WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Columnist Laura Washington

"My message to Chicago Ald. Jim Gardiner: You are mired in a bottomless pit of misogyny." -- Sun-Times

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez re. Manchin

“In Washington, I usually know my questions of power are getting somewhere when the powerful stop referring to me as ‘Congresswoman’ and start referring to me as ‘young lady’ instead." -- Guardian 

Rev. William Barber re. Manchin

“He is a part of the demolition crew of this democracy.” -- The Sunday Show

Justice Stephen Breyer

“I Don’t Intend to Die on the Court” -- Fox News Sunday 

Dr. Anthony Fauci

"If you want to get on a plane and travel with other people then you should be vaccinated." -- Podcast  

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus 

"Because manufacturers have prioritized or been legally obliged to fulfill bilateral deals with rich countries willing to pay top dollar, low-income countries have been deprived of the tools to protect their people.”

“There has been a lot of talk about vaccine equity,” Tedros added, “but too little action.” -- Truthout

Trump is going but Trumpism still rules the highest court.

Thousands of unmasked Hasidic sect members squeeze inside the Yetev Lev temple in Brooklyn for the wedding of a chief rabbi’s grandson. Similar weddings have been happening in Brooklyn for months in violation of city ordinances — with precautions such as covering windows with paper and guards at the doors in case an inspector shows up to keep them from being detected.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 midnight ruling, which prevents New York city and state officials from imposing limits on the Roman Catholic Diocese or Brooklyn's Hasidic sect during the pandemic, had little to do with the broad issue of religious freedom. Rather it was a signal to Trump's MAGA death cult and his evangelical base that the extreme right-wing majority, led by DT's newly-appointed religious cultist, Amy Coney Barrett, was on the job and will be for decades to come. 

The immediate effect on New York City is moot because the state had already lifted the particular orders under review. The grave, imminent danger lies in the rest of the country, where public health authorities will feel hamstrung to limit the size of religious gatherings even where the virus is spreading out of control.

The decision also heralds tough times ahead for Democrats and civil-rights activists. It's being interpreted by the right as an affirmation of the notion that religious beliefs about racial or gender discrimination trump civil rights and social justice.

The court majority's message to the Democrats: Even though you may have won the election, there's more than one center of power now and it's not bound by the Constitution. Trumpism rules the nation's highest court. 

Quotables

Bolivians take to the streets in support of overthrown President Evo Morales after the U.S.-backed military coup. The placard reads: ‘Evo you are not alone.’ 

Trump hails the coup

 Calls it “a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere”. -- Guardian

 A twisted view of the latest U.S.-backed military coup in Bolivia

For a socialist president who was until recently hailed as the great success story of the Latin American left, this unseemly end serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when world leaders remain in office for too long. -- New York Magazine

Chesa Boudin

S.F.'s District Attorney-elect, Chesa Boudin

Many of Boudin’s policies, though, are even more progressive than those of Gascón, who was one of the country’s most liberal district attorneys. One departure, Boudin said, is he will no longer charge gang enhancements, which greatly increase the penalty for crimes if a defendant is found to have participated in a street gang. The law has faced criticism over the disproportionate number of black and brown people who are charged with gang crimes. A 2016 audit of the state’s gang database found that only 8% of documented gang members are white. -- San Francisco Chronicle

 CTU Pres. Jese Sharkey 

...leaders knew it was time "to start thinking about ending the strike and counting up what we had achieved. We began to realize that we had gotten as much out of CPS as we thought that we were going to get," Sharkey said on the union’s podcast, CTU Speaks!

The CTU later published a series of tweets about the veteran pay issue and implied some people “are looking to manufacture a crisis" about it. -- Tribune

R.I.P. Noel Ignatiev

In time his view that whiteness is a social and political construction — and not a phenomenon with a biological basis — has become mainstream. The resurgence of white identity politics and white nationalism in recent years made Ignatiev’s arguments relevant to a new generation of readers who argued the notion that race is more about power and privilege rather than about ancestry, or even identity. -- L.A. Times

...Only if we start with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

"‘Can we just get rid of the judges? Let's get rid of the f-cking judges,’" Trump fumed one morning, according to an anonymous senior administration official's new book. "‘There shouldn't be any at all, really.’" https://t.co/VJ8DNGc2eV

— The Hill (@thehill) November 11, 2019

Breaking...NY’s poor causing congestion, says de Blasio

Mayor on NYPD arrest of churro seller in subways: "The facts are she was there multiple times and was told multiple times that’s not a place you can be and it’s against the law and it’s creating congestion and she shouldn’t have been there.” pic.twitter.com/sniorGb7Ns

— Yoav Gonen (@yoavgonen) November 11, 2019

MY WEEKEND QUOTABLES

THE REAL RATS IN BALTIMORE...Wells Fargo Bank first pushed sub-prime mortgages on thousands of working-class, black families in Baltimore (referred to as "Mud People" by loan officers), then foreclosed on their homes. 

