On a different subject from a recent newsletter re dogs and cats: This is kinds ci ute :)
Story of Adam & Eve's Dog
Adam and Eve said, "Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you anymore. We are lonesome here, and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us."
And God said, "I will create a companion for you that will be with you and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves."
And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve. And it was a good animal and God was pleased.
And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.
And Adam said, "Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal."
And God said, "I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG."
And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them.
And they were comforted.
And God was pleased.
And Dog was content and wagged his tail.
After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well."
And God said, "I will create for them a companion who will be with them and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration."
And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve.
And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat's eyes, they were reminded that they were not the Supreme Beings.
Ah yes. Until her death two years ago, my last animal companion of 13 years (Squeaky the cat - because she did when she purred) hogged the middle too. Except during winter when she would burrow under the covers and allow me to be her hot water bottle.
Yea, nah (as we say here) Tom. I have nevever bought or "owned" an animal in my life and have had only two pets, both of whom chose me to be their human. One was a long-haired glossy black labrador-collie cross bitch named Satin, in my teens who abandoned her owners and followed me home from my paper route to sleep on my parents doorstep outside my bedroom window (and then followed me to high school every day and everywhere else I went, for years).
Then, around 40 years later a bedraggled wet 6-month old kitten found me at my caravan on my 62 acre block of bush, mewling and showing signs of having been attacked by other cats. Probably a refugee escaped from a neighboring farm litter. I shared a can of sardines with her that night, towelled her off and shoved her in the bottom of my sleeping bag when I climbed in at sunset.
Both Satin and Squeaky would follow me everywhere and display signs of separation anxiety if I left them alone or with someone else for any length of time. I'm not going to go looking for more unconditional devotion, it can seek me out again if it wants to.
Excuse me, something my eye.
*edit* Corrected two typos created by autocorrupt, now that my vision is cleared.
it IS cute, but it actually had me in tears before the cat showed up. and I like cats plenty, but just thinking about the mortality of dogs will make me look at my two old folks and I start blubbering....
Ahhh.....David, same with any family member we love, we want them with us forever. That's why The Rainbow Bridge is so popular. One doesn't have to be religious to imagine seeing our pets again waiting to greet us when we depart this world.
There is a bridge connecting heaven and earth.
It is called the Rainbow Bridge because of its many colors. Just
this side of the Rainbow Bridge is a land of meadows, hills and valleys
— all of it covered with lush green grass....
When a beloved pet dies, the pet goes to this lovely land. There is
always food and water and warm spring weather. There, the old and
frail animals are young again. Those who are maimed are made whole
once again. They play all day with each other, content and comfortable.
There is only one thing missing. They are not with the special
person who loved them on earth. So each day they run and play until the
day comes when one suddenly stops playing and looks up! The nose
twitches! The ears are up! The eyes are staring! You have been seen, and
that one suddenly runs from the group!
You take him or her in your arms and embrace. Your face is kissed
again and again and again. And you look once more into the eyes
of your trusting pet. Then, together, you cross the Rainbow Bridge,
Totally apart from the story -- of which the resident GOD, uh, DOG approves -- I do like that image of solidifying. I see pixels scattered across a screen gradually coalescing into an image of Trump behind bars -- and is that most of the Republican officeholders lined up behind him?
Especially after the hearing today. I don't see how the DOJ can avoid indicting and eventually convicting Trump. The evidence against him seemed overwhelming.
Any GOP member who still supports Trump & the big lie after the hearings is neither a patriot nor an American u in my opinion. Six takeaways from last Jan. 6 hearing before midterm elections
Thanks for the link, and ditto -- except that over the years I've come to realize what plenty of U.S. citizens do not share my understanding of either patriorism or what America is about. :-(
Susanna, to my mind it is important to know you stand for fairness and justice and honesty and integrity in in government officials. If friends or associates or even relatives prefer to vote for or support in other ways people who don't appear to share those values, that's on thm, We don't know the reasons. Maybe they are not as perceptive a or as intuitive as you, or they are simple hoodwinked; taken in by by slick talkers who convince them that it is say, mainstream news that is corrupt not their people. The extreme of course would be QAnon types, or other conspiracy theorists. Either way everyone thinks they are right and the other guy wrong and no amount of logic or even hard evidence sometimes like the hearings have uncovered. So, a waste of time arguing the issue. As long as your conscience is clear that is all that is important. My own private opinion is (and I am not asking anyone else to agree), is that in the end we will all get to review our lives and will see where we have erred and where we did well, not as judgement by some outside entity. but so we may see where we have failed and what still needs to be worked on. If we had made the grade already we wouldn't even be here to begin with. While we may be better in some ways than others, they may be bettr than us in some ways. We are all works in progress.....
Of course. They love to be petted and do return that love. They are just different in that generally more independent as far as doing as they please and not "Obeying" orders :) I've been meaning to watch more a program on Netflix. I think it's called the Secret Life of Cats and Dogs, or something like that. The part I sw was where cats could be trained like dogs to do tricks, etc., but it's a different kind of training.
Can Stupid be any stupider? I have officially demoted the orange slob from moron to idiot. Maybe I should just go all the way to imbecile. I’m sorry, I don’t intend to insult anyone who suffers from the above and who can’t help it if they are lacking in intellectual capacity. I specifically use these terms as a diagnostic reference to a deeply deficient person who is torturing us and still trying to be the most powerful person in the world.
Only slightly off topic and noteworthy: Camp Hale today designated a National Monument. Remember when citizens worked together to save the world from fascism? Here we are again, a bit behind but on the right track. Today's disintegrating world community begins to heal when Trump and Putin are in prison, and Americans and allied nations work together again. All honor to the 10th Mtn. Division and all who served against tyranny. Time to step up again.
And the beat goes on.... What we need is the forensic equivalent of grabbing Trump by the ankles and holding him upside down over some place like the Grand Canyon until he 'fesses up about where he stashed those documents.
Oct 13, 2022·edited Oct 13, 2022Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Trump has already told us 'why…' He says the documents are his personal property. Trump has a fixation on owning things… and people. That's who we had as a president, a kleptomaniac. The reasons why Trump had those particular documents in his cashe of stolen documents would open up an interesting psychological investigation, but it would take a forensic psychologist to do a proper job of it. Indeed, if any of that information ever becomes public, it would be interesting source material for, say, a Masters thesis on the subject of his narcissism. Perhaps his niece, Mary Trump, would be able to predict the kinds of documents he would squirrel away in his Florida hideaway; but from what we know about the man already, the documents he pilfered, perhaps due to their National Defense – Top Secret subject matter would have something to do with the self-flattering way in which Trump sees himself. Something that glorifies Donald J Trump, not just President of the United States, but as impresario to the entire world.
From a probabilistic standpoint the documents that Trump curated into the robust collection that he made for himself probably had a lot to do with how those documents speak to his self-image. Undoubtedly, there are other reasons why Trump held onto the documents that were retrieved from his Florida estate in September, but we know now that Trump went through those documents personally, and hand selected them for retention as his personal property. Understandably, it's difficult to reverse engineer what those documents speak to simply by having a pretty good knowledge of what makes the former president tick. He's a man whose sole interest in life is himself, and he wants mementos that put him in the most flattering light he can imagine. That's the why of it all. And Trump has fought to keep those documents in his possession, like a dog gnawing on a bone. As I say above, from a psychological standpoint, this is most curious. The fact that these documents were mixed in with a collection of newspaper and magazine clippings adds to the curiosity factor. If we ever find out where those magazine and news article clippings come from, we might gain a hint about what the top-secret stuff was all about.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, someone will write a screenplay that explores this phenomenon in dramatic detail. The stage play – film script that comes to mind is the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, adapted from the stage play of the same name by Robert Bolt, and starring Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Heller, Leo McKern, and Susanna York. It is the tragic story of Sir Thomas More, the 16th century Lord Chancellor of England who refused to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and his refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Thomas More's refusal to accede to the king's wishes was an act of conscience on More's part and causes downfall, ending with his trial and execution for treason. I don't think we can expect any act of conscience on the part of Donald Trump, but his inner compulsion to hold onto those particular documents indicates that they had a hold on him that defies explanation by reference to any extrinsic evidence outside observers might want to point to. I think that Trump and those documents would make for a most entertaining psychodrama, because the story itself borders on absurdity. It is all but certain that the former president will be indicted by Attorney General Merrick B Garland for Trump's violations of the Espionage Act, and potentially other crimes he committed during his term of office, but from a legal perspective, this is like dropping a nuclear bomb on an ant hill. There is no question what the outcome will be; the evidence is clear, there are multiple witnesses to Trump's criminal intent, and the former president has yet to offer a convincing explanation about exactly why he did it. That is the 'Easter egg' that the jury is going to have to wrestle with; but from the standpoint of the law, a deep dive into the former president's psyche is not really part of the government's case. In other words, Donald J Trump's psychic satisfaction of having those top-secret documents, with their SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) markings and notations, stashed in his desk drawer or scattered about elsewhere at his Mar-a-Lago resort and golf club, cannot be explained in any logical way simply by referencing the content of those secret documents. For all practical purposes, those documents are stage props in the theater of Donald J Trump's mind, and their value to Trump appears to be related only to have those documents buttressed Trump's self-image. What is astonishing is the lengths that Trump went to to resist handing over those documents, and his futile (so far) legal attempts to get them returned to him. As I said, there is no logic that would explain why Trump has put himself in such legal jeopardy. I don't know the Trump could explain it to a trial jury if he decided to testify in his own behalf; and having seen Trump blurt out self-incriminating statements since he began to run for president in 2015 in front of television cameras and crowds of witnesses, it would not surprise me that Trump would want to take the witness stand, daring the jury to decide the case against him. The man has a desperate need to explain himself, even if it's only to himself. And that should be interesting to his audience, his followers, and his future biographers.
