Will, I share your sentiment and even woke up our upstairs neighbors with my whooping, though their English is probably not good enough to appreciate my choice of joy-filled obscenities. I will spare everyone the details.
However, we are by no means out of the woods. Getting Trump behind bars in a Federal prison is still a long way off, a…
Will, I share your sentiment and even woke up our upstairs neighbors with my whooping, though their English is probably not good enough to appreciate my choice of joy-filled obscenities. I will spare everyone the details.
However, we are by no means out of the woods. Getting Trump behind bars in a Federal prison is still a long way off, and there is so much that could go wrong between here and there that just thinking about it has already begun to ruin my day.
Kudos to Alvin Bragg for his fearlessness. I sure hope his colleagues in Georgia and at the DOJ are not afraid to pile on once they see that the NY indictments have not caused the sky to fall. Coraggio!
David, I doubt he will ever be actually physically behind bars, but I don't think that is necessary for justice to prevail (house arrest and no phone will do). Furthermore, I wrote here the other day that a criminal conviction for tfg is not high on my priority list of "Necessary Things to Mend America," and that our desire to see it happen springs from mostly a thirst for poetic justice. I expectedly got some pushback from folks, but I feel they were missing the point. It feels like the right thing to happen, because it would indeed be the right thing to happen, I hope it happens, and - as I hope my initial comment today demonstrates - I will be quite elated if/when it does happen. HOWEVER, the true prerequisites to mending our country take the form of positive policy enactments, rather than the deserved punishment of any indivudual.
I therefore recommend again that we turn the brunt of our attention away from armchair speculation of tfg's legal fate, let the lawyers do their thing, and instead focus on lifting up positive developments that provide systemic benefit to the whole of our society, such as those highlighted in Professor HCR's letters and President Biden's current Invest in America press tour. After celebrating again tonight, obviously.
Certainly celebrate, but the real challenge is to eliminate the MAGA cult from Congressional halls and the brainwashing from our society. The threat to our democracy and Constitution is real and it’s not diminishing. Look at Desantis’ posturing about not extraditing-he has no shame in threatening to violate the Constitution as a sitting Governor. Look at the GOP minions objecting to the investigations and retaliations. Yes, it’s a clear and present and ongoing threat to what we hold dear.
Desantis is a Harvard educated lawyer, who knows better. I will never understand how even Trump’s political rivals bend the knee, even at risk to themselves. I do understand that Republicans have concluded that they can’t win elections without the rabid base being fired up and angry enough to vote in large numbers, but trying to tiptoe along the tightrope of pleasing the base and not pissing Trump off makes them all do dishonorable things. I don’t know how they sleep at night.
It's pretty clear to anyone who has been watching and listening to Ron DeSantis that he didn't learn much from , and doesn't place much store in, his years at both Yale and Harvard. He's gone on record saying that he worries that his advanced degrees would prove a "political liability" with the voters he was trying to woo.
I think that both Yale and Harvard should unburden Mr. DeSantis, rescinding the degrees they conferred, on the grounds that based on his public statements, they are willing to accommodate his desires.
De Sauron's statement that Florida would “not assist in an extradition request”, in violation of the plain language of the US Constitution, would seem to me to be grounds for rescinding his law degree at the very least, and if he's now (or in the future applies to become) a member of any state or federal bar, for permanent disbarment.
Seems the MAGA crowd thinks the Constitution is a multiple choice of options to choose from what they follow. Like choice #1 is the 2nd A but ignore the 14th & 9th amendment
I know that Yale and Harvard are THE schools but based on a few graduates I know personally I find that they know less than they think do about technical things. Add DeSantis, Cruz, etc. and you might start to conclude something similar about their law schools.
Yale and Harvard have released a good number of ignorant and evil fools on the country. It appears that making money is far more important than service and integrity within those ivy covered walls.
Are universities responsible for what their graduates do after being conferred their degrees? Really? Young people who graduate from higher institutions are babes when they go out into the world. They haven't experienced life in the real world. They make mistakes, they learn from them and they change as the get older. And some get greedy and pompous because of where their degrees came from.
As an old Dartmouth grad I am pissed that Laura Ingram graduated from there much more recently. She did not learn that you should not lie to make money.
I suggested some years ago to a professor of history at Duke University, who had written a book on the influence of the Koch brothers on universities, that Stephen Miller’s Duke degree be rescinded. She wrote that it couldn’t be done. Now that Miller is among the Trump advisors up for questioning by Jack Smith, wondering if degree rescinding could be reconsidered.
If his degrees would be a turn-off to MAGA voters, we should tag him with Yale and Harvard at every opportunity. The way he uses labels like woke radical liberal Marxist.
Certainly a strategy. But the downside is that we reinforce a negative attitude against higher education which is raw meat for MAGAs as DeSantis campaign would post out that despite his Yale and Harvard edumacatiom, he has risen above it all.
Did Yale and Harvard make the man DeSantis has turned out to be? What one does with the experiences, knowledge, and challenges to ideas and law lays at the feet of the student. Colleges don't train, but teach, with an emphasis on critical thinking. DeSantis came to both universities with intelligence, a good education, and ideas and values of his own. The conservative 20-year old earned his degrees and chose to follow opportunities to gain power and lead. That he is willing and able to pervert the laws he was taught or to wrap himself in the baseness of MAGA-conservatism rests with him. Dragging the universities into this is a mistake, a distraction, I suggest, from what DeSantis is politically and ethically. He is Trump with a better pedigree, which he actually earned, unlike Trump. Were I his professor or mentor, I might both marvel and be disappointed in his career and political choices, and vote against his rise to power every chance I had to do so, recognizing full well that he was a talented student pursing goals not of my preference.
Being educated doesn't include being empathic. I'm not even sure you can teach empathy. DeSatan obviously never developed it. And that's how he can sleep at night.
By the time a young person gets into college, a Harvard or Yale included, they have a lot of forming, nature and nurture-intellectual bent, and upbringing (emotionally, morally). This relates to elementary school and community experiences as well. College is a topping off, a further widening but in a sense a narrowing too. Harvard and Yale and other highly regarded schools are sought for the access they provide with the achievement- this label- i.e. "a Harvard Graduate". It works as a status symbol but also raises expectations from others. But we should not assume that these folks are better morally or even intellectually than the ordinary person. They are not. They still must prove themselves. But, because of access, they can postpone that inevitable reckoning from a high place. We do but should not blame the college though It does devalue the college in our minds at least. Dershowitz .....even a professor!
He is a Harvard educated lawyer but that doesn't mean he is a good one. He and his (sleeping?/un-woke?) staff didn't notice the section in the Disney agreement that neutered the handpicked minions he thought would hamstring Disney and its ability to express its own social stands. He didn't know better on that contract and he doesn't know better in a lot of other areas too. It's proof that leadership is more than shouting buzzwords for applause during speeches and squinting into the camera with a clenched jaw, like you think you're the High Plains Drifter.
Indeed. The House of Mouse and its Magic Kingdom enriched itself from artists' pens and proceeded to cut down a haughty governor with pens wielded by lawyers. The pen (or in today's case, the laptop): mightier than the sword.
