This past week, Rachel Maddow covered the five forged documents from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Georgia and Arizona, in which people claiming they were duly-elected Presidential Electors cast their votes for Donald Trump. All of these documents are fraudulent and were returned by the National Archives to the respective state authorities for action. At this time, only Attorney General Nessel of Michigan has referred the matter to the Department of Justice.
Thanks for the information about the forged documents. Let's contemplate for a minute how this would have played out, if the party roles were reversed and a defeated Democratic president had lied that he won, riled up militias nationwide, gotten thousands to storm the Capitol to try to prevent the certification of the Electoral College votes, after attempting in five swing states to fraudulently overturn the legitimate election results. If it had been Democrats doing all that, and if all the evidence that has come out in the past year about Trump and his co-conspirators had been committed by Democrats, the Republicans would have reacted with instant, towering outrage about the monumental lies, the many attempts to overturn the most secure election in our history, the plot by an outgoing defeated president and cronies to overturn the will of the people and remain in power, and the violent attempt to stage a coup. If the things that have Trump and his co-conspirators and supporters have done in the past 15 months had been done by Democrats, the Republicans would long ago have indicted, tried, and convicted all of them.
But it was Republicans who did these things, and except for the bit players in the drama, they all still walk free.
The only way I could stand hearing about the Arizona rally was through your words. Still difficult, but thank you. We can’t close our eyes and pretend this isn’t dangerous
Rachel Maddow mentioned that Pennsylvania Republicans also signed a slate of electors, but with the caveat that it was done in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. According to the Albuquerque Journal, January 14, 2022, apparently New Mexico was the seventh state involved in this plot, but also included the caveat. Our Attorney General, Hector Balderas, is reviewing it under state law and has referred it to the feds.
'IT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF US' has a historical backstory as good as they get. See racism in action circa 1876's Presidential Election. This baby laid the ground work for the country's political landscape and race relations for the next 100 years.
'Five Things to Know About the 1876 Presidential Election'
'Lawmakers are citing the 19th-century crisis as precedent to dispute the 2020 election. Here’s a closer look at its events and legacy'
'On election night, Republican presidential candidate and Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes was losing so badly that he prepared his concession speech before turning in for the night. His party chairman went to bed with a bottle of whiskey. “We soon fell into a refreshing sleep,” Hayes later wrote in his diary about the events of November 7, 1876. “[T]he affair seemed over.”
'But after four months of fierce debate and negotiations, Hayes would be sworn into office as 19th president of the United States. Historians often describe his narrow, controversial win over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden as one of the most bitterly contested presidential elections in history.'
'This week, the events of the 1876 presidential race have once again come under scrutiny. As Jason Slotkin reports for NPR, a group of Senate Republicans announced that they will vote to reject electors from states they consider disputed if Congress does not form a commission to investigate their claims of voter fraud. Though these claims are unfounded, the lawmakers cite the 1876 election as precedent for their actions.'
'In 1876, “the elections in three states—Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina—were alleged to have been conducted illegally,” the senators write in a statement. “In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. … We should follow that precedent.”
'The comparison drew criticism from scholars, including Penn State University political scientist Mary E. Stuckey, who tells the Dallas News that it’s “historically misleading.” For starters, the electoral college result was incredibly tight: Just one electoral vote separated the candidates. What sets the election of 1876 apart from the election of 2020 the most is that lawmakers had ample evidence of widespread voter repression against newly enfranchised African Americans in the post-Confederacy South—and therefore good reason to doubt the veracity of election results. Historian Kate Masur, also speaking with the Dallas News, says that “there was not a clear cut result being delivered to Congress of what had happened at the state level, and so that’s why Congress decided it was a huge crisis.”
'The 1876 election also has a fraught legacy: After months of bitter fighting, lawmakers made a fateful compromise that put Hayes in office by effectively ending Reconstruction, leading to a century of intensified racial segregation in the South.'
Here are five key things to know about the presidential election of 1876.
