Early in the morning on this date in 1972, Frank Wills, a 24-year-old security guard at the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C., noticed that a door lock had been wedged open. He closed the door, but when he went on the next round, he found the door wedged open again. He called the police, who found five burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the building.
I had to come out of hiding for this Richardson masterpiece.
Heather opened this letter with a picture and ended it with another. First, her words had us seeing that door lock, which had been wedged in the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Office building. We see it twice because we are following the security guard on his rounds. He spotted them. So was the beginning of the end of Nixon's presidency.
In closing, Heather takes us to Florida and a recorded telephone call. A Republican, William Braddock, who is running for Congress is on the phone with a conservative a activist. Braddock says he has access to a 'Russian and Ukrainian hit squad' and threatens to have them eliminate his main opponent in the race. These guys on the phone are like so many mobsters we've seen in the movies. “I am in deep, I will admit that,” Braddock allegedly said. “If I lose, I’m going to have to move out of the country. But if I win, I’m going to help make a difference for everyone in the country.” (Letter)
Heather started with Watergate and ended with a Republican congressional candidate threatening to hire a hit squad for the purpose of murdering his opponent. The combination of a Russian-Ukrainian hit squad did strike my funny-bone.
It's been 49 years since the Watergate break-in and a big step from that to the contemplation of murder by a Republican candidate . Of course, it is also a big step from a President to congressional candidate.
Heather Letter encouraged one more step and that is to the subject of morality. We, subscribers, have been steeped in the issues of equality, voting rights, the filibuster, the BIG LIE, Joe Manchin, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party, minority rule... it is not time for full-throated discussions about morality in America?
I was at a Joni Mitchell concert when Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974. She relayed the news to the audience at the Pine Knob Music Theater outside of Detroit and the place went bonkers.
Changing the rule from requiring 60 votes to stop a filibuster to requring 41 votes to continue it is enough to render the filibuster ineffective. Adding to that the restoration of the talking filibuster would totally emasculate it. If Manchin and the other recalcitrant Democratic senators get behind these proposals, good democratic governance might be possible.
The Babcock story is not only unhinged, it is a reminder that the GOP continues to reveal that it is little more than a gang of treasonous thugs poorly disguised as patriotic citizens.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! There's good news and bad news. The good news is Stacey Abrams supports Manchin's proposals. The bad news is Stacey Abrams supports Manchin's proposals. Go figure. But, I urge everyone to focus on the good news!!
On this date in 1972, it would be roughly six months until my mom died. In 1974, I was a senior in high school, homeless living on the streets or staying with friends when I could.
Maybe this is where my lack of being politically savy comes from. I spent too much time trying to survive to really care about anything else.
And maybe that is why so many people vote against their best interests. It's easier to listen to people and their talking points (faux news) than to take the time to do the research, or maybe it's not having the resources that you need to do that research.
I had missed the phone recording of the Florida GOP congressional candidate discussing having a Russian-Ukranian hit squad assassinate his primary opponent "for the good of the country." It fits nicely with new polling showing the GOP gives Putin a higher favorability rating than Biden. Granted, Putin knows a thing or two about assassinating people.
When and how will this madness end? Not well, I fear.
Good morning everyone! At the same time as we celebrate the final passage of Juneteenth as a national holiday, and the provision that it will fall on the Friday before (or Monday after, I am assuming--haven't read the act) when the 19th is on the weekend, in order to have the day off, I have to point out that a UNANIMOUS SCOTUS moved against allowing Philadelphia to reject working with adoption and foster care services that discriminate against same sex couples and single people. They ruling is specific and narrow (it doesn't want to make Catholic Social Services workers feel "uncomfortable" when visiting a foster home because the fostering couple is gay), but it sucks. This is the same rationale as the "wedding cake" rationale but the difference, in my mind, is that it involves discrimination against families and endangers children. We are talking about one of the most egregious abusers of children and women, after all--the Catholic Church. Yes: there are other social services organizations that support LGBTQ foster families in the Philadelphia area, but this ruling does permit the demonization of LGBTQ families. This is of a piece, in my mind, with the resistance of American bishops to the papal ruling that they cannot deny the communion to people whose political views are different from those of the Catholic Church. Francis might have been talking specifically about support for women's right to choose, birth control, and support for the ordination of women, but really Catholic bishops of a particular stripe love to use the communion wafer as a bludgeon. And they have vowed to resist the pope's ruling.
