The Conversation -- June 8, 2024
David Smith of the Guardian: “Democrats will target Donald Trump's first full-scale campaign rally since his criminal trial with a billboard that brands him 'a convicted white-collar crook'. The ad, paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is the latest indication that the party is ready to become more aggressive in capitalising on last month's guilty verdict in New York. 'Trump was a disaster for Nevada's economy,' says the billboard, which will be displayed in Las Vegas, where Trump is due to speak on Sunday. 'Now he's back. A convicted white-collar crook. Coddling billionaires, leaving workers behind.'"
Donald Trump Asks If You're Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago. Here's the New York Times top story on June 8, 2020: "President Trump said on Sunday that he had ordered National Guard troops to begin withdrawing from the nation's capital, after a week of relentless criticism over his threat to militarize the government's response to nationwide protests, including rebukes from inside the military establishment itself.Mr. Trump announced his order on Twitter as three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff harshly condemned him for using force to drive protesters back from the White House and threatening to send troops to quell protests in other cities."
If you're 60 years old, 69.1% of all job growth since your birth occurred under Democratic administrations. If you're 45 years old, that number is 74.7%. If you're under 30 years old, the number is 100%. -- Democratic Coalition
I'm not 100% sure this is true, but the post includes a Bureau of Labor Stats chart that, assuming it has not been altered, sure makes the assertion look true. If I'm wrong, please correct me. -- Marie
Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president's budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails 'radical constitutionalism.' He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations -- and that's just on Trump's first day back in office. Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump's chief of staff.... Vought aims to harness what he calls the 'woke and weaponized' bureaucracy that stymied the former president by stocking federal agencies with hardcore disciples who would wage culture wars on abortion and immigration."
Benjamin Brown, et al., of CNN: "Four hostages have been freed in a special operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Israel’s military says, as Palestinian officials reported more than 100 people killed in strikes in the same area. Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, were rescued by the Israeli military, intelligence and special forces from two separate locations in Nuseirat, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Saturday. All four were kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7, according to the IDF."
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Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden returned to Normandy on Friday to hail the U.S. Army Rangers who scaled the cliffs of [Pointe du Hoc] eight decades ago in defense of freedom and democracy, part of a speech aimed at a U.S. audience that echoed the central themes of his reelection bid.... Biden leaned ... into one of the domestic aims of his visit to France: to draw a sharp contrast with his predecessor and chief political rival, Donald Trump.... 'They stormed the beaches alongside their allies. Does anyone believe these Rangers want America to go it alone today?' Biden said. 'They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology of the '30s and '40s. Does anyone doubt they would move heaven and earth to vanquish hateful ideologies of today?'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Roger Cohen & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden's five-day stay in France, an exceptionally long visit for an American president, especially in an election year, is a powerful testament to [international] friendship. But it illustrates its double-edged nature. French gratitude for American sacrifice as ever vies uneasily with Gaullist restiveness over any hint of subservience. Those competing strands will form the backdrop of a lavish state dinner at the Élysée Palace on Saturday, when [President Emmanuel] Macron will reciprocate the state visit that Mr. Biden hosted for him at the White House in December 2022, the first of his administration.... No recent French president has been as insistent as Mr. Macron in declaring Europe's need for 'strategic autonomy' and insisting that it 'should never be a vassal of the United States.' Yet he has stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Biden in seeing Ukraine's fight for freedom against Russia as no less than a battle for European liberty, an extension of the fight for freedom that led allied forces to scale the cliffs of the Pointe du Hoc in 1944." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I guess I wish American teevee news readers would at least try to say Pointe du Hoc as the French pronounce it (pwɛ̃t dy ɔk) instead of boldly announcing that President Biden was speaking at Point doo Hock.
** Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday provided the contrast that should define the election. President Biden went to Normandy and spoke about American greatness. Donald Trump went to Phoenix and called the United States a 'failed nation' and a 'very sick country.'... Biden hailed NATO, the 'greatest military alliance in the history of the world,' and vowed to defend Ukraine.... Trump hailed a modern-day tyrant, Hungary's Viktor Orban ('strong man, very powerful man'), complained about 'endless wars' and 'delinquent' Europeans, and vowed to 'spend our money in our country' -- including by 'moving thousands of troops, if necessary, currently stationed overseas to our own borders.'" Read on. (Also linked yesterday.)
