TFG hasn't killed the Cheney dynasty, if it's even worthy of being called such. Liz Cheney hasn't retired from the political scene yet, probably won't. Eric has never shown himself to be anything other than a fool, yet he continues to find a way into the public ear. TFG IS the Trump Organization. It's a private company, and he administe…
TFG hasn't killed the Cheney dynasty, if it's even worthy of being called such. Liz Cheney hasn't retired from the political scene yet, probably won't. Eric has never shown himself to be anything other than a fool, yet he continues to find a way into the public ear. TFG IS the Trump Organization. It's a private company, and he administered it like the wannabe dictator he attempted to become over the USA. To restrict a civil suit to the organization and not it's owner-operator was a compromise from the start. Nothing happened in that organization without either the impetus or the assent of TFG.
What can conviction yield? Fines, requirements for future external audit/oversight? The company needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. The fines should exceed it's net worth. It's scion needs to be behind bars. It's assets need to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to the US Treasury. Our justice system, on every level, has to demonstrate the courage to ignore his title and conduct itself according to the sum total of his actions pre-, during and post-presidency. Rising to the highest office in the land doesn't change the fact that he's a criminal. It's the height of embarrassment that our nation elected a criminal in spite of overwhelming information accurately predicting his subsequent behavior in office. We need to "cancel" the weight of that decision and it's innoculative effect on the wheels of justice. We need to own and conduct ourselves according to the quote "no man is above the law".
Nathan, you wrote “It's the height of embarrassment that our nation elected a criminal in spite of overwhelming information accurately predicting his subsequent behavior in office.” Yes! And what’s disturbing is that half the voters in this country, an estimate, would vote for him again.
JL, yes very interesting. And 2016! We should not be surprised. TFG’s ties to criminal elements was one more election story that repub voters ignored. Power corrupts.
Irenie, I might be nit-picking over word choice and, if so, apologies, but I think it was worse than ignoring his ties to organized crime. I think they knew every bit of that, knew exactly what he was, and made a very conscious, deliberate decision to choose him. And by "they" I mean the power brokers and the deep pockets in organizations like The Federalist Society with whom a man like McConnell made a devil's bargain. I am as far away from being a conspiracy theorist as it's possible to be, but the nearly invisible network of these people seem, in fact, to have been pulling the strings for quite a long time.
Yes. It seems VERY unlikely th e"powers that be" in the R party would not have known all about Trump in 2016 and his criminal activities. If we in the boonies knew, surely they did.
Dean, not nit-picking, but looking from a different angle. Perhaps the general public, the repubs who vote the party, just like it’s in the family, heritage to be a repub or Dem. They don’t always pay attention if they vote at all. Yes, the Federalist Society has been installing elected officials and SCOTUS behind the scenes. Plus there’s the Claremont Institute connection to Eastman. The behind the scenes “votes.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/24/claremont-john-eastman-trump/
Perhaps, more than family voting patterns (though I'm sure that figures into it) is kids who are taught by their parents that they have all the right answers and parents who see themselves as preparing kids for their own adventure. But Eisenhower Republicans seem very different from Reagan Republicans, let alone Lincoln Republicans, let alone Trump Republicans. Nixon was dishonest, but it seemed to me that party-wide, organized big lies began with Reagan, and somehow those lies were erosive of the common weal, yet a massive basket of goodies for those in position to initiate de facto bribery and market monopolies; the ultra rich.
It seems to me that as a nation that is identified with self-governance, we spend remarkably little time exploring, detailing, discussing as a national conversation, where we want/need to go to promote and protect the rights of individuals and the common good. Its more like commercial marketing, where we "buy" somebody else's shrink-wrapped product; and TV seems to have made this more so. Modern presidential "debates" seem more like TV game shows than the sort of depth one finds in Lincoln-Douglas, and yet out fates still hang in the balance.
Thanks for that J L. It just goes to show the depth of his despicable behavior. It appears that the connections run very deep. No wonder he gets away with all that he does.
