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July 04, 2024 12:29 AM UTC

Fourth of July 2024 Weekend Open Thread

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  • by: Colorado Pols

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50 thoughts on “Fourth of July 2024 Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Happy Birthday, America. Best wishes for many more.

    Upon reading the voluminous responses to President Bidens’ obvious difficulties during the last presidential debate, I am somewhat dismayed with the number of people who are quick to exploit his problem ( Marianne Williamson, a case in point) instead of offering some support. 

    Have we forgotten how hard and diligently this man has worked to mend our nation and how hard his opponents have tried to shatter it? I think we owe him our unrestrained gratitude and should let him know we owe him one.

    This is not a choice between two insanely narcissistic, mendacious thieves. Only one contestant fits that description. The other is a hard working family man and public servant, who is only marginally likeable. If anyone should drop out of this race, it should be the Magatraitor.

     

      1. Excellent piece, David.  Much better than what I just posted on the other thread.  We are in agreement that the focus of the media is in the wrong place.  Media owners and editors are failing us.

        1. thank you. It's funny, I thought I didn't word this post well. I struggled with it and finally figured better to post something poorly worded than nothing. And I'm getting more compliments for this than any of the other posts. WHich goes to show, we often are bad at evaluating our own work.

        2. A good (ie: sad) read: 

          How Reagan and US agencies made Murdoch a king.

          “The president and his men realised from the start that to oust the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, they would need to neutralise the public opposition to US intervention in the Third World,” they reported in 1988.

          “To win this war at home the White House created a sophisticated apparatus that mixed propaganda with intimidation, consciously misleading the American people and at times trampling on the right to dissent.”

      2. I'd probably agree we need some type of top-level media reform, but media has virtually always been influenced to some level by ownership or powerful publishers. Paul Simon once wrote "I don't believe what I read in the papers, they're just out to capture my dime," but of course today big media conglomerates are out to capture as much profit as possible, in part by cutting the staff needed to do more comprehensive coverage. Here's a fun passage about Ben Franklin, who incidentally owned a printing press:

        That same year, Franklin, with clarity and foresight, published an essay titled An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz., The Court of the Press. In it, he criticized the function of the American press and its potential impacts on society. His analysis focused on the risks of considering the press an informal “fourth institution,” and relying upon it to keep the government accountable but largely unchecked.

        He described two potential risks: First, creating in the press a group or “class” who, rather than simply reporting information, passes judgement like a “court”; and second, of allowing said press group to become tyrannical in its rule or influence of the readers’ mind.

        We're a nation that's had both "yellow journalism" and the gutsy "muckrakers" of the late 19th and early 20th century. Both thought processes still exist, but one of the two is more lucrative. I'm not a Marxist, but a lot of what I see today in media are prime examples of what inevitably happens when there are too many resources in the hands of too few.

    2. Amen, Duke. For all practical purposes the Fourth Estate has effectively collapsed. Add'l on POTUS: I'm voting as much for a man with a steady hand as I am for his Administration and Cabinet.  He has one of the younger and most diverse Cabinets in history.  Cadet Bone Spurs? We saw the gawd-damn freak show from last time (Wilbur Ross? Betsy DeVos? The Postmaster General). That was just the warm-up act for the facist freak show he'll unleash on this country if he's re-elected.  

        1. Once they jettisoned Jeremy Corbin and detoxified the Labour Party, it was fairly easy for Starmer to do. The clown car posse of Tory leaders after David Cameron also helped.

          Sadly, we do not have a Reform Party siphoning votes away from Trump.

  5. MSN has a 4th of July comparison

    In a post on X marking the holiday, Biden thanked service members for their work.

    • "Their service reminds us that democracy is never guaranteed — every generation must fight to maintain it," he added.
    • Biden also plans to deliver remarks celebrating the holiday at a White House event Thursday evening.

    Zoom in: Trump made his Fourth of July post on Truth Social a chance to take digs at Biden.

    • "Happy Fourth of July to all, including to our highly incapable 'President' … who choked like a dog during the Debate," Trump wrote.
    • Trump also disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris while acknowledging her as "our potentially new Democrat Challenger."
    • "The Corrupt Prosecutors are working hard for Crooked Joe but it will never be enough — Make America Great Again!" Trump concluded.

