#american political action committee

[sequoyastrategies]

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[blanket-burrito-protocol]

The 50th anniversary of AIMs (American Indian Movement's) occupation at Wounded Knee is coming up, so the Lakota People's Law Project is leading another push to free an AIM activist who was wrongly convicted of killing two federal agents in 1975- Leonard Peltier. He was convicted on false evidence and false testimony and sentenced to two life sentences. He is now 78.

LPL has a formatted email up on their website now which you can personalize and send to Biden to ask for clemency. (Please personalize emails like this so it doesn't get filtered as spam. Just move some words around, add some, take some, you don't have to write a whole email.) Please pass this around.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Pennsylvania’s public defenders are so underfunded and overburdened that the commonwealth violates the constitutional rights of more than 100,000 criminal defendants every year, the state chapter of American Civil Liberties Union claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday.

For decades, Pennsylvania has left counties to pay for attorneys to defend people facing criminal charges who can’t afford to pay for a lawyer themselves. The result is an inconsistent patchwork in which public defenders are forced to contend with unmanageable caseloads that leave them unable to properly represent clients, the lawsuit says.

The suit was filed in Commonwealth Court on behalf of 17 people, many of whom have been jailed while awaiting trial for six months or longer, claiming public defenders have failed to properly represent them and that the state has neglected its constitutional duty to provide representation.

“The inconsistent and insufficient funding of indigent defense in Pennsylvania makes us less safe,” ACLU of Pennsylvania Executive Director Mike Lee said in a news release about the lawsuit. Lee added that with the exception of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is tied with Mississippi for the lowest funded state public defender system on a per-resident basis.

The U.S. and Pennsylvania constitutions both provide the right to counsel for anyone charged with a crime and facing jail time, ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director Witold Walczak said.

“That right means more than a warm body with a law degree at your side; it requires an effective professional who has the time and resources to prepare a defense,” Walczak said. “Pennsylvania’s grossly under-funded system leads to overwhelming caseloads that make effective representation practically impossible, even for the most dedicated lawyers.”

The 152-page suit details the experiences of the plaintiffs and others in criminal cases where they lacked timely and adequate representation from public defenders. Most have only spoken to their attorneys once or twice and one plaintiff claims he only met his attorney because they happened to walk past while he was cutting grass outside the jail, the suit claims.

In one example, a Northampton County man sat in jail for nearly three months on charges of driving an unregistered vehicle without proof of insurance until a public defender argued for a reduction in his bail.

The suit, which is a proposed class-action on behalf of the 17 plaintiffs and others in similar situations, names Gov. Josh Shapiro, state Senate Pro Tempore Kim Ward, and House Speaker Joanna McClinton as defendants. A spokesperson for Ward said she has not received a copy of the suit and would need time to review it before commenting.

Spokesperson Nicole Reigelman noted that McClinton began her career as a public defender, and “knows firsthand the value that indigent defense plays in the judicial system.”

“Since being elected in 2015, she has used her experience as a defender to inform her policy agenda and has been an outspoken champion of legislation to improve access to legal counsel for indigent clients. Speaker McClinton celebrated when funding for indigent defense was finally included in the 2023-24 state budget and continues to advocate for additional dollars,” Reigelman said in a statement.

The current state budget included $7.5 million for indigent defense, the first time the state has provided funding for public defenders. In his February 2023 budget address, Shapiro noted that Pennsylvania is one of only two states that didn’t provide funding for public defenders, which he called a “shameful distinction.”

The suit notes that amount falls far short of providing adequate funding. It also states that every county in Pennsylvania, with the exception of Philadelphia, falls below the national average of $19.82 per resident spent on indigent defense.

Pennsylvania counties spent a total of $125 million on their public defender’s offices in 2020, while similarly-sized Michigan is budgeted to spend $319 million in 2024. Massachusetts, which is considerably smaller, budgeted $331 million.

And because counties are limited in their ability to generate tax revenue, they could not provide adequate funding without significant tax increases. The suit notes that the same factors that limit revenues, such as high unemployment, poverty and limited higher education, are also indicators of higher crime rates.

The ACLU also argues that Pennsylvania agencies have been warning for decades that the state’s delegation of funding for public defenders to the counties results in the systemic denial of counsel to criminal defendants.

A state Supreme Court study in 2003 found that sparse resources and “exploding and unmanageable caseloads” allow public defenders little time, training or assistance in communicating with clients in a meaningful way or to conduct pre-trial investigations, secure expert testimony or otherwise prepare for hearings and trials.

The report recommended that Pennsylvania institute a statewide system for funding and overseeing indigent defense. The state failed to act on the recommendation. Nearly a decade later, a legislative commission reached a similar conclusion. And in 2020 the Pennsylvania Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness warned that the underfunding of indigent defense services cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to incarcerate and retry defendants due to failure of public defenders to represent them effectively.

In connection with the funding for public defenders as part of the 2023-24 budget, the General Assembly created the Indigent Defense Advisory Committee.

“As one of its first official acts, one of the Committee’s two proposed standards recognized that “[t]he responsibility to provide indigent defense representation rests with the state; accordingly, there should be adequate state funding and oversight of Indigent Defense Providers,” the lawsuit notes.

[metamatar]

To counter what they view as a rising tide of prejudice, the HAF and other Hindu American groups have turned to American Jewish organizations, which they have long seen as “the gold standard in terms of political activism,” as Maryland State Delegate Kumar Barve said in 2003. Since the early 2000s, Indian Americans have modeled their congressional activism on that of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and AIPAC; Indian lobbyists have partnered with these groups to achieve shared defense goals, including arms deals between India and Israel and a landmark nuclear agreement between India and the US. Along the way, these Jewish groups have trained a generation of Hindu lobbyists and advocates, offering strategies at joint summits and providing a steady stream of informal advice. “We shared with them the Jewish approach to political activism,” Ann Schaffer, an AJC leader, told the Forward in 2002. “We want to give them the tools to further their political agenda.” Shukla told Jewish Currents that the HAF continues to work closely with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the AJC, whether by “being co-amici curiae on briefs to the US Supreme Court,” or by “lending our support to one another’s letters to Congress.”

