STEADY essays by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
-
todays entry....
Guns, Abortion, and the American Flag
Can Democrats turn the tables?
8 min ago3
Credit: Jake OlimbGuns.
Abortion.
And the American flag.For a long time, most Democratic campaign strategists viewed wading into these topics with about as much enthusiasm as running naked through a patch of poison ivy. There were exceptions, but the thinking was that guns and abortion were the kind of so-called “culture war” issues (more on that phrase in a moment) that animated the right flank of the political spectrum. And flag-waving patriotism was also something that Republican candidates tended to carry off more naturally (and successfully) than their Democratic counterparts.
Coverage of politics often takes on the vocabulary of war. And these issues were considered Republican turf, easy for the GOP to defend and weaponize for their advancement. In political campaigns, these topics were often treated as three fronts of the same battle. Republican candidates frequently have used their definition of patriotism — which includes expanding gun culture and ending a woman’s right to choose — as a rallying cry for their voters to come to the polls. This has been the strategy across decades of elections, around the country and at all levels of government.
The way conventional wisdom tends to work in politics is that it doesn’t shape only how campaigns are run, but the coverage of campaigns, as well — and thus, by extension, the broader political dynamics of the country. There is a feedback loop between what campaigns think will work and what reporters say does work. So these strategies are trotted out, election season after election season, because they are assumed to be effective. And what I have witnessed over the years suggests those assumptions were mostly correct.
But here’s the funny thing about conventional wisdom: It is true until it isn’t. The nature of politics makes determining what works and what doesn’t quite difficult to tease out. People vote for candidates for a variety of reasons, and ultimately it often comes down to a binary choice. Do I pull the lever (or circle in the bubble) for the person with an R next to their name, or a D? What motivates people to get out and vote is the secret sauce of effective political movements. And there is a school of thought that political campaigns tend to make the mistake of running the playbook of the previous election, just as armies make the mistake of fighting the last war.
The purpose of this column isn’t to dive into the social science research of voting patterns or to analyze the larger trend lines of previous elections. We may return to some of these issues in the future, such as the rural/urban divide and the reliability — or unreliability — of the youth vote. We will note, as we have in the past and will likely do again in the future, that race and views about race command an outsized influence in our political dynamics.
At this moment, however, I want to suggest that perhaps we are at an inflection point on guns, abortion, and even the definition of American patriotism that could upend the political calculus of the country. On the other hand, maybe we are in for more of the same.
The headwinds for Democrats in the midterms appear to be at a gale force. There is the reality that the party not occupying the White House usually wins seats in Congress, and often a lot of them. So Democrats, with their thinnest of majorities, are presumed by most election handicappers to be in trouble. When you add to these historical headwinds a very unpopular president and spiking inflation, the picture becomes even bleaker.
The mantra of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid,” doesn’t sound too good for the Democrats now. It doesn’t matter if the causes of inflation, and high gas prices in particular, are global and complicated. The party in the White House usually takes the blame, regardless of which party it is.
You can add the potential for voter apathy to the mix of dangers the Democrats face. Without Trump on the ballot, and with economic and other uncertainties unsettling the electorate, there’s a real question of how many Democratic voters will show up in November. The party tends to have trouble with turnout in midterm elections. And while some Republican voters and independents who lean that way voted for Biden in 2020, will they return to the GOP this time around?
The difficult case the Democrats have to make is that yes, the economy is in a rough place, and yes there is uncertainty, from the pandemic to war in Europe, and yes much of Biden’s agenda has been stymied in the Senate, but the Republicans are not to be trusted with your future or that of American democracy. It can be boiled down to “authoritarianism is a lot worse than high gas prices.” You would hope it would be an easy sell. But it must start with people believing the existential threat to America is real.
And this is where the “culture wars” come in. I use this phrase because it is part of our current political parlance, but I don’t like it. It suggests that these are issues of culture rather than health and safety, or autonomy, or basic decency. It assumes opposing forces with absolutist beliefs and no room for compromise. And it suggests those forces are of equal or at least near-equal strength.
Abortion and guns have animated our political discourse for a long time. There is clear delineation between how the political parties view these issues, at least today. It wasn’t always the case. Yet the political polarization isn’t matched by the beliefs of the population at large. There is overwhelming support for some limits on gun ownership, such as background checks, raising the minimum age of purchase, and red flag laws. On abortion, there is also majority support for women having control of their own bodies. And yet the Republicans have made pushing their minority views a hallmark of their political posturing and their selection of judges.
The Supreme Court may turn out to be an unwitting ally for Democratic get-out-the vote efforts. With decisions pending that will apparently overturn Roe v. Wade and weaken gun control measures, the court is injecting a combustible uncertainty into the elections. So too are governments in red states, which are passing draconian measures on both issues that are far outside of the mainstream American consensus. There is an open question, however, of whether these provisions, as unpopular as they may be, will spur opposition at the polls. People say they don’t like abortion restrictions and do want commonsense gun laws, but will they be motivated to vote because of it?
But there is another issue at play that may amplify the electoral energy for Democrats, and that is the very definition of America. After the first night of congressional hearings into the coup attempt of January 6, it is clear that the events leading up to that day, and the explosion of violence on January 6 itself, will be a storyline in the fall elections. The high ratings for people tuning in to watch the hearings suggest there is a lot of interest across the country. This is the most egregious attack on America’s constitutional order since the Civil War. The rioters who used American flags to beat police officers at the Capitol and who waved Confederate flags in the halls of Congress represent as clear a definition of the antithesis of American patriotism as you are likely to find.
Guns. Abortion. And the American flag — it is a narrative that provokes a series of piercing questions:
Do you want to live under reactionary minority rule?
Can you trust our government with people who claim fealty to autocracy?
Is this the America you know and love?
Or even recognize?Over the course of my life, I have seen the pendulum of American politics swing back and forth. Overall, however, the path has been one of general progress toward becoming a more just and inclusive democracy. In recent years, however, one political party has swung far to the extreme, both ideologically and in terms of desperation to retain power. Democrats will try to make the case that this is a dire and untenable state of affairs, an existential threat to America. Will they get enough voters to look past the pronounced challenges of the present to repel extremism and vote to strengthen American democracy for the future?
LikeComment
See allPublish on Substack© 2022 Dan RatherSubstack is the home for great writing
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
The Coup Continues
There is nothing past tense about January 6, 2021
3 hr ago
Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano was at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and is a promoter of the Big Lie. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)There is nothing past tense about January 6, 2021, even though the date itself is about 18 months ago. The currents that exploded that day are, and will continue to be (with an emphasis on the present and future tenses), a direct threat to the continuation of the United States as a democratic republic.
The congressional committee investigating the insurrection represents not merely a fact-finding exercise to correctly document history, as important as that mission would be. They are firefighters battling a blaze of autocracy and unconstitutional depravity sweeping across the country.
In the hearings this week, the esteemed Michael Luttig, a retired conservative federal judge, starkly concluded that had Donald Trump been successful in his attempts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election, America “would immediately have been plunged into…a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis."
As becomes more and more clear through a cascade of revelations, this was an organized attempt to destroy the United States as a nation based upon the rule of law and the principle that when we hold elections, we honor the results, no matter if our preferred candidate wins or loses. And the pressure on Pence was only part of the plan. It also included attempts to appoint alternative slates of electors in battleground states in direct contradiction of the will of the voters in those states. The goal was to sow confusion, violence in the streets be damned, just as long as Trump could remain in power.
Trump and his confederates — and I choose that word in full recognition of its historical meaning — sought to foment this chaos through the raw exploitation of power and intimidation to nullify Joe Biden’s victory. That a conservative of Judge Luttig’s stature would speak with such unequivocal force, and that it would be echoed by Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and the Republican staffers on the committee, makes clear that there is a delineation in what they are investigating that is based not on politics but on fidelity to the law and America’s democratic principles.
As the hearings paint a devastating picture of Trump’s plot, there is an emerging Republican talking point that this is all old news. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose ambition to be president is about as naked as a jaybird, called it “beating a dead horse.” It’s an approach that works both to minimize the coup attempt and suggest the Republican Party should move beyond Trump and embrace something new (as in him).
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on the public January 6th committee hearings: “Why are they constantly beating this dead horse? Yes, we understand that. That was a year and a half ago.”
The Recount @therecountJune 15th 2022
24 Retweets82 LikesDeSantis’s self-serving protestations, and those of others like him, deliberately obscure the truth. Exposing an attempt to override elections and the will of the voters is not beating a dead horse, unless that horse is American democracy. Promoting the Big Lie as an excuse to nullify Democratic victories has become a mantra for large swaths of the Republican Party.
In his Thursday testimony, Judge Luttig made this chillingly clear. He wasn’t there just to talk about the past; he emphasized that his greatest fears lie in what might come next.
Judge Luttig believes former Pres. Trump and his supporters "are a clear and present danger to American democracy," saying he worries they will "succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020." "I don't speak those words lightly." More: abcn.ws/3MZqNb2
ABC News @ABCJune 16th 2022
8,634 Retweets25,040 LikesThe focus thus far of the January 6 committee has rightfully been on exploring and clarifying the narrative around what happened that day, and specifically President Trump’s role in fomenting the violent coup attempt. But as we can see with the statement above from Judge Luttig, hanging over this entire proceeding is the current danger America faces.
In a front-page article this week, The New York Times analyzed recent election results and concluded something many of you already know: In several battleground states, Republicans have nominated extremist candidates eager to do Trump’s bidding — or that of any Republican leader who wants to dynamite the American political system.
Republicans Who Deny 2020 Election Outcome Press Closer to Power Over Future Elections - The New York Times
Jake Tapper @jaketapper
Far-Right Republicans Press Closer to Power Over Future ElectionsMidway through primary season, the party has nominated several candidates who deny the 2020 outcome for posts that will have significant sway over the 2024 presidential election.nytimes.comJune 16th 2022
185 Retweets354 LikesThis is of course an American problem, because it threatens our entire constitutional order. But we need to be very clear — this is a cancer that resides firmly within the Republican Party. It has been allowed to linger and grow, and now metastasize. And it is taking root by infecting state and local governance in ways that could very well turn what happened on January 6 into just an opening act.
What makes this so dangerous is that Republican election officials don’t need to actually overturn elections to serve their purpose. They can just cause havoc and chaos, and by doing so undermine the faith the American people have in our democratic systems. We saw a preview of this recently in New Mexico.
Expect more of this… wake up America and GOP, this will destroy us. This is now the plan for MAGA, place people in low levels who can refuse to do their basic duty. GOP commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary vote | AP News
Adam Kinzinger🇺🇦🇺🇸✌️ @AdamKinzinger
GOP commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary voteSANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s secretary of state on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the Republican-led commission of rural Otero County to certify primary election results after it refused to do so over distrust of Dominion vote-tallying machines.apnews.comJune 15th 2022
9,738 Retweets22,645 LikesIt is notable that Congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the January 6 committee, called it out, along with its implications. Because this movement animates the Republican Party, it is incumbent on all those Republican leaders who eagerly wrap themselves in the mantle of “patriotism” to stamp out this contagion. But what do we hear? Many enthusiastically back these extremists. Others offer tacit endorsements or silence. This is a party that would rather hold on to power than our democracy.
The likes of Bill Barr can call “bullshit” on the Big Lie in sworn depositions, but they should receive no accolades for their forced honesty. Where were their statements at the time? And what are they saying now about the same, pardon again the language, “bullshit” about future elections? Where is Senator Mitch McConnell? Or Vice President Pence? Or the Bushes? Or almost any other Republican of note, past or present?
All who are looking the other way, keeping their heads down, obfuscating, accepting, or outright endorsing this autocracy are willingly gambling with the future of American democracy. Whether it’s born of a desire for power or from cowardice doesn’t matter. Now is a time to stand up and be counted; almost every Republican leader is failing the test.
So what are the rest of us to do? Hopelessness and despair are not options. First and foremost, this should be a major issue on everyone’s radar. And I think the January 6 committee will help with that. But all citizens have a role to play. Getting out to vote for those who would protect democracy and encouraging others to do so is essential. This is not a matter of policy. This is about the basic mechanisms of democracy. Do we respect our elections? Do we count the votes and declare those who won the most to be the winner?
As with issues like abortion and guns, I think a large majority of Americans want our basic democratic system to continue. They might even want reforms to make it fairer. And this points to another approach to countering those who would attack our system. We can shame them, call out their playbook now, let them know that we see what they will attempt to do, and declare their “voter fraud” propaganda what it is — a farce and a lie. Put all Republican officials on the record.
In the lead-up to the war in Ukraine, the United States did a masterful job of preempting Russian propaganda. We let the world know what the Russians would do and the lies they would use to justify it. We can use the same approach toward those lining up to attack our democracy. We see them. We know their tactics. They aren’t trying to hide them. There can be no “false equivalence” allowed around this matter, in the media or in the public at large.
What these would-be autocrats are saying is they want a system that is essentially, if I win, I win, if you win, I win. They claim fraud only when Democrats win the vote. They claim a vice president can overthrow an election only when a Republican is vice president. This isn’t a matter of politics. It’s a matter of democracy. The stakes aren’t between Republicans and Democrats. All Republicans who understand this, the Judge Luttigs, the Liz Cheneys, the Adam Kinzingers, and any who join the ranks now, should be welcomed and encouraged.
The dividing line is pretty simple, and I believe the vast majority of Americans fall on one side. This is about who believes in the health and security of the United States, our Constitution, and our rule of law, and who does not.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
A Party On The Extremes
15 min ago
This fall, we will have elections across the United States. There will be Republicans on the ballot and Democrats. The candidates will have earned the right to be there by winning a primary process currently nearing its completion. There will be rallies and television advertisements, polling and punditry, news stories and debates.
On the surface, the mechanisms of our democratic process will be familiar. And it is likely that much of the populace, and the press, will treat them as such. We will be reminded about the headwinds the party in power historically faces in midterm elections. There will be speculation about which base is more energized. Voters will head to the polls weighing continuity versus change. They may vote on very important issues, like gun safety, abortion access, and the economy.
But we should not let the familiar distract us from an underlying truth: There is nothing normal about this election, or the political system it reflects. By any reasonable analysis, one of our two main political parties has been consumed by an extremism that threatens the very stability of our nation.
There is no satisfaction in saying this. And I come to this conclusion based not on any matter of policy. This is not about how we set up our tax system or how we protect the environment. It’s not about how we fund our schools or regulate Wall Street. This is about whether we believe in representative democracy, the rule of law, and the right to vote. This is about the cohesion that holds our nation together and allows for us to shift course via a process of free and fair elections.
This past week, we have seen more evidence of the danger we confront. Foremost has been the congressional commission investigating the January 6 insurrection. Over the decades I have covered Washington, I have seen enough congressional investigations that I nurtured high hopes, but relatively low expectations, for this one.
I have been impressed. The approach has been methodical, compelling, and damning. It is clear that one of the committee’s chief objectives is to create an indelible demarcation between those who defend democracy and those who eagerly trade our protections and freedom for their craven path to power. This is an urgent exercise before the next elections.
We can see that, with a few notable exceptions, Republican officials across the country are embracing a vision of governance that is antithetical to stability, and frankly, sanity. One chilling data point comes from my beloved home state of Texas, where state Republicans recently adopted a platform that should anger — and frighten — any American of conscience, regardless of ideology.
President Biden is the "acting" president because he didn't win legally; Texans should vote on seceding; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be repealed; any gun control is a rights violation: this is the world as seen by the Republican Party of Texas.
NPR @NPR
Texas GOP’s new platform says Biden didn’t really win. It also calls for secession“We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election,” the Republican Party of Texas says, referring to President Biden as the “acting” leader.n.prJune 20th 2022
344 Retweets976 LikesThe platform’s specifics are outright nuts on issues from President Biden (“not legitimately elected”) to the very continuation of Texas as a state (“Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto”). You can dive into the murk on topic after topic: race, education, health, LGBTQ rights, even repeal of the Voting Rights Act.
These details are important, but one should look at the entirety of this dangerous document — marinated in conspiracy theories and bad faith — to understand the broader picture. This is full MAGA in spirit, tone, and substance (or lack thereof). Whether Texas Republicans are leading the charge into the abyss or following the national party’s broader assault on American democracy is difficult to discern — and somewhat beside the point. The process by which the Republican Party writ large has come to represent a Tucker Carlson rant has been swift and overwhelming — its own self-propelling force.
Another example of the depths to which the Republican Party has descended occurred in the Missouri Senate primary this week. The frontrunner in the polls, Eric Greitens, issued a video ad that blatantly promotes political violence. Carrying a shotgun and positioned alongside heavily armed men storming a house, Greitens claims he’s on a "RINO hunt" (as in, "Republican in name only," a familiar pejorative against any member of the party who dares to criticize it). Greitens, you might remember, was once governor of Missouri but had to resign due to allegations he had threatened a mistress with blackmail and nude photographs. He was also accused of multiple campaign finance violations. More recently, Greitens’ ex-wife has alleged he was abusive.
It is not clear that Greitens will win the primary, but that also is beside the point. This kind of divisive, destructive rhetoric is a test of the health of our political system. It is incumbent on all Republican leaders to repudiate this naked appeal to violence. In a positive sign, the Republican leader in the state senate said he had contacted law enforcement about the ad. But we need a lot more: Where are Greitens’ potential future colleagues in the U.S. Senate with their denunciations? Or are they more interested in acquiring another member of their caucus?
Fascism’s rise accelerates in the Republican Party as violent imagery continues to litter a greater number of ads. The growing reliance on violence and violent imagery proves the judge right: this wing of the GOP is a clear and present danger to democracy.
Joe Scarborough @JoeNBC
In Ad, Shotgun-Toting Greitens Asks Voters to Go ‘RINO Hunting’A right-wing Senate candidate accompanies a squad of heavily armed men as they storm a home looking for ‘Republicans in name only.’nytimes.comJune 21st 2022
572 Retweets2,268 LikesThe danger of this political climate is directly tied to what happened on January 6, 2021, and the years that preceded it. What we are learning from the commission about the overt and back-channeled threats to undermine our electoral system, including through violent means, is the preface to the upcoming 2022 elections. As we noted recently, the “coup continues,” with Republicans elevating candidates in races across the country who not only shamelessly parrot the Big Lie, but would also be in positions to undermine election integrity in 2024.
Political parties are not static, although the consistency of their names conveys a false sense of permanence. Democrats and Republicans, Republicans and Democrats. We talk about them as fixed entities, like rocks and trees, permanent features of the landscape. We point to histories that stretch back into our distant past. They are the two pillars that comprise our political system.
But to think of these groupings and definitions as consistent when the world has changed so dramatically is a foolhardy exercise. When I was growing up, Texas was a solidly Democratic state. As I remembered in What Unites Us, “My father once joked that if I wanted to see a Republican, he would take me to the Hermann Park zoo. He said they had a stuffed one there, and while he had heard there were great herds of Republicans in the North, we hadn’t seen a live one down in Texas for quite some time.” Texas was Democratic because it was part of the Solid South, as in the former Confederacy, which fought the North and the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, in the Civil War.
Many of you know the history of what came next. The reason the South became solidly Republican for so long was due largely to the actions of President Lyndon Johnson, a son of Texas, who came to be viewed as an apostate for championing civil rights. Richard Nixon and others parlayed that shift into a major political realignment with a strategy that mined votes by leveraging white grievances.
The roots of the current Republican Party can be found in this identity shift. It was further fostered by the likes of Newt Gingrich and others who hardened our political discourse into a zero-sum game. But what we have witnessed in the last few years is an escalation into an entirely new dimension. Whereas in the past, Republicans and Democrats competed for votes within a system of agreed-upon winners and losers (Bush v. Gore a notable and under-scrutinized exception), we now are in a state where the very system of elections is being threatened with violence and illegitimacy by major forces within one of the two major political parties.
