Yesterday, Arizona governor Doug Ducey brought the Republican governors of 26 states together in the “American Governors’ Border Strike Force” to serve as a “force multiplier” in what he says is “criminal activity directly tied to our border.” For all of Ducey’s rhetoric about how the force is supposed to “accomplish what the federal government has failed at, protecting our communities from ruthless transnational criminal organizations,” the “strike force” is supposed to “share intelligence, strengthen analytical and cybersecurity efforts, and improve humanitarian efforts to protect children and families.”
Anyone else getting really tired of Republicans telling us we can't say certain things, we can't read certain books, we can't teach certain things, we can't talk about certain history, etc. Why are they taking away our freedom to think and talk and read and teach? Why are they taking away our freedom to vote, to choose what happens to our bodies, to grant asylum to seekers, to defend our Constitution, and the freedom to live in a democracy? And not to get started on the wasted taxpayer money and the economic disaster for certain states pretending to defend the southern border.
Kathy….so well stated and in language much nicer than I could have conjured up! Thanks.
I would be inclined to parrot Stephan Colbert in his review of CBS hiring the ignorant, lying, immoral slug, Mulvaney, into their news division….”What the F…?”
Kathy, I write, partially, to agree with Gailee, who is part of this thread, and also to build upon her reply with some additional thoughts.
In my view, because Republicans largely have no ideas, they believe, perhaps rightly, that their strategy of running on divisiveness and fighting the culture wars is how they win elections. At the same time, Dems, barring a few exceptions, seem to want to run away from culture issues rather than fighting the culture wars and winning them, on abortion, on book banning, on teaching history…, a mistake, I believe, considering the public largely is on the side of the Dems.
In the alternative, Dems frequently are quoted as saying, “We’re not going to deal with that stuff; we’re going to focus on kitchen table issues.” Though that might sound good, in the past 15 months, Dems haven’t been able to extend the child tax credit or lower prescription drug costs or improve childcare or raise the minimum wage to $15…, legislation that actually would make people’s lives easier and would be counter-inflationary.
Fair or not, politics largely is perception, a truism seemingly better understood by Republicans than by Democrats. Perhaps, too, Republicans, more so than many Democrats, also are acutely aware that no democracy can survive with a working and middle class so insecure that it is willing to accept any authoritarian option in order to provide some sense of normalcy and security in their lives.
The Republicans are the ones who don’t want government to work for everyone. They do their best to break and handicap government at every opportunity because that is what their Uber wealthy white donors want. They absolutely DO NOT CARE what the majority of Americans want. They provoke and stoke distrust in government by constantly obstructing and hamstringing the processes of government. Then they claim Dems aren’t addressing the country’s problems. The ACA battle is a prime example of their tactics.
JennSH, I agree completely with your comment, which I find logically and factually valid. My point was to show how Republicans, by and large, rely on tactics that use appeals to emotions and attitudes to influence/manipulate voters. I imagine their tools would be far less effective if more of the electorate were better educated and informed.
Oh the hair-raising stories I could tell about this dumbing down--and it doesn't come from the students. It is imposed on them in such slick and subtle ways they hardly even know that their brains are being altered. This has been going on for decades. The first sign I noticed (although I'll bet there were earlier ones I missed) was that, about the same time, the atrocity (IMHO) of Young Adult Literature appeared and those and children's books began having vocabulary and sentence structure limited according to what someone thought kids of a certain age could read. I guess they didn't consider all those children in he 19th century waiting eagerly for the next installment of Dickens' novels. Sigh
Yes, Barbara, I agree. Part of the deal is that all this structure that is democracy is supposed to rest on a foundation of "an informed electorate." The "Electorate"--by choice or manipulation or just because so many have to worry about jobs and rent and groceries--are, by and large, basically uninformed
Dean, Interestingly, though our founders understood the need for checks and balances against the excesses of any one branch, Madison and Jefferson, in particular, contended what in their day was known as “the press” and today has become “the media” would be the most critical factor, as it alone could provide the necessary information and nurture the fundamental discourse that would maintain the democratic republic.
Good morning, Barbara, What concerns me as much as anything, and what finally drove me here, is the realization that the press is deep in another role--manipulating and even creating the news. A paper like the NYTimes, with its stable of very fine writers, is particularly good at this. But equally so a 24-hour, supposedly neutral, news source like CNN. They do it by the order in which they present their reports or their paragraphs. If they lead with Biden's accomplishments, that's what we believe. If they lead with his mistakes, we are there. HCR often counters that by simply reversing the order. Quite amazing. The words carry the power. They tell us what to think and, without words, we are unable to think at all. So, to apply the idea of checks and balances in a broader sense, we're losing that safeguard. The media seem to me to be part of the confusion and noise, swinging one way today, another tomorrow. Parallel with this media-driven song and dance is the fact that we are losing our vocabulary very fast. Literally dropping words from our store. LOL and IMHO aren't words. Alas. But I am sliding into a ditch here and getting way off your topic. If anything, the war on the ground is precisely between the idea of checks and balances and the impulse-driven excesses of a few who are mighty close to being monsters.
Right, Barbara Jo. They are fully aware of what you say and want to turn their base and all the rest of us into serfs and indentured servants who are so oppressed by needing to work until we drop that we can't manage a counteroffensive any time soon. What intrigues me most is how many of these Rs seem to think they will be part of the ruling class in the new system that only rewards the people who are currently in favor. They kill the others.
Deborah, I fully appreciate how you so thoughtfully expanded upon my comment.
As for the rest of us, seeing that history has taught us that autocracies win when we can’t imagine democracy losing, we must do everything we can to sound the alarm.
Jenn, yes, it’s their roadmap, playbook, created long ago: how to sabotage government and the most vulnerable citizens, especially poor and people of color, and their strategies are often cruel and deadly. Examples: healthcare: why withhold care from anyone? Education: why lie and omit critical facts and curriculum? And withhold funding? Infrastructure: why reduce or withhold funds for bridges and roads? KEY: Environmental laws, protections for now and future? “They” do not care. Or they purposely hurt others who are not on their side. This is beyond governing. Looks like politics from another century. And often racism. And Undoing laws: abortion and voting rights and laws. Cheating and packing courts including Supreme. It’s heartbreaking and cruel. But that would take empathy and compassion and commitment to uphold their promise and the constitution. My rant!
I see often people saying that all pols are bad and corrupt including ones who should know better. This to me is an easy way out and a failure to take citizenship, including voting, seriously. Right now there are a plethora of ads on the TV (always muted) claiming that they will solve homelessness, crime, etc. without one description of how they are going to do it and importantly, pay for it. And of course a barrage of mailers arriving everyday which go straight into the circular file. Yesterday I did see a plausible plan from one of the D candidates (who will not win) about homelessness. Also we have one D candidate who is being financed by some billionaire out of state and his barrage started before anyone else. Stupidly, the D House Committee also gave him money which raised the ire of everyone else. The Rs are going to solve all our problems and all they have is pictures of homelessness, protests, etc. plus the worse pictures of Biden, Pelosi, and Brown they could find. We also have a conservative D running as an Independent for governor because she knows she would not get the D nod in the primary. She is actually preferable to any of the R candidates for governor including a deeply religious oncologist who lost the last time. May 17th is the primary and we will see who prevails.
Repubs are intent on maintaining the caste system that diversity and equality threaten, as well as democracy threatens (their perceptions...and bank accounts).
and yet..."The Left wants to divide people into favored and disfavored castes, granting special favors to the former while excluding the latter from civil rights and professional protections. The aim is to dragoon our society and make its members obey a range of ideas incompatible with the founding principles of the nation." Washington Examiner today. (far right publication)
Yep. But people fall for it. In Psychology it is called projection. We knew what TFG was up to because he accused the Democrats of doing whatever it was.
Ah yes, just saw a post from Salem Progressives which was as rigid as any right wing pronouncement. I answered and nothing back yet. I asked what would people do about the progressive things Biden has done, starting with his cabinet. So I agree with the first sentence and not the rest of this quote.
The important perception here is that in your last line Barbara. If the working and middle class perceives themselves as insecure they will vote in that perception-based interest or need. Almost a Maslov truism. Need finds resource, even if in less threatening times, the toxicity of the choice were better understood.
Fred, I presume you are referring to Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs,” which suggests that basic physical and safety needs are preemptive and must be met before one may attempt to address the needs of the intellect and the spirit.
Indeed. And a correlate we observed in poverty and disability evaluatons that the need will find a resource to meet it. For example, when welfare rolls were purged, disability applications increased along with training-for-employment referrals.
Morning fabulous Gailee. I say “no” to your question. No need to let them. That discourse, however egregious, is allowed in our country so just keep on, Repubs. They are digging a sh*thole so deep, it will take many shoulders for one to climb out and that’s their downfall. Treasonous behavior scatters rats.
Behavior reflective of the common good always gives a hand up.
One fierce, emphatic, sincere, response from a Michigan state senator addressing another senator accusing her of interest in pedophilia and grooming behaviors has gained national attention. How many people on this forum have asked for exactly that correct messaging?
It’s because they are exploiting taxpayers money. They’re either incompetent or downright theives, and they are out to destroy the role an organized government has in our everyday lives - to support projects that benefit all of their constituents. They clearly need to stay in power, so political opponents are predators.
The Republicans took the book Trump wrote, when he put family members in WH roles and politicians as department heads who broke down the mission and leadership of those departments, all while mocking the disabled and weaponizing hatred.
Kathy, we can VOTE THEM OUT! Never give up fighting for Truth…we can beat these fools, but it takes work and determination. Get EVERYONE you know to vote these haters, liars, traitors out of office. Keep the new haters out to begin with….
I could wish that there were an effective way to get into their "belief space" and break through that crust. When you lay out reason, fact, practicality, and document your sources and are met with a resounding "well, I just don't believe that" it is pretty hard not to wash your hands of them. I have had some tiny modicum of success in one to one settings in person, when what they "just don't believe" is something that I can point to as impacting me individually in a negative manner. Otherwise, there is no "breaking through".
Yes, and they are all "experts" because they visited some wing nut site, heard it from their all powerful pastors, or see it on wing nut TV. Also they resent you because you can present a reasonable intelligent argument based on facts.
