Monday
Jan292024
The Conversation -- January 29, 2024
Missy Ryan & Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "American air defense systems failed to intercept an attack drone that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan because the incoming aircraft was mistaken for a friendly drone returning to the base, two officials said Monday. Officials have not yet positively identified which country the lethal attack, first disclosed Sunday, originated from, the officials said. It occurred in an area where the borders of Jordan, Syria and Iraq converge. Nearly three dozen U.S. troops were also injured in the incident. Three personnel were transported to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, a U.S. military facility that can offer troops more advanced care, the officials said." The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ From the New York Times live updates on the Israel/Hamas war: "The return of the American surveillance drone to the remote resupply base prompted some confusion over whether the incoming drone was friendly or not, and air defenses were not immediately activated, according to ... officials.... Two other drones that attacked other locations nearby were shot down, they added."
Trump Admits 98 Percent of His Followers Are Cognitively Impaired. Meidas Touch Network: "Donald Trump told a room full of supporters that only 2% of them could pass a test meant to detect cognitive decline, declaring that the test asking participants to name pictures of animals was 'not easy.' Trump delivered the comments at a rally in Nevada, claiming the test was tough, and noted that it required memorizing six words. He then cited five words, telling his supporters, 'There's only about 2% of this room that can do it.'" Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: That explains the MAGA movement, but it's mighty surprising that Trump would not only admit it but would insult a roomful of his loyal supporters by telling them that they are mentally impaired and that he is smarter than they are. Biden should use this.
Kierra Frazier of Politico: "... Donald Trump took a swipe at the United Auto Workers president Sunday night, calling him a 'dope' days after the UAW endorsed President Joe Biden. In a social media post Sunday, Trump called for the removal of UAW President Shawn Fain after the union leader appeared on CBS News' 'Face the Nation' to tout Biden's support of the UAW's efforts.... 'Donald Trump has a history of serving himself and standing for the billionaire class and that's contrary to everything that working-class people stand for,' Fain said Sunday."
Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at the financial monitor overseeing the Trump Organization and urged a judge to fire her days after she reported a range of issues -- and flagged a questionable $48 million loan -- in the former president's New York civil business fraud case.... [Trump lawyer Clifford] Robert wrote [to Justice Arthur Engoron] ... three days after Jones submitted a report to Engoron accusing the Trump Organization of providing incomplete, inconsistent or incorrect information about its financial disclosures. In a footnote in that report, Jones said she identified a loan between Trump himself and an entity related to Trump Chicago Tower that later turned out not to exist. She was told that the loan was believed to total $48 million, but that there are no agreements memorializing it. 'However, in recent discussions with the Trump Organization, it indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed' and that it would be removed from subsequent forms, Jones wrote."
Marie: Trump should pick Ramaswamy for his running mate. Vivek is even crazier than Trumpaloony:
Say It Ain't So, Joe.! Isaac Schorr of Mediaite: "... Vivek Ramaswamy ... predict[ed] that the upcoming Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers would be rigged for the former in order to set the table for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's endorsement of President Joe Biden this fall."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: Top Republicans, including Nikki Haley, punt when it comes to addressing Trump's sexual assault on writer E. Jean Carroll. Neither Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) or Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) "is truly vouching for Trump's actions or claims to persecution.... About the closest Haley came to weighing in on the substance was when she said, 'I absolutely trust the jury, and I think that they made their decision based on the evidence.'... Republicans have experience with standing by Trump without truly vouching for him and his claims, but that becomes more difficult when the cases against him are actually adjudicated by our legal system. At that point, truly going to bat for Trump requires tearing down our system of law and order in the process. And this weekend provided a preview of the rhetorical gymnastics that lie ahead."
Marshall Cohen of CNN: "In the wake of the 2020 election, the president of the far-right network One America News sent a potentially explosive email to former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, with a spreadsheet claiming to contain passwords of employees from the voting technology company Smartmatic, according to court filings. The existence of the spreadsheet was recently disclosed by Smartmatic, which is suing OAN for defamation.... Lawyers from Smartmatic told a federal judge that the email, and the attached spreadsheet, suggest OAN executives 'may have engaged in criminal activities' because they 'appear to have violated state and federal laws regarding data privacy.'... According to court filings, the supposed passwords were shared around the same time that Powell, her associates and other Trump supporters were trying to improperly access voting systems across the country, to prove their false claims of voter fraud.... Nobody from OAN has been charged with any crimes."
Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: "A former IRS contractor who leaked a slew of confidential tax records filed by the wealthiest Americans, including those of ... Donald Trump, was sentenced Monday to the maximum of five years in prison. Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty last year to one count of unauthorized disclosure of income tax returns. Littlejohn, 38, admitted that he leaked Trump's confidential tax information to the New York Times in 2019 and then replicated his work the next year, filtering the tax returns and financial data of thousands of wealthy Americans to ProPublica. The news organizations published reports showing how Trump and the richest Americans for years paid little or no federal taxes. U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes said Littlejohn had 'pulled off the biggest heist in IRS history' and deserved the maximum sentence she could impose because he targeted a sitting president and thousands of others. Reyes compared Littlejohn to one of the rioters who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and said judges had to send a message that they will not tolerate 'open season on our elected officials.'" The NBC News report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Littlejohn should not have leaked the returns of private citizens, IMO, but may I remind Judge Reyes that Donald Trump is the only president* or major-party candidate for president in recent decades who has not released at least some years of his tax returns to the public.
Donna Britt of the Washington Post: "The ordinary death of an extraordinary civil rights hero." Another tearjerker.
France. Those French Farmers Really Are Pissed Off. William Booth of the Washington Post: "On Monday, angry agriculturalists and their allies deployed their tractors in an attempt to surround Paris, choking major roadways and disrupting not only traffic and trade, but also politics and normal life.... This latest uprising by French farmers comes as other workers from Europe's countryside drive their combines and harvesters into the streets to protest cuts to subsidies and new regulations, some of them designed to reduce climate-changing emissions. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced the mobilization of 15,000 police. The minister vowed to keep open the capital's two major international airports -- De Gaulle and Orly -- and to protect one of the continent's largest wholesale food sellers, the International Market in Rungis. Despite the martial rhetoric, there were no reports of violence several hours into Monday's blockade. A few tires and some hay bales were burned. Mostly, the farmers shut down their tractors and played cards." Related story linked below.
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The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Three U.S. service members were killed and more than 30 were injured in a drone attack in Jordan, the first deadly military action against American personnel since the Gaza conflict sparked a spate of violence across the Middle East. President Biden blamed the attack on groups supported by Iran. 'We had a tough day last night in the Middle East,' he said. 'And we shall respond.'... Iranian officials denied any involvement in the drone attack. A representative for Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations told the country's official Islamic Republic News Agency that Tehran had no connection to the strike. The United States and Britain have accused Iran of supporting militant groups in the region. Attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria have surged to more than 160 since October. The Pentagon has carried out retaliatory strikes against Iranian proxies in those countries, as well as a parallel campaign of strikes on the Iran-linked Houthi rebels in Yemen." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Monday are here. CNN's live updates are here.
Zeke Miller of the AP: "Three American troops were killed and 'many' were wounded Sunday in a drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border, President Joe Biden said. He blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by the groups against American forces across the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war. With an increasing the risk of military escalation in the region, U.S. officials were working to conclusively identify the precise group responsible for the attack, but they have assessed that one of several Iranian-backed groups was behind it. Biden said the United States 'will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner (of) our choosing.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here's President Biden's statement, via the White House. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Stephen Collinson of CNN: "After ... three US troops were killed in a drone attack in Jordan, Trump put all the blame on [President] Biden and his perceived lack of strength, claiming that current wars would never have happened if he were in the Oval Office. '(We) would right now have Peace throughout the World. Instead, we are on the brink of World War 3,' Trump said in a statement. His attacks represent gross simplifications of complex problems and an inflated sense of his own foreign policy, which was chiefly characterized by cozying up to dictators and excoriating US allies, while turning the United States -- a source of global stability for decades -- into a force for disruption. But Trump's attacks do stress the real political peril Biden faces at home as he wrestles with the possibility that an expanding Middle Eastern war could drag the US back into a regional conflict." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump's claim of "Peace throughout the World" is of course B.S. At least 65 troops died in Afghanistan alone during Trump's presidency*. "Two U.S. service members and two Department of Defense personnel were killed in an explosion in Syria on Wednesday [Jan. 2019], the U.S. military confirmed, even as ... Donald Trump's Syria team appeared to be in a state of chaos, with different factions scrambling to keep up with a volatile commander in chief." "A former Pentagon spokeswoman has said the White House under ... Donald Trump had pressured the military to downplay injuries sustained by 110 US troops following a 2020 Iranian missile attack on a base in Iraq." And remember that Trump called fallen soldiers "suckers" and "losers."
Ronen Bergman & Patrick Kingley of the New York Times: "... accusations ... in a dossier provided to the United States government ... [detail] Israel's claims against a dozen employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency who, it says, played a role in the Hamas attacks against Israel on Oct. 7 or in their aftermath.... The accusations are what prompted eight countries, including the United States, to suspend some aid payment to the UNRWA.... On Sunday, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, described himself as 'horrified by these accusations' and noted that nine of the 12 accused employees had been fired. But Mr. Guterres implored those nations that had suspended their aid payments to reconsider. UNRWA is one of the largest employers in Gaza, with 13,000 people, mostly Palestinians, on staff.... Israeli intelligence officers ... described 10 of the employees as members of Hamas.... Another was said to be affiliated with another militant group, Islamic Jihad."
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here. The New York Times' live updates for Sunday are here. CNN's live updates are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Kayla Guo of the New York Times: "Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the former House speaker, on Sunday called for the F.B.I. to investigate protesters demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, suggesting without evidence that some activists may have ties to Russia and President Vladimir V. Putin. 'For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin's message,' Ms. Pelosi said during an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It's about Putin's message. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia.' When pressed on whether she believed some of the demonstrators were 'Russian plants,' Ms. Pelosi said: '... I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the F.B.I. to investigate that.'" The Hill's story is here.
Maya King of the New York Times: "As the Israel-Hamas war enters its fourth month, a coalition of Black faith leaders is pressuring the Biden administration to push for a cease-fire -- a campaign spurred in part by their parishioners, who are increasingly distressed by the suffering of Palestinians and critical of the president's response to it. More than 1,000 Black pastors representing hundreds of thousands of congregants nationwide have issued the demand. In sit-down meetings with White House officials, and through open letters and advertisements, ministers have made a moral case for President Biden and his administration to press Israel to stop its offensive operations in Gaza, which have killed thousands of civilians. They are also calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas and an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank." (Also linked yesterday.)
Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said he wants to be held responsible for blocking a bipartisan border security bill in the works in the Senate as President Biden seeks emergency authority to rein in a record surge of unauthorized border crossings. 'As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America,' Trump told a rowdy crowd of supporters at a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, ahead of the state's presidential caucus on Feb. 8. 'I'll fight it all the way. A lot of the senators are trying to say, respectfully, they're blaming it on me. I say, that's okay. Please blame it on me. Please.' Trump's opposition follows Biden's statement on Friday praising the deal and pledging to use its new authorities to 'shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed' -- a striking shift as he signaled openness to asylum restrictions and other enforcement measures that were previously unacceptable to Democrats." (Also linked yesterday.)
Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "House Republicans announced two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday, accusing him of 'willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law' and breach of the public trust.... Although the Biden administration has been struggling with the overwhelming surge of migrants at the southern border, congressional lawmakers have yet to detail clear evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors on the part of leaders.... Two law professors who testified before the committee this month both stated that they did not see a constitutional basis for impeachment." Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Presidential Race
Illinois. Mitch Smith of the New York Times:"A former Republican judge appointed to hear arguments on whether to disqualify ... Donald J. Trump from the Illinois primary ballot said on Sunday that he believed Mr. Trump engaged in insurrection by attempting to remain in office after the 2020 election. But the former judge, Clark Erickson, whose nonbinding opinion will be considered by the State Board of Elections on Tuesday, added that he believed the board did not have the authority to disqualify Mr. Trump on those grounds and that the question should instead be left to the courts.... In Illinois, at least five of the eight members of the Board of Elections would have to vote on Tuesday to remove Mr. Trump for him to be struck from the ballot. The appointed board is made up of four Democrats and four Republicans. Their decision can be appealed to the courts before the March 19 primary." CNN's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Clark, I do believe you'll be banned from MAGA camp this summer. BTW, I was wondering last week just what MAGA camp was, and luckily, Seth Meyers has done some reporting: "If you are wondering what MAGA camp is, it is like Boy Scout camp except the badges are for things like tax evasion, election fraud, lying about your golf score."
Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Twenty-five historians of the civil war and Reconstruction filed a US supreme court brief in support of the attempt by Colorado to remove Donald Trump from the ballot under the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from running for office. 'For historians,' the group wrote, 'contemporary evidence from the decision-makers who sponsored, backed, and voted for the 14th amendment [ratified in 1868] is most probative. Analysis of this evidence demonstrates that decision-makers crafted section three to cover the president and to create an enduring check on insurrection, requiring no additional action from Congress.'"
Biden: "Just think back to the mess Donald Trump left this country in. A deadly pandemic, economic free fall, a violent insurrection. I promised to do everything in my power, I said at the time, to get us through one of the toughest periods in our history. And together, we are." pic.twitter.com/WSPUgAU99b
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 28, 2024
David Lynch of the Washington Post: "... despite lingering consumer angst over inflation, the surprisingly strong [United States] economy is outperforming all of its major trading partners. Since 2020, the United States has powered through a once-in-a-century pandemic, the highest inflation in 40 years and fallout from two foreign wars. Now, after posting faster annual growth last year than in 2022, the U.S. economy is quashing fears of a new recession while offering lessons for future crisis-fighting. 'The U.S. has really come out of this into a place of strength and is moving forward like covid never happened,' said Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist who now runs an eponymous consulting firm. 'We earned this; it wasn't just a fluke.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: And, as we noted in yesterday's Comments, Trump's "answer" to the recovery is to slap huge tariffs on Chinese imports. He is an incredible nitwit. ~~~
David Siders of Politico: "The most notable thing about the Republican call-and-response following the E. Jean Carroll verdict was that there was barely any response at all.... 'Everyone is just trying to pretend it didn't happen,' said Jason Roe, the former executive director of the state Republican Party in Michigan. In the past, when prosecutors or the courts have smacked Trump, the former president fumed and the GOP rage machine spun itself into overdrive, framing the court developments as acts of political persecution. In the Carroll case, the first part happened, but not the second. That most Republicans were not talking about $83 million in damages reflects both a discomfort with, and an uncertainty about, the political implications of the verdict. It also hints at a latent fear: that the ruling may prove to be a turnoff for some independent or conservative-leaning women in the suburbs." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: BUT. Check yesterday's Comments. Akhilleus found a bona fide Trump defender offering an unusual rationale.
Maggie Haberman & Kate Christobek of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump's behavior as he attended the defamation trial that ended on Friday with a jury ordering him to pay $83.3 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll -- and his similar conduct in a pending civil case in New York -- showcased his disdain both for a legal system seeking to hold him accountable and for the protocols of courtrooms where he has little control." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The reporters don't mention it, but after Trump testified in the defamation case (for a whole three minutes during which the judge squelched most of his testimony), he left the court room muttering, "This is not America. This is not America. This is not America." I wondered what he meant by that, and I can only guess he meant that in his America, wealthy white men can wriggle out of paying for their crimes & misdemeanors, as he has done countless times in the past. In the "Access Hollywood" tape, you will recall, he even boasted about the very sort of crime a Carroll jury found he had committed. And he has boasted about the white-collar crime of not paying taxes: "That makes me smart," he said during a debate with Hillary Clinton. Trump doesn't see the failure to hold him accountable as a glitch in the system -- which it is in a country that proclaims it stands for "equal justice under the law" -- but as evidence that the system is operating as it should.
David French, a conservative columnist for the New York Times, writes that conservative media cover only sex scandals involving left-wing perps, leaving their readers & viewers with the impression "that a righteous 'us' was taking on a villainous 'them.'"
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Finland. Johanna Lemola of the New York Times: "Voters in Finland are casting ballots on Sunday in a presidential election that comes as NATO's newest member faces the threat of an antagonistic Russia. The election, which is expected to require a second round of voting, is for Finland's first new head of state in 12 years. The country's wildly popular president, Sauli Niinistö, has served two terms and is ineligible to run again.... From a field of nine candidates, the latest polls show two front-runners: Alexander Stubb and Pekka Haavisto. Both are familiar faces with strong foreign policy credentials." (Also linked yesterday.)
France. Soup to Nuts. Herb Scribner of the Washington Post: "Two female activists tossed soup at the Mona Lisa at the Louvre on Sunday in a protest over food security and protections for farmers. The Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece, which is fortified behind armored glass, was not damaged, according to multiple reports." Here's a France 24 story (in English). ~~~
~~~ Marie: Some protests are downright stupid, and this would be one of the stupid ones, IMO. I'm not saying French farmers don't need advocates; maybe they have genuine grievances. But Leonardo has nothing to do with it. He's dead. Nobody knows who La Gioconda was, but it's unlikely she (or he!) was a French farmer. And if you're worried about food security, shouldn't that soup have gone to hungry French children?
Apparently the soup Nazi ladies screamed as they were defacing the glass around the painting, "What's the most important thing? Art, or the right to healthy and sustainable food?" That's a good question, although it should be phrased, "what's more important," since they were contrasting two alternatives, not "what's most important," which would apply to a list of alternatives. (Admittedly, the question is an English translation of what the protesters screamed in French, so maybe they got the French right.) In any event, many people would answer that both art and food are important, perhaps equally important. Maybe these jejune protesters, once the French legal system is finished with them, should take a trip to the Lascaux cave in the Dordogne & contemplate the 20,000-year-old paintings there. What was more important to the cave artists? The nuts & berries they ate or the nuts & berries they ground into pigments? The nuts & berries they consumed or the nuts and berries that lasted 20,000 years? Just askin'.
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Reader Comments (11)
Mr. Empathy
Ya know, we’ve become so inured, let’s face it, to what a misanthropic prick Donald Trump can be, but at least once a week or so he surpasses even his own subterranean marks for callous barbarism.
During one of his projection rants, at a Las Vegas event, about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, the Orange Monster had to pause for a minute or so because someone in the audience had the audacity to interrupt his screed by having a medical emergency.
While the person was being looked after, Trump felt the need to point out that had this been a State of the Union Address, that person would be shit out of luck because He wouldn’t stop. Not even for someone having a heart attack.
I am not even kidding.
"’You see, if this were the State of the Union address, I wouldn't do that because it's got to be this way,’ [bizarre hand gestures here] Trump said. ‘You can't say, oh, but we're all very good friends.'”
Don’t forget, this is the astonishing putz who once dressed down his chief of staff, John Kelly, for daring to suggest that a gigantic military parade being planned in his honor should include wounded veterans. “I don’t want to see any wounded guys. It doesn’t look good for me.”
I guess if they’d had non-combat related phony bone spurs it would be different?
So remember, if you’re at a Fatty SOTU (god forbid there should ever be another), don’t keel over with a stroke or a heart attack, because he’ll let you die. It wouldn’t look good for him to stop and make sure you get help.
Just…fuck. Words fail.
Oh, but Joe Biden…what a terrible guy.
I thought it was odd, in his astounding defense (sort of) of Trump after the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, that Rudy Giuliani referred to Carroll as a “whacko”. Oh, after he declared that it was no big deal because Fatty wasn’t convicted of rape. It was “only” sexual assault. (“He didn’t murder the guy, he just beat the living shit out of him and left him for dead.” “Oh, well then, case dismissed.”)
But this whacko reference I found a bit weird. But that’s because I don’t speak Trumpese. And I don’t watch Fox. Then I read this. So here we go again with another Fox history rewrite.
Outraged that the Orange Monster, after raping (sorry, Rudes, it WAS rape) then repeatedly defaming Ms. Carroll, would have to pay a penny, Fox is going on the attack, pointing to “extenuating circumstances” because of her, um, lifestyle, as they put it.
I mean, look at this crazy broad. She has a cat named vagina! She said she was wearing a Donna Karan dress, and Donna Karan said no she wasn’t! Case closed!
"’Donald Trump is not allowed to call his accuser E Jean Carroll a nut job. So we can do it for him,’ one X user posted this month, accompanied by a 2017 interview between Carroll and Elle Magazine. In the interview, Carroll showed off her cabin home, called the ‘Mouse House,’ as well as rocks she had painted blue, and a shed decked out with names of books and authors who influenced her in her youth.
Carroll also came under fire for tweets about learning ‘sex tips’ from her dog, as well as for naming her cat ‘Vagina T. Fireball,’ according to a 2019 Vanity Fair article, and one of her dogs "Tits," according to the 2017 video interview with Elle Magazine.”
Because, in MAGA World, nothing says whacko like someone who expresses a fondness for dearly remembered books.
This is the old “Look what she was wearing!” excuse. Blame the victim. The piece (of shit) goes on to rehash all Trump’s attacks on Carroll, his complaints of innocence and (once again, with feeling) how he “was never allowed to defend himself in court!”
Yes. He was. The jury said “Gulity!”
But, time to rewrite history, as only Fox, home to misogyny writ large, can.
If she wasn’t raped, she should have been.
I understand why Pelosi might suspect a possible Russia inspired and funded conspiracy in Hamas-Israel cease-fire protests. Our stance vis a vis Israel and the Gaza War is a delicate balancing act, easily upset, and in the context of rife anti-semitism, easily weaponized by anyone who sees advantage in stirring the Mid-eastern pot.
It's not as if Russia has not meddled in U.S. politics before, and not as if Russia and Iran are not allied, and not as if Iran proxies didn't just kill Americans in Jordan, and not as if the friend of my enemy is not my enemy, too.
Just thinking about the lives those who've decided that the only good reason for living is dying for a cause...
Seems to me an odd way to live.
In the Access Hollywood tape, The Donald says: "if you're a star they let you do it." Clearly he believes that his genital groping is consensual, even welcome.
I am certain that if you put The Donald on a lie detector and ask, "Have you ever done anything wrong?" he would say no, and the needles wouldn't budge. Everything he does is OK with him, and for him there just isn't anything else. Nothing is true, nothing matters, nothing is even real, except whatever he is thinking at any given moment. This is beyond narcissism -- this is far down the road to solipsism.
Abraham Lincoln
"Lincoln saw trouble coming, but not from a foreign power, as other countries feared. The destruction of the United States, he warned, could come only from within. “If destruction be our lot,” he said, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
The trouble Lincoln perceived stemmed from the growing lawlessness in the country as men ignored the rule of law and acted on their passions, imposing their will on their neighbors through violence. He pointed specifically to two recent events: the 1836 lynching of free Black man Francis McIntosh in St. Louis, Missouri, and the 1837 murder of white abolitionist editor Elijah P. Lovejoy by a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois.
But the problem of lawlessness was not limited to individual instances, he said. A public practice of ignoring the law eventually broke down all the guardrails designed to protect individuals, while lawbreakers, going unpunished, became convinced they were entitled to act without restraint. “Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane,” Lincoln said, “they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation.”
The only way to guard against such destruction, LIncoln said, was to protect the rule of law on which the country was founded."
RAS
"government is the problem" Ronald Reagan
I like to ask, "If you don't like representative democracy, what to you think you'd prefer? Your choices are anarchy or authoritarianism."
Many would prefer authoritarianism, as long as its their authority.
@RAS: Thanks. And I'd say Sunny Joe & Merrick the Unready had better start doing something about this: "From the Texas House to former President Donald Trump, Republicans across the country are rallying behind Gov. Greg Abbott’s legal standoff with the federal government at the southern border, intensifying concerns about a constitutional crisis amid an ongoing dispute with the Biden administration."
In all seriousness, Biden must make a hard decision about curbing Abbott/Paxton's refusal to abide by a Supreme Court decision, then speak to the nation in a prime-time address on what he's going to do -- then do it.
Unfortunately this is the lot we will be fighting. They laugh as he calls them stupid to their face. But still no one involved in organizing January 6th has been charged. No one has been kicked off a ballot for their support. Most of the violence on the Right goes unchallenged.
"Trump Suggests 98% of His Supporters Would Fail Cognitive Decline Test
Trump: There’s only about 2% of this room can do it"
Ramaswamy says that the Super Bowl fix is in, for a KC win. If so, then the bookmakers should be adjusting their lines today, not just on W-L but on the spread and the derivatives (I probably get the terms wrong, not being a gambler). Since that will not happen, the Biden folks should point out that money talks and Rama is full of crap.
Also, for a team to throw a game, it has to agree to shave points or take a dive, or both. You can't cheat by taking a payoff to "play better and win." So, SF players would have to agree to take the dive. And, of course, Nancy Pelosi is their congressperson, so then DiJiT would be able to blame Nikki.
There's more than one born every minute, P.T. Lots more.
Five years! for leaking IRS documents. Yeah, he shouldn't a done it.
But on the many other hands, we have the many perpetrators of an insurrection and election fraud and a fat guy who hauled boxes of public property to his private residence and kept it who have served no jail time at all.
A couple of short notes of apology to the people of Georgia, and that's it.
I'm having trouble with the math.