Incredibly sickening and infuriating that Teflon Don aka tffg will evade the consequences of his crimes. How frustrating for Jack Smith. How sad for the American people. "Justice delayed is justice denied."
If I were Jack Smith I would go back to the Haugue and live in Europe once again. Where the nutjob that is the president elect can't prosecute him in any way. Demanding that All of the documents related to the prosecution of Trump hang over his head in the vault of the international tribunal.
He hasn't committed any crimes against humanity, but he might in the future, depending on how the deportations go.
However, the ICC is unlikely to prosecute him for those, unless a prosecutor can show that the United States court system is incapable of prosecuting such crimes.
BTW, a country doesn't have to be an ICC member for one of its citizens to be prosecuted. It has worldwide jurisdiction. Israel and Palestine aren't members either.
Sophie, don't you think tffg's response to covid was a major crime against humanity?? I sure do. I'm not clear about how many deaths we can attribute to him, but it is a LOT.
In this country alone I think the toll was around a 500,000 to 600,000 casualties from covid. So, so many of them could have been preventable with a more competent response from the over-bronzed beadbrain who was pretending to play President and his coterie of dimwitted apparatchiks.
On the one hand, the British medical journal, "Lancet", attributed as many as 400,000 preventable Covid deaths in the United States to Trump's incompetent handling of the pandemic. On the other hand, since almost all those who died were most likely MAGAts who refused to vaccinate, wear masks, or follow other safe practices, I'm not sure "humanity" was involved.
Sophie where you when the amoral creature refused to wage a war against the silent killer known as Covid 19? More than a million Americans died due to his refusal lead for fight against the deadly disease! He actually encouraged crack pot potions, anti vaxxers and anti mask lunatics to spew their Lies!
Hi Louis: I was in Europe, dealing with our own pandemic horribleness, but watching in horror what was happening in the US.
However, as I implied above (see the link I posted), the ICC's basis in law is war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the context of war or terrorism.
Which doesn't change the fact that Trump is an immoral POS.
I hope the DOJ has a safe haven for Jack, his family, and the other attorneys involved who have been doing their jobs for this country because they are not safe as of Jan 20, 2025, the day of the demise of the USA.
"It's not likely the DOJ will do anything to protect anyone."
Officials instituting dubious and contested DOJ policy have repeatedly protected Donald Trump. Bob Barr, Robert Mueller, and Merrick Garland. Abetting a demagogue, felon, and traitor to become a tyrant. Their error has been compounded by Mitch McConnell's Senate Republicans refusing to convict Trump, twice. The Roberts Court Leonard Leo majority granting Trump immunity. The Republican party. And every eligible American who did not vote for Kamala Harris.
I hope he offers clemency to Leonard Peltier the Native Indian activist falsely accused in aiding and abetting the murder of two FBI agents in 1975. Biden knows all about it.
I have been writing to the White House about this for years, and if Biden does not do it now, Peltier will die in prison for a crime for which he never should have been charged. All that malarky about the Indians at Thanksgiving should shame us, but it doesn't.
Biden urgently needs to pardon everyone Trump will likely go after -- The J6 committee, Jack Smith, and the remainder of the judges and prosecutors who were involved in the Trump court cases.
(Didn't tffg refuse to pardon a turkey? Also .... didn't he refuse to sign the ethics docs the 1st time around? That's what I remember, but no one seems to be mentioning that, so perhaps I'm wrong.
Jacks going to be doxed if he hasn’t already? In Mexico or Russia he would fall out of a window or die plane or car crash. How does DOJ protect the man?
Joe Biden, before he leaves office, should issue pardons to Jack Smith, Liz Cheney, Rachel Maddow, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and, oh yes, Hunter Biden, and any other politicians or journalists or attorneys that Trump might go after.
I beg to differ. Hitler died a quick and easy death after visiting horrific pain on the world. He had a 12 year bender when he was drunk on power. No justice could ever be visited on him for what he did, as Hannah Arendt argued. The same is regrettably true for this crew, because the religion of the benighted US is a maudlin sentimental impunity for the poor persecuted rich and powerful. Need I go into Franco and others?
Hitler had a quack for a doctor that treated his depression with heavy duty toxic medicines. If anyone gets credit for his death be it by suicide, or at the hands of the men who "discovered" his body, or after killing Eva Braun, who was newly his wife, he was just sick, sick, sick.
People in his military tried to kill him but were unsuccessful, which shows how good the military training was of the elite put in charge. Others tried to kill him as well.
No. Hitler was not "just sick, sick, sick." Seriously. Consider that claim for a minute. Or two.
It was not the failure of those who treated or tried to kill Hitler. It was the failure of those who elected and enabled Hitler. Including Stalin, who directed German Communists to split the antiHitler vote. (A tactic employed in support of Trump, most notably by Stalin heir Putin's Jill Stein - and all on the Left who refused to support Clinton and Harris.)
lin. I do say his doctor was the one who successfully killed him, even if it was unintentional. Hitler suffered from severe depression and would go into hiding on occasions, and leave Goebbels to speak for him. I am looking at the meds he gave and I do not see how they are indicated for depression. Many were toxins.
I am not absolving the population of voting for Hitler, but I would not say that it was in support of Hitler per say. Some just voted for his party as being the party of change. That was 33% percent of the population voted for his party. It was von Hindenburg that appointed him chancellor. He was pressured to do this by elites of the society who thought Hitler would be their useful idiot. Then shortly thereafter Hitler had the parliament vote him emergency powers, which he then used and took over everything. I am not saying that people were against him right away. They were brainwashed by his propaganda as much as we see people here being brainwashed by the propaganda of Trump and his party.
Why did Hitler get into power? The people wanted change. He promised no more war restitution payments and that the people who had been doing better until the US market crashed would once again be doing better. I think it is important to understand why people voted him into power. Even then only 33 percent voted for him and his party was able appoint the chancellor because the left and Social democrats could not form an alliance to shut him out. Things work differently with parliaments than with our form of government, because if the people had known he would get them into another war when he promised no war, I don't think as many would have voted for him. Either way, much of what was going was hidden from people.
While there are things in common with the voters here and in Germany. A lot is different.
More on Stalin interference in German elections. I thought it was just hysteria? Wedge tactics work. Deflection tactics work. It would interesting to learn more from 1920’s and 30’s history. The more I read about mis and disinformation techniques, the more they parallel the Tobacco Industry. From Governments to industry, there is a lot to learn what and how they shape public opinion.
The people working in the death camps were not the same people as those in the military, which became its own killing machine. It successfully killed 5.3 million in the military. All told there were about 17 million killed by the Nazi regime in addition to the soldiers that died in the unnecessary war. https://www.statista.com/chart/24024/number-of-victims-nazi-regime/
I also have studied Black German history, and they are not listed here. While not all Blacks were put in the camps and exterminated, they don't get their separate category. I have read that they were put together with the Sinti and Roma in how they were documented in camps. Many Black and Brown Germans were sterilized instead of being put in camps. I have met a man to whom this happened. He felt he could never be happy because he was robbed of the ability to have children.
"Ike did a good job, expensive in American body bags though…"
The Allied Nations - all 49 or so of them - defeated Nazi Germany and The Axis. It is very important, especially now, to correct any notion that one nation or one person defeated Nazi Germany (or the Soviet Union.)
By nation, most of the military body bags held Soviet and Republic of China casualties.
"The Allies were led by the so-called "Big Three"—the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States—which were the principal contributors of manpower, resources, and strategy, each playing a key role in achieving victory."
"Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union."
It is so true. Biden did so much but he neglected one big point. He fell asleep at the border. Had he gotten tough, he or Harris would be elected. He just did t want to follow in the steps of Trump
Additionally, his AG, Merrick Garland was fool a coward or both who should have started the Jan 6 investigation weeks after he was confirmed. Nothing was more important than that. He wasted 2 precious years… makes me sick every time I think about it. Frankly, I MG never gets a good night’s sleep again for as long as he lives.
Merrick Garland was trying to keep the Justice Department free if any perception of partisan politics. With Trump and his cronies, that proved impossible. Add to that the refusal of Republicans to impeach Trump for obvious crimes.
Two step: McConnell said we don't have to convict and remove him for organizing a treasonous coup attempt (thereby banning him from future office) after he was impeached by a bipartisan vote of the House, because his term is about to expire - let the justice system prosecute him.
Supremacist Court (packed by McConnell): the president is above the law and has impunity for official acts, however abusive.
Sequel: President Biden is too conscientious to abuse power (as allowed by the MAGA Court) to bring de facto justice down on the Conman-in-Chief for his obvious major crimes.
Agree, Mark, but part of me wants Biden to go rogue….and stick it to TFFFG for all his illegal behavior via Presidential edict, especially as SCOTUS has effectively given POTUS a “get out of jail free” mandate. IMHO, Joe believes too much in responsibilities/obligations of the office to take such action. At least I would be surprised if he did.
Kamala to the Presidency for the last two months, making her the 47th President.
Then while she's there, sign executive orders and codify Roe V Wade and set term limits for the Supreme Court. And she would be able to do all of this legally since the Supreme Court ruled a sitting President is above the law. She could conceivably order recounts and "find some more votes" without fear of criminality. She can change the rules for an election so that anyone with a convicted felony on their record wouldn't ever be able to run or be sworn in for any office in the land. She could give Trump a taste of his own medicine without any repercussions whatsoever.”
He may yet get an opportunity to unburden himself in a way that everyone will understand. I hope so. His beautiful team! all that wonderful work! The enemy is already imploding, but it won't help us very much.
What might going rogue look like (#1) then, what if that were enacted THEATRICALLY (#2) and publicly! Articulated vision is absent where I gaze out at goings on locally and at large scale. Complaints and frustrations are abundantly cited but cohesive vision, convincingly portrayed is another story. Behaving well (like Biden and Jack Smith do) supports value-based civil authority but 'arts' can let it rip. Biden's team can still create context that's persuasive (not legislative) and being audacious might be the best counter-balance to conclude his term in office and to transition into the future.
Quoting Phil Balla from several days ago here, after crediting Trump for being a "long-practiced showman":
"During the lead-up to the recent election, I often argued for teams of Dems to organize and appear together in public. I stress that again now. Dems should hire the best PR firms to coordinate, to fine-tune how they may support each other before the American public. They need to be good, very good.
Combinations to consider to get Dems recovered and competing with the nihilist billionaires:
Jamie Raskin, Mallory McMorrow, Katie Porter, Raphael Warnock; Sheldon Whitehouse, Gretchen Whitmer, Ro Khanna, Gary Peters; Pete Buttigieg, Eric Swalwell, Tammy Baldwin, Amy Klobuchar; Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elissa Slotkin; Liz Warren, Jared Moskowitz, Josh Shapiro, Kamala Harris; Dan Goldman, Gavin Newsom, Adam Schiff, Michelle Obama; Pramila Jayapal, Hakeem Jeffries, Chris Coons, Jasmine Crockett."
Just sayin' ...... because we need envisioning that lingers and motivates and attracts benevolent forces. Not to manipulate or grasp power but to inspire. Leadership.
DJT is the Embodiment of Corruption... Decency, Mercy, are Considered Weakness... Trying to avoid the Appearance of Political Persecution doomed the DoJ efforts... The Republicans will have no such Qualms....
Not buying the ‘partisan politics’ excuse! The whole country and any one else where in the world with a tv WITNESSED The insurrection on Jan 6 by domestic terrorists sanctioned by trump!
I agree with you about what Garland was trying to do, but I would also posit that trying to do so was pointless. Trump and his MAGAts were always going to scream that he was being persecuted and that any investigation of Trump was a "witch hunt." I almost have to question whether Garland was serious about bringing Trump to justice. The whole business has a Kabuki performative feel to it.
Ted, I hope someday some investigative reporter will suss out the strategy, or lack thereof, of MG’s approach to some historically serious crimes against our country. I gave him A LOT of latitude early on, but became increasingly concerned he dropped the ball…or that maybe didn’t care if he did so.
I hope that Garland lives with deep shame the rest of his life!! His sanctimonious foot dragging has likely cost our democracy, by allowing a traitor to continue to walk free, and even become a president again!
You’re forgetting the bipartisan bill he was ready to sign but which, nixed by Trump, the Republicans refused to support. Senator Langford (R-OK) may be able to revive it before the great deportation, but I doubt it.
I don't know if you read my comment here, but an astrologer friend did trump's chart and said that she never saw so much inexplicable luck in any other's chart....
No Virginia, it won't be revived before the great deportation, its the circus the MAGA demands and that's what they are to get regardless of better alternatives.
Do you mean Biden did nothing? Are you unaware of what it took to put NATO back together, to get US back in the climate accords, to deal with Ukraine, and put together the legislation for recovery from Covid, the jobs acts? He worked as hard as any president ever and achieved more than most.
YES. THIS. Joe Biden did some great things, especially in his first two years. But he never TOLD ANYONE! Even for me, a lifelong Dem and Biden supporter, it was sometimes hard to find the info associated with his greatest successes.
True, and not only that, I realized it’s already all tfg, all the time right now. I constantly get bulletins about who he’s nominated, how much of a tariff he plans to put on Canada, etc. He’s not even inaugurated and it’s constant.
No, the Press never told anyone. The msm has covered everything trump for years, but they should have been blasting out all the great things Biden has accomplished.
It isn't Biden's style to blow his own horn. He believes in working quietly, behind the scenes, to get things done and not in drawing attention to himself. In that way, he's a rather untypical politician, and unfortunately it hurt him because the media didn't examine and report his accomplishments.
But I would rather have a leader who doesn't want to draw attention to himself and yet gets things done than a loudmouth who talks big but doesn't accomplish much. We have too many of the latter types right now.
djt’s voters were brainwashed through fox noise. Do you think fox viewers knew about the border deal djt nixed because he wanted to use it as a campaign issue? I think not.
The three most dangerous immigrants in this country are rupert and lachlan murdock and leon musk. Ironically, these three are wealthier than the billionaire president-to-be. Interesting dynamic.
Not hindsight. Many here have known this for years. There just hasn’t been an effective forum to get the word out. We are dealing with show, snakeoil, and celebrity. Who wants to or has the skills and contacts and $$$ to take that on?
People knew what Trump was all along. Sadly, a majority still voted for him. On the other hand, Dems need to up their game and nominate better people. You can say all you want about Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, but they weren't relatable to ordinary Americans nor were they competent political campaigners.
Nah! The gop’s propaganda machine realized that demonizing Black Americans was costing them votes! So they made immigrants the target of their hate and fear mongering!
I hold Biden responsible for the loss of the election. He should have never run for that second term. We might not have had Kamala, which would have been such a shame, but we wouldn’t have had Trump. But Biden decided he was the “only one” who could fight fascism.
Bill Katz, please watch this video. You are so wrong about Biden and the border, but it's somewhat excusable because the media, like with other Biden initiatives, failed to see what he was doing here.
The grifting has already begun. From the economy, to education, the environment, to Public Health. A lot of needless suffering is right around the corner.
Seems to me that most of humanity's avoidable suffering since our species took his-her first step has been rooted in some analog of MAGA; the malignant narcissism that encourages one human being (or a gang of them) to abuse another.
Justice delayed, you say? There is no justice here! He’ll be dead or on life support before Trump ever sees a courthouse again!
When you have the Justice Department in your pocket, and it turns out many of the justices are just as crooked and deranged as their fearless leader (million dollar vacations, Winnebago’s, a sexual assaulter, carving out a constitutional immunity), then the system is already rotten to the core, and broken beyond repair!
So good luck with Justice, if it still exists! One thing has been proven; some people are above the law, and can never seriously be prosecuted!
