And now … The Trump Show?

The Congressional committee investigating the events of January 6th, 2021 yesterday held what seems likely to be its last public hearing, though it will continue to meet in order to wrap things up and issue its final report by the end of the year. The hearing was intended to wrap up the case that Trump knew that he had lost the election and yet lied that he had won and tried to steal it in many ways, by trying to coerce state officials to manipulate votes and, when that failed, to try to use the courts to overturn results, and when that too failed, to use a mob to prevent the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

The hearing ended with the committee holding a vote on whether to subpoena Trump to testify before it under oath and the vote was unanimous in favor of doing so. The subpoena will be issued shortly. The immediate media reaction was that there was no way that Trump would agree to appear since he has resisted all efforts in other cases to make depositions or otherwise testify.

But I was not so sure. Trump loves to be the center of attention and TV ratings are what turns him on. And you can be sure that the ratings for such testimony will go through the roof. While he still speaks before adoring fans at his rallies, Trump is a person who loves to be on TV, that is the world he values. This would be a big event and the allure to be the center of it would be tremendous.
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Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million

That pitiful excuse for a human being who benefits from the suffering imposed on the bereaved families of slain children has been ordered by a jury to pay $965 million to some of those families. Twenty six children and six adults were massacred in the 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school.

The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.
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The Connecticut trial featured tearful testimony from parents and siblings of the victims, who told how they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’s show.

Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abusive comments on social media. Erica Lafferty, the daughter of the slain Sandy Hook principal, Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house. Mark Barden told how conspiracy theorists had urinated on the grave of his seven-year-old son, Daniel, and threatened to dig up the coffin.
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The lawsuit accused Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, of using the mass killing to build his audience and make millions of dollars. Experts testified that Jones’s audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales.

Jones’s motivation to do this thing can be put down to the desire to make money. But what makes Jones’s followers do these despicable things to the families? Even if you think the whole thing is a hoax, what motivates you to go to such elaborate lengths to make your point? Don’t these people have lives?

The arcane language of UK politics

UK prime minister Liz Truss is said to have “withdrawn the whip” of a cabinet minister named Conor Burns.

A senior Conservative minister, Conor Burns, has been sacked from the government after an allegation of “serious misconduct” relating to his behaviour at this week’s party conference.

Truss asked him to step down from his role as a minister of state in the trade department and he had the Conservative whip withdrawn pending an investigation.

Burns is the sixth Conservative MP to have had the whip withdrawn or quit politics in the past 18 months over allegations of misconduct.

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The problems with crime reporting in the US

I have written many times before about the serious problems with the (in)justice system in the US in the way that police department and prosecutors tend to value getting convictions more than justice, with the result that many members of poor and minority communities tend to get disproportionately arrested, charged, convicted, and imprisoned.

But there is another problem and that is the way that crime is covered in the media which, in addition to giving the distorted impression that the level of crime in the country (people who watch the news tend to think that crime is rising each year when it is in fact dropping) adds to the biases in the system.

In another excellent episode of his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looks at the problems with the media coverage and what can be done.

Desi Lydic on why she still supports Herschel Walker

After denying that he paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009 and saying that he did not even know the woman, that same woman says that she again became pregnant by him two years later. He asked her to get an abortion again and when she did not, he terminated the relationship. That child is now ten years old.

However, all this has not shaken Desi Lydic’s faith in Walker, as she explains.

Reducing incarceration rates in the US

In a welcome move, President Biden has ordered the release of thousands of prisoners who were being held just for marijuana possession or consumption.

Biden on Thursday pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession, a move that senior administration officials said would affect thousands of Americans charged with that crime.

As part of the announcement, Biden also encouraged governors to take similar steps to pardon state simple marijuana possession charges, a move that would potentially affect many thousands more Americans.

And the President will task the Department of Health and Human Services and Attorney General Merrick Garland to “expeditiously” review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law, the first step toward potentially easing a federal classification that currently places marijuana in the same category as heroin and LSD.

“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said in a video announcing his executive actions. “It’s legal in many states, and criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And that’s before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. While white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates.”

“Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs,” the President said.

The moves Biden announced Thursday stop short of full decriminalization, which has enjoyed growing support among both political parties. But they are the first significant steps taken by a US president toward removing criminal penalties for possessing marijuana.

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Rugby players have higher risk of brain damage

I long ago stopped watching American football games for two main reasons. One is how the greedy and wealthy owners pressure local communities, that often need the money for essential services, to build them luxury stadiums by threatening to move their teams elsewhere if they do not. The latest such gouging is in Buffalo, NY.

The Buffalo Bills reached an agreement Monday with New York State and Erie County to build a new $1.4 billion state-of-the-art, open-air stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Under the 30-year lease, the public will provide $850 million to fund construction costs while the state of New York is expected to contribute $600 million and Erie County $250 million toward the project (per The Buffalo News). 

Groundbreaking for the stadium is set for Spring 2023 with it set to open in time for the 2026 season. The Bills will pay $350 million toward the stadium and will get a $200 million loan from the NFL through the league’s G-4 loan program. The stadium is estimated to hold around 62,000 fans.

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Herschel Walker’s lie-strewn candidacy for the US senate

For those who thought that in Donald trump, the Republican party had hit rock bottom with its support for a liar who speaks utter nonsense, let me introduce you to Herschel Walker, former professional football player and the current Republican candidate for the Georgia senate seat. Walker has also made bizarre lies about the 2020 election, saying that Joe Biden did not get even 50 million votes, when he actually got over 80 million. Trump has endorsed Walker for the Georgia senate race, no doubt seeing in him a kindred soul.

The senate race has been rocked by revelations about Walker. The most recent is a report in the Daily Beast alleging that, despite being an advocate of banning abortion with no exceptions at all, even for rape, incest or if the life of the mother was in danger, and wanting federal laws to be passed to ban it nationwide, he had paid for an abortion for a woman in 2009. His son Christian Walker, who is an ‘influencer’ on social media has put out a Tik-Tok blasting him for his lies and his pretensions to being a moral Christian who condemns absentee fathers, when in reality Walker has confirmed that he had three children out of wedlock and that he had pointed a gun at his wife’s head and threatened to kill her. Incidentally Christian Walker is a conservative Trump supporter who rails against ‘woke’ liberals on his social media accounts where he has a huge following.

It is also reported that Walker’s advisors were aware of this abortion story well in advance but hoped that it would not surface before the election
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How museums connive in the looting of the world

In yet another outstanding episode of his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looks at the ugly history of how western countries looted the heritage of people around the world by robbing them of their historical artifacts in order to stock their museums and enrich themselves. He takes apart the excuses that are given by these museums to retain their stolen goods.

What I found particularly depressing was that only a tiny fraction of the looted items get displayed even in the museums of the western countries. Almost all of them are buried in their vaults so that no one gets to see them.

When people talk about historical wrongs, they often complain that it is hard to know how to rectify it. In most of these cases of looted items, it is not that hard. We know what the looted items are, we know where they came from, and who the rightful owners are. They must be returned.