USA Politics (redux)

[Karl Henning]

Yup, contemptible weasel in a toupée

[SimonNZ]

I find the Lincoln Project's podcast to be uneven and hardly ever listen, but I saw as a sidebar to something else that their latest posting was a repeat of an interview they did with Anne Applebaum back in August which is really superb and speaks directly to the current moment:

Trump vs Democracy Revisited: Anne Applebaum on Authoritarianism

[drogulus]

     Rep. Steve Cohen Says He Saw Lauren Boebert Giving Tour Before Capitol Riot Day

     Boebert denies giving a tour to "any outside groups of 'insurrectionists.'" The tourists weren't supposed to be there, that we know. Tours were ended in March, 2020. That's why suspicion was aroused among a number of members who witnessed the tours.

     

[bhodges]

ProPublica has assembled an astonishing archive of over 500 film clips from Jan. 6, created from posts on Parler before the site was taken offline. The clips are in chronological order, with a clickable timeline to jump to a particular time of day.

https://projects.propublica.org/parler-capitol-videos/?id=0PewiHC6MJ7W

--Bruce

[SimonNZ]

Pink seesaws across US-Mexico border named Design of the Year 2020

[Pohjolas Daughter]

     Rep. Steve Cohen Says He Saw Lauren Boebert Giving Tour Before Capitol Riot Day

     Boebert denies giving a tour to "any outside groups of 'insurrectionists.'" The tourists weren't supposed to be there, that we know. Tours were ended in March, 2020. That's why suspicion was aroused among a number of members who witnessed the tours.

   

I had heard/read that she had been suspected of doing that.  You would think (particularly considering that this was very unusual circumstances) that there would have been 1) a list of who was giving the tour and also of who was in the tour, and 2) that there would also have been some security footage too--at least in the hallways or by entrances, etc.?

[milk]

I beg to differ. If anything, the last two weeks have shown the world that democracy and rule of law are resilient and fully functional in the USA --- and that they can still teach the whole world a thing or two about them. As far as I'm concerned, the democratic, freedom-loving world can have no other leader than the one they had for decades, namely the USA. There'll be a cold day in Hell before China or Russia would take their place.

It's emboldened China and Russia and weakened the U.S. I think it was Todd, who hasn't appeared of late, who kept making the case that Trump's behavior was no big deal and more to celebrate than despise. But one might ask the question, do customs have a function and meaning in U.S. democracy? I could be wrong as far as history goes but trump is at least one of the only U.S. presidents to threaten to reject and then reject the outcome of an election, to fail to attend his successor's inauguration, to attack military families, to suggest "second amendment remedies," to attack people with disabilities, to call for other countries to intervene in U.S. elections, etc.
His prominent supporters made the gamble that they could work with him and harness his popularity for their own gain. They believed that he couldn't do that much damage or the damage wouldn't matter much. They rationalized it. Ted Cruz, for all the craven buffoon that he is, knew very well that Trump lost the election. He sought his own advantage and he lost the gamble.
In my opinion, people who argued that trump was no big problem lost the bet. Now we see that fantasists from online forums have enacted their violent delusions in the reality. Worse still, tens of millions of people do not accept the results of a democratic election. How myopic are republicans that they think this won't corrode elections for everyone. Maybe a republican presidential candidate has won the popular vote once in the last 6 presidential elections. Rejecting elections is a bad precedent for them too since they don't seem capable of winning a popular vote.
I disagree that we're seeing how strong American democracy is. We're seeing how fragile it is and reliant on customs to keep worse things from happening. Now the left is gleeful about big media platforms erasing people. The right rightfully complains about "cancel culture" in its latest iteration. But they're complicit in it when they've trampled over all customs, norms, precedents, etc. And what's a conservative who wants to blow up bridges and reject societal norms and customs? Not a conservative at all: a radical!         

[Pohjolas Daughter]

     Rep. Steve Cohen Says He Saw Lauren Boebert Giving Tour Before Capitol Riot Day

     Boebert denies giving a tour to "any outside groups of 'insurrectionists.'" The tourists weren't supposed to be there, that we know. Tours were ended in March, 2020. That's why suspicion was aroused among a number of members who witnessed the tours.

   

I had heard/read that she had been suspected of doing that.  You would think (particularly considering that this was very unusual circumstances) that there would have been 1) a list of who was giving the tour and also of who was in the tour, and 2) that there would also have been some security footage too--at least in the hallways or by entrances, etc.?

