She sees how "certain powerful people seem to have concluded that they cannot be held accountable to laws or rules." And she goes on to specifics, particularly to Alito on the corrupt Clarence court.
These justices know what the Constitution’s Article 14, section three says. They swore by the Constitution to protect our rights, but instead they protect their instigator of insurrection against our republic, and now, too, they crazily delay one of his key trials in obsequious service to him, against us.
Do they take seriously his preposterous claims to immunity because they share his contempt for our rights, disdain for our law? Do they hold themselves also immune, like him above the law? Except of course don't they also brazenly flaunt how their primary service is to protect the rich, also to push state power for theocratic packaging of American women, American families?
As Alex Wagner on her most recent show quipped, “It’s Ginni Thomas and Martha Ann Alito’s court now, I guess” – as if we might take booby prize of some humor from their husbands’ in-your-face, eff-you cesspool militancy of corruption.
Behind these guys is the Federalist Society, the antithesis to the American Bar Association, and both these trees have deep roots. American is, putting it simply, irreconcilably divided, this is NOT just MAGA. Mitch had far more at heart for this than opportunistic Trump ever did, or has.
Maybe roots serves as metaphor less well than vines.
So many choking, suffocating, killing vines put out now, Frank, from so many vile, hate-filled, angry, delusional, dehumanized.
All the top Republican leadership, as well as sensationalism-swilling Fox News -- all -- make excuses for the worst criminality, the worst vulgarity from among them. And the worst, the most cynical, the most criminal, are all the billionaires and all those they've bribed, lobbied, turned into cultists, bloodthirsty zombies, living dead.
Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" comes to mind. But even more cogent is Barbara McQuade's book, "Attack from Within" that addresses the current disinformation campaign against the democratic process here in the U.S. The weapons being used against us are the media outlets: Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Alex Jones and others. It is a new kind of weapon of war. I think that HCR's book, "How the South Won the Civil War" helps to understand the issues, along with the Critical Sociology study, "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" In my view, MAGA is the KKK on steroids with modern weapons of warfare: the communications' systems.
Anything death star offers is most certainly made elsewhere. Most of us would be reduced to nakedness or animal skins if we tried to wear clothes made here.
And, the enablers of this right wing media are the mainstream press, who put Biden’s excellent speech in Philadelphia #4 out of 5 articles in the “politics” section of The Morning today!! Why are they doing this and how can we stop this scary and colluding behavior?
Hi Wallis, my thoughts exactly as I read HCRs report on President Biden & Vice President Kamala Harris speaking to the students at Girard College. Did the Mainstream Media ignore Joe and Kamala because they were speaking to a predominantly Black audience? Where were the TV cameras filming so we could watch clips of the speeches on the evening news? Not everyone reads a newspaper but most folks watch TV. Trump has certainly gotten much more on camera exposure than he deserves. Short of cancellation, perhaps a flood of letters to the editor is the most practical and really “putting it out there” route to take!
Thanks for the great questions and suggestions! I am having dinner with a former editor of the Boston Globe and will ask him how to flood these papers/media!!
Richard, Hoffer's book is a favorite in our household. So many true believers throwing a wrench into effort to try to solve some of the huge problems of our times and yes, now armed with modern communication which they often to use to threaten as with swatting for example. One of the things i am seeing with some pages I belong to on Facebook is trolling of things like a spice blog, medieval history, and any number of things that aren't remotely about modern politics. Some people can't help but spread nastiness, seemingly because they can't stand people enjoying a specialized topic or something beautiful. They have to tag it in some way.
Richard, wow, you have this right. I like your metaphor of the KKK on steroids. And, just like when the KKK was in full bloom, our law enforcement entities are not responding appropriately if at all and they are permitted to do pretty much whatever they please no matter who it hurts, claiming falsely it is "free speech." Free speech should never include such blatant lies and attacks on our democracy as Republicans have been permitted to do. People have been hurt by those lies, kids killed in schools and people shot down in shopping centers and other places. And, when Trump has been caught in those lies and bad behavior, our courts give him every possible break to the point that he will probably never be held accountable for anything he and his cronies have done. History rhymes!
I agree with much of what you say. While I detest the MAGA they are not the KKK, who killed thousands and terrorized hundreds of thousands. Nor is the current political turmoil comparable to the Civil War, which killed over 600,000 when the US population was about 30 million.
Lest we forget, it was on his watch that the MAGA leader criticized, minimized & chastised medical & scientific experts, resulting in a million coronavirus deaths in the U.S. alone.
But comparing the virus with the KKK, despite the loss of life, is just not a valid one. And the MAGA are not the KKK. This is not to say, if Trump wins, the remnants of the Klan could not rise up again but we are not there yet.
The marchers at Charlottesville in 2017 were shouting "Jews will not replace us." That's Klan talk. The KKK advocated "White Protestantism now, white Protestantism forever." We now call it Christian nationalism. Same thing. Trump's supporters are primarily white racists. [The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920517740615 At the present time, red MAGA caps have replaced the white cones and sheets.
As to the Civil War, that's another matter though race and slavery were principal issues, used by the wealthy to sucker in poor whites to support them, much like today.
Okay, I give up. The MAGA are exactly like the KKK, since you insist. And Christian Nationalism is exactly the same as White Protestantism, because you threw a quote at it. Could you tell me though, any quotes that showed the KKK feared a Jewish plot to sneak illegal immigrants into the country to replace half-witted whites? I didn’t think so.
And thanks for pointing out that the Civil War was about race and slavery. That was so helpful.
I personally think the KKK was worse than MAGA, especially for the thousands murdered and lynched. I would rather compare MAGA to the SA as the more brutal of the Nazi “recruiters,” using far more violence and intimidation than popular persuasion. Hitler wanted a mix of both to get a good enough start before he purged the ones so violent they made more opponents than supporters. The SA was a temporary path to power, whom he could sacrifice once given enough emergency powers (as Trump seems to want to do).
Who will Trump sacrifice to hold on to power, or himself be sacrificed for by those who want the emergency powers to take over?
Besides interest from when I was a toddler military dependent in Germany during the Nuremberg Trials and Berlin Airlift, some brief glimpses of what forms my current views are as follows:
“…In August 1932 there were approximately 445,000 members of the SA. By June 1934 this had grown to over 3,000,000 members. They were often given a free rein on their activities and were violent and difficult to control.
Hitler feared that the SA and Ernst Röhm, their leader, were a potential threat to his leadership. This fear was intensified by Göring and Himmler, who gave Hitler news of Röhm organising a potential coup .
In addition to this, there was a mutual dislike between the traditional conservative elite – who maintained many key positions in the government and the army during the first years of the Third Reich – and the SA. During the years of the rise of the Nazi Party, the SA had been instrumental in helping the party to gain support.
However, following Hitler being elected chancellor, the SA, and particularly Röhm, were keen to continue the ‘revolution’ and replace the traditional conservative elite with Nazis. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership disagreed with their approach. They understood the need to appear moderate and take over slowly by democratic means where possible, maintaining the stability and illusion of a democracy. The tension between the SA and the Nazi leadership grew.
On 30 June 1934 these tensions came to a head. The leaders of the SA were ordered to attend a meeting at a hotel in Bad Wiesse, Bavaria. Hitler arrived and personally placed Röhm and other high ranking SA leaders under arrest.
Over the next two days, most of the SA leadership were placed under arrest and murdered without trial. Röhm, who was initially pardoned , was then given the choice of suicide or murder. Refusing to take his own life, he was shot on 1 July 1934 by two SS guards.
Whilst the purge focused on the SA, the Nazis also used the event to eliminate other political opponents, such as the former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher…”
Let's see if our dear, long-criminal-&-vulgarity-abetting Republicans turn on each other as you so well note the Nazis did to each other in June, 1930.
I have a standard reply when I hear a pro-Trump screed, "Are you a fan of Fox News?" Without exception, there is a pause in their rhetoric. Perhaps it's a tiny crack where the light comes in.
I seem to remember many years ago - that John Roberts was an actual newsman! Dont know if hes always been on faux - or maybe that was before the current loss of actual thought. Considering faux, I'm surprised he backed off on his "misinformation"! Obviously, that wont matter - lies indeed to travel faster than truth - especially in current times.
Polls should not be so evenly divided. Biden should be considerably outfront. So we should ask ourselves what are we doing wrong. It’s our side that is not winning. Maybe just maybe we have fooled ourselves with being incorrect on some issues. When I have dared to express issues on these blogs that run contrary to accepted opinion, I’ve been chastised. And it’s because we have a sense of being right and the other side being wrong. Until we become more reflective and accommodating of issues and inclusive of issues that accommodate the majority, we are going toremain in that pickle jar.
That there are issues with some Democratic policies and proposals, no one should question or chastise anyone who does. The problem with polls is that they are designed now to enhance a conflict narrative and don't necessarily have a firm statistical or factual basis. By any reasonable measure, Biden is doing a solid job and the 82 million Americans who voted for him last time are highly likely to do so again when the time for decision comes around.
Dave, you are right on, yet I think it even worse in the sense that it's impossible to get a representative poll of any kind with today's corruption of the communications media when you think about snail mail, email, landlines, cell phones and endless Tiktok, Facebook, Youtube, Messenger and X (Twitter) platforms and all the crank and scam calls and posts which arrive via those portals would YOU log into or take the time to answer the often inane questions "the pollers" ask? ...especially with the assumption that someone's algorithm will win you even more of the same calls or posts? Sadly, I fear many even consider the one great poll that matters, the elections to themselves be tainted and don't participate. It seems the best way we can asses what people think is to do everything we can to GET OUT THE VOTE!
Absolutely right John and, like many of us, I don't answer unidentified calls or those my phone IDs as Spam. That's why I'm confident that we'll win as long as we take your closing advice.
John, yes, the polls are problematic. It is hard to know what is a real poll that has meaning or one of the ridiculous fund-raising things that comes through email every single day. I don't answer them anymore, because they are beyond annoying and there is no evidence that they are even counted or contribute to any kind of understanding of our current situation. Democrats need to do better in the kinds of fund-raising they do because it seems cheap and a cheat and a lot of folks will not respond, just like me.
I searched incoming for "donate" and found 439 for last week despite my usual cleaning out an estimated 50 per day (or 350 a week cleaned out plus 439 for a total of 789). I suspect I get over 100 a day, and haven't donated to any recently since my cat and I are both dealing with kidney problems, and Cheddar's (our cat) care has been taking most of our disposable income recently.
There is no way we can compete with the Citizens United enabled spending levels anymore.
The donation seeker pollsters seem not to realize I haven't lived in California since the 2020 election, and am an Independent in favor of open primaries and ranked choice voting at heart (totally disgusted with partisan politicians that can't work with honest agents in any party).
I haven't voted for any member of my old Republican party since I wrote in former FDIC Chair, Sheila Bair, in 2004 (when I could afford not to vote for Kerry/Edwards in California since all 55 Electoral Votes were clearly going to Kerry). If they had split the electoral votes like I wish all states would do if we can't eliminate the EC, I would have voted for Kerry.
It was an opportunity to see if the vote count showed any for her.
We did register as Democrats for the 2016 California Primary and encouraged a lot of new voters, independents, and even Republicans to vote for Bernie without registering as Democrats. They could register as No Party Preference and request a Crossover Ballot to vote for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Presidential Primary.
When I voted at our polling place, though, I heard confused voters (and poll workers), who didn't know to ask for the Crossover Ballot, and confused poll workers who didn't know enough to figure out they needed the crossover ballot. The poll worker I heard offered them a provisional ballot instead, which I think would not be counted if they were not registered as a Democrat, or not counted if the results of counting provisional ballots would not change the results (if too few were received). As it was counted, Bernie got 46.04% of the popular votes, 7.03% less than Hillary, and 46.5% of the delegate count. I don't know how superdelegates affected counts at the convention, but their pronouncements before the primary left a bad impression on us and we didn't really pay attention to the convention fights. We just followed Bernie's lead and voted for no one but Democrats since any seat given up to my old Republican party just risked giving them another corrupt majority (corrupt in my eyes, because they quit voting their conscience, fell too much in lockstep with the worst of my old party, with ultra partisan automatic resistance and sabotage of even programs they would have supported if they got the credit for them).
A major goal for me is overturning Citizens United to help eliminate the huge problems in trying to raise so much money for campaigns. Restoration of an updated Fairness Doctrine is also important. It may not have been perfect but abolishing it with nothing is far worse to me.
I will vote for him and keep putting my signs up no matter how many times they are stolen from my yard...I will replace them! I am going to place several close to my Ring doorbell!
My spidey senses tell me like most, I'm cautious who I share my thoughts with on this topic. It is not like in previous election cycles (pre-Trump) when we could freely exchange political ideology and not be in fear of being swatted. And I don't think I'm alone on this. I think the polls (i.e. NYT/Sienna) are not accurate because people don't want to share who they are going to vote for or the data set is corrupt regardless they should not be trusted.
Hopefully, we will all be pleasantly surprised come November when the non-MAGA Republicans go behind the curtain and vote for Biden. I know there are some of them out there.
These are the preliminaries only. The trial is sort of important and the polls may or may not show a tendency towards Trump slightly.
But right now it’s only the foundation being laid and the gloves are not truly off.
Things will have become unrecognizable by October. Trump’s inverse superlatives for how badly everyone is against him are off the wall already. They will be far, far worse in October unless he’s 10 points ahead (won’t happen).
I am afraid and convinced that trashy, despicable rhetoric will turn to violence as the election draws nearer. They may not even have the election. The situation is clearly existential for Trump and America. People aren’t going to ruin their summers over the situation, especially as there won’t be a second trial.
But in October the blood of your nation will run cold and then hot, as people realize that the country is divided into enemy camps. I cannot forecast the triggering events, but I’d say there’s at least a 1 in 10 chance there won’t be an election at all. There will be too much chaos, too much outrage and I’m afraid too much violence.
I am convinced that there is a group behind Trump who are coming up with plan after plan to rig the election in Trump’s favor. There will be huge money behind it, and sane, rather than instinctively clever, people behind it. It will be death by a thousand cuts - a law here and there, disinformation about polling stations, power cut off, a drumbeat of intimidation that is steady and menacing beyond anything we’ve seen.
Then the courage, resourcefulness and fighting spirit of Democratic will be put to the ultimate test. We are all fighting a good game - now. Now. But when the fire is burning, metaphoric or real, who will hide? Who will drop out of the process and blame it on Biden’s age for not voting.
The media now is basically yawning at Trump. They do not want to lose their audience on the right. They do not want to be attacked physically. They do not wish to be seen as shills for the Democratic Party. And, as has been shown lately, they have bent too far in the other direction.
And, to be fair, I think they do not wish to bring honourable Americans to the boiling point too soon.
Their test will be in September-October. I hold my judgment until then.
For now, the Democratic Party has to put the building blocks in place as Biden and Harris did yesterday in Philly. They have to show a fighting spirit. They have to raise far more money than they now think they will need. They will need much more.
Hang in there. These are the dog days of the second full-blown American crisis. The train is approaching.
(quote)The media now is basically yawning at Trump. . They do not wish to be seen as shills for the Democratic Party.
(/quote)
And yet they have no qualms being seen as should for the Republicans. Can the media really be intimidated that easily? Or are the threats that significant?
We have a party that has adopted the tactics of organized crime and basically taken over the organizations that are supposed to shine light on them. How are we supposed to warn people when they are getting their information from the very people we need to warn them about?
Thanks Maureen. Any poll sponsored by a "news" organization is necessarily suspect because the status quo is boring and doesn't spark 'likes', shares, or subscriptions which is the raison de' etre for the Times and other papers.
I agree that polls are impossibly inaccurate now due to all stated issues. I don't answer my phone and give data to anyone. If God herself called, I would ask her to first wash my feet in person, lol.
Dave, I do not credit polls too much. When the Maddow blog was still a thing, Carolina Lady with Fan had worked for the polling entity and she explained to us how it worked. After that, I was even more skeptical. And yes, JohnM is correct, we need to get out the vote.
My room in Conant Hall had a fireplace, was large and almost elegant. I loved it. I was a resident there and watched on TV as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969.
The polls that address those who voted in 2016 and 2020, not just registered voters, show Biden ahead. But by only 4 points.
It is useful to remember that Reagan was considered a joke and unelectable, until he wasn't. As was Drumpf. That the lead is only 4 points is a disgraceful ode to the ignorance and casual selfishness of America.
That "ignorance and casual selfishness" came by plan, Jen.
The first object of the Powell memo was to have its new, far-right foundations kill humanities in schools -- and totally enervate all with standardized testing.
