;)
October 11, 2022
Afternoon Update:
If the Carrot Doesn't Work, Get out the Stick. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden will re-evaluate the relationship with Saudi Arabia after it teamed up with Russia to cut oil production in a move that bolstered President Vladimir V. Putin's government and could raise gasoline prices in the United States just before midterm elections, a White House official said on Tuesday.... [John] Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, signaled openness to retaliatory measures proposed by Democratic congressional leaders who were outraged by the oil production cut announced last week by OPEC Plus, the international cartel. Among other things, leading Democrats have proposed curbing security cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including arms sales, and stripping OPEC members of their legal immunity so they can be sued for violations of U.S. antitrust laws."
Trump's Save America Me PAC. Isaac Stanley-Becker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: “Donald Trump's political operation has spent more money since he left office on lawyers representing the former president and a pair of nonprofits staffed by former Cabinet members than it has on Republican congressional campaigns, according to a review of financial filings. Trump's leadership PAC, Save America, has blitzed supporters in recent days with fundraising solicitations that focus on next month's high-stakes contest for control of Congress. 'It is IMPERATIVE that we win BIG in November,' blared an email last week. The group has contributed about $8.4 million so far directly to Republican campaigns and committees, while devoting $7 million to Trump's lawyers and another $2 million to the nonprofits, which employ former members of his administration, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Legal fees are expected to climb, Trump advisers say, as he employs a growing retinue of lawyers to fend off federal, state and county-level investigations." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Unfortunately, I'd guess that many of the Trumpbots don't care. They think the DOJ is unfa-a-a-rly picking on the Lord & Master.
Perry Stein & Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to deny a petition from Donald Trump's attorneys in the Mar-a-Lago search case, arguing that allowing an outside arbiter to review the classified documents seized from the former president's Florida residence would 'irreparably injure' the government and that Trump has no 'plausible' claims of ownership over these sensitive government materials. Trump's legal team last week made a technical and narrow petition to the court, asking the justices to reconsider a portion of an appeals court ruling that granted the Justice Department's request to keep the classified documents separate from a review of seized material being conducted by the outside expert, known as a special master."
Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: A Trump lawyer, "M. Evan Corcoran, met [new Trump lawyer Christina] Bobb at the president's residence and private club in Florida and asked her to sign a statement for the [Justice D]epartment that the Trump legal team had conducted a 'diligent search' of Mar-a-Lago and found only a few files that had not been returned to the government. Ms. Bobb ... was being asked to take a step that neither Mr. Trump nor other members of the legal team were willing to take -- so she looked before leaping. 'Wait a minute -- I don't know you,' Ms. Bobb replied to Mr. Corcoran's request, according to a person to whom she later recounted the episode. She later complained that she did not have a full grasp of what was going on around her when she signed the document, according to two people who have heard her account. Ms. Bobb, who relentlessly promoted falsehoods about the 2020 election as an on-air host for the far-right One America News Network, eventually signed her name. But she insisted on adding a written caveat before giving it to a senior Justice Department official on June 3: 'The above statements are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.' Her sworn statement, hedged or not, was shown to be flatly false.... And prosecutors are now investigating whether her actions constitute obstruction of justice or if she committed other crimes." The article goes into Bobb's participation in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election & her over-the-top enthusiasm for election-denying.
Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "The National Archives, without naming former President Trump, pushed back Tuesday on claims he made over the weekend that other past presidents had mishandled their White House records with the help of the agency. Trump had previously claimed ... President Obama had mishandled his own records but expanded that claim during rallies in Arizona and New Mexico to include several prior presidents.... At one point Trump even claimed, without evidence, that records from President George H.W. Bush's administration were stored in a Chinese restaurant and a bowling alley 'with no security and a broken front door.' The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said Tuesday that while records are transported to presidents' libraries, any temporary storage has 'met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees.' It added that any insinuations that records were stored in substandard conditions 'are false and misleading.' At another point during the rallies, Trump also accused former President Clinton of losing nuclear codes and keeping classified recordings in his sock. While Clinton did store some tapes in his sock drawer while serving as president, he did not leave office with the recordings in tow."
