This time, John Yoo didn’t even get any shit from me about Clarence Thomas, under whom my friend clerked. Clowning Clarence is on sight, as they say in the old neighborhoods. I tend to describe my least favorite Supreme Court Justice as “Clarence Wit’ His Tom-Ass.”
Yet, when the right-leaning UC Berkeley Professor of Law recorded with me and Lev Anderson earlier this week I did not get in a single Thomas zinger. It remains unclear whether this oversight was a function of our overdue conversation’s abundance or the demands of our historical inflection point.
Yoo—a neocon nightmare in the eyes of many—talked to us from Austin, where he is a visiting prof at the University of Texas. Lev was in Portland. I spoke from where I currently type: Beautiful Southern California.
Not-at-all-fun fact about the Congressional 2010 report that found disciplining today’s guest unnecessary, despite my chum basically blessing illegality. Even that borderline-exoneration has been taken down from the House Judiciary website. Ironically, the absence provides a window into the obliqueness that’s on the menu.
Never mind Alexei Novalny; Putin Bigly’s going to have it raining Alexei Novalnys…
As I type these sentences, one of my children is uncommonly angry with me. To paraphrase a text, this particular podcast guest’s role in Patriot Act-era rights erosion helped usher in our presidential powers crisis. And on this point I say to my progeny and subscriber:
First, Barry O would like a word with you on both Executive Orders and Pandora’s Box.
Number 2, I don’t disagree with you, grown person who has inhaled my ideas, combined them with their own brilliant journey, and come out with something distinctly progressive. Super proud of you, person who’s real fuckin’ mad at me right now.
Nevertheless, the assignment is not to make my kids feel great. The gig is also not to pamper folks who happen to have asked me into their mailbox or to worry about my most treasured consumers unsubscribing. And it ain’t to launder the reputation of this professor on whom I audibly struggled here to use the words “war criminal.”
Unless, of course, it is. On the second point I’m unsure. (Which is why there are so many words beyond the paywall.)
Like every Proud Black Woman who’s licking their elections wounds on social media—bragging about how their present state of political inactivity—any and all disappointed progeny need to hear this one message: Trump is not trying to do a Putin. He’s trying to due Putin Bigly, a force multiplied kleptocracy.
Never mind Alexei Novalny; Putin Bigly’s going to have it raining Alexi Novalnys, unless The People become big, strong and focused.
When you gift a West Coast Sojourn subscription, you share a pleaser present.
One person’s trash Republican can be another one’s treasure. Like, this sojourn’s maybe-reclamation project is working to stop the Whites House tariffs via the Pacific Legal Foundation. Time dictates value, sometimes. And politics is an overlay, one that grows more distorted by the year.
My job is to get y’all up off yo punk asses, to start building incalculable posse. Three point five percent of the population, if you remember has to be in the streets to make an autocrat’s fall inevitable. We’re not even close to hat, yet we’re on the clock for the fight of our lives.
Even if you have to make peace with an anti-trans, low-grade racist who’s resisting because their stock portfolio tanked, you are obligated to link arms. But that’s not who’s on the podcast this week. John Yoo is several notches better than that. Several.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to West Coast Sojourn to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
