THE FURTHER CORRESPONDENCES OF MARC SUSSELMAN PART 31
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10 February 2025
MS said:
We are in dangerous, very dangerous territory.
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/politics/video/jd-vance-controversial-post-courts-elie-honig-digvid"
“John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it,” –attributed to President Andrew Jackson, 1832
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11 February 2025
MS said:
I had a very strange dream last night. (I have been having a lot of strange dreams lately, don’t know why.) I dreamed I was with Donald Trump (yes, his excellency himself) and he was showing me around a laboratory which was being run – for the government – by Elon Musk. The purpose of the laboratory was to create realistic animatronic human beings and extinct species. The animatronic human beings were extremely realistic – they moved and spoke like real humans. The animals were convincing recreations of extinct dinosaurs and mammals. Watching – with his excellency by my side – I was thinking, what was the purpose of the animatronic humans? Was he planning on saving lives by using them in the military, rather than risking the lives of actual American citizens in combat?
And then, while I was contemplating this question in my sleep, I woke up. Lying in bed, thinking, wow, that was a really weird dream, the thought of animatronic humans, who do not need to get paid to serve the government turned to thoughts about DOGE and Musk’s elimination of several government agencies, putting thousands of people out of work. Putting aside questions about the legality of these actions, what is the purpose of these actions? According to Musk and Trump, the purpose is to save taxpayers a lot of money, by eliminating waste in government. But is it? The employees who are made unemployed still need to earn money in some fashion in order to live, in order to pay for the essentials of their existence – lodging, food, and clothing. Unless they find other work, they have three choices – become homeless panhandlers; turn to crime; or commit suicide. None of these options is in our society’s interests. The option to avoid these outcomes is to provide them with welfare. And who is going to pay for the welfare – the taxpayers. So, how have we saved money?
The first alternative is that they will find other work. Doing what? Is this Trump’s solution to the immigration issue? Expel the purported illegal immigrants, many of whom have been doing the menial manual labor that Americans are reluctant to do, and force the terminated government employees to do this labor? How likely is it that a fired accountant or social service worker is going to start picking corn and cleaning hotel rooms? And why force them to do this work, when we had humans who were all too happy to do that work, for menial wages, rather than live in their impoverished countries.
So, here we have the richest man in the world, and his ultra-rich boss, convincing the American people that they are saving American taxpayers a hell of a lot of money, by putting people out of work and turning them into farm workers, or panhandlers, or criminals – or committing suicide, as they continue to get richer. What the DOGE project ignores is that the goal of full employment, even if it means paying people to do government make-work, is a legitimate objective, to keep people employed rather than living on the streets or committing crime, all of which ultimately also costs the American taxpayers money. DOGE is just another con being pulled on the American people, and over 50% of them have fallen for it – Trump is enjoying high favorable ratings, for doing what he promised to do, as he and Musk, Bezos, Zuckerman, etc. get richer and richer.
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Michael said:
Julius Caesar, before becoming the first man in Rome, dreamed he went to bed with his mother. Of course, Caesar would never do something so nefarious. The interpretation of his dream is that he wanted to rule over Rome, his motherland, as a King or Emperor--subverting the Republic's constitution. Let's hope world leaders of Democracies around the world are void of such dreams like that of Caesar's.
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MS said:
The Crook in Chief:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/politics/video/toobin-what-if-trump-defies-federal-judge-ac360-digvid"
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MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/11/politics/video/speaker-mike-johnson-courts-doge-manu-raju-digvid"
Republican double-talk does not cease. He did not answer the question – Does the President of the United States have the constitutional authority to disobey a federal court order, pending reversal by an appellate court? He does not. And that has been the law of this country since the Supreme Court decided Marbury v. Madison in 1803.
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Michael said:
One of the great things about a Common Law system of the courts is that a previous court decision cannot be overturned by any future court ruling. One could say some court decisions are more set in stone than others. That's perhaps why Marbury v. Madison's pro constitutional stance cannot be just as easily overturned as some other later court decisions like Roe v. Wade.
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MS said:
Don’t compare Trump’s US to Nazi Germany. These three American moments are more apt
By Jeffrey K. Salkin
"https://forward.com/opinion/695515/modern-day-mccarthyism-trump/?utm_source=The+Forward+Association&utm_campaign=a4eb54a21e-AfternoonEditionNL_%2A%7CDATE%3AYmd%7C%2A_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-878b15fee9-288548637"
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12 February 2025
MS said:
I wish to take this opportunity to brag about how I stood up to judicial tyranny at a hearing last week. I am representing another attorney, a friend, in a proceeding in probate court to prevent a conservator from selling his aunt’s house without her permission. His aunt is in a nursing home, recovering from a broken hip. The probate court has ruled that she is legally incapacitated. Conservators are appointed by a probate court to manage an individual’s finances; they have a lot of power. He wants to sell the house to use the proceeds from the sale to pay for the expenses at the nursing home, which are $15,000 per month. She is entitled to Medicaid benefits, which would only cost her $1,500 per month. The conservator filed three applications for her to obtain Medicaid, but he screwed up each application and she was denied Medicaid. My friend was initially appointed as her guardian, and was opposing the conservator’s efforts to sell the home. Therefore, the conservator filed a motion to remove my friend as guardian, to prevent him from interfering with the sale. At a hearing in January, the judge entered an order suspending my friend as guardian, and appointed the conservator as temporary guardian, thereby giving him authority to proceed to listing the home for sale and finding a buyer. I immediately filed an emergency application for leave to appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals to reverse his order suspending my friend as guardian. I also filed a motion in the probate court requesting that the judge stay his order suspending my friend as guardian.
The probate judge does not like me. (What’s not to like?) He has repeatedly rejected my objections to opposing counsel’s questions of witnesses during prior hearings and rebuked me. At the hearing on the motion for a stay, before I even began my legal argument, the judge stated he was going to deny the motion. I stated that due process requires that I at least be allowed to make my argument before he rules. With a dismissive wave of his hand, he told me to proceed. As I was making my argument, I could see that the judge was working on his computer rather than listening to me. I said, “Your Honor, am I distracting you?” He looked up, skewered me, and said, “No, I can do two things at once. I heard every word you said. Want me to repeat it?” I answered, “Yes, please repeat what I said.” Without repeating my argument, the judge became apoplectic; he turned red in the face; he was so angry his hands were shaking. He pointed a shaking finger at me and said, “One more sarcastic word from you and I am going to hold you in contempt and throw you in jail!” I said, “May I finish my argument?” He again waved his hand at me, and I finished my argument, at which he shouted, “Motion denied!” I did not wind up in jail. The emergency application is still pending in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
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Michael said:
Marc,
Thank you for standing up for your friend's aunt
and her ability to keep her home. I know she
is thankful for that. I hope the judge's order gets appealed.
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MS said:
Some timely observations by H. L. Mencken:
“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”
“It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.”
“If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.”
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
“The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.”
“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”
“Conscience is the inner voice that tells us that someone might be looking.”
“Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.”
“No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me – has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
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13 February 2025
MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/12/politics/video/john-bolton-trump-putin-ukraine-russia-negotiations-digvid"
Trump is scum. The U.S. as the protector of national sovereignty and democracy is dead.
How long will it take for those who voted for this jack### believing he will reduce inflation and make them wealthy will realize that they made a huge mistake? One year? Two years? Four years? Never?
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Michael said:
I'm assuming that a political crisis may occur between now and next year's elections. President Trump needs to do something that will make him look good with the economy. Otherwise next year will be a disaster for the Republicans. Although, I vote with my Blue state, I don't want to see everything go down the sink. I hope the President will find some way to pull some kind of rabbit out of the hat.
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MS said:
Why does Trump’s Gaza plan sound so familiar? Because the Nazis tried it first
The Madagascar Plan was the Nazis’ last effort to solve the ‘Jewish Problem’ before the Final Solution
By Eric KurlanderFebruary 12, 2025
Imagine the leader of a global superpower announcing a plan for removing an entire ethnic group from a territory they’ve long inhabited. Neighboring states would have to make land available to that superpower to resettle the displaced peoples. The refugees would “have their own administration in this territory” but they would “not acquire … citizenship” since any “sense of responsibility towards the world” would forbid making “the gift of a sovereign state” to a people “which has had no independent state for thousands of years.”
No, the plan described in brief here is not President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, proposing a United States takeover of Gaza and mass relocation of its Palestinian population. It is the so-called “Madagascar Plan,” devised by the Third Reich in 1940 to “resettle” European Jews.
That plan was the Third Reich’s final major proposal for removing the Jews from the Greater Germanic Reich Adolf Hitler envisioned in Mein Kampf prior to the “Final Solution”— the indiscriminate shootings of Jewish men, women, and children on the Eastern Front, leading to mass killings in death camps and gas chambers in late 1941. In that history lies a warning: Plans for the mass relocation of a population seen as troublesome or dangerous can rapidly devolve into the loss of sovereignty, of human and civil rights, and, eventually, ethnic cleansing.
The idea of creating a “colony for Jews” in Madagascar, first proposed by the antisemite Paul de Lagarde in the 1880s, had long featured prominently in plans for a territorial solution to the “Jewish Question,” namely the question of whether Jews could assimilate into society at large and, if not, what ought to be done with them.
But despite the idea’s origins in bigotry, the prospect of mass Jewish resettlement to Madagascar, or another African colonial territory, was one that attracted people with a broad range of ideologies — including, in addition to rightwing antisemites and liberal imperialists, some Jewish “territorialists” who believed Zionism was impracticable, and that any Jewish state must be established outside the land of Israel.
Then came the Third Reich.
In 1939, Adolf Eichmann, resident “Jewish expert” in Heinrich Himmler’s SS, developed the more modest “Nisko Plan” to create a “Jewish reservation” in German-occupied Poland, near Lublin, where Polish, Czech and Austrian Jews might live in a kind of permanent, stateless precarity — not dissimilar from the reservations created for Native Americans in the late-19th century United States, a frequent point of reference for Hitler, or the current situation in Gaza.
When the Nisko Plan proved unworkable, Eichmann and Franz Rademacher, head of the so-called “Jewish Desk” in the Foreign Office, seized on the long-gestating idea of resettling European Jewry in the French colony of Madagascar. Their plan was meticulously conceived, involving detailed climate and demographic studies, a precise accounting for the number of ships and resources required, and a comprehensive review of the various financial necessities and administrative logistics.
Many historians argue that the Madagascar Plan was, at best, totally fanciful, and at worst a thinly veiled attempt to murder all European Jewry by deporting them to a harsh climate where they would undoubtedly die of attrition. The evidence we have is more complicated, indicating that the Madagascar Plan was the last serious, if highly problematic, effort to solve the Jewish Question in non-genocidal fashion.
Similarly, Trump’s utopian designs to turn war-torn Gaza into a “riviera” while deporting Palestinians elsewhere may not invariably constitute a veiled effort to commit genocide. But the potential for mass violence and ethnic cleansing is endemic to any such efforts. Parallel “resettlement” plans pursued by colonial powers between 1850 and 1950 resulted in the mass murder of indigenous peoples across Nazi-occupied Europe, the U.S. frontier, Africa, and Asia.
Trump initially issued almost no details about his proposal for a U.S. takeover in Gaza. “We’ll own it,” he said. “We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal.” On Monday, he took things further, saying that under his plan, the nearly 2 million Palestinians relocated from Gaza “to other countries of interest” would not be given the right to return to the strip.
What Trump is ignoring: In large part in response to the mass deportations carried out by the Nazis, the 1949 Geneva Convention defines “forced or coerced displacement of a population under military occupation” as a war crime. The United Nations has likewise pointed out that “any forced displacement of people would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”
Speaking at a news conference in Copenhagen last week, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, called Trump’s proposal “unlawful, immoral and completely irresponsible.”
“It’s incitement to commit forced displacement, which is an international crime,” she said.
What makes Trump’s plan more concerning is that it echoes calls long made by many far-right Israeli politicians and appears to enjoy broad support from the Israeli public. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly celebrated Trump’s resettlement plans, and his defense minister, Israel Katz, swiftly told the Israel Defense Forces to begin preparations to implement the plan.
Insofar as the effort to deprive Gazans of their land and sovereignty by “resettling” them elsewhere was conceived as a kind of 21st century solution to the “Palestinian Question,” it emerges from the same historical lineage as the Madagascar Plan. Acknowledging this historical lineage might encourage all parties, including the Trump administration, to abandon such ruminations and recommit to creating a sovereign Palestinian State, inclusive of Gaza and the West Bank.
Dr. Eric Kurlander is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History and Director of Jewish Studies at Stetson University. His recent books include Modern Germany: A Global History (Oxford University press, 2023) and Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich (Yale University Press, 2018). He is currently working on a book titled Before the ‘Final Solution.’ A Global History of the Nazi ‘Jewish Question,’ 1919-1941.
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17 February 2025
MS said:
Trump appears to channel Napoleon in vision for executive authority: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
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Michael said:
Napoleon was far greater than any politician of today.
1. He unified French Civil Law with his Code Napoleon.
2. He expanded vital U.S. territory by selling the Louisiana Purchase.
3. He tamed Russia, escaped from Russian territory, and was feared by all his European enemies. Plus, he changed warfare forever like Hannibal.
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19 February 2025
MS said:
The Supreme Court gave Trump immunity. He’s using it as a blank check.
The Supreme Court will have to clarify its decision to this jack###. The Court did not give him blanket immunity for anything this jackass wants to do. It divided the President’s duties and functions into three categories: (1) Core constitutional duties/powers for which the President has absolute immunity, e.g., the pardon power. (2) Non-core duties and powers, for which he enjoys a presumption of immunity, unless the evidence shows that what s/he is doing is unconstitutional and/or unlawful. (3) illegal conduct, for which s/he enjoys no immunity, e.g., shooting someone on Fifth Ave., in NYC.
None of the actions the jackass is engaging in, or which he has delegated to his jester, Musk, are core duties/powers. Although he enjoys a presumption of immunity for his/Musk’s actions, the presumption can be vitiated by showing that they are violating a federal statute, by, for example, eliminating departments without first obtaining Congressional approval. I am confident that the S. Ct. will reject his immunity claim by at least 6-3, and possibly 9-0.
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MS said:
“President Trump called Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” after the Ukrainian president said Trump lived in “a circle” of Russian disinformation.”
And Putin is a great humanitarian.
Now we are definitely through the Looking Glass.
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MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/politics/video/ukraine-zelensky-trump-putin-ebof-digvid"
Despicable!
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20 February 2025
MS said:
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UU38aiy2iU"
Does this look like a population which resents and opposes rule by Hamas?
Do you see any protests against Hamas's rule?
No, they have been complicit with Hamas in the abduction and continued imprisonment of the Israeli hostages.
Innocent Palestinians? There are none. Only in the minds of liberal, self-deluding Jews and anti-Semites.
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MS said:
Israel Charges Five Soldiers With Severe Abuse of a Palestinian Detainee
The case, in which a Palestinian was allegedly subjected to severe violence, shocked Israel
Do you think you would see a comparable article in Al Jazeera condemning Hamas’s mistreatment of the Israeli hostages?
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MS said:
Maybe this is what we need more of.
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/us/video/chris-kluwe-arrest-maga-protest-cprog-digvid"
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MS said:
Israel says Bibas boys were among the dead bodies returned by Hamas – but not their mother
Separating the children from their mother in death – there is no limit to Hamas’s cruelty.
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21 February 2025
MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/video/rich-mccormick-town-hall-trump-power-digvid"
Finally, the public is waking up and confronting the government. It’s about time. Is it too late?
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MS said:
Trump’s populism:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
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22 February 2025
MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/video/iron-mountain-mine-pennsylvania-cohen-digvid"
Buyer’s remorse doesn’t get you your money back when you realize the product you bought was falsely advertised, or your vote back when you realize the candidate falsely advertised.
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MS said:
Hi. I have attached an excerpt from a recent hearing I had in Probate Court that I think you will get a kick out of.
To set the stage: I am representing the nephew of an elderly woman who is in a nursing home. The nephew, who is an attorney, had been appointed his aunt's guardian. The judge appointed another attorney to be the aunt’s conservator, giving him control over her finances and her property, including her home. The conservator wants to sell the home in order to pay the nursing home’s fees. She is opposed to selling her home. She wants to return to her home to live out her last days. Her nephew, the guardian, is also opposed to selling her home, and has been opposing the conservator. The judge suspended the nephew as his aunt’s guardian, and appointed the conservator as temporary guardian, essentially giving him a free hand to sell the home. I filed an emergency application in the Michigan Court of Appeals to reverse the judge’s decision suspending the nephew as guardian. I maintain that the judge’s decision is contrary to a Michigan Supreme Court opinion on the scope of a guardian’s duties, which I claim give the guardian competing control over the ward’s (his aunt’s) property, including her home. I filed a motion before the judge requesting him to stay (stop) his order suspending the nephew as guardian while the appeal is pending. The excerpt from the hearing is what ensued.
Marc
P.S.: He denied the motion for a stay. The Michigan Court of Appeals, in a one sentence order, denied the application for leave to appeal. I am preparing an emergency appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court. I love practicing law – and I am going to keep on practicing until I get it right!
Marc's PDF
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MS said:
'It's Not Only Musk and Kanye, There's a Broad Normalization of Antisemitism in the U.S.'
"https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2025-02-17/ty-article-podcast/its-not-only-musk-and-kanye-theres-a-broad-normalization-of-antisemitism-in-the-u-s/00000195-13b1-d4b6-abfd-5bf36f210000?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=Content&utm_campaign=weekend&utm_content=a4bb062aa6"
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MS said:
Listening to Trump mock and denigrate President Biden at CPAC is infuriating.
Are any of you having second thoughts regarding the insistence that Biden drop out of the race? He had this advantage, as racist and sexist as it may be: he was White and he was male.
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MS said:
I am starting to seriously fear, given what Trump has done in one month, that in one-two years, we will not have a democracy left to salvage.
The other night I watched a segment of Eyes On The Prize. It was inspirational to watch the march from Selma to Montgomery, and to listen to Rev. King speak. I think we have to start marching again - from Selma to Washington; from Detroit to Washington; from Philadelphia to Washington; from NYC to Washington; from Boston to Washington; from Des Moines to Washington; from Minneapolis to Washington; etc., etc., etc. And we should sing "We Shall Overcome" as we march.
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24 February 2025
MS said:
U.S. votes against U.N. resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war
So here we are. It took a little longer for double-speak to take over than Orwell predicted, but here we are.
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MS said:
Over the week-end, I watched a rather strange movie, titled “Ava,” starring Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Collin Farrell and Geena Davis. It is extremely violent, to the point of being ridiculous. Ms. Chastain plays an assassin, who is very skilled in martial arts. She kills people she is instructed to kill, without any explanation in the movie as to why they are being killed, or who she is working for. A lot of people die. There are two rather amazing, rather well-choreographed, martial arts fights, one between John Malkovich (!) and Collin Farrell, the second between Chastain and Farrell.
So, why am I raising this rather outlandish movie? During the movie, Malkovich makes the following statement, which he attributes to Greek philosophy: “Count no man happy until the end is known.” Curious regarding its source, I Googled it (the only good thing about the internet) and found this:
"https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/advice/count-no-man-happy-until-the-end-is-known/"
Hopefully, in the not too distant future, Donald Trump will find, in the end, that he is not really happy.
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26 February 2025
MS said:
"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/opinion/democrats-trump-congress.html?campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20250226&instance_id=148489&nl=opinion-today®i_id=116606494&segment_id=191961&user_id=306c6f279e52d371ba02c31b1c20638c"
The Dems should rope-a-dope? Maybe he’s right. It does look like the Republicans are starting to implode. Maybe we should help them by standing on the sidelines and watching, rather than giving fiery speeches of condemnation.
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MS said:
For those of you who like a literary challenge, below is the poem “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” by Wallace Stevens. Without looking up an analysis, what do you think it is about?
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
By Wallace Stevens
Toggle annotations
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
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27 February 2025
MS said:
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, wife found dead in Santa Fe home
"https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/oscar-winning-actor-gene-hackman-wife-found-dead-santa-fe-home"
Wow!
Count no man (or woman) happy until their end is known.
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28 February 2025
MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/28/politics/video/marco-rubio-trump-zelensky-exclusive-kaitlan-collins-src-digvid"
Thoughts? Does Rubio have a valid point?
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1 March 2025
MS said:
I have reached a disturbing and disappointing conclusion - contemporary popular culture has failed, and failed miserably. All the movies, internet streaming series, adventure novels, graphic novels, and on and on, portraying heroes confronting tyrants and opposing bullies, championing liberty, justice and freedom – the Batman movies; the Superman movies; the Spiderman movies; the Lord of the Rings movies; the Game of Thrones movies. They have succeeded in one thing - entertaining young and middle-aged people, and generating enormous wealth for their creators. But they have failed to inculcate in their audiences a dedication to the principles they purport to convey. They failed to instruct them on how to recognize a tyrant when they see one – and not to vote for him.
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MS said:
My friend Chris, who lives in Alabama and administers the weekly Zoom poetry slam I participate in responded to my last email as follows:
It is a failure of culture writ large, not just popular culture. Perhaps it's a symptom of decadence, that Western civilization has been too involved with trivia rather than basics. As Randall Jarrell wrote in an essay many years ago, "When the world is about to end a reporter asks a woman, 'What will you do?' and she answers, 'Buy things.'"
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2 March 2025
MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/01/entertainment/video/gayle-king-space-flight-all-women-crew-roy-wood-jr-reacts-hignfy-digvid"
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MS said:
Watch this and weep. He may be right.
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/02/politics/video/donald-trump-election-maga-bill-maher-gps-digvid"
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4 March 2025
MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/04/world/video/justin-trudeau-tariffs-trump-speech-digvid"
Bravo! Vive Canada!
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MS said:
The biggest shock at Trump's speech - seeing retired Justice Kennedy applauding and shaking Trump's hand. His landmark decision giving same sex marriage constitutional protection is facing reversal by the justices Trump appointed.
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5 March 2025
MS said:
The liar in chief.
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/video/daniel-dale-fact-checks-trump-speech-to-congress-digvid"
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MS said:
This video sums up where we are. As Trump entered the chamber, a woman, presumably a Democrat, was holding a sign which stated, “This is not normal.” A Republican across the aisle grabbed it out of her hand, and threw it to the floor. Yes, the era of bullies is upon us.
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/04/politics/video/trump-this-is-not-normal-sign-digvid"
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MS said:
I just sent the below email to Congressman Gooden.
Marc M. Susselman, J.D., M.P.H.
43834 Brandywyne Rd.
Canton, MI 48187
marcsuselman@gmail.com
Mr. Gooden,
I saw you yank the “This Is Not Normal” sign out of Congresswoman Stansbury’s hands, and throw it to the floor.
I suggest you re-read (assuming you have ever read it) the United States Constitution, particularly the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause. You showed a deplorable disrespect for Ms. Stansbury’s freedom of speech, let alone a total disrespect for a fellow member of Congress. Her sign was not disruptive, and, in fact, your yanking it out of her hands constituted an illegal assault.
You do not deserve to be a member of Congress.
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MS said:
I am reading a book by Dan Brown (“The Da Vinci Code”) titled Deception Point. In a passage, it describes a form of murder which has been employed by the Russians, and which leaves no signs of foul play.
The official explanation of how dissident Alexie Novalny died is:
Potential cause
Alexander Polupan, a doctor who treated Navalny's earlier poisoning, questioned the rapid timing of medical care, noted that a detached blood clot (a possible cause of death claimed by Russian state media) cannot be verified without an autopsy,[56] and said Navalny had no underlying conditions that would put him at risk of a thromboembolism.[57] His mother was told that he had died from "sudden death syndrome" (an umbrella term for different cardiac syndromes that cause cardiac arrest); his lawyer was told that the cause of death was still unclear.[58][59]
Official cause
On 26 July 2024, the Investigative Committee of Russia concluded that Navalny's death "does not have a criminal nature" and was the result of a "combined disease", which included a number of diagnoses: cholecystitis, pancreatitis, intervertebral hernia and others. The judgement states that the death "has an arrhythmogenic character" and the trigger factor was "a critical increase in blood pressure".[60]
Yulia Navalnaya reacted to the official conclusion of death:
We know very well that when Alexei felt ill, he was taken not to the medical centre, but back to the solitary confinement cell. That he died there, alone. That he was taken to the infirmary unconscious. That in the last minutes before his death he complained of a sharp pain in his stomach.
According to Navalnaya, her husband did not have any heart disease while alive.[61]
The passage in “Deception Point” describes the way Russians have killed its victims in the past, leaving no sign of physical abuse: They fill the victim’s mouth and throat with snow. The victim suffocates. The snow then melts, leaving no sign of the manner of death.
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6 March 2025
MS said:
What If Trump Defies A Decision By The Supreme Court?
Yesterday, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, declined to grant President Trump’s emergency application to reverse a lower court’s decision staying DOGE’s canceling of foreign aid payments for work already completed. The Court remanded the matter back to the district court to determine what payments must be made.
This has raised concerns regarding a potential constitutional crisis. What if Trump disobeys the district court order that the payments must be made, and the matter is appealed up to the Supreme Court; what if the Supreme Court affirms the lower court ruling and Trump continues to disobey the order. What then?
The discussion has resurrected the story about President Andrew Jackson purportedly stating, after Chief Justice Marshall had issued a decision regarding the authority of the Cherokee Nation over land it owned, “Chief Justice Marshall has made his decision. Let him enforce it.”
The general consensus is that the purported quote is apocryphal. But in order to understand its implications, the background of the purported statement needs explication.
The matter arose in the case of Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), and related to the respective authority of the Cherokee Nation over land it owned in the State of Georgia. Samuel Worcester was a missionary who was living on land owned by the Cherokee Nation, with the permission of the Cherokee Nation. Georgia had enacted a law which prohibited white men from living on Native American land without a license from the state. Worcester defied the law and refused to obtain a license. The governor of Georgia ordered the state militia to arrest Worcester, and several other missionaries, for violating the law. They were all convicted and sentenced to hard labor in the state penitentiary. Nine of the convictees accepted pardons from the governor; Worcester and another missionary rejected the pardon offer and took the case to the Supreme Court. In his decision, Justice Marshall held that the Cherokee Nation, as an independent sovereign, had authority over the land it owned, superior to that of the State of Georgia. He held that the Georgia statute was invalid. But the order was directed to the State of Geogia, not President Jackson or the federal government. The Supreme Court ordered that Worcester and his co-defendant be released. They petitioned the Georgia court to release; them the Georgia court refused. They petitioned the governor of Georgia; he also refused. In the meantime, the Secretary of War was arranging to forcibly remove the Cherokee people from Georgia (“The Trail of Tears”). This was separate from the Worcester case, and Justice Marshall’s decision did not address this expulsion issue. Although the quotation attributed to President Jackson is probably apocryphal, even if he had said it, he was addressing an order directed to the State of Georgia, not to him. The Supreme Court could have ordered federal marshals to require that Georgia’s officials free Worcester and his co-defendant, but it did not. The issue of state’s rights, which ultimately led to the Civil War, was still alive and well. Ultimately, the State of Georgia repealed the law at issue; the governor of Georgia then issued a proclamation (not a pardon) allowing Worcester and his co-defendant to be freed. (The purported quotation attributed to Jackson was first reported in 1865, 20 years after Jackson’s death, in a book written by Horace Greeley.)
So, what bearing does this episode have over concerns regarding what will happen if President Trump defies an order by the Supreme Court? There are two main differences. The Worcester case arose before the Civil War, when the claim by the states that they were autonomous sovereigns independent of the federal government, was still being debated. That issue was settled by the defeat of the Confederacy and the passage of the 14th Amendment, which made clear that the federal government was paramount, and that the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments) applied not just to the federal government, but to the states a well. So, the State of Georgia could not do today, what it did in 1832, as was demonstrated when President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent paratroopers into Arkansas to enforce a desegregation order.
More importantly, the actions which are currently being challenged in federal court are not the actions of a state – they are the actions being taken by the Executive itself. An order issued by the Supreme Court would be directed to the Executive, and all of its departments, not just a state. President Jackson’s purported statement was not challenging an order directed to him; it was questioning the Court’s authority to enforce an order directed to the State of Georgia, which was not within President Jackson's jurisdiction. Here, if President Trump defies an order issued by the Supreme Court, he will not be able legitimately to invoke President Jackson’s alleged statement in his defense – although, given his proclivity for mendacity, he will undoubtedly try.
What then would be the Supreme Court’s options? Ordinarily, when a litigant defies a court order, the court will hold the abjurer in contempt of court. Contempt is of two types – civil contempt or criminal contempt. Civil contempt is intended to require that the accused comply with the order; it may include a monetary penalty, and incarceration until the defier agrees to comply and purges the contempt. Criminal contempt can involve the same penalties, but since it applies the criminal law, the accused has a right to a hearing in which the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It is therefore a longer, drawn out process, versus civil contempt. I would expect the Court to hold the Executive in civil contempt.
Who would enforce such a contempt order against the President? The Supreme Court would direct its contempt order not to the President, but to the officers of the Executive whose actions have been held to violate the law, i.e., Elon Musk and the Department head(s) who are doing his bidding. The Court would order federal marshals to enforce the contempt order. Who controls the federal marshals? The U.S. Marshal Service is a division of the Department of Justice, controlled by the Attorney General, who is currently Pam Bondi. What if Pam Bondi directs the federal marshals to ignore the Supreme Court? Then Pam Bondi will be in contempt. The federal marshals would have to decide whom to obey – the Supreme Court or the Attorney General. I am hopeful, and expect, that Pam Bondi would back down. And Trump will comply with the Supreme Court’s order.
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MS said:
An historical irony.
John Wilkes Booth, after fatally shooting President Lincoln, the first Republican President of the United States, leapt onto the stage at the Ford Theater, shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis” - falsely labeling him a tyrant because he abolished slavery.
Now, President Lincoln’s nominal party successor, who is abolishing DEI, is more deserving of the label, and is making the ludicrous claim that he is the greatest Chief Executive in U.S. history.
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MS said:
Nine Democrats joined the Republicans on a vote to censure Rep. Al Green for interrupting Trump’s speech.
What is the status of the Supreme Court justices when they attend such joint Congressional speeches? Are they not guests, subject to the same rules that apply to members of Congress? Then why wasn’t Justice Alito censured for interrupting President Obama’s State of the Union speech in 2010?
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MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/06/politics/video/french-politician-criticizes-trumps-response-ukraine-digvid"
Vive la France!
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10 March 2025
MS said:
Join My Bewildered Liberals Book Club
Nicholas Kristoff
"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/opinion/democrats-books-trump.html"
And some excellent letters critiquing Kristoff’s criticism of liberals.
