“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.
You've wasted your time? After 12 years of engaging the people now largely filling truth social, I had to admit to myself it was a colossal waste of my time. You'll never change the mind of those people, but you will simply add more fuel to their fire.
“ The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced a six-figure nationwide campaign touting the President’s record successes after signing a budget deal. Officials at the DNC tell Florida Politics the campaign will include a billboard along the famous I-4 corridor, a populated but politically swingy region that often determines who wins Florida’s electoral votes in presidential contests.”
Don’t forget ALEC. And that’s only one of the Koch and Koch cronies groups. Rachel Maddow had a whole web of them online some years ago. Also recommending “Democracy in Chains” of Duke Professor Nancy McClean. And “Starving the Beast” a film about the attack on public universities.
Exactly. If T***p were to die tomorrow . . . okay, let me pause and savor that thought for just a moment . . .
Okay, that's long enough . . . were he to pass from the scene, his followers would not suddenly disappear. They and their extremism have been like a spreading cancer in this country's political body. T***p only unleashed what had been festering for decades. He created a movement that really doesn't need him at its head any longer. I fear it will take a very long time before we can adequately excise the curse that he brought upon this country.
The Democrats have plenty of umpf. It comes down to talking or doing. Here is a sample of what President Biden and his Administration have been doing. I will never forget the masterful job President Biden did with his vaccinating 200 million Americans in 90 days. I personally believe President Biden just may have saved my life.
"GDP growth over 3%, 3 times what it was under Trump
Almost 7 times as many Biden jobs as last 3 GOP Presidents combined
best COVID recovery in G7
lowest unemployment rate in peacetime economy since WWII
lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever
very elevated wage gains/new business starts
Almost 2 job openings per unemployed person
real earnings up in 2022
the deficit went up every year under Trump and has come down every year under Biden
domestic oil production on track to set records in 2023
historic investments in our future prosperity (infrastructure, CHIPs, climate, health care)
Look at the jobs created per month over these Presidencies - Rs at just 10k per month over 16 years. Biden is running at 50 times that so far. Yes, 50x! The jobs created just this past month - 339,000 - is 3 YEARS of job growth under these last 3 GOP Presidents."
I was on my way to an appointment in Terre Haute, IN this week on Wednesday when I ended up following a 'filty dirty" small Chevrolet vehicle. It had a large "F--k Biden" sign on the back window. I was so discussed! He turned into one of the poorer neighborhoods off of 7th Street. This is what we are dealing with in Indiana. There are lots of "F--k Biden" flags on flag poles flying under American flags. It makes me angry and sick!
I noticed that you made a point of judging this person's dirty car and the fact that he lives in a poor neighborhood. "Liberals" started this practice of dismissing the concerns of the poor and misinformed long ago. Remember the constant use of the word "deplorable", long before Hillary, caught up in our rhetoric, used it?
We didn't seem to be able to hear what was behind their concerns. We "liberally" dissed Trump, using not dissimilar language. Is it any surprise that people who felt ignored, looked down on, and disenfranchised are using our tactics? Is it any wonder they are falling for Trump's lies, when he at least validates their frustrations? Our frustration is valid, but not the way we are dealing with it.
Maybe we'd better rethink how we think and talk about people we disagree with, and start listening so that we can hear the things that might lead us to common ground. If we can't do that, maybe just NOT SAY ANYTHING because it's gone past the time we can fix it. Going to take some work now. We need to change tactics and keep talking about the good stuff.
Annie, I get your point about not derisively judging people based on income and demographics. However, I am not sure that was Sharon's intent.
I got the following idea from her comment. The Democratic Party, in many of our opinions, offers more programs to support and empower poor and working people. The fact that someone in a demographic, that Dems are introducing policies to try to help, is openly dismissive of the party's top politician and doing so profanely, shows the uphill challenge the party has in getting their message out to counter trickle-down disinformation.
It was what I thought when I saw the message on this vehicle. Maybe I am wrong, but I saw the owner of the car as someone that the GOP could care less about. Biden does not deserve the message I saw on that vehicle. I personally don't even think that message is appropiate on anything! It is totally disrespectful. I think we have not said anything for way too long! Yes, we have to work to change what the GOP has been doing since Reagan. I am sure I voted for him back then. I know I voted for Nixon. My husband was a Republican and I did what he told me.
That was back in the 1960s and 1970s. He was killed in an auto accident in 1974. I had to go to court to get custody of our twelve year old daughter even though I had given birth to her. I had no clue until I was informed I needed an attorney. Women had few rights back in those days. Some days I was overwhelmed. However, I am a survivor and today.... I am a proud Democrat. Thank goodness for FDR and Social Security or I would have been living with my parents with my daughter.
Annie D Stratton, this theme that "we" don't listen to "them" and in fact dismiss their perspective has been a constant refrain since tfg was elected in 2016. My reaction has always been, when are they listening to us? Do supporters of tfg have any interest in why millions voted for Obama and HCR and Biden? I've never felt that any of them cared in the least. Show me a book analogous to Hillbilly Elegy or Educated. "Liberals" bent over backwards to understand the mindset of a voter supporting tfg (and all the other certifiably crazy republicans) but somehow I never hear from conservatives struggling to understand why the majority of this country wants gun control, immigration reform, abortion access, universal healthcare, election reform, campaign finance reform, paid parental leave and all the other programs they attack as evil and socialism. If I've missed something out there please let me know.
I am afraid I don't understand what your point is here. Tit for tat? There are conservatives, and there are people who are angry and feel dismissed. They are not necessarily the same people. I do not think that confounding people who are only being told part of the story with the people who are deliberately distorting the facts is productive. I believe in compassion and in recognizing the humanity of people who are being used and misled. That is the point, to me. I need to do that to maintain my own sense of humanity. I find people who live in a them vs us world are pretty much the same, no matter which perspective they are from. Either way, it gets us no where. That's why I said that if we want to make change, we need to abandon this practice of judging one another in ways that will not contribute to positive change, and focus on those things that can. Yes, I think you've missed something pretty big, and stooped to the level at which you see the people you criticize. Tell me how that is going to help President Biden, or make our society more equitable. Would it hurt you to try to imagine the good in people who disagree with you, and regard them accordingly?
I find that progressive Ds have a problem with him and all the people they call establishment Ds or corporate Ds. At least now I don't see them dissing him as they did before here in Salem on a regular basis, but neither do they tout his accomplishments. Right now their energy here in Salem seems to be taken up with Salem/Keizer issues. Keizer was a part of Salem until they decided to become a separate city and they are a showcase of how Rs operate when they are in charge and it's far right. There is a guy who is exposing their nonsense on a regular basis on line and on Facebook. The local rag is a Gannett clone and we take the online version, so that we can read obits.
It is my feeling that 'Gannett clones,' are a better alternative than no real newspaper at all and they do allow independent editorial policies. The editorials and most of the letters and columnists in the Gannett-owned Palm Beach Post to which I subscribe are at least as progressive as you'll find on your TV watching MSNBC, the same as they were in its pre-Gannett days. Your local 'rag' was probably a 'rag' before Gannett saved it from going out of business, and remains one.
Actually, for a long time Salem had two newspapers, one in the am and one in the pm. One was probably more liberal than the other and they had real editors and some excellent writers. Then it became one and has slowly gone straight to hell with fewer and fewer staff. I will give them credit for doing the best they can. The paper does not do editorials or letters to the editor. For a long time Eugene had an independent family owned paper and it was excellent. Then they sold it to Gannett and now they have people who write for both newspapers and they are as lousy as the SJ here in Salem. I would say you are lucky with your Gannett owned newspaper because no one we know takes the paper edition here and oh, they no longer publish on Saturday.
I live in the home state of "The Chicago Tribune." A once hale and hearty, although a little to the right of center, newspaper. It had it's own building and a troves of award winning journalists. It was bought by a hedge fund. The building was sold, and the (I can't call it "skeleton" crew, since even the bones aren't all there) ghost crew is now wedged into a hole office. So I know what the loss of journalism is. Again, thank God for Substack.
Here in my little burg, the local rag is owned and operated by Metro Market Media, which is a privately owned entity based here in the town and controls dailies in 3 other municipalities. I believe it might have been controlled by something like Gannett at some point, but they branched off to form their own company -- I would hazard a guess that it had become too "liberal" for the readers, but don't quote me. It used to be a daily published print newspaper (it goes back to the 19th century), but in the last few years scaled back to only 2 printed editions a week -- something my mom was none to pleased about. A print subscription (includes digital) is like $220 a year, kind of a lot for just 2 papers a week (I keep a digital subscription that is about $10 a month). They do still have an op-ed sort of page with letters from readers, but in an area that went like 80% for T***p, one can imagine the gist of the opinions.
In Atlanta, there used to be a morning (Atlanta Constitution) and evening (Atlanta Journal) edition -- I grew up with the evening edition we had delivered -- but they merged into a once daily edition (AJC) years ago. Now, I'm not sure if they publish a print edition every day, but their digital subscription is like $12 or so a month. They are owned by Cox Enterprises, an entity based in Atlanta that also controls several other markets (print & broadcast) in some cities. They do tend to have a fairly balanced view of things, though of course they are bashed by the right as being part of the Leftist Mainstream Media basically because they dare to present both sides. Printed newspapers do seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs, but I do scan the local ones to keep track of what's going on. The AJC has some writers I do enjoy. Our local rag, not so much.
This is a great recap of his accomplishments, Barbara. I also read Simon Rosenberg. He is very good! I think we need to post this on EVERY social media site...too bad we couldn't post it on Trump's "Truth" social!
I never try and talk to a MAGA. What I do try and do is disseminate facts and figures to a broad audience. My goal is to counter balance the biased, anti-Biden media.
Barbara, I honestly believe I will copy and forward your comment to my district's Democratic legislators. THAT is what a declaration of accomplishments looks like. Masterfully done.
I'll give him his credit and link to his Substack on the send. Probably will copy the list into the body too, just in case whoever opens it is too lazy to follow a trail. Excellent work!
What that specific shows is that Democrats don't get in the way of business. They just want profitable business operations that don't impinge on fellow citizens' right to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness. In other words, Democrats are, on the whole, not socialists.
The most recent EIA projections are that U.S. crude oil production is expected to increase to new records in 2023 and 2024. The EIA forecasts that U.S. crude oil production will average 12.4 million bpd in 2023 and 12.8 million bpd in 2024.
Global energy demand will rise as well, dwarfing US contributions towards increasing supply. A growing portion of that demand is being met with renewable sources, but demand for hydrocarbon-based energy sources will continue to grow as well. Even when the world gets to "net-zero" carbon emissions, hydrocarbon sources will remain a part of the mix.
Selina Sweet - May I have your permission to paraphrase your comment with attribution to my Facebook page? If so, could you give blanket approval for any of us to do so? This is a grassroots feature that is available to all of HCR's readers. I do it in one way, shape or form every day. If we all did it we could get the word out better. News outlets be damned!!!
Don't be so quick to damn traditional news outlets. Facebook pages and other social media outlets do not have the impact that MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN and news segments on local stations have. And newspapers still count too. The other day my local (Gannett-owned) paper published a full LFAA column by HCR.
Good for Gannett - Although I personally read a number of newspapers daily I don't know how widespread the practice is. I'm still leery of TV news broadcasts who seem happy to show photos of Biden tripping over a sandbag and drump making a fool of himself yet are loath to show footage of Biden creating jobs, stressing bipartisanship, and shoring up infrastructure.
Yes...effective PR is always a good thing when real results are being produced by dedicated groups of people. Like so many people we all know who are hard workers committed to doing a good job, they are so busy with the job at hand, they have little time for touting their achievements. The media, always on the hunt for a story, naturally fulfill this role because people generally trust that they’re doing an honest job...even in the instances when they’re not. So, as more good things get accomplished by the Biden led Democrats, it will be important to get them covered by the media in a fair and accurate way which is what professional journalists are trained to do. The American people are smart and they know when real things are being accomplished but it can’t hurt to take a little precious time to tally the progress as we all love and admire a real winner.
Selina, Mr. Shapiro reminds me a bit of Governor Dewitt Clinton some 200 years ago when he undertook the first major public works enterprise in the United States by underwriting the engineering, digging and completion of the first Erie Canal in ca 1820. This first ever effort at a major government-sponsored infrastructure was completed several years before expected and under budget and which paid for itself in several years less than estimated. It was so successful that a second deeper and wider canal was begun within 10 years and later a 3rd NYState Barge Canal. The Erie Canal was considered the chief contributor to NY City becoming the major deep water port on the Eastern seaboard instead of New Orleans.
"Clinton's Ditch" became the first and greatest demonstration that government can work!
It is also one of the reasons for the rapid spread of invasive water species throughout the east. One can take issue with a lot of the "great works" of the 29th and early 20th century: not enough consideration of unintended impacts. They were treated as "externalities": costs directed caused by the projects but paid for by others who are not beneficiaries. We are paying the costs now for the consequences of many of those projects and programs, and are beginning to pay for the consequences of the 20th century.
Freeways are an example. Even the Congressman who sponsored the original bill that funded the freeways beginning regreted having done so. He felt that it changed our entire culture, destroyed communities, and created a culture of disconnection.
The same can be said for the culture of huge dam projects on rivers and allocating water rights. It took only decades for that to fray, and we still are pretending that we can fix it. I think that our government took an enormous wrong turn for the benefit of big business in the 19th century, and we all have been caught up in trying to fix it since.
For the life of me, I can't understand why. We have successful alternatives to follow. Why don't we? Somehow we have come to think that "economics" means capitalism, which is based on very flawed assumptions about human nature.
They're a blight for sure. Not surprisingly, I didn't see a single one in Denmark and Norway during our just-ended vacation there. In fact, signage appears to be regulated in general in the urban areas we visited, not just along major roads. We came away with the sense of not being constantly under assault from advertising.
They're an eyesore, a harm to the environment and a distraction to drivers. There are four states and many cities that have banned them. And this is a worldwide trend.
While I agree, in Florida, they are a huge part of their flora and fauna. For miles you see photos of babies (or pieces of) and messages about don't do abortions, commonly said by Republicans as pro-life. There are no billboards, however, that offer information on who is willing to take on the expense of raising a birthed child. So, I'll withhold my condemnation of billboards in Florida, this time. I actually think it's a great idea.
“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!!!
Steve,,,,,just so we don't insult all the female dogs, wolves, foxes , otters and women..... how about calling tfg a " whiny old jackass"... but, then, of course, we insult all donkeys.....
My response also. I am really bothered by use of the word bitch and I am sure we can find a pejorative for death star that doesn't insult females of any kind or animals. My special pet peeve on this subject is bitch slap and I have actually taken people to task about it. Then I also see people using the c word to describe men. To me death star is a festering cancer or monster or some of those wonderful names that the Scots came up with.
Donald accused the Democrats holding a witch hunt, he being the witch - is he self-incriminating again ?
The most commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old English wǣrloga, which meant "breaker of oaths" or "deceiver"[2] and was given special application to the devil around 1000.[3] In early modern Scots, the word came to be used as the male equivalent of WITCH (which can be male or female, but has historically been used predominantly for females).[4][5][6] The term may have become associated in Scotland with MALE WITCHES due to the idea that they had made pacts with Auld Hornie (my note: remember pussy grabbing and that horney old devil - Epstein ?) and thus had betrayed the Christian faith and broke their baptismal vows or oaths.[7] From this use, the word passed into Romantic literature and ultimately 20th-century popular culture
Point taken and I hesitated posting this for that reason. However, the point was to highlight MAGAworld’s supposed concern for “manliness” even as they treasure this whining, sniveling poor excuse for a human. They will continue to use the word even if we don’t. I am not in the end a believer in solving problems by not using words. Wasn’t this word in the news even today out of the mouth of a woman?
I am sorry if this offended you. I meant no offense to females of any species, only to Mr. Trump.
Steve, I understand the dilemma. I am totally with you on the whining sniveler...it is really a challenge to even find enough awful words to describe tfg. I guess I just don`t want to keep connecting his awfulness to words we now use to disparage females. That's all. You are right that the word is in common use and used liberally by both sexes...... as I said, a challenge.
But I did not miss your point and do agree with you.
Watching professional dog shows, especially in the UK, one gets used to hearing "bitch" used non-pejoratively to describe a female show-dog. It took some getting used to . . . "She's really a beautiful bitch . . . " but in that sense it's simply the word used to describe a female dog in a similar way to using words like "sow", "doe", "ewe", "queen", etc. etc. and again, used more outside the US not necessarily as an insult. Yes, it does seem to be used now to describe either gender, and the verb "bitch" is quite simply someone, anyone, who excessively complains or whines a lot. IMO, T***p earns just about every pejorative moniker I can think of male, female, animal, vegetable, or mineral . . .
I call him Trump, because that is his name. I have no need to use pejoratives to describe him just to feel superior. In fact, I would prefer that we all use his name when talking about him. Too often I feel that what is going on here is just an excuse for demeaning someone, rather than discussing and seeking to understand how to resolve the dilemma we have. Which, as I see it, is constantly giving in to Trump's desire to control the conversation. Something to think about.
I never use the c word and on the rare occasion I use the b word, my husband knows I am describing a truly awful woman and I can think of a few that frequently make headlines that qualify. I am not exactly offended, but am by bitch slap. However, I do love Rabelais and his description of a rejected male putting essence of a bitch in heat on the bottom of the lady's gown and she was swarmed by dogs as she went about.
Yes, we are a proud nation climbing back from a coup ruined party destitute to scream foul in profane natures under their cloaks of Emperor-pryity ( pardon the attempt towards the Emperors New Clothes slight) .
This particular Letter of Heathers is so near the conclusions ...great minds staying the course , grand accomplishments , and with great trust for America to forecast the BLUE WIN IN 2024.
I will and still stand to applaud the party , the people, and the perseverance .
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?
Both the President and Vice President regularly post accomplishments on Facebook. Maybe the bigger question is why the media doesn’t give these accomplishments more coverage?
Biden went on a tour talking about the work his administration is doing - it just doesn't get much heat. Much better to keep the dark orange beast in the news. It's all about the eyes on the page.
‘The eyes on the page’ is profound ...’got to sell the morning paper , sir my name is Jimmy Brown’ always comes to my mind , a musical whit-ism ( and marvelous song) by Mac Wiseman .
The circus sells big , we all know and loved the circus , but as things go/went , so did it . A dying entity though some vestige(s) still remain. As will theirs, a continuum ad infinitum as decades we’ve fought this battle and it’s sold the morning paper like ‘the Big GOP’ (BIG TOP😉) DID (and for a little time more will?) . Is it the fascination of an evil story loved, the climax with all the hoopla however well deceived , the intrigue of mystery designed by demagoguery? Those books/‘news’papers/‘news’stations sell the most, gets the highest ratings. And Truth takes the dry back seat. Documentary’s true drudgery by the average reader.
And so the story goes on, the fight undoubtably too.
But in the end , we hope you’ll find ...the TRUE ..the BLUE
I see a lot of lazy journalism. Writing and selling a story about a lost mini sub, deep in the North Atlantic, with four rich tourists, is easy. Weaving together the successes of legislation, cooperation between businesses, and how the economics will improve the lives of Americans, requires hard work and adept writing. {sigh}
I have to go to other sources to get that story. One of my husband's Native American relatives had some pretty terse unsympathetic things to say about that tin can implosion. We have a couple online publications here in Salem who do a good job on politics, mostly local. The Oregonian seems to have it in for Governor Kotek, who is doing a pretty good job given all the problems. They are currently upset because her staff knew a few days about the hacking of the Oregon DMV a few days before they made it public. They would have been inundated with people trying to get info before they had time to set up a response, but....
Mass media has found news to be expensive and unprofitable, so they have drastically reduced their staff. What’s left? Running info from press releases and police band radios. Investigative journalism is no longer available except via certain sources that the public as a whole never sees.
I am a supporter of Propublica and of a couple of other orgs that support local reporting and some huge stories with national application. The also work with some of the bigger news producers too, such as Frontline, to enable deep journalism that often starts with a local story. This coalition has made a real difference. Another resource is the Brennan Center. The more we support these kinds of things, the more real media will have the resources to make real journalism available. The more we sit back and complain instead of seeking out ways to support good journalism, the less likely it is to happen. We have a choice in that.
I too believe we need to support organizations like ProPublica, NPR, the national papers, as well as local ones and put subscription dollars to work. The advertising model has been moved into apps supporting opinions and quick-draw McGraw reporting that never gets around to pulling all the facts together, getting the timeline right, and eliminating the dross, leaving people to create their own facts by expressing their ideas about what is happening and never returning to find out what really happened.
And TFG is only 3 years younger and in far worse physical AND mental shape. Have you seen his speeches at his rallies? If he didn’t have that podium to hang on to, they’d have to scrape him off the floor. He rambles on and on, completely undisciplined in his speech, nearly incoherent. Whoever his campaign manager is, should be fired for letting him go out like that.
Do you honestly think any campaign manager would be able to control him? His own lawyers can't get him to shut up about his perceived grievances, as he continues to spew lies and mock the judicial process, all the while offering fluid explanations about what he did with "his" papers. Jack Smith is on it, though.
Somehow that's what his "base" loves! Rant rant rant. Drown out the facts with endless rant and CAPS.... Just the same for all that he LOST the 2022 election big time. Another round in 2024, destiny likely repeating itself. LOSE, Trump, LOSE!
You know what? We need to stop letting Trump control what our priorities are. Doesn't matter that he's catering to his "base". It's all he has left, and chances are good that a good portion of the people identified as his base in polls (which are notoriously unreliable anyway) are going to even vote. His lawyers can't manage him. His rational followers are suddenly very very quiet, or have openly repudiated him. And the very strange congress people, especially in the house, are not doing him (or Congress) any favors. Let them rant.
He is. Your not paying attention. The media isn't even doing a good job covering Biden. They're to busy talking about the Republican threat to talk about the Democratic promise. They don't have to become another version of Fox, they just need to talk to people and interview them about what is going to be happening in their counties and the affects new legislation is planning. More work is focused on "Red States" not because we are trying to convert them to "Blue States", but because they were the people left behind by the globalization of our economy.
The Dems ARE selling their accomplishments. However, the infrastructure for supporting negative press against the Prez is much larger. Paid for by mega-billionaire mega-donors, they include over 1000 nationwide right-wing radio stations spewing hatred and anger. Who can compete with that??
The MSM is more interested in rehashing, in detail, the Gabby Petrillo murder a year later, on the same day Uncle Joe announced a major breakthrough on housing/construction/inflation, etc, which got a 1 minute mention.
The problem is not that the Administration is not touting it. The problem is that the media doesn't consider it newsworthy. Instead, as Heather notes, they focus on Biden's age, or his tripping on an immovable object. Or fill-considered adventures three miles underwater by foolish men with too much money, rather than true tragedies like that occurring in Israel. The media promotes rubber-necking by the public, rather than keeping our eyes on the road. And too much of the public sucks it up.
