Weekend Reading and Reader Comments.

September 9, 2023

          As usual, the purpose of my Saturday newsletter is to open the Comments section to paying subscribers. It has been a big week, and there is much to discuss. But Friday brought a slew of significant developments, so I link to the original sources and leading commentary for reading at your leisure (or not) over the weekend.

          As always, please be respectful and “like” worthy comments to flag them to the attention of other readers.

Federal judge denies Mark Meadows’ petition for removal.

          In a ruling with far-reaching significance, federal Judge Steve C. Jones denied Mark Meadows’ petition to remove the Georgia criminal case against him to federal court. The Order is here: Order re: Notice of Removal | Georgia v. Meadows. The key language in the order is here:

The Court finds that the [duties] of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff did not include working with or working for the Trump campaign . . . . Thus, consistent with his testimony and the federal statutes and regulations, engaging in political activities exceeds the outer limits of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff. [¶]

The evidence before the Court overwhelmingly suggests that Meadows was not acting in his scope of executive branch duties during most of the Overt Acts alleged. Even if Meadows took on tasks that mirror the duties that he carried out when acting in his official role as White House Chief of Staff . . . he has failed to demonstrate how the election-related activities that serve as the basis for the charges in the Indictment are related to any of his official acts.

          Meadows has already appealed the Order. The reasoning in the Order suggests that Judge Jones will likewise deny removal petitions filed by other defendants.

          The Order is a major victory for D.A. Willis, although there are vexing procedural and substantive issues (e.g., double jeopardy) that may arise from the appeal. Let’s leave those topics for another day.

Georgia Special Purpose Grand Jury Report.

          The report of the special purpose grand jury issued to D.A. Willis last May was released today. The report is here: Special Purpose Grand Jury Final Report.

          The special grand jury recommended the indictment of 39 persons. Willis subsequently sought the indictment of only 19 conspirators when she brought the case before a regular grand jury. Included in the group recommended for indictment that Willis chose not to indict are US Senator Lindsey Graham, former US Senator David Perdue, former NSA Director Michael Flynn, and attorneys Cleta Mitchell and Boris Epshteyn.

          The disclosure demonstrates that D.A. Fani Willis acted with restraint and discretion in deciding which defendants to pursue.

US Supreme Court.

          Justice Samuel Alito continues his campaign to undermine public trust in the integrity of the Supreme Court. He previously granted an interview for the WSJ that was written (in part) by an attorney appearing as counsel before the Supreme Court in a tax appeal to be heard this term. Senator Dick Durbin (and others) demanded that Justice Alito recuse himself because the WSJ interview was a fawning profile that could have been written by a public relations firm attempting to rehabilitate Alito’s image.

          Alito issued a statement on Friday saying he will not recuse himself. See The Guardian, Samuel Alito refuses to recuse himself from tax case before supreme court.

          Alito argues that Supreme Court justices pal around all the time with lawyers who appear before the Court, so it is “no big deal” that the author of the puff piece will be appearing before Alito in a few months. Hmm. . . doesn’t that suggest that all Supreme Court justices ought to engage in soul-searching about their relationships that might give the American people cause to question the Court’s impartiality? In the words of Canon 2 of the Code of Conduct, “A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities.”

          Alito invoked the argument of last resort made by every judge caught in a compromising position: “There was no actual corruption.” Alito wrote,

When [the lawyer] participated in the interviews and co-authored the articles, he did so as a journalist, not an advocate. The case in which he is involved was never mentioned; nor did we discuss any issue in that case either directly or indirectly.

          The fact that there was no actual impropriety does not remove the appearance of impropriety—as prohibited by Canon 2 of the Code of Conduct.  

Elon Musk undermines Ukraine.

          Elon Musk cut off Ukraine’s access to the Starlink communications network just as Ukraine was beginning a preemptive strike on Russia’s ships in the Black Sea. (Russia uses those ships to launch missiles against targets in Ukraine, including civilian targets.) See WaPo, Musk cut internet to Ukraine’s military as it was attacking Russian fleet. (Article accessible to all.)

          Musk cut-off Ukraine’s access to Starlink in response to a call from the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly I. Antonov. Per WaPo,

[Ukraine’s] armed submarine drones were poised to attack the Russian fleet [but] the drones “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.”

          There is much to say about Musk’s accumulation of power over vast swaths of the economy and his descent into right-wing extremism. I will return to this topic next week, but for a no-holds-barred critique, see Talking Points Memo, Musk Shut Down Ukrainian Attack After Chat with Russian Official.

Wisconsin and Justice Janet Protasiewicz

          Dennis Aftergut writes about the efforts of Wisconsin Republicans to impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz in Salon, Wisconsin GOP's impeachment plan: Another MAGA coup against democracy. Aftergut adds detail and context missing from my discussion earlier this week, including this important point:

[During her campaign, the Wisconsin GOP filed and publicized a trumped-up complaint alleging that Protasiewicz's campaign statements had violated the ethical rules that govern judges.

On Tuesday, Protasiewicz released a May 31 letter from the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, an independent, nonpartisan group, dismissing that complaint. The commission's ruling is consistent with a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that judicial candidates have a First Amendment right to campaign by expressing their positions on legal issues of public concern.

The weird disconnect between the real economy and public perceptions.

          Paul Krugman discusses the strange disconnect between the economy's strong performance and public perceptions of the same. See Paul Krugman in NYTimes, Opinion | ‘I’m OK, but Things Are Terrible’  

          Krugman writes:

The strange thing is that these bad ratings are persisting even as the economy, by any normal measure, has been doing extremely well. Indeed, we’ve just experienced what Goldman Sachs is calling the “soft landing summer.” Inflation is down by almost two-thirds since its peak in June 2022, and this has happened without the recession and huge job losses many economists insisted would be necessary. Real wages, especially for nonsupervisory workers, are significantly higher than they were before the pandemic.

Oh, and to correct a widespread misconception: No, these figures don’t exclude food and energy prices.

Concluding Thoughts.

          Although I am not a TikTok user, I know that some progressive activists use TikTok to reach hundreds of thousands of young people who aren’t reading newsletters on Substack. Earlier this week, I recommended a highly informative TikTok video on the upcoming elections in Virginia by Politics Girl, The Next Big Election.

          I don’t have the bandwidth or skills to create similar content, but if you are thinking about doing so, I highly recommend a “how to” guide for creating TikTok videos from the co-founder of Democracy Labs, Deepak Puri. See the step-by-step instructions at Deepak’s Substack, How to create compelling YouTube and TikTok videos.

        Jessica Craven of Chop Wood Carry Water is a power-user of TikTok and is able to reach hundreds of thousands of TikTok users with important political content. Democrats need to expand their outreach, and TikTok is quickly becoming the primary news platform for millions of Americans—like it or not.

          So, check out the “how to guide” linked above and join the vanguard of pro-democracy communicators. If you create content, send me links to your work and I will promote it! An excellent place to start would be with the message by Paul Krugman above. While it is good that Krugman used the op-ed page of the NYTimes to set the record straight on the Biden economy, it would be great to get that same message into the TikTok news feed for millions of young voters.

          Talk to you on Monday!