“To rebuild I-95 on time, we need 12 hours of dry weather to complete the paving and striping process,” Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro tweeted. “With rain in the forecast, we reached out [to Pocono Raceway] for help—and they're bringing their jet dryer to Philly to help dry this section of I-95 and keep us on schedule.”
Josh Shapiro actually has some real oats and creativity. His actions give a strong impression that the people genuinely matter to him. And he knows the value of touting his accomplishments that work for us. Bravo and may the Force be with you! Now if the other Dems had some of that umpf they’d figure out a way to fund lots of billboards in Republican states succinctly crowing about “ these advances come to the people of such and such a state by the passage of the whatever Act courtesy of the majority of Democrats and zero Republicans. Vote Democrat to bring improvements to your community.
“Last night, Special Counsel Jack Smith began to produce evidence in the case against Trump for retaining secret documents and endangering national security. The list seems thorough, including more than one interview with Trump and grand jury transcripts.
And it seems to have concerned Trump, who promptly begged in all caps on social media for Congress to ‘investigate the political witch hunt against me.’”
Anything that upsets tfg is enough to bring a smile to my lips!!!
Dumb questions: why are the Democrats not selling their accomplishments? Why isn’t Biden talking about it? Jobs, investment in jobs, jobs, veterans’ healthcare, jobs, investment in jobs, GDP growth, jobs, low unemployment, jobs, investment in jobs, jobs.
Once again, do the Democrats not know that we have an advertising industry and they are very good at selling things? The Republicans are selling fear and anger every day, and if Democrats don’t start selling what they do, how do they expect to win?
How inspiring to see differing entities working in collaboration to solve crises!
Accidents, disasters, weather phenomena and more are all bound to happen - kudos to Pennsylvania for finding solutions and working in novel ways to get things done. That is "the TRUE America."
Also, quite pleased with the continuing diplomatic actions of the Biden/Harris administration to extend hands and strengthen alliances. Oh, to have experienced adults in charge.
When President Biden hosted the President of South Korea, his team went to the effort to learn he loved Don McLean's song "American Pie." After the President coaxed the guest of honor to sing a few lines of the song, he gifted him a signed guitar from the artist.
With the State Dinner tonight, the guest of honor is recognized by a menu that reflects the vegetarian dietary preference (which is likely more beneficial to both the body and the planet.) Tfg might have ordered McDonald's, as he often did for sports teams. For 45, it will always be about "me, me, me."
[SHAME on the GOP in the House of Representatives for spending their energies on targeting effective lawmakers like Adam Schiff instead of getting down to business to improve people's lives. How many hours have been spent focusing on attacking marginalized individuals and groups instead of, say addressing the number one cause of children's deaths - gun violence?]
"...Trump, who promptly begged in all caps on social media for Congress to “investigate the political witch hunts against me….”
I can just hear the increasing desperation in trump's pleas. Maybe it's just my perception, but I feel him losing supporters regularly now. All the nonsense has gone on too long.
Are the Dems putting up billboards at every worksite supported by the Inflation Reduction Act? They should say something like: "This Battery Factory Made Possible by Funds from the Inflation Reduction Act Passed by the Democrats and Pres. Joe Biden and opposed by Republicans."
Quite a day.... i especially enjoyed the 20 second clip of Pelosi ( who is 80) at the House podium telling the maga extreme reps that they have turned this space into a puppet show. The space where civil rights, voting rights social security and medicare were passed. I miss her. TY HCR. Yes, the White House State Dinner linK is very cool. A great Jeopardy category!
I agree with most of Heather's implications and congratulations here.
Nonetheless, I have two further thoughts at present---
First is that the members of The Squad who protested, however symbolically, the Joint Session of Congress wherein Prime Minister Modi spoke, were correct. As the head of State of the largest Democracy in the World, and the second largest country in the World, of course he is due major symbolic props, and diplomatic respect. Yet, there was no need to provide him with the rare air respect of a Joint session of Congress address. He is a horrendous human rights abuser, and deep seeded religious bigot, who has no place at the most dignified podium arguably in the World, before the combined legislative representatives of the United States of America.
Let us not forget that this is a man reasonably accused of committing and/or allowing major religious pogroms against Moslems to occur in his gubernatorial jurisdiction not that long ago, and a man who has never relented in his Hindu religious nationalism, no matter what the costs in rights, dignities and lives. Allowing him to speak to a joint session of Congress reminds me of the ghastly turn the GOP took in allowing the racist religious bigot Benyamin Netanyahu to speak to a similar joint session, approximately ten years ago.
Finally, while not the subject of Heather's essay tonight, it is with heavy hearted burden that we all must be thinking about the lives lost in two disparate parts of the vast oceans that surround us.
Brave souls numbering in the hundreds seeking to claim a new foothold on life and dignity halfway around the world from their origins have perished off the Peloponnesus, while five other brave souls perished in the depths of the North Atlantic exercising their exploratory curiosity about the hundreds who preceded them in sinking to the inky watery depths on the Titanic.
Sadly if not predictably, the latter smaller group procured far greater exposure than the former.
May they all, irrespective of where they breathed their last before succumbing to the seas around us, rest in peace .
I've been a California-licensed lawyer since June, 1970, and over the years I've had some doubts about how effective the California State Bar's disciplinary protocols have been in deterring and punishing attorney misconduct. In this case involving the professional misrepresentations made by California attorney and law professor John Eastman in order to sabotage the 2020 presidential election, I am confident that the California State Bar Court will rise to the occasion and impose on Mr. Eastman the professional discipline that his transgressions so thoroughly deserve. You would have to go back to the Watergate scandal to find a group of California attorneys so thoroughly corrupted by Republican politics and pretensions that almost en masse they were disbarred from practicing law for engaging and unprofessional conduct that was both criminal in nature and grossly unethical, in derogation of their oaths of office to the State of California, and the United States of America, and whose employee many of them were at the time. John Eastman will now be joining that unsavory group of former lawyers whose transgressions earned them years of imprisonment.
John Eastman's derelictions of duty related to his public advocacy of a course of conduct that he knew to be unlawful, and which would be in derogation of his duty to uphold the Constitution of the United States and to the defendant against all enemies, foreign and domestic. His wrongdoing goes to his lack of good character in matters not strictly related to the practice of law on behalf of clients; but rather, it goes to Eastman's efforts to engage in election fraud by urging others to act in ways that are contrary to the statutes governing the selection of presidential electors in States other than California. He misused his academic and professional credentials to create an aura of authority for views that had no legitimate standing either in our Nation's politics, or in the election laws, rules, and practices in states, such as Arizona, where the urban/rural political and social divide was more particularly pronounced. The people that Mr. Eastman targeted for his arguments were passionate in their politics but otherwise unsophisticated either in law, or in constitutional practice. He did not address his arguments to qualified lawyers or judges; rather, he targeted political activists were desperately looking for ways to implement then-President Donald Trump's unsupported claims of election fraud in their states, even if it meant cheating, lying, and disrupting normal governmental operations aimed at carrying out elections in accordance with local laws. The obvious aim was to create a tidal wave of illegality that court challenges could not withstand. Just as a Trump-motivated mob seething with passion and hate attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, Mr. Eastman was scheming to recruit bogus electors who would claim to represent the states in which they resided as having voted lawfully for Donald Trump in the Electoral College balloting. Necessarily, this involved what amounted to insurrection by stealth, using lies and deception to achieve their ends, instead of staging a riot as happened in Washington DC.