A lengthy but fascinating read, Mr. Silen. Every word makes perfect sense. Rump's possession of highly classified documents could be likened to all the photos of himself that decorate his Rump Tower residence and his other properties. He's clearly obsessed with himself and apparently needs these "trinkets" to remind him how great he is. Mar-a-Lardo isn't the only Rump property that needs to be searched for classified documents simply because his self-adoration isn't confined to just one place.
The denouement of Trump's sad story is almost, almost at hand. There is zero chance that Trump will escape indictment, trial and conviction, and a prison sentence. The real bad actors around the former president are his enablers, his donors, and his fellow-travelers pursuing their autocratic ends. The odd part about this whole story is that Trump's comeuppance will not necessarily be triggered by his despoliation of American political life, and his near-wrecking of the American Republic (the outcome of that is yet to be determined), but it is the willingness of the Republican Party, once a stalwart avatar of patriotism and national defense, to cave in to Trump's incessant grievance peddling, and his penchant for both grift and authoritarianism. These had always been minor keys in both Republican and Democratic parties, held in check by their parties' sense of propriety as a predicate for election to public office. Hypocritical, indeed, sometimes; but it also had the virtue of, while tipping its hat to respectability, and even probity sometimes, keeping candidates' and officeholders' predations of the public trust within manageable bounds. Former President Richard M Nixon was as much a grifter and scam artist as Donald Trump, but never in his lifetime was he as successful as Trump, and was always done with the utmost secrecy. That's the problem of growing up poor, where childhood financial insecurity hobbles the imagination as to what is possible to be gained by shaking the money tree harder than anyone ever thought possible, all in plain sight, and all at the expense of the public trust. Trump did that, because he surrounded himself with a coterie of grifters and scam artists who also possess the professional credentials needed to pass through to the inner sanctums of law, real estate development, high finance, and influence peddling. Donald Trump's interior life was that of an uncontrollable five- or six-year-old child, narcissistic and needy in the extreme, but who also cultivated the kind of social skills that allowed him to navigate exceedingly well among the wealthy and well-connected. Among these people, amorality is considered a virtue. Trump also had the common touch with people who had been left behind in life, whether as a consequence of their personal demons, or simple bad luck, but mostly because American society had changed in ways that rewarded the greedy and well-connected. This synergy has created an overwhelming political force among people who have lost much in life, often to the same people that Trump was hobnobbing with before he entered politics. This mobilization of the angry and tormented poor in the service of the indecently wealthy has been seen in almost every society, but not to the extent that it occurred here in the United States over the past 40 years. The combination of Trump's lust for power and illicit wealth, combined with his newly found powers of mobilizing the bitterness and resentment of those who had indeed been cheated in life of their health, earning power, and prospects for the future, together with America's original sin of racial domination and animosity, has almost killed the golden goose that made America a beacon to the rest of the world. Trump's high-minded opponents, wholly absorbed in their incessant virtue signaling, are facing nearly insurmountably high barriers to forming working coalitions that in past decades were effective in addressing and resolving common problems. It was only during the past two years that it became evident that democracy itself is on the election ballot; and this year's election will be the acid test of whether a liberal democracy will still be viable after the coming election.
This afternoon's on the final chapter in the House of Representatives' Select Committee Investigating the January 6, 2021, assault on our nation's Capitol. It was a fitting coda to the previous eight (?) Public hearings/broadcasts that occurred over the past four months since early July, which detailed and chronicled the causes of the riot, who was involved, what the motivations were, and who is responsible. Over the two hours and 30 minutes the committee was in session, members of the committee made what in court would be a prosecutor's summation of the evidence and closing argument. During the interregnum between the last committee hearing in September, and today's, new facts of emerged that established without a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump was fully, and completely aware that he had lost the election, and that he consciously hid that knowledge from his supporters, not that it matters at this point, because the vast majority of Trump supporters knew or should have known from other evidence that Trump did, in fact, lose the election by the thinnest of margins in the Electoral College, but handily in the numbers of votes cast by the electorate for and against Trump overall. Trump's opponent, former Vice President Joseph Biden, was nobody's first choice in the presidential sweepstakes back in 2020; but as luck would have it, Biden is a consummate politician and dealmaker. Joe Biden is a man of my era; he and I are roughly the same age, he a few months younger than I am. But we, and our generation, embody a set of values that the loud and obnoxious Left, and the greedy and autocratic Right, have denigrated over the years. Joe Biden has been a better president than many of my generation still living ever believed was possible at this stage of our political lives.. It is up to all of us now to save democracy, because too many Americans now believe that democracy means that someone with a black or brown skin has a better than even chance of holding public office, and by extension, getting ahead in life. It's still a horse race, but in almost every race in competitive elections is now within the margin of error. That's something to be worried about. Truly.
Oct 13, 2022·edited Oct 13, 2022Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Why did he do it?
He's a malignant narcissist and believes that the rules of living do not apply to him. Never did, never have, never will-until the moment he's charged with multiple counts of obstruction of justice, espionage and other sundry legal things that put most people away in prison for decades if not life.
He scoffs at the very idea of rules. He believes himself to be above the mere mortals who inhabit this planet with him.
That's why it's so damn important to charge him, convict him and put him someplace that will keep him away from the rest of us.
PS-I think Henry VIII was a narcissist, but with a lot more power than Donald Trump-in fact, until recently most monarchs did have that kind of power and could indeed act above the law. Thankfully things have changed.
Oct 13, 2022·edited Oct 13, 2022Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
MSNBC has been on this all evening, too—still is, if anyone's not already tuned in. Relevant WaPo reporters. (Poor Ruby. You should conduct a caption contest.)
I am only 3 pages into Washington DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone's book, "HOLD THE LINE" and I have cried, laughed, and marveled at his profound and awful insights about the January 6th insurrection at our Capitol, where he was almost killed defending it. I highly recommend we all read his book, and then VOTE accordingly.
Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop's Battle for America's Soul https://g.co/kgs/9Lbe9Z
i love the thought of sweet karma if it turns out the key impetus to nailing trump for Obstruction of Justice is the evidence provided by a hireling who is likely underpaid and maybe even possibly illegal (i don't care), to put him away for 20 years.
Trump’s feet should be on fire about now because there’s a mole in his atmosphere. There’s always one in a mafia. Wonder if he/she turns up dead...hope not.
May I request that from now on, if you're posting one of your pithy and trenchant epistles about the intolerable criminal peccadillos of the orange shitgibbon, you always put a picture of Ruby at the top? Much appreciated ;-))
Like the mob boss wannabe he is, trumpo has always managed to get somebody else to handle his "stuff". Sounds like this time there's actual evidence he stepped in it hisself 🤞
The plot doesn't just thicken, it solidifies :)
On a different subject from a recent newsletter re dogs and cats: This is kinds ci ute :)
Story of Adam & Eve's Dog
Adam and Eve said, "Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you anymore. We are lonesome here, and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us."
And God said, "I will create a companion for you that will be with you and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves."
And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve. And it was a good animal and God was pleased.
And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.
And Adam said, "Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal."
And God said, "I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG."
And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them.
And they were comforted.
And God was pleased.
And Dog was content and wagged his tail.
After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well."
And God said, "I will create for them a companion who will be with them and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration."
And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve.
And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat's eyes, they were reminded that they were not the Supreme Beings.
And Adam and Eve learned humility.
And they were greatly improved.
And God was pleased.
And Dog was happy.
