As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol starts its work, former president Trump and his supporters are consolidating their power over the Republican Party.
Trump: “don’t let the Radical Left play you for weak fools and losers!” I'm always wary of people who overuse exclamation points, which normally happens when the writer lacks calm, intelligent arguments of their own. The idea of he/she who yells the loudest is right is juvenile.
I also judge people on how they treat others in person. For some reason an event has stayed with me. A few years ago, at the G-8 meeting, Trump lumbered into the room late. A man who was in a discussion with others did not see him coming as his back was turned to the President. Most people would simply say "excuse me" and continue on his way. But Trump physically grabbed the man by his shoulders and moved him out of the way without uttering a word. His attempt at proving that he was the most important man in the room showed the world that he was the smallest. I know it was a small thing, but his lack of courtesy and decorum demonstrated that he has no regard for others, neither on a personal nor global level.
It's a given that Trump does not study the issues at hand and his lack of introspection goes without saying. We know that he suffers from some type of narcissism disorder, which subjugates doing what is right for how he looks to the world. We must accept that he is mentally ill, which is a great danger to the country and the world.
Just a quick note on the House Select Committee. With its army of investigators, the truth WILL come out.
I can extend a degree of compassion for those who suffer from any form of mental illness until they hold a position of power. In instances where that is the case, they need to be removed from those positions as they are a danger both to themselves and others. Trump has a lifetime history of severe mental illness, yet has never been removed from his position of power until defeated in his reelection bid. His reaction to his electoral defeat only confirms the severity of his mental disorder and the consequent dangers to us all and our democracy. Those who would return him to any form of power clearly suffer from some form of delusional mental disorder as well. The man is not just incompetent but is a danger to himself and all those around him or subject to any authority vested in him.
It’s much more difficult than that. When you put you tentacles into a group of people who cannot think for themselves and are easily provoked to violence in your name, it’s impossible to just ignore until it goes away without dangerous consequences.
Thank you for recalling Tя☭mp's rude behavior at the G-8 meeting ... it is not a small thing at all. It reveals his true character and utter, genuine disrespect for others.
I have hoped many times that someone was making note of all the shocking things said and done, venial and malignant, over the course of these last 5 years. I would like it to be a long descriptive list of the manifestation of his well documented illness. Each was such a divergence from norms that I thought they would burn in me forever. Instead, I just have a bitter aftertaste and a reference to any of them brings up sad recognition that this is what we are capable of electing. That was such a cheesy episode by which the world discovered who had been elected to the highest post in our land. So insanely ignorant. Unfortunately, just one of many. Talk about the Ugly American!
Juvenile, and dangerous. I HOPE the truth will come out. Pardon my cynicism, but I believe trump-loving Republicans will lie, whether under oath or not.
What is the penalty and what are the remedies for elected officials lying under oath to a Congressional Committee? What are the precedents? Are the standards between obfuscation and out and out lying clear?
I guess this is where experienced questioners show their stuff.
Subpoena, arrest if not honored, kept in prison until their testimony. There are a number of things a committee with subpoena power can use to enforce their subpoena.
I had forgotten that event. How do we (meaning the lawmakers) change the rules so that a person who runs for the office of president of this country must show tax returns and can not be mentally unfit? Surely we need to refine the list of qualifications.
Truth will out, sure, just as it has been available all along. But it's been turned inside out to rabble rouse. If people are unwilling to protect themselves from a virus with a vaccine, the 'truth' of the efficacy of which cannot possibly be more documented, what makes anyone think getting at the truth of Jan 6 will do anything to change their minds about who and what they are willing to hear?
I've never forgotten how he so clearly mocked the journalist Serge Kovaleski when he was just trump the candidate. Could never understand how it didn't all end right there and then.
I can forgive many transgressions but draw a hardline at cruelty. Trump's stupidity, incompetence, and criminality are awful. However, his worst character trait is cruelty and it is unforgivable.
It spoke to and speaks to the cruelty and inhumanity of those who follow him and cheer him on. In another period, Trump would have delighted in experimenting on children. He would have been Josef Mengele's twin. His followers would have goose-stepped to the door of his theater of madness. Trump does NOT fool the civilized among us.
"when the writer lacks calm, intelligent arguments of their own. The idea of he/she who yells the loudest is right is juvenile." "Dr. Watson, I presume" you have called out Trump in a nutshell.
I remember that moment of the former pushing way around on a diplomatic stage. I thought him a fool at the time. In retrospect, that view almost complimentary to what one knows of him now.
erghhh. TFG is no gentleman. He is no scholar. He is no warrior statesman. He is no leader and has never been. TFG was and remains unfit for office. He is a global embarrassment.
Actually, I believe the Cringeworthy Oscar is awarded Trump for when he mocked the disabled journalist -- on national TV, of course. I must admit I was stunned and flabbergasted.
Yes. Yes it was cringeworthy. My nephew has cerebral palsy. He has taught me so much about my privilege of independent mobility, my privilege to speak with out the aid of a computer that tracks eye movements, and the privilege to feed and bath myself.
I have a close friend who has worked with autistic children for years. He is so gifted. I have watched those with challenges they must overcome on a daily basis. To mock them, make fun of them or degrade them takes a special kind of evil monster. Trump is a rotting cancer.
Repulsive and then there was his disdain for Angela Merkel, or April Ryan, his publicity pose with the upside down bible in his hand. I still see that protruding jaw with many chins.
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop.
And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Yes, it is indeed quite puzzling that a man that stood in front of television cameras and told thousands of people, some of them armed with deadly weapons, to head to the capital to overthrow the duly elected government transition, has not been arrested for sedition and treason.
If Trump or anyone had pulled that stunt in 1795, I think it highly likely that person would have rapidly faced the consequences of those times.
Tolerance for sedition and treason seems quite high now. I don't understand why, honestly.
Maybe the Justice Department is just moving slow? But, there has not even been an announcement of possible charges of sedition and treason pending investigation.
It is almost like Trump has some magical fairy that can keep him out of jail no matter how many laws he breaks in his life, how many people he grifts and shortchanges, which, have been many.
He was smart enough never to use the words, " head to the capital to overthrow the duly elected government transition." To me his greatest breach was to sit in the White House and do nothing, for hours, to control throusans violently rampaging throughout the Capitol.
The Capitol Police testimony today at the first COngressional January 6th Hearing (along with validating videos), made it crystal clear this was t-Rump's insurrection call.
Yes, the not doing anything. Some times what you don't do is just as important. He did a lot of "not doing anything" at times where he absolutely should have. Thinking about Gretchen Whitmer. Did he ever say anything to the effect of, "this is not OK?"
I think the main reason Trump hasn’t been arrested for treason (yet) is to avoid a literal civil war! The law is being extremely careful to have all of the iron clad facts in order before coming down on Trump. Little by little, from the bottom up, I am confident justice will eventually be served!
I grew up in East Texas. It is a rule that avoiding a fight with a bully will INCREASE the bullying behavior, not decrease it. I never avoided a fistfight with anyone when it was needed and I don't think avoiding arresting Trump will help the country "heal".
I also don't think there is much concern about civil war if that crowd I saw at the capital are the guys that will hit the field. Seriously, those guys were rank amateur's .
Yes, there was testimony from one of the officers this morning where he said they didn’t use their weapons because they were afraid that would trigger bombs to go off. It was compelling and something I’d never considered.
I try to maintain hope when I hear HCR say in her chats that the DOJ is working slowly, methodically and quietly, building the case. It is hard to be patient, especially now.
To start with the current DOJ has complete access to the Mueller report. Mueller did all the heavy lifting 4 years ago. The DOJ should immediately act on that report. In many ways, the DOJ is not starting from scratch and we simply don't have time to slowly and methodically build ANOTHER case. What's worse is that there have been indications that the DOJ is not going to revisit the Trump presidency. To me that is inexcusable. Biden and the Democrats need to get someone to lead the DOJ who will protect and defend the Constitution! They need to do that yesterday.
I’ll say again an opinion of the DOJ that I have expressed before. Considering the housekeeping and clean up that needed to happen in January, kudos. Considering the mountain of injustices in front of them to scale, they cannot move fast enough and I think that is what is propelling them. They are not moving “too slow”.
OK. Clearly my options are, so far, to wait on the DOJ and see what happens. However, I do, honestly, think that timing is important and the time to arrest Trump has passed.
She’s the daughter of Robert Mercer, MIT computer wizard. He designed or wrote the algorithm to rapid trade on the stock market. Basically the ability of artificial intelligence to execute trades and rake in billions. The Mercer’s are hard core Libertarians and the financed the former guys campaign. Just like the Koch’s.
First, as the "corpus of law" increases, it gradually becomes a "corpse of law" since it becomes too complex in all its inherent contradictions to understand or apply. It descends into an endless regress of reconciliation of contradictory minutiae. Is it "sedition?" Well, you see, that's not an easy question to answer... there was a case in 1793, where....
This is especially true as our legislature fractures and passes grotesque laws, just to crap on the "other side."
Second, the purpose of the court is to rise above law (legislation) and look at the broader social consequences of the law. There is the "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" issue involved with freedom of speech, for instance. There is the ratification of unpopular laws related to public safety (DPT vaccination for school children), or moral issues (civil rights in the racist South), and the blocking or invalidation of laws that cause harm, or are grotesquely immoral. The courts -- particularly the upper courts -- have to take a broader view.
Trump's crime is, open-and-shut, treason. He has a right to "due process," but there is no real doubt that he is guilty. The traditional penalty for treason, and for good reason, is death. It should extend to all who actively collaborated with him. That includes many of his inner circle, a substantial number of legislators, certain military officers, and a number of wealthy private citizens.
Executing a former President is a tricky proposition, and while there is plenty of precedent for it, there is no precedent in this country. Furthermore, it needs to be handled with some delicacy, since Trump's treason has roped in much of the public.
Anything short of hanging isn't enough. Anything close to hanging will set the nation on fire. What would you have them do?
Im having second thoughts…just woke up…its 4 a.m.. If he (and his buddies, families and supporters were exiled … where would be a likely place …all set up… isolated and forgotten…. Lots if guards…
Ted, Who is at the ramparts as the administration of elections are being corrupted. How basic is that to Democracy? I hear Joseph as many of us do, including many Democrats, Independents and a very few Republicans. Can Biden get there? There has not been nearly enough accountability. Is there no one who can get through to a few reluctant Democrats. Will a strong enough version of For the People Act be passed in September? We cannot continue to flirt with time and Fascism. Why wasn't it arranged that the Commission's hearing to day be shown on network television tonight?
Answer to your final question - 4 hours of paid advertising and favorite tv shows for too many people. I agree that network television is essential to getting the reality out to the wider population but it doesn't have the "it bleeds so lead" as was the case with the Jan. 6 insurrection. However, the hearing will likely be replayed on C-SPAN TV (C-SPAN3 today) but, of course, that's to a very different audience that we would want to be viewing the hearings on network tv. Here's a link for viewing it; as it's video, you can pause and return at your own convenience. You can bypass about 40-45 minutes if you don't want to listen to introductory & opening statements. https://www.c-span.org/video/?513434-1/capitol-dc-police-testify-january-6-attack
When one does go to the CSPAN site, please scroll down to the entries listed as User Created Clips of this video. Those testimonies of the police are in full.
