The Various Translations of the Simple Plea, "Please Don't Hurt Us"

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, writing a message on a city street. What is he trying to say?

The parable of the shopkeep who placed a "Workers of the World, Unite!" sign in his window was published in 1978, after its author, Vaclav Havel, living in communist Czechoslovakia, was arrested. Zbygniew Bujak, a Solidarity activist, said that Havel's essay, which contained the parable, "maintained our spirits; we did not give up, and a year later--in August 1980--it became clear that the party apparatus and the factory management were afraid of us. We mattered."

From “The Power of the Powerless,” by Vaclav Havel:

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment’s thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?

I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life “in harmony with society,” as they say.

Some immigrant and minority shopkeeps can't afford all that yellow paint. So they have to improvise:

Photo by Michael Tracey

 I am afraid that will not do. Pieties must be observed. The correct words and ceremonies must be invoked. Milan Kundera, another Czech writer, described this in his novel The Joke:

He said there were two great opposing institutions involved: the Catholic Church with its traditional thousand-year-old rites and the civil institutions that must supplant the thousand-year-old rites with their own. He said that people would stop going to church to have their children christened or to get married only when our civil ceremonies had as much dignity and beauty as the church ceremonies.

.... 

I asked my old classmate what he did with people who didn't want to take part in his ceremonies, whether there were any such people. He said of course there were, since not everybody had come round to the new way of thinking yet, but if they didn't attend, they kept receiving invitations, and most of them came in sooner or later, after a week or two. I asked him whether attendance at such ceremonies was compulsory. He replied with a smile that it wasn't, but that the National Committee used attendance as a touchstone for evaluating people's sense of citizenship and their attitude towards the State, and in the end people realized that and came.

In that case, I said, the National Committee was stricter with its believers than the Church was with theirs. Kovalik smiled and said that could not be helped.

Now you begin to see the problem. We have class solidarity, and gay marriage solidarity, and now of course LGBTQ+∞ solidarity, Black Lives Matter solidarity, climate solidarity. Why, the poor shopkeep's store will be utterly obscured behind all these signs!

The needful thing is an All-Purpose Solidarity Sign. I have fashioned a prototype, but some enterprising lefty signmaker is going to need to meet me halfway here.

Virtual America--A Twinkie Defense

I think it started in Miami Beach. 1981. The Twinkie Defense. Teenager Ronny Zamora had brutally murdered an 84-year-old grandmother; his lawyer pleaded that poor Ronny could not distinguish fantasy from reality because of an overconsumption of refined sugar. 

The Hostess cakebaking operation was to blame, and in a larger sense America itself, for its careless and destructive dietary habits.

1981. Not only were most of those manning [personing?] the current Children’s Crusade for Black Trans Lives Matter for Social, Economic, Racial, Sexual and Fundamental, Environmental and Just Mental Justice Reasons not even born yet, neither were some of their parents.

In 1981, the horrors of the real world and mankind’s most murderous century were still quite real. As America still struggled with a decade-long recession, the Soviet Union still existed, with its gulags and economic ruin. China was still under the thrall of its own Communist Party and its forced abortions, and of course the shadow of the murderous Chairman Mao.

And on Miami Beach itself, many of the last survivors of the Holocaust lived out the rest of days that providence had granted them [and mysteriously so few others].

The world that our current Children’s Crusade is protesting in 2020 is not that world.  The world they are inherit is a much better world, at least for now.  A world comfortably removed from the consequences of man’s true evil, the evils that reside in his very nature--not that the evil that men foster simply out of carelessness, inattention, and pique.

George Floyd’s death was not a product of any system, except perhaps a system that permits sometimes vain and intemperate men to carry our guns for us to keep us safe from the genuinely evil men.  Humanity has not yet come up with an alternate system or candidate class except the military draft. But there is no assurance or statistical proof that a random pool of draftees are any less capable of atrocities than volunteers.

“Defund The Police” is a Twinkie World based on nothing but fantasy.  So too is the economic program that is accompanying the current Children’s Crusade, that a person will work as hard for someone else’s family as hard as he will work for his own.

Zamora’s “Twinkie Defense” failed in court. He was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. We can only hope that the jury in November will come to the same verdict. The NEW Minneapolis is already becoming uninhabitable.

Olivia de Havilland, Commie Fighter

Olivia de Havilland, in Paris, at age 104. Great liberal patriot, RIP.




History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Just as solid liberals like Excitable Andy Sullivan and Bari Weiss are sent to the showers by an ascendant left today, liberals have always been on the left's hitlist when they think they have the upper hand, even the Democrat saint Harry S. Truman.

From The Daily Beast of all places. I guess there are still a few liberals left out there—at least enough to bury their own. Cancel culture, 1946. Plus ça change:

The break between the liberals and Communists finally came in a major speech delivered to HICAASP by Olivia de Havilland, at a Seattle rally in 1946.

It had been written for her by the Party’s most prolific and highest-paid screenwriter, the legendary Dalton Trumbo. He gave de Havilland the draft of his speech, that Americans had to condemn “the drive of certain interests toward a war against the Soviet Union,” and that the Truman administration’s policy was one supporting union-busting, anti-Semitism and bigotry against racial minorities.

Without telling anyone in advance, de Havilland, horrified by the words Trumbo wanted her to mouth—went to the podium, and substituted a speech of her own. “We believe in democracy,” she told the crowd, “and not in Communism.”

De Havilland was brave in breaking ranks so publicly. Communists controlled the Screenwriter’s Guild and were influential in the Screen Actors Guild as well, and were known to avoid giving roles to actors or scripts to writers whom they considered “fascist.”

Moreover, in breaking so publicly, she risked losing associates and friends who thought the Hollywood Reds were just “liberals in a hurry” and sincere anti-fascists—many of whom would ostracize someone they considered to be a “Red-baiter.” 

Trumbo exploded in a fit of rage when he heard what de Havilland had done...

[BF mine, lest the lede be lost.]

Requiescat in pace, Dame Olivia. You were Hollywood royalty, a good liberal and a great citizen of the American republic. A patriot, if may I say so, Ms. de Havilland, no offense.

Somehow, the celebrations of the 101-year-old two-time best actress Oscar winner overlooked her finest moment.

Letter to the Editor: Charlemagne, ‘How Ireland gets its way’ The Economist

26 July 2020

Letter to the Editor

The Economist

<letters@economist.com>

Re: Charlemagne, ‘

Dear Letters Editor,

Notwithstanding the article’s title—

If this is victory, then what would be defeat?

Sincerely,

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman

Maynooth University Department of Law

(

For a harsher take than mine, see

Seth Barrett Tillman, 

Fox Dad, CNN Dad: Our Problems Remain Epistemological

True story.

Two dads are debating politics. The first dad describes himself as independent, but left of center. He gets most of his news from CNN. Let us call him CNN Dad.

The second dad also holds many independent views, but considers himself right of center. He gets news mostly from alternative news sources, as well as from Fox News. (Fox may be one of the few sources CNN Dad recognizes.) Let us call him Fox Dad.

As I said, CNN Dad and Fox Dad are debating politics. Actually, they are not really debating politics. They mostly agree on politics. What they are debating is Trump. CNN Dad and Fox Dad agree on the outsized influence of corporations on American politics. They agree that the upper-levels of both major parties are irrevocably craven with power and beholden to corporate donors and not responsive in any meaningful way to voters. They share an antipathy toward unnecessary foreign wars. They agree on the importance of the rule of law, and policing, and ensuring the integrity of elections. They both approach the subjects of trade and taxation pragmatically rather than ideologically. They agree China is a threat. Whenever they turn to a new issue, CNN Dad and Fox Dad are able to find common ground, the start of a compromise, if not substantial agreement.

