To defend her dad! OK – quit laughing and take a nice, slow, deep breath to read her Tweet:

“…surrounded by enemies and spies catching and perverting every word that falls from my lips or flows from my pen, and inventing where facts fail them.” -Thomas Jefferson’s reflections on Washington, D.C. in a letter to his daughter Martha.
Some things never change, dad!

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) October 31, 2019

(Just to correct her thoughts about things never changing – some things do, indeed, change … at least with a little surgical intervention.  Amirite, Ivanka?)

If you noticed, I did not include “Fun” in today’s title. That’s because a good many of the Twitterverse responses were quite serious – and appropriately so.  Consequently, I’m going to honor those rejoinders – but hopefully add some lighter ones, too.

Let’s begin with the actual historical background that prompted Jefferson’s letter in the first place – because it reminds us of a certain someone:

It's interesting Ivanka picked this example because the thing Jefferson's enemies were accusing him of — fathering a child with a slave — was absolutely something he did. 6 times as a matter of fact. Jefferson was bemoaning being called out for something he actually did. https://t.co/ZnvjPLrkjY

— Rachel Joy Larris (@RachelLarris) October 31, 2019

 

Continuing with the more serious ones …

So, Ivanka, couple things:
a.) Jefferson worked his whole life to ensure the president was not above the law
b.) Jefferson was the first top official to call for the impeachment of a president (Washington) for being too close a foreign nation (when he approved the Jay Treaty).

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) October 31, 2019

 

Thomas Jefferson also said this- it's as if he predicted Trump and his crime family: "The government will one day be corrupt and filled with liars, and the people will flock to the one that tells the truth."

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) October 31, 2019

 

My favorite serious one dealing with his endless “Fake News” and vile attacks on the press:

“When the speech condemns a free press, you are hearing the words of a tyrant.” — Thomas Jefferson

Your father is a tyrant, @IvankaTrump.

— Ryan Knight 🗽 (@ProudResister) October 31, 2019

And Jefferson’s thoughts  on nepotism was a favorite topic, but the first one is quite detailed:

I love history too! Here's Thomas Jefferson on nepotism. https://t.co/iuIIcPAaVJ pic.twitter.com/HrE8RNvZOM

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) October 31, 2019

They got pithier:

"The public will never be made to believe that an appointment of a relative is made on the ground of merit… nor can they ever see w/ approbation offices, the disposal of which they entrust to their Presidents for public purposes, divided out as family property"—Thomas Jefferson https://t.co/Pa0aKtZtew

— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) October 31, 2019

But they also got harsher.  I think her inappropriate grifting at the G20 Summit sets her up for mocking.

You are the most vapid tool ever to step foot in the White House.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) October 31, 2019

 

Does anyone know if Thomas Jefferson and Martha Jefferson Randolph also laundered money for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?https://t.co/e9L8KWWSHW

— David Hoag (@davehoag) October 31, 2019

 

Thomas Jefferson also said this:

"When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”

That’s about your dad. https://t.co/oEQnd0Eo63

— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) October 31, 2019

 

You're delusional.

Our Founding Fathers would have put your daddy in the stockades three years ago.

— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) October 31, 2019

 

"You will visit Ivanka won't you?" pic.twitter.com/kn7TQxqYUL

— Rock (@rockhead21) October 31, 2019

 

But some leavened the harshness with a little lite humor, beginning with Kellyanne Conway’s husband:

Inventing facts? Have you met your father? https://t.co/qFktpwqGTs

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) October 31, 2019

 

So who is @realDonaldTrump ? The enemies or the spies? Both? We understand the "inventing where facts fail…" part of it well enough. That's your pop. @IvankaTrump https://t.co/IuGa84Diwj

— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) October 31, 2019

 

You're right. It was so wrong of the media to pervert your father's sacred words, such as "grab em by the pussy" and "move on her like a bitch."

— Liddle’ Savage (@littledeekay) October 31, 2019

 

And when Ivanka’s ridiculous use of Jefferson to try to defend Donnie appeared, it naturally started trending in the Twitterverse.  On Halloween, this caused some folks to become worried about Thomas Jefferson’s … current status:

I saw Thomas Jefferson trending and was terrified he might be undead.

— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) October 31, 2019

 

I saw 'Thomas Jefferson' trending and I thought something happened to him. pic.twitter.com/Y0mOE80dYh

— GK Chesterton Tweets (@GilbertCTweets) October 31, 2019

 

This made me immediately think of the time Trump raised Frederick Douglass from the dead during his Black History Month speech by talking about him as though he were still alive. I don’t have a Twitter account, but I’d go with his exact words, just substitute Jefferson:

“Thomas Jefferson is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more. I’m hearing a lot of great things.”

I got a kick out of this cheeky one that, like Trump, is able to invent facts at whim:

Ben Franklin was a much better President than Thomas Jefferson. He invented electricity

— Three Year Letterman (@3YearLetterman) October 31, 2019

 

But rather than close with another Jefferson quote, particularly in light of the House vote for a formal Impeachment Inquiry yesterday, maybe a more timely one by George Mason will do even better:

"Shall any man be above Justice?…Shall the man who has practised corruption & by that means procured his appointment in the first instance be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?"—George Mason on impeachment, 1787.

Some things never change! https://t.co/Pa0aKtZtew

— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) October 31, 2019

 

As I write, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who listened to Trump’s infamous Ukraine call, is testifying before House impeachment investigators,  I wish I could be a fly on that wall!

After Bill Taylor testified last week to multiple corrupt quid pro quos between the Trump team and Ukraine, President Trump attacked him as a “Never Trumper.” He did so despite the fact that Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, was selected for his job just a few months ago by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Good luck trying to pull that with the latest big witness.

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman will become the latest official Tuesday to testify to a corrupt quid pro quo. And he might be the most significant to date, given his profile and his proximity to some of the key events.

According to his prepared testimony, Vindman will say that European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland said after a July 10 meeting with a top Ukrainian official that a long-sought meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump depended upon Ukraine launching specific investigations — those involving former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as a conspiracy theory about the origins of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election…

Inserted from <Washington Post>

Lawrence O’Donnell offers more detail.

Army Officer Who Heard Trump’s Ukraine Call Voiced His Concerns To Superiors

 

No wonder Democrats are almost ready for the public hearing phase.  The case against Trump is slam-dunk!

RESIST!!

As s long-term volunteer, helping prisoners at Oregon State Penitentiary learn rehabilitation skills, justice is a subject that concerns me deeply.  Sadly, the word that best describes justice in the US is “injustice”.  From rampant racism and excessive force by police, to long waits for trial and interrogators that are allowed to lie, to prosecutors that need convictions for career advancement and a stacked deck in court, to mandatory minimum sentences, to inadequate medical and rehabilitation services in prison, to rampant racism throughout, the system is broken.  Politicians, mainly Democrats, spoke out on these issues in SC.  Let’s start with an introduction.

One day after President Trump claimed he had done more for black voters than the Obama administration had, several Democratic presidential candidates spoke at the same historically black college on Saturday and issued a blistering rebuke of both the president and the event’s organizers — whom they accused of giving Mr. Trump an undeserved platform.

Senator Kamala Harris of California led the charge, and was set to boycott the event altogether until the group that had invited Mr. Trump was removed as a sponsor. Other candidates, including Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., said the president had a history of racist demagogy that outweighed any recent efforts at criminal justice reform, including the First Step Act, which he signed into law last year.

The First Step Act was a bipartisan bill that helped thousands of federal inmates secure early release under new sentencing guidelines, but Democrats were united in framing it as an insufficient measure. They called for more structural reforms to the criminal justice system, and took aim at Mr. Trump himself, who has made exploitation of racial grievance a trademark of his political brand…. [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Here is the complete video of the two day event for you to peruse.  There are around eleven hours total, so skip through as much as you want.

Watch Live: 2020 Democrats Speak At Justice Forum (Day 1)

 

You’ll find Elizabeth Warren early on Day two.

 

I heard some good ideas.  I hope they put them into practice.

RESIST!!