Intolerance, bigotry, and double-dealing of any kind should be condemned. Juneteenth is a start, although I have to point out that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all enslaved people, as it referred only to the part of the country that had seceded--here in good ole' Missouri, that meant that enslaved people had to wait until after the war was over and the 13th Amendment was ratified--in December 1865. That is, after June 19, 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were told they were no longer enslaved. Hmmmmmm.
I remember in those days, my father and I didn't agree on much, but while I was watching the evening news in San Francisco that carried the story, the phone rang. I picked it up and without even saying "Hello," there was a shout from him: "that sonofabitch is guilty as HELL!!!"
I was paddling a canoe in Canada’s Quetico Wilderness Waterways when Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974. A half a week later when we paddled back into the U.S. and the Minnesota Boundary Waters Wilderness, the official at the backcountry island customs office announced in stern tones that he had serious news to share. “Mr. Hausam, you must know that you now have a new president.”
The Watergate break-in, which happened between my freshman and sophomore years in college, did not register high on my radar. The Vietnam draft lottery was front and center. The live broadcast of the hearings in May 1973 were another story. Plus, my parents were friends with James St. Clair, a highly respected Boston attorney and early counsel to Nixon. He resigned from that (short term) role because, as he told his bowling league group, “that son-of-a-bitch lied to me”. These were people who all voted for Nixon, but St. Clair’s words were all they needed to hear! Nixon’s resignation, the end of the draft, and a college friend getting picked up by one of President Ford’s son and having a tour of the family residence was, in our mind’s eye, the start of the “best of times” …. Naïveté at its best!
There is clearly movement and the unhinged are feeling it. No coincidence you note the break in and Braddock in the same newsletter, both unhinged( literally the door!). But it feels like a scarier time, or is it?
Among others, president R. M. Nixon, the Plumbers, John N. and Martha Mitchell, Watergate, W. Mark Felt, the Tapes, John Dean and the others charged, Speaker Ford, VP Spiro T. Agnew, Judge John Sirica, The Saturday Night Massacre, the Heros of Watergate and two WaPo Reporters, the publisher and Ben Bradlee, set the bar we are now failing. Back then it was presidential paranoia. Today it is societal world wide prejudice akin to Nazi fascism, largely ignored by historians then and now. It takes Auschwitz. Crematoriums.
A fascinating roundup tonite, HCR! Plenty to choose from to expound on to be sure... With Watergate at the cusp of 50, it is a constant source of ribbing in my family that my father's birthday is today, too... Every year someone in the family asks the pregnant question of him about his whereabouts in celebrating his 45th birthday...
Anyway. Manchin's offering may not move too many chess pieces on the board, but it certainly moves him out of the doghouse a bit, particularly with Stacy's support. Not surprisingly the Republican response of tying this to her paints his effort... let's call it what it is... black. So grossly-pandering to the white-national base that it can't even be seen as anything but in my estimation. But we will see where this goes, as HCR points out. The real arguments against what will eventually become a "bill" I hope will become increasingly-focused on MORE democratic elections (read: more access and more voting) or LESS democratic elections (read: more impediments to access and non-sensical roadblocks to the process). History will (hopefully) not treat those that resist this John Lewis effort kindly...
The Florida election story is perhaps the most disturbing thing I've heard since they discontinued Tab. If anyone doesn't think there is something wrong with Trump-tied republicans: this story should push you over the edge. Clearly this man has anointed himself a self-styled patriot for the party, but he puts a new spin on the old meme that they will, "eat their own young." It now may read that they may 'assassinate' their own young. Wow. Might I suggest that dueling-pistols at 10 yards would be more honest? I hope that the aggrieved party files a serious complaint that that constitutes a, "terroristic threat," and that it is worthy of prosecution as such. In Minnesota we at least call it a, "boating accident," and don't own it as assassination. :)
Sen. Manchin is pushing the Republicans hard and would get a lot of the basic reforms in SR1 done. It would be nice if the Democrats showed as united a front as the GOP 'leadership'. Might even give some of the other Republican Senators an excuse to dust off their statespersonship disguises and vote in favour. I also like the 41 in favor idea for filibuster reform.
Voting agains Juneteenth as a Federal holiday some Republicans are saying that federal workers "don't need another day off with pay". What an obscenity considering the paltry amount of time Congress spends working. Needless to say Congress is paid whether working or not.