** Star Wars. Yes, NASA Can Save Earth from an Asteroid Hit. Sarah Scoles of the New York Times: "NASA took aim at an asteroid last month, and on Tuesday, the space agency announced that its planned 14,000 mile-per-hour collision with an object named Dimorphos made even more of a bull's-eye shot than expected. That winning strike was the first of its kind. 'We conducted humanity's first planetary defense test,' said Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, during a news conference, 'and we showed the world that NASA is serious as a defender of this planet.' In November 2021, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission, shooting a refrigerator-size spacecraft toward a small asteroid."
Maryland Amanda Holpuch of the New York Times: "Baltimore prosecutors on Tuesday dropped the charges against Adnan Syed, who was released last month after he spent 23 years in prison fighting a murder conviction that was chronicled in the hit podcast 'Serial,' officials said. Marilyn J. Mosby, the state's attorney for Baltimore City, said that she had instructed her office to dismiss the charges against Mr. Syed on Tuesday morning after he was cleared by DNA testing. Mr. Syed, 41, had been serving a life sentence for the strangling death of Hae Min Lee, 18.... Questions about the fairness of the trial received widespread attention in 2014 after the debut of the podcast 'Serial,' which examined the case in detail, but it wasn't until last month that a judge vacated Mr. Syed's conviction. Prosecutors said in a hearing on Sept. 19 that an investigation had revealed problems with key evidence that was used to convict Mr. Syed, as well as the possibility of 'alternative suspects.'"
Matthew Champion of Vice: "Elon Musk spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin before tweeting a proposal to end the war in Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently ceded to Russia, it has been claimed. In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer wrote that Tesla CEO Musk told him that Putin was 'prepared to negotiate,' but only if Crimea remained Russian, if Ukraine accepted a form of permanent neutrality, and Ukraine recognised Russia's annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. According to Bremmer, Musk said Putin told him these goals would be accomplished 'no matter what,' including the potential of a nuclear strike if Ukraine invaded Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Bremmer wrote that Musk told him that 'everything needed to be done to avoid that outcome.'" Musk denies he spoke to Putin.
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Kristen Holmes & Jeremy Herb of CNN: An "email exchange between GSA officials and [Trump aide Beau] Harrison is one of more than 100 pages of emails and documents newly released by the GSA that debunk claims from Trump and his allies that the government agency is to blame for packing the boxes containing classified documents that were later recovered by the FBI during the search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in August.... In an interview on Fox News on August 12, four days after the FBI search, former Trump defense official Kash Patel claimed the GSA was responsible for the documents being at Trump's Florida home.... 'They [GSA personnel] packed them,' Trump said in an interview with Sean Hannity on September 23.... In emails throughout 2021, however, career officials at the GSA outlined to Trump's aides what could and could not be included in the shipments GSA would send to Florida -- underscoring that the federal agency was relying on Trump's aides to assess the contents being shipped.... 'If the item is considered property of the Former President then it should not be shipped using Transition Funds. If the item is considered property of the Federal Government then it should go to NARA or GSA,' [GSA transition director] Kathy Geisler wrote in an email and attached the guidance on gifts." ~~~
~~~ Marie: So not only does another Trump lie bite the dust, but I'm inferring Trump may have appropriated government funds to steal federal documents (tho the CNN article doesn't firmly establish that). Usually when bank robbers steal the cash, they whisk it away in their own getaway car; it appears Trump used the government's own dime to pay for the getaway transportation.
Marc Caputo of NBC News: "Christina Bobb, the attorney who signed a letter certifying that all sensitive records in ... Donald Trump's possession had been returned to the government, spoke to federal investigators Friday..., according to three sources familiar with the matter. The certification statement, signed June 3 by Bobb, indicated that Trump ... no longer had possession of a host of documents with classification markings at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, according to the three sources.... Bobb, who was Trump's custodian of record at the time, did not draft the statement.... Instead, Trump's lead lawyer in the case at the time, Evan Corcoran, drafted it and told her to sign it, Bobb told investigators.... Bobb also spoke to investigators about Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn, who she said did not help draft the statement but was minimally involved in discussions about the records.... Before Bobb signed the document, she insisted [twice that] it be rewritten with a disclaimer that said she was certifying Trump had no more records 'based upon the information that has been provided to me.'..." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: So Miss Bibbidy-Bobb, Esq., ratted out the guy who told her to say Trump had returned all the classified docs. Now, is that guy going to rat out the guy who told him to say Trump had returned all the docs? Who would be Trump.