Mr. Eastman found a receptive audience in Donald Trump, for whom lying and cheating comes second nature. It would be a form of bait and switch, using the personnel at the National Archives and Records Administration to create sufficient confusion that Trump forces could infiltrate the process to a point where nobody could tell who actually won the election, thus pushing the formal election into the House of Representatives. This is what happened once before in our nations history when the House of Representatives 'elected' John Quincy Adams to become the next president in 1824. This was an exercise in election sabotage that no democracy can tolerate. I have no doubt that Mr. Eastman will have his own day in court soon enough, charged with serious violations of election law, under the laws of the United States and the various states where he tried to influence the outcome of state certifications of the popular vote for president, substituting false certifications attesting to Donald Trump's winning that state's elections, rather than the actual, lawful certifications attesting that Joe Biden won the election in that state. Mr. Eastman also urged former Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral college votes of normally Republican-leaning states that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The avowed purpose for that importuning of the former Vice President was, again, to create confusion and uncertainty as to whom those states cast their formal Electoral College votes following the general election the previous November. The former Vice President refused to follow Mr. Eastman's advice, thereby preserving American democracy as we know it.
The California State Bar Court will have no difficulty in recommending to the California Supreme Court that John Eastman be stripped of his law license to practice law in the state of California. Likewise, Mr. Eastman's affiliation with the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute, is likely to be terminated, if it has not ended already. Regardless of political affiliation, no conservative advocacy Institute can afford to maintain a professional relationship with Mr. Eastman, or with any other person who actively engaged in unlawful and deceptive election practices, as many Republican operatives were shown to have done. The Wikipedia article on John Eastman notes that he is no longer affiliated with Chapman University as a member of its law faculty. On March 28, 2022, Federal District Judge David O. Carter made a judicial finding that Eastman, along with Donald Trump, was more likely than not to have "dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021". In December 2022, the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack recommended that Eastman be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, in concert with Trump, and other named individuals whose participation in the insurrection, and associated election frauds was established by substantial evidence. In short order, John Eastman will be stripped of his California law license, coupled with the ringing denunciation of his professional misconduct by the California Supreme Court. At this point, Eastman has no reasonable prospect of any other outcome. At some point in the not-too-distant future, a federal grand jury will undoubtedly indict John Eastman for the crimes that the House Select Committee found, and which the committee attributed to him. Those crimes are sufficiently serious that Eastman is prospectively looking at at least a decade of imprisonment, perhaps for the duration of his natural life.
Heather, may I use your given name, Dr. Richardson? You have made my day, my week, my month!😘 Biden’s agenda ticking away down the halls of freedom, Democracy, the American Way! 🇺🇸 I think I love you. We must send this out far and wide since our beloved rather shy President Biden does not “toot” his own horn loudly enough. Isn’t it wonderful when we see and hear results? Thank you so much for this as I go peacefully to sleep this night!🕊️
"Also on Tuesday, disciplinary proceedings began against John Eastman, the law professor who pushed the idea that Trump could steal the 2020 presidential election from winner Joe Biden if loyalists in the states would create alternative slates of electors." ..."Eastman’s plan was never legal, and he admitted as much, suggesting that the Trump team should just follow it because courts would decline to get involved out of reluctance to interfere in elections. In California, where Eastman faces disbarment, bar authorities are giving that theory a thorough hearing, and their disdain is clear." A law professor pushing illegal ideas, admitting to it, should be behind bars (pun intended] not only disbarred.
Another amazing summary/LFAA by Dr Richardson with dozens of links to corroborate her statements. That's education! Thank You, Heather!
At last, someone in the press has called out the GOP age ploy! The bridge news from Pennsylvania is heartening to say the least. Thank you as always for focusing on important stories that give context to the day’s insanity.
TFG and the rest of the Republicans are masters of playing the victim, of projection, of controlling the airwaves. Hysteria and histrionics unsettle. It is nigh impossible to counteract that type of insanity with facts, logic. or even reality.
Would love to hear more about John Eastman's six-point plan for torpedoing the 2020 Election Results, as well as the GOP long term plans to take over State Legislatures and possibly call a Constitutional Convention to rewrite the laws which established the democratic republic on which the government is based.
The SCOTUS appears to be acting in conjunction with the GOP to toss what were long precendented rights back to the states. This "rhymes" eerily like the rationale that led to the Civil War.
Perhaps you and Dr. Joanne Freeman could educate us during an episode of your Now & Then podcast?
