Right on target, TC. The treatment of the Judge by the MAGA rage machine is becoming too 'normal' alas. The rage machine is only going to ramp up---and until everyone in the responsible media realizes that the rage machine has no guiding principles other than chaos, we are in for a terrible time. Things are not looking good. The mainstream media can't seem to grasp that these are not normal times, that covering Trump as someone "normal" is stupid, and that making sure everyone knows how well Biden is doing is essential for the survival of democracy. The fact that T still has his 30% + is terrifying. By the numbers of registered voters, Dems should dominate, but the GOP has tilted the table in a million ways.......
I sent a personal excoriation this morning to the author of the WaPo's "Morning 202" for saying that Biden was still dealing with "historically low approval ratings" - when 2 freakin' seconds on Google will point to two polls that show him up at 40 and 42% respectively, just in the past week.
The Washington Press Corpse makes it damn hard to be a defender of the First Amendment.
Thank you!!!! I am so disgusted with WaPo, I could spit. I canceled the NYT over their nonstop negative coverage of Biden. It’s getting to that point with the Post. You are right. The MSM has to stop treating Trump as a normal person. ❤️🤍💙
The difference between them and us: If Obama or Clinton or Carter had removed top secret documents from the WH and held them in an unsecured private residents, we as fellow Democrats would have supported a "search and removal" - followed by possible prosecution.
Because the law is the law. And even people we agree with politically can be crooks and/or make legal mistakes that they should be held accountable for. No matter who they are or how loud they howl.
So Earth to GQP fanatics: your guy looks like a crook, sounds like a crook, acts like a crook. And I bet he smells like one, too. Not a duck. A crook.
Until someone in government has the balls to demand that every single example of terroristic threats against a public official is investigated by the FBI, and the relevant perps brought in for questioning, the MAGA crowd will continue doing this stuff. Terroristic threats and threats of violence are NOT protected free speech, as many court cases have held. I'll bet a lot of the perps involved will fill their drawers when the G-men come to call..... As for the Gravy Seals and Oaf Keepers, heightened surveillance and aggressive monitoring of illegal activities will be needed to keep them from acting on their worst impulses. We also need new restrictions on "paramilitary" weapons like the AR 15.....
I wonder if any of those “proud boys” know that in the veterinary world a proud boy is a castrated stallion who continues to try to mount females, at least for a while. That’s what I think of when that group pops up in the news. 🤣
Interesting point you make, in Heather Richardson’s post today she relates the power of former Federalist leader Leo who used his influence to get the local police to find the perpetrator who chalk painted a message on the street in front of his house! Chalk painted on public property! Indeed a crime angriest humanity which can not be tolerated!
Yet, this humble Magistrate is being attacked by the amoral monster and his cult but no arrests!
It’s not about “seeing it”, Mim. They do see it. It’s is the new burgeoning psychology in America about denial and deflection of truth so that others can hang their hats on a “reputable” source supporting denial or reporting incessantly about the denial. The truth is rarely the headline in any publication these days.
("There Is No Happy Ending to America’s Trump Problem", NYT, Damon Rinker, Aug. 21, 2022)
I feel as if we just keep hitting dead ends with anything involving tfg/MAGA....seems to be no way to hold anyone accountable for anything without risk of triggering Armaggedon or at least making things much worse. What kind of diabolical hold does this guy and his ilk have on us?
We are like Jeb Bush, who literally folded before our eyes on the Primary stage with then-candidate T.....appalled but helpless, and his folding was not due to the level of real possible violence the Judge and his family are facing. I just do not see any way out of this. Even if, by some miracle, tfg runs and is massively defeated in 2024, there will be a new hell to pay I am sure.
It is hard to stay hopeful when we are in what more and more feels like a death spiral. Sartre was on to something in No Exit....we seem unable to escape tfg and that is turning into an " eternal torture".
“The release of the affidavit is not appease Trump and his supporters in the least. He will do all he can to ensure that it only escalates their rage.”
