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I have spent some time going through today's footnotes and emerged with both a fresh appreciation for HCR's diligence...and for her risk of toxic contamination by the fetid excrement she must wallow through to bring us such understanding. Heather, please consider wearing a hazmat jumpsuit during your deep dives into source material!

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Every day we learn something despicable about Trump. Every day Heather helps us keep track of and digest it all.

For me, it adds up to an election that transcends politics. Anyone who votes for Trump, whether they realize it or not, sanctions every grotesque character flaw, everything he does and says, and everything he strives for — most importantly his desire to establish totalitarian rule.

In 2016, his supporters might not have realized who he really is. That doesn't give them a pass, but did any of us truly understand the extent of the depravity, the corruption, the malevolence? Now, we who oppose him and want democracy preserved truly understand. Those who vote for Trump in November will do because they embraced not policy positions but the darkness and chaos that he personifies.

And if Trump wins, they — like us — will suffer the dire consequences.

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THIS:

“...Trump fixer Michael Cohen confirmed something that many of us have suspected all along. "Trump never thought he was going to win this election, he actually did not want to win this election,” Cohen said. “This was a branding deal. That's all that the presidential campaign started out as, this was a branding opportunity in order to expand worldwide."

I was one who suspected all thru his campaign in 2016 that he did not want to be president, he merely wanted to grandstand on national TV as a contender to feed his ego. He would say the most outrageous things that no serious contender for president would ever say and it escalated toward the end to more bizarre and unbelievable. It was like he was trying to sabotage his chances of winning.

Who knew how many ignorant, gullible, bigoted, racist & misogynists were lurking among us after all these years of hard-won civil rights achievements? I was totally surprised & dismayed that he actually won over an experienced, competent & qualified choice. I was totally disconsolate on Nov. 9, 2016 to realize that the ignorant masses among us had destroyed the nation we had so tediously formed by the 21st Century. And, they are still here, emboldened by the unqualified madman in the Oval Office and the threat more dire.

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Today I had the good fortune to listen to a video chat by Angela Davis with some high school students. She spoke to a young man on his way to an art school college about how important it is for a movement that the people have fun, joy, as through music, poetry, and art.

That got me thinking about what energizes the trumpists and white supremacists. They appear to have fun and derive joy from hating in so many ways: verbal and written derision, the racist and misogynist propaganda, playing with guns and pepper spray devices, working as federal militia or paramilitary, terrorizing, destroying. It reminds me of the attraction of the Hitler Youth activities--get away from the grown ups, go camping, operate real weapons and anti-aircraft installations, be encouraged to verbally abuse and physically beat up weaker youths and Jews.

How to neutralize that hate energy is the question. Short term, Democrats win this election. Next, continue monitoring as by the FBI and DHS (?!), prosecute transgressions. Long term, education and positive experiences for young people in constructive enterprises.

As to the DHS first draft report about the danger of white supremacists, don't we have to consider the source and all we learned about DHS nefarious operations including federal law enforcement against Portland protesters? Or maybe there are/were a few souls in DHS who still have integrity?

As to E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit, I wondered if one could be pardoned for an alleged crime prior to even being convicted of the crime being pardoned. Not a lawyer, though Michael Cohen is, and he thinks trump's plan is to resign before January inauguration so president Mike Pence can pardon him. Wikipedia says that presidential pardons "may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the jurisdiction." In the U.S., presidential pardons apply only to convictions under federal law; governors do state law convictions. Looks like that would put Ms. Carroll's lawsuit on a long list for Pence. But go, state attorney generals, go!

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Reading Cheryl Strange’s marvelous recounting of her family’s service and heroism — as well as the unforgivable maltreatment they endured — in defense of our country, revived my memories of WWII. Her response to Prof. Richardson’s Sept. 3 Letter… brought to mind the stories told by my older cousins of their experiences driving as part of the “Red Ball Express”, the name given to the transport service that fed and fueled our forces on their daring, headlong drive into the German heartland.

These brave young men, primarily African American, were the lifeline that supported the infantrymen — and most importantly, the tankers of the armored divisions — of George Patton’s Third Army, the “tip of the spear” in the Allies final push to dismantle Hitler’s “Third Reich”. Driving seven days a week, 24 hours a day, they brought the indispensable food, fuel, ammo and much more, to bolster the decisive attacks on the Nazi’s “impregnable” stronghold.

I’m an 81-year-old African American man, born in NYC and raised in Harlem. I like to paraphrase the insurance commercial: I know a few things, because I’ve seen a few things. I can remember the remnants of the Great Depression and have a vivid recollection of that terrible second global conflagration and its impact on the American — and the world’s — psyche.

I’m the grandson of an enslaved couple. My maternal grandfather was born in 1853; my grandmother in 1861. My oldest uncle was lynched around the turn of the 20th Century. My mother, the last of the 10 surviving children, was born in 1904.

To the best of my knowledge, the history of my father’s side of the family is far less turbulent. His father was a Baptist minister and teacher, and my grandmother, a teacher and homemaker. Dad was born in 1901.

But my daydreams of past victories and cherished family history were rudely interrupted by the incessant clamor of our current predicament.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what we’re experiencing is the sum total of the American experience to date. It is the aggregate of all our actions throughout the centuries — the good, the evil, the mundane — and our inaction. As a people we have failed to acknowledge our misdeeds, our hypocrisy; we have ignored our cruelty and inhumanity, and trumpeted our good works and high values instead.