[...] Faced with rising scrutiny over India’s worsening human rights record, Hindu groups have used “the same playbook and even sometimes the same terms” as Israel-advocacy groups, “copy-pasted from the Zionist context,” said Nikhil Mandalaparthy of the anti-Hindutva group Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). Hindu groups have especially taken note of their Jewish counterparts’ recent efforts to codify a definition of antisemitism—the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition—that places much criticism of Israel out-of-bounds, asserting that claims like “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” constitute examples of anti-Jewish bigotry.

[...] In 2003, Gary Ackerman—a Jewish former congressman who was awarded India’s third-highest civilian honor for helping to found the Congressional Caucus on India—told a gathering of AJC and AIPAC representatives and their Indian counterparts that “Israel [is] surrounded by 120 million Muslims,” while “India has 120 million [within].” Tom Lantos, another Jewish member of the caucus, likewise enjoined the two communities to collaborate: “We are drawn together by mindless, vicious, fanatic, Islamic terrorism.”

Driven by that sense of shared purpose, the AJC and AIPAC helped train new Indian American political groups—such as the Indian American Political Action Committee and the United States India Political Action Committee—to achieve their aims in Washington. The AJC hosted seminars on political activism in DC and New York; it also brought several delegations of Indian Americans to Israel to meet with members of the Israeli government and military. “We’re fighting the same extremist enemy,” the AJC’s capital region director Charles Brooks told the Forward in 2002.

[contemplatingoutlander]

The House GOP is a circus. The chaos has one source.

Republicans spent two years sabotaging the U.S. House. Another two years would be ruinous.

Dana Milbank does a masterful job of describing just how dysfunctional the House GOP members have been in the past two years.

This is a gift🎁link for the entire article. Below are some highlights:

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Six weeks after his improbable rise from obscurity to speaker of the House in late 2023, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson decided to break bread with a group of Christian nationalists. [...] “I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here,” Johnson teased the group, unaware that his hosts were streaming video of the event. Johnson informed his audience that God “had been speaking to me” about becoming speaker, communicating “very specifically,” in fact, waking him at night and giving him “plans and procedures.” [...] Today, Johnson’s run looks anything but heaven-sent. In the first 18 months of this Congress, only 70 laws were enacted. Calculations by political scientist Tobin Grant, who tracks congressional output over time, put this Congress on course to be the do-nothingest since 1859-1861 — when the Union was dissolving. But Johnson’s House isn’t merely unproductive; it is positively lunatic. Republicans have filled their committee hearings and their bills with white nationalist attacks on racial diversity and immigrants, attempts to ban abortion and to expand access to the sort of guns used in mass shootings, incessant harassment of LGBTQ Americans, and even routine potshots at the U.S. military. They insulted each other’s private parts, accused each other of sexual and financial crimes, and scuffled with each other in the Capitol basement. They screamed “Bullshit!” at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address. They stood up for the Confederacy and used their official powers to spread conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.” Some even lent credence to the idea that there has been a century-old Deep State coverup of space aliens, with possible involvement by Mussolini and the Vatican.

The above article was adapted from Dana Milbank's (2024) book: Fools on the HILL: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House.

[See more below the cut.]

And this is on top of the well-known pratfalls: The 15-ballot marathon to elect a speaker, the 22-day shutdown of the House to find another speaker, the routine threats of government shutdowns and a near-default on the federal debt that hurt the nation’s credit rating. They devoted 18 months to a failed attempt to impeach Biden, which produced nothing but Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly displaying posters of Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts. One “whistleblower” defected to Russia, another worked with Russian intelligence and is under indictment for fabricating his claims, and still another is on the lam, evading charges of being a Chinese agent. As soon as Biden withdrew his candidacy, they promptly forgot their probe of Biden’s “corruption” and rushed to launch a new series of investigations into Kamala Harris (over her record on border security) and Tim Walz (over his military service and “cozy relationship” with China). After a number of failed attempts, they did impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (the first such action against a Cabinet officer since 1876) without identifying any high crimes or misdemeanors he had committed; the Senate dismissed the articles without a trial. House Republicans created a “weaponization committee” under the excitable Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), but it was panned even by right-wing commentators when it produced little more than a list of conspiracy theories from the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. They lapsed repeatedly into fits of censure resolutions, contempt citations and other pointless acts of vengeance. In all of its history, the House had voted to censure one of its own members only seven times; in the two weeks after Johnson became speaker, members of the House tried to censure each other eight times. [...] In lieu of consequential legislating, they passed bills such as the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards (SUDS) Act. On the House floor, the Republican majority suffered one failure after another, even on routine procedural votes. Seven times (and counting), House Republicans voted down their own leaders’ routine attempts to begin floor debates — something that hadn’t happened once in the previous 20 years.

[hotvintagepoll]

Gregory Peck is not only a certified hunk of a man but a great actor and a genuinely good person.

He starred in the film version of the novel Gentleman’s Agreement which was “Hollywood’s first major attack on anti-semitism” which features Peck as a magazine writer who pretends to be Jewish so he can experience personally the hostility of bigots and then calls out and exposes antisemitism and this film was made in 1947 like only two years after the end of World War II so historically an important film(I love this film and think its underated like its great and like Greg looks amazing as he rails against bigots). I could make an argument, and I have honeslty thought about writing a paper on it, that a majority of his films tackle some important issue whether it be antisemitism (Gentleman’s Agreement), racism (To Kill a Monckingbird), nuclear war (On the Beach), post-war discontent and PTSD (The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit), the futility of war (Pork Chop Hill) etc.