They should give me immediately back everything that they've taken from me, because it's mine. It's mine.... Likewise, under the Presidential Record Act, everything should come back.... [The Archives] lose documents, they plant documents. "Let's see, is there a book on nuclear destruction or the building of a nuclear weapon cheaply? Let's put that book in with Trump." No, they plant documents. -- Donald Trump, in a speech Sunday
IOW, a public confession/proof of intent. -- Marie Burns, not a lawyer ~~~
~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's latest riff on his decision to keep government documents at his residence at Mar-a-Lago is chock full of ridiculousness and false equivalency to a degree remarkable even by his standards. Appearing at a rally in Arizona on Sunday, Trump repeatedly compared his retention of presidential records to the actions of his predecessors. Except most of the examples he cited involved those presidents setting up presidential libraries. (And his other arguments were almost complete non sequiturs.) MB: Hard to tell if he's crazy, lying or both. I'd guess both. (Also linked yesterday.)
Sara Murray & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "An Atlanta-area prosecutor investigating Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election has secured cooperation from former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.... Prosecutors have called for [Hutchinson's former boss, Chief of Staff Mark] Meadows to testify before the special grand jury, but they are still working to secure his testimony." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
November Elections
Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "Victory for the election deniers in any state would, in combination with any version of the independent state legislature theory [if endorsed by the confederate Supremes], put the United States on the glide path to an acutely felt constitutional crisis. We may face a situation where the voters of Nevada or Wisconsin want Joe Biden (or another Democrat) for president, but state officials and lawmakers want Trump, and have the power to make it so. One of the more ominous developments of the last few years is the way that conservatives have rejected the language of American democracy, saying instead that the United States is a 'republic and not a democracy,' in a direct lift from Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society.... [Election deniers] see Donald Trump as their sovereign as much as their president, and they hope to make him a kind of king."
Nevada Secretary of State. Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The head of a US coalition of election deniers standing for secretary of state positions in key battleground states has made the most explicit threat yet that they will use their powers, should they win in November, to subvert democracy and force a return of Donald Trump to the White House. Jim Marchant, who is running in the midterms as the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, has vowed publicly that he and his fellow coalition members will strive to make Trump president again. Speaking at a Make America Great Again rally in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday night, he repeated the lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump. Marchant said he had investigated what he described as the 'rigged election' and had discovered 'horrifying' irregularities. He provided no details -- an official review of the 2020 count in Nevada, which Joe Biden won by 34,000 votes, found no evidence of mass fraud." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Here's something I didn't know about Minden, Nevada, that helps explain why Trump & his allies chose the small town of Minden (pop. 3,000) to hold a rally where 5,000 Trumpbots showed up: ~~~
~~~ Sam Metz of the AP: "A red siren perched atop a small town's volunteer fire department sounds every night at 6 p.m., sending a piercing noise echoing through the ranches and towns of northern Nevada's Carson Valley including Dresslerville -- a community governed by the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. To Serrell Smokey, the tribe's chairman, the sound is a reminder of racism and violence inflicted upon Native Americans -- a 'living piece of historical trauma' with an enduring legacy. He requested officials in the town of Minden silence the region's last remaining siren last summer.... Minden is one of what experts believe were thousands of American communities where discriminatory 'sundown' laws were in effect, either through formal ordinances or unwritten rules enforced with intimidation and injury. The town siren has blared since 1921. Until 1974, it served as a warning to non-white people that they were required to leave town before the sun faded behind the rugged mountaintops of the Carson range.... [Washoe] elders remember seeing law enforcement jailing Native Americans and residents attacking non-white people." Minden is fighting a state law,signed in June, to silence sundown sirens. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have a house across the street from the town's firehouse. I cannot think of any circumstance in which I would welcome their siren's going off every evening -- for life! -- for no other reason than to celebrate the remembrance of some event, glorious or ignominious. But then I'm not a rabid racist who will endure pain & inconvenience just to stick it to people whose lands my forebears have appropriated.
