I left, but I continued to read. And I'm breaking my own promise to stay away. It's time for how I feel, and I bet I'm not alone. It would be nice if the haters who post here would stay off this post; after all, you've created a plethora of your own to write on. But I know you won't, so I'll just ignore and hope others who think like me, do too. A post from a favorite of mine - Heather Cox Richardson. She has provided sanity in the past 5 years. ~Jean Totten Five years ago, on September 15, 2019, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started: “Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....” I wrote a review of Trump’s apparent mental decline amidst his faltering presidency, stonewalling of investigations of potential criminal activity by him or his associates, stacking of the courts, and attempting to use the power of the government to help his 2020 reelection. Then I noted that the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), had written a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, on Friday, September 13, telling Maguire he knew that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, who had deemed the complaint “credible” and "urgent.” This meant that the complaint was supposed to be sent on to the House Intelligence Committee. But, rather than sending it to the House as the law required, Maguire had withheld it. Schiff’s letter told Maguire that he’d better hand it over. Schiff speculated that Maguire was covering up evidence of crimes by the president or his closest advisors. And I added: “None of this would fly in America if the Senate, controlled by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, were not aiding and abetting him.” “This is the story of a dictator on the rise,” I wrote, “taking control of formerly independent branches of government, and using the power of his office to amass power.” Readers swamped me with questions. So I wrote another post answering them and trying to explain the news, which began breaking at a breathtaking pace. And so these Letters from an American were born. In the five years since then, the details of the Ukraine scandal—the secret behind the whistleblower complaint in Schiff’s letter—revealed that then-president Trump was running his own private foreign policy to strong-arm Ukraine into helping his reelection campaign. That effort brought to light more of the story of Russian support for Trump’s 2016 campaign, which until Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to be in exchange for lifting sanctions the Obama administration imposed against Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. The February 2022 invasion brought renewed attention to the Mariupol Plan, confirmed by Trump’s 2016 campaign advisor Paul Manafort, that Russia expected a Trump administration to permit Russian president Vladimir Putin to take over eastern Ukraine. The Ukraine scandal of 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, then his acquittal on those charges and his subsequent purge of career government officials, whom he replaced with Trump loyalists. Then, on February 7, just two days after Senate Republicans acquitted him, Trump picked up the phone and called veteran journalist Bob Woodward to tell him there was a deadly new virus spreading around the world. It was airborne, he explained, and was five times “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” he said. He would not share that information with other Americans, though, continuing to play down the virus in hopes of protecting the economy. More than a million of us did not live through the ensuing pandemic. We have, though, lived through the attempts of the former president to rig the 2020 election, the determination of American voters to make their voices heard, the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, the election of Democrat Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the subsequent refusal of Trump and his loyalists to accept Biden’s win. And we have lived through the unthinkable: an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob determined to overrule the results of an election and install their own candidate in the White House. For the first time in our history, the peaceful transfer of power was broken. Republican senators saved Trump again in his second impeachment trial, and rather than disappearing after the inauguration of President Biden, Trump doubled down on the Big Lie that he had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election. We have seen the attempts of Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress to move America past this dark moment by making coronavirus vaccines widely available and passing landmark legislation to rebuild the economy. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred the economy to become the strongest in the world, proving that the tested policy of investing in ordinary Americans worked far better than post-1980 neoliberalism ever did. After Republicans took control of the House in 2023, we saw them paralyze Congress with infighting that led them, for the first time in history, to throw out their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). We have watched as the Supreme Court, stacked by Trump with religious extremists, has worked to undermine the proven system in place before 1981. It took away the doctrine that required courts to defer to government agencies’ reasonable regulations and opened the way for big business to challenge those regulations before right-wing judges. It ended affirmative action in colleges and universities, and it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. And then we watched the Supreme Court hand down the stunning decision of July 1, 2024, that overturned the fundamental principle of the United States of America that no one is above the law. In Donald J. Trump v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties. We saw the reactionary authoritarianism of the former president’s supporters grow stronger. In Republican-dominated states across the country, legislatures passed laws to suppress Democratic voting and to put the counting of votes into partisan hands. Trump solidified control over the Republican Party and tightened his ties to far-right authoritarians and white supremacists. Republicans nominated him to be their presidential candidate in 2024 to advance policies outlined in Project 2025 that would concentrate power in the president and impose religious nationalism on the country. Trump chose as his running mate religious extremist Ohio senator J.D. Vance, putting in line for the presidency a man whose entire career in elected office consisted of the eighteen months he had served in the Senate. In that first letter five years ago, I wrote: “So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…. Defend