My recent "favorite" was the breathless minute by minute coverage of the search for the submersible (a form of ambulance chasing), and almost no coverage of what was happening in Washington DC-- by news people located in WaDC. I was especially disgusted by NPR (member) and WaPo (subscriber) and let them know. Some others must have too, because things changed overnight.
Or maybe they finally figured out that there was no news there. Somebody remembered hearing a big bang --> less than 2 hrs after submersion! Nobody in charge had talked to them. So humongous search with days of "coverage. Meanwhile I went to the US House website, found the video of Schiff's speech, and listened to the whole thing, including the very interesting context before hand. Very revealing, that was. THAT is what the 1st amendment is supposed to be all about.
In the estimation of mainstream media, good news simply does not sell, that's why they love Trump - hell, that's why they helped create Trump! Biden talks about his administration's accomplishments every day, but Trump continues to dominate the news because most of media's attention is focused on him. Remember TV cameras in helicopters following OJ Simpson's SUV? Minute to minute coverage of the Titan submersible over the last few days? Like that, on an endless loop.
Speaking as a veteran of the ad biz, there are two kinds of ads: paid and non-paid. We just need to get better at generating mentions and word-of-mouth, creating buzz, using social media, having influencers (as much as I hate that term) spreading news of Democratic accomplishments. There’s a lot that can be done to generate positive messaging without paying for it.
STRIKE WITH PRIDE! Seattle Roastery leads nationwide Starbucks strike over Starbucks’ hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ workers. Over 150+ stores and 3,500 workers will be on strike over the course of the next week.
Thx FERN. See also, the important University of Washingtin "LGBTQ Civil Rights History Project". 1970's Pike Place Market catalyst to my thin knowledge.
That and whatever works, Dems have a "few billionaires" with $$$ to throw about... sad sad to say the major parties are utterly dependent on big money to contest elections! Sad to say too this has been the way since when!
Unlimited funds, yes, earmarked for tearing down Democrats, making it harder to vote, dismantling the rule of law, and gutting programs that actually help people. Their ultimate goals are unfettered capitalism, autocratic rule, Christian nationalism, and suppression of women and minorities.
Do you know of any where themes of accomplishment, competence, and infrastructure plans draw more eyeballs, ears, and clicks than fear and outrage?
We learned leading up to the 2016 election and Cambridge Analytica's so-called work on the Book of the Face that only the latter drive engagement and engagement is the coin of the realm.
I recommend "Wired" contributor Cory Doctorow's work, any of it really, but especially his Pluralistic daily blog to learn how far we, all of us, are from anything close to what you suggest. https://pluralistic.net/
I’ve been thinking about this after reading your comment and it seems to me there’s a morally acceptable way to sell fear. “They will take it away from you.” It’s what Biden is doing right now with abortion. He could do it with most of what he’s accomplished. “They will roll back veterans benefits.” “They keep trying to cut Medicare and Social Security.” “They will make it harder for you and your children to have health insurance.“ Done properly, wouldn’t this be successful? It usually works. The other good thing about it is, it’s the truth.
I was just talking to my husband about this yesterday. The Biden team needs to hire a PR firm and get the message out on billboards, social media, TV, radio, milk cartons, whatever!
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?]
The fact is that Qevin McCarthy’s legacy will be known as the worst Speaker of the House America every had. I thought Newt was horrid (and he is) but Qev takes the cake.
McCarthy has chosen to still be a part of the Republicans attempt to destroy the government. He knows better but he has no ethics or integrity. I don’t know what he gets out of being led around by a bunch of vicious lunatics. Yet he compromised with Biden to avoid the debt ceiling. Allowing them to censor Schiff because Trump wanted it sets a terrible precedent.
It is reported that it is because 45 wanted the censure.....but all it does is turn drama into dollars.
It is so obvious the government has to STOP taking money from donors, big or small. It’s turning people into maniacs. This alone would be a good reason to match on the Capital.
This kind of corruption has taken over every level of government. Many states are now colonies that are completely run by big mining, oil, or agriculture corporations and owners. The Supreme Court is obviously in the pockets of a few billionaires. Every Senate election now costs tens of millions. One of the first things Chief Justice Roberts did was to rule on Citizens United which calls money "free speech." That has made "free speech" very expensive, which has added to the powers of the very rich to make sure they stay very rich. The Roberts family is making millions.
Absolutely! Great harm. With all the positive changes and policies of the Biden administration, we continue to battle repub lies and corruption. We have to work hard to make that a message even repub voters will believe. Because it’s the Truth.
They exhibit ignorance by the bucket full, in fact that’s about all that they exhibit, you would think that maybe one or two of them might show signs of having a brain, but I guess it’s fear of the most ignorant “base” in the history of our great nation that keeps it hidden. Go figure.
'Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party' (book review, Dept. of History, Princeton University)
'The story of how Newt Gingrich and his allies tainted American politics, launching an enduring era of brutal partisan warfare'
'When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, President Obama observed that Trump “is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party.” In Burning Down the House, historian Julian Zelizer pinpoints the moment when our country was set on a path toward an era of bitterly partisan and ruthless politics, an era that was ignited by Newt Gingrich and his allies. In 1989, Gingrich brought down Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright and catapulted himself into the national spotlight. Perhaps more than any other politician, Gingrich introduced the rhetoric and tactics that have shaped Congress and the Republican Party for the last three decades. Elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich quickly became one of the most powerful figures in America not through innovative ideas or charisma, but through a calculated campaign of attacks against political opponents, casting himself as a savior in a fight of good versus evil. Taking office in the post-Watergate era, he weaponized the good government reforms newly introduced to fight corruption, wielding the rules in ways that shocked the legislators who had created them. His crusade against Democrats culminated in the plot to destroy the political career of Speaker Wright.'
'While some of Gingrich’s fellow Republicans were disturbed by the viciousness of his attacks, party leaders enjoyed his successes so much that they did little collectively to stand in his way. Democrats, for their part, were alarmed, but did not want to sink to his level and took no effective actions to stop him. It didn’t seem to matter that Gingrich’s moral conservatism was hypocritical or that his methods were brazen, his accusations of corruption permanently tarnished his opponents. This brand of warfare worked, not as a strategy for governance but as a path to power, and what Gingrich planted, his fellow Republicans reaped. He led them to their first majority in Congress in decades, and his legacy extends far beyond his tenure in office. From the Contract with America to the rise of the Tea Party and the Trump presidential campaign, his fingerprints can be seen throughout some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics. Burning Down the House presents the alarming narrative of how Gingrich and his allies created a new normal in Washington.'
Thank you for this, Fern! Let’s not forget that Newt has been an active advisor to the Republicans especially during these Trump years. Can’t stomach him.
'Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) testified Thursday before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to CNN.'
'The former House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot alleged last September that Gingrich had provided feedback to the Trump campaign about advertisements promoting the former president’s unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and discussed “coordinating” state electors.'
'In a letter to the former Speaker requesting a voluntary interview, the committee said that Gingrich communicated with former Trump senior advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Miller on campaign ads about the election, after it had been declared for Joe Biden.'
'The ads Gingrich advised on had “encouraged members of the public to contact their state officials and pressure them to challenge and overturn the result of the election” in the days before state electors would cast their votes, the letter said.'
'Special counsel Jack Smith offers fake electors immunity in Jan. 6 probe: report'
'The committee also suggested Gingrich was “involved in the fake elector scheme,” pointing to a November 2020 message to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.'
“Is someone in charge of coordinating all the electors?” the message read. “Evans makes the point that all the contested electors must meet on [D]ecember 14 and send in ballots to force contests which the house would have to settle.”
'Gingrich had previously been ordered to testify before a special grand jury investigating election interference in Georgia. However, the former Speaker’s case to block the testimony was ultimately dismissed in February after the Fulton County grand jury concluded its work. ' (TheHill) See link below.
My new book, "March to the Majority," is available today. In the book, I take readers behind the scenes of the Republican Revolution in 1994 and the rise of the modern GOP.
"...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.
After more than four decades of tax cuts and impunity for corporations and the very rich, cutbacks and privatization, abandonment or environmental responsibilities, and promotion of self-righteous authoritarianism and punitive parts of religion while rejecting it's theme of egalitarianism and compassion, who the hell is better off? And who has and does suffer? Who remains confident about the likelihood of an improving future? Where is our "more perfect union".
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."
Hell's Bells, I wish billboards with that same message (perhaps stopped at the word "Act") could be erected at each funded jobsite, paid for by funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. 'Strikes me as a vital use of such funds.
Hi Dirk, We need to start bragging and spelling it out. I vote for giving them all the facts. How can we reach them except through billboards. Their news sources aren’t going to tout the libs.
How did FDR manage in the '30s? Didn't they put signs all over various projects that were funded by this and that government program? Roosevelt's "Alphabet Soup". People really got the message that government was working FOR them then, and this was long before our slicker'n' snot information age!
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!
Ellen, Pelosi is amazing . Her love for this country is admirable. You can believe she is supporting Jefferies as he serves and is encouraging Jefferies as he stands up to the enemies of freedom. She and others believe in growing leaders within the Democratic Party.
I also want to share that I admire her for her love of family. She is not out of politics nor "slack" in serving her country but she has always loved family.
She is wise to help to grow young leaders within the Democratic Party. She is a brilliant powerful woman who also loves her husband. He was almost killed just for being her loving and devoted husband. She is an amazing woman and an example in more ways than one....not only she but her family!
How many people died from aids because Reagan refused to acknowledge? More or leas than those who died from Covid because Trump and Kushner refused to tell the truth knowing it was serious. I guess in both cases the ill-fated were not “their voters”….
Ellen Devens -- I'd like to hear more than just the clip, but it's not posted on YouTube yet. And yes, I loved the White House State Dinner link too! And very impressed that the dinner was completely plant based in honor of Narendra Modi.
Using a golf cart, he gets in about as many steps as he would walking from room to room at his resort home and probably needs a hand getting in and out of the cart as well. Remember that he is opposed to exercise which drains his precious bodily fluids or some such nonsense.
LOL, it's a reference to the Dr. Strangelove film where Gen. Jack Ripper expresses his paranoid fantasy. https://youtu.be/iAHJCPoWCC8 But, in fact, Trump had a similarly harebrained theory about exercise, as stated in the book "Trump Revealed" - "the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted," once again proving that truth is stranger than fiction.
Thank you Peter. I did not see anything about the last paragraph about age. I am so tired of that even being much of a topic. Times have changed. Not everyone over 75 is sitting in a Wheelchair in a long term care facility. Please, wake up and don’t worry about age for we know not the time or place of our demise. Glad to hear of your activity and joy of cycling continued.
Read this story about the lobster lady who, at 103, still takes out her fishing boat and pulls lobster traps--after she puts on her red lipstick! #goals
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 .
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind- Mohandas Gandhi.
So I must agree with Rep. Ro Khanna. PM Modi will change nothing because of the missing Squad, who don’t engage with him. A cold shoulder is not what I consider diplomacy. Seems to me that’s just performance art for their constituents, and their real goal is clearly not change.
Modi is in the mold of Orban. He is nominally democratic but leaning authoritarian. the Congressional protestors serve a large purpose--they given Biden leverage--He can say you only get these favorable terms in trade, etc. if you make these changes or I won't be able to get it through Congress. The louder they protest the better, and the more leverage Biden has. Besides which, they are correct.
While I’m not sure the GQP knows how Congress works, PM Modi probably knows that six House Democrats won’t keep anything from getting through Congress. Modi must marvel at the hubris of lecturing him on human rights abuses while murdering our own with our worship of guns, around the clock, without any real sign that will ever change, at rates that far exceed any “developed” country. Laughable, at best, hypocritical at worst.
