Sunday, February 28, 2021
More Americans Need to See and Hear This
If you don't already follow Matthew Cooke on YouTube, I can't recommend it or him enough. Time and again, as here, he addresses national situations and issues extremely clearly and spot on, both with our problems as well as with solutions. Enjoy.
I think this video and his logic and intelligence is especially poignant now, with CPAC meeting this weekend and none other than Donald Trump set to speak today.
Let's get to this, America.
Quote of the Day -- Former President Edition
Republicans in Topeka Continue to Weaken Kansas
From Davis Hammet at Loud Light. Listen and weep, Kansans.
Kansas Senator Mark Steffen is a real piece of work, this brief video makes clear. He and his efforts are nothing if not tunning.
I say again, no other source in the area, no other news source, covers the statehouse in Topeka more or better than Mr. Hammet. No one.If you don't watch and keep up with him already and you live in Kansas, you would do well to do so. Just saying.
Claire McCaskill Asks a Great Question This Morning
Yes, now former Senator Claire McCaskill asks an excellent question and makes a great challenge to local, regional and state media.
Claire McCaskill @clairecmc
"Let me say it again. 24 MASS VACCINATION SITES OVER THE NEXT WEEK. ONLY 1!!!! in Jackson County, St Louis County, St Louis City and Boone County. COMBINED! This is a scandal. Where are our journalists? Where are our elected officials?
@GovParsonMO"
This was her response to this post on Twitter.
Mo Health & Sr Srvcs @HealthyLivingMo
· Feb 23
Mass vaccination events for this week have been announced.
Find more at: https://covidvaccine.mo.gov/events/
#MOStopsCOVID | #ShowMeStrong
Again, excellent question.
We, here in Jackson County, Kansas City, only just came off Phase 1B, tier 1 in the last few days for these vaccinations which are for 1st responders, emergency services and public heath infastructure citizens only. Now, we're finally but only on high risk individuals 18-64 and individuals, citizens 65 and over. We only just got there very recently, in the last few days.
So... Local news stations? KCPT? KCUR? KCTV5? KMBC? WDAF? Fox 4? We have a story for you. And we need to hear about this and badly.For that matter, Governor Parson? Do you have answers for us? Information? Solutions? Any good news? Anything encouraging?
Saturday, February 27, 2021
It's Difficult to Believe This is Where We Are with These People
But this is, in fact, who they are and this is where we are with them, America. God help us.
Quote of the Day -- Right Wing, Republican Party Racist Vote Suppression Edition
That Meyer Boulevard Turnabout
I went by the Meyer Boulevard turnabout yesterday on Ward Parkway and couldn't believe what I saw, what happened yet again. Check for yourself.
I mean really. This brings up so many thougts. Thoughts like I wonder how many times this wall, these walls have been smashed like this over the years? Last I remember, it was the one on the left that was taken down by some no doubt drunk dirver. Another thought----how absolutely smashed do you have to be to come flying down Meyer Boulevard to then round this curve and, yes, SMASH INTO and destroy this wall, one of these walls? And look how fully that wall is taken down. Don't you know that car was totalled? Unreal.Another thought and question---I wonder if it's these people's homeowner's insurance that pays for the rebuild or if it's a city wall and we keep paying for these things? Just wondering.
Friday, February 26, 2021
The World's Warmonger
We, the US, the United States are, hands down, the world's warmonger, ladies and gentlemen. No one, no other nation comes even remotely close to spending what we do on what we call "defense." And we don't even do it well.
See the fighter jet above? It's the Air Force's F35.Nice, huh? And it only cost us 400 billion dollars. The Pentagon's most expensive program. Ever. Literally. Google: "The US Air Force Just Admitted the F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed." It's at Forbes Magazine.
$400 billion dollars. And it doesn't work.
Aren't we terrific? Exceptional, don't you think? But hey, let's keep shoveling more and yet more money to the Defense Department. That'll keep us all safe. Right?
CPAC, Already, Today
In just one morning, today, so far, at CPAC, Ted Cruz laughed about his Cancun debacle while Texans literally froze to death, they did a tribute to racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynist Rush Limbaugh and they wheeled out---no kidding here--a GOLD STATUE of none other than Donald J "Jenius" Trump that looked for all the world, not like they were honoring him but that they were, instead, mocking and laughing at him. You know, the way all the rest of us do. Check it out for yourself.
Seriously, y'all, when you're done with that, could we use that at Democratic National Committee gatherings? That's fantastic. "The Onion" and SNL can't write stuff this good. If only they, the Republicans, weren't actually serious with all this. Wow.
It's Great to be Wealthy
Let's get this straight. Let's make this clear.
Keeping also in mind Congress just voted down a $15 per hour minimum wage, too.
Second Gilded Age anyone? Everyone?
Thanks, Republicans! Y'all are terrific.
For the already-wealthy.
And corporations.
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Things Will Likely Start Hitting the Fan for the Trumpster
Sure, we've all seen and heard this in the last 24 hours. The District Attorney of Manhattan has received The Donald's tax returns.
Added to that, however, is this added note from his own former attorney, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen says it's very likely he, Trump, if not also Ivanka and Donald Jr, his kids, will do jail time.
Oh, yeah. It looks like it's going to start getting really good.
Pass the popcorn.
Quote of the Day -- Humanist Edition
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
GOP Platform
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Republican Party platform.
God help us with these people.
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Question for Governor Parson and the Jackson County Health Department
WHY ARE WE STILL IN PHASE 1B, TIER 1 IN JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI, for only first responders, emergency services & public health infrastructure?
We've been there for WEEKS.
Are we EVER going to get the vaccine????
Thanks for your email. For the last several weeks the state has not sent us vaccines, so we have not been able to offer appointment times for 1st doses in your tier. We hope to be able to offer appointments again in the next few weeks. In the meantime if you have a primary care provider you can reach out to them and the hospital they are affiliated with. They may be able to get you an appointment at the hospital before we have times available. You can also reach out to the State of Missouri Vaccine Navigators at 1-877-435-8411 or https://covidvaccine.mo.gov/
Monday, February 22, 2021
Important Quote of the Day
"If confirmed, I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6, a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy."
--Judge Merrick Garland, today, in his opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary in his testimony to become our nation's next Attorney General.
To which I and a lot of us out here can only say kudos and thank you, sir. Let's do this.
Link:
Merrick Garland says he will prosecute rioters, white supremacists
Good News, Bad News Breaking Today
Oh, happy day. At last. Pass the popcorn. This should be good. Not done there on his taxes, this just broke in the last hour, too.
The point being, the Supreme Court already responded to Trump's request for a delay this morning. Fantastic. Onward, Yahoo.
Yet more goodness andyes, it's on the Trumpster, too.
Ex-Gotti Jr. prosecutor hired to help Manhattan DA probe Trump
It seems New York City isn't messing around at all. They hired a tough attorney who has, in the past, gone after the mob and people in it. Huzzah. You go, NYC.
Next up is this.
Hey, actions--and words--have consequences, Mr. Lindell. Buck up.
And now for the bad news.
It seems Republican Representative Steve Scalise was on ABC's "This Week" news program yesterday and just would not admit to George Stephanopolous on air that Joe Biden won our Presidential election and that Trump lost.
Maddening. Dangerous, even.
At least it's more good news than bad. That and the temperatures are warming, as I said, as we all know all so well. Yeehaw. Yay, us.
Have a great week, y'all.
Additional links: Unfortunately, there is the Right Wing, Republican Party, Libertarian hellscape and nightmare that is the state of Texas presently.
Friday, February 19, 2021
The Real President Joe Biden Is Starting to Come Out, It Seems
He, President Biden, insists he can't pardon $50,000 of student higher education debt. He says he can, constitutionally, pardon $10,000 in debt but not $50,000.
What??
I'm pretty sure if the Constitution says you can forgive 10, you can forgive 50.
Number two. First he does and says this.
Then he backtracks yesterday.
Mr. President, sir, I have to tell you, that first statement weakens you and weakens your position on this issue as far as the Republicans are concerned. You get that, right?
And finally, third today.
A new brief takes an aggressive stance against outspoken Trump critic Omarosa Manigault Newman in a financial disclosure flap.
Check this story out.
The Biden Justice Department is showing no sign of letting up in a two-year-old legal fight against a former White House aide who became an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump.
While the Justice Department has sought to pause or drop a number of high-profile court battles due to the change in administration, government lawyers are pressing on aggressively with a lawsuit claiming that Omarosa Manigault Newman failed to file a required financial disclosure following her attention-grabbing firing in December 2017.
Manigault Newman has described the suit as a vendetta aimed at her for turning on Trump, calling him a racist and making revealing disclosures about the former president and his top aides. She also wrote a tell-all book, “Unhinged,” which chronicles her dealings with Trump as a contestant on “The Apprentice” and later as his most prominent African American White House aide.
In a new brief filed in federal court in Washington just before midnight Thursday, the Justice Department forcefully defended its position in the case, even tangling with Manigault Newman over the contentious circumstances of her dismissal by then-White House chief of staff John Kelly.
“She…made no attempt to file any Termination Report before September 2019, more than a year and a half after it was due and after this litigation was commenced,” DOJ lawyers wrote. “Then, following that submission—in which only half the required fields were even filled out—Defendant made no effort for over a year to correct her submission, despite being promptly advised of its deficiencies…She remains out of compliance with [the Ethics in Government Act] to this day.”
