This morning, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a series of emails and documents that show just how hard former president Trump worked to overturn the 2020 election and retain an illegal grip on power. On December 14, 2020, which was the day electors in each state certified the votes of the Electoral College, then-president Trump’s assistant wrote an email to then–Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen talking about alleged voter fraud in Michigan. The email was titled “From POTUS”—that is, from the President of the United States—and it included a long list of talking points to offer about why the votes should not be certified. That email had a number of documents that allegedly proved voter fraud.
While driving on Interstate 410 in San Antonio this morning, I noticed a big sign hanging over the roadway that said "Constitutional Carry is not legal until 9/1/2021". Constitutional Carry is the euphemism for permitless guns. Seems like we need Constitutional Driving and Constitutional Fishing now so we don't have to deal with any paperwork or fees or training or rules. Anyone can fire a gun so what is the problem. Haven't you ever had an intruder enter your house after dark? I have. Neither of us had a gun fortunately. But, as soon as I saw the burglar, a whopping amount of adrenaline shut down my higher brain functions. Fortunately, the burglar said "Yep" and ran out the door when I said "Get out of my house" in the most authoritative voice I've ever used. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my entire life is dial 911 because of the effort it took to overcome the adrenaline in my body. The Police came, they captured it turns out two burglars and they were convicted on my testimony. Two years probation. The police were thrilled to get any kind of conviction. Think what that would have been like if both of us had had guns. Which one of us would have died? More guns and less regulation is not the solution to gun violence.
Quite sure there is some Republican reason that would be offered to not do it, but if EVER there was yet-another reason to have a post-presidency impeachment there now seems to be a good one. Perhaps a criminal investigation is all that exists now, but that would be a good start, too. For all those who wish to recreate the events of the 1/6 "tourist" event at the Capitol; I watched in horror and disbelief MYSELF for the entire sordid affair and I recall seeing no confused tourists... To coin a phrase that millenials use with respect to those "legislators" who wish to recreate this in a light more favorable to their POTUS: "They must be smoking crack." Their "position" is simply wrong and is terribly disrespectful to the poor sots who were clearly overwhelmed and unprepared for the horror that the outgoing POTUS unleashed, literally, on them... I know because I WATCHED IT. I heard the reporting about the calls for help that went unheeded by the military and I WATCHED a non-plussed out-going commander in chief suggest that his supporters should just calm down as if someone had accidentally spilled a drink...Anyone remember when a now-sitting Senator from Georgia was ARRESTED for holding a small gathering in the rotunda?!
Thanks for indulging me a rant, here. But of all the slimy, self-dealing, kill-this-Country stuff that DJT oversaw, this one still makes me froth at the mouth and confuses even my ability to articulate myself. Denying the reality of 1/6/21 should be grounds for removal from office in my little perfect world...alright, mic off for now. :)
A dash of cold water to the face to read this summary of the craziness that still exists in Washington and elsewhere. And to read the digest of the attempt by the former president to subvert the election and use the Dept. of Justice to do this shows how near we are to the onset of a truly dictatorial regime in America---we came close recently and given the storm clouds on the horizon, and the deceit now being documented and the denials and reframing of history taking place in House hearings, etc. we are still teetering on the edge of a disaster. The worst of the struggle is yet to come as Repubs. continue to restrict the vote without apology or conscience. A tidal wave has been building for decades and it is now upon us. (Sorry, not a cheery post---but .........)
Hear hear. Your brilliance, knowledge, integrity, penchant for truth, deftness for knitting together what matters most considering each day’s highlights… and your commitment to diligently chronicling each night’s letter so we can read. learn and therefore sleep better before rising each morning refreshed to join the work for good…. There’s just no way to even begin to describe the difference you are making! It’s in some ways a miracle. Thank you!🙏🏽❤️
I encourage all of us, and especially the younger ones, to do everything in our power to save our nation and democracy. At 70 I am praying there is still a chance to succeed in spite of those who are tearing the nation apart.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! I could say a lot here about what is in today's Letter. What strikes me is there are 21 lawmakers who, by allowing themselves to be evacuated to safety that day, lost their chance to prove to the public that what we witnessed was a nonviolent tourist event.
AG Merrick Garland has the stage… and will call the meeting to order. It remains to be seen if the 2022 election punishes the Democrats for what Garland and Biden and Harris will do to address the very racism so excited by Trump, the GOP, Hawley, Cruz, DeSantis, Abbott, and many more… the racists in our nation and around the world, led by Trump this time… and sending all the facist signals that were largely ignored as late as 1933…. Only Churchill read the signs, and the UK ignored him till the shit hit the fan and Poland was crushed… what will it take this time?