My RepubliQan friends are all changing their FB cover photos to the National Colors flying upside down. Deprogramming the cult is going to take a lot of time, energy, and effort.
But those upside down Russian flags are probably confused with Luxembourg flags. I'm sure you know what Im getting at. To be a fool of Putin's fool is to be a fool of Putin yourself.
DeSantis waited until he heard that TFG was going to surrender before issuing his "I'm not going to help with extradition threat." He won't have to follow through... It's a BLATANT attempt to grab Trump's base while he's off defending himself. If DeSantis really wants to be Prez, he needs to worry more about wooing independents who probably won't feel too great about him threatening to violate the Constitution. I guess he thinks the primary fight is the tougher one.
I'm with you Will. We have no control over what now proceeds in New York re: TFG (and as a resident of New York City and its environs in the 1970s and 1980s, I can tell you: this is a loooong time coming!). But we do have control over who populates Congress, who populates state and local legislatures, who populates the executive offices in states and cities, and how they address the pressing problems and challenges of this nation, including the not-so-creeping-now fascism that is happening all over.
Red states over run with MAGA & Christian Nationals will not be so easy especially with their electoral college votes which could really skew an election. The super majorities of these states are enacting laws re districting , Voting rights, who appoints judges etc. any law that continues their power in their state
Carole, I agree with your concerns, but on the flip side of that, the Millennial vote is expected to be the majority generational vote next year. Like the indictment of the Orange Russian Witch, this warms my heart and gives me hope.
I disagree with one point. House arrest, no phone AND no internet access. Perhaps no visitors, too. The Golden Cage: solitary confinement with all the hamburgers he want.
- all the hamburgers he wants, minus the ketchup. This later requirement has been requested by the clean up crew at Camp Cupcake or wherever he winds up.
Agree - “the true prerequisites to mending our country take the form of positive policy enactments, rather than the deserved punishment of any indivudual (sic).” And those policy enactments need to happen on the local level as well as state and national levels.
Indeed. The infamous Lewis Powell memo of 1971 laid out a course for modern day corporatocracy.
We need a similar document in the reverse -- a policy document -- that dismantles systemic systemic racism, poverty, classism, oppression.
Our history? A nation built on the genocide of Indigenous peoples and made morbidly rich by the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans, leading to the current day bondage of BIPOC, the poor, and working poor people, by systems created to keep them oppressed by profiting off of their misery. Reading “Poverty by America” by Mathew Desmond right now and he so confirms all of the modern day shackles on and the bleeding of the poor and working poor. When I was a single mom in the ‘90s, working like mad to support my two children and myself, my bank would let a $1 error cost me hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. Granted. I made mistakes. I sometimes played “checkbook roulette” when we were hungry or the kids had to have something for school or if I didn’t pay daycare or for after school we could lose our place. I just needed another day or two. Or a little grace. AND my bank made bank off of me and the millions of other folks such as I who were paycheck to paycheck, a health insurance lapse away from bankruptcy.
And I had white privilege.
Black single mother friends not only lacked that edge, they lived with the unrelenting racism and aggressions that never let up and grated at their health and well-being in ways I have since studied and written about. The injustice of Black maternal and infant mortality being almost four times what it is for whites is glaring evidence of what systems and policies promulgated by the morbidly rich are doing to our nation’s people.
The Trump indictment? May it be a turning point toward Justice. Please!
I just want our nation to forget about him, or for him to just go away, and for us to look at the facts at hand: the trauma and inequity we foment is killing us, and killing some of us earlier and earlier.
There are solutions; they are in the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences, PACEs science. For those who want to know more, here’s a great read:
Check out the website where the piece is published. The answers are on it. It’s all about preventing and healing trauma; creating community wherein people can get go from dysregulation to regulation to connected to partnerships. When hurt people heal and stop hurting and hating people, we can heal.
Thanks for the link. It is illuminating. I knew the outline of Putin's growing up, but the details are stunning.
Ironic, isn't it: Two world leaders of similar age: One grew up in wealth and privilege, isolated from the normal responsibilities of life. The other grew up in extremes of poverty and remnants of a violent war. Both suffered from the trauma of lack of supportive family life. And both now exhibit personality disorders that continue that isolation from normal human interaction. Both physically aging while clinging to illusions of grendeur. Both threats to world stability. Their aggression reminds me of people I have known who are abusive and controlling to hide their fear of their own inner chaos- and sometimes, I think, to avoid suicide. They are the ones who scare me the most.
Well said. We all need to be more aware of the stressed among us. (Don't get me started about banks!!! I will never again use a bank after the same thing happened to me, as you described. )
As I read the recounting of yours, and others, experiences as single moms, the banking error experiences really hit home. Imagine, your $1 error trying to stretch to make ends meet, left you in perilous financial hardship with no one to help you escape growing onerous fees but aggressive saving and cost cutting, and/or generous family or friends. Those same banks on the other hand, carelessly lost millions in the 80's, then billions in '08 and billions more this year, but each time they were immediately rescued by a firehose of cash from the Fed.
We definitely need to be kinder to each other and have a greater sense of community, but we also need government and corporate policies that are kinder to us. Business models that pounce on consumers like a lion from the tall grasses for the smallest errors or mishaps, with government policies that are written to enable it, sentence people to cycles of debt and despair and are likely a major reason so many are on edge and quick to cut down their fellows in the same boat. I do hope the legal cases against TFG change the tide of elite impunity, and that they open more eyes to see that there are other policies and situations with similarly dangerous effects for us all that need us all to address from the ballot box.
Exactly! I think of someone in my position who was just a wee bit more upset. Or who didn’t have faith. Banks and landlords likely prompted despairicides — deaths of despair — among hundreds, if not thousand of us, as we stretched to make ends meet and prevent our children from feeling the sense of impending doom that comes from too few dollars (low pay) chasing too many goods and services that are suddenly squeezed even more tightly by corporate greed in the form of dines.
Thank you! Yes. I am deeply grateful for myriad amazing miracles and miraculous humans in my life! Kids are now 30 and 33 and thank God are great. I love my life and job and am grateful beyond belief. I appreciate your kind words! Love this community!
I believe this also explains some of the gun violence in the inner cities. Drive by. Robbery that ends in fatal shootings. Some as young as 12.
In fatherless homes where moms are preoccupied with basic survival, boys, mostly boys, feel ignored and disconnected. Gangs lure these kids in by providing the sense of belonging they hunger for and introduce guns that alleviate their sense of powerlessness. These children received no empathy at home and have no empathy for others.
Blessedly, this describes only a small percentage of 1-parent homes. But when the malevolent stars align, it creates monsters.
I remember checkbook roulette. This was when you could write a check two days before payday that you knew you couldn't cover but would hope wouldn't make it to the bank too quickly. Also putting my bills in a hat each month and picking up to the point where the $$ was gone. You can't do that now although now we just fo it by charging to a credit card. And yes this was with white privilege. I didn't have to defend myself ad a person with every daily interaction. This is what should be taught in schools. The real life misery of communities of people who live in the shadow of the real America.
God help us if nazi desantis charms his way to the presidency. SURELY, the National Democratic Party is letting floriduh burn as an example of what the nation would look like.
