Yes. But Trump doesn't "still refuse(s) to explicitly reject the white supremacist rhetoric and violence", it's much worse than that. He continues to endorse it, and, with malice aforethought, he calls for it, every time he speaks publicly. And, thousands cheer.
He’s an autocrat and a psychopath. It’s up to all if us to vote in the midterms. We have the power. We have every right to be hopeful. As Hillary Clinton just said in her new streaming show on Apple + called Gutsy, “A hopeful people is a powerful people.”
Respectfully, the small group of actual terrorists are not the complete problem. The more serious, underlying problem is that we now have citizens who no longer want democracy.
A small but very rich (and therefore very powerful) group that desperately want to keep their wealth and power.
A larger group that strongly believes that it has found the truth so clearly embodied in their religion or cult (which sometimes overlap) that they feel that they should (or must) impose their religious or cultural values on everyone else.
An even larger group that desperately fears being a racial minority in a democracy and has decided that they fear it so much that they would be willing to give up democracy to avoid it.
You have done a wonderful job of taking a deep dive into the issues we are facing today. Frankly I’m happy to be on the older side of life but I have serious concerns for my children and grandchildren.
All the more reason to remain vigilant and informed on many news sources. The hard right counts on ignorance that their base is uninformed and relies on their lies to turn people in their direction. In solidarity we will prevail to maintain our democracy. JV’s publications really inspire toward this goal.
How overwhelming sad it is to be living in a time when the threat to our democracy comes NOT from terrorists from another country hating us, but by a former president that places the face in the mirror first, and EVERYTHING else a very distant second.
Joyce, have you seen the pictures of trump landing at Dulles Airport in DC this evening? Looked to be wearing golf shoes. Big black Suburban types and you can see a lady who kind of shields him from view partially. He didn't post anything on Truth Social about it, so.....? Angry_Staffer surmises he could be headed to Walter Reed on the QT......anyway, it is out there.
I saw that response from 45 to Judge Cannon which holds no basis for an argument. Re his unannounced trip to DC yesterday, all his movements are being watched for the real story on why he’s there.
Weird that a year passed me by. Last year on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I sort of missed it as I was recovering from c-spine surgery so may have been in a post surgical fog that day.
What I don’t forget was the day it happened. I was attending Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professionals graduate seminar on community nursing on the 10th floor of a 10-story building in Boston. We were seated in seminar fashion waiting for our instructor to arrive when about a dozen admin types followed what appeared to be civilian clothed and armed law enforcement (presumably FBI or CIA or both). They told us to stay in the room and “you will find out in due course what is going on”. After securing permission for a couple of us middle aged females including yours truly to leave to use the restroom after drinking too much coffee, I was able to secure a monitor and turned on the news of which we all witnessed the second attack on live news. One of the students screamed, later to find her father worked at World Trade, but got caught up in traffic. We were eventually evacuated to the 3rd floor where the remainder of the students were assembled, lectured to about the events and released to go home. I took the “T” home, largely vacant because it had shut down and just recently been opened again for operation once it was secured.
I volunteered to do more shifts at a sister hospital to MGH as it had been identified as the Level 1 Burn center as NY had planned to air flight burn victims to MGH. All the elective surgeries and people who were not stable enough for medical discharge where transferred to outlying hospitals. Hours went by and no air flights, meaning no survivors, plus the main MGH had been identified as a target.
I spent another 2 weeks trying to locate my clinical rotations. The city was essentially shut down for 2 weeks and numerous raids and bomb threats took place in the surrounding areas, many of these events never made national news.
This was probably one of the most traumatic and terrifying periods of my life.
Thank you, JV. I have been reading your posts in Cafe Insider for sometime now, but did not know until very recently about your Civil Discourse newsletter on Substack. Your legal perspective will come in "handy" as we navigate through the coming days. Thanks, again!
What stood out for me this morning was the diversity of law students in your seminar, Joyce. They cover the political spectrum. Yesterday I looked up online info on sources of influence on mainstream media from MSNBC, PBS to Fox, Newsmax. The Best Schools website offered info on 50 top Think Tanks out of 1,984 think tanks. Say what? What are us ordinary mortals to make of "what's behind what's up front"? I read JWV, Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich--law, history, economics--and the symphony of ideas is well orchestrated. Occasionally, I look at what Victor Davis Hanson and other conservatives have to say and their information vanishes in my inability to distinguish between their cacophony and symphony. How are we to bridge our differences when our basic principles are not aligned to possible communication? How do you deal with students--albeit bright--whose ideologies are extreme and immovable? When is it time to say that the ideology surrounding representative democracy is only so elastic, not endlessly so? Is violence a last resort to the rhetoric of division?
It is a time for redress and updating and making stronger our constitutional ideals and principles. It is an important time to evolve and grow stronger as a nation. We can do this by growing a stronger majority in both houses of Congress in the midterms in November.
Happy Sunday JV. I always appreciate your thoughtful response on the updated facts of this matter. I am fascinated by all the drama that 45 continues to incite. That in itself tells the whole story. He’s got nothing but innuendo. It can’t go on forever. So many republicans are switching their party affiliations. Too many people are hurting who need real help and understand what’s at stake. 45 is playing the fear card but we know better. I heard a video has just come to light showing 45 getting ready to board a plane to New Jersey in May and it showed him hauling many boxes like the ones later found at his Miami compound onto the plane. This was a few days after NARA had requested docs be returned. So now I suppose intelligence will be wanting to search his New Jersey home or bases. I am certainly grateful to still live in a country striving to set this whole thing straight.
It's encouraging to hear you have faith in your law students, it makes me wonder where trump got some of these people he appointed to life time positions. Many of them couldn't get a recommendation from the ABA....
Well said, as always! It’s hard to believe it’s been 21 years since we destroyed the Middle East, killing millions of “other people”, after 20+ Saudi’s attacked us on that bright, sunny, Monday morning.
What we’re seeing today is BECAUSE of our response to 9/11. Rather than focus on healing from within, we chose vengeance. Vengeance that continued for 15+ years, killed thousands of American soldiers, wounded tens of thousand more…we’re in for a bumpy ride for the foreseeable future, regardless of what happens to #TFG (but let’s start with him*).
Joyce, it occurred to me as I listened to trump being interviewed back when 9/11 happened. He was asked didn't he have a building near the World Trade Center, and he responded by basically saying that yes, and it used to be the tallest building in NYC until they built the World Trade Center, and now it is the tallest building again. He said this matter of fact like. That made me mad, and then I wondered if perhaps he and the Saudis had a relationship back then, and maybe (this could be a rather big stretch) he knew the event was going to happen, and he asked the Saudis to hit the World Trade Center as a favor to him...... I know that is outlandish, but given what we know about trump today, maybe not so much. Didn't he lie about going down to the site to help out? No one saw him....
I will never forget the image of Trump dancing with the Saudis on what I think was his first international trip after being elected. It disgusted me at the time and still makes me feel ill when I think about it.
Joyce, did you see where Trump took boxes and boxes of documents to Belfast? I believe that is the correct name. Anyway, doesn't this reveal add to the crimes of Trump from the Justice Department?
Can the FBI get their hands on those boxes?
I'm still wondering what was in Trump's wife's casket that made it heavy. Plus why bury someone on a golf course. Something stinks.
Yes. But Trump doesn't "still refuse(s) to explicitly reject the white supremacist rhetoric and violence", it's much worse than that. He continues to endorse it, and, with malice aforethought, he calls for it, every time he speaks publicly. And, thousands cheer.
He’s an autocrat and a psychopath. It’s up to all if us to vote in the midterms. We have the power. We have every right to be hopeful. As Hillary Clinton just said in her new streaming show on Apple + called Gutsy, “A hopeful people is a powerful people.”
Where do I find her show? Okay, we barely had a television when I grew up. Hahahahahaha
Hillary Clinton has a new streaming show on Apple+ TV called Gutsy. She tours America talking to women who are making a difference.
Did you expect anything different from a Nazi?
Look it up!
Trump's grandfather was in Hitler's Administration.
The fruit is what we have now.
Putin is a product of that same tree of Hitler's. He is using the same reflection that Trump uses.
Respectfully, the small group of actual terrorists are not the complete problem. The more serious, underlying problem is that we now have citizens who no longer want democracy.
A small but very rich (and therefore very powerful) group that desperately want to keep their wealth and power.
