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Open thread October 21, 2022

Dan Crawford | October 21, 2022 8:34 am

“Open thread October 18, 2022,” Angry Bear, Angry Bear Blog

Comments (12) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
12 Comments
  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 21, 2022 at 12:42 pm

    NY Times: A federal judge on Friday sentenced Stephen K. Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump who aided in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, to four months in prison for disobeying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

    Mr. Bannon, 68, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress this summer after Judge Carl J. Nichols rejected an array of arguments offered by Mr. Bannon’s defense team, including that he was protected from being compelled to testify by executive privilege.

    Mr. Bannon will remain free pending his appeal.

    The sentence, coming a year after Mr. Bannon was held in contempt by the House, is two months short of what federal prosecutors had requested this week. They had accused Mr. Bannon, the onetime editor of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart, of having “pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt” from the moment he received the subpoena seeking information about his knowledge of Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his electoral defeat. …

    • run75441 says:
      October 21, 2022 at 2:22 pm

      Fred:

      He needs more than 4 months to slim down. Amazing an insurrectionist promoter goes to jail for 4 months.

      • Fred C. Dobbs says:
        October 21, 2022 at 3:00 pm

        If he’s going to ‘remain free pending his appeal’, they could just slap an ankle monitor to him & have him serve his sentence at home.

        • EMichael says:
          October 21, 2022 at 3:15 pm

          No, Jail means jail.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 21, 2022 at 12:50 pm

    Federal Budget Deficit Fell to $1.4 Trillion as Pandemic Spending Eased

    NY Times – Oct 21

    The gap between what the government borrows and what it spends narrowed amid less spending and higher tax receipts. 

     The federal budget deficit fell to $1.4 trillion for fiscal 2022 from $2.8 trillion a year ago, a reduction driven primarily by the winding down of pandemic emergency spending and a surge in tax receipts, according to the Treasury Department.

    President Biden touted the deficit reduction on Friday morning. With soaring inflation one of the top concerns among voters ahead of tight congressional elections, Mr. Biden has often cited a shrinking budget deficit as a way to bring down rising costs. On Friday, the administration said that cutting the annual deficit roughly in half was evidence that Mr. Biden’s economic policies were working. …

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      October 21, 2022 at 12:53 pm

      That’s a big f$#@&ing deal!  – Biden cut the deficit in half.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 21, 2022 at 3:11 pm

    Today’s ‘Originalism’ thread is all about a paper which reveals that the stated principle has modern roots, does not date back any further than ‘Brown v. Board of Education’, and has much to do with the legal musings of one Robert Bork, starting in 1971. Bork went on to inspire Justice Sam Alito, who admires Bork immensely as it turns out. Originalism guides the thinking of five current justices apparently.

    The Conservative Movement’s Favorite Legal Theory Is Rooted in Racism

    Slate – April 6, 2021

    At least five justices on the Supreme Court identify as originalists, meaning they believe judges must interpret the Constitution as it was understood when ratified. Originalism is ascendant everywhere: on SCOTUS, on the lower courts stacked with Donald Trump nominees, in law schools and Congress and state legislatures. The Republican Party endorses originalism in its platform every four years. GOP politicians wield the doctrine to justify their own policies to attack those favored by Democrats. Progressive lawyers may fight and Democrats may gripe about it, but originalism is clearly here to stay.

    All of which raises an important question: Where, exactly, did originalism come from? Its proponents frequently assert that it is a reaction to freewheeling liberal judicial activists imposing their own views on the Constitution through an approach often called “living constitutionalism.” In a groundbreaking article published in American Political Science Review, however, University of Chicago Ph.D. candidate Calvin TerBeek argues that modern originalism arose out of the backlash to Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision prohibiting public school segregation. TerBeek’s research—which spanned 14 archival collections, thousands of newspapers and magazines, and interviews with key players—all points in one direction: Originalism has fundamentally racist roots. …

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 21, 2022 at 9:44 pm

    Court temporarily halts Biden’s student loan cancellation plan

    Boston Globe – Oct 21

    Not long after President Biden on Friday celebrated that nearly 22 million people had applied for his student loan cancellation plan, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the administration from discharging any debt.

    The stay by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit blunted the momentum the program has gained since the online application went live on Monday. The administration hasn’t begun discharging any debt while several legal challenges have been working their way through the courts.

    Now Americans who have applied to have as much as $20,000 in debt forgiven potentially face a longer delay or the possibility the program will be scuttled by the courts. …

    Opponents of the debt forgiveness have filed suit to stop it, including a group of Republican state attorneys general from Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina. That lawsuit was dismissed by federal judges on Thursday on the grounds the states lacked legal standing. But the Eighth Circuit appellate court Friday granted a stay until it could rule on the states’ request to block the program.

    Before the appeals court decision, Biden criticized the states and other opponents for legal challenges.

    “Republican members of Congress and Republican governors are doing everything they can to deny this relief even … to their own constituents,” he said in his speech at Delaware State University. “As soon as I announced my administration’s plan on student debt, they started attacking it, saying all kinds of things. Their outrage is wrong and it’s hypocritical.” …

     

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 23, 2022 at 10:31 am

    How New Yorkers Are Stepping In to Help Asylum Seekers

    NY Times – Oct 22

    Volunteers are collecting donations, delivering pizzas and even opening up their homes to help Venezuelan migrants arriving by bus from Texas. 

    Tonya Roman was working her shift as a cleaner at Port Authority last week when she saw a young volunteer take off his sneakers and give them to a newly arrived migrant who had just stepped off a bus. She was struck by the act.

    “It’s like a Jesus moment,” she said. “Who gives the shoes off their feet to a stranger? And I said, ‘I have to do my part.’”

    Ms. Roman, 54, who lives in Newark, N.J., was among those on Wednesday morning who stopped by a cordoned off area of the bus terminal, where volunteers were receiving new arrivals, to donate a rolling cart full of winter clothes that she had brought from home.

    The thousands of asylum seekers who have arrived in New York City since the spring face daunting challenges as they try to rebuild their lives in a new country. Most arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs after a grueling overland trek from South America to the Texas border, where they were then bused north by the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, and the Democrat-led city of El Paso. 

    But their arrivals are being eased somewhat by an outpouring of support from around New York.

    While the city has provided shelter, meals and medical services, its response has been at times halting or chaotic. A number of charities and aid groups have stepped in to fill the gaps, distributing badly needed items like winter coats, baby formula and cellphones. Some volunteers are even opening up their homes.

    At the Port Authority Bus Terminal, about a dozen volunteers have arrived before dawn every day to greet people getting off buses from Texas with sandwiches, fruit and donated clothes.

    Early on Wednesday, Ilze Thielmann, 56, was directing volunteers scrambling to greet new arrivals, distribute food and organize donated clothes, diapers and other items. A small area of the bus terminal was guarded by uniformed officers and filled with folding chairs; boxes of apples, bagels, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were at the ready.

    “It’s just an outpouring of love, there’s no other way to put it,” said Ms. Thielmann, a retired lawyer. She was there helping to coordinate the efforts with her volunteer group, Team TLC NYC, along with Power Malu, 45, who runs the group Artists-Athletes-Activists, and Adama Bah, a community organizer.

    Many of the new arrivals were families with young children, and would eventually make their way to the nearby Row NYC hotel, where the city has set up an intake center. …

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 24, 2022 at 2:01 pm

    Rishi Sunak will become Britain’s next prime minister

    NY Times – Oct 24

    Rishi Sunak, who will become Britain’s next prime minister after prevailing in a chaotic Conservative Party leadership race on Monday, said that his focus would be “stability and unity.”

    A former chancellor of the Exchequer who is the son of Indian immigrants, Mr. Sunak, 42, won the contest to replace the ousted Liz Truss, who resigned under pressure last Thursday after her economic agenda caused turmoil. Mr. Sunak will be Britain’s third leader in seven weeks and the first prime minister of color in its history. 

    “There is no doubt we face profound economic challenges,’’ Mr. Sunak said in a brief appearance Monday afternoon. “We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring my party and country together.” …

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      October 24, 2022 at 2:25 pm

      Rishi Sunak, and his wife Akshata Murthy, grabbed a spot on the Sunday Times Rich List … in May 2022.

       

      British-born Sunak is married to Akshata Murthy, who is the daughter of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy. Sunak became the first prominent British politician, at the time chancellor, to have entered the UK’s wealthiest people list in England. The wealth of £730 million got the couple their spotlight at rank 222 on the UK Rich List 2022.

      Rishi Sunak has net worth of 730 million pounds

      India Times – Oct 23

      (His spouse is a non-resident, technically; her income is mostly off-shore & tax free apparently.)

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 24, 2022 at 2:10 pm

    Justice Clarence Thomas temporarily blocks Senator Graham’s testimony in Georgia investigation

    Boston Globe – Oct 24

    (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday temporarily blocked Sen. Lindsey Graham’s testimony to a special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in the state.

    Thomas’ order is intended to prevent Fani Willis, Fulton County district attorney, from compelling Graham to testify while the Supreme Court weighs the senator’s request for a lengthier halt to the proceedings.

    Willis has a deadline Thursday to tell the high court why Graham should have to answer the grand jury’s questions. Lower courts have ruled that his testimony can take place.

    Thomas acted on his own, as the justice who handles emergency appeals from Georgia. …

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