what is great about this nation: its people, and their willingness to innovate, work, and protect each other. Making America great has never been about hatred or destruction or the aggregation of wealth at the very top; it has always been about building good lives for everyone on the principle of self-determination. While we have never been perfect, our democracy is a far better option than the autocratic oligarchy Trump is imposing on us.” And we have made noise, and we have taken up oxygen. All across the country, people have stepped up to defend our democracy from those who are open about their plans to destroy it and install a dictator. Democrats and Republicans as well as people previously unaligned, we have reiterated why democracy matters, and in this election where the issue is not policy differences but the very survival of our democracy, we are working to elect Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz. If you are tired from the last five years, you have earned the right to be. And yet, you are still here, reading. I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities, and I believe that American democracy could be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives. And so I write. But I have come to understand that I am simply the translator for the sentiments shared by millions of people who are finding each other and giving voice to the principles of democracy. Your steadfast interest, curiosity, critical thinking, and especially your kindness—to me and to one another—illustrate that we have not only the power, but also the passion, to reinvent our nation. To those who read these letters, send tips, proofread, criticize, comment, argue, worry, cheer, award medals (!), and support me and one another: I thank you for bringing me along on this wild, unexpected, exhausting, and exhilarating journey.
(Un)Truth or Consequences Dems reaping rewards of Trump’s performance Dan Rather and Team Steady, Sep 13 Add another check to the things-I’ve-never-seen-in-a-presidential-election column. Normally, presidential debates are no more than live, relatively uninteresting interviews with the candidates. But this cycle, the first debate caused a sitting president to withdraw from the race, and the second reminded 67 million viewers that a certain Republican is simply not fit to hold the office. Will Trump’s (under) performance be enough to send his poll numbers sliding and eventually lead to his defeat at the polls? We have to fall back on the old “too soon to tell” adage, but consequences abound from this debate. FUNDRAISING It is not unusual for a campaign to push for donations after a good debate performance. What is unusual is the amount the Harris/Walz campaign has raised. In the first 24 hours, it took in $47 million from 600,000 people. Both numbers are extraordinary. This haul will only widen the fundraising gap with the Trump/Vance campaign. Coming into September, Harris had $404 million cash on hand, while Trump had $295 million. Every penny counts in what will be a $2+ billion election, the most expensive ever. VIRALITY For most of my long career covering presidential politics, once a debate was over, that pretty much was it. You could read about it or maybe see a few clips on television a day or two after. But little of anything beyond that. Now, the debates — and just about everything else — live in perpetuity on social media. Memes, TikTok videos, and bits by late-night hosts are being viewed and shared by millions of people. Trump’s most cringeworthy moments will never die. These viral videos are quick and engaging by design, with no context — not that you can put “pet eating” into context. Trump’s rambling incoherence is tailor-made for such things. NO MORE DEBATES After the debate, Harris said that she and Trump owe it to the electorate to debate again. No surprise, he disagreed. Trump has unequivocally stated, in all caps, on social media, “There will be no third debate.” The word unequivocally and Trump do not usually go hand in hand, so he might mean it, or it could be the opening salvo in a negotiation for another debate. Trump has never met a camera he didn’t want to get in front of, so his refusal to debate again is telling. Harris would likely benefit from another debate since she is still working to tell her story and crystalize her policies. TAYLOR SWIFT Normally when a politician receives an endorsement from a celebrity, it’s a nice gesture, but that and $5 will get you a coffee at Starbucks. As we have said, this election is the opposite of normal. The endorsement from pop superstar Taylor Swift was more than a gesture. Her backing of the Harris/Walz ticket came with a request from Swift to her 283 million Instagram followers to be sure and register to vote, with a link to the government website vote.gov. Twenty-four hours after the endorsement, more than 405,000 people had visited the site. It usually gets about 30,000 hits a day. In a race this close, that many potential new voters, in the right places, could nudge the needle. At the MTV Video Music Awards the night after the debate, Swift again made a voter registration pitch, this one live during an acceptance speech, to a demographic Harris badly needs: young people. FOCUSING ON THE WRONG THING A seemingly desperate Donald Trump announced yesterday the launch of “World Liberty Financial,” a crypto-currency platform. He said he will give a “state of crypto” address on X. Really? Now? Seems like he has more important tacos to make. Perhaps that’s the point. He can’t focus on things that actually matter to the voting public, so he is trying to distract them with things that make no difference to most Americans, but make him seem to be a big-shot businessman. This comes on the heels of his media company losing billions in value when the stock tanked after the debate. LIES CAN BE HARMFUL Certainly an unintended consequence of the debate is what has happened in Springfield, Ohio, a city made infamous by Trump’s dangerous lies about Haitian immigrants eating residents’ pets. In the debate’s wake, a bomb threat caused the evacuation of two elementary schools and the closure of a middle school. The mayor of Springfield believes the threat was a direct result of the baseless claims made first by vice presidential candidate JD Vance and repeated on the debate stage by Trump. In a shockingly candid op-ed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove, the Republican campaign strategist, had nothing good to say about Trump’s performance. “But there’s no putting lipstick on this pig,” he wrote. “Mr. Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as ‘dumb as a rock.’ Which raises the question: What does that make him?” It makes him vulnerable. Another unintended consequence. And it becomes even harder to predict where this race is headed.
Joyful Warriors: Harris and Walz are upending nine years of angry politics -- Are you as tired of angry politics as I am? Dan Rather and Team Steady Aug 12, 2024 For the past nine years Americans have been subjected to a political reality suffused with anger and acrimony. Ever since Donald Trump entered the political arena, he has been in fighting mode. His anger is ever present. For many of us, it’s also incredibly tiring. Almost a decade on, the act is getting — like Trump — a little old and a lot stale. And if it was possible, this time around the former president is angrier than before. His temperament has hung over our nation like a persistent dark cloud. In trying to explain why Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, seem to have broken the spell of negativity, it may be as simple as they’re in a heck of a lot better mood than Trump. Rays of sunshine rather than dark clouds are the order of the day. How did the Democratic ticket get such a quick boost in the polls? Perhaps it’s because Harris and Walz look like they’re having a good time. Democrats, at least for the moment, are positive, happy, and looking forward. Or maybe voters are just tired of it all. Let’s don’t overthink this. Harris’s entrance into the race injected crucial energy into a campaign that was limping at best. But it is more than that. Democrats, who were resigned to Biden as their failing candidate, were euphoric with relief when Harris hit the ground not just running, but running to win. The addition of the avuncular Walz has extended the honeymoon. At their first joint appearance a week ago, he thanked her for “bringing back the joy.” She smiles and laughs unabashedly, and her legion of supporters is right there with her. She very clearly enjoys the work of being a presidential candidate, and that is infectious. Harris has taken this idea a step further and dubbed the two “joyful warriors.” The juxtaposition of soft and hard is no accident. As joyful warriors, the two are able to stand up to the bullies on the other side with a glint in their eyes. They can call out Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, on their hate-filled rhetoric and alternative facts with big smiles on their faces. If they fight fire with fire or, in this case, hate with hate, it could turn off a lot of voters, especially those who are still making up their minds. Donald Trump hasn’t gotten that memo. He and his campaign have been knocked back on their heels. Twenty-one days ago, he thought he had the election in the bag. Then everything changed. He was unprepared … for his new opponent and for the optimism she has kindled. His tendency toward rage-fueled incoherence has been amped up by her genial ease on the campaign trail. In an attempt to wrest the spotlight away from Harris, Trump held a news conference last week where he not only didn’t make any news, but he spent most of his 64 minutes in front of microphones lying. According to NPR, which analyzed the appearance, Trump told 162 lies. That’s 2.5 falsehoods per minute. And his demeanor was anything but sunny. He was accusatory, scowling, and distressed. The Washington Post’s Matt Bai suggested that Trump’s motto could be “Don’t worry, be angry.” Things likely won’t improve for Trump in the short term. The Democratic National Convention takes place next week in Chicago. With the Democrats as unified as they are, the convention should be a continuation of the lovefest for Harris and Walz with an appreciative nod to Biden’s decades of service to the country. Then we hit the longest two months in politics. With the conventions behind them, the summer over, and Election Day looming, the candidates will do nothing but campaign and try to sway that very small constituency of fence-sitters who will decide the election. The margins in this race are slim at best. Democrats will need more than smiles and positivity. Harris and Walz will need to articulate policies for how they plan to govern. The next president will almost certainly be the candidate who can get out the vote. History has shown it is far easier to do that when voters are enthusiastically for their candidate, rather than simply voting against the other person. I’m grateful I get to witness Harris’s candidacy … this real-time civics lesson, that is playing out in packed arenas all over the country. It’s a much-needed balm to an electorate exhausted from almost a decade of grievance politics. It is also a joyful shot across the bow at a man who is determined to end our democracy that has endured for almost 250 years. Jean Totten
