In what world will djt not contest the ruling to release his tax returns? He will tie this up in court as long as the law allows....and then some. He has been abusing the court system his entire adult life.
Today my concern lies with the 6 million plus households facing eviction as the moratorium ends. This has been an untenable situation for both sides. Funds have been hard to obtain due to red tape. Landlords are refusing government payouts because of the strings attached and because they think they can find more stable tenants. Tenants being evicted are still on the hook for back rent even if their landlords refused government funds. Evicted tenants are effectively black listed and can’t find landlords who will accept them.
These are families already struggling and now facing homelessness in the middle of a surging pandemic where affordable housing has dried up.
As a landlord, I understand how difficult this year has been. When our tenant had her hours cut she called us in a panic. We agreed to cut her rent in hall until her employment improved. Now a year later, she’s fully employed and we’re raising her rent gradually until she’s back to full rent.
Deferring rent doesn’t work, it only digs a deeper and deeper hole for those least able to pay it back. States were allotted funds to distribute and many have slow walked that distribution. The money sits in state coffers while their citizens face eviction.
I agree that djt will continue to abuse the court system; it seems a given. I want to thank you for working with your tenant when her income decreased during the pandemic. She has probably thanked you, I want to acknowledge your compassion.
Diane! I’m so proud of you and your tenant. Finding a solution in the face of this mood of untenable obstruction of decency is an example of what ordinary people do…work together and find the win for all. “We are all in this together. There is enough to go around.”Brava!
The 2020 attempted coup may not have been successful, but the enemy is already setting the game so they can do it successfully in 2024. Things are more dangerous now than they were a year ago.
And the pandemic is doing a great job of tearing us apart socially, so that it will be even easier politically.
There are times when the only way I can be an optimist is to just say "fuck it." We HAVE to win.
When I was in nursing school and wrestling with the question of what to do when somebody who was chronically ill and obviously suffering very much, maybe even on their last legs, an intern warned me, "Once you cross a moral barrier, the power of inhibition is never quite as great." I don't remember what he looked like or what his name was but I have never forgotten his words.
When I was in nursing school 50 years ago, though, it was not uncommon to do all that could be done to prolong suffering. I remember a skeletal 85 year old, riddled with bed sores, being fed through feeding tubes and IVs, because no one would decide when enough was enough. And a woman in CCU mouthing over her tracheostomy tube to the cardiac surgeon after her 2nd heart bypass operation failed "Let me die", but he said, "Sorry, I can't understand you. We will take you back into surgery and you'll be fine." I told him, "She said she wants to die." He shrugged and wrote the pre-op orders. She died on the operating table. I am sure he collected all his fees. And I remember the many in agony from chronic pain whose doctors would say they couldn't have any more narcotics or they will become addicted. Since then the medical definition of morality has thankfully changed. We nurses were key in the founding of ethics committees and hospice care and pastoral support. While I understand what that intern meant, there was a moral solution besides suffering.
My sainted, recently departed mom was in nursing school 80 years ago and all her life she was an advocate of allowing people to die with dignity. She and my dad both had living wills with "DNR" ("Do Not Resuscitate") instructions, and they came in handy. My dad, with the help of the ANGELS of the hospice care, was able to die here at home in his room. My mom had a massive hemorrhagic stroke, so she was instantly unconscious, but as long as they gave her oxygen she would breathe. I elected to have her put in a "comfort room" and they would remove the oxygen mask and let her pass. The doctor said it usually takes 5 minutes to a couple of hours--my mom kept breathing on her own for over NINE HOURS. Talk about a will to live! She was NOT going to go without a fight, bless her. But, I wanted her to die in the place she loved best and spent 30 years walking those halls and caring for countless patients--she retired in '86 after 9 years as the Medical Center's Director of Nursing. A damn good nurse. But she knew, understood the value of life as well as anyone, but she also knew there was a time to let people go. My brother and I both are proud that we looked after both our parents faithfully for their last years and we enabled both of them to die happy, peacefully and with dignity.
Forgive the rambling stream of consciousness above and maybe this isn't the place for this discussion...but call it euthanasia, or whatever, I remember when The Netherlands decided to allow euthanasia what a landmark decision that was. It is only done under the most stringent conditions with all kinds of safeguards built in. My mom thought it was what will have to come eventually as medical technology ALSO advances in ways to prolong life. Is it right ethically? She thought it was, with strict controls, and a lot of medical professionals I have known think so as well. Ask the hospice workers. They'll tell you. Those folks are nothing short of amazing.
An old nurse here, rites of passage are a place for love and celebration of lives well-lived. Not for tubes, sustenance of vegetation. Quality of living actually does mean something. Endless discussions with nurses, physicians, family members, and people re-defined as patients led to deep understanding and appreciation of the time to leave this life.
💞 Oh what a wondrous thing you did for your parents, enabling "both of them to die happy, peacefully and with dignity." And what a beautiful role model your mother was, and is, for nurses. Thank you for sharing this Bruce.
Thank you Ally. My concern was for looking at both examples thru the same lens. In Mary Pat’s the person clearly says they don’t want extraordinary life saving measures taken and that wish is ignored but in Claudia’s example we are not aware of what the person wants for themselves. Right to die issues are extremely complicated and in the time of a politically perpetuated pandemic with people needlessly dying, I’m concerned that we may assume too much and not give it the complex consideration it deserves. 🙏
Yes. All that you said Christy. And all that Claudia said: I just remembered something else about that experience in the ICU in Arizona. Two years later (late 70's) I was living 1,000 miles away, watching the news one evening, when Tom Brokaw announced that "The Angel of Death" had been arrested in Texas. And there in handcuffs was a nurse who had worked with me on the 3 to 11 shift in Arizona. She had been secretly murdering patients (by injection of something). I was shocked. I had always thought that nurse was a little wierd, but not evil. And had she killed anyone when working under my charge? Now I am thinking - could our heartbreaking untenable situation in that unit, when "the doctor's 3rd heart surgery of the day always goes bad" and "if they die within 30 days it is a black mark on the surgeon's record", so that some hopeless patient's were kept alive at any cost - could that have pushed that "angel" to cross the line, that moral barrier, as Claudia describes it, once, then again, with "power of inhibition" gone? Maybe she really did see herself as an angel. Maybe she really was.
Thank-you Claudia. We are in the midst of at least two situations that are transforming us; the pandemic and the attempted 1/6/21 coup. How we respond to both will determine who we are going forward. A question we need to ask is: "Can we live with what we will become if we do/don't do this?" Your intern put it very eloquently and succinctly, crossing moral lines is a one-way street. Many of our friends on the right seem to have forgotten this. I hope we can all live with the aftermath of what is in store for our people. -Steve NH RN
I was inteerested to find whst I could that was related to the quote in your comment, Claudia. Fascinating to follow the trail of an internet search - learned much more about the psychology of Moral Disengagement/Selective Morality. Here's a book review that talks to the situations in which it is found - pretty much ticks each box of what we see happening around us so much the last 5 years - https://www.apa.org/international/pi/2016/03/moral-disengagement
The mass psychosis of a huge segment of the US population (pushed on by right wing media and social media) continues. It’s not over. Not sure when it will be. I think the key is continue to call out the lies that are being told constantly.
I agree. We are awash in lies, and the only way to keep them from overwhelming us all is to continually, emphatically, and intelligently call them out. One tool is George Lakeoff’s “Truth Sandwich.” Another is to present the lie in a forum where lying is not tolerated, such as a court or an investigative committee of the legislature.
Thank you for calling it “Mass Psychosis” that is precisely what is happening in my opinion. I wish calling out the lies were a solution, but part of the psychosis is the disbelief in truth, even when staring in their faces. Reality for those inflicted by the djt psychosis is demonized or twisted to mean other. There’s been a rewiring of so many American minds, not only politically, but djt psychosis has opened a path to ugliness, making it ok (amongst their peers) to be their worst selves, to no longer treat the less fortunate with compassion, no longer be concerned with loving thy neighbor, decency and common courtesy no longer have any use for them.
The sadder news is they believe wholeheartedly the same of us. I fear where we are headed, as i’m sure most of us here do. So far TRUTH is not working!
What is the solution? If anyone has something profound to suggest I’d like to read it!
Joe you might want to check out this website. They have been trying tirelessly to show why TFG is so dangerous and informing the public about mass psychosis.
His focus on sexuality was intolerable to other academics. Alice Miller further took up the mantel for how authoritarian parenting creates egos vulnerable to mass psychosis. Today we have the science of childhood trauma. Someday maybe we get to the point where all children are cherished and revered? https://traumaedessentials.com/resource-centre/alice-miller
The Kaiser ACE study was ground breaking on this. There are plenty of media articles on the correlation between the counties that went heavily for TFG and addiction and poor health.
One of my former nursing students, now completing her doctorate in nursing, is doing her dissertation on implementing what we know from the ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences) studies into bedside nursing care. Such powerful and important work.
I read your comment right after reading these WaPo pieces and your “mass psychosis” fits. It really is frightening what people will believe in search of a feeling of bliss.
Thanks for saying hi Christine and for the blessings.
I've been dealing with two things lately that kept me from posting. One, as a veteran with significant ptsd I go thru 1-3 bouts of depression per year that are fueled by grief or anger (the bouts are triggered by random memories cropping up too fast to deal with individually or by new outside events or both that feed off each other). These are normal occurrences for my ptsd & I've learned to deal with them as they arrive & leave. (If too deep I know to seek out some 'maintenance therapy'.) One particular lesson learned the hard way years ago is that I need to monitor what I say to others - or now, with my involvement in conversations online, what I post - during these bouts because if I don't I will spout off in anger or grief and then need to explain and/or apologize. Usually apologize. So, when these bouts occur I tend to go radio silent for a while.
Plus, a few weeks ago I was in the zone while gardening and absentmindedly filled the wheelbarrow off balance and as could be expected, it tipped over and, unfortunately for me, landed on my foot and broke several bones (even with work boots on - it landed on an old injury). Sigh. I learned the hard way years ago (the hard way of learning things seems to be my modus operandi) to keep my mouth shut when in severe or bad pain. Not doing so can = spouting off which leads to more explanations & apologies. Mostly apologies.
Again, I appreciate that you noticed my absence and I thank you for that and the blessings. I wish you many of those as well - blessings, not bouts of depression.
Thanks for your reply Mike. We each find our own way that works best with whatever we are dealing with. In my life I have found that walking away is sometimes the best, and even at times, the kindest, approach to the situation. Again - that is what worked for me and in very specific situations.
I don't think walking away or giving up is a good idea for what we are all going through here in our country - I'm referring to the attempted coup & current Republican attempts to change the laws to solely benefit their warped beliefs on human rights and to change our democracy (or as it currently is due to Citizens United, oligarchy) to a dictatorship.
Tя☭mp may try to contest the release of his tax returns to Congress by the Treasury department but will learn he lacks standing for such a suit. The order by DoJ and the cited law that requires the release of the returns is about the Treasury department not Tя☭mp releasing the returns. Sorry Tя☭mp but you are just not involved and SOL.
Tя☭mp’s criminality is now being addressed by many judicial and legal authorities and that list will only continue to grow. He will be a defendant in legal proceedings for whatever remains of his miserable life. Based on his losing streak in those heard to date, undoubtedly many of those will not go well for him. Is this crook really the person the Republican party wants as its leader?
Donald Trump has always engaged in dubious behavior. I read 3 books about him during the 2016 campaign and wondered then how had he not been indicted, tried, and convicted? His felonious behavior now takes place on a larger stage and in plain sight of God and everyone.
