After interviewing more than 300 people, issuing more than 50 subpoenas, and reviewing more than 35,000 pages of documents, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S.
We can take pride and comfort from knowing that the Jan 6 Special Committee is steadily doing the work to discover the true story of what led to this shocking event by those who perpetrated it. The principals behind the assault on our Capitol and who fomented an attempt to steal the presidency from the majority who voted to elect President Biden, will be prosecuted and tried; many, many will be convicted and barred from ever being able to serve in public office again. This is as it should be and most definitely will be; there is ample time for this to happen. Our system of laws and due process guarantees it. The Important thing for all of us to realize is that our democracy will not only keep functioning and steadily improve over time, but that the bad actors who dared to put themselves above the will of the people and scheme to steal the election after stirring up a group of disaffected and sorry individuals to literally violently attack our Capitol and prevent Congress from doing its job, will pay dearly for what they did, tried to do and are still agitating to do. The fog of authoritarianism will lift and burn away from Washington in the days ahead and be gone for decades. So much good work ahead for 2022, and in the years ahead that will make America a better nation, and example for the world of what a great democracy can achieve. Happy New Year everyone.
It does seem that the wheels of justice turn much, much faster for the poor, misguided peons that actually listened to Trump, whom they thought was their President asking for help, and raided the Capitol.
Many, many, many are already in jail.....case closed. Felonies on their record to ensure no gainful employment going forward.
But, the pied Piper that literally the entire world watched on Television openly requesting the violent raid? Trump.....?
Trump remains ensconced in the comfort of Mara Lago, walled in by the protection of the Secret Service and wound tightly in a web of lawyers, because of due process, habeas corpus, and a labyrinth of other laws designed to protect rich people who have openly broken the law.
Yes, it’s painfully true that the Justice system tilts away from the poor, immigrants and anyone without the ways and means to mount a reasonable defense. So, yes, many of the people who stormed the Capitol emboldened by the former president are already paying a price for their transgression. But rest assured, the January 6 SC is coming for those who conceived and directed the assault, watched it happen on TV without trying to stop it and try now to resist the efforts of the SC to get to the bottom of it. Everything the committee learns will be shared with AG Garland who will vigorously pursue and prosecute those in question.
Keith, thanks for the well written and confident reply.
In my former job as an engineering manager, I used to tell my team members, some who were highly confident (like all attributes a mixed blessing), that....
"you cannot eat confidence".
But, you can take home "results" and buy some bacon.
So, I am heartened by your confidence and look very much forward to some results where seeing Trump pay some penalty for his lifelong pursuit of crooked outcomes including overthrowing a legit election.
Since I trained myself not to be confident or pessimisstic, but, to keep my eye on measurable, discernable project progress.......I will withhold my own perspective and just keep looking for.....
And Keith, the public will have the pleasure of actually seeing those who committed or assisted in these crimes on television. The squirming, given the lame excuses by the guilty, is something I am reveling in.
The cases involving the "poor, misguided peons" are by far the easiest and fastest to prove. Their prison sentences send a signal to those who planned and executed the attempted coup that justice is coming, however slowly. And some of the peons are in a position to share evidence about the planning. So things are unfolding just as they should. The exception could be what's happening or not happening within the confines of the Justice Department. Will Trump and his army of acolytes ultimately be indicted after the House committee makes criminal referrals to the department? That question hangs over the nation.
As for due process and habeas corpus, they're not designed to protect rich people. They're designed to protect everyone and are key pillars of our democracy. The problem is that rich people can afford legions of lawyers exploit them via endless delay.
I share your frustrations with how slow things move. Pace seems to be accelerating, and I suspect we'll start to see big news on several fronts starting next week. The drip-drip of increasingly damning information from the House committee is like the military "softening" a target with bombs before the troops swoop in. The committee is preparing every one, I think, for blockbuster revelations followed by criminal referrals. I've long hoped that the New York investigations, civil and criminal, help educate the MAGA crowd about who their hero truly is. Not that many are open to the real reality.
"Our system of laws and due process guarantees it." But it takes a society that respects such laws - or even understands them - to implement them. I like your optimism. I support it. But I wake up everyday and am still stunned that the people who believe in the "Big Steal" and those that remain un-vaccinated number in the millions instead of the thousands.
Our civilization has failed in education. Grade: F
Below is from a reader's comment that I found exquisitely enlightening about DJT followers and the formula of " blind loyalty". I copied them for myself. They are worth repeating.
"...I want to nudge the focus of the perception of the type of power an authoritarian leader has over their followers. It is a form of identity grooming, extended to groups that are hungry for a positive self-identity. The self-identity offered by the authoritarian leader to their followers quickly gives them the status of being favored by a powerful person or party, of being special, and of being right. It is an intensely experienced sudden elevation of their perceived status, and contributes to their intense loyalty. They have not experienced such importance, and high regard, in their lives previously. That the extension of this positive identity is manipulative, dangerous and untrue. It is not visible to those who have embraced it until something happens to reveal the dishonesty of their leader. And even then, for the loyal followers, the betrayal of their loyalty is hard for them to believe. It is important to recognize, that the strong emotional bonds the follower has are not only to the leader, but also to the positive self-identity which the manipulative leader bestowed on them."
(Without the author's permission, a mental healthcare professional, I've not disclosed their identity).
Do you think it is just the manipulative leader or the cause that has been festering for a long time? Reference yesterdays LFAA as well as Timothy Snyder's recent essay.
Not an either/or thing here. I think that the situaton has been festering for a long time, and that has several sources: the Movement Conservatives movement since Reagan, the outsourcing of almost all manufacturing to countries where the wage is $17 per day rather than per hour, and the virulent racism that has been brought into the light (IMO prompted by the election of a Black man as president) and fostered by the failure of the US to appropriately address racial inequity (along with the attempted genocide of the indigenous population) following the civil war.
There has been no upward mobility so death of the American Dream, particularly since Unions have lost their power after air traffic controllers lost under Reagen.
...the decimated middle-class, the enormous transfer of wealth from the people to the ultrarich, the disappearance of communities, ah, and the Donor Class...so it goes.
To all that you can add mass immigration of more than 1 million annually. There is a new book: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-year History of Immigration surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck.
The book is solidly researched, covering the literature on academic economic history (very readably, despite 296 footnotes), multiple gov't commissions on immigration reform, all of which recommended substantial reductions in immigration, articles from Black periodicals, and statements from Black leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were all downwardly mobile due to mass immigration. (Back then, employers would send ships to Europe to bring back immigrants, analogous to what companies like Infosys are doing today.)
Beck also gives the lie to the notion that there are jobs American workers won't do, interviewing Black farmworkers who had been pushed off the land by employers wanting a more malleable workforce that would work for less, because the immigrant workers were willing to sleep in trucks or many in a room which the Black Americans wouldn't do.
Meat packers, he writes, disproportionately African American, beginning in the 1920s had fought their way into wages that in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s provided comfortable middle class lives for their families. But a new, anti-worker business model that depended on mass immigration, in the 1980s caused meat packing to collapse back into being the poorly paid job it is today.
Beck emphasizes that immigrants should not be blamed. It is Congress that has failed to reduce immigration, even following the recommendations of various immigration reform commissions that they do so.
He also notes that currently, earlier waves of immigrants are often the victims of the oversupply of cheap labor due to mass immigration policies. As are low/no-skilled whites.
It should also be noted that Biden gets the least support for his immigration policies--35% in a recent poll. The Democratic party has neglected its traditional base, greatly to its detriment.
Alas, the mainstream media hasn't been reporting on this story. I did send a copy of the book to the NPR public editor. The book is $9 from Amazon.
I also have come to believe that "media" - news and internet social media have evolved into entertainment for big money - has created this alternative disconnected reality that we all live in. It's like tumbling around in an avalanche of propaganda and story telling noise. Some of us can pick out reality, refer to history, see patterns as a gymnast does in spotting when they leave the ground in a flip. Or like navigating a ship in fog with occasional buoys to guide us. Our spotting references keeps us more or less on track. But many others lose their way, falling prey to those who use this chaos and alternative reality, taking them way off course until there is no finding solid ground or land. This psychological and social antigravity that we find ourselves in as technology removes us from direct eye, hand, touch, hearing contact with our physical world is simply the ether that psychopaths exploit. This doesn't look hopeful for those who have lost it. Nor for those who find that they are alone or only in small groups with reality.
This is the lure of “ the strong man” oft seen in Latin America and now around the world as authoritarianism emerges everywhere. I never thought we (USA)would fall for this but how wrong could I be?!?!
That author is so correct! Thanks, Barry, for sharing. Do you have a lot of snow. I'm from Maine, but live in York, PA, and we didn't get any snow until yesterday morning for our first of the year. But it was only maybe an inch. The temp is to reach 46F today with rain, and the snow will be gone!
I'm on the balmy peninsula in Portland. We've had some gentle, manageable snows - enough to create a holiday postcard. Today it is drizzling and a warming trend, followed by rains will alter the landscape.
I'm from Kittery originally, and read from somebody on the town's email group that Rte. 95 was awful a couple of days ago. I would say that Global Warming is not a Big Lie. Growing up, I learned that January is the coldest month, while February gets the most snow. I'll bet Winter will be milder and shorter than in the past, those of us who garden shall be able to plant perhaps a month ahead of usual. Thanks for the Portland weather report!
Bill Though it was a different time (seems eons ago—even occasional bipartisanship), the American public didn’t seem overly concerned about Watergate until close to the end, when support for Nixon plunged precipitously and a group of Republican senators went to the White House to tell Nixon that he was kaput.
Today you have a significant cadre of Trumpites who, like anti-vaxers, deny clear facts and swallow the BIG LIE and that 1/6 at the Capitol Building was akin to a ‘typical tourist day’ and/or that non-MAGA troublemakers sparked this demonstration.
Perhaps I am naive in believing that the staccato presentation of ‘smoking gun’ evidence of how Trumpist perpetrators sought to trash the Constitution and organize a deadly insurrection will have an impact on a majority of Americans. If they don’t give a damn, then I lament for my (and your) country.
Agreed. I think we tend to forget that there were Americans during Nixons time that ultimately just gave up a losing game.
And that needs to be the case today. Most of us are solidly entrenched in our belief camps. But there is a significant number of independents who need to be persuaded. They hold the key to our future.
It is “We the People”. Democracy allows adversaries and opponents. The work of the Select Committee guides and restores the democratic process to prevent that which is allowed for its people from becoming enemies and war.
The former’s “war rooms” is the crime against this country that will be prosecuted.
Fern Perhaps David was naive thinking he could go against Goliath. Perhaps Judge Sirica was naive thinking he could break open the Watergate conspiracy. Perhaps Churchill was naive when he sought to get Great Britain to survive against Hitler’s Panzers and Stukas.
I prefer to exude hope in vexing situations rather than simply supinely surrender. I even believe that the tide may turn sharply and that by mid-late-November President Biden might credibly proclaim that IT’S MORNING AGAIN IN AMERICA—pandemic down, economy up, employment way up, inflation down, the BIG LIE and 1/6 insurrection exposed in House hearings and being criminally processed by the DOJ.
P. S. My great aunt and my aunt were named Hope. Might that affect my penchant for being positive rather than negative?
There is nothing wrong with optimism in the face of adversity, as long as you see clearly what you’re up against. Churchill knew what he was up against. We are up against a juggernaut of 74 million white supremacists who will do anything they can to preserve white rule in the US. At present, they are busy passing laws to not only suppress Democratic votes but also to allow state legislatures to send their own electoral slate to Congress, regardless of the popular vote in their states. I hope we can prevent the collapse of US democracy into a white autocracy, and I will do what I can to prevent it. I’m not optimistic about the chances of success, but that won’t keep me in a supine position. The opposite. I hope you and millions of others will do the same, regardless of your mental state in the optimist/pessimist dimension. That’s what it will take to have any hope of success.
Keith, It was this line of yours that I echoed, 'Perhaps I am naive in believing that the staccato presentation of ‘smoking gun’ evidence of how Trumpist perpetrators sought to trash the Constitution and organize a deadly insurrection will have an impact on a majority of Americans.' Rather than writing as I did, ' Perhaps, you are naïve, Keith...' concerning how the majority of Americans will respond to the public hearings, I should have noted my own uncertainly about how most Americans would react. The pandemic has kept us farther apart and seems to have raised the flames of mistrust. Without knowing what the hearings will be like and with far too little sense of many millions of Americans, I am uncertain, and regret that I didn't write strictly about myself in that regard.
Can you imagine being in a state that is neither negative about our outcome or hopeful either? Concerned as never before, looking for ways to make it better, to find openings without a sense of clarity about where we will be a year from now -- that is me.
But you haven’t given up Fern. You are still here and fighting everyday for democracy to prevail. You will still follow the news and vote with knowledge instead of blindly clicking all the R’s or D’s on the ballot. You will know who your candidates are. That’s a sign you are still hopeful.
As I waited in the checkout line in Costco I had a conversation with a woman. She told me about how a Hispanic ground’s maintenance man was beaten almost to death by a white man at 10:30 am. I commented I hadn’t seen that in the paper and asked if it was racially motivated. She shrugged. After a discussion about our representatives for the district changing because of the new maps (yay, we have been moved to a more Democratic district and Issa is not our rep) went on to tell me that she doesn’t turn on the news or pay attention to politics. But she reads the paper. I wondered if she just discards the politics section of the newspaper. There was a huge article on redistricting. How could you not care about who represents you? Or maybe she didn’t want to admit she was a Republican.
Yes, Keith, that might have affected your penchant for being positive rather than negative. Let us hope(that thing with feathers) the static and fog of our media, and our internet, radio and TV systems disappears so that we all may learn the truth.
As a former educator I would say, you can't force people to learn when they are not interested in learning. What we see here are traits that have been with us since we fell out of the trees or walked out of the caves. One prevalent one is fear and as history shows us time and time again, fear is easy for demagogues to stir up. There is also the power of unsubstantiated views which are much easier to spread thanks to social media. Then there are those who proclaim they believe that the gods or in our time, Jesus, who will save them from whatever is happening that they do not understand. One current example of a blind death star donny follower is that rube here in Oregon who ended his conversation with Biden with a slur. He got a lot of negative feedback, so first he said it was a joke, the usual excuse when these people find that not everyone thought it was a good thing. Then Steve Bannon called and we got the whole picture. The rube is a Trumper and of of course a believer in Jesus Christ. (Here I always wonder if these people have read any of the first three Gospels.) We also found out that he is a former LE officer which wasn't surprising either.
Michele As a former educator—history/economics professor from age 58 to 80–I agree that ‘you can’t force people to learn when they are not interested in learning.’ However, I discovering that when some of my students were thrown into a learning bath tub, a number, flaying a bit, began to learn—and even enjoy it. On the Big Lie and the 1/6 Capitol Building insurrection, the staccato repetition of ‘false facts’ won’t sway die-hard Trumpistas.
However, increasing focus on the criminal nature of what Trump and his sycophants sought to engineer against the Constitution and in inciting a deadly insurrection could have an impact on those who haven’t bothered with the specifics. (Some of the TV clips could be devastating.)For some, the entire sordid affair might best be explained in a comic book. I am confident, were I still teaching. American history, that a majority of my working-class students would eventually understand that the BIG LIE and its afterlife were bs on a platter. Do I have too much faith in the ‘American people?”
I share your optimism, Keith, that a certain percentage of "reluctant" learners, as I call them, will be persuaded by the facts. And the slow moving arc of morality will swing a little closer toward justice and truth. We won't persuade the die-hards, but gradually we will gain more adherents to the truths the Commission will reveal. Plus, there has got to be a big segment of influential Republicans who know the truth and will not vote for any Trumpers running for office. And there are many (?) ordinary folks against Trump and his ilk: https://rvat.org/ We also see former Trumpers jumping ship as he insists on the Big Lie and looking elsewhere for a leader. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-s-2020-fixation-putting-him-odds-some-his-biggest-n1286602. This is all good news.
However, I don't know how this will work at the ballot boxes given the gerrymandering and new voting restrictions in place. Can this coalition of former Republicans change parties, vote Democrat, and swing the election in 2024?
And of course, we must include what the Repub majority state legislatures are doing by writing "laws" that allow those very legislators to overturn the the will of the voters regarding elections. And they also usually ignore their constituents as a matter of routine. It would seem that they have little if any conscience about the damages they inflict on those constituents who elected them.
I understand what you are saying. I was partly taking exception to the statement that education gets a F. People do come around and I know some who have. I always remember standing in front of a bookstore waiting for it to open and hearing a comment from the guy next to me who said that he couldn't believe that here he was, waiting for a bookstore to open because for years he was not interested. I am also a former librarian and I told him he made my day.
So many people are easily fooled because they have no skills to evaluate what they hear or they are simply true believers and that applies to the people on the left who are not helping by being absolutely antiBiden. I am hopeful that the public hearings will help. I have an ex high school classmate who has never mentioned January 6th. She did tell me that she was glad she was not educated like I was. I would sometimes try to explain the history of why something was happening. I did tell her that I would feel the same, education or no and that I know many people who are not educated as well as I am who feel exactly as I do. She lives in an Indiana R echo chamber and of course, is a devout Christian who is motivated by issues like abortion.
I also mentioned that traits that have been around forever and those no education will help. So I am in the middle, hoping that most will see the light, but thinking that many will not.
Michelle, I live in that "Indiana R echo chamber" and might even know your friend as there are so many like her. I admire the fact that you can still talk with her and remain friends! On a humorous note, I was at the gas pumps about a month ago and a typical red-neck looking guy next to me was filling his old pickup. In an effort to be open minded and neighborly, I said, How about this weather? And he said Yeah, it's as bad as the political situation. I said nothing in response, feeling I'd stepped close to quick sand. Then he added, I'm sure proud of President Biden for his bold moves to improve our country!
You can probably imagine my shock.
We ain't all Republicans in this echo chamber. Actually, here in Indianapolis we have a Democrat mayor and City Council!! And Obama won our county.
I was speaking of Elkhart. There are a couple friends of this person who do agree with me. I really don't know how we remain friends in a way. I think that it is because I am polite, but know how to express outrage. I have a cousin and a friend who live near Indy and both are Ds and also friends in Goshen and South Bend. I would have been shocked too. I have relatives in Terre Haute and across the river in Paris, IL. They are poorly educated and prone to believe Qanon nonsense and have bragged about not having the shot. Now one of them wants people to pray for her son and grandson who have COVID. Lots of drama going on all the time and if they have jobs, they are scut jobs.
Failed, yes, but not for lack if trying. Over 40% of Americans believe that the earth is under 10,000 years old. Gallup has confirmed this periodically for over 30 years running. Only a small percentage of young earthers (almost all of them in the South) learned this in school. You have to be willfully ignorant to believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Education, no matter how good, cannot reach such people.
Do you have a moment to hear about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? In 2005 our "prophet" Bobby Henderson wrote to the Kansas School Board insisting that the Gospel of the FSM be taught alongside "Intelligent Design". He suggested that two meatballs connected by pasta noodles created the Earth about 5000 years ago. He said that in the interests of fairness and respect for differing views, that both versions of creation belonged in the curriculum.
The school board did not respond...but a new religion was born. RAmen.
Yes. I am always pleased to see bumper stickers promoting FSM, and I do see them frequently here on the left coast, where people can put them in their cars without fear of vandalism by nitwits whose epistemology allows them to believe fantastic and improbable things for which there is no credible evidence.
Thank you for sharing your take on this Keith. I agree with you and I know that a lot of the work that lies ahead of us includes what each one of us can do to elect more Democrats, to support the League of Women Voters, local Indivisible groups, county Democrat organizations, and more. www.lwv.org
Very well written and certainly one possible trajectory of outcomes to be sure.
Once "The fog of authoritarianism will lift and burn away" has occurred, I sure hope the American legislative agenda can produce something besides tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, laws to support corporate outsourcing and offshoring via various bi-partisan "free trade" agreements, and some legislation that actually places:
Americans first.
Instead of where Americans have been placed for forty years by, "Democracy", and by, honestly, both parties:
Just as my wife and I felt great pride and comfort when our congressional leaders got back together on Jan 6-7 in that earlier-besieged chamber and got the job done! Thankful for the adults in the room seeing that the job needed to be finished and got it done.
Words matter…Thoughts become things. These phrases often times become my mantra and I, like you Keith, am choosing optimism and hope over defeat and depression. Each morning I wake up anticipating that Heather’s letter will leave me hopeful that our democracy will win out over autocracy. That the investigation into January 6th will not end as the Mueller investigation ended…that trump and his minions will lose their power over the many who have fallen prey to them and to FOX’s mind control. It’s time to take responsibility for my own hope and optimism. Biden and his administration are doing great things for the people of this country in spite of the Republican obstructionists. The truth is coming out about who planned the insurrection and who was involved. The majority in this country wants democracy to hold fast. We should believe that the Dems won’t just hold on to the House and Senate but that they will increase their majority. Why shouldn’t they when the majority of us want the same goals they are fighting for. Stacy Abrams is just one person and look what she has accomplished. We need to turn our attention away from hand wringing, defeat and depression which only wear us down. That’s what tfg and the radical right are hoping will happen. I don’t see President Biden being worn down from the roadblocks being put in his way. He keeps moving forward with good deeds. Perhaps the messaging doesn’t always get through but that’s on the media… it’s up to us to also be the messengers. So, I’m with you Keith. I’m keeping my rose colored glasses on and believing our democracy will prevail and watching our justice system work as it should! I’m going to focus on expressing the positives and keep my mantras in my thoughts. Words matter. Thoughts become things! Go for BLUE IN 22! Roll up your sleeves and put on your marching shoes! This is going to be a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
You are right, Sharon, "it’s up to us to also be the messengers." Couldn't agree more. Sadly, most of my followers are sick of hearing from me, but maybe when the news coming out of the Select Committee can no longer be ingored, my messaging and yours will be reconsidered and heard.
I wouldn’t perhaps be quite as optimistic as Keith, but I continue to believe that the 1/6 Select Committee is the tiny needle in the Trump/associates collective hide that is growing step by step into a giant spear. They are a disciplined, methodical, and seriously intelligent group who are leaving no stone unturned.
The latest, most desperate tactic is to appeal to the law to stop the committee from enforcing its subpoenas. I am no lawyer, but to date the Trump team’s record in litigation attempts is, with no malice, less than stellar. Put another way, if I was a betting man, I’d have a strong disinclination to put down hard cash on the likelihood of Taylor Budowich striking gold in the court system.
There is however the time factor. And it is no revelation to speculate that winning isn’t the point. Running out the clock is.
Two thoughts occur to me. One is that there will likely be a period this winter and spring when two events are happening simultaneously. One is the public hearings by the Committee. The other is the processing of these lawsuits. It seems to me likely that the hearings will not lack for damaging content. They may even rival the John Dean hearings of the Watergate era in giving the public the scope of the malignant actions leading to and occurring adjacent to the attack on January 6. It is hard to conceive of public hearings being mooted by the Committee that would produce a collective yawn from the Left and never-ending scorn from the Trumpists. The hearings will probably make the skin of the innocent and guilty alike, crawl. For different reasons of course.
A few hearings in, and we may see a rush by the litigants to withdraw their lawsuits and start trying to cut the best deal for themselves possible. And if that doesn’t happen, the courts may “expedite” the lawsuits because they recognize from the hearings that they have a place in history.
The other thought is more precise and narrow. I am most interested to see how SCOTUS replies to the strongly worded request from the Committee to announce by January 14 whether they will hear Trump’s DARA lawsuit. Given that this lawsuit has an unblemished losing record on its trip to the Supreme Court, and given its potential impact on the hearings, it will be very telling - and deeply demoralizing - if Court blows off the Committee. If they do, it will be one more body blow to the credibility of the Supreme Court. If they choose to hear the case in, let’s say, May, it will be yet another blow. And if they rule in favour of Trump, it will be a third and perhaps final one. We will know then that the Court, notwithstanding its “Aren’t we ever so legitimate?” tour this past fall, is politicized beyond the shadow of a doubt. This will be its death knell and one more nail will be driven into the coffin of democracy.
Thank You Keith! I very much appreciated the positive and hopeful tone in your comment. It seems as though we as Democrats are politically depressed despite the amazing work Biden has done this year. In our concern for the good of the Country we tend to see the glass half empty too often. I have seen a tendency towards moroseness in myself and comments posted in response to Dr. Richardson's articles.
As the New Year approaches can we take a collective moment to appreciate the fact that we have done an amazing job since that infamous elevator ride in 2016 of pushing back against the dark forces in our Country.
I like your attitude. Note: in their own defense has anyone actually said they were not trying to overturn the election by interfering with the legal process - yes they substitute the word steal for election but it is one and the same, they say that Congress was acting illegally but the process itself was not illegal - what they thought was legal, was not illegal... replacing electors and empowering Pence. Gaslighting 101. It amazes me that five to fifteen thousand actually fell under their spell. Their lies and twisted logic should not protect them in a court of law. They are all sounding very desperate from what HCR wrote. I think they all know that Jim Jordan or Perry will cave first. I bet they are very afraid of going to jail - as did John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General and friend who was sentenced to 19 months whose crime was to help with the coverup....what will the sentence be for trying to overthrow democracy?
The committee has announced they will begin public hearings in late January/early February, that they will extend through the spring and early summer with "our best witnesses" and that the final report will be published in "late summer" - all perfect timing to tie anvils around every Republican running for office, making questions about their support of Trump prime time in the middle of their campaigns.
And there is news that the reapportionments don't look so terrible for Democrats, and if they are running against loonie tunes traitors who are being asked about their support of insurrection when they try to speak - and the idiots are running not on legislating but on passing articles of impeachment for Biden, the mendacious morons may sink themselves. And if they lose 2022, you can bet Fatso Fatass won't announce he's running for president.
Robett Hubbel wrote in his Substack newsletter 12-27-21:
"Maintaining perspective about redistricting by Republican legislatures.
A persistent worry among Democrats is that Republican state legislatures will gerrymander their way into control of the House in 2022. Indeed, doomsayers have converted that worry into an irrefutable tenet of political dogma. It is possible, perhaps likely, that Republicans will gain some advantage in the redistricting process that is underway. But it is difficult to gerrymander your way to victory when your base is small and shrinking. When you have fewer Republicans to cram into majority-Republican districts, you must inevitably cede ground in other districts. In other words, Republicans are running up against the mathematical limits of gerrymandering.
Paul Waldman has addressed the limits of gerrymandering in his op-ed in the Washington Post, “Surprisingly, there has been a redistricting turnaround.” As Waldman explains,
Just in the past few days, the conventional wisdom on redistricting has undergone a dramatic shift. The most informed redistricting experts now say it appears that this process will look more like a wash, or even that Democrats might gain a few seats.
Why do Waldman and other experts believe that Republicans will not be able to gain as many seats through redistricting as predicted? There are several reasons. First, Republicans pushed gerrymandering to the limits after the 2010 census. Second, Democrats have been equally aggressive in gerrymandering where they have the advantage. And finally, Republicans have used their shrinking base to protect existing seats, rather than attempting to carve out districts with a slight Republican advantage. Waldman uses Texas and Illinois as examples:
In Texas, Republicans chose to lock in their current advantage rather than expand it, a decision driven by the way the state is trending in a more Democratic direction. . . . On the other hand, Democrats took advantage of some of their opportunities, adding up to three seats in Illinois (where they could wind up with 14 of 17 seats).
It is true that some existing seats will disappear or flip from blue to red. But Waldman’s point is that the overall net effect may be status quo—i.e., a razor thin Democratic majority, all other things being equal. Of course, the redistricting process is not complete, and some of Waldman’s analysis is based on court challenges to redistricting plans in North Carolina and Georgia.
My point is this: Do not assume disaster. A folk saying asserts that “Worry is the interest paid on disaster before it is due.” Or as Mark Twain never said about worry, “I have had a great many troubles in my life, most of which never happened.” Gerrymandering by GOP legislatures remains a real threat in 2022. But it does not appear to be shaping up to be the Armageddon predicted by political pundits. Let’s stay focused on the things we can control and not engage in excessive worry about outcomes that may never occur."
Ric, If it’s any consolation, I can assure you that several civic grassroots organizations have summoned millions of every day people to work tirelessly to press for legislation that would ensure 1) that all eligible voters easily can register to vote and stay enrolled and 2) that eligible votes are cast, counted correctly, and certified without interference and without their being diluted through partisan gerrymandering.
Agreed. I also would note that if Dems expect to pick up Senate seats, they must remain laser-focused on two priorities: 1) reforming the filibuster to pass voter protection legislation that safeguards against voter suppression/ nullification and 2) Putting back together the strongest possible version of the BBB agenda that can get the support of 50 Senators.
TC, I was with you until you wrote, “there is news that the reapportionments don’t look so terrible for Democrats.” Regrettably, I am not aware of a single GOP controlled state legislature that has not drafted plans to substantially dilute Democratic votes in their respective States. Hence, Congress, upon return to Washington in January, must prioritize filibuster reform to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, whose provisions, unlike VRAA, would supersede existing State law in conflict with its stipulations. Admittedly, a compromised version of its predecessor H.R.1/S.1 For The People that Manchin rejected, this edited down legislation Manchin helped draft, nonetheless, would expand access to the ballot box and safeguard against election subversion and partisan gerrymandering.
NC is in court over the terrible redistricting maps. I went to the public hearings which were announced just days in advance. One after another constituents made remarks that the maps were unfair, the time period for registering to speak too short, and that the decisions had already been made with NO public comment. And then the time for comments was over. Just like nobody said a damn thing in opposition to the gerrymandered maps.
What was meant is, Democratic analysts have looked at some of the reapportioned districts and they are not as thoroughly R as thought. That doesn't mean the Ds win. It does mean that a Democrat in tune with the area has a fighting chance. Having a fighting chance is a lot better than no chance. Although with the ways too many think and act, it might as well be. So, not being shot at dawn is a good thing. :-)
UPDATE: The Cook Report says that the redistricting in Texas, Florida, North Carolina is "a wash" - so what I am reading elsewhere appears to be right.
TC, I imagine if A.G. Garland’s recent suit against Texas for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is any indication, you could be right. I also would add that a few weeks back Garland, who frets more than most over separation of powers, concluded a press conference with a plea to Congress to pass new federal voting rights legislation, making clear that DOJ will do whatever it can (translation: go to court to protect voting rights) but that Congress must do what it alone can do (pass legislation that also protects election integrity and thus democracy itself). Pity this press conference received so little coverage. I had hoped Garland’s concluding remarks would have aired again and again.
I listened to a report on NPR yesterday that said both blue & red districts had solidified their positions while swing districts are disappearing. I didn’t get actual numbers however.
I don't know, TC. Idjt is a narcissist. If he is still around, I'm thinking he will make every effort to run, casting aside those who would advise otherwise.
David Plouffe points out that his fragile, brittle ego couldn't take the slightest chance of losing - which if they don't win 2022 would be a fair certainty.
Forget NY reapportionment. It’s a Red State now. They had 3 proposals at the last Election Day for helping voters/voting rights and NY’s sat on their asses while they all got rejected. Also, only ultra conservative judges were elected. Clearly that is an indication of how the 2022 Elections will go. RED.
The evil sees their best chance EVER to rule the roost. They not only smell blood, they are awash in it in many places. Don’t assume anything, except one hell of a fight when half the population doesn’t know there is a battle
Not quite. The very well funded Right Wing Nuts used wile and propaganda to get the proposition on the backside of the ballots so that in the NYC area they just did not get voted upon.
Both houses of the legislature are firmly Blue.
The problem remains the massive funding available to the right.
Only because the lame Jay Jacobs decided not to do any campaign push back against the GOP “no” signs. The text was very confusing, and even solid D voters weren’t sure what to vote for. I don’t believe it’s a harbinger, though we do need to exorcise the rotten fruit within.
Grace, the voter proposals were quite clear - yes, one or two of the others not so much. It just boggled the mind with all the newsprint/media regarding the issue of voters rights that people (especially in a blue (so far) state) didnt care enough to THINK!
Maggie, I agree most of the proposals ( clean air and water for all ) were pretty clear. I can’t understand how the same day registration proposal lost. But the redistricting one, which I checked with the LWV, was full of bad ideas with the good ones, and the good ones were very good. But after years of Cuomo and the IDC pretending to help voters it made sense to be wary of any proposal.
People don’t understand how it can happen bc they think diverse NYC is NY, but NYC is just a tiny dot dense with people. Ideologically speaking, NY in general leans more extremist Republican. The Dem politicians are mostly DINO’s who go along with the corruption in place.
Lisa. Exactly. I live in both Syracuse, a predominantly Blue city and a small town, S Otselic, an hour south and completely different mindset. Red as hell. I brought a plate of homemade Christmas cookies over to my neighbors in S Otselic on Friday only to find out all 4 of the people living there have COVID. Yes, they are Trumpers, antivaxers +++. Ughhhhh
I couldnt get over "voters" not READING & COMPREHENDING (sorry caps needed) what the explanation of those proposals said! How @#@# hard could that be? I read them & checked the boxes (etc) & thought they were shoe-ins. How wrong that was.
The House committee investigating the events of Jan 6 is being diligent in pursuing the facts and strategic in pursuing justice. They know what is at stake. They are being very thoughtful about their responsibility to take what actions they can.
I hope that every potential Democratic voter - and that should include every American who does not support the sacking of the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power - will follow the committee's work and their lead.
2022 is upon us. We need to do our part to secure the Democratic majority in Congress. The committee's example of being diligent and strategic will serve us well. It should give us heart at what is possible, appreciation of what is at stake, and inspiration to do our best.
Of course, those who don’t buy the big lie will, but with even PBS bending in the wind, the Dems had better, not just do the right thing, but find a way to tell the world. Maybe they should confab with Bloomberg…
I wish I shared your confidence. I have already had a 'vote your gut' progressive say recently 'the Dems haven't done anything, it doesn't matter who is in office.' More purity tests because that's worked so well ...
People often see the problems, but they often don't see their responsibility to vote strategically to solve them.
What this letter reminds me of is when Nixon vowed he “wasn’t a crook” when he absolutely was. His jowls would flap in the wind when he lied, which was often. Then his VP, the dishonorable Spiro Agnew, was running his own little money laundering scheme while Watergate was in full force. Two fine gentlemen…
The frivolous lawsuits filed against the Select Committee are just to give these liars more time to figure out what their next chess move will be. Jim Jordan, whose very loud mouth should really get him into trouble, is relatively silent. The walls are closing in now and I, for one, am enjoying the squeeze.
But what will Rupert tell the cult? Does anyone think Fox will air the hearings? Will the WSJ print even a remote version of the truth? Will ANY republican pol venture a kind word for justice? The BIG LIE is on trial
The Murdochs, The Kochs, the Mercers, the Mars (Mars Candy heirs), and others, are weasels and the biggest donors to misinformation and probably to the insurrection. The Select Committee is methodically peeling away the layers of who organized and financed the disaster at the Capitol. The walls are slowly closing in, folks.
No, but they can cheat, lie, and propagandize til hell freezes over. Then they can upset the board, sort of like Jan 6…. The cult will be on board, I live amongst them.
The elephant in the room is, and has always been, without passing the Voter Rights Act, this investigation is meaningless.
I am somewhat ashamed to say that I am seeing far too many fellow Democrats seeing the January 6th Committee proceedings to be the answer to Trumps ills.
Stop looking for the next shiny object and concentrate on the real problem at hand. Voting Rights.
JFC, I've been hearing the "Trump is going to jail" chorus for years. I couldn't possibly care less at this point.
Is the country ready to go down the path of indicting a former president, his associates, and certain sitting members of Congress? Is the DOJ prepared to take such unprecedented steps? If recent history is any indicator, I am not so certain. Many of us thought that the actions of GW Bush warranted further investigation. He and his administration took us into two catastrophic and illegal wars, and yet Obama gave them a pass. What will it take, in terms of egregious acts against the Republic, for there to be a righting for the wrongs inflicted against it?
Indictment is a legal remedy not available for righting every egregious act against and wrong inflicted on the Republic. For instance, Bush's catastrophic military adventures were not 'illegal wars.'
Rather than accusing Obama, you would do better to cite Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon. All evidence indicated that Nixon could and should have been indicted. Rather than healing the nation, the pardon gave Republican miscreants a green light. Do you want to list all the GOP players who cut their teeth serving Nixon's bad impulses and were still around to serve Trump's? How about starting with Manafort and Stone?
Nixon should not have been pardoned. As for Obama, I still believe there should have been further investigations into the “bad intelligence “ that predicted the two I’ll conceived wars. Wars that cost thousands of US lives and hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. It seems as though each time we end up with a miscreant in the WH and what comes with that, we fail to figure out how to deal with future miscreants.
There was a movie that was made that highlighted to two actual CIA agents that had clear information that Bush was lying. They did everything possible to get that information out.
A similar story played out in Britain, see Katherine Gunn.
But, Americans must have wanted war. Because, our representatives, all of them, stood by and did nothing or outright supported both wars.
Perhaps we should check the Swiss Bank accounts of all legislators back then?
Maybe they grew quite a bit during that time as military contractors and consultants smelled the scent of money?
Stone (with the Nixon tattoo on his back) was quoted as saying that no other Republican president would ever have to go through what Nixon did. He has worked tirelessly to that end, still is. The list is long and the evil is chomping away at us every hour of every day. But what are the Kardashians doing now?
Ford pardoned Nixon in order to “help the country heal”. Obama said we needed to move on from the Bush administration and get the Great Recession under control (with no help from republicans). Traitors were not held accountable after the Civil War. Egregious crimes against the country go unpunished so that “healing” can take place. Look how things have turned out.
Jenn, ultimately this is what I feel will happen. Lots of bluster and finger pointing. However, I cannot forget and or forgive hearing an early interview with Biden that he said he would rather not pursue Trump for the good of the Nation. It surprises me that interview hasn't resurfaced.....yet.
I fault Obama not, since he learned on day one that the republicans gave him no respect, no deference and opposition that was unprecedented (well, sort of, no attempted coup like Smedley Butler reported against FDR). He was lucky to have survived without being shot. I live in a place where many supported such, sad to say. The evil got an upper hand with the Tea party crazies.
Yes, every day some racist Republican domestic terrorist didn't take a shot at Obama, we all dodged a bullet.
But I fault Obama for tyro errors in underestimating Republican intransigence. He seemed to think he could reason with them and they would reason right back. As if. Ever. Since Reagan.
Also Obama did little to get the good will of Democrats in Congress - as a basketball player/fan he should've respected team work and as president he should have facilitated it.
Yes, he tried to reason with the unreasonable, just like Teddy K did with W and the evil around him. They laughed their arses off as Dems played the “normal politics” game. Kennedy should have had his boxing gloves on because Rove had his Goebbels best propaganda rules at his side. Then along came Obama, who still had “the audacity of hope.”
Democratic former senator presidents seem to give their former colleagues an awful lot of credit, despite the clear evidence we see that it isn’t warranted.
Jeff, if the egregious acts of Jan 6th are not enough to stiffen the backs of Garland and several well-known "moderate" Democratic senators (and of a handful of GOP senators, for that matter), and important indictments are not forthcoming sooner rather than later, our beloved republic will be toast.
As long as we unite and vote for Democratic candidates in every contest, in sufficient numbers to overcome GOP voter suppression tactics, then there is hope yet. And not that I am a die hard Democrat. I'm Left of Bernie et al - but strategic voting above all. I fear those on the Left who still believe 'help things get bad enough, and come the revolution' - haven't noticed it came, and went for Trump, not exactly the socialist workers' paradise. I do dread the implications of a 'red wave' in 2022. The GOP - giving 'red menace' a new spin.
Half the population is checked out, Again, all the forms of normal are still in place.
Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1933-45. “Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained, or on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that what one didn’t see was in principle what all these ‘little measures’ must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing - each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.
You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone. You don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ But the one great shocking occasion, when the tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed which you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. You have accepted things that you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago. Things your father could never have imagined.”
Wow!! Great description of much that is happening now. The part about the false security of feeling the familiar "forms" are in place when the "spirit" has completely shifted is so terrifyingly real!
I Will Bear Witness.......Victor Klemperer, excellent first person account of waiting for the regular German people to take back the country from the Nazis, but they had all gone to ground.
I agree, Lin, unifying and voting strategically for whatever Democrat is on the ballot is fundamental. But it is not likely to be enough to overcome recent changes to voting laws in GOP controlled states. Getting out half, or even a quarter of the 40+% of Americans who -- on average -- DO NOT VOTE just might be enough, but how can we be sure that will necessarily favor Democrats?
Our real problem is that many -- if not most -- Democrats are not yet convinced that one possible -- or likely -- outcome, even as soon as the 2022 mid-terms, is the end of American Democracy. What? A coup d'etat in America? It'll never happen, right?
It is happening, yes. And I do think many are convinced of that. And I've seen that conviction itself serve as a form of voter suppression - buying into/indulging in the dodge of 'nothing I can do will change anything' and so doing nothing, or a bare minimum.
Whew. Do you really want to make that segue? It implies a false equivalency between 'evil doers' and someone you think is not doing enough.
Merrick Garland is being targeted by the Left in a way which implies a wholesale condemnation of the entire DOJ. On what grounds? That Garland is not rounding up enemies of the state?
Please take a look at what the DOJ has been doing.
It was not my intent to insinuate or say out right that Merrick Garland is any part of doing evil. I have the greatest regard for him. Perhaps I should investigate what the justice department is doing in regards to those that are trying to steal our Democracy. Guess he just doesn’t get headline news. I truly would like to see him more front and center. We need all the strong representations of good that we can get.
Please dial that back. Seriously. We must do better than public hangings. After all hanging those involved in the assassination of Lincoln did nothing to quell the anti government sentiments of the confederates. Or of their ideological heirs and fellow travelers who support today's Republican sedition.
Good luck in trying to get TC to walk back his calls for violence lin. I have called him (not sure of pronouns) out several times for his blatant calls for death against those he dislikes and disagrees with. His response today, that “we didn’t hang enough of them”, is the first time I’ve seen him respond at all and he only reiterated his call for violence.
I think he enjoys calling for violence and death so he can sit back and see who condemns it. I have yet to see any kind of thoughtful response from him, one in which he explains his desire for violence or apologizes or even notes that he is acting exactly like the Republicans who call for the deaths of everyone not in their cult.
(I will add this - I do believe in the death penalty for traitors. I also believe that justice should be far swifter than it is in this country. Carefully, methodically and legally applied but swift. Those accused of such crimes and those who ignore subpoenas for said crimes should be held without bail.)
I recognize that he has the right to spout such repugnant drivel but I also recognize that I don’t have to read it. I have responded to him several times. I won’t waste anymore time in doing so because I have far better things to do than to continue to play into his bullshit game of seeking attention for outrageous comments. My future silence does not signal acceptance or acquiescence - just that I have moved on from responding to his hateful, juvenile behavior.
Yes. ThankYou. Calling out the counterproductive. A tough niche, but someone's got to fill it. You've taken your turn, I'll take up the challenge.. It's not about provocateurs et al. It's about this community.
I agree with you 100%. We have to call this vile behavior out. We do. And I will continue to do so with my Congressional reps and elsewhere. I just have no more energy or patience with TC’s bullshit. Good luck with your turn. Maybe others here will help. It needs to be enough that it acts as a reminder to him of what civilized resistance looks like or enough to shame him into stopping - although, as I said, my take on it is that he does it because he enjoys doing so - and maybe would be first in line to act that way. I wish you well.
I meant to add - calling him out on this needs to be both strong enough in response and every single time he does it and as you said - from this community.
There is a saying, often attributed to George Orwell or Winston Churchill but neither of them actually said it; that appears to have been created by Richard Grenier who "was attempting to provide a pithy representation of an idea he ascribed to George Orwell. Later writers and speakers turned his phrase into a quotation and directly attached it to Orwell. Over time variants were constructed with modified phrasing. The quote appeared in 1949 and says, "“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” There are some of us who have been given the gift to be able to use violence in defense of and in protection of those who may not have that gift. I suspect that TC is one of those, as am I. He's more of a curmudgeon that I, having earned that right by age and study. Sometimes we talk rough, and need reminging that our conversation is not always for polite company; other times our rough talk may be what is needed to convey the message of what we are seeing from our perspective.
Thanks for your reply. While I do agree with you that sometimes violence is called for in self defense and in defense of those who cannot defend themselves I disagree with you on the rest.
Violence is not a gift. It can be a necessity and I recognize that. I have had to resort to violence and the insinuation of violence (by pointing a loaded firearm at someone who was attempting to attack me - and yes, for those who may ask, I was prepared to use it and not in any kind of Hollywood way of ‘winging him’). And sometimes citizens must rise up against a tyrannical government. Their own or others.
I do not grant TC the allowance you are so generously giving him. Calling for people to be thrown out of windows and hanged isn’t just impolite talk or talk not suited for public discourse. It is dangerous and uncalled for. And for those paying attention, it equals what Republicans are calling for for the rest of us.
Even in a war we should be held to our humanity. There are rules even for war and indiscriminately hanging people and tossing them out of 10th floor windows is not on the “Go ahead and help yourself” list of how to deal with the opposition/enemy.
I do not sleep peaceably in my bed because I’m okay with rough people doing violence on my behalf. No thanks. If our situation here in the US comes to violence - as in a civil war - I will sign up and commit myself to standing up for what I believe in. No one need do it for me. If anyone tries to harm me or mine or others who cannot defend themselves I will continue to stand up to them - myself.
Lastly, I disagree with your statement that TC - or anyone - earns the right to be a curmudgeon by age and study. TC isn’t a kindly old curmudgeon. He’s issuing calls for outright violent behavior that results in death. Not in any dictionary that I know of does ‘curmudgeon’ include that behavior. And seriously Ally? Age gives us all the right to call for each other’s deaths? I am disappointed in your defense of the indefensible. You have the right to do so of course. However, I can only shake my head at your rationalizations.
Then I worry for you and about you for your perspective on violence. I don’t doubt your love for country and justice but I definitely disagree with your perspective.
Thanks for the chat. You’ve given me food for thought.
I may, of course, be wrong, but I have not interpreted TC’s posts as advocating for extrajudicial punishment, but rather for using our laws and the punishments available to us. Which would not include pushing people out of windows - I don’t remember reading that.
I do not support the death penalty, for any reason, although treason comes close. Let them rot in jail.
In a previous posts TC has called for dragging a person out & shooting him, tossing specific people out a tenth floor window and today it’s hanging people in Lafayette Square. How you interpret those calls for very specific violent deaths is up to you of course.
I feel people should be held to account for what they say, as they say it and his calls for violent death seem clear enough to me.
Yet TC does seem to be far more deeply aware than most members of this community of the deep, deep shadow aspect of America's history. And of the very real, very physical current threat, not only to the life of the body politic, but to the lives of countless American citizens.
I put it that TC's outlook may be that of a surgeon, naturally drawn to solutions that involve use of the blade.
Wherever this is possible, less radical means of preserving and enhancing health may be preferred to surgery, but there comes a time when it is the only recourse possible.
Especially in wartime, on the battlefield.
America is now deep into a phony war -- pethaps better described as a phony peace. After January 6th, only skirmishes and propaganda. Psychological warfare.
But the nation's critically ill. It is right, then, to show a brave face, to proclaim publicly our total commitment to saving the patient, to do everything in our power to bring this about. But with life in the balance, this is no time to proclaim "I am optimistic", only to do whatever we must.
The time for the hacksaw and the scalpel may be very near.
Then it will not be enough to "be right", the great proclivity for showing our shining brightness while passing judgment on all that we see and hear will become so counterproductive as to be criminal obstruction.
There are far, far too many metastases, the surgical approach may soon be the only one possible. Time, then, for others to shut up and let the man wielding the knife get on with his work.
It has nothing to do with "bloodlust." It has to do with the fact that we have proven over the past 160 years that "letting them off easy" only set things up for Round Two. Treason and declaring war on one's country, one's society, are the worst crimes. There needs to be a lesson sent that doing so ends terribly badly. I realized 20 years ago when the first of the idiots started talking openly about secession that Grant's mercy had been wrong. Lee actually expected it, and was surprised to be let off.
Liberal democracies don't resort to name calling or violent visions of the opponent (as Obama calls the authoritarians). Responsible rhetoric maintains a democracy. Cut it out, sir.
Um, President Obama was a little busy trying to help rescue the GLOBAL financial complex from disaster! Not giving them a “pass”: Choosing his battles. There are several past presidents who should have paid for their egregious behavior. Let’s not pick on the guy who traveled the high road for two terms. Amid NASTY Repuglican maneuvers.
I am not trying to pick on President Obama. He had an immensely complex situation to deal with, given the huge financial crisis etc. What I meant to point out is that when ANYONE, even former presidents, do criminal things they should be held to account. I understand Mr.Obama was trying to pick his battles carefully. If the Bush administration had been held accountable, I can only imagine what hell there would have been to pay. We do not have the tradition of accountability in the highest office. Look at how the Republicans just gave tfg a pass despite knowing what a criminal he was and is.
Chill…not picking on Obama. Just using that scenario as an example of what seems to me a case of ‘kicking the can down the road’. Too much unaccountability and we risk too much.
Didn’t we just have four years of an unprecedented president. I think our country is ready to move into unprecedented indictments. I’m getting my popcorn ready
Yesterday I watched all of Teri Kanefield's Youtube videos in her Law and Politics playlist. In the video, "Criminal Consequences and the Threat of Right-Wing Extremism", she points out what has been done and is being done, and she explains why the process is necessarily slow. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkNdl5hwn7IbpNnH-eznyIBHasVGpPKpP
Claire McCaskill had an interesting theory yesterday about tracking tRump's moves during the insurrection. She noted that tRump watched TV 24/7 so. he was clearly watching what was happening at the Capitol. She suggested all the committee needed to do was match the timing on video footage with the calls that were coming into him from those on the floor... I.e. Jordan, Hannity, etc This would give the committee added info with which to move on tRump et al. She also went after Garland, wondering where the hell he is. She said if he doesn't move soon he will "go down as the worst AG ever." She wasted no words.
It is becoming more clear with each passing day that the former president is deserving of blame for the January 6 attack on the Capitol and the related efforts to affect the Constitutional process of confirming the electoral vote. The Attorney General is aware that taking action against those whose evidence might elevate the former president's apparent culpability to full responsibility would risk more violence, and that is why the DOJ is proceeding on tiptoes. I do not see how this can end well for the nation.
I cannot help but respond to all the opinions about Atty Gen Garland. I trust in his apparent vast well of patience in not taking any of the diatribe against him personally. To move because many think him too slow or incompetent or not the “man for the job” would play so well into the very hands of the one that enslaved his array of generals to his will instead of the will of the people.
I applaud Atty Merrick Garland and sleep well thinking of his core of iron will that will bring the wrath of Justice upon the evil perpetrated upon the people of the United States at the right time, in the right way, for the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness bestowed upon we the people, all of us this time.
Perhaps, but can't he release/announce/leak something to quell the obvious lack of, well, anything? It would move us skeptics over to your confidence level. Can't he just do a tiny little thing to help us?
Thank you Heather and a very good morning to all. I've read part of Budowich's lawsuit and will finish up with my coffee. If nothing else, Budowich certainly knows how to whine.
Here's a question: If money was being requested and transferred by various groups and individuals via electronic mediums with the intent of that money being used in the commission of a crime why haven't wire fraud charges been filed? If it's proved that Trump, other individuals and groups, including the War Room participants, were organizing and planning the attack on the Capitol, enterIng the Capitol illegally, capturing and possibly harming key politicians, including then - VP Pence, using electronic mediums, (which they certainly were) why can't the individuals and entities involved be charged with wire, and perhaps, mail fraud? Wouldn't discovery in wire fraud lawsuits support the filing of other related lawsuits? Lawyer subscribers, please forgive my ignorance in advance.
Ha! How modest you are Daria. I’ve been waiting for the net to start ensnaring the money trail. I’m laughing thinking of the bank not “letting” Brat Budowich see the subpoena. I’m also waiting for the supposed significant money support from Ginny Thomas, wife of a Supreme Court Justice, to be revealed for what it was….treasonous.
I swear, sometimes I think the former must have possessed an elixir of stupidness and snake oil and sprinkled it copiously upon the heads of these so called key players to make them believe the cloak of secrecy and treason was impenetrable.
I'm thinking WE are very lucky because without that "elixir" this whole scheme might have progressed much differently and successfully than it did, right?
"Our legacy piece and final product will be the select committee’s report.”
"Fools cannot distinguish this, and knaves will not." (Laurence Stern, 'Tristram Shandy'.) Well that just about covers everyone involved in the entire apparatus of the Republican enterprise - paymasters, officials, amplifiers, and camp followers.
So it's on the rest of us to unite and give Democratic elected representatives the majority they need to get the work done.
Thank you for sticking with this project, Dr. Richardson ❤️ (Do you remember when you thought you might be finished when the election was over?) What ever happened to the Fairness Doctrine? Telling the Truth?
Every time I hear the defense from a “Stop the Steal” supporter, I think of Alice in Wonderland. So many relevant connections. Their strategy…keep talking nonsense and the nonsense becomes sense?
“And the moral of that is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or, if you’d like it put more simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’” —Chapter 9, The Mock Turtle’s Story”
If you have not seen the new Netflix movie, "Don't Look Up", it is worth seeing. I usually don't watch video, but, my kids, home for the holidays, dragged me down to watch it.
It is not the best of movies, but, it is a movie relevant to now.
We watched last night. I thought it was campy enough to expect that a few actors would break character and wink at the camera, but the message was so unveiled I’m thinking that the trumpians would just write it off as fake news. In any event Susan Lawerence brings “the goods”
Oh, and I can imagine Ms Streep’s response after being pitched the part of President, “Oh Hell Yes!!!!”
I don't know. I found it funny enough here and there but over all it annoyed me. Smug satire has never been my thing though. Even as a much younger person I couldn't enjoy Dr. Strangelove. I may just be defective.
Today's post reminded me of nothing more similar than a boa constrictor slowly encircling its prey and tightening its coils every time the prey squirms to escape. (courtesy of Shel Silverstein; https://hellopoetry.com/poem/595/boa-constrictor)
An interesting outcome of Trump's Presidency is that employment among lawyers has spiked up 430%, and lawyer pay is up 80% in just six months! Most of that employment gain is associated with dodging subpoena's, crafting legal language around lies, filing lawsuits and filing court writs to protect folks that openly and blatantly planned to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States on Jan 6. There are so many folks involved!!
In fact, many newly minted engineering students are going without employment due to continued Corporate outsourcing and offshoring since nothing has changed in that domain. America first left us with no new laws limiting what corporations can send overseas, even military contractors can outsource stuff and do, no legal limits on hiring low paid software engineers in (pick a country) and firing Americans AFTER the Americans are forced to train their (pick a country) counterparts.....
America First? Yep, Zero new legislation limiting new factory builds in China.
Well...at least some good news...newly minted lawyers are getting multiple offers and one recent grad was heard to express descent into a profound depression associated with trying to make a choice among his fourteen high paid offers to defend Jan 6 plotters. Another lawyer was reviewing 12 job offers from the Jan 6 committee.
One new Mechanical Engineering grad was recently hear to say: "That's it, I'm off to law school to get in on that big money keeping those (hundreds of) patriots out of jail".
So? It seems that, except for a corporate tax cut, the main thing to emit from Trump's Presidency is thousands of court cases, subpoena's, lawsuits, writs, filings and other legal maneuverings associated with dodging and faking by a bunch of Republicans who learned from Reagan that "Before Telling the Truth Give Lying A Chance" was good doctrine (it certainly worked out very, very well for Reagan).
BOOMING legal employment and judge dockets that extend out well beyond 2025, LONG after the next Presidential election is over ladies and gentlemen.
Just IMAGINE, if, instead of spinning on all this stuff that pied Piper Trump prompted, IMAGINE that the government, instead, had a legislative set of bills on the docket to block American corporations from firing Americans and replacing them with the equivalent of slave labor in other countries thereby propagating legal slavery. That a new law just passed limiting American corporate manufacturing builds in China.
Suppose Apple announced that it was shutting down its manufacturing in China (where it all currently remains). Apple pays Chinese nationals $17 per day to work 12 hour shifts (this is a fact) and has no plans to bring that manufacturing back to America. Did anyone notice that "America First" prompted exactly ZERO companies to return manufacturing to the United States from China?
And IMAGINE that the army of newly minted lawyers were off to defend Americans against that 40 year practice of undermining the middle class with outsourcing and offshoring because of those new laws (which corporations would try to dodge).
WARNING: This is a spoof, all data is fabricated to make the point that, wow, we are wasting so much money, talent, attention, and court time on stuff that to an engineer like me? Just seems like it is obvious and we should just move forward with charges, arrest folks, toss 'em in jail and move on.
Ah, well. Back to reality TV (or riveting reading from HCR)
Interesting. Seems like the job challenges are uneven. I happen to know 4 young engineering students who will soon have STEM degrees, and I was stunned to hear they all picked up jobs after a school job fair. What I found remarkable was they got offers nearly a year before they graduate--so it appears companies are hiring proactively to lock them in and make certain they don't get caught out with shortage in talent. In addition, we're watching huge turnovers in my own STEM company lately, seems like a massive migration and shuffling is going on, which I take as a sign there are greener pastures for the dissatisfied employees out there. Seems true since my friends are finding other alternatives, and rather quickly at increased salaries. Granted, most of the jobs I'm talking about here are in software engineering and coding, not pure engineering or Engineering Design work. But I was encouraged to watch this. I'm also guessing the Infrastructure bill is going to lead to a serious uptick in demand for the Mechanical/Electrical Engineers. Tell that Mechanical Engineering student to hang in there. We will need that home grown talent for certain soon enough.
My ME prof husband says 100% employment from his university, and our two recently graduated sons (one software engineer, one electrical engineer) easily found great jobs for great pay. He also completely agrees with you that we are facing a coming shortage of engineers.
We were curious why my young nephew, with a computer science degree, had no job offers. That is until we recently spent a day with him. He, like his father, is very far
down the Q rabbit hole. I’m assuming he may not interview well ??
Yes, it’s very sad. I felt like I was in mourning after the visit as we’ve truly lost them both. My brother is an electrical engineer working from home for months so that most likely contributes to the Q-ness and decline of social skills.
In a time of declining journalistic recording of events, Dr Richardson portrays the growing importance of using the tools of the Historian to describe and record events.
Journalists rely on personal narratives, theirs and the principals to report the development and denouement of significant occurrences of change. But the strength of the Historian is the reliance on existing and recordable documentation to formulate explanations.
I have followed these magnificent essays from the beginning and I consult with past and developing episodes of the current crisis in Government through them, trusting that the validity of their record will not succumb to the personal viewpoints or political hackery Journalism displays.
Thank You Heather Cox Richardson for using your education and discipline to explain us to us.
In my mind, I believe that the Jan 6th Committee is going to provide the American people, and the world with the lies and deception of the people in the top levels of our government piece by bloody piece. This will allow our citizens to take it all in, slowly, and to awaken to the deep deception many of them conspired with thinking it was The Truth.
The beauty of this J6th Committee is that they will allow We the People to judge for ourselves before anything goes to the DOJ and SCOTUS. This is a brilliant and very welcomed move because it will forego any potential blasphemous, wet noodle "interpretion" such as perfidious Bill Barr thrust upon the world after the Mueller investigation. I look forward to seeing these hearings. I also think, to claim the fifth in a matter or terrorist activity and coup against our democracy and elected officials is a right in no one should have. Speak up or be jailed. No rights for terrorists acts. (Radical Independent who believes it is time for the majority of good people to be protected from criminals, corporations and kleptocrats despite party affiliation).
Thanks for your optimistic prediction or hope, Penelope. I am also hoping that there will be enough evidence (and the will of the powers that be for not only his close associates but Trump himself to be found guilty and imprisoned. The preservation of our democracy demands this. Otherwise we will see it happen again.
We can take pride and comfort from knowing that the Jan 6 Special Committee is steadily doing the work to discover the true story of what led to this shocking event by those who perpetrated it. The principals behind the assault on our Capitol and who fomented an attempt to steal the presidency from the majority who voted to elect President Biden, will be prosecuted and tried; many, many will be convicted and barred from ever being able to serve in public office again. This is as it should be and most definitely will be; there is ample time for this to happen. Our system of laws and due process guarantees it. The Important thing for all of us to realize is that our democracy will not only keep functioning and steadily improve over time, but that the bad actors who dared to put themselves above the will of the people and scheme to steal the election after stirring up a group of disaffected and sorry individuals to literally violently attack our Capitol and prevent Congress from doing its job, will pay dearly for what they did, tried to do and are still agitating to do. The fog of authoritarianism will lift and burn away from Washington in the days ahead and be gone for decades. So much good work ahead for 2022, and in the years ahead that will make America a better nation, and example for the world of what a great democracy can achieve. Happy New Year everyone.
Also, Keith,
It does seem that the wheels of justice turn much, much faster for the poor, misguided peons that actually listened to Trump, whom they thought was their President asking for help, and raided the Capitol.
Many, many, many are already in jail.....case closed. Felonies on their record to ensure no gainful employment going forward.
But, the pied Piper that literally the entire world watched on Television openly requesting the violent raid? Trump.....?
Trump remains ensconced in the comfort of Mara Lago, walled in by the protection of the Secret Service and wound tightly in a web of lawyers, because of due process, habeas corpus, and a labyrinth of other laws designed to protect rich people who have openly broken the law.
Yes, it’s painfully true that the Justice system tilts away from the poor, immigrants and anyone without the ways and means to mount a reasonable defense. So, yes, many of the people who stormed the Capitol emboldened by the former president are already paying a price for their transgression. But rest assured, the January 6 SC is coming for those who conceived and directed the assault, watched it happen on TV without trying to stop it and try now to resist the efforts of the SC to get to the bottom of it. Everything the committee learns will be shared with AG Garland who will vigorously pursue and prosecute those in question.
Keith, thanks for the well written and confident reply.
In my former job as an engineering manager, I used to tell my team members, some who were highly confident (like all attributes a mixed blessing), that....
"you cannot eat confidence".
But, you can take home "results" and buy some bacon.
So, I am heartened by your confidence and look very much forward to some results where seeing Trump pay some penalty for his lifelong pursuit of crooked outcomes including overthrowing a legit election.
Since I trained myself not to be confident or pessimisstic, but, to keep my eye on measurable, discernable project progress.......I will withhold my own perspective and just keep looking for.....
results.
At 75, I only hope I will live long enough for the instigators to be held accountable.
Well put, Michael!
Keeping my fingers crossed, Keith. From your pen to God's ear.
And Keith, the public will have the pleasure of actually seeing those who committed or assisted in these crimes on television. The squirming, given the lame excuses by the guilty, is something I am reveling in.
The cases involving the "poor, misguided peons" are by far the easiest and fastest to prove. Their prison sentences send a signal to those who planned and executed the attempted coup that justice is coming, however slowly. And some of the peons are in a position to share evidence about the planning. So things are unfolding just as they should. The exception could be what's happening or not happening within the confines of the Justice Department. Will Trump and his army of acolytes ultimately be indicted after the House committee makes criminal referrals to the department? That question hangs over the nation.
As for due process and habeas corpus, they're not designed to protect rich people. They're designed to protect everyone and are key pillars of our democracy. The problem is that rich people can afford legions of lawyers exploit them via endless delay.
Michael, thanks for offering clarifying thoughts on the process.
I share your frustrations with how slow things move. Pace seems to be accelerating, and I suspect we'll start to see big news on several fronts starting next week. The drip-drip of increasingly damning information from the House committee is like the military "softening" a target with bombs before the troops swoop in. The committee is preparing every one, I think, for blockbuster revelations followed by criminal referrals. I've long hoped that the New York investigations, civil and criminal, help educate the MAGA crowd about who their hero truly is. Not that many are open to the real reality.
Michael, your comment rang in our hopes for justice on the way. Happy New Year, to you and your family. There will be no waiting for 2022! Cheers!
Thank you, Fern. Same to you and yours. It's comforting to read Heather daily and share thoughts with like-minded people such as you.
Hopefully the adage ‘live by the
Sword, die by the sword ‘ clarions trumps fate, what a well deserved ‘skewering’ it will be!
"Our system of laws and due process guarantees it." But it takes a society that respects such laws - or even understands them - to implement them. I like your optimism. I support it. But I wake up everyday and am still stunned that the people who believe in the "Big Steal" and those that remain un-vaccinated number in the millions instead of the thousands.
Our civilization has failed in education. Grade: F
Below is from a reader's comment that I found exquisitely enlightening about DJT followers and the formula of " blind loyalty". I copied them for myself. They are worth repeating.
"...I want to nudge the focus of the perception of the type of power an authoritarian leader has over their followers. It is a form of identity grooming, extended to groups that are hungry for a positive self-identity. The self-identity offered by the authoritarian leader to their followers quickly gives them the status of being favored by a powerful person or party, of being special, and of being right. It is an intensely experienced sudden elevation of their perceived status, and contributes to their intense loyalty. They have not experienced such importance, and high regard, in their lives previously. That the extension of this positive identity is manipulative, dangerous and untrue. It is not visible to those who have embraced it until something happens to reveal the dishonesty of their leader. And even then, for the loyal followers, the betrayal of their loyalty is hard for them to believe. It is important to recognize, that the strong emotional bonds the follower has are not only to the leader, but also to the positive self-identity which the manipulative leader bestowed on them."
(Without the author's permission, a mental healthcare professional, I've not disclosed their identity).
Do you think it is just the manipulative leader or the cause that has been festering for a long time? Reference yesterdays LFAA as well as Timothy Snyder's recent essay.
Not an either/or thing here. I think that the situaton has been festering for a long time, and that has several sources: the Movement Conservatives movement since Reagan, the outsourcing of almost all manufacturing to countries where the wage is $17 per day rather than per hour, and the virulent racism that has been brought into the light (IMO prompted by the election of a Black man as president) and fostered by the failure of the US to appropriately address racial inequity (along with the attempted genocide of the indigenous population) following the civil war.
There has been no upward mobility so death of the American Dream, particularly since Unions have lost their power after air traffic controllers lost under Reagen.
Agreed; I meant to put in the loss of Unions, but forgot.
Decades of stagnate wages, too.
Yes. That was fork in the road
Yes, good old Ronal Rayguns.
...the decimated middle-class, the enormous transfer of wealth from the people to the ultrarich, the disappearance of communities, ah, and the Donor Class...so it goes.
To all that you can add mass immigration of more than 1 million annually. There is a new book: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-year History of Immigration surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck.
The book is solidly researched, covering the literature on academic economic history (very readably, despite 296 footnotes), multiple gov't commissions on immigration reform, all of which recommended substantial reductions in immigration, articles from Black periodicals, and statements from Black leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were all downwardly mobile due to mass immigration. (Back then, employers would send ships to Europe to bring back immigrants, analogous to what companies like Infosys are doing today.)
Beck also gives the lie to the notion that there are jobs American workers won't do, interviewing Black farmworkers who had been pushed off the land by employers wanting a more malleable workforce that would work for less, because the immigrant workers were willing to sleep in trucks or many in a room which the Black Americans wouldn't do.
Meat packers, he writes, disproportionately African American, beginning in the 1920s had fought their way into wages that in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s provided comfortable middle class lives for their families. But a new, anti-worker business model that depended on mass immigration, in the 1980s caused meat packing to collapse back into being the poorly paid job it is today.
Beck emphasizes that immigrants should not be blamed. It is Congress that has failed to reduce immigration, even following the recommendations of various immigration reform commissions that they do so.
He also notes that currently, earlier waves of immigrants are often the victims of the oversupply of cheap labor due to mass immigration policies. As are low/no-skilled whites.
It should also be noted that Biden gets the least support for his immigration policies--35% in a recent poll. The Democratic party has neglected its traditional base, greatly to its detriment.
Alas, the mainstream media hasn't been reporting on this story. I did send a copy of the book to the NPR public editor. The book is $9 from Amazon.
Yes. Reagan gave Amnesty to 700,000 illegals in 1987 as I recall.
At the time I did not realize it was a way to press black folks into poverty.
Makes sense.
I also have come to believe that "media" - news and internet social media have evolved into entertainment for big money - has created this alternative disconnected reality that we all live in. It's like tumbling around in an avalanche of propaganda and story telling noise. Some of us can pick out reality, refer to history, see patterns as a gymnast does in spotting when they leave the ground in a flip. Or like navigating a ship in fog with occasional buoys to guide us. Our spotting references keeps us more or less on track. But many others lose their way, falling prey to those who use this chaos and alternative reality, taking them way off course until there is no finding solid ground or land. This psychological and social antigravity that we find ourselves in as technology removes us from direct eye, hand, touch, hearing contact with our physical world is simply the ether that psychopaths exploit. This doesn't look hopeful for those who have lost it. Nor for those who find that they are alone or only in small groups with reality.
Wow, David, nice distillation of these things that cause so much consternation and head scratching.
That is really well said, David.
exactly!
Both w/o a doubt…
This is the lure of “ the strong man” oft seen in Latin America and now around the world as authoritarianism emerges everywhere. I never thought we (USA)would fall for this but how wrong could I be?!?!
Wow! This sounds so true of a few Trumpers I know personally! Thanks.
Terrifying
That author is so correct! Thanks, Barry, for sharing. Do you have a lot of snow. I'm from Maine, but live in York, PA, and we didn't get any snow until yesterday morning for our first of the year. But it was only maybe an inch. The temp is to reach 46F today with rain, and the snow will be gone!
I'm on the balmy peninsula in Portland. We've had some gentle, manageable snows - enough to create a holiday postcard. Today it is drizzling and a warming trend, followed by rains will alter the landscape.
I'm from Kittery originally, and read from somebody on the town's email group that Rte. 95 was awful a couple of days ago. I would say that Global Warming is not a Big Lie. Growing up, I learned that January is the coldest month, while February gets the most snow. I'll bet Winter will be milder and shorter than in the past, those of us who garden shall be able to plant perhaps a month ahead of usual. Thanks for the Portland weather report!
Bill Though it was a different time (seems eons ago—even occasional bipartisanship), the American public didn’t seem overly concerned about Watergate until close to the end, when support for Nixon plunged precipitously and a group of Republican senators went to the White House to tell Nixon that he was kaput.
Today you have a significant cadre of Trumpites who, like anti-vaxers, deny clear facts and swallow the BIG LIE and that 1/6 at the Capitol Building was akin to a ‘typical tourist day’ and/or that non-MAGA troublemakers sparked this demonstration.
Perhaps I am naive in believing that the staccato presentation of ‘smoking gun’ evidence of how Trumpist perpetrators sought to trash the Constitution and organize a deadly insurrection will have an impact on a majority of Americans. If they don’t give a damn, then I lament for my (and your) country.
Agreed. I think we tend to forget that there were Americans during Nixons time that ultimately just gave up a losing game.
And that needs to be the case today. Most of us are solidly entrenched in our belief camps. But there is a significant number of independents who need to be persuaded. They hold the key to our future.
It’s not “they” and “us”.
It is “We the People”. Democracy allows adversaries and opponents. The work of the Select Committee guides and restores the democratic process to prevent that which is allowed for its people from becoming enemies and war.
The former’s “war rooms” is the crime against this country that will be prosecuted.
Unity!
Amen, Christine!
Yes, Keith. The upcoming year will be a Spring of our Democracy. Your post today freshens my spirit.
Happy New Year!
'We' must be strategic, stronger, determined and more in number, too.
Perhaps, you are naïve, Keith, definitely caring, wise and also a tad mournful about what you really may be afraid to think.
Fern Perhaps David was naive thinking he could go against Goliath. Perhaps Judge Sirica was naive thinking he could break open the Watergate conspiracy. Perhaps Churchill was naive when he sought to get Great Britain to survive against Hitler’s Panzers and Stukas.
I prefer to exude hope in vexing situations rather than simply supinely surrender. I even believe that the tide may turn sharply and that by mid-late-November President Biden might credibly proclaim that IT’S MORNING AGAIN IN AMERICA—pandemic down, economy up, employment way up, inflation down, the BIG LIE and 1/6 insurrection exposed in House hearings and being criminally processed by the DOJ.
P. S. My great aunt and my aunt were named Hope. Might that affect my penchant for being positive rather than negative?
This:
“ I prefer to exude hope in vexing situations rather than simply supinely surrender.”
There is nothing wrong with optimism in the face of adversity, as long as you see clearly what you’re up against. Churchill knew what he was up against. We are up against a juggernaut of 74 million white supremacists who will do anything they can to preserve white rule in the US. At present, they are busy passing laws to not only suppress Democratic votes but also to allow state legislatures to send their own electoral slate to Congress, regardless of the popular vote in their states. I hope we can prevent the collapse of US democracy into a white autocracy, and I will do what I can to prevent it. I’m not optimistic about the chances of success, but that won’t keep me in a supine position. The opposite. I hope you and millions of others will do the same, regardless of your mental state in the optimist/pessimist dimension. That’s what it will take to have any hope of success.
If you are willing to not lie down then you do have hope which shows a glimmer of optimism on your part! Fan the flame!!!
Keith, It was this line of yours that I echoed, 'Perhaps I am naive in believing that the staccato presentation of ‘smoking gun’ evidence of how Trumpist perpetrators sought to trash the Constitution and organize a deadly insurrection will have an impact on a majority of Americans.' Rather than writing as I did, ' Perhaps, you are naïve, Keith...' concerning how the majority of Americans will respond to the public hearings, I should have noted my own uncertainly about how most Americans would react. The pandemic has kept us farther apart and seems to have raised the flames of mistrust. Without knowing what the hearings will be like and with far too little sense of many millions of Americans, I am uncertain, and regret that I didn't write strictly about myself in that regard.
Can you imagine being in a state that is neither negative about our outcome or hopeful either? Concerned as never before, looking for ways to make it better, to find openings without a sense of clarity about where we will be a year from now -- that is me.
Fern I believe that it was Frank Scully who said “Why don’t you go out on a limb? That is where the fruit is.”
But you haven’t given up Fern. You are still here and fighting everyday for democracy to prevail. You will still follow the news and vote with knowledge instead of blindly clicking all the R’s or D’s on the ballot. You will know who your candidates are. That’s a sign you are still hopeful.
As I waited in the checkout line in Costco I had a conversation with a woman. She told me about how a Hispanic ground’s maintenance man was beaten almost to death by a white man at 10:30 am. I commented I hadn’t seen that in the paper and asked if it was racially motivated. She shrugged. After a discussion about our representatives for the district changing because of the new maps (yay, we have been moved to a more Democratic district and Issa is not our rep) went on to tell me that she doesn’t turn on the news or pay attention to politics. But she reads the paper. I wondered if she just discards the politics section of the newspaper. There was a huge article on redistricting. How could you not care about who represents you? Or maybe she didn’t want to admit she was a Republican.
Yes, Keith, that might have affected your penchant for being positive rather than negative. Let us hope(that thing with feathers) the static and fog of our media, and our internet, radio and TV systems disappears so that we all may learn the truth.
As a former educator I would say, you can't force people to learn when they are not interested in learning. What we see here are traits that have been with us since we fell out of the trees or walked out of the caves. One prevalent one is fear and as history shows us time and time again, fear is easy for demagogues to stir up. There is also the power of unsubstantiated views which are much easier to spread thanks to social media. Then there are those who proclaim they believe that the gods or in our time, Jesus, who will save them from whatever is happening that they do not understand. One current example of a blind death star donny follower is that rube here in Oregon who ended his conversation with Biden with a slur. He got a lot of negative feedback, so first he said it was a joke, the usual excuse when these people find that not everyone thought it was a good thing. Then Steve Bannon called and we got the whole picture. The rube is a Trumper and of of course a believer in Jesus Christ. (Here I always wonder if these people have read any of the first three Gospels.) We also found out that he is a former LE officer which wasn't surprising either.
Michele As a former educator—history/economics professor from age 58 to 80–I agree that ‘you can’t force people to learn when they are not interested in learning.’ However, I discovering that when some of my students were thrown into a learning bath tub, a number, flaying a bit, began to learn—and even enjoy it. On the Big Lie and the 1/6 Capitol Building insurrection, the staccato repetition of ‘false facts’ won’t sway die-hard Trumpistas.
However, increasing focus on the criminal nature of what Trump and his sycophants sought to engineer against the Constitution and in inciting a deadly insurrection could have an impact on those who haven’t bothered with the specifics. (Some of the TV clips could be devastating.)For some, the entire sordid affair might best be explained in a comic book. I am confident, were I still teaching. American history, that a majority of my working-class students would eventually understand that the BIG LIE and its afterlife were bs on a platter. Do I have too much faith in the ‘American people?”
I share your optimism, Keith, that a certain percentage of "reluctant" learners, as I call them, will be persuaded by the facts. And the slow moving arc of morality will swing a little closer toward justice and truth. We won't persuade the die-hards, but gradually we will gain more adherents to the truths the Commission will reveal. Plus, there has got to be a big segment of influential Republicans who know the truth and will not vote for any Trumpers running for office. And there are many (?) ordinary folks against Trump and his ilk: https://rvat.org/ We also see former Trumpers jumping ship as he insists on the Big Lie and looking elsewhere for a leader. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-s-2020-fixation-putting-him-odds-some-his-biggest-n1286602. This is all good news.
However, I don't know how this will work at the ballot boxes given the gerrymandering and new voting restrictions in place. Can this coalition of former Republicans change parties, vote Democrat, and swing the election in 2024?
And of course, we must include what the Repub majority state legislatures are doing by writing "laws" that allow those very legislators to overturn the the will of the voters regarding elections. And they also usually ignore their constituents as a matter of routine. It would seem that they have little if any conscience about the damages they inflict on those constituents who elected them.
I understand what you are saying. I was partly taking exception to the statement that education gets a F. People do come around and I know some who have. I always remember standing in front of a bookstore waiting for it to open and hearing a comment from the guy next to me who said that he couldn't believe that here he was, waiting for a bookstore to open because for years he was not interested. I am also a former librarian and I told him he made my day.
So many people are easily fooled because they have no skills to evaluate what they hear or they are simply true believers and that applies to the people on the left who are not helping by being absolutely antiBiden. I am hopeful that the public hearings will help. I have an ex high school classmate who has never mentioned January 6th. She did tell me that she was glad she was not educated like I was. I would sometimes try to explain the history of why something was happening. I did tell her that I would feel the same, education or no and that I know many people who are not educated as well as I am who feel exactly as I do. She lives in an Indiana R echo chamber and of course, is a devout Christian who is motivated by issues like abortion.
I also mentioned that traits that have been around forever and those no education will help. So I am in the middle, hoping that most will see the light, but thinking that many will not.
Michelle, I live in that "Indiana R echo chamber" and might even know your friend as there are so many like her. I admire the fact that you can still talk with her and remain friends! On a humorous note, I was at the gas pumps about a month ago and a typical red-neck looking guy next to me was filling his old pickup. In an effort to be open minded and neighborly, I said, How about this weather? And he said Yeah, it's as bad as the political situation. I said nothing in response, feeling I'd stepped close to quick sand. Then he added, I'm sure proud of President Biden for his bold moves to improve our country!
You can probably imagine my shock.
We ain't all Republicans in this echo chamber. Actually, here in Indianapolis we have a Democrat mayor and City Council!! And Obama won our county.
I was speaking of Elkhart. There are a couple friends of this person who do agree with me. I really don't know how we remain friends in a way. I think that it is because I am polite, but know how to express outrage. I have a cousin and a friend who live near Indy and both are Ds and also friends in Goshen and South Bend. I would have been shocked too. I have relatives in Terre Haute and across the river in Paris, IL. They are poorly educated and prone to believe Qanon nonsense and have bragged about not having the shot. Now one of them wants people to pray for her son and grandson who have COVID. Lots of drama going on all the time and if they have jobs, they are scut jobs.
The process of education differs from a system of indoctrination! Although one may have a high school diploma or a college degree, the saying ‘you can
Lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’ applies to
trumps cult!
Failed, yes, but not for lack if trying. Over 40% of Americans believe that the earth is under 10,000 years old. Gallup has confirmed this periodically for over 30 years running. Only a small percentage of young earthers (almost all of them in the South) learned this in school. You have to be willfully ignorant to believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Education, no matter how good, cannot reach such people.
Do you have a moment to hear about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? In 2005 our "prophet" Bobby Henderson wrote to the Kansas School Board insisting that the Gospel of the FSM be taught alongside "Intelligent Design". He suggested that two meatballs connected by pasta noodles created the Earth about 5000 years ago. He said that in the interests of fairness and respect for differing views, that both versions of creation belonged in the curriculum.
The school board did not respond...but a new religion was born. RAmen.
Yes. I am always pleased to see bumper stickers promoting FSM, and I do see them frequently here on the left coast, where people can put them in their cars without fear of vandalism by nitwits whose epistemology allows them to believe fantastic and improbable things for which there is no credible evidence.
PS. I lived in Kansas from birth to 18.5. Got out as soon as I could.
Agreed, Bill. Any country founded on slavery and colonialism fails in the end. Is the end nearer than most of us think?
Thank you for sharing your take on this Keith. I agree with you and I know that a lot of the work that lies ahead of us includes what each one of us can do to elect more Democrats, to support the League of Women Voters, local Indivisible groups, county Democrat organizations, and more. www.lwv.org
Beto O'Rourke's Powered by People organization is doing awe inspiring work in Texas; an excellent blueprint for other States.
https://texassignal.com/beto-orourkes-powered-by-people-is-an-organizing-powerhouse/
Very well written and certainly one possible trajectory of outcomes to be sure.
Once "The fog of authoritarianism will lift and burn away" has occurred, I sure hope the American legislative agenda can produce something besides tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, laws to support corporate outsourcing and offshoring via various bi-partisan "free trade" agreements, and some legislation that actually places:
Americans first.
Instead of where Americans have been placed for forty years by, "Democracy", and by, honestly, both parties:
Last.
Just as my wife and I felt great pride and comfort when our congressional leaders got back together on Jan 6-7 in that earlier-besieged chamber and got the job done! Thankful for the adults in the room seeing that the job needed to be finished and got it done.
Blessings on you, Keith, for your strong, clear, bracing, heart-charging, blues-chasing morning jolt of inspiration. Better than coffee!
Words matter…Thoughts become things. These phrases often times become my mantra and I, like you Keith, am choosing optimism and hope over defeat and depression. Each morning I wake up anticipating that Heather’s letter will leave me hopeful that our democracy will win out over autocracy. That the investigation into January 6th will not end as the Mueller investigation ended…that trump and his minions will lose their power over the many who have fallen prey to them and to FOX’s mind control. It’s time to take responsibility for my own hope and optimism. Biden and his administration are doing great things for the people of this country in spite of the Republican obstructionists. The truth is coming out about who planned the insurrection and who was involved. The majority in this country wants democracy to hold fast. We should believe that the Dems won’t just hold on to the House and Senate but that they will increase their majority. Why shouldn’t they when the majority of us want the same goals they are fighting for. Stacy Abrams is just one person and look what she has accomplished. We need to turn our attention away from hand wringing, defeat and depression which only wear us down. That’s what tfg and the radical right are hoping will happen. I don’t see President Biden being worn down from the roadblocks being put in his way. He keeps moving forward with good deeds. Perhaps the messaging doesn’t always get through but that’s on the media… it’s up to us to also be the messengers. So, I’m with you Keith. I’m keeping my rose colored glasses on and believing our democracy will prevail and watching our justice system work as it should! I’m going to focus on expressing the positives and keep my mantras in my thoughts. Words matter. Thoughts become things! Go for BLUE IN 22! Roll up your sleeves and put on your marching shoes! This is going to be a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
You are right, Sharon, "it’s up to us to also be the messengers." Couldn't agree more. Sadly, most of my followers are sick of hearing from me, but maybe when the news coming out of the Select Committee can no longer be ingored, my messaging and yours will be reconsidered and heard.
I wouldn’t perhaps be quite as optimistic as Keith, but I continue to believe that the 1/6 Select Committee is the tiny needle in the Trump/associates collective hide that is growing step by step into a giant spear. They are a disciplined, methodical, and seriously intelligent group who are leaving no stone unturned.
The latest, most desperate tactic is to appeal to the law to stop the committee from enforcing its subpoenas. I am no lawyer, but to date the Trump team’s record in litigation attempts is, with no malice, less than stellar. Put another way, if I was a betting man, I’d have a strong disinclination to put down hard cash on the likelihood of Taylor Budowich striking gold in the court system.
There is however the time factor. And it is no revelation to speculate that winning isn’t the point. Running out the clock is.
Two thoughts occur to me. One is that there will likely be a period this winter and spring when two events are happening simultaneously. One is the public hearings by the Committee. The other is the processing of these lawsuits. It seems to me likely that the hearings will not lack for damaging content. They may even rival the John Dean hearings of the Watergate era in giving the public the scope of the malignant actions leading to and occurring adjacent to the attack on January 6. It is hard to conceive of public hearings being mooted by the Committee that would produce a collective yawn from the Left and never-ending scorn from the Trumpists. The hearings will probably make the skin of the innocent and guilty alike, crawl. For different reasons of course.
A few hearings in, and we may see a rush by the litigants to withdraw their lawsuits and start trying to cut the best deal for themselves possible. And if that doesn’t happen, the courts may “expedite” the lawsuits because they recognize from the hearings that they have a place in history.
The other thought is more precise and narrow. I am most interested to see how SCOTUS replies to the strongly worded request from the Committee to announce by January 14 whether they will hear Trump’s DARA lawsuit. Given that this lawsuit has an unblemished losing record on its trip to the Supreme Court, and given its potential impact on the hearings, it will be very telling - and deeply demoralizing - if Court blows off the Committee. If they do, it will be one more body blow to the credibility of the Supreme Court. If they choose to hear the case in, let’s say, May, it will be yet another blow. And if they rule in favour of Trump, it will be a third and perhaps final one. We will know then that the Court, notwithstanding its “Aren’t we ever so legitimate?” tour this past fall, is politicized beyond the shadow of a doubt. This will be its death knell and one more nail will be driven into the coffin of democracy.
Thank You Keith! I very much appreciated the positive and hopeful tone in your comment. It seems as though we as Democrats are politically depressed despite the amazing work Biden has done this year. In our concern for the good of the Country we tend to see the glass half empty too often. I have seen a tendency towards moroseness in myself and comments posted in response to Dr. Richardson's articles.
As the New Year approaches can we take a collective moment to appreciate the fact that we have done an amazing job since that infamous elevator ride in 2016 of pushing back against the dark forces in our Country.
We will prevail for Democracy.
“Politically depressed” is a perfect explanation!
From your mouth...
I share your optimism
Thank you Keith for your optimism!
“The fog of authoritarianism will lift and burn away from Washington in the days ahead and be gone for decades.“
Except, of course, for the lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court and the Federal judiciary.
Plus come midterms the Congress will become more and more conservative.
"The fog of authoritarianism will lift and burn away from Washington in the days ahead and be gone for decades." Kind of like climate change...
Dear Keith -
May it be as you’ve written.
I like your attitude. Note: in their own defense has anyone actually said they were not trying to overturn the election by interfering with the legal process - yes they substitute the word steal for election but it is one and the same, they say that Congress was acting illegally but the process itself was not illegal - what they thought was legal, was not illegal... replacing electors and empowering Pence. Gaslighting 101. It amazes me that five to fifteen thousand actually fell under their spell. Their lies and twisted logic should not protect them in a court of law. They are all sounding very desperate from what HCR wrote. I think they all know that Jim Jordan or Perry will cave first. I bet they are very afraid of going to jail - as did John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General and friend who was sentenced to 19 months whose crime was to help with the coverup....what will the sentence be for trying to overthrow democracy?
The committee has announced they will begin public hearings in late January/early February, that they will extend through the spring and early summer with "our best witnesses" and that the final report will be published in "late summer" - all perfect timing to tie anvils around every Republican running for office, making questions about their support of Trump prime time in the middle of their campaigns.
And there is news that the reapportionments don't look so terrible for Democrats, and if they are running against loonie tunes traitors who are being asked about their support of insurrection when they try to speak - and the idiots are running not on legislating but on passing articles of impeachment for Biden, the mendacious morons may sink themselves. And if they lose 2022, you can bet Fatso Fatass won't announce he's running for president.
Except that if Voting Rights aren't protected, none of that will matter.
(good work for the Committee (and keep going); Senate (& Biden) need to do their part!)
Robett Hubbel wrote in his Substack newsletter 12-27-21:
"Maintaining perspective about redistricting by Republican legislatures.
A persistent worry among Democrats is that Republican state legislatures will gerrymander their way into control of the House in 2022. Indeed, doomsayers have converted that worry into an irrefutable tenet of political dogma. It is possible, perhaps likely, that Republicans will gain some advantage in the redistricting process that is underway. But it is difficult to gerrymander your way to victory when your base is small and shrinking. When you have fewer Republicans to cram into majority-Republican districts, you must inevitably cede ground in other districts. In other words, Republicans are running up against the mathematical limits of gerrymandering.
Paul Waldman has addressed the limits of gerrymandering in his op-ed in the Washington Post, “Surprisingly, there has been a redistricting turnaround.” As Waldman explains,
Just in the past few days, the conventional wisdom on redistricting has undergone a dramatic shift. The most informed redistricting experts now say it appears that this process will look more like a wash, or even that Democrats might gain a few seats.
Why do Waldman and other experts believe that Republicans will not be able to gain as many seats through redistricting as predicted? There are several reasons. First, Republicans pushed gerrymandering to the limits after the 2010 census. Second, Democrats have been equally aggressive in gerrymandering where they have the advantage. And finally, Republicans have used their shrinking base to protect existing seats, rather than attempting to carve out districts with a slight Republican advantage. Waldman uses Texas and Illinois as examples:
In Texas, Republicans chose to lock in their current advantage rather than expand it, a decision driven by the way the state is trending in a more Democratic direction. . . . On the other hand, Democrats took advantage of some of their opportunities, adding up to three seats in Illinois (where they could wind up with 14 of 17 seats).
It is true that some existing seats will disappear or flip from blue to red. But Waldman’s point is that the overall net effect may be status quo—i.e., a razor thin Democratic majority, all other things being equal. Of course, the redistricting process is not complete, and some of Waldman’s analysis is based on court challenges to redistricting plans in North Carolina and Georgia.
My point is this: Do not assume disaster. A folk saying asserts that “Worry is the interest paid on disaster before it is due.” Or as Mark Twain never said about worry, “I have had a great many troubles in my life, most of which never happened.” Gerrymandering by GOP legislatures remains a real threat in 2022. But it does not appear to be shaping up to be the Armageddon predicted by political pundits. Let’s stay focused on the things we can control and not engage in excessive worry about outcomes that may never occur."
None of that addresses suppressing voting. For the above, I ask: who will lose more voters? That's the key.
Just as important, the above essentially says: don't worry about voter suppression. I say WTF? to that!
Ric, If it’s any consolation, I can assure you that several civic grassroots organizations have summoned millions of every day people to work tirelessly to press for legislation that would ensure 1) that all eligible voters easily can register to vote and stay enrolled and 2) that eligible votes are cast, counted correctly, and certified without interference and without their being diluted through partisan gerrymandering.
Also, given the current Senate, I really, really don't like "razor-thin" majority. That has NOT worked well for us.
Agreed. I also would note that if Dems expect to pick up Senate seats, they must remain laser-focused on two priorities: 1) reforming the filibuster to pass voter protection legislation that safeguards against voter suppression/ nullification and 2) Putting back together the strongest possible version of the BBB agenda that can get the support of 50 Senators.
Well this would simply be lovely if it turns out this way.
TC, I was with you until you wrote, “there is news that the reapportionments don’t look so terrible for Democrats.” Regrettably, I am not aware of a single GOP controlled state legislature that has not drafted plans to substantially dilute Democratic votes in their respective States. Hence, Congress, upon return to Washington in January, must prioritize filibuster reform to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, whose provisions, unlike VRAA, would supersede existing State law in conflict with its stipulations. Admittedly, a compromised version of its predecessor H.R.1/S.1 For The People that Manchin rejected, this edited down legislation Manchin helped draft, nonetheless, would expand access to the ballot box and safeguard against election subversion and partisan gerrymandering.
NC is in court over the terrible redistricting maps. I went to the public hearings which were announced just days in advance. One after another constituents made remarks that the maps were unfair, the time period for registering to speak too short, and that the decisions had already been made with NO public comment. And then the time for comments was over. Just like nobody said a damn thing in opposition to the gerrymandered maps.
What was meant is, Democratic analysts have looked at some of the reapportioned districts and they are not as thoroughly R as thought. That doesn't mean the Ds win. It does mean that a Democrat in tune with the area has a fighting chance. Having a fighting chance is a lot better than no chance. Although with the ways too many think and act, it might as well be. So, not being shot at dawn is a good thing. :-)
UPDATE: The Cook Report says that the redistricting in Texas, Florida, North Carolina is "a wash" - so what I am reading elsewhere appears to be right.
TC, I imagine if A.G. Garland’s recent suit against Texas for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is any indication, you could be right. I also would add that a few weeks back Garland, who frets more than most over separation of powers, concluded a press conference with a plea to Congress to pass new federal voting rights legislation, making clear that DOJ will do whatever it can (translation: go to court to protect voting rights) but that Congress must do what it alone can do (pass legislation that also protects election integrity and thus democracy itself). Pity this press conference received so little coverage. I had hoped Garland’s concluding remarks would have aired again and again.
This is what gives me hope and optimism. It ain’t over til the “robust” lady sings!
I listened to a report on NPR yesterday that said both blue & red districts had solidified their positions while swing districts are disappearing. I didn’t get actual numbers however.
I don't know, TC. Idjt is a narcissist. If he is still around, I'm thinking he will make every effort to run, casting aside those who would advise otherwise.
David Plouffe points out that his fragile, brittle ego couldn't take the slightest chance of losing - which if they don't win 2022 would be a fair certainty.
Good, but a big “butt”
Yes TFG does have that.
He also sold the hotel. I think that’s a huge sign he won’t run.
…or he’ll try to say he no longer owns it so the hotel has “executive privilege” over whatever happened there..😂
😂
Plouffe is a voice I appreciate. Where is he now? What is he doing? Do you know, TCinLA? His podcasts have vanished. ❤️🤍💙
gildedtwig, I, too find Plouffe to be a thoughtful strategist. I hear him virtually everyday on any number of MSNBC news programs.
Oh, I think t-Rump will run alright. To Russia or UAE or...
Forget NY reapportionment. It’s a Red State now. They had 3 proposals at the last Election Day for helping voters/voting rights and NY’s sat on their asses while they all got rejected. Also, only ultra conservative judges were elected. Clearly that is an indication of how the 2022 Elections will go. RED.
The evil sees their best chance EVER to rule the roost. They not only smell blood, they are awash in it in many places. Don’t assume anything, except one hell of a fight when half the population doesn’t know there is a battle
Not quite. The very well funded Right Wing Nuts used wile and propaganda to get the proposition on the backside of the ballots so that in the NYC area they just did not get voted upon.
Both houses of the legislature are firmly Blue.
The problem remains the massive funding available to the right.
I agree about the funding, but NY has shifted ideologically Right. It is alarming. I stand by my original comment.
Only because the lame Jay Jacobs decided not to do any campaign push back against the GOP “no” signs. The text was very confusing, and even solid D voters weren’t sure what to vote for. I don’t believe it’s a harbinger, though we do need to exorcise the rotten fruit within.
Grace, the voter proposals were quite clear - yes, one or two of the others not so much. It just boggled the mind with all the newsprint/media regarding the issue of voters rights that people (especially in a blue (so far) state) didnt care enough to THINK!
Maggie, I agree most of the proposals ( clean air and water for all ) were pretty clear. I can’t understand how the same day registration proposal lost. But the redistricting one, which I checked with the LWV, was full of bad ideas with the good ones, and the good ones were very good. But after years of Cuomo and the IDC pretending to help voters it made sense to be wary of any proposal.
Lisa, yes, as a lifetime resident of NY State , it is Red now. Anyone thinking differently, is only fooling themselves.
People don’t understand how it can happen bc they think diverse NYC is NY, but NYC is just a tiny dot dense with people. Ideologically speaking, NY in general leans more extremist Republican. The Dem politicians are mostly DINO’s who go along with the corruption in place.
Lisa. Exactly. I live in both Syracuse, a predominantly Blue city and a small town, S Otselic, an hour south and completely different mindset. Red as hell. I brought a plate of homemade Christmas cookies over to my neighbors in S Otselic on Friday only to find out all 4 of the people living there have COVID. Yes, they are Trumpers, antivaxers +++. Ughhhhh
Yikes. I was really nice of you to bring cookies to your neighbors though.
Lisa, well it's the holidays 🤷♀️
I couldnt get over "voters" not READING & COMPREHENDING (sorry caps needed) what the explanation of those proposals said! How @#@# hard could that be? I read them & checked the boxes (etc) & thought they were shoe-ins. How wrong that was.
I knew a guy who voted against whatever sounded good because he felt it ended up being the opposite.
I wish, but I have watched Machiavellian machinations for more than half of my long life.
The House committee investigating the events of Jan 6 is being diligent in pursuing the facts and strategic in pursuing justice. They know what is at stake. They are being very thoughtful about their responsibility to take what actions they can.
I hope that every potential Democratic voter - and that should include every American who does not support the sacking of the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power - will follow the committee's work and their lead.
2022 is upon us. We need to do our part to secure the Democratic majority in Congress. The committee's example of being diligent and strategic will serve us well. It should give us heart at what is possible, appreciation of what is at stake, and inspiration to do our best.
Of course, those who don’t buy the big lie will, but with even PBS bending in the wind, the Dems had better, not just do the right thing, but find a way to tell the world. Maybe they should confab with Bloomberg…
I wish I shared your confidence. I have already had a 'vote your gut' progressive say recently 'the Dems haven't done anything, it doesn't matter who is in office.' More purity tests because that's worked so well ...
People often see the problems, but they often don't see their responsibility to vote strategically to solve them.
"The dems haven't done anything".
Cause not ONE republican can vote for anything besides tax cuts and military.
Yes, Lin, THIS.
What this letter reminds me of is when Nixon vowed he “wasn’t a crook” when he absolutely was. His jowls would flap in the wind when he lied, which was often. Then his VP, the dishonorable Spiro Agnew, was running his own little money laundering scheme while Watergate was in full force. Two fine gentlemen…
The frivolous lawsuits filed against the Select Committee are just to give these liars more time to figure out what their next chess move will be. Jim Jordan, whose very loud mouth should really get him into trouble, is relatively silent. The walls are closing in now and I, for one, am enjoying the squeeze.
But what will Rupert tell the cult? Does anyone think Fox will air the hearings? Will the WSJ print even a remote version of the truth? Will ANY republican pol venture a kind word for justice? The BIG LIE is on trial
The Murdochs, The Kochs, the Mercers, the Mars (Mars Candy heirs), and others, are weasels and the biggest donors to misinformation and probably to the insurrection. The Select Committee is methodically peeling away the layers of who organized and financed the disaster at the Capitol. The walls are slowly closing in, folks.
Hope I live long enough. I’m old but I might hang around if I have hope of seeing the “squeeze.”
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I can see those jowls flapping. Funny, the things we cannot forget. Question, Marlene, can those guys really play chess?
No, but they can cheat, lie, and propagandize til hell freezes over. Then they can upset the board, sort of like Jan 6…. The cult will be on board, I live amongst them.
We all live amongst them - some more closely than others
i am immersed in TX, family crazy farther away
Ugh ugh UGH!
Rural Michigan.
They try, Fern, but they fail miserably.
I am leaving the forum this afternoon, with a chuckle thanks to you, Marlene.
Have you read "Bagman" by Rachel Maddow? It is an amazing rendition of Agnew's criminality and corruption.
Oh yes! Actually, I listened to her podcast when it came out. It was excellent and brought forth facts that I was totally unaware of. .
❤❤❤
Thank you Heather.
The elephant in the room is, and has always been, without passing the Voter Rights Act, this investigation is meaningless.
I am somewhat ashamed to say that I am seeing far too many fellow Democrats seeing the January 6th Committee proceedings to be the answer to Trumps ills.
Stop looking for the next shiny object and concentrate on the real problem at hand. Voting Rights.
JFC, I've been hearing the "Trump is going to jail" chorus for years. I couldn't possibly care less at this point.
Be safe. Be well.
Yes, indeed, Linda, passing the VOTING RIGHTS ACTS is the only way to ensure that we stop this Mess.
Is the country ready to go down the path of indicting a former president, his associates, and certain sitting members of Congress? Is the DOJ prepared to take such unprecedented steps? If recent history is any indicator, I am not so certain. Many of us thought that the actions of GW Bush warranted further investigation. He and his administration took us into two catastrophic and illegal wars, and yet Obama gave them a pass. What will it take, in terms of egregious acts against the Republic, for there to be a righting for the wrongs inflicted against it?
Indictment is a legal remedy not available for righting every egregious act against and wrong inflicted on the Republic. For instance, Bush's catastrophic military adventures were not 'illegal wars.'
Rather than accusing Obama, you would do better to cite Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon. All evidence indicated that Nixon could and should have been indicted. Rather than healing the nation, the pardon gave Republican miscreants a green light. Do you want to list all the GOP players who cut their teeth serving Nixon's bad impulses and were still around to serve Trump's? How about starting with Manafort and Stone?
Nixon should not have been pardoned. As for Obama, I still believe there should have been further investigations into the “bad intelligence “ that predicted the two I’ll conceived wars. Wars that cost thousands of US lives and hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. It seems as though each time we end up with a miscreant in the WH and what comes with that, we fail to figure out how to deal with future miscreants.
There was a movie that was made that highlighted to two actual CIA agents that had clear information that Bush was lying. They did everything possible to get that information out.
A similar story played out in Britain, see Katherine Gunn.
But, Americans must have wanted war. Because, our representatives, all of them, stood by and did nothing or outright supported both wars.
Perhaps we should check the Swiss Bank accounts of all legislators back then?
Maybe they grew quite a bit during that time as military contractors and consultants smelled the scent of money?
I dont believe we Americans wanted war - but our supposed representatives sure did!
Bingo.
Stone (with the Nixon tattoo on his back) was quoted as saying that no other Republican president would ever have to go through what Nixon did. He has worked tirelessly to that end, still is. The list is long and the evil is chomping away at us every hour of every day. But what are the Kardashians doing now?
Well said and thanks for posting.
I thought they were deemed "illegal". They discovered that they knowingly misled people.
Ford pardoned Nixon in order to “help the country heal”. Obama said we needed to move on from the Bush administration and get the Great Recession under control (with no help from republicans). Traitors were not held accountable after the Civil War. Egregious crimes against the country go unpunished so that “healing” can take place. Look how things have turned out.
Jenn, ultimately this is what I feel will happen. Lots of bluster and finger pointing. However, I cannot forget and or forgive hearing an early interview with Biden that he said he would rather not pursue Trump for the good of the Nation. It surprises me that interview hasn't resurfaced.....yet.
For the good of the nation Trump MUST be pursued.
Barb, I don't disagree. Nothing would make me happier.
Oh crap, I missed that.
Just raw wounds
Infected wounds, scabbed over, to be ripped open at a later time (kinda like electing the Black guy did with racism in this country.)
I fault Obama not, since he learned on day one that the republicans gave him no respect, no deference and opposition that was unprecedented (well, sort of, no attempted coup like Smedley Butler reported against FDR). He was lucky to have survived without being shot. I live in a place where many supported such, sad to say. The evil got an upper hand with the Tea party crazies.
Yes, every day some racist Republican domestic terrorist didn't take a shot at Obama, we all dodged a bullet.
But I fault Obama for tyro errors in underestimating Republican intransigence. He seemed to think he could reason with them and they would reason right back. As if. Ever. Since Reagan.
Also Obama did little to get the good will of Democrats in Congress - as a basketball player/fan he should've respected team work and as president he should have facilitated it.
Yes, he tried to reason with the unreasonable, just like Teddy K did with W and the evil around him. They laughed their arses off as Dems played the “normal politics” game. Kennedy should have had his boxing gloves on because Rove had his Goebbels best propaganda rules at his side. Then along came Obama, who still had “the audacity of hope.”
Reason with them? Isnt that what Biden thought he could do? Being colleagues for all those years means nothing in the current hullaballoo.
Democratic former senator presidents seem to give their former colleagues an awful lot of credit, despite the clear evidence we see that it isn’t warranted.
800,000 dead should do it imho.
Jeff, if the egregious acts of Jan 6th are not enough to stiffen the backs of Garland and several well-known "moderate" Democratic senators (and of a handful of GOP senators, for that matter), and important indictments are not forthcoming sooner rather than later, our beloved republic will be toast.
As long as we unite and vote for Democratic candidates in every contest, in sufficient numbers to overcome GOP voter suppression tactics, then there is hope yet. And not that I am a die hard Democrat. I'm Left of Bernie et al - but strategic voting above all. I fear those on the Left who still believe 'help things get bad enough, and come the revolution' - haven't noticed it came, and went for Trump, not exactly the socialist workers' paradise. I do dread the implications of a 'red wave' in 2022. The GOP - giving 'red menace' a new spin.
Half the population is checked out, Again, all the forms of normal are still in place.
Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1933-45. “Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained, or on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that what one didn’t see was in principle what all these ‘little measures’ must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing - each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.
You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone. You don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ But the one great shocking occasion, when the tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed which you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. You have accepted things that you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago. Things your father could never have imagined.”
Such is the power of propaganda.
Wow!! Great description of much that is happening now. The part about the false security of feeling the familiar "forms" are in place when the "spirit" has completely shifted is so terrifyingly real!
made my blood run cold
I Will Bear Witness.......Victor Klemperer, excellent first person account of waiting for the regular German people to take back the country from the Nazis, but they had all gone to ground.
great post.
Very chilling
When half the population bullies the other half
The power of propaganda, indeed.
I agree, Lin, unifying and voting strategically for whatever Democrat is on the ballot is fundamental. But it is not likely to be enough to overcome recent changes to voting laws in GOP controlled states. Getting out half, or even a quarter of the 40+% of Americans who -- on average -- DO NOT VOTE just might be enough, but how can we be sure that will necessarily favor Democrats?
Our real problem is that many -- if not most -- Democrats are not yet convinced that one possible -- or likely -- outcome, even as soon as the 2022 mid-terms, is the end of American Democracy. What? A coup d'etat in America? It'll never happen, right?
Well, it's happening.
It is happening, yes. And I do think many are convinced of that. And I've seen that conviction itself serve as a form of voter suppression - buying into/indulging in the dodge of 'nothing I can do will change anything' and so doing nothing, or a bare minimum.
Exactly........not only does a democracy need support of facts; it also needs courage. From us; do not go to ground. Be loud.
It is so very disheartening to watch these nimwits being controlled by the evil doers destroy our and their democracy.
By the way Where is Merrick Garland and what is he doing to help us?
Whew. Do you really want to make that segue? It implies a false equivalency between 'evil doers' and someone you think is not doing enough.
Merrick Garland is being targeted by the Left in a way which implies a wholesale condemnation of the entire DOJ. On what grounds? That Garland is not rounding up enemies of the state?
Please take a look at what the DOJ has been doing.
https://www.justice.gov/news
It was not my intent to insinuate or say out right that Merrick Garland is any part of doing evil. I have the greatest regard for him. Perhaps I should investigate what the justice department is doing in regards to those that are trying to steal our Democracy. Guess he just doesn’t get headline news. I truly would like to see him more front and center. We need all the strong representations of good that we can get.
They all need to be dangling from trees in Lafayette Park.
Please dial that back. Seriously. We must do better than public hangings. After all hanging those involved in the assassination of Lincoln did nothing to quell the anti government sentiments of the confederates. Or of their ideological heirs and fellow travelers who support today's Republican sedition.
Good luck in trying to get TC to walk back his calls for violence lin. I have called him (not sure of pronouns) out several times for his blatant calls for death against those he dislikes and disagrees with. His response today, that “we didn’t hang enough of them”, is the first time I’ve seen him respond at all and he only reiterated his call for violence.
I think he enjoys calling for violence and death so he can sit back and see who condemns it. I have yet to see any kind of thoughtful response from him, one in which he explains his desire for violence or apologizes or even notes that he is acting exactly like the Republicans who call for the deaths of everyone not in their cult.
(I will add this - I do believe in the death penalty for traitors. I also believe that justice should be far swifter than it is in this country. Carefully, methodically and legally applied but swift. Those accused of such crimes and those who ignore subpoenas for said crimes should be held without bail.)
I recognize that he has the right to spout such repugnant drivel but I also recognize that I don’t have to read it. I have responded to him several times. I won’t waste anymore time in doing so because I have far better things to do than to continue to play into his bullshit game of seeking attention for outrageous comments. My future silence does not signal acceptance or acquiescence - just that I have moved on from responding to his hateful, juvenile behavior.
Yes. ThankYou. Calling out the counterproductive. A tough niche, but someone's got to fill it. You've taken your turn, I'll take up the challenge.. It's not about provocateurs et al. It's about this community.
I agree with you 100%. We have to call this vile behavior out. We do. And I will continue to do so with my Congressional reps and elsewhere. I just have no more energy or patience with TC’s bullshit. Good luck with your turn. Maybe others here will help. It needs to be enough that it acts as a reminder to him of what civilized resistance looks like or enough to shame him into stopping - although, as I said, my take on it is that he does it because he enjoys doing so - and maybe would be first in line to act that way. I wish you well.
I meant to add - calling him out on this needs to be both strong enough in response and every single time he does it and as you said - from this community.
There is a saying, often attributed to George Orwell or Winston Churchill but neither of them actually said it; that appears to have been created by Richard Grenier who "was attempting to provide a pithy representation of an idea he ascribed to George Orwell. Later writers and speakers turned his phrase into a quotation and directly attached it to Orwell. Over time variants were constructed with modified phrasing. The quote appeared in 1949 and says, "“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” There are some of us who have been given the gift to be able to use violence in defense of and in protection of those who may not have that gift. I suspect that TC is one of those, as am I. He's more of a curmudgeon that I, having earned that right by age and study. Sometimes we talk rough, and need reminging that our conversation is not always for polite company; other times our rough talk may be what is needed to convey the message of what we are seeing from our perspective.
(https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2090/who-first-said-this-quote-about-how-we-only-sleep-safely-because-rough-men-stan)
I’m with you Ally, the use of language can be a gift, I believe that TC has amply demonstrated that he has one.
Thanks for your reply. While I do agree with you that sometimes violence is called for in self defense and in defense of those who cannot defend themselves I disagree with you on the rest.
Violence is not a gift. It can be a necessity and I recognize that. I have had to resort to violence and the insinuation of violence (by pointing a loaded firearm at someone who was attempting to attack me - and yes, for those who may ask, I was prepared to use it and not in any kind of Hollywood way of ‘winging him’). And sometimes citizens must rise up against a tyrannical government. Their own or others.
I do not grant TC the allowance you are so generously giving him. Calling for people to be thrown out of windows and hanged isn’t just impolite talk or talk not suited for public discourse. It is dangerous and uncalled for. And for those paying attention, it equals what Republicans are calling for for the rest of us.
Even in a war we should be held to our humanity. There are rules even for war and indiscriminately hanging people and tossing them out of 10th floor windows is not on the “Go ahead and help yourself” list of how to deal with the opposition/enemy.
I do not sleep peaceably in my bed because I’m okay with rough people doing violence on my behalf. No thanks. If our situation here in the US comes to violence - as in a civil war - I will sign up and commit myself to standing up for what I believe in. No one need do it for me. If anyone tries to harm me or mine or others who cannot defend themselves I will continue to stand up to them - myself.
Lastly, I disagree with your statement that TC - or anyone - earns the right to be a curmudgeon by age and study. TC isn’t a kindly old curmudgeon. He’s issuing calls for outright violent behavior that results in death. Not in any dictionary that I know of does ‘curmudgeon’ include that behavior. And seriously Ally? Age gives us all the right to call for each other’s deaths? I am disappointed in your defense of the indefensible. You have the right to do so of course. However, I can only shake my head at your rationalizations.
Call it perspective rather than rationalizations, then. Thanks for your reply.
Then I worry for you and about you for your perspective on violence. I don’t doubt your love for country and justice but I definitely disagree with your perspective.
Thanks for the chat. You’ve given me food for thought.
I may, of course, be wrong, but I have not interpreted TC’s posts as advocating for extrajudicial punishment, but rather for using our laws and the punishments available to us. Which would not include pushing people out of windows - I don’t remember reading that.
I do not support the death penalty, for any reason, although treason comes close. Let them rot in jail.
No, not extrajudicial. Just a public carrying out of the result.
Hi Kathy.
In a previous posts TC has called for dragging a person out & shooting him, tossing specific people out a tenth floor window and today it’s hanging people in Lafayette Square. How you interpret those calls for very specific violent deaths is up to you of course.
I feel people should be held to account for what they say, as they say it and his calls for violent death seem clear enough to me.
Absolutely agree, Ally.
You said it! (though it took a bit of time warming up to that quote)
The problem is we didn't hang enough of them, starting with Lee and working the way down through the entire leadership.
Yes, well said in the spirit of Hitler and Stalin.
And just out of curiosity- what is your definition of leadership, where do you draw the line, and at what point is your blood lust satiated?
I get your point very well, Lin.
Yet TC does seem to be far more deeply aware than most members of this community of the deep, deep shadow aspect of America's history. And of the very real, very physical current threat, not only to the life of the body politic, but to the lives of countless American citizens.
I put it that TC's outlook may be that of a surgeon, naturally drawn to solutions that involve use of the blade.
Wherever this is possible, less radical means of preserving and enhancing health may be preferred to surgery, but there comes a time when it is the only recourse possible.
Especially in wartime, on the battlefield.
America is now deep into a phony war -- pethaps better described as a phony peace. After January 6th, only skirmishes and propaganda. Psychological warfare.
But the nation's critically ill. It is right, then, to show a brave face, to proclaim publicly our total commitment to saving the patient, to do everything in our power to bring this about. But with life in the balance, this is no time to proclaim "I am optimistic", only to do whatever we must.
The time for the hacksaw and the scalpel may be very near.
Then it will not be enough to "be right", the great proclivity for showing our shining brightness while passing judgment on all that we see and hear will become so counterproductive as to be criminal obstruction.
There are far, far too many metastases, the surgical approach may soon be the only one possible. Time, then, for others to shut up and let the man wielding the knife get on with his work.
It has nothing to do with "bloodlust." It has to do with the fact that we have proven over the past 160 years that "letting them off easy" only set things up for Round Two. Treason and declaring war on one's country, one's society, are the worst crimes. There needs to be a lesson sent that doing so ends terribly badly. I realized 20 years ago when the first of the idiots started talking openly about secession that Grant's mercy had been wrong. Lee actually expected it, and was surprised to be let off.
Absolutely, mistake made and acknowledged. What action are you going to take? It is never enough to just comment on the world......
Liberal democracies don't resort to name calling or violent visions of the opponent (as Obama calls the authoritarians). Responsible rhetoric maintains a democracy. Cut it out, sir.
Um, President Obama was a little busy trying to help rescue the GLOBAL financial complex from disaster! Not giving them a “pass”: Choosing his battles. There are several past presidents who should have paid for their egregious behavior. Let’s not pick on the guy who traveled the high road for two terms. Amid NASTY Repuglican maneuvers.
I am not trying to pick on President Obama. He had an immensely complex situation to deal with, given the huge financial crisis etc. What I meant to point out is that when ANYONE, even former presidents, do criminal things they should be held to account. I understand Mr.Obama was trying to pick his battles carefully. If the Bush administration had been held accountable, I can only imagine what hell there would have been to pay. We do not have the tradition of accountability in the highest office. Look at how the Republicans just gave tfg a pass despite knowing what a criminal he was and is.
Chill…not picking on Obama. Just using that scenario as an example of what seems to me a case of ‘kicking the can down the road’. Too much unaccountability and we risk too much.
Didn’t we just have four years of an unprecedented president. I think our country is ready to move into unprecedented indictments. I’m getting my popcorn ready
Perfect!
Yesterday I watched all of Teri Kanefield's Youtube videos in her Law and Politics playlist. In the video, "Criminal Consequences and the Threat of Right-Wing Extremism", she points out what has been done and is being done, and she explains why the process is necessarily slow. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkNdl5hwn7IbpNnH-eznyIBHasVGpPKpP
Excellent !! Superb!! Thank You Becky for Teri Kanefield's video!
You're welcome, MaryPat. She was a good find!
Sharing it!!!
I can accept slow, as long as consequences occur from law breaking. No pardons. No immunities.
No deep thoughts here, just that letters like this, make my heart feel all warm and fuzzy. I'm so looking forward to the hearings.
Yes, a cause for optimism!
Claire McCaskill had an interesting theory yesterday about tracking tRump's moves during the insurrection. She noted that tRump watched TV 24/7 so. he was clearly watching what was happening at the Capitol. She suggested all the committee needed to do was match the timing on video footage with the calls that were coming into him from those on the floor... I.e. Jordan, Hannity, etc This would give the committee added info with which to move on tRump et al. She also went after Garland, wondering where the hell he is. She said if he doesn't move soon he will "go down as the worst AG ever." She wasted no words.
It is becoming more clear with each passing day that the former president is deserving of blame for the January 6 attack on the Capitol and the related efforts to affect the Constitutional process of confirming the electoral vote. The Attorney General is aware that taking action against those whose evidence might elevate the former president's apparent culpability to full responsibility would risk more violence, and that is why the DOJ is proceeding on tiptoes. I do not see how this can end well for the nation.
I cannot help but respond to all the opinions about Atty Gen Garland. I trust in his apparent vast well of patience in not taking any of the diatribe against him personally. To move because many think him too slow or incompetent or not the “man for the job” would play so well into the very hands of the one that enslaved his array of generals to his will instead of the will of the people.
I applaud Atty Merrick Garland and sleep well thinking of his core of iron will that will bring the wrath of Justice upon the evil perpetrated upon the people of the United States at the right time, in the right way, for the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness bestowed upon we the people, all of us this time.
Unity!
Perhaps, but can't he release/announce/leak something to quell the obvious lack of, well, anything? It would move us skeptics over to your confidence level. Can't he just do a tiny little thing to help us?
Hear! Hear!
Thank you Heather and a very good morning to all. I've read part of Budowich's lawsuit and will finish up with my coffee. If nothing else, Budowich certainly knows how to whine.
Here's a question: If money was being requested and transferred by various groups and individuals via electronic mediums with the intent of that money being used in the commission of a crime why haven't wire fraud charges been filed? If it's proved that Trump, other individuals and groups, including the War Room participants, were organizing and planning the attack on the Capitol, enterIng the Capitol illegally, capturing and possibly harming key politicians, including then - VP Pence, using electronic mediums, (which they certainly were) why can't the individuals and entities involved be charged with wire, and perhaps, mail fraud? Wouldn't discovery in wire fraud lawsuits support the filing of other related lawsuits? Lawyer subscribers, please forgive my ignorance in advance.
Ha! How modest you are Daria. I’ve been waiting for the net to start ensnaring the money trail. I’m laughing thinking of the bank not “letting” Brat Budowich see the subpoena. I’m also waiting for the supposed significant money support from Ginny Thomas, wife of a Supreme Court Justice, to be revealed for what it was….treasonous.
I swear, sometimes I think the former must have possessed an elixir of stupidness and snake oil and sprinkled it copiously upon the heads of these so called key players to make them believe the cloak of secrecy and treason was impenetrable.
Light finds the cracks of darkness.
Happy New Year, Fab!
✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
I'm thinking WE are very lucky because without that "elixir" this whole scheme might have progressed much differently and successfully than it did, right?
"Our legacy piece and final product will be the select committee’s report.”
"Fools cannot distinguish this, and knaves will not." (Laurence Stern, 'Tristram Shandy'.) Well that just about covers everyone involved in the entire apparatus of the Republican enterprise - paymasters, officials, amplifiers, and camp followers.
So it's on the rest of us to unite and give Democratic elected representatives the majority they need to get the work done.
"Fools and knaves": what a fabulous quote to apply to the members of Cult45!!
Thank you for sticking with this project, Dr. Richardson ❤️ (Do you remember when you thought you might be finished when the election was over?) What ever happened to the Fairness Doctrine? Telling the Truth?
Every time I hear the defense from a “Stop the Steal” supporter, I think of Alice in Wonderland. So many relevant connections. Their strategy…keep talking nonsense and the nonsense becomes sense?
“And the moral of that is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or, if you’d like it put more simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’” —Chapter 9, The Mock Turtle’s Story”
https://bookriot.com/alice-in-wonderland-quotes/
If you have not seen the new Netflix movie, "Don't Look Up", it is worth seeing. I usually don't watch video, but, my kids, home for the holidays, dragged me down to watch it.
It is not the best of movies, but, it is a movie relevant to now.
We watched last night. I thought it was campy enough to expect that a few actors would break character and wink at the camera, but the message was so unveiled I’m thinking that the trumpians would just write it off as fake news. In any event Susan Lawerence brings “the goods”
Oh, and I can imagine Ms Streep’s response after being pitched the part of President, “Oh Hell Yes!!!!”
It was too close to reality to be funny. Streep as the Opportunist in Chief was brilliant and her nitwit son as chief of Staff too believable.
I don't know. I found it funny enough here and there but over all it annoyed me. Smug satire has never been my thing though. Even as a much younger person I couldn't enjoy Dr. Strangelove. I may just be defective.
Today's post reminded me of nothing more similar than a boa constrictor slowly encircling its prey and tightening its coils every time the prey squirms to escape. (courtesy of Shel Silverstein; https://hellopoetry.com/poem/595/boa-constrictor)
Make sure we know who is the squeezer and who is the “squeezee”
An interesting outcome of Trump's Presidency is that employment among lawyers has spiked up 430%, and lawyer pay is up 80% in just six months! Most of that employment gain is associated with dodging subpoena's, crafting legal language around lies, filing lawsuits and filing court writs to protect folks that openly and blatantly planned to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States on Jan 6. There are so many folks involved!!
In fact, many newly minted engineering students are going without employment due to continued Corporate outsourcing and offshoring since nothing has changed in that domain. America first left us with no new laws limiting what corporations can send overseas, even military contractors can outsource stuff and do, no legal limits on hiring low paid software engineers in (pick a country) and firing Americans AFTER the Americans are forced to train their (pick a country) counterparts.....
America First? Yep, Zero new legislation limiting new factory builds in China.
Well...at least some good news...newly minted lawyers are getting multiple offers and one recent grad was heard to express descent into a profound depression associated with trying to make a choice among his fourteen high paid offers to defend Jan 6 plotters. Another lawyer was reviewing 12 job offers from the Jan 6 committee.
One new Mechanical Engineering grad was recently hear to say: "That's it, I'm off to law school to get in on that big money keeping those (hundreds of) patriots out of jail".
So? It seems that, except for a corporate tax cut, the main thing to emit from Trump's Presidency is thousands of court cases, subpoena's, lawsuits, writs, filings and other legal maneuverings associated with dodging and faking by a bunch of Republicans who learned from Reagan that "Before Telling the Truth Give Lying A Chance" was good doctrine (it certainly worked out very, very well for Reagan).
BOOMING legal employment and judge dockets that extend out well beyond 2025, LONG after the next Presidential election is over ladies and gentlemen.
Just IMAGINE, if, instead of spinning on all this stuff that pied Piper Trump prompted, IMAGINE that the government, instead, had a legislative set of bills on the docket to block American corporations from firing Americans and replacing them with the equivalent of slave labor in other countries thereby propagating legal slavery. That a new law just passed limiting American corporate manufacturing builds in China.
Suppose Apple announced that it was shutting down its manufacturing in China (where it all currently remains). Apple pays Chinese nationals $17 per day to work 12 hour shifts (this is a fact) and has no plans to bring that manufacturing back to America. Did anyone notice that "America First" prompted exactly ZERO companies to return manufacturing to the United States from China?
And IMAGINE that the army of newly minted lawyers were off to defend Americans against that 40 year practice of undermining the middle class with outsourcing and offshoring because of those new laws (which corporations would try to dodge).
WARNING: This is a spoof, all data is fabricated to make the point that, wow, we are wasting so much money, talent, attention, and court time on stuff that to an engineer like me? Just seems like it is obvious and we should just move forward with charges, arrest folks, toss 'em in jail and move on.
Ah, well. Back to reality TV (or riveting reading from HCR)
......... live from the United States of Amurca.
Good thing that you came clean, Mike. I was going to get the FBI after you because in this country we want nothing but the facts, mister. Got that!
:-)
Interesting. Seems like the job challenges are uneven. I happen to know 4 young engineering students who will soon have STEM degrees, and I was stunned to hear they all picked up jobs after a school job fair. What I found remarkable was they got offers nearly a year before they graduate--so it appears companies are hiring proactively to lock them in and make certain they don't get caught out with shortage in talent. In addition, we're watching huge turnovers in my own STEM company lately, seems like a massive migration and shuffling is going on, which I take as a sign there are greener pastures for the dissatisfied employees out there. Seems true since my friends are finding other alternatives, and rather quickly at increased salaries. Granted, most of the jobs I'm talking about here are in software engineering and coding, not pure engineering or Engineering Design work. But I was encouraged to watch this. I'm also guessing the Infrastructure bill is going to lead to a serious uptick in demand for the Mechanical/Electrical Engineers. Tell that Mechanical Engineering student to hang in there. We will need that home grown talent for certain soon enough.
Read his warning - it’s a spoof.
My ME prof husband says 100% employment from his university, and our two recently graduated sons (one software engineer, one electrical engineer) easily found great jobs for great pay. He also completely agrees with you that we are facing a coming shortage of engineers.
We were curious why my young nephew, with a computer science degree, had no job offers. That is until we recently spent a day with him. He, like his father, is very far
down the Q rabbit hole. I’m assuming he may not interview well ??
That’s interesting. And sad.
Yes, it’s very sad. I felt like I was in mourning after the visit as we’ve truly lost them both. My brother is an electrical engineer working from home for months so that most likely contributes to the Q-ness and decline of social skills.
I am so very sorry, Kathy. That must be so hard.
In a time of declining journalistic recording of events, Dr Richardson portrays the growing importance of using the tools of the Historian to describe and record events.
Journalists rely on personal narratives, theirs and the principals to report the development and denouement of significant occurrences of change. But the strength of the Historian is the reliance on existing and recordable documentation to formulate explanations.
I have followed these magnificent essays from the beginning and I consult with past and developing episodes of the current crisis in Government through them, trusting that the validity of their record will not succumb to the personal viewpoints or political hackery Journalism displays.
Thank You Heather Cox Richardson for using your education and discipline to explain us to us.
In my mind, I believe that the Jan 6th Committee is going to provide the American people, and the world with the lies and deception of the people in the top levels of our government piece by bloody piece. This will allow our citizens to take it all in, slowly, and to awaken to the deep deception many of them conspired with thinking it was The Truth.
The beauty of this J6th Committee is that they will allow We the People to judge for ourselves before anything goes to the DOJ and SCOTUS. This is a brilliant and very welcomed move because it will forego any potential blasphemous, wet noodle "interpretion" such as perfidious Bill Barr thrust upon the world after the Mueller investigation. I look forward to seeing these hearings. I also think, to claim the fifth in a matter or terrorist activity and coup against our democracy and elected officials is a right in no one should have. Speak up or be jailed. No rights for terrorists acts. (Radical Independent who believes it is time for the majority of good people to be protected from criminals, corporations and kleptocrats despite party affiliation).
Thanks for your optimistic prediction or hope, Penelope. I am also hoping that there will be enough evidence (and the will of the powers that be for not only his close associates but Trump himself to be found guilty and imprisoned. The preservation of our democracy demands this. Otherwise we will see it happen again.
I recommend all 14 of Hugo Lowell's reports in December 2021. Just use HCR's Link & click on his by-line: "Hugo Lowell."