Who's a Laughingstock? And Why Aren't You Laughing?

By William Boardman, Reader Supported News

07 November 17

Remember, in Trump’s wonderland shooting up a church is not a guns issue

n his latest impersonation of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, the president of the United States stopped just short of shouting “Off with his head!” at the latest New York terror suspect, but pretty much everyone knows that’s exactly what he meant. Lewis Carroll intended the Red Queen to be an entertaining caricature by virtue of her absurdity. That’s a luxury we don’t have when considering our Trump’s affinity with the Red Queen’s jurisprudence: “Sentence first – verdict afterwards.” That’s just what our Trump demands again and again from legal proceedings, with appalling disregard for the Constitution and any other law that happens to displease him.

On its face, that disregard for law, that open hostility to anything like a fair process that might produce a result displeasing to Trump – all that would seem to be an obvious and constant violation of his oath office (“preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”), as well as an obvious and constant violation of the constitutional mandate (Article II, section 3) that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

As recently as 1970, presidential messing with the judicial process was generally taken seriously, as when Richard Nixon at a press conference said of Charles Manson, “Here is a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason.” Manson’s defense attorneys promptly called for a mistrial, the presiding judge took it under advisement, and amidst public outcry Nixon backed off on his prejudicial public comments, claiming that he didn’t mean to imply that Manson was guilty. Nixon’s attorney general (and later convicted felon) John Mitchell, who was present at the press conference, said later: “I don’t believe the President made the charge or implied one.” [At the time, with killings in Vietnam, Cambodia, Kent State, and Fred Hampton’s bedroom, among other places of extra-judicial execution, it would have been more to the point to note that Nixon was a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of thousands of murders without good or just reason.]

On October 31, the FBI charged Sayfullo Saipov with the truck-murder of eight people in lower Manhattan. Saipov waived his Miranda rights and said he had planned the attack for Halloween and asked to display an Islamic State flag in his hospital room. Referring to Saipov’s attack the next day, in the midst of a long statement that first blamed immigration policy with no coherent argument, Trump said to reporters at a cabinet meeting:

Terrorists are constantly seeking to strike our nation, and it will require the unflinching devotion to our law enforcement, homeland security, and intelligence professionals to keep America safe….

We have to get much tougher. We have to get much smarter. And we have to get much less politically correct. We're so politically correct that we're afraid to do anything…. We also have to come up with punishment that’s far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now. They’ll go through court for years….

We need quick justice and we need strong justice — much quicker and much stronger than we have right now. Because what we have right now is a joke and it’s a laughingstock.

In other words, Trump is arguing for an American police state that is somehow omniscient enough to keep out immigrants who will commits crimes seven years after being admitted to the country. Saipov was an accountant came here in 2010 under a Diversity Immigrant Visa and became a permanent resident with a green card. And for anyone who doubted the police state drift of the commander in chief, there was this exchange near the end of the press event, referring to the Guantanamo prison that is an ongoing crime against humanity:

Q: Mr. President, do you want the assailant from New York sent to Gitmo?

THE PRESIDENT: I would certainly consider that, yes. Q: Are you considering that now, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I would certainly consider that. Send him to Gitmo — I would certainly consider that, yes.

If it weren’t such an abomination of torture and legal horror, Guantanamo would be a laughingstock to the world. Instead it’s a shock to civilized countries and a great recruiting tool for Islamic extremists. Guantanamo, whether Americans like it or not, is America’s face to the world. Established in panic and fear by the Bush administration, perpetuated mostly by Congressional panic and fear by an Obama administration that didn’t care all that much, now it is a dark joke that is a fact of American life, where we keep people charged with no crime without a chance of release and let them starve themselves in protest until they’re too weak to resist force-feeding, by which we keep them alive to prolong the endless torture of hopeless, painful lives. Trump has long missed the brutal joke of Guantanamo reality while tweeting lies about how many Guantanamo detainees have returned to the field (relatively few), feeding a fake news story of long standing.

That’s not the joke and laughingstock our Trump was referring to, although it should be. But Guantanamo is a fine example of “Sentence first – verdict afterwards” jurisprudence, so Trump is willing to overlook Obama’s fingerprints all over this particular legacy. Trump’s laughingstock is the constitutionally-based American judicial system. Except that in the White House wonderland of 2017, Trump never said what the White House transcript says he said. He didn’t call the American judicial system a joke and a laughingstock. That’s what White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied on November 2:

That's not what he said. He said that process has people calling us a joke and a laughingstock.

To be fair, only her first statement is a demonstrable lie. The second statement, that people are calling us a joke and a laughingstock is actually true, just not at all in the way Sanders wants us to believe it. And the Justice Department had already charged Saipov in federal court in New York amidst widespread reports of how well the federal court system has dealt with terrorism cases, especially as compared to the dismal record of the military tribunals at Guantanamo. Even Trump seemed to acknowledge that reality when he tweeted, once again interfering in the judicial process:

Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system…

Not to leave bad enough alone, Trump tweeted four minutes later with a sentiment that out-Nixoned Nixon:

...There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!

Our Trump knows no bounds. Every time he tweets like this it’s another impeachable offense that the cowardly majority in Congress will ignore, or even follow. We know what kind of government our Trump would like us to have. He made that clear to the Washington Post:

The saddest thing is, because I am the President of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I’m not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things I would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated by that. I look at what’s happening with the Justice Department, why aren’t they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her dossier, and the kind of money — I don’t know, is it possible that they paid $12.4 million for the dossier, which is total phony, fake, fraud and how is it used?

Our Trump wants to be emperor, perhaps not in name, but in fact. He wants no checks and balances, he wants no rational consideration, he just wants obedience. He wants to punish his enemies: “Sentence first – verdict afterwards.” He wants the kind of judiciary they already have in Guantanamo, where the presiding judge (a general) feels justified in convicting defense counsel (a higher ranking general) of contempt of court, not just for standing up for his client, but for standing up for his client’s civilian attorneys. This was the first military tribunal conviction since 2008, not of a terrorist but an American general, sentenced to 21 days in confinement. The convicted general is the chief defense counsel for military commissions and the second highest ranking general in the Marines. The general’s underlying offense was his objection to the government wiretapping attorney conversations with their clients. He was freed after three days’ confinement. The case is continuing, with Pentagon lawyers uncertain whether any of the developments so far are within the officials’ legal authority, and a federal civilian judge reluctant to hear any appeal. This would all be breathtakingly funny if it were fiction. But it’s a real world laughingstock.

There are laughingstocks everywhere. We have a government of laughingstocks. The president is a laughingstock, as is his cabinet and his veep. The Congress is a laughingstock – that’s the one truly bipartisan thing about Congress. For the moment, only the judiciary is not a complete laughingstock, although the Supreme Court is teetering toward the bad joke category. The federal judiciary continues to maintain centers of rationality, coherence, and constitutional principle. But time is against the judiciary. As Trump appointees fill more and more vacancies, we can expect to be governed by a full laughingstock. And the joke will be on us. Unless we can somehow regain our full civic size and become another Alice who tells them all: “Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Is This the End of the House of Murdoch?

By Sarah Ellison, Vanity Fair

07 November 17

The news that 21st Century Fox may be selling many of its assets to Disney may end one of the great dynastic parlor games in media history.

ears ago, I interviewed James Murdoch at the London offices of his family’s company, 21st Century Fox. Murdoch was friendly, used a lot of business-school jargon (despite having never attended business school), drank Diet Coke, and talked about how he was taking his kids to Euro Disney with the sort of faux-horror tone that parents invoke when talking about enduring theme parks. At the time, I remember thinking that while we hailed from far different backgrounds, with far different net worths, we shared some things in common. We were around the same age, had kids, drank Diet Coke. Despite the fact that he was the son of Rupert Murdoch, co-founder of Fox News and delighted rapscallion owner of The Sun, The Times of London, and (at the time) the News of the World, among a vast array of media properties, James seemed more moderate in his politics and worldview—even if his primary responsibility as an adult would be to carry on the success of his father’s empire, including its most conservative holdings.

