;)
October 18, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Another Trump Conspiracy Theory Fail. Linda Qiu & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Igor Danchenko, an analyst who provided much of the research in a notorious dossier of unproven assertions and rumors about ... Donald J. Trump and Russia, was acquitted on Tuesday on four counts of lying to the F.B.I. about one of his sources. The verdict was another stinging defeat for the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr three years ago to investigate the F.B.I.'s investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Mr. Trump and his supporters have long insisted the inquiry would prove a 'deep state' conspiracy against him, but after pursuing various baseless theories, Mr. Durham never found and charged one. Instead he developed two narrow cases accusing people involved in outside efforts to scrutinize purported links between Mr. Trump and Russia of making false statements.... The trial against Mr. Danchenko is expected to be the last of Mr. Durham's prosecutions...."
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Biden pledged on Tuesday that the first bill he would send to Congress next year if Democrats retain House control and expand their Senate majority would be to codify abortion rights across the country. The commitment comes as the White House and Democratic candidates have been increasingly focused on protecting abortion access before the midterm elections next month, seeking to broaden support among women and independent voters. Mr. Biden said this summer that he supported ending the filibuster to protect a woman's right to an abortion and a broader constitutional right to privacy." CNN's report is here. ~~~
The "Fucking Lunatic" Exception. Marie: Here's another good reason to keep Democrats in power: Jim McGovern (D-Ma.), chair of the House Rules Committee, "explained to Republicans that his new rule for his committee says if you're 'batsh[it] crazy, you're not getting an amendment after he blocked one of [Lauren] Boebert's [Batshit-Colo.] amendments from going to the House floor. '... We're not doing this.... I'm not going to be part of any effort to legitimize people who are f[u]cking lunatics.'..."
~~~ MEANWHILE, GOP Plan: Global Financial Crisis. Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "After refusing for months to divulge what they'd do if they regained control of Congress, Republicans have finally revealed some of their economic agenda. Unfortunately, it might involve causing a global financial crisis.... House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other Republicans have recently backed proposals to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, as well as to extend or expand several other corporate tax breaks.... [Also, there's their] plan to hold the debt ceiling hostage next year, which could easily precipitate a global financial catastrophe.... If lawmakers dine-and-dash on behalf of Uncle Sam, they tarnish the creditworthiness of the United States and can make it more expensive for the federal government to borrow in the future because investors don't trust us. Worse, they might accidentally blow up every other financial market on Earth, too." ~~~
~~~ AND. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "What will the Biden administration do when the G.O.P. threatens to blow up the world economy by refusing to raise the debt limit?... The consequences of forcing a federal debt default, which is what refusing to raise the limit would do, would extend far beyond the operations of the federal government itself.... There's lots of evidence that Republicans will, if they can, try to use the debt limit to extort major cuts in Social Security and Medicare.... If Republicans do gain control of one or both houses in November, Democrats should use the lame-duck session to enact a very large rise in the debt limit, enough to put the issue on ice for years.... If for some reason Democrats don't take this obvious step, the Biden administration should be prepared to turn to legal strategies for bypassing the debt limit." MB: Republicans really do constitute the most wilfully innumerate body in the world. ~~~
~~~ AND, as I surmised in a Comment last week, Republicans have no interest in protecting allied nations' efforts to establish viable democracies in the face of violent invasion by totalitarian, imperial aggressors. Either that, or they've joined Donald Trump's Traveling Russian Marionette Show. ~~~
~~~ Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is signaling that if Republicans win the House majority in next month's midterm elections, the GOP is likely to oppose more aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia."
Charlie Savage & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The special master reviewing materials seized by the F.B.I. from ... Donald J. Trump's compound in Florida expressed skepticism on Tuesday about early claims by Mr. Trump's lawyers that certain documents were privileged and thus could be withheld from a Justice Department investigation. In a phone conference, the special master, Judge Raymond J. Dearie of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, complained that the log of an initial batch of documents over which Mr. Trump is seeking to claim privilege lacked sufficient information to determine whether the arguments were valid."
Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "In December 2019, after ... Donald Trump had shared with journalist Bob Woodward the fawning letters that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had written to him, the U.S. leader seems to acknowledge he should not be showing them around. After urging Woodward to 'treat them with respect,' Trump warns in an interview, 'and don't say I gave them to you, okay?... But I'll let you see them,' Trump adds.... A month later, in January 2020, Woodward pressed Trump in a phone call to let him also see the letters that Trump wrote to Kim. 'Oh, those are so top secret,' Trump says.... The comments by Trump show he was well aware that the 27 letters exchanged between himself and Kim were classified, despite his repeated claims that none of the documents he improperly took from the White House when leaving office, including the Kim letters, were in that category.... In an aside in the audio book, [which is to be released next week,] Woodward describes 'the casual, dangerous way that Trump treats the most classified programs and information...' That was in reference to Trump implying there was a secretive weapons system he controlled." CNN's report is here.
U.S. Is Training Top Mercenaries for Repressive Countries. Craig Whitlock & Nate Jones of the Washington Post: "More than 500 retired U.S. military personnel -- including scores of generals and admirals -- have taken lucrative jobs since 2015 working for foreign governments, mostly in countries known for human rights abuses and political repression, according to a Washington Post investigation. In Saudi Arabia, for example, 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for the Defense Ministry since 2016. The ministry is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, who U.S. intelligence agencies say approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, as part of a brutal crackdown on dissent.... Most of the retired U.S. personnel have worked as civilian contractors for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf monarchies, playing a critical, though largely invisible, role in upgrading their militaries.... The U.S. government has fought to keep the hirings secret."
~~~~~~~~~~~
Stacy Cowley & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The federal government on Monday began accepting applications for President Biden's promised student debt cancellation of up to $20,000 per borrower. Those who meet the program's annual income limits -- up to $125,000 per individual or $250,000 per household -- can apply online at https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/application. 'This is a game changer for millions of Americans,' Mr. Biden said on Monday afternoon. The Education Department, which holds $1.6 trillion in student loan debt and will manage the cancellation process, quietly opened the application website for testing on Friday night. More than eight million people had already applied by Monday, Mr. Biden said. The form is available in English and Spanish, and is intended to work on desktop computers and mobile devices." ~~~
~~~ AND Then There Was This: "Lawsuits seeking to block the action were ... filed, most prominently by a group of six attorneys general from Republican-led states." MB: IOW, While Democrats are trying to help out ordinary Americans -- in this case, young people -- Republicans are suing to end the aid. As Rachel Maddow pointed out Monday night, this is de rigueur. Democrats passed a law to put a cap on life-saving insulin costs; For instance, Herschel Walker, who must have got a "junior doctor" certificate from a cereal box, pooh-poohed the price cap, saying, "Unless you're eating right, insulin is doing you no good. So you have to get food prices down and you gotta get gas down so you can go get insulin."
Max Boot of the Washington Post: "... last week the [Biden] administration's diplomacy hit pay dirt -- and almost no one noticed. On Oct. 11, Israel and Lebanon announced an agreement that would demarcate their maritime boundary. This sounds narrow and technical but is a major achievement given that the two countries have been formally at war since 1948. (And that has sometimes led to actual military conflict -- most recently in 2006.)... U.S. administrations have been trying for a decade to broker an agreement -- with no luck.... Enter Amos J. Hochstein, a former Senate staffer, energy industry executive and veteran of the Obama State Department who is the presidential coordinator for energy security.... The ... deal [he brokered] was hailed as 'historic' by both sides."
Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post: "The White House on Monday called Donald Trump's attack on American Jews antisemitic after the former president wrote online that American Jews need to 'get their act together' and show more appreciation for the state of Israel 'before it is too late.'... 'Donald Trump's comments were antisemitic, as you all know, and insulting both to Jews and to our Israeli allies,' [press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre] said. '... for years now, Donald Trump has aligned with extremist and antisemitic figures.... We need to root out antisemitism everywhere it rears its ugly head. We need to call this out. With respect to Israel, our relationship is ironclad and it's rooted in shared values and interests. Donald Trump clearly doesn't understand that either.'" An ABC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I suppose Trump sees nothing wrong with his attack on American Jews. As far as he is concerned, "other people" are not actually people. They're "others." They're part of a non-white Christianist "group." And if that "group" as a whole doesn't sufficiently express gratitude to him for something he imagines he did for them, then the entire "group" deserves punishment. In exchange for gifts he bestows (or imagines he does), the recipients must pledge loyalty to him. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE, Chris McGreal of the Guardian: "The US's largest pro-Israel lobby group is backing dozens of racists, homophobes and election deniers running for Congress next month because they have pledged to defend Israel against stiffening criticism of its oppression of the Palestinians. The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has justified endorsing Republicans with extremist views, including members of Congress with ties to white supremacist groups and representatives who attempted to block Joe Biden's election victory, on the grounds that the singular issue of support for Israel trumps other considerations." MB: This, of course, is precisely the sort of self-defeating behavior Trump expects.
Lawyers, Guns & Sexting. Alan Feuer & Zach Montague of the New York Times: "In the days before a pro-Trump mob -- including members of his own organization -- broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, went on a cross-country weapon-buying spree.... By the time he reached [Virginia,], prosecutors said on Monday at the trial of Mr. Rhodes and four of his subordinates on seditious conspiracy charges, the Oath Keepers leader had spent as much as $20,000 on what amounted to a small arsenal that included at least three rifles and an Israeli-made semiautomatic shotgun.... The purchases took place as Mr. Rhodes was overseeing the creation of what he has called an armed 'quick reaction force' that was staged in ... hotel rooms in Virginia.... [Accompanying Rhodes on his trip from Texas to Virginia was Oath Keepers lawyer Kellye SoRelle.] Earlier in the day, prosecutors showed the jury some sexually explicit text messages that Mr. Rhodes had swapped with Ms. SoRelle, the lawyer, in the days leading up to Jan. 6, suggesting that the two had more than the usual lawyer-client relationship." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Rhodes' sexts suggest that the reason these people go in for "thrills" like pretending they're revolutionaries is the stale banality of their bleak lives.
Alan Feuer & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The Justice Department said on Monday that Stephen K. Bannon ... should spend six months in jail and pay a fine of $200,000 after a jury found him guilty this summer of willfully disobeying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Mr. Bannon pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt' from the moment he received the subpoena last year seeking records and testimony about his knowledge of Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in the violent assault on the Capitol, prosecutors said in a sentencing memo to Judge Carl J. Nichols, who is overseeing the case. The prosecutors noted that Mr. Bannon, who is set to be sentenced by Judge Nichols on Friday, deserved a penalty harsher than the minimum term of one month in jail because he had blatantly brushed off the committee"s demands and then attacked it in a series of brazen public statements." An AP story is here.
The Big Grifter's Gotta Grift. David Fahrenthold & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting ... Donald J. Trump and his family, according to documents released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee.... The committee released Secret Service records showing more than $1.4 million in payments by the department to Trump properties since Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The committee said that the accounting was incomplete, however, because it did not include payments to Mr. Trump's foreign properties -- where agents accompanied his family repeatedly -- and because the records stopped in September 2021. The records the panel managed to obtain provided new details about an arrangement in which Mr. Trump and his family effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer of their business -- by visiting their properties hundreds of times, and then charging the government rates far above its usual spending limits.... Mr. Trump's son Eric -- who ran the family business while his father was in office -- provided a misleading account of what his company was charging. In 2019, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization charged the government only 'like $50' for hotel rooms during presidential visits." A Politico story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I don't call "like $50" misleading; I call it a "honking big lie" when the rate the facilities charges could more "like $1,200," or 24 times as much as the figure he cited.
CDC = Center for Donald's Control. Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "Former CDC director Robert Redfield, former top deputy Anne Schuchat and others described how the Trump White House and its allies repeatedly 'bullied' staff, tried to rewrite their publications and threatened their jobs in an attempt to align the CDC with the more optimistic view of the pandemic espoused by Donald Trump, the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis concluded in a report released Monday.... Trump appointees oversaw a concerted effort to restrict immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border during the pandemic, change scientific reports and muzzle top officials at the [CDC], according to emails, text messages and interviews gathered by [the] congressional panel.... Redfield and other officials told the panel that they believed they might be fired if they angered the White House, hindering the CDC's ability to fight the virus."
Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Rolling Stone reported that [Donald] Trump is bragging to his close allies that he wants Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as one of his [Cabinet] secretaries.... It's unclear what he would appoint Greene to be as she has no real expertise in anything other than CrossFit.... A second source said that over the past year Trump has been talking about Greene as someone who could be a senior official at the Justice Department.... Greene isn't a lawyer...." But so?
Robert Draper of the New York Times Magazine writes a feature piece on Majorie Taylor Greene. MB: I skimmed it, and it seems like a waste of ink to me.
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Cate Cadell & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Military research groups at the leading edge of China's hypersonics and missile programs -- many on a U.S. export blacklist -- are purchasing a range of specialized American technology, including products developed by firms that have received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from the Pentagon, a Washington Post investigation has found. The advanced software products are acquired by these military organizations through private Chinese firms that sell them on despite U.S. export controls designed to prevent sales or resales to foreign entities deemed a threat to U.S. national security, the investigation shows. Scientists who work in the sprawling network of Chinese military research academies and the companies that aid them said in interviews that American technology -- such as highly specialized aeronautical engineering software -- fills critical gaps in domestic technology and is key to advances in Chinese weaponry." ~~~
~~~ Marie: IOW, the Pentagon is giving your tax dollars to companies that develop technology that the companies then sell to Chinese weapons makers.
Jenny Gross & Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "Kanye West has agreed in principle to buy Parler, the social media service that has attracted fans of ... Donald J. Trump, the service's parent company, Parlement Technologies, said in a news release on Monday.... The announcement came a little over a week after Twitter and Instagram restricted [West's] accounts in response to antisemitic remarks that he posted." An NPR story is here.
Lizzie Johnson of the Washington Post on how dogs being bred for research at Envigo became the target of the largest animal welfare seizure in the Humane Society's history.... After years of alarm from animal rights advocates and state legislators, after U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors found maggot-infested kibble, 300 dead puppies and injured beagles being euthanized, after an undercover investigation by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and after a lawsuit filed against Envigo by the Justice Department, the Indianapolis-based company had reached a settlement with the federal government. It agreed to shut down the Virginia breeding operation -- admitting no wrongdoing and receiving no punishment or fines -- rather than make what the CEO of its parent company called 'the required investments to improve the facility.' In July, U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon approved the surrender of Envigo's beagles to the Humane Society of the United States.... What followed was two months of beagle mania, as people across the country showered the Humane Society with $2.2 million in donations and clamored to adopt the dogs. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took in a beagle. So did the governor of New Jersey and the chief meteorologist at a Virginia news station." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The settlement should have included locking that CEO in a cage, cutting off his tail & feeding him maggot-infested kibble.
November Elections
Marie: I seldom do polls, but since the latest semi-reliable polls are finding pretty much the same thing, here's one: ~~~
~~~ Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Republicans enter the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress with a narrow but distinctive advantage as the economy and inflation have surged as the dominant concerns, giving the party momentum to take back power from Democrats in next month's midterm elections, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found. The poll shows that 49 percent of likely voters said they planned to vote for a Republican to represent them in Congress on Nov. 8, compared with 45 percent who planned to vote for a Democrat. The result represents an improvement for Republicans since September, when Democrats held a one-point edge among likely voters.... (The October poll's unrounded margin is closer to three points, not the four points that the rounded figures imply.)" ~~~
~~~ As RAS pointed out in yesterday's Comments thread, Nate Cohn of the New York Times added some caveats to the "perceived" poll results. "Characterizing this poll as a four-point Republican lead doesn't merely offer a false sense of precision -- it's just false," Cohn writes.
California House. Eric Swalwell (D) on what Republicans have in mind:
The Philadelphia Inquirer may have endorsed John Fetterman (D) for U.S. Senate, but wait! Why not vote for this guy? ~~~
~~~ Pennsylvania Senate. Meidas Touch: "In a newly resurfaced clip from The Jimmy Kimmel Show discovered by PatriotTakes, Republican Senate Candidate Dr. [Mehmet] Oz [R] talks about his love of drinking urine. Jordy Meiselas reports." ~~~
Beyond the Beltway
Georgia Man Runs Big Con from Prison. Vimal Patel of the New York Times: Arthur Cofield, an inmate in a Butts County, Georgia, state prison, ran a massive con from the prison in which he stole $11 million by stealing the identity of an elderly billionaire. "Mr. Cofield, 31, was charged with several federal counts, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to court documents. He has pleaded not guilty. MB: If Cofield is looking for a new job, he has just the right resumé to join Trump's Liars Social, which reportedly has been shedding executives.
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Tuesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "The death toll from a Russian fighter-bomber crash in Russia rose to 13, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry reported Tuesday morning. The Russian Su-34 aircraft crashed into a residential building Monday near the Russian city of Krasnodar, about 120 miles east of Crimea. Monday's kamikaze drone strikes in Kyiv killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman, Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry accused Iran of supplying Russia with the drones, and the Defense Ministry said Tuesday morning that more than 40 Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones had been deployed by Russia in the past 24 hours. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied knowledge of Russia using Iranian drones.... E.U. member countries are considering paying billionaire Elon Musk to maintain internet services provided by Starlink to Ukraine, Politico reported. Musk tweeted Monday that 25,300 Starlink terminals were sent to Ukraine but that 10,630 are being paid for. Musk's company SpaceX, which provides the Starlink services, has withdrawn its request for funding from the U.S. Defense Department, Musk tweeted."
Nahal Toosi & Matt Berg of Politico: "The United States intends to further crack down on Iran for helping Russia in the war on Ukraine, a U.S. official said Monday following reports that Tehran plans to send Moscow missiles to use on the battlefield. The penalties -- likely to include economic sanctions and possibly some export controls -- would also target third parties that help Tehran and Moscow.... The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Iran -- in addition to continuing to sell Russia drones, some of which are used kamikaze style to crash into targets -- plans to send Moscow surface-to-surface missiles."
Iran. Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "The Saudi government has sentenced a 72-year-old U.S. citizen [Saad Ibrahim Almadi] to 16 years in prison for tweets he posted while inside the United States, some of which were critical of the Saudi regime. His son, speaking publicly for the first time, alleges that the Saudi government has tortured his father in prison and says that the State Department mishandled the case ... with neglect and incompetence.... Despite that Saudi Arabia is supposedly a U.S. ally, the Saudi government under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is dealing with its U.S.-citizen critics more harshly than ever.... Almadi is not a dissident or an activist; he is simply a project manager from Florida who decided to practice his right to free speech inside the United States. But last November, when he traveled to Riyadh to visit family, he was detained regarding 14 tweets posted on his account over the previous seven years."
U.K. NEVER MIND! Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's new chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said on Monday that he would reverse virtually all the government's planned tax cuts, sweeping away Prime Minister Liz Truss's free-market economic plan in a desperate bid to steady the financial markets and stabilize her government. Mr. Hunt also announced that the government would end its massive state intervention to cap energy prices next April, replacing it with a still-undefined program that he said would promote energy efficiency, but that could increase uncertainty for households facing rising gas and electricity bills. Ms. Truss's Conservative government had planned to announce the tax and spending details of its fiscal plan on Oct. 31, but with the markets still gyrating, Mr. Hunt rushed forward the schedule. His announcement constituted one of the most dramatic reversals in modern British political history." ~~~
~~~ William Booth & Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "Britain's brand new finance minister [Jeremy Hunt] scrapped the remaining elements of Prime Minister Liz Truss's signature taxation policy on Monday, a move that seemed to successfully reassure markets but left many wondering who is now in charge of the government." MB: Maybe it's "Charles in Charge."
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Reader Comments (14)
Jesus…
So I’ve heard the expression “Taking the piss out of him”, but never “Pouring the piss into him”, a new coinage being tried out by Dr. Oz.
No matter how eye-rollingly grotesque, outright stupid, or downright, flabbergastingly fucking bizarre these Trumpy characters act, it doesn’t make the tiniest bit of difference to the zombie horde of R voters. No proof of crazy, outré, addled or preposterous behavior could cause any of these power obsessed zealots to ever think “Well shit, maybe this idiot isn’t senate material”.
Thus, in a few months, we could have one senator flashing his plastic Junior G-man badge and telling stories about cows and bulls, while a few desks over, another whack job is pulling out his thermos of warm urine for his morning top off. Neither will know jack shit about any business before that body except to do the bobblehead boogie and rubber stamp whatever they’re told must be passed to own the libs and keep the traitors happy.
Slàinte, Doc. You fucking weirdo.
@Akhilleus: Back when I was a college girl living in the Dairy State, every Sunday morning Sen. Bill Proxmire would give Wisconsin voters a 5- or 10-minute teevee update on what-all he was doing to make the lives of cheeseheads happier, healthier & more prosperous.
Each Sunday, at the end of his jolly little speech, Bill and the Mrs. would each raise a glass of delicious Wisconsin milk & gulp it right down. I thought that was hilariously weird. Had I but known.