That might not be all negative though. Now other countries know what the USA is and can proceed accordingly, knowing we are packed with a bunch of white supremacists and low-level complainers, neither of which wants to deal with the complexities of a democracy. To preserve the democracy, they need to recognize our pluralistic society and work together to make a decent country for law abiding citizens. At least other countrires now know the truth about America.
I can't avoid knowing that, although we aren't the Republicans and we aren't Trump or the stormers of the capitol and we certainly aren't Putin, I do bear some responsibility. We liberals (and that's not right--I can only say this liberal sitting here typing) tend to be self-righteous about our position on the moral high ground. We also have ignored over too many decades the growing economic divide in this country. Pogo. 1971 "We have met the enemy and he is us" Edmund Burke, 18th century England "The only thing required for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing." In 2016 we were too confident, we dismissed Trump, ignored all the signs, assumed the victory, underestimated the racist backlash.
I don't dwell on that, but I find it hard to look away from it.
"We need to own and conduct ourselves according to the quote "no man is above the law"."
"To restrict a civil suit to the organization and not it's owner-operator was a compromise from the start. Nothing happened in that organization without either the impetus or the assent of TFG."
Nathan, as far as I know, no black man in history has ever been accorded the amazing concept of owning a criminal enterprise but being exempt from prosecution and jail.
Not a single large crack dealer in Baltimore has ever had his business indicted while he was separated from prosecution personally. Not one. In fact, those black men were put in jail for 40 years in some cases.
Separating the owner from the business is an amazing concept that would only be accorded to a rich white man to ensure that he never spends time in jail no matter how criminal he is. A fundamental rule in America.
Recognizing these deals, which are common for white men and non-existent for the rest of America INCLUDING white women (remember Martha Stewart), is quite important.
Unless we understand how America is really organized and run, we cannot change it.
Possibly, it's that T. employs "fixers" a la the Mafia. He has a large team of shyster lawyers who wrangle and connive, while he keeps his hands umm, elsewhere. It all never quite touches him. And if at first they don't succeed in court, they appeal endlessly. One of the reasons the Mar a Lago investigation is so compelling is that it appears there is no one to stand in the way of a direct indictment of Trump this time.
Hope, excellent point! His modus operandi is to insulate himself with layers of people he can eventually disavow and scapegoat. People who eventually realize their loyalty was one-sided when they're callously discarded (a la Michael Cohen.)
He'll try the same for Boxgate. "Other people catalogued and chose the contents" and "I didn't know what was in there." But it won't work this time.
The Box Stops Here. Garland has him by the short ones.
indeed; look what it's doing for TFG's accountant. 15 felonies, 4 months in jail (probably time already served) and a fine. The guy should be locked up until his bones turn to dust.
Good morning, Mike, and thank you for stretching our perspective a little further by simply pointing out the facts about separation of organization and owner. My first response, honestly, was, "Well, s--t, of course there's racism!" There are very few constants in this young country of ours, built by wealthy white men on a foundation of genocide, but two that are readily identifiable are money and racism. At this moment in our history, I am horrified to observe that we sure didn't get very far forward before we started going backward. Some days I just think I've gotten too old to look at this. Where are Odessa and Baez when we need some songs?
I have become aware, over half a century of "making good trouble" that the one thing I cannot do, for all my liberal white good intentions, is to say to my black friends that I know how they feel. I don't. I know about pain, physical and emotional; I know about rejection because of the person I am and the choices I've made; I know there is a great deal I can do to tear down a few of the walls of racism in the country. But I have also learned that all that does not allow me to really know. To me, however, it is an "of course." Donald Trump, the power boys and the hard cash behind him, and the violence that flows in his wake, is not a sudden, bizarre accident that we will fix. One reason I think everybody is jumping on Joe Biden is that we believed he would put the evil genie back in the bottle and we could stop thinking about it. Too late. The monster that is our underbelly is out and roaming the countryside looking for fresh meat.
I'm getting a little melodramatic here so I'll stop.
