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Trump Is the Wart of the Deal
1 hour ago
Showing posts with label The New Yorker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The New Yorker. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Republicans, Crushing American Votes
From The New Yorker today. Their cartoon.
If only it were funny. If only it were only funny.
Friday, February 5, 2021
Big Picture Damage Trump and the Republicans Did to Our Nation
I'm hoping lots of Americans read and understand this article from The New Yorker just now. I think it very likely true but also important, however ugly for us.
The World Likes Biden But Doubts the U.S. Can Reclaim Global Leadership
A bit from the article:
...Biden faces the core problem of convincing the United States’ chief diplomatic, economic, and military allies to believe in America again. Some wonder if the U.S.—which was, for decades, the world’s most powerful democracy—has lost its groove for good. “It will be hard to convince allies that Washington is capable of coming back as a global leader,” Mark Leonard, the co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “Our polling shows that, while most people in Europe were happy to see Biden elected, they also feel that America’s political system is broken, that they can’t rely on the U.S.A. to defend them, and that China will overtake the U.S.A. as a great power.” Europeans like what Biden stands for, “but they are not convinced that he can deliver, and they are worried about who will follow in his wake.”America’s global reputation has plummeted to the point that it will even be difficult to persuade key Western allies to make common cause against China. “A majority of the public would prefer to stay neutral than to take America’s side,” Leonard said of European views. To regain the confidence of allies, the Biden Administration would have to think differently about alliances—and not assume “that other nations will automatically follow American leadership,” he added. Most of all, Biden has to prove that America has “the staying power to follow through.”
Yet more proof, as though we need or needed it, of the damage Republican Party President Donald J "Jenius" Trump and his political party did to our nation and nation's standing in the world.
Thanks so much, fellas. One more thing that's on us but that is also on you, on you all. Forever. You did this.
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Our Next National Hurdles Once Trump Is Gone
From The New Yorker yesterday.
Along with cleaning up so very many messes after this President and his presidency, we need to make sure that nothing, nothing even remotely close to Donald J Trump ever, ever happens again in America. And the way we do it is by, first, overturning Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court and then ending campaign contributions entirely in our nation. After that, also outlawing gerrymandering and voter ID laws that disenfranchise fellow American citizens from voting. Finally we need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine in our government and media.
I'm not hopeful. We could do it, we could it all but no, I'm not hopeful.
Links:
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
A President That Outdoes Hitchcock
“Congratulations. Very scary four years.”
Ain't it the truth?
Thanks, Republicans. So very much.
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Happy Safe Harbor Day, America!
Yes indeed, Mr. and Mrs. America! Happy Safe Harbor Day!
Safe harbor law locks Congress into accepting electoral votes cast for President-elect Joe Biden
What is Safe Harbor Day, you might ask? Well here you are:
Other than Wisconsin, every state appears to have met a deadline in federal law that essentially means Congress has to accept the electoral votes that will be cast next week and sent to the Capitol for counting on Jan. 6. Those votes will elect Joe Biden as the country’s next president.So here we are and thank goodness! We've never needed to really acknowledge this day up to now since no sitting President ever denied, ignored, disavowed our vote, our votes, our election and our Democracy. But then, we've never had this much a narcissistic, self-dealing, self-centered, greedy, thoughtless, corrupt President before now, either.
So, go! Enjoy this great and beautiful day!
Now only 6 more days until the Electoral College turns in its formal finding on the election and FORTY-TWO days until inauguration!
Glory, hallelujah!
Meanwhile, he can't leave soon enough. This came out yesterday.
This came out today, this morning.
Trump’s Attacks on Local Officials Are Spreading Hatred and Inciting Violence
This, though---good news---also came out this morning.
Lawyers Across the Country Urge Bar Associations to Investigate Trump Legal Team
Heavens help us.
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Let's Call It What It Is: A Constitutional Crisis
So we had an election. We voted. We all voted. We know.
And now, the man we voted out isn't recognizing and won't recognize our vote, that vote, that election, our election.
He's denying the vote, the votes, he's denying us all. He's denying our Democracy.
What is that if not a Constitutional crisis?
We've all seen the headlines.
Donald Trump in denial over election defeat
And unfortunately, too many in that, his political party are going along with this absurdity, this insult to us all.
McConnell declines in floor speech to congratulate Biden
And of course, Fox is aiding and abetting this obscenity, this ugliness, even this stupidity.
