Remember: None of this would be happening if Merrick Garland were alive.
The sad thing is that once upon a time, we could disagree reasonably with some republicans. Even Gerald Ford was a pleasant person. But since him, there hasn't been one republican candidate at the national level who put country above party or personal interests. Come to think of it, there hasn't been one who hasn't been guilty of treason.
George H.W. Bush called Clarence Thomas the most qualified person in the country for that appointment. A decade and a half before, Gerald Ford appointed John Paul Stevens, who proved to be a centrist on the Burger Court, then a liberal on the Rehnquist Court as Reagan and Bush appointed lunatics like Scalia and Thomas, and eventually the Bush II pair. Near the end of his days, Ford said if he was judged only for appointing Stevens, he would be very happy. That spoke volumes.
Indeed... Personally, I'll not forget that George HW Bush was--before becoming Reagan's VP pick (in itself a sort of significant "tell") he was appointed as Chief Spook for the CIA and retained all those contacts. After Reagan's 'impaired memory' performance during the investigations into the arms deal, and GHW's insistence that he was not "in the loop", one of his advisors--ol' Billy Barr, in fact--advised him to pardon several actors involved in the Iran-Contra mess lest a Congressional investigation into their activities cast muck back at by-then-President Bush.
Of course, there are also a lot of nasty (and factual) stories surrounding GHW's daddy, Prescott Bush and similar problematical issues hanging around Dubya as well. If we are to look at dirty political dynasties...the Bushes comprise a sizeable block of questionable actions and actors.
"Reasonable Republicans", HAH....there seems to be just two kinds of Repubbies left:
either fervent (or hypocritical) Trump loyalists or those Repubbies who have denied their lord and master. They have been purged from the party of Trump and are wandering around, dazed...like ants after their anthill has been destroyed.
I too was thinking along similar linnes about AG Garland, until I had my mind changed by the information Allison Gill provided in her "Mueller, She Wrote" substack the other day.
You might read and then decide if it has any similar effect on your good self...
I appreciate that, and I do exaggerate for effect. But what Garland and a lot of other people suffered from was the failure to realize what a wise man called the fierce urgency of now. We could have gotten around the various impediments if we thought like republicans on these matters. Instead, we bring pillows to fight AK-47's. So, I am actually a bigger fan of Garland than I let on, but the administration itself needed to be acting.
Your comment on Merrick Garland is deeply offensive. Please read the Substack article I just posted, including what he has been up against within the DOJ, and even by the Democratic leadership in Congress. Thank You.
You tell it like it is Tom. While we are on the subject, I picked up an interesting picure history book on the Bolshevic revolution in some bookstore in Moskva or St. Pete., on a long trip around the USSR. A large photo of the leaders had Lev Bronstein airbrushed out. In an earlier edition he was in the pic. Kind of like Manolo Penabaz, Fidels childhood friend and personal attorney to his mother, standing at the left shoulder of Fidel at the victory celebration in 1959 in Havana, as Minister of Justice. Less than a year later, he and family fled to Miami for their lives. This might be our future , but, as you so eloquently put it, the wind has changed.
Ok. I was thinking of the early days of Nazi-ism? 1926 to 1932, No, I wasn't born until 1933, but I read about them. You're right by the time full scale wore broke out in 1939 the Nazis already dressed in black or dark gray. (Even in the first attacks in 1938 they'd given up the brown shirts for black or dark gray.) But they were called the 'brown shirts' in the beginning, and I've never heard them referred to as the black shirts - by then they were just nazis.
You left out career sniveling fuckwit Marco Rubio, whom I dubbed "Brave, Brave Sir Marco" because there's a video clip of him literally running away from constituents in the Miami airport wanting to ask him questions. I think someone wrote that had he stayed in Cuba, he would have held Fidel Castro's coat, or done whatever, just to be near the center of power. He's also chickened out from having public town hall meetings and reportedly doesn't even want constituents visiting his Florida offices!
Anyway, supposedly he was in Trump's dog and pony show at Lard-a-Lago and he did go on one of the weekend talk shows. On Fox News he was asked if he was willing to change his residency if Trump picked him to be his running mate, and in typical Rubio fashion he weaseled out of answering the question, only stating that Trump had "an extremely talented group of people to select from."
Meanwhile, Medicare defrauder Herr Reichkanzler Rick Scott is up for re-election this year. Florida would do well to send him packing but I'll believe that when I see it. Too many R's moving to my state to believe things will change soon.
In the Washington race for Newhouse's position, Trump has endorsed Sessler. You're spot on about Tiffany Smiley. Her commercials in the last race made this female shudder.
I'm still having a hard time acknowledging that I'm seeing in real time -- my own time on this earth -- stuff I've only read about in books, about Putin's Russia, and Stalin's USSR, and Hitler's Germany. Even though I came of political age reading novels like Sinclair Lewis's IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE and (of course) George Orwell's 1984 and ANIMAL FARM. Even though I couldn't help noticing the myriad fault lines in "our democracy," even before the Reagan administration came along and made them more and more obvious. But actually watching it happen now, in real time, is shocking, in part because so far I'm not seeing a clear way out of it.
Ah yes, the "hypothetical question" ploy. That's what our trump-appointed judges used to avoid revealing their true opinions on the abortion issue, and our Democratic senators were too "polite" to press them.
Brilliant!
He told me I was stupid and only listened to the liberal media. I told him he was a useful idiot for Putin
We are not speaking now and that is good
I'm so surprised. :-)
Excellent post Tom! I just managed to get through an argument with a trumper relative.
Remember: None of this would be happening if Merrick Garland were alive.
The sad thing is that once upon a time, we could disagree reasonably with some republicans. Even Gerald Ford was a pleasant person. But since him, there hasn't been one republican candidate at the national level who put country above party or personal interests. Come to think of it, there hasn't been one who hasn't been guilty of treason.
Most particularly Bush I, often called the last "reasonable Republican" by those not fully aware of the facts.
Amen. A parable ....
George H.W. Bush called Clarence Thomas the most qualified person in the country for that appointment. A decade and a half before, Gerald Ford appointed John Paul Stevens, who proved to be a centrist on the Burger Court, then a liberal on the Rehnquist Court as Reagan and Bush appointed lunatics like Scalia and Thomas, and eventually the Bush II pair. Near the end of his days, Ford said if he was judged only for appointing Stevens, he would be very happy. That spoke volumes.
Indeed... Personally, I'll not forget that George HW Bush was--before becoming Reagan's VP pick (in itself a sort of significant "tell") he was appointed as Chief Spook for the CIA and retained all those contacts. After Reagan's 'impaired memory' performance during the investigations into the arms deal, and GHW's insistence that he was not "in the loop", one of his advisors--ol' Billy Barr, in fact--advised him to pardon several actors involved in the Iran-Contra mess lest a Congressional investigation into their activities cast muck back at by-then-President Bush.
Of course, there are also a lot of nasty (and factual) stories surrounding GHW's daddy, Prescott Bush and similar problematical issues hanging around Dubya as well. If we are to look at dirty political dynasties...the Bushes comprise a sizeable block of questionable actions and actors.
"Reasonable Republicans", HAH....there seems to be just two kinds of Repubbies left:
either fervent (or hypocritical) Trump loyalists or those Repubbies who have denied their lord and master. They have been purged from the party of Trump and are wandering around, dazed...like ants after their anthill has been destroyed.
https://muellershewrote.substack.com/p/the-facts-about-merrick-garland?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7ygy0&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0AO3Qx1SAi9IFoNBuKF3cEG1kZYTC-V7kkNO-egASBPByPwyE-NXS_0NI_aem_AVu8PRt7yQIRrxnYV5-njkW3HrUzoqOPXYEyXo3rXFoj9TUEjX49nwEGWDHW62JBDXaL_0XYIiGxDtKIV9mCXIdm&triedRedirect=true
That is an excellent summary of the actual FACTS behind Garland's handling of the trump crimes.
I too was thinking along similar linnes about AG Garland, until I had my mind changed by the information Allison Gill provided in her "Mueller, She Wrote" substack the other day.
You might read and then decide if it has any similar effect on your good self...
https://muellershewrote.substack.com/p/the-facts-about-merrick-garland
I appreciate that, and I do exaggerate for effect. But what Garland and a lot of other people suffered from was the failure to realize what a wise man called the fierce urgency of now. We could have gotten around the various impediments if we thought like republicans on these matters. Instead, we bring pillows to fight AK-47's. So, I am actually a bigger fan of Garland than I let on, but the administration itself needed to be acting.
Your comment on Merrick Garland is deeply offensive. Please read the Substack article I just posted, including what he has been up against within the DOJ, and even by the Democratic leadership in Congress. Thank You.
Americans will never allow truth or reconciliation. Just ask anyone who has studied the first "Civil" War. Chattel slavery could be a reality again.
Yes. I just mentioned "what it would take" not "what would happen."
What will happen is always unpredictable.
You tell it like it is Tom. While we are on the subject, I picked up an interesting picure history book on the Bolshevic revolution in some bookstore in Moskva or St. Pete., on a long trip around the USSR. A large photo of the leaders had Lev Bronstein airbrushed out. In an earlier edition he was in the pic. Kind of like Manolo Penabaz, Fidels childhood friend and personal attorney to his mother, standing at the left shoulder of Fidel at the victory celebration in 1959 in Havana, as Minister of Justice. Less than a year later, he and family fled to Miami for their lives. This might be our future , but, as you so eloquently put it, the wind has changed.
The only thing missing are the brown shirts.
Actually the black uniforms of the SS. the Brownshirts got bumped off during the 1934 Night of the Long Knives.
Ok. I was thinking of the early days of Nazi-ism? 1926 to 1932, No, I wasn't born until 1933, but I read about them. You're right by the time full scale wore broke out in 1939 the Nazis already dressed in black or dark gray. (Even in the first attacks in 1938 they'd given up the brown shirts for black or dark gray.) But they were called the 'brown shirts' in the beginning, and I've never heard them referred to as the black shirts - by then they were just nazis.
true, but we are yet in the early days, when shirts were brown and bloody, not yet with their own blood.
You left out career sniveling fuckwit Marco Rubio, whom I dubbed "Brave, Brave Sir Marco" because there's a video clip of him literally running away from constituents in the Miami airport wanting to ask him questions. I think someone wrote that had he stayed in Cuba, he would have held Fidel Castro's coat, or done whatever, just to be near the center of power. He's also chickened out from having public town hall meetings and reportedly doesn't even want constituents visiting his Florida offices!
Anyway, supposedly he was in Trump's dog and pony show at Lard-a-Lago and he did go on one of the weekend talk shows. On Fox News he was asked if he was willing to change his residency if Trump picked him to be his running mate, and in typical Rubio fashion he weaseled out of answering the question, only stating that Trump had "an extremely talented group of people to select from."
Meanwhile, Medicare defrauder Herr Reichkanzler Rick Scott is up for re-election this year. Florida would do well to send him packing but I'll believe that when I see it. Too many R's moving to my state to believe things will change soon.
Slight correction, Tom. It's Press the Mute.
I laughed out loud.
Great column, and great ending!
In the Washington race for Newhouse's position, Trump has endorsed Sessler. You're spot on about Tiffany Smiley. Her commercials in the last race made this female shudder.
Yes Betsy, she is a piece of work. Although I don’t live in Washington, I’m in Oregon and her commercials made me shudder too.
And yet, Trump is not even a Republican. Amazing.
I'm still having a hard time acknowledging that I'm seeing in real time -- my own time on this earth -- stuff I've only read about in books, about Putin's Russia, and Stalin's USSR, and Hitler's Germany. Even though I came of political age reading novels like Sinclair Lewis's IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE and (of course) George Orwell's 1984 and ANIMAL FARM. Even though I couldn't help noticing the myriad fault lines in "our democracy," even before the Reagan administration came along and made them more and more obvious. But actually watching it happen now, in real time, is shocking, in part because so far I'm not seeing a clear way out of it.
Thank you Tom. 👍
Ah yes, the "hypothetical question" ploy. That's what our trump-appointed judges used to avoid revealing their true opinions on the abortion issue, and our Democratic senators were too "polite" to press them.