This makes me heartsick. I’m so frustrated with the slow pace of our justice system right now. I feel like if it had moved with more haste, we wouldn’t be saddled with an amoral, low-life insurrectionist running for the office of President of the United States, and his followers would have been left to at least question the lies they were told. But, here we are.
My thoughts exactly. I’m tired of hearing about how Jack Smith is talking to this person talking to that person really making progress. It’s two fucking years. And an amoral piece of insurrectionist crap not only still walks free, but is the leading contender for 2024 for the GQP. I’m sorry I smell a rat here. Something has slowed this down to the point that it won’t go to indictment before the election. Something is very rotten and I don’t want to hear anymore about how the system is working it is not.
By criticizing the DOJ, you are taking your marching orders directly from Donald Trump. This is exactly what he wants. Jack Smith has handled this investigation flawlessly from the start. He is not supposed to be taking into consideration the frustration of the public. He follows the evidence and takes appropriate action when he feels he has a case he can win, not when we want him to. That's the way justice is supposed to work in a civilized country.
Yet it took how long before Jack Smith was even brought in to this case? I agree with the disgruntled who say, "It is a travesty that Drumpf has not been charged ALREADY for numerous crimes committed between 2016 and 2020 and even afterward." Garland has been playing patty-cake with Drumpf's lawyers when what is required is a crusader.
Then there's the criminal negligence amply demonstrated during the COVID disaster. I'd like to see hundreds of thousands of charges of negligent homicide brought to court.
I dunno what the answer might be, but I wonder if crowd-funding a ninja team might be possible?
Respect your position and the sentiment of being frustrated by the lack of formal charges.
Can't agree w/your characterization regarding the system isn't working. Au contraire.
Trump is 0-63 in state and US courts related to the 2020 elx.
He is 0-fer in having US Courts block testimony by any and all Adm. officials and his own attorneys related to 6Jan and what he calls the box hoax.
A US District Court signed off on a Search and Seize Warrant for his property.
NY State and NYC civil actions already resulted in penalties inc. his CFO now residing on Rikkers Island. There are ongoing civil and criminal matters in both jursidictions, with the potential for additional actions.
EG Caroll defamation case is currently being heard.
Fulton County election interference is ongoing with announced indictments this summer.
The state of MI has convened a Grand Jury specific to the 2020 elx.
The DoJ's SC has prevailed in District and Appellate Court to compel Grand Jury testimony from all that he sought as necessary to get to the truth of the matter.
There are other potential legal actions involving fundraising off of the Big Lie and funding for Truth Social.
(a) In America the presumption of innocence is a tenet of jurisprudence. (b) There is no official court, called the Court of Public Opinion. (c) The 2nd Constitution does not forbid an otherwise qualified person under indictment or in the prison system from running and being elected President.
The SC and AG know what is at stake and are fully aware what is in their control and what is not. The Courts know their role and have responded accordingly. Keep in mind since elx night 2016 right up to a minute past noon on 20Jan 2021 Trump was at his zenith. Since then, each new day is his newest nadir.
Agree 100%. Justice is proceeding right on its essential schedule. We now have more than one chance to kill the naked king (to mix metaphors). And the "court of public opinion," while not an official court, is a real and important process to convinces fence sitters and, oh, mega- corporations and Heritage Foundation zillionaires to dump trump before Judge Jack Smith lowers the boom.
I wish I could share your optimism but after two plus years the only thing which has been proven valid is "Justice delayed is justice denied." I get prosecuting a President is unheard of but in case you weren't aware we have never had such a self promoting ego maniacal narcissistic sociopath as President. The longer her shucks and jives and keeps blasting out his propaganda the weaker our democracy seems in its ability to deliver its core promise. Justice for ALL.
-Am wrong more than anyone because know only self.-
Trump continues to shoot off his mouth regarding each and every legal matter. Is welcomed by prosecutors and in civil cases, opposing counsel alike. Said another way, Trump is far worse than the fictious Col. Jessup.
Justice for all? History and life remind all there are many forms and types of Justice. Is not easy to escape them all.
Trump and his co-conspirators should have been arrested on January 21, 2021 and locked up pending trial. That's what they deserve and dammit, that's what we deserve as well.
And do you know one reason I suspect Trump wasn't arrested on Inauguration Day? Biden didn't want that because it would have stopped dead the most successful first 2 years of an administration since FDR. Biden even said so.
How do you possibly imagine the DOJ could have indicted Trump before the AG was even confirmed? While the remnants of an outlaw Justice Department was still stalking the halls over there? C'mon man! You've got to be kidding!
And yet, while we dance around pretending that the illusion of the law is more important than the substance of the law, or equate institutional norms with justice, the dictator wannabe and his lackeys are plotting a return to power. This situation is ongoing. In the long run, if they succeed, none of our hand-wringing and hesitation now or in the past is going to matter.
I understand FEELING that way. I would have loved to see him in cuffs IMMEDIATELY, but that's not the way it works and I have a very strong feeling that none of us would want to live in THAT country.
Here's my frustration, shared by many, we are two plus years on. None of the big fish has yet to be indicted, even the most obvious of the conspirators - Giuliani, Powell, Wood, Ellis, Eastman, Mitchell, Bannon, Brooks, Biggs, Perry, Cruz, etc. None of them. Forget Trump, he's never going to see the inside of a cell, what's taking so long with the rest of them? Heck, the only thing for any of them is that Rudy got his license suspended, he has not been disbarred. And they are all still slithering around the country spewing bullshit and lies. And Trump is still stirring up the mob. And with election season on the horizon I can already hear the corporate media tut-tutting and pearl clutching over the politicization of the justice system. And absent real accountability, the Republicans could likely be returned to power and then it all goes away forever.
