The Department of Justice (DOJ) today released the redacted affidavit that persuaded a judge to agree to issue a search warrant for FBI agents to look for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the property owned by the Trump Organization in Florida.
The things he was impeached for the first time should have been enough to bench the Republicans for a generation. He will never do the honorable thing and he will never stop.
Prison or not, it is up to us to render him impotent by refusing to let him set any agenda outside of his cult. The media won’t do it. They should be giving most air and ink to President Biden and only cover Mr. Trump when something big happens in regards to prosecuting him. And they should never quote him. But sensationalizing DJT makes them money and their bosses are venal.
So it is up to us.
This would be tin horn dictator belongs in the dust bin of history. We the people can’t put him behind bars but we can deposit him in that bin.
The media should be covering Trump's theft of top secret and other highly sensitive documents for what it potentially is — the most significant breach of national security in U.S, history. It's a breach that may have caused extraordinary damage and put the country in danger.
The story should dominate the news every day. We're seeing only a small part of the story. While Trump was still president, he reportedly kept highly sensitive documents shown to him during briefings. Normally, such documents would have been immediately returned to secure places after the briefings. His actions were unprecedented.
And is it just a coincidence that in October 2021 the NYT reported: "Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said."
It is reasonable to fear that Trump sold out the country to foreign powers while in office and has continued to do so — blatantly — since leaving office. He must be stopped and severely punished if found guilty by a federal jury.
But that is not what is being covered by the majority of media, Michael. Most media air is being given to ignoring the treason of the FPOTUS or arguing it it is true, and definitely sidetracking our time and effort. The media is not what is going to save us this round.
I declare “Enough” to the media also and turn my eyes and ears away from them and move forward. We must succeed with our vote for rule of law and democracy in November. Ultimately for peace to prevail, it must be fought for from the strength and ramparts of a continuing democracy.
Vote Blue. Declare “Enough”. All efforts are to get the vote out. Eyes forward. All hands on deck. Not a second, minute, hour to lose. Take back what has been seized from us without our consent, brothers and sisters.
And make certain those who enabled tfg are, at a minimum, voted out of office and, ideally, prosecuted to the fullest extent. If they are willing to enable him even if affects the security of their friends, family and COUNTRY, they deserve to rot in jail.
Some MEDIA (redacted! LOL) feeds into the Trumpian narrative. I have grown increasingly angry, increasingly weary of how the 'certain' MEDIA all but celebrates Trump. That the MEDIA shies away from telling truth to fact, exploding the tyranny of Trump, is a sad tale about what news outlets have become. **This has been edited from my earlier version, having taken too broad a swipe at "MEDIA".**
Not all Media, Keltik Warrior. MSNBC (especially Rachel) has done an extraordinary job since before the 2016 election exposing the truth about the now former guy.
Also Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, and Chris Hayes. They've been all over this and have brought in knowledgeable analysts and lawyers to augment their revelations of this horrific case of espionage.
I with you! ENOUGH! I can’t tell you how many times Judy Woodruff of the PBS News Hour has lead the broadcast with disparaging comments. “The so called big lie”, was the last one I hear...and she has said it many times. I can’t take it anymore. I barely watch or read the MSM unless someone has recommended it. What a disappointment they are. They bare a piece of the pie of responsibility towards the undermining of our democracy.
See my post to ChipsPOV. I need to rein it in a bit. One thing in particular that is so irksome is how EVERY TV network plays the videos from Trump's most recent carnival crusades. Frankly, who cares -- really -- excepting the 35%?
Except MSNBC & CNN, and even ABC! God Love Stephen Colbert too! But tfg has his minions trained to not believe anything against him, no matter where it comes from.
You'll need to break up with CNN. They are looking to make their on-air personalities (cannot call them newscasters) stop using the phrase "the big lie" and to get more "conservative" guests.
Oh... didn't know! I hope Anderson Cooper can move to MSNBC then! It's going to be interesting to see what happens. It's become a media war of billions. I think the only thing that's going to make it right is to get tfg Off the ticket and achieve Democrat majority in both the House & Senate. We can do this!!!
Well said, Kinsman. I cannot fathom the depths to which journalism has fallen, nor can I bear to watch what has become of our "news" programs on network television.
I'm with you if we're talking about the media in general. There are notable exceptions. If you read a comment in Jennifer Rubin's column suggesting she get her own substack, that's me.
Yes, ChipsPOV, I did see this. I also saw the televised redacted copy of the affidavit. Thank God in Heaven for the judge's cautious oversight! As to the MEDIA, I am indeed talking about the media "in general", not meaning to take a broad brush. I follow WaPo, NYT, Huffington Post and TNR mostly. CNN and MSNBC have been an information mainstay for me. I also follow "notables" on Twitter.
But, what with Chris Licht as the new CNN cheesehead, I may stop watching CNN. Licht recently met with Republicans in order to determine how CNN might be more palatable to them. Enough said!
I am getting contradictory information about Chris Licht. I waiting until I have enough information to form an educated opinion. Here is what I know so far: Robert Reich published the below on his Substack on 8/23/22:
You hit the nail on the head calling out Donald J rump’s most glaring crime—not only is he a liar, rapist, and thief, but also a TRAITOR. I do not wish him I’ll health, only that he lives out the rest of his life at Rikers….
You don't bolster your case by turning TFG's last name into a slang word for the human derriere, a body part which evolved to its current form to enable humans to run, which hunter-gatherers did to catch prey, as Harvard's Daniel Lieberman has written. It is also an attractive (at least on some) secondary sex characteristic.
We don't vote for gods. We vote for servants. That's what our elected officials are supposed to be. Servants. But it seems they, and we, have forgotten that.
The espionage thing is not unthinkable but yet to be supported. It is enough that such material was handled so negligently, and for no good reason. Of that, there is no doubt. It is also clear that Trump compounded his malfeasance by making the search warrant necessary and withholding stolen property/evidence subsequent to the demand for it's return.
Equal justice under law has already suffered a hell of a beating, and we need to pull it back from the brink. It's bat-guano crazy to allow people to enter positions of the most grave of civic responsibilities, responsibilities that can determine our and our children's futures and be matters of life and death when they are provable crooks.
That, JL, is what IS the clear and present danger. “Provable crooks” cannot be allowed to enter elected positions to further the goal of ending Democracy for an unlawful authoritarian, fascist government. Our duty now is to quell our fears of the “what if the worst” has already been done by Mr. Trump and his cabal and hold faith in the face of treason that our current administration will navigate these waters.
Senator Schiff said it during first impeachment and says it still. Enough. Professor Richardson closes with it. “But they (the Republican Senators) would not (say enough), and they did not (say enough), and here we are.”
So…. we must. Say enough. I implore every day whenever I talk to any voter to set aside our engagement with arguing about the facts and whether one denies or accepts our current administration as legitimate. Of late, there is grudging acceptance in our conversations that it’s time that We the People throw down our gauntlet and clearly vote for the democracy we do agree to live in together so that any hope of adversarial discourse within a democracy will be allowed to proceed. It’s the only way for the blue undertow to steer the red wave from crashing us into the rocks. We must vote for democracy. Not for men and their ilk that have betrayed us for greed.
Keep the light of Lady Liberty and Lady Justice turned up bright during the dark of day that seems more and more threatening. It is the only way for OUR Light to fill these cracks of darkness.
Some do, some don't (like those presidential votes sidelined by the EC); but the more FOR freedom AND justice for ALL, the better, lest none but The Party in Power, count at all.
Just say NO (No, no, no. no. NO) to Bullies, from every available voter; as the stakes are higher than ever.
Everyone in New York knew Traitor Don was a sleazebag crook before he ran for office. He cheated so many people, no bank in NY would deal with him. But no one would listen to us. His role on TV was more real to many people than his 6 bankruptcies...Although I admit, I had not expected him to steal dozens of boxes of state secrets when he left office.
Since they found stolen goods on the property the first thing the feds should do is seize Mar a Lago, just like they would with any other dirt bag criminal.
Now that we hear that he kept documents from meeting while he was in office it cements in my mind that he’s been selling out our security from the very first. Why wasn’t something done then? I don’t want to sound too much like I’m filled with conspiracies but he’s been groomed for decades to betray our country. What was it about part of the terrorists renting space in Trump Towers before 9/11? What about him allowing Erdogan to slaughter our Kurdish allies? Letting 5,000 Taliban terrorists go free? Wanting to host them at Camp David? Why not his usual resort grifting spot? Was there information given to Putin to help attack Ukraine? Kissing the ring of the man who slaughtered Kasshogi? Let’s not forget 1/6. For a man who refused to serve in our military he has always expressed a thirst for horrific violence.
Every Republican making excuses for him or refusing to condemn his actions needs to go.
YES, Sharon!!! Not sure he was groomed specifically to be a traitor... just to be a greedy, ruthless autocrat with no boundaries. and yes, unspeakable violence.
Remember him wanting to have the military (tanks and all) paraded thru the streets of DC for him?? So much clear and open evidence long before the secretive sellout.
If anything, we've certainly given him and his greedy, power-hungry enablers more than enough space and benefit of the doubt. Conspiracy theories must have a place... and it sure looks like maybe this is the exceptional case where they apply?
The business plan for Trump University was to get people too poor to pay for tuition to max out their credit cards in hopes of high earnings. That's what made me realize--during his first election season--that he was scum.
If you read "Fear" by Woodward...you would know how many efforts were needed and done to attempt to moderate his worst tendencies...it will give you nightmares what he tried...
maybe that was just ruse?? acted like he couldn't read... wasn't interested... so we'd not be concerned about any of this material? for sure, his stooges and stoogettes (great word!) were and are... excellent points, Fred.
A presidential candidate should be required to pass the highest security clearance before being allowed on the ballot... if it requires a consultation amendment, you could get around that by having nominating parties to comply
Someone commented on TV yesterday that the DOJ is unlikely to prosecute the defeated former president for violating the Espionage Act because doing so would necessitate their revealing in court too much about our intelligence sources, the kind of material redacted from the warrant, and without doing so, they had a weaker case than prosecuting for obstructing justice. You don't lie to the FBI. Remember Ralph Edwards' old radio program, 'Truth or Consequences'? It is time for the latter. Equally serious problems are the Republicans in Congress who put party loyalty ahead of their being Americans, as Vindman, Hill and Yovanovitch did not do. As Charles Blow wrote the other day, Republicans are the problem. An even bigger problem are the Americans who still have any faith in them and will still vote for them.
"Someone commented on TV yesterday that the DOJ is unlikely to prosecute the defeated former president for violating the Espionage Act because doing so would necessitate their revealing in court too much about our intelligence sources, the kind of material redacted from the warrant, and without doing so, they had a weaker case than prosecuting for obstructing justice."
Does that make a lick of sense to you, Jack? My goodness if that were true, then people would violate the Espionage Act with impunity without fear of prosecution. Talk about leaving the barn door open. Garland will indict Trump and he will find a way to do it without harming national security. He just needs to do it now before the mid-terms!
Can we consider anything in those documents to be of any value for the security of our country anymore? I feel like ever single thing in there will need to be examined and reworked.
That is probably being done at this very moment. We still don't know, however, if the bad guys out there have been tipped off to the guy with a piece of clandestine electronic equipment in his basement or attic and who is more loyal to the United States than the defeated former president is or ever was.
Yes Sharon, "some were marked SCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI, the very highest levels of security, involving human intelligence, foreign surveillance, intelligence that cannot be shared with foreign governments, and intelligence that is compartmented to make sure no one has full knowledge of what is in it." The names of our spies, national security individuals are listed in those documents, puts the lives of those people in danger. One of them has information about Pres. Macron of France.
Garland’s methodical and comprehensive reputation leads to a suggestion that DOJ likely has the goods they need. That and the old adage when someone tells you who they are, believe them. At least believe experts like Bandy Lee and Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Timothy Snyder. #45 has demonstrated repeatedly his main mode of operation is revenge and he’s been at war with our intelligence community since they identified Putin’s part in his seat in our Oval Office for 4 years. David Rothkopf has a knack for pulling no punches.
"This is the reality of the Trump presidency. It must be seen for what it was and the man at the center of it must be seen for who he was and is--one of the greatest, most pernicious threats to US national security we have ever seen. "
Deservedly curt. The DJT presidency is such a massive maelstrom of crime and corruption it's hard to bring it all to mind (even this particular facet of it) without a program; such as Rothkopf provides.
When the indictment and prosecution come, as they certainly will, the real problem will be the reaction of his supporters, many of whom are in law enforcement, the armed forces and in elected State positions. Is the country ready to lose some its freedoms at that point, at least temporarily? Remember that Abraham Lincoln, facing a similar crisis, did away with the right to attain a writ of habeas corpus.
Dr.Lee is an activist extraordinaire, and tried to share her knowledge of how very dangerous #45 would be sitting in our Oval Office, despite great risks and sacrifices in her own life. Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv
@BandyXLee1
Forensic psychiatrist, violence expert, editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” and president of the World Mental Health Coalition.
Treason? The Greedy Oligarch Party enabled treason and espionage. They could have convicted him and be done with this monster. But no, their minds and hearts are corrupted. America needs to electoral purge them
The "GOP" swamp from which this current creepy "creature" arose is still producing a legion of monsters, but this one is exceptional for the historically massive swath of chaos and destruction in it's wake.
Aren’t traitors to the US executed? My earliest “news” memory is the front page story and photo of the Rosenbergs, executed in June, 1953 for trading atomic secrets to Russia. I was in the 2nd grade and to this day I remember that photo and my parents talking about it.
Robert Hanssen, former FBI analyst, who spied for Russia 1979-2001, is considered the most damaging traitor in US history. He is serving 15 life sentences. I remember when he was discovered. He met Soviet Agents and used dead drops in a park near my neighborhood. It was weird to see those locations on TV and know I had walked or driven past them.
Joan, I just read the Wikipedia entry on the Rosenbergs. It is very interesting! Now, my opinion is that for the U.S. to execute spies is not a road that we should travel. Everyone is entitled to some semblance of humanity, and execution has not a shred of humanity. The Wikipedia entry was a horrifying read for me.
You are right. I’m honestly not for capitol punishment, but I certainly believe Trump should be dealt with seriously, particularly when it comes to holding elected office again which he should not. We may never know what Trump did or planned to do with those documents, but if you or I stole that level of classified documents from the US government, I doubt we’d be free to play golf in the future.
Perhaps that is why the FBI grabbed his passports?
Benedict Arnold didn’t flee the country right away. He changed sides to fight for Britain and his treachery demoralized the Continental Army. George Washington desperately wanted to hang him, even sending an unsuccessful secret mission (John Champe) to kidnap Arnold back from the British. A local high school was named after John Champe since he lived in this area.
They briefly took his passports, but later said that they'd return them. After all, despite appearing to be the dirtiest thing to be hauled up from a sewer, Trump has still not been charged with anything that would justify limiting his right to travel. On the other hand, he would have to be willing to become a charity case and a puppet for whatever lunatic country agrees to accept him.
(Come to think of it, that might actually be an interesting punishment -- it would be enjoyable to watch Trump live out his final days as a pensioner living under the thumb of Kim Jong-un, issuing his rambling whines on demand via North Korean state media.)
I sure agree, especially if it turns out the Trump was feeding information on the CIA agents and sources while he was still in the White House which some reports seem to indicate. If this is true the DOJ will nail him for sure.
"Nobody in the arena I currently work thinks Trump did anything wrong at all."
Cut out the last six words.
Plainly, you have the good fortune to work in a thought-free zone, despite which your own thoughts can still move on their own legs, your eyes can still see and your ears can still hear. Dangerous privileges, going where they can't go 'cause they can't get up from the couch, seeing what they can't see with their eyes glued to the Fox telescreen, hearing what they can't hear with their heavy-metal-shattered eardrums.
In HG Wells' Country of the Blind, the sighted hero is hunted down by a blind population for telling what he can see and they can't and denying their sightless explanations of how the world is.
I know you have your ear close to the ground, Mike, and I respect that. What worries me is that I also get the same kind of feedback from a friend in New York City. Regardless of their politics, people in the know there knew too much about Donald Trump.
But there are a lot of people who don't know about DT but do know how much they resent those people-in-the-know... Country people have always resented big city dwellers and the interests of too many, like small farmers, have been so mangled by Wall Street and other outsize big-money entities, that it is hardly surprising if someone who claims to be against those forces should be treated as a savior. There's no William Jennings Bryant in sight, nothing but this firebug playing with matches where there's firedamp or a gas leak...
People need an outlet for their rage. Strange how they're so often used by their real enemies against scapegoats who have little or no connection with their oppressors. The way they talk about "libtards" and other states of the Union, you'd think they were speaking of foreign invaders...
I tried like heck to get the NYT article but they want my 💰 and I prefer to spend mine on other sources so that was the best I could do. Very glad you were able to access and 🙏 for letting me know! 🙏🙏
I cancelled my NYT subscription and use my $$ for more reliable reportage too. But hopefully the link to that article courtesy of Daily Kos will work for others.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times wrote an article that addressed his entire four years in office. He never cared about national security, he often tweeted items covered in his briefings. Never used the @POTUS designation, but used his own name for tweets. "For four years, former President Donald J. Trump treated the federal government and the political apparatus operating in his name as an extension of his private real estate company.
It all belonged to him, he felt, melded together into a Trump brand that he had been nurturing for decades.
“My generals,” he repeatedly said of the active-duty and retired military leaders who filled his government. “My money,” he often called the cash he raised through his campaign or for the Republican National Committee. “My Kevin,” he said of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader.
I recall when Trump was insisting on putting his "10 on the Richter Scale" signature on all the COVID stimulus checks that went out, but reportedly the presses were not set up for it. He appears to want to take ownership of any positive event anywhere in the world and shed, by blaming others, for others any faux pas or evil.
It’s like the media, as well as the public, is in a kind of dissociative state, unable to process what’s really happening. This is the effect of Trump’s antics and of manipulation of him and other useful idiots through a concerted blitz of disinformation by bad actors in Russia and in the GOP
Much of the public seems to be in G.O.P. induced stupor. Anti-vaxx, anti-mask in a pandemic that killed 1,000,000+ Americans? No need to trouble one's self about climate so long as there are snowballs around? Trump is God's prophet? Things fall apart; the center cannot hold... Jim Jones warpo thinking going on here.
“Prison or not, it is up to us to render him impotent by refusing to let him set any agenda outside of his cult. The media won’t do it. They should be giving most air and ink to President Biden and only cover Mr. Trump when something big happens in regards to prosecuting him. And they should never quote him. But sensationalizing DJT makes them money and their bosses are venal.
I was just about ready to forget about that as I never got deeply enough into the story to be convinced by it. I mean, I saw "Trump Piss Tapes" and figured the headline was deep enough for me. Water under the bridge in any case, I guess.
When Dick Cheney and crew leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, it was a dirty, criminal, anti-American trick.
This trove of classified documents, literally box loads of assets, intelligence, and lord knows what else, makes the Plame scandal look like pettiness by comparison.
I wonder what would the Targaryens do with such a thorough traitor? We’re not in the great game now, instead we’re in a real time effort to blow Andrew Johnson away in the annals of worst president ever, and worst political party since the Southern Democrats.
“Dracarys”
Can we at least get some rule of law around here, and settle for nothing less than lots of jail time?
Modern Republicans bellow about "law and order" (including Trump) while pointedly ignoring any law that is inconvenient for their own political agenda. That has become their modus operandi.
Like ancient kings, the party of autocracy "can do no wrong", or so they would have us believe. The more they get away with the more lawless they have become.
Ah yes, you may recall that one about the American benefactor of an English village church who walked out of the service celebrating his generosity when the vicar said "We thank thee, Lord, for this our succor"...
Yes, the Netflix movie: "Fair Gaime" was a true eye opener for me."
Bush was, on many ways, worse than Trump if one includes invading two countries based on lies and fakery and one adds up the number of dead bodies as a result of said lies and fakery.
I still have my parents' copy of that book. My brother and I both used it for last minute book reports. I pulled it out this winter and reread it. The man did love his country and he lost his whole future and he was sorry. He also was the fall guy for his superiors. Everyone but Nixon got punished over Watergate. This can't be blamed on anyone but Trump who doesn't love anything and has no future to lose. They should fly him to the middle of a shark ridden ocean with the intention of dropping him on an empty boat - and completely miss the boat! It would be nice if he had to face a military trial as well as a criminal one.
They did immediately after Biden was elected. CBS too, hedging their bets, sacrificing journalistic integrity to preserve access to GOP leaders in case the power shifts back; under threat that their access would shut off completely if they actually did their jobs
The only way for America to get real news is to break up corporate ownership of media outlets on local basis. Separate TV, radio and newspapers. Break up the Monster Corporate control. Otherwise, we get served only what “the boss” wants us to know
Seems like it. The really really sad fact is the refusal by the NYT in 2015 and on to open up about all the horrors already known by most New Yorkers about how fundamentally unfit and treacherous this person was known to be. NYT did what it seems the majority of the uSA media does: print what makes money for the paper irrespective of its responsibility to facts, truth, its readers. When you legitimize a traitor apparently there’s no political will in the uSA to act properly against such a treacherous entity! The Republicans showed their real purpose long before #45 — Will these revelations put the nails in their coffin? I’m hoping but …..
Seems the truth tellers have no megaphone equal to Rupert and the MSM. Substacks are a drop in the bucket. Sad to say. Dems are trying, love Adam Schiff’s truth, may his comments reverberate around the land. And Joe’s calling them what they are. Scream Fascism back to every blather about socialism.
“ For several years, Brian Stelter’s Sunday CNN show, “Reliable Sources,” has been a reliable source of intelligent criticism of Fox News, rightwing media in general, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican Party.
Last week, CNN abruptly canceled the show and effectively fired Stelter and his staff.
Why? The show had good ratings and was commercially successful. (More people watched it than MSNBC.)
The show was cancelled by Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, who has said he wants less criticism of Trump and the Republican right. Licht has told staff they should stop referring to Trump’s “Big Lie” because the phrase sounds like a Democratic Party talking point. Licht also wants more conservative guests.”
It reminds me so much of a Harry Potter line about the Daily Prophet: “The Prophet (aka the NYT or WP or CNN) exists to sell itself.” Declaring that they are the newspaper of record, or that democracy dies in darkness, does not mean that they are doing anything other than trying to sell clicks and subscriptions, democracy be damned. I agree with the comment above that they are trying to preserve access should our attempt to save democracy fail, when they should be aiding the effort and making up for 2016.
Frankly, I tend to go to Reuters or Associated Press when I just want the facts of the matter. Since they sell news to other outlets, their stuff seem more straight-forward. Everyone else seem to permit too much editorial opinion in what are ostensibly news articles.
Good grief, Jeff Zucker was the media mogul most responsible for T’s first occupancy of the WH! They hired Corey Lewandowski! Gone over?? They’re soaking in it.
Nor should Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Lauren Boebert, etc.be covered like they are important; they are not. They are just loud hoping to attract attention to their reality show. As for the tin horn dictator, he should be in jail with no ability to communicate publicly. No ability to communicate would be horrible for him.
>>"But sensationalizing DJT makes them money . . ."<< That is my major complaint about much of today's media. They will/would chase the devil far more quickly than they would chase the saint. That 35% of the U.S. citizenry supports Trump makes sorrowful commentary about our country, today.
First you assume he knows how to use a copy machine. Maybe his veneer of incompetence is a facade, maybe not.
But within the WH, photocopying classified documents would be noticed by others. Admins, clerks, etc.. He should never have been allowed to take documents to the Residence. Rules just didn't apply to him and those around him let him get away with it.
All he needed to do was take pictures of them with his phone. Think how many people have been allowed to do that at MAL. You don’t need copy machines anymore.
Today, someone on Twitter remarked, "What about any PDFs?" Of course, copies were made. I say that with certainty only out of my conviction how that is so Trump.
And why are we always subjected to photos or videos whenever Trump's name is mentioned in the media? And why do TV journalists keep saying “President Trump… uh…former President Trump…”? How long will it take them to get it right? Every time they say it his crowd loves it.
The most disappointing person who does this, for me, is Carol Loenig whom I admire tremendously. She consistently does it. Makes me very sad, not knowing her motive. Is it a kind of respect for the office? Dunno.
Full agreement but the Republican congressmen and women who stood fiercely by him, throughout it all and EVEN after 1/6, with red lights going off all through these miserable years, deserve special treatment for traitorous behavior with respect to their oaths of office.
Trying to replay Mussolini's March on Rome, and still the media are paying no attention -- except for pedlars of the Lie -- and still people are sleeping, still Trump-worshippers' adoration of their idol and grandiose expectations remain completely intact...
Blind faith in total nonsenses seems to be a peculiarly American psychosis. Often beliefs that cancel each other out...
Did all those generations escape oppression and religious persecution in Europe (and elsewhere)... for THIS?
Add to the cult of “worshippers” the numbers of citizens, exhausted and discouraged who choose to see DC’s dirty game of self promotion as separate and apart from their lives. Disgusted “with it all”, they can no longer stand the lies. Choosing to “give up trying” they burrow into their private lives, waiting. (Shades of a European past?) And for what do they wait? For it to be over??? With their hands clean, they may be free to view all partisans as compromised. Canvassing yesterday. These are the people we need to reach. They need a ballast they can count on. Dare I say it? With each discouraging conversation, I nodded my head in apparent empathy but my internal dialogue thought (nearly hysterically) that they NEED to read ALL of HCR’s letters. They need her unique, clear, steady and characteristically hopeful voice. What a gift we readers have had to find HCR and this thoughtful informed community. So too, those of us knocking on doors need to echo that voice to the discouraged and disgusted.
Were it not for the media, we would not today have the limited knowledge we do about the documents. I believe it was the NYT, CNN and Axios who brought a case to court to get the documents. So, as a general matter, if we are as interested in the history of these documents as all these comments attest, we should be grateful to the media. The DOJ would have given us nothing.
And here I feel ambivalent. The DOJ would have wanted nothing revealed because it could seriously hamper their investigation and endanger their sources. If true, the media was doing the country no favor when it pushed - and got.
In fact, I feel at first hearing that this will be a *win* for Trump. This will enable the story that that this was just about “a bunch of documents not returned”. It will be equated endlessly to not returning a library book on time. And so, there is a possibility that another lie will grow. Prosecutors whom I read or listen to (Ellie Honig, Preet Bharara, Joyce Vance White) are either skeptical that there will be an indictment or feel it will be 12-18 months in coming. Given the glacial pace of the DOJ, they may well be right. During this time, there will be derision and eye rolling from the Right whenever they encounter the kind of explanation Heather gave today. And the witch-hunt theory, so regularly espoused since 2016, will take hold.
What we heard today will be grist for the mill temporarily for those Americans who, with good reason, loathe and distrust Trump. But it’s insufficient to make much weight against what will become the growing palaver that we are dining out on conspiracy. “Occam’s razor”, the more educated enablers will shout. “He was unorganized, unaware of the law, liked to show off stuff he had like Shaquille O’Neal’s giant shoe. That’s all it is. You’re turning him into a criminal”.
Prepare for another x months of tiresome library book argumentation. The DOJ is going to clam up and it will be left to the public to duke it out. Both sides will be hypotheticals. Ours is the messier one.
Eric O'Donnell, we are bound to take the points you make seriously, noting your understandable ambivalence about today's publication of the affidavit authorizing the search of Trump's property.
While it is true that Americans (and too many others today) seem incapable of telling true from fake, one must surely be skeptical about your pessimistic assumptions. First, you seem to be assuming that people are even stupider than they seem. More to the point, when you speak of the DOJ's "glacial pace", so much evidence has been accumulating under the departmental ice that the glacial pace could speed up as shockingly and violently as the current calving of vast icebergs and colossal glacier collapse.
Things happen fast when the right conditions are met, and, prima facie, even a small fraction of current evidence would be enough to put anyone else but a past president of the United States in prison for a long time. It should not take very long for the competent security experts to vet the cache just seized and for the Department to determine precisely which charges are appropriate; and since the issues directly impact national security, it seems hard to believe that the wheels of justice will move more slowly than necessary.
One can, however, reasonably speculate that investigators and the Attorney General may need or have needed more time in which to clarify the detailed mechanisms whereby these documents were spirited away and by whom, as well as the uses made of said documents. Many other individuals will have been involved in these operations and national security demands that no stone be left unturned. However, while all the king's men may have hesitated to reveal His Majesty's doings, it is public knowledge that HM himself has never hesitated to throw subordinates under the bus.
I so enjoy your prose and logical thought. Thank you for taking the time to answer, Peter.
In truth, I agree exactly with what you write, especially considering the time lapse. Your iceberg metaphor is very apt. This is what I *want* to believe.
But two matters prevent me from full-throated agreement. The first is the clear MIA of the Justice Department in the first year. If, as Garland so patiently explained to us, they were following the wrong model. From the ground up flipping as you go is fine when there’s a single entity to whom all report. But there was only some. Injection between the attacking mob and the inside intriguers. So my understanding is that this should have been a “hub and spoke” operation. (Note I speak glibly as if I really know anything about the art and science of investigation. :)
My belief is that they were conceptually disinclined to go after Trump et al. We may never know how much we owe to the J6 committee, who by their incredible work hung the DOJ out to dry. At least that’s my belief.
Secondly I’d like to agree with you that the glacier will calve suddenly. A part of me is rooted in that thought. But I listen to all these prosecutors speculating that indictment will be slow or not at all, and I think it’s intellectually dishonest of me to put my hunch up against their wisdom and years of experience.
As for the pessimism about how intelligent the mass of people are, I’m a firm believer in P. T. Barnum’s maxim that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. It’s further complicated by the fact that people have re-oriented their lives and belief systems to follow Trump. They cannot disinvest now, because for millions that would be to indulge in self-flagellation. Trump and their psyches are one and the same.
I am optimistic overall. I publicly stated back in the spring that the Democrats would win both the House and the Senate. I knew all the reasons they wouldn’t, but I loved the dynamic the Republicans had created in their primaries - to win, you had to out-MAGA any opposition. That makes so many of them sitting ducks in the general election this fall. They are, in the main, stupider Trumps. I love it. I see no reason to change that prediction today.
And I’ve bet $100 with two friends that Trump will not make it *through* a Presidential campaign. I really think he won’t make it *to* one, but I hedged my bets.
I often feel ill at ease talking to—hectoring ?—people who know far more than I do, if only because most of this community are Americans, born and bred, while I have since a very early age been made very aware of America but never lived there, so that I really am a complete outsider. I had already noticed that you are Canadian, but like Mexicans and Latin Americans, Canadians, both Anglo and Québequois, are an American people. I am very much a European.
What’s more, it is plain enough that several contributors have a distinguished professional background. I don’t have that distinction, my only advantage is to have worked for one of the main institutions of the European Union as a mere translator, which gave me a ringside seat over a period of several decades.
You remind me of the dangers of wishful thinking—yet I, alone among my circle of friends and American relatives, did not wish for DT to win the 2016 election but expected it. That very expectation seems to have alienated one or two people…
I just read your FSB article—why that Son-of-KGB title, why B for “shattered”?—and see that my outlook has no little in common with yours, in particular when it comes to awareness of the unprecedented and constantly accelerating speed of change, and the fears and unease to which this gives rise. But let’s turn briefly to the discussion in hand…
I did not intend to say that the glacier WILL calve suddenly, rather that it may do so. However, on second thoughts, I do fully expect a cataclysmic collapse. Only, when? Of that I have no idea, except that it could happen at any time, even soon… or goodness knows when.
You think it’s intellectually dishonest of you to put your hunch up against the wisdom of the wise and their years of experience? Fair enough. But could we not turn that back to front and doubt the intellectual honesty of experts whose very professional expertise has separated them from their own humanity? What do you think explains the current disrepute in which both specialists and knowledge itself are held? Not only populist pied pipers’ tuneful mockery, not only wild conspiracy theories, not only resentful envy, but the tall ivory towers of hubris in which so many professionals have taken refuge. Teachers who teach as parrots talk, politicians and economists who tell us what to think when all they know is painting-by-numbers, cops who are hammers and for whom citizens are all nails, especially when they’re the wrong color and/or in the wrong income bracket, dog-in-the-manger preachers, I-speak-your-weight physicians, lawyers in hock to the mob… all, all hiding their inadequacy, their loss of soul behind smiling masks. The professional rictus.
One should not scoff at professional expertise, but it is to be taken with a good pinch of salt. Finally, as a seasoned but very unbureaucratic bureaucrat I mistrust them all.
Concerning politicians and civil servants, I would add that there was a watershed around 1980, when the generation who had fought in the second world war retired. Up till then, people were working for a better world, out to ensure that nothing like the hell they’d had to live through should ever happen again. Even the jaded thought in terms of What’s-in-it-for-us? When that wartime generation left the stage, their place was taken by smart operators whose clear albeit unspoken watchword was What’s-in-it-for-me?
It must have been at some time after the fall of the Berlin wall but before the collapse of the Soviet Union that I recall wondering loud and publicly in my workplace whether democratic institutions would last much more than a generation. Response: “You’re a philosopher…” It was not meant kindly…
I am new to Substack and so still misuse it in some ways. Actually I more and more think the title is crap. I’d like to change it, but it feels like a noose around my neck.
I’m loving the writing though. I have what I am personally satisfied as a strong thesis and I am anxious to have it fully elucidated some day.
I’m thrilled that you had the interest and patience to explain so much about yourself. Are you from Britain?
Your life sounds interesting and the depth of your thought is always obvious to me. You’re right about the fact that being on the same continent in Trump is different. We have been infected here in Canada on a small scale by a sort of cunning but idiotic populism. Years ago, Quebec tried to separate from the union, as you will know. But there was a genuine linguistic fear there. I knew several Quebecois and really liked and respected them, though I was horrified that they might secede. Thankfully they didn’t.
I have weird hunched for things and about twenty five years ago I made the brash prediction that it would be Alberta that would break away. They are our oil-rich province and have been disdainful of Canada.
But some loud talk died away when Stephen Harper became PM. He is from the West and was canny enough to rule as a Conservative who didn’t push the hot button social issue. And he had a long run.
Now, it’s very much off the radar, but there is a serious, populist move in Alberta, and perhaps Saskatchewan to become nations within the nation of Canada. The proverbial shit is going to hit the fan in September when the provincial PCs vote in a new leader. The front runner has a detailed plan which she says she will put into play immediately. So hardly anybody is aware yet, but we may be facing a most serious constitutional crisis in 6-8 weeks.
This time, it’s MAGA-ism pure and simple. All based on grievances. Alberta has often been more like the 51st state than a province. Calgary is a highly Americanized city.
The trucker revolt in Ottawa was spawned in Alberta. It was Trump fanboy stuff. I hated it.
As for your take on experts, I have much to say on it and no time at the moment to say it. I was raised by a doctor’s daughter. My own daughter is a doctor. One of our sons is the expert in his field of computational analysis - he, quite literally, wrote the book kbon Boolean functions.
Briefly, I deeply believe and appreciate expertise. And I hate saying things on this forum that I can’t prove - it can be a bit of a jumpy group. So I try to never be wise, but always try to get wiser.
Annabel, Stunning comment. I would like to borrow your last paragraph. “This would be tin horn dictator belongs in the dust bin of history. We the people can’t put him behind bars but we can deposit him in that bin.”
Well said! I fear that a very substantial part of our citizenry is complacent and therefore a great danger to our democracy. I also have that same fear that those citizens have no idea of the seriousness of what TFP has done. Republican support of Trump it’s so political that they have become untethered from our government, from reality that they are blind to the overwhelming danger to our democracy.
Annabel Ascher, in case this was not clear from something else I wrote, your inspired words "SO IT IS UP TO US" provide the keynote for this entire thread.
Thank you for making the people's responsibility so clear, and may those words set off a tsunami of awareness!
Yes, the whole thing is astonishing, but somehow not surprising. Death star should be shoveling dung somewhere and never should have been the occupant of the WH. And yes, everyone who is thinking about this wonders what nefarious things have been done already. His personal notes on classified documents....like what...places where he could sell it? And the Rs are always and ever the party of death. Just thinking about them makes me want to vomit.
Republicans have slid way downhill over the decades, and Democrats have improved since the days of laissez faire and George Wallace. That said, it appears to me that Republicans, after holding Nixon accountable until the blanket "pardon" turned against democracy and rule of law with Reagan. Since, they have plunged deeper into outright corruption and malignant narcissism, making Nixon's serious abuses seem small by comparison. Both the popularity of their blatant, dishonorable and malicious lies and our past public passivity is just weird, especially since history warns where this path leads. Perhaps our legal machinery is still sound enough to bring down the momentum of this coup d'etat that has been 40 years in the making, but it's likely going to need a lot of help from the public.
"it's likely going to need a lot of help from the public."
Here's a recommendation. I've just spent an hour or so visiting discussions/talks/interviews featuring HCR in various places, sometimes in academia, once in the White House, but mostly sitting in front of her bookshelf (I'd love to get my hands on just some of those old books!). As she talks, the fog dissipates and one's mind becomes calmer and clearer. Courage returns.
How to make the Kardashians disappear from our consciousness and people actually care about our “politics,” which ostriches like to avoid. Awake ye who slumber…
Thanks for an excellent thumbnail sketch of the history of how we arrived at the moral abyss that is the current Republican Party. It's horrifying to think that this party could regain power in the midterms.
And all this time, what lingers in the back of my mind is...what effect might all this have on the January 6th hearings, which will soon ratchet up again? Might this seeming further incrimination of T***p make some potential witnesses who were "on the fence" now be more willing to come forward? Between the 1/6 hearings of T***p inciting a coup, the Mar-a-Lago raid by the DOJ, T***p's business being taken to court in October, T***p in trouble here in Georgia meddling in our election, one just MIGHT be inclined to think his great big orange ass is cooked once and for all. If he gets out of all this unscathed it really would be a miracle. And yet...y'know, one still (almost) has to wonder if he'll somehow manage to squeak through yet again. Anyway, I'm more hopeful now, or, even dare I say, guardedly optimistic that his world might be about to crumble. At least, that is my prayer.
"If he gets out of all this unscathed it really would be a miracle."
If he gets out of this, any government integrity has been lost. We have to hold trump accountable or the whole world will be laughing at us for tolerating such nonsense. I think of all the military members (men and women) who have given their lives for the U.S. while being branded by trump as "suckers." That attitude pervades too much of the country now.
There’s no higher authority to sell out this country than the PRESIDENT. He deserves the worst punishment there is. Jail, incommunicado, making no $$. I keep hearing how there is no precedent … well, there is no precedent for a sociopathic president who is a traitor. Let’s create a “precedent.”
Treason and espionage against the USA by a sitting and ex-president would have resulted death as a consequence. That is how dangerous 45 and his comrades have gone against American democracy and our Constitution. If I committed all their heinous acts against our country and laws..where would I be sitting right now? I do not give a s__t about precedent. Get these guys off the street, our of our government positions where they belong. Please remove them, DOJ! They can await trial in a place where they can not harm our country any more.
I don’t think that the Greatest Generation fought World War II to get us to this point, where a traitorous president incited violence against the national legislature and stole state secrets. Here we are wondering HOW badly he has damaged our country. It is impossible to calculate.
Whenever I see comments (on Yahoo) yowling about "Antifa" I like to point out that the US military in WW2 was the biggest group of "Antifa" aka "Anti-Fascists" ever.
Boy, do I get that as well. I had one former colleague tell me "you know antifa is just the anarchists, right?" to which I replied "well, who is trying to overthrow the government here and install someone who was not elected?" There was much regurgitation of the election "fraud" and gnashing of teeth; no real substance to it.
I love to tell people, y'know, we fought a REALLY huge war against fascism 80-some-odd years ago. If somebody labels themselves "antifascist", then I'm all in. Since when is being against fascism wrong?? Okay, then if they're mislabeled and are really "anarchists", then let's consider another gross mislabeling, "defund" the police, which is not at all about "DE-funding" police (it implies taking away all funding), but is about RE-ALLOCATION of their funding and not putting local law enforcement into situations for which they are not prepared. Let's get our semantics right!
It will be decades at a minimum before we know the extent of the damage that the Republican Party has inflicted on this country by their willingness to protect and conceal the traitorous crimes of their standard bearer.
Yes, without a doubt. If those vets and KIAs had been able to see into the future and what was about to happen in the U.S., they may not have even picked up their weapons and agreed to serve, especially if they could crystal ball that trump would be calling them "suckers."
Yes, it is impossible to calculate the amount of damage trump and club have done. It's so important that we get a full accounting of what they did. Just one example of their family enrichment: I read in the London Daily Mail (8-20-22) that Jared Kushner is now worth $800,000,000. Exploiting the PPP program, Kushner got a loan for over $3,000,000, and that loan has been completely forgiven without any need for repayment. Maybe we need to read foreign newspapers to find out what is really happening in the U.S.
One keeps praying that his actions, pre his presidency, during, and post, will finally have some consequences for him. I am hoping that it will rally people to vote, to try to repair some of the damage that he has done to our country. I do blame the media for all the attention they give him. They put him in the White House, with all that free publicity.
"If he gets out of this unscathed it would really be a miracle." If he gets out of this, it would be proof positive that he is the Antichrist. Nothing but the supernatural can explain his apparent impunity.
Extreme corruption (such as the corruption-in-plain-sight Kavanaugh hearings and the Republican response to T**^p's impeachment) might turn justice in its head, but probably not if enough of the public has enough to say about it.
The things he was impeached for the first time should have been enough to bench the Republicans for a generation. He will never do the honorable thing and he will never stop.
Prison or not, it is up to us to render him impotent by refusing to let him set any agenda outside of his cult. The media won’t do it. They should be giving most air and ink to President Biden and only cover Mr. Trump when something big happens in regards to prosecuting him. And they should never quote him. But sensationalizing DJT makes them money and their bosses are venal.
So it is up to us.
This would be tin horn dictator belongs in the dust bin of history. We the people can’t put him behind bars but we can deposit him in that bin.
The media should be covering Trump's theft of top secret and other highly sensitive documents for what it potentially is — the most significant breach of national security in U.S, history. It's a breach that may have caused extraordinary damage and put the country in danger.
The story should dominate the news every day. We're seeing only a small part of the story. While Trump was still president, he reportedly kept highly sensitive documents shown to him during briefings. Normally, such documents would have been immediately returned to secure places after the briefings. His actions were unprecedented.
And is it just a coincidence that in October 2021 the NYT reported: "Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said."
It is reasonable to fear that Trump sold out the country to foreign powers while in office and has continued to do so — blatantly — since leaving office. He must be stopped and severely punished if found guilty by a federal jury.
But that is not what is being covered by the majority of media, Michael. Most media air is being given to ignoring the treason of the FPOTUS or arguing it it is true, and definitely sidetracking our time and effort. The media is not what is going to save us this round.
I declare “Enough” to the media also and turn my eyes and ears away from them and move forward. We must succeed with our vote for rule of law and democracy in November. Ultimately for peace to prevail, it must be fought for from the strength and ramparts of a continuing democracy.
Vote Blue. Declare “Enough”. All efforts are to get the vote out. Eyes forward. All hands on deck. Not a second, minute, hour to lose. Take back what has been seized from us without our consent, brothers and sisters.
United, Michael 🗽
And make certain those who enabled tfg are, at a minimum, voted out of office and, ideally, prosecuted to the fullest extent. If they are willing to enable him even if affects the security of their friends, family and COUNTRY, they deserve to rot in jail.
Some MEDIA (redacted! LOL) feeds into the Trumpian narrative. I have grown increasingly angry, increasingly weary of how the 'certain' MEDIA all but celebrates Trump. That the MEDIA shies away from telling truth to fact, exploding the tyranny of Trump, is a sad tale about what news outlets have become. **This has been edited from my earlier version, having taken too broad a swipe at "MEDIA".**
Not all Media, Keltik Warrior. MSNBC (especially Rachel) has done an extraordinary job since before the 2016 election exposing the truth about the now former guy.
Also Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, and Chris Hayes. They've been all over this and have brought in knowledgeable analysts and lawyers to augment their revelations of this horrific case of espionage.
I with you! ENOUGH! I can’t tell you how many times Judy Woodruff of the PBS News Hour has lead the broadcast with disparaging comments. “The so called big lie”, was the last one I hear...and she has said it many times. I can’t take it anymore. I barely watch or read the MSM unless someone has recommended it. What a disappointment they are. They bare a piece of the pie of responsibility towards the undermining of our democracy.
See my post to ChipsPOV. I need to rein it in a bit. One thing in particular that is so irksome is how EVERY TV network plays the videos from Trump's most recent carnival crusades. Frankly, who cares -- really -- excepting the 35%?
Yesterday's NYT Editorial Board Opinion was hard-hitting. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/opinion/trump-documents-jan-6-prosecute.html
May be true but it’s easy to find evident to support one’s beliefs. They can only say what the big boys decide. Period.
Except MSNBC & CNN, and even ABC! God Love Stephen Colbert too! But tfg has his minions trained to not believe anything against him, no matter where it comes from.
You'll need to break up with CNN. They are looking to make their on-air personalities (cannot call them newscasters) stop using the phrase "the big lie" and to get more "conservative" guests.
Oh... didn't know! I hope Anderson Cooper can move to MSNBC then! It's going to be interesting to see what happens. It's become a media war of billions. I think the only thing that's going to make it right is to get tfg Off the ticket and achieve Democrat majority in both the House & Senate. We can do this!!!
Sadly, CNN has been bought by the semi-nazis too.
I think we need to stop watching ALL mainstream media. They ALL slant the truth. Every one of them. All bought and sold.
he didn't actually have to train the minions... they were already there before he showed up to take the reins.
Well said, Kinsman. I cannot fathom the depths to which journalism has fallen, nor can I bear to watch what has become of our "news" programs on network television.
I'm with you if we're talking about the media in general. There are notable exceptions. If you read a comment in Jennifer Rubin's column suggesting she get her own substack, that's me.
Did you see this, Vince? https://youtu.be/zmF14loVkgA
Everybody should see this, especially the Magats!
