBone: When you post a link, it would be so awesome if you would tell us what it is related to

    edit: which you did in comment 2, but not in comment 1 when i replied.

  4. 4.

    Another Scott

    Bad policies kill people. Grr… :-(

    Meanwhile, …

    Aaron Fritschner
    @Fritschner
    1h

    A big under-the-radar policy dispute here. A number of Republicans are on-record supporting loosening restrictions on marijuana, including via rescheduling. Not hard to imagine a vote on this, if allowed, dividing the GOP conference and successfully striking the provision

    Aaron Fritschner
    @Fritschner
    1h

    House Republicans’ just-released Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill would block President Biden from reducing criminal penalties for marijuana.

    Republicans want to keep locking people up for cannabis:

    [image of bill text]

    Jun 25, 2024 · 3:44 PM UTC

    Make them vote on it. Show that, yet again, the old guy is trying to make things better but the reactionary GQP is in the way…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  5. 5.

    Manyakitty

    Where does the 11th Circuit go from here? She’s clearly impossible to shame. I wonder if the chief judge is getting inundated with calls and letters about her–I’ve thought about writing as a concerned, taxpaying American citizen.

  6. 6.

    RaflW

    May have been talked about yesterday, but a LawDork email this morning said SCOTUS granted cert for a case next term on United States v. Skrmetti, about the right for trans minors in Tennessee to access care.

    We can’t know how the case will go, but given the radical six, I’m definitely concerned.

  8. 8.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: Sorry!  #1 is Nicole Wallace telling it! like it is about the debates.

    #2 is Digby highlighting John Fugelsang reminding us ALL how not a “peace president” Dotard was, contrary to his mind-bending claims to be.  Many important reminders about the utter crap pulled by Dotard on the world stage.

  13. 13.

    Chris

    choose your topics

    Okay.  What’s the highest percentage move in the first round of the French elections coming up?

    I’ve been voting Macron’s party for the last few rounds without great enthusiasm, largely because I wanted to buff up the biggest non-fascist pro-EU party and also because, well, the left pretty much disintegrated after Hollande so it’s not like there was much choice there for a while.

    Currently enough lefty parties have gotten together in the New Popular Front that there actually is something viable over there for the first time in years, so I’m sorely tempted to go that way.  On the other hand, even if it works out (and they win in the second round as well), the divided government with a Macron presidency and an NFP legislature and prime minister feels like a formula for a shit show that won’t produce much and can’t possibly fail to help the fascists next time around.  Then again, Macron’s party polls aren’t that encouraging in any case.

  14. 14.

    Belafon

    @RaflW: There are two “originalism” cases floating around about this. The Tennessee one says that, based on Dobbs, that there was no “original” consideration of trans care at the time of founding, so we can’t have it now. Another one, I forget where, says that, based on “originalism”, that parents have the right to choose the care for their kids.

  15. 15.

    jimmiraybob

    I think the question that needs to be asked is, “are Joe’s Secret Service agents authorized to use deadly force?”

  16. 16.

    smith

    I’ve been thinking that the Felon has successfully sucked “Judge” Cannon into his ongoing MAGA Humiliation Theater, and it’s not going to do either of them any good. By Humiliation Theater, I mean the requirement that anyone who wants full credit for being on Team Felon to ratify any cockmamamie idea that comes out of his piehole, even if he reverses himself ten minutes later. We just saw this with his proposal to give an insta-green card to foreign college graduates, something he walked back the next day. His sycophants didn’t miss a beat with “Yes, sir, yes, sir!” each time.

    The motions his lawyers — who are also initiates into MAGA Humiliation Theater — have been filing in the MAL documents case have been getting more frivolous and whackaloon as time goes on. They are challenging Cannon to make rulings that go against the clear meaning of laws, against well-established precedents, and most recently, against the ruling in this case of a far more experienced federal judge. She’s caught in a bind, because ruling in his favor, as Humiliation Theater demands, means she’s not only exposing herself to embarrassment and ridicule, but also to appeals and her ultimate involuntary recusal. She’s making such a mockery of her position, I’d bet the 11th Circuit will, when the time comes, grab the opportunity with huge sighs of relief, and maybe a party afterwards. I suspect the leaking of the recent story about her being advised by other judges not to take the case is a shot across her bow from the judicial powers that be.