I had to come out of hiding for this Richardson masterpiece.
Heather opened this letter with a picture and ended it with another. First, her words had us seeing that door lock, which had been wedged in the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Office building. We see it twice because we are following the security guard on his rounds. He spotted them. So was the beginning of the end of Nixon's presidency.
In closing, Heather takes us to Florida and a recorded telephone call. A Republican, William Braddock, who is running for Congress is on the phone with a conservative a activist. Braddock says he has access to a 'Russian and Ukrainian hit squad' and threatens to have them eliminate his main opponent in the race. These guys on the phone are like so many mobsters we've seen in the movies. “I am in deep, I will admit that,” Braddock allegedly said. “If I lose, I’m going to have to move out of the country. But if I win, I’m going to help make a difference for everyone in the country.” (Letter)
Heather started with Watergate and ended with a Republican congressional candidate threatening to hire a hit squad for the purpose of murdering his opponent. The combination of a Russian-Ukrainian hit squad did strike my funny-bone.
It's been 49 years since the Watergate break-in and a big step from that to the contemplation of murder by a Republican candidate . Of course, it is also a big step from a President to congressional candidate.
Heather Letter encouraged one more step and that is to the subject of morality. We, subscribers, have been steeped in the issues of equality, voting rights, the filibuster, the BIG LIE, Joe Manchin, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party, minority rule... it is not time for full-throated discussions about morality in America?
I was at a Joni Mitchell concert when Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974. She relayed the news to the audience at the Pine Knob Music Theater outside of Detroit and the place went bonkers.
Changing the rule from requiring 60 votes to stop a filibuster to requring 41 votes to continue it is enough to render the filibuster ineffective. Adding to that the restoration of the talking filibuster would totally emasculate it. If Manchin and the other recalcitrant Democratic senators get behind these proposals, good democratic governance might be possible.
The Babcock story is not only unhinged, it is a reminder that the GOP continues to reveal that it is little more than a gang of treasonous thugs poorly disguised as patriotic citizens.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! There's good news and bad news. The good news is Stacey Abrams supports Manchin's proposals. The bad news is Stacey Abrams supports Manchin's proposals. Go figure. But, I urge everyone to focus on the good news!!
On this date in 1972, it would be roughly six months until my mom died. In 1974, I was a senior in high school, homeless living on the streets or staying with friends when I could.
Maybe this is where my lack of being politically savy comes from. I spent too much time trying to survive to really care about anything else.
And maybe that is why so many people vote against their best interests. It's easier to listen to people and their talking points (faux news) than to take the time to do the research, or maybe it's not having the resources that you need to do that research.
I had missed the phone recording of the Florida GOP congressional candidate discussing having a Russian-Ukranian hit squad assassinate his primary opponent "for the good of the country." It fits nicely with new polling showing the GOP gives Putin a higher favorability rating than Biden. Granted, Putin knows a thing or two about assassinating people.
When and how will this madness end? Not well, I fear.
Good morning everyone! At the same time as we celebrate the final passage of Juneteenth as a national holiday, and the provision that it will fall on the Friday before (or Monday after, I am assuming--haven't read the act) when the 19th is on the weekend, in order to have the day off, I have to point out that a UNANIMOUS SCOTUS moved against allowing Philadelphia to reject working with adoption and foster care services that discriminate against same sex couples and single people. They ruling is specific and narrow (it doesn't want to make Catholic Social Services workers feel "uncomfortable" when visiting a foster home because the fostering couple is gay), but it sucks. This is the same rationale as the "wedding cake" rationale but the difference, in my mind, is that it involves discrimination against families and endangers children. We are talking about one of the most egregious abusers of children and women, after all--the Catholic Church. Yes: there are other social services organizations that support LGBTQ foster families in the Philadelphia area, but this ruling does permit the demonization of LGBTQ families. This is of a piece, in my mind, with the resistance of American bishops to the papal ruling that they cannot deny the communion to people whose political views are different from those of the Catholic Church. Francis might have been talking specifically about support for women's right to choose, birth control, and support for the ordination of women, but really Catholic bishops of a particular stripe love to use the communion wafer as a bludgeon. And they have vowed to resist the pope's ruling.