I would say Satan worshiper, but in reality I do not think he possesses a sufficient attention span or intellectual capacity to follow any. Watching him reminds me of watching a cat chase the dot of light from laser pointer.
As a cat owner (or as the human my cats choose to rule :) I can say that cats possess an ability to focus that he has never nor will ever, have. >^..^<
That is an interesting article Fern. Thanks for link.
Also, the face of the Pallus cat in the article is how I felt when I woke up this morning. Thanks to the lively, good mannered conversations here I have shaken that mood off and am ready to face the day with more equanimity :)
I too think that sometimes, especially on dark days. The pattern does feel ominous and the threats are very real.
However, I know how easy it is to stay in that darkness and how quickly it will taint everything we think or see. If there are things that can help you (and by you I mean all of us) look for and find points of goodness hang onto to those. Make a list - it really can help. I don't mean points of goodness within politics although if you find any, that's great. I mean any point of goodness or joy or laughter that reaches through the darkness and sadness over what it is going on now (all of it - politics, environmental disasters, human rights, our own losses and the griefs we bear...). Those points of goodness can help us not fall into despair or stay there too long.
This helps me. Just tossing out the idea in case it helps others.
I agree, and feel that it also might be helpful to create a list here of all the courageous people who stayed true in the face of serious adversity, for example: Churchill, Lincoln, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, MLKing, John Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt … and on and on. People CAN be so inspirational!
Thanks for your remark, Kasumi. I'm not prone to depression by a long shot, but I'm finding it helpful and necessary to focus more on the good things happening and actually doing some good things myself. The feel-good hormones, Serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins, are activated and increased in our bodies and brains by exercise, enjoying beautiful things, eating right, and helping others. This doesn't make the bad things disappear but it helps us to keep our mental focus where we want it to be, to refute falsehoods, and do good where we can.
Here is a summary of the advice from a therapist many years ago I continue to follow. Find a cause you care and are deeply passionate about and where you feel working on it can make a difference in others lives. Then find a well organized group of people who make that cause their passion also. Get involved with that group and meet others there. Find activities together with them that make a difference. It may not be about solving the problem, but perhaps your efforts will make a difference in some lives. Take joy from that and share that joy with others in the group. In the process you will feel less despair and hopelessness as you realize you and others are making a difference in the world. Believe me, it works.
Oh yes! My passion and devotion to saving the elephants always keeps me focused on great things and people.... And my love of photography energizes me more than just about anything else. And this sickening virus eats away at our democracy, and the Covid-19 and its progeny eats away at the human race we will all have to our own way to stay afloat upon the quicksand.
It was when I read that his first wife told Vanity Fair that he studied Hitler's speeches that I became aware his evil was intentional on a large scale. Our mistake was to misjudge his abilities
This article in 2015 may help. It seems to imply whatever religion he follows, the Bible isn't a major factor in it since he knows so little of what's in it.
Without your close-up vantage point, his lack of character and cartoonish behavior were well-known to many New Yorkers. I raised the question of his religion for our amusement. Michael Bales provided a winning answer, with
'The "I, Me, Me, I" religion' early on. I laugh every time whenever saying out loud. I hope you have a lovely weekend. I just returned from a walk in Central Park. It's a perfect summer day.
'I’ve never met Trump, but he’s stated that two of his greatest influences were his father and Peale. Acknowledging defeat would repudiate the core message of "The Power of Positive Thinking" while dishonoring the legacies of Fred Trump and the famous author and preacher he and his son so admired. In Trump’s Peale-conditioned mind, these ideals have always worked, and are even more relevant now than ever.' (Todd Blodgett, the author of "Republican Crackhead,". Des Moines Register)
kimceann, Your reply led me to the Trump-Peale connection. Father and son Trump were positively devoted to 'The Power of Positive Thinking' and to Peale himself, who officiated at Donald's first two weddings. Peale wrote, “it’s an affront to God for you to have a low opinion of yourself.” 'Attending his funeral were Trump and Richard Nixon, who credited Peale’s sermons with inspiring him, in 1968, to seek the presidency.' (Des Moines Register)
kimceaan, your reply delivered a presidential load, bigtime! Thank you.
Thanks for clearly laying out who the parties are to this latest tax return saga, Bruce. I don't see your name often on these pages, but when I do, I sit up a little straighter knowing what's to come will be measured and, dare I say, factual.
Bruce, I think the question is how man Americans would like to be the judges and juries on Trump's cases? I won't mention how large the audience for his hanging because that would be impolite or not politically correct.
Well, I would be willing to stand in a long line just to have the opportunity to go through the voir dire process for a Tя☭mp trial. I doubt I would clear the defense questioning but would enjoy having the chance to express my views.
From your mouth to God's ear ... but it would have to be a place which would not permit him to continue his inane actions from afar, a place where he would be "defanged." Remember Napoleon's escape from Elba.
81 million, but that's not counting those that didn't vote but would enjoy the show, and let's not ignore Trump voters eager to atone for their mistake.
At the same time, know that your readers are deeply grateful to you for your consistently keen observations and conclusions. Now if you could just persuade the anti-vaxxers to receive the vaccine....
As I watch this blatant act of deceit by the former President play out, I still don't feel he or his accomplices will be properly punished.
I am reminded of the lawyer phrase, never ask a question you don't already know the answer to. Never do an insurrection that you know you can't get away with. The biggest attempted heist of the US administration in plan view happened January 6th. There is no question.. All the expected GOP participants are clamoring to the press to spin their perverted version of the day. As long as they spin this bullshit, their followers will continue to build momentum.
How much more does one need to hear from the police officers, under oath, that the insurrectionists were yelling " Trump sent us" ?
I go back to my often stated, "if President Obama did this can you imagine what the GOP would do?
I have tried that tack with some Republiqan friends, from my father-in-law (who responded with talking points from Faux Noise) to my cop friends (who responded by changing the subject.) Their lack of a thoughtful answer cements, in my mind, that they are in dire need of an intervention of truth.
There are so many who live their lives according to peer pressure, without taking the responsibility of thinking, or researching, for themselves. It’s more important to them to be part of the group than to work to understand the truth.
Being part of a group is a common human behavior. It goes back to when we lived in caves - being part of a group was safer than being alone. It still is the cause of much of what we do. You are correct - we each need to think about the why before we commit to any group's behavior and beliefs. Not many do but we should.
Great stuff, Linda. A real dictator-wannabe would have marched at the head of the her to the capital building, instead of hiding in a bunker. Trmp goes just far enough and then say, "who, me?"
Actually Obama would have worked too hard trying to find a compromise and the GOP would have taken over. Please also consider, Obama failed to get a SCOTUS nomination, so his successes are quite limited.
I agree that Obama failed in one aspect. He slept while the GOP began the modern Gerrymandering efforts in 2010. Obama could have sued, in court, to stop that, bringing high attention to the issue and mobilizing everyone against it.
But, he did not. I regret his lack of leadership in that arena.
Obama's compromise, which significantly expanded health care access was not perfect. It raised the premiums and deductibles on everyone's private insurance, and, resulted in a larger budget deficit and a bunch of off the books payments to insurance companies to cover their "costs".
However, it did expand healthcare to many that did not previously have it.
With the huge power of the Insurance Lobby in Washington buying politicians on the left and the right, Obama did OK.
If Rep. Jim Jordan is any indication, the R Congressmen who aided and abetted DT in ways that fomented the Jan 6 Insurrection are feeling scared out of their minds tonight. Rep. Jordan stuttered and squirmed in great anxiety and looked like a deer trapped in the headlines (pun intended) when asked the question if he had talked with DT on Jan. 6th. Before, during or after the insurrection...? You could see his brain spinning searching for the safe answer -- after I think... Whoa. He knows he's not going to get away with that answer. He knows the answer. He now fears he will be under oath in front of the Special Committee the next time he is asked that question. I hope these R MoCs responsible for The Insurrection are seeing their careers in Congress about to end and knowing it might be too late to save themselves. The order to release the DT tax returns was a nice little nail for their coffins. I keep thinking about how this time will be viewed in another generation or two. Will this be one of the turning points? The Insurrection is seeing the The now capitalized and emphasized as a very significant historical event. The 9/11 equivalent turning the country upside down on 1/6 by domestic terrorists. A day of infamy with President Biden as the new FDR or better the JRB - Joseph Robinette Biden, a man in his finest hour.
I’ve watched that segment with Jordan several times. As someone that spent considerable time as a school administrator in elementary school management, my office saw countless conversations with young rogues being asked to “explain yourself, please”. Observing the physics and mechanics of a lie as it happens before your eyes is really pretty straightforward and categorical. Jordan looked no different than a 7 yr old whose eyes darted everywhere but into the eyes of questioner.
If you have opportunity to watch a closeup of the former president or other “R’s” possibly subpoenaed to be questioned before committee getting to the bottom of the bullsh*t, watch their eyes, expression and body language when asked a question. Especially their eyes.
I’ll have to tell you all the famous story sometime about my “tell the truth bear” that served as my assistant prosecuter in my principal’s office.
Yes, Christine. It was my duty as a notary to administer the oath to prospective witnesses before any legal proceeding began. Many times while standing face-to-face with right hand raised, the prospective witness would take a negative, recalcitrant body posture while averting his eyes away from me upon hearing, "Do you solemnly swear, or affirm under penalties of perjury..." It would be at that moment that I stopped reciting. Amazingly, that silence drew the witness back to my attention. Our eyes met. I then proceeded to the finish. I'd been told this did not stop them from lying, but for me it was all about respect for the oath in preparation for providing sworn testimony.
And I will tell you, Lynell, they will always remember that moment. It did stop them from lying for a hot minute. Bringing a moment of truth between two sets of eyes trumps a lie.
As the saying goes...don't ask a question you don't know the answer to. I am sure the select committee will have the answers and will lie in wait for the lies.
I'd love to hear that story of the "tell the truth bear". I know from a modicum of interview training there are certain clues to use when watching for someone tell a lie in an interview, and I have worked with some people who were amazingly good at it. I am too impatient and unobservant to be good at that.
Cathy, After your gleeful fantasy of Jordan, et al., twisting in the wind, it was a pleasure to read 'Robinette' Joe Biden's middle name, written out. I'm going to look it up to learn the name's origins; the sound is pretty, storybook like. We are ready for some more, good news, aren't we Americans?
The select committee must make haste. Jordan, McCarthy etc are stalling until 2022 when they hope to use the culture war and an ongoing pandemic to flip one or both chambers. We need these guys disgraced and if possible ineligible to run by the midterms.
Watching Jordan squirm was wonderful. Imagine how much more squirming will take place in front of a House committee.McCarthy should also be peeing his pants by now.
Pretty straightforward to compare a property value on a tax form ($ low) with that same property value on a bank loan application ($ high). He and his mob accountants are wizards at playing the system and then boasting they pay no taxes. t-Rump shall be Al Caponed.
I know but I want to know how he got away with it for so long. Sure, some of it is the fault of the IRS for permitting this king of thing with many real estate folks, but there has to be more forthcoming once these returns are released. Right?
Remember this is the IRS that doesn't have enough resources to go after the rich and why the Rs opposed adding IRS resources for that piece of potential tax income in the pending infrastructure bill. Them that has keeps.
I believe it's not only truth in the returns that are in question, but also evidence of money laundering or sources of money from foreign banks, etc. Whose asset was tRump?
Isn't the point of getting them to prove they aren't? It's all but a certainty. The question is whether his cheats rise to criminal levels? I believe they do, why else has he fought so hard to keep them hidden (of course after promising to produce them in 2015-16)
Yes, Spooky. Watch it again. (I know, not recommended by another friend on our forum). His eyes blink several times at beginning. Revving up his lying mouthpiece. When asked crucial question “before, during, after”, his eyes go up and to his right. Research on anatomy of a lie suggest this is an indicator the mind is searching for a lie response. Jordan says “I guess, after?”