And the Cat . . .
didn't care one way or the other…
http://static.tinyletter.com/AZJunk/img/beam/5018593/2image.png
Yes, as I read this, lying in the part of my bed the cat (named "Cat") allows me to sleep in.
Ah yes. Until her death two years ago, my last animal companion of 13 years (Squeaky the cat - because she did when she purred) hogged the middle too. Except during winter when she would burrow under the covers and allow me to be her hot water bottle.
😇
Yea, nah (as we say here) Tom. I have nevever bought or "owned" an animal in my life and have had only two pets, both of whom chose me to be their human. One was a long-haired glossy black labrador-collie cross bitch named Satin, in my teens who abandoned her owners and followed me home from my paper route to sleep on my parents doorstep outside my bedroom window (and then followed me to high school every day and everywhere else I went, for years).
Then, around 40 years later a bedraggled wet 6-month old kitten found me at my caravan on my 62 acre block of bush, mewling and showing signs of having been attacked by other cats. Probably a refugee escaped from a neighboring farm litter. I shared a can of sardines with her that night, towelled her off and shoved her in the bottom of my sleeping bag when I climbed in at sunset.
Both Satin and Squeaky would follow me everywhere and display signs of separation anxiety if I left them alone or with someone else for any length of time. I'm not going to go looking for more unconditional devotion, it can seek me out again if it wants to.
Excuse me, something my eye.
*edit* Corrected two typos created by autocorrupt, now that my vision is cleared.
Haha, yes for sure...from her perspective she is allowing you to stay in her house.
it IS cute, but it actually had me in tears before the cat showed up. and I like cats plenty, but just thinking about the mortality of dogs will make me look at my two old folks and I start blubbering....
Ahhh.....David, same with any family member we love, we want them with us forever. That's why The Rainbow Bridge is so popular. One doesn't have to be religious to imagine seeing our pets again waiting to greet us when we depart this world.
There is a bridge connecting heaven and earth.
It is called the Rainbow Bridge because of its many colors. Just
this side of the Rainbow Bridge is a land of meadows, hills and valleys
— all of it covered with lush green grass....
When a beloved pet dies, the pet goes to this lovely land. There is
always food and water and warm spring weather. There, the old and
frail animals are young again. Those who are maimed are made whole
once again. They play all day with each other, content and comfortable.
There is only one thing missing. They are not with the special
person who loved them on earth. So each day they run and play until the
day comes when one suddenly stops playing and looks up! The nose
twitches! The ears are up! The eyes are staring! You have been seen, and
that one suddenly runs from the group!
You take him or her in your arms and embrace. Your face is kissed
again and again and again. And you look once more into the eyes
of your trusting pet. Then, together, you cross the Rainbow Bridge,
never again to be separated.
Author Unknown
Robert, you can pretty certainly figure out what THAT did to me....
Yes, sorry about that, David. You are probably out of kleenex :)
yes, but I have LOTS of paper towels.
Even though I knew what it was going to say, I loved reading it! Thanks!
Got me cackling away in my armchair here Robert, you dog. Thanks
Ahh, you are welcome Craig.....
😁
Totally apart from the story -- of which the resident GOD, uh, DOG approves -- I do like that image of solidifying. I see pixels scattered across a screen gradually coalescing into an image of Trump behind bars -- and is that most of the Republican officeholders lined up behind him?
Especially after the hearing today. I don't see how the DOJ can avoid indicting and eventually convicting Trump. The evidence against him seemed overwhelming.
Any GOP member who still supports Trump & the big lie after the hearings is neither a patriot nor an American u in my opinion. Six takeaways from last Jan. 6 hearing before midterm elections
https://washex.am/3CxYKMJ
Thanks for the link, and ditto -- except that over the years I've come to realize what plenty of U.S. citizens do not share my understanding of either patriorism or what America is about. :-(
Susanna, to my mind it is important to know you stand for fairness and justice and honesty and integrity in in government officials. If friends or associates or even relatives prefer to vote for or support in other ways people who don't appear to share those values, that's on thm, We don't know the reasons. Maybe they are not as perceptive a or as intuitive as you, or they are simple hoodwinked; taken in by by slick talkers who convince them that it is say, mainstream news that is corrupt not their people. The extreme of course would be QAnon types, or other conspiracy theorists. Either way everyone thinks they are right and the other guy wrong and no amount of logic or even hard evidence sometimes like the hearings have uncovered. So, a waste of time arguing the issue. As long as your conscience is clear that is all that is important. My own private opinion is (and I am not asking anyone else to agree), is that in the end we will all get to review our lives and will see where we have erred and where we did well, not as judgement by some outside entity. but so we may see where we have failed and what still needs to be worked on. If we had made the grade already we wouldn't even be here to begin with. While we may be better in some ways than others, they may be bettr than us in some ways. We are all works in progress.....