Baltimore Sun Editorial

It was only surprising that there wasn’t room for a few classic phrases like “you people” or “welfare queens” or “crime-ridden ghettos” or a suggestion that the congressman “go back” to where he came from. -- Better to have a few rats than to be one

Jonathan Kinloch, Democratic chairman of MI’s 13th Cong Dist

“We can’t make the same mistake Hillary made in 2016 and assume that because Donald Trump is such a vile candidate, that black people will rise up and just zombie to the polls.” -- Tribune

Simon Moya-Smith

This country has always had the capacity for cruelty, and has often acted on that capacity with the flag in one hand and the Bible in the other. -- Think

Alaina Hampton

“We are witnessing what appears to be the condoning of inappropriate behavior, which will continue to silence victims and perpetuate a culture of sexism. Speaker Madigan's organization’s used to be able to get away with this type of corruption, but this time everyone is watching.” -- IL Playbook

To the Democratic Women’s Caucus:

I have now been waiting for a year & a half for you to support me publicly, or even address me by name in a statement. Where are you? What is your stance? We all want to know.

— Alaina Hampton (@alainaxhampton) July 25, 2019

IL Appellate Judge Michael B. Hyman

 “Taking together the text of our constitution and its historical interpretation by our supreme court, we conclude that the Illinois Constitution requires, in the ordinary case, a warrant to issue before an arrest can be made. Arrests based on investigative alerts violate that rule.” -- Injustice Watch

Will Van Dyke jurors or white male senators break their white 'gentleman's agreement'? Not likely.

Van Dyke & Kavanaugh play the role of victims. 

The prosecutor asked Van Dyke, "Is it your testimony that Laquan never turned his back to you?" Van Dyke answers, "Yes." Prosecutor then asks, "Then how did you shoot him in the back?"

 “We never lost eye contact. Eyes were bugging out, his face was just expressionless,” Van Dyke said, choking up. “He turned his torso towards me . . . He waved the knife from his lower right side upwards across his body towards my left shoulder.” 

“When he did that, what did you do?” defense lawyer Randy Rueckert asked.
“I shot him.”

Jason Van Dyke took the stand yesterday and lied his ass off.  His responses to nearly every question were clearly contradicted by the video -- a video which was withheld from public view by Rahm Emanuel until his election victory was sealed.

His lies, as well as the racist lens through which he viewed his victim, Laquan McDonald,  were there for all to see in this morning's press reports.

Van Dyke: His [Laquan's] face had no expression. His eyes were just bugging out of his head. He had just these huge white eyes, just staring right through me.

 Van Dyke on why he fired 16 shots into Laquan's body: All I could see … I could see him starting to push up, with his left hand, off the ground. I see his left shoulder start to come up. I still see him holding that — that knife with his right hand, not letting go of it. And his eyes are still bugged out. His face has got no expression on it.

Van Dyke: I shot at that knife. I wanted him to get rid of that knife.

Van Dyke: Between the time I stopped shooting and the time I reloaded, the situation had drastically changed... There was no longer a threat by the time I reloaded my weapon and brought it up to the ready position...In those couple of seconds he, um, he had stopped moving.

Despite what amounts to his unsolicited confession, I can't find anyone who thinks Van Dyke will be convicted. The reason? Seven jurors are white. Only one African American on the jury. (How the hell did that happen, prosecutors?) It's hard to imagine all seven (you need all 12 to convict) risking a vote of "guilty" for a white cop murdering a young black man, and then having to go back to their segregated white neighborhoods and face the backlash.

The parallels to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings are obvious, even though Kavanaugh's lies where as transparent as Van Dyke's. The chances of white, male Republican senators violating their centuries-old Gentleman's Agreement and voting "no" on the confirmation are slim to none. This, even after a mini-investigation by the FBI which appears to be a humbug.

The only question left open is, what kind of response will there be from voters in November?

DACA, KIPP, CORPORATE CIVIL RIGHTS...

DACA DEADLINE IS TODAY, AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN: Today is the day that the protections for the “dreamers” begin expiring, and CNN reports that nothing is going to happen to protect them in Congress today or in the near future.

What took so long?

Mayor di Blasio's "peacemaker" with the charter school lobby is the new chief of policy and public affairs at scandal-ridden KIPP. Richard Beuery, who is African-American, was targeted last year in racist emails by Dan Loeb, one of the city’s most prominent supporters of charter schools. But now, with the overdue firing of KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg in response to allegations of sexual misconduct with former students, the organization is badly in need of a brand makeover. 

#TIME'S UP...There's still no explanation forthcoming as to why it took KIPP so long to get rid of Feinberg. He was "involved" with a former KIPP student, employed by KIPP Houston in 2004, which led to a "financial settlement" at the time. KIPP has to explain how it is that they just learned about it now? 14 years later? Until then, good guy Beury is left trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again. 

After listening to former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg being interviewed by MSNBC's Katy Tur, I came away convinced that the man is batshit crazy and surmising that the rest of DT's campaign staff must have been made up mainly of unvetted grifters, hustlers and outright foreign agents. Nunberg has been subpoenaed by Robert Mueller to testify before the grand jury, but tells Tur he will risk jail and won't testify. He also tells her that special prosecutor Mueller likely has the goods on Trump. 

What's he afraid of? Sounds like a man who woke up with a horse head in his bed. 

All this confirms my belief that Mueller can bring down DT and his whole grifter family if he really wants or dares to. That's a big IF. It also leaves me wondering how bad the Clinton campaign must have been to win the popular vote by 4 million and still lose the election to this bag of dicks? 

Citizens United...UCLA Prof Adam Winkler writing in the Atlantic, tells us how U.S. law intended to protect the rights of African-Americans and other minorities became all about the “Civil Rights of Corporations.”