One doesn’t really. I always watch what happens every time when one of the “deniers” gets thrown under the bus due to their erroneous thinking, ignorance, and questionable loyalty to anyone or anything except their own greed or desperation.
The tune changes.
Our plot, our action, our direction must reflect President Biden’s repeated mantra.
“Move forward.”
I add to that, keep your face gazing towards the guidepost of the Light ahead…not the dry dusty road behind littered with treason.
Kathy I experienced the book-burning and the banning of books during the Joe McCarthy mania. George Orwell (1984) provides the game plan for these ‘thought control’ maniacs.
1) Purge access to our history as a country that has progressed from slavery and 2nd class women to what we have accomplished today.
2) Seek to ‘purify’ the American citizenry [echoes of Hitler’s Aryan race?] on issues of gender and skin color.
3) Encourage insurrection and debasement of the Constitution [echoes of Hitler’s Reichstag fire?]
4) Permit only the ‘white electorate’ to vote and insure that even these votes are scrutinized by a local legislature before the results are certified.
Kathy and Kathy, Thank you for this rational and measured outline of an insane and brutal process by which an entire people can be robbed of their humanity--in the system, certainly, but more devastating, in their own minds. If we are battered hard enough and long enough with the words and actions that communicate our worthlessness we are liable to internalize them. One immediate and particular example that comes to mind is hearing women parrot something we have too often come to believe, "I can't stand working with other women. They're always so catty and competitive." The process by which we, as women, begin to believe the stereotype and then to reinforce it is cruel and calculated. And that's just my own small example of what you are describing on a larger stage. What I don't know is what factors come together to make one group the oppressors and another, the oppressed. Any thoughts?
It occurred to me this morning that if a political party only practices “obstruction of Government” as a platform for 40 years, and focuses on only on fundraising through “identity politics” then they loose their organizational knowledge, expertise, and capacity to do their jobs which dumbs down their voters even more. Its a negative feedback loop. The focus has become “rile the base, collect donations, stay in power”. Republicans have become the largest impediment to progress of a nation. We send representatives to DC to solve our problems by looking at facts, metrics, science, and experts to find truth, consensus, and thus compromise through reasoned debate. By sending people who can’t do any of that at all, the GOP has become our biggest problem of all.
Hi, Kathy, I assume the answer is brutally simple. They are taking away our rights because they want to dictate them and not to have to deal with the mixed, complicated, sometimes loud voices that are democracy functioning at its best. I think that's what all the verbal battering is about--to get us to finally give up and shut up. There are days when I'm tired enough to almost consider it.
Kathy, your banner says you have ties to Arizona and Alaska. If you live in either of those states now, I'm sure you're taking advantage of being in a contested, purple state to be active in registering and mobilizing Democratic and progressive voters. Being active on the ground in your states is a powerful contribution!
My hope is that her speech will embolden every Democrat (Repubs. invited) both in Congress and in every state legislature to repeat her words over and over and over again when words of hate are uttered. Glad MM’s moment of moral courage is getting national attention. About time.
Such an excellent speech, KarenRN and Joan Ehrlich, patricia Cadwell, Pam Peterson and others, that candidates could use as a model in their campaigns!
Nicole Wallace spent almost a half hour yesterday talking with "guest" about the impact Mallory McMorrow's speech should have...that it should be what every dem is spouting from the rooftops. McMorrow needs to go on the road with this one.
@robreiner. A vote for Democrats is a vote to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Democracy itself. The choice couldn't be clearer. It couldn't be more simple. A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy.
How will the USA's free press report the truth? After the following, will news outlets seek an opposing view?
'Mallory McMorrow, Michigan State Senator - 13th District'
'Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won't.'
'It couldn’t be more simple. A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy.'
8:03 AM · Apr 20, 2022' - Rob Reiner Filmmaker, actor, producer, husband, and father. on Twitter
'Trump and his Criminal Comrades traffic in Authoritarian tactics. They continue to lie about the “stolen” 2020 election and spread accusations of pedophilia. The ultimate goal is to destroy Democracy. To preserve the Republic, people of good will must overwhelm in November. ' 10:38 PM · Apr 18, 2022·Twitter Rob Reiner
Will we finally see a stampede of truth tellers or a trickle? Will Cruz and Hawley drown them out? I don't think so.
Thank you Fern. Rob Reiner is spot on, “ The ultimate goal is to destroy Democracy.” But on the way they attempt or succeed at destroying human beings, one by one or in groups. Thinking about the hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the disgusting innuendos about sentencing and pedophiles by the repubs. She couldn’t speak up at those “hearings”. Not when they were voting. But Senator McMorrow could and did.
Yes, Irenie, how can their lies and cruelty be acceptable to themselves? Remember Ted Cruz's performance? A Washington Post headline read, 'Ted Cruz gave the nation a lesson on misreading kids books'
Putin's extermination of the Ukrainian people is most on my mind. That there are examples now and in the past of the extermination of human beings is shocking. Man does not learn, and it is predominantly men who seize, surge, extinguish and destroy us.
'Florida Judge Rules That Airlines Cannot Require Passengers to Have Tickets'
'TAMPA (The Borowitz Report)—Calling the provision a “violation of individual freedom,” a federal judge in Florida has ruled that airlines can no longer require passengers to have tickets.'
'Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle said that she came to her decision after finding that the United States Constitution makes “no reference whatsoever” to airline tickets.'
“The Framers of the Constitution clearly wanted to prevent the infringement of Americans’ right to board any airplane they want,” the Trump appointee said. “And so I hereby lift the ticket mandate.” (Satire, The NewYorker)
Fern, do you know the ancient Greek “Comedy”Lysistrata!? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata? “ is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes.” Learned about this ancient solution in 2003.
Mallory McMorrow is taking the correct action against a bully. She did a masterful job of preventing her accuser from dehumanizing her. A news host today properly identified dehumanizing as being an action of war; if your enemy is not human, then atrocities are much easier to justify. Mallory is correct; we must fight dehumanizing and hatred with humanizing and love.
Rachel Maddow's program on Monday night was terrific!! She spent the first 10 minutes describing how, in Russia over many years, when an authority figure was out of favor, they would be accused of pedophilia and then locked up indefinitely. The next segment talked about the Republicans essentially using the same tactic, most recently on Justice Jackson. It was stunning.
Perhaps someone knows how to post the link?? Well worth watching.
Goes back further to "Pizzagate"; as millions saw & many have mentioned Mallory McMorrow humanized herself in certain words and said in a very powerful voice: "Hate will not win".
If you heard Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow speak, you would've been impressed by how precisely and incisively she delivered her message. There were none of those hesitations or fillers like "um" "uh" and other vocalizations that people often use when they speak. She's someone to watch in the years ahead, if she stays in politics.
Absolutely, Janice, what a strong and powerful message, delivery and human being. Standing up to the “trashing of humans” in this trumpian political climate takes courage and Mallory McMorrow demonstrated that courage. And honesty.
And what I loved is that Mallory looked that Senator right in the eye as she was speaking to her, and the Senator tossed her head around. I wanted her head to spin, like in The Exorcist!
McMorrow's speech is legendary. Her delivery is beyond powerful. I have watched that clip more times than I can count and have shared it widely. Hope she stays in politics and harbors some serious ambition.
Two powerful messages for Democrats to push in the campaign:
"We will not let hate win."
"... the Republican tax plan will increase taxes on 75 million middle-class families by an average of almost $1,500 a year while Biden’s plan will not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year."
And Beto O'Rourke's messaging is bringing the heat.
Thank you Professor Richardson for highlighting Senator Mallory McMorrow’s courage in responding to Senator Theis, for standing up and speaking truth, to call out representatives who use hate to marginalize and destroy in order to win elections.
“Senator Lana Theis accused me by name of grooming and sexualizing children in an attempt to marginalize me for standing up against her marginalizing the LGBTQ community...in a fundraising email, for herself.”
Listen to her on Twitter.
“Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won't.”
Thank you for that link. Republicans and the rich white patriarchists who support and fund such organizations as the A.A.F and C.P.I. are the real slime in this country. Just reading of the filth that they use to smear upright honest people made my blood boil.
Here's an excerpt, followed by an interview with Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker" who has done the research and reporting linked in Barbara's post:
"Bidennoms.com is about Biden nominees for government posts. It`s the website of a right-wing group called the American Accountability Foundation, and it`s not shy about what the group is setting out to do. They say Bidennoms.com, quote, personnel is policy. We are working to ensure that leaders within the federal government reflect the values and concerns of the American people, not the liberal coastal elites and their woke allies in corporate America."
"The group is claiming credit for having dirtied up Judge Jackson during her confirmation with these false claims, even though she was still confirmed. They`re also claiming credit for actually stopping the nominations of multiple Biden nominees with plans for more to come."
"... the site has headshot after headshot of headshot after headshot of Biden nominee.
"Some of them famous ones for sure but some of them you`ve definitely never heard of. They`re trying the thing that`s unique about this group is that they`re not sort of trying to keep one person who they don`t like or two people who they don`t like out of the job. They`re trying to keep every single Biden nominee out of the job or at least to dirty them all up along the way.
"Everybody Biden nominated who`s going through the confirmation process. They`re going after them simply because Biden nominated them, all of them. Now, opposition research isn`t new. It`s a sort of gross part of how Washington operates, but it has always been thus. This group though is different and investigative reporter Jane Mayer at "The New Yorker" has been busy sort of finding them out.
"Quote: The American Accountability Foundation`s approach represents a new escalation in partisan warfare, rather than attack a single candidate or nominee, the group aims to thwart the entire Biden slate, meaning every Biden nominee full stop. They claim to have successfully derailed nominations like Biden`s nominee for comptroller of the currency by ginning up a fake narrative that she was somehow a communist, an actual communist.
"Also, the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin for position at the Federal Reserve board -- they claimed falsely that a delay in her disclosure of a stock trade was because she had somehow abused her position as a previous government -- government employee to obtain some sort of secret financial benefit for herself. It was completely false.
"There`s mudslinging but then there`s this -- what`s different about this is the wholesale approach to every nominee of the Biden administration and the willingness to levy these attacks not only sort of separate from the facts but separate in many cases from common decency, at a wholesale level."
"... when I was watching the Judge Jackson confirmation hearings and Senator Hawley and Senator Blackburn and conservative media started going down this line with her, it was shocking because the allegation they were making against her saying that she was you know soft on sexual abuse of children was so divorced from the facts and was felt so wrong.