But in the course of their conversations, each time CNN Dad and Fox Dad agree or find common ground on a topic, they quickly find themselves arguing about Trump. CNN Dad believes Trump is the principal impediment to the resolution of any given issue. The rise of corrupt corporatism? Trump is the most corrupt of all. The democratically unresponsive two-party system the corporations control? It may spell the end of the republican experiment, but it's better than Trump. Trump hasn't started any new wars? Trumpian diplomacy might as well be war. Google alone may have the ability to sway up to 10% of American voters? As long as it gets Trump out.

So despite the fact that they agree on issue after issue, so long as they disagree on Trump, CNN Dad concludes they must be on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Just another example of our intractable political divide.

CNN Dad is going to prove it to Fox Dad that this is why they cannot agree. That their dispute is over ideology, over tribal values to which Fox Dad bitterly clings.

So CNN Dad takes a Political Compass test. He shares his results with Fox Dad, and asks him to take the test as well. CNN Dad thinks the test will prove that Fox Dad is just too far to the right to ever hope to agree with a normal person on the center-left.

The results of the tests are below. As you can see, CNN Dad is moderately left of center. But to CNN Dad's surprise, Fox Dad's results are essentially in the center, and even in the same quadrant as CNN Dad's results:

Above: CNN Dad's Political Compass test results

Above: Fox Dad's Political Compass test results

And now the reveal: I am Fox Dad. CNN Dad is my dad.

My dad and I come out in the same political quadrant. Our differences on political ideas are slight to modest. Even if you identify as an economic conservative, as I do in the main, unless you believe all taxation is theft and every man is an island, you are in the mainstream of American politics. And even if you identify to the left, as my dad does, unless you want to topple statues of American presidents and unironically believe AOC's ideas would make for good national policy, you are going to be in the mainstream of American politics. 

For now, the extent of our differences is probably based more upon the adverbs we'd use to describe our opinions, than on any differences in the opinions themselves. 

But back to CNN Dad's dilemma: Why do CNN Dad and Fox Dad disagree so diametrically on Trump? Is CNN Dad's Trump-hatred to be explained in that small space between relatively slight differences in policy? The idea is risible. No: the fact that people can hold basically the same ideas, yet disagree so diametrically on an election about those ideas, has to do more with media diet -- on where they get their news.

No matter how many ideas, values, and predispositions my dad and I share, the way we vote will be decided by where we get our information.

I will make you a bet. I'll bet that our country is a lot like my dad and me. I'll bet that, as a country, we don't disagree all that much on what's important. I mean on real issues. Not fatuous abstractions like "national security," or "the environment," or "poverty." As if there were a "pro" and "con" side to such topics. But take any specific policy proposal -- before it is filtered through media outlets -- and put it to a left-leaning American, and a right-leaning American. And I suspect you will find they approach the issue the same way: they will both want to know what it costs, and whether it works. They might not ultimately agree, but no one will be tempted to deploy expletives or call each other names.

The average mainstream, middle-class American, is peaceable, and good-natured, and non-ideological. The average American does not walk around with an inventory of policy ideas he deems acceptable or unacceptable to his ideology. Americans are not ideological by nature.

But we have been habituated to ideological thinking. We have the journalist class to thank for that.

Ironically, Americans seem to realize we have a journalism problem. How we vote depends on where we get our information. My dad realizes this. Our problems, as co-blogger Tom Van Dyke used to put it, remain epistemological. We can't tell whether we agree if we are not even talking about the same facts. Is discussion between two voters about Trump possible when one of those voters believes what they heard on CNN -- or what they read in ABC, or CBS, or NBC, or NPR, or the New York Times, or the Washington Post -- that Trump thinks white nationalists are "very fine people"? Is discussion with a person possible when that person believes what mainstream journalists told them about Trump's colluding with Russia in the 2016 election -- which independent journalist Glenn Greenwald called "a scam and a fraud from the beginning"?