The debate is no longer over policy but over the stability of our republic based on the principles of freedom and democracy. And while there are still some Republicans of principle, the energy of the party is clearly with those who would scuttle our democratic institutions.
Once again, there will be R’s and D’s on the ballot in November. But we should not allow that consistency to lull us into a sense of complacency. The R next to many of those names might technically stand for Republican, but “reactionary” would be more accurate.
To say all of this infuses me with a deep and profound sadness. Our role as journalists is not to promote one political party or denigrate another. We are supposed to hold all accountable. But at the same time, we must be vigilant against the pull of false equivalence. I hope that the Republican Party can repudiate its descent into authoritarianism. But until it does so, unequivocally and en masse, any consideration of the party that doesn’t recognize the danger it poses to American democracy misses the truth. Sad to say: Extremism is not a facet of today’s Republican Party, but its driving force.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
Echo Chamber of Extremism
A legitimacy in tatters
2 hr ago335128
Photo: Douglas RissingA day at the Supreme Court that shakes America to its core.
What to say that hasn’t been said but needs to be said again, and again, and again: This is not a court of humble jurists who are bound in any way by fidelity to precedent, the law, or common sense. There is nothing “conservative” about these damaging decisions, or the men and woman who have imposed their extreme views upon the American populace.
Right-wing politicians decry “elitism,” but what is more elitist than unelected and unaccountable activists using the language of legal argumentation as a fig leaf for their naked exercise of power?
There is no way that these decisions would pass a vote of the American public. Indeed, a majority of the justices were installed by presidents who lost the popular vote. And the polling on the issues these rulings tear asunder suggests that what these justices are doing is unpopular — in many cases, very unpopular.
But they sneer from their echo chamber of extremism. They are emboldened by a system that has been fixed, with the complicity of Mitch McConnell and others, to advantage minority viewpoints by leveraging a branch of government not designed to be a political actors' stage in order to circumvent the legislative and executive branches.
Where to begin, and where will it end?
The Supreme Court has further cemented its role as a reactionary force in American life.
Today it was abortion, on top of recent decisions on gun regulations, public funding for religious schools, and Miranda rights. Soon they will likely gut environmental regulations, and we can guess at what comes next — gay marriage? Contraception?
We can’t let this moment pass without recognizing what a horrific decision today's is, and how it will relegate women to second-class status in decision-making over their own bodies. This will lead to a host of suffering and likely death. It will imprison women where control will be imposed by the state. It is the opposite of freedom. It is a right that existed — and still should.
The Supreme Court depends on its legitimacy, and today that is as tattered as the constitutional rights on which it has trampled. The Roberts court will be marked as a cabal of intemperance that made America far less safe and far less free. It will be noted for its zealotry and its cynical embrace of the ends justifying the means.
But as with all chapters of history, how our present is ultimately viewed depends on what comes next. Will these rulings lead to outrage-fueled activism that upends the political system, or apathy and defeatism? Will the majority mobilize? Will there be reforms? Will there be a recalibration of the current balance of power?
One of the few things I have learned with any certainty over the course of my life is not to attempt to predict the future. I have seen unimaginable change come about. I have seen long odds overcome.
I leave you today with the words of Sherrilyn Ifill, civil rights lawyer and president and director-counsel emeritus of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She has experienced the fight from the trenches of justice, and her perspective mirrors my own. I could not have expressed it better.
Remember that we have never seen the America we’ve been fighting for. So no need to be nostalgic. Right on the other side of this unraveling is opportunity. If we keep fighting no matter what, take care of ourselves & each other, stay strategic & principled, & use all our power.
Sherrilyn Ifill @Sifill_LDFJune 24th 2022
5,132 Retweets20,393 Likes
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
reposted today..... from 2021
If You Don't Want To Be Seen As a Partisan Hack...
Sep 13, 2021213105
So I saw that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was trending this morning. Not something I expected to see so I checked in to find out why, and - hoo-boy! Well folks, in case you haven’t seen this yet, this is a doozy. And for those who have, I am sure you are doing some form of slapping your face in disbelief.
You see, it seems that the Justice had some thoughts that were bothering her, so she found the perfect venue to express them. I will let Piper Hudspeth Blackburn of the Associated Press set the scene in what could easily be a shooting script for an episode of The Twilight Zone. (full article here)
“Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed concerns Sunday that the public may increasingly see the court as a partisan institution.
Justices must be “hyper vigilant to make sure they’re not letting personal biases creep into their decisions, since judges are people, too,” Barrett said at a lecture hosted by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center.
Introduced by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who founded the center and played a key role in pushing through her confirmation in the last days of the Trump administration, Barrett spoke at length about her desire for others to see the Supreme Court as nonpartisan.”
I mean introduced by McConnell? At the McConnell Center? Complaining about the impression that the current Court might be seen as partisan? This is about as rich as a New York cheesecake drenched in chocolate sauce with a scoop of ice cream, but with none of the sweetness and all of the heartburn.
It doesn’t take a PhD in American history to understand how soaked in context this all is. Merrick Garland. Presidents choosing justices after losing the popular vote. Decisions to gut voting rights, gun control, protections on the environment, and now abortion. Barrett replaced Justice Ginsburg in the waning days of the Trump presidency. All of this set the stage for where we are today. And all of this was orchestrated by McConnell himself in the most brazen of partisan string-pulling.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Once again, however, we have a case where the quiet part is said out loud. I mean, if you don’t want to seem like a partisan hack, perhaps you can speak through jurisprudence and your rulings and not in a venue where Mitch McConnell was your opening act.
One person who I am sure was not pleased with this morning’s headlines was the Chief Justice, John Roberts. He’s a savvy enough political being to understand the optics of this are about as subtle as an elephant in an elevator. Roberts has been attempting to swing the Court far to the right. But he has done so with an aw-shucks affect, disarming smile, and just enough siding with the liberals to gain effusive media coverage as a moderating voice that softens much of his true trajectory. Now he has to deal with the mask being torn off.
Of course for anyone paying at least somewhat close attention, that mask had been off for a long time, if it was ever on. But one definitely gets a sense that something big has shifted in our politics around the Court. After decades of the Right running against the bogeyman of judicial overreach, we have a case of the dog catching the car. The not-so-secret truth is that much of what the most reactionary members of the Court want seems not to be very popular. They might appease their base, but they’re also powering the opposition. The threats these justices pose are not theoretical, and they are no longer being obscured through complicated legal frameworks. Millions of people can feel their rights being taken away.
It is tempting to look at Justice Barrett’s remarks and be gobsmacked at the echo chamber she must live in to think that this event, blessed by McConnell himself, would have her intended effect. But I think there is another way to read this. There is an old saying that “Supreme Court Justices read newspapers too.” And that suggests they can be swayed by public opinion. The uproar over the Texas abortion case has certainly penetrated the marble halls of the Court and those who work there. Now I don’t think justices like Alito or Thomas give a whiff. But Barrett, who knows? And playing armchair psychologist for whatever that’s worth, Justice Kavanaugh seems like someone who wants to be liked and considered reasonable.
More generally, however, the Court is now a topic of great concern on the political left. In the past it hasn’t generated a lot of passion or votes for Democrats. We will have to see if this time is different. In that way Barrett did the country a service with her remarks. They clarify the stakes perfectly. One of the strategies of McConnell was to stock the entire court system with enough young, far-right judges that they can undercut Democratic election victories and policy objectives for decades. In that way they are the ultimate Deep State. But they also need legitimacy, especially if they get more and more out of step with the will of the majority of Americans. Ideas which once seemed radical, like expanding the courts, term limits, and other checks on judges, are gaining traction even with more moderate voices in the Democratic Party and are being treated seriously by the press.
Is this pure partisan politics? Of course it is. Now that we got that straight, let’s see what the public has to say about it.
Subscribe to STEADY to support our work
I hope to continue to build a community here on Steady. If you aren’t already a subscriber, please consider signing up to a free or paid subscription. YAnd if you are already part of our family, please consider sharing this post — and Steady — with others.
Publish on Substack© 2022 Dan Rather
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
"I’m the F’ing President. Take me up to the Capitol now."
January 6th Committee @January6thCmteJune 28th 2022
3,432 Retweets9,743 LikesI am shaken. And I don’t feel like I shake easily.
Our nation. The president. A set of facts — damning testimony — that would have been beyond most of our abilities to imagine. But here we are.
I have seen a lot over the course of my life, but I have never seen anything like this. I know I have said that a lot recently, but events keep escalating. And it continues, sadly, to be true.
This seems surreal. But it’s all too real. This happened. What we learned today in the committee hearing is that the president of the United States knowingly fomented, and was eager to lead, an armed mob to attack the U.S. Capitol.
The threat of violence was known far in advance. We now have eye and ear witness testimony plus other strong evidence of proof that the threat of bodily harm on a branch of government wasn’t an unfortunate byproduct — it was a driving force.
Sometimes fate shines a bright spotlight on people who have been far outside the public’s consciousness. Before reporters last night identified today’s star witness as Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, how many Americans had heard her name? Now she will forever occupy a place of import in American history.
There are some who are dismissing Hutchinson’s courage. They note that she was a loyal acolyte of the Trump White House. She kept these secrets until compelled under oath to testify. What choice did she have, the argument goes, but to speak?
There is some merit to all of this, but I would not dismiss what it means to stand up and tell these truths to a global audience when we have seen such vindictiveness and threats leveraged from the former president and his enablers and henchmen. Hutchinson's story is beginning. We will see where she goes. And let us not overlook how stark her example stands in contrast to the cowardice of all who have remained silent — mostly senior men of privilege and power.
There will be time for much more thoughtful analysis to put what we are learning now in real time into greater context. For now, however, we must remember how close we came to never learning the full story.
If the Republicans had a majority in the House, there would be no committee. The majority of elected officials in that party are not only eager to sweep this insurrection under the rug, they still pay fealty to the would-be dictator who fomented it. We have had far too much silence. Far too much complicity. Far too many lies.
And I have a sickening feeling that we will learn a lot more. I dearly hope we can purge this cancer from our body politic and that all who are responsible feel the full weight of justice.
