Liar, liar, Vance on fire! 😱 The Vice President-elect frightens me more than Trump. At least the latter is unlikeable as well as transparently coarse and stupid. 🤬
Senator Vance really is simply blind ambition. I was cutting him some slack because the politics -- in the aspect of policies and policy criticisms -- he articulates in 'Hillbilly Elegy' largely align with his current thinking in those two aspects. 🤔
Knowingly depreciating the F.B.I. in an untruthful manner does not fall under policy thinking but in wearing down, insidiously, the rule of law and the mechanisms of republican governance. It is 'sobrifying' (sobering+terrifying). 🤢
You can't cut extremists any slack. Many, if not most, of the opportunities we missed pre-election were because we kept cutting people slack and waiting to see whether they would do something unlawful or immoral. How many hundreds of times in how many hundreds of ways, including Project 2025, did they show us who they are? And still we cut them some slack. This is on us and it has to change. We have to "grow a pair" and fight as hard to keep out democracy as they are fighting to destroy it.
You are SO correct. As things start to go downhill, never stop pointing it out to those who are suddenly 'stunned' at the reality of a nazi regime, and the need to vote it out completely in 2026. No slack indeed.
I hope Biden pardons Native activist Leonard Peltier, who has spent 50 ina federal prison based on faulty info during trial. Even his prosecutor agrees Leonard experienced a miscarriage of Justice.
Well, I never cut them slack & I saw them for who they are. Unfortunately my little corner of the world is in California & as such doesn't mean a damn thing because it's not a "swing state"!
Good point. There are Vances who are fine people; once was good buddette in N.Y.C.; SecState Vance; Joyce Vance et many al. This would be a contextual repartée targeted toward the V.P.-elect..
I lived and worked in Appalchia 40 years ago and loved its caring people. I HATED Vance's book. Read "What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia" by Elizabeth Catte. Yes, Vance is all about ambition, at any and every price.
I have always said that JD is far more dangerous than the rotten pumpkin. I am not crazy about Musk and gang but I think that the rump is more interested in them than JD which might be putting him on the back burner. That isn't to assume that JD isn't busy securing his turf.
I have felt the same way because Senator Vance knows better; Trump may not. As far as the Muskrat love goes, we shall see if internal divisions arise in M.A.G.A.-land.
@ Yolanda. Biden needs to report on Russian interference ASAP!!!
In 2023, U.S. Citizens and Russian Intelligence Officers Charged with Conspiring to Use U.S. Citizens as Illegal Agents of the Russian Government. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-citizens-and-russian-intelligence-officers-charged-conspiring-use-us-citizens-illegal “Today’s announcement paints a harrowing picture of Russian government actions and the lengths to which the FSB will go to interfere with our elections, sow discord in our nation and ultimately recruit U.S citizens to their efforts,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “All Americans should be deeply concerned by the tactics employed by the FSB and remain vigilant to any attempt to undermine our democracy. The FBI remains committed to confronting this egregious behavior and ultimately disrupting our adversaries and those who act on their behalf.”
On Sept. 4, 60 days before the election, an indictment charging Russian nationals Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering was unsealed today in the Southern District of New York. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are at large.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
Threats to election workers, propaganda about violence, burning of ballots. Bomb threats.
As you did for others in a response Dr Cox Richardson's essay, Daniel, you have take a lot of time and done a lot of research to assist the rest of us. And thank you for that, good man. 🤝⚖️✌🏽
I totally agree with you Daniel. There should be no repetition to the weak alert of Obama at the end of his mandate on the Russian interference during the 2016 election. I loved Obama, but there was not enough public dissent at the time.
We need a strong public alert on Russian state controlled media.
I hope there is one big and important pardon for Native activist, Leon Peltier who has been falsely imprisoned since 1978 accused of "aiding and abetting" the deaths of 2 FBI agents on the Jumping Bull Ranch at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Even his prosecutor has decried this judicial judgement and the FBI has refused to release all evidence surrounding the case. It's judicial misconduct at its worst. Leonard surely fits being a political prisoner. If Biden does not pardon him, it will be a great shame. Please listen to my song on this topic and you are welcome to comment on Youtube. Thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ell2BLzNA
The shitfuckery we are witnessing since 5 November is disheartening. While Project 2025 is a 180-day plan, I am using 100 days from the inauguration to assess how badly we are doing as a country, as a liberal democracy. 100 days from 20 January is 30 April.
My thanks to Joyce and her #SistersInLaw for keeping us informed; but, I’m on the ledge.
By 1 May we should know how to resist Trumpomuskovia. Until then, PLEASE do NOT obey in advance.