I hope we see more Jan 6th prosecutions up the chain to the top. I hope every American gets to see the officers' testimony from this morning. If they did not or could not watch it today, I hope they see it tonight and/or for as many nights as it takes. For the People Act has to pass. I don't know if Biden can get there, I certainly hope so, he will need everyone's help.
Joseph, first, thanks for the informative and thoughtful comment.
If I had been elected President and anyone tried to raid the Capital to stop my certification I would, as early as I could, have had them arrested and then explained why.
Then, if they were found guilty I would provide appropriate consequences.
Anything less than this approach invites a bigger disaster than simply hanging one rich guy.
Ive been looking up the Senators who voted not to impeach whsts-his-name. In alphabetical order, the first 10 come from towns that had sex scandals in a church, school or social group in the 50s,60, 70s. I guess i could go on…
When gangland crime organizing, thievery, money laundering, attacks and murders occur, law enforcement doesn't just go after the foot soldiers, they are intent on getting the god fathers.
Bengazzi wasn't a criminal activity, but the attack on the Capitol, the armed protests, occupations and death threats at state capitols, along with claims that the 2020 election and pressure to overturn the election are all criminal activity most easily identified as "treason". Why aren't they the province of criminal investigations?
Are politicians free to openly attack our nation and democracy? Wasn't the Civil War addressed with the US president, elected representatives loyal to the US Constitution and the US military? Why are we so hard on petty crimes and traffic infractions and soft on crimes against our nation? About half of our states and their representatives established the Confederacy. About the same proportion or less constitutes the Trump Campaign to take over our nation by open fraud on FOX and with violence in our capitols. Embarrassing to them? No criminal!! All of them, criminals.
I am often in disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness. Yes, we’ll have problems galore like usual, but this feels extraordinarily insane.
That the infrastructure bill is so popular is exactly why Trump is moving to kill it. It’s a demonstration of his power. Demanding the death of a bill that was unpopular with Republicans in Congress would be trivial, ho hum, the equivalent of insisting that Republicans give up Brussels sprouts. Getting them to kill the infrastructure bill is like insisting that Republicans give up ice cream - if Trump can get them to do that then his hold on the party is absolute. Trump would also be showing everyone that McConnell and McCarthy are weak and should be ignored (it will be interesting to see if with the 10-11 Senators who were rumored to be ready to vote for the infrastructure bill suddenly disappear). McCarthy and McConnell are doing everything they can to win majorities in Congress in 2022. Trump doesn’t care about Republican majorities (he doesn’t care about the GOP at all, really), he only cares about power for himself.
I totally agree with you. TFG is unhinged, and cares about nothing except the incredible “high” he gets from power. Like an addict, the more he gets, the more he needs. It has absolutely nothing to do with what is good for people, or the nation.
A lot of his style comes from his mentor Roy Cohn, lawyer for joe McCarthy. The lies, the bluster, claiming to have info he doesn’t have, and convinced that television is the real courtroom and that emotion is the best argument.
Did you see the PBS (Frontline?) piece The Choice: 2020 about the lifetimes of Trump and Biden? Really really fascinating dive into Trump's childhood (as well as Biden's) and yes, both Roy Cohn (former McCarthy helper) and Norman Vincent Peale are his main inspirations. Weird combo of mobster/thug/bully and excessive positive thinking combined with his already established cruel bullying due to his dysfunctional family. What a holy mess.
I love Frontline. Haven't seen this one yet though. what a psychological mess. He is whacked out! But I've known that for a long long time. Will check it out!
Yes, many of us have known it for a long time. But this really gives it all context. I had goosebumps. OTOH, it made me like Biden a lot better. The contrast could not have been more stark.
There are remarkably few ways to stop someone like Trump. One is impeachment. Mitch McConnell decided to protect Trump, and leave him in office. The rest of us had little choice in the matter.
So, the reality is that millions and millions of Americans are at the mercy of a few power-hungry, greedy men. I’m not very religious, but I’m praying that Nancy Pelosi continues to be strong and healthy. As I see it, she has our entire democracy on her shoulders right now.
I do not believe this is the work of just one man, however damaged. If we ask the question, who stands to benefit from his antics, I think we have some warm to very hot clues.
Remember, too, that Putin pulls t-Rumps puppet strings, and a successful infrastructure program will improve our economy and competitiveness in the world, which is NOT what Putin wants. The jobs it creates will also mean less unemployed magates.
My guess is that, as far as Putin is concerned, stopping the infrastructure bill is not at the top of his list. But Putin must be absolutely giddy after 5 years of Trump’s division and destruction of America. I imagine Putin saying to himself, “I could have spent hundreds of billions more on nuclear weapons, or invested 10 million in electing Trump. Trump has the destructive power of dozens of multi-megaton warheads.”
The only hope is that he dies. He's 75, in poor health (we know because they lied about his health for the past 5 years), he's obese, doesn't exercise and has a literal "killer diet." Hopefully he dies in circumstances that have nothing to do with anything (otherwise he'll die a "martyr"). That way, inside of a year, the circus will move on and he'll be as relevant as Huey Long is. Yes, I certainly would rather he die in excruciating pain from the gunshot he so richly deserves, but more than that, I want to see him gone in a way that doesn't leave him haunting things. Just.... die of being a fat old man who never exercised and ate one too many hamberders.
I really hope he doesn’t die before we get to see him be interrogated like the disgusting thug that he is on live TV. A pillory and rotten fruit and eggs would be too good for him. He’s going to get away with murder, just like he said he would.
As long as it doesn't resemble the death of French President, Felix Faure, in 1899 when he did in the arms of Baroness Marguerite Steinheil in bed in the Elysée Palace....a noted much-financed "temptress" of the times; a stroke in such circumstances would be too easy on him and would just stoke his much-projected self-image.
I'm not sure that Faure managed greatly either but its has encouraged many politicians since to think that their "power" makes them sexy.....see JFK on your side and Strauss-Kahn, François Hollande etc on this. Our current representative is a classic scholar of the subject but contents himself with the role of Oedipus!
Seems like the contract is finished between the orange blimp and his last "baronesse" as she is reportedly very much absent from his side these days; a job opening for someone?
And of course there's Henry the K dating Jill St. John back in the 70s and when asked how a guy who looked like he did dated a woman like her, referred the questioner to the point that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."
That would be ideal, but in the current political climate, I can see the Q followers still concocting some conspiracy theory that it wasn’t natural causes.
More likely that he isn’t actually dead, but, in a hidden location continuing to call the shots. This is the level of absurdity the Q cult has “normalized”.
But... can we be really, really sure that the strange being that got itself into the White House in 2016 was not a zombie ? If it wasn't then, it sure looks that way now...
And it has certainly been doing its damnedest to transform the GOP into the zombie party -- the Nazombie Party... With no little success. Those hordes of THE UNDEAD pushing up like toadstools, creeping and crawling out from under gravestones...
I think we need to all face the fact that Donald Trump has reached for and achieved immortality. Though it's possible that he will be outdone, my money is on him being remembered by all future historians as the worst US President in history, especially since his toxic influence continues to erode the nation. He will be remembered when Washington and Lincoln are forgotten. After all, who remembers Remus and his brother? Everyone knows the name Nero.
But in addition, he has created a full-on Jonestown cult. It doesn't matter how he dies, or when. There will be claims of his resurrection on the third day. There will be prophecies of his return to Make America Great Again. There will be -- if there are not already -- sacred altars to replace his rallies. His words will be written down, blended with the words of his prophet, Q, and will become Scripture for his followers.
And lo, when questioned by the hostile reporter from the tribe of the Rolling Stone on the matter of law enforcement, the Lord Trump spake thusly: "They have to get better than what they’ve been doing. I mean obviously that was a terrible thing. And I’ve spoken about it numerous times in various speeches. And what’s interesting is I spoke about it when we launched a very successful rocket — a tremendous program that culminated on that day and obviously it goes on from there. Let he who has ears reach his own conclusions." And his enemies were confounded.
Yes, I'm being dark, and perhaps silly. But perhaps not so much.
You know what drives me nuts? When a news outlet does a segment on the January 6 House Select Committee but fails to contextualize the reason why Pelosi rejected the appointments of Jordan and Banks. Without that context, some will think Pelosi’s decision was arbitrary and hyperpartisan. I heard that kind of reporting this morning on NPR. And I wish news outlets would consistently refer to the tragedy of January 6 as an insurrection or attempted coup, as opposed to a riot. We can't become numb or forget how serious that day was.
“Cheney hinted that one of the appointees that Pelosi rejected “may well be a material witness to events that led to” the attack. Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, is of the same mindset and has some questions for congressman Jim Jordan.”
He'll be under oath and he won't be asked any questions for which the committee doesn't already have many of the answers. Perjury has penalties. I'd love to see him trotted before a judge on perjury charges.
I am heartened that they repeatedly called the insurrectionists what they are, TERRORISTS. Let’s not sugar coat it, I can’t wait to see McCarthy squirm under oath!
They also fail to remind us that Republicans had all their demands met for an equal commission and the. Rallied their caucus to vote against it. Remember, they don’t want an investigation and now they will do anything to push the message that it’s partisan. Always sweeping history, even the most recent, under the rug.
Happened again tonight when I was at the gym and watching BBC news on the machine. The reporter framed the quick segment on today's hearing as a partisan issue.
British royalty offended by media’s constant references to their prince charming’s grinship with Epstein, iDijs buddie. Cant wait for Maxwell’s. testimony in September.
What if the crazies hold a press conference and the mainstream press does not show up? We need that because nothing they say will be news. We already know it will be bully time. AtteNtion is their oxygen.
Europe has watched in horror and dismay as their big ally on the other side of the Atlantic has been ransacked and sabotaged internationally on the internet and nationally by its lack of government for decades. Meanwhile, Russia has spent its last ruble militarizing and gobbling up defenseless countries, just like the Nazis did before WWII. while desertification and lack of effective leadership has forced massive illegal immigration north from Africa stretching every EU country’s budget and patients, plus their own continual increase in population. Europe needs to partner with a stable, dependable USA because Russia is basically run by Kossacks who don’t give a … fig … about loyalty to anyone, and neither Russia, China, nor Iran have the slightest idea how to govern democratically and wouldn’t dream of giving up the prestige and power of a one man show. So Europe is watching the show in the USA warily.
They held it and ran from the protesters on the left. They cried their free speech was being impeded while wanting the other sides free speech to be silenced. One of Bannon’s boys even claimed it was a violent attack after saying the officers shouldn’t have cried about being called racist names. The hypocrisy is astounding.
I've often wondered why the press showed up at many of the press conferences later in DJT's presidency, when Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kaleigh McEnany lied and evaded and generally made fools of themselves, both verbally and visually. Sorry. I know that was ingenerous.
It’s expedient to use the word “Trump” since he’s the figurehead/mouth but as long as Brannon, Stone, Flynn, Giuliani on the loose many engineering this rhetoric and upheaval, escalation. Do we really think Trump comes up with all the words and strategic communication to reignite authoritarianism and break our democracy daily? Not even sure he’s literate.