It's pretty incredible how the rich and well-connected are able to scoot and skate, compared to how the FBI and police and CIA in the 60s and 70s came down on radical groups and anti-war demonstrators and Black Panthers and United Farm Workers and hippies and stoners and all those others who never posed the danger to the American republic that these people you mentioned do.
"Thank you for your service!" -- Don't misunderstand, I mean this both ironically, as in mocking the contemporary platitude, AND, most importantly, honestly and genuinely! You were the honest resistance.
Addendum: After reading Fintan O'Toole's bio, I wonder how someone who won the freakin' ORWELL PRIZE for journalism, automatic cred and respect from me for that, and wrote the book reviewed here:
--- admittedly it was eighteen years ago, but it looks fascinating --- HOW could he end up satisfied with that "Bump and Grind" schtick?
Just LOOK at this, forget for a moment it's Fintan O's writing, just take it on its own merits, or what I see as fatal, dire drawbacks:
"We are in a very Trumpian world" {WTF?? No, that's just lazy skylarking bullshit} where the relationship between real events and the narratives they generate has gone wild." {What does even mean, and would it really be news if it did mean much of anything?}
"Wrapped up in “catch and kill,” the practice of capturing a sleazy tale and confining it in the cage of a nondisclosure agreement, is the image of a story as a feral creature with a life of its own, roaming out there on the untamed frontiers of scandalmongering, needing to be lured in with the smell of money and trapped in a net of legalities. The irony...."
Aaiiiiiiieeeee, please!, no more of this!
I just wanted to add that, and that this looks to me like a highly skilled journalist "taking a vacation," not anything to point "us" in general, or long-time leftists in particular, towards still MORE frustration with the odious Trump --- and to emphasize this has nothing to do with you, if I didn't make that clear by my vociferous response that it was about that particular (really really derivative) style of hyper-ironical meta-criticism, i.e., absolutely no offense intended!
Here's something that might be a more uplifting slice of our long tradition of rebellious journalism:
{She ended up in an unmarked grave in the Bronx, believe it or not, the New York Press Club paid to erect a memorial in 1978 - she died in 1922.}
Elizabeth Cochran Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist, who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within.[1] She was a pioneer in her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.[2] *******
As a writer, Nellie Bly focused her early work for the Pittsburgh Dispatch on the lives of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on women factory workers. However, the newspaper soon received complaints from factory owners about her writing, and she was reassigned to women's pages to cover fashion, society, and gardening, the usual role for women journalists, and she became dissatisfied. Still only 21, she was determined "to do something no girl has done before."[18] She then traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent, spending nearly half a year reporting on the lives and customs of the Mexican people; her dispatches later were published in book form as Six Months in Mexico.[15] In one report, she protested the imprisonment of a local journalist for criticizing the Mexican government, then a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz.[19] When Mexican authorities learned of Bly's report, they threatened her with arrest, prompting her to flee the country. Safely home, she accused Díaz of being a tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican people and controlling the press.[11]
But the only actual, for real frustration - or at least hypothetical frustration, vicariously imagined as being in the spirit of the opinion piece - this generates for me?
I mean, after all, it seems to be a powerfully obvious and repeatedly affirmed consensus that "we want Trump indicted YEARS AGO," that's not controversial on here, so for me, it's this:
Seeing the entire perspective of this all-too-predictable oracular opinion piece being deployed as some kind of "meta-framing ultra-ironical" view from nowhere, or maybe somewhere, floating untethered in semantic space - yet framed as really, really present, supposedly lucid, as if the events (leading up to the Trump indictment) can be reduced to some kind of intricately complex, yet somehow simple narrative, paradoxically enough.
Look at these two tendentious opening statements, and try to parse out the presuppositions:
"The problem with the likely indictment of Donald Trump is that his offense is a metafiction. It is a story about a story."
Come ONNNN, I feel lucky I wasn't innocently sipping a cup of coffee...This is great absurdist unintentional self-parody, anyway that's my view and I am sticking to it! No doubt there's some useful content and fine writing in it as well, looks to be produced by a sincere writer, but also sincerely misguided writer ... The fact ("Facts, what facts?") is NO, or rather, YES OF COURSE!
You can always delve into any kind of event, action, process, aggregates of those, dialectical spin offs generated by further invocations of past-present-future hypotheses about those, and end up with "stories about stories."
"The best memory...
Not so firm as faded ink."
---- Random fortune cookie from a Chinese restaurant... or maybe
it was a Chinese proverb I read in the 1980s, I'm not sure!
Or that "Buddhist China" course I took, maybe?
Getting into the full spirit of this as best I can, anyway, here's the same type of useful-but-useless (or useful-but-useless!) evasion I allege is embodied in the linked NY Books opinion piece, a quote from Raymond M. Smullyan's book The Tao is Silent (1977, HarperSanFrancisco), Chapter 34, "On Making an Effort," p. 157, * footnote,
"I am reminded of Wttgenstein's maxim: "Don't look for the meaning, look for the use!"
Once again I must note the incredible ineptitude of the justice system in this country, in particular, the drag your heels DOJ and Mr. Milk Toast Merrick Garland, and much of the federal court system, up to and including the highly partisan Supremes. I do not believe it can be fixed.
Complaints about the slowness of the process, ok, but this is arguably the most complex case in U.S. history except for the JFK assassination. My sympathies are divided!
Yes.I agree.The mainstream media continues to normalize him every day.He is NOT your run-of-the-mill candidate for POTUS.He is a twice impeached, lying, serial rapist , fascist traitor and he is getting the endorsement from one of our two major political parties.This is an outrage and needs to be covered this way!I almost want to throw the tv through the door when he is being covered more than our current hard working and accomplished POTUS.This is beyond reprehensible.
Trump has just made it clear by running for president, with all of the necessary, relevant data on offer, although even the most experienced psychiatrists have drawn back from using the term in their past writings --- by now, though, it's probably more likely to be added.
I've read through the book (the 2017 edition, the updated edition went from 27 to 37 "psychiatrists and mental health experts) several times, it's clearly still relevant, gods and goddesses, spirits and angels (and our own resources!) help us, we'll need it all.
Hey look, one of Lucian's ancestors can help us out, too!
".....according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions." ---
remember Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about how she'd usually help him with "phonetics?"
PHONETICS. she, of course, meant phonics, which he should have mastered by the second grade. and second grade would have put him in the "slower" class.
Agreed...I find myself hoping against hope that Pence will decide that he can't possibly win the Repubbie nomination and will thus decide that he will go into revengeful pay-back mode and throw tfg under the bus exactly the way drumpf threw Pence under the bus.
Go for it republicans. Four time loser is not likely to lead you to victory in try number five. In fact, I suspect that republicans are headed for a 2024 bloodbath.
Your headline, Lucian, is IMO accurate as far as it goes. He will be an insurrectionist to the day he dies, and therefore a constant threat. He also wants vengeance, and it’s not clear to me which he wants more: government overthrow or revenge. That combination obviously sits well with his cult most of whom can’t articulate what they want to see on the other side of an insurrection, or what life will be like after they’ve chopped off the heads of everyone they don’t like. The sadistic streak *Rump enables in his followers, as he whines grievances constantly to enrage them, releases the worst imaginable human instincts. He says the quiet parts out loud, sometimes in dog whistle form, but gives them permission to act on those heinous instincts. We can lay the resurgence of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, etc., around his neck, as he tries to become dictator. In my already long life I have not yet witnessed such a malevolent force. Just before my time, FDR said the two most dangerous people in America were Huey Long, and Douglas McArther. They were dangerous, but not nearly in the same league as *Rump. We are definitely sailing in uncharted waters.
The more dedicated wingnuts have reached that conclusion already, although `woke' is not the term of choice, it's more a matter of Trump failing to triple-down on the neo-fascist seditious insurrection's chances in the days and weeks after January 6. But that's part of text messages the coup's "leadership" shared with each other (and thus the FBI!), the prosecutors of the January 6 "leadership" isn't bothering to cite those, having more than ample evidence to convict without muddying the waters:
Your consistency Counselor of mixing profoundness with humor, albeit in varying strengths, cracks me up. Not easy to determine which times you decide to stir and which times you shake them together.
I have almost no idea how it happens, I just try to get out of my own way. But maybe that's not always such a great idea, I mean, avoiding "second guessing" in the course of, in real time, posting a response to the array of godawful events of the last months and longer, right through still more mass shootings, for example.
I think many of my comments need far more close editing, to be realistic, but there's so much going on besides posting online comments, the editing gets neglected.
The upside of less editing might be more "spontaneity," so there's that, but in any event, thanks for the compliment, I appreciate it.
Twitter, FB and other platforms lean to being reactive v. responsive. Few step back to add context, perspective, and insight. Fewer still recall what they previously wrote on the matter. Come to t'ink about it, Pretty much apes the media's talking heads.
Here there is a colorful collage of thoughtful folk. Credit goes to Lucian for being the magnet.
Note: Your posts have no need for editing. As you rightly point out, other matters take priority.
Salvador Sandoval was found guilty of six misdemeanors and six felonies, including assaulting, resisting or impeding police officers while inside the capitol that day.
-----And "Ankeny man's mother" is from Des Moines:
Deborah Sandoval, 56, of Des Moines, pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.
On a video played during a previous court appearance, Sandoval is heard saying, "Get her (vulgarity) out here," referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She later described her conduct that day, saying, "We stormed the Capitol" in social media messages.
Sandoval was sentenced to five months in prison, followed by 12 months of supervised release and a re-entry hearing in court. She is also ordered to pay $500 in restitution
And to think a station on the Underground Railroad that hosted John Brown is in Iowa City, and another station a mile from where my grandparents had an 80 acre farm, things sure ain't what they used to be!
Eddie Condon and His Hot Shots, "That's a Serious Thing" (Jack Teagarden):
Let's hope every incident like this makes the news so fence-sitting voters get constant reminders of what's turned them off since the first and last day persistent loser trump was ever elected to anything.
I'm near Cincinnati. At an early on Trump rally here I saw a woman proudly strutting in a "Grab ME by the p***y" Tshirt. Never forgot. That motto sells now on retail sites. And you share a woman drives from Texas to get his autograph on a backpack. I expect a line of autographed purses and packs next. He's a master grab 'n go guy. Politically and personally.
Everything you wrote about The Former Guy is 100% true. Yet, there is still a hard core of supporters who will enter hell for him. It is easy to write them off as deluded, a true cult. But they are still a small minority of voters. Even if TFG is the GQP nominee, he is like an anchor that will drown the party that has tied themselves to him so closely. With everything that has come to light of the American Carnage he wreaked for four years, and the GQP efforts to suppress voters, ban books, discriminate against women, discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities, discriminate against LGBTQ, etc. etc., I have some hope that the winning coalition that elected Biden in 2020 will turn out in even greater numbers, especially women and young people, to vote for the Democratic candidate, whoever that may be. It will require hard work and effort, but it must be done. TFG can never be let near the White House again, even if he tries to do so from a prison cell.
Micki Larson-Olson and her ilk are more dangerous than Trump -- especially the armed XY-chromosome members of that ilk. They were making trouble before Trump went into politics. They'll be around after he fades away or dies of natural causes or gets locked up. About that last option -- "be careful what you wish for," I suggest, because many a movement has gained momentum when it was handed a martyr.
People believe what they want to believe. That's true in politics, it's true in religion, and it's true in matters that have nothing to do with either politics or religion: the whole advertising industry is based on it. Trump's genius is in telling people what they want to believe, but he's not unique, and there are millions of USians -- 74 million, give or take, in the last presidential election -- who want to believe it. Fortunately for us, the overwhelming majority of them would not drive 30 hours to be in the presence of their idol. Less fortunately, the Washington Post reporter managed to find her (needle in a haystack? I doubt it) and give her national exposure.
Their sense of reality is so twisted that they actually consider themselves patriots. According to Boerbert it is their patriotic duty to break the law if their boorish behavior causes them to be kicked of a plane when traveling. "Donald Trump-loving Boebert called for “boldness” from the audience as she listed what she — and they — should be prepared to do in the name of what she claimed was patriotism.
“I will do what’s right. I don’t care if it costs me an election,” Boebert said. “I don’t care if the school principal gets mad at me or the county commissioners get upset at me, or if the flight attendant kicks me off the plane.”
When he announced he made it clear he would right the "wrongs" done against the insurrectionists but he went even further. He said "I am your vengeance your retribution" promising his followers he would "get even" for himself and them. Never mind he was the architect of the first attempt ever to overturn a free and fair election and he has organized and motivated approximately 8.000 citizens to commit to one degree or another crimes against the Constitution and the rule of law on January 6, and how subsequent to that he has been at the top of a pyramid of organized crimes to cover up the conspiracy and avoid justice.
If he is reelected he will turn the DOJ and its subsidiary the FBI into a new Gestapo and conduct a scorched earth campaign against anyone he deems to be his enemy. He was and is a clear and present danger to this nation, its Constitution and the rule of law. Stop him or we will see this nation enter a 21st century version of the Dark Ages.
this is hardly original and, doubtless, I'll be saying it again, but you can't make this shit up. the guy is like the fucking hydra; chop off one head and nine more appear.
most days, I'm not especially convinced we'll get through this.
Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel only a few days after the Republicans took back the House. That was not a coincidence. Once we lost the House the President's legislative agenda was dead. There was no reason at that point to continue slow walking the Trump prosecutions. The "blame" if you want to call it that rests with the West Wing, not the DOJ. My belief is it was handled perfectly, because none of what Biden accomplished would have happened in the midst of a Trump prosecution.
Mike Pence was interviewed yesterday! Does anyone seriously believe that the DOJ should have inducted Trump before they knew what the former VP had to say? Does anyone believe Jack Smith would even bother going to court to secure his testimony if he were not serious?
Prosecutors complete their investigations then they decide whether or not to indict. They don't indict someone on the off chance they can get a conviction, then keep gathering evidence. So there is absolutely no mystery here.
This makes me heartsick. I’m so frustrated with the slow pace of our justice system right now. I feel like if it had moved with more haste, we wouldn’t be saddled with an amoral, low-life insurrectionist running for the office of President of the United States, and his followers would have been left to at least question the lies they were told. But, here we are.
My thoughts exactly. I’m tired of hearing about how Jack Smith is talking to this person talking to that person really making progress. It’s two fucking years. And an amoral piece of insurrectionist crap not only still walks free, but is the leading contender for 2024 for the GQP. I’m sorry I smell a rat here. Something has slowed this down to the point that it won’t go to indictment before the election. Something is very rotten and I don’t want to hear anymore about how the system is working it is not.
By criticizing the DOJ, you are taking your marching orders directly from Donald Trump. This is exactly what he wants. Jack Smith has handled this investigation flawlessly from the start. He is not supposed to be taking into consideration the frustration of the public. He follows the evidence and takes appropriate action when he feels he has a case he can win, not when we want him to. That's the way justice is supposed to work in a civilized country.
Smith was the first ray of hope when he was appointed.
Yet it took how long before Jack Smith was even brought in to this case? I agree with the disgruntled who say, "It is a travesty that Drumpf has not been charged ALREADY for numerous crimes committed between 2016 and 2020 and even afterward." Garland has been playing patty-cake with Drumpf's lawyers when what is required is a crusader.
Then there's the criminal negligence amply demonstrated during the COVID disaster. I'd like to see hundreds of thousands of charges of negligent homicide brought to court.
I dunno what the answer might be, but I wonder if crowd-funding a ninja team might be possible?
YES!!!
Respect your position and the sentiment of being frustrated by the lack of formal charges.
Can't agree w/your characterization regarding the system isn't working. Au contraire.
Trump is 0-63 in state and US courts related to the 2020 elx.
He is 0-fer in having US Courts block testimony by any and all Adm. officials and his own attorneys related to 6Jan and what he calls the box hoax.
A US District Court signed off on a Search and Seize Warrant for his property.
NY State and NYC civil actions already resulted in penalties inc. his CFO now residing on Rikkers Island. There are ongoing civil and criminal matters in both jursidictions, with the potential for additional actions.
EG Caroll defamation case is currently being heard.
Fulton County election interference is ongoing with announced indictments this summer.
The state of MI has convened a Grand Jury specific to the 2020 elx.
The DoJ's SC has prevailed in District and Appellate Court to compel Grand Jury testimony from all that he sought as necessary to get to the truth of the matter.
There are other potential legal actions involving fundraising off of the Big Lie and funding for Truth Social.
(a) In America the presumption of innocence is a tenet of jurisprudence. (b) There is no official court, called the Court of Public Opinion. (c) The 2nd Constitution does not forbid an otherwise qualified person under indictment or in the prison system from running and being elected President.
The SC and AG know what is at stake and are fully aware what is in their control and what is not. The Courts know their role and have responded accordingly. Keep in mind since elx night 2016 right up to a minute past noon on 20Jan 2021 Trump was at his zenith. Since then, each new day is his newest nadir.
Agree 100%. Justice is proceeding right on its essential schedule. We now have more than one chance to kill the naked king (to mix metaphors). And the "court of public opinion," while not an official court, is a real and important process to convinces fence sitters and, oh, mega- corporations and Heritage Foundation zillionaires to dump trump before Judge Jack Smith lowers the boom.
I wish I could share your optimism but after two plus years the only thing which has been proven valid is "Justice delayed is justice denied." I get prosecuting a President is unheard of but in case you weren't aware we have never had such a self promoting ego maniacal narcissistic sociopath as President. The longer her shucks and jives and keeps blasting out his propaganda the weaker our democracy seems in its ability to deliver its core promise. Justice for ALL.
-Am wrong more than anyone because know only self.-
Trump continues to shoot off his mouth regarding each and every legal matter. Is welcomed by prosecutors and in civil cases, opposing counsel alike. Said another way, Trump is far worse than the fictious Col. Jessup.
Justice for all? History and life remind all there are many forms and types of Justice. Is not easy to escape them all.
Shadowcloud
I agree with you totally.
Trump and his co-conspirators should have been arrested on January 21, 2021 and locked up pending trial. That's what they deserve and dammit, that's what we deserve as well.
And do you know one reason I suspect Trump wasn't arrested on Inauguration Day? Biden didn't want that because it would have stopped dead the most successful first 2 years of an administration since FDR. Biden even said so.
How do you possibly imagine the DOJ could have indicted Trump before the AG was even confirmed? While the remnants of an outlaw Justice Department was still stalking the halls over there? C'mon man! You've got to be kidding!
exactly right!
And yet, while we dance around pretending that the illusion of the law is more important than the substance of the law, or equate institutional norms with justice, the dictator wannabe and his lackeys are plotting a return to power. This situation is ongoing. In the long run, if they succeed, none of our hand-wringing and hesitation now or in the past is going to matter.
If you don't think the FBI has entire task forces assigned to this...
Absolutely agree!!
I understand FEELING that way. I would have loved to see him in cuffs IMMEDIATELY, but that's not the way it works and I have a very strong feeling that none of us would want to live in THAT country.
Here's my frustration, shared by many, we are two plus years on. None of the big fish has yet to be indicted, even the most obvious of the conspirators - Giuliani, Powell, Wood, Ellis, Eastman, Mitchell, Bannon, Brooks, Biggs, Perry, Cruz, etc. None of them. Forget Trump, he's never going to see the inside of a cell, what's taking so long with the rest of them? Heck, the only thing for any of them is that Rudy got his license suspended, he has not been disbarred. And they are all still slithering around the country spewing bullshit and lies. And Trump is still stirring up the mob. And with election season on the horizon I can already hear the corporate media tut-tutting and pearl clutching over the politicization of the justice system. And absent real accountability, the Republicans could likely be returned to power and then it all goes away forever.
It's pretty incredible how the rich and well-connected are able to scoot and skate, compared to how the FBI and police and CIA in the 60s and 70s came down on radical groups and anti-war demonstrators and Black Panthers and United Farm Workers and hippies and stoners and all those others who never posed the danger to the American republic that these people you mentioned do.
I came of age during the Vietnam and marched more than once against the war. I can still smell the tear gas.
yeah. me too. I can also feel the billy club on the back of my neck in front of the UN.
and I can even remember seeing myself screaming like a bitch the same night on ABC News. not my most gallant moment, I'd say.
"Thank you for your service!" -- Don't misunderstand, I mean this both ironically, as in mocking the contemporary platitude, AND, most importantly, honestly and genuinely! You were the honest resistance.
[Am for] convictions > indictments.
well, we ALL are.
and believe me, I can understand everybody's frustration. and here's a little something from the new NYRB to get us all a little more frustrated.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/05/11/bump-and-grind-fintan-otoole/
Addendum: After reading Fintan O'Toole's bio, I wonder how someone who won the freakin' ORWELL PRIZE for journalism, automatic cred and respect from me for that, and wrote the book reviewed here:
www.theguardian.com/books/2005/aug/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview3
--- admittedly it was eighteen years ago, but it looks fascinating --- HOW could he end up satisfied with that "Bump and Grind" schtick?