It makes me so happy to find many kindred spirits here. I wonder if we, with much gratitude to the folks who contribute their wisdom to sub-stacks a la Heather Cox Richardson, are not forming a new "tribe?" I'm beginning to feel that keenly. It almost feels like birthing a child, or creating a synthesis. I am (on purpose) very slowly rereading The Dawn of Everything. I am drawn to the speculation that there were groups of people who had no societal hierarchy, did not evaluate women's "work" to be any less valuable than men's "work," and apparently made community decisions by consensus. A true democracy, albeit simple.
I love this, Hope. I'd say yes and yes to every word of it. It occurs to me that we are struggling to survive in a world gone entirely mad and what you describe is perhaps the only way. Rather than engage in battle with that world we are building our own small worlds within it. Maybe that's the sane way back to some kind of normalcy. Thank you so much. What a lovely way to start my day.
Will we ever do that? Not sure how generations of mass incarceration, lynchings, white terrorism can be overcome enough to make equal justice a reality.
Carol, today my answer to your question would have to be 'no.' I was reading this morning about all the states that are initiating some version of book banning for schools and a huge part of that is to stop the teaching of the facts of the history of slavery and violent racism in this country. We will never change what we refuse to admit. Book banning is on the road to book-burning. If we control what our children read, we control what they know and, ultimately, what they think. This is state-sponsored censorship. Read about any dictatorship in the world and the suppression of information is at the top of the list of how they start and how they operate. And they are starting with our children!!
Probably, but if it were only Florida and Texas, it would still be bad news but not a crisis. From what I've read, between 13-15+ states are sniffing around the edges of this kind of state-mandated insanity. And once all those states out there--the ones you can't quite remember--get on board, I think the domino effect will take over. It's the way every single dreadful and democracy-defeating event has occurred. There's such a mesmerizing show in the center ring that we don't notice the rather bland changes that will change the game before we know it. One of the basic principles of the successful creation of an authoritarian state. We have been bombarded with uninterrupted noise/lights/chaos for seven years now. It requires more and more effort to stay focused, to pay attention, to act.
That said, those are exactly the things we must do and I am determined to grab my cane and hobble out into the war.
Much of the 20th Century involved public empowerment by workers, women, minorities, anti-war, etc. Not that any of those battles were ever decisively won, but there was measurable progress, not all of which has been curtailed. We had a recent black president, and a female presidential nominee who won the popular vote by quite a bit. Gay rights seem stronger now than in the last century even with concerted resistance to them, which varies regionally. Recreational drug policies seem far saner in many states than in the past.
But the movement to use the law to undermine the democratic basis of the law appears stronger than ever, and much progress is being reversed or is under concerted attack. I am hoping the the Jan 6th Committee and other revelations of extreme, organized "GOP" criminality can be used a seed for organizing resistance and plotting a different course. There is a great deal at stake, including the ongoing livability of the planet, which seems unwise for anyone to just sit out.
Not sure, but just looking at nations around the globe, some seem, for the most part, more just and some decidedly less, so better-than-it-is seems possible, despite pervasive corruption. The despots are still a minority but big money is behind them, and that is a serious threat. I think there remains an opening for solidarity to triumph, if enough of us have it in us. I am hoping that at least some at the edges of politics are getting tired of hearing of all the posturing and lies and might be open to a different vision.
Nathan,your comment just triggered a thought. Perhaps there should be a movement to cancel the results of the 2016 election, and wipe the slate clean of his entire presidency due to Russian interference and the multiple crimes committed.
Better yet, wipe the pardons he gave to criminals like Stone and Manafort, off the records. Imprison them! Then go after Sessions, Stephen Miller, Barr, Nunes, Kavanaugh, Ginni Thomas and hubby, Coney Barrett, etc.
Hi Karen I think denying history and what is possible ( and has happened in fact) would never be the way to go. That's maybe how we got into the mess we are in now. As Faulkner said:
Hello, Joan, and thank you. On another day of horrors in the news and despair in many of the comments, stumbling on someone who quotes Faulkner might be the saving of my sanity for another 24 hours.
And just so you know, I'm considering ending my morning reading of Dr. Richardson's newsletter, making a cup of tea, and settling in to re-read a Faulkner novel.