The suit asks U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon to impose a civil penalty of $61,585 on Manigault Newman for willfully refusing to file the financial disclosure. Such suits are rare. Disputes over financial disclosures are typically resolved by an employee updating the forms and, in some instances, incurring a small penalty.
Manigault Newman’s main defense in the case has been that — after her acrimonious departure from the White House — Trump aides refused to return her personal effects, including financial records she needed to complete the required exit report. She also asserts that she is a whistleblower on government wrongdoing and that the lawsuit amounts to illegal retaliation for that.
After her dismissal, Manigault Newman released audio recordings she secretly made of a tense conversation with Kelly held in the highly-secure White House Situation Room — as well as a recording of another conversation where Trump implausibly asserted he was unaware Kelly planned to fire her.
While the new Justice Department brief argues that statement by Kelly was not a threat and maintains that she was fired for “misuse of government resources,” government lawyers also contend those disputes are irrelevant to the ongoing suit.
“Notwithstanding Defendant’s unfounded references to ‘threats’ at the time of her termination, the merits of Defendant’s termination from the White House are not at issue in this case,” the attorneys wrote...
So here's the deal. It looks as though, certainly seems as though, this lawsuit should be thrown out, on its own merits, for starters. It seems clear this is vengeance from the previous President and his administration.
You'd think it would be a no-brainer, right?
But here's the thing. From what I've read, now-President Biden wants to make sure no one in his administration does anything remotely similar to him once he's out of office so he and his administration want the lawsuit to go forward.
Don't get me wrong. We knew what we were getting with Joe Biden, to be sure. And I/we don't think he is or ever was or was going to be perfect in this role as President---and he's a HUGE, huge improvement over the previous occupant of the White House, to state the necessary and obvious but... Geez Let's be a bit tougher, Joe and a bit more consistent.
Could you? Would you work on that?
Please?
More. Another, too, sadly.
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Where We Are Now and Some of, a Lot of How We Got Here
Heather Cox Richardson
February 17, 2021, Wednesday
The crisis in Texas continues, with almost 2 million people still without power in frigid temperatures. Pipes are bursting in homes, pulling down ceilings and flooding living spaces, while 7 million Texans are under a water boil advisory.
Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, put on Facebook: “The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!... If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! [sic]…. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts…. I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves!... Bottom line quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!” “Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish [sic],” he said.
After an outcry, Boyd resigned.
Boyd’s post was a fitting tribute to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who passed today from lung cancer at age 70. It was Limbaugh who popularized the idea that hardworking white men were under attack in America. According to him, minorities and feminists were too lazy to work, and instead expected a handout from the government, paid for by tax dollars levied from hardworking white men. This, he explained, was “socialism,” and it was destroying America.
Limbaugh didn’t invent this theory; it was the driving principle behind Movement Conservatism, which rose in the 1950s to combat the New Deal government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and promoted infrastructure. But Movement Conservatives' efforts to get voters to reject the system that they credited for creating widespread prosperity had little success.
In 1971, Lewis Powell, an attorney for the tobacco industry, wrote a confidential memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce outlining how business interests could overturn the New Deal and retake control of America. Powell focused on putting like-minded scholars and speakers on college campuses, rewriting textbooks, stacking the courts, and pressuring politicians. He also called for “reaching the public generally” through television, newspapers, and radio. “[E]very available means should be employed to challenge and refute unfair attacks,” he wrote, “as well as to present the affirmative case through this media.”
Pressing the Movement Conservative case faced headwinds, however, since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforced a policy that, in the interests of serving the community, required any outlet that held a federal broadcast license to present issues honestly, equitably, and with balance. This “Fairness Doctrine” meant that Movement Conservatives had trouble gaining traction, since voters rejected their ideas when they were stacked up against the ideas of Democrats and traditional Republicans, who agreed that the government had a role to play in the economy (even though they squabbled about the extent of that role).
In 1985, under a chair appointed by President Ronald Reagan, the FCC stated that the Fairness Doctrine hurt the public interest. Two years later, under another Reagan-appointed chair, the FCC abolished the rule.
With the Fairness Doctrine gone, Rush Limbaugh stepped into the role of promoting the Movement Conservative narrative. He gave it the concrete examples, color, and passion it needed to jump from think tanks and businessmen to ordinary voters who could help make it the driving force behind national policy. While politicians talked with veiled language about “welfare queens” and same-sex bathrooms, and “makers” and “takers,” Limbaugh played “Barack the Magic Negro,” talked of “femiNazis,” and said “Liberals” were “socialists,” redistributing tax dollars from hardworking white men to the undeserving.
Constantly, he hammered on the idea that the federal government threatened the freedom of white men, and he did so in a style that his listeners found entertaining and liberating.
By the end of the 1980s, Limbaugh’s show was carried on more than 650 radio stations, and in 1992, he briefly branched out into television with a show produced by Roger Ailes, who had packaged Richard Nixon in 1968 and would go on to become the head of the Fox News Channel. Before the 1994 midterm elections, Limbaugh was so effective in pushing the Republicans’ “Contract With America” that when the party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1952, the Republican revolutionaries made him an honorary member of their group.
Limbaugh told them that, under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Republicans must “begin an emergency dismantling of the welfare system, which is shredding the social fabric,” bankrupting the country, and “gutting the work ethic, educational performance, and moral discipline of the poor.” Next, Congress should cut capital gains taxes, which would drive economic growth, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and generate billions in federal revenue.
Limbaugh kept staff in Washington to make sure Republican positions got through to voters. At the same time, every congressman knew that taking a stand against Limbaugh would earn instant condemnation on radio channels across the country, and they acted accordingly.
Limbaugh saw politics as entertainment that pays well for the people who can rile up their base with compelling stories—Limbaugh’s net worth when he died was estimated at $600 million—but he sold the Movement Conservative narrative well. He laid the groundwork for the political career of Donald Trump, who awarded Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a made-for-tv moment at Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address. His influence runs deep in the current party: former Mayor Boyd, an elected official, began his diatribe with: “Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute!!”
Like Boyd, other Texas politicians are also falling back on the Movement Conservative narrative to explain the disaster in their state. The crisis was caused by a lack of maintenance on Texas’s unregulated energy grid, which meant that instruments at coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants froze, at the same time that supplies of natural gas fell short. Nonetheless, Governor Greg Abbott and his allies in the fossil fuel industry went after “liberal” ideas. They blamed the crisis on the frozen wind turbines and solar plants which account for about 13% of Texas’s winter power. Abbott told Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity that “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” Tucker Carlson told his viewers that Texas was “totally reliant on windmills.”
The former Texas governor and former Secretary of Energy under Trump, Rick Perry, wrote on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s website to warn against regulation of Texas’s energy system: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” he said. The website warned that “Those watching on the left may see the situation in Texas as an opportunity to expand their top-down, radical proposals. Two phrases come to mind: don’t mess with Texas, and don’t let a crisis go to waste.”
At Abbott’s request, President Biden has declared that Texas is in a state of emergency, freeing up federal money and supplies for the state. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent 60 generators to state hospitals, water plants, and other critical facilities, along with blankets, food, and bottled water. It is also delivering diesel fuel for backup power.
Link:
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Republican Party Collapsing
I tell you, folks, it's just a beautiful, beautiful day, isn't it?
Have a wonderful, wonderful day, y'all.
Think happy thoughts.
A Day Full of Great News!
I tell you what, sure it's cold outside, bitter cold but good to great news keeps busting out all over.
"According to a new Quinnipiac poll, 75% of Republicans want Trump to continue to lead the party. But 21% don’t, and between 24% and 28% blame him for the January 6 riot."
"That split," writes Heather Cox Richardson, "means the Republican Party, which was already losing members over the insurrection, stands to lose even more of its members if it continues to defer to the former president."
Source:
Fantastic, Breaking Insurrection Lawsuit News!
Yes! The little issue of the attack on our Capitol isn't done with yet, thankfully. This broke in the last hour.
Lawsuit accuses Donald Trump, Giuliani and others of conspiring to incite Capitol riot
The suit alleges that Trump and others violated the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act.
A bit from the article:
Former President Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers conspired to violate the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which prohibits any actions designed to prevent Congress from carrying out its duties, when they incited the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, a new lawsuit from the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee alleged.
The insurrection was the result of a carefully orchestrated plan by Trump, Giuliani and extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, all of whom shared a common goal of employing intimidation, harassment and threats to stop the certification of the Electoral College, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi.
“The Defendants each intended to prevent, and ultimately delayed, members of Congress from discharging their duty commanded by the United States Constitution to approve the results of the Electoral College in order to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States,” the lawsuit said. “Pursuing a purpose shared by Defendants Trump and Giuliani as well as Defendant Proud Boys, Defendant Oath Keepers played a leadership role of the riotous crowd and provided military-style assistance sufficient to overcome any Capitol Police resistance.”
Here's where it gets really good, at least to me--
With the benefit of not having to prove criminal allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, the civil lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Thompson in his personal capacity by the NAACP and civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. The lawsuit is suing Trump in his personal capacity, alleging that he acted outside the scope of his office when inciting the rioters.
The insurrection was the result of a carefully orchestrated plan by Trump, Giuliani and extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, all of whom shared a common goal of employing intimidation, harassment and threats to stop the certification of the Electoral College, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi.
“The Defendants each intended to prevent, and ultimately delayed, members of Congress from discharging their duty commanded by the United States Constitution to approve the results of the Electoral College in order to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States,” the lawsuit said. “Pursuing a purpose shared by Defendants Trump and Giuliani as well as Defendant Proud Boys, Defendant Oath Keepers played a leadership role of the riotous crowd and provided military-style assistance sufficient to overcome any Capitol Police resistance.”
Here's where it gets really good, at least to me--
With the benefit of not having to prove criminal allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, the civil lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Thompson in his personal capacity by the NAACP and civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. The lawsuit is suing Trump in his personal capacity, alleging that he acted outside the scope of his office when inciting the rioters.
So yes! Yet more great news today! The worst of the bitter cold winter is behind us and we're going to get this treasonous, traitorous excuse for a leader, excuse for a President yet!
So happy Fat Tuesday, everyone! Happy Mardi Gras! Definitely time and reasons to celebrate!
Yet more goodness today:
Great News, Campers!
From here forward, nearly completely in a straight line, it nothing but warms up from now on! Yahoo!!
The worst of Winter is over!!!
Yes!!!
Enjoy!! And today we have sunshine, too!
Monday, February 15, 2021
Quote of the Day -- On Age, Selfishness and Love
"...as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish – how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was 'mostly Love, now.'”
--George Saunders, from his presentation, "Advice to Graduates", 2013
Humanity Needs to All Start Working Together
Nothing shows any better how humanity needs to start and then keep working together for all our benefit than this killing, international pandemic, worst of the last more than 100 years. Coincidentally, I wrote this on social media, again, a week ago. Also coincidentally, an article in The Atlantic rather makes this same point now.
Credit: Getty Images
Bhutan Is the World's Unlikeliest Pandemic Success Story
On january 7, a 34-year-old man who had been admitted to a hospital in Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, with preexisting liver and kidney problems died of COVID-19. His was the country’s first death from the coronavirus. Not the first death that day, that week, or that month: the very first coronavirus death since the pandemic began.
How is this possible? Since the novel coronavirus was first identified more than a year ago, health systems in rich and poor countries have approached collapse, economies worldwide have been devastated, millions of lives have been lost. How has Bhutan—a tiny, poor nation best known for its guiding policy of Gross National Happiness, which balances economic development with environmental conservation and cultural values—managed such a feat? And what can we in the United States, which has so tragically mismanaged the crisis, learn from its success?
In fact, what can the U.S. and other wealthy countries learn from the array of resource-starved counterparts that have better weathered the coronavirus pandemic, even if those nations haven’t achieved Bhutan’s impressive statistics? Countries such as Vietnam, which has so far logged only 35 deaths, Rwanda, with 226, Senegal, with 700, and plenty of others have negotiated the crisis far more smoothly than have Europe and North America.
These nations offer plenty of lessons, from the importance of attentive leadership, the need to ensure that people have enough provisions and financial means to follow public-health guidance, and the shared understanding that individuals and communities must sacrifice to protect the well-being of all: elements that have been sorely lacking in the U.S.
America has “the world’s best medical-rescue system—we have unbelievable ICUs,” Asaf Bitton, executive director of Ariadne Labs, a Boston-based center for health-systems innovation, told me. But, he said, we have neglected a public-health focus on prevention, which socially cohesive low- and middle-income countries have no choice but to adopt, because a runaway epidemic would quickly overwhelm them.
“People say the COVID disaster in America has been about a denial of science. But what we couldn’t agree on is the social compact we would need to make painful choices together in unity, for the collective good,” Bitton added. “I don’t know whether, right now in the U.S., we can have easy or effective conversations about a common good. But we need to start.”
But then, beyond this killing pandemic? Other things we need to all come together to work on and against.
Climate change. Global warming. Pollution.
More.
Poverty. Yes, poverty. Everyone, the world over, needs to recognize that poverty is a human construct.
And we need to start soon.
Now.
A Question for you, Kansas City
Yes, I have a question for you, Kansas City.
Count Basie and Charlie "Bird" Parker are both from here, both from Kansas City.
Why is Winston Churchill the only one on the Country Club Plaza?
Anyone?
Bueller?
GOP Senator Mitch McConnell on Then-President Donald Trump and His Guilt
From Republican Party Senator Mitch McConnell's own words and mouth yesterday after Trump's acquittal on his impeachment trial and charges.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a very full and complete indictment of then-sitting Republican Party President Donald J Trump on a treasonous, traitorous insurrection and attack on our vote, our votes, our election and nation's Capitol right down to our very Democracy itself.
American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.
Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president.
They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he’d lost an election.
The House accused the former president of, quote, ‘incitement.’ That is a specific term from the criminal law.
Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.
The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.
And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.
The issue is not only the president’s intemperate language on January 6th.
It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat’.
It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president.
I defended the president’s right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.
But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims.
The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.
Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally.
This was different.
This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.
The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began.
Whatever our ex-president claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.
A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.
It was obvious that only President Trump could end this.
Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration.
But the president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.
Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!
Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the president sent a further tweet attacking his vice president.
Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.
Later, even when the president did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later.
And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.
In recent weeks, our ex-president’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism.
Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters.
That is an absurd deflection.
74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did.
And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.
One person did...
From the article:
Sunday, February 14, 2021
More on that Impeachment Trial
Again, from Heather Cox Richardson
Today the Senate acquitted former president Donald Trump of the charge of inciting an insurrection. Fifty-seven senators said he was guilty; 43 said he was not guilty. An impeachment conviction requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate, so he was acquitted, but not before seven members of his own party voted to convict him.
The only real surprise today was this morning, when five Republicans joined 50 Democrats to vote in favor of calling witnesses.
That vote came after Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) last night released a statement recounting an angry conversation between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Trump during the violence, in which Trump refused to call off the rioters and appeared to taunt McCarthy by telling him that the rioters were “more upset about the election than you are.” Herrera Beutler’s statement suggested that Trump had deliberately abandoned Vice President Mike Pence and the lawmakers to the insurrectionists, although Trump’s lawyer had definitively declared during the trial that Trump had not been told that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger.
The vote to hear witnesses threw the Senate into confusion as senators were so convinced the trial would end today that many had already booked flights home. The House impeachment managers said they wanted to call Herrera Beutler to testify; Republican supporters of Trump warned they would call more than 300 witnesses, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris.
After the two sides conferred, the House managers gave up demands for witnesses in exchange for reading Herrera Beutler’s statement into the record as evidence. While there was a widespread outcry at what seemed to be a Democratic capitulation, there were reasons the Democrats cut this deal. Witnesses to Trump’s behavior, like McCarthy, did not want to testify and would have been difficult. The Republicans as a group would have dragged the process on well into the spring, muddying the very clear story the impeachment managers told. They allegedly said that if the Democrats called witnesses, they would use the filibuster to block all Democratic nominees and legislation.
So much pundits have noted.
But today was not just about Trump; it was part of a longer struggle for the future of the country.
Trump’s lawyers proceeded in the impeachment trial with the same rhetorical technique Trump and his supporters use: they flat-out lied. Clearly, they were not trying to get at the truth but were instead trying to create sound bites for right-wing media, the same way Trump and the rest of his cabal convinced supporters of the big lie that he had won, rather than lost, the 2020 election. In that case, they lied consistently in front of the media, but could not make anything stick in a courtroom, where there are penalties for not telling the truth.
In the first impeachment hearings, Trump supporters did the same thing, shouting and lying to create sound bites, and while the sworn testimony was crystal clear, their antics left many Americans convinced not of the facts but that then-President Trump was being persecuted by Democrats who were trying to protect Hunter Biden. So, while it’s reasonable to imagine that witnesses would illustrate Trump’s depravity, it seems entirely likely that, as Trump’s lawyers continued simply to lie and their lies got spread through right-wing media as truth, Americans would have learned the opposite of what they should have.
Instead, the issue of Trump’s guilt on January 6 will play out in a courtroom, where there are actual rules about telling the truth. Trump’s own lawyers suggested he should answer for his actions in a court of law, and in a fiery speech after the vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell set up the same idea. But even if that does not happen, the Capitol rioters will be in court, keeping in front of Americans both the horrific events of January 6 and their contention that they showed up to fight because their president asked them to.
The constant refrain of the January 6 insurrection mirrors the Republicans’ use of sham investigations to convince people that Democrats are criminals—think, for example, of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails—except, this time, the cases are real. This should address the problem of manufactured sound bites, and should benefit the Democrats with voters, especially as Republicans are now openly the Party of Trump.
McConnell tried to address the party’s capitulation immediately after the vote with a speech blaming Trump for the insurrection and saying that his own vote to acquit was because he does not think the Senate can try a former president. This is posturing, of course; McConnell made sure the Senate did not take up the House’s article of impeachment while Trump was still in office, and now says that, because it did not do so, it does not have jurisdiction.
McConnell is trying to have it both ways. He has made it clear he wants to free the Republican Party from its thralldom to Trump, and he needs to do so in order to regain both voters and the major donors who have distanced themselves from party members who support the big lie. But he needs to keep Trump voters in the party. So he has bowed to the Trump wing in the short term, hoping to retain its goodwill, and then, immediately after the vote, gave a speech condemning Trump to reassure donors that he and the party are still sane. He likely hopes that, as the months go by and the Republicans block President Biden’s plans, alienated voters and donors will come back around to the party. From this perspective, the seven Republican votes to convict Trump provide excellent cover.
It’s a cynical strategy and probably the best he can do, but it’s a long shot that it alone will enable the Republicans to regain control of the House and the Senate in 2022. For that, the Republicans need to get rid of Democratic votes.
That need was part of what was behind the party’s support for Trump’s big lie. The essence of that lie was that Trump won the 2020 election because the votes of Democrats, especially people of color, were illegitimate. Republican lawmakers were happy to sign on to that big lie: it is a grander version of their position since 1986. Even now, those Republicans who backed the big lie have not admitted it was false. Instead, they are using the myth of fraudulent Democratic votes to push a massive attack on voting rights before the 2022 election.
But they are no longer setting the terms of the country’s politics. By refusing to engage with the impeachment trial, Biden and his team escaped the trap of letting Trump continue to drive the national narrative. Instead, they are making it a priority to protect voting rights. At the same time, they are pushing back against the Republican justification for voter suppression: that widespread voting leads to Black and Brown voter fraud that elects “socialists” who redistribute money from “makers” to “takers.” Biden’s team is using the government in ways that are popular with voters across the board: right now, for example, 79% of Americans either like Biden’s coronavirus relief package or think it is too small.
It was disheartening today to see that even trying to destroy the American government was not enough to get more than seven Republican senators to convict the former president. But it is not at all clear that tying their party to Trump is a winning strategy.
On This 2nd Impeachment Trial
Speech on the Senate Floor on the Verdict in the Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump:
The case of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial was open and shut. President Trump told a lie—a big lie—that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful winner. He laid the groundwork for this big lie in the months before the election, he told the big lie on election night, and he repeated the big lie more than 100 times in the weeks afterwards. He summoned his supporters to Washington, assembled them on the Ellipse, whipped them into a frenzy, and directed them at the Capitol.
And then he watched, as the violence unfolded, and the Capitol was breached, and his own Vice President fled for his life—and President Trump did nothing.
None of the facts were up for debate. We saw it. We heard it. We lived it. This was the first presidential impeachment trial in history in which all Senators were not only judges and jurors, but witnesses to the constitutional crime that was committed.
The former president inspired, directed, and propelled a mob to violently prevent the peaceful transfer of power, subvert the will of the people, and illegally keep that president in power.
There is nothing—nothing—more un-American than that.
There is nothing—nothing—more antithetical to our democracy.
There is nothing—nothing—more insulting to the generations of American patriots who gave their lives to defend our form of government.
This was the most egregious violation of the presidential oath of office and a textbook example—a classic example—of an impeachable offense, worthy of the Constitution’s most severe remedy.
In response to the incontrovertible fact of Donald Trump’s guilt, the Senate was subject to a feeble—and sometimes incomprehensible—defense of the former president. Unable to dispute the case on the merits, the former president’s counsel treated us to partisan vitriol, false equivalence, and outright falsehoods.
We heard the roundly debunked jurisdictional argument that the Senate cannot try a former official, a position that would mean that any president could simply resign to avoid accountability for an impeachable offense. A position, which, in effect, would render the Senate powerless to ever enforce the disqualification clause in the Constitution. Essentially, the president’s counsel told the Senate that the Constitution was unconstitutional. Thankfully, the Senate took a firm stance and set a firm precedent, with a bipartisan vote, in favor of our power to try former officials for acts they committed while in office.
We heard the preposterous claim that the former president’s incitement to violence was protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment right to free speech protects Americans from jail, not presidents from impeachment. If a president had said, during WWII, that “Germany should attack the United States on Long Island, we’ve left it undefended” – I suspect Congress would have considered that an impeachable offense!
Finally, the defense counsel said that President Trump was not directly responsible for the violence at the Capitol. “His words were merely metaphor, his directions were merely suggestions, and that the violent mob was just a spontaneous demonstration.” But wind the clock back and ask yourself: if at any point, Donald Trump did not do the things that he did, would the attack on the Capitol have happened? There is only one answer to that question. Of course not.
If President Trump hadn’t told his supporters to march towards the Capitol; if he hadn’t implored them to come to Washington on January 6 in the first place; if he hadn’t repeatedly lied to them that the election was stolen and that their country was being taken from them; the attack would not have happened, could not have happened. January 6th would not have happened but for the actions of Donald Trump.