You’re on the free list for Steady. For those who are able, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to support our efforts.
© 2022 Dan Rather
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
Open in browser 
Thank you for joining the Steady community. A gentle reminder that paid subscribers help fund our effort, allowing us to produce more content freely available to all.
Amid the discussion around the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago and what it might mean for Trump and the rule of law in America, there is a detail that I worry isn’t receiving enough attention but that points to a dangerous reality in the United States today.
It centers on Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who signed the FBI's search warrant. As his name became public, he has faced a withering volume of threats from those who believe Trump should be above the law. In today’s America, with the MAGA crowd revved up for attack, that was to be expected. But that attacks were to be expected should not obscure the fact that they are dangerous. Very. The possibility of their leading to violence should not be underestimated.
Many of these threats focused on the fact that Judge Reinhart is Jewish. It got to the point that the synagogue where Judge Reinhart sits on the board had to cancel Shabbat services:
"Temple Beth David in South Florida has canceled its Beach Shabbat this week under a deluge of antisemitic threats about Bruce Reinhart, the judge who signed the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and sits on the synagogue’s board."
Vera Bergengruen @VeraMBergen
Judge who approved Trump warrant becomes target for antisemitismBruce Reinhart serves on the board of a synagogue. That caught the eyes of Trump loyalists eager to discredit him.forward.comAugust 12th 2022
25 Retweets33 LikesAntisemitism is on the rise in America, as those who track such nefarious trends will tell you. It can be found in some form across the political spectrum, but it has become a particular hallmark of elements of the Republican Party, especially in the age of Trump.
In the wake of the FBI search, the New York Young Republican Club resorted to well-worn antisemitic tropes, for example. “Internationalist forces and their allies intent on undermining the foundation of our Republic have crossed the Rubicon,” read their statement, in part. The conspiracy theory that Trump is being thwarted by a global cabal of “elites” funded by “George Soros” in ways that will undermine traditional American “values” represents coded language (and by "coded," I mean as subtle as a marching band through a library) that is pushing a dangerous line of attack. Dangerous on a personal level and dangerous for our country as a whole.
While there are extreme fringe groups who speak bluntly and declaratively of hating Jews, most American antisemitism is less obvious. Republican supporters of Trump say they can’t possibly be antisemitic because Trump’s own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is Jewish, as were many members of his administration. They say Republicans have strong supporters in Israel, including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They point to Democratic politicians who have been critical of Israel, or others with ties to more overt antisemites.
All of this is true. But it is not an excuse for what is taking place now.
It should be noted with emphasis that antisemitism isn’t limited to one political party or ideology. Furthermore, the Israel issue complicates the discussion, because criticism of Israel as a country is not necessarily antisemitic. Many American Jews object to Israeli policy. But there are also ways Israel is spoken of that clearly cross into antisemitic language.
It is impossible in a column such as this to parse the morass of antisemitism in America. But it is vital that we see how the fundamental rhetoric that has propelled antisemitism over many centuries around the globe helps fuel the larger Trump movement. This is about the “othering” of Americans who don't support Trump. It is about dividing the country into “us” and “them.” It is about claiming that only those who back the former president are “patriotic.”
What the Trumpification of the Republican Party has achieved (though we recognize that some of this existed prior to Trump) is labeling two Americas, one “real” and one supposedly not. And that is the purpose of all this Soros and internationalist talk: scapegoating. It tells people that they can and should direct their anger, which can easily escalate to violence, at those who are “different.” And those people are often Jews, or Black people, or people of Asian or Hispanic heritage, or LGBTQ+ folks, or other groups considered not sufficiently “American.” The fact that it isn’t all Jews or all Black people (the GOP lionizes Clarence Thomas, after all) doesn’t excuse the larger message.
We should be on guard not to make imperfect analogies to the past. For numerous reasons, I do not believe we are not on the brink of becoming Nazi Germany. But that doesn't mean we don't face great peril. As soon as we start playing to stereotypes, as soon as we interpret people’s race, religion, or other background demographics as a measure of their worth as citizens or humans, we risk destroying our society.
It is sickening. It is vile. It is menacing to America’s historic mission as a citadel of freedom and high ideals. So it is incumbent on citizens with decent intentions to speak up. “Never again” doesn’t mean only that we must do all we can to avoid another Holocaust. It means never again shall we be silent. Never again shall we look the other way. Never again shall we allow hate to take deep root.
Of course, hate has always been a part of the human experience. It has wreaked havoc across history, causing the pain, suffering, and death of countless people. It is fueled by seeing others as enemies rather than as fellow members of the human species.
Antisemitism is one virulent manifestation of this "us vs. them" mindset. To survive and thrive, America must reject it in all of its forms.
I’m often asked by people who love their country but are worried about its future, “But what can one person do to make any difference?” My answer usually begins with, “Make sure you vote, work to get others to vote…ask yourself how you can help another person and help your community.” Speaking out against antisemitism, teaching the young its dangers and the dangers of hate more generally, is a worthwhile addition to this list.
Like
Comment
Share
You’re on the free list for Steady. For those who are able, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to support our efforts.
© 2022 Dan Rather
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104
Unsubscribe
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
I've been feeling too depressed and hammered by all the news coming out about the authoritarian uprising in America to read all of these right now (although I have read some parts of a few of them elsewhere), but I will say, Dan Rather is an excellent example of what it means to be a true patriot. I am hugely grateful- even at his advance age- to see him still working to preserve democracy. A true hero, in my book.
"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
Courage Brian, courage.brianlux said:I've been feeling too depressed and hammered by all the news coming out about the authoritarian uprising in America to read all of these right now (although I have read some parts of a few of them elsewhere), but I will say, Dan Rather is an excellent example of what it means to be a true patriot. I am hugely grateful- even at his advance age- to see him still working to preserve democracy. A true hero, in my book.09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©0 -
Halifax2TheMax said:
Courage Brian, courage.brianlux said:I've been feeling too depressed and hammered by all the news coming out about the authoritarian uprising in America to read all of these right now (although I have read some parts of a few of them elsewhere), but I will say, Dan Rather is an excellent example of what it means to be a true patriot. I am hugely grateful- even at his advance age- to see him still working to preserve democracy. A true hero, in my book.
STEADY Brian, STEADY
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
Halifax2TheMax said:
Courage Brian, courage.brianlux said:I've been feeling too depressed and hammered by all the news coming out about the authoritarian uprising in America to read all of these right now (although I have read some parts of a few of them elsewhere), but I will say, Dan Rather is an excellent example of what it means to be a true patriot. I am hugely grateful- even at his advance age- to see him still working to preserve democracy. A true hero, in my book.mickeyrat said:Halifax2TheMax said:
Courage Brian, courage.brianlux said:I've been feeling too depressed and hammered by all the news coming out about the authoritarian uprising in America to read all of these right now (although I have read some parts of a few of them elsewhere), but I will say, Dan Rather is an excellent example of what it means to be a true patriot. I am hugely grateful- even at his advance age- to see him still working to preserve democracy. A true hero, in my book.
STEADY Brian, STEADYBrave, courageous, and BOLD, you two!
"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
Republicans in Disarray?
As we head toward Labor Day, emotions are emanating from the two major political parties that are different from the moods a few months ago.
58 min ago
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)As we head toward Labor Day, when the midterm election season will kick into high gear, emotions are emanating from the two major political parties that are different from the moods a few months ago.
There is hope among the Democrats that the fall elections will not only not be a bloodbath, but that the party may do much better than they feared. Could they not only hold the Senate but expand on their razor-thin majority there? Even less likely, but maybe not impossible, is it crazy to think they keep the House?
Among Republicans, concerns now that prospects for a “Red Wave” may be receding, leaving behind anxiety and recriminations. How could they not mop up considering high inflation and President Biden’s low approval ratings? Normally the party out of power does very well in midterms. Will Republicans this year historically underperform?
What is driving a lot of this speculation is a series of polls in battleground states, particularly in Senate races, that show Democrats leading or at least highly competitive. There is also the often-predictive “generic ballot” question, which asks voters which party they plan to vote for for Congress. It has been trending in the Democrats’ direction. And then there are some real results — a few special elections where Democrats did better than expected and the massive win for reproductive rights in Kansas. These data points suggest that Democratic voters are energized and that their turnout could be significant.
Now before we go on, you are urged not to ignore the many caveats. A lot of this excitement is based on polls, and polls have been wrong before. These polls are also close. A small change in one direction could lead to a big shift in electoral fortunes. Furthermore, we have a long way to go. Even if Democrats are leading in the dog days of summer, it doesn’t mean they will be in November. Races often tighten or shift, and we have no way of knowing what external events might push the national environment one way or the other.
This election will ultimately be decided by voters. It will matter how motivated they are, how organized they are, and how determined they are. What makes midterms even harder to predict than presidential elections is that turnout is more variable. And that is especially true in this election, with so many unusual factors.
Donald Trump is not on the ballot but still very much in the public eye. How will this proximity drive his supporters and those who detest him?
How will the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe shape this election? There are a lot of indications it is having a big effect motivating voters to support Democratic candidates. Will that energy sustain itself over the next few months?
What will happen to the economy? Will gas prices keep coming down? Will inflation look better? Will there be growing fears of a recession?
What about the war in Ukraine and the rumblings from China? Will an unstable world affect voters?
In short, nothing is in the bag or a given for either side. This is a volatile moment with even more than the usual unpredictability.
WIth all that said, there is something we can discuss with more certainty. And that is the nature of the Republican candidates running in races across the country. The number who have embraced the “Big Lie” about the 2020 election somehow being “stolen” is strikingly high. We also have seen a fealty to other aspects of the increasingly Trumpist Republican Party. Campaigns are being run on false grievances, identity politics, and divisive social issues.
Furthermore, many top-tier candidates — particularly those running for Senate — are stumbling badly on the trail. This includes celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, the old football star Herschel Walker in Georgia, and the venture capitalist and author J.D. Vance in Ohio. All are political neophytes promoted by Donald Trump. And all are showing it in races that should be winnable for Republicans.