Josh Shapiro actually has some real oats and creativity. His actions give a strong impression that the people genuinely matter to him. And he knows the value of touting his accomplishments that work for us. Bravo and may the Force be with you! Now if the other Dems had some of that umpf they’d figure out a way to fund lots of billboards in Republican states succinctly crowing about “ these advances come to the people of such and such a state by the passage of the whatever Act courtesy of the majority of Democrats and zero Republicans. Vote Democrat to bring improvements to your community.
“Last night, Special Counsel Jack Smith began to produce evidence in the case against Trump for retaining secret documents and endangering national security. The list seems thorough, including more than one interview with Trump and grand jury transcripts.
And it seems to have concerned Trump, who promptly begged in all caps on social media for Congress to ‘investigate the political witch hunt against me.’”
Anything that upsets tfg is enough to bring a smile to my lips!!!
Dumb questions: why are the Democrats not selling their accomplishments? Why isn’t Biden talking about it? Jobs, investment in jobs, jobs, veterans’ healthcare, jobs, investment in jobs, GDP growth, jobs, low unemployment, jobs, investment in jobs, jobs.
Once again, do the Democrats not know that we have an advertising industry and they are very good at selling things? The Republicans are selling fear and anger every day, and if Democrats don’t start selling what they do, how do they expect to win?
LFAA teach us so much!
How inspiring to see differing entities working in collaboration to solve crises!
Accidents, disasters, weather phenomena and more are all bound to happen - kudos to Pennsylvania for finding solutions and working in novel ways to get things done. That is "the TRUE America."
Also, quite pleased with the continuing diplomatic actions of the Biden/Harris administration to extend hands and strengthen alliances. Oh, to have experienced adults in charge.
When President Biden hosted the President of South Korea, his team went to the effort to learn he loved Don McLean's song "American Pie." After the President coaxed the guest of honor to sing a few lines of the song, he gifted him a signed guitar from the artist.
With the State Dinner tonight, the guest of honor is recognized by a menu that reflects the vegetarian dietary preference (which is likely more beneficial to both the body and the planet.) Tfg might have ordered McDonald's, as he often did for sports teams. For 45, it will always be about "me, me, me."
[SHAME on the GOP in the House of Representatives for spending their energies on targeting effective lawmakers like Adam Schiff instead of getting down to business to improve people's lives. How many hours have been spent focusing on attacking marginalized individuals and groups instead of, say addressing the number one cause of children's deaths - gun violence?]
"...Trump, who promptly begged in all caps on social media for Congress to “investigate the political witch hunts against me….”
I can just hear the increasing desperation in trump's pleas. Maybe it's just my perception, but I feel him losing supporters regularly now. All the nonsense has gone on too long.
Are the Dems putting up billboards at every worksite supported by the Inflation Reduction Act? They should say something like: "This Battery Factory Made Possible by Funds from the Inflation Reduction Act Passed by the Democrats and Pres. Joe Biden and opposed by Republicans."
Quite a day.... i especially enjoyed the 20 second clip of Pelosi ( who is 80) at the House podium telling the maga extreme reps that they have turned this space into a puppet show. The space where civil rights, voting rights social security and medicare were passed. I miss her. TY HCR. Yes, the White House State Dinner linK is very cool. A great Jeopardy category!
Age? Bet Trump couldn't even get ON a bicycle.
Fun fact: I'm 74 and ebiked 24 miles today.
Accomplishments this week:
Democrats: Further worked to Protect Democracy and to "get things done."
Republicans: Owned the Libs.
Evening to All!
I agree with most of Heather's implications and congratulations here.
Nonetheless, I have two further thoughts at present---
First is that the members of The Squad who protested, however symbolically, the Joint Session of Congress wherein Prime Minister Modi spoke, were correct. As the head of State of the largest Democracy in the World, and the second largest country in the World, of course he is due major symbolic props, and diplomatic respect. Yet, there was no need to provide him with the rare air respect of a Joint session of Congress address. He is a horrendous human rights abuser, and deep seeded religious bigot, who has no place at the most dignified podium arguably in the World, before the combined legislative representatives of the United States of America.
