Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Funeral of Jordan’s King Hussein; Premiere of ‘The Birth of a Nation’; a South Carolina civil rights protest turns deadly; the Boy Scouts of America is incorporated; actor James Dean born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I think in every lesson there’s a blessing, and there’s so many blessings from all the lessons I’ve had to go through in life.
Ok, it is. An anonymous Mill Town of the early Industrial Age all growed up in the middle of the most boring stretch of highway between me and Maine where about a week from now I’ll be attending a rare performance by Mame Dennis who does most of her work behind the curtain currently.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I voted for Republicans.
I mean, I’ve always been a registered Democrat and when asked my political affiliation that’s usually how I answer though my philosophy is Anarcho-Syndicalist, but there was a time when I considered, and did, vote for a Republican or two. For instance we had a good Mayor in Stars Hollow who was very anti-development that was a Republican and he had my support.
Another one was Lowell Weicker. See Lowell was a Liberal Republican and while it’s an oxymoron now he was in fact a Big Government New Deal Fair Deal Great Society Liberal, more so than many Democrats.
Conservatives hated him and recruited Joe Lieberman to chuck him out of the Senate (one of the many things personal and political I despise about Joe) and he turned around and ran for Governor as an Independent.
They hated him even more after that because he instituted a State Income Tax and there are a number of Grover Norquist Club for Growth types who can’t let go of it even though it’s been almost 25 years.
But that’s the local view, most United States citizens remember him for his work on the Senate Watergate Committee and he has an OpEd in today’s WaPo reflecting on that experience in light of our current situation I think is worthy of your attention.
Nearly 46 years ago, I was among seven U.S. senators who were part of the Senate Watergate Committee charged with investigating corruption and coverups at the highest levels of government. At the opening hearing, I asked, “The gut question for the committee and country alike is and was how much truth do we want?” None of us knew precisely what we would find — a list of enemies kept by the president, and tapes that proved the president’s complicity — but we knew that, as an equal branch of government, duly elected with a responsibility to provide effective oversight, we had to get to the truth.
Today, as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III enters the fourth quarter of his investigation, the questions are familiar ones for the 116th Congress: How much truth do you want? And how much truth do you owe the American people? My bottom line is the same as it was in 1973: It isn’t enough for the special counsel to complete his investigation and then have his report buried in a drawer at the Justice Department, or censored by those appointed by the subject of the investigation. Mueller’s report and full findings must be made public for Congress and the American people to read. It is the only way to pull our country together around the truth, which after all should be the standard.
I don’t know what Mueller has found or will find. I know there is much that is deeply disturbing in the indictments already public. But I know that if the president is as innocent as he has argued from day one, then he should want Mueller’s report to be public and transparent, rather than rebutted and censored as Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, has already suggested he will do.
Our country is as polarized as we have been in recent memory. President Trump’s tweets and tantrums about Mueller’s inquiry do a disservice to anyone who simply wants the truth about Russia’s attacks on our elections and whether any Americans conspired with them. That is why the public needs to see the special counsel’s full, unvarnished findings for themselves — with redactions to protect only information that is classified or otherwise restricted by statute. Only by reading the evidence and conclusions that detail how Russia carried out its attacks and whether any members of the Trump campaign committed additional crimes can the country protect itself from future threats and assess accountability.
The good news is that I hear some voices emerging in Congress across partisan lines, green shoots of statesmanship after a winter of silence. Republican Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) have co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that would protect not just this special counsel, but all future special counsels, from political interference. Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) recently introduced legislation that would require the Justice Department to release the special counsel’s findings to Congress and the public.
To those who argue that it is hopeless to expect the president’s party to do more than rubber-stamp his attacks on Mueller through silence or action, I’d remind them of where we found ourselves in 1973. President Richard Nixon had carried 49 states in the 1972 election. He would remain popular with a majority of Republicans until the day he left office. But we drew the line, nonetheless. There is a proper place for Congress to take Mueller’s findings and hold anyone who committed a crime accountable, including the president.