    She’s smart enough to see the bind she’s in, and I’m betting that’s what’s making her so very cranky in court. Give it up, Aileen! Its not going to get any better!

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    The fact that Cannon is not letting the magistrate judge assigned to the case hand much of the routine motion practice is quite telling.  District judges almost always have routine matters handled by the magistrate judge.  It is the reason they are there.

  23. 23.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: I tend to get so excited about stuff that I forget to describe it – I just have to share so someone else is as excited I am! 😂

    I also forget that not everyone has the time to read everything I post.  

  24. 24.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    She’s succeeded in her goal of delay. I think she probably had improper help and I hope that comes out. The only question in my mind is if she’ll allow Trump to be convicted if he loses the election.

  26. 26.

    TBone

    This one is for BC and other Florida peeps in particular, but really for anyone concerned about conservation.  The scientists are being driven out, it is not a happy story.  DeathSantis is such a prick.

    A powerful nonprofit, closely allied with the Florida governor, sued one of its former scientists for stealing trade secrets. What was it really after?

    newrepublic.com/article/182364/everglades-scientist-trial-ron-desantis-florida

    The idea that a science-focused nonprofit might possess trade secrets presents a particular stumbling block to some conservationists. “You cannot have trade secrets and call it science,” Stuart Pimm, one of the world’s foremost conservation ecologists, told me. He thinks that with this lawsuit, the Everglades Foundation has crossed a threshold, undermining its credibility as a research institution by smothering its own research. “For somebody to try and shut up the scientists,” he said, “that is very, very worrying business.”

  27. 27.

    Leto

    @smith: So my tin-foil hat theory is that because of her husband’s mob connections, which are the same connections as Trumpov’s, then she’s being worked over.

    From Crooks and Liars: crooksandliars.com/2024/05/no-one-ever-mentions-aileen-cannons-mobbed

    At some point, the amount of “coincidences” stop being coincidences.

    And I found this interesting:

    Clerking For Judge Cannon: A Behind-The-Scenes Look

    A tale of two clerkships: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

    She’s in over her head, doesn’t have any experience with a case like this, and just won’t recuse. It’s interesting seeing what clerks thought before her first Trumpov case, versus after, when the 11th Circuit smacked her down. Potential reasons why she can’t get her clerkships filled.

  32. 32.

    Leto

    @Omnes Omnibus: the latest Jack podcast episode mentioned the same thing, with a similar observation. Like Baud said at #24, and so many others have observed, she’s succeeded in delaying the trial till after the election so at least objective #1 is accomplished. I don’t know how long she can possibly delay the trial through simple mismanagement of every pre-trial decision. Years? How many years could she delay this? Will the 11th eventually step in and say, “ok, you’re done”?

  33. 33.

    cain

    The religious fanatics are not interested in the fetus or the baby – in fact, only the fetus is pure. The baby not so – whether the baby dies or not is immaterial – they are not trying to save a baby. They are only interested in the fetus.

    And the fetus is only interesting in that it is an instrument to control women.

  34. 34.

    cain

    @Leto:

    She’s really playing with fire. Once Trump is defeated – nobody is going to give her the time of day because he’s a lame duck. He’ll continue to become a blistering idiot and her federalist buddies will look elsewhere and she’ll lose that support mechanism.

    All she has will be her reputation and that will be in tatters because just about everyone now knows her behavior and any attempt to put her name in any hat will be met with a deep well of scorn.

  36. 36.

    Leto

    @TBone: the way smith spoke about Roving made me think of Santorum. I hope that description sticks to him until the heat death of the universe.

  37. 37.