James Murdoch has always been in the strange position of desperately wanting to please his father while defying some of his empire’s most identifiable parts. He and wife, Kathryn Murdoch, recently launched their own philanthropic venture, called Quadrivium, which focuses on bolstering natural resources, science, childhood health, and equal opportunity—not exactly controversial causes, unless of course you polled a group of Fox News watchers. In the wake of the neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville, during which one woman ended up dead, James Murdoch and his wife donated $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League, a move that felt like a drop in the bucket compared to the torrent of coverage out of Fox News that catered to the other, more racist side.

I saw this duality play out during the Roger Ailes scandal, last summer, when James and to a lesser degree, his older brother Lachlan, hired a law firm to investigate the allegations of sexual misconduct, which eventually set in motion the almighty co-founder’s ouster. James wanted Ailes out, and so did James’s wife, who had always despised him. But the younger Murdochs also seemed to blink upon taking on the massive cash machine that Ailes had created. They refused to look at Fox’s culture beyond Ailes. They left most everyone in place, and only got rid of executives when they fell under unwanted scrutiny. And as we now know, due to the blockbuster reporting in The New York Times, the Murdochs renewed the contract of Fox News star Bill O’Reilly, with a raise, even after he had made a $32 million settlement with a network contributor for sexual harassment and nonconsensual sex.

The news, as reported by CNBC, that 21st Century Fox had been in talks during the past few weeks to sell most of itself to Disney, suggests one way in which all of this could come to a conclusion—in which James’s existential crisis could end as his father approaches 90. In some ways, the deal would make perfect sense. The discussions would have 21st Century hold onto Fox Television and Fox News. Disney would buy Fox’s movie studio, TV production, FX, and international assets such as Star and Sky. Sky is a major satellite TV distribution platform, and, in the words of a former Murdoch executive, “a cash register.” It is the most valuable part of 21st Century Fox, and James has been trying to buy the whole thing for years. (The last attempt was scuttled during the phone-hacking scandal, when News of the World was found to be hacking into voicemails, looking for news tips and leverage for blackmail. In the wake of that scandal, the Murdochs had to abandon their attempted acquisition of Sky, and they split the company in two, to separate the controversial newspaper assets from the more lucrative film and entertainment assets. Fox News went with the more lucrative side of the business.)

The Murdochs recognize the value of owning all of Sky, which would provide a global distribution platform for the company’s content. It is that kind of thinking that has driven the biggest media deals of late, including Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal, and AT&T’s proposed merger with Time Warner. Recognizing that it is too small to survive on its own, 21st Century Fox tried to buy Time Warner in 2014, but was rebuffed and withdrew its bid quickly. Then, as consolidation continued around it, the Murdochs were ever more determined to finally make the Sky deal a reality.

The next most valuable part of the Murdoch empire is Fox News, and it is that asset that has lately caused all the trouble for the family. Today, Ofcom, the British media regulator, ruled that Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly’s shows on Fox News had violated Britain’s “impartiality” rules. Ofcom had previously referred 21st Century Fox’s bid for Sky to a different British regulator, and the deal has been delayed for months. Ofcom’s decision today was seen as another setback.

A deal to sell most of 21st Century Fox to Disney would be a massive event in the media and communications industry. But nowhere would it be more seismic than inside the Murdoch family. For decades, James and Lachlan have been primed to take over the behemoth media company their father built from a single newspaper in Adelaide, Australia. As kids, Rupert Murdoch talked to them about the business at the breakfast table, and his children always realized that they were only interesting to their father to the extent they could talk about the business. Other executives walked away from the company because they knew they would never run it, and that the reins would eventually be handed over to Lachlan and James. To the detriment of his stock and, some say, his business, Rupert was always protecting the company for them. But what’s striking is how quickly, after all that buildup, his sons seem to have thrown up their hands. “This is not a day of glory for the boys,” the former executive told me. “This is total surrender.”