Standardized testing focuses on the linear, the binary, the categorical, and the chronological. It puts everyone in thrall to corporate-friendly abstractions, while humanities do (did) the opposite. The actual human is full of nuance, complications, contradictions -- what poet Joseph Brodsky called "loose ends."
After Americans were neutered, blinded, the billionaire classes could proceed as they did -- to offshoring tens of millions of working-class jobs, 2010 Citizens United, and finally the stuffing of the former Supreme Court with knaves to totalitarianism (the packaging of all women, submission to state theocracy).
But she's already got my input here, as well as that from many, many fine, fine others.
Trouble is, too, that when American schools rid, marginalized, killed humanities, they also ended any teaching as to our arts, techniques, apt ways of alluding to, opening context for, and otherwise quoting others.
Hi Bill, if you have been polled lately, how were the questions structured? Understanding stats and questions that deliver stats, its easy to see how polls are biased Recent articles suggest they are created to enhance profit, not reflect opinions of those polled
Also, many folks responding to online or text polling(after they answer all the questions) are then asked to pay for privilege of submitting their responses through campaign contributions. Hard stop “No! Screw you”
You make many of your pleas based on polling data instead of evidence. Polls are not evidence
What our country is doing wrong is to not allow propaganda via the media of any sort. Lies are lies
Bill Katz: Are you joking, we should be more accommodating to a pussy grabbing, corrupt, narcissist who tells us he would be a dictator and destroy our democracy?
No, he's not joking. No, he doesn't want us to be more accommodating to fpotus. He wants the Democrats to back away from wedge issues that he feels are negatively influencing the ability of the Democratic Party to win the election.
Signed, an original chastiser who has ceased engaging
I wonder which wedge issues we're talking about. Treating trans people like people? It seems like Democratic "wedge" issues usually involved respecting the rights of others who aren't like me.
I have old friends, Republicans, and they never fail to mutter about the student loan forgiveness. It doesn't affect them one bit--they went to college in the 80s, didn't put any kids through college (my youngest graduated in 2020 from a state university and we paid the whole thing, no loans). I don't really see that as a "wedge" issue given how many people it affects. Like--what do they want?
Yes. I do several things globally regarding this election.
My general “direct engaging” is face to face. My comment on this thread regarding “engaging” is choosing (so far) not to comment on Mr. Katz’s comments.
I’m not sure I understand what his motivations are today in repeatedly commenting in a somewhat antagonistic manner.
George Baum: No... Are you joking? Here is a quickie from my book published in 2020 and updated recently. Titled, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." Have at it.
Why Are We All Screaming at Each Other?
The answer to this question may lie somewhere in how we elect our political leaders. Most senators and congressmen are owned and paid for and owned by special interests working both sides of the aisle depending on which business or institutional clients they represent. The result is greater partisan divide in Congress which leads to less interest in the health and stability of the nation and more newly created laws that increase profits for their clients at the expense of well, everyone else. And money is the original sin with a few exceptions, those being perhaps environmentalists and save the earth, save the babies, save the whatevers. But mostly, it’s the endless pursuit of more money through new legislation.
Corporations own America and use patriotism as the opiate for the masses to calm our sores and the people, yes, We, the People, be damned. The unmitigated influence of big business (money) is almost unique in developed nations especially in Western Europe. A British journalist now headquartered in New York City recently lamented in a CNN article that our medical system was broken. I responded directly to his comments and he then asked me, “Why don’t you Americans rise up in rage and change things?” I replied that we have long ago been whipped, divided, beaten and conquered. It’s not in the capacity of the defeated to structurally fix anything including real gun control legislation because we’ve been so toughly defeated.
The late Senator John McCain once warned about this growing menace in America and he was able to sponsor and pass the McCain/Feingold bill in 2002 limiting soft money to influence elections. But then the trusty ole conservative majority of the Supreme Court, those guys who purport to support individual rights, until it restricts the super wealthy to gobble up even more wealth, decided that political spending was a form of free speech in Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission in 2010. This created new ways of corrupting the political process. Secret money returned and today, we have a elected to office a most unstable individual. We all have been seduced and induced into a hyper-partisan fight that until now, has limited the fight to the ballot box. However, Trump has tacitly encouraged violence and mass carnage has already resulted.
Donald “Adolph” Trump is simply the manifestation and infestation of government gone wrong because money has become the only decider. No principles. No ideology. No ethics. And now we have a dysfunctional dystopian society in the purported Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Everyday Joe is scared about having a reduced income or any income at all. And what does Everyday Joe do besides augmenting his income with a part time service job at Walmart? As his puppet strings are yanked, he pulls the lever (the wrong one) that opens the trap door on which he stands with a rope around his gullet.
Everyday Joe is scared of being replaced by folks who do not look like him. Everyday Joe is scared that his beliefs and religion are not shared by other folks.
The issues are the same as have been obvious and well documented. The motives are to give to the rich, smile and hollow promise to the others , and lie like a rug over and over incessant brainwashing, known and effective. Meanwhile the Dems head and shoulders above in effectiveness and decency continue to erase the damage done and put America , its people, and the world back together from the chaos of Republican folly. It’s written about time and again after each tenancy. That few actually research or read the facts is counted on , smiles and promises, thoughts and prayers, lies ,lost rights their goals empower the seedy control of greed , their MO ad infinitum.
We outnumber them. We those disenfranchised- the poor, the growing numbers of black, brown, Asian, Mexican, indigenous populations , lesser educated, silenced voters. And they’re not finished.
The polls are skewed. The court is skewed. The power is skewed. The facts are skewed.
Yet….there comes the grassroots -winning seats, surpassing donations tallies, getting the power structures accountable, undoing/uncovering/uniting for the underprivileged . The hierarchy is not the labor running the ship. It’s the control room stuffed with liars. The rich seldom know what it takes (except to take- buying their loyalties like spoiled royalty). They’re too busy patting each other on the backs sipping their bourbon, and plotting the next bank job..their names are known now folks…even their covert institutions Heritage, Federalists, Putins, Gestapo, white supremist, the Mega, the MAGA.
It isnt the good guys who start the sh*t, nor the ones with good intent theirs is war ..it’s obsolete and cruel, let’s know that!
Polls!! The only poll that matters is the one that counts election votes in November. Polls showing Biden ahead would lull the defenders of democracy to sleep!
Polls be damned, fight for democracy, Cote for Joe!
What's your sense of the particular issues we may need to be more reflective of Bill?
I haven't seen your prior posts, not looking for you to be re-chastised, maybe you could summarize. I ask because I am trying to understand better what the other side needs, wants, and will vote for. Thank you
Oh…ok, I’ll open up that door again. Watch what happens with our trusty community. I’m not a social scientist. I’m not a social psychologist. I just observe and take notes and sometime write about them as in my blog.
The southern border. Ok? It’s written everywhere as the most important issue of the day. And I don’t want to get into being a bleeding heart over the poor folks trying to upgrade themselves. There is a time for that. Now is the time to save the GD country by almost whatever it takes. Biden should have used executive order even if, as his obstinate and dense HS Secretary said, “It wouldn’t hold up in court,” This is the single most issue on the minds of Americans. Don’t you get it? That’s rhetorical and my answer is, “No, you don’t get it.”
Do you want to lose the nation, the constitution,all sanity, over allowing hundreds of thousands rushing over the sands of Arizona and Texas because it’s the right thing to do, letting anyone to violate our laws? Oh really? Now do you understand my frustration with us?
Yes there are other issues. We (the Democratic Party) have accepted or adopted that Jesse Jackson’s version of ‘The Rainbow Coalition.’ But it never worked. It was an ideal that doesn’t work because it excludes a majority of lower income white society. And we are (democrats) so infused with identity politics that we have virtually rhetorically ignored that group. Not in substance but in rhetoric. Many of you will deny this but this is one of our Achilles heals.
Ok, bring it on. I’m waiting. Oh, and btw, enjoy my book if ya dare. lol.
Thanks Bill, I see what you mean - the issues you point to are quite sticky, to say the least. I do think your concept of excluding "lower income society" on many levels may be the key to what I've been trying to understand about trump supporters. Glad you chastise us in your own way, to broaden our thinking by challenging our beliefs. Much to grapple with!
Oh my god. Someone doesn’t disagree, lol. I sense this has already been read to death. But I will go a step further and it just might be in my next blog if I’m feeling fearless because when I do, I’m inevitably called a racist. Democrats talking points always include diversity. As if we need this drilled into our psyche every day. Diversity with one exception; poor white folks who have been left out as I said not in substance but in rhetoric. That is as important as services.
We constantly address the needs of the Black community but there is a sleeping reason there remains dysfunction in the Black communities across the country and it never gets addressed. What is it you may ask? Give up? In a Black research paper published in a Black-owned local weekly, it stated up to 72% of births in the Black community occurs out of wedlock. I’m sorry to awaken anyone, but you can’t have a thriving community when the majority of births occur under these circumstances. I’m older now but I will always remember a conversation between my freshman homeroom teacher and a girl in our class. Both teacher and girl had recently given birth with any partner help. Even in my young mind, I looked at the girl probably of 15 years of age, and wondered how she was going to manage school and motherhood. It can be done I suppose but multiply this by hundreds of thousands and multi-generational and you get dysfunctionalism and all the consequences resulting from it. This must be solved by Black leaders. It’s no place for any white person to be telling a black girl not to have children.
Thanks Miselle - I read all of Ken Burn's address earlier & posted it either here or on Joyce Vance's blog. But I hadnt watched this guy's videos before - hes right. I ranted some earlier after reading The Intercept about whats happening to hospitals/medical personnel in Gaza - its WRONG!
BUT of course voting for Biden & Democrats.
At this point in this country - we CAN disagree on issues still. And we do. But somehow, Dems & all their offshoots, need to come together on the main issue of whether we are on the side of democracy (small d) or do we want a dictator named trump & his cult.
I too read Bill. And pay attention, even if I do that is in the back of my mind where a concern gets filed for a future trip around the sun. SCOTUS bias is a serious issue. Spousal obedience can become a distraction, gets too much energy
Frank, dIvided, yes, but one hopes not irreconcilably so. After 250 years of balancing the needs and demands of capitalism against the needs and demands of real democracy, most often portrayed incorrectly by the right as "socialism," it has become painfully clear to a large majority of citizens the need to redress that balance with some common sense application of our constitution and laws. Perhaps that will require some alteration or elimination of the Electoral College.
JohnM. Te electoral college is an anachronism and needs to go. At least the winner takes all must be eliminated. Proportional representation is a step in the right direction.
"certain powerful people seem to have concluded that they cannot be held accountable to laws or rules."
Certain powerful people seem to live for that. Clearly His Orangeness does. Absolute power corrupting absolutely emerges as one of the most salient themes in every chapter of history; what checks and balances are supposed to be about.
It now appears that many of these radical conservatives are now feeling their oats and flexing their muscles … or have now just taken their hoods off thanks to trump and cult movement!
It seems to me that true justice is far more nuanced than is approximated by even the wisest applications of law, but I am convinced that the experience and fate of society and of the individuals that comprise it is improved when we strive for justice. Part of that is in that justice is "blind" to status, but not to circumstances, and certainly not to empirical truth.
Unequal justice is a contradiction in terms. If anything, the crimes of the rich and powerful are more severe than the crimes of the desperate, because it is pure greed, pure arrogance, yet the powerful are more likely to escape accountability. $COTUS ruled that it was constitutional to sentence a man who shoplifted videos for his kids to prison for life as a third criminal act. Thomas was particularly vociferous in defining that as perfect justice. Child molester Epstein cut a cozy deal with officials for his first round of crimes. The official who cooked up the deal was later appointed to some high position by Trump. That is not only unjust, but undermines the perceived legitimacy of rule of law, and thus erodes compliance. That is classic corruption and/or tyranny. Even now, Trump is handled with a deference that would never be offered to a person of lesser status, and the message of the precedence flies in face of "equal justice under law", a phase etched into the $COTUS edifice.
It's not so much that they "cannot" be held accountable, it's that they demonstrably will not be. The fear of their pigeons coming home to roost is what drives them to enhance their control over the infrastructure of political power.
It is unfortunately true that wealthy and/or powerful white men are immune from being held accountable for their actions. There is nothing we can do about it unfortunately except hope that karma fixes them.
We can have schools, Lisa, where the teachers are in charge.
Not politicians. Not standardized testers. Not any ed bureaucracy admin.
Finland did it. They've had the best schools in the world since.
We can have essay writing programs so students learning English the world over can essay each other's good differences. Learn to see, listen better. Learn to quote aptly. Learn to bring in humanities, from one's own culture, connecting to that of others.
I’m sorry, but is not at all possible in the USA anymore. It would require Separation of Church and State to be put back in place and adhered to by religions, public schools, and by State governments. That is not going to happen.
Education of the masses leads to enlightenment. Enlightened people are not easily influenced by fear and hate, and are harder to manipulate, which is how many religions and governments control the masses. And if you haven’t figured it out, elites and religions have been working together since antiquity on maintaining a social order which benefits them both and keeps them in power.
The poor education in former slave States paid off. They managed to get people to vote against their own best interests and be more reliant on the Church.
Religions get funding through donations and tithes, but in a country where people in some States are generally more secular and less reliant upon religions, they lost some power, wealth, & influence.
Liberal Democracy brought about Public Education, Social Security, Disability Insurance, and Medicare/Medicaid which inadvertently took away the need in some States for people to join religions for their aid programs.
Religion is a big part of the foundation of a society. Foundations must be strong enough to withstand challenges. This is why Conservative groups paint Liberalism and their social safety nets as Socialism and it dangerous. They fear it will rock their foundation (and the patriarchal socioeconomic hierarchy) holding it in place, which it did.
Again, educated/enlightened people aren’t easily manipulated. People who have access to good a public education system, a social safety net, and a strong Democracy which listens to all people and offers more opportunities for control over their destiny, are in direct opposition to Conservative elites and their religious counterparts.
What can ordinary and marginal citizens do? Exchanging criticisms is no use. Pray, for "God is not God of disorder but of peace. (I Corinthians 14:33a)"
Ask friends, acquaintances, and online fellows about further books to read, movies to see.
Read the books, see the movies, and then in further questions cite characters, scenes, and issues in them. Keep trying to be as specific as you can in acknowledging, mentioning, crediting good humanity, further related questions others are asking.
Hiro Tamura is a Japanese name. Might you ground yourself in some especially lovely novels, films, manga, memoirs, and other arts from Japan?
The media has, I’ve observed, much too uncritical of Alito. He claims his wife but up the distress flag, refusing to take it down. He attributes that to her “strong-mindedness” which he “honors”. Obviously the media should ask how refusing your spouse, who is Justice of the SCOTUS shows that she honors him and his role in American jurisprudence.
Frankly, her lack of respect for him and his office I now share.
And pollsters wonder why America seems to respect the Court less…
Who owns Alito's house anyway? He might make a case for his wife's independence if we were talking about bumper stickers on her car, but not his. If the house is jointly owned, the flag is theirs, not hers. I he owns the house, the flag is his.
Oh well. We know that Republicans have a problem with the existence of pronouns. Alito apparently is one of them.
The flag is only one of many issues re bias. Both Thomas and Alito are tied to Leonard Leo. DOJ still has the capacity to file an emergency motion to recuse. Attach affidavits from potential witnesses re bias. Ask for a hearing.
It's insane that the Alliance Defending Freedom which is basically just an arm of the Federalist society has been in front of the Supreme Court 12 times and they have never lost a case....
The ownership of Alito's homes is legal hairsplitting that has nothing to do with the issue at hand and focusing on that ownership is distracting and a win for Alito. The standards are the actuality or appearance of impropriety and the actuality or appearance of impartiality. The homes could be owned by a Grand Cayman trust or Joe Biden or any one of us and the issue would still be the same.
I believe the wife owns the house in her name. But ‘blaming her’ for the flag certainly doesn’t speak to adult behavior…..he’s an adult and highly visible, they are married…presumably they share responsibility for what is done in the place they reside in…..
There are two houses. They own the one with the upside-down flag jointly. The house with the Appeal to Heaven is just in Ms. Alito's name. He claimed that he didn't know the meaning of the Appeal to Heaven flag. If that's the case, then he's so ignorant of the events of the insurrection that he definitely needs to recuse himself from the case.
The larger problem of spousal independence is that if Mrs.Alito can fly a flag associated with Stop the Steal then Ginny Thomas is completely free to help organize a Stop the Steal insurrection storming of Congress. Odd coincidence, isn't it, that two spouses of Supreme Court Justices publicly express their support for a movement to overturn the results of a democratic election yet this is deemed acceptable because... well.... spousal independence.
At what point would the spouses be responsible? What if the QAnon Shaman had sought refuge in the Alito house to hide from police arrest - and Mrs. Alito took him in but didn't inform police. Would that be okay?
If the answer is "No", then at what point does a spousal Supreme Court Justice become responsible for what happens in a jointly-owned house? If the standard is that the Justice must not only be above reproach but must appear to be above reproach, then flying an upside-down American flag for a few days immediately following Jan. 6 is just as damning as hiding the QAnon Shaman would be.
I'm a minister's daughter. I wasn't allowed to ride my bicycle on Sunday because the congregation wouldn't approve. Mrs. Alito should be subject to the same restraints of propriety. Justice Alito should recuse himself from any legal matter that touches on J6 and so should Clarence Thomas. Otherwise they are both corrupt and their judgements are tainted.
And there's not a darn thing anyone can do to stop them.
tried for a photo post of this one but can't figure out how to do it. they're fairly popular; the word Art is highlighted in a different color in the middle of the word Earth -to bring together the connected meanings of the importance of art as an essential way of celebrating and honoring the planet we live on. Hope this helps.
My own bumper stickers on my 200,000 mile Prius are pretty tame, and I'm proud of them: Tuba Mover, EV Wanabee.
I don't think I will get in trouble, but you never know. I could be the victim or road rage. If I add another sticker that says "respect my pronouns" I probably will be.
I live in an area where I consider posting my “Biden Harris” sticker on my car an act of bravery. Been two weeks and nothing’s happened. Yet. Voteblue.
I make it a point to have nothing on my vehicle but my license plate and stickers required by the homeowners association. I do not want to divulge personal information on my vehicle.
I get it, Jenn. In Indiana you are putting your life in danger, I fear, for having a Biden Harris reference on your car. It's what prevents me (so far) from doing so. Pick ups here have gun racks and "Don't Tread on Me" stickers.
The truth is that we do have reason to fear these criminals in suits and the MAGA cult members they control. Swatting an elder woman is tame compared to what they are capable of if given power.
And they are certainly capable of stealing power.
The Biden campaign is doing well to focus on the swing states. The electoral college will be the delivery system for the theft if it succeeds.
Even if we win these fascists can and will still inflict damage on the public on their way to the dustbin of history. But anywhere near the damage if they “win”.
Remember, the money of the billionaires counterbalances the fact that most Americans don’t want a dictatorship. We have a great deal of work to do in the next 5 months. Let’s make the billionaires irrelevant.
Sadly billionaires et al underwrite both parties, Annabel. Often, little more than half the electorate turn out to vote let alone pay attention, let's hope every effort is made to increase that by a lot.
Agree. But our side try’s to be everything to everyone otherwise known as pandering. Instead of discovering the route causes of problems and seeking real solutions. I’m reminded of Jesse Jackson’s old Rainbow Coalition.’ It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work today. And one think we have lost is the messaging to white working class. We for all intent, lost them. And we shouldn’t have because democratic initiatives serve the less economically advantaged much more than MAGA does. Yet why do they fall for the lies? Because they feel that they have been left out. Read my words carefully before dismissing them. They “feel” they have been left out.
They have left out, by private business and corrupt courts. Informing them who is responsible requires an information system that reaches them. That system is monopolized by private media moguls who falsely tell them otherwise. Root causes all lead to the conclusion. The elimination of the Fairness Doctrine
I posted recently that most of my neighbors and friends who live on the gulf coast of MS and LA voted and will vote for Trump not because they “like” him but because Democrats and liberals “think they know it all” and they are “better” than they are. And they don’t like being told they are dumb and stupid because they live where they live. I got a lot of pushback with that post - basically that they are dumb and stupid. The arrogance amongst Democrats, liberals, progressives is mind blowing at times.
Yesterday Biden made the announcement if re-elected he would nominate “progressive” judges (not sure but I think to SCOTUS) That made me angry and it is typical Biden being short sighted again like promising a black woman as VP and a black woman to SCOTUS - admirable and at least the SCOTUS nominee turned out ok but why put yourself in a box. Why pander? And that is what it is.
As President Biden pointed out the Republican Party Modus Operandi to victory is HARP (Hate, Anger, Resentment & Propaganda). Ok, he didn't say propaganda.
Swatting Mrs Fanone should be an exhibit to Jack Smith’s motion to change tfg’s bond conditions in the stolen docs case. OTOH it probably wouldn’t matter to Loose Cannon, who is all in for tfg anyway.
I don’t think our country has been this divided since the Civil War. Narratives have become the subjective interpretation of facts which in many cases are already misinterpreted. The hope after 2020 for me that we would have a period of reduced trauma. Thank you GOP for preventing that from happening. I still pine for the days of Nixon which besides his issues and of course the Vietnam war was not even remotely as traumatic as we are experiencing today. Thanks Heather. We owe you our deepest respect!
I am reading Ruth Ben-Ghiat's book Strongmen: Why They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fail right now, and there are patterns of fascistic takeovers, and this one of Trump's along with his useful idiot right-wing backers, is pretty much following the steps. They have to create a certain kind of narrative of being in danger, of being suppressed, of being the savior, to get people to accept their brutalist tactics as necessary. Biden is not necessarily having a strong counter narrative because the truth does not stand out when you are promised that all your problems will go away by a Strongman. He gives you a common enemy you can blame everything on and when he banishes them in his superhero way, everything will be fine. Of course, you might end up being the problem. That is something that people who have accepted othering others, do not like when it is done to them. And it can be, quite easily. Anyone who lived in the former Soviet Union or in Cuba, or in other countries where there is a strong populist right wing or left wing leader, and people who say anything against the regime are disappeared, should be wary. Unfortunately they lived through it and still don't recognize it, or don't care. Either way, we need to get everyone voting that still cares.
Sadly, Linda, there's history to the U.S. "narrative of being in danger, of being suppressed."
The fat orange con man, along with his congressional hypocrite pious and white trash goons, push this narrative thanks to the history of how U.S. schools all got dehumanized. (Sorry for passive voice.)
The tens of millions of American former working class had full right to feel abandoned after U.S. finance and corporate elites offshored their jobs. But the far-right foundations (many, but chiefly ALEC, the Hoover Institution, and the Heritage Foundation) through the 1970s preceded those predations by marginalizing humanities in higher ed, removing them from K-12, and enervating the rest of K-12 by tyrannies of standardized testing.
Our tens of millions of former working-class abandoned saw no one in the media, no one in public life acknowledging the damages done to them -- because our educated elites no longer had any public access to the novels, memoirs, film, music, and history that in fact did see and did account for the mass damages.
Everything else you say, Linda: true, true, true. But the bitterness got planted deeply (excuse, please, again the passive voice). And now grubbers such as Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito operate by an entirely alternative set of "ethics" as designed by the biz schools, the standardized testers, and washes of dark money all allied with the world's worst.
Jeri, one of the tactics of the group is to convince the voters that voting does not matter and that all politicians are out for themselves. Putin’s goal is to bring down democracy in the US so that the Russian people no longer have anything to aspire to.
Mary Anne Applebaum, in the June Atlantic, has a chilling article on how the Russians and Chinese have piggybacked on Trump’s MAGATISM to highlight the weaknesses of American ‘democracy’ and the advantages of authoritarian government.
I am reminded of Trump’s bromance with Putin. I find this a frightening threat to the soul of America.
As Jeri below says that it is "hard to marginal these days" I can see that those of us who are involved enough to read the comments to LFAA are involved, but I have several friends/family who absolutely do not listen to or pay any attention to politics. Not that they purposely tune it out, but similar to the attention I'd pay to any golf tournament playing on a tv screen in a restaurant. I try to bring up issues enough to keep them informed without having them tune ME out.
This is why letters to unlikely voters is crucial.
Sadly, Americans, unlike the Germans and Italians, have history from which to learn, but are ignoring it. We even have the history documented in Prequel by Rachel Maddow.
I feel that many Germans and Italians are repeating their mistakes. Putin and perhaps others are targeting the EU with a disinformation campaign that has helped the parties most friendly to his agenda right before the EU elections on June 9. There are a lot of marches planned against fascism leading up to this event. Let us hope they have the desired effects. Tiktok is being used by the Right-wing revival of the Nazi party called AfD, and a lot of youth are joining this program. This is not the generation of WWII make sacrifices, but of the we do not see our future prospects as good, and we want want our parents have right away, not when we are older.
You did live through the year 1968 - the year of the grate national nervous breakdown - yes? 2024 is almost up to my experience of being politically active in 1968. Nixon managed to commit treason when he sabotaged the peace talks, plunging us into 4 more years in which he and the war criminal Henry Kissinger were finally forced by their failures to accept in December 1972 the same exact peace proposal that Johnson had negotiated in 1968. Rather than being on the side of democracy as it is now, the FBI was running a war against antiwar activists through COINTELPRO (of which I was one of those caught up in that, with FBI agents writing phony letters to my parents and the parents of my future wife telling them we were selling drugs to the GIs at Ft. Hood). That's just skimming the war against the war then.
RFK and MLK are assassinated, cities torched, riots leading to 'white flight' to suburbs that lasts 40 years, police beat protestors in Chicago at Dem Convention...so far today's events are frightening as to what could happen but not yet occured.
The USA needs to be vigilant too. We are getting it from all sides, and it is known that Russia and China are working with the Republican party to spread disinformation, and yes, to encourage people to stay home. Need to keep on being vigilant, because that is easier than living in the fascist hell that Trump and his useful idiot right-wing backers have planned.
Our Republic has always tolerated fascism and subsequent denials of fascism. In my alcoholic ambivalence I was no innocent bystander. Thanks always for your wake up calls. Write on.
I was 13 in 1968, and remember it all too well. (I was a little precocious, politically speaking, back then). Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks was not known in real time. MLK's assassination, and the destruction and violence of the riots afterwards were a truly frightening event that was major news for weeks. But after RFK was assassinated, and the much less viable candidate Hubert Humphrey was nominated at the Chicago convention marred by the riots outside, Nixon played the "law and order" card ever-so-skillfully. What should have been a landslide for the Democrats turned into one of the closest elections in our history to that point. Nixon won, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I was 15 at the time and I felt even at the young age that my fellow hippies, yippies Black Panthers were at the wrong convention they should have been in Miami. But our side had the war to contend with. It was the post WWII mentality of curtailing communism. We went to war for nothing. Fact is, we’ve been going to war for nothing all of my life. I do consider america to be the most dangerous nation on earth. Look how we never forced the Israelis (and I mean forced) into a real honest to goodness two state solution but Jewish lobby money ended that idea for 70 years. Then we allowed the Ukraine war to commence. And yes we did. If you want that history,I’ll oblige. Now we are on the verge of Deja vu all over again in Chicago and beyond. I might be there if I can acquire a booth.
I have often thought about an alternative universe in which RFK was not assassinated, was elected President, and the Vietnam War ended much sooner. Among other outcomes, Nixon would be a twice-beaten Republican presidential candidate. No Watergate, maybe no Reagan “revolution,” and on and on. But of course that is not our current reality. I don’t agree with you that the United States is the most dangerous nation, but certainly the most powerful, and obviously with the biggest military of all time. I take a longer view that we are currently the dominant empire, but history tells us that no empire lasts forever. If somehow Trump gets in again, I believe our decline will be much faster.
In 1968, I was a supporter in spirit anyway, of Eugene McCarthy. I considered RFK to be a spoiler. In some ways, we have made hero because he was assassinated the same as his brother. RFK’s message was positive just I felt he only got in the race late when he saw McCarthy making progress. There re specific time points when great shifts occur. W Bush should never have been president. He destroyed so much but his legacy are the Supreme Court nominees. Ralph Nader changed history forever. Same with Clinton losing. She was too smart for her little britches. Thought she could conduct business on her personal cell device. What a jerk. Now with a pending Trump redo, and if he gets in, I have two decisions one is to leave and return to Europe.
You make some excellent points even if I don't agree with all of them. I'm sure we could have a lively conversation about the political history of the last few decades. We certainly agree about Trump!
I included Vice President Harris's entire speech because many of us do not get a chance to listen to her. Personally, I like her and she is a fighter. What I had forgotten is the Vice President's enthusiasm.
To have run the California DOJ is truly an impressive accomplishment. The work load of the CDOJ is second only to the US DOJ. She would have made an excellent Attorney General as well as a crackerjack VP.
I watched the video, and I also watched clips of Biden walking to the podium. Stated bluntly, he walks like an old man. His speech was great, but his delivery was terrible. Not that Biden has ever been known as a great orator, but he has clearly declined even since 2020. In this media age, it is all about optics. I am one of those Biden supporters that greatly fear he will lose because of voters that see him as too old and infirm to serve another term, and fear a black woman finishing out his term. Of course much could and will happen before November, and I will vigorously support Biden/Harris, but I am apprehensive about the outcome of the Biden-Trump rematch.
You and I share the same concerns as do many others. Trump's relatively lucid delivery -- if still shrill -- at the Libertarian convention, amid cheers and jeers, adds to that concern. Trump is more limber than President Biden, though stiff joints need not indicate too great a cognitive decline by the President.
Bobby Kennedy, Jr may save the day by siphoning off more 'Reagan Democrats' from Trump than nervous supporters of President Biden. At the Libertarian convention, he attacked Trump directly, showing why disillusioned working voters act against their self-interests by supporting Trump over him.
Though an erstwhile Republican, I still believe that President Biden is the hands-down better choice; I would welcome a President Harris. The country faces big problems and the G.O.P. is more like the goof-off party. So far, the new liberal coalition is holding. We have a lot of work and praying to do.
I never voted for Trump. From the get-go I viewed him long on appearances and short on substance, a pretender and a fraud. Trump too has declined noticeably since 2016. Trump’s interview with Time Magazine was shocking to me in terms of how little Trump actually understands about policy and economics. But how many voters actually read it? Maybe he’ll actually show up to debate Biden and be exposed. But Trump is always the showman, and the Murdoch Evil Empire is stacking the deck in his favor. Yes, Biden is old, but he is also sane, he understands the issues. Given the narrow majorities in Congress, he has achieved some amazing things. (Not that you hear much about that on cable news; even MSNBC spends way too much time in my view talking about Trump). But still I worry.
President Biden's faculties have contracted as have mine--at sixty-seven in my case. He reminds of the 'over-the-mound' pitchers of the 1970s. Their fast-balls were no longer fast enough, but their change-ups and wisdom on the mound not only carried the day, but also made them as or more effective. All this to say: President Biden may not be a whiz-kid in trivial pursuits but he is surrounded by good people, starting with his second-in-command, and, more importantly, he listens to them.
With respect, I don’t think anyone should be pining for the days of Dick Nixon. He almost tore our country apart. His actions and deceit unnecessarily resulted in the death of tens of thousands of young Americans in a land even today most American could not find on a map. He subverted his constitutional responsibilities, trying to steal a presidential election in ways different than Trump for sure. But steal nonetheless. Those days were hellish for a whole generation. And the lies that that federal government manufactured about the war remain unmatched. Those lies and distortions affect us to this day.
Gary, you raise a fascinating observation that not only are the economies of our former enemies Germany, Japan, S Korea & Viet Nam humming along with tremendous vibrancy but they have become some of our closest and most reliable allies. How does THAT happen in the history of the world and with what other "conquering" countries?
I agree that the threat we are facing today is the gravest since the Civil War. And I still fear that the nation will be in a state of crumbling democracy - even if we win in November. Too many states are being led by MAGA whackos. There will be safe states that honor human rights for all - like voting. But there will still be states who operate as if the Civil War never happened.
And it will take some heavy lifting over many years to repair the damage of this Extreme Court.
But for those of us who matured during the Vietnam War, it felt just as bad then, just as threatening. More so if one was eligible for the draft. Patriotism was being questioned - claimed by both sides. Friends were dying for a political myth. The generational split was the greatest in our history. And it was still dangerous for people of color to simply drive through some states. It was dangerous to drive through those states if you were a guy with long hair!
I guess you are right that this era is worse than the "Nixon" era. But I don't pine for it. It was horrible. It was a war between peace lovers, equal rights lovers, women's rights lovers and the entire "establishment". It felt terrifying.
But we got through it. And I believe we will get through this as well. Progress is never going to be a straight line forward. We'll win some, lose some. Let's just hope we can keep it going in the right direction. Vote Blue.
