"What the Trump Documents Might Tell the Jan. 6 Committee/Following last week’s Supreme Court ruling, the House panel has received material that it hopes could flesh out how the attack on the Capitol came about."

This is an article in the NYT, which I'm reading because what I hope is that the material will show that Trump wasn't involved in planning or promoting breaking into the Capitol or committing any illegal acts. And isn't that what everyone should hope? 

So I'm reading this article and setting to the side everything that is about Trump's belief that he really did win the election, his search for a legal path to victory, and his desire for a big, exciting rally showing strong support for this cause. 

So, what does the NYT list? I've copied and pasted the whole text into my compose window, and I will now cut out everything I just said I was setting to the side:

 

 

 

Okay. Now that I've done that... feel free to check my work. Maybe you'll say that the talk of seizing voting machines indicated a willingness to pursue a path that wasn't clearly legal, but it was only considered and then not done. Wasn't it part of brainstorming about what could be done if an election actually were being stolen? 

Let's consider the question hypothetically: What if an American presidential election were stolen? What could be done? What if it looked about like the 2020 election, but it really was a fraud? 

One answer might be: In the event of such a calamity, it would be best to go forward and treat the ostensible winner as the winner in order to maintain confidence in the system and to avoid the trauma of revealing and delving into the chaos beneath the surface. The true winner of the election should see the profound national interest in moving forward with a new President in office and fully in power — free of any cloud of uncertainty. The true winner should do nothing more than to offer strong support to his erstwhile opponent and to celebrate the beauty of democracy.

"Historically, and almost definitionally, a gridlocked Congress that cannot pass laws tends to be better for conservative reactionaries than progressive activists."

"Lawmakers also lack the mastery of esoteric issues, say soil runoff, that civil servants can master. When the courts force Congress to expressly decide, usually either nothing happens — or lobbyists sit in the driver’s seat. Pushing decision-making to Congress from the civil service, or what Trump disdainfully called the 'deep state,' is a goal of the conservative legal project shared by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.... The reality is, even if they tried, the Democratic-controlled Congress probably couldn’t cobble together the votes to pass a mandate like OSHA’s. Ten Republicans in the Senate wouldn’t cross over to break a filibuster. Republicans are emboldened because they think opposition to vaccine mandates in the off-year Virginia elections helped win all three statewide races and flip the House of Delegates."

From "How blocking Biden’s vaccine mandate would be a Supreme Court gift to Trump" by James Hohmann (WaPo).

The Biden administration is relying on general language in a statute passed over a half century ago as it tries to do something that we know Congress won't do on its own, even though Congress has been able to see the problem to be solved for at least half a year. The administration's mandate is such an aggressive imposition on people, and the position of Congress is, essentially, to spare us. It looks as though the Supreme Court is about to make Congress's answer — no mandate — the final answer. 

Isn't that the most democratic — small "d" democratic — resolution of the lawmaking conundrum?

"I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it."

Yes, Trump said that.*

Yes, it's hyperbole. The "nobody" is outrageous and false. It gets your attention, and it increases the power of his fame-making machine, further inflating the importance of Juneteenth, and further connecting it to Trump, where it never belonged before.

__________________

*Link goes to Jonathan Chait at NY Magazine, quoting this WSJ interview. Chait:

... Trump has caused more people to become aware of Juneteenth, just as he has caused more people to become aware of the 25th Amendment, the Emoluments Clause, narcissistic personality disorder, “democratic backsliding,” the two-thirds threshold required for impeachment, and other concepts that had largely been excluded from daily news coverage. This has not been an era of progress. But it has been a time of enlightenment.

What's "democratic backsliding"? I don't remember hearing that phrase before. I see it has a Wikipedia entry:

In political science, democratic backsliding, also known as democratic erosion or de-democratization, is a gradual decline in the quality of democracy.... Political scientist Nancy Bermeo has written that blatant forms of democratic backsliding such as classic, open-ended coups d'état and election-day fraud have declined since the end of the Cold War, while more subtle and "vexing" forms of backsliding have increased. The latter forms of backsliding entail the debilitation of democratic institutions from within....