Ohio Senate. Jonathan Weisman & Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "In a sometimes heated, often personal debate, the two candidates vying for the seat of the retiring Senator Rob Portman -- Representative Tim Ryan and the investor J.D. Vance -- each took turns accusing the other of being elite and out of touch, while claiming the mantle of working-class defender. Here are six takeaways from the one and only Ohio Senate debate."
Pennsylvania Governor. Katie Glueck of of the New York Times: "Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue..., Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the state's Jewish community.... The race between Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro -- a Jewish day school alum ... -- has also centered to an extraordinary degree on Mr. Shapiro's religion. Mr. Mastriano, who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has repeatedly lashed Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mr. Mastriano calls a 'privileged, exclusive, elite' school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Mr. Shapiro's 'disdain for people like us.'... Mr. Mastriano has also spread the lie that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and liberal billionaire often vilified on the right, was a Nazi collaborator. And Mr. Mastriano has baselessly accused Mr. Shapiro of holding a 'real grudge' against the Roman Catholic Church. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Of course I can't speak to Mastriano's personal opinions, but I can speak from personal experience that the type of remarks he is willing to make in public may only hint of the deep animus "people like him" holds toward Jews. I grew up in the midst of this type of prejudice, and it was widespread -- and incomprehensible to me. I imagine there are communities where this is still true.
Beyond the Beltway
California. Shawn Hubler & Jill Cowan of the New York Times: "The president of the Los Angeles City Council stepped down from her powerful leadership role on Monday after a leaked audio recording revealed racist and disparaging remarks that she had made about the Black child of a white council member, and about Indigenous immigrants in the city's Koreatown neighborhood." This is an update of a story linked earlier yesterday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The story has a second major update. New Lede: "The head of one of Los Angeles County's most powerful labor organizations resigned on Monday night amid a nationwide furor over a leaked audio recording that revealed his involvement in a racist and disparaging conversation with two members of the Los Angeles City Council and the council president. The official, Ron Herrera, resigned at a meeting of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor's executive board.... His resignation came hours after the City Council president, Nury Martinez, had stepped down from her leadership role Monday morning amid fallout from remarks she had made about the Black child of a white fellow council member and about Indigenous immigrants in the city's Koreatown neighborhood." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I hope more than a few people notice that Democrats resign in disgrace (as they should) when they make disgusting racist remarks, even when they think those remarks are private. Republicans, on the other hand, shout racist remarks at public rallies, and their base cheers while fellow Republicans continue to support them & deflect questions about the the remarks.
Florida. There Is No Joy in Gainesville. AP: "Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse faced pointed questions and loud protests Monday during his first visit to the University of Florida as the lone finalist for the school's presidency. Sasse, a Republican in his second Senate term, has drawn criticism from some at the school in Gainesville, Florida, for his stance on same-sex marriage and other LBGTQ issues. Others question his qualifications to run such a sprawling school with more than 50,000 students. The separate meetings Monday were with students, faculty and staff on campus. During those sessions, the Gainesville Sun reported about 1,000 people yelling 'Hey, hey, ho, ho, Ben Sasse has got to go' gathered and disrupted at least one of the meetings."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine early Tuesday, including in the capital, Kyiv, a day after strikes killed 19 people and injured more than 100, emergency services said.... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to address an emergency virtual meeting of the Group of Seven nations Tuesday.... A meeting of NATO defense ministers will also discuss Ukraine's pleas for weapons later this week.... Vladimir Putin will meet International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi on Tuesday, the Kremlin said. The U.N. watchdog is seeking a buffer zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, which Russian forces control." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Tuesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
Emily Rauhala, et al., of the Washington Post: "The string of strikes against Ukrainian cities and key infrastructure on Monday galvanized long-standing calls from the government to its allies for more sophisticated air defense systems and longer-range weapons. The Russian attacks appeared to signal a significant escalation, raising pressure on the United States and other European countries that have been slow to provide Ukrainian forces with the most advanced weapons systems. While a chorus of U.S. and European leaders condemned the attacks and declared their continued support for Ukraine, it was not clear that they would accelerate or expand their deliveries." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Maegan Vazquez & Sam Fossum of CNN: "President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday after a deluge of Russian missiles targeted cities across Ukraine, condemning the strikes and pledging continued US security assistance 'including advanced air defense systems.'... The White House did not specify which air defense systems Biden discussed with Zelensky, but the United States previously committed to providing Ukraine with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems. NASAMS would be capable of engaging Russian cruise missiles."