Nobel James Franck spoke out, fingered Hitler, and left Germany in 1933… he was unique. He authored The Franck Report that Truman ignored, managed The Manhattan Project with Fermi, and is respected deeply by those destroyed by his A-bomb. I met Franck when I called in at the home of my wife of 61 years… today. He was her Opa… she and her family fled Hitler in September 1936… none too soon… Tonight we see the signs again… signs largely ignored in Munich in 1933… now ignored here in 2021…
Some good news; there is a story in this morning's NY Times about SDNY attorney Cyrus Vance's office putting the squeeze on the former president's chief financial officer of twenty years Allen Weisselberg. (Link below) One wonders if Mr. Weisselberg, and members of his family, would be willing to go to jail to protect their boss?
I'm hoping that Mr. Vance, and NY State's Attorney Letitia James, will be the ones who bring an end to this insanity with an indictment, or three or four, of the former president.
And again… the wisdom of AG Merrick Garland leads with racism and follows with mental health.. among the concerns. He does not isolate what Trump and the GOP are using to attack voting rights all over America: the fear of Black success, the rising of millions of coloured Americans of every race, the horrid legacy of slavery, June 19th, America’s crippling racism that affects most every aspect of American life today, the prisons filled with Black men, our volunteer dark skinned army chosen for employment, not for patriotism, employment in a nation that denies equal opportunity to people with dark skins… in short, CASTE, and many others… the racist history ignored on white campuses everywhere… the eternal sin of America that only whites can correct… when the GOP manages to reverse, and apologise, as the Dixiecrats finally managed to do… For both political parties, See Federalist 10, have engaged in factious minority and factious majority behaviour, with the underlying fetid stench of racism… that thrives today in at least 20 state legislatures, all focused on messing up voting - led by Texas, Florida, and many many more..
We need a graphic or a spreadsheet to enumerate all the different ways in which Trump tried to reverse the outcome of this election: every judge, jurisdiction, attorney general, electorates, etc... A list of every person he pressured. Writing about it serially isn’t adequate in describing the magnitude of this operation.
Is anyone surprised by Trump's efforts to use the DOJ to overturn the election despite no substantive evidence of fraud? The scale of corruption, I think, has left much of the nation numb to it all. Each new revelation, even the most jawdropping, fits a pattern. And I'm sure we will learn of more. Yet, despite it all, a sizeable number of Republicans believe he will resume the presidency in August because he was cheated out of victory. It's as if an unrelenting mass delusion has settled upon the nation.
What will happen when he is indicted for sundry crimes and convicted? (It will indeed happen.) Will this break the spell? Of course not. Will QAnon adherents become more than "digital soldiers" and turn to acts of violence, as the FBI warned today regarding the increasing threat of domestic terrorism?
It's difficult to see sanity returning despite all the good things that the Biden administration is doing.
How is it the party of law and order is supporting insurrectionists who broke the law? The legislators who are supporting the insurrectionists need to be removed from office. Don’t they take an oath to support the constitution and our Democracy? If the situation was reversed I wager the Republicans would be outraged. Where is the outrage that this insurrection happened? Where is the outrage that Mitch McConnell will not allow Biden to choose a Justice? We can not stand by and watch these radical Republicans destroy our country. What is the path to protecting our Democracy when so many have drunk the kool aid of Trump and McConnell?
This latest story makes it clear why Trump is behind bars. It’s not just his colluding with Putin, not just obstruction of justice, not just violating the emoluments clause, not just bribing foreign governments to attack political rivals, not just tax evasion and bank fraud, not just gross incompetence leading to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, not even just incitement of insurrection. No, Trump is in prison today for subverting the law and attempting to use the DoJ as a political cudgel. It all makes sense. It goes to show that no man is above the law. Justice is served. Wait…what? What? Trump isn’t in prison? He’s free? No, that can’t be. That would mean that our vaunted rule of law is empty and meaningless.
Check out Mark Danner's recent article, "'Reality Rebellion'," in the New York Review of Books, July 1, 2021. Danner writes about the continuing existence of the lie that Trump really did win the election but was cheated out of it by Biden. He writes, "The result is a metastisizing corruption at the heart of the polity. About the Capitol coup there is no shared reality. Nor is there a shared reality about the integrity of the election or of the legitimacy of the president it produced. To millions of Americans the legitimate president remains Donald Trump. A quarter-millennium of American history offers no precedent for this." When citizens no longer believe in the Idea of Democracy, it dies. As long as the lie persists, it is dying.
While driving on Interstate 410 in San Antonio this morning, I noticed a big sign hanging over the roadway that said "Constitutional Carry is not legal until 9/1/2021". Constitutional Carry is the euphemism for permitless guns. Seems like we need Constitutional Driving and Constitutional Fishing now so we don't have to deal with any paperwork or fees or training or rules. Anyone can fire a gun so what is the problem. Haven't you ever had an intruder enter your house after dark? I have. Neither of us had a gun fortunately. But, as soon as I saw the burglar, a whopping amount of adrenaline shut down my higher brain functions. Fortunately, the burglar said "Yep" and ran out the door when I said "Get out of my house" in the most authoritative voice I've ever used. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my entire life is dial 911 because of the effort it took to overcome the adrenaline in my body. The Police came, they captured it turns out two burglars and they were convicted on my testimony. Two years probation. The police were thrilled to get any kind of conviction. Think what that would have been like if both of us had had guns. Which one of us would have died? More guns and less regulation is not the solution to gun violence.
Quite sure there is some Republican reason that would be offered to not do it, but if EVER there was yet-another reason to have a post-presidency impeachment there now seems to be a good one. Perhaps a criminal investigation is all that exists now, but that would be a good start, too. For all those who wish to recreate the events of the 1/6 "tourist" event at the Capitol; I watched in horror and disbelief MYSELF for the entire sordid affair and I recall seeing no confused tourists... To coin a phrase that millenials use with respect to those "legislators" who wish to recreate this in a light more favorable to their POTUS: "They must be smoking crack." Their "position" is simply wrong and is terribly disrespectful to the poor sots who were clearly overwhelmed and unprepared for the horror that the outgoing POTUS unleashed, literally, on them... I know because I WATCHED IT. I heard the reporting about the calls for help that went unheeded by the military and I WATCHED a non-plussed out-going commander in chief suggest that his supporters should just calm down as if someone had accidentally spilled a drink...Anyone remember when a now-sitting Senator from Georgia was ARRESTED for holding a small gathering in the rotunda?!
Thanks for indulging me a rant, here. But of all the slimy, self-dealing, kill-this-Country stuff that DJT oversaw, this one still makes me froth at the mouth and confuses even my ability to articulate myself. Denying the reality of 1/6/21 should be grounds for removal from office in my little perfect world...alright, mic off for now. :)
A dash of cold water to the face to read this summary of the craziness that still exists in Washington and elsewhere. And to read the digest of the attempt by the former president to subvert the election and use the Dept. of Justice to do this shows how near we are to the onset of a truly dictatorial regime in America---we came close recently and given the storm clouds on the horizon, and the deceit now being documented and the denials and reframing of history taking place in House hearings, etc. we are still teetering on the edge of a disaster. The worst of the struggle is yet to come as Repubs. continue to restrict the vote without apology or conscience. A tidal wave has been building for decades and it is now upon us. (Sorry, not a cheery post---but .........)
"The 21 Republicans who voted against the bill are:
Lauren Boebert of Colorado
John Rose of Tennessee
Andy Harris of Maryland
Thomas Massie of Kentucky
Bob Good of Virginia
Louie Gohmert of Texas
Barry Moore of Alabama
Ralph Norman of South Carolina
Matt Rosendale of Montana
Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Chip Roy of Texas
Paul Gosar of Arizona
Andy Biggs of Arizona
Warren Davidson of Ohio
Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
Matt Gaetz of Florida
Greg Steube of Florida
Andrew Clyde of Georgia
Jody Hice of Georgia
Mary Miller of Illinois
Michael Cloud of Texas"
Hear hear. Your brilliance, knowledge, integrity, penchant for truth, deftness for knitting together what matters most considering each day’s highlights… and your commitment to diligently chronicling each night’s letter so we can read. learn and therefore sleep better before rising each morning refreshed to join the work for good…. There’s just no way to even begin to describe the difference you are making! It’s in some ways a miracle. Thank you!🙏🏽❤️
I encourage all of us, and especially the younger ones, to do everything in our power to save our nation and democracy. At 70 I am praying there is still a chance to succeed in spite of those who are tearing the nation apart.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! I could say a lot here about what is in today's Letter. What strikes me is there are 21 lawmakers who, by allowing themselves to be evacuated to safety that day, lost their chance to prove to the public that what we witnessed was a nonviolent tourist event.
AG Merrick Garland has the stage… and will call the meeting to order. It remains to be seen if the 2022 election punishes the Democrats for what Garland and Biden and Harris will do to address the very racism so excited by Trump, the GOP, Hawley, Cruz, DeSantis, Abbott, and many more… the racists in our nation and around the world, led by Trump this time… and sending all the facist signals that were largely ignored as late as 1933…. Only Churchill read the signs, and the UK ignored him till the shit hit the fan and Poland was crushed… what will it take this time?