Just LOOK at this, forget for a moment it's Fintan O's writing, just take it on its own merits, or what I see as fatal, dire drawbacks:
"We are in a very Trumpian world" {WTF?? No, that's just lazy skylarking bullshit} where the relationship between real events and the narratives they generate has gone wild." {What does even mean, and would it really be news if it did mean much of anything?}
"Wrapped up in “catch and kill,” the practice of capturing a sleazy tale and confining it in the cage of a nondisclosure agreement, is the image of a story as a feral creature with a life of its own, roaming out there on the untamed frontiers of scandalmongering, needing to be lured in with the smell of money and trapped in a net of legalities. The irony...."
Aaiiiiiiieeeee, please!, no more of this!
I just wanted to add that, and that this looks to me like a highly skilled journalist "taking a vacation," not anything to point "us" in general, or long-time leftists in particular, towards still MORE frustration with the odious Trump --- and to emphasize this has nothing to do with you, if I didn't make that clear by my vociferous response that it was about that particular (really really derivative) style of hyper-ironical meta-criticism, i.e., absolutely no offense intended!
Here's something that might be a more uplifting slice of our long tradition of rebellious journalism:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly
{She ended up in an unmarked grave in the Bronx, believe it or not, the New York Press Club paid to erect a memorial in 1978 - she died in 1922.}
Elizabeth Cochran Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist, who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within.[1] She was a pioneer in her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.[2] *******
As a writer, Nellie Bly focused her early work for the Pittsburgh Dispatch on the lives of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on women factory workers. However, the newspaper soon received complaints from factory owners about her writing, and she was reassigned to women's pages to cover fashion, society, and gardening, the usual role for women journalists, and she became dissatisfied. Still only 21, she was determined "to do something no girl has done before."[18] She then traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent, spending nearly half a year reporting on the lives and customs of the Mexican people; her dispatches later were published in book form as Six Months in Mexico.[15] In one report, she protested the imprisonment of a local journalist for criticizing the Mexican government, then a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz.[19] When Mexican authorities learned of Bly's report, they threatened her with arrest, prompting her to flee the country. Safely home, she accused Díaz of being a tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican people and controlling the press.[11]
Again: she was all of 21 years old in 1885....
Upvoted/Liked for posting the link, absolutely!
But the only actual, for real frustration - or at least hypothetical frustration, vicariously imagined as being in the spirit of the opinion piece - this generates for me?
I mean, after all, it seems to be a powerfully obvious and repeatedly affirmed consensus that "we want Trump indicted YEARS AGO," that's not controversial on here, so for me, it's this:
Seeing the entire perspective of this all-too-predictable oracular opinion piece being deployed as some kind of "meta-framing ultra-ironical" view from nowhere, or maybe somewhere, floating untethered in semantic space - yet framed as really, really present, supposedly lucid, as if the events (leading up to the Trump indictment) can be reduced to some kind of intricately complex, yet somehow simple narrative, paradoxically enough.
Look at these two tendentious opening statements, and try to parse out the presuppositions:
"The problem with the likely indictment of Donald Trump is that his offense is a metafiction. It is a story about a story."
Come ONNNN, I feel lucky I wasn't innocently sipping a cup of coffee...This is great absurdist unintentional self-parody, anyway that's my view and I am sticking to it! No doubt there's some useful content and fine writing in it as well, looks to be produced by a sincere writer, but also sincerely misguided writer ... The fact ("Facts, what facts?") is NO, or rather, YES OF COURSE!
You can always delve into any kind of event, action, process, aggregates of those, dialectical spin offs generated by further invocations of past-present-future hypotheses about those, and end up with "stories about stories."
"The best memory...
Not so firm as faded ink."
---- Random fortune cookie from a Chinese restaurant... or maybe
it was a Chinese proverb I read in the 1980s, I'm not sure!
Or that "Buddhist China" course I took, maybe?
Getting into the full spirit of this as best I can, anyway, here's the same type of useful-but-useless (or useful-but-useless!) evasion I allege is embodied in the linked NY Books opinion piece, a quote from Raymond M. Smullyan's book The Tao is Silent (1977, HarperSanFrancisco), Chapter 34, "On Making an Effort," p. 157, * footnote,
"I am reminded of Wttgenstein's maxim: "Don't look for the meaning, look for the use!"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCqRy8GSDoo
^^^^^^^
Clip from The Maltese Falcon (1941) 2 minutes 45 seconds.
Once again I must note the incredible ineptitude of the justice system in this country, in particular, the drag your heels DOJ and Mr. Milk Toast Merrick Garland, and much of the federal court system, up to and including the highly partisan Supremes. I do not believe it can be fixed.
Please provide one example of inepitude by the DOJ. Thank you.
Complaints about the slowness of the process, ok, but this is arguably the most complex case in U.S. history except for the JFK assassination. My sympathies are divided!
Yes.I agree.The mainstream media continues to normalize him every day.He is NOT your run-of-the-mill candidate for POTUS.He is a twice impeached, lying, serial rapist , fascist traitor and he is getting the endorsement from one of our two major political parties.This is an outrage and needs to be covered this way!I almost want to throw the tv through the door when he is being covered more than our current hard working and accomplished POTUS.This is beyond reprehensible.
Well said!!!
Traitor
Rapist
Unfit
Mercenary
Psycho
...Hell of a candidate they got there...!
Grifter
The "psycho" term is accurate in the sense that even psychopaths as far gone as, say,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy managed to avoid being obviously diagnosed or recognized
as such for years.
Trump has just made it clear by running for president, with all of the necessary, relevant data on offer, although even the most experienced psychiatrists have drawn back from using the term in their past writings --- by now, though, it's probably more likely to be added.
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/561477/trump-on-the-couch-by-justin-a-frank-md/
us.macmillan.com/books/9781250212863/thedangerouscaseofdonaldtrump
And this:
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-time-cure/201709/the-dangerous-case-donald-trump
I've read through the book (the 2017 edition, the updated edition went from 27 to 37 "psychiatrists and mental health experts) several times, it's clearly still relevant, gods and goddesses, spirits and angels (and our own resources!) help us, we'll need it all.
Hey look, one of Lucian's ancestors can help us out, too!
".....according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions." ---
Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address
First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1801
avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp
you left out "subliterate" and "moron."
remember Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about how she'd usually help him with "phonetics?"
PHONETICS. she, of course, meant phonics, which he should have mastered by the second grade. and second grade would have put him in the "slower" class.
I wish we could elect him King of some barren, uninhabited island somewhere off the Florida Keys and just put him there.
Epstein Island?
Dictator wannabe
Offal
Nincompoop
Awful
Lousy
Dummy
Praying that Pence's testimony yesterday will help put Drumpf in prison where he belongs.
Agreed...I find myself hoping against hope that Pence will decide that he can't possibly win the Repubbie nomination and will thus decide that he will go into revengeful pay-back mode and throw tfg under the bus exactly the way drumpf threw Pence under the bus.
Never happen, Pence is a bigger coward than Trump.
Go for it republicans. Four time loser is not likely to lead you to victory in try number five. In fact, I suspect that republicans are headed for a 2024 bloodbath.
I surely hope you are right. Dear Lord, hear our prayers.
One can hope...
We can hope and we can also work like heck to "...make it so." (in the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard)
The GOP assault on women is political suicide. This should be a laydown.
It unfortunately isn’t the kiss of death in some circles. Billy Bush, TFG interview in 2016, case in point!
Your headline, Lucian, is IMO accurate as far as it goes. He will be an insurrectionist to the day he dies, and therefore a constant threat. He also wants vengeance, and it’s not clear to me which he wants more: government overthrow or revenge. That combination obviously sits well with his cult most of whom can’t articulate what they want to see on the other side of an insurrection, or what life will be like after they’ve chopped off the heads of everyone they don’t like. The sadistic streak *Rump enables in his followers, as he whines grievances constantly to enrage them, releases the worst imaginable human instincts. He says the quiet parts out loud, sometimes in dog whistle form, but gives them permission to act on those heinous instincts. We can lay the resurgence of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, etc., around his neck, as he tries to become dictator. In my already long life I have not yet witnessed such a malevolent force. Just before my time, FDR said the two most dangerous people in America were Huey Long, and Douglas McArther. They were dangerous, but not nearly in the same league as *Rump. We are definitely sailing in uncharted waters.
<b>Trump posed for photographs with the woman, who had been forced to remove the Qanon stickers and buttons from her backpack</b>
Is the Trump campaign woke now?
The more dedicated wingnuts have reached that conclusion already, although `woke' is not the term of choice, it's more a matter of Trump failing to triple-down on the neo-fascist seditious insurrection's chances in the days and weeks after January 6. But that's part of text messages the coup's "leadership" shared with each other (and thus the FBI!), the prosecutors of the January 6 "leadership" isn't bothering to cite those, having more than ample evidence to convict without muddying the waters:
apnews.com/article/proud-boys-enrique-tarrio-capitol-riot-trial-4dc5d0d36bc4c39ea924412dbb51780b
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST
April 24, 2023
Just watch the developments as Trump scrambles
Your consistency Counselor of mixing profoundness with humor, albeit in varying strengths, cracks me up. Not easy to determine which times you decide to stir and which times you shake them together.
I have almost no idea how it happens, I just try to get out of my own way. But maybe that's not always such a great idea, I mean, avoiding "second guessing" in the course of, in real time, posting a response to the array of godawful events of the last months and longer, right through still more mass shootings, for example.
I think many of my comments need far more close editing, to be realistic, but there's so much going on besides posting online comments, the editing gets neglected.
The upside of less editing might be more "spontaneity," so there's that, but in any event, thanks for the compliment, I appreciate it.
Twitter, FB and other platforms lean to being reactive v. responsive. Few step back to add context, perspective, and insight. Fewer still recall what they previously wrote on the matter. Come to t'ink about it, Pretty much apes the media's talking heads.
Here there is a colorful collage of thoughtful folk. Credit goes to Lucian for being the magnet.
Note: Your posts have no need for editing. As you rightly point out, other matters take priority.
Sounds good to me!
And so does this, Ankeny Iowa is maybe 15 miles from where I grew up:
www.kcci.com/article/ankeny-man-found-guilty-of-all-counts-role-in-jan-6-riot/42260030
Salvador Sandoval was found guilty of six misdemeanors and six felonies, including assaulting, resisting or impeding police officers while inside the capitol that day.
-----And "Ankeny man's mother" is from Des Moines:
www.kcci.com/article/iowa-mother-that-stormed-the-capitol-receives-sentence/43754936?utm
Deborah Sandoval, 56, of Des Moines, pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.
On a video played during a previous court appearance, Sandoval is heard saying, "Get her (vulgarity) out here," referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She later described her conduct that day, saying, "We stormed the Capitol" in social media messages.
Sandoval was sentenced to five months in prison, followed by 12 months of supervised release and a re-entry hearing in court. She is also ordered to pay $500 in restitution
And to think a station on the Underground Railroad that hosted John Brown is in Iowa City, and another station a mile from where my grandparents had an 80 acre farm, things sure ain't what they used to be!
Eddie Condon and His Hot Shots, "That's a Serious Thing" (Jack Teagarden):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTazoTQ2-9A
Song is on Smithsonian Anthology of Classic Jazz (Disc 1)
Even Trump knows MTG is insane...Q Anon for God's sake!
Lucian, your headline says it all!!! Sigh!!!
Let's hope every incident like this makes the news so fence-sitting voters get constant reminders of what's turned them off since the first and last day persistent loser trump was ever elected to anything.
I'm near Cincinnati. At an early on Trump rally here I saw a woman proudly strutting in a "Grab ME by the p***y" Tshirt. Never forgot. That motto sells now on retail sites. And you share a woman drives from Texas to get his autograph on a backpack. I expect a line of autographed purses and packs next. He's a master grab 'n go guy. Politically and personally.
Everything you wrote about The Former Guy is 100% true. Yet, there is still a hard core of supporters who will enter hell for him. It is easy to write them off as deluded, a true cult. But they are still a small minority of voters. Even if TFG is the GQP nominee, he is like an anchor that will drown the party that has tied themselves to him so closely. With everything that has come to light of the American Carnage he wreaked for four years, and the GQP efforts to suppress voters, ban books, discriminate against women, discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities, discriminate against LGBTQ, etc. etc., I have some hope that the winning coalition that elected Biden in 2020 will turn out in even greater numbers, especially women and young people, to vote for the Democratic candidate, whoever that may be. It will require hard work and effort, but it must be done. TFG can never be let near the White House again, even if he tries to do so from a prison cell.
The disgraced criminal indictee continues the creeping coup he has been attempting for six years.
One should have no illusions regarding his goal of regime change. It feels surreal to write these words, but that’s where we are.
Micki Larson-Olson and her ilk are more dangerous than Trump -- especially the armed XY-chromosome members of that ilk. They were making trouble before Trump went into politics. They'll be around after he fades away or dies of natural causes or gets locked up. About that last option -- "be careful what you wish for," I suggest, because many a movement has gained momentum when it was handed a martyr.
People believe what they want to believe. That's true in politics, it's true in religion, and it's true in matters that have nothing to do with either politics or religion: the whole advertising industry is based on it. Trump's genius is in telling people what they want to believe, but he's not unique, and there are millions of USians -- 74 million, give or take, in the last presidential election -- who want to believe it. Fortunately for us, the overwhelming majority of them would not drive 30 hours to be in the presence of their idol. Less fortunately, the Washington Post reporter managed to find her (needle in a haystack? I doubt it) and give her national exposure.
Their sense of reality is so twisted that they actually consider themselves patriots. According to Boerbert it is their patriotic duty to break the law if their boorish behavior causes them to be kicked of a plane when traveling. "Donald Trump-loving Boebert called for “boldness” from the audience as she listed what she — and they — should be prepared to do in the name of what she claimed was patriotism.
“I will do what’s right. I don’t care if it costs me an election,” Boebert said. “I don’t care if the school principal gets mad at me or the county commissioners get upset at me, or if the flight attendant kicks me off the plane.”
How nice it would be if that flight attendant kicked her off the plane a thousand miles out over the Atlantic Ocean.
LOL That is so funny Judith, made me laugh out loud.
Me too!
When he announced he made it clear he would right the "wrongs" done against the insurrectionists but he went even further. He said "I am your vengeance your retribution" promising his followers he would "get even" for himself and them. Never mind he was the architect of the first attempt ever to overturn a free and fair election and he has organized and motivated approximately 8.000 citizens to commit to one degree or another crimes against the Constitution and the rule of law on January 6, and how subsequent to that he has been at the top of a pyramid of organized crimes to cover up the conspiracy and avoid justice.
If he is reelected he will turn the DOJ and its subsidiary the FBI into a new Gestapo and conduct a scorched earth campaign against anyone he deems to be his enemy. He was and is a clear and present danger to this nation, its Constitution and the rule of law. Stop him or we will see this nation enter a 21st century version of the Dark Ages.
this is hardly original and, doubtless, I'll be saying it again, but you can't make this shit up. the guy is like the fucking hydra; chop off one head and nine more appear.
most days, I'm not especially convinced we'll get through this.
OMG...the hydra image of TFG is terrifying. Thanks for tonight’s nightmare!
Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel only a few days after the Republicans took back the House. That was not a coincidence. Once we lost the House the President's legislative agenda was dead. There was no reason at that point to continue slow walking the Trump prosecutions. The "blame" if you want to call it that rests with the West Wing, not the DOJ. My belief is it was handled perfectly, because none of what Biden accomplished would have happened in the midst of a Trump prosecution.
Mike Pence was interviewed yesterday! Does anyone seriously believe that the DOJ should have inducted Trump before they knew what the former VP had to say? Does anyone believe Jack Smith would even bother going to court to secure his testimony if he were not serious?
Prosecutors complete their investigations then they decide whether or not to indict. They don't indict someone on the off chance they can get a conviction, then keep gathering evidence. So there is absolutely no mystery here.
Good points!