1. The candidates were a reform-minded Democrat and a Reconstructionist Republican.
Hayes, a lawyer, businessman and abolitionist, was a war hero who had fought in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. He went on to serve in Congress and later as Ohio’s governor, where he championed African American suffrage, as Robert D. Johnson writes for the Miller Center of Public Affairs.'
'Running on the Democratic ticket was Tilden, an Ivy League graduate who appealed to voters with a successful anti-corruption track record during his tenure as New York’s governor. In the years since the Civil War ended in 1865, Democrats, whose voter base resided in the former Confederacy, had been partly shut out of the political sphere; now, with Republican Ulysses S. Grant facing charges of corruption, Tilden’s reform-minded candidacy seemed like a well-timed opportunity for Democrats to regain political power, as Gilbert King wrote for Smithsonian magazine in 2012.'
'A political cartoon showing two white men with wide-brimmed hats pointing their guns at the head of a black man, who is being threatened as he attempts to vote in the presidential election
This October 1876 political cartoon by A. B. Frost in Harper's Weekly was titled "Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democratic Ticket."
2. Voter suppression was rampant in the post-Confederacy South.
Many historians argue that if votes had been counted accurately and fairly in Southern states, Hayes might have won the 1876 election outright. “[I]f you had a fair election in the south, a peaceful election, there’s no question that the Republican Hayes would have won a totally legitimate and indisputable victory,” Eric Foner, a preeminent historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction, told the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly in August.'
'But the election process in Southern states was rife with voter fraud—on the part of both parties—and marked by violent voter suppression against black Americans. Under Reconstruction, African Americans had achieved unprecedented political power, and new federal legislation sought to provide a modicum of economic equality for newly enfranchised people.'
'In response, white Southerners rebelled against African Americans’ newfound power and sought to intimate and disenfranchise black voters through violence, Ronald G. Shafer reported in November for the Washington Post. In the months during and preceding the election, mobs known as “red shirts” patrolled voting stations and threatened, bribed and murdered black voters.'
'3. Election results were a mess.
Just a few days following the election, Tilden appeared poised to narrowly clinch the election. He had captured 51.5 percent of the popular vote to Hayes’s 48 percent, a margin of about 250,000 votes.'
'Tilden needed just one more vote in the electoral college to reach the 185 electoral votes necessary for the presidency. Hayes, meanwhile, had 165. Election returns from three Republican-controlled Southern states—Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina—were divided, with both sides declaring victory.'
'Hayes’ proponents realized that those contested votes could sway the election. They seized the uncertainty of the moment, encouraging Republican leaders in the three states to stall, and argued that if black voters hadn’t been intimidated away from the polls—and if voter fraud hadn’t been as rampant—Hayes would have won the contested states. With a Republican-controlled Senate, a Democrat-controlled House and no clear presidential winner, Congress was thrown into chaos.'
'An illustrated cartoon with THE POLITICAL FARCE OF 1876 and portraits of different men involved in the fraught 1876 debate
This illustrated editorial, "The Political Farce of 1876," argues that the "fraud" election "defeated the will of the American people, as expressed through the Ballot box."
'4. Secret deals, backroom debates and new rules decided the election.
In an unprecedented move, Congress decided to create an extralegal “Election Commission” composed of five senators, five House members and five Supreme Court justices. In late January, the commission voted 8-7 along party lines that Hayes had won all the contested states, and therefore the presidency, by just one electoral vote'.
'Furious Democrats refused to accept the ruling and threatened a filibuster. So, in long meetings behind closed doors, Democrats and Hayes’ Republican allies hashed out what came to be known as the Compromise of 1877: the informal but binding agreement that made Hayes president on the condition that he end Reconstruction in the South.'
'Finally, just after 4 a.m. on March 2, 1877, the Senate president declared Hayes the president-elect of the United States. Hayes—dubbed “His Fraudulency” by a bitter Democratic press—would be publicly inaugurated just two days later.'
'Ten years later, the debacle would also result in a long-overdue law: the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which codified electoral college procedure, as Shafer reports for the Post.'