One of the magic events in my long teaching life was when I taught a little Faulkner novel, The Unvanquished, to a class of h.s. sophomores. I started out with a truly obnoxious lit crit intro lecture about Faulkner, his importance in the blah blah blah and I realized I was looking out at a sea of 12-15 pairs of glazed eyes. One kid was actually asleep and, let me tell you, with Mommy and Daddy writing big checks every year, even teenagers manage to stay awake! And I was the recipient of pure grace when it became clear to me what the solution was. I said, basically, put your notebooks away, close your eyes, and listen. And I started on the first page and I read until the class ended. That novel turned out to be most students' favorite. Much of Faulkner is really difficult but this novel is a dream to teach if the teacher will just shut up :-)
You would’ve turned out to be one of my favorite teachers! This makes me think of Dead Poets Society a little bit. Thanks for sharing a literary moment with me!
Hi, Joan. I wasn't saying deny history, rather that it was an "illegitimate " presidency. I hate thinking about his having a presidential funeral, although that's the least of my worries. TFG has been a grifter, mobster and crook since childhood, as was his father.
TFG hasn't killed the Cheney dynasty, if it's even worthy of being called such. Liz Cheney hasn't retired from the political scene yet, probably won't. Eric has never shown himself to be anything other than a fool, yet he continues to find a way into the public ear. TFG IS the Trump Organization. It's a private company, and he administered it like the wannabe dictator he attempted to become over the USA. To restrict a civil suit to the organization and not it's owner-operator was a compromise from the start. Nothing happened in that organization without either the impetus or the assent of TFG.
What can conviction yield? Fines, requirements for future external audit/oversight? The company needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. The fines should exceed it's net worth. It's scion needs to be behind bars. It's assets need to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to the US Treasury. Our justice system, on every level, has to demonstrate the courage to ignore his title and conduct itself according to the sum total of his actions pre-, during and post-presidency. Rising to the highest office in the land doesn't change the fact that he's a criminal. It's the height of embarrassment that our nation elected a criminal in spite of overwhelming information accurately predicting his subsequent behavior in office. We need to "cancel" the weight of that decision and it's innoculative effect on the wheels of justice. We need to own and conduct ourselves according to the quote "no man is above the law".
Nathan, you wrote “It's the height of embarrassment that our nation elected a criminal in spite of overwhelming information accurately predicting his subsequent behavior in office.” Yes! And what’s disturbing is that half the voters in this country, an estimate, would vote for him again.
Well, we CERTAINLY couldn't elect that woman. I mean, I'd vote for a woman, just not THAT woman. Why, I'd vote for Elizabeth Warren! /s
Got it!
??
Dean, that's what a lot of people said in comments on articles, internet 'zines, etc. about Hillary Clinton when she ran against Trump.
thank you I did finally get it Hard to hear tone of voice
Interesting footnote: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910/
JL, yes very interesting. And 2016! We should not be surprised. TFG’s ties to criminal elements was one more election story that repub voters ignored. Power corrupts.
Irenie, I might be nit-picking over word choice and, if so, apologies, but I think it was worse than ignoring his ties to organized crime. I think they knew every bit of that, knew exactly what he was, and made a very conscious, deliberate decision to choose him. And by "they" I mean the power brokers and the deep pockets in organizations like The Federalist Society with whom a man like McConnell made a devil's bargain. I am as far away from being a conspiracy theorist as it's possible to be, but the nearly invisible network of these people seem, in fact, to have been pulling the strings for quite a long time.
Yes. It seems VERY unlikely th e"powers that be" in the R party would not have known all about Trump in 2016 and his criminal activities. If we in the boonies knew, surely they did.
Just as Putin knew.
Dean, not nit-picking, but looking from a different angle. Perhaps the general public, the repubs who vote the party, just like it’s in the family, heritage to be a repub or Dem. They don’t always pay attention if they vote at all. Yes, the Federalist Society has been installing elected officials and SCOTUS behind the scenes. Plus there’s the Claremont Institute connection to Eastman. The behind the scenes “votes.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/24/claremont-john-eastman-trump/
Fabulous. Thank you for this! One of the great things about HCR's Letters is they are just overflowing with things to learn and new points of view.