Thank you! I needed this laugh.
Of course. They love to be petted and do return that love. They are just different in that generally more independent as far as doing as they please and not "Obeying" orders :) I've been meaning to watch more a program on Netflix. I think it's called the Secret Life of Cats and Dogs, or something like that. The part I sw was where cats could be trained like dogs to do tricks, etc., but it's a different kind of training.
To TCinLA : Re that Netflix series I just mentioned: It's The Hidden Life of Pets
Haha, should have known it :)
Can Stupid be any stupider? I have officially demoted the orange slob from moron to idiot. Maybe I should just go all the way to imbecile. I’m sorry, I don’t intend to insult anyone who suffers from the above and who can’t help it if they are lacking in intellectual capacity. I specifically use these terms as a diagnostic reference to a deeply deficient person who is torturing us and still trying to be the most powerful person in the world.
My thoughts exactly, Sarah.
Only slightly off topic and noteworthy: Camp Hale today designated a National Monument. Remember when citizens worked together to save the world from fascism? Here we are again, a bit behind but on the right track. Today's disintegrating world community begins to heal when Trump and Putin are in prison, and Americans and allied nations work together again. All honor to the 10th Mtn. Division and all who served against tyranny. Time to step up again.
And the beat goes on.... What we need is the forensic equivalent of grabbing Trump by the ankles and holding him upside down over some place like the Grand Canyon until he 'fesses up about where he stashed those documents.
And why.
Trump has already told us 'why…' He says the documents are his personal property. Trump has a fixation on owning things… and people. That's who we had as a president, a kleptomaniac. The reasons why Trump had those particular documents in his cashe of stolen documents would open up an interesting psychological investigation, but it would take a forensic psychologist to do a proper job of it. Indeed, if any of that information ever becomes public, it would be interesting source material for, say, a Masters thesis on the subject of his narcissism. Perhaps his niece, Mary Trump, would be able to predict the kinds of documents he would squirrel away in his Florida hideaway; but from what we know about the man already, the documents he pilfered, perhaps due to their National Defense – Top Secret subject matter would have something to do with the self-flattering way in which Trump sees himself. Something that glorifies Donald J Trump, not just President of the United States, but as impresario to the entire world.
From a probabilistic standpoint the documents that Trump curated into the robust collection that he made for himself probably had a lot to do with how those documents speak to his self-image. Undoubtedly, there are other reasons why Trump held onto the documents that were retrieved from his Florida estate in September, but we know now that Trump went through those documents personally, and hand selected them for retention as his personal property. Understandably, it's difficult to reverse engineer what those documents speak to simply by having a pretty good knowledge of what makes the former president tick. He's a man whose sole interest in life is himself, and he wants mementos that put him in the most flattering light he can imagine. That's the why of it all. And Trump has fought to keep those documents in his possession, like a dog gnawing on a bone. As I say above, from a psychological standpoint, this is most curious. The fact that these documents were mixed in with a collection of newspaper and magazine clippings adds to the curiosity factor. If we ever find out where those magazine and news article clippings come from, we might gain a hint about what the top-secret stuff was all about.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, someone will write a screenplay that explores this phenomenon in dramatic detail. The stage play – film script that comes to mind is the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, adapted from the stage play of the same name by Robert Bolt, and starring Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Heller, Leo McKern, and Susanna York. It is the tragic story of Sir Thomas More, the 16th century Lord Chancellor of England who refused to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and his refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Thomas More's refusal to accede to the king's wishes was an act of conscience on More's part and causes downfall, ending with his trial and execution for treason. I don't think we can expect any act of conscience on the part of Donald Trump, but his inner compulsion to hold onto those particular documents indicates that they had a hold on him that defies explanation by reference to any extrinsic evidence outside observers might want to point to. I think that Trump and those documents would make for a most entertaining psychodrama, because the story itself borders on absurdity. It is all but certain that the former president will be indicted by Attorney General Merrick B Garland for Trump's violations of the Espionage Act, and potentially other crimes he committed during his term of office, but from a legal perspective, this is like dropping a nuclear bomb on an ant hill. There is no question what the outcome will be; the evidence is clear, there are multiple witnesses to Trump's criminal intent, and the former president has yet to offer a convincing explanation about exactly why he did it. That is the 'Easter egg' that the jury is going to have to wrestle