The Posse Rides Tonight

 

After all the damage he did to our democratic institutions and to the integrity of our Republic, looks like Donald Trump's financial and business deeds may catch up with him firstest and fastest. It's hardly the resolution I was looking for -- insurance fraud can be so deadeningly complicated and ultimately so boring that my condolences go out to any potential jurors who will have to sit and hear all the evidence. As to the malefactor, we take what we can get. The jerk deserves comeuppance.

And Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. means business. He's convened a "special grand jury" for a six-month marathon of hearing all the evidence he's gathered, since he -- and he alone -- has gained access to Trump's tax records. One criminally relevant question: Were the values of specific properties in the Trump Organization’s real estate portfolio manipulated in a way that defrauded banks and insurance companies, and what (if any) tax benefits were obtained illegally through unscrupulous asset valuation? 

(I suddenly feel uncommonly drowsy. Please excuse me while I take a nap.)

This wakes me up: "...Vance’s investigation has [probably] progressed to the point that prosecutors will visit the grand jury, present evidence and witnesses, and potentially ask that charges be considered. Prosecutors were unlikely to take that step without believing they had evidence to show there was probable cause to believe someone had committed a crime..." (according to a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan).

Do you have any doubt who someone is?

The whole Trump house of cards (and cads) appears to be crumbling because of the cooperation of one man and the toppling dominoes he set in motion -- Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer who's already done time in jail for crimes that Trump obviously ordered. Trump's allowing Cohen to take that fall -- “I’m not involved, and I’ve been told I’m not involved .... He handled just a tiny, tiny little fraction of my legal work" -- snapped Cohen out of his daze. Ole Donald will throw anybody under the bus to save his own ass. "So fuck him," thinks Cohen, before he goes to talking (way back at the beginning of 2019).

The biggest domino will be Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, who knows the whereabouts of every penny and Trump's intent at every step during literally decades of financial shenanigans and double-dealings. One of Weisselberg’s sons also works for the Trump Organization, where he manages the company’s Central Park ice rinks. Another Weisselberg son works for a company that has extended loans to the Trump Organization. Both are under scrutiny by the D.A. for possible unreported financial benefits, while Allen Weisselberg himself may have income tax fraud problems. All by way of understanding that Cyrus Vance has a big spatula under the Weisselbergs, to flip them like flapjacks fully cooked on one side.

Any Port in a Storm

 

I try to pay little attention to polls -- especially when they scare the living shit outta me -- but I'm grabbing for the results from a national poll conducted by North Carolina's own conservative guru Carter Wrenn who teamed up with reformed Trumpist hit-man John Bolton.

Our friend Gary Pearce presents the most salient numbers from those cross-tabs, along with this piece of political wisdom by Carter Wrenn, who "is challenging the conventional wisdom that the Republican Party is Trump’s party":

“When a candidate’s popularity begins to wane it’s seldom like a titanic crash – it’s more like watching a row of dominoes fall: People who once said ‘He’s great’ roll downhill saying ‘He’s okay;’ people who used to shrug ‘He’s okay’ roll downhill saying ‘I no longer like him.’ That’s what’s happening to Donald Trump.”

I'd really like to believe that. I mean, really. But it's hard watching the Republicans in state leges moving hard and fast to barricade the ballot box, and Republicans in Congress doing everything in their power to rewrite the insurrection of January 6th as a merely enthusiastic visit by happy tourists, and Republican parties everywhere purging everyone deemed one degree less than perfectly Trump-loyal. Jeez! It's a spectacle of apparent Trump power everywhere you look.

But here are some numbers from that poll to leaven the lump:

Here were Trump’s numbers among Republican voters last October in a New York Times/Siena College poll: very favorable, 77; somewhat favorable, 15; unfavorable, 6.

 Here were Trump’s numbers this April in Carter’s poll: very favorable, 58; somewhat favorable, 27; unfavorable, 13....

“Trump opposing a candidate in a Republican primary does not appear to matter a great deal to Republican primary voters. 50% said Trump opposing a candidate makes no difference to them. 26% said they would be more likely to vote against a candidate Trump opposes; 24% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate Trump opposes – a margin of only 2 points.”

Trump's disapproval among independent voters is much worse.

 

Pat McCrory Attacked For Being Insufficiently Subservient to Trump

 

Trump Train conservative Brant Clifton invents a new term to define Senate candidate and former Guv Pat McCrory: TICC ("Trumpist in Certain Circles").

Hahahahahaha.

When Political Hacks Take Control of a Once-Great University System

 

In between trying to keep the weeds from overwhelming my garden, I've been trying to keep up with the controversy over the hiring of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones at UNC-Chapel Hill. I covered the right-wing boil about her appointment a week ago yesterday, and I've been trying to stay up with daily developments since then, preparing to write about the craven behavior of the UNC-CH administration in the face of a decision by the UNC-CH Board of Trustees to deny Hannah-Jones tenure. But some days are too cluttered, I hear the weeds celebrating out there like frat boys on a Thursday night, and Jeffrey Billman summed up everything for me too perfectly not to steal his sentences wholesale here:

Since we’re about to talk qualifications, let’s remember that the guy chairing the UNC Board of Governors [Randy Ramsey] does not have a bachelor’s degree, lied about earning an associate’s degree, but did receive a diploma from a boat mechanics program, which, in the eyes of the General Assembly, qualifies him to oversee 16 public universities.

Randy Ramsey was also one of the “brains” behind the Silent Sam debacle, which involved the BOG trying to fork over $2.5 million to a bunch of Confederate yahoos—a judge struck down the deal—and then lying to the public about it.

The Board of Governors and the NCGA control the UNC-CH Board of Trustees, which earlier this week denied tenure to “1619 Project” creator Nikole Hannah-Jones on account of … you know, reasons.

Definitely not because she’s Black.

Or because The 1619 Project poked the bear of white resentment by forcing a critical reevaluation of the role of slavery and racism in the formation of American society, which is not exactly something the UNC System is ready to do.

Because—ostensibly—she’s not an academic.

“Susan King, dean of the journalism school, said she was told that the trustees didn’t approve tenure to someone outside of academia, as Hannah-Jones is a professional journalist, not a professor. However, the Knight Chair is specifically designed to bring the best in their industry into higher education.” (N&O)

Of course, other Knight chairs weren’t academics—that’s kind of the point, to bring people with real-life experience into university classrooms. Journalism isn’t a profession you learn in a classroom. (I assume UNC Hussman is better, but my j-school was useless.)

The handling of this phony controversy has made UNC’s administration a national laughingstock, again....

There's more, of course, about white people's misplaced hypertension over the 1619 Project or over any acknowledgement that the very structure of our constitutional government was written to establish (and maintain) a racist understanding of who should govern and who should be subjected.

What's happened to Hannah-Jones and to the integrity of what used to be North Carolina's flagship university is just the logical outcome of the Art Pope/Phil Berger/Tim Moore campaign to control higher education and forcibly rewrite the understanding of history as Anglo-Saxons uber alles.

Virginia Foxx's Heart Sets Off Metal Detectors in Capitol

It's the only logical explanation for this:

Capitol Police reported that Foxx exited the elevators to access the House floor for a vote Thursday.

The 77-year old Republican then "ran through the magnetometer" and "threw her bag underneath the table" next to the metal detectors and "loudly stated she was late for a vote and not slowing down."

Two officers then raised their hands and said "Ma’am" in an attempt to stop Foxx. She reportedly ignored the officers and entered the House floor.

The report submitted to the House Ethics Committee said the officers then observed Foxx while she was in the House chamber to cast her vote.

Foxx then returned to the security screening station to collect her bag and complete the required security check, reportedly telling the officers "good thing no one stopped me."

Foxx has been slapped with a $5,000 fine for evading the magnetometer.

Democrats Dissect the Corpse

 

While the Republican Party didn't even put out a party platform in 2020, saying "It's just anything Trump wants," and is totally allergic now to any post-election soul-searching -- since Trump really won, dontcha know -- at least Congressional Democrats have done a deep dive into understanding why they lost 11 seats in Congress last November.

Bottomline: Democrats underestimated the number of hard-core Trump voters who would turn out. Polling totally missed the Trumpist surge and overestimated Democratic performance. Which led the guys in the DCCC to assume that freshmen elected in 2018 were safe -- which they most decidedly were not -- and to pump money into more long-shot challengers in districts where the eventual Republican/Trump performance kept their incumbents safe. Six Democrats from the class of 2018 lost by less than 1.5 percentage points (which was pretty close to the margin for most of the losing Democrats in NC for Council of State seats).

The autopsy of Democratic losses also calls for an overhaul of campaign spending. Too much money was pumped into useless TV ads late in the game. Too little went to on-the-ground organizing and digital outreach.

The single ray of sunshine: Trump's not being on the ballot in 2022. “The Republican Party is betting the ranch that they can do Trump’s toxicity without Trump’s turnout," said Rep. Sean Maloney, chair of the DCCC. "And I think that may end up being a terrible mistake. There’s that old saying that when the tide goes out, you find out who’s skinny-dipping. And if this tide of Trump turnout goes out in 2022, the Republicans may end up skinny-dipping.”

That both Democrats and Republicans are depending on the presence/absence of Trump's political and personal bile is the tragic story of American democracy's current brush with authoritarianism. The only thing that may ultimately save us is the presumed justice and force of law in our legal system.

The Seeds of Trump's Demogoguery

 

What national presidential candidate's speaking style did a journalist describe this way:

 

His addresses everywhere were extended monologues rather than speeches, a hectic one-man argument without any real beginning, progression, or end.

 

That same national presidential candidate was recorded saying the following things:

 

"If one of these two national parties don't wake up and get straight, well, I can priomise that you and me, we gonna stir something up all over this country."

 

"Hell, we got too much dignity in government now. What we need is some meanness."