His daughter Cecilia said “ My father was a champion of stories that needed to be told, like To Kill a Mockingbird, Gentleman’s Agreement, and On the Beach. He was not afraid of films that championed diversity, equality, and tolerance. He was deeply intelligent, and also very funny in real life.”

He was against the House Un-American Activities Committee and their investigation of “alleged communists” in the film industry and signed a letter deploring their actions in 1947. He was outspoken against the Vietnam War, while at the same time supportive of his son who was fighting there. He produced the film version of the play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine about the prosecution of a group of Vietnam protestors for civil disobedience. Peck said “I decided to make the film because the play confirmed my thinking that the Vietnam War [was] an abomination.” His outspoken-ness against the Vietnam war and general political activism put him on Nixon’s “enemies list” (honestly what an icon).

He was a vocal supporter of a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons and was a lifelong advocate for gun control.

He and his wife Veronique often hosted dinners at their home in support of the arts and humanitatian or social justice causes. His daughter

He was Catholic but took a pro-choice stance on abortion and supported gay rights.

He was the president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (1967-1970) and postponed the awards following the assasination of MLK.

He was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts and he also won the Jean Hersolt Humanitarian Award.

He didnt just play the handsome hero on the big screen he was one in real life.

Now some photos of him looking good:

Gregory Peck vs Paul Robeson

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin, and Ellie Rushing at Philadelphia Inquirer:

BETHEL PARK, Pa. — In the sea of caps and gowns, Thomas Matthew Crooks hardly stood out. Few people clapped when his name was called. A YouTube video of his graduation two years ago from Bethel Park High School shows a slender and bespectacled student receiving his diploma with a soft smile. But the class of 2022 awoke Sunday to learn that the 20-year-old Allegheny County man was notorious, the shooter in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally that left an ex-firefighter, Corey Comperatore, dead and two other attendees wounded. U.S. Secret Service counter-snipers killed Crooks moments after he opened fire on the Saturday night rally from a nearby rooftop. The FBI said Sunday they believed he acted alone. He had not been on the bureau’s radar.

Crooks’ actions shocked residents in his hometown, sparked countless conspiracy theories online, and prompted investigators to begin combing through every aspect of his life, looking for motive. The mystery has been fueled by a near-total absence of Crooks’ social media postings, political writings, or other digital fingerprints. Several former classmates appeared on national television Sunday, quickly casting Crooks as a stereotypical loner who was bullied heavily during his time at Bethel Park. One of them, Jason Kohler, told reporters Sunday that students tormented Crooks “almost every day” and that he often wore “hunting” outfits to class. “He was just an outcast,” Kohler said, “and you know how kids are nowadays.” Yet, two former students interviewed by The Inquirer disputed the characterization. They did not recall specific incidents of violence or other antagonism involving their now-infamous classmate in the community they described as generally tight-knit.

[...] The slight traces of public information Crooks left behind leave few clues about his political ideology. Federal campaign finance records show he made a $15 donation to progressive political action committee in 2021 after President Joe Biden’s election, but later registered as a Republican, according to Pennsylvania voter data. His father was a registered Libertarian, his mother a Democrat. Crooks’ body was found on the rooftop of an agricultural tool manufacturing plant a few hundred feet from the rally with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle — legally purchased by his father. The shooter was wearing a T-shirt promoting “The Demolition Ranch,” a YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts. If Crooks maintained any personal social media presence, it went largely undetected on Sunday. Discord, an instant messaging platform mainly used by video gamers, released a statement acknowledging Crooks held a “rarely utilized” account that contained no information relevant to the shooting.

Sigafoos did not recall Crooks making political overtures in class, but rather as someone interested in how government works, and “not trying to insert his own beliefs into it.” Another former classmate did not share this view. Max R. Smith recalled taking an American history course with Crooks as a sophomore. He did recall Crooks making political statements — but they shed no light on his actions Saturday. “He definitely was conservative,” he said. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.” Smith recalled a mock debate in which their history professor posed government policy questions and asked students to stand on one side of the classroom or the other to signal their support or opposition for a given proposal. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.”

The gunman who killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore and attempted the assassination of Donald Trump at Saturday night’s Butler, PA rally was not only a registered Republican but also a vehement conservative.

This should hopefully put an end to the right-wing’s nonsensical claim that a “violent leftist”/”Antifa” tried to kill Trump.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nobody

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 2, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 03, 2024

Today, Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported that there is reason to believe that when Trump’s 2016 campaign was running low on funds, Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States.

In early 2017, CIA officials told Justice Department officials that a confidential informant had told them of such a cash exchange, and those officials handed the matter off to Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was already looking at the links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. FBI agents noted that on September 16, Trump had met with Sisi when the Egyptian leader was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. 

After the meeting, Trump broke with U.S. policy to praise Sisi, calling him a “fantastic guy.” 

Trump’s campaign had been dogged with a lack of funds, and his advisers had begged him to put some of his own money into it. He refused until October 28, when he loaned the campaign $10 million.

An FBI investigation took years to get records, but Davis and Leonnig reported that in 2019 the FBI learned of a key withdrawal from an Egypt bank. In January 2017, five days before Trump took office, an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence service asked a manager at a branch of the state-run National Bank of Egypt to “kindly withdraw” $9,998,000 in U.S. currency. The bundles of $100 bills filled two bags and weighed more than 200 pounds. 

Once in office, Trump embraced Sisi and, in a reversal of U.S. policy, invited him to be one of his first guests at the White House. “I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi,” Trump said. 

Mueller had gotten that far in pursuit of the connection between Trump and Sisi when he was winding down his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He handed the Egypt investigation off to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D C., where it appears then–attorney general William Barr killed it. 

