I've been at this for a little more than 20 years and it's a wonderful journey.
I tried my best to fact check and offer
commentary (with an attitude, as one friend told me early on) in order to
clear the political haze that constantly surrounds us.
And yet, here we are.
It's just too overwhelming right now. I need some time off and I have no idea how much.
Until I come back, I won't be blogging any more.
Best of luck to you all.
David
PS: The blog will remain on line.
Some text highlights (from Lincoln's SOTU, 1862):
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.... The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.
And (this is from the Lincoln-Douglas debate):
It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
And (this is from the Gettysburg Address):
That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Vote for Harris. Vote Against Trump (and every one of Trump's enablers).
Save the country.
We'll start with these names from Time:
And add these names from CBS:
Add these names from The Washington Post:
And so on.
From CBS News:
Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night delivered her closing argument against former President Donald Trump at the same site he encouraged his supporters to "fight like hell" on Jan. 6, 2021, before they marched to the U.S. Capitol and tried unsuccessfully to halt the certification of President Biden's victory.
"We know who Donald Trump is," Harris said. "He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election, an election that he knew he lost."
"America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote," she said.
Good enough for me.
First, from JD Vance:
Vance: I have heard about the joke… Maybe it's a stupid, racist joke.. Maybe it is not. But we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing can a United States of America. I’m so over it pic.twitter.com/I93s68plT8
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 28, 2024
Message: To all the easily offended snowflakes out there, just get over it.
Second, from the Archbishop of Puerto Rico:
The Archbishop of Puerto Rico formally rebukes Donald Trump, demanding that he personally apologize: “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize. It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.” pic.twitter.com/fK1qR9Vukg
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) October 29, 2024
If you have a chance, head over to The NY Times and read this article.
Here's how it starts:
In the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s defeat in 2020, one of his election lawyers set out to keep the lies about his loss alive.
The lawyer, a well-connected conservative named Cleta Mitchell, knit together grass-roots activists, Republican lawyers, party officials and deep-pocketed advocacy groups into a vast national network. The aim was nothing less than remaking American elections.
Over the past four years, Ms. Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network has done more than any other group to take Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about corruption in the democratic system and turn them into action.
As is usually the case in stories like these, I read them to see if they mention any of the usual suspects I track at this blog - or if there any sorts of connections to those usuals.
Found one - that well-connected conservative lawyer, Cleta Mitchell.
Page 4-5 of the Senate Judiciary's Staff report, Subverting Justice:
FINDING 4: Trump allies with links to the “Stop the Steal” movement and the January 6 insurrection participated in the pressure campaign against DOJ. In addition to Trump White House officials, including the President himself, outside Trump allies with ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement and the January 6 insurrection also pressured DOJ to help overturn the election results. They included:
- U.S. Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, who led the objection to counting Pennsylvania’s electoral votes on the House floor in the hours immediately following the January 6 insurrection. Perry has acknowledged introducing Clark to Trump, and documents and testimony confirm that he directly communicated with Donoghue about his false Pennsylvania election fraud claims.
- Doug Mastriano, a Republican State Senator from Pennsylvania who participated in Rudy Giuliani’s so-called election fraud “hearings,” spent thousands of dollars from his campaign account to bus people to the January 6 “Save America Rally,” and was present on the Capitol grounds as the insurrection unfolded. Documents show that, like Perry, Mastriano directly communicated with Donoghue about his false election fraud claims.
- Cleta Mitchell, a Trump campaign legal adviser, early proponent of Trump’s false stolen election claims, and participant the January 2, 2021 call where Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.” Mitchell emailed Meadows a copy of Trump’s lawsuit against Raffensperger and offered to send DOJ 1,800 pages of supporting exhibits; Meadows sent the materials to Rosen, asking DOJ to investigate.
The Times piece spends some time on Trump's "fake electors" scheme:
Ms. Mitchell and others who played pivotal roles in Mr. Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election, including the former law professor John Eastman, the architect of the fake electors scheme, advised the ranks of activists as they sought to remove thousands of voters from the rolls and pushed to reimagine how elections are certified.
And later:
Ms. Mitchell had been a prominent Republican election lawyer for decades, a veteran of the long-running debates over tightening voter ID requirements and cleaning up voter rolls.
But in 2020, working as a lawyer for Mr. Trump, she took her work in a different direction. She supported the plan to send Trump electors to Congress from states where he lost the vote. She was on the call with Mr. Trump as he badgered Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the votes he needed to win.
Since we already know that:
As they organized the fake elector scheme, lawyers appointed a “point person” in seven states to help organize those electors who were willing to sign their names to false documents. In Pennsylvania, that point person was Douglas V. Mastriano, a proponent of Mr. Trump’s lies of a stolen election...
So I gotta ask, was Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano (or anyone on his staff, or attached to his campaigns or anyone else connected to him) in on any of these meetings of the Cleta Mitchell's so-called Election Integrity Network?
An attempted coup happened. It's kinda important to get to the bottom of it and hold all those responsible accountable. No one should get a pass.
First, the speech itself:
And this is how The New York Times framed it:
Michelle Obama issued an impassioned plea to American voters on Saturday — and, in particular, American men — anchored in a searing and intimate depiction of women’s bodies and reproductive health, and what she described as the life-or-death stakes of returning former President Donald J. Trump to power.
In her first appearance on the campaign trail during this election, Mrs. Obama, long reluctant to engage in the political arena, described the far-reaching consequences of the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, in the concrete terms of personal tragedy.
“If your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating room table during a routine delivery gone bad, her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood, or some unforeseen infection spreads and her doctors aren’t sure if they can act, you will be the one praying that it’s not too late,” Mrs. Obama said. “You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something.”
And:
And she castigated the media and many voters for holding Ms. Harris to a higher standard than her opponent, for “choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence, while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn.”
“We expect her to be intelligent and articulate, to have a clear set of policies, to never show too much anger, to prove time and time again that she belongs,” Mrs. Obama said. “But for Trump, we expect nothing at all, no understanding of policy, no ability to put together a coherent argument, no honesty, no decency, no morals.”
The crowd roared in approval.
Let's remember that Donald Trump is a convicted felon, a criminal who owes a half billion in fines for real estate fraud and for defaming a woman he sexually assaulted.
No understanding of policy, no ability to put together a coherent argument, no honesty, no decency, no morals.
And here's a view from the other side of the Atlantic:
With the race virtually deadlocked, Obama said she was in the Midwestern battleground heeding her own advice to “do something” to support Harris bid to be the country’s first female president. In raw and strikingly personal terms, she asked why Harris was being held to a “higher standard” than her opponent. Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his failed attempt to cling to power after losing the 2020 election should alone be disqualifying, Obama argued. But now the people who worked closest with him when he was president – his former advisers and cabinet secretaries – had stepped forward with a warning that he should not be allowed to return to power.
And:
Abortion bans, she argued, affected men as well. If something happened during a pregnancy or a delivery and the doctor was prevented from providing care, “you will be the one praying that it’s not too late. You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something, and then there is the tragic but very real possibility that in the worst-case scenario, you just might be the one holding flowers at the funeral,” she said.
Meanwhile, Trump is still lying about his 2020 election loss. This time it's with moon-unit Joe Rogan.