"But it also does dovetail with these other political tactics that we see in dictatorships and that we sort of started to see in the Trump era of the Republican Party, and it really had me wondering who cooked this up because I didn`t think Josh Hawley made it up himself.
"It seems like you`ve discovered that this group was the origin story for that false attack."
MAYER:
"Yeah, Hawley had some little helping hands, and it was this group, the American Accountability Foundation, which believe it or not is a tax- exempt organization. You can give money to it and get a tax deduction, while it smears everybody in sight and it does -- you know, sort of phony research basically and a pretty sloppy job if you really look into it.
"Most of the mud that it slunk has dissolved when you take a really close look. But the problem is for a lot of the lesser-known nominees, people aren`t really looking very carefully.
"What caught my eye about it was that I was writing a little bit about the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the vice chairman of the Fed for supervision. She`s incredibly well-qualified. I mean, and very well-liked, liked by the banking world also and had been confirmed twice before to very senior positions at the Fed and at the Treasury Department, with bipartisan unanimous support.
"And suddenly, there were these allegations that were pretext basically, that had nothing to do with reality, that was kind of a made-up story claiming that she had an ethical problem, and they didn`t really go after her for what I think is the real beef that they had with her which was that she had said a few things about climate change and how it posed a risk to the economy.
"So I started looking at this group trying to figure out who are these people and, of course, it turned out that a lot of the senators were getting their research from this group and the senators were getting their money from the fossil fuel industry and they needed a pretext to take her down in order to stop the Fed from including climate change is one of the things that it might consider as an important economic risk."
[21:35:03]
"So, anyway, I started trying to find out who these people were."
MADDOW:
"You also write about the expensive lengths to which this group appears to have gone to come up with these smears for some other nominees, including a woman who`s put forward to be comptroller of the currency, the one who is denounced as a communist. When you describe them like sending people all over the world to try to -- to try to dig stuff up that they could mischaracterize and take out of context and use against her and then senators sort of as senators avidly digested it and threw it at her during that hearing, it raises this question of where they`re getting all the funding to do this.
"And, Jane, you`ve been so good at untangling how dark money works. What were you able to find out about where the funding for this group comes from and who`s doing it?"
MAYER:
"Well, surprisingly, it -- the financial trail goes back to Donald Trump. He has a leadership PAC with hundreds of -- over million dollars in it and one of those million dollars went from his leadership PAC to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which is a an organization on Capitol Hill it`s kind of like an island of Elba for the Trump administration. You`ve got Mark Meadows working there and a number of other people from the Trump world up there, Cleta Mitchell.
"And it spawned this other little sort of group which is the American Accountability Foundation. So it`s it really is an offshoot of the of the Trump world and being funded in part by the Trump world."
My computer is playing up, and the phone I'm using now swallows up messages just before completion.
But it would be useful if people in this community gave thought to the form of messaging I have just used in what I've shared with you.
I'm thinking beyond this community to how to talk to adversaries in language they can understand. All the more effective when the speaker's quite sure of what he's saying. And here, the content and the language of Matthew 7:15-20 is universal, no need to be a Christian church mouse to know that.
Nothing better to throw at the heads of authoritarians than messages that have authority.
Authoritarians abuse authority -- but have none.
Authority -- author -- authentic.
The message in this chapter 7 was addressed to the brainwashed... It shocked them because it was genuine, and they weren't used to hearing that.
Because it is straight-from-the-heart genuine, it still has the power to penetrate thick skulls.
2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee.......
Growing one's congregation is much easier, as a preacher, IF:
1) you demonize people NOT like those in front of you.
2) you scare people in front of you about others not like them.
3) you list a series of reasons, which all of the people in front of you have in common, that will send them to hell and offer them the path out of hell.
4) you insure that the people in front of you feel superior to those absent.
Now, none of the above has anything to do with Christianity.
BUT, ALL of the above does have to do with the amount of money the preacher can get over time.
Well well, if we don’t have a nice cozy conflict going on in the Mizzell-Kushner households! The DOJ’s request to appeal should be granted just based on that tidbit of information. Slime and sleaze doesn’t travel very far.
Here's an excerpt, followed by an interview with Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker" who has done the research and reporting linked in Barbara's post:
"Bidennoms.com is about Biden nominees for government posts. It`s the website of a right-wing group called the American Accountability Foundation, and it`s not shy about what the group is setting out to do. They say Bidennoms.com, quote, personnel is policy. We are working to ensure that leaders within the federal government reflect the values and concerns of the American people, not the liberal coastal elites and their woke allies in corporate America."
"The group is claiming credit for having dirtied up Judge Jackson during her confirmation with these false claims, even though she was still confirmed. They`re also claiming credit for actually stopping the nominations of multiple Biden nominees with plans for more to come."
"... the site has headshot after headshot of headshot after headshot of Biden nominee.
"Some of them famous ones for sure but some of them you`ve definitely never heard of. They`re trying the thing that`s unique about this group is that they`re not sort of trying to keep one person who they don`t like or two people who they don`t like out of the job. They`re trying to keep every single Biden nominee out of the job or at least to dirty them all up along the way.
"Everybody Biden nominated who`s going through the confirmation process. They`re going after them simply because Biden nominated them, all of them. Now, opposition research isn`t new. It`s a sort of gross part of how Washington operates, but it has always been thus. This group though is different and investigative reporter Jane Mayer at "The New Yorker" has been busy sort of finding them out.
"Quote: The American Accountability Foundation`s approach represents a new escalation in partisan warfare, rather than attack a single candidate or nominee, the group aims to thwart the entire Biden slate, meaning every Biden nominee full stop. They claim to have successfully derailed nominations like Biden`s nominee for comptroller of the currency by ginning up a fake narrative that she was somehow a communist, an actual communist.
"Also, the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin for position at the Federal Reserve board -- they claimed falsely that a delay in her disclosure of a stock trade was because she had somehow abused her position as a previous government -- government employee to obtain some sort of secret financial benefit for herself. It was completely false.
"There`s mudslinging but then there`s this -- what`s different about this is the wholesale approach to every nominee of the Biden administration and the willingness to levy these attacks not only sort of separate from the facts but separate in many cases from common decency, at a wholesale level."
"... when I was watching the Judge Jackson confirmation hearings and Senator Hawley and Senator Blackburn and conservative media started going down this line with her, it was shocking because the allegation they were making against her saying that she was you know soft on sexual abuse of children was so divorced from the facts and was felt so wrong.
"But it also does dovetail with these other political tactics that we see in dictatorships and that we sort of started to see in the Trump era of the Republican Party, and it really had me wondering who cooked this up because I didn`t think Josh Hawley made it up himself.
"It seems like you`ve discovered that this group was the origin story for that false attack."
MAYER:
"Yeah, Hawley had some little helping hands, and it was this group, the American Accountability Foundation, which believe it or not is a tax- exempt organization. You can give money to it and get a tax deduction, while it smears everybody in sight and it does -- you know, sort of phony research basically and a pretty sloppy job if you really look into it.
"Most of the mud that it slunk has dissolved when you take a really close look. But the problem is for a lot of the lesser-known nominees, people aren`t really looking very carefully.
"What caught my eye about it was that I was writing a little bit about the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the vice chairman of the Fed for supervision. She`s incredibly well-qualified. I mean, and very well-liked, liked by the banking world also and had been confirmed twice before to very senior positions at the Fed and at the Treasury Department, with bipartisan unanimous support.
"And suddenly, there were these allegations that were pretext basically, that had nothing to do with reality, that was kind of a made-up story claiming that she had an ethical problem, and they didn`t really go after her for what I think is the real beef that they had with her which was that she had said a few things about climate change and how it posed a risk to the economy.
"So I started looking at this group trying to figure out who are these people and, of course, it turned out that a lot of the senators were getting their research from this group and the senators were getting their money from the fossil fuel industry and they needed a pretext to take her down in order to stop the Fed from including climate change is one of the things that it might consider as an important economic risk."
[21:35:03]
"So, anyway, I started trying to find out who these people were."
MADDOW:
"You also write about the expensive lengths to which this group appears to have gone to come up with these smears for some other nominees, including a woman who`s put forward to be comptroller of the currency, the one who is denounced as a communist. When you describe them like sending people all over the world to try to -- to try to dig stuff up that they could mischaracterize and take out of context and use against her and then senators sort of as senators avidly digested it and threw it at her during that hearing, it raises this question of where they`re getting all the funding to do this.
"And, Jane, you`ve been so good at untangling how dark money works. What were you able to find out about where the funding for this group comes from and who`s doing it?"
MAYER:
"Well, surprisingly, it -- the financial trail goes back to Donald Trump. He has a leadership PAC with hundreds of -- over million dollars in it and one of those million dollars went from his leadership PAC to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which is a an organization on Capitol Hill it`s kind of like an island of Elba for the Trump administration. You`ve got Mark Meadows working there and a number of other people from the Trump world up there, Cleta Mitchell.
"And it spawned this other little sort of group which is the American Accountability Foundation. So it`s it really is an offshoot of the of the Trump world and being funded in part by the Trump world."
I sincerely hope that Judge Mizelle limited her opinion on the public mask mandate for planes, trains and buses to the extent of the CDC's authority, rather than the value of masking in those environments. There are no measures absolutely 100% effective in avoiding COVID 19 transmission, short of extremely remote isolation perhaps, but the last person who should render an opinion on the validity of public health measures would be someone whose entire professional education/credentials are something other than public health. The CDC resides under the federal Department of Health and Human Services. If the CDC does not have authority over public health mandates, perhaps it is HHS? Did someone simply miss which level of the chain of command has authority over public health mandates? If not HHS, is it the POTUS?
It certainly makes sense that CDC, which is expressly focused on disease, would be the most appropriate authority over public health mandates. Why are we so offended by such a mandate, when we essentially universally accept such mandates as stop signs, red lights, bans on smoking in public places? It's far easier to understand a debate over the use of masks from the isolation of one's living room, but certainly not if one is obligatorily placed in close proximity to strangers for hours at a time, breathing common air. How many super-spreader events are needed before we understand that voluntary compliance with public health recommendations/suggestions simply don't provide adequate protection for those who WISH to comply with the guidance of experts?