""https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/opinion/liberal-democrats.html?algo=random&campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20250310&fellback=false&imp_id=98770425029620&instance_id=149572&nl=opinion-today&pool=programmingnode/4ac920cb-db02-52e8-9f79-f62b226dc756®i_id=116606494&req_id=4943180173134534&segment_id=193035&surface=opinion-today&user_id=306c6f279e52d371ba02c31b1c20638c&variant=2_random"
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MS said:
After reading Kristoff’s opinion piece, and the letters in response, the following is my critique of Kristoff’s position.
His opinion piece is fraught with mischaracterizations, distortions and oversimplifications. Regarding the three books he recommends to educate liberals about where they have gone wrong, he praises “Demon Copperhead,” a contemporary retelling of “David Copperfield,” and states, “We have utterly failed to address the national scandal of one million overdose deaths since 2000. Millions of households are shattered by interrelated pathologies of addiction, homelessness, family breakdown, chronic pain, mental illness and simple loneliness.” Who are the “We” he is referring to. Certainly not liberals or Democrats. Every effort by liberals and Democrats to provide legislation to address the problems he refers to have been blocked by the Republicans and conservatives, who prefer to give tax breaks to the very wealthy, rather than pass progressive legislation.
Next, he writes about “The Tyranny of Merit,” which he states is “a blistering critique of the way elites pat themselves on the back for rising because of the advantages on the basis of supposed merit and then perpetuates systemic unfairness.” (Italics added.) “Supposed merit”? Most of the high-school students I knew who got admitted to college did so on the basis of their hard work in high school – studying for exams, reading the texts they were assigned, improving their math, reading and analytic skills to improve their SAT scores. Their admission to college was not handed to them on a silver platter. They worked for it, while their less academically oriented school mates spent their time partying and sleeping in class. This wasn’t “supposed merit.” It was actual merit. He states, “elites aren’t less prejudiced than other people; it’s just that they are prejudiced against different people – those with less education.” So what” How does that constitute deplorable prejudice? It is not based on characteristics over which one has no control, i.e., race, gender or age. It is based on something most people do have control over (other than those suffering from cognitive deficiencies from birth) – their willingness, or lack thereof, to educate themselves, something you can do without going to college – by reading, rather than making Tik Tok videos.
Last, he writes about “Ours Was the Shining Future,” and states, “Democrats used to favor a middle ground on immigration but that in recent years they opened the gates even as ordinary workers signaled again and again that they wanted tighter limits.” But were the “ordinary workers” willing to do the manual labor that the immigrants were willing to do, for employers who were not willing to pay them a living wage? No, they preferred to complain about jobs being taken away from them by immigrants. But were they willing to support Democrats who wanted to raise the minimum wage to make those menial jobs more attractive to “ordinary workers”? No, they preferred to attack liberals and abandon unions.
My takeaway from all of this? Republicans and conservatives have perfected how to effectively take advantage of the basic stupidity of “ordinary workers,” to sedate them into craving material goods – cars, cosmetics, and guns – and demonize unions and collective action, which is the only antidote that ordinary workers have to combat the greed and selfishness of Republicans and conservatives. They have learned how to exploit the weaknesses of homo ignoramus. That is not the fault of Democrats or liberals. It is the fault of their own stupidity. And, as is said, there is no cure for stupid.
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11 March 2025
MS said:
Meet the Jewish judge who ruled Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil should not be deported by ICE
"https://forward.com/news/482796/judge-jesse-furman-mahmoud-khalil/?utm_source=The+Forward+Association&utm_campaign=e4eae8aabd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_02_27_05_05_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3ca3009a1a-8a15f89f14-288548637"
Good for him! In keeping with Jewish tradition and Jewish values, a Jewish judge stands up for the rights of a Palestinian protester.
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13 March 2025
MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/13/politics/video/larson-musk-testimony-ldn-digvid"
What more can the Democrats do, when the Republicans in Congress have ceded power to Trump and Musk?
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Michael said:
Yesterday I saw the 1st Episode of Amazon Prime's 'House of David.' I've seen a little of Game of Thrones the TV series, but I like 'House of David' much more.
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MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/13/politics/video/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-cr-chuck-schumer-lead-digvid"
I don’t often agree with her, but I agree with her here. The Democratic senators should vote against the continuing resolution, even if it means closing the government. (On the other hand, I can say this knowing that my Social Security payments will not be affected.)
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MS said:
"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/politics/video/hearing-abruptly-ends-after-gop-lawmaker-misgenders-transgender-congresswoman-digvid"
What a jackass. They’re all jackasses.
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The End.