Yes, ChipsPOV, I did see this. I also saw the televised redacted copy of the affidavit. Thank God in Heaven for the judge's cautious oversight! As to the MEDIA, I am indeed talking about the media "in general", not meaning to take a broad brush. I follow WaPo, NYT, Huffington Post and TNR mostly. CNN and MSNBC have been an information mainstay for me. I also follow "notables" on Twitter.
But, what with Chris Licht as the new CNN cheesehead, I may stop watching CNN. Licht recently met with Republicans in order to determine how CNN might be more palatable to them. Enough said!
wasn't he Colbert's head producer, esp all thru covid days when just Stephen, Evie and Chris were doing the show from a closet or Colbert's home?
I am getting contradictory information about Chris Licht. I waiting until I have enough information to form an educated opinion. Here is what I know so far: Robert Reich published the below on his Substack on 8/23/22:
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-cnn-cancelled-brian-stelter
Then Chris Licht contacted Robert Reich regarding the information in the above post and Robert Reich published a follow-up on his Substack: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/my-conversation-today-with-chris. In response to Suz's comment below, I found this from Stephen Colbert on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_rVUr3g5Gs
Now that would be sweet justice if he's charged and convicted under what he signed into law. Paybacks are a bitch!
Excellent recommendation! The clips of Trump spewing venom over security are 🤯🤯🤯!
the YouTube you recommended was a great reminder of the irony of the drumbeat of "lock her up" for treason
You hit the nail on the head calling out Donald J rump’s most glaring crime—not only is he a liar, rapist, and thief, but also a TRAITOR. I do not wish him I’ll health, only that he lives out the rest of his life at Rikers….
You don't bolster your case by turning TFG's last name into a slang word for the human derriere, a body part which evolved to its current form to enable humans to run, which hunter-gatherers did to catch prey, as Harvard's Daniel Lieberman has written. It is also an attractive (at least on some) secondary sex characteristic.
You are absolutely right—I should not insult God-given body parts. Even an asshole has a valuable purpose….
For sure. Without assholes everything gets severely backed up.
More than one for a substantial proportion of the population.
WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin has been doing a terrific job.
Vote? Who’s worthy of voting for? . Make no one your god. Only we save ourselves.
We don't vote for gods. We vote for servants. That's what our elected officials are supposed to be. Servants. But it seems they, and we, have forgotten that.
The espionage thing is not unthinkable but yet to be supported. It is enough that such material was handled so negligently, and for no good reason. Of that, there is no doubt. It is also clear that Trump compounded his malfeasance by making the search warrant necessary and withholding stolen property/evidence subsequent to the demand for it's return.
Equal justice under law has already suffered a hell of a beating, and we need to pull it back from the brink. It's bat-guano crazy to allow people to enter positions of the most grave of civic responsibilities, responsibilities that can determine our and our children's futures and be matters of life and death when they are provable crooks.
That, JL, is what IS the clear and present danger. “Provable crooks” cannot be allowed to enter elected positions to further the goal of ending Democracy for an unlawful authoritarian, fascist government. Our duty now is to quell our fears of the “what if the worst” has already been done by Mr. Trump and his cabal and hold faith in the face of treason that our current administration will navigate these waters.
Senator Schiff said it during first impeachment and says it still. Enough. Professor Richardson closes with it. “But they (the Republican Senators) would not (say enough), and they did not (say enough), and here we are.”
So…. we must. Say enough. I implore every day whenever I talk to any voter to set aside our engagement with arguing about the facts and whether one denies or accepts our current administration as legitimate. Of late, there is grudging acceptance in our conversations that it’s time that We the People throw down our gauntlet and clearly vote for the democracy we do agree to live in together so that any hope of adversarial discourse within a democracy will be allowed to proceed. It’s the only way for the blue undertow to steer the red wave from crashing us into the rocks. We must vote for democracy. Not for men and their ilk that have betrayed us for greed.
Keep the light of Lady Liberty and Lady Justice turned up bright during the dark of day that seems more and more threatening. It is the only way for OUR Light to fill these cracks of darkness.
Salud, JL. Unita 🗽
Christine - Schiff is a member of the House of Representatives, not the Senate. But he's a good guy!
"We must vote for democracy."
!
if our votes even count
Some do, some don't (like those presidential votes sidelined by the EC); but the more FOR freedom AND justice for ALL, the better, lest none but The Party in Power, count at all.
Just say NO (No, no, no. no. NO) to Bullies, from every available voter; as the stakes are higher than ever.
Everyone in New York knew Traitor Don was a sleazebag crook before he ran for office. He cheated so many people, no bank in NY would deal with him. But no one would listen to us. His role on TV was more real to many people than his 6 bankruptcies...Although I admit, I had not expected him to steal dozens of boxes of state secrets when he left office.
Since they found stolen goods on the property the first thing the feds should do is seize Mar a Lago, just like they would with any other dirt bag criminal.
Now that we hear that he kept documents from meeting while he was in office it cements in my mind that he’s been selling out our security from the very first. Why wasn’t something done then? I don’t want to sound too much like I’m filled with conspiracies but he’s been groomed for decades to betray our country. What was it about part of the terrorists renting space in Trump Towers before 9/11? What about him allowing Erdogan to slaughter our Kurdish allies? Letting 5,000 Taliban terrorists go free? Wanting to host them at Camp David? Why not his usual resort grifting spot? Was there information given to Putin to help attack Ukraine? Kissing the ring of the man who slaughtered Kasshogi? Let’s not forget 1/6. For a man who refused to serve in our military he has always expressed a thirst for horrific violence.
Every Republican making excuses for him or refusing to condemn his actions needs to go.
YES, Sharon!!! Not sure he was groomed specifically to be a traitor... just to be a greedy, ruthless autocrat with no boundaries. and yes, unspeakable violence.
Remember him wanting to have the military (tanks and all) paraded thru the streets of DC for him?? So much clear and open evidence long before the secretive sellout.
If anything, we've certainly given him and his greedy, power-hungry enablers more than enough space and benefit of the doubt. Conspiracy theories must have a place... and it sure looks like maybe this is the exceptional case where they apply?
I remember those days. He was a liar and crook from the day he was born.
And then trained by his father to be an even bigger one.
The business plan for Trump University was to get people too poor to pay for tuition to max out their credit cards in hopes of high earnings. That's what made me realize--during his first election season--that he was scum.
We assumed he would have advisors who would stop or at least slow his venal tendencies. We thought he could rise to the challenge of POTUS. Nope.
My cousin thought Congress would put a stop to his worse impulses. Nope.
If you read "Fear" by Woodward...you would know how many efforts were needed and done to attempt to moderate his worst tendencies...it will give you nightmares what he tried...
And at his other properties? Boxes, drives, photos, transcripts? He wasn't know for reading, but his stooges and stoogettes are.
maybe that was just ruse?? acted like he couldn't read... wasn't interested... so we'd not be concerned about any of this material? for sure, his stooges and stoogettes (great word!) were and are... excellent points, Fred.
Yeah, but if he let them read it they could sell the info on their own...
You know tfg would have never been passed for a security clearance if he’d had to qualify the usual way.
A presidential candidate should be required to pass the highest security clearance before being allowed on the ballot... if it requires a consultation amendment, you could get around that by having nominating parties to comply
The Dems should run on that promise
YES!!!
Not even close.
Someone commented on TV yesterday that the DOJ is unlikely to prosecute the defeated former president for violating the Espionage Act because doing so would necessitate their revealing in court too much about our intelligence sources, the kind of material redacted from the warrant, and without doing so, they had a weaker case than prosecuting for obstructing justice. You don't lie to the FBI. Remember Ralph Edwards' old radio program, 'Truth or Consequences'? It is time for the latter. Equally serious problems are the Republicans in Congress who put party loyalty ahead of their being Americans, as Vindman, Hill and Yovanovitch did not do. As Charles Blow wrote the other day, Republicans are the problem. An even bigger problem are the Americans who still have any faith in them and will still vote for them.
"Someone commented on TV yesterday that the DOJ is unlikely to prosecute the defeated former president for violating the Espionage Act because doing so would necessitate their revealing in court too much about our intelligence sources, the kind of material redacted from the warrant, and without doing so, they had a weaker case than prosecuting for obstructing justice."
Does that make a lick of sense to you, Jack? My goodness if that were true, then people would violate the Espionage Act with impunity without fear of prosecution. Talk about leaving the barn door open. Garland will indict Trump and he will find a way to do it without harming national security. He just needs to do it now before the mid-terms!
I've been posting this everywhere : https://youtu.be/zmF14loVkgA
I want MAGAts to understand that their dear leader will be "hoisted by his own petard."
Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up!
Can we consider anything in those documents to be of any value for the security of our country anymore? I feel like ever single thing in there will need to be examined and reworked.
That is probably being done at this very moment. We still don't know, however, if the bad guys out there have been tipped off to the guy with a piece of clandestine electronic equipment in his basement or attic and who is more loyal to the United States than the defeated former president is or ever was.
Yes Sharon, "some were marked SCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI, the very highest levels of security, involving human intelligence, foreign surveillance, intelligence that cannot be shared with foreign governments, and intelligence that is compartmented to make sure no one has full knowledge of what is in it." The names of our spies, national security individuals are listed in those documents, puts the lives of those people in danger. One of them has information about Pres. Macron of France.
Someone else on MSNBC said you don't blackmail or threaten the DOJ.
Garland’s methodical and comprehensive reputation leads to a suggestion that DOJ likely has the goods they need. That and the old adage when someone tells you who they are, believe them. At least believe experts like Bandy Lee and Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Timothy Snyder. #45 has demonstrated repeatedly his main mode of operation is revenge and he’s been at war with our intelligence community since they identified Putin’s part in his seat in our Oval Office for 4 years. David Rothkopf has a knack for pulling no punches.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1563492477109092352.html
From your link:
"This is the reality of the Trump presidency. It must be seen for what it was and the man at the center of it must be seen for who he was and is--one of the greatest, most pernicious threats to US national security we have ever seen. "
Deservedly curt. The DJT presidency is such a massive maelstrom of crime and corruption it's hard to bring it all to mind (even this particular facet of it) without a program; such as Rothkopf provides.
When the indictment and prosecution come, as they certainly will, the real problem will be the reaction of his supporters, many of whom are in law enforcement, the armed forces and in elected State positions. Is the country ready to lose some its freedoms at that point, at least temporarily? Remember that Abraham Lincoln, facing a similar crisis, did away with the right to attain a writ of habeas corpus.
Dr.Lee is an activist extraordinaire, and tried to share her knowledge of how very dangerous #45 would be sitting in our Oval Office, despite great risks and sacrifices in her own life. Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv
@BandyXLee1
Forensic psychiatrist, violence expert, editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” and president of the World Mental Health Coalition.
understatement of the past 500 yrs! shouldn't they AT LEAST have to get VALID security clearance before being sworn in??
!!!
Treason? The Greedy Oligarch Party enabled treason and espionage. They could have convicted him and be done with this monster. But no, their minds and hearts are corrupted. America needs to electoral purge them
The "GOP" swamp from which this current creepy "creature" arose is still producing a legion of monsters, but this one is exceptional for the historically massive swath of chaos and destruction in it's wake.
The real Manchurian candidate, except he was the Putin version…
I hope DOJ is looking into the flow of money into Trump's accounts.
Follow the money.
Putin’s People by Catherine Belton It’s all documented
Aren’t traitors to the US executed? My earliest “news” memory is the front page story and photo of the Rosenbergs, executed in June, 1953 for trading atomic secrets to Russia. I was in the 2nd grade and to this day I remember that photo and my parents talking about it.
Trump is a special case. He deserves special treatment. Incarceration would be too kind.
He should not be allowed to continue playing the victim card. If he wasn't a cult leader to millions, I would say let him rot away in Guantanamo.
He is a cancer that has affected millions and like any cancer, for the host to survive the cancer must be completely eradicated.
Robert Hanssen, former FBI analyst, who spied for Russia 1979-2001, is considered the most damaging traitor in US history. He is serving 15 life sentences. I remember when he was discovered. He met Soviet Agents and used dead drops in a park near my neighborhood. It was weird to see those locations on TV and know I had walked or driven past them.
Wow. Wildly Awfully Weird.
Thanks, Joan! I'd totally forgotten this, and I'd already had one year of college when this happened. Just not very politically alert.
Joan, I just read the Wikipedia entry on the Rosenbergs. It is very interesting! Now, my opinion is that for the U.S. to execute spies is not a road that we should travel. Everyone is entitled to some semblance of humanity, and execution has not a shred of humanity. The Wikipedia entry was a horrifying read for me.
You are right. I’m honestly not for capitol punishment, but I certainly believe Trump should be dealt with seriously, particularly when it comes to holding elected office again which he should not. We may never know what Trump did or planned to do with those documents, but if you or I stole that level of classified documents from the US government, I doubt we’d be free to play golf in the future.
Agreed, Joan, Even one page. This is all a great puzzle, and I expect it will remain so.
Trump may be a modern day Benedict Arnold.
It could be that simple and that horrifying.
Like Benedict Arnold, Trump very well may flee the country. If this happens I hope he takes the kids and corrupt USSS agents with him.
Perhaps that is why the FBI grabbed his passports?
Benedict Arnold didn’t flee the country right away. He changed sides to fight for Britain and his treachery demoralized the Continental Army. George Washington desperately wanted to hang him, even sending an unsuccessful secret mission (John Champe) to kidnap Arnold back from the British. A local high school was named after John Champe since he lived in this area.
They briefly took his passports, but later said that they'd return them. After all, despite appearing to be the dirtiest thing to be hauled up from a sewer, Trump has still not been charged with anything that would justify limiting his right to travel. On the other hand, he would have to be willing to become a charity case and a puppet for whatever lunatic country agrees to accept him.
(Come to think of it, that might actually be an interesting punishment -- it would be enjoyable to watch Trump live out his final days as a pensioner living under the thumb of Kim Jong-un, issuing his rambling whines on demand via North Korean state media.)
As long as he doesnt take any info with him! Can we count on that? I dont think so.
And if he made copies of those classified documents and took them along? He can't be allowed to leave the country.
I sure agree, especially if it turns out the Trump was feeding information on the CIA agents and sources while he was still in the White House which some reports seem to indicate. If this is true the DOJ will nail him for sure.
But Michael:
“Trump declassified them so, it was perfectly fine no big deal”.
Or.
“If Trump sold them then it must have not been important”.
Or
“The whole documents thing is just more of the Godless, communist Democrats dogging a good man”.
Or.
“Another liberal plot to keep Trump from his rightful place as President”.
Or
“Libs are just making nothing out of nothing”
The above are close quotes to what I have heard on various AM radio stations or at a small farmer cafe in upstate NY on this issue.
Nobody in the arena I currently work thinks Trump did anything wrong at all.
An amazing feat of 30 years of a right wing takeover of AM radio and Fox News AND local preachers.
Lastly, CNN is now owned by a right wing billionaire who holds 35% of the Fox News franchises stock.
He wants a more “Fox News like” presentation.
So. Soon CNN will be parroting Fox.
Total sweep as we used to say in baseball.
The "own the media" thing began in earnest with Reagan so far as I can tell.
Mike,
"Nobody in the arena I currently work thinks Trump did anything wrong at all."
Cut out the last six words.
Plainly, you have the good fortune to work in a thought-free zone, despite which your own thoughts can still move on their own legs, your eyes can still see and your ears can still hear. Dangerous privileges, going where they can't go 'cause they can't get up from the couch, seeing what they can't see with their eyes glued to the Fox telescreen, hearing what they can't hear with their heavy-metal-shattered eardrums.
In HG Wells' Country of the Blind, the sighted hero is hunted down by a blind population for telling what he can see and they can't and denying their sightless explanations of how the world is.
Peter,
In rural environments in America Trump is seen as a kind of hero/savior.
I live part time in a rural environment.
I think it is important to understand how entrenched Trump support is in key parts of America.
I know you have your ear close to the ground, Mike, and I respect that. What worries me is that I also get the same kind of feedback from a friend in New York City. Regardless of their politics, people in the know there knew too much about Donald Trump.
But there are a lot of people who don't know about DT but do know how much they resent those people-in-the-know... Country people have always resented big city dwellers and the interests of too many, like small farmers, have been so mangled by Wall Street and other outsize big-money entities, that it is hardly surprising if someone who claims to be against those forces should be treated as a savior. There's no William Jennings Bryant in sight, nothing but this firebug playing with matches where there's firedamp or a gas leak...
People need an outlet for their rage. Strange how they're so often used by their real enemies against scapegoats who have little or no connection with their oppressors. The way they talk about "libtards" and other states of the Union, you'd think they were speaking of foreign invaders...
I cannot grab the NYT’s article but it’s certainly getting coverage. Here is the Dailykos covering it: https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/27/2119143/-The-New-York-Times-Drops-A-100-Megaton-Print-Bomb-On-One-Donald-J-Trump
Thanks. This is all pretty terrifying.
And it keeps getting worse truly astonishing.
Christy-
Thank you for the link. I just opened it and discovered Kos links the NYT article and I was able to get it.
Much appreciated.
I tried like heck to get the NYT article but they want my 💰 and I prefer to spend mine on other sources so that was the best I could do. Very glad you were able to access and 🙏 for letting me know! 🙏🙏
Here’s another source:
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575384-cia-admits-to-losing-dozens-of-informants-around-the-world-nyt/
I cancelled my NYT subscription and use my $$ for more reliable reportage too. But hopefully the link to that article courtesy of Daily Kos will work for others.
Thanks again:
Most paywalls require JavaScript to run; turn it temp off in your browser & read NYT etc. (WSJ is the main exception).
Great link.
Thank you.
Let us see if Trump can also "get by with" espionage.
I will not provide my own probability assessment to avoid generating angst among readers.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times wrote an article that addressed his entire four years in office. He never cared about national security, he often tweeted items covered in his briefings. Never used the @POTUS designation, but used his own name for tweets. "For four years, former President Donald J. Trump treated the federal government and the political apparatus operating in his name as an extension of his private real estate company.
It all belonged to him, he felt, melded together into a Trump brand that he had been nurturing for decades.
“My generals,” he repeatedly said of the active-duty and retired military leaders who filled his government. “My money,” he often called the cash he raised through his campaign or for the Republican National Committee. “My Kevin,” he said of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader.
And White House documents?
“They’re mine,” three of Mr. Trump’s advisers said that he stated repeatedly when he was urged to return boxes of documents, some of them highly classified, that the National Archives sought after Mr. Trump took them with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., in January 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/us/politics/trump-fbi-classified-documents.html?name=styln-trump-raid®ion=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&variant=show&is_new=false
I recall when Trump was insisting on putting his "10 on the Richter Scale" signature on all the COVID stimulus checks that went out, but reportedly the presses were not set up for it. He appears to want to take ownership of any positive event anywhere in the world and shed, by blaming others, for others any faux pas or evil.
It’s like the media, as well as the public, is in a kind of dissociative state, unable to process what’s really happening. This is the effect of Trump’s antics and of manipulation of him and other useful idiots through a concerted blitz of disinformation by bad actors in Russia and in the GOP
God bless you, HCR!
Much of the public seems to be in G.O.P. induced stupor. Anti-vaxx, anti-mask in a pandemic that killed 1,000,000+ Americans? No need to trouble one's self about climate so long as there are snowballs around? Trump is God's prophet? Things fall apart; the center cannot hold... Jim Jones warpo thinking going on here.
And yes, HCR is a breath of fresh air.
“Prison or not, it is up to us to render him impotent by refusing to let him set any agenda outside of his cult. The media won’t do it. They should be giving most air and ink to President Biden and only cover Mr. Trump when something big happens in regards to prosecuting him. And they should never quote him. But sensationalizing DJT makes them money and their bosses are venal.
So it is up to us.”
Perfectly said, Annabel!
Hi Rowshan.
Hmmm. Trump. Rendered impotent. Yes, I like the sound of that.
I’ll be mean and say that he probably already is. But not in the way that matters to us.
Nothing mean about the truth, Kathy.
He is already impotent. Remember the peeing over his face story?
I was just about ready to forget about that as I never got deeply enough into the story to be convinced by it. I mean, I saw "Trump Piss Tapes" and figured the headline was deep enough for me. Water under the bridge in any case, I guess.
Hi David,
Doesn’t it just put a smile if contentment on your face?!
Well, Rowshan, it ain't over 'til it's over, but yes, just the hint of a smile.
When Dick Cheney and crew leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, it was a dirty, criminal, anti-American trick.
This trove of classified documents, literally box loads of assets, intelligence, and lord knows what else, makes the Plame scandal look like pettiness by comparison.
I wonder what would the Targaryens do with such a thorough traitor? We’re not in the great game now, instead we’re in a real time effort to blow Andrew Johnson away in the annals of worst president ever, and worst political party since the Southern Democrats.
“Dracarys”
Can we at least get some rule of law around here, and settle for nothing less than lots of jail time?
Modern Republicans bellow about "law and order" (including Trump) while pointedly ignoring any law that is inconvenient for their own political agenda. That has become their modus operandi.
Like ancient kings, the party of autocracy "can do no wrong", or so they would have us believe. The more they get away with the more lawless they have become.
Trump has even managed to become the Christian leader of the Evangelical Church, just like the King of England.
So, he is currently deemed "untouchable" since he is "God's chosen".
what this means is Trump gives public money to private, christian based schools, thereby making him God's chosen money donor.
Ah yes, you may recall that one about the American benefactor of an English village church who walked out of the service celebrating his generosity when the vicar said "We thank thee, Lord, for this our succor"...
Our sucker.
Who's the sucker here?
His second term will be in the big house, not the white house.
His garb will match his complexion.
And....there will be pretty bracelets.
I so hope you are right! A dream come true.
Yes, the Netflix movie: "Fair Gaime" was a true eye opener for me."
Bush was, on many ways, worse than Trump if one includes invading two countries based on lies and fakery and one adds up the number of dead bodies as a result of said lies and fakery.
Will add that to the queue thanks 😊
Private Eddie Slovik comes to mind.
I read "The Man Without A Country" a long, long, time ago. We CAN'T make MAGA a martyr, but we can make him,legitimately,a pariah
I still have my parents' copy of that book. My brother and I both used it for last minute book reports. I pulled it out this winter and reread it. The man did love his country and he lost his whole future and he was sorry. He also was the fall guy for his superiors. Everyone but Nixon got punished over Watergate. This can't be blamed on anyone but Trump who doesn't love anything and has no future to lose. They should fly him to the middle of a shark ridden ocean with the intention of dropping him on an empty boat - and completely miss the boat! It would be nice if he had to face a military trial as well as a criminal one.
I’m with you. I’d give anything if the mainstream media would move the hell on.
Has CNN gone over to the dark side?
They did immediately after Biden was elected. CBS too, hedging their bets, sacrificing journalistic integrity to preserve access to GOP leaders in case the power shifts back; under threat that their access would shut off completely if they actually did their jobs
The only way for America to get real news is to break up corporate ownership of media outlets on local basis. Separate TV, radio and newspapers. Break up the Monster Corporate control. Otherwise, we get served only what “the boss” wants us to know
Seems like it. The really really sad fact is the refusal by the NYT in 2015 and on to open up about all the horrors already known by most New Yorkers about how fundamentally unfit and treacherous this person was known to be. NYT did what it seems the majority of the uSA media does: print what makes money for the paper irrespective of its responsibility to facts, truth, its readers. When you legitimize a traitor apparently there’s no political will in the uSA to act properly against such a treacherous entity! The Republicans showed their real purpose long before #45 — Will these revelations put the nails in their coffin? I’m hoping but …..
Seems the truth tellers have no megaphone equal to Rupert and the MSM. Substacks are a drop in the bucket. Sad to say. Dems are trying, love Adam Schiff’s truth, may his comments reverberate around the land. And Joe’s calling them what they are. Scream Fascism back to every blather about socialism.
The House impeached him twice. Hold the Republicans responsible for sure.
“ For several years, Brian Stelter’s Sunday CNN show, “Reliable Sources,” has been a reliable source of intelligent criticism of Fox News, rightwing media in general, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican Party.
Last week, CNN abruptly canceled the show and effectively fired Stelter and his staff.
Why? The show had good ratings and was commercially successful. (More people watched it than MSNBC.)
The show was cancelled by Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, who has said he wants less criticism of Trump and the Republican right. Licht has told staff they should stop referring to Trump’s “Big Lie” because the phrase sounds like a Democratic Party talking point. Licht also wants more conservative guests.”
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-cnn-cancelled-brian-stelter?r=fqsxl&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Faux News II.
No more CNN for me.
I stopped 16 months ago
Boycott CNN. I stopped my subscription to the NYT in 2015. I smelled a rat.
Demonstrating the abject power of one individual in shaping the national discourse
The concentration of this power is a critical fault in our information systems
How interesting, that Licht should proclaim "Let there be Night".
The man seems to be the victim of a misnomer. Or... well, Lucifer means "light bearer". Could the gentleman be one of the lights in Lucifer's hand?
Maybe those betting on horses both dark and pale should read Fritz Thyssen's "I Paid Hitler".
It reminds me so much of a Harry Potter line about the Daily Prophet: “The Prophet (aka the NYT or WP or CNN) exists to sell itself.” Declaring that they are the newspaper of record, or that democracy dies in darkness, does not mean that they are doing anything other than trying to sell clicks and subscriptions, democracy be damned. I agree with the comment above that they are trying to preserve access should our attempt to save democracy fail, when they should be aiding the effort and making up for 2016.
Frankly, I tend to go to Reuters or Associated Press when I just want the facts of the matter. Since they sell news to other outlets, their stuff seem more straight-forward. Everyone else seem to permit too much editorial opinion in what are ostensibly news articles.
Good grief, Jeff Zucker was the media mogul most responsible for T’s first occupancy of the WH! They hired Corey Lewandowski! Gone over?? They’re soaking in it.
I've been wondering that myself, and am nearly 100% aligned with MSNBC (and PBS). Even Anderson has lost his appeal for me.
Does anyone still watch CNN? Why?
Rupert and his greed leads the way, what are they thinking, besides the bottom line.
Nor should Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Lauren Boebert, etc.be covered like they are important; they are not. They are just loud hoping to attract attention to their reality show. As for the tin horn dictator, he should be in jail with no ability to communicate publicly. No ability to communicate would be horrible for him.
>>"But sensationalizing DJT makes them money . . ."<< That is my major complaint about much of today's media. They will/would chase the devil far more quickly than they would chase the saint. That 35% of the U.S. citizenry supports Trump makes sorrowful commentary about our country, today.
Very, very well said!!!!
What no one has said that I know of is why couldn't he have made copies of all those documents and still have those?
Trump is so unhinged he stupidly took the originals. He could have made copies and returned the originals. Talk about stupid.
First you assume he knows how to use a copy machine. Maybe his veneer of incompetence is a facade, maybe not.
But within the WH, photocopying classified documents would be noticed by others. Admins, clerks, etc.. He should never have been allowed to take documents to the Residence. Rules just didn't apply to him and those around him let him get away with it.
All he needed to do was take pictures of them with his phone. Think how many people have been allowed to do that at MAL. You don’t need copy machines anymore.
Today, someone on Twitter remarked, "What about any PDFs?" Of course, copies were made. I say that with certainty only out of my conviction how that is so Trump.
I've been asking this for many weeks.
And why are we always subjected to photos or videos whenever Trump's name is mentioned in the media? And why do TV journalists keep saying “President Trump… uh…former President Trump…”? How long will it take them to get it right? Every time they say it his crowd loves it.
The most disappointing person who does this, for me, is Carol Loenig whom I admire tremendously. She consistently does it. Makes me very sad, not knowing her motive. Is it a kind of respect for the office? Dunno.
Why not just say, "Trump"; period? He deserves absolutely NO accolades or titles.
Precisely, Sara T! Particularly "President Trump ... uh... former President Trump..." Infuriates me! And it happens so much of the time!
Full agreement but the Republican congressmen and women who stood fiercely by him, throughout it all and EVEN after 1/6, with red lights going off all through these miserable years, deserve special treatment for traitorous behavior with respect to their oaths of office.
Trying to replay Mussolini's March on Rome, and still the media are paying no attention -- except for pedlars of the Lie -- and still people are sleeping, still Trump-worshippers' adoration of their idol and grandiose expectations remain completely intact...
Blind faith in total nonsenses seems to be a peculiarly American psychosis. Often beliefs that cancel each other out...
Did all those generations escape oppression and religious persecution in Europe (and elsewhere)... for THIS?
Add to the cult of “worshippers” the numbers of citizens, exhausted and discouraged who choose to see DC’s dirty game of self promotion as separate and apart from their lives. Disgusted “with it all”, they can no longer stand the lies. Choosing to “give up trying” they burrow into their private lives, waiting. (Shades of a European past?) And for what do they wait? For it to be over??? With their hands clean, they may be free to view all partisans as compromised. Canvassing yesterday. These are the people we need to reach. They need a ballast they can count on. Dare I say it? With each discouraging conversation, I nodded my head in apparent empathy but my internal dialogue thought (nearly hysterically) that they NEED to read ALL of HCR’s letters. They need her unique, clear, steady and characteristically hopeful voice. What a gift we readers have had to find HCR and this thoughtful informed community. So too, those of us knocking on doors need to echo that voice to the discouraged and disgusted.
Were it not for the media, we would not today have the limited knowledge we do about the documents. I believe it was the NYT, CNN and Axios who brought a case to court to get the documents. So, as a general matter, if we are as interested in the history of these documents as all these comments attest, we should be grateful to the media. The DOJ would have given us nothing.
And here I feel ambivalent. The DOJ would have wanted nothing revealed because it could seriously hamper their investigation and endanger their sources. If true, the media was doing the country no favor when it pushed - and got.
In fact, I feel at first hearing that this will be a *win* for Trump. This will enable the story that that this was just about “a bunch of documents not returned”. It will be equated endlessly to not returning a library book on time. And so, there is a possibility that another lie will grow. Prosecutors whom I read or listen to (Ellie Honig, Preet Bharara, Joyce Vance White) are either skeptical that there will be an indictment or feel it will be 12-18 months in coming. Given the glacial pace of the DOJ, they may well be right. During this time, there will be derision and eye rolling from the Right whenever they encounter the kind of explanation Heather gave today. And the witch-hunt theory, so regularly espoused since 2016, will take hold.
What we heard today will be grist for the mill temporarily for those Americans who, with good reason, loathe and distrust Trump. But it’s insufficient to make much weight against what will become the growing palaver that we are dining out on conspiracy. “Occam’s razor”, the more educated enablers will shout. “He was unorganized, unaware of the law, liked to show off stuff he had like Shaquille O’Neal’s giant shoe. That’s all it is. You’re turning him into a criminal”.
Prepare for another x months of tiresome library book argumentation. The DOJ is going to clam up and it will be left to the public to duke it out. Both sides will be hypotheticals. Ours is the messier one.
Eric O'Donnell, we are bound to take the points you make seriously, noting your understandable ambivalence about today's publication of the affidavit authorizing the search of Trump's property.
While it is true that Americans (and too many others today) seem incapable of telling true from fake, one must surely be skeptical about your pessimistic assumptions. First, you seem to be assuming that people are even stupider than they seem. More to the point, when you speak of the DOJ's "glacial pace", so much evidence has been accumulating under the departmental ice that the glacial pace could speed up as shockingly and violently as the current calving of vast icebergs and colossal glacier collapse.
Things happen fast when the right conditions are met, and, prima facie, even a small fraction of current evidence would be enough to put anyone else but a past president of the United States in prison for a long time. It should not take very long for the competent security experts to vet the cache just seized and for the Department to determine precisely which charges are appropriate; and since the issues directly impact national security, it seems hard to believe that the wheels of justice will move more slowly than necessary.
One can, however, reasonably speculate that investigators and the Attorney General may need or have needed more time in which to clarify the detailed mechanisms whereby these documents were spirited away and by whom, as well as the uses made of said documents. Many other individuals will have been involved in these operations and national security demands that no stone be left unturned. However, while all the king's men may have hesitated to reveal His Majesty's doings, it is public knowledge that HM himself has never hesitated to throw subordinates under the bus.
I so enjoy your prose and logical thought. Thank you for taking the time to answer, Peter.
In truth, I agree exactly with what you write, especially considering the time lapse. Your iceberg metaphor is very apt. This is what I *want* to believe.
But two matters prevent me from full-throated agreement. The first is the clear MIA of the Justice Department in the first year. If, as Garland so patiently explained to us, they were following the wrong model. From the ground up flipping as you go is fine when there’s a single entity to whom all report. But there was only some. Injection between the attacking mob and the inside intriguers. So my understanding is that this should have been a “hub and spoke” operation. (Note I speak glibly as if I really know anything about the art and science of investigation. :)
My belief is that they were conceptually disinclined to go after Trump et al. We may never know how much we owe to the J6 committee, who by their incredible work hung the DOJ out to dry. At least that’s my belief.
Secondly I’d like to agree with you that the glacier will calve suddenly. A part of me is rooted in that thought. But I listen to all these prosecutors speculating that indictment will be slow or not at all, and I think it’s intellectually dishonest of me to put my hunch up against their wisdom and years of experience.
As for the pessimism about how intelligent the mass of people are, I’m a firm believer in P. T. Barnum’s maxim that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. It’s further complicated by the fact that people have re-oriented their lives and belief systems to follow Trump. They cannot disinvest now, because for millions that would be to indulge in self-flagellation. Trump and their psyches are one and the same.
I am optimistic overall. I publicly stated back in the spring that the Democrats would win both the House and the Senate. I knew all the reasons they wouldn’t, but I loved the dynamic the Republicans had created in their primaries - to win, you had to out-MAGA any opposition. That makes so many of them sitting ducks in the general election this fall. They are, in the main, stupider Trumps. I love it. I see no reason to change that prediction today.
And I’ve bet $100 with two friends that Trump will not make it *through* a Presidential campaign. I really think he won’t make it *to* one, but I hedged my bets.
Thank you, Eric.
I often feel ill at ease talking to—hectoring ?—people who know far more than I do, if only because most of this community are Americans, born and bred, while I have since a very early age been made very aware of America but never lived there, so that I really am a complete outsider. I had already noticed that you are Canadian, but like Mexicans and Latin Americans, Canadians, both Anglo and Québequois, are an American people. I am very much a European.
What’s more, it is plain enough that several contributors have a distinguished professional background. I don’t have that distinction, my only advantage is to have worked for one of the main institutions of the European Union as a mere translator, which gave me a ringside seat over a period of several decades.