'5. Hayes secured his win by agreeing to end Reconstruction.
Just two months after his inauguration, Hayes made good on his compromise and ordered the removal of the last federal troops from Louisiana. These troops had been in place since the end of the Civil War and had helped enforce the civil and legal rights of many formerly enslaved individuals.'
'With this new deal, Hayes ended the Reconstruction era and ushered in a period of Southern “home rule.” Soon, a reactionary, unfettered white supremacist rule rose to power in many Southern states. In the absence of federal intervention over the next several decades, hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan flourished, and states enacted racist Jim Crow laws whose impacts continue to be felt today.'
“As a result,” wrote King for Smithsonian, “the 1876 presidential election provided the foundation for America’s political landscape, as well as race relations, for the next 100 years.” (Smithsonian)
Where will America be before the 2024 presidential election and after it?
Elections in America are not a many splendored thing!
If you had told me eight years ago what the next seven years would be, just what has been, I would have put in a call for the guys in white coats with the butterfly nets to pay you a visit.
One of my American blog readers asked what difference it would make if Ukraine were once again ruled by Moscow. I said I could just as easy ask them the same question. Your post and many others indicate how close you are to a Russian style government. Your DOJ needs to double in size to investigate all the accrued criminality...if they want to.
It occurs to me that either Garland or Biden or both lack the intestinal fortitude to take the big step of arresting the leaders of the insurrection. Either that or it provides an ongoing distraction from the Democrats' inability to get their act together and get anything done. ECA update needed to be on the calendar yesterday.
Yeah. It's damned hard to realize everything you thought was the way things were, was wrong. I guess I'm glad I learned that way back in August 1964. It's made the past 58 years more understandable.
On a separate note, TGYC is one of the best pieces of historical writing I've read in a long time. When you write the book on Afghanistan all you'll need to do is change names and dates and update the technical information.
"Best Vietnam History of 2021" - Vietnam Veterans of America. It still blows my mind to read that. And to have two Admirals tell me I'm the one who got it right.
And the clock keeps ticking … it’s stomach churning that no legal action has been taken against the sitting legislators that played parts in the attempted coup… but make no mistake… they have not ceased in their efforts… they are on going and serious. We are more than a year past the event and they’ve only swept up the crumbs, leaving the entire banquet to continue their corrupt feast. “Making nice” as Biden has done, does not serve the people or the greater good. Doubling down on getting out the vote won’t either. The Dems are determined to sling us wholesale… Hillary is not the answer. I’m not seeing much progress happening… just a continued slide into the morass of corruption.
Agreed. I can’t quit… too many loved ones to not fight for our democracy… if I knew how to rattle the right cages, I’d have already done it. Most days it feels like a hopeless battle, but I’m still standing.
Thank you, TCinLA for the summary of Trump's takeover plans and highlight reel of the AZ rally. I've been "shocked and horrified" from the day Trump rode down the golden escalator and into the White House. He'd been around for decades by then. But, I am even more dumbfounded by 1/6/2020 and its aftermath. Evil has been unleashed, and I know a few of the millions of Fox/Trump brainwashed Americans - some of whom live in AZ. What I honestly do not understand is why the DOJ isn't busy with all this. Forged documents...what more do you need? I work every day to do something to get out the vote and not purchase from corporate sponsors of Rethuglicans. But, I feel schizophrenic writing gentle, encouraging messages to potential mid-term voters and being furious about the absence of any real accountability for Trump, his enablers and handlers. As has been said elsewhere by your subscribers, the clock is ticking. How do you recommend we raise our voices to the DOJ and MainStreamMedia. Twitter??? Emails??? I figure you'll have some good thoughts about what we can do. Thanks.
It's not a very big bag and probably everyone knows what they are:
1. Support candidates you believe in with money and if local, your help.
2. Make sure everyone you know is registered and be sure to bug them to go vote.
3. Memorize all the good facts you get and make sure everyone you know hears them.
4. Encourage others to be active. Since the readers here lean "female" I will say that those "neighborhood book clubs" or "garden clubs" or any social gathering can become much more than that, and have done so before to good effect. Guys can do this too, but for some reason women are much more social and organized, or open to doing so.