As far as I can tell there has been no situation in which DeSantis has exhibited even the tiniest amount of charm--certainly not in public. It's rather doubtful that he has any charm at all.
Well, I agree about the general Republican psychopathy, but charm does have a role to play.
Charm and charisma have much to do with wooing voters--especially the emotional MAGA crowd. Trump has ensnared his cultists by identifying with them, voicing his grievances which have become their own and placing himself on their side, at least, in their mind. Trump's singular talent is a charismatic connection with his worshippers and DeSantis definitely doesn't have enough charm or charisma to fill a thimble. I think he will strike out with with the voters outside of Floridastan.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. And that is because so many of his gang are so much in need of either a father figure, or a mother who was perhaps also not really there... exactly what he had growing up. So they do indeed agree with and gravitate toward him for that reason.
Thank you for your well put comment.
And yes, DeSantis is devoid of any warmth or charm. So I wonder if that could also be a draw for certain dysfunctional thinking and behavior.
I am connecting the emotional state of so many of our citizens from so much manipulation and lack of emotional maturity.
It has been a long time building and may just be coming to a pinnacle of dysfunction. What a time we live in.
I am not so sure but I certainly hope you would be right.
DeSatan does not have the charisma (if you can call it that) and we do not know who will be running yet. It may even be more than 2 parties. And that would not surprise me.
Lynn, Meatball is going nowhere fast here. Lots of smoke, some thunder, he is past his tipping point. The trump wave is cresting, yes, still visible and viable though, as time leaves them in its wake.. As for wake, or WOKE, if you will, Trump awakened us to the existence of so many of our fellow Americans we were unaware, had simply never acquired desire, or ability to think fully for themselves. Authoritarian bully leaders are a perfect fit for them, it seems. Cognitively, and developmentally, America trudges forward with so many folks lost as ever as modern life speeds up every passing moment, while they remain lost.
Yes. I just read a quote from a lower-level Nazi officer who was given a special assignment personally by Hitler (it wasto find Mussolini before the partisans hung him -- the officer was unsuccessful, obviously), who claimed that Hitler was magnetic, charming and when he asked you to do something, you forgot all of your misgivings.
Personally, I think Florida will suffer in the financials department. No one wants to go to a state where they might get killed. Tourism could drop exponentially and we could see many more people suffering of low income and worse, bad healthcare. Just my two cents.
Well said, Will. Fascism still is alive in America, and plenty of work remains. Yet, we can take a moment to take in some schadenfreude in the news of the indictment (and, perhaps, more to come).
Will, it seems we agree on the objective(s), but not necessarily on strategy or tactics.
I think there is no higher value in our less-than-perfect democracy than the rule of law and the revolutionary notion that it should be applied evenly to all law breakers based on the crime(s) they may have committed, not on their station in life, political beliefs or the friends/enemies they may have. If running for president could get crooks off the hook, then they would be counseled to do so by their attorneys. Perhaps Trump will be remembered as a pioneer in this sense, but it will be the end of everything most of us hold dear.
There is no mention in the Constitution of special privileges for anyone suspected of committing a crime, with the sole exception of a sitting President, and there is no reason to think that crimes committed while in office should be forgotten, forgiven or glossed over in any way once the suspected criminal is out of office and subject to prosecution. Period.
The most overtly political thing Garland could do at this point is to fail to indict.
House arrest -- instead of prison time -- with no phone calls would be an invitation to subsequent leaders to commit further criminal acts and would set a democracy-cancelling precedent.
Does this mean that Ronald Reagan, Dubya Bush and a slew of their enablers ought to have gone to jail for a variety of illegal (often secret) activities, admittedly carried out with some sort of highish-minded intention to further national security? My instinct is to say yes and that we are in this situation with Trump because some of his predecessors were held to an inadequately high standard, but as they were never impeached or seriously investigated by the FBI or DOJ, enough time has passed that it becomes a moot point.
As important as Biden's good governance is, it is second on my list of urgent necessities.
Hugely agree, Will. Keep our spirits high with thoughts of a conviction, yes, but keep our eye on the “ball”..the real “ball”! Systemic relief thru the positive, empathic action of all of us is key.
Fully agree with you, Will. I've gotten pretty tired of the pettiness of so many comments here (esp repeaters). Thank you for your last paragraph, expecially. It makes a sadly necessary and critical point about where our priorities need to be for MENDING our country instead of gleeful playground dissing. I am hoping we can move on (and back) to the kind of conversation that helps illuminate what our future can be as a nation and as a society.
We might begin that discussion by blocking T and Co. from our minds for a while. Imagine what kind of country would we want to have before the MAGA megaphone grab. What would that look and feel like? We need something to aspire to, not just be opposed to. Push forward.
Oh, man, Susan, do I ever agree with you on that! Why I don't post here much these days (tired of reading the same old whines over and over). I am busy working on other things. LOL- I might even be appointed Justice of the Peace to fill an opening when one resigned in my town. JOP is a position that in VT has no assigned duties other than being present at elections and Town Meeting (used to function as a magistrate, but that was removed a very very long time ago).
BUT I found out that though elected at town level, they are actually a part of the state judiciary system. Which would put me in a wonderful position of working within town government without having to answer to it (my town is just now really moving from dysfunctional to possibly functional after years of screwups and actual illegalities).
I'm not a lawyer but do read law, and startled the "chair" of the town D committee, who thought that because the law required parties to have an "organizing meeting" before election season every two years, that was the only meeting they could have. LOL. I explained that the law meant that any political party is required to hold an organizing meeting, which meant that they then went forward as an independent nonprofit organization that made its own rules, created its own structure, and all of the local committees then communicated through that structure to create platforms and select candidates. OMG. He didn't know that. And even our rep didn't know that JOPs are, under the law, part of the state judiciary, not the town gov.
Sometimes this is fun. Sometimes it is hair-pulling. But we do finally have a woman on the select board, and if I get the JOP position (in Governor's hands now), I'll be in the middle of everything along with the other people who are tired of tearing their hair out. These changes start at the local level, and it is time for the five old farts who are running things let some of the rest of us in. We need to start planning for the future instead of just doing the same thing over and over. Next year I am going to run for the town committee chair and use it to make the party visible here so that new people know where to go.
Haven't heard about the JOP yet- gov is not required to appoint a replacement of our choice, but that is how our law works. If I don't hear, I'll contact gov office to find out.
Thanks, Suz-an. I've been immensely grateful for people like you on this forum. I'm one voice, but not the only one- all our voices add up, if we can just plow through the noise that does nothing but distract from doing.
Amen! Focus is best served being placed on the positive- what to do about solving these diversions and get back on track with what we should DO and not what we should not do.
I vote for revising our educational systems to include solutions for those things we would want our children, and all students, to learn and focus on and emulate. I keep ranting about critical thinking skills but I truly see that as the means to achieve a knowledgeable and positive next generation.
Annie, I agree with you (and Will) that we need to "move on (and back) to the kind of conversation that helps illuminate what our future can be as a nation and as a society."