Fetterman is not someone we can fairly look to get us to the right place. He has some depression challenges and has had a stroke, which can change your personality.
While waiting for May 1st to roll around, read Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s “Strongmen, Mussolini to the Present”. It will give you nightmares but it will give you great insights.
If the violent J6 seditionists are released they will exact revenge on the people they know who helped get them convicted or did not agree w what the did including family members. It seems a lot of people don't comprehend the scope of the FO portion all of us are entering.
I believe that J.D. Vance's actions today on X, wherein he knowingly lied about the report, bodes things to come. His objective is to undermine American's loyalty to our constitutional form of government and replace it with an authoritarian fascist state aka Project 2025 and Mandate for Leadership.
Vance's lying about essential governmental operations is part of undermining our three co-equal branches of government. Turning people against their own government so that it can be replaced with a dictatorship requires the kind of lies Vance posted today. There will be more, and more and more until we finally give up and let them have it all, similar to when Americans turned against their own best interest and elected fascists to high government office.
Being aware of what is to come does not make it any less disturbing to me, an American citizen living in the darkest chapter of American history. If I could, I would leave the United States and never look back. But I can't. I'm too old and too broke. I'm stuck here.
And I am fully aware that protesting too loudly can cost me my income, my home, my reputation, and render me a target of the right.
My Google account advised me that 100 people looked up my address on Google when they were looking at my business account over the last month. People like me are sitting ducks and I am ever mindful of it when posting anything on social media.
So, will being a target of the rabid right deter me from my campaign to rid our government in Alabama of Tommy "The Fraud" Tuberville? No it will not. Will it stop me from calling Trump a psychopathic killer with a thirst for violence and revenge? No it will not.
Thank you for your courage and conviction. Before the election I kept saying that if the rump won I was moving to Canada but I ,too, am old and can't afford that move. I just keep doing what I can. If they come knocking [or breaking down]my door they will find out what an old lady that has nothing to loose would do
Thank you Joyce. I need to hear the good news that truth, justice and love (mercy) are the real and true values of life. Worldly lust is the only value 47-elect gives us.
Since the President is on a legal roll, might as well arrest Trump, Stone and Bannon while he's at it.
Merry Christmas to you and your family Joyce. Peace on Earth and Good Will toward All of Us and Them. Talk to you in the new year.
Can't publish it. The national archivist has been enjoined by several courts and honestly I don't think the ratification will pass muster at the Supreme Court because the original bill had a 7 year time limit for ratification. Most mendments did not have that kind of limit attached so some have been ratified many years after passage, but the ERA ratification is at least going to have to be reviewed judicially before that happens.. Biden week be long gone before those judicial reviews are compete.
Can the judge that is going to sentence Trump also disqualify him as president elect due to Trump being a convicted felon? DOJ should have never left Trump on the ballot after being found guilty. There are problems with votes in swing states. (See Spoonamore's post) VP Harris needs to demand a recount, and not allow it to stop. It is her right to do so. Russia helped elect Trump in 2016, why wouldn't Russia interfere in this one?
A felony conviction of virtually any kind does NOT disqualify anyone from being President. Wish it were so but it ain't. There are only FOUR constitutional qualifications for President: age (35), natural born citizen of the US, 14 years resident of the US, must take an oath to uphold the Constitution. THAT IS IT. And courts have held that ONLY the Constitution Requirements may be used. No other qualifications can be added.
There is also the DISQUALIFICATION for being an insurrectionist but there is little detail about how that can be enforced. Most authorities believe it can only be enforced against someone who is either tried and found guilty of insurrection, or had been impeached and convicted by the Senate (had never happened as no President has a ever been convicted in an impeachment trial).
But that is it. There is nothing Judge Merchan can do to keep Trump from n being President. Even if he is put in jail (highly unlikely) he must be freed during his term in office (at least that is the current holding).
That is but one of the several,outdated aspects of our constitution….all of which need updating and or clarifications: #1 the Second Amendment …which has been misconstrued to allowed gun violence to take over our country and especially our schools. #2 the Electoral College #3 Having 2 senators from each state which surrenders power to senators representing a minority of the population #4 voting rights that permit states to depress citizens from voting ….voting should be easy , universal and mandatory and controlled by the federal government …read about how voting is handle in Australia where 94% of the eligible population voted in the last election. #5 our ability to update the constitution is archaic and long overdue !
I am not 100% in agreement with all of the points you made but in general I agree with most. But we are a VERY long way from being able to change much of it. So even if you're points were 100% right, it isn't gong to matter very much unless you are prepared to actively engage in a revolution. The Constitution was intentionally designed to be difficult to change to protect the country from random constant change. None of us may love that but it is the way the document was made and will probably take many more generations before substantive changes can be agreed on. It may even take revolution at that point. I don't know but at 73 it doubt it will happen in my lifetime.
