Supremely problematic

Bribes taken at the back entrance

As if we needed more evidence to support the idea, today's decision by the Supreme Court of the United States granting former president VonClownstick's request to an appeal regarding his claim of "presidential immunity" gives even more reason to believe the Court is corrupt and working in tandem with the Republican party and not in the service of the Constitution or the rule of law.

It's not a "win" for the former president in that all they've decided is to hear his appeal, not to necessarily agree with it, but it is a huge win for him in that it grants him at least two more months of delay in resolving this matter. The likelihood of his standing trial on this case—in case you've lot track, this is the Jack Smith/January 6th insurrection case, not the stolen documents case or the hush money case or the Georgia electioneering case or the civil fraud case or the suits against him from DC police or any of the other myriad court cases the guy's been up to his eyeballs in for his whole life—and a verdict being reached before the November election is now pretty remote.

The trial had been scheduled to begin next week, on March 4th. That won't happen now, as SCOTUS has suspended that until the outcome of its hearing the appeal, which won't happen until April 22nd. When they issue a ruling will come who knows how long after that. Quoting former US District Attorney Joyce Vance:

The case could have been handled much more quickly, especially because the issue before the Court isn’t difficult: either presidents can commit crimes to stay in office or they can’t. The timeline here was a choice, made by the Justices. They chose to give Donald Trump at least two more months of delay. We don’t know how a specific Justice votes on a cert grant. But we do know that at least five Justices voted to hear this case because while it only takes four votes to grant cert, it take five to grant a stay, and the Court’s order, continues the stay in the trial court while the appeal is underway.

It could be June or July before SCOTUS makes a call on this. A trial will take months. Election Day is immovable and doesn't care if a trial is over yet or not.

Clarence Thomas is corrupt. He's taken de facto bribes for decades and refuses to recuse when he's clearly got a conflict of interest in a case. Sam Alito has taken similar de facto bribes from people associated with the right-wing Federalist Society. Neil Gorsuch sold property to a lawyer with 22 subsequent cases before the Court (and no, he didn't recuse himself). Brett Kavanaugh somehow got confirmed by the Senate despite committing perjury in his hearings, having suspicious financial activity and very credible sexual assault allegations against him, and had eighty-three complaints of ethics violations levied against him for conduct in those hearings. Amy Coney Barrett, like Gorsuch, sold property to persons with business before the court and did not recuse; she also refused to recuse in a case involving the David Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group that spent "seven figures" lobbying for Barrett's confirmation by the Senate (AFP also lobbied for the confirmations of Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, who likewise refused to recuse). John Roberts' wife had a heavy financial interest in a case before the Court and Roberts was fine with presiding over it; he utterly failed to do his job in presiding over the Trump impeachments; and as the Chief Justice he has repeatedly claimed that everyone on his Court has behaved in an exemplary ethical fashion, declining to enforce any sort of ethical guidelines for the Court.

More important than any of that, though—but it is related—is that two-thirds of this Supreme Court has shown itself to be loyal to ideology, not law; Republican policy, not the Constitution.

They support states' rights until it conflicts with their ideology. They support legal precedent until it conflicts with their ideology. They support Constitutional principles—until they conflict with their ideology.

My favorite(?) example of a Justice's hypocrisy and obtuseness came when, in hearing the case regarding Colorado removing Trump from their primary ballot, Alito opined that a single state shouldn't have so much influence on who wins a presidential election. This was from a guy that worked on the Bush v. Gore case in Florida in 2000, a case where the Court completely improperly stepped in to halt a recount and declare that Bush won the presidency because of an incomplete ballot tally in one state.

If not for the presence of too many Republicans in the House of Representatives, Clarence Thomas, at least, would be looking at impeachment. (Personally, I think Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett should all be impeached, with the latter three being deemed to have been appointed by a treasonous president, but that's a pipe dream.) Gorsuch's seat was blatantly stolen by the Republicans when they refused to confirm anyone appointed by then-President Obama, giving his a uniquely tainted Justiceship.

There is so very much damage to repair from the Trump years, with correcting the Supreme Court near the top of the list. But to do it, we're going to need voters to step up and not only re-elect President Biden, but elect enough Democrats to the Senate and House to neuter the fascist plans of the now-authoritarian Republican Party.

