Fourth of July: on liberty
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post from many many years ago. It was written in the springtime during a visit to New York City. Reading it now, it seems almost archaic in certain ways.]
I’ve been visiting New York City, the place where I grew up. I decide to take a walk to the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, never having been there before.
When you approach the Promenade you can’t really see what’s in store. You walk down a normal-looking street, spot a bit of blue at the end of the block, make a right turn–and, then, suddenly, there is the city.
And so it is for me. I take a turn, and catch my breath: downtown Manhattan rises to my left, seemingly close enough to touch, across the narrow East River. I see skyscrapers, piers, the orange-gold Staten Island ferry. In front of me, there are the graceful gothic arches of the Brooklyn Bridge. To my right, the back of some brownstones, and a well-tended and charming garden that goes on for a third of a mile.
I walk down the promenade looking first left and then right, not knowing which vista I prefer, but liking them both, especially in combination, because they complement each other so well.
All around me are people, relaxing. Lovers walking hand in hand, mothers pushing babies in strollers, fathers pushing babies in strollers, nannies pushing babies in strollers. People walking their dogs (a preponderance of pugs, for some reason), pigeons strutting and courting, tourists taking photos of themselves with the skyline as background, every other person speaking a foreign language.
The garden is more advanced in time than gardens where I live, reminding me that New York is really a southern city compared to New England. Daffodils, the startling blue of grape hyacinths, tulips in a rainbow of soft colors, those light-purple azaleas that are always the first of their kind, flowering pink magnolia and airy white dogwood and other blooming trees whose names I don’t know.
In the view to my left, of course, there’s something missing. Something very large. Two things, actually: the World Trade Center towers. Just the day before, we had driven past that sprawling wound, with its mostly-unfilled acreage where the WTC had once stood, now surrounded by fencing. Driving by it is like passing a war memorial and graveyard combined; the urge is to bow one’s head.
As I look at the skyline from the Promenade, I know that those towers are missing, but I don’t really register the loss visually. I left New York in the Sixties, never to live there again, returning thereafter only as occasional visitor. The World Trade Center was built in the early Seventies, so I never managed to incorporate it into that personal New York skyline of memory that I hold in my mind’s eye, even though I saw the towers on subsequent visits. So what I now see resembles nothing more than the skyline of my youth restored, a fact which seems paradoxical to me. But I feel the loss, even though I don’t see it. Viewing the skyline always has a tinge of sadness now, which it never had before 9/11.
I come to the end of the walkway and turn myself around to set off on the return trip. And, suddenly, the view changes. Now, of course, the garden is to my left and the city to my right; and the Brooklyn Bridge, which was ahead of me, is now behind me and out of sight. But now I can see for the first time, ahead of me and to the right, something that was behind me before. In the middle of the harbor, the pale-green Statue of Liberty stands firmly on its concrete foundation, arm raised high, torch in hand.
The sight is intensely familiar to me – I used to see it frequently when I was growing up. But I’ve never seen it from this angle before. She seems both small and gigantic at the same time: dwarfed by the skyscrapers near me that threaten to overwhelm her, but towering over the water that surrounds her on all sides. The eye is drawn to her distant, heroic figure. She’s been holding that torch up for so long, she must be tired. But still she stands, resolute, her arm extended.
NOTE: I was going to add a photo of the Statue of Liberty here. But instead I was very taken with a video about how the statue was constructed. I’d never previously thought about the challenges involved and how they were surmounted, but I learned about them here. And the video also caused me to reflect, and not for the first time, on how the forces arrayed against the US right now are good at destroying but not at building. Destroying is so much easier:
Open thread 7/4/24
Merchan delays Trump sentencing
Supposedly because of the SCOTUS immunity ruling, Trump’s sentencing in New York has been delayed till September 18.
But I wonder. My guess is that it has at least as much to do with waiting for the political picture to become more clear – especially on the Democrat side – and to see what might be the best way to handle Trump’s sentencing in light of politics.
The legal issue is that Trump was convicted in part on evidence involving what were arguably “official acts” of his as president.
RIP Liora Argamani
Israeli hostage Noa Argamani’s mother Liora had terminal brain cancer when her daughter was viciously kidnapped from the NOVA concert and taken to Gaza. Noa was probably the most well-known hostage, because her horrific abduction and terrorized screams were photographed and broadcast around the world. Her mother Liora gave interviews and wrote to world leaders pleading for Noa’s safe return.
