FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2024
Except they're totally different: Their concerns are our concerns! Except. of course, for the fact that they're totally different.
The two different leadership guilds agree on one basic point. In Red America and in Blue America, those guilds are speaking out, on a daily basis, against "election interference."
The leadership guilds of the two Americas share that basic concern. The problem is, they disagree about the way in which election interference has occurred.
On the Fox News Channel, the fact that one candidate us on trial—the fact that he's facing a highly complex legal charge—represents a form of election interference.
A gag order keeps him from stating certain views concerning that trial. In Blue America, we're rarely told that the ACLU declared Judge Merchan's gag order to be unconstitutional, just like the Red cadre says.
On MSNBC, we voters who live in Bue America are told something different. We're told that the events of January 6 were an attempt at election interference—and that Candidate Trump is planning to do it again if he loses again this year.
Each side decries election interference. The problem is, they can't agree on where the misconduct is!
(“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God," President Lincoln once said. That was March 4, 1865, but it's a bit like that today.)
Over here in Blue America, our concerns are strongly felt and repeatedly announced. We're concerned about the possibility of losing "our democracy."
The ability to conduct free and fair elections is a basic part of that highly complex political system. Today, we ask you to consider a question:
Where did "election interference" come from in the matter of the 2016 presidential campaign?
We start with an obvious observation. Such interference can come from more than one place.
In the case of that campaign, it may have come from James Comey. It may have come from Russian hackers.
It may have come from "the dodgy dossier." People's assessments will differ.
Now we ask a highly theoretical question. We ask you denizens of Blue America to squint your eyes and stretch your assumptions a bit as you consider this question:
Might such election interference also have come from Stormy Daniels herself?
Is it possible that Michael Cohen—and, allegedly, Donald J. Trump—headed off a case of interference when he gave Daniels a sack of cash to keep her from "telling her story?" To keep her from "telling her story" about the utterly pointless matter she said she was itchin' to tell?
Our question takes us back through time, back to the 1992 campaign. Is it possible that Gennifer Flowers staged a type of "election interference" when she stepped forward with an elaborate tale about a torrid love affair with "my Bill"—a thrilling tale which was almost surely bogus, but which almost knocked the eventual president out of that White House campaign?
Flowers achieved instant fame—and a very large bundle of cash. Can her conduct be seen as a form of "election interference?" If so, how about Daniels' initial request for a million dollars, in the absence of which she would be forced to tell her pointless story?
Daniels' story might be true and it might be false, but it's utterly pointless. That said, given the way our human brains work, it imaginably could have changed the outcome of the 2016 campaign.
If Daniels hadn't been handed a smaller sack of cash, might she have engaged in "election interference?" Also, are we even sure that her story was true?
Are we sure that her (current) story is true? Consider the Daniels denials.
Eventually, there were two such denials. Yesterday, those denials were examined during Day 10 of the Trump "hush money" trial.
In Blue America, we rarely hear about those denials. For the record, we're not saying that the denials were accurate. As far as we know, her pair of denials were false.
That said, Daniels was seeking a big bag of cash, and we don't consider her to be a fully reliable narrator.
Daniels says that, as a child, she was sexually abused for years. Trump was born to a sociopathic father.
You can't believe a thing he says. In this excerpt from an earlier version of the current New York Times report, the two denials are described in all their deviousness and in all their gong-show dumbness.
The thoroughly clownlike Keith Davidson is the extortion-adjacent rep who helped Daniels acquire the cash:
BROMWICH AND MCKINLEY (5/2/24): The testimony from Mr. Davidson on Thursday, his second day on the stand, painted a vivid portrait of fevered efforts by the witness, Mr. Cohen and others to keep allegations of extramarital affairs by Mr. Trump out of the public eye.
Those included a January 2018 denial that Ms. Daniels issued after inquiries from The Wall Street Journal.
Ms. Daniels said she had not had a “sexual and/or romantic affair” with the president, and on the stand, Mr. Davidson took pains to explain why that was “technically true.” He said that the one-night stand in a Lake Tahoe hotel, which Mr. Trump denies occurred, was not romantic.
[...]
Mr. Davidson painted a portrait of life within a Los Angeles demimonde, complete with meetings in the Marilyn Monroe Suite of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel—“a classic,” he called it—where Ms. Daniels drafted a second denial of an affair with Mr. Trump. (Mr. Davidson said this one, too, was technically true, as it denied a “relationship,” a word that he felt conveyed an “ongoing interaction.”)
So much technical accuracy, so little attempt at conveying what's said to be true at this time!
At any rate, did you follow the narrow logic employed by Daniels' former rep? Her first denial was technically accurate because her alleged encounter with Donald J. Trump actually wasn't "romantic."
Her second denial was technically accurate because that same alleged encounter didn't even rise to the level of being a "relationship!" So it went back in the day, when Daniels was giving the impression that she and the future commander didn't get it on.
Now she says the two did get it on—though just that once, in 2006, in a way which was fully consensual. We don't doubt that this statement is true. But we can't exactly prove it.
For the record, the complexified charge against the defendant doesn't turn on whether Daniels' claim is true. That said, we're asking you to ponder a different question:
Everyone is concerned about election interference. When she was seeking a million dollars to tell a story which may or may not have been true, is it possible that Stormy Daniels was engaging in such interference?
Starting next week, we plan to return to the late Bronze Age to place these more recent events in a broader perspective.
Can we learn to see ourselves more clearly by revisiting the western world's first great poem of war? It seems to us that we possibly can—and it's time to take the leap.
For today, we leave you with the lady or the tiger. In your view, who was involved in election interference in this now famous exchange:
Who was threatening or attempting a type of election interference?
The person who wanted to tell an irrelevant, unconfirmable story about a single alleged event from ten years before?
Or the person who gave her a big sack of cash to eliminate this distraction?
Who was engaged in election interference in that case? In Bue America, we're told that the people who paid Daniels to shut up were engaged in that behavior—were withholding information we voters needed to have!
Also, how about this?
Who was threatening or attempting a type of election interference?
The doorman who was threatening to tell a flatly false story from thirty years before about a "love child" who didn't exist?
Or the person who gave the doorman a big sack of cash to head off this distraction?
"Your concerns and my concerns," the Hemingway character said. She did so in 1979, in the film Manhattan.
Today, their concerns are our concerns. We all hate election interference.
We want our elections to be free and fair—and we want them to be about sex!
This afternoon: Who got arrested in Hamilton Hall?
Starting Monday: Why the Argives sailed
Why, no one should say true things that are damaging to a candidate during election season. That’s election interference. It just isn’t done, my dear. The candidate and only the candidate must control the narrative. Why, it’s practically the American way.
ReplyDeleteSomerby has left out the word "illegal" before the words "election interference".
DeleteVoters can donate money to candidates up to a limit, and they must report their occupations (to prevent bosses from requiring employees to donate). Foreign entities may not donate any money or give in-kind services to candidates. If discovered, such donations must be returned to their source. Foreign donations are illegal campaign interference. Voter donations are not. See the difference?
There are a whole set of rules for how campaigns must be managed, defining what is legal and what is illegal. Pretending that merely trying to affect the outcome of an election is being considered interference is a deliberate subterfuge by Somerby and those defending Trump, pretending that Trump was just trying to win.
Trump cheated, broke the rules with impunity, colluded with criminals (Cohen) and foreign entities (Russia), suborned illegal hacking and posting of emails on Wikileaks, and Comey broke FBI rules to issue his anti-Hillary letter in Oct. None of that stuff is legal and it constituted election interference. This stuff with suppressing news by paying off a magazine and paying hush money to keep stories out of the news is more illegal campaign interference.
Why? Because candidates are not allowed to use news media to influence voters. If a candidate owned a newspaper, he would be required to place it in a trust during the campaign and have no involvement with it. That is why Trump was no longer on his apprentice show during the campaign. So colluding with Pecker and buying National Enquirer services were a violation of rules and constituted illegal election interference. Payment of hush money was not only concealed but violated campaign donation reporting requirements.
You could argue that Trump is so used to breaking business rules, tax laws, cheating at school, that this is just one more context in which to lie, cheat and steal. But that doesn't make it right. Other candidates occasionally break rules by accident or in small ways. This is gross and blatant disregard for the rules meant to keep elections fair, knowingly committed by Trump and his staff. It needs to be prosecuted in order to keep the 2024 election fair and to prevent future abuses by others who are tempted to imitate Trump.
Mao, is that you? Come out of the closet my dear.
DeleteI feel like Somerby is just trolling Dem supporters at this point. Is he seriously comparing January 6th to Stormy Daniels? He has lost his way.
DeleteOf course, the source of the payoffs to Daniels and Mcdougal is the actual issue , not whether they “interfered” in the election. They weren’t running.
ReplyDeleteDiC - 175K new jobs in April. Yet another solid report.
ReplyDelete“ The U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs in April according to the latest employment situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday morning, the smallest job gain in some six months and significantly below Wall Street estimates for the month.It was expected that April would bring 240,000 to 250,000 new jobs, and the unemployment rate would remain at 3.8 percent. Instead, April was a big miss, and unemployment ticked up to 3.9 percent.”
DeleteMost likely, they cooked up these numbers in order to justify a rate cut.
DeleteDIC's framing of these very strong numbers is pure spin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCeuWpU-Jv4
DeleteHere's a story, shocking if true, that Red America is seeing but Blue America will not see
ReplyDeleteO’Keefe Media Group Exposes Alleged CIA Plot Against Trump
A video posted on social media by James O'Keefe features Amjad Anton Fseisi, purported to be the project manager for cyber operations at the CIA. In the video, the undercover reporter for O'Keefe Media Group gets Fseisi to admit that several intelligence agencies deliberately withheld information from Trump out of some absurd fear that he might "disclose it." Fseisi is seen in the recording admitting that intelligence agencies “all got together and said, ‘We’re not gonna tell Trump.'”...
But there's more.
"Amjad reveals to OMG’s Undercover American Swiper that intel agencies not only kept intelligence information from a sitting United States President and Commander-In-Chief, they also used FISA to spy on [Donald Trump]," O'Keefe says on X/Twitter. "And his team and [sic] are still monitoring President Trump according to Amjad who says, 'We monitor everything.' Amjad adds 'we also have people that monitor his ex-wife. He likes to use burner phones' – information only an insider with access to highly sensitive information would state."
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/05/02/okeefe-media-group-exposes-plot-against-trump-n4928713
Yet another alleged CIA plot that will be found to have no substance. This is the air Q-Anon breathes.
DeleteHere’s an accusation, shocking if true: David has romantic affairs with underage girls.
DeleteOK, DiC. I'm sure O'Keefe is on the level THIS time, yeah?
DeleteHow many times does a fellow have to be caught lying before he's no longer trustworthy?
This is what Dickhead in Cal does.
DeleteHey, Dickhead in Cal, you can't install an ignorant monkey corrupt liar and traitor into the most powerful office in the world and expect everyone else to play along. Go fuck yourself.
Wha-HEY?!?
DeleteDavid, you snipped out the lead of the story. You know, the part that says the ringleaders of this alleged plat were Trump's own appointees Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspell!
That's dirty pool.
Dickhead in Cal does not deal in good faith.
DeleteDIC always with nothing but the most reliable sources. No money management problems or false narratives from that group. Wish it were true that the POS insurrectionist traitor, colluding with Putin, and handing out top secrets is being monitored by the CIA. Von Shitzhispantz is a danger to all democratic nations.
DeleteJames O'Keefe has had various run-ins with the law, has had to pay huge fines, was convicted of pretending to be a telephone repairman while trying to break into a Senator's office, he was recently kicked out of his former operation for misusing funds - to have his boat cleaned, to buy various cars, etc.
DeleteJames O'Keefe is as honest and reliable as a snake oil salesman.
If you attempt to use James O'Keefe as a source, you come across as a disingenuous hack.
Or a disingenuous DIC.
DeleteAs I said, I don't know whether this person's allegations are true or not. Unfortunately, I don't expect to ever find out. Even if what he says is accurate, I do not expect to ever get confirmation. The CIA is a secret organization. They don't have to admit to this kind of behavior. The media have essentially cancelled O'Keefe; they won't follow up.
DeleteThe bottom line is that conservatives will hear this allegation and believe it. Liberals won't even hear the allegation. The few liberals who read about it, e.g., those on this blog, will dismiss it out of hand.
This will be yet another issue where the two sides have different views of reality.
O’Keefe cancelled himself.