Let us not forget that this is a man reasonably accused of committing and/or allowing major religious pogroms against Moslems to occur in his gubernatorial jurisdiction not that long ago, and a man who has never relented in his Hindu religious nationalism, no matter what the costs in rights, dignities and lives. Allowing him to speak to a joint session of Congress reminds me of the ghastly turn the GOP took in allowing the racist religious bigot Benyamin Netanyahu to speak to a similar joint session, approximately ten years ago.
Finally, while not the subject of Heather's essay tonight, it is with heavy hearted burden that we all must be thinking about the lives lost in two disparate parts of the vast oceans that surround us.
Brave souls numbering in the hundreds seeking to claim a new foothold on life and dignity halfway around the world from their origins have perished off the Peloponnesus, while five other brave souls perished in the depths of the North Atlantic exercising their exploratory curiosity about the hundreds who preceded them in sinking to the inky watery depths on the Titanic.
Sadly if not predictably, the latter smaller group procured far greater exposure than the former.
May they all, irrespective of where they breathed their last before succumbing to the seas around us, rest in peace .
I've been a California-licensed lawyer since June, 1970, and over the years I've had some doubts about how effective the California State Bar's disciplinary protocols have been in deterring and punishing attorney misconduct. In this case involving the professional misrepresentations made by California attorney and law professor John Eastman in order to sabotage the 2020 presidential election, I am confident that the California State Bar Court will rise to the occasion and impose on Mr. Eastman the professional discipline that his transgressions so thoroughly deserve. You would have to go back to the Watergate scandal to find a group of California attorneys so thoroughly corrupted by Republican politics and pretensions that almost en masse they were disbarred from practicing law for engaging and unprofessional conduct that was both criminal in nature and grossly unethical, in derogation of their oaths of office to the State of California, and the United States of America, and whose employee many of them were at the time. John Eastman will now be joining that unsavory group of former lawyers whose transgressions earned them years of imprisonment.
John Eastman's derelictions of duty related to his public advocacy of a course of conduct that he knew to be unlawful, and which would be in derogation of his duty to uphold the Constitution of the United States and to the defendant against all enemies, foreign and domestic. His wrongdoing goes to his lack of good character in matters not strictly related to the practice of law on behalf of clients; but rather, it goes to Eastman's efforts to engage in election fraud by urging others to act in ways that are contrary to the statutes governing the selection of presidential electors in States other than California. He misused his academic and professional credentials to create an aura of authority for views that had no legitimate standing either in our Nation's politics, or in the election laws, rules, and practices in states, such as Arizona, where the urban/rural political and social divide was more particularly pronounced. The people that Mr. Eastman targeted for his arguments were passionate in their politics but otherwise unsophisticated either in law, or in constitutional practice. He did not address his arguments to qualified lawyers or judges; rather, he targeted political activists were desperately looking for ways to implement then-President Donald Trump's unsupported claims of election fraud in their states, even if it meant cheating, lying, and disrupting normal governmental operations aimed at carrying out elections in accordance with local laws. The obvious aim was to create a tidal wave of illegality that court challenges could not withstand. Just as a Trump-motivated mob seething with passion and hate attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, Mr. Eastman was scheming to recruit bogus electors who would claim to represent the states in which they resided as having voted lawfully for Donald Trump in the Electoral College balloting. Necessarily, this involved what amounted to insurrection by stealth, using lies and deception to achieve their ends, instead of staging a riot as happened in Washington DC.