** Joe Biden, the Greatest Oil Trader Ever. Thanks to NiskyGuy for the link: ~~~
It's Okay If You're a Republican. Roger Sollenberger of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "James Comer, chair of the powerful Republican-led House Oversight Committee..., has for months trafficked in innuendo that [Joe] Biden's use of email pseudonyms indicates an attempt to evade public records disclosure and hide wrongdoing -- particularly regarding a failed business deal ... Hunter Biden negotiated with a Chinese company after his father left the vice presidency in 2017 and before his White House run in 2020. But emails show that when Comer was a senior Kentucky state official, he used pseudonyms for government business -- including an industrial hemp pilot program involving Chinese seeds which later tested as illegal marijuana, The Daily Beast revealed this week.... Amye Bensenhaver, a former assistant attorney general with the state of Kentucky..., called Comer's denial [denial that he had used pseudonymous emails] a 'stupid thing to say, especially with proof that he did use the email,' adding that it gives the impression of 'subterfuge to avoid accountability.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Sollenberger doesn't mention it, but a quick check of the Googles brings up a Washington Post fact-checker investigation that awards Comer four Pinocchios for his claim that Joe Biden used email pseudonyms to send Hunter Biden coded messages Hunter could use to prop up his Ukraine business interests, so it seems likely that Comer's claim about Joe Biden using email aliases to prop up Hunter's Chinese business is equally false.
National Crime Blotter
Ben Protess & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted ... Donald J. Trump, agreed on Friday to testify before Congress as Republicans seek to discredit Mr. Trump's conviction. But Mr. Bragg suggested his testimony would need to wait until after Mr. Trump is sentenced next month. Mr. Bragg, who had previously resisted congressional involvement in the case, indicated his willingness to testify in a letter to Representative Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who leads the House Judiciary Committee. Mr. Bragg's office said the district attorney wanted to speak first with House Republicans to 'better understand the scope and purpose of the proposed hearing.'" Jordan also wants one of the lead prosecutors, Matthew Colangelo, to testify. The Manhattan D.A.'s general counsel wrote that the office was "evaluating the propriety" of Colangelo's testimony.
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Even as they proclaim Trump's innocence, Trump and his allies revel in the frisson of criminality.... [The MAGA movement is] adopting a sinister set of new, or newly resurrected [values].... Societies fetishize Mafiosi to the degree that they lose faith in themselves.... It's a sign that a culture is in the grip of a deep nihilism and despair when moblike figures become romantic heroes, or worse, presidents."
Danny Hakim & Rowan Gerety of the New York Times: "Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, pleaded not guilty on Friday in an Arizona election interference case, the latest development in the criminal prosecutions playing out in five battleground states over efforts to keep ... Donald J. Trump in power in 2020. Arizona is the second state, after Georgia, to charge Mr. Meadows in connection with his conduct after the 2020 election. He is accused of taking part in an effort to reverse Mr. Trump's loss in Arizona, and, like other defendants, faces charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Yvonne Sanchez of the Washington Post: Also pleading not guilty: Mike Roman, a Trump campaign aide "who ran the former president's Election Day operations in 2020.... After Trump's defeat, records show that Roman helped coordinate the alternate elector plan with Trump lawyers. He played a key role in helping organize the strategy and communicated about the Arizona plan with key Republicans in the state, including the state party chair and others, according to documents.... On Thursday, state Sen. Jake Hoffman (R) also pleaded not guilty."
~~~ Tracey Tully & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "On Friday, [Jose] Uribe took the witness stand in Federal District Court in Manhattan and immediately said that he had bribed [Sen. Bob] Menendez. He said that he had given the senator's wife, Nadine Menendez, a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for gaining 'the power and influence' of Mr. Menendez.... Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York say Mr. Uribe, a former insurance broker who worked in the trucking industry, sought the senator's help in quashing criminal investigations into two of Mr. Uribe's associates. In return, an indictment says, Mr. Uribe helped to buy Ms. Menendez, then the senator's girlfriend, a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible worth more than $60,000."
Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "Lawyers for Hunter Biden called his daughter Naomi to the witness stand on Friday as they sought to challenge the government's argument that he had lied about his drug use on a federal firearms application in 2018. It is part of the defense's broader effort to undercut the contemporaneous text messages, bank records as well as Mr. Biden's own words that prosecutors have introduced in an effort to show that his spiral into an unrelenting addiction to crack cocaine extended to the months and weeks before and after he bought the gun. But that strategy appeared to falter under cross-examination, with government lawyers eliciting anguished, and excruciating, details about their relationship at the time. After she left the stand, she briefly hugged Mr. Biden.... The defense argues that the question [on the firearms application] is worded in the present tense, and that the government cannot prove that on the day he acquired the gun, Oct. 12, 2018, Mr. Biden was using crack cocaine.... Even as the prosecution relied on Mr. Biden's former partners to detail a habit that spiraled into drug-fueled partying and a cross-country odyssey in faltering efforts to get sober, the women also acknowledged that neither had seen Mr. Biden in the month that he bought the gun." (Also linked yesterday.)
** Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged on Friday additional luxury travel he had accepted from a conservative billionaire, amending a previous financial disclosure to reflect trips he had taken to an Indonesian island and a secretive all-male club in the Northern California redwoods. The trips, taken in 2019, were earlier revealed by ProPublica, but it is the first time that Justice Thomas has included them on his financial disclosures. Other Supreme Court justices chronicled their gifts, travel and money earned from books and teaching.... Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension this year, said the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts... Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reported receiving four concert tickets valued at about $3,700 from Beyoncé and $10,000 of artwork for her chambers from the Alabama artist and musician Lonnie Holley. The financial disclosures, released yearly, are one of the few public records available about the justices' lives, providing select details of their activities outside the court....
"When his form was released to the public, Justice Thomas included an unusual addendum, a statement defending his acceptance of gifts from Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a donor to conservative causes. He had 'inadvertently omitted' information on earlier forms, the statement said, which also sought to justify his decision to fly on private jets. He stated that he had been advised to avoid commercial travel after the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade." Politico's report was here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Thomas Continues to Hide Expensive Gifts, Breaking the Law. Joshua Kaplan, et al., of ProPublica: "Even after the new amendments, there are many gifts [Clarence] Thomas received that he has still not disclosed. As ProPublica previously reported, in 2019, Thomas flew to Indonesia on [Harlan] Crow's private jet for an extended island cruise on Crow's superyacht. If Thomas had chartered the plane and the yacht himself, it could have cost more than half a million dollars. Seven ethics-law experts said that Thomas appeared to have violated federal law by failing to disclose the free travel. Thomas did not mention the flight to Indonesia or the yacht trip in his new filing. However, he disclosed a previously unknown detail about the trip: that Crow and his wife paid for Thomas' stay at a hotel in Bali. Thomas acknowledged that he should have reported that. ProPublica also reported that Thomas had taken at least six undisclosed trips with Crow to the Bohemian Grove. Thomas' amendments to his reports include only one of those trips. Members typically must pay thousands of dollars to bring a guest to the retreat."
~~~ To: Administrative Office. From: Your Superiors Clarence & Sam: So we couldn't get our gift disclosure forms in on time -- including some stuff from five years ago -- because we were flying around the globe and stopping at luxury resorts, all paid for by billionaire buddies of ours who have business before the Court, and it's all necessary for our safety since there are some dangerous broads out there who are even meaner than Ginni & Martha-Ann just because we took away their rights to bodily autonomy, and we are advised they might be mean to us if they catch us at the commercial airport where the riffraff go. So maybe we'll tell you later about what fun we had with the globetrotting, and maybe we'll bring you a souvenir from our luxury travels if you like those shampoos in tiny plastic bottles.
Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "A retired federal judge has delivered an unusually stark warning about the Supreme Court and the future of the planet and democracy, which he says is imperiled by a conservative majority that is amassing power for itself while weakening minority voting rights and making it harder for the federal government to protect the health and safety of Americans. In a memoir published this month, David Tatel joined other retired judges who have been publicly critical of the Supreme Court at a time when public opinion and confidence in the institution is at historic lows and as some justices have been consumed by ethics controversies.... The 82-year-old judge, a leading candidate for the high court during the Clinton administration, writes that he stepped down from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in January in part because he was tired of having his work reviewed 'by a Supreme Court that seemed to hold in such low regard the principles to which I've dedicated my life.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I would not be surprised if other judges retire (or have retired) because they're sick of having their well-wrought decisions overturned by a cabal of partisan hacks. That, too, is a danger to democracy.
Presidential Race
Lauren Egan of Politico: "President Joe Biden's campaign launched an attack ad against ... Donald Trump from France on Friday, placing Trump's past criticisms of members of the military against the image of the hallowed grounds of Normandy. The minute-long video -- which was shared on X after Biden concluded a speech at Pointe du Hoc -- went after Trump for reportedly disparaging service members, including calling them 'losers' and 'suckers.'" ~~~
Donald Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about service to his country. pic.twitter.com/kls13Z8yHb
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 7, 2024
Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: "... tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered on behalf of the famed left-wing academic [Cornel West] in key states thanks to self-organized grassroots volunteers -- and some help from outside operatives tied to a Republican consulting firm.... [For example,] emails from elections officials, obtained through a request under North Carolina's Public Records Law, show the pro-West Justice for All Party authorized three people to pick up and drop off signatures for them statewide -- and all three are current or past employees of a Colorado-based Republican political firm called Blitz Canvassing."
