The story presented by the police about the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was that a teacher propped open the door the murderer used to enter the building.
I know this question is naive but here goes anyway: how/why has Trump been able to avoid arrest? Seriously…I truly want to understand how a person gets away with so much for so long. He’s like an eel…no offense to the eel.
Trump is one example of what is truly amiss with America. A hardened and successful criminal for all of his adult life with documented crimes (not renting any of his rental properties to black people, a federal crime, not paying taxes in NY or in the US, 6 bankruptcies, and more).
There are two main reasons Trump is not in jail:
1. He is rich.
2. He is white.
In America, if you are rich and you are white, it has been, since the founding of our country, totally OK to do whatever you want, including, enslaving an entire people, whipping someone to death, slandering people, selling a person's offspring for money, paying no federal tax for years, and attempting to overthrow a legitimate election.
The free pass, for rich white men, is one of the very fundamental flaws in the American fabric.
Look up any statistic on any prison. The vast, vast majority of residents are black and latino.
Why? Because blacks and latino's are more criminal than whites?
Very wealthy criminals buy the best accountants and lawyers to cover their tracks and manipulate the system. With Georgia TFG couldn’t restrain himself and made the call never suspecting a Republican official would record the call. He didn’t have his fixer enabler Michael Cohen to do the dirty work. Can Houdini slip from the handcuffs of a Fulton County indictment?
I profoundly hope not. I hope he is indicted, tried, and convicted. After Napoleon was such an awful problem for France, he was exiled to Elba. I wish tfg could be exiled to some remote place with no internet or cell service. His defense is always, “They’re picking on me. It’s not fair.” That excuse is not acceptable for a 12 yr. old boy. Why should tRump get away it? His base needs to understand that he despises them and just uses them.
Interesting comment. Trump brings to my mind an old (original) Star Trek episode. The planet explored in that episode kept having impossible, illogical events happening the the landing team. Final conclusion? The planet was inhabited by an immature, narcissistic “god-lette”. This (essentially) spoiled brat had been exiled there by adult “gods” for punishment and hopefully reform. Apparently they were unsuccessful! Sound familiar?
Frankly, reform is unattainable. Just as "bipartisanship" is with Republicans & here we go again with the attempt to actually pass something that resembles maybe not control of guns maybe, possibly, a few little minor concessions from the Rs. I'm sorry, for being so pessimistic, but how many years has it already been since there were ANY concessions from them? The entire Charlie Brown/Lucy scenario keeps playing over & over.
NOPE! Nowhere that there are living & breathing animals. Ever notice how uninterested the entire DJT family is with living animals? The only interaction with other species is killing them. Not sure where he could be "put" that would mean safety for others (humans or other species)!
That’s right, but his base (the GOP) are paying the freight on his legal woes.
For Trump and his family it’s a grift that’s how they make there living and they are great at it. His base is the mark Gym Gordon and the rest are just along for the money
Elba was far too close to the mainland and within sight of the island of Napoleon's birth. A very expensive mistake. Saint Helena, in the middle of the South Atlantic was the final choice.
The main thing is to make the world safe for its inhabitants by whatever means it takes to remove this man, his henchmen and his would-be successors-in-crime, from circulation.
At least he could then spend the rest of his days content in the knowledge that, like Napoleon, he is seen as a uniquely important menace and is being treated accordingly. Thus, vanity will be satisfied.
Peter, You came up with an elegant solution, at least in your words. Can you imagine Trump thinking as you do? Give it 5 seconds. Next question, where will he hold his rallies?
1. Thinking? Is that what you call the processes that take place under that skull? No, those are soothing thoughts that jailers can feed him, along with images from rallies and from Mar a Lago...
2. Cfr. Loree Byers
Having said that, prayers for him and for all like him. Don't let's give in to hatred for the man however much horror we may feel for his words and deeds.
To hate him and those whose minds he has poisoned is to join with them in drinking his filth and delusions. That is how evil comes to stain the innocent, and if we attend to the lessons of history, it will be plain that these stains, these mind poisons, remain ingrained in human communities for centuries... for millennia.
Laws are written in language that allows learned attorneys to reverse the intent of the law on its face by parsing the language into pretzel ( Hence Steely Dan) logic
Juries become inexpert linguistic interpreters, ( not of their own choosing) in attempts to arrive at the truth
Seth Wouldn’t it be ironic if Trump, accustomed to liar and lawyer up, were brought to justice by a Fulton County district attorney. Reminds me of Al Capone, whose murderous career was ended by a tax fraud conviction.
And she is not cowed by him or his family. Neither is Letitia James, NY State’s AG, (another Black woman) who’s going after him in a civil suit for tax fraud.
Some Republicans, most notably, Tom Cotton, are trying to introduce legislation that would end fair representation by an attorney even when you can't personally afford one. That sure fits into the system these rich white guys are working to strengthen.
He's actually more intentionally evil. He looks for the evil angle in whatever he does. McConnell will play with evil, but it isn't his go-to first choice, as it is for The Guy Who Should Have Been Fragged In Iraq.
If Fani Willis's special grand jury does not recommend empaneling a grand jury that can find grounds to indict TFG, it will not be due to Willis being corrupt. She is a diligent, intelligent lioness, and she calmly strategizes ensnaring criminals. Unlike TFG, even if he's tried and convicted of attempting to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election, Willis will not recommend the death penalty, as TFG would have liked to do with Hillary. In this case, cronyism and wealth will not dictate the outcome.
Oh, that would make me so happy! After all the criticism of Merrick Garland's apparent lack of attention of TFG's criminal behavior, it's heartening to see that his critics were apparently misguided, and the thought that the criminal might face consequences would be sublime.
I would add, another protective factor is that he's male. It's no accident that Martha Stewart ended up in jail, while so many rich white men who committed much worse crimes skated prosecution.
Pat The Pope clearly granted Biden the right to communion despite his view on abolition. One of America’s conservative bishops has ignored the Pope in his diatribe against Pelosi. Meanwhile, numerous American dioceses have declared bankruptcy because of the massive legal payments for the long-hidden charges of church folks doing unthinkable things to boys.
It seems to me that the only ‘soul’ in the Catholic Church that is sacrosanct is filet of sole. Now the Southern Baptist Church is unraveling over exposure of church scandals.
New Mexico ended up with more than her share of pedophile priests because problem priests were sent to the Servants of the Paraclete retreat in the Jemez Mountains by dioceses from all over the country. Once pronounced “cured”, they were sent to parishes throughout New Mexico instead of back to their original states. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has declared bankruptcy and is forced to sell off church property.
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, had the same problem. We were in the Allentown Diocese when I was growing up and it's where the "bad" priests went for punishment.
Agreed. My point is that there's a mixed message going on and that men seem to get a pass when women don't.
And, if the Pope can be likened to the legislative branch, the Bishop of San Francisco can be likened to SCOTUS. Biden gets a pass on the Federal level; Pelosi gets sanctioned at the state level.
The priest in San Francisco that refused Pelosi communion was passed over by the Pope for a promotion he'd been hoping for. The Pope elevated someone else. Touché...
Biden goes to a Catholic church in DC with a different priest, and I seem to remember the Pope expressly did not allow communion to be withheld from Biden.
Hi Bruce, I think what the Pope said was intended for all the U.S. Bishops...as in, "don`t weaponize or politicize the Eucharist." If I remember correctly, it was a Bishop/ or priest in Connecticut that was threatening to withold communion but the DC Archbishop Wilton Gregory said Pres.. Biden could receive anytime in DC! Pelosi is a devout Catholic, as is Biden. At a time when the US Bishops could be standing strong for the real human issues and crises of our world they are doing this political s#*t ( sorry Jesus!!).
Thanks for clarifying with more specifics I was fuzzy on. I remember the Pope's statement and couldn't understand how this priest in SF could get away with denying Pelosi communion. The priest in SF is extremely conservative, apparently, but I'm glad the Pope passed over him with promotions of others. Pelosi has visited the Pope at the Vatican, so I can't see why he hasn't come down harder on the priest in SF.
Not only did the Pope promote someone else, he promoted the Archbishop of San Diego, a prominent liberal who was JUNIOR to the Archbishop of San Francisco.
Hhi Marlene, Yes, he is one of the "gang" of USBishops who are anti- Francis and also politically in bed with the ultra right wing, in all its forms. There are a few progressive Bishops ( recent made Cardinal one of them) who are trying to find ways to lessen the gap between these guys and less partisan Bishops-- but the U.S. Conference of Bishops, at this moment, is as divided as our country. It is so discouraging and so counterproductive!!! At a time when the church is trying to keep "butts on the pews" these guys are trying to throw out some of their most publically loyal practitioners!!! They are also being "backed" by ultra conservative, big money Catholics--a situation not unlike the strangle hold lobbyists have on our Congresspersons and probably intimately connected to certain conservative political agendae.
I'm confused. Pope Francis asked the bishops not to make Eucharist a political tool. "In November, the bishops approved a new document that fell short of denying the Eucharist to pro-abortion politicians." So how can the archbishop deny Speaker Pelosi communion?
I agree, but that's not the point I was trying to make.
It's kind of like federal vs. state here in the US. The feds - AKA Pope Francis - gave President Biden a "pass," but the state authority - AKA Bishop Salvatore - refuses to allow communion for Speaker Pelosi.
I have no idea what happens when either walks up the aisle for communion and the priest says, "Body of Christ."
I just know that President Biden is a man and Speaker Pelosi is a woman and it just seems wrong to me that their treatment is different.
I agree that it's wrong that their treatment is different. And one can find many many examples of this inequity in the church of my childhood. It just seems that in this particular situation it was more a question of geography (who is in charge in CA vs DE) and I wondered how an archbishop could defy both the pope and the council of bishops. Sigh...
Chaplain The Catholic Church on abortion seems akin to the Democratic Party on almost everything. Whatever the boss man says, there are many mice who munch their own cheese. Progressives, moderates, and coal-crunching Munchin.
And, not having money isn't always necessary, since many white men with not much money are given a pass for egregious crimes and behaviors a lot of the rest of us would end up being outcasts or in prison for. A good example is those young men who have raped women but are given a slap on the wrist because a criminal record would "stain their futures".
Dave Martha, as a woman, was treated differently than a man. However, Martha (who looks great at 80) dug her own hole because of arrogance. She professionally had knowledge of stock shenanigans. She had the opportunity to say mea culpa, I was unaware, and would have gotten a slap on the wrist. Instead, she told the prosecutor to stuff it and insisted on a trial.
Net net: Martha was treated differently than some male stock manipulators. But Martha’s arrogance sent her to the slammer.
Mitch McConnell and the extreme politicization of our Court system. I always check the Party of a presiding Judge in important court cases.
Here is an article from 2020. “McConnell reaches milestone on judges by filling final Circuit Court vacancy. “When we depart this chamber today, there will not be a single Circuit Court vacancy anywhere in the nation for the first time in at least 40 years,” McConnell said. McConnell took over the Senate in January 2015 and held votes on just two Circuit Court judges during Obama's last two years in office. And McConnell has made confirming judges central to his tenure as majority leader. By Leigh Ann Caldwell and Sahil Kapur
Also
“McConnell was exposed to the machinations of judicial appointments early in his career, when he worked for Marlow Cook, a U.S. senator from Kentucky who sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. During his time as a staffer for Cook, McConnell saw two of President Richard Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees rejected.
“It was in those years that McConnell really came to understand the importance, the centrality of judicial nominations in our political system, both the Supreme Court nominations and also … federal lower-court nominations,” Alec MacGillis, a ProPublica reporter and author of The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell, told FRONTLINE in 2019.
And McConnell's coup of his lifetime was in stacking the Supreme Court. Then to our extreme detriment it appears as if Garland is living in some sort of ivory tower way up in the clouds where lady justice still prevails.
I loathe McConnell and mute him every time he makes one of his asinine pronouncements. He has ruined the court system and the Supreme Court is nothing now, but a majority of Federalist Society judges who continue to undermine everything that we have worked so long to achieve. As for Garland, I think he runs a very tight ship and that there is much more going on than the public knows at the moment.
Same here. I think McConnell has done more to destroy democracy in this country than any one individual, even the Big Orange Menace. Everything McConnell does and says is done with ulterior motives. He's a slimy bastard.
Case in point...delay action...keep kicking that can down the road...wait till it all subsides and blows over...tout a couple of ineffective actions without addressing the MAIN one...
When the heart button doesn’t turn red, refresh your page and it should then show it’s red. If not, just click on it again, and it should turn red. You may have to scroll a little to find it.
You should thus be very surprised then, to learn that most of the decisions in the past year against the Trumpers in the investigations have been made by Trump-appointed judges. And overall, more Trump-appointees have ruled against than for, though the Trump appointees in the Appeals Courts have about a 50-50 record.
I have noticed that as well. However, it is that other 50% that rule according to Party lines that is causing problems. The sheer number of McConnell appointed persons in the Judiciary is staggering. While people were distracted McConnell set out to control the 3rd Branch of Government.
I always think of a couple of my ex-high school classmates who live in Florida. I don't know if they donate....one of them is stinking rich and the other lives in Naples and plays bridge all the time. I was having an email conversation with the latter for a while and I could never get her to stop the political talk. What I did discern with her was rabid hate for Obama which was probably racial. When she started using all caps to answer me, while ignoring the facts I had given her, it was time to stop. This person is also intelligent, but she has become a true believer. My take is that they love being able to use the system and have little, if any, integrity.
‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias (Excerpts from The New York Times) Gifted link to article below.
'It was late 1963 — just months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act — and the tall, mustachioed Fred Trump was approaching the apex of his building career. He was about to complete the jewel in the crown of his middle-class housing empire: seven 23-story towers, called Trump Village, spread across nearly 40 acres in Coney Island.'
'He was also grooming his heir. His son Donald, 17, would soon enroll at Fordham University in the Bronx, living at his parents’ home in Queens and spending much of his free time touring construction sites in his father’s Cadillac, driven by a black chauffeur.'
“His father was his idol,” Mr. Leibowitz recalled. “Anytime he would come into the building, Donald would be by his side.”
' the next decade, as Donald J. Trump assumed an increasingly prominent role in the business, the company’s practice of turning away potential black tenants was painstakingly documented by activists and organizations that viewed equal housing as the next frontier in the civil rights struggle.'
'The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company’s chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was front-page news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye.'
“Absolutely ridiculous,” he was quoted as saying of the government’s allegations.
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
'When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.'
'But an investigation by The New York Times — drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors — uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond.'
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
And that is how he has "skated" - most of his crimes before becoming president weren't big enough to justify that kind of fight, and if the evidence wasn't so overhwelming it could get through the Baffle Them With Bullshit defense, the prosecutors took a pass.
For reasons known only to themselves, the national media has legitimized a con man, someone whose statements don't get the same scrutiny that any one on the left faces daily.
Also, none of his crimes were "big enough" to go after him, plus there was enough "wiggle room" that prosecutors could see him getting a "not guilty" from the jury. Believe it or not, he was always a "small timer" among the Big Crooks. Plus he has demonstrated before he became president and since that he will fight every inch of the way, delay delay delay. A really combative small timer isn't worth the effort in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, that allowed him to graduate to the Biggest of the Big Time Crooks.
TC is the SYNTHESIZER. Spurred by MIke S.'s comment on how Trump became a 'hardened and successful criminal'; a NY Times article, providing background about how father and son trumped the courts, TC took the bits and pieces and made them whole. The SYNTHESIZER knew which pieces to pick up and how they fit together, bringing Trump's success as a 'hardened criminal' to a climax. This series of exchanges read like a master class in synthesizing. The subject. could not have been better chosen. Thanks to Mike S. for that.
I'm sure white adds to his voter-base appeal and his slipperiness, but it's a far below the rich/politically connected reason. I mean, how many people-of-color of similar wealth have been indicted or arrested for, well, anything? Sure, being non-white means you have to have a bit more money to be invulnerable, but that's partly because race is used so effectively in drawing attention away from the stupendous wealth of this country and the way it has concentrated, and with whom.
White-collar crimes are notoriously hard to prosecute because, for the most part, they aren't B&W. It generally has to be something so blatant that a jury can't not convict. Trump and his dad were persecuted for a civil rights violation. The linked Washington Post article describes the suit in very interesting detail. It is not against the law to go bankrupt. It isn't even against the law to cheat your vendors, make them settle for $0.10 on the dollar. Luckily the Georgia case is about a black letter that makes attempting to interfere with an election a felony with a potential for jail. However, I do not expect Trump to ever be behind bars as that would place his Secret Service detail in peril. My hope is that he's sentenced to home confinement in his New York "castle" and cannot play golf or schmooze with the guests of his properties. I assure you that's Trump's idea of Hell.
While as President a sitting ( in office ) president has Executive Privilege . He can’t be Arrested and Charged with a Crime. We can only Impeach him. The Republicans wouldn’t vote to do it …….. Twice ! He still has some cases against him as a Business and a Civilian. Which I read there were Repub. donors sending in $ and it was going toward his Legal fees. The Donors think it’s going to Campaign funds. They still don’t believe he’s just a Con in a suit.
The Trump base is a textbook example of Sunk Cost Fallacy. They will never believe, because they are already so emotionally and/or economically invested.
I needed to look up Sunk Cost Fallacy so I’m sharing what I found for others who may be interested. Helps to understand why people stick with that fool.
Thank you for the definition and explanation. I fear I am one of those humans who has made sunk cost fallacy financial decisions. Not political I hope.
Sunk Cost Fallacy: the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial:
Certainly this applies to some of far left here in Salem. They want candidates to check all their boxes. I do hope that they will get behind Kotek for governor. There was an article in the Oregonian yesterday about Betsy Johnson, a long time DINO, and independent candidate for governor as she knew she would never get the D nomination. Turns out that we can now call her Machine Gun Betsy because she does own one....a gun enthusiast and collector. After Sandy Hook, she visited a classroom in Jewel, a very small town in the coast mountains, and answered a question from one of the students by telling them this. Apparently, the kids were stunned. I doubt this will draw many Ds to her, but likely some R gun nuts.
She can say whatever she wants and I bet she read the O article. I am now calling her Machine Gun Betsy. She is a wolf indeed. And with close ties with Timber Unity or whatever they are calling themselves now. I am hoping that she will draw Rs.
Barbara A sunk cost is what has been poured into an investment—whether a new product, a stock, or some nefarious scheme. One then has the opportunity to say—-that money is spent and the venture isn’t worth more risky $$$.
With investments, too often someone says I can’t afford to sell, since the stock cost me $$$$. Often they they hold it as it sinks further. Others take the loss and move on.
McConnell initially abhorred Trump and then made a political deal with the devil. Now he is endeavoring to move away from Trump in an effort to become Senate Majority Leader again. Michael Cohen was deeply invested in Trump and then turned against his one-time boss. For him, Trump became a ‘sunk cost.’
While I agree that this can certainly be explained, in part, by the Sunk Cost Fallacy, there are other reasons that many people are drawn to this kind of leadership. George Lakoff suggests that conservatives and liberals think differently about issues central to who they will choose as their leader. While conservatives tend to be afraid of change and difference, liberals are made much less uncomfortable by those things. And conservatives tend to seek out more authoritarian leaders, usually male, to represent the strong father who promises to solve all their problems and keep them safe. Liberals tend to lean towards leaders who represent the nurturing mother, and base their choices more on who might be kinder. I would be willing to bet that most of the former president's followers (he whose name I dare not speak) come from more traditional backgrounds, with a less emotionally available father but who none-the -less the family deferred to. Those early years tend to shape pretty strongly our preferences for the kind of leaders we want, most of that process being unconscious. Also, a lot of them are or have husbands, brothers, sons, fathers, etc who are similar to that thug who once occupied the WH.
I am troubled by the number of people who ignore death star's complete lack of anything good and his criminal enterprise. They either benefit from this financially or they have some obsession with things like abortion. So they continue to support the party of death. The wealthy can continue to have access to abortion for example and they think their money will save them from what is likely coming with climate change.
Michelle There are many cults and charlatan cultists. Trump played on the fears and biases of many folks. Many evangelical ministers do the same—-overwhelmingly for power and wealth, as they become anti-Christs. I remember reading about ‘Death Stars.’ The worst are those who deliberately prey on others—in prayer.
Yes, death star donny is a master at playing on people's fears and giving them carte blanche to be as awful as they have always wanted to be. I have seen one ex-student fall into a cult and his children paid the price. We have some arrogant hateful pastors here in Salem, in my neighborhood actually, who love the power and getting into everyone's face while failing to even attempt to follow what Jesus taught. One with the help of others of like mind, blasted hatred all summer at the park in downtown Salem and monopolized a lot of that space while doing things that bothered a lot of people. And of course Proud Boys or that type doing "security". I have to say being a religious leader is a golden opportunity for those with nefarious purposes.
Yes, there are the Suits and the rest of us. Sorry guys, I take responsibility for adding to the suit population, but I’m hoping they will be part of the New generation who works alongside us, true gender equality. Have hope on that one.
Marcia A president can claim Executive Privilege. In the case of Nixon, the Supreme Court unanimously denied this to Nixon, because the Watergate tapes related to a crime. President Biden has overruled Trump’s claim of Executive Privilege for the same reason. I don’t know whether Trump could appeal Biden’s decision to the Stench Court. To date he hasn’t.
