Robert, every single one of your columns pushes me to try to recruit one more voter in some way each day. Here I post an excellent link to Frank Strong’s guide to Texas school board elections, which are a target for extremists. I beg anyone who has the time to send this to a Texas friend and ask them in turn to circulate. SB elections here are nonpartisan...it can be difficult to discern which candidate stands for what. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sYWeqdcJEa10JgKPG3KSOjvJzKI-bvD_Ar34n-Iac5k/edit. Things here in Texas are dark these days--thank you for your help!
The Florida surgeon general's alterations of key findings of that study mock the heroic efforts of our health care workers. He could not be more despicable.
If that's what the LA Times says was the reason, no wonder they're reduced to looking like "the neighborhood advertiser formerly known as the LA Times."
It's because of the Abby Grossman lawsuit, which charges he operated a "vile sexist work environment." When she sued them on Friday March 17, they countersued her on Monday March 20 and then without giving a reason withdrew the suit the next day. They never do that if there isn't a "credible threat." Her attorney presented them a nice thick file folder on Phucker, and aid "If you want to sue, go ahead, we'll amend with all this. You can't afford this on top of Dominion and Smartmatic." They NEVER get rid of those scumballs - Ailes, O'Lielly, etc. - unless it's a sexual "misadventure."
Couldn't happen to a nicer collection of bottom-feeding scum.
Before you damn the LAT... in this piece they offer two reasons
1. The Abby Grossman lawsuit
2. Carlson’s coverage of 1/6 from the tapes he got and a lawsuit from Ray Epps who Carlson claimed was an FBI Agent with zero evidence. Epps was on 60 Minutes last week talking about how he’d been getting death threats.
TC writes: They NEVER get rid of those scumballs - Ailes, O'Lielly, etc. - unless it's a sexual "misadventure."
I agree, unfortunately. What a dismaying reflection on American politics and morals! Repeated lying and misrepresentation evidently are tolerated in the US as “politics as usual”.
They are on the right. If they didn't have lies and misrepresentations, they wouldn't have anything. A professor of media studies explained to Rachel last night that he sees the difference between news and Fox as news gets a bit of information and then examines it for more detail, then publishes. Fox gets information and doesn't examine it, just puts it out and reinforces it by repeating it.
Thank you once again for calling attention to a vital topic that has been neglected in the major media, namely the Florida surgeon general's shameless falsification of the conclusions of a medical study. The man should be indicted but everybody yawns.
As a lifelong resident of the Mid-Atlantic states, I've never looked forward to the months of July/August and the sweat-dripping humidity that it brings. That said, hurry-hurry July 2023!
To be honest, it felt to me that the following statement Robert wrote was the most telling: “To state the obvious, indicting Trump after the first GOP Iowa caucus in January 2024 would be tantamount to prosecutorial malpractice.”
Garland and Smith’s timeline seems to be a nail biter. We all saw January 6 on live TV in 2021. Ever since it has been drip, drip, drip while we wait patiently (maybe impatiently) for something to happen along the road to justice.
Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
It’s a Policy Not a Law Nor Does It Appear anywhere In The Constitution. And it’s a policy about not prosecuting a sitting president and says nothing about prosecuting a candidate who is running a campaign to become the president.
There is no legal nor constitutional basis for not indicting tfg.
Per an article in The Hill regarding the Policy;
“…..lawyers have argued that the nation’s founders could have included a provision in the Constitution shielding the president from prosecution, but did not do so…... According to this view, immunity for the president violates the fundamental principle that nobody is above the law.”
Exactly, nobody is above the law, be that a current president much less a candidate running for the office of the presidency.
It is a flimsy, result-oriented memo that distills down to this unsupported assertion:
"The Department concluded that neither the text nor the history of the Constitution ultimately provided dispositive guidance in determining whether a President
is amenable to indictment or criminal prosecution while in office. It therefore
based its analysis on more general considerations of constitutional structure"
In other words, the DOJ made up the policy out of whole cloth. Most of the rest of the memo explains the myriad reasons why the president should NOT be immune from indictment while sitting as president. Despite the overwhelming weight of the arguments in favor of indicting a sitting president, the memo sides with "more general considerations of constitutional structure." Pathetic.