Chris Cameron of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has in recent days been escalating his suggestions that he could prosecute his political enemies if elected in November. In interviews broadcast on Thursday and earlier this week, Mr. Trump's remarks demonstrated how he was trying to put his legal troubles on the ballot as a referendum on the American justice system and the rule of law. His allies in the Republican Party have also joined his calls for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony convictions by a jury in a New York court on 34 charges. Mr. Trump was offered several opportunities by sympathetic interviewers in recent days -- including an appearance with Dr. Phil McGraw, the television host -- to clarify or walk back his previous statements. Mr. Trump instead defended his position, saying at points that 'I don't want to look naïve' and that 'sometimes revenge can be justified.'" An ABC News story is here.
Jeff Stein & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump is vowing to wrest key spending powers from Congress if elected this November, promising to assert more control over the federal budget than any president in U.S. history.... Depending on the response from the Supreme Court and Congress, Trump's plans could upend the balance of power between the three branches of the federal government.... On his campaign website, Trump has said he will push Congress to repeal parts of the 1974 law that restricts the president's authority to spend federal dollars without congressional approval. Trump has also said he will unilaterally challenge that law by cutting off funding for certain programs, promising on his first day in office to order every agency to identify 'large chunks' of their budgets that would be halted by presidential edict.... 'What the Trump team is saying is alarming, unusual and really beyond the pale of anything we've seen,' said Eloise Pasachoff, a budget and appropriations law expert at Georgetown Law School."
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Biden administration on Friday tightened vehicle fuel mileage standards, part of its strategy to transform the American auto market into one that is dominated by electric vehicles that do not emit the pollution that is heating the planet. The new mileage standards announced by the Transportation Department are among several regulations the administration is using to prod carmakers to produce more electric vehicles. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency issued strict new limits on tailpipe pollution that are designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032...."
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Arizona. Chris Cameron & Kellen Browning of the New York Times: "Kari Lake, the leading Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, delivered a speech in front of a Confederate flag at a Trump-themed merchandise store in Show Low, Ariz., last week. Footage of the speech, which was obtained by The New York Times, showed Ms. Lake on May 31 repeating lies about the 2020 election's having been stolen from ... Donald J. Trump as she stood in front of a Confederate battle standard hanging in the store.... The store, known as the Trumped Store, sells a variety of pro-Trump and 2020 election-denier merchandise as well as the Confederate battle flag and the Confederate national flag." The Guardian's story is here.
Louisiana. Sydney Page of the Washington Post: "Elijah Hogan, a young man who lives in a New Orleans Covenant House homeless shelter for young people, just completed high school as valedictorian of his class.
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The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.
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I found this Chris Hayes segment very interesting, yet another way that Joe Biden [with his competent advisers] is using the power of the US government to make life better for us now, making money for the US Treasury, and boosting the market for renewables:
https://youtu.be/9-q2PWkZKIA?si=HnLtl-rm65_H5IxD
This sermon appeared in today's edition of the local paper:
CORRUPTION IS KING
I had heard that if you drop a frog in a pot of cold water and gradually raise the water’s temperature, the frog won’t notice the rising heat until it’s too late to jump to safety. The result? One boiled frog.
There are many signs we are living in boiling frog times. Changes are often so gradual they go unnoticed. We casually accept the new as normal, and suddenly we’re in hot water.
Trump’s recent conviction on 34 felony counts of business, tax and election fraud is certainly out of the ordinary. He is the first president or former president to be a convicted felon. I wonder, though, how many will notice or care.
In only forty-eight hours, the Trump campaign claimed it raised almost $35 million after the jury’s unanimous decision (nytimes.com). That’s a lot of not caring. It’s as if over the years we’ve been trained to accept law breaking and corruption, even to admire it. Trump certainly seems to be counting on that. In the week before his conviction, he deliberately cultivated an outlaw image by associating with accused murderers and tossing around promised pardons like confetti (nytimes.com).
When I was on I-5 the other day heading to Seattle, most drivers were going 80 mph in 60 mph zones. Speeding on freeways has become customary. Speeding is not a felony, but since it is a crime, there are obviously many criminals on our highways. That day, to keep up with traffic, I was one of them.
Though tax evasion is both a crime and a felony, one in six Americans have openly said they cheat when filing their returns (fool.com). We know that some have proudly said not paying taxes is “smart,” but regardless of how tax evaders feel, they add perhaps as much as a trillion dollars a year to our shared national debt (budget.senate.gov).