with; but from the standpoint of the law, a deep dive into the former president's psyche is not really part of the government's case. In other words, Donald J Trump's psychic satisfaction of having those top-secret documents, with their SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) markings and notations, stashed in his desk drawer or scattered about elsewhere at his Mar-a-Lago resort and golf club, cannot be explained in any logical way simply by referencing the content of those secret documents. For all practical purposes, those documents are stage props in the theater of Donald J Trump's mind, and their value to Trump appears to be related only to have those documents buttressed Trump's self-image. What is astonishing is the lengths that Trump went to to resist handing over those documents, and his futile (so far) legal attempts to get them returned to him. As I said, there is no logic that would explain why Trump has put himself in such legal jeopardy. I don't know the Trump could explain it to a trial jury if he decided to testify in his own behalf; and having seen Trump blurt out self-incriminating statements since he began to run for president in 2015 in front of television cameras and crowds of witnesses, it would not surprise me that Trump would want to take the witness stand, daring the jury to decide the case against him. The man has a desperate need to explain himself, even if it's only to himself. And that should be interesting to his audience, his followers, and his future biographers.
A lengthy but fascinating read, Mr. Silen. Every word makes perfect sense. Rump's possession of highly classified documents could be likened to all the photos of himself that decorate his Rump Tower residence and his other properties. He's clearly obsessed with himself and apparently needs these "trinkets" to remind him how great he is. Mar-a-Lardo isn't the only Rump property that needs to be searched for classified documents simply because his self-adoration isn't confined to just one place.
The denouement of Trump's sad story is almost, almost at hand. There is zero chance that Trump will escape indictment, trial and conviction, and a prison sentence. The real bad actors around the former president are his enablers, his donors, and his fellow-travelers pursuing their autocratic ends. The odd part about this whole story is that Trump's comeuppance will not necessarily be triggered by his despoliation of American political life, and his near-wrecking of the American Republic (the outcome of that is yet to be determined), but it is the willingness of the Republican Party, once a stalwart avatar of patriotism and national defense, to cave in to Trump's incessant grievance peddling, and his penchant for both grift and authoritarianism. These had always been minor keys in both Republican and Democratic parties, held in check by their parties' sense of propriety as a predicate for election to public office. Hypocritical, indeed, sometimes; but it also had the virtue of, while tipping its hat to respectability, and even probity sometimes, keeping candidates' and officeholders' predations of the public trust within manageable bounds. Former President Richard M Nixon was as much a grifter and scam artist as Donald Trump, but never in his lifetime was he as successful as Trump, and was always done with the utmost secrecy. That's the problem of growing up poor, where childhood financial insecurity hobbles the imagination as to what is possible to be gained by shaking the money tree harder than anyone ever thought possible, all in plain sight, and all at the expense of the public trust. Trump did that, because he surrounded himself with a coterie of grifters and scam artists who also possess the professional credentials needed to pass through to the inner sanctums of law, real estate development, high finance, and influence peddling. Donald Trump's interior life was that of an uncontrollable five- or six-year-old child, narcissistic and needy in the extreme, but who also cultivated the kind of social skills that allowed him to navigate exceedingly well among the wealthy and well-connected. Among these people, amorality is considered a virtue. Trump also had the common touch with people who had been left behind in life, whether as a consequence of their personal demons, or simple bad luck, but mostly because American society had changed in ways that rewarded the greedy and well-connected. This synergy has created an overwhelming political force among people who have lost much in life, often to the same people that Trump was hobnobbing with before he entered politics. This mobilization of the angry and tormented poor in the service of the indecently wealthy has been seen in almost every society, but not to the extent that it occurred here in the United States over the past 40 years. The combination of Trump's lust for power and illicit wealth, combined with his newly found powers of mobilizing the bitterness and resentment of those who had indeed been cheated in life of their health, earning power, and prospects for the future, together with America's original sin of racial domination and animosity, has almost killed the golden goose that made America a beacon to the rest of the world. Trump's high-minded opponents, wholly absorbed in their incessant virtue signaling, are facing nearly insurmountably high barriers to forming working coalitions that in past decades were effective in addressing and resolving common problems. It was only during the past two years that it became evident that democracy itself is on the election ballot; and this year's election will be the acid test of whether a liberal democracy will still be viable after the coming election.