Does anyone else feel/fear that Flynn was telegraphing to the radicalized supporters when he, when presented with a rifle, stated he should take it to D.C.?
A video posted on twitter shows Flynn when given an AR-15 rifle said “maybe I’ll find somebody in Washington DC.” I think he was at a church event in Yuma City, CA
As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol starts its work, former president Trump and his supporters are consolidating their power over the Republican Party. Through it, they hope to control the nation.
It’s based on racial hatred. Deep.
Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy. Jewish. New York. From the USSR.
On Tyranny. You know him. Yale. Knows.
Banality of Evil. She’s another. Chicago. Europe. Hitler. Fascism. The camps.
This morning, I tuned into NBC to watch Olympic gymnastics this morning and instead am seeing the Jan 6th House Select Committee Hearing's opening comments and video. This is violent footage I've not seen before. The gleeful viciousness with which the rioters attacked the police is horrifying.
And now the testimony of four Capitol police begin.
May those responsible and those whose carried out the violence not escape accountability, but receive the severest penalty.
Hard for me to want to watch the Olympics this year or even care about the games. The pandemic and so much suffering going on in the world. The games should have been postponed.
I haven't watched any of it, although I do appreciate that the athletes have been training for many years in order to participate. Too many other higher priority events in this month for me and by the time I get home from work, too tired to even click on the TV.
Reading HCR and Steady are at the top of my very short list of free-time activities.
I believe that we are witnessing the final paroxysms of the so called trump loyalists and, of course, the former guy as well; McCarthy and McConnell both know it. They mistakenly calculate there’s maybe some reverse spin advantage to claim in going down with the trump ship; their “Pickett’s Charge” is fated to end in disaster for themselves and their followers. The lines were drawn against them before and during the 2016 presidential campaign and have only became clearer in ensuring years as trump and his supporters have continually lost ground. They are on the wrong of history; their time of minority control through obstruction and frustration of the will of the majority of the American people is over. They cannot, and will not, win back control of the White House or Congress. While congressional democrats and a few law abiding republicans will indeed uncover more information about what really happened in the events that led up to the January 6th trump inspired attack on Congress, most Americans are now more focused on their hopes for the success of the Biden Administration and a return to functional federal, state and municipal government. We know that government isn’t the problem; bad and ineffective government officials are. The more noise and thrashing of the trump loyalists, as they try to wriggle out of what they have done and want to continue to do to our country, the deeper they dig the hole for anyone and everyone who is a trumpist…especially the former guy who, most certainly, will now be convicted for tax evasion, bank fraud and other crimes by NY state and GA state criminal courts, go bankrupt…(again), and do prison time. Passage of Biden led legislative initiatives, and the saving of more lives here, and worldwide, through increased vaccination rates, will lead to landslide victories for the democrats in 2022, and presage their re-election in 2024, as Biden earns four more years. This is the real battle that Biden and his supporters intend to win…and are on the path to accomplishing.
Ten years from now, assuming the planet is still habitable, my 4-year old granddaughter will be learning about this era in American history. I hope through my journals she can get an understanding of how frustrating, how enraging, how confusing and how uncertain it's been to actually live through it. My greatest hope is that she will learn how democracy was saved from the jaws of autocracy, not just here but around the world, how the most ruinous effects of climate chaos were avoided, and how humans foiled a tiny microbe wrecking havoc on our health. Three major catastrophes trying to tear apart the fabric of life - what an interesting time to live through! I sometimes wish I was only reading about it in history books, though.
May your words, especially your opening line, become reality. I'm less sanguine about 2022 and maybe 2024 given the widespread state legislative acts to severely impede voter access of specific classes of their citizens.
Yes, this makes sense if I step back and get some perspective. Which is hard to do with everything that is an inch from my face so to speak these days. Don't lose the forest for the trees. Thank you Keith!
That’s it, Kim. Keeping the perspective in mind helps with everything. Good progress is being made. More will follow as we begin to see more of Biden’s central policy initiatives implemented.
Setting aside history, it is hard to imagine a more mendacious and ruinous political party than the modern-day Republican Party! There is but one "loyalty test" that should be enforced for public servants and that is their oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [So help me God.]" Notice that it does not say anything about supporting, defending, or bearing true faith and allegiance to the president.
As I have said many times in the past (not here though), Trump should have been impeached for failing to uphold his oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." There are literally countless examples of his failure to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
If we don't demand that public servants uphold their oath of office then what follows will be an unmitigated disaster. This is the primary reason why our government is disassembling and why We The People have lost faith and trust in politicians.
The disaster that awaits mankind is the effects of climate change. We had a very narrow window to remediate climate change and instead we ignored the scientific community and invaluable time was lost. Instead, we have spent decades on silly social and tribal wars designed to invalidate the "other." This absurd and self-serving folly has run out the clock and now it's too late to save the animal kingdom from extinction. The first to go will be the "have-nots." The surviving haves will be in a fierce battle to the end.
Our focus must be on an overwhelming and unqualified response to slow the effects of climate change. Hopefully, people understand that natural disasters are not our greatest threats. Our greatest peril is our food supply, from crops and cattle on land to fish in the sea.
My point is that we are going to lose more than democracy if we don't immediately unite to uphold our government. We have to find a way to work together to have any hope of saving the planet. Those who are only concerned by personal power and wealth are ensuring our demise. What completely frustrates me is that most politicians cannot see past their next election (Trump can't see past the last election,) let alone be concerned about what happens 10, 30 or 50 years from now.
Everything you wrote is right on the mark. I agree wholeheartedly with you, especially about Trump being held accountable by impeachment while in office or some other form of legal enforcement. I don’t understand why the DOJ hasn’t taken some form of legal action against him by this point. He violated his oath to our constitution and to protecting the citizens of America. There must be a plethora of illegal actions he instigated while he was in office. Not to mention that he incited a treasonous, seditious, insurrection at our Capital in order to stop the certification of the new President. He figuratively spit on the very constitution he took an oath to preserve.
I read chair, BGT's Wapo Op-Ed carefully. Note that select committee member, Elaine Luria (D- VA) is litteraly a former surface battle, Naval commander (joined the Navy at age 17). Rep. Luria understands command structure well & knows how to ask questions.
I am woefully military-lingo illiterate. Was huge revelation to me a few whiles ago that a troop was an individual person. In Girl Scouts, a troop was our gaggle of girls. What is command structure, if you please. Thanks!
In the US Navy, there are 4 basic elements to the "Command Structure": 1. the Secretary of the Navy (FDR was an Asst. Sec of the Navy; 2. Chief of Naval Operations; 3. Operating Forces ( eg, Commander Luria) & the Shore Establishment (critical in the digital age).
Perhaps not at Today's Hearing of the Select Committee, but, the Command Structure of the control, delay & late deployment of National Guard reinforcements is certain to be investigated thoroughly.
Yes, Cary, how did that term shift from our earlier days? A troop was a group and a "trooper" was the individual within the group. I was a Blue Bird (your Brownies' nemesis) in a Blue Bird troop and "flew up" to become a member of the Camp Fire Girls troop. I thought that I was a trooper. This leads me into a dangerous wormhole diversion (or diatribe) of bafflement, that I beg any poor reader to pardon me or leave now.
The Merriam Webster dictionary still sports the plurality of "troop": 1. soldiers or armed forces. "UN peacekeeping troops." 2. a group of soldiers, especially a cavalry unit commanded by a captain, or an airborne unit. 3. a group of people or animals of a particular kind. i.e. "a troop of musicians." 4. A group of people who come or go together or in large numbers.
However, a shift has occurred in the media in the past 20 years or so to use "troop" as an individual soldier when in the past they have been "troopers," a member of a troop or group.
Merriam Webster states: Usage commentators don't agree on the correct usage of 'troop'—some feel that 'troop' can only describe a large number, whereas others hold that any number of people can be described as 'troops', provided there are at least two. However, using 'troop' to refer to a single person is almost universally frowned upon. And lastly, it states: One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop.
However, in the Alternative Reality, plurals are now singular, just to loosen The, supposed, Reality for us a little more. Then again, an apple meant a single piece of fruit that grows on a tree. The singular "Apple" is now a mega-tech power corporation whose fruits fall all over the world. 500,000 iPhones are made in a given day, and in the 2018 fiscal year, Apple sold more than 217 million Apple mobile phones.
Sort of goes with the usurpation of the "group" words of "them" and "they" now referring to a single person with fluid gender. I was truly hoping the non-binary gender world would have invented their own new word, like "Xi," to describe their two in one bodily experience. I definitely frown at the singular use of "troop" but am trying to respect the usurpation of "they" and "them" which makes me feel truly dated now in working with teenagers. When someone tells me that there is a meeting at 2:00 and "they" will be coming, I cannot help ask, "Who all will be coming?" The answer of just one person, throws me. Hmm. Might be time for this trooper to retire. I bet Camp Fire "Girls" is now passe, too. Is it now Camp Fire Theys? Or the Them Scouts of America?
Perhaps I have been in pandemic isolation too long. Is this just the mad meanderings of a madwoman in July 2021 after five years of political and pandemic insanity? No harm is meant by the above to anyone of any gender, non-gender, pronouns or pluralities in any perceived realities.
Interesting meanderings, not necessarily of a pandemic madwoman. Kind of in inverse order, but I have heard (not investigated myself, yet) that "they/them" were originally singular and became plural sometime later (how's that for exact data reporting?). I am 63, have been an out lesbian for 45 of those years, and am very gender non-conforming in my appearance. My pronouns are she/her, although I wonder if I were 23 instead of 63 if I might make a choice more reflective of the current state of gender expression and not of the binary system in effect "back in the day". I have a (now deceased) person I called my "niephew" who was born female, but identified as a "non-determinate boi" as they grew into their 20's. They loved the "niephew" tag as it really expressed that they were both and neither exclusively. My nephew (a poly gay man who came out when he was 14) has brought more "they/them" people into my life, and I still have to work hard on preferred pronouns. The horn professor at U of O is genderqueer and uses they/them; they are also married to a man; I have to work on using their preferred pronouns. We also have a person who presents very much as my "niephew" did in our tuba ensemble; I have even gotten some of our old crusty tuba guys using they/them with them.
Troop/trooper/trouper, now.... The Oregon State Police have State Troopers, they are also referred to as Troopers, individually and collectively. The phrase "a good troop" is a compliment to an individual with them, even though as an individual they are a trooper.
Camp Fire still uses "girls" as do Boy/Girl Scouts. I, too, was a Camp Fire Girl (I recently sang the CFG song to a friend of mine, and think I got the words I memorized 50 years ago right). The scouts use "scout" as the singular and the "troop" as the group.
Yes. Luria mentioned her own Oath taken as a 17 year old Navy recruit. Ex-surface battle commander, Luria, also quoted Hemingway as you know: "What went wrong. Slowly .. then rapidly".
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop. And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Bonnielou's "disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness" says almost everything.
ALMOST.
The fact remains that rational political professionals like Neville Chamberlain and Daladier could not understand this aspect of Hitler's mentality. Nor could the severely paranoid Stalin understand Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union, precisely because it was suicidal, and Stalin's very psychosis protected him from deliberately suicidal actions... Consequently, projecting his own mentality onto the Fuehrer (we all tend to fall into this trap) he assumed his fellow dictator shared the same trait...