I think this kind of conversation -- despite all the distracting noise generated by all things Trump -- is happening all the time, even here at HCR's Letter. But we have an immediate problem that needs to be dealt with decisively before any truly constructive conversations can bear fruit in terms of electoral results, improvements to the social state, inclusion of historically excluded minorities, fairer wealth distribution, etc., to say nothing of "dealing with" climate change, reversing the destruction of fauna and natural habitats, and eliminating nuclear weapons (still our most immediate existential threat as it has been since the first A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima).
The problem -- as embodied by Trump -- is that a sizable chunk of the US population really believes the greatest impediment to America becoming "great again" is that there are too many of "those" people doing and believing in terrible things that threaten the lives and mores of "real" Americans, and that much of this is being planned and carried out by a "deep state" that will try to "replace" them -- the real Americans -- with racial, ethnic and religious minorities who will then "take over" everything.... and of course the rest is just too terrible to even imagine, so I won't even try.
If close to half the voting population is living a terrifying and totally false fantasy that the rest of us struggle to take seriously in factual terms, and this is bringing us all to the edge of an abyss of societal breakdown, then clearly this is the most urgent and immediate problem to be dealt with. Simply putting Donald Trump on a desert isle (literally or figuratively) somewhere will not make this terror ("theirs" as well as "ours") go away, but a government that deals with a lying, serially criminal former President in the same way it deals with other lying serial criminals (garden variety?) will reestablish its own credibility and increase its popularity just enough to take effective control of both houses of Congress in 2024 and then deal seriously with all the other problems our current political configuration just cannot handle.
When a rabid dog has his teeth in the seat of your trousers and is trying to rip them to shreds before going for the meat, it is useless to wonder how you are ever going to sew up those trousers you like so much.
Trump is a rabid dog who needs to be suppressed. If he ever achieves some measure of self-knowledge, staring at his toes all day in a very bland room day after day, he will thank us. Let's help him and us and just call it tough love.
David, I can tell you feel strongly about this. But the only thing I can think of in reply is this: you're not saying anything that hasn't been gone over and over and over repeatedly for months. Years. As a young thoughtful and appropriately nervy young woman said not too long ago: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I'm with her. I'm hoping for dialogue about how we get there, not words that are almost scripted by now.
Okay, Annie, fine. There is a lot of blah, blah here, not only mine. And clearly nothing is going to solve our and the world's problems unless we can express a government able and willing to make big changes in the way we do things, and I expect we are in substantial agreement as to what those things are.
So, either enough people vote the right way in the next general elections to set us on a whole new path to societal survival or we slide into authoritarianism following some sort of disaster involving large crowds of angry people doing violent things to one another as they express their deeply held convictions with the hundreds of millions of AR-15s that even 15 year olds can easily acquire.
And the climate scientists tell us time is running out.
I think legally removing Trump from the equation asap is step number one. What would you do first, given that blah, blah seems to do nothing in the absence of acts?
You are so right Will. tfg has wrecked havoc on our country and our very lives, most especially by him receiving the attention that he craves with the news. I doubt that any of us can really imagine wanting the kind of attention that he seems to thrive on. We have work to do trying to accept the fact that some (even family & friends) believe much of the cr*p that various members of his fan club spew. At times it seems like just a bad dream. We owe Heather so much because of her writings of history and the deep background to history that reveals the “why” to so much. With our week coming to a close, I’m ready for a good night’s rest after saying a prayer for all those affected by the tornadoes of the afternoon & this evening. I for one feel blessed. G’night my friends
The problem is that Trump could be locked up in jail and still run for President. The only thing that could have eliminated that possibility is impeachment with conviction by the Senate. Convicted felons might not be able to vote in many states, but they can still run for office. Still, it would be something for the GOP to end up with a convicted felon as their Presidential candidate in 2024. The GOP should be so proud - they could have an ex-convict candidate leading their party, just like the Nazi party's Hitler.
Will, Fani's not afraid, and neither is Jack. This is just the start. I share your hopes for mending our country - that is paramount if we are to survive.
Well, Nancy, we'll see. Alvin has walked the walk and will probably require an armed escort for the rest of his life. Win or lose he has my eternal admiration.
David, I agree. Fani Willis already has a security detail and I'm sure Jack Smith is watching his back. Still, they are obviously diligently working to wrap up their investigations, and I think they have the skill and determination for positive outcomes. As you suggest, I just can't envision a less than positive result, regardless of his punishment. I just wish we could coalesce enough to have street scenes like those in Bibi's neighborhood.
Nancy, diligent is as diligent does. The jury is still out on Fani and Jack, but I imagine they can feel the heat and will do their best. I will continue to be an optimist until that is no longer a reasonable option.
Well, I'm probably not a good barometer, as I was certain that tFFFFg would never be elected, but Jack Smith has apparently been making lots of progress with his investigation, and I'm really impressed with Fani Willis. To begin with, her no-nonsense demeanor helped her to beat an apparently-corrupt veteran prosecutor, and she has been dogged and tight-lipped in her pursuit of Public Enemy No. 1.
If he goes to a Federal prision....I hope they don't select Terre Haute, IN. People here would probably help him escape! I do believe a lot of his people live not far from me. I see their 2024 signs for him.
I can understand your rejoicing--my reaction was more of relief...FINALLY! All I can say is that, one by one, my prayers are being answered. Just wait and see what's coming down the pike....
Will, I share your sentiment and even woke up our upstairs neighbors with my whooping, though their English is probably not good enough to appreciate my choice of joy-filled obscenities. I will spare everyone the details.
However, we are by no means out of the woods. Getting Trump behind bars in a Federal prison is still a long way off, and there is so much that could go wrong between here and there that just thinking about it has already begun to ruin my day.
Kudos to Alvin Bragg for his fearlessness. I sure hope his colleagues in Georgia and at the DOJ are not afraid to pile on once they see that the NY indictments have not caused the sky to fall. Coraggio!
David, I doubt he will ever be actually physically behind bars, but I don't think that is necessary for justice to prevail (house arrest and no phone will do). Furthermore, I wrote here the other day that a criminal conviction for tfg is not high on my priority list of "Necessary Things to Mend America," and that our desire to see it happen springs from mostly a thirst for poetic justice. I expectedly got some pushback from folks, but I feel they were missing the point. It feels like the right thing to happen, because it would indeed be the right thing to happen, I hope it happens, and - as I hope my initial comment today demonstrates - I will be quite elated if/when it does happen. HOWEVER, the true prerequisites to mending our country take the form of positive policy enactments, rather than the deserved punishment of any indivudual.
I therefore recommend again that we turn the brunt of our attention away from armchair speculation of tfg's legal fate, let the lawyers do their thing, and instead focus on lifting up positive developments that provide systemic benefit to the whole of our society, such as those highlighted in Professor HCR's letters and President Biden's current Invest in America press tour. After celebrating again tonight, obviously.
Certainly celebrate, but the real challenge is to eliminate the MAGA cult from Congressional halls and the brainwashing from our society. The threat to our democracy and Constitution is real and it’s not diminishing. Look at Desantis’ posturing about not extraditing-he has no shame in threatening to violate the Constitution as a sitting Governor. Look at the GOP minions objecting to the investigations and retaliations. Yes, it’s a clear and present and ongoing threat to what we hold dear.
Desantis is a Harvard educated lawyer, who knows better. I will never understand how even Trump’s political rivals bend the knee, even at risk to themselves. I do understand that Republicans have concluded that they can’t win elections without the rabid base being fired up and angry enough to vote in large numbers, but trying to tiptoe along the tightrope of pleasing the base and not pissing Trump off makes them all do dishonorable things. I don’t know how they sleep at night.
It's pretty clear to anyone who has been watching and listening to Ron DeSantis that he didn't learn much from , and doesn't place much store in, his years at both Yale and Harvard. He's gone on record saying that he worries that his advanced degrees would prove a "political liability" with the voters he was trying to woo.
I think that both Yale and Harvard should unburden Mr. DeSantis, rescinding the degrees they conferred, on the grounds that based on his public statements, they are willing to accommodate his desires.
And I had no idea that ghouls slept at night.
De Sauron's statement that Florida would “not assist in an extradition request”, in violation of the plain language of the US Constitution, would seem to me to be grounds for rescinding his law degree at the very least, and if he's now (or in the future applies to become) a member of any state or federal bar, for permanent disbarment.
Seems the MAGA crowd thinks the Constitution is a multiple choice of options to choose from what they follow. Like choice #1 is the 2nd A but ignore the 14th & 9th amendment
I don't believe the MAGA crowd is much into thinking.
DeSauron!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!
I'm so sorry that I didn't think of this on my own! I am totally stealing it! :D
You are welcome to it. It seems a truly apt name, doesn't it?
I giggled and shook my head at the De Sauron name. That is just perfect!!
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip the coat check girl.
He said it after rump said that he would surrender. What a bad performance....
DeSauron!! Love it!
I know that Yale and Harvard are THE schools but based on a few graduates I know personally I find that they know less than they think do about technical things. Add DeSantis, Cruz, etc. and you might start to conclude something similar about their law schools.
Ivy league schools are less about education and more about connections.
Jon Meacham recently said his favorite bumper sticker says this:
"Don't always believe what you think."
I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Kind of pathetic, isn't it?
Yale and Harvard have released a good number of ignorant and evil fools on the country. It appears that making money is far more important than service and integrity within those ivy covered walls.
Are universities responsible for what their graduates do after being conferred their degrees? Really? Young people who graduate from higher institutions are babes when they go out into the world. They haven't experienced life in the real world. They make mistakes, they learn from them and they change as the get older. And some get greedy and pompous because of where their degrees came from.
And isn't that so sad for our country and the world.
Yes it is.
As an old Dartmouth grad I am pissed that Laura Ingram graduated from there much more recently. She did not learn that you should not lie to make money.
I suggested some years ago to a professor of history at Duke University, who had written a book on the influence of the Koch brothers on universities, that Stephen Miller’s Duke degree be rescinded. She wrote that it couldn’t be done. Now that Miller is among the Trump advisors up for questioning by Jack Smith, wondering if degree rescinding could be reconsidered.
If his degrees would be a turn-off to MAGA voters, we should tag him with Yale and Harvard at every opportunity. The way he uses labels like woke radical liberal Marxist.
Certainly a strategy. But the downside is that we reinforce a negative attitude against higher education which is raw meat for MAGAs as DeSantis campaign would post out that despite his Yale and Harvard edumacatiom, he has risen above it all.
Jeez, they would! So strong, not even Harvard or Yale could break such a real man.
How he perpetually screws up and will screw anyone for his becoming the people's president with a more real looking family. Yep.
Good idea!
Did Yale and Harvard make the man DeSantis has turned out to be? What one does with the experiences, knowledge, and challenges to ideas and law lays at the feet of the student. Colleges don't train, but teach, with an emphasis on critical thinking. DeSantis came to both universities with intelligence, a good education, and ideas and values of his own. The conservative 20-year old earned his degrees and chose to follow opportunities to gain power and lead. That he is willing and able to pervert the laws he was taught or to wrap himself in the baseness of MAGA-conservatism rests with him. Dragging the universities into this is a mistake, a distraction, I suggest, from what DeSantis is politically and ethically. He is Trump with a better pedigree, which he actually earned, unlike Trump. Were I his professor or mentor, I might both marvel and be disappointed in his career and political choices, and vote against his rise to power every chance I had to do so, recognizing full well that he was a talented student pursing goals not of my preference.
All that education and this is what he chooses to do with it? That is kind of sickening.
Being educated doesn't include being empathic. I'm not even sure you can teach empathy. DeSatan obviously never developed it. And that's how he can sleep at night.
Yes. Choices. The education just put polish and guild on the character raised by nice people (?).
or it could just be that he is hiding something that might be frightening to him.
By the time a young person gets into college, a Harvard or Yale included, they have a lot of forming, nature and nurture-intellectual bent, and upbringing (emotionally, morally). This relates to elementary school and community experiences as well. College is a topping off, a further widening but in a sense a narrowing too. Harvard and Yale and other highly regarded schools are sought for the access they provide with the achievement- this label- i.e. "a Harvard Graduate". It works as a status symbol but also raises expectations from others. But we should not assume that these folks are better morally or even intellectually than the ordinary person. They are not. They still must prove themselves. But, because of access, they can postpone that inevitable reckoning from a high place. We do but should not blame the college though It does devalue the college in our minds at least. Dershowitz .....even a professor!
If only he'd used his brains to make things better and not worse. Heartless is too soft a word for his policies, rhetoric, and behavior.
Maybe they sleep in their vampire coffins 😂
I believe Stumpy DeSatan claimed that he had some kind of rural plain ol' American midwest background.
The dude is a plain old a-hole.
Yup, his cultural geography of pa and Ohio, although he is a born and bred Florida guy from pinellas county.
Proves that he is a total hypocrite and panderer to the MAGAs.
I think that is a very good idea. The dude is such a cheap creep.
Legacy ???
He is a Harvard educated lawyer but that doesn't mean he is a good one. He and his (sleeping?/un-woke?) staff didn't notice the section in the Disney agreement that neutered the handpicked minions he thought would hamstring Disney and its ability to express its own social stands. He didn't know better on that contract and he doesn't know better in a lot of other areas too. It's proof that leadership is more than shouting buzzwords for applause during speeches and squinting into the camera with a clenched jaw, like you think you're the High Plains Drifter.
It is rather poetic of Disney to have included the royal life clause.
Indeed. The House of Mouse and its Magic Kingdom enriched itself from artists' pens and proceeded to cut down a haughty governor with pens wielded by lawyers. The pen (or in today's case, the laptop): mightier than the sword.
THIS!! ⬆️⬆️⬆️
I like to say that many who attend these vaunted institutions are well-schooled, but not educated.
They are motivated only by money and power. They have no souls.
I agree with all you said and how you said it! TY
Hi, dear KR! You know I agree and appreciate how you communicate the sentiments!
Hi Ashley! I hope you’re well and enjoying the finally here spring!
Me either but I'm done with all of them.
My RepubliQan friends are all changing their FB cover photos to the National Colors flying upside down. Deprogramming the cult is going to take a lot of time, energy, and effort.
But those upside down Russian flags are probably confused with Luxembourg flags. I'm sure you know what Im getting at. To be a fool of Putin's fool is to be a fool of Putin yourself.
Oooh!