And just like the first Trump administration (RussiaGate), we’re already seeing this administration break the law, and they haven’t even been inaugurated yet! Let that sink in!
You've described the demonic dynamism that is gaining force perfectly. I feel like I'm watching the weather report warning of a category 10 hurricane that will certainly hit us all and there's no place to go and hide....
Agreed, but only when justice is being meted out by ethical and moral individuals. With this SCOTUS; all bets are off! And they have lifetime appointments…:)
My friend who is an astrologer sent out an email declaring that she had correctly predicted every presidential win since Clinton based on their astrology charts. She said that she had never seen so many factors providing so much LUCK as in trump's chart, but that Harris's chart that painted her to be a rising star made her predict that Kamala would win the election. She was right in her evaluation of both candidates' charts but wrong in that his insurmountable luck trumped. He is the definition of the Antichrist....
Rupert has been wild since 1980, went all out for Ronnie and they plotted together…or the money did. Ronnie married money and Rupert knew how to use it…and multiply
Another Thing To Worry About... On Fareed Zakaria's 'GPS' Yesterday.... Eric Schmidt, one of the Founders of 'Google', stated that the Chinese have reached Parity in A.I. ... They are not as restrained in its use as the U.S. is... Eric Schmidt has been working with Ukrainians in advancing Military Technology at a Rate far more rapid then the USA using A.I.... While the USA has taken a Giant Step Backward, the Chinese, and their Allies are Advancing... You should watch that Interview... There is Much More...
I watched it and shivered in my boots. I remember freaking out during the Israeli 6-day war in 1967 when I was in high school, worried that this was going to spark WWIII. I will never forget my Greek immigrant father waving his arms around saying, "Those people have been fighting for thousands of years and will be fighting for the next thousands of years. If you really want to worry, keep your eyes on China--that's the sleeping giant." How prescient....
Most important cases are the state cases. No Presidential pardon possible. Too bad Fani was playing footsies with her fanny and lied about it, Michigan and Arizona seem to moving at a glacial pace. No accident that the one success was state court NYC.
The legal definition of treason is very narrow and would not apply. I wonder if there is a viable charge of being a complete and total (expletive deleted).
Fair enough, but it could apply if you had the right federal prosecutor. And let’s face it, he most likely has committed treason in the documents case; it’s proving it that’s the problem….:)
Trump is already showing signs of dementia. This is from his speech to the Economic Club of New York on 9/6/24.
"After 12 years of decline, we had an annual 7 billion new homeowners. It never happened before. And in three years, we raised 7 billion new jobs, 260% more than projected. When I took office, I said you couldn’t get in those projections. And we were 260% higher than what we said we could do. From the day I went on to the day I left, it hasn’t paid 500 increase by 80%. And we did it all with virtually no inflation. Virtually no inflation."
And he's reading from a teleprompter. There are many other examples of how he is totally cray-cray but almost no one in the corporate media says a word about it.
And yet, if Biden trips over a crack in the sidewalk, he's too old to do anything but watch TV.
Who among Trump's cabinet and advisors from 2017-2024 endorsed him for President again? Only the flip-floppers like Bill Barr and Nikki Haley.
Suspending would rule out the ability to publish a report. The cases were dismissed in a way that does not preclude resuming them once Trump leaves office. They can also be the basis for an impeachment.
Of all the things that incense me about the Democrats, and I specifically include both Biden and Obama here, foremost is their kid glove treatment of the privileged. The banksters who brought on the financial crisis, the Sacklers who escaped jail for addicting millions, and now Trump and his fellow subversives. I wish I was a believer so I could console myself with the belief that Merrick Garland will burn in hell, but the likely scenario for him is a cushy job on Wall Street or with some right wing university.
Quite possibly Jack Smith's actions are/were correct, considering all aspects of the DOJ/Supreme Court and old trumpy himself. Think about it... all those 'experts' were heading for a full house of immunity cards. By pulling back Smith and Merchan's looking long term... old trumpy will be out of office in four years, if he lives that long he'll then be eligible for the sentencing to be brought back. And that can't be making the convicted old man soon to be in the Oval Office comfortable.
Trump has not sworn in yet. His cabinet members have neither yet. So let's think about how to prevent him from selling national security of America to foreign powers and destroying lives of those who depend on SS, Medicare and Medicade, and those who might be separated from family members.
Why is the transition going forward? Documents must be signed. Don’t let the schoolyard bully Trump bulldoze the laws. Hold him accountable. No signing, no transition. Require all prospective cabinet members to be investigated. Trump is a citizen and must obey the laws & norms like the rest of us. More people voted against Trump than for him. In both percentage & raw votes, Trump’s margin is on pace to be less than half of what Biden achieved four years earlier. No mandate.
Unfortunately, the SCOTUS disagrees with you. According to their ruling, he is above the law. The inmates are running the asylum. We are headed for a fascist government, and the only solution, because of the lack of intestinal fortitude on the part of the Republicans in Congress, will undoubtedly involve bloodshed.
Regardless if SCOTUS will give him a pass, to continue to do nothing because of a fear of what he or his maga mob will do is straight out of the 'how to break a democracy' handbook and anyone who could have and should have done something let us down. I say test the Supreme Court ruling and stop the transition until the documents are signed.
Sadly, no big deal. Trump doesn't care about any "transition". On Jan 20, 2025, he WILL be the President, like it or not. The remaining 55 days before that wouldn't even give anyone at DoJ time to for the papers, let alone get a hearing. And the second Trump is inaugurated, he will fire whoever is pursuing this. Did you notice that Jack Smith just dismissed both the cases he filed against Trump?
The game, at least "that" game, is over. Stop worrying about irrelevant issues like signing transition papers (not required by any law, just custom and some executive orders) and start worrying about the REAL issues we will all face in less than two months.
100% correct. And like it or not, that is the way our laws currently read anyway. Transitions have been an implicit agreement between putting and incoming administration's. Very civil.
One thing we know is Trump isn't civil so why expect him to comply with this stuff? He has broken many laws but in thus case he is doing nothing except waiting until he becomes President. You really can't take that away from him even if you want to. You can withhold some money but you think he really cares about that? Not a chance.
This! Exactly this! I can't understand why so many people are saying: "But he can't do that, it's against the rules!?" For God's sake, when was the last time _anyone_ saw Rump playing by the rules?? He won't, and never will! He's a swindler, a con man! You won't get him by 'playing nice' ! I'm telling you, this is all fun and games until he starts executing his political enemies. I, for one, won't be surprised when Nancy Pelosi and the Bidens are dangling from a gallow by the end of January.
I’ve said it time and time again: if you want to save what’s left of America, ironically you’re going to have to live by TFFGs own words: “You’re gonna have to fight like hell or you’re not gonna have a country anymore.” You cannot defeat someone who ignores the rules by playing nice and adhering to the rules yourself.
While repubs plotted, Dems felt assured that our gains were popular enough that they would not be rejected. They weren’t, except that people listened to the hateful, evil Rush, the silver-tongued liar Ronnie, and the “Tabloid news” viper Rupert. More than a few MAGAts will be crying in their beer pretty soon. As will many of us non-culties…
As Jim Morrison said in the Song, "When The Music Is Over", "They Got The Guns, We Got The Numbers"... Jim Morrison at his Best was a Mystic... He Believed That He Was A Shaman...
Not always true. Jim had a lot of 100% lucid time in his life. He wasn't always drug addled. And some of his best music and poetry wasn't written on drugs although he often performed it that way.
Actually he isn't breaking any laws currently, at least not that I can tell. Transition "requirements" are not law. They are policies that are agreed to by the incoming and outgoing administration's. And what little law there is requires the agreement of the incoming administration which they do not have to agree to. They lose some privileges by refusing, but the P-elect WILL become the President on Jan 20 no matter what else happens as long as he is alive. And if the current President tries to take any action against him it would be quickly invalidated once he is inaugurated and I expect he would then want some kind of retribution against Biden. And in fact regardless of how much you detest him, he would probably be entitled to that.
We've never faced this before but we need to remember that he was elected and as far as we can tell fairly ( at least in a legal sense). Fighting that would make US the criminals, not him.
Need i point out that this very point is the same that WE (or at least Biden) tried to invoke against Trump for the 2020 transition mess. Biden's only problem was that he and Garland dragged their feet for almost 2 years and by then it turned out to be too late. Trump will NOT make that same mistake I am sure.
He is not above the law for this transition as he is still a private citizen. One could argue though, that he doesn’t deserve citizenship. He is a traitor!
What everyone seems to miss is that (a) there are very few laws regarding transition, it is mostly just policy made by previous administrations and not enforceable in any real way and (b) what law there is STILL can't prevent him being inaugurated on Jan 20 which is written into the constitution regardless of any laws. At that point he is the President.
Sorry you are simply wrong. The transition stuff is just customary. Even if it is in law, he can simply ignore it UNTIL he is inaugurated.
And he WILL be inaugurated because THAT is not custom or rulings or even law.
That is in the Constitution.
And of course once he is inaugurated then he IS the President and except for actual laws (which I do not believe thee transition process is part of) he has a lot of control over what he will do and not do.
To repeat for me, please read the law (not just the summary). The law is a permissive law not a mandate that is designed for the BENEFIT of the incoming president- elect, not to require him or his team to do anything or to penalize him for violating it. There are benefits he gets by complying but there is no penalty for not complying. Ignoring the law is up to him. In a sane world, every president elect would cherish the things he or she could get during transition via complying with the law, but in case you haven't noticed we are not living in a sane world these days at least not politically.
My reading of this law is that Trump has every right to just say "to hell with that, I'll deal with things my way once I am inaugurated." And I conclude he has done just that.
It sucks from our perspective but I do not see it as a crime in any way, just stupid. But with Trump that is just par for the course.
Yes, stupid. Also puts America in a dangerous spot. Trump, generally ignorant anyway, will not have access to U.S. secrets -- especially on national security issues -- until he is sworn in. He and his cult are not quick learners; plus, his cultists are starting from a base of incompetence because they were chose for boot-licking loyalty to Trump rather than knowledge about the departments they were chosen to run.
… and he is not the president yet, if he won't sign then he is the cause of any actions or ramifications that come from that, including holding up his hollow presidency which is nothing but cover for this criminal.
It can't hold up his Presidency. He WILL be inaugurated on Jan 20. Nothing he does between now and then will prevent that as long as he is alive. It may be slightly inconvenient for him because he won't have the services to "vet" cabinet appointments during the transition but he doesn't want that anyway. He wants to AVOID that if possible.
So once again we are tilting at windmills. What's important is what he plans to do after he is in office. This transition nonsense is just a waste of time and energy.
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Because DJT wants it to, and he is a very special boy who gets everything he wants and has 75 million armed friends and a population of sycophantic weasels to help him. May God have mercy on all of us.
$340 billion net worth? If he spends $1 billion on Trumpworld, he'll make $10 billion more on crypto. It's a very sick and perverted game of monopoly Musk is able to play.
Thank you for your note. Imagine being hired for a job or being given a contract and then before starting you say “ no I will not sign that I will comply with the terms of your contract “.
The job of president only has four requirements. You have to be a natural born US citizen, you need to be 35 years old on the day you take office, you need to be a resident of the US for 14 years and you have to take the oath of office. That's it. No other requirements can be placed on you by any law. Theoretically a new constitutional amendment could add requirements but that isn't the case today.
If you meet the requirements and are elected you can basically give everyone the finger until you are inaugurated and no one can do squat about that. We can ask "pretty please follow the rules" but as Mel Brooks said in The Producers "It's good to be the King!" (Or in this case president- elect).
This is not a "regular job". There is no "contract" required except your commitments to your voters. And even that can't be enforced. You.ARE "the king".
Crime pays if you're a Republican. How sickening that a man who violated National Security laws can just waltz right back into the White House to do even worse, and the corrupt Supreme Court has enabled any crime he wants to commit.
Sickening, yes, to put it mildly, but Trump is not the most sickening part of it. The most sickening part is the collection of American voters who put Trump in office. No Trump voter can ever be forgiven for this crime against humanity.
And the voters who voted for a third party candidate. While it would be wonderful to have a healthy third party where the candidate could win, voting for someone no longer running or someone with no chance to win was really not wise this year.
As a lifetime educator, I have to say "mea culpa" on behalf of all of us who didn't try hard enough and weren't able to instill kindness and decency in the children and young people who spent hours with us every day. We didn't try hard enough and weren't able to instill in them an appreciation for the arts. What will we do to rescue subsequent generations from the swamp in which we have allowed them to wallow? This is the context in which "Drain the swamp" becomes meaningful. It's easy to blame the children for their lack of education, but at least part of the blame is on my shoulders.
As a career educator I take zero blame for the racism, sexism and hate we saw in the campaign. Please stop blaming yourself and other educators. You are missing the social, historical, and familial roots of these issues and the role of right wing media. Teachers didn’t bring slaves to this country and they didn’t create misogyny.
I also was an educator and I am not going to beat my heart and say mea culpa. I know many educators who did their damndest to instill decent behavior and an appreciation for the arts. I am not going to blame children either. For whatever reason we have become an uncivil society. It is going to be hard to get that genie back in the box. I am not very optimistic about humankind as a whole because it is so much easier to be all the things that make humans awful and whether we like it or not, we are still those same apes that learned to walk upright and now we have all the old ape qualities armed with lethal technology. We are on track to destroy the planet and even all that money isn't going to save the wealthy although they assume that it will. Once again I am grateful to be as old as I am. Right now I am editing a book by my gardening helper. She speaks to the garden without and within. It is full of wisdom and it makes me want to cry when I look at where we have found ourselves.
Indeed it is. Lots of nuke rattling going on. Now I won't trust any of the inept people on our side who will have access to nuclear codes. And of course, no one is going to share intelligence with us either with suspect types like Gabbard in charge. But if this does not happen, it will be slower, but faster than we think. We are already see lots of people trying to migrate in part because of war and criminals in charge, but also because of climate change. Water is precious, but we treat it like it is a sewer to dump our toxic waste. I have an ex-student who has enough money to move where she and husband want. But they have come to the conclusion that no place is safe from climate change. Ask the people in Asheville.
From your comment, I imagine you tried quite hard and probably did a lot of good work towards raising good citizens. Fox "news" and the very deep pockets of billionaires are challenging opponents No single one of us will save the world.
Very true. I'm a union activist who knows that solidarity can save us. Find a group that does good work and join them, and together, we will all make a difference.
Solidarity is the foundation of a free society. Solidarity is exactly what the plutocrats have been actively striving to undermine, and replace with a pecking order.
I agree Lola and I am sure Betsy and many others worked hard to be the best teachers they could be. And yes I see someone noting the influence of parents and families which can overwhelm the best efforts of teachers.
Dan Rather nailed it. Nobody gets their news from what has suddenly become "traditional" or "legacy" sources. The gossip factory that flourishes on the internet is uncontrollable.
I'm a retired journalist and I would suggest that trying to control free speech is not wise. Granted, there is the standard admonition against falsely crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but free speech is critical. Yes, the internet has changed our lives immensely, not always for the good, and much of free speech consists of lies (see Trump, et al.). But trying to clamp down on speech will create its own problems.
Please don't blame yourself. It is really difficult to counteract thr influence of parents/family who hold bigoted views, who may be motivated by religious views.
Thank you for your kind reassurances., but it's clear that we have failed, at least to some extent, on our mission to educate. From the Latin"e" meaning "out," and "ducere," to "lead," our job was to lead them out of their previous environment into a world of learning and imagination and understanding and appreciation of beauty and truth.