Problem: our total inability to understand the nature of madness—above all its collective forms—and, consequently, to cope with madmen and their actions. This, at a time when more and more psychiatric cases have made it to power, exploiting the very nature of madness, their own madness, their special power to tap into and give powerful expression to the sickest, lowest-lying subconscious levels of the collective psyche and set off mass epidemics.
Our western philosophical tradition seems to have great blind spots in this area, likewise our psychology and the practice of psychiatry. Look at history. Look, in particular, at that of the 20th century…
Nietzsche is one major exception:
“Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern (Radford, VA: Wilder, 2008), 56.
Can’t we wake up and see what is staring us in the face? And deal directly with our super-spreaders.
Let us try a quick sidestep now, to gain another perspective…
Three annotations by German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (from the years between 1789 and 1793… the time of the French revolution…)
Since a man can go mad, I do not understand why a universal system cannot also. This fits well with Dolomieu’s hypothesis.
One of the strangest delusions man would be capable of is to believe he is insane and sitting in a madhouse but actually be acting completely rationally. If someone once became convinced of this, I really do not see how one could convince him otherwise.
We cannot really know whether we are not at this moment sitting in a madhouse.
Appreciate your insight. I, too, was struck by HCR’s closing comment. The present feels like a hideous American farce of prior history dreamed up by the likes of Stephen King. (My apologies to him for this assumption). Clever, compelling, horrifying- dragging us along til our nails are bitten raw and molars fractured. A book we wish had never been written.
“He (Trump) cannot stop himself from escalating” has the terrible ring of truth. He will drive his supporters off a cliff if no one stops him. And they will take much of the country with them.
This is the madness we are navigating right now. Sandy Lewis is right, this is not about facts, it’s tribal. No rational discussion can affect it. Here we are.
Many mass movements, such as Nazism, were insane. (It's acceptable to murder our own citizens for the good of the Reich...) Trumpism is another. The question is will his misguided cattle stop or go over the cliff.
Sad to say, I believe they will either all go over the cliff with him, or wander the rest of their lives wondering how they got sucked into the insanity. Mr. Lewis is spot on in his assessment that this is tribalism; my addendum to that is "on steroids".
We are now playing seditionist whack-a-mole with liars and manipulators attempting to distract from their treasonous actions. With 2022 elections, all gerrymandered and suppressed, set to give governing to oligarchs, tyrants, and traitors, democracy can no longer be about money if it is to sustain. Higher ideals, deeper values, and the trust of the hearts of citizens willing to vote in support of the notion of a nation of freedom for all calls for leaders of vision, speaking truth to power. In our situation, the power is money, lots of it, dark and dirty.
The show is opening; popcorn, buttered with Parmesan, and the chilled white wine awaits.
Our current difficult situation goes back to the Civil War. The seditious states and their leaders were not held accountable in ways that Nazis were after WWII. I remember being taught the glory of Robert E. Lee as a student in high school and that the war was about states’ rights. I remember thinking that Lee was a “gentleman” and not a traitor. In another time and place, he would have been prosecuted and imprisoned or even executed for his military role. HCR details how the South won the Civil War. I think we are still fighting.
Yes, I agree, but as Greg Olear points out in his column today, Russia's Putin has been purposely stirring the racist pot in America (along with funding NRA and t-Rump) to reignite our Civil War. He has learned from our history even if we haven't.
Yes, Kimceann, should be engrossing and entertaining, if nothing else. With luck, we may even learn all the details of what happened on Jan. 6th, who set it all in motion and for exactly what purpose. Not a moment too soon. Better late than never. Dang, I've run out of cliches already!
But why is it that the FBI hasn’t already gotten to the bottom of this? Why haven’t they fully investigated the Congress Critters that were most certainly involved in some way? Why do we believe this committee will find the answers when the FBI hasn’t? Is it expediency? Is it their subpoena power? Why hasn’t someone in the National Guard come out and told us why it took so long? I would think this puzzle shouldn’t be difficult to assemble.
I am sure the FBI HAS gotten to the bottom of this, as has the National Guard, Defense Department and DOJ. BUT their private wheels must move very slowly and carefully, build the cases, anticipate every con game, follow the letter of the law. What the Congressional January 6th Committee can do, (and after today's first session it is clear they are doing it brilliantly) is tell the irrefutable story in a public forum, with the authority to require that witnesses must tell the truth. And to do it in a way that good Americans will listen, understand, be moved, and then VOTE accordingly. When the Capitol Police officers stated they were "attacked by domestic terrorists," then one read the definition of "domestic terrorist", the impact was stunning. Irrefutable. When these eye witnesses reported that the people who were bludgeoning them said they were following Trump's orders - and the video echoes that truth, it is irrefutable. When Rep. Kevin McCarthy takes the stand and tries to lie his way out of his treasonous flip flop, the evidence to the contrary will be irrefutable. Fox News, in the meantime, featured a fashion show at 10 a.m. today.
In the committee hearing today, the officers spoke about not being able to conduct the investigation themselves, and that the FBI was investigation specific individuals and groups involved in the actual assault. They urged the committee to "get to the bottom" of this and identify the ones who "hired the hit man."
The select committee seems the proper venue.
Of course, the congresscritters and senators involved may well be re-elected.
I think the public Jan. 6 Committee hearings are essential for a number of reasons, not least to ensure that those Americans willing to pay attention will learn and spread what they've learned about what was done by whom and when regarding Jan. 6. It's essential that it be done publicly. It's also because the committee has subpoena power and we'll be learning about why the National Guard and others weren't brought out until almost too late. As for the FBI, we don't know if they have their own investigation ongoing, or not - they are unlikely to share that with the general public.
It's kind of like those novels where they have different endings you can choose from. HCR is correct. He can not stop himself from escalating. So, here's the thought experiment. What are the next several steps of escalation? OK, chess players out there. What are his next set of moves?
I believe he will be crippled by the facts that are surely forthcoming from these hearings. After all the 'he won't get away with this!' the time has finally come that he #won't this time! I honestly believe it. People aren't expecting it... too many times chicken-little....
but I think it's the 'charm' we deserve at last! One impeachment, 2 impeachment's, trial by video and testimony...bingo!
Trump: “don’t let the Radical Left play you for weak fools and losers!” I'm always wary of people who overuse exclamation points, which normally happens when the writer lacks calm, intelligent arguments of their own. The idea of he/she who yells the loudest is right is juvenile.
I also judge people on how they treat others in person. For some reason an event has stayed with me. A few years ago, at the G-8 meeting, Trump lumbered into the room late. A man who was in a discussion with others did not see him coming as his back was turned to the President. Most people would simply say "excuse me" and continue on his way. But Trump physically grabbed the man by his shoulders and moved him out of the way without uttering a word. His attempt at proving that he was the most important man in the room showed the world that he was the smallest. I know it was a small thing, but his lack of courtesy and decorum demonstrated that he has no regard for others, neither on a personal nor global level.
It's a given that Trump does not study the issues at hand and his lack of introspection goes without saying. We know that he suffers from some type of narcissism disorder, which subjugates doing what is right for how he looks to the world. We must accept that he is mentally ill, which is a great danger to the country and the world.
Just a quick note on the House Select Committee. With its army of investigators, the truth WILL come out.
I can extend a degree of compassion for those who suffer from any form of mental illness until they hold a position of power. In instances where that is the case, they need to be removed from those positions as they are a danger both to themselves and others. Trump has a lifetime history of severe mental illness, yet has never been removed from his position of power until defeated in his reelection bid. His reaction to his electoral defeat only confirms the severity of his mental disorder and the consequent dangers to us all and our democracy. Those who would return him to any form of power clearly suffer from some form of delusional mental disorder as well. The man is not just incompetent but is a danger to himself and all those around him or subject to any authority vested in him.
He's not only a weapon of mass distractions, he is himself a weapon of mass destruction, to himself, to others, to democracy, and to the world.
He is responsible for so many deaths...
Couldn't agree more. But how do we get the sane people in charge of the asylum?
Withhold attention re unethical behavior; give attention to ethical behavior
It’s much more difficult than that. When you put you tentacles into a group of people who cannot think for themselves and are easily provoked to violence in your name, it’s impossible to just ignore until it goes away without dangerous consequences.
I reserve a special form of disgust for those who manipulate the mentally challenged.
Amen!
Bruce, A danger to himself? Arthur Miller missed acquainting himself with Salesman of Doom.
Thank you for recalling Tя☭mp's rude behavior at the G-8 meeting ... it is not a small thing at all. It reveals his true character and utter, genuine disrespect for others.
Tя☭mp Thank you.
I copied and saved it from another member of this community, though I've forgotten who posted it.
Might have been me, a couple of days ago! :)
I have hoped many times that someone was making note of all the shocking things said and done, venial and malignant, over the course of these last 5 years. I would like it to be a long descriptive list of the manifestation of his well documented illness. Each was such a divergence from norms that I thought they would burn in me forever. Instead, I just have a bitter aftertaste and a reference to any of them brings up sad recognition that this is what we are capable of electing. That was such a cheesy episode by which the world discovered who had been elected to the highest post in our land. So insanely ignorant. Unfortunately, just one of many. Talk about the Ugly American!
Yeah - tfg was the epitome of Ugly.
That particular incident stuck in my mind too. Created a little picture every time I saw his face!
Juvenile, and dangerous. I HOPE the truth will come out. Pardon my cynicism, but I believe trump-loving Republicans will lie, whether under oath or not.
First delay by challenging the validity of the subpoena, then deny, then lie. As Trump has proven, there will be no consequences to such actions.
What is the penalty and what are the remedies for elected officials lying under oath to a Congressional Committee? What are the precedents? Are the standards between obfuscation and out and out lying clear?
I guess this is where experienced questioners show their stuff.
Hmmmm. Not so sure of that. Consequences might be more far reaching than we can imagine to the party.
Only if the Dems grow the courage to use the tools they have.
Other than kill the filibuster, may I ask, what are these "tools" to which you refer and why would "courage" play a part in using them?
Subpoena, arrest if not honored, kept in prison until their testimony. There are a number of things a committee with subpoena power can use to enforce their subpoena.
Yes, I believe the penalty for lying under oath is not great enough to make Jim Jordan or Kevin McCarthy tell the truth.
They will lie until they feel that the truth is the only way left to save themselves.
There will be non speaking evidence also
From your lips to God’s ears. I believe you are correct, sir and I’m sending out those thoughts to our higher powers.
That G7 moment stuck out with me too, Randy. I still believe he will be stopped.
I profoundly hope the truth will come out-LOUDLY.
The Truth has been coming out for a long time! The point is, who believes it, why doubt it, and what’s in it for the Big Lie believers?
I had forgotten that event. How do we (meaning the lawmakers) change the rules so that a person who runs for the office of president of this country must show tax returns and can not be mentally unfit? Surely we need to refine the list of qualifications.
It would help if we upgraded our universal education system and produced a more educated voting population too .
ABSOLUTELY AGREE on the importance of this issue!!
I am not sure Trump is suffering from his mental disorder but the rest of us are.
