A months-long, bad-faith saga

Illegitimate claims in the courts

The Republicans won big in the November elections, but they didn't win everything. In a high-stakes judicial race to determine control of the state Supreme Court in North Carolina, the Republican candidate, Jefferson Griffin, lost by just over 700 votes to Democrat Allison Riggs.

Griffin and the Republicans have been trying to overturn the results of that election ever since.

This week, the months-long, bad-faith saga finally came to an end. A Trump judge, Richard Ernest Myers II, ended Griffin's challenge and admonished the GOP for its attempts to "change the rules of the game after it had been played." After the ruling, Griffin finally conceded defeat. John Nichols wrote about this in depth for The Nation.

This is supposed to be good news, and I obviously agree with Judge Myers's ruling. But somehow this doesn't represent the system "working" to me. Yes, the Republicans failed. But there will be no consequences for their dogged efforts to overturn the election. Losing candidates should of course be able to go to court if they have legitimate claims, and we'd all rather they go to court than attack the US Capitol. But Griffin did not have a legitimate claim.

There should be some consequence for the Republicans for putting everybody through this drama.

The Bad and The Ugly

The Supreme Court allowed Trump's bigoted transgender troop ban to take effect while challenges to the ban make their way slowly through the courts.
Trump is asking the high court to allow copresident Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency to have access to Social Security records.
Trump announced that he would withdraw the nomination of Ed Martin for US Attorney for the district of Washington, DC. Martin has been accused of being a Russian state asset, and has been a defender of January 6 insurrectionists. In his place, Trump announced that Fox News host "Judge" Jeannie Pirro will be made interim US Attorney for DC. Yes, the wine-loving Fox News personality will now be in charge of federal criminal investigations in Washington, DC. No, I'm not making that up. How could I make up a scenario this incredibly stupid? We live in the dumbest of all possible timelines.
World Central Kitchen has halted operations in Gaza because Israel will not let the charity replenish its supplies. There are people literally starving, and there are trucks with food ready to go, yet Israel won't let those trucks cross the border into Gaza.
Bill Gates says Elon Musk is "killing" the world's poorest children. He's right, of course. But one might argue that the real solution doesn't involve rich people giving their money away—it involves preventing them from hoarding it in the first place.

Inspired Takes

The Nation published a book review of Marijam Did's new book, Everything to Play For. I will definitely be picking up a copy whenever I get a break this summer. Apparently, the central argument of the book is that liberals need to fight for the video-gaming space, a premise I wholeheartedly agree with.
Gregg Gonsalves wrote for The Nation about the Trump-sponsored bloodbath at NIH.

Worst Argument of the Week

In January 2023, after the lynching of Tyre Nichols by Black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, I wrote that the cops beat the unarmed young man to death "because they knew they could." The truth of that statement was reaffirmed in a courthouse in Memphis this week, when three of the five cops involved in Nichols's death were acquitted on all counts.

The five police officers were initially charged with both federal and state crimes stemming from Nichols's death. Two of them, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills, pleaded guilty to both sets of charges and testified against the other three officers: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith. Haley was found guilty of violating Nichols's civil rights at the federal level, but Bean and Smith got off.

The murder charges against Bean, Smith, and Haley played out at the state level over a nine-day trial. But they were not judged by a jury of their peers in Memphis. Instead, defense attorneys successfully lobbied to get a white jury installed at the trial—from a town outside of Memphis. The white folks took only eight-and-a-half hours to acquit the cops.

Clear as I can tell, the jury must have blamed the killing entirely on Officer Martin, who does most of the beating in the video available from the scene. Bean, Smith, and Haley mainly just watched, and did nothing, as a young Black man was lynched right in front of their eyes.

Apparently, white folks in Tennessee think that's OK.

What I Wrote

Trump has made his first round of judicial nominations. He made 234 judicial appointments in his first term. Now, things will get worse.

In News Unrelated to the Ongoing Chaos

As a lapsed Catholic (which is something I say to avoid getting into a lengthy apologia about my increasing atheism), I am in the enviable position of looking at the pope as a purely political figure. The man (which is still, stupidly, always a man) has nothing to do with what I'm going to eat on Fridays. From that political perspective, the new pope seems… OK?

The new pope is American—the first American pope, ever. Robert Francis Prevost, now dubbed Leo XIV, is from Chicago, and saying that—"the pope is from Chicago"—almost sounds like an invective that would have been used by Protestant party bosses trying to justify the suppression of Irish-Catholic and Italian voters. Somewhere, I hope Al Smith and John F. Kennedy Jr. are smiling. I know Joe Biden is happy.

American Catholics are generally thought to be more conservative than their international brethren, so I have my concerns. But this pope has tweeted against Trump's immigration policies and, apparently, disagreed with JD "Pope Killer" Vance on social media. So that's in his favor.

The reason I care, the only reason I care, is that religion, if it has any use, should be a balm to the poor and marginalized. I want the pope to be an advocate for those who have been cast out and cast off. I want the pope to be critical of rapacious capitalism (which Leo XIV appears to be). The white wing in this country uses religion as some kind of prosperity gospel for the well-off, telling them that they deserve to stockpile their wealth while justifying their cruelty toward others. I can't exactly say that's a twisted view of faith, since faith is often used to shield the wealthy. But I'd like the pope to be a global counterweight to all that.

I don't know if Leo XIV will be. But here's hoping for the least fungal fungus of all possible popes.