Disgraced retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn is endorsing candidates for office. Flynn advised former president Trump’s 2016 campaign and was Trump’s first national security adviser. He served for just 22 days before having to resign after news broke that he had lied to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Can't speak directly to the Flynn Flam of today's Letter.
But to revisit the Senate Judiciary's hearing on September 15 regarding the FBI's botched investigation of Larry Nassar, the convicted pedophile Olympics doctor, my eyes widened upon hearing this:
"Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Congress must 'demand real change, and real accountability, and we will not be satisfied by platitudes and vague promises about improved performance' from federal law enforcement." Wow, "accountability." He knows that word!
Wouldn't it be nice if he invoked it in the direction of, well, Loser 45 and his insurrection gang.
And Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) has not finished with the Kavanaugh debacle.
"Whitehouse invokes Dr Christine Blasey Ford in his questions to Wray.
'It strikes me very strongly as we sit here today, and as we heard the powerful testimony earlier this morning, that the last time a woman came forward in this committee to testify to her allegations of sexual assault in her childhood, the witness was Christine Blasey Ford,' he says. 'It appeared to me then, and it appears to me now that her testimony was swept under the rug in a confirmation stampede. It is very possible that the FBI investigation of her allegations was just as flawed, just as constrained, just as inappropriate, as the investigation in this case.'
"He notes that repeated requests for answers in the Ford case have been ignored repeatedly for two years until a letter dated yesterday ('Not coincidentally I suspect on the eve of your appearance today,' he notes) that promised the requested information would be forthcoming.
He concludes: 'Let’s just make sure there’s wasn’t also a botched handling of another allegation in this committee with regard to Dr Ford.'” Love this guy!
“'My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,' the newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, said Sunday. Good luck with that. When the court’s hard-right majority stops acting like partisan hacks, maybe we’ll believe her, writes Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3EsGyEs
Eugene is a class act. He didn't go into the legitimacy of her appointment.
At what point are attempts to overthrow the government of the United States Government treason?
From my middle school history, maybe grade school, we learned about Benedict Arnold. Every traitor tried and punished have aid and comfort to our enemies.
After the Civil War, instead of trying and punishing Confederate leaders and their military leaders, the US welcomed them back. Over time, some of the more openly treasonous Confederates regained offices in the US government that enabled them to establish Jim Crow policies and politics that endangered the US.
If military dictatorships and authoritarianism is contrary to our democracy and Constitution, then why don't we have more clear and operable laws to protect us?
Flynn is still subject to the UMCJ and at the very least his military pension should be pulled for his treasonous remarks. His sympathy toward Russia is right out in the open. This is textbook treason.
It's amazing how you get some bit of good news, like the win in California, and then you get a report on the absolute insanity of Flynn - that he has any role at all in American politics, let alone enough influence to be courted for an endorsement, is truly mind-boggling.
I was talking with a friend yesterday and said I hoped what we were witnessing was a period like that between Pearl Harbor and Midway - black news, deep despair, hanging on by fingernails, and then a turnaround that literally changed everything. I noted that sales of my book that deals with this have remained really high and he opined that people might be taking inspiration. I only hope so.
Reading today of the way things are flailing in DC - one wonders how they can get through all that, especially with people allegedly on our side like Manchin and Sinema, and the three Pharma stooges in the House. And if it all doesn't go right, it will be a disaster in 2022, which will lead to the unthinkable in 2024. I ended up going back to my book and reading the part about my old friend Dick Best, and remembering him telling me that all they could do was not think further than the next step, because everything was so dark. That's what I try to do, and this newsletter is a big help on that.
The will of the majority is severely subverted; power and representation is being diverted into the hands of a clique minority of fear filled, immoral, antidemocratic, lying, sociopathic divorcées from reality. They are fuelled by unjustifiable hatred, and imagined attacks on their freedom. They are dissidents with no enemy.... so they invent enemies. POC, LGBTQI, lefties and liberals, feminists, pro- choice people, health care for all, the person next door who isn’t flying a Trump flag. You cannot fight this level of ignorance, self-deception and manufactured hatred with compassion, logic and evidence.
