Two stories jump out at me tonight. The first is the question of why Trump seems so desperate to stay in a job he clearly has no interest in doing. Today, reporters caught sight of Michael J. Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, going into the White House. Lindell has been strong advocate of the idea that the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes and by a vote of 306 to 232 in the Electoral College, was fraudulent.
Something about the stories following the January 6 attack on the Capitol bothers me, and I ask your opinion if you feel this is just my overactive imagination playing tricks on me and bias.
A very big part of Donald Trump’s supporters have been staunch Christians who strongly push for stopping abortion and for making other changes which will ultimately have the effect of herding women in back into a narrow place in society.
They pushed so hard that they got a large enough number of supporters in government who have gotten their ideologues into the Supreme Court. They also have a number of fringe groups who have attacked abortionists, abortion clinics, and threatened those who fund them.
With this in mind, why haven’t they been specifically listed as a presence amongst the other Capitol-attacking groups? Did I miss something because haven’t seen a single story about involvement of Christian extremist groups.
Here is where my bias is likely going to offend people, and I apologize in advance.
I have long suspected that a significant number of people who practice a religion might be more susceptible to getting caught up in a cult. I feel it is because of the way religions are practiced, that the marriage of dogma, social acceptance (or rejection as punishment), of flattening complex problems (like abortion) into a simply a black or white situation, and so forth, just lends itself towards a type of mind control. When practiced with tolerance and moderation in mind, it is probably very helpful in keeping people working together for the good of society, but when intolerance and extremism is in mind....
Well, I just feel it could be at the heart of this big problem we have in America. This is why I think it is worrisome that it’s not being specifically called out in regards to the attack.
**Disclosure: I was raised with Judeo-Christian ethics and believe in G*d as Creator of the universe, but perhaps not as a being who watches over people. I was also not raised with religion (both sets of grandparents fought over which branch of Christianity their first grandchild should be raised, so parents finally decided their children would choose when they were old enough.). So my viewpoints of religion come as an outside observer.
Trump is planning to leave office with a military style farewell including marching soldiers, tanks and maybe even a flyover of jets...
Is this his last and final attempt to take control using our own military? Can he garner enough support among military leaders to follow him in such a move? He is not finished and I will not feel better until Donald, his family and co-conspirators, including Flynn, Stone, Miller, etc. are locked up for what they have done.
That "document" posted by Josh Hawsey that Lindell supposedly gave to Trump is one of the strangest things I've tried to check out. "The American Report" doesn't seem to actually exist beyond the single article shown in the screenshot, and my browser keeps throwing up warnings that if you continue to this site, unknown people may steal your stuff. The link at the bottom, www.blxware.org, leads to an equally strange site with wild, quasi-reasonable claims of domestic spying, written in caps so large that it's hard to read the page.
The content of this "The American Report" is just as strange, simply asserting, without citation, that some IP address in various other countries "hacked" some IP address in various States, like Georgia or Michigan, without any indication as to what the "hack" did, but that it's somehow supposed to be "proof" that foreign actors faked millions of votes.
Anyone who considers such material as evidence justifying a declaration of martial law is either stupid, demented, dishonest, or a combination of all three. What a strange world all those people live in...
How effed-up is the government and the vaccine? Around 6:30 tonight I got a robocall from the Veteran's Administration that they were scheduling vaccinations for people in Group I (me). One clinic for ALL of Los Angeles - at the hospital in West Los Angeles! Tried calling the number given but the line kept going dead. I just talked to them finally (10:55pm). Turns out they have been taking that group for appointments for THREE DAYS but only got to notifying me today. And the earliest one can get it is March 8 (in case you don't have your calendar handy, that's SEVEN WEEKS FROM NOW). I told them I'd wait for it to be at CVS, which will be faster than they can do. This government as currently organized couldn't find its ass with both hands on a clear day with a twelve hour advance notice.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! "Yesterday," Jeff Cartwright, a member of our community, wrote a reply in response to HCR's January 14 Letters from an American. In it he invoked an oft-repeated phrase that serves as the beginning of our Declaration of Independence. Then he offered an addition to it that strikes a chord for what I believe democracy in the U.S. should be. I repeat it here in the hopes that it reaches far and wide. "We the People - ALL of us this time." Here is the artwork he created:
I shudder to think of the dirt that will come cascading out after January 20th.
I am very curious to hear exactly who was giving tours of the capitol on January 5th. I also read a number of articles about the panic buttons in Rep. Amanda Pressley's being ripped out prior to the riot. I sincerely hope that everyone who had their fingers in this disgusting pie feels the full force of punishment.