  6. on this Celebrated day of Indepedence…I would like to remind all the known repubicans living in Colorado, that they have the freedom to remove themselves from our State…Those of us who want to maintian our democracy, strongly encourage all you members of the republican criminal gang, to get out of Colorado…you may leave peacefully, and without remorse…WE Americans do not like being threatened with a violent overthrow of my government…I do not like where you criminals are trying to take my country…voting for a republican should be considered as aiding and abetting a criminal gang…voting for a republican is a very bad idea…so, all you republicans, get out of Colorado…as a matter of fact, get out of America…leave…America is not for you…

  7. From Marcy at Emptywheel:

    Meanwhile, buried on page A7 of the NYT on Monday, behind mountains of stories about Old Man Joe Biden, NYT’s Eric Lipton reported that Trump Organization unveiled in new project in Saudi Arabia.

    This seems to be structured like the Moscow Trump Tower deal would have been: basically, free money to the Trump Organization for the use of a coup-plotter’s brand.

    The Saudis allegedly supported one coup-plotter with piddling gifts of mere millions. Meanwhile, it has been funneling far more to the Trump family, all in plain sight (albeit buried beneath a bunch of breathless coverage of Joe Biden’s age).

    Isn’t it time voters learned whether the Republican candidate for President is a mere house boy for the Saudi royal family?

  8. The radical SCOTUS right-wingers re-wrote the constitution, both textually and historically.

    I think every law school in the country should have all-school constitutional tribunals, students. A debate arguing whether the SCOTUS radically re-wrote the Constitution, or whether Trump should get a get out of jail card.

    Frickin' Liz Cheney is reacting with more passion and alarm than any of the Democrats, except for honorable mentions like AOC.

    From Josh Marshall at TPM: (in full because it is so important)

    I noted earlier how Thomas Jefferson very clearly disagreed with the idea that the President was or should be immune to prosecution under the law or above the law in any way. I also mentioned that as a general matter virtually every aspect of the authorship and debate over the constitution was at war with the concept of presidential immunity outlined in the recent Supreme Court decision. A TPM Reader reminded me further of this passage from Federalist 69, authored by Alexander Hamilton, certainly the constitution architect and author most friendly to executive power.

    "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware."

    I should note that there are numerous citations in the constitution and the debate documents around it that make this point. But this one is so crystal clear. This clause emphatically contradicts basically everything in the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. It not only states plainly that a former President once removed from offices is subject to prosecution for the crimes for which they were impeached and removed from office. It also adds “in the ordinary course of law” which makes clear that they bring no special rights, immunities or obstacles into the courtroom different from anyone else.

    We don’t need to argue from silence. There’s lots of evidence, much of it like this specific and explicit, making clear that the people who wrote the constitution and the public advocacy for it at ratification were both crystal clear that former Presidents had no immunity from the law.

  9. Biden announces he intends to get "more sleep"  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

    The latest White House narrative rationalizing his poor debate performance is that he was suffering from jet lag. Since it had been twelve days prior to the debate he had been on a plane (the "I had a cold" narrative didn't pan out), guess he really really needs that extra sleep.

    God save the Queen and all that jazz.

        1. Well, at least the “fossil” isn’t the grifting, lying, and dementia-ridden con-man who now says he never had sex with a porn star and thinks that Hannibal Lecter (a fictional character) is a “great guy.”

          1. Allyn is a Republican Troll. Don't feed the trolls.

            Notice that he never ever has a positive thing to say. It's always "argument by insult".

            1. That's OK. Allyn and Moderatus are the far right wing equivalent of the site trolls; just like Sunmusing is the far left troll around here.

            2. Nope you’re wrong again. Never been a Republican and never will be. In fact I’ve voted for exactly one Republican my entire life, some county commissioner over twenty years ago. Good to know that qualifies me as a “far right troll”.

              1. So you’re now saying that you’re a Dem? Or a left leaning unaffiliated? Or just talking to sow confusion?

                Do you align with Sunmusing who says all Republicans should leave Colorado?