Be the one who can "fake it till you make it" if need be regarding belief in ultimate success - the attitude can be "catching."
Don't think any of the above list is inconsequential. This is how empires get changed.
Opinion, Paul Waldman, Washington Post: 'Trump’s Arizona project shows the dire threat to American democracy'
'Those of us who sit up nights worrying about the next few years — not that our favored candidates might lose, but that the stage is being set for a collapse of our democracy — can easily be accused of getting too worked up over minor problems and the utterances of a few kooks. And maybe we are; the future is always uncertain.'
'But if you look at a place such as Arizona — where the fate of U.S. democracy could well be decided — it’s hard not to feel afraid.'
'Former president Donald Trump went there Saturday for a rally of the faithful, and what was most disturbing wasn’t even Trump’s own litany of lies and conspiracy theories. If you sat through Trump’s tired recitation of the old hits, you’d think he was slipping into irrelevance, a pathetic loser trying to convince a dwindling cadre of fans he was still relevant.'
'No, what mattered about the event was the parade of Arizona politicians who came to pay tribute to him, one more deranged than the next, each there because they hope they can ride Trump’s support to their own positions of power.'
'And they just might.'
'Amid the expected GOP congressmen and right-wing media figures was Kari Lake, the former local news anchor whose campaign for Arizona governor is based on her embrace of Trump’s election lies. She has said the leading Democratic candidate, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, should be imprisoned for presiding over a fair election in 2020. Trump has endorsed Lake, and she leads in primary polls.'
'Greg Sargent: A new plan to ‘Trump-proof’ the 2024 election quietly comes together
And there was secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, whom Trump has also endorsed. You probably haven’t heard of Finchem, but it is almost impossible to exaggerate what a fanatic he is. He came to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the election, and he maintains that the vote in Arizona was stolen. Finchem is a QAnon conspiracy theorist who says there are “a whole lot of elected officials” who participate “in a pedophile network in the distribution of children.” He is also a self-proclaimed member of the far-right Oath Keepers.'
'Imagine for a moment: It’s 2024, we have an incredibly close presidential election, and it all comes down to Arizona, where the election is being run by an Oath Keeper and QAnon conspiracy theorist who has devoted himself to the mission of making sure Donald Trump gets elected.'
'If that doesn’t frighten you, I don’t know what would.'
'Trump himself is not bothering to hide his intention of getting officials elected who will be in a position to steal the 2024 election for him. “We have to be a lot sharper the next time when it comes to counting the vote,” he said in a recent video. “Sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate. … They have to get tougher and smarter.” All over the country, Republicans who promote Trump’s lies about 2020 are running for secretary of state. And some of them are going to win.' See Link to Opinion below.
After the vote is taken on the floor with regard to the national voting rights acts and they fail, it is imperative that all negative votes are confronted. There has been no organized campaign by the administration and the Democratic Party to message this vital aspect of democracy and mobilize the public. Massive demonstrations and relentless contact with the Free Press are long overdue. Responsibility for this is at the feet of the Party, the administration, Voting Rights Activists and social justice organizations. 'Paranoids and enemies' sounds more like a psychological analysis than a political one.
["otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” ] apply immediately to tfg, his enablers and cohorts and those on Jan 6 trying to stop Pence as a Criminal offense subject to imprisonment. Why aren' we moving more quuckly from the Civil to the Criminal in all the investigations? I think there is also another part of this law that applies to endangering the persons of sitting congressionals.......what could be more clear? We had an entire sitting Congress endangered on that day. Some were ready in their frenzy to hurt and or kill Pence and Pelosi if they could have laid hands on them. This is really maddening!!!!!
Thanks for the information about the forged documents. Let's contemplate for a minute how this would have played out, if the party roles were reversed and a defeated Democratic president had lied that he won, riled up militias nationwide, gotten thousands to storm the Capitol to try to prevent the certification of the Electoral College votes, after attempting in five swing states to fraudulently overturn the legitimate election results. If it had been Democrats doing all that, and if all the evidence that has come out in the past year about Trump and his co-conspirators had been committed by Democrats, the Republicans would have reacted with instant, towering outrage about the monumental lies, the many attempts to overturn the most secure election in our history, the plot by an outgoing defeated president and cronies to overturn the will of the people and remain in power, and the violent attempt to stage a coup. If the things that have Trump and his co-conspirators and supporters have done in the past 15 months had been done by Democrats, the Republicans would long ago have indicted, tried, and convicted all of them.
But it was Republicans who did these things, and except for the bit players in the drama, they all still walk free.
Too true, Elizabeth.
The only way I could stand hearing about the Arizona rally was through your words. Still difficult, but thank you. We can’t close our eyes and pretend this isn’t dangerous
Rachel Maddow mentioned that Pennsylvania Republicans also signed a slate of electors, but with the caveat that it was done in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. According to the Albuquerque Journal, January 14, 2022, apparently New Mexico was the seventh state involved in this plot, but also included the caveat. Our Attorney General, Hector Balderas, is reviewing it under state law and has referred it to the feds.
https://www.abqjournal.com/2461414/balderas-reviewing-fake-presidential-electors-in-nm.html
'IT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF US' has a historical backstory as good as they get. See racism in action circa 1876's Presidential Election. This baby laid the ground work for the country's political landscape and race relations for the next 100 years.
'Five Things to Know About the 1876 Presidential Election'
'Lawmakers are citing the 19th-century crisis as precedent to dispute the 2020 election. Here’s a closer look at its events and legacy'
'On election night, Republican presidential candidate and Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes was losing so badly that he prepared his concession speech before turning in for the night. His party chairman went to bed with a bottle of whiskey. “We soon fell into a refreshing sleep,” Hayes later wrote in his diary about the events of November 7, 1876. “[T]he affair seemed over.”
'But after four months of fierce debate and negotiations, Hayes would be sworn into office as 19th president of the United States. Historians often describe his narrow, controversial win over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden as one of the most bitterly contested presidential elections in history.'
'This week, the events of the 1876 presidential race have once again come under scrutiny. As Jason Slotkin reports for NPR, a group of Senate Republicans announced that they will vote to reject electors from states they consider disputed if Congress does not form a commission to investigate their claims of voter fraud. Though these claims are unfounded, the lawmakers cite the 1876 election as precedent for their actions.'
'In 1876, “the elections in three states—Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina—were alleged to have been conducted illegally,” the senators write in a statement. “In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. … We should follow that precedent.”
'The comparison drew criticism from scholars, including Penn State University political scientist Mary E. Stuckey, who tells the Dallas News that it’s “historically misleading.” For starters, the electoral college result was incredibly tight: Just one electoral vote separated the candidates. What sets the election of 1876 apart from the election of 2020 the most is that lawmakers had ample evidence of widespread voter repression against newly enfranchised African Americans in the post-Confederacy South—and therefore good reason to doubt the veracity of election results. Historian Kate Masur, also speaking with the Dallas News, says that “there was not a clear cut result being delivered to Congress of what had happened at the state level, and so that’s why Congress decided it was a huge crisis.”
'The 1876 election also has a fraught legacy: After months of bitter fighting, lawmakers made a fateful compromise that put Hayes in office by effectively ending Reconstruction, leading to a century of intensified racial segregation in the South.'
Here are five key things to know about the presidential election of 1876.
1. The candidates were a reform-minded Democrat and a Reconstructionist Republican.
Hayes, a lawyer, businessman and abolitionist, was a war hero who had fought in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. He went on to serve in Congress and later as Ohio’s governor, where he championed African American suffrage, as Robert D. Johnson writes for the Miller Center of Public Affairs.'
'Running on the Democratic ticket was Tilden, an Ivy League graduate who appealed to voters with a successful anti-corruption track record during his tenure as New York’s governor. In the years since the Civil War ended in 1865, Democrats, whose voter base resided in the former Confederacy, had been partly shut out of the political sphere; now, with Republican Ulysses S. Grant facing charges of corruption, Tilden’s reform-minded candidacy seemed like a well-timed opportunity for Democrats to regain political power, as Gilbert King wrote for Smithsonian magazine in 2012.'
'A political cartoon showing two white men with wide-brimmed hats pointing their guns at the head of a black man, who is being threatened as he attempts to vote in the presidential election
This October 1876 political cartoon by A. B. Frost in Harper's Weekly was titled "Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democratic Ticket."
2. Voter suppression was rampant in the post-Confederacy South.
Many historians argue that if votes had been counted accurately and fairly in Southern states, Hayes might have won the 1876 election outright. “[I]f you had a fair election in the south, a peaceful election, there’s no question that the Republican Hayes would have won a totally legitimate and indisputable victory,” Eric Foner, a preeminent historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction, told the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly in August.'
'But the election process in Southern states was rife with voter fraud—on the part of both parties—and marked by violent voter suppression against black Americans. Under Reconstruction, African Americans had achieved unprecedented political power, and new federal legislation sought to provide a modicum of economic equality for newly enfranchised people.'
'In response, white Southerners rebelled against African Americans’ newfound power and sought to intimate and disenfranchise black voters through violence, Ronald G. Shafer reported in November for the Washington Post. In the months during and preceding the election, mobs known as “red shirts” patrolled voting stations and threatened, bribed and murdered black voters.'
'3. Election results were a mess.
Just a few days following the election, Tilden appeared poised to narrowly clinch the election. He had captured 51.5 percent of the popular vote to Hayes’s 48 percent, a margin of about 250,000 votes.'
'Tilden needed just one more vote in the electoral college to reach the 185 electoral votes necessary for the presidency. Hayes, meanwhile, had 165. Election returns from three Republican-controlled Southern states—Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina—were divided, with both sides declaring victory.'
'Hayes’ proponents realized that those contested votes could sway the election. They seized the uncertainty of the moment, encouraging Republican leaders in the three states to stall, and argued that if black voters hadn’t been intimidated away from the polls—and if voter fraud hadn’t been as rampant—Hayes would have won the contested states. With a Republican-controlled Senate, a Democrat-controlled House and no clear presidential winner, Congress was thrown into chaos.'
'An illustrated cartoon with THE POLITICAL FARCE OF 1876 and portraits of different men involved in the fraught 1876 debate
This illustrated editorial, "The Political Farce of 1876," argues that the "fraud" election "defeated the will of the American people, as expressed through the Ballot box."
'4. Secret deals, backroom debates and new rules decided the election.
In an unprecedented move, Congress decided to create an extralegal “Election Commission” composed of five senators, five House members and five Supreme Court justices. In late January, the commission voted 8-7 along party lines that Hayes had won all the contested states, and therefore the presidency, by just one electoral vote'.
'Furious Democrats refused to accept the ruling and threatened a filibuster. So, in long meetings behind closed doors, Democrats and Hayes’ Republican allies hashed out what came to be known as the Compromise of 1877: the informal but binding agreement that made Hayes president on the condition that he end Reconstruction in the South.'
'Finally, just after 4 a.m. on March 2, 1877, the Senate president declared Hayes the president-elect of the United States. Hayes—dubbed “His Fraudulency” by a bitter Democratic press—would be publicly inaugurated just two days later.'
'Ten years later, the debacle would also result in a long-overdue law: the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which codified electoral college procedure, as Shafer reports for the Post.'
'5. Hayes secured his win by agreeing to end Reconstruction.
Just two months after his inauguration, Hayes made good on his compromise and ordered the removal of the last federal troops from Louisiana. These troops had been in place since the end of the Civil War and had helped enforce the civil and legal rights of many formerly enslaved individuals.'
'With this new deal, Hayes ended the Reconstruction era and ushered in a period of Southern “home rule.” Soon, a reactionary, unfettered white supremacist rule rose to power in many Southern states. In the absence of federal intervention over the next several decades, hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan flourished, and states enacted racist Jim Crow laws whose impacts continue to be felt today.'
“As a result,” wrote King for Smithsonian, “the 1876 presidential election provided the foundation for America’s political landscape, as well as race relations, for the next 100 years.” (Smithsonian)
Where will America be before the 2024 presidential election and after it?
Elections in America are not a many splendored thing!
Thank you, TC! This is unbelievable -- shiver me timbers!
If you had told me eight years ago what the next seven years would be, just what has been, I would have put in a call for the guys in white coats with the butterfly nets to pay you a visit.
One of my American blog readers asked what difference it would make if Ukraine were once again ruled by Moscow. I said I could just as easy ask them the same question. Your post and many others indicate how close you are to a Russian style government. Your DOJ needs to double in size to investigate all the accrued criminality...if they want to.
It occurs to me that either Garland or Biden or both lack the intestinal fortitude to take the big step of arresting the leaders of the insurrection. Either that or it provides an ongoing distraction from the Democrats' inability to get their act together and get anything done. ECA update needed to be on the calendar yesterday.
Yeah. It's damned hard to realize everything you thought was the way things were, was wrong. I guess I'm glad I learned that way back in August 1964. It's made the past 58 years more understandable.
On a separate note, TGYC is one of the best pieces of historical writing I've read in a long time. When you write the book on Afghanistan all you'll need to do is change names and dates and update the technical information.
"Best Vietnam History of 2021" - Vietnam Veterans of America. It still blows my mind to read that. And to have two Admirals tell me I'm the one who got it right.
Dave, What does TGYC stand for? Please now and in the future spell out abbreviations an acronyms. Thanks.
Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, TC's latest book.
wonderful, amazing book. Don't miss a sentence!
I did look it up and saw the book title but wanted to confirm. Thanks, Dave.
Always.
And the clock keeps ticking … it’s stomach churning that no legal action has been taken against the sitting legislators that played parts in the attempted coup… but make no mistake… they have not ceased in their efforts… they are on going and serious. We are more than a year past the event and they’ve only swept up the crumbs, leaving the entire banquet to continue their corrupt feast. “Making nice” as Biden has done, does not serve the people or the greater good. Doubling down on getting out the vote won’t either. The Dems are determined to sling us wholesale… Hillary is not the answer. I’m not seeing much progress happening… just a continued slide into the morass of corruption.
Just remember, Carla, "It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees." We have to keep on till it's over, whichever way it goes.
Agreed. I can’t quit… too many loved ones to not fight for our democracy… if I knew how to rattle the right cages, I’d have already done it. Most days it feels like a hopeless battle, but I’m still standing.
Thank you, TCinLA for the summary of Trump's takeover plans and highlight reel of the AZ rally. I've been "shocked and horrified" from the day Trump rode down the golden escalator and into the White House. He'd been around for decades by then. But, I am even more dumbfounded by 1/6/2020 and its aftermath. Evil has been unleashed, and I know a few of the millions of Fox/Trump brainwashed Americans - some of whom live in AZ. What I honestly do not understand is why the DOJ isn't busy with all this. Forged documents...what more do you need? I work every day to do something to get out the vote and not purchase from corporate sponsors of Rethuglicans. But, I feel schizophrenic writing gentle, encouraging messages to potential mid-term voters and being furious about the absence of any real accountability for Trump, his enablers and handlers. As has been said elsewhere by your subscribers, the clock is ticking. How do you recommend we raise our voices to the DOJ and MainStreamMedia. Twitter??? Emails??? I figure you'll have some good thoughts about what we can do. Thanks.
Yes, TC, give us those good thoughts so we can get busy!
It's not a very big bag and probably everyone knows what they are:
1. Support candidates you believe in with money and if local, your help.
2. Make sure everyone you know is registered and be sure to bug them to go vote.
3. Memorize all the good facts you get and make sure everyone you know hears them.
4. Encourage others to be active. Since the readers here lean "female" I will say that those "neighborhood book clubs" or "garden clubs" or any social gathering can become much more than that, and have done so before to good effect. Guys can do this too, but for some reason women are much more social and organized, or open to doing so.
Be the one who can "fake it till you make it" if need be regarding belief in ultimate success - the attitude can be "catching."
Don't think any of the above list is inconsequential. This is how empires get changed.
Opinion, Paul Waldman, Washington Post: 'Trump’s Arizona project shows the dire threat to American democracy'
'Those of us who sit up nights worrying about the next few years — not that our favored candidates might lose, but that the stage is being set for a collapse of our democracy — can easily be accused of getting too worked up over minor problems and the utterances of a few kooks. And maybe we are; the future is always uncertain.'
'But if you look at a place such as Arizona — where the fate of U.S. democracy could well be decided — it’s hard not to feel afraid.'
'Former president Donald Trump went there Saturday for a rally of the faithful, and what was most disturbing wasn’t even Trump’s own litany of lies and conspiracy theories. If you sat through Trump’s tired recitation of the old hits, you’d think he was slipping into irrelevance, a pathetic loser trying to convince a dwindling cadre of fans he was still relevant.'
'No, what mattered about the event was the parade of Arizona politicians who came to pay tribute to him, one more deranged than the next, each there because they hope they can ride Trump’s support to their own positions of power.'
'And they just might.'
'Amid the expected GOP congressmen and right-wing media figures was Kari Lake, the former local news anchor whose campaign for Arizona governor is based on her embrace of Trump’s election lies. She has said the leading Democratic candidate, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, should be imprisoned for presiding over a fair election in 2020. Trump has endorsed Lake, and she leads in primary polls.'
'Greg Sargent: A new plan to ‘Trump-proof’ the 2024 election quietly comes together
And there was secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, whom Trump has also endorsed. You probably haven’t heard of Finchem, but it is almost impossible to exaggerate what a fanatic he is. He came to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the election, and he maintains that the vote in Arizona was stolen. Finchem is a QAnon conspiracy theorist who says there are “a whole lot of elected officials” who participate “in a pedophile network in the distribution of children.” He is also a self-proclaimed member of the far-right Oath Keepers.'
'Imagine for a moment: It’s 2024, we have an incredibly close presidential election, and it all comes down to Arizona, where the election is being run by an Oath Keeper and QAnon conspiracy theorist who has devoted himself to the mission of making sure Donald Trump gets elected.'
'If that doesn’t frighten you, I don’t know what would.'
'Trump himself is not bothering to hide his intention of getting officials elected who will be in a position to steal the 2024 election for him. “We have to be a lot sharper the next time when it comes to counting the vote,” he said in a recent video. “Sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate. … They have to get tougher and smarter.” All over the country, Republicans who promote Trump’s lies about 2020 are running for secretary of state. And some of them are going to win.' See Link to Opinion below.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/17/trump-arizona-election-threat-democracy/
Yes, there are times when even we paranoids do have enemies, Fern. This is one of them.
After the vote is taken on the floor with regard to the national voting rights acts and they fail, it is imperative that all negative votes are confronted. There has been no organized campaign by the administration and the Democratic Party to message this vital aspect of democracy and mobilize the public. Massive demonstrations and relentless contact with the Free Press are long overdue. Responsibility for this is at the feet of the Party, the administration, Voting Rights Activists and social justice organizations. 'Paranoids and enemies' sounds more like a psychological analysis than a political one.
Yes!! Yes!!! And why does not (2) --
["otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” ] apply immediately to tfg, his enablers and cohorts and those on Jan 6 trying to stop Pence as a Criminal offense subject to imprisonment. Why aren' we moving more quuckly from the Civil to the Criminal in all the investigations? I think there is also another part of this law that applies to endangering the persons of sitting congressionals.......what could be more clear? We had an entire sitting Congress endangered on that day. Some were ready in their frenzy to hurt and or kill Pence and Pelosi if they could have laid hands on them. This is really maddening!!!!!
Chilling.