Intolerance, bigotry, and double-dealing of any kind should be condemned. Juneteenth is a start, although I have to point out that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all enslaved people, as it referred only to the part of the country that had seceded--here in good ole' Missouri, that meant that enslaved people had to wait until after the war was over and the 13th Amendment was ratified--in December 1865. That is, after June 19, 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were told they were no longer enslaved. Hmmmmmm.
I remember in those days, my father and I didn't agree on much, but while I was watching the evening news in San Francisco that carried the story, the phone rang. I picked it up and without even saying "Hello," there was a shout from him: "that sonofabitch is guilty as HELL!!!"
I was paddling a canoe in Canada’s Quetico Wilderness Waterways when Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974. A half a week later when we paddled back into the U.S. and the Minnesota Boundary Waters Wilderness, the official at the backcountry island customs office announced in stern tones that he had serious news to share. “Mr. Hausam, you must know that you now have a new president.”
The Watergate break-in, which happened between my freshman and sophomore years in college, did not register high on my radar. The Vietnam draft lottery was front and center. The live broadcast of the hearings in May 1973 were another story. Plus, my parents were friends with James St. Clair, a highly respected Boston attorney and early counsel to Nixon. He resigned from that (short term) role because, as he told his bowling league group, “that son-of-a-bitch lied to me”. These were people who all voted for Nixon, but St. Clair’s words were all they needed to hear! Nixon’s resignation, the end of the draft, and a college friend getting picked up by one of President Ford’s son and having a tour of the family residence was, in our mind’s eye, the start of the “best of times” …. Naïveté at its best!
There is clearly movement and the unhinged are feeling it. No coincidence you note the break in and Braddock in the same newsletter, both unhinged( literally the door!). But it feels like a scarier time, or is it?
Among others, president R. M. Nixon, the Plumbers, John N. and Martha Mitchell, Watergate, W. Mark Felt, the Tapes, John Dean and the others charged, Speaker Ford, VP Spiro T. Agnew, Judge John Sirica, The Saturday Night Massacre, the Heros of Watergate and two WaPo Reporters, the publisher and Ben Bradlee, set the bar we are now failing. Back then it was presidential paranoia. Today it is societal world wide prejudice akin to Nazi fascism, largely ignored by historians then and now. It takes Auschwitz. Crematoriums.
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
The bell tolls for thee.
A fascinating roundup tonite, HCR! Plenty to choose from to expound on to be sure... With Watergate at the cusp of 50, it is a constant source of ribbing in my family that my father's birthday is today, too... Every year someone in the family asks the pregnant question of him about his whereabouts in celebrating his 45th birthday...
Anyway. Manchin's offering may not move too many chess pieces on the board, but it certainly moves him out of the doghouse a bit, particularly with Stacy's support. Not surprisingly the Republican response of tying this to her paints his effort... let's call it what it is... black. So grossly-pandering to the white-national base that it can't even be seen as anything but in my estimation. But we will see where this goes, as HCR points out. The real arguments against what will eventually become a "bill" I hope will become increasingly-focused on MORE democratic elections (read: more access and more voting) or LESS democratic elections (read: more impediments to access and non-sensical roadblocks to the process). History will (hopefully) not treat those that resist this John Lewis effort kindly...
The Florida election story is perhaps the most disturbing thing I've heard since they discontinued Tab. If anyone doesn't think there is something wrong with Trump-tied republicans: this story should push you over the edge. Clearly this man has anointed himself a self-styled patriot for the party, but he puts a new spin on the old meme that they will, "eat their own young." It now may read that they may 'assassinate' their own young. Wow. Might I suggest that dueling-pistols at 10 yards would be more honest? I hope that the aggrieved party files a serious complaint that that constitutes a, "terroristic threat," and that it is worthy of prosecution as such. In Minnesota we at least call it a, "boating accident," and don't own it as assassination. :)
Sen. Manchin is pushing the Republicans hard and would get a lot of the basic reforms in SR1 done. It would be nice if the Democrats showed as united a front as the GOP 'leadership'. Might even give some of the other Republican Senators an excuse to dust off their statespersonship disguises and vote in favour. I also like the 41 in favor idea for filibuster reform.
Voting agains Juneteenth as a Federal holiday some Republicans are saying that federal workers "don't need another day off with pay". What an obscenity considering the paltry amount of time Congress spends working. Needless to say Congress is paid whether working or not.