                Also see kwtree’s comment further down the thread.

  10. Josh Marshall moves toward assuming Biden will drop out.

    There are two or three reasons why I’ve been so against replacing President Biden as the 2024 nominee. The single biggest reason is incumbency. It is one of the most consistent factors predicting electoral success for the presidency literally going back centuries.

    But…

    Trump’s campaign has spent three years thinking it was running against Joe Biden. Well — if this set of events transpires — he’s not. He’s running against someone young and vital. His entire plan of battle goes out the window. It’s hard to overestimate how important that is. But that’s not the case for Democrats. They’re still running against a deeply unpopular candidate, who outlawed Roe v Wade, who staged a coup against the state, who’s a convicted felon, who most Americans don’t want to see as President again. The whole two-very-old-very-unpopular-candidates model, well, that’s out the window. Harris at the top of the ticket pushes abortion even higher into salience. Republicans will try to shift things back to questions about Joe Biden. Why this? Why that? Harris has a perfect, taunting rejoinder every time: “Focus, Donald. You’re not running against Joe Biden anymore. You’re running against me, Kamala Harris.”

    1. Unfortunately, some of the leading voices among the left leaning media; like the New York Times; prefer to focus on Biden rather than Trump. 

      1. NY Times was ‘LEFT LEANING MEDIA” for years and years.  In 2004, the Public Editor could ask and answer, without fear of contradiction “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?”  OF course it is.” However, the final nails in that description were hammered in during the Hillary Clinton campaign. 

        If they have had a recent column by the Editorial Board that is “left-leaning” politically, I missed it.

         

    2. I’ve mostly been in Josh Marshall’s camp. But the so-called liberal press is now screaming non-stop for Joe’s head, much as it spent 2016 destroying Hillary Clinton. (8 frickin’ articles yesterday about why Biden should drop out, and none on why Trump should drop out? WTF?) 

      But, if so… Then someone the opposite of Biden: passionate, young, driven, sharp as a tack. No, I’m not thinking of Liz Cheney. Someone who represents the multi-tent coalition, and who will expand turnout.

      This will be a turnout election, not a persuasion one, so which issues create the most intensity?

      (1) Women’s health and abortion rights. 
      (2) Anti-Trump and Pro Democracy
      (3) Affordable Housing

      This will be decided in the swing & stretch States. Which issues have the most turnout potential?

      Arizona
      Nevada
      Michigan
      Wisconsin
      Pennsylvania
      Virginia
      North Carolina
      Georgia

       

       

      I would go for Adam Schiff or Katie Porter, because I want someone who thinks on their feet and can kick republican butt on the pundit circuit. But, I suppose it needs to be a candidate who would guarantee a win in the swing states.

  12. JIM JORDAN PUBLISHES INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS OF TRUMP’S AUTHORITARIAN TENDENCIES. Marcy at EmptyWheel.

    Jim Jordan helpfully published intelligence analysis of how Trump’s narcissism poses a risk to the United States.

    As I laid out here, I’ve been going through the transcripts from Jim Jordan’s search to find people who politicized intelligence, like his investigation showed John Ratcliffe to have done.

    And in addition to the way Jordan exposed new information about Ratcliffe politicizing intelligence, Jordan also helpfully elicited an intelligence analysis of Trump’s dictatorial personality.

    1. So Morell answered, drawing on his training analyzing the personality traits of world leaders.

      "I have to tell you that, you know, spending 33 years at CIA and watching literally hundreds of world leaders during that time, President Trump’s personality traits deeply concerned me, what I believed to be deep narcissism, what I believed to be deep paranoia, what I believe to be a type of sadism where you — not sexually, of course, but a type of sadism where you, you know, are happy when your opponents have been injured in some way — I’m talking politically — that those were all traits that I saw in foreign leaders who did significant damage to their country and significant damage to the democracies of their country. I’m thinking — you know, I’m thinking of Mugabe in Zimbabwe. I’m thinking of Chavez in Venezuela. I’m thinking of Putin in Russia. So I was deeply concerned about the potential impact of President Trump on our democracy.