Beginning in 2017, political scientists identified the United States under President Donald Trump as being in danger of democratic backsliding. In a 2019 journal article, political scientists Robert C. Lieberman, Suzanne Mettler, and others wrote that Trump's presidency presented a threat to the American democratic order because it simultaneously brought together three specific trends—"polarized two-party presidentialism; a polity fundamentally divided over membership and status in the political community, in ways structured by race and economic inequality; and the erosion of democratic norms"—for the first time in American history. Lieberman et al. noted that Trump has "repeatedly challenged the very legitimacy of the basic mechanics and norms of the American electoral process, invoking the specter of mass voter fraud, encouraging voter suppression, selectively attacking the Electoral College, and even threatening to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power" and noted that "Never in the modern era has a presidential candidate threatened to lock up his opponent; castigated people so publicly and repeatedly on the basis of their country of origin, religion, sex, disability, or military service record; or operated with no evident regard for facts or truth." In 2020, political scientists Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon, wrote that "the Trump administration has consistently de-emphasized the importance of human rights and democracy in its rhetoric and while adopting language and tropes similar to those of right-wing, illiberal movements." Colley and Nexon cited Trump's praise of autocratic rulers, his echoing of ethno-nationalist rhetoric, his efforts to deligitmize journalism and journalists as "fake news" and his policies erecting new barriers to refugees and asylum-seekers as similar to politics "found in backsliding regimes."

The 2019 annual democracy report of the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg found that the U.S. under Trump was among the world's liberal democracies experiencing "democratic erosion" (but not full-scale "democratic breakdown"). The report cited an increase in "polarization of society and disrespect in public deliberations" as well as Trump's attacks on the media and opposition and attempts to contain the judiciary and the legislation. The report concluded, however, that "American institutions appear to be withstanding these attempts to a significant degree," noting that Democrats had won a majority the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, which "seems to have reversed the trajectory of an increasingly unconstrained executive."

New Ballot Box at Olympia City Hall

Above: A new ballot box was dedicated at Olympia City Hall on Tuesday.

By Janine Gates

Little Hollywood

http://janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

Thurston County ballot boxes are now open and available to take your ballot. 

The primary election is August 1 and ballots began to be mailed out Wednesday. Almost three-fourths of registered voters in Thurston County use a drop box to cast their vote, said Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall.

Hall and other elected officials were on hand Tuesday to dedicate a new drop box, located in front of Olympia City Hall at 601 Fourth Avenue. The county now has 27 drop boxes.

“Access to voting strengthens our democracy, and my goal as county auditor is to break down barriers and make sure it’s easy for citizens to cast their vote,” she said.

In an interview after the dedication, Hall said that there are about 175,000 registered voters in Thurston County. 

Unfortunately, more than two thirds of voters will choose, forget, or delay until it's too late, and not vote this election. For those who have not registered, the deadline to do so is July 24.

Hall encouraged voters to check out the candidates.

“We have a lot of primaries, which is really exciting – the most we’ve ever had. People are stepping up to run,” she said.

Above: Eleven candidates running for Olympia City Council Positions 4, 5, 6, and 7 met community members at Little General Food Shop on June 5 in downtown Olympia. The cities of Tumwater and Lacey and Olympia, Tumwater and Lacey school districts also have primary races on the ballot.

Left to right: Daniel Marsh, Allen Miller, Lisa Parshley, Michael Snodgrass, Clark Gilman, Heather Wood, Renata Rollins, Max Brown, and Deborah Lee. Councilmembers Jeannine Roe and Jim Cooper, who are both running for re-election, were unable to attend the event due to a council related meeting. 

In a ceremony on Monday, Hall and Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson honored 100 people who have a record of voting for 50 years or more.

Two had voted for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For more information, or to receive a voter’s pamphlet, go to www.thurstonvotes.org, or email elections@co.thurston.wa.usor call (360) 786-5408. The Thurston County Auditor’s Office is located at 2000 Lakeridge Drive SW, Olympia.

Above: Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall and Olympia city council members pose in front of the new ballot box at City Hall. 

Left to right: Councilmember Nathaniel Jones, Councilmember Jim Cooper, Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall, Councilmember Jeannine Roe, Mayor Cheryl Selby, Councilmember Julie Hankins, Councilmember Jessica Bateman, and Councilmember Clark Gilman.