This has had me perplexed. I have not been able to under why our Justice system takes so long to decide if a prosecution is warranted and years to gather information to prove malfeasance when we’ve watched it all happen before our eyes and listened to those phone calls in real time and then watched the J6 Committee present their evidence and “It will be difficult to prove that Trump committed crimes?” Really??
Merck Garland was sworn in as Attorney General on March 11, 2021. It took him 617 days to appoint Jack Smith on November 18, 2022. His appointment by Biden was a consolation prize I guess. Biden's worst appointment.
Linda, you are absolutely correct. Garland is an embarrassment and Biden should ask for his resignation. Failing that, i question his fitness for a second term.
Almost want to thank Moscow Mitch for his grotesque failure to proceed with Garlands SC nomination. Almost.
I'm going to repeat this at the risk of spreading malicious gossip, but Greg Olear wrote months ago that Trump has diplomatic immunity (assuming that is only true for Federal prosecutions.) The report—again, never substantiated—found that Trump has been an informant for the Feds against international crooks. Too me, that part fits. He has long waltzed with oligarchs who have dirty hands, yet he surfaces over and over. It's not that he's noble, instead he is one of them and he's covering his you-know-what.
Well, that's the only thing thing that explains it to me, but who really knows? I just don't think Garland is all that cowardly.
"That certainty is a welcome relief from the ever-receding mirage of accountability that has vexed and frustrated Americans since Trump descended on the golden escalator in 2015." That sums it up quite well.
Last evening Rachel Maddow had a segment about the declining power of right wing figureheads and it puts the firing of Tucker Carlson in perspective. An interesting note is several of these figureheads were fired not for what they said on the air but for alleged sexual assaults and misbehavior. They all seem to crash and burn sometime. Maybe it’s wishful thinking but it feels to me like people finally have gotten fed up and are pushing back and most importantly the media has woke up and realized there is a lot of corruption and other unsavory things hidden under the covers and they are looking much harder at what is there. Hey if Hunter Biden is suing Majorie Taylor Greene you know things are a changing.
A belated comment on the Supreme Court re mifepristone:
I don’t see this as good jurisprudence. I see this as Amy, Brett and Neal becoming political realists as Roberts wanted with a more moderate Dobbs decision. Thomas and Alito are hopelessly radicalized to the right. But the others can now see clearly how the Dobbs decision was a grave political error. They have seen how it galvanized democrats and independents and shattered the religious right’s fever dream of a theocracy. And they have seen how this reaction has not died down. And they can see that the mifepristone decision has further enraged and energized pro democracy forces. So they saw they had to slow things down at least until after the presidential election of 2024 hoping things cool enough so that right wing forces can counter the passion that has “rolled down like waters” since the Dobbs decision. While I am grateful they have given the country a break, I see a more insidious and no less dangerous long term strategy taking root now.
They certainly can't fail to see that their "victory" on Dobbs has had disastrous results politically for the right. But I also cynically believe if Republicans have a good election year in 2024, those three will not be able to resist edging back into theocratic extremism. Meanwhile, they are treating the Supreme Court like the Vatican - in their hearts they believe in SCOTUS infallability.
Don't forget that Big Pharma is on the warpath over this & if they pull their money from the GOP & only back Democrats, that would be a disaster for the right.
I too hope you are right Neal, but my fear is that it could be not so much about enlightenment re: the unpopularity of Dobbs, but at the can of worms opened by allowing any judge to ban any drug at a whim. It certainly must have their friends in the pharmaceutical industry feeling edgy to say the least.
This is exactly how I see it. This and Barbara's note on Big Pharma. I am too jaundiced with regards to SCOTUS' politicization, and have too much awareness of the far right's previously displayed ability to take the long view to interpret their decision as anything but a wise political, not judicial, move.