      And, you know, my fear, in my view, was borne out by his failure to act on January 6, 2021. So that’s what I meant when I wrote that. That’s what I was thinking."

    2. Michael Steele's response FTW:

      Ok, let's all play with Stupid for minute…so exactly how do you "disagree" with something you "know nothing about" or

      "have no idea" who is behind, saying or doing the thing you disagree with? Since #Project2025 is designed to institutionalize Trumpism and you know nothing about it, then why do you echo some of its policy priorities during your rallies? Coincidence?

      And how exactly don't you know that Project 2025 Director Paul Dans served as your chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management, and Associate Director Spencer Chretien served as your special assistant and associate director of presidential personnel?

      And folks say we should be worried about Biden.

  14. For almost 20 years, Chief Justice John Roberts has sought to project the image of a bridge to consensus and moderation in the court’s rulings.  But now it seems he is emboldened by the newest additions to the court, throwing off the chains of history, precedents and reason.  Fully aware of the authoritarian desires and unhinged, impetuous contempt for the law by Donald Trump who could be returned to office, Roberts, with the most recent rulings, not only granted Trump absolution for his attempted coup, but is declaring the court’s own coup, claiming powers far beyond historical bounds.  But the difference is, the court answers to no one, thus this new concentration of power — both to future presidents, and the court as ultimate arbiter and grantor of authority — holds the greatest peril of all to our democracy.  Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post puts it this way:  

    Issued by justices who have thrown impartiality and ethics overboard, the most stunning Supreme Court decision of my lifetime, and arguably ever, has changed the structure of our Constitution. The adage “no one is above the law” no longer applies to the president. In our constitutional system, the president was never intended to be a king. That was the entire rationale for the Revolutionary War. And yet, coming three days before July Fourth, the court granted sweeping immunity to the executive. The damage the court has wrought to the very fabric of our democracy is profound.

    The court’s power grab has shocked even those who recognized the enormity of the court’s recklessness in overruling Roe v. Wade and Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council and in eviscerating voting rights laws. It has shredded any pretense that the court is guided by originalism. It clears the way for an unscrupulous president to commit outrageous crimes with impunity.

    We must not only re-elect President Biden, but hold the Senate, in order to undo the damage still to come from this SCOTUS.

    1. There is a long, LONG list of changes needed from the next coalition of a Democratic President, Senate majority, and House majority. 

      • voting reforms to insure people have a right to vote and a more uniform set of procedures to maximize participation
      • districting reforms to insure that politicians are not selecting their voters
      • clearing the way for the elimination of the power in the Electoral College, which has elected Republican Presidents without a majority in 2000 and 2016. the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would be a major improvement — but would need not only the assent of states with 270 votes, but restrictions on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court so it could not be overruled.
      • reforms in the nomination and confirmation of federal judges, including the Justices.
      • reforms in the court structure, not allowing “court shopping” where a single judge can rule on a national policy.
      • expansion of the federal judiciary — which hasn’t been expanded since 1992. And expansion in the Supreme Court, so each justice covers a single circuit.
      • legislation instituting meaningful ethics standards and enforcement of those standards on all members of the judiciary, Congress, and the top of the Executive branch. 

      and that is a beginning, items that ought to be taken up as priorities above changes in government policy and budgeting.

  15. The Center-Right Cannot Hold. Josh at TMP on UK's election.

    Really interesting analysis, as usual.

    Looking at the current results in which all but two seats have been decided Labour has 412 seats. The Tories are down to 121. Shockingly the Liberal Democrats, the perennial third party of British politics isn’t that far behind at 71 seats. After that you have a host of regional/national parties from Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

    But it’s under the hood of these seats results that things get really interesting.

    Two other parties got virtually no seats between them but accounted for over 20% of the vote. One of those is the Green Party which got just short of 2 million votes and 7%. The other is Reform UK which got four million votes and just over 14%. This crazy underperformance in seats is the result of Britain’s first past the post system. You can come in second everywhere, rack up tons of votes and still get close to shut out in seats. But look at Reform UK. It got 4.1 million votes versus the Tories 6.8 million. In other words, pretty comparable, albeit significantly behind. Reform UK is essentially a far right Trumpist party led by Nigel Farage, the Brexit guy and all around Trumpy weirdo.