Last nights PBS NewsHour had another of Judy Woodruff's "America at a Crossroads" segments. The whole show was important. But jump to the 37 minute mark to begin her exploration of how Alaska may have found an answer to the extremism that has infected our election process. Using Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting we can elect less crazies and more people ready to work together.
Of course we cannot go back in history, and in many ways, I would not want to, but we can certainly learn from history. Why would we not? (a rhetorical question). Certainly we let a hell of a lot of corruption slip by us. Nixon's misdeeds were substantial, but yes, pale in comparison to the whole frigging "GOP" of today.
Too many Republicans think the GOP is still the Party of Lincoln. It hasn't been since the Southern Democrats switched parties in the 1960's. But now it is totally and completely "the party of Trump" peddling Hate, Anger, Resentment and Propaganda.
My take on the INR with roots in the OSS was that they used a lot of people with broader views that could work with allies that had somewhat different views on how well we could accomplish mutual goals even with socialists (for example Ho Chi Minh) and that they released a lot whom they feared might go native (siding too much with those they were working with). Though there was indeed risks of that sort, I believe they went too far with purity tests, eliminating many who could have filled a middle ground in keeping the door open to feedback on what the general populations would support towards what we believed in as mutually supportive or at least tolerant populations less likely to want to fight wars with each other.
I look at Yugoslavia as one example of where there was mutual tolerance and benefits. To me, in Vietnam we were seen as outsiders and could have had better relations if not forced into supporting the French reassertion of colonial power. Though we got off to a rough start (and shouldn't have continued if we kept making it worse for all the Vietnamese we were supposedly fighting for), we did earn many friends among them by the time we left. I trusted so many of them as I traveled solo for 9 of the 12 months I served throughout most of South Vietnam and Thailand mostly in 1968 with up to 3 stops a day and something like 60,000 miles riding anything but animals (jeeps, busses, trucks, helicopters, transport/cargo/courier aircraft).
My early favorite book was Bing West's "The Village" (some of the best we did in Vietnam), and his earlier "Small Unit Action In Vietnam Summer 1966" (some of the wrong counterproductive tactics earlier). I always favor being close enough to see why your enemies want to fight you, and have some chance to persuade them they shouldn't have to. To see a bit about why they might not need to, see https://www.scribd.com/document/47572320/I-Remember-Honda-Rice-Rice-Today-feature
Tom Hargrove was Army Intel pretending to be a USAID Agricultural Agent (while an actual agricultural expert). The name came from the IR8 Rice variety that he brought to an area in the Delta a little north of the southernmost extent of my travels. It was so much better that they could make enough profit in a year to buy a Honda motorbike. He didn't realize the family he lived with was headed by a local VC leader who became a good friend, only finding out decades later when he returned to visit the family. He asked why they hadn't killed him back then, but was told he had brought them what they really needed. To me they just wanted to live in peace and raise their families like anyone else should be able to do.
He was later captured by FARC narco-guerillas in Columbia in 1994 as portrayed in the movie "Proof of Life." I was able to find a Professor who had also worked in Columbia and earned the trust of farmers that just wanted to grow regular food crops.
Christopher, they were burning down whole neighbourhoods in the late 60s, and it didn't stop then - think Watts. The anti-establishment / anti-war movement was incendiary, remember Kent State? Assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, a slew of civil rights workers.
The baseball analogy sums it up: “professional baseball would never allow an umpire to continue to officiate the World Series after learning that the pennant of one of the two teams competing was flying in the front yard of the umpire’s home.”
Thanks for the link Lynell. When one party has a 6-3 SCOTUS advantage it appears that nothing can be done to prevent the majority from forcing their evangelical and political decisions on US. Jamie Raskin shows us exactly how to get around that.
Lynell— just got finished reading Rep. Jamie Raskin’s opinion in NYT.
“The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.”
It gives me hope that this important issue of recusal won’t be swept under the rug.
I have been posting daily, as sometimes insomnia keeps me from getting to the letters early enough to get the attention of all those who read the comments.
I am hoping that we are flooding the post office with our complaints!
Here's what Jessica Craven's said on her post from yesterday: "YOU GUYS. The Dump Alito website has been such a hit—with thousands and thousands of you clicking on the link to submit a formal request against him—that its creator Alden (whom I mistakenly called Aiden in a previous post—sorry!) has doubled down and added a way to lodge a formal complaint against Aileen Cannon, too!" So, I think we ARE flooding the post office!
Love this video of Tennessee Brando, Miselle. His followers should take heed of his message, succinct and to the point.
Those precious elements will not be found within a GOP/MAGA cult now writing "Finish them" on bombs, embracing Nazi rhetoric, and using hate, lies, propaganda, and disinformation to erode and attempt to destroy democracy, justice, and equality.
Voters must decide between those two visions for this and future generations.
Nixon's corruption had not yet spread to the whole "GOP" in the days of Watergate. if only because the public was not yet inured to it, and I think some party member still retained some "decency". Even Nixon, though a criminal, did not seems as totally sociopathic as today's "GOP", as prepared to fully embrace fascism. I don't think I would call it "improved', but yes, honed their abject perfidy.
Nothing that Trump says or does shocks us anymore or have his words or conduct done so since memory allows. He lies when he has to. He lies when he does not need to. He lies simply to practice. What remains surprising, perhaps, is how some of our best educated Senators misrepresent and distort as well. Mike Lee, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz all are Trump sycophants. They tow Trump’s line despite knowing that Trump is malevolent. Trump even campaigned against Cruz, arguing that Cruz’s father was involved in Kennedy’s assassination. History will not be kind to them. Keep fighting Joe. Our job is to help him in every way we can
With that guy saying Trump should run to Florida where Governor Dumbass promised not to extradite him, when he is found guilty the prosecutors should declare him a flight risk who should be held in custody pending appeal.
Yeah Newsmax assclown suggesting Trump jump bond raises a few issues for Trump and perhaps assclown. But if he jumped and tried to hide out in Florida, Jack Smith could move for his arrest and extradition to NYC for violation of his federal conditions of release. Running would also be and look very cowardly...ok he is a coward...but still suspect he does not jump. I think Trump expects to be convicted and receive probation and then plans to walk out and tell everyone to kiss his orange fat felon butt.
Clinton was quite right. Actually, she was being kind when using "Deplorables" to describe half of Trump’s followers. The SWAT-ing of Fanone's mother is a prime example. I also wonder why that local police department fell for it. This rot has permeated the fabric of our society.
Jerry, the way local PD "falls for it" is the risk that exists if a credible threat is ignored. IF local LE knew that the subject of the call was a particular person (in this case, an elderly woman who is the mother of a "controversial" person), I would hope that there was at least some intelligence gathering going on.
Alito shows us everyday what kind of person he is and that is of a arrogant elitist. Apparently his wife is one too and had gotten into several confrontations with neighbors over the years. Even people in their neighborhoods can’t stand them! His response to Senators Durbin and Whitehouse was nothing but a big “FU”. It is way past time to reel these guys in. Raskin proposed to have the remaining justices (7) make the decision as to whether or not recusal against both Alito and Thomas. That would put the other Injustices on the spot which is a good thing.
But even that would only get us to 4-3. Liberals in the US are screwed because we refuse to be as ruthless as conservatives, planning and plotting behind the scenes.
Alito's position on the flags and his refusal to recuse himself on anything J6 related is the perfect reason to expand the Court to 13 seats, to better match the number of District Courts. This is something that Congress can do and did do, last in 1869. It is within Congress' purview to set the number of seats on the Court. There's nothing magical about nine.
Agreed: 12 Justices with direct supervision of the 12 US District Courts, and a Chief Justice.
NOTE: I was unsure whether there were 12 or 13, so I spent about 10 minutes researching. There are 12 Circuit Courts covering different regions of the country, where matters under appeal from those district courts are heard. The 13th is the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has very specific jobs such as patent appeals.
NYTimes May 29th article whereby Justice Alito claims his wife (among other things) "has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit" and "my wife is an independently minded private citizen. She makes her own decisions, and I honor her right to do so.” . . . . .
The perfect response/observation by a reader: "Ironic Justice Alito controls the lives of every woman in America except the one he’s married to". 6,000 others agreed!
This case has become huge since the other cases will probably not be tried before the election. If he is found not guilty, it will clear the way for him all the way to the election. He will run on being vindicated. If he is found guilty, it will hamstring him. He will have to campaign as a convicted felon. These twelve jurors may decide the election.
Eugene V. Debs ran for President in 1920 while in jail for sedition (I think it was). So being a convicted felon is no bar to running for office.
After all, the Constitution only lists 3 requirements for the Presidency:
1. Be at least 35 years of age
2. Be a natural-born citizen of the US
3. Have resided in the US for at least 14 years.
There used to be some argle-bargle in the 14th Amendment about not engaging in insurrection against the US, but SCOTUS pretty much did away with that one.
Respectfully disagree, Paul. Being found guilty on any of the charges in this case will only strengthen him politically. He will “advance” from being a mere victim of a rigged justice system to being a martyr. I don’t understand the dynamics of his political support, but there you are. A related point, this trial will not be over until the last appeal is resolved.
Unfortunately, too many Americans view themselves as helpless victims and losers…the same traits that Trump feigns for himself. They really don’t see American as “the home of the brave”.
To those who won't vote (because of Biden's handling of Israel...
Biden is threading a needle and if one thinks not voting for Biden-Harris is the wisest choice they haven't a clue as to the existential danger Trump poses, both to the U.S and the world.
I think it's the lack of common sense that I'm seeing in the comments section here, in the sense that emotion is surpassing* reason. At least a couple of them seem sincere in their beliefs with no sinister motives.
*used in lieu of a bridge term that I refuse to use any longer. Sigh.
I haven't seen it reported, but I hope that when Biden speaks to HCBU and other youthful audiences of color, he talks emphatically about the need to elect a few more Democrats to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
I can only imagine how keyed-up and worried Guilty Donny must be as he waits for the jury to finish deliberating. Willi Wonka had a very appropriate quote for moments like this -
Absolutely correctly Heather sees one huge fact:
She sees how "certain powerful people seem to have concluded that they cannot be held accountable to laws or rules." And she goes on to specifics, particularly to Alito on the corrupt Clarence court.
These justices know what the Constitution’s Article 14, section three says. They swore by the Constitution to protect our rights, but instead they protect their instigator of insurrection against our republic, and now, too, they crazily delay one of his key trials in obsequious service to him, against us.
Do they take seriously his preposterous claims to immunity because they share his contempt for our rights, disdain for our law? Do they hold themselves also immune, like him above the law? Except of course don't they also brazenly flaunt how their primary service is to protect the rich, also to push state power for theocratic packaging of American women, American families?
As Alex Wagner on her most recent show quipped, “It’s Ginni Thomas and Martha Ann Alito’s court now, I guess” – as if we might take booby prize of some humor from their husbands’ in-your-face, eff-you cesspool militancy of corruption.
Behind these guys is the Federalist Society, the antithesis to the American Bar Association, and both these trees have deep roots. American is, putting it simply, irreconcilably divided, this is NOT just MAGA. Mitch had far more at heart for this than opportunistic Trump ever did, or has.
Maybe roots serves as metaphor less well than vines.
So many choking, suffocating, killing vines put out now, Frank, from so many vile, hate-filled, angry, delusional, dehumanized.
All the top Republican leadership, as well as sensationalism-swilling Fox News -- all -- make excuses for the worst criminality, the worst vulgarity from among them. And the worst, the most cynical, the most criminal, are all the billionaires and all those they've bribed, lobbied, turned into cultists, bloodthirsty zombies, living dead.
Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" comes to mind. But even more cogent is Barbara McQuade's book, "Attack from Within" that addresses the current disinformation campaign against the democratic process here in the U.S. The weapons being used against us are the media outlets: Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Alex Jones and others. It is a new kind of weapon of war. I think that HCR's book, "How the South Won the Civil War" helps to understand the issues, along with the Critical Sociology study, "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" In my view, MAGA is the KKK on steroids with modern weapons of warfare: the communications' systems.
Red ball caps have replaced white hoods. <stolen, shamelessly, from another person that I can't remember>
and those caps are made in China...oh the irony!
Anything death star offers is most certainly made elsewhere. Most of us would be reduced to nakedness or animal skins if we tried to wear clothes made here.
And, the enablers of this right wing media are the mainstream press, who put Biden’s excellent speech in Philadelphia #4 out of 5 articles in the “politics” section of The Morning today!! Why are they doing this and how can we stop this scary and colluding behavior?
Hi Wallis, my thoughts exactly as I read HCRs report on President Biden & Vice President Kamala Harris speaking to the students at Girard College. Did the Mainstream Media ignore Joe and Kamala because they were speaking to a predominantly Black audience? Where were the TV cameras filming so we could watch clips of the speeches on the evening news? Not everyone reads a newspaper but most folks watch TV. Trump has certainly gotten much more on camera exposure than he deserves. Short of cancellation, perhaps a flood of letters to the editor is the most practical and really “putting it out there” route to take!
Thanks for the great questions and suggestions! I am having dinner with a former editor of the Boston Globe and will ask him how to flood these papers/media!!
MAGA gets a lot of help from Russia and China, and even Saudi Arabia. They are pressing hard to make democracies fail.
Richard, Hoffer's book is a favorite in our household. So many true believers throwing a wrench into effort to try to solve some of the huge problems of our times and yes, now armed with modern communication which they often to use to threaten as with swatting for example. One of the things i am seeing with some pages I belong to on Facebook is trolling of things like a spice blog, medieval history, and any number of things that aren't remotely about modern politics. Some people can't help but spread nastiness, seemingly because they can't stand people enjoying a specialized topic or something beautiful. They have to tag it in some way.
Richard, wow, you have this right. I like your metaphor of the KKK on steroids. And, just like when the KKK was in full bloom, our law enforcement entities are not responding appropriately if at all and they are permitted to do pretty much whatever they please no matter who it hurts, claiming falsely it is "free speech." Free speech should never include such blatant lies and attacks on our democracy as Republicans have been permitted to do. People have been hurt by those lies, kids killed in schools and people shot down in shopping centers and other places. And, when Trump has been caught in those lies and bad behavior, our courts give him every possible break to the point that he will probably never be held accountable for anything he and his cronies have done. History rhymes!
I agree with much of what you say. While I detest the MAGA they are not the KKK, who killed thousands and terrorized hundreds of thousands. Nor is the current political turmoil comparable to the Civil War, which killed over 600,000 when the US population was about 30 million.
Lest we forget, it was on his watch that the MAGA leader criticized, minimized & chastised medical & scientific experts, resulting in a million coronavirus deaths in the U.S. alone.
But comparing the virus with the KKK, despite the loss of life, is just not a valid one. And the MAGA are not the KKK. This is not to say, if Trump wins, the remnants of the Klan could not rise up again but we are not there yet.
The marchers at Charlottesville in 2017 were shouting "Jews will not replace us." That's Klan talk. The KKK advocated "White Protestantism now, white Protestantism forever." We now call it Christian nationalism. Same thing. Trump's supporters are primarily white racists. [The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920517740615 At the present time, red MAGA caps have replaced the white cones and sheets.
As to the Civil War, that's another matter though race and slavery were principal issues, used by the wealthy to sucker in poor whites to support them, much like today.
Okay, I give up. The MAGA are exactly like the KKK, since you insist. And Christian Nationalism is exactly the same as White Protestantism, because you threw a quote at it. Could you tell me though, any quotes that showed the KKK feared a Jewish plot to sneak illegal immigrants into the country to replace half-witted whites? I didn’t think so.
And thanks for pointing out that the Civil War was about race and slavery. That was so helpful.
they were chanting "blood & soil" as well, a nazi chant.
I personally think the KKK was worse than MAGA, especially for the thousands murdered and lynched. I would rather compare MAGA to the SA as the more brutal of the Nazi “recruiters,” using far more violence and intimidation than popular persuasion. Hitler wanted a mix of both to get a good enough start before he purged the ones so violent they made more opponents than supporters. The SA was a temporary path to power, whom he could sacrifice once given enough emergency powers (as Trump seems to want to do).
Who will Trump sacrifice to hold on to power, or himself be sacrificed for by those who want the emergency powers to take over?
Besides interest from when I was a toddler military dependent in Germany during the Nuremberg Trials and Berlin Airlift, some brief glimpses of what forms my current views are as follows:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/beer-hall-putsch-munich-putsch
Hitler failed to get the police and military to stand back, so after being jailed, switched to getting appearance of legitimate election.