Our elections are not between blue America and red America. Or between Democrats and Republicans, or left and right, or liberals and conservatives. And certainly not between black and white. Our elections have become elections between CNN America and Fox America.

Perhaps you knew this already. If so, let me share with you my theory why CNN and the big news outlets command such outsized and unjustified authority over the minds of otherwise intelligent people.

My thesis is simple: CNN America is affluent. And affluent people, though they may be intelligent, are uncritical when it comes to politics.

That is because affluent people tend to be ideological. Not because the affluent voter is unintelligent or lacks critical faculties. Far from it. No, the affluent voter tends to be ideological because the affluent voter can afford to be ideological. Because the lives of affluent voters do not really depend on the outcomes of elections.

By contrast, the average voter -- the voter who works for a living, supports a family, sends children to public school, lives on a budget -- that voter is not ideological. That is because the average voter cannot afford to be ideological. The average voter is a working mother who does not ask whether a stimulus package offends her principles about the role of the federal government. The average voter is a working father who does not ask whether buying books for his children's suburban school constitutes systemic inequality in a faraway urban school district. The average voter is a black landlady who does not ask whether asking for more police presence in her crime-ridden neighborhood interferes with efforts for criminal justice reform. The average voter is an elderly man who, though he groused about paying into Social Security tax 20 years ago, could not live without it today.

These middle-class voters have an interest in the outcomes of elections. Such voters, who have concrete interests in a given election, will listen carefully to what each candidate proposes. These kinds of voters want to know what the candidates will do about their specific, concrete interests.

But candidates and journalists hate this kind of voter. Candidates do not know, or do not care, how money gets to schools, or how to stop crime, or how to continue supporting an increasingly aging population. Journalists might or might not know these things, but what they know for absolute certain is that talking about them is not going to earn them many readers. So what does the journalist make of how an election will serve these average Americans? Boring, that's what: an unclickable headline, ponderous prose -- no ad revenue. What else you got?

What the candidate and journalist need are BIG issues. Big changes! Systemic changes! What could be bigger than changing the whole system? The added bonus is there are no sleep-inducing policy details to be worked out when you're pulling up root and branch. You don't need a detail man on the bulldozer. And who can resist watching a demolition? Boom! Crash! Pft! Whee!

The only problem is systemic change is not what average Americans want. Systemic change was not a thing in America until the affluent age, the latter half of the 20th century. But by the 1990s and 2000s? Whoosh!

This is a Google Books Ngraph of instances of the terms "systemic change," "systemic racism," "systemic reform," and "systemic injustice" since 1950.

Examples of anti-"systemic" activities include violent destruction of police precincts, gas stations, CVS stores, Targets, Wendy's restaurants, auto parts stores, and large parts of major American cities across the nation. These activities are described by one affluent journalist at Slate as "reasonable" and "quintessentially American." Presumably, many affluent voters will agree. At any rate, it's not their neighborhood. When is the last time an affluent voter went to an AutoZone? How many affluent voters know what a Frosty is?

Systemic change might not be what average voters want. But it is positively titillating to affluent voters. Unlike average voters, affluent voters have no actual concrete interests in the outcomes of elections. When elections are decided by average voters, candidates and journalist are forced to employ more pragmatism in their political analysis. Will the ideas work? What will they cost? This is what makes democracy scientific (remember the term "political science"?), measuring political hypotheses against their results.

BO-RING! Fortunately for journalists, affluent voter-consumers are now in abundance, and they are not interested in measuring the results of their ideas. For the droves of affluent voter-consumers, policy proposals are limited only by their own intentions. And given the affluent enjoy a position of high self-approval, their policy proposals rate very high indeed.

Affluent people are dangerous voters. That is because affluent people are bored, and bored people are destructive.

But: affluent people make great journalism customers. American politics are just the broken eggs required to make a mainstream-media omelet.