    You can sort of make a similar argument about Labour and the votes racked up by the Greens. But it’s 9.7 million vs 1.9 million votes, totally different. And in any case, Labour is laughing last and long. They’re the ones with 412 seats.

    Another way to look at these results is to look at the Greens and Labour as parties of the left and the Tories and Reform UK as parties of the right and see that their vote totals combined aren’t that different. The first a touch over 40% and the second 38%.

    …

    The bigger issue goes beyond particular party structures and labels. There’s a very big question whether center-right parties of government are really possible any more. We see in France that the historic center-right party of the government, the Republicans have been reduced to minor party status by the rise of the Le Pen. The US is similar but it’s all happened within the structure of the Republican party. Traditional Republicans have been reduced to something like bell hops within a Trumpist party. It’s probably best to say that in these countries and many others we see similar political developments just playing out within different electoral and party systems.

     

  16. Biden will withdraw, hopefully sooner than later. There's no choice. The media pile-on appears to be payback for being gas-lit by the White House. They won't focus on Trump's cognitive weaknessss unless Biden leaves the stage. 
     

    time to move on and pick a running mate for Kamala

  17. The Stephanopoulos / Biden interview was not really meant to “reassure” us about Biden’s mental fitness. It was meant to give George S the patina of a serious journalist, generate eyeballs for the ABC streams, and keep this ” Biden in decline” story alive as long s possible.  

    I actually was somewhat reassured by Biden’s interview. I saw Joe B give quick, appropriate responses to George’s repetitive and insulting, probing questions. Would he agree to a cognitive exam? The appropriate answer would be ” Only if Trump agrees to a lie detector test”, followed by the Biden white grin. 

     

  18. What – the 'Repubs are too liberal for ya, Allyn? Constitutionalists or Libertarians more your cuppa? What are fascists calling themselves these days?

  19. The media is incapable of public self-examination (where have all the Media Critics employed by the news media gone?), but at least this article indirectly exposes their bias.

    Varying Treatment of Biden and Trump Puts Their Parties in Stark Relief

    Republicans and Democrats live in radically different universes, interpreting the same set of facts through radically different lenses.

    One of America’s political parties has a presidential candidate who is really old and showing it. The other has a presidential candidate who is a convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser, business fraudster and self-described aspiring dictator for a day. And also really old.

    One of the parties is up in arms about its nominee and trying to figure out how to replace him at the last minute. The other is not.

    But the distinction of recent weeks has been striking. After Mr. Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies by a Manhattan jury in May — a verdict that came after civil judgments against him for personal and professional misdeeds — there was no significant groundswell within the Republican Party to force him out of the race in favor of a less-tainted candidate. Even though many Republican officeholders and strategists privately loathe him, they fell in line and made clear they would stick with him no matter how many scandals piled up.

    1. I forgot to highlight this gem:  “While Biden had the worst debate performance in all of presidential history, Trump’s was likely the second-worst,” said Jeffrey A. Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. “Yet we hear crickets from Republicans after their presumptive nominee was incoherent, rambling and utterly divorced from the truth. Oh, and also a convicted felon.”

  20. A reminder that SOME Americans really did FAFO:  The July 5, 2024 update of NPR’s database on Department of Justice action on those charged with crimes linked to the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack… or riot … or insurrection records

    • 1428 Number of people charged, federal
    • 885 Number of people who have pleaded guilty [almost 62%]
    • 217 Number of individuals who have completed jury, bench, or stipulated bench trials
    • 61 Number with mixed verdicts
    • 153 Number convicted on all charges
    • 3 Number acquitted of all charges [1.38% of those with completed trials]
    • 900 Number of people sentenced
    • 64 Percentage of people sentenced who have received prison time
    • 180 Median sentence for those who received prison time, in days
    • 12 Number of cases dismissed, federal [includes 10 who died before trial and sentencing was complete]

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