What is to be done?
They see themselves as patriots, as defenders of the constitution, as soldiers of democracy, and are fuelled by the ambition of weak, cowardly, greedy politicians.
They don’t see themselves as the racist, bigoted, hate riddled, ugly , entitled folk that others see. Nor as the destroyers of democracy, the shredders of the constitution, lambs being led to slaughter by their GOP shepherds. They don’t see that they are the greatest threat to the American experiment than any external force could ever be.
How do you deal with that?
How does the majority take back the power of the voting booth?
I see this as the central dilemma for the Biden government. Because if they don’t seize the reins in this administration....it will be all over. Bye bye the American dream.
There is no room for politeness. For bipartisanship. For compromise. The Democrats have to wrest back the rule of law, parliamentary process. They have to slam the gate on the McConnells and the Taylor-Greens and all the other lying cheating bastards who are running roughshod over majority rule democracy
Thanks, Heather, for reporting on the latest insanities. The most useful Democratic tactic to be employed against treasonous GOP liars is to try to pass Manchin's watered-down "bipartisan" voting legislation, almost sure to fail. This will be an important demonstration of how things really stand in Congress. Then, Manchin and Sinema will need to be convinced (by Joe Biden) to allow the filibuster to be modified enough to permit rapid passage of voting legislation -- hopefully less watered down -- and the DEMs must then proceed to pass the big infrastructure bill via reconciliation.
A large majority of Americans do not want Trump or a Trump clone as their next President. Equally large majorities of Americans want all or most of what Joe Biden is proposing. If we cannot get this done, it will mean we have become a failed state with a very opaque future indeed.
Some far-out Republicans are calling for Chairman of the Joint Chief Miley’s resignation for contacting a Chinese general to assure him that the United States was not going to launch an attack against China. This assurance was given, after intelligence reports indicated that they feared such an attack because of then-President Trump’s bizarre and dangerous behavior. Bob Woodward’s latest book provided some details of General Miley’s phone calls. Subsequently we learned that then Defense Secretary Espy and at least 15 DOD personnel were involved in these calls. I find that General Miley’s actions were totally within his responsibilities in accordance to the military/civilian chain of command and the Constitution.
It brings to mind another episode when a president’s bizarre state of mind obliged senior administration officials and the military to safe guard our country, Henry KIssinger, who had a love/hate relationship with President Nixon, warned that Nixon, during Watergate, was drinking and ranting in a dangerous manner. Kissinger expressed concern that Nixon might hit the nuclear button during one of his depressive rages. I have the clear impression that Kissinger and some top military had formed a cabal to make sure such would not occur.
What should senior officials, including the Secretary of Defense do, when the president—Trump and Nixon—has clearly gone bonkers? General Miley and Defense Secretary Espy as well as Kissinger and his cabal did precisely what was necessary to protect our country. I consider this a broad and proper interpretation of their Constitutional duty.
'The Most Important Statistic of the Biden Presidency'
'One in five hundred Americans has died in the pandemic, and Republicans are actively rooting for the country to fail.'
'His (Biden's) poll numbers have dropped so low that, as Politico’s Playbook noted, on Thursday morning, his approval rating now hovers at that of Gerald Ford at this point in his Presidency, and just above that of Donald Trump.'
'As for post-Afghanistan foreign policy, he rolled out, on Wednesday, a bold new alliance with Australia and Great Britain that will help Canberra develop nuclear-powered submarines to patrol the Indo-Pacific—a not-so-veiled counter to China.'
'He came into office promising an end to the pandemic and a return to competent, commonsense governance. It’s why he beat Trump.'
