Zooey,

Hope you’re right about the strategy. We’ll see. As always with the Dems, you get conflicting reports. It’s what they do. They just don’t have the same kind of message discipline as the GOP. Never have. Though the GOP seems to be off their game a bit lately. Not sure if you caught this, but the White House emailed talking points to their team, but included the Dems by mistake.

Whoops!!

;>)

Another side-note: I find this seriously disturbing and ominous . . .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/28/amateur-pro-trump-sleuths-scramble-unmask-whistleblower-your-president-has-asked-your-help/

By Craig Timberg and
Drew Harwell
September 28 at 7:00 AM

The looming battle over President Trump’s potential impeachment has sparked an online hunt in the far-right corners of the Web as self-styled Internet sleuths race to identify the anonymous person Trump has likened to a treasonous spy.

Their guesses have been scattershot, conspiratorial and often untethered from reality, spanning a wide range of such unlikely contenders as presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vice President Pence.

Some of the online commentators and anonymous posters said they have been spurred to action by Trump’s fury, foreshadowing the online clashes that are likely to engulf any upcoming impeachment hearings and the 2020 campaign.

“Carpet bomb the memes. Everywhere,” one anonymous poster on the message board 4chan wrote in response to one of Trump’s angry tweets about the whistleblower. “Time to rise up. Your president has asked for your help.”

Cal wrote:

Does anyone know / can you speculate why Trump released the transcript?

Does Trump have to make transcripts of phone calls public because it’s an official communication, like Hillary’s emails, as long as they go through the process of being declassified?

Why can’t / didn’t Trump just try to claim executive privilege over this phone call? Isn’t that what he’s pretty much done in the past with the Mueller investigation? Trump just said no to revealing anything that gets to close to revealing damaging information so in the Mueller mess Trump never even talked to Mueller.

I could be wrong about this, but I think Trump honestly believed it was exculpatory. It wasn’t really a transcript. It was more of a summary of the phone call, which left out most of it. Apparently, the call lasted 30 minutes or so. So they cherry picked the part they thought made them look good.

This, to me, shows how stupid Trump really is . . . and/or how his need for endless flattery and affirmation led to truly bad advice.

As you note … a sidebar to all of this is the fact that Mueller’s team was denied access to — and/or didn’t know anything about — certain rather important communications, which obviously hindered that investigation. Mueller said this in his report.

I hope the Dems look deeply into that aspect, and do whatever it takes to make public those communications. Sunlight as disinfectant, etc.

(I think the Dems are making a big mistake if they really do intend to keep this solely about the Ukraine.)

Zooey wrote:

Oh…and another thing on Hedges…

Hillary Clinton hiring a law firm that hires FusionGPS that hires Christopher Steele is not equivalent legally or morally to what Trump did. I don’t think I even need to explain that claim.

Good point, Zooey. And, as you know, the GOP set all of that in motion in the first place. It originated as oppo research against Trump by other Republicans, including a right-wing media outlet.

I can’t stand the Clintons, especially Bill. He was a terrible president, and governed from the center-right, which actually set the table for Trump.

But I also think certain leftists grade them on a much, much tougher scale than Trump’s or the GOP’s. The latter are graded on a curve.

Hedges’ comment about Clinton’s lies being worse than Trump’s is another howler. Yeah, she lied. Yeah, her husband lied. All too often. But they’re angels of truth in comparison with Trump and his 12,000 lies just since taking office.

Trump told his base that their enemies were migrants, Muslims, people of color, the media and leftists in general. That’s straight out of Hitler’s playbook. He lied endlessly about foreign workers and other nations coming to steal their jobs and destroy their way of life. Nothing the Clintons have ever said comes close to the odious nature of that lie.

Or coal workers? Telling them Trump will bring back their jobs and their culture? That he’ll “make America great again,” which is code for making it white again? Did the Clintons ever suggest such a loathsome thing as that?

The wall? Mexico paying for it? etc. etc.

Come on, Mr. Hedges. While it’s true that the Clintons are rotten, they just don’t play in the same league of rottenness as Trump and all too much of the GOP. By all means, he’s right to critique them harshly … the Dems, the establishment, our system — all of it. But if he’s going to make comparisons between the two wings of the Money Party, he needs to get that right. That’s Step One on the road to possible reform, if not outright ending their reign — the best of all worlds.

Another way to put it:

A critic of a system doesn’t welcome help from another system doing the same thing. It’s beyond hypocritical. If one seeks the moral high ground, he or she says no to all of it.

It’s kind of like a person who rails (justly, correctly) against American factory farm practices, the way it treats animals, the way it harms the environment and the health of consumers . . . . but invests heavily in another nation’s factory farm system doing the same thing, with the same effects.

Say no to both.

I tried to include all four links in one post, and this site doesn’t seem to like that. Kept booting me out. So I’ll try just one.

link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/us/politics/nsc-ukraine-call.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

White House Classified Computer System Is Used to Hold Transcripts of Sensitive Calls

Current and former officials said the White House used a highly classified computer system accessible to only a select few officials to store transcripts of calls from President Vladimir Putin and the Saudi royal family.

Second post:

It shouldn’t need saying . . . but “impeachment,” of course, doesn’t mean removal. It’s basically just a fact-finding process. The House can’t remove Trump. The Senate has to do that. And they won’t.

Those of us who advocate for impeachment likely know this and have factored it in.

If the GOP-controlled Senate were to vote to remove Trump, it would almost certainly be because overwhelming evidence had been found and presented to the public. This would also almost certainly take the wind out of the sails of would-be rioters, etc. At the very least, it would destroy any kind of consensus “support” for their actions.

I also can’t help but think that Hedges would be writing something altogether different if this had been a Dem. I hate to be in the position of sounding like I’m defending them — I detest both parties — but with the advent of Trump, certain people on the left, IMO, apply obvious double standards in their levels of outrage. If it’s Trump, it’s “whatever.” If it’s the Dems, it’s full speed ahead with attacks.

We have two right-wing parties to deal with, tragically. The Dems are the lesser obstacle in the way of progress. It’s never made any sense to me that leftists would seemingly get more upset with that lesser obstacle, all but giving the GOP a pass.

Recognizing greater versus lesser threats is essential. Both/and critiques. Not either/or.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Billy_T.

wv wrote:

Perhaps it doesnt make one iota of difference what the Dem-politicans do regarding impeachment. Didnt Kiergegaard say something about marriage once: “Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way”

w
v

Kierkegaard’s famous battle within himself over marriage to Regine Olsen. Similar, I always thought, to Kafka’s battles with himself over his fiances.

A foundational book for me as a young adult: Irrational Man, by William Barrett. Turned me on to Kierkegaard for a lifetime, as well as a host of existentialists I hadn’t read prior to that day. It’s been nearly forty years now.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Trump handed them the impeachment issue on a silver platter, and they’re screwing it up already. .

==================

Well we disagree on this one, comrad. The country is divided. I promise you, at least half the electorate thinks this is all bullshit. Just Dems playing politics. Rightly or wrongly those are the facts we have to deal with. On top of that we have a Rep-Senate that will not vote to impeach Trump, so any proceeding is going to fail. And the American people will get very tired of the whole thing. They will want to decide who is the next Prez, themselves. They wont want the Dem-politicians deciding things.

It just seems to me you are looking at this like a Lawyer. You are arguing ‘law’ and ‘rules’ end such.

See, I look at more like its…oh… Lord of the Flies…or Animal Farm 🙂

We both agree Trump is a vile, corrupt, dangerous, unqualified, narcissistic, lying, biosphere-killing piece of shit. But…my mom loves him. As does about half the electorate. Amerika.

w
v

Ironic, aint it? You’re the lawyer!!

;>)

In my own defense, I’m actually thinking of this in terms of morals and ethics. To be honest, “laws” are secondary to me. In fact, if Trump has shown us anything, he’s shown that our laws are far too vague about things we never thought would come up. Same with “norms and traditions.” He’s shown us that when those are ignored, there isn’t much else holding things together.

Our political system is a teetering, precarious house of cards in many ways. And, my bugaboo is that capitalism has corrupted it to the point where it’s pretty close to falling down — perhaps forever. Trump is giving it a push, and he seems to like doing it.

Also, quick note on Hunter Biden. I don’t see the Dems trying to protect him. That hasn’t been their focus. And he doesn’t need any protection. Yes, it looks bad when the sons and daughters of the rich get good jobs. But that’s the nature of capitalism, and that’s the American Dream, really. As long as we have the former, we’re gonna have a virtual aristocracy. It comes with the mechanics of the system itself.

Speaking of hypocrisy, Trump making a huge deal about Biden’s son, when he was given 400 million dollars by his father, and he hired his own kids to work on the public dime?

At least Hunter Biden was being paid by a private company in the Ukraine. That didn’t come from American taxpayers, etc.

Well, of course, I’m not reasonable, but I disagree with most of her take.

;>)

First off, Trump put 400 million dollars on hold, secretly, without a stated rationale, that was already appropriated by Congress for the Ukraine. He pursues the newly elected president, to get him to invent dirt on the Bidens. On the rough summary of the phone call in question, provided by the White House — which means it’s as good as it’s going to get for them — he asks for a favor, after Zelensky talks about necessary military help. He says he needs him to talk to his personal lawyer, Giuliani, and his AG, Barr, to go after the Bidens. Quid, meet quo.

The Whistleblower’s report, backed up by the IG — a Trump appointee — says Trump administration personnel moved the word for word, electronic transcript of the call, secretly, to a special server reserved for top secret, national security issues, which is evidence of their consciousness of guilt. No one would have found out about any of this if not for the whistleblower. Oh, and he says this has been done many times when it comes to Trump’s phone calls.

Yes, it’s impeachable, and yes, it’s a smoking gun. You can’t use the office of the presidency, and taxpayer monies, to try to take down your political opponents, especially by way of foreign nationals.

As for her comment about Bush and the lack of impeachment. I agree with her take there, absolutely. The things that presidents should be impeached on — coups, torture, environmental destruction, kids in cages, mass incarceration, etc. etc. . . . the US has no history of taking that step, and we should. But that doesn’t mean that Trump’s action in this case falls short of the needed threshold. And to me, if he goes down for this, it will be a stand-in for the lack of action on bigger crimes.

Al Capone was sent to jail for tax evasion, not murder, extortion, torture, etc. etc. In the larger scheme of things, it served the country well.

It was. I agree with the “it’s culture, not policy or ideology.” Shouldn’t be that way at all. But I think that’s how Americans vote.

First off, the vast majority of people who do vote — and our turnout rates are abysmal — choose their team early in their adult lives and stay with them, through thick or thin. Team D or Team R. Then you have a much, much smaller group that can be persuaded one way or another . . . and that group is mostly impacted by culture signalling, but some do think in terms of policy.

Lastly, you have a group of no-voters who could be persuaded by great policies and an inspiring vision, but neither party risks those, typically. Instead, they keep things dumbed down and lizard-brained. The Dems, at times, will trot out a wonky candidate, without the vision thing, or any charisma, and they inevitably lose to the usual scare tactics of the GOP. I may be forgetting a candidate here or there, but I think RFK was the last Dem who hit the trifecta: policies, vision and charisma. I have no doubt that if he hadn’t been shot, he would have won the presidency.

Warren? She’s the best of the bunch after Sanders, IMO — relative to the other candidates. The DNC will do everything it can to stop Bernie, so if they hitch their wagon to Warren, it will at least be an improvement over the usual centrist. But I differ from Ball in this. I think she’ll defeat Trump, unless the Dems botch the Impeachment hearings. Counter to the conventional wisdom, impeachment didn’t hurt the GOP last time. People forget that they won the next election and held Congress for most of the next eight years.

If that was the “price” paid for impeaching Clinton, I think any party would take that.

I’m pretty sure that book was fiction for the story itself. I tried to find it too.

Your take is interesting, and I agree with a lot of it. I think Powers should have trimmed the book a bit, to borrow some of his own metaphors. Lopped off a branch or two. I would have gotten rid of the couple introduced a bit later in the story, for instance. Had to jog my memory via wikipedia, but I think it was Dorothy and Ray. To me, they were the least integrated into the story, the least “organic.” I was also just so so about the computer whiz kid.

Arboretums. We have a pretty nice one in a nearby town, fairly new, and I like to go there to hike, think, than find one of its wooden benches to read a bit. Might do so today. But nothing compares to the Blue Ridge for me. It’s a longer drive, but the views are stunning and nature is the star all on its own, with nothing to prove. No cages. We’re the guests, etc.

Did you finish The Overstory, WV?

Powers uses that term, if memory serves, and talks about the same things.

He drew a great deal from Peter Wohlleben’s work, especially his The Hidden Life of Trees, which also uses the term. Worth a read. It’s short, too.

To me, the problem with “neoliberalism” usage is that it implies, or states directly, that this was something brand new on the scene, starting roughly in the early 70s. In reality, it was just a restoration of the previous regime, the one in effect before the Keynesian era. Sure, it was more sophisticated. Much more. And, yes, it added all kinds of “technocratic” methods and expertise, especially via an unprecedented onslaught of lobbyists, marketing, media.

But the big mistake “progressives” make when they use this term, is that they seem to be saying all was beautiful and wonderful and fair prior to neoliberalism’s rise, and that’s simply not true.

The Keynesian era was a brief pause of sorts, not some established norm for capitalism. And it happened due primarily to an unprecedented series of global events. And even it couldn’t have done the work of “democracy” without accepting a large group of “losers” as well . . . . Capitalism simply can’t operate without them. So, in the lower 48, it was minorities and women. In our colonies, it was everyone there but the 1%. Same thing via overseas labor in nations we didn’t control.

“Neoliberalism” was like the various restorations of monarchies in Europe, after brief “Republics.” It wasn’t new. And there’s a hard and a soft version. The two money parties represent each, respectively, at the moment.