Congresswoman Boebert says that she was only giving a tour to her family.

"The only people I have ever had in the Capitol with me are my young children, husband, mom, aunt and uncle," Boebert wrote in the letter to Maloney. "My mother was the only one of those family members in Washington D.C. on the 6th. During the riots, my mother was locked in a secure location, not in the U.S. Capitol, with my staff and never left their sight."

Prior to the pandemic, the public had wide-ranging access to the Capitol complex, including the tunnels connecting the member office buildings to the Capitol itself. The Sergeant at Arms banned all tours of the Capitol Grounds at the start of the pandemic, but members of Congress were able to ignore the guidance. Lawmakers or staff led tours have never had to register visitors with Capitol Police, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of overall protocols told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/18/politics/steve-cohen-lauren-boebert-capitol-tours/?hpt=ob_blogfooterold

[Pohjolas Daughter]

So, the Trumps are leaving town...no welcoming the incoming president and first lady to the White House (with the usual tour of the private quarters, etc., chatting/conversations), no *attending the inauguration, and what do you think the chances will be that the outgoing president leaves a letter in the desk for the incoming president?    CNN just showed footage of Pres. Trump showing the letter that Pres. Obama had left for him and talked about the thoughtfulness of that letter and that he had thanked Pres. Obama for it.

*first time that this hasn't happened in 150 years

The three times that outgoing presidents haven't attended the incoming president's inauguration in US history:  https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/opinions/presidents-history-skipping-inauguration-day-balcerski/index.html

[Brahmsian]

and what do you think the chances will be that the outgoing president leaves a letter in the desk for the incoming president?   

The letter will be written in crayon:

"I won by a landslide, Sleepy Joe!" 

[drogulus]

     The Senate Repubs are desperately trying to not know very much about how guilty Trump is. That's going to be difficult, as Trump's enjoyment of the insurrection while it was happening and his refusal to provide timely aid to the besieged in the Capitol is ultra damning. If anyone had reasonable doubt about whether Trump intended the consequences of his incitement, the evidence of his behavior during the violence while he watched it on TV removes it. It's a very tall order to not know very much about that.

     

[Pohjolas Daughter]

     The Senate Repubs are desperately trying to not know very much about how guilty Trump is. That's going to be difficult, as Trump's enjoyment of the insurrection while it was happening and his refusal to provide timely aid to the besieged in the Capitol is ultra damning. If anyone had reasonable doubt about whether Trump intended the consequences of his incitement, the evidence of his behavior during the violence while he watched it on TV removes it. It's a very tall order to not know very much about that.

Perhaps follow this example?


Heard a short time ago that VP Pence may not go to Pres. Trump's big sendoff?  Seems to be uncertain at the moment.  Meanwhile (also heard on CNN), the declines in attending his sendoff by the White House staff are on the rise too.

PD

[BasilValentine]

     The Senate Repubs are desperately trying to not know very much about how guilty Trump is. That's going to be difficult, as Trump's enjoyment of the insurrection while it was happening and his refusal to provide timely aid to the besieged in the Capitol is ultra damning. If anyone had reasonable doubt about whether Trump intended the consequences of his incitement, the evidence of his behavior during the violence while he watched it on TV removes it. It's a very tall order to not know very much about that.

Are they? No. They know. And like Mitch McConnell, they know the impeachment trial is their last chance to save (or destroy) the Republican Party. They're like Frodo standing above the caldera holding the One Ring. They can destroy Trump and be free, preventing him from holding office ever again, or they can succumb and become slaves to his sick mind forever. If they destroy him and lose his base they might lose power for the foreseeable future because the party will split in two. But it must be really tempting to be free of him and consign him forever to talk radio or reality TV. What drama!

[SimonNZ]

Heard a short time ago that VP Pence may not go to Pres. Trump's big sendoff? 

Could Trump's Going Away Ceremony Be a Ghost Town?

[...]"On Sunday night, former White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci said that even he had been invited to the good-bye party. "Trust me, that had to be a mass email if one of them got sent to me," he told Inside Edition. That Scaramucci got an invite to Trump's final presidential event suggests a wide net of invitations: The financier who was kicked out of the administration in 2017 after ten days for griping on the record about office politics became a vocal Trump critic following the El Paso shooting in 2019, when the president gave a thumbs up in a picture with a baby orphaned in the attack. That Trump — who values loyalty above most everything else — allegedly invited an opportunist who twice violated his allegiance suggests that the White House could be desperate to put bodies in the crowd.