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/how-did-the-nazi-gain-power/night-of-long-knives/
“…In August 1932 there were approximately 445,000 members of the SA. By June 1934 this had grown to over 3,000,000 members. They were often given a free rein on their activities and were violent and difficult to control.
Hitler feared that the SA and Ernst Röhm, their leader, were a potential threat to his leadership. This fear was intensified by Göring and Himmler, who gave Hitler news of Röhm organising a potential coup .
In addition to this, there was a mutual dislike between the traditional conservative elite – who maintained many key positions in the government and the army during the first years of the Third Reich – and the SA. During the years of the rise of the Nazi Party, the SA had been instrumental in helping the party to gain support.
However, following Hitler being elected chancellor, the SA, and particularly Röhm, were keen to continue the ‘revolution’ and replace the traditional conservative elite with Nazis. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership disagreed with their approach. They understood the need to appear moderate and take over slowly by democratic means where possible, maintaining the stability and illusion of a democracy. The tension between the SA and the Nazi leadership grew.
On 30 June 1934 these tensions came to a head. The leaders of the SA were ordered to attend a meeting at a hotel in Bad Wiesse, Bavaria. Hitler arrived and personally placed Röhm and other high ranking SA leaders under arrest.
Over the next two days, most of the SA leadership were placed under arrest and murdered without trial. Röhm, who was initially pardoned , was then given the choice of suicide or murder. Refusing to take his own life, he was shot on 1 July 1934 by two SS guards.
Whilst the purge focused on the SA, the Nazis also used the event to eliminate other political opponents, such as the former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher…”
It's a bit after the jury verdicts now, Jim.
Let's see if our dear, long-criminal-&-vulgarity-abetting Republicans turn on each other as you so well note the Nazis did to each other in June, 1930.
Fox is the worst. I think they're single-handedly responsible for the misleading rhetoric.
They have conned many people that I know personally.
Same. It’s sad and difficult.
I have a standard reply when I hear a pro-Trump screed, "Are you a fan of Fox News?" Without exception, there is a pause in their rhetoric. Perhaps it's a tiny crack where the light comes in.
I seem to remember many years ago - that John Roberts was an actual newsman! Dont know if hes always been on faux - or maybe that was before the current loss of actual thought. Considering faux, I'm surprised he backed off on his "misinformation"! Obviously, that wont matter - lies indeed to travel faster than truth - especially in current times.
GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY
34 times, Bill.
100% guilty.
Bing, bing, boing, bong.
Polls should not be so evenly divided. Biden should be considerably outfront. So we should ask ourselves what are we doing wrong. It’s our side that is not winning. Maybe just maybe we have fooled ourselves with being incorrect on some issues. When I have dared to express issues on these blogs that run contrary to accepted opinion, I’ve been chastised. And it’s because we have a sense of being right and the other side being wrong. Until we become more reflective and accommodating of issues and inclusive of issues that accommodate the majority, we are going toremain in that pickle jar.
And that’s the truth, Ruth.
That there are issues with some Democratic policies and proposals, no one should question or chastise anyone who does. The problem with polls is that they are designed now to enhance a conflict narrative and don't necessarily have a firm statistical or factual basis. By any reasonable measure, Biden is doing a solid job and the 82 million Americans who voted for him last time are highly likely to do so again when the time for decision comes around.
That's the fact, Jack.
Dave, you are right on, yet I think it even worse in the sense that it's impossible to get a representative poll of any kind with today's corruption of the communications media when you think about snail mail, email, landlines, cell phones and endless Tiktok, Facebook, Youtube, Messenger and X (Twitter) platforms and all the crank and scam calls and posts which arrive via those portals would YOU log into or take the time to answer the often inane questions "the pollers" ask? ...especially with the assumption that someone's algorithm will win you even more of the same calls or posts? Sadly, I fear many even consider the one great poll that matters, the elections to themselves be tainted and don't participate. It seems the best way we can asses what people think is to do everything we can to GET OUT THE VOTE!
Absolutely right John and, like many of us, I don't answer unidentified calls or those my phone IDs as Spam. That's why I'm confident that we'll win as long as we take your closing advice.
John, yes, the polls are problematic. It is hard to know what is a real poll that has meaning or one of the ridiculous fund-raising things that comes through email every single day. I don't answer them anymore, because they are beyond annoying and there is no evidence that they are even counted or contribute to any kind of understanding of our current situation. Democrats need to do better in the kinds of fund-raising they do because it seems cheap and a cheat and a lot of folks will not respond, just like me.
I searched incoming for "donate" and found 439 for last week despite my usual cleaning out an estimated 50 per day (or 350 a week cleaned out plus 439 for a total of 789). I suspect I get over 100 a day, and haven't donated to any recently since my cat and I are both dealing with kidney problems, and Cheddar's (our cat) care has been taking most of our disposable income recently.
There is no way we can compete with the Citizens United enabled spending levels anymore.
The donation seeker pollsters seem not to realize I haven't lived in California since the 2020 election, and am an Independent in favor of open primaries and ranked choice voting at heart (totally disgusted with partisan politicians that can't work with honest agents in any party).
I haven't voted for any member of my old Republican party since I wrote in former FDIC Chair, Sheila Bair, in 2004 (when I could afford not to vote for Kerry/Edwards in California since all 55 Electoral Votes were clearly going to Kerry). If they had split the electoral votes like I wish all states would do if we can't eliminate the EC, I would have voted for Kerry.
It was an opportunity to see if the vote count showed any for her.
We did register as Democrats for the 2016 California Primary and encouraged a lot of new voters, independents, and even Republicans to vote for Bernie without registering as Democrats. They could register as No Party Preference and request a Crossover Ballot to vote for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Presidential Primary.
When I voted at our polling place, though, I heard confused voters (and poll workers), who didn't know to ask for the Crossover Ballot, and confused poll workers who didn't know enough to figure out they needed the crossover ballot. The poll worker I heard offered them a provisional ballot instead, which I think would not be counted if they were not registered as a Democrat, or not counted if the results of counting provisional ballots would not change the results (if too few were received). As it was counted, Bernie got 46.04% of the popular votes, 7.03% less than Hillary, and 46.5% of the delegate count. I don't know how superdelegates affected counts at the convention, but their pronouncements before the primary left a bad impression on us and we didn't really pay attention to the convention fights. We just followed Bernie's lead and voted for no one but Democrats since any seat given up to my old Republican party just risked giving them another corrupt majority (corrupt in my eyes, because they quit voting their conscience, fell too much in lockstep with the worst of my old party, with ultra partisan automatic resistance and sabotage of even programs they would have supported if they got the credit for them).
A major goal for me is overturning Citizens United to help eliminate the huge problems in trying to raise so much money for campaigns. Restoration of an updated Fairness Doctrine is also important. It may not have been perfect but abolishing it with nothing is far worse to me.
I will vote for him and keep putting my signs up no matter how many times they are stolen from my yard...I will replace them! I am going to place several close to my Ring doorbell!
Agree. Well said Dave.
My spidey senses tell me like most, I'm cautious who I share my thoughts with on this topic. It is not like in previous election cycles (pre-Trump) when we could freely exchange political ideology and not be in fear of being swatted. And I don't think I'm alone on this. I think the polls (i.e. NYT/Sienna) are not accurate because people don't want to share who they are going to vote for or the data set is corrupt regardless they should not be trusted.
Hopefully, we will all be pleasantly surprised come November when the non-MAGA Republicans go behind the curtain and vote for Biden. I know there are some of them out there.
These are the preliminaries only. The trial is sort of important and the polls may or may not show a tendency towards Trump slightly.
But right now it’s only the foundation being laid and the gloves are not truly off.
Things will have become unrecognizable by October. Trump’s inverse superlatives for how badly everyone is against him are off the wall already. They will be far, far worse in October unless he’s 10 points ahead (won’t happen).
I am afraid and convinced that trashy, despicable rhetoric will turn to violence as the election draws nearer. They may not even have the election. The situation is clearly existential for Trump and America. People aren’t going to ruin their summers over the situation, especially as there won’t be a second trial.
But in October the blood of your nation will run cold and then hot, as people realize that the country is divided into enemy camps. I cannot forecast the triggering events, but I’d say there’s at least a 1 in 10 chance there won’t be an election at all. There will be too much chaos, too much outrage and I’m afraid too much violence.
I am convinced that there is a group behind Trump who are coming up with plan after plan to rig the election in Trump’s favor. There will be huge money behind it, and sane, rather than instinctively clever, people behind it. It will be death by a thousand cuts - a law here and there, disinformation about polling stations, power cut off, a drumbeat of intimidation that is steady and menacing beyond anything we’ve seen.
Then the courage, resourcefulness and fighting spirit of Democratic will be put to the ultimate test. We are all fighting a good game - now. Now. But when the fire is burning, metaphoric or real, who will hide? Who will drop out of the process and blame it on Biden’s age for not voting.
The media now is basically yawning at Trump. They do not want to lose their audience on the right. They do not want to be attacked physically. They do not wish to be seen as shills for the Democratic Party. And, as has been shown lately, they have bent too far in the other direction.
And, to be fair, I think they do not wish to bring honourable Americans to the boiling point too soon.
Their test will be in September-October. I hold my judgment until then.
For now, the Democratic Party has to put the building blocks in place as Biden and Harris did yesterday in Philly. They have to show a fighting spirit. They have to raise far more money than they now think they will need. They will need much more.
Hang in there. These are the dog days of the second full-blown American crisis. The train is approaching.
(quote)The media now is basically yawning at Trump. . They do not wish to be seen as shills for the Democratic Party.
(/quote)
And yet they have no qualms being seen as should for the Republicans. Can the media really be intimidated that easily? Or are the threats that significant?
We have a party that has adopted the tactics of organized crime and basically taken over the organizations that are supposed to shine light on them. How are we supposed to warn people when they are getting their information from the very people we need to warn them about?
Thanks Maureen. Any poll sponsored by a "news" organization is necessarily suspect because the status quo is boring and doesn't spark 'likes', shares, or subscriptions which is the raison de' etre for the Times and other papers.
I agree that polls are impossibly inaccurate now due to all stated issues. I don't answer my phone and give data to anyone. If God herself called, I would ask her to first wash my feet in person, lol.
And that's the way it is, Mr. Fizz.
Bill, thank you. First good laugh of the am.
That's no swill Bill.
I believe it’s bots. Putin has more than a finger in this. More like a thumb or two.
Dave, I do not credit polls too much. When the Maddow blog was still a thing, Carolina Lady with Fan had worked for the polling entity and she explained to us how it worked. After that, I was even more skeptical. And yes, JohnM is correct, we need to get out the vote.
Dave, when I was a grad student at Harvard back in the 1960's, I lived in Conant Hall. Any family connection?
James B., once president of Harvard, was a distant cousin.
My room in Conant Hall had a fireplace, was large and almost elegant. I loved it. I was a resident there and watched on TV as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969.
The polls that address those who voted in 2016 and 2020, not just registered voters, show Biden ahead. But by only 4 points.
It is useful to remember that Reagan was considered a joke and unelectable, until he wasn't. As was Drumpf. That the lead is only 4 points is a disgraceful ode to the ignorance and casual selfishness of America.
That "ignorance and casual selfishness" came by plan, Jen.
The first object of the Powell memo was to have its new, far-right foundations kill humanities in schools -- and totally enervate all with standardized testing.
Standardized testing focuses on the linear, the binary, the categorical, and the chronological. It puts everyone in thrall to corporate-friendly abstractions, while humanities do (did) the opposite. The actual human is full of nuance, complications, contradictions -- what poet Joseph Brodsky called "loose ends."
After Americans were neutered, blinded, the billionaire classes could proceed as they did -- to offshoring tens of millions of working-class jobs, 2010 Citizens United, and finally the stuffing of the former Supreme Court with knaves to totalitarianism (the packaging of all women, submission to state theocracy).
I need to go back and read it.
Maybe we could persuade Heather to interview you on the subject.
Thanks, Jen.
But she's already got my input here, as well as that from many, many fine, fine others.
Trouble is, too, that when American schools rid, marginalized, killed humanities, they also ended any teaching as to our arts, techniques, apt ways of alluding to, opening context for, and otherwise quoting others.
Hi Bill, if you have been polled lately, how were the questions structured? Understanding stats and questions that deliver stats, its easy to see how polls are biased Recent articles suggest they are created to enhance profit, not reflect opinions of those polled
Also, many folks responding to online or text polling(after they answer all the questions) are then asked to pay for privilege of submitting their responses through campaign contributions. Hard stop “No! Screw you”
You make many of your pleas based on polling data instead of evidence. Polls are not evidence
What our country is doing wrong is to not allow propaganda via the media of any sort. Lies are lies
Bill Katz: Are you joking, we should be more accommodating to a pussy grabbing, corrupt, narcissist who tells us he would be a dictator and destroy our democracy?
No, he's not joking. No, he doesn't want us to be more accommodating to fpotus. He wants the Democrats to back away from wedge issues that he feels are negatively influencing the ability of the Democratic Party to win the election.
Signed, an original chastiser who has ceased engaging
I wonder which wedge issues we're talking about. Treating trans people like people? It seems like Democratic "wedge" issues usually involved respecting the rights of others who aren't like me.
I have old friends, Republicans, and they never fail to mutter about the student loan forgiveness. It doesn't affect them one bit--they went to college in the 80s, didn't put any kids through college (my youngest graduated in 2020 from a state university and we paid the whole thing, no loans). I don't really see that as a "wedge" issue given how many people it affects. Like--what do they want?
I'll let Mr. Katz weigh in on his definitions of wedge issues.
The "border" is considered a wedge issue as is the Israeli treatment of Gaza.
Ally, are you writing postcards (GOTV) instead of direct engaging?
Yes. I do several things globally regarding this election.
My general “direct engaging” is face to face. My comment on this thread regarding “engaging” is choosing (so far) not to comment on Mr. Katz’s comments.
I’m not sure I understand what his motivations are today in repeatedly commenting in a somewhat antagonistic manner.
Oh you have?
Only in a chastising way. I still read your posts, like a few of them, and haven't commented on any recently.
George Baum: No... Are you joking? Here is a quickie from my book published in 2020 and updated recently. Titled, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." Have at it.
Why Are We All Screaming at Each Other?
The answer to this question may lie somewhere in how we elect our political leaders. Most senators and congressmen are owned and paid for and owned by special interests working both sides of the aisle depending on which business or institutional clients they represent. The result is greater partisan divide in Congress which leads to less interest in the health and stability of the nation and more newly created laws that increase profits for their clients at the expense of well, everyone else. And money is the original sin with a few exceptions, those being perhaps environmentalists and save the earth, save the babies, save the whatevers. But mostly, it’s the endless pursuit of more money through new legislation.
Corporations own America and use patriotism as the opiate for the masses to calm our sores and the people, yes, We, the People, be damned. The unmitigated influence of big business (money) is almost unique in developed nations especially in Western Europe. A British journalist now headquartered in New York City recently lamented in a CNN article that our medical system was broken. I responded directly to his comments and he then asked me, “Why don’t you Americans rise up in rage and change things?” I replied that we have long ago been whipped, divided, beaten and conquered. It’s not in the capacity of the defeated to structurally fix anything including real gun control legislation because we’ve been so toughly defeated.
The late Senator John McCain once warned about this growing menace in America and he was able to sponsor and pass the McCain/Feingold bill in 2002 limiting soft money to influence elections. But then the trusty ole conservative majority of the Supreme Court, those guys who purport to support individual rights, until it restricts the super wealthy to gobble up even more wealth, decided that political spending was a form of free speech in Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission in 2010. This created new ways of corrupting the political process. Secret money returned and today, we have a elected to office a most unstable individual. We all have been seduced and induced into a hyper-partisan fight that until now, has limited the fight to the ballot box. However, Trump has tacitly encouraged violence and mass carnage has already resulted.
Donald “Adolph” Trump is simply the manifestation and infestation of government gone wrong because money has become the only decider. No principles. No ideology. No ethics. And now we have a dysfunctional dystopian society in the purported Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Everyday Joe is scared about having a reduced income or any income at all. And what does Everyday Joe do besides augmenting his income with a part time service job at Walmart? As his puppet strings are yanked, he pulls the lever (the wrong one) that opens the trap door on which he stands with a rope around his gullet.
Well Bill, we are both unhappy about our state of affairs, especially about the role of money. We have legalized numerous ways to bribe officials.
Everyday Joe is scared of being replaced by folks who do not look like him. Everyday Joe is scared that his beliefs and religion are not shared by other folks.