Any l legal ramifications for the FL surgeon general’s lies that put the health of Floridians (if not all Americans) at risk? People died and got long Covid as a result of a so-called “experts” “scientific study.”
One would think that the American Medical Association would examine his status as a member and that the Florida licensing authority would hold a hearing on his license to practic medicine in Florida. As I said, it is a scandal that is being ignored.
AMA needs to step in and take away his license to practice medicine. I'm thinking about send them a letter. You must be a member to send them an email comment. They are located at:
Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
I heard Tucker wasn't fired . . . he just got a better offer from his good buddy, Vlad (Putin), to be CEO and National Anchor for RT News :-)
In other news not on the mass media radar, the Republican governor and legislature of the State of Mississippi passed two new laws that demonstrate that Tennessee isn't the only State where good 'ol boy racism is alive and well. See https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/us/naacp-mississippi-reeves-lawsuit.html.
Also, I suggest reading Joyce Vance's interview with Attorney General Eric Holder, Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (https://joycevance.substack.com/p/five-questions-with-eric-holder/comments). Former AG Holder notes that "too many in the Republican Party have employed a series of strategies to suppress the voice of the people, from partisan and racial gerrymandering to voter suppression to outright intimidation." As he notes, Republican gerrymandering empowered the Tennessee legislature's effort to oust two democratically elected Black representatives. Now we see Republicans feel empowered to assert State control over the City of Jackson (82.47% Black, 16.19% White, World Population Review) harkening back to the darkest days of the Jim Crow era.
In Florida it was primarily not “ too many Republicans” but one, DeSantis. He was incensed with legislature’s bipartisan congressional maps that left districts largely intact. He quickly vetoed the bi-partisan congressional maps, then called the spineless legislature back for special session so he could force his own map, wiping away half of Florida’s black-dominated districts.
Would love to read this but it is for paid subscribers only. I don't know about the rest of the folks here, but I simply cannot afford to pay for subscriptions to everyone I want to read.
At the very least, Surgeon General Ladapo should be stripped of any license to practice medicine. in a just society, he would be going to jail for some fraud charge or other. In the court of world opinion, he should be judged as an accessory to many unnecessary deaths of young men who refused the vaccine on his say so. He is despicable. What do you think the chances are that DeSantis will fire him?
During this time of a massive overdose of news I think it's important to take time for your families, friends, nature, pets, gardens, fitness, music, all of you daily responsibilities and also - yourself. Some nights I find I am so wired about the day's events it's difficult to get to sleep and stay asleep. For that problem I've turned to my Audible subscriptions and downloaded books such as The Poems of Rumi, Edith Hamilton's Mythology, and other favorite topics. This news is not going away anytime soon. It's going to be ugly, divisive, and in many ways untruthful, not reported in great detail, and with no fact-checking. And of course, do what you can for GOTV. Don't believe the polls. The next presidential inauguration isn't until January 20, 2025.
Robert, every single one of your columns pushes me to try to recruit one more voter in some way each day. Here I post an excellent link to Frank Strong’s guide to Texas school board elections, which are a target for extremists. I beg anyone who has the time to send this to a Texas friend and ask them in turn to circulate. SB elections here are nonpartisan...it can be difficult to discern which candidate stands for what. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sYWeqdcJEa10JgKPG3KSOjvJzKI-bvD_Ar34n-Iac5k/edit. Things here in Texas are dark these days--thank you for your help!
Pinning to the top for other readers to see you plea for help!
Thank you!
The Florida surgeon general's alterations of key findings of that study mock the heroic efforts of our health care workers. He could not be more despicable.
It will be interesting to see if his other employer, University of Florida, does anything.
Bring on the bobblehead !! Great idea Robert, although would there be an issue with copyright ?? Would be a great $$ maker for DNC! 🤪
Why does he still have a medical license??
1000% Jay.
If that's what the LA Times says was the reason, no wonder they're reduced to looking like "the neighborhood advertiser formerly known as the LA Times."
It's because of the Abby Grossman lawsuit, which charges he operated a "vile sexist work environment." When she sued them on Friday March 17, they countersued her on Monday March 20 and then without giving a reason withdrew the suit the next day. They never do that if there isn't a "credible threat." Her attorney presented them a nice thick file folder on Phucker, and aid "If you want to sue, go ahead, we'll amend with all this. You can't afford this on top of Dominion and Smartmatic." They NEVER get rid of those scumballs - Ailes, O'Lielly, etc. - unless it's a sexual "misadventure."
Couldn't happen to a nicer collection of bottom-feeding scum.
Before you damn the LAT... in this piece they offer two reasons
1. The Abby Grossman lawsuit
2. Carlson’s coverage of 1/6 from the tapes he got and a lawsuit from Ray Epps who Carlson claimed was an FBI Agent with zero evidence. Epps was on 60 Minutes last week talking about how he’d been getting death threats.
LINK: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-04-24/tucker-carlson-is-out-at-fox-news
Good to know. Number one is it, I am certain. If Bartiromo and Pirro get it as rumored, that will be for Dominion.
TC writes: They NEVER get rid of those scumballs - Ailes, O'Lielly, etc. - unless it's a sexual "misadventure."
I agree, unfortunately. What a dismaying reflection on American politics and morals! Repeated lying and misrepresentation evidently are tolerated in the US as “politics as usual”.
They are on the right. If they didn't have lies and misrepresentations, they wouldn't have anything. A professor of media studies explained to Rachel last night that he sees the difference between news and Fox as news gets a bit of information and then examines it for more detail, then publishes. Fox gets information and doesn't examine it, just puts it out and reinforces it by repeating it.
Thank you once again for calling attention to a vital topic that has been neglected in the major media, namely the Florida surgeon general's shameless falsification of the conclusions of a medical study. The man should be indicted but everybody yawns.
There must be on Democratic DA in Florida, no?
You got us covered today, Robert.
As a lifelong resident of the Mid-Atlantic states, I've never looked forward to the months of July/August and the sweat-dripping humidity that it brings. That said, hurry-hurry July 2023!
To be honest, it felt to me that the following statement Robert wrote was the most telling: “To state the obvious, indicting Trump after the first GOP Iowa caucus in January 2024 would be tantamount to prosecutorial malpractice.”
Garland and Smith’s timeline seems to be a nail biter. We all saw January 6 on live TV in 2021. Ever since it has been drip, drip, drip while we wait patiently (maybe impatiently) for something to happen along the road to justice.
It’s a Policy Not a Law Nor Does It Appear anywhere In The Constitution. And it’s a policy about not prosecuting a sitting president and says nothing about prosecuting a candidate who is running a campaign to become the president.
There is no legal nor constitutional basis for not indicting tfg.
Per an article in The Hill regarding the Policy;
“…..lawyers have argued that the nation’s founders could have included a provision in the Constitution shielding the president from prosecution, but did not do so…... According to this view, immunity for the president violates the fundamental principle that nobody is above the law.”
Exactly, nobody is above the law, be that a current president much less a candidate running for the office of the presidency.
The most recent version of the DOJ policy against indicting a sitting president is here: https://www.justice.gov/d9/olc/opinions/2000/10/31/op-olc-v024-p0222_0.pdf
It is a flimsy, result-oriented memo that distills down to this unsupported assertion:
"The Department concluded that neither the text nor the history of the Constitution ultimately provided dispositive guidance in determining whether a President
is amenable to indictment or criminal prosecution while in office. It therefore
based its analysis on more general considerations of constitutional structure"
In other words, the DOJ made up the policy out of whole cloth. Most of the rest of the memo explains the myriad reasons why the president should NOT be immune from indictment while sitting as president. Despite the overwhelming weight of the arguments in favor of indicting a sitting president, the memo sides with "more general considerations of constitutional structure." Pathetic.
One would even hope that a president would be held to higher standards and hold themselves to higher standards.
Thank you.
Does it really have to take this long? We all heard that telephone call
Exactly: "We all heard that telephone call."
This has had me perplexed. I have not been able to under why our Justice system takes so long to decide if a prosecution is warranted and years to gather information to prove malfeasance when we’ve watched it all happen before our eyes and listened to those phone calls in real time and then watched the J6 Committee present their evidence and “It will be difficult to prove that Trump committed crimes?” Really??
Merck Garland was sworn in as Attorney General on March 11, 2021. It took him 617 days to appoint Jack Smith on November 18, 2022. His appointment by Biden was a consolation prize I guess. Biden's worst appointment.
Linda, you are absolutely correct. Garland is an embarrassment and Biden should ask for his resignation. Failing that, i question his fitness for a second term.
Almost want to thank Moscow Mitch for his grotesque failure to proceed with Garlands SC nomination. Almost.
Impatiently, definitely Impatiently.
And thinking what is it we are missing.
I'm going to repeat this at the risk of spreading malicious gossip, but Greg Olear wrote months ago that Trump has diplomatic immunity (assuming that is only true for Federal prosecutions.) The report—again, never substantiated—found that Trump has been an informant for the Feds against international crooks. Too me, that part fits. He has long waltzed with oligarchs who have dirty hands, yet he surfaces over and over. It's not that he's noble, instead he is one of them and he's covering his you-know-what.
Well, that's the only thing thing that explains it to me, but who really knows? I just don't think Garland is all that cowardly.
I just love the idea of Carlson bringing his checkbook to the witness stand.
Better yet, his debit card.
"That certainty is a welcome relief from the ever-receding mirage of accountability that has vexed and frustrated Americans since Trump descended on the golden escalator in 2015." That sums it up quite well.
Last evening Rachel Maddow had a segment about the declining power of right wing figureheads and it puts the firing of Tucker Carlson in perspective. An interesting note is several of these figureheads were fired not for what they said on the air but for alleged sexual assaults and misbehavior. They all seem to crash and burn sometime. Maybe it’s wishful thinking but it feels to me like people finally have gotten fed up and are pushing back and most importantly the media has woke up and realized there is a lot of corruption and other unsavory things hidden under the covers and they are looking much harder at what is there. Hey if Hunter Biden is suing Majorie Taylor Greene you know things are a changing.
A Woke Media? Now, I Like that!
A reminder about DeSantis. We all have a photo of him in a helmet looking exactly like Mike Dukakis: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/23/desantis-dukakis-fighter-jet-tank/
As they say in the fashion magazines, "Who wore it better?" I vote for Dukakis! Thanks for sharing the photo.
A belated comment on the Supreme Court re mifepristone:
I don’t see this as good jurisprudence. I see this as Amy, Brett and Neal becoming political realists as Roberts wanted with a more moderate Dobbs decision. Thomas and Alito are hopelessly radicalized to the right. But the others can now see clearly how the Dobbs decision was a grave political error. They have seen how it galvanized democrats and independents and shattered the religious right’s fever dream of a theocracy. And they have seen how this reaction has not died down. And they can see that the mifepristone decision has further enraged and energized pro democracy forces. So they saw they had to slow things down at least until after the presidential election of 2024 hoping things cool enough so that right wing forces can counter the passion that has “rolled down like waters” since the Dobbs decision. While I am grateful they have given the country a break, I see a more insidious and no less dangerous long term strategy taking root now.
I hope you are right about Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch becoming political realists. That could pull them back from more reactionary positions.
They certainly can't fail to see that their "victory" on Dobbs has had disastrous results politically for the right. But I also cynically believe if Republicans have a good election year in 2024, those three will not be able to resist edging back into theocratic extremism. Meanwhile, they are treating the Supreme Court like the Vatican - in their hearts they believe in SCOTUS infallability.
And that God preordained a conception before it happened. "You knew me before..." No doubt if there is a miscarriage, it means God changed his mind.
