Glenn Kirschner – NY AG Leticia James sues Trump, Don Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump & others in massive fraud case
Meidas Touch – NEW: Senate CONDEMNS Trump’s DESPICABLE anti-FBI conduct in SCATHING UNANIMOUS RESOLUTION
The Lincoln Project – With Age Comes Wisdom
MSNBC – ‘This Reversal Will Be A Permanent Part Of Judge Cannon’s Legacy’: Dave Aronberg
The Riccardis – Boy from Mar-a-Lago (FBI Raid Edition)
Beau – Let’s talk about a stark warning from an Arizona republican….
Glenn Kirschner – Bannon indicted again; DOJ appeals “special master” ruling; former US Attorney exposes Trump & Barr (the sound is so poor on this that everyone will need the CC. Not only is thevolume about half or less of usual, bu ther’s a slight echo. I realize they are tweaking the studio … andhave invited comments on that … so if anyone is a YouTube member, you might just comment on the sound.
Meidas Touch – Texas Paul RESPONDS to legend Dan Rather’s question about the GOP with the PERFECT answer
The Lincoln Project – Sucker
Robert Reich | How We Can Make Manchin and Sinema Irrelevant
If Mattress Commercials Were Honest | Honest Ads
Beau – Let’s talk about the other Las Vegas…. {It’s a sweet little town, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but not that far from Santa Fe by western standards.}
Yesterday, it was a pretty unexciting day until the word came out that the Inflatin Reduction Act had been passed by the Senate. I picked up a very short, graphic short take about it, figuring there will be plenty of time to discuss it at length.
Cartoon – .(which forgot to insert before posting, but went back and added later)
Short Takes –
Letters from an American – August 6, 2022
Quote – “Gentlemen,” [Garfield] said, “ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory. But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it. We meet tonight as comrades to stand guard around the sacred truths for which we fought…. [W]e will remember our allies who fought with us,” he told them. “Soon after the great struggle began, we looked beyond the army of white rebels, and saw 4,000,000 of [B]lack people condemned to toil as slaves for our enemies; and we found that the hearts of these 4,000,000 were God-inspired with the spirit of liberty, and that they were all our friends.” As the audience cheered, he continued: “We have seen white men betray the flag and fight to kill the Union; but in all that long, dreary war we never saw a traitor in a black skin.”
Click through for the background and what happened next. White supremacy = corruption. President Garfield was ambidextrous, multilingual, and so good at multitasking that he could write in Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time. That means nothing – but this speech meant something. So, of course, they killed him.
Twitter – This happened yesterday at approximately 5 pm Eastern. By now I’m sure there is a real article of analysis up somewhere, but I didn’t want to wait:
I believe it goes to the House Friday. No need for tiebreaking there.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Steve Bannon loves to run his mouth; tomorrow [Thursday] is his big day as he gets to testify. Will he?
Meidas Touch – What Maddow got WRONG about the ‘Bombshell’ DOJ memo
The Lincoln Project – Tucker Carlson’s Unofficial Presidential Speech (Barf Bag Alert)
Farron Balanced – Legal Scholar Says Dems Should Sue To Prevent Trump From Holding Office Ever Again
MSNBC – Senators Reach Agreement On Bills To Stop Candidates From Stealing Elections
Beau – Let’s talk about Ted Cruz and marriage…
Yesterday, reading Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letter” from the 20th, my eyebrows went up when Iread that 100 million Americans were under heat warnings – my thought was, “Dear God, that’s a third of the country!” I think we actually have 330 million people, so that was a slight exaggeration – but still – that’s, shall we say, impressive. of course I also watched the hearing, but that was late enough that I won’t discuss it here. I will eventually of course.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Robert Reich – Is it time for Democrats to kick Joe Manchin out of the party?
Quote – In fact, the way things are right now, Biden and the Democrats have the worst of both worlds. They look like they control the Senate, as well as the House and the presidency. But they can’t get a damn thing done because Manchin (and his intermittent sidekick Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema) won’t let them. So after almost two years of appearing to run the entire government, Democrats have accomplished almost nothing of what they came to Washington to do…. By kicking Manchin out of the party, Democrats could at least go into the midterms with a more realistic pitch: “It looked like we had control of the Senate, but we didn’t. Now that you know who the real Democrats are, give us the power and we will get it done.”
Click through for argument. I won’t say he sold me, but he did get me to seriously consider it.
Update: I don’t bug Mitch too much (on top of other issues he’s having surprise cataract surgery next week) but he sent out a Daily Kos article on Manchin, so I sent him this one. His response: “Biden needs to get out on the hustings and PUSH for more Dem. senators…PUSH LOUDLY! If Manchin, and Sinema can be made virtually irrelevant, we might then be able to rejoin the rest of the western democracies.”
The Daily Beast – Liberal Panic Could Help Trump Steal the Next Election
Quote – As both a critic of the theory being advanced in Moore and an advocate of urgently needed reforms to avoid another presidential election crisis, I feel it is important to set the record straight. In defending democracy against the very real threat of Trump-style subversion, we must get the details right. Crucially, we need to be able to distinguish serious conservative legal scholarship and arguments, even when they are wrong, from worst-case scenarios based on fringe crank theories and total lawlessness. The current majority on the Supreme Court might endorse the former, but we should not concede the latter by falsely conflating the two.