Perhaps, more than family voting patterns (though I'm sure that figures into it) is kids who are taught by their parents that they have all the right answers and parents who see themselves as preparing kids for their own adventure. But Eisenhower Republicans seem very different from Reagan Republicans, let alone Lincoln Republicans, let alone Trump Republicans. Nixon was dishonest, but it seemed to me that party-wide, organized big lies began with Reagan, and somehow those lies were erosive of the common weal, yet a massive basket of goodies for those in position to initiate de facto bribery and market monopolies; the ultra rich.
It seems to me that as a nation that is identified with self-governance, we spend remarkably little time exploring, detailing, discussing as a national conversation, where we want/need to go to promote and protect the rights of individuals and the common good. Its more like commercial marketing, where we "buy" somebody else's shrink-wrapped product; and TV seems to have made this more so. Modern presidential "debates" seem more like TV game shows than the sort of depth one finds in Lincoln-Douglas, and yet out fates still hang in the balance.
Thanks for that J L. It just goes to show the depth of his despicable behavior. It appears that the connections run very deep. No wonder he gets away with all that he does.
Yes, and no matter how this all shakes out, we will always be known as the country that elected Donald Trump.
As one anonymous European diplomat stated off the record: "We don't know if Trump is the anomaly or Biden is.
Neither do we.
I can only think not knowing is a step up from our previous assumption that we know everything.
That might not be all negative though. Now other countries know what the USA is and can proceed accordingly, knowing we are packed with a bunch of white supremacists and low-level complainers, neither of which wants to deal with the complexities of a democracy. To preserve the democracy, they need to recognize our pluralistic society and work together to make a decent country for law abiding citizens. At least other countrires now know the truth about America.
A chilling thought.
Dean, it happened, but I prefer to say putin made it so. So many hateful urchins played a role, yet not you and I.
I can't avoid knowing that, although we aren't the Republicans and we aren't Trump or the stormers of the capitol and we certainly aren't Putin, I do bear some responsibility. We liberals (and that's not right--I can only say this liberal sitting here typing) tend to be self-righteous about our position on the moral high ground. We also have ignored over too many decades the growing economic divide in this country. Pogo. 1971 "We have met the enemy and he is us" Edmund Burke, 18th century England "The only thing required for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing." In 2016 we were too confident, we dismissed Trump, ignored all the signs, assumed the victory, underestimated the racist backlash.
I don't dwell on that, but I find it hard to look away from it.
Very true and well said!
"We need to own and conduct ourselves according to the quote "no man is above the law"."
"To restrict a civil suit to the organization and not it's owner-operator was a compromise from the start. Nothing happened in that organization without either the impetus or the assent of TFG."
Nathan, as far as I know, no black man in history has ever been accorded the amazing concept of owning a criminal enterprise but being exempt from prosecution and jail.
Not a single large crack dealer in Baltimore has ever had his business indicted while he was separated from prosecution personally. Not one. In fact, those black men were put in jail for 40 years in some cases.
Separating the owner from the business is an amazing concept that would only be accorded to a rich white man to ensure that he never spends time in jail no matter how criminal he is. A fundamental rule in America.
Recognizing these deals, which are common for white men and non-existent for the rest of America INCLUDING white women (remember Martha Stewart), is quite important.
Unless we understand how America is really organized and run, we cannot change it.
Possibly, it's that T. employs "fixers" a la the Mafia. He has a large team of shyster lawyers who wrangle and connive, while he keeps his hands umm, elsewhere. It all never quite touches him. And if at first they don't succeed in court, they appeal endlessly. One of the reasons the Mar a Lago investigation is so compelling is that it appears there is no one to stand in the way of a direct indictment of Trump this time.
Hope, excellent point! His modus operandi is to insulate himself with layers of people he can eventually disavow and scapegoat. People who eventually realize their loyalty was one-sided when they're callously discarded (a la Michael Cohen.)
He'll try the same for Boxgate. "Other people catalogued and chose the contents" and "I didn't know what was in there." But it won't work this time.
The Box Stops Here. Garland has him by the short ones.
"Boxgate!" Good one, Cheryl!