I'm with Georgia on this one, John. Yes, six House Democrats won't keep anything from getting through Congress. Yet each individual Representative owes her/his duty to their constituents and their conscience on every vote, and every public action or statement. While I think Prez Joe has done a marvelous job thus far on most every issue or area of presidential responsibility, I depart from his giving the imprimatur of his office to the likes of MBS, and Modi.
AOC, Tlaib, Omar, and the rest of the "Squad" members were absolutely right to protest him, for the reasons I stated previously. And while you are certainly correct in decrying the ghastly cult of the gun in our Country, that has naught to do with the aforenoted congressional duties to call truth to power, as these six members have done. AOC in particular is, rightly or wrongly, the public face of the conscientious left in our Country, and this is the type of action, however small in the larger scheme of things, that will keep her future burning bright.
As I stated, then you minimized, the hypocrisy of gross human rights violations of this country have everything to do with lecturing other leaders on their human rights abuses. And I find it disingenuous to equate engagement and diplomacy with even tacit approval.
I neither minimized not equated engagement and diplomacy with tacit or any other type of approval. I simply pointed out that you cannot expect lockstep agreement from individual Representatives and/or Senators (no Senators in this case) with a full fledged dog and pony show, particularly the rare honor of a joint session of Congress, for heads of State that have a lot to answer for. Modi is reprehensible, his Nation is not. The Squad members did their duty.
I fully agree with you about the horrific scourge of gun violence here, as I stated. But that in no way minimizes or eliminates the Head of our State, Prez Joe from lecturing his guest about human rights. I believe he did, in fact.
My reaction too. While the US Pins its most noble aspirations on the Equality of Mankind we ourselves are tortured to correct our own human rights violations.
I would condition my observation on the conditions of Indian prejudice is created by Government Action and ours more a cultural legacy aided and abetted by the Former slave states and Republican sectors in the country.
But in the larger picture of the future of the world it is wiser to develop India as a confederate enemy of our enemy than not.
My favorite wisdom in diplomacy remains keeping your eye on the donut not the hole.
John, Diplomacy. Thank you. It is never a straight forward ideological thrust; it’s having a long term goal in mind pursued with nuanced words that allows opposing identities the chance to find “some” common ground
If the Squad wants to protest that is their right, however they are not in the field of diplomacy and as citizens, we need the nuance
One of my very favorite books of all time is RAISE THE TITANIC by Clive Cussler (1976) with super hero Dirk Pitt. It covers the early days of the Coloradan miners and the technical aspects of raising the Titanic. There is also a part where a submersible is stuck down below similar to what’s happening now. I highly recommend reading this book – it has everything – Dirk Pitt, history, politics, Russian saboteurs, and, of course, the beautiful girl!
Thanks for that, Linda! Of course I've heard of that book and other Cussler work, and "Raise the Titanic" I would assume is one of the all time bestsellers. Nonetheless, I've never read it, nor did I know that it featured such an interesting backstory. I'll check it out. Your recommendation got me. Especially the part about the beautiful girl!
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.
Yah, big time, and well-researched/written, Mr. Silen. As another lawyer (retired), I also have a special fury reserved for those members of our profession who seek to destroy the very system of laws that support them, and all of us. Eastman doesn't make me ashamed to be a lawyer, but I'm certainly ashamed that he is.
Arthur, thank you. I want John Eastman permanently separated from any employment related to the teaching of law, disbarred, and convicted of his crimes including, but not limited to, obstruction. Full stop.
Well done Arthur. Thank you. I don’t know you or the California bar association, but I trust my ears, and your writing has the ring of truth. Now go back and see if you can find the extra “it” in the third paragraph.😉
William, Thank you for your close reading Arthur's rich description of Eastman's wrong doing. I saw that extra 'it', too. All in all, Arthur's comment was an excellent example of legal fact finding.
Excellent and throughly Lawyerly description of the machinations of this non-Lawyerly Eastman. I cannot describe the antics of Eastman and his associates as anything but totally evil.
I am convinced that he and Trump willfully were conducting their attempts to slide an alternate Government to replace the elected Government followed step by step the same process used by Hitler and Goering to control the Reichstag long enough for the Dictatorship to replace the Weimar Republic.
We must ensure these traitorous Wretches suffer full identification of their misdeeds and life long shunning of Eastman by the Legal Community.
I would cherish hearing that he, like Joe McCarthy after his exposure, paced the corridors of power fruitlessly seeking audience and finding silence.
Excellent piece, Arthur. As a California lawyer who has had some tussles with the Bar myself, I am always saddened to see a fellow lawyer being hauled before its sometimes star chamberesque tribunals. Nonetheless, times and circumstances do arise that call for significant discipline within our properly well regulated profession. The horrific Girardi case is one of them, and indeed the perfidy of Mr. Eastman is another, as you well explained.
In Eastman's case, it is particularly disappointing, as I remember the days when he was a well respected, albeit very conservative voice in the SoCal legal community, publishing many interesting articles in the Daily Journal. Sad to see how he lost his grip.
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!🕊️
Not long after I subscribed, someone asked the question of how to address her. She replied that she has her undergrads call her “Professor”, she tries to get her grad students to call her “Heather”; I don’t think she objects to our familiarity here.
That said, I call her Professor out of my respect (and 35 years in a rank conscious environment).
"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.
The people who own the major media outlets have an agenda, which doesn’t really include improving democracy at home or abroad. They want profits, and they don’t see the Biden Administration facilitating increasing their profits or reducing regulation and taxes.
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.
Heather is modeling how to counteract Republican insanity with facts, logic, and reality--what a concept, right? Kudos to everyone who shares her Letters and/or integrates her material into conversations and even political discourse/activism to save democracy!
They want everything both ways. The are the bold, dynamic leaders who are going to "Make America Great Again" (whatever that means) yet are deprived and cheated victims whenever something does not go their way, in an unfair system somehow completely controlled by the do-nothing Democrats.
Their nonsense strikes a chord with the sense of victimhood among white conservatives. (FYI, I happen to be white, 70 y.o.a.) The media gives it credence as if the popularity of the notion lends truth to it. The True Believers are not going to give up their delusions readily, if at all. Those blessed with a capacity for reality-testing need to move on and engage with democratic processes.
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.
The strength of Democratic Governors like Shapiro bode well for future WH runs.
Democrats need to be outright bragging about these state level actions, as well as, the IRA, CHIPS, etc. accomplishments.
Bragging LOUD and OFTEN!!
Go on trumps truth social site someone not me and write that In all CAPS!😂
What's the worst case scenario if you do it?
You've wasted your time? After 12 years of engaging the people now largely filling truth social, I had to admit to myself it was a colossal waste of my time. You'll never change the mind of those people, but you will simply add more fuel to their fire.
Love the billboard idea!
Especially if it notes boldly that their specific Republican incumbents voted “no”!
Absolutely, and also specifically note what the money is being used for in that state.
I hope some of our Act Blue donations can be directed for exactly this purpose.
Yes! They should be!
“ The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced a six-figure nationwide campaign touting the President’s record successes after signing a budget deal. Officials at the DNC tell Florida Politics the campaign will include a billboard along the famous I-4 corridor, a populated but politically swingy region that often determines who wins Florida’s electoral votes in presidential contests.”
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/616659-dnc-to-post-billboard-on-i-4-corridor-touting-joe-bidens-budget-deal/
Make it an eight-figures nationwide campaign. The Koch cronies are spending 100 times that.
Thank you for reminding of the “Koch cronies.” Cannot do that often enough. We have a strong, too much ignored, Fifth Column.
Due to the corrupt Supreme Court Justices Alito, Thomas, Roberts etc.
I suppose I should also include Leo Leonard since he is the master of placing pliable justices on the courts.
Don’t forget ALEC. And that’s only one of the Koch and Koch cronies groups. Rachel Maddow had a whole web of them online some years ago. Also recommending “Democracy in Chains” of Duke Professor Nancy McClean. And “Starving the Beast” a film about the attack on public universities.
I read that the Koch's are no longer supporting Trump
That doesn’t change their super conservative ideas and support!
Exactly. If T***p were to die tomorrow . . . okay, let me pause and savor that thought for just a moment . . .
Okay, that's long enough . . . were he to pass from the scene, his followers would not suddenly disappear. They and their extremism have been like a spreading cancer in this country's political body. T***p only unleashed what had been festering for decades. He created a movement that really doesn't need him at its head any longer. I fear it will take a very long time before we can adequately excise the curse that he brought upon this country.
Thank you for that moment in which to savor TFG's passing. Ahhh😊
No matter. They are intent on fleecing the country and polluting our environment without paying a lick of taxes.
Koch is p*ssing down a rat hole. He may as well light s match to all that money.
The Democrats have plenty of umpf. It comes down to talking or doing. Here is a sample of what President Biden and his Administration have been doing. I will never forget the masterful job President Biden did with his vaccinating 200 million Americans in 90 days. I personally believe President Biden just may have saved my life.
"GDP growth over 3%, 3 times what it was under Trump
Almost 7 times as many Biden jobs as last 3 GOP Presidents combined
best COVID recovery in G7
lowest unemployment rate in peacetime economy since WWII
lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever
very elevated wage gains/new business starts
Almost 2 job openings per unemployed person
real earnings up in 2022
the deficit went up every year under Trump and has come down every year under Biden
domestic oil production on track to set records in 2023
historic investments in our future prosperity (infrastructure, CHIPs, climate, health care)
Look at the jobs created per month over these Presidencies - Rs at just 10k per month over 16 years. Biden is running at 50 times that so far. Yes, 50x! The jobs created just this past month - 339,000 - is 3 YEARS of job growth under these last 3 GOP Presidents."
Simon Rosenberg
For all those idiots who claim Biden hasn't accomplished anything... IF they will listen.
We have the opportunity to resist culture wars and spread the facts. This is why I like tp post data.
I was on my way to an appointment in Terre Haute, IN this week on Wednesday when I ended up following a 'filty dirty" small Chevrolet vehicle. It had a large "F--k Biden" sign on the back window. I was so discussed! He turned into one of the poorer neighborhoods off of 7th Street. This is what we are dealing with in Indiana. There are lots of "F--k Biden" flags on flag poles flying under American flags. It makes me angry and sick!
I noticed that you made a point of judging this person's dirty car and the fact that he lives in a poor neighborhood. "Liberals" started this practice of dismissing the concerns of the poor and misinformed long ago. Remember the constant use of the word "deplorable", long before Hillary, caught up in our rhetoric, used it?
We didn't seem to be able to hear what was behind their concerns. We "liberally" dissed Trump, using not dissimilar language. Is it any surprise that people who felt ignored, looked down on, and disenfranchised are using our tactics? Is it any wonder they are falling for Trump's lies, when he at least validates their frustrations? Our frustration is valid, but not the way we are dealing with it.
Maybe we'd better rethink how we think and talk about people we disagree with, and start listening so that we can hear the things that might lead us to common ground. If we can't do that, maybe just NOT SAY ANYTHING because it's gone past the time we can fix it. Going to take some work now. We need to change tactics and keep talking about the good stuff.
Annie, I get your point about not derisively judging people based on income and demographics. However, I am not sure that was Sharon's intent.
I got the following idea from her comment. The Democratic Party, in many of our opinions, offers more programs to support and empower poor and working people. The fact that someone in a demographic, that Dems are introducing policies to try to help, is openly dismissive of the party's top politician and doing so profanely, shows the uphill challenge the party has in getting their message out to counter trickle-down disinformation.
C. Jacobs, I'm not sure you got my point at all.
It was what I thought when I saw the message on this vehicle. Maybe I am wrong, but I saw the owner of the car as someone that the GOP could care less about. Biden does not deserve the message I saw on that vehicle. I personally don't even think that message is appropiate on anything! It is totally disrespectful. I think we have not said anything for way too long! Yes, we have to work to change what the GOP has been doing since Reagan. I am sure I voted for him back then. I know I voted for Nixon. My husband was a Republican and I did what he told me.
That was back in the 1960s and 1970s. He was killed in an auto accident in 1974. I had to go to court to get custody of our twelve year old daughter even though I had given birth to her. I had no clue until I was informed I needed an attorney. Women had few rights back in those days. Some days I was overwhelmed. However, I am a survivor and today.... I am a proud Democrat. Thank goodness for FDR and Social Security or I would have been living with my parents with my daughter.
Right on!
Annie D Stratton, this theme that "we" don't listen to "them" and in fact dismiss their perspective has been a constant refrain since tfg was elected in 2016. My reaction has always been, when are they listening to us? Do supporters of tfg have any interest in why millions voted for Obama and HCR and Biden? I've never felt that any of them cared in the least. Show me a book analogous to Hillbilly Elegy or Educated. "Liberals" bent over backwards to understand the mindset of a voter supporting tfg (and all the other certifiably crazy republicans) but somehow I never hear from conservatives struggling to understand why the majority of this country wants gun control, immigration reform, abortion access, universal healthcare, election reform, campaign finance reform, paid parental leave and all the other programs they attack as evil and socialism. If I've missed something out there please let me know.
I am afraid I don't understand what your point is here. Tit for tat? There are conservatives, and there are people who are angry and feel dismissed. They are not necessarily the same people. I do not think that confounding people who are only being told part of the story with the people who are deliberately distorting the facts is productive. I believe in compassion and in recognizing the humanity of people who are being used and misled. That is the point, to me. I need to do that to maintain my own sense of humanity. I find people who live in a them vs us world are pretty much the same, no matter which perspective they are from. Either way, it gets us no where. That's why I said that if we want to make change, we need to abandon this practice of judging one another in ways that will not contribute to positive change, and focus on those things that can. Yes, I think you've missed something pretty big, and stooped to the level at which you see the people you criticize. Tell me how that is going to help President Biden, or make our society more equitable. Would it hurt you to try to imagine the good in people who disagree with you, and regard them accordingly?
I find that progressive Ds have a problem with him and all the people they call establishment Ds or corporate Ds. At least now I don't see them dissing him as they did before here in Salem on a regular basis, but neither do they tout his accomplishments. Right now their energy here in Salem seems to be taken up with Salem/Keizer issues. Keizer was a part of Salem until they decided to become a separate city and they are a showcase of how Rs operate when they are in charge and it's far right. There is a guy who is exposing their nonsense on a regular basis on line and on Facebook. The local rag is a Gannett clone and we take the online version, so that we can read obits.
It is my feeling that 'Gannett clones,' are a better alternative than no real newspaper at all and they do allow independent editorial policies. The editorials and most of the letters and columnists in the Gannett-owned Palm Beach Post to which I subscribe are at least as progressive as you'll find on your TV watching MSNBC, the same as they were in its pre-Gannett days. Your local 'rag' was probably a 'rag' before Gannett saved it from going out of business, and remains one.
Actually, for a long time Salem had two newspapers, one in the am and one in the pm. One was probably more liberal than the other and they had real editors and some excellent writers. Then it became one and has slowly gone straight to hell with fewer and fewer staff. I will give them credit for doing the best they can. The paper does not do editorials or letters to the editor. For a long time Eugene had an independent family owned paper and it was excellent. Then they sold it to Gannett and now they have people who write for both newspapers and they are as lousy as the SJ here in Salem. I would say you are lucky with your Gannett owned newspaper because no one we know takes the paper edition here and oh, they no longer publish on Saturday.
I live in the home state of "The Chicago Tribune." A once hale and hearty, although a little to the right of center, newspaper. It had it's own building and a troves of award winning journalists. It was bought by a hedge fund. The building was sold, and the (I can't call it "skeleton" crew, since even the bones aren't all there) ghost crew is now wedged into a hole office. So I know what the loss of journalism is. Again, thank God for Substack.
Here in my little burg, the local rag is owned and operated by Metro Market Media, which is a privately owned entity based here in the town and controls dailies in 3 other municipalities. I believe it might have been controlled by something like Gannett at some point, but they branched off to form their own company -- I would hazard a guess that it had become too "liberal" for the readers, but don't quote me. It used to be a daily published print newspaper (it goes back to the 19th century), but in the last few years scaled back to only 2 printed editions a week -- something my mom was none to pleased about. A print subscription (includes digital) is like $220 a year, kind of a lot for just 2 papers a week (I keep a digital subscription that is about $10 a month). They do still have an op-ed sort of page with letters from readers, but in an area that went like 80% for T***p, one can imagine the gist of the opinions.
In Atlanta, there used to be a morning (Atlanta Constitution) and evening (Atlanta Journal) edition -- I grew up with the evening edition we had delivered -- but they merged into a once daily edition (AJC) years ago. Now, I'm not sure if they publish a print edition every day, but their digital subscription is like $12 or so a month. They are owned by Cox Enterprises, an entity based in Atlanta that also controls several other markets (print & broadcast) in some cities. They do tend to have a fairly balanced view of things, though of course they are bashed by the right as being part of the Leftist Mainstream Media basically because they dare to present both sides. Printed newspapers do seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs, but I do scan the local ones to keep track of what's going on. The AJC has some writers I do enjoy. Our local rag, not so much.
This is a great recap of his accomplishments, Barbara. I also read Simon Rosenberg. He is very good! I think we need to post this on EVERY social media site...too bad we couldn't post it on Trump's "Truth" social!
That is what a GOOD President does.
Capable, competent, committed, experienced—the ads write themselves
Those of us not in a cult can take in information/facts and formulate an opinion.
Those of us in a cult can only hate who we're told to hate no matter the personal repercussions.
I never try and talk to a MAGA. What I do try and do is disseminate facts and figures to a broad audience. My goal is to counter balance the biased, anti-Biden media.
And right there is what should be posted on billboards all over R states!
Barbara, I honestly believe I will copy and forward your comment to my district's Democratic legislators. THAT is what a declaration of accomplishments looks like. Masterfully done.
The list is from Simon Rosenberg at Hopium Substack.
I'll give him his credit and link to his Substack on the send. Probably will copy the list into the body too, just in case whoever opens it is too lazy to follow a trail. Excellent work!
Thank You. We must fight the good fight with all the important information about President Biden's amazing accomplishments.
Except for domestic oil production, it’s great.
What that specific shows is that Democrats don't get in the way of business. They just want profitable business operations that don't impinge on fellow citizens' right to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness. In other words, Democrats are, on the whole, not socialists.
The most recent EIA projections are that U.S. crude oil production is expected to increase to new records in 2023 and 2024. The EIA forecasts that U.S. crude oil production will average 12.4 million bpd in 2023 and 12.8 million bpd in 2024.
Global energy demand will rise as well, dwarfing US contributions towards increasing supply. A growing portion of that demand is being met with renewable sources, but demand for hydrocarbon-based energy sources will continue to grow as well. Even when the world gets to "net-zero" carbon emissions, hydrocarbon sources will remain a part of the mix.
Oil dependency will be our undoing. There's just something about dinosaurs ... They've lost their appeal.
I would contribute!
Selina Sweet - May I have your permission to paraphrase your comment with attribution to my Facebook page? If so, could you give blanket approval for any of us to do so? This is a grassroots feature that is available to all of HCR's readers. I do it in one way, shape or form every day. If we all did it we could get the word out better. News outlets be damned!!!
Don't be so quick to damn traditional news outlets. Facebook pages and other social media outlets do not have the impact that MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN and news segments on local stations have. And newspapers still count too. The other day my local (Gannett-owned) paper published a full LFAA column by HCR.
Good for Gannett - Although I personally read a number of newspapers daily I don't know how widespread the practice is. I'm still leery of TV news broadcasts who seem happy to show photos of Biden tripping over a sandbag and drump making a fool of himself yet are loath to show footage of Biden creating jobs, stressing bipartisanship, and shoring up infrastructure.
Sure! Have at it if you wish.
I love the billboard idea Selina.
I smiled the whole time reading this. Thanks Selina, and a hearty THREE CHEERS for the Democrats.
Yes...effective PR is always a good thing when real results are being produced by dedicated groups of people. Like so many people we all know who are hard workers committed to doing a good job, they are so busy with the job at hand, they have little time for touting their achievements. The media, always on the hunt for a story, naturally fulfill this role because people generally trust that they’re doing an honest job...even in the instances when they’re not. So, as more good things get accomplished by the Biden led Democrats, it will be important to get them covered by the media in a fair and accurate way which is what professional journalists are trained to do. The American people are smart and they know when real things are being accomplished but it can’t hurt to take a little precious time to tally the progress as we all love and admire a real winner.
Selina, Mr. Shapiro reminds me a bit of Governor Dewitt Clinton some 200 years ago when he undertook the first major public works enterprise in the United States by underwriting the engineering, digging and completion of the first Erie Canal in ca 1820. This first ever effort at a major government-sponsored infrastructure was completed several years before expected and under budget and which paid for itself in several years less than estimated. It was so successful that a second deeper and wider canal was begun within 10 years and later a 3rd NYState Barge Canal. The Erie Canal was considered the chief contributor to NY City becoming the major deep water port on the Eastern seaboard instead of New Orleans.
"Clinton's Ditch" became the first and greatest demonstration that government can work!
It is also one of the reasons for the rapid spread of invasive water species throughout the east. One can take issue with a lot of the "great works" of the 29th and early 20th century: not enough consideration of unintended impacts. They were treated as "externalities": costs directed caused by the projects but paid for by others who are not beneficiaries. We are paying the costs now for the consequences of many of those projects and programs, and are beginning to pay for the consequences of the 20th century.
Freeways are an example. Even the Congressman who sponsored the original bill that funded the freeways beginning regreted having done so. He felt that it changed our entire culture, destroyed communities, and created a culture of disconnection.
The same can be said for the culture of huge dam projects on rivers and allocating water rights. It took only decades for that to fray, and we still are pretending that we can fix it. I think that our government took an enormous wrong turn for the benefit of big business in the 19th century, and we all have been caught up in trying to fix it since.
For the life of me, I can't understand why. We have successful alternatives to follow. Why don't we? Somehow we have come to think that "economics" means capitalism, which is based on very flawed assumptions about human nature.
It should feel like or they need to be reminded of experiencing: “… the thrill of victory” versus “… the agony of defeat”!!!
MADDOG does billboards
Yes! Pass it on to your nearest Democratic rep or local Dem headquarters. Any of them might get it funded!
Billboards should be abolished. They're an eyesore.
They're a blight for sure. Not surprisingly, I didn't see a single one in Denmark and Norway during our just-ended vacation there. In fact, signage appears to be regulated in general in the urban areas we visited, not just along major roads. We came away with the sense of not being constantly under assault from advertising.
They're an eyesore, a harm to the environment and a distraction to drivers. There are four states and many cities that have banned them. And this is a worldwide trend.
But until they are, put something useful on them!
While I agree, in Florida, they are a huge part of their flora and fauna. For miles you see photos of babies (or pieces of) and messages about don't do abortions, commonly said by Republicans as pro-life. There are no billboards, however, that offer information on who is willing to take on the expense of raising a birthed child. So, I'll withhold my condemnation of billboards in Florida, this time. I actually think it's a great idea.
So you think inflicting huge photos of aborted fetuses on innocent passers-by and children is "a great idea" or am I misinterpreting your comment?
If that is what you read, than yes you miss-interpreted what was written.
Thank you.
Exactly!
What an utter load of crap. The only people he cares about is Josh Shapiro.
“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!!!
Biden is a sly old fox; Trump is a whiny old bitch.
Steve,,,,,just so we don't insult all the female dogs, wolves, foxes , otters and women..... how about calling tfg a " whiny old jackass"... but, then, of course, we insult all donkeys.....
My response also. I am really bothered by use of the word bitch and I am sure we can find a pejorative for death star that doesn't insult females of any kind or animals. My special pet peeve on this subject is bitch slap and I have actually taken people to task about it. Then I also see people using the c word to describe men. To me death star is a festering cancer or monster or some of those wonderful names that the Scots came up with.
" names that the Scots came up with ...". Yes, we are loquacious but, did I miss some heritage?
I wish I could remember some of them. It was when death star was there dealing with his golf course. They were appropriate, creative, and hysterical.
This is the kind of thing that makes people roll their eyes at progressives. The F word is used in a myriad of contexts that don't mean intercourse.
Yes. I agree.
In this case was trying to keep within his animal theme. But totally agree with you. We need new images....
I just call him "that creature". :)
I call him death star as people see here or mafia don.
Donald accused the Democrats holding a witch hunt, he being the witch - is he self-incriminating again ?
The most commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old English wǣrloga, which meant "breaker of oaths" or "deceiver"[2] and was given special application to the devil around 1000.[3] In early modern Scots, the word came to be used as the male equivalent of WITCH (which can be male or female, but has historically been used predominantly for females).[4][5][6] The term may have become associated in Scotland with MALE WITCHES due to the idea that they had made pacts with Auld Hornie (my note: remember pussy grabbing and that horney old devil - Epstein ?) and thus had betrayed the Christian faith and broke their baptismal vows or oaths.[7] From this use, the word passed into Romantic literature and ultimately 20th-century popular culture
Point taken and I hesitated posting this for that reason. However, the point was to highlight MAGAworld’s supposed concern for “manliness” even as they treasure this whining, sniveling poor excuse for a human. They will continue to use the word even if we don’t. I am not in the end a believer in solving problems by not using words. Wasn’t this word in the news even today out of the mouth of a woman?
I am sorry if this offended you. I meant no offense to females of any species, only to Mr. Trump.
Steve, I understand the dilemma. I am totally with you on the whining sniveler...it is really a challenge to even find enough awful words to describe tfg. I guess I just don`t want to keep connecting his awfulness to words we now use to disparage females. That's all. You are right that the word is in common use and used liberally by both sexes...... as I said, a challenge.
But I did not miss your point and do agree with you.
Watching professional dog shows, especially in the UK, one gets used to hearing "bitch" used non-pejoratively to describe a female show-dog. It took some getting used to . . . "She's really a beautiful bitch . . . " but in that sense it's simply the word used to describe a female dog in a similar way to using words like "sow", "doe", "ewe", "queen", etc. etc. and again, used more outside the US not necessarily as an insult. Yes, it does seem to be used now to describe either gender, and the verb "bitch" is quite simply someone, anyone, who excessively complains or whines a lot. IMO, T***p earns just about every pejorative moniker I can think of male, female, animal, vegetable, or mineral . . .
I call him Trump, because that is his name. I have no need to use pejoratives to describe him just to feel superior. In fact, I would prefer that we all use his name when talking about him. Too often I feel that what is going on here is just an excuse for demeaning someone, rather than discussing and seeking to understand how to resolve the dilemma we have. Which, as I see it, is constantly giving in to Trump's desire to control the conversation. Something to think about.
I call him Donald because his neice Mary says he hayes it, and she calls him Donald.
I never use the c word and on the rare occasion I use the b word, my husband knows I am describing a truly awful woman and I can think of a few that frequently make headlines that qualify. I am not exactly offended, but am by bitch slap. However, I do love Rabelais and his description of a rejected male putting essence of a bitch in heat on the bottom of the lady's gown and she was swarmed by dogs as she went about.
13 year old bully!
Yes, we are a proud nation climbing back from a coup ruined party destitute to scream foul in profane natures under their cloaks of Emperor-pryity ( pardon the attempt towards the Emperors New Clothes slight) .
This particular Letter of Heathers is so near the conclusions ...great minds staying the course , grand accomplishments , and with great trust for America to forecast the BLUE WIN IN 2024.
I will and still stand to applaud the party , the people, and the perseverance .
💙VOTE TRUE BLUE 💙
.
"the political witch hunts " should read warlock hunts.. Male witches who lie, cheat and steal are called warlocks.
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?
Both the President and Vice President regularly post accomplishments on Facebook. Maybe the bigger question is why the media doesn’t give these accomplishments more coverage?
I agree. The media seldom gives Biden credit for anything and if they do, they always end with a 'but'. They are afraid of the right wing.
If you're on Twitter, check out https://twitter.com/DougJBalloon
Some of the comments are quite funny. Is this their AI bot?
It's a satire page
Because the media is Owned by Right Wing Billionaires, that's why!
...that's why the Billboard Idea is so stellar... it bypasses the print, television and broadcast media! Probably less expensive too!
I also see them traveling around to tout accomplishments. As for the media...sigh.
If we're looking to Zuckerberg's monstrosity to help spread facts, we are indeed doomed.
And instagram. And Heather’s final paragraph today illustrates the media bias which likely precludes touting his accomplishments
What Dave said ⬆️
Thanks so much for making this point! My exact concern-the lies are loud-the truth must be even bolder!
Bolder and REPEATED MORE OFTEN! Use the same over and over approach to match...no, drown out the lies that keep making headlines.
The way to counter the lies is to tell the truth.
1 method for sure ...
Biden went on a tour talking about the work his administration is doing - it just doesn't get much heat. Much better to keep the dark orange beast in the news. It's all about the eyes on the page.
And, malevolent algorithms.
‘The eyes on the page’ is profound ...’got to sell the morning paper , sir my name is Jimmy Brown’ always comes to my mind , a musical whit-ism ( and marvelous song) by Mac Wiseman .
The circus sells big , we all know and loved the circus , but as things go/went , so did it . A dying entity though some vestige(s) still remain. As will theirs, a continuum ad infinitum as decades we’ve fought this battle and it’s sold the morning paper like ‘the Big GOP’ (BIG TOP😉) DID (and for a little time more will?) . Is it the fascination of an evil story loved, the climax with all the hoopla however well deceived , the intrigue of mystery designed by demagoguery? Those books/‘news’papers/‘news’stations sell the most, gets the highest ratings. And Truth takes the dry back seat. Documentary’s true drudgery by the average reader.
And so the story goes on, the fight undoubtably too.
But in the end , we hope you’ll find ...the TRUE ..the BLUE
💙 VOTE 💙
Well said Patricia, really took hold in targeted commercials in the post WWI years & manipulatively developed in the 1920's.
I see a lot of lazy journalism. Writing and selling a story about a lost mini sub, deep in the North Atlantic, with four rich tourists, is easy. Weaving together the successes of legislation, cooperation between businesses, and how the economics will improve the lives of Americans, requires hard work and adept writing. {sigh}
I have to go to other sources to get that story. One of my husband's Native American relatives had some pretty terse unsympathetic things to say about that tin can implosion. We have a couple online publications here in Salem who do a good job on politics, mostly local. The Oregonian seems to have it in for Governor Kotek, who is doing a pretty good job given all the problems. They are currently upset because her staff knew a few days about the hacking of the Oregon DMV a few days before they made it public. They would have been inundated with people trying to get info before they had time to set up a response, but....
Mass media has found news to be expensive and unprofitable, so they have drastically reduced their staff. What’s left? Running info from press releases and police band radios. Investigative journalism is no longer available except via certain sources that the public as a whole never sees.
I am a supporter of Propublica and of a couple of other orgs that support local reporting and some huge stories with national application. The also work with some of the bigger news producers too, such as Frontline, to enable deep journalism that often starts with a local story. This coalition has made a real difference. Another resource is the Brennan Center. The more we support these kinds of things, the more real media will have the resources to make real journalism available. The more we sit back and complain instead of seeking out ways to support good journalism, the less likely it is to happen. We have a choice in that.
I too believe we need to support organizations like ProPublica, NPR, the national papers, as well as local ones and put subscription dollars to work. The advertising model has been moved into apps supporting opinions and quick-draw McGraw reporting that never gets around to pulling all the facts together, getting the timeline right, and eliminating the dross, leaving people to create their own facts by expressing their ideas about what is happening and never returning to find out what really happened.
Well put, Paula. I think you got it right. It's enough to make a cynic out of a confirmed optimist.
They do ‘t have Rupert spewing their message. Hire Bloomberg, he has the chops.
The chops & plenty of $chips.
They are selling their accomplishments its just that the media is focusing on "old"news--Hopefully Biden is going to remain over 80 for quite a while.
And TFG is only 3 years younger and in far worse physical AND mental shape. Have you seen his speeches at his rallies? If he didn’t have that podium to hang on to, they’d have to scrape him off the floor. He rambles on and on, completely undisciplined in his speech, nearly incoherent. Whoever his campaign manager is, should be fired for letting him go out like that.
Do you honestly think any campaign manager would be able to control him? His own lawyers can't get him to shut up about his perceived grievances, as he continues to spew lies and mock the judicial process, all the while offering fluid explanations about what he did with "his" papers. Jack Smith is on it, though.
Somehow that's what his "base" loves! Rant rant rant. Drown out the facts with endless rant and CAPS.... Just the same for all that he LOST the 2022 election big time. Another round in 2024, destiny likely repeating itself. LOSE, Trump, LOSE!
You know what? We need to stop letting Trump control what our priorities are. Doesn't matter that he's catering to his "base". It's all he has left, and chances are good that a good portion of the people identified as his base in polls (which are notoriously unreliable anyway) are going to even vote. His lawyers can't manage him. His rational followers are suddenly very very quiet, or have openly repudiated him. And the very strange congress people, especially in the house, are not doing him (or Congress) any favors. Let them rant.
And so rambling, inarticulate and repetitive!
At least until everyone's "favorite president, me!" catches up.
He is. Your not paying attention. The media isn't even doing a good job covering Biden. They're to busy talking about the Republican threat to talk about the Democratic promise. They don't have to become another version of Fox, they just need to talk to people and interview them about what is going to be happening in their counties and the affects new legislation is planning. More work is focused on "Red States" not because we are trying to convert them to "Blue States", but because they were the people left behind by the globalization of our economy.
The Dems ARE selling their accomplishments. However, the infrastructure for supporting negative press against the Prez is much larger. Paid for by mega-billionaire mega-donors, they include over 1000 nationwide right-wing radio stations spewing hatred and anger. Who can compete with that??
As usual, Follow the Money.
The MSM is more interested in rehashing, in detail, the Gabby Petrillo murder a year later, on the same day Uncle Joe announced a major breakthrough on housing/construction/inflation, etc, which got a 1 minute mention.
The problem is not that the Administration is not touting it. The problem is that the media doesn't consider it newsworthy. Instead, as Heather notes, they focus on Biden's age, or his tripping on an immovable object. Or fill-considered adventures three miles underwater by foolish men with too much money, rather than true tragedies like that occurring in Israel. The media promotes rubber-necking by the public, rather than keeping our eyes on the road. And too much of the public sucks it up.
My recent "favorite" was the breathless minute by minute coverage of the search for the submersible (a form of ambulance chasing), and almost no coverage of what was happening in Washington DC-- by news people located in WaDC. I was especially disgusted by NPR (member) and WaPo (subscriber) and let them know. Some others must have too, because things changed overnight.
Or maybe they finally figured out that there was no news there. Somebody remembered hearing a big bang --> less than 2 hrs after submersion! Nobody in charge had talked to them. So humongous search with days of "coverage. Meanwhile I went to the US House website, found the video of Schiff's speech, and listened to the whole thing, including the very interesting context before hand. Very revealing, that was. THAT is what the 1st amendment is supposed to be all about.
In the estimation of mainstream media, good news simply does not sell, that's why they love Trump - hell, that's why they helped create Trump! Biden talks about his administration's accomplishments every day, but Trump continues to dominate the news because most of media's attention is focused on him. Remember TV cameras in helicopters following OJ Simpson's SUV? Minute to minute coverage of the Titan submersible over the last few days? Like that, on an endless loop.
I am SO SICK of hearing about tfg in the media. Enough already!
Advertising is expensive. Republicans seem to have unlimited funds.
Speaking as a veteran of the ad biz, there are two kinds of ads: paid and non-paid. We just need to get better at generating mentions and word-of-mouth, creating buzz, using social media, having influencers (as much as I hate that term) spreading news of Democratic accomplishments. There’s a lot that can be done to generate positive messaging without paying for it.
How's this one, Marla?
'Tweet'
'Starbucks Workers United'
@SBWorkersUnited
STRIKE WITH PRIDE! Seattle Roastery leads nationwide Starbucks strike over Starbucks’ hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ workers. Over 150+ stores and 3,500 workers will be on strike over the course of the next week.
Thx FERN. See also, the important University of Washingtin "LGBTQ Civil Rights History Project". 1970's Pike Place Market catalyst to my thin knowledge.
Thank you for this thoughtful share, Bryan.
That and whatever works, Dems have a "few billionaires" with $$$ to throw about... sad sad to say the major parties are utterly dependent on big money to contest elections! Sad to say too this has been the way since when!
Unlimited funds, yes, earmarked for tearing down Democrats, making it harder to vote, dismantling the rule of law, and gutting programs that actually help people. Their ultimate goals are unfettered capitalism, autocratic rule, Christian nationalism, and suppression of women and minorities.
Exactly
A simple chart should speak loudly.
Very simple. Bright colours.
Cheaply made these days at local retailers.
Because the media is more concerned with clicks. And trump not only takes all the air out of the room, he delivers clicks - good or bad.
On what media platform would Dems do this?
Do you know of any where themes of accomplishment, competence, and infrastructure plans draw more eyeballs, ears, and clicks than fear and outrage?
We learned leading up to the 2016 election and Cambridge Analytica's so-called work on the Book of the Face that only the latter drive engagement and engagement is the coin of the realm.
I recommend "Wired" contributor Cory Doctorow's work, any of it really, but especially his Pluralistic daily blog to learn how far we, all of us, are from anything close to what you suggest. https://pluralistic.net/
If you prefer something in your ears: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/enshittification-part-1-where-did-it-all-go-wrong-on-the-media
“Book of the face”, good one!
I’ve been thinking about this after reading your comment and it seems to me there’s a morally acceptable way to sell fear. “They will take it away from you.” It’s what Biden is doing right now with abortion. He could do it with most of what he’s accomplished. “They will roll back veterans benefits.” “They keep trying to cut Medicare and Social Security.” “They will make it harder for you and your children to have health insurance.“ Done properly, wouldn’t this be successful? It usually works. The other good thing about it is, it’s the truth.
I was just talking to my husband about this yesterday. The Biden team needs to hire a PR firm and get the message out on billboards, social media, TV, radio, milk cartons, whatever!
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?]
The fact is that Qevin McCarthy’s legacy will be known as the worst Speaker of the House America every had. I thought Newt was horrid (and he is) but Qev takes the cake.
McCarthy has chosen to still be a part of the Republicans attempt to destroy the government. He knows better but he has no ethics or integrity. I don’t know what he gets out of being led around by a bunch of vicious lunatics. Yet he compromised with Biden to avoid the debt ceiling. Allowing them to censor Schiff because Trump wanted it sets a terrible precedent.
It is reported that it is because 45 wanted the censure.....but all it does is turn drama into dollars.
It is so obvious the government has to STOP taking money from donors, big or small. It’s turning people into maniacs. This alone would be a good reason to match on the Capital.
This kind of corruption has taken over every level of government. Many states are now colonies that are completely run by big mining, oil, or agriculture corporations and owners. The Supreme Court is obviously in the pockets of a few billionaires. Every Senate election now costs tens of millions. One of the first things Chief Justice Roberts did was to rule on Citizens United which calls money "free speech." That has made "free speech" very expensive, which has added to the powers of the very rich to make sure they stay very rich. The Roberts family is making millions.
Ignorance can also do damage
Absolutely! Great harm. With all the positive changes and policies of the Biden administration, we continue to battle repub lies and corruption. We have to work hard to make that a message even repub voters will believe. Because it’s the Truth.
They exhibit ignorance by the bucket full, in fact that’s about all that they exhibit, you would think that maybe one or two of them might show signs of having a brain, but I guess it’s fear of the most ignorant “base” in the history of our great nation that keeps it hidden. Go figure.
Deliberate ignorance
He's as much a speaker as tfg was a president.
A better description is "Ring Master" instead of Speaker, because the MAGA GOP is a circus.
"Can't wait" for the lion to eat the lion tamer (imagining Jack Smith and tfg).
However, do you think he could crack a whip? it would probably get tangled round his legs.
'Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party' (book review, Dept. of History, Princeton University)
'The story of how Newt Gingrich and his allies tainted American politics, launching an enduring era of brutal partisan warfare'
'When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, President Obama observed that Trump “is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party.” In Burning Down the House, historian Julian Zelizer pinpoints the moment when our country was set on a path toward an era of bitterly partisan and ruthless politics, an era that was ignited by Newt Gingrich and his allies. In 1989, Gingrich brought down Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright and catapulted himself into the national spotlight. Perhaps more than any other politician, Gingrich introduced the rhetoric and tactics that have shaped Congress and the Republican Party for the last three decades. Elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich quickly became one of the most powerful figures in America not through innovative ideas or charisma, but through a calculated campaign of attacks against political opponents, casting himself as a savior in a fight of good versus evil. Taking office in the post-Watergate era, he weaponized the good government reforms newly introduced to fight corruption, wielding the rules in ways that shocked the legislators who had created them. His crusade against Democrats culminated in the plot to destroy the political career of Speaker Wright.'
'While some of Gingrich’s fellow Republicans were disturbed by the viciousness of his attacks, party leaders enjoyed his successes so much that they did little collectively to stand in his way. Democrats, for their part, were alarmed, but did not want to sink to his level and took no effective actions to stop him. It didn’t seem to matter that Gingrich’s moral conservatism was hypocritical or that his methods were brazen, his accusations of corruption permanently tarnished his opponents. This brand of warfare worked, not as a strategy for governance but as a path to power, and what Gingrich planted, his fellow Republicans reaped. He led them to their first majority in Congress in decades, and his legacy extends far beyond his tenure in office. From the Contract with America to the rise of the Tea Party and the Trump presidential campaign, his fingerprints can be seen throughout some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics. Burning Down the House presents the alarming narrative of how Gingrich and his allies created a new normal in Washington.'
by Julian E. Zelizer
Published
July, 2020
Publisher
Penguin Press
Thank you for this, Fern! Let’s not forget that Newt has been an active advisor to the Republicans especially during these Trump years. Can’t stomach him.
Marlene, for more re: Gingrich:
'Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) testified Thursday before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to CNN.'
'The former House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot alleged last September that Gingrich had provided feedback to the Trump campaign about advertisements promoting the former president’s unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and discussed “coordinating” state electors.'
'In a letter to the former Speaker requesting a voluntary interview, the committee said that Gingrich communicated with former Trump senior advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Miller on campaign ads about the election, after it had been declared for Joe Biden.'
'The ads Gingrich advised on had “encouraged members of the public to contact their state officials and pressure them to challenge and overturn the result of the election” in the days before state electors would cast their votes, the letter said.'
'Special counsel Jack Smith offers fake electors immunity in Jan. 6 probe: report'
'The committee also suggested Gingrich was “involved in the fake elector scheme,” pointing to a November 2020 message to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.'
“Is someone in charge of coordinating all the electors?” the message read. “Evans makes the point that all the contested electors must meet on [D]ecember 14 and send in ballots to force contests which the house would have to settle.”
'Gingrich had previously been ordered to testify before a special grand jury investigating election interference in Georgia. However, the former Speaker’s case to block the testimony was ultimately dismissed in February after the Fulton County grand jury concluded its work. ' (TheHill) See link below.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4042243-gingrich-testifies-before-grand-jury-investigating-jan-6/
Juicy news on The Newt! Yay! Gawwwd…I pray he gets a hammer thrown towards his head. Too harsh? I don’t care. Thank you again, Fern!💞
Newt Gingrich’s Tweets
Newt Gingrich
@newtgingrich
Jun 6
My new book, "March to the Majority," is available today. In the book, I take readers behind the scenes of the Republican Revolution in 1994 and the rise of the modern GOP.
...depends on who ends up writing the history.
Kevin may be the worst Soeaker but he is doing damage daily and is quite good at promoting look.
Great summary, Beverly!
True, the South Korean President always wanted to take a Chevy-to -the-Levy.
Thank you, Beverly. Very well expressed and written. I love that you focused on doing what needs to be done.
"...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.
If nothing else, the rant is getting old.
Read an article yesterday about some reporter interviewing some drumpf supporters who are getting tired of his bellyaching.
I want one drumpf supporter to tell me exactly what he did to help them.
Really! It's all about "sticking it to the libs."
After more than four decades of tax cuts and impunity for corporations and the very rich, cutbacks and privatization, abandonment or environmental responsibilities, and promotion of self-righteous authoritarianism and punitive parts of religion while rejecting it's theme of egalitarianism and compassion, who the hell is better off? And who has and does suffer? Who remains confident about the likelihood of an improving future? Where is our "more perfect union".
Maybe it's the market speaking. How much money is he raising?
Oh SO hoped!
Hope you’re right but the polls seem to think he’s still at 40+ percent approval rating why I don’t know!
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."
This is needed. No joke.
Hell's Bells, I wish billboards with that same message (perhaps stopped at the word "Act") could be erected at each funded jobsite, paid for by funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. 'Strikes me as a vital use of such funds.
Hi Dirk, We need to start bragging and spelling it out. I vote for giving them all the facts. How can we reach them except through billboards. Their news sources aren’t going to tout the libs.
How did FDR manage in the '30s? Didn't they put signs all over various projects that were funded by this and that government program? Roosevelt's "Alphabet Soup". People really got the message that government was working FOR them then, and this was long before our slicker'n' snot information age!
Yes, great idea!
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!
Ellen, Pelosi is amazing . Her love for this country is admirable. You can believe she is supporting Jefferies as he serves and is encouraging Jefferies as he stands up to the enemies of freedom. She and others believe in growing leaders within the Democratic Party.
I also want to share that I admire her for her love of family. She is not out of politics nor "slack" in serving her country but she has always loved family.
She is wise to help to grow young leaders within the Democratic Party. She is a brilliant powerful woman who also loves her husband. He was almost killed just for being her loving and devoted husband. She is an amazing woman and an example in more ways than one....not only she but her family!
The Rayguns served veal a lot and Nancy always dressed up fancy, while he cut back important social programs and took the whole month of August off.
