Morsels for a quiet Saturday morning

An awful lot of commentators seem to want to chip away at New York County D.A. Alvin Bragg's case for indicting Donald Trump for multiple felonies. That's a game I can't play.

Bragg is a guy with a hell of a pedigree: Harvard College, Harvard Law, corporate practice, State Attorney General's office, assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, winner of a contested election for his current job. He likely knows something, both of law and of politics.

Seems to me there are obvious reasons -- adjacent to possibly substantive commentary that informs the legal doubters' views -- he's Black and he's fat. Both mean in American society, he's a lesser light, demanding a full place in the sun. Dude undoubtedly knows this.

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A deep article by Jason DeParle  [gift NYT article] describes the living conditions of new immigrants, documented and not, who have landed in urban Tennessee. It is very much worth a read. He dissects the multiple intricacies of a hodgepodge social-welfare system, while profiling a Salvadoran pastor whose church provides a landing place for newcomers:

Luz Canales and her husband, undocumented immigrants from Honduras, were living in a garage with five young children when they first came to church. Her husband fell ill and could not work. Ineligible for food stamps, though they received free school meals, the children arrived at services so hungry that Mr. Acevedo took them home to eat.

“Look, there’s one thing I want you to understand,” Mr. Acevedo said, referring to the limits on immigrant aid. “The fact that I’m not complaining doesn’t mean I don’t have my opinion that it’s unjust.”

Citing scriptural commands to seek justice, he said he was speaking out despite the risks to encourage compassion. “Sometimes we see each other’s struggles but feel indifference — there’s no love,” he said.

DeParle describes Nashville as a "a growing immigration hub." Might the bad behavior of Republican good old boys in the state legislature who have kicked out a couple of young Black members be colored by their terror about a population of new citizens who are already in town? Seems likely. White Tennessee is going to be mighty nasty for awhile.