Tagged Politics, Republicans, SCOTUS   |   Posted on February 28, 2024 at 11:14pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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First-world problems

My car is in the shop. Nothing horrible, really, at least I don't think so. I'll know more when the mechanic gives me an update tomorrow. Exhaust system issues. It's an old car, things happen.

Being without it for a few days isn't a big deal, but I did have an umpiring shift to cover this evening at Capitol Hill. Fortunately, Cap Hill is the only one of our parks to which I don't have to haul equipment to and from, it all stays on site, which makes getting there without the car less cumbersome. Ye olde metro buses can get me there and back in about an hour's time each way.

Theoretically.

I know from plenty of experience that relying on the bus can be a tenuous thing, so I made sure to leave early enough to accommodate delays. Particularly since no matter what, on a Sunday I have no practical alternative to what we refer to around here as "the crazy bus," i.e. the KC Metro E Line. Up in my neck of the woods it's generally not a big deal, but from the city limits on into downtown the route is often populated by a demographic cohort that is underprivileged and in various manners unhealthy. Thus, riding the E Line is unpredictable.

Still, things went smoothly on the way down and I got to the park with 20 minutes to spare. I used the time to chat up some of my favorite players that were in the game currently being played under the early-game umpire's watch and remark on the start of Major League spring training and generally shoot the breeze while defending my fellow umpire from some criticism. (I mean, yes, he did miss that call at first, but given the bases-loaded situation you got to cut him a little slack; he's only got one pair of eyes and they can't watch all three bases at the same time.) It's playoffs, people get testy.

That game ended and I relieved my fellow ump and took over, grateful that the lights at Cal Anderson park were working again and there were no obnoxious soccer players getting in our way on this cold evening. New teams took the field and I let my ego soak up the comments from both departing and arriving players—"dude, what the hell, why didn't we get you for our game?"; "hey good, Tim's here"; "you're so much better than the other umps"—and I was enjoying things. I made two bad calls, one on a ball/strike decision that was irrelevant as the next pitch was put in play, one more important on a hard grounder over the bag at third base that I called fair and that led to several runs. In the moment I didn't know if it was fair or foul, the angle from home plate on that kind of thing is pretty bad and there was no time to shift position, but it has to be called immediately anyway, so I pointed fair. No complaints, but I still wasn't sure, so after the inning I went to the third baseman, a guy I've seen a lot of doing these games, and asked him. He said it was foul. I believe him, he's not a troublemaker. Oh well. There were a few other bang-bang plays I know I did get right despite some pushback (playoffs, people get testy), so there.

The winner of that game was to play again immediately following in a semifinal match, but as we were nearing the start time for that one I wasn't seeing anyone new show up. Usually by the 5th or 6th inning the teams for the next game are at least partly there, warming up on the sidelines. We were running a bit late, but with no next team waiting I didn't rush things and let the game go the full 7 regulation frames as the Chop Zone Outlaws emerged victorious with a nice double-play turned in the home 7th to secure the win.

Still no opposing team and we were well past the permissible grace period to avoid a forfeit, so I called off the second game and packed up the gear, thinking I'd get home early and get to warm up. The Metro Transit app on my phone told me I could catch a bus in a short few minutes and be home in under an hour. Good, I needed dinner.

But this again involved a transfer to the crazy bus. So it was not to be.

In addition to the typical E Line happenings—a guy sat next to me and started rapping a tune about Jesus; two stops for wheelchair riders that required some delay; the expected onslaught of fragrance from unwashed bodies that gives me empathy for fictional Vulcans on fictional human starships—something happened just as we entered the on-ramp to the portion of Aurora Avenue that becomes limited-access. What happened I still don't know, I haven't been able to suss it out, but we stopped in the middle of the long ramp, stuck behind a disabled bus immediately ahead. Why we couldn't go around I'm not sure, but we were stuck and given where the bus was, the driver didn't want to just let us all out; there was a small shoulder, but next to that a big concrete divider with another lane of traffic and an elevation drop on the other side and opposite another divider beyond which was traffic going the other way. Pedestrians were not accommodated there.

So we waited for help. Some Metro mechanic or tow vehicle or something to clear the way.

But nothing happened. I got through the latest episode of the Fast Politics podcast in its entirety before the first passenger rebelled and broke the cover over the emergency release on the back door and let himself out. The driver resealed the door best he could, then went to talk to the driver of a third bus which was now stuck behind us. Before long other passengers pulled the same maneuver and reopened the door and just walked out into the street. Fortunately, this is on a Sunday night when traffic was relatively light.

Eventually Metro officials had blocked off a makeshift pedestrian route for us to exit the bus and walk back along the on ramp to what my California relatives would call the surface street, and we got to wait for the next E bus to arrive with two other complements of passengers. That took a while (during which time it started to snow), then we all crowded into the next bus, which made a bit of a detour to rejoin the highway later on, and I managed to get to my stop and exit the bus before the headache that had started building as soon as I got on the overcrowded coach had gotten truly unbearable. The few-blocks walk back to my place in the snowy sleet wasn't quite enough to clear my head but it helped.

The thing is, had I stayed to work that second game, because of Sunday schedules and such, I would have had an alternative to the crazy bus. There is a night-owl route out of Northgate that gets relatively close to my place, I could have taken the train to Northgate and caught that instead; barring other complications, I actually would have been home well before I actually made it here.

Alas. 

I've got another game to ump tomorrow night. This one I have to haul gear to, so my car better be ready by then. Otherwise I have to brave the crazy bus again, but with a 10-pound bag of softball gear. [Cue sad trombone noise.]

Tagged Umping, Cars, Seattle   |   Posted on February 25, 2024 at 11:57pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Journalistic malpractice

There has been a disturbing trend in the world of American political punditry of late. Journalists and commentators and substackers and the like, including people I generally respect, have been jumping on the "President Biden is too old and shouldn't run again" bandwagon. This bugs me on a number of levels, most of which redound to (a) Joe Biden has a remarkable string of positive accomplishments in just three-plus years in office and has shown zero evidence of losing his capability to keep doing so; and (b) it's another success story for Republican propaganda movers who spout bullshit on Fox "News" and the like and see it travel all the way into the words of people like Robert Reich and Ezra Klein and Jon Stewart.

Klein's piece in the New York Times is particularly galling because he all but admits he's furthering an argument based on propaganda.

Titled "Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden," Klein's essay spends a great many words on explaining just how awesome a job Joe Biden has done as President before concluding he has to go. It's insane. After trumpeting many of Biden's accomplishments—uniting the party leadership, wrangling a contentious Democratic caucus in the Senate to pass several pieces of landmark legislation, shepherding a post-peak-COVID economic recovery that is the envy of the world—he looks at the polling (which isn't currently great), mentions that Trump-appointed special counsel Robert Hur peppered a report utterly clearing Biden of any wrongdoing in a classified-documents matter following his vice-presidency with insults and innuendo deliberately fabricated to further this very bit of propaganda, and then basically throws up his hands like Bud Selig at a tied All-Star Game.

Acknowledging that there is no indication, zero, from anyone who works with the president, from White House staff to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, that Biden is in any way incapable or inattentive, Klein says that doesn't matter because campaigning for re-election is hard and tiring.

He cites as evidence that Biden isn't up for a campaign that the President didn't do a TV interview for the Super Bowl pregame show, as has become customary over the past several years. "The Super Bowl," Klein writes, "is one of the biggest audiences you will ever have. And you just skip it? You just say no?" Well, let's think about this for more than two and a half seconds, Ezra. Who would have conducted that interview? CBS claimed not to have a correspondent in mind for the job, but Margaret Brennan of "Face the Nation" was surely in the mix and she's...well, to be fair, she's not Chuck Todd or Sean Hannity, but nor is she Cronkite or Koppel. Whether Brennan or someone else, the hot topic of the day in  newsrooms was that stupid Robert Hur report, which was basically being regurgitated without pushback in mainstream news media. I don't blame the President for not wanting to provide another opportunity for a reporter to give more oxygen to GOP smears. Was it risky? Sure. It's a pass at a big audience, but not the audience Klein was making it out to be. The Super Bowl itself is a ratings bonanza. The pregame interview with the president is a few minutes when a large chunk of that audience goes out for a snack run or yaks with their guests at the Super Bowl party, they're not really watching.

Also, the media landscape isn't what it was even a few years ago. TV interviews have their place, to be sure, but in terms of campaigning, which is what Klein is talking about here, a sit-down on CBS with a correspondent more interested in drama than journalism probably doesn't serve much purpose. TV news is a different beast today than in decades past. Digital media is far more important for the under-50 demographic. Navigating that has its own set of challenges, but skipping the Super Bowl just isn't the big deal Klein and others make it out to be.

Yes, to campaign successfully, Biden needs to be in view doing his job and showing the world he's sharp. And yes, slipping up and saying the name of the former Chancellor of Germany instead of the current one isn't helpful, but it's the sort of thing Joe Biden has done for decades and isn't necessarily a sign of age-related decline. Journalists have to stop feeding the GOP meme that "Grandpa Joe is feeble and senile" and instead remind the public that age is but one factor when assessing one's overall health and in and of itself the number isn't indicative of anything. As stated by a professor at Australia's University of Sydney, "It’s important to realize that as people age they become more diverse in their abilities and characteristics, probably more so than at younger ages."

Joe Biden is 81. He bicycles (both on a traditional bike and a Peloton), lifts weights, and has a personal trainer. He doesn't have a special diet, but never overeats, according to his medical-doctor wife. He has a few ailments—acid reflux, arthritis, persistent sinus irritations, things most of us can relate to to one degree or another—and plays through the pain, as it were, of his osteoarthritic spine. He had COVID, but thanks to vaccinations and boosters did not have a serious case. He is, in short, a healthy dude.

Franklin Roosevelt died at just 63, he was literally dying during his last run for reelection. He actually did fall asleep during meetings and need a great deal of assistance due to frailty, but no one believes FDR wasn't up to the job. Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer's, by some accounts as early as 1984 when he was 73, certainly by the time he was into his second term at 75, yet people still lionize the guy (which is crazy, but not because of his dementia). JFK's physical health was terrible, he had Addison's disease and treated back pain with heavy use of amphetamines. (Kennedy's health was so consistently troubled that within the Kennedy clan, there was apparently a running joke that if Jack Kennedy were to be bitten by a mosquito the mosquito would die from food poisoning.) Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated in his early 60s by a stroke in mid-term and continued on with others largely running the show for him. Chester Arthur had a fatal kidney infection, a symptom of which was extreme fatigue, but ran for reelection anyway (he lost) before dying at age 57. Then there's now-77-year-old Trump, who has lied continuously about his own health and made sure that official reports were edited to show he had no ailments, suggesting he has many (plus he's, you know, sociopathic and staggeringly stupid). Every one of those guys was/is younger than Joe Biden and in far, far worse health.

Klein also disputes that the Joe-is-too-old issue is propagated by news media. He writes, "In poll after poll, 70 percent to 80 percent of voters are worried about his age. This is not a thing people need the media to see." Really? Why do you think those people were "worried about his age" if not because of what they saw on/read in the news? Because he said Mitterand when he meant Macron one time? Because he talks a bit more quietly than others? OK, then what are reporters like Klein doing about that? He almost does something about it with this piece, making many good points about how successful and capable Joe Biden has been and continues to be, but instead he chose to perpetuate the meme. Even if I were to accept the statement that "this is not a thing people need the media to see," here you are, Ezra, in the media, reinforcing the idea and making it worse!

"The presidency is a performance," Klein writes, using the word not in the sense of your annual performance review at work, but in the sense of an actor performing a role on stage. And people answering pollsters don't like what they see on the stage. So get someone else, practical concerns be damned, choosing the right person to do the job after the campaign be damned, the only priorities should be charisma and poll numbers.

Klein's conclusion seems to be, "Americans are stupid. Thus, if we want the Democrats to win, we must replace the man who has had arguably the most effective and successful first term as President since LBJ with a hypothetical younger person who may or may not be an empty suit."