'Consider the news this week that now one in five hundred Americans has died in the pandemic; total deaths in the country approach seven hundred thousand. What’s worse, covid deaths—the vast majority of them preventable, avoidable deaths, now that science and the federal government have provided us with free vaccines—are continuing to rise across large swaths of vaccine-resistant Trump country. This is not a tragic mistake but a calculated choice by many Republicans who have made vaccine resistance synonymous with resistance to Biden and the Democrats. The current average of more than nineteen hundred dead a day means that a 9/11’s worth of Americans are perishing from covid roughly every thirty-eight hours. To my mind, this is the biggest news of the Biden Presidency so far, and it has nothing to do with Afghanistan, or the fate of the budget-reconciliation bill, or Bob Woodward’s new book.'
'America spent twenty years fighting wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East because of 9/11. The 2001 attacks reordered American foreign-policy and national-security thinking for a generation. Does anyone believe that something comparable will happen as a result of the pandemic’s catastrophic death toll, which is far vaster than that of any other crisis in the modern era? It’s hard to imagine, especially because the continuing loss of life is a result of G.O.P. political strategies that intentionally undermine the success of Biden’s policies. How can this President, or any President, reset from that?'
The excerpts above were written by Susan B. Glaser in the article, 'The Most Important Statistic of the Biden Presidency', published yesterday in The New Yorker. The statistic Ms. Glaser is referring to in the title is one for the deaths, hospitalizations, and infections continuing under Biden. It is the demonic strategy that the Republicans' have devised to defeat Biden, the Democratic Part and Democracy. It just means some more deaths, the collapse of our health care system and the destruction of a functioning society. Is there anything Biden can do against the Death Camps the Republicans have created in the USA?
'Idaho hospitals are so overwhelmed with the surge in coronavirus cases that doctors and nurses have to contact dozens of regional hospitals across the West in hopes of finding places to transfer individual critical patients.'
'The situation has grown so bad that the Idaho Department of Health and Wellness announced Thursday that the entire state is in a hospital resource crisis, permitting medical facilities to ration health care and triage patients.' (NBC)
'Hospitals in the southern United States are running dangerously low on space in intensive care units, as the Delta variant has led to spikes in coronavirus cases not seen since last year’s deadly winter wave.'
'One in four hospitals now reports more than 95 percent of I.C.U. beds occupied — up from one in five last month. Experts say it can become difficult to maintain standards of care for the sickest patients in hospitals where all or nearly all I.C.U. beds are occupied.' (NY Times)
“We’re having to postpone elective surgeries that require hospitalizations because we can’t take care of those patients in the hospital,” Pratt said. “The staff working in outpatient services have been redeployed to bedside care.”
'Since the beginning of the pandemic, Pratt said, she’s lost nurses who decided to retire early. The hospital offered salary bumps for current staff and incentive pay earlier in the pandemic, Pratt said. But with larger hospitals in urban areas offering hefty bonuses to lure workers, it’s difficult to recruit specialists and nurses to Lutcher.'
'Across the country, thousands of hospitals are overwhelmed with critically ill patients, prompting many overburdened nurses to change careers or retire early. The shortages are particularly dire in rural areas, rural health experts say, because of the aging workforce and population, smaller salaries and intense workload.'
Repeating writer Glaser's point, 'This is not a tragic mistake but a calculated choice by many Republicans who have made vaccine resistance synonymous with resistance to Biden and the Democrats...'
What are Biden and the Democrats going to do about this? I think there is something for us to do. I will write to the President, the First Lady, the Chief of Staff, the head of the National Democratic Committee, Pelosi, Schumer and more. Our leaders have to find ways to stop this mass assault on the American people. The Republicans are killing us.
For the link to the New Yorker article, see below:
A letter to the editor I wrote and sent in today to our northern Michigan newspaper:
SO:
1) The voters of Leelanau County voted FOR an Early Childhood Program millage.
2) The 4 Republicans on the County Commission voted to give the program NO MONEY, essentially killing the program.
3) When Chairman Will Bunek was asked by Commisioner Gwenne Allgaier "So you just said that if a public vote is taken and we think it's wrong, it's our job as a constitutional republic to nullify it?" Bunek responded,
"Yes, that's exactly right."
That is EXACTLY WRONG. That is NOT how a democracy or a republic works. That is, however, how Hitler worked, how Mussolini worked, how Pinochet worked...
I am left wondering if the months-long effort to discredit General Milley is an attempt to minimize the impact of whatever it is that he knows, should he ever be called to testify. January 6 Commission, please, call him!
Ah, Michael Flynn, whom I met once (only 10 yrs ago--it seems like 20). Yep, disgraced and unfortunately bringing more shame on his former profession as well. After his "coup" comment (which he quickly "clarified" BTW), I inquired about how his actions are perceived in the military and what, if anything can/will be done about it. The answers are revealing about how, aside from all other things, the man is simply a fool. His change of plea to "not guilty," was because he had NO IDEA (a man in the Army more than 30 yrs) that if a servicemember is convicted of a felony they also lose all of their retirement pay and benefits (then Trump swooped in with the pardon to save him).
Then, later, he also had NO IDEA that he could still be brought up on Article 32 charges of sedition and attempting a military coup as a retired servicemember...he discovered this days later when Colonel John Vinman (JAG) offered to prosecute him for such to the Sec of the Army, so Flynn used the press and social media to "clarify" his comments. Meanwhile, Flynn IS a calculator of sorts--he knows there is still one person who could strip him down for what he's already done--the president (he ask for a review of his actions post-retirement & reduce him in rank to Colonel). But he's banking on the fact Biden doesn't want to give these guys one lick of additional press.
Still, if I had to bet on it, I'd say that Flynn will continue to step in metaphorical dog doo (he can't help himself) until he, again, goes too far and has his family jewels taken away once and for all. Narcissistic fools (he is, big time) always do this.
Dear HCR - Once again, I have learned so much from today's post, important information that I am unlikely to find in my online subscriptions to newspapers with more resources (only three of you many references are from news sources I read with any regularity. -- But I going to make a detour and post something completely unrelated, because I believe your readership will be as amazed and touched by this NPR story as I was: "At 101, This Woman From Maine Is Still Hauling Lobsters With No Plans To Stop" (https://www.npr.org/2021/09/16/1037773633/at-101-this-woman-from-maine-is-still-hauling-lobsters-with-no-plans-to-stop)
Yes, things seem to keep getting crazier in this upside down world but let's remember that tfgx45 is a compulsive liar responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, sexist,racist, sick human being guilty of treason and worse. This is not the time to be criticizing the Biden administration by following red herrings that the crazies throw down. QAnon turned out to be a father/son in New Jersey but that barely made news. Flynn, Rudy, Ganz etc are in a pathetic minority and have replaced the daily tweets we lived through 4 years of with lies and bluster and red herrings. Biden has already corrected many horrible, nasty 🤮 actions done by the past administration. Let's concentrate on voting rights, correct Manchin's calculations and spread THE BIG TRUTH.
"Flynn has continued to speak to pro-Trump groups and to rebuild his brand, going so far in May as to call for a coup in the U.S."
The Response:
"Twitter permanently banned Flynn"
Am I the only person in America that thinks our Government should do SOMETHING to guard against this threat? Day by day I lose confidence in this government's lack of action to protect me.
I'm grateful HCR is keeping tabs on Michael Flynn, though I can't imagine how she does all this and teaches college-level academic courses as well. I'm glad when she takes the occasional day off.
Back to Mr. Flynn. He might be taking a page from the former president's playbook; deriving a steady income from running for office. The former president will be running for re-election as long as the campaign cash keeps flowing in from the MAGA mob. HCR didn't mention whether or not in any of his endorsement screeds Flynn stuck his hand out for a handout, (everybody else does,) but if he did, that could be his plan.
The unemployed Flynn could also follow in the foosteps of another disgraced US military officer, Oliver North, and become the figure-head president of the NRA. They have been having some upper level personnel problems of late. Flynn would fit right in.
The fact that General Flynn is being allowed to continuously incite sedition and get away with it, consequence free, is not the sign of a healthy democracy.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Can't speak directly to the Flynn Flam of today's Letter.
But to revisit the Senate Judiciary's hearing on September 15 regarding the FBI's botched investigation of Larry Nassar, the convicted pedophile Olympics doctor, my eyes widened upon hearing this:
"Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Congress must 'demand real change, and real accountability, and we will not be satisfied by platitudes and vague promises about improved performance' from federal law enforcement." Wow, "accountability." He knows that word!
Wouldn't it be nice if he invoked it in the direction of, well, Loser 45 and his insurrection gang.
And Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) has not finished with the Kavanaugh debacle.
"Whitehouse invokes Dr Christine Blasey Ford in his questions to Wray.
'It strikes me very strongly as we sit here today, and as we heard the powerful testimony earlier this morning, that the last time a woman came forward in this committee to testify to her allegations of sexual assault in her childhood, the witness was Christine Blasey Ford,' he says. 'It appeared to me then, and it appears to me now that her testimony was swept under the rug in a confirmation stampede. It is very possible that the FBI investigation of her allegations was just as flawed, just as constrained, just as inappropriate, as the investigation in this case.'
"He notes that repeated requests for answers in the Ford case have been ignored repeatedly for two years until a letter dated yesterday ('Not coincidentally I suspect on the eve of your appearance today,' he notes) that promised the requested information would be forthcoming.
He concludes: 'Let’s just make sure there’s wasn’t also a botched handling of another allegation in this committee with regard to Dr Ford.'” Love this guy!
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/biles-former-gymnasts-testify-on-fbis-mishandling-of-larry-nassar-case
Oh, heck, let's beat up on SCOTUS some more:
“'My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,' the newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, said Sunday. Good luck with that. When the court’s hard-right majority stops acting like partisan hacks, maybe we’ll believe her, writes Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3EsGyEs
Eugene is a class act. He didn't go into the legitimacy of her appointment.
At what point are attempts to overthrow the government of the United States Government treason?
From my middle school history, maybe grade school, we learned about Benedict Arnold. Every traitor tried and punished have aid and comfort to our enemies.
After the Civil War, instead of trying and punishing Confederate leaders and their military leaders, the US welcomed them back. Over time, some of the more openly treasonous Confederates regained offices in the US government that enabled them to establish Jim Crow policies and politics that endangered the US.
If military dictatorships and authoritarianism is contrary to our democracy and Constitution, then why don't we have more clear and operable laws to protect us?
Flynn is still subject to the UMCJ and at the very least his military pension should be pulled for his treasonous remarks. His sympathy toward Russia is right out in the open. This is textbook treason.
It's amazing how you get some bit of good news, like the win in California, and then you get a report on the absolute insanity of Flynn - that he has any role at all in American politics, let alone enough influence to be courted for an endorsement, is truly mind-boggling.
I was talking with a friend yesterday and said I hoped what we were witnessing was a period like that between Pearl Harbor and Midway - black news, deep despair, hanging on by fingernails, and then a turnaround that literally changed everything. I noted that sales of my book that deals with this have remained really high and he opined that people might be taking inspiration. I only hope so.
Reading today of the way things are flailing in DC - one wonders how they can get through all that, especially with people allegedly on our side like Manchin and Sinema, and the three Pharma stooges in the House. And if it all doesn't go right, it will be a disaster in 2022, which will lead to the unthinkable in 2024. I ended up going back to my book and reading the part about my old friend Dick Best, and remembering him telling me that all they could do was not think further than the next step, because everything was so dark. That's what I try to do, and this newsletter is a big help on that.
What is to be done?
The will of the majority is severely subverted; power and representation is being diverted into the hands of a clique minority of fear filled, immoral, antidemocratic, lying, sociopathic divorcées from reality. They are fuelled by unjustifiable hatred, and imagined attacks on their freedom. They are dissidents with no enemy.... so they invent enemies. POC, LGBTQI, lefties and liberals, feminists, pro- choice people, health care for all, the person next door who isn’t flying a Trump flag. You cannot fight this level of ignorance, self-deception and manufactured hatred with compassion, logic and evidence.
What is to be done?
They see themselves as patriots, as defenders of the constitution, as soldiers of democracy, and are fuelled by the ambition of weak, cowardly, greedy politicians.
They don’t see themselves as the racist, bigoted, hate riddled, ugly , entitled folk that others see. Nor as the destroyers of democracy, the shredders of the constitution, lambs being led to slaughter by their GOP shepherds. They don’t see that they are the greatest threat to the American experiment than any external force could ever be.
How do you deal with that?
How does the majority take back the power of the voting booth?
I see this as the central dilemma for the Biden government. Because if they don’t seize the reins in this administration....it will be all over. Bye bye the American dream.
There is no room for politeness. For bipartisanship. For compromise. The Democrats have to wrest back the rule of law, parliamentary process. They have to slam the gate on the McConnells and the Taylor-Greens and all the other lying cheating bastards who are running roughshod over majority rule democracy
Thanks, Heather, for reporting on the latest insanities. The most useful Democratic tactic to be employed against treasonous GOP liars is to try to pass Manchin's watered-down "bipartisan" voting legislation, almost sure to fail. This will be an important demonstration of how things really stand in Congress. Then, Manchin and Sinema will need to be convinced (by Joe Biden) to allow the filibuster to be modified enough to permit rapid passage of voting legislation -- hopefully less watered down -- and the DEMs must then proceed to pass the big infrastructure bill via reconciliation.
A large majority of Americans do not want Trump or a Trump clone as their next President. Equally large majorities of Americans want all or most of what Joe Biden is proposing. If we cannot get this done, it will mean we have become a failed state with a very opaque future indeed.
Some far-out Republicans are calling for Chairman of the Joint Chief Miley’s resignation for contacting a Chinese general to assure him that the United States was not going to launch an attack against China. This assurance was given, after intelligence reports indicated that they feared such an attack because of then-President Trump’s bizarre and dangerous behavior. Bob Woodward’s latest book provided some details of General Miley’s phone calls. Subsequently we learned that then Defense Secretary Espy and at least 15 DOD personnel were involved in these calls. I find that General Miley’s actions were totally within his responsibilities in accordance to the military/civilian chain of command and the Constitution.
It brings to mind another episode when a president’s bizarre state of mind obliged senior administration officials and the military to safe guard our country, Henry KIssinger, who had a love/hate relationship with President Nixon, warned that Nixon, during Watergate, was drinking and ranting in a dangerous manner. Kissinger expressed concern that Nixon might hit the nuclear button during one of his depressive rages. I have the clear impression that Kissinger and some top military had formed a cabal to make sure such would not occur.
What should senior officials, including the Secretary of Defense do, when the president—Trump and Nixon—has clearly gone bonkers? General Miley and Defense Secretary Espy as well as Kissinger and his cabal did precisely what was necessary to protect our country. I consider this a broad and proper interpretation of their Constitutional duty.
'The Most Important Statistic of the Biden Presidency'
'One in five hundred Americans has died in the pandemic, and Republicans are actively rooting for the country to fail.'
'His (Biden's) poll numbers have dropped so low that, as Politico’s Playbook noted, on Thursday morning, his approval rating now hovers at that of Gerald Ford at this point in his Presidency, and just above that of Donald Trump.'
'As for post-Afghanistan foreign policy, he rolled out, on Wednesday, a bold new alliance with Australia and Great Britain that will help Canberra develop nuclear-powered submarines to patrol the Indo-Pacific—a not-so-veiled counter to China.'
'He came into office promising an end to the pandemic and a return to competent, commonsense governance. It’s why he beat Trump.'
'Consider the news this week that now one in five hundred Americans has died in the pandemic; total deaths in the country approach seven hundred thousand. What’s worse, covid deaths—the vast majority of them preventable, avoidable deaths, now that science and the federal government have provided us with free vaccines—are continuing to rise across large swaths of vaccine-resistant Trump country. This is not a tragic mistake but a calculated choice by many Republicans who have made vaccine resistance synonymous with resistance to Biden and the Democrats. The current average of more than nineteen hundred dead a day means that a 9/11’s worth of Americans are perishing from covid roughly every thirty-eight hours. To my mind, this is the biggest news of the Biden Presidency so far, and it has nothing to do with Afghanistan, or the fate of the budget-reconciliation bill, or Bob Woodward’s new book.'
'America spent twenty years fighting wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East because of 9/11. The 2001 attacks reordered American foreign-policy and national-security thinking for a generation. Does anyone believe that something comparable will happen as a result of the pandemic’s catastrophic death toll, which is far vaster than that of any other crisis in the modern era? It’s hard to imagine, especially because the continuing loss of life is a result of G.O.P. political strategies that intentionally undermine the success of Biden’s policies. How can this President, or any President, reset from that?'
The excerpts above were written by Susan B. Glaser in the article, 'The Most Important Statistic of the Biden Presidency', published yesterday in The New Yorker. The statistic Ms. Glaser is referring to in the title is one for the deaths, hospitalizations, and infections continuing under Biden. It is the demonic strategy that the Republicans' have devised to defeat Biden, the Democratic Part and Democracy. It just means some more deaths, the collapse of our health care system and the destruction of a functioning society. Is there anything Biden can do against the Death Camps the Republicans have created in the USA?
'Idaho hospitals are so overwhelmed with the surge in coronavirus cases that doctors and nurses have to contact dozens of regional hospitals across the West in hopes of finding places to transfer individual critical patients.'
'The situation has grown so bad that the Idaho Department of Health and Wellness announced Thursday that the entire state is in a hospital resource crisis, permitting medical facilities to ration health care and triage patients.' (NBC)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/idaho-declares-statewide-hospital-resource-crisis-covid-surge-rcna1997
'Hospitals in the southern United States are running dangerously low on space in intensive care units, as the Delta variant has led to spikes in coronavirus cases not seen since last year’s deadly winter wave.'
'One in four hospitals now reports more than 95 percent of I.C.U. beds occupied — up from one in five last month. Experts say it can become difficult to maintain standards of care for the sickest patients in hospitals where all or nearly all I.C.U. beds are occupied.' (NY Times)
“We’re having to postpone elective surgeries that require hospitalizations because we can’t take care of those patients in the hospital,” Pratt said. “The staff working in outpatient services have been redeployed to bedside care.”
'Since the beginning of the pandemic, Pratt said, she’s lost nurses who decided to retire early. The hospital offered salary bumps for current staff and incentive pay earlier in the pandemic, Pratt said. But with larger hospitals in urban areas offering hefty bonuses to lure workers, it’s difficult to recruit specialists and nurses to Lutcher.'
'Across the country, thousands of hospitals are overwhelmed with critically ill patients, prompting many overburdened nurses to change careers or retire early. The shortages are particularly dire in rural areas, rural health experts say, because of the aging workforce and population, smaller salaries and intense workload.'
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/09/01/rural-hospitals-cant-find-the-nurses-they-need-to-fight-covid
Repeating writer Glaser's point, 'This is not a tragic mistake but a calculated choice by many Republicans who have made vaccine resistance synonymous with resistance to Biden and the Democrats...'
What are Biden and the Democrats going to do about this? I think there is something for us to do. I will write to the President, the First Lady, the Chief of Staff, the head of the National Democratic Committee, Pelosi, Schumer and more. Our leaders have to find ways to stop this mass assault on the American people. The Republicans are killing us.
For the link to the New Yorker article, see below:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-most-important-statistic-of-the-biden-presidency
A letter to the editor I wrote and sent in today to our northern Michigan newspaper:
SO:
1) The voters of Leelanau County voted FOR an Early Childhood Program millage.
2) The 4 Republicans on the County Commission voted to give the program NO MONEY, essentially killing the program.
3) When Chairman Will Bunek was asked by Commisioner Gwenne Allgaier "So you just said that if a public vote is taken and we think it's wrong, it's our job as a constitutional republic to nullify it?" Bunek responded,
"Yes, that's exactly right."
That is EXACTLY WRONG. That is NOT how a democracy or a republic works. That is, however, how Hitler worked, how Mussolini worked, how Pinochet worked...
I am left wondering if the months-long effort to discredit General Milley is an attempt to minimize the impact of whatever it is that he knows, should he ever be called to testify. January 6 Commission, please, call him!
Ah, Michael Flynn, whom I met once (only 10 yrs ago--it seems like 20). Yep, disgraced and unfortunately bringing more shame on his former profession as well. After his "coup" comment (which he quickly "clarified" BTW), I inquired about how his actions are perceived in the military and what, if anything can/will be done about it. The answers are revealing about how, aside from all other things, the man is simply a fool. His change of plea to "not guilty," was because he had NO IDEA (a man in the Army more than 30 yrs) that if a servicemember is convicted of a felony they also lose all of their retirement pay and benefits (then Trump swooped in with the pardon to save him).
Then, later, he also had NO IDEA that he could still be brought up on Article 32 charges of sedition and attempting a military coup as a retired servicemember...he discovered this days later when Colonel John Vinman (JAG) offered to prosecute him for such to the Sec of the Army, so Flynn used the press and social media to "clarify" his comments. Meanwhile, Flynn IS a calculator of sorts--he knows there is still one person who could strip him down for what he's already done--the president (he ask for a review of his actions post-retirement & reduce him in rank to Colonel). But he's banking on the fact Biden doesn't want to give these guys one lick of additional press.
Still, if I had to bet on it, I'd say that Flynn will continue to step in metaphorical dog doo (he can't help himself) until he, again, goes too far and has his family jewels taken away once and for all. Narcissistic fools (he is, big time) always do this.
Dear HCR - Once again, I have learned so much from today's post, important information that I am unlikely to find in my online subscriptions to newspapers with more resources (only three of you many references are from news sources I read with any regularity. -- But I going to make a detour and post something completely unrelated, because I believe your readership will be as amazed and touched by this NPR story as I was: "At 101, This Woman From Maine Is Still Hauling Lobsters With No Plans To Stop" (https://www.npr.org/2021/09/16/1037773633/at-101-this-woman-from-maine-is-still-hauling-lobsters-with-no-plans-to-stop)
Yes, things seem to keep getting crazier in this upside down world but let's remember that tfgx45 is a compulsive liar responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, sexist,racist, sick human being guilty of treason and worse. This is not the time to be criticizing the Biden administration by following red herrings that the crazies throw down. QAnon turned out to be a father/son in New Jersey but that barely made news. Flynn, Rudy, Ganz etc are in a pathetic minority and have replaced the daily tweets we lived through 4 years of with lies and bluster and red herrings. Biden has already corrected many horrible, nasty 🤮 actions done by the past administration. Let's concentrate on voting rights, correct Manchin's calculations and spread THE BIG TRUTH.
The Situation:
"Flynn has continued to speak to pro-Trump groups and to rebuild his brand, going so far in May as to call for a coup in the U.S."
The Response:
"Twitter permanently banned Flynn"
Am I the only person in America that thinks our Government should do SOMETHING to guard against this threat? Day by day I lose confidence in this government's lack of action to protect me.
I'm grateful HCR is keeping tabs on Michael Flynn, though I can't imagine how she does all this and teaches college-level academic courses as well. I'm glad when she takes the occasional day off.
Back to Mr. Flynn. He might be taking a page from the former president's playbook; deriving a steady income from running for office. The former president will be running for re-election as long as the campaign cash keeps flowing in from the MAGA mob. HCR didn't mention whether or not in any of his endorsement screeds Flynn stuck his hand out for a handout, (everybody else does,) but if he did, that could be his plan.
The unemployed Flynn could also follow in the foosteps of another disgraced US military officer, Oliver North, and become the figure-head president of the NRA. They have been having some upper level personnel problems of late. Flynn would fit right in.
The fact that General Flynn is being allowed to continuously incite sedition and get away with it, consequence free, is not the sign of a healthy democracy.