Which brings me, at last, to Fox Dad's point to CNN Dad. And that is this: Bleating on about Trump-this and systemic-that is a privilege of the affluent. Trump and systemic change are the refrains of people who have nothing better to do, nothing at stake in a particular election, or in politics even more generally, except the stake a churchgoer has in showing up on Sunday. These affluent voters already have private security (e.g., gated communities), no dependents (or else the means to provide private education), private retirements, etc. The affluent need nothing from elections. So policy details don't really matter. Instead, for the affluent, politics serves a need to feel better about themselves. So intentions are all that matter.

Of course, making the affluent feel better comes at the expense of the concrete interests of the less affluent. This is a privilege of the affluent. You might say that Anti-Trumpism is, in the popular parlance, White Privilege.

That is why CNN America and Fox America cannot agree. We might share the same ideas about our country's problems. But while Fox America wants to make America become better, CNN America just wants to feel better. And those are two very different things.

Because no matter how much Trump might be able to "make America great again," he will never make CNN America feel great. And that, for the affluent CNN America, is what really counts.

Has ‘New Reform Club’ Been Blacklisted?

Raheem,

We corresponded some years ago—at a time when you were at Breitbart (London). Two co-bloggers and I post at New Reform Club. New Reform Club has always been searchable via Google. Up until yesterday, if you search for “New Reform Club” via Google, our blog and our posts would pop up. But starting today, you cannot find our blog and posts via Google searches.

New Reform Club is a conservative/libertarian blog. My two co-bloggers occasionally write on topical Christian issues. Quite honestly, we are not that important—although we sometimes get favourable links from Professor Glenn Reynold’s widely-read Instapundit, which will push our readership for a given post above 10,000 (if not above 20,000).

After I noticed the problem with Google, I saw that The National Pulse and several Twitter feeds (e.g., Charlie Nash’s and yours) are reporting that (major) conservative websites have been blacklisted by Google. 

Has New Reform Club been blacklisted?

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman, Has ‘New Reform Club’ Been Blacklisted?, New Reform Club (July 21, 2020, 13:22 PM), https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2020/07/has-new-reform-club-been-blacklisted.html

A Telegram from Early Affluent Age to Late Affluent Age

Looking through my commonplace book, I ran across this passage, and marveled at how much of Alexis de Tocqueville's observations of early 19th century France could be made of early 21st century America. See if you do not agree:

“But,” he [Tocqueville] wrote, “I am firmly convinced that chance can do nothing unless the ground has been prepared in advance. Antecedent facts, the nature of institutions, turns of mind, and the state of mores are the materials from which chance composes those impromptu events that surprise and terrify us.”

He then lists, in the case of the 1848 Revolution, what these were: the industrial revolution, which brought many workers into Paris, not all of them able to live on their wages or to find work; the passion for material pleasures, which fed on envy; theories that poverty could be eliminated by mechanical changes in social arrangements; contempt, well earned, for the nation’s rulers; centralization, which brought the engine house of the country to Paris; and the instability of a society that had lived through no fewer than seven revolutions within sixty years.

. . . .

Beginning at the top, he is death on King Louis-Philippe. The revolution “was unforeseen by everybody, but by him most of all; no warning from the outside had prepared him for it, for his mind had retreated long ago into the sort of haughty loneliness inhabited by almost all kings whose long reigns have been prosperous, who mistake luck for genius, and who do not want to listen to anybody, because they think they have no more to learn.” Louis-Philippe’s fault was “to corrupt the people without defying them and to twist the spirit of the Constitution without changing the letter; to play off the country’s vices one against the other; and gently to drown revolutionary passion in the love of material pleasures; this had been his idea throughout his life, and it gradually became, not just his main, but his only thought.”

Joseph Epstein, Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide (HarperCollins, 2009).

I had come to think this particular trick was a more recent innovation: “to corrupt the people without defying them and to twist the spirit of the Constitution without changing the letter; to play off the country’s vices one against the other; and gently to drown revolutionary passion in the love of material pleasures." One might assume that having legal and journalistic and media industries mobilized to these ends were necessary conditions for revolution. But Louis-Philippe, Tocqueville thought, had pulled off the same effects single-handedly.

The difference being, perhaps, that Louis-Philippe did not foresee or intend of his efforts the revolutionary effects.

Letter to The Telegraph on the Goya Foods Boycott

Seth Barrett Tillman, Lecturer

Maynooth University Department of Law

(affiliation for identification purposes only)

July 20, 2020

Letter to the Editor

The Telegraph

letters@telegraph.co.uk

Re: Rozina Sabur, White House defends Ivanka Trump over Goya Foods ethics violation claim, The Telegraph (U.K.) (16 July 2020, 5:08 PM), <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/16/white-house-defends-ivanka-trump-goya-foods-ethics-violation/>.

Dear Letters Editor,

Your Washington, DC correspondent, Rozina Sabur, wrote: “The brand’s largely Hispanic customer base said the Goya executive appeared to have overlooked what they termed Mr Trump’s history of making ‘racist’ comments about Latin American immigrants.” Sabur fails to point to even one Hispanic who believes this—much less a significant number of Goya’s Hispanic customer base. Instead, Sabur points to unnamed celebrities and to Trump’s political critics. Meanwhile, United Bodegas of America, i.e., representing many of Goya Foods actual customers, has rejected the purported boycott of Goya products. See <https://abc7ny.com/goya-products-latino-community/6324392/>.

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman (a U.S. national living abroad)

Seth Barrett Tillman, Letter to The Telegraph on the Goya Foods Boycott, New Reform Club (July 20, 2020, 5:14 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2020/07/letter-to-telegraph-on-goya-foods.html>; 

The Unbearable Lightness of Whiteness

Thanks to taxpayer-supported Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African American History & Culture, a handy guide to all things Caucasian:





Missing: Golf, Trailer Parks, The Hallmark Channel, Recreational Vehicles, Mayonnaise, Country Music, Snow, Fine Wines, Elvis-on-Velvet, Contract Bridge, Ronald Reagan, Bicycles, Manilow, Darts, Water Skiing, Electric Guitars, NPR and The Smithsonian.



Epilogue:

We have listened to public sentiment and have removed a chart that does not contribute to the productive discussion we had intended.

The site's intent and purpose are to foster and cultivate conversations that are respectful and constructive and provide increased understanding.

— Smithsonian NMAAHC (@NMAAHC) July 16, 2020

An “Amicus” filing in the Roger Stone matter … (UPDATED)

A motion in United States of America v. Roger Stone, Jr. (Crim. No. 19-cr-18-ABJ) was filed on July 15, 2020. It was titled: Motion for Leave to File Letter Brief of Amici Curiae Professors Ethan Lieb and Jed Shugerman. It was signed by Ronald A. Fein, a member of the bar for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the Legal Director of Free Speech For People. The motion’s certificate of service stated:

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on July 15, 2020, I electronically transmitted the foregoing to the Clerk of Court at dcd_cmecf_cr@dcd.uscourts.gov, and that service on both the United States and the defendant Roger J. Stone will be accomplished by email to counsel.

Can a represented “party” do that—serve a document by e-mail—and, thereby, avoid the federal courts’ electronic CM/ECF filing system?

As to substance, Paragraph 5 of the motion states:

5. This motion and the proposed brief are timely. Although “there is no rule of Federal Criminal Procedure that permits non-parties to join the proceedings to put their two cents in,” Minute Order (Mar. 15, 2019), this motion is filed just one day after the Court’s deadline for submission of the Executive Grant of Clemency that is the subject of the proposed amicus brief.

Here is what the Court’s March 15, 2019 minute order states:

The movant and other interested onlookers should be aware that, as the Court has emphasized on multiple occasions already, there is no rule of Federal Criminal Procedure that permits non-parties to join the proceedings to put their two cents in, or to intervene and file motions on the defendant's behalf. Leave to file any future pleadings submitted by this movant will be denied. Signed by Judge Amy Berman Jackson on 3/15/19.

Id. (emphasis added).

Does Mr. Fein expect that there is some reasonable likelihood that his motion will be granted? Or is this filing just a media event and fund-raising opportunity for his organization?

Here is a link to the brief.  <link>.

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman, An “Amicus” filing in the Roger Stone matter …, New Reform Club (July 16, 2020, 3:01 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2020/07/an-amicus-filing-in-roger-stone-matter.html>;

UPDATE: On July 17, 2020, the Clerk of the Court (DDC) filed this motion on the docket. See <https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.203583/gov.uscourts.dcd.203583.396.0_3.pdf>. It does not appear that the Court has ruled on the merits of the motion for leave to file the proposed amicus brief.

BARI TONES AND TENORS

Ah, the Bari Weiss resignation letter, eh? Quite a tone and tenor to that letter, hiding in plain sight at bariweiss.com. There's a story, what? Something about a dearth of diversity (flat dearth society?) in points of view at The New York Times.



I think that is absurd... after all, the NYT was the first bastion of Holocaust denial. That is not only diverse, it's da vorst! And wasn't it just yesterday The Times let A.M. Rosenthal slyly argue for Bill Clinton's impeachment and removal in favor of Al Gore?

Well, that's all for me... when the mighty fall, the flighty go to the mall!

KELLY PRESTON, RIP

In For The Love Of The Game, Kelly Preston uttered this immortal line to Kevin Costner: "You can win or lose the game all by yourself. You don't need me!"




Thank you, Kelly, for reminding us that we do need you, but you can only help us once we realize that we do. Your smile made us whole and you leave us more than we were when you came, but less than we were yesterday. Go in peace, back to Heaven which sent you to us as a precious gift. As for us, we can only mope... and rent Holy Man one more time!

Extract from ‘Politico’

Josh Gerstein, Trump poised to run out political clock on emoluments suits, Politico (July 9, 2020, 11:34 PM EDT), <https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/09/trump-emoluments-suits-355787>:

One legal expert who has submitted amicus briefs challenging the legal theory behind the suits faulted all sides in the litigation and the courts for allowing the cases to drag out for years.

‘The attorneys general [for Maryland and DC] filed their case 5 months after [the] parallel Foreign Emoluments Clause action in a federal court in New York ... They never sought a preliminary injunction, which would have been likely to push the litigation forward on an expedited schedule,’ said Seth [Barrett] Tillman, a lecturer in law at Ireland’s Maynooth University. ‘Their complaining about delay, at best, shows a lack of introspection.’

FYI: Tillman’s original e-mail to the Josh Gerstein, reporter:

It is a bit much for plaintiffs, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, to “complain about the continued delays in the case.” They have caused delay in this litigation from the beginning. The Attorneys General filed their case 5 months after plaintiffs filed a parallel Foreign Emoluments Clause action in a federal court in New York. 

Then, 8 months later, they filed an amended complaint. They never sought a preliminary injunction, which would have been likely to push the litigation forward on an expedited schedule. They initially brought this action against the President exclusively in his official capacity, but later, they added a claim against the President as an individual—they then litigated this latter claim—and, afterwards, they sought to drop this claim. During this entire time, the Attorneys General action was paid for by the taxpayer, but the President was paying for his own defense out-of-pocket, and then, after they litigated this claim, they dropped their claim against the President—all without a word of explanation to the press or public.

Finally, they consistently filed their papers on the due dates, as opposed to in advance of the due dates—again, doing absolutely nothing to move this litigation forward expeditiously. Their complaining about delay, at best, shows a lack of introspection.

Seth Barrett Tillman, Extract from ‘Politico,’ New Reform Club (July 10, 2020, 1:22 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2020/07/extract-from-politico.html> (quoting Tillman’s e-mail to Gerstein);