Truth will out, sure, just as it has been available all along. But it's been turned inside out to rabble rouse. If people are unwilling to protect themselves from a virus with a vaccine, the 'truth' of the efficacy of which cannot possibly be more documented, what makes anyone think getting at the truth of Jan 6 will do anything to change their minds about who and what they are willing to hear?
I've never forgotten how he so clearly mocked the journalist Serge Kovaleski when he was just trump the candidate. Could never understand how it didn't all end right there and then.
I can forgive many transgressions but draw a hardline at cruelty. Trump's stupidity, incompetence, and criminality are awful. However, his worst character trait is cruelty and it is unforgivable.
It spoke to and speaks to the cruelty and inhumanity of those who follow him and cheer him on. In another period, Trump would have delighted in experimenting on children. He would have been Josef Mengele's twin. His followers would have goose-stepped to the door of his theater of madness. Trump does NOT fool the civilized among us.
I agree 100%!
"when the writer lacks calm, intelligent arguments of their own. The idea of he/she who yells the loudest is right is juvenile." "Dr. Watson, I presume" you have called out Trump in a nutshell.
I remember that moment of the former pushing way around on a diplomatic stage. I thought him a fool at the time. In retrospect, that view almost complimentary to what one knows of him now.
And this cringeworthy moment: NATO mtg, Brussels 2017 -
Trump shoved Markovic, the PM of Montenegro
“America First,” indeed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZIUFf6nQIA
erghhh. TFG is no gentleman. He is no scholar. He is no warrior statesman. He is no leader and has never been. TFG was and remains unfit for office. He is a global embarrassment.
Actually, I believe the Cringeworthy Oscar is awarded Trump for when he mocked the disabled journalist -- on national TV, of course. I must admit I was stunned and flabbergasted.
Yes. Yes it was cringeworthy. My nephew has cerebral palsy. He has taught me so much about my privilege of independent mobility, my privilege to speak with out the aid of a computer that tracks eye movements, and the privilege to feed and bath myself.
I have a close friend who has worked with autistic children for years. He is so gifted. I have watched those with challenges they must overcome on a daily basis. To mock them, make fun of them or degrade them takes a special kind of evil monster. Trump is a rotting cancer.
Repulsive and then there was his disdain for Angela Merkel, or April Ryan, his publicity pose with the upside down bible in his hand. I still see that protruding jaw with many chins.
Jabba D. Drumpf.
What? the PM was in the way! What was tRump supposed to do??? :)
I agree ... but add that putting a word in capital letters is not unlike excessive use of exclamation points.
Some of us are just more animated. What a boring world if we are all the same.
"Me thinks he doth protest to much"
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop.
And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Yes, it is indeed quite puzzling that a man that stood in front of television cameras and told thousands of people, some of them armed with deadly weapons, to head to the capital to overthrow the duly elected government transition, has not been arrested for sedition and treason.
If Trump or anyone had pulled that stunt in 1795, I think it highly likely that person would have rapidly faced the consequences of those times.
Tolerance for sedition and treason seems quite high now. I don't understand why, honestly.
Maybe the Justice Department is just moving slow? But, there has not even been an announcement of possible charges of sedition and treason pending investigation.
It is almost like Trump has some magical fairy that can keep him out of jail no matter how many laws he breaks in his life, how many people he grifts and shortchanges, which, have been many.
He was smart enough never to use the words, " head to the capital to overthrow the duly elected government transition." To me his greatest breach was to sit in the White House and do nothing, for hours, to control throusans violently rampaging throughout the Capitol.
Yes, Michael Cohen describe md how careful Boss Tru$P was never to say the crime words himself
The Capitol Police testimony today at the first COngressional January 6th Hearing (along with validating videos), made it crystal clear this was t-Rump's insurrection call.
He did tell them to fight like hell ! Does that count for anything ?
Yes, the not doing anything. Some times what you don't do is just as important. He did a lot of "not doing anything" at times where he absolutely should have. Thinking about Gretchen Whitmer. Did he ever say anything to the effect of, "this is not OK?"
Worse than not doing anything, it's reported he was cheering them on as he watched on TV from the WH dining room (reportedly, his TV room).
I think the main reason Trump hasn’t been arrested for treason (yet) is to avoid a literal civil war! The law is being extremely careful to have all of the iron clad facts in order before coming down on Trump. Little by little, from the bottom up, I am confident justice will eventually be served!
I grew up in East Texas. It is a rule that avoiding a fight with a bully will INCREASE the bullying behavior, not decrease it. I never avoided a fistfight with anyone when it was needed and I don't think avoiding arresting Trump will help the country "heal".
I also don't think there is much concern about civil war if that crowd I saw at the capital are the guys that will hit the field. Seriously, those guys were rank amateur's .
Mike S. As a 6th generation Texan I salute you in evolving way beyond East Texas!
East Texas was a good place to grow up. But. I have been gone a very long time now.
Gig Em Aggies!
Yes, there was testimony from one of the officers this morning where he said they didn’t use their weapons because they were afraid that would trigger bombs to go off. It was compelling and something I’d never considered.
Yes, Gayle, THIS!
(Caps & EPs!!!!!)
I try to maintain hope when I hear HCR say in her chats that the DOJ is working slowly, methodically and quietly, building the case. It is hard to be patient, especially now.
Patience and care will work
Sometimes. And sometimes it simply allows the opportunity for action to pass. This is my fear.
Same here, Diane, and it seems to me that the lack of consequences for their actions is an encouragement to them and their followers.
To start with the current DOJ has complete access to the Mueller report. Mueller did all the heavy lifting 4 years ago. The DOJ should immediately act on that report. In many ways, the DOJ is not starting from scratch and we simply don't have time to slowly and methodically build ANOTHER case. What's worse is that there have been indications that the DOJ is not going to revisit the Trump presidency. To me that is inexcusable. Biden and the Democrats need to get someone to lead the DOJ who will protect and defend the Constitution! They need to do that yesterday.
I think theyve got a carefully mspped out game plan.
“ sedition and treason” and fascism
Barrack, at 74 I’m sure has no wish to spend prison time. I hope the net is being tightened. Will any of it matter to his cult? Doubtful.
I’ll say again an opinion of the DOJ that I have expressed before. Considering the housekeeping and clean up that needed to happen in January, kudos. Considering the mountain of injustices in front of them to scale, they cannot move fast enough and I think that is what is propelling them. They are not moving “too slow”.
OK. Clearly my options are, so far, to wait on the DOJ and see what happens. However, I do, honestly, think that timing is important and the time to arrest Trump has passed.
Maybe, but he could lose his citizenship.
The fairy’s name is Rebecca Mercer.
Ted! Where did you garner that tidbit? Spill details please.
She’s the daughter of Robert Mercer, MIT computer wizard. He designed or wrote the algorithm to rapid trade on the stock market. Basically the ability of artificial intelligence to execute trades and rake in billions. The Mercer’s are hard core Libertarians and the financed the former guys campaign. Just like the Koch’s.
read:
Dark Money
Democracy in chains
Corruption in America
And there is more.
Ted! Is this the Rebekah Mercer who is “Parler’s handmaid that finances them????
Rebekah Mercer manages the Super Pac for right wing nuts: Make America #1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Number_1
Taking notes here. I cant buy books by mail but maybe a friend will bring one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mercer
She should go to Guantanamo too.
Interesting. I should have known. I thought it might be Putin. Thanks!
Putin, too.
I think there are two core issues.
First, as the "corpus of law" increases, it gradually becomes a "corpse of law" since it becomes too complex in all its inherent contradictions to understand or apply. It descends into an endless regress of reconciliation of contradictory minutiae. Is it "sedition?" Well, you see, that's not an easy question to answer... there was a case in 1793, where....
This is especially true as our legislature fractures and passes grotesque laws, just to crap on the "other side."
Second, the purpose of the court is to rise above law (legislation) and look at the broader social consequences of the law. There is the "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" issue involved with freedom of speech, for instance. There is the ratification of unpopular laws related to public safety (DPT vaccination for school children), or moral issues (civil rights in the racist South), and the blocking or invalidation of laws that cause harm, or are grotesquely immoral. The courts -- particularly the upper courts -- have to take a broader view.
Trump's crime is, open-and-shut, treason. He has a right to "due process," but there is no real doubt that he is guilty. The traditional penalty for treason, and for good reason, is death. It should extend to all who actively collaborated with him. That includes many of his inner circle, a substantial number of legislators, certain military officers, and a number of wealthy private citizens.
Executing a former President is a tricky proposition, and while there is plenty of precedent for it, there is no precedent in this country. Furthermore, it needs to be handled with some delicacy, since Trump's treason has roped in much of the public.
Anything short of hanging isn't enough. Anything close to hanging will set the nation on fire. What would you have them do?
As to the purpose of courts, the Federalist society has subverted that purpose. For details, please read this piece by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.): https://medium.com/senator-sheldon-whitehouse/the-third-federalist-society-f8a3ff2e19fd
Well, yeah. There's that. Sigh.
I'm so friggin' old-school. Problem-solving, ideas, open and honest debate, looking at the big picture. Not important any more. :-(
Have s big public funeral.
That does sound nice. Complete with dancing.
Im having second thoughts…just woke up…its 4 a.m.. If he (and his buddies, families and supporters were exiled … where would be a likely place …all set up… isolated and forgotten…. Lots if guards…
Begins with a G…
We are a nation of laws. Just follow the law, is what we should have them do.
Ted, Who is at the ramparts as the administration of elections are being corrupted. How basic is that to Democracy? I hear Joseph as many of us do, including many Democrats, Independents and a very few Republicans. Can Biden get there? There has not been nearly enough accountability. Is there no one who can get through to a few reluctant Democrats. Will a strong enough version of For the People Act be passed in September? We cannot continue to flirt with time and Fascism. Why wasn't it arranged that the Commission's hearing to day be shown on network television tonight?
Answer to your final question - 4 hours of paid advertising and favorite tv shows for too many people. I agree that network television is essential to getting the reality out to the wider population but it doesn't have the "it bleeds so lead" as was the case with the Jan. 6 insurrection. However, the hearing will likely be replayed on C-SPAN TV (C-SPAN3 today) but, of course, that's to a very different audience that we would want to be viewing the hearings on network tv. Here's a link for viewing it; as it's video, you can pause and return at your own convenience. You can bypass about 40-45 minutes if you don't want to listen to introductory & opening statements. https://www.c-span.org/video/?513434-1/capitol-dc-police-testify-january-6-attack
You will be deeply impressed both by the quality of content and the level of detail brought out by the 4 witnesses.
Thanks, my favorite librarian. I watched the entire hearing. It will never leave me.
When one does go to the CSPAN site, please scroll down to the entries listed as User Created Clips of this video. Those testimonies of the police are in full.
I hope we see more Jan 6th prosecutions up the chain to the top. I hope every American gets to see the officers' testimony from this morning. If they did not or could not watch it today, I hope they see it tonight and/or for as many nights as it takes. For the People Act has to pass. I don't know if Biden can get there, I certainly hope so, he will need everyone's help.
I read a lot of hope in your reply. We know a lot more than hope is necessary.
Yep. Hope is not a strategy.
Joseph, first, thanks for the informative and thoughtful comment.
If I had been elected President and anyone tried to raid the Capital to stop my certification I would, as early as I could, have had them arrested and then explained why.
Then, if they were found guilty I would provide appropriate consequences.
Anything less than this approach invites a bigger disaster than simply hanging one rich guy.
The delay gave them time to smoke out more perpetraitors. Its up to about 600 not counting elected and appointed officials.
perpetraitors -- well done, Susan
Magical fairy…like from a gay church…?
🙄 Oh, common....
Ive been looking up the Senators who voted not to impeach whsts-his-name. In alphabetical order, the first 10 come from towns that had sex scandals in a church, school or social group in the 50s,60, 70s. I guess i could go on…
Mitch gives me the creeps.
When i studied Early Childhood Education, my project was on child abuse.
or Lil NAS x?
Wha….?
a gay rapper
https://www.lilnasx.com/
Or how many people he has killed or little children he has severed from their families.
When gangland crime organizing, thievery, money laundering, attacks and murders occur, law enforcement doesn't just go after the foot soldiers, they are intent on getting the god fathers.
Bengazzi wasn't a criminal activity, but the attack on the Capitol, the armed protests, occupations and death threats at state capitols, along with claims that the 2020 election and pressure to overturn the election are all criminal activity most easily identified as "treason". Why aren't they the province of criminal investigations?
Are politicians free to openly attack our nation and democracy? Wasn't the Civil War addressed with the US president, elected representatives loyal to the US Constitution and the US military? Why are we so hard on petty crimes and traffic infractions and soft on crimes against our nation? About half of our states and their representatives established the Confederacy. About the same proportion or less constitutes the Trump Campaign to take over our nation by open fraud on FOX and with violence in our capitols. Embarrassing to them? No criminal!! All of them, criminals.
Very good points. It is just that "law and order" to them means something totally different when applied to others than it does looking in the mirror.
Absolutely!
I am often in disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness. Yes, we’ll have problems galore like usual, but this feels extraordinarily insane.
Indeed.
True.
We might see enough court cases and theirbtesults to “fix” the loop holes that created the problem
Hoping so.
That the infrastructure bill is so popular is exactly why Trump is moving to kill it. It’s a demonstration of his power. Demanding the death of a bill that was unpopular with Republicans in Congress would be trivial, ho hum, the equivalent of insisting that Republicans give up Brussels sprouts. Getting them to kill the infrastructure bill is like insisting that Republicans give up ice cream - if Trump can get them to do that then his hold on the party is absolute. Trump would also be showing everyone that McConnell and McCarthy are weak and should be ignored (it will be interesting to see if with the 10-11 Senators who were rumored to be ready to vote for the infrastructure bill suddenly disappear). McCarthy and McConnell are doing everything they can to win majorities in Congress in 2022. Trump doesn’t care about Republican majorities (he doesn’t care about the GOP at all, really), he only cares about power for himself.
I totally agree with you. TFG is unhinged, and cares about nothing except the incredible “high” he gets from power. Like an addict, the more he gets, the more he needs. It has absolutely nothing to do with what is good for people, or the nation.
A lot of his style comes from his mentor Roy Cohn, lawyer for joe McCarthy. The lies, the bluster, claiming to have info he doesn’t have, and convinced that television is the real courtroom and that emotion is the best argument.
Did you see the PBS (Frontline?) piece The Choice: 2020 about the lifetimes of Trump and Biden? Really really fascinating dive into Trump's childhood (as well as Biden's) and yes, both Roy Cohn (former McCarthy helper) and Norman Vincent Peale are his main inspirations. Weird combo of mobster/thug/bully and excessive positive thinking combined with his already established cruel bullying due to his dysfunctional family. What a holy mess.
I love Frontline. Haven't seen this one yet though. what a psychological mess. He is whacked out! But I've known that for a long long time. Will check it out!
Yes, many of us have known it for a long time. But this really gives it all context. I had goosebumps. OTOH, it made me like Biden a lot better. The contrast could not have been more stark.
American Demagogue- JD Dickey
What does TFG mean? Sorry, I’m not up on this.
Biden usually refers to him as "The Former Guy."
I think of it meaning “that fu..ing goon” 😎
“the former guy”, I can’t bring myself to say his name
Thank you… all I could come up with was Too Far Gone and Google helped me with that!
I don't know. I think Too Far Gone works to describe TFG pretty well too.
TFG squared!
The former guy.
👍
Same as he has always been and so far always gotten away with it
Wow, great analysis. How can we, as a country, let one damaged man destroy us.
We will not
There are remarkably few ways to stop someone like Trump. One is impeachment. Mitch McConnell decided to protect Trump, and leave him in office. The rest of us had little choice in the matter.
So, the reality is that millions and millions of Americans are at the mercy of a few power-hungry, greedy men. I’m not very religious, but I’m praying that Nancy Pelosi continues to be strong and healthy. As I see it, she has our entire democracy on her shoulders right now.
I do not believe this is the work of just one man, however damaged. If we ask the question, who stands to benefit from his antics, I think we have some warm to very hot clues.
Agree, to some extent he is a puppet
Remember, too, that Putin pulls t-Rumps puppet strings, and a successful infrastructure program will improve our economy and competitiveness in the world, which is NOT what Putin wants. The jobs it creates will also mean less unemployed magates.
My guess is that, as far as Putin is concerned, stopping the infrastructure bill is not at the top of his list. But Putin must be absolutely giddy after 5 years of Trump’s division and destruction of America. I imagine Putin saying to himself, “I could have spent hundreds of billions more on nuclear weapons, or invested 10 million in electing Trump. Trump has the destructive power of dozens of multi-megaton warheads.”
The only hope is that he dies. He's 75, in poor health (we know because they lied about his health for the past 5 years), he's obese, doesn't exercise and has a literal "killer diet." Hopefully he dies in circumstances that have nothing to do with anything (otherwise he'll die a "martyr"). That way, inside of a year, the circus will move on and he'll be as relevant as Huey Long is. Yes, I certainly would rather he die in excruciating pain from the gunshot he so richly deserves, but more than that, I want to see him gone in a way that doesn't leave him haunting things. Just.... die of being a fat old man who never exercised and ate one too many hamberders.
I really hope he doesn’t die before we get to see him be interrogated like the disgusting thug that he is on live TV. A pillory and rotten fruit and eggs would be too good for him. He’s going to get away with murder, just like he said he would.
Even if he died of natural causes, Trumpublicans would blame Soros and the Clintons.
Excuse me, but hahaha!
As long as it doesn't resemble the death of French President, Felix Faure, in 1899 when he did in the arms of Baroness Marguerite Steinheil in bed in the Elysée Palace....a noted much-financed "temptress" of the times; a stroke in such circumstances would be too easy on him and would just stoke his much-projected self-image.
I doubt he can even get his widdle "mushroom" (as Stormy Daniels described it) to turn into a toadstool any more.
That's a mantal image I could have done without this morning, but hilarious none the less.
🤢
🤣🤣🤣
😂
Sorry, mental.
I'm not sure that Faure managed greatly either but its has encouraged many politicians since to think that their "power" makes them sexy.....see JFK on your side and Strauss-Kahn, François Hollande etc on this. Our current representative is a classic scholar of the subject but contents himself with the role of Oedipus!
Seems like the contract is finished between the orange blimp and his last "baronesse" as she is reportedly very much absent from his side these days; a job opening for someone?
And of course there's Henry the K dating Jill St. John back in the 70s and when asked how a guy who looked like he did dated a woman like her, referred the questioner to the point that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."
Not to be dense but who's Henry the K?
Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State
Oh my, coffee spewed across the room🤣
Same here! 😅
🤣😂🤣
Careful with karma, folks.
Delta variant biting trump in the ass would be karmic indeed.
Large target . . .
That would be ideal, but in the current political climate, I can see the Q followers still concocting some conspiracy theory that it wasn’t natural causes.
More likely that he isn’t actually dead, but, in a hidden location continuing to call the shots. This is the level of absurdity the Q cult has “normalized”.
They would insist he was still alive. I firmly believe Q was behind all the stories that Elvis was still alive.
But... can we be really, really sure that the strange being that got itself into the White House in 2016 was not a zombie ? If it wasn't then, it sure looks that way now...
And it has certainly been doing its damnedest to transform the GOP into the zombie party -- the Nazombie Party... With no little success. Those hordes of THE UNDEAD pushing up like toadstools, creeping and crawling out from under gravestones...
Please write a book!
Delta varient!
I think we need to all face the fact that Donald Trump has reached for and achieved immortality. Though it's possible that he will be outdone, my money is on him being remembered by all future historians as the worst US President in history, especially since his toxic influence continues to erode the nation. He will be remembered when Washington and Lincoln are forgotten. After all, who remembers Remus and his brother? Everyone knows the name Nero.
But in addition, he has created a full-on Jonestown cult. It doesn't matter how he dies, or when. There will be claims of his resurrection on the third day. There will be prophecies of his return to Make America Great Again. There will be -- if there are not already -- sacred altars to replace his rallies. His words will be written down, blended with the words of his prophet, Q, and will become Scripture for his followers.
And lo, when questioned by the hostile reporter from the tribe of the Rolling Stone on the matter of law enforcement, the Lord Trump spake thusly: "They have to get better than what they’ve been doing. I mean obviously that was a terrible thing. And I’ve spoken about it numerous times in various speeches. And what’s interesting is I spoke about it when we launched a very successful rocket — a tremendous program that culminated on that day and obviously it goes on from there. Let he who has ears reach his own conclusions." And his enemies were confounded.
Yes, I'm being dark, and perhaps silly. But perhaps not so much.
You know what drives me nuts? When a news outlet does a segment on the January 6 House Select Committee but fails to contextualize the reason why Pelosi rejected the appointments of Jordan and Banks. Without that context, some will think Pelosi’s decision was arbitrary and hyperpartisan. I heard that kind of reporting this morning on NPR. And I wish news outlets would consistently refer to the tragedy of January 6 as an insurrection or attempted coup, as opposed to a riot. We can't become numb or forget how serious that day was.
From The Guardian.
“Cheney hinted that one of the appointees that Pelosi rejected “may well be a material witness to events that led to” the attack. Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, is of the same mindset and has some questions for congressman Jim Jordan.”
But if he is called to testify, will he tell the truth?? I highly doubt it.
He'll be under oath and he won't be asked any questions for which the committee doesn't already have many of the answers. Perjury has penalties. I'd love to see him trotted before a judge on perjury charges.
And McCarthy
Am listening to the live broadcast of the hearing at work, and the testimony of the police officers is gut-wrenching.
I am heartened that they repeatedly called the insurrectionists what they are, TERRORISTS. Let’s not sugar coat it, I can’t wait to see McCarthy squirm under oath!
I know. How can anyone listen to them and not feel emotional.
I couldn't and neither were two members of the committee itself: Rep. Schiff and Rep. Kinzinger.
Even Cheney looked distressed once when the camera was turned toward her as part of the audience.
They also fail to remind us that Republicans had all their demands met for an equal commission and the. Rallied their caucus to vote against it. Remember, they don’t want an investigation and now they will do anything to push the message that it’s partisan. Always sweeping history, even the most recent, under the rug.
I agree about many media reports as lukewarm. In the instance of Pelosi’s move, it was very well covered and considered on CNN.
And on many broadcast and media outlets.
NPR. No Public Revolution
Happened again tonight when I was at the gym and watching BBC news on the machine. The reporter framed the quick segment on today's hearing as a partisan issue.
British royalty offended by media’s constant references to their prince charming’s grinship with Epstein, iDijs buddie. Cant wait for Maxwell’s. testimony in September.
Yes. It was not a riot.
What if the crazies hold a press conference and the mainstream press does not show up? We need that because nothing they say will be news. We already know it will be bully time. AtteNtion is their oxygen.
The only problem is main stream media are whores so they’ll be there.
What??? That is your generalization for all the media right now?
You should see it from across the pond.
can you say more about that?
Europe has watched in horror and dismay as their big ally on the other side of the Atlantic has been ransacked and sabotaged internationally on the internet and nationally by its lack of government for decades. Meanwhile, Russia has spent its last ruble militarizing and gobbling up defenseless countries, just like the Nazis did before WWII. while desertification and lack of effective leadership has forced massive illegal immigration north from Africa stretching every EU country’s budget and patients, plus their own continual increase in population. Europe needs to partner with a stable, dependable USA because Russia is basically run by Kossacks who don’t give a … fig … about loyalty to anyone, and neither Russia, China, nor Iran have the slightest idea how to govern democratically and wouldn’t dream of giving up the prestige and power of a one man show. So Europe is watching the show in the USA warily.
Yes sure
Sad but seems true
They held it and ran from the protesters on the left. They cried their free speech was being impeded while wanting the other sides free speech to be silenced. One of Bannon’s boys even claimed it was a violent attack after saying the officers shouldn’t have cried about being called racist names. The hypocrisy is astounding.
If only....
I've often wondered why the press showed up at many of the press conferences later in DJT's presidency, when Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kaleigh McEnany lied and evaded and generally made fools of themselves, both verbally and visually. Sorry. I know that was ingenerous.
It’s expedient to use the word “Trump” since he’s the figurehead/mouth but as long as Brannon, Stone, Flynn, Giuliani on the loose many engineering this rhetoric and upheaval, escalation. Do we really think Trump comes up with all the words and strategic communication to reignite authoritarianism and break our democracy daily? Not even sure he’s literate.
Does anyone else feel/fear that Flynn was telegraphing to the radicalized supporters when he, when presented with a rifle, stated he should take it to D.C.?
Less subtle than "telegraphing" to my mind. Sounded like a call to arms to me.
It certainly seems so to me.
Of course he was, but again, he did not say specifically
Wait, what am I missing about Flynn?
A video posted on twitter shows Flynn when given an AR-15 rifle said “maybe I’ll find somebody in Washington DC.” I think he was at a church event in Yuma City, CA
Thanks 🙏
https://californianewstimes.com/michael-flynn-jokes-about-assassinating-someone-in-washington-dc/455989/?amp
After decades fighting insurgents, Flynn knows what he is doing here.
This is a very sad truth
After decades of working for Dictators around the world, Manafort knows what he is doing here. I suspect he taught TFG's other boys a few things.
And the Nazi Miller, don’t forget. He’s still pulling the strings backstage.
Stephen Miller - Hitler’s self-loathing spawn
“Baby Goebbels”- Malcolm Nance
Point being 3 out of the 4 guys were convicted and pardoned by corrupt President so still actively inciting an overthrow.
*Bannon
No. And I believe there others beyond the ones you mentioned. Bannon, McConnell, and the really big bucks.
As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol starts its work, former president Trump and his supporters are consolidating their power over the Republican Party. Through it, they hope to control the nation.
It’s based on racial hatred. Deep.
Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy. Jewish. New York. From the USSR.
On Tyranny. You know him. Yale. Knows.
Banality of Evil. She’s another. Chicago. Europe. Hitler. Fascism. The camps.
Anne Frank. The attic. The camps.
This time is more complex.
Trump is popular. White Trash is everywhere.
None of this is taught properly.
Historians cannot teach it.
It’s not about fact.
Tribal prejudice is at the heart of our darkness.
Everywhere.
Ofc Harry Dunn is validating your point at this very moment in the Hearings.
SO POWERFUL!
Tribal prejudice indeed.
This morning, I tuned into NBC to watch Olympic gymnastics this morning and instead am seeing the Jan 6th House Select Committee Hearing's opening comments and video. This is violent footage I've not seen before. The gleeful viciousness with which the rioters attacked the police is horrifying.
And now the testimony of four Capitol police begin.
May those responsible and those whose carried out the violence not escape accountability, but receive the severest penalty.
Hard for me to want to watch the Olympics this year or even care about the games. The pandemic and so much suffering going on in the world. The games should have been postponed.
I haven't watched any of it, although I do appreciate that the athletes have been training for many years in order to participate. Too many other higher priority events in this month for me and by the time I get home from work, too tired to even click on the TV.
Reading HCR and Steady are at the top of my very short list of free-time activities.
85% of Japanese wanted the games postponed.
I believe that we are witnessing the final paroxysms of the so called trump loyalists and, of course, the former guy as well; McCarthy and McConnell both know it. They mistakenly calculate there’s maybe some reverse spin advantage to claim in going down with the trump ship; their “Pickett’s Charge” is fated to end in disaster for themselves and their followers. The lines were drawn against them before and during the 2016 presidential campaign and have only became clearer in ensuring years as trump and his supporters have continually lost ground. They are on the wrong of history; their time of minority control through obstruction and frustration of the will of the majority of the American people is over. They cannot, and will not, win back control of the White House or Congress. While congressional democrats and a few law abiding republicans will indeed uncover more information about what really happened in the events that led up to the January 6th trump inspired attack on Congress, most Americans are now more focused on their hopes for the success of the Biden Administration and a return to functional federal, state and municipal government. We know that government isn’t the problem; bad and ineffective government officials are. The more noise and thrashing of the trump loyalists, as they try to wriggle out of what they have done and want to continue to do to our country, the deeper they dig the hole for anyone and everyone who is a trumpist…especially the former guy who, most certainly, will now be convicted for tax evasion, bank fraud and other crimes by NY state and GA state criminal courts, go bankrupt…(again), and do prison time. Passage of Biden led legislative initiatives, and the saving of more lives here, and worldwide, through increased vaccination rates, will lead to landslide victories for the democrats in 2022, and presage their re-election in 2024, as Biden earns four more years. This is the real battle that Biden and his supporters intend to win…and are on the path to accomplishing.
Ten years from now, assuming the planet is still habitable, my 4-year old granddaughter will be learning about this era in American history. I hope through my journals she can get an understanding of how frustrating, how enraging, how confusing and how uncertain it's been to actually live through it. My greatest hope is that she will learn how democracy was saved from the jaws of autocracy, not just here but around the world, how the most ruinous effects of climate chaos were avoided, and how humans foiled a tiny microbe wrecking havoc on our health. Three major catastrophes trying to tear apart the fabric of life - what an interesting time to live through! I sometimes wish I was only reading about it in history books, though.
I've been keeping a "Covid journal" which also includes politics. Not sure who will ever read it, but I keep writing when moved.
I struggle every day to believe what you have articulated here. Please, let it be so!
You made my day with this summary, thank you
Thank you for bringing hope to my day, ahead of what I also hope will be the truth uncovered and those responsible outed.
I devoutly hope you are right, and sadly, am afraid you are wrong.
Thanks…the momentum is there; we have to stand up and help wherever possible to assure the outcome.
Make mine a double.... finally a 'kool-aid' that is tasty and has positive side effects!
Thanks for the ray of hope this morning!
May your words, especially your opening line, become reality. I'm less sanguine about 2022 and maybe 2024 given the widespread state legislative acts to severely impede voter access of specific classes of their citizens.
Yes, this makes sense if I step back and get some perspective. Which is hard to do with everything that is an inch from my face so to speak these days. Don't lose the forest for the trees. Thank you Keith!
That’s it, Kim. Keeping the perspective in mind helps with everything. Good progress is being made. More will follow as we begin to see more of Biden’s central policy initiatives implemented.
Setting aside history, it is hard to imagine a more mendacious and ruinous political party than the modern-day Republican Party! There is but one "loyalty test" that should be enforced for public servants and that is their oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [So help me God.]" Notice that it does not say anything about supporting, defending, or bearing true faith and allegiance to the president.
As I have said many times in the past (not here though), Trump should have been impeached for failing to uphold his oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." There are literally countless examples of his failure to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
If we don't demand that public servants uphold their oath of office then what follows will be an unmitigated disaster. This is the primary reason why our government is disassembling and why We The People have lost faith and trust in politicians.
The disaster that awaits mankind is the effects of climate change. We had a very narrow window to remediate climate change and instead we ignored the scientific community and invaluable time was lost. Instead, we have spent decades on silly social and tribal wars designed to invalidate the "other." This absurd and self-serving folly has run out the clock and now it's too late to save the animal kingdom from extinction. The first to go will be the "have-nots." The surviving haves will be in a fierce battle to the end.
Our focus must be on an overwhelming and unqualified response to slow the effects of climate change. Hopefully, people understand that natural disasters are not our greatest threats. Our greatest peril is our food supply, from crops and cattle on land to fish in the sea.
My point is that we are going to lose more than democracy if we don't immediately unite to uphold our government. We have to find a way to work together to have any hope of saving the planet. Those who are only concerned by personal power and wealth are ensuring our demise. What completely frustrates me is that most politicians cannot see past their next election (Trump can't see past the last election,) let alone be concerned about what happens 10, 30 or 50 years from now.
Everything you wrote is right on the mark. I agree wholeheartedly with you, especially about Trump being held accountable by impeachment while in office or some other form of legal enforcement. I don’t understand why the DOJ hasn’t taken some form of legal action against him by this point. He violated his oath to our constitution and to protecting the citizens of America. There must be a plethora of illegal actions he instigated while he was in office. Not to mention that he incited a treasonous, seditious, insurrection at our Capital in order to stop the certification of the new President. He figuratively spit on the very constitution he took an oath to preserve.
At this point, I am really dreading 2024.
I read chair, BGT's Wapo Op-Ed carefully. Note that select committee member, Elaine Luria (D- VA) is litteraly a former surface battle, Naval commander (joined the Navy at age 17). Rep. Luria understands command structure well & knows how to ask questions.
I am woefully military-lingo illiterate. Was huge revelation to me a few whiles ago that a troop was an individual person. In Girl Scouts, a troop was our gaggle of girls. What is command structure, if you please. Thanks!
Good question Cary.
In the US Navy, there are 4 basic elements to the "Command Structure": 1. the Secretary of the Navy (FDR was an Asst. Sec of the Navy; 2. Chief of Naval Operations; 3. Operating Forces ( eg, Commander Luria) & the Shore Establishment (critical in the digital age).
Perhaps not at Today's Hearing of the Select Committee, but, the Command Structure of the control, delay & late deployment of National Guard reinforcements is certain to be investigated thoroughly.