DeleteBTW some of the stories O'Keefe broke turned out to be accurate and important. He was demonized by the mainstream media and by liberals. I believe his critics here are just responding to that demonization.
DeleteIf someone here has made the effort to personally evaluate O'Keefe's accuracy, I'd be happy to hear what they discovered.
Name one
Delete"The media have essentially cancelled O'Keefe"
DeleteSorry, but no. O'Keefe has posted fake after fake. He's baldly partisan and shamelessly dishonest. I'd doubt that he's ever broken an "accurate and important" story.
As I said, I don't know whether this person's allegations are true or not.....
DeleteLOL
Quaker -- Are O'Keefe's stories accurate and important? Decide for yourself. You can check the Project Veritas website and see the stories they've broken.
DeleteAll the stories are fully accurate, in the sense that the recorded people said what they said. You can watch and listen to them. Whether to believe each recorded person is a valid concern.
O'Keefe was fired from Project Veritas Feb 20, 2023. Stories earlier than that were done when O'Keefe was leading Project Veritas. Here's just one example. In this case, the statement made by the Dean of Students would certainly be important to parents of students at that school.:
Elite Chicago Private School’s Dean of Students Brags About Bringing in LGBTQ+ Health Center to Teach ‘Queer Sex’ to Minors … ‘That’s a Really Cool Part of My Job’ … ‘Passing Around Dildos and Butt Plugs’ ... ‘Using Lube Versus Using Spit’
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/elite-chicago-private-schools-dean-of-students-brags-about-bringing-in-lgbtq
David in Cal is a hopeless romantic.
DeleteOops, not hopeless romantic, that other thing. Oh yeah, shameless bigot. That's what I meant to point out what David in Cal is.
Somerby seems to like the "Your concerns are my concerns" line from Manhattan. But one of the reasons why romantic relationships between much older men and much younger women are not allowed by law in the enlightened states in our country is the recognition that, with a large income and power differential, a young woman may not give proper weight to her own concerns, that the older man's concerns would preoccupy both of them and the woman would be unable to assert her needs and live her own life. Such men are unable to make demands without considering the needs of the younger woman, due to her inability to imagine an independent life in which her needs matter, one where she has the means to support herself and can leave if she is not treated well. It results in the complete subordination of the girl to the older man who may consider her an appendage instead of a person. That is the attraction of such a relationship for the men who pursue them. Where can she go and what can she do without him? A woman without alternatives will take a lot of crap, whatever he chooses to dish out. And she will not have the chance to learn that love is not dependency.
ReplyDeleteToday Somerby tries to apply that construct to red and blue "leadership guilds" in a way that makes no sense at all, especially considering the way the phrase was used in the film Manhattan. The two political perspectives do not share concerns, nor are they motivated to compromise their concerns, much less subordinate one set of concerns for another (which is what it means when one says "your concerns are my concerns").
Today Somerby argues that Trump should have the right to engage in jury and witness intimidation as he has done already in previous trials and situations. Somerby argues that is his free speech right, except that there are limitations on free speech and they are not intended to infringe on the rights of others. Somerby argues that Trump's right to say whatever the hell he wants should subsume the right of the public to present a fair trial in which jurors are allowed to make their own independent decisions. Trump's concerns and not the jury's concerns nor the judge's concerns, nor the public's concerns. Trump's much greater wealth and power do not entitled him to trample the needs and concerns of others in our society.
Somerby doesn't mention that the brief filed by the ACLU is not about Merchan's gag order but about the one in the GA case involving election tampering. The terms of that gag order are different than the one in the NY criminal fraud case -- it restricts statements targeting the substance of testimony, not just attacking people. Further, Trump's behavior has been more aggressively targeting specific people (the judge's daughter, Cohen, Daniels, jury members) which shows a serious threat and justifies the need for the order -- a complaint the ACLU said had not been met by the other case.
Cont.
Deletet is dishonest to misrepresent the ACLU's brief as Somerby has done today. His concern seems to be to help Trump, not achieve the justice he says both red and blue sides are concerned about. The red "leadership guild" is concerned primarily with supporting Trump. So is Somerby. The blue "leadership guild" is concerned with protecting democracy and attaining a fair trial, one that demonstrates that the law applies to all of us. These are incompatible concerns and that is the reason why the red tribe cannot impose its will