A larger group that strongly believes that it has found the truth so clearly embodied in their religion or cult (which sometimes overlap) that they feel that they should (or must) impose their religious or cultural values on everyone else.
An even larger group that desperately fears being a racial minority in a democracy and has decided that they fear it so much that they would be willing to give up democracy to avoid it.
You have done a wonderful job of taking a deep dive into the issues we are facing today. Frankly I’m happy to be on the older side of life but I have serious concerns for my children and grandchildren.
Don't worry. The Almighty has them in the palm of His Mighty Hands.
Fear not for He is with us.
These are lessons we must learn.
We are here to learn how to love unconditionally.
All the more reason to remain vigilant and informed on many news sources. The hard right counts on ignorance that their base is uninformed and relies on their lies to turn people in their direction. In solidarity we will prevail to maintain our democracy. JV’s publications really inspire toward this goal.
I believe that prayer is the key.
We are still a Nation Under GOD.
Yes, a lot of people have been misguided. Sad but true. We must continue to educate the masses in the truth.
The light of the truth is on. Watch it become brighter and brighter.
Evil is being exposed left and right.
Faith is the Key.
Believing that there are more good than evil.
We will survive.
How overwhelming sad it is to be living in a time when the threat to our democracy comes NOT from terrorists from another country hating us, but by a former president that places the face in the mirror first, and EVERYTHING else a very distant second.
Fear is the tactic. In solidarity we can overcome by encouraging everyone to vote in the midterms. That’s our power, not fear.
Joyce, have you seen the pictures of trump landing at Dulles Airport in DC this evening? Looked to be wearing golf shoes. Big black Suburban types and you can see a lady who kind of shields him from view partially. He didn't post anything on Truth Social about it, so.....? Angry_Staffer surmises he could be headed to Walter Reed on the QT......anyway, it is out there.
I heard it might have something to do with the fact that 45 has a response due to Judge Cannon today.
I saw that response from 45 to Judge Cannon which holds no basis for an argument. Re his unannounced trip to DC yesterday, all his movements are being watched for the real story on why he’s there.
That's already happened. A bit ago.
Will check news now.
You can try. I saw it posted earlier on Joyce's Twitter feed. News is all Queen casket and people filing by paying their respects.
Just updated above.
He has now posted that he is "working" at his DC area golf club today. Still lots of unanswered questions though.
I'd say so. Yes. Perhaps he is digging up other classified docs to sell to our adversaries.
Weird that a year passed me by. Last year on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I sort of missed it as I was recovering from c-spine surgery so may have been in a post surgical fog that day.
What I don’t forget was the day it happened. I was attending Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professionals graduate seminar on community nursing on the 10th floor of a 10-story building in Boston. We were seated in seminar fashion waiting for our instructor to arrive when about a dozen admin types followed what appeared to be civilian clothed and armed law enforcement (presumably FBI or CIA or both). They told us to stay in the room and “you will find out in due course what is going on”. After securing permission for a couple of us middle aged females including yours truly to leave to use the restroom after drinking too much coffee, I was able to secure a monitor and turned on the news of which we all witnessed the second attack on live news. One of the students screamed, later to find her father worked at World Trade, but got caught up in traffic. We were eventually evacuated to the 3rd floor where the remainder of the students were assembled, lectured to about the events and released to go home. I took the “T” home, largely vacant because it had shut down and just recently been opened again for operation once it was secured.
I volunteered to do more shifts at a sister hospital to MGH as it had been identified as the Level 1 Burn center as NY had planned to air flight burn victims to MGH. All the elective surgeries and people who were not stable enough for medical discharge where transferred to outlying hospitals. Hours went by and no air flights, meaning no survivors, plus the main MGH had been identified as a target.
I spent another 2 weeks trying to locate my clinical rotations. The city was essentially shut down for 2 weeks and numerous raids and bomb threats took place in the surrounding areas, many of these events never made national news.
This was probably one of the most traumatic and terrifying periods of my life.
It certainly sounds traumatic, the constant underlying fear and activation of fight/flight response for hours and days. It was a horror.
Thank you, JV. I have been reading your posts in Cafe Insider for sometime now, but did not know until very recently about your Civil Discourse newsletter on Substack. Your legal perspective will come in "handy" as we navigate through the coming days. Thanks, again!