The degree to which "rule of law" bows to money is a scandal. It is classic corruption in plain sight.
indeed; look what it's doing for TFG's accountant. 15 felonies, 4 months in jail (probably time already served) and a fine. The guy should be locked up until his bones turn to dust.
Good morning, Mike, and thank you for stretching our perspective a little further by simply pointing out the facts about separation of organization and owner. My first response, honestly, was, "Well, s--t, of course there's racism!" There are very few constants in this young country of ours, built by wealthy white men on a foundation of genocide, but two that are readily identifiable are money and racism. At this moment in our history, I am horrified to observe that we sure didn't get very far forward before we started going backward. Some days I just think I've gotten too old to look at this. Where are Odessa and Baez when we need some songs?
Dylan and Simon are standins.
Thank you Dean.
In fact, "of course there's racism" is not a universal "of course", or even a majority perspective in the US.
I have become aware, over half a century of "making good trouble" that the one thing I cannot do, for all my liberal white good intentions, is to say to my black friends that I know how they feel. I don't. I know about pain, physical and emotional; I know about rejection because of the person I am and the choices I've made; I know there is a great deal I can do to tear down a few of the walls of racism in the country. But I have also learned that all that does not allow me to really know. To me, however, it is an "of course." Donald Trump, the power boys and the hard cash behind him, and the violence that flows in his wake, is not a sudden, bizarre accident that we will fix. One reason I think everybody is jumping on Joe Biden is that we believed he would put the evil genie back in the bottle and we could stop thinking about it. Too late. The monster that is our underbelly is out and roaming the countryside looking for fresh meat.
I'm getting a little melodramatic here so I'll stop.
It makes me so happy to find many kindred spirits here. I wonder if we, with much gratitude to the folks who contribute their wisdom to sub-stacks a la Heather Cox Richardson, are not forming a new "tribe?" I'm beginning to feel that keenly. It almost feels like birthing a child, or creating a synthesis. I am (on purpose) very slowly rereading The Dawn of Everything. I am drawn to the speculation that there were groups of people who had no societal hierarchy, did not evaluate women's "work" to be any less valuable than men's "work," and apparently made community decisions by consensus. A true democracy, albeit simple.
I love this, Hope. I'd say yes and yes to every word of it. It occurs to me that we are struggling to survive in a world gone entirely mad and what you describe is perhaps the only way. Rather than engage in battle with that world we are building our own small worlds within it. Maybe that's the sane way back to some kind of normalcy. Thank you so much. What a lovely way to start my day.
"Equal Justice Under Law" is chiseled into the Supreme Court building. We need to be doing a better job of making it so.
Will we ever do that? Not sure how generations of mass incarceration, lynchings, white terrorism can be overcome enough to make equal justice a reality.
Carol, today my answer to your question would have to be 'no.' I was reading this morning about all the states that are initiating some version of book banning for schools and a huge part of that is to stop the teaching of the facts of the history of slavery and violent racism in this country. We will never change what we refuse to admit. Book banning is on the road to book-burning. If we control what our children read, we control what they know and, ultimately, what they think. This is state-sponsored censorship. Read about any dictatorship in the world and the suppression of information is at the top of the list of how they start and how they operate. And they are starting with our children!!
In Florida in particular.
Probably, but if it were only Florida and Texas, it would still be bad news but not a crisis. From what I've read, between 13-15+ states are sniffing around the edges of this kind of state-mandated insanity. And once all those states out there--the ones you can't quite remember--get on board, I think the domino effect will take over. It's the way every single dreadful and democracy-defeating event has occurred. There's such a mesmerizing show in the center ring that we don't notice the rather bland changes that will change the game before we know it. One of the basic principles of the successful creation of an authoritarian state. We have been bombarded with uninterrupted noise/lights/chaos for seven years now. It requires more and more effort to stay focused, to pay attention, to act.
That said, those are exactly the things we must do and I am determined to grab my cane and hobble out into the war.