A pair of articles recently in The Washington Post highlighted the struggles the Republicans are having. One, titled “McConnell’s grim 2022 expectations-setting,” focused on some political prognostications made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said, according to NBC News. “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
McConnell added: “Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”
In one way, this merely acknowledges an emerging reality. The generic ballot has tightened in recent weeks, and polls show Republican candidates struggling in some states — such as Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania — that are key for McConnell’s path back to majority leader. Some prognosticators now have Democrats as favorites to keep their Senate majority.
It’s also convenient for McConnell to set the bar lower in this way, such that an adverse outcome on election night is laid at the feet of those specific candidates (or perhaps someone who endorsed them) and is not seen as a referendum on the broader political strength of his party.
A lot of ensuing commentary focused on McConnell’s “candidate quality” reference and the implicit criticism of Donald Trump for promoting candidates who were less electable.
Another Post article focused on the money woes of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) under the leadership of its chairman, Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Under the provocative headline, “‘It’s a rip-off’: GOP spending under fire as Senate hopefuls seek rescue,” the article notes that the NRSC is pulling ad buys from competitive races and that Democratic candidates are vastly outspending Republicans:
The NRSC’s retreat came after months of touting record fundraising, topping $173 million so far this election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. But the committee has burned through nearly all of it, with the NRSC’s cash on hand dwindling to $28.4 million by the end of June...
“If they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired and investigated,” said a national Republican consultant working on Senate races. “The way this money has been burned, there needs to be an audit or investigation because we’re not gonna take the Senate now and this money has been squandered. It’s a rip-off.”
Reckless and undisciplined spending without accountability. Extremist candidates and feckless celebrities not ready for the spotlight. These are not accidents or anomalies. This is the modern Republican Party taken over completely by Donald Trump and Trumpism. If Mitch McConnell wanted candidates who had a better chance of winning, he would have had to stand up to Trump, and we all know how that would have played out. If you’re not sure, you can ask Liz Cheney about it.
There is no nostalgia among the Republican base for anything the party claimed to have stood for in the past. To many people, the party doesn’t stand for much of anything in the present, other than an unquestioned loyalty to its leader. You would be hard pressed to find what Republican candidates actually want to do if given the keys to governance. It’s all “voter fraud,” and “critical race theory,” and “build the wall.” To all but the (sizeable) core of Trump loyalists, it’s showboating, not substance. It’s lies and not legislation. It’s autocracy and not democracy.
The Republicans didn’t get “unlucky” with who they are running for Congress. This is who the base wants. And the opaque fundraising and reckless and unaccountable spending is also par for the course. It’s the Trump way. So it’s the Republican way. There should no longer be any question about that, whether the press covers it that way or not.
To the question of what will happen in November, know this: The Republicans can still certainly win control of both houses of Congress. But that is not a given anymore. American voters, Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans could rise up in sufficient numbers and say Trump may be able to take over the Republican Party, but we will not let that party take over the country.
To end this, I go to the wisdom of the late E. A. “Squatty” Lyons. He’s long gone now, but he was the longtime county commissioner in Harris County (Houston), Texas, when I was coming up as a young reporter.
Squatty at the time (the 1950s) had won more consecutive elections than anyone in the history of the region. He was a character straight out of “The Last Hurrah,” not college educated but an honors graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.
He and I had graduated from the same tough neighborhood high school. So in the shank of one election night, after he had won again, I asked him for some advice on covering politics.
His answer, which I never forgot, was:
“As the ancients knew well, when it comes to politics, what we most expect oftimes never happens; what we least expect often occurs.”
Seems as applicable today as it was the night old Squatty said it.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
mickeyrat said:
Republicans in Disarray?
As we head toward Labor Day, emotions are emanating from the two major political parties that are different from the moods a few months ago.
58 min ago(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)As we head toward Labor Day, when the midterm election season will kick into high gear, emotions are emanating from the two major political parties that are different from the moods a few months ago.
There is hope among the Democrats that the fall elections will not only not be a bloodbath, but that the party may do much better than they feared. Could they not only hold the Senate but expand on their razor-thin majority there? Even less likely, but maybe not impossible, is it crazy to think they keep the House?
Among Republicans, concerns now that prospects for a “Red Wave” may be receding, leaving behind anxiety and recriminations. How could they not mop up considering high inflation and President Biden’s low approval ratings? Normally the party out of power does very well in midterms. Will Republicans this year historically underperform?
What is driving a lot of this speculation is a series of polls in battleground states, particularly in Senate races, that show Democrats leading or at least highly competitive. There is also the often-predictive “generic ballot” question, which asks voters which party they plan to vote for for Congress. It has been trending in the Democrats’ direction. And then there are some real results — a few special elections where Democrats did better than expected and the massive win for reproductive rights in Kansas. These data points suggest that Democratic voters are energized and that their turnout could be significant.
Now before we go on, you are urged not to ignore the many caveats. A lot of this excitement is based on polls, and polls have been wrong before. These polls are also close. A small change in one direction could lead to a big shift in electoral fortunes. Furthermore, we have a long way to go. Even if Democrats are leading in the dog days of summer, it doesn’t mean they will be in November. Races often tighten or shift, and we have no way of knowing what external events might push the national environment one way or the other.
This election will ultimately be decided by voters. It will matter how motivated they are, how organized they are, and how determined they are. What makes midterms even harder to predict than presidential elections is that turnout is more variable. And that is especially true in this election, with so many unusual factors.
Donald Trump is not on the ballot but still very much in the public eye. How will this proximity drive his supporters and those who detest him?
How will the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe shape this election? There are a lot of indications it is having a big effect motivating voters to support Democratic candidates. Will that energy sustain itself over the next few months?
What will happen to the economy? Will gas prices keep coming down? Will inflation look better? Will there be growing fears of a recession?
What about the war in Ukraine and the rumblings from China? Will an unstable world affect voters?
In short, nothing is in the bag or a given for either side. This is a volatile moment with even more than the usual unpredictability.
WIth all that said, there is something we can discuss with more certainty. And that is the nature of the Republican candidates running in races across the country. The number who have embraced the “Big Lie” about the 2020 election somehow being “stolen” is strikingly high. We also have seen a fealty to other aspects of the increasingly Trumpist Republican Party. Campaigns are being run on false grievances, identity politics, and divisive social issues.
Furthermore, many top-tier candidates — particularly those running for Senate — are stumbling badly on the trail. This includes celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, the old football star Herschel Walker in Georgia, and the venture capitalist and author J.D. Vance in Ohio. All are political neophytes promoted by Donald Trump. And all are showing it in races that should be winnable for Republicans.
A pair of articles recently in The Washington Post highlighted the struggles the Republicans are having. One, titled “McConnell’s grim 2022 expectations-setting,” focused on some political prognostications made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said, according to NBC News. “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
McConnell added: “Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”
In one way, this merely acknowledges an emerging reality. The generic ballot has tightened in recent weeks, and polls show Republican candidates struggling in some states — such as Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania — that are key for McConnell’s path back to majority leader. Some prognosticators now have Democrats as favorites to keep their Senate majority.
It’s also convenient for McConnell to set the bar lower in this way, such that an adverse outcome on election night is laid at the feet of those specific candidates (or perhaps someone who endorsed them) and is not seen as a referendum on the broader political strength of his party.
A lot of ensuing commentary focused on McConnell’s “candidate quality” reference and the implicit criticism of Donald Trump for promoting candidates who were less electable.
Another Post article focused on the money woes of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) under the leadership of its chairman, Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Under the provocative headline, “‘It’s a rip-off’: GOP spending under fire as Senate hopefuls seek rescue,” the article notes that the NRSC is pulling ad buys from competitive races and that Democratic candidates are vastly outspending Republicans:
The NRSC’s retreat came after months of touting record fundraising, topping $173 million so far this election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. But the committee has burned through nearly all of it, with the NRSC’s cash on hand dwindling to $28.4 million by the end of June...
“If they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired and investigated,” said a national Republican consultant working on Senate races. “The way this money has been burned, there needs to be an audit or investigation because we’re not gonna take the Senate now and this money has been squandered. It’s a rip-off.”
Reckless and undisciplined spending without accountability. Extremist candidates and feckless celebrities not ready for the spotlight. These are not accidents or anomalies. This is the modern Republican Party taken over completely by Donald Trump and Trumpism. If Mitch McConnell wanted candidates who had a better chance of winning, he would have had to stand up to Trump, and we all know how that would have played out. If you’re not sure, you can ask Liz Cheney about it.
There is no nostalgia among the Republican base for anything the party claimed to have stood for in the past. To many people, the party doesn’t stand for much of anything in the present, other than an unquestioned loyalty to its leader. You would be hard pressed to find what Republican candidates actually want to do if given the keys to governance. It’s all “voter fraud,” and “critical race theory,” and “build the wall.” To all but the (sizeable) core of Trump loyalists, it’s showboating, not substance. It’s lies and not legislation. It’s autocracy and not democracy.
The Republicans didn’t get “unlucky” with who they are running for Congress. This is who the base wants. And the opaque fundraising and reckless and unaccountable spending is also par for the course. It’s the Trump way. So it’s the Republican way. There should no longer be any question about that, whether the press covers it that way or not.
To the question of what will happen in November, know this: The Republicans can still certainly win control of both houses of Congress. But that is not a given anymore. American voters, Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans could rise up in sufficient numbers and say Trump may be able to take over the Republican Party, but we will not let that party take over the country.
To end this, I go to the wisdom of the late E. A. “Squatty” Lyons. He’s long gone now, but he was the longtime county commissioner in Harris County (Houston), Texas, when I was coming up as a young reporter.
Squatty at the time (the 1950s) had won more consecutive elections than anyone in the history of the region. He was a character straight out of “The Last Hurrah,” not college educated but an honors graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.
He and I had graduated from the same tough neighborhood high school. So in the shank of one election night, after he had won again, I asked him for some advice on covering politics.
His answer, which I never forgot, was:
“As the ancients knew well, when it comes to politics, what we most expect oftimes never happens; what we least expect often occurs.”
Seems as applicable today as it was the night old Squatty said it.