Today, Brian Schwartz of CNBC reported that Elon Musk and other tech executives are putting their money behind a social media ad campaign for Trump and Vance, and are creating targeted ads in swing states by collecting information about voters under false pretenses. According to Schwartz, their America PAC, or political action committee, says it helps viewers register to vote. And, indeed, the ads direct would-be voters in nonswing states to voter registration sites.

But people responding to the ad in swing states are not sent to registration sites. Instead, they are presented with “a highly detailed personal information form [and] prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age,” handing over “priceless personal data to a political operation” that can then create ads aimed at that person’s demographic and target them personally in door-to-door campaigns. After getting the information, the site simply says, “Thank you,” without directing the viewer toward a registration site.

Forbes estimates Musk’s wealth at more than $235 billion. 

In June the Trump Organization announced a $500 million deal with Saudi real estate developer Dar Global to build a Trump International hotel in Oman. 

In January 2011, when he was director of the FBI, Robert Mueller gave a speech to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York. He explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. Rather than being regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, and sophisticated and had multibillion-dollar stakes. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.

These criminals “may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military,” he said. “They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.”

In order to corner international markets, Mueller explained, these criminal enterprises "may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called 'iron triangles' of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat."

In a new book called Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, journalist Anne Applebaum carries that story forward into the present, examining how today’s autocrats work together to undermine democracy. She says that “the language of the democratic world, meaning rights, laws, rule of law, justice, accountability, [and] transparency…[is]  harmful to them,” especially as those are the words that their internal opposition uses. “And so they need to undermine the people who use it and, if they can, discredit it.” 

Those people, Applebaum says, “believe they are owed power, they deserve power.” When they lose elections, they “come back in a second term and say, right, this time, I'm not going to make that mistake again, and…then change their electoral system, or…change the constitution, change the judicial system, in order to make sure that they never lose.”

Almost exactly a year ago, on August 1, 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted former president Donald J. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges stemmed from Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A grand jury is made up of 23 ordinary citizens who weigh evidence of criminal activity and produce an indictment if 12 or more of them vote in favor. 

The grand jury indicted Trump for “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the government”; “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified”; and “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” 

“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.” 

The case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump was randomly assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014 and confirmed 95–0 in the Senate. Trump pleaded not guilty on August 3, after which his lawyers repeatedly delayed their pretrial motions until, on December 7, Trump asked the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether he was immune from prosecution. Chutkan had to put off her initial trial date of March 4, 2024, and said she would not reschedule until the court decided the question of Trump’s immunity. 

In February the appeals court decided he was not immune. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which waited until July 1, 2024, to decide that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his official acts. Today the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Chutkan, almost exactly a year after it was first brought.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[jakes3resin]

Modern Reincarnation AU Part 4 ✨️

Part 3

"John?"

Bucky storms past Jack into the townhouse. It's rude, but he'll apologize later. He doesn't know why he came here instead of his apartment. Old habits dying a hard drawn out death, maybe? He hadn't been thinking clearly. Hadn't been thinking at all really until he found himself waved through by his father's security detail.

"Oh, is that John?" He hears his father call out, dress shoes clicking against hardwood as he walks closer, but Bucky stomps up the stairs towards his room before he sees the man. His breaths come out in rushes as tears keep burning his eyes.

Shit, he thought he'd gotten those under control on the train.

Slamming his door, he slides down until he rests against the floor. He tosses his bag to the side wincing at the sound it makes. Hopefully his laptop survives. At some point he does actually have to do the work he went to the library to finish.

The library.

Buck and Curt.

They wouldn't, Bucky tells himself. They wouldn't. Curt was one of his best friends, and Buck loved him. They...

Fuck they were roommates! Why the hell were they talking about that shit in public? In the place Bucky considered his? Why even pretend? Why drag Bucky into this? Why?!

Bucky buries his face into his hands. His chest hitches as he tries not to sob. He doesn't want his father or Jack to worry about him. He doesn't want to talk this through.

He wants...

He wants Buck. He wants the other to pull him into his arms. To kiss him again as if today had never happened. There was something else about being with Buck, something he'd never felt with anyone else be they friend or lover. He made Bucky feel safe and wanted. Wanted not because of his family and connections but because he was himself.

Buck would know how to make him feel better.

He laughs quietly through his tears. Distantly, he can hear Jack briefing his father downstairs, the words faint but he hears his name and tears used together. His laughter is more sob than anything else. Of course, the one good thing he'd found would end up belonging to someone else. Story of his life.

✨️

There's too much work to do. At least that's the excuse Bucky gave himself for not confronting Buck and Curt immediately. There wasn't time for a confrontation and subsequent blowup of his life.

At least that's the lie he tells himself.

Bucky chews on the straw of his iced coffee as he skims yet another chapter. There's a pumpkin muffin in front of him that he swore would be his reward for getting through this fourty page reading. Midterms have come and gone, but Bucky still has deadlines to meet and research to complete. He can't sit in his room forever, as much as his father and Jack would sometimes prefer that. Better protection from whatever sent Bucky crying to his room as his father would argue. Better protection for his father's political career Jack would quip.

Speaking of protection, Bucky glanced to the side of the cafe towards his security detail. At least these guys attempted to blend in. His father must have briefed them on his track record with previous details. Bucky smirked around his straw. They'd be easy to lose come rush hour. A bit of fun even.

Bucky turned back to his reading, squinting down at the words.

"American airmen during World War II had a dismal life expectancy. It was not a matter of if an airman was going to be shot down but when. Once downed, airmen faced an uncertain 'reception committee,' as Second Lieutenant Kenneth C. Reimer noted in a drawing he made as a POW in Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany... 'for every [ground combat] soldier killed in action, three or four others would be wounded; air combat was completely the opposite. For every man wounded, three were killed.'"

