DL Open Thread: Saturday, September 9, 2023
Earthquake In Morocco. A bad one:
A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 800 people and damaging buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakech. But the full toll was not known as rescuers struggled to get through boulder-strewn roads to the remote mountain villages hit hardest.
People woken by the quake ran into the streets in terror and disbelief. A man visiting a nearby apartment said dishes and wall hangings began raining down, and people were knocked off their feet and chairs. A woman described fleeing her house after an “intense vibration.’’ A man holding a child said he was jarred awake in bed by the shaking.
State television showed people clustered in the streets of Marrakech, afraid to go back inside buildings that might still be unstable. Many wrapped themselves in blankets as they tried to sleep outside.
The magnitude 6.8 quake was the hardest to hit Morocco in 120 years, and it toppled buildings and walls in ancient cities made from stone and masonry not designed to withstand quakes.
Judge To Meadows: ‘You’re Not Making A Federal Case Out Of This’. Am I the only one enjoying the fact that the meter continues to run on the legal fees of these seditionists?:
“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.
A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.
In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.
The judge agreed. Meaning, even if Meadows is convicted and Trump gets reelected, a pardon does not await.
Justice Alito: ‘Yes, I’m Corrupt. What Are You Gonna Do About It?’:
In an official court statement published Friday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is refusing to recuse himself from a tax case that will be heard in the court this session, in which he has a clear conflict of interest. He wrote that there was “no valid reason for my recusal” in the upcoming Moore v. United States case, which could result in a potentially far-reaching challenge to the nation’s tax code.
The valid reasons for Alito to recuse himself were detailed in a letter Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin wrote to Chief Justice John Roberts last month. Durbin’s letter said that Alito granted “interviews conducted in part by an attorney with a case currently pending before the Court,” which “violated a key tenet of the Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” that Roberts himself has said all “current Members of the Supreme Court subscribe” to.
That attorney is David Rivkin—the same David Rivkin who conducted two highly politicized interviews with Alito for The Wall Street Journal this year. The first was in April, while the court was considering his petition to hear the tax case, and the second was in July, after the court had accepted the case.
This barely scratches the surface of Alito’s relationship with Rivkin and the potential conflicts of interest it poses for the justice, including the fact that Rivkin is also representing Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society co-chair and driving force behind the conservative takeover of the federal judiciary and Supreme Court. Leo is reportedly under investigation by the Washington, D.C., attorney general. He’s also central to the reviews the Senate Finance and Judiciary Committees are conducting into reports of lavish trips and gifts that both Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas have received from conservative billionaires.
Elon Musk Sabotaged Ukraine Offensive. When oligarchs control the intertubes, this is what happens:
Last month I wrote about the rise of the global oligarchs and I made particular mention of Elon Musk. Even if you set aside the various things you may not like about Musk he has amassed a degree of economic power that is novel and dangerous in itself even if he had the most benign of intentions and the most stable personality. More than half the operating satellites in the sky are owned and controlled by him. Overnight we finally got confirmation of something that has long been suspected or hinted at but which none of the players had an interest in confirming. Last September Musk either cut off or refused to activate his Starlink satellite service near the Crimean coast during a surprise Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian Navy at anchor at its Sevastopol naval port.
On its face you might say, they’re Musk’s satellites and he’s in charge of who gets to use them and how. But of course it’s not that simple. It’s a good illustration of how Musk’s economic power has crept into domains that are more like the power of a state.
Starlink is a network of satellites providing robust internet connectivity without reliance on any ground infrastructure. This is critical in Ukraine since the ground infrastructure has all been degraded or destroyed. Starlink is owned by and made possible by the launch capacity of SpaceX, Musk’s space launch company, which is currently the sole means the U.S. has to launch satellites into space.
Musk made business and financial decisions that, under our economic system, entitles him to the vast profits of SpaceX. But he didn’t create it on his own. The company was built on the back of U.S. government contracts. In essence the U.S. government fronted the money to build SpaceX by awarding it contracts that made its business viable. Musk and SpaceX are also U.S. military contractors. That comes with a big set of responsibilities and restrictions.
That Musk chooses to ignore.
What do you want to talk about?
The rise of the billionaires is a problem as old as mankind itself, at some point the rich and super rich inveigle themselves into the government and attempt to override democracy. That is the point we’re at thanks to the endless tax cuts the tiny minds of the government have given them. Solution? Tax the rich as we have in the past, aggressively go after the endless accounting schemes they hatch and the games to hide money in tax havens. Plutocracy leads inevitably to Fascism, that is our current course, and yes it sucks.
If Democrats can’t make an election year issue out of Moore v. United States (eg. Republicans are literally making it illegal for rich people to pay taxes!) – then the party should declare intellectual bankruptcy and call it a day.
“then the party should declare intellectual bankruptcy and call it a day”.
Believe corruption and stupidity would work as well. Be honest, American government is going from half broken to full tilt busted, and as we say here “needs thrown out”. The ultimate failure is a brain dead and gullible electorate that cannot wake up.
They are begging for a strong man that can make the trains run on time
Don’t be silly. They would never deign to take a train.