Part of me wants to say, "Wake me up when it's over," and that feeling will grow as we get closer to the midterms. Fall will be a time of much anticipation, probably even a bit of anxiety. And this does not even include the concern over what will happen after the fall out. The potential for increased violence is being widely talked about.
"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
Dan Rather is an icon.Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt20 -
20937
(Photo by TF-Images/Getty Images)“Me, me, me, me...”
“My, my, my, my...”
“Mine, mine, mine...”You don’t have to listen to Donald Trump for very long to discern a worldview that is completely and utterly egocentric.
He has gallivanted through a life made possible by his daddy’s money (nevermind the shadows under which it was accumulated). He has exploited a business and social structure designed to cater to, indulge, and excuse men like him. He is driven only by quenching his basest desires.
And over and over again, Donald Trump has gotten away with it — like a young child who has been given (and has taken) everything without ever being told “no.”
Now he is being indulged by an entire political party. And like a misbehaving toddler, his disruptive antics have spread to others. They mimic his temper tantrums. Chaos escalates.
Except this is not a preschool classroom, it is a nation.
Petulance is not measured in hoarded blocks and broken crayons but in the demise of our democratic order.
“My top secret documents...”
“My judges...”
“My people...”Trump sees a simplistic binary world where everyone is either there to serve his needs or they are the enemy. Material possessions are to be accumulated and used however he sees fit — according to the metric of personal benefit.
The way our system of government aspires to work is that the law applies evenly to all citizens. Sadly, history has shown time and again how far from that reality we often are as a nation. But the principle of “equal justice under the law” is fundamental to the American ideal, and we as a people overwhelmingly believe in striving for it.
Trump and his acolytes do not even pay lip service to it. There is no “my fellow citizens,” no commonality. He expects to exist in an alternate universe. By his formulation, the law applies only to “thee” as in us, and never to “me,” as in him.
This mindset was destructive enough when it drove the decision-making in the Oval Office. Since Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, the danger in some ways has escalated. The truth is that the president of the United States is afforded many special privileges and powers. But they reside in the office and not the person. Donald Trump is no longer president. And yet the court ruling from a judge he appointed runs roughshod over this democratic principle.
Trump's motives for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago are unknown. Recent reporting that they contained some of this nation’s most sensitive secrets raises very disturbing ramifications. But regardless of what Trump was doing, one thing we can say for certain is he believes the rules don’t apply to him.
He believes he can lose a free and fair election and meet that fate with lies — the first president in American history to not accept defeat.
He believes he can foment violence without consequence to himself.
He believes he can blow up our institutions of governance with impunity.
And if you judge by his legions of apologists and lackeys, he is correct. They are happy to excuse his behavior or just look the other way. It’s why people like Senator Marco Rubio are eager to blame federal law enforcement for what he deems the minor infraction of a private citizen keeping highly classified documents in an insecure location for who knows what motive. “I don't think a fight over the storage of documents is worthy of what they've done,” he said recently. The storage of documents? Is that really what we’re talking about? Of course not. And of course Rubio had a very different take when we were talking about Hillary Clinton for a far less serious infraction.
We have seen some version of the same excuse each and every time Trump has blown past what had been the limits of accepted behavior. Because it’s Trump, they say it’s okay. Everything he does is okay.
We saw it in the run-up to the 2016 election. We’ve seen it in the lies too numerous to count, the unstable actions, and the pernicious divisiveness. Heck, we saw it with two impeachment trials. It’s happened over and over again. It’s like a preschool teacher saying, in effect, “Oh that’s just Donnie being Donnie.” Except every preschool teacher or responsible parent I know understands you can’t do that.
Actions must have consequences if order, rules, and laws are to hold. The Department of Justice and other prosecutors can say, “No, you can’t do that.” Juries, including grand juries, can, too. And so can voters. Elections, after all, also have consequences.
Note: If you are not already a subscriber to our Steady newsletter, please consider doing so. And we always appreciate you sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
About the author:mickeyrat said:20937(Photo by TF-Images/Getty Images)“Me, me, me, me...”
“My, my, my, my...”
“Mine, mine, mine...”You don’t have to listen to Donald Trump for very long to discern a worldview that is completely and utterly egocentric.
He has gallivanted through a life made possible by his daddy’s money (nevermind the shadows under which it was accumulated). He has exploited a business and social structure designed to cater to, indulge, and excuse men like him. He is driven only by quenching his basest desires.
And over and over again, Donald Trump has gotten away with it — like a young child who has been given (and has taken) everything without ever being told “no.”
Now he is being indulged by an entire political party. And like a misbehaving toddler, his disruptive antics have spread to others. They mimic his temper tantrums. Chaos escalates.
Except this is not a preschool classroom, it is a nation.
Petulance is not measured in hoarded blocks and broken crayons but in the demise of our democratic order.
“My top secret documents...”
“My judges...”
“My people...”Trump sees a simplistic binary world where everyone is either there to serve his needs or they are the enemy. Material possessions are to be accumulated and used however he sees fit — according to the metric of personal benefit.
The way our system of government aspires to work is that the law applies evenly to all citizens. Sadly, history has shown time and again how far from that reality we often are as a nation. But the principle of “equal justice under the law” is fundamental to the American ideal, and we as a people overwhelmingly believe in striving for it.
Trump and his acolytes do not even pay lip service to it. There is no “my fellow citizens,” no commonality. He expects to exist in an alternate universe. By his formulation, the law applies only to “thee” as in us, and never to “me,” as in him.
This mindset was destructive enough when it drove the decision-making in the Oval Office. Since Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, the danger in some ways has escalated. The truth is that the president of the United States is afforded many special privileges and powers. But they reside in the office and not the person. Donald Trump is no longer president. And yet the court ruling from a judge he appointed runs roughshod over this democratic principle.
Trump's motives for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago are unknown. Recent reporting that they contained some of this nation’s most sensitive secrets raises very disturbing ramifications. But regardless of what Trump was doing, one thing we can say for certain is he believes the rules don’t apply to him.
He believes he can lose a free and fair election and meet that fate with lies — the first president in American history to not accept defeat.
He believes he can foment violence without consequence to himself.
He believes he can blow up our institutions of governance with impunity.
And if you judge by his legions of apologists and lackeys, he is correct. They are happy to excuse his behavior or just look the other way. It’s why people like Senator Marco Rubio are eager to blame federal law enforcement for what he deems the minor infraction of a private citizen keeping highly classified documents in an insecure location for who knows what motive. “I don't think a fight over the storage of documents is worthy of what they've done,” he said recently. The storage of documents? Is that really what we’re talking about? Of course not. And of course Rubio had a very different take when we were talking about Hillary Clinton for a far less serious infraction.
We have seen some version of the same excuse each and every time Trump has blown past what had been the limits of accepted behavior. Because it’s Trump, they say it’s okay. Everything he does is okay.
We saw it in the run-up to the 2016 election. We’ve seen it in the lies too numerous to count, the unstable actions, and the pernicious divisiveness. Heck, we saw it with two impeachment trials. It’s happened over and over again. It’s like a preschool teacher saying, in effect, “Oh that’s just Donnie being Donnie.” Except every preschool teacher or responsible parent I know understands you can’t do that.
Actions must have consequences if order, rules, and laws are to hold. The Department of Justice and other prosecutors can say, “No, you can’t do that.” Juries, including grand juries, can, too. And so can voters. Elections, after all, also have consequences.
Note: If you are not already a subscriber to our Steady newsletter, please consider doing so. And we always appreciate you sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.
Dan Rather, Fake Newsman
As they say in Texas: all hat, no cattle.It’s fitting that Dan Rather is best known for bringing to the world a piece of fake news about George W. Bush’s Air National Guard service in Texas, because that’s where he began his career in shoddy journalism. The bungling goes all the way back to 1963 Dallas. His presence there on the day President Kennedy was assassinated helped create the legend of Dan, but he actually blew the story that made his name.
Rather had heard from a priest that the president was dead, but knew that wasn’t a strong enough source to back up such a huge story, so he didn’t pass along the tip to his superiors while he tried to shore up the rumor. According to Alan Weisman’s biography Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather, Rather became confused about who he was talking to on the phone. Thinking he was speaking to a fellow reporter on the ground, Eddie Barker, who was elsewhere in Dallas, he was actually on the line with the CBS News control room in New York: “Did you say, ‘dead’? Are you sure, Dan?” said the voice in New York. “Right, dead,” Rather said, still thinking he was talking to Barker. So, to Rather’s horror, CBS radio blasted the news out to the world. “Rather said he began shouting into the phone that he had not authorized any such bulletin,” Weisman wrote. “Accurately or not, Rather was credited with being the first to report the death of the president.”
Dan Rather was never much of a journalist. What he excelled at was playing one on TV. His latest performance has the hacks thrilled: In recent days he’s gotten the People magazine treatment from People, and again from Politico, which heralded, two weeks after Easter, “Dan Rather’s Second Coming.” So Rather is much like Jesus Christ, except instead of being crucified for our sins he was crucified for his own, albeit with said crucifixion amounting to being separated from his position as the Ron Burgundy of CBS and forced to seek refuge in low-rated cable. Behold, he is risen . . . on something called “The Big Interview” on AXS TV, which is one step up from Wayne’s World on public-access TV. Dan’s next episode features a chat with Sheryl Crow. Recent guests include Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top), Crystal Gayle, and Kid Rock.
If Rather is barely a working broadcaster anymore, Rather’s fans at Peoplitico cite his popularity on Facebook, where he has 2 million Likes. His feed News and Guts has over a million of its own. His personal posts are the usual leftist porridge of overreaction, anger, and hysteria about President Trump: “This is an emergency . . . it is gut check time,” Rather wrote on February 24, referring to (remember when this was a thing?) “the barring of respected journalistic outfits from the White House.” (Politico itself now acknowledges that the alleged conflict with the media is a “fake war.”) After Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker calmly explained that he was reluctant to label a misstatement by Trump or anyone else a “lie” if he couldn’t show intent to deceive, Daily Kos and other field reps for the perpetually agitated Left thrilled to Rather’s angry Facebook response, “A lie is a lie is a lie.” He ought to know.