To what degree have we collectively failed to sufficiently nurture those capacities as a society, and for that matter, as a species? Individuals and families vary, and societies vary, but we humans remain our own worst enemies? Just for instance, apart from war, why is it so hard to degree to finally do something about our unraveling, sustaining environment? Could our world not be paradise if we played our cards right? People have thought so for eons, but the progress is so hard.
Interesting that we aren't all including the failures of the legacy media which are phenomenal. And probably very few got to teach media literacy. Now however we could push on that same media to start doing their GD job. Get Congress to reinstate the fairness doctrine for one thing.
The legacy media is mostly controlled/owned by billionaires with huge conflicts of interest...e.g. WP, LATimes....and then there's Murdoch and Time-Warner and NBC. All the owners are billionaires.
Familiar as so many of us are with your statement of truth, it's just not the time to dwell on all the descriptions. Now that we have identified the problem, let's get into solutions of whatever sort however small or large. The fairness doctrine would accomplish a large bite into how the news is packaged and delivered. Wikipedia no doubt has deeper information on this.We have at least two years of dedicated work, whatever each of us chooses that to be. I'm focused on moving ahead. And you?
We all could have done more, and probably have to do more, but that's always true. School can do a lot but what values are kids getting from our commercially-obsessed curricula? From media? From puerile politics? As never before we are letting the plutocrats mold our culture. The tail is wagging the dog. You can't do government of. by and for the people just by watching ads and switching channels.
I had more great teachers than I deserved all through K-12. My parents moved to a school district they couldn't afford because they felt education was that important. And it was a lower middle class neighborhood!!
It was "the village" that taught me kindness and tolerance. And that included the Boy Scouts, athletics and the church. Who among my 765 high school class mates families expected the school system to install values in us?
We were expected to be good citizens in school, but I remember no sermons from teachers on values unless you want to count literature like "The Scarlet Letter".
Betsy Smith, can you write for us how you see yourself as guilty apart from not teaching the arts? Did you teach any history? I was imbued with patriotism both sat home and at school, including history and civics.
My first years of public school In the early1950s) were certainly imbued with a kind of patriotism, but it was pretty shallow with respect to historical content, a lot of which turned out to be folklore. And lot of what is claimed to be patriotism (especially by the right wing) turns out to be theater, like Trump publicly molesting the flag. It seems to me that the foundation of patriotism is caring about something a lot larger than one's own whims and status. That's how I interpret words of Lincoln that I am guilty of posting here repetitiously, but I think that some things are said so well that they merit ongoing study;
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength our gallant and disciplined army? These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of those may be turned against our liberties, without making us weaker or stronger for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men (sic), in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises."
Although that can result in infinite regression. My wife and I tried to be perfect parents, and while I think we did a lot of things in a good way, there are some things that in hindsight we would have done differently. At least we had been and are aware, to some degree, of our own process, and how it is we muddle through at least in part by insufficiently examined habits and unrecognized guesswork, like everyone else. That said, I think that self-examination and an open mind is crucial, along with a lifelong willingness to learn. It appears to me that reasonable skepticism and an open mind are two views of the same thing; some degree of willingness to question EVERYTHING. Yet even if nothing is absolutely certain, there are fruitful and highly supportable bases for confidence, subject to indefinite re-evaluation.
It has been argued that human treatment of other humans becomes less humane, at least in aggregate, as you go back in history. That said, I think we as a society have been very uneven in my lifetime about defending universal rights and maintain cultural integrity. Some minority (and women's) rights have continued to expand, but so has entropy. It seems to me that our excessively commercial culture has been neglecting more perfect union; and of course, grass roots foundational union is the last thing those who would be kings want to see.
I don't want to deal with them, but divide and conquer and big lies are what has brought us to this perilous period. Even if Trump did not win the majority, there are too many supporting him to just ignore, and that "house divided" is the force that is enabling autocracy. a lot of people who signed on with Trump are hurting, and that contributes to making them irrational. It seems they don't connect the dots to where their affliction originate (tempting to say "it's the plutocracy, stupid") but plutocratic influence on the quality of information they are getting is a factor as well. Democracy thrives on diversity and even controversy, but not in the face of polarization. There must be ethical/moral lines one does not cross to maintain one nation, indivisible, and Republicans are eagerly crossing them. But were is most of the impetus coming from, and has been for decades? Even back to the days of slavery? Follow the money.
Exactly. No less an authority than Laurence Tribe, Harvard Professor emeritus, just called the Supreme Court corrupt, on Lawrence O'Donnell's program. We are in for some perilous times, and have much work ahead if we are to keep our democracy and defeat the MAGA fascists.
I liked the fact that Tribe also called out his former student, Merrick Garland, for taking too long to investigate and bring charges. Hard not to imagine that Garland may be complicit in some way. Regardless, he has given us Jews a bad name with his inactions.
I believe it was within a few months of his appointment, it became apparent that his judicial restraint was ill-served in a position that demanded prosecutorial fire. He had, early in his career, been an excellent prosecutor; his time on the bench tempered the fire and changed him into an arbiter rather than a fighter.
I dunno, Angela, I’ve been pondering this & how, in a way, it looks so familiar….the rich white guy getting off scot-free, as happens too often in our country (and how justice is so often unequally applied)….or, in this case, the rich white guy about to be, once again, one of the most powerful (if clearly incompetent) persons on the planet walking free, with nary a scintilla of shame, from multiple convictions and charges. He’s like the character in The Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, where the bad guy keeps “reconstituting” itself despite seemingly being destroyed. Or, if you prefer, like a nightmare-based “Groundhog Day”. Sigh, at least Murray’s character evolved in a healthy way….can’t say that about you-know-who. Personally, I think this is a Vegas-style ginormous, gaudy flashing neon sign confirming to our citizens & the world that in the USA justice is NOT delivered “without fear or favor”. Just as he broke the law RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES, so too, is our country’s inability to hold him accountable unfolding for all to see. I shudder to think of the “justice” that will be investigated/dispensed in our upcoming administration….heaven help us. IMHO, the Republican Senate (under the thumb of Mitch) refused to convict him of his clearly culpable actions/crimes. Stupid, really stupid, decision Mitch.
My spouse holds McConnell responsible for the whole situation. He could (and should) have moved his Republican cohort to convict T****. But he did not. And I thought I'd never see Republicans of the Nixon era as doing the right thing, but they did. Who removed McConnell's spine, or was it bought and paid for by some mega-donor. Follow the money.
Mistakes were made, as they say, but the blame for the outcome of the election and for all the other failures, lies squarely with white Americans, They are the people who put Reagan, the elderbush and his nitwit son, Trump, and the six corrupt SCOTUS justices in power, and that is what led to the catastrophic collapse of decency in the United States. It’s been brewing since 1954. Finally boiled over.
Our democracy has just been bought and sold out from under us. Not only will laws and regulations change to benefit the rich, but every norm of the office of the Presidency will be ignored.
It pains me deeply to watch as my country is diminished day by day not only to our international nation partners but to all those who now serve in our military to “protect and serve” our nation with their lives.
I blame the members of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, who have bought the GOP, SCOTUS, and the presidency. Trump, the perpetual grifter, refuses to sign the transition paperwork so he can accept the numerous billionaires’ bribes.
I know one is dead, but the two worked to destroy public universities, derail progress in climate change policy, and were generally problematical as a Fifth Column. The final “blow” was a refusal to go along with sanctions against Putin’s Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. The Kochs were too rich and powerful to suck up to anyone. They make musk, dangerous though he is, look like a neophyte.
Lord I would hope so. I hope most are cut from General Milley's cloth:
"We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Quite so, but saying it is often part of what can make it so, especial where social values are concerned. Paine's "Common Sense" is widely credited with helping to establish a shared vision of the new republic, and multiple protest movements, from Abolition to gay rights, have kept normalized injustice visible in the national consciousness. Martin Niemöller famously commented on the price of not speaking out when, as a matter of fact, the Nazi's did come for him.
Democracy is a conversation or it's not democracy, and we are losing that essential feature as our media is increasingly dominated by top-down commercialism. The Internet was designed to be decentralized, and so far (not in all nations) its democratic potential remains, as this conversation demonstrates. Yet the public conversation is increasingly being overshadowed by pay-to-play propaganda, and even here we are a gated community to an extent.
Speaking, at least enough people speaking, and, of course listening, is always part of social justice; and a careful commitment to seeking truth is the foundation of any worthwhile definition of justice, be it civil or criminal. Unchallenged lies are poison for a free and open society, and demonstrably. malicious or irresponsible lies can kill. History shows that lies repeated often enough can create a delusional, semi-psychotic sense of reality. Repetition and cross-examination of truth, faithful to evidence, unbroken logic, and personal integrity weighs against false and frequently toxic perceptions.
A bit of history about the less than competent efforts to find and root out LGBTQ folks from the military in the last. Many ways that things are different now, of course.
It would not have mattered. People who do not know what his administration has done don't know because they are pathologically willfully ignorant. The psychopath won by 1.5%. That was not messaging. That was millions of people not voting.
Don’t forget or discount the corrosive effect on the American public of a sophisticated multi pronged and lavishly funded mis- and disinformation campaign, augmented by foreign interference by Putin and others.
People were also pathologically lied to, and I saw plenty of false equivalency reporting even in the not controlled by a billionaire papers I support and respect. I still don't understand why.
Don’t blame Biden’s messaging blame the no regulations on what can be said on all the new ways of communicating called social media. So many people were fed a diet of lies for the past 8 years, what do we expect, a sudden awakening in 100 days. We needed to be very much pushing back vigorously against all the lies and prosecution of those Russian Iranian trolls that saturated the internet with lies that convinced voters to again vote against their best interest. That to me is voter fraud and suppression. And we all so believed in our judicial system so blindly that these people were ethical. Brings a whole new meeting to FAFO as they have been F’ing Around and we are now finding out.
Let’s not forget about the American terrorist organization, Fox News. Fox is the root of the problem, and so many lazy people sitting in front of their TV’s watching that crap day after day.
Not the root. One root among many. Much of it goes back to Reagan who got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters who used the public airwaves to air both sides of issues of public interest.
The Fairness Doctrine did not apply to cable news and other broadcast shows such as Rush Limbaugh because they were broadcast over private media.
As you say, it has allowed such biased information sources as the Fox Propaganda Network to foul the nest of the public commons.
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
“STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All
We can't allow cheating in sports, but no rules apply in politics where the consequences are much more serious. We can be prosecuted for lying to the government, but members of the government can freely lie to us? (So what about this "We the People" thing?) Corporations like Dominion Voting Systems can sue for millions, and even some viciously defamed individuals can sue when lied about, but We the People have to grin and bear it?
Free Speech is a precious and essential right of a free society, and in the gray areas, I'd err on the side of freedom to speak; yet some speech is objectively harmful, and in many situations, limited by regulation. It depends on the situation (like making bomb threat jokes to TSA agents) and with the responsibilities carried the person telling the lie. Lies can be deadly, and that reality should not be dismissed. Lies against immigrants by public officials who continue to lie even when corrected. Not even dispute. just lie. Cruel lies against innocent Haitians? How can that be OK? There is even a religious commandment against doing that, but here I'm referring state civil justice.
I came here to day just that. Talking generally about millions of dollars of investments gets lost and is out of context for most people. I recently drove from Atlanta to Nashville which takes you directly through MTG territory. A Q-Cells solar plant is visible from the highway, a big winner from CHIPS and boost to that economy - guess who took credit for the economy boost?
It's old school but well place billboards about local investments and local results that didn't scream Blue or (D) could have gone a long way. I spoke to some people at a gas station there and they gave MTG credit for the investments when she clearly voted against them.
Speaking in generalities is too fuzzy. A specific plant, internet in an area that didn't have it, a bridge or road that was repaired. Those are the things that people see and feel and realize they haven't been left behind.
Look at what the young Democratic chair in NC (Anderson Clayton) accomplished. Harris lost the state but not by as much as expected and granted they had a particularly bad candidate for Gov and the most money ever spent on a state AG race but the Dems won both of those races and broke the super majority in the state house. She did something right and she needs to get some credit. And the rest of us need to learn from what she did.
That’s true—a billboard saying MTG voted against the solar plant would have gone a long way—and similar moves around the country. Too bad Dems we’re not strategic in this regard. Too bad and now too late.
The election was a combination of big money lies and voter ignorance. The Atlantic has a story about university students who consider reading a whole book a waste of time and have never. That says to me they don’t read novels. How else to stretch the mind? If you can’t read a novel, can you sit through a symphony concert? Would you take Latin or Greek to understand the West?
you make so much sense! You are head snd shoulders about other writers on the political situation and what has kept me SANE through the past few years. Thank you.
Trump has proven that ignoring and evading the law by a delay and delay and delay approach in hopes that his voters would return him to the White House not only worked, but he also proved that laws, procedures and regulations don’t matter to many Americans AND that they can easily be subverted if you have enough $$$$ behind you.
I hope she got a good night's sleep. I, on the other hand, am wading through 500+ comments in my daily perusal of the Letter and its Readers. Hopefully, other Readers slept better than I did.
Weren't we told that trump was going to get prices down. Isn't that what the idiots who voted for him believe? Well, have I got news for them! The NY Times reported that trump will impose a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the US from Mexico & Canada on Day One! The article said it would put a real strain on the supply chain within this hemisphere. Prices will go up! Hmm, supply chain issues, ooh, I can see it now, you think prices are high now, just wait until the grocery giants claim supply chain issues & increase their prices even more!!! Hell, they haven't even brought them down since the last supply chain issue of 3-4 years ago. Promises made, promises ignored & laughed at! And by the way, ole "Mr. I'll be tough on China" is going to impose a 10% tariff on things coming from China. What happened to that 50, 60, 100% tariff he was going to put on Chinese goods. What, did Chi flatter you, did he flutter his eyelashes at you.donald?
This is going to be ugly, ugly, ugly in all ways. It's going to be really hard not to put nastygrams in people's mailboxes that I know supported trump. Those idiots are getting what they deserve only problem is we're going to suffer too.
That's why, in 2 years, at the mid-terms, we vote the bastards out. We move for a veto proof majority and with the Felon's inability to hold a thought for longer than a New York minute, we have a chance of getting through this mess. This time, even the dumbest of bunnies will know that he did not fulfill what he promised when he and his gang of thugs were running for office, they are not going to be happy campers. Who knows, they may even vote. 7 more republican senate seats are up for election than Democrats, it could be interesting,
Oh? I'm not dreaming. You don't think the tariffs that will be placed on Mexico and Canada the day the Felon is sworn in - hope the Bible doesn't catch on fire - will not effect how people vote? Actions speak louder than words - just like in 2018 when he lost both houses of the Congress. It will happen again. That's no dream and it is the Felon's nightmare.
The Trump voters didn’t vote for Trump because of economic reasons. They voted for him because he was the most entertaining wrestler on TV. It won’t matter if prices go up, because Trump and Fox will just blame the Dems. Cheaters and liars get away with everything when they are dealing with an ignorant populace.
After the fact, the election is suddenly about the economy. During the campaign, it was a huge culture war. This is so very maddening. The willfully ignorant have brought down this country and I will not forgive them.
Let's Hope That Their Are Elections In '26, and '28... Let's Hope That The True Information Becomes Known... DJT in 2028? He May Not Be In Power By Then...
Return....I read that bit about tariffs today too. And I said watch prices go up. I see lots of produce especially from Mexico. I try not to buy produce from other countries or even far away here. We may be going back to truly seasonal produce....if there is anyone around to pick it.
So - great speech by Biden. How is it that millions of Americans were not told many times, on all different media about this successful economic agenda of Biden? Why weren’t these the headlines, instead of Trump’s lies? I blame the media for the pain that will come; as well as race, misogyny and hatred for minorities of different life styles. These are what united apparent disparate groups of people to get behind Trump. He embodies their hate and fear. This will now be our “face” to the world. A tragedy has befallen us.
Because TFFFG’s bloviating blow-hard bellowing captures the *squirrel!* attention span of the MSM/public WAY more than Biden’s measured, quiet & humble, fact-based delivery ever did. They were following the Pied Piper, not the wise one. Sigh, our loss.
Simple: The disinformation stream of "Right wing"* news* is all they would listen to, and any rebuttals of the lies was met with a well thought out and reasoned "🐂💩"
Trump Inc's "presidency" is intentional in its plans to crash the US economy (and its citizens' health, and food supply). It's what Putin wants, as *his* retribution for the fall of the USSR.
If the economy crashes, the people with cash can buy up all of the distressed assets, cheap. It’s how Russian oligarchs became wealthy from buying up formerly state-owned industries, sold at low, low prices to the friends of those in power.
With, Carol, many U.S. bankers, M.B.A. grads of the Ivy League, and Dept. of State helping.
That is, elites in finance and government at the highest levels back then invested in and coordinated the transfer of great wealth to the former Soviet nomenklatura, who became Russia's new oligarch class.
Naturally those oligarchs now return the favor, and help U.S. billionaires in their dark money moves against the American people, under cover of their convicted criminal at the top.
Dear Agent of Chaotic Respite, I agree wholeheartedly with your comment. When I say this exact thing to my husband he tells me do not repeat this to anyone else as they would think I’m a crazy woman. I feel this is Trump’s motivation, to please Putin & in doing so he will benefit financially & smooth the way for the international cabal of which he is a part of. There I said it in public. I must be a crazy woman!
Given the clear statement of direction in which the Trump Presidency is heading, as stated by you here, Timothy, and the record of actions already initiated by the incumbent President. It is laid upon the current President Biden and so made legal by the recent Supreme Court decision to commit acts previously abhorred in the defense of the constitution and government of the USA legally and without fear of later retribution.
Now, in advance of what I am about to write here, I am about as far away from being a constitutional law expert is as my mulching worms are from being able to form a trade Union and go on strike for better food. I am personally, as a concerned citizen calling on our President and Executive to fulfill their oaths of office to protect our Republic and Constitution from all enemies, foreign and/or domestic.
That said the current Executive must now take drastic action in the face of the President Elect's (Trump) clear actions and stated intentions to destroy this countries political structure and set aside the constitution under which our Republic operates:
1) The President should Implement the Insurrection Act of 1807 immediately to prevent and control any non-constitutional forces loyal to the incumbent from militia activity threatening American lives. He should confer with the 50 Governors of the USA to determine where to deploy National Military versus National Guard troops.
2) Arrest and incarcerate, by executive order, the incumbent, Trump and his co-conspirators for planning and committing treason against the USA.
3) Set aside the current law governing the election of the President by the electoral college and institute, by executive order the election by clear clear majority of popular vote (a type of plebiscite.
4) Set aside the recent election of 2024 and order a new election by clear popular majority.
5) Conduct a new election asap.
If the current President is unable to carry out his duties to protect the constitution, then the cabinet must act under Amendment 25 Section 1. He must resign in the face of any ethical dilemma if that should be the case. Immediately the Vice President should then implement Steps 1-5 as the President of the USA.
Yes, I understand how distasteful this course of action might be to Democrats and many citizens; however our country faces the clear and present danger of going down a path which the majority of voters (yes, by extremely thin margin) have rejected. Additionally this election has been subject to international disruption and influence by our enemies, China, North Korea and Russia (et al). This through documented cases of planned Propaganda distributed to Americans by Social Media and Conventional Media controlled by or working with Trump and his Associates to achieve their ends. These disruptions are to be considered acts of war aided and abetted by Trump and his Associates. In my humble opinion, it is now time to save the Constitution and our Republic.
Biden is the ‘’incumbent’’ – Trump is the ‘’incoming’’ President.
But that aside, I expect you realize that what you are suggesting would be the most outrageous violation of the Constitution ever contemplated. It would likely cast the country into Civil War and end this experiment of self government we call the United States of America.
Your frustration is understandable but the work we have before us should play out in School Boards, City Councils, State Houses and Court Houses across the nation – that is the system, a Republic if we can keep it.
Written early/late and thank you. I do realize what I am suggesting. And yes it will likely lead to deaths, but, I submit theoretically, far fewer than will come with the "incoming" President (around the world), or even Americans he has negligently killed, so far. Everything I suggested should, in fact, be "legal" today given the SC mis-verdict. Sometimes it is just better to say NO! As we should have done in 1938, and at other times. Today it is Putin who requires a strong NO! Trump alongside him as ever. Mr. Dooley, please instruct me on what is against the law today...given that the "incumbent" is now above the law.
Suffice to say, that each of the items you list, if carried out by Biden in the current situation, would be outside his scope of authority (his enumerated powers or even implied powers) and the recent SC decision would not shield him. That is my opinion.
Also, I am just back from four months of working on the election and have neither the inclination, nor the hours available to me that would be required to provide a proper legal opinion. I hope you understand.
I understand completely please help me with just one item. Again, I fully understand that you may not even want to do that. And, thanks for your work.
You say: "would be outside his scope of authority (his enumerated powers or even implied powers) and the recent SC decision would not shield him". Why would that be, if it will shield Trump?
The recent SC decision (Trump v US) immunizes a President fully if the conduct in question relates to a core Constitutional function (See: Article II, sections 1,2 & 3). The President is only entitled to presumptive immunity for official acts outside those core functions. The President is entitled to no immunity for unofficial acts.
Point # 2 Although Biden could order the indictment of Trump (or any person) for treason or any other crime, it is highly unlikely that the action would proceed successfully. Jefferson ordered such an indictment (of his Vice President) and it failed in court. I doubt Biden could be indicted for malicious prosecution in such a case, but since there is no predicate that I am aware of to justify a traditional treason charge, it is possible.
Many, including myself, believe the holding in Trump v US was overly broad and will be reversed or limited by subsequent cases, but it is the law at present.
IMHO, actions by Biden under Points 1& 2 would be stilled by court rulings, but in the current universe, I suppose anything is possible. That said, I believe you are correct to the extent that the actions would likely be immunized under the holding in Trump v US. I stand corrected on that point.
Points# 3-5 are outside of the President’s official functions and are ruled by other Articles of the Constitution.
I hope that answers your questions – thought-provoking stuff. But it is time for a nap, so have a good day.
Thanks, well then maybe, Biden/Harris would get away with...I don't think they should hesitate. Trump wouldn't if there was any grey area. I know... but some of us have to "become the monster in order to defeat the monster". Have a great nap, I just awakened from mine, which I. call my 'beauty sleep'.(tongue in wrinkled cheek).
You are 100%correct. I have called for a military coup by the good generals before they asr dismissed. In order to save us from what is about to happen. Anyone disagreeing should remember my words.
That is not very helpful, but I understand, BBB. It is difficult to be truly autonomous. But Dreams and visions do materialize. I couldn't sleep, so I needed to write about what I was visualizing.
I hope it remains this way in the USA. Disturbing events in Hong Kong show that prior freedoms (even if less secure than our from the get-go) citizens are used to can be threatened/curbed/eliminated by the “present” regime.
Hmmm, protect the Constitution by blatantly violating it? I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure initiating such action as you describe here would end up accomplishing the goals you think it would.
Thank you, Professor. I was upside down all day today after the situation with Jack Smith. And I thought what can I do, what can I do. All I could do is help reach out to the people that I know or that follow me and I’m not bragging, but I’ve got about 5000 people to do the Artwork I do. And I believe they’re 99.9% like-minded so my job is to share the truth and no one speaks the truth better than you. And you research the truth and that’s the important thing also. And I will advise everybody to understand what we can learn from history which you explained to us so well so all I can dois well spread the truth. Thank you so much. Have a great holiday. Coming up a great holiday season in fact, I hope everybody does regardless of where you stand, but I know that if you are a follower of the professor that you are true human, and an American that believes in our constitution, our democracy, and freedom. Peace of love everybody every day we can make changes for the better sorry I tend to ramble, lolol. Mike, but most call me Sav!
Sav, that is a great comment. I am heading into a very busy December playing Christmas music with my tuba ensemble, and our fall concert with the Symphonic Band I play in. I will do my level best to bring joy and peace to anyone within earshot.
Not quite to the point, but close enough. Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
Incredibly sickening and infuriating that Teflon Don aka tffg will evade the consequences of his crimes. How frustrating for Jack Smith. How sad for the American people. "Justice delayed is justice denied."
If I were Jack Smith I would go back to the Haugue and live in Europe once again. Where the nutjob that is the president elect can't prosecute him in any way. Demanding that All of the documents related to the prosecution of Trump hang over his head in the vault of the international tribunal.
My first thought was that he probably would do just that. Maybe he could prosecute Trump for crimes against humanity......
Trump's very existence is a crime against humanity.
Bingo!
He hasn't committed any crimes against humanity, but he might in the future, depending on how the deportations go.
However, the ICC is unlikely to prosecute him for those, unless a prosecutor can show that the United States court system is incapable of prosecuting such crimes.
BTW, a country doesn't have to be an ICC member for one of its citizens to be prosecuted. It has worldwide jurisdiction. Israel and Palestine aren't members either.
Sophie, don't you think tffg's response to covid was a major crime against humanity?? I sure do. I'm not clear about how many deaths we can attribute to him, but it is a LOT.
In this country alone I think the toll was around a 500,000 to 600,000 casualties from covid. So, so many of them could have been preventable with a more competent response from the over-bronzed beadbrain who was pretending to play President and his coterie of dimwitted apparatchiks.
Last figure I saw was 1.1 million US deaths from Covid. Probably half unnecessary?
On the one hand, the British medical journal, "Lancet", attributed as many as 400,000 preventable Covid deaths in the United States to Trump's incompetent handling of the pandemic. On the other hand, since almost all those who died were most likely MAGAts who refused to vaccinate, wear masks, or follow other safe practices, I'm not sure "humanity" was involved.
Not to mention his “drill, drill, drill. “ It’s not just against humanity, it’s againt the entire natural system of the planet
Thank you, Jocelyn. I’ve thought of this very fact often.
Morally, yes. Legally, no.
Crimes against humanity have a legal definition.
Here, have a read of this: https://trialinternational.org/topics-post/crimes-against-humanity/#section-2
Jocelyn yes it was a crime against humanity. Only the beginning I am afriad.
Ah Sophie, my heart had almost stopped before I read your response.
It was hard for me to ‘like’ ❤️Heather’s
post, because it is so precise and based on deeply unpalatable facts.
I’m back now to feeling a sliver of hope for justice.
But the people that need to read info like Heather's post will not because it is not in short bursts on Facebook or insta.
Sophie where you when the amoral creature refused to wage a war against the silent killer known as Covid 19? More than a million Americans died due to his refusal lead for fight against the deadly disease! He actually encouraged crack pot potions, anti vaxxers and anti mask lunatics to spew their Lies!
Hi Louis: I was in Europe, dealing with our own pandemic horribleness, but watching in horror what was happening in the US.
However, as I implied above (see the link I posted), the ICC's basis in law is war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the context of war or terrorism.
Which doesn't change the fact that Trump is an immoral POS.
The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court...
But we likely have the most elite criminals. Oh wait…
I know... but one can dream, no?
Hi Sophie, maybe his handling of Covid (a million US deaths) could qualify as a crime against humanity?
“ humanity “?
Like the old neighborhood mafia Dons of Brooklyn and Manhattan. I’m sorry for us all.
I hope the DOJ has a safe haven for Jack, his family, and the other attorneys involved who have been doing their jobs for this country because they are not safe as of Jan 20, 2025, the day of the demise of the USA.
It's not likely the DOJ will do anything to protect anyone.
"It's not likely the DOJ will do anything to protect anyone."
Officials instituting dubious and contested DOJ policy have repeatedly protected Donald Trump. Bob Barr, Robert Mueller, and Merrick Garland. Abetting a demagogue, felon, and traitor to become a tyrant. Their error has been compounded by Mitch McConnell's Senate Republicans refusing to convict Trump, twice. The Roberts Court Leonard Leo majority granting Trump immunity. The Republican party. And every eligible American who did not vote for Kamala Harris.
As a preemptive matter, Biden can issue tens of thousands of pardons -- to people like us. He just pardoned two turkeys.....
I hope he offers clemency to Leonard Peltier the Native Indian activist falsely accused in aiding and abetting the murder of two FBI agents in 1975. Biden knows all about it.
I have been writing to the White House about this for years, and if Biden does not do it now, Peltier will die in prison for a crime for which he never should have been charged. All that malarky about the Indians at Thanksgiving should shame us, but it doesn't.
Biden urgently needs to pardon everyone Trump will likely go after -- The J6 committee, Jack Smith, and the remainder of the judges and prosecutors who were involved in the Trump court cases.
(Didn't tffg refuse to pardon a turkey? Also .... didn't he refuse to sign the ethics docs the 1st time around? That's what I remember, but no one seems to be mentioning that, so perhaps I'm wrong.
He MUST do so STAT!
As far as I know, the only crime for which Peach and Blossom were pardoned was being turkeys.
D. Sullivan, wonderful irony there isn’t it? I didn’t think of that until I read your post. Kinda makes my day.
The DOJ turned into a joke!
Ah, the Department of Jokes!
Sad. True.
Jacks going to be doxed if he hasn’t already? In Mexico or Russia he would fall out of a window or die plane or car crash. How does DOJ protect the man?
DOJ ? I am now a cynic, what DOJ? EPA? Once again the Environmental Pollution Agency…. And I can go on -
Biden has immunity. He should use it. Would he let Hitler take over? Trump is Hitler reincarnated!
"The DOJ" is about to become Trump's DOJ.
The Dept. of inJustice.
Many people will be leaving the country.
The country will be drained of our patriots. Sad 😢
Joe Biden, before he leaves office, should issue pardons to Jack Smith, Liz Cheney, Rachel Maddow, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and, oh yes, Hunter Biden, and any other politicians or journalists or attorneys that Trump might go after.
Jack is a competitive Ironman triathlete so he’ll have plenty of races to take that frustration out on.
He’ll be back! History informs us, it never ends well for demagogues. Never.
I beg to differ. Hitler died a quick and easy death after visiting horrific pain on the world. He had a 12 year bender when he was drunk on power. No justice could ever be visited on him for what he did, as Hannah Arendt argued. The same is regrettably true for this crew, because the religion of the benighted US is a maudlin sentimental impunity for the poor persecuted rich and powerful. Need I go into Franco and others?
Hitler had a quack for a doctor that treated his depression with heavy duty toxic medicines. If anyone gets credit for his death be it by suicide, or at the hands of the men who "discovered" his body, or after killing Eva Braun, who was newly his wife, he was just sick, sick, sick.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15825245/
People in his military tried to kill him but were unsuccessful, which shows how good the military training was of the elite put in charge. Others tried to kill him as well.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/hitler-assassination-plan/
https://www.annefrank.org/en/timeline/77/german-officers-attempt-to-assassinate-hitler/
https://www.history.co.uk/article/killing-hitler-the-many-assassination-attempts-on-adolf-hitler
"... he [Hitler] was just sick, sick, sick."
No. Hitler was not "just sick, sick, sick." Seriously. Consider that claim for a minute. Or two.
It was not the failure of those who treated or tried to kill Hitler. It was the failure of those who elected and enabled Hitler. Including Stalin, who directed German Communists to split the antiHitler vote. (A tactic employed in support of Trump, most notably by Stalin heir Putin's Jill Stein - and all on the Left who refused to support Clinton and Harris.)
lin. I do say his doctor was the one who successfully killed him, even if it was unintentional. Hitler suffered from severe depression and would go into hiding on occasions, and leave Goebbels to speak for him. I am looking at the meds he gave and I do not see how they are indicated for depression. Many were toxins.
I am not absolving the population of voting for Hitler, but I would not say that it was in support of Hitler per say. Some just voted for his party as being the party of change. That was 33% percent of the population voted for his party. It was von Hindenburg that appointed him chancellor. He was pressured to do this by elites of the society who thought Hitler would be their useful idiot. Then shortly thereafter Hitler had the parliament vote him emergency powers, which he then used and took over everything. I am not saying that people were against him right away. They were brainwashed by his propaganda as much as we see people here being brainwashed by the propaganda of Trump and his party.
Why did Hitler get into power? The people wanted change. He promised no more war restitution payments and that the people who had been doing better until the US market crashed would once again be doing better. I think it is important to understand why people voted him into power. Even then only 33 percent voted for him and his party was able appoint the chancellor because the left and Social democrats could not form an alliance to shut him out. Things work differently with parliaments than with our form of government, because if the people had known he would get them into another war when he promised no war, I don't think as many would have voted for him. Either way, much of what was going was hidden from people.
While there are things in common with the voters here and in Germany. A lot is different.
More on Stalin interference in German elections. I thought it was just hysteria? Wedge tactics work. Deflection tactics work. It would interesting to learn more from 1920’s and 30’s history. The more I read about mis and disinformation techniques, the more they parallel the Tobacco Industry. From Governments to industry, there is a lot to learn what and how they shape public opinion.
The "gang" that couldn't kill history's most demonic being but was so efficient and successful in murdering millions of innocents.....
The people working in the death camps were not the same people as those in the military, which became its own killing machine. It successfully killed 5.3 million in the military. All told there were about 17 million killed by the Nazi regime in addition to the soldiers that died in the unnecessary war. https://www.statista.com/chart/24024/number-of-victims-nazi-regime/
I also have studied Black German history, and they are not listed here. While not all Blacks were put in the camps and exterminated, they don't get their separate category. I have read that they were put together with the Sinti and Roma in how they were documented in camps. Many Black and Brown Germans were sterilized instead of being put in camps. I have met a man to whom this happened. He felt he could never be happy because he was robbed of the ability to have children.
Ike did a good job, expensive in American body bags though…
"Ike did a good job, expensive in American body bags though…"
The Allied Nations - all 49 or so of them - defeated Nazi Germany and The Axis. It is very important, especially now, to correct any notion that one nation or one person defeated Nazi Germany (or the Soviet Union.)
By nation, most of the military body bags held Soviet and Republic of China casualties.
"The Allies were led by the so-called "Big Three"—the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States—which were the principal contributors of manpower, resources, and strategy, each playing a key role in achieving victory."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_II
"Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Hitler died at age 56.
Not soon enough.
Drunk on power-yes, but also cocaine and opiates. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/07/518986612/author-says-hitler-was-blitzed-on-cocaine-and-opiates-during-the-war
🤞
After a holocaust or two…
It is so true. Biden did so much but he neglected one big point. He fell asleep at the border. Had he gotten tough, he or Harris would be elected. He just did t want to follow in the steps of Trump
Additionally, his AG, Merrick Garland was fool a coward or both who should have started the Jan 6 investigation weeks after he was confirmed. Nothing was more important than that. He wasted 2 precious years… makes me sick every time I think about it. Frankly, I MG never gets a good night’s sleep again for as long as he lives.
Merrick Garland was trying to keep the Justice Department free if any perception of partisan politics. With Trump and his cronies, that proved impossible. Add to that the refusal of Republicans to impeach Trump for obvious crimes.
Two step: McConnell said we don't have to convict and remove him for organizing a treasonous coup attempt (thereby banning him from future office) after he was impeached by a bipartisan vote of the House, because his term is about to expire - let the justice system prosecute him.
Supremacist Court (packed by McConnell): the president is above the law and has impunity for official acts, however abusive.
Sequel: President Biden is too conscientious to abuse power (as allowed by the MAGA Court) to bring de facto justice down on the Conman-in-Chief for his obvious major crimes.
Agree, Mark, but part of me wants Biden to go rogue….and stick it to TFFFG for all his illegal behavior via Presidential edict, especially as SCOTUS has effectively given POTUS a “get out of jail free” mandate. IMHO, Joe believes too much in responsibilities/obligations of the office to take such action. At least I would be surprised if he did.
Rogue: “Joe needs to resign, sending
Kamala to the Presidency for the last two months, making her the 47th President.
Then while she's there, sign executive orders and codify Roe V Wade and set term limits for the Supreme Court. And she would be able to do all of this legally since the Supreme Court ruled a sitting President is above the law. She could conceivably order recounts and "find some more votes" without fear of criminality. She can change the rules for an election so that anyone with a convicted felony on their record wouldn't ever be able to run or be sworn in for any office in the land. She could give Trump a taste of his own medicine without any repercussions whatsoever.”
Joy Behar
He may yet get an opportunity to unburden himself in a way that everyone will understand. I hope so. His beautiful team! all that wonderful work! The enemy is already imploding, but it won't help us very much.
What might going rogue look like (#1) then, what if that were enacted THEATRICALLY (#2) and publicly! Articulated vision is absent where I gaze out at goings on locally and at large scale. Complaints and frustrations are abundantly cited but cohesive vision, convincingly portrayed is another story. Behaving well (like Biden and Jack Smith do) supports value-based civil authority but 'arts' can let it rip. Biden's team can still create context that's persuasive (not legislative) and being audacious might be the best counter-balance to conclude his term in office and to transition into the future.
Quoting Phil Balla from several days ago here, after crediting Trump for being a "long-practiced showman":
"During the lead-up to the recent election, I often argued for teams of Dems to organize and appear together in public. I stress that again now. Dems should hire the best PR firms to coordinate, to fine-tune how they may support each other before the American public. They need to be good, very good.
Combinations to consider to get Dems recovered and competing with the nihilist billionaires:
Jamie Raskin, Mallory McMorrow, Katie Porter, Raphael Warnock; Sheldon Whitehouse, Gretchen Whitmer, Ro Khanna, Gary Peters; Pete Buttigieg, Eric Swalwell, Tammy Baldwin, Amy Klobuchar; Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elissa Slotkin; Liz Warren, Jared Moskowitz, Josh Shapiro, Kamala Harris; Dan Goldman, Gavin Newsom, Adam Schiff, Michelle Obama; Pramila Jayapal, Hakeem Jeffries, Chris Coons, Jasmine Crockett."
Just sayin' ...... because we need envisioning that lingers and motivates and attracts benevolent forces. Not to manipulate or grasp power but to inspire. Leadership.
Joe go rogue, haha
Time for Seal Team Six. 😉
That is called decency on Biden's part. Given the consequences I wonder if some times, and i mean some times we should bend a little bit 🤔
By trying to keep the Justice Department free of any perception of partisan politics we have trump again.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Repeat often, while some good deeds are still remembered
DJT is the Embodiment of Corruption... Decency, Mercy, are Considered Weakness... Trying to avoid the Appearance of Political Persecution doomed the DoJ efforts... The Republicans will have no such Qualms....
Repubs don’t know what a qualm is.
And, thus, they will now be in charge of America -- chosen to run White House, Congress and Supreme Court.
Not buying the ‘partisan politics’ excuse! The whole country and any one else where in the world with a tv WITNESSED The insurrection on Jan 6 by domestic terrorists sanctioned by trump!
Witnessed!
In which case he should have appointed a special counsel immediately upon taking office, ring fence that investigation, and distanced himself from it.
Hi, Virginia -
I agree with you about what Garland was trying to do, but I would also posit that trying to do so was pointless. Trump and his MAGAts were always going to scream that he was being persecuted and that any investigation of Trump was a "witch hunt." I almost have to question whether Garland was serious about bringing Trump to justice. The whole business has a Kabuki performative feel to it.
Garland is incompetent and spineless. He never should have been AG.
So disappointed in Garland. There must be more reasoning? But Garland knew he never had the Supreme Court.
Yes absolutely disappointed. Then he hired a MAGA to investigate Biden remember? Can you believe it?
Ted, I hope someday some investigative reporter will suss out the strategy, or lack thereof, of MG’s approach to some historically serious crimes against our country. I gave him A LOT of latitude early on, but became increasingly concerned he dropped the ball…or that maybe didn’t care if he did so.
Garland testified at his confirmation hearing that he wanted to work 'from the bottom up' starting with J6 insurrectionists which sits at 1243 defendants. Apparently Biden's office was unhappy with the pace. Way to snatch 'defeat from the jaws of victory' you idiot! https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/us/politics/trump-jan-6-merrick-garland.html?unlocked_article_code=1.c04.k4EL.8qFH340TYEsD&smid=url-share
And starting at the bottom up made martyrs of the little guys, who will rejoice when Trump pardons them.
I hope that Garland lives with deep shame the rest of his life!! His sanctimonious foot dragging has likely cost our democracy, by allowing a traitor to continue to walk free, and even become a president again!
Thanks for sharing the NYT article. Seems that hindsight is 20-20 is true after all.
This should have been priority number one, day one.
Maybe why I’m up at 4am
I think Garland did it in purpose.
You’re forgetting the bipartisan bill he was ready to sign but which, nixed by Trump, the Republicans refused to support. Senator Langford (R-OK) may be able to revive it before the great deportation, but I doubt it.
There are so many bad guys in Congress today hiding to look like the righteous - I can't imagine how that might ever get cleaned up.
How much are we paying these people to rub shit in our faces? That’s not a rhetorical question.
Senators and Representatives receive $174,000 plus benefits and expenses.
Speaker ($223K) and President Pro Tempore ($193K)
Plus, their behind-the-scene supporters are $upporting their craziness.
You mean under the table?
Nixed by Trump. Repeatedly. It was maddening. He wasn't President, he wasn't part of the Congress.
Yet, he ruled the fools, maddening and unexplicable
He’s either smarter than we think (or maybe just more cunning and diabolical) or a very lucky man. Maybe both. 👹
Pls cancel the "maybe " and you'll a real picture. He was also lucky by having Merrick Garland as AG and a too decent man as POTUS
I don't know if you read my comment here, but an astrologer friend did trump's chart and said that she never saw so much inexplicable luck in any other's chart....
Mob boss skills, and access to money. Who is blackmailing who is the question…(second who may be the object, or not)
Maddening but not inexplicable. The explanation starts with Brown v. Board and goes on from there.
Yep, the racism never took a break… and repubs and Dems did a switcheroo…
He was and is a cult leader.
He was and is a reality TV "personality".
No Virginia, it won't be revived before the great deportation, its the circus the MAGA demands and that's what they are to get regardless of better alternatives.
They don't have an ounce of decency.
...and as far as using the military for the round up, will they obey him if he orders assassinations of the deportees due to costs.
Virginia I’m not. What did he do for the first two or three years. Nothing absnothing. that’s the truth but some refuse to believe it.
Do you mean Biden did nothing? Are you unaware of what it took to put NATO back together, to get US back in the climate accords, to deal with Ukraine, and put together the legislation for recovery from Covid, the jobs acts? He worked as hard as any president ever and achieved more than most.
You're sounding like those other guys. Do your homework before you open your mouth.
On the border issue this is what I speak. And I know what I say.
And so do I know of what I speak. And you are so wrong.
But if that bill had been before the House in 2021 or 2022, it would have passed.
YES. THIS. Joe Biden did some great things, especially in his first two years. But he never TOLD ANYONE! Even for me, a lifelong Dem and Biden supporter, it was sometimes hard to find the info associated with his greatest successes.
And the press just wasn't interested.
True, and not only that, I realized it’s already all tfg, all the time right now. I constantly get bulletins about who he’s nominated, how much of a tariff he plans to put on Canada, etc. He’s not even inaugurated and it’s constant.
No, the Press never told anyone. The msm has covered everything trump for years, but they should have been blasting out all the great things Biden has accomplished.
Decent self-effacement devalued and obliterated by four years of lying bombast.
It isn't Biden's style to blow his own horn. He believes in working quietly, behind the scenes, to get things done and not in drawing attention to himself. In that way, he's a rather untypical politician, and unfortunately it hurt him because the media didn't examine and report his accomplishments.
But I would rather have a leader who doesn't want to draw attention to himself and yet gets things done than a loudmouth who talks big but doesn't accomplish much. We have too many of the latter types right now.
Well said. Still....good government but poor politics. And Dems must be elected before they are in a position to do good work.
and he did not brag enough about his economic policies and results, so he wore the initial covid-induced inflation right through to the election.
djt’s voters were brainwashed through fox noise. Do you think fox viewers knew about the border deal djt nixed because he wanted to use it as a campaign issue? I think not.
The three most dangerous immigrants in this country are rupert and lachlan murdock and leon musk. Ironically, these three are wealthier than the billionaire president-to-be. Interesting dynamic.
Twenty-twenty hindsight.
Not hindsight. Many here have known this for years. There just hasn’t been an effective forum to get the word out. We are dealing with show, snakeoil, and celebrity. Who wants to or has the skills and contacts and $$$ to take that on?
People knew what Trump was all along. Sadly, a majority still voted for him. On the other hand, Dems need to up their game and nominate better people. You can say all you want about Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, but they weren't relatable to ordinary Americans nor were they competent political campaigners.
Nah! The gop’s propaganda machine realized that demonizing Black Americans was costing them votes! So they made immigrants the target of their hate and fear mongering!
I hold Biden responsible for the loss of the election. He should have never run for that second term. We might not have had Kamala, which would have been such a shame, but we wouldn’t have had Trump. But Biden decided he was the “only one” who could fight fascism.
No need to follow the cruel steps of trump. There are always alternatives, legal and humane, he should have implemented.
Bill Katz, please watch this video. You are so wrong about Biden and the border, but it's somewhat excusable because the media, like with other Biden initiatives, failed to see what he was doing here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/opinion/biden-harris-border-immigration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WU4.Bd4z.IxF4_UdjxdMw&smid=url-share&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2F3ss1D5Gc4CasyRI8OntRWb1k5e7WgrK3xyphfgHDiPrG3oDLYeqYxKc_aem_GWxn0xIVYurJkXBgt24GdQ
Why when I select a link (in the last few days) does the entire comment disappear???
The grifting has already begun. From the economy, to education, the environment, to Public Health. A lot of needless suffering is right around the corner.
But, eggs!
The Gilded Age of Grift
2.1
Seems to me that most of humanity's avoidable suffering since our species took his-her first step has been rooted in some analog of MAGA; the malignant narcissism that encourages one human being (or a gang of them) to abuse another.
Justice delayed, you say? There is no justice here! He’ll be dead or on life support before Trump ever sees a courthouse again!
When you have the Justice Department in your pocket, and it turns out many of the justices are just as crooked and deranged as their fearless leader (million dollar vacations, Winnebago’s, a sexual assaulter, carving out a constitutional immunity), then the system is already rotten to the core, and broken beyond repair!
So good luck with Justice, if it still exists! One thing has been proven; some people are above the law, and can never seriously be prosecuted!
And just like the first Trump administration (RussiaGate), we’re already seeing this administration break the law, and they haven’t even been inaugurated yet! Let that sink in!
You've described the demonic dynamism that is gaining force perfectly. I feel like I'm watching the weather report warning of a category 10 hurricane that will certainly hit us all and there's no place to go and hide....
I agree you except “the arc of justice is long and bends toward truth” there is always for justice everyone !
Sadly, despite its great origins, the arc of justice line has become a platitude that has no meaning.