Best we get started right now. I'm flipping fed up with the entire scene. The rest of us have been slowly tortured by these creeps for years.
Exactly so.
As long as the truth, justice and equality keep winning, they’ll eventually get tired of losing.
DeSantis waited until he heard that TFG was going to surrender before issuing his "I'm not going to help with extradition threat." He won't have to follow through... It's a BLATANT attempt to grab Trump's base while he's off defending himself. If DeSantis really wants to be Prez, he needs to worry more about wooing independents who probably won't feel too great about him threatening to violate the Constitution. I guess he thinks the primary fight is the tougher one.
Actually, all of these people make me sick. I'm going to take a break and feed the birds.
Our Senator Daines was quick to hit fb pages denouncing the indictment pandering to his base in MT.
Yes, let's get to work and rid ourselves of years of mindnumbing incompetence and stupidty.
I'm with you Will. We have no control over what now proceeds in New York re: TFG (and as a resident of New York City and its environs in the 1970s and 1980s, I can tell you: this is a loooong time coming!). But we do have control over who populates Congress, who populates state and local legislatures, who populates the executive offices in states and cities, and how they address the pressing problems and challenges of this nation, including the not-so-creeping-now fascism that is happening all over.
Red states over run with MAGA & Christian Nationals will not be so easy especially with their electoral college votes which could really skew an election. The super majorities of these states are enacting laws re districting , Voting rights, who appoints judges etc. any law that continues their power in their state
Carole, I agree with your concerns, but on the flip side of that, the Millennial vote is expected to be the majority generational vote next year. Like the indictment of the Orange Russian Witch, this warms my heart and gives me hope.
Our youth is our secret weapon--the sleeping giant....
The "Christians' " unabashed hypocrisy is baffling to me....
It's a HUGE worry.
Also a resident of NYC in the 70s and 80s, I concur.
I disagree with one point. House arrest, no phone AND no internet access. Perhaps no visitors, too. The Golden Cage: solitary confinement with all the hamburgers he want.
- all the hamburgers he wants, minus the ketchup. This later requirement has been requested by the clean up crew at Camp Cupcake or wherever he winds up.
I don't even mind if they throw in gallons of ketchup Marge.
And only 1 Secret Service agent!
Agree - “the true prerequisites to mending our country take the form of positive policy enactments, rather than the deserved punishment of any indivudual (sic).” And those policy enactments need to happen on the local level as well as state and national levels.
Indeed. The infamous Lewis Powell memo of 1971 laid out a course for modern day corporatocracy.
We need a similar document in the reverse -- a policy document -- that dismantles systemic systemic racism, poverty, classism, oppression.
Our history? A nation built on the genocide of Indigenous peoples and made morbidly rich by the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans, leading to the current day bondage of BIPOC, the poor, and working poor people, by systems created to keep them oppressed by profiting off of their misery. Reading “Poverty by America” by Mathew Desmond right now and he so confirms all of the modern day shackles on and the bleeding of the poor and working poor. When I was a single mom in the ‘90s, working like mad to support my two children and myself, my bank would let a $1 error cost me hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. Granted. I made mistakes. I sometimes played “checkbook roulette” when we were hungry or the kids had to have something for school or if I didn’t pay daycare or for after school we could lose our place. I just needed another day or two. Or a little grace. AND my bank made bank off of me and the millions of other folks such as I who were paycheck to paycheck, a health insurance lapse away from bankruptcy.
And I had white privilege.
Black single mother friends not only lacked that edge, they lived with the unrelenting racism and aggressions that never let up and grated at their health and well-being in ways I have since studied and written about. The injustice of Black maternal and infant mortality being almost four times what it is for whites is glaring evidence of what systems and policies promulgated by the morbidly rich are doing to our nation’s people.
The Trump indictment? May it be a turning point toward Justice. Please!
I just want our nation to forget about him, or for him to just go away, and for us to look at the facts at hand: the trauma and inequity we foment is killing us, and killing some of us earlier and earlier.
There are solutions; they are in the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences, PACEs science. For those who want to know more, here’s a great read:
https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/how-vladimir-putin-s-childhood-is-affecting-us-all
Check out the website where the piece is published. The answers are on it. It’s all about preventing and healing trauma; creating community wherein people can get go from dysregulation to regulation to connected to partnerships. When hurt people heal and stop hurting and hating people, we can heal.
Thanks for the link. It is illuminating. I knew the outline of Putin's growing up, but the details are stunning.
Ironic, isn't it: Two world leaders of similar age: One grew up in wealth and privilege, isolated from the normal responsibilities of life. The other grew up in extremes of poverty and remnants of a violent war. Both suffered from the trauma of lack of supportive family life. And both now exhibit personality disorders that continue that isolation from normal human interaction. Both physically aging while clinging to illusions of grendeur. Both threats to world stability. Their aggression reminds me of people I have known who are abusive and controlling to hide their fear of their own inner chaos- and sometimes, I think, to avoid suicide. They are the ones who scare me the most.
Exactly.
Well said. We all need to be more aware of the stressed among us. (Don't get me started about banks!!! I will never again use a bank after the same thing happened to me, as you described. )
As I read the recounting of yours, and others, experiences as single moms, the banking error experiences really hit home. Imagine, your $1 error trying to stretch to make ends meet, left you in perilous financial hardship with no one to help you escape growing onerous fees but aggressive saving and cost cutting, and/or generous family or friends. Those same banks on the other hand, carelessly lost millions in the 80's, then billions in '08 and billions more this year, but each time they were immediately rescued by a firehose of cash from the Fed.
We definitely need to be kinder to each other and have a greater sense of community, but we also need government and corporate policies that are kinder to us. Business models that pounce on consumers like a lion from the tall grasses for the smallest errors or mishaps, with government policies that are written to enable it, sentence people to cycles of debt and despair and are likely a major reason so many are on edge and quick to cut down their fellows in the same boat. I do hope the legal cases against TFG change the tide of elite impunity, and that they open more eyes to see that there are other policies and situations with similarly dangerous effects for us all that need us all to address from the ballot box.
Exactly! I think of someone in my position who was just a wee bit more upset. Or who didn’t have faith. Banks and landlords likely prompted despairicides — deaths of despair — among hundreds, if not thousand of us, as we stretched to make ends meet and prevent our children from feeling the sense of impending doom that comes from too few dollars (low pay) chasing too many goods and services that are suddenly squeezed even more tightly by corporate greed in the form of dines.
Thank you for this information.
I am so sorry for all you had to suffer. But you obviously survived and have hopefully prospered to the point of a good life in every way.
Thank you! Yes. I am deeply grateful for myriad amazing miracles and miraculous humans in my life! Kids are now 30 and 33 and thank God are great. I love my life and job and am grateful beyond belief. I appreciate your kind words! Love this community!
I believe this also explains some of the gun violence in the inner cities. Drive by. Robbery that ends in fatal shootings. Some as young as 12.
In fatherless homes where moms are preoccupied with basic survival, boys, mostly boys, feel ignored and disconnected. Gangs lure these kids in by providing the sense of belonging they hunger for and introduce guns that alleviate their sense of powerlessness. These children received no empathy at home and have no empathy for others.