Yup even insurrection is fine. We are f'd, people. What are the collective we going to do though other than anticipate and watch the shitshow unfold?? And wait to be "picked up" and detained...
Spoonamore has exactly NOTHING, other than personal suspicions that are supposedly based on election statistics that are "normal". There has been nothing "normal" about our elections since 2016. Please stop giving him credence, when his theories have already been debunked, and his not-named sources are questionable, if even existent. All he's doing is riling people up, to turn them against Democrat legislators and decision makers. Eligible voters didn't vote for whatever reason, and that's all there is to it.
In his last term, Trump pardoned Conrad Black, a fairly notorious Canadian who gained major shares in companies and then stole millions from their pensions, at the same time downsizing or selling off the companies themselves. He was convicted both in Canada and the US (and several other countries, he was active worldwide), but after writing a book about Trump praising him, he was suddenly pardoned of several billion dollars worth of fraud and embezzlement.
This one was creepy for me because I met Conrad Black several times, as my dad moved in some of the same circles as him in Toronto's banking and investing areas. He was pretty much a stormcloud personified, and this was just before he started trying to take over all of the newspapers/radio stations in Canada and further, attempting to gain control over what people were told and what news was allowed (I remember my dad listening to CFRB for the news, which was the news station he owned).
He never really had a chance for the internet to wreck him, as he was convicted of his other crimes and incarcerated in the US for several years, and part of his plea deal for other charges involved shedding a lot of media ownership.
He's back at it, of course. He had a TV show, and now writes the occasional article for our still physical newspapers.
The worst part of him is that everyone he's gathered around him -- his executives, other bank directors, other union busters, folks on Wall Street and Bay Street -- thinks the only thing he did wrong was get caught.
So that's the kind of person Trump feels is worth a pardon, someone who stole major pensions and then destroyed the companies, leaving the people without jobs and without their pension.
This just hit really home for me, because it's someone I've been very aware of through my life (I've lived near and worked in Toronto dor most of my life, though I spent 10 years in Montreal only to see his work there, too), that I met a couple of times as a little kid in an elevator with my dad or at some mind-bogglingly huge Christmas party for a few thousand employees when he came by to chat up my dad.
He gave me every red flag, and that's saying a lot as my dad's friends were all stock brokers and hedge fund managers and stuff who worshipped the all-mighty dollar and had heart attacks at 50. My dad's was a quadruple bypass.
I have also seen reference to the possibility that Wray's planned resignation will make it impossible for Trump to install Kash Patel without confirmation by the Senate. I don't have a link at the moment, but David French's opinion piece in the NY Times is what talks about that, if I have it right.
I believe David French was referring to the Vacancies Replacement Act (1998) which requires any Senate-approved Cabinet level position be replaced with another Senate-approved candidate. No recess appointments allowable. No acting appointments, unless the person has been previously approved by the Senate.
I feel very distressed about Wray's resignation. It feels like "obedience in advance" and I wish that he had stayed the course and made Trump fire him. Perhaps his pension depended upon his resignation? I don't know. But, between Wray and Time Magazine putting Trump on the cover as Person of the Year, and Trump ringing the bell at the Stock Exchange - well, it's all so disgusting and sad. And scary.
Read Adrienne LaFrance’s article in The Atlantic today about “de-civilization.” I’m afraid that’s where we are. Violence as a response to everything is increasing. Everyone wondered how the land of Bach and Goethe could produce the Nazi regime. This is how. Remember that word: de-civilization. It CAN happen here, but we have to try to prevent it from taking over.
Thank you, Joyce. There clearly are no conspiracies, as you point out; but there is something amiss in the communications between the FBI leadership and the field offices that needs to be investigated and rectified (not by trump and his merry gang of thugs) As I recall from the 9/11 investigation (unfortunately I gave my copy away so cannot refer to it) that two field offices,. one in Chicago and the other in a Southern State, about Arabic speaking men taking lessons about how to fly commercial airplanes but who had no interest in learning how to land them. These reports were sent to headquarters during the summer of 2001 and both reports were ignored. Then prior to 1/6/2021 no reports were filed from field offices that apparently herd some chatter about an intended attack. This in no way suggests a conspiracy, but it does suggest a major flaw in communication that should be attended.
Just to be fair, in flight simulator training (used for commercial airplanes), landing ends the current simulation and it requires a great deal of work to set back up again. It's normal to start to land, then pull up out of it to restart a session. I've put severalme hours into a 747 sim but I've only landed twice. I only took off twice, too.
I'm not saying it isn't important, I'm just saying it can be really hard to know what's going on, especially if this was just raw data. It might not be something that threw up any flags at the time, but in retrospect looks like a major missed piece.
But I 100% agree with you -- communication is key, and if someone could have seen those smaller reports from different offices combined, it might have given things a very different outlook.
Or not. My brother uses a serious box-cutter at work so it's usually in a pocket, and he's realized after flying somewhere he still had it and it didn't trigger anything. Oops.
Well Trump and his "merry band of thugs" will have compete control over the FBI after Jan 20 as Christopher Wray announced he will resign just before Trump takes office. Sorry...
Re Wray's resignation, I read this which puts it in another light:
'Brilliant move. What looks like capitulation was anything but.
“By stepping down now, as the conservative writer Erick Erickson observed, [FBI Director Christopher] Wray has created a ‘legal obstacle to Trump trying to bypass the Senate confirmation process.’
“Here’s why. According to the Vacancies Reform Act, if a vacancy occurs in a Senate-confirmed position, the president can temporarily replace that appointee (such as the F.B.I. director) only with a person who has already received Senate confirmation or with a person who’s served in a senior capacity in the agency (at the GS-15 pay scale) for at least 90 days in the year before the resignation.
“Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s chosen successor at the F.B.I., meets neither of these criteria. He’s not in a Senate-confirmed position, and he’s not been a senior federal employee in the Department of Justice in the last year. That means he can’t walk into the job on Day 1. Trump will have to select someone else to lead the F.B.I. immediately, or the position will default to the ‘first assistant to the office.’” ~ David French'
Here's a gift link to David French's NYT OpEd, "Did Christopher Wray Just Defy Donald Trump?". If this holds, Kash Patel wouldn't qualify as a temporary appointment by law, even if the Senate is in recess:
I was just out of law school when the Watergate burglary occurred. The denouement of that affair gave me the expectation that justice would eventually emerge, however powerful the forces against it might be. I believe I have finally outgrown such naivety.
Every aspect of the coming administration sickens me…the people, the behavior, the lies. The felon elect does not approve of the constitution because it gets in the way of what he wants, so he ignores it. All his nominees reflect that attitude and all are liars. Every last one of them. And the GOP Congress critters sicken me! Almost none of them deserve to be there, especially after J6.
Actually, as one also in a red state, I know we can still “make a difference”… particularly in numbers. So persuade like minded friends to also call or email
The Trumpian regime perverts the Constitution, social mores, and the very concepts of truth and law & order.
Liar, liar, Vance on fire! 😱 The Vice President-elect frightens me more than Trump. At least the latter is unlikeable as well as transparently coarse and stupid. 🤬
Senator Vance really is simply blind ambition. I was cutting him some slack because the politics -- in the aspect of policies and policy criticisms -- he articulates in 'Hillbilly Elegy' largely align with his current thinking in those two aspects. 🤔
Knowingly depreciating the F.B.I. in an untruthful manner does not fall under policy thinking but in wearing down, insidiously, the rule of law and the mechanisms of republican governance. It is 'sobrifying' (sobering+terrifying). 🤢
You can't cut extremists any slack. Many, if not most, of the opportunities we missed pre-election were because we kept cutting people slack and waiting to see whether they would do something unlawful or immoral. How many hundreds of times in how many hundreds of ways, including Project 2025, did they show us who they are? And still we cut them some slack. This is on us and it has to change. We have to "grow a pair" and fight as hard to keep out democracy as they are fighting to destroy it.
You are SO correct. As things start to go downhill, never stop pointing it out to those who are suddenly 'stunned' at the reality of a nazi regime, and the need to vote it out completely in 2026. No slack indeed.
I hope Biden pardons Native activist Leonard Peltier, who has spent 50 ina federal prison based on faulty info during trial. Even his prosecutor agrees Leonard experienced a miscarriage of Justice.
Well, I never cut them slack & I saw them for who they are. Unfortunately my little corner of the world is in California & as such doesn't mean a damn thing because it's not a "swing state"!
I agree! And I think Liar, Liar, Vance on Fire is a great rallying cry!
Thank you, Laurie. My fleeting respect for J.D. Vance (after reading his memoir) is gone. Louise and Celeste instruct me well: no more slack.
With obvious caution. In fact, I prefer you not sully a good name incorrectly. Do not confuse champagne with Trump Champagne.
Good point. There are Vances who are fine people; once was good buddette in N.Y.C.; SecState Vance; Joyce Vance et many al. This would be a contextual repartée targeted toward the V.P.-elect..
