Regarding El Blobbo Del Mar A Lardo's sedition last night, the "good news" is that it demonstrates clearly just how terrified he is that a lifetime of karma, in the shape of a grand piano, has been pushed off the roof of Trump Tower, with him standing on the sidewalk at the main entrance, right below it.
The six-year old who punched the teacher, the ten-year old caught throwing rocks at the toddler in a playpen next door, the juvenile delinquent sent to the NYMA (the rich kid reformatory), the guy who tore down the facing of Bonwit-Teller, the guy who has committed every other crime he's committed in public for the past 50 years, is terrified that it's all coming down on him.
One hopes he ends up looking like the cockroach he is, after being stepped on.
I spent the last few hours on my tractor moving the snow out of our big horseshoe driveway, built back when I still needed to get big trucks in and out. Now, It's like plowing a parking lot with a dinky toy.
As I went back and forth I considered my reading of the Trump pardon ploy and wondered whether this was a good or a bad move on his part. I gave a lot of thought to his supporters who, in my mind are largely blue collar, high school educated people who already had the feeling that they had gotten a rotten deal out of life. You could pile up the reasons, they all have variations, but they are for the most part things that wound up separating them into classes that met in bars to have four or five beers. The other aspect of the MAGA crown is the politicians who feed off of discontent or the wealthy who see opportunity to become wealthier.
The wealthy used to be the backbone of the party. The blue-collar bunch, perhaps what were called Reagan Democrats were lulled into the culture wars and those wars have been expanded in the public eye and now say the quiet part said out loud. Those MAGA guys really do feel that their lack of status is because of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. If those guys weren't around, things would be really great!. Then the income disparities would disappear, and they could feel at home with the wealthy republicans. 1932-38 Germany really said the same thing to a disaffected populace that had been experiencing the great depression. They needed a scapegoat and those Damn Jews had snuck up and stolen the show. The populace looked the other way, -kind of ,as Hitler exterminated them.
I don't think I need to go further in the comparison really. What is discouraging for me is watching the Jeff Flakes, the Bob Corkers, the Jeb Bushes see that the fascist tide was high and they put out to sea. The resistance in the GOP is hard to find. Bulwark, the Lincoln project and a few others have waved objections but no where near enough to change much.
The ones who have to change are before us. Not the MAGA hat crowd, you'll never change them. It's the independents- the ones with a conscience who have to turn their backs on the planned move into authoritarianism. I really don't know if they will at this point. What Trump does is to pre-poison the well letting the red hats run wild. I do hope that the Jan 6th committee and the DOJ can act quickly enough to secure prosecution for Trump. No one else can do quite what he does, really a perfect grifter mafia figure who is pretty sure he has figured out how to game the system. Hopefully, like Eugene McCarthy, he will be ultimately puked out of the public view. I don't think amateurs like DeSantis will ever replace him. Weak Tea. These people want blood.
Last week we had International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Along with the gut wrenching documentaries were newspapers from that time. One that struck me was a front page from 1933 where Hitler was running for election again. It reminded me of Donald Trump. This weekend Trump called for violence against anyone who might indict him. His unhinged rants and lies were meant to stoke hate and violence. We had a taste of this on January 6. In essence Trump has his own stormtroopers who will menace and carry out violence. We minimize this at our own risk. He is the Republican party, supported by the GOP and spawning people like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green.
BREAKING: Just over three-quarters of Americans (76%) want Pres. Biden to consider "all possible nominees," while 23% want him to follow through on his commitment to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, per a new @ABC News/Ipsos poll.
Hate this kind of reporting about polls. The punditocracy is focused on the controversy of whether Biden should have made his campaign pledge. How many of the people polled were even aware that the purpose of the poll was to get them to weigh in on this controversy? Did they even understand that this controversy existed?
Charlie is worried that Biden's pledge may have done political damage. If the nominee, the administration, and the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee do a great job of messaging such that a solid majority of the country is proud to have that nominee on the court, this process will be a huge plus for Biden.
"Majority of Americans want Biden to consider all possible nominees."
