This Was the Week that Was: Toward the End of April, 2024
A compendium of news through my cynical eyes.
Two stories are at the top of this week’s list, the legal travails of the former president and student protests over the Gaza bloodbath in progress.
With his tongue stapled to his tie, Donald J Trump was forced to hear uncomplimentary things in a freezing cold courtroom. The prosecution began calling witnesses in New York’s election fraud trial. David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer detailed a relationship with the former president involving buying off sources offering salacious information, smearing political opponents, and headlines promoting Trump’s 2016 candidacy.
Meanwhile, the best Supreme Court justices money can buy apparently are going to do their bit to delay court cases concerning the ex-president until after the 2024 general election. Also this week, the high court heard arguments in cases concerning unhoused humans and emergency care for women with pregnancy complications. While we’re not likely to have rulings until June, it’s clear that this leg of democratic governance needs reform. And that (more justices, term limits) has no possibility of happening unless Democrats do well in Senate races this fall.
Students (and others!) nationwide have taken up the cause of Palestinians’ plight amid an ongoing furious military assault seeking to destroy Hamas, Islamist militant group responsible for the October 7 surprise attack on Israel.
Right wingers (and ultra-nationalist supporters) have done an effective job of conflating non-violent political displays with terrorism and antisemitism. Police departments in several areas are using anti-riot units to arrest protesters, and law enforcement snipers have been photographed in several locales.
The social media onslaught demonizing and ostracizing pro Gaza sentiment has been unrelenting. It’s important to understand that many of the organizers of these actions are Jewish students aghast at what they see as institutional complicity taking place while innocents are slaughtered.
A proposed facility for up to a thousand unhoused humans in Middletown is endangered before the lease is even signed. Three things are evident here:
San Diego’s mayor and his allies are desperate for at least the semblance of a “win.”
No big project involving the steadily increasing numbers of people living on the street has a chance of fruition thanks to San Diego’s toxic strain of NIMBYism.
The likelihood of large-scale higher density residences making it to market decreases in direct proportion to the number of white/privileged residents in an area.
It was a good week for ordinary humans, thanks to the Biden administration. Airline refunds can no longer be promissory. Companies can no longer misclassify employees as management to avoid overtime. Kids that work at Burger King can switch to a better-paying fast food joint without getting sued for violating non-compete agreements. Internet service providers can no longer favor certain websites (but search engines can).
Batten down the hatches. The official start of the Atlantic hurricane season is still a month away, but the National Hurricane Center has issued its first advisory of the year. An otherwise nondescript system (already dissipated) was notable for being the first sign of what's expected to be a ferocious hurricane season in the Atlantic, with potentially dozens of storms.
Under the radar. Republicans at state levels are suing for the right to harass voters and election workers, according to elections advocate Marc Elias.
Republicans know that this November they will lose the popular vote for president by millions of votes. Their only strategy to overcome this deficit is to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat. That is why former President Donald Trump’s senior advisor who now effectively runs the Republican National Committee, Chris LaCivita, recently insisted that “the RNC’s new posture as it relates to litigation is much more offensive and much less defensive.”
At the national level, it’s worth noting that the GOP has killed a plan for 40 outreach offices in 10 crucial states to drive voter engagement and turnout. This week they took down the portion of their website that explained how to vote early.
One of the persons indicted for election crimes in Arizona, one-time San Diegan Christina Bobb, is currently the national party’s “election integrity officer.” Additionally, Bobb is the former president’s attorney who signed off on a 2022 document falsely attesting that all classified documents had been removed from Mar a Lago. Fifty three people have now been indicted nationwide for their roles in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Crybaby slap fight. The pot (Politico) has published a story calling the kettle (New York Times) black. For those of you who don’t read Politico, their high impact newsletters barely conceal disdain over the actions and personalities of the current administration. Neither news operation seems to understand the fundamental threat to democracy in this year’s presidential election.
Allegedly, the Times (often absurd) coverage of President Biden is related to the anger of publisher A. G. Sulzberger at the president’s refusal to do an exclusive interview with the paper. Politico’s report says the publisher’s reasoning is that only an interview with an established paper like the New York Times “can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”
Biden’s seeming response to the controversy was to grant Howard Stern an interview on SiriusXM. Via Heather Cox Richardson:
Writer Kurt Andersen described it as a “*Total* softball interview, mostly about his personal life—but lovely, sweet, human, and Biden was terrific, consistently clear, detailed, charming, moving. Which was the point. SO much better than his opponent could do.”
Let me slip some culture in here while fighting ageism. All of us editors at The Jumping-Off Place attended one of Neil Young’s concerts at SDSU this past week.(Me-Wednesday, Jim & Kelly-Thursday). The shows were amazing.
Here’s the UT’s George Varga:
At 78, Young remains a staunch keeper of the flame whose passion for music burns as bright as ever. If anyone thinks this veteran singer, songwriter and guitarist is ready to kick back in his old age, he and his band immediately and convincingly refuted such notions with their powerful, nearly two-hour performance at SDSU’s Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre.