Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[johnu]

While the Manchurian President is wrapping himself in the flag this Fourth of July holiday, this ad is playing:

 

Donald Trump Is Now ‘America’s No. 1 Traitor,’ Says Veterans Group

 

Donald Trump has taken over from Benedict Arnold as “America’s number one traitor,” according to a group of veterans seeking to vote the president out of office this November.

 

“No one has betrayed those in uniform like Donald Trump,” said the voiceover in the latest ad released by the progressive PAC VoteVets on Friday.

 

The 65-second spot references Trump’s siding with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and his dismissal of reports that U.S. officials knew Russia allegedly paid Taliban members to kill American troops.

[kenberg]

While the Manchurian President is wrapping himself in the flag this Fourth of July holiday, this ad is playing:

 

Donald Trump Is Now 'America's No. 1 Traitor,' Says Veterans Group

 

 

 

I often use the WC to learn or review things, so this time I looked up the Wikipedia entry on Benedict Arnold. It's lengthy, but here is part:

 

Historians have identified many possible factors contributing to Arnold's treason, while some debate their relative importance. According to W. D. Wetherell, he was:

 

among the hardest human beings to understand in American history. Did he become a traitor because of all the injustice he suffered, real and imagined, at the hands of the Continental Congress and his jealous fellow generals? Because of the constant agony of two battlefield wounds in an already gout-ridden leg? From psychological wounds received in his Connecticut childhood when his alcoholic father squandered the family's fortunes? Or was it a kind of extreme midlife crisis, swerving from radical political beliefs to reactionary ones, a change accelerated by his marriage to the very young, very pretty, very Tory Peggy Shippen?

^[63]

 

Wetherell says that the shortest explanation for his treason is that he "married the wrong person."

 

 

 

 

It's not unknown to blame the wife, or more generally to blame the spouse, but this seems like an extreme case!

 

 

 

Here at home, Becky has been saying for a while, only half jokingly, that Trump is a Russian mole. I disagree on the grounds that this would require him to be able to think and plan at least two or three days in advance, and clearly he cannot.

[Winstonm]

Thinking about how to turn the Fox Watchers blue is a reminder of the power of disinformation and propaganda. Watching CNN this morning and the talk was about the lies used in the same day by Trump, Ingraham, and Carlson - the classic echo chamber of Fox News p.m. How do you reach those that are engulfed by one-sided lies?

 

It struck me that one thing people like to hear is that they are right - that their views are the correct ones. Perhaps it would be possible to reassure those right-wingers that they are indeed correct that a large part of the problems with the U.S. is caused by elitists - but they have been swindled by those same elitists into pointing the blame the wrong way. It is the elitists on the right who: enrich only the rich, deny the working man a chance for affordable health care, destroy the regular guys and gals chances to act in unison for better wages and safer work conditions. It is the right elitists who mouth support about social issues but don't care about abortions or guns. And if you are not rich, they certainly do not care about you.

 

Populism is correct. But as a right wing populist, you have been misled by a billionaire Australian into believing his propaganda is news. It is time for a real populism, not the Fox Faux kind.

[PassedOut]

Some people's chains are just too easy to jerk: Militias flocked to Gettysburg to foil a supposed antifa flag burning

 

For weeks, a mysterious figure on social media talked up plans for antifa protesters to converge on this historical site on Independence Day to burn American flags, an event that seemed at times to border on the farcical. [seemed?]

 

“Let’s get together and burn flags in protest of thugs and animals in blue,” the anonymous person behind a Facebook page called Left Behind USA wrote in mid-June. There would be antifa face paint, the person wrote, and organizers would “be giving away free small flags to children to safely throw into the fire.”

Ben Stein, is that you?

[Winstonm]

Some people's chains are just too easy to jerk: Militias flocked to Gettysburg to foil a supposed antifa flag burning

 

 

Ben Stein, is that you?

 

I thought I saw Mary Trump the other day. She kept snickering for no apparent reason. Or it could have been Stephen Miller's high school principal.

[johnu]

The Fox Propaganda channel whose motto is Biased and Unbalanced news:

 

Fox News Edits Trump Out Of Jeffrey Epstein Photo — Leaves In Melania

 

Fox News on Sunday repeatedly featured a well-known photo of convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein posing with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago — but each time Trump was edited out of the image.

 

However, Trump’s future wife, Melania Knauss, was not cropped from the photo, which can be viewed in the video above.

I don't know why the Propaganda Channel would want to crop the Grifter in Chief out of a photo with his best friend Jeffrey Epstein.

[y66]

Trump Vowed to ‘Drain the Swamp,’ but Lobbyists Are Helping Run His Campaign by Kenneth P. Vogel, Michael LaForgia and Hailey Fuchs at NYT:

 

Lobbyists like David Urban, whose connections start at the very top, are thriving as they help the president’s re-election effort while aiding corporate clients.

 

WASHINGTON — The chief executive of the arms maker Raytheon, under pressure to overcome a congressional hold on major sales in the fall of 2018, wanted to sit down with one of the few people who could solve the problem — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

 

But the State Department would not schedule the meeting. So Raytheon turned for help to David Urban, perhaps the best-connected lobbyist in President Trump’s Washington.

 

Mr. Urban was a classmate at West Point of Mr. Pompeo and of Mark Esper, now the defense secretary, and was influential in recommending both men for administration posts.

 

He has close ties to Mr. Trump, who credits him with having helped deliver a pivotal Election Day victory in Pennsylvania in 2016 and recently invited Mr. Urban to fly on Marine One with him to West Point. He has a long roster of blue-chip clients, including military contractors like Raytheon, whose chief executive got the meeting he wanted with Mr. Pompeo after Mr. Urban intervened on his behalf.

 

It is not known precisely what Mr. Pompeo discussed with the Raytheon executive, but in a few months, the State Department had issued an emergency waiver that circumvented the congressional hold on the arms deals, allowing billions of dollars in Raytheon missiles and bombs to be sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The department did not deny that Mr. Urban arranged the meeting but said the emergency waiver — now the subject of congressional and inspector general investigations — was consistent with American national security objectives.

 

The story behind Mr. Pompeo’s meeting with Raytheon, which has not been previously reported, is emblematic of the outsize influence wielded in Washington by Mr. Urban and a small group of other lobbyists and operatives who backed Mr. Trump when most of the K Street establishment was keeping its distance. Those relationships became lucrative after Mr. Trump won a surprise victory on Election Day and rewarded early loyalists with key posts, continued access or both.

 

With Mr. Trump lagging in the polls, the lobbyists are seeking to protect that mutually beneficial relationship by working to re-elect him, underscoring the mix of politics and policy that has served them — and their clients — so well over the last three and a half years.

 

Consider the examples of eight lobbyists and operatives with ties to lobbying firms, including Mr. Urban, who are now assisting Mr. Trump’s campaign in various paid and unpaid capacities, like fund-raising and strategy.

 

Those eight have been paid a total of nearly $120 million through their firms to influence the United States government from the beginning of 2017, as Mr. Trump prepared to take office, to the end of March, according to an analysis of congressional and Justice Department filings.

 

The scale of those revenues is especially striking given that several of the lobbyists — including two of the top three earners, Brian Ballard, a veteran lobbyist from Florida, and Jeff Miller, an operative from Texas — had not lobbied at the federal level before Mr. Trump’s election. Mr. Ballard’s firm was paid nearly $65 million and Mr. Miller’s more than $18 million by interests for which the two men had registered to lobby through the end of March, the most recent period for which comprehensive data is available.

 

And while Mr. Urban has been a registered lobbyist at the federal level since 2002, his federal lobbying revenues have nearly tripled in the Trump era — rising to more than $25 million in the roughly 40 months after his swearing-in from less than $9 million in the roughly 40 months before Mr. Trump became president.

 

The mutually beneficial relationships between the president and the lobbyists is the latest evidence of the hollowness of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” by taking on the special interests, lobbyists and donors who had “rigged the system against everyday Americans.”

This is obvious even to Trump supporters for whom swamps are protected habitat.

[Winstonm]

President Donald Trump said he’s done with Fox News after the network on Sunday showed him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls.

 

So by alienating his strongest support, Trump has managed to reduce his base to the KKK, the proud boys, and one WC poster from Georgia - but then I repeat myself do I not?

[johnu]

President Donald Trump said he’s done with Fox News after the network on Sunday showed him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls.

 

So by alienating his strongest support, Trump has managed to reduce his base to the KKK, the proud boys, and one WC poster from Georgia - but then I repeat myself do I not?

Since the Manchurian President has No Integrity, No Honor, and No Dignity (hmmm, sounds like somebody who posts on this forum), his self imposed ban from watching the Fox Propaganda Channel didn't last longer than a short bathroom break while waiting for the White House kitchen to send up a couple of Big Macs and a half dozen orders of fries.

[Winstonm]

And now the RNC is trying its best to alienate women voters, too.

 

 

 

Republican National Committee spokesperson Liz Harrington on Sunday denounced the idea that “all people are created equal.”

 

During an appearance on Fox News, Harrington blasted an op-ed in which presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden declared “all people are created equal and should be treated equally throughout their lives.”

 

Harrington claimed that the idea is an assault on the Declaration of Independence, which says that all “men” are created equal.

 

 

 

 

So now Trump is down to votes from the KKK, the proud boys, that old guy from Georgia - so 2 votes.

[johnu]

The Psychopath in Chief has a new coronavirus plan for the US

 

White House looks to make 'we need to live with it' the new tone on coronavirus: report

 

Trump administration officials say the White House plans to adopt a new message on the novel coronavirus pandemic in the coming weeks, with the overall tone summing up as "we need to live with it," according to a report by NBC News.

With deaths in the US on a trajectory towards 200K deaths in the next few months, with some models predicting as many as 400-500K deaths, the new motto should be "MAGA, Die for your President".

[Winstonm]

It is amazing to me how so many people in this country have embraced ignorance and stupidity. It is wearing to daily read about people like those red-shirted Trump supporters in California who painted over the Black Lives Matter mural while claiming racism is a lie created by the media. It's just really, really, tiring.

 

 

On Saturday, a white man and woman both clad in red Trump campaign attire arrived with cans of black paint and a roller and began blacking out the words, all the while exchanging barbs with appalled onlookers.

 

In video footage that’s now gone viral, the woman takes charge of the roller while the man stands by apparently filming on a phone. Asked “what’s wrong with you?” by an off-camera voice, he replies: “We’re sick of this narrative, that’s what’s wrong.

 

“The narrative of police brutality, the narrative of oppression, the narrative of racism – it’s a lie. It’s a lie.”

 

Told that the act of painting over the mural is in itself racist, he replies: “This [the mural] is racist, that’s what it is. There is no racism, there is no oppression, it’s a leftist lie. It’s a lie from the media, from the liberal left.”

 

 

 

[johnu]

The Manchurian President will protect religious statues...........in Brazil

 

Botched Trump Campaign Ad Vows To ‘Protect’ Statue — In Brazil

 

So the Atheist in Chief wants to protect Rio de Janeiro's world famous Christ the Redeemer statue.

 

An atheists best friend

[Winstonm]

Bill (Mr. Subtle) Barr's DOJ in action:

 

The United States Department of Justice is using a video from Russian government-funded source Ruptly as evidence in prosecuting Jason Charter for allegedly burning a Washington, D.C., Confederate statue. According to the probable-cause affidavit, Charter allegedly poured an "unknown liquid" on the toppled Albert Pike Historical Statue and lit it on fire on June 20. In the DOJ's affidavit, video evidence of the scene from WUSA9, a local D.C. news outlet, is presented alongside video from Ruptly. Ruptly is a subsidiary of RT, a Russian state-controlled network.

 

Collusion?

[kenberg]

WaPo had an article today abut the upcoming Republican Convention in Jacksonville and covid concerns. I found the following of interest.

The state of Florida has also shut down the consumption of alcohol at bars statewide, a development certain to transform the tenor of any political event if it remains in effect next month.

Yes, a stiff drink or two could be of real use.

[barmar]

Hey, Ken, I was just wondering if you're old enough to remember living through McCarthyism?

 

Yesterday's "Fresh Air" had an interview with the author of a new book about Joe McCarthy, and they made a point about how much Trump has been borrowing from McCarthy's playbook. Does your memory of the original inform your current opinion.

 

I wonder if someone like Trump could have succeeded a few decades ago, when more of the voting population remembered him.

[johnu]

Hey, Ken, I was just wondering if you're old enough to remember living through McCarthyism?

 

Yesterday's "Fresh Air" had an interview with the author of a new book about Joe McCarthy, and they made a point about how much Trump has been borrowing from McCarthy's playbook. Does your memory of the original inform your current opinion.

 

I wonder if someone like Trump could have succeeded a few decades ago, when more of the voting population remembered him.

The Grifter in Chief was tutored by Roy Cohn, McCarthy's government paid personal shyster. It is no surprise that the Manchurian President's playbook is modeled after McCarthy's playbook.

[y66]

There have been a lot of overheated pre-mortems about the possibility of a Democratic landslide this fall, but this one by Henry Olsen is worth your time.

 

Olsen has been, shall we say, at least Trump-curious, so his latest analysis doesn't reflect any sort of pro-resistance wishful thinking. Although I've disagreed with his willingness to rationalize Trumpism, there's no question about his mastery of the data of polling.

 

So this is really something coming from Olsen.

"This year’s Senate races spell disaster for the Republican Party" by Henry Olsen at WaPo:

 

Republicans are beginning to gird themselves for a landslide defeat for President Trump that drags the entire party down. It could be even worse than they think.

 

Elections in both the House and Senate are increasingly syncing with broader presidential races. In 2016, every Senate race was won by the same party that won that state in the presidential contest. In 2018, House races largely correlated with Trump’s approval rating, with even the most popular GOP incumbents unable to run more than a few points ahead of the president. Polls for Senate races this year show the same trend, with Republican incumbents’ totals closely matched with Trump’s.

 

This spells disaster for the party. Public polls show incumbent Senate Republicans trailing in five states: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina. One recent poll from Georgia shows Sen. David Perdue leading his Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, 45 percent to 42 percent, but that same poll also shows Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the state by two percentage points, 47 percent to 45 percent. The clear implication is that Georgia is also in play if Trump’s ratings stay down, which would spell disaster for Republicans since the second Senate seat in Georgia, held by appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler, is also on the November ballot. That’s seven GOP-held Senate seats at a high risk of switching parties, with only the Democratic-held seat in Alabama that is seen as a likely Republican pickup to offset those losses.

 

It could get even worse.

Catastrophic even? You'd hate to see it.

[Winstonm]

"This year’s Senate races spell disaster for the Republican Party" by Henry Olsen at WaPo:

 

 

Catastrophic even? You'd hate to see it.

 

Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people.

[kenberg]

Hey, Ken, I was just wondering if you're old enough to remember living through McCarthyism?

 

Yesterday's "Fresh Air" had an interview with the author of a new book about Joe McCarthy, and they made a point about how much Trump has been borrowing from McCarthy's playbook. Does your memory of the original inform your current opinion.

 

I wonder if someone like Trump could have succeeded a few decades ago, when more of the voting population remembered him.

