May 4, 2024
"Who among the protesters really thought that Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, and the board of trustees would view the occupation of Hamilton Hall..."
Writes John McWhorter, in "The Columbia Protests Made the Same Mistake the Civil Rights Movement Did" (NYT).
"Some senior-care homes say they don’t have the ability to lift fallen residents."
From "Senior homes refuse to pick up fallen residents, dial 911. ‘Why are they calling us?’ Frustrated cities and states have begun fining facilities for nonemergency calls, but some just keep calling" (WaPo).
"Special counsel Jack Smith’s team acknowledged Friday that some evidence in the prosecution of former President Donald Trump for hoarding classified documents at his Florida home..."
From "Prosecutors: Docs in boxes seized from Mar-a-Lago were inadvertently jumbled/Special counsel Jack Smith’s team acknowledged mischaracterizing the issue at a recent hearing in the Trump classified documents case, but said the reordering was not significant" (Politico).
"Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they're xenophobic. They don't want immigrants."
"Writing about one’s own children has always been a delicate matter. It’s itchy and complicated..."
Writes Molly Jong-Fast, in "When Your Mom Is Famous for Hating Motherhood/In Heidi Reimer’s novel, 'The Mother Act,' a daughter grapples with being parented (or not) by an actress who happily mines her life for material" (NYT).
"Mr. Musk’s decision to lay off the 500-member team responsible for installing charging stations, and to sharply slow investment in new stations, baffled the industry..."
From "Tesla Pullback Puts Onus on Others to Build Electric Vehicle Chargers/The automaker led by Elon Musk is no longer planning to take the lead in expanding the number of places to fuel electric vehicles. It’s not clear how quickly other companies will fill the gap" (NYT).
"Who is Bobby Kennedy?"
The NYT looks into the "outside agitator" rhetoric.
This morning I see the NYT doing something that seems to be answering my question. The headline is "The Mayor Called Them Outside Agitators. Many of Them Beg to Differ. City officials have blamed 'external actors' for escalating demonstrations at Columbia University and elsewhere, but student protesters reject the claim."
May 3, 2024
"Then, when Mr. Trump’s lawyer began his cross-examination, Ms. Hicks started to cry."
From "Hope Hicks Reluctantly Confronts the Man She ‘Totally Understands’ in Court/The dramatic appearance of Ms. Hicks, once one of Donald J. Trump’s closest aides, riveted the audience. During her testimony, she blinked back tears" (NYT).
"For Isabel Marie Barbosa, a transgender and trans-disciplinary artist, queer food tastes like tart lime and fatty cream."
"Jesus Christ, can you [expletive] believe I’m not going to Washington, after everything I’ve done for that [expletive] guy? I’ve saved the guy’s ass so many times. That guy [Trump] is not even paying me the $130,000 back."
"Fathers of aborted fetuses can sue for wrongful death in states with abortion bans, even if the abortion occurs out-of-state."
Wrote Jonathan Mitchell, a prominent antiabortion attorney, quoted in "Texas man files legal action to probe ex-partner’s out-of-state abortion/The previously unreported petition reflects a potential new antiabortion strategy to block women from ending their pregnancies in states where abortion is legal" (WaPo).
"I cried when they shot Medgar Evers/Tears ran down my spine..."
This morning, I'm reading the lyrics to the 1966 Phil Ochs song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal," because I see, here in The Washington Post, that President Biden is giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Medgar Evers.
Evers was killed in 1963. Why did no President think of doing this before? And what does Biden hope to achieve by slotting the old fallen hero in with such characters as Mike Bloomberg, Katie Ledecky, and Phil Donahue?
In any case, study the argument in Phil Ochs's song. It has resonance today. It's the argument that convinces the student protesters to turn to violence and put their personal future on the line.
To be a mere liberal is despicable. You do all the well-behaved things and disapprove of all that is right wing, "But don't talk about revolution/That's going a little bit too far." You "vote for the Democratic Party" and "I'll send all the money" that's asked for, "but don't ask me to come on along," and for that you demand love, but you don't deserve it... in the logic of the song:
"More than a quarter of protesters arrested Tuesday at Columbia and 60 percent at the City College of New York had no connections to the schools, the NYPD said."
Rebecca Weiner, the police department’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, said on Tuesday that officers observed an escalation in tactics at Columbia on Monday night, including people scaling buildings, creating barricades with furniture and destroying cameras.
“We think these tactics are a result of guidance that’s being given to students from some of these external actors,” she said....
Columbia history professor Mae Ngai told Al Jazeera that protests at the university were led by students and that politicians were the outside agitators....
Student protesters who spoke at a news conference Wednesday outside CCNY called the involvement of outside agitators a “myth.”
ADDED: But who are the outside agitators? If they are not students, who are they? How about some details? Lots of them were arrested. Why isn't there a torrent of detail about what sort of people they are?
"Trump defense suggests he was shakedown target, not hush money schemer/During contentious questioning of Stormy Daniels lawyer Keith Davidson, Donald Trump’s lawyers portray their client as the victim in the case."
A headline at The Washington Post.
In the most contentious testimony yet in the criminal trial, Los Angeles lawyer Keith Davidson denied accusations that he flirted with extortion when he negotiated settlements with celebrities to keep potentially damaging stories out of the public eye.
By accusing him, Trump’s lawyers displayed a key element of their defense strategy: getting jurors to focus on the lawyers and middlemen....
Trump’s lawyers... tried to use Davidson to show that he was well versed in squeezing money out of celebrities, and that Daniels thought her chances of getting paid for her story would vanish after the 2016 presidential election, which she expected Trump to lose.
Fortunately, something of Trump's side of the story is coming out, but I do not trust mainstream media to tell us the story straight. We're not able to watch the trial, and we don't even get a transcript, just whatever the media see fit to report. And yet there seems to be this idea — among the Trump antagonists — that we the voters will allow this trial to substantially manipulate our opinion of the man. The case was brought to manipulate us. The presidential election is at stake. Give us a transcript.
[CORRECTION: Even though I read the news every day, I had not noticed that the New York court system announced, back on April 22, that it would provide transcripts: "The court system is taking the novel step of posting the daily transcripts of the trial proceedings on its public website.... 'With current law restricting the broadcasting of trial proceedings and courtroom space for public spectators very limited, the release of the daily transcripts on the court system’s website is the best way to provide the public a direct view of the proceedings in this historic trial,' said Chief Administrative Judge Zayas."]
Back to the WaPo account of Trump's lawyer, Emil Bove, cross-examining Davidson: