Newly elected Rep. Daniel Goldman, who was lead counsel in Trump's first impeachment, tonight offered the most accurate name for the GOP's special committee to investigate the FBI and other federal law enforcement. In an interview with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, called the panel the Committee for Obstructing Justice. Goldman deserves one of the Democratic seats on the panel so he can pulverize Jim Jordan.
Jordan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, in a media-free ceremony sometime in 2021, for supporting tfg - is he one of those who asked for 'preemptive' pardon, too?
"At least six Republican congress members asked Trump for a preemptive pardon, and four of them are still in office".
Does anyone with a clear conscience need to ask for a preemptive pardon ever?
Now JJ being put in charge of another committee, where he can continue to lie and distort his own comments, among other things. Great name for 'Committee for Obstructing Justice', and I trust that Mr. Goldman and others will put JJ in his place, pulverized or otherwise.
JJ has got to be the most dislikable and only jacket-less member of Congress. All those who ask for pardons are guilty and should be removed from Congress. I can dream can't I?
Jordan is certainly dislikable (and a natural emetic), but I maintain that the one with the most slappable face is Gaetz. I briefly found myself in sympathy with the guy who tried to put his hands around Gaetz' neck..
With you on Gaetz. He looks like he got his mug shoved through a meat grinder. No wonder he has to buy his girlfriends. He looks like a really bad cartoon of a used car salesman from the 1950's. I haven't yet found the words to best describe my "feelings" for this creep, but revulsion comes right at the top.
Shouldn't there be a few upright bright good human beings within the 330M + Us Citizens who would be more deserving and appropriate to serve in Congress, than those schemers, brown-nosers and downright criminals that ask for preemptive pardons, knowing full well that they would and should be prosecuted?
And to think that at 19 I self-eliminated my plan to run for office because I drank too much wine as a Freshman in college...I was sure that was enough to disqualify me from office. And that was a very long time ago.
Having done the research for a dissertation (medieval poetry) and reading an incredibly stupid dissertation about the same poetry, feeling scooped, I wished I had run for office instead of opting for academia.
I thought of running for office,, but I realized I have trouble being that nice to people. Now, I guess that is would be the basic qualification to run as a Republican.
All the innocent folks who allegedly asked for preemptive pardons are the same ones who would take the 5th while testifying under oath. All this innocence is mind blowing!
I never thought in my 80 years of life that the USA....my beloved country would ever become a banana republic! I always had rose colored glasses looking at our country! It hurts to wake up and see what our country has always been!
Glad you said this Sharon. I'm 71 so you got me beat. It feels somehow traitorous to speak ill of the nation in which I have lived all my life (save a couple years in Germany). Because I grew up as proud as the next person to be an American. And I stayed that way even though I lived in the south until graduating from college. Even though I witnessed clear racism, hated it, yet didn't say enough about it. It has only been the last 20 years or so where I have gradually begun to see the light to the point where I realized without a doubt something is amiss. And the assent of Trump and his murderous response to Covid 19, a response that half the country willingly went along with, (and of course a long list of other affronts to rational governance) sealed it for me. There is something dreadfully wrong with a very large portion of our country. This is not something that we merely have to put up with every other election cycle, like long ago where it was as likely as not that there were some adults in the room on either side, even if they disagree. No - it's much more serious than that. We now have the rejection of reality itself. We have a large block of citizens, a major news network, and the clowns they have elected (and re-elected) who cheer for authoritarians and insurrectionists, deny climate change to this day, traffic in lies and innuendo instead of facts, and are apparently willing to turn the USA into Gilead, and/or Dodge City. This has got to stop. Wonder if the founding fathers, who supposedly thought of just about everything, pondered the possibility that the republic could be taken over by heartless idiots who would drag the country down.
I'm sure they worried that the republic wasn't a sure thing. Any endeavor that relies on basic decency can fail. The indecent have become louder in the past few years.
"Any endeavor that relies on basic decency can fail." Well said! And therein lies the problem. The only thing that I struggle with when it comes to the right wing agenda (by struggle I mean I have cognitive dissonance) is the right for all to vote. Indecent people vote, usually for indecent candidates. People who have no idea what they are voting for vote for candidates that have a prettier face or a more appealing name. People vote purely with their pocket book, with no long term view. People vote, inexplicably, for a Marjorie Taylor Greene. How can that be good for a democracy? Sometimes I feel such voters should not be allowed to vote, but then I remind myself that the bad guys think the same way about us except more seriously. I believe even back when the country was first founded, there was thinking that a person had to earn his right to vote. Had to be a property owner, a male, or some such qualification that supposedly better assured an intelligent vote was cast. Today that thinking is front and center with Republicans, only instead of better assuring an intelligent vote, it is applied to their own version of reality. But in the end, I believe the lesser evil is to make sure EVERYONE can vote. Because the alternative is that the indecent will take advantage through indecent means, and take over. And importantly - when EVERYONE is better educated through good public schools and affordable colleges, on average those votes will be more intelligently cast.
I've lived here all my life and when I was young we felt like America could do anything and that it had a big heart. I'm not willing to let that image fade out because of creeps like the MAGA crowd. We have to figure out how to fight this. Maybe we an take some lessons from the Banana Republics, not all of whose citizens are happy with their leaders.
Gjay Not an encouraging simile. The US supported United Fruit Company in Central America, overturned democratic governments, and now have millions fleeing these rotting banana republics.
You're ahead of me, Sharon. I'll be 77 next month. I appreciate your honest--and bold--expression of grief, not at the usual "What our country has become" but at what it "has always been." Before I escaped from Facebook 2-3 years ago, I grabbed a "meme" that read, "Just a reminder: the system in what is currently known as the US isn't 'broken.' It was designed by white supremacist slave-owners on stolen indigenous land to protect their interests. It's working as it was designed." I don't have a source for the original of this and sorry I don't. But I thought of it immediately when I read your comment. I would only add another quote that I have remembered from the first time I read it in the famous Pogo cartoon of 1971: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Perhaps we need a clause inserted in the "Medal of Freedom " rules that says it there has to be a bona-fide reason for doing so with attached evidence (something the REPUBLICAN'TS have a hard time producing). JJ has no such evidence as his only claim to fame is as a full-time PIA
MIchael, I caught Daniel Goldman on 'Lawrence' show tonight as well; yes, Goldman must be seated along side the 'Obstructing Justice' to police the seditionists. On the House Rules package, NPR's, Lexie Schap... updated 1/9/23 pm reports that "the full written [Rules Package] agreement" has NOT been disclosed. I expect the missing "Secret Appendix", secret or not, to surface before this Friday.
'Trump Claims That Biden Having Classified Documents Is Worse Because He Reads'
'PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump alleged that President Biden’s possession of classified documents from his Vice-Presidency is “way worse” than his own hoarding of top-secret materials at Mar-a-Lago because “Joe actually reads.”
“What would you rather have—classified documents in the hands of someone who reads, or someone who never reads?” Trump asked. “Hands down, the reader is way more dangerous.”
“The American people know that any documents are safe with me because I would never read even one word of them,” he said. “But Joe reads like a demon, and that’s what makes him so scary.” (Satire, NewYorker)
Fern It is possible for people to inadvertently have classified material at home. When I was working in Communications Intelligence (top secret, code word) on occasion when I came home I found a ts/code word document in my jacket. Not wishing to smuggle it back to the office, I’d tear it up and flush it down the toilet.
By the way, do you really think that Henry KIssinger didn’t take reams of classified documents for the writing of his histories? Indeed, the NYT included scads of classified material. When I entered the State Department, I was informed that my NASSER’S NEW EGYPT: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS was filled with still classified info. Pshaw.
Fern On Congo I would have to write classified memos to The Secretary and others to ‘counter’ misinformation that they read in their morning newspapers. (On occasion I would share classified info with journalists—as an ‘unidentified source.’ Shhhhhh
Hopefully Dan Goldman is willing to commit to the tortuous job of sitting on that "special" committee to speak out against the lies that will surely be presented.
Oh wouldn't that be sweet? Also, Jamie Raskin although he is ill and we might not be seeing alot of him (good god I hope he comes out of this OK). Jamie however, even when well, cannot be everyplace at once. I think there are a good many Democrats who can keep the Republicans honest on this committee. I wonder though - will McCarty have the power to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on Democratic special committee assignments? He probably would love to get some "payback" for Nancy denying him a few committee assignments on the 1/6 committee.
I doubt anyone or any thing can keep the Republicans "honest". We are talking about a group with fealty to Trump and insurrectionists now sitting on these committees because we did not hold them accountable. Is it any wonder we find ourselves where we are now?
Honest went out the door for the Republicans a long time ago. As a former professor of mine once put it, "He is a politician which means he does not always tell the truth." But at least once upon a time, some of them did more truth telling than lying. Not any more. I hope it bites them in the butt sooner rather than later because we have a lot of business to get done and these creeps are screwing it up for all of us.
Yes. And he WOULD pulverize the thug. Jordan has nothing going for him but a loud and obnoxious mouth and bullying behavior. Behind it all, very little exists in the way of intelligence. He may be canny, but he's not very smart.
His countenance and persona telegraph a very angry, nasty man. The rumors that surround him about his voyeuristic tendences while a college coach tells a lot in and of itself. The Republican Party has a lock on the nasties and the crazies.
"Pulverizing" Jordan ushers up awesome visuals, but it will never happen. The toxified Republicans will assure a dismal, obstructive and unabated nasty two years, forthcoming.
What strikes me as awkward is how nothing g is happening the the core radical fascists in Congress responsible for obstruction of the procedures on Jan 6, conspiracy and in some cases gerrymandering and voting rights violations to stay in office or those recently elected by this illegal process.
The longer they go unpunished and unaccountable for their actions.the more is threatens our public trust in the rule of law and democracy.
The world is watching, the country is watching.
It shows everyone that there is clearly a double standard in the law for elected politicians.
Clearly, the DOJ inability to act prior to the insurrectionists and criminals being sworn in
undermines the government, Congress and the judicial branch.
Our system is broken and in need of repair.
I believe it can be repaired but the longer it takes the harder the task.
“We are now in the midst of a Third Reconstruction initiated, as before, by a powerful moral fusion coalition and once again threatened by extremist forces opposed to establishing a fully representative democracy.” Dr William Barber of the Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People’s campaign
The following makes all the difference in what the prosecutor recommends:
'But Weisselberg, who fully cooperated with prosecutors and testified against his longtime employer, could get out sooner, factoring in time off for good behavior.' (CNBC)
I'm losing confidence. I remember waiting months for the justice I thought the Mueller report would provide. It turned out to be a nothing burger. Now, I wait for Garland to dispense justice. I even defended him - saying we have to be patient while all the i's are dotted and t's crossed. Sadly, I suspect another nothing burger. Fani Willis has lots of ingredients, but still nothing. Ditto for the Southern District court of NY.
Any of us would already be charged, tried, convicted, sentenced, and jailed.
I'm so old, I don't even buy green bananas. Will I live long enough to see personal accountability and justice served?