I lived and worked in Appalchia 40 years ago and loved its caring people. I HATED Vance's book. Read "What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia" by Elizabeth Catte. Yes, Vance is all about ambition, at any and every price.
I have always said that JD is far more dangerous than the rotten pumpkin. I am not crazy about Musk and gang but I think that the rump is more interested in them than JD which might be putting him on the back burner. That isn't to assume that JD isn't busy securing his turf.
I have felt the same way because Senator Vance knows better; Trump may not. As far as the Muskrat love goes, we shall see if internal divisions arise in M.A.G.A.-land.
@ Yolanda. Biden needs to report on Russian interference ASAP!!!
In 2023, U.S. Citizens and Russian Intelligence Officers Charged with Conspiring to Use U.S. Citizens as Illegal Agents of the Russian Government. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-citizens-and-russian-intelligence-officers-charged-conspiring-use-us-citizens-illegal “Today’s announcement paints a harrowing picture of Russian government actions and the lengths to which the FSB will go to interfere with our elections, sow discord in our nation and ultimately recruit U.S citizens to their efforts,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “All Americans should be deeply concerned by the tactics employed by the FSB and remain vigilant to any attempt to undermine our democracy. The FBI remains committed to confronting this egregious behavior and ultimately disrupting our adversaries and those who act on their behalf.”
On Sept. 4, 60 days before the election, an indictment charging Russian nationals Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering was unsealed today in the Southern District of New York. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are at large.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
Threats to election workers, propaganda about violence, burning of ballots. Bomb threats.
If Biden does it the media will shut it out.
Bring it out of Jack Smiths office or perhaps just give it to ProPublica.
Only Biden can do it....as I said above it's been in the works. The FBI has been all over it...just need the report. May/may not amount to anything.
I think the Senate option could immediately shake up things.
Not enough time to lay this out but it harkens to the civil war, when Lincoln had to be the unitary executive to save the union.
Russia has been waging war on us sime Putin, and has agents and willing idiots to do his bidding. Bragged that he did it.
Please explain "sime Putin"
Typo --- probaably since Putin.
Good idea. The freedom of the press is intended for accountability.
Secondary to the police power.
Police Power as in the Department of Justice providing legal accountability?
Law and order. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/enforcement_power#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20enforcement%20power%20is,on%20behalf%20of%20the%20public.
As you did for others in a response Dr Cox Richardson's essay, Daniel, you have take a lot of time and done a lot of research to assist the rest of us. And thank you for that, good man. 🤝⚖️✌🏽
I totally agree with you Daniel. There should be no repetition to the weak alert of Obama at the end of his mandate on the Russian interference during the 2016 election. I loved Obama, but there was not enough public dissent at the time.
We need a strong public alert on Russian state controlled media.
Biden needs to stand up NOW!
I hope there is one big and important pardon for Native activist, Leon Peltier who has been falsely imprisoned since 1978 accused of "aiding and abetting" the deaths of 2 FBI agents on the Jumping Bull Ranch at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Even his prosecutor has decried this judicial judgement and the FBI has refused to release all evidence surrounding the case. It's judicial misconduct at its worst. Leonard surely fits being a political prisoner. If Biden does not pardon him, it will be a great shame. Please listen to my song on this topic and you are welcome to comment on Youtube. Thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ell2BLzNA
The shitfuckery we are witnessing since 5 November is disheartening. While Project 2025 is a 180-day plan, I am using 100 days from the inauguration to assess how badly we are doing as a country, as a liberal democracy. 100 days from 20 January is 30 April.
My thanks to Joyce and her #SistersInLaw for keeping us informed; but, I’m on the ledge.
By 1 May we should know how to resist Trumpomuskovia. Until then, PLEASE do NOT obey in advance.
And that is exactly what Fetterman is doing now. Very disappointing.
I think we need to see how Fetterman votes on trump’s nominees before that statement is made.
Yes, he has been acting very much “out of character.”
Fetterman is not someone we can fairly look to get us to the right place. He has some depression challenges and has had a stroke, which can change your personality.
Link?
To?
Here are some links I didn't get in my original post:
Why is America "Trumpomuskovia"?
A New Name for a New Regime
TIMOTHY SNYDER
https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/why-trumpomuskovia
Obeying in advance
Media billionaires ask for tyranny
TIMOTHY SNYDER
https://snyder.substack.com/p/obeying-in-advance
#SistersInLaw are Now in Session
NEW episodes available every Saturday.
https://www.politicon.com/podcast-title/sisters-in-law/
In the Shadow of Dictatorship: Prisons as Archives of Resistance Stories, and the Toll of Silence and Fear
Thoughts on the afterlives of lengthy regimes in Syria and Libya.