I thought to myself when I watched this “why you little liar. You prob talked to him before, during, and after!”
Good morning Lynell. You are so fierce. May the march to Austin be as powerful as peace. And may those that pull the puppet Abbot’s strings (Heritage,Koch, Bannon come to mind) have their underwear wedgied clear up to their brains.
Very cool. I really appreciate how we’re learning bits and pieces about each other. The gardens are rocking. Asiatic lilies are well over 7’ high. And the bees in the lavenders are spectacular balm to politics.
Of course, this automatically implies that Trump knew Republican leaders were on board with the Big Lie from the beginning. I wouldn't put it past the Republicans to have proposed the Big Lie strategy to Trump. Republicans have proven time and again that they will stop at nothing to gain and keep power.
Trump is out of office. These Republicans are still in office and they took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. To me, it's an obvious case of sedition. I can't imagine why Democrats would not try to make the case.
If 13 Senators are implicated and it is proven they were in on the Big Lie from the start, that should be easy grounds for expulsion. Maybe not easy; maybe wishful thinking on my part. I would like to see the Democrats stand tall defending the Constitution against a fanatical political party that is staunchly defending a traitor and grifter. At the very least that is a compelling case for voting for Democrats. Because of Covid, people's patience has been exhausted with the Republican malcontents.
It has been reported that Rudy repeatedly told him "Just say you won," in spite of the facts. I'm sure he wasn't speaking in a vacuum. We need names of others in that space and at that same time.
It's the BIG LIE, perpetuated by the deluded and the sociopaths, kept going by a sort of mass psychosis, which itself feeds off the lie, creating a vicious cycle of hate, paranoia, and mendacity
I wish I could say this is shocking. It would make me sleep better, but it's not going to. The Orang attempted...fill in the blank...It's the way it was. My hat is tipped to those who were brave enough to say, "no," to this National embarrasment... THEY are heroes.
"Sedition; noun: incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority." Miriam Webster, Collegiate Edition.
Donaghue, Rosen, and the ex-president, especially the ex-president, must be called before the House Jan. 6th commission, with a subpoena if necessary, sworn in, and grilled on the conversation described above, and any other discussion or communication that might be germane to the Jan. 6th insurrection.
If the conversation described by HCR this morning took place, a president of the United States committed the crime of sedition while sitting in the Oval Office.
I don’t know what the legal consequences would be, and I doubt anyone else does either. There is no precedent; nothing even close.
Desertion by a soldier can get a firing squad. It seems to me that sedition by the Commander in Chief is the same thing, even worse.
I’m opposed to the death penalty so how about life in prison, solitary confinement, no outside communication in or out except hand-written notes once a month with direct family members, maybe ones in the same cell block.
Are we not confounded as Americans, day after day, in this time of tumult and uncertainty? Yesterday, justice began to be served on Donald J. Trump, and we received some depressing news about the Delta variant.
Our plans are now disrupted and our health is further challenged, Can our hearts still be merry?
'I have understood well that the duty of self-preservation rests solely with the American people'.
--Abraham Lincoln's January 19, 1863 Letter to the Workingmen of England
Could that be the reason why so many Republicans seem to be discouraging vaccination? They want the cases to rise so that the focus has to pivot to, we are distracted by, the immediate crisis, not the former administration’s crimes.
These words might sound threatening if they were spoken by some of the folks I know locally, or out in East Texas.
But, coming from Donald Trump?
I have to smile broadly. Maybe even laugh out loud.
Everything, I mean everything that was ever "left to Trump"? Failed spectacularly.
Let's consider, for example, his Capitol "insurrection". Calling on a bunch of older, out of shape, white, male, SSD and Welfare recipients, sitting in their basements watching Fox News, to take over the Congress?
50 or so Capital police held them off, distracted them and saved every last person in Congress from contact with them.
Not exactly George Washington is Trump.
I think we will be OK folks. When someone who has failed at every last thing they have ever done in their life, and backstopped that failure with bankruptcy law, takes up anything at all, the probability of failure is nearly 1.0.
Could he succeed if someone else takes over? Sure.
But, as long as Trump is driving? Just laugh like you are driving in a convertible on a nice sunny day.
He’s not nearly as harmless as you seem to believe. He has indeed failed at everything he does but he is highly effective at being the frontman for hate, misogyny, racism and bigotry and that appeals to quite a few of your fellow Americans. Even if he personally did not storm the Capital he was the instigator and that very much matters.
Not to mention he is beholden to Putin and Russian oligarchs, mobsters, and other crime syndicates that will be coming out of the woodwork. My hope is that the newest indictment, of Tom Barrack, bears fruit.
"The evil geniuses at the KGB knew what our weakness was, long before the fall of the Soviet Union: our institutionalized racism. The U.S. went around the world trumpeting liberty and justice for all, while maintaining an egregious double standard at home. Any moral argument about the United States versus the USSR would end with a mustachioed Russian saying, “А у вас негров линчуют”—which means, “Ah, but you lynch Black people.” In short, American racism is good for Soviet, and now Russian, propaganda efforts. It makes us look like a nation of hypocritical bigots. So installing the avatar of hypocritical bigotry in the White House, and building his politics around white grievance, around white victimhood, plays right into Putin’s tiny hands.
The Russians have known for years that race is the ultimate wedge issue in the United States—and that nothing riles up ignorant white people like the seemingly-anodyne declaration that Black lives (also) matter. Every time some mouthbreathing lummox in blue murders an unarmed Black person, Putin smiles. Derek Chauvin may as well be a GRU operative."
I have long lamented our government's idiocy in trying to tell other countries how to live when our own country was created by genocide and slavery and still runs on racism, bigotry and misogyny. (For those who want to say "not everybody!" I do know that.)
Perhaps you misunderstood what I said. I did not say trump created racism (or bigotry, etc) I said he was/is highly effective at using all of those things to instigate other people’s actions.
That he is a racist (and bigot, etc) only strengthens the manipulation.
That may be but in four years he turned the US into one of his failed businesses & made major efforts to destroy our environment, speeding up the climate change that is causing half the world to burn & half to drown
Trump has had support in terms of corrupt lawyers. True. But, Trump has been the driver. Witness his complete absence of success.
Only two exceptions to failure exist: Two golf courses in Scotland, that are currently way in the red on the balance sheet, were purchased by Trump with cash.
This cash came from Russia and was money laundered into those Golf Courses. Eric Trump, no smarter than his father, openly admitted that on a golf course to a reporter. Bragging.
So, IF Trump gets some cash from Russia, he will then curry favor with Putin. Yes.
But, could Putin get him to concentrate long enough to be successful at whatever plan Putin gives him?
Trump strongly feels he must be in the driver seat, and, to actually take the wheel from his is not easy. For those in America who are paying him off and trying to get him to do their bidding, yes, they are partly successful. You can now dump mining slag in creeks and rivers again.
But, where real leadership is needed, Trump has none.
His absence of real leadership and skill will help us. Sure, can some rich Republican write a playbook for him hoping he will follow it? Yes.
But, could Trump read the playbook? Can he concentrate long enough to make a plan against the playbook? Can he follow through with appropriate resources at the right times?
OUR (USA's) problem is that Mitch McConnell has been in the Senatorial driver's seat since before Mr Obama was elected the first time.He determined (and announced) that he and all good Republicans would/should do everything possible to deny success to the Obama administration. He did a 'good' job of that, and his urge for power remained in control of his behavior. Without McConnell, Trump might not have had the disruptive power that he had. McConnell is the second scourge of the past 12 years..... He turns my stomach.
Also at least one lumber company clear cutting the mountains (where only a few native West Virginians, like a friend of mine, know howcto hike back in to see the evidence) causing floods that the company blames on weather.
In my neck of the woods, EPA says coal ash isn't hazardous and TVA simply wants to leave it behind at their decommissioned fossil plants in unlined pit along our rivers.
Their mission was deconstruction of the administrative state per Bannon. They accomplished a great deal towards that goal. That is, in no way, failure. If only people would stop doubting his abilities and power. We have a great deal of work ahead. See other posts today regarding mass psychosis. Hopefully we will succeed in holding TFG accountable but that is only the first step towards a healthy democracy
Sorry, but he has succeeded spectacularly at unleashing white supremacy, racial hatred, divisions between friends and family, and killing over 600,000 Americans from COVID.
I agree Mike. All of that ugliness was already here. He gave it permission to be screamed aloud, shoved in all our faces and to malignantly bloom.
I agree with Annette about the covid deaths. He and his corrupt administration are responsible for deliberately allowing that situation to explode and for deliberately politicizing a virus for their malicious benefit. They should all be held legally responsible for these heinous and immoral actions resulting in a massive amount of death and disability.
You are so right! They were too busy trying to monetize the pandemic to actually work to mitigate the situation for the benefit of the citizenry. Private sector my ass (thinking of you kushner).
50 or so ill prepared, poorly armed, and partly trained Capitol police held off Trump's ragtag Welfare and SSD army. Not a single member of Congress was harmed or captured.
Let’s say that, as small business owners, the ones who stormed the capitol had most definitely filled out all the paperwork to get the government money supporting small business during Covid.
Hence, their free time on and around the 6th.
People with real going concern businesses were working that day.
Plus. There were plenty of SSD recipients there that day.
Ms. Richardson, can you give us an explanation for why more funding for the IRS was removed from the current infrastructure legislation? Persons like me asking my congresspersons to raise taxes on the most fortunate and on whatever corporate earnings that didn't get shipped to Ireland for a green-time of some sort. Proponents of lowering taxes often claim more money would be available if existing tax laws were enforced which could get people to pay their share, but cutting taxes, then underfunding the tax inspectors and regulators calls for saying "Do you think I'm as stupid as I look?" Through 3-D glasses, this kind of free-market looks more like a "free ride system." I've been accused of too little faith in the justice of trickle-down economics, but I got very suspicious when I found some secret documents which showed trickle-down to be crossed out and outhouse substituted in its place. Most of us have mastered intuitive reasoning enough to know the relative benefit difference between sitting in the outhouse and sitting underneath. It's the kind of truth that is said to just "hit you in the face," to coin a phrase.
But it is being done in plain sight, “saying the quiet part out loud” so to speak. We must make the “R”s explain their reasons for removing extra funding for the IRS to be used to crack down on tax cheats. I, for one, would be very interested in hearing their answers.
Or, as she prefers with her graduate students "Heather". She has her undergrads call her "Professor" or "Doctor". Even after being in this community, I can't bring myself to use Heather; I rely on Professor. 35 years of chain of command influence, I believe. (Although, I had a friend whose Mom asked me to use her first name. Instead, I called her "Mrs. Susan Abbot's Mother".
“Don’t expect you to do that, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the (Republican) Congressmen.”
I'm sure the traitors have all met and agreed on their story. We'll hear the denials from their lying mouths. Meanwhile they continue their heinous plot to destroy American democracy as we know and knew it. Lock them up where they belong.
Tomorrow is the first day of August 2021. That is the month Trump and his supporters say he will regain the White House. We must all be on our guard against this Big Lie.
Yes, that is the most damning quote I have seen thus far. Glad he included the R congressmen as well. The summer has been hot and it looks like it may get hotter yet. At this point nothing would surprise me. I just hope we can get through this without further bloodshed.
Trump, Trump, Trump: the Chinese Water Treatment, with dirty water. It’s all over but the shouting. The FBI got Capone on taxes. Elliot Ness, as I recall. One L or two.
And, did you read Dana Milbank's last opinion piece - "Fact check: Is Kevin McCarthy a ‘moron’?" "Read and listen to some of the House minority leader's mystifying remarks."
You just can't make this stuff up! (Did you see what I did there?)
It is mystifying how Republicans could have elected him Speaker. Those excerpts made him sound like my late husband who, in addition to having ALS, also suffered from FTD- Fronto-Temporal Degenerative Disorder, a form of dementia, that meant he could not find the right words to say when he spoke nor could he process information well enough to make decisions. Glen had that diagnosis. Wonder what the hell McCarthy’s real problem is? (Thanks for the laugh at the end. Yes, I did see what you did there!)
Sheila, I am so sorry to hear about your husband. I have a good friend from my high school years that suffers from FTD. Each year I try to call him for his birthday and he doesn't know who I am, nor can he talk to me. I keep calling more for his wife than him now. So I truly, truly am sorry.
Thanks Annette. Caring for a most beloved spouse 24/7 in a pandemic year was a challenge. Having said that, I was one of the lucky ones who could quit my job, take care of Glen and we had no problems we couldn’t handle or pay someone to help handle. I hope your friend’s wife has similar help. Makes all the difference in the world to have folks like you be in touch - keep doing that for his wife. Stay safe down there!
Just read it. OMG! I never listen to McCarthy when he speaks so missed all of that. I had no idea that "word-saladism" was communicable! "On Pelosi ....: “We watched time and again where she told the American public they couldn’t get a haircut — except for her. We told her that she fights for the Americans, but they make $5 million in less than a month trading stock options … on tech companies that were — that were debating inside the House; that the only reason the market went up, that they made that money was what the outcome of the stocks — or, the outcome of the bills."
As for the other direct quotes, I would agree that "word tornado" fits very well. [Wapo article: "...in which words scatter randomly and sometimes disappear entirely."]
Kevin is a "schmoozer", that's how he's made his bones. One thing he has in common with the ex-WH-ahole is a deficit in the brain department. Kev should be the social coordinator for some greedy monopoly company somewhere. Anywhere but in Congress.
For now let him stay put because the errors he's prone to make will serve to keep the House Democratic until the next Presidential Election.
Thanks for the giggle Christopher! This is totally akin to the protesters who waved signs saying "keep government hands off my medicare" when the Ghastly Ones were obstructing the passage of the ACA. ignorance is the greatest evil of our time and far too many 'Murricans are pig-ignorant (which is an insult to pigs).
When will people accept that, to a small degree, we are a social welfare state under the umbrella of capitalism. That's pretty much what a social safety net is.
“curlicue writing”. Hahahahaha. I constantly admonish teachers who tell me “we don’t have time to teach ‘cursive’ to kids anymore.” I tell them, well, there’s some pretty damn important documents they will not be able to read.
Speaking of handwriting, I read this awhile back from a graphology expert who was asked if …”does Donald Trump have bad handwriting?”
“Bad” is too subjective a word for expert graphologists and is almost never used because it is far too amorphous.
Donald Trump’s handwriting quite vividly reflects his personality and in brief indicates he is a fast thinker, uses his “gut” (intuition) to make most of his decisions, and indicates that he is probably the most extremely vainglorious leader of any country on Earth, including all of the founding fathers of the USA, all of it’s presidents, and all but a few pathetically delusional individuals housed in insane asylums.
His script is readable and mostly printed, his signature is obscenely ridiculous and several times bigger than George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s.
It also is showing increasing signs of stress and perhaps of drug addiction, probably to prescription “uppers” and perhaps even levodopa.
Is that “bad”? As I said, not in graphology terms. It just is what he is, you must decide if what he is is bad or not.”
I got an A in penmanship one time in 5th grade and I think it was a gimme. Having now written on computers for 30+ years the only cursive I have left is my signature and even that gets murky b/c the only time I need it is when I vote.
In what world will djt not contest the ruling to release his tax returns? He will tie this up in court as long as the law allows....and then some. He has been abusing the court system his entire adult life.
Today my concern lies with the 6 million plus households facing eviction as the moratorium ends. This has been an untenable situation for both sides. Funds have been hard to obtain due to red tape. Landlords are refusing government payouts because of the strings attached and because they think they can find more stable tenants. Tenants being evicted are still on the hook for back rent even if their landlords refused government funds. Evicted tenants are effectively black listed and can’t find landlords who will accept them.
These are families already struggling and now facing homelessness in the middle of a surging pandemic where affordable housing has dried up.
As a landlord, I understand how difficult this year has been. When our tenant had her hours cut she called us in a panic. We agreed to cut her rent in hall until her employment improved. Now a year later, she’s fully employed and we’re raising her rent gradually until she’s back to full rent.
Deferring rent doesn’t work, it only digs a deeper and deeper hole for those least able to pay it back. States were allotted funds to distribute and many have slow walked that distribution. The money sits in state coffers while their citizens face eviction.
This is an unfolding tragedy.
I agree that djt will continue to abuse the court system; it seems a given. I want to thank you for working with your tenant when her income decreased during the pandemic. She has probably thanked you, I want to acknowledge your compassion.
Nice. We cut a tenant’s rent in half and raised it back after a year. With no back rent owed. They were very grateful.
A+
A+ solution!
Diane! I’m so proud of you and your tenant. Finding a solution in the face of this mood of untenable obstruction of decency is an example of what ordinary people do…work together and find the win for all. “We are all in this together. There is enough to go around.”Brava!
Thank you all for your kind words. The Golden Rule never fails to provide clarity.
You are better than good... my brother is an owner of several buildings and the past year+ have crushed him.
Thank you for being a voice for these under-represented people.
It truly is a tragedy.
The 2020 attempted coup may not have been successful, but the enemy is already setting the game so they can do it successfully in 2024. Things are more dangerous now than they were a year ago.
And the pandemic is doing a great job of tearing us apart socially, so that it will be even easier politically.
There are times when the only way I can be an optimist is to just say "fuck it." We HAVE to win.
When I was in nursing school and wrestling with the question of what to do when somebody who was chronically ill and obviously suffering very much, maybe even on their last legs, an intern warned me, "Once you cross a moral barrier, the power of inhibition is never quite as great." I don't remember what he looked like or what his name was but I have never forgotten his words.
When I was in nursing school 50 years ago, though, it was not uncommon to do all that could be done to prolong suffering. I remember a skeletal 85 year old, riddled with bed sores, being fed through feeding tubes and IVs, because no one would decide when enough was enough. And a woman in CCU mouthing over her tracheostomy tube to the cardiac surgeon after her 2nd heart bypass operation failed "Let me die", but he said, "Sorry, I can't understand you. We will take you back into surgery and you'll be fine." I told him, "She said she wants to die." He shrugged and wrote the pre-op orders. She died on the operating table. I am sure he collected all his fees. And I remember the many in agony from chronic pain whose doctors would say they couldn't have any more narcotics or they will become addicted. Since then the medical definition of morality has thankfully changed. We nurses were key in the founding of ethics committees and hospice care and pastoral support. While I understand what that intern meant, there was a moral solution besides suffering.
My sainted, recently departed mom was in nursing school 80 years ago and all her life she was an advocate of allowing people to die with dignity. She and my dad both had living wills with "DNR" ("Do Not Resuscitate") instructions, and they came in handy. My dad, with the help of the ANGELS of the hospice care, was able to die here at home in his room. My mom had a massive hemorrhagic stroke, so she was instantly unconscious, but as long as they gave her oxygen she would breathe. I elected to have her put in a "comfort room" and they would remove the oxygen mask and let her pass. The doctor said it usually takes 5 minutes to a couple of hours--my mom kept breathing on her own for over NINE HOURS. Talk about a will to live! She was NOT going to go without a fight, bless her. But, I wanted her to die in the place she loved best and spent 30 years walking those halls and caring for countless patients--she retired in '86 after 9 years as the Medical Center's Director of Nursing. A damn good nurse. But she knew, understood the value of life as well as anyone, but she also knew there was a time to let people go. My brother and I both are proud that we looked after both our parents faithfully for their last years and we enabled both of them to die happy, peacefully and with dignity.
Forgive the rambling stream of consciousness above and maybe this isn't the place for this discussion...but call it euthanasia, or whatever, I remember when The Netherlands decided to allow euthanasia what a landmark decision that was. It is only done under the most stringent conditions with all kinds of safeguards built in. My mom thought it was what will have to come eventually as medical technology ALSO advances in ways to prolong life. Is it right ethically? She thought it was, with strict controls, and a lot of medical professionals I have known think so as well. Ask the hospice workers. They'll tell you. Those folks are nothing short of amazing.
An old nurse here, rites of passage are a place for love and celebration of lives well-lived. Not for tubes, sustenance of vegetation. Quality of living actually does mean something. Endless discussions with nurses, physicians, family members, and people re-defined as patients led to deep understanding and appreciation of the time to leave this life.
❤
💞 Oh what a wondrous thing you did for your parents, enabling "both of them to die happy, peacefully and with dignity." And what a beautiful role model your mother was, and is, for nurses. Thank you for sharing this Bruce.
A courageous family. What love.
This is why we need to have right-to-die conversations and laws. Diane Rehm advocates for this.
[I meant endoscopy tube, hooked to a respirator, not tracheostomy tube.]
Do we know in this situation what moral barrier the intern was referring to?
The inference I made was end of life care/assistance.
Thank you Ally. My concern was for looking at both examples thru the same lens. In Mary Pat’s the person clearly says they don’t want extraordinary life saving measures taken and that wish is ignored but in Claudia’s example we are not aware of what the person wants for themselves. Right to die issues are extremely complicated and in the time of a politically perpetuated pandemic with people needlessly dying, I’m concerned that we may assume too much and not give it the complex consideration it deserves. 🙏
Yes. All that you said Christy. And all that Claudia said: I just remembered something else about that experience in the ICU in Arizona. Two years later (late 70's) I was living 1,000 miles away, watching the news one evening, when Tom Brokaw announced that "The Angel of Death" had been arrested in Texas. And there in handcuffs was a nurse who had worked with me on the 3 to 11 shift in Arizona. She had been secretly murdering patients (by injection of something). I was shocked. I had always thought that nurse was a little wierd, but not evil. And had she killed anyone when working under my charge? Now I am thinking - could our heartbreaking untenable situation in that unit, when "the doctor's 3rd heart surgery of the day always goes bad" and "if they die within 30 days it is a black mark on the surgeon's record", so that some hopeless patient's were kept alive at any cost - could that have pushed that "angel" to cross the line, that moral barrier, as Claudia describes it, once, then again, with "power of inhibition" gone? Maybe she really did see herself as an angel. Maybe she really was.
Thank-you Claudia. We are in the midst of at least two situations that are transforming us; the pandemic and the attempted 1/6/21 coup. How we respond to both will determine who we are going forward. A question we need to ask is: "Can we live with what we will become if we do/don't do this?" Your intern put it very eloquently and succinctly, crossing moral lines is a one-way street. Many of our friends on the right seem to have forgotten this. I hope we can all live with the aftermath of what is in store for our people. -Steve NH RN
That needs to be taught front and center at police academies.
I was inteerested to find whst I could that was related to the quote in your comment, Claudia. Fascinating to follow the trail of an internet search - learned much more about the psychology of Moral Disengagement/Selective Morality. Here's a book review that talks to the situations in which it is found - pretty much ticks each box of what we see happening around us so much the last 5 years - https://www.apa.org/international/pi/2016/03/moral-disengagement
Thanks for the link. Interesting read.
Thanks.
TY
Great intern.
Profound statement.
The mass psychosis of a huge segment of the US population (pushed on by right wing media and social media) continues. It’s not over. Not sure when it will be. I think the key is continue to call out the lies that are being told constantly.
I agree. We are awash in lies, and the only way to keep them from overwhelming us all is to continually, emphatically, and intelligently call them out. One tool is George Lakeoff’s “Truth Sandwich.” Another is to present the lie in a forum where lying is not tolerated, such as a court or an investigative committee of the legislature.
Thank you for the interesting tool: https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/how-to-serve-up-a-tasty-truth-sandwich/
Excellent info Becky and Sally! Thank You!
Thank you for calling it “Mass Psychosis” that is precisely what is happening in my opinion. I wish calling out the lies were a solution, but part of the psychosis is the disbelief in truth, even when staring in their faces. Reality for those inflicted by the djt psychosis is demonized or twisted to mean other. There’s been a rewiring of so many American minds, not only politically, but djt psychosis has opened a path to ugliness, making it ok (amongst their peers) to be their worst selves, to no longer treat the less fortunate with compassion, no longer be concerned with loving thy neighbor, decency and common courtesy no longer have any use for them.
The sadder news is they believe wholeheartedly the same of us. I fear where we are headed, as i’m sure most of us here do. So far TRUTH is not working!
What is the solution? If anyone has something profound to suggest I’d like to read it!
Joe you might want to check out this website. They have been trying tirelessly to show why TFG is so dangerous and informing the public about mass psychosis.
https://worldmhc.org/
This man was jailed. When will we stop throwing the baby out with the bath water? https://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/mass-psychology-fascism
His focus on sexuality was intolerable to other academics. Alice Miller further took up the mantel for how authoritarian parenting creates egos vulnerable to mass psychosis. Today we have the science of childhood trauma. Someday maybe we get to the point where all children are cherished and revered? https://traumaedessentials.com/resource-centre/alice-miller
The Kaiser ACE study was ground breaking on this. There are plenty of media articles on the correlation between the counties that went heavily for TFG and addiction and poor health.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html
One of my former nursing students, now completing her doctorate in nursing, is doing her dissertation on implementing what we know from the ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences) studies into bedside nursing care. Such powerful and important work.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/06/23/622692550/analysis-finds-geographic-overlap-in-opioid-use-and-trump-support-in-2016
I read your comment right after reading these WaPo pieces and your “mass psychosis” fits. It really is frightening what people will believe in search of a feeling of bliss.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/11/mercy-culture-church/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/does-megachurch-high-explain-their-success/2012/08/20/97dc8ef4-eb07-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_story.html
There is never a time to say "f.... it". Never.
You completely didn't get what I was saying.
In real life there is. This may not be one of those times but they do exist.
Good morning Kasumii. I think it’s one of those times.
Hi Christine. Oh, I agree with both sentiments. I’d take the first one further to say “Fuck it all to hell & back!” and yes, “We HAVE to win”.
I was pointing out to Mike that yeah, sometimes “Fuck it” is the right response.
I know you know. Good to hear from you today. Haven’t seen you on forum lately? Blessings.
Thanks for saying hi Christine and for the blessings.
I've been dealing with two things lately that kept me from posting. One, as a veteran with significant ptsd I go thru 1-3 bouts of depression per year that are fueled by grief or anger (the bouts are triggered by random memories cropping up too fast to deal with individually or by new outside events or both that feed off each other). These are normal occurrences for my ptsd & I've learned to deal with them as they arrive & leave. (If too deep I know to seek out some 'maintenance therapy'.) One particular lesson learned the hard way years ago is that I need to monitor what I say to others - or now, with my involvement in conversations online, what I post - during these bouts because if I don't I will spout off in anger or grief and then need to explain and/or apologize. Usually apologize. So, when these bouts occur I tend to go radio silent for a while.
Plus, a few weeks ago I was in the zone while gardening and absentmindedly filled the wheelbarrow off balance and as could be expected, it tipped over and, unfortunately for me, landed on my foot and broke several bones (even with work boots on - it landed on an old injury). Sigh. I learned the hard way years ago (the hard way of learning things seems to be my modus operandi) to keep my mouth shut when in severe or bad pain. Not doing so can = spouting off which leads to more explanations & apologies. Mostly apologies.
Again, I appreciate that you noticed my absence and I thank you for that and the blessings. I wish you many of those as well - blessings, not bouts of depression.
Kasumii, in suboptimal situations with only suboptimal choices, choosing the best choice of the bad bunch is the way to go.
Just giving up? Walking away? Letting things that affect you go untended completely?
I don't recommend that approach.
However, I have thought about that approach before in some circumstances.
Thanks for your reply Mike. We each find our own way that works best with whatever we are dealing with. In my life I have found that walking away is sometimes the best, and even at times, the kindest, approach to the situation. Again - that is what worked for me and in very specific situations.
I don't think walking away or giving up is a good idea for what we are all going through here in our country - I'm referring to the attempted coup & current Republican attempts to change the laws to solely benefit their warped beliefs on human rights and to change our democracy (or as it currently is due to Citizens United, oligarchy) to a dictatorship.
In a nutshell, TC, profound. Must have been and must be what every activist thinks at a tipping point. Right before they say….”We shall overcome”.
Tя☭mp may try to contest the release of his tax returns to Congress by the Treasury department but will learn he lacks standing for such a suit. The order by DoJ and the cited law that requires the release of the returns is about the Treasury department not Tя☭mp releasing the returns. Sorry Tя☭mp but you are just not involved and SOL.
Tя☭mp’s criminality is now being addressed by many judicial and legal authorities and that list will only continue to grow. He will be a defendant in legal proceedings for whatever remains of his miserable life. Based on his losing streak in those heard to date, undoubtedly many of those will not go well for him. Is this crook really the person the Republican party wants as its leader?
Donald Trump has always engaged in dubious behavior. I read 3 books about him during the 2016 campaign and wondered then how had he not been indicted, tried, and convicted? His felonious behavior now takes place on a larger stage and in plain sight of God and everyone.
I am convinced a lesson he will learn well in the years to come is that karma is a bitch
I truly hope so.
If you're convinced, Bruce, and put it that way, what can I say? Prove it!
I grew up across the river from him, and our paper covered all the news from "the City."
His father, Fred, ruined him early and he was a bad human before college. I use the term 'human' because he has never been a 'man.'
New York money and society laughed at him and shunned from early on.
Try this on for size: https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump
stevendm, fascinating premise, and worth the time to reread—(I read it last May at the prompting of another of HCR’s readers).
Which religion do you think he follows?
I would say Satan worshiper, but in reality I do not think he possesses a sufficient attention span or intellectual capacity to follow any. Watching him reminds me of watching a cat chase the dot of light from laser pointer.
As a cat owner (or as the human my cats choose to rule :) I can say that cats possess an ability to focus that he has never nor will ever, have. >^..^<
I can back up your statement, Kasumii, and add that their reflexes are better, too!
Yup I echo Kasumii & Lynell! Better in every way.
'The Unappreciated Value of Cats'
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/30/briefing/the-weekender.html
That is an interesting article Fern. Thanks for link.
Also, the face of the Pallus cat in the article is how I felt when I woke up this morning. Thanks to the lively, good mannered conversations here I have shaken that mood off and am ready to face the day with more equanimity :)
perfect analogy... but even a cat lands on its feet... I really think this is all the beginning of the end..and it is not going to be pretty...
I too think that sometimes, especially on dark days. The pattern does feel ominous and the threats are very real.
However, I know how easy it is to stay in that darkness and how quickly it will taint everything we think or see. If there are things that can help you (and by you I mean all of us) look for and find points of goodness hang onto to those. Make a list - it really can help. I don't mean points of goodness within politics although if you find any, that's great. I mean any point of goodness or joy or laughter that reaches through the darkness and sadness over what it is going on now (all of it - politics, environmental disasters, human rights, our own losses and the griefs we bear...). Those points of goodness can help us not fall into despair or stay there too long.
This helps me. Just tossing out the idea in case it helps others.
I agree, and feel that it also might be helpful to create a list here of all the courageous people who stayed true in the face of serious adversity, for example: Churchill, Lincoln, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, MLKing, John Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt … and on and on. People CAN be so inspirational!
Thanks for your remark, Kasumi. I'm not prone to depression by a long shot, but I'm finding it helpful and necessary to focus more on the good things happening and actually doing some good things myself. The feel-good hormones, Serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins, are activated and increased in our bodies and brains by exercise, enjoying beautiful things, eating right, and helping others. This doesn't make the bad things disappear but it helps us to keep our mental focus where we want it to be, to refute falsehoods, and do good where we can.
Heal spirit first. Matter follows thought. Spirit strong, everything follows, Kasumii!
Bravo!
I just love you, Kasumii!
Here is a summary of the advice from a therapist many years ago I continue to follow. Find a cause you care and are deeply passionate about and where you feel working on it can make a difference in others lives. Then find a well organized group of people who make that cause their passion also. Get involved with that group and meet others there. Find activities together with them that make a difference. It may not be about solving the problem, but perhaps your efforts will make a difference in some lives. Take joy from that and share that joy with others in the group. In the process you will feel less despair and hopelessness as you realize you and others are making a difference in the world. Believe me, it works.
Why, Bruce, I think that may be why you are here! Great advice, sir.
Oh yes! My passion and devotion to saving the elephants always keeps me focused on great things and people.... And my love of photography energizes me more than just about anything else. And this sickening virus eats away at our democracy, and the Covid-19 and its progeny eats away at the human race we will all have to our own way to stay afloat upon the quicksand.
Einstein said that the reason we are here is to make each other happy.
And it's going to take too long,
He's too lazy for that. Where's his Twitter phone?
Hmm . I’ve tossed this around a good deal. He has a genius of the con. He managed to sit himself in our Oval Office for 4 very long years. Some folks have a singular genius. Or was it the silver spoon in his mouth and a lot of luck? 🤷🏻♀️ https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-not-just-a-con-artist-trump-is-also-a-genius-1.9283426
It was when I read that his first wife told Vanity Fair that he studied Hitler's speeches that I became aware his evil was intentional on a large scale. Our mistake was to misjudge his abilities
He had Hillary Clinton and Vladimir to thank, but he only thanked Vlad.
So he did!
In so many, many ways....
He couldn't have made it 4 years without his sycophants in Congress.
Remember his answer to the question asking him about naming any verse or quote from his favorite book, the Bible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERUngQUCsyE
His bible is the book found on his bedside table. Mein Kampf.
https://www.newsweek.com/msnbcs-joe-scarborough-mocks-trump-heard-you-had-mein-kampf-bedside-shouldve-had-1554647
It was "My Order", a book of Hitler's speeches, which makes sense.
Sadly for the world.
Trump: 'I don't want to get into it... to me it is very personal.'
'... the Bible is just something special.'
He even lies about this.
The Bible, the flag, his wife, all props.
My mom had an expression, something like worshipping at "St. Mattress".
😆
Easy. The worship of himself. That's all. And to hell with everybody else. Amen.
Michael Bales came it first with, "I, Me, Me, I". Laugh every time I read it.
Follows? Doesn't he lead one? Sorry, that was sacrilegious of me.
Laughing at this- he couldn’t lead anywhere except on the road to hell. oh wait……!
This article in 2015 may help. It seems to imply whatever religion he follows, the Bible isn't a major factor in it since he knows so little of what's in it.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/donald-trump-reveals-his-favorite-bible-passage-which-he-made-up/
Michael Bales came up with 'I, Me, Me, I'. Isn't that perfect?
The "I, Me, Me, I" religion.
Perfect, Michael. Your the #1 Identifier.
He is probably an adherent to the prosperity gospels as preached by J Osteen
Actually, the idjt was a follower of Norman Vincent Peale.
NVP is probably spinning in his grave
Fern, I would posit that he is without any religion or belief. Clinical narcissism has no room for anything to worship but the Self.
As a grifter, he is capable of having any creed that is useful to his score of the moment. And how do you disprove something that is "personal?"
Without your close-up vantage point, his lack of character and cartoonish behavior were well-known to many New Yorkers. I raised the question of his religion for our amusement. Michael Bales provided a winning answer, with
'The "I, Me, Me, I" religion' early on. I laugh every time whenever saying out loud. I hope you have a lovely weekend. I just returned from a walk in Central Park. It's a perfect summer day.
Norman Vincent Peale...
'I’ve never met Trump, but he’s stated that two of his greatest influences were his father and Peale. Acknowledging defeat would repudiate the core message of "The Power of Positive Thinking" while dishonoring the legacies of Fred Trump and the famous author and preacher he and his son so admired. In Trump’s Peale-conditioned mind, these ideals have always worked, and are even more relevant now than ever.' (Todd Blodgett, the author of "Republican Crackhead,". Des Moines Register)
kimceann, Your reply led me to the Trump-Peale connection. Father and son Trump were positively devoted to 'The Power of Positive Thinking' and to Peale himself, who officiated at Donald's first two weddings. Peale wrote, “it’s an affront to God for you to have a low opinion of yourself.” 'Attending his funeral were Trump and Richard Nixon, who credited Peale’s sermons with inspiring him, in 1968, to seek the presidency.' (Des Moines Register)
kimceaan, your reply delivered a presidential load, bigtime! Thank you.
BruceC, but how long will all this take? iDJT will appeal and appeal and appeal. Not to mention that the wheels of justice turn slowly in any event
I want to live to see him in prison.
I did hear that Garland gave 72 hrs only for any legal response to his order for release.
Thanks for clearly laying out who the parties are to this latest tax return saga, Bruce. I don't see your name often on these pages, but when I do, I sit up a little straighter knowing what's to come will be measured and, dare I say, factual.
Yes, Thanks Bruce.
Bruce, I think the question is how man Americans would like to be the judges and juries on Trump's cases? I won't mention how large the audience for his hanging because that would be impolite or not politically correct.
Well, I would be willing to stand in a long line just to have the opportunity to go through the voir dire process for a Tя☭mp trial. I doubt I would clear the defense questioning but would enjoy having the chance to express my views.
Oh, my dear, voir dire, voir dire, if it brings you cheer.
I looked it up so now I know something new with my first cuppa this morning. Love your rhyme.
One of my favorite parts of sitting in on a trial.
Voir dire is always fun.
I'm thinking it won't take long for Trump to flee to Russia or whatever country will have him.
Saudi Arabia.
That's what I'm thinking. Lots of golf courses in UAE.
Only Russia would take him, and solely for the propaganda value. His value to other countries dropped like a rock when he lost.
Saudi Arabia. A sabre match has been arranged between him and Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. You're invited.
Yes! Or dueling orbs.
Dueling bone saws
Yu-Gi-Oh
Russia might take him, but he is of no use to them now as his power continues to wane. If they take him he will undoubtedly end up in Siberia.
From your mouth to God's ear ... but it would have to be a place which would not permit him to continue his inane actions from afar, a place where he would be "defanged." Remember Napoleon's escape from Elba.
'...the question is how many...'
Fern, how many folks voted for Biden. There’s our answer!
81 million, but that's not counting those that didn't vote but would enjoy the show, and let's not ignore Trump voters eager to atone for their mistake.
Apparently
From your lips Bruce, may it be so.
they see no evil....
Quick, turn off the generator, eat the ice cream before it melts and listen to the quiet.
At the same time, know that your readers are deeply grateful to you for your consistently keen observations and conclusions. Now if you could just persuade the anti-vaxxers to receive the vaccine....
Only Natural Law can cure stupid. Hopefully, the herd is thinned of its weakest minds without too much collateral damage.
Thank you Heather.
As I watch this blatant act of deceit by the former President play out, I still don't feel he or his accomplices will be properly punished.
I am reminded of the lawyer phrase, never ask a question you don't already know the answer to. Never do an insurrection that you know you can't get away with. The biggest attempted heist of the US administration in plan view happened January 6th. There is no question.. All the expected GOP participants are clamoring to the press to spin their perverted version of the day. As long as they spin this bullshit, their followers will continue to build momentum.
How much more does one need to hear from the police officers, under oath, that the insurrectionists were yelling " Trump sent us" ?
I go back to my often stated, "if President Obama did this can you imagine what the GOP would do?
Be safe, be well.
I have tried that tack with some Republiqan friends, from my father-in-law (who responded with talking points from Faux Noise) to my cop friends (who responded by changing the subject.) Their lack of a thoughtful answer cements, in my mind, that they are in dire need of an intervention of truth.
There are so many who live their lives according to peer pressure, without taking the responsibility of thinking, or researching, for themselves. It’s more important to them to be part of the group than to work to understand the truth.
Being part of a group is a common human behavior. It goes back to when we lived in caves - being part of a group was safer than being alone. It still is the cause of much of what we do. You are correct - we each need to think about the why before we commit to any group's behavior and beliefs. Not many do but we should.
Faux Noise… nice.
Great stuff, Linda. A real dictator-wannabe would have marched at the head of the her to the capital building, instead of hiding in a bunker. Trmp goes just far enough and then say, "who, me?"
Randy, just like Mafia Dons — never do the dirty work yourself. Fred and Roy Cohn trained their boy exceedingly well
Yes, that is the kind of thing Tr#@p learned. But I am fine with him being in prison , bored to tears with no sycophant fan club swirling around him.
If President Obama had tried to take over the Capital, he would have been successful.
Everything Obama ever did was successful. So, fortunately for the Republicans, Obama did NOT try to take over the Capitol.
He would still be in charge of the government.
Actually Obama would have worked too hard trying to find a compromise and the GOP would have taken over. Please also consider, Obama failed to get a SCOTUS nomination, so his successes are quite limited.
I agree that Obama failed in one aspect. He slept while the GOP began the modern Gerrymandering efforts in 2010. Obama could have sued, in court, to stop that, bringing high attention to the issue and mobilizing everyone against it.
But, he did not. I regret his lack of leadership in that arena.
What I regret is that he ever brought Rahm Emmanuel to the White House.
My answer to that is that Obama was the best Republican President since Eisenhower.
Lol; I agree.
Obama didn't "fail" at getting a SCOTUS nomination. He was blocked by an immoral, unethical Senate majority leader and the other GOP members.
He did not force and sue Congress to do it's function. Instead, he seemed to assume Clinton would win.
Not everything Obama ever did: He failed to get a true Healthcare for All system in this country.
Obama's compromise, which significantly expanded health care access was not perfect. It raised the premiums and deductibles on everyone's private insurance, and, resulted in a larger budget deficit and a bunch of off the books payments to insurance companies to cover their "costs".
However, it did expand healthcare to many that did not previously have it.
With the huge power of the Insurance Lobby in Washington buying politicians on the left and the right, Obama did OK.
If Rep. Jim Jordan is any indication, the R Congressmen who aided and abetted DT in ways that fomented the Jan 6 Insurrection are feeling scared out of their minds tonight. Rep. Jordan stuttered and squirmed in great anxiety and looked like a deer trapped in the headlines (pun intended) when asked the question if he had talked with DT on Jan. 6th. Before, during or after the insurrection...? You could see his brain spinning searching for the safe answer -- after I think... Whoa. He knows he's not going to get away with that answer. He knows the answer. He now fears he will be under oath in front of the Special Committee the next time he is asked that question. I hope these R MoCs responsible for The Insurrection are seeing their careers in Congress about to end and knowing it might be too late to save themselves. The order to release the DT tax returns was a nice little nail for their coffins. I keep thinking about how this time will be viewed in another generation or two. Will this be one of the turning points? The Insurrection is seeing the The now capitalized and emphasized as a very significant historical event. The 9/11 equivalent turning the country upside down on 1/6 by domestic terrorists. A day of infamy with President Biden as the new FDR or better the JRB - Joseph Robinette Biden, a man in his finest hour.
I’ve watched that segment with Jordan several times. As someone that spent considerable time as a school administrator in elementary school management, my office saw countless conversations with young rogues being asked to “explain yourself, please”. Observing the physics and mechanics of a lie as it happens before your eyes is really pretty straightforward and categorical. Jordan looked no different than a 7 yr old whose eyes darted everywhere but into the eyes of questioner.
If you have opportunity to watch a closeup of the former president or other “R’s” possibly subpoenaed to be questioned before committee getting to the bottom of the bullsh*t, watch their eyes, expression and body language when asked a question. Especially their eyes.
I’ll have to tell you all the famous story sometime about my “tell the truth bear” that served as my assistant prosecuter in my principal’s office.
Yes, Christine. It was my duty as a notary to administer the oath to prospective witnesses before any legal proceeding began. Many times while standing face-to-face with right hand raised, the prospective witness would take a negative, recalcitrant body posture while averting his eyes away from me upon hearing, "Do you solemnly swear, or affirm under penalties of perjury..." It would be at that moment that I stopped reciting. Amazingly, that silence drew the witness back to my attention. Our eyes met. I then proceeded to the finish. I'd been told this did not stop them from lying, but for me it was all about respect for the oath in preparation for providing sworn testimony.
And I will tell you, Lynell, they will always remember that moment. It did stop them from lying for a hot minute. Bringing a moment of truth between two sets of eyes trumps a lie.
And I choose my words deliberately.
I fully expect that, like the Watergate hearings, there will be many saying "I do not recall" under oath.
Followed by a subpoena of phone records.... or, hopefully, with those subpoenaed records in hand, a not so subtle rephrase of the question.
As the saying goes...don't ask a question you don't know the answer to. I am sure the select committee will have the answers and will lie in wait for the lies.
My thoughts exactly.
Wow!
Yes! I will never forget the little 8 year old who declared to me "I couldn't help it. My middle finger just popped out!"
Okay, enough, Christine. It is a form of torture to see Jordan for half a second. You are absolutely asking for too much!
Very, Spooky. Very.
It was indeed and he failed to yell. One of the better things to see this week.
Or as Michael Steele said, he looks like he's been caught masturbating in front of his mother!
I'd love to hear that story of the "tell the truth bear". I know from a modicum of interview training there are certain clues to use when watching for someone tell a lie in an interview, and I have worked with some people who were amazingly good at it. I am too impatient and unobservant to be good at that.
I will tell that story for sure, Ally.
Cathy, After your gleeful fantasy of Jordan, et al., twisting in the wind, it was a pleasure to read 'Robinette' Joe Biden's middle name, written out. I'm going to look it up to learn the name's origins; the sound is pretty, storybook like. We are ready for some more, good news, aren't we Americans?
'Robinette', is simply a name, from French for Robin. I think there be some connection to Scottish as well.
'Rouge-gorge', thank you Spooky. I like seeing Robins, and you've brought more nuance to the name.
The select committee must make haste. Jordan, McCarthy etc are stalling until 2022 when they hope to use the culture war and an ongoing pandemic to flip one or both chambers. We need these guys disgraced and if possible ineligible to run by the midterms.
Watching Jordan squirm was wonderful. Imagine how much more squirming will take place in front of a House committee.McCarthy should also be peeing his pants by now.
Now there's an image...
With regard to DJT’s tax returns, why would we think they would be truthful?