Elaine, I think that it is more than 'awkward' that core radical right-wing extremists in Congress who were against the peaceful transfer of power after our the free and fair presidential election in '20, now have great influence as elected representatives in the House.
To quote today's Letter, 'Many of those who supported Trump in the events of January 6, 2021, are still in Congress. At least six Republican congress members asked Trump for a preemptive pardon, and four of them are still in office. They make up the core of the far-right Republicans House speaker Kevin McCarthy had to bargain with to win the speakership: Representatives Scott Perry (R-PA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) was also part of the group that pressured McCarthy, and he, too, appears to have been deeply involved in the events of January 6: just days afterward, Trump awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom with a somewhat generic citation that raised questions about why Trump was really giving Jordan the award.'
It is as though the 'inmates' are running the House.
'Among Mr. McCarthy’s unofficial concessions was a promise to give members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus multiple seats on the Rules Committee, which, despite its deceptively feeble name, wields enormous influence as the panel that controls which bills get debated on the House floor and under what terms. As the committee’s website boasts, it “has the authority to do virtually anything during the course of consideration of a measure, including deeming it passed.” It can “rewrite just parts of a bill, or the entire measure. In essence, so long as a majority of the House is willing to vote for a special rule, there is little that the Rules Committee cannot do.” Picture, if you will, a small band of Lauren Boeberts holding the Rules Committee hostage and, by extension, the entire legislative process.
'Many of the changes the anti-McCarthy rebels pushed for are ostensibly about making the House more small-d democratic by empowering the rank and file. But as things are heading, power is simply being shifted from leadership, which is responsible for looking out for the conference as a whole, to a coterie of extremists obsessed with burnishing their personal brands. The result is expected to be not a fairer, more equitable House so much as a wildly dysfunctional one.'
'This sorry situation isn’t just about one man’s weakness or ambition. It is about a party that nurtured its aggrieved, paranoid, rage-filled, anti-establishment, antigovernment elements for years. The burn-it-all-down faction now has everyone, not just the speaker, by the nose hairs.'
'Republicans can blame it all on Mr. McCarthy if it helps them sleep at night, but they shouldn’t kid themselves: The next wave of House dysfunction is on the antimajoritarian, chaos-courting lot of them.' (NYTimes,. JAMELLE BOUIE, Opinion.)
"its aggrieved, paranoid, rage-filled, anti-establishment, antigovernment elements" - Our democracy allows people to vote for their own kind. The only recourse is to prosecute their crimes.
FERN, thank you once again for another detailed post. I know you are not a palaimentarian (except here) but, my understanding is that there is a procedure to get a Bill to the House Floor not sabotaged by the controlling Committee Strangulation System. Fortunately, in an "ALL IN" show last Week, Chris Hayes, interviewed the ex-House Rep, a R, that successfully used this proced once in the last decade which requires all 212 D votes, soon to be 213 D votes & requires 6R votes soon to be 5R votes. Under Jeffries, D's just demonsrated remarkable discipline. I am all in for three dimensional Chess.
Not many in the House can play that game, Bryan, which is to our advantage. We don't, however, know what 'tricks' Gaetz and MTG et al, have up their sleeves. Let's not forget The House of Cards!
THIS. Thank you for saying it. The fact that 800 or so gullible MAGA followers have been prosecuted for their part in the Jan 6 storming of the Capitol, yet not one of Trump's sycophants and abettors at the highest levels of government who schemed and plotted that atrocity with him have yet to be arrested and held accountable for their acts is cause for grave concern. These nihilistic fascists (let's call them what they are) now appear to be fully engaged, without any obvious checks or balances, in bringing about the end of democracy in the U.S. - that is, the end of every civil right and freedom that our Constitution, laws and simple decency of character from our lawmakers have afforded us, incrementally but always in a forward moving trajectory until now. Even more chilling, the majority right-wing zealots on the Supreme Court, again acting without oversight or restraints, silently applaud the Republican agenda provided it doesn't interfere with their goal of replacing a free and secular society with their Christo-fascist theocracy. Germany, Peru and now Brazil did not dither for months (now two years in the U.S.) to arrest and hold accountable the perpetrators of recent plots to overthrow their legitimate governments. We are running out of time, dangerously so at this point, to save the Republic from the absolute evil of despotic authoritarian rule. As you say, our system is broken. And now it's being pulverized with every passing day that action is not being taken to save our livelihoods, dignity and respect - not only ours but those of our children, grandchildren and future generations both here and in every other country where democracy is under attack. If America, the world's oldest democracy falls, so too will every democratic system of government in a domino effect of unstoppable corruption and violence. We can't allow that to happen. But will we? (Rhetorical question - the truth is we don't know).
"I believe it can be repaired but the longer it takes the harder the task."
I see this "core radical fascists" faction as a cancer in our Congress. As I've prayed for, however, the Republican body has self-imploded and the cancer will be unable to metastasize. I share your optimism. If no cure has been found in the next two years, what will zap it for sure is the next election when those poor trumpsters with their heads in the sand find out that the reps they voted for were trying to take away their SS....
Did not know about the diagnosis. Thank you. I just hope to see Congressman Jamie Raskin continue as a force to keep the ship of democracy upright and continually moving in a steady positive direction.
This interview with Raskin was aired a few hours ago.
"It's obviously a heavy thing for a family to hear that," he said. "But the good news is the kind of cancer that I've got, which is a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, is extremely treatable. They say it's curable. They found it early in my case, it's stage 2, so they're very optimistic and I'm very optimistic. I plan on getting through this."
There have been huge advancements in Oncology Treatment Protocols. Mr. Raskin knows a "plan" is required which usually is put together by a "Tumor Board" OR a top teaching Doc trailed by a gaggle of attentive residents. Been there done that successfully but, not with Raskin's diagnosis. Jamie will be back!
I certainly have - many times, including at the first Trump impeachment trial. He is a powerful speaker no doubt. But I notice an innate ability to not answer the question being asked of him. Something all politicians get good at, but something I do not like. Yes - I know there are alot of "gotcha" questions out there, but still - he even does that with "softball questions". I'd like to see a little more simple "yes" or "no" - then further explain. Also, we have yet to see if those powerful words can be followed up with powerful action. Hakeem - be like Nancy!
Let's hope Feinstein does the right thing for the party, and the country, by announcing soon that she will not seek reelection and is supporting the formidable and delightful Katie Porter (I just love to hear her either interrogate a hapless witness or explain policy). To my knowledge, Diane is playing it cagey at present. Approaching 90, she is the oldest member of the Senate, which on its face shouldn't disqualify her, but she seems to be slipping quite a bit recently. We need new energy in the party.
Yes, that is excellent news. CA needs a new senator. The next two years, as we all know, will be a dumpster fire and it will be up to Ds to contain that fire as much as they can. I do hope someone can stand up to the screamer Gym.
Hahaa.. "CA needs a new senator"? H'mmm.. Maybe the Florida Sheriff would re-locate out there... what's her name? Go ahead.. SAY IT: Take it awayy.. Val Demings!
Oh, so that's the seat she's going for. I'm giving her my full support. That actually is exciting news. She actually uses the "C" word--Childcare. She will be wonderful. Glad to hear this.
Yes! Apparently she was criticized for this because of the catastrophic flooding in California. I think she would be a terrific senator and if I lived in California, I would vote for her.
I listened to Dan Goldman give his speech on the House floor and he did not mince his words regarding the GQP. He nailed them about trying to squash the DOJ investigations about Trump and about themselves. Seems like most of what the R’s are proposing to change must be approved by the Senate and that is very unlikely to happen, thank goodness! The best news of the day is that Weisselberg Is sentenced to Rikers prison for 5 months. That is a brutal facility. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Wait...oh yes, it could...TRUMP!
Merely a slap on the hand. How is this five months sentence for 15 felonies equal justice under the law? Also, how is it that Steve Bannon is not incarcerated? Two years plus and the insurrectionists still subvert and undermine with impunity.
My recall of that GJ hearing is that in exchange for a certain amount of immunity, W would truthfully answer all the questions, and if he contradicted himself at a trial, the immunity would cancel and he would go full sentence. But I have been wrong before.
I need a transcript of the sentencing Judge's statement in Court today so I can report false W-2 earnings statements to the SSA Fraud Unit. Anyone have it?
Morning, Marlene. Heather mentioned that in her chat yesterday...that the Senate would not approve most of these House proposals. I'm banking on her judgment on this.
Unfortunately, life gets in the way and I am way late in listening to her lectures. I will try and discipline myself a little better. 🤪
Anyway, yes, the Animal House is doing a lot of screaming and acting out like kindergartners. The Dems will strike everything down and nothing will be accomplished. Our tax dollars going to waste unless, their constituency demand compromises. Oh har har…that ain’t gonna happen!
Which is why he is still employed by the drumpf Org., albeit "on leave of absence". Could there be any clearer indication that not only is Weisselberg taking the fall for drumpy, but that he LIED repeatedly on the stand about setting up the fraud for his own benefit. I seriously doubt that drumpf would continue to employ anyone so disloyal as to steal a million bucks from his company.
Good to hear. I read 'Rikers prison' with Swedish eyes ('rik'=rich) without knowing of the place. Nothing is really surprising any more about the US, but that you would have special prisons for the rich is!
"'Club Fed' is a derisive term used in North America to refer to a prison whose accommodations are seen as less severe than many other prisons. Club Fed is a pun on the 'Club Med' chain of all-inclusive resorts. The 1999 movie Office Space made a reference to this style of prison by referring to it as a 'white-collar, minimum-security resort.'"
If you had said: 'what would be the point of having special prisons for the rich, when rich people are so unlikely to be sentenced', I would have agreed. That's the way it is in Sweden.
Olof, now you've got me curious about the derivation of the island's name: Dutch is somewhat more likely, but before New York was New Amsterdam, it was New Sweden, so Swedish certainly isn't impossible.
Ah: Wikipedia's article on Rikers Island reports that the island was claimed in 1664 by a Dutchman named Abraham Rycken. A web search for Abraham yields sources - a mix of genealogies and articles in the popular press - that suggest that the spelling of the last name wasn't very fixed: Abraham's father went by de Ryck, and Abraham himself seems to have used de Rycke and Rycker along with Rycken. The letter <y> represented, I think, the diphthong that modern Dutch renders as <ij>, which is pretty close to English long I - well, all right, it's closer to the vowel in a British Canadian pronunciation of "kite". The Online Etymology Dictionary helpfully corroborates my memory by tracing Old English "rice" 'powerful, mighty', Swedish "rik", modern Dutch "rijk", and German "reich" all back to a Proto-Germanic cognate having to do with power; see https://www.etymonline.com/word/rich. Since power and wealth live in each other's pockets (at least until the descendants start partying too hard to take care of business), it's pretty safe to translate "de Rycke" as 'the rich guy'.
Given that diphthong, "Riker" is a fairly plausible Anglicization,
but Abraham's grandson Abraham III, who was a militiaman in the Revolutionary War, was still using Rycken. A somewhat younger fellow who used "Riker", however, was an early congressman.
The most infamous Riker may be Richard Riker, who was either a magistrate or a prosecutor early in the 19th century - about when the importation of slaves was made illegal in the US, but after the first Fugitive Slave Act (https://www.essence.com/culture/rikers-island-slavery-ties/) - who made a pile of money with this side hustle: picking up free blacks in and around New York and selling them into slavery in the South.
I don't watch cable "news" anymore. While I don't necessarily disagree with MSNBC, I can no longer watch hours of opinion and "analysis," especially the evening shows. I glance through my news feed with news from all different sources, but HCR, Robert Hubbell, Joyce Vance, and Robert Reich help me to make some sense of the day's events. Everyday, I feel like Alice through the looking glass, where down is up, and red is green, and in is out, etc. The excuses and bs that Republicans spout would not be acceptable to the parents of teenagers in need of discipline. These Republicans are infantile, and I am speaking as someone who studied child development in college.
Include reading Jennifer Rubin , Robert Reich , Michael Moore and Robert Hubbell. I worry they are speaking to the choir although a very powerful message in every post.
Timothy Snyder & the ISW - Institute for the Study of War - may Zelensky & Ukraine have the support & success the free world is fighting for ! Hard to stay tuned to all of this at times - but harder not to .
I hesitate to keep posting links to all his clips, but anyone who is not familiar with "Beau of the Fifth Column" on YouTube should check him out. The same friend who introduced me to the Letters also introduced me to Beau.
I love "Politics Girls" but Leigh talks so fast, I usually have to run her clip a few times to get it!!
Beau is the opposite, he talks more slowly and thoughtfully, the clips are short (not podcast length). From his comments, I gather that a number of people in the Right watch him as well, as he mentions very negative commentary that he gets. (Maybe some of it gets through to some of them though?)
I'm in the same boat, Mike. If I need to learn something, I have to read it (in spite of the fact that my primary learning style is auditory; I just dislike watching videos). BotFC keeps his under 5-7 minutes and has a very engaging speaking style.
Mike, you will not regret including Beau in your sources. He gets to the point and explains in a succinct way. His delivery is priceless. And I love that he looks like my neighbors but has the insight and intellectual skills of a highly educated but down to earth guy. Which is pretty much what he is.
I also strongly prefer to read for the same reason. I learned that you can speed up videos and it does help. On youtube, you can increase a video’s playback speed in the settings. I still avoid most videos, but for those I can’t avoid, I speed up
While I am just the opposite. I can't stand trying to listen to people talking fast, and it's even worse speeded up. I want to be able to take in not just the words but the entire meaning. I do prefer to read things that are written to be read, but I would rather listen and watch things that are spoken rather than read a transcript. There are important insights to be gained listening and watching people speak: body language, interaction with listeners, pauses, intonation all provide important information.
What really ticks me off about the war against democracy is how the leaders of the social media companies are not being held accountable for what they have done. Kahneman's book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" should be required reading for everyone working in the Justice Department and regulatory agencies that have a voice in online services. The insights Kahneman describes have been used quite deliberately in the design of the algorithms that fan the flames with bad data. It's all done to increase what is called "stickiness" in Silicon Valley, that is the amount of time people spend on each site. Things that trigger a sense of outrage increase stickiness the most, regardless of their veracity. This is because our emotional processes engage first and trump our more methodical rational thinking processes, which are much slower. Making it worse is the dearth of skill in the general public when it comes to dealing with issues of probability and uncertainty. Perhaps Trump, Bannon, Hannity, Carlson, DeSantis, Bolsonaro, and the many other bad folks in politics are bad, but in my book, Zuckerberg, Pichai, Cook. and Nadella are far worse for deliberately fanning these flames just to sell more targeted ads at higher prices because of the better click-through rates they can deliver because of the stickiness they have deliberately built into their platforms.
This gets back to the whole social contract mess in terms of the way we charter and police corporations, and the way the 14th amendment has been abused by the courts to protect them. The whole mess needs to be brought down. It won't end until this behavior is outlawed and the folks doing it are behind bars.
Craig, check out a seattle school district's "nuisance" lawsuit against the Big 5 social media websites, er ... I mean anti-social media, self-obsessed face-in-a-cell phone media. Life is more than a "selfie".
Yes Bryan, I've been following it. I'm writing this from Lopez Island. We lived in Seattle for most of our working careers. I was a tech fellow at Boeing working primarily on the internal network infrastructure and enabling the company to communicate with itself, so I spent huge amounts of time with our suppliers - big tech. I've seen how they work from the inside. The vast majority of the people who work for them are actually good people who are well intentioned, but they all suffer from the Jurassic Park syndrome - focused on what they can do, and never asking whether or not they should do something, or thinking about the broader consequences. Also, there is a lot of denial, which gets coupled with a myth about the nature of corporate governance which we simply need to outlaw by changing the chartering process.
There is a widely held belief that the number one fiduciary responsibility in corporate governance is to maximize the financial return to the shareholders. This attitude must be gotten rid of by outlawing the basic premise. That is that the nature of the social contract in a corporate charter is all about making money for the investors. Profits are important and necessary, but the reason that society grants such charters is to be able to accomplish things for the social good that would be impossible without them. My former employer has had the same problem in spades since it was taken over by the finance guys from GE in 1997. The aim should be what it used to be, which is enabling commercial air travel and related activities, including similar things on the defense side. This is a major flaw of omission in our constitution, and we need to fix it.
BTW, you have no idea how much flack I catch from people in the tech industry when I explain this point of view to them. It's one of the three industries in which I have spent my working life, and it's a pretty hostile place right now. If you think reasoning with a Trumpie about elections, human equality, and working together through the instruments of government is hard, try talking to a leader in the tech industry about their social responsibilities.
I rarely write twice, here, and I don't think I ever have (so my apologies to those who hate my drivel) but one thing that also sticks in my throat is the milquetoast sentence for the Trump-Goblin that got 5 months of jail (not prison, which is by definition reserved to those who get more than a year of incarceration) for FIFTEEN FELONIES. That means the goblin can do his 'time' by sitting at home having a scotch and watching the Washington Commanders play (with a home-monitor of course) and avoid any ACTUAL time in a facility.
I'm sorry, but that is not 'justice' as any attorney who has had to defend a person on even ONE felony will tell you...look at the incarceration of most convicted of a single felony and you will see that this is unjust. Ask if a person in NY convicted of 15 felonies for drug possession would get 5 months of time...
While you can suggest drug crimes are different; ask yourself if dealing a bit of drugs is the equivalent of shielding MILLIONS of dollars from the government. The two are not the same. But your "drug dealer" goes to PRISON for many years and the goblin stays home and chills for 5 months. One loses all their connections to society and the other has no real consequences. One loses any ability to raise their kids, the other has to stay "home" on "arrest" and still cooks dinner for the kids. Think about that from the perspective of justice.
Dave, thank you although I would characterize my posts as accurately reflecting the facts of both American history and present treatment of white men who are rich and have also committed crimes.
TWO YEARS after Trump sponsored vandalism, property destruction, murder, assault, insurrection and treason there is not even one WHIFF of criminal charges against him.
So, perhaps this is "railing".
Or? Perhaps it is just American "reality". And it is NOT TV.
MIke & other very valuable Commenters in this Community hosted by HCR an exceptional historian, your posts (plural) do reflect accurate accurate historical facts; that is why I am here. Thank you All. Part of that history is the predation of rich white men who have committed crimes both past tense going back centuries on all continents & future tense -- are committing crimes now & will continue to do so in the future. A big part of tfg's alter egos inluding the "T. Organization" has been shut down in New York & mop up prosecutions, arduous litigation, will continue forthwith. Justice is definitely trending more than a whiff. Jack Smith & his recent recent hires is a huge step forward. As you know well, this is not a spectator sport. To repeat
Prrofessor Vance's sign off: We are all in this together.
IF it were for poor schmucks that would be good Jeri.
But, actually, American justice is mostly just applied to the American minority population and, in the 1619 Book Project I was gifted a bit of history of the American "police force"
Our current police structure has its origins in southern states where whites formed militia groups to insure that black slaves would not rebel and attack them. Those militias were absolutely heartless and brutal in their treatment of minorities.
So, cops today are in a culture that originated and supported profound violence against, often, innocent people or people just trying to live.
The American police force works for whites to hold down the minority populations.
And, it has always been that way.
Rich white folks own the police force and the police force does their bidding.
Read "Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System" by an attorney from the Innocence Project, M. Chris Fabricant. It is excellent, enraging, captivating. I couldn't put it down (though I did have to skim some of the more horrific descriptions).
This has been a theme in Heather’s past letters and also from Joanne Freeman; it answers a lot of questions re the white nationalist leanings in law enforcement
I like the fact that you put the word "justice" in parens, Jeri. One thing I wish we all could do is take a good look at the word "justice", and how we use it to mean a variety of things that are sometimes contradictory to its actual meanings. I know Heather isn't a linguist, but she is a historian of political history , including legal history. She also as a background in literature and a keene sense of the meaning of words in various contexts. Heather, is this something you could do a talk or letter on, to help us clarify what exactly we mean by "justice" in legal terms and in the context of expressing our perception of how things work?
"Sean Hannity broadcasting from your United States House of Representatives..." I wonder, did Faux Neus and or Hannity pay rent to use the people's house as their broadcast studio?
Jail's too good for the Freedom Chaos bunch and their muppet.
Even the pillory's too good.
In the United States of Utopia, each would be consigned to the Monkey House of a Utopian zoo, where the usual denizens would run rings around them and leave them scraps and banana skins.
But as it's America, a flotilla of twoscore-and-some ambulances will do. To be sent to the Washington DC Monkey House, each with a burly crew, stretcher and straitjacket. Plus a bigger ambulance with gilded accoutrements to be sent to Lair-o'-MAGA.
You forgot the other similarity between Brazil and United States. Both are/were fighting for crooked men who belonged more in jail than leading a nation. Wouldn’t it be nice if they became “pin” pals.
It’s clear in today’s letter that connections between fascist governments not only use the same playbook, but they party together. Why are we not surprised? “Bannon is close to Bolsonaro’s son, who has been seen hobnobbing with Trump-affiliated people, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka.”
Lynell, I couldn’t figure out why they married. What did they have in common except money? And when daddy installed them in the White House, totally unqualified except furthering TFG’s nepotistic leanings, it was one more sign his aides and assistants would further his agenda, not the Nation’s agenda.
Morning, Irenie! Thinking on it, it could have been an arranged marriage, the kind where it is acceptable to live separate lives...MINO, Marriage In Name Only LOL!
As for their "public service," I never got beyond my conclusion that neither of them - either alone or together - were in it for the good of the people.
Interesting that in a story from November ‘22, Ivanka states she’s finished with politics and wants to focus on family. I didn’t follow too closely the family drama. It was just more of TFG NOT separating his private life from his public life as leader of the USA. From the very beginning everything was one and the same.
I guess this just demonstrates the dysfunction in the GOP and the unhappiness of some of the less crazy members of their caucus. We are really in for a shit show the next two years, but luckily nothing crazy will get passed into law with a Democratically controlled Senate and the Presidential veto if needed.