You remind me of the dangers of wishful thinking—yet I, alone among my circle of friends and American relatives, did not wish for DT to win the 2016 election but expected it. That very expectation seems to have alienated one or two people…
I just read your FSB article—why that Son-of-KGB title, why B for “shattered”?—and see that my outlook has no little in common with yours, in particular when it comes to awareness of the unprecedented and constantly accelerating speed of change, and the fears and unease to which this gives rise. But let’s turn briefly to the discussion in hand…
I did not intend to say that the glacier WILL calve suddenly, rather that it may do so. However, on second thoughts, I do fully expect a cataclysmic collapse. Only, when? Of that I have no idea, except that it could happen at any time, even soon… or goodness knows when.
You think it’s intellectually dishonest of you to put your hunch up against the wisdom of the wise and their years of experience? Fair enough. But could we not turn that back to front and doubt the intellectual honesty of experts whose very professional expertise has separated them from their own humanity? What do you think explains the current disrepute in which both specialists and knowledge itself are held? Not only populist pied pipers’ tuneful mockery, not only wild conspiracy theories, not only resentful envy, but the tall ivory towers of hubris in which so many professionals have taken refuge. Teachers who teach as parrots talk, politicians and economists who tell us what to think when all they know is painting-by-numbers, cops who are hammers and for whom citizens are all nails, especially when they’re the wrong color and/or in the wrong income bracket, dog-in-the-manger preachers, I-speak-your-weight physicians, lawyers in hock to the mob… all, all hiding their inadequacy, their loss of soul behind smiling masks. The professional rictus.
One should not scoff at professional expertise, but it is to be taken with a good pinch of salt. Finally, as a seasoned but very unbureaucratic bureaucrat I mistrust them all.
Concerning politicians and civil servants, I would add that there was a watershed around 1980, when the generation who had fought in the second world war retired. Up till then, people were working for a better world, out to ensure that nothing like the hell they’d had to live through should ever happen again. Even the jaded thought in terms of What’s-in-it-for-us? When that wartime generation left the stage, their place was taken by smart operators whose clear albeit unspoken watchword was What’s-in-it-for-me?
It must have been at some time after the fall of the Berlin wall but before the collapse of the Soviet Union that I recall wondering loud and publicly in my workplace whether democratic institutions would last much more than a generation. Response: “You’re a philosopher…” It was not meant kindly…
Oh my goodness, that ‘B’ must be a typo. 🙃
I am new to Substack and so still misuse it in some ways. Actually I more and more think the title is crap. I’d like to change it, but it feels like a noose around my neck.
I’m loving the writing though. I have what I am personally satisfied as a strong thesis and I am anxious to have it fully elucidated some day.
I’m thrilled that you had the interest and patience to explain so much about yourself. Are you from Britain?
Your life sounds interesting and the depth of your thought is always obvious to me. You’re right about the fact that being on the same continent in Trump is different. We have been infected here in Canada on a small scale by a sort of cunning but idiotic populism. Years ago, Quebec tried to separate from the union, as you will know. But there was a genuine linguistic fear there. I knew several Quebecois and really liked and respected them, though I was horrified that they might secede. Thankfully they didn’t.
I have weird hunched for things and about twenty five years ago I made the brash prediction that it would be Alberta that would break away. They are our oil-rich province and have been disdainful of Canada.
But some loud talk died away when Stephen Harper became PM. He is from the West and was canny enough to rule as a Conservative who didn’t push the hot button social issue. And he had a long run.
Now, it’s very much off the radar, but there is a serious, populist move in Alberta, and perhaps Saskatchewan to become nations within the nation of Canada. The proverbial shit is going to hit the fan in September when the provincial PCs vote in a new leader. The front runner has a detailed plan which she says she will put into play immediately. So hardly anybody is aware yet, but we may be facing a most serious constitutional crisis in 6-8 weeks.
This time, it’s MAGA-ism pure and simple. All based on grievances. Alberta has often been more like the 51st state than a province. Calgary is a highly Americanized city.
The trucker revolt in Ottawa was spawned in Alberta. It was Trump fanboy stuff. I hated it.
As for your take on experts, I have much to say on it and no time at the moment to say it. I was raised by a doctor’s daughter. My own daughter is a doctor. One of our sons is the expert in his field of computational analysis - he, quite literally, wrote the book kbon Boolean functions.
Briefly, I deeply believe and appreciate expertise. And I hate saying things on this forum that I can’t prove - it can be a bit of a jumpy group. So I try to never be wise, but always try to get wiser.
Annabel, Stunning comment. I would like to borrow your last paragraph. “This would be tin horn dictator belongs in the dust bin of history. We the people can’t put him behind bars but we can deposit him in that bin.”
Well said! I fear that a very substantial part of our citizenry is complacent and therefore a great danger to our democracy. I also have that same fear that those citizens have no idea of the seriousness of what TFP has done. Republican support of Trump it’s so political that they have become untethered from our government, from reality that they are blind to the overwhelming danger to our democracy.
Also, the media needs to stop using tfg's image to illustrate their stories about the stolen government documents.
I would love it if I never saw that face ever again.
Annabel Ascher - I totally agree.
Annabel Ascher, in case this was not clear from something else I wrote, your inspired words "SO IT IS UP TO US" provide the keynote for this entire thread.
Thank you for making the people's responsibility so clear, and may those words set off a tsunami of awareness!
Yes, the whole thing is astonishing, but somehow not surprising. Death star should be shoveling dung somewhere and never should have been the occupant of the WH. And yes, everyone who is thinking about this wonders what nefarious things have been done already. His personal notes on classified documents....like what...places where he could sell it? And the Rs are always and ever the party of death. Just thinking about them makes me want to vomit.
Republicans have slid way downhill over the decades, and Democrats have improved since the days of laissez faire and George Wallace. That said, it appears to me that Republicans, after holding Nixon accountable until the blanket "pardon" turned against democracy and rule of law with Reagan. Since, they have plunged deeper into outright corruption and malignant narcissism, making Nixon's serious abuses seem small by comparison. Both the popularity of their blatant, dishonorable and malicious lies and our past public passivity is just weird, especially since history warns where this path leads. Perhaps our legal machinery is still sound enough to bring down the momentum of this coup d'etat that has been 40 years in the making, but it's likely going to need a lot of help from the public.
"it's likely going to need a lot of help from the public."
Here's a recommendation. I've just spent an hour or so visiting discussions/talks/interviews featuring HCR in various places, sometimes in academia, once in the White House, but mostly sitting in front of her bookshelf (I'd love to get my hands on just some of those old books!). As she talks, the fog dissipates and one's mind becomes calmer and clearer. Courage returns.
It must be done, because it CAN be done.
I agree. Clarity, solidarity, and perseverance furthers.
"...but it's likely going to need a lot of help from the public." I'm in, J L.
How to make the Kardashians disappear from our consciousness and people actually care about our “politics,” which ostriches like to avoid. Awake ye who slumber…
"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. " -Pericles
Thanks for an excellent thumbnail sketch of the history of how we arrived at the moral abyss that is the current Republican Party. It's horrifying to think that this party could regain power in the midterms.
Amen.
Do not cast aspersions upon us dung shovelers.
LOL.
And all this time, what lingers in the back of my mind is...what effect might all this have on the January 6th hearings, which will soon ratchet up again? Might this seeming further incrimination of T***p make some potential witnesses who were "on the fence" now be more willing to come forward? Between the 1/6 hearings of T***p inciting a coup, the Mar-a-Lago raid by the DOJ, T***p's business being taken to court in October, T***p in trouble here in Georgia meddling in our election, one just MIGHT be inclined to think his great big orange ass is cooked once and for all. If he gets out of all this unscathed it really would be a miracle. And yet...y'know, one still (almost) has to wonder if he'll somehow manage to squeak through yet again. Anyway, I'm more hopeful now, or, even dare I say, guardedly optimistic that his world might be about to crumble. At least, that is my prayer.
"If he gets out of all this unscathed it really would be a miracle."
If he gets out of this, any government integrity has been lost. We have to hold trump accountable or the whole world will be laughing at us for tolerating such nonsense. I think of all the military members (men and women) who have given their lives for the U.S. while being branded by trump as "suckers." That attitude pervades too much of the country now.
There’s no higher authority to sell out this country than the PRESIDENT. He deserves the worst punishment there is. Jail, incommunicado, making no $$. I keep hearing how there is no precedent … well, there is no precedent for a sociopathic president who is a traitor. Let’s create a “precedent.”
Treason and espionage against the USA by a sitting and ex-president would have resulted death as a consequence. That is how dangerous 45 and his comrades have gone against American democracy and our Constitution. If I committed all their heinous acts against our country and laws..where would I be sitting right now? I do not give a s__t about precedent. Get these guys off the street, our of our government positions where they belong. Please remove them, DOJ! They can await trial in a place where they can not harm our country any more.
Yes, jail. An underground cell in a Supermax prison, in a cell next to Hannibal Lechter or some equivalent sociopath.
I don’t think that the Greatest Generation fought World War II to get us to this point, where a traitorous president incited violence against the national legislature and stole state secrets. Here we are wondering HOW badly he has damaged our country. It is impossible to calculate.
Whenever I see comments (on Yahoo) yowling about "Antifa" I like to point out that the US military in WW2 was the biggest group of "Antifa" aka "Anti-Fascists" ever.
It is never a popular opinion.
Boy, do I get that as well. I had one former colleague tell me "you know antifa is just the anarchists, right?" to which I replied "well, who is trying to overthrow the government here and install someone who was not elected?" There was much regurgitation of the election "fraud" and gnashing of teeth; no real substance to it.
I love to tell people, y'know, we fought a REALLY huge war against fascism 80-some-odd years ago. If somebody labels themselves "antifascist", then I'm all in. Since when is being against fascism wrong?? Okay, then if they're mislabeled and are really "anarchists", then let's consider another gross mislabeling, "defund" the police, which is not at all about "DE-funding" police (it implies taking away all funding), but is about RE-ALLOCATION of their funding and not putting local law enforcement into situations for which they are not prepared. Let's get our semantics right!
Exactly!
It will be decades at a minimum before we know the extent of the damage that the Republican Party has inflicted on this country by their willingness to protect and conceal the traitorous crimes of their standard bearer.
Yep, those few remaining WWII veterans must be crying about all this, and those who didn’t survive are tossing feverishly in their graves.
Yes, without a doubt. If those vets and KIAs had been able to see into the future and what was about to happen in the U.S., they may not have even picked up their weapons and agreed to serve, especially if they could crystal ball that trump would be calling them "suckers."
Yes, it is impossible to calculate the amount of damage trump and club have done. It's so important that we get a full accounting of what they did. Just one example of their family enrichment: I read in the London Daily Mail (8-20-22) that Jared Kushner is now worth $800,000,000. Exploiting the PPP program, Kushner got a loan for over $3,000,000, and that loan has been completely forgiven without any need for repayment. Maybe we need to read foreign newspapers to find out what is really happening in the U.S.
Absolutely agree
One keeps praying that his actions, pre his presidency, during, and post, will finally have some consequences for him. I am hoping that it will rally people to vote, to try to repair some of the damage that he has done to our country. I do blame the media for all the attention they give him. They put him in the White House, with all that free publicity.
And under irresponsible media I fault Republican devotion to (Reagan mentor) Milton Friedman's "The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits." (see https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464/ )
Which of course is why regulation by the government is essential.
And boy, do they ever
"If he gets out of this unscathed it would really be a miracle." If he gets out of this, it would be proof positive that he is the Antichrist. Nothing but the supernatural can explain his apparent impunity.
Extreme corruption (such as the corruption-in-plain-sight Kavanaugh hearings and the Republican response to T**^p's impeachment) might turn justice in its head, but probably not if enough of the public has enough to say about it.
Deliberate ignorance, stupidity and greed