The appeal to younger progs seems to work like this: Donald Trump’s presidency is so outrageous that even staid, studiously neutral octogenarian anchorman Dan Rather agrees with us and is publicly losing his spit. It’s cathartic and awesome to witness so much venom spewing out of such a geezer. Rather is the journalistic Bernie Sanders, just as Sanders is the political Larry David. Watching cranky old men go nuts is fun.
This is nothing really new for Rather. Entertaining his audience has always come first and if (as in Dallas) he sometimes mangled a story so badly that he would have been fired if he had been working on a small-market city desk, he always kept his newsman face on. “Rather would go with an item even if he didn’t have it completely nailed down,” wrote Timothy Crouse in his chronicle of campaign reporters, The Boys on the Bus. “If a rumor sounded solid to him . . . he would let it rip. The other White House reporters hated Rather for this. They knew exactly why he got away with it: Being as handsome as a cowboy, Rather was a star at CBS News, and that gave him the clout he needed.” Rather’s big Watergate moment, typically, was simply about Rather: At a press conference, the president asked him, “Are you running for something?” and Rather cheekily if nonsensically replied, “No, Sir, Mr. President, are you?” We’ve grown so used to showboating news blowhards making themselves the center of attention that it’s easy to forget where it began. In Rather’s era, other TV newsmen strove to be self-effacing and bloodless — John Chancellors and Roger Mudds.
Did Rather ever break any news? Sure. He reported, in 1969, that President Nixon was about to fire J. Edgar Hoover. Except Nixon never did fire Hoover, who was still FBI director at his death in 1972. Rather also bungled a story that Nixon was about to fire a top Vietnam official. “Dan had an overwhelming drive and ambition, and at times his ambition overcame his journalistic caution,” Rather’s longtime CBS colleague Bob Pierpoint told Weisman, adding, “He had a more dramatic persona than the others.” (Pierpoint praised Rather’s “mannerism and his delivery.”)
The “dramatic persona” gradually grew ridiculous, as during the 1980 60 Minutes segment that Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales memorably dubbed “Gunga Dan.” Rather, dressed ludicrously in mujahideen-wear, breathlessly told the cameras that he was disregarding his own safety and sneaking into Afghanistan for a segment Shales called “punchy, crunchy, highly dramatic, and essentially uninformative. . . . We knew something about the war against the invading Soviet troops before 60 Minutes, but, and this is important, did we know how the war was affecting Dan Rather?” Shales noted that Rather is seen nervously asking about distant bombing. His interpreter replies, “Nothing to bother us. Don’t worry.” Shales concluded, “It’s hard to decide whether [Edward] Murrow is smiling down approvingly or spinning in his grave.”
Rather’s ‘dramatic persona’ gradually grew ridiculous.
There was always a fine line between Gunga Dan and Diva Dan. When Rather stormed off the CBS Evening News set in a hissy fit in 1987 because he learned that U.S. Open tennis coverage was going to bleed into the news and cost him precious face time, the network was forced into the unprecedented situation of going black for six minutes. Even being fired by CBS after the 2004 debacle in which Rather’s team, in collusion with John Kerry’s campaign, aired unverified documents about George W. Bush’s National Guard service that were almost certainly fake, didn’t teach Rather anything: He still stands by the story.
Vamping for the Politico photo shoot, Rather brought out a costume and props: He wears a trenchcoat and carries a reporter’s notebook, as though he’s ready to pump Kid Rock for sources. The picture brings to mind the 2005 New Yorker profile by Ken Auletta, in which a pathetic Rather, desperate to prove he’s something more than a performer reading scripts, is seen lunging for phones and asking about meetings that took place as usual without him. He’s a daffy, irrelevant figure who, when an outsider came to profile him, “pretended to be more involved in shaping the daily broadcast — barking orders, assigning stories, writing copy — than he actually was.” That’s Dan Rather: fake newsman.
0 -
link to the author or publication of this piece?TJ25487 said:
About the author:mickeyrat said:20937(Photo by TF-Images/Getty Images)“Me, me, me, me...”
“My, my, my, my...”
“Mine, mine, mine...”You don’t have to listen to Donald Trump for very long to discern a worldview that is completely and utterly egocentric.
He has gallivanted through a life made possible by his daddy’s money (nevermind the shadows under which it was accumulated). He has exploited a business and social structure designed to cater to, indulge, and excuse men like him. He is driven only by quenching his basest desires.
And over and over again, Donald Trump has gotten away with it — like a young child who has been given (and has taken) everything without ever being told “no.”
Now he is being indulged by an entire political party. And like a misbehaving toddler, his disruptive antics have spread to others. They mimic his temper tantrums. Chaos escalates.
Except this is not a preschool classroom, it is a nation.
Petulance is not measured in hoarded blocks and broken crayons but in the demise of our democratic order.
“My top secret documents...”
“My judges...”
“My people...”Trump sees a simplistic binary world where everyone is either there to serve his needs or they are the enemy. Material possessions are to be accumulated and used however he sees fit — according to the metric of personal benefit.
The way our system of government aspires to work is that the law applies evenly to all citizens. Sadly, history has shown time and again how far from that reality we often are as a nation. But the principle of “equal justice under the law” is fundamental to the American ideal, and we as a people overwhelmingly believe in striving for it.
Trump and his acolytes do not even pay lip service to it. There is no “my fellow citizens,” no commonality. He expects to exist in an alternate universe. By his formulation, the law applies only to “thee” as in us, and never to “me,” as in him.
This mindset was destructive enough when it drove the decision-making in the Oval Office. Since Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, the danger in some ways has escalated. The truth is that the president of the United States is afforded many special privileges and powers. But they reside in the office and not the person. Donald Trump is no longer president. And yet the court ruling from a judge he appointed runs roughshod over this democratic principle.
Trump's motives for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago are unknown. Recent reporting that they contained some of this nation’s most sensitive secrets raises very disturbing ramifications. But regardless of what Trump was doing, one thing we can say for certain is he believes the rules don’t apply to him.
He believes he can lose a free and fair election and meet that fate with lies — the first president in American history to not accept defeat.
He believes he can foment violence without consequence to himself.
He believes he can blow up our institutions of governance with impunity.
And if you judge by his legions of apologists and lackeys, he is correct. They are happy to excuse his behavior or just look the other way. It’s why people like Senator Marco Rubio are eager to blame federal law enforcement for what he deems the minor infraction of a private citizen keeping highly classified documents in an insecure location for who knows what motive. “I don't think a fight over the storage of documents is worthy of what they've done,” he said recently. The storage of documents? Is that really what we’re talking about? Of course not. And of course Rubio had a very different take when we were talking about Hillary Clinton for a far less serious infraction.
We have seen some version of the same excuse each and every time Trump has blown past what had been the limits of accepted behavior. Because it’s Trump, they say it’s okay. Everything he does is okay.
We saw it in the run-up to the 2016 election. We’ve seen it in the lies too numerous to count, the unstable actions, and the pernicious divisiveness. Heck, we saw it with two impeachment trials. It’s happened over and over again. It’s like a preschool teacher saying, in effect, “Oh that’s just Donnie being Donnie.” Except every preschool teacher or responsible parent I know understands you can’t do that.
Actions must have consequences if order, rules, and laws are to hold. The Department of Justice and other prosecutors can say, “No, you can’t do that.” Juries, including grand juries, can, too. And so can voters. Elections, after all, also have consequences.
Note: If you are not already a subscriber to our Steady newsletter, please consider doing so. And we always appreciate you sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.
Dan Rather, Fake Newsman
As they say in Texas: all hat, no cattle.It’s fitting that Dan Rather is best known for bringing to the world a piece of fake news about George W. Bush’s Air National Guard service in Texas, because that’s where he began his career in shoddy journalism. The bungling goes all the way back to 1963 Dallas. His presence there on the day President Kennedy was assassinated helped create the legend of Dan, but he actually blew the story that made his name.
Rather had heard from a priest that the president was dead, but knew that wasn’t a strong enough source to back up such a huge story, so he didn’t pass along the tip to his superiors while he tried to shore up the rumor. According to Alan Weisman’s biography Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather, Rather became confused about who he was talking to on the phone. Thinking he was speaking to a fellow reporter on the ground, Eddie Barker, who was elsewhere in Dallas, he was actually on the line with the CBS News control room in New York: “Did you say, ‘dead’? Are you sure, Dan?” said the voice in New York. “Right, dead,” Rather said, still thinking he was talking to Barker. So, to Rather’s horror, CBS radio blasted the news out to the world. “Rather said he began shouting into the phone that he had not authorized any such bulletin,” Weisman wrote. “Accurately or not, Rather was credited with being the first to report the death of the president.”
Dan Rather was never much of a journalist. What he excelled at was playing one on TV. His latest performance has the hacks thrilled: In recent days he’s gotten the People magazine treatment from People, and again from Politico, which heralded, two weeks after Easter, “Dan Rather’s Second Coming.” So Rather is much like Jesus Christ, except instead of being crucified for our sins he was crucified for his own, albeit with said crucifixion amounting to being separated from his position as the Ron Burgundy of CBS and forced to seek refuge in low-rated cable. Behold, he is risen . . . on something called “The Big Interview” on AXS TV, which is one step up from Wayne’s World on public-access TV. Dan’s next episode features a chat with Sheryl Crow. Recent guests include Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top), Crystal Gayle, and Kid Rock.If Rather is barely a working broadcaster anymore, Rather’s fans at Peoplitico cite his popularity on Facebook, where he has 2 million Likes. His feed News and Guts has over a million of its own. His personal posts are the usual leftist porridge of overreaction, anger, and hysteria about President Trump: “This is an emergency . . . it is gut check time,” Rather wrote on February 24, referring to (remember when this was a thing?) “the barring of respected journalistic outfits from the White House.” (Politico itself now acknowledges that the alleged conflict with the media is a “fake war.”) After Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker calmly explained that he was reluctant to label a misstatement by Trump or anyone else a “lie” if he couldn’t show intent to deceive, Daily Kos and other field reps for the perpetually agitated Left thrilled to Rather’s angry Facebook response, “A lie is a lie is a lie.” He ought to know.