A little over three weeks after that return – not through a prisoner exchange but through a daring and dangerous Israeli rescue operation – Noa’s mother died. Here’s is what Noa said at her funeral:
“My mother, the best friend there is, the strongest and most beautiful person I’ve ever known. I’m standing here today and it’s still hard for me to accept it,” Noa said in front of a packed room. “Against all odds, I was privileged to be with you in your last moments and to hear your last words.
“Thank you for being strong and holding on so that I could see you at least one more time, and so that Dad wouldn’t be left alone,” she said. “Thank you for the 26 years I was privileged to spend by your side. I learned so much from you. You took me to travel around the world with you and made me the strong person I am today.
“The tools that you gave me as a child are tools I couldn’t have acquired anywhere else,” Noa continued. “Every time things were difficult, you pushed me forward. I promise you that I will continue to follow your path. I promise you that I will take care of Dad. I promise you that I will be strong just like you.”
I think Noa has already demonstrated remarkable strength, as did her mother. I’m glad her mother got to see her again, and hope that they were still able to communicate.
Noa Argamani has been through so much in her young life, and her boyfriend – abducted to Gaza at the same time as Noa – is still there. Whether he is dead or alive is unknown.
RIP, Liora Argamani.
On clogs – but not in clogs
I found this ode to clogs years ago in the New Yorker.
I won’t be joining in, though. I’ve never been successful at wearing clogs, although I tried when I was young. They wrecked my feet, I think because I have naturally high insteps. I’m not sure, but for whatever reason, wearing them for more than a few minutes—and actually trying to walk around in them—caused pain. Besides, they weren’t that attractive, although they had a certain cachet.
I remember the first time I ever saw a clog on a human foot other than those wooden shoes on the Dutch in illustrations from children’s books. A friend of mine went off to an artsy college one year before me, and she came back with a micro-miniskirt and suede clogs. The clogs, if I recall correctly, were bright green, which sounds terrible but on her they looked tremendously cool and avant-garde, which they were at the time. No one else had anything of the sort, although not long after that everyone was sporting them (although not in kelly green). As the article says:
Boho-chic crowds of the early nineteen-seventies adopted the clog. The new iteration of the shoe had a leather upper and, often, an exaggerated heel that paired to marvellous effect with hot pants.
(By the way, what’s up with this Britishized spelling of “marvelous” in the New Yorker, of all places? Has New York relocated?)
My friend was nothing if not boho-chic (whatever that means—actually, she was Soho-chic before Soho even existed as a named entity), and she wore them with a miniskirt rather than hot pants, because she wore them years before the early 70s.
Over the years I’ve tried clogs now and then, but never bought another pair. I cannot understand how some people find them comfy. For me, I get the sense that if I were to persist in wearing them I’d end up like the original clog-wearers of Holland:
In the summer of 2011, a team of Dutch archeologists travelled to the village of Middenbeemster, a region best known for its medium-hard white cheese and whose church and adjoining cemetery were being relocated. The group noticed an unusual pattern in the bones of five hundred skeletons, mostly belonging to nineteenth-century Dutch dairy farmers: a preponderance of chips and craters localized in the bones of the feet. Some of the craters were the size of a jellybean, others as large as a piece of Hanukkah gelt, or even a plum. “It was as if chunks of bone had just been chiselled away,” an astonished-sounding Andrea Waters-Rist, Ph.D., one of the group’s co-leaders, said. Her team determined that the micro-traumas were associated with osteochondritis dissecans, a rare type of joint disorder that is linked to overuse or sustained shock. The academics concluded the source to be the rigors of working on the land, and, more specifically, doing so in klompen, the wooden clogs common to Dutch farmers of the time.
Klompen is a great word for them—because that’s what you do in clogs, you clomp.
NOTE: And yes, this post is much ado about nearly nothing. Sometimes you just have to take a short break from heaviness and go light.
They will not stop trying to get Trump
[Hat tip: “Banned Lizard.”]
Not so fast, Trump, says the DOJ. Don’t think you’re home free if you’re elected president.