"Bucky?" A hand settles on his shoulder jolting him out of his reading.

Bucky kept his shoulders loose as he turns around. Buck stares down at him, a bright smile on his face that Bucky can't help but match despite his grief. It wasn't even something he could control. Buck smiled at him, so he smiled back. Bucky felt pitiful.

Buck's sky blue eyes are clear and happy as they dart across Bucky's face. There's no sign that he realizes Bucky overheard him yesterday.

Bucky lifts a hand to calm his detail, all alert now after Buck's friendly greeting. He sees the nearest agent settle back into their chair but knows none of them are relaxed. He darts a look up at Buck, peering at the other through his glasses to see if he'd noticed the disturbance.

Buck's gaze, as it always does, doesn't leave Bucky's face. Even when he rounds the table to sit down, his eyes are pinned on Bucky and nothing else.

"Sorry I couldn't meet up yesterday," Buck dumps his bag onto the chair next to him. Bucky's smile twitches. Buck sits down across from him. His legs tangle with Buck's own under the table, Buck's foot gently bumping his ankle.

"It's fine," Bucky chomps down on his straw. "How was your advisor meeting anyway?"

"It was good," Buck smiles at him, not even a hint of guilt on his face. "Real good."

Buck had told Bucky he was called to fill in a shift yesterday and that was why he supposedly hadn't been able to meet up. A lie Buck hadn't even bothered to remember. His advisor meetings were also always in the morning on Thursdays. Today was Tuesday.

Buck was still lying to him, and he wasn't even guilty about it.

✨️

"I went by your place yesterday. You weren't home." Buck swings their clasped hands through the air.

"Hmm?" Bucky glanced away from the traffic around them. His detail were staying a conspicuous ten feet back, but they were annoyingly keen when Buck offered to walk him back to his apartment.

Bucky would lose them another day.

Buck laughed, deep and airy. Bucky struggled not to lose himself in it. That was what made this so hard. Bucky still loved Buck, and Buck still acted like Bucky was his whole world and then some.

"Oh," Bucky finally processed what Buck had said. "No, I went to my dad's for the night."

"Really?" Buck squeezes his hand. Bucky hates how much comfort Buck's touch gives him.

Does Curt receive the same...? No Bucky doesn't let himself finish the thought.

"How was it?" Concern bleeds into Buck's voice. Bucky hates how genuine it sounds. He's starting to use that word more than any other. The longer he looks at Buck, the more he has to hate to save his heart.

"Fine," Bucky shrugged stepping further away as they came to a stoplight. "The usual."

"The Bucky I know wouldn't give such a short answer," Buck stepped closer eating up the space Bucky had put between them. "Not unless something happened yesterday. Come on, you okay?"

Bucky felt the words bubbling up his throat.

I saw you. I saw him. Why are you here staring at me like I'm the most important thing in the world when you have him? Why are you doing this to me? I love you. I love you so much it feels like my soul hurts. I hate you.

"Spent most of the night avoiding his staffers." Bucky lied. "Barely saw him, Jack either, yet he still asked me to move home at breakfast."

Buck nods, accepting his lies. Was that what they were now? Not a relationship, simply a lie? Bucky wasn't sure anymore. His heart thumped against his rib cage, anger and love in every other beat, but he wasn't sure which would win.

Buck had become his whole world in such a short amount of time. He thought the feeling was mutual, but yesterday showed just how stupid Bucky really was.

"How about this," Buck nudged his hip. "Why don't I stay over tonight? We'll binge a few movies, order something, and have night in. Then,"

Buck paused with a stupid grin that, despite himself, Bucky still found charming. Fuck, he was truly pathetic for this.

"I'll sweep you off your feet and take you to bed. How does that sound?"

"Won't Curt be expecting you?" The question pops out of him without meaning to. Gale furrows his brow, confusion growing in his eyes.

"Curt won't miss me tonight."

Sure, he won't, Bucky thinks bitterly.

✨️

"John," Jack's voice was a surprise. Especially considering it was his father's number calling him.

"You've gotten much better at your Jack impression," Bucky answers just to be annoying. "Does he know you impersonate him on official numbers?"

"You're not as funny as you believe."

"Ooh, you even have his disapproving tone down. I feel like he's in the room with us!" Bucky laughs. He peers around the corner. Buck's still where he left him, buried in his phone texting someone.

Bucky doesn't let himself think about who that person is.

"Your father wants to invite you to a dinner tomorrow. You can even bring that boy that walked you home. The one that hasn't left." Pages flip in the background as Jack talks. Probably governmental reports his father was supposed to read.

"You know you're not his chief of staff anymore?" Bucky leaned his hip against the counter. "You don't have to read reports or wrangle his kid to government dinners to help his image as a family man. You're his husband now, you're the family."

"You're my kid too by that logic, so wrangling you gets to stay on my resume." Bucky snorts out a laugh. "Besides, it's not a state dinner or anything. He just wants to see you."

Guilt gnaws at his heart. Buck pokes his head into the kitchen, phone no longer holding all of his attention.

"Fine," Bucky groans. "But if he brings up the apartment again, I'm walking out with my food on my plate even if it's the good plates."

"See you tomorrow at 7 then. Bring your boy." Jack hangs up without a goodbye.

✨️

It'll be me, and it'll be you, Buck.

Don't count on it.

Bucky jerks awake. His dream flashes through his head too fast for him to remember anything. Scenes superimpose over each other, words jumble together. At least this one wasn't a nightmare. Those always left him shakey and off balance all day.

His dreams have always been vivid, ever since he was a kid. The child psychologists he'd gone to had said it was normal and simply a sign of a well developed imagination.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair groaning when he glances towards his bedside clock. It's nearly an hour until he has to get up, but he knows that he won't be getting back to sleep before then.