RUTH BEN-GHIAT
https://lucid.substack.com/p/in-the-shadow-of-dictatorship-prisons
I'm with you on the ledge - and in my love of #SistersinLaw
While waiting for May 1st to roll around, read Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s “Strongmen, Mussolini to the Present”. It will give you nightmares but it will give you great insights.
If the violent J6 seditionists are released they will exact revenge on the people they know who helped get them convicted or did not agree w what the did including family members. It seems a lot of people don't comprehend the scope of the FO portion all of us are entering.
Let revenge their fucking asses off I do not believe that will go unnoticed and it could really light a match.
I believe that J.D. Vance's actions today on X, wherein he knowingly lied about the report, bodes things to come. His objective is to undermine American's loyalty to our constitutional form of government and replace it with an authoritarian fascist state aka Project 2025 and Mandate for Leadership.
Vance's lying about essential governmental operations is part of undermining our three co-equal branches of government. Turning people against their own government so that it can be replaced with a dictatorship requires the kind of lies Vance posted today. There will be more, and more and more until we finally give up and let them have it all, similar to when Americans turned against their own best interest and elected fascists to high government office.
Being aware of what is to come does not make it any less disturbing to me, an American citizen living in the darkest chapter of American history. If I could, I would leave the United States and never look back. But I can't. I'm too old and too broke. I'm stuck here.
And I am fully aware that protesting too loudly can cost me my income, my home, my reputation, and render me a target of the right.
My Google account advised me that 100 people looked up my address on Google when they were looking at my business account over the last month. People like me are sitting ducks and I am ever mindful of it when posting anything on social media.
So, will being a target of the rabid right deter me from my campaign to rid our government in Alabama of Tommy "The Fraud" Tuberville? No it will not. Will it stop me from calling Trump a psychopathic killer with a thirst for violence and revenge? No it will not.
I stand fast in my right to continue to protest against these people as well.
Thank you for your courage and conviction. Before the election I kept saying that if the rump won I was moving to Canada but I ,too, am old and can't afford that move. I just keep doing what I can. If they come knocking [or breaking down]my door they will find out what an old lady that has nothing to loose would do
Thank You for your service, Judith.
Biden followed procedure. These folks were vetted and showed remorse. I'm good with that.
Thank you Joyce. I need to hear the good news that truth, justice and love (mercy) are the real and true values of life. Worldly lust is the only value 47-elect gives us.
Since the President is on a legal roll, might as well arrest Trump, Stone and Bannon while he's at it.
Merry Christmas to you and your family Joyce. Peace on Earth and Good Will toward All of Us and Them. Talk to you in the new year.
And publish th ERA before he leaves office too.
Can't publish it. The national archivist has been enjoined by several courts and honestly I don't think the ratification will pass muster at the Supreme Court because the original bill had a 7 year time limit for ratification. Most mendments did not have that kind of limit attached so some have been ratified many years after passage, but the ERA ratification is at least going to have to be reviewed judicially before that happens.. Biden week be long gone before those judicial reviews are compete.
Can the judge that is going to sentence Trump also disqualify him as president elect due to Trump being a convicted felon? DOJ should have never left Trump on the ballot after being found guilty. There are problems with votes in swing states. (See Spoonamore's post) VP Harris needs to demand a recount, and not allow it to stop. It is her right to do so. Russia helped elect Trump in 2016, why wouldn't Russia interfere in this one?
Trump is a "clear and present danger."
He must be stopped before he destroys America.
🗽🇺🇲🇺🇦
A felony conviction of virtually any kind does NOT disqualify anyone from being President. Wish it were so but it ain't. There are only FOUR constitutional qualifications for President: age (35), natural born citizen of the US, 14 years resident of the US, must take an oath to uphold the Constitution. THAT IS IT. And courts have held that ONLY the Constitution Requirements may be used. No other qualifications can be added.
There is also the DISQUALIFICATION for being an insurrectionist but there is little detail about how that can be enforced. Most authorities believe it can only be enforced against someone who is either tried and found guilty of insurrection, or had been impeached and convicted by the Senate (had never happened as no President has a ever been convicted in an impeachment trial).
But that is it. There is nothing Judge Merchan can do to keep Trump from n being President. Even if he is put in jail (highly unlikely) he must be freed during his term in office (at least that is the current holding).
As I said in wish it were so but it's not.
That is but one of the several,outdated aspects of our constitution….all of which need updating and or clarifications: #1 the Second Amendment …which has been misconstrued to allowed gun violence to take over our country and especially our schools. #2 the Electoral College #3 Having 2 senators from each state which surrenders power to senators representing a minority of the population #4 voting rights that permit states to depress citizens from voting ….voting should be easy , universal and mandatory and controlled by the federal government …read about how voting is handle in Australia where 94% of the eligible population voted in the last election. #5 our ability to update the constitution is archaic and long overdue !
I am not 100% in agreement with all of the points you made but in general I agree with most. But we are a VERY long way from being able to change much of it. So even if you're points were 100% right, it isn't gong to matter very much unless you are prepared to actively engage in a revolution. The Constitution was intentionally designed to be difficult to change to protect the country from random constant change. None of us may love that but it is the way the document was made and will probably take many more generations before substantive changes can be agreed on. It may even take revolution at that point. I don't know but at 73 it doubt it will happen in my lifetime.
I think it's a law everyone must vote in Australia.
Yup even insurrection is fine. We are f'd, people. What are the collective we going to do though other than anticipate and watch the shitshow unfold?? And wait to be "picked up" and detained...
https://youtu.be/RJR5uQpweko
Interview Thom Hartmann and Spoonamore
Spoonamore has exactly NOTHING, other than personal suspicions that are supposedly based on election statistics that are "normal". There has been nothing "normal" about our elections since 2016. Please stop giving him credence, when his theories have already been debunked, and his not-named sources are questionable, if even existent. All he's doing is riling people up, to turn them against Democrat legislators and decision makers. Eligible voters didn't vote for whatever reason, and that's all there is to it.
In his last term, Trump pardoned Conrad Black, a fairly notorious Canadian who gained major shares in companies and then stole millions from their pensions, at the same time downsizing or selling off the companies themselves. He was convicted both in Canada and the US (and several other countries, he was active worldwide), but after writing a book about Trump praising him, he was suddenly pardoned of several billion dollars worth of fraud and embezzlement.
This one was creepy for me because I met Conrad Black several times, as my dad moved in some of the same circles as him in Toronto's banking and investing areas. He was pretty much a stormcloud personified, and this was just before he started trying to take over all of the newspapers/radio stations in Canada and further, attempting to gain control over what people were told and what news was allowed (I remember my dad listening to CFRB for the news, which was the news station he owned).
He never really had a chance for the internet to wreck him, as he was convicted of his other crimes and incarcerated in the US for several years, and part of his plea deal for other charges involved shedding a lot of media ownership.
He's back at it, of course. He had a TV show, and now writes the occasional article for our still physical newspapers.
The worst part of him is that everyone he's gathered around him -- his executives, other bank directors, other union busters, folks on Wall Street and Bay Street -- thinks the only thing he did wrong was get caught.
So that's the kind of person Trump feels is worth a pardon, someone who stole major pensions and then destroyed the companies, leaving the people without jobs and without their pension.
This just hit really home for me, because it's someone I've been very aware of through my life (I've lived near and worked in Toronto dor most of my life, though I spent 10 years in Montreal only to see his work there, too), that I met a couple of times as a little kid in an elevator with my dad or at some mind-bogglingly huge Christmas party for a few thousand employees when he came by to chat up my dad.
He gave me every red flag, and that's saying a lot as my dad's friends were all stock brokers and hedge fund managers and stuff who worshipped the all-mighty dollar and had heart attacks at 50. My dad's was a quadruple bypass.
I have also seen reference to the possibility that Wray's planned resignation will make it impossible for Trump to install Kash Patel without confirmation by the Senate. I don't have a link at the moment, but David French's opinion piece in the NY Times is what talks about that, if I have it right.
I believe David French was referring to the Vacancies Replacement Act (1998) which requires any Senate-approved Cabinet level position be replaced with another Senate-approved candidate. No recess appointments allowable. No acting appointments, unless the person has been previously approved by the Senate.
Saw that but do we really think Orange diaper-man will follow that guideline ?
The Vacancies Replacement Act is a LAW, not a guideline. But your question is still a good one!
I think the fact that it's a law would make it much more likely that the SENATE will follow it, even if Trump tries not to.
Please see Sally's comment below for a quote and link to the NYT OpEd:
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/pardons-chris-wray-and-dojs-inspector/comment/81335812?r=2y8y2&utm_medium=ios
I feel very distressed about Wray's resignation. It feels like "obedience in advance" and I wish that he had stayed the course and made Trump fire him. Perhaps his pension depended upon his resignation? I don't know. But, between Wray and Time Magazine putting Trump on the cover as Person of the Year, and Trump ringing the bell at the Stock Exchange - well, it's all so disgusting and sad. And scary.
To be downright crude: "It's vomit worthy!" Sorry if you're reading this while eating. I'm writing it as I eat my b'fast so I am disgusted too!
Please see Sally's comment below for a quote and link to the NYT OpEd regarding this:
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/pardons-chris-wray-and-dojs-inspector/comment/81335812?r=2y8y2&utm_medium=ios
Read Adrienne LaFrance’s article in The Atlantic today about “de-civilization.” I’m afraid that’s where we are. Violence as a response to everything is increasing. Everyone wondered how the land of Bach and Goethe could produce the Nazi regime. This is how. Remember that word: de-civilization. It CAN happen here, but we have to try to prevent it from taking over.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/12/decivilization-political-violence-civil-society/680961/
Thank you, Joyce. There clearly are no conspiracies, as you point out; but there is something amiss in the communications between the FBI leadership and the field offices that needs to be investigated and rectified (not by trump and his merry gang of thugs) As I recall from the 9/11 investigation (unfortunately I gave my copy away so cannot refer to it) that two field offices,. one in Chicago and the other in a Southern State, about Arabic speaking men taking lessons about how to fly commercial airplanes but who had no interest in learning how to land them. These reports were sent to headquarters during the summer of 2001 and both reports were ignored. Then prior to 1/6/2021 no reports were filed from field offices that apparently herd some chatter about an intended attack. This in no way suggests a conspiracy, but it does suggest a major flaw in communication that should be attended.
Just to be fair, in flight simulator training (used for commercial airplanes), landing ends the current simulation and it requires a great deal of work to set back up again. It's normal to start to land, then pull up out of it to restart a session. I've put severalme hours into a 747 sim but I've only landed twice. I only took off twice, too.
I'm not saying it isn't important, I'm just saying it can be really hard to know what's going on, especially if this was just raw data. It might not be something that threw up any flags at the time, but in retrospect looks like a major missed piece.
But I 100% agree with you -- communication is key, and if someone could have seen those smaller reports from different offices combined, it might have given things a very different outlook.
Or not. My brother uses a serious box-cutter at work so it's usually in a pocket, and he's realized after flying somewhere he still had it and it didn't trigger anything. Oops.
Well Trump and his "merry band of thugs" will have compete control over the FBI after Jan 20 as Christopher Wray announced he will resign just before Trump takes office. Sorry...
Re Wray's resignation, I read this which puts it in another light:
'Brilliant move. What looks like capitulation was anything but.
“By stepping down now, as the conservative writer Erick Erickson observed, [FBI Director Christopher] Wray has created a ‘legal obstacle to Trump trying to bypass the Senate confirmation process.’
“Here’s why. According to the Vacancies Reform Act, if a vacancy occurs in a Senate-confirmed position, the president can temporarily replace that appointee (such as the F.B.I. director) only with a person who has already received Senate confirmation or with a person who’s served in a senior capacity in the agency (at the GS-15 pay scale) for at least 90 days in the year before the resignation.
“Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s chosen successor at the F.B.I., meets neither of these criteria. He’s not in a Senate-confirmed position, and he’s not been a senior federal employee in the Department of Justice in the last year. That means he can’t walk into the job on Day 1. Trump will have to select someone else to lead the F.B.I. immediately, or the position will default to the ‘first assistant to the office.’” ~ David French'
Here's a gift link to David French's NYT OpEd, "Did Christopher Wray Just Defy Donald Trump?". If this holds, Kash Patel wouldn't qualify as a temporary appointment by law, even if the Senate is in recess:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/04/opinion/thepoint?unlocked_article_code=1.hE4.WKGj.GwStjwkRt3lc&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare#chris-wray-fbi-trump-step-down
I was just out of law school when the Watergate burglary occurred. The denouement of that affair gave me the expectation that justice would eventually emerge, however powerful the forces against it might be. I believe I have finally outgrown such naivety.
Every aspect of the coming administration sickens me…the people, the behavior, the lies. The felon elect does not approve of the constitution because it gets in the way of what he wants, so he ignores it. All his nominees reflect that attitude and all are liars. Every last one of them. And the GOP Congress critters sicken me! Almost none of them deserve to be there, especially after J6.
That's to say nothing about Manchin and Sinema. Good riddance, but not soon enough!
Seems to be a bumpy road ahead. Does everyone have their Senators and Representatives on speed dial?
If you live in a red state, that doesn't help very much. :-(
Actually, as one also in a red state, I know we can still “make a difference”… particularly in numbers. So persuade like minded friends to also call or email
their elected…… who do keep tallies.