Pretty straightforward to compare a property value on a tax form ($ low) with that same property value on a bank loan application ($ high). He and his mob accountants are wizards at playing the system and then boasting they pay no taxes. t-Rump shall be Al Caponed.
I know but I want to know how he got away with it for so long. Sure, some of it is the fault of the IRS for permitting this king of thing with many real estate folks, but there has to be more forthcoming once these returns are released. Right?
Remember this is the IRS that doesn't have enough resources to go after the rich and why the Rs opposed adding IRS resources for that piece of potential tax income in the pending infrastructure bill. Them that has keeps.
.....In both parties sadly. Establishment Democrats talk the talk but when push comes to shove they forget how to walk. (I'm keeping this one. ;-) )
Right.
Should I be surprised? You are a comedy writer; can you do standup, too?
As for stand up: unlike most people, I do enjoy public speaking. My goal is that the audience enjoy it, too.
Thanks Fern. But I am sure it is my mother's Irish wit sneaking through my heavy prose unbidden. I can hear her giggle!
What's yours is yours! Mother's winking at you, too.
'We' do assume that they're not. 'Forensic' accountants will nail the deceptions, fraud... or much of what the returns reveal.
I believe it's not only truth in the returns that are in question, but also evidence of money laundering or sources of money from foreign banks, etc. Whose asset was tRump?
Oh Happy Day when all those connections are revealed!
Isn't the point of getting them to prove they aren't? It's all but a certainty. The question is whether his cheats rise to criminal levels? I believe they do, why else has he fought so hard to keep them hidden (of course after promising to produce them in 2015-16)
Can you post a link to the Gum Jordan segment?
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420827835246186496
Thx
Yes, Spooky. Watch it again. (I know, not recommended by another friend on our forum). His eyes blink several times at beginning. Revving up his lying mouthpiece. When asked crucial question “before, during, after”, his eyes go up and to his right. Research on anatomy of a lie suggest this is an indicator the mind is searching for a lie response. Jordan says “I guess, after?”
I thought to myself when I watched this “why you little liar. You prob talked to him before, during, and after!”
Keeping the pressure on in Texas
Justice Department sues Governor Abbott over executive order on migrants: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/us/politics/greg-abbott-justice-department-lawsuit.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210730&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=103820600&segment_id=64980&user_id=c2f4f50a36dc90a23a014672d0f1f5b5
Poor People's Campaign will hold rally today, July 31, after moral march from Georgetown to Austin:
https://actionnetwork.org/events/georgetown-to-austin-march-for-democracy
Good morning Lynell. You are so fierce. May the march to Austin be as powerful as peace. And may those that pull the puppet Abbot’s strings (Heritage,Koch, Bannon come to mind) have their underwear wedgied clear up to their brains.
Yes, Lynell is so fierce! Good Morning ya'all!
Morning, MaryPat!! Gave my usual "morning, all..." a break today. Haven't we all been fierce in the face of injustice...yes!
Love the underwear visual, Christine...ooh!
I second that emotion - and image! 🤣
Happy and Safe marching with the Poor People's Campaign! Please tell us about your 'good trouble', when the time is right.
Stay tuned, Fern...Morning!
Every reference to the Campaign raises spirits. So happy that you will be there!
Good morning, Lynell!
I hope that in our "drinking day" of true martinis, we can begin the day with a good cup of coffee.
Morning cup of choice for me...Morning, Ally!!
In hand. I don't know much about martinis, but am willing to learn.
I’ll teach you. We will use a few tasties from your garden as garnish!
Very cool. I really appreciate how we’re learning bits and pieces about each other. The gardens are rocking. Asiatic lilies are well over 7’ high. And the bees in the lavenders are spectacular balm to politics.
Whoa! To read the words, "...leave the rest to me."
Yes. These are the words a mafia Don might say
Guaranteeeeeeed he's said it thousands of times before. Disgusting.
Truly appalling and horrifying.
Of course, this automatically implies that Trump knew Republican leaders were on board with the Big Lie from the beginning. I wouldn't put it past the Republicans to have proposed the Big Lie strategy to Trump. Republicans have proven time and again that they will stop at nothing to gain and keep power.
Trump is out of office. These Republicans are still in office and they took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. To me, it's an obvious case of sedition. I can't imagine why Democrats would not try to make the case.
If 13 Senators are implicated and it is proven they were in on the Big Lie from the start, that should be easy grounds for expulsion. Maybe not easy; maybe wishful thinking on my part. I would like to see the Democrats stand tall defending the Constitution against a fanatical political party that is staunchly defending a traitor and grifter. At the very least that is a compelling case for voting for Democrats. Because of Covid, people's patience has been exhausted with the Republican malcontents.
It has been reported that Rudy repeatedly told him "Just say you won," in spite of the facts. I'm sure he wasn't speaking in a vacuum. We need names of others in that space and at that same time.
It's the BIG LIE, perpetuated by the deluded and the sociopaths, kept going by a sort of mass psychosis, which itself feeds off the lie, creating a vicious cycle of hate, paranoia, and mendacity
I wish I could say this is shocking. It would make me sleep better, but it's not going to. The Orang attempted...fill in the blank...It's the way it was. My hat is tipped to those who were brave enough to say, "no," to this National embarrasment... THEY are heroes.
"Sedition; noun: incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority." Miriam Webster, Collegiate Edition.
Donaghue, Rosen, and the ex-president, especially the ex-president, must be called before the House Jan. 6th commission, with a subpoena if necessary, sworn in, and grilled on the conversation described above, and any other discussion or communication that might be germane to the Jan. 6th insurrection.
If the conversation described by HCR this morning took place, a president of the United States committed the crime of sedition while sitting in the Oval Office.
George Conway agrees with you: https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1420562213044097029/photo/2
I hope a lot of people agree with me.
Thank you for the link.
Gleefully, apparently, Ralph. While thinking of his posse.
I’ll be watching that barbecue.
What are the possible consequences as it certainly appears provable without a doubt?
I don’t know what the legal consequences would be, and I doubt anyone else does either. There is no precedent; nothing even close.
Desertion by a soldier can get a firing squad. It seems to me that sedition by the Commander in Chief is the same thing, even worse.
I’m opposed to the death penalty so how about life in prison, solitary confinement, no outside communication in or out except hand-written notes once a month with direct family members, maybe ones in the same cell block.
That sounds great! my only added request, please, please make sure his cell is dank, dark and full of rats
No rats! It has to be solitary confinement; no friends allowed!
Cockroaches are ok, though.
I don’t think he would consider these rats his friends 😁 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r5GRU6cov5E
Are we not confounded as Americans, day after day, in this time of tumult and uncertainty? Yesterday, justice began to be served on Donald J. Trump, and we received some depressing news about the Delta variant.
Our plans are now disrupted and our health is further challenged, Can our hearts still be merry?
'I have understood well that the duty of self-preservation rests solely with the American people'.
--Abraham Lincoln's January 19, 1863 Letter to the Workingmen of England
Could that be the reason why so many Republicans seem to be discouraging vaccination? They want the cases to rise so that the focus has to pivot to, we are distracted by, the immediate crisis, not the former administration’s crimes.
Trump said: "leave the rest to me".
Hmmm.
These words might sound threatening if they were spoken by some of the folks I know locally, or out in East Texas.
But, coming from Donald Trump?
I have to smile broadly. Maybe even laugh out loud.
Everything, I mean everything that was ever "left to Trump"? Failed spectacularly.
Let's consider, for example, his Capitol "insurrection". Calling on a bunch of older, out of shape, white, male, SSD and Welfare recipients, sitting in their basements watching Fox News, to take over the Congress?
50 or so Capital police held them off, distracted them and saved every last person in Congress from contact with them.
Not exactly George Washington is Trump.
I think we will be OK folks. When someone who has failed at every last thing they have ever done in their life, and backstopped that failure with bankruptcy law, takes up anything at all, the probability of failure is nearly 1.0.
Could he succeed if someone else takes over? Sure.
But, as long as Trump is driving? Just laugh like you are driving in a convertible on a nice sunny day.
Anything Trump does has failed, and will fail.
He’s not nearly as harmless as you seem to believe. He has indeed failed at everything he does but he is highly effective at being the frontman for hate, misogyny, racism and bigotry and that appeals to quite a few of your fellow Americans. Even if he personally did not storm the Capital he was the instigator and that very much matters.
Not to mention he is beholden to Putin and Russian oligarchs, mobsters, and other crime syndicates that will be coming out of the woodwork. My hope is that the newest indictment, of Tom Barrack, bears fruit.
Trump did not beget or originate, in any way, profound white racism against Black folks.
Trump just made it obvious to us, again how much hate there really is in America.
Breathtaking as it is for some of us to see, it is not new, and, Trump did not create it.
White folks who hate raising white folks who hate are the origin of the racism Trump spoke directly to, and openly.
But Putin stirred our racist pot so tRump could feed on it. Read Greg Olear's 7-27'21 Prevail article (exerpt below):
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/trump-is-putins-ultimate-weaponliterally
"The evil geniuses at the KGB knew what our weakness was, long before the fall of the Soviet Union: our institutionalized racism. The U.S. went around the world trumpeting liberty and justice for all, while maintaining an egregious double standard at home. Any moral argument about the United States versus the USSR would end with a mustachioed Russian saying, “А у вас негров линчуют”—which means, “Ah, but you lynch Black people.” In short, American racism is good for Soviet, and now Russian, propaganda efforts. It makes us look like a nation of hypocritical bigots. So installing the avatar of hypocritical bigotry in the White House, and building his politics around white grievance, around white victimhood, plays right into Putin’s tiny hands.
The Russians have known for years that race is the ultimate wedge issue in the United States—and that nothing riles up ignorant white people like the seemingly-anodyne declaration that Black lives (also) matter. Every time some mouthbreathing lummox in blue murders an unarmed Black person, Putin smiles. Derek Chauvin may as well be a GRU operative."
Interesting article MaryPat. Thanks for the link.
I have long lamented our government's idiocy in trying to tell other countries how to live when our own country was created by genocide and slavery and still runs on racism, bigotry and misogyny. (For those who want to say "not everybody!" I do know that.)
Perhaps you misunderstood what I said. I did not say trump created racism (or bigotry, etc) I said he was/is highly effective at using all of those things to instigate other people’s actions.
That he is a racist (and bigot, etc) only strengthens the manipulation.
That may be but in four years he turned the US into one of his failed businesses & made major efforts to destroy our environment, speeding up the climate change that is causing half the world to burn & half to drown
I agree, but who said t-Rump was, or is, driving?
Right, Mary Pat. He’s had a damn driver his entire life.
Trump has had support in terms of corrupt lawyers. True. But, Trump has been the driver. Witness his complete absence of success.
Only two exceptions to failure exist: Two golf courses in Scotland, that are currently way in the red on the balance sheet, were purchased by Trump with cash.
This cash came from Russia and was money laundered into those Golf Courses. Eric Trump, no smarter than his father, openly admitted that on a golf course to a reporter. Bragging.
So, IF Trump gets some cash from Russia, he will then curry favor with Putin. Yes.
But, could Putin get him to concentrate long enough to be successful at whatever plan Putin gives him?
Unlikely.
Putin owns him.
I’m not suggesting lawyers as drivers, Mike.
Golf course? That’s why he loves swinging his driver. And you bring up name yourself. He considers Putin a chauffeur. Good disguise Vladdy.
Trump strongly feels he must be in the driver seat, and, to actually take the wheel from his is not easy. For those in America who are paying him off and trying to get him to do their bidding, yes, they are partly successful. You can now dump mining slag in creeks and rivers again.
But, where real leadership is needed, Trump has none.