Mr. Eastman found a receptive audience in Donald Trump, for whom lying and cheating comes second nature. It would be a form of bait and switch, using the personnel at the National Archives and Records Administration to create sufficient confusion that Trump forces could infiltrate the process to a point where nobody could tell who actually won the election, thus pushing the formal election into the House of Representatives. This is what happened once before in our nations history when the House of Representatives 'elected' John Quincy Adams to become the next president in 1824. This was an exercise in election sabotage that no democracy can tolerate. I have no doubt that Mr. Eastman will have his own day in court soon enough, charged with serious violations of election law, under the laws of the United States and the various states where he tried to influence the outcome of state certifications of the popular vote for president, substituting false certifications attesting to Donald Trump's winning that state's elections, rather than the actual, lawful certifications attesting that Joe Biden won the election in that state. Mr. Eastman also urged former Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral college votes of normally Republican-leaning states that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The avowed purpose for that importuning of the former Vice President was, again, to create confusion and uncertainty as to whom those states cast their formal Electoral College votes following the general election the previous November. The former Vice President refused to follow Mr. Eastman's advice, thereby preserving American democracy as we know it.
The California State Bar Court will have no difficulty in recommending to the California Supreme Court that John Eastman be stripped of his law license to practice law in the state of California. Likewise, Mr. Eastman's affiliation with the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute, is likely to be terminated, if it has not ended already. Regardless of political affiliation, no conservative advocacy Institute can afford to maintain a professional relationship with Mr. Eastman, or with any other person who actively engaged in unlawful and deceptive election practices, as many Republican operatives were shown to have done. The Wikipedia article on John Eastman notes that he is no longer affiliated with Chapman University as a member of its law faculty. On March 28, 2022, Federal District Judge David O. Carter made a judicial finding that Eastman, along with Donald Trump, was more likely than not to have "dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021". In December 2022, the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack recommended that Eastman be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, in concert with Trump, and other named individuals whose participation in the insurrection, and associated election frauds was established by substantial evidence. In short order, John Eastman will be stripped of his California law license, coupled with the ringing denunciation of his professional misconduct by the California Supreme Court. At this point, Eastman has no reasonable prospect of any other outcome. At some point in the not-too-distant future, a federal grand jury will undoubtedly indict John Eastman for the crimes that the House Select Committee found, and which the committee attributed to him. Those crimes are sufficiently serious that Eastman is prospectively looking at at least a decade of imprisonment, perhaps for the duration of his natural life.
Heather, may I use your given name, Dr. Richardson? You have made my day, my week, my month!😘 Biden’s agenda ticking away down the halls of freedom, Democracy, the American Way! 🇺🇸 I think I love you. We must send this out far and wide since our beloved rather shy President Biden does not “toot” his own horn loudly enough. Isn’t it wonderful when we see and hear results? Thank you so much for this as I go peacefully to sleep this night!🕊️
"Also on Tuesday, disciplinary proceedings began against John Eastman, the law professor who pushed the idea that Trump could steal the 2020 presidential election from winner Joe Biden if loyalists in the states would create alternative slates of electors." ..."Eastman’s plan was never legal, and he admitted as much, suggesting that the Trump team should just follow it because courts would decline to get involved out of reluctance to interfere in elections. In California, where Eastman faces disbarment, bar authorities are giving that theory a thorough hearing, and their disdain is clear." A law professor pushing illegal ideas, admitting to it, should be behind bars (pun intended] not only disbarred.
Another amazing summary/LFAA by Dr Richardson with dozens of links to corroborate her statements. That's education! Thank You, Heather!
At last, someone in the press has called out the GOP age ploy! The bridge news from Pennsylvania is heartening to say the least. Thank you as always for focusing on important stories that give context to the day’s insanity.
TFG and the rest of the Republicans are masters of playing the victim, of projection, of controlling the airwaves. Hysteria and histrionics unsettle. It is nigh impossible to counteract that type of insanity with facts, logic. or even reality.
Would love to hear more about John Eastman's six-point plan for torpedoing the 2020 Election Results, as well as the GOP long term plans to take over State Legislatures and possibly call a Constitutional Convention to rewrite the laws which established the democratic republic on which the government is based.
The SCOTUS appears to be acting in conjunction with the GOP to toss what were long precendented rights back to the states. This "rhymes" eerily like the rationale that led to the Civil War.
Perhaps you and Dr. Joanne Freeman could educate us during an episode of your Now & Then podcast?