Unlike tax evasion, plagiarism is seldom criminal, but it is always dishonest. Sadly, plagiarism is common these days and is becoming more so. Eighty nine percent of students admit to using ChatGPT for homework (forbes.com). On whatever academic track they travel, students have learned copying is faster and easier than thinking.
Violent crimes, not tax evasion and plagiarism, grab the headlines. To heighten our national angst, the Republican Party leader tells us that we’re experiencing a crime wave fueled by hordes of killers and rapists filtering across our southern border. In fact, though, according to the FBI violent crime has declined in the last few years (fbi.gov). Not only that, but recent immigrants have continued the pattern established by previous generations of immigrants. They are more law-abiding than the general population (siepr.stanford.edu).
That is not to say there is less crime overall. Property crime is up in some areas, scams abound, and white-collar crime is rife. Credit cards are stolen, banks charge questionable fees, Medicare loses $60-100 billion to fraud every year (forbes.com), and wage theft costs American workers about $50 billion annually (inthesetimes.com). Yet much non-violent crime remains hidden from the public eye. According to the FBI, ninety percent of white-collar crime goes unreported.
In both its decisions and conduct, standards of behavior have loosened even at the Supreme Court. In the last two decades, the Court has limited the definition of corruption to specific quid pro quo transactions--as in “you give me this and I’ll give you that”—making bribery harder to identify and prosecute(thoughtco.com); and by deciding that corporations are people and money is speech, it has allowed wealthy corporations and individuals to direct unlimited money to candidates and elections. This last week, forced into adopting an ethics code after some of its members accepted lavish gifts from wealthy patrons, the Court nonetheless made sure their new code had no teeth. In their new code, there’s not a slap on the wrist in sight.
All this made me think of that poor frog, sitting obliviously in the pot as the water’s temperature rises. When I checked on him, though, I learned I needn’t have worried. Turns out, when the water gets uncomfortably warm, the frog is smart enough to jump out of the pot (wikipedia.org).
I’m hoping we’re as smart as a frog.
Ken,
I’m hoping for a little more. Sure, we need to be alert frogs and hop out of the pot. That’s step one. Absolutely have to do that. Otherwise we’re gonna be cooked and devoured. I, for one, have no interest in being a blue plate special at Chiselin’ Donnie’s MAGA Diner.
Step two, find a princess.
Step three, get kissed and turn into a prince.
Step four, as prince, with the power of the realm behind you, order the castle guards to grab that fat bastard, Chiselin’ Donnie, who threw you in the pot and turned up the heat to boil. Throw his ass in jail.
Step five, as much as you’d like to put him and his whole diner staff into another boiling pot (forget starting with cold water, treat ‘em likr lobsters: straight into boiling water), they’d be inedible, being as they’re all poisonous. So…
Step six, banish the lot from the kingdom. Wave bye-bye as a procession of donkey carts ushers them back to Magastan where they can rant and rave, shovel the shit from 2000 mules, wear three shirts, look for Jewish space lasers, sleep on crappy pillows, and eat each other.
Step seven, welcome back to America.
I believe you didn't...
Like a racist pig…
Last week, the lump of racist, lying fecal mater known as Donald Trump, responded to Senator Chuck Schumer’s entirely accurate criticism of war criminal Netanyahu, by screeching that he, Schumer, “has become like a Palestinian”. Round of hurrahs from Fatty’s Waffen SS in Congress.
Just think about that. “Like a Palestinian”!
Is it okay to say “like a Jew” when your goal is to attack someone and question their motives? “Oh yeah! Just like a JEW!”
Or a Mexican, or Italian, or whatever.
But I have yet to see a single outlet of corporate media take him to task for a statement that says “All Palestinians are evil, murdering terrorists!” Not a one. No editorials, no outraged polemics about how this racist pig has so debased our country.
Know what I read?
“TRUMP CALLS SCHUMER A PALESTINIAN! Aieeeee!”
It’s not just that he gets away with this sort of disgusting analogy, it’s that corporate media goes along with it, supports it, agrees with it. Obviously they do, or major outlets would go after him, rather than being so fearful of pissing off some secessionist Trumpy scumbags, they let it go.
This is how we will lose. Allowing such racist pig assertions to go unchallenged. WORSE…to write ledes parroting such disgusting rhetoric.
But oh…I guess I’m OVERREACTING!
But when someone writes that Trump is behaving LIKE A FASCIST, that person is attacked with cluster bombs and biologic weapons. Both Sides opionators tut-tut-tut, stroke the chin, and lecture the writer about “divisive rhetoric”.
Again, this is how we lose.