 

The first I heard of Joe McCarthy:

 

 

It was 1952, I was 13, Stevenson was running against Ike, I made some attempt to understand. I was not very sophisticated, and I did not give a lot of time to it. But I read some about Stevenson's record as governor of Illinois and rightly or wrongly I chose Stevenson, although Pogo Possum was also running and I had an "I Go Pogo" button. I was in the Boy Scouts, we met on Monday nights, I came home from a meeting and my parents were watching a political broadcast. It was McCarthy. As far as I recall, I had not heard of him before. He was explaining that in the 1930s, so really not that far back from 1952, Stevenson belonged to some organizations that were iffy. I am not sure if at that time he was speaking of "The Attorney General's List" or if that came later, but anyway the claim was that Stevenson was not a loyal American. Obviously 13 is too young to really assess such matters but I didn't believe it. In some ways I think of as being similar to my view of Trump. I was not prepared to offer a mature researched rebuttal, but I thought McCarthy was a fake. And, in 2016, I thought Trump a fake. We can argue policies and such, or we can just say we can spot a fake when we see one. This can go wrong of course, but with both McCarthy and Trump I had little doubt.

 

My friend Roger came from a Republican family and was not so convinced as I was, but he was not really a McCarthy supporter either. I went to Roger's 80th birthday party a couple of years ago and he is, to put it mildly, not a Trump supporter. He and some musical friends did a really quite good rendition of the Dead's Ripple. Reach out your hand....

 

Anyway, we were not so political that I can say either of us followed every twist and turn, but I can claim I was an early opponent of the junior senator from Wisconsin.

[Winstonm]

News ot the day: The Scotus has ruled that Trump's claim of absolute immunity is bs. They also said he was subject to grand jury subpoenas. And on top of all that, the judge in Michael Flynn's case has asked for an en banc hearing to determine if the mandamus was approppriate (it wasn't).

[johnu]

Question for non-US forum members: Do any of the your countries have whackjobs like this guy???

 

GOP State Lawmaker Demands Americans ‘STOP GETTING TESTED’ For Coronavirus

 

A GOP state lawmaker in Ohio ― one of several states currently seeing a spike in new coronavirus infections ― urged constituents to “STOP GETTING TESTED” for COVID-19 in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

 

“Are you tired of living in a dictatorship yet?” asked Nino Vitale, who serves in the state’s House of Representatives. Testing for COVID-19 gave “the government an excuse to claim something is happening that is not happening at the magnitude they say it is happening,” he claimed.

Vitale in May said he would not wear a mask ― despite mask-wearing being endorsed and promoted by public health experts worldwide — because the face is the “image and likeness of God.”

 

Last week, he wrote on Facebook that “the only people I know” in history “that wear masks are those trying to get away with a crime. And this entire mask deal is simply that, a crime against freedom and a crime against humanity.”

The sad part of this is that this guy is representative of a large percentage of the Republican party, maybe even a majority.

[Trinidad]

Question for non-US forum members: Do any of the your countries have whackjobs like this guy???

Answer from the Netherlands:

 

No, not at the time the spread was peaking (like it is in the USA right now). At that time people were worried about health and the consequences of the corona measures for the economy.

 

Now, we have everything under control: Widespread testing for infections, testing of waste water as an early warning for an outbreak. Very few positive cases. We are waiting for the second wave. Health and economy are moving towards the background and personal freedom is on the agenda. This was no issue at all during the peak.

 

So, people are going out for visits again. No touching, but that is the least of troubles. We will see how things develop.

 

But no, there is not a single politician who would be against testing for political reasons.

 

Rik

[Winstonm]

The Trump/Barr theocracy in action:

 

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.

[cherdano]

Question for non-US forum members: Do any of the your countries have whackjobs like this guy???

No but face coverings are controversial in any Western country that I am familiar with. They are cumbersome, unnatural, make it more difficult to be understood, etc. But they help prevent a pandemic from growing, so advocate for them with some empathy for anyone who instinctively doesn't like them and tries to find reasons not to wear them.