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the (white) American public." - H.L. Mencken (who would never have included that one word, even though it was the demographic he was thinking of back in 1924, which happens to be the demographic the "majority of Americans" quoted above are)
This reminds me of going to the Post Office yesterday, which has an "in" entrance and an "out" exit to its parking lot, with the parking slots aligned so one can enter correctly, park correctly, and exit correctly, without bothering anyone else and with a minimum of opportunity to have an "insurance incident" while doing any of that. So, a large SUV drives in the exit, drives the wrong way through the lot, then backs into two parking spaces backwards. And what climbs out of the left seat? White, male, under 40, fat, with that "illiterate dumbass" look to his facial barbering, wearing a red hat with You Know What on it. Surprise surprise (not). Well, the only surprising thing was this happened at the Encino, California, Post Office parking lot.
I've never gone wrong, expecting the driver of an SUV or an oversized pick'm-up truck to do something moronic.
Has anyone considered the possibility that Biden, who spent many years on the Judiciary Committee as Chair or Ranking Member, already knew whom he wanted to appoint on merit, and as it was a Black woman he just decided to get political credit for that?
I really identify with Will Saletan's sentence here--"Grappling with strong arguments from the right has often helped me find weaknesses in my thinking." Joining the Bulwark has been so good for me in this way. I think he'll be a great addition to the team.
Charlie, really appreciate you pulling in intellectually honest viewpoints different from yours —and for Will’s encouragement to do the same. Perhaps this could be a regular feature in the Bulwark or your newsletter: “Views from someone I respect, that differ from mine” (with a catchier name). Loved the dialogue with Rich Lowry on Jane Coaston’s pod.
What in the world is wrong with a black female on the court? Even Sen Graham says it will better reflect the make up of the country. Then you have Collins of Maine lying about what Ragen said before naming the first female. Actually it makes no difference in the decisions for years to come.
Was interested in hearing from Will Saletan, however, after his brilliant idea to diversify your knowledge and understanding of people by reading twitter but making sure to include various twitter viewpoints, I am not certain this guy is a hack too. When will you all realize twitter is not real life - it is literally a minority of a minority of viewpoints and doing your best to include the other viewpoints that you don't agree with is not enlightening, it is simply feeding your ego that your are an open minded serious person.
The SCOTUS is plenty inbred without making a virtue of institutional incest. It wasn't always so. Hugo Black was a Senator. Earl Warren was a Governor. (And BTW, neither had had either moral or scholastic records to be especially proud of.) William O. Douglas was chairman of the SEC.
John Marshall was an envoy to France, a Congressman and Secretary of State.
Add the fetish of narrow educational credentialism (in an era of steadily declining overall academic standards, no less) and the Court is arguably as parochial as it has ever been.
Under the circumstances the problem is not that Biden wants to nominate a black woman, but that he'll probably choose exactly the kind of person that presidents have been robotically nominating for decades.
A country that denied generations of people access to colleges and properly funded schools cannot because meritocracy until it ameliorate the impact of that
Once again, the Secessionist-In-Chief uses teleprompters for which he castigates others (especially Uncle Joe) of using.
Is Ding-of-Bat Don so mentally impaired that he can't even do his boring off-the cuff victim rant schtick without prompting???
Also, since Deranged Don has not stated that he will run again for resident, why are my tax dollars supported C-Span covering an obvious Cult of Personality rally??
Think Carville's got it right. Too bad he's not callin' the shots on this issue for the D's. Are these guys ever, ever gonna' wake up to what's actually going on in red states and statehouses around the country? Considering the hour and the evidence so far in hand, I think the answer to that is no.
Yeah, there's been a word or two muttered about the ECA of late. But that's not enough. There is more than one front in this battle. Considering that the R's have shown they have no real respect for the rule of law and the practice of practical norms, if they have their hands on the right levers of power at the state level and don't like the result of a federal election, what are the odds they're just gonna' roll over, even if the ECA is properly reinforced. And WTF does that leave those of us who value our liberties, do not take them for granted and realize the best guarantor of those liberties' continuance is a functioning liberal democracy that's as well protected from election fraud as it can possibly be. If protections on this front were as staunch and wide reaching as those for voter fraud, I'd be breathin' a bit easier. But I don't think the damned D's even know the difference between the two. And I won't be holdin' my breath waiting for them to figure it out, because, well...you know...