Here’s what the Republican leader of the Senate said: the mob that perpetrated the “failed insurrection” was on January 6th “was provoked by President Trump.”
You want another word for “provoke?” How about: “incite.”
Still—still!—the vast majority of the Senate Republican caucus, including the Republican leader, voted to acquit former President Trump, signing their names in the columns of History alongside his name—forever.
January 6th will live as a day of infamy in the history of the United States of America. The failure to convict Donald Trump will live as a vote of infamy in the history of the United States Senate.
Five years ago, Republican Senators lamented what might become of their party if Donald Trump became their presidential nominee and standard-bearer. Just look at what has happened. Look at what Republicans have been forced to defend. Look at what Republicans have chosen to forgive. The former president tried to overturn the results of a legitimate election—and provoked an assault on our own government—and well over half of the Senate Republican conference decided to condone it!
The most despicable act that any president has ever committed and the majority of Republicans cannot summon the courage or the morality to condemn it.
This trial wasn’t even about choosing country over party, even not that. This was about choosing country over Donald Trump. And 43 Republican members chose Trump. They chose Trump. It should be a weight on their conscience today. And it shall be a weight upon their conscience in the future.
As sad as that fact is, as condemnable as the decision was, it is still true that the final vote on Donald Trump’s conviction was the largest and most bipartisan vote of any presidential impeachment trial in American history. I salute those Republican patriots who did the right thing. It wasn’t easy. We know that.
Let their votes be a message to the American people.
Because, my fellow Americans: if this nation is going to long endure, we, as a people, cannot sanction the former president’s conduct.
Because if lying about the results of an election is acceptable, if instigating a mob against the government is considered permissible, if encouraging political violence becomes the norm, it will be open season, open season, on our democracy; and everything will be up for grabs by whoever has the biggest clubs, the sharpest spears, the most powerful guns.
By not recognizing the heinous crime that Donald Trump committed against the Constitution; Republican Senators have not only risked but potentially invited the same danger that was just visited upon us.
So let me say this: despite the results of the vote on Donald Trump’s conviction in the court of impeachment, he deserves to be convicted—and I believe he will be convicted—in the court of public opinion.
He deserves to be permanently discredited—and I believe he has been discredited—in the eyes of the American people and in the judgment of History.
Even though Republican Senators prevented the Senate from disqualifying Donald Trump from any office of honor, trust, or profit under these United States, there is no question that Donald Trump has disqualified himself.
I hope, I pray, and I believe that the American people will make sure of that.
And if Donald Trump ever stands for public office again, and after everything we have seen this week: I hope, I pray, and I believe that he will meet the unambiguous rejection by the American people.
Six hours after the attack on January 6th, after the carnage and mayhem was shown on every television screen in America, President Trump told his supporters to “remember this day forever.” I ask the American people to heed his words: remember that day forever. But not for the reasons the former president intended.
Remember the panic in the voices over the radio dispatch; the rhythmic pounding of fists and flags at the chamber doors.
Remember the crack of the solitary gunshot.
Remember the hateful and racist Confederate Flag flying through the halls of our Union.
Remember the screams of the bloodied officer crushed between the onrushing mob and a doorway to the
Capitol, his body trapped in the breach.
Remember the three Capitol Police Officers who lost their lives.
Remember that those rioters actually succeeded in delaying Congress from certifying the election.
Remember how close our democracy came to ruin.
Remember how close our democracy came to ruin.
My fellow Americans: remember that day, January 6th, forever—the final, terrible legacy of the 45th President of the United States and undoubtedly our worst.
Let it live on in infamy, a stain on Donald John Trump that can never, never be washed away.
On Monday, we’ll recognize Presidents’ Day. Part of the commemoration in the Senate will be the annual reading of Washington’s Farewell Address. Aside from winning the Revolutionary War, I consider it his greatest contribution to American civic life. And it had nothing to do with the words he spoke but the example it set. Washington’s Farewell Address established for all time that no one had the right to the office of the presidency, that it belonged to the people.
What an amazing legacy. What an amazing gift to the future generations: the knowledge that this country will always be greater than any one person, even our most renowned. That’s why members of both parties take turns reading Washington’s address, once a year, in full, into the record—to pledge common attachment to the selflessness at the core of our democratic system.
This trial was about the final acts of a president who represents the very antithesis of our first president, and sought to place one man before the entire country—himself.
Let the record show, let the record show, before God, History, and the solemn oath we swear to the Constitution, that there was only one correct verdict in this trial: guilty. And I pray that while justice was not done in this trial, it will be carried forward by the American people, who above any of us in this chamber, determine the destiny of our great nation.
Delivered February 13, 2021
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