The network is broadcasting the Trump campaign’s debunked conspiracy theories and unproven allegations to millions each night.
As it goes on, Trump has done more and more bizarre things.
Unfortunately, very unfortunately, if not also predictably, our own Senator Blunt even joined in on Trump's absurd claims. Because, you know, you HAVE to put your political party before the country, before the nation and before the people and even before what's right. Right??
Rep. Will Hurd of Texas tweeted that Trump's comments are "not only dangerous & wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon."
Fortunately for the state of Georgia and all of us, really, there is this guy and anyone and everyone like him, standing up and doing what's right.
This is only one city but it's an excellent example of just what this President and his supporters have to show for their denying our election, votes and the results.
And I love this next one.
Lawyers Litigating for Trump Suddenly Remember Their Licenses Are on the Line If They Lie to a Judge
Even Fox, EVEN FOX, folks! is doing the right thing on this, at least in this one instance, anyway.
Also from Fox, this broke yesterday, thankfully.
U.S. Sen. James Lankford said there was “nothing wrong” with the idea of Biden receiving intelligence briefings
And it's not just this one Senator, either, that's calling for Biden to get intelligence briefings though Senator Lankford did, later, back off this original stand I read.
"Nothing wrong" with Biden receiving intelligence briefings. Nothing wrong and everything right about it.
Then, not just from Fox but from TUCKER CARLSON HIMSELF, two days ago, folks.
That alone is pretty incredible. That was followed by this. Even Karl Rove can read this writing on the wall.
Ohio's Mike Dewine spoke up yesterday, thank goodness, as all Republicans should.
Today, this broke. It does look as though the tide is finally, finally turning on this President's denial of our election and votes, thank goodness. It shouldn't have been necessary.
It's as I said before here, it's obvious why Trump wants, no, needs to deny our votes and election, too. According to the New York Times, he owes nearly, if not completely 1 billion dollars to who knows who out there in the world, New York State, at least, is going after him for his taxes in two different cases and then there's this.
And the above doesn't even address any and all possible investigations of wrongdoing and/or illegality/illegalites he may have committed while President.
It's as I said in Donald Trump's first year in office, he's in WAY over his head. He had no idea what he was getting into but now he's there and he doesn't want to deal with any of it, let alone all.
Then the Washington Post poses this unsurprising possibility.
Then there's this ugly trend, overall, from and by his political party.
Here's yet more of the enabling cowards that is the Republican Party.
This is one of the things that is most concerning about this entire situation, too, with Trump challenging, denying our votes and election.
Meanwhile, we have still no leadership whatever, of course, from this excuse for a President out of his White House or administration since he's paying far more attention to covering his hide and tracks.
US Coronavirus cases hit daily high, more than 140,000
Look at this fact that just broke today.
The most single-day COVID-19 deaths since May AND IT'S NOT EVEN WINTER YET.
So with all this, then, where are we? Where does this leave us? Besides the fact that this orange excuse for a President is shaping us into his own banana republic, where does this leave us now? And then, what do we do?
And here is where I say we have to stand up and speak up and speak out, all we can, especially to our Republican Party officeholders and tell them what we need, what we want. We need to tell them what, exactly, needs to happen next and that is, that this President and all in his political party must, at long last, recognize our vote, our votes, our election, our Democracy and demand he, Donald Trump, concede this election. We must demand it.
So with that, I post here, below, a link to go to so you can email and phone, both, preferably, your, our government representatives, to tell them this must happen and it needs to take place sooner, rather than later. Today is not too soon. Indeed, it is late in this process. It is very late. Please contact your representatives. Maybe especially Missouri's own Senators Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley. Thank you in advance.
Two more links. Let's be clear.
Then, once Trump is gone, a way forward?? Dare I say? Or even think? Hope?
Monday, November 9, 2020
Lots of Big News This Morning
Yes, lots of breaking news today. Lots of good, it seems and yes, some bad. First the good. If not even great.
Pfizer says virus vaccine 90% effective
Fantastic great news. Very hopeful for us all.
And that got us this.
With that great news on a possible vaccine, the markets went nuts. All time highs. Excellent. (Thank goodness it didn't come out last Monday, huh?).
And then the bad news. This just broke in the last hour.
I swear these people don't learn. Incredible. With any other administration, this would be unbelievable. And I don't know what's more ironic, that he's a doctor or that he apparently contracted this COVID from a White House election party, given the now known results. Wow.