    Captain C

    @Leto: If the ‘deep state’ was a quarter as bad as the Trump Cult claims, she’d either have already died of reasonably plausible natural causes or all her family’s secrets would have been spilled by now.  I kind of hope one of the Five Eyes is taking notes on her phone calls and emails.

  40. 40.

    RevRick

    @Manyakitty: Bingo!
    At 2:00 pm I’m going to lead the Penn Northeast Conference (UCC) Racial Justice Team meeting on Zoom, and we’ll be discussing future goals, which include encouraging local church, conversations about race, sending a delegation to Selma and Montgomery to engage with ongoing Civil Rights issues, holding online book discussions, and engaging congregations into exploring issues of race, gender and class in their own communities.

    I plan on beginning with a discussion of the book of Ruth, which all too often is reduced to Hallmark Card schmalz about mother in laws and happily ever after marriage. But it really illuminates all these issues.

  41. 41.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Leto:

    She’s in over her head, doesn’t have any experience with a case like this, and just won’t recuse.

    Apparently rank incompetence isn’t enough for a Senate impeachment.  Not that the Senate as it’s currently comprised would have enough votes to go that route.

    We need to set her up with a bribery charge.  Who am I kidding, we could get her on tape, video and audio, accepting gold bars in return for “considerations” and it wouldn’t be enough for a Senate impeachment.

  42. 42.

    Soprano2

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s obvious that she’s protecting TCFG. She lets his lawyers have whatever they want, while constantly scolding and restraining the government’s lawyers. She’s letting him delay, delay, delay, and having hearings about things that are completely settled law (like the silly one they’re having now about the constitutionality of the special counsel’s appointment). Her only objective is to prevent the documents case from coming to a trial before the election, because he’s so obviously guilty that I’d be surprised if it took a jury more than an hour to render a verdict. They might wait just to get lunch. LOL

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

     
    If we actually had evidence like that, I’m not sure we couldn’t get her removed if Trump loses. I don’t know that she has any patrons in the GOP other than Trump, so in the face of good evidence, I could see them voting to convict for the PR.

  47. 47.

    Hoodie

    @Leto: From that, it appears we can forget about that case going anywhere in the near future.  Even if she’s not completely in the tank for Trump, she’s painted herself into a corner where she can’t acknowledge the issues she has in managing the case and step away.   The Trumpists will cast her out and otherwise she looks like she’s not up to the job.  Goodbye further judicial career.

  48. 48.

    Scout211

    “Breaking” news on NBC

    The judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush money trial on Tuesday lifted some of the restrictions from his gag order.

    The ruling by Judge Juan Merchan comes two days before Trump is set to debate President Joe Biden for the first time in the 2024 campaign.

    Merchan’s ruling lifted restrictions on Trump’s ability to comment on the witnesses who testified against him during his trial, as well as a part of the order barring him from discussing the jury that convicted him, essentially finding the witnesses’ and the jury’s work had concluded so there was no fear of impacting the proceedings. The ruling left in place a part of the order barring Trump from going after court staff, individual prosecutors and “family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney.”

    The ruling said those restrictions would remain in place until Trump’s sentencing on July 11.

    Ugh.

  49. 49.

    Leto

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’ve tried to think of how we could go about mitigating bad federal judges. I know we’ll never impeach them, so how can we go about mitigating how much influence they have? I’m thinking specifically the Heritage Foundation (HF) stooges. I’d like our resident lawyers to weigh in on this, as it’s mainly a policy question, but I don’t know how to tackle it.

    And I believe it’s not a liberal versus conservative POV question. There are plenty of older conservative justices who aren’t batshit insane. This has more to do with the HF’s influence/pipeline training/education puke funnel into the federal judiciary. Just another thing we need to mitigate moving forward.

  54. 54.

    TBone

    @Leto: we need to tax the living shit out of the HF and all other bullshit political foundations.  Cut the monster off at the head.  Judges learned how to be judges just fine before the moneybags people scum learned how to buy them.

    Citizens United can suck my ****!

