#Lawrence tribe

[willpollock]

Your assumptions about 9/11 attacks are about to turn on a dime [BLOG SERIES]

"a new filing in a lawsuit brought by families of 9/11 victims against Saudi Arabia alleges that al-Qaeda had significant, indeed decisive, state support for its attacks" https://t.co/1OPAtmvxZg pic.twitter.com/uEaA6PSYbn — Will's Media Reform School #DoBetter ⚖️ 🌻 (@bywillpollock) May 26, 2024 This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog series, exclusively on CrankyYank.com Conventional wisdom is rarely…

[garudabluffs]

Harvard Law scholar: There is no ‘good reason for’ the Supreme Court to review Trump’s immunity case

Feb 12, 2024 #Trump#Politics#SupremeCourt President Biden and his campaign are fighting back against claims made about his mental fitness in Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report, and former President Donald is facing a gauntlet of court hearings and decisions in the coming weeks. Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe joins Andrea Mitchell to discuss. “Donald Trump has another 11 hours within which to seek a stay of the decision of the DC Circuit, the unanimous decision, rejecting his extraordinary, extravagant and unprecedented claim of immunity. I don't expect that the US Supreme Court will grant his stay,” Tribe tells Andrea. “There's really no basis for it. It's simply a delaying tactic. And I also don't think there's a good reason for the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review of the case.”

[arlengrossman]

14th Amendment: Trump Disqualified!

By Arlen Grossman Keith Olbermann explains (in the first 21minutes) how the 14th Amendment automatically disqualifies Donald Trump from running for President. The case is strong. Here is that section of the amendment: Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,…

[ausetkmt]

The next two years are likely to see a test of what may turn out to be the most legally consequential recommendation—other than the suggestion of criminal charges—made by the January 6 committee in its final report. Namely, the committee’s view that

“those who took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and then, on January 6th, engaged in insurrection can appropriately be disqualified and barred from holding government office…pursuant to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

While the committee addressed congressional vehicles for enforcing that constitutional provision at the federal level, there are also existing provisions and processes to do so on a state-by-state basis. Those vehicles include states’ quo warranto laws. In this essay and our accompanying survey of those laws, we outline their applicability in all 50 states and four additional jurisdictions.

We come to this topic just over two years after a violent mob, alongside organized militia groups, stormed the Capitol building, the seat of American government. They disrupted the January 6 congressional certification of presidential electoral votes with the aim to overturn the 2020 presidential election. As a result, various institutions—from the Justice Department to Congress to civil society organizations—have been holding actors of all levels of culpability to account for the assault on our democracy. Over 900 individuals have been charged by the Justice Department in connection with the attack on the Capitol. Federal prosecutors have also secured historic, back-to-back seditious conspiracy convictions against leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers militia for helping foment the insurrection. And in December, the House January 6 select committee culminated their months-long investigation and series of public hearings by issuing several criminal referrals to the Justice Department against former President Donald Trump and some of his closest associates based on their involvement in different parts of the multi-prong effort to overturn the election.

But criminal prosecution is not the only means of January 6 accountability.

Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment can also serve that general purpose. Section 3 provides that no person shall hold any state or federal office “who[] having previously taken an oath…shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion…or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” In an initial detailed report published at the Project on Government Oversight, we examined the different avenues for modern-day enforcement of Section 3 with an eye toward holding accountable those who participated in the January 6 attack and in the events that precipitated it. As we discussed in that earlier analysis and an accompanying essay at Just Security, one of the main enforcement mechanisms for a Section 3 disqualification is a quo warranto lawsuit. (Quo warranto is Latin for “by what warrant.”) Through this type of lawsuit, an individual’s right to hold public office can be challenged.

Our purpose is to provide a comprehensive current survey of the nation’s quo warranto laws, and to build on the recent successful use of the doctrine. Despite that fact, the doctrine has been recently used to litigate against a public official who participated in the attack on the Capitol and resulted in his being removed from office. In that landmark ruling last fall, a New Mexico judge removed a state county commissioner from office under Section 3 for his participation in the January 6 attack. Since then, the House select committee in its final report has issued a recommendation that Section 3 disqualification actions be brought against other public officials who engaged in insurrection.