Then there's this. It's not bad enough he won't recognize our vote, our votes and our election. It's not bad enough he won't man up, be an adult, a responsible adult---for the first time in his long life--no.
No, that's not enough or bad enough. Now he also, along with all that, says he wants to have "recount rallies" across the nation. Terrific. Not only deny our election and the results but have yet more pandemic superspreading events, just when we're hitting every higher highs in COVID cases. Sure, why not, right? Why should this man or his administration make sense NOW?
Unfortunately, there's yet more bad news from this President and his White House today, however.
This administration hasn't been enough of a revolving door, the President had to add yet more to it. Worse than firing him in these, the last 72 days of this administration, he had to also do it as the coward he is.
This horrible and sad news hit yesterday.
To maybe try to lift us back up and give us a bit of encouragement today from the Republicans, there's this.
I saw where son in law Jared Kushner had advised Trump to accept the election. Now this.
This, however, is starting to make me mad.
federal funding and access to a plethora of government information for President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, which is already at work.
But the official is not opening the door just yet — citing an ambiguity about the election results advanced by the Trump administration.
A spokesperson for the General Services Administration says Emily Murphy, the GSA administrator, hasn't signed off on the transition yet because she's waiting for an “ascertainment” about who officially won the 2020 presidential election, which President Donald Trump is contesting without evidence.
But the official is not opening the door just yet — citing an ambiguity about the election results advanced by the Trump administration.
A spokesperson for the General Services Administration says Emily Murphy, the GSA administrator, hasn't signed off on the transition yet because she's waiting for an “ascertainment” about who officially won the 2020 presidential election, which President Donald Trump is contesting without evidence.
it's one thing for the Trumpster to deny reality. It's a whole 'nother thing for even one of them to start blocking this transition.
And as expected and thought.
Finally, today, folks, there's this. Keep in mind this big bit of great news.
Think happy thoughts, campers.
And have a great day and week.
And remember! 72 days!! (to inauguration!)
Additional links:
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Of Course Trump Wants to Fight This Election
The Daily Kos has this so right today. I said this a few days ago.
This is what this election and this election fight now boils down to. Trump is concerned about being thrown out of the White House and into the real world of:
- Owing a billion--or more?--dollars to who knows who
- Being examined by the state of New York for his taxes, at least and
- Being investigated---and likely prosecuted---for crimes committed while President.
Stealing this election now is all he has.
We've never, as a nation, been in a situation like this with a sitting President in the history of our nation. Yet another thing and situation this President and his political party have foisted on us all.
Fortunately, this just took place within the hour.
Georgia judge dismisses lawsuit by Trump campaign
This just happened, minutes ago.
86 45
#Throwthebumout
The Fight Over Election Results Begins
Trump's Brief Speech Made America's Troubles Worse
#Throwthebumout
More:
Why Trump Can’t Afford to Lose
The Fight Over Election Results Begins
Trump's Brief Speech Made America's Troubles Worse
Trump's election night 2020 speech was his most dangerous
Friday, September 25, 2020
This Much Support for a Sitting President's Opponent From His Own Political Party is Unprecedented
Yes, Mr. and Mrs. America, the amount of public, formal, announced support this Republican Party President's opponent is getting, has already gotten from members of his own political party is unprecedented in our nation's history. Never before in America have this many people and groups come out against a sitting President and for his opponent, from, again, his own, this President's own political party.
And thank goodness.
Check out this partial list. First these 4 groups.
Republican Voters Against Trump
I wasn't even aware of these next two Republican groups against Trump.
Then this story broke yesterday in the Military Times which I'm naturally loving.
22 Retired 4-Stars Join Nearly 500 NatSec Leaders in Letter Endorsing Joe Biden
Joe Biden endorsed, Trump excoriated by nearly 500 retired top military, national security officials
Here's a General and former member of his staff.
In an extraordinary condemnation, the former defense secretary backs protesters and says the president is trying to turn Americans against one another.
This Republican Party President is attacking our Democracy, our health care system, attacking our protections for clean air, water and soil, even our own Postal Service, our census and still more. It's unreal. It would be unbelievable from any other President.
Face it. It's a Presidential election between a thinking, experienced adult and a greedy, self-serving, uninformed, ignorant, reckless, even dangerous, very emotional child.
Vote this fall, folks. November 3rd, be sure to vote.
And vote blue.
#BlueWave2020
86 45
BYEDON
Friday, May 8, 2020
Americans Need to Know What Just Happened In and To Our Justice System
The Justice Department has dropped Michael Flynn’s case
It seems Attorney General William Barr had up to now guilty Michael Flynn freed from his guilty convictions.
Michael Flynn was formally found guilty in our courts, in our justice system and this administration just overturned that finding.
Everyone needs to know, remember, keep in mind that Michael Flynn plead guilty---twice---formally, officially, in a court of law to lying to the FBI. Perjury. One of the worst offenses, short of murder, one can be found guilty.
Now this.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department is undermining the rule of law.
If he is successful, Barr will save Trump from the political fallout of pardoning a former close aide, while still clearing Flynn. A pardon might have seemed to be the ultimate perversion of justice — but Barr’s maneuver is actually much, much worse.
Flynn lied to the FBI in early 2017 about a conversation he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when Flynn was a member of the Trump transition team. Flynn’s conversation involved mollifying Russia immediately after the Obama administration expelled 35 Russian spies and imposed sanctions as punishment for its interference in the 2016 election. When interviewed by the FBI about his conversation with Kislyak, Flynn lied, despite knowing — as he undoubtedly would, as the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency — that doing so was a crime.
The fact that he would lie to the FBI, which is charged with protecting the country’s national security, raised the concern that he might be compromised by a foreign power — a concern that Barr’s current motion to the court claims that the FBI should have ignored. In fact, Barr’s motion to the court echoes the request Trump made to the bureau’s then-director, James B. Comey, in February 2017, when he asked Comey to “see [his] way clear to letting Flynn go” — a request that landed Trump in the middle of an investigation into obstruction of justice...
"The head of the American justice system now saying publicly that there is no good or bad except what the strongest want," said another critic. "The definition of autocracy."
'Transparently Corrupt': Barr Lets Flynn Off Scot-Free
And today, now, it seems this President Trump is even honestly making things worse for himself by---wait for it---shooting off his mouth. Further. Check this out.
During a Friday morning phone interview on Fox News' morning show, "Fox and Friends," President Donald Trump said he's studied history and "learned a lot from Richard Nixon," while reflecting on the federal investigation into his 2016 campaign's ties to Russia.
The president said one of his key lessons came from Nixon, who resigned in 1974 while facing almost-certain impeachment after directing the criminal Watergate break-in. Taped conversations illustrating Nixon's involvement in the criminal conspiracy and his attempts to cover up the wrongdoing by firing top aides helped seal his fate.
"I learned a lot from Richard Nixon. Don't fire people," Trump said.
"Only the best people..."
Remember that?
Thanks, Republicans.
God help us all.
God forgive and help us all.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
The US, This Pandemic and the Coincidental Fall of An Empire
Holy cow, folks. You ought to read this article. It's by Chauncey DeVega at Salon. He interviews Chris Hedges. Important, if also scary to the point of frightening. It is truly an eye-opener.
Author of "America: The Farewell Tour": We're heading for a steep decline; Biden and the Democrats have no answers
Just a bit from the article:
Empires fall a little bit at a time and then all at once. Over the last two decades, America has proven itself to be well along on that journey. The coronavirus pandemic has simply pushed our nation further along that downward spiral.
Ultimately, the pandemic has further exposed and exacerbated — for those still somehow in denial about the decades-long reality of America as a decaying empire — deep political, social, economic, cultural and other societal problems.
The country's infrastructure is rotting. Trump presides over a plutocratic, corrupt, cruel, authoritarian, pathological kakistocracy. The commons is being reduced to rubble while the ultra-rich extract ever more wealth and other resources from the American people. Excessive military spending has left the United States incapable of attending to the basic needs of its people. A culture of distraction and spectacle has rendered many Americans incapable of being responsible engaged citizens. Our public educational system does not teach critical thinking skills. Radical right-wing Christians, white terrorist organizations and other neofascist paramilitaries and extremists are engaging in a campaign of thuggery, intimidation and violence against multiracial American democracy.
Writing at the Atlantic, George Packer described this woeful state of affairs:
The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus — like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly — not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message.
Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state.