And perhaps, revealing the command structure of a large number of the insurrectionists
Yes, Cary, how did that term shift from our earlier days? A troop was a group and a "trooper" was the individual within the group. I was a Blue Bird (your Brownies' nemesis) in a Blue Bird troop and "flew up" to become a member of the Camp Fire Girls troop. I thought that I was a trooper. This leads me into a dangerous wormhole diversion (or diatribe) of bafflement, that I beg any poor reader to pardon me or leave now.
The Merriam Webster dictionary still sports the plurality of "troop": 1. soldiers or armed forces. "UN peacekeeping troops." 2. a group of soldiers, especially a cavalry unit commanded by a captain, or an airborne unit. 3. a group of people or animals of a particular kind. i.e. "a troop of musicians." 4. A group of people who come or go together or in large numbers.
However, a shift has occurred in the media in the past 20 years or so to use "troop" as an individual soldier when in the past they have been "troopers," a member of a troop or group.
Merriam Webster states: Usage commentators don't agree on the correct usage of 'troop'—some feel that 'troop' can only describe a large number, whereas others hold that any number of people can be described as 'troops', provided there are at least two. However, using 'troop' to refer to a single person is almost universally frowned upon. And lastly, it states: One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop.
However, in the Alternative Reality, plurals are now singular, just to loosen The, supposed, Reality for us a little more. Then again, an apple meant a single piece of fruit that grows on a tree. The singular "Apple" is now a mega-tech power corporation whose fruits fall all over the world. 500,000 iPhones are made in a given day, and in the 2018 fiscal year, Apple sold more than 217 million Apple mobile phones.
Sort of goes with the usurpation of the "group" words of "them" and "they" now referring to a single person with fluid gender. I was truly hoping the non-binary gender world would have invented their own new word, like "Xi," to describe their two in one bodily experience. I definitely frown at the singular use of "troop" but am trying to respect the usurpation of "they" and "them" which makes me feel truly dated now in working with teenagers. When someone tells me that there is a meeting at 2:00 and "they" will be coming, I cannot help ask, "Who all will be coming?" The answer of just one person, throws me. Hmm. Might be time for this trooper to retire. I bet Camp Fire "Girls" is now passe, too. Is it now Camp Fire Theys? Or the Them Scouts of America?
Perhaps I have been in pandemic isolation too long. Is this just the mad meanderings of a madwoman in July 2021 after five years of political and pandemic insanity? No harm is meant by the above to anyone of any gender, non-gender, pronouns or pluralities in any perceived realities.
Interesting meanderings, not necessarily of a pandemic madwoman. Kind of in inverse order, but I have heard (not investigated myself, yet) that "they/them" were originally singular and became plural sometime later (how's that for exact data reporting?). I am 63, have been an out lesbian for 45 of those years, and am very gender non-conforming in my appearance. My pronouns are she/her, although I wonder if I were 23 instead of 63 if I might make a choice more reflective of the current state of gender expression and not of the binary system in effect "back in the day". I have a (now deceased) person I called my "niephew" who was born female, but identified as a "non-determinate boi" as they grew into their 20's. They loved the "niephew" tag as it really expressed that they were both and neither exclusively. My nephew (a poly gay man who came out when he was 14) has brought more "they/them" people into my life, and I still have to work hard on preferred pronouns. The horn professor at U of O is genderqueer and uses they/them; they are also married to a man; I have to work on using their preferred pronouns. We also have a person who presents very much as my "niephew" did in our tuba ensemble; I have even gotten some of our old crusty tuba guys using they/them with them.
Troop/trooper/trouper, now.... The Oregon State Police have State Troopers, they are also referred to as Troopers, individually and collectively. The phrase "a good troop" is a compliment to an individual with them, even though as an individual they are a trooper.
Camp Fire still uses "girls" as do Boy/Girl Scouts. I, too, was a Camp Fire Girl (I recently sang the CFG song to a friend of mine, and think I got the words I memorized 50 years ago right). The scouts use "scout" as the singular and the "troop" as the group.
Luria was so good today in the hearing!!
Yes. Luria mentioned her own Oath taken as a 17 year old Navy recruit. Ex-surface battle commander, Luria, also quoted Hemingway as you know: "What went wrong. Slowly .. then rapidly".
💙
HCR's clinching final paragraph today:
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop. And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Bonnielou's "disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness" says almost everything.
ALMOST.
The fact remains that rational political professionals like Neville Chamberlain and Daladier could not understand this aspect of Hitler's mentality. Nor could the severely paranoid Stalin understand Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union, precisely because it was suicidal, and Stalin's very psychosis protected him from deliberately suicidal actions... Consequently, projecting his own mentality onto the Fuehrer (we all tend to fall into this trap) he assumed his fellow dictator shared the same trait...
Problem: our total inability to understand the nature of madness—above all its collective forms—and, consequently, to cope with madmen and their actions. This, at a time when more and more psychiatric cases have made it to power, exploiting the very nature of madness, their own madness, their special power to tap into and give powerful expression to the sickest, lowest-lying subconscious levels of the collective psyche and set off mass epidemics.
Our western philosophical tradition seems to have great blind spots in this area, likewise our psychology and the practice of psychiatry. Look at history. Look, in particular, at that of the 20th century…
Nietzsche is one major exception:
“Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern (Radford, VA: Wilder, 2008), 56.
Can’t we wake up and see what is staring us in the face? And deal directly with our super-spreaders.
Let us try a quick sidestep now, to gain another perspective…
Three annotations by German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (from the years between 1789 and 1793… the time of the French revolution…)
Since a man can go mad, I do not understand why a universal system cannot also. This fits well with Dolomieu’s hypothesis.
One of the strangest delusions man would be capable of is to believe he is insane and sitting in a madhouse but actually be acting completely rationally. If someone once became convinced of this, I really do not see how one could convince him otherwise.
We cannot really know whether we are not at this moment sitting in a madhouse.
Appreciate your insight. I, too, was struck by HCR’s closing comment. The present feels like a hideous American farce of prior history dreamed up by the likes of Stephen King. (My apologies to him for this assumption). Clever, compelling, horrifying- dragging us along til our nails are bitten raw and molars fractured. A book we wish had never been written.
“He (Trump) cannot stop himself from escalating” has the terrible ring of truth. He will drive his supporters off a cliff if no one stops him. And they will take much of the country with them.
This is the madness we are navigating right now. Sandy Lewis is right, this is not about facts, it’s tribal. No rational discussion can affect it. Here we are.
Many mass movements, such as Nazism, were insane. (It's acceptable to murder our own citizens for the good of the Reich...) Trumpism is another. The question is will his misguided cattle stop or go over the cliff.
Sad to say, I believe they will either all go over the cliff with him, or wander the rest of their lives wondering how they got sucked into the insanity. Mr. Lewis is spot on in his assessment that this is tribalism; my addendum to that is "on steroids".
They’ve already gone over the edge.
Don't a good number of us know? We aren't really in a sauna sweating it out.
Hive a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself. It would save Putin having to do it.
We are now playing seditionist whack-a-mole with liars and manipulators attempting to distract from their treasonous actions. With 2022 elections, all gerrymandered and suppressed, set to give governing to oligarchs, tyrants, and traitors, democracy can no longer be about money if it is to sustain. Higher ideals, deeper values, and the trust of the hearts of citizens willing to vote in support of the notion of a nation of freedom for all calls for leaders of vision, speaking truth to power. In our situation, the power is money, lots of it, dark and dirty.
The show is opening; popcorn, buttered with Parmesan, and the chilled white wine awaits.
Our current difficult situation goes back to the Civil War. The seditious states and their leaders were not held accountable in ways that Nazis were after WWII. I remember being taught the glory of Robert E. Lee as a student in high school and that the war was about states’ rights. I remember thinking that Lee was a “gentleman” and not a traitor. In another time and place, he would have been prosecuted and imprisoned or even executed for his military role. HCR details how the South won the Civil War. I think we are still fighting.
Civil war that we are still fighting, because we never finished off the plantation owners as influential.
Yes, I agree, but as Greg Olear points out in his column today, Russia's Putin has been purposely stirring the racist pot in America (along with funding NRA and t-Rump) to reignite our Civil War. He has learned from our history even if we haven't.
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/trump-is-putins-ultimate-weaponliterally?r=7ygy0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook
Yes, Kimceann, should be engrossing and entertaining, if nothing else. With luck, we may even learn all the details of what happened on Jan. 6th, who set it all in motion and for exactly what purpose. Not a moment too soon. Better late than never. Dang, I've run out of cliches already!
But why is it that the FBI hasn’t already gotten to the bottom of this? Why haven’t they fully investigated the Congress Critters that were most certainly involved in some way? Why do we believe this committee will find the answers when the FBI hasn’t? Is it expediency? Is it their subpoena power? Why hasn’t someone in the National Guard come out and told us why it took so long? I would think this puzzle shouldn’t be difficult to assemble.
Why are there anti-democracy seditionists allowed to be sitting in our government seats right now?
I am hoping this will come out in the investigation. They need to be removed, pronto.
I am sure the FBI HAS gotten to the bottom of this, as has the National Guard, Defense Department and DOJ. BUT their private wheels must move very slowly and carefully, build the cases, anticipate every con game, follow the letter of the law. What the Congressional January 6th Committee can do, (and after today's first session it is clear they are doing it brilliantly) is tell the irrefutable story in a public forum, with the authority to require that witnesses must tell the truth. And to do it in a way that good Americans will listen, understand, be moved, and then VOTE accordingly. When the Capitol Police officers stated they were "attacked by domestic terrorists," then one read the definition of "domestic terrorist", the impact was stunning. Irrefutable. When these eye witnesses reported that the people who were bludgeoning them said they were following Trump's orders - and the video echoes that truth, it is irrefutable. When Rep. Kevin McCarthy takes the stand and tries to lie his way out of his treasonous flip flop, the evidence to the contrary will be irrefutable. Fox News, in the meantime, featured a fashion show at 10 a.m. today.
I wish I could quadruple Like your excellent summation.
Thank You. I pray it all comes true, and soon.
In the committee hearing today, the officers spoke about not being able to conduct the investigation themselves, and that the FBI was investigation specific individuals and groups involved in the actual assault. They urged the committee to "get to the bottom" of this and identify the ones who "hired the hit man."
The select committee seems the proper venue.
Of course, the congresscritters and senators involved may well be re-elected.
I am also hopeful!
I think the public Jan. 6 Committee hearings are essential for a number of reasons, not least to ensure that those Americans willing to pay attention will learn and spread what they've learned about what was done by whom and when regarding Jan. 6. It's essential that it be done publicly. It's also because the committee has subpoena power and we'll be learning about why the National Guard and others weren't brought out until almost too late. As for the FBI, we don't know if they have their own investigation ongoing, or not - they are unlikely to share that with the general public.
It's kind of like those novels where they have different endings you can choose from. HCR is correct. He can not stop himself from escalating. So, here's the thought experiment. What are the next several steps of escalation? OK, chess players out there. What are his next set of moves?
I believe he will be crippled by the facts that are surely forthcoming from these hearings. After all the 'he won't get away with this!' the time has finally come that he #won't this time! I honestly believe it. People aren't expecting it... too many times chicken-little....
but I think it's the 'charm' we deserve at last! One impeachment, 2 impeachment's, trial by video and testimony...bingo!