Thank you, Janet R. It's all about money ALREADY spent. Tribe should write Biden's brief from District Court, to En Ban review if necessary then petition to SCOTUS. But, Neal Katyal should handle the SCOTUS Oral arugment.
Yes, repubs will accomplish very little for the people, but they will obstruct and distract, as we might expect. They waste valuable time and resources either doing nothing or reversing policies or laws that are for the people.
Janet -- Thanks for the link to the newsletter. My comment and the front end of Robert Hubble's newsletter are not shocking revelations at all. I have read similar opinions in several news sources. -- What I haven't read elsewhere was the reliance on the 14th Amendment (if necessary) to allow the President to raise the debt ceiling without Congressional authorization. Most interesting!
"In the U.S., Trump was still in office when his supporters tried to overthrow the government, and there was neither a house cleaning nor a demand for lawmakers to declare their support for the duly elected government.
Many of those who supported Trump in the events of January 6, 2021, are still in Congress. At least six Republican congress members asked Trump for a preemptive pardon, and four of them are still in office."
And why is that? Why were they seated and allowed to retain power? Whose duty was it to move formally to unseat them in accord with the provisions of the Constitution?
Because apparently the 14th Amendment, Section 3 that strictly forbids seditionists or those that abet insurrection from holding office is not really a thing. The only amendment that is “honored” is the 2nd.
Dangerous parallels. The shocking insurgency/storming of the Brazilian house brings into stark focus what the tail is on the 1/6 insurrection at our own capitol produces...it's the closest thing to a 'copy-cat-coup' one can imagine without...imagining one... it seems clear that this was orchestrated at the highest level in terms of not reacting to it, if not actively participating in organizing it. Everyone knew Jair was a POS MAGA guy and isn't it quaint that he escaped to OUR OWN COUNTRY (maybe even Maralago since he is in FL) to avoid any fallout as his own frothed-up supporters engage in mayhem without purpose...
I don't consider Brazil to be an unsophisticated political state. The fact that this can happen there, perhaps without effect, means, however, that it is a new playbook move that COULD work in lesser more fragile governments. And this is how it starts. This MAGA-driven corrosion of faith in democratic process and its attendant politically-driven uprisings will only spread. The same nationalistic-fervor brought us the rise of the nazi (Nationalist) party and it is only a matter of time before it is fine-tuned and used to greater effect, in my opinion.
Thus: left unchecked and not tamped-down EVERY time, and harshly, this may be the disease that affects fragile (and even not so fragile) democracies everywhere. This is an existential issue but one with very real consequences globally.
More closer to home and perhaps in key areas that NATO is implicated, this corrosion is going to continue to be a real issue for the near-to-longterm future: if we don't like the vote, we revolt and break shit and kill people. That is not democratic SOCIETY.
While democratic uprisings and victories are out there; it is much easier to compel most people with fear than freedom, as history has shown us. I don't have a path forward, per se, but a good start would be to concentrate our USAID on those hot-spots of fragile democracy (like Ukraine) and to send a clear message that we won't tolerate such, dare I say, treasonous, behaviour in our own house. While some have had justice here in our Country for their behaviour; until justice is brought to the leaders here (who condoned, supported and organized the efforts) and they are held to account, I fear that this, "playbook," will be very appealing to all those who dream of overturning democratic government at best and embracing authoritarianism through violence at worst.
Yes, the first "We Wll Be Build The Wall" (not) Defendant has already been tried & CONvicted: the 2nd Trial against Bannon is set for November 2023. Another CONviction is likely.
Yesterday's election update for Senate seat of VA-7: Aaron Rouse (D), as of 9:40 p.m. is leading by a narrow margin. Election is to fill seat vacated by Jen Kiggans (R) who won election to the U.S. House of Reps. Also, see House Delegate seats elections in HD-24 and 35 vacated by one death and the other taking a spot in the Biden administration. House is still held by R's.
I have heard that there is a secret 3 page document being passed around to the House republicans with the demands that the terrible 20 squeezed out of mccarthy. Included are demand to cut “mandatory expenditures” from the federal budget. Are there any mandatory expenditures other than Medicare/Medicaid and social security?
All too often, cuts in defense spending protect contracts for shiny untried hardware at the expense of military members who are supposed to operate, maintain, and support said hardware. And I trust I'm not the only person who remembers when money for Trump's vanity wall project was extracted from an appropriation intended to bring water treatment at a major training base up to code.
Patricia they said they were coming for Social Security. Here we are. I've already gotten my resume out and tweaked to send out. I semi retired 2 years ago. I'll be going back to work full time. It was nice when it lasted.
Newly elected Rep. Daniel Goldman, who was lead counsel in Trump's first impeachment, tonight offered the most accurate name for the GOP's special committee to investigate the FBI and other federal law enforcement. In an interview with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, called the panel the Committee for Obstructing Justice. Goldman deserves one of the Democratic seats on the panel so he can pulverize Jim Jordan.
Jordan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, in a media-free ceremony sometime in 2021, for supporting tfg - is he one of those who asked for 'preemptive' pardon, too?
"At least six Republican congress members asked Trump for a preemptive pardon, and four of them are still in office".
Does anyone with a clear conscience need to ask for a preemptive pardon ever?
Now JJ being put in charge of another committee, where he can continue to lie and distort his own comments, among other things. Great name for 'Committee for Obstructing Justice', and I trust that Mr. Goldman and others will put JJ in his place, pulverized or otherwise.
JJ has got to be the most dislikable and only jacket-less member of Congress. All those who ask for pardons are guilty and should be removed from Congress. I can dream can't I?
Jordan is certainly dislikable (and a natural emetic), but I maintain that the one with the most slappable face is Gaetz. I briefly found myself in sympathy with the guy who tried to put his hands around Gaetz' neck..
Yeah, but I must admit that I loved it every time Goetz blew up no Balls McCarthy’s vote.
Maybe they will be like the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat who tore themselves up into oblivion.
With you on Gaetz. He looks like he got his mug shoved through a meat grinder. No wonder he has to buy his girlfriends. He looks like a really bad cartoon of a used car salesman from the 1950's. I haven't yet found the words to best describe my "feelings" for this creep, but revulsion comes right at the top.
Shouldn't there be a few upright bright good human beings within the 330M + Us Citizens who would be more deserving and appropriate to serve in Congress, than those schemers, brown-nosers and downright criminals that ask for preemptive pardons, knowing full well that they would and should be prosecuted?
Of course but you must remember the insanity and gullibility of almost half the electorate.
SPOT ON!
And to think that at 19 I self-eliminated my plan to run for office because I drank too much wine as a Freshman in college...I was sure that was enough to disqualify me from office. And that was a very long time ago.
Having done the research for a dissertation (medieval poetry) and reading an incredibly stupid dissertation about the same poetry, feeling scooped, I wished I had run for office instead of opting for academia.
I thought of running for office,, but I realized I have trouble being that nice to people. Now, I guess that is would be the basic qualification to run as a Republican.
100%. If a pardon is also an admission of guilt, then so is asking for one. Goldman will have Gym squirming.
All the innocent folks who allegedly asked for preemptive pardons are the same ones who would take the 5th while testifying under oath. All this innocence is mind blowing!
Jim Jordan reminds me of a rabid chihuahua....
Sophia Not fair to chihuahuas.
I agree, except if they're rabid....
Beautifully said!!!!!Thank you.
No contest on "only jacket-less," but there's plenty of competition IMO for "most dislikable."
This is what happens in a banana republic.
I never thought in my 80 years of life that the USA....my beloved country would ever become a banana republic! I always had rose colored glasses looking at our country! It hurts to wake up and see what our country has always been!
Glad you said this Sharon. I'm 71 so you got me beat. It feels somehow traitorous to speak ill of the nation in which I have lived all my life (save a couple years in Germany). Because I grew up as proud as the next person to be an American. And I stayed that way even though I lived in the south until graduating from college. Even though I witnessed clear racism, hated it, yet didn't say enough about it. It has only been the last 20 years or so where I have gradually begun to see the light to the point where I realized without a doubt something is amiss. And the assent of Trump and his murderous response to Covid 19, a response that half the country willingly went along with, (and of course a long list of other affronts to rational governance) sealed it for me. There is something dreadfully wrong with a very large portion of our country. This is not something that we merely have to put up with every other election cycle, like long ago where it was as likely as not that there were some adults in the room on either side, even if they disagree. No - it's much more serious than that. We now have the rejection of reality itself. We have a large block of citizens, a major news network, and the clowns they have elected (and re-elected) who cheer for authoritarians and insurrectionists, deny climate change to this day, traffic in lies and innuendo instead of facts, and are apparently willing to turn the USA into Gilead, and/or Dodge City. This has got to stop. Wonder if the founding fathers, who supposedly thought of just about everything, pondered the possibility that the republic could be taken over by heartless idiots who would drag the country down.
I'm sure they worried that the republic wasn't a sure thing. Any endeavor that relies on basic decency can fail. The indecent have become louder in the past few years.
"Any endeavor that relies on basic decency can fail." Well said! And therein lies the problem. The only thing that I struggle with when it comes to the right wing agenda (by struggle I mean I have cognitive dissonance) is the right for all to vote. Indecent people vote, usually for indecent candidates. People who have no idea what they are voting for vote for candidates that have a prettier face or a more appealing name. People vote purely with their pocket book, with no long term view. People vote, inexplicably, for a Marjorie Taylor Greene. How can that be good for a democracy? Sometimes I feel such voters should not be allowed to vote, but then I remind myself that the bad guys think the same way about us except more seriously. I believe even back when the country was first founded, there was thinking that a person had to earn his right to vote. Had to be a property owner, a male, or some such qualification that supposedly better assured an intelligent vote was cast. Today that thinking is front and center with Republicans, only instead of better assuring an intelligent vote, it is applied to their own version of reality. But in the end, I believe the lesser evil is to make sure EVERYONE can vote. Because the alternative is that the indecent will take advantage through indecent means, and take over. And importantly - when EVERYONE is better educated through good public schools and affordable colleges, on average those votes will be more intelligently cast.
Beautifully said, James!
I've lived here all my life and when I was young we felt like America could do anything and that it had a big heart. I'm not willing to let that image fade out because of creeps like the MAGA crowd. We have to figure out how to fight this. Maybe we an take some lessons from the Banana Republics, not all of whose citizens are happy with their leaders.
USA "a banana republic"? If only. Way to go Lula
Gjay Not an encouraging simile. The US supported United Fruit Company in Central America, overturned democratic governments, and now have millions fleeing these rotting banana republics.
You're ahead of me, Sharon. I'll be 77 next month. I appreciate your honest--and bold--expression of grief, not at the usual "What our country has become" but at what it "has always been." Before I escaped from Facebook 2-3 years ago, I grabbed a "meme" that read, "Just a reminder: the system in what is currently known as the US isn't 'broken.' It was designed by white supremacist slave-owners on stolen indigenous land to protect their interests. It's working as it was designed." I don't have a source for the original of this and sorry I don't. But I thought of it immediately when I read your comment. I would only add another quote that I have remembered from the first time I read it in the famous Pogo cartoon of 1971: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Thank you for your comment. It is so true!
