Yesterday, a decision by Judge David Carter said that Trump had likely committed a federal crime when he was part of a conspiracy to obstruct Congress’s count of the votes of the Electoral College on January 6, 2021. Today, a Trump spokesperson called yesterday’s decision “absurd and baseless.”
Professor Richardson, your Letter today reads like a treatment for a film – a scenario for the overthrow of the American government, replete with nefarious characters, the designers of the plot, the strategies coordinated by diverse characters on multiple fronts (legal teams in Washington, rightwing militias in the hinterlands, insiders – senators and representatives – influential power brokers – even the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice – and of course, the president who, for reasons that will be revealed in the third act, cannot afford to lose. And the juiciest element for this reviewer – the unknown caller engaged in a cryptic conversation with the president just before the 7-hour blackout during which the Capital was stormed.
Jonathan V. Last did an article in Bulwark+ yesterday on Ginnie’s “power”. Evidently she is tolerated but not respected among the elite. I’ll go find it.
“Here is a secret no one in Washington is willing to say out loud: Ginni Thomas is an idiot. The only reason she was texting the president’s chief of staff instead of being the angry cat lady on Facebook is because she married a man who got himself appointed to the Supreme Court.
The Thomases were never a duo of intellectual equals, or a power couple where each member had their own thing going on, and where the merger of the two was like Voltron coming together.
This isn’t James Carville and Mary Matalin. Or Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. Or Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. Or any number of other famous couples. Heck, this isn’t even Sonny and Cher.
No. The Thomases are more like Ivanka and Jared: The senior partner in the arrangement held a position of such high importance that their society scrabbled around to find something for the dimmer partner to do in order to make them feel important. In Jared’s case, that has been destroying newspapers, losing money on real estate, and being tasked with brokering peace in the Middle East.
For Ginni Thomas it has meant creating makework for her at various conservative “activist” groups and letting her participate in listservs with people who have real jobs.1
I got my hands on some of the widely circulated emails Mrs. Thomas sent to one of these listservs and they are illustrative of the level at which she operates. Some examples:
From: Ginni Thomas <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 7:57 AM
Subject: WOW - Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke!!!
Compelling man. IMHO.
Well read.
Inspiring.
Please consider helping more eyes and ears use this video interview to absorb what Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke is saying about Trump, America, the media and what is needed right now.
P.S. As the Democrats feign new outrage about what FBI Director James Comey did to the Clinton investigation on Friday, recall the seemingly FAR MORE flimsy and actual indictment by Lawrence Walsh of Caspar Weinburger 24 years ago today ... to no discernable Democrat outrage then... a last minute controversy many believe caused Bill Clinton to beat George Bush.2 Just sayin'.
From: Ginni <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM
Subject:Rush Limbaugh’s Bo Snerdley Takes On NFL Protests And White Privilege
WOW!
Please listen to Rush Limbaugh's amazing call screener, James Golden, AKA "Bo Snerdley" on the NFL flap, white privilege and the Republican Congress!
Would love your help on social media with getting it heard by others too!
Cheers,
Ginni
From: Ginni <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 8:01 PM
Subject: James O'Keefe: talks of the courage it takes to tell the truth today -- my FINAL Daily Caller interviewee!
With one amazing 34 year old warrior, James O'Keefe, I end a nearly 7 year old series of bringing leaders who offer hope, information and inspiration to you through The Daily Caller. James is the perfect exclamation mark to my tenure with The Daily Caller News Foundation. Please enjoy and circulate, as James should be prayed for, supported and encouraged by all of us! Buy his book too!
It has been a joy to interview hundreds of people for your consumption. I am using the next few weeks to explore some options to keep me busy! Let me know if you have suggestions, as I love connecting leaders in the movement and listening to the grassroots!
Cheers, Ginni
From: Ginni <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 2:50 PM
Subject: Please take time to listen to Joe diGenova about the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence to protect HRC and destroy DJT
Beyond the #SchumerShutdown....Please take time to listen and pass on this compelling Joe diGenova video, which is going pretty dang viral today (from my standards)! A Facebook friend said this today:
Barry Dale shared Ginni Thomas's post.
Must See. Every American needs to be aware of its seriousness.
My friend and fellow Patriot, Ginni Lamp Thomas, exposes what is known, what is suspected with confidence, and what is likely and unlikely to be proven.
Folks, if this plays out as seems likely, this is WAY worse than Watergate even if a former president cannot be definitively connected to it:
Traffic today keeps the post up high where it gets natural traffic at Daily Caller, and THIS IS EDUCATIONAL!!
Everything about these emails—from the bizarre capitalization and punctuation,3 to the references to “Facebook friends,” to the obsession with talk radio and her genuflection before grifters like O’Keefe, Clarke, and diGenova shows that what we’re dealing with isn’t an intellectual, or even a smooth operator, but a Boomer with an internet connection, an important spouse, and too much time on her hands.
To me, Ginnie is reminiscent of Martha Mitchell, wife of AG John Mitchell under Pres. Nixon. When Martha started drinking, she would rant on and on about what was going on in the WH. (She certainly had inside info from husband John.) I believe Nixon and John Mitchell promoted the idea that Martha was ill, and there was no substance in her ramblings.
With so many bad actors on so many fronts not even acting in concert with one another, but pursuing their particular slice of an agenda, it’s hard to see - almost unimaginable to be truthful - how this doesn’t veer out of control somewhere with disastrous consequences.
I have in my mind’s eye a world map with dozens of arrows, on each of which is painted “THIS WAY TO UNHINGED”. All point to America.
Mark Burnett and Greg Zucker get all the credit for giving 🍊💩 the platform to run for President. From that point on, we have to credit the Republican Party for putting a lifetime New York Democrat in the Oval Office. Remember that circus of R’s, that collection of clowns running in 2016? If anyone had been able to be objective, I think Michael Moore was the only one who called it, we would’ve seen how the backlash against the Obamas was inevitable. If we didn’t see it then, all of us certainly see it now. Jan. 6. Lie cheat steal politically, rampant abuse and twisting of the law to take us backwards.
74 million people, just under 50% of the electorate, voted for him in 2020 as well. Record turnout. My dad was one of them. A huge block of this country is obstinately stuck in the past, social lepers, the loonies of your arrows, Eric. I think the 2020 election might have been the turning point from white male (racist sexist, antisemitic anti-LGBT+ millionaires-dominant Christians-superior et al) Fred Flintstone society to society of diversity and equality, the society that you and I endorse (I’m not just speaking to Eric here, rather to each of you). The difference between now and 2016 is that we’ve had our eyes opened. No more illusions about how underhanded these creeps are, and how prevalent they are. American society is contaminated.
Well written Roland. I share your concern and disappointment with American society. On the one hand I am all on board with free and fair elections, for all, but this block of citizens is unhinged for various reasons none of them good. A dangerous block of voters who like you said came out in record numbers in 2020 to vote for a clearly corrupt and soulless and inept president. They would do it again, I think, even after what has been revealed by the 1/6 investigation. And, have paved the way for victory with the voter suppression laws being passed. There will always be unsavory elements to a human society, so they must be outvoted. But this - this unsavory element is a very large segment of our country. It's the most revealing political realization I have had in my life. I don't know what to do about it except cry out, and vote like my life depends on it.
I have to believe many who voted for him realize the error of their ways but some days my belief is waning. I also need to believe that Merrick Garland will push back these unconstitutional voter suppression laws. Who knows what the SCOTUS will do if anything.
The DOJ has been a force to tip the scales in the wrong direction for American democracy in the last two administrations.
The misdeeds of Sessions and Barr were open acts of commission. They have been documented ad nauseam and it is sufficient to dismiss their actions as playing corruptly by the corrupt rules of a corrupt President.
The new administration brought in Merrick Garland, an institutionalist par excellence working ever so carefully in a charged atmosphere.
The problem is that America needed an appointee who: a) saw that the institutions needed massive shoring up b) was unafraid of the risks associated with overshooting the target and c) was subsequently able to turn that charged atmosphere into a reality where the atmosphere was set by the types of criminal charges in law where they were most critically warranted after January 6/21 - the Administration figures, including Trump who plotted and did their damnedest to execute a coup against this country’s democracy.
We are 15 months into the tenure of Garland and not only have there been no charges of significant bad actors, there has almost certainly been no criminal investigation launched. The technical term for this grotesque failure is fecklessness.
Yes Merrick made a visit to the kindergarten class to which we all apparently belong now and patiently explained that investigations are built from the bottom up, getting people to flip is an art form etc etc. He also vaguely promised to follow the trail wherever it went, as did Lisa Monaco this week.
Garland’s condescending pitch was wrong. In this case you have the bottom level of clowns and villains who attacked the Capitol. 750 of them *have* been investigated and charged. Probably 745 of them knew nobody on whom they could have flipped.
At the same time there is no sign - none - that Trump, Eastman, Giuliani, Meadows, Bannon et al are being investigated for their much more important role in organizing and attempting to put a legal gloss on the destruction of America. The hackers and duffers did their coup de théatre on cue on J6. Before that, the really vile and dangerous stuff was done.
We are now 15 months away from that and there hasn’t been a hint of an investigation. You could argue, and I wouldn’t disagree, that the DOJ could easily have operated in stealth mode. But the criminals are serial babblers. Had any grand jury been empaneled, somebody would have let it out. If 20 people had been subpoenaed for their role in the coup, nineteen of them would have cried foul in the media. Experienced prosecutors with impeccable reputations - Preet Bharara, Joyce Vance, and Dan Goldman have made this point publicly at their peril. They have reputations to protect and cannot go into bug-eyed rants in public.
In fifteen months, how many bad actors and witnesses have forgotten critical details? How many scoundrels have coordinated their stories?
A judge in California tossed aside a civil suit by John Eastman who is still wanting to hold on to documents. In his disposition he provided a virtual road map for the DOJ to use in bringing this house of cards down. If nothing else, perhaps Garland can be embarrassed into launching an investigation into one of the seminal political crimes in America’s history.
President Biden must replace Merrick Garland as soon as possible, using whatever rationale he decides on. The DOJ is in danger of becoming not just a witness to the fall of America, but a silent actor in it.
You’re welcome, Gus. I’ve screwed up a few times. We’re still waiting to see if my prediction (hope, wish, prayer) ever comes true that the U.S. Congress goes blue the way California has gone supermajority Democratic. I do believe it will happen eventually, but no guarantee it will be in my lifetime. If recent history holds firm, Congress and the WH could keep flipping back and forth between D and R. But the trend is towards more and more blue.
The rise of right wing militias. This is augmented by Russian active measures to boost participation and radicalization mostly online. And it’s crazy. It’s a President working with McViegh and Nichols types. Unacceptable.
I suspect that by this time Putin was beginning to distance himself from Trump, having already gotten what he was looking for. He would not have wanted to be linked to what T et al were doing, because he had plans of his own. Interesting that as Putin pulled back from a failed US Presidency, he further isolated himself from reality in his own fantasy of a Russian empire. And from recent reports, it sounds like it is backfiring big time. One can only hope.
His ass is grass. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking with it. I’m glad he and his military are incompetent at war. So now it’s desperation mode, shoot indiscriminately, because every successful strategy is failing
My Quess is Banon. That’s his link to Robert Mercer, the money, the financier, the Libertarian. And I’m sure Hanity/Murdoch.
We should make it illegal for our leadership to use burner phones. But can the receiver of the call from a burner phone be tracked? Who in congress was receiving calls from a burner phone?
Unfortunately, Ted, the most likely scenario is that both ends of the conversations were using burners, and probably had several on hand. Burners typically are destroyed and discarded. I keep wondering about this: witnesses at white house describe the intense interest Trump had in WATCHING the insurrection on tv but his total lack of interest in listening to info from his advisors, who had to pry him away to get him to make a "plea" to his followers to go home. Wimpy performance that had to be recorded several times before they got one that his advisors (who were basically frantic by this time) felt they could release. So I'm wondering if Trump (confess I had to stop myself from typing Fuhrer... ) simply was out of it during this period of time: his only reality was what he saw on tv. He probably even took a nap. He doesn't deal with reality very well, and napping is a good way to dissociate oneself when thing have clearly gone awry.
Your burner hypothesis seems highly plausible. Still, wouldn’t the phone conversations on those devices be captured somewhere in cellular data land? 🤷🏼♀️ Unlike fuhrer drumpf, I really know very little about burners.
While there’s nothing truly funny here, I got a little chuckle over “ He doesn't deal with reality very well!!”
As I understand it, you have to have at least one of the burners in functioning condition, or certain parts that an expert can siphon data from. That is why they are generally destroyed before discarding (usually in a hard to find location). BTW, not my burner "hypothesis". Lots of people talking about that to explain not only Trump's vacant spot, but it is known that many of the people involved in planning used disposable phones. I guess not all of them knew they needed to be destroyed before discarding.
Sadly, the reality is going to be more awful and scandalous than the Hollywood fiction ever could be!
'Russian state TV featured a Russian government official calling for 'regime change' in the United States, asking the people of the U.S. to replace President Biden with Trump 'to again help our partner Trump to become President.'"
Yeah, they haven't been shy about helping installing tfg in the WH. And back in Russia, their politicians brag about the tfg winning and their role in making that happen. Only Putin denies it to western outlets, but they use it domestically back in Russia as an ace in their pocket. TFG as president is the biggest accomplishment in the history of cyber warfare. Carl von Clausewitz would give Putin an A+ in getting your enemy to do what you want, without force, and without war. The goal of Putin is not to defeat the west. He doesn't have that much power nor strength. His goal is split apart the EU, cut Brittan off, cut the US off from the EU an Nato. Make the West more like Russia. Just bring them down enough to be on plane with Russia. This is the "EurAsia" policy. Putin also mixes in the Fascist and Nationalism flavor too.
Rowshan, that sounds more like a Russian bureaucrat dutifully following a script that he doesn't know is already outdated. But it is certainly revealing something about top level Russian thinking. I don't think it is a "payoff" so much as it was an attempted distraction from Ukraine, which does not seem to be going well for Russia. More info about young Russian soldiers going home, destroying their equipment first, or simply leaving it for Ukraine fighters. Untrained (also young) officers without a clue what their government expected: thus some doing nothing and some simply lobbing shells at easy targets. It's pathetic, at best. Some Russians with family in Ukraine are leaving Russia in disgust, some with the intent of actually going to Ukraine. It's chaos.
Putin will have to find a way out of this that leaves his ego intact, or he may escalate to salvage it. Same as Trump, but our system limited Trump to less lethal avenues of action (courts, lies, "executive privilege", back-stabbing, etc.) As designed by our founders. Something to think about.
Word is that a substantial portion of Russian people want Putin to leave Ukraine. Most Western media still focusing on what comes out of Kremlin, but there are non-profit and independent journalists and sources who work quietly to acquire info at ground level and get it out. It's starting to be picked up by some mainstream media now.
What took them so long? Combo of under staffing and lazy journalism: follow the crowd. Same thing that caused some of them to ignore Biden's strong, thoughtful speech to focus on one line that was taken out of context and immediately labeled "gaffe". That successfully diverted coverage and public attention away from the speech itself, and generated unwarranted speculation. Media watchers have been calling this out for a while. In the meantime, good journalism is ignored because too many of us bite into the clickbait.
So Ted. I respect your advice. Tell me how to become a member of the “Cabal.” Would I have, to take classes too, as you can see I have no real, what is thought as class act intellectual qualities. You might say I am classless. Would there be other things I need to do?
Our founders worried about this, Madison warned of it in the Federalist #68.
"Nothing was more to be desired, than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the president to depend on any8 pre-existing bodies of men who might be tampered with before hand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the president in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the number of the electors. Thus, without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task, free from any sinister byass. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford9 a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time, as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen states, in any combinations, founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty."
Read it in "The Road to Unfreedom" chapter 6, Tim Snyder. Our current struggles are exactly what Madison warned about in Fed #68.
Everyone should read The Road to Unfreedom again. I can not recommend this book enough. It will be one of the most important history books for understanding the world from Putin 1999, Ukraine, Europe, America, Rise of DT, to 2022+.
The flood of slime flowing from the Trump administration is so awkwardly peopled with shallow entities with loathsome attributes I doubt the mangled mess could ever be developed as fiction.
Absent all responsibility and cynical disregard for the Law the chaotic stream of unreality developed by these criminal sycophants can only be described by Historians like Heather.
Just as the more sinister aspects of Watergate still emerge the Trumpian Coup attempt will take decades to explain.
Art The deadly duplicity of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold could be a primer for a would-be author of a fictional account of Watergate or the ‘Trumpian Coup attempt.’
Screenwriters have already changed their scripts umpteen times just to keep up. By now though, they are all pitching Meryl Streep to play Ginni Thomas!
Sharon Personally I believe that Oswald acted alone in the assassination of JFK, but I still wonder who was involved in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Regarding Watergate, PBS had a Watergate 30 Years Later documentary in which Magruder stated that he heard Nixon tell John Mitchell to bug the Democratic National Committee at Watergate.
"...the unknown caller engaged in a cryptic conversation with the president just before the 7-hour blackout during which the Capital was stormed."
Answer:
Holder-to-this-day of Top Secret clearance Senior Advisor to the Unpresidented tRump Jared Corey Kushner, a most unscrupulous landlord and major league Scum Bag!
I feared that right after tfg was declared winner in Nov. 2015, take the country down that is. That he had always been a vapid, racist twit always blowing his own horn and declaring bankruptcies and it just blew my mind to hear otherwise intelligent people say they’d be voting for him because Hillary was “so awful”. They had taken leave of all their senses. As time progressed, some even admitted they had 🙄. Duh!
In my mind's eye, the ending for this reality "film" has always been trump and all his corrupt minions looking up out of a foxhole at medical personnel holding the strait jackets and taking them away "ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, ho, ho to the funny farm . . . ." 🎼
If a prominent fiction writer had taken the story of Watergate or BIG LIE/1/6 Capitol Building insurrection to a major publisher before these events actually unfolded, the manuscript would have been summarily rejected. Even John Le Carre or Ian Fleming had insufficient imagination to concoct ‘the president bugged himself’ and ‘the president refused to accept the fraud-less results of a presidential election.’
I'm going to suppose that the Jan 6 Select Committee is now cleaning up loose ends, and is counting down on a timetable of public revelation that is going to rip through the Republican Party like a Howitzer through birthday cake. And keep ripping. And keep ripping. Right though all of the midterm campaigning.
I'm going to suppose that they have been passing this information to the DOJ, and that Garland is even now scaling up for a truly epic take-down that will wind through the courts for the next two years, nailing Republican operative after operative, not on their politics, but on actual crimes, getting not just convictions, but withstanding all appeals.
I'm going to suppose that this will cause the American public to vomit out this autocratic disease, and make America safe for democracy for at least another generation. Maybe two.
I'm going to suppose that our racist roots as a nation are about burned out, and that within the next two or three generations, it really will start to become a matter of history.
Joseph is not doling out optimism. He is clearly stating supposition. I agree. The road to take is not a hopeful one. It is an actual course of action.
Well, Christine, Joseph is doing the supposing, and I'm characterizing his supposing as optimistic. This is based on my own lifetime of supposing-- like Joseph -- that Americans (of the USA variety) would do the right thing sooner or later, and occasionally we have, but it seems that lately (and in the past) we mostly have not.
We have our own recent and unprovoked war (Iraq 2003) on our consciences and undermining our righteous outrage at Putin's unprovoked war, we continue to produce too much CO2 gas to be taken seriously in the climate change debate, and 33 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall both Russia and China are still our adversaries, if not enemies, and we are all still armed to the teeth with nukes.
There is more. Nearly a million Americans have died of a new illness in large part because some of us would not wear a mask or get vaccinated, because to do so would be a violation of our personal right to be idiots. And now we are on the edge of losing our most important constitutional amendments, the ones that supposedly guarantee normal citizenship for those who are not monied, white and male, but which have been contested since the day they were written while racism was being swept under the rug just a few times too many over the past hundred and fifty years, and many of us still wake up every morning imagining that WE are not the problem.
The one thing we did manage to do for all these years was to change our own leadership in a mostly non-violent and democratic way, but now even that string has come to an end.
I have been supposing, ever since Trump ditched James Comey, that it was just a matter of time before the moron-in-chief would be behind bars, and we could once again turn our attention to the big problems. Then I thought the double victory in the Georgia Senate race that gave the DEMs their slim majority would mean the end of the filibuster, but I must admit I am not enough of a politics junkie to have known that Manchin and Sinema are not really Democrats, and that only 2 elected Republicans at the national level are actually patriots.
So please forgive me for not buying anyone's optimistic suppositions. I really hope Trump and his traitorous enablers get their comeuppance in a big way, but I'll believe it when I see it. Indictments need to be handed down now. I trusted Mueller at first sight, but I am waiting for Garland to earn my trust. Arrests need to be made. Interrogation is needed, and certain folks need to understand that their only way to avoid big jail time is to tell the truth, all of it. A few will fall on their swords, but I'm betting most of them won't. Oops, sounds like optimism.
I don't disagree, David. Tomorrow, my suppositions could be blown to bits.
I will have to replace them. And I will. It's a lot like doing science, actually.
In science, you observe, you make a hypothesis (a supposition) about the things you can't observe that make sense of the observation, and then you test it with more focused observation. A lot of the time, you are wrong. You alter the hypothesis, and try again.
Supposing is filling in the things we do not know. I do not know what the Jan 6 committee intends. I do not know what is happening in the DOJ. I do not know what the American public thinks. I do not know if racism is fading away, or getting stronger.
I am supposing. It is an attempt to create a consistent image in the present -- consistent with the few facts that we know, the nature of the world, the nature of people -- that is reflected in statements about the present and the future, concerning things I cannot possibly know.
It is not really about the future. I have no idea what the future holds.
But I can suppose.
I could suppose that the Special Committee is quiet because it has lost focus. Or I can suppose what I have supposed, that it is biding its time.
I could suppose that Merrick Garland is a tool and a fool, and is cowering in his office while the world moves on around him. Or I can suppose what I have supposed, that there are swords being forged and shields being beaten, and that the knights will ride out when the marshal of the horses says to ride.
I could suppose that human intransigence is unalterable. Or I can suppose that things like racism, though long-lived, can grow tired and pass away.
It helps me get through the day, to suppose that the things I cannot see are not all devils and darkness and death.
I have trouble with the idea that somehow Mueller failed and that all that has ensued derives from that. Mueller did his job, and I think that too many people expected that he had more remit and power than he did. So the question remains about what did (or did not) happen that sent us down the road we ended up on. This is a rhetorical question that likely only future historians with a longer view and access to documents currently unavailable will be able to answer.
Annie, I have to disagree with you. Mueller did a fine job of investigating Trump and found a mountain of evidence that he had violated multiple laws. But he was not decisive enough, did not explain or defend his findings in a way the public might easily understand, and then he let his friend Barr hijack his report and deliberately misrepresent it on FOX news. The fix was in, and Mueller had no adequate response. So, he folded.
I do understand that Garland wants every last duck in line before he starts arresting the heavies, but if he hesitates much longer and allows the Jan. 6th commission (committee?) to steal all his thunder, he will become easy prey for the GOP disinformation machine. He needs to indict and arrest the biggies, drag them out of bed in the middle of the night, call Trump's bluff and show his hole card. We need to see a morning headline like: "Trump and 12 top associates arrested in FBI raids, computers, smart phones and tons of documents seized."
The January 6 Select Committee and the Department of Justice ARE doing their jobs. I have no doubt about that. I wish I had as much faith in the American people.
I was thinking similarly. Watergate simmered along and heated up all summer until Nixon resigned in august. What will be the crucial factor? Will McConnell decide to cut his losses? It seems that a news cascade of criminal activities by TFG and his “soliviki” does not persuade the hard core. What will it take? Let’s hope that the squad of new DOJ attorneys is working very soon and starts indicting the traitors and seditious criminals. We owe the voters much respect and appreciation for standing in line in places like Georgia. Because they made the effort our democracy has a chance.
Watergate took two years to gather evidence in a dense matrix of conflicting interests, but all between a handful of White House perpetrators and their accomplices; eventually 48 convictions. In the current case, it's much larger, involving the White House team, 10 Senators and 147 Representatives, outside operatives like Steve Bannon, plus all of their accomplices. It's almost too big to prosecute.
Plus a very large number of unelected people like Ginni Thomas, John Eastman, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Navarro, Giuliani, and the billionaires whose money made it all possible, among others in the rogues gallery
This is my belief as well. I think AG Garland will emerge as the key player provided he moves forward with indictments. The recent seemingly inexplicable retreat by Manhattan DA Bragg from hot pursuit of trump’s various financial crimes was a large disappointment for the experienced prosecutors working on the case; they resigned. Maybe it was a feint? Maybe… I’ll feel better once the JD indictments of the leaders and co conspirators begin of the January 6 fiasco commence. Let’s hope that happens as Joseph Nemeth indicates.
So much has been exposed to the light of day that I don’t see any reason to suppose. I’m trying to take Garland at his word when he said he would hold those accountable no matter at what level and whether they were physically at the Capital or not. The evidence is throbbingly clear—so why does the DOJ now need 131 more lawyers?
I'm not an attorney but I can imagine that actually prosecuting all these seditionists will take an army of people just to keep track of evidence and arguments and strategy and documents, and keep all of that accessible to the prosecution team. I can imagine that since all of that mountain of what is essentially high-class clerical work, must - because everything has to be handled in a strictly legal fashion (researching legal precedents and judging parallel arguments, preserving chain of custody on documents and other exhibits, etc.) - all be handled by attorneys.
Gethering evidence is one thing. Building a whole bunch of cases and showing how they fit together to convince a judge and jury is another. The fact that these lawyers are being hired is a hopeful sign to me.
And we can hope, Joseph. I am also going to hope that the media will follow through on what seems to be a growing awareness of their responsibilities. And I hope that we of the American public don't rely on just the government investigations and legal process to save democratic processes, because that is us and our responsibility to keep democracy safe at the local level by speaking out, organizing, and making sure our local officials are doing their jobs!
Thanks, Daria. I do miss stuff that gets posted after mine but above it, if that makes sense. Sometimes I go back and pick it up, but I have lists of things to do and I end every day with stuff undone that sometimes gets carried over and sometimes just gets set aside. I hope tonight isn't too cold because I didn't bring in wood this evening so my dog is going to give me the side eye in the morning for not building a fire right away for her. (There's the furnace, but nothing is better than the heat from the stove on a nippy morning.)
Good lord, what in the world does CBS think it is doing? Hope there is something rational going on that isn't apparent. (That does happen and it catches me off guard every time because I've gotten so I don't expect rational any more.)
Joseph I hope that your ‘supposes’ all come true. Initially I had to check the date, since it sounded rather like an April Fool article. Hopefully, I suppose that I’m wrong on dates.
I am supposing the same, but fear the last two paragraphs are of a hope in potential. I fear that many Americans have forsaken the Constitution in favor of gangster take over of the streets
Sharon This brings to mind a song from, I believe, the 1940s: “Moses supposes that toeses are roses, Moses supposes erroneously.” (I suppose that you find the rest of this ‘classic’ on Google.)
@Joseph Nemeth - I deeply hope your vision comes true. May I adapt parts of your text, especially your second paragraph, for an email I plan to send to the DoJ?
Agreed…it doesn’t help that prominent Democrats keep criticizing President Biden. MSM consistently hits the airwaves with his low poll numbers. Please!
Sure, every single one of our government officials have some room for improvement…don’t we all. But come on folks…think about the big picture. Let’s focus on the positive things we’re experiencing as a country with President Biden and a Democratic led House and Senate at the helm.
Let’s work together to get through this election while doing the important work of running the country and protecting democracy!
I can’t imagine going back to what it was like with the last administration and the enablers in the House and Senate in power. Can you?
Everyone here is already going to vote intelligently in 2022. What we can do to have a bigger effect is find ways to reach voters in swing states. I live in MA. My approach so far is joining postcard campaigns, donating what I can afford to the Swing Left Impact Fund, and to Maggie Hassan, Stacey Abrams, the Lincoln Project, and a Dem grassroots group in AZ. I'll join Lincoln Project's The Union shortly. Closer to the election when phonebanks to swing states start up, I'll join those. That's my version of GOTV. And I contact Congresspersons, the Justice Dept, and the White House from time to time. I always feel like I'm not doing enough.
Hi, Elizabeth. May I suggest you join "The Union" now and not wait. They are already sending out "Union alerts" with a call to action of sorts. The first one was for folks to call Fox and protest some of their programming. It was so successful that the callers crashed not one but two Fox phone lines. They have also called attention to lies on Twitter, specifically by Tulsi Gabbard asking us to report them to Twitter. So we could use your help even before the election.
Hi Annette! Yes, of course. I only meant I had not joined The Union as of writing that message. By "soon" I meant very soon. Then I checked my email. I had already joined, sometime before 3/24, as I received The Union's 3/24 Stand With Ukraine alert. The fact that I couldn't remember if I had joined or had just planned to join tells me I should probably winnow the list of groups I've joined who send me email. Joining important grassroots efforts and taking organized actions is good. Joining so many that I fragment my attention to the point where I have too many demands to focus on anything is unhelpful.
Elizabeth, that is exactly what I've been doing. I started getting messages from orgs and campaigns in states I'd reached out to in the last general election. I had to remove those lists, plus a huge number of "fund-raising" groups who are using old lists. I'm sure they are legit, but I need to focus on what I feel are the best use of my contributions. Dropped some discussion groups and wanna-be pundits I found more distracting than useful. Plus vendors I used when Covid limited in-person commerce- don't blame them, they are trying to rebuild- but I don't need all those sales pitches.
I think I've got it down to almost manageable. I made folders so that communications from the active groups and committees are automatically sorted out from the rest. And I have a personal encrypted email completely separate from all the rest of this stuff. Whew. What a relief.
Thanks, George. Good job on your end, too! I need to think on how to motivate more people in blue states like mine to start committing activism to save our democracy. I could probably use Facebook more effectively, for example.
If the Dems aren't able to point to significant achievements, that will be due in part to the progressive Dems holding out for their good stuff. But that is like what the wise old man said in "The Seven Samurai": You are worried about your beard when your head is about to be cut off.
I think Trump's way beyond being able to remember all his lies. But none of this will matter if the DOJ doesn't start bringing charges, now. Patience is a virtue, except when it is causing the end of our Democracy. If the GOP retakes the House and Senate in November, Biden will be remembered as our last fairly elected President. Then it will be 1984 on steroids.
The most amazing thing is that in America a US Citizen can say openly:
"Today, on a right-wing news show, Trump appeared to try to change the subject and regain control over the political trends when he called for Russian president Vladimir Putin to release dirt on the Biden family"
It is legal, in America, to call for a long time murderer, dictator and enemy of the United States to take action against the American President.
I can say: Trump is lucky I am not President. Trump is even luckier that Biden IS President. Biden is a truly good man. Unfortunately, that is going against him right now. The office of the President is a powerful position. Using it effectively would be appropriate in Trump's case.
Trump is an enemy of the United States and a paid stooge of Vladimir Putin.
Yes. It is up to Garland's "discretion" whether to actually charge Trump, et. al., according to Lawfare's article cited by Dr. Richardson yesterday. Even though Judge Carter laid out the clear evidence, texts, calls, emails, against them, Garland still has discretionary powers, it seems. That's a glitch, I think in our laws. They are proving inadequate in this situation.
The powerful people in this country don't want trump-o-vich to be punished. In their view, formally acknowledging a criminal Potus who was 'elected' and tolerated by Congress is a terrible shame on a nation dedicated to equality under law. These powerful people are more concerned about US image as an "exception". They don't want the Don's dirty splotch engraved on this country's history--they hope it all slowly fades away....
Tolerating his crimes will destroy the respect this nation once enjoyed.....and Putin will rejoice.
Jeez Mike, we love trump here in Idaho. In fact we love him so much that I would like to give him a vacation here. He could connect with his inner outdoorsman. Our float trips are world class, and our white water rivers are exceptional. In fact I would recommend for him and be pleased to guide him down our most famous river of all. The River Of No Return.
David, he doesn't care if he can't remember what he has lied about. He says whatever the f*** comes into his deranged brain at the time. He might be worried about other things (photos of him suggest he is having some serious physical issues) but lying? It's just talking.
"homo warpicus: "Behaviorally identified. A strange species first noted in the late 1960s. These strange hominids are notable for their obsessive need to own a school desk, avoidance making long term decisions, and inate fear of smart houses and Google. Their preferred epithet is 'Shame,' and they avoid green baked foods. They seem to be able to function in modern society in spite of these handicaps."
Thanks, Mary. There is an article in one of the MSM about this that included some other witnesses supporting not only this but other instances he made similar comments. I was reading off and on while trying to get other things done and didn't note it down, so appreciate the link. Don't usually do Twitter but bet that post will have ppl listing other sources too.
I don't know about you guys, but in the days of "we've been trying to reach you...auto warranty" who the heck answers a number they don't know? Especially in a riot? Did someone distribute the number, whether burner or staff? What number did Kevin McCarthy call?
But they keep getting away with it. Stone said that the plan was for no Republican president to ever have to go through what Nixon did. They are making it so…
White Historian Heather Cox Richardson is connecting the dots. Underlying all her white dots are whites that fear growing Black power - a GOP block in the senate that’s pavlovian on the subject, and the Putin - Trump axis that links and stinks.
Mayor Ed Koch appointed Lehman’s Peter Jay Solomon as deputy mayor in charge of babysitting Trump and other Manhattan powers. Peter’s mother and my dad were acquainted, he and I did Collegiate School in first grade in 1944... and Peter talks. He liked Trump, found the Queens rapist amusing. But Peter was clear: Trump never tells the truth. Trump always lies, Peter said. Always. WaPo reporters and others have almost said this. They fear Trump wrath. Peter doesn’t. He’s wealthy and retired and certain: Donald never tells the truth, and Ed Koch knew it. Today, all know this. Trump is a psychotic liar. His psychosis is infectious. The Big Lie is endorsed by Graham, Cruz, Hawley, DeSantis, Abbott, and many more. GOP has been seduced by The Orange Man with the red phallic tie hanging down from his yellow hair. Republicans and Tucker just live for this phony. They love fascist Putin, Viktor Orban, MBS the murderer.. it’s a lovely bunch of Born Again breach birth Christian Right prejudiced Black hating Republican Americans that cannot spell Abraham Lincoln and seem to like Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini. Tell me I’m wrong. Is America having one of its periodic fantasy flights. If you’re going to have a fantasy, have a good one. This one is stale bread.
OK today's GOP is the blood and ideological heir of the Confederacy - racism and all. Yet the GOP is doing all it can to attract Black voters. It is a mistake to lump all Black persons in one camp. Equality means choosing your own priorities and deciding your own best interests.
To lead with "White historian HCR" seems a peculiar choice of emphasis.
And to say Washington Post reporters and others fear Trump's wrath is inaccurate. It is thanks to WaPo's David Fahrenthold and NYTimes Maggie Haberman, CBS Robert Costa and ABC Johnathan Karl, Jane Mayer and Jelani Cobb et al that we know as much as we do about Trump et al
I regarded the man as the nastiest, most dangerous narcissistic pervert in the GOP's police line-up of 2016... until he was outflanked by Agent Orange.
The world will be a safer place when both are dressed in orange.
lin, many of us here have our own hot button issues that we react very strongly to. Mine are Hillary Clinton, abortion, women’s rights. Sandy’s is race. He pushes our discourse to remember this issue, always. And he’s right. It’s often hard to penetrate his stream-of-consciousness writing and name-dropping of people I’ve never heard of, but his knowledge and insights are frequently incisive and insightful, especially regarding New York and Wall Street. I’ve learned a lot from him, and often been irritated by him. He tries to push Dr. Richardson to address our race issues even if, on the surface, the issue of the day seems to have nothing to do with race, because in this country, it always has to do with race. At least, that’s my takeaway from reading his words over more than a year, maybe two.
Personally, I think that unless and until we have a national reckoning with slavery, Jim Crow, and race a la Germany post WWII, race will continue to be a shameful problem in this country that we will not be able to overcome. And Sandy pushed me to this conclusion.
Don’t get me started on Maggie Haberman! Like Costa and Woodward, she held back information (TFG flushing documents) to enhance her book sales. Just ugh. I could go on, but I won’t.
Yes, add Bob Woodward. And his drinking buddy. And DEEP THROAT their hidden cash cow. W. Mark Felt, his daughter and three grandsons, add them. Aspirational pneumonia and living in her garage. Rising damp, excavated foundations. Dewey Ballantine for one, and who put him through school - and why. Add all that... and the suicide of Mrs. Felt, in their kitchen. WaPo rolled and hid the hero.
Self dealing among journalists is epitomized when hiding Deep Throat. Want his home address? His daughter’s. A photo of his garage where rising damp might have killed him? Bernstein and Woodward did nada to help W Mark or Joan.
Correct. Correct. Dear lin - in hiding. The exception proves the rule. Thank God for those still disinclined to Gut Tucker and Fox Fix. Brilliant Tim Snyder instructs his peer and us and is still largely ignored. The mysterious lin is a phantom. White Heather hails from very White Boston College. Visit. Do Opus Dei. View the population. You may get it if your eyes work. And check the coast of Maine. See any color in Rockport, or down where she lives. Find a Black pulling lobster traps.
Listen to President Biden on racism. He’s only 100% right.
Yes, Maine So White. But not as White as you seem to imagine. And you should consider White allies of BLM.
Knocking on doors in my small CD2 Maine community, I've met two Black lobsterman. For one, it is a heritage profession going back to his grandfather at least. The other moved to Maine, fell in love with it, and works on someone else's boat. I also know a couple of Jamaican women who were seasonal workers for years before making their home here. We have a Black woman who is a physician. Must I go on?
When I lived in the mid west, I met someone who swore there were no trees in NYC.
This would be funny if not so stupidly sad ... I'm from the West Coast ... grew up thinking the East Coast was solid city - concrete, glass and steel - and people there thought milk grew in bottles - seriously!! When I finally had a chance to see more of this country - the amazingly diverse geographic and cultural environs, it was a revelation of reality - especially New York City - full of trees, friendly people and a deep vibrational energy like being inside a hydro-electric generating facility ... I absolutely love New York - but would not want to live there with only holes in my pockets ... and the surrounding regions, beautiful countryside everywhere ... my only complaints were that it was nearly impossible to wander down to the water's edge, as most of the property was privately owned with "No Trespassing" signs, and the quality of food available in stores was ... let's just say ..., not optimal ....
Maine is white. One was honest: Judge Sam Collins, Susan’s uncle, said to avoid his lawyer son. Lazy and incompetent. Sam’s great Secretary Mary Beal called S B Lewis & Company when Sam was near death at Maine Medical. Winter accident. Cut carotid. She... Followed Sam’s written instructions, opened one letter, found another - sent it, putting me in charge of Sam’s care. Susan’s uncle was a good man, her dad and addicted jailed brother were more about trees.
Consider a memoir going deeper into the subjects you touch upon lightly in your postings here. If sources are not directly your experience, they can be named and credit given, and if litigation is a concern, you don't have to name names. For example, go deeper into your mentioning the 'whiteness' of HCR and BC, where you make it almost pejorative rather than merely descriptive. Don't jump to flimsy conclusions like you did with the black lobsterman, quickly disproven by someone on here. But write it.
Jack, I have accompanied a lobsterman in Rockport ME where we owned four houses. Gordon Best was a neighbor. There were no Blacks for miles. None pulling. We owned 33, 30, 29 Mechanic Street and One Ship Street - and sailed and raced Thunderbird and First Amendment and Common Sense for years. Again, no Blacks. Beauchamp Point was snotty Union Pacific money. Lobstermen were locals. We sailed Penobscot Bay, east west north and Eggemoggin Reach. Never saw a sailor of color. It’s a white paradise of WASP heroes, mostly legacy brats. There are always exceptions. Owls Head Museum - endowed by Rockefeller and IBM money, Fox Island Thoroughfare - no color. Inland it was white and bitter about 2,800 coastal shores owned mostly by out of state money. Again, exceptions. As for Dear Heather, and HRC Boston College - the same. Always exceptions, but white historian is fair. She does not feel what our inner city or southern Blacks feel. Read Master Plan. That author sent me his book. Chris may visit. Read his memoir. Feel his life. HCR is color blind and white. History is about differences. Snyder knows. He ignores color, too. Colorblind historians are commonplace. Indifference is another form of prejudice.
Where to start? Start with your name and address, your personal history and issues. Your accomplishments and loves, your hatreds and prejudices, your emotional and intellectual history, your life experiences, successes and failures. Your full name, date of birth, and the names in your family and their storylines. Where to start? To thine own self be true. Sandy
Sandy, I participate in the community in good faith. Where I think necessary, I provide links to back up my statements. Which are from my perspective, but not about me.
Of course it was Polonius who said To thine own self be true. And his advice, however glommed onto as adages for the ages, was not, in context, the bright light many take it for.
The notion of selfhood in Early Modern English literature was in flux. Hamlet signals this early by telling Horatio that there is more than is dreamt of in his philosophy. And nature of identity, selfhood, volition, is a theme throughout the play.
Sandy, all that ID material may or may not get you a vote in a state that doesn't really like voting or voters... but is willing to make an exception for the most "exceptional" American Exceptionalists, true members of the Master Race, but... it is all just outer clothing... as is even the color of our skin.
And then you went and said the one thing worth saying:
To thine own self be true… written out in fanciful lettering, decorating the walls of thousands of college students as a testament to their newly acquired “Shakespearean “ wisdom. Such an insidious illumination. Poor Dr. King. Thank you Lin, for that spark that lights the fire.
I'm not American and while I suspect that I know Hamlet better than most people because a turning point in my life was marked by an extraordinary performance (during which I was the only person in the theater to understand the prince's bitter humor, and laugh... repeatedly) that was decades ago, and I'd forgotten the line.
That said, these words represent the key demand of our time.
And the misfortune is that they should be rendered meaningless by people's deep ignorance of their own self and total lack of interest in finding and knowing it.
When presented with existential questions one may overthink the answers.
Ps. I can barely remember Hamlet as 50 years have intervened. What survives is a vivid memory of people filling their plates while caring little if there was enough for the others. A sort of comment on modern day human nature. To thine own self be true. Seems to me a half truth.
Maggie managed a MSM seduction of Trump. She’s got what it takes. A little leg and her caustic once worthy angry father gave her her name. As with all that played the Trump Atonal Organ in MSM, dear Maggie played access journalism and neglected on day one to put that ugly smile on page one with a proper translation. Maggie is just adorable. And so is Trump, 70,000,000 agree. None will vote for her or The NYT.
Sandy, I am not well educated, and may not fully comprehend the meaning of "Pavlovian." I have to ask, how is the nature of the Repunklickin', Tucker-lovin' contingency not Pavlovian? It looks to me like they are foaming at the mouth at the mere mention and very idea of diverse representation beyond the bounds of their tightly controlled circle of interests ....
Well, considering today’s revelations, one could understand why Dr. Richardson could not stop writing these letters. So THANK YOU SO MUCH HCR!
DOJ is on it. #Taskforce457 is going to nail him for every minute he hid those calls, I hope the sentence equals a year in prison for every minute hidden for the traffic cone of treason.
The desperation of Trump and others is palpable. Pathetic, actually. Did they actually think they could keep their blatant crimes from coming to light? And Lisa Monaco has erased any doubt that the Justice Department is coming for all of them.
This is one of the most important statements successfully binding America's democratic governance by enforcing the consequences upon those TREASONISTS slaves to Deceptions obedience!
For those who have been following Allen Hingston, the following his is FB message. "Arrived Calgary and are applying for a work permit for Tanya under Canada program for Ukrainians fleeing the war. It is for three years but we hope we can go home long before then." Theirs has been a long journey. So glad they are safe now.
Well, now what? It seems very little has happened to these despicable traitors thus far. All of this is entirely unprecedented, so now what happens? The NY state case against Trump was dropped. Will this be dropped as well? Who holds who accountable? Who is going to hold Clarence Thomas responsible? Who will call for him to resign?
Why are Americans not taking to the streets and demanding their resignations? As long as everyone just sits and expects others to do the work, they will win. Maybe most Americans just don't care.
More than half of the country does care, Gailee, it’s just that yes, we are waiting…waiting for the DOJ to cast their broad net to reel them in. Waiting is very painful, I know, but unfortunately this takes time. Tfg’s admin left a mess; tfg took important papers (15 boxes) that didn’t belong to him to Mar-A-Lago. Then the January 6th Select Committee is gathering a shitload of evidence that the DOJ can use to prosecute. The wheels are turning, albeit too slow for most of us as we have grown impatient after 2 years of Covid and the lies. We must not leave even one rock unturned.
Wish the heart worked (don't want to refresh, as it goes back to the beginning of the comments), but I fully agree. And the 15 boxes doesn't account for things he ripped up or flushed down the toilet.
It's like peeling an onion; with every layer, you cry a little more. In this case however, there's also a bit of a cleansing feeling as the evidence comes out supporting what we all suspected; That the corruption spreads wider than first expected is not a surprise. If you turn over enough rocks, you're going to find more trolls.
According to former federal assistant prosecutor Elie Honigman, the 457 minutes of missing call logs presents evidence of consciousness of guilt.
In his opinion yesterday, Judge Carter was urging the DOJ to indict and prosecute DJT.
Enough w/the little fish leading to the big fish style of prosecution. If Merrick Garland is too timid to prosecute Trump, then he should get out of the way. His failure to apply the rule of law to Trump (because of politics) is just as dangerous as Barr misrepresenting the Mueller report.
That is one of the bellwether kudos for prosecutors; not losing a case in court; as a judge, not having your decisions overturned is a HUGE one. I am hoping with all my heart that Garland's prosecutorial experience coupled with his judicial experience will present us with a rock solid case in the prosecution of tRump.
I hope so. But the fact that there is no evidence that he has impaneled a grand jury continues to be worrisome. While such panels often work in secret, (as I understand it) those who go before the grand jury are not required to keep their attendance confidential. Usually, with something of this magnitude, word will get out. But, alas, all we can do is watch and wait.
Professor Richardson, your Letter today reads like a treatment for a film – a scenario for the overthrow of the American government, replete with nefarious characters, the designers of the plot, the strategies coordinated by diverse characters on multiple fronts (legal teams in Washington, rightwing militias in the hinterlands, insiders – senators and representatives – influential power brokers – even the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice – and of course, the president who, for reasons that will be revealed in the third act, cannot afford to lose. And the juiciest element for this reviewer – the unknown caller engaged in a cryptic conversation with the president just before the 7-hour blackout during which the Capital was stormed.
Great fiction – awful reality.
The unknown caller. Stone? Cruz? Manafort? Koch? Mercer? Murdoch? …Vladimir perhaps?
Thomas? :)
Ginnie or Clarence?
Would have to be Ginnie! She obviously wears the pants in that family.
Jonathan V. Last did an article in Bulwark+ yesterday on Ginnie’s “power”. Evidently she is tolerated but not respected among the elite. I’ll go find it.
“Here is a secret no one in Washington is willing to say out loud: Ginni Thomas is an idiot. The only reason she was texting the president’s chief of staff instead of being the angry cat lady on Facebook is because she married a man who got himself appointed to the Supreme Court.
The Thomases were never a duo of intellectual equals, or a power couple where each member had their own thing going on, and where the merger of the two was like Voltron coming together.
This isn’t James Carville and Mary Matalin. Or Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. Or Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. Or any number of other famous couples. Heck, this isn’t even Sonny and Cher.
No. The Thomases are more like Ivanka and Jared: The senior partner in the arrangement held a position of such high importance that their society scrabbled around to find something for the dimmer partner to do in order to make them feel important. In Jared’s case, that has been destroying newspapers, losing money on real estate, and being tasked with brokering peace in the Middle East.
For Ginni Thomas it has meant creating makework for her at various conservative “activist” groups and letting her participate in listservs with people who have real jobs.1
I got my hands on some of the widely circulated emails Mrs. Thomas sent to one of these listservs and they are illustrative of the level at which she operates. Some examples:
From: Ginni Thomas <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 7:57 AM
Subject: WOW - Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke!!!
Compelling man. IMHO.
Well read.
Inspiring.
Please consider helping more eyes and ears use this video interview to absorb what Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke is saying about Trump, America, the media and what is needed right now.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/29/sheriff-clarke-americas-survival-depends-on-donald-trump-video/
Thank you! Ginni
P.S. As the Democrats feign new outrage about what FBI Director James Comey did to the Clinton investigation on Friday, recall the seemingly FAR MORE flimsy and actual indictment by Lawrence Walsh of Caspar Weinburger 24 years ago today ... to no discernable Democrat outrage then... a last minute controversy many believe caused Bill Clinton to beat George Bush.2 Just sayin'.
From: Ginni <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM
Subject:Rush Limbaugh’s Bo Snerdley Takes On NFL Protests And White Privilege
WOW!
Please listen to Rush Limbaugh's amazing call screener, James Golden, AKA "Bo Snerdley" on the NFL flap, white privilege and the Republican Congress!
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/30/rush-limbaughs-bo-snerdley-takes-on-nfl-protests-and-white-privilege-video/
Would love your help on social media with getting it heard by others too!
Cheers,
Ginni
From: Ginni <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 8:01 PM
Subject: James O'Keefe: talks of the courage it takes to tell the truth today -- my FINAL Daily Caller interviewee!
With one amazing 34 year old warrior, James O'Keefe, I end a nearly 7 year old series of bringing leaders who offer hope, information and inspiration to you through The Daily Caller. James is the perfect exclamation mark to my tenure with The Daily Caller News Foundation. Please enjoy and circulate, as James should be prayed for, supported and encouraged by all of us! Buy his book too!
It has been a joy to interview hundreds of people for your consumption. I am using the next few weeks to explore some options to keep me busy! Let me know if you have suggestions, as I love connecting leaders in the movement and listening to the grassroots!
Cheers, Ginni
From: Ginni <vthomas@*****.co>
Date: Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 2:50 PM
Subject: Please take time to listen to Joe diGenova about the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence to protect HRC and destroy DJT
Beyond the #SchumerShutdown....Please take time to listen and pass on this compelling Joe diGenova video, which is going pretty dang viral today (from my standards)! A Facebook friend said this today:
Barry Dale shared Ginni Thomas's post.
Must See. Every American needs to be aware of its seriousness.
My friend and fellow Patriot, Ginni Lamp Thomas, exposes what is known, what is suspected with confidence, and what is likely and unlikely to be proven.
Folks, if this plays out as seems likely, this is WAY worse than Watergate even if a former president cannot be definitively connected to it:
http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/20/obama-administration-plot-exonerate-hillary/
Traffic today keeps the post up high where it gets natural traffic at Daily Caller, and THIS IS EDUCATIONAL!!
Everything about these emails—from the bizarre capitalization and punctuation,3 to the references to “Facebook friends,” to the obsession with talk radio and her genuflection before grifters like O’Keefe, Clarke, and diGenova shows that what we’re dealing with isn’t an intellectual, or even a smooth operator, but a Boomer with an internet connection, an important spouse, and too much time on her hands.
Not an intellectual is an understatement. The two of them would not make a dim bulb together. And yes, wow.
Yes, I read that also. I am glad you shared this. My "like" doesn't work.
Heart isn't working on your comment. Dim bulb is putting it mildly.
WOW is right!!!!!! (Heart isn't working on your comment)
Indeed she does
To me, Ginnie is reminiscent of Martha Mitchell, wife of AG John Mitchell under Pres. Nixon. When Martha started drinking, she would rant on and on about what was going on in the WH. (She certainly had inside info from husband John.) I believe Nixon and John Mitchell promoted the idea that Martha was ill, and there was no substance in her ramblings.
Wow. I’m speechless.
Oh yes of course! Or Kavanaugh? Both? … oh no
Ginnie and Bret and Vlad, Oh My!!!
Rosalind, As dreadful and sick-making as the whole thing is, it is this particular Holy Trimity that has made my skin crawl.
me too, Dean
😂
Somewhere I read it was Kelly Loeffler fwiw. But I’m going with Bill Cosby.
😂
or maybe Ghislaine Maxwell
🤣
🤣
Probably one of the right-wing militia involved in the insurrection.
A lot more than one.
With so many bad actors on so many fronts not even acting in concert with one another, but pursuing their particular slice of an agenda, it’s hard to see - almost unimaginable to be truthful - how this doesn’t veer out of control somewhere with disastrous consequences.
I have in my mind’s eye a world map with dozens of arrows, on each of which is painted “THIS WAY TO UNHINGED”. All point to America.
What a Pandora’s box Trump unleashed.
Mark Burnett and Greg Zucker get all the credit for giving 🍊💩 the platform to run for President. From that point on, we have to credit the Republican Party for putting a lifetime New York Democrat in the Oval Office. Remember that circus of R’s, that collection of clowns running in 2016? If anyone had been able to be objective, I think Michael Moore was the only one who called it, we would’ve seen how the backlash against the Obamas was inevitable. If we didn’t see it then, all of us certainly see it now. Jan. 6. Lie cheat steal politically, rampant abuse and twisting of the law to take us backwards.
74 million people, just under 50% of the electorate, voted for him in 2020 as well. Record turnout. My dad was one of them. A huge block of this country is obstinately stuck in the past, social lepers, the loonies of your arrows, Eric. I think the 2020 election might have been the turning point from white male (racist sexist, antisemitic anti-LGBT+ millionaires-dominant Christians-superior et al) Fred Flintstone society to society of diversity and equality, the society that you and I endorse (I’m not just speaking to Eric here, rather to each of you). The difference between now and 2016 is that we’ve had our eyes opened. No more illusions about how underhanded these creeps are, and how prevalent they are. American society is contaminated.
Well written Roland. I share your concern and disappointment with American society. On the one hand I am all on board with free and fair elections, for all, but this block of citizens is unhinged for various reasons none of them good. A dangerous block of voters who like you said came out in record numbers in 2020 to vote for a clearly corrupt and soulless and inept president. They would do it again, I think, even after what has been revealed by the 1/6 investigation. And, have paved the way for victory with the voter suppression laws being passed. There will always be unsavory elements to a human society, so they must be outvoted. But this - this unsavory element is a very large segment of our country. It's the most revealing political realization I have had in my life. I don't know what to do about it except cry out, and vote like my life depends on it.
I have to believe many who voted for him realize the error of their ways but some days my belief is waning. I also need to believe that Merrick Garland will push back these unconstitutional voter suppression laws. Who knows what the SCOTUS will do if anything.
The DOJ has been a force to tip the scales in the wrong direction for American democracy in the last two administrations.
The misdeeds of Sessions and Barr were open acts of commission. They have been documented ad nauseam and it is sufficient to dismiss their actions as playing corruptly by the corrupt rules of a corrupt President.
The new administration brought in Merrick Garland, an institutionalist par excellence working ever so carefully in a charged atmosphere.
The problem is that America needed an appointee who: a) saw that the institutions needed massive shoring up b) was unafraid of the risks associated with overshooting the target and c) was subsequently able to turn that charged atmosphere into a reality where the atmosphere was set by the types of criminal charges in law where they were most critically warranted after January 6/21 - the Administration figures, including Trump who plotted and did their damnedest to execute a coup against this country’s democracy.
We are 15 months into the tenure of Garland and not only have there been no charges of significant bad actors, there has almost certainly been no criminal investigation launched. The technical term for this grotesque failure is fecklessness.
Yes Merrick made a visit to the kindergarten class to which we all apparently belong now and patiently explained that investigations are built from the bottom up, getting people to flip is an art form etc etc. He also vaguely promised to follow the trail wherever it went, as did Lisa Monaco this week.
Garland’s condescending pitch was wrong. In this case you have the bottom level of clowns and villains who attacked the Capitol. 750 of them *have* been investigated and charged. Probably 745 of them knew nobody on whom they could have flipped.
At the same time there is no sign - none - that Trump, Eastman, Giuliani, Meadows, Bannon et al are being investigated for their much more important role in organizing and attempting to put a legal gloss on the destruction of America. The hackers and duffers did their coup de théatre on cue on J6. Before that, the really vile and dangerous stuff was done.
We are now 15 months away from that and there hasn’t been a hint of an investigation. You could argue, and I wouldn’t disagree, that the DOJ could easily have operated in stealth mode. But the criminals are serial babblers. Had any grand jury been empaneled, somebody would have let it out. If 20 people had been subpoenaed for their role in the coup, nineteen of them would have cried foul in the media. Experienced prosecutors with impeccable reputations - Preet Bharara, Joyce Vance, and Dan Goldman have made this point publicly at their peril. They have reputations to protect and cannot go into bug-eyed rants in public.
In fifteen months, how many bad actors and witnesses have forgotten critical details? How many scoundrels have coordinated their stories?
A judge in California tossed aside a civil suit by John Eastman who is still wanting to hold on to documents. In his disposition he provided a virtual road map for the DOJ to use in bringing this house of cards down. If nothing else, perhaps Garland can be embarrassed into launching an investigation into one of the seminal political crimes in America’s history.
President Biden must replace Merrick Garland as soon as possible, using whatever rationale he decides on. The DOJ is in danger of becoming not just a witness to the fall of America, but a silent actor in it.
131 more lawyers requested by DOJ to help with Jan 6, sounds good to me.
Dang Roland. Do you have to be right on the money ALL of the time?
(Thanks). Dang....
You’re welcome, Gus. I’ve screwed up a few times. We’re still waiting to see if my prediction (hope, wish, prayer) ever comes true that the U.S. Congress goes blue the way California has gone supermajority Democratic. I do believe it will happen eventually, but no guarantee it will be in my lifetime. If recent history holds firm, Congress and the WH could keep flipping back and forth between D and R. But the trend is towards more and more blue.
100%. Only the rule of law can fix it.
True. And I remain disquieted on that front.
Gotta keep the faith. Apathy creation is an active strategy to create a public full of disillusionment. Don’t fall for it.
No fear of that happening in this group, I expect ❤️
❤️
Remember Hope, hammering on the lid of the box to be let out, after all the others had swarmed off.
All the above.
Oh man. The letter is so informative, but presents even more space for curiosity of unknowns. It’s going to get really bad for the cabal.
Or for us, they have more than a few compatriots
Proud Boyz or Oath Keepers leader?
Both, a lot of them Retired Military. Makes me sick to know that.
The rise of right wing militias. This is augmented by Russian active measures to boost participation and radicalization mostly online. And it’s crazy. It’s a President working with McViegh and Nichols types. Unacceptable.
My pick: his pal vlad.
I suspect that by this time Putin was beginning to distance himself from Trump, having already gotten what he was looking for. He would not have wanted to be linked to what T et al were doing, because he had plans of his own. Interesting that as Putin pulled back from a failed US Presidency, he further isolated himself from reality in his own fantasy of a Russian empire. And from recent reports, it sounds like it is backfiring big time. One can only hope.
His ass is grass. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking with it. I’m glad he and his military are incompetent at war. So now it’s desperation mode, shoot indiscriminately, because every successful strategy is failing
Vladimir!!!
Flynn?
Could be - he knows the secret phone drill.
Nixon from the grave.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 LOL. And Rose Mary Woods too. Who will come forward and take the blame for the accidental 7 hour stretch?
Even for Nixon this would be a bar too low.
Grassley can no longer put his words together logically but he still holds power thanks to an eternity in Congress
There’s way more players involved than them.
My first thought.....Putin!
My Quess is Banon. That’s his link to Robert Mercer, the money, the financier, the Libertarian. And I’m sure Hanity/Murdoch.
We should make it illegal for our leadership to use burner phones. But can the receiver of the call from a burner phone be tracked? Who in congress was receiving calls from a burner phone?
Unfortunately, Ted, the most likely scenario is that both ends of the conversations were using burners, and probably had several on hand. Burners typically are destroyed and discarded. I keep wondering about this: witnesses at white house describe the intense interest Trump had in WATCHING the insurrection on tv but his total lack of interest in listening to info from his advisors, who had to pry him away to get him to make a "plea" to his followers to go home. Wimpy performance that had to be recorded several times before they got one that his advisors (who were basically frantic by this time) felt they could release. So I'm wondering if Trump (confess I had to stop myself from typing Fuhrer... ) simply was out of it during this period of time: his only reality was what he saw on tv. He probably even took a nap. He doesn't deal with reality very well, and napping is a good way to dissociate oneself when thing have clearly gone awry.
Annie,
Your burner hypothesis seems highly plausible. Still, wouldn’t the phone conversations on those devices be captured somewhere in cellular data land? 🤷🏼♀️ Unlike fuhrer drumpf, I really know very little about burners.
While there’s nothing truly funny here, I got a little chuckle over “ He doesn't deal with reality very well!!”
As I understand it, you have to have at least one of the burners in functioning condition, or certain parts that an expert can siphon data from. That is why they are generally destroyed before discarding (usually in a hard to find location). BTW, not my burner "hypothesis". Lots of people talking about that to explain not only Trump's vacant spot, but it is known that many of the people involved in planning used disposable phones. I guess not all of them knew they needed to be destroyed before discarding.
Could slso be one of the militia leaders.
Putin
Farage?
Sadly, the reality is going to be more awful and scandalous than the Hollywood fiction ever could be!
'Russian state TV featured a Russian government official calling for 'regime change' in the United States, asking the people of the U.S. to replace President Biden with Trump 'to again help our partner Trump to become President.'"
They are already paying off their marionettes!!!!
What struck me was that "AGAIN HELP OUR PARTNER" part. Here's confirmation of Russian interference. From the Russians!
Yeah, they haven't been shy about helping installing tfg in the WH. And back in Russia, their politicians brag about the tfg winning and their role in making that happen. Only Putin denies it to western outlets, but they use it domestically back in Russia as an ace in their pocket. TFG as president is the biggest accomplishment in the history of cyber warfare. Carl von Clausewitz would give Putin an A+ in getting your enemy to do what you want, without force, and without war. The goal of Putin is not to defeat the west. He doesn't have that much power nor strength. His goal is split apart the EU, cut Brittan off, cut the US off from the EU an Nato. Make the West more like Russia. Just bring them down enough to be on plane with Russia. This is the "EurAsia" policy. Putin also mixes in the Fascist and Nationalism flavor too.
Well spotted.
Rowshan, that sounds more like a Russian bureaucrat dutifully following a script that he doesn't know is already outdated. But it is certainly revealing something about top level Russian thinking. I don't think it is a "payoff" so much as it was an attempted distraction from Ukraine, which does not seem to be going well for Russia. More info about young Russian soldiers going home, destroying their equipment first, or simply leaving it for Ukraine fighters. Untrained (also young) officers without a clue what their government expected: thus some doing nothing and some simply lobbing shells at easy targets. It's pathetic, at best. Some Russians with family in Ukraine are leaving Russia in disgust, some with the intent of actually going to Ukraine. It's chaos.
Putin will have to find a way out of this that leaves his ego intact, or he may escalate to salvage it. Same as Trump, but our system limited Trump to less lethal avenues of action (courts, lies, "executive privilege", back-stabbing, etc.) As designed by our founders. Something to think about.
Word is that a substantial portion of Russian people want Putin to leave Ukraine. Most Western media still focusing on what comes out of Kremlin, but there are non-profit and independent journalists and sources who work quietly to acquire info at ground level and get it out. It's starting to be picked up by some mainstream media now.
What took them so long? Combo of under staffing and lazy journalism: follow the crowd. Same thing that caused some of them to ignore Biden's strong, thoughtful speech to focus on one line that was taken out of context and immediately labeled "gaffe". That successfully diverted coverage and public attention away from the speech itself, and generated unwarranted speculation. Media watchers have been calling this out for a while. In the meantime, good journalism is ignored because too many of us bite into the clickbait.
A freebie from the Atlantic:
https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/wait-what/62446e05199fdd0021429452/midterm-elections-2022-trump-media-bias/
❤️❤️
Cabal.
So Ted. I respect your advice. Tell me how to become a member of the “Cabal.” Would I have, to take classes too, as you can see I have no real, what is thought as class act intellectual qualities. You might say I am classless. Would there be other things I need to do?
Respectfully, Pat.
Ps. I struggled in school if that helps?
Well, I don't think you would want to join any cabal. That would be weird, and probably impossible unless you got a few billion and an invitation.
A cabal is : the contrived schemes of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government)
also : a group engaged in such schemes
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cabal
Our founders worried about this, Madison warned of it in the Federalist #68.
"Nothing was more to be desired, than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the president to depend on any8 pre-existing bodies of men who might be tampered with before hand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the president in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the number of the electors. Thus, without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task, free from any sinister byass. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford9 a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time, as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen states, in any combinations, founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty."
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0218
Can’t heart this but WOW! Madison was quite the soothsayer!
Read it in "The Road to Unfreedom" chapter 6, Tim Snyder. Our current struggles are exactly what Madison warned about in Fed #68.
Everyone should read The Road to Unfreedom again. I can not recommend this book enough. It will be one of the most important history books for understanding the world from Putin 1999, Ukraine, Europe, America, Rise of DT, to 2022+.
Thank you!
The flood of slime flowing from the Trump administration is so awkwardly peopled with shallow entities with loathsome attributes I doubt the mangled mess could ever be developed as fiction.
Absent all responsibility and cynical disregard for the Law the chaotic stream of unreality developed by these criminal sycophants can only be described by Historians like Heather.
Just as the more sinister aspects of Watergate still emerge the Trumpian Coup attempt will take decades to explain.
Even then it will be crappy fiction.
Your first sentence is for the ages! 🤗
Art The deadly duplicity of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold could be a primer for a would-be author of a fictional account of Watergate or the ‘Trumpian Coup attempt.’
Your first sentence made me laugh for five minutes. I couldn’t help myself, Art.
Screenwriters have already changed their scripts umpteen times just to keep up. By now though, they are all pitching Meryl Streep to play Ginni Thomas!
I doubt that we all live long enough to see the full truth. As I doubt, I will ever know the full story of the Kennedy assassination.
Sharon Personally I believe that Oswald acted alone in the assassination of JFK, but I still wonder who was involved in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Regarding Watergate, PBS had a Watergate 30 Years Later documentary in which Magruder stated that he heard Nixon tell John Mitchell to bug the Democratic National Committee at Watergate.
Keith, I believe there is a lot of things we will never know for sure about before we die!
"...the unknown caller engaged in a cryptic conversation with the president just before the 7-hour blackout during which the Capital was stormed."
Answer:
Holder-to-this-day of Top Secret clearance Senior Advisor to the Unpresidented tRump Jared Corey Kushner, a most unscrupulous landlord and major league Scum Bag!
First guess I agree with.
A good choice - but who would want to play him in a movie?
He’d play himself. Who else could play such a cold fish?
😂😂😂
Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio, they've already sold their souls to Big Money.
No wonder I had great anxiety after Biden was called the winner, I knew that chump would not go quietly and would take the country down if he could.
I feared that right after tfg was declared winner in Nov. 2015, take the country down that is. That he had always been a vapid, racist twit always blowing his own horn and declaring bankruptcies and it just blew my mind to hear otherwise intelligent people say they’d be voting for him because Hillary was “so awful”. They had taken leave of all their senses. As time progressed, some even admitted they had 🙄. Duh!
Just as Michael Cohen predicted.
In my mind's eye, the ending for this reality "film" has always been trump and all his corrupt minions looking up out of a foxhole at medical personnel holding the strait jackets and taking them away "ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, ho, ho to the funny farm . . . ." 🎼
I remember that little ditty.
If a prominent fiction writer had taken the story of Watergate or BIG LIE/1/6 Capitol Building insurrection to a major publisher before these events actually unfolded, the manuscript would have been summarily rejected. Even John Le Carre or Ian Fleming had insufficient imagination to concoct ‘the president bugged himself’ and ‘the president refused to accept the fraud-less results of a presidential election.’
Yes! A complete script with guest appearances. Maybe they’ll even show up for their depositions or sentencing.
Orange coveralls and chains, shuffling.
From your lips to God’s ears!
Amen and amen…
I just posted my comment about Robert Ludlum "Bourne" novels and noticed you had the same take. Scary that reality follows art.
R Dooley, I love how you write as someone with intimate knowledge of film making.
Nice. I must say, the list of candidates in this group of comments is breathtaking. Unfortunately, also quite possible at this point.
And the Oscar for the best scenario for the overthrow of the American government goes to ....
More like Watergate revisited and cranked up on steroids.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
I understand the Russian word for "partner" and "stooge" are the same. :-)
Unconscionable obsequiousness, Eh!?
In Russian a "stooge" can be translated as a "comic partner" - партнер комика
Personally, I like "марионетка"—puppet.
We can all suppose.
I'm going to suppose that the Jan 6 Select Committee is now cleaning up loose ends, and is counting down on a timetable of public revelation that is going to rip through the Republican Party like a Howitzer through birthday cake. And keep ripping. And keep ripping. Right though all of the midterm campaigning.
I'm going to suppose that they have been passing this information to the DOJ, and that Garland is even now scaling up for a truly epic take-down that will wind through the courts for the next two years, nailing Republican operative after operative, not on their politics, but on actual crimes, getting not just convictions, but withstanding all appeals.
I'm going to suppose that this will cause the American public to vomit out this autocratic disease, and make America safe for democracy for at least another generation. Maybe two.
I'm going to suppose that our racist roots as a nation are about burned out, and that within the next two or three generations, it really will start to become a matter of history.
Because we can all suppose.
Joseph, I certainly hope your optimism is justified. I was optimistic that Mueller could get the job done. Then he didn't, and look what has happened.
Until it is proven that the rich, famous and well-connected are subject to the same laws as the rest of us, I am withholding further optimism.
Joseph is not doling out optimism. He is clearly stating supposition. I agree. The road to take is not a hopeful one. It is an actual course of action.
Well, Christine, Joseph is doing the supposing, and I'm characterizing his supposing as optimistic. This is based on my own lifetime of supposing-- like Joseph -- that Americans (of the USA variety) would do the right thing sooner or later, and occasionally we have, but it seems that lately (and in the past) we mostly have not.
We have our own recent and unprovoked war (Iraq 2003) on our consciences and undermining our righteous outrage at Putin's unprovoked war, we continue to produce too much CO2 gas to be taken seriously in the climate change debate, and 33 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall both Russia and China are still our adversaries, if not enemies, and we are all still armed to the teeth with nukes.
There is more. Nearly a million Americans have died of a new illness in large part because some of us would not wear a mask or get vaccinated, because to do so would be a violation of our personal right to be idiots. And now we are on the edge of losing our most important constitutional amendments, the ones that supposedly guarantee normal citizenship for those who are not monied, white and male, but which have been contested since the day they were written while racism was being swept under the rug just a few times too many over the past hundred and fifty years, and many of us still wake up every morning imagining that WE are not the problem.
The one thing we did manage to do for all these years was to change our own leadership in a mostly non-violent and democratic way, but now even that string has come to an end.
I have been supposing, ever since Trump ditched James Comey, that it was just a matter of time before the moron-in-chief would be behind bars, and we could once again turn our attention to the big problems. Then I thought the double victory in the Georgia Senate race that gave the DEMs their slim majority would mean the end of the filibuster, but I must admit I am not enough of a politics junkie to have known that Manchin and Sinema are not really Democrats, and that only 2 elected Republicans at the national level are actually patriots.
So please forgive me for not buying anyone's optimistic suppositions. I really hope Trump and his traitorous enablers get their comeuppance in a big way, but I'll believe it when I see it. Indictments need to be handed down now. I trusted Mueller at first sight, but I am waiting for Garland to earn my trust. Arrests need to be made. Interrogation is needed, and certain folks need to understand that their only way to avoid big jail time is to tell the truth, all of it. A few will fall on their swords, but I'm betting most of them won't. Oops, sounds like optimism.
I don't disagree, David. Tomorrow, my suppositions could be blown to bits.
I will have to replace them. And I will. It's a lot like doing science, actually.
In science, you observe, you make a hypothesis (a supposition) about the things you can't observe that make sense of the observation, and then you test it with more focused observation. A lot of the time, you are wrong. You alter the hypothesis, and try again.
David, that last part does sound like optimism. It’s a start. 😉 And, yes, the Mueller outcome was quite deflating to my optimism as well.
Supposing is filling in the things we do not know. I do not know what the Jan 6 committee intends. I do not know what is happening in the DOJ. I do not know what the American public thinks. I do not know if racism is fading away, or getting stronger.
I am supposing. It is an attempt to create a consistent image in the present -- consistent with the few facts that we know, the nature of the world, the nature of people -- that is reflected in statements about the present and the future, concerning things I cannot possibly know.
It is not really about the future. I have no idea what the future holds.
But I can suppose.
I could suppose that the Special Committee is quiet because it has lost focus. Or I can suppose what I have supposed, that it is biding its time.
I could suppose that Merrick Garland is a tool and a fool, and is cowering in his office while the world moves on around him. Or I can suppose what I have supposed, that there are swords being forged and shields being beaten, and that the knights will ride out when the marshal of the horses says to ride.
I could suppose that human intransigence is unalterable. Or I can suppose that things like racism, though long-lived, can grow tired and pass away.
It helps me get through the day, to suppose that the things I cannot see are not all devils and darkness and death.
So I will suppose.
I have trouble with the idea that somehow Mueller failed and that all that has ensued derives from that. Mueller did his job, and I think that too many people expected that he had more remit and power than he did. So the question remains about what did (or did not) happen that sent us down the road we ended up on. This is a rhetorical question that likely only future historians with a longer view and access to documents currently unavailable will be able to answer.
Annie, I have to disagree with you. Mueller did a fine job of investigating Trump and found a mountain of evidence that he had violated multiple laws. But he was not decisive enough, did not explain or defend his findings in a way the public might easily understand, and then he let his friend Barr hijack his report and deliberately misrepresent it on FOX news. The fix was in, and Mueller had no adequate response. So, he folded.
I do understand that Garland wants every last duck in line before he starts arresting the heavies, but if he hesitates much longer and allows the Jan. 6th commission (committee?) to steal all his thunder, he will become easy prey for the GOP disinformation machine. He needs to indict and arrest the biggies, drag them out of bed in the middle of the night, call Trump's bluff and show his hole card. We need to see a morning headline like: "Trump and 12 top associates arrested in FBI raids, computers, smart phones and tons of documents seized."
The January 6 Select Committee and the Department of Justice ARE doing their jobs. I have no doubt about that. I wish I had as much faith in the American people.
👍🏼
The DOJ is being exceptionally discrete then
Indeed. He is very methodical and likes to make sure his ducks are lined up so they can't be knocked down. How good cases are built.
I was thinking similarly. Watergate simmered along and heated up all summer until Nixon resigned in august. What will be the crucial factor? Will McConnell decide to cut his losses? It seems that a news cascade of criminal activities by TFG and his “soliviki” does not persuade the hard core. What will it take? Let’s hope that the squad of new DOJ attorneys is working very soon and starts indicting the traitors and seditious criminals. We owe the voters much respect and appreciation for standing in line in places like Georgia. Because they made the effort our democracy has a chance.
Watergate took two years to gather evidence in a dense matrix of conflicting interests, but all between a handful of White House perpetrators and their accomplices; eventually 48 convictions. In the current case, it's much larger, involving the White House team, 10 Senators and 147 Representatives, outside operatives like Steve Bannon, plus all of their accomplices. It's almost too big to prosecute.
Plus a very large number of unelected people like Ginni Thomas, John Eastman, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Navarro, Giuliani, and the billionaires whose money made it all possible, among others in the rogues gallery
too true.
Definite need for 131 more lawyers.
Which is why so many attorneys have been hired. It’s a massive treason.
Nixon resigned because he lost the support of republikons. Compare those r-kons to the bunch we have now--supporting, even promoting, a lying monster.
This is my belief as well. I think AG Garland will emerge as the key player provided he moves forward with indictments. The recent seemingly inexplicable retreat by Manhattan DA Bragg from hot pursuit of trump’s various financial crimes was a large disappointment for the experienced prosecutors working on the case; they resigned. Maybe it was a feint? Maybe… I’ll feel better once the JD indictments of the leaders and co conspirators begin of the January 6 fiasco commence. Let’s hope that happens as Joseph Nemeth indicates.
Maybe it was just to get us used to the way it will be. Been waiting to feel better since……..damn, my memory fails me
Yeah. <sigh>
Love your “supposing.” Wish it were so
It is so.
So much has been exposed to the light of day that I don’t see any reason to suppose. I’m trying to take Garland at his word when he said he would hold those accountable no matter at what level and whether they were physically at the Capital or not. The evidence is throbbingly clear—so why does the DOJ now need 131 more lawyers?
I'm not an attorney but I can imagine that actually prosecuting all these seditionists will take an army of people just to keep track of evidence and arguments and strategy and documents, and keep all of that accessible to the prosecution team. I can imagine that since all of that mountain of what is essentially high-class clerical work, must - because everything has to be handled in a strictly legal fashion (researching legal precedents and judging parallel arguments, preserving chain of custody on documents and other exhibits, etc.) - all be handled by attorneys.
Gethering evidence is one thing. Building a whole bunch of cases and showing how they fit together to convince a judge and jury is another. The fact that these lawyers are being hired is a hopeful sign to me.
And we can hope, Joseph. I am also going to hope that the media will follow through on what seems to be a growing awareness of their responsibilities. And I hope that we of the American public don't rely on just the government investigations and legal process to save democratic processes, because that is us and our responsibility to keep democracy safe at the local level by speaking out, organizing, and making sure our local officials are doing their jobs!
Annie, I posted this earlier but it bears re-posting.
And just when we thought televised news/opinion couldn't get any more treacherous CBS hires Mick Mulvaney. SMH 🙁
https://aaronrupar.substack.com/p/mick-mulvaney-is-a-liar-why-did-cbs?r=2xoc3&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
View
🤯
Thanks, Daria. I do miss stuff that gets posted after mine but above it, if that makes sense. Sometimes I go back and pick it up, but I have lists of things to do and I end every day with stuff undone that sometimes gets carried over and sometimes just gets set aside. I hope tonight isn't too cold because I didn't bring in wood this evening so my dog is going to give me the side eye in the morning for not building a fire right away for her. (There's the furnace, but nothing is better than the heat from the stove on a nippy morning.)
Good lord, what in the world does CBS think it is doing? Hope there is something rational going on that isn't apparent. (That does happen and it catches me off guard every time because I've gotten so I don't expect rational any more.)
Annie, I get have of lists of things that need to get done but don't...not enough time!
I choked when I saw the news about CBS hiring Mulvaney. Horrific choice!
Joseph I hope that your ‘supposes’ all come true. Initially I had to check the date, since it sounded rather like an April Fool article. Hopefully, I suppose that I’m wrong on dates.
Oh, I hope so. Storing up on pretzels and wine. Hope it not preempted by reruns of Fox Best News Shows. 😬 Am I worried? Do bears s*** in the woods?
Joseph, I am going to hope that your suppositions are correct because if they're not we are in a boatload of trouble.
I am supposing the same, but fear the last two paragraphs are of a hope in potential. I fear that many Americans have forsaken the Constitution in favor of gangster take over of the streets
Not many. Some.
I like your movie ending the best!
Joseph this is WONDERFUL! Thoughts BECOME things and you’re supposing them into BEING! I love this and will SUPPOSE it all myself!
Sharon This brings to mind a song from, I believe, the 1940s: “Moses supposes that toeses are roses, Moses supposes erroneously.” (I suppose that you find the rest of this ‘classic’ on Google.)
I’m going to keep on believing that my positive thoughts outweigh your musings. 😉 However, thanks for sharing the song!
Sharon, you sound much like I do! I often say thoughts become words, words become actions/reality! Here’s to supposing — thank you, Joseph!
@Joseph Nemeth - I deeply hope your vision comes true. May I adapt parts of your text, especially your second paragraph, for an email I plan to send to the DoJ?
Yes, of course.
And Imagine Peace beco.es a reality! I love this Joseph!
I'm with you, Joseph.
My take away is - we must do everything we can to keep the House Democratic majority.
Nov 2022. Closer than looks. More important than we can imagine.
Please contact your local Democratic committee. GOTV. ASAP.
Agreed…it doesn’t help that prominent Democrats keep criticizing President Biden. MSM consistently hits the airwaves with his low poll numbers. Please!
Sure, every single one of our government officials have some room for improvement…don’t we all. But come on folks…think about the big picture. Let’s focus on the positive things we’re experiencing as a country with President Biden and a Democratic led House and Senate at the helm.
Let’s work together to get through this election while doing the important work of running the country and protecting democracy!
I can’t imagine going back to what it was like with the last administration and the enablers in the House and Senate in power. Can you?
Everyone here is already going to vote intelligently in 2022. What we can do to have a bigger effect is find ways to reach voters in swing states. I live in MA. My approach so far is joining postcard campaigns, donating what I can afford to the Swing Left Impact Fund, and to Maggie Hassan, Stacey Abrams, the Lincoln Project, and a Dem grassroots group in AZ. I'll join Lincoln Project's The Union shortly. Closer to the election when phonebanks to swing states start up, I'll join those. That's my version of GOTV. And I contact Congresspersons, the Justice Dept, and the White House from time to time. I always feel like I'm not doing enough.
Hi, Elizabeth. May I suggest you join "The Union" now and not wait. They are already sending out "Union alerts" with a call to action of sorts. The first one was for folks to call Fox and protest some of their programming. It was so successful that the callers crashed not one but two Fox phone lines. They have also called attention to lies on Twitter, specifically by Tulsi Gabbard asking us to report them to Twitter. So we could use your help even before the election.
Hi Annette! Yes, of course. I only meant I had not joined The Union as of writing that message. By "soon" I meant very soon. Then I checked my email. I had already joined, sometime before 3/24, as I received The Union's 3/24 Stand With Ukraine alert. The fact that I couldn't remember if I had joined or had just planned to join tells me I should probably winnow the list of groups I've joined who send me email. Joining important grassroots efforts and taking organized actions is good. Joining so many that I fragment my attention to the point where I have too many demands to focus on anything is unhelpful.
Elizabeth, that is exactly what I've been doing. I started getting messages from orgs and campaigns in states I'd reached out to in the last general election. I had to remove those lists, plus a huge number of "fund-raising" groups who are using old lists. I'm sure they are legit, but I need to focus on what I feel are the best use of my contributions. Dropped some discussion groups and wanna-be pundits I found more distracting than useful. Plus vendors I used when Covid limited in-person commerce- don't blame them, they are trying to rebuild- but I don't need all those sales pitches.
I think I've got it down to almost manageable. I made folders so that communications from the active groups and committees are automatically sorted out from the rest. And I have a personal encrypted email completely separate from all the rest of this stuff. Whew. What a relief.
Heart not working, so "Thank You!"
Go for a brisk walk, breathing deeply.
Annette D. Wonderful efforts!
All part of VOTING INTELLIGENTLY, Eh!?
Website link please? Thank you.
https://jointheunion.us/
Elizabeth M. (Massachusetts):
Wonderful efforts Elizabeth,
and almost identical to my efforts here in Oregon,
amazing, Eh!?
Thanks, George. Good job on your end, too! I need to think on how to motivate more people in blue states like mine to start committing activism to save our democracy. I could probably use Facebook more effectively, for example.
Thanks, Elizabeth.
It is all good!
If Dems lose in 22, it’s too late for “Katie bar the door.”
If the Dems aren't able to point to significant achievements, that will be due in part to the progressive Dems holding out for their good stuff. But that is like what the wise old man said in "The Seven Samurai": You are worried about your beard when your head is about to be cut off.
100%
INDEED!
VOTE INTELLIGENTLY
PLEASE!
Get out the vote is critical!
Closer than looks. More important than we can imagine.
This lin! Thanks for reminding everyone of our most important obligation as citizens. GOTV!!!!!!
As for Donald Trump’s statement about burner phones, he mentioned burner phones three times in his lawsuit against Mary Trump and the New York Times: https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1508929130590466049?s=20&t=L54Wnz5hsseE5aCp496AvQ
I think Trump's way beyond being able to remember all his lies. But none of this will matter if the DOJ doesn't start bringing charges, now. Patience is a virtue, except when it is causing the end of our Democracy. If the GOP retakes the House and Senate in November, Biden will be remembered as our last fairly elected President. Then it will be 1984 on steroids.
The most amazing thing is that in America a US Citizen can say openly:
"Today, on a right-wing news show, Trump appeared to try to change the subject and regain control over the political trends when he called for Russian president Vladimir Putin to release dirt on the Biden family"
It is legal, in America, to call for a long time murderer, dictator and enemy of the United States to take action against the American President.
I can say: Trump is lucky I am not President. Trump is even luckier that Biden IS President. Biden is a truly good man. Unfortunately, that is going against him right now. The office of the President is a powerful position. Using it effectively would be appropriate in Trump's case.
Trump is an enemy of the United States and a paid stooge of Vladimir Putin.
Merrick Garland has got to wake up. If the GOP takes the house and/or the senate this fall, back up the dumpster
Yes. It is up to Garland's "discretion" whether to actually charge Trump, et. al., according to Lawfare's article cited by Dr. Richardson yesterday. Even though Judge Carter laid out the clear evidence, texts, calls, emails, against them, Garland still has discretionary powers, it seems. That's a glitch, I think in our laws. They are proving inadequate in this situation.
It is true we need to rework this democracy, some of our laws, and definitely some institutions.
"Discretion"--
The powerful people in this country don't want trump-o-vich to be punished. In their view, formally acknowledging a criminal Potus who was 'elected' and tolerated by Congress is a terrible shame on a nation dedicated to equality under law. These powerful people are more concerned about US image as an "exception". They don't want the Don's dirty splotch engraved on this country's history--they hope it all slowly fades away....
Tolerating his crimes will destroy the respect this nation once enjoyed.....and Putin will rejoice.
131 additional investigators in budget for Jan 6 investigation. Good news or way too many lines of investigation?
That struck me, too. I hope it means that the DoJ is finally gearing up to nail the traitors - all of them - especially Individual #1.
And those that still support the defeated former president are complicit.
Jeez Mike, we love trump here in Idaho. In fact we love him so much that I would like to give him a vacation here. He could connect with his inner outdoorsman. Our float trips are world class, and our white water rivers are exceptional. In fact I would recommend for him and be pleased to guide him down our most famous river of all. The River Of No Return.
Not convinced that he does well without a butler and faux gold faucets
That’s easy. I’ll just lie to him. We can offer solid gold faucets as our community is in the heart of the gold fields.
David, he doesn't care if he can't remember what he has lied about. He says whatever the f*** comes into his deranged brain at the time. He might be worried about other things (photos of him suggest he is having some serious physical issues) but lying? It's just talking.
If his hand got caught in a cookie jar he would say he’s rearranging them and giving them fresh air !
David, that book was required reading in high school, and it and the other books warped my brain and my life. Shame, shame on you!
You are probably correct. On steroids, no less. Shame!
Does that make us warpies?
David, I found this:
"homo warpicus: "Behaviorally identified. A strange species first noted in the late 1960s. These strange hominids are notable for their obsessive need to own a school desk, avoidance making long term decisions, and inate fear of smart houses and Google. Their preferred epithet is 'Shame,' and they avoid green baked foods. They seem to be able to function in modern society in spite of these handicaps."
I guess so. Shame on us....
Nice, Gus. Perhaps I am an expatriate subspecies of warpicus. If my Latin were better I could make a wittier reply.
NO WAY!
VOTE INTELLIGENTLY!
Help others to clearly understand the issues, candidates, and incumbents and make sure they vote, PLEASE!
I’m sorry to say there are too many who will vote for him, no matter what. Let’s count on new/undecided voters.
You are right beyond any doubt.
No one should confuse "patience", as a virtue, with being too lazy or too PC to call out and object to a wrong.
Mary Hart Detective of the day! Keep lighting up those dark corners!
Damn, he lied, who knew
😆
Or at least his lawyers know what a burner phone is- 🤬
Thanks, Mary. There is an article in one of the MSM about this that included some other witnesses supporting not only this but other instances he made similar comments. I was reading off and on while trying to get other things done and didn't note it down, so appreciate the link. Don't usually do Twitter but bet that post will have ppl listing other sources too.
I don't know about you guys, but in the days of "we've been trying to reach you...auto warranty" who the heck answers a number they don't know? Especially in a riot? Did someone distribute the number, whether burner or staff? What number did Kevin McCarthy call?
Great questions, Gail.
Exactly, Gail. I’ll bet the stooge was trying to change the convo yesterday. And of course he always goes to his boring switcheroo…Hunter Biden.
Funny how and when those shiny objects appear when the heat is turned on.
Dang! That’s insightful, and scary, premeditated coup!
Hmmm...Nixon's 18 and 1/2 minute tape "gap" and Trump's 7 hour 36 minute phone call "gap".
The GOP never learns, does it?
Thanks for the information.
and the depth and weight of Jan 6 make the conspiracy behind Watergate look like a kid's prank.
Exactly. It's Nixon's blank tape all over again.
But they keep getting away with it. Stone said that the plan was for no Republican president to ever have to go through what Nixon did. They are making it so…
Thank you, Professor Richardson for your continued important work.
White Historian Heather Cox Richardson is connecting the dots. Underlying all her white dots are whites that fear growing Black power - a GOP block in the senate that’s pavlovian on the subject, and the Putin - Trump axis that links and stinks.
Mayor Ed Koch appointed Lehman’s Peter Jay Solomon as deputy mayor in charge of babysitting Trump and other Manhattan powers. Peter’s mother and my dad were acquainted, he and I did Collegiate School in first grade in 1944... and Peter talks. He liked Trump, found the Queens rapist amusing. But Peter was clear: Trump never tells the truth. Trump always lies, Peter said. Always. WaPo reporters and others have almost said this. They fear Trump wrath. Peter doesn’t. He’s wealthy and retired and certain: Donald never tells the truth, and Ed Koch knew it. Today, all know this. Trump is a psychotic liar. His psychosis is infectious. The Big Lie is endorsed by Graham, Cruz, Hawley, DeSantis, Abbott, and many more. GOP has been seduced by The Orange Man with the red phallic tie hanging down from his yellow hair. Republicans and Tucker just live for this phony. They love fascist Putin, Viktor Orban, MBS the murderer.. it’s a lovely bunch of Born Again breach birth Christian Right prejudiced Black hating Republican Americans that cannot spell Abraham Lincoln and seem to like Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini. Tell me I’m wrong. Is America having one of its periodic fantasy flights. If you’re going to have a fantasy, have a good one. This one is stale bread.
Where to start.
OK today's GOP is the blood and ideological heir of the Confederacy - racism and all. Yet the GOP is doing all it can to attract Black voters. It is a mistake to lump all Black persons in one camp. Equality means choosing your own priorities and deciding your own best interests.
To lead with "White historian HCR" seems a peculiar choice of emphasis.
And to say Washington Post reporters and others fear Trump's wrath is inaccurate. It is thanks to WaPo's David Fahrenthold and NYTimes Maggie Haberman, CBS Robert Costa and ABC Johnathan Karl, Jane Mayer and Jelani Cobb et al that we know as much as we do about Trump et al
HCR mentions the most dangerous snake of them all and, in all the febrile excitement here, Sandy is the only one to mention that crucial name: CRUZ.
The timing of action against the conspirators will be important, given the blinkered automatism of American midterm voters...
It begins to feel like "Hold your fire till you see the whites of their eyes."
Totally agree, Peter. I spit when I hear “cruz”. What a slippery creature.
200%... unfortunately.
I regarded the man as the nastiest, most dangerous narcissistic pervert in the GOP's police line-up of 2016... until he was outflanked by Agent Orange.
The world will be a safer place when both are dressed in orange.
Indeed.
Cruz and his Goldman Sachs wife, they are a pair.
your comment prompted me to look up Heidi - raised seventh day adventist, turned to southern baptist . . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Cruz
Ugh…from worse to worst!
Keep it coming, Sandy!
lin, many of us here have our own hot button issues that we react very strongly to. Mine are Hillary Clinton, abortion, women’s rights. Sandy’s is race. He pushes our discourse to remember this issue, always. And he’s right. It’s often hard to penetrate his stream-of-consciousness writing and name-dropping of people I’ve never heard of, but his knowledge and insights are frequently incisive and insightful, especially regarding New York and Wall Street. I’ve learned a lot from him, and often been irritated by him. He tries to push Dr. Richardson to address our race issues even if, on the surface, the issue of the day seems to have nothing to do with race, because in this country, it always has to do with race. At least, that’s my takeaway from reading his words over more than a year, maybe two.