Click through for full analysis. Personally, I think the author vastly underestimates the determination and the ingenuity of the criminal GOP. I think this case is more like the head, shoulders, and hump of the camel in the tent. And I don’t see how liberal panic would help Trump** – the more panicked we are, the more likely we are to vote. But I thought (and think) readers here are perfectly capable of drawing their own conclusions, and I though this should be seen.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, the news was filled with testimony from Tuesday’s hearing. And rightly so – I guess a lot of people did not realize, and still don’t, who Trump** so obviously is. Of course he throws dishes against the wall. Of course he tries to do bodily harm to anyone who pisses him off. Of course he’s the last person in the world who shold have the nuclear codes. How did so may people miss that? And I don’t even mean his cultists. I mean how did so may sane people still manage not to see that? It’s not as if Hillary didn’t warn us. At least more people are realizing it now. The other thing that was in the news (at least my news feed) was our primaries. I already reported that Tina Peters, the County Clerk who stole the voting equipment, lost her primary to run for Secretary of State (the bad news is that the winner is almost as bad.) Other bad news is that Boebert won her primary. I had no part in that, but I still apologize on behalf of my state to the entire nation. We can only hope that Democrats and Unaffiliateds combine to oust her. Sadly, that’s merely a hope.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
The New Yorker – The “Gap” in the Constitution That Led to January 6th
Quote – Yes, it’s absolutely true that our Presidential-election system in particular has significant vulnerabilities. Some of those vulnerabilities are in the Constitution itself. As long as we retain the constitutional provision for the Electoral College, we won’t be completely out of the woods. State legislatures have the authority to replace a popular vote, to directly appoint the electors for their state. But they can’t do it retroactively. And that gets to what Giuliani and Trump were trying to do.
Click through for full discussion. All communication requires those communicating to share at least some assumptions (there’s a group exercise invilving peanut butter and jelly which brings this point home vividly), and one of those assumptions that we make without realizing it is that we expect our elected officials to act in good faith. For much of my life, though that wasn’t 100% true, there were enough who were that it was safe to assume it. Then came Reagan, Gingrich, and a host of others, and now it is no longer safe to make that assumption.
Robert Reich – The rogue court and the fight ahead
Quote – I keep telling the young people I work with and in the classes I teach that I grew up in an America that expanded constitutional rights, battled racism and protected voting rights, and enlarged the middle class. I tell them that if we did it then, we can do so again. They hear me but I’m not sure they believe me. Their young lives have been marked mostly by public failure. Many were motivated to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2016, and against Trump in 2020, but their patience is wearing thin.
Clivk through for full argument (there’s also a video). I know, voting is not enough, but it has to start with voting. We have to give good leaders some authority – something to work with. If we don’t, their leaders get authority.
Food For Thought – I think this is the first time I have seen a New Yorker cartoon depict a real person, though it’s probably happened.
Glenn Kirschner – Disdain and disregard for the voters of Pennsylvania: Trump’s Election lies in the land of Oz
Meidas Touch – Beto O’Rourke brings THE HOUSE DOWN with EPIC answer on gun control
The Lincoln Project – This Man Votes
Farron Balanced – Lauren Boebert Accidentally Makes A Great Argument For Paid Family Leave
No Dem Left Behind – Meet the Not-So-Radical Left
Armageddon Update – Damn you, Biden!
Beau – Let’s talk about SCOTUS making it easier to buy a Senator….
Yesterday, I watched a Sixty Minutes segment (during that hour I avoid the radio -its only about 27 minutes, so I also watched something else – a documentary about the WWII British equivalent of Tucker Carlson – mildly interesting.) If you watch 60 mnutes you have probably seen the segment. If not, you may want to bookmark this for when you have a spare half hour. It’s the story of a black family who purchase a large home which turns out to have been, not just a plantation, but the plantation on which their ancestors were enslaved. Simply amazing. Here’s the link. I also managed to get trash ans recyclables out to the curb (It only took me about a half hour and a few extra CBD gummies to recover from that.)
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
CPR News – ‘I’m not giving up’: Sen. Michael Bennet’s drive to make the expanded Child Tax Credit permanent
Quote – The pandemic-relief package, known as the American Rescue Plan, expanded the Child Tax Credit for one year, made it fully refundable, so the poorest families could benefit, and for the last half of 2021, sent it in the form of monthly checks to families, turning it into a reliable income supplement…. Bennet’s frustration that the expanded benefit was not made permanent, or even just extended, is palpable…. “I’m not giving up. And I don’t think we should give up. And I, frankly, I’m not giving up until we have an economy that when it grows, it grows for everybody, not just the people at the very top. And I think we can do that too,”
Click through for story. Colorado would have to be crazy not to re-elect Senator Bennet. (And it’s because part of Colorado IS crazy that I became a – small- monthly donor to the campaign.)
HuffPost – Living With The Far-Right Insurgency In Idaho
Quote – [White nationalist Vincent James Foxx] is one of many far-right activists who have flocked to Idaho in recent years, where a large and growing radical MAGA faction in the state’s Republican Party has openly allied itself with extremists to a shocking extent, even for the Trump era. This faction is accruing more and more power in Boise, the state capital: Imagine a statehouse full of Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Steve Kings. At the local level, they have seized seats on school boards and county commissions at a fast clip.
Click through for details. Idaho is pretty much every bit as LDS as Utah – just not as publicly. I don’t know what the position, or the participation of the LDS Church is in this – but I’ll bet there is some. The church just possibly could surprise us.
The Hill – House passes domestic terrorism bill in mostly party-line vote
Quote – The bill calls for establishing a Domestic Terrorism Unit in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS, which would be tasked with observing and examining domestic terrorism activity, in addition to a Domestic Terrorism Office in the Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division of the DOJ, which would look into and prosecute domestic terrorism incidents and communicate with the Civil Right Division about occurrences that may be considered hate crimes.
Click through for discussion and details. This could work, if only the government (federal and atate) would stop assuming that it’s only terrorism if a non-white person does it – when the reverse is closer to the truth.
Food For Thought