Another concerning sign came from the Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Ballhaus, who reported that "some recipients" on Wednesday's guest list "have been surprised the invite offered them five guests." In the wake of the Capitol riot and his partial sabotage of the effort to secure a Republican Senate majority, and amid reports of an isolated president inside a shrinking inner circle, if Trump is inviting distant ex-staffers and a basketball-starting-lineup's worth of their closest friends, the ceremony could be a quiet one."[...]

[Karl Henning]

Pink seesaws across US-Mexico border named Design of the Year 2020

Nice!

[SimonNZ]

not The Onion:

Trump wants $2bn for biggest presidential library ever

nor is that a misprint: billion

In my mind a building housing the documents and memos of the Trump administration could only be filed floor to ceiling with bags of shredded paper


(has anyone here ever been to a presidential library?)

[DavidW]

not The Onion:

Trump wants $2bn for biggest presidential library ever

nor is that a misprint: billion

In my mind a building housing the documents and memos of the Trump administration could only be filed floor to ceiling with bags of shredded paper


(has anyone here ever been to a presidential library?)

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

[SimonNZ]

Haitian boy, 9, detained as Trump's family separation policy pursued to bitter end

"In the final hours of the Trump presidency, immigration officials detained a nine year-old Haitian boy with a valid US visa, separated him from his elder brother and incarcerated him, according to lawyers and activists.

Vladimir Fardin arrived in San Francisco from Haiti on Sunday, on a tourist visa. He was travelling with his 19-year-old brother, Christian Laporte, who has been studying in Diablo Valley College outside San Francisco, and had a valid student's visa, according to lawyers acting for him.

The two boys had been on a Christmas vacation with their mother in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and Vladimir was flying back to California with Christian to spend some time with his elder brother and their godmother, who acts as their guardian in the US.

They were detained by border officials at San Francisco airport and held for two days without being allowed to contact family, lawyers or community organisations. On Tuesday morning, they were separated.

Nine-year old Vladimir was sent to a refugee resettlement facility in southern California as an unaccompanied minor, and Christian was deported to Mexico, apparently because that was where their connecting flight from Santo Domingo was from.

As of Tuesday evening, Vladimir had not been allowed to contact, or be contacted by, his family or any support groups.

"We are extremely worried because Vladimir has never spent time alone," Guerline Jozef, the head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance community group, said. "He is nine years old, and his older brother has been extremely protective of him and taking care of him. So, this is beyond cruel."[...]

[Karl Henning]

Haitian boy, 9, detained as Trump's family separation policy pursued to bitter end

"In the final hours of the Trump presidency, immigration officials detained a nine year-old Haitian boy with a valid US visa, separated him from his elder brother and incarcerated him, according to lawyers and activists.

Vladimir Fardin arrived in San Francisco from Haiti on Sunday, on a tourist visa. He was travelling with his 19-year-old brother, Christian Laporte, who has been studying in Diablo Valley College outside San Francisco, and had a valid student's visa, according to lawyers acting for him.

The two boys had been on a Christmas vacation with their mother in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and Vladimir was flying back to California with Christian to spend some time with his elder brother and their godmother, who acts as their guardian in the US.

They were detained by border officials at San Francisco airport and held for two days without being allowed to contact family, lawyers or community organisations. On Tuesday morning, they were separated.

Nine-year old Vladimir was sent to a refugee resettlement facility in southern California as an unaccompanied minor, and Christian was deported to Mexico, apparently because that was where their connecting flight from Santo Domingo was from.

As of Tuesday evening, Vladimir had not been allowed to contact, or be contacted by, his family or any support groups.

"We are extremely worried because Vladimir has never spent time alone," Guerline Jozef, the head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance community group, said. "He is nine years old, and his older brother has been extremely protective of him and taking care of him. So, this is beyond cruel."[...]

It was always about the cruelty.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Well, that was quite the sendoff...and parting speech!   

And it seems that Trump did leave a note for Biden.  Looking forward to hearing what he wrote.

In any event, onward and upward!

PD