Presidential appointment of judges and justices has become entrapped in the briar-patch of political partisanship. There is no level at which justice rises above suspicion of partisan influence anymore. What would the result be if the law prohibited examination/consideration of political views, politically based questions during confirmation hearings, demanding that the only official process surrounding appointment and confirmation of judges should focus on education/training/experience, rather than personal opinions. It would not change the tendency of the president to forward candidates whose record suggests political predispositions, but would certainly cool the political rhetoric (and worse) that surrounds the confirmation process. And, laws that specifically prohibit overt attempts to influence the judiciary before/during hearings/cases/decisions with political ramifications would be welcome, IMHO.
I would think that the airlines and other transportation services themselves would be in favor of mandatory masking. If it became known that travel by air or other forms of public transportation increased the risk and spread of Covid, how would this affect sales? And especially among persons who are already vulnerable? I'm surprised that the companies affected aren't protesting the ruling. Your question is the right one- how many super-spreader events do we need before we recognize the danger of optional compliance?
I’d take this even further: lifting the mask mandate on public airlines in Britain has resulted in chaos, as so many employees become sick that many, many flights are cancelled. How can that be good for business?
some claim that high air turnover and filtration make airliners a safer environment than many other public places. However, a single person shedding high levels of virus, especially the highly transmissible Omicron variants that now predominate, would still make me very concerned about a transcontinental or long international flight. These days, you can live in a place with low viral activity and still encounter someone from a place with high viral activity at a major airport within a few hours of leaving your home. Add age and coexisting conditions and you are asking for trouble.
There are a couple of Substack writers who addressed some of these topics. Katelin Jetelina (an epidemiologist, whose Substack is "Your Local Epidemiologist") has been writing about the pandemic for a couple of years. Lucian Truscott IV (an associate of TCinLA) writes a newsletter (Lucian Truscott IV Newsletter) and last night wrote a blistering analysis of the decision made by the judge in the CDC case.
"Federal judge Kathryn Mizelle, a former clerk to Clarence Thomas ... ruled today that the Federally-required mask mandate for travel on U.S. air lines and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...,
"improperly failed to justify its decision and did not follow proper rulemaking, making the rule an unconstitutional abuse of federal regulatory power."
"In her 59-page ruling, Mizelle said the only remedy was to vacate the rule entirely because it would be impossible to end it for the limited group of people who objected to it in the lawsuit ...,
"Because our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends, the court declares unlawful and vacates the mask mandate.”"
"As of right now, airline passengers no longer have to wear masks on Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, Southwest, United, or JetBlue. Those airlines tonight have all announced that masks are now optional on board planes.
"... today a federal judge in Florida, a Trump appointee, struck down the CDC`s mask mandate for planes, and trains, and other public transportation.
"Now, this ruling as unusual for a couple of reasons. The first is that it comes from a single judge who hasn`t actually heard any courtroom arguments about this case. She decided that previously scheduled oral arguments said to happen next week were, unnecessary. She canceled the oral arguments and just issued the ruling on written briefs alone.
"The second reason this ruling is a bit of a surprise is that the judge decided this would be enforced nationally rather than applying it only to the plaintiffs, which you know, keep that in mind next time you hear conservatives solemnly intone about how much they dislike judicial activism."
"The purpose of the law, of course, is to prevent the spread of “communicable diseases,” of which COVID-19 is undeniably one. But forget the purpose of the law. Forget the legal, moral, and medical necessity to protect human beings from becoming infected with the virus.
"What’s important to this federal judge who once clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court is finding a way to slap down this terrible federal regulation which she naturally gets around to finding, at one point in the decision, interferes with the authority of states to regulate the spread of disease within their own borders."
Turns out, both the Border Patrol and the Texas Agricultural Commission ALREADY inspected every truck in multiple ways.
Abbot's stunt only added inspections of things like tire pressure and Abbot's inspectors could not go inside trucks to check for illegal migrants. They could hold up trucks to let food rot though.
Texas own Agricultural Commissioner says that billions of dollars of food is rotting at the border and for the third time during Abbot's tenure grocery stores are empty. He also says that it is much more effective to work with our partner Mexico, as we did before, to stop migrants at MEXICO's southern border. Apparently that Trump era negotiated outcome is no longer in place.
BUT, the Ag commissioner says he will vote for Abbott. Does not want Beto O'Rourke.
Great interview.
You are right Dr. Richardson. Stunts are what the Republicans will play out as we near the elections.
But, I would ask: Is it the Republicans that use dumb stunts to get elected OR is it Americans who let blatantly stupid stunts influence their thinking that are the problem??
Example: If you convince someone that the "devil" resides in someone else, like a 15 year old girl, then, you can get them all to agree to, say, burn said 15 year old girl alive (who has turned you down for sexual favors)....after all, that will get rid of that devil (who has spurned your evil overture AND hide the fact of your perversion). See?
As was the case in some fundamentalist haven: Salem, MA.
Abbott doesn’t care if he duplicates or repeats criticism or policy. He only wants to remain in power and in the media, to remain a household name for the next election. He has had enough time to work with the federal government (both repub and Dem) for solutions on the border. A broken system means he can be the one who fixes it. As long as voters have amnesia.
At last, hearing Democrats speaking up. Now media must no longer try to be fair in reporting republicans as if they have a decent point of view! Thank you for pointing out facts which reflect truth.
President Joe Biden is a graduate of the University of Delaware, and so am I!
I read on LinkedIn this morning that he will be giving the commencement speech at UD this year. I couldn't believe the bile and spew in the comments - it was disgusting.
Here is a sample: "...because they ( Democrats) stole the platform , for now . The count down has begun ."
Amazing. Horrifying.
When I was at UD, Biden was one of my senators. He had a reputation then as a hardworking legislator and all-around nice guy. As far as I know, that's still the case. I don't understand the hatred.
Anyone else getting really tired of Republicans telling us we can't say certain things, we can't read certain books, we can't teach certain things, we can't talk about certain history, etc. Why are they taking away our freedom to think and talk and read and teach? Why are they taking away our freedom to vote, to choose what happens to our bodies, to grant asylum to seekers, to defend our Constitution, and the freedom to live in a democracy? And not to get started on the wasted taxpayer money and the economic disaster for certain states pretending to defend the southern border.
Kathy….so well stated and in language much nicer than I could have conjured up! Thanks.
I would be inclined to parrot Stephan Colbert in his review of CBS hiring the ignorant, lying, immoral slug, Mulvaney, into their news division….”What the F…?”
... Fudge?:)
No fudge, one could only dream…
Kathy, I write, partially, to agree with Gailee, who is part of this thread, and also to build upon her reply with some additional thoughts.
In my view, because Republicans largely have no ideas, they believe, perhaps rightly, that their strategy of running on divisiveness and fighting the culture wars is how they win elections. At the same time, Dems, barring a few exceptions, seem to want to run away from culture issues rather than fighting the culture wars and winning them, on abortion, on book banning, on teaching history…, a mistake, I believe, considering the public largely is on the side of the Dems.
In the alternative, Dems frequently are quoted as saying, “We’re not going to deal with that stuff; we’re going to focus on kitchen table issues.” Though that might sound good, in the past 15 months, Dems haven’t been able to extend the child tax credit or lower prescription drug costs or improve childcare or raise the minimum wage to $15…, legislation that actually would make people’s lives easier and would be counter-inflationary.
Fair or not, politics largely is perception, a truism seemingly better understood by Republicans than by Democrats. Perhaps, too, Republicans, more so than many Democrats, also are acutely aware that no democracy can survive with a working and middle class so insecure that it is willing to accept any authoritarian option in order to provide some sense of normalcy and security in their lives.
The Republicans are the ones who don’t want government to work for everyone. They do their best to break and handicap government at every opportunity because that is what their Uber wealthy white donors want. They absolutely DO NOT CARE what the majority of Americans want. They provoke and stoke distrust in government by constantly obstructing and hamstringing the processes of government. Then they claim Dems aren’t addressing the country’s problems. The ACA battle is a prime example of their tactics.
JennSH, I agree completely with your comment, which I find logically and factually valid. My point was to show how Republicans, by and large, rely on tactics that use appeals to emotions and attitudes to influence/manipulate voters. I imagine their tools would be far less effective if more of the electorate were better educated and informed.
And that is why they want to maintain the dumbing down of education.
Oh the hair-raising stories I could tell about this dumbing down--and it doesn't come from the students. It is imposed on them in such slick and subtle ways they hardly even know that their brains are being altered. This has been going on for decades. The first sign I noticed (although I'll bet there were earlier ones I missed) was that, about the same time, the atrocity (IMHO) of Young Adult Literature appeared and those and children's books began having vocabulary and sentence structure limited according to what someone thought kids of a certain age could read. I guess they didn't consider all those children in he 19th century waiting eagerly for the next installment of Dickens' novels. Sigh
Pensa_VT, Precisely!
You are absolutely right!
JennSH, The good news is that I expect we’ll see more Dems following McMorrow’s lead and calling out Repub’s “performative nonsense.”
Lord! I hope so! She was straight forward in her speech.
Yes, Barbara, I agree. Part of the deal is that all this structure that is democracy is supposed to rest on a foundation of "an informed electorate." The "Electorate"--by choice or manipulation or just because so many have to worry about jobs and rent and groceries--are, by and large, basically uninformed
Dean, Interestingly, though our founders understood the need for checks and balances against the excesses of any one branch, Madison and Jefferson, in particular, contended what in their day was known as “the press” and today has become “the media” would be the most critical factor, as it alone could provide the necessary information and nurture the fundamental discourse that would maintain the democratic republic.
Good morning, Barbara, What concerns me as much as anything, and what finally drove me here, is the realization that the press is deep in another role--manipulating and even creating the news. A paper like the NYTimes, with its stable of very fine writers, is particularly good at this. But equally so a 24-hour, supposedly neutral, news source like CNN. They do it by the order in which they present their reports or their paragraphs. If they lead with Biden's accomplishments, that's what we believe. If they lead with his mistakes, we are there. HCR often counters that by simply reversing the order. Quite amazing. The words carry the power. They tell us what to think and, without words, we are unable to think at all. So, to apply the idea of checks and balances in a broader sense, we're losing that safeguard. The media seem to me to be part of the confusion and noise, swinging one way today, another tomorrow. Parallel with this media-driven song and dance is the fact that we are losing our vocabulary very fast. Literally dropping words from our store. LOL and IMHO aren't words. Alas. But I am sliding into a ditch here and getting way off your topic. If anything, the war on the ground is precisely between the idea of checks and balances and the impulse-driven excesses of a few who are mighty close to being monsters.