Personally, I think that unless and until we have a national reckoning with slavery, Jim Crow, and race a la Germany post WWII, race will continue to be a shameful problem in this country that we will not be able to overcome. And Sandy pushed me to this conclusion.
Don’t get me started on Maggie Haberman! Like Costa and Woodward, she held back information (TFG flushing documents) to enhance her book sales. Just ugh. I could go on, but I won’t.
💙❣️❣️
May I add Bob Woodward and Robert Costa?
Yes, add Bob Woodward. And his drinking buddy. And DEEP THROAT their hidden cash cow. W. Mark Felt, his daughter and three grandsons, add them. Aspirational pneumonia and living in her garage. Rising damp, excavated foundations. Dewey Ballantine for one, and who put him through school - and why. Add all that... and the suicide of Mrs. Felt, in their kitchen. WaPo rolled and hid the hero.
Sandy, you obviously know much more than I do about this side of the cave.
Correct
Sandy is quite possibly the most brilliant classmate we have here in LFAA.
Chris Wilson uses The Cave and Plato and Socrates to help Black inmates. HCR writes about emancipation among the white racists.
Self dealing among journalists is epitomized when hiding Deep Throat. Want his home address? His daughter’s. A photo of his garage where rising damp might have killed him? Bernstein and Woodward did nada to help W Mark or Joan.
They hid him to help themselves.
True but MSM hears the jingle of Rupert’s money and follows him ad nauseam. Thank God for those who go to the window to see if it’s really raining…
Correct. Correct. Dear lin - in hiding. The exception proves the rule. Thank God for those still disinclined to Gut Tucker and Fox Fix. Brilliant Tim Snyder instructs his peer and us and is still largely ignored. The mysterious lin is a phantom. White Heather hails from very White Boston College. Visit. Do Opus Dei. View the population. You may get it if your eyes work. And check the coast of Maine. See any color in Rockport, or down where she lives. Find a Black pulling lobster traps.
Listen to President Biden on racism. He’s only 100% right.
"A Black" ? Sheesh.
Yes, Maine So White. But not as White as you seem to imagine. And you should consider White allies of BLM.
Knocking on doors in my small CD2 Maine community, I've met two Black lobsterman. For one, it is a heritage profession going back to his grandfather at least. The other moved to Maine, fell in love with it, and works on someone else's boat. I also know a couple of Jamaican women who were seasonal workers for years before making their home here. We have a Black woman who is a physician. Must I go on?
When I lived in the mid west, I met someone who swore there were no trees in NYC.
And seriously. Personal jibes? What's with that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaga_Island
https://www.mainehistorystore.com/blackbangor.html
https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/879/page/1290/display?page=3
This would be funny if not so stupidly sad ... I'm from the West Coast ... grew up thinking the East Coast was solid city - concrete, glass and steel - and people there thought milk grew in bottles - seriously!! When I finally had a chance to see more of this country - the amazingly diverse geographic and cultural environs, it was a revelation of reality - especially New York City - full of trees, friendly people and a deep vibrational energy like being inside a hydro-electric generating facility ... I absolutely love New York - but would not want to live there with only holes in my pockets ... and the surrounding regions, beautiful countryside everywhere ... my only complaints were that it was nearly impossible to wander down to the water's edge, as most of the property was privately owned with "No Trespassing" signs, and the quality of food available in stores was ... let's just say ..., not optimal ....
Maine is white. One was honest: Judge Sam Collins, Susan’s uncle, said to avoid his lawyer son. Lazy and incompetent. Sam’s great Secretary Mary Beal called S B Lewis & Company when Sam was near death at Maine Medical. Winter accident. Cut carotid. She... Followed Sam’s written instructions, opened one letter, found another - sent it, putting me in charge of Sam’s care. Susan’s uncle was a good man, her dad and addicted jailed brother were more about trees.
Many trees get diseases. Sometimes it feels like grievances are a disease.
Sam headed The Law Court.
Time for you to write a book.
A book? Memoir? Poetry? Fiction?
Consider a memoir going deeper into the subjects you touch upon lightly in your postings here. If sources are not directly your experience, they can be named and credit given, and if litigation is a concern, you don't have to name names. For example, go deeper into your mentioning the 'whiteness' of HCR and BC, where you make it almost pejorative rather than merely descriptive. Don't jump to flimsy conclusions like you did with the black lobsterman, quickly disproven by someone on here. But write it.
Jack, I have accompanied a lobsterman in Rockport ME where we owned four houses. Gordon Best was a neighbor. There were no Blacks for miles. None pulling. We owned 33, 30, 29 Mechanic Street and One Ship Street - and sailed and raced Thunderbird and First Amendment and Common Sense for years. Again, no Blacks. Beauchamp Point was snotty Union Pacific money. Lobstermen were locals. We sailed Penobscot Bay, east west north and Eggemoggin Reach. Never saw a sailor of color. It’s a white paradise of WASP heroes, mostly legacy brats. There are always exceptions. Owls Head Museum - endowed by Rockefeller and IBM money, Fox Island Thoroughfare - no color. Inland it was white and bitter about 2,800 coastal shores owned mostly by out of state money. Again, exceptions. As for Dear Heather, and HRC Boston College - the same. Always exceptions, but white historian is fair. She does not feel what our inner city or southern Blacks feel. Read Master Plan. That author sent me his book. Chris may visit. Read his memoir. Feel his life. HCR is color blind and white. History is about differences. Snyder knows. He ignores color, too. Colorblind historians are commonplace. Indifference is another form of prejudice.
Where to start? Start with your name and address, your personal history and issues. Your accomplishments and loves, your hatreds and prejudices, your emotional and intellectual history, your life experiences, successes and failures. Your full name, date of birth, and the names in your family and their storylines. Where to start? To thine own self be true. Sandy
Sandy, I participate in the community in good faith. Where I think necessary, I provide links to back up my statements. Which are from my perspective, but not about me.
Of course it was Polonius who said To thine own self be true. And his advice, however glommed onto as adages for the ages, was not, in context, the bright light many take it for.
The notion of selfhood in Early Modern English literature was in flux. Hamlet signals this early by telling Horatio that there is more than is dreamt of in his philosophy. And nature of identity, selfhood, volition, is a theme throughout the play.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/authors-to-themselves/E84D2EBC4C82870DDB42FAEFF9E4C79F
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520309463/shakespeares-perjured-eye
Thanks.
To Polonius to L for H’s benefit.
Sandy, all that ID material may or may not get you a vote in a state that doesn't really like voting or voters... but is willing to make an exception for the most "exceptional" American Exceptionalists, true members of the Master Race, but... it is all just outer clothing... as is even the color of our skin.
And then you went and said the one thing worth saying:
To thine own self be true.
Where to start? Where to end?
You've said it all!
Bravo!
Slava!
Salud!
To thine own self be true… written out in fanciful lettering, decorating the walls of thousands of college students as a testament to their newly acquired “Shakespearean “ wisdom. Such an insidious illumination. Poor Dr. King. Thank you Lin, for that spark that lights the fire.
I'm not American and while I suspect that I know Hamlet better than most people because a turning point in my life was marked by an extraordinary performance (during which I was the only person in the theater to understand the prince's bitter humor, and laugh... repeatedly) that was decades ago, and I'd forgotten the line.
That said, these words represent the key demand of our time.
And the misfortune is that they should be rendered meaningless by people's deep ignorance of their own self and total lack of interest in finding and knowing it.
Admittedly, the ultimate existential challenge...
When presented with existential questions one may overthink the answers.
Ps. I can barely remember Hamlet as 50 years have intervened. What survives is a vivid memory of people filling their plates while caring little if there was enough for the others. A sort of comment on modern day human nature. To thine own self be true. Seems to me a half truth.
Well, maybe Maggie could have come out a little sooner.
Maggie managed a MSM seduction of Trump. She’s got what it takes. A little leg and her caustic once worthy angry father gave her her name. As with all that played the Trump Atonal Organ in MSM, dear Maggie played access journalism and neglected on day one to put that ugly smile on page one with a proper translation. Maggie is just adorable. And so is Trump, 70,000,000 agree. None will vote for her or The NYT.
Is not Timothy Snyder also a white historian?
Ally I ❤️ you.
Sandy, I am not well educated, and may not fully comprehend the meaning of "Pavlovian." I have to ask, how is the nature of the Repunklickin', Tucker-lovin' contingency not Pavlovian? It looks to me like they are foaming at the mouth at the mere mention and very idea of diverse representation beyond the bounds of their tightly controlled circle of interests ....
Wow, a perspective I never expected, but welcome
SHEEEESH!
Well, considering today’s revelations, one could understand why Dr. Richardson could not stop writing these letters. So THANK YOU SO MUCH HCR!
DOJ is on it. #Taskforce457 is going to nail him for every minute he hid those calls, I hope the sentence equals a year in prison for every minute hidden for the traffic cone of treason.
“Traffic cone of treason”…I love that, Ted!
Sometimes even just a few months in prison could become a life sentence...kind like Epstein, Eh!?
The desperation of Trump and others is palpable. Pathetic, actually. Did they actually think they could keep their blatant crimes from coming to light? And Lisa Monaco has erased any doubt that the Justice Department is coming for all of them.
That is my hope Michael. And they need to move quickly.
While it is, and has always been, desperation, it is dangerous.
This is one of the most important statements successfully binding America's democratic governance by enforcing the consequences upon those TREASONISTS slaves to Deceptions obedience!
For those who have been following Allen Hingston, the following his is FB message. "Arrived Calgary and are applying for a work permit for Tanya under Canada program for Ukrainians fleeing the war. It is for three years but we hope we can go home long before then." Theirs has been a long journey. So glad they are safe now.
Delighted to hear this news! Thank you, Pam!
Thank you, Pam. I've been worried, and now I'm crying with relief.
Well, now what? It seems very little has happened to these despicable traitors thus far. All of this is entirely unprecedented, so now what happens? The NY state case against Trump was dropped. Will this be dropped as well? Who holds who accountable? Who is going to hold Clarence Thomas responsible? Who will call for him to resign?
AOC called for Clarence Thomas to resign today.
. . . and apparently she is the fifth member of Congress to do so‼️ Love it 💕🌹
Sadly, it will take more than AOC for that to happen. It will take a tidal wave of them.
The NYC case was dropped. Not the NYS case.
Why are Americans not taking to the streets and demanding their resignations? As long as everyone just sits and expects others to do the work, they will win. Maybe most Americans just don't care.
More than half of the country does care, Gailee, it’s just that yes, we are waiting…waiting for the DOJ to cast their broad net to reel them in. Waiting is very painful, I know, but unfortunately this takes time. Tfg’s admin left a mess; tfg took important papers (15 boxes) that didn’t belong to him to Mar-A-Lago. Then the January 6th Select Committee is gathering a shitload of evidence that the DOJ can use to prosecute. The wheels are turning, albeit too slow for most of us as we have grown impatient after 2 years of Covid and the lies. We must not leave even one rock unturned.
Wish the heart worked (don't want to refresh, as it goes back to the beginning of the comments), but I fully agree. And the 15 boxes doesn't account for things he ripped up or flushed down the toilet.
Correct!!
❤️
Yes. I agree.
What I fear, Dancing With The Stars is so much more interesting.
There has been a deliberate dumbing down during the last 30 or 40 decades.
Now now now just be happy your mom didn’t name you Patience.
Thomas resign, surely you jest. He is stuck like glue. With nary a sign of integrity. Who doesn’t know this.
It's like peeling an onion; with every layer, you cry a little more. In this case however, there's also a bit of a cleansing feeling as the evidence comes out supporting what we all suspected; That the corruption spreads wider than first expected is not a surprise. If you turn over enough rocks, you're going to find more trolls.
My suspicions have been confirmed with every relevation. Not a good thing because I suspected the worst.
Really, Jeri. Hahahaahaha ! You choked me there.
Every day the insanity and revelations of corruption reach new levels. I am to the point where I wish someone, anyone would take Trump to court.
or out to the woodshed for a good old fashion whupping...
#taskforce457
Or to the bullet-hole scared wall, blindfolded...
According to former federal assistant prosecutor Elie Honigman, the 457 minutes of missing call logs presents evidence of consciousness of guilt.
In his opinion yesterday, Judge Carter was urging the DOJ to indict and prosecute DJT.
Enough w/the little fish leading to the big fish style of prosecution. If Merrick Garland is too timid to prosecute Trump, then he should get out of the way. His failure to apply the rule of law to Trump (because of politics) is just as dangerous as Barr misrepresenting the Mueller report.
Garland’s not timid. He’s working. It will be a master piece of prosecution.
I believe I read that Merrick Garland never had a case overturned on appeal and I wondered if that was some kind of metric for a judicial record.
That is one of the bellwether kudos for prosecutors; not losing a case in court; as a judge, not having your decisions overturned is a HUGE one. I am hoping with all my heart that Garland's prosecutorial experience coupled with his judicial experience will present us with a rock solid case in the prosecution of tRump.
I hope so. But the fact that there is no evidence that he has impaneled a grand jury continues to be worrisome. While such panels often work in secret, (as I understand it) those who go before the grand jury are not required to keep their attendance confidential. Usually, with something of this magnitude, word will get out. But, alas, all we can do is watch and wait.