Dear Keith, I would love to spend a day talking with you. On my part it would be more of the listening. You are so wise and informed. I had know idea why you were saying “ Stench Court “? So I searched . Now I know. Justice Sotomayor said it. I thought it was a done deal on Trump.With that said I believe the Stench Court will protect him. I don’t remember why Nixon wasn’t charged with a crime ? Can’t remember. But I was so mad that he got all the former Presidential Perks right up to the day he died. And I think his wife after that still did. Perhaps maybe not “The Red Phone “ if you remember what they were ? I wonder if TFG has that perk as well ? Thank you.
Marcia If one screws up enough in life and lives long enough, he/she can give the impression of being wise. Look up ‘tontine,’ and perhaps. You’ll understand.
Being on Nixon’s EnemiesList, years later, when i had to make small talk with Julie Nixon Eisenhower, I had some difficulty.
After Nixon resigned to avoid Senate impeachment, he was liable to criminal prosecution. President Ford, to put an end to the Watergate calumny that had convulsed the country, issued a pardon to Nixon for whatever he had done.
At the time, I was furious that Nixon went scot free while his henchmen went to the slammer. Over time I grew to appreciate that Ford did what was necessary for our country, although it probably cost him the 1976 election. Later Ford was awarded a Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his gutsy pardon.
I believe that the ‘red phone’ was the prez’s phone for major crises, including nuclear. He had a guy with him at all times with the nuclear codes.
Some very close friends of ours, the husband, Chuck Colson was his uncle. Colson went to Prison for just a few months. Maybe I wasn’t making sense about the “ Red Phone “ ? I’m concerned that TFG has access now to what was called the Red Phone. It was for the ‘Former Presidents ‘ ?
MARCIA My understanding is that Tubby Trump has not been accorded security clearance by the Biden administration. If he has this ubiquitous ‘red phone,’ hopefully it has the number of Attorney General Garland, were he to decide to plead guilty to constitutional insurrection.
As for Chuck Colson, I recall he stating how glorious and mystifying it was to be in a president’s aura. It may have been him who was astonished that, as a former private in the Army, he would be saluted by White House Marines. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
When I was off on an emergency mission to eastern Congo in October, 1964, the commanding Marine colonel at the airport refused to provide this civilian K rations as I was going alone into rebel-infiltrated provinces. To break this standoff, I told him to call his commanding officer, the American ambassador, on his private phone at 3:00 a. M. And explain to him why his house guest (me) couldn’t get K rations. (I got them).
Earlier, going to Lodja, I had command over a C130 when it was on the ground. After a hairy first few hours, I could complete one final mission. The ambassador’s housekeeper had abandoned his hotel in Lodja in 1960. He desperately wanted his fancy meat cutter as as memory of pre-independence. Also, his wife was dying of cancer.
The captain of the C 130 was getting nervous about the unsettled situation on the ground—drunken Congolese soldiers. The destroyed UN plane with crew members still aboard. I affirmed that I was in command of the plane on the ground.
The captain seemed apoplectic, when the meat cutter arrived. Darn, he never saluted me.
Trump was carefully taught by his Fascist father and Roy Cohn, a nasty lawyer who advised Joseph McCarthy's outrageous behaviors, how to leverage laws and to quibble by way of frivolous lawsuits to do just what this case has done. Whenever he is accused of wrongdoing he slaps a counter-lawsuit that keeps the issue in limbo until it fades away, often by attrition. He practices the art of making big stinks that divert attention from the facts. He is such a flim-flam man! There are good honest people who know this, and who are (too) patiently at work on apprehending Trump, but they must have air-tight facts. One grievous reason for his success is that the Republicans use the same justice-obstructing methods to stymie progress. It seems that they may be complicit, thus they too play the game.
Having said all that, it does seem that the chickens are coming home to roost. Little by little Trump is being thwarted. I must say I don't fully understand the delay by the DOJ. In a week or so, the Jan 6th committee will make public their findings on the insurrection. Hopefully, all the actors will be thoroughly exposed.
you missed 'donating to campaigns of judges and District Attorneys'. I just wonder who made donations to the current NY DA in light of his allowing the investigation into Trump to expire? It is a time proven strategy for buying your way out of wrongdoing, by corporations and individuals.
Among the wealthy it does seem to be a learned characteristic. Each generation teaches the next. With the case under consideration, we can see it in three generations.
Had the DOJ brought these villians to a Grand Jury before the Congressional January 6th Committee did its work, the villians would have taken the 5th. The end.
Decades of slithering using the corporate shield, corporate bankruptcies with full discharge Plans, fall guys, cut outs, misdirection, Gaslighting, "send lawyers & money", prey on vunerables with a need & fill it, pay, pay & pay when nailed & get full releases, secrecy agreements with a breach remedy & NDA's as taught & funded by KKK father in the Eastern borough of New York, among other tactics.
Ahhh, NDAs. A true red flag for wrongdoing. For it to be an enforceable contract, doesn't there need to be 'consideration' for the vict- oops, the signer?
Public policy in the jurisdiction may hold NDA's UNENFORCEABLE particulary if the unseemly "Disclosure" is a Crime or that pesky problem: la verdad ... the truth. But, WAIT .. use it anyway just to create the Fog of War ... I mean Wreck Litigation. See for example, Trump Campaign "Outreach" Director, Jessica Denson successful court victory getting a ruling holding Trump's "Campaign NDA's" were "too vague" meaning NOT enforceable. Ditto for Trunp's "indemnity" BS. Courts will NOT enforce indemnity for Trump's sole negligence.
Because he is rich, white, male, and has proven that he knows how to be the biggest and the best cheater, fraudster, and criminal! America loves a wily viper!
I call this the class clown syndrome where a portion of the class loves the disruption while the rest want to get down to business. One of my great greats in elementary school just won the class clown award. Sigh.
True but so did Martha Stewart. That didn't keep her out of federal prison. There's no one thing but his history of being able to exact revenge by any means has to play a role.
I guess in the end he can thank Roy Cohn for teaching him how to circumvent the justice system. There has to be a limit to his luck.
Carol, for a long time Trump has made a safe place for himself [by hook or crook] by surrounding himself with people that are crooked or downright evil. He has stacked many courts in his favor, and has physiologically controlled a large portion of citizens in the US by his lies, and cozying up to, and saying what "white supremacist" and other hate groups want to hear, and it even goes further/deeper than this.
I have a different theory, I feel like every crime Trump's committed leads to other kettles of crimes - which lead to yet other kettles of crimes. Maybe this is what is taking Garland so long, where do you stop investigating, draw the line and just indict with the evidence you have?
At some point, bald-faced lying and gaming the system became acceptable political tactics in this country. I can think of several trends that may in combination have led to this. Life has become much more complex. Improved communication has brought the world beyond our insular communities ever closer. Religious practice has declined. Educational standards have declined. Smart criminals like Roy Cohn realized that strategic dishonesty could win. Honesty has not been able to keep pace with the wiles of determined and well-funded crooks. The wealth disparity has become obscene, and big money wags the government. Trump, a wannabe big crook, has been used as a pawn by bigger crooks. (My working theory, constantly tweaking.)
Maybe we've just caught up with other parts of the world, where corruption in government is the norm? Or maybe a lot of this was hidden, until these present day thugs became more brazen.
There are as many explanations as there are people, but know he has lost many times in court. To be arrested you have to be convicted of a crime that's on the books. He's guilty of many crimes against humanity, but when he breaks or bends the law, the punishment is usually pecuniary. Has he broken the law? Probably. Could he shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it? Not if there were eye witnesses and it wasn't in self defense.
He is no more a citizen than you or me, he is not above the law but he is good at skirting around the edges, again something he learned from his dad and Roy Cohn.
All questions are naive, the very nature of a question is to fill a void in your knowledge. I'm super naive but not as much as I was yesterday.
No, an arrest or indictment *precedes* conviction for a crime. Trump has never been arrested or indicted, and to our knowledge has never been the target of an investigation. There are a lot of very knowledgeable, independent legal analysts who consider that to be extraordinary considering Trump's record.
This question is not naive at all. It's one of the greatest questions surrounding the Trump saga. I do not believe it can be answered with the standard arguments about rich people escaping the sanctions of law. I suspect it's much bigger than that.
This story begins with Trump's deepening ties to the NYC mob dating back 30 to 40 years and continues with:
- Trump's attraction to the FBI (and the mob) as an informant (this two-way role is not uncommon)
- the Russian mob's violent acquisition of the NY mob "franchise" in the 1990s,
- Trump deepening involvement with Russian sources of funding, legal or not,
- the merging of the Russian mob and Russian government during the 1990s, and Putin's rise to power by the early 2000s,
- the virtual certainty that Trump would have been privy to a great deal of information--gossip, rumor, speculation and fact--about the FBI dealings with the Russian mob,
- the likelihood that some of that information would be compromising to the FBI, and whether true or not, could be extremely damaging to the FBI (see the story of Whitey Bulger and apply some factor to it, which turns exponential when Trump becomes president)
- ask yourself why would Trump be so confident of his impunity that one of his first acts as president was an attempt to bribe--or extort--an FBI director to end an investigation that was likely to lead to him,
- a former FBI director was chosen as special counsel to investigate Trump, found insufficient evidence to name him as a co-conspirator (much less recommend prosecution), chose not to render judgment on the national security aspects of the case, and delivered epic-fail testimony to Congress about the investigation.
- As president, Trump acts as if he believes he is untouchable by the law and as if Putin has kompromat on him.
There are more elements to this story, but it boils down to Trump becoming immune to prosecution because of how damaging the information he has is to the FBI as an institution (and perhaps to senior FBI and DOJ officials). If this is the case, Trump and his family members will never face prosecution.
It certainly makes the case, and by quoting Mueller's circumlocution before Congress, Greg raises the question about Mueller that many others refuse to do, presumably because of his sterling reputation. My guess is that Mueller was straight but was dedicated to preserving the FBI as an institution crucial to the nation's interest.
I see two threads missing from Greg's account. One is the intersection of so many of the FBI actors around the Trump investigation with those who investigated or prosecuted mafioso in NY and Boston from the 1980s (Giuliani, whose name is not mentioned in in this account, among them). If Greg's is onto something here, as I believe he is, some of them could have their reputations ruined by Trump's revelations.
The second is the intersection of so many top WH and DOJ officials involved in the investigation of President Trump with membership in the Federalist Society, which of course had its wildest dream realized in Trump's judicial appointments.
Madame Professor. For an academic historian you are one hell of a researcher and real time journalist. Bravo. For years I produced history videos where the outcome was totally known, before we started the project. Then I took on a documentary about the possibility of Fracking in Western Maryland. I had never been a "news guy". I interned at WJZ-TV in Baltimore during college and actually wanted to work a path towards Wide World of Sports. That went sideways...but what I learned from being around the news room was that I didn't want to be the guy sticking my camera in the face of someone whose child had been murdered.
The one news story I shot in 30 years was about Mel Fishers gold haul from the Atocha.
Fast forward to 2015 and I read a front page headline in the Baltimore Sun. Boom or Bust ? and it started me on a 2 year path that ended with Fracking being banned in Maryland by our Blue State Legislature and signed by our Red Governor. An historic first in a state that actually has gas reserves.
There was a moment in the work...when I said to myself..."I don't know if I can do this justice. I'm totally flying by the seat of my pants." People had donated their money to me...so I just kept going. In the process I went from journalist...which I maintained until the film was shown a few times... To activist when what would be the final vote getting out of committee was in doubt. My Dem State Senator from Baltimore was the log jam. She was owned by big G&O...and she did everything in her power to keep the bill in her desk. I helped force it out, by going head to head with her in a hearing. I had the advantage of meeting with her off the record and documenting her in public...and I learned how to get eye to eye with her. Boy, it feels good to tell this story. In the end we won...and she lost her seat as our rep.
So lets all keep learning and acting on it. Thank you Dr. Richardson.
Thank you. The Fracking film is the best outcome from any project I've done in my life.I'd like to repeat that success on gun control and climate change.
Barr, Durham and Trump accused Sussman and Hillary of doing what Republicans do all the time - run a phony investigation in an attempt to smear their opponents. It’s such a standard part of the Republican playbook that they assumed Hillary would do the same thing. Of course, she didn’t. Republicans can’t believe that, because they assume that their opponents are as craven and amoral as they are. Trump and Barr cannot imagine a world in which the party in control of the White House wouldn’t use the DOJ and the FBI to try to destroy the opposition. The irony is that this is exactly what Barr and Trump tried to do with this Durham “investigation”. The only guilty party here is Barr.
Okay, so the Democrats disappointed the Republicans by not running phony G.O.P.- style DOJ-FBI investigations. But that doesn't stop them from attacking the Select Congressional Committee investigating January 6 and from screaming 'fraud' every time they lose an election. When you think they can stoop no lower, they manage to find a way.
Goebbels preached accusing your opponent of what you are doing in his propaganda “handbook.” Republicans use his playbook all the time; Dems just won’t
Philosophically, yes. Losing elections due to the desire to remain on "higher moral ground" is not a good thing. Especially when the present form of government is on shaky ground.
Losing elections because you refuse to engage in illegal and/or amoral activities is right. We have to believe the rule of law will win out. Otherwise, abandon the country, it’s just a race to the bottom.
We're already in a race to the bottom. In fact, we're now in a race for survival of the unique US democratic representative form of government. Losing has never faced worse consequences--except when Lincoln faced dissolution of the Union if he didn't win.
Would you have the Democrats lose by refusing to use the same tactics just so they can claim "well, we lost, but played on higher moral ground." Politics has no morals.
If politics has no morals, then politics has no meaning. If Democrats resort to the same tactics as Republicans, then our “democratic representative form of government” is lost.
Trump and his administration may be the sleaziest we have seen but that does not make it ok that Hilary is who she is. We know how they smeared Bernie and that among other things turned off so many voters. I have always felt that the choice of Hilary gave us Trump. I have often voted for the lessor evil and voting for Hillary was one of the most difficult votes of my life. The Dems keep supporting weak or compromised candidates, Texas comes to mind right now as Pelosi backed a anti choice, NRA, big oil supporting man over a young progressive candidate. This is why they are losing and why many people like me call ourselves independents or socialists. I fear what the midterms bring us.
Hillary won the popular vote. In White House for 8 years then senate 2 terms. There has never been any candidate as prepared to be president as she was. I don’t think Bernie has successfully passed one bill. For a person of Hillary’s experience and just plain brains to lose to a thieving windbag… that is not her fault. The system is so broken How the hell did Gore lose to a nincompoop like Bush? A man who literally broke the world. And talk about Big Lies!! The Iraq war was based. only on lies.
One of Hillary’s handicaps (besides Bill) is gender. Too many voters will not admit that truth, so they accuse her of misdeeds that cause less than a blink in the suit world. I would vote for her again. And Gore’s loss in front of the world? How can anyone explain corruption when it’s reported daily as truth?
Al Gore did not lose. Hillary Clinton did not lose. Roger Stone and his ilk stole those elections. I also think both would have gotten landslides (which Stone then would not have been able to manipulate with a silly "riot" like he did with Florida and the Supreme Court) if they had the charisma of BIll or Donald. Both Gore and Hillary strike me as brilliant people, but with a trade off in social and emotional connection to audiences. Perhaps, like Einstein and Marie Curie, they are Asperger geniuses. At a time when we needed their brilliance, it was criminally stolen from us.
The Repubs had been hammering away at her for decades. They were afraid of her so they worked steadily to undermine her at every turn. It's what often happens to smart, ambitious women. Too many people, both men and woman fear them, and express that fear in derision and projection.
She is truly an amazing being.Spent her younger years working for those who truly merded help. Personally, while I cannot stand to see Bill ( who I adored until Monica) beside her, I think the two things that took her down re President were "deplorables". She should have known better. And Comey.
Her foreign policy and Biden’s for that matter is beyond horrible. Almost all the Dems voted for the Iraq war and they helped get us into the middle of the proxy war with Russia now. Bernie is not perfect but I believe if the Dems had not pushed him out he would have beat Trump and we would be in a better place.
I doubt it. Bernie did good by not letting go of the social issues that bedevil our society, and keeping them on the front burner. But it took him way too long to learn to step back when other people took those issues up. I do not believe for a second that he would have made a successful or effective president. It is right to respect what he accomplished, but also to recognize his shortcomings. It's clear to me that Hillary lost for one major reason: she was a woman who knew what she was doing. We have made some advances, but we are still a heavily misogynistic society. Other nations are way ahead of us on getting past that, but we cling to it, just as we cling to the idea that one man can save us from ourselves.
As a young child during WWII, it occurred to me that women knew what they were doing while men were out there messing things up. Yes, Hillary knew what she was doing, but she did, sadly, make a Faustian bargain with someone who had a genius for taking credit for other people's work. Still with him, too.
Let's see if we can make a list of Presidents who were criticized for things their spouses did. Let's start with Lincoln, not the first nor the last by any means, but quite a good example. The choices Hillary made about her marriage are her business to work out and live with. I admire her for her gumption and bravery in pursuing her own interests in spite of the lies piled on her by Trump's crew, and the disrespect by the very people who should look on her as an accomplished, brilliant woman in her own right. She should have been our first female president. Misogyny is not limited to men.
Good grief, your response made me see how shitty my remark was…not at all what I intended. I do see her as a brilliant, accomplished woman in her own right, and the fact that she was able to stand up to the crap thrown her way proved her amazing strength. Yes, she should have been our first woman president, and history may show she was so elected, but not any time soon.
Yes. Some of her foreign, I did not agree with and her vote on Iraq … go along to get along.
However. she was an excellent Sec of State for Obama. She knows/ knew so much. Think, had she been elected…of the Supreme court, the infrastructure jobs that would have bern created , the good will around the world ( she had been sec of state and had many good relationships) and the advances in climate preparation that would have been laid down. Worldwide. Do you think she would have called coronavirus “ a little flu” and treated expert sdvice with contempt?
It’s all so sad. I wish Bernie or or anyone but Trump, had won
Never would he have beaten chump, and, as I vividly recall, repubs had some heavy hitters lying about the Iraqis. Still pissed…but republican lies were in full force and their reputation wasn’t in tatters then, except for idjits like me.
I have been shocked over the last decade or so to realize there is a group on our Left as pro Putin as the group on the Right. Wish they’d all move to Russia as much as they love him
Not to be nit picky Allen, but I don’t see them as anti “Empire”. Difficult to be pro Putin and anti Empire, as we watch him kill so many trying to gobble up more and more land. It’s so despicable, to support such beasts. I so wish there was an international peace keeping force that could just lock up murdering monsters. What will it take for people to stop just handing them power?
I believe we could have totally avoided this war with diplomacy instead of poking the bear. The only people that benefit from this mess is the weapon manufacturers.
Thankfully there are still enough people who are scholars of history and psychology, especially “strongmen” to understand that diplomacy cannot work with a bully like Putin. I’m grateful to all the folks who voted the smart people into power in 2020. May we continue to give power to those who care enough to make the effort to understand. 🙏
Sanders had about as much chance of 'beating' TfG as I did. If you recall, Clinton did in fact beat him…in the popular vote. The electoral college is a flawed geographical tool and completely out of date. It has allowed a minority to rule and to cement their power by manipulation of rules and district boundaries.
And just how would we be in a better place if both houses were Republican controlled?
Let’s start with poking the bear into a proxy was with us and Russia, then there is Yemen and Palestine. How about billions for arms which won’t settle this war but do continue to enrich the weapons manufacturers.
If we could get the arms we need when we need them, we would have driven the Russians out in short order. America did NOT poke the bear. You apparently know little about Eastern Europe or Russia. Stop with Putin's talking points already.
This is a ridiculous comment and the current way to shut people up. If someone disagrees about our foreign policy they are a Putin supporter. That puts me in good company with some journalists who I respect such as Chris Hedges, Matt Taibbi and Amy Goodman.
Nora, Biden didn’t invade Ukraine, Russia did. What, exactly, do you think would have happened if Biden hadn’t managed to reunite NATO and had rolled over and allowed Russian expansion to go unchecked? This current invasion is in part happening precisely because their previous invasion went unanswered. Anyone who thinks the Russians would stop with Ukraine is fooling themselves.
Bernie split the Democratic vote, and Hillary—supremely competent— had been demonized for 30+ years so would energize the Republicans even without Trump. It was a bad year for Democrats all around.
Absolutely agree. Bernie is not a Democrat and should have run as an Independent. We, and millions, never heard him say how he would accomplish his free education other than make the 1% pay. About as possible as *rump's wall. Hillary and Biden represent us very well.
Not how it looked from here. Sanders worked with Dems and often set aside his own perspective in order to get something passed in the interests of moving toward common goals. I believe he was running as who he was. That he was included in the Dem fold indicates both Dem willingness to consider multiple points of view, and the fact that that is what democracy is.
I have always felt Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld used W. Sad that Bush did not see it. A good guy gone the wrong way. I believe he knows and regrets it now. I hope.
Absolutely they did. Plucked a low hanging fruit GOP royalty from dad's oil fields, gave him the education he needed (Karl Rove), and then got into Iraq. (See Cheney enumerating all the reasons not to go into Iraq ten years prior. All of which came true ten years later)
Bernie did champion and prompt legislation in his home state that enabled single payor health care. He did not participate it in its passage (thanks to JR below for pointing it out).
Unfortunately, the governor killed that law before it was ever enacted.
So, on the single issue Sander's is passionate about, he has pushed for legislation, but, that legislation never went into effect.
Sanders had a very large role in building support for Universal health care when he was holding office in VT, and after as our Senator. Universal health care is still supported in the state, and is being reprised. The original bill set up a task force to examine the options for universal health care that would cover all Vermonters, and propose three alternatives that would accomplish that. Then a governor who had been elected specifically on his promise to see universal health care enacted announced right after he was elected to a 3rd term that he was dropping his commitment to that promise. The backlash was fast and hard, and people wanted him to resign, calling for a new gubanatorial election. To avoid that, he had to agree not to run for a 4th term (our gov terms are two years) even before he was sworn in for his 3rd. In essence, he was a lame duck for that entire term, and now lives in another state. And Bernie is still honored and recognized for the work he did in the background to make life better for ordinary people. Nope, not perfect, but admired because he never gave up.
Pamela, one of my daughters came to VT to go to college, fell in love with a local guy, and stayed. I came to VT in her wake, taking a job here so I could bet to know her on a woman to woman basis. One of the perks was actually getting to vote for Bernie, and then getting to meet him in person working on Dem/Prog issues. I meant to stay a few years and go back to the NW, but I'm still here. Still admiring Bernie and the people in this state who opened their minds and gave things some real thought, thanks to Bernie's persistence. Unlike other places, persistence is an admired virtue here.
Given a side-by-side look at people who call themselves “Democrats” now (Texas candidate you mention great example) and truly progressive Ds from a few decades back, the older ones much more resemble Bernie than today’s iterations.
One example among many: A State Representative in small-town Western Pennsylvania (where I was raised), Bill Shane, was a truly committed progressive in terms of civil rights and social justice in a place with both a history of abolitionists and of fascist/KKK activities. A Harvard grad and U Penn-trained lawyer, he ran for state house and served in the 70s when the local swimming pool was still segregated and worked hard for social justice there and as a Borough Councilor and County Commissioner as well. He was remembered by R colleagues as having worked across the aisle to get things done and enormously well-liked. He was a truth-teller and a pragmatic politician, to hear it told (was a friend of my dad’s).
Now in that state legislature, one of the most venal and corrupt (miserly towards children and libraries; full of largesse for frack-daddies) and hate-filled in the nation (stiff competition these days, I know) his own party would shun him if he could even get elected in the first place. The Rs moved further and further right and the do-nothing Dems let his seat rot for years, not bothering to run even a ham sandwich on the ballot. This allowed former State (R) Rep Reed (D62) to collect whopping contributions from banks, fracking companies, insurance companies &c and distribute the loot all over the state since he didn’t have to campaign to win re-elections, leading to his rise to Speaker. The results were not pretty for ordinary people in that county, where over 25% of children live in poverty, where broadband access was often scarce, where the radio station is a “Fox News Corner of the World,”where my classmates don’t have access to decent dental care and have succumbed to opioid & other addictions in huge numbers.
One cycle a clever, brave political science student at the local college (IUP) ran for the seat, only to be given the cold shoulder and NO support by do-nothing Dems who thought he was too progressive. I assistant managed his campaign and on a budget of about $1K we got him 34% of the vote, but the complete lack of wisdom, support, and help from his own party was astonishing. (Went out of state to work closely with Kucinich snd will likely have a distinguished career in politics after grad school.)
Mad as a wet hen after that, I planned to run for that seat in 2020; do-nothing Dems laughed or told me it was a bad idea (checkered past) and put up a Blue Dog, retired Penndot double-dipper in response. Not wanting to remain in a party like that any more, I planned to run as an Independent after the closed primary season ended. Would have been great to debate the R Reed successor and the double-dipping old blue dog on the radio and get in a few cracks about frackers buying politicians and our lack of teeth and addiction problems in the 62nd.
However, Pandemic interfered (taught in NYC, lived in PA, commuting by train) since I didn’t want to become the Typhoid Mary of Western PA, I dropped out and got an Air BnB to be closer to work in NYC, little realizing it would be years. So it wasn’t Rs who ran my political aspirations as a progressive Social Democrat down, it was the entrenched Do-Nothing Ds.
If Hillary is a feminist icon it should be on her own merits, but she lost places like my native Western Pennsylvania by being the wrong sort of candidate (“perfect” for liberals/elites doesn’t play among Appalachians; corporate coziness doesn’t play among progressives; foreign policy horrified many) and taking the vote for granted - she canceled events in the final days of the 16 campaign and Trump ADDED stops in the general area (WPA-OH-WV culturally similar).
Fast-forward and we’re looking as you said at a perilous party divide in which social dems are alienated from machine dems/corporate dems and we are the only thing standing against pure fascism unbridled in the US. Sobering. If anyone can figure out what to do, though, I firmly believe it will be Professor HCR and that we, her Ragged Irregulars, will take up arms against a sea of foes and save our relatively young experiment in democracy, the USA.
( In the meantime, I’m running for Congress in NY’s CD 10 if I can get 1500 signatures in a week to get on the ballot…a small miracle or a lot of grassroots efforts should suffice to do that. Help an Irregular out by asking a friend to ask a friend to download a petition and get a signature? Www.LauraThomas.nyc)
Thank you! If you have friends who might reach out to friends, every signature will count since (I’m sure you’re aware) Former Mayor deBlasio will have $600-an-hour lawyers in court challenging every signature and I’m nowhere near 1500+ yet.
You have nailed it Laura. The Democratic party is dangerously(I refuse to say hopelessly) fractured. The leadership (Pelosi) is terrified of losing the conservative wing to the tightly organized, anti-democratic, Putin molded, Republican party with it's highly successful coalition of the over-lords and the (somewhat, sometimes) disadvantaged underclass using a nearly indestuctible two part epoxy of hatred and racism.
The solution has to involve the youth. If we can convince them to vote they, and we, can crush these hatemongers in a heart-beat. Pelosi's choice in Texas will not get them to vote. Reading Heather is working on a number of the ones I know.
Thanks for your drive and for this quote:
"Fast-forward and we’re looking as you said at a perilous party divide in which social dems are alienated from machine dems/corporate dems and we are the only thing standing against pure fascism unbridled in the US. Sobering. If anyone can figure out what to do, though, I firmly believe it will be Professor HCR and that we, her Ragged Irregulars, will take up arms against a sea of foes and save our relatively young experiment in democracy, the USA."
No one with an ounce of sense, which is why WE hope Pelosi-style corporate dems will make common cause with social dems, hash out OUR differences, roll up our sleeves, and feed some hungry kids, protect all of us with universal healthcare, and enact sensible gun registration legislation among other things - together.
Pelosi tried to bring AOC into more prominence as a freshman, but AOC demanded the ability to write bills or she wouldn’t work with leadership. Freshmen don’t get that opportunity. Then she publicly said Pelosi has a problem with women of color because she didn’t get what she wants. AOC has publicly admitted she almost didn’t stand for reelection because she hates how Washington works (or doesn’t). She could be a great leader in the party, but has a lot of growing up to do first.
Thank you! Bruce, do you have friends in NY’s CD10 (or friends of friends) who mught be willing to sign a petition? Need 1500 signatures in a week-stiff order with no machine,
I like the ring of that word and thank you! A chubby bookworm/activist/mom does not usually think of oneself in battle mode. Do you have friends in NY’s CD 10 (or maybe friends of friends) who would consider signing a petition and getting another friend to sign? There is 1 week but it isn’t theoretically imposdible,
Thank you! If you know any NY friends who live in CD 10, please reach out! It would take a small miracle, but if 2 friends tell 2 more friends, and they download petitions from RepMyBlock.org and get a friend or two to sign, it could happen.
What area is that? I don't, but you never know. I have a friend who moved from Manhattan to Montclair and another who lives in Ithaca. I can tell them and see if they have any friends in that area.
Laura thanks for that reply it really sums up many things. I had to beg my son to vote because he does not feel that either party gives a damn about him and his future. I don’t think Biden is making him feel any better. I will share your info on social media and hope friends of friends will share. Thanks so much for stepping up. If I was younger and did not have health issues I would do the same thing. Good luck fighting the billionaire money.
WE are, if we’re readers/believers in Professor HCR’s truths. We may be diverse, but we believe the armed attempt to stop certification of electoral ballots was an attempt to thwart democracy (hanging Pence was floated as an idea, too) - anyone better out there who feels differently about details but like we have keeping the Union strong in common ought to get out there and run for office too! (Go up against me in CD 10, please! More power to you-we can debate our differences.) True democracy comes in many flavors and the PEOPLE decide.
You seem to want to pick a fight. It’s not me, it’s we. We who recognize incipient fascism when we see it. If I’m violating any terms of service, I’ll be deleted; otherwise, freedom to associate here and our freedoms include scrolling on by if you don’t enjoy what you read. I’m sure you’re doing your part to help our latger cause, as are we all by reading Professor HCR’s Letters.
Good luck,Laura. It’s obvious that well qualified women are more than criticized for the same behavior celebrated and expected by the Suits. We only have to look at the numbers. And understand why we could not pass the ERA.
We "ragged irregulars" have much work to do! Thanks for all you are doing for democracy. Let us know if you get on the ballot so we can $upport your campaign!
While I agree with you about Hilary (I am not a fan either), the fact that people voted for Trump in the numbers that they did is, in my mind, the real problem. Before he became president, it was no secret who he was, and was not. There is no way Hilary would have damaged this country the way TFG has.
Probably not and we would not have the Supreme Court that we have now. I do think Bernie would have brought out many disenfranchised voters who find little difference between the Republicans and Democrats. Nothing has been done about climate change, wealth inequality, school debt and on and on.
Why the constant National obsession to blame a woman (Hilary Clinton) for everything that happened after she was defeated? I have never heard Gore being blamed for Bush or LBJ being blamed for what happened after he didn't run. I propose we move on. Bernie siphoned votes from the Clinton campaign and helped divide the Party and weaken her further in the Press. I very much appreciated his uniting behind Biden in 2020.
Your words are telling: "This is why they are losing." They? Siphoning votes from the Democrats are absolutely helping the Republicans win. Nothing gets my ire up more than this fact.
Agree 100%. Disappointing rhetoric from commenters today. It’s either about Trump being a loser but still winning or Hilary being a winner but still losing. And saying she lost because she was married to Bill? She lost because of everyone foolish enough to waste votes on Bernie Sanders. Those weren’t votes for Bernie. Those ended up being votes for Trump.
Agree. I don't know why this is such a difficult thing to grasp. Progressives have a Bernie cult as much as there is a trump cult which results in tunnel vision. This Country is in massive denial at the rampant, blatant and disgusting misogyny that exists in the United States. Hilary Clinton bears the projection of that national misogyny more than anyone woman I know of. It makes me sick.
NOT a cult; Sen Sanders discourages that and instead tries to promote more progressive candidates like AOC. Good for him. Progressivism won’t die when he does because he goes out of his way to build movements, not cults of personality. He uses “OUR” and “WE” because he wNts to be replacable by younger people like AOC.
Is that why Bernie immediately stated he'll run for President in 2024 when it appeared in the media that a younger progressive--Ro Khanna--would do so if Biden didn't run?
What the heck is going on today? I've been increasingly less interested in, and less active on, the forum for weeks now, but today is out of control. I sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but the quality of the conversation has deteriorated substantially in the last few months. Thanks for still being here, Christine. I always value your contributions.
Actually like Dems always do they bent over backwards to give him a fair shot. To my mind he didn’t have a chance in hell and they should have set clearer and more firm boundaries and not have allowed him to hitch a ride on the wagon
Why? What had Bernie Sanders ever done for the Democratic Party in 2015? He had stated for decades he hated the Democratic Party; he had never worked to get Democrats elected, sent out 1 fundraising letter for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Fund.
Bernie was/is an Independent--he never changed his Senate designation even as he ran as a Democrat for President. It's hard to get more obviously hypocritical than that.
Bernie should've run as an Independent in 2016. If he had, the response he got in that election would've given him the money and time to build out his own campaign infrastructure to run as an Independent in 2020. Then he would have been a serious contender.
Fair shot? At the Democratic party nomination? He’s not a Democrat, he was able to run, and he didn’t win. I don’t understand why he had a shot at all at the Democratic nomination, although I’m extremely glad he didn’t choose to run as an independent. I wish Bernie supporters could hear how much they sound like Trump when they complain that the primary election wasn’t fair (rigged, anyone?). Your guy didn’t win. Convince more people that those are the best policies for the nation, and maybe the next person will.
I like many of Bernie’s policies, and I like how he’s moved the Democratic Party on these issues. But I can’t stand him as an individual. There might be a time when a female candidate can be as disheveled and strident as he is and gain support, but I doubt it. He and his campaign were misogynistic at best. I also saw him as completely unelectable, and had he won, his inability to work with others and actually pass legislation would have hurt the country.
Fair? What in the world does that even mean in National Politics? This isn't a school yard game. The Progressive Movement will be a lot more credible when the whining and blaming ends.
I agree Hillary would have trouble winning any election in this country. But, I think she only made one real mistake in her life.
Hillary had the bad judgement/bad luck (both are required) to marry a serial philanderer that spent much of his time chasing women. By definition, these type of men are very good liars. Marrying Bill Clinton was her single largest mistake I think. Hillary is not the first woman to be so entrapped.
It is likely and possible Hillary would have had a successful career in government had she married a less deceitful and dishonorable man.
However, Hillary's Husband's lying is not why I do not like Hillary.
The reason I sort of smell something bad when I think of Hillary is because of her (reported) routine hiring of the same bulldog NY law firm to smear the women her husband was running around with if they got vocal. This puts her in the same category as her husband.
She’s out of politics, and all of her “sins” seem to be “reported” or dislike of her husband, or some other vague reason. She would have been a thousand times better than her only alternative, and how else to make a practical judgement about a politician. Very weary of latter-day Babbitts.
But one of the reasons not to like her. This type of ruthlessness exists in the male candidates as well, but it doesn’t change the image in the minds of many voters. Her public demeanor was “mean” and it was dispensed upon innocents such as the Travelgate folks. Ruthless is a bad public look
Actually, I’m allowed to form an opinion based on behavior absent gender. It has nothing to do with giving a pass to males exhibiting the same ruthlessness
You have NO idea how I dispute male assholes, so stop assuming
Nora. Who said anything was “ok” because of Trump sleaze? Your comment smacks of pessimism and misplaced loyalty. The choice of Hilary gave us Trump???? Please. Voters gave us Trump. Especially the votes cast for Sanders. And that is said with no disrespect for Sanders. But he was NOT the Dem candidate.
When a person is in a weak spot they make massive sweeping statements, vague and salacious inferences and blame blame blame. There are whole bunch of Bernie devotees here today preaching. Tiresome.
Just what did Hilary do? Not the unfounded rumors, and please, not the most over-covered story of the century, the emails (this is especially rich with the recent info we have learned about how many other high officials did exactly the same thing—and still do it). I realize that she’s out of active political life, so even asking is a bit of beating a dead horse. I understand not liking her as a political person, but why the vague aspersions?
What the hell is going in comments today? Lotsa of Progressives tearing down Clinton, Pelosi, the Democratic Party and proclaiming they have saved the Country from fascism? "we are the only thing standing against pure fascism unbridled in the US. " And. ""progressives, who have made the most important improvements to our lives."
Your comment reminds me of a previous LFAA from Heather about a week ago: “In the 1990 midterm elections, a political action committee associated with House Republican whip Newt Gingrich gave to Republican candidates a document called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” It urged candidates to label Democrats with words like “decay,” “failure,” “crisis,” “pathetic,” “liberal,” “radical,” “corrupt,” and “taxes,” while defining Republicans with words like “opportunity,” “moral,” “courage,” “flag,” “children,” “common sense,” “hard work,” and “freedom.” Gingrich later told the New York Times his goal was “reshaping the entire nation through the news media.” Minds matter. Words matter. Correcting mislabeling is a big part of saving our democracy.
Yes I know words matter. I am also familiar with what you have quoted. Ever taken the implicit bias test? My point was directed at the Progressives, Centrists, Leftists etc labels within the Democratic Party. The operative word is "within". Progressives still consider themselves as within the Democratic Party right? They run as a Democratic and the DNC supports those campaigns? We need to tape ourselves together as a unified Democratic Party. Take a look at the May 27, 2022 Cook Political Report. Terrifying.
So it is wrong to push them to do better or we should just accept the status quo and not fight for the future we hope our kids can have. Sorry I don’t blindly vote for a party and then just accept everything they do. If we can’t discuss and calmly agree to disagree on some things that is just sad.
Of course that’s not wrong. But to me, the anger at Democrats seems misplaced. Biden has been the most progressive president we’ve ever had, and it isn’t Democrats, progressive or “corporate,” who are blocking this progressive agenda. It’s the Republican Senate and the filibuster. Many of us are pushing back because we see that this constant harping on Dems for not being progressive enough actually gets in the way of one, getting things done, and two, electing a big enough Senate majority to be able to pass this desired legislation. (I’ll add three, it makes it harder for a Democrat to be elected president, a la Clinton.) Get mad at the right people: Republicans in the Senate, plus Manchin and Sinema.
I will also add that insisting on perfection at the expense of the good gets us nowhere.
Exactly. Hmmmm where dod this thread get sidetracked by history? My comment “WE” meant Professor HCR readers, not one group of us. Only those of is who love & want the truth can bring down whatever Trump they throw at us next…Der Gröpenführer again, or, if he’s in the pokey, Ivanka “Vanky” is being groomed again.
Laura, I’m very pleased to see you agreeing with me, when yours are some of the comments to which I refer. I would argue that all of us are here exactly because we seek the truth, and no one subset of us has a monopoly on that.
Here’s a helpful hint for running for office: when you use terms like “Der Gropenfuher” or “Vanky,” when you toss profanities around like candy, you don’t sound like a serious person running for a serious office to be taken seriously by voters. Anyone can read this comment thread, not just subscribers, so you might want to be more judicious with your word choices if you do decide to run for public office.
I respectfully disagree that Biden is progressive. I am not asking for perfection just do something about climate change and stop spending billions and billions on weapons. I don’t think that is too much to ask for.
Nora, regarding weapons, I think we will have to agree to disagree on the importance of arming Ukraine in the face of Russian invasion. I see that as crucial, not only for Ukrainians, but also for the future of democracy in Europe, America, and the world at large. You seem not to agree with that assessment. That’s fine. I personally think war is a terrible failure of diplomacy and an awful waste of resources and only produces suffering. Ditto our inexcusable military budget. But some wars are worth fighting; some values are worth the cost, and I think this one is worth it. I’m proud of Biden’s ability to strengthen and unify NATO in the face of its weakness post Trump.
Regarding climate change, the Biden administration HAS done something. The press coverage of the administration’s achievements is abysmal. The problem remains that without a workable Senate majority, no administration can pass all of its wish list. Its inability to pass BBB is a key illustration of this. Here’s a great summary of what the Biden administration has achieved, and where it is lacking:
Again, I see letting perfection get in the way of the good, and not recognizing progress when it is made, as a problem with many progressives. I agree that no progress short of huge on climate change is enough, but some progress is a million times better than what Republicans offer.
I do not blindly support this administration. I think their performance on Covid has been poor, and the CDC remains a shell of its former glory, to our infinite cost. I want to see an executive order banning assault rifles if Congress is unable to act. I want more on social justice than we’re getting. But I’m still happy we’re getting something, rather than falling backwards.
Why do democrats apologize while repubs just lie and throw out more red herrings to cover their lies? Lack of a moral center and a bloviated belief that they are better than others turned them into a brainless cult of TFL, who never once took responsibility for killing a million people in the US alone by COVID and still climbing. Add semi automatic unregistered and unlicensed weapons to that and you've got something to apologize for.
Huh? You didn't reply to Jeri. You threw out hyperbole and a"what about" argument. You didn't respond to her mention of the serious threat of siphoning votes and enabling the Republicans to win. I invite all Progressives to please stop with the lecturing and join the rest of us in saving Democracy for everyone. If you can do that then your ideas for Americans stand a chance. Under a Dictatorship you have zero chance. "bloviated belief that they are better than others" is how Progressives come off. Your words.
I assure you Barbara I was not thinking of Bernie at all when I wrote "progressive" but rather the historical progressives like the Roosevelts, including Eleanor, whose legacy is being stripped away by TFL and his cult who have to think they are better than others.
Try knowing Hillary thru the glass clearly, instead of thru the glass colored by the Putin’s, Gingrich’s, Murdoch’s, Koch and every other misogynistic, racist bully over the last 3 decades. JFC. Freedom of Mind. When will we evolve past evil Influence?
Yes, it's infuriating the corporate neolib Dems keep the progressives bound and gagged. I look forward to the day when octogenarians Pelosi and Schumer are no longer calling the shots. I'm still a democrat, and will always vote Democratic in the general, but I'm a progressive.
Yes, agreed. It is absolutely not to be trusted. I know a great many Bernie supporters, and not a single one of them voted for Trump. Bernie supporters vote for Bernie's POLICIES. Why would they vote for a madman?
I agree that Pelosi is not supportive enough of progressives, who have made the most important improvements to our lives. We should be making progress and not going backwards (and downwards). I was not happy with Hillary because of having Bill, who told a lie, back in the White House, but she won me over with her bravery while TFL followed her around the debate stage. He is not just a guy, he's a compulsive liar and the only true thing he ever said was "you knew I was a snake." Liars cannot be trusted and trust is vital in all human interactions. Let's remind everyone that 🤡🎃💩 is a liar by changing his name to T F L. 🤥🤯🤮🐍apologies to snakes.
..."progressives, who have made the most important improvements to our lives." Are you serious? That's quite a sweeping statement there Gigi.
In order to prevent a Republican sweep of the Senate and House Progressives need to shut up. Progressives in the House did no one any favors by yammering about defund the police in 2020. We lost critical House votes then.
Stop dividing the Democratic Party and putting your ideals above Democracy.
Good communication has 2 elements; content and timing. The content of Progressives is excellent. The timing is awful. We are bailing the boat here. Stop complaining and start bailing.
Hooray for you. I get so tired of progressives not understanding that at the end of the day it is all about who has the most votes. Not the most sanctimonious claims on our consciences. Pelosi is probably the best Speaker in the history of the House.
No. I am not a detective nor an accountant and she has never come close to committing a crime that I know of. I realize you’re obsessed with her in some way, but I don’t care about it. Clear?
I'm sorry, Barbara, but there is nothing so "divisive" as saying "we" are right and "they" (in this case, Progressives) are wrong and should "shut up." Unfortunately I keep reading comments like this in various blogs. They are not helpful to the cause.
It is yet another tragedy in the life of Hillary Clinton that the poisonous drip about her motivations manufactured by the Republican white male establishment seems to have entered the DNA of not just women Republicans but also so many Democrats of all genders and colors. I see it among my own Democratic and Independent friends, male and female. It is hurtful to me, and scary, to contemplate how undefended women in all professions are against such destructive and malicious speech.
What scares me most, however, is the lack of empathy and understanding for an outstanding female public servant whose life was (and is) dedicated to a better future for all, especially women and children, everywhere in the world. Yes, she voted for the Iraq war, a very bad mistake. So did virtually every other senator, most of them male. Ask yourselves: has it disqualified these men in the eyes of the voting public for the rest of their lives the way it did Hillary's standing?
Yes, Bill Clinton made terrible mistakes in his relationships with women. I recall the long-ago senator from Colorado, Pat Schroeder, describing a room (or rooms) in Congress for male politicians of both parties to retire to with their paramours. Bill Clinton was one in a long line of men who behaved (and behave) badly. But whose business is it to condemn Hillary for marrying Bill Clinton and/or staying with him after the roof blew off their private lives over private decisions, however bad? She forgave him. He mattered to her. She mattered to him. She understood him. He understands her. They have a child they raised lovingly and courageously. Who are we to condemn them if we consider ourselves, our own decisions, the poisonous culture we have been asked to navigate while going through our days, fighting for what we believe in, raising our children, taking care of our families?
I met Hillary Clinton during a weekend in the early 2000s for a dozen or two donors from the Boston area who were invited to meet her at the Senate and, later, at her home in Georgetown for dinner. At the Senate in the early afternoon, she spoke with us patiently while managing numerous interruptions and calls for votes. She wore a green pantsuit. At night, she arrived at the dinner table around nine, still wearing the same pantsuit, exhausted, but gracious. Guests could ask questions.
The second question was about the situation in the Middle East. She began to talk, without pause, for more than twenty minutes, with passion and empathy for all those she knew and had known there, and had interacted with, and had listened to, for decades. She knew everyone, on all sides. She knew everything, from a day ago and from decades before. She wove it together for us so we could understand what she understood. She was the most informed, lucid, compassionate politician and human being we could have had to represent us, who would have, and could have, made a difference in our politics. Her losses were a victory for the Republicans. They knew what they had to do when they first noticed her, many decades ago.
Mine, too, Marleen. Hillary Clinton is, to me, a role model and a hero. Blazing trails takes so much courage and energy, and it’s so easy for those of us who came after to forget that. Our success stands on her capable shoulders, and the country is immeasurably worse off because she lost in 2016. Thank you for writing this for us to see her as you did and do.
When you read” It Takes a Village” you understand HIllary Clinton’s passion and professionalism in caring about our children, all children and how governments can make a positive difference. And if you look at the reviews you will also read abundant criticism, not only of her book, but just who she is. It’s more than challenging to prevail in a system that itself continues to legislate against women and women’s rights, including Roe v Wade, ERA. Women’s suffrage was a battle, not just an amendment.
Thank you so much, marleen. A worthy tribute to a wonderful person. I believe she is a woman that absolutely could have led this country as president. Her tenacity is unmatched. I did not agree with some of her politics but I never disagreed with any of her values.
I am glad that she still wields influence today on many issues being contended with.
I agree with you. A hundred years from now, the loss in the electoral college for Clinton will be seen to be as politically life-altering (in a very bad way) as the JFK assassination, Watergate, or the election of Reagan.
The media's decision to ride the email train, Comey's election interference, all that will be put in it's proper perspective.
Don't know if you are familiar with the former NPR show, The Diane Rehm show. I once called in and actually got on the air while they were blathering, once again, about the emails. A Friday News Roundup show. My comment was that the media had taken a GOP talking point and elevated it into a scandal, then when she apologized, several times, in several different ways, the media narrative changed to "she hasn't apologized properly". I said that they were beating a dead horse. I actually got yelled at by Diane Rehm, one of the few times I ever heard her screech. "You don't understand. We have to cover it because it's a top news item". I hung up realizing that the stupidity virus was more invasive than I thought.
Yeah but no one put a gun to her head and forced her to shit on Juanita Broadrick (sp?) and that’s where she lost a lot of us. Alumna from a woman’s college here, appreciate all her merits, but class and racial divide there was ugly. Then the choreographed walk to the copter with Chelsea proving ... what? Smile and take the Lewinsky abuse he perpetrated because he’s a rich president and she’ll get rewarded with a Senate seat later for making nice for the cameras? Fuck that shit. It was an insult to younger women everywhere, I don’t care HOW good he was in bed.
I’m not sure I understand you correctly. You’re saying that class and race divisions at your women’s college were Hillary Clinton’s fault? I’m guessing it wasn’t Wellesley since you don’t say so, so she likely wasn’t even there. This is a woman who has spent her entire career battling class and race and gender divisions. You’re also saying that her efforts to keep her family intact were all a front so that she could become a senator more than a decade later? Can you see how none of that makes the slightest bit of sense?
Marriages are private places. None of us can or should judge the compromises and forgivenesses people make in their marriages, especially when there are children. Not even hers, and not after her public humiliation. Don’t be so quick to cast judgement on something you likely know nothing about. None of us do, only the two of them do, and it’s none of our business. Her decision to stay in her marriage wasn’t an insult to anyone. Reducing what was almost certainly an agonizing decision to Clinton’s sexual prowess speaks ill of you, not her.
You know what didn’t “make the slightest bit of sense,” KR? Her deciding to move to suburban NY (not from there, never lived there, dodn’t work there; it was demographically selected) and decide she was owed a Senate seat from there, expensive “listening tour” the state, and sit back and be given that little bauble just like an NBA wife recently sported some “I’m sorry” bling. We’re a welcoming people to immigrants, New Yorkers, but how about acknowledging the truth?
And: what else would make a woman of substance set the example to a daughter and Our nation’s daughters that you put up, shut up, and parade your family so that you keep what’s coming to you? What they said to each other is THEIR business but what they used OUR country’s political pomp/pageantry given OUR nation’s press documenting every gesture is fair visual rhetoric for analysis and what it says about me is that I understand verbal and non-verbal Presidential rhetoric, KR.
I find this offensive. This was breaking while I was in the middle of an harassment suit against my company. The choices I made were for self preservation considering the times. It’s easy to judge through a mis shaped lens.
She wasn’t battling race and class divisions when she had people like Carville say things like “drag a $20 bill through a trailer park” and let the dogs our on (white and bipoc) women to whose bodies her husband allegedly helped himself without obtaining consent.
Laura, none of that is anything she herself did. I get it, you don’t like her. Because Bernie, neo-lib, blah blah blah. I hope you’re never in the position of having to decide to save your marriage or bail after your husband’s infidelity, do it publicly, and have people 25 years later judging you for it. I’m going to go work in the garden. It’s too nice of a day to spend it arguing with you.
❤️❤️❤️❤️ there was a reason these fascists bturds invented every lie they hoped might stick to keep her away from power. They knew exactly how dangerous she would be to their plan to bully us into a fascist state
It is so sad about the door. I personally believe that the chief of the entire Uvalde police department coordinated throughout with the schools chief. This seems to be another instance of the police telling lie upon self protecting lie in their reports of an incident where people died because of what they did or did not do.
John Durham has sullied his name - hopefully forever. Seeing Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows trumpeting the false narrative is sickening. Benghazi and Hillary's emails still resonate strongly in certain quarters of the anxious right. And our former guy just keeps on bobbing and weaving all the while lying. The only thing that i can see being an antidote is serious campaign reform resulting in, among other things: 1) term limits for senators, congressmen at least and maybe even supreme court justices, 2) wringing out the money by, among other things, legislating a reversal of Citizens United, and 3) reintroducing a version of the Fairness Doctrine so that FOX's propaganda machine is reformed. And what else?
Where I live it would be a conflict of interest for a police officer at any level to be on our Board of Selectman (I.e.City Council) since the Board is the “employer “, setting salary and terms of employment. I find it curious and question the placement of Arredondo on the City Council.
Hard to "like" this letter professor. Maybe, just maybe, "investigations" should not make our "news" until indictments are issued? Has Matt Geatz ever been indicted yet? Are the Dems resorting to repugnitan tactics? Impeachments are nothing but theater with no one testifying under oath, congressional subpoenas are ignored with zero consequences. "Justice moves slowly", only for politicians in my opinion. Trying very hard here to keep the faith.
Still calling people at Fox News Corporation 'personalities'. The reason why they can't be charged for spreading lies is that Fox is not about news, but about entertainment. So, why are these people not called CLOWNS, which they are. I would like to see them all pictured with a red ball on their noses, or why not a 'Pinoccio' nose expanding for every lie.
Olof, you got me thinking about clowns - evil ones, and The Joker came to mind. Calling all the Fox 'personalities' Jokers seems apt to me. For more evil clown info, I went to Wikipedia,:
'The evil clown is a subversion of the traditional comic clown character, in which the playful trope is instead depicted in a more disturbing nature through the use of horror elements and dark humor. The modern archetype of the evil clown was popularized by DC Comics character the Joker starting in 1940 and again by Pennywise in Stephen King's It. The character can be seen as playing on the sense of unease felt by sufferers of coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.' 'Coulrophobia' I hadn't heard of that before.
I’ve read that coulrophobia can begin in infants. About the time they begin to understand and identify faces, a clown’s face can be disturbing, as it has many similarities to a human face but also great differences.
Gail, From the assortment of what HCR and subscribers deliver, we find the leads to questions trailing along with us. There is such a condition as your daughter's. Will you consider doing a bit of research about it through the American Psychological Association (only authentic professional associations) and, perhaps you and daughter call her doctor or yours (general practitioner/internist) for a suggestion? You won't alarm by saying that other people have the same fear as she does, 'so let's look in it'. It actually may be a relief to know that she is not the only one.
Rowshan, every Sunday I carefully read a fair bit of the Wall Street Journal including some of the comments. I only do this once a week, but, that is more than enough.
It cures me of thinking that the Pubs are not hugely popular, that people will be able to see them for the crooks they are, that their lies are being recognized and that they will be tossed out in the next election.
In the vein of “know thine enemy” I kept my WSJ subscription. The fever swamp of the comments sections became akin to FB. I ditched it. Whether people or bots the narrative was disinformation.
To be honest, Christine, the whole conversation leaves me standing at the bus stop after midnight ... in one ear, out the other ... other work to do rings more true ... I appreciate sincere intentions and communion among concerned individuals - must have value in the whole scheme of things - so much of it is beyond my grasp - feeling pretty much like 'dust on the wind' ...:
There was an editorial, I believe(?) in WAPO theorizing that Putin’s false narrative of the war in Ukraine is impossible to repudiate ( how do you repudiate a false narrative?) and therefore within the Russian sphere of influence, he will always win his objectives. Trump’s playbook is exactly the same!
My question is what is a smart way to address false claims? Is there data to inform a path that will be productive for democracy to sustain itself? Hope alone isn’t doing it!
I heard a podcast yesterday where Frank Figluzzi interviewed someone heading the George Washington Initiative (georgewashingtoninitiative.org) to use volunteers and, eventually, employees to dispel dis/misinformation. He said the Russians spent only $1.2M and used only 80 people to create and push out the disinfo that helped elect Trump in 2016.
The Ukrainians have no trouble repudiating Putin’s lies about his war on Ukraine. Judging by the explosions, there are people within Russia and within Belorussia who see through him as well. It’s past time for supposedly mainstream Western media to stop making excuses for Putin and his Republican allies.
For inland readers, “chumming” is the deepwater fishing practice of throwing chunks of dead, often rotting, fish called "chum" into the water in order to lure large fish, such as sharks, for sport fishing. Your use of the term seems marvelously appropriate, in a very Maine way, as the oil-slick from a small amount of chum spreads out over a very large area, pulling in many large, ignorant creatures, all greedy for any garbage tossed to them. (My source: fishing for Blue Shark with my Dad 25 miles off of Portland ME, in order to weigh, tag and report their location to NOAA. Dad caught them using a fly rod, including one over 12 feet in length.)
Loved the "chumming" metaphor! Same in the Great Lakes (although No Sharks!) Chumming with roe banned in or rivers in salmon season due to increase chance of speading disease.
Given what happened in Uvalde I wonder how long it will take for the citizens of Uvalde to recall their newest council member since he obviously was ill-suited to do his previous job.
Since the GQP have nothing to offer in terms of policy they have to continue to do meaningless things such as these lawsuits. Those lawsuits help to feed their misinformation to their base and muddy the waters so people are distracted from the real issue, that they have nothing to offer unless you have lots of money.
I know this question is naive but here goes anyway: how/why has Trump been able to avoid arrest? Seriously…I truly want to understand how a person gets away with so much for so long. He’s like an eel…no offense to the eel.
Carol,
Trump is one example of what is truly amiss with America. A hardened and successful criminal for all of his adult life with documented crimes (not renting any of his rental properties to black people, a federal crime, not paying taxes in NY or in the US, 6 bankruptcies, and more).
There are two main reasons Trump is not in jail:
1. He is rich.
2. He is white.
In America, if you are rich and you are white, it has been, since the founding of our country, totally OK to do whatever you want, including, enslaving an entire people, whipping someone to death, slandering people, selling a person's offspring for money, paying no federal tax for years, and attempting to overthrow a legitimate election.
The free pass, for rich white men, is one of the very fundamental flaws in the American fabric.
Look up any statistic on any prison. The vast, vast majority of residents are black and latino.
Why? Because blacks and latino's are more criminal than whites?
Not hardly.
Very wealthy criminals buy the best accountants and lawyers to cover their tracks and manipulate the system. With Georgia TFG couldn’t restrain himself and made the call never suspecting a Republican official would record the call. He didn’t have his fixer enabler Michael Cohen to do the dirty work. Can Houdini slip from the handcuffs of a Fulton County indictment?
I profoundly hope not. I hope he is indicted, tried, and convicted. After Napoleon was such an awful problem for France, he was exiled to Elba. I wish tfg could be exiled to some remote place with no internet or cell service. His defense is always, “They’re picking on me. It’s not fair.” That excuse is not acceptable for a 12 yr. old boy. Why should tRump get away it? His base needs to understand that he despises them and just uses them.
Interesting comment. Trump brings to my mind an old (original) Star Trek episode. The planet explored in that episode kept having impossible, illogical events happening the the landing team. Final conclusion? The planet was inhabited by an immature, narcissistic “god-lette”. This (essentially) spoiled brat had been exiled there by adult “gods” for punishment and hopefully reform. Apparently they were unsuccessful! Sound familiar?
Frankly, reform is unattainable. Just as "bipartisanship" is with Republicans & here we go again with the attempt to actually pass something that resembles maybe not control of guns maybe, possibly, a few little minor concessions from the Rs. I'm sorry, for being so pessimistic, but how many years has it already been since there were ANY concessions from them? The entire Charlie Brown/Lucy scenario keeps playing over & over.
I agree, Jenn. I compare his behavior to a grade school child who whines "Not fair!!" when he loses at pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey at a birthday party.
Or loses at golf when he cheats!
Exactly!
I vote for wherever Komodo dragons live!
NOPE! Nowhere that there are living & breathing animals. Ever notice how uninterested the entire DJT family is with living animals? The only interaction with other species is killing them. Not sure where he could be "put" that would mean safety for others (humans or other species)!
❤️
Poor dragons! Really?
That’s right, but his base (the GOP) are paying the freight on his legal woes.
For Trump and his family it’s a grift that’s how they make there living and they are great at it. His base is the mark Gym Gordon and the rest are just along for the money
Jordan is not a mark, he's a co- conspirator.
Guantanamo without internet.
Elba was far too close to the mainland and within sight of the island of Napoleon's birth. A very expensive mistake. Saint Helena, in the middle of the South Atlantic was the final choice.
The main thing is to make the world safe for its inhabitants by whatever means it takes to remove this man, his henchmen and his would-be successors-in-crime, from circulation.
At least he could then spend the rest of his days content in the knowledge that, like Napoleon, he is seen as a uniquely important menace and is being treated accordingly. Thus, vanity will be satisfied.
Peter, You came up with an elegant solution, at least in your words. Can you imagine Trump thinking as you do? Give it 5 seconds. Next question, where will he hold his rallies?
Answers:
1. Thinking? Is that what you call the processes that take place under that skull? No, those are soothing thoughts that jailers can feed him, along with images from rallies and from Mar a Lago...
2. Cfr. Loree Byers
Having said that, prayers for him and for all like him. Don't let's give in to hatred for the man however much horror we may feel for his words and deeds.
To hate him and those whose minds he has poisoned is to join with them in drinking his filth and delusions. That is how evil comes to stain the innocent, and if we attend to the lessons of history, it will be plain that these stains, these mind poisons, remain ingrained in human communities for centuries... for millennia.
❤️
Laws are written in language that allows learned attorneys to reverse the intent of the law on its face by parsing the language into pretzel ( Hence Steely Dan) logic
Juries become inexpert linguistic interpreters, ( not of their own choosing) in attempts to arrive at the truth
“The Truth is not in us”
Seth Wouldn’t it be ironic if Trump, accustomed to liar and lawyer up, were brought to justice by a Fulton County district attorney. Reminds me of Al Capone, whose murderous career was ended by a tax fraud conviction.
And one who’s female AND Black.
Talk about poetic justice!
And she is not cowed by him or his family. Neither is Letitia James, NY State’s AG, (another Black woman) who’s going after him in a civil suit for tax fraud.
The perfect scheme, in my opinion!
I hope they're looking hard a RICOing tfg and the rest of his rabid litter.
Some Republicans, most notably, Tom Cotton, are trying to introduce legislation that would end fair representation by an attorney even when you can't personally afford one. That sure fits into the system these rich white guys are working to strengthen.
He’s McConnell in a different but in a same colored hoodie
He's actually more intentionally evil. He looks for the evil angle in whatever he does. McConnell will play with evil, but it isn't his go-to first choice, as it is for The Guy Who Should Have Been Fragged In Iraq.
Yes, just add a pencil mustache under his nose and lo and behold…da Füehrer!
is this the recent Supreme Court decision?
If Fani Willis's special grand jury does not recommend empaneling a grand jury that can find grounds to indict TFG, it will not be due to Willis being corrupt. She is a diligent, intelligent lioness, and she calmly strategizes ensnaring criminals. Unlike TFG, even if he's tried and convicted of attempting to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election, Willis will not recommend the death penalty, as TFG would have liked to do with Hillary. In this case, cronyism and wealth will not dictate the outcome.
I say, when TFG is tried and convicted, let’s build him his forever home on the southern border out of those BIG BEAUTIFUL WALL sections.
Oh, that would make me so happy! After all the criticism of Merrick Garland's apparent lack of attention of TFG's criminal behavior, it's heartening to see that his critics were apparently misguided, and the thought that the criminal might face consequences would be sublime.
Except for Roy Cohn, Trump hasn't had the "best" lawyers or accountants. His reputation for not paying his bills makes that impossible.
Hopefully not.
I would add, another protective factor is that he's male. It's no accident that Martha Stewart ended up in jail, while so many rich white men who committed much worse crimes skated prosecution.
And that Nancy Pelosi has been refused communion but President Biden has not been refused communion.
Good point. You can't let those women get too uppity! Why they might expect to be treated as equals and allowed to be priests!
Wish I could quadruple ❤️ this. Don’t get me started on the Catholic Church.
I'm with you.
We need a whole separate blog for that.
Pat The Pope clearly granted Biden the right to communion despite his view on abolition. One of America’s conservative bishops has ignored the Pope in his diatribe against Pelosi. Meanwhile, numerous American dioceses have declared bankruptcy because of the massive legal payments for the long-hidden charges of church folks doing unthinkable things to boys.
It seems to me that the only ‘soul’ in the Catholic Church that is sacrosanct is filet of sole. Now the Southern Baptist Church is unraveling over exposure of church scandals.
Holy, holy, and all that jazz.
And this week the Pope promoted the Archbishop of San Diego to Cardinal, very pointedly passing over the Archbishop of San Francisco.
New Mexico ended up with more than her share of pedophile priests because problem priests were sent to the Servants of the Paraclete retreat in the Jemez Mountains by dioceses from all over the country. Once pronounced “cured”, they were sent to parishes throughout New Mexico instead of back to their original states. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has declared bankruptcy and is forced to sell off church property.
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, had the same problem. We were in the Allentown Diocese when I was growing up and it's where the "bad" priests went for punishment.
Agreed. My point is that there's a mixed message going on and that men seem to get a pass when women don't.
And, if the Pope can be likened to the legislative branch, the Bishop of San Francisco can be likened to SCOTUS. Biden gets a pass on the Federal level; Pelosi gets sanctioned at the state level.
The priest in San Francisco that refused Pelosi communion was passed over by the Pope for a promotion he'd been hoping for. The Pope elevated someone else. Touché...
Biden goes to a Catholic church in DC with a different priest, and I seem to remember the Pope expressly did not allow communion to be withheld from Biden.
Hi Bruce, I think what the Pope said was intended for all the U.S. Bishops...as in, "don`t weaponize or politicize the Eucharist." If I remember correctly, it was a Bishop/ or priest in Connecticut that was threatening to withold communion but the DC Archbishop Wilton Gregory said Pres.. Biden could receive anytime in DC! Pelosi is a devout Catholic, as is Biden. At a time when the US Bishops could be standing strong for the real human issues and crises of our world they are doing this political s#*t ( sorry Jesus!!).
Thanks for clarifying with more specifics I was fuzzy on. I remember the Pope's statement and couldn't understand how this priest in SF could get away with denying Pelosi communion. The priest in SF is extremely conservative, apparently, but I'm glad the Pope passed over him with promotions of others. Pelosi has visited the Pope at the Vatican, so I can't see why he hasn't come down harder on the priest in SF.
Not only did the Pope promote someone else, he promoted the Archbishop of San Diego, a prominent liberal who was JUNIOR to the Archbishop of San Francisco.
Can’t ❤️ this but this SF priest is extremely controversial and always has been. Time for him to be set out to pasture.
Hhi Marlene, Yes, he is one of the "gang" of USBishops who are anti- Francis and also politically in bed with the ultra right wing, in all its forms. There are a few progressive Bishops ( recent made Cardinal one of them) who are trying to find ways to lessen the gap between these guys and less partisan Bishops-- but the U.S. Conference of Bishops, at this moment, is as divided as our country. It is so discouraging and so counterproductive!!! At a time when the church is trying to keep "butts on the pews" these guys are trying to throw out some of their most publically loyal practitioners!!! They are also being "backed" by ultra conservative, big money Catholics--a situation not unlike the strangle hold lobbyists have on our Congresspersons and probably intimately connected to certain conservative political agendae.
Agreed, but that wasn't my point.
I'm confused. Pope Francis asked the bishops not to make Eucharist a political tool. "In November, the bishops approved a new document that fell short of denying the Eucharist to pro-abortion politicians." So how can the archbishop deny Speaker Pelosi communion?
https://www.newsweek.com/pelosi-denied-communion-bishop-pope-eucharist-1708843
I agree, but that's not the point I was trying to make.
It's kind of like federal vs. state here in the US. The feds - AKA Pope Francis - gave President Biden a "pass," but the state authority - AKA Bishop Salvatore - refuses to allow communion for Speaker Pelosi.
I have no idea what happens when either walks up the aisle for communion and the priest says, "Body of Christ."
I just know that President Biden is a man and Speaker Pelosi is a woman and it just seems wrong to me that their treatment is different.
I agree that it's wrong that their treatment is different. And one can find many many examples of this inequity in the church of my childhood. It just seems that in this particular situation it was more a question of geography (who is in charge in CA vs DE) and I wondered how an archbishop could defy both the pope and the council of bishops. Sigh...
Chaplain The Catholic Church on abortion seems akin to the Democratic Party on almost everything. Whatever the boss man says, there are many mice who munch their own cheese. Progressives, moderates, and coal-crunching Munchin.
sorta like states' rights?
That bishop got in trouble for that stance. *shrug* It IS California, you know... ;)
Wasn't he initially refused communion, but that was overridden by (the Pope?)
And, not having money isn't always necessary, since many white men with not much money are given a pass for egregious crimes and behaviors a lot of the rest of us would end up being outcasts or in prison for. A good example is those young men who have raped women but are given a slap on the wrist because a criminal record would "stain their futures".
Key word: S.T.A.I.N. ....
Although many of them come from families with money.
3. He is male.
True on the face of it, Martha Stewart did time.
White but not male.
So... Dave got the point.
????????????
Dave Martha, as a woman, was treated differently than a man. However, Martha (who looks great at 80) dug her own hole because of arrogance. She professionally had knowledge of stock shenanigans. She had the opportunity to say mea culpa, I was unaware, and would have gotten a slap on the wrist. Instead, she told the prosecutor to stuff it and insisted on a trial.
Net net: Martha was treated differently than some male stock manipulators. But Martha’s arrogance sent her to the slammer.
Mitch McConnell and the extreme politicization of our Court system. I always check the Party of a presiding Judge in important court cases.
Here is an article from 2020. “McConnell reaches milestone on judges by filling final Circuit Court vacancy. “When we depart this chamber today, there will not be a single Circuit Court vacancy anywhere in the nation for the first time in at least 40 years,” McConnell said. McConnell took over the Senate in January 2015 and held votes on just two Circuit Court judges during Obama's last two years in office. And McConnell has made confirming judges central to his tenure as majority leader. By Leigh Ann Caldwell and Sahil Kapur
Also
“McConnell was exposed to the machinations of judicial appointments early in his career, when he worked for Marlow Cook, a U.S. senator from Kentucky who sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. During his time as a staffer for Cook, McConnell saw two of President Richard Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees rejected.
“It was in those years that McConnell really came to understand the importance, the centrality of judicial nominations in our political system, both the Supreme Court nominations and also … federal lower-court nominations,” Alec MacGillis, a ProPublica reporter and author of The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell, told FRONTLINE in 2019.
And McConnell's coup of his lifetime was in stacking the Supreme Court. Then to our extreme detriment it appears as if Garland is living in some sort of ivory tower way up in the clouds where lady justice still prevails.
I loathe McConnell and mute him every time he makes one of his asinine pronouncements. He has ruined the court system and the Supreme Court is nothing now, but a majority of Federalist Society judges who continue to undermine everything that we have worked so long to achieve. As for Garland, I think he runs a very tight ship and that there is much more going on than the public knows at the moment.
Same here. I think McConnell has done more to destroy democracy in this country than any one individual, even the Big Orange Menace. Everything McConnell does and says is done with ulterior motives. He's a slimy bastard.
Case in point...delay action...keep kicking that can down the road...wait till it all subsides and blows over...tout a couple of ineffective actions without addressing the MAIN one...
https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1531685943698235393?email=305966b8e78a335d0b5d80ac058692cc51cb7b0b&emaila=a2ef2d482568704f718104bd097a1ccd&emailb=cd37b32ca9df18b298251a2dd117111edc08348b66a4111148c3ba0c3c1cd482&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=06.01.22%20KB%20-%20The%20Hill%20-%20Morning%20Report&utm_term=Morning%20Report
You can practically see the slime dripping off him.
Can’t ❤️ again (sigh) but your last sentence perfectly describes him.
When the heart button doesn’t turn red, refresh your page and it should then show it’s red. If not, just click on it again, and it should turn red. You may have to scroll a little to find it.
On another hand, there have been a number of tfg-appointed judges who have ruled fairly on cases of particular interest to tfg and Republicans.
I am talking mainly about the Supreme Court here.
You should thus be very surprised then, to learn that most of the decisions in the past year against the Trumpers in the investigations have been made by Trump-appointed judges. And overall, more Trump-appointees have ruled against than for, though the Trump appointees in the Appeals Courts have about a 50-50 record.
I have noticed that as well. However, it is that other 50% that rule according to Party lines that is causing problems. The sheer number of McConnell appointed persons in the Judiciary is staggering. While people were distracted McConnell set out to control the 3rd Branch of Government.
Trust’ at the Supreme Court? The court’s self-destruction continues.
By Jennifer Rubin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/01/supreme-court-investigation-clerks-cellphones/
👌🏼
Say it Mike!!!
Trump is just one example of the fundamental flaw. But, he is an excellent example to be sure Kathleen.
And if he is in fact still rich, it's because the facts about his finances are not yet known.
And he collects more every day from, if not rich, well-off white stupids, some of whom are my neighbors.
I always think of a couple of my ex-high school classmates who live in Florida. I don't know if they donate....one of them is stinking rich and the other lives in Naples and plays bridge all the time. I was having an email conversation with the latter for a while and I could never get her to stop the political talk. What I did discern with her was rabid hate for Obama which was probably racial. When she started using all caps to answer me, while ignoring the facts I had given her, it was time to stop. This person is also intelligent, but she has become a true believer. My take is that they love being able to use the system and have little, if any, integrity.
It was Donald's debut in the press.
‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias (Excerpts from The New York Times) Gifted link to article below.
'It was late 1963 — just months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act — and the tall, mustachioed Fred Trump was approaching the apex of his building career. He was about to complete the jewel in the crown of his middle-class housing empire: seven 23-story towers, called Trump Village, spread across nearly 40 acres in Coney Island.'
'He was also grooming his heir. His son Donald, 17, would soon enroll at Fordham University in the Bronx, living at his parents’ home in Queens and spending much of his free time touring construction sites in his father’s Cadillac, driven by a black chauffeur.'
“His father was his idol,” Mr. Leibowitz recalled. “Anytime he would come into the building, Donald would be by his side.”
' the next decade, as Donald J. Trump assumed an increasingly prominent role in the business, the company’s practice of turning away potential black tenants was painstakingly documented by activists and organizations that viewed equal housing as the next frontier in the civil rights struggle.'
'The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company’s chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was front-page news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye.'
“Absolutely ridiculous,” he was quoted as saying of the government’s allegations.
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
'When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.'
'But an investigation by The New York Times — drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors — uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iaga3DFDmwSiPkORJCH_0bRZKF4INc02T2fSJpdKqIqXLlyyfJEPkpiDhOhqZbCmIgAJ299j7OPaV4M_sCHW6Eko3itZ3OlKex7yfritEqKOzHgXLiPhCEjOApmoMR6Jl-ri2gMx6aWQrNw3tko36sxF9stE2d7ESqKtvbvDhp_PszXLU2Pr1lrBJwKHG3bjtWe6LkfcQpNCFqgTH535Gw07d00K8pAde-kbEZmIJyi9O1XXm94L46pBIkzQZzWl9hptL3Lqx-Kzqmm1t8g_yp9YPfSpiOY6kciRFA&smid=url-share
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
And that is how he has "skated" - most of his crimes before becoming president weren't big enough to justify that kind of fight, and if the evidence wasn't so overhwelming it could get through the Baffle Them With Bullshit defense, the prosecutors took a pass.
I only have ugly four-letter words for Fred Trump and his offsprings and their offsprings!
For reasons known only to themselves, the national media has legitimized a con man, someone whose statements don't get the same scrutiny that any one on the left faces daily.
The reasons are very well known, he sells papers and generates views. Since that's how the media make money, it was an easy decision.
Also, none of his crimes were "big enough" to go after him, plus there was enough "wiggle room" that prosecutors could see him getting a "not guilty" from the jury. Believe it or not, he was always a "small timer" among the Big Crooks. Plus he has demonstrated before he became president and since that he will fight every inch of the way, delay delay delay. A really combative small timer isn't worth the effort in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, that allowed him to graduate to the Biggest of the Big Time Crooks.
TC is the SYNTHESIZER. Spurred by MIke S.'s comment on how Trump became a 'hardened and successful criminal'; a NY Times article, providing background about how father and son trumped the courts, TC took the bits and pieces and made them whole. The SYNTHESIZER knew which pieces to pick up and how they fit together, bringing Trump's success as a 'hardened criminal' to a climax. This series of exchanges read like a master class in synthesizing. The subject. could not have been better chosen. Thanks to Mike S. for that.
I'm sure white adds to his voter-base appeal and his slipperiness, but it's a far below the rich/politically connected reason. I mean, how many people-of-color of similar wealth have been indicted or arrested for, well, anything? Sure, being non-white means you have to have a bit more money to be invulnerable, but that's partly because race is used so effectively in drawing attention away from the stupendous wealth of this country and the way it has concentrated, and with whom.
3. He is male.
Volodymyr Zelensky is male. Jamie Raskin is male.
Thank you & I am sometimes ashamed that I am white & not necessarily privileged but by birth & location I have been fortunate. Blessings…
Read Woke Racism: How a New Racism has Betrayed America, by John McWhorter. He's a black professor at Columbia.
White-collar crimes are notoriously hard to prosecute because, for the most part, they aren't B&W. It generally has to be something so blatant that a jury can't not convict. Trump and his dad were persecuted for a civil rights violation. The linked Washington Post article describes the suit in very interesting detail. It is not against the law to go bankrupt. It isn't even against the law to cheat your vendors, make them settle for $0.10 on the dollar. Luckily the Georgia case is about a black letter that makes attempting to interfere with an election a felony with a potential for jail. However, I do not expect Trump to ever be behind bars as that would place his Secret Service detail in peril. My hope is that he's sentenced to home confinement in his New York "castle" and cannot play golf or schmooze with the guests of his properties. I assure you that's Trump's idea of Hell.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-governments-racial-bias-case-against-donald-trumps-company-and-how-he-fought-it/2016/01/23/fb90163e-bfbe-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html
Well done Mike.
While as President a sitting ( in office ) president has Executive Privilege . He can’t be Arrested and Charged with a Crime. We can only Impeach him. The Republicans wouldn’t vote to do it …….. Twice ! He still has some cases against him as a Business and a Civilian. Which I read there were Repub. donors sending in $ and it was going toward his Legal fees. The Donors think it’s going to Campaign funds. They still don’t believe he’s just a Con in a suit.
The Trump base is a textbook example of Sunk Cost Fallacy. They will never believe, because they are already so emotionally and/or economically invested.
I needed to look up Sunk Cost Fallacy so I’m sharing what I found for others who may be interested. Helps to understand why people stick with that fool.
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy
Pouring money & whatever else into a bottomless well! Kind of like sticking your head into the sand - sort of the same result?
Thank you for the definition and explanation. I fear I am one of those humans who has made sunk cost fallacy financial decisions. Not political I hope.
Ugh! I seem to be the Queen of sunk-cost-fallacy in the financial end. 🤓😏
Awesome site! Thanks.
Thank you! Explains a lot.
Sounds like Progressives
Sunk Cost Fallacy: the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial:
Certainly this applies to some of far left here in Salem. They want candidates to check all their boxes. I do hope that they will get behind Kotek for governor. There was an article in the Oregonian yesterday about Betsy Johnson, a long time DINO, and independent candidate for governor as she knew she would never get the D nomination. Turns out that we can now call her Machine Gun Betsy because she does own one....a gun enthusiast and collector. After Sandy Hook, she visited a classroom in Jewel, a very small town in the coast mountains, and answered a question from one of the students by telling them this. Apparently, the kids were stunned. I doubt this will draw many Ds to her, but likely some R gun nuts.
I read this morning that Johnson is now vowing to push for modest gun control policies. She's a wolf suddenly donning sheep clothing.
She can say whatever she wants and I bet she read the O article. I am now calling her Machine Gun Betsy. She is a wolf indeed. And with close ties with Timber Unity or whatever they are calling themselves now. I am hoping that she will draw Rs.
Barbara A sunk cost is what has been poured into an investment—whether a new product, a stock, or some nefarious scheme. One then has the opportunity to say—-that money is spent and the venture isn’t worth more risky $$$.
With investments, too often someone says I can’t afford to sell, since the stock cost me $$$$. Often they they hold it as it sinks further. Others take the loss and move on.
McConnell initially abhorred Trump and then made a political deal with the devil. Now he is endeavoring to move away from Trump in an effort to become Senate Majority Leader again. Michael Cohen was deeply invested in Trump and then turned against his one-time boss. For him, Trump became a ‘sunk cost.’
I understand sunk cost.
While I agree that this can certainly be explained, in part, by the Sunk Cost Fallacy, there are other reasons that many people are drawn to this kind of leadership. George Lakoff suggests that conservatives and liberals think differently about issues central to who they will choose as their leader. While conservatives tend to be afraid of change and difference, liberals are made much less uncomfortable by those things. And conservatives tend to seek out more authoritarian leaders, usually male, to represent the strong father who promises to solve all their problems and keep them safe. Liberals tend to lean towards leaders who represent the nurturing mother, and base their choices more on who might be kinder. I would be willing to bet that most of the former president's followers (he whose name I dare not speak) come from more traditional backgrounds, with a less emotionally available father but who none-the -less the family deferred to. Those early years tend to shape pretty strongly our preferences for the kind of leaders we want, most of that process being unconscious. Also, a lot of them are or have husbands, brothers, sons, fathers, etc who are similar to that thug who once occupied the WH.
Yes! Good point.
Don’t forget that long red tie that connects him to every evil under the sun, including Vlad at Helsinki
I am troubled by the number of people who ignore death star's complete lack of anything good and his criminal enterprise. They either benefit from this financially or they have some obsession with things like abortion. So they continue to support the party of death. The wealthy can continue to have access to abortion for example and they think their money will save them from what is likely coming with climate change.
Particularly the trumpite churches. Dante’s 8th Circle of Hell, Fraud, and 9th, Treachery, are reserved for them.
Michelle There are many cults and charlatan cultists. Trump played on the fears and biases of many folks. Many evangelical ministers do the same—-overwhelmingly for power and wealth, as they become anti-Christs. I remember reading about ‘Death Stars.’ The worst are those who deliberately prey on others—in prayer.
Yes, death star donny is a master at playing on people's fears and giving them carte blanche to be as awful as they have always wanted to be. I have seen one ex-student fall into a cult and his children paid the price. We have some arrogant hateful pastors here in Salem, in my neighborhood actually, who love the power and getting into everyone's face while failing to even attempt to follow what Jesus taught. One with the help of others of like mind, blasted hatred all summer at the park in downtown Salem and monopolized a lot of that space while doing things that bothered a lot of people. And of course Proud Boys or that type doing "security". I have to say being a religious leader is a golden opportunity for those with nefarious purposes.
IMHO, all the best confidence artists wear suits. Madoff? Neil Bush? Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, there are the Suits and the rest of us. Sorry guys, I take responsibility for adding to the suit population, but I’m hoping they will be part of the New generation who works alongside us, true gender equality. Have hope on that one.
Marcia A president can claim Executive Privilege. In the case of Nixon, the Supreme Court unanimously denied this to Nixon, because the Watergate tapes related to a crime. President Biden has overruled Trump’s claim of Executive Privilege for the same reason. I don’t know whether Trump could appeal Biden’s decision to the Stench Court. To date he hasn’t.
Dear Keith, I would love to spend a day talking with you. On my part it would be more of the listening. You are so wise and informed. I had know idea why you were saying “ Stench Court “? So I searched . Now I know. Justice Sotomayor said it. I thought it was a done deal on Trump.With that said I believe the Stench Court will protect him. I don’t remember why Nixon wasn’t charged with a crime ? Can’t remember. But I was so mad that he got all the former Presidential Perks right up to the day he died. And I think his wife after that still did. Perhaps maybe not “The Red Phone “ if you remember what they were ? I wonder if TFG has that perk as well ? Thank you.
Marcia If one screws up enough in life and lives long enough, he/she can give the impression of being wise. Look up ‘tontine,’ and perhaps. You’ll understand.
Being on Nixon’s EnemiesList, years later, when i had to make small talk with Julie Nixon Eisenhower, I had some difficulty.
After Nixon resigned to avoid Senate impeachment, he was liable to criminal prosecution. President Ford, to put an end to the Watergate calumny that had convulsed the country, issued a pardon to Nixon for whatever he had done.
At the time, I was furious that Nixon went scot free while his henchmen went to the slammer. Over time I grew to appreciate that Ford did what was necessary for our country, although it probably cost him the 1976 election. Later Ford was awarded a Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his gutsy pardon.
I believe that the ‘red phone’ was the prez’s phone for major crises, including nuclear. He had a guy with him at all times with the nuclear codes.
Some very close friends of ours, the husband, Chuck Colson was his uncle. Colson went to Prison for just a few months. Maybe I wasn’t making sense about the “ Red Phone “ ? I’m concerned that TFG has access now to what was called the Red Phone. It was for the ‘Former Presidents ‘ ?
MARCIA My understanding is that Tubby Trump has not been accorded security clearance by the Biden administration. If he has this ubiquitous ‘red phone,’ hopefully it has the number of Attorney General Garland, were he to decide to plead guilty to constitutional insurrection.
As for Chuck Colson, I recall he stating how glorious and mystifying it was to be in a president’s aura. It may have been him who was astonished that, as a former private in the Army, he would be saluted by White House Marines. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
When I was off on an emergency mission to eastern Congo in October, 1964, the commanding Marine colonel at the airport refused to provide this civilian K rations as I was going alone into rebel-infiltrated provinces. To break this standoff, I told him to call his commanding officer, the American ambassador, on his private phone at 3:00 a. M. And explain to him why his house guest (me) couldn’t get K rations. (I got them).
Earlier, going to Lodja, I had command over a C130 when it was on the ground. After a hairy first few hours, I could complete one final mission. The ambassador’s housekeeper had abandoned his hotel in Lodja in 1960. He desperately wanted his fancy meat cutter as as memory of pre-independence. Also, his wife was dying of cancer.
The captain of the C 130 was getting nervous about the unsettled situation on the ground—drunken Congolese soldiers. The destroyed UN plane with crew members still aboard. I affirmed that I was in command of the plane on the ground.
The captain seemed apoplectic, when the meat cutter arrived. Darn, he never saluted me.
Trump was carefully taught by his Fascist father and Roy Cohn, a nasty lawyer who advised Joseph McCarthy's outrageous behaviors, how to leverage laws and to quibble by way of frivolous lawsuits to do just what this case has done. Whenever he is accused of wrongdoing he slaps a counter-lawsuit that keeps the issue in limbo until it fades away, often by attrition. He practices the art of making big stinks that divert attention from the facts. He is such a flim-flam man! There are good honest people who know this, and who are (too) patiently at work on apprehending Trump, but they must have air-tight facts. One grievous reason for his success is that the Republicans use the same justice-obstructing methods to stymie progress. It seems that they may be complicit, thus they too play the game.
Having said all that, it does seem that the chickens are coming home to roost. Little by little Trump is being thwarted. I must say I don't fully understand the delay by the DOJ. In a week or so, the Jan 6th committee will make public their findings on the insurrection. Hopefully, all the actors will be thoroughly exposed.
you missed 'donating to campaigns of judges and District Attorneys'. I just wonder who made donations to the current NY DA in light of his allowing the investigation into Trump to expire? It is a time proven strategy for buying your way out of wrongdoing, by corporations and individuals.
Thank you, Hope, for your comment. Sometimes, it does take a village to raise a criminal.
Good one! "it takes a village to raise a criminal."
I thank you for this perspective. Indeed, sociopathy runs in families and apparently in political parties. You have to be carefully taught . . .
...and carefully BOUGHT!
Among the wealthy it does seem to be a learned characteristic. Each generation teaches the next. With the case under consideration, we can see it in three generations.
Had the DOJ brought these villians to a Grand Jury before the Congressional January 6th Committee did its work, the villians would have taken the 5th. The end.
Very well said Hope much better than my fit of anger.
Anger is so understandable, Bryan. I've had my moments, too.
Decades of slithering using the corporate shield, corporate bankruptcies with full discharge Plans, fall guys, cut outs, misdirection, Gaslighting, "send lawyers & money", prey on vunerables with a need & fill it, pay, pay & pay when nailed & get full releases, secrecy agreements with a breach remedy & NDA's as taught & funded by KKK father in the Eastern borough of New York, among other tactics.
Not to mention bilking the American taxpayer.
Ahhh, NDAs. A true red flag for wrongdoing. For it to be an enforceable contract, doesn't there need to be 'consideration' for the vict- oops, the signer?
Public policy in the jurisdiction may hold NDA's UNENFORCEABLE particulary if the unseemly "Disclosure" is a Crime or that pesky problem: la verdad ... the truth. But, WAIT .. use it anyway just to create the Fog of War ... I mean Wreck Litigation. See for example, Trump Campaign "Outreach" Director, Jessica Denson successful court victory getting a ruling holding Trump's "Campaign NDA's" were "too vague" meaning NOT enforceable. Ditto for Trunp's "indemnity" BS. Courts will NOT enforce indemnity for Trump's sole negligence.
Slippery as they say, and with money and Rupert’s megaphone, and of course evil to the bone
It's often our money as a result of their bilking the American taxpayer.
Because he is rich, white, male, and has proven that he knows how to be the biggest and the best cheater, fraudster, and criminal! America loves a wily viper!
I call this the class clown syndrome where a portion of the class loves the disruption while the rest want to get down to business. One of my great greats in elementary school just won the class clown award. Sigh.
Privilege.
True but so did Martha Stewart. That didn't keep her out of federal prison. There's no one thing but his history of being able to exact revenge by any means has to play a role.
I guess in the end he can thank Roy Cohn for teaching him how to circumvent the justice system. There has to be a limit to his luck.
Carol, for a long time Trump has made a safe place for himself [by hook or crook] by surrounding himself with people that are crooked or downright evil. He has stacked many courts in his favor, and has physiologically controlled a large portion of citizens in the US by his lies, and cozying up to, and saying what "white supremacist" and other hate groups want to hear, and it even goes further/deeper than this.
And, the eel says he is offended . . . lol
I have a different theory, I feel like every crime Trump's committed leads to other kettles of crimes - which lead to yet other kettles of crimes. Maybe this is what is taking Garland so long, where do you stop investigating, draw the line and just indict with the evidence you have?
The trick he learned from Cohn! Deny, lie, repeat!
Yes, he is an eel, Carol. He's Teflon Don 2.0. Whether or not he will eventually be put behind bars is the true test of our democracy.
At some point, bald-faced lying and gaming the system became acceptable political tactics in this country. I can think of several trends that may in combination have led to this. Life has become much more complex. Improved communication has brought the world beyond our insular communities ever closer. Religious practice has declined. Educational standards have declined. Smart criminals like Roy Cohn realized that strategic dishonesty could win. Honesty has not been able to keep pace with the wiles of determined and well-funded crooks. The wealth disparity has become obscene, and big money wags the government. Trump, a wannabe big crook, has been used as a pawn by bigger crooks. (My working theory, constantly tweaking.)
Maybe we've just caught up with other parts of the world, where corruption in government is the norm? Or maybe a lot of this was hidden, until these present day thugs became more brazen.
There's an article, I think on Salon that explains.
He had a good teacher, Cohen.
He's not Martha Stewart
There are as many explanations as there are people, but know he has lost many times in court. To be arrested you have to be convicted of a crime that's on the books. He's guilty of many crimes against humanity, but when he breaks or bends the law, the punishment is usually pecuniary. Has he broken the law? Probably. Could he shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it? Not if there were eye witnesses and it wasn't in self defense.
He is no more a citizen than you or me, he is not above the law but he is good at skirting around the edges, again something he learned from his dad and Roy Cohn.
All questions are naive, the very nature of a question is to fill a void in your knowledge. I'm super naive but not as much as I was yesterday.
Keep plugging away Carol!
No, an arrest or indictment *precedes* conviction for a crime. Trump has never been arrested or indicted, and to our knowledge has never been the target of an investigation. There are a lot of very knowledgeable, independent legal analysts who consider that to be extraordinary considering Trump's record.
I didn't word that very well. Hoping my lawyer daughter doesn't read it. ;-).
So, you're saying he's not a target of the investigations by the NY AG and NYC DA? Or is it only his company they are going after?
He's been connected to many investigations : https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/12/politics/list-investigations-trump/index.html
I must be more naive than I thought.
I don't think this question is naive. I'm glad you asked and I'm learning from the answers.
This question is not naive at all. It's one of the greatest questions surrounding the Trump saga. I do not believe it can be answered with the standard arguments about rich people escaping the sanctions of law. I suspect it's much bigger than that.
This story begins with Trump's deepening ties to the NYC mob dating back 30 to 40 years and continues with:
- Trump's attraction to the FBI (and the mob) as an informant (this two-way role is not uncommon)
- the Russian mob's violent acquisition of the NY mob "franchise" in the 1990s,
- Trump deepening involvement with Russian sources of funding, legal or not,
- the merging of the Russian mob and Russian government during the 1990s, and Putin's rise to power by the early 2000s,
- the virtual certainty that Trump would have been privy to a great deal of information--gossip, rumor, speculation and fact--about the FBI dealings with the Russian mob,
- the likelihood that some of that information would be compromising to the FBI, and whether true or not, could be extremely damaging to the FBI (see the story of Whitey Bulger and apply some factor to it, which turns exponential when Trump becomes president)
- ask yourself why would Trump be so confident of his impunity that one of his first acts as president was an attempt to bribe--or extort--an FBI director to end an investigation that was likely to lead to him,
- a former FBI director was chosen as special counsel to investigate Trump, found insufficient evidence to name him as a co-conspirator (much less recommend prosecution), chose not to render judgment on the national security aspects of the case, and delivered epic-fail testimony to Congress about the investigation.
- As president, Trump acts as if he believes he is untouchable by the law and as if Putin has kompromat on him.
There are more elements to this story, but it boils down to Trump becoming immune to prosecution because of how damaging the information he has is to the FBI as an institution (and perhaps to senior FBI and DOJ officials). If this is the case, Trump and his family members will never face prosecution.
I had not read this before. Thank you.
It certainly makes the case, and by quoting Mueller's circumlocution before Congress, Greg raises the question about Mueller that many others refuse to do, presumably because of his sterling reputation. My guess is that Mueller was straight but was dedicated to preserving the FBI as an institution crucial to the nation's interest.
I see two threads missing from Greg's account. One is the intersection of so many of the FBI actors around the Trump investigation with those who investigated or prosecuted mafioso in NY and Boston from the 1980s (Giuliani, whose name is not mentioned in in this account, among them). If Greg's is onto something here, as I believe he is, some of them could have their reputations ruined by Trump's revelations.
The second is the intersection of so many top WH and DOJ officials involved in the investigation of President Trump with membership in the Federalist Society, which of course had its wildest dream realized in Trump's judicial appointments.
Professor, I found it particularly striking today what a capable journalist you are. But, I am so happy you chose the to be a scholar.
Yes, as a journalist, your truthiness likely would be suppressed or subverted - as a scholar, you help inform and educate those with ears to hear ....
Too bad that ears are in short supply. A journalist should be something besides Rupert Murdoch.
We may have to accept 'we are dust on the wind' in a world where these guys hold the aces ...:
sandscape
a cold wind blows
in shantytown . . .
tumbleweeds cavort
with barren sands . . .
sad old shacks barely stand
broken down -- boarded up . . .
worn dry bones collapse to dust
horizons' twilight skies . . . .
https://tahomahome.weebly.com/sandscape.html
💕💕💕💕💕
Madame Professor. For an academic historian you are one hell of a researcher and real time journalist. Bravo. For years I produced history videos where the outcome was totally known, before we started the project. Then I took on a documentary about the possibility of Fracking in Western Maryland. I had never been a "news guy". I interned at WJZ-TV in Baltimore during college and actually wanted to work a path towards Wide World of Sports. That went sideways...but what I learned from being around the news room was that I didn't want to be the guy sticking my camera in the face of someone whose child had been murdered.
The one news story I shot in 30 years was about Mel Fishers gold haul from the Atocha.
Fast forward to 2015 and I read a front page headline in the Baltimore Sun. Boom or Bust ? and it started me on a 2 year path that ended with Fracking being banned in Maryland by our Blue State Legislature and signed by our Red Governor. An historic first in a state that actually has gas reserves.
There was a moment in the work...when I said to myself..."I don't know if I can do this justice. I'm totally flying by the seat of my pants." People had donated their money to me...so I just kept going. In the process I went from journalist...which I maintained until the film was shown a few times... To activist when what would be the final vote getting out of committee was in doubt. My Dem State Senator from Baltimore was the log jam. She was owned by big G&O...and she did everything in her power to keep the bill in her desk. I helped force it out, by going head to head with her in a hearing. I had the advantage of meeting with her off the record and documenting her in public...and I learned how to get eye to eye with her. Boy, it feels good to tell this story. In the end we won...and she lost her seat as our rep.
So lets all keep learning and acting on it. Thank you Dr. Richardson.
Ah, a life experience well lived. Kudos
Thank you. The Fracking film is the best outcome from any project I've done in my life.I'd like to repeat that success on gun control and climate change.
Please do, Mike! I hope you’re already busy on achieving that endeavor.
Barr, Durham and Trump accused Sussman and Hillary of doing what Republicans do all the time - run a phony investigation in an attempt to smear their opponents. It’s such a standard part of the Republican playbook that they assumed Hillary would do the same thing. Of course, she didn’t. Republicans can’t believe that, because they assume that their opponents are as craven and amoral as they are. Trump and Barr cannot imagine a world in which the party in control of the White House wouldn’t use the DOJ and the FBI to try to destroy the opposition. The irony is that this is exactly what Barr and Trump tried to do with this Durham “investigation”. The only guilty party here is Barr.
Basically, if the Repubs accuse anyone of doing anything, they're doing it themselves. Pure projection, constantly.
Okay, so the Democrats disappointed the Republicans by not running phony G.O.P.- style DOJ-FBI investigations. But that doesn't stop them from attacking the Select Congressional Committee investigating January 6 and from screaming 'fraud' every time they lose an election. When you think they can stoop no lower, they manage to find a way.
And his Puppetmaster
Goebbels preached accusing your opponent of what you are doing in his propaganda “handbook.” Republicans use his playbook all the time; Dems just won’t
"Dems just won't" is a good thing.
Philosophically, yes. Losing elections due to the desire to remain on "higher moral ground" is not a good thing. Especially when the present form of government is on shaky ground.
Losing elections because you refuse to engage in illegal and/or amoral activities is right. We have to believe the rule of law will win out. Otherwise, abandon the country, it’s just a race to the bottom.
We're already in a race to the bottom. In fact, we're now in a race for survival of the unique US democratic representative form of government. Losing has never faced worse consequences--except when Lincoln faced dissolution of the Union if he didn't win.
Would you have the Democrats lose by refusing to use the same tactics just so they can claim "well, we lost, but played on higher moral ground." Politics has no morals.
If politics has no morals, then politics has no meaning. If Democrats resort to the same tactics as Republicans, then our “democratic representative form of government” is lost.
The question - do the ends justify the means, and do you give up your humanity if you engage in the same dirty tactics?
Spot on JR! -saw-
Trump and his administration may be the sleaziest we have seen but that does not make it ok that Hilary is who she is. We know how they smeared Bernie and that among other things turned off so many voters. I have always felt that the choice of Hilary gave us Trump. I have often voted for the lessor evil and voting for Hillary was one of the most difficult votes of my life. The Dems keep supporting weak or compromised candidates, Texas comes to mind right now as Pelosi backed a anti choice, NRA, big oil supporting man over a young progressive candidate. This is why they are losing and why many people like me call ourselves independents or socialists. I fear what the midterms bring us.
Hillary won the popular vote. In White House for 8 years then senate 2 terms. There has never been any candidate as prepared to be president as she was. I don’t think Bernie has successfully passed one bill. For a person of Hillary’s experience and just plain brains to lose to a thieving windbag… that is not her fault. The system is so broken How the hell did Gore lose to a nincompoop like Bush? A man who literally broke the world. And talk about Big Lies!! The Iraq war was based. only on lies.
One of Hillary’s handicaps (besides Bill) is gender. Too many voters will not admit that truth, so they accuse her of misdeeds that cause less than a blink in the suit world. I would vote for her again. And Gore’s loss in front of the world? How can anyone explain corruption when it’s reported daily as truth?
Al Gore did not lose. Hillary Clinton did not lose. Roger Stone and his ilk stole those elections. I also think both would have gotten landslides (which Stone then would not have been able to manipulate with a silly "riot" like he did with Florida and the Supreme Court) if they had the charisma of BIll or Donald. Both Gore and Hillary strike me as brilliant people, but with a trade off in social and emotional connection to audiences. Perhaps, like Einstein and Marie Curie, they are Asperger geniuses. At a time when we needed their brilliance, it was criminally stolen from us.
Yes
The Repubs had been hammering away at her for decades. They were afraid of her so they worked steadily to undermine her at every turn. It's what often happens to smart, ambitious women. Too many people, both men and woman fear them, and express that fear in derision and projection.
💯💯
She is truly an amazing being.Spent her younger years working for those who truly merded help. Personally, while I cannot stand to see Bill ( who I adored until Monica) beside her, I think the two things that took her down re President were "deplorables". She should have known better. And Comey.
I don’t disagree, but she was right. About all of it. I’m still furious about Comey.
So am I.
❤️
Her foreign policy and Biden’s for that matter is beyond horrible. Almost all the Dems voted for the Iraq war and they helped get us into the middle of the proxy war with Russia now. Bernie is not perfect but I believe if the Dems had not pushed him out he would have beat Trump and we would be in a better place.
I doubt it. Bernie did good by not letting go of the social issues that bedevil our society, and keeping them on the front burner. But it took him way too long to learn to step back when other people took those issues up. I do not believe for a second that he would have made a successful or effective president. It is right to respect what he accomplished, but also to recognize his shortcomings. It's clear to me that Hillary lost for one major reason: she was a woman who knew what she was doing. We have made some advances, but we are still a heavily misogynistic society. Other nations are way ahead of us on getting past that, but we cling to it, just as we cling to the idea that one man can save us from ourselves.
As a young child during WWII, it occurred to me that women knew what they were doing while men were out there messing things up. Yes, Hillary knew what she was doing, but she did, sadly, make a Faustian bargain with someone who had a genius for taking credit for other people's work. Still with him, too.
Let's see if we can make a list of Presidents who were criticized for things their spouses did. Let's start with Lincoln, not the first nor the last by any means, but quite a good example. The choices Hillary made about her marriage are her business to work out and live with. I admire her for her gumption and bravery in pursuing her own interests in spite of the lies piled on her by Trump's crew, and the disrespect by the very people who should look on her as an accomplished, brilliant woman in her own right. She should have been our first female president. Misogyny is not limited to men.
Good grief, your response made me see how shitty my remark was…not at all what I intended. I do see her as a brilliant, accomplished woman in her own right, and the fact that she was able to stand up to the crap thrown her way proved her amazing strength. Yes, she should have been our first woman president, and history may show she was so elected, but not any time soon.
Yes. Some of her foreign, I did not agree with and her vote on Iraq … go along to get along.
However. she was an excellent Sec of State for Obama. She knows/ knew so much. Think, had she been elected…of the Supreme court, the infrastructure jobs that would have bern created , the good will around the world ( she had been sec of state and had many good relationships) and the advances in climate preparation that would have been laid down. Worldwide. Do you think she would have called coronavirus “ a little flu” and treated expert sdvice with contempt?
It’s all so sad. I wish Bernie or or anyone but Trump, had won
Never would he have beaten chump, and, as I vividly recall, repubs had some heavy hitters lying about the Iraqis. Still pissed…but republican lies were in full force and their reputation wasn’t in tatters then, except for idjits like me.
Well, I for one, am sure as hell glad America is involved in that "proxy" war in Ukraine. You would have thrown us under the bus?
I have been shocked over the last decade or so to realize there is a group on our Left as pro Putin as the group on the Right. Wish they’d all move to Russia as much as they love him
They are anti the American Empire but Russia and China are OK
Not to be nit picky Allen, but I don’t see them as anti “Empire”. Difficult to be pro Putin and anti Empire, as we watch him kill so many trying to gobble up more and more land. It’s so despicable, to support such beasts. I so wish there was an international peace keeping force that could just lock up murdering monsters. What will it take for people to stop just handing them power?
I believe we could have totally avoided this war with diplomacy instead of poking the bear. The only people that benefit from this mess is the weapon manufacturers.
Thankfully there are still enough people who are scholars of history and psychology, especially “strongmen” to understand that diplomacy cannot work with a bully like Putin. I’m grateful to all the folks who voted the smart people into power in 2020. May we continue to give power to those who care enough to make the effort to understand. 🙏
You know nothing of Eastern Europe nor Russia.
Rudeness is unnecessary Mr. Hingston.
Sanders had about as much chance of 'beating' TfG as I did. If you recall, Clinton did in fact beat him…in the popular vote. The electoral college is a flawed geographical tool and completely out of date. It has allowed a minority to rule and to cement their power by manipulation of rules and district boundaries.
And just how would we be in a better place if both houses were Republican controlled?
Nora. What is it about Biden’s foreign policy that you find terrible?
Let’s start with poking the bear into a proxy was with us and Russia, then there is Yemen and Palestine. How about billions for arms which won’t settle this war but do continue to enrich the weapons manufacturers.
If we could get the arms we need when we need them, we would have driven the Russians out in short order. America did NOT poke the bear. You apparently know little about Eastern Europe or Russia. Stop with Putin's talking points already.
This is a ridiculous comment and the current way to shut people up. If someone disagrees about our foreign policy they are a Putin supporter. That puts me in good company with some journalists who I respect such as Chris Hedges, Matt Taibbi and Amy Goodman.
Nora, Biden didn’t invade Ukraine, Russia did. What, exactly, do you think would have happened if Biden hadn’t managed to reunite NATO and had rolled over and allowed Russian expansion to go unchecked? This current invasion is in part happening precisely because their previous invasion went unanswered. Anyone who thinks the Russians would stop with Ukraine is fooling themselves.
Bernie split the Democratic vote, and Hillary—supremely competent— had been demonized for 30+ years so would energize the Republicans even without Trump. It was a bad year for Democrats all around.
Absolutely agree. Bernie is not a Democrat and should have run as an Independent. We, and millions, never heard him say how he would accomplish his free education other than make the 1% pay. About as possible as *rump's wall. Hillary and Biden represent us very well.
He never supported democrats. He just used the party.
Not how it looked from here. Sanders worked with Dems and often set aside his own perspective in order to get something passed in the interests of moving toward common goals. I believe he was running as who he was. That he was included in the Dem fold indicates both Dem willingness to consider multiple points of view, and the fact that that is what democracy is.
I do think he learned a little lesson from the egregious failures of 2016 and everything that led up to it
I have always felt Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld used W. Sad that Bush did not see it. A good guy gone the wrong way. I believe he knows and regrets it now. I hope.
Absolutely they did. Plucked a low hanging fruit GOP royalty from dad's oil fields, gave him the education he needed (Karl Rove), and then got into Iraq. (See Cheney enumerating all the reasons not to go into Iraq ten years prior. All of which came true ten years later)
Attempted like. Even George Sr said in an interview his son’s advisors might not have given Jr good advice. Damning from Bush Sr
Let's hope. The film ¨Vice¨ is visceral. And so true.
Joan,
Bernie did champion and prompt legislation in his home state that enabled single payor health care. He did not participate it in its passage (thanks to JR below for pointing it out).
Unfortunately, the governor killed that law before it was ever enacted.
So, on the single issue Sander's is passionate about, he has pushed for legislation, but, that legislation never went into effect.
https://progressive.org/latest/single-payer-health-care-did-not-fail-in-vermont-russ-200304/
Vermont did consider and then reject a single payer health care plan. Bernie didn’t “pass it”, he was working in Washington at the time (not Vermont).
Sanders had a very large role in building support for Universal health care when he was holding office in VT, and after as our Senator. Universal health care is still supported in the state, and is being reprised. The original bill set up a task force to examine the options for universal health care that would cover all Vermonters, and propose three alternatives that would accomplish that. Then a governor who had been elected specifically on his promise to see universal health care enacted announced right after he was elected to a 3rd term that he was dropping his commitment to that promise. The backlash was fast and hard, and people wanted him to resign, calling for a new gubanatorial election. To avoid that, he had to agree not to run for a 4th term (our gov terms are two years) even before he was sworn in for his 3rd. In essence, he was a lame duck for that entire term, and now lives in another state. And Bernie is still honored and recognized for the work he did in the background to make life better for ordinary people. Nope, not perfect, but admired because he never gave up.
I love Bernie even though he isn't my US senator because he works for all of us
Pamela, one of my daughters came to VT to go to college, fell in love with a local guy, and stayed. I came to VT in her wake, taking a job here so I could bet to know her on a woman to woman basis. One of the perks was actually getting to vote for Bernie, and then getting to meet him in person working on Dem/Prog issues. I meant to stay a few years and go back to the NW, but I'm still here. Still admiring Bernie and the people in this state who opened their minds and gave things some real thought, thanks to Bernie's persistence. Unlike other places, persistence is an admired virtue here.
sometimes it is not about what you get passed, but what you accomplish in making people consider and act. https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-bernie-sanders-really-got-done-in-his-29-years-in-congress
The spirit of Bernie infuses all that is good in the world. Can I get an amen! /s
I’m joking.
Amen.
Amen.
Thanks for this article.
Thanks !
👍🏼
Glory, tell it like I remember it.
Well said
Given a side-by-side look at people who call themselves “Democrats” now (Texas candidate you mention great example) and truly progressive Ds from a few decades back, the older ones much more resemble Bernie than today’s iterations.
One example among many: A State Representative in small-town Western Pennsylvania (where I was raised), Bill Shane, was a truly committed progressive in terms of civil rights and social justice in a place with both a history of abolitionists and of fascist/KKK activities. A Harvard grad and U Penn-trained lawyer, he ran for state house and served in the 70s when the local swimming pool was still segregated and worked hard for social justice there and as a Borough Councilor and County Commissioner as well. He was remembered by R colleagues as having worked across the aisle to get things done and enormously well-liked. He was a truth-teller and a pragmatic politician, to hear it told (was a friend of my dad’s).
Now in that state legislature, one of the most venal and corrupt (miserly towards children and libraries; full of largesse for frack-daddies) and hate-filled in the nation (stiff competition these days, I know) his own party would shun him if he could even get elected in the first place. The Rs moved further and further right and the do-nothing Dems let his seat rot for years, not bothering to run even a ham sandwich on the ballot. This allowed former State (R) Rep Reed (D62) to collect whopping contributions from banks, fracking companies, insurance companies &c and distribute the loot all over the state since he didn’t have to campaign to win re-elections, leading to his rise to Speaker. The results were not pretty for ordinary people in that county, where over 25% of children live in poverty, where broadband access was often scarce, where the radio station is a “Fox News Corner of the World,”where my classmates don’t have access to decent dental care and have succumbed to opioid & other addictions in huge numbers.
One cycle a clever, brave political science student at the local college (IUP) ran for the seat, only to be given the cold shoulder and NO support by do-nothing Dems who thought he was too progressive. I assistant managed his campaign and on a budget of about $1K we got him 34% of the vote, but the complete lack of wisdom, support, and help from his own party was astonishing. (Went out of state to work closely with Kucinich snd will likely have a distinguished career in politics after grad school.)
Mad as a wet hen after that, I planned to run for that seat in 2020; do-nothing Dems laughed or told me it was a bad idea (checkered past) and put up a Blue Dog, retired Penndot double-dipper in response. Not wanting to remain in a party like that any more, I planned to run as an Independent after the closed primary season ended. Would have been great to debate the R Reed successor and the double-dipping old blue dog on the radio and get in a few cracks about frackers buying politicians and our lack of teeth and addiction problems in the 62nd.
However, Pandemic interfered (taught in NYC, lived in PA, commuting by train) since I didn’t want to become the Typhoid Mary of Western PA, I dropped out and got an Air BnB to be closer to work in NYC, little realizing it would be years. So it wasn’t Rs who ran my political aspirations as a progressive Social Democrat down, it was the entrenched Do-Nothing Ds.
If Hillary is a feminist icon it should be on her own merits, but she lost places like my native Western Pennsylvania by being the wrong sort of candidate (“perfect” for liberals/elites doesn’t play among Appalachians; corporate coziness doesn’t play among progressives; foreign policy horrified many) and taking the vote for granted - she canceled events in the final days of the 16 campaign and Trump ADDED stops in the general area (WPA-OH-WV culturally similar).
Fast-forward and we’re looking as you said at a perilous party divide in which social dems are alienated from machine dems/corporate dems and we are the only thing standing against pure fascism unbridled in the US. Sobering. If anyone can figure out what to do, though, I firmly believe it will be Professor HCR and that we, her Ragged Irregulars, will take up arms against a sea of foes and save our relatively young experiment in democracy, the USA.
( In the meantime, I’m running for Congress in NY’s CD 10 if I can get 1500 signatures in a week to get on the ballot…a small miracle or a lot of grassroots efforts should suffice to do that. Help an Irregular out by asking a friend to ask a friend to download a petition and get a signature? Www.LauraThomas.nyc)
Laura,
Best wishes in you effort. Thank you for the detailed critique.
Thank you! If you have friends who might reach out to friends, every signature will count since (I’m sure you’re aware) Former Mayor deBlasio will have $600-an-hour lawyers in court challenging every signature and I’m nowhere near 1500+ yet.
You have nailed it Laura. The Democratic party is dangerously(I refuse to say hopelessly) fractured. The leadership (Pelosi) is terrified of losing the conservative wing to the tightly organized, anti-democratic, Putin molded, Republican party with it's highly successful coalition of the over-lords and the (somewhat, sometimes) disadvantaged underclass using a nearly indestuctible two part epoxy of hatred and racism.
The solution has to involve the youth. If we can convince them to vote they, and we, can crush these hatemongers in a heart-beat. Pelosi's choice in Texas will not get them to vote. Reading Heather is working on a number of the ones I know.
Thanks for your drive and for this quote:
"Fast-forward and we’re looking as you said at a perilous party divide in which social dems are alienated from machine dems/corporate dems and we are the only thing standing against pure fascism unbridled in the US. Sobering. If anyone can figure out what to do, though, I firmly believe it will be Professor HCR and that we, her Ragged Irregulars, will take up arms against a sea of foes and save our relatively young experiment in democracy, the USA."
Guess who is fracturing the Democratic Party?!
No one with an ounce of sense, which is why WE hope Pelosi-style corporate dems will make common cause with social dems, hash out OUR differences, roll up our sleeves, and feed some hungry kids, protect all of us with universal healthcare, and enact sensible gun registration legislation among other things - together.
Pelosi tried to bring AOC into more prominence as a freshman, but AOC demanded the ability to write bills or she wouldn’t work with leadership. Freshmen don’t get that opportunity. Then she publicly said Pelosi has a problem with women of color because she didn’t get what she wants. AOC has publicly admitted she almost didn’t stand for reelection because she hates how Washington works (or doesn’t). She could be a great leader in the party, but has a lot of growing up to do first.
Tried to ❤️
Well put. Thanks.
So dramatic. And self-righteous too.
That's what they have been working on.
It is not people like Laura who are fracturing the party it is corporate Dems like Pelosi and the Texas race is the perfect example.
Thank you! Bruce, do you have friends in NY’s CD10 (or friends of friends) who mught be willing to sign a petition? Need 1500 signatures in a week-stiff order with no machine,
I did but think they have all moved, alas.
Can’t blame a person for asking, sailor. 1400 to go...
I don't see Pelosi having any fear. She IS feared. As Hilary was.
Thanks for being a warrior!
I like the ring of that word and thank you! A chubby bookworm/activist/mom does not usually think of oneself in battle mode. Do you have friends in NY’s CD 10 (or maybe friends of friends) who would consider signing a petition and getting another friend to sign? There is 1 week but it isn’t theoretically imposdible,
I hope you get your signatures!!!
Thank you! If you know any NY friends who live in CD 10, please reach out! It would take a small miracle, but if 2 friends tell 2 more friends, and they download petitions from RepMyBlock.org and get a friend or two to sign, it could happen.
Have reached out to Brooklyn friends and given them access to petitions and asked them to pass along to others.
Good campaigning, Laura. Keep us informed on progress.
Salud!
Thank you-I have! If you know a few in Sunset Park, Red Hook, Gowanus, Prospect Heights, South Slope, DUMBO, Park Slope would really appreciate help!
What area is that? I don't, but you never know. I have a friend who moved from Manhattan to Montclair and another who lives in Ithaca. I can tell them and see if they have any friends in that area.
Thank you! I lived in montclair for a few months-nice town.
👍
Laura thanks for that reply it really sums up many things. I had to beg my son to vote because he does not feel that either party gives a damn about him and his future. I don’t think Biden is making him feel any better. I will share your info on social media and hope friends of friends will share. Thanks so much for stepping up. If I was younger and did not have health issues I would do the same thing. Good luck fighting the billionaire money.
Thank you! Still working on petition signatures. If I can get on the ballot, I’ll be facing a giant financially and literally (6’4” to my 5’1”)
Good luck it is hard to get on a ballot, too hard. I think that is why most legislators are very wealthy people.
"we are the only thing standing against pure fascism unbridled in the US. " You most certainly are not.
WE are, if we’re readers/believers in Professor HCR’s truths. We may be diverse, but we believe the armed attempt to stop certification of electoral ballots was an attempt to thwart democracy (hanging Pence was floated as an idea, too) - anyone better out there who feels differently about details but like we have keeping the Union strong in common ought to get out there and run for office too! (Go up against me in CD 10, please! More power to you-we can debate our differences.) True democracy comes in many flavors and the PEOPLE decide.
This isn't about you. Please stop running for office in these comments.
You seem to want to pick a fight. It’s not me, it’s we. We who recognize incipient fascism when we see it. If I’m violating any terms of service, I’ll be deleted; otherwise, freedom to associate here and our freedoms include scrolling on by if you don’t enjoy what you read. I’m sure you’re doing your part to help our latger cause, as are we all by reading Professor HCR’s Letters.
Wish I knew someone
Me too. The arrogance.
Good luck,Laura. It’s obvious that well qualified women are more than criticized for the same behavior celebrated and expected by the Suits. We only have to look at the numbers. And understand why we could not pass the ERA.
We "ragged irregulars" have much work to do! Thanks for all you are doing for democracy. Let us know if you get on the ballot so we can $upport your campaign!
Thank you!
While I agree with you about Hilary (I am not a fan either), the fact that people voted for Trump in the numbers that they did is, in my mind, the real problem. Before he became president, it was no secret who he was, and was not. There is no way Hilary would have damaged this country the way TFG has.
No disagreement there-I think everyone recognizes the Insurrection of Jan 6 was a trial balloon for a real fascist junta
Probably not and we would not have the Supreme Court that we have now. I do think Bernie would have brought out many disenfranchised voters who find little difference between the Republicans and Democrats. Nothing has been done about climate change, wealth inequality, school debt and on and on.
Why the constant National obsession to blame a woman (Hilary Clinton) for everything that happened after she was defeated? I have never heard Gore being blamed for Bush or LBJ being blamed for what happened after he didn't run. I propose we move on. Bernie siphoned votes from the Clinton campaign and helped divide the Party and weaken her further in the Press. I very much appreciated his uniting behind Biden in 2020.
Your words are telling: "This is why they are losing." They? Siphoning votes from the Democrats are absolutely helping the Republicans win. Nothing gets my ire up more than this fact.
Agree 100%. Disappointing rhetoric from commenters today. It’s either about Trump being a loser but still winning or Hilary being a winner but still losing. And saying she lost because she was married to Bill? She lost because of everyone foolish enough to waste votes on Bernie Sanders. Those weren’t votes for Bernie. Those ended up being votes for Trump.
Salud, Barbara.
Agree. I don't know why this is such a difficult thing to grasp. Progressives have a Bernie cult as much as there is a trump cult which results in tunnel vision. This Country is in massive denial at the rampant, blatant and disgusting misogyny that exists in the United States. Hilary Clinton bears the projection of that national misogyny more than anyone woman I know of. It makes me sick.
Attempted like
NOT a cult; Sen Sanders discourages that and instead tries to promote more progressive candidates like AOC. Good for him. Progressivism won’t die when he does because he goes out of his way to build movements, not cults of personality. He uses “OUR” and “WE” because he wNts to be replacable by younger people like AOC.
Is that why Bernie immediately stated he'll run for President in 2024 when it appeared in the media that a younger progressive--Ro Khanna--would do so if Biden didn't run?
Don’t forget Jill Stein’s role in siphoning votes in critical Midwest states. Just as Ralph Nader did in Florida in 2000.
Hear, hear! I’m starting to lose my temper…
I lost mine realizing the forum today is all about Trump. And somehow blaming Clinton. Both of them.
Salud, KR.
What the heck is going on today? I've been increasingly less interested in, and less active on, the forum for weeks now, but today is out of control. I sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but the quality of the conversation has deteriorated substantially in the last few months. Thanks for still being here, Christine. I always value your contributions.
Bernie Sanders should have been given a fair shot. Period.
Actually like Dems always do they bent over backwards to give him a fair shot. To my mind he didn’t have a chance in hell and they should have set clearer and more firm boundaries and not have allowed him to hitch a ride on the wagon
Good points.
Why? What had Bernie Sanders ever done for the Democratic Party in 2015? He had stated for decades he hated the Democratic Party; he had never worked to get Democrats elected, sent out 1 fundraising letter for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Fund.
Bernie was/is an Independent--he never changed his Senate designation even as he ran as a Democrat for President. It's hard to get more obviously hypocritical than that.
Bernie should've run as an Independent in 2016. If he had, the response he got in that election would've given him the money and time to build out his own campaign infrastructure to run as an Independent in 2020. Then he would have been a serious contender.
Excellent points.
Fair shot? At the Democratic party nomination? He’s not a Democrat, he was able to run, and he didn’t win. I don’t understand why he had a shot at all at the Democratic nomination, although I’m extremely glad he didn’t choose to run as an independent. I wish Bernie supporters could hear how much they sound like Trump when they complain that the primary election wasn’t fair (rigged, anyone?). Your guy didn’t win. Convince more people that those are the best policies for the nation, and maybe the next person will.
I like many of Bernie’s policies, and I like how he’s moved the Democratic Party on these issues. But I can’t stand him as an individual. There might be a time when a female candidate can be as disheveled and strident as he is and gain support, but I doubt it. He and his campaign were misogynistic at best. I also saw him as completely unelectable, and had he won, his inability to work with others and actually pass legislation would have hurt the country.
Fair? What in the world does that even mean in National Politics? This isn't a school yard game. The Progressive Movement will be a lot more credible when the whining and blaming ends.
Nora,
I agree Hillary would have trouble winning any election in this country. But, I think she only made one real mistake in her life.
Hillary had the bad judgement/bad luck (both are required) to marry a serial philanderer that spent much of his time chasing women. By definition, these type of men are very good liars. Marrying Bill Clinton was her single largest mistake I think. Hillary is not the first woman to be so entrapped.
It is likely and possible Hillary would have had a successful career in government had she married a less deceitful and dishonorable man.
However, Hillary's Husband's lying is not why I do not like Hillary.
The reason I sort of smell something bad when I think of Hillary is because of her (reported) routine hiring of the same bulldog NY law firm to smear the women her husband was running around with if they got vocal. This puts her in the same category as her husband.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/us/politics/hillary-bill-clinton-women.html
Women have a hard enough time with philander's. They don't need the abuser's wife after them as well.
She’s out of politics, and all of her “sins” seem to be “reported” or dislike of her husband, or some other vague reason. She would have been a thousand times better than her only alternative, and how else to make a practical judgement about a politician. Very weary of latter-day Babbitts.
But one of the reasons not to like her. This type of ruthlessness exists in the male candidates as well, but it doesn’t change the image in the minds of many voters. Her public demeanor was “mean” and it was dispensed upon innocents such as the Travelgate folks. Ruthless is a bad public look
So is misogyny. What you call ruthlessness in Clinton, you wouldn't call in a male candidate, as you come so close to saying yourself.
Actually, I’m allowed to form an opinion based on behavior absent gender. It has nothing to do with giving a pass to males exhibiting the same ruthlessness
You have NO idea how I dispute male assholes, so stop assuming
I suggest reading the article about her in Harper's, November 2014.
It was a good article Kim thanks.
That is one of a long list of things that turned me off of her.
Nora. Who said anything was “ok” because of Trump sleaze? Your comment smacks of pessimism and misplaced loyalty. The choice of Hilary gave us Trump???? Please. Voters gave us Trump. Especially the votes cast for Sanders. And that is said with no disrespect for Sanders. But he was NOT the Dem candidate.
When a person is in a weak spot they make massive sweeping statements, vague and salacious inferences and blame blame blame. There are whole bunch of Bernie devotees here today preaching. Tiresome.
Just what did Hilary do? Not the unfounded rumors, and please, not the most over-covered story of the century, the emails (this is especially rich with the recent info we have learned about how many other high officials did exactly the same thing—and still do it). I realize that she’s out of active political life, so even asking is a bit of beating a dead horse. I understand not liking her as a political person, but why the vague aspersions?
Kim’s reference to the 2014 Harpers article pretty neatly answers that question though there has been more since 2014.
Damn, the Dems aren’t perfect, just keep hammering on that message for more chumps.
What the hell is going in comments today? Lotsa of Progressives tearing down Clinton, Pelosi, the Democratic Party and proclaiming they have saved the Country from fascism? "we are the only thing standing against pure fascism unbridled in the US. " And. ""progressives, who have made the most important improvements to our lives."
I am going for a walk.
Great idea, Barbara, off to the garden before the rain sets in!
I’m a progressive, theses folks are LWNs or Russians
What’s an LWN? Google was not helpful!
Sorry! I made it up I guess. Thought it might be self explanatory. The opposite of a RWN. Some people add a J on the end. Left Wing Nut.
Lol! I like that!
Ya' know I was beginning to wonder that. Also. Can we please not get too divided over the labels? We have a Democracy to save.
Your comment reminds me of a previous LFAA from Heather about a week ago: “In the 1990 midterm elections, a political action committee associated with House Republican whip Newt Gingrich gave to Republican candidates a document called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” It urged candidates to label Democrats with words like “decay,” “failure,” “crisis,” “pathetic,” “liberal,” “radical,” “corrupt,” and “taxes,” while defining Republicans with words like “opportunity,” “moral,” “courage,” “flag,” “children,” “common sense,” “hard work,” and “freedom.” Gingrich later told the New York Times his goal was “reshaping the entire nation through the news media.” Minds matter. Words matter. Correcting mislabeling is a big part of saving our democracy.
Yes I know words matter. I am also familiar with what you have quoted. Ever taken the implicit bias test? My point was directed at the Progressives, Centrists, Leftists etc labels within the Democratic Party. The operative word is "within". Progressives still consider themselves as within the Democratic Party right? They run as a Democratic and the DNC supports those campaigns? We need to tape ourselves together as a unified Democratic Party. Take a look at the May 27, 2022 Cook Political Report. Terrifying.
So it is wrong to push them to do better or we should just accept the status quo and not fight for the future we hope our kids can have. Sorry I don’t blindly vote for a party and then just accept everything they do. If we can’t discuss and calmly agree to disagree on some things that is just sad.
Of course that’s not wrong. But to me, the anger at Democrats seems misplaced. Biden has been the most progressive president we’ve ever had, and it isn’t Democrats, progressive or “corporate,” who are blocking this progressive agenda. It’s the Republican Senate and the filibuster. Many of us are pushing back because we see that this constant harping on Dems for not being progressive enough actually gets in the way of one, getting things done, and two, electing a big enough Senate majority to be able to pass this desired legislation. (I’ll add three, it makes it harder for a Democrat to be elected president, a la Clinton.) Get mad at the right people: Republicans in the Senate, plus Manchin and Sinema.
I will also add that insisting on perfection at the expense of the good gets us nowhere.