Buck lays curled up next to him on the bed. Bucky reaches out to brush a hand through the other's hair. Buck twitches leaning into the feeling for half a second but doesn't stir beyond that.

Bucky sighs. Extricating himself from Buck's long limbs takes time. Somehow in the night, Buck had nearly fused them together as if even asleep the man refused to let him go. Arms layered over arms. Legs tangled together. It's an excellent distraction from his dreams but not from the problems of the waking world. If only he could forget those once he woke up like he did his dreams.

It's only when he's pouring water for his coffee that he realizes he recognizes the voice from his dream. A first for him.

It'd been Buck's.

✨️

(Not a confrontation I know, but it builds my AU lol)

[eretzyisrael]

 Opinion

By MICHAEL KAYE   Published: FEBRUARY 28, 2024 03:04 THE WRITER speaks at a marketing conference in New York City wearing a #EndJewHatred T-shirt.(photo credit: COURTESY MICHAEL KAYE)

It’s been almost five months since October 7, a day that completely changed the lives of more than 15 million Jews around the world. But the aftermath of the attack is still present, months later. In many ways, it feels as though this nightmare just happened, while at other moments, it’s hard to remember what life was like before that day of terror.

I am not fluent in Hebrew. I do not wear a kippah. I have almost 30 tattoos. I am not your stereotypical Jew, but I have become a proud Jewish activist. But October 7 changed me, as it did many others. Who I was before is someone I can never be again. I cannot be complicit or silent. I donate to the Anti-Defamation League; I speak at conferences wearing an #EndJewHatred T-shirt; I never leave home without Jewish-themed jewelry; and I use my social media platforms to discuss the rising antisemitism on college campuses across the United States and around the world.

As someone who was educated at a Jewish school and learned about the Holocaust, I am no stranger to antisemitism or the dangerous impact it can have. My earliest memories include being taught by my parents to be proud but quiet about my Judaism, having swastikas carved on my school playground, being immediately evacuated on September 11, and always leaving my Star of David at home when traveling. 

During my childhood and teenage years, I heard from and met many Holocaust survivors, including Elie Wiesel. I listened to their stories about how the world remained silent.

Today, it feels like the beginning of a second Holocaust. That is why I cannot remain silent.

A scary time to be Jewish

For this Jewish New Yorker, it’s a scary time to be Jewish. The American Jewish Committee’s State of Antisemitism in America report found that 93% of American Jews surveyed think antisemitism is a problem in the United States and 86% believe antisemitism in the country has increased over the past five years. 

In November, I attended the March for Israel in Washington. Around me were Jewish people from Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Diego, and Queens. A man from Brooklyn put tefillin (phylacteries) on me; it was the first time I had worn tefillin in almost 20 years. I even got to meet Julia Haart and Miriam Haart from Netflix’s My Unorthodox Life, who grew up in a religious community not too far from me. While there, I realized this gathering had the most Jews I’ve been around since I was in Israel in 2006. It was the safest I had felt in years. But there were also allies, including Congressman Ritchie Torres and CNN contributor Van Jones. That day reminded me of why I am proud to be Jewish and why I cannot be silent about my Judaism any longer.

Since October 7, I have lost hundreds of followers on social media. I have received anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messages, even threats. But I am not alone. The AJC found that six in 10 people have come across antisemitic content online, and 78% of American Jews feel less safe as Jews in the United States since that horrific day.

To many of us, the current climate feels different. We’re feeling angry, confused, and isolated. In my lifetime, I have watched the nation unite after domestic and foreign terrorist attacks, social justice actions, and wars. Rarely, outside of politics, have I seen us this divided: the Jewish community against everyone else. Overnight, people who had never spoken about any Middle Eastern wars became experts on the conflict. Disinformation spread like wildfire across social media, and much of it felt aimed at damaging or discrediting Jews and Zionists. Almost immediately after October 7, it was not only taboo to express sympathy for the Israelis who were captured or murdered; it was discouraged and forbidden, often met with attacks, both physical and verbal.

BUT THROUGH these painful months, there have also been glimmers of light.

During this period of mourning, I have watched people of all backgrounds come together – to educate, to grieve, to hope, and to pray. A Christian connection on social media thanked me for sharing educational resources. Jewish friends from elementary school and high school reached out. A Muslim friend held my hand as I cried, and another has been checking on me periodically for months. These are the moments I have chosen to cling to.

Our future is not where one side loses and another wins. It’s where we all unite.

The writer is an award-winning communications strategist, data storyteller, purpose-driven marketer, and educator based in New York City. He often speaks about antisemitism, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice issues.

[lordzannis]

Here are 30 ways you can support Palestinians:

Donate to reputable organizations providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians, such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), Muslim Hands, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).[1][4][5]

Advocate for change by writing to elected representatives, signing petitions, and supporting political campaigns promoting peace and justice.[1][4]

Educate yourself on the history and root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[1][4]

Support Palestinian businesses and the local economy.[1][4][5]

Attend protests, marches, rallies, and vigils to demonstrate solidarity.[1][4]

Write letters to the editor countering harmful narratives and providing context.[4]

Read and share Palestinian voices and perspectives, such as the anthology "Light in Gaza."[4]

Hold corporations accountable for complicity in human rights violations by divesting or boycotting them.[4]

Join initiatives like AFSC's "Apartheid-Free" campaign to dismantle Israeli apartheid.[4]

Make du'a (supplication) for relief and blessings in your efforts.[1]

Share information on social media to raise awareness.

Volunteer or intern with pro-Palestinian organizations.

Organize educational events, film screenings, or discussions in your community.

Support Palestinian artists, musicians, and cultural events.

Learn the Arabic language and Palestinian dialect.

Travel to Palestine as an activist or on a solidarity trip.

Boycott products made in Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

Donate to crowdfunding campaigns supporting Palestinian families and causes.

Sponsor a Palestinian student's education.

