I’ve returned from Texas, after a stop in Santa Barbara for the Indivisible March. My detention center journal is now complete. Preliminary Remarks Raices needs Spanish speaking lawyers, or lawyers with translators. My husband is a native Spanish speaker, so we go as a team. The law: If asylum seekers arrive without documents, they can: …
I was honored to be the guest speaker at yesterday’s Indivisible / Santa Barbara march. The video is here. Here is the text: We are here to make our voices heard. This is democracy at work. If you’re like me, perhaps, in the past, you took American democracy a little bit for granted. Some of …
Speech at the Santa Barbara Impeachment March, June 15, 2019 Read More »
Joe Walsh, former GOP congressman and right wing radio talkshow host tweeted this about Trump supporters: I responded. [View here as a Twitter thread] Hi, Joe: Trump’s followers love it when he lies and fights—because they understand that the lies destroy. Scholars Hahl, Kim, and Sivan in “The Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue: Proclaiming …
The equation is: Victimization (my post from two days ago) + Sadopopulism = cruelty This is how we get to the kind of cruelty we see at the border. Yale professor explains how such cruelty is possible. We start with the anxiety and anger created when the dominant culture (white Christians) feels victimized by encroaching …
Ideas in this thread are from Harvard history Prof. Steven Levitsky and Columbia Law Prof. David Pozen. On Mar. 26 Prof. Levitsky gave this lecture answering the question: Is American democracy in trouble? Spoiler: Yes—but there are ways to get through this. Scholarship has established that the older and richer the democracy, the more resilient …
💠I am in favor of opening impeachment hearings. 💠I believe Nancy Pelosi is handling matters correctly. Here is how both of the above can be true at the same time. Let’s begin with Pelosi’s own words as she speaks to Kimmel. Forget the headlines. They often pull phrases out of context to get clicks. Ignore …
Pelosi, Impeachment, and why the Nixon analogies probably don’t work. Read More »
Paul asks the common sense question: “C’mon. Trump knew a crime was happening and did nothing. That has to be criminal, right?” Not necessarily. Besides, Mueller went for something much bigger. Take out your notebooks. It’s time for Twitter Law 101. If you are nothing more than a passive witness, there is generally no duty …
Mueller repeated and stressed the main points from the report. The very fact that some on the far right wing were stunned and said it was the first time they heard that Trump hadn’t been exonerated demonstrates the power of false media narratives. I find it helpful to start with my own summary. So here …
Summary [and analysis] of Mueller’s May 29, 2019 speech Read More »
The events Wednesday and Thursday—beginning with Trump storming out of a meeting, and culminating with Trump tweeting a doctored video of Pelosi—went beyond the usual level of bizarre. But don’t be fooled. There’s a method underlying what appears to be Trump-GOP madness. Let’s start with Pelosi’s description of the events. The Democrats went to the …
Yesterday, Judge Amit Hehta issued a decision in the Trump-Mazar subpoena case. (The one in which the House is trying to get Trump’s accounting records from the Mazar accounting firm.) You can read the ruling here. The legal quarrel was over whether Congress has authority to request Trump’s personal accounting records. Team Trump argued the …