A WaPo report [my emphasis]:
Justice Department officials plan to pursue the criminal cases against Donald Trump past Election Day even if he wins, under the belief that department rules against charging or prosecuting a sitting president would not kick in until Inauguration Day in in January, according to people familiar with the discussions. …
The plan to continue filing motions, seeking court hearings, and potentially conducting a trial between Election Day and Inauguration Day underscores the highly unusual nature of prosecuting not just a former president, but also possibly a future one. In the months after winning election, a president-elect assumes some of the trappings of the office, such as more security and high-level briefings, but that person is not the commander in chief. …
“The Justice Department isn’t governed by the election calendar. Its prosecution of Trump is based on the law, the facts and the Justice Manual — the department’s bible that lays out the post-Watergate norms that have prevented it from being weaponized,” said Anthony Coley, a former Justice Department spokesman for Attorney General Merrick Garland who left the agency last year. “Until those norms change, or they’re ordered otherwise, I’d expect this Justice Department to be full speed ahead. And they should be.”
Of course. Perfectly normal behavior by the DOJ. Not the least bit weaponized against a political opponent, no sirree. And of course, it’s all about protecting “our democracy” – even against a newly elected president.
A bunch of power-mad, Trump-hatred-deranged, megalomaniacs.
Anyone looking at these developments and still believing that this group wouldn’t commit fraud to win an election is incredibly naive. The only question is whether they can succeed, not whether they would be willing to try their hardest.
Open thread 7/3/24
Turnout in Iran’s election
How low can you go?
While it appeared that Saeed Jalili, a former Revolutionary Guard general close to Khamenei, was set to win, the historically low voter turnout effectively transformed the electoral process into a referendum, expressing the Iranian populace’s overwhelming rejection of the regime and their desire for a transition to a democratic and secular government.
That was bad news for the mullahs, so they didn’t say anything.
But hundreds of the resistance units across Iran monitored more than 14,000 polling stations until midnight, revealing that a staggering 88% of eligible voters abstained. This act of mass boycott is particularly significant given that voting is compulsory for certain demographics, including soldiers and prisoners. As a result, in many areas under the regime’s control, nullified ballots frequently topped the polls.
The Iranians hate their hateful government. So far they haven’t been able to do much about that except to abstain from voting, and to participate in demonstrations.
Was last Thursday’s debate a game-changer?
In a sane world it would be a game-changer, either in the sense that Biden would be replaced as nominee (or even removed via the 25th Amendment), or he would lose the election.
Robert Zimmerman asks the question:
Last week’s debate between president Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump appears to be another such potential game-changing event. The change however will not be whether Joe Biden will be the candidate when the election finally rolls around in November, or whether even if he will win or lose the election.
The change, should it happen, will be much more fundamental. …
The real game-changer is whether ordinary Democrats in the general public, which saw without question Biden’s growing mental incapacity during that debate, will excuse it and still vote Democrat, as they did for Clinton in 2000.
Will the general public finally recognize that the partisan mainstream media has been in the tank for the Democrats for years? Will the general public finally realize that this press has been lying to us repeatedly during that time to prop up this party of corrupt, dishonest, and incompetent hacks?
If the public finally recognizes [these] plain facts, than nothing Biden or the press will do in the coming few months will change anything. The public will see it for the lies they are, and ignore it. It will vote overwhelming[ly] to fire Biden, to an extent so overwhelming that the Democrats themselves will find it pointless or counter-productive to attempt any vote tampering, and even if they do, the vote turnout against Biden will be so high that such tampering won’t work.
I think he is correct. In order for major change to happen, minds will have to be changed not just about Biden’s mental capacity but about what it signifies regarding the decades-long partisanship of the media and the edifice of lies it has created.
I’m not too optimistic that enough people will perceive it that way because – as I’ve so often noted – a mind is a difficult thing to change. An edifice of lies can be very strong even if it is in reality a house of cards. The key is perception, as well as the humility to understand that one has been duped.
I have only talked with one liberal friend post-debate, but I’m pretty sure that this person stands for most Democrats I know and perhaps most Democrats. This person is upset that Biden might remain the nominee and would love to see a change. But the Trump derangement and all the rest remain intact. To connect the dots from Biden’s performance to a realization that the MSM has probably lied to me about how awful Trump and the Republicans are, too is apparently way too far a bridge at this point.