Plant olive trees or support Palestinian farmers and agriculture.

Advocate for Palestinian refugees' right of return.

Call for ending the blockade and occupation of Gaza.

Demand corporations divest from the Israeli military-industrial complex.[2]

Support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Amplify Palestinian voices and stories through art, writing, or filmmaking.

Pressure universities to divest from companies complicit in the occupation.

Participate in an annual Palestinian solidarity event like Al-Awda or Israeli Apartheid Week.

Support Palestinian prisoners' rights and call for their release.

Donate blood or join a humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza.

Offer skills like web design, translation, or medical expertise to Palestinian organizations.

The key is taking meaningful action through donations, advocacy, boycotts, education, and amplifying Palestinian voices to promote human rights and a just resolution.

Citations: [1] https://muslimhands.org.uk/latest/2021/06/how-to-support-palestine-and-gaza-with-charity [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/17nbhqf/what_can_realistically_be_done_from_abroad_to/ [3] https://afsc.org/programs/us-palestine-activism-program [4] https://afsc.org/news/6-ways-you-can-support-palestinians-gaza [5] https://www.pcrf.net/information-you-should-know/how-to-help-palestine.html

i asked it :how to build keffiyeh factory ?

[sequoyastrategies]

Expert Government Consulting Firm

Discover an expert government consulting firm providing strategic advisory services to federal and state agencies. Our services include policy analysis, regulatory compliance, and program management. Visit Sequoya Strategies to learn more about our comprehensive solutions for government entities.

[girlactionfigure]

🟪 STRIKE & DEAL UPDATES - Monday morning, events from Israel

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

▪️ARAB IMPRESSION.. "The Israeli enemy is exhausted and its military leadership is begging for a solution despite all the threats to expand the war on the northern front with Lebanon."

▪️STRIKE UPDATES..

.. The Legal Adviser to the Government instructed the Attorney's Office to contact the Labor Court with a request that it issue injunctions for the Histadrut strike.

.. This morning at 10:30 a hearing at the Labor Court. The request for a restraining order was submitted by the Bereaved Families' Heroes Forum.

.. The State to the High Court: According to the position of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, the announced strike is political and was announced against the law. Requesting a temporary order in ex parte status.

.. Hearing postponed until 12:00 by the court.

.. Despite the position of the attorney general that the strike is political and illegal, the workers' committee of the attorney general’s office continues to shut down the office.

.. The Chairman of the Airports Authority Workers' Committee, Pinchas Idan, is in danger of being removed from the Likud, in light of his position aligning with Def. Min. Galant.

.. Jerusalem light rail closed until 12:00.

.. Mayor of Kiryat Shmona: “When we asked for a strike to speed up the return home (for those evacuated from the north), you said, "I don't want to involve the Histadrut in politics."

.. Histadrut official: They are considering continuing the strike tomorrow as well.

🔶DEAL NEWS.. Hamas leader Sinwar's deputy, Khalil al-Hiya, who is in charge of negotiations in Hamas - “As long as the Palestinian prisoners are not released, as long as the war does not stop, as long as the army does not withdraw from the Strip and especially from Netzarim and Philadelphi - there will be no agreement.  There is no real negotiation. In the last two weeks, they are just grinding water.

We showed great flexibility - instead of our demand for the release of 500 Palestinian prisoners for each male and female soldier and 250 Palestinian prisoners for each civilian, we agreed to drop to 50 prisoners for each female soldier and 30 prisoners for each civilian.

A permanent ceasefire is a condition for the deal.”

.. AMERICANS SAY.. The Biden administration is preparing a new and final proposal to end the war in Gaza.

.. Official Russian media: Russia is investing efforts to bring about the release of Alexander (Sasha) Trufanov, who is kidnapped in Gaza.

🔴TERROR ATTEMPT - CAR BOMB - ATERET.. (Israeli town in Samaria, 10 km east of Modi’in) A car bomb was neutralized at the entrance to the town of Ateret in Binyamin. There are no casualties. Binyamin connector road is closed to traffic.  Two large natrual-gas tanks were found connected to a detonator.

♦️JENIN.. The IDF says it carried out a drone strike against a group of Arabs hurling explosive devices at troops during the ongoing operation in Jenin.

⭕No rocket or suicide drone attacks overnight.  Analysts say they don’t want to interrupt the strikes (yes, this is real - they watch the Israeli news and plan the impact of their actions).

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

House Republicans are working on new legislation to prevent foreign nationals from influencing America’s political process, Axios has learned.

Why It Matters: The last two presidential elections have been colored by allegations that foreign influence helped the GOP.

• Now House Republicans are trying to flip to script and draw attention to foreign donations to Democrat-aligned and progressive nonprofit organizations.

• Non-U.S. citizens can’t contribute to candidates, campaigns, or super PACs, but they can give to 501(c)(4) organizations, which are tax-exempt groups that can engage in general issue advocacy, and support state ballot initiatives.

Driving The News: Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) chair of the House Administration Committee, is introducing legislation to ban such groups from contributing to political committees for four years if they accept foreign donations. He also wants to bar foreign nationals from giving to state ballot initiatives.

• “American elections are for American citizens,” Steil told Axios, ahead of a hearing his committee is holding in Atlanta today on election integrity. “Yet foreign nationals still find ways to influence American elections.”

• “The American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act will close loopholes that foreign nationals are exploiting to funnel money to super PACs or ballot initiatives,” he said.

• His hearing will draw on a new report from a conservative group, the Americans for Public Trust, which tries to show how Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire, has influenced U.S. elections and policy through two nonprofits he controls: The Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund.

• “It’s time for Congress to close the foreign influence loophole that allows foreign dark money to flood the American electoral and political system," said Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust.

The Other Side: "The Berger Action Fund does not support or oppose political candidates or parties, or otherwise engage in political campaigns," said Marneé Banks, a spokesperson for the Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund.