As to Biden saying he will manage the hell out of this crisis, I think it’s already had the hell managed out of it. The difference is that with Biden the operative word is “managed” and with Trump the operative word is “hell.”
Biden is demonstrating that we had the means all along to handle the pandemic effectively.
Elsewhere I read how states are barricading their capitols, and cancelling legislative meetings and public events. I fear this will become entrenched in the same way as airport security.
Typical, it seems, of this “ pro- America “ and gun rights crowd that their actions lead to the curtailment and debasement of basic, everyday freedoms.
I am so over the entire Trump administration’s self-congratulatory aggrandizement of their record and accomplishments. They cannot depart the scene soon enough and will be remembered as the worst, most corrupt administration in U.S. history. Now unfortunately for us all we are likely to have to spend more time and treasure investigating and prosecuting this gang of scoundrels and their capo DJT. My wish and prayers are for at least equal attention to legislating the necessary reforms now required to protect democracy, democratic institutions, democratic norms, and free and fair elections.
As we all think about what’s next and where to turn our attention I urge all to think about how we reached this point and where to focus attention to protect our democracy, the rule of law, and democratic institutions. Free and fair elections have not only been targeted in 2020. They have been under attack by various forces since the founding of our republic in a variety of ways that can all be grouped under the heading of Voter Suppression.
To explain the attack on the Capitol, you can’t just turn your focus to Donald Trump and his enablers. You must also look at the individuals and institutions that fanned fears of “voter fraud” to the point of hysteria among conservative voters, long before Trump. Put another way, the difference between a riot seeking to overturn an election and an effort to suppress opposing votes is one of legality, not intent. And it doesn’t take many steps to get from one to the other.
But it goes back much further than recent decades. Voting rights in this country have been denied to those who did not own property, people of color, women, people who could not pass Jim Crow “guess the number of jelly beans in a jar” literacy tests, gerrymandered districts, and a variety of other plans to make voting difficult for some.
Legal efforts to suppress voting are just as insidious as insurrectionist riots to overturn elections and far more common. We can expect to see those efforts redoubled by those in power regardless of their political affiliation or ideology. Voter suppression it seems is in the genetic DNA of too many politicians. It is dependent on us as voters to guard the right to vote, have those votes fairly counted, and election results recognized and representative of the will of the majority.
Our present electoral system retains many vestiges of voter suppression. These include an electoral college system for Presidential elections that grants more power to a minority of voters. Gerrymandering also allows imbalances of power amongst voters unfairly. Difficulties for both registering and voting too often are not designed to “protect the ballot” but to create and maintain imbalances of power.
So, do not ignore voter suppression efforts or excuse them because of cries they are “legal.” They are just as seditious as insurrectionist riots and far more common.
Support bipartisan groups like the League of Women Voters as well as efforts by other groups seeking to increase access to voting. Support efforts for fair and truly representative redistricting. Support efforts to increase the ease of registering and voting for all citizens. Support our election workers and judges. Protect and enhance everyone’s right to vote. It is the right that empowers our democracy and provides us all a voice in how we are governed.
Thank-you Heather! Today my daughter accused me of joining a cult by subscribing to your news letter. How she even found out that I did stuns me! Not only has Trump worked hard at destroying our democracy, he has also driven a wedges between people! I have vowed to remain silent when my daughter starts ranting but it’s difficult! Your insights are my lifeline!
The Senate is going to have to operate on overtime starting January 20th. The multiple crises that the Biden administration is facing, while getting presidential nominations confirmed with the overlay of an impeachment trial, are formidable. However, I do take some solace in Biden’s leadership skills, the people he has nominated to key positions, and the fact that two very experienced, smart women hold the gavels in the two chambers of Congress! They’ll “play” by the rules but they are not going to take any garbage!
That Trump may be tempted to use the Insurrection Act to declare Martial Law doesn’t surprise me. He needs to remain office to avoid prosecution in several states. I do have faith in the top military brass, though, that they would not allow themselves to be drawn in to a coup d’état. The complete incompetence of the roll-out of the vaccines is, sadly, par for the course for this administration. It would be laughable if it weren’t for the hundreds of thousands of lives that are at stake. Twelve noon, January 20 cannot come soon enough.
Excuse my feeble attempt attempt at humor: "My Pillow Guy attempted to smother the Constitution. today."
Something about the stories following the January 6 attack on the Capitol bothers me, and I ask your opinion if you feel this is just my overactive imagination playing tricks on me and bias.
