CNN reporters today pulled together evidence from a number of sources to explain how “a binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.” The missing collection of documents was ten inches thick and contained 2,700 pages of information from U.S. intelligence and that of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies about Russian efforts to help Trump win the 2016 presidential election.
George Terwilliger may have been telling the truth when he told the New York Times: “Mark never took any copy of that binder home at any time.” Mark Meadows may not have taken the binder home, but he certainly could have taken it somewhere else, or hidden it somewhere, or given it to someone else to hide. I'm not a lawyer, but Terwilliger's assertion sounds meaningless to me. What a whole bunch of deplorable traitors.
Annie, Cassidy Hutchinson states in her book that she saw Meadows get into his limo on the 20th of Jan with the Crossfire Hurricane file (which she had kept locked up in an office safe) under his arm. If the file is indeed 10" thick and composed of 2700 pages, it's hard to believe that he "easily" took it. Your point is still excellent, though.
I don't doubt her for a secon. I'm 75 years old and haul 30 kilo bags of feed around all the time. Just because Meadows has a weak personality, doesn't mean he has no muscles, probably has them in compensation, in fact. And he'd do anything to save his ass from djt.
If the pages are mostly printed double sided, 2,700 pages could be as little as 1,350 sheets, and use of 4 mil paper would be 5.4" all double sided. If all single sheets were used it would be about 10.8" single sided on 2,700 sheets, 2.7 reams of 500 sheets, not too hard to carry but I would think rather noticeable even if all double sided.
2,700 sheets would weigh about 22 pounds, 1350 sheets about 11 pounds.
Cassidy Hutchinson is an American heroine. She makes me think of my childhood mental picture of Betsy Ross. It’s a comic comparison, but Betsy Ross was the first American heroine I remember learning about.
I have her book and I am not sure if I should read her book or Chaney's first. I am nearly done with Prequel, hopefully I will finish it today. If our current sitiuation is like where we were with Hitler/Nazi's 80ish years ago ..... all of these indicted creeps will go free. Thankfully, FDR was not involved...but when Truman took office he ....had it swept under the rug. Burton Wheeler happened to be his friend and a one time U.S. Senate colleague. We were lucky back then that we kept our democracy.... and I pray we can do it once again. I know there has to be more of us than there are of them. We have to spread the word when we can. It is not always possible. There was so much information in this book that I was not aware of that happened. None of it was discussed at home with my parents. With many of my friends I have found it best to just not mention anything to do with our country, politics or religion.
Or, Meadows, or someone else, could have made a copy of the binder's contents, and taken that, while someone else is not returning the original binder. Or the same person copied the binder, passed it on to someone else, and has kept the original binder, but is hiding it, not returning it to the intelligence services. Whatever, the cat is likely out of the bag. Isn't it prosecutable behavior to simply "misplace" valuable information one has been entrusted with? If Trump was responsible for retaining that information, and misplaced and didn't return it, shouldn't he be held responsible, whether or not he himself made off with the binder and its information? If we fail to return a library book, we are fined, regardless of the reason we didn't return the book, be it lost, stolen, damaged, whatever. When materials are classified, and important, none should be handed to anyone without automatically making that person responsible, and subject to unnegotiable consequences if they fail to return it.
Read "Enough" by Cassidy Hutchinson. Mark Meadows had a fireplace in his office, and it must have been really cold those last few months of the trump administration because he had it burning alot.
Annie you nailed it. Yes “copy” is the operative word here. The comment by Meadows lawyer implies took the actual binder versus a copy. Annie you nailed it. And like you “copy” jumped out as I read his lawyers’ “carefully” worded statement:
“Terwilliger told the New York Times: “Mark never took any copy of that binder home at any time.”
Exactly! Meadows is dirty, he's a traitor..And what do we do with traitors? I believe it is time we stop allowing ourselves to be pushed around by these Fu%3king people..Cannon is complicit, her behavior is demonstrative of obstruction..She should be removed and charged..
Calm down. You guys just have to get used to the way America really is.
Fat, white and Male means NO JAIL.
The reason you guys are so outraged is because you don't realize that white guys break the law every day, all day long and you NEVER see them on the 6:00 o'clock local news between two Sheriff's deputies being hauled into jail.
All you will EVER see on the nightly news is some poor black guy between two big white deputies being hauled into jail for (robbing a 7-11 for a loaf of bread).
That's how it works here in 'Murca. It just seems outrageous to you guys who have never been within a minority community where jail is always one inch away.
So let's go after his wife. She voted illegally in North Carolina too. And Melania, fraudulently becomes a US citizen and then sponsored her communist father and mother. As spouse, Assuming TFFG files married filing jointly she is just as guilty of income tax evasion as TFFG. And why aren't they auditing TFFGJr, Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany and Barron for income tax evasion? Usually when a preparer files a fraudulent return on behalf of a client everyone's return that preparer did is audited for similar tax cheating. No wonder the Republicans want to slash the IRS budget.
FWIW: She was born in Slovenia, where she said her parents taught her the importance of a strong work ethic and pursuing her dreams. She launched her fashion and modeling career at a young age and traveled to cities like Paris and Milan.
She had no college degree, which is required for an Einstein visa, of which approximately 6 are utilized yearly. Is Melania a genius? No sign of that. Her visa process was fraudulent. The irony that this is the immigrant that was chosen to speak to new citizens...her citizenship was purchased for her. My opinion.
Addendum:
In what way did Melania "excel" at her modeling career & what good did her rather short career do for the world besides nothing?
Criteria for Einstein visa:
To qualify for the EB-1A visa, an applicant must be able to demonstrate extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics through sustained national or international acclaim (by way of extensive documentation).Aug 9, 2023
Do you Qualify for the “Einstein Visa”? - Davies & Associates
Nurjamila Wallar - "She had no college degree, which is required for an Einstein visa..."
It is known as the “Einstein visa.” Nuclear scientists, Nobel laureates and doctors get it. But so do acrobats, stunt men, event planners — and plenty of models.
The requirements for the EB-1 immigrant visa leave far more room for interpretation than its nickname and its best-and-brightest reputation suggest.
While the program may be the pinnacle of the merit-based immigration policies supported by critics of the visa lottery and family-based migration the decision of what constitutes merit, while based on established criteria, is ultimately subjective and often surprising.
She was stupid enough to marry him but fought tooth and nail for Barron to have his "rightful place" in the Trump family. I'd bet she gets a Whopper and fries. Her pre-nup might even include a diet coke and a gravesite next to Ivana.
Yes, yes, yes, I am one of those old fat white guys, Mike S, just like Mark Meadows and DJT. I am 70 years old, probate attorney, just retired, who did a minimal amount of criminal law at the beginning of my career. You are 100% correct in every respect. It does make me ill about “Judge” Cannon, just like it does about my own Congressman, “Judge” John Carter, an actual former state district judge in Texas. If you think there is equal justice under the law, you are sorely mistaken. I am still praying for a miracle and that there will be justice for Trump, Meadows, Giuliani and all the rest, but I do not expect to see it. As a Christian, they all make me want to throw up, they really do. The only that has kept me sane for a long time, and ESPECIALLY these last 8 years, is a quote from one of my favorite Christian authors, Oswald Chambers. “ Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it.” There will be justice for these cretins, I just pray it is in this world, and I live long enough to see it. Mike S, you nailed our world, and it never ceases to amaze me how otherwise sane and nice and yes, “good Christina people” refuse to see the truth about justice in this country.
Whenever I find myself start with the handwringing, I think of Jack Smith and my girls, Fani Willis and Letitia James. They are fearless in pursuit of justice. And look what happened to Giuliani yesterday--two Black women were awarded $150 mil in order to punish the racist lunatic. Their attorney is launching an investigation to uncover any money Giuliani could have hidden. There is hope....
"Matuszak is one of about 100 prosecutors across Ohio who the courts found had violated standards meant to preserve a defendant's civil rights in criminal trials, an investigation by Columbia Journalism Investigations, NPR and member station WVXU in Cincinnati, and The Ohio Newsroom found. He is one of 13 who did so more than once. Together, these 13 prosecutors accounted for nearly one-third of the 104 cases in the state where courts found that prosecutors acted improperly."
We are ugly, but looking only at our ugliness is not to appreciate our aspirations toward which we must always keep our thoughts and our eyes. If you start thinking of how you’re going to work for the Democrats in ‘24, you will feel better. Not all politicians are good as not all Americans are good, but some are and some are better as politicians than they are as mere humans. You can help improve the country by voting for the best candidates you can vote for wherever you are.
Interesting point. Just the other day—when Senator Schumer extolled the role played by Jewish people in the civil rights movment—I wondered how many readers of this substack are black or brown. It's a valuable perspective.
I think you are gas-lighting our concerns. I also think you aren’t recognizing the inherent dangers of an imminent, fascist takeover. Don’t assume poverty and crime are confined to minority communities.
You are misreading Mike S.'s intent here. He is simply pointing out the fact that there are really two justice systems in the US, one for white folks and one for BIPOC folks. How else to explain that Black people make up less than 14% of the population but 38% of the prison population? Income is a great influencer in the criminal justice system, but cannot explain the difference in ratios.
I am almost ashamed to say that, as a card carrying member of the criminal justice system for 35 years, I had never heard of "for profit prisons" until I watched the film "13th". We do not have them in Oregon, and I am horrified they exist at all. I am also horrified by prison conditions in general, but specifically in the south.
Ally - Dawna is also correct, tho - poverty & crime arent only minority issues. Politics and propaganda make it so, it would seem. The difference in prison populations & in our justice system, should be clear to everyone without having to be put up in colored lights! What is it "they" say? Ignorance is bliss???? There sure seems to be an awful lot of that.
Maggie, you are correct: poverty isn't only a minority issue. I've had a front row seat for 37 years to the entry into the criminal justice system, and can confirm that those with money have far better personal outcomes than those with less, or none. The percentages of people in poverty by race are: White 9.5% Black 21.4% Hispanic 16.1% Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 10%, and American Indian/ Alaska Native 24.5. I stand by my statement that not only incarceration rates but poverty are impacted by race, and that there are different standards for white folks than all other races.
Mike, I disagree with you a lot, but not this time.
It also occurred to me that if Trump is given immunity for his crimes by the SC, this would be the court granting presidents unchecked personal power, not only Trump but the office itself.
Mike, my husband can explain most things by saying, "People are stupid". If you see someone looting a business, that's fun to watch. Unless it's venture capital, which is boring paperwork and numbers. Ignore that.
I have no delusions about the double standards in this country, you are right, I will not experience the racism that black, brown, and female Americans experience..However, I am a Jew and that portends a bigotry of its own..
But my skin is white, which means I can hide who I am to those who would do me harm..That is my advantage when facing that to which you speak..
However, it is the acts of traitors willing to destroy the freedoms and our Democracy that we hold so dear as imperfect as you eloquently describe if Meadows et al are not crushed..that is what I am pissed about..
It sure appears to be like that... boy did they ever fool me! I guess I should have been paying attention instead of surviving and attempting to enjoy life.
Mike S, how many times and for how long have you written 'Fat, white and Male...' ?This reply of yours left out 'asses', which have often been part of your visualization white men in words. Do you dream of 'fat, white men's asses'; is this vision of yours an addiction or how you literally and laterally see white men?
Mike S, I think a part of me gets the pain you experienced, terrible pain. You also seem to get me, how prejudice, injustice, inequity and cruelty affect my spirit and determination. So, you know why I finally said something.
I have been a fortunate woman as many of us have not been fortunate
to have had a good father; a wonderful grandfather who worked in garment center as a patternmaker. My mother's and father's families escaped as Jews from Hungary and Poland. Men have also supported the growth of my work, and I had a dear husband who died in 2018.
Thank you for providing us with an opportunity for exchange. We had terrific exchanges when you first joined LFAA. I hope we can continue to respect each other's journeys. Salud.
Meadows would throw his own mother under a bus to save his own ass. His main interest is himself. He is not shy in showing how far a traitor will go. He will not go to jail for Agent Orange. He is scared of dropping his soap in the showers. Gutless wonder.
Agent Orange uses classified documents as party favors at Margo's. That's when he's not selling them out of the trunk of his car to the highest bidder. Malignant narcissists have entitlement issues. This is not a surprise. They are toddlers screaming, "everything is mine."
Yes, and in regards to both these traitors, setting aside the legal matters, the inaction by the current DOJ is a disgrace..They should both be in Gitmo..
The theft of the binder has to be the subject of intense, even frantic work by intelligence agencies, domestic and foreign. What CNN reported, to its credit, is akin to the first brief news story that there was a break-in at Democratic headquarters that grew into the Watergate scandal.
While Watergate brought down Nixon, the missing binder likely has much more serious implications, including many that we will likely never know because the government won't reveal them. But let's hope the perpetrators are brought to a swift and harsh judgment.
I thought about this earlier: if the contents of the binder were shared with Russia, then I am sure that any assets (people) our intelligence agencies were working with have been either poisoned, pushed out a window, or whichever way Russia deals with people they don't want around.
I believe a few already have. Perhaps one of the most odious culprits here is Bill Barr for downplaying The Mueller Report which clearly called out Russian interference with the election and pointed to corruption on Trump’s part. How do these smug and over privileged folks live with themselves?
How did you become aware that he was a member of Opus Dei?
I cut this from the Britannica article on Opus Dei. Nothing to worry about here. Just another misogynistic sado-masochistic cult that's part of the Catholic Church.
Opus Dei originally required new members to take a vow of obedience and chastity. Since the organization became a prelature, however, it has required only a contractual commitment to receive spiritual formation, which includes weekly classes (“circles”) and an annual religious retreat, among other activities. Members commonly practice self-sacrifice, which can include fasting and abstinence from certain pleasures, and self-mortification, such as the wearing of a cilice (which often takes the form of a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh), is not discouraged. New members serve a period of probation, which lasts at least five years, before they are fully admitted. Some members of Opus Dei, called numeraries, devote much of their time to the organization. Like priests, they are required to remain unmarried and celibate, but they live in the world and pursue secular occupations. The majority of members, however, are the supernumeraries, who are free to marry, contribute financially to Opus Dei, and demonstrate Christian virtue in their daily activities. The group is also financially assisted by cooperators, who are not members and, by permission of the Holy See, need not even be Christians. Ordained priests constitute only a tiny percentage of the organization; in 2016 they numbered some 2,100 of the almost 95,000 members worldwide.
More important than the details is their state of mind. When you are super right with God (kind of like Mike Johnson, whom God directs, according to him), you are gold.
I've been collecting newspaper articles about the Catholic church for years especially re child abuse, and learned about Opus Dei in Portugal from my husband, who told me that a bank employee here was a member. For fun and entertainment I read Dan Brown's books (airplane reads using five adverbs and five adjectives), in spite of the fact they were banned here.
Humility and integrity are not foundations of the GQP party. They believe their own shit brains. And they surround themselves with like minded shit brains. They are all heros in their own minds. Agent Orange probably has his own General uniforms already prepared. He moves his fat ass in the mirror when he his modeling them for Bannon and Miller. And they all lube up to kiss his fat white pimpled ass.
Hey Lisa, Have you ever considered doing Sand-up Comedy? Some of our most brilliant minds get the truth out like that. George Carlin comes to mind. I have always missed him until today when I got a load of You! I Love It!
Yes, that is probably what happened: Putin learned who those people close to him were who were cooperating with U.S. Intelligence, so Putin "accidented" them, killing them off with staged accidents. Trump is a traitor, as are those who helped him with this. Same issue with the missing contents of the 48 folders at Mar a Lago marked Secret or Top Secret.
I'm circling back to article three of the Fourteenth Amendment--no matter how much voters want you to be president, you are barred from running if you're under the age of 35 or born in another country. The rule for engaging in blatantly treasonous behavior should 100% apply....
let's see all their emails and the Secret Service ones around Jan 6 that were "accidentally" erased during normal housekeeping. Pence was smart enough to not get in the car with SS he didn't know.
Just a thought, isn’t it a bit coincidental that on the day Meadows filed his brief to have his Atlanta case adjudicated in federal court, CNN drops the bomb on him. Strangely, I’d heard it yesterday on Keith Olbermann’s podcast which was filed yesterday morning at 9a PST. I thought it was a spoof, as it seemed, NO ONE had reported it yet! I do believe this is the beginning of the end of Meadows.
This is not a criticism of you, Michael, but an observation about this discussion in general. Why are we persisting in talking about a binder? Cassie said she saw Meadows enter his car with a binder that she recognized and named. There appears to be a great deal of concern about a large # of documents (in terms of pages) that are missing. As I read, it occurs to me that we are assuming that the binder Meadows had is equivalent to the large amount of missing classified material, and attempts to somehow, based on unrelated info about paper and how much it weighs, etc, trying to make that binder into the missing classified information. According to Cassidy, the binder was classified. It might be part of the larger body of missing material that is under discussion. It might not.
I wonder: would anyone have really noticed Mark Meadows (or anyone else) pick up a medium size box somewhere along the line? It would not be a large box. Yes, relatively heavy- but I pick up boxes of discarded documents and such to take to recycling all the time. I am 100# and 81 years old and picking up those boxes is not at all a challenge, and it is not conspicuous.
It does not seem to be known just where this material was when it went missing- perhaps not at Maralago. Yet people are conjecturing all over the place, trying to force fit a few tenuous details into a scenario they have glued themselves to. What we know: Casey saw Mark Meadows carrying a binder she knew to be classified and that Meadows had no right to. And that there is deep concern about a number of missing heavily classified materials with information that could compromise the safety of persons who compiled it.
Looks like a lot of conjectures wandering in the weeds. Yup, got a problem. Nope, don't know what exactly. But not going to keep us from jumping to comclusions.
Good points, Annie. Generally, we all want answers to basic yet frightening questions: how significant is the theft of classified documents, and how has it compromised national security and the people who help protect us?
The criminal charges against Trump and the evidence made public certainly tell us that the theft is widespread and unprecedented. And when the cases come to trial, we will learn much more. But the CNN story adds to a general belief that we are seeing the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Also, we're wired to automatically tell ourselves stories to understand reality, and that means filling in gaps of information with speculation, even wild guesses. Unfortunately, people increasingly have a low threshold for reaching big conclusions at a time when healthy skepticism is needed.
In the end, we just want answers but need to temper our desire and let the truth emerge as it typically does at an unsatisfying pace. (That's not to say we shouldn't demand it.) And in this particular narrative, Mark Meadows has emerged as critical. Let's call his story "The Keeper of Secrets." Will Jack Davis succeed in making him sing?
Yep, exactly. Yet given the lawyer's language, if technically true in some sense, the most likely scenario is that Meadows handed off the material to someone else on team T. The question is who. Meadows needs to say under oath who he handed off the material to when it was last in his possession and more generally, what he did with the material. And if he handed it off, we need to follow the chain of custody. Otherwise, Meadows knows where the material is and has to tell us, or we need to dig into what his lawyer means by "proper handling of classified material". They could be arguing that anything T told Meadows to do with the material was somehow proper. For all we know, T told Meadows to burn it. In any case, from any angle, there is important info to learn.
Remember that tfg did not give Joe Biden any access to the government as was traditional after an election. That’s because they were busy copying, burning and plotting. Hutchinson’s book is very clear on this. It’s frustrating to me that DOJ seems asleep at the wheel. Cannon and other unqualified officials like the postmaster should have been weeded out right at the beginning. It’s not too late.
After all, Alito and kavenaugh at the very fewest lied re Roe in their confirmation hearings. But they were affirmed by an illegitimate Senate composed of old fat white guys who represent 38% of the people, and were voted in by delusional believers in the magic sky daddy. How can we realistically expect anything enlightened from this lot?
Yes, if she worked for Mark Meadows, she must have known it would not be well received. My guess is that they underestimated her powers of observation and integrity.
You're right, I had to read this twice to be sure that my eyes did not add in some extra zeroes regarding Giuliani's fine:
"eye-popping sum of $148,169,000 to Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman"
Not quite as eye-popping but almost, was your last sentence:
"Rubio added, “The Senate should maintain oversight on whether or not our nation withdraws from NATO. We must ensure we are protecting our national interests and protecting the security of our democratic allies.”
Same way you impeach a president - a 2/3 vote by the Senate. Don't hold your breath on that one, you wouldn't look good as you turned blue and died. :-)
🤣🤣🤣 Sorry. I couldn’t help it! Trying not to hold MY breath until post-election (and following idiocy) 2024-25. (Thinking that by the end of ‘25 all is either over or sanity should be stronger than insanity so we can go forward all 💙.)
I think it would be a patently fair standard to prohibit judges from ruling on case that specifically affect the legal status the person who appointed them. If nothing else the appearance of bias erodes faith in, and thus the effectiveness of, the law, and the opportunity for bias, even entirely unintended bias of one sort or another, is evident.
“ GOP Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) locked horns with Biden administration officials during a Wednesday morning Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on emergency funding for Ukraine.
The two Republican senators were the only members of the panel who openly opposed support for President Biden’s $105 billion supplemental appropriations request, which contains $60 billion in aid for Ukraine amid its war against invading Russian forces.”
No surprise there. Not bright enough to see the implications of playing with Putin or, if they do, not kind enough to think of the deaths that will result.
That was my reaction! Little Marco did something that was actually patriotic and would act as a constraint on ANY President who gets an itch for betraying our allies?!? Wow! Now THAT'S news!
Once in an excruciatingly long while Rubio does something to protect our democracy.
He was part of the gang of eight that passed immigration legislation only to be scuttled by Boehner in the House--
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the eight members of US Congress who are briefed on classified intelligence matters by the Executive Branch, see Gang of Eight (intelligence). For all other uses, see Gang of Eight (disambiguation).
The Gang of Eight was a bi-partisan group of eight United States Senators—four Democrats and four Republicans—who wrote the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.[1]
In June 2013, S.744 passed the Senate with a strong majority—68–32, with 14 Republicans joining all Democrats. The United States House of Representatives under Speaker John Boehner did not act on the bill, however, and it expired at the end of the 113th Congress.[2]
Members
In the context of proposed immigration reform, the Gang of Eight consists of the following four Democratic and four Republican senators.[3] Of the eight senators that originally composed the group, six remain in office as of 2023. John McCain died in 2018 and Jeff Flake's term ended in 2019.
There it is folks, journalists exposing what the American people need to know if we are to be
a democracy. Right there at the top of today's LETTER, CNN and …’Reporters Jeremy Herb, Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand, Evan Perez, and Zachary Cohen have pieced together the story of how in his last days in office, Trump tried to declassify most of the information in the binder in order to distribute copies to Republican members of Congress and right-wing media outlets. According to an affidavit by reporter John Solomon, who was shown a copy of the binder, the plan was to begin releasing information from it on the morning of January 20, 2021, so that it would hit the news after President Joe Biden had been sworn in.' (Letter)
On the front page of The New York Times today:
‘Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade’
By Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak
Dec. 15, 2023Updated 12:26 p.m. ET
On Feb. 10 last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. showed his eight colleagues how he intended to uproot the constitutional right to abortion.
At 11:16 a.m., his clerk circulated a 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinize it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.
But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes, according to two people who reviewed the messages. The next morning, Justice Clarence Thomas added his name, then Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and days later, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. None requested a single alteration. The responses looked like a display of conservative force and discipline. (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
But a lot Americans don’t know the difference between journalism and the ‘media’. They COMPLAIN and COMPLAIN, not as effectively as Trump does, but they are helping him, even if they don’t know it.
SUPPORT JOURNALISTS and every source with journalistic standards that bring us the FACTS!
Thank you once again, Fern, for the wealth of information you share with us. Tonight was exceptional. Especially your last 2 paragraphs. A most excellent alarm reminder to not be pulled under by sound bites. Journalists! ❤️❤️❤️
I would like to see more journalists from the previous era, rejoin their careers and be reimbursed that major news outlet. Thank you for reflecting the conscience of the United States of America.
Mary Frances, thank you for your attention to what we need to know; the journalists who dig for the truth and deliver the news, so we may know the facts, understand one another, consider the issues, and support our communities and county as well as democracy,
I read the Times story on Roe. I found it interesting that the leak solidified all the votes and scuttled the efforts to mitigate changing what Alito wanted.
What I find disheartening about the story is the lack of spine of these judges. We all know that Beer bong Bret owes these financiers for paying off his debts and Handmaid Amy also is in debt to them as well. Stolen seat Neil, well he is a cultist.
But here is my question: If John Solomon saw a "copy" of this binder that vanished almost three years ago...why is this story only surfacing now? This is a HUGE story. The potential damage is enormous. Not even a hint of this until now... So many questions. What a scary mess.
It's always difficult to prove something when the evidence has been destroyed. Trump has reputedly destroyed evidence by eating it, burning it, tearing it up, flushing it down gold toilets probably others that we aren't aware of.
Absolutely we require professional journalist with high professional and ethical standards, and their work is still to be found. Moreover I think that some of what I have seen as a reluctance to offend the right wing has been wearing off. That said, I've seen a fair amount of particularly mealy-mouthed "media" in recent years, along with some journalism that has been stunningly informative.
I've seen and read a lot of sensational journalism; we need a lot more of it. The reason I appreciate the excellent reports that I read and hear is that I know who many of best journalists are and follow their work. It is also helpful to know which books to read and which historians, writers, analysts, magazines, research tanks, etc., are reliably solid. Of course, some books that are well reviewed and recommended may not hit the spot. A batting average of 400 would would be okay in my book. Unfortunately, many intelligent people who frequently have strong opinions are not familiar with journalistic standards and do not make it their business to find out who some of our best journalists are as well as finding the best outlets that adhere to such standards and are excellent sources of factual material about a range of subjects. We are sorely missing local and statewide outlets as newspapers became prohibitive to run, radio went right, and we are flooded with social media. For democracies to survive, a healthy and thriving free-press is a requirement, one that we need to promote in various forms and find the funding to support it.
Napster killed the funding for music via the internet. Journalists who dig deep have a niche audience that doesn’t include those who get their news from sources funded by advertising based on superficial click bait screaming headlines fostering conservative “other hate”
We see yesterday the “inside the room” NYT editorial bullying of those journalists that don’t “get with the program”, much like the Corporate America that Mike S will attest to
Subscribing to a local, regional and national newspaper might be affordable, then a national magazine or two, then selected Substacks and then and then and then starts to get both expensive and time consuming. Knowing where to spend that and money becomes crucial. Finding a worthy curator requires trust and reputation
Journalism is at an inflection point. How to fund AND distribute?
In my twenties, I worked for an afternoon daily in which no story was allowed to "jump" beyond page one. The editor maintained that readers were just getting home from work and didn't want a lot of detail. Then it merged with the morning paper in the eighties, as did other papers in the chain. Just yesterday I read a story on Axios, the even briefer online daily, that it is published by Cox Enterprises, the same chain I worked for. Brevity is fine for a quick update, but more of us need to commit to longer forms. That's why I read the New Yorker and the Atlantic and regional publications like the High Country News, which reports on environmental issues in the Mountain West. And now we have this substack putting the news into historical context, which popular sounces rarely do. Good thing I'm retired.
"Brevity is fine for a quick update, but more of us need to commit to longer forms."
Brevity can sometimes carry significant weight, but it takes some doing. "The Gettysburg Address" in noted, in part for its brevity, which is part of it's power. Put truncated, fragmented thoughts often need context and completion to be useful. To what precisely does "Make America Great Again" refer? It has a certain sales appeal, but what's in it? What exactly does it point to? And how exactly, in a way that we can examine and plan, do we get there? What is the larger context, and the context beyond that? History is part of essential context as well a current and empirically expectable consequences, desirable or not.
Orwell illustrated the limitations of habitually truncated language and thinking. Ourselves a consequence of very long chain molecules, we sometimes need long chain thought and discussion to adequately grasp and meet our circumstances.
What I have in mind are reported news stories. The local governing body approves some project and estimates the cost. If it's a split vote, I want to know who voted for and against, and the reporter should get the reasons for each. What is the purpose of the project? Is this something that has been on the back burner for years, or is a recent idea? Where will the money come from? Are there private investors? When will it be put out for bid? Who will benefit and will anyone be inconvenienced? Does any other locale have a project like this? Sometimes one long paragraph just doesn't do it. Bare bones reporting is not as common as it once was, and how many times have you heard details about something that would have motivated you to weign in had you known the consequences?
As long as you are rubbing, Dave, rub the BLUE states' legislators, mayors and governors; rub Soros, there are a few more Billionaires that would fork it up; Hollywood could be source and with templets for communicating, local free-press, with an intrepid, social studies teacher, who becomes a world-wide star. Have a few great journalists like Jane Mayer dig up the sources for money; athlete's like LeBron bring us to arenas, where we regular folks cough up some bucks to promote our communities. Call upon Universities, colleges, journalism departments, high schools and grade school students to report and cheer for news in their backyards. We create a movement for local, free-press that will be a glorious benefit for Us and us!
Interesting that you mention Hollywood. The J6 committee went that direction to present its findings to the People. Scriptwriters that can take raw information and assemble a cogent story. If only we knew a scriptwriter, right?
Jane Mayer, what a talent, yet when I mention her in most settings blank stares come at me. I guess that was my point in curation, how does one create the “Edward R Murrow Society” of Journalistic Integrity? Perhaps a panel of Peers vouching for the HCRs of the world with funding from a cadre of honest billionaires intent on propagating a better information headwaters
I read a lot. Some of it comes with a recognizable bias after a while. News and facts are now subject to the accusation of source, which is then trashed as biased and therefore ignored
We are witnessing what one man with billions and agenda (Murdoch) can accomplish via propaganda, and what happens when Congress allows a few of them to buy up and destroy local news outlets. We see what algorithms can do to surpress the spread of information in the hands of evils such as Musk and FB Boy
Steve Earle writes “Come back Woody Guthrie” in the same vein as we might ask for Walter Cronkite
The challenges and the possibilities as well as the opportunities are just as REAL and spark one another. Negativity feeds on itself; I'd put it on a shelf.
They exist. Brennan, Propublica, Columbia Review, GBH, many others who are not part of a silo.
They create partnerships with other sources and local news outlets and make sure that results of investigative journalism is . It's growing. Support them if you can.
The rub indeed. I subscribe to a few sources of news that I rarely visit just because, and a few that are my primary sources, but that's not the answer. One of those sources is The Guardian, which I have a fairly high confidence in for both accuracy and useful depth. I switched off TV news for good and backed away from my local paper (which I still have a subscription to) in the build up to W's invasion of Iraq. The Guardian was providing far more accurate and relevant information than my then habitual sources. I have read some very significant original stories in the local paper since, but not so consistently.
I don't frame my youth as the "good old days" as there was a great deal, especially for women and minorities, that was misguided or oppressive in plain sight that that has been partially overcome after decades of struggle, but I think that there were some social values that we need to were left to drift. We have a very liberal standard of free speech which I think is essential to liberty, but I think we have become too inured to lies, in advertising, in what may pass for journalism, and from those in official positions trust and responsibility. Lies about the fish that got away may become irritating (or just amusing) but would seem to be harmless. Lies about war, or immigrants or a deadly virus claim victims. Some kinds of lies, and here I mean misinformation as a deliberate act, break certain laws in some circumstances. Even where the law is not involved, some kinds of lies and liars are dangerous, and Giuliani's lies are a recent example. Nixon was guilty of a number of very serious offenses, but I think what stood out for most people was his dishonesty. We now see an entire political party organized around calculated Big Lies. Democracy can and must navigate lies, but not without widespread public detection and resistance. Accuracy can be crucial, honesty is a virtue, and both need social reinforcement. Liars are not trustworthy. No respectable person in government or the private sector should lie for a living. There needs to be more social solidarity built around that. Those demonstrated to discover and tell us the truth are worthy of acclaim.
I would quibble with using the word sensational to describe journalism; too close to sensationalist for me, which has a different connotation. Stellar is my go to descriptor. I find it interesting how individuals ‘rate’ journalists as well as sites; far too often the tribal tendencies are determinative.
Funny how people who admire Jane Mayer (and I do) can turn around and accuse Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi of being hacks. Funny also how people can think a piece in The Atlantic or the New Yorker is journalism, but a YouTube video isn’t.
Greenwald has laid bare the propaganda narratives, which Heather has bought into, imo, in a whole host of issues over the past few days, from the Zelensky visit to intelligence memos to CNN, and cable news in general, being security state mouthpieces, and Congressional reauthorization for domestic spying on American citizens. But he gets shunted by many liberals into the Putin apologist bucket, Taibbi is the Musk collaborator, while Mayer is a media darling on the liberal left.
Interesting how some allow a quest for truth to be highjacked by fear of losing ‘democracy’, and hard truths are dispensed with in lieu of the lazy shoot the messenger fallacy.
Am I imagining it or has there been a dearth of journalistic fervor regarding chump -ever since the escalator ride. Media just worships celebrity. Journalism is a dangerous game these days. May we note the difference and attend accordingly.
But doesn’t it all go back to the simple truth that Media “News” is just a business, so “Follow-The-Money” is the first standard any of their decisions are grounded in. Some intrepid journalists still exist, but making a living at it is terribly hard. We say we want news, but we click on the entertaining celebrity-bait much more often than true deep journalism. Media is not out to inform us. It is out to sell us stuff. Along the way, there may be a fact or two.
Yep, and the ads are ubiquitous and unbearable. Have people noticed that there are more ads than content these days. Even streaming services sneak them in when I pay for no ads. Really sick of the sneaky bastards..
Since Reagan, Friedman's dictum of "The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits." has been regarded as a priori to the the Constitution. It seems to me that the overall quality of what is labeled "news" overall has fallen, but as you said, fine superior examples are still out there, though they somehow seem less socially salient than before Reaganomics, for a variety of reasons . Many of the (for me) evidentiary or "smoking gun" I repeatedly link to are a bit off the beaten track. If profit alone is all that matters, why not sell fentanyl? Excellent ROI.
It appears to me that celebrity is as old as humanity, but that electronic media has increased it's impact on society. It is common to see all manner or events that affect celebrity entertainers on the front page of papers or websites, including what they happen to have said about whatever. Reagan and Trump would never have been considered for the presidency without prior celebrity, though often just having big piles of money is major booster. It sucks from a practical, logical perspective, and it's a hell of a way to actually run a country. I don't know what to do about it, but limiting money spent to buy political outcomes would majorly help.
You are so right, and power-hungry celebrity is just as dangerous. Of course, buying political outcomes is what the cult leaders are all about. And the cult comes cheap. Just send the best carnival barker out to mesmerize
More evidence that 2016 was about much, much more than electing a President. It was about the future of the Supreme Court.* Bernie Bros, I hope you're happy. Magic Unicorn Believers, you had a hand in this too. It was a bus ride, not a marriage.
*Referring to the global concept of the Supreme Court, not the SCROTUS we have today.
While I applaud your detailed research and agree that lumping all writers together does a disservice to actual journalists, however it boggles my mind that 35 months after the orange monster left the WH the significance of the loss of this voluminous report has been brought to light!
Homeland Security department has become an oxymoron! What are the protocols on removing classified documents from a secure facility? Which group within our porous security apparatus has the responsibility to check the daily location of classified documents that have been ‘signed out’? Meadows took the document in question out of the WH, when did he return it? Who was suppose to check that it was returned? Who was to be notified that it was missing for several days? Who was responsible for questioning Meadows as to the location of the missing document?????
A low ranking military person is in prison for ‘mishandling’ classified documents! Why isn’t Meadows in prison for mishandling highly sensitive classified material????
The "Department of Homeland Security" is anything but. They certainly have nothing to do with the handling and storage of sensitive documents, that is NSA and other alphabet agencies.
Journalist have been unfairly demonized since Reagan, with his attacks on the NY Times. Journalists are the first line of defense of our democracy, And the last. When we lose them, we lose our freedom. Subscribe to as many outlets as you can afford.
Thank you for your recognition, Bryan, of the crucial role of journalists in spurring and maintaining democracies, I would say around the world.
What is happening to our journalists, the people who bring us the news:
'The Israel-Gaza war has taken a severe toll on journalists since Hamas launched its unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 and Israel declared war on the militant Palestinian group, launching strikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip.'
'CPJ is investigating all reports of journalists and media workers killed, injured, or missing in the war, which has led to the deadliest month for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.'
'As of December 15, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 63 journalists and media workers were among the more than 19,000 killed since the war began on October 7—with some 18,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Israel. The deadliest day of the war for journalist deaths was its first day, October 7, with six journalists killed; the second-deadliest day occurred on November 18, with five killed.' (CPJ, Committee to Protect Journalists)
'The year 2022 was deadly for members of the press. At least 67 journalists and media workers were killed during the year–the highest number since 2018 and an almost 50% increase from 2021, the Committee to Protect Journalists found. The rise was driven by a high number of journalist deaths covering the Ukraine war and a sharp rise in killings in Latin America.'
'CPJ has confirmed that at least 41 journalists and media workers were killed in direct connection with their work, and is investigating the motives for the killings of 26 others to determine whether they were work-related.'
'More than half of the 67 killings occurred in just three countries–Ukraine (15), Mexico (13), and Haiti (7), the highest yearly numbers CPJ has ever recorded for these countries.'
'In Mexico and Haiti, reporters were the targets of brutal murders for their work, and the vast majority of perpetrators have not been held to account. Mexico continues to feature on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which highlights countries where the killers of journalists get away with murder. '
'Others who lost their lives during the year covered a range of beats: crime and corruption in Colombia; political unrest in Chad, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Myanmar; the environment in Brazil; and local politics in Turkey and the United States. Their deaths underline the extent of threats faced by the press around the world, including in countries with democratically elected governments.'
'CPJ tracks three types of journalists’ deaths in relation to their work: targeted murders in reprisal for reporting–by far the largest category; deaths in combat or crossfire; and deaths on other dangerous assignments. CPJ also tracks the killings of media support workers, such as translators, drivers, and security guards; there was one such killing in 2022, in Kazakhstan.' ((CPJ, Committee to Protect Journalists)
***
We keep trying to know, with gratitude to our journalists, too many of them victims.
Yep Fern.. rolls calls of positions, in black and white; they can't hide if folks are reminded in black and white. Keep it up, and spread those facts widely. Brava !
With the very real possibility that the binder is already in the hands of Putin, it is even more important that the US continues to support Ukraine. Network news outlets should be reporting this.
Yes, Patricia -- likely indeed that Putin already has it.
Let's remember, Putin publicly celebrates the Republicans who've long now been assiduous traitors against the U.S. and democracies worldwide.
Remember, too, that these Republicans have one goal in being in government: never to govern.
In addition to supporting the world's worst dictators, ayatollahs, royal murderers, and systematic thieves of land, the U.S. Republicans yet have one true and consistent agenda for government. They buoy our worst billionaires. As Clarence and Alito take their bribes from the rich, so too do most Republicans keep voting tax cuts for them. So do they go along with efforts of the billionaires' foundations and lobbyists to end government workplace safety regulations, environmental protection, voting rights, any attempts to curtail AR-15s and mass murder, as well as any other attempts to rein in techies such as Elon Musk's efforts to spread hate speech and fascism.
A little bit of history aside: January 6th is Three Kings Day.
The three kings were:
Melichior was from what is now Iran.
Balthazar was from Arabia (Ethiopia)
Caspar was from India
On there way to find the new baby king of the Jews, they stopped off at Herods palace (which Jesus' mother Mary had left ... escaped?...) to get directions. Herod didn't know where she was, and asked them to come back after they found the new King. They didn't trust him, do they didn't return to him: Instead they left "by a different road". Herod, who was a tetrarch of Galilia territory of Judea, then had all the babies up to two years old murdered.
Royal Order:
Emperor
King
Duke
Marquess
Viscount
Baron
Baron Drumpf, he who would be king...
Donald Trumps' aspiration to be king of the USA is supported by being "a direct descendent of
King Hakon V of Norway,
related to Queen Margaret of Denmark,
related to Islandic Pres. Guon Th Johannesson of Iceland.
I laughed out loud: by this reasoning, D and I are cousins. I'd heave, but even if it were true, the degree of removal would be large: I doubt we have any shared genetic relationship at this point.
I am a trained genealogist. Couple of observations. There are books out there to help people find "descendancy" based largely on surname. Interesting to me that so many people doing what they think is genealogy don't do real research, but rely on material that is based on no or poor research, do not include citations, or are simply fabricated.
And here's the fun part: take any person of note of the past and, assuming they lived long enough to have descendants, the likelihood is that the number of descendants is in at least the hundreds or thousands. Mayflower descendants number in the millions. Some apply for membership, but darned if I get why- it doesn't make them any more important or special than anyone else (except other members, I guess).
When my family participated in a Johns Hopkins genetic study for a particular trait that originated in one man born in 1833 (my GGgrandfather), we already numbered in the several hundred. If that man had been royalty instead of merely a good businessman with a lot of kids, which of us would have inherited the title? (Irrelevant to this discussion, but it would have been a woman.)
As for Trump, his claim falls apart at the point his father (or grandfather- I forget) was asked to leave his country of birth and then asked to leave where he went. (Sorry for lack of specifics- but they are available online.) So, no lineage to fall back on. The USA doesn't have royalty. And, by god, we will make sure it stays that way, Donald's fanciful aspiration notwithstanding.
Yes, I agree it's a bit far fetched, and I don't take royalty seriously. I didn't site references because as far as I'm concerned, the whole idea of inherited superiority is silly. However tfg's followers and the clown car members often have silly ideas and perhaps they find this impressive.
I was so surprised to learn that in Portugal patients records are filed by the first name and at least up until lately all women's first names were either Mary, Magdelena or (sorry, forgot the other one), so dubbed by the local priest who keeps records of births, deaths and marriages, just as it did when the Church was the government (before nationhood - 1400's).
When I think it cannot get any worse, it does. Uncovering of this news comes at an incredibly scary time - Congress has walked away from Ukraine's fight to protect it's own democracy, and Hungary has kept the European Union from continuing its funding as well. Things are not going well for democracy. I am hopeful that the pendulum will swing upwards soon.
To the degree that is true, it is tyranny; though even the majority can be a tyranny to the degree it violates and withholds or rights that belong to all from those in a minority.
Democracy requires and educated and engaged public. CONservatives want neither. Why do you think they hate unions? Why do you think they hate the press that exposes them? Why do you think they hate the public education system?
That is why it is of utmost importance that we have a free press. This is excellent work by CNN -- reminiscent of Woodward and Bernstein's work after Watergate. This is also why Trump has said that if he is reelected, he will go after the media, as well as those who have opposed him.
Also, remember that Justices Thomas and Gorsuch want to reconsider the 1964 landmark Sullivan decision, which requires proof of actual malice when the press covers public figures.
It always matters, but Bill Moyers was typically on target. The notion that a consuming obsession with the love of money can be evil isn't new; It seems to be an eternal struggle.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both” — Louis Brandeis
It depends on who the owners are. We were a more informed electorate when Knight Ridder, Tribune Publishing, Times Mirror, New York Times Regional Media Group, New York Times New England Media Group published newspapers in large and small markets. Their focus was on keeping the public informed, and the more successful papers subsidized those in smaller markets, for the benefit of readers and the companies.
Today, with several remaining chains owned by financial groups with no experience or interest in news, the focus is on shareholders, and readers pay high subscription rates for very little news. Even now, despite being owned by a billionaire, The Washington Post is cutting staff.
Our free press is under threat not only from politicians who "love the uneducated" and judges with an agenda, but also from the contagion of social media and those who monetize our news.
Reporting and publishing news, in any format, is expensive. It deserves the financial support of any of us who can afford to pay for it or gift it to students or others who can't pay.
Susan, it is NOT just him. Look around. The policy positions all the GOP candidates have are the SAME. Even Christie. Look at the CONservative controlled states. They are the same.
“ We are a non-partisan, all-volunteer, grassroots civic membership organization fighting for a more informative and pro-democracy media operating in the public interest.”
Elizabeth,I’m not familiar with the co-founders.Milo Vassallo, the exec director for Media and Democracy Project spoke to our group. I was impressed with their efforts to block Fox /Philadelphia station’s broadcast license. Also with their local journalism directory.
Funding for Ukraine from the EU has been delayed for, perhaps, a month or two.
'EU leaders, who would prefer a deal backed by all members but also have a plan B, are expected to revisit the issue at an emergency summit at the end of January or early in February.'
"We are working very hard to have an agreement by 27 member states," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, adding: "But I think it is now also necessary to work on potential alternatives to have an operational solution in case that an agreement by 27, so unanimity, is not possible."
'German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron were among those expressing optimism on getting the aid to Kyiv, which is part of a broader multi-year EU budget plan.'
"We have other ways of helping Ukraine, but we have not given up on the goal of finding a solution here," 'said Scholz, who diplomats and officials said played a big role in getting Orban to leave the room to clear the way for a decision on starting accession talks.'
'Macron said the EU was "not blocked" from providing aid next year, adding he felt Orban had an incentive to reach a deal.'
'The EU could continue to help with a workaround that involved a deal between 26 members and Ukraine, which would also deny Budapest access to linked EU funds, such as on migration.' (Reuters) See link below.
Both tragic and stupid on the part of the religious MAGA zealot Johnson. I pray that he Raptures up soon and leaves us to deal with the collateral damage he and his “Freedom “ Caucus have inflicted on America.
I'v written to Congressmen John Rutherford and Don Bacon as well as Senator Collins. They ALL replied they back Ukraine 100%. I was even snarky and they replied.
But getting, Trump's puppet MJ to bring up a vote on funding is a non-starter. He's worse than McConnell when it comes to letting legislation fester and die.
I have a simple question: Does Merrick Garland have the authority / justification to open a NEW investigation into the loss of this binder?
A new investigation resulting in new charges would mean a new judge would be assigned to the case.
I think it’s time for a new judge to be in charge as Trump is presumedly once again found to have been involved in top secret information being “misplaced”.
And related question: Garland to me is the LEAST aggressive prosecutor in the history of the DOJ. Can someone please light a fire under his ...
Thanks for the suggestion. I have never heard of the DOJ responding to public requests. And my Google search on "Does the DOJ respond to public requests for prosecutions?" only returned information about public Freedom Of Information Requests. So, my guy tells me contacting them would not help. However... writing to Congress demanding that it publicly call for a new investigation... and also writing letters to the editor of our local newspapers might have some effect.
I'm sure you are right, but I always wonder if a pile-up of public info messages specific to one topic is noticed, so I do it. And my Congressman? He's in Republican lockstep. We're "in dialog" about why he voted for the impeachment investigation.
Tom, you’ve helped this political illiterate many times. I absolutely get that you’re tired and I want you to know you do help. What were you going to say about that last sentence?
You can do it fast a screw it up, or you can do it slower and get it right. They delayed too long in starting the legal chase of Trump, but there's an old aying, "when you aim for the king, you must not miss."
I can’t believe that I agree with Rubio on anything but I do, on this issue. A wondrous settlement for Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss! I pray that they, at least, get a few million each. They so deserve every last penny that Rudy has. Guess he will have to cash in on his shell companies that he has refused to divulge.
The case of the missing binder is in Putin’s hot little hands. Why else would he be acting so full of himself right now? Let’s not forget the word “collusion”. We have quite a few traitors among us, it’s obvious. Smells like treason is in the air.
A ten-inch thick binder about Russian interference in US elections {and they want us to believe there’s “no THERE there ….”!!!!}, and Bill Barr says, “Nothing to see here.”
They call the Mueller investigation a nothing burger?
Yeah, we need to see way more about this binder and hear more about how that crook Trump needs to be behind bars.
That guy is a snake slithering in the shadows. Sociopathic at the very least, and interested only in furthering his own agenda. He sheds his skin and puts on new anytime the occasion calls for a change in voice, in message, in the person of Mr. Barr.
Sociopathic, at the very least!!
He enabled the Orange Disaster. Barr is as much to blame for the damage Donnie does as Donnie himself is.
He also convinced Bush-1, Daddy Bush, to exonerate the Iran Contra Bunch and let the Reagan White House off the hook for all that criminal behavior… Barr is an elitist, arrogant, ethics-free POS.
Mike S, what really tears at my heart is exactly what you say: justice that will never happen. These women will never have a moment of peace because it has been shown that the MAGA will never believe anything opposite to their beliefs. No amount of money will ever return their good names to them. They will look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives.
I think that the crux of any cult, a prohibition against questioning what the powers to be have to say; though not everyone who goes along is fully locked.
I cannot help but feel that people are not connecting that if this can happen to Moss and Freeman, it can happen to anybody. I wonder what the script would read like - what greater attention this all would have, if Moss and Freeman happened to be white women?
Doing a LOT of head-shaking reading this. Again I ask myself for the umpteenth time "WHAT WILL IT TAKE to finally convince DJT's followers of his treachery???" I simply cannot comprehend how beings who consider themselves high-order primates -- which for some of them might be a stretch -- can continue to tune out the most damning and irrefutable evidence against the man. I never will get it, which, when I think about it, might be a good thing. Mary Trump early this afternoon wrote about this very document case and the links to her uncle:
The Giuliani settlement really was eye-popping. It will be interesting to see any possible repercussions of this on other cases coming up here in Georgia. The federal judge really made a point of showing that they're gonna play hardball in the future, so get ready. And of course, DJT won't lift a finger to help Giuliani in any way. How is it there under that bus, Rudy??
And with all that's going on in the world, when countries are depending on us to help lead them to prevail over enemies that would annihilate them, what does the Republican party in the House do but continue to harp on Hunter Biden, and, at the very summit of insanity, open impeachment investigations into President Biden??? I mean, this simply is beyond comprehension. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!! Idiot, one and all.
Okay, I'm off to bed before I get myself too worked up. Maybe I'll wake up and this nightmare will be over . . . glad to see HCR showing up so "early" (for her!). Night y'all . . .
They're not tuning it out, they're embellishing their counter-narrative. Those higher up in the Trump conspiracy pyramid see it as a power struggle; facts have little meaning to them, IMO.
Fortunately, I slept well, but the past 2 days have involved moving stuff out of a storage unit after 15 years and dispensing with/donating a lot of other stuff. I was really tired so I conked right out! Not even T***p could keep me awake last night!
Bruce, there is no way to convince T's devoted followers to see. It's not them we need to worry about anyway. There really aren't enough of them. It's the people directly around him: those with power and money who pull strings, his handimen, his "enforcers", the people who think they will benefit from another T presidency, or who fear reprisal from him (or those who control him) unless they toe the line.
As the legal process continues and more of T's associates can no longer hide, or are thrown under the bus, I get more hopeful that Democracy will prevail. And there is hope for the Congress as well IF we do the work and support the candidates who have a chance at replacing the dotards who are merely taking up space and media misdirection. The more we gripe about Trump and get lost in the weeds of all the court cases, the less time and energy we have to learn about these other races and the less will we have to actually do something to support Biden. We have to get out of our own silo and focus more on how we can change the dynamic.
The legal processes are at work. We don't have to constantly analyze them to be able to use them as tools in our attempts to get things back on track. .
I agree, of course, about the inner associates in T***p's circle being the scariest and most worrying, BUT, Annie, as I said above, all of these silly polls that keep showing T***p with a sometimes large lead are not just among his inner circle. How can you say, "There really aren't enough of them" when so many of these polls people are coming up with seem to show there ARE plenty more of them than we'd like to think? Who are they polling then? My query is more about how much longer will these people keep supporting him as the more serious and the more numerous crimes begin to be uncovered. It may not be a sudden light-bulb going off with everyone with them all suddenly forsaking him. Maybe it will be a more gradual whittling away of his support. I don't know. As you said, though, I think the "onus is on us" (see what I did there?) to work as hard as we can locally and state-wide to get the messages out there, get behind candidates we can support, and thereby make serious inroads into the representations in Congress. THAT is where our strength can be the most effective and get that pendulum to swing back in our favor. T***p's minions can't do harm if they don't have enough support in Congress.
Dang, I just wrote a response regarding polls and then a blip of some sort made it vanish, So I'll just stick with this about the polls: Joyce Vance and Simon Roseburg, among others, have written extensively on the problems with these polls and why they don't mean much at this point. Come to think of it, so have I, but my writing isn't gathered together in a neat little bundle somewhere,
The first thing to remember is that it is too early for polls to gather anything but a snapshot based on where we are now, which is a chaotic whirlwind of conflicting information and disinformation. It is nearly impossible to identify a poll sample that is representative of the target population, and large enough to produce real data. Nearly all the polls fall short on this. And add to this that a lot of the "polls" are just plain sloppy both in construction and in analysis, and meaningless from the get-go. (Not even considering the "polls" that are not polls, but ways to build target lists for fund-raising.)
Everyone who is knowledgable about polls and their limitations even in the best of conditions is saying it is a good idea to basically ignore the polls right now. It's not even election season yet. A lot of people have no idea if they are going to vote, let along how, but will gamely take a stab,. A lot of people would rather not say even when they do know. Or they are ambivalent but don't want to seem like it. We humans are funny like that. I've already mentioned a few of the problems regarding analysis.
About the only thing you can tell from polls right now is that the media is still trying to cover elections like horse races, but haven't a clue how that might work- or that there's an actual way of covering the campaigns through real journalism. So yeah, I agree with you that it is on us, and I agree that we really need to put our energy into creating a Congress that is serious about doing it's job.
Yeah, I loved your pun. It was cute. I like cute puns.
Some wanna-be "analysts" even break down what might be a good poll sample into subsamples and try to use them to assign characteristics to a much larger population set, That immediately destroys any validity that poll might have had, because (if it is a good poll) the questions are designed for the original poll population. Breaking it down into pieces results in sample sizes too small to draw ANY conclusions at all. Doesn't seem to keep these bozos from trying, though.
All you said about the polls I believe heart & soul. Vance, Rosenberg, and Robert Hubbell are all part of my daily reading. Hubbell especially really rips the polling apart as totally unreliable, and I think that's probably right. (Substack is overwhelmingly what I read the most these days.) Still, some of these polls ARE polling actual population segments and I just think it is folly to totally dismiss all of them. Down here in a solidly red part of Georgia, believe me, T***p is still as popular as ever and polls here show him still with commanding leads. These folks are going to be the last holdouts for T***p, I know it. (Marjorie Taylor Greene's district is next to the one I'm in . . . ) That's why my hope for the tide to turn against T***p rests largely with the rest of the country, 'cause it'll be a cold day in hell when it changes here!
Well noted here, Bruce. Georgia is what it is, and living there is bound to make good people feel disheartened (though I am deeply impressed by what people there have accomplished in recent years). As for polls, even the polls you note as polling actual population segments are still way out ahead of themselves. Even a well-done poll is still only a snapshot of a segment of a time and place. It is not a prediction, as many pollsters have discovered to their dismay. When we allow ourselves to be distracted by polls- all of which are questionable right now- I think we give up our own agency in making change. As we get closer to election day, polls may be able to give a clearer snapshot. Though this may be the year that polls finally become pointless. How can they poll people who don't answer their phones? How can they poll people who aren't on their radar? How can they poll people who don't trust polls, and avoid them?
I don't blame you for being discouraged. I feel discouraged by my town, frequently, though not my state, and polls have nothing to do with my feelings about either. Observation and experience do. I only have so much energy, and I want to make it count. That's why I am in the process of disengaging from local politics, and returning to what I did the last couple of years: joining in with people from all over to help get out the vote in places with close races where our efforts and donations can make a difference in the outcome.
I truly believe we're in this together, as JV reminds us. I'm sad for the people of places like Georgia and Texas and Idaho. But all those places have people who are working for change too. I am not a praying person in the conventional sense, but I pray almost constantly that we all pull off what we must: keep the magaright from achieving control anywhere, and create at a minimum a Congress that functions as it should, for the welfare of the American people. All of us.
I keep wondering, though, HOW they can NOT report some of this stuff?? At some point they're going to have to crack the door open to learn what's going on. Fox has already grudgingly admitted, for example, the lack of evidence in trying to impeach Biden, they've mentioned the positive economic numbers, and there HAS been a small amount of reporting that is critical of T***p. This is judging from some clips I've seen. Yeah, Hunter Biden is still their favorite "whipping boy", but once all this legal stuff T***p is involved in starts to snowball next year, they're NOT going to be able to ignore it. I still think between now and primary season in the spring & summer a LOT could happen to affect T***p's puzzling lead in some polls. We're really in uncharted waters right now historically.
Does anyone recall Cassidy Hutchinson saying that Mark burned a lot of papers in his office fireplace in the last days of Trump’s presidency? It could be that the missing documents were destroyed by Mark by tossing them in the fire.
Everyone should read the paragraph that begins with”Russia, Russia, Russia..” several times. Trump was not legit in 2016, and he will not be legit in 2024 because the crimes, lies, corruption, bribery, threats and treachery from this man have only increased. If another pandemic occurred, he would deny it as he did before. He has serious psychological problems and he acts them out when given power. He acts them out under the guise of leadership, but he is giving away our freedom and our national security. How can anyone forget Helsinki?
What's the over/under that those 2,700 pages are among the papers Meadows was burning in his fireplace the month before the criminals were thrown out of the White House? Meadows is a definite dumbass (flunked out of college), so it's definitely not outside the realm of possibility, especially with four years' experience that the worse the thing said about that crew, the more likely it was true.
Even without those documents we all know there is enough evidence of his and his cronies' treasonous and criminal actions to hang them - figuratively and/or literally. We just can't keep having stall tactics derail their convictions. lt is a really bad look, sets a terrible precedent, empowers the Maggots to continue to run amok while terrorizing and destroying everyone else's lives - here and around the world. Even as a psych major from the days of old and learning about the mindset behind cults and group think, I simply have never gotten my head around how evil rises and the masses blindly follow. All the psycho babble in the world can't explain and we certainly have never been able to prevent.
Here's what I come up with: Embracing the role of victim easily explains why their lives aren't what American Dream ideology told them to expect. Easy to translate into hate of some other group if you believe in hierarchy and need someone below you. This is a good moment to return to George Lakoff's writing.
Look in Ivanas coffin at the golf course of Trumps it seems her death was abrupt and presents some questions . Also the fact that his ex wife was buried in Trumps golf course is of interest
Patricia, little Ivana wasn't very heavy, yet many men (6, 8 ???) struggled to carry her coffin for burial in the privately-owned golf course. What else was in there besides her remains?
An interesting theory that has been making the rounds…but if you bury something like that in a basically VERY weird “graveyard for one”how exactly would you access the nefarious contents? Middle of the night grave robbing? That would surely leave traces, yeah? TFFG strikes me as someone who would want to be able to see and fondle his “precious” (think Golem from Lord of the Rings) papers.
The whole episode was odd. And the whole Trump tribe with spouses and progeny lined up on the steps of the church - but no pictures inside the church, for the delicate publicity-shy widower (widower? she was two wives ago).
Well, it’s clear. Perfectly clear. Our decades long deadly nightmare continues. No matter where we look, the Trump Fox Murdoch GOP government based shit show rolls, threatening certain death to intel assets, world wide.. terrifying our allies and our presidents alike. Trump hid his transcripts, threatened his schools that passed him through, a failure in every sense of the word. The sick angry insecure racist Orange Man rapes, lies, cheats, and bankrupts his birthright. His record is perfect. He failed at everything... and The Big Lie GOP will go down like Sir Rudy Giuliani or the republic will fail, exactly as Ben Franklin postulated - a Republic If You Can Keep it.
Again I must ask; why is Trump not waiting for his trial while sitting in jail? Every day he is a threat to the safety and security of this country. The Massachusetts kid who released documents to his friends is in jail. Send the Vindman brothers to Mar-A-Lago with a warrant. Throw Trump in the hooscow and don’t let him have contact with the public until they see him in court. But our Maginot courts sit quietly and do nothing.
IMHO, the justices of the federal court are mindful of what the implications will be for the future of the two "co-equal branches of government" if the judiciary tosses a former president in the pokey for violation of a pre-trial gag order. It's not tFfg they are thinking about, but the office that he formerly occupied. Since he doesn't give a flying f*** about anything or anyone other than himself, including future occupants of the office he once occupied OR the judiciary, he can walk all over the courts' directives until they finally throw up their hands and take that step, or until someone truly gets hurt when a crazed acolyte sneaks an AR-15 past courthouse security and massacres all the occupants of a courtroom. Then he'll have gone a step too far and get a real muzzle. Sadly, someone has to die first...
I’m not afraid of rioting by Trump’s faction so much. It’s because deep down, or more likely not so deep down, the red hat’s knew it was a game all along. They knew or suspected it was all lies. The only cause they have left to fight for is not losing face. I don’t think after all that has happened they have the heart for a fight. Many likely want to keep their democracy. The Christians though? They may want to kick some ass for Jaysus.
I don’t think they are organized enough, nor do they want to face live ammunition-- they were protected on Jan. 6. The danger is one or two crazies with rapid fire weapons.
The problem is when someone has tens of millions to spend on lawyers who can file 200 losing motions and delay trial for years.
The more of this kind of stuff that comes out, the more Justice Department investigations are needed and the more heads need to ultimately roll. History will record how the American people elected a petty criminal and F***ing IDIOT to the presidency and the evidence of his criminality (and that of his inner circle) will simply grow and grow with additional time and disclosure. Just as justice continued to find members of the SS for decades after WWII, I hope the justice will relentlessly follow all of the collaborators in the shady business of the Ex45 administration and bring them down one by one, right up until the last one takes his or her last breath behind bars. We felt some national embarrassment over Watergate for quite some time; their transgressions were child's play compared to the 2017-2021 tenure of Ex45.
George Terwilliger may have been telling the truth when he told the New York Times: “Mark never took any copy of that binder home at any time.” Mark Meadows may not have taken the binder home, but he certainly could have taken it somewhere else, or hidden it somewhere, or given it to someone else to hide. I'm not a lawyer, but Terwilliger's assertion sounds meaningless to me. What a whole bunch of deplorable traitors.
I think the word “copy” here is crucial. He could have easily taken the actual binder.
Annie, Cassidy Hutchinson states in her book that she saw Meadows get into his limo on the 20th of Jan with the Crossfire Hurricane file (which she had kept locked up in an office safe) under his arm. If the file is indeed 10" thick and composed of 2700 pages, it's hard to believe that he "easily" took it. Your point is still excellent, though.
I don't doubt her for a secon. I'm 75 years old and haul 30 kilo bags of feed around all the time. Just because Meadows has a weak personality, doesn't mean he has no muscles, probably has them in compensation, in fact. And he'd do anything to save his ass from djt.
If the pages are mostly printed double sided, 2,700 pages could be as little as 1,350 sheets, and use of 4 mil paper would be 5.4" all double sided. If all single sheets were used it would be about 10.8" single sided on 2,700 sheets, 2.7 reams of 500 sheets, not too hard to carry but I would think rather noticeable even if all double sided.
2,700 sheets would weigh about 22 pounds, 1350 sheets about 11 pounds.
Bingo
And not easily carried “under the arm”. Think of carrying 5 packages of copy paper (500 sheets per pkg.) inside a binder under your arm.
but how does this add up - didn't she say it was only 10" thick
I haven’t read her book, but that is interesting for sure. That binder would be very, very heavy.
Read it; it’s very good.
Cassidy Hutchinson is an American heroine. She makes me think of my childhood mental picture of Betsy Ross. It’s a comic comparison, but Betsy Ross was the first American heroine I remember learning about.
Abigail Adams comes to mind.
I have her book and I am not sure if I should read her book or Chaney's first. I am nearly done with Prequel, hopefully I will finish it today. If our current sitiuation is like where we were with Hitler/Nazi's 80ish years ago ..... all of these indicted creeps will go free. Thankfully, FDR was not involved...but when Truman took office he ....had it swept under the rug. Burton Wheeler happened to be his friend and a one time U.S. Senate colleague. We were lucky back then that we kept our democracy.... and I pray we can do it once again. I know there has to be more of us than there are of them. We have to spread the word when we can. It is not always possible. There was so much information in this book that I was not aware of that happened. None of it was discussed at home with my parents. With many of my friends I have found it best to just not mention anything to do with our country, politics or religion.
Read Cassidy first. It's a play-by-play.
I was shocked at the revelations about Truman. It has certainly changed my opinion of him.
I read the book and watched every second of her testimony. She is very believable.
Approximately 24lbs
At 89 I can lift 20lbs. And Meadows is a big man.
Bless your heart! I'm 66 and just got home from 6 days hospitalization for falling and shattering my left arm. I hope to be 89 someday.
Exactly. Not a problem.
That is the wt of a bag of dog kibble.
Meadows is tall, and scared.
Or, Meadows, or someone else, could have made a copy of the binder's contents, and taken that, while someone else is not returning the original binder. Or the same person copied the binder, passed it on to someone else, and has kept the original binder, but is hiding it, not returning it to the intelligence services. Whatever, the cat is likely out of the bag. Isn't it prosecutable behavior to simply "misplace" valuable information one has been entrusted with? If Trump was responsible for retaining that information, and misplaced and didn't return it, shouldn't he be held responsible, whether or not he himself made off with the binder and its information? If we fail to return a library book, we are fined, regardless of the reason we didn't return the book, be it lost, stolen, damaged, whatever. When materials are classified, and important, none should be handed to anyone without automatically making that person responsible, and subject to unnegotiable consequences if they fail to return it.
Maybe tfg flushed it down the toilet.....
Read "Enough" by Cassidy Hutchinson. Mark Meadows had a fireplace in his office, and it must have been really cold those last few months of the trump administration because he had it burning alot.
LOL yep!
All available information from this should be carefully compiled and compared to the Mueller Report.
Yep! The actual enchilada! No copy!
That is exactly what I noticed in Terwilliger’s statement!
Annie you nailed it. Yes “copy” is the operative word here. The comment by Meadows lawyer implies took the actual binder versus a copy. Annie you nailed it. And like you “copy” jumped out as I read his lawyers’ “carefully” worded statement:
“Terwilliger told the New York Times: “Mark never took any copy of that binder home at any time.”
Exactly! Meadows is dirty, he's a traitor..And what do we do with traitors? I believe it is time we stop allowing ourselves to be pushed around by these Fu%3king people..Cannon is complicit, her behavior is demonstrative of obstruction..She should be removed and charged..
Sam,
Calm down. You guys just have to get used to the way America really is.
Fat, white and Male means NO JAIL.
The reason you guys are so outraged is because you don't realize that white guys break the law every day, all day long and you NEVER see them on the 6:00 o'clock local news between two Sheriff's deputies being hauled into jail.
All you will EVER see on the nightly news is some poor black guy between two big white deputies being hauled into jail for (robbing a 7-11 for a loaf of bread).
That's how it works here in 'Murca. It just seems outrageous to you guys who have never been within a minority community where jail is always one inch away.
So let's go after his wife. She voted illegally in North Carolina too. And Melania, fraudulently becomes a US citizen and then sponsored her communist father and mother. As spouse, Assuming TFFG files married filing jointly she is just as guilty of income tax evasion as TFFG. And why aren't they auditing TFFGJr, Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany and Barron for income tax evasion? Usually when a preparer files a fraudulent return on behalf of a client everyone's return that preparer did is audited for similar tax cheating. No wonder the Republicans want to slash the IRS budget.
Gary Loft - "And Melania, fraudulently becomes a US citizen..."
How so?
“𝑈𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙, 𝐼 𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑦 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑔𝑜𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑎. 𝑀𝑦 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑢𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦 𝑔𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑖𝑒𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑, 𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑛𝑜 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑙 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑒𝑑. 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒, 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑛𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑦. 𝐴𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐼 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠. ... 𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑘𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑤.” --Melania Trump to 25 individuals poised to become citizens during a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/15/melania-trump-citizenship-naturalization/71934478007/
FWIW: She was born in Slovenia, where she said her parents taught her the importance of a strong work ethic and pursuing her dreams. She launched her fashion and modeling career at a young age and traveled to cities like Paris and Milan.
She had no college degree, which is required for an Einstein visa, of which approximately 6 are utilized yearly. Is Melania a genius? No sign of that. Her visa process was fraudulent. The irony that this is the immigrant that was chosen to speak to new citizens...her citizenship was purchased for her. My opinion.
Addendum:
In what way did Melania "excel" at her modeling career & what good did her rather short career do for the world besides nothing?
Criteria for Einstein visa:
To qualify for the EB-1A visa, an applicant must be able to demonstrate extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics through sustained national or international acclaim (by way of extensive documentation).Aug 9, 2023
Do you Qualify for the “Einstein Visa”? - Davies & Associates
Nurjamila Wallar - "She had no college degree, which is required for an Einstein visa..."
It is known as the “Einstein visa.” Nuclear scientists, Nobel laureates and doctors get it. But so do acrobats, stunt men, event planners — and plenty of models.
The requirements for the EB-1 immigrant visa leave far more room for interpretation than its nickname and its best-and-brightest reputation suggest.
While the program may be the pinnacle of the merit-based immigration policies supported by critics of the visa lottery and family-based migration the decision of what constitutes merit, while based on established criteria, is ultimately subjective and often surprising.
“𝑅𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑒. 𝐴𝑛 𝑎𝑑𝑗𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑎 𝑗𝑢𝑑𝑔𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙.”
“𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦, 𝑔𝑜𝑡 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠. 𝑆ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑦 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑦 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒.”
“𝐷𝑜 𝑤𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑖𝑔𝑛 𝑓𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑠? 𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑛𝑜. 𝑊𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑠. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑓𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑝 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑, 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑦.”
[Gift Link]
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/us/melania-trump-einstein-visa.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GU0.MCEj.rr7Yyv6JOo8T&hpgrp=ar-abar&smid=url-share
Nurjamila Wallar - "her citizenship was purchased for her."
Who, in 2001, would have paid this? And who took the bribe? Proof please.
Unfortunately she has poor taste in men. Watch out for the bus.
She was stupid enough to marry him but fought tooth and nail for Barron to have his "rightful place" in the Trump family. I'd bet she gets a Whopper and fries. Her pre-nup might even include a diet coke and a gravesite next to Ivana.
Money talks...
Yes, yes, yes, I am one of those old fat white guys, Mike S, just like Mark Meadows and DJT. I am 70 years old, probate attorney, just retired, who did a minimal amount of criminal law at the beginning of my career. You are 100% correct in every respect. It does make me ill about “Judge” Cannon, just like it does about my own Congressman, “Judge” John Carter, an actual former state district judge in Texas. If you think there is equal justice under the law, you are sorely mistaken. I am still praying for a miracle and that there will be justice for Trump, Meadows, Giuliani and all the rest, but I do not expect to see it. As a Christian, they all make me want to throw up, they really do. The only that has kept me sane for a long time, and ESPECIALLY these last 8 years, is a quote from one of my favorite Christian authors, Oswald Chambers. “ Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it.” There will be justice for these cretins, I just pray it is in this world, and I live long enough to see it. Mike S, you nailed our world, and it never ceases to amaze me how otherwise sane and nice and yes, “good Christina people” refuse to see the truth about justice in this country.
Whenever I find myself start with the handwringing, I think of Jack Smith and my girls, Fani Willis and Letitia James. They are fearless in pursuit of justice. And look what happened to Giuliani yesterday--two Black women were awarded $150 mil in order to punish the racist lunatic. Their attorney is launching an investigation to uncover any money Giuliani could have hidden. There is hope....
I'll wait to hear about payment.
BUT the thing is: he walks outside the courtroom & continues to defame these women - so lesson learned here??????
Right. Never.
"Matuszak is one of about 100 prosecutors across Ohio who the courts found had violated standards meant to preserve a defendant's civil rights in criminal trials, an investigation by Columbia Journalism Investigations, NPR and member station WVXU in Cincinnati, and The Ohio Newsroom found. He is one of 13 who did so more than once. Together, these 13 prosecutors accounted for nearly one-third of the 104 cases in the state where courts found that prosecutors acted improperly."
(https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1216111092/ohio-court-prosecutor-misconduct-due-process-rights)
It has been difficult. Yes.
We are ugly, but looking only at our ugliness is not to appreciate our aspirations toward which we must always keep our thoughts and our eyes. If you start thinking of how you’re going to work for the Democrats in ‘24, you will feel better. Not all politicians are good as not all Americans are good, but some are and some are better as politicians than they are as mere humans. You can help improve the country by voting for the best candidates you can vote for wherever you are.
Thanks Virginia. Hope and action? Always good.
Interesting point. Just the other day—when Senator Schumer extolled the role played by Jewish people in the civil rights movment—I wondered how many readers of this substack are black or brown. It's a valuable perspective.
I think you are gas-lighting our concerns. I also think you aren’t recognizing the inherent dangers of an imminent, fascist takeover. Don’t assume poverty and crime are confined to minority communities.
You are misreading Mike S.'s intent here. He is simply pointing out the fact that there are really two justice systems in the US, one for white folks and one for BIPOC folks. How else to explain that Black people make up less than 14% of the population but 38% of the prison population? Income is a great influencer in the criminal justice system, but cannot explain the difference in ratios.
Thanks Ally. 😊
...and let's not forget the influence of for-profit prisons...
I am almost ashamed to say that, as a card carrying member of the criminal justice system for 35 years, I had never heard of "for profit prisons" until I watched the film "13th". We do not have them in Oregon, and I am horrified they exist at all. I am also horrified by prison conditions in general, but specifically in the south.
Ally - Dawna is also correct, tho - poverty & crime arent only minority issues. Politics and propaganda make it so, it would seem. The difference in prison populations & in our justice system, should be clear to everyone without having to be put up in colored lights! What is it "they" say? Ignorance is bliss???? There sure seems to be an awful lot of that.
Maggie, you are correct: poverty isn't only a minority issue. I've had a front row seat for 37 years to the entry into the criminal justice system, and can confirm that those with money have far better personal outcomes than those with less, or none. The percentages of people in poverty by race are: White 9.5% Black 21.4% Hispanic 16.1% Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 10%, and American Indian/ Alaska Native 24.5. I stand by my statement that not only incarceration rates but poverty are impacted by race, and that there are different standards for white folks than all other races.
Had a hard time hitting the 'like' button on this one, not because it's not true, but because it is.
Really hoping the generations behind us will make inroads balancing this glaring problem.
Sad but true
That doesn't mean we need to accept it.
We have.
Mike, I disagree with you a lot, but not this time.
It also occurred to me that if Trump is given immunity for his crimes by the SC, this would be the court granting presidents unchecked personal power, not only Trump but the office itself.
Mike, my husband can explain most things by saying, "People are stupid". If you see someone looting a business, that's fun to watch. Unless it's venture capital, which is boring paperwork and numbers. Ignore that.
Right!
Mike,
I have no delusions about the double standards in this country, you are right, I will not experience the racism that black, brown, and female Americans experience..However, I am a Jew and that portends a bigotry of its own..
But my skin is white, which means I can hide who I am to those who would do me harm..That is my advantage when facing that to which you speak..
However, it is the acts of traitors willing to destroy the freedoms and our Democracy that we hold so dear as imperfect as you eloquently describe if Meadows et al are not crushed..that is what I am pissed about..
It sure appears to be like that... boy did they ever fool me! I guess I should have been paying attention instead of surviving and attempting to enjoy life.
Mike S, how many times and for how long have you written 'Fat, white and Male...' ?This reply of yours left out 'asses', which have often been part of your visualization white men in words. Do you dream of 'fat, white men's asses'; is this vision of yours an addiction or how you literally and laterally see white men?
Nightmare is more like it Fern. A long, long one.
Mike S, I think a part of me gets the pain you experienced, terrible pain. You also seem to get me, how prejudice, injustice, inequity and cruelty affect my spirit and determination. So, you know why I finally said something.
I have been a fortunate woman as many of us have not been fortunate
to have had a good father; a wonderful grandfather who worked in garment center as a patternmaker. My mother's and father's families escaped as Jews from Hungary and Poland. Men have also supported the growth of my work, and I had a dear husband who died in 2018.
Thank you for providing us with an opportunity for exchange. We had terrific exchanges when you first joined LFAA. I hope we can continue to respect each other's journeys. Salud.
The process grinds forward. The outcome is not uncertain.
Too true. I sob into my soul about America’s real definition!
Meadows would throw his own mother under a bus to save his own ass. His main interest is himself. He is not shy in showing how far a traitor will go. He will not go to jail for Agent Orange. He is scared of dropping his soap in the showers. Gutless wonder.
Agent Orange uses classified documents as party favors at Margo's. That's when he's not selling them out of the trunk of his car to the highest bidder. Malignant narcissists have entitlement issues. This is not a surprise. They are toddlers screaming, "everything is mine."
Love the "agent orange"
Yes, and in regards to both these traitors, setting aside the legal matters, the inaction by the current DOJ is a disgrace..They should both be in Gitmo..
The theft of the binder has to be the subject of intense, even frantic work by intelligence agencies, domestic and foreign. What CNN reported, to its credit, is akin to the first brief news story that there was a break-in at Democratic headquarters that grew into the Watergate scandal.
While Watergate brought down Nixon, the missing binder likely has much more serious implications, including many that we will likely never know because the government won't reveal them. But let's hope the perpetrators are brought to a swift and harsh judgment.
I thought about this earlier: if the contents of the binder were shared with Russia, then I am sure that any assets (people) our intelligence agencies were working with have been either poisoned, pushed out a window, or whichever way Russia deals with people they don't want around.
I believe a few already have. Perhaps one of the most odious culprits here is Bill Barr for downplaying The Mueller Report which clearly called out Russian interference with the election and pointed to corruption on Trump’s part. How do these smug and over privileged folks live with themselves?
Zero conscience? I read that there has been an uptick in foreign intelligence assents being unmasked. Might be coincidence. Might not.
Happened in first year of trump's presidency...
Barr is a member of Opus Dei.
How did you become aware that he was a member of Opus Dei?
I cut this from the Britannica article on Opus Dei. Nothing to worry about here. Just another misogynistic sado-masochistic cult that's part of the Catholic Church.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opus-Dei
Opus Dei originally required new members to take a vow of obedience and chastity. Since the organization became a prelature, however, it has required only a contractual commitment to receive spiritual formation, which includes weekly classes (“circles”) and an annual religious retreat, among other activities. Members commonly practice self-sacrifice, which can include fasting and abstinence from certain pleasures, and self-mortification, such as the wearing of a cilice (which often takes the form of a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh), is not discouraged. New members serve a period of probation, which lasts at least five years, before they are fully admitted. Some members of Opus Dei, called numeraries, devote much of their time to the organization. Like priests, they are required to remain unmarried and celibate, but they live in the world and pursue secular occupations. The majority of members, however, are the supernumeraries, who are free to marry, contribute financially to Opus Dei, and demonstrate Christian virtue in their daily activities. The group is also financially assisted by cooperators, who are not members and, by permission of the Holy See, need not even be Christians. Ordained priests constitute only a tiny percentage of the organization; in 2016 they numbered some 2,100 of the almost 95,000 members worldwide.
A cult of crazy, fits monied repubs to a tee
Jeeze- that’s just creepy. FWIW-I doubt Barr ever fasted a day in his life!
More important than the details is their state of mind. When you are super right with God (kind of like Mike Johnson, whom God directs, according to him), you are gold.
I've been collecting newspaper articles about the Catholic church for years especially re child abuse, and learned about Opus Dei in Portugal from my husband, who told me that a bank employee here was a member. For fun and entertainment I read Dan Brown's books (airplane reads using five adverbs and five adjectives), in spite of the fact they were banned here.
😱
Susan, how do they live with themselves? Because they have the Great Pretender to validate and encourage their blind beliefs.
Humility and integrity are not foundations of the GQP party. They believe their own shit brains. And they surround themselves with like minded shit brains. They are all heros in their own minds. Agent Orange probably has his own General uniforms already prepared. He moves his fat ass in the mirror when he his modeling them for Bannon and Miller. And they all lube up to kiss his fat white pimpled ass.
Hey Lisa, Have you ever considered doing Sand-up Comedy? Some of our most brilliant minds get the truth out like that. George Carlin comes to mind. I have always missed him until today when I got a load of You! I Love It!
I love your descriptor "odious." Made me think immediately of Henry Kissinger.
These folks seem to ride their smugness and privilege into the sunset raking in millions while sowing death and committing their treasons.
Susan, It is easy. "what is in my own best interests"
Yes, that is probably what happened: Putin learned who those people close to him were who were cooperating with U.S. Intelligence, so Putin "accidented" them, killing them off with staged accidents. Trump is a traitor, as are those who helped him with this. Same issue with the missing contents of the 48 folders at Mar a Lago marked Secret or Top Secret.
Many Russians have disappeared or fallen from windows. FSB tracks them down. Trump is a traitor. Owned by Russian oligarchs and Putin’s pet
I'm circling back to article three of the Fourteenth Amendment--no matter how much voters want you to be president, you are barred from running if you're under the age of 35 or born in another country. The rule for engaging in blatantly treasonous behavior should 100% apply....
A
How many smoking guns does it take to bring down a corrupt, traitorous ex-President and his malignant band of co-conspirators?
The exprez’s co-consprators unfortunately include upwards of 74 million voters, most of whom like smoking guns.
Already got an army, should be enough
"But let's hope the perpetrators are brought to a swift and harsh judgment."
Not likely.
Fat, white and male means "NO JAIL" in America.
Meadows is much more likely to become Governor of some state than be arrested.
Mike, just as Donald J Trump is much more likely to become president than be arrested.
He’s already been arrested. Patience. I have great trust in Jack Smith.
Jen, Jack Smith is one strong, decent, and fearless man.and I do trust him to do what is right for the salvation of our democracy.
I've been discouraged many times when I thought "right" would win out.
Seems like there are forces that abound which fight the "right".
True. But on that path lies despair, and I’m not ready for that.
Yes.
Let’s hope not.
But HER emails (insert sarcastic emoji)
let's see all their emails and the Secret Service ones around Jan 6 that were "accidentally" erased during normal housekeeping. Pence was smart enough to not get in the car with SS he didn't know.
Let's put " accidentally" around that word. That would make it clearer. S/
Could that binder be what Jared got $2 billion for, or did Meadows burn pages from that file in his fireplace, like Ms. Hutchinson spoke about?
Good point. Sold!!
Just a thought, isn’t it a bit coincidental that on the day Meadows filed his brief to have his Atlanta case adjudicated in federal court, CNN drops the bomb on him. Strangely, I’d heard it yesterday on Keith Olbermann’s podcast which was filed yesterday morning at 9a PST. I thought it was a spoof, as it seemed, NO ONE had reported it yet! I do believe this is the beginning of the end of Meadows.
This is not a criticism of you, Michael, but an observation about this discussion in general. Why are we persisting in talking about a binder? Cassie said she saw Meadows enter his car with a binder that she recognized and named. There appears to be a great deal of concern about a large # of documents (in terms of pages) that are missing. As I read, it occurs to me that we are assuming that the binder Meadows had is equivalent to the large amount of missing classified material, and attempts to somehow, based on unrelated info about paper and how much it weighs, etc, trying to make that binder into the missing classified information. According to Cassidy, the binder was classified. It might be part of the larger body of missing material that is under discussion. It might not.
I wonder: would anyone have really noticed Mark Meadows (or anyone else) pick up a medium size box somewhere along the line? It would not be a large box. Yes, relatively heavy- but I pick up boxes of discarded documents and such to take to recycling all the time. I am 100# and 81 years old and picking up those boxes is not at all a challenge, and it is not conspicuous.
It does not seem to be known just where this material was when it went missing- perhaps not at Maralago. Yet people are conjecturing all over the place, trying to force fit a few tenuous details into a scenario they have glued themselves to. What we know: Casey saw Mark Meadows carrying a binder she knew to be classified and that Meadows had no right to. And that there is deep concern about a number of missing heavily classified materials with information that could compromise the safety of persons who compiled it.
Looks like a lot of conjectures wandering in the weeds. Yup, got a problem. Nope, don't know what exactly. But not going to keep us from jumping to comclusions.
Good points, Annie. Generally, we all want answers to basic yet frightening questions: how significant is the theft of classified documents, and how has it compromised national security and the people who help protect us?
The criminal charges against Trump and the evidence made public certainly tell us that the theft is widespread and unprecedented. And when the cases come to trial, we will learn much more. But the CNN story adds to a general belief that we are seeing the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Also, we're wired to automatically tell ourselves stories to understand reality, and that means filling in gaps of information with speculation, even wild guesses. Unfortunately, people increasingly have a low threshold for reaching big conclusions at a time when healthy skepticism is needed.
In the end, we just want answers but need to temper our desire and let the truth emerge as it typically does at an unsatisfying pace. (That's not to say we shouldn't demand it.) And in this particular narrative, Mark Meadows has emerged as critical. Let's call his story "The Keeper of Secrets." Will Jack Davis succeed in making him sing?
The Binder is Russiagate. Big time. Republiputins.
he stated he never took a 'copy' of the binder, so therefore he could have taken the original binder, right? and yes, maybe not home, but elsewhere.
Maybe the MAGA folks will all take Terwilliger at his word uncritically, but he must think that the rest of us are very stupid.
He does
Yep, exactly. Yet given the lawyer's language, if technically true in some sense, the most likely scenario is that Meadows handed off the material to someone else on team T. The question is who. Meadows needs to say under oath who he handed off the material to when it was last in his possession and more generally, what he did with the material. And if he handed it off, we need to follow the chain of custody. Otherwise, Meadows knows where the material is and has to tell us, or we need to dig into what his lawyer means by "proper handling of classified material". They could be arguing that anything T told Meadows to do with the material was somehow proper. For all we know, T told Meadows to burn it. In any case, from any angle, there is important info to learn.
The fireplace in Meadow's office got quite a workout...
You do not have to be a Lawyer to understand a "non-denial denial". That's one of the basic rules of Meadows' West Wing Syntax.
Gobbledygook.
That's a "technical term" as I like to say sometimes.
... that too.
Remember that tfg did not give Joe Biden any access to the government as was traditional after an election. That’s because they were busy copying, burning and plotting. Hutchinson’s book is very clear on this. It’s frustrating to me that DOJ seems asleep at the wheel. Cannon and other unqualified officials like the postmaster should have been weeded out right at the beginning. It’s not too late.
It’s tough to get rid of them.
After all, Alito and kavenaugh at the very fewest lied re Roe in their confirmation hearings. But they were affirmed by an illegitimate Senate composed of old fat white guys who represent 38% of the people, and were voted in by delusional believers in the magic sky daddy. How can we realistically expect anything enlightened from this lot?
I'm Number 199 on the list for her book at my public library. Discouraging for me, but I'm glad I'm not the only one reading it.
It reads pretty quickly. The early part is about her family and her father is a raging trmpy. So she was especially brave to come forward.
Yes, if she worked for Mark Meadows, she must have known it would not be well received. My guess is that they underestimated her powers of observation and integrity.
I’m 180!.
"that binder" (copy machine duplicates ?) An immediate surprise search warrant of select "freedom caucus" members might turn up a few copies.
Excellent suggestion! I'm guessing that Jack Smith is on the case...
Might check a few cell phones.
Or, someone else could have taken it to Mark Meadows’ home. The wording is so specific. It’s basically an admission of guilt.
I caught that too. Lawyers lie exactly like this.
I agree that the answer "taking it home" are the pivotal words. No, he didn't take it home. Apparently, he made sure that Trump had it.
CYA Terwilliger, no surprise.
And that he was "not responsible" for taking it could mean he did it at djt's order.
Note, he said never took "any copy" of the binder... he probably took the original.
That was my very first thought as well.
Brava, Betsy!
just simple legalese
You're right, I had to read this twice to be sure that my eyes did not add in some extra zeroes regarding Giuliani's fine:
"eye-popping sum of $148,169,000 to Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman"
Not quite as eye-popping but almost, was your last sentence:
"Rubio added, “The Senate should maintain oversight on whether or not our nation withdraws from NATO. We must ensure we are protecting our national interests and protecting the security of our democratic allies.”
Rubio???? Marco Rubio said that???!! amazing.
JustJanice, I had to ask myself the same thing when I saw it yesterday on MSNBC. Is there any way to impeach or disbar Judge Aileen Cannon?
Same way you impeach a president - a 2/3 vote by the Senate. Don't hold your breath on that one, you wouldn't look good as you turned blue and died. :-)
The supervising Appeals Court could remove her from the case though, couldn't they?
Yes, with an appeal by Smith & Co.
Maybe he's saving that in the event that the D.C. trial blows up. Never hurts to have something in your pocket.
🤣🤣🤣 Sorry. I couldn’t help it! Trying not to hold MY breath until post-election (and following idiocy) 2024-25. (Thinking that by the end of ‘25 all is either over or sanity should be stronger than insanity so we can go forward all 💙.)
tfg has something on her...for sure...
Another Leonard Leo white faux-Christian judge.
Trump alle über.
It must be that halo over his orange putrid head, hahaha.
Or giving her $$$
I think it would be a patently fair standard to prohibit judges from ruling on case that specifically affect the legal status the person who appointed them. If nothing else the appearance of bias erodes faith in, and thus the effectiveness of, the law, and the opportunity for bias, even entirely unintended bias of one sort or another, is evident.
Yes, J L Graham, In a healthy Society it would be patently unfair. We seem to be run by “Unaccountability Inc.”
On our watch.
Rubio's clever enough to know the 'jig is up' and time to return to the 'fence' as a position ?
Perhaps as a Cuban he gets that having Russia be your daddy isn't all that.
he thinks he sees an opening.....
Thank you.🤣
Little Narco is reading the Tea Leaves
JustJanice, I thought it was amazing too. A moment of being right and recognizing that what death star wants to do is dangerous.
“ GOP Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) locked horns with Biden administration officials during a Wednesday morning Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on emergency funding for Ukraine.
The two Republican senators were the only members of the panel who openly opposed support for President Biden’s $105 billion supplemental appropriations request, which contains $60 billion in aid for Ukraine amid its war against invading Russian forces.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4300319-paul-rubio-biden-officials-ukraine-support/
Now that sounds more like the Puto Primero Marco with which I am familiar.
Both bought by the faux billionaire, with money from the man himself, Putin
Thanks for popping my happiness bubble 😢. We’re all on a roller coaster ride that simply won’t stop!
No surprise there. Not bright enough to see the implications of playing with Putin or, if they do, not kind enough to think of the deaths that will result.
That was my reaction! Little Marco did something that was actually patriotic and would act as a constraint on ANY President who gets an itch for betraying our allies?!? Wow! Now THAT'S news!
I was just about to label my comment:
"MARCO RUBIO???!!!" but you beat me to it.
When did Puto Rubio take an interest in the United States?
Did some "donor" out pay his usual Right-Wing supporters?
Once in an excruciatingly long while Rubio does something to protect our democracy.
He was part of the gang of eight that passed immigration legislation only to be scuttled by Boehner in the House--
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the eight members of US Congress who are briefed on classified intelligence matters by the Executive Branch, see Gang of Eight (intelligence). For all other uses, see Gang of Eight (disambiguation).
The Gang of Eight was a bi-partisan group of eight United States Senators—four Democrats and four Republicans—who wrote the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.[1]
In June 2013, S.744 passed the Senate with a strong majority—68–32, with 14 Republicans joining all Democrats. The United States House of Representatives under Speaker John Boehner did not act on the bill, however, and it expired at the end of the 113th Congress.[2]
Members
In the context of proposed immigration reform, the Gang of Eight consists of the following four Democratic and four Republican senators.[3] Of the eight senators that originally composed the group, six remain in office as of 2023. John McCain died in 2018 and Jeff Flake's term ended in 2019.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-CO
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-AZ
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC
Sen. John McCain, R-AZ
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-NJ
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY[4]
That's the stuff Gary; folks need reminders of recent history via the 'roll calls' of past positions. People forget - it's what we do. Thanks...
Trust but verify in his case
I had a similar reaction.
OMG! That is hard to believe....I’d like to see the video on that, just to be sure!!
There it is folks, journalists exposing what the American people need to know if we are to be
a democracy. Right there at the top of today's LETTER, CNN and …’Reporters Jeremy Herb, Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand, Evan Perez, and Zachary Cohen have pieced together the story of how in his last days in office, Trump tried to declassify most of the information in the binder in order to distribute copies to Republican members of Congress and right-wing media outlets. According to an affidavit by reporter John Solomon, who was shown a copy of the binder, the plan was to begin releasing information from it on the morning of January 20, 2021, so that it would hit the news after President Joe Biden had been sworn in.' (Letter)
On the front page of The New York Times today:
‘Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade’
By Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak
Dec. 15, 2023Updated 12:26 p.m. ET
On Feb. 10 last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. showed his eight colleagues how he intended to uproot the constitutional right to abortion.
At 11:16 a.m., his clerk circulated a 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinize it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.
But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes, according to two people who reviewed the messages. The next morning, Justice Clarence Thomas added his name, then Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and days later, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. None requested a single alteration. The responses looked like a display of conservative force and discipline. (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html?mwgrp=a-dbar&unlocked_article_code=1.GU0.jV46.Z3FGXUjxRoD4&smid=url-share
But a lot Americans don’t know the difference between journalism and the ‘media’. They COMPLAIN and COMPLAIN, not as effectively as Trump does, but they are helping him, even if they don’t know it.
SUPPORT JOURNALISTS and every source with journalistic standards that bring us the FACTS!
Thank you once again, Fern, for the wealth of information you share with us. Tonight was exceptional. Especially your last 2 paragraphs. A most excellent alarm reminder to not be pulled under by sound bites. Journalists! ❤️❤️❤️
Tamera, thank you for your kind and keen words about the journalists, in particular!
I would like to see more journalists from the previous era, rejoin their careers and be reimbursed that major news outlet. Thank you for reflecting the conscience of the United States of America.
Mary Frances, thank you for your attention to what we need to know; the journalists who dig for the truth and deliver the news, so we may know the facts, understand one another, consider the issues, and support our communities and county as well as democracy,
I would not have made it through pre-vaccine Covid without the NYT and MSNBC.
I read the Times story on Roe. I found it interesting that the leak solidified all the votes and scuttled the efforts to mitigate changing what Alito wanted.
“We still don’t know who circulated it …,” they say.
The hell we don’t.
Alito’s whole career before SCOTUS was about stopping abortions. I learned that at the time he was voted into SCOTUS.
He was on record for ages … “open mind” my foot. He doesn’t have an open mind about ANYTHING
My sentiments exactly.
What I find disheartening about the story is the lack of spine of these judges. We all know that Beer bong Bret owes these financiers for paying off his debts and Handmaid Amy also is in debt to them as well. Stolen seat Neil, well he is a cultist.
Yes!
But here is my question: If John Solomon saw a "copy" of this binder that vanished almost three years ago...why is this story only surfacing now? This is a HUGE story. The potential damage is enormous. Not even a hint of this until now... So many questions. What a scary mess.
It's always difficult to prove something when the evidence has been destroyed. Trump has reputedly destroyed evidence by eating it, burning it, tearing it up, flushing it down gold toilets probably others that we aren't aware of.
Buried it on the first green?
LOL
Thank you so much for sharing this Fern.
Obviously, NONE of the majority that voted for Dobbs read the opinion. Referencing cases from before the US was a country and all from men.
It's time we take back the judiciary from the Catholic Church. They are just as misogynistic now as they ever were.
Absolutely we require professional journalist with high professional and ethical standards, and their work is still to be found. Moreover I think that some of what I have seen as a reluctance to offend the right wing has been wearing off. That said, I've seen a fair amount of particularly mealy-mouthed "media" in recent years, along with some journalism that has been stunningly informative.
I've seen and read a lot of sensational journalism; we need a lot more of it. The reason I appreciate the excellent reports that I read and hear is that I know who many of best journalists are and follow their work. It is also helpful to know which books to read and which historians, writers, analysts, magazines, research tanks, etc., are reliably solid. Of course, some books that are well reviewed and recommended may not hit the spot. A batting average of 400 would would be okay in my book. Unfortunately, many intelligent people who frequently have strong opinions are not familiar with journalistic standards and do not make it their business to find out who some of our best journalists are as well as finding the best outlets that adhere to such standards and are excellent sources of factual material about a range of subjects. We are sorely missing local and statewide outlets as newspapers became prohibitive to run, radio went right, and we are flooded with social media. For democracies to survive, a healthy and thriving free-press is a requirement, one that we need to promote in various forms and find the funding to support it.
Fern, Ah, the rub; Funding
Napster killed the funding for music via the internet. Journalists who dig deep have a niche audience that doesn’t include those who get their news from sources funded by advertising based on superficial click bait screaming headlines fostering conservative “other hate”
We see yesterday the “inside the room” NYT editorial bullying of those journalists that don’t “get with the program”, much like the Corporate America that Mike S will attest to
Subscribing to a local, regional and national newspaper might be affordable, then a national magazine or two, then selected Substacks and then and then and then starts to get both expensive and time consuming. Knowing where to spend that and money becomes crucial. Finding a worthy curator requires trust and reputation
Journalism is at an inflection point. How to fund AND distribute?
In my twenties, I worked for an afternoon daily in which no story was allowed to "jump" beyond page one. The editor maintained that readers were just getting home from work and didn't want a lot of detail. Then it merged with the morning paper in the eighties, as did other papers in the chain. Just yesterday I read a story on Axios, the even briefer online daily, that it is published by Cox Enterprises, the same chain I worked for. Brevity is fine for a quick update, but more of us need to commit to longer forms. That's why I read the New Yorker and the Atlantic and regional publications like the High Country News, which reports on environmental issues in the Mountain West. And now we have this substack putting the news into historical context, which popular sounces rarely do. Good thing I'm retired.
"Brevity is fine for a quick update, but more of us need to commit to longer forms."
Brevity can sometimes carry significant weight, but it takes some doing. "The Gettysburg Address" in noted, in part for its brevity, which is part of it's power. Put truncated, fragmented thoughts often need context and completion to be useful. To what precisely does "Make America Great Again" refer? It has a certain sales appeal, but what's in it? What exactly does it point to? And how exactly, in a way that we can examine and plan, do we get there? What is the larger context, and the context beyond that? History is part of essential context as well a current and empirically expectable consequences, desirable or not.
Orwell illustrated the limitations of habitually truncated language and thinking. Ourselves a consequence of very long chain molecules, we sometimes need long chain thought and discussion to adequately grasp and meet our circumstances.
What I have in mind are reported news stories. The local governing body approves some project and estimates the cost. If it's a split vote, I want to know who voted for and against, and the reporter should get the reasons for each. What is the purpose of the project? Is this something that has been on the back burner for years, or is a recent idea? Where will the money come from? Are there private investors? When will it be put out for bid? Who will benefit and will anyone be inconvenienced? Does any other locale have a project like this? Sometimes one long paragraph just doesn't do it. Bare bones reporting is not as common as it once was, and how many times have you heard details about something that would have motivated you to weign in had you known the consequences?
As long as you are rubbing, Dave, rub the BLUE states' legislators, mayors and governors; rub Soros, there are a few more Billionaires that would fork it up; Hollywood could be source and with templets for communicating, local free-press, with an intrepid, social studies teacher, who becomes a world-wide star. Have a few great journalists like Jane Mayer dig up the sources for money; athlete's like LeBron bring us to arenas, where we regular folks cough up some bucks to promote our communities. Call upon Universities, colleges, journalism departments, high schools and grade school students to report and cheer for news in their backyards. We create a movement for local, free-press that will be a glorious benefit for Us and us!
Interesting that you mention Hollywood. The J6 committee went that direction to present its findings to the People. Scriptwriters that can take raw information and assemble a cogent story. If only we knew a scriptwriter, right?
Jane Mayer, what a talent, yet when I mention her in most settings blank stares come at me. I guess that was my point in curation, how does one create the “Edward R Murrow Society” of Journalistic Integrity? Perhaps a panel of Peers vouching for the HCRs of the world with funding from a cadre of honest billionaires intent on propagating a better information headwaters
I read a lot. Some of it comes with a recognizable bias after a while. News and facts are now subject to the accusation of source, which is then trashed as biased and therefore ignored
We are witnessing what one man with billions and agenda (Murdoch) can accomplish via propaganda, and what happens when Congress allows a few of them to buy up and destroy local news outlets. We see what algorithms can do to surpress the spread of information in the hands of evils such as Musk and FB Boy
Steve Earle writes “Come back Woody Guthrie” in the same vein as we might ask for Walter Cronkite
The struggle is real
https://youtu.be/kqDwB4cQyLQ?si=_YwSkcyKYcBYUbW9
The challenges and the possibilities as well as the opportunities are just as REAL and spark one another. Negativity feeds on itself; I'd put it on a shelf.
They exist. Brennan, Propublica, Columbia Review, GBH, many others who are not part of a silo.
They create partnerships with other sources and local news outlets and make sure that results of investigative journalism is . It's growing. Support them if you can.
Where there's sufficient will, there is often a way.
The rub indeed. I subscribe to a few sources of news that I rarely visit just because, and a few that are my primary sources, but that's not the answer. One of those sources is The Guardian, which I have a fairly high confidence in for both accuracy and useful depth. I switched off TV news for good and backed away from my local paper (which I still have a subscription to) in the build up to W's invasion of Iraq. The Guardian was providing far more accurate and relevant information than my then habitual sources. I have read some very significant original stories in the local paper since, but not so consistently.
I don't frame my youth as the "good old days" as there was a great deal, especially for women and minorities, that was misguided or oppressive in plain sight that that has been partially overcome after decades of struggle, but I think that there were some social values that we need to were left to drift. We have a very liberal standard of free speech which I think is essential to liberty, but I think we have become too inured to lies, in advertising, in what may pass for journalism, and from those in official positions trust and responsibility. Lies about the fish that got away may become irritating (or just amusing) but would seem to be harmless. Lies about war, or immigrants or a deadly virus claim victims. Some kinds of lies, and here I mean misinformation as a deliberate act, break certain laws in some circumstances. Even where the law is not involved, some kinds of lies and liars are dangerous, and Giuliani's lies are a recent example. Nixon was guilty of a number of very serious offenses, but I think what stood out for most people was his dishonesty. We now see an entire political party organized around calculated Big Lies. Democracy can and must navigate lies, but not without widespread public detection and resistance. Accuracy can be crucial, honesty is a virtue, and both need social reinforcement. Liars are not trustworthy. No respectable person in government or the private sector should lie for a living. There needs to be more social solidarity built around that. Those demonstrated to discover and tell us the truth are worthy of acclaim.
I enjoy listening to Brooke Gladstone's On the Media on NPR that discusses some issues involved in producing media stories.
I don’t have the details in front of me (dog on lap) but there is a bill in the House giving tax breaks for local journalism. HB 47xx I think.
Ah! The old dog on lap trick! : ()
☺️🐶
I would quibble with using the word sensational to describe journalism; too close to sensationalist for me, which has a different connotation. Stellar is my go to descriptor. I find it interesting how individuals ‘rate’ journalists as well as sites; far too often the tribal tendencies are determinative.
Funny how people who admire Jane Mayer (and I do) can turn around and accuse Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi of being hacks. Funny also how people can think a piece in The Atlantic or the New Yorker is journalism, but a YouTube video isn’t.
Greenwald has laid bare the propaganda narratives, which Heather has bought into, imo, in a whole host of issues over the past few days, from the Zelensky visit to intelligence memos to CNN, and cable news in general, being security state mouthpieces, and Congressional reauthorization for domestic spying on American citizens. But he gets shunted by many liberals into the Putin apologist bucket, Taibbi is the Musk collaborator, while Mayer is a media darling on the liberal left.
Interesting how some allow a quest for truth to be highjacked by fear of losing ‘democracy’, and hard truths are dispensed with in lieu of the lazy shoot the messenger fallacy.
Am I imagining it or has there been a dearth of journalistic fervor regarding chump -ever since the escalator ride. Media just worships celebrity. Journalism is a dangerous game these days. May we note the difference and attend accordingly.
But doesn’t it all go back to the simple truth that Media “News” is just a business, so “Follow-The-Money” is the first standard any of their decisions are grounded in. Some intrepid journalists still exist, but making a living at it is terribly hard. We say we want news, but we click on the entertaining celebrity-bait much more often than true deep journalism. Media is not out to inform us. It is out to sell us stuff. Along the way, there may be a fact or two.
Yep, and the ads are ubiquitous and unbearable. Have people noticed that there are more ads than content these days. Even streaming services sneak them in when I pay for no ads. Really sick of the sneaky bastards..
Since Reagan, Friedman's dictum of "The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits." has been regarded as a priori to the the Constitution. It seems to me that the overall quality of what is labeled "news" overall has fallen, but as you said, fine superior examples are still out there, though they somehow seem less socially salient than before Reaganomics, for a variety of reasons . Many of the (for me) evidentiary or "smoking gun" I repeatedly link to are a bit off the beaten track. If profit alone is all that matters, why not sell fentanyl? Excellent ROI.
It appears to me that celebrity is as old as humanity, but that electronic media has increased it's impact on society. It is common to see all manner or events that affect celebrity entertainers on the front page of papers or websites, including what they happen to have said about whatever. Reagan and Trump would never have been considered for the presidency without prior celebrity, though often just having big piles of money is major booster. It sucks from a practical, logical perspective, and it's a hell of a way to actually run a country. I don't know what to do about it, but limiting money spent to buy political outcomes would majorly help.
You are so right, and power-hungry celebrity is just as dangerous. Of course, buying political outcomes is what the cult leaders are all about. And the cult comes cheap. Just send the best carnival barker out to mesmerize
Thank you, Fern.
More evidence that 2016 was about much, much more than electing a President. It was about the future of the Supreme Court.* Bernie Bros, I hope you're happy. Magic Unicorn Believers, you had a hand in this too. It was a bus ride, not a marriage.
*Referring to the global concept of the Supreme Court, not the SCROTUS we have today.
While I applaud your detailed research and agree that lumping all writers together does a disservice to actual journalists, however it boggles my mind that 35 months after the orange monster left the WH the significance of the loss of this voluminous report has been brought to light!
Homeland Security department has become an oxymoron! What are the protocols on removing classified documents from a secure facility? Which group within our porous security apparatus has the responsibility to check the daily location of classified documents that have been ‘signed out’? Meadows took the document in question out of the WH, when did he return it? Who was suppose to check that it was returned? Who was to be notified that it was missing for several days? Who was responsible for questioning Meadows as to the location of the missing document?????
A low ranking military person is in prison for ‘mishandling’ classified documents! Why isn’t Meadows in prison for mishandling highly sensitive classified material????
The "Department of Homeland Security" is anything but. They certainly have nothing to do with the handling and storage of sensitive documents, that is NSA and other alphabet agencies.
Journalist have been unfairly demonized since Reagan, with his attacks on the NY Times. Journalists are the first line of defense of our democracy, And the last. When we lose them, we lose our freedom. Subscribe to as many outlets as you can afford.
Thank you for your recognition, Bryan, of the crucial role of journalists in spurring and maintaining democracies, I would say around the world.
What is happening to our journalists, the people who bring us the news:
'The Israel-Gaza war has taken a severe toll on journalists since Hamas launched its unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 and Israel declared war on the militant Palestinian group, launching strikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip.'
'CPJ is investigating all reports of journalists and media workers killed, injured, or missing in the war, which has led to the deadliest month for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.'
'As of December 15, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 63 journalists and media workers were among the more than 19,000 killed since the war began on October 7—with some 18,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Israel. The deadliest day of the war for journalist deaths was its first day, October 7, with six journalists killed; the second-deadliest day occurred on November 18, with five killed.' (CPJ, Committee to Protect Journalists)
'The year 2022 was deadly for members of the press. At least 67 journalists and media workers were killed during the year–the highest number since 2018 and an almost 50% increase from 2021, the Committee to Protect Journalists found. The rise was driven by a high number of journalist deaths covering the Ukraine war and a sharp rise in killings in Latin America.'
'CPJ has confirmed that at least 41 journalists and media workers were killed in direct connection with their work, and is investigating the motives for the killings of 26 others to determine whether they were work-related.'
'More than half of the 67 killings occurred in just three countries–Ukraine (15), Mexico (13), and Haiti (7), the highest yearly numbers CPJ has ever recorded for these countries.'
'In Mexico and Haiti, reporters were the targets of brutal murders for their work, and the vast majority of perpetrators have not been held to account. Mexico continues to feature on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which highlights countries where the killers of journalists get away with murder. '
'Others who lost their lives during the year covered a range of beats: crime and corruption in Colombia; political unrest in Chad, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Myanmar; the environment in Brazil; and local politics in Turkey and the United States. Their deaths underline the extent of threats faced by the press around the world, including in countries with democratically elected governments.'
'CPJ tracks three types of journalists’ deaths in relation to their work: targeted murders in reprisal for reporting–by far the largest category; deaths in combat or crossfire; and deaths on other dangerous assignments. CPJ also tracks the killings of media support workers, such as translators, drivers, and security guards; there was one such killing in 2022, in Kazakhstan.' ((CPJ, Committee to Protect Journalists)
***
We keep trying to know, with gratitude to our journalists, too many of them victims.
thank you for the gift link!
Yep Fern.. rolls calls of positions, in black and white; they can't hide if folks are reminded in black and white. Keep it up, and spread those facts widely. Brava !
With the very real possibility that the binder is already in the hands of Putin, it is even more important that the US continues to support Ukraine. Network news outlets should be reporting this.
Yes, Patricia -- likely indeed that Putin already has it.
Let's remember, Putin publicly celebrates the Republicans who've long now been assiduous traitors against the U.S. and democracies worldwide.
Remember, too, that these Republicans have one goal in being in government: never to govern.
In addition to supporting the world's worst dictators, ayatollahs, royal murderers, and systematic thieves of land, the U.S. Republicans yet have one true and consistent agenda for government. They buoy our worst billionaires. As Clarence and Alito take their bribes from the rich, so too do most Republicans keep voting tax cuts for them. So do they go along with efforts of the billionaires' foundations and lobbyists to end government workplace safety regulations, environmental protection, voting rights, any attempts to curtail AR-15s and mass murder, as well as any other attempts to rein in techies such as Elon Musk's efforts to spread hate speech and fascism.
The list gets longer and longer doesn’t it? (Funny I first wrote “lust.” A little Freudian slip I guess.)
You were probably right the first time 👍
A little bit of history aside: January 6th is Three Kings Day.
The three kings were:
Melichior was from what is now Iran.
Balthazar was from Arabia (Ethiopia)
Caspar was from India
On there way to find the new baby king of the Jews, they stopped off at Herods palace (which Jesus' mother Mary had left ... escaped?...) to get directions. Herod didn't know where she was, and asked them to come back after they found the new King. They didn't trust him, do they didn't return to him: Instead they left "by a different road". Herod, who was a tetrarch of Galilia territory of Judea, then had all the babies up to two years old murdered.
Royal Order:
Emperor
King
Duke
Marquess
Viscount
Baron
Baron Drumpf, he who would be king...
Donald Trumps' aspiration to be king of the USA is supported by being "a direct descendent of
King Hakon V of Norway,
related to Queen Margaret of Denmark,
related to Islandic Pres. Guon Th Johannesson of Iceland.
Sorry. LOL.
I laughed out loud: by this reasoning, D and I are cousins. I'd heave, but even if it were true, the degree of removal would be large: I doubt we have any shared genetic relationship at this point.
I am a trained genealogist. Couple of observations. There are books out there to help people find "descendancy" based largely on surname. Interesting to me that so many people doing what they think is genealogy don't do real research, but rely on material that is based on no or poor research, do not include citations, or are simply fabricated.
And here's the fun part: take any person of note of the past and, assuming they lived long enough to have descendants, the likelihood is that the number of descendants is in at least the hundreds or thousands. Mayflower descendants number in the millions. Some apply for membership, but darned if I get why- it doesn't make them any more important or special than anyone else (except other members, I guess).
When my family participated in a Johns Hopkins genetic study for a particular trait that originated in one man born in 1833 (my GGgrandfather), we already numbered in the several hundred. If that man had been royalty instead of merely a good businessman with a lot of kids, which of us would have inherited the title? (Irrelevant to this discussion, but it would have been a woman.)
As for Trump, his claim falls apart at the point his father (or grandfather- I forget) was asked to leave his country of birth and then asked to leave where he went. (Sorry for lack of specifics- but they are available online.) So, no lineage to fall back on. The USA doesn't have royalty. And, by god, we will make sure it stays that way, Donald's fanciful aspiration notwithstanding.
Yes, I agree it's a bit far fetched, and I don't take royalty seriously. I didn't site references because as far as I'm concerned, the whole idea of inherited superiority is silly. However tfg's followers and the clown car members often have silly ideas and perhaps they find this impressive.
I was so surprised to learn that in Portugal patients records are filed by the first name and at least up until lately all women's first names were either Mary, Magdelena or (sorry, forgot the other one), so dubbed by the local priest who keeps records of births, deaths and marriages, just as it did when the Church was the government (before nationhood - 1400's).
Interesting
Excellent list!
Did anyone think to look on eBay?
No, silly, that's for pardons.
Well, look in the "stores" of the same seller.
🤣
The issue with Putin's government having the binder is the people sources, and electronic means of gathering data would have been killed and stopped.
When I think it cannot get any worse, it does. Uncovering of this news comes at an incredibly scary time - Congress has walked away from Ukraine's fight to protect it's own democracy, and Hungary has kept the European Union from continuing its funding as well. Things are not going well for democracy. I am hopeful that the pendulum will swing upwards soon.
Things aren't going well for democracies that embrace the minority overruling the majority.
"...democracies that embrace the minority overruling the majority...." Should we even call such "democracies?"
To the degree that is true, it is tyranny; though even the majority can be a tyranny to the degree it violates and withholds or rights that belong to all from those in a minority.
Handy to have a Bill of Rights and an independent judiciary. "If you can keep it".
Democracy requires and educated and engaged public. CONservatives want neither. Why do you think they hate unions? Why do you think they hate the press that exposes them? Why do you think they hate the public education system?
Correct point becky.
Excellent point!!!
That is why it is of utmost importance that we have a free press. This is excellent work by CNN -- reminiscent of Woodward and Bernstein's work after Watergate. This is also why Trump has said that if he is reelected, he will go after the media, as well as those who have opposed him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/us/politics/trump-kash-patel-journalists.html
Also, remember that Justices Thomas and Gorsuch want to reconsider the 1964 landmark Sullivan decision, which requires proof of actual malice when the press covers public figures.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/us/clarence-thomas-libel-supreme-court.html
Our democracy, flawed as it is, is absolutely dependent on a free and independent press. We must do all we can to protect it.
Concentration of ownership is the enemy of a free and balanced press, and for that matter, a truly free country.
Why Rupert and repubs lobbied hard for Rupert to have a lion’s share. Bill Moyers warned us, back when it mattered
It always matters, but Bill Moyers was typically on target. The notion that a consuming obsession with the love of money can be evil isn't new; It seems to be an eternal struggle.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both” — Louis Brandeis
At no time in my long life has the threat been more real. WW2 brought me in, hope WW3 doesn’t bookend my life.
It depends on who the owners are. We were a more informed electorate when Knight Ridder, Tribune Publishing, Times Mirror, New York Times Regional Media Group, New York Times New England Media Group published newspapers in large and small markets. Their focus was on keeping the public informed, and the more successful papers subsidized those in smaller markets, for the benefit of readers and the companies.
Today, with several remaining chains owned by financial groups with no experience or interest in news, the focus is on shareholders, and readers pay high subscription rates for very little news. Even now, despite being owned by a billionaire, The Washington Post is cutting staff.
Our free press is under threat not only from politicians who "love the uneducated" and judges with an agenda, but also from the contagion of social media and those who monetize our news.
Reporting and publishing news, in any format, is expensive. It deserves the financial support of any of us who can afford to pay for it or gift it to students or others who can't pay.
And we must do everything we can to make certain Trump never get back in power. I really detest these criminals.
Susan, it is NOT just him. Look around. The policy positions all the GOP candidates have are the SAME. Even Christie. Look at the CONservative controlled states. They are the same.
Even Nikki Haley.
“ We are a non-partisan, all-volunteer, grassroots civic membership organization fighting for a more informative and pro-democracy media operating in the public interest.”
https://www.mediaanddemocracyproject.org/about
Kathy could you give some background on Brian Hansbury, the co-founder? And who is the other co-founder? Thanks.
Elizabeth,I’m not familiar with the co-founders.Milo Vassallo, the exec director for Media and Democracy Project spoke to our group. I was impressed with their efforts to block Fox /Philadelphia station’s broadcast license. Also with their local journalism directory.
Funding for Ukraine from the EU has been delayed for, perhaps, a month or two.
'EU leaders, who would prefer a deal backed by all members but also have a plan B, are expected to revisit the issue at an emergency summit at the end of January or early in February.'
"We are working very hard to have an agreement by 27 member states," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, adding: "But I think it is now also necessary to work on potential alternatives to have an operational solution in case that an agreement by 27, so unanimity, is not possible."
'German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron were among those expressing optimism on getting the aid to Kyiv, which is part of a broader multi-year EU budget plan.'
"We have other ways of helping Ukraine, but we have not given up on the goal of finding a solution here," 'said Scholz, who diplomats and officials said played a big role in getting Orban to leave the room to clear the way for a decision on starting accession talks.'
'Macron said the EU was "not blocked" from providing aid next year, adding he felt Orban had an incentive to reach a deal.'
'The EU could continue to help with a workaround that involved a deal between 26 members and Ukraine, which would also deny Budapest access to linked EU funds, such as on migration.' (Reuters) See link below.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarys-orban-blocks-aid-ukraine-says-he-can-still-halt-eu-accession-2023-12-15/
Ukraine needs funding now, but hopefully the EU will achieve a work-around. Nevertheless, it seems tragic that it has come to this.
Both tragic and stupid on the part of the religious MAGA zealot Johnson. I pray that he Raptures up soon and leaves us to deal with the collateral damage he and his “Freedom “ Caucus have inflicted on America.
This article is helpful and hopeful, however, what is the “incentive” for Orban that Macron is talking about? Freeing up extra funds that are locked?
I'v written to Congressmen John Rutherford and Don Bacon as well as Senator Collins. They ALL replied they back Ukraine 100%. I was even snarky and they replied.
But getting, Trump's puppet MJ to bring up a vote on funding is a non-starter. He's worse than McConnell when it comes to letting legislation fester and die.
Putin has been telling us who he is for many years. It should be hard to miss.
he was and will always be a Soviet Communist.
I have a simple question: Does Merrick Garland have the authority / justification to open a NEW investigation into the loss of this binder?
A new investigation resulting in new charges would mean a new judge would be assigned to the case.
I think it’s time for a new judge to be in charge as Trump is presumedly once again found to have been involved in top secret information being “misplaced”.
And related question: Garland to me is the LEAST aggressive prosecutor in the history of the DOJ. Can someone please light a fire under his ...
We could all write to Garland and make your suggestion about opening a new investigation.
Thanks for the suggestion. I have never heard of the DOJ responding to public requests. And my Google search on "Does the DOJ respond to public requests for prosecutions?" only returned information about public Freedom Of Information Requests. So, my guy tells me contacting them would not help. However... writing to Congress demanding that it publicly call for a new investigation... and also writing letters to the editor of our local newspapers might have some effect.
I'm sure you are right, but I always wonder if a pile-up of public info messages specific to one topic is noticed, so I do it. And my Congressman? He's in Republican lockstep. We're "in dialog" about why he voted for the impeachment investigation.
YES!
I was going to reply to your last point, but I'm tired of beating the dead horses owned by political illiterates.
Tom, you’ve helped this political illiterate many times. I absolutely get that you’re tired and I want you to know you do help. What were you going to say about that last sentence?
You can do it fast a screw it up, or you can do it slower and get it right. They delayed too long in starting the legal chase of Trump, but there's an old aying, "when you aim for the king, you must not miss."
Yes. Even an illiterate like me sees that clearly. Let them do their jobs! Thank you.
I haven't notice you doing or saying anything to get put at the children's table, Susan. You seem pretty literate to me. :-)
I can’t believe that I agree with Rubio on anything but I do, on this issue. A wondrous settlement for Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss! I pray that they, at least, get a few million each. They so deserve every last penny that Rudy has. Guess he will have to cash in on his shell companies that he has refused to divulge.
The case of the missing binder is in Putin’s hot little hands. Why else would he be acting so full of himself right now? Let’s not forget the word “collusion”. We have quite a few traitors among us, it’s obvious. Smells like treason is in the air.
O…M…G…he talked about showing the info to people months after the fact. He had the binder. What did he do with it???????
Wow
Gobsmacked?
Outraged??
F*cking Pissed!!?
A ten-inch thick binder about Russian interference in US elections {and they want us to believe there’s “no THERE there ….”!!!!}, and Bill Barr says, “Nothing to see here.”
They call the Mueller investigation a nothing burger?
Yeah, we need to see way more about this binder and hear more about how that crook Trump needs to be behind bars.
Isn’t it curious how Billy Barr has seemingly turned on tfg? That is so out of character, it’s a head shaker.
That guy is a snake slithering in the shadows. Sociopathic at the very least, and interested only in furthering his own agenda. He sheds his skin and puts on new anytime the occasion calls for a change in voice, in message, in the person of Mr. Barr.
Sociopathic, at the very least!!
He enabled the Orange Disaster. Barr is as much to blame for the damage Donnie does as Donnie himself is.
I call him “Barr Nun” or “Barr None”. Let’s not forget that it was he who decided when he was Bush’s AG that no sitting president could be indicted.
And Bill Barr's father gave Jeffery Epstein his first job.
Yes I know. Creeps, all of them!
They enjoyed similar "literature."
Yes, he did,
He also convinced Bush-1, Daddy Bush, to exonerate the Iran Contra Bunch and let the Reagan White House off the hook for all that criminal behavior… Barr is an elitist, arrogant, ethics-free POS.
Kind of Kissinger-like?
Lo-barr.
Ha! Good
He HELPED tfg become who he is. Barr’s rehab tour hasn’t worked with me. He’s a POS.
Is the "piece" or "pile"?
Either works.
He knows where the bodies are buried and he could tell, so far he hasn’t
Rudy will never pay a dime to anyone.
He will keep the case in court for the rest of Ruby Freeman's life while she lives in a borrowed home waiting for justice that will never happen.
Mike S, what really tears at my heart is exactly what you say: justice that will never happen. These women will never have a moment of peace because it has been shown that the MAGA will never believe anything opposite to their beliefs. No amount of money will ever return their good names to them. They will look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives.
Well put Miselle. I love that - the MAGA will never believe anything opposite to their beliefs.
That is the crux of it -- isn't it.
I think that the crux of any cult, a prohibition against questioning what the powers to be have to say; though not everyone who goes along is fully locked.
I cannot help but feel that people are not connecting that if this can happen to Moss and Freeman, it can happen to anybody. I wonder what the script would read like - what greater attention this all would have, if Moss and Freeman happened to be white women?
If we let it. Aroused public sentiment could make a difference.
I hope Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss are able to collect at least a portion of the $ from Guiliani.They did settle last year with One America News.
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-lawsuits-georgia-presidential-7129d2297bef9959fb8c9b827ec264bb
The smell of treason has been in the air for a long time.
Don't allow yourself to forget the curmudgeon that was living in the White House basement, rent free.
Which one was that?
Bannon.
Ugh. A curmudgeon indeed.
But WHEN will they receive a single penny. Rudy has been pulling an Alex Jones, moving money around like it's a game of 3 card monte.
Doing a LOT of head-shaking reading this. Again I ask myself for the umpteenth time "WHAT WILL IT TAKE to finally convince DJT's followers of his treachery???" I simply cannot comprehend how beings who consider themselves high-order primates -- which for some of them might be a stretch -- can continue to tune out the most damning and irrefutable evidence against the man. I never will get it, which, when I think about it, might be a good thing. Mary Trump early this afternoon wrote about this very document case and the links to her uncle:
https://marytrump.substack.com/p/breaking-donald-secret-intel-missing
The Giuliani settlement really was eye-popping. It will be interesting to see any possible repercussions of this on other cases coming up here in Georgia. The federal judge really made a point of showing that they're gonna play hardball in the future, so get ready. And of course, DJT won't lift a finger to help Giuliani in any way. How is it there under that bus, Rudy??
And with all that's going on in the world, when countries are depending on us to help lead them to prevail over enemies that would annihilate them, what does the Republican party in the House do but continue to harp on Hunter Biden, and, at the very summit of insanity, open impeachment investigations into President Biden??? I mean, this simply is beyond comprehension. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!! Idiot, one and all.
Okay, I'm off to bed before I get myself too worked up. Maybe I'll wake up and this nightmare will be over . . . glad to see HCR showing up so "early" (for her!). Night y'all . . .
They're not tuning it out, they're embellishing their counter-narrative. Those higher up in the Trump conspiracy pyramid see it as a power struggle; facts have little meaning to them, IMO.
I broke my own "rule" to not read HCR until the morning with coffee. Now, it is the wee hours and I'm wide awake!!
Fortunately, I slept well, but the past 2 days have involved moving stuff out of a storage unit after 15 years and dispensing with/donating a lot of other stuff. I was really tired so I conked right out! Not even T***p could keep me awake last night!
I am glad that I kept my rule. Still woke up too early.
The WH fb page is where they all post their poison comments & pattycake each others shit
Isn’t that what fb is for
To be nasty? It is like a mass Jim Jones
Jane Hawk Novels by Dean Koontz
WH Facebook page? Are you referring to the White House Facebook page or something else?
The WH Facebook page is "Trollandia" and I wouldn't go near it.
Bruce, there is no way to convince T's devoted followers to see. It's not them we need to worry about anyway. There really aren't enough of them. It's the people directly around him: those with power and money who pull strings, his handimen, his "enforcers", the people who think they will benefit from another T presidency, or who fear reprisal from him (or those who control him) unless they toe the line.
As the legal process continues and more of T's associates can no longer hide, or are thrown under the bus, I get more hopeful that Democracy will prevail. And there is hope for the Congress as well IF we do the work and support the candidates who have a chance at replacing the dotards who are merely taking up space and media misdirection. The more we gripe about Trump and get lost in the weeds of all the court cases, the less time and energy we have to learn about these other races and the less will we have to actually do something to support Biden. We have to get out of our own silo and focus more on how we can change the dynamic.
The legal processes are at work. We don't have to constantly analyze them to be able to use them as tools in our attempts to get things back on track. .
I agree, of course, about the inner associates in T***p's circle being the scariest and most worrying, BUT, Annie, as I said above, all of these silly polls that keep showing T***p with a sometimes large lead are not just among his inner circle. How can you say, "There really aren't enough of them" when so many of these polls people are coming up with seem to show there ARE plenty more of them than we'd like to think? Who are they polling then? My query is more about how much longer will these people keep supporting him as the more serious and the more numerous crimes begin to be uncovered. It may not be a sudden light-bulb going off with everyone with them all suddenly forsaking him. Maybe it will be a more gradual whittling away of his support. I don't know. As you said, though, I think the "onus is on us" (see what I did there?) to work as hard as we can locally and state-wide to get the messages out there, get behind candidates we can support, and thereby make serious inroads into the representations in Congress. THAT is where our strength can be the most effective and get that pendulum to swing back in our favor. T***p's minions can't do harm if they don't have enough support in Congress.
Dang, I just wrote a response regarding polls and then a blip of some sort made it vanish, So I'll just stick with this about the polls: Joyce Vance and Simon Roseburg, among others, have written extensively on the problems with these polls and why they don't mean much at this point. Come to think of it, so have I, but my writing isn't gathered together in a neat little bundle somewhere,
The first thing to remember is that it is too early for polls to gather anything but a snapshot based on where we are now, which is a chaotic whirlwind of conflicting information and disinformation. It is nearly impossible to identify a poll sample that is representative of the target population, and large enough to produce real data. Nearly all the polls fall short on this. And add to this that a lot of the "polls" are just plain sloppy both in construction and in analysis, and meaningless from the get-go. (Not even considering the "polls" that are not polls, but ways to build target lists for fund-raising.)
Everyone who is knowledgable about polls and their limitations even in the best of conditions is saying it is a good idea to basically ignore the polls right now. It's not even election season yet. A lot of people have no idea if they are going to vote, let along how, but will gamely take a stab,. A lot of people would rather not say even when they do know. Or they are ambivalent but don't want to seem like it. We humans are funny like that. I've already mentioned a few of the problems regarding analysis.
About the only thing you can tell from polls right now is that the media is still trying to cover elections like horse races, but haven't a clue how that might work- or that there's an actual way of covering the campaigns through real journalism. So yeah, I agree with you that it is on us, and I agree that we really need to put our energy into creating a Congress that is serious about doing it's job.
Yeah, I loved your pun. It was cute. I like cute puns.
Some wanna-be "analysts" even break down what might be a good poll sample into subsamples and try to use them to assign characteristics to a much larger population set, That immediately destroys any validity that poll might have had, because (if it is a good poll) the questions are designed for the original poll population. Breaking it down into pieces results in sample sizes too small to draw ANY conclusions at all. Doesn't seem to keep these bozos from trying, though.
All you said about the polls I believe heart & soul. Vance, Rosenberg, and Robert Hubbell are all part of my daily reading. Hubbell especially really rips the polling apart as totally unreliable, and I think that's probably right. (Substack is overwhelmingly what I read the most these days.) Still, some of these polls ARE polling actual population segments and I just think it is folly to totally dismiss all of them. Down here in a solidly red part of Georgia, believe me, T***p is still as popular as ever and polls here show him still with commanding leads. These folks are going to be the last holdouts for T***p, I know it. (Marjorie Taylor Greene's district is next to the one I'm in . . . ) That's why my hope for the tide to turn against T***p rests largely with the rest of the country, 'cause it'll be a cold day in hell when it changes here!
Well noted here, Bruce. Georgia is what it is, and living there is bound to make good people feel disheartened (though I am deeply impressed by what people there have accomplished in recent years). As for polls, even the polls you note as polling actual population segments are still way out ahead of themselves. Even a well-done poll is still only a snapshot of a segment of a time and place. It is not a prediction, as many pollsters have discovered to their dismay. When we allow ourselves to be distracted by polls- all of which are questionable right now- I think we give up our own agency in making change. As we get closer to election day, polls may be able to give a clearer snapshot. Though this may be the year that polls finally become pointless. How can they poll people who don't answer their phones? How can they poll people who aren't on their radar? How can they poll people who don't trust polls, and avoid them?
I don't blame you for being discouraged. I feel discouraged by my town, frequently, though not my state, and polls have nothing to do with my feelings about either. Observation and experience do. I only have so much energy, and I want to make it count. That's why I am in the process of disengaging from local politics, and returning to what I did the last couple of years: joining in with people from all over to help get out the vote in places with close races where our efforts and donations can make a difference in the outcome.
I truly believe we're in this together, as JV reminds us. I'm sad for the people of places like Georgia and Texas and Idaho. But all those places have people who are working for change too. I am not a praying person in the conventional sense, but I pray almost constantly that we all pull off what we must: keep the magaright from achieving control anywhere, and create at a minimum a Congress that functions as it should, for the welfare of the American people. All of us.
It's possible this information may not be covered thoroughly on FOX or the other "news" outlets many of his supporters watch.
They watch faux news, and if they read, they read right wing conspiracy by all the wing nuts out there.
Exactly why the real chump was never seen by the maggots
I keep wondering, though, HOW they can NOT report some of this stuff?? At some point they're going to have to crack the door open to learn what's going on. Fox has already grudgingly admitted, for example, the lack of evidence in trying to impeach Biden, they've mentioned the positive economic numbers, and there HAS been a small amount of reporting that is critical of T***p. This is judging from some clips I've seen. Yeah, Hunter Biden is still their favorite "whipping boy", but once all this legal stuff T***p is involved in starts to snowball next year, they're NOT going to be able to ignore it. I still think between now and primary season in the spring & summer a LOT could happen to affect T***p's puzzling lead in some polls. We're really in uncharted waters right now historically.
Does anyone recall Cassidy Hutchinson saying that Mark burned a lot of papers in his office fireplace in the last days of Trump’s presidency? It could be that the missing documents were destroyed by Mark by tossing them in the fire.
Nina T McKee
Interesting. I’d forgotten that.
I remember.
Everyone should read the paragraph that begins with”Russia, Russia, Russia..” several times. Trump was not legit in 2016, and he will not be legit in 2024 because the crimes, lies, corruption, bribery, threats and treachery from this man have only increased. If another pandemic occurred, he would deny it as he did before. He has serious psychological problems and he acts them out when given power. He acts them out under the guise of leadership, but he is giving away our freedom and our national security. How can anyone forget Helsinki?
His tenure as president should be erased, he was put in by Putin. The damage can’t be undone, but his “stature” should be in the toilet.
What's the over/under that those 2,700 pages are among the papers Meadows was burning in his fireplace the month before the criminals were thrown out of the White House? Meadows is a definite dumbass (flunked out of college), so it's definitely not outside the realm of possibility, especially with four years' experience that the worse the thing said about that crew, the more likely it was true.
Better the fireplace than Putin’s hands. But the fireplace would negate any proof of the cheating which would make his “presidency” illegal.
Even without those documents we all know there is enough evidence of his and his cronies' treasonous and criminal actions to hang them - figuratively and/or literally. We just can't keep having stall tactics derail their convictions. lt is a really bad look, sets a terrible precedent, empowers the Maggots to continue to run amok while terrorizing and destroying everyone else's lives - here and around the world. Even as a psych major from the days of old and learning about the mindset behind cults and group think, I simply have never gotten my head around how evil rises and the masses blindly follow. All the psycho babble in the world can't explain and we certainly have never been able to prevent.
I couldn't agree more. The leaders, I understand. Power and greed. But the followers, hate is the only thing I can come up with.
Here's what I come up with: Embracing the role of victim easily explains why their lives aren't what American Dream ideology told them to expect. Easy to translate into hate of some other group if you believe in hierarchy and need someone below you. This is a good moment to return to George Lakoff's writing.
Yep, that pecking order comes in handy when you are looking for someone to blame.
Look in Ivanas coffin at the golf course of Trumps it seems her death was abrupt and presents some questions . Also the fact that his ex wife was buried in Trumps golf course is of interest
Patricia, little Ivana wasn't very heavy, yet many men (6, 8 ???) struggled to carry her coffin for burial in the privately-owned golf course. What else was in there besides her remains?
It’s almost Christmas and we’re still stuck in Halloween. The vampires and ghoulish goblins are everywhere.
An interesting theory that has been making the rounds…but if you bury something like that in a basically VERY weird “graveyard for one”how exactly would you access the nefarious contents? Middle of the night grave robbing? That would surely leave traces, yeah? TFFG strikes me as someone who would want to be able to see and fondle his “precious” (think Golem from Lord of the Rings) papers.
Exactly why I suspect something is up....to many men carrying that coffin.
The whole episode was odd. And the whole Trump tribe with spouses and progeny lined up on the steps of the church - but no pictures inside the church, for the delicate publicity-shy widower (widower? she was two wives ago).
And she was cremated...
Right you are. Buried on his golf course? There is something extraordinarily creepy and crass about that image.
Especially the photos of it overgrown with weeds.
This has warning lights all over it. Yet, not much interest.
Sorry, but that falls under the category of "ain't gonna happen."
Has anyone audited any of the 5 Trump kid's taxes?
Is the IRS auditing any of the returns of the accountants that prepared Trump's returns?
Of course we could go on and on with so many MAGANAZIs illegal activities.
I think she’s buried there so he can spit on her grave.
Thank you for this crucial information. Why aren’t the networks reporting this?
MSNBC IS! They had the writers of the article on.
Does one MAGAt watch that?
Well, it’s clear. Perfectly clear. Our decades long deadly nightmare continues. No matter where we look, the Trump Fox Murdoch GOP government based shit show rolls, threatening certain death to intel assets, world wide.. terrifying our allies and our presidents alike. Trump hid his transcripts, threatened his schools that passed him through, a failure in every sense of the word. The sick angry insecure racist Orange Man rapes, lies, cheats, and bankrupts his birthright. His record is perfect. He failed at everything... and The Big Lie GOP will go down like Sir Rudy Giuliani or the republic will fail, exactly as Ben Franklin postulated - a Republic If You Can Keep it.
Again I must ask; why is Trump not waiting for his trial while sitting in jail? Every day he is a threat to the safety and security of this country. The Massachusetts kid who released documents to his friends is in jail. Send the Vindman brothers to Mar-A-Lago with a warrant. Throw Trump in the hooscow and don’t let him have contact with the public until they see him in court. But our Maginot courts sit quietly and do nothing.
IMHO, the justices of the federal court are mindful of what the implications will be for the future of the two "co-equal branches of government" if the judiciary tosses a former president in the pokey for violation of a pre-trial gag order. It's not tFfg they are thinking about, but the office that he formerly occupied. Since he doesn't give a flying f*** about anything or anyone other than himself, including future occupants of the office he once occupied OR the judiciary, he can walk all over the courts' directives until they finally throw up their hands and take that step, or until someone truly gets hurt when a crazed acolyte sneaks an AR-15 past courthouse security and massacres all the occupants of a courtroom. Then he'll have gone a step too far and get a real muzzle. Sadly, someone has to die first...
Your assessment is chillingly accurate.
Maybe because the people who have the authority to jail him fear for the physical safety of their families should they actually proceed?
And the probability that another Jan 6 would occur, except there'll be rioting everywhere and anywhere this time.
I’m not afraid of rioting by Trump’s faction so much. It’s because deep down, or more likely not so deep down, the red hat’s knew it was a game all along. They knew or suspected it was all lies. The only cause they have left to fight for is not losing face. I don’t think after all that has happened they have the heart for a fight. Many likely want to keep their democracy. The Christians though? They may want to kick some ass for Jaysus.
I don’t think they are organized enough, nor do they want to face live ammunition-- they were protected on Jan. 6. The danger is one or two crazies with rapid fire weapons.
The problem is when someone has tens of millions to spend on lawyers who can file 200 losing motions and delay trial for years.
The cult is sincere in their madness, at least in Texas
Ugh. Right to the stomach.
The more of this kind of stuff that comes out, the more Justice Department investigations are needed and the more heads need to ultimately roll. History will record how the American people elected a petty criminal and F***ing IDIOT to the presidency and the evidence of his criminality (and that of his inner circle) will simply grow and grow with additional time and disclosure. Just as justice continued to find members of the SS for decades after WWII, I hope the justice will relentlessly follow all of the collaborators in the shady business of the Ex45 administration and bring them down one by one, right up until the last one takes his or her last breath behind bars. We felt some national embarrassment over Watergate for quite some time; their transgressions were child's play compared to the 2017-2021 tenure of Ex45.