News Lede
New York Times: "Angela Lansbury, a formidable actress who captivated Hollywood in her youth, became a Broadway musical sensation in middle age and then drew millions of fans as a widowed mystery writer on the long-running television series 'Murder, She Wrote,' died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 96.... Ms. Lansbury was the winner of five Tony Awards for her starring performances on the New York stage, from 'Mame' in 1966 to 'Blithe Spirit' in 2009, when she was 83, a testament to her extraordinary stamina.... The English-born daughter of an Irish actress, she was just 18 when she landed her first movie role, as Charles Boyer's cheeky Cockney servant in the thriller 'Gaslight' (1944), a precocious debut that brought her a contract with MGM and an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress."
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Reader Comments (9)
Marcy Wheeler calls out the useful idiots that have helped TFG distract from his most damming reports over the years.
Ukraine goes after military targets and infrastructure important to the Russian war machine. Putin goes after innocent civilians, flying missiles into cities during morning rush hour so as to inflict maximum civilian casualties, all because his fee-fees were hurt after that bridge fire.
Ukraine blows up a bridge (and actually, official Ukrainian forces have not yet stated, at least to my knowledge, that they were responsible for Putie’s Bday present) and Russia murders civilians.
This is very much like Nazis who rolled into villages and towns after they had been attacked by small arms fire from partizans, and lined up hundreds of civilians to be shot.
This is what Fatty describes, jealously, as “ruling with an iron fist”.
(Just wondering if he ever wears his bed-making medal at his fascist rallies…)
@RAS: Thanks. As usual, Marcy's post is hard to follow. But she's right. For instance, I don't think I ever put together the Trump/Putin hour-long confab of July 2017 with Junior's Pop-approved (and obviously lying) statement about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians.
The problem lies in the nature of American journalism. The object is less to "get to the truth" than it is, nowadays, to generate "clicks" (and always has been to sell newspapers & magazines). What attracts is the shiny object: "Wow, the POTUS* told another whopper!" or "Crazy Former President* Haz-Been wanted to make a deal with the National Archives to extort more presidential papers from them." (When I linked that story, I don't think I even mentioned the supposed proposed deal [which was at the top of the story], since it didn't happen.)
I'm not sure I think Maggie (Haberman) & Mike (Schmidt) & Peter (Baker) are colluding with Trump in order to maintain access to him or to other pro-Trump sources, but I'm sure they understand that sensationalism, even at the Gray Lady, is a big part of their remit. The "real" cover-up may not be what they don't say about Trump (or whoever) but how they, in general, direct stories toward sensational trivialities -- and they -- and their editors -- know that's what they're doing. They don't care if the meat goes unnoticed as long as the garnish gets oohs! & ahs!
@Akhilleus: Not sure about the whereabouts of the bed-making medal. I think he may have pinned it to one of those fake shots of him on the cover of Time magazine, fake covers he's put in some of his clubs.
This whole business about the constant stream of overt and terrifically ugly racism from the right?
Is John (Racism is dead) Roberts paying attention to this shit? I’m sorry, but that in itself (declaring racism to no longer be a problem) is racist. And actually, I’m not sorry. Because fuck them.
And speaking of the high court, during the recent appearance before the Supremes of representatives of Alabama, the poster child state of racist voting schemes, Ketanji Brown Jackson made some amazing jiu-jitsu moves when questioning the Alabama attorney. She hit the ground running and ignored the traditional place of newly minted justices who are supposed to shut up and watch. Justice Jackson wasn’t having it. She eviscerated the ‘Bama bigots, but shortly thereafter, the Chief Justice passed her a note and her questions stopped. Speculation is that Roberts told her “enough already!”.