A very big part of Donald Trump’s supporters have been staunch Christians who strongly push for stopping abortion and for making other changes which will ultimately have the effect of herding women in back into a narrow place in society.
They pushed so hard that they got a large enough number of supporters in government who have gotten their ideologues into the Supreme Court. They also have a number of fringe groups who have attacked abortionists, abortion clinics, and threatened those who fund them.
With this in mind, why haven’t they been specifically listed as a presence amongst the other Capitol-attacking groups? Did I miss something because haven’t seen a single story about involvement of Christian extremist groups.
Here is where my bias is likely going to offend people, and I apologize in advance.
I have long suspected that a significant number of people who practice a religion might be more susceptible to getting caught up in a cult. I feel it is because of the way religions are practiced, that the marriage of dogma, social acceptance (or rejection as punishment), of flattening complex problems (like abortion) into a simply a black or white situation, and so forth, just lends itself towards a type of mind control. When practiced with tolerance and moderation in mind, it is probably very helpful in keeping people working together for the good of society, but when intolerance and extremism is in mind....
Well, I just feel it could be at the heart of this big problem we have in America. This is why I think it is worrisome that it’s not being specifically called out in regards to the attack.
**Disclosure: I was raised with Judeo-Christian ethics and believe in G*d as Creator of the universe, but perhaps not as a being who watches over people. I was also not raised with religion (both sets of grandparents fought over which branch of Christianity their first grandchild should be raised, so parents finally decided their children would choose when they were old enough.). So my viewpoints of religion come as an outside observer.
Trump is planning to leave office with a military style farewell including marching soldiers, tanks and maybe even a flyover of jets...
Is this his last and final attempt to take control using our own military? Can he garner enough support among military leaders to follow him in such a move? He is not finished and I will not feel better until Donald, his family and co-conspirators, including Flynn, Stone, Miller, etc. are locked up for what they have done.
That "document" posted by Josh Hawsey that Lindell supposedly gave to Trump is one of the strangest things I've tried to check out. "The American Report" doesn't seem to actually exist beyond the single article shown in the screenshot, and my browser keeps throwing up warnings that if you continue to this site, unknown people may steal your stuff. The link at the bottom, www.blxware.org, leads to an equally strange site with wild, quasi-reasonable claims of domestic spying, written in caps so large that it's hard to read the page.
The content of this "The American Report" is just as strange, simply asserting, without citation, that some IP address in various other countries "hacked" some IP address in various States, like Georgia or Michigan, without any indication as to what the "hack" did, but that it's somehow supposed to be "proof" that foreign actors faked millions of votes.
Anyone who considers such material as evidence justifying a declaration of martial law is either stupid, demented, dishonest, or a combination of all three. What a strange world all those people live in...
How effed-up is the government and the vaccine? Around 6:30 tonight I got a robocall from the Veteran's Administration that they were scheduling vaccinations for people in Group I (me). One clinic for ALL of Los Angeles - at the hospital in West Los Angeles! Tried calling the number given but the line kept going dead. I just talked to them finally (10:55pm). Turns out they have been taking that group for appointments for THREE DAYS but only got to notifying me today. And the earliest one can get it is March 8 (in case you don't have your calendar handy, that's SEVEN WEEKS FROM NOW). I told them I'd wait for it to be at CVS, which will be faster than they can do. This government as currently organized couldn't find its ass with both hands on a clear day with a twelve hour advance notice.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! "Yesterday," Jeff Cartwright, a member of our community, wrote a reply in response to HCR's January 14 Letters from an American. In it he invoked an oft-repeated phrase that serves as the beginning of our Declaration of Independence. Then he offered an addition to it that strikes a chord for what I believe democracy in the U.S. should be. I repeat it here in the hopes that it reaches far and wide. "We the People - ALL of us this time." Here is the artwork he created:
Jeff Carpenter
ask , and ye shall receive:
http://jcarpenterstudio.com/portfolio-portfolio/public-art-projects/we-the-people-2
In case you missed it, this Boston Globe article showcases our own dear Heather:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/14/lifestyle/how-heather-cox-richardson-built-sisterhood-concerned-americans/?outputType=amp&fbclid=IwAR0EOXo0Gnv2cpxUntbw0ZGAWBHGde0Ax9gCZrNBpvQq8-5LqvC2cpeLgXE
I shudder to think of the dirt that will come cascading out after January 20th.