Exactly. Hmmmm where dod this thread get sidetracked by history? My comment “WE” meant Professor HCR readers, not one group of us. Only those of is who love & want the truth can bring down whatever Trump they throw at us next…Der Gröpenführer again, or, if he’s in the pokey, Ivanka “Vanky” is being groomed again.
Laura, I’m very pleased to see you agreeing with me, when yours are some of the comments to which I refer. I would argue that all of us are here exactly because we seek the truth, and no one subset of us has a monopoly on that.
Here’s a helpful hint for running for office: when you use terms like “Der Gropenfuher” or “Vanky,” when you toss profanities around like candy, you don’t sound like a serious person running for a serious office to be taken seriously by voters. Anyone can read this comment thread, not just subscribers, so you might want to be more judicious with your word choices if you do decide to run for public office.
I respectfully disagree that Biden is progressive. I am not asking for perfection just do something about climate change and stop spending billions and billions on weapons. I don’t think that is too much to ask for.
Nora, regarding weapons, I think we will have to agree to disagree on the importance of arming Ukraine in the face of Russian invasion. I see that as crucial, not only for Ukrainians, but also for the future of democracy in Europe, America, and the world at large. You seem not to agree with that assessment. That’s fine. I personally think war is a terrible failure of diplomacy and an awful waste of resources and only produces suffering. Ditto our inexcusable military budget. But some wars are worth fighting; some values are worth the cost, and I think this one is worth it. I’m proud of Biden’s ability to strengthen and unify NATO in the face of its weakness post Trump.
Regarding climate change, the Biden administration HAS done something. The press coverage of the administration’s achievements is abysmal. The problem remains that without a workable Senate majority, no administration can pass all of its wish list. Its inability to pass BBB is a key illustration of this. Here’s a great summary of what the Biden administration has achieved, and where it is lacking:
https://www.wri.org/insights/biden-administration-tracking-climate-action-progress
Again, I see letting perfection get in the way of the good, and not recognizing progress when it is made, as a problem with many progressives. I agree that no progress short of huge on climate change is enough, but some progress is a million times better than what Republicans offer.
I do not blindly support this administration. I think their performance on Covid has been poor, and the CDC remains a shell of its former glory, to our infinite cost. I want to see an executive order banning assault rifles if Congress is unable to act. I want more on social justice than we’re getting. But I’m still happy we’re getting something, rather than falling backwards.
I do disagree about NATO and our involvement in Ukraine but I appreciate your tone and respect. Also thanks for the article.
Why do democrats apologize while repubs just lie and throw out more red herrings to cover their lies? Lack of a moral center and a bloviated belief that they are better than others turned them into a brainless cult of TFL, who never once took responsibility for killing a million people in the US alone by COVID and still climbing. Add semi automatic unregistered and unlicensed weapons to that and you've got something to apologize for.
Huh? You didn't reply to Jeri. You threw out hyperbole and a"what about" argument. You didn't respond to her mention of the serious threat of siphoning votes and enabling the Republicans to win. I invite all Progressives to please stop with the lecturing and join the rest of us in saving Democracy for everyone. If you can do that then your ideas for Americans stand a chance. Under a Dictatorship you have zero chance. "bloviated belief that they are better than others" is how Progressives come off. Your words.
https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-trump-2016-election-654320#:~:text=Bernie%20Sanders%20Voters%20Helped%20Trump%20Win%20and%20Here%27s%20Proof
Let the historian write about history and look to 2024. We need to unite.
I assure you Barbara I was not thinking of Bernie at all when I wrote "progressive" but rather the historical progressives like the Roosevelts, including Eleanor, whose legacy is being stripped away by TFL and his cult who have to think they are better than others.
Try knowing Hillary thru the glass clearly, instead of thru the glass colored by the Putin’s, Gingrich’s, Murdoch’s, Koch and every other misogynistic, racist bully over the last 3 decades. JFC. Freedom of Mind. When will we evolve past evil Influence?
Read the Harpers article
Yes, it's infuriating the corporate neolib Dems keep the progressives bound and gagged. I look forward to the day when octogenarians Pelosi and Schumer are no longer calling the shots. I'm still a democrat, and will always vote Democratic in the general, but I'm a progressive.
And you did so well backing your presidential candidates in ‘20.
https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-trump-2016-election-654320#:~:text=Bernie%20Sanders%20Voters%20Helped%20Trump%20Win%20and%20Here%27s%20Proof
I just don’t buy that bs from the MSM.
Yes, agreed. It is absolutely not to be trusted. I know a great many Bernie supporters, and not a single one of them voted for Trump. Bernie supporters vote for Bernie's POLICIES. Why would they vote for a madman?
https://www.wbur.org/npr/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds#:~:text=Here%27s%20How%20Many%20Bernie%20Sanders%20Supporters%20Ultimately%20Voted%20For%20Trump
And
https://ballot-access.org/2017/08/25/survey-shows-fewer-than-80-of-bernie-sanders-who-voted-in-general-election-voted-for-hillary-clinton/#:~:text=in%202020%20%E2%86%92-,Survey%20Shows%20Fewer%20than%2080%25%20of%20Bernie%20Sanders%20Supporters%20Who%20Voted%20in%20General%20Election%20Voted%20for%20Hillary%20Clinton,-Posted%20on%20August
And
https://www.datalounge.com/thread/25379323-here-s-how-many-bernie-sanders-supporters-ultimately-voted-for-trump#:~:text=Here%27s%20How%20Many%20Bernie%20Sanders%20Supporters%20Ultimately%20Voted%20For%20Trump
And
Nora. The 60's called. They want their faux outrage back.
I agree that Pelosi is not supportive enough of progressives, who have made the most important improvements to our lives. We should be making progress and not going backwards (and downwards). I was not happy with Hillary because of having Bill, who told a lie, back in the White House, but she won me over with her bravery while TFL followed her around the debate stage. He is not just a guy, he's a compulsive liar and the only true thing he ever said was "you knew I was a snake." Liars cannot be trusted and trust is vital in all human interactions. Let's remind everyone that 🤡🎃💩 is a liar by changing his name to T F L. 🤥🤯🤮🐍apologies to snakes.
..."progressives, who have made the most important improvements to our lives." Are you serious? That's quite a sweeping statement there Gigi.
In order to prevent a Republican sweep of the Senate and House Progressives need to shut up. Progressives in the House did no one any favors by yammering about defund the police in 2020. We lost critical House votes then.
Stop dividing the Democratic Party and putting your ideals above Democracy.
Good communication has 2 elements; content and timing. The content of Progressives is excellent. The timing is awful. We are bailing the boat here. Stop complaining and start bailing.
Hooray for you. I get so tired of progressives not understanding that at the end of the day it is all about who has the most votes. Not the most sanctimonious claims on our consciences. Pelosi is probably the best Speaker in the history of the House.
Care to explain her finances?
No. I am not a detective nor an accountant and she has never come close to committing a crime that I know of. I realize you’re obsessed with her in some way, but I don’t care about it. Clear?
I'm sorry, Barbara, but there is nothing so "divisive" as saying "we" are right and "they" (in this case, Progressives) are wrong and should "shut up." Unfortunately I keep reading comments like this in various blogs. They are not helpful to the cause.
👍🏼
It is yet another tragedy in the life of Hillary Clinton that the poisonous drip about her motivations manufactured by the Republican white male establishment seems to have entered the DNA of not just women Republicans but also so many Democrats of all genders and colors. I see it among my own Democratic and Independent friends, male and female. It is hurtful to me, and scary, to contemplate how undefended women in all professions are against such destructive and malicious speech.
What scares me most, however, is the lack of empathy and understanding for an outstanding female public servant whose life was (and is) dedicated to a better future for all, especially women and children, everywhere in the world. Yes, she voted for the Iraq war, a very bad mistake. So did virtually every other senator, most of them male. Ask yourselves: has it disqualified these men in the eyes of the voting public for the rest of their lives the way it did Hillary's standing?
Yes, Bill Clinton made terrible mistakes in his relationships with women. I recall the long-ago senator from Colorado, Pat Schroeder, describing a room (or rooms) in Congress for male politicians of both parties to retire to with their paramours. Bill Clinton was one in a long line of men who behaved (and behave) badly. But whose business is it to condemn Hillary for marrying Bill Clinton and/or staying with him after the roof blew off their private lives over private decisions, however bad? She forgave him. He mattered to her. She mattered to him. She understood him. He understands her. They have a child they raised lovingly and courageously. Who are we to condemn them if we consider ourselves, our own decisions, the poisonous culture we have been asked to navigate while going through our days, fighting for what we believe in, raising our children, taking care of our families?
I met Hillary Clinton during a weekend in the early 2000s for a dozen or two donors from the Boston area who were invited to meet her at the Senate and, later, at her home in Georgetown for dinner. At the Senate in the early afternoon, she spoke with us patiently while managing numerous interruptions and calls for votes. She wore a green pantsuit. At night, she arrived at the dinner table around nine, still wearing the same pantsuit, exhausted, but gracious. Guests could ask questions.
The second question was about the situation in the Middle East. She began to talk, without pause, for more than twenty minutes, with passion and empathy for all those she knew and had known there, and had interacted with, and had listened to, for decades. She knew everyone, on all sides. She knew everything, from a day ago and from decades before. She wove it together for us so we could understand what she understood. She was the most informed, lucid, compassionate politician and human being we could have had to represent us, who would have, and could have, made a difference in our politics. Her losses were a victory for the Republicans. They knew what they had to do when they first noticed her, many decades ago.
These were our losses, too, and certainly, mine.
Mine, too, Marleen. Hillary Clinton is, to me, a role model and a hero. Blazing trails takes so much courage and energy, and it’s so easy for those of us who came after to forget that. Our success stands on her capable shoulders, and the country is immeasurably worse off because she lost in 2016. Thank you for writing this for us to see her as you did and do.
When you read” It Takes a Village” you understand HIllary Clinton’s passion and professionalism in caring about our children, all children and how governments can make a positive difference. And if you look at the reviews you will also read abundant criticism, not only of her book, but just who she is. It’s more than challenging to prevail in a system that itself continues to legislate against women and women’s rights, including Roe v Wade, ERA. Women’s suffrage was a battle, not just an amendment.
Thank you so much, marleen. A worthy tribute to a wonderful person. I believe she is a woman that absolutely could have led this country as president. Her tenacity is unmatched. I did not agree with some of her politics but I never disagreed with any of her values.
I am glad that she still wields influence today on many issues being contended with.
UNITA!
I agree with you. A hundred years from now, the loss in the electoral college for Clinton will be seen to be as politically life-altering (in a very bad way) as the JFK assassination, Watergate, or the election of Reagan.
The media's decision to ride the email train, Comey's election interference, all that will be put in it's proper perspective.
Don't know if you are familiar with the former NPR show, The Diane Rehm show. I once called in and actually got on the air while they were blathering, once again, about the emails. A Friday News Roundup show. My comment was that the media had taken a GOP talking point and elevated it into a scandal, then when she apologized, several times, in several different ways, the media narrative changed to "she hasn't apologized properly". I said that they were beating a dead horse. I actually got yelled at by Diane Rehm, one of the few times I ever heard her screech. "You don't understand. We have to cover it because it's a top news item". I hung up realizing that the stupidity virus was more invasive than I thought.
Yeah but no one put a gun to her head and forced her to shit on Juanita Broadrick (sp?) and that’s where she lost a lot of us. Alumna from a woman’s college here, appreciate all her merits, but class and racial divide there was ugly. Then the choreographed walk to the copter with Chelsea proving ... what? Smile and take the Lewinsky abuse he perpetrated because he’s a rich president and she’ll get rewarded with a Senate seat later for making nice for the cameras? Fuck that shit. It was an insult to younger women everywhere, I don’t care HOW good he was in bed.
I’m not sure I understand you correctly. You’re saying that class and race divisions at your women’s college were Hillary Clinton’s fault? I’m guessing it wasn’t Wellesley since you don’t say so, so she likely wasn’t even there. This is a woman who has spent her entire career battling class and race and gender divisions. You’re also saying that her efforts to keep her family intact were all a front so that she could become a senator more than a decade later? Can you see how none of that makes the slightest bit of sense?
Marriages are private places. None of us can or should judge the compromises and forgivenesses people make in their marriages, especially when there are children. Not even hers, and not after her public humiliation. Don’t be so quick to cast judgement on something you likely know nothing about. None of us do, only the two of them do, and it’s none of our business. Her decision to stay in her marriage wasn’t an insult to anyone. Reducing what was almost certainly an agonizing decision to Clinton’s sexual prowess speaks ill of you, not her.
You know what didn’t “make the slightest bit of sense,” KR? Her deciding to move to suburban NY (not from there, never lived there, dodn’t work there; it was demographically selected) and decide she was owed a Senate seat from there, expensive “listening tour” the state, and sit back and be given that little bauble just like an NBA wife recently sported some “I’m sorry” bling. We’re a welcoming people to immigrants, New Yorkers, but how about acknowledging the truth?
Cough cough Bobby Kennedy in 68 cough cough
And: what else would make a woman of substance set the example to a daughter and Our nation’s daughters that you put up, shut up, and parade your family so that you keep what’s coming to you? What they said to each other is THEIR business but what they used OUR country’s political pomp/pageantry given OUR nation’s press documenting every gesture is fair visual rhetoric for analysis and what it says about me is that I understand verbal and non-verbal Presidential rhetoric, KR.
I find this offensive. This was breaking while I was in the middle of an harassment suit against my company. The choices I made were for self preservation considering the times. It’s easy to judge through a mis shaped lens.
She wasn’t battling race and class divisions when she had people like Carville say things like “drag a $20 bill through a trailer park” and let the dogs our on (white and bipoc) women to whose bodies her husband allegedly helped himself without obtaining consent.
Laura, none of that is anything she herself did. I get it, you don’t like her. Because Bernie, neo-lib, blah blah blah. I hope you’re never in the position of having to decide to save your marriage or bail after your husband’s infidelity, do it publicly, and have people 25 years later judging you for it. I’m going to go work in the garden. It’s too nice of a day to spend it arguing with you.
❤️❤️❤️❤️ there was a reason these fascists bturds invented every lie they hoped might stick to keep her away from power. They knew exactly how dangerous she would be to their plan to bully us into a fascist state
It is so sad about the door. I personally believe that the chief of the entire Uvalde police department coordinated throughout with the schools chief. This seems to be another instance of the police telling lie upon self protecting lie in their reports of an incident where people died because of what they did or did not do.
John Durham has sullied his name - hopefully forever. Seeing Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows trumpeting the false narrative is sickening. Benghazi and Hillary's emails still resonate strongly in certain quarters of the anxious right. And our former guy just keeps on bobbing and weaving all the while lying. The only thing that i can see being an antidote is serious campaign reform resulting in, among other things: 1) term limits for senators, congressmen at least and maybe even supreme court justices, 2) wringing out the money by, among other things, legislating a reversal of Citizens United, and 3) reintroducing a version of the Fairness Doctrine so that FOX's propaganda machine is reformed. And what else?
Where I live it would be a conflict of interest for a police officer at any level to be on our Board of Selectman (I.e.City Council) since the Board is the “employer “, setting salary and terms of employment. I find it curious and question the placement of Arredondo on the City Council.
Where I live, that would not happen. He could either work for the force or run for council, but not both.
Hard to "like" this letter professor. Maybe, just maybe, "investigations" should not make our "news" until indictments are issued? Has Matt Geatz ever been indicted yet? Are the Dems resorting to repugnitan tactics? Impeachments are nothing but theater with no one testifying under oath, congressional subpoenas are ignored with zero consequences. "Justice moves slowly", only for politicians in my opinion. Trying very hard here to keep the faith.
👌🏼
Still calling people at Fox News Corporation 'personalities'. The reason why they can't be charged for spreading lies is that Fox is not about news, but about entertainment. So, why are these people not called CLOWNS, which they are. I would like to see them all pictured with a red ball on their noses, or why not a 'Pinoccio' nose expanding for every lie.
Olof, you got me thinking about clowns - evil ones, and The Joker came to mind. Calling all the Fox 'personalities' Jokers seems apt to me. For more evil clown info, I went to Wikipedia,:
'The evil clown is a subversion of the traditional comic clown character, in which the playful trope is instead depicted in a more disturbing nature through the use of horror elements and dark humor. The modern archetype of the evil clown was popularized by DC Comics character the Joker starting in 1940 and again by Pennywise in Stephen King's It. The character can be seen as playing on the sense of unease felt by sufferers of coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.' 'Coulrophobia' I hadn't heard of that before.
I’ve read that coulrophobia can begin in infants. About the time they begin to understand and identify faces, a clown’s face can be disturbing, as it has many similarities to a human face but also great differences.
My daughter, 28, is terrified of clowns.I have no idea of the basis.
Gail, From the assortment of what HCR and subscribers deliver, we find the leads to questions trailing along with us. There is such a condition as your daughter's. Will you consider doing a bit of research about it through the American Psychological Association (only authentic professional associations) and, perhaps you and daughter call her doctor or yours (general practitioner/internist) for a suggestion? You won't alarm by saying that other people have the same fear as she does, 'so let's look in it'. It actually may be a relief to know that she is not the only one.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Fern.
Mine was too. And the characters at Disneyland. So odd.
My niece, also 28, not only hates clowns but also the costumed people (think Smoky Bear, Disney characters, etc.)
I continue to be educated on how Newt Gingrich’s destructive manipulativeness set the political tone for the next decades.
Gingrich destroyed the Congress, McConnell the Senate, and Trump the Presidency. It’s very sad.
Dare I surmise that the pendulum is beginning to swing against tfg and the gop? Something feels different!
Rowshan, every Sunday I carefully read a fair bit of the Wall Street Journal including some of the comments. I only do this once a week, but, that is more than enough.
It cures me of thinking that the Pubs are not hugely popular, that people will be able to see them for the crooks they are, that their lies are being recognized and that they will be tossed out in the next election.
... water always finds a way to flow ... over, under, around or through - even to evaporate and rise into the ether ... be like water ... flow ....
:-)
Great allegory.
Erosion, the inevitable
Attempted like. From your keyboard to God’s eyes.
In the vein of “know thine enemy” I kept my WSJ subscription. The fever swamp of the comments sections became akin to FB. I ditched it. Whether people or bots the narrative was disinformation.
If a single newspaper deters you from optimism to pessimism, then give up the subscription.
To be honest, Christine, the whole conversation leaves me standing at the bus stop after midnight ... in one ear, out the other ... other work to do rings more true ... I appreciate sincere intentions and communion among concerned individuals - must have value in the whole scheme of things - so much of it is beyond my grasp - feeling pretty much like 'dust on the wind' ...:
sandscape
a cold wind blows
in shantytown . . .
tumbleweeds cavort
with barren sands . . .
sad old shacks barely stand
broken down -- boarded up . . .
worn dry bones collapse to dust
horizons' twilight skies . . . .
https://tahomahome.weebly.com/sandscape.html
There was an editorial, I believe(?) in WAPO theorizing that Putin’s false narrative of the war in Ukraine is impossible to repudiate ( how do you repudiate a false narrative?) and therefore within the Russian sphere of influence, he will always win his objectives. Trump’s playbook is exactly the same!
My question is what is a smart way to address false claims? Is there data to inform a path that will be productive for democracy to sustain itself? Hope alone isn’t doing it!
I heard a podcast yesterday where Frank Figluzzi interviewed someone heading the George Washington Initiative (georgewashingtoninitiative.org) to use volunteers and, eventually, employees to dispel dis/misinformation. He said the Russians spent only $1.2M and used only 80 people to create and push out the disinfo that helped elect Trump in 2016.
What is the smart way to repudiate false claims? Exercise it 23 weeks from now on November 8. Massively and overwhelmingly.
The Ukrainians have no trouble repudiating Putin’s lies about his war on Ukraine. Judging by the explosions, there are people within Russia and within Belorussia who see through him as well. It’s past time for supposedly mainstream Western media to stop making excuses for Putin and his Republican allies.
A Democrat Rush Limbaugh would be good.
But, all of the radio stations are locked into contracts with EIB network so it would be impossible.
And Sinclair's stations as well.
Dino-sure
Unless we start our own “Radio Free ...” (insert your town here) network of HCR Ragged Irregulars maybe?
For inland readers, “chumming” is the deepwater fishing practice of throwing chunks of dead, often rotting, fish called "chum" into the water in order to lure large fish, such as sharks, for sport fishing. Your use of the term seems marvelously appropriate, in a very Maine way, as the oil-slick from a small amount of chum spreads out over a very large area, pulling in many large, ignorant creatures, all greedy for any garbage tossed to them. (My source: fishing for Blue Shark with my Dad 25 miles off of Portland ME, in order to weigh, tag and report their location to NOAA. Dad caught them using a fly rod, including one over 12 feet in length.)
Loved the "chumming" metaphor! Same in the Great Lakes (although No Sharks!) Chumming with roe banned in or rivers in salmon season due to increase chance of speading disease.
Given what happened in Uvalde I wonder how long it will take for the citizens of Uvalde to recall their newest council member since he obviously was ill-suited to do his previous job.
Since the GQP have nothing to offer in terms of policy they have to continue to do meaningless things such as these lawsuits. Those lawsuits help to feed their misinformation to their base and muddy the waters so people are distracted from the real issue, that they have nothing to offer unless you have lots of money.