Right, Barbara Jo. They are fully aware of what you say and want to turn their base and all the rest of us into serfs and indentured servants who are so oppressed by needing to work until we drop that we can't manage a counteroffensive any time soon. What intrigues me most is how many of these Rs seem to think they will be part of the ruling class in the new system that only rewards the people who are currently in favor. They kill the others.
Deborah, I fully appreciate how you so thoughtfully expanded upon my comment.
As for the rest of us, seeing that history has taught us that autocracies win when we can’t imagine democracy losing, we must do everything we can to sound the alarm.
Jenn, yes, it’s their roadmap, playbook, created long ago: how to sabotage government and the most vulnerable citizens, especially poor and people of color, and their strategies are often cruel and deadly. Examples: healthcare: why withhold care from anyone? Education: why lie and omit critical facts and curriculum? And withhold funding? Infrastructure: why reduce or withhold funds for bridges and roads? KEY: Environmental laws, protections for now and future? “They” do not care. Or they purposely hurt others who are not on their side. This is beyond governing. Looks like politics from another century. And often racism. And Undoing laws: abortion and voting rights and laws. Cheating and packing courts including Supreme. It’s heartbreaking and cruel. But that would take empathy and compassion and commitment to uphold their promise and the constitution. My rant!
I see often people saying that all pols are bad and corrupt including ones who should know better. This to me is an easy way out and a failure to take citizenship, including voting, seriously. Right now there are a plethora of ads on the TV (always muted) claiming that they will solve homelessness, crime, etc. without one description of how they are going to do it and importantly, pay for it. And of course a barrage of mailers arriving everyday which go straight into the circular file. Yesterday I did see a plausible plan from one of the D candidates (who will not win) about homelessness. Also we have one D candidate who is being financed by some billionaire out of state and his barrage started before anyone else. Stupidly, the D House Committee also gave him money which raised the ire of everyone else. The Rs are going to solve all our problems and all they have is pictures of homelessness, protests, etc. plus the worse pictures of Biden, Pelosi, and Brown they could find. We also have a conservative D running as an Independent for governor because she knows she would not get the D nod in the primary. She is actually preferable to any of the R candidates for governor including a deeply religious oncologist who lost the last time. May 17th is the primary and we will see who prevails.
Todays Robert Reich podcast, a very good listen, addresses differences between “parties”. https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/365422/private/2444bfa2-441e-46b1-8cd5-850d5befd1e5.rss “ Zelensky, Patriotism, Putin Patriotism, Trump Patriotism: same word, with profoundly different meanings.”
The Republicans have ideas. They don't run on their ideas because they know that's a losing strategy.
Joan, I agree, but would add that every idea I’m aware of arises largely out of greedy and self-serving impulses.
Repubs are intent on maintaining the caste system that diversity and equality threaten, as well as democracy threatens (their perceptions...and bank accounts).
and yet..."The Left wants to divide people into favored and disfavored castes, granting special favors to the former while excluding the latter from civil rights and professional protections. The aim is to dragoon our society and make its members obey a range of ideas incompatible with the founding principles of the nation." Washington Examiner today. (far right publication)
This is the looking glass strategy. Whatever mischief the radical right is engaged in, they project and accuse their opponents of it.
Yep. But people fall for it. In Psychology it is called projection. We knew what TFG was up to because he accused the Democrats of doing whatever it was.
Goebbels favorite strategy, along with the big lie (from Mein Kampf)
Sounds about right from the seditious, fascist, Putin loving Right.
I wish the Democrats had such a massive, cohesive messaging machine like the bad, evil folks do.
Just oust Rupert, but damn, the clones have metastasized
Ah yes, just saw a post from Salem Progressives which was as rigid as any right wing pronouncement. I answered and nothing back yet. I asked what would people do about the progressive things Biden has done, starting with his cabinet. So I agree with the first sentence and not the rest of this quote.
The important perception here is that in your last line Barbara. If the working and middle class perceives themselves as insecure they will vote in that perception-based interest or need. Almost a Maslov truism. Need finds resource, even if in less threatening times, the toxicity of the choice were better understood.
Fred, I presume you are referring to Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs,” which suggests that basic physical and safety needs are preemptive and must be met before one may attempt to address the needs of the intellect and the spirit.
Indeed. And a correlate we observed in poverty and disability evaluatons that the need will find a resource to meet it. For example, when welfare rolls were purged, disability applications increased along with training-for-employment referrals.
I'm just getting really tired of Republicans.
Would the answer be because we're letting them?
Morning fabulous Gailee. I say “no” to your question. No need to let them. That discourse, however egregious, is allowed in our country so just keep on, Repubs. They are digging a sh*thole so deep, it will take many shoulders for one to climb out and that’s their downfall. Treasonous behavior scatters rats.
Behavior reflective of the common good always gives a hand up.
One fierce, emphatic, sincere, response from a Michigan state senator addressing another senator accusing her of interest in pedophilia and grooming behaviors has gained national attention. How many people on this forum have asked for exactly that correct messaging?
Well here we go.
United!
It’s because they are exploiting taxpayers money. They’re either incompetent or downright theives, and they are out to destroy the role an organized government has in our everyday lives - to support projects that benefit all of their constituents. They clearly need to stay in power, so political opponents are predators.
The Republicans took the book Trump wrote, when he put family members in WH roles and politicians as department heads who broke down the mission and leadership of those departments, all while mocking the disabled and weaponizing hatred.
JaneDouglas56: "They’re either incompetent or downright thrives"
I suspect you meant "thieves" but both words are pretty accurate descriptors.
Thanks! It’s the result of typing at 4 am. At least we now have an edit button. 😄
Kathy, not only do they make me tired, they make me sick to my stomach!
We have outrage aplenty, but no outlet. RM has the rage and a voice and gives it her all, MSM ignores her efforts
Kathy, we can VOTE THEM OUT! Never give up fighting for Truth…we can beat these fools, but it takes work and determination. Get EVERYONE you know to vote these haters, liars, traitors out of office. Keep the new haters out to begin with….
And find ways and words to break through the thick crust of denial of his followers.
I could wish that there were an effective way to get into their "belief space" and break through that crust. When you lay out reason, fact, practicality, and document your sources and are met with a resounding "well, I just don't believe that" it is pretty hard not to wash your hands of them. I have had some tiny modicum of success in one to one settings in person, when what they "just don't believe" is something that I can point to as impacting me individually in a negative manner. Otherwise, there is no "breaking through".
Deprogramming is going to be needed on a massive scale (re USA citizens).
Yes
Yes, but that brings its own baggage that can be used by the non-governance league.
Yes, and they are all "experts" because they visited some wing nut site, heard it from their all powerful pastors, or see it on wing nut TV. Also they resent you because you can present a reasonable intelligent argument based on facts.
I simply keep posting everywhere I can the truths in all forms. I don't engage with their negative, false rhetoric as it only feeds their hatred.
Gailee — This has been my quandary for nearly 6 years now. How do we get through to the deniers?
Morning ed.
One doesn’t really. I always watch what happens every time when one of the “deniers” gets thrown under the bus due to their erroneous thinking, ignorance, and questionable loyalty to anyone or anything except their own greed or desperation.
The tune changes.
Our plot, our action, our direction must reflect President Biden’s repeated mantra.
“Move forward.”
I add to that, keep your face gazing towards the guidepost of the Light ahead…not the dry dusty road behind littered with treason.
I think the answer is to give them all a healthy dose of Ivermectin. /s
It is something I think on daily. If more of the 'bad guys' confesses it might begin an unraveling.
Well, looks like Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow found another emphatic way to say…..
Russian warship…go f*ck yourself.
And stared right into the eyes of the hater.
“We will not let hate win.”
You got that right.
Salud! United! 🇺🇸💫🗽
Christine: Yes indeed. I hope we see Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow go places. She's got courage and she's not afraid to use it.
Christine, agreed !
Kathy I experienced the book-burning and the banning of books during the Joe McCarthy mania. George Orwell (1984) provides the game plan for these ‘thought control’ maniacs.
1) Purge access to our history as a country that has progressed from slavery and 2nd class women to what we have accomplished today.
2) Seek to ‘purify’ the American citizenry [echoes of Hitler’s Aryan race?] on issues of gender and skin color.
3) Encourage insurrection and debasement of the Constitution [echoes of Hitler’s Reichstag fire?]
4) Permit only the ‘white electorate’ to vote and insure that even these votes are scrutinized by a local legislature before the results are certified.
You are spot on—-OUR DEMOCRACY IS AT STAKE.
Kathy and Kathy, Thank you for this rational and measured outline of an insane and brutal process by which an entire people can be robbed of their humanity--in the system, certainly, but more devastating, in their own minds. If we are battered hard enough and long enough with the words and actions that communicate our worthlessness we are liable to internalize them. One immediate and particular example that comes to mind is hearing women parrot something we have too often come to believe, "I can't stand working with other women. They're always so catty and competitive." The process by which we, as women, begin to believe the stereotype and then to reinforce it is cruel and calculated. And that's just my own small example of what you are describing on a larger stage. What I don't know is what factors come together to make one group the oppressors and another, the oppressed. Any thoughts?
😪
It occurred to me this morning that if a political party only practices “obstruction of Government” as a platform for 40 years, and focuses on only on fundraising through “identity politics” then they loose their organizational knowledge, expertise, and capacity to do their jobs which dumbs down their voters even more. Its a negative feedback loop. The focus has become “rile the base, collect donations, stay in power”. Republicans have become the largest impediment to progress of a nation. We send representatives to DC to solve our problems by looking at facts, metrics, science, and experts to find truth, consensus, and thus compromise through reasoned debate. By sending people who can’t do any of that at all, the GOP has become our biggest problem of all.
Well said!!
Well, Kathy, just came across “Time Travel….Republican Style”.
Don’t they wish. https://youtu.be/K4TZL8jFBG8
Christine Give me that ‘ole time religion, and please leave your KKK robes at the door.
I’ll take the only “ole time” that sounds good to me and that’s rock-n-roll.