Agreed, but only when justice is being meted out by ethical and moral individuals. With this SCOTUS; all bets are off! And they have lifetime appointments…:)
My friend who is an astrologer sent out an email declaring that she had correctly predicted every presidential win since Clinton based on their astrology charts. She said that she had never seen so many factors providing so much LUCK as in trump's chart, but that Harris's chart that painted her to be a rising star made her predict that Kamala would win the election. She was right in her evaluation of both candidates' charts but wrong in that his insurmountable luck trumped. He is the definition of the Antichrist....
It's depressing that so many people didn't vote. I assumed that both sides would break all records.
Much of that failure is/was due to misinformation. The propagandists went wild this year.
Rupert has been wild since 1980, went all out for Ronnie and they plotted together…or the money did. Ronnie married money and Rupert knew how to use it…and multiply
Another Thing To Worry About... On Fareed Zakaria's 'GPS' Yesterday.... Eric Schmidt, one of the Founders of 'Google', stated that the Chinese have reached Parity in A.I. ... They are not as restrained in its use as the U.S. is... Eric Schmidt has been working with Ukrainians in advancing Military Technology at a Rate far more rapid then the USA using A.I.... While the USA has taken a Giant Step Backward, the Chinese, and their Allies are Advancing... You should watch that Interview... There is Much More...
I watched it and shivered in my boots. I remember freaking out during the Israeli 6-day war in 1967 when I was in high school, worried that this was going to spark WWIII. I will never forget my Greek immigrant father waving his arms around saying, "Those people have been fighting for thousands of years and will be fighting for the next thousands of years. If you really want to worry, keep your eyes on China--that's the sleeping giant." How prescient....
Most important cases are the state cases. No Presidential pardon possible. Too bad Fani was playing footsies with her fanny and lied about it, Michigan and Arizona seem to moving at a glacial pace. No accident that the one success was state court NYC.
At least suspend the clock on the statute of limitations while Trump is in office.
The good news: There isn’t a statute of limitations on treason!
The bad news: Good luck applying it to Trump!…:)
He gives the finger and skates on by
The legal definition of treason is very narrow and would not apply. I wonder if there is a viable charge of being a complete and total (expletive deleted).
Fair enough, but it could apply if you had the right federal prosecutor. And let’s face it, he most likely has committed treason in the documents case; it’s proving it that’s the problem….:)
Trump is already showing signs of dementia. This is from his speech to the Economic Club of New York on 9/6/24.
"After 12 years of decline, we had an annual 7 billion new homeowners. It never happened before. And in three years, we raised 7 billion new jobs, 260% more than projected. When I took office, I said you couldn’t get in those projections. And we were 260% higher than what we said we could do. From the day I went on to the day I left, it hasn’t paid 500 increase by 80%. And we did it all with virtually no inflation. Virtually no inflation."
And he's reading from a teleprompter. There are many other examples of how he is totally cray-cray but almost no one in the corporate media says a word about it.
And yet, if Biden trips over a crack in the sidewalk, he's too old to do anything but watch TV.
Who among Trump's cabinet and advisors from 2017-2024 endorsed him for President again? Only the flip-floppers like Bill Barr and Nikki Haley.
He will get inaugurated, then all bets are off. Repubs will have their permanent Repub majority. Mitch’s wet dream.
Suspending would rule out the ability to publish a report. The cases were dismissed in a way that does not preclude resuming them once Trump leaves office. They can also be the basis for an impeachment.
Thank you, Mary. That is helpful.
President can act to protect national security. Biden is President till January 6, 2025. He can take the citizenship away from Musk and deport him.
Yesterday, John Adams, who wrote that we have government of laws and not of men, turned over in his grave.
Of all the things that incense me about the Democrats, and I specifically include both Biden and Obama here, foremost is their kid glove treatment of the privileged. The banksters who brought on the financial crisis, the Sacklers who escaped jail for addicting millions, and now Trump and his fellow subversives. I wish I was a believer so I could console myself with the belief that Merrick Garland will burn in hell, but the likely scenario for him is a cushy job on Wall Street or with some right wing university.
Quite possibly Jack Smith's actions are/were correct, considering all aspects of the DOJ/Supreme Court and old trumpy himself. Think about it... all those 'experts' were heading for a full house of immunity cards. By pulling back Smith and Merchan's looking long term... old trumpy will be out of office in four years, if he lives that long he'll then be eligible for the sentencing to be brought back. And that can't be making the convicted old man soon to be in the Oval Office comfortable.
Trump has not sworn in yet. His cabinet members have neither yet. So let's think about how to prevent him from selling national security of America to foreign powers and destroying lives of those who depend on SS, Medicare and Medicade, and those who might be separated from family members.
Why is the transition going forward? Documents must be signed. Don’t let the schoolyard bully Trump bulldoze the laws. Hold him accountable. No signing, no transition. Require all prospective cabinet members to be investigated. Trump is a citizen and must obey the laws & norms like the rest of us. More people voted against Trump than for him. In both percentage & raw votes, Trump’s margin is on pace to be less than half of what Biden achieved four years earlier. No mandate.
Unfortunately, the SCOTUS disagrees with you. According to their ruling, he is above the law. The inmates are running the asylum. We are headed for a fascist government, and the only solution, because of the lack of intestinal fortitude on the part of the Republicans in Congress, will undoubtedly involve bloodshed.
Regardless if SCOTUS will give him a pass, to continue to do nothing because of a fear of what he or his maga mob will do is straight out of the 'how to break a democracy' handbook and anyone who could have and should have done something let us down. I say test the Supreme Court ruling and stop the transition until the documents are signed.
Sadly, no big deal. Trump doesn't care about any "transition". On Jan 20, 2025, he WILL be the President, like it or not. The remaining 55 days before that wouldn't even give anyone at DoJ time to for the papers, let alone get a hearing. And the second Trump is inaugurated, he will fire whoever is pursuing this. Did you notice that Jack Smith just dismissed both the cases he filed against Trump?
The game, at least "that" game, is over. Stop worrying about irrelevant issues like signing transition papers (not required by any law, just custom and some executive orders) and start worrying about the REAL issues we will all face in less than two months.
THAT is what is important now!
Neither he, nor his handlers, give a fig about the transition. Laughing their arses off at the China they break. The rampage goes on…
100% correct. And like it or not, that is the way our laws currently read anyway. Transitions have been an implicit agreement between putting and incoming administration's. Very civil.
One thing we know is Trump isn't civil so why expect him to comply with this stuff? He has broken many laws but in thus case he is doing nothing except waiting until he becomes President. You really can't take that away from him even if you want to. You can withhold some money but you think he really cares about that? Not a chance.
This! Exactly this! I can't understand why so many people are saying: "But he can't do that, it's against the rules!?" For God's sake, when was the last time _anyone_ saw Rump playing by the rules?? He won't, and never will! He's a swindler, a con man! You won't get him by 'playing nice' ! I'm telling you, this is all fun and games until he starts executing his political enemies. I, for one, won't be surprised when Nancy Pelosi and the Bidens are dangling from a gallow by the end of January.
Exactly what Mitch, Clarence and the whole party have lied, cheated, stolen, slandered, and sold their souls for.
Actually it is a law Trump is ignoring. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/394
I’ve said it time and time again: if you want to save what’s left of America, ironically you’re going to have to live by TFFGs own words: “You’re gonna have to fight like hell or you’re not gonna have a country anymore.” You cannot defeat someone who ignores the rules by playing nice and adhering to the rules yourself.
As I have posted before, Dems still think it’s a political game. That ship sailed long ago.
It sure did! About 50 years ago, I'd say...
While repubs plotted, Dems felt assured that our gains were popular enough that they would not be rejected. They weren’t, except that people listened to the hateful, evil Rush, the silver-tongued liar Ronnie, and the “Tabloid news” viper Rupert. More than a few MAGAts will be crying in their beer pretty soon. As will many of us non-culties…
Spot on, JD. As always... ;)
Well, we've known for a while what SCOTUS has become.
Bloodshed may indeed be the only solution. A bloodless coup would be preferable, but unlikely.
As Bayard Rustin said back in the '60's, "the Right has all the guns."
As Jim Morrison said in the Song, "When The Music Is Over", "They Got The Guns, We Got The Numbers"... Jim Morrison at his Best was a Mystic... He Believed That He Was A Shaman...
Yeah, but his words and actions were drug induced. Trump is just mentally unstable.
Not always true. Jim had a lot of 100% lucid time in his life. He wasn't always drug addled. And some of his best music and poetry wasn't written on drugs although he often performed it that way.
Not accurate.
He is not President. NOTHING he does until he is sworn in is an "official" Presidential act.
He is breaking several laws but Republicans don't give a damn.
Actually he isn't breaking any laws currently, at least not that I can tell. Transition "requirements" are not law. They are policies that are agreed to by the incoming and outgoing administration's. And what little law there is requires the agreement of the incoming administration which they do not have to agree to. They lose some privileges by refusing, but the P-elect WILL become the President on Jan 20 no matter what else happens as long as he is alive. And if the current President tries to take any action against him it would be quickly invalidated once he is inaugurated and I expect he would then want some kind of retribution against Biden. And in fact regardless of how much you detest him, he would probably be entitled to that.
We've never faced this before but we need to remember that he was elected and as far as we can tell fairly ( at least in a legal sense). Fighting that would make US the criminals, not him.
Need i point out that this very point is the same that WE (or at least Biden) tried to invoke against Trump for the 2020 transition mess. Biden's only problem was that he and Garland dragged their feet for almost 2 years and by then it turned out to be too late. Trump will NOT make that same mistake I am sure.
Again, he is breaking law enacted in 2020. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/394
Not fairly, although all are too chicken-livered to ask the tough questions for fear that Dems will be accused of a Jan 6 look alike
Unfortunately, you are correct.
James, that is the American tragedy.
He is not above the law for this transition as he is still a private citizen. One could argue though, that he doesn’t deserve citizenship. He is a traitor!
he's not president yet, so that ruling doesn't apply.
You start a job, you sign the paperwork. That's universal in this country.
He's so used to getting his way he apparently thinks the rules don't apply to him, and they keep proving him right!
The Transition contracts need to be signed. SCOTUS can go do squats on a cactus farm. I've really had it with them.
Sorry, but it’s very clear from this momentous day that he is entirely above the law.
Because the "law" has permitted and enabled it.
What everyone seems to miss is that (a) there are very few laws regarding transition, it is mostly just policy made by previous administrations and not enforceable in any real way and (b) what law there is STILL can't prevent him being inaugurated on Jan 20 which is written into the constitution regardless of any laws. At that point he is the President.
So as Tony soprano used to say "Fageddaboutit".
Ricia, it’s been confirmed by SCOTUS the rules do NOT apply to him. Let’s get over thinking they do. Tfg was right all along.
Sorry you are simply wrong. The transition stuff is just customary. Even if it is in law, he can simply ignore it UNTIL he is inaugurated.
And he WILL be inaugurated because THAT is not custom or rulings or even law.
That is in the Constitution.
And of course once he is inaugurated then he IS the President and except for actual laws (which I do not believe thee transition process is part of) he has a lot of control over what he will do and not do.
Repeating, there is a law, enacted in 2020. Trump has ignored it and I don’t know how it can be enforced. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/394
To repeat for me, please read the law (not just the summary). The law is a permissive law not a mandate that is designed for the BENEFIT of the incoming president- elect, not to require him or his team to do anything or to penalize him for violating it. There are benefits he gets by complying but there is no penalty for not complying. Ignoring the law is up to him. In a sane world, every president elect would cherish the things he or she could get during transition via complying with the law, but in case you haven't noticed we are not living in a sane world these days at least not politically.
My reading of this law is that Trump has every right to just say "to hell with that, I'll deal with things my way once I am inaugurated." And I conclude he has done just that.
It sucks from our perspective but I do not see it as a crime in any way, just stupid. But with Trump that is just par for the course.
Yes, stupid. Also puts America in a dangerous spot. Trump, generally ignorant anyway, will not have access to U.S. secrets -- especially on national security issues -- until he is sworn in. He and his cult are not quick learners; plus, his cultists are starting from a base of incompetence because they were chose for boot-licking loyalty to Trump rather than knowledge about the departments they were chosen to run.
Again, I’ll leave it to the lawyers.
… and he is not the president yet, if he won't sign then he is the cause of any actions or ramifications that come from that, including holding up his hollow presidency which is nothing but cover for this criminal.
It can't hold up his Presidency. He WILL be inaugurated on Jan 20. Nothing he does between now and then will prevent that as long as he is alive. It may be slightly inconvenient for him because he won't have the services to "vet" cabinet appointments during the transition but he doesn't want that anyway. He wants to AVOID that if possible.
So once again we are tilting at windmills. What's important is what he plans to do after he is in office. This transition nonsense is just a waste of time and energy.
A typical Trump diversionary tactic.
The rules have never applied to him…and never will.
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Because DJT wants it to, and he is a very special boy who gets everything he wants and has 75 million armed friends and a population of sycophantic weasels to help him. May God have mercy on all of us.
No ethics signatures, no money for transition, but the guy is still president. Musk picking up the tab?
$340 billion net worth? If he spends $1 billion on Trumpworld, he'll make $10 billion more on crypto. It's a very sick and perverted game of monopoly Musk is able to play.
No GOVERNMENT money for the transition; he can get all the nonpublic money he wants, which he apparently is doing.
Sorry Molly, Teflon don can do whatever he wants, there is no remaining restraining power except the army.
Thank you for your note. Imagine being hired for a job or being given a contract and then before starting you say “ no I will not sign that I will comply with the terms of your contract “.
The job of president only has four requirements. You have to be a natural born US citizen, you need to be 35 years old on the day you take office, you need to be a resident of the US for 14 years and you have to take the oath of office. That's it. No other requirements can be placed on you by any law. Theoretically a new constitutional amendment could add requirements but that isn't the case today.
If you meet the requirements and are elected you can basically give everyone the finger until you are inaugurated and no one can do squat about that. We can ask "pretty please follow the rules" but as Mel Brooks said in The Producers "It's good to be the King!" (Or in this case president- elect).
This is not a "regular job". There is no "contract" required except your commitments to your voters. And even that can't be enforced. You.ARE "the king".
End of story.
Thank you. You expressed the point I attempted to make but you did it more thoroughly and eloquently.
Crime pays if you're a Republican. How sickening that a man who violated National Security laws can just waltz right back into the White House to do even worse, and the corrupt Supreme Court has enabled any crime he wants to commit.
Sickening, yes, to put it mildly, but Trump is not the most sickening part of it. The most sickening part is the collection of American voters who put Trump in office. No Trump voter can ever be forgiven for this crime against humanity.
Yes but a large portion of the blame lies also with the registered voters who didn't cast their votes.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...
We're still waiting for the next line.
And the voters who voted for a third party candidate. While it would be wonderful to have a healthy third party where the candidate could win, voting for someone no longer running or someone with no chance to win was really not wise this year.
The blame lies with white voters. All other factors are buried in the noise.
As a lifetime educator, I have to say "mea culpa" on behalf of all of us who didn't try hard enough and weren't able to instill kindness and decency in the children and young people who spent hours with us every day. We didn't try hard enough and weren't able to instill in them an appreciation for the arts. What will we do to rescue subsequent generations from the swamp in which we have allowed them to wallow? This is the context in which "Drain the swamp" becomes meaningful. It's easy to blame the children for their lack of education, but at least part of the blame is on my shoulders.
As a career educator I take zero blame for the racism, sexism and hate we saw in the campaign. Please stop blaming yourself and other educators. You are missing the social, historical, and familial roots of these issues and the role of right wing media. Teachers didn’t bring slaves to this country and they didn’t create misogyny.
"the social, historical, and familial roots of these issues"
Exactly!!!! The Groper-in-Chief's election testifies to the staying power over the decades to racial bigotry and gender bigotry.
I also was an educator and I am not going to beat my heart and say mea culpa. I know many educators who did their damndest to instill decent behavior and an appreciation for the arts. I am not going to blame children either. For whatever reason we have become an uncivil society. It is going to be hard to get that genie back in the box. I am not very optimistic about humankind as a whole because it is so much easier to be all the things that make humans awful and whether we like it or not, we are still those same apes that learned to walk upright and now we have all the old ape qualities armed with lethal technology. We are on track to destroy the planet and even all that money isn't going to save the wealthy although they assume that it will. Once again I am grateful to be as old as I am. Right now I am editing a book by my gardening helper. She speaks to the garden without and within. It is full of wisdom and it makes me want to cry when I look at where we have found ourselves.
"Destroy the planet slowly (by climate change) or quickly (by nuclear warfare).
Take your choice."
--- poster seen post-election by unknown artist
So sad.
Indeed it is. Lots of nuke rattling going on. Now I won't trust any of the inept people on our side who will have access to nuclear codes. And of course, no one is going to share intelligence with us either with suspect types like Gabbard in charge. But if this does not happen, it will be slower, but faster than we think. We are already see lots of people trying to migrate in part because of war and criminals in charge, but also because of climate change. Water is precious, but we treat it like it is a sewer to dump our toxic waste. I have an ex-student who has enough money to move where she and husband want. But they have come to the conclusion that no place is safe from climate change. Ask the people in Asheville.
Ain't that the truth!
From your comment, I imagine you tried quite hard and probably did a lot of good work towards raising good citizens. Fox "news" and the very deep pockets of billionaires are challenging opponents No single one of us will save the world.
Very true. I'm a union activist who knows that solidarity can save us. Find a group that does good work and join them, and together, we will all make a difference.
Solidarity is the foundation of a free society. Solidarity is exactly what the plutocrats have been actively striving to undermine, and replace with a pecking order.
I hope so and if you are a union activist, you know what hard work it is. I hope that in some way, large or small, we can all make a difference.
Plutocrats can pay to get enough people pulling their way. We have to come to agreement, and discipline ourselves.
Spot on Betsy Smith.
I agree Lola and I am sure Betsy and many others worked hard to be the best teachers they could be. And yes I see someone noting the influence of parents and families which can overwhelm the best efforts of teachers.
Dan Rather nailed it. Nobody gets their news from what has suddenly become "traditional" or "legacy" sources. The gossip factory that flourishes on the internet is uncontrollable.
I would rephrase that to "The gossip factory that flourishes on the internet is uncontrolled." We haven't really tried.
I'm a retired journalist and I would suggest that trying to control free speech is not wise. Granted, there is the standard admonition against falsely crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but free speech is critical. Yes, the internet has changed our lives immensely, not always for the good, and much of free speech consists of lies (see Trump, et al.). But trying to clamp down on speech will create its own problems.
So you think it can be controlled?
"Gossip factory" is too meek. Disinformation flood is more like it.
Please don't blame yourself. It is really difficult to counteract thr influence of parents/family who hold bigoted views, who may be motivated by religious views.
Thank you for your kind reassurances., but it's clear that we have failed, at least to some extent, on our mission to educate. From the Latin"e" meaning "out," and "ducere," to "lead," our job was to lead them out of their previous environment into a world of learning and imagination and understanding and appreciation of beauty and truth.
To what degree have we collectively failed to sufficiently nurture those capacities as a society, and for that matter, as a species? Individuals and families vary, and societies vary, but we humans remain our own worst enemies? Just for instance, apart from war, why is it so hard to degree to finally do something about our unraveling, sustaining environment? Could our world not be paradise if we played our cards right? People have thought so for eons, but the progress is so hard.
Families obviously have a special bond from birth. additionally some parents mold their kids by instilling PTSD that is hard to get around. ,
Interesting that we aren't all including the failures of the legacy media which are phenomenal. And probably very few got to teach media literacy. Now however we could push on that same media to start doing their GD job. Get Congress to reinstate the fairness doctrine for one thing.
The legacy media is mostly controlled/owned by billionaires with huge conflicts of interest...e.g. WP, LATimes....and then there's Murdoch and Time-Warner and NBC. All the owners are billionaires.
Familiar as so many of us are with your statement of truth, it's just not the time to dwell on all the descriptions. Now that we have identified the problem, let's get into solutions of whatever sort however small or large. The fairness doctrine would accomplish a large bite into how the news is packaged and delivered. Wikipedia no doubt has deeper information on this.We have at least two years of dedicated work, whatever each of us chooses that to be. I'm focused on moving ahead. And you?
We all could have done more, and probably have to do more, but that's always true. School can do a lot but what values are kids getting from our commercially-obsessed curricula? From media? From puerile politics? As never before we are letting the plutocrats mold our culture. The tail is wagging the dog. You can't do government of. by and for the people just by watching ads and switching channels.
Yep...
No. Fox News Academy is to blame for your students' faux education.
I had more great teachers than I deserved all through K-12. My parents moved to a school district they couldn't afford because they felt education was that important. And it was a lower middle class neighborhood!!
It was "the village" that taught me kindness and tolerance. And that included the Boy Scouts, athletics and the church. Who among my 765 high school class mates families expected the school system to install values in us?
We were expected to be good citizens in school, but I remember no sermons from teachers on values unless you want to count literature like "The Scarlet Letter".
Betsy Smith, can you write for us how you see yourself as guilty apart from not teaching the arts? Did you teach any history? I was imbued with patriotism both sat home and at school, including history and civics.
My first years of public school In the early1950s) were certainly imbued with a kind of patriotism, but it was pretty shallow with respect to historical content, a lot of which turned out to be folklore. And lot of what is claimed to be patriotism (especially by the right wing) turns out to be theater, like Trump publicly molesting the flag. It seems to me that the foundation of patriotism is caring about something a lot larger than one's own whims and status. That's how I interpret words of Lincoln that I am guilty of posting here repetitiously, but I think that some things are said so well that they merit ongoing study;
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength our gallant and disciplined army? These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of those may be turned against our liberties, without making us weaker or stronger for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men (sic), in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises."
But mostly the blame belongs on the shoulders of their parents....those who teach by example every day.
Although that can result in infinite regression. My wife and I tried to be perfect parents, and while I think we did a lot of things in a good way, there are some things that in hindsight we would have done differently. At least we had been and are aware, to some degree, of our own process, and how it is we muddle through at least in part by insufficiently examined habits and unrecognized guesswork, like everyone else. That said, I think that self-examination and an open mind is crucial, along with a lifelong willingness to learn. It appears to me that reasonable skepticism and an open mind are two views of the same thing; some degree of willingness to question EVERYTHING. Yet even if nothing is absolutely certain, there are fruitful and highly supportable bases for confidence, subject to indefinite re-evaluation.
It has been argued that human treatment of other humans becomes less humane, at least in aggregate, as you go back in history. That said, I think we as a society have been very uneven in my lifetime about defending universal rights and maintain cultural integrity. Some minority (and women's) rights have continued to expand, but so has entropy. It seems to me that our excessively commercial culture has been neglecting more perfect union; and of course, grass roots foundational union is the last thing those who would be kings want to see.
I put the blame on parents.
I agree 100 percent.
I’m a forgiving and forbearing type person, but I’m cutting out all MAGAts in my life.
I used to be and am struggling to remain so. However, my current coping philosophy is “you voted for him, you own his actions.” No sympathy here.
I'm allergic to them.
I don't want to deal with them, but divide and conquer and big lies are what has brought us to this perilous period. Even if Trump did not win the majority, there are too many supporting him to just ignore, and that "house divided" is the force that is enabling autocracy. a lot of people who signed on with Trump are hurting, and that contributes to making them irrational. It seems they don't connect the dots to where their affliction originate (tempting to say "it's the plutocracy, stupid") but plutocratic influence on the quality of information they are getting is a factor as well. Democracy thrives on diversity and even controversy, but not in the face of polarization. There must be ethical/moral lines one does not cross to maintain one nation, indivisible, and Republicans are eagerly crossing them. But were is most of the impetus coming from, and has been for decades? Even back to the days of slavery? Follow the money.
Yes yes yes yes.
Absolutely agree, and I am related to some of them. It’s a difficult place to be.
Exactly so, Rex.
Exactly. No less an authority than Laurence Tribe, Harvard Professor emeritus, just called the Supreme Court corrupt, on Lawrence O'Donnell's program. We are in for some perilous times, and have much work ahead if we are to keep our democracy and defeat the MAGA fascists.
I liked the fact that Tribe also called out his former student, Merrick Garland, for taking too long to investigate and bring charges. Hard not to imagine that Garland may be complicit in some way. Regardless, he has given us Jews a bad name with his inactions.
No, Marlene, Jews are not tainted by Garland’s inaction. HIS name is besmirched, not yours.
He's not complicit. He's just incompetent for the job.
I believe it was within a few months of his appointment, it became apparent that his judicial restraint was ill-served in a position that demanded prosecutorial fire. He had, early in his career, been an excellent prosecutor; his time on the bench tempered the fire and changed him into an arbiter rather than a fighter.
I'm certain he's complicit. I don't think he ever had any intention of letting that case move an inch.
I dunno, Angela, I’ve been pondering this & how, in a way, it looks so familiar….the rich white guy getting off scot-free, as happens too often in our country (and how justice is so often unequally applied)….or, in this case, the rich white guy about to be, once again, one of the most powerful (if clearly incompetent) persons on the planet walking free, with nary a scintilla of shame, from multiple convictions and charges. He’s like the character in The Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, where the bad guy keeps “reconstituting” itself despite seemingly being destroyed. Or, if you prefer, like a nightmare-based “Groundhog Day”. Sigh, at least Murray’s character evolved in a healthy way….can’t say that about you-know-who. Personally, I think this is a Vegas-style ginormous, gaudy flashing neon sign confirming to our citizens & the world that in the USA justice is NOT delivered “without fear or favor”. Just as he broke the law RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES, so too, is our country’s inability to hold him accountable unfolding for all to see. I shudder to think of the “justice” that will be investigated/dispensed in our upcoming administration….heaven help us. IMHO, the Republican Senate (under the thumb of Mitch) refused to convict him of his clearly culpable actions/crimes. Stupid, really stupid, decision Mitch.
My spouse holds McConnell responsible for the whole situation. He could (and should) have moved his Republican cohort to convict T****. But he did not. And I thought I'd never see Republicans of the Nixon era as doing the right thing, but they did. Who removed McConnell's spine, or was it bought and paid for by some mega-donor. Follow the money.
What turned "The Party of Lincoln" on it's head; an Orwellian caricature? $$$$$
Mistakes were made, as they say, but the blame for the outcome of the election and for all the other failures, lies squarely with white Americans, They are the people who put Reagan, the elderbush and his nitwit son, Trump, and the six corrupt SCOTUS justices in power, and that is what led to the catastrophic collapse of decency in the United States. It’s been brewing since 1954. Finally boiled over.
Bought, I'm sure.
And watch for the power of presidential pardons in tandem with the Supreme Court's presidential 'infallibility' ruling for official acts.
The expression "presidential pardon" becomes valueless.
All too true, sadly.
Our democracy has just been bought and sold out from under us. Not only will laws and regulations change to benefit the rich, but every norm of the office of the Presidency will be ignored.
It pains me deeply to watch as my country is diminished day by day not only to our international nation partners but to all those who now serve in our military to “protect and serve” our nation with their lives.
I blame the members of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, who have bought the GOP, SCOTUS, and the presidency. Trump, the perpetual grifter, refuses to sign the transition paperwork so he can accept the numerous billionaires’ bribes.
Don’t forget the Koch brothers—the real enemy within.
Um, one of them is dead, so no brothers plural. Still, lots of money but the Koch family doesn't seem to suck up to Trump like Musk does.
I know one is dead, but the two worked to destroy public universities, derail progress in climate change policy, and were generally problematical as a Fifth Column. The final “blow” was a refusal to go along with sanctions against Putin’s Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. The Kochs were too rich and powerful to suck up to anyone. They make musk, dangerous though he is, look like a neophyte.
And soon will be fewer by 15k members when the psychopath and his magats eject LGBTQ service members.
That may not happen. The generals will protest. Perhaps not all, but the majority.
Lord I would hope so. I hope most are cut from General Milley's cloth:
"We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Saying it doesn't make it so.....
Quite so, but saying it is often part of what can make it so, especial where social values are concerned. Paine's "Common Sense" is widely credited with helping to establish a shared vision of the new republic, and multiple protest movements, from Abolition to gay rights, have kept normalized injustice visible in the national consciousness. Martin Niemöller famously commented on the price of not speaking out when, as a matter of fact, the Nazi's did come for him.
Democracy is a conversation or it's not democracy, and we are losing that essential feature as our media is increasingly dominated by top-down commercialism. The Internet was designed to be decentralized, and so far (not in all nations) its democratic potential remains, as this conversation demonstrates. Yet the public conversation is increasingly being overshadowed by pay-to-play propaganda, and even here we are a gated community to an extent.
Speaking, at least enough people speaking, and, of course listening, is always part of social justice; and a careful commitment to seeking truth is the foundation of any worthwhile definition of justice, be it civil or criminal. Unchallenged lies are poison for a free and open society, and demonstrably. malicious or irresponsible lies can kill. History shows that lies repeated often enough can create a delusional, semi-psychotic sense of reality. Repetition and cross-examination of truth, faithful to evidence, unbroken logic, and personal integrity weighs against false and frequently toxic perceptions.
A bit of history about the less than competent efforts to find and root out LGBTQ folks from the military in the last. Many ways that things are different now, of course.
I'm betting LGBTQ soldiers would be the last to trun their guns towards fellow citizens!
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/01/u-s-navy-hilarious-multi-million-dollar-fruitless-search-wizard-ozs-dorothy-friends/#google_vignette
Wish Biden could have spoken more regularly and publicly about what his administration was doing. Democrats need to get better at messaging!
It would not have mattered. People who do not know what his administration has done don't know because they are pathologically willfully ignorant. The psychopath won by 1.5%. That was not messaging. That was millions of people not voting.
Don’t forget or discount the corrosive effect on the American public of a sophisticated multi pronged and lavishly funded mis- and disinformation campaign, augmented by foreign interference by Putin and others.
Well said. Never forget the Putin/Trump connection
The Tyrannosaurus in the room.
Slapped my forehead:KOCH BROTHERS. The enemy EAS within. One brother, still operating in Russia, may still be in the US.
That was so much misinformation. If you talk to the ones who didn't vote you find out all sorts of lies they believe. They really have no idea.
Both/and!
People were also pathologically lied to, and I saw plenty of false equivalency reporting even in the not controlled by a billionaire papers I support and respect. I still don't understand why.
Don’t blame Biden’s messaging blame the no regulations on what can be said on all the new ways of communicating called social media. So many people were fed a diet of lies for the past 8 years, what do we expect, a sudden awakening in 100 days. We needed to be very much pushing back vigorously against all the lies and prosecution of those Russian Iranian trolls that saturated the internet with lies that convinced voters to again vote against their best interest. That to me is voter fraud and suppression. And we all so believed in our judicial system so blindly that these people were ethical. Brings a whole new meeting to FAFO as they have been F’ing Around and we are now finding out.
Let’s not forget about the American terrorist organization, Fox News. Fox is the root of the problem, and so many lazy people sitting in front of their TV’s watching that crap day after day.
Not the root. One root among many. Much of it goes back to Reagan who got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters who used the public airwaves to air both sides of issues of public interest.