  55. 55.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Thanks he was quite young, in his 30s. I just spoke in a Twitter Space for him just Who’s who of the resistance against the BJP is there.

    I know it is received wisdom in these parts how awful Twitter is. But without Twitter I would have never found my political tribe especially where Indian politics is concerned. These last 5 years would have been lonely without them.

  60. 60.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: He was a smoker and he really worked hard on election coverage with almost no resources. I think he worked himself to death. To show the reality of what was happening in UP.

  61. 61.

    TBone

    Reposting this letter demand for term limits.  It’s not a fundraiser.  It takes 60 seconds or less.  It’s a small something, but it’s something to DO.

    I would like for this organization to not be necessary (tax the shit out of them) but in the meantime fight fire with fire.

    act.americanprogress.org/page/68031/petition/1?cclt=Ca_30~Or_1~Pr_11~IA_A-1

    For skeptics:

    americanprogress.org/about-us/

    Action to hold billionaire-backed judges on the Supreme Court accountable is necessary. Sign our letter now to demand the immediate implementation of 18-year term limits.

  64. 64.

    Dave

    @schrodingers_cat: Unfortunate is this likely to mitigate the worst impulses of Modi and his fellow travelers or are the other parties in the coalition in the same vein?

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Dave: BJP is like Hitler after Stalingrad. A wounded tiger. They will be more dangerous. But their nonsense has seen a major pushback. But they are not completely defeated yet. They will be dangerous until then.

    The regional parties that are supporting them are socialist not RW. BJP has their support using India’s equivalent of IRS and FBI.

  66. 66.

    JWR

    (CNN) — Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith in a filing late Monday night pushed back on former President Donald Trump’s effort to toss the classified documents case against him over how materials found in boxes during the FBI’s 2022 Mar-a-Lago search were handled by investigators.

    Prosecutors, with several never-before-seen images and a 30-page filing, detailed the search process and ridiculed Trump’s legal arguments.

    “Trump personally chose to keep documents containing some of the nation’s most highly guarded secrets in cardboard boxes,” prosecutors wrote, “along with a collection of other personally chosen keepsakes of various sizes and shapes from his presidency—newspapers, thank you notes, Christmas ornaments, magazines, clothing, and photographs of himself and others.”

    The latest Trump bid to toss the case came after prosecutors acknowledged that some of the documents fell out of order within their individual boxes after they were seized by the government.

    The boxes and its contents weren’t kept in their “proper” disheveled order. How many months do you suppose it’ll take judge Cannon to sort this vexing conundrum out?

  68. 68.

    Belafon

    @cain: Her reputation won’t matter as long as she is randomly assigned cases. At best, we never allow a Republican to move her up.

  69. 69.

    TBone

    @Leto: here is a follow up on that, dated TODAY.

    crooksandliars.com/2024/06/mob-wife-judge-loose-cannon-chides 👀

    First, let me point out that Aileen Cannon is married to Josh Lorence, who (as far as we know) still works for convicted felon John Rossatti, formerly of New York’s Columbo crime family, who now lives in West Palm Beach and socializes with former business partner Donald Trump. Just so you know what story our brave national media is absolutely tiptoeing around.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    @JWR:

    Indeed.

    EmptyWheel.net:

    So if you walk into the room, his bed — there’s a nightstand, his bed, and then there’s, like, a — where another nightstand was but nobody ever slept on that side of the bed usually so he would have it all full of boxes.

    He was very, very protective of his boxes…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  76. 76.

    Miss Bianca

    @zhena gogolia: Personally, I am going to go out on a limb and say that President Biden doesn’t need any outsider’s advice about how to win a debate.

  78. 78.

    TBone

    This debate ain’t a cotillion is what I’m saying.

    Digby sez

    “He’s cut over the eye. Time to work the eye!”

  81. 81.

    smith

    @TBone: Just so you know what story our brave national media is absolutely tiptoeing around.

    Just another facet of the ongoing normalization of the Felon. Same with the extent to which his foreign policy stances are controlled by Putin.