It will take all of us — Republicans, Democrats, and none of the above — joining once again to make sure Mueller can release his findings for everyone to read. If that happens, I am confident that we will emerge stronger , as Ernest Hemingway wrote, “at the broken places.”
I think Lowell is incredibly optimistic. I can’t imagine a Republican today that would vote to convict Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio, though I could be pleasantly surprised.
That does not mean he should not be Impeached, as a matter of fact, if you care about the Constitution at all, it’s kind of mandatory.
Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio is a Russian spy, a Traitor. He has Obstructed Justice and Abused his Power. He’s as guilty, guilty, guilty as Richard Nixon ever was of all the same things only Super Sized and with an additional side of Treason.
The reason he must be Impeached is as an example to others there is Political Conduct that is unacceptable in a Democracy and a consensual Blow Job (albeit with creepy power dynamics) IS NOT IT!
After 70 years of the Cold War, what is so difficult to comprehend about “Spying for Russia, Bad.”? It’s so simple even the Lizard Brained Racist Republicans and the illiterate Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio can understand it.
Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
It’s not the crime; it’s the offspring of the crime.
If the old Watergate expression is “It’s not the crime; it’s the coverup,” then today’s equivalent might be “It’s not the crime; it’s the crime’s offspring.”
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York served a sweeping subpoena on President Trump’s inaugural committee on Monday. Nothing could more clearly illustrate the breadth of the president’s legal exposure and the limits of his nearly two-year strategy to attack and undermine special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — because the special counsel’s work is merely the sturdy root of a veritable Mueller family tree. What began as an FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has sprouted into multiple investigations in multiple jurisdictions examining multiple possible crimes. The case against the president’s personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is the direct line, the first child. The investigation of the inaugural committee, which sprang from the Cohen case, is the grandchild. And on it goes.
The president no longer faces jeopardy from just one federal criminal probe, but at least three, and not just one prosecutor’s office, but the full resources of the entire Justice Department. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump asserted that “ridiculous partisan investigations” threatened the “economic miracle” that was happening on his watch. The threat of the investigations, however you characterize them, is to the president himself.
The US president was wasting time in his second State of the Union speech, he just wants to talk about Trump
Just one year ago, Donald Trump stood in front of an exhausted nation to deliver a pick-me-up of bipartisan love.
Yes, several thousand Americans had just died after his botched recovery in Puerto Rico. Yes, he was kowtowing to the Kremlin and kneecapping the FBI. But why, he wondered, can’t we just get along?
“It is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy,” he lamented. “Tonight, I call up on all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.”
Trump’s leadership has been utterly flawless on this front. You might even say unimpeachable.
In the last 12 months, he has brought Washington together in horror by separating thousands of immigrant children from their parents and detaining thousands more in secret prisons. He has dismayed both sides of Congress by bragging about a government shutdown that began while his party controlled the whole ball game. Republicans and Democrats alike stood aghast as he cozied up to North Korea, forced out his respected defense secretary, and pathetically petted Vladimir Putin.
He has never wavered from setting aside his calls to set aside our differences. He has resolutely failed to seek out common ground. And his idea of unity is to rally as many old white men as he can find on a golf course.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
the Beatles arrive in America; Ramzi Yousef arrested for the 1993 blast at New York’s World Trade Center; Jordan’s King Hussein dies; author Charles Dickens and country singer Garth Brooks born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Time begins the healing process of wounds cut deeply by oppression. We soothe ourselves with the salve of attempted indifference, accepting the false pattern set up by the horrible restriction of Jim Crow laws.
Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
I’ve been around long enough to read the secret terrain and hidden texture of presidential speeches and to understand how the competing camps in any administration push and pull the product into its final form.
It’s typically a long path from a date on the calendar to a State of the Union speech, but Tuesday night’s effort showed every sign of being created, destroyed, cut, pasted, rebooted, and then run through an English-Urdu translation program and back again. It felt more like last-minute Sharpie-scribble than wordsmithing. It was long, discursive as hell, and its grace notes felt odd and contrived. Leaving the text aside for a moment, President Donald Trump’s performance was downright Trumpian: He’s always bad on teleprompter, stilted, reluctant, and barely literate; Tuesday night was little different, marked by his usual sniffles, the Il Duce hand gestures, and his tendency to veer between subjects without transition or pause.