The Fairness Doctrine did not apply to cable news and other broadcast shows such as Rush Limbaugh because they were broadcast over private media.
As you say, it has allowed such biased information sources as the Fox Propaganda Network to foul the nest of the public commons.
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
“STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All
Michael B KelleyMay 22, 2012”
https://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5
We can't allow cheating in sports, but no rules apply in politics where the consequences are much more serious. We can be prosecuted for lying to the government, but members of the government can freely lie to us? (So what about this "We the People" thing?) Corporations like Dominion Voting Systems can sue for millions, and even some viciously defamed individuals can sue when lied about, but We the People have to grin and bear it?
Free Speech is a precious and essential right of a free society, and in the gray areas, I'd err on the side of freedom to speak; yet some speech is objectively harmful, and in many situations, limited by regulation. It depends on the situation (like making bomb threat jokes to TSA agents) and with the responsibilities carried the person telling the lie. Lies can be deadly, and that reality should not be dismissed. Lies against immigrants by public officials who continue to lie even when corrected. Not even dispute. just lie. Cruel lies against innocent Haitians? How can that be OK? There is even a religious commandment against doing that, but here I'm referring state civil justice.
Agreed. They have to learn to shout out what the Dems have done and in easily accessible short messages. On billboards.
I came here to day just that. Talking generally about millions of dollars of investments gets lost and is out of context for most people. I recently drove from Atlanta to Nashville which takes you directly through MTG territory. A Q-Cells solar plant is visible from the highway, a big winner from CHIPS and boost to that economy - guess who took credit for the economy boost?
It's old school but well place billboards about local investments and local results that didn't scream Blue or (D) could have gone a long way. I spoke to some people at a gas station there and they gave MTG credit for the investments when she clearly voted against them.
Speaking in generalities is too fuzzy. A specific plant, internet in an area that didn't have it, a bridge or road that was repaired. Those are the things that people see and feel and realize they haven't been left behind.
Look at what the young Democratic chair in NC (Anderson Clayton) accomplished. Harris lost the state but not by as much as expected and granted they had a particularly bad candidate for Gov and the most money ever spent on a state AG race but the Dems won both of those races and broke the super majority in the state house. She did something right and she needs to get some credit. And the rest of us need to learn from what she did.
Hopefully we'll get another chance one day.
That’s true—a billboard saying MTG voted against the solar plant would have gone a long way—and similar moves around the country. Too bad Dems we’re not strategic in this regard. Too bad and now too late.
And they could have knocked those out across the country for a day of TV ads...
The election was a combination of big money lies and voter ignorance. The Atlantic has a story about university students who consider reading a whole book a waste of time and have never. That says to me they don’t read novels. How else to stretch the mind? If you can’t read a novel, can you sit through a symphony concert? Would you take Latin or Greek to understand the West?
you make so much sense! You are head snd shoulders about other writers on the political situation and what has kept me SANE through the past few years. Thank you.
I second that thought with ever expanding gratitude.
“As democracy lawyer Marc Elias wrote: “Justice delayed was justice denied.” 😡
Trump has proven that ignoring and evading the law by a delay and delay and delay approach in hopes that his voters would return him to the White House not only worked, but he also proved that laws, procedures and regulations don’t matter to many Americans AND that they can easily be subverted if you have enough $$$$ behind you.
I am glad to see this edition of Letters published so early. Hopefully Dr. Richardson can get a good night's sleep.
As to the economic reality of the Biden Administration. Voters didn't know or care to know.
People voted for a racist and against a black woman. The same core demons of racism and misogyny are still alive and screeching in America.
Barbara - Absolutely accurate.
I hope she got a good night's sleep. I, on the other hand, am wading through 500+ comments in my daily perusal of the Letter and its Readers. Hopefully, other Readers slept better than I did.
You read all the comments?
Weren't we told that trump was going to get prices down. Isn't that what the idiots who voted for him believe? Well, have I got news for them! The NY Times reported that trump will impose a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the US from Mexico & Canada on Day One! The article said it would put a real strain on the supply chain within this hemisphere. Prices will go up! Hmm, supply chain issues, ooh, I can see it now, you think prices are high now, just wait until the grocery giants claim supply chain issues & increase their prices even more!!! Hell, they haven't even brought them down since the last supply chain issue of 3-4 years ago. Promises made, promises ignored & laughed at! And by the way, ole "Mr. I'll be tough on China" is going to impose a 10% tariff on things coming from China. What happened to that 50, 60, 100% tariff he was going to put on Chinese goods. What, did Chi flatter you, did he flutter his eyelashes at you.donald?
This is going to be ugly, ugly, ugly in all ways. It's going to be really hard not to put nastygrams in people's mailboxes that I know supported trump. Those idiots are getting what they deserve only problem is we're going to suffer too.
That's why, in 2 years, at the mid-terms, we vote the bastards out. We move for a veto proof majority and with the Felon's inability to hold a thought for longer than a New York minute, we have a chance of getting through this mess. This time, even the dumbest of bunnies will know that he did not fulfill what he promised when he and his gang of thugs were running for office, they are not going to be happy campers. Who knows, they may even vote. 7 more republican senate seats are up for election than Democrats, it could be interesting,
Dream on, friend.
Oh? I'm not dreaming. You don't think the tariffs that will be placed on Mexico and Canada the day the Felon is sworn in - hope the Bible doesn't catch on fire - will not effect how people vote? Actions speak louder than words - just like in 2018 when he lost both houses of the Congress. It will happen again. That's no dream and it is the Felon's nightmare.
The Trump voters didn’t vote for Trump because of economic reasons. They voted for him because he was the most entertaining wrestler on TV. It won’t matter if prices go up, because Trump and Fox will just blame the Dems. Cheaters and liars get away with everything when they are dealing with an ignorant populace.
After the fact, the election is suddenly about the economy. During the campaign, it was a huge culture war. This is so very maddening. The willfully ignorant have brought down this country and I will not forgive them.
Let's Hope That Their Are Elections In '26, and '28... Let's Hope That The True Information Becomes Known... DJT in 2028? He May Not Be In Power By Then...
Except, "You won't even have to vote anymore."
Return....I read that bit about tariffs today too. And I said watch prices go up. I see lots of produce especially from Mexico. I try not to buy produce from other countries or even far away here. We may be going back to truly seasonal produce....if there is anyone around to pick it.
The "I told you so" is going to be as sweet as the honey I'll no longer be able to afford when this happens.
Can't wait (but in a very grim way) to show my husband these grocery receipts.
So - great speech by Biden. How is it that millions of Americans were not told many times, on all different media about this successful economic agenda of Biden? Why weren’t these the headlines, instead of Trump’s lies? I blame the media for the pain that will come; as well as race, misogyny and hatred for minorities of different life styles. These are what united apparent disparate groups of people to get behind Trump. He embodies their hate and fear. This will now be our “face” to the world. A tragedy has befallen us.
Because TFFFG’s bloviating blow-hard bellowing captures the *squirrel!* attention span of the MSM/public WAY more than Biden’s measured, quiet & humble, fact-based delivery ever did. They were following the Pied Piper, not the wise one. Sigh, our loss.
The Evil Orange Pied Piper Dancing With The Evil Peter Pan Musk Leading The USA To Ruin.....
Simple: The disinformation stream of "Right wing"* news* is all they would listen to, and any rebuttals of the lies was met with a well thought out and reasoned "🐂💩"
Trump Inc's "presidency" is intentional in its plans to crash the US economy (and its citizens' health, and food supply). It's what Putin wants, as *his* retribution for the fall of the USSR.
If the economy crashes, the people with cash can buy up all of the distressed assets, cheap. It’s how Russian oligarchs became wealthy from buying up formerly state-owned industries, sold at low, low prices to the friends of those in power.
With, Carol, many U.S. bankers, M.B.A. grads of the Ivy League, and Dept. of State helping.
That is, elites in finance and government at the highest levels back then invested in and coordinated the transfer of great wealth to the former Soviet nomenklatura, who became Russia's new oligarch class.
Naturally those oligarchs now return the favor, and help U.S. billionaires in their dark money moves against the American people, under cover of their convicted criminal at the top.
This is his plan, or perhaps more accurately, what Putin has ordered him to do.
Dear Agent of Chaotic Respite, I agree wholeheartedly with your comment. When I say this exact thing to my husband he tells me do not repeat this to anyone else as they would think I’m a crazy woman. I feel this is Trump’s motivation, to please Putin & in doing so he will benefit financially & smooth the way for the international cabal of which he is a part of. There I said it in public. I must be a crazy woman!
Given the clear statement of direction in which the Trump Presidency is heading, as stated by you here, Timothy, and the record of actions already initiated by the incumbent President. It is laid upon the current President Biden and so made legal by the recent Supreme Court decision to commit acts previously abhorred in the defense of the constitution and government of the USA legally and without fear of later retribution.
Now, in advance of what I am about to write here, I am about as far away from being a constitutional law expert is as my mulching worms are from being able to form a trade Union and go on strike for better food. I am personally, as a concerned citizen calling on our President and Executive to fulfill their oaths of office to protect our Republic and Constitution from all enemies, foreign and/or domestic.
That said the current Executive must now take drastic action in the face of the President Elect's (Trump) clear actions and stated intentions to destroy this countries political structure and set aside the constitution under which our Republic operates:
1) The President should Implement the Insurrection Act of 1807 immediately to prevent and control any non-constitutional forces loyal to the incumbent from militia activity threatening American lives. He should confer with the 50 Governors of the USA to determine where to deploy National Military versus National Guard troops.
2) Arrest and incarcerate, by executive order, the incumbent, Trump and his co-conspirators for planning and committing treason against the USA.
3) Set aside the current law governing the election of the President by the electoral college and institute, by executive order the election by clear clear majority of popular vote (a type of plebiscite.
4) Set aside the recent election of 2024 and order a new election by clear popular majority.
5) Conduct a new election asap.
If the current President is unable to carry out his duties to protect the constitution, then the cabinet must act under Amendment 25 Section 1. He must resign in the face of any ethical dilemma if that should be the case. Immediately the Vice President should then implement Steps 1-5 as the President of the USA.
Yes, I understand how distasteful this course of action might be to Democrats and many citizens; however our country faces the clear and present danger of going down a path which the majority of voters (yes, by extremely thin margin) have rejected. Additionally this election has been subject to international disruption and influence by our enemies, China, North Korea and Russia (et al). This through documented cases of planned Propaganda distributed to Americans by Social Media and Conventional Media controlled by or working with Trump and his Associates to achieve their ends. These disruptions are to be considered acts of war aided and abetted by Trump and his Associates. In my humble opinion, it is now time to save the Constitution and our Republic.
Biden is the ‘’incumbent’’ – Trump is the ‘’incoming’’ President.
But that aside, I expect you realize that what you are suggesting would be the most outrageous violation of the Constitution ever contemplated. It would likely cast the country into Civil War and end this experiment of self government we call the United States of America.
Your frustration is understandable but the work we have before us should play out in School Boards, City Councils, State Houses and Court Houses across the nation – that is the system, a Republic if we can keep it.
Written early/late and thank you. I do realize what I am suggesting. And yes it will likely lead to deaths, but, I submit theoretically, far fewer than will come with the "incoming" President (around the world), or even Americans he has negligently killed, so far. Everything I suggested should, in fact, be "legal" today given the SC mis-verdict. Sometimes it is just better to say NO! As we should have done in 1938, and at other times. Today it is Putin who requires a strong NO! Trump alongside him as ever. Mr. Dooley, please instruct me on what is against the law today...given that the "incumbent" is now above the law.
Suffice to say, that each of the items you list, if carried out by Biden in the current situation, would be outside his scope of authority (his enumerated powers or even implied powers) and the recent SC decision would not shield him. That is my opinion.
Also, I am just back from four months of working on the election and have neither the inclination, nor the hours available to me that would be required to provide a proper legal opinion. I hope you understand.
I understand completely please help me with just one item. Again, I fully understand that you may not even want to do that. And, thanks for your work.
You say: "would be outside his scope of authority (his enumerated powers or even implied powers) and the recent SC decision would not shield him". Why would that be, if it will shield Trump?
The recent SC decision (Trump v US) immunizes a President fully if the conduct in question relates to a core Constitutional function (See: Article II, sections 1,2 & 3). The President is only entitled to presumptive immunity for official acts outside those core functions. The President is entitled to no immunity for unofficial acts.
Your point #1 comes nearest to being viable, but it is a stretch in the execution. To date, there have been no overt acts on which to invoke the act. I would refer you to the following article by the Brennan Center for more detail: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/insurrection-act-explained
Point # 2 Although Biden could order the indictment of Trump (or any person) for treason or any other crime, it is highly unlikely that the action would proceed successfully. Jefferson ordered such an indictment (of his Vice President) and it failed in court. I doubt Biden could be indicted for malicious prosecution in such a case, but since there is no predicate that I am aware of to justify a traditional treason charge, it is possible.
Many, including myself, believe the holding in Trump v US was overly broad and will be reversed or limited by subsequent cases, but it is the law at present.
IMHO, actions by Biden under Points 1& 2 would be stilled by court rulings, but in the current universe, I suppose anything is possible. That said, I believe you are correct to the extent that the actions would likely be immunized under the holding in Trump v US. I stand corrected on that point.
Points# 3-5 are outside of the President’s official functions and are ruled by other Articles of the Constitution.
I hope that answers your questions – thought-provoking stuff. But it is time for a nap, so have a good day.
Thanks, well then maybe, Biden/Harris would get away with...I don't think they should hesitate. Trump wouldn't if there was any grey area. I know... but some of us have to "become the monster in order to defeat the monster". Have a great nap, I just awakened from mine, which I. call my 'beauty sleep'.(tongue in wrinkled cheek).
You are 100%correct. I have called for a military coup by the good generals before they asr dismissed. In order to save us from what is about to happen. Anyone disagreeing should remember my words.
I guess we are "Monsters" Bill.
Dream on.
That is not very helpful, but I understand, BBB. It is difficult to be truly autonomous. But Dreams and visions do materialize. I couldn't sleep, so I needed to write about what I was visualizing.
Bruce, sometimes dreams become visions become reality. Or not. At least, so far, we can’t be arrested for our thoughts.
Even when we write them down as our opinion.
I hope it remains this way in the USA. Disturbing events in Hong Kong show that prior freedoms (even if less secure than our from the get-go) citizens are used to can be threatened/curbed/eliminated by the “present” regime.
Hmmm, protect the Constitution by blatantly violating it? I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure initiating such action as you describe here would end up accomplishing the goals you think it would.
Today was one of the most infuriating and depressing news days in my many decades of life. And it's only going to get worse.
Thank you, Professor. I was upside down all day today after the situation with Jack Smith. And I thought what can I do, what can I do. All I could do is help reach out to the people that I know or that follow me and I’m not bragging, but I’ve got about 5000 people to do the Artwork I do. And I believe they’re 99.9% like-minded so my job is to share the truth and no one speaks the truth better than you. And you research the truth and that’s the important thing also. And I will advise everybody to understand what we can learn from history which you explained to us so well so all I can dois well spread the truth. Thank you so much. Have a great holiday. Coming up a great holiday season in fact, I hope everybody does regardless of where you stand, but I know that if you are a follower of the professor that you are true human, and an American that believes in our constitution, our democracy, and freedom. Peace of love everybody every day we can make changes for the better sorry I tend to ramble, lolol. Mike, but most call me Sav!
Sav, that is a great comment. I am heading into a very busy December playing Christmas music with my tuba ensemble, and our fall concert with the Symphonic Band I play in. I will do my level best to bring joy and peace to anyone within earshot.
Thank you for your service, Mike.
Sav!
Not quite to the point, but close enough. Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”