… that my posts are all about the law as a tool of politics. So much of what goes on between left and right in this country today occurs through that mechanism. That’s why the leftist slant of law schools that really picked up steam in the 1980s and 1990s has been such an important part of the Gramscian march, really its cornerstone (yes; I know that’s a mixed metaphor).
Dershowitz: on the left’s lawfare against Trump’s lawyers
This is an important video from Dershowitz. I wish most Americans would watch it, but of course that won’t be happening. The first 20 minutes or so are especially good, but the whole thing is worth watching. Dershowitz understands the importance of the adversary system and why attacks on Trump’s lawyers are so pernicious.
In tactical and strategic terms, it doesn’t matter to the left that their cases against Trump are so weak – some of them extremely weak. The left thinks it’s in a win/win/win position, and it could very well be correct. It’s not necessary for the ;eft to ultimately win the cases to achieve their purposes. The possibilities go as follows:
(1) The judges and juries are so biased that they will convict despite the weakness of the cases. Any appeals will only occur after the election, and so even if reversals occur they will come too late to help Trump in time for the 2024 voting.
(2) Even if there are acquittals, the cases serve as a warning to everyone on the right and any lawyer who might be so bold as to defend Trump. Dershowitz explains this exceptionally well in the video.
(3) No matter what the verdicts are and whether cases win on appeal, the trials serve during an election year to stress Trump, occupy and distract him, and waste his money.
Update on one of the Trump 18: Harrison Floyd
[NOTE: Here’s my previous post on Floyd.]
Harrison Floyd, the only one of the Georgia Trump case defendants who has been jailed, has been released after five days:
The last of President Donald J. Trump’s 18 co-defendants to be released post-arraignment stepped outside the Fulton County Jail Wednesday morning and told “Bannon’s War Room” host Stephen K. Bannon why he thought he was held for five days.
“The state of Georgia, and I’m a black man. I don’t know if I can say much more,” said Harrison Floyd, the executive director of Black Voices of Trump.
Bannon asked Floyd about his charges.
“To keep it frank and simple, Fulton County fumbled the coverup, and I am aware of what transpired, and they’re trying to put pressure on me and others to make sure that the truth doesn’t come out,” he said.
“The truth always has a way of finding its way to the surface, sir, so it’s going to be; I’m looking forward to being down here and fighting the devil in Georgia,” he said.
Bannon helped raise the money to buy Floyd’s freedom and get him some decent lawyers. For those who had wondered why Trump didn’t give him the money, I read somewhere that the supposed co-conspirators are not allowed to communicate. I don’t know for sure whether that’s true, but if it is it explains the Bannon connection.
More from Floyd:
Floyd said [Fulton County DA] Willis, the daughter of a Black Panther, targeted him because he dared to step into the limelight as a black Republican and Trump supporter.
“Part of the Black culture is always voting Democrat. I went against the code, if you will, at the highest order,” Floyd said.
“The district attorney decided she wanted to send me what we call a Negro wake-up call,” he said.
“She dialed the wrong number, because it didn’t go through.”
[NOTE II: I suspect that the statement about the “devil in Georgia” is a reference to the Charlie Daniels song.]
A little memory-refresher on California propositions
Yesterday I wrote this post about three ballot initiatives in California designed to protect children and parents from the radical trans activist push in that state. In it, I observed:
What if these ballot measures pass? I have a hunch they might be invalidated by the California courts. You see, in a blue state the left has several layers of defense. Forget about Democracy™ when it doesn’t go the way the left wants it to.
It occurs to me that many readers might not know the history behind my claim. So I want to call your attention to California’s Proposition 187 and Proposition 8. Here’s some history on Proposition 187 [remarks in brackets mine]:
California Proposition 187 (also known as the Save Our State (SOS) initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public education, and other services in the State of California. Voters passed the proposed law at a referendum on November 8, 1994. The law was challenged in a legal suit the day after its passage, and found unconstitutional by a federal district court on November 11. In 1999, Governor Gray Davis halted state appeals of this ruling.
Passage of Proposition 187 reflected state residents’ concerns about illegal immigration into the United States. Opponents believed the law was motivated by bigotry against illegal immigrants of Hispanic or Asian origin [or claimed to believe it]; supporters maintained that their concerns were economic: that the state could not afford to provide social services for so many people who had entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas.
And we all know how California is doing now.
