"The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage," the Inquirer wrote.
Monday, July 1, 2024
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Civilization and Its Discontents Summary
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/civilization-and-its-discontents/summary
Despite Freud’s initial willingness to entertain the idea of religious feeling, here he takes a more hostile attitude towards exactly that religious belief. Freud admits to not understanding how it is that intelligent, rational, indeed “scientific” people are religious. Thus Freud admits to seeing religion and scientific objectivity as, effectively, opposites.
CNN Flash Poll: Majority of debate watchers say Trump outperformed Biden
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/28/politics/debate-poll-cnn-trump-biden/index.html
An 81% majority of registered voters who watched the debate say it had no effect on their choice for president, with another 14% saying that it made them reconsider but didn’t change their mind. Just 5% say it changed their minds about whom to vote for.
Trump decries Biden’s poor debate performance overshadowed his ‘fantastic’ showing
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4747692-donald-trump-joe-biden-shaky-debate-performance-2024/
Former President Trump took a victory lap Saturday after this week’s debate, but argued President Biden’s poor showing overshaded his own “fantastic” performance.
“As I walked off the stage on Thursday night, at the end of the highly anticipated ‘Debate,’ anchors, political reports and all screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance in the long and stories history of Presidential Debates,” Trump posted to his Truth Social site. “The all said, effectively, ‘Trump was fantastic!’”
“But by Friday evening it was all about the poor performance of Crooked Joe and now so much about how well I did,” he continued. “Oh well, that’s the way it is but, importantly the result is the same!!!”
OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS
In "The Disposition to Obsessional Neurosis: A Contribution to the Problem of Choice of Neurosis" (1913i), Freud defended the idea that the choice of this neurosis is linked to developmental inhibitions, and he stressed the role of fixation and regression to the anal-sadistic stage. He suggested "the possibility that a chronological outstripping of libidinal development by ego development should be included in the disposition to obsessional neurosis. A precocity of this kind would necessitate the choice of an object under the influence of the ego-instincts, at a time when the sexual instincts had not yet assumed their final shape, and a fixation at the stage of the pregenital sexual organization would thus be left" (p. 325). Thus, in the object relation, hate will precede love and "obsessional neurotics have to develop a super-morality in order to protect their object-love from the hostility lurking behind it" (p. 325). This opposition between love and hate for the object was underscored by Freud in the case of the "Rat Man," related in "Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis" (1909d). He saw it as the source of the doubt, compulsions, and ambivalence that are characteristic of obsessional functioning.
Dying together: Why a happily married couple decided to stop living
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jjq2vynq7o
Jan and Els were married for almost five decades. In early June, they died together after being given lethal medication by two doctors. In the Netherlands, this is known as duo-euthanasia. It’s legal, and it’s rare - but every year, more Dutch couples choose to end their lives this way.
Saturday, June 29, 2024
The pundit class turned on Biden. Does it matter?
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/29/biden-debate-2024-campaign-drop-out-step-aside-00165914
Friday was a story of the D.C. class that chatters versus the D.C. class that matters. The pundits abandoned President Joe Biden in droves, while elected officials stayed silent or stuck with him.
It is surely more significant that Biden won support from Clinton and Obama Friday, that he delivered a well-received rally speech, that polls showed only minor movement in the race and that not a single Democratic elected official called for Biden to drop out of the race.
Friday, June 28, 2024
Supreme Court Tosses Mayor’s Bribery Conviction, Again Raising Bar for Public-Corruption Prosecutions
In dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that “Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love.” Joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, she argued that by using the word “rewarded” Congress intended to cover past acts, and said that lawmakers excluded innocent courtesies from prosecution by specifying the measure applied only to gifts accepted “corruptly.”
Jackson noted the evidence prosecutors presented against Snyder: He appointed a friend to oversee the bidding process, which was tailored to favor Great Lakes Peterbilt, a company owned by two brothers who Snyder was frequently calling and texting. Dealership employees “testified that Snyder never performed any consulting work” and no contract, invoice or other documentation was produced relating to any such work, Jackson wrote.
Thursday, June 27, 2024
The Supreme Court rules that state officials can engage in a little corruption, as a treat
https://www.vox.com/scotus/357170/supreme-court-snyder-united-states-corruption
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion in Snyder v. United States for the Court’s Republican-appointed majority. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent on behalf of the Court’s three Democratic appointees.
Snyder turns on a distinction between “bribes” and “gratuities.” As Kavanaugh writes, “bribes are payments made or agreed to before an official act in order to influence the official with respect to that future official act.” Gratuities, by contrast, “are typically payments made to an official after an official act as a token of appreciation.” (Emphasis added.)
The US supreme court just basically legalized bribery
The case concerns James Snyder, who in 2013 was serving as the mayor of small-town Portage, Indiana. Late that year, the city of Portage awarded a contract to Great Lakes Peterbilt, a trucking company, and bought five tow trucks from them; a few weeks later, Snyder asked for and accepted a check for $13,000 from the company. Snyder was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. He argued that the kickback was not illegal because it came after he awarded a contract to the company that ultimately paid him off, not before.
Absurdly the US supreme court agreed, classifying such payments as mere tokens of appreciation and claiming they are not illegal when they are not the product of an explicit agreement meant to influence official acts in exchange for money.
Bowman ouster underscores political danger for progressives
Bowman’s criticisms of Israel amid the ongoing war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks made his race a referendum on how palatable his stance is, especially since his district has a strong Jewish population. Now Democrats are trying to determine what the lessons from his race are for the party nationwide.
“You never can lose touch with your district,” said one Democratic lawmaker, speaking without attribution to express a critique of Bowman. “You’ve got to know who your voters are. And so when you lose touch with your voters, this is what happens.”
“Of course there was a ton of money put into the race, but I think primarily he lost touch with his district,” the lawmaker added.
Dems to Biden: You must out-populist Trump at the debate
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/26/biden-debate-anti-corporate-billionaires-00165178
Biden advisers contend that the president has increasingly leaned into his populist credentials. They also pointed to stepped-up efforts in recent months to portray Trump as out of touch with the working class and Biden — by contrast — as focused solely on policies that will make Americans’ lives better.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)