The issues are the same as have been obvious and well documented. The motives are to give to the rich, smile and hollow promise to the others , and lie like a rug over and over incessant brainwashing, known and effective. Meanwhile the Dems head and shoulders above in effectiveness and decency continue to erase the damage done and put America , its people, and the world back together from the chaos of Republican folly. It’s written about time and again after each tenancy. That few actually research or read the facts is counted on , smiles and promises, thoughts and prayers, lies ,lost rights their goals empower the seedy control of greed , their MO ad infinitum.
We outnumber them. We those disenfranchised- the poor, the growing numbers of black, brown, Asian, Mexican, indigenous populations , lesser educated, silenced voters. And they’re not finished.
The polls are skewed. The court is skewed. The power is skewed. The facts are skewed.
Yet….there comes the grassroots -winning seats, surpassing donations tallies, getting the power structures accountable, undoing/uncovering/uniting for the underprivileged . The hierarchy is not the labor running the ship. It’s the control room stuffed with liars. The rich seldom know what it takes (except to take- buying their loyalties like spoiled royalty). They’re too busy patting each other on the backs sipping their bourbon, and plotting the next bank job..their names are known now folks…even their covert institutions Heritage, Federalists, Putins, Gestapo, white supremist, the Mega, the MAGA.
It isnt the good guys who start the sh*t, nor the ones with good intent theirs is war ..it’s obsolete and cruel, let’s know that!
Nip it in the bud.
Vote 💙 hold accountability to highest regard.
Polls!! The only poll that matters is the one that counts election votes in November. Polls showing Biden ahead would lull the defenders of democracy to sleep!
Polls be damned, fight for democracy, Cote for Joe!
What's your sense of the particular issues we may need to be more reflective of Bill?
I haven't seen your prior posts, not looking for you to be re-chastised, maybe you could summarize. I ask because I am trying to understand better what the other side needs, wants, and will vote for. Thank you
Oh…ok, I’ll open up that door again. Watch what happens with our trusty community. I’m not a social scientist. I’m not a social psychologist. I just observe and take notes and sometime write about them as in my blog.
The southern border. Ok? It’s written everywhere as the most important issue of the day. And I don’t want to get into being a bleeding heart over the poor folks trying to upgrade themselves. There is a time for that. Now is the time to save the GD country by almost whatever it takes. Biden should have used executive order even if, as his obstinate and dense HS Secretary said, “It wouldn’t hold up in court,” This is the single most issue on the minds of Americans. Don’t you get it? That’s rhetorical and my answer is, “No, you don’t get it.”
Do you want to lose the nation, the constitution,all sanity, over allowing hundreds of thousands rushing over the sands of Arizona and Texas because it’s the right thing to do, letting anyone to violate our laws? Oh really? Now do you understand my frustration with us?
Yes there are other issues. We (the Democratic Party) have accepted or adopted that Jesse Jackson’s version of ‘The Rainbow Coalition.’ But it never worked. It was an ideal that doesn’t work because it excludes a majority of lower income white society. And we are (democrats) so infused with identity politics that we have virtually rhetorically ignored that group. Not in substance but in rhetoric. Many of you will deny this but this is one of our Achilles heals.
Ok, bring it on. I’m waiting. Oh, and btw, enjoy my book if ya dare. lol.
Thanks Bill, I see what you mean - the issues you point to are quite sticky, to say the least. I do think your concept of excluding "lower income society" on many levels may be the key to what I've been trying to understand about trump supporters. Glad you chastise us in your own way, to broaden our thinking by challenging our beliefs. Much to grapple with!
Oh my god. Someone doesn’t disagree, lol. I sense this has already been read to death. But I will go a step further and it just might be in my next blog if I’m feeling fearless because when I do, I’m inevitably called a racist. Democrats talking points always include diversity. As if we need this drilled into our psyche every day. Diversity with one exception; poor white folks who have been left out as I said not in substance but in rhetoric. That is as important as services.
We constantly address the needs of the Black community but there is a sleeping reason there remains dysfunction in the Black communities across the country and it never gets addressed. What is it you may ask? Give up? In a Black research paper published in a Black-owned local weekly, it stated up to 72% of births in the Black community occurs out of wedlock. I’m sorry to awaken anyone, but you can’t have a thriving community when the majority of births occur under these circumstances. I’m older now but I will always remember a conversation between my freshman homeroom teacher and a girl in our class. Both teacher and girl had recently given birth with any partner help. Even in my young mind, I looked at the girl probably of 15 years of age, and wondered how she was going to manage school and motherhood. It can be done I suppose but multiply this by hundreds of thousands and multi-generational and you get dysfunctionalism and all the consequences resulting from it. This must be solved by Black leaders. It’s no place for any white person to be telling a black girl not to have children.
Ok back to work.
How about we question the polling and stop accepting them? I am questioning who is being polled and how the questions are asked.
I think Democrats need to stop asking what are we doing wrong, and say we highly doubt these polls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-tE1pbAzig
Thanks Miselle - I read all of Ken Burn's address earlier & posted it either here or on Joyce Vance's blog. But I hadnt watched this guy's videos before - hes right. I ranted some earlier after reading The Intercept about whats happening to hospitals/medical personnel in Gaza - its WRONG!
BUT of course voting for Biden & Democrats.
At this point in this country - we CAN disagree on issues still. And we do. But somehow, Dems & all their offshoots, need to come together on the main issue of whether we are on the side of democracy (small d) or do we want a dictator named trump & his cult.
I too read Bill. And pay attention, even if I do that is in the back of my mind where a concern gets filed for a future trip around the sun. SCOTUS bias is a serious issue. Spousal obedience can become a distraction, gets too much energy
So many of us have not responded to the polls. We are the quiet ones.....and we are not news worthy!
Frank, dIvided, yes, but one hopes not irreconcilably so. After 250 years of balancing the needs and demands of capitalism against the needs and demands of real democracy, most often portrayed incorrectly by the right as "socialism," it has become painfully clear to a large majority of citizens the need to redress that balance with some common sense application of our constitution and laws. Perhaps that will require some alteration or elimination of the Electoral College.
JohnM. Te electoral college is an anachronism and needs to go. At least the winner takes all must be eliminated. Proportional representation is a step in the right direction.
Not just Alito and Thomas, but all 3 Justices that Trump put on the court are all tied to the Federalist Society.
Behind the these guys are, unfortunately, 74 million voters, all of whom are people the world would be better off without.
"certain powerful people seem to have concluded that they cannot be held accountable to laws or rules."
Certain powerful people seem to live for that. Clearly His Orangeness does. Absolute power corrupting absolutely emerges as one of the most salient themes in every chapter of history; what checks and balances are supposed to be about.
It now appears that many of these radical conservatives are now feeling their oats and flexing their muscles … or have now just taken their hoods off thanks to trump and cult movement!
President Ford’s pardoning and unwillingness to hold his own accountable, embodies the sage advice: “No Justice No Peace”.
I’ve always liked that bumper sticker “No Justice No Peace; Know Justice Know Peace “
It seems to me that true justice is far more nuanced than is approximated by even the wisest applications of law, but I am convinced that the experience and fate of society and of the individuals that comprise it is improved when we strive for justice. Part of that is in that justice is "blind" to status, but not to circumstances, and certainly not to empirical truth.
Unequal justice is a contradiction in terms. If anything, the crimes of the rich and powerful are more severe than the crimes of the desperate, because it is pure greed, pure arrogance, yet the powerful are more likely to escape accountability. $COTUS ruled that it was constitutional to sentence a man who shoplifted videos for his kids to prison for life as a third criminal act. Thomas was particularly vociferous in defining that as perfect justice. Child molester Epstein cut a cozy deal with officials for his first round of crimes. The official who cooked up the deal was later appointed to some high position by Trump. That is not only unjust, but undermines the perceived legitimacy of rule of law, and thus erodes compliance. That is classic corruption and/or tyranny. Even now, Trump is handled with a deference that would never be offered to a person of lesser status, and the message of the precedence flies in face of "equal justice under law", a phase etched into the $COTUS edifice.
America, J L -- just way out of whack.
It's not so much that they "cannot" be held accountable, it's that they demonstrably will not be. The fear of their pigeons coming home to roost is what drives them to enhance their control over the infrastructure of political power.
It is unfortunately true that wealthy and/or powerful white men are immune from being held accountable for their actions. There is nothing we can do about it unfortunately except hope that karma fixes them.
We can have schools, Lisa, where the teachers are in charge.
Not politicians. Not standardized testers. Not any ed bureaucracy admin.
Finland did it. They've had the best schools in the world since.
We can have essay writing programs so students learning English the world over can essay each other's good differences. Learn to see, listen better. Learn to quote aptly. Learn to bring in humanities, from one's own culture, connecting to that of others.
I’m sorry, but is not at all possible in the USA anymore. It would require Separation of Church and State to be put back in place and adhered to by religions, public schools, and by State governments. That is not going to happen.
Education of the masses leads to enlightenment. Enlightened people are not easily influenced by fear and hate, and are harder to manipulate, which is how many religions and governments control the masses. And if you haven’t figured it out, elites and religions have been working together since antiquity on maintaining a social order which benefits them both and keeps them in power.
The poor education in former slave States paid off. They managed to get people to vote against their own best interests and be more reliant on the Church.
Religions get funding through donations and tithes, but in a country where people in some States are generally more secular and less reliant upon religions, they lost some power, wealth, & influence.
Liberal Democracy brought about Public Education, Social Security, Disability Insurance, and Medicare/Medicaid which inadvertently took away the need in some States for people to join religions for their aid programs.
Religion is a big part of the foundation of a society. Foundations must be strong enough to withstand challenges. This is why Conservative groups paint Liberalism and their social safety nets as Socialism and it dangerous. They fear it will rock their foundation (and the patriarchal socioeconomic hierarchy) holding it in place, which it did.
Again, educated/enlightened people aren’t easily manipulated. People who have access to good a public education system, a social safety net, and a strong Democracy which listens to all people and offers more opportunities for control over their destiny, are in direct opposition to Conservative elites and their religious counterparts.
Jeffery Epstein went right under the bus and we all winked and shrugged.
Those two SC wives have a lot of power over their husbands, they sure are liberated, too bad they are MAGAts.
Yeah - they just dont want OTHER women to have that power!
What can ordinary and marginal citizens do? Exchanging criticisms is no use. Pray, for "God is not God of disorder but of peace. (I Corinthians 14:33a)"
Keep asking good questions, Hiro.
Ask friends, acquaintances, and online fellows about further books to read, movies to see.
Read the books, see the movies, and then in further questions cite characters, scenes, and issues in them. Keep trying to be as specific as you can in acknowledging, mentioning, crediting good humanity, further related questions others are asking.
Hiro Tamura is a Japanese name. Might you ground yourself in some especially lovely novels, films, manga, memoirs, and other arts from Japan?
The media has, I’ve observed, much too uncritical of Alito. He claims his wife but up the distress flag, refusing to take it down. He attributes that to her “strong-mindedness” which he “honors”. Obviously the media should ask how refusing your spouse, who is Justice of the SCOTUS shows that she honors him and his role in American jurisprudence.
Frankly, her lack of respect for him and his office I now share.
And pollsters wonder why America seems to respect the Court less…
Sounds like she gets a lot of her "strong-mindedness" from alcohol.
Hearing one of them say "Out, damned spot" seems ever more unlikely to happen.
Right on Phil.
I believe you are referring to the Amendment IV, Section Three. There is no Article IV in the Constitution.
Well said.
And to think tfg isn't the only one. However, they are out numbered. We must not let them win!
To answer the questions you pose: Yes. Yes. Not really brazenly flaunt but reliably rule.
Who owns Alito's house anyway? He might make a case for his wife's independence if we were talking about bumper stickers on her car, but not his. If the house is jointly owned, the flag is theirs, not hers. I he owns the house, the flag is his.
Oh well. We know that Republicans have a problem with the existence of pronouns. Alito apparently is one of them.
"Canon 2: A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities"
Honey, we need to talk.
What if the flag was a hammer and sickle? Would it still be as irrelevant?
Or a nazi flag?
A confederate flag?
Ah. Great American tradition.
Or a Black Lives Matter flag?
The SWAT team is ready.
lol
The flag is only one of many issues re bias. Both Thomas and Alito are tied to Leonard Leo. DOJ still has the capacity to file an emergency motion to recuse. Attach affidavits from potential witnesses re bias. Ask for a hearing.
Meanwhile bring Leo to a grand jury.
It's insane that the Alliance Defending Freedom which is basically just an arm of the Federalist society has been in front of the Supreme Court 12 times and they have never lost a case....
The ownership of Alito's homes is legal hairsplitting that has nothing to do with the issue at hand and focusing on that ownership is distracting and a win for Alito. The standards are the actuality or appearance of impropriety and the actuality or appearance of impartiality. The homes could be owned by a Grand Cayman trust or Joe Biden or any one of us and the issue would still be the same.
I believe the wife owns the house in her name. But ‘blaming her’ for the flag certainly doesn’t speak to adult behavior…..he’s an adult and highly visible, they are married…presumably they share responsibility for what is done in the place they reside in…..
There are two houses. They own the one with the upside-down flag jointly. The house with the Appeal to Heaven is just in Ms. Alito's name. He claimed that he didn't know the meaning of the Appeal to Heaven flag. If that's the case, then he's so ignorant of the events of the insurrection that he definitely needs to recuse himself from the case.
My sentiments exactly. Thank you Betsy, well said. Bummer sticker worthy.
A pox on both their houses!
The larger problem of spousal independence is that if Mrs.Alito can fly a flag associated with Stop the Steal then Ginny Thomas is completely free to help organize a Stop the Steal insurrection storming of Congress. Odd coincidence, isn't it, that two spouses of Supreme Court Justices publicly express their support for a movement to overturn the results of a democratic election yet this is deemed acceptable because... well.... spousal independence.
At what point would the spouses be responsible? What if the QAnon Shaman had sought refuge in the Alito house to hide from police arrest - and Mrs. Alito took him in but didn't inform police. Would that be okay?
If the answer is "No", then at what point does a spousal Supreme Court Justice become responsible for what happens in a jointly-owned house? If the standard is that the Justice must not only be above reproach but must appear to be above reproach, then flying an upside-down American flag for a few days immediately following Jan. 6 is just as damning as hiding the QAnon Shaman would be.
I'm a minister's daughter. I wasn't allowed to ride my bicycle on Sunday because the congregation wouldn't approve. Mrs. Alito should be subject to the same restraints of propriety. Justice Alito should recuse himself from any legal matter that touches on J6 and so should Clarence Thomas. Otherwise they are both corrupt and their judgements are tainted.
And there's not a darn thing anyone can do to stop them.
My bumper stickers:
. Humankind Be Both
. E Art H (Earth)
. It's time to put the Civil back in Civilization
. Create World Peace
I don't understand the Earth one.
tried for a photo post of this one but can't figure out how to do it. they're fairly popular; the word Art is highlighted in a different color in the middle of the word Earth -to bring together the connected meanings of the importance of art as an essential way of celebrating and honoring the planet we live on. Hope this helps.
My own bumper stickers on my 200,000 mile Prius are pretty tame, and I'm proud of them: Tuba Mover, EV Wanabee.
I don't think I will get in trouble, but you never know. I could be the victim or road rage. If I add another sticker that says "respect my pronouns" I probably will be.
I live in an area where I consider posting my “Biden Harris” sticker on my car an act of bravery. Been two weeks and nothing’s happened. Yet. Voteblue.
I applaud your action! I’ll follow suit. I have a “Protect Our Democracy” magnet, but will add a “Biden Harris” one.
My F150, which we bought for camping 13 years ago, has a bumper sticker that reads Sometimes a truck is just a truck
I make it a point to have nothing on my vehicle but my license plate and stickers required by the homeowners association. I do not want to divulge personal information on my vehicle.
I get it, Jenn. In Indiana you are putting your life in danger, I fear, for having a Biden Harris reference on your car. It's what prevents me (so far) from doing so. Pick ups here have gun racks and "Don't Tread on Me" stickers.
Alito is hiding, Leonard, pretty simple.
It's called displacement. If you're mad at the boss you kick the dog. If you're mad at your wife you apparently kick all women.
Apparently, the vacation home is in her name because it was purchased with her inherited money.
The truth is that we do have reason to fear these criminals in suits and the MAGA cult members they control. Swatting an elder woman is tame compared to what they are capable of if given power.
And they are certainly capable of stealing power.
The Biden campaign is doing well to focus on the swing states. The electoral college will be the delivery system for the theft if it succeeds.
Even if we win these fascists can and will still inflict damage on the public on their way to the dustbin of history. But anywhere near the damage if they “win”.
Remember, the money of the billionaires counterbalances the fact that most Americans don’t want a dictatorship. We have a great deal of work to do in the next 5 months. Let’s make the billionaires irrelevant.
They say they want a Christian theocracy, but the Bible calls the love of money "the root of all evil". I smell a rat.
The Bible has lots of purloined mythology, bullshit and lies, as well as some good stuff that can be found elsewhere.
I think it needs to exist primarily in libraries, for historical reference.
Sadly billionaires et al underwrite both parties, Annabel. Often, little more than half the electorate turn out to vote let alone pay attention, let's hope every effort is made to increase that by a lot.
Historically, yes, about half don't vote. But we live in ahistoric times.
Though 2024 will show record turnout (on Both teams,) turnout favors the Democrats in US elections.
Agree. But our side try’s to be everything to everyone otherwise known as pandering. Instead of discovering the route causes of problems and seeking real solutions. I’m reminded of Jesse Jackson’s old Rainbow Coalition.’ It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work today. And one think we have lost is the messaging to white working class. We for all intent, lost them. And we shouldn’t have because democratic initiatives serve the less economically advantaged much more than MAGA does. Yet why do they fall for the lies? Because they feel that they have been left out. Read my words carefully before dismissing them. They “feel” they have been left out.
They have left out, by private business and corrupt courts. Informing them who is responsible requires an information system that reaches them. That system is monopolized by private media moguls who falsely tell them otherwise. Root causes all lead to the conclusion. The elimination of the Fairness Doctrine
I posted recently that most of my neighbors and friends who live on the gulf coast of MS and LA voted and will vote for Trump not because they “like” him but because Democrats and liberals “think they know it all” and they are “better” than they are. And they don’t like being told they are dumb and stupid because they live where they live. I got a lot of pushback with that post - basically that they are dumb and stupid. The arrogance amongst Democrats, liberals, progressives is mind blowing at times.
Yesterday Biden made the announcement if re-elected he would nominate “progressive” judges (not sure but I think to SCOTUS) That made me angry and it is typical Biden being short sighted again like promising a black woman as VP and a black woman to SCOTUS - admirable and at least the SCOTUS nominee turned out ok but why put yourself in a box. Why pander? And that is what it is.
I just bought 500 postcard stamps. Gonna mail to Democrats.
Plans to steal power have been in the works more so than winning votes. Texas and FL are lost with the state governments actions.
So true Jeri. I would probably add Louisiana to that list.
I will vote and donate what I can, but have no illusions, Tx, Fl and La are not alone
As President Biden pointed out the Republican Party Modus Operandi to victory is HARP (Hate, Anger, Resentment & Propaganda). Ok, he didn't say propaganda.
Stop Republican HARPing!!!
Swatting Mrs Fanone should be an exhibit to Jack Smith’s motion to change tfg’s bond conditions in the stolen docs case. OTOH it probably wouldn’t matter to Loose Cannon, who is all in for tfg anyway.
“Loose Cannon”… 🤣🤣
Hope “Loose” is thrown off the case with all of our letters of Judicial Misconduct that we sent to the Eleventh District Court. 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
Indeed!
Thankfully, after posting this multiple days in a row, nobody here has yelled at me.
www.dumpalito.com
Don’t know why anyone one except a troll would.
I'm not sure what the previous iteration of the Tea Party was, but this MAGgot movement is the successor.
I'm not optimistic that the next iteration won't be worse. If Drumpf wins, it will be American Nazis.
I don’t think our country has been this divided since the Civil War. Narratives have become the subjective interpretation of facts which in many cases are already misinterpreted. The hope after 2020 for me that we would have a period of reduced trauma. Thank you GOP for preventing that from happening. I still pine for the days of Nixon which besides his issues and of course the Vietnam war was not even remotely as traumatic as we are experiencing today. Thanks Heather. We owe you our deepest respect!
I am reading Ruth Ben-Ghiat's book Strongmen: Why They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fail right now, and there are patterns of fascistic takeovers, and this one of Trump's along with his useful idiot right-wing backers, is pretty much following the steps. They have to create a certain kind of narrative of being in danger, of being suppressed, of being the savior, to get people to accept their brutalist tactics as necessary. Biden is not necessarily having a strong counter narrative because the truth does not stand out when you are promised that all your problems will go away by a Strongman. He gives you a common enemy you can blame everything on and when he banishes them in his superhero way, everything will be fine. Of course, you might end up being the problem. That is something that people who have accepted othering others, do not like when it is done to them. And it can be, quite easily. Anyone who lived in the former Soviet Union or in Cuba, or in other countries where there is a strong populist right wing or left wing leader, and people who say anything against the regime are disappeared, should be wary. Unfortunately they lived through it and still don't recognize it, or don't care. Either way, we need to get everyone voting that still cares.
Sadly, Linda, there's history to the U.S. "narrative of being in danger, of being suppressed."
The fat orange con man, along with his congressional hypocrite pious and white trash goons, push this narrative thanks to the history of how U.S. schools all got dehumanized. (Sorry for passive voice.)
The tens of millions of American former working class had full right to feel abandoned after U.S. finance and corporate elites offshored their jobs. But the far-right foundations (many, but chiefly ALEC, the Hoover Institution, and the Heritage Foundation) through the 1970s preceded those predations by marginalizing humanities in higher ed, removing them from K-12, and enervating the rest of K-12 by tyrannies of standardized testing.
Our tens of millions of former working-class abandoned saw no one in the media, no one in public life acknowledging the damages done to them -- because our educated elites no longer had any public access to the novels, memoirs, film, music, and history that in fact did see and did account for the mass damages.
Everything else you say, Linda: true, true, true. But the bitterness got planted deeply (excuse, please, again the passive voice). And now grubbers such as Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito operate by an entirely alternative set of "ethics" as designed by the biz schools, the standardized testers, and washes of dark money all allied with the world's worst.
Hope voting still matters.
Jeri, one of the tactics of the group is to convince the voters that voting does not matter and that all politicians are out for themselves. Putin’s goal is to bring down democracy in the US so that the Russian people no longer have anything to aspire to.
Mary Anne Applebaum, in the June Atlantic, has a chilling article on how the Russians and Chinese have piggybacked on Trump’s MAGATISM to highlight the weaknesses of American ‘democracy’ and the advantages of authoritarian government.
I am reminded of Trump’s bromance with Putin. I find this a frightening threat to the soul of America.
Trump is a traitor, period. He sells out the country for money.
W was impressed too, but must have had a sane advisor or two. Of course, he did maximum damage while he could
Putin has ruled the fools for a long time.
oh it does, it's a matter of dredging up the marginal voters who maybe yes maybe no, just more of them than MAGA gets out
Can't imagine marginal these days, but you are right...
As Jeri below says that it is "hard to marginal these days" I can see that those of us who are involved enough to read the comments to LFAA are involved, but I have several friends/family who absolutely do not listen to or pay any attention to politics. Not that they purposely tune it out, but similar to the attention I'd pay to any golf tournament playing on a tv screen in a restaurant. I try to bring up issues enough to keep them informed without having them tune ME out.
This is why letters to unlikely voters is crucial.
www.votefwd.org
Linda- read the blueprint - Lewis Powell Memo.
Sadly, Americans, unlike the Germans and Italians, have history from which to learn, but are ignoring it. We even have the history documented in Prequel by Rachel Maddow.
I feel that many Germans and Italians are repeating their mistakes. Putin and perhaps others are targeting the EU with a disinformation campaign that has helped the parties most friendly to his agenda right before the EU elections on June 9. There are a lot of marches planned against fascism leading up to this event. Let us hope they have the desired effects. Tiktok is being used by the Right-wing revival of the Nazi party called AfD, and a lot of youth are joining this program. This is not the generation of WWII make sacrifices, but of the we do not see our future prospects as good, and we want want our parents have right away, not when we are older.
Rickey, I have the book but haven't started it yet. Time to take it off the pile.
Well said!
You did live through the year 1968 - the year of the grate national nervous breakdown - yes? 2024 is almost up to my experience of being politically active in 1968. Nixon managed to commit treason when he sabotaged the peace talks, plunging us into 4 more years in which he and the war criminal Henry Kissinger were finally forced by their failures to accept in December 1972 the same exact peace proposal that Johnson had negotiated in 1968. Rather than being on the side of democracy as it is now, the FBI was running a war against antiwar activists through COINTELPRO (of which I was one of those caught up in that, with FBI agents writing phony letters to my parents and the parents of my future wife telling them we were selling drugs to the GIs at Ft. Hood). That's just skimming the war against the war then.
RFK and MLK are assassinated, cities torched, riots leading to 'white flight' to suburbs that lasts 40 years, police beat protestors in Chicago at Dem Convention...so far today's events are frightening as to what could happen but not yet occured.
Let us add that in Euronews I am reading about acts of sabotage that seem attributable to Russia, like torching shopping centers in England and Poland, and plotting attacks on military bases in NATO countries. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/05/28/nato-has-upped-vigilance-amid-suspected-russian-sabotage-operations-stoltenberg
The USA needs to be vigilant too. We are getting it from all sides, and it is known that Russia and China are working with the Republican party to spread disinformation, and yes, to encourage people to stay home. Need to keep on being vigilant, because that is easier than living in the fascist hell that Trump and his useful idiot right-wing backers have planned.
Seams are bursting. Hold firm
Our Republic has always tolerated fascism and subsequent denials of fascism. In my alcoholic ambivalence I was no innocent bystander. Thanks always for your wake up calls. Write on.
Fascist hiding behind the 1st A. Right with no responsibility.
I was 13 in 1968, and remember it all too well. (I was a little precocious, politically speaking, back then). Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks was not known in real time. MLK's assassination, and the destruction and violence of the riots afterwards were a truly frightening event that was major news for weeks. But after RFK was assassinated, and the much less viable candidate Hubert Humphrey was nominated at the Chicago convention marred by the riots outside, Nixon played the "law and order" card ever-so-skillfully. What should have been a landslide for the Democrats turned into one of the closest elections in our history to that point. Nixon won, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I was 15 at the time and I felt even at the young age that my fellow hippies, yippies Black Panthers were at the wrong convention they should have been in Miami. But our side had the war to contend with. It was the post WWII mentality of curtailing communism. We went to war for nothing. Fact is, we’ve been going to war for nothing all of my life. I do consider america to be the most dangerous nation on earth. Look how we never forced the Israelis (and I mean forced) into a real honest to goodness two state solution but Jewish lobby money ended that idea for 70 years. Then we allowed the Ukraine war to commence. And yes we did. If you want that history,I’ll oblige. Now we are on the verge of Deja vu all over again in Chicago and beyond. I might be there if I can acquire a booth.
I have often thought about an alternative universe in which RFK was not assassinated, was elected President, and the Vietnam War ended much sooner. Among other outcomes, Nixon would be a twice-beaten Republican presidential candidate. No Watergate, maybe no Reagan “revolution,” and on and on. But of course that is not our current reality. I don’t agree with you that the United States is the most dangerous nation, but certainly the most powerful, and obviously with the biggest military of all time. I take a longer view that we are currently the dominant empire, but history tells us that no empire lasts forever. If somehow Trump gets in again, I believe our decline will be much faster.
In 1968, I was a supporter in spirit anyway, of Eugene McCarthy. I considered RFK to be a spoiler. In some ways, we have made hero because he was assassinated the same as his brother. RFK’s message was positive just I felt he only got in the race late when he saw McCarthy making progress. There re specific time points when great shifts occur. W Bush should never have been president. He destroyed so much but his legacy are the Supreme Court nominees. Ralph Nader changed history forever. Same with Clinton losing. She was too smart for her little britches. Thought she could conduct business on her personal cell device. What a jerk. Now with a pending Trump redo, and if he gets in, I have two decisions one is to leave and return to Europe.
You make some excellent points even if I don't agree with all of them. I'm sure we could have a lively conversation about the political history of the last few decades. We certainly agree about Trump!
Were you by any chance at the huge anti war March in Washington October of 1967? I was there at the tender age of 14.
No, I grew up in Oregon. All those protests, and still the war lasted even after Nixon resigned. So sad.
The speeches were something to watch, especially Vice President Harris.
Here are some vids of the Philadelphia whistle-stop.
1st, the whole thing (42 minutes): https://www.c-span.org/video/?535994-1/president-biden-vice-president-harris-campaign-philadelphia
2nd, Vice President Harris (10 minutes): https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5119140/user-clip-vice-president-harris-rallies-crowd
3rd, a clip of President Biden's speech 24 minute speech (< 3 minutes): https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5119056/biden-trump-snapped-2020-election-loss
I included Vice President Harris's entire speech because many of us do not get a chance to listen to her. Personally, I like her and she is a fighter. What I had forgotten is the Vice President's enthusiasm.
To have run the California DOJ is truly an impressive accomplishment. The work load of the CDOJ is second only to the US DOJ. She would have made an excellent Attorney General as well as a crackerjack VP.
Great point, Gary. Nice testing ground for national administration. Had not occurred to me. I appreciate the insight.
Thank You, Ned!
You are quite welcome, MaryPat. Any 'politeness' on my part merely assures that I listen to the speeches! 😉
I watched the video, and I also watched clips of Biden walking to the podium. Stated bluntly, he walks like an old man. His speech was great, but his delivery was terrible. Not that Biden has ever been known as a great orator, but he has clearly declined even since 2020. In this media age, it is all about optics. I am one of those Biden supporters that greatly fear he will lose because of voters that see him as too old and infirm to serve another term, and fear a black woman finishing out his term. Of course much could and will happen before November, and I will vigorously support Biden/Harris, but I am apprehensive about the outcome of the Biden-Trump rematch.
You and I share the same concerns as do many others. Trump's relatively lucid delivery -- if still shrill -- at the Libertarian convention, amid cheers and jeers, adds to that concern. Trump is more limber than President Biden, though stiff joints need not indicate too great a cognitive decline by the President.
Bobby Kennedy, Jr may save the day by siphoning off more 'Reagan Democrats' from Trump than nervous supporters of President Biden. At the Libertarian convention, he attacked Trump directly, showing why disillusioned working voters act against their self-interests by supporting Trump over him.
Though an erstwhile Republican, I still believe that President Biden is the hands-down better choice; I would welcome a President Harris. The country faces big problems and the G.O.P. is more like the goof-off party. So far, the new liberal coalition is holding. We have a lot of work and praying to do.
Same old news; new great news. 🥳
https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0 🙏
We all know Trump is an a-hole. 🤭
Hopefully, he is now in an A.P.-hole. 💡
I never voted for Trump. From the get-go I viewed him long on appearances and short on substance, a pretender and a fraud. Trump too has declined noticeably since 2016. Trump’s interview with Time Magazine was shocking to me in terms of how little Trump actually understands about policy and economics. But how many voters actually read it? Maybe he’ll actually show up to debate Biden and be exposed. But Trump is always the showman, and the Murdoch Evil Empire is stacking the deck in his favor. Yes, Biden is old, but he is also sane, he understands the issues. Given the narrow majorities in Congress, he has achieved some amazing things. (Not that you hear much about that on cable news; even MSNBC spends way too much time in my view talking about Trump). But still I worry.
President Biden's faculties have contracted as have mine--at sixty-seven in my case. He reminds of the 'over-the-mound' pitchers of the 1970s. Their fast-balls were no longer fast enough, but their change-ups and wisdom on the mound not only carried the day, but also made them as or more effective. All this to say: President Biden may not be a whiz-kid in trivial pursuits but he is surrounded by good people, starting with his second-in-command, and, more importantly, he listens to them.
After today's welcome news, I feel a lot better about Biden's chances.
Same old news; new great news. 🥳
https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0 💡
We all know Trump is an a-hole. 🤭
Hopefully, he is now in an A.P.-hole. 🙏
With respect, I don’t think anyone should be pining for the days of Dick Nixon. He almost tore our country apart. His actions and deceit unnecessarily resulted in the death of tens of thousands of young Americans in a land even today most American could not find on a map. He subverted his constitutional responsibilities, trying to steal a presidential election in ways different than Trump for sure. But steal nonetheless. Those days were hellish for a whole generation. And the lies that that federal government manufactured about the war remain unmatched. Those lies and distortions affect us to this day.
To be fair Michael, most Americans couldn't find Canada on a map.
The population of Vietnam is among the youngest in the world. Their economy is thriving and they are among the top trading partners of the US.
Unfortunately, they have to live with the dangers left from the War like unexploded ordinance and even some mines.
But I agree with you that "those lies and distortions affect us (and millions of others around the world) to this day.
Gary, you raise a fascinating observation that not only are the economies of our former enemies Germany, Japan, S Korea & Viet Nam humming along with tremendous vibrancy but they have become some of our closest and most reliable allies. How does THAT happen in the history of the world and with what other "conquering" countries?
Interesting observation John. Marshall had the right idea?
I agree that the threat we are facing today is the gravest since the Civil War. And I still fear that the nation will be in a state of crumbling democracy - even if we win in November. Too many states are being led by MAGA whackos. There will be safe states that honor human rights for all - like voting. But there will still be states who operate as if the Civil War never happened.
And it will take some heavy lifting over many years to repair the damage of this Extreme Court.
But for those of us who matured during the Vietnam War, it felt just as bad then, just as threatening. More so if one was eligible for the draft. Patriotism was being questioned - claimed by both sides. Friends were dying for a political myth. The generational split was the greatest in our history. And it was still dangerous for people of color to simply drive through some states. It was dangerous to drive through those states if you were a guy with long hair!
I guess you are right that this era is worse than the "Nixon" era. But I don't pine for it. It was horrible. It was a war between peace lovers, equal rights lovers, women's rights lovers and the entire "establishment". It felt terrifying.
But we got through it. And I believe we will get through this as well. Progress is never going to be a straight line forward. We'll win some, lose some. Let's just hope we can keep it going in the right direction. Vote Blue.
Last nights PBS NewsHour had another of Judy Woodruff's "America at a Crossroads" segments. The whole show was important. But jump to the 37 minute mark to begin her exploration of how Alaska may have found an answer to the extremism that has infected our election process. Using Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting we can elect less crazies and more people ready to work together.
https://youtu.be/MoFtdW0oZ54
That was a great feature on PBS last night about Alaska and RCV! It is the future, if the country has a future.
There is a strong movement to repeal RCV in Alaska. By GOP.
Yes, and 7 or 8 more states are trying to get it passed.
We almost passed it here in MA. At the last minute Charlie Baker, the governor at the time, tanked it. We worked so hard on that. Bummer.
There were so many ruined lives and senseless deaths in Vietnam due to political gaming. I just read an interesting take on that: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/351638/the-obscure-federal-intelligence-bureau-that-got-vietnam-iraq-and-ukraine-right?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
Of course we cannot go back in history, and in many ways, I would not want to, but we can certainly learn from history. Why would we not? (a rhetorical question). Certainly we let a hell of a lot of corruption slip by us. Nixon's misdeeds were substantial, but yes, pale in comparison to the whole frigging "GOP" of today.
Too many Republicans think the GOP is still the Party of Lincoln. It hasn't been since the Southern Democrats switched parties in the 1960's. But now it is totally and completely "the party of Trump" peddling Hate, Anger, Resentment and Propaganda.
With reference to militants attacking the Capitol. Gen. Milley said "These are the same people we fought in World War II,”
They are also the same people we fought in the Civil War. Lincoln would not be amused.
My take on the INR with roots in the OSS was that they used a lot of people with broader views that could work with allies that had somewhat different views on how well we could accomplish mutual goals even with socialists (for example Ho Chi Minh) and that they released a lot whom they feared might go native (siding too much with those they were working with). Though there was indeed risks of that sort, I believe they went too far with purity tests, eliminating many who could have filled a middle ground in keeping the door open to feedback on what the general populations would support towards what we believed in as mutually supportive or at least tolerant populations less likely to want to fight wars with each other.
I look at Yugoslavia as one example of where there was mutual tolerance and benefits. To me, in Vietnam we were seen as outsiders and could have had better relations if not forced into supporting the French reassertion of colonial power. Though we got off to a rough start (and shouldn't have continued if we kept making it worse for all the Vietnamese we were supposedly fighting for), we did earn many friends among them by the time we left. I trusted so many of them as I traveled solo for 9 of the 12 months I served throughout most of South Vietnam and Thailand mostly in 1968 with up to 3 stops a day and something like 60,000 miles riding anything but animals (jeeps, busses, trucks, helicopters, transport/cargo/courier aircraft).
My early favorite book was Bing West's "The Village" (some of the best we did in Vietnam), and his earlier "Small Unit Action In Vietnam Summer 1966" (some of the wrong counterproductive tactics earlier). I always favor being close enough to see why your enemies want to fight you, and have some chance to persuade them they shouldn't have to. To see a bit about why they might not need to, see https://www.scribd.com/document/47572320/I-Remember-Honda-Rice-Rice-Today-feature
Tom Hargrove was Army Intel pretending to be a USAID Agricultural Agent (while an actual agricultural expert). The name came from the IR8 Rice variety that he brought to an area in the Delta a little north of the southernmost extent of my travels. It was so much better that they could make enough profit in a year to buy a Honda motorbike. He didn't realize the family he lived with was headed by a local VC leader who became a good friend, only finding out decades later when he returned to visit the family. He asked why they hadn't killed him back then, but was told he had brought them what they really needed. To me they just wanted to live in peace and raise their families like anyone else should be able to do.
He was later captured by FARC narco-guerillas in Columbia in 1994 as portrayed in the movie "Proof of Life." I was able to find a Professor who had also worked in Columbia and earned the trust of farmers that just wanted to grow regular food crops.
Christopher, they were burning down whole neighbourhoods in the late 60s, and it didn't stop then - think Watts. The anti-establishment / anti-war movement was incendiary, remember Kent State? Assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, a slew of civil rights workers.
I remember those Frank.
Love hearing the news from you about President Biden and VP Harris, Professor.
Anyone here who wants to "take up oxygen" - as the professor always says - you can file a complaint to the 11th Circuit about Alito and Cannon here:
https://www.dumpalito.com/
In the meantime, Jamie Raskin's opinion piece in the NYT gives us some hope (gifted):
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/opinion/alito-thomas-recuse-trump-jan-6.html?unlocked_article_code=1.v00.LCQf.H5AScKsXU1eZ&smid=url-share
Lynell, thanks so much for your words and the links!
Lynell, ...and YES thanks especially for the links you provide which enrich your comments immeasurably!
Thanks, John. Just so you know, one of my favorite tunes is "I Love New York!"
As I thank you, Mary, for your words that are always well said😉
Thank you, Lynell.
Thank you for sharing the article, Lynell.
The baseball analogy sums it up: “professional baseball would never allow an umpire to continue to officiate the World Series after learning that the pennant of one of the two teams competing was flying in the front yard of the umpire’s home.”
I love it whenever someone puts it in words this ordinary American can understand. Thanks, Mark!
Thank you!!
Thanks for the link Lynell. When one party has a 6-3 SCOTUS advantage it appears that nothing can be done to prevent the majority from forcing their evangelical and political decisions on US. Jamie Raskin shows us exactly how to get around that.
Fantastic article! Thank you.
Thanks for reading, Margaret!
Lynell— just got finished reading Rep. Jamie Raskin’s opinion in NYT.
“The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.”
It gives me hope that this important issue of recusal won’t be swept under the rug.
Yes, G.P. Robert Hubbell says the same, that this issue should not be relegated to yesterday's news.
Morning, Lynell! Thanks for the read!
We're filling out our Alito/Cannon complaints today.
Look at it this way, Ally: we can always ask for adjoining jail cells if it comes to that...morning!
Great thought!!!
Did it
Of course you did, ML...and thanks!
Thank you. The dumpalito is very easy to use, and I appreciate the Raskin link.
You're welcome, Kathy!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lynell!
I have been posting daily, as sometimes insomnia keeps me from getting to the letters early enough to get the attention of all those who read the comments.
I am hoping that we are flooding the post office with our complaints!
Today, I am also sharing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-tE1pbAzig
Many thanks to you as well, Miselle!
Here's what Jessica Craven's said on her post from yesterday: "YOU GUYS. The Dump Alito website has been such a hit—with thousands and thousands of you clicking on the link to submit a formal request against him—that its creator Alden (whom I mistakenly called Aiden in a previous post—sorry!) has doubled down and added a way to lodge a formal complaint against Aileen Cannon, too!" So, I think we ARE flooding the post office!
Love this video of Tennessee Brando, Miselle. His followers should take heed of his message, succinct and to the point.
Thank you Professor Richardson.
Honesty, decency, and respect.
Those precious elements will not be found within a GOP/MAGA cult now writing "Finish them" on bombs, embracing Nazi rhetoric, and using hate, lies, propaganda, and disinformation to erode and attempt to destroy democracy, justice, and equality.
Voters must decide between those two visions for this and future generations.
Honesty, decency, and respect. Or "Finish them".
It seems clear to me.
Sad thing is chump calls any opposition Nazis. An old Goebbels trick. Call them what you are. Ignorance is fine with that.
Indeed Jeri. And generally uses Nazi-based language to do it. Liberals are "vermin". Journalists are "enemies of the people."
Some seem to have long-term memory problems. Others know just where to go to parallel the past.
I agree with you George!!👍!!!
Thank you Lynette! -Always very grateful for your encouragement and support!
You can play by the rules or you can cheat. Nixon cheated, and in the end, rule of law was cheated as well. The GOP picked that up and ran with it.
Thank you J.L.
And one glance at voter suppression and gerrymandering districts: they vastly improved upon it.
Nixon's corruption had not yet spread to the whole "GOP" in the days of Watergate. if only because the public was not yet inured to it, and I think some party member still retained some "decency". Even Nixon, though a criminal, did not seems as totally sociopathic as today's "GOP", as prepared to fully embrace fascism. I don't think I would call it "improved', but yes, honed their abject perfidy.
Nothing that Trump says or does shocks us anymore or have his words or conduct done so since memory allows. He lies when he has to. He lies when he does not need to. He lies simply to practice. What remains surprising, perhaps, is how some of our best educated Senators misrepresent and distort as well. Mike Lee, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz all are Trump sycophants. They tow Trump’s line despite knowing that Trump is malevolent. Trump even campaigned against Cruz, arguing that Cruz’s father was involved in Kennedy’s assassination. History will not be kind to them. Keep fighting Joe. Our job is to help him in every way we can
These sycophants are way worse than the most ignorant MAGAt. They know better but their souls left their bodies when the smell of power was whiffed.
I am gobsmacked by the sheer arrogance.
Gobsmacked is my normal state.
With that guy saying Trump should run to Florida where Governor Dumbass promised not to extradite him, when he is found guilty the prosecutors should declare him a flight risk who should be held in custody pending appeal.
Yeah Newsmax assclown suggesting Trump jump bond raises a few issues for Trump and perhaps assclown. But if he jumped and tried to hide out in Florida, Jack Smith could move for his arrest and extradition to NYC for violation of his federal conditions of release. Running would also be and look very cowardly...ok he is a coward...but still suspect he does not jump. I think Trump expects to be convicted and receive probation and then plans to walk out and tell everyone to kiss his orange fat felon butt.
Or appeal??
Appeal will take over a year after sentencing.
Certainly whatever he might promise the court would be meaningless. He has amply demonstrated his word is worthless.
The fact that Alito blames his wife comes as no surprise
Any misstep for MAGAs is always blamed on somebody else. Even your spouse will do.
She is likely of the same stripe. How could she be otherwise.
Jeri, I was surprised that the divorce of Kellyanne and George Conway took so long. He appears rational in his interviews.
The children may have been a factor. I read that a daughter wanted to divorce her mother. I think that was when she was in WH
It would appear that she is all in, a partner in crime.
Actually, it does to me a little--doesn't MAGA think that the lil'' wifey should do whatever the King of the Manor decrees??
MAGA exists in its own hypocrisy free world
Clinton was quite right. Actually, she was being kind when using "Deplorables" to describe half of Trump’s followers. The SWAT-ing of Fanone's mother is a prime example. I also wonder why that local police department fell for it. This rot has permeated the fabric of our society.
Evil is proud these days.
Jerry, the way local PD "falls for it" is the risk that exists if a credible threat is ignored. IF local LE knew that the subject of the call was a particular person (in this case, an elderly woman who is the mother of a "controversial" person), I would hope that there was at least some intelligence gathering going on.
Alito shows us everyday what kind of person he is and that is of a arrogant elitist. Apparently his wife is one too and had gotten into several confrontations with neighbors over the years. Even people in their neighborhoods can’t stand them! His response to Senators Durbin and Whitehouse was nothing but a big “FU”. It is way past time to reel these guys in. Raskin proposed to have the remaining justices (7) make the decision as to whether or not recusal against both Alito and Thomas. That would put the other Injustices on the spot which is a good thing.
So Heather, Joyce Vance posted something on X that I thought was wonderful, about was Alito said years ago about flags. Here’s the interesting tweet: https://x.com/joycewhitevance/status/1796015025615761761?s=46&t=0fqgIfW4gkZe58SfYjTotQ
But even that would only get us to 4-3. Liberals in the US are screwed because we refuse to be as ruthless as conservatives, planning and plotting behind the scenes.
We could at least stop treating them as worthy adversaries
I'm curious as to what you mean by that. Ignore them as adversaries and they will roll over you.
Alito's position on the flags and his refusal to recuse himself on anything J6 related is the perfect reason to expand the Court to 13 seats, to better match the number of District Courts. This is something that Congress can do and did do, last in 1869. It is within Congress' purview to set the number of seats on the Court. There's nothing magical about nine.
Agreed: 12 Justices with direct supervision of the 12 US District Courts, and a Chief Justice.
NOTE: I was unsure whether there were 12 or 13, so I spent about 10 minutes researching. There are 12 Circuit Courts covering different regions of the country, where matters under appeal from those district courts are heard. The 13th is the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has very specific jobs such as patent appeals.
NYTimes May 29th article whereby Justice Alito claims his wife (among other things) "has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit" and "my wife is an independently minded private citizen. She makes her own decisions, and I honor her right to do so.” . . . . .
The perfect response/observation by a reader: "Ironic Justice Alito controls the lives of every woman in America except the one he’s married to". 6,000 others agreed!
Janet, that was my thought too. Interesting how words distort actions.
This case has become huge since the other cases will probably not be tried before the election. If he is found not guilty, it will clear the way for him all the way to the election. He will run on being vindicated. If he is found guilty, it will hamstring him. He will have to campaign as a convicted felon. These twelve jurors may decide the election.
Eugene V. Debs ran for President in 1920 while in jail for sedition (I think it was). So being a convicted felon is no bar to running for office.
After all, the Constitution only lists 3 requirements for the Presidency:
1. Be at least 35 years of age
2. Be a natural-born citizen of the US
3. Have resided in the US for at least 14 years.
There used to be some argle-bargle in the 14th Amendment about not engaging in insurrection against the US, but SCOTUS pretty much did away with that one.
My hope is that WHEN he is convicted, the 24% of GOP voters who said they would NOT vote for him if he was convicted will be true.
I'd question how anyone could work from jail, but how much "work" did he do before?
Marla, that is the second use ever that I've seen of one of my good music buddy's term "argle-bargle". Are you Norwegian as well?
Respectfully disagree, Paul. Being found guilty on any of the charges in this case will only strengthen him politically. He will “advance” from being a mere victim of a rigged justice system to being a martyr. I don’t understand the dynamics of his political support, but there you are. A related point, this trial will not be over until the last appeal is resolved.
By the way, I recommend Bill Kristol’s May 15 interview with Robert Kagan on anti-liberalism in the US, https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/conversation/robert-kagan-on-american-anti-liberalism-from-the-1920s-to-the-2020s/.
Unfortunately, too many Americans view themselves as helpless victims and losers…the same traits that Trump feigns for himself. They really don’t see American as “the home of the brave”.
To those who won't vote (because of Biden's handling of Israel...
Biden is threading a needle and if one thinks not voting for Biden-Harris is the wisest choice they haven't a clue as to the existential danger Trump poses, both to the U.S and the world.
That very fact makes me wonder about their motives, not to mention any common sense.
I think it's the lack of common sense that I'm seeing in the comments section here, in the sense that emotion is surpassing* reason. At least a couple of them seem sincere in their beliefs with no sinister motives.
*used in lieu of a bridge term that I refuse to use any longer. Sigh.
No sinister motives is still a plus for chump.
I haven't seen it reported, but I hope that when Biden speaks to HCBU and other youthful audiences of color, he talks emphatically about the need to elect a few more Democrats to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
I can only imagine how keyed-up and worried Guilty Donny must be as he waits for the jury to finish deliberating. Willi Wonka had a very appropriate quote for moments like this -
"The suspense is killing me. I hope it lasts."
that stress is what I believe will resolve Trump !