Friday Reads: After the “Storm”
Posted: January 8, 2021 Filed under: 2020 Elections | Tags: The Trumpist Insurrection 49 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
There have been good and bad days in the history of this country. I’ve seen and remember quite a few now that I’m old and because I grew up in the TV age. I remember when both Kennedys and Martin Luther King were assassinated. I remember the moonwalk. I remember 9/11 and watching the live bombing of Baghdad.
You remember where you were on those days even if you were as young as my nursery school age sister who remembers when mother and our cleaning lady Mildred were watching the black and white TV showing the unfolding news in Dallas. I’ll never forget watching the water rise after Hurricane Katrina and the faces of people trapped there. The last time Mildred and my mom were watching the TV with those same faces were those final days of Nixon. That was the year before I moved out to a dorm with my own TV.
I have the same kind of feelings today that I have about those no good, horrible, very bad days. This is not a “I remember the moonwalk” kind’ve day which is what I had expected to experience the night of the 2016 election. This is one of those days when you realize that we’ve lost something or someone precious and wonderful. It’s a day that feels like some unknown innocence in you has made a hole in you letting you know that it was there and now it’s gone.
I’ve always rather laughed at the folks wrapped up in that Confederate Flag stuff. I had a lot of thoughts about them over the years. While none were postivie, none ever came close to thinking they’d storm Capitol Hill for a rich, orange, fat trust fund baby selling lies and false promises who as President, would tell them to do so. Most of us knew some “thing” was likely to happen. It just “the thing” that actually happened was worse than I imagined.
So, now we’re in the fallout and the aftermath has begun. The how, the who, and the what-of-it–along with the blame game–is afoot.
This is from The Washington Post: “Pentagon placed limits on D.C. Guard ahead of pro-Trump protests due to narrow mission”.
Also from WAPO and David Ignatius is this headline: “What went wrong with the protection of the U.S. Capitol.”
Some mistakes are obvious: The FBI underestimated the number of protesters, predicting a maximum of 20,000, which turned out to be less than half the number who showed up. The Capitol Police didn’t stand their ground at the perimeter or at the Capitol itself. The mayor was slow to request additional troops from the D.C. National Guard. The acting attorney general was similarly tardy in ordering elite FBI units into the Capitol. And the Pentagon brass worried more about avoiding politicization of the military than about stopping an insurrection.
In a seeming acknowledgment of the inadequate response, Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund announced Thursday night that he was resigning. The Associated Press reported that the Capitol Police had turned down offers of additional support from the National Guard and the FBI before the disastrous invasion of the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
But as we look for who to blame in this catastrophe, let’s focus on the real culprits: President Trump, who incited the rioters and urged them toward the Capitol; the 13 Republican senators and 138 House members who challenged President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and egged on the insurgents; and the smug, self-appointed patriots who trashed the people’s house. Trump should face legal action for fomenting this riot. The members who risked the lives of their colleagues by encouraging the fanatics should be censured. The insurgents who ransacked the Capitol should be arrested and prosecuted.
There seems to be some movement towards arresting the Trump Rioters/Looters/Murderers/Mob/Insurrectionists but it’s going at a slower snail’s pace than would ever happen at a peaceful protest gathering something related to either recognizing the unequal treatment of Black Americans by the Justice System or some other march for justice. The beatings and the arrests would have happened before folks were moving anywhere.
This is from CNN’s Nicole Chavez: ‘Rioters breached US Capitol security on Wednesday. This was the police response when it was Black protesters on DC streets last year”.
As hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol, breaking windows and wreaking havoc, politicians and activists were among the many who drew comparisons between the police response on Wednesday to that of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests.
The death of George Floyd — a Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck — in May of 2020 prompted hundreds of protests nationwide over the summer. In many cities, including the nation’s capital, police met protesters with tear gas, violence and arrests.
However, Wednesday’s protests, many pointed out, were different. The Black Lives Matter Global Network, one of the most well-known organizations fighting for the well-being of Black people, described Wednesday’s riots as a “coup.”
The group said it was “one more example of the hypocrisy in our country’s law enforcement response to protest.”
“When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets,” the group said in a statement. “Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear gassed, battered, and perhaps shot.”
White privilege was in full display as the kinds of folks the FBI and Right Wing Watch groups have been telling us for years. The usual suspects that shoot up mosques, terrorize women at Planned Parenthood, and attack Black Lives Matter Protestors showed up to stage an insurrection. Remember when the FBI told us and the Republicans were incensed by their report?
This is from the NYT. “These Are the Rioters Who Stormed the Nation’s Capitol. The mob that rampaged the halls of Congress included infamous white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.” It’s reported by Sabrina Tavernise and Matthew Rosenberg. As I carefully place the the three pictures of those horrible assassination scenes in this post I can only wonder at the work of the secret service and others to get today’s national leaders to safety. We could’ve lost any number of them this week.