This afternoon's on the final chapter in the House of Representatives' Select Committee Investigating the January 6, 2021, assault on our nation's Capitol. It was a fitting coda to the previous eight (?) Public hearings/broadcasts that occurred over the past four months since early July, which detailed and chronicled the causes of the riot, who was involved, what the motivations were, and who is responsible. Over the two hours and 30 minutes the committee was in session, members of the committee made what in court would be a prosecutor's summation of the evidence and closing argument. During the interregnum between the last committee hearing in September, and today's, new facts of emerged that established without a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump was fully, and completely aware that he had lost the election, and that he consciously hid that knowledge from his supporters, not that it matters at this point, because the vast majority of Trump supporters knew or should have known from other evidence that Trump did, in fact, lose the election by the thinnest of margins in the Electoral College, but handily in the numbers of votes cast by the electorate for and against Trump overall. Trump's opponent, former Vice President Joseph Biden, was nobody's first choice in the presidential sweepstakes back in 2020; but as luck would have it, Biden is a consummate politician and dealmaker. Joe Biden is a man of my era; he and I are roughly the same age, he a few months younger than I am. But we, and our generation, embody a set of values that the loud and obnoxious Left, and the greedy and autocratic Right, have denigrated over the years. Joe Biden has been a better president than many of my generation still living ever believed was possible at this stage of our political lives.. It is up to all of us now to save democracy, because too many Americans now believe that democracy means that someone with a black or brown skin has a better than even chance of holding public office, and by extension, getting ahead in life. It's still a horse race, but in almost every race in competitive elections is now within the margin of error. That's something to be worried about. Truly.
Why did he do it?
He's a malignant narcissist and believes that the rules of living do not apply to him. Never did, never have, never will-until the moment he's charged with multiple counts of obstruction of justice, espionage and other sundry legal things that put most people away in prison for decades if not life.
He scoffs at the very idea of rules. He believes himself to be above the mere mortals who inhabit this planet with him.
That's why it's so damn important to charge him, convict him and put him someplace that will keep him away from the rest of us.
PS-I think Henry VIII was a narcissist, but with a lot more power than Donald Trump-in fact, until recently most monarchs did have that kind of power and could indeed act above the law. Thankfully things have changed.
Absolutely right, Mary, every single word!!
I think "incipient kleptomaniac" is more fair and accurate, though. You need the "mania" part going on.
Oooo, LOVE the mental imagery there! Thank you, Mr. Silen.
MSNBC has been on this all evening, too—still is, if anyone's not already tuned in. Relevant WaPo reporters. (Poor Ruby. You should conduct a caption contest.)
I am only 3 pages into Washington DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone's book, "HOLD THE LINE" and I have cried, laughed, and marveled at his profound and awful insights about the January 6th insurrection at our Capitol, where he was almost killed defending it. I highly recommend we all read his book, and then VOTE accordingly.
Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop's Battle for America's Soul https://g.co/kgs/9Lbe9Z
i love the thought of sweet karma if it turns out the key impetus to nailing trump for Obstruction of Justice is the evidence provided by a hireling who is likely underpaid and maybe even possibly illegal (i don't care), to put him away for 20 years.
warms my cockles.
Trmp will steal the pennies off his own dead eye.
Ruby is a magnificent bat, dragon, or angel.
Very informative, and cute! Now let's have an update on Tazzy! (We all know that dogs will do anything, but cats are creatures of free will...)
Ruby Tuesday at Bat!
Trump’s feet should be on fire about now because there’s a mole in his atmosphere. There’s always one in a mafia. Wonder if he/she turns up dead...hope not.
May I request that from now on, if you're posting one of your pithy and trenchant epistles about the intolerable criminal peccadillos of the orange shitgibbon, you always put a picture of Ruby at the top? Much appreciated ;-))
Thank you and keep up the good fight!!
We're glad that Ruby is watching over us.
We can only hope the walks closing in on trump allow us to see his day in the dock to answer to the people for his crimes against the Reoublic.
Like the mob boss wannabe he is, trumpo has always managed to get somebody else to handle his "stuff". Sounds like this time there's actual evidence he stepped in it hisself 🤞
Bat Shit Crey-crey.