Prairie Gates
Prairie Gates's JournalKeep an Eye on the Italian Right Wing this Weekend
The story that has gripped Italy for the last month has been the stabbing death of Sharon Verzeni in the Bergamese town of Terno D'Isola. The story has been presented as a mystery, since Verzeni was stabbed to death in the street, but none of the surveillance cameras seemed to have captured either the act or the suspect fleeing the scene. Suspicion of course fell on her boyfriend, but he seemed to have an airtight alibi, and had full support of the victim's family. The police did not consider him a suspect.
Today, a suspect was arrested. It seems to have been a completely random stabbing, with the police saying that she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, why watch the Italian right?
The suspect in custody is one Moussa Sangare, a 31 year old who was born in Italy to Malian parents. The prosecutors have noted that Sangare went out that night with four knives, and sought to also lure two teenage boys into a confrontation prior to killing Verzeni. They are charging him with premeditated murder. With the stabbings in England and Germany as the context, I'm at least somewhat concerned about how the Italian ultra right will respond to this arrest.
I rolled my eyes at the media criticism of the speech times yesterday
But seriously, it's 10:25 in Eastern Time right now and we're still waiting for the main speakers? Watching videos about Emhoff? Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina are all Eastern Time. Who is running this show? Put on the headliners. This isn't an after hours party.
Trump's View on the Military was Profoundly Shaped by his Draft Avoidance during Vietnam
As we know, his wealthy father had a quack doctor jimmy up a fake diagnosis, and there were probably additional shenanigans with the Brooklyn-Queens draft board to get him his IV-F medical classification. He was fully qualified for the draft, had attended military school, and was by most accounts a passable student athlete at baseball (he himself, of course, claims that he could have been in the major leagues). There is little doubt that he would have been drafted upon completion of his student deferments (in June 1968!), and it's quite likely that he would have been sent to Vietnam, Republic of in the Winter 1968-1969. The months immediately after Trump's graduation from college, and the end of his student deferments, were among the bloodiest of the war (see especially Ronald Spector's excellent After Tet).
He was scared. As were many.
His rich father orchestrated his IV-F classification.
At the end of Tim O'Brien's story "On the Rainy River," O'Brien's narrator, in a similar situation to Trump, having completed his college deferments, is drafted, and contemplates fleeing to Canada. He gets halfway across a Minnesota river, almost there. At the end, however, he does not go. He returns, and is in short order sent to Vietnam. The story ends poignantly with the following two sentences: "I was a coward. I went to the war." O'Brien deliberately refuses to include a transition between the two clauses, leaving the reader to fill in the meaning (and then? because? however? and? but?).
For Trump, there's no need for the second sentence. Trump was a coward. And he knows it. Every utterance he makes about the military contains that fundamental psychological kernel.
Ilhan Omar wins her primary handily, 56-43...called by NY Times
95% reporting.
This was a tight race against the same opponent last time. She's consolidated support.
Does Harris Walz campaign have a website with policy statements?
All I can get to is the donate, volunteer, and events page?
What's the sell for the VP slot?
I'm seeing a lot of "Who should Harris select as VP?" It's a good question, but let's also come at it the other way. What are the Harris campaign's selling points to get her top pick to accept the VP slot?
I'm being absolutely serious here. The election is at best a coin toss. None of the prospective candidates was expecting to be doing this even a month ago. If you do end up losing, Also-Ran VP Candidate is not exactly a pathway toward the next step in a political career. And, assuming a win, you're basically committing to 8 years as VP. Seriously, what's in it for an ambitious politico who has eyes on the ring? What's the calculus?
Italian police officer's widow 'totally shocked' as US tourist convicted of his murder is given house arrest
Source: The Independent
An Italian court has granted house arrest for an American tourist convicted of murdering a plainclothes police officer, shocking the victims widow.
Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth and his friend Finnegan Lee Elder were initially given life sentences for killing Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, a Carabinieri police officer following a botched drug deal in 2019.
After a series of appeals, an Italian court reduced Natale-Hjorths sentence to 11 years and four months. His lawyers argued he should be allowed to serve the rest of his sentence at his grandmothers home near Rome.
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/gabriel-natale-hjorth-rome-mario-cerciello-rega-murder-b2580347.html
These are the two American students who stabbed an Italian undercover police officer to death during a botched drug sting. They were initially given life sentences, but had their sentences reduced to 15 years and 11 years earlier this month. Yesterday, the Italian court allowed the one with an 11 year sentence (Natale-Hjorth) to serve it out under "domiciliari" (house arrest) at his grandmother's apartment in Fregene, a tony beach town near Rome.
Cannon's cunning argument on Appropriations Clause
One of the more interesting - and disturbing - arguments Cannon makes in her decision involves the Appropriations Clause, and what she sees (agreeing with Trump's attorneys) as a violation of the Appropriations Clause. Put simply, the argument is that Smith spent money that he was not authorized to spend for his entire investigation, what she calls "substantial funds drawn from the Treasury without statuatory authorization" (p. 91). Her finding is that "...Special Counsel Smith's investigation has unlawfully drawn funds from the Indefinite Appropriation" (p. 87).
It's not the main argument of the ruling, but it's interesting in its own right. By making a partial ruling on the Appropriations issue, she effectively aims at two things, in my view:
1) She provides an avenue for contesting any refiling outside the Special Counsel structure. Some have suggested here that the DOJ could simply refile through the ordinary US Attorney's office for the Southern District, using Smith's evidence. But if all that evidence was acquired through an illegal funding mechanism, the remedy (which she pulls from a conservative challenge to the CFPB!) is dismissal anyway. Cannon explicitly brings this up to address the possibility of Smith being reappointed in another way, but the same reasoning would apply to a non-special counsel prosecution: "what to make of the prior action?," she asks. She then notes that the Special Counsel investigation has been funded illegally, and that to "rewrite history at this point seems near impossible" (p. 91).
2) The Appropriations ruling is an indirect but plausible threat of prosecution for both Smith and Garland. A Trump DOJ could very well turn around and charge them both with use of and/or conspiracy to use, as Cannon calls them, "unlawfully drawn funds." Niceties about official duties and qualified immunity, of course, will mean nothing. The whole Appropriations piece is ominous in this way. It provides the roadmap for prosecuting Jack Smith and his team themselves.
"The effect of this order is confined to this proceeding."
So ends the first paragraph of the Cannon dismissal in the documents case.
The argumentation is more general - claiming Smith's appointment is unconstitutional in principle, and all of his funding violates the Appropriations clause of the Constitution as well. Since both Cannon and everybody else knows a second case is proceeding in another district, this sentence is doubly meaningful. First, and most obviously, Cannon is acknowledging that she only has the power to make a ruling on a case that she was assigned to in her own district. Yes, fine. That's the manifest meaning of "The effect of this order is confined to this proceeding." The secondary meaning, however, is an invitation to the Supreme Court to get itself involved, and quickly.
If the special counsel's appointment is deemed unconstitutional in one federal district, while a case by that same special counsel proceeds apace in another, we have a constitutional issue on our hands. Appealing up through the circuit courts is certainly the proper order of events, but it won't answer the general question. How can the special counsel's appointment be unconstitutional in the Southern district, but perfectly constitutional in the District of Columbia? That's an intolerable constititional situation that the Supreme Court will have to jump in on.
Macron rejects Attal's resignation, La Pen's sister loses her election, etc.
Just some updates from the French election. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal submitted his resignation this morning to French President Macron. Macron rejected it, calling on Attal to remain Prime Minister for the time being for the "stability of the nation." Of course, once the new parliament is seated, that will likely change, especially if the NPF (left) coalition refuses to back him, as they have already signaled.
In other delicious news, Marine La Pen's sister, Marie Caroline La Pen, was defeated by a narrow margin in her own election, losing to NFP-backed candidate Elise Leboucher (LFI).
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayHometown: California
Home country: USA
Member since: Thu Oct 19, 2023, 04:04 PM
Number of posts: 3,936