Perhaps we need a clause inserted in the "Medal of Freedom " rules that says it there has to be a bona-fide reason for doing so with attached evidence (something the REPUBLICAN'TS have a hard time producing). JJ has no such evidence as his only claim to fame is as a full-time PIA
His claim to fame is his not protecting his wrestling team from sexual molestation by the team doctor- hence his name GYM Jordan.
Or say...."I can't recall"!
And don't forget how Trump also desecrated our highest honors with Rush Limbaugh
MIchael, I caught Daniel Goldman on 'Lawrence' show tonight as well; yes, Goldman must be seated along side the 'Obstructing Justice' to police the seditionists. On the House Rules package, NPR's, Lexie Schap... updated 1/9/23 pm reports that "the full written [Rules Package] agreement" has NOT been disclosed. I expect the missing "Secret Appendix", secret or not, to surface before this Friday.
I see presidential material in Daniel Goldman. Pure integrity....
'Trump Claims That Biden Having Classified Documents Is Worse Because He Reads'
'PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump alleged that President Biden’s possession of classified documents from his Vice-Presidency is “way worse” than his own hoarding of top-secret materials at Mar-a-Lago because “Joe actually reads.”
“What would you rather have—classified documents in the hands of someone who reads, or someone who never reads?” Trump asked. “Hands down, the reader is way more dangerous.”
“The American people know that any documents are safe with me because I would never read even one word of them,” he said. “But Joe reads like a demon, and that’s what makes him so scary.” (Satire, NewYorker)
Thank you for this morning laugh today!
Borowitz has some lovely snark.
Fern It is possible for people to inadvertently have classified material at home. When I was working in Communications Intelligence (top secret, code word) on occasion when I came home I found a ts/code word document in my jacket. Not wishing to smuggle it back to the office, I’d tear it up and flush it down the toilet.
By the way, do you really think that Henry KIssinger didn’t take reams of classified documents for the writing of his histories? Indeed, the NYT included scads of classified material. When I entered the State Department, I was informed that my NASSER’S NEW EGYPT: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS was filled with still classified info. Pshaw.
Keith, When was the last time you checked your pockets? As for Kissinger, what might he have taken to his grave? Let's you and I convene, ASAP!
Fern On Congo I would have to write classified memos to The Secretary and others to ‘counter’ misinformation that they read in their morning newspapers. (On occasion I would share classified info with journalists—as an ‘unidentified source.’ Shhhhhh
Keith, you are a treasure chest...and a BIG MOUTH! Want to dance?
Go Fern &Keith! 🤩🥰🥳
LOL
Thank heavens for The New Yorker
Actually I was just ready to ask if Dan Goldman would pulverize Jim Jordan. Just not in the same way you might have thought.
My dark side also imagined the justice Jordan deserves for not intervening when his wrestling teammates were being sexually abused.
I love Daniel Goldman. So glad he got elected! Go Daniel!
Hopefully Dan Goldman is willing to commit to the tortuous job of sitting on that "special" committee to speak out against the lies that will surely be presented.
Goldman's weapons? Facts articulately presented and a steely calm demeanor. In other words, the opposite of Jordan.
Oh wouldn't that be sweet? Also, Jamie Raskin although he is ill and we might not be seeing alot of him (good god I hope he comes out of this OK). Jamie however, even when well, cannot be everyplace at once. I think there are a good many Democrats who can keep the Republicans honest on this committee. I wonder though - will McCarty have the power to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on Democratic special committee assignments? He probably would love to get some "payback" for Nancy denying him a few committee assignments on the 1/6 committee.
I doubt anyone or any thing can keep the Republicans "honest". We are talking about a group with fealty to Trump and insurrectionists now sitting on these committees because we did not hold them accountable. Is it any wonder we find ourselves where we are now?
Honest went out the door for the Republicans a long time ago. As a former professor of mine once put it, "He is a politician which means he does not always tell the truth." But at least once upon a time, some of them did more truth telling than lying. Not any more. I hope it bites them in the butt sooner rather than later because we have a lot of business to get done and these creeps are screwing it up for all of us.
All these reptiles know is how to attack and how to seek revenge. That is a long way from governing.
I concur! Great to have Goldman in the House.
Yes. And he WOULD pulverize the thug. Jordan has nothing going for him but a loud and obnoxious mouth and bullying behavior. Behind it all, very little exists in the way of intelligence. He may be canny, but he's not very smart.
His countenance and persona telegraph a very angry, nasty man. The rumors that surround him about his voyeuristic tendences while a college coach tells a lot in and of itself. The Republican Party has a lock on the nasties and the crazies.
I mean, seriously, would you sleep with any of these people?
Lord, what a thought
I wish someone would actually beat the shit out of GYM and knock that smirk off his face.
I love that last line. Thank you.
"Pulverizing" Jordan ushers up awesome visuals, but it will never happen. The toxified Republicans will assure a dismal, obstructive and unabated nasty two years, forthcoming.
The next two years!! The last 6!!! Good news today; my previous Rep. Porter said she’s running for Senator Feinstein’s seat in 2024.
What strikes me as awkward is how nothing g is happening the the core radical fascists in Congress responsible for obstruction of the procedures on Jan 6, conspiracy and in some cases gerrymandering and voting rights violations to stay in office or those recently elected by this illegal process.
The longer they go unpunished and unaccountable for their actions.the more is threatens our public trust in the rule of law and democracy.
The world is watching, the country is watching.
It shows everyone that there is clearly a double standard in the law for elected politicians.
Clearly, the DOJ inability to act prior to the insurrectionists and criminals being sworn in
undermines the government, Congress and the judicial branch.
Our system is broken and in need of repair.
I believe it can be repaired but the longer it takes the harder the task.
“We are now in the midst of a Third Reconstruction initiated, as before, by a powerful moral fusion coalition and once again threatened by extremist forces opposed to establishing a fully representative democracy.” Dr William Barber of the Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People’s campaign
Elaine,
Not to beat my own dead horse but:
"The longer they go unpunished and unaccountable for their actions.the more is threatens our public trust in the rule of law and democracy."
Look in any prison and see if you can find a rich white man.
Don't forget Weisselberg will be @ Rikers for the next 5 months!
Do we think anyone else who commits numerous felonies will be sentenced to only five months? People get more than that for selling pot.
Exactly. I felt like that sentence is a slap on the wrist. IF it even occurs.
More likely, one 100 days, if that.
James, the Perp did bring his tooth brush to court yesterday.
The following makes all the difference in what the prosecutor recommends:
'But Weisselberg, who fully cooperated with prosecutors and testified against his longtime employer, could get out sooner, factoring in time off for good behavior.' (CNBC)
to bring others down.
Just like Bannon did his 5 months jail sentence? I think not. I think neither will serve any time.
Is that all??? Seems like a light sentence to me!
Rikers is seriously rough: Both the guards and the inmates.
Nobody like Wesselberg could survive UNLESS he quickly finds someone who can protect him through some payment system, which, is likely.
And came into two million dollars according to Michael Cohen?????
Mike S
I'm losing confidence. I remember waiting months for the justice I thought the Mueller report would provide. It turned out to be a nothing burger. Now, I wait for Garland to dispense justice. I even defended him - saying we have to be patient while all the i's are dotted and t's crossed. Sadly, I suspect another nothing burger. Fani Willis has lots of ingredients, but still nothing. Ditto for the Southern District court of NY.
Any of us would already be charged, tried, convicted, sentenced, and jailed.
I'm so old, I don't even buy green bananas. Will I live long enough to see personal accountability and justice served?
Here you go Mike. The list begins in 1777.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes#:~:text=List%20of%20American%20federal%20politicians%20convicted%20of%20crimes
That is so sad.
I also remember a murderer in Texas who was condemned to death. His last words were, "I wouldn't be here if I were rich."
Elaine, I think that it is more than 'awkward' that core radical right-wing extremists in Congress who were against the peaceful transfer of power after our the free and fair presidential election in '20, now have great influence as elected representatives in the House.
To quote today's Letter, 'Many of those who supported Trump in the events of January 6, 2021, are still in Congress. At least six Republican congress members asked Trump for a preemptive pardon, and four of them are still in office. They make up the core of the far-right Republicans House speaker Kevin McCarthy had to bargain with to win the speakership: Representatives Scott Perry (R-PA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) was also part of the group that pressured McCarthy, and he, too, appears to have been deeply involved in the events of January 6: just days afterward, Trump awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom with a somewhat generic citation that raised questions about why Trump was really giving Jordan the award.'
It is as though the 'inmates' are running the House.
'Among Mr. McCarthy’s unofficial concessions was a promise to give members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus multiple seats on the Rules Committee, which, despite its deceptively feeble name, wields enormous influence as the panel that controls which bills get debated on the House floor and under what terms. As the committee’s website boasts, it “has the authority to do virtually anything during the course of consideration of a measure, including deeming it passed.” It can “rewrite just parts of a bill, or the entire measure. In essence, so long as a majority of the House is willing to vote for a special rule, there is little that the Rules Committee cannot do.” Picture, if you will, a small band of Lauren Boeberts holding the Rules Committee hostage and, by extension, the entire legislative process.
'Many of the changes the anti-McCarthy rebels pushed for are ostensibly about making the House more small-d democratic by empowering the rank and file. But as things are heading, power is simply being shifted from leadership, which is responsible for looking out for the conference as a whole, to a coterie of extremists obsessed with burnishing their personal brands. The result is expected to be not a fairer, more equitable House so much as a wildly dysfunctional one.'
'This sorry situation isn’t just about one man’s weakness or ambition. It is about a party that nurtured its aggrieved, paranoid, rage-filled, anti-establishment, antigovernment elements for years. The burn-it-all-down faction now has everyone, not just the speaker, by the nose hairs.'
'Republicans can blame it all on Mr. McCarthy if it helps them sleep at night, but they shouldn’t kid themselves: The next wave of House dysfunction is on the antimajoritarian, chaos-courting lot of them.' (NYTimes,. JAMELLE BOUIE, Opinion.)
"its aggrieved, paranoid, rage-filled, anti-establishment, antigovernment elements" - Our democracy allows people to vote for their own kind. The only recourse is to prosecute their crimes.
FERN, thank you once again for another detailed post. I know you are not a palaimentarian (except here) but, my understanding is that there is a procedure to get a Bill to the House Floor not sabotaged by the controlling Committee Strangulation System. Fortunately, in an "ALL IN" show last Week, Chris Hayes, interviewed the ex-House Rep, a R, that successfully used this proced once in the last decade which requires all 212 D votes, soon to be 213 D votes & requires 6R votes soon to be 5R votes. Under Jeffries, D's just demonsrated remarkable discipline. I am all in for three dimensional Chess.
Not many in the House can play that game, Bryan, which is to our advantage. We don't, however, know what 'tricks' Gaetz and MTG et al, have up their sleeves. Let's not forget The House of Cards!