As for Proposition 8, it went this way:
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in court. The proposition was created by opponents of same-sex marriage in advance of the California Supreme Court’s May 2008 appeal ruling, In re Marriage Cases, which followed the short-lived 2004 same-sex weddings controversy and found the previous ban on same-sex marriage (Proposition 22, 2000) unconstitutional. Proposition 8 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by a federal court (on different grounds) in 2010 …
Both propositions had one thing in common: it could be argued that they targeted one of the identity groups protected by the left. The first was illegal immigrants and the second was gay people. If Proposition 8 had stood, it would of course have been overruled by Obergefell. But by the time that ruling came down, Proposition 8 was no more.
The current push to protect children from medical transition, to protect the rights of parents to be told if a school is transitioning their child, and to protect women’s sports, all have the same weakness as far as the California courts are concerned: they could be argued (and almost certainly will be argued, if passed) to discriminate against an identity group protected by the left.
Open thread 8/31/23
Is Joe slated to go?
There isn’t much question that President Biden has been deteriorating lately. He also seems to be laying low more and more often, either because he needs rest or because his handlers feel that almost any exposure is too much exposure.
But there remains the question of what the Democrats are going to do about it. In the comments here, many people have told me that I am wrong in my assumption that there’s nevertheless still a good chance that Biden will be the Democrats’ 2024 nominee, mainly because there’s no one all that good to replace him (even Newsom is vulnerable), because of the how-do-we-get-rid-of-Kamala-Harris problem, and because Joe himself has tremendous ambition to run and will only leave the field kicking and screaming.
Here’s someone who seems to agree with me.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying it’s a done deal that Biden will remain. But I think it’s more likely than not. It depends on the state of the investigations against him – the more the GOP is allowed to do in that regard and the more it is reported on fairly by the MSM (which hasn’t happened yet), the more likely it is that Joe will be ushered out, gently or harshly. It also depends on the state of his deterioration. If it becomes absolutely impossible to hide and he becomes utterly unable to function, something will have to happen. But they’ve propped him up so far, and most (perhaps even all) of the Democrats I know would vote for him even if he is unable to function, knowing that there’s a group of people behind him who would continue on the leftist path with him as some sort of figurehead.
[NOTE: For that matter, what’s up with McConnell?]
Protect Kids California launched
There’s some pushback to the gender ideology takeover in the schools, even in ultra-blue California:
Protect Kids California, a coalition of parental rights advocates and others who oppose gender ideology, filed three ballot initiatives Monday for the November 2024 ballot, aiming to circumvent the Golden State’s Legislature.
The ballot measures require schools to notify parents if their children claim to identify as transgender, prevent biological males from entering women’s spaces and sports, and forbid medical professionals from putting kids on experimental drugs or performing surgery on them to “affirm” a gender identity opposite their biological sex.
“We have legislators and institutions taking advantage of vulnerable children and busy parents,” Jonathan Zachreson, a member of the Roseville City School Board and spokesman for Protect Kids California, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Tuesday. “It’s going to take parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens from all over to stand up to protect kids from these harmful practices.”
“We have a Legislature that does not represent the people very well,” added Zachreson, a parental rights advocate who founded Reopen California Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The best polling that’s out there suggests that these initiatives would pass in California overwhelmingly.”
He cited numerous polls suggesting that more than 60% of California voters support schools notifying parents if their kids are questioning their gender identity, oppose biological males competing in women’s sports, and support restricting “sex-change” surgeries and drugs to patients over 18.
That poll information doesn’t surprise me, even in California. When I’ve brought up these issues (for example, schools routinely keeping transition a secret from parents; the effects of puberty blockers) now and then with people I know (not in California), even the die-hard Democrats are shocked at what I tell them. Sometimes they even say something like “That can’t be true!” I assure them it is, and offer to send links. Sometimes, perhaps, they read them; I really don’t know.
But not a single person has supported the agenda of the activists – especially regarding parental notice – when it is explained to them. The thing is, not a single person has known a thing about it before I mention it, and this is part of the left’s plan in shrouding what’s going on with rhetoric such as “gender affirming.”
Protect Kids California cited a June Rasmussen Reports poll finding that 68% of California voters support schools notifying parents if their child claims to identify as transgender. Even 65% of Democrats said they support parental notification.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least – even in California. And yet the vast majority of those same people will continue to send Democrats to Sacramento to make policies such as these. Go figure.
What if these ballot measures pass? I have a hunch they might be invalidated by the California courts. You see, in a blue state the left has several layers of defense. Forget about Democracy™ when it doesn’t go the way the left wants it to.
Project 2025: that vast right-wing conspiracy
Commenter “cb” linked to this AP article with a scary title that aims to frighten non-conservatives about the right’s plans if it somehow manages to win the 2024 election:
With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own.