There were infamous white nationalists and noted conspiracy theorists who have spread dark visions of pedophile Satanists running the country. Others were more anonymous, people who had journeyed from Indiana and South Carolina to heed President Trump’s call to show their support. One person, a West Virginia lawmaker, had only been elected to office in November.
All of them converged on Wednesday on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, where hundreds of rioters crashed through barricades, climbed through windows and walked through doors, wandering around the hallways with a sense of gleeful desecration, because, for a few breathtaking hours, they believed that they had displaced the very elites they said they hated.
“We wanted to show these politicians that it’s us who’s in charge, not them,” said a construction worker from Indianapolis, who is 40 and identified himself only as Aaron. He declined to give his last name, saying, “I’m not that dumb.”
But a good deal of them were dumb enough to post their faces to their social media and friends. They should be hunted down, charged with every possible infraction, and dumped in a prison to spend eternity cleaning the johns. One Capitol Police officer lost his life. The one woman shot by Capitol Police was deep into the hate and lies of QAnon.
And now, we have the intrigue …
Something else indeed.
So, once again in the annals of our history we delve in to “untoward here”. It is also very clear that it’s the usual suspects. Our history is full of a lot of white people that follow down the path of strictly white, nationalistic populism and wrap it up with a flag on a cross. We should be prepared to act. This may indeed be our time to get the laws into place to undo these long standing national sins of racism, indigenous genocide, kleptocracy, misogyny, and basic hatred of any ‘other’.
We’ve got a new decade and an old struggle with new purpose.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: 16 Days and Counting
Posted: January 4, 2021 Filed under: 2020 Elections | Tags: 2021 Regime Change 30 Comments
Detail from Folger Shakespeare Library, V.b.311, f. 129r
Good Day Sky Dancers!
It’s back to work for me! So, I know that the cat pix are usually BB’s thing but these 16th century rocket cats completely intrigued me. They also reminded me that I would like to just streak through the next 16 days like a speeding bullet.
I knew when the Washington Post got that tape of Trump demanding the Secretary of State of Georgia find him some 11 thousand odd votes with not so vague threats attached that my writing fate this morning was sealed. There are equally outrageous things going on with the Mad King like giving Presidential medals of honor to the rogue’s gallery of the most dishonorable Republican members of Congress whose names make me queasy. Then, there’s also some rumors that we’re sending him to Turnberry in Scotland some time around the last of those 16 days. It seems like his remaining flunkies are doing what they can to enforce his worst policies too while we’re watching him meltdown. I offer up this example from Louisiana.
Djibril Coulibaly arrived in Louisiana 19 years ago, recruited from his native Mali by the state’s prize-winning program to promote the French language in schools. He and his wife settled in Opelousas, where their three sons were born. In 2012, they moved to Thibodaux, where he taught second and third graders and sometimes volunteered as a soccer coach.
In the halls of W.S. Lafargue Elementary School, Coulibaly was known as a punctual, soft-spoken instructor who rarely missed a day of class. So when he didn’t show up for work on Dec. 15 — and his 2001 blue Toyota Sierra van was found empty on a street near the school — those who know him were alarmed enough to call the hospital emergency room and the Thibodaux Police Department.
Police investigators soon learned that federal agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement had driven over from Mississippi to arrest Coulibaly, 50, who now sits in a detention center 160 miles from his family, awaiting deportation in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s administration.
That prospect has spawned prayer groups for Coulibaly along with gift cards, presents and donations to his family and a flurry of letters written by his employer, colleagues and friends, all with hopes of stopping ICE from sending him back to Mali.
“I don’t know what went wrong, but I want things to be right,” said Sandy Holloway, president of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and a former Lafourche Parish educator who knows Coulibaly personally. “He’s a very good gentleman, and I love his children.”
An ICE spokeswoman would not discuss Coulibaly’s case, citing privacy concerns. But in recent years, immigration judges have ruled that Coulibaly must leave because he does not have a continuous visa allowing him to stay in the United States. His lawyers are still appealing those decisions, and his friends still question his abrupt apprehension.
“Why are they rushing to deport him?” said Ana Elashry, a special education teacher whose children are close with Coulibaly’s sons? “He’s a good man, a family man, on top of being a teacher.”
Yes, on top of a pandemic that’s rampant and other ongoing shitshows we see that the Trumpist regime is still on its basic mission which is to rid the country of all people of color. Mr. Coulibaly is also Muslim. Devin Nunes gets a Presidential medal of honor and this fine teacher and his family get the death penalty.