I do recall House of Cards & some paths blazed by Nancy P & note that the Whip, Katherine Clark, is whip smart.
yes!
Go KC!
The inmates took over the asylum when Newt was the prime mover of bull Schitt.
May they be hoisted by their own petards. Which is a distinct possibility with this group.
THIS. Thank you for saying it. The fact that 800 or so gullible MAGA followers have been prosecuted for their part in the Jan 6 storming of the Capitol, yet not one of Trump's sycophants and abettors at the highest levels of government who schemed and plotted that atrocity with him have yet to be arrested and held accountable for their acts is cause for grave concern. These nihilistic fascists (let's call them what they are) now appear to be fully engaged, without any obvious checks or balances, in bringing about the end of democracy in the U.S. - that is, the end of every civil right and freedom that our Constitution, laws and simple decency of character from our lawmakers have afforded us, incrementally but always in a forward moving trajectory until now. Even more chilling, the majority right-wing zealots on the Supreme Court, again acting without oversight or restraints, silently applaud the Republican agenda provided it doesn't interfere with their goal of replacing a free and secular society with their Christo-fascist theocracy. Germany, Peru and now Brazil did not dither for months (now two years in the U.S.) to arrest and hold accountable the perpetrators of recent plots to overthrow their legitimate governments. We are running out of time, dangerously so at this point, to save the Republic from the absolute evil of despotic authoritarian rule. As you say, our system is broken. And now it's being pulverized with every passing day that action is not being taken to save our livelihoods, dignity and respect - not only ours but those of our children, grandchildren and future generations both here and in every other country where democracy is under attack. If America, the world's oldest democracy falls, so too will every democratic system of government in a domino effect of unstoppable corruption and violence. We can't allow that to happen. But will we? (Rhetorical question - the truth is we don't know).
NO! We the People will not let "Democracy Die in Darkness." I believe the American Eagle is off the limmediate danger-of-extinction List.
I hope you're right. I still want to believe in that thing with feathers.
"I believe it can be repaired but the longer it takes the harder the task."
I see this "core radical fascists" faction as a cancer in our Congress. As I've prayed for, however, the Republican body has self-imploded and the cancer will be unable to metastasize. I share your optimism. If no cure has been found in the next two years, what will zap it for sure is the next election when those poor trumpsters with their heads in the sand find out that the reps they voted for were trying to take away their SS....
I'd love to see her team up with Senator Whitehouse, each with their own "signage" on display!
The DREAM TEAM w Raskin as well!
Yes, as Raskin will be in the House with Jeffries, Porter and Whitehouse will be in the Senate!
Prayers for Raskin
Did not know about the diagnosis. Thank you. I just hope to see Congressman Jamie Raskin continue as a force to keep the ship of democracy upright and continually moving in a steady positive direction.
This interview with Raskin was aired a few hours ago.
"It's obviously a heavy thing for a family to hear that," he said. "But the good news is the kind of cancer that I've got, which is a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, is extremely treatable. They say it's curable. They found it early in my case, it's stage 2, so they're very optimistic and I'm very optimistic. I plan on getting through this."
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/politics/jamie-raskin-one-on-one-interview/65-f87e2258-e995-4961-afcb-8de9bf8601ba
There have been huge advancements in Oncology Treatment Protocols. Mr. Raskin knows a "plan" is required which usually is put together by a "Tumor Board" OR a top teaching Doc trailed by a gaggle of attentive residents. Been there done that successfully but, not with Raskin's diagnosis. Jamie will be back!
Yes, this poor dear man.
Have you heard Jeffries speak? Wow...what a powerhouse. So glad he's House Minority Leader!
I certainly have - many times, including at the first Trump impeachment trial. He is a powerful speaker no doubt. But I notice an innate ability to not answer the question being asked of him. Something all politicians get good at, but something I do not like. Yes - I know there are alot of "gotcha" questions out there, but still - he even does that with "softball questions". I'd like to see a little more simple "yes" or "no" - then further explain. Also, we have yet to see if those powerful words can be followed up with powerful action. Hakeem - be like Nancy!
💙💙💙
If he's well enough...don't forget his cancer diagnosis.
Katie P will have my vote!
I’ll certainly be rooting for her. I think she would be a fantastic senator. Let’s spread the word to Californians these next two years!
As well as mine plus donations.
California has a wealth of potential Dem Senate candidates but Katie and her white board will have my vote!
Let's hope Feinstein does the right thing for the party, and the country, by announcing soon that she will not seek reelection and is supporting the formidable and delightful Katie Porter (I just love to hear her either interrogate a hapless witness or explain policy). To my knowledge, Diane is playing it cagey at present. Approaching 90, she is the oldest member of the Senate, which on its face shouldn't disqualify her, but she seems to be slipping quite a bit recently. We need new energy in the party.
She's mine too. Thank you! This made my day!
Indeed good news!!!!
Yes, that is excellent news. CA needs a new senator. The next two years, as we all know, will be a dumpster fire and it will be up to Ds to contain that fire as much as they can. I do hope someone can stand up to the screamer Gym.
Hahaa.. "CA needs a new senator"? H'mmm.. Maybe the Florida Sheriff would re-locate out there... what's her name? Go ahead.. SAY IT: Take it awayy.. Val Demings!
Plenty of excellent D choices in CA already.
Already donated!
Oh, so that's the seat she's going for. I'm giving her my full support. That actually is exciting news. She actually uses the "C" word--Childcare. She will be wonderful. Glad to hear this.
Yes! Apparently she was criticized for this because of the catastrophic flooding in California. I think she would be a terrific senator and if I lived in California, I would vote for her.
Yea, Katie! Donated to her campaign yesterday.
Yes! I already donated to her campaign. Go, Katie!
I listened to Dan Goldman give his speech on the House floor and he did not mince his words regarding the GQP. He nailed them about trying to squash the DOJ investigations about Trump and about themselves. Seems like most of what the R’s are proposing to change must be approved by the Senate and that is very unlikely to happen, thank goodness! The best news of the day is that Weisselberg Is sentenced to Rikers prison for 5 months. That is a brutal facility. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Wait...oh yes, it could...TRUMP!
Five months for 15 felony convictions? Please.
Merely a slap on the hand. How is this five months sentence for 15 felonies equal justice under the law? Also, how is it that Steve Bannon is not incarcerated? Two years plus and the insurrectionists still subvert and undermine with impunity.
My recall of that GJ hearing is that in exchange for a certain amount of immunity, W would truthfully answer all the questions, and if he contradicted himself at a trial, the immunity would cancel and he would go full sentence. But I have been wrong before.
I think Bannon was allowed to delay incarceration pending appeal....yeah, that works for all convicted felons, right?!
I need a transcript of the sentencing Judge's statement in Court today so I can report false W-2 earnings statements to the SSA Fraud Unit. Anyone have it?
Sure, I’ll get that right to ya, Bryan!😃
He made a deal to testify against Trump in the Trump Co cases to reduce his sentence.
I know - what a farce. I guess crime does pay
If crime did NOT pay, we would not be in the situation we are in.
A mere slap on the hand!
My thought too.
Morning, Marlene. Heather mentioned that in her chat yesterday...that the Senate would not approve most of these House proposals. I'm banking on her judgment on this.
Morning, Lynell! I missed the chat yesterday, gonna have to listen to it today.
Morning, Ally! Sometimes I get behind, but I make an effort to catch up on anything Heather publishes. I always end up being glad I did.
Unfortunately, life gets in the way and I am way late in listening to her lectures. I will try and discipline myself a little better. 🤪
Anyway, yes, the Animal House is doing a lot of screaming and acting out like kindergartners. The Dems will strike everything down and nothing will be accomplished. Our tax dollars going to waste unless, their constituency demand compromises. Oh har har…that ain’t gonna happen!
Not to worry, Marlene!
Marlene, Weisselberg will be held away from the general population, in a medical “ward”. I saw that in the NYT just this morning....
Yes, I know but it’s Rikers and well, anything can happen there, Elizabeth.
Prison in the U.S. is inhumane and badly needs reform.
Except for some, depends on who you piss off
five months in Rikers -- even if segregated from gen-pop -- will be no picnic for an old accountant like Weisselberg.
The bigger the crime the smaller the time if you are wealthy and white.
With incredible compensation, and likely fear of consequences if he didn’t. Anybody remember Epstein
Which is why he is still employed by the drumpf Org., albeit "on leave of absence". Could there be any clearer indication that not only is Weisselberg taking the fall for drumpy, but that he LIED repeatedly on the stand about setting up the fraud for his own benefit. I seriously doubt that drumpf would continue to employ anyone so disloyal as to steal a million bucks from his company.
As are many of his whackadoodle supporters!
"a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"
Paul Simon "The Boxer"
Good to hear. I read 'Rikers prison' with Swedish eyes ('rik'=rich) without knowing of the place. Nothing is really surprising any more about the US, but that you would have special prisons for the rich is!
In the nineties they were called "Club Fed."
"'Club Fed' is a derisive term used in North America to refer to a prison whose accommodations are seen as less severe than many other prisons. Club Fed is a pun on the 'Club Med' chain of all-inclusive resorts. The 1999 movie Office Space made a reference to this style of prison by referring to it as a 'white-collar, minimum-security resort.'"
If you had said: 'what would be the point of having special prisons for the rich, when rich people are so unlikely to be sentenced', I would have agreed. That's the way it is in Sweden.
Office Space is a must see film. "If they move my office again...."
In 1975, the album National Lampoon - Gold Turkey was released. Among other gems, it includes “Prison Farm”: https://youtu.be/uj9MCgnGDAo
Olof, now you've got me curious about the derivation of the island's name: Dutch is somewhat more likely, but before New York was New Amsterdam, it was New Sweden, so Swedish certainly isn't impossible.
Ah: Wikipedia's article on Rikers Island reports that the island was claimed in 1664 by a Dutchman named Abraham Rycken. A web search for Abraham yields sources - a mix of genealogies and articles in the popular press - that suggest that the spelling of the last name wasn't very fixed: Abraham's father went by de Ryck, and Abraham himself seems to have used de Rycke and Rycker along with Rycken. The letter <y> represented, I think, the diphthong that modern Dutch renders as <ij>, which is pretty close to English long I - well, all right, it's closer to the vowel in a British Canadian pronunciation of "kite". The Online Etymology Dictionary helpfully corroborates my memory by tracing Old English "rice" 'powerful, mighty', Swedish "rik", modern Dutch "rijk", and German "reich" all back to a Proto-Germanic cognate having to do with power; see https://www.etymonline.com/word/rich. Since power and wealth live in each other's pockets (at least until the descendants start partying too hard to take care of business), it's pretty safe to translate "de Rycke" as 'the rich guy'.
Given that diphthong, "Riker" is a fairly plausible Anglicization,
but Abraham's grandson Abraham III, who was a militiaman in the Revolutionary War, was still using Rycken. A somewhat younger fellow who used "Riker", however, was an early congressman.