Much of the 20th Century involved public empowerment by workers, women, minorities, anti-war, etc. Not that any of those battles were ever decisively won, but there was measurable progress, not all of which has been curtailed. We had a recent black president, and a female presidential nominee who won the popular vote by quite a bit. Gay rights seem stronger now than in the last century even with concerted resistance to them, which varies regionally. Recreational drug policies seem far saner in many states than in the past.
But the movement to use the law to undermine the democratic basis of the law appears stronger than ever, and much progress is being reversed or is under concerted attack. I am hoping the the Jan 6th Committee and other revelations of extreme, organized "GOP" criminality can be used a seed for organizing resistance and plotting a different course. There is a great deal at stake, including the ongoing livability of the planet, which seems unwise for anyone to just sit out.
Not sure, but just looking at nations around the globe, some seem, for the most part, more just and some decidedly less, so better-than-it-is seems possible, despite pervasive corruption. The despots are still a minority but big money is behind them, and that is a serious threat. I think there remains an opening for solidarity to triumph, if enough of us have it in us. I am hoping that at least some at the edges of politics are getting tired of hearing of all the posturing and lies and might be open to a different vision.
We do need to keep trying to live up to those words. Hasn't been true yet in the US
Nathan,your comment just triggered a thought. Perhaps there should be a movement to cancel the results of the 2016 election, and wipe the slate clean of his entire presidency due to Russian interference and the multiple crimes committed.
Better yet, wipe the pardons he gave to criminals like Stone and Manafort, off the records. Imprison them! Then go after Sessions, Stephen Miller, Barr, Nunes, Kavanaugh, Ginni Thomas and hubby, Coney Barrett, etc.
The Pandemonium Party. They rolled out the carpet for disaffected Dixiecrats, and sort of everything loose and terrible rolled in.
Hi Karen I think denying history and what is possible ( and has happened in fact) would never be the way to go. That's maybe how we got into the mess we are in now. As Faulkner said:
"the past is never dead, it is not even past"
Hello, Joan, and thank you. On another day of horrors in the news and despair in many of the comments, stumbling on someone who quotes Faulkner might be the saving of my sanity for another 24 hours.
Just so you know ...You are not alone feeling this way
And just so you know, I'm considering ending my morning reading of Dr. Richardson's newsletter, making a cup of tea, and settling in to re-read a Faulkner novel.
Go Dean! I am reading Frank Bruni memoir The Beauty of Dusk Inspiring and beautiful
This Faulknerian English major concurs, dear Dean!!
One of the magic events in my long teaching life was when I taught a little Faulkner novel, The Unvanquished, to a class of h.s. sophomores. I started out with a truly obnoxious lit crit intro lecture about Faulkner, his importance in the blah blah blah and I realized I was looking out at a sea of 12-15 pairs of glazed eyes. One kid was actually asleep and, let me tell you, with Mommy and Daddy writing big checks every year, even teenagers manage to stay awake! And I was the recipient of pure grace when it became clear to me what the solution was. I said, basically, put your notebooks away, close your eyes, and listen. And I started on the first page and I read until the class ended. That novel turned out to be most students' favorite. Much of Faulkner is really difficult but this novel is a dream to teach if the teacher will just shut up :-)
You would’ve turned out to be one of my favorite teachers! This makes me think of Dead Poets Society a little bit. Thanks for sharing a literary moment with me!
Hi, Joan. I wasn't saying deny history, rather that it was an "illegitimate " presidency. I hate thinking about his having a presidential funeral, although that's the least of my worries. TFG has been a grifter, mobster and crook since childhood, as was his father.
Karen the operant word...funeral
May he be the star of a cemetery ........ Somewhere.
LOL
His golf course at Bedminster, perhaps?
Heart.
The past is still unfolding in the present.
If only... I have been saying this all along. Especially the Supremes!
If only that could happen. Not that we'd ever forget.
Money recovered should be used to pay the small business guys who trump stiffed with remainder to treasury.
Fines for the rich and prison for the poor needs to be addressed.
Hopefully the DOJ will act as it must
The power of propaganda is well-known. What is unprecedented is that it made Schitt smell like roses to the extent that it may rule us all.
The power of propaganda may be well known by a few great scholars but nowhere near widely known enough to prevent us from wiping humanity from earth