Why? Cuz racism no longer exists.
Right?
Favorite moment in the debate between Tim Ryan and POS JD Vance:
Ryan, talking about the need for courage as an essential quality of leadership, pointed out that Vance, in attendance at one of Fatty’s fascist clambakes, was singled out by Herr Drumpf as a sniveling little ass kisser. “He kisses my ass!” gloated Trump. Right on cue, Vance, after being insulted, viciously and publicly, tucked tail, obsequiously got up on the stage and…kissed ass.
Said Ryan, “Is that the kind of leader you want?”
In fact, he could have been talking about pretty much any R candidate or office holder. None of them are leaders. They all kiss the fat, spotted behind of the Head Fascist. A whole party of sniveling little ass kissers and weasels.
Against my better judgment, I have spent the last two weeks watching "Better Call Saul" & "Breaking Bad." I never wanted to see these two series, but they have received such stellar reviews, I thought I should see what all the accolades were about. I started with "Saul," and it took me a couple of episodes to get into it, but then I got hooked. So I watched "Breaking Bad," too, which supposedly (mostly) takes place after the episodes in "Saul." I'll admit I fast-forwarded through some of the stuff, especially the violent episodes, of which there were many.
But watching these shows wasn't an entire waste of my time, because I think these shows -- which are about seemingly-unprincipled slippery characters, drug dealers & gangsters -- helped me understand Trump.
Most of us live under some moral code, albeit usually an undefined one, that we have garnered through our lifetime observations of what constitutes "good" and "bad" behavior. Maybe our code derives from religious beliefs, or from the courtly virtues or, I don't know, the Boy Scout code. But in nearly every case, our moral codes include a number of "do"s & "don't"s.
So do bad guys have a code, too? Having watched these series about bad guys -- or the writer's imaginations of how bad guys tick -- I'd say the answer is yes. These guys don't cotton to principles like love, honesty, fairness, respect for others and so on, but they seem to need something to hang their black hats on. And that something, if these teevee shows are any indication, is loyalty. It may be loyalty to family; it may be loyalty to a cartel. The see themselves as "good" if they are loyal.
Trump of course isn't loyal to anybody except to himself. He will diss anyone whom he perceives may have mildly disagreed with him. But we have heard again and again that he requires loyalty from his underlings, most infamously when he demanded Jim Comey pledge his loyalty to Trump and when he said his fans were so loyal they wouldn't blink if he shot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue.
So even Trump operates under a moral code. It's one that only others can break -- because he can do no wrong -- but it is a code.
@Marie: Marjorie T. Greene says her code is Jesus and the Bible.
That's really confusing when one considers the reason her husband
filed for divorce. Somehow she went outside her code when sexing
around with her trainer, the trainer's friend Larry and on and on.
Now she says marriage is between a man and a woman.
Does she mean between a woman and her husband, or between a
woman and her trainer and his friend Larry.
Like I said before, I can fix that marriage thing in six words or less:
Marriage is between two consenting adults.
I’ve been seeing these dispatches from the dark side saying that evangelicals and anti-abortion fanatics are perfectly fine with Walker as one of their noble torch bearers. See, normally, a guy like this who fathers multiple children out of wedlock then abandons them, and who pays multiple women to get abortions, would be called a despicable murderer by those people. In fact, they have, in the past, murdered people connected to abortions.
But as long as he helps them grab the reins of power so they can force the rest of us to bow to their wishes, it’s all good.
Hypocrisy, lies, abandoning children, and even murder (what they call abortion) are perfectly okay as means to an end: power.
Pretty sure I don’t recall that as a goal in either the New or Old Testaments.
I guess they’ve all picked up on the newest paradigm, the Gospel according to Trump, wherein it sez, do unto others whenever you have a chance to stick it to them, and make yourself more powerful and rich into the bargain.
But their unquestioning support for ghastly unqualified candidates like Walker and Dr. Oz, the Puppy Killer, also points out that they have no interest in actual governance, in policy, in constitutional order.
It’s all about power.