Fabulous. Should be shared by everyone everywhere.
Hi, Kathy, I assume the answer is brutally simple. They are taking away our rights because they want to dictate them and not to have to deal with the mixed, complicated, sometimes loud voices that are democracy functioning at its best. I think that's what all the verbal battering is about--to get us to finally give up and shut up. There are days when I'm tired enough to almost consider it.
Kathy, your banner says you have ties to Arizona and Alaska. If you live in either of those states now, I'm sure you're taking advantage of being in a contested, purple state to be active in registering and mobilizing Democratic and progressive voters. Being active on the ground in your states is a powerful contribution!
I wish I could give this ten "hearts".
Kathy, I'm afraid we have to get used to it. This should have been nipped in the bud long ago. The ship has sailed.....
Seriously????
Yes. Really tired of it.
Thank you Mallory McMorrow! You are leading the way on how to live in integrity and love.
This is the link to the full speech. Terrific woman!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-k8I0A4g1Q
My hope is that her speech will embolden every Democrat (Repubs. invited) both in Congress and in every state legislature to repeat her words over and over and over again when words of hate are uttered. Glad MM’s moment of moral courage is getting national attention. About time.
Such an excellent speech, KarenRN and Joan Ehrlich, patricia Cadwell, Pam Peterson and others, that candidates could use as a model in their campaigns!
Thanks for the link. It's good to hear an effective message by a strong speaker,.
Integrity is essential. We hunger for it.
Listening to her..I thought “she needs to be in higher office”. The best comeback…
Nicole Wallace spent almost a half hour yesterday talking with "guest" about the impact Mallory McMorrow's speech should have...that it should be what every dem is spouting from the rooftops. McMorrow needs to go on the road with this one.
Unbelievable. She is why I have hope; every now and then someone comes out of "nowhere" and is transformative, like that skinny senator from Illinois.
The guy who plays basketball? 😉
Karen, I too say thank you to Mallory McMorrow. She needs to consider running for national office—what an inspiration.
Amen.
@robreiner. A vote for Democrats is a vote to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Democracy itself. The choice couldn't be clearer. It couldn't be more simple. A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy.
How will the USA's free press report the truth? After the following, will news outlets seek an opposing view?
'Mallory McMorrow, Michigan State Senator - 13th District'
'Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won't.'
'It couldn’t be more simple. A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy.'
8:03 AM · Apr 20, 2022' - Rob Reiner Filmmaker, actor, producer, husband, and father. on Twitter
'Trump and his Criminal Comrades traffic in Authoritarian tactics. They continue to lie about the “stolen” 2020 election and spread accusations of pedophilia. The ultimate goal is to destroy Democracy. To preserve the Republic, people of good will must overwhelm in November. ' 10:38 PM · Apr 18, 2022·Twitter Rob Reiner
Will we finally see a stampede of truth tellers or a trickle? Will Cruz and Hawley drown them out? I don't think so.
Thank you Fern. Rob Reiner is spot on, “ The ultimate goal is to destroy Democracy.” But on the way they attempt or succeed at destroying human beings, one by one or in groups. Thinking about the hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the disgusting innuendos about sentencing and pedophiles by the repubs. She couldn’t speak up at those “hearings”. Not when they were voting. But Senator McMorrow could and did.
Yes, Irenie, how can their lies and cruelty be acceptable to themselves? Remember Ted Cruz's performance? A Washington Post headline read, 'Ted Cruz gave the nation a lesson on misreading kids books'
Putin's extermination of the Ukrainian people is most on my mind. That there are examples now and in the past of the extermination of human beings is shocking. Man does not learn, and it is predominantly men who seize, surge, extinguish and destroy us.
"𝘈𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭, 𝘋𝘳. 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘺 𝘍𝘢𝘶𝘤𝘪 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘫𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘛𝘦𝘥 𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘻 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬." --https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/fauci-testifies-that-legalizing-marijuana-would-help-people-who-have-to-listen-to-ted-cruz-talk
“𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘖𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘛𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵.” --https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/powerful-variant-of-stupidity-identified-in-texas
Bless that Borowitz!
'Florida Judge Rules That Airlines Cannot Require Passengers to Have Tickets'
'TAMPA (The Borowitz Report)—Calling the provision a “violation of individual freedom,” a federal judge in Florida has ruled that airlines can no longer require passengers to have tickets.'
'Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle said that she came to her decision after finding that the United States Constitution makes “no reference whatsoever” to airline tickets.'
“The Framers of the Constitution clearly wanted to prevent the infringement of Americans’ right to board any airplane they want,” the Trump appointee said. “And so I hereby lift the ticket mandate.” (Satire, The NewYorker)
Thanks Ron, I needed this
🤣🤣
Ha!
😂
❤️
Fern, do you know the ancient Greek “Comedy”Lysistrata!? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata? “ is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes.” Learned about this ancient solution in 2003.
Fern, it’s a doublespeak of sorts. Distortions of meaning. Today’s Robert Reich podcast, “Zelensky Patriotism, Putin Patriotism, Trump Patriotism: the same word but with profoundly different meanings” is the talk. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/zelensky-patriotism-putin-patriotism?s=r
Ride ‘em, cowgirls and cowboys! Stampede time!
Mallory McMorrow Is my new hero. Other Democrats would be wise to follow her example of confronting Republican hate tactics head on.
My county Dems sent me McMorrow's speech. I wrote back that Virginia lawmakers need to mirror McMorrow Every.Single.Day!
Exactly
Mallory McMorrow is taking the correct action against a bully. She did a masterful job of preventing her accuser from dehumanizing her. A news host today properly identified dehumanizing as being an action of war; if your enemy is not human, then atrocities are much easier to justify. Mallory is correct; we must fight dehumanizing and hatred with humanizing and love.
Rachel Maddow's program on Monday night was terrific!! She spent the first 10 minutes describing how, in Russia over many years, when an authority figure was out of favor, they would be accused of pedophilia and then locked up indefinitely. The next segment talked about the Republicans essentially using the same tactic, most recently on Justice Jackson. It was stunning.
Perhaps someone knows how to post the link?? Well worth watching.
https://youtu.be/DHJOMzfbrw4
Thinking about this .... isn't that a QAnon mantra?? .... suggestive of the origins!!!!
Goes back further to "Pizzagate"; as millions saw & many have mentioned Mallory McMorrow humanized herself in certain words and said in a very powerful voice: "Hate will not win".
Thank you, Mary!
This link is not working now .... try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd-PkC5HyfQ
Thanks for the new link.
Well, I guess that means Putin is a pedophile. 😉
You can go to Podcast of Rachel Maddow Show and listen free to show from Monday April 18th
If you heard Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow speak, you would've been impressed by how precisely and incisively she delivered her message. There were none of those hesitations or fillers like "um" "uh" and other vocalizations that people often use when they speak. She's someone to watch in the years ahead, if she stays in politics.
Absolutely, Janice, what a strong and powerful message, delivery and human being. Standing up to the “trashing of humans” in this trumpian political climate takes courage and Mallory McMorrow demonstrated that courage. And honesty.
And what I loved is that Mallory looked that Senator right in the eye as she was speaking to her, and the Senator tossed her head around. I wanted her head to spin, like in The Exorcist!
Wow, Marlene. I didn't see the offending senator in the videos I have watched.
Saw a photo of her on TV just a while ago.
She’s a piece of work, isn’t she now?!
Uh, that'd be a yes, Marlene!
McMorrow's speech is legendary. Her delivery is beyond powerful. I have watched that clip more times than I can count and have shared it widely. Hope she stays in politics and harbors some serious ambition.
Watch it on YouTube: she's amazing.
Two powerful messages for Democrats to push in the campaign:
"We will not let hate win."
"... the Republican tax plan will increase taxes on 75 million middle-class families by an average of almost $1,500 a year while Biden’s plan will not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year."
And Beto O'Rourke's messaging is bringing the heat.
Everyone, if possible, needs to donate to O'Rourke's campaign.
Michael, O'Rourke's message was spot on.........to deaf ears.
Thank you Professor Richardson for highlighting Senator Mallory McMorrow’s courage in responding to Senator Theis, for standing up and speaking truth, to call out representatives who use hate to marginalize and destroy in order to win elections.
“Senator Lana Theis accused me by name of grooming and sexualizing children in an attempt to marginalize me for standing up against her marginalizing the LGBTQ community...in a fundraising email, for herself.”
Listen to her on Twitter.
“Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won't.”
This sewage tide.
THIS FILTH.
They hollered "DRAIN THE SWAMP!"
But all they can offer is to
SWAMP THE NATION.
IN FILTH.
LIES.
CORRUPTION.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
In regards to the Swamp, please read this New Yorker article about the dark money funding the RW claims that Democrats are involved in pedophilia. The title is informative: "The Slime Machine Targeting Dozens of Biden Nominees" Here's the link: https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-slime-machine-targeting-dozens-of-biden-nominees
Thank you for that link. Republicans and the rich white patriarchists who support and fund such organizations as the A.A.F and C.P.I. are the real slime in this country. Just reading of the filth that they use to smear upright honest people made my blood boil.
That link opens to a blank page - a search finally yields this from Rachel Maddow - video not available without app or sign in:
Transcript: The Rachel Maddow Show, 4/18/22
https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-4-18-22-n1294580
... verrry interrresting ... who knew ...?
Here's an excerpt, followed by an interview with Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker" who has done the research and reporting linked in Barbara's post:
"Bidennoms.com is about Biden nominees for government posts. It`s the website of a right-wing group called the American Accountability Foundation, and it`s not shy about what the group is setting out to do. They say Bidennoms.com, quote, personnel is policy. We are working to ensure that leaders within the federal government reflect the values and concerns of the American people, not the liberal coastal elites and their woke allies in corporate America."
"The group is claiming credit for having dirtied up Judge Jackson during her confirmation with these false claims, even though she was still confirmed. They`re also claiming credit for actually stopping the nominations of multiple Biden nominees with plans for more to come."
"... the site has headshot after headshot of headshot after headshot of Biden nominee.
"Some of them famous ones for sure but some of them you`ve definitely never heard of. They`re trying the thing that`s unique about this group is that they`re not sort of trying to keep one person who they don`t like or two people who they don`t like out of the job. They`re trying to keep every single Biden nominee out of the job or at least to dirty them all up along the way.
"Everybody Biden nominated who`s going through the confirmation process. They`re going after them simply because Biden nominated them, all of them. Now, opposition research isn`t new. It`s a sort of gross part of how Washington operates, but it has always been thus. This group though is different and investigative reporter Jane Mayer at "The New Yorker" has been busy sort of finding them out.
"Quote: The American Accountability Foundation`s approach represents a new escalation in partisan warfare, rather than attack a single candidate or nominee, the group aims to thwart the entire Biden slate, meaning every Biden nominee full stop. They claim to have successfully derailed nominations like Biden`s nominee for comptroller of the currency by ginning up a fake narrative that she was somehow a communist, an actual communist.
"Also, the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin for position at the Federal Reserve board -- they claimed falsely that a delay in her disclosure of a stock trade was because she had somehow abused her position as a previous government -- government employee to obtain some sort of secret financial benefit for herself. It was completely false.
"There`s mudslinging but then there`s this -- what`s different about this is the wholesale approach to every nominee of the Biden administration and the willingness to levy these attacks not only sort of separate from the facts but separate in many cases from common decency, at a wholesale level."
https://www.bidennoms.com
MADDOW:
"... when I was watching the Judge Jackson confirmation hearings and Senator Hawley and Senator Blackburn and conservative media started going down this line with her, it was shocking because the allegation they were making against her saying that she was you know soft on sexual abuse of children was so divorced from the facts and was felt so wrong.
"But it also does dovetail with these other political tactics that we see in dictatorships and that we sort of started to see in the Trump era of the Republican Party, and it really had me wondering who cooked this up because I didn`t think Josh Hawley made it up himself.
"It seems like you`ve discovered that this group was the origin story for that false attack."
MAYER:
"Yeah, Hawley had some little helping hands, and it was this group, the American Accountability Foundation, which believe it or not is a tax- exempt organization. You can give money to it and get a tax deduction, while it smears everybody in sight and it does -- you know, sort of phony research basically and a pretty sloppy job if you really look into it.
"Most of the mud that it slunk has dissolved when you take a really close look. But the problem is for a lot of the lesser-known nominees, people aren`t really looking very carefully.
"What caught my eye about it was that I was writing a little bit about the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the vice chairman of the Fed for supervision. She`s incredibly well-qualified. I mean, and very well-liked, liked by the banking world also and had been confirmed twice before to very senior positions at the Fed and at the Treasury Department, with bipartisan unanimous support.
"And suddenly, there were these allegations that were pretext basically, that had nothing to do with reality, that was kind of a made-up story claiming that she had an ethical problem, and they didn`t really go after her for what I think is the real beef that they had with her which was that she had said a few things about climate change and how it posed a risk to the economy.
"So I started looking at this group trying to figure out who are these people and, of course, it turned out that a lot of the senators were getting their research from this group and the senators were getting their money from the fossil fuel industry and they needed a pretext to take her down in order to stop the Fed from including climate change is one of the things that it might consider as an important economic risk."
[21:35:03]
"So, anyway, I started trying to find out who these people were."
MADDOW:
"You also write about the expensive lengths to which this group appears to have gone to come up with these smears for some other nominees, including a woman who`s put forward to be comptroller of the currency, the one who is denounced as a communist. When you describe them like sending people all over the world to try to -- to try to dig stuff up that they could mischaracterize and take out of context and use against her and then senators sort of as senators avidly digested it and threw it at her during that hearing, it raises this question of where they`re getting all the funding to do this.
"And, Jane, you`ve been so good at untangling how dark money works. What were you able to find out about where the funding for this group comes from and who`s doing it?"
MAYER:
"Well, surprisingly, it -- the financial trail goes back to Donald Trump. He has a leadership PAC with hundreds of -- over million dollars in it and one of those million dollars went from his leadership PAC to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which is a an organization on Capitol Hill it`s kind of like an island of Elba for the Trump administration. You`ve got Mark Meadows working there and a number of other people from the Trump world up there, Cleta Mitchell.
"And it spawned this other little sort of group which is the American Accountability Foundation. So it`s it really is an offshoot of the of the Trump world and being funded in part by the Trump world."
https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-4-18-22-n1294580
My computer is playing up, and the phone I'm using now swallows up messages just before completion.
But it would be useful if people in this community gave thought to the form of messaging I have just used in what I've shared with you.
I'm thinking beyond this community to how to talk to adversaries in language they can understand. All the more effective when the speaker's quite sure of what he's saying. And here, the content and the language of Matthew 7:15-20 is universal, no need to be a Christian church mouse to know that.
Nothing better to throw at the heads of authoritarians than messages that have authority.
Authoritarians abuse authority -- but have none.
Authority -- author -- authentic.
The message in this chapter 7 was addressed to the brainwashed... It shocked them because it was genuine, and they weren't used to hearing that.
Because it is straight-from-the-heart genuine, it still has the power to penetrate thick skulls.
Think of that.
It is always good to remember sheep in wolves clothing. Another way to communicate with the hard core religious folks is: John Chapter 8, vs 1-10.
____________________________________________________________________________________
1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee.......
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so, in death that gave life, was born a religion based on forgiveness and acceptance (of anyone), not judgement and punishment.
Thanks for pointing out this "inconvenient" truth.
Growing one's congregation is much easier, as a preacher, IF:
1) you demonize people NOT like those in front of you.
2) you scare people in front of you about others not like them.
3) you list a series of reasons, which all of the people in front of you have in common, that will send them to hell and offer them the path out of hell.
4) you insure that the people in front of you feel superior to those absent.
Now, none of the above has anything to do with Christianity.
BUT, ALL of the above does have to do with the amount of money the preacher can get over time.
Well well, if we don’t have a nice cozy conflict going on in the Mizzell-Kushner households! The DOJ’s request to appeal should be granted just based on that tidbit of information. Slime and sleaze doesn’t travel very far.
Per Reuters and the NYT, the DOJ has appealed. DONE.
Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow spoke her truth clearly and passionately. There was light in it.
Thank you for sharing it with us Professor Richardson.
That attack on Mallory McMorrow and others is being funded by RW dark money. Here's the New Yorker article about those efforts to smear Democrats as pedophiles. Spread that info around. https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-slime-machine-targeting-dozens-of-biden-nominees
Thank you Barbara. It’s incredibly difficult to read without spitting but important to read it. Keep facing forward and move!
Thank you, Barbara.
I read the article and was nearly sick, but it is important to spread the word.
That link opens to a blank page - a search finally yields this from Rachel Maddow - video not available without app or sign in:
Transcript: The Rachel Maddow Show, 4/18/22
https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-4-18-22-n1294580
Here's an excerpt, followed by an interview with Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker" who has done the research and reporting linked in Barbara's post:
"Bidennoms.com is about Biden nominees for government posts. It`s the website of a right-wing group called the American Accountability Foundation, and it`s not shy about what the group is setting out to do. They say Bidennoms.com, quote, personnel is policy. We are working to ensure that leaders within the federal government reflect the values and concerns of the American people, not the liberal coastal elites and their woke allies in corporate America."
"The group is claiming credit for having dirtied up Judge Jackson during her confirmation with these false claims, even though she was still confirmed. They`re also claiming credit for actually stopping the nominations of multiple Biden nominees with plans for more to come."
"... the site has headshot after headshot of headshot after headshot of Biden nominee.
"Some of them famous ones for sure but some of them you`ve definitely never heard of. They`re trying the thing that`s unique about this group is that they`re not sort of trying to keep one person who they don`t like or two people who they don`t like out of the job. They`re trying to keep every single Biden nominee out of the job or at least to dirty them all up along the way.
"Everybody Biden nominated who`s going through the confirmation process. They`re going after them simply because Biden nominated them, all of them. Now, opposition research isn`t new. It`s a sort of gross part of how Washington operates, but it has always been thus. This group though is different and investigative reporter Jane Mayer at "The New Yorker" has been busy sort of finding them out.
"Quote: The American Accountability Foundation`s approach represents a new escalation in partisan warfare, rather than attack a single candidate or nominee, the group aims to thwart the entire Biden slate, meaning every Biden nominee full stop. They claim to have successfully derailed nominations like Biden`s nominee for comptroller of the currency by ginning up a fake narrative that she was somehow a communist, an actual communist.
"Also, the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin for position at the Federal Reserve board -- they claimed falsely that a delay in her disclosure of a stock trade was because she had somehow abused her position as a previous government -- government employee to obtain some sort of secret financial benefit for herself. It was completely false.
"There`s mudslinging but then there`s this -- what`s different about this is the wholesale approach to every nominee of the Biden administration and the willingness to levy these attacks not only sort of separate from the facts but separate in many cases from common decency, at a wholesale level."
https://www.bidennoms.com
MADDOW:
"... when I was watching the Judge Jackson confirmation hearings and Senator Hawley and Senator Blackburn and conservative media started going down this line with her, it was shocking because the allegation they were making against her saying that she was you know soft on sexual abuse of children was so divorced from the facts and was felt so wrong.
"But it also does dovetail with these other political tactics that we see in dictatorships and that we sort of started to see in the Trump era of the Republican Party, and it really had me wondering who cooked this up because I didn`t think Josh Hawley made it up himself.
"It seems like you`ve discovered that this group was the origin story for that false attack."
MAYER:
"Yeah, Hawley had some little helping hands, and it was this group, the American Accountability Foundation, which believe it or not is a tax- exempt organization. You can give money to it and get a tax deduction, while it smears everybody in sight and it does -- you know, sort of phony research basically and a pretty sloppy job if you really look into it.
"Most of the mud that it slunk has dissolved when you take a really close look. But the problem is for a lot of the lesser-known nominees, people aren`t really looking very carefully.
"What caught my eye about it was that I was writing a little bit about the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the vice chairman of the Fed for supervision. She`s incredibly well-qualified. I mean, and very well-liked, liked by the banking world also and had been confirmed twice before to very senior positions at the Fed and at the Treasury Department, with bipartisan unanimous support.
"And suddenly, there were these allegations that were pretext basically, that had nothing to do with reality, that was kind of a made-up story claiming that she had an ethical problem, and they didn`t really go after her for what I think is the real beef that they had with her which was that she had said a few things about climate change and how it posed a risk to the economy.
"So I started looking at this group trying to figure out who are these people and, of course, it turned out that a lot of the senators were getting their research from this group and the senators were getting their money from the fossil fuel industry and they needed a pretext to take her down in order to stop the Fed from including climate change is one of the things that it might consider as an important economic risk."
[21:35:03]
"So, anyway, I started trying to find out who these people were."
MADDOW:
"You also write about the expensive lengths to which this group appears to have gone to come up with these smears for some other nominees, including a woman who`s put forward to be comptroller of the currency, the one who is denounced as a communist. When you describe them like sending people all over the world to try to -- to try to dig stuff up that they could mischaracterize and take out of context and use against her and then senators sort of as senators avidly digested it and threw it at her during that hearing, it raises this question of where they`re getting all the funding to do this.
"And, Jane, you`ve been so good at untangling how dark money works. What were you able to find out about where the funding for this group comes from and who`s doing it?"
MAYER:
"Well, surprisingly, it -- the financial trail goes back to Donald Trump. He has a leadership PAC with hundreds of -- over million dollars in it and one of those million dollars went from his leadership PAC to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which is a an organization on Capitol Hill it`s kind of like an island of Elba for the Trump administration. You`ve got Mark Meadows working there and a number of other people from the Trump world up there, Cleta Mitchell.
"And it spawned this other little sort of group which is the American Accountability Foundation. So it`s it really is an offshoot of the of the Trump world and being funded in part by the Trump world."
https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-4-18-22-n1294580
I sincerely hope that Judge Mizelle limited her opinion on the public mask mandate for planes, trains and buses to the extent of the CDC's authority, rather than the value of masking in those environments. There are no measures absolutely 100% effective in avoiding COVID 19 transmission, short of extremely remote isolation perhaps, but the last person who should render an opinion on the validity of public health measures would be someone whose entire professional education/credentials are something other than public health. The CDC resides under the federal Department of Health and Human Services. If the CDC does not have authority over public health mandates, perhaps it is HHS? Did someone simply miss which level of the chain of command has authority over public health mandates? If not HHS, is it the POTUS?
It certainly makes sense that CDC, which is expressly focused on disease, would be the most appropriate authority over public health mandates. Why are we so offended by such a mandate, when we essentially universally accept such mandates as stop signs, red lights, bans on smoking in public places? It's far easier to understand a debate over the use of masks from the isolation of one's living room, but certainly not if one is obligatorily placed in close proximity to strangers for hours at a time, breathing common air. How many super-spreader events are needed before we understand that voluntary compliance with public health recommendations/suggestions simply don't provide adequate protection for those who WISH to comply with the guidance of experts?
Presidential appointment of judges and justices has become entrapped in the briar-patch of political partisanship. There is no level at which justice rises above suspicion of partisan influence anymore. What would the result be if the law prohibited examination/consideration of political views, politically based questions during confirmation hearings, demanding that the only official process surrounding appointment and confirmation of judges should focus on education/training/experience, rather than personal opinions. It would not change the tendency of the president to forward candidates whose record suggests political predispositions, but would certainly cool the political rhetoric (and worse) that surrounds the confirmation process. And, laws that specifically prohibit overt attempts to influence the judiciary before/during hearings/cases/decisions with political ramifications would be welcome, IMHO.
I would think that the airlines and other transportation services themselves would be in favor of mandatory masking. If it became known that travel by air or other forms of public transportation increased the risk and spread of Covid, how would this affect sales? And especially among persons who are already vulnerable? I'm surprised that the companies affected aren't protesting the ruling. Your question is the right one- how many super-spreader events do we need before we recognize the danger of optional compliance?
I’d take this even further: lifting the mask mandate on public airlines in Britain has resulted in chaos, as so many employees become sick that many, many flights are cancelled. How can that be good for business?
some claim that high air turnover and filtration make airliners a safer environment than many other public places. However, a single person shedding high levels of virus, especially the highly transmissible Omicron variants that now predominate, would still make me very concerned about a transcontinental or long international flight. These days, you can live in a place with low viral activity and still encounter someone from a place with high viral activity at a major airport within a few hours of leaving your home. Add age and coexisting conditions and you are asking for trouble.
There are a couple of Substack writers who addressed some of these topics. Katelin Jetelina (an epidemiologist, whose Substack is "Your Local Epidemiologist") has been writing about the pandemic for a couple of years. Lucian Truscott IV (an associate of TCinLA) writes a newsletter (Lucian Truscott IV Newsletter) and last night wrote a blistering analysis of the decision made by the judge in the CDC case.
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/sars-cov-2-transmission-on-planes/comments?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODU5ODU5LCJwb3N0X2lkIjo1MjQyOTk0NywiXyI6IkxTc3VmIiwiaWF0IjoxNjUwNTQ0MzE4LCJleHAiOjE2NTA1NDc5MTgsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yODEyMTkiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.ITXsgELfuaJJWKYslYH_KUfNsHgGHfp8mvDJj9rU9cY&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&s=r
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/i-read-the-mask-mandate-court-decision/comments?s=r
thanks!...have explored and signed on to the epidemiologist's feed.
From TCinLA:
"Federal judge Kathryn Mizelle, a former clerk to Clarence Thomas ... ruled today that the Federally-required mask mandate for travel on U.S. air lines and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...,
"improperly failed to justify its decision and did not follow proper rulemaking, making the rule an unconstitutional abuse of federal regulatory power."
"In her 59-page ruling, Mizelle said the only remedy was to vacate the rule entirely because it would be impossible to end it for the limited group of people who objected to it in the lawsuit ...,
"Because our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends, the court declares unlawful and vacates the mask mandate.”"
https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/but-mah-fwee-dumbs?s=r
*****
From Rachel Maddow:
"As of right now, airline passengers no longer have to wear masks on Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, Southwest, United, or JetBlue. Those airlines tonight have all announced that masks are now optional on board planes.
"... today a federal judge in Florida, a Trump appointee, struck down the CDC`s mask mandate for planes, and trains, and other public transportation.
"Now, this ruling as unusual for a couple of reasons. The first is that it comes from a single judge who hasn`t actually heard any courtroom arguments about this case. She decided that previously scheduled oral arguments said to happen next week were, unnecessary. She canceled the oral arguments and just issued the ruling on written briefs alone.
"The second reason this ruling is a bit of a surprise is that the judge decided this would be enforced nationally rather than applying it only to the plaintiffs, which you know, keep that in mind next time you hear conservatives solemnly intone about how much they dislike judicial activism."
https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-4-18-22-n1294580
*****
... so, let me get this right ... "our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends ...”
...?!?
Well said!!
Key words:
"The purpose of the law, of course, is to prevent the spread of “communicable diseases,” of which COVID-19 is undeniably one. But forget the purpose of the law. Forget the legal, moral, and medical necessity to protect human beings from becoming infected with the virus.
"What’s important to this federal judge who once clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court is finding a way to slap down this terrible federal regulation which she naturally gets around to finding, at one point in the decision, interferes with the authority of states to regulate the spread of disease within their own borders."
NPR invterviewed Texas' own Agriculturual Commissioner who is at odds with, and objects to, Texas Governor Abbott's "inspections".
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1093282003
Turns out, both the Border Patrol and the Texas Agricultural Commission ALREADY inspected every truck in multiple ways.
Abbot's stunt only added inspections of things like tire pressure and Abbot's inspectors could not go inside trucks to check for illegal migrants. They could hold up trucks to let food rot though.
Texas own Agricultural Commissioner says that billions of dollars of food is rotting at the border and for the third time during Abbot's tenure grocery stores are empty. He also says that it is much more effective to work with our partner Mexico, as we did before, to stop migrants at MEXICO's southern border. Apparently that Trump era negotiated outcome is no longer in place.
BUT, the Ag commissioner says he will vote for Abbott. Does not want Beto O'Rourke.
Great interview.
You are right Dr. Richardson. Stunts are what the Republicans will play out as we near the elections.
But, I would ask: Is it the Republicans that use dumb stunts to get elected OR is it Americans who let blatantly stupid stunts influence their thinking that are the problem??
Me? I do think it the latter.
Just like Barr criticized Trump and said he was unfit—but of course he would vote for him if he ran in 2024. Better than a socialist dem. WTAF?
MlMinET: Demonization works.
Example: If you convince someone that the "devil" resides in someone else, like a 15 year old girl, then, you can get them all to agree to, say, burn said 15 year old girl alive (who has turned you down for sexual favors)....after all, that will get rid of that devil (who has spurned your evil overture AND hide the fact of your perversion). See?
As was the case in some fundamentalist haven: Salem, MA.
Twisted ... and the way to answer evil is to "resist not" ... I will be happy and great-full to die ... away from this twisted dimension ....
... both. So insanely senseless ... just plain stupid.
Abbott doesn’t care if he duplicates or repeats criticism or policy. He only wants to remain in power and in the media, to remain a household name for the next election. He has had enough time to work with the federal government (both repub and Dem) for solutions on the border. A broken system means he can be the one who fixes it. As long as voters have amnesia.
I found this little tidbit this morning in my "word of the day" email. It seems as far back as 1522 people knew that trump was bad news : betrump
PRONUNCIATION:
(be-TRUHMP)
MEANING:
verb tr.:
1. To deceive or cheat.
2. To elude.
This certainly applies to poor choices such Gov Abbott and Gov Ducey are making.
This should be the top comment when we open the comments section!!
PRRFECT!!! And one word says it all.
At last, hearing Democrats speaking up. Now media must no longer try to be fair in reporting republicans as if they have a decent point of view! Thank you for pointing out facts which reflect truth.
President Joe Biden is a graduate of the University of Delaware, and so am I!
I read on LinkedIn this morning that he will be giving the commencement speech at UD this year. I couldn't believe the bile and spew in the comments - it was disgusting.
Here is a sample: "...because they ( Democrats) stole the platform , for now . The count down has begun ."
Amazing. Horrifying.
When I was at UD, Biden was one of my senators. He had a reputation then as a hardworking legislator and all-around nice guy. As far as I know, that's still the case. I don't understand the hatred.
You have to understand why they hate. Sun Tzu said one must understand the enemy to be able to defeat them ... or at least not lose to them.
The True Story Of The Sith - Charles Eisenstein
https://soundcloud.com/charleseisenstein/the-true-story-of-the-sith?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
***
Sith - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sith