Blessedly, this describes only a small percentage of 1-parent homes. But when the malevolent stars align, it creates monsters.
I remember checkbook roulette. This was when you could write a check two days before payday that you knew you couldn't cover but would hope wouldn't make it to the bank too quickly. Also putting my bills in a hat each month and picking up to the point where the $$ was gone. You can't do that now although now we just fo it by charging to a credit card. And yes this was with white privilege. I didn't have to defend myself ad a person with every daily interaction. This is what should be taught in schools. The real life misery of communities of people who live in the shadow of the real America.
We want the Trump era behind us, but as a reminder Never Again. As you say, there are problems to see for what they are, and solutions.
God help us if nazi desantis charms his way to the presidency. SURELY, the National Democratic Party is letting floriduh burn as an example of what the nation would look like.
As far as I can tell there has been no situation in which DeSantis has exhibited even the tiniest amount of charm--certainly not in public. It's rather doubtful that he has any charm at all.
I have read similar descriptions of diSantis’ visage and presentation - rather stiff with little expression of empathy or compassion.
Then, I think of President Obama. What a guy!
Yes, but charm has nothing to do with, nor does it benefit, his aims and goals. He is most likely as psychopathic as others in his party.
Well, I agree about the general Republican psychopathy, but charm does have a role to play.
Charm and charisma have much to do with wooing voters--especially the emotional MAGA crowd. Trump has ensnared his cultists by identifying with them, voicing his grievances which have become their own and placing himself on their side, at least, in their mind. Trump's singular talent is a charismatic connection with his worshippers and DeSantis definitely doesn't have enough charm or charisma to fill a thimble. I think he will strike out with with the voters outside of Floridastan.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. And that is because so many of his gang are so much in need of either a father figure, or a mother who was perhaps also not really there... exactly what he had growing up. So they do indeed agree with and gravitate toward him for that reason.
Thank you for your well put comment.
And yes, DeSantis is devoid of any warmth or charm. So I wonder if that could also be a draw for certain dysfunctional thinking and behavior.
I am connecting the emotional state of so many of our citizens from so much manipulation and lack of emotional maturity.
It has been a long time building and may just be coming to a pinnacle of dysfunction. What a time we live in.
Gina
The hard-core MAGAs will accept no substitute. DeSantis may get the nomination, but won't capture the MAGA votes. Party split. Dems get 4 more years.
I am not so sure but I certainly hope you would be right.
DeSatan does not have the charisma (if you can call it that) and we do not know who will be running yet. It may even be more than 2 parties. And that would not surprise me.
Lynn, Meatball is going nowhere fast here. Lots of smoke, some thunder, he is past his tipping point. The trump wave is cresting, yes, still visible and viable though, as time leaves them in its wake.. As for wake, or WOKE, if you will, Trump awakened us to the existence of so many of our fellow Americans we were unaware, had simply never acquired desire, or ability to think fully for themselves. Authoritarian bully leaders are a perfect fit for them, it seems. Cognitively, and developmentally, America trudges forward with so many folks lost as ever as modern life speeds up every passing moment, while they remain lost.
Perfectly describes R in MT & the current State legislation & legislators
There seems to be nothing charming about DeSantis. Non charmers don't charm so we can take this off the table.
Was Hitler charming?
Yes. I just read a quote from a lower-level Nazi officer who was given a special assignment personally by Hitler (it wasto find Mussolini before the partisans hung him -- the officer was unsuccessful, obviously), who claimed that Hitler was magnetic, charming and when he asked you to do something, you forgot all of your misgivings.
Personally, I think Florida will suffer in the financials department. No one wants to go to a state where they might get killed. Tourism could drop exponentially and we could see many more people suffering of low income and worse, bad healthcare. Just my two cents.
Well said, Will. Fascism still is alive in America, and plenty of work remains. Yet, we can take a moment to take in some schadenfreude in the news of the indictment (and, perhaps, more to come).
Look @ Christian Nationalism PRRI.org
Thank you for this! Bookmarked it.
Thanks for the link. I look forward to delving into the information.
Will, it seems we agree on the objective(s), but not necessarily on strategy or tactics.
I think there is no higher value in our less-than-perfect democracy than the rule of law and the revolutionary notion that it should be applied evenly to all law breakers based on the crime(s) they may have committed, not on their station in life, political beliefs or the friends/enemies they may have. If running for president could get crooks off the hook, then they would be counseled to do so by their attorneys. Perhaps Trump will be remembered as a pioneer in this sense, but it will be the end of everything most of us hold dear.
There is no mention in the Constitution of special privileges for anyone suspected of committing a crime, with the sole exception of a sitting President, and there is no reason to think that crimes committed while in office should be forgotten, forgiven or glossed over in any way once the suspected criminal is out of office and subject to prosecution. Period.
The most overtly political thing Garland could do at this point is to fail to indict.
House arrest -- instead of prison time -- with no phone calls would be an invitation to subsequent leaders to commit further criminal acts and would set a democracy-cancelling precedent.
Does this mean that Ronald Reagan, Dubya Bush and a slew of their enablers ought to have gone to jail for a variety of illegal (often secret) activities, admittedly carried out with some sort of highish-minded intention to further national security? My instinct is to say yes and that we are in this situation with Trump because some of his predecessors were held to an inadequately high standard, but as they were never impeached or seriously investigated by the FBI or DOJ, enough time has passed that it becomes a moot point.
As important as Biden's good governance is, it is second on my list of urgent necessities.
Hugely agree, Will. Keep our spirits high with thoughts of a conviction, yes, but keep our eye on the “ball”..the real “ball”! Systemic relief thru the positive, empathic action of all of us is key.
My main priority is that whatever else the outcome is, he be kept from holding any public office ever again.
I would also love if he could be kept from publicly supporting anyone else, but I doubt that would be constitutional. Oh well, a girl can dream!
Your are right. You are loquacious. :-)
Fully agree with you, Will. I've gotten pretty tired of the pettiness of so many comments here (esp repeaters). Thank you for your last paragraph, expecially. It makes a sadly necessary and critical point about where our priorities need to be for MENDING our country instead of gleeful playground dissing. I am hoping we can move on (and back) to the kind of conversation that helps illuminate what our future can be as a nation and as a society.
Annie,
We might begin that discussion by blocking T and Co. from our minds for a while. Imagine what kind of country would we want to have before the MAGA megaphone grab. What would that look and feel like? We need something to aspire to, not just be opposed to. Push forward.
Oh, man, Susan, do I ever agree with you on that! Why I don't post here much these days (tired of reading the same old whines over and over). I am busy working on other things. LOL- I might even be appointed Justice of the Peace to fill an opening when one resigned in my town. JOP is a position that in VT has no assigned duties other than being present at elections and Town Meeting (used to function as a magistrate, but that was removed a very very long time ago).
BUT I found out that though elected at town level, they are actually a part of the state judiciary system. Which would put me in a wonderful position of working within town government without having to answer to it (my town is just now really moving from dysfunctional to possibly functional after years of screwups and actual illegalities).