One of the key worries among his supporters is that Coulibaly’s middle son is non-verbal and severely autistic. Because the family is Westernized and his children have attended Roman Catholic schools in Louisiana, they say, his son’s condition is likely to be viewed in Mali as punishment for people who are not good Muslims.
Also, in recent years, Islamist fundamentalists have gained more power in his native country, which could put his family in danger, wrote Charlotte Walker-Said, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and specialist on French-speaking parts of West Africa.
Speaking of Pandemics before Fauci trolled Trump over the weekend on Trump’s accusation that the CDC “exagerates” covid deaths. Fauci told Trump “These are real deaths.”
This is from the Slate link in the above twitter.
President Donald Trump criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Sunday morning, accusing it of propagating “fake news” by exaggerating the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States. In a Sunday morning tweet, Trump said the numbers are inflated because of the CDC’s “ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries.” Trump sent the tweet as the the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States passed the 20-million mark and the death toll surpassed 350,000, by far the highest in the world, followed by Brazil, which has reported more than 195,000 deaths.
So, most of the outrage today surrounds a call from Trump to Georgia SOS basically begging him to overturn his state’s election results. Trump just may have violated Federal and State law. This is from the NYT and written by Eric Lipton.
The call by President Trump on Saturday to Georgia’s secretary of state raised the prospect that Mr. Trump may have violated laws that prohibit interference in federal or state elections, but lawyers said on Sunday that it would be difficult to pursue such a charge.
The recording of the conversation between Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, first reported by The Washington Post, led a number of election and criminal defense lawyers to conclude that by pressuring Mr. Raffensperger to “find” the votes he would need to reverse the election outcome in the state, Mr. Trump either broke the law or came close to it.
“It seems to me like what he did clearly violates Georgia statutes,” said Leigh Ann Webster, an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer, citing a state law that makes it illegal for anyone who “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage” in election fraud.
At the federal level, anyone who “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a state of a fair and impartially conducted election process” is breaking the law.
The call and Trump’s absurd charges of election fraud have caused the 117th Congress to be in total chaos. This is from Olivia Beavers writing for Politico: “117th Congress kicks off with GOP civil war, calls for impeachment and plexiglass”.
It’s less than 24 hours into the 117th Congress and we’ve already seen Republicans break out into a civil war, Democrats renew calls to impeach President Donald Trump and quarantined members being forced to vote from the confines of a plexiglass case in the House chamber. Welcome to 2021.
THE GOP TURNS ON ITSELF: An intra-party battle is heating up within the Republican Party as two bitterly divided sides clash over the decision of at least 12 GOP senators, and dozens more House Republicans, to challenge the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win.
The effort is snowballing as more Republicans join the Trump-guard led by Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) in the Senate and Rep. Mo Brooks (Ala.) in the House, while the old guard like Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is warning that this effort is jeopardizing the nation’s democratic values.
With nearly a quarter of Senate Republicans taking part in the effort, against the urging of top GOP Senate leaders, it is also becoming clear just how much of a force Trump will be in the Republican Party even once he’s out of the White House. As one top House Republican told Huddle: “[Trump’s] the 800 pound gorilla.” They don’t want to cross him.
The tensions have jumped so high that individual GOP senators are now directly headbutting one another, with Toomey accusing Cruz, Hawley and other Republicans of undermining the right to participate in direct elections and Hawley decrying Toomey’s arguments and “shameless personal attacks.”
“I’m concerned about the division in America, that’s the biggest issue, but obviously this is not healthy for the Republican Party,” lamented Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). “This is bad for the country and bad for the party.” Burgess and Marianne with the story. http://politi.co/3odDYcZ
The Washington Post has published the full audio and a transcript if you haven’t ventured there yet. It’s pretty difficult to miss how unhinged Trump has become since losing the election. Raffensperger keeps calmly explaining that nothing he says is true.
Trump: It doesn’t pass the smell test because we hear they’re shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now what they’re saying, “Oh, we’re just cleaning up the office.” You know.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.
Trump: Oh this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not; it’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I don’t even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.
Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an accurate election.
Trump: No, no you don’t. No, no you don’t. You don’t have. Not even close. You’re off by hundreds of thousands of votes. And just on the small numbers, you’re off on these numbers, and these numbers can’t be just — well, why wont? — Okay. So you sent us into Cobb County for signature verification, right? You sent us into Cobb County, which we didn’t want to go into. And you said it would be open to the public. So we had our experts there, they weren’t allowed into the room. But we didn’t want Cobb County. We wanted Fulton County. And you wouldn’t give it to us. Now, why aren’t we doing signature — and why can’t it be open to the public?
And why can’t we have professionals do it instead of rank amateurs who will never find anything and don’t want to find anything? They don’t want to find, you know they don’t want to find anything. Someday you’ll tell me the reason why, because I don’t understand your reasoning, but someday you’ll tell me the reason why. But why don’t you want to find?
Meanwhile, NewsMax says Trump really made the case. This weird ass right wing media outlets are getting more surreal every day. The make Fox News look like MSNBC practically. Blooomberg‘s Timothy L O’Brien writes this “Trump’s Phone Call Is What Coup Fever Looks Like”.
Like the little boy haunted by ghosts in the horror movie “The Sixth Sense,” President Donald Trump sees dead people everywhere. He thinks at least 5,000 of them voted in Georgia during the presidential election and were part of a broader conspiracy that deprived him of a victory in the state.
In an unhinged, extraordinary phone call Saturday with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, and Ryan Germany, Raffensperger’s general counsel, Trump tried to strong-arm them into conceding that President-elect Joe Biden hadn’t really secured 11,799 more votes than he did. And he encouraged them to find ways to invalidate those votes, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by the Washington Post (which broke the story) and Bloomberg News.
“So what are we going to do here folks?” Trump asked during the one-hour call. “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.” Trump, who oversees the Justice Department for 16 more days, also threatened both men, warning that they could be charged with a crime if they failed to support his voting fraud fairytales.
Trump has been at this for decades, so there’s nothing surprising here. He spent years trying to bully, buy off or corrupt regulators, politicians, law enforcement officials and others he encountered as a developer, casino operator, media fixture and politician. He was impeached for trying to convince Ukraine’s president during a phone call to find dirt on Biden that would undermine his presidential candidacy.
But it is surprising how easily Trump continues to corrupt so many around him. Too few in his party are willing to tell the president, as Germany did, that reality doesn’t comport with his lies. Cowed by Trump’s political traction or eager to jump on his gravy train, too few are willing to abandon him publicly so voters’ faith in the electoral process, democracy and the rule of law isn’t permanently undercut.
The phone call memorialized what corruption and a desire to orchestrate a political coup sound like and, happily, Raffensperger and Germany were unswayed. “The challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong,” Raffensperger told Trump, who continued trying to steamroll him anyway. “What we’re seeing is not at all what you’re describing,” said Germany.
So, I’m exhausted by all of that Trumpy stuff and inclulding this crazy pandemic and all the selfish people that refuse to do right by our public health laws. I’m also exhausted by the thought that 40 percent of the American public does not appear to be able to recognize insanity and evil when they see it. This is why I am thankful every time I get to read your comments. We may be a far flung community in terms of space but we need to hold tight to the folks who know that none of this is normal for anything but a dysfunctional banana republic.
I can’t wait for the Biden/Harris Administration to come turn some of this around. I hope it’s in time for people like Djibril Coulibaly and his family and for all the families who have or will have some one living through or dying from Covid 19. It didn’t have to be like this. I doubt I’ll ever not see some one who voted for that monster without thinking of the same folks that marched the country to hell trying to hold on to slavery.
Take care! Be safe! What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Happy New Year!!! Less than 18 days to go and it’s a New Day!
Posted: January 1, 2021 Filed under: just because | Tags: 2021 New Year News 23 Comments
Well, we made it through 2020 Sky Dancers!
Now. we have a countdown of 18 days to go to get rid of the Russian Potted Plant in the White House He’s still kicking and tweeting whatever possible dignity he ever had right down that gold toilet! His Death Cult is up to no good too. But still, you can’t wake up to the first day of 2021 without being happy that a change is going to come for sure.
Via Politico and John F. Harris: “I’ve got a feeling ’21 is gonna be a good year …“
Can Biden fill the presidency? No, this isn’t about filling West Wing and Cabinet jobs. It’s about Biden filling his own job — projecting the aura of command that Americans associate with the presidency. At 78, he’ll be 78 days older on his first day than Ronald Reagan was on his last. On many days on the campaign trail, his frail bearing and meandering sentences made him seem every day of his age. Since the election, he’s typically been a crisper and more authoritative presence. Yet U.S. history has rarely presented a more vivid contrast between outsize challenges and a pedestrian leadership persona.
Can Trump still be Trump come Jan. 21? The president’s demagoguery with his baseless assertions of a stolen election, and his increasingly erratic behavior since the election, has put an old puzzle in a frightening new light: Does seemingly irrational behavior actually serve a rational purpose? I’m already on record with my hunch — not a prediction! — that Trump will fade faster than most people and probably even he assumes once he no longer occupies the White House. But this is the dominant question hovering over Republican politics. A subordinate question is whether his adult children have any real political sway of their own once dad is ex-president.
Which calls for one of my favorite Nina Simone Songs!!!
And then there’s this little–meager– thing coming into people’s checking accounts. The stimulus program is half what it was in March. There are some important differences too. This is from the IndyStar: “New COVID-19 stimulus bill is half of March’s. How else it differs.”.