My conclusion is, "American journalists are failing. They are allowing disinformation and propaganda to fuel their reportage without adequate analysis. They are prioritizing drama and conflict over truth and facts. And they convey that running for president is what's important, not the actual job of being president."

Look, Klein is scared. I get it, I'm scared too. This is a literal must-win election. Biden cannot lose or else Trump regains power and destroys this country as we know it, contrary to what Jon Stewart said the other night (he said, addressing supporters of both candidates: "If your guy loses bad stuff might happen, but the country is not over. And if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved." I never thought Jon Stewart would be one of the guys not paying attention). The fact that Biden is behind in the polls is unfathomable to anyone paying attention, and the fact of the matter is that a not inconsequential fraction of Americans are stupid. Rubes, conned into following a cultist who thinks they're disgusting and exist solely for him to exploit. Another percentage is not in the cult, but is ignorant enough to support candidates that hurt them, what I think of as the "battered spouse contingent" of the Republican party that has existed for decades. Between the two groups, there might well be enough of them to plunge us into a new dark age. It's fucking terrifying.

But: (a) Biden is who we've got, there is no practical way of replacing him on the ticket unless he voluntarily cedes the top spot to Kamala Harris, and then Klein and company will freak out because Americans are racist and sexist as well as ageist; (b) Biden is actually a damn good president; (c) Republicans and Russians (is there a difference any more?) will tar and feather whomever the Democrats nominate with fabricated propaganda and the sheep currently comprising the bulk of the American news media will regurgitate it all anyway. "But her e-mails." "Swift Boat Veterans for 'Truth'." Birtherism. The Willie Horton ads. Who the candidate is is merely a detail, the smear campaign will just be retailored.

We've got some time before November. Let's do better than the "journalists" in informing the public and getting out the vote.

---

 UPDATE: One newscaster/pundit that is trying to educate the public about true things is Lawrence O'Donnell, who took this on in his show a few nights ago. He covered some of the same ground I did above (written before I saw the clip), and I recommend this video, share it around. It's longish, but clarifying.

 

 

Tagged Politics, Republicans, President Biden   |   Posted on February 23, 2024 at 10:16pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Dazed and relatively alert

There's a scene in the TV show Ted Lasso (season 2, episode 1) in which star footballer Dani Rojas accidentally kills Earl, the team's greyhound mascot, when Earl is struck by Rojas' kicked soccer ball. It's a little bit counter-intuitive, as a soccer ball is relatively soft and full of air, but physics. You know, potential energy, velocity, mass × acceleration, that sort of thing.

Last night as I was preparing for an umpiring shift, I found myself empathizing a lot more fully with Earl. Some guys playing soccer on our field, dilly-dallying about getting out of our way so we could start our softball game, kicked a soccer ball—hard—and clocked me right in the temple. I went down, sort of blacked out (in the sense that my vision went dark but I was still conscious) for about, I don't know, 15 seconds, maybe, and then got up and made my displeasure known to the soccer jerks. One of my softball players was out to assist me straight away and he moved to go after the soccer guys, but I just shouted at them and they left without further incident. 

I didn't see it coming, of course, so I can't say if it was an accident or a deliberate attempt to hit me without understanding how hard the impact would be, but I am fairly sure there wasn't an intention to injure me. I've had enough conflict with soccer players who won't leave our fields that it makes things murky and I can't be sure of their hostility or lack thereof; could go either way.

Either way, it rattled my cage pretty good and it took a while for things to normalize. Don't ask me what happened in the first couple innings of our game, I couldn't tell you. I do know I didn't think to do some of the normal pregame stuff like clearing foul ground of obstructions (soccer goal) and checking the bases (one had a broken post the other day) until midway though our game. Things seemed fine by mid-game, but I woke up today with a splitting headache and basically lost my whole Wednesday to trying to sleep off the pain.

It's OK now. I still feel the sting of the impact on the side of my face, but the headache is gone and I don't feel at all dazed or impaired. But I'm glad I don't have another game to ump until next Tuesday.

Fucking soccer.

Tagged Umping   |   Posted on February 7, 2024 at 10:07pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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