As a continuation of our previous analysis and the work of the House committee, we surveyed the quo warranto procedures in 55 different jurisdictions—the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and nationally, including some limited instances of federal common law. We did so to map the potential for future uses of quo warranto lawsuits to bar public officials from office. Our analysis of these procedures demonstrates that quo warranto lawsuits can be used by a variety of stakeholders—from private parties such as individual citizens to public entities such as state attorneys general, county district attorneys, municipal or county governments, and even U.S. attorneys. What’s more, it shows that quo warranto lawsuits are an accountability tool that is not only widely accessible but also practically meaningful. Such actions hold the potential to disqualify sitting public officials who have violated their oath by engaging in insurrectionist activity. In that way, quo warranto lawsuits can serve as a powerful means of furthering legal accountability against some of the highest-ranking individuals who participated or aided in the assault on January 6.

Our analysis interprets the wide array of state and territorial laws that establish the procedural framework for quo warranto actions by categorizing them according to how they empower different parties, both in bringing actions and in managing them. In some jurisdictions, private parties can supply the government with information to serve as the basis of the government’s quo warranto complaint against a public official. These private parties are often referred to as “relators.” In Texas, for example, prosecuting attorneys may file a motion “at the request of an individual relator.” While such an action is not technically a private action, some jurisdictions also allow relators to manage a case pursuant to the government’s oversight. For instance, Missouri law empowers relators to control a case after obtaining leave from the prosecuting attorney.

In other jurisdictions, private parties can themselves file quo warranto lawsuits against public officials without governmental permission. Some jurisdictions, such as Connecticut, allow parties to do so in their own name. In others like North Carolina, however, the government must be the named party. In the latter scenario, the private party, not the government, manages the case; and, indeed, the government possesses no management authority. For example, should the prosecuting attorney decline to bring a quo warranto case in New Mexico, the relator is afforded full control of the suit despite the government being the named party. We identify both these types of quo warranto procedures as private actions, since both enable private parties to bring the suit.

Some jurisdictions have similarly codified which public authorities may initiate a quo warranto lawsuit. Unlike the regulations that empower private relators to issue broader complaints, many regions specify which authorities can litigate against particular officeholders. For example, in Arkansas, prosecuting attorneys may bring quo warranto suits against county officials, while the state’s attorney general handles cases against all other officers. Other jurisdictions such as Massachusetts and New York place the onus entirely on the attorney general, while others task other officials such as county or U.S. attorneys with bringing quo warranto suits.

Beyond empowering specific parties, quo warranto laws also impose other and highly varied procedures in these kinds of lawsuits. In New Jersey, for example, the attorney general carries the burden of proof. But in Hawaii, the respondent—that is, the public official whose conduct is in question—bears the burden of proof in lawsuits initiated by the attorney general. Other laws establish a duty upon public officials, usually either the local or state prosecutor, to bring a quo warranto action when, as in Arizona, for example, “they have reason to believe there is a cause.” California, Idaho, and Montana, to name a few, impose such a duty upon prosecutors.

Disqualification actions can be brought against public officials who have violated their oath of office by engaging in insurrection or by giving aid or comfort to insurrectionists. The House select committee recognized that in their final recommendations. Our comprehensive survey of quo warranto procedures is intended to serve as a guide to the various private and public stakeholders empowered by state and territorial law to file quo warranto lawsuits so they can continue the House committee’s work—holding public officials whom voters have entrusted to lead their government accountable for their wrongdoing.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Does anyone know that fairy tale where a woman keeps remaking her husband out of animal fat every time he dies? I think it’s from a far northern tribe in North America or Asia but I can’t for the life of me remember which one and Google isn’t helping any

My professor read it out loud to my fairy tale class last year and I never wrote down what book he was reading it out of and it’s been bugging me.

If I remember correctly she made him come back to life by rubbing her genitals on him and there was a several months long mourning period involved every time he died

Google keeps bringing up unhelpful websites no matter what combination of words I put in, unfortunately. I’m usually pretty good at using Google so my last resort is asking y’all. If you know what I’m talking about and have a lead about it I’d really appreciate it.

Edit: It has been found! Blubber Boy from a kayak full of ghosts: eskimo tales gathered and retold by Lawrence Millman

[charmwitch]

Hello!!

WHAT IS SOLSTORIA?

If you're here thanks for taking a look!! I make a webcomic called Solstoria, it's about a pair of siblings that get thrown into the politics of the natural, magical world they live in and how people are affected by their environment!!

Lawrence, the eldest sibling, becomes possessed by the prince of crows after he attempts to feast on a soul that VERY much belongs to his sister. But he thwarts that, because he loves his sister. He's also a city-going kid who feels stressed out about societal pressures and wishes to make the world better for his family!!

Also he's kind of a bird most of the time!

Samantha, the said sister and actual main character of the story, decides to become a knight so she can be strong enough and figure out how to save her brother! She's also gifted with the ability to break through magical illusions and eventually encounters (what she considers) princesses and witches (actual ones) on her journey to grow up and, well, bring her brother home.

Along the way they meet a lot of different people! From a flower knight hellbent on saving her kingdom from a proposed Fairy Tale Prophecy to a sacred moon tribe navigating a new society in order to receive life-saving care. There's a lot of little stories here and there!!

I recently started updating again after being burnt out for a long time, so unfortunately the art style is in a constant state of change, but that's how I like it!!

Thank you for reading!!!

[magnetothemagnificent]

One of the things I really love about Judaism is how we put stones on our loved ones graves. I love that I can have a permanent way of saying I love you and you haven’t been forgotten. Flowers are beautiful but it’s no permanent. I love that I can go to a cemetery and see who’s visited often just by how many stones that are there. I think it’s very beautiful

Yeah, it's really beautiful. Flowers wilt and decay, but stones are forever.

A few years ago my family and I went on a roadtrip of the American Southwest (our destination was the Grand Canyon, but we made a lot of sightseeing stops along the way and back). We stopped at Tombstone, because my dad is a huge fan of Western films, and I had done some research beforehand and learned there was a historic Jewish cemetery there. Of course, we wanted to pay our respects, but most of the staff there had no idea what we were talking about when we asked about the Jewish cemetery. Finally, someone was able to tell us that it was off of an overgrown path off the main cemetery. We found the Jewish cemetery, and learned that the cemetery had been destroyed years ago, with the walls and tombs taken to build houses. It was largely forgotten for many years, until Lawrence Huerta, a member of the Yaqui tribe, realized its significance in around the 1970s-80s and notified the nearby Jewish community in Arizona. The Yaqui offered their solidarity with the Jewish community, and helped to build a memorial on the site of the cemetary. The graves had long been destroyed, so no one really knows how many people are buried there, and according to Jewish law no one wants to excavate it, because it's not necessary knowledge. Now, a memorial stands there, and it's mostly a very large mound of stones with a plaque. My family and I prayed there and left more stones.

This is a photo I took of it. We didn't go any closer, because we didn't want to accidentally step over any graves. But we left lots of stones on the ruins of the walls.

Anyway, it really moved me to see this incredible memorial and to have the oppurtunity to pay my respects to those forgotten.

Stones are forever.

[id in alt text]

[rottencorpse-png]

I was going to write something here but i forgot 💀

Lawrence Oleander belongs to @gatobob

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Why can't other newspapers do this?

* * * *

Don't give permission to others to demotivate or mislead you!

September 18, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Remain steadfast, dear readers! I received a dozen(-ish) emails today expressing worry about a report from a respected polling organization claiming that “the presidential race is tightening.” I also received a similar number of emails touting reports from a respected polling firm showing VP Harris expanding her post-debate lead to a number that is “larger than the margin of error.”

Here’s the deal: It doesn’t matter which of the above polling narratives is true. Indeed, both could be correct or both could be wrong. Regardless of what the polls show—good or bad—you should not change anything that you plan to do in the next 50 days. We are stuck in a noisy, volatile information environment that is being actively manipulated by the MAGA disinformation machine and Russia. See Axios, Russia amplifies disinformation campaigns against Harris-Walz campaign, Microsoft warns.

Per Axios,

Russia is now throwing all of its disinformation resources behind operations designed to undermine the Harris-Walz campaign, according to a Microsoft report released Tuesday.

[And] the Justice Department exposed a $10 million scheme earlier this month in which employees of a Russian state media network infiltrated a U.S. company to spread Russian propaganda.

Let’s be clear: You are the target of the disinformation being peddled by the GOP and Russia. Their goal is to demotivate you. Do not give them permission to do so!

So, if you have mistakenly over-invested in the polls, knock it off! (And I mean that in the nicest way possible!) It is completely understandable and perfectly human to seek reassurance from polls. No one wants a repeat of the nasty surprise in 2016. But the bad guys have figured out our need for positive feedback and weaponized it against us. They are con men, and we are the mark.

Instead of looking to the media for reassurance, believe your own eyes and ears. You can see the surge in enthusiasm, you know that the number of volunteers at your grassroots organization has increased, and you have been surprised by people in your life who are planning to vote for the first time or will vote for Kamala Harris after voting for Trump in 2016 or 2020. That information is anecdotal, but it is not filtered or manipulated to mislead you.

Of course, we shouldn’t delude ourselves. We must recognize that remaining in touch with real news is important. The question is, how do we stay current without subjecting ourselves to manipulation?

I attended a Swing Left San Gabriel Valley meeting over the weekend where Jessica Craven and I spoke to the grassroots volunteers. One audience member asked which news sources we trust. Our combined answers included the following:

Heather Cox Richardson | Substack

Jessica Craven | Substack

Simon Rosenberg | Substack

Jay Kuo | Substack

Lucian K. Truscott IV | Substack

Joyce Vance | Substack

Judd Legum | Substack

Lawrence O’Donnell | MSNBC

Josh Marshall | Talking Points Memo

The Guardian (for general news but especially commentary by Rebecca Solnit)

Of course, I read dozens of other sources to prepare this newsletter, but the above are my “go to” sources for fair reporting on the news. On legal matters, I rely on Laurence Tribe, Mark Joseph Stern, Ian Millhiser, and Dahlia Lithwick. I also rely on Aaron Rupar on Twitter (@atrupar) and his Substack, Public Notice, to provide real-time, unvarnished tracking of statements by Trump, which are often sane-washed by major media.

I use the above sources to give me an objective view of the news—which I then employ as a lens when I read other sources. If your favorite source is not listed above, please do not take offense! If you have identified a source you trust, reward them with your support.

It is going to be seven long weeks until Election Day. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated by the news. Instead, make the news by motivating new and existing voters to show up on Election Day. The antidote to anxiety is action. And there is plenty to do!

Kamala Harris’s measured interview with National Association of Black Journalists

Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sat for interviews on Tuesday. The interviews were, as expected, windows into competing versions of America under the respective candidates. Kamala Harris’s responses were measured, thoughtful, and linear. The media is still trying to decipher what Trump said or meant on several topics.

But . . . Kamala Harris received relatively little notice in the media for her interview, despite the drumbeat of demands that she sit for more interviews. The New York Times complained that her answers “often echoed her stump speech”—as if consistency and discipline in messaging is a bad thing. The Times instead gave top billing (in two articles) to Trump’s unpredictable and baseless promises in his appearance in Flint Michigan. Michael Gold of the NYTimes wrote,

[Trump] made grand promises to restore auto-making jobs to the state, the heart of the American auto industry, as he gave long-winded, often meandering responses to only a few questions.

“Meandering” is an understatement. “Incomprehensible” and “bonkers” are more descriptive.

The complete video of Kamala Harris’s interview is here: PBS Newshour, Harris participates in National Association of Black Journalists event in Philadelphia. If you don’t have time to watch the entire 45-minute interview, I recommend watching two answers to get a flavor of how well the VP conducted hereself.

In this segment, she responds to the efforts to incite racial hatred toward Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. See Springfield: It's a crying shame . . . This answer is notable for many reasons, including the fact that Kamala Harris interrupted the interviewer, stopped herself, apologized, and invited the interviewer to finish her question.

In a second segment worth watching, she answers a more challenging question (in tone and substance) about the war in Gaza and the path to peace: Question on Gaza War.

Trump, on the other hand, gave a series of non-sensical answers in his town hall in Flint, Michigan, any one of which would have resulted in howls from the major media if delivered by Kamala Harris. For example,

When asked about the biggest threat to auto manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Trump responded that the biggest threat to auto jobs was “nuclear weapons.” On the one hand, Trump isn’t wrong; on the other hand, “nuclear weapons” are the biggest threat to everything on earth, so the answer was not specific to the question about auto manufacturing jobs.

When asked how he would decrease the cost of groceries, Trump descended into a rant about windmills. He got there by promising that he would reduce the price of groceries by cutting energy costs by 50% in the first year of his term as president. Of course, presidents have virtually no power to regulate energy prices, which are set by global market conditions. That is the type of answer that the NYTimes described as “meandering” when the correct description was “bonkers.”

Trump said that global warming would be good for Michigan because people in that state would have “more beachfront property.” Trump meant his comment to be a joke, showing that he has no conception of how global warming threatens the United States.

Trump said that the US could become energy self-sufficient because the US has “Bagram” in Alaska, which he claimed “is bigger than Saudi Arabia.” Bagram was a US military airbase in Afghanistan and has no connection to Alaska or oil production.

Most of Trump's other remarks were impossible to follow and often ended by discussing a subject far afield from the question. It was a performance indicative ongoing mental decline. No wonder he is afraid to debate Kamala Harris a second time!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[kp777]

By Ralph Nader

Common Dreams

July 9, 2024

The highest court in the land has hijacked our constitution and noble ideals and entrenched presidential immunities beyond the power of Congress to change. If that's not a big deal or impeachable offense, what is?

The six “corporate state” U.S. Supreme Court Justices, occupying unaccountable lifetime unelected positions, handed over dictatorial power for presidents and corporations that disassembled our Founders’ Constitution and the centerpiece of the American Revolution. In one week!

Led by the notorious Trump v. United States case these interwoven and dictatorial commands will live in infamy unless reversed or over-ridden by a constitutional amendment.

The paramount goal of our Revolution, starting with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, was to end King George III’s iron rule over the American colonies and vaccinate the country against another “King George.”

Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in Trump v. United States (a 6 to 3 decision) undid the American Revolution. He decreed that presidents are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for their core official acts (including starting wars of aggression or defying scores of Congressional subpoenas), “presumptively immune” for all other acts to be defeated by an infinitely opaque legal standard of “we’ll know it when we see it.”

Roberts refrained from providing a single hypothetical to illustrate his categories, except all exchanges with and orders to the Justice Department are immune, for instance, bribing the Attorney General to indict a political opponent on trumped up charges. Sonia Sotomayor’s powerful dissent stepped into the breach.

She asserted without dispute from Roberts that the majority had invented a “law-free zone” entrusting the president with a “loaded weapon” for future occupants of the White House to brandish. Specifically, “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune, immune, immune.” She added that never in U.S. history have presidents had more confidence that they would be immune from prosecution for crimes of any sort.

“Moving forward, all former presidents will be cloaked in such immunity,” she wrote. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide by will not provide a backstop.”

In short, Roberts and his clique of five other authoritarians have re-installed the doctrine of “The King Can Do No Wrong,” that was total ANATHEMA TO OUR FOUNDERS AND FRAMERS OF OUR CONSTITUTION.

Constitutional law specialist, Bruce Fein, declared that Roberts’ decision itself was unconstitutional, citing provisions in the Constitution including Article 2, section 3 the “Take care” clause that the laws be faithfully executed.” In a long incisive op-ed in the New York Times, on July 2, 2024, leading constitutional law scholar Harvard Professor Lawrence Tribe called the ruling “OUTRAGEOUS.”

If asked, millions of Americans might be responding to my alarm with the words “Relax Ralph, it’s obvious that presidents have always been ‘above the law’ and that they do whatever they want and get away with it.” A few might even cite the brazen declaration in July 2019 by then-President Donald Trump: “Then I have Article II, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” He did just that and is now a very successful fugitive from justice in twin federal criminal cases and a state criminal case – all following indictments – which have faltered due to a legal system built for delay after delay for rich defendants paying rich attorneys.

Trump while president even got away with defying over 125 congressional subpoenas including one by the Jan 6th House Select Committee. His colossal record of immunity is sui generis. His special assistant Peter Navarro defied one congressional subpoena and is serving several months in prison.

People, you are correct that the presidency has been practicing daily lawlessness against our Constitution, federal statutes, and international treaties the U.S. signed and often initiated, turning the White House into an ongoing crime scene – whether Democratic or Republican incumbents. (See, President Trump’s staggering record of uncharged criminal misconduct by Conor Shaw, citizensforethics.org).

So, what’s the big deal? The highest court in the land has hijacked our constitution and noble ideals and entrenched presidential immunities beyond the power of Congress to change. That’s the big deal. Trump, who chose three of the sitting Supreme Court Justices, is delighting in disbelief over his good fortune.

The cunning, devious Supreme Court majority kept delaying its decision to preclude any Trump trial before the November 2024 presidential election. Last year, the Court turned down a petition by Special Counsel Jack Smith for an expedited decision by leapfrogging the court of appeals since all the lower courts had decided no immunity with no conflicting precedents. Then on February 28, 2024, the Supreme Court decided to take the Trump appeal, after the Court of Appeals weighed in, and waited until the last day of this session, July 1, 2024, to issue its opinion. It then remanded the case to the federal district court to divine like Joseph interpreting Pharoah’s dreams, whether the government could defeat Trump’s presumptively immune actions to void President Joe Biden’s election. If Trump loses, another round of immediate appeals will follow while trial proceedings are frozen until the Supreme Court makes a final decision a year or so down the road. Get the strategy?

By contrast, prior Supreme Courts decided the constitutional issues of Bush v. Gore in 48 hours, the Nixon Tapes case in two weeks and the Pentagon Papers case in four days. The Court knows how to gallop instead of walk if it wants to.

Additional wreckage by the Court in its last week before a long summer vacation included:

The six justices fortified a previous decision dramatically narrowing federal bribery laws by further restricting the crime to exclude a request for a legislator to do something and then belatedly giving him/her money or property after the request is honored. The court labelled the latter a “gratuity” and okay!!

The Court overturned the Chevron doctrine where the courts could defer to the expertise of federal regulatory agencies like the EPA and the FDA. The six justices said that the courts can take charge and decide these cases because the agencies were acting on Congress’s vague legislative authority. The courts don’t have anywhere near the budgets, staff and expertise necessary to interpret hyper-technical regulatory statutes. What the Supreme Court has done is to provide an open invitation for corporate lawyers to so delay agency actions as to diminish them with settlements that are little more than exhortations.

The six Justices prohibited the SEC’s administrative law judges from fining a defendant after due process in a statutory fraud case giving the latter a right to a jury trial if the SEC charges are analogous to common law fraud. This gives hordes of corporate lawyers the leverage to coerce sweetheart settlements with the SEC or have it overwhelmed with expensive, budget-draining trials.

Adding to their previous years of straitjacketing of the EPA’s life-preserving missions, the six Justices gutted the Clean Air Act’s “Good Neighbor Provision” such as actions prohibiting states from allowing pollution to stream into sister states.

The losers here are all the people who want clean air, water and soil, who want corrupt politicians and corporate crooks held accountable, and who, most definitely, do not want a president to be a King above the law, brandishing immense powers of illegal violence abroad and at home, secrecy, and destruction of the people’s right to freedom, justice, health, safety and economic well-being. Ordered by lifetime justices who have no robes.

Don’t you think impeachment and a constitutional amendment should be on the table?

[blackswaneuroparedux]

A wonderful person - not very like a woman, you know?

T.E. Lawrence on his friend Gertrude Bell

In many ways the life of T.E.arc Lawrence and Gertrude Bell was similar and overlapped in many ways. Two remarkable persons who represented the height of the British Empire heroism.

Lawrence is undoubtedly the more famous of the pair, branded in Orientalist film history by Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, headdress and all. But historians and contemporaries would arguably say, rightly in my opinion, that Bell’s influence on the Middle east region may have outweighed that of her overly confident friend and colleague, T.E. Lawrence. The First World War made Gertrude Bell into the icon she was to become after her death.

At the same time the First World War and its aftermath are a story of disappointment and depression for Gertrude Bell. Early on, she sees the war as the “end of the order we’re accustomed to” - a Whiggish order in which she had believed that British power could be exercised for good; she witnesses and fears the general abandonment of the belief that “there’s room enough in the sun” for everyone. Scales fell from her eyes earlier for her than for others of her class charged with redrawing the map of the Middle East and especially the fate of the Arabs.

Just before the installation of Prince Feisal, the not-yet-Iraqi tribes rebel. The colonial administration wants to adopt the position vacated by the Ottomans and demands of each tribe a poll tax. These are the the tribes that had been promised sovereignty. That is why they’d fought the Ottomans and sided with the allies: to be rid of their masters, not to swap them for some new ones. When the tax goes unpaid, the aerial bombardment of villages starts.

Gertrude Bell writes home, distraught, already blaming the curse it is that oil has been discovered in this land. Churchill had seen from the start of the war that oil independence for the empire would be the great strategic prize of the war as well as a tactical military requirement. There was never anything innocent in the War Office’s late recruitment of Bell to the Cairo office to work alongside T.E. Lawrence (who, in what is presumably for him the highest of compliments, writes of her that she is “not very like a woman”).

As the war and the aftermath of the Paris Peace 1919 gives way to the realpolitik of the grab for oil-rich Ottoman lands in the 1920s, she tries to warn that “no people likes permanently to be governed by another”.

Dutifully, she draws the boundaries of the new Kingdom of Iraq to balance Sunni and Shia numbers – “to avoid a theocratic state”. The Cairo Conference in 1921 set out to achieve this end and resulted in Feisal being given a Kingdom in Iraq and his brother the throne of neighboring Transjordan.

However in the end, she concludes that “making kings is too great a strain” because, we feel, she knows that Britain’s promises of sovereignty will be empty.

The talent and sympathy of the likes of Gertrude Bell don’t count for much against the onward march of power and the interests of those who wield it.

[rebelontherocks]

i think what a lot of people need to understand about dune is that frank herbert watched lawrence of arabia which is a movie based on the real life account of a real man who fought alongside arab tribes and peoples in a revolt against the ottoman empire. It's also a scathing takedown of the white saviour, just a clinical excision of why exactly there's no such thing. It paints a vivid picture of british imperialism and why 'good men' working from within said empire can do fuck all to help liberate anyone. it's also a really heartbreaking gay love story, and it gave the world one of the greatest romantic heroes in Sherif Ali.

Frank Herbert saw all that and decided, but what if it was homophobic instead, and there was desert cocaine and worms, and the white saviour had superpowers as a result of eugenics.

[equatorjournal]

Sinar Surya, Indonesia. "In 1973, Lawrence and Lorne Blair traveled through the most remote, exotic and dangerous places on earth: the islands of Indonesia-nearly 14,000 of them, scattered over one million square miles of ocean. Amid lush tropical forests and unimaginable natural beauty, the brothers hoped to capture on film and in words the ways, beliefs and wisdom of the primitive people who lived there. Their incredible odyssey began with a 2,500-mile voyage, guided by the notorious Bugi pirates, through the Spice Islands in search of the Greater Bird of Paradise. An entire decade of exploration followed, during which the brothers dwelt naked among the Asmat cannibal tribe of West New Guinea; sought spiritual mysteries in the paradise of Bali: encountered man-eating Komodo dragons; mingled with the mystical Toraja tribe who believe their ancestors descended from the sky in starships; and found the elusive Panan Dyaks, the dream- wandering" forest tribe of Borneo who had been thought no longer to exist." From "Ring of fire" by Lawrence Blair, 1988. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmj3msyt9Aq/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[the-art-block]

Seeing your latest art of the nossies in the group new years picture reminded me of Wolf Mother (and her childe) as characters and now I'm DEEPLY interested in them as people and characters! I love their designs, just how much the curse affected them and am interested in how they fit into the Moonrise Nation story. (not that you have to reveal anything, of course!) Just admiring.

You're too sweet! YOU'RE TOO SWEET 🥺

These two have a lot of lore behind them (which I'm sure folks don't mind) so for the sake of brevity I'll try to keep it simple!

The Kindred population in the pre-colonial states was never that big, and it was kept in check by Kindred themselves - because the more of them that existed, the less food there'd be for the whole. These old laws regarding Kindred creation and conduct state that a Sire is responsible for their Childe for their whole unlife, and forbade any Kindred from having more than one living Childe at a time. Wolf Mother, original name lost to time, is a seven century old Nosferatu that was Embraced in the St. Lawrence River Valley for the crime of sabotaging the hunting grounds of another tribe in the locality.

Wolf Son, going by the name Jack Skinner modern-day, was Embraced 600 years ago by Wolf Mother for the crime of banditry. Probably like most Embraces, the relationship between them started out strained and unfriendly. Getting Embraced in the old tribe days was definitely a form of capital punishment and not something anyone really wanted. This of course is doubly true for an Embrace via Nosferatu, and the man that became Wolf Son took a long time to settle into his fate as a hideous living omen. When he did manage to overcome his grief and horror, he became a proper student to Wolf Mother and served alongside her in the assigned role of the Promiskeepers (The colloquial name for the Nos at the time) - which was to safeguard and dispense knowledge from both Kindred and Kine of generations gone. Things like: what to do when the seasons are uncharacteristically unfavorable, how to respond when a certain disease starts spreading, what to do with land that refuses to yield resources, etc. (Nos like Grandma Oginn also used to provide matchmaking services to her local tribes ;D) Additionally, in the old Kindred society, the Promisekeepers were tasked with keeping track of debts and contracts made between Kindred. The Nos of pre-colonial North America (at least on the East Coast) were basically your archivists and judges.

As the modern Moonrise Nation is attempting to reclaim some of the old traditions, both for Kindred and their human relations, Nosferatu who come into the faction are expected to take up this mantle of advisors and story keepers, to learn and preserve history, and be there to aid humans and other vamps alike when they're not sure what to do about a problem. Wolf Mother herself was a bit of an isolated Kindred back in her day, she roamed a huge tract of land and only encountered other undead and humans rarely. Still, she was widely known to be a neutral or friendly presence, and her child inherited the same nomadic lifestyle.

The pair would be separated when the first waves of Sabbat Kindred arrived on the continent on the crossings from Europe. They thought each other dead until very recently.

Wolf Son met with immigrant Camarilla Kindred in the 1700s and would later travel to Europe, where he would be installed as Sheriff over a Midlands Domain for several decades. Modern-day, he has come home to America, and is now serving as an Archon.

Wolf Mother spent most of the last few centuries in torpor near Lake Erie, and in the few years she's been awake again she's been singing into the night in hopes her long-lost Childe might still be around... Poor thing...

You can imagine the eventual reunion between them is gonna be super emotional. Not least of all because the Moonrise Nation is explicitly not joining the Camarilla, and seek to make themselves an independent faction.

I'm sure it's fine 🙃

[deadpresidents]

2023's Best Books

I meant to do this a few days ago so there was more time before the holidays, but here's a quick list of the best books that I read that were released in 2023. Obviously, I didn't read every book that came out this year, and I'm only listing the best books I read that were actually released in the 2023 calendar year.

In my opinion, the two very best books released in 2023 were An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford by Richard Norton Smith (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), and True West: Sam Shepard's Life, Work, and Times by Robert Greenfield (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO).

(The rest of this list is in no particular order)

President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier C.W. Goodyear (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The World: A Family History of Humanity Simon Sebag Montefiore (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

France On Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain Julian Jackson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth Adam Goodheart (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World Mary Beard (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

City of Echoes: A New History of Rome, Its Popes, and Its People Jessica Wärnberg (BOOK | KINDLE)

We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World Alex Rowell (BOOK | KINDLE)

Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses Katie Spalding (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias Kevin Cook (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West Chris Wimmer (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

King: A Life Jonathan Eig (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

LBJ's America: The Life and Legacies of Lyndon Baines Johnson Edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence and Mark K. Updegrove (BOOK | KINDLE)

Who Believes Is Not Alone: My Life Beside Benedict XVI Georg Gänswein with Saverio Gaeta (BOOK | KINDLE)

Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East Uri Kaufman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History Laurence Jurdem (BOOK | KINDLE)

White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America Shelley Fraser Mickle (BOOK | KINDLE)

Romney: A Reckoning McKay Coppins (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics H.W. Brands (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Earth Transformed: An Untold History Peter Frankopan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

LeBron Jeff Benedict (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America Abraham Riesman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House Chris Whipple (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)