In the New York Times, Pulitzer-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen diagnosed the health of America's body politic in the age of Trump and the pandemic he has empowered and accelerated:
If anything good emerges out of this period, it might be an awakening to the pre-existing conditions of our body politic. We were not as healthy as we thought we were. The biological virus afflicting individuals is also a social virus. Its symptoms — inequality, callousness, selfishness and a profit motive that undervalues human life and overvalues commodities — were for too long masked by the hearty good cheer of American exceptionalism, the ruddiness of someone a few steps away from a heart attack.
Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer-winning journalist, author, and philosopher, is not surprised by America's decline. In places such as the former Yugoslavia, he has personally witnessed what happens when societies fall apart. In his most recent book, "America: The Farewell Tour," Hedges both details the country's many cultural and political crises and what could potentially happen next. The coronavirus crisis has shown his analysis to be eerily prescient.
In this conversation, Hedges warns that the tumult and pain of Trump's coronavirus crisis is but a preview of far worse things in America's future, as social inequality and political failure combine to create a full collapse of the country's already declining standard of living, as well as its ailing democracy.
Hedges also explains how the Democratic Party and its presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden, will likely not be able to respond to the Age of Trump and the economic and social destruction created by gangster capitalism, in combination with the coronavirus pandemic. Why? Because the Democrats are also part of the plutocratic establishment that has failed the American people.
It goes on from there to a podcast (and also written conversation) with Mr. Hedges on our current national situation, not to be missed.
I've said here, several times, many times, how bad this President is, citing facts and showing resources, not opinion. Him and his political party both.
This clearly shows, to me, the larger, bigger picture, the entire picture or where we--the US--is just now.
And where we may be--are likely?--headed.
Damn.
It's far from pretty.
"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."
Not done there, as if that's all not depressing enough, there's also this from The New Yorker just now:
Is America’s “One Nation Indivisible” Being Killed Off by the Coronavirus?
Not done there, as if that's all not depressing enough, there's also this from The New Yorker just now:
Is America’s “One Nation Indivisible” Being Killed Off by the Coronavirus?
Saturday, October 5, 2019
Quotes of the Day -- On This President
Anyway, as I said, the paper is full of great articles, this being the first I'll briefly mention today.
Is this Trump’s public suicide or his genius for survival?
This is the most scathing, but true, summation of this man, his Presidency and administration I've seen this week. A bit from the article:
We have hit uncharted political territory. An unstable president has lurched under the pressure of an impeachment inquiry into a form of madness that is either a very public suicide or some weird genius for survival. Trump is Robert De Niro, armed with a gun, in “Taxi Driver” gazing into the mirror repeating: “You talkin’ to me?”
We are. Nixon wanted his profanities deleted from transcripts. Trump has no such qualms. He trumpets his view of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry on Twitter: “BULLSHIT.” He will not be a one-term president! That’s weak, like Carter, like Bush One! He cannot be WEAK like them! He cannot lose! It’s all an attempted “coup”!...
So what does he do? Double down! If there’s any guiding principle it seems to be: If Trump says often enough in broad daylight that he tried to get foreign powers to interfere in our election to his benefit, how can it be wrong? “China should start an investigation into the Bidens,” says Trump, as he leaves the White House to go to Florida.
The remark is met with justified outrage. This is abuse of power. This is abuse of foreign affairs authority. These are impeachable acts. But, guess what, everyone starts reporting and writing on what Biden and his son Hunter did or did not do in China. Trump is a mass-media magician. He got McLuhan — “the medium is the message” — without reading McLuhan.
There is no down range for this president. He’s too disorganized. There is only the next minute. Let’s talk Trump and golf for a minute. He likes to say, “I’m a feel player.” He’s not a believer in going to the driving range. Drop it and hit it. Fire and forget. Just hit the effing thing! Well, fire-and-forget got him to the White House, so why would he stop believing in it, even now?
Because, if Trump could manage a glimpse over the towering heights of his ego, he might see that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has him in her sights. She knows he will grow madder and madder under the pressure of the impeachment inquiry. As that happens, those working-class white women and suburban housewives who voted for Trump in large numbers in 2016 may well desert him: Derangement is not really their thing. Can the 53 Republicans of the Senate be far behind?
Californians don’t vote for Trump, and he’s showing them what he can do about it.
- Tries to revoke California's right to set its own fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards that they've historically had so they can clean their admittedly dirty air then he
- Accuses the state of failing to meet federal air quality standards and threatens to withhold billions in federal highway funds if California did not do more to clean its air.
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