Let's all send a thermos of you-know-what to Dr. Oz.
Would that be tax deductible?
Sanity from Down Under?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/18/australia/australia-israel-capital-reversal-intl-hnk/index.html
@Forrest Morris: I don't think a contribution in kind to a political candidate is tax-deductible, but what you suggest is certainly thoughtful. Definitely the right gift for the man who has everything.
P.S. No need to put me on your Christmas list.
@Marie: O.K., only members of the G.O.Pee will be on my
Christmas list.
Forrest,
And hey, you can wrap up your micturitional gift in nice yellow wrapping paper secured with…pee-pee tape. Of course!
In commenting on the PBS Holocaust documentary yesterday I forgot to mention an eerily appropriate comment made by Daniel Mendelsohn, who appears in the program and who has written a book about the fates of some of the six million Jews murdered by white supremacy, the same ideology that now serves as a weapon and a support structure for Donald Trump.
Musing on the astounding effectiveness of the Nazi political and military machine, he pointed out how quickly the structures of civilization collapsed and how tenuous it all seemed in hindsight, structures which appeared so secure in 1936 but were completely eradicated four years later.
I got to thinking of our democratic structures which, in four short years under white supremacist and political anarchist Donald Trump, are on the verge of collapse.
Every day I see new articles warning about the number of election deniers on the ballot, and right-wing Trumpist schemers who have infiltrated election oversight positions and are now ready to void votes that don’t go their way.
This is not all Trump, of course. He was, and continues to be, a catalyst of chaos and lies, but the GQP has been slithering toward this place for years, decades really. Recognizing that demographics are against their continued dominance, they tried lies and misdirection and character assassination. But those only get you so far. So now they’ve decided to forgo even faking democracy and going straight to election theft.
This year the Supreme Traitors will be considering two landmark cases that will put a knife into the windpipe of democracy. There’s a reason they picked these cases, and it ain’t to protect the democratic process which they see as anathema to their illegitimate rule.
And make no mistake. All those Rs running as election deniers, if they win, will do so exactly BECAUSE they hate democracy.
We can only hope that the structures of democracy can withstand one last attack by the Party of Treason and their hacks on the court. If not, someone will maybe make a documentary about American democracy in the old days before totalitarian thugs brought it all down.
Have long maintained that capitalism and religion are the primary anti-democratic institutions in which we are embedded and from which it often seems there is no escape.
But there's another.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/veterans-us-foreign-jobs-saudi-arabia/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001
The military and the kinds of people the military life often attracts...
Especially, I'd posit, since it has been professionalized, post draft...
Our local history center still has in the archives those old signs that
were placed at the entrances to our little village after WWII.
They read "Blacks and Jews Need Not Enter". And they didn't.
The Jews only came up as far as a town south of here, which really
prospered as a tourist destination. Blacks went way, way north about
a hundred miles and established their own resort area.
About 30 years later, locals finally caught on that they were missing
out on all that tourist business and the signs came down.
Business boomed. Turns out their money was as good as anybodies.
There must be a lesson there somewhere but seems most people
aren't paying attention.
I am finally convinced that the invasion of the Body Snatchers has taken hold: their inhumanity to man, their quest to overtake the government, their weird word salads, their constant lies, while toasting themselves with the drink of choice––-they like the ones with the nutty flavor.
So we wait. We fight like hell. We've managed to squash those pods in the past but this is a new age and it appears to have different teeth.
I cry more often these days.
Right, PD. And ... the protagonist in the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was played by Kevin McCarthy.
Unfortunately "Our Kevin" today is not a protagonist, at least from the viewpoint of this audience member. But history rhymes, no?
Missing in all the GOP candidate ads for state and federal office is any commitment to passing any meaningful legislation,
It's all "Joe Jones will fight for you in Washington", "Sally Schmuck is a conservative with grit".
This is not surprising from a party that ran without a platform other than "Trump leads, we follow". Denial and revenge are now the bread and butter of the GOP.
Trust the poll or not, one more thing from that Times-Sienna poll.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/us/politics/midterm-election-voters-democracy-poll.html
"Seventy-one percent of all voters said democracy was at risk — but just 7 percent identified that as the most important problem facing the country.”
A stark difference between those polled and P.D. (and others here) and me...