Nobel James Franck spoke out, fingered Hitler, and left Germany in 1933… he was unique. He authored The Franck Report that Truman ignored, managed The Manhattan Project with Fermi, and is respected deeply by those destroyed by his A-bomb. I met Franck when I called in at the home of my wife of 61 years… today. He was her Opa… she and her family fled Hitler in September 1936… none too soon… Tonight we see the signs again… signs largely ignored in Munich in 1933… now ignored here in 2021…
Some good news; there is a story in this morning's NY Times about SDNY attorney Cyrus Vance's office putting the squeeze on the former president's chief financial officer of twenty years Allen Weisselberg. (Link below) One wonders if Mr. Weisselberg, and members of his family, would be willing to go to jail to protect their boss?
I'm hoping that Mr. Vance, and NY State's Attorney Letitia James, will be the ones who bring an end to this insanity with an indictment, or three or four, of the former president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/nyregion/trump-weisselberg-vance-investigation.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage
And again… the wisdom of AG Merrick Garland leads with racism and follows with mental health.. among the concerns. He does not isolate what Trump and the GOP are using to attack voting rights all over America: the fear of Black success, the rising of millions of coloured Americans of every race, the horrid legacy of slavery, June 19th, America’s crippling racism that affects most every aspect of American life today, the prisons filled with Black men, our volunteer dark skinned army chosen for employment, not for patriotism, employment in a nation that denies equal opportunity to people with dark skins… in short, CASTE, and many others… the racist history ignored on white campuses everywhere… the eternal sin of America that only whites can correct… when the GOP manages to reverse, and apologise, as the Dixiecrats finally managed to do… For both political parties, See Federalist 10, have engaged in factious minority and factious majority behaviour, with the underlying fetid stench of racism… that thrives today in at least 20 state legislatures, all focused on messing up voting - led by Texas, Florida, and many many more..
We need a graphic or a spreadsheet to enumerate all the different ways in which Trump tried to reverse the outcome of this election: every judge, jurisdiction, attorney general, electorates, etc... A list of every person he pressured. Writing about it serially isn’t adequate in describing the magnitude of this operation.
Shaking my head! Wow! Moments when all I can think is I’m so glad Biden won.
Thank you, Heather! I still need your letters. They really clarify it all for me. And what was in the garage? Inquiry minds want to know!
Is anyone surprised by Trump's efforts to use the DOJ to overturn the election despite no substantive evidence of fraud? The scale of corruption, I think, has left much of the nation numb to it all. Each new revelation, even the most jawdropping, fits a pattern. And I'm sure we will learn of more. Yet, despite it all, a sizeable number of Republicans believe he will resume the presidency in August because he was cheated out of victory. It's as if an unrelenting mass delusion has settled upon the nation.
What will happen when he is indicted for sundry crimes and convicted? (It will indeed happen.) Will this break the spell? Of course not. Will QAnon adherents become more than "digital soldiers" and turn to acts of violence, as the FBI warned today regarding the increasing threat of domestic terrorism?
It's difficult to see sanity returning despite all the good things that the Biden administration is doing.
How is it the party of law and order is supporting insurrectionists who broke the law? The legislators who are supporting the insurrectionists need to be removed from office. Don’t they take an oath to support the constitution and our Democracy? If the situation was reversed I wager the Republicans would be outraged. Where is the outrage that this insurrection happened? Where is the outrage that Mitch McConnell will not allow Biden to choose a Justice? We can not stand by and watch these radical Republicans destroy our country. What is the path to protecting our Democracy when so many have drunk the kool aid of Trump and McConnell?
This latest story makes it clear why Trump is behind bars. It’s not just his colluding with Putin, not just obstruction of justice, not just violating the emoluments clause, not just bribing foreign governments to attack political rivals, not just tax evasion and bank fraud, not just gross incompetence leading to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, not even just incitement of insurrection. No, Trump is in prison today for subverting the law and attempting to use the DoJ as a political cudgel. It all makes sense. It goes to show that no man is above the law. Justice is served. Wait…what? What? Trump isn’t in prison? He’s free? No, that can’t be. That would mean that our vaunted rule of law is empty and meaningless.
Check out Mark Danner's recent article, "'Reality Rebellion'," in the New York Review of Books, July 1, 2021. Danner writes about the continuing existence of the lie that Trump really did win the election but was cheated out of it by Biden. He writes, "The result is a metastisizing corruption at the heart of the polity. About the Capitol coup there is no shared reality. Nor is there a shared reality about the integrity of the election or of the legitimacy of the president it produced. To millions of Americans the legitimate president remains Donald Trump. A quarter-millennium of American history offers no precedent for this." When citizens no longer believe in the Idea of Democracy, it dies. As long as the lie persists, it is dying.