Regarding El Blobbo Del Mar A Lardo's sedition last night, the "good news" is that it demonstrates clearly just how terrified he is that a lifetime of karma, in the shape of a grand piano, has been pushed off the roof of Trump Tower, with him standing on the sidewalk at the main entrance, right below it.
The six-year old who punched the teacher, the ten-year old caught throwing rocks at the toddler in a playpen next door, the juvenile delinquent sent to the NYMA (the rich kid reformatory), the guy who tore down the facing of Bonwit-Teller, the guy who has committed every other crime he's committed in public for the past 50 years, is terrified that it's all coming down on him.
One hopes he ends up looking like the cockroach he is, after being stepped on.
I spent the last few hours on my tractor moving the snow out of our big horseshoe driveway, built back when I still needed to get big trucks in and out. Now, It's like plowing a parking lot with a dinky toy.
As I went back and forth I considered my reading of the Trump pardon ploy and wondered whether this was a good or a bad move on his part. I gave a lot of thought to his supporters who, in my mind are largely blue collar, high school educated people who already had the feeling that they had gotten a rotten deal out of life. You could pile up the reasons, they all have variations, but they are for the most part things that wound up separating them into classes that met in bars to have four or five beers. The other aspect of the MAGA crown is the politicians who feed off of discontent or the wealthy who see opportunity to become wealthier.
The wealthy used to be the backbone of the party. The blue-collar bunch, perhaps what were called Reagan Democrats were lulled into the culture wars and those wars have been expanded in the public eye and now say the quiet part said out loud. Those MAGA guys really do feel that their lack of status is because of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. If those guys weren't around, things would be really great!. Then the income disparities would disappear, and they could feel at home with the wealthy republicans. 1932-38 Germany really said the same thing to a disaffected populace that had been experiencing the great depression. They needed a scapegoat and those Damn Jews had snuck up and stolen the show. The populace looked the other way, -kind of ,as Hitler exterminated them.
I don't think I need to go further in the comparison really. What is discouraging for me is watching the Jeff Flakes, the Bob Corkers, the Jeb Bushes see that the fascist tide was high and they put out to sea. The resistance in the GOP is hard to find. Bulwark, the Lincoln project and a few others have waved objections but no where near enough to change much.
The ones who have to change are before us. Not the MAGA hat crowd, you'll never change them. It's the independents- the ones with a conscience who have to turn their backs on the planned move into authoritarianism. I really don't know if they will at this point. What Trump does is to pre-poison the well letting the red hats run wild. I do hope that the Jan 6th committee and the DOJ can act quickly enough to secure prosecution for Trump. No one else can do quite what he does, really a perfect grifter mafia figure who is pretty sure he has figured out how to game the system. Hopefully, like Eugene McCarthy, he will be ultimately puked out of the public view. I don't think amateurs like DeSantis will ever replace him. Weak Tea. These people want blood.
Pete VanderLaan
Last week we had International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Along with the gut wrenching documentaries were newspapers from that time. One that struck me was a front page from 1933 where Hitler was running for election again. It reminded me of Donald Trump. This weekend Trump called for violence against anyone who might indict him. His unhinged rants and lies were meant to stoke hate and violence. We had a taste of this on January 6. In essence Trump has his own stormtroopers who will menace and carry out violence. We minimize this at our own risk. He is the Republican party, supported by the GOP and spawning people like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green.
BREAKING: Just over three-quarters of Americans (76%) want Pres. Biden to consider "all possible nominees," while 23% want him to follow through on his commitment to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, per a new @ABC News/Ipsos poll.
Hate this kind of reporting about polls. The punditocracy is focused on the controversy of whether Biden should have made his campaign pledge. How many of the people polled were even aware that the purpose of the poll was to get them to weigh in on this controversy? Did they even understand that this controversy existed?
Charlie is worried that Biden's pledge may have done political damage. If the nominee, the administration, and the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee do a great job of messaging such that a solid majority of the country is proud to have that nominee on the court, this process will be a huge plus for Biden.
"Majority of Americans want Biden to consider all possible nominees."
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the (white) American public." - H.L. Mencken (who would never have included that one word, even though it was the demographic he was thinking of back in 1924, which happens to be the demographic the "majority of Americans" quoted above are)
This reminds me of going to the Post Office yesterday, which has an "in" entrance and an "out" exit to its parking lot, with the parking slots aligned so one can enter correctly, park correctly, and exit correctly, without bothering anyone else and with a minimum of opportunity to have an "insurance incident" while doing any of that. So, a large SUV drives in the exit, drives the wrong way through the lot, then backs into two parking spaces backwards. And what climbs out of the left seat? White, male, under 40, fat, with that "illiterate dumbass" look to his facial barbering, wearing a red hat with You Know What on it. Surprise surprise (not). Well, the only surprising thing was this happened at the Encino, California, Post Office parking lot.
I've never gone wrong, expecting the driver of an SUV or an oversized pick'm-up truck to do something moronic.
Has anyone considered the possibility that Biden, who spent many years on the Judiciary Committee as Chair or Ranking Member, already knew whom he wanted to appoint on merit, and as it was a Black woman he just decided to get political credit for that?
I really identify with Will Saletan's sentence here--"Grappling with strong arguments from the right has often helped me find weaknesses in my thinking." Joining the Bulwark has been so good for me in this way. I think he'll be a great addition to the team.
When Trump refers to "racist" prosecutors, is the implication that he's being unfairly targeted because of his skin color?
Charlie, really appreciate you pulling in intellectually honest viewpoints different from yours —and for Will’s encouragement to do the same. Perhaps this could be a regular feature in the Bulwark or your newsletter: “Views from someone I respect, that differ from mine” (with a catchier name). Loved the dialogue with Rich Lowry on Jane Coaston’s pod.
What in the world is wrong with a black female on the court? Even Sen Graham says it will better reflect the make up of the country. Then you have Collins of Maine lying about what Ragen said before naming the first female. Actually it makes no difference in the decisions for years to come.
Was interested in hearing from Will Saletan, however, after his brilliant idea to diversify your knowledge and understanding of people by reading twitter but making sure to include various twitter viewpoints, I am not certain this guy is a hack too. When will you all realize twitter is not real life - it is literally a minority of a minority of viewpoints and doing your best to include the other viewpoints that you don't agree with is not enlightening, it is simply feeding your ego that your are an open minded serious person.
The SCOTUS is plenty inbred without making a virtue of institutional incest. It wasn't always so. Hugo Black was a Senator. Earl Warren was a Governor. (And BTW, neither had had either moral or scholastic records to be especially proud of.) William O. Douglas was chairman of the SEC.
John Marshall was an envoy to France, a Congressman and Secretary of State.
Add the fetish of narrow educational credentialism (in an era of steadily declining overall academic standards, no less) and the Court is arguably as parochial as it has ever been.
Under the circumstances the problem is not that Biden wants to nominate a black woman, but that he'll probably choose exactly the kind of person that presidents have been robotically nominating for decades.
A country that denied generations of people access to colleges and properly funded schools cannot because meritocracy until it ameliorate the impact of that
Once again, the Secessionist-In-Chief uses teleprompters for which he castigates others (especially Uncle Joe) of using.
Is Ding-of-Bat Don so mentally impaired that he can't even do his boring off-the cuff victim rant schtick without prompting???
Also, since Deranged Don has not stated that he will run again for resident, why are my tax dollars supported C-Span covering an obvious Cult of Personality rally??
Russ Feingold! You helped defeat Russ Feingold and elect Ron Johnson! OMG Russ Feingold was great. WTF
Think Carville's got it right. Too bad he's not callin' the shots on this issue for the D's. Are these guys ever, ever gonna' wake up to what's actually going on in red states and statehouses around the country? Considering the hour and the evidence so far in hand, I think the answer to that is no.
Yeah, there's been a word or two muttered about the ECA of late. But that's not enough. There is more than one front in this battle. Considering that the R's have shown they have no real respect for the rule of law and the practice of practical norms, if they have their hands on the right levers of power at the state level and don't like the result of a federal election, what are the odds they're just gonna' roll over, even if the ECA is properly reinforced. And WTF does that leave those of us who value our liberties, do not take them for granted and realize the best guarantor of those liberties' continuance is a functioning liberal democracy that's as well protected from election fraud as it can possibly be. If protections on this front were as staunch and wide reaching as those for voter fraud, I'd be breathin' a bit easier. But I don't think the damned D's even know the difference between the two. And I won't be holdin' my breath waiting for them to figure it out, because, well...you know...