With grifts of gold, frank nonsense, and merch

My Sunday movie was Stay on Board, The Leo Baker Story, a documentary about the skateboarder. Right, I’m not into sports so there would be something else to draw me to the story. And that is Baker is transgender. Baker knew he was transgender by his early teens. But by then he was pretty good at skateboarding and competing as a female. Sponsors loved the long blond hair and wanted a more feminine look. He doesn’t like to look at pictures of his teen years. He’s now in his late 20s. Then he’s accepted onto the female team as Lacey Baker when skateboarding is designated as an Olympic sport for the 2020 games. Since this is the first time at the Olympics there is a lot of the transition from a playground sport to something regulated, amateur to pro. How are the various parts of a performance to be scored and judged? Yeah, he’s on the women’s team. Why does the sport need to be gendered? Isn’t a good performance enough? Through the second half of 2019 the travel to various international events got intense. So did the gender dysphoria – Leo at home and with friends, Lacey when the event score appears. He found scheduling transition surgery between all the travel to be tough. The pandemic proved to be a relief, giving him time to mentally work through what he needs. There is a happy ending, though from the setup, not one we might expect. This is a good one. Ian Reifowitz of Daily Kos wrote about the effect of three years of nasty guy lies based on a poll by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland.

The partisan divide is clear, as The Washington Post explained: “Republicans are more sympathetic to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol and more likely to absolve Donald Trump of responsibility for the attack than they were in 2021.” ... The percentage of Republicans holding Trump responsible has fallen from an already low 27% to a truly pathetic 14%. The percentages among independents and Democrats, by comparison, remained essentially the same. ... The percentage of Republicans who see the people who stormed the Capitol three years ago as “mostly violent” fell from 26% to 18%, while, once again, the percentages barely moved among independents and Democrats.

Denise Oliver Velez of Kos wrote that when she sees videos of the January 6 insurrection she sees white racists. Then she quoted several pundits that came to the same conclusion. One example is from Hakeem Jefferson (not Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader), talking to NPR in August 2022 during the Jan 6 Committee hearings. This is Jefferson’s responses to NPR questions:

January 6 was a racial backlash. ... Some white people are really concerned about a loss of power and status in American society. ... It's not about power that's maintained by burning crosses. It's about the power that's maintained about telling some stories and not some others in schools. It's about the power to elect people who you think will do your bidding.

Jefferson on the PBS News Hour:

Race is the central organizing feature of American politics and nothing else comes close and what we lose and not attending to that reality is that we miss the core of what we've seen that these white Americans are merely upset that Donald Trump is not in office. They're upset that his defeat symbolizes a change in the racial order and the racial hierarchy that a multiracial coalition of voters went out to the ballot boxes and elected Joe Biden who said that he was fighting for the soul of a kind of multiracial America. It is that reality, the reality of race and American racism. That is at the core of January the 6 and these other aspects of American politics that we're observing.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported that the nasty guy is trying to turn the Supreme Court into his lapdog.

As the court prepares to make decisions that may determine whether Trump can run for office in 2024, and whether he could be making his final pitch from jail, he appears to be conducting a three-step campaign for the votes of conservative justices: 1) You owe me, 2) my followers will be very upset if you vote against me, and 3) if you allow me to be indicted for things that are clearly not presidential responsibilities, I’ll indict President Joe Biden for actions that absolutely are.

The first is what I wrote about before. He’s reminding the justices what he did to get them their lofty perch. The second is the threat of violence, including protests at their houses. As for the third:

In his post, Trump isn’t making some claim that Biden took money from China (like Trump), or even that Biden made a profit from his son’s business. Trump claims he would indict Biden over the results of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and over increased immigrant interceptions at the border. The reason this is important is that actions connected to the two things Trump cites are clearly within Biden’s responsibilities as president.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported:

When Donald Trump and his campaign registered for the Illinois state primary this year, they refused to sign a voluntary loyalty oath stating that Trump wouldn't advocate for overthrowing the government. ... Trump reportedly signed the Illinois pledge in 2016 and 2020. But instead of opting to rectify the situation by agreeing to sign it following the news, the Trump campaign chose to focus on the oath of office Trump would take after a potential win in November.

Eleveld noted that the oath didn’t stop the nasty guy from inciting the Capitol Riot. The case to decide whether the nasty guy has complete immunity was in a federal appeals court in Washington. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported the judges were skeptical of the claim.

“I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law," said Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush.

The nasty guy’s lawyer, John Sauer, argued that a president needs to have immunity or he might face prosecution for every disliked decision he makes. He’d be looking over his shoulder every time there is a controversial decision. The judges were skeptical of that too. Prosecutor James Pearce stressed that while the president has a constitutional role, he’s not above the law. PiRierran of the Kos community also looked at that hearing. Yes, there is a thing called absolute immunity and it applies to federal workers. But it only applies to official acts. And courts have had many cases deciding what is an official act and what isn’t. And an action cannot be both an official act and not an official act.

Not that it has any real validity, but when laid bare, the argument presented by TFG’s [The Former Guy] lawyers isn’t one of absolute immunity. It is one of absolute deference. By ignoring the issue of the scope of official acts, TFG’s lawyers are taking an even more audacious position. They are demanding the court grant absolute deference to any claim by TFG as to what constitutes official immunity. They go beyond arguing that the courts have no jurisdiction over official acts (already a dubious and controversial position) and are extending that to claim that courts must take a President at his word as to what constitutes an official act and may not second guess that finding either. ... There is simply no way to square such an idea with the notion of checks and balances.

PiRierran then turns to the idea of presidential immunity, that a president has immunity while in office. The memo that makes that claim came from the Office of Legal Council whose client is the Office of the President. The memo’s author is protecting the interests of the office and the current office holder. But that memo is not a part of law nor a part of the Constitution. It has not been reviewed by the Supreme Court. Also, Supreme Courts in the past have demanded that presidents comply with Congressional subpoenas. Besides, TFG is no longer president. Early in the proceedings a judge asked whether a president could order Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival and if he was not impeached he would be immune from prosecution. TFG lawyer Sauer dodged and weaved, then said:

That would not be held as an official act.

PiRierran emphasized that word:

That word ‘held’ is significant because it refers to a court. It is a recognition that courts get to judge whether or something is an official act. He makes the statement as a way of disagreeing with a judge’s hypothesis that a President would be immune from prosecution, clearly showing that he knows that non-official actions are absolutely a potential source of prosecution. ... TFG’s lawyers were well prepared for the the ‘Seal Team 6’ question. Their dodge and weave is part of a pattern. They’re taking an audacious position, and using the frustration of getting a straight answer to focus attention on it. It is a magician trick, it is the ‘big, shiny object’ that they’re using to distract from their real objective.

That objective is to delay court proceedings until after the election and

to create lots of soundbites and controversy over the extent of presidential immunity for official acts, and sidestep the question in the media of whether or not pushing the J6 insurrection could possibly be an official act.

Eleveld reported what happened after the hearing:

Donald Trump rolled out of an appeals court hearing Tuesday to warn the country what would happen if the legal system holds him accountable for his potential criming. Trump—who is seeking presidential immunity from charges that he attempted to overthrow the government—promised "bedlam" across the country if his legal woes harm his 2024 campaign. ... So Trump is doing what he always does—play the victim—but he's framing himself as the political victim of legal proceedings. So he's not only wielding the specter of chaos, he's also engineering it by painting himself and his cultists as the victims of supposedly corrupt, pro-Biden legal proceedings. Promising "bedlam" is icing on the cake. Trump must make voters feel that the country could unravel under Biden's leadership and the remedy is electing a strongman like himself to keep things intact. Chaos is the elixir that prods fearful, anxious Americans into voting for a candidate who promises order, despite the fascism that will surely come with it.

Sarah Longwell, founder of Accountable GOP, tweeted:

We’ll stop talking constantly about January 6th when Republicans stop trying to make the guy who caused it President again.

Some appropriate cartoons. A few in the comments of a pundit roundup. One by Pat Byrnes show the nasty guy under a “Fifth Ave.” sign with a smoking gun and Liberty lying in the street. A man with a red cap says, “She’s only wounded. So, sure, I’d vote to give him another shot.” A cartoon by Jon Richards shows the famous painting where God touches the finger of Adam, though in this version the nasty guy is the artist, Adam, and God. Garth German shows a man in a red cap. In 2024 he says, “You can’t take Trump off the ballot!! You have to let the voters decide!” The same guy said back in 2020, “They can’t vote out Trump!! Stop the election certification!” In the comments of another pundit roundup Kevin Kallaugher of The Economist drew a mob attacking the Capitol and an elephant says, “You may try to overthrow... I prefer to undermine.” Phil Hands posted a cartoon showing the aftermath of the Capitol attack with two janitors pushing brooms through the debris. One says, “So this is ‘Making America Great Again.’” In the comments of a third pundit roundup is a cartoon by David Horsley: “When you hear people say... ‘We want our country back!’ this is probably the country they mean...” – the Confederate States of America And another by Pat Byrnes showing a couple noticing the date of January 6 on a calendar. The man says, “This is the day the MAGAe followed the reality TV star to the east, with grifts of gold, frank nonsense, and merch.” The woman replies, “I just had an epiphany.” The Guardian reported that the French Prime Minister resigned. President Emmanuel Macron appointed a new one. The replacement, Gabriel Attal, is notable for a couple things: At 34 he’s the youngest French prime minister in modern history. He’s also the first gay PM – his civil partner is a member of the European parliament in Macron’s Renaissance party.