Don't forget that Big Pharma is on the warpath over this & if they pull their money from the GOP & only back Democrats, that would be a disaster for the right.
I too hope you are right Neal, but my fear is that it could be not so much about enlightenment re: the unpopularity of Dobbs, but at the can of worms opened by allowing any judge to ban any drug at a whim. It certainly must have their friends in the pharmaceutical industry feeling edgy to say the least.
This is exactly how I see it. This and Barbara's note on Big Pharma. I am too jaundiced with regards to SCOTUS' politicization, and have too much awareness of the far right's previously displayed ability to take the long view to interpret their decision as anything but a wise political, not judicial, move.
Any l legal ramifications for the FL surgeon general’s lies that put the health of Floridians (if not all Americans) at risk? People died and got long Covid as a result of a so-called “experts” “scientific study.”
One would think that the American Medical Association would examine his status as a member and that the Florida licensing authority would hold a hearing on his license to practic medicine in Florida. As I said, it is a scandal that is being ignored.
AMA needs to step in and take away his license to practice medicine. I'm thinking about send them a letter. You must be a member to send them an email comment. They are located at:
330 North Wabash Chicago, Illinois, 60611-5885
I heard Tucker wasn't fired . . . he just got a better offer from his good buddy, Vlad (Putin), to be CEO and National Anchor for RT News :-)
In other news not on the mass media radar, the Republican governor and legislature of the State of Mississippi passed two new laws that demonstrate that Tennessee isn't the only State where good 'ol boy racism is alive and well. See https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/us/naacp-mississippi-reeves-lawsuit.html.
Also, I suggest reading Joyce Vance's interview with Attorney General Eric Holder, Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (https://joycevance.substack.com/p/five-questions-with-eric-holder/comments). Former AG Holder notes that "too many in the Republican Party have employed a series of strategies to suppress the voice of the people, from partisan and racial gerrymandering to voter suppression to outright intimidation." As he notes, Republican gerrymandering empowered the Tennessee legislature's effort to oust two democratically elected Black representatives. Now we see Republicans feel empowered to assert State control over the City of Jackson (82.47% Black, 16.19% White, World Population Review) harkening back to the darkest days of the Jim Crow era.
In Florida it was primarily not “ too many Republicans” but one, DeSantis. He was incensed with legislature’s bipartisan congressional maps that left districts largely intact. He quickly vetoed the bi-partisan congressional maps, then called the spineless legislature back for special session so he could force his own map, wiping away half of Florida’s black-dominated districts.
And the Republican legislature enabled him to do that. They got their super-majority by cheating (of course), running ghost candidates. The schemers went to jail but the candidates who won because of the cheating kept their seats. https://www.wesh.com/article/scheme-ghost-candidates-florida-senate-races/37236133
Would love to read this but it is for paid subscribers only. I don't know about the rest of the folks here, but I simply cannot afford to pay for subscriptions to everyone I want to read.
At the very least, Surgeon General Ladapo should be stripped of any license to practice medicine. in a just society, he would be going to jail for some fraud charge or other. In the court of world opinion, he should be judged as an accessory to many unnecessary deaths of young men who refused the vaccine on his say so. He is despicable. What do you think the chances are that DeSantis will fire him?
Zero, zero, zero.
During this time of a massive overdose of news I think it's important to take time for your families, friends, nature, pets, gardens, fitness, music, all of you daily responsibilities and also - yourself. Some nights I find I am so wired about the day's events it's difficult to get to sleep and stay asleep. For that problem I've turned to my Audible subscriptions and downloaded books such as The Poems of Rumi, Edith Hamilton's Mythology, and other favorite topics. This news is not going away anytime soon. It's going to be ugly, divisive, and in many ways untruthful, not reported in great detail, and with no fact-checking. And of course, do what you can for GOTV. Don't believe the polls. The next presidential inauguration isn't until January 20, 2025.
Thanks, Linda. I, too carry the day into dreamland and often awake with dread.
Thank you for this excellent analysis.