Another outstanding post!
What stood out for me this morning was the diversity of law students in your seminar, Joyce. They cover the political spectrum. Yesterday I looked up online info on sources of influence on mainstream media from MSNBC, PBS to Fox, Newsmax. The Best Schools website offered info on 50 top Think Tanks out of 1,984 think tanks. Say what? What are us ordinary mortals to make of "what's behind what's up front"? I read JWV, Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich--law, history, economics--and the symphony of ideas is well orchestrated. Occasionally, I look at what Victor Davis Hanson and other conservatives have to say and their information vanishes in my inability to distinguish between their cacophony and symphony. How are we to bridge our differences when our basic principles are not aligned to possible communication? How do you deal with students--albeit bright--whose ideologies are extreme and immovable? When is it time to say that the ideology surrounding representative democracy is only so elastic, not endlessly so? Is violence a last resort to the rhetoric of division?
It is a time for redress and updating and making stronger our constitutional ideals and principles. It is an important time to evolve and grow stronger as a nation. We can do this by growing a stronger majority in both houses of Congress in the midterms in November.
This is one of your best posts. Loved your comments about teaching. I get so depressed about what’s going on in our country, I feel overwhelmed.
Happy Sunday JV. I always appreciate your thoughtful response on the updated facts of this matter. I am fascinated by all the drama that 45 continues to incite. That in itself tells the whole story. He’s got nothing but innuendo. It can’t go on forever. So many republicans are switching their party affiliations. Too many people are hurting who need real help and understand what’s at stake. 45 is playing the fear card but we know better. I heard a video has just come to light showing 45 getting ready to board a plane to New Jersey in May and it showed him hauling many boxes like the ones later found at his Miami compound onto the plane. This was a few days after NARA had requested docs be returned. So now I suppose intelligence will be wanting to search his New Jersey home or bases. I am certainly grateful to still live in a country striving to set this whole thing straight.
Donald knows the necessary judicial language. Sit. Stay. Lick the hand. Good judge.
It's encouraging to hear you have faith in your law students, it makes me wonder where trump got some of these people he appointed to life time positions. Many of them couldn't get a recommendation from the ABA....
Well said, as always! It’s hard to believe it’s been 21 years since we destroyed the Middle East, killing millions of “other people”, after 20+ Saudi’s attacked us on that bright, sunny, Monday morning.
What we’re seeing today is BECAUSE of our response to 9/11. Rather than focus on healing from within, we chose vengeance. Vengeance that continued for 15+ years, killed thousands of American soldiers, wounded tens of thousand more…we’re in for a bumpy ride for the foreseeable future, regardless of what happens to #TFG (but let’s start with him*).
Joyce, it occurred to me as I listened to trump being interviewed back when 9/11 happened. He was asked didn't he have a building near the World Trade Center, and he responded by basically saying that yes, and it used to be the tallest building in NYC until they built the World Trade Center, and now it is the tallest building again. He said this matter of fact like. That made me mad, and then I wondered if perhaps he and the Saudis had a relationship back then, and maybe (this could be a rather big stretch) he knew the event was going to happen, and he asked the Saudis to hit the World Trade Center as a favor to him...... I know that is outlandish, but given what we know about trump today, maybe not so much. Didn't he lie about going down to the site to help out? No one saw him....
And Jared has something going on with the Saudis, a huge contract.
I will never forget the image of Trump dancing with the Saudis on what I think was his first international trip after being elected. It disgusted me at the time and still makes me feel ill when I think about it.
I agree 1000%. He's definitely in bed with them along with Russia, and probably China, too.
Joyce, did you see where Trump took boxes and boxes of documents to Belfast? I believe that is the correct name. Anyway, doesn't this reveal add to the crimes of Trump from the Justice Department?
Can the FBI get their hands on those boxes?
I'm still wondering what was in Trump's wife's casket that made it heavy. Plus why bury someone on a golf course. Something stinks.
Why is our Justice Department allowing a Trump appointed Judge to order them around?
Trump took documents from the White House.
How is it that he is still allowed to call any shots at all?
How is anyone giving him any authority what so ever?
It appears to me to be obstruction of Justice on the Judges part.
What do you think?