Image, while pretending to be your bud. Greatest scam ever. Great PR and Peggy Noonan to write the scripts
Republican Privilege
How many people died from aids because Reagan refused to acknowledge? More or leas than those who died from Covid because Trump and Kushner refused to tell the truth knowing it was serious. I guess in both cases the ill-fated were not “their voters”….
Far too many.
Ronnie Raygun, learned much from one of his Co-stars, Bozo,
I think it was Bonzo...and I can't think of Raygun without remembering the Damned, and Bad Time for Bonzo... https://youtu.be/fGId1-AmOkY
Actually it was "Bedtime for Bonzo," but I like your version, too.
Bad time for both Bonzos.
Ellen Devens -- I'd like to hear more than just the clip, but it's not posted on YouTube yet. And yes, I loved the White House State Dinner link too! And very impressed that the dinner was completely plant based in honor of Narendra Modi.
Age? Bet Trump couldn't even get ON a bicycle.
Fun fact: I'm 74 and ebiked 24 miles today.
I bet he hasn’t done any type of physical activity for decades, if ever—them bone spurs, you know.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/politics/trump-vietnam-draft-exemption.html#:~:text=In%20the%20fall%20of%201968,remained%20a%20mystery%2C%20with%20Mr.
And bravo to your 24 miles!
He placed first in the ketchup throw.
<Wiping coffee from my computer screen> Thanks, JL!
You forgot...he golfs...at all those clubs he owns...where he charged the secret service outrageous room rates.
He rides in a cart. Imagine old Tons O’ Fun walking the course.
... & buries Top Secret docs in the sand traps.
...and ex-wives...
in a brand spankin' new cemetery
Using a golf cart, he gets in about as many steps as he would walking from room to room at his resort home and probably needs a hand getting in and out of the cart as well. Remember that he is opposed to exercise which drains his precious bodily fluids or some such nonsense.
Precious bodily fluids....what, like sweat?
LOL, it's a reference to the Dr. Strangelove film where Gen. Jack Ripper expresses his paranoid fantasy. https://youtu.be/iAHJCPoWCC8 But, in fact, Trump had a similarly harebrained theory about exercise, as stated in the book "Trump Revealed" - "the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted," once again proving that truth is stranger than fiction.
At the time, we thought it was brilliant satire.
🤮
Thank you Peter. I did not see anything about the last paragraph about age. I am so tired of that even being much of a topic. Times have changed. Not everyone over 75 is sitting in a Wheelchair in a long term care facility. Please, wake up and don’t worry about age for we know not the time or place of our demise. Glad to hear of your activity and joy of cycling continued.
Read this story about the lobster lady who, at 103, still takes out her fishing boat and pulls lobster traps--after she puts on her red lipstick! #goals
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/06/21/lobster-lady-maine-virginia-oliver/
What a story! Thanks
Thanks Barbara. Awesome read.
Live everyday as your last; plan everyday as if you will live forever
Pictures paint a thousand words:
https://twitter.com/GC7513/status/1663158000700325890/photo/1
In contrast, MAGA world dines on images of Trump’s head on Rambo’s body
"Bet Trump couldn't even get ON a bicycle" frontwards. 😈
Well....*some* of him could probably get on it...
I’m trying not to visualize which of his parts make it aboard ...
Best not to, IMO. :-)
Accomplishments this week:
Democrats: Further worked to Protect Democracy and to "get things done."
Republicans: Owned the Libs.
D is for Democrats get it Done!
D is for Drive, R is for Reverse
Although the CAN-do was done with recycled bottles.
I see what you did there....🤣
R is for Ruin.
Also for rerun = same crap over and over
Give all to the rich and you will receive. Close your eyes.
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 .
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind- Mohandas Gandhi.
So I must agree with Rep. Ro Khanna. PM Modi will change nothing because of the missing Squad, who don’t engage with him. A cold shoulder is not what I consider diplomacy. Seems to me that’s just performance art for their constituents, and their real goal is clearly not change.
Modi is in the mold of Orban. He is nominally democratic but leaning authoritarian. the Congressional protestors serve a large purpose--they given Biden leverage--He can say you only get these favorable terms in trade, etc. if you make these changes or I won't be able to get it through Congress. The louder they protest the better, and the more leverage Biden has. Besides which, they are correct.
Georgia, a very wise comment. We must stay engaged with world leaders, like them or not. Diplomacy is serious business.
While I’m not sure the GQP knows how Congress works, PM Modi probably knows that six House Democrats won’t keep anything from getting through Congress. Modi must marvel at the hubris of lecturing him on human rights abuses while murdering our own with our worship of guns, around the clock, without any real sign that will ever change, at rates that far exceed any “developed” country. Laughable, at best, hypocritical at worst.
I'm with Georgia on this one, John. Yes, six House Democrats won't keep anything from getting through Congress. Yet each individual Representative owes her/his duty to their constituents and their conscience on every vote, and every public action or statement. While I think Prez Joe has done a marvelous job thus far on most every issue or area of presidential responsibility, I depart from his giving the imprimatur of his office to the likes of MBS, and Modi.
AOC, Tlaib, Omar, and the rest of the "Squad" members were absolutely right to protest him, for the reasons I stated previously. And while you are certainly correct in decrying the ghastly cult of the gun in our Country, that has naught to do with the aforenoted congressional duties to call truth to power, as these six members have done. AOC in particular is, rightly or wrongly, the public face of the conscientious left in our Country, and this is the type of action, however small in the larger scheme of things, that will keep her future burning bright.
As I stated, then you minimized, the hypocrisy of gross human rights violations of this country have everything to do with lecturing other leaders on their human rights abuses. And I find it disingenuous to equate engagement and diplomacy with even tacit approval.
Au contraire, mon frere.
I neither minimized not equated engagement and diplomacy with tacit or any other type of approval. I simply pointed out that you cannot expect lockstep agreement from individual Representatives and/or Senators (no Senators in this case) with a full fledged dog and pony show, particularly the rare honor of a joint session of Congress, for heads of State that have a lot to answer for. Modi is reprehensible, his Nation is not. The Squad members did their duty.
I fully agree with you about the horrific scourge of gun violence here, as I stated. But that in no way minimizes or eliminates the Head of our State, Prez Joe from lecturing his guest about human rights. I believe he did, in fact.
Have a good night, John
My reaction too. While the US Pins its most noble aspirations on the Equality of Mankind we ourselves are tortured to correct our own human rights violations.
I would condition my observation on the conditions of Indian prejudice is created by Government Action and ours more a cultural legacy aided and abetted by the Former slave states and Republican sectors in the country.
But in the larger picture of the future of the world it is wiser to develop India as a confederate enemy of our enemy than not.
My favorite wisdom in diplomacy remains keeping your eye on the donut not the hole.
That is what Joe Biden is demonstrating.
John, Diplomacy. Thank you. It is never a straight forward ideological thrust; it’s having a long term goal in mind pursued with nuanced words that allows opposing identities the chance to find “some” common ground
If the Squad wants to protest that is their right, however they are not in the field of diplomacy and as citizens, we need the nuance
One of my very favorite books of all time is RAISE THE TITANIC by Clive Cussler (1976) with super hero Dirk Pitt. It covers the early days of the Coloradan miners and the technical aspects of raising the Titanic. There is also a part where a submersible is stuck down below similar to what’s happening now. I highly recommend reading this book – it has everything – Dirk Pitt, history, politics, Russian saboteurs, and, of course, the beautiful girl!
Thanks for that, Linda! Of course I've heard of that book and other Cussler work, and "Raise the Titanic" I would assume is one of the all time bestsellers. Nonetheless, I've never read it, nor did I know that it featured such an interesting backstory. I'll check it out. Your recommendation got me. Especially the part about the beautiful girl!
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.
Yah, big time, and well-researched/written, Mr. Silen. As another lawyer (retired), I also have a special fury reserved for those members of our profession who seek to destroy the very system of laws that support them, and all of us. Eastman doesn't make me ashamed to be a lawyer, but I'm certainly ashamed that he is.
Arthur, thank you. I want John Eastman permanently separated from any employment related to the teaching of law, disbarred, and convicted of his crimes including, but not limited to, obstruction. Full stop.
Appreciate your comment.
Well done Arthur. Thank you. I don’t know you or the California bar association, but I trust my ears, and your writing has the ring of truth. Now go back and see if you can find the extra “it” in the third paragraph.😉
William, Thank you for your close reading Arthur's rich description of Eastman's wrong doing. I saw that extra 'it', too. All in all, Arthur's comment was an excellent example of legal fact finding.
Excellent and throughly Lawyerly description of the machinations of this non-Lawyerly Eastman. I cannot describe the antics of Eastman and his associates as anything but totally evil.
I am convinced that he and Trump willfully were conducting their attempts to slide an alternate Government to replace the elected Government followed step by step the same process used by Hitler and Goering to control the Reichstag long enough for the Dictatorship to replace the Weimar Republic.
We must ensure these traitorous Wretches suffer full identification of their misdeeds and life long shunning of Eastman by the Legal Community.
I would cherish hearing that he, like Joe McCarthy after his exposure, paced the corridors of power fruitlessly seeking audience and finding silence.
Excellent piece, Arthur. As a California lawyer who has had some tussles with the Bar myself, I am always saddened to see a fellow lawyer being hauled before its sometimes star chamberesque tribunals. Nonetheless, times and circumstances do arise that call for significant discipline within our properly well regulated profession. The horrific Girardi case is one of them, and indeed the perfidy of Mr. Eastman is another, as you well explained.
In Eastman's case, it is particularly disappointing, as I remember the days when he was a well respected, albeit very conservative voice in the SoCal legal community, publishing many interesting articles in the Daily Journal. Sad to see how he lost his grip.
The second paragraph especially ✅
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!🕊️
Not long after I subscribed, someone asked the question of how to address her. She replied that she has her undergrads call her “Professor”, she tries to get her grad students to call her “Heather”; I don’t think she objects to our familiarity here.
That said, I call her Professor out of my respect (and 35 years in a rank conscious environment).
"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.
Yet sadly CNN, MSNBC, and especially FAUX, will change nothing because of this Media Matters report. The Press has no introspection.
The people who own the major media outlets have an agenda, which doesn’t really include improving democracy at home or abroad. They want profits, and they don’t see the Biden Administration facilitating increasing their profits or reducing regulation and taxes.
Oh, THAT media. I was referring to WP, NYT, Guardian, etc.
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.
Heather is modeling how to counteract Republican insanity with facts, logic, and reality--what a concept, right? Kudos to everyone who shares her Letters and/or integrates her material into conversations and even political discourse/activism to save democracy!
Since when do facts counter emotional diatribes, wish it were so…
Her readers likely don’t have the megaphone of Fox and clones.
As Heather counsels in her video chats, it’s up to each of us to make our voices heard.
The Dallas Morning News used to print my letters, not so much anymore. So I rant and rave on here. Thanks for listening…
They want everything both ways. The are the bold, dynamic leaders who are going to "Make America Great Again" (whatever that means) yet are deprived and cheated victims whenever something does not go their way, in an unfair system somehow completely controlled by the do-nothing Democrats.
Their nonsense strikes a chord with the sense of victimhood among white conservatives. (FYI, I happen to be white, 70 y.o.a.) The media gives it credence as if the popularity of the notion lends truth to it. The True Believers are not going to give up their delusions readily, if at all. Those blessed with a capacity for reality-testing need to move on and engage with democratic processes.
Orwell knew that, we should remember it. I noticed that “alternative facts” came up in a trial in Brazil yesterday. How fast bull Schitt travels…
Republicans would say the same about Democrats.
The End.
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?