That doesn’t mean such a realization won’t dawn on some who would otherwise vote Democrat. But how many? I doubt it will be a number so enormous as to overcome whatever plans the Democrats may have for vote-tampering. It seems pretty clear, however, that if an honest vote were to happen right now, Trump would win. But the vote isn’t happening now, and there’s no reason to assume it will be honest when it does (although it could be; the extent of fraud and fraud capabilities are unknown, but the opportunities are there).
There is, however, a post-debate rift among Democrat operatives as to what is the best approach to take. Should Biden stay or should he go? If he goes, how could it be accomplished, considering he’s unwilling to leave voluntarily? And who would replace him? Until they solve those problems, Biden will be the nominee.
Hysteria (or pretend hysteria; sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference) from Democrats after the immunity ruling from SCOTUS
“The biggest news out of the Court on Monday, of course, is a sweeping decision holding that former President Donald Trump was effectively allowed to do crimes while he was in office. Indeed, under the six Republican justices’ decision in Trump v. United States, it is very likely that a sitting president can order the military to assassinate his political rivals without facing any criminal consequences for doing so.”
Insane. Evidently written by 12-year-olds.
The author is Ian Millhiser, with a law degree from Duke and two books on the Supreme Court under his belt. Does he believe what he’s writing there, and that SCOTUS has actually ruled that way? Hard to tell; it depends how poor his legal education was and how extreme his partisan filter is. But my guess is that he’s well aware that it’s false, but he is making a political calculation that it will panic the rubes among the Democrats, and he’s willing to parrot the talking points that will accomplish that.
What he’s describing would be absolute immunity, which isn’t what SCOTUS ruled and the idea of being immune from prosecution for an assassination is obviously absurd (unless the assassination was accomplished by a Democrat, and the trial was in DC or NY).
But I shouldn’t blame Millhiser or the others who are saying the Court said assassination was A-okay, because it was none other than a current Supreme Court justice, Sotomayor, who gave them their cues for the assertion in her dissent. Here’s what the wise Latina wrote, and the other two liberal justices concurred:
In her dissenting opinion to the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the conservative majority had enabled presidents to assassinate political rivals without fear of criminal prosecution.
“When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,” Sotomayor wrote. “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
No, Sotomayor and the others are not insane. They are either stupid or lying – or there’s always both. I can’t read their minds, but I believe they know exactly what they’re doing here, and I believe they are well aware that’s not what the majority said or did. From the same article, here’s a summary description of the majority’s ruling:
…[T]he court found that presidents enjoy “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution” for actions taken within their constitutional authority and at least “presumptive immunity” for all other official acts.
The president does not have the constitutional authority to murder his rivals, nor would that be an official act of any sort even if he used the military to do it. But it serves the left to say otherwise, because their goal is to fan the flames of Trump fear.
None other than Bill Barr, no fan of Trump, points out the preposterous nature of Sotomayor’s so-called reasoning:
Former Attorney General Bill Barr brushed off what he called “horror stories” raised by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent on the high court’s ruling on former President Trump’s immunity claim.
“The worst example I think, the one that makes no sense whatsoever, is the idea he can use SEAL Team 6 to kill a political opponent. The president has the authority to defend the country against foreign enemies, armed conflict and so forth,” Barr said Monday on Fox News.
“He has the authority to direct the justice system against criminals at home. He doesn’t have authority to go and assassinate people,” he added. “So, whether he uses the SEAL team or a private hit man, it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t make it a carrying out of his authority. So, all these horror stories really are false.”
Even a non-lawyer ought to be able to understand that. But I repeat: Sotomayor’s dissent was aimed at inciting panic in those who either are unaware of the limits set by the majority opinion, or are susceptible to Trump derangement, or both.
Common sense? Not all that common these days.
[NOTE: And right on schedule:
One British Broadcasting Corporation presenter took it to a whole new level, though, openly encouraging Biden to assassinate his rival for the presidency:
“David Aaronovitch, who presents BBC Radio 4’s “Briefing Room” programme, had apparently clamoured for the 45th President’s killing online ‘on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security’.
“Posting on social media, Aaronovitch said: ‘If I was Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security’ – sparking instant outrage online.”