The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

A history professor whose formula has successfully predicted the outcome of all but one presidential election since 1984 has indicated that President Joe Biden is tracking to win in 2024.

Allan Lichtman, who has been teaching at American University for five decades, uses a system of 13 “keys” to the White House to make his call.

In a recent interview with the Guardian, Lichtman noted that Biden has already got two keys under his belt: the incumbency key, and the contest key, after he faced no serious contenders for the incumbent party nomination.

“That’s two keys off the top. That means six more keys would have to fall to predict his defeat. A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose,” Lichtman said.

He will likely make his final prediction in August, according to the Guardian.

The other keys, which are structured as true or false questions, include whether or not the incumbent candidate has been tainted by a major scandal, whether there has been social unrest during the term, whether the incumbent has achieved major military successes or failures, and whether or not the challenging candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

The only blemish on Lichtman’s record is in 2000, when he predicted that Al Gore would defeat George W. Bush.

But Lichtman claims that call was nonetheless correct, since Gore won the popular vote. He contends that Gore would have won the election was he not wronged in Florida, which Bush won by a razor thin margin, prompting a recount dispute and highly controversial Supreme Court decision.

He was among a select few who predicted former President Donald Trump’s win in 2016...

As with polls six months out from an election, take this with more than a ton of salt, and keep doing the necessary hard work to win (volunteer, donate, vote).  But, let's face it: he does have a better record than any polling outfit we've ever seen.

The bad:

“I’m profoundly disturbed about the apparent direction of the court,” J. Michael Luttig told me. “I now believe that it is unlikely Trump will ever be tried for the crimes he committed in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.”

I called Luttig, a former federal judge with extensive conservative credentials, to solicit his reaction to this week’s Supreme Court hearing over Donald Trump’s demand for absolute immunity from prosecution for any crimes related to his insurrection attempt. On Thursday, Luttig posted a thread critiquing the right-wing justices for their apparent openness to Trump’s arguments—but that thread was legalistic and formal, so I figured Luttig had a lot more to say.

And did he ever. Luttig lacerated the right-wing justices for harboring a “radical vision” of the American presidency, and pronounced himself “gravely” worried that Trump will never face accountability for alleged crimes committed in attempting to destroy U.S. democracy through extensive procedural corruption and the naked incitement of mob violence.

Luttig’s fear that Trump may very well skate centers on the lines of questioning from the court’s right-wing majority about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing prosecution of Trump. As many observers noted, those justices appeared largely uninterested in the question before them—whether Trump’s alleged crimes related to the insurrection constituted official presidential acts that are immune from prosecution after leaving office.

Instead, the justices dwelled on the supposed future consequences of prosecuting presidents for crimes, and seemed to want to place some limits on that eventuality. That suggests the justices will kick the case back to lower courts to determine whether some definition of official presidential acts must be protected (and whether Trump’s specific acts qualify).

The corrupt Republican Supreme Court already showed its hand by accepting an appeal on what was a slam-dunk finding by the appeals court, then dragging out hearings until the end of its term in April.  That they appear at best to be headed toward a mixed bag of opinions and possibly remanding it back to the trial court means more delay and judicial obfuscation in service to one Malignant Loser.

The ugly: 

Dueling demonstrations on the UCLA campus Sunday resulted in skirmishes between groups showing support for an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters and counter-protesters rallying around the university's Jewish students.

A group of demonstrators "breached a barrier that the university had established separating two groups of protestors on our campus, resulting in physical altercations," according to a statement from Mary Osako, vice chancellor of UCLA strategic communications. "UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out."

The Westwood campus protests followed similar demonstrations on the campus at the University of Southern California, amid a controversy over the school's decision to cancel the valedictorian's speech. The USC protests also experienced some minor clashes in the crowd, along with dozens of arrests.

It's unclear if anybody was arrested at UCLA on Sunday. Video showed most of the confrontations involved pushing and yelling. Some minor injuries were reported...

When legitimate protests turn violent, the reaction is for police to be called in and start cracking heads. That serves no one except some police who like to beat up people and some people who like being beat up for the cameras.  All that is needed is for someone, somewhere to be seriously injured or killed and the fat will be in the fire.  The evil Hamas terrorist attack and Netanyahu's unrestrained response now have consequences that have washed up on our shores.

QOTD -- Protecting The Courts

 

Conservative former Federal judge J. Michael Luttig on the Malignant Loser's assault on the rule of law and court system, and the failure of the judiciary to stand up to that assault (excerpt):

... It is a regrettable commentary on our times that a lone federal judge, The Honorable Judge Reggie B. Walton ― because no one whose responsibility it is to do so has had the courage and the will ― would finally be left no choice but, himself, to express on national television the profound concerns of the entire Federal and State Judiciaries over Donald Trump’s contemptible attacks on the federal and state courts, the judges of these courts and their families, and the other participants in the judicial process.

It is the responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States in the first instance to protect the federal courts, the federal judges, and all participants in the justice system from the reprehensible spectacle of the former president’s inexcusable, threatening attacks, just as it is the responsibility of the respective State Supreme Courts in the first instance to protect their courts and their state judges from the same.

Ultimately, however, it is the responsibility of the entire nation to protect its courts and judges, its Constitution, its Rule of Law, and America’s Democracy from vicious attack, threat, undermine, and deliberate delegitimization at the hands of anyone so determined.

Comments Luttig alluded to by fellow Republican- appointed Judge Reggie Walton can be seen here.

We may be waiting in vain for the institution of the judiciary to "reform" itself and act in accordance with Luttig's commentary.  We've seen time and again the timidity, the unwillingness to treat the Malignant Loser as any other citizen would be treated, and the downright bending of the law and procedures by certain judges to allow him to evade accountability. 

If we are so fortunate as to escape the apocalypse of another Malignant Loser regime, it must be a priority to reform the judiciary and its rules that never anticipated a completely un- moored, lawless authoritarian from rising to power in our democracy.

BONUS:  Maybe we could learn something from the Brits.

QOTD -- Dry Run

 

"The last presidential election was a dry run for the next.

 

"From long before Election Day 2020, Trump and Republicans planned to overturn the presidential election by exploiting the Electors and Elections Clauses of the Constitution, the Electoral College, the Electoral Count Act of 1877, and the 12th Amendment, if Trump lost the popular and Electoral College vote.

 

"The cornerstone of the plan was to have the Supreme Court embrace the little known 'independent state legislature' doctrine, which, in turn, would pave the way for exploitation of the Electoral College process and the Electoral Count Act, and finally for Vice President Mike Pence to reject enough swing state electoral votes to overturn the election using Pence's ceremonial power under the 12th Amendment and award the presidency to Donald Trump." -- former 4th Circuit Court of Appeals judge J. Michael Luttig, on the on-going Republican plan to use lessons learned from the 2020 election coup attempt to install a Republican President in 2024, regardless of the popular will.  This is a brief snippet of Luttig's article, which lays out in detail the Republicans' multi-step plan to overturn future elections, starting with employing the independent state legislature doctrine, in concert with abusing Congressional powers to reject State electoral votes.  It's a must read.

What makes this especially noteworthy is that Luttig is a staunch conservative (appointed to the Federal bench by George H.W. Bush) who was a "mentor" to oleaginous creep Sen. "Cancun Ted" Cruz (Sedition-TX).  It seems whatever lessons in constitutional order that Luttig may have communicated slid right off the back of "rule of lawless" Cancun Ted.