  86. 86.

    Geminid

    @schrodingers_cat: This a somewhat like Turkiye’s 2015 election. R.T. Erdogan’s AK Party had held a National Assembly majority for 12 years going in, but fell short and has been allied with a right-wing nationalist party (MHP) ever since.

  87. 87.

    Captain C

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Hell, if she got convicted in a criminal court for a blatant, explicit quid-pro-quo (“Here’s a million dollars in untraceable gold bars and a signed guarantee that TCFG will appoint you to the Supreme Court without you have to go through the usual casting couch procedures”) and it went to the Supreme Court, at minimum Justice Vacation-RV and Justice Inquisitor would say “vacate the conviction, dismiss charges with prejudice, for this is clearly legally kosher.”

  88. 88.

    Leto

    @JWR: per the Jack podcast, the FBI scans all those documents in the order they’re filed in their boxes. So they get the box, and just from front to back and scan it all. That image (of all the scans) is what they reference as the “official” order of things. Trumpov was given a copy of that, so it doesn’t matter if some pages were misfiled later (bad housekeeping practice) because the file image is what they go off of. Again, just another delay tactic and it’s so transparent.

  89. 89.

    TBone

    @Leto: I used to have to scan and Bates-stamp voluminous legal records/exhibits.  It is a huge pain in the ass, even when the scanning program automatically stamps the exhibit markings for you.  If you get one, just one wrong, the whole shebang needs a redo.  It’s almost easier to stamp by hand.  But you can’t stamp a classified document!

  91. 91.

    Chris

    @TBone:

    Our Constitution is a living document, hence the Amendments!

    I just love the whole concept of invoking the fixed, immutable, Original Intent of people who overthrew their government, wrote a new constitution, went “oh, crap,” wrote another constitution, went “oh, crap,” and then came back to it and went “oh, one more thing” so many times that Lieutenant Columbo would’ve thrown their asses in the clink for copyright infringement if only they hadn’t come first.

    If we’d continued to run this country the way the founding fathers did, we’d be well past our hundredth amendment by now.  Except not really, because we’d actually be on our third or fourth constitution.

  94. 94.

    JWR

    @Leto:

    Again, just another delay tactic and it’s so transparent.

    But just enough to give Cannon grounds for a hearing here, a hearing there, and a bunch more hearings everywhere! :(

  95. 95.

    Chris

    @TBone:

    Was that what happened?  Constitution went into effect the same year as the Declaration of Human Rights.

    Oh well.  Benefits of dual citizenship, whoever plagiarized was my people.

  96. 96.

    karen marie

    @FastEdD: You know what beats fish tacos? Fish burritos!

     

    I love the ones from Filiberto’s. It has what I think is coleslaw. I’ve never dissected one because I’m too busy eating, but I think that’s what it is.

  98. 98.

    cain

    @Belafon:

    That’s what I meant – she’s stuck there. Supposedly, she’s doing all this with hopes of moving up. That will never happen.

  99. 99.

    Geminid

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes, different countries with different politics. And I don’t think Erdogan poses the threat to his country that Modi does.

    Ed. Right now there are 4 principal parties in Turkiye: AKP, CHP, MHP and DEM. The AK party l comes out of the Islamist movement that Turkiye’s military suppressed through the latter half of the last century. It’s culturally conservative and business oriented.CHP is the party Kemal Ataturk founded, and it held a majority for decades. It’s transitioned to a liberal party over the last 10 years.

    MHP was founded in the 1970s (I think), by an ultran-nationalis Army officer. It’s been banned at least once for the violent acts of its “Grey Wolves” youth wing.

    DEM is the newest iteration of a Kurdish/leftist alliance.

  101. 101.

    SomeRandomGuy

    I believe Judge Cannon wants to say that she is in *no* way in the tank for “the sexiest, most conservative, most lawful, best dressed, most physically fit, STILL PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, her dear Trumpy-poo.”

    Emphasis on the “poo” I imagine.

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