 

"Naw, we don't stop and figger. We don't think about history or theories or none of that. We just go ahead. Hell, history can take care of itself."

 

If you guessed Donald J. Trump, you guessed wrong. The character exercising his talent for disruptive demogoguery in the examples above was George Corley Wallace, the four-term governor of Alabama who cashed in on racial resentment in 1968 and ran a third-party presidential campaign that won five Southern states, taught Richard Nixon a new "Southern strategy," and laid the groundwork for the rise of our most recent racializing demogogue Trump, who could just as easily have said all the things quoted above.

 

A friend gave me Marshall Frady's 1968 book about Wallace (thanks, JF), and I've enjoyed the writing. Frady was a free-lance reporter at the time who got uncommon access to Wallace, riding in the car with him between speaking engagements. Frady reminds me of many events that I was alive for, watching politics from a graduate student's perch in Salt Lake City, but also teaching me things that I didn't know or don't remember -- for example, that Wallace's early career in the Alabama legislature was characterized by a liberal populism before he discovered race hatred and that darker populism as his ticket to ride.

 

I'm most struck by Wallace as a prophet for what was to come. The same people who cheered Wallace as a savior of "Anglo-Saxon culture" signed on enthusiastically to Trumpism and to Trump, not just as the avatar for resentful whiteness but as the savior of fundamentalist religion (which has got to go down as one of the crowning ironies of this still young 21st Century).

Judge John Tyson Accused of Trying to Mow Down BLM Protestor in Fayetteville

 

Since the murder of George Floyd a year ago in Minneapolis, activists in Fayetteville, NC, have staged Black Lives Matter protests around the Market House in downtown Fayetteville. On May 7th, North Carolina Appeals Court Judge John Tyson is alleged to have circled protestors and then on the second pass attempted to hit one of them. The vehicle ended up on the sidewalk. The woman who appeared to be targeted has filed charges against Tyson with the Fayetteville police, and a detective has been assigned to investigate. Allegedly, the whole incident was captured on city videotape.

The SUV allegedly driven by Judge John Tyson, sitting on the sidewalk
soon after the incident. The license plate identifies the vehicle
as belonging to an Appeals Court judge. 

The Facebook page for FAM: Fayetteville Activist Movement also alleges that Judge Tyson has a pattern and practice of attempted intimidation of Black activists:

Judge John Tyson 

 

 

NC Appeals Court Judge Tyson has a history of attempts to intimidate activists in Fayetteville. Last year, he hired gunmen to act as his personal goon squad and point weapons at people from windows of his buildings downtown. 

A year later, and he's taken it upon himself to try and intimidate free citizens from exercising their First Amendment rights. 

He is now under investigation for "Aggravated Assault" since veering into activists, all caught on city cameras that we need everyone to put pressure on City of Fayetteville, NC Government to release.

 

Republican Cancel Culture Targets a New Journalism Prof at UNC-CH

 

Hannah-Jones

Reporter Joe Killian has the scoop at NC Policy Watch:

When UNC-Chapel Hill announced the hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones last month, it was cause for celebration among students, faculty and administration at the school....

According to UNC-Chapel Hill, Hannah-Jones is, in many ways, a perfect fit for the school’s Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.

She is herself a Tar Heel, having obtained her master’s degree at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media in 2003. In a distinguished career as an investigative reporter she’s worked for Raleigh’s News & Observer, The Oregonian in Portland and Pro Publica in New York before winning acclaim for her coverage of civil rights and racial injustice for the New York Times Magazine. She has won both the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant.”

But Hannah-Jones is being attacked by conservative groups, two of which have connections to members of the UNC Board of Governors (including Art Pope, ahem):

Killian, again:

Pulitzer Prize? MacArthur Fellowship? “Questionable credentials,” said the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal (formerly known as the Pope Center for Higher Education).

One of America’s most respected investigative journalists? The same group termed that a “charade” concocted by “a powerful coalition with Democratic socialists, the media, and ‘woke’ crony capitalists.”

“This lady is an activist reporter — not a teacher,” said an unsigned editorial from the Carolina Partnership for Reform.

The Carolina Partnership for Reform is "a group that’s long been linked to Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger" and it "published an unsigned broadside in which it said Hannah-Jones would force students to conform to her political ideology if they expect to pass her classes" -- an allegation that comes directly out of right-wing victimization fantasies, not out of any actual classroom evidence.

The Carolina Partnership for Reform makes little to no information about itself, its composition, leaders or funders available on its website. But 2018 IRS documents listed then-UNC Board of Governors chairman Harry Smith and current board chair Randy Ramsey as directors of the organization. Asked about the connection this week, the UNC System said Ramsey, who helped found the organization in 2013, resigned from his position there last year. Ramsey’s official 2021 Statement of Economic Interest, however, lists him as the group’s treasurer.

There's much more in Killian's report. Bottomline on what's going down in Chapel Hill: This is all bullying Trumpism let loose on the UNC's flagship institution.