I am very curious to hear exactly who was giving tours of the capitol on January 5th. I also read a number of articles about the panic buttons in Rep. Amanda Pressley's being ripped out prior to the riot. I sincerely hope that everyone who had their fingers in this disgusting pie feels the full force of punishment.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/politics/panic-buttons-removed-from-pressleys-congressional-office-ahead-of-riots-chief-of-staff/2279777/
As to Biden saying he will manage the hell out of this crisis, I think it’s already had the hell managed out of it. The difference is that with Biden the operative word is “managed” and with Trump the operative word is “hell.”
Biden is demonstrating that we had the means all along to handle the pandemic effectively.
Elsewhere I read how states are barricading their capitols, and cancelling legislative meetings and public events. I fear this will become entrenched in the same way as airport security.
Typical, it seems, of this “ pro- America “ and gun rights crowd that their actions lead to the curtailment and debasement of basic, everyday freedoms.
I am so over the entire Trump administration’s self-congratulatory aggrandizement of their record and accomplishments. They cannot depart the scene soon enough and will be remembered as the worst, most corrupt administration in U.S. history. Now unfortunately for us all we are likely to have to spend more time and treasure investigating and prosecuting this gang of scoundrels and their capo DJT. My wish and prayers are for at least equal attention to legislating the necessary reforms now required to protect democracy, democratic institutions, democratic norms, and free and fair elections.
As we all think about what’s next and where to turn our attention I urge all to think about how we reached this point and where to focus attention to protect our democracy, the rule of law, and democratic institutions. Free and fair elections have not only been targeted in 2020. They have been under attack by various forces since the founding of our republic in a variety of ways that can all be grouped under the heading of Voter Suppression.
To explain the attack on the Capitol, you can’t just turn your focus to Donald Trump and his enablers. You must also look at the individuals and institutions that fanned fears of “voter fraud” to the point of hysteria among conservative voters, long before Trump. Put another way, the difference between a riot seeking to overturn an election and an effort to suppress opposing votes is one of legality, not intent. And it doesn’t take many steps to get from one to the other.
But it goes back much further than recent decades. Voting rights in this country have been denied to those who did not own property, people of color, women, people who could not pass Jim Crow “guess the number of jelly beans in a jar” literacy tests, gerrymandered districts, and a variety of other plans to make voting difficult for some.
Legal efforts to suppress voting are just as insidious as insurrectionist riots to overturn elections and far more common. We can expect to see those efforts redoubled by those in power regardless of their political affiliation or ideology. Voter suppression it seems is in the genetic DNA of too many politicians. It is dependent on us as voters to guard the right to vote, have those votes fairly counted, and election results recognized and representative of the will of the majority.
Our present electoral system retains many vestiges of voter suppression. These include an electoral college system for Presidential elections that grants more power to a minority of voters. Gerrymandering also allows imbalances of power amongst voters unfairly. Difficulties for both registering and voting too often are not designed to “protect the ballot” but to create and maintain imbalances of power.
So, do not ignore voter suppression efforts or excuse them because of cries they are “legal.” They are just as seditious as insurrectionist riots and far more common.
Support bipartisan groups like the League of Women Voters as well as efforts by other groups seeking to increase access to voting. Support efforts for fair and truly representative redistricting. Support efforts to increase the ease of registering and voting for all citizens. Support our election workers and judges. Protect and enhance everyone’s right to vote. It is the right that empowers our democracy and provides us all a voice in how we are governed.
Thank-you Heather! Today my daughter accused me of joining a cult by subscribing to your news letter. How she even found out that I did stuns me! Not only has Trump worked hard at destroying our democracy, he has also driven a wedges between people! I have vowed to remain silent when my daughter starts ranting but it’s difficult! Your insights are my lifeline!
Thank you so much! I think that you and future historians will have your work cut out for you, analyzing and writing histories of this time!
My concern at this point is how deeply the rot has set into the military.
The Senate is going to have to operate on overtime starting January 20th. The multiple crises that the Biden administration is facing, while getting presidential nominations confirmed with the overlay of an impeachment trial, are formidable. However, I do take some solace in Biden’s leadership skills, the people he has nominated to key positions, and the fact that two very experienced, smart women hold the gavels in the two chambers of Congress! They’ll “play” by the rules but they are not going to take any garbage!
That Trump may be tempted to use the Insurrection Act to declare Martial Law doesn’t surprise me. He needs to remain office to avoid prosecution in several states. I do have faith in the top military brass, though, that they would not allow themselves to be drawn in to a coup d’état. The complete incompetence of the roll-out of the vaccines is, sadly, par for the course for this administration. It would be laughable if it weren’t for the hundreds of thousands of lives that are at stake. Twelve noon, January 20 cannot come soon enough.