• "Berger complies with all rules governing its activities and has established strict policies prohibiting funding from being used for get-out-the-vote or voter registration," she said.

• "We also support increasing transparency and accountability in our campaign finance system through the DISCLOSE Act."

The Big Picture: The combination of artificial intelligence, social media and unregulated spending will make the 2024 presidential election vulnerable to foreign interference on behalf of both parties.

• Malicious foreign actors, including Russia’s Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, have boasted about how they ran influence campaigns in America during the last presidential campaign — and plan to do it again.

• Meanwhile, big tech companies are relaxing some of their policies designed to curb misinformation around COVID-19 and the 2020 election, making 2024 more of a free-for-all on social media.

• State and local election officials can work to safeguard the voting process, but in a free and open society it’s close to impossible to prevent foreign actors from trying to persuade Americans via open — or clandestine — influence campaigns.

Zoom In: Conservative groups are zeroing in on Wyss as a poster child for how wealthy foreign billionaires can influence U.S. elections, alleging that he has pumped $475 million into the U.S. political system.

• In 2021 alone, his Berger Action Fund gave some $72 million to a dozen different nonprofit organizations, including the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which advocates for progressive causes, according to the Associated Press and tax filings.

• Those 501(c)(4) nonprofits, like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, can give directly to superPACs that support the Democratic agenda, the New York Times has reported.

• "The problem is that c4's are a bit of a black box when it comes to campaign finance laws," said Saurav Ghosh, the director of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based nonpartisan watchdog group.

Flashback: Republicans and Democrats have been hit with big fines for accepting foreign money.

• Last year the Federal Election Commission fined Barry Zekelman, a Canadian billionaire, $975,000 for steering some $1.75 million to a pro-Trump super PAC in 2018.

• In 2019, the FEC issued $940,000 in fines to the super PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential bid and a Chinese-owned corporation that made illegal donations to it.

• In 2002, the FEC imposed $719,000 in fines in response to a 1996 Democratic Party fundraising scandal involving donations from China, Korea and other foreign sources.

[the-world-annealing]

Most people believe the things that most people believe

The Hugo debacle resulted from the choices of Americans: that much should be clear. There was no heavy Chinese jackboot pressing on the back of anyone's throat. But I think that boiling their actions down to "using the excuse of censorship to pre-ban works they did not like" wrongly casts this as a sort of deliberate, manipulative act.

Nearly all Westerners think China is remarkably oppressive: those who do not tend to be deeply involved in left-wing politics or have some kind of special connection to China. The overwhelming masses here are not doublethinking, they're not saying words they don't mean: they believe it. So why is it so hard to grasp that a handful of random Americans would believe that an unaltered slate would get censored?

Like, read those emails, the actual document, not the one-line summary given by a snarky tumblr post. Do they scream "all this talk of censorship and all these instructions to investigate specific political topics is a sham, all I need is a flimsy pretext to get rid of the authors I've already decided I'll ban"? Or might these people have different beliefs about the world than you? Might they genuinely think it is best for them to self-censor?

The decision of the Hugo committee was without doubt craven, nontransparent, and unprincipled. If the board's belief that they were simply pre-empting inevitable censorship was incorrect, it was additionally pointless and somewhat racist. But the idea that it was manipulative, that the committee knew they could submit any slate they wanted and chose to disqualify nominees anyway, that idea gets asserted with a lot of confidence for something that seems really unlikely to me!

[contemplatingoutlander]

This is a gift🎁link so anyone can read the entire NY Times article, even if they don' subscribe to the Times.

Jamelle Bouie does another excellent job of looking at current events through the perspective of American history. In this column, he compares the current Roberts Court with the infamous late 1850s/ early 1860s Taney Court--the Court that lost all credibility with its Dred Scott decision. Below are a few excerpts.

If the chief currency of the Supreme Court is its legitimacy as an institution, then you can say with confidence that its account is as close to empty as it has been for a very long time. Since the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization nearly two years ago, its general approval with the public has taken a plunge. [...] In the latest 538 average, just over 52 percent of Americans disapproved of the Supreme Court, and around 40 percent approved. [...] At the risk of sounding a little dramatic, you can draw a useful comparison between the Supreme Court’s current political position and the one it held on the eve of the 1860 presidential election. [color emphasis added]

[See more below the cut.]

NOTE: Remember that back in the 1850s/1860s the Democrats were the party that supported slavery. The Democrats and Republicans switched positions on civil rights in the late 20th century.

It was not just the ruling itself that drove the ferocious opposition to the [Taney] Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which overturned the Missouri Compromise and wrote Black Americans out of the national community; it was the political entanglement of the Taney court with the slaveholding interests of the antebellum Democratic Party. [...] Five of the justices were appointed by slave owners. At the time of the ruling, four of the justices were slave owners. And the chief justice, Roger Taney, was a strong Democratic partisan who was in close communication with James Buchanan, the incoming Democratic president, in the weeks before he issued the court’s ruling in 1857. Buchanan, in fact, had written to some of the justices urging them to issue a broad and comprehensive ruling that would settle the legal status of all Black Americans. The Supreme Court, critics of the ruling said, was not trying to faithfully interpret the Constitution as much as it was acting on behalf of the so-called Slave Power, an alleged conspiracy of interests determined to take slavery national. The court, wrote a committee of the New York State Assembly in its report on the Dred Scott decision, was determined to “bring slavery within our borders, against our will, with all its unhallowed, demoralizing and blighted influences.” The Supreme Court did not have the political legitimacy to issue a ruling as broad and potentially far-reaching as Dred Scott, and the result was to mobilize a large segment of the public against the court. Abraham Lincoln spoke for many in his first inaugural address when he took aim at the pretense of the Taney court to decide for the nation: “The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.” [color/ emphasis added]

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