Interestingly, the major American historical landmarks mentioned on This Day in History are mostly cultural touch points (though Benecict Arnold was court-martialed on this date in 1779.) Marilyn Monroe was born in 1926—is she a fading icon, or is she permanently in that rare category, like Shirley Temple, John Wayne, Elvis, and Charlie Chaplin? CNN began: I actually remember what a big deal was made in 1980 about Ted Turner breaking through the network news monopoly with the world’s first 24-hour television news network. Talk about unintended consequences and shattered promise! Not only has CNN fallen into ruin, it also heralded the slow rot of broadcast news into voracious entertainment seeking ratings and audience approval rather than, you know, facts and that ethical journalism thingy. Then there was the release of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the first Beatles album I ever owned and one that was and still ranks as the biggest rock or pop phenomenon ever. I was moved to buy it in part because I was fascinated by the history and pop culture trivia test on the famous cover. Boy, if that stuff was trivia in 1967, it’s super-trivia now. It took a lot to get my attention in Boston in the summer of 1967, My Favorite Year, because the Red Sox were in a pennant race for the first time in my life. I still remember hearing “A Day in the Life” playing for the first time on my parents’ old Magnavox stereo with volume turned up. That amazing song sounds just as fresh and surprising every time I hear it, most recently three days ago on the Siruis/XM Beatles Channel.
1. Trump guilty verdict update: It’s still too early to determine what the full effect of Alvin Bragg’s momentarily successful “Get Trump!” plot will be on the election: all we have now, mostly, is theories and opinions. We do know that it will certainly intensify the support of those who were already all-in for the Once and Future (maybe) President; we know that the verdict triggered a fund-raising bonanza for him; the rest is unclear. Esteemed EA commenter Michael West wrote yesterday, “This election is not about Biden and Trump anymore – it’s about the fundamental social fabric of the nation as espoused by the “civic religion” centered on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – a civic religion that has served us well. How you vote tells us, now, less about what policies you wish to advance and more about whether or not you want the American experiment in ordered liberty to continue. A vote for Biden or any democrat tells me absolutely everything about you that you *do not care at all* about the republic which has blessed us directly and BILLIONS more indirectly with increased freedom, tolerance, security and commerce. A vote for Trump is the *ethical duty* of anyone who wants to poke the eye of totalitarian Behemoth that is the DNC as a demonstration of belief in our system and its reparability.”
I concluded that support for Donald Trump was almost completely symbolic a bit late, after he shocked the Hillaryites by winning the White House in 2016, but yes, no doubt about it, he’s symbol, and one of something very important. As I have written here many times, it is a sick joke by the Politics Deity to have such an otherwise disgusting character playing the role Michael describes, but that’s the situation we’re in as a nation, like it or not. Will the verdict in NYC cause an upsurge in Trump support, lose him support, or change nothing? We’ll have to wait for the polls, and you know; polls. Will the verdict be overturned? Again, its impossible to say: if Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict hasn’t been overturned on appeal, and that was the epitome of an unfair, political trial before a jury inclined to do what was expected of it in their community with the news media despicably pimping for a guilty verdict, then, then the justice system is already shattered when it comes to politically relevant trials. Nevertheless, anyone who tells you that there are no strong grounds for an appeal and reversal has outed themselves as ignorant, Trump-Deranged, or intellectually dishonest. Here’s Jonathan Turley’s latest assessment of the appealable issues. Another leagl expert whom I find fair and objective, began a column in the New Republic this way:
“The country we love has become unlovely. It pains me to say that. But I can’t help but feel the same anguish written on the faces of friends who, like me, grew up in the justice system. Friends who couldn’t care less about Donald Trump, who won’t vote for him, who look at the cynical circus that just closed down in lower Manhattan as still more confirmation of his appalling judgment and character . . . but who remember what American law enforcement was at its imperfect best. Friends who verge on weeping openly over what’s happened to it.”
2. The Supreme Court, I. SCOTUS again foiled the narrative on how it is divided into a 2-1, conservative vs progressive armed camp with another unanimous decision, this one in support of the detested (by the Left) National Rifle Association. It ruled 9-0 this week that the NRA can pursue a tort claim triggered by a New York state official’s (Maria Vullo, the then-superintendent of the New York state Department of Financial Services) public efforts to encourage companies to end business dealings with the gun rights group because it constituted unlawful coercion. Duh. Why did this case have to get to the Supreme Court?
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wasn’t crying over this one, writing in the majority opinion, “Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”
3. The Supreme Court, 2. Justice Roberts briskly told the Senate Democrats trying to exploit the Axis’s outrageous Alito flag nonsense to stuff it, though not in those words, unfortunately. Good. Buying into that coordinated attack on the conservative justice is yet another flag, a metaphorical one that declares “I am completely corrupted by partisan mania and Trump Derangement, and facts, history, common sense and decency mean little or nothing when they get in the way of my agenda.”
4. Are “The Ethicist’s” readers getting dumber? It sure seems so lately. Here is a shortened version of a recent query: “My friend is a high school teacher in a low-income area. She always shares tearful stories of her students’ need for food, school supplies, professional clothes for job interviews and so on…. my friend said there was a job fair coming up at the school and the students needed clothes; she would take anything we could donate. I went through my closet and gathered professional blazers, skirts, pants and blouses and gave them to her. [Later] I discovered my teacher friend had posted and sold all the items I gave her for her students! Not just one or two items — all 20! What’s the right thing to do? Do I confront her, or do I ignore the fact that those kids never got the donated items? Once a donation has been made, what is the ethical expectation?“
She needs an ethicist to figure this out?
5. Reminder of how badly corrupted the U.S was regarding abortion at the time of Roe v. Wade: I just re-watched “Airport,” released a year before Roe. Adulterous playboy pilot Dean Martin learns that his current mistress, flight attendant Jackie Bissett, is pregnant. He promises to “be there for her,” saying, “I hear Sweden is the best place.” He is shocked when she replies that she is carrying the life of a human being, and that an abortion (though the word is never used) seems immoral to her. “You have… religious scruples?” Dean says. Dean Martin is the hero of that movie if there is one. Even then, the abortion debate was being warped by the dishonest framing device that opponents of killing an unborn human being with a beating heart were imposing their religious beliefs on others.
6. Speaking of old movies: 42-year-old former child actress Gaby Hoffman, who played played Kevin Costner’s young daughter in “Field of Dreams” (“People will come!”) decided to impugn the actor in an interview with Business Insider this week. “I didn’t feel paternal energy from Kevin Costner,” the has-been actress who was seven in 1989, said. “We’ll leave it at that.” Now that little bit of implied bad conduct is being weaponized on social media as Costner is involved in a controversy over his dispute with the producers of his hit series, “Yellowstone.” Hoffman is one of those unlucky Hollywood child stars who was adorable as a little girl but grew into a plain teenager and was never outstanding enough in her acting skills to keep working regularly as an adult. Taking a cheap shot at Costner is the only way someone like Hoffman can get anyone to pay attention to her. How sad. [Pointer: Old Bill]
Here’s Gaby today:
