Trump is a menace because of the GOP. Which is why I cannot see any circumstance under which I would cast a vote for any Republican in my lifetime. They fed this monster, and continue to do so.
One thing I've heard frequently is pundits saying the hush money case is a "weak case." This is false. I think they say "weak" when what they really mean is it's a minor crime relative to everything else Trump is guilty of. But this is not a weak case. Trump's co-conspirator was convicted and did hard time for this. And all these Republicans who foment unrest by framing this as a political prosecution didn't have a damned thing to say when Michael Cohen was convicted of it, because Cohen had turned against Trump and testified against him. These "normies" know this isn't about politics, it's about the rule of law, and they do not seem to mind that they're pouring gasoline on the fire. And these same people pray to God Trump will either drop dead or end up in jail before he becomes the party's nominee. Never Trump. Never DeSantis. Never Republican.
Will Selber's piece today is a stinging reminder of personal past experiences, but I'm glad more veterans of this conflict are speaking up about their experiences, because bottling this shit up is exactly why veteran suicide rates are so high. Like Will, my unit also lost one of our guys in the turret to a sniper when we stopped for an IED just three months after Will had lost his. The kid was 19, on his first deployment, and had never even got to drink a legal beer back home before losing his life.
The note that Will ends on, the stinging resentment of a whole generation of veterans who were immersed in this business while the rest of the country mostly checked out, is something I still feel deep down in my bones every day. I compare it to the folks who didn't wear masks throughout the first two years of the pandemic. Back in 2006, it felt like all of America wasn't wearing their masks while the guys like us were living in the hospital every day for a year at a time, exposed to the death and suffering while everyone else just kind of put it in the back of their minds. I came home to NYC in 2008--the literal "ground zero" for the global war on terror--only to find a depleted social circle, an economic recession, and very few job opportunities on hand for a 21-year-old without college.
The War on Terror was the first real war we mobilized for on the contract system, and the civ/mil divide I witnessed during and in the aftermath of combat is probably what has affected me the most, even beyond the things I saw in combat. It felt like all that survival was for nothing when you come home to nothing. I asked myself "why the hell did you bother to fight for your survival all that time if *this* is what you got to come back home to after all of that struggle?" I returned home to NYC at the age of 21 as a 3-time combat veteran, but it felt more like I was coming back home as an immigrant in my own country. I had no community to return to, no career prospects lined up, and very little direction in life. I'm lucky I made it to where I am today, but I saw a lot of other guys from my old units not make it out as well as I had, likely for the same reasons I struggled with. I can now unfortunately say that I've lost more platoon members to suicide than I did to combat. I worry for the next generation of volunteers who will find out what it's like to go to a prolonged war on the contract system. They're going to get recycled too, and probably to a conflict(S) with higher casualty rates.
“This is just a continuation of the disgraceful and unconstitutional pattern going back to the illegal Russian collusion hoax to attempt to silence and suppress the will of the voters who support President Trump and the America First Movement.”
That’s part of a statement by my disgraceful rep, Elise Stefanik. I’d like to publicly plead for Jack Smith to include the obstruction charges from Robert Mueller’s investigation. I can’t think of any reason those should just go down the memory hole and allow people like Stefanik to push this nothing to see narrative on Russian interference.
I’m assuming she’d take Putin’s word over American intelligence like Trump did at Helsinki.
I'm at the point where I want to see how big the backlash really is. I am wearying over the media and pundit class wringing their hands over it and that just gives Trump more PR and the opportunity to make money.
He conspired with M. Cohen to commit a crime and Cohen went to jail for it. Trump has yet to be tried. Try Trump. Full stop.
The results from violent protest will result in more arrests where ever they occur. Full stop.
Georgia will follow, then Jan 6th, then Mar a Lago.
The GOP will continue to try to control the county from statehouses and state legislators. Full stop.
The GOP will keep on losing at the Statewide and national levels. Full stop.
As has been said eloquently by Ms Cheney; "Bring it on."
Women on abortion rights will blow the GOP out of the water.
"The normie GOP fell into line. Once again, reprising their role as the Hollow Men of American politics. "
Still very sick and tired of these people - more sick and tired of the politicians and those who work with them in politics, than of their electorate. Can we never again call them "leaders" please?
The long and winding road that leads (thank you Sir Paul) to this place can't be ignored. All the political calculations that the GOP has made for decades brought us to this place. All the horseshit talk about principles, values, law and order, etc. did it ever mean anything other than a pursuit for more and permanent power......me thinks not.
“Sure he’s a pussy-grabbing, lavishly corrupt, 2x impeached, soon-to-be-indicted Putin-fellating shambling umber mound who ordered a terrorist attack on the Capitol and tried to steal the election but otherwise drag queen antifa BLM Muslim Mexicans will impose sharia communism.” - Rick Wilson
Gotta love the man who coined the term "Everything Trump Touches Dies" - he does have a way with words...
I don't care what his "followers" say. This is a mad man doing everything for himself only with no concerns about his party, his country, or anyone else.
Funny, I don't remember trump, his lackeys in Congress, or his radicalized, violent supporters protesting Michael Cohen's prison sentence for what will probably be the same charges against trump. Crickets then.
It remains clear that we now have four different justice systems here in the U.S.A. The first is for Black men who get to go to jail because a lot of judges and juries still find them scary. The second is for poor people who have to pay what little they have in fines, especially in the South, to fund the local governments. The third is for people with money who can afford lawyers. They get off, and sometimes, when they screw-up big time with finances, they get paid back. Now, the new level, are Republicans, laws don’t seem to apply to them . Just investigating them is considered a crime. Now, Kevin McCarthy is calling to defund the police. Interesting.
The Iraq War story was sobering and painful. Growing up in a conservative household during it, you got very little of the how bad things were on the ground and a lot of how bad the liberals were for criticizing it. In retrospect, George W. Bush is easily in the top 10 worst presidents.
As for Trump's indictment - or not - we should probably not take his word he'll be indicted Tuesday. It certainly seems an indictment, at least a misdemeanor, is more likely than not. But as Charlie correctly points out, Trump is doing as much intimidation as he his prognostication here.
Rich Lowry on Sid Rosenberg's radio program this morning: The only reason Alvin Bragg would indict Trump is because he wants his mug shot. He just wants to humiliate him. Regarding that protest tweet? God forbid if anybody throws a beer can in protest, it'll be another insurrection.
This is why NRO reads like the John Birch Society newsletter.
In yet another pitch to be the next Bill Barr, "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said a Manhattan district attorney’s expected effort to bring a criminal charge over Trump’s handling of a hush money payment during his 2016 campaign was only evidence of how “afraid” Democrats are of the former president."
I have lost track of how many knots Lapdog Graham has tied himself into since 2016 over his abject disdain/slavish pandering herky-jerk about TFG.
Trump is a menace because of the GOP. Which is why I cannot see any circumstance under which I would cast a vote for any Republican in my lifetime. They fed this monster, and continue to do so.
One thing I've heard frequently is pundits saying the hush money case is a "weak case." This is false. I think they say "weak" when what they really mean is it's a minor crime relative to everything else Trump is guilty of. But this is not a weak case. Trump's co-conspirator was convicted and did hard time for this. And all these Republicans who foment unrest by framing this as a political prosecution didn't have a damned thing to say when Michael Cohen was convicted of it, because Cohen had turned against Trump and testified against him. These "normies" know this isn't about politics, it's about the rule of law, and they do not seem to mind that they're pouring gasoline on the fire. And these same people pray to God Trump will either drop dead or end up in jail before he becomes the party's nominee. Never Trump. Never DeSantis. Never Republican.
Will Selber's piece today is a stinging reminder of personal past experiences, but I'm glad more veterans of this conflict are speaking up about their experiences, because bottling this shit up is exactly why veteran suicide rates are so high. Like Will, my unit also lost one of our guys in the turret to a sniper when we stopped for an IED just three months after Will had lost his. The kid was 19, on his first deployment, and had never even got to drink a legal beer back home before losing his life.
The note that Will ends on, the stinging resentment of a whole generation of veterans who were immersed in this business while the rest of the country mostly checked out, is something I still feel deep down in my bones every day. I compare it to the folks who didn't wear masks throughout the first two years of the pandemic. Back in 2006, it felt like all of America wasn't wearing their masks while the guys like us were living in the hospital every day for a year at a time, exposed to the death and suffering while everyone else just kind of put it in the back of their minds. I came home to NYC in 2008--the literal "ground zero" for the global war on terror--only to find a depleted social circle, an economic recession, and very few job opportunities on hand for a 21-year-old without college.
The War on Terror was the first real war we mobilized for on the contract system, and the civ/mil divide I witnessed during and in the aftermath of combat is probably what has affected me the most, even beyond the things I saw in combat. It felt like all that survival was for nothing when you come home to nothing. I asked myself "why the hell did you bother to fight for your survival all that time if *this* is what you got to come back home to after all of that struggle?" I returned home to NYC at the age of 21 as a 3-time combat veteran, but it felt more like I was coming back home as an immigrant in my own country. I had no community to return to, no career prospects lined up, and very little direction in life. I'm lucky I made it to where I am today, but I saw a lot of other guys from my old units not make it out as well as I had, likely for the same reasons I struggled with. I can now unfortunately say that I've lost more platoon members to suicide than I did to combat. I worry for the next generation of volunteers who will find out what it's like to go to a prolonged war on the contract system. They're going to get recycled too, and probably to a conflict(S) with higher casualty rates.
None of this stuff should really get to me anymore but that NYPD post is so rotten.
“This is just a continuation of the disgraceful and unconstitutional pattern going back to the illegal Russian collusion hoax to attempt to silence and suppress the will of the voters who support President Trump and the America First Movement.”
That’s part of a statement by my disgraceful rep, Elise Stefanik. I’d like to publicly plead for Jack Smith to include the obstruction charges from Robert Mueller’s investigation. I can’t think of any reason those should just go down the memory hole and allow people like Stefanik to push this nothing to see narrative on Russian interference.
I’m assuming she’d take Putin’s word over American intelligence like Trump did at Helsinki.
I'm at the point where I want to see how big the backlash really is. I am wearying over the media and pundit class wringing their hands over it and that just gives Trump more PR and the opportunity to make money.
He conspired with M. Cohen to commit a crime and Cohen went to jail for it. Trump has yet to be tried. Try Trump. Full stop.
The results from violent protest will result in more arrests where ever they occur. Full stop.
Georgia will follow, then Jan 6th, then Mar a Lago.
The GOP will continue to try to control the county from statehouses and state legislators. Full stop.
The GOP will keep on losing at the Statewide and national levels. Full stop.
As has been said eloquently by Ms Cheney; "Bring it on."
Women on abortion rights will blow the GOP out of the water.
Good morning to my fellow COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS, RINOS AND LOSERS! How's life in your neck of the woods?
"The normie GOP fell into line. Once again, reprising their role as the Hollow Men of American politics. "
Still very sick and tired of these people - more sick and tired of the politicians and those who work with them in politics, than of their electorate. Can we never again call them "leaders" please?
The long and winding road that leads (thank you Sir Paul) to this place can't be ignored. All the political calculations that the GOP has made for decades brought us to this place. All the horseshit talk about principles, values, law and order, etc. did it ever mean anything other than a pursuit for more and permanent power......me thinks not.
“Sure he’s a pussy-grabbing, lavishly corrupt, 2x impeached, soon-to-be-indicted Putin-fellating shambling umber mound who ordered a terrorist attack on the Capitol and tried to steal the election but otherwise drag queen antifa BLM Muslim Mexicans will impose sharia communism.” - Rick Wilson
Gotta love the man who coined the term "Everything Trump Touches Dies" - he does have a way with words...
I don't care what his "followers" say. This is a mad man doing everything for himself only with no concerns about his party, his country, or anyone else.
Funny, I don't remember trump, his lackeys in Congress, or his radicalized, violent supporters protesting Michael Cohen's prison sentence for what will probably be the same charges against trump. Crickets then.
It remains clear that we now have four different justice systems here in the U.S.A. The first is for Black men who get to go to jail because a lot of judges and juries still find them scary. The second is for poor people who have to pay what little they have in fines, especially in the South, to fund the local governments. The third is for people with money who can afford lawyers. They get off, and sometimes, when they screw-up big time with finances, they get paid back. Now, the new level, are Republicans, laws don’t seem to apply to them . Just investigating them is considered a crime. Now, Kevin McCarthy is calling to defund the police. Interesting.
The Iraq War story was sobering and painful. Growing up in a conservative household during it, you got very little of the how bad things were on the ground and a lot of how bad the liberals were for criticizing it. In retrospect, George W. Bush is easily in the top 10 worst presidents.
As for Trump's indictment - or not - we should probably not take his word he'll be indicted Tuesday. It certainly seems an indictment, at least a misdemeanor, is more likely than not. But as Charlie correctly points out, Trump is doing as much intimidation as he his prognostication here.
Rich Lowry on Sid Rosenberg's radio program this morning: The only reason Alvin Bragg would indict Trump is because he wants his mug shot. He just wants to humiliate him. Regarding that protest tweet? God forbid if anybody throws a beer can in protest, it'll be another insurrection.
This is why NRO reads like the John Birch Society newsletter.
Cowards. Such terrible cowards.
In yet another pitch to be the next Bill Barr, "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said a Manhattan district attorney’s expected effort to bring a criminal charge over Trump’s handling of a hush money payment during his 2016 campaign was only evidence of how “afraid” Democrats are of the former president."
I have lost track of how many knots Lapdog Graham has tied himself into since 2016 over his abject disdain/slavish pandering herky-jerk about TFG.