It wasn’t just bad. It was downright weird. This was a speech that will go down as a truly strange moment in American political rhetoric. Trump going for uplift seemed so ludicrous that I almost took pity on the White House struggle-bus speechwriting team. Almost.
President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address on Tuesday, but the state of our union broadly has been important topic of discussion for some time. The Senate in particular has become pretty damn dysfunctional. There have always been moments in history when things were not smooth, but this is a moment when the Senate has quit working the way it has traditionally always worked — the way it was intended to work.
There are really smart, great people in the Senate from both parties. I understand why people are unforgiving of those Republican senators who are not speaking out against some of the egregious things this president has done so far. This does not mean that all hope is lost, because there are a lot of Republicans who, at least on a policy basis, are still working behind the scenes to mitigate the damage. That’s a small silver lining. But there’s also a lot to be worried about.
In my first year in the Senate, we voted on hundreds of amendments. In my last year in the Senate, we voted on a few dozen. What does that show us? Power has been concentrated in the offices of the leaders and big bills are increasingly being written behind closed doors instead of through an open amendment process. Most of this has been motivated by a desire to protect party members, not to serve the American people. When you vote on tough issues, you’re going to make a lot of people mad. If you make it so never have to vote on tough issues, the idea is that you never have to compromise — and somehow that makes you politically stronger.
If you’re not familiar with the concept it goes a little like this- In 2003 Barbra Streisand sued a photographer over pictures of her Malibu Estate, claiming “invasion of privacy”. The instant reaction was to hugely increase the popularity of the image and doxx her address to anyone who cared to know.
The coinage itself came from Mike Masnick of TechDirt, a site I read several times daily and frequently cite (among many flaws of written English currently is a failure to correctly use the homophones ‘cite’, ‘site’, and ‘sight’, don’t get me started about the proper use of ‘affect’, which is to pretend, and ‘effect’, which is to cause), in a 2005 discussion of a takedown notice issued to urinal.net, which naturally enough specialized in pictures of urinals, by a resort that was unhappy to be included in a compendium of male restroom plumbing.
Worked about as well for them as it did for Streisand.
Anyway, I am happy to report Comrades that our Socialist Revolution has received a great, and totally unintended, boost from Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio and his capitalist Republican running dogs.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Trump identified the chief domestic danger we face, alongside immigrants who come here to murder us all: socialism.
…
On the off chance that a dangerous ideology cannot be banished with sufficiently vigorous chants of “USA! USA!,” Republicans are amping up their warnings that socialism is here and ready to put its heavy boot on our necks. The fact that they’re pushing this line is not surprising, given that the Democratic Party is indeed moving left and embracing policy solutions with stronger government components than what is currently in place on issue like health care.
The trouble is that as an insult, “Socialism!” doesn’t have the zing it once did. And that’s Republicans’ own fault.
Perhaps not entirely, I’ll grant you. One reason “Socialist!” isn’t the powerful insult it once was is just time: Since the Soviet Union collapsed almost three decades ago, there are a couple of generations of Americans who have no memory of the Cold War. For them, socialism is not synonymous with communism, which anyway is just something they learned about in history class. They don’t view it as the ideology of our enemies.
But more importantly, in the time since, Republicans have attacked almost anything Democrats wanted to do as socialism. Modest tax increases on the wealthy? Socialism! Regulations to lower carbon emissions and reduce the risk of climate catastrophe? Socialism! Health care reform built on maintaining private insurance but with stronger protections for consumers? Socialism!
After hearing that for so long, a lot of young people in particular seem to have concluded that “socialism” means little more than “policies that are more liberal than the Republican Party would prefer.” In other words, they’ve accepted the Republican view of what socialism is.
You can see it in polls like this one from Gallup, showing that among people under 30, 51 percent have a positive view of socialism while only 45 percent have a positive view of capitalism. They have little actual experience with socialism, but if you’re saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, you’re working at a job with mediocre wages and few benefits, and you can’t see how you could ever afford to buy a home, capitalism may not be looking so hot.
Lately Republicans have been working hard to convince people of this syllogism: Democrats are a bunch of socialists; Venezuela is socialist; therefore anything Democrats suggest will inevitably turn us into an economic disaster like Venezuela. Besides being completely asinine (ask economists whether we’re in danger of seeing U.S. inflation reach 1 million percent any time soon), the argument relies on the broad public reacting with the same horror Republicans do when they hear suggestions like a wealth tax or universal health care.
But they don’t, in part because when they hear the word “socialist,” Americans are more likely to think of Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro. In other words, someone who admires the social democratic systems they have in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, and would like to see something similar here: a capitalist economy, but one that isn’t structured so much to benefit the wealthiest elite and includes a stronger system of social supports. Which isn’t nearly as terrifying.
If President Trump decides to run against socialism in 2020, he’ll be repeating what Republicans did over the last few decades, except condensed into the space of a year or so. The policies he’ll be describing as socialist, like higher taxes for the wealthy and giving more people health coverage, already have wide support, and with his own low approval ratings he’s unlikely to persuade people to change their views on those policies. Instead of destroying the Democratic nominee by pinning on her a label that everyone agrees is horrific, he’s much more likely to make socialism more popular than ever.
Which is why actual socialists — or democratic socialists, who are almost certainly far greater in number in the United States right now than the pure variety — should be more than happy to see Trump wage a war on socialism. It’s the best advertisement they can get.
The Internationale (traditional British version)
Arise, ye workers from your slumber,
Arise, ye prisoners of want.
For reason in revolt now thunders,
and at last ends the age of cant!
Away with all your superstitions,
Servile masses, arise, arise!
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition,
And spurn the dust to win the prize!
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale
Unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction,
On tyrants only we’ll make war!
The soldiers too will take strike action,
They’ll break ranks and fight no more!
And if those cannibals keep trying,
To sacrifice us to their pride,
They soon shall hear the bullets flying,
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale
Unites the human race.
No saviour from on high delivers,
No faith have we in prince or peer.
Our own right hand the chains must shiver,
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.
E’er the thieves will out with their booty,
And to all give a happier lot.
Each at his forge must do their duty,
And we’ll strike the iron while it’s hot.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale
Unites the human race.
Properly sung with the right hand fist raised in salute if you don’t have a convenient AK-47 to grasp.
He should have worn a white suit but perhaps he was concerned about being mistaken for a different Sanders (c’mon, I’m talking about Colonel, not Huckabee).
Abrams
The parade of Holocaust survivors was intended to provoke Sanders. The comments about Venezuelan Socialism both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. Abrams was provoked by unrepentant Jim Crow Vote Stealing (as well she might be). Nancy Pelosi seemed to be provoked by the pretense of bi-partisan action Congressional Republicans will never allow to come up for a vote, let alone pass (look at her face, it speaks volumes).
Unindicted Co-conspirators Bottomless Pinocchio looked guilty, because he is.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
President Ronald Reagan born; Hillary Clinton runs for the U.S. Senate; Britain’s King George VI dies; baseball legend Babe Ruth and reggae superstar Bob Marley born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.
So sorry Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio but I find the hidden mysteries of Masonry (which I’m happy to talk about any time with anyone excepting the grips and words because if you can’t be trusted to keep something stupid and silly secret, what exactly can you be trusted with?) and the secrets of Oak Island far more fascinating than anything you could possibly say.
Have I mentioned we’ve found the 90 Foot Stone? Yep, in the basement of a Book Bindery in Halifax. Hasn’t been seen in over 100 years. We have French Drain Flood Tunnels in Smith’s Cove with Coconut Fiber Filters!
I’ve been to Oak Island, last Eclipse, the one Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio squinted at, ruining his retinas for the rest of his life. He doesn’t read anyway, even Teleprompters. With my Macular Degeneration and Cataracts I take my eyes seriously (oh, I am also literate in case you haven’t noticed) and I had the good fortune to bump up against a member of the Film Crew who had salvaged a piece of Welder’s Glass and it was in fact the best live view of an Eclipse I’ve ever had. Even more gratifying was that I met the Mom of a different member of the Film Crew who had no idea what was happening.
Do you want to talk about Gilbert du Motier’s influence on the Revolution of 1776, 1789, or 1830? Oh, I’m not typically ignorant? Interview someone else. I also know what the parts are on a Corvette better than the Ensigns assigned as Guides.
The funny thing about Oak Island is that I read exactly the sameReader’s Digest in the basement of my Grandmother’s house in Michigan (mere blocks away from Roger Moore) that Rick and Marty did at about the same time and almost the same place, and if I had Oil Drilling Services money I would have bought the whole Island too and I’d be hiring Parker Schnabel to ask me, “So, how deep do you want the hole?”
Well, probably bedrock would do.
Parker is not known for archeological finesse so I’m prepared for a slower reveal, but with any luck at all I’ll be back this summer and in addition to good beer they’ll have solved their marijuana supply problem (takes a while to work out the logistics).
What? You’re going to punish yourself despite my advice? Well, as soon as it’s up on YouTube I’ll probably post Stacey Abrams’ and Bernie Sanders’ responses as an update but until then I give you Jennifer Rubin (who is not a Liberal or a Lefty).
State of the Union speeches were boring, long-winded and ultimately irrelevant long before President Trump arrived. I got my hopes up when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered Trump the alternative of submitting his State of the Union remarks in written form. No such luck — Trump is set to deliver his address Tuesday before a joint session of Congress.
Trump’s State of the Union is even less significant than the State of the Unions offered by recent presidents. Trump lies more than past presidents and has a greater gap between rhetoric and action than most. In other words, it does not matter what he says Tuesday night. In a nanosecond, the words evaporate and we return to Trump tweets, fabrications and attacks.
Trump’s State of the Union also suffers because he has become a bore — regurgitating the same points, incorporating no new ideas or information (for he is incapable of learning) and spouting the same know-nothingism. He is drearily predictable.
With near-certainty, Trump will utter repeatedly debunked lies, lots of them. He’ll talk about national unity but take no responsibility for the deep divisions he has caused nor for the racism and hatefulness he has exhibited. He’ll make a slew of unfounded foreign policy pronouncements attributing newfound (and nonexistent) respect in the world to his own brilliance. (He seems not to notice that he is the subject of international derision and an endless source of frustration to allies.)
At least with a teleprompter, he can avoid the kind of word salads — or as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) calls them, “word vomit” — he tossed up in his interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan.
…
It’s frightening to hear his stream of consciousness patter but entirely understandable given his aversion to reading and his hours upon hours of executive time wherein he gets information from Fox non-News hosts and other sycophants.
Pundits will find a platitude here or there in his remarks to praise, identifying this as the source of hope that he’s — wait for it — becoming more presidential. In fact, like his syntax, his presidency is unraveling before our eyes; his attachment to reality becomes more tenuous by the day.
Nevertheless, there is some anticipation, even excitement, about Tuesday night. It derives from the selected politician to respond to Trump, losing Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Unlike Trump, her message, her arguments, her priorities and her rhetoric will be new to the vast majority of Americans. (As with the president’s weak Oval Office speech on the border and the Democratic leaders’ response, one wonders if Abrams’s ratings will be higher than Trump’s.)
…
Abrams can remind the country that we aren’t consigned in perpetuity to a president entirely lacking in intelligence, empathy and decency. About a year from now the presidential primary voting process begins. Voters will have a chance to find Trump’s replacement — someone new, interesting, grounded in reality, personally decent and inspirational. When we see the Trump vs. Abrams contrast on Tuesday, we’ll get a taste of what it might be like to have a president we can respect, maybe even admire. Abrams’s appearance should underscore that 2020 will be the ultimate change election.