I'm not a lawyer but do read law, and startled the "chair" of the town D committee, who thought that because the law required parties to have an "organizing meeting" before election season every two years, that was the only meeting they could have. LOL. I explained that the law meant that any political party is required to hold an organizing meeting, which meant that they then went forward as an independent nonprofit organization that made its own rules, created its own structure, and all of the local committees then communicated through that structure to create platforms and select candidates. OMG. He didn't know that. And even our rep didn't know that JOPs are, under the law, part of the state judiciary, not the town gov.
Sometimes this is fun. Sometimes it is hair-pulling. But we do finally have a woman on the select board, and if I get the JOP position (in Governor's hands now), I'll be in the middle of everything along with the other people who are tired of tearing their hair out. These changes start at the local level, and it is time for the five old farts who are running things let some of the rest of us in. We need to start planning for the future instead of just doing the same thing over and over. Next year I am going to run for the town committee chair and use it to make the party visible here so that new people know where to go.
Haven't heard about the JOP yet- gov is not required to appoint a replacement of our choice, but that is how our law works. If I don't hear, I'll contact gov office to find out.
Sooo productive and constructive, Annie!! Like you, I'm also tired of the same old, same old here. Cheering you on!!
Thanks, Suz-an. I've been immensely grateful for people like you on this forum. I'm one voice, but not the only one- all our voices add up, if we can just plow through the noise that does nothing but distract from doing.
Amen! Focus is best served being placed on the positive- what to do about solving these diversions and get back on track with what we should DO and not what we should not do.
I vote for revising our educational systems to include solutions for those things we would want our children, and all students, to learn and focus on and emulate. I keep ranting about critical thinking skills but I truly see that as the means to achieve a knowledgeable and positive next generation.
Annie, I agree with you (and Will) that we need to "move on (and back) to the kind of conversation that helps illuminate what our future can be as a nation and as a society."
I think this kind of conversation -- despite all the distracting noise generated by all things Trump -- is happening all the time, even here at HCR's Letter. But we have an immediate problem that needs to be dealt with decisively before any truly constructive conversations can bear fruit in terms of electoral results, improvements to the social state, inclusion of historically excluded minorities, fairer wealth distribution, etc., to say nothing of "dealing with" climate change, reversing the destruction of fauna and natural habitats, and eliminating nuclear weapons (still our most immediate existential threat as it has been since the first A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima).
The problem -- as embodied by Trump -- is that a sizable chunk of the US population really believes the greatest impediment to America becoming "great again" is that there are too many of "those" people doing and believing in terrible things that threaten the lives and mores of "real" Americans, and that much of this is being planned and carried out by a "deep state" that will try to "replace" them -- the real Americans -- with racial, ethnic and religious minorities who will then "take over" everything.... and of course the rest is just too terrible to even imagine, so I won't even try.
If close to half the voting population is living a terrifying and totally false fantasy that the rest of us struggle to take seriously in factual terms, and this is bringing us all to the edge of an abyss of societal breakdown, then clearly this is the most urgent and immediate problem to be dealt with. Simply putting Donald Trump on a desert isle (literally or figuratively) somewhere will not make this terror ("theirs" as well as "ours") go away, but a government that deals with a lying, serially criminal former President in the same way it deals with other lying serial criminals (garden variety?) will reestablish its own credibility and increase its popularity just enough to take effective control of both houses of Congress in 2024 and then deal seriously with all the other problems our current political configuration just cannot handle.
When a rabid dog has his teeth in the seat of your trousers and is trying to rip them to shreds before going for the meat, it is useless to wonder how you are ever going to sew up those trousers you like so much.
Trump is a rabid dog who needs to be suppressed. If he ever achieves some measure of self-knowledge, staring at his toes all day in a very bland room day after day, he will thank us. Let's help him and us and just call it tough love.
David, I can tell you feel strongly about this. But the only thing I can think of in reply is this: you're not saying anything that hasn't been gone over and over and over repeatedly for months. Years. As a young thoughtful and appropriately nervy young woman said not too long ago: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I'm with her. I'm hoping for dialogue about how we get there, not words that are almost scripted by now.
Okay, Annie, fine. There is a lot of blah, blah here, not only mine. And clearly nothing is going to solve our and the world's problems unless we can express a government able and willing to make big changes in the way we do things, and I expect we are in substantial agreement as to what those things are.
So, either enough people vote the right way in the next general elections to set us on a whole new path to societal survival or we slide into authoritarianism following some sort of disaster involving large crowds of angry people doing violent things to one another as they express their deeply held convictions with the hundreds of millions of AR-15s that even 15 year olds can easily acquire.
And the climate scientists tell us time is running out.
I think legally removing Trump from the equation asap is step number one. What would you do first, given that blah, blah seems to do nothing in the absence of acts?
Exactly right balance, Will. Thank you!
You are so right Will. tfg has wrecked havoc on our country and our very lives, most especially by him receiving the attention that he craves with the news. I doubt that any of us can really imagine wanting the kind of attention that he seems to thrive on. We have work to do trying to accept the fact that some (even family & friends) believe much of the cr*p that various members of his fan club spew. At times it seems like just a bad dream. We owe Heather so much because of her writings of history and the deep background to history that reveals the “why” to so much. With our week coming to a close, I’m ready for a good night’s rest after saying a prayer for all those affected by the tornadoes of the afternoon & this evening. I for one feel blessed. G’night my friends
Good call. Let's get behind Biden and his administration and push forward.
Probably not but what they could so is to publicly condemn them. That won’t happen either.
The problem is that Trump could be locked up in jail and still run for President. The only thing that could have eliminated that possibility is impeachment with conviction by the Senate. Convicted felons might not be able to vote in many states, but they can still run for office. Still, it would be something for the GOP to end up with a convicted felon as their Presidential candidate in 2024. The GOP should be so proud - they could have an ex-convict candidate leading their party, just like the Nazi party's Hitler.
Will, Fani's not afraid, and neither is Jack. This is just the start. I share your hopes for mending our country - that is paramount if we are to survive.
Well, Nancy, we'll see. Alvin has walked the walk and will probably require an armed escort for the rest of his life. Win or lose he has my eternal admiration.
David, I agree. Fani Willis already has a security detail and I'm sure Jack Smith is watching his back. Still, they are obviously diligently working to wrap up their investigations, and I think they have the skill and determination for positive outcomes. As you suggest, I just can't envision a less than positive result, regardless of his punishment. I just wish we could coalesce enough to have street scenes like those in Bibi's neighborhood.
Nancy, diligent is as diligent does. The jury is still out on Fani and Jack, but I imagine they can feel the heat and will do their best. I will continue to be an optimist until that is no longer a reasonable option.
Well, I'm probably not a good barometer, as I was certain that tFFFFg would never be elected, but Jack Smith has apparently been making lots of progress with his investigation, and I'm really impressed with Fani Willis. To begin with, her no-nonsense demeanor helped her to beat an apparently-corrupt veteran prosecutor, and she has been dogged and tight-lipped in her pursuit of Public Enemy No. 1.
If he goes to a Federal prision....I hope they don't select Terre Haute, IN. People here would probably help him escape! I do believe a lot of his people live not far from me. I see their 2024 signs for him.
Excellent letter today!
I can understand your rejoicing--my reaction was more of relief...FINALLY! All I can say is that, one by one, my prayers are being answered. Just wait and see what's coming down the pike....