In order to free ourselves from the morass in which we find ourselves, we will need to stare our true history fully and unblinkingly in its face. The time has come to sincerely confront the enslavement of the Africans stolen from their native land, as well as the hereditary bondage of their descendants, and the “neo-slavery” visited upon African Americans over the last 150 years following the failure of Reconstruction.

We must, of course, do everything in our power to ensure a true, a fair and representative vote, and we must also begin to organize our neighborhoods, our communities so that we can reconstruct our communal lives to more closely resemble the stirring words that are supposed to describe our country.

If we fail to make our nation’s venomous past —as well as its glorious history — the talisman of all our efforts, we will see the inevitable ruin of the United States of America as the outcome of all our best intentions. This pandemic, along with the attendant economic tailspin that also afflicts us, has opened numerous unacknowledged, festering sores on the body politic.

This unprecedented emergency calls on all of us to conduct the triage and perform a daringly radical procedure on the patient — our country — if we are to save its life!

My apologies for the length of this essay, but I could not seem to reduce the verbiage and still communicate my thoughts!

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Thank you HCR. While I find this Letter to be more distressing than most, I appreciate your round up and analysis of yesterday's news.

I had a long comment written and ready to post but then erased it because really, what's the point? No one here needs to be convinced that we're taking on water and those who do need convincing don't or won't pay attention or become alarmed until it's too late.

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It may just be me, but these days, every time I see the DOJ mentioned in an article, I do a double-take, then read the reference to this agency over again. To my mind the DOJ is not the DOJ of the past. It should now be renamed the "Department of Barr." It would reflect today's reality.

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He had made it clear from the start he did not want a J.O.B. (and Cohen confirmed this), he wanted the power and adoration he assumed would come with being president. He didn't take into account that respect must be earned, and he doesn't even know where to start with that task.

I found the New York Times article about the Trump campaign blowing through 800 million its 1.1 billion dollar war chest with two big months to go very interesting. 11 million spent on Super Bowl ads to rival Bloomberg, 1.1 million spent on ads in Washington DC (to placate Trump, as he watches hours of TV every day), 4 million funneled into Trump businesses and this list goes on. Rachel Maddow asked Cohen whether Trump would pay campaign expenses out of his own pocket as he said he would. Cohen laughed and said that would be a big fat hairy NO (paraphrasing). He remarked several times how cheap Trump is.

Thank you, HCR, for putting on your hip-waders every day to find the important stories in the flood of daily news.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/us/politics/trump-election-campaign-fundraising.html

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After having giving a brief look over of the Homeland Security paper included in the footnotes does it not strike anyone as peculiar and upsetting that instead of referring to our country not as America but as "the Homeland"? While a minor point it reminded me too much of the way the Nazi and the Russians referred to their countries. I will be reading the DHS paper in more depth later today.

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From the moment I read David's article, I could not get Leonard Cohen's voice out of my head.

I searched for the lyrics to Everybody Knows (from his album I'm Your Man, 1988) and found these selected lines rather earth-shattering during this time of the pandemic:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking

Everybody knows the captain lied

Everybody got this broken feeling

Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets

Everybody wants a box of chocolates

And a long-stem rose

Everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming

Everybody knows that it's moving fast

Everybody knows that the naked man and woman

Are just a shining artifact of the past

Everybody knows the scene is dead

But there's gonna be a meter on your bed

That will disclose

What everybody knows.

Yes. Everybody knows. I just hope everybody VOTES BLUE. Thanks for all you do, Heather Cox Richardson, to help us understand this remarkable test of our democracy.

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So disgusting. Each day some new and worse information about the corruption at the top, the frantic attempts to shield this morally bankrupt president, and it becomes more difficult to find the words sufficient to express the depth of our condemnation of all that is going on at the White House and DOJ.

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The good ol’ DNA sample! If we learned anything from Pres. Clinton it is to hold onto the DNA evidence. Hope it hits it’s mark.

It all comes down to, he never wanted the job and stinks at it! Too many details and moving parts for his feeble cerebral impaired brain. Can’t even surround himself with people who can take up the slack for him! Two year degree? Lordy!

Thank you, Heather! For keeping me informed each and every day!

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I pay my taxes on time, and next week quarterly estimated taxes are due. For at least this entire year, I have to grit my teeth to write my federal tax check, knowing that my taxes are going into the pot that Trump and his people believe is their personal slush fund.

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After reading this, I don't understand why I get so many f--k you, f--k off, and Trump 2020 responses when I do my text banking. Granted, it probably, because I am text banking in a very conservative area. I can't bear to tell my mom about all the negative texts I get. She is 81 and hates Trump. This news would deflate her. I have a Trumpster friend who announced yesterday that she was leaving Facebook until the end of 2020 maybe longer. She posts a lot of misinformation as truth and Facebook has taken down a lot of her posts. To be honest, I reported a few. She even posted satire posts as true. That said as an act of resistance I ordered a ticket to a Trump rally being held at a local airport that I have no intention of using. A friend suggested it would make me feel better. It did😊

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Why hasn't Congress stepped up to impeach Barr, or, at the very least, subpoena him to appear, and when he refuses, throw him in jail for contempt! He is a tRump thug, and should be jailed with the rest of them. I started the Cohen book yesterday, and can tell he has nothing but disdain for his former boss. He admits his own guilt in the being the top thug for a while, and is paying the price...except the book may earn him tons! As for the whole mocking of the military, this will certainly come back to haunt tRump in ways he can't imagine. Can't wait to have those military "losers" and "suckers" be the ones dragging him from the WH!

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Heather, thank you for this dissection of a notably disturbing newsday. This country's Administration is positively rank with deception and it is beyond my comprehension how it continues to plow over facts with fiction on a daily basis.

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