I really dislike seeing this post because I was hoping that all the political talk would be confined to the "Purely Politics" thread so that those who don't want to be involved or hate politics could simply not read that thread. Now, all the same crap will posted here! I was hoping that perhaps I was going to read an Amazing Grace moment that "I was blind but now I see" No such luck! Just a few points: How come Trump was accused and impeached for that phone call to Zelinski but Biden wasn't when he forced that prosecutor to get fired. And he bragged about it??? Can't anybody actually see the billion dollar quid pro quo? How did they manage to impeach Trump a second time when he was no longer even the President? And like anybody should believe Adam Schiff? Who constantly lied about Russia, Russia, Russia? He said he even saw the evidence that was never produced and they finally had to admit it was all a fake dossier arranged for and purchased by Hillary Clinton. And Trump stacking the courts? Seems to me the only ones stacking the judicial system are the Democrats! Look at all the Lawfare cases, all falling apart by the way, in New York, Georgia, Florida! Honest Attorney Generals and Prosecutors wouldn't bring charges against Trump because they saw it was just more Lawfare. Abortion? Trump got done what even Ruth Bader Ginsburg said should have been done, and he moved the decision back to the states. He didn't put a stop to abortions. Doesn't anybody understand the Constitutionality of that? Better go read Article I, Section 8, then come back and show me where it says that abortion is a Federal concern! And how about that Inflation Reduction Act? You mean the Green New Deal that even Joe Biden recently admitted should have been the Bills name! Will an endorsement by Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey have any real significance? I think seeing people like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, and now even Alan Dershowitz once staunch Democrats are now endorsing Trump is more influential. You need to get your head out of your butt and just compare the economy, crime, wars and the border from the last 2 administrations and be honest. Don't look at the person, look at the policies. Do I like Trump's name calling and self-aggrandizement? No! Did I like 2 dollar gas, secure borders, low inflation, high employment and less crime? You bet. If you don't vote Republican then you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater and YES, you suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I can go on but it would be of no use. People will believe what they will believe. I'm done.
Thank you Tom for saying so eloquently what I wanted to say. You are correct, if people can't see the difference from 3.5 years ago to now there is no use trying. You can't wave a magic wand to give people common sense. I along with several other people I know here is Sun City are scared to death about the future. $25k to 1st time homeowners, legal or not, just NOT white. Cali is talking $150k. There are more democrats leaving the party too. It sure isn't the party of JFK anymore. Maybe with all the government funding that will happen there might be more and more programs for us seniors who don't have resources. Then Bill, Jean and Dave can subsidize me thru their taxes. Wouldn't that be a proverbial kick in the head! Time will tell. I have a number of acquaintances living in Sierra Vista and they love the area and the genuine caring of the people. There are weekly gatherings in the park and no RCSC or HOA, Bisbee close by. Blessings and have a good night.
Um, don't care. The longer the post, the more boring it is, especially when opinion posting. Have you learned nothing from Bill's Novellas? And just for grins my personal belief is that after the Hillary lost to Trump Democrats, known for cheating, lying etc., they learned masterfully how to further rig any election. They did in 2020 and are doing in 2024. Why do you think our border is wide open. So rest easy Jean knowing full well your party will cheat, and if/when Kamala wins and the economy tanks, we fear for our lives the sign that will be erected in my front yard will state my exact feelings. CCR's be damned!
FYI (Tom): I really dislike seeing this post because I was hoping that all the political talk would be confined to the "Purely Politics" thread so that those who don't want to be involved or hate politics could simply not read that thread. Now, all the same crap will posted here! Happy Hippie (Josie Just more TDS. Nobody forces you to read what I write or to post any thoughts on it. Scroll past. Better yet, when you see that I have posted something, don't even read it. Stay off and continue on your politics post. I don't write on yours. Jean
I don't read your crap, or Bill's. You are more than welcome to write on my posts, and while we are still living in a free speech country I will post where, what and when I want.
“The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told a reporter in 2018. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.” Keeping listeners constantly trying to defend what is real from what is not destroys their ability to make sense of the world.
I award Steve Bannon a double award this year, the Josef Goebbels Truth in Reporting Award and the Donald Trump Double Dealing in Charity award.
