Jack Smith has gathered seven categories of new evidence against Donald Trump in connection with Trump’s concealment, theft, and obstruction of Justice relating to the thousands of government records at Mar-A-Lago. MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports.
02 April 23
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In a new book, ‘Am I Pretty When I Fly?,’ the singer-songwriter explains her attraction to visual art — and shares some of her recent works
I drew my way through the torture known as middle school, and then on through high school. First it was five dollars apiece for portraits of Jimmy Dean (my last entrepreneurial venture), then portraits of Albert Einstein and Jawaharlal Nehru for my mom. I even drew every class project my teachers would allow me to: the study of human hair, how I imagined God to look.
Decades later, as an adult, I dabbled more with color. I worked with chalk, crayons, charcoal, pastels, watercolors, markers and colored ink, and I used brushes, fingers, hands, all in my own deliciously undisciplined fashion.
When I was in my 70s, I had a burgeoning — soon to be overwhelming — desire to use “real” paints. I assumed that would mean oils. But a local artist introduced me to acrylics, with which, at the time of this writing, I’ve now had a ten-year affair. I began with collages and worked in my kitchen on heavy, all-purpose art paper until the table was no more than a makeshift studio with no place left to put so much as a coffee mug. I moved myself and my paints into what until then had been an uninsulated pool house.
One day, I decided to paint a portrait. Assuming a portrait would take months to master, I trepidatiously put brush to canvas and found to my delight that the results weren’t half bad. I went on to paint portraits of people who had made social change through nonviolence — Gandhi as a college student, the Dalai Lama as a boy, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Greta Thunberg, and many more. I’ve since had two successful exhibits.
Decades ago, I don’t remember exactly when, I started making drawings upside down. I arrived at the upside-down drawings by chance.
Somewhere in my teenage years, probably out of boredom, I taught myself how to write backward, starting with EINAOJ ZEAB, my new name. I worked my way through the Greek alphabet: AHPLA ATEB, AMMAG, ATLED, and so on.
I still write backward as a form of therapy when I need to get to the root of a blockage or calm the buzzing heat of a panic attack. It’s as though the appropriate wires cross in my brain when I write backward, which allows information otherwise unavailable to surface.
Later, I began drawing with my left hand instead of my right. Like writing backward, using my nondominant hand opened a different compartment in my brain. I discovered that the results were less restrained and more fluid, and therefore more interesting to me. They didn’t look like the objects I was drawing, but it didn’t matter.
The same went for contour drawing, where you’re supposed to keep your eyes on the subject you’re drawing, not what your pencil is doing, checking the results only occasionally — the process has something of a tightrope-walk thrill about it and is fun, so you accept the lopsidedness of the final product.
After years of writing backward and drawing with my left hand, drawing upside down seemed a natural progression. Here is the process that developed:
I start moving my pen or pencil around upside down on the paper — napkin, tablecloth, scrap — as though the drawing is being made for someone sitting opposite me at the table. Sometimes I have an idea of what I want to draw, but often I just let the pen or pencil start swooping around the page. Once I start to see what’s developing, I begin embellishing, often adding randomly the human form, a floating fish, a flower.
Eventually, I turn the drawing right-side-up and see if it needs anything to make it feel complete, in which case I reverse it again and add bits and pieces. Back right-side-up again and the real magic happens: I listen for what the drawing says to me. When a phrase (usually a pun) comes to my mind and resonates, I turn the paper one more time and write the phrase upside down.
For instance, one of my drawings shows an upside-down girl with flowers in a basket. When righted, the images turn out to look more like palm trees. “Day-o, day-ay-ay-o, Daylight come and me wan’ go home” emerges from some other pocket of my brain: By the time I was 15, I had memorized all of Harry Belafonte’s repertoire, and “Day-O” was his best-known hit.
The little elf that was supposed to be dancing turns out to be kicking the girl, and the words “Oh don’t mind him, he’s just my side kick” spring up, and there and then the entire progression happens before I even realize what I’m doing.
I know perfectly well there is a neurological explanation for this whole upside-down method. I’m just not interested. Someone could likely explain why I’m keen on drawing this way, what’s happening during the process, and why the finished piece ends up the way it does. Also not interested.
We don’t need an explanation for every damn thing. There’s a lot to be said for letting go and doing something simply because it feels right.
From “Am I Pretty When I Fly?” by Joan Baez. Copyright 2023 by the author and reprinted with permission of Godine.
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A doctor holds up a Tic-Tac to demonstrate how few cells a 6-week abortion ban is protecting. Rayyvana, Cenk Uygur, and Brett Erlich discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://jezebel.com/anti-obamacare-la... "When a Wyoming judge temporarily blocked an abortion ban last week, she did so on karmically beautiful legal grounds: Republicans hated Obamacare so much that they amended the state constitution more than a decade ago to enshrine the right to make health care decisions. Earlier this month, lawmakers in Wyoming passed a ban on abortion “at all stages of pregnancy except in cases of rape or incest that’s reported to police, or to save a woman’s life,” as well as a separate ban on medication abortion. They also threw into the text that they don’t believe abortion is health care, per the Associated Press and the Casper Star Tribune."
02 April 23
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You’re going to hear these basic criticisms of the charges in the New York investigation – but they don’t stand up to scrutiny
Let me rebut each in turn.
1. It sets a dangerous precedent
Wrong. In order for the justice system to work, there must be trust that the system will not play favorites or ignore the wrongdoing of the powerful.
Donald Trump has done everything possible over the last seven years to destroy that trust for his own political gain.
America never quite recovered from Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon for all crimes he might have committed.
It is true that no former president has ever been indicted, but no former president has done what Donald Trump has done – repeatedly defied laws and disregarded the US constitution.
“No one is above the law” is only true if we make it so. Holding our leaders accountable is vital to maintaining trust in our legal system, and the survival of our democracy itself.
2. The indictment plays into Trump’s claims that he’s the victim of a witch-hunt, and will further rile his core supporters
Irrelevant. Undoubtedly some Trump supporters will be upset by this. The indictment will confirm for them that Trump is not only being prosecuted but also being persecuted.
But Trump has used every move against him so far – whether by the FBI, the justice department, Congress, or even opponents in the Republican party – to claim he’s a victim of a witch-hunt. This indictment is no different.
His entire campaign is based on variations of this same grievance. But in this case, a grand jury found that he broke the law. It’s hard to cast an independent grand jury composed of ordinary people into part of a witch-hunt.
3. This is the weakest of the cases now being prepared against Trump
Yes, but so what? To be sure, paying hush money to cover up something embarrassing during a presidential campaign is not nearly on the same level as asking Georgia’s secretary of state to “come up” with the exact number of votes needed to reverse the outcome of Georgia’s presidential election, or fomenting an attack on the US Capitol.
And it may be true that an allegation like this is usually treated as a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
None of this alters the fact that a grand jury had enough evidence in this case to decide that Trump broke the law. That’s the critical point.
A federal judge can decide whether the case rises to a felony or is more appropriately treated as a misdemeanor. The overriding issue is that no person is above the law, not even a former president.
Indeed, since the basic issue here is one of accountability, this case could ease the way for the other, more serious ones.
Prosecutors in Georgia and Washington won’t have to bear the burden of justifying an action that had never been taken before. Their more serious charges would come to a public that had already adjusted to the phenomenon of Donald Trump being indicted.
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This year, MAGA GOP activists in Georgia attempted to disenfranchise hundreds of students by trying to kick them off the voter rolls. De...