The most infamous Riker may be Richard Riker, who was either a magistrate or a prosecutor early in the 19th century - about when the importation of slaves was made illegal in the US, but after the first Fugitive Slave Act (https://www.essence.com/culture/rikers-island-slavery-ties/) - who made a pile of money with this side hustle: picking up free blacks in and around New York and selling them into slavery in the South.
Rikers is reputed to be the worst prison in the U.S. Please read: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/nyregion/rikers-jail-violence-report.html
I knew a former Rikers prison guard; he said it was the worst of the worst.
I am astounded at merely 5 months.
And yet another YouTube clip from Beau of the Fifth Column, worthy of a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhA-_0R2LO4
A tap on the wrist for Weisselberg. The Senate and the veto will not have Rupert’s 24-7 megaphone. The MAGAts can gain ground, the last thing we need…
A megaphone? What's the Lincoln Project up to?
I agree that 5 yrs seems like a light sentence but it was a part of a plea deal for him pleading guilty and his testimony in the trial of the Trump Organization. https://apnews.com/article/allen-weisselberg-trump-cfo-plea-deal-e36dbd47ee3b0323e1fa102117718011 -saw-
For clarification-he'll be @ Rikers for 5 months then 5 years probation.
I’ll bet that ТЯцм₽ has ways to make his former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg”s stay at Rikers Island a little unpleasant.
He'll need that bar of soap.
Dr. Richardson,
Thank you for the complete and clear analysis of these complex events. You, Mr. Hubbell and Ms Vance are becoming our sane news sources.
I don't watch cable "news" anymore. While I don't necessarily disagree with MSNBC, I can no longer watch hours of opinion and "analysis," especially the evening shows. I glance through my news feed with news from all different sources, but HCR, Robert Hubbell, Joyce Vance, and Robert Reich help me to make some sense of the day's events. Everyday, I feel like Alice through the looking glass, where down is up, and red is green, and in is out, etc. The excuses and bs that Republicans spout would not be acceptable to the parents of teenagers in need of discipline. These Republicans are infantile, and I am speaking as someone who studied child development in college.
We relocated to NC . Left the TV for new owners of our former home. No regrets at all.
Music is a necessity, leave the tv on mute so I can tune in if any actual news.
Include reading Jennifer Rubin , Robert Reich , Michael Moore and Robert Hubbell. I worry they are speaking to the choir although a very powerful message in every post.
Add TCinLA and Greg Olear. Getting hard to afford decent reporting of the news these days. I miss Walter
Yes to to TC and Greg Olear.
Please add Jay Kuo and his Status Kuo-excellent!
Add Lucian Truscott as well
Timothy Snyder & the ISW - Institute for the Study of War - may Zelensky & Ukraine have the support & success the free world is fighting for ! Hard to stay tuned to all of this at times - but harder not to .
The bigger the choir, the better.
Each article by Jennifer Rubin seems to best the previous one. She's a powerhouse.
Yes, she's first rank. HCR often quotes her.
I hesitate to keep posting links to all his clips, but anyone who is not familiar with "Beau of the Fifth Column" on YouTube should check him out. The same friend who introduced me to the Letters also introduced me to Beau.
I will do Miselle, although, I strongly prefer reading to video streams.
I can read maybe 5X faster than the information flow of a typical video.
That is why I like this board so much. In a few minutes per day I learn a very large amount.
I read fairly fast as well, Mike.
I love "Politics Girls" but Leigh talks so fast, I usually have to run her clip a few times to get it!!
Beau is the opposite, he talks more slowly and thoughtfully, the clips are short (not podcast length). From his comments, I gather that a number of people in the Right watch him as well, as he mentions very negative commentary that he gets. (Maybe some of it gets through to some of them though?)
I watched him.
Good guy.
No doubt.
I'm in the same boat, Mike. If I need to learn something, I have to read it (in spite of the fact that my primary learning style is auditory; I just dislike watching videos). BotFC keeps his under 5-7 minutes and has a very engaging speaking style.
Mike, you will not regret including Beau in your sources. He gets to the point and explains in a succinct way. His delivery is priceless. And I love that he looks like my neighbors but has the insight and intellectual skills of a highly educated but down to earth guy. Which is pretty much what he is.
I did go there today.
He is a good guy trying to do the right thing.
I also strongly prefer to read for the same reason. I learned that you can speed up videos and it does help. On youtube, you can increase a video’s playback speed in the settings. I still avoid most videos, but for those I can’t avoid, I speed up
While I am just the opposite. I can't stand trying to listen to people talking fast, and it's even worse speeded up. I want to be able to take in not just the words but the entire meaning. I do prefer to read things that are written to be read, but I would rather listen and watch things that are spoken rather than read a transcript. There are important insights to be gained listening and watching people speak: body language, interaction with listeners, pauses, intonation all provide important information.
R.
I will try that. Thanks!!
I miss seeing Stephen Millers name in these notes. Was he busy in Germany recently?
He and Bannon went international a while back
Today (in reference to Sean Hannity broadcasting from the U.S House of Representatives) historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat nailed it when she tweeted:
“Americans, I give you...President Murdoch and the coronation of Fox News as state media.”
Anyone else fear we can expect an accelerated flow of disinformation?
No doubt whatsoever, he has ruled since 1996, and has no constraints, thanks to St. Ronnie…
Ah, The Hunger Games media is upon us
https://youtu.be/wqCuDcpjPR0
Mission Accomplished
I don't fear an accelerated flow, I simply know it will happen.
I fear for the fools who believe that stuff.
What really ticks me off about the war against democracy is how the leaders of the social media companies are not being held accountable for what they have done. Kahneman's book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" should be required reading for everyone working in the Justice Department and regulatory agencies that have a voice in online services. The insights Kahneman describes have been used quite deliberately in the design of the algorithms that fan the flames with bad data. It's all done to increase what is called "stickiness" in Silicon Valley, that is the amount of time people spend on each site. Things that trigger a sense of outrage increase stickiness the most, regardless of their veracity. This is because our emotional processes engage first and trump our more methodical rational thinking processes, which are much slower. Making it worse is the dearth of skill in the general public when it comes to dealing with issues of probability and uncertainty. Perhaps Trump, Bannon, Hannity, Carlson, DeSantis, Bolsonaro, and the many other bad folks in politics are bad, but in my book, Zuckerberg, Pichai, Cook. and Nadella are far worse for deliberately fanning these flames just to sell more targeted ads at higher prices because of the better click-through rates they can deliver because of the stickiness they have deliberately built into their platforms.
This gets back to the whole social contract mess in terms of the way we charter and police corporations, and the way the 14th amendment has been abused by the courts to protect them. The whole mess needs to be brought down. It won't end until this behavior is outlawed and the folks doing it are behind bars.
Craig, check out a seattle school district's "nuisance" lawsuit against the Big 5 social media websites, er ... I mean anti-social media, self-obsessed face-in-a-cell phone media. Life is more than a "selfie".
Yes Bryan, I've been following it. I'm writing this from Lopez Island. We lived in Seattle for most of our working careers. I was a tech fellow at Boeing working primarily on the internal network infrastructure and enabling the company to communicate with itself, so I spent huge amounts of time with our suppliers - big tech. I've seen how they work from the inside. The vast majority of the people who work for them are actually good people who are well intentioned, but they all suffer from the Jurassic Park syndrome - focused on what they can do, and never asking whether or not they should do something, or thinking about the broader consequences. Also, there is a lot of denial, which gets coupled with a myth about the nature of corporate governance which we simply need to outlaw by changing the chartering process.
There is a widely held belief that the number one fiduciary responsibility in corporate governance is to maximize the financial return to the shareholders. This attitude must be gotten rid of by outlawing the basic premise. That is that the nature of the social contract in a corporate charter is all about making money for the investors. Profits are important and necessary, but the reason that society grants such charters is to be able to accomplish things for the social good that would be impossible without them. My former employer has had the same problem in spades since it was taken over by the finance guys from GE in 1997. The aim should be what it used to be, which is enabling commercial air travel and related activities, including similar things on the defense side. This is a major flaw of omission in our constitution, and we need to fix it.
BTW, you have no idea how much flack I catch from people in the tech industry when I explain this point of view to them. It's one of the three industries in which I have spent my working life, and it's a pretty hostile place right now. If you think reasoning with a Trumpie about elections, human equality, and working together through the instruments of government is hard, try talking to a leader in the tech industry about their social responsibilities.
^^^^^THIS!!!!!!^^^^^ thanks for the insights & thoughts, well said.
All rich bastards hang together. Well, 99%
Thanks for an interesting set of ideas. I must read the book.
Thanks for recommending Kahneman's book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow," Craig!
I rarely write twice, here, and I don't think I ever have (so my apologies to those who hate my drivel) but one thing that also sticks in my throat is the milquetoast sentence for the Trump-Goblin that got 5 months of jail (not prison, which is by definition reserved to those who get more than a year of incarceration) for FIFTEEN FELONIES. That means the goblin can do his 'time' by sitting at home having a scotch and watching the Washington Commanders play (with a home-monitor of course) and avoid any ACTUAL time in a facility.
I'm sorry, but that is not 'justice' as any attorney who has had to defend a person on even ONE felony will tell you...look at the incarceration of most convicted of a single felony and you will see that this is unjust. Ask if a person in NY convicted of 15 felonies for drug possession would get 5 months of time...
While you can suggest drug crimes are different; ask yourself if dealing a bit of drugs is the equivalent of shielding MILLIONS of dollars from the government. The two are not the same. But your "drug dealer" goes to PRISON for many years and the goblin stays home and chills for 5 months. One loses all their connections to society and the other has no real consequences. One loses any ability to raise their kids, the other has to stay "home" on "arrest" and still cooks dinner for the kids. Think about that from the perspective of justice.
Mike S has been railing on this White Privilege thing for some time now. Basically, there is little justice available to discourage white collar crime
Dave, thank you although I would characterize my posts as accurately reflecting the facts of both American history and present treatment of white men who are rich and have also committed crimes.
TWO YEARS after Trump sponsored vandalism, property destruction, murder, assault, insurrection and treason there is not even one WHIFF of criminal charges against him.
So, perhaps this is "railing".
Or? Perhaps it is just American "reality". And it is NOT TV.
MIke & other very valuable Commenters in this Community hosted by HCR an exceptional historian, your posts (plural) do reflect accurate accurate historical facts; that is why I am here. Thank you All. Part of that history is the predation of rich white men who have committed crimes both past tense going back centuries on all continents & future tense -- are committing crimes now & will continue to do so in the future. A big part of tfg's alter egos inluding the "T. Organization" has been shut down in New York & mop up prosecutions, arduous litigation, will continue forthwith. Justice is definitely trending more than a whiff. Jack Smith & his recent recent hires is a huge step forward. As you know well, this is not a spectator sport. To repeat
Prrofessor Vance's sign off: We are all in this together.
Thanks Bryan, appreciate the positive view.
Definitely.
Mike, please note the term “railing” to me, is one of persistent indignation toward a wrong. No negative connotation intended
Reality can suck. Pointing it out doesn’t… suck
Understood.