With no changes, this round of stimulus will cost about $920 billion, according to Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That’s much closer to the $1 trillion package Republicans floated this summer — and a third of the bill House Democrats passed for earlier this year.
- Still, this package includes a mix of proposals from both parties:
- A renewal of the Paycheck Protection Program for small business loan forgiveness
- Funds for vaccine development and distribution
- Funds for COVID testing
- Funds to equip schools with protection equipment
- Renewal of unemployment benefits
- Direct stimulus payments
Check out the nifty graphic that outlines some of the major differences you may notice.
There will be some protests on next week when a one US Senator and a few Reps make total asses of themselves while simultaneously staging a coup. Here’s some headlines on the protests but the usual right wing nutters, the Gohmert thing, and the vote to put every one on the record to say Biden was legally elected in our democratic Republic.
Mike Allen / Axios:
McConnell swats back at Trump amid Republican power struggle — It took four years and an election defeat. But someone with real power inside the Republican Party is standing up to — and swatting back — President Trump: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.Jake Tapper / CNN:
At least 140 House Republicans to vote against counting electoral votes, two GOP lawmakers sayAlex Isenstadt / Politico:
Hawley faces heat from Senate Republicans over Electoral College plans — The Missouri senator missed a Thursday call where Mitch McConnell asked him to explain his plans, emailing colleagues later instead. — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.Dan Berman / CNN:
Pence asks judge to reject Gohmert lawsuit asking the VP to interfere in the Electoral College count
The only thing that concerns me is the protests by the usual nutters who are getting angrier and more aggrieved and finding more ways to convince themselves that every conspiracy theory Trump sends them is reality.
From USA Today: “‘Wild’ protests: Police brace for pro-Trump rallies when Congress meets Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s win.”
A city accustomed to mass protests is gearing up for especially intense ones over what should be the most mundane of political events: the counting of Electoral College votes during a special joint session of Congress.
At the urging of President Donald Trump, however, die-hard supporters are planning to descend on the nation’s capital Jan. 6, to pressure Republican lawmakers into aligning themselves with the doomed effort to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Knife fights, shouting matches, and verbal harassment of Trump opponents accompanied previous demonstrations following Biden’s election win in November. Now federal and local law enforcement are bracing for what may be the most intense Trump protest yet as Congress is poised to formally declare Biden president-elect.
Various Trump groups are promoting the demonstrations online. One called “#StopTheSteal” operates the website “WildProtest.com,” which proclaims that “PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTS YOU IN DC JANUARY 6.”
“Be there, will be wild,” says one flier.
The event has been co-signed by incoming members of Congress Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And then, climate change the global problem we need to be on top of …
To run his Energy Department, Biden has tapped former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a staunch clean energy advocate who worked closely with the Obama administration to bail out her state’s auto industry during the Great Recession — a program that also directed stimulus funds to build the LG Chem facility there that produces batteries for the Chevy Volt.
“Granholm was really good on this stuff when she was governor. She’s been even more engaged on the climate fights since she left,” said John Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton who later led Obama administration climate efforts. “She still has very strong connections to unions, to the auto companies.”
Granholm is already leaning into her argument that a clean energy transition can help the U.S. economy — and blue collar workers — weather the economic turmoil from the pandemic.
“We’re going to be working at the Department of Energy with the … states and the cities, to help give them incentives, little carrots, little sticks,” Granholm told ABC’s “This Week,” on Dec. 20, adding that “combating climate change is such an economic opportunity for this country.”
Hang in there! Help is on the way! We’ll be here together to virtually hold hands and hug as we undo the terrible Trumpist Regime’s rule of terror and ineptitude.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Twenty Three days to a Return to Sanity
Posted: December 28, 2020 Filed under: 2020 Elections, Afternoon Reads 9 Comments
Children playing in snow, 1903
Good Day Sky Dancers!
The nightmarish 4 plus years of watching a Malignant Narcissist torment the world are just about over. In peak form, we got a self-serving presidential memo that doesn’t recognize the havoc he created by letting a bill that maintains the current unemployment insurance sit unattended while he golfed at his club with all the tabs being picked up by the tax payer. People will have to do job searches and states will have to recertify their status because he waited. All this while the pandemic gains steam across the nation.
How are we going to make it through these final days? Jill Lawrence–writing for USA Today— has some suggestions. “Waiting for Joe Biden: How to make it through the final, awful days of Donald Trump. Marie Antoinette had nothing on Trump, who flew to Florida and hit the links after pardoning cronies and upending a desperately needed COVID relief deal”
It should never be shrugged off when a commander in chief offers pardons and clemency to convicted war criminals and white-collar criminals, cronies and allies and crooks with friends in high places. Especially when so many people are in prison due to old laws and requirements that have been overtaken by advances in brain science or new thinking on drug offenses, and that in some cases have been changed by states but not made retroactive. Especially when so many of those in prison are people of color.