His absence of real leadership and skill will help us. Sure, can some rich Republican write a playbook for him hoping he will follow it? Yes.
But, could Trump read the playbook? Can he concentrate long enough to make a plan against the playbook? Can he follow through with appropriate resources at the right times?
Very, very, very unlikely.
OUR (USA's) problem is that Mitch McConnell has been in the Senatorial driver's seat since before Mr Obama was elected the first time.He determined (and announced) that he and all good Republicans would/should do everything possible to deny success to the Obama administration. He did a 'good' job of that, and his urge for power remained in control of his behavior. Without McConnell, Trump might not have had the disruptive power that he had. McConnell is the second scourge of the past 12 years..... He turns my stomach.
Aye, that's the problem with Democracy, yes? All of McConnell's voters have listened to the propaganda that Ronald Reagan spewed and believe it.
So, they are allowed to vote anyway, and, they vote for McConnell.
I say bar all folks from West Virginia from voting. Suppress those votes!
:-)
Oops. Kentucky I mean. OK, bar both states from voting.
I drove past the slag heaps daiky on my way to work in West Virginia in the late 70's. Worse now as they take off the mountain tops...
Yes, Trump's big success, reversing the regulation that prevented dumping slag into lakes, rivers and creeks.
The interesting thing is that there is anyone in America that would actually do that, knowing what we know now.
Apparently, yes, there are folks willing to do that.
Also at least one lumber company clear cutting the mountains (where only a few native West Virginians, like a friend of mine, know howcto hike back in to see the evidence) causing floods that the company blames on weather.
In my neck of the woods, EPA says coal ash isn't hazardous and TVA simply wants to leave it behind at their decommissioned fossil plants in unlined pit along our rivers.
Their mission was deconstruction of the administrative state per Bannon. They accomplished a great deal towards that goal. That is, in no way, failure. If only people would stop doubting his abilities and power. We have a great deal of work ahead. See other posts today regarding mass psychosis. Hopefully we will succeed in holding TFG accountable but that is only the first step towards a healthy democracy
Sorry, but he has succeeded spectacularly at unleashing white supremacy, racial hatred, divisions between friends and family, and killing over 600,000 Americans from COVID.
Annette,
I am sad to say that Trump did not unleash white supremacy, racial hatred and divisions between friends.
White people in America unleashed racial hatred, long ago.
Friends, who cannot manage large differences, unleashed absence of friendship.
A catalyst is part of a process, but, not the cause for the process.
Trump was just a catalyst for existing processes.
I agree Mike. All of that ugliness was already here. He gave it permission to be screamed aloud, shoved in all our faces and to malignantly bloom.
I agree with Annette about the covid deaths. He and his corrupt administration are responsible for deliberately allowing that situation to explode and for deliberately politicizing a virus for their malicious benefit. They should all be held legally responsible for these heinous and immoral actions resulting in a massive amount of death and disability.
Crimes against humanity.
Exactly.
You are so right! They were too busy trying to monetize the pandemic to actually work to mitigate the situation for the benefit of the citizenry. Private sector my ass (thinking of you kushner).
I hope you’re right. I really do.
Aye, me too. :-)
He's a very noisy failure
The great movie "Bronx Tale". He is the character Mush.
I would add:
50 or so ill prepared, poorly armed, and partly trained Capitol police held off Trump's ragtag Welfare and SSD army. Not a single member of Congress was harmed or captured.
So, these were white guys with jobs and small businesses. NYT did a research piece on 'em. Very few SSD/welfare types.
Let’s say that, as small business owners, the ones who stormed the capitol had most definitely filled out all the paperwork to get the government money supporting small business during Covid.
Hence, their free time on and around the 6th.
People with real going concern businesses were working that day.
Plus. There were plenty of SSD recipients there that day.
Ms. Richardson, can you give us an explanation for why more funding for the IRS was removed from the current infrastructure legislation? Persons like me asking my congresspersons to raise taxes on the most fortunate and on whatever corporate earnings that didn't get shipped to Ireland for a green-time of some sort. Proponents of lowering taxes often claim more money would be available if existing tax laws were enforced which could get people to pay their share, but cutting taxes, then underfunding the tax inspectors and regulators calls for saying "Do you think I'm as stupid as I look?" Through 3-D glasses, this kind of free-market looks more like a "free ride system." I've been accused of too little faith in the justice of trickle-down economics, but I got very suspicious when I found some secret documents which showed trickle-down to be crossed out and outhouse substituted in its place. Most of us have mastered intuitive reasoning enough to know the relative benefit difference between sitting in the outhouse and sitting underneath. It's the kind of truth that is said to just "hit you in the face," to coin a phrase.
It was done to choke the IRS from the ability to audit more rich people -- by, and as a favor to rich Republican tax cheats.
Yup
But it is being done in plain sight, “saying the quiet part out loud” so to speak. We must make the “R”s explain their reasons for removing extra funding for the IRS to be used to crack down on tax cheats. I, for one, would be very interested in hearing their answers.
They’ve been saying the quiet part out loud since djt came down the escalator. Until now, there’s been no consequence, which has only emboldened them.
Or, as she prefers with her graduate students "Heather". She has her undergrads call her "Professor" or "Doctor". Even after being in this community, I can't bring myself to use Heather; I rely on Professor. 35 years of chain of command influence, I believe. (Although, I had a friend whose Mom asked me to use her first name. Instead, I called her "Mrs. Susan Abbot's Mother".
“Don’t expect you to do that, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the (Republican) Congressmen.”
I'm sure the traitors have all met and agreed on their story. We'll hear the denials from their lying mouths. Meanwhile they continue their heinous plot to destroy American democracy as we know and knew it. Lock them up where they belong.
Tomorrow is the first day of August 2021. That is the month Trump and his supporters say he will regain the White House. We must all be on our guard against this Big Lie.
I'll go ask my Proud Boy neighbor what his plans are this month. Any vacation trips?
Please let us know!
😜
Yes, that is the most damning quote I have seen thus far. Glad he included the R congressmen as well. The summer has been hot and it looks like it may get hotter yet. At this point nothing would surprise me. I just hope we can get through this without further bloodshed.
Spreads the blame while he slithers away.
Trump, Trump, Trump: the Chinese Water Treatment, with dirty water. It’s all over but the shouting. The FBI got Capone on taxes. Elliot Ness, as I recall. One L or two.
One “L”.
Morning Sandy.
In Single Tweet, Stefanik Celebrates Medicare And Medicaid, Rejects ‘Socialist’ Healthcare
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So much for thinking she's "smart". The replies to her tweet are Hall of Famers
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/in-single-tweet-stefanik-celebrates-medicare-and-medicaid-rejects-socialist-healthcare
And, did you read Dana Milbank's last opinion piece - "Fact check: Is Kevin McCarthy a ‘moron’?" "Read and listen to some of the House minority leader's mystifying remarks."
You just can't make this stuff up! (Did you see what I did there?)
It is mystifying how Republicans could have elected him Speaker. Those excerpts made him sound like my late husband who, in addition to having ALS, also suffered from FTD- Fronto-Temporal Degenerative Disorder, a form of dementia, that meant he could not find the right words to say when he spoke nor could he process information well enough to make decisions. Glen had that diagnosis. Wonder what the hell McCarthy’s real problem is? (Thanks for the laugh at the end. Yes, I did see what you did there!)
Sheila, I am so sorry to hear about your husband. I have a good friend from my high school years that suffers from FTD. Each year I try to call him for his birthday and he doesn't know who I am, nor can he talk to me. I keep calling more for his wife than him now. So I truly, truly am sorry.
Thanks Annette. Caring for a most beloved spouse 24/7 in a pandemic year was a challenge. Having said that, I was one of the lucky ones who could quit my job, take care of Glen and we had no problems we couldn’t handle or pay someone to help handle. I hope your friend’s wife has similar help. Makes all the difference in the world to have folks like you be in touch - keep doing that for his wife. Stay safe down there!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/30/fact-check-is-kevin-mccarthy-moron/
Went and found it. Oh. My. God.
I did the same. Priceless!
"Word Tornado" it is except for that one paragraph "word salad". Unbelievable!
Thank you for posting this link….I am overcome! OMG😵😂……swamp fodder
Just read it. OMG! I never listen to McCarthy when he speaks so missed all of that. I had no idea that "word-saladism" was communicable! "On Pelosi ....: “We watched time and again where she told the American public they couldn’t get a haircut — except for her. We told her that she fights for the Americans, but they make $5 million in less than a month trading stock options … on tech companies that were — that were debating inside the House; that the only reason the market went up, that they made that money was what the outcome of the stocks — or, the outcome of the bills."
As for the other direct quotes, I would agree that "word tornado" fits very well. [Wapo article: "...in which words scatter randomly and sometimes disappear entirely."]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/30/fact-check-is-kevin-mccarthy-moron/
Kevin is a "schmoozer", that's how he's made his bones. One thing he has in common with the ex-WH-ahole is a deficit in the brain department. Kev should be the social coordinator for some greedy monopoly company somewhere. Anywhere but in Congress.
For now let him stay put because the errors he's prone to make will serve to keep the House Democratic until the next Presidential Election.
I admit that I posted the Yahoo News story about Nancy calling him a moron on my FB page.
I never listen to him, so I was unaware of how pathetic he is. Wow. This is an eye opener.
Dana seems to have returned to his earlier, edgier self before he tried to be a big shot super pundit. He can be really funny at times.
I loved that article and shared it on Twitter. Yes, I saw what you did (and know who you are)! lol
Thanks for the giggle Christopher! This is totally akin to the protesters who waved signs saying "keep government hands off my medicare" when the Ghastly Ones were obstructing the passage of the ACA. ignorance is the greatest evil of our time and far too many 'Murricans are pig-ignorant (which is an insult to pigs).
Thank you Christopher. I know her stupidity is not funny, but I’m laughing at this particular gaffe and the responses. Especially Ted Lieu and AOC.
It warrants a guilt free laugh, enjoy it!
When will people accept that, to a small degree, we are a social welfare state under the umbrella of capitalism. That's pretty much what a social safety net is.
...and it's hard-coded into the Preamble to the Constitution! There's no controversy about it, it's there in black and white in curlicue writing.
“curlicue writing”. Hahahahaha. I constantly admonish teachers who tell me “we don’t have time to teach ‘cursive’ to kids anymore.” I tell them, well, there’s some pretty damn important documents they will not be able to read.
Speaking of handwriting, I read this awhile back from a graphology expert who was asked if …”does Donald Trump have bad handwriting?”
“Bad” is too subjective a word for expert graphologists and is almost never used because it is far too amorphous.
Donald Trump’s handwriting quite vividly reflects his personality and in brief indicates he is a fast thinker, uses his “gut” (intuition) to make most of his decisions, and indicates that he is probably the most extremely vainglorious leader of any country on Earth, including all of the founding fathers of the USA, all of it’s presidents, and all but a few pathetically delusional individuals housed in insane asylums.
His script is readable and mostly printed, his signature is obscenely ridiculous and several times bigger than George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s.
It also is showing increasing signs of stress and perhaps of drug addiction, probably to prescription “uppers” and perhaps even levodopa.
Is that “bad”? As I said, not in graphology terms. It just is what he is, you must decide if what he is is bad or not.”
😳
I got an A in penmanship one time in 5th grade and I think it was a gimme. Having now written on computers for 30+ years the only cursive I have left is my signature and even that gets murky b/c the only time I need it is when I vote.
Hard to fathom Stefanik can even put words together with such confused understanding of word definitions. How to explain this...
I think it’s part of the act to appear “base-like”
Yes. Because they don’t lie. That would involve some mere self reflection on the truth. They just spew and make up bullshit.