Thank you.
It sucks to the nth degree. “Justice” is for the poor smucks
IF it were for poor schmucks that would be good Jeri.
But, actually, American justice is mostly just applied to the American minority population and, in the 1619 Book Project I was gifted a bit of history of the American "police force"
Our current police structure has its origins in southern states where whites formed militia groups to insure that black slaves would not rebel and attack them. Those militias were absolutely heartless and brutal in their treatment of minorities.
So, cops today are in a culture that originated and supported profound violence against, often, innocent people or people just trying to live.
The American police force works for whites to hold down the minority populations.
And, it has always been that way.
Rich white folks own the police force and the police force does their bidding.
Our “Justice System” is not Just. It’s just a system with deep roots in injustice.
Read "Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System" by an attorney from the Innocence Project, M. Chris Fabricant. It is excellent, enraging, captivating. I couldn't put it down (though I did have to skim some of the more horrific descriptions).
This has been a theme in Heather’s past letters and also from Joanne Freeman; it answers a lot of questions re the white nationalist leanings in law enforcement
I like the fact that you put the word "justice" in parens, Jeri. One thing I wish we all could do is take a good look at the word "justice", and how we use it to mean a variety of things that are sometimes contradictory to its actual meanings. I know Heather isn't a linguist, but she is a historian of political history , including legal history. She also as a background in literature and a keene sense of the meaning of words in various contexts. Heather, is this something you could do a talk or letter on, to help us clarify what exactly we mean by "justice" in legal terms and in the context of expressing our perception of how things work?
I’ll bet that ТЯцм₽ has ways to make his former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg”s stay at Rikers Island a little unpleasant.
For clarity, that Goblin's sentence will be in the reputedly worst jail in the U.S. Here's an article about Rikers: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/nyregion/rikers-jail-violence-report.html
Barbara, I read that article when it emitted and while I was also reading "Just Mercy" by Brian Stevenson.
Definitely, if the guards treat the Goblin like they treat everyone else, he will not make it out.
"Sean Hannity broadcasting from your United States House of Representatives..." I wonder, did Faux Neus and or Hannity pay rent to use the people's house as their broadcast studio?
Bill, the reality is that isn't "The People's House" anymore. That ship sailed when the Insurrectionists Party took over the House.
Now the Monkey House.
❤️❤️❤️
Thanks.
I'll add to that.
Jail's too good for the Freedom Chaos bunch and their muppet.
Even the pillory's too good.
In the United States of Utopia, each would be consigned to the Monkey House of a Utopian zoo, where the usual denizens would run rings around them and leave them scraps and banana skins.
But as it's America, a flotilla of twoscore-and-some ambulances will do. To be sent to the Washington DC Monkey House, each with a burly crew, stretcher and straitjacket. Plus a bigger ambulance with gilded accoutrements to be sent to Lair-o'-MAGA.
Yup. He could have said "from our United States House of Representatives.."
Excellent question.
"Your" makes my flesh creep.
You forgot the other similarity between Brazil and United States. Both are/were fighting for crooked men who belonged more in jail than leading a nation. Wouldn’t it be nice if they became “pin” pals.
You mean pen pals as in penitentiary pals?
Yes wrote this late in evening.
It’s clear in today’s letter that connections between fascist governments not only use the same playbook, but they party together. Why are we not surprised? “Bannon is close to Bolsonaro’s son, who has been seen hobnobbing with Trump-affiliated people, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka.”
So, Irenie, any thoughts on an Ivanka/Jared breakup?
Lynell, I couldn’t figure out why they married. What did they have in common except money? And when daddy installed them in the White House, totally unqualified except furthering TFG’s nepotistic leanings, it was one more sign his aides and assistants would further his agenda, not the Nation’s agenda.
Morning, Irenie! Thinking on it, it could have been an arranged marriage, the kind where it is acceptable to live separate lives...MINO, Marriage In Name Only LOL!
As for their "public service," I never got beyond my conclusion that neither of them - either alone or together - were in it for the good of the people.
Interesting that in a story from November ‘22, Ivanka states she’s finished with politics and wants to focus on family. I didn’t follow too closely the family drama. It was just more of TFG NOT separating his private life from his public life as leader of the USA. From the very beginning everything was one and the same.
Marriages among the “powerful” are really mergers...
Reading The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Jared is an arrogant—-um—(trying to think of clean word …) —rhymes with “trick.”
Had not heard that, a pox on both
Just engaging in gossip over the news of Bolsonaro's son and Ivanka.
How long do folks think it will take for the secret agreement incorporated into the House rules package to be leaked?
My guess is that will depend on the circumstance when the "secret rule" gets invoked, then all the beans will spill (if not sooner).
I can dream, been doing that for decades
I guess this just demonstrates the dysfunction in the GOP and the unhappiness of some of the less crazy members of their caucus. We are really in for a shit show the next two years, but luckily nothing crazy will get passed into law with a Democratically controlled Senate and the Presidential veto if needed.
Wish this would impress the MAGAts! And the “independents.” It won’t, not one iota.
My big concern is the debt ceiling.
Thank you, Janet R. It's all about money ALREADY spent. Tribe should write Biden's brief from District Court, to En Ban review if necessary then petition to SCOTUS. But, Neal Katyal should handle the SCOTUS Oral arugment.
Plus, Dem solidarity likely to get another Dem in Special Election in VA set for 2/21.
🙏🙏🙏
And the damage in the meantime…
...and we taxpayers have to pay them to goof off in public where the whole world can watch...
Yes, repubs will accomplish very little for the people, but they will obstruct and distract, as we might expect. They waste valuable time and resources either doing nothing or reversing policies or laws that are for the people.
Exactly!
Janet -- Thanks for the link to the newsletter. My comment and the front end of Robert Hubble's newsletter are not shocking revelations at all. I have read similar opinions in several news sources. -- What I haven't read elsewhere was the reliance on the 14th Amendment (if necessary) to allow the President to raise the debt ceiling without Congressional authorization. Most interesting!
"In the U.S., Trump was still in office when his supporters tried to overthrow the government, and there was neither a house cleaning nor a demand for lawmakers to declare their support for the duly elected government.
Many of those who supported Trump in the events of January 6, 2021, are still in Congress. At least six Republican congress members asked Trump for a preemptive pardon, and four of them are still in office."
And why is that? Why were they seated and allowed to retain power? Whose duty was it to move formally to unseat them in accord with the provisions of the Constitution?
They are presumed innocent…. Hahaha and hahahaha
Because apparently the 14th Amendment, Section 3 that strictly forbids seditionists or those that abet insurrection from holding office is not really a thing. The only amendment that is “honored” is the 2nd.
😣
DOJ ? Congress ? Some agency is watching and not reacting.
😣😣
Dangerous parallels. The shocking insurgency/storming of the Brazilian house brings into stark focus what the tail is on the 1/6 insurrection at our own capitol produces...it's the closest thing to a 'copy-cat-coup' one can imagine without...imagining one... it seems clear that this was orchestrated at the highest level in terms of not reacting to it, if not actively participating in organizing it. Everyone knew Jair was a POS MAGA guy and isn't it quaint that he escaped to OUR OWN COUNTRY (maybe even Maralago since he is in FL) to avoid any fallout as his own frothed-up supporters engage in mayhem without purpose...
I don't consider Brazil to be an unsophisticated political state. The fact that this can happen there, perhaps without effect, means, however, that it is a new playbook move that COULD work in lesser more fragile governments. And this is how it starts. This MAGA-driven corrosion of faith in democratic process and its attendant politically-driven uprisings will only spread. The same nationalistic-fervor brought us the rise of the nazi (Nationalist) party and it is only a matter of time before it is fine-tuned and used to greater effect, in my opinion.
Thus: left unchecked and not tamped-down EVERY time, and harshly, this may be the disease that affects fragile (and even not so fragile) democracies everywhere. This is an existential issue but one with very real consequences globally.
More closer to home and perhaps in key areas that NATO is implicated, this corrosion is going to continue to be a real issue for the near-to-longterm future: if we don't like the vote, we revolt and break shit and kill people. That is not democratic SOCIETY.
While democratic uprisings and victories are out there; it is much easier to compel most people with fear than freedom, as history has shown us. I don't have a path forward, per se, but a good start would be to concentrate our USAID on those hot-spots of fragile democracy (like Ukraine) and to send a clear message that we won't tolerate such, dare I say, treasonous, behaviour in our own house. While some have had justice here in our Country for their behaviour; until justice is brought to the leaders here (who condoned, supported and organized the efforts) and they are held to account, I fear that this, "playbook," will be very appealing to all those who dream of overturning democratic government at best and embracing authoritarianism through violence at worst.
Bannon seems to be the chief exporter of mayhem, and has the monitory support to wreak havoc around the world, can’t somebody corral that ugly bastard
Bannon is malignancy unbounded. An amoral sociopath who resembles, as a friend put it succinctly, “a used urinal-cake in the shape of a person.”
Yes, the first "We Wll Be Build The Wall" (not) Defendant has already been tried & CONvicted: the 2nd Trial against Bannon is set for November 2023. Another CONviction is likely.
H Alan Cantrud: Well written....thank you
Dangerous times.
Yesterday's election update for Senate seat of VA-7: Aaron Rouse (D), as of 9:40 p.m. is leading by a narrow margin. Election is to fill seat vacated by Jen Kiggans (R) who won election to the U.S. House of Reps. Also, see House Delegate seats elections in HD-24 and 35 vacated by one death and the other taking a spot in the Biden administration. House is still held by R's.
https://www.vpap.org/electionresults/20230110/state-senate-7/
Lynell: Thanks for the election update....
Republican Kevin Adams conceded race to Democrat Aaron Rouse earlier today!
I have heard that there is a secret 3 page document being passed around to the House republicans with the demands that the terrible 20 squeezed out of mccarthy. Included are demand to cut “mandatory expenditures” from the federal budget. Are there any mandatory expenditures other than Medicare/Medicaid and social security?
Their salaries and very generous benefits? You mean those “mandatory expenditures”????? Makes my blood boil.
Apparently, aiming to cut defense budget as well. Rupert's Wall Street Journal editorialized against defense (sic) cuts today.
All too often, cuts in defense spending protect contracts for shiny untried hardware at the expense of military members who are supposed to operate, maintain, and support said hardware. And I trust I'm not the only person who remembers when money for Trump's vanity wall project was extracted from an appropriation intended to bring water treatment at a major training base up to code.
They want to cut aid to Ukraine.
That’s ok. It is a bloated budget and we need those funds elsewhere. Of course, Their elsewhere is not our elsewhere…
They want to cut aid to Ukraine.
Grrr! Maybe the Freedumb Caucus has been talking/making deals w/ Putrid.
Goes without saying, but thanks for saying it…
They want to cut aid to Ukraine
Patricia they said they were coming for Social Security. Here we are. I've already gotten my resume out and tweaked to send out. I semi retired 2 years ago. I'll be going back to work full time. It was nice when it lasted.
Don’t worry that would never make it past the Senate and Biden.
As long as we have Biden. That's my concern.