100%! Releasing redacted or not, everything and anything will only increase the MAGA rage.
I know where Judge Reinhart can buy some INERT Claymores, which would make a nice welcome for the more violent MAGA crowd should they show up at the judge's house.....probably fill some drawers too, when they suddenly pop up.....
Can we just say it already? The only good Donald Trump is the one fertilizing daisies. And his cult is equally in need of a dirt nap. You cannot negotiate with toxins, but sometimes, the chemicals that are toxic above ground can make good fertilizer and help the planet thrive.
"Our experience, as Americans, tells us that there is a clear point at which we must act in the face of corruption, lawlessness and contempt for the very foundations of democratic society. The only way out is through. Fear of what Trump and his supporters might do cannot and should not stand in the way of what we must do to secure the Constitution from all its enemies, foreign and domestic."
He's right, and that applies to more than this. Whatever the subject, if you step into the fear and move through it, you will find on the other side the Wonderful Situation you wanted.
I once went to one of those "human potential" courses and got one thing out of it - this:
Yep. Solving nothing is such a major Republican platform as of late. Seems to be a rabbit hole topic of great interest to the media. And, for me, easy to hold up a mirror and reflect the deflect right back at ‘em.
Stupid is a rampant choice lately.
Let’s all take advantage and stay super keen and focused.
well said, Tom. but am I wrong to read it differently? my take was that he was trying to make both sides "happy" by allowing the release with so many redactions it'd be gibberish. I saw it as strictly performative, since there can't be any way in the world that he thinks a redacted affadavit is going to make the MAGA psychos happy. if he thought for a moment that those fanatics would be satisfied with anything but the whole thing, he's pretty dumb. I suppose that there are plenty of pretty dumb judges, but after a lifetime of courtroom tv shows and other melodramatic sources, I persist in this notion that judges are wise. I know, I know....
it's just that old points of view die hard.
in the meantime, TFF can't seem to keep his mouth shut and every time he opens his mouth, he gets himself more in dutch. and does anyone believe that he has the patience or focus to have gone through those boxes himself? I sure don't. but again, I've considered him moronic for so long, I might be overlooking the possibility that, like many psychopaths, he can hyper-focus when he turns on the psychopathy. and I'd prefer not to think so.
I've known three judges, all through flying. The one who was the most fun to be around was absolutely crazy, the second was a lot of fun in a cockpit and nobody I'd want to deal with in court. The third was Charles Older, first ace of the Flying Tigers, top American ace of the China-Burma-India theater (21 victories), who was appointed to the LA Superior Court by his friend Ronald Reagan and whose first trial was the Manson Murders. "I've never lost a moment's sleep sentencing all of them to death." (Interestingly, it was the 30th anniversary of the day he became an ace over Rangoon on December 23, 1941, the day a British correspondent wrote a report about "The Flying Tigers" and they were named) A man NOBODY crossed. If you were supposed to arrive at his house at 2:45, you set your watch by the Official Time before leaving home, arrived no later than 2:35 if not five minutes earlier, sat in your car till 2:43, went to his front porch, consulted your watch and rang, once, at 2:45. He answered within 30 seconds. One of the most interesting people I ever met, a guy his other fellow Flying Tigers were *still* in awe of 70 years later. Yeah, judges vary. I would never have wanted to be stupid enough to end up in the dock in his court.
I feel that even if it was released with no redactions, it doesn't matter. They twist everything around no matter what because they don't want to face the truth. None of them want to admit they've been duped by a con man.
I think you nailed it. The terror the judge feels must be beyond the beyond, but a redacted document is just fuel for their lunacy. Witness Protection? What can be done for him and his family? ❤️🤍💙
TC, This is a piece of yours that I didn't like. I thought accusing Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart of cowardice was unwarranted. I read the judge's instruction with regard to the affidavit as open ended in that he would decide once receiving the redacted affidavit from the DOJ. Now that Judge Reinhart has made his decision, how does it stack up with your interpretation of him as Jew acting out of fear?
The following are quotes from RELEASING A REDACTED AFFIDAVIT WILL SOLVE NOTHING:
- In case you doubted that threats of violence can cow a person, consider the case of Federal
Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart,
- The Thousand-Year MAGA went after the judge tooth and nail, hammer and tongs.
- For a Jew, the terror could only be magnified with the free-floating anti-Semitism that flowed freely
through the comments and threats. I get that.
- This is why Judge Reinhart made the unprecedented decision yesterday to declare that the
government had not met its standards for keeping the affidavit that underlays the decision the
judge made to approve the search warrant from being exposed, despite the fact this action went
against every other judicial decision made about revealing prosecution affidavits that expose the
methods of investigation,
- Judge Reinhart is acting out of fear. He thinks that if he acquiesces with the demands, if he does
what he can, that the wolves will be appeased and he and his family will be saved.
- The good jurist is in desperate need of a history lecture by someone at his synagogue about the
2,000 year unremitting history of what has always happened to Jews who have tried to “throw the
There was no accusation of cowardice. Judge Reinhart, like most of us, has never faced ferals like the MAGAts. He comes from a society where reasonable people discuss things reasonably and come to reasonable conclusions. It's hard to suddenly realize one is in a situation where unreasonable people won't listen to reasonable discussion and don't want reasonable conclusions. Often the first reaction to running into that is "Well, they just don't understand, so I'll try again." It depends on how fast one learns that the unreasonables want you dead that you realize you have to act differently if you want to survive. Cowardice has nothing to do with that learning process. If one learns it and still doesn't act on the knowledge, that is "a different kettle of fish" and questions of one's cowardice can be raised. Reinhart is not there.
- Judge Reinhart is acting out of fear. He thinks that if he acquiesces with the demands, if he does what he can, that the wolves will be appeased and he and his family will be saved.
How could Judge Reinhart not be fearful, however, I do not think his decision making matches your interpretation.
"Acting out of fear" is not "acting out of cowardice." One can fear something and try to do the minimum escalation of responses, without being a coward. It's when you go up the scale of responses to where action has to be taken and you don't do it out of fear you will be harmed, that cowardice comes in. Trying to solve things with less than thermonuclear war for a response is normal and sane.
We're working at it, TC. It's good trouble between us. Reading that piece angered me because I felt as though you overinterpreted the 'Jew' and stirred up 'fears' that he would bend to the enemy.
I do not practice criminal law, but with what little I know I was shocked—not surprised, but shocked— when I read that the Judge had told DOJ to produce a redacted affidavit. TC must have hit the mail on the head here. What’s worse is the judge is pulled from both sides. He tried to placate MAGA, only to have peers express incredulity at the possibility of the affidavit being released. Today I read that he issued a more fulsome order saying maybe he would not be in a position to order release of a meaningful affidavit. Adding to his difficulties is that he is a Magistrate Judge, not an Article III judge with a lifetime appointment. He was appointed in 2018 so I assume he’s a Republican. If so, he’s seeing his chance at an Article III appointment evaporate.
The one thing I have learned about most judges is that they get flustered easily. (Admittedly it’s a difficult job in the best of times.) When flustered judges become unpredictable. I have no idea what will happen Thursday. He’s in a no-win situation of his own making.
Right on target, TC. The treatment of the Judge by the MAGA rage machine is becoming too 'normal' alas. The rage machine is only going to ramp up---and until everyone in the responsible media realizes that the rage machine has no guiding principles other than chaos, we are in for a terrible time. Things are not looking good. The mainstream media can't seem to grasp that these are not normal times, that covering Trump as someone "normal" is stupid, and that making sure everyone knows how well Biden is doing is essential for the survival of democracy. The fact that T still has his 30% + is terrifying. By the numbers of registered voters, Dems should dominate, but the GOP has tilted the table in a million ways.......
I sent a personal excoriation this morning to the author of the WaPo's "Morning 202" for saying that Biden was still dealing with "historically low approval ratings" - when 2 freakin' seconds on Google will point to two polls that show him up at 40 and 42% respectively, just in the past week.
The Washington Press Corpse makes it damn hard to be a defender of the First Amendment.
Thank you!!!! I am so disgusted with WaPo, I could spit. I canceled the NYT over their nonstop negative coverage of Biden. It’s getting to that point with the Post. You are right. The MSM has to stop treating Trump as a normal person. ❤️🤍💙
Already cancelled the post!
Thanks for doing that. it seems they find it hard to be positive about Biden and really really hard to be seriously critical of trump’s lies—
Thank you.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The difference between them and us: If Obama or Clinton or Carter had removed top secret documents from the WH and held them in an unsecured private residents, we as fellow Democrats would have supported a "search and removal" - followed by possible prosecution.
Because the law is the law. And even people we agree with politically can be crooks and/or make legal mistakes that they should be held accountable for. No matter who they are or how loud they howl.
So Earth to GQP fanatics: your guy looks like a crook, sounds like a crook, acts like a crook. And I bet he smells like one, too. Not a duck. A crook.
Can’t help myself…but he is a Quack!
Until someone in government has the balls to demand that every single example of terroristic threats against a public official is investigated by the FBI, and the relevant perps brought in for questioning, the MAGA crowd will continue doing this stuff. Terroristic threats and threats of violence are NOT protected free speech, as many court cases have held. I'll bet a lot of the perps involved will fill their drawers when the G-men come to call..... As for the Gravy Seals and Oaf Keepers, heightened surveillance and aggressive monitoring of illegal activities will be needed to keep them from acting on their worst impulses. We also need new restrictions on "paramilitary" weapons like the AR 15.....
I wonder if any of those “proud boys” know that in the veterinary world a proud boy is a castrated stallion who continues to try to mount females, at least for a while. That’s what I think of when that group pops up in the news. 🤣
Brilliant comparison. However, their leader was never a stallion!
Thanks for that association. It's one I will not forget.
Interesting point you make, in Heather Richardson’s post today she relates the power of former Federalist leader Leo who used his influence to get the local police to find the perpetrator who chalk painted a message on the street in front of his house! Chalk painted on public property! Indeed a crime angriest humanity which can not be tolerated!
Yet, this humble Magistrate is being attacked by the amoral monster and his cult but no arrests!
Thank you for seeing through the subterfuge. Surely there are those in mainstream media who see that too, right? Right?
It’s not about “seeing it”, Mim. They do see it. It’s is the new burgeoning psychology in America about denial and deflection of truth so that others can hang their hats on a “reputable” source supporting denial or reporting incessantly about the denial. The truth is rarely the headline in any publication these days.
🗽
Not that I can see.
Between your TAFM today and
("There Is No Happy Ending to America’s Trump Problem", NYT, Damon Rinker, Aug. 21, 2022)
I feel as if we just keep hitting dead ends with anything involving tfg/MAGA....seems to be no way to hold anyone accountable for anything without risk of triggering Armaggedon or at least making things much worse. What kind of diabolical hold does this guy and his ilk have on us?
We are like Jeb Bush, who literally folded before our eyes on the Primary stage with then-candidate T.....appalled but helpless, and his folding was not due to the level of real possible violence the Judge and his family are facing. I just do not see any way out of this. Even if, by some miracle, tfg runs and is massively defeated in 2024, there will be a new hell to pay I am sure.
It is hard to stay hopeful when we are in what more and more feels like a death spiral. Sartre was on to something in No Exit....we seem unable to escape tfg and that is turning into an " eternal torture".
Thanks, TC, (I think).
I agree Carol. It's hard to stay hopeful when we see an avalanche of badness nearly overcoming us.
Thank you, Jeanne. I really do make every effort to remain hopeful and to act with hope but some days it does feel as if tfg has us in a cul de sac!,
We cannot let him and his cult followers get the better of us and make us feel hopeless. This seems like a really bad dream or "B" movie.
“The release of the affidavit is not appease Trump and his supporters in the least. He will do all he can to ensure that it only escalates their rage.”
100%! Releasing redacted or not, everything and anything will only increase the MAGA rage.
And these ignorant bastards love their guns and are f’d up enough to use them.
I know where Judge Reinhart can buy some INERT Claymores, which would make a nice welcome for the more violent MAGA crowd should they show up at the judge's house.....probably fill some drawers too, when they suddenly pop up.....
I like this idea!
👍🏼
Can we just say it already? The only good Donald Trump is the one fertilizing daisies. And his cult is equally in need of a dirt nap. You cannot negotiate with toxins, but sometimes, the chemicals that are toxic above ground can make good fertilizer and help the planet thrive.
I like this from Jamelle Bouie, NYT, today:
"Our experience, as Americans, tells us that there is a clear point at which we must act in the face of corruption, lawlessness and contempt for the very foundations of democratic society. The only way out is through. Fear of what Trump and his supporters might do cannot and should not stand in the way of what we must do to secure the Constitution from all its enemies, foreign and domestic."
The only way out is through!! Thanks, TC.
He's right, and that applies to more than this. Whatever the subject, if you step into the fear and move through it, you will find on the other side the Wonderful Situation you wanted.
I once went to one of those "human potential" courses and got one thing out of it - this:
Fantasized
Expectations
Appearing
Real
YES - The only way out is thru.!
I had to laugh when I clicked on your email and saw the full headline. My Inbox truncated at "...will solve..." and my mind filled in "nothing".
Yep. Solving nothing is such a major Republican platform as of late. Seems to be a rabbit hole topic of great interest to the media. And, for me, easy to hold up a mirror and reflect the deflect right back at ‘em.
Stupid is a rampant choice lately.
Let’s all take advantage and stay super keen and focused.
Unita, Judith.
🗽
well said, Tom. but am I wrong to read it differently? my take was that he was trying to make both sides "happy" by allowing the release with so many redactions it'd be gibberish. I saw it as strictly performative, since there can't be any way in the world that he thinks a redacted affadavit is going to make the MAGA psychos happy. if he thought for a moment that those fanatics would be satisfied with anything but the whole thing, he's pretty dumb. I suppose that there are plenty of pretty dumb judges, but after a lifetime of courtroom tv shows and other melodramatic sources, I persist in this notion that judges are wise. I know, I know....
it's just that old points of view die hard.
in the meantime, TFF can't seem to keep his mouth shut and every time he opens his mouth, he gets himself more in dutch. and does anyone believe that he has the patience or focus to have gone through those boxes himself? I sure don't. but again, I've considered him moronic for so long, I might be overlooking the possibility that, like many psychopaths, he can hyper-focus when he turns on the psychopathy. and I'd prefer not to think so.
I've known three judges, all through flying. The one who was the most fun to be around was absolutely crazy, the second was a lot of fun in a cockpit and nobody I'd want to deal with in court. The third was Charles Older, first ace of the Flying Tigers, top American ace of the China-Burma-India theater (21 victories), who was appointed to the LA Superior Court by his friend Ronald Reagan and whose first trial was the Manson Murders. "I've never lost a moment's sleep sentencing all of them to death." (Interestingly, it was the 30th anniversary of the day he became an ace over Rangoon on December 23, 1941, the day a British correspondent wrote a report about "The Flying Tigers" and they were named) A man NOBODY crossed. If you were supposed to arrive at his house at 2:45, you set your watch by the Official Time before leaving home, arrived no later than 2:35 if not five minutes earlier, sat in your car till 2:43, went to his front porch, consulted your watch and rang, once, at 2:45. He answered within 30 seconds. One of the most interesting people I ever met, a guy his other fellow Flying Tigers were *still* in awe of 70 years later. Yeah, judges vary. I would never have wanted to be stupid enough to end up in the dock in his court.
I feel that even if it was released with no redactions, it doesn't matter. They twist everything around no matter what because they don't want to face the truth. None of them want to admit they've been duped by a con man.
I think you nailed it. The terror the judge feels must be beyond the beyond, but a redacted document is just fuel for their lunacy. Witness Protection? What can be done for him and his family? ❤️🤍💙
I agree.
TC, This is a piece of yours that I didn't like. I thought accusing Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart of cowardice was unwarranted. I read the judge's instruction with regard to the affidavit as open ended in that he would decide once receiving the redacted affidavit from the DOJ. Now that Judge Reinhart has made his decision, how does it stack up with your interpretation of him as Jew acting out of fear?
The following are quotes from RELEASING A REDACTED AFFIDAVIT WILL SOLVE NOTHING:
- In case you doubted that threats of violence can cow a person, consider the case of Federal
Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart,
- The Thousand-Year MAGA went after the judge tooth and nail, hammer and tongs.
- For a Jew, the terror could only be magnified with the free-floating anti-Semitism that flowed freely
through the comments and threats. I get that.
- This is why Judge Reinhart made the unprecedented decision yesterday to declare that the
government had not met its standards for keeping the affidavit that underlays the decision the
judge made to approve the search warrant from being exposed, despite the fact this action went
against every other judicial decision made about revealing prosecution affidavits that expose the
methods of investigation,
- Judge Reinhart is acting out of fear. He thinks that if he acquiesces with the demands, if he does
what he can, that the wolves will be appeased and he and his family will be saved.
- The good jurist is in desperate need of a history lecture by someone at his synagogue about the
2,000 year unremitting history of what has always happened to Jews who have tried to “throw the
wolf a bone.
Any thoughts?
There was no accusation of cowardice. Judge Reinhart, like most of us, has never faced ferals like the MAGAts. He comes from a society where reasonable people discuss things reasonably and come to reasonable conclusions. It's hard to suddenly realize one is in a situation where unreasonable people won't listen to reasonable discussion and don't want reasonable conclusions. Often the first reaction to running into that is "Well, they just don't understand, so I'll try again." It depends on how fast one learns that the unreasonables want you dead that you realize you have to act differently if you want to survive. Cowardice has nothing to do with that learning process. If one learns it and still doesn't act on the knowledge, that is "a different kettle of fish" and questions of one's cowardice can be raised. Reinhart is not there.
- Judge Reinhart is acting out of fear. He thinks that if he acquiesces with the demands, if he does what he can, that the wolves will be appeased and he and his family will be saved.
How could Judge Reinhart not be fearful, however, I do not think his decision making matches your interpretation.
"Acting out of fear" is not "acting out of cowardice." One can fear something and try to do the minimum escalation of responses, without being a coward. It's when you go up the scale of responses to where action has to be taken and you don't do it out of fear you will be harmed, that cowardice comes in. Trying to solve things with less than thermonuclear war for a response is normal and sane.
We're working at it, TC. It's good trouble between us. Reading that piece angered me because I felt as though you overinterpreted the 'Jew' and stirred up 'fears' that he would bend to the enemy.
Misunderstandings happen. I can understand why you'd be concerned. Clarity in communication is better. :-)
Hard hitting, but needed to be. The media is so very much part of the problem.
I do not practice criminal law, but with what little I know I was shocked—not surprised, but shocked— when I read that the Judge had told DOJ to produce a redacted affidavit. TC must have hit the mail on the head here. What’s worse is the judge is pulled from both sides. He tried to placate MAGA, only to have peers express incredulity at the possibility of the affidavit being released. Today I read that he issued a more fulsome order saying maybe he would not be in a position to order release of a meaningful affidavit. Adding to his difficulties is that he is a Magistrate Judge, not an Article III judge with a lifetime appointment. He was appointed in 2018 so I assume he’s a Republican. If so, he’s seeing his chance at an Article III appointment evaporate.
The one thing I have learned about most judges is that they get flustered easily. (Admittedly it’s a difficult job in the best of times.) When flustered judges become unpredictable. I have no idea what will happen Thursday. He’s in a no-win situation of his own making.
Interesting