Saturday Report 8/10/24 - Wisdom School Alert! How Honey Bees Use Voter-Based Democracy

The Best of the Rest of the News

— Ali Velshi is one of the finest journalists working today in American television. So it’s a particular honor to have been invited on his program this morning; you can catch us at 11 o’clock Eastern on MSNBC.

— Supreme Takeover: Experts alarmed by Court’s aggressive power grab. The most infamous power grab by conservatives on the US Supreme Court was in 1803 in the case of Marbury v Madison. In that case, Chief Justice John Marshall, one of history’s most notorious High Federalists, claimed that the Court had the power to strike down laws they thought were unconstitutional, even though there’s no such power given them anywhere in the Constitution and the Framers at the Constitutional Convention had explicitly rejected such a power when it was debated in Philadelphia in July of 1787. In an eerie echo of that action, which first put the Court above Congress and the President, the six Republicans on the Court in their Trump v US case about presidential immunity, handed themselves — and only themselves — the power to decide when and how a president may have broken the law or when and how the law can’t touch a president even if he nakedly commits a crime. Jed Shugerman, a professor of law at Boston University, told Politico, “This presumption of immunity is basically whatever the Supreme Court thinks is intrusive and, boy, is that an open door for partisan interpretation.” In other words, after Trump‘s trial, whatever verdict the judge and jury render will have to be kicked back to the Supreme Court to decide if they’re going to allow him to actually be convicted for that particular crime or part of his crimes. This could go on for a very, very long time. From Alito falsely claiming Congress has no power to regulate the Court, to Gorsuch warning Biden to “be careful,” to Thomas and Alito taking bribes and then deciding cases in favor of the men who bribed them, the Republicans on this Court are completely out of control and must be reined in if we are to preserve our democratic republic.

— “They’re going to lay the groundwork” for his administration, Trump bragged of Project 2025. Now that Project 2025’s plans to gut Social Security and Medicare, outlaw abortion nationwide, outlaw unions, raise taxes on working people while cutting them for billionaires, shut down any effort to heal our climate, and end protections for queer people and minorities are well known, Trump has been inching away from the project as fast as he can. He’s even gone so far as to claim he doesn’t know them or anything about them. The Washington Post, however, revealed this week that Trump took a private flight with Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation and godfather of Project 2025, telling reporters that Roberts’ group was going to “lay the groundwork” for his presidency next year if he wins the election. Gee, Trump lied again? And Republicans don’t want us to know what they really are planning for our futures? How novel.

— Arizona Republican mayor launches “Republicans for Harris,” saying “our party’s nominee is not qualified for office.” John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona — a wealthy GOP enclave — has come out and publicly repudiated Trump, saying, “I think the time has come for us as Arizona Republicans to admit the obvious and to start saying the quiet part out loud, which is that our party’s nominee is not qualified for office, and we need to vote for the for the adult in the room. And that is Kamala Harris.” He’s now been joined by an all-star cast of Republicans including, as MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted, “former Trump White House officials Stephanie Grisham and Olivia Troye; former Secretaries Chuck Hagel and Ray LaHood; former Governors Jim Edgar, Bill Weld, and Christine Todd Whitman; former U.S. House members Rod Chandler, Tom Coleman, Dave Emery, Wayne Gilchrest, Jim Greenwood, Adam Kinzinger, John LeBoutillier, Susan Molinari, Jack Quinn, Denver Riggleman, Claudine Schneider, Christopher Shays, Peter Smith, Alan Steelman, David Trott, and Joe Walsh; and former GOP State Chair and State Senator Chris Vance, among others.” The big question in my mind is whether the GOP, after Trump goes down in flames this fall, 1) will return to their Eisenhower moderate roots, 2) go back to Reagan neoliberalism, or 3) continue down the road toward full-out Nazi-like neofascism? And if they do either of the first two, what will happen to the millions who’ve joined militias and other fascist groups that have attached themselves to and provided much of the base of the GOP? NeoNazi Nick Fuentes is already distancing himself from Trump, who he says is going to lose big. How will the base handle such a loss? Inquiring minds want to know.

— Trump “Fat Elvis Phase” Alert! In his semi-coherent rant at his shabby golf motel this Thursday, Trump showed up several shades lighter than usual. But that small attempt to project normalcy gave way to a full-out return to weird when he started making stuff up, including an invented story about being in a helicopter crash landing with Willie Brown. That was followed by a particularly deranged call from Trump last night threatening to sue The New York Times for pointing out the falsity of his story. Most recently, another Black man has come forward to say that he was in a helicopter with Trump and Barbara Res, the Trump executive, that had to make an emergency landing. “I guess we all look alike,” he said. Trump also claimed at the presser that his crowd on the mall was as large as MLK’s when it was, in fact, less than one-fifth the size of the civil rights giant’s. And those were just the highest profile lies; Trump told at least 30 explicit untruths during the hourlong presser. Mental health professionals are wondering out loud whether this is a sign of dementia in the 78-year-old professional grifter, or is it just an extension of the tenuous grip on reality he’s exhibited so often during his 50+ years of pathologically seeking publicity by whatever means possible.

— Election Infiltration: MAGA groups and sheriffs team up to intimidate voters who are using drop boxes. Many people, including women, Blacks, and Hispanics, might think twice — with good reason — about dropping their ballot in a drop box if an armed white man is standing next to it. GOP-aligned groups know this, of course, so they’re working with sheriffs to station armed white men at drop boxes in heavily Democratic neighborhoods. Once again, Republicans show us that they don’t believe they can win elections fair and square and therefore must resort to intimidation and cheating.

— Slash rates now or face collapse: the Fed's last chance to preserve the economy. Economists all around the world are concerned that lifelong Republican and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his Open Market Committee are keeping interest rates high in a way that will kneecap Kamala Harris’ election prospects this fall. Powell claims he wants to get inflation to 2 percent (in his entire 8 years, Reagan never saw it go below 4.1 percent; generally previous Fed chairs have been happy with 3 percent), but the past two months have seen the Fed’s own Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, annualized over the past 3 months, fall to just 1.5 percent. Household debt has been pushed up higher than ever before in American history by these high rates, housing has taken a hit, and unemployment has jumped to 4.3 percent, all signs of a recession. History shows that administrations running for re-election during a recession almost always lose, and Powell has to know this. The Fed needs to act to lower interest rates now!

— Wisdom School Alert! How Honey Bees use voter-based democracy. This use of voting-based democracy to establish & maintain the resilience — the survival potential — of a group, tribe, nation, or even animal species is so universal that it’s not limited to humans…

How Honey Bees Use Voter-Based Democracy

— Hunter in a Farmer’s World Alert! ADHD: Is forgiveness therapy? Few ADHD adults I’ve spoken with over the years would say that they emerged from childhood unscathed, be it discipline or even outright abuse…

ADHD: Is Forgiveness Therapy?