The appeal to younger progs seems to work like this: Donald Trump’s presidency is so outrageous that even staid, studiously neutral octogenarian anchorman Dan Rather agrees with us and is publicly losing his spit. It’s cathartic and awesome to witness so much venom spewing out of such a geezer. Rather is the journalistic Bernie Sanders, just as Sanders is the political Larry David. Watching cranky old men go nuts is fun.
This is nothing really new for Rather. Entertaining his audience has always come first and if (as in Dallas) he sometimes mangled a story so badly that he would have been fired if he had been working on a small-market city desk, he always kept his newsman face on. “Rather would go with an item even if he didn’t have it completely nailed down,” wrote Timothy Crouse in his chronicle of campaign reporters, The Boys on the Bus. “If a rumor sounded solid to him . . . he would let it rip. The other White House reporters hated Rather for this. They knew exactly why he got away with it: Being as handsome as a cowboy, Rather was a star at CBS News, and that gave him the clout he needed.” Rather’s big Watergate moment, typically, was simply about Rather: At a press conference, the president asked him, “Are you running for something?” and Rather cheekily if nonsensically replied, “No, Sir, Mr. President, are you?” We’ve grown so used to showboating news blowhards making themselves the center of attention that it’s easy to forget where it began. In Rather’s era, other TV newsmen strove to be self-effacing and bloodless — John Chancellors and Roger Mudds.
Did Rather ever break any news? Sure. He reported, in 1969, that President Nixon was about to fire J. Edgar Hoover. Except Nixon never did fire Hoover, who was still FBI director at his death in 1972. Rather also bungled a story that Nixon was about to fire a top Vietnam official. “Dan had an overwhelming drive and ambition, and at times his ambition overcame his journalistic caution,” Rather’s longtime CBS colleague Bob Pierpoint told Weisman, adding, “He had a more dramatic persona than the others.” (Pierpoint praised Rather’s “mannerism and his delivery.”)
The “dramatic persona” gradually grew ridiculous, as during the 1980 60 Minutes segment that Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales memorably dubbed “Gunga Dan.” Rather, dressed ludicrously in mujahideen-wear, breathlessly told the cameras that he was disregarding his own safety and sneaking into Afghanistan for a segment Shales called “punchy, crunchy, highly dramatic, and essentially uninformative. . . . We knew something about the war against the invading Soviet troops before 60 Minutes, but, and this is important, did we know how the war was affecting Dan Rather?” Shales noted that Rather is seen nervously asking about distant bombing. His interpreter replies, “Nothing to bother us. Don’t worry.” Shales concluded, “It’s hard to decide whether [Edward] Murrow is smiling down approvingly or spinning in his grave.”
Rather’s ‘dramatic persona’ gradually grew ridiculous.
There was always a fine line between Gunga Dan and Diva Dan. When Rather stormed off the CBS Evening News set in a hissy fit in 1987 because he learned that U.S. Open tennis coverage was going to bleed into the news and cost him precious face time, the network was forced into the unprecedented situation of going black for six minutes. Even being fired by CBS after the 2004 debacle in which Rather’s team, in collusion with John Kerry’s campaign, aired unverified documents about George W. Bush’s National Guard service that were almost certainly fake, didn’t teach Rather anything: He still stands by the story.
Vamping for the Politico photo shoot, Rather brought out a costume and props: He wears a trenchcoat and carries a reporter’s notebook, as though he’s ready to pump Kid Rock for sources. The picture brings to mind the 2005 New Yorker profile by Ken Auletta, in which a pathetic Rather, desperate to prove he’s something more than a performer reading scripts, is seen lunging for phones and asking about meetings that took place as usual without him. He’s a daffy, irrelevant figure who, when an outsider came to profile him, “pretended to be more involved in shaping the daily broadcast — barking orders, assigning stories, writing copy — than he actually was.” That’s Dan Rather: fake newsman.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
9/11
21 years later
16 hr ago
Photo: Yongyuan Dai9/11 21 years. We tend to mark major anniversaries. But why should this year be less important? It isn’t. And yet I wonder: Is this still a day that stops us in our tracks? We will never forget where we were when we heard, when we saw, when we cried. But so much has passed between then and now. 9/11 changed our nation forever. But so too have events that followed. History marches in only one direction — forward — in lockstep with our lives. Still, I am drawn back. I know that it will be so for as long as I am here. That bright, sunny morning — a postcard of a New York day that turned hopelessly dark. I smell the smoke. I hear the screams. I see the faces of the perpetually missing in walls of photographs. I touch the void. I think of the mistakes that preceded 9/11. And the mistakes that followed. I think of our national goodwill and how it was squandered. I wonder at a unity that has dissipated to acrimony. I mourn for those who died that day. And those who perished in the wars that followed. One of which was a misguided war of choice. The folly of Iraq still haunts us. What if? What if? What if? The questions accumulate. We ask despite knowing there are no answers. Fate can be cruel. And on that day the cruelty left us all altered. I think especially of those who lost friends and loved ones. The personal emptiness they have had to face is greater than our collective grief. Let us never forget that. For the rest of us, we lost a sense of invulnerability. How could our mighty nation be thus attacked? Today the vulnerability of terrorism remains. But it is crowded with a long list of others. Our country is precarious. We feel exposed. At risk. And it is not only for us as individuals. Our national freedoms, Our constitutional rights, Our public health, and the very mechanisms of democratic governance are under threat. We yearn for stability knowing it will be ever elusive. But strength and resilience are possible. We saw that then. And we can see it now. For those of us who were lucky enough to emerge from the tragedy, steady we must be. Steady. Steady. Steady. To carry on the memory of those who perished into the challenges ahead. _______________ On the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, I recorded some remembrances of that day for a special program on my newsmagazine "Dan Rather Reports." I share a few selections here. The memories are as fresh now as they were then.Note: If you are not already a subscriber to our Steady newsletter, please consider doing so. And we always appreciate you sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
Trump Had a Day
And it might get worse
8 hr ago
NY Attorney General Letitia James announcing that her office is suing former President Donald Trump and three of his children. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)Well, well, well. Let’s just say that Donald Trump has had better days.
This could be one of his worst, but there may be far worse ones coming down the line if today turns out to be a preface and not a denouement.
This morning started off bad enough.
New York Attorney General Letitia James made it known that she was going to issue a “major announcement.” And she did not disappoint. The lawsuit she filed in state court is in essence a guided missile aimed right at the heart of the Trump family business. Calling the level of fraud she uncovered “staggering,” James outlined a list of facts that could have been a plotline in The Sopranos.
And it isn't just the patriarch in her legal crosshairs. The three children who have been foisted upon the American public — Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka — also earned starring roles in the court papers.
While this is a civil suit, that’s because James is limited from bringing criminal charges. She did refer her findings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, but if they choose to press forward, they will likely have to get in line.
That’s because as rough as this morning’s news cycle was for Trump, more pain was in the offing.
This evening, the 11th Circuit ruled on the outrage that has been festering over the investigation into the classified documents the former president took (for still unknown reasons, at least publicly) to Mar-a-Lago.
If Trump was hoping that Trump judges at the appellate level would fall in line like Judge Cannon (the district judge who’s done legal backflips well beyond the bounds of precedent or prudence to accommodate Trump), he was sorely mistaken. Two Trump judges sided with an Obama appointee to issue a stinging rebuke of the lower court’s ruling — a ruling that most judicial experts had felt was about as serious as an episode of Laugh In.
I will leave it to legal scholars to parse the specifics of the lawsuits and rulings, but some big things are clear. One, Trump is in trouble. Big trouble. And not the kind of trouble that he can squirm his way out of by bloviating to Sean Hannity or browbeating Mitch McConnell. He’s on the defensive, and pressure is closing in from all directions.
The timing of these quickening drumbeats of scrutiny overlap with the final stretch of the midterm elections — into which Trump has vociferously inserted himself according to the only metric he knows: what benefits him. November thus is shaping up to be a referendum on Trumpism, to the dismay of many Republican officials. But those same Republicans have made a decision en masse to embrace Trump, at least publicly. From a cynical political calculus one can understand why. The Republican base is the Trump base, or maybe it’s more accurate to put that the other way around.
It is also clear that the core of this base is not enough to power Republicans to majorities in Congress. And yet, if the base stays home, Republicans also will lose.
With so much at stake, the unknowns hanging over Trump and his legal jeopardy are very consequential. How bad might this get for Trump and those who have fastened themselves to him? Will more be revealed? Will any Republicans decide that they need to separate themselves from Trump? Will that lead to disarray within the party as election day approaches? All of this is possible. But it is also possible that Trump skates by once again, at least for now. It is possible that Republicans take back Congress, and they frame their victory as a validation of Trumpism, nevermind what it means for the health and security of the country.
Right now it looks like a close election, but tides can shift, sometimes drastically. Support can crumble. What once looked like strength can be recast as weakness. Just ask one of the few people having a rougher go of it of late than Trump — Vladimir Putin.
Oh, and in other late-breaking news, the January 6th committee has come to an agreement to interview Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas. Can’t forget about that investigation.
One imagines all is not quiet tonight in Mar-a-Lago.
Note: If you are not already a subscriber to our Steady newsletter, please consider joining us. And we always appreciate you sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140
https://youtu.be/xe5Lm4dgg6k
https://youtu.be/0qjPoBVIc4w
Categories
- All Categories
- 148.9K Pearl Jam's Music and Activism
- 110.1K The Porch
- 274 Vitalogy
- 35.1K Given To Fly (live)
- 3.5K Words and Music...Communication
- 39.2K Flea Market
- 39.2K Lost Dogs
- 58.7K Not Pearl Jam's Music
- 10.6K Musicians and Gearheads
- 29.1K Other Music
- 17.8K Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
- 1.1K The Art Wall
- 56.8K Non-Pearl Jam Discussion
- 22.2K A Moving Train
- 31.7K All Encompassing Trip
- 2.9K Technical Stuff and Help