“Dismantle the federal government” – insurrectionists all, right? No doubt they’re planning to do away with the Constitution and establish a Handmaid’s Tale dictatorship. And it’s about the evil Trump and his “vision,” not anything traditionally conservative. No mention, either, of the fact that the left has already taken over the federal bureaucracy and this is an attempt to reverse that takeover.
More:
With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers.
Sounds reasonable to me. And these particular federal workers are not the same as the federal government itself, although they are its workers.
Further:
The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending.
Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.
“Unprecedented” in the sense that conservatives previously hadn’t realized quite what they were dealing with; it’s not unprecedented in terms of the left, which has been flooding the bureaucracies for decades in an effort that picked up exponentially during the Obama administration. The right is merely trying to undo what the left has already done, and also to shrink those bureaucracies rather than grow them.
Good luck. The right has to win the election first.
By the way, the AP – which published this article – has been revealed recently as the recipient of a lot of money from left-wing foundations:
The Associated Press, the country’s top wire service, is now bankrolled in part by millions of dollars from left-wing foundations, including one founded by “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones.
The news organization last year announced a series of “partnerships” to subsidize reporters covering climate change, race, and democracy. A review of the donor roster shows that the vast majority fund left-wing political causes, while none are supporters of conservative initiatives.
And my guess is that just about everything political – including the article I’m discussing in this post – comes under the heading of “democracy.”
Open thread 8/30/23
Yesterday I put up a video about The Odyssey. And then last night I happened upon this fresco from Pompeii, depicting Penelope and the newly-returned Odysseus, disguised as a beggar. It’s so extraordinary:
Beware the woke therapists – and many of them are woke, especially the young ones
This article understandably caught my attention:
The contributors to Cynical Therapies are lecturers and clinicians in mental health who are raising the alarm about the ideological takeover of their discipline over the past twenty years. A mix of Americans and Brits — with the usual lack of dignity, the field in Britain has slavishly followed America’s into the abyss — the authors are heretics and, to many colleagues, traitors. The book is a cry for help.
Few doctrines could be more self-evidently antithetical to the traditional imperatives of psychotherapy than “Critical Social Justice,” aka that tiresome, overworked term beginning with “w.” Although psychiatry has developed a wide range of approaches, not long ago therapists of all persuasions were coached to display openness, empathy, curiosity and neutrality. Good therapists avoided prescriptive “answers,” which the patient was encouraged to arrive at independently. They withheld judgment, appreciated complexity and, most of all, listened. Focus was on the individual. The premise of the therapeutic process was that people can be helped to change. Why else would patients show up?
CSJ, along with its little brother, Critical Race Theory, is a closed system — like those articles to which you can no longer add comments. It espouses perfect certainty: every human relationship is about power. You’re either the oppressed or the oppressor, and this world view recognizes no other categories. Far from being empathetic, the creed is pitiless, especially regarding popular majorities. Neutrality? Please. Fun extracurricular activities: labelling, blaming, shaming and getting people fired. …
Why would anyone seek counseling to be browbeaten with a partisan cudgel? They wouldn’t. Thus, writes Cynical Therapies editor Val Thomas, “The most likely outcome will be the chaotic breakdown of the field itself. As CSJ moves through the therapy professions in its usual manner, dismantling, disrupting, decolonizing and problematizing all that exists therein, it will hollow out the center.” When clinicians aim no longer to heal but to morally re-educate their patients, therapists aren’t therapists, and “the whole house of cards” will collapse.
I’m not at all sure about that “collapse” part. Institutions can get hollowed out and go on for quite some time riding on their former reputations.
It’s not just the last twenty years; it was happening long before that. First of all, therapy is a field that was always vulnerable to leftist takeover because most therapists are left of center and it’s been that way for ages (go to the category “Therapy” on this blog and you’ll see plenty of posts discussing that and related issues). I was getting my Master’s in Family Therapy over thirty years ago, and although we students were definitely encouraged to have an open and seemingly neutral attitude, there already was a different agenda going on concurrently in the Family Therapy field but somewhat hidden from client. I fought that agenda mightily – it involved, for example, strategic lying at times as well as deceptive manipulation – and even wrote papers against it. And when I say “fought” I also mean outright heated arguing with my professors and fellow students, especially the professors.
It was an interesting experience, to say the least. I was free to do whatever I wanted because I was already an older student and didn’t really care if I got that degree or not (long story, perhaps for another time). Nor did I think the professors could hurt me if they turned on me. I had confidence in my point of view and my ability to argue it. But the situation was troubling; why was I virtually alone in my position? I now see the issue as mostly political, although at the time I – a Democrat – had no idea that politics had anything to do with it.
A decade later, around 2001 or so, when I was undergoing a very stressful divorce and a lengthy recuperation from a surgery for a very painful condition, I searched for a therapist for myself. I was starting to undergo my political change experience, too, and was encountering some hostility from a significant number of previous friends on account of that, so it was one of the subjects I wanted to discuss in therapy. I had extraordinary difficulty finding a therapist who would take me as a client when I told them that was one of my issues. It shocked me, but I suppose it shouldn’t have.
As the years have gone by and education generally has become more openly woke and leftist, I have assumed the same has happened with the education of therapists. That fact has come up over and over again in discussions of “gender affirming” therapy for people who define themselves as trans; clearly, the younger therapists tend to be very much on board with that whereas the older ones are retiring or trying to negotiate being true to their principles of objectivity while simultaneously keeping the woke crowd from taking their livelihood away.
[NOTE: I see that I covered some of this in this previous post, sparked by a different article. In it, I also gave some suggestions for choosing a therapist if you are seeking one.]
Biden’s secret email life
Biden wrote over five thousand emails under his various aliases, and the National Archives is stonewalling about releasing them:
In its filing, SLF’s [Southeastern Legal Foundation] legal team made clear that it was requesting documents that NARA already admitted holding: “By its own admission, Defendant has possession, custody, and control of the records to which SLF seeks access.”
This assertion goes back to almost the beginning of the SLF quest for the Biden emails under assumed names.
The foundation first filed its Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request on June 9, 2022, and on June 22, 2022, NARA gave two responses.
That was prior to the 2022 elections, of course. Wouldn’t want to negatively influence the Democrats’ chances. Nor would they want to do that now, or ever.
And the story made me think of this Leonard Cohen song (weird video, though – this is the first time I’ve ever watched it):
Alan Dershowitz and Mark Judge on the DC Trump trial
Alan Dershowitz isn’t messing around in the following video. He begins with: “Today the Constitution suffered another serious body blow, and former President Trump’s rights to a fair trial have been all but negated. The trial judge in DC has shown incredible bias … ” And he goes on from there in the same vein, with details. Dershowitz is incensed at – among other things – the March date of the DC trial against Trump, a trial he considers a travesty. Previously, Dershowitz wrote a book entitled Get Trump, about the dangerous lawfare against Trump.
This is all despite the fact that, as Dershowitz states again in the video, he’s not a Trump supporter and doesn’t want him to be president. But Dershowitz considers principles the most important thing of all, and if they are sacrificed in order to “get Trump,” then our nation has betrayed its own principles and is no better than a banana republic.
In the video – which I strongly suggest watching, because Dershowitz is very legally knowledgeable and he is also fair – Dershowitz repeats that he’d like a Democrat to win the election (although I don’t believe he says “Biden”). But why? He never explains, as he lists all the awful things that Democrats are doing. Dershowitz is a very smart man, and his allegiance to the Democrats is puzzling – unless you suspect, as I do, that his public stance of supporting Democrats is one he retains because it makes his positions more convincing. If he goes over to The Dark Side, he would be utterly dismissed by the Democrats instead of mostly dismissed.
Here’s the video:
I also will add a recommendation to read this piece by Mark Judge. An excerpt:
Even though I think Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 was reprehensible and know that he lost the 2020 election, I agree with attorney Alan Dershowitz that the four indictments of the president are banana-republic stuff. It’s weaponizing the law to try and ruin a political opponent. …
In fact, the atmosphere now is similar to 2018, when the Democratic Party, the media, and outright criminals tried to destroy me and my high school friend Kavanaugh by using a woman named Christine Blasey Ford. …
Yet much of the media, even on the Right, fail to recognize what the Left is trying to do. Indeed, for all its talk about clueless elites, the Right can be just as elite and clueless.
The left MSM isn’t clueless; it’s in collusion. But “even on the Right”? I guess he’s not talking about the blogosphere on the right, most of which not only defended him and Kavanaugh and also saw exactly and precisely what was happening and what it meant. I figured, though, that Judge must be talking about National Review – and, sure enough, on reading the rest of his piece, I saw that that’s exactly what he’s talking about.
National Review is an outlet I used to read rather frequently many years ago, but I very rarely go there now. They have way too many people writing there who really do deserve the RINO appellation at best, and who are still trying to straddle the line and curry favor with a Washington DC and a press corps that utterly hates conservatism and everything for which it stands.