It should never be shrugged off when a president flies to his luxury Florida golf club to hit the links after single-handedly upending months of painful negotiations for COVID-19 relief. Marie Antoinette had nothing on Trump. Don’t be fooled by his post-game insistence on $2,000 checks in every pot. He had months to make that demand and convince Republicans it was nonnegotiable. Instead, he made his move in a video three days before Christmas and two days after Congress finally agreed on a deal. This holiday season is now a time of fear and desperation for millions who are facing hunger, eviction and the end of unemployment benefits.
It should never be shrugged off when the leader of a great nation abandons his people in a pandemic, leaving them to disease and death and turning his brilliant, wealthy country into a global role model for failure. From testing, contact tracing and identifying mutations of the coronavirus, to shortages of personal protective equipment and inadequate, belated and sometimes nonexistent economic aid, the U.S. response has been a rolling tragedy of mistakes, inaction, confusion, false starts, false information, propaganda, lies and disrespect for science.
It should never be shrugged off when an entire political party betrays an entire country. Republicans elected and then kept in office a president they knew from the start was incapable of handling an emergency, protecting the general welfare of his fellow citizens, using his vast powers judiciously and nobly, or simply meeting a bare minimum standard of ethical behavior.
Trump caved –according to Mike Allen at Axios–because of congressional pressure.
How it happened: Over many days, Mnuchin and McCarthy — aided by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who golfed with Trump in West Palm Beach on Friday — indulged the president’s rants, told him there was great stuff in the bill, and gave him “wins” he could announce, even though they didn’t change the bill.
- Playing to his vanity, they invoked his legacy,and reminded him he didn’t want to hurt people.
- They convinced the author of “The Art of the Deal” that he had shown himself to be a fighter, and that he had gotten all there was to get.
Trump’s sweeteners, from his 8:15 p.m. statement: “[T]he House and Senate have agreed to focus strongly on the very substantial voter fraud which took place in the November 3 Presidential election.”
- “The Senate will start the process for a vote that increases checks to $2,000, repeals Section 230, and starts an investigation into voter fraud. Big Tech must not get protections of Section 230! Voter Fraud must be fixed! Much more money is coming. I will never give up my fight for the American people!”
Reality check … Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who worked hard to understand Trump, told me: “It may be too late. Too late for him, too late for the economy, too late for Covid, and too late for the Georgia senators.”
This analysis is from Aaron Blake writing for WAPO.
With less than a month to go in his presidency, Trump put a significant ding in whatever exists of that portion of his legacy.
Trump decided over the Christmas holiday to threaten not to sign a combination coronavirus relief package and spending bill. Trump’s chief complaints: The deal delivered only $600 payments to the American people, rather than his desired $2,000, and he didn’t like the so-called pork — and especially foreign funding — in the legislation.
The exercise was bizarre from the jump for a number of reasons. First was that this was a deal forged by his own administration, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin serving as lead negotiator and hailing it shortly before Trump decided to call it “a disgrace.” Second was that Trump raised virtually none of these concerns beforethe bill’s passage, instead waiting until after the hard work had (apparently) been done to hijack the process. And third was that the pork that Trump and his media allies criticized not only wasn’t in the coronavirus relief bill but was rather in an accompanying omnibus spending bill — actually by and large money that Trump himself had requested in his own proposed budget.
GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio) summed it up best last week:
The whole gambit has now fallen apart in a spectacular but utterly predictable way, with Trump relenting and signing the bill Sunday night. Trump dubiously claimed nonspecific concessions from Congress in voter fraud. He also said he will send lawmakers a “redlined” version of the bill “insisting that those funds be removed” from it. But Trump can insist all he wants; Congress has no duty to actually follow through on his demand to that.
This basically means that the screeching in the presidential memo that linked to up top but refuse to print here is just that. A huge long wail for attention and an attempt to get us to think he cares about us. Breaking News: We don’t care about him. I don’t want to see him or hear him or even hear any one talk about him for any reason other than a court appearance or a jail sentence. I want him ignored like any rando internet troll.
Eric Levitz of New York Magazine argues that Trump may have accidently been a transitional president. Just that statement alone made me go read the article. The I was kinda sorry I did because all of this stimulus that is mostly due to pressure from the Democratic Congress did not add up to the level of stimulus necessary to get us through this economy or pandemic. The only thing I see between the Obama stimulus package and this one is that Republicans never want any economic policy but tax cuts to the wealthy and to huge corporations and they just basically try to get rid of spending on everything else. But, oh, well … I went there so now I have to quote it.
Of course, there are several other, massive distinctions between this year’s recession and 2009’s. Three thousand Americans weren’t dying each day from a pandemic disease 11 years ago. The world-historic scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the way it sidelined entire economic sectors, make it a categorically different emergency from the Great Financial Crisis. This reality — combined with the fact that the COVID crisis happened to arrive in a year when a Republican president was up for reelection — might seem sufficient to explain why a GOP Congress was willing to condone the CARES Act’s generous fiscal provisions.
But I think there’s more to it than that. For one thing, by injecting another $900 billion into the economy now— at a time when average disposable income in the U.S. is exceptionally high — Senate Republicans effectively set Joe Biden up to preside over a robust recovery when (and if) the U.S. achieves herd immunity through vaccination.
The fact that the typical American worker — who did not lose her job during the pandemic but did receive an unexpected $1,200 from the government — is actually in solid financial shape should not blind anyone to the utter financial devastation that is being needlessly visited upon tens of millions of less fortunate Americans. Nor should it obscure the holes that the pandemic has left in many state and city budgets and the implications that will have for social services and public transit absent further federal aid. The $900 billion stimulus is criminally insufficient to the scale of our nation’s mass suffering and fiscal woes. But in strictly macroeconomic terms — which is to say, in terms of whether there will be enough demand in the economy to fuel strong (if grossly inequitable) growth next year — the stimulus may be larger than necessary: The GOP donor class did not need U.S. households to get another $600 from the government in order to see their portfolios appreciate in 2021.
The fact that congressional Republicans supported stimulus anyway likely reflects the financial desperation of small-business owners, a powerful constituency within their coalition, as well as a calculation that failure to pass stimulus will undermine their incumbent senators in the Georgia runoff elections. But I believe that it is also indicative of deficit hawks’ declining ideological power — which the first three years of the Trump presidency did much to erode.
I really do not understand how you can argue declining power of deficit hawks in this scenario. It seems bizarre. There are never any Republican deficit hawks when we blow through a budget and a create huge deficits due to tax cuts. That argument only comes up when taxpayer money returns to the middle class which it really didn’t in this latest package. Anyway, go read this astoundingly crazy analysis and shake your head along with me if you dare.
So, here are some other articles I highly suggest you read.
And that’s enough from me today! We sure wont’ be out of this mess any time soon but at least we won’t have to deal with that horrid man any more.
What’s on your reading and blogging list ?
Christmas Friday Reads
Posted: December 25, 2020 Filed under: New Orleans | Tags: Holiday Season 2020, Trump Corrupt Pardons 7 Comments
Christmas at the Roosevelt hotel where my parents spent their honeymoon after having a yuletide wedding in Kansas City.
Good Day Sky Dancers and Happy Christmas to those who celebrate!
Usually, I have these wonderful pictures of the Lutcher Bonfires that are lit to greet Père Noël! They were cancelled this year due to the Covid-19 outbreak. This has been a holiday season unlike any other in my life time. There were some normal things up and running even after the Katrina Xmas. We still have very French traditions down here despite Napoleon selling us out to Thomas Jefferson. Reveillon–the Christmas Eve Feast– is one of my favorites because, yes, FOOD!
In France, a country where at least 60 percent of the population identifies as Catholic according to Europe Now, even the majority who may be a little irregular in their attendance at Sunday services will often come out for midnight mass. And, as 100 percent of the country’s population are serious foodies, naturally la messe de minuit is followed by a sumptuous meal called le Réveillon, which translates to “the awakening.” Which kind of implies that you’ve fallen asleep during mass – tsk tsk – but still, a luxurious meal of escargots, oysters, roast pheasant, and foie gras followed by bûche de Noël and washed down with Champagne is a pretty nice way to wake up from a long winter’s nap.
In fact, Complete France says that a single Réveillon is not sufficient to make la saison des fêtes sufficiently joyeuse – instead, they celebrate le Réveillon de Noël on Christmas Eve (or rather, early Christmas morning) and on New Year’s Eve they partake in le Réveillon de la Saint Sylvestre. Can’t make it to France this year? That’s ok. Nineteenth-century French immigrants brought this tradition to that French-est of U.S. cities, New Orleans. Visit New Orleans notes that the early, midnight mass-based tradition seemed to have died out by the WWII era, it was revived in the 1990s in a more secular version.
Revillion at Galatoire’s on Bourbon Street.
You may see what Christmas Eve dinner looks like around the world too at that link! Believe me, it’s top quality Food Porn!
There was an intentional bombing this morning in Nashville.
A large explosion was reported in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning.
The explosion happened in the area of Second Avenue and Broadway near Commerce Street occurred around 6:30 am Friday. Heavy black smoke could be seen rising above the affected area.
MNPD, FBI, and ATF are investigating the explosion of an RV outside 166 2nd Avenue North downtown.
Officers responded to a call of shots fired call on 2nd Avenue at approximately 5:30 a.m. The department’s Hazardous Devices Unit was called to check the RV. As those officers were en route, the vehicle exploded outside an AT&T transmission building. Multiple buildings on 2nd Avenue were damaged, some extensively.
They’ve not released any more information than that as of this writing. However, this is some interesting commentary.
This looks exactly like the kind’ve Revillion Menu served up by Paul Prudhomme’s stellar students my friends Chefs Mary and Greg Sonnier.Their restaurant is named after their daughter Gabrielle They do have a great take out menu these days though!!
Here’s a few links to show you how litigious, unsuccessful, and crazy Trumpist law suits can be. Trump and his cronies seem to be better at getting put in jail with criminal lawsuits than successful getting what they consider justice mostly because of hurt widdle feefees.
Gabriel T. Rubin / Wall Street Journal:
Trump Lawyers Get Little Backup From Their Firms or Universities — Chapman University becomes the latest organization to formally distance itself from the president’s legal efforts to challenge the election results
Joe Walsh / Forbes:
Judge Tosses Out Rep. Nunes’ Lawsuit Against Washington Post — A federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Thursday, the latest development in a string of legal battles waged by Nunes against mainstream media outlets …Jon Swaine / Washington Post:
Sidney Powell’s secret intelligence contractor witness is a pro-Trump podcaster — As she asked the U.S. Supreme Court this month to overturn President Trump’s election loss, the attorney Sidney Powell cited testimony from a secret witness presented as a former intelligence contractor …
The Trump lists of pardons are the most horrifying collection of war criminals and thieves and traitors that I’ve ever seen. Here’s some links to read on those actions.Ashton Pittman / Mississippi Free Press:
Republican Mississippi Senator: Trump’s Pardons ‘Smack of Cronyism and Political Favors’
Sen. Brice Wiggins, a prominent Republican member of the Mississippi Senate from Pascagoula, broke ranks with most members of his party in the state last night as he criticized President Donald Trump’s ongoing pardon spree.
Wiggins, who served as an assistant district attorney for seven years and as a youth court prosecutor for one year before joining the Mississippi Senate in 2012, said in a tweet thread yesterday evening that Trump’s pardons “aren’t good.”
“They smack of cronyism and political favors. As such, they erode our faith in the rule of law,” Wiggins, who chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Division B Committee, wrote in a tweet thread Friday night.
Samya Kullab / Associated Press:
Relative of Blackwater victim in Iraq says pardons ‘unfair’
Faris Fadel had just one word to describe the recent pardoning by the Trump administration of four private security contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians — including his brother — in a public square 13 years ago: Unfair.
Fadel’s brother, Osama Abbas, had been on his way to work that fateful day. He had just crossed a street into Baghdad’s Nisoor Square to do a money transfer — a last minute change in plans that would cost the 41-year old electrical engineer his life.
At the time, the Blackwater firm had been contracted to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq. It was four years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq that ultimately toppled Saddam Hussein. The four men, military veterans working as contractors for the State Department, opened fire in the crowded traffic circle killing 14 Iraqis, including a child, and wounding over a dozen more.
Hunter Walker / Yahoo News:
Jared Kushner played a key role in White House pardon ‘free for all’
“Everyone’s sending emails to Jared,” a source familiar with the process said. “If you want to make something happen, go to Jared.”
The source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the ongoing process, spoke with Yahoo News on Monday, before Trump issued the spate of pardons and commutations. They predicted the coming onslaught of pardons.
“It’s going to be a free-for-all,” the source said.
They went on to claim that Kushner was “keeping score” and tracking the people asking for clemency. “He’ll let you know where you stand,” the source said. “The ones who are going to get pardoned and get to the top of the list are the ones who have representatives, staff or counsel that were loyal to the president.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. A second source familiar with the pardons said they “believe technically that pardons and clemency were under Jared Kushner in the White House.”
One pardon recipient was Kushner’s own father, Charles, a real estate developer who was convicted in 2005 on charges related to illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering that stemmed from an extortion plot in which he hired a woman to seduce and blackmail his brother-in-law. Pardons also went to former members of Trump’s presidential campaign who were ensnared in the investigations into his presidential bid, including Paul Manafort, Trump’s erstwhile campaign chairman, and longtime adviser Roger Stone.
Anyway, hope you pass some good times, mes cher amies! We’ll get through this together! January 20, 2021 is coming and Kamala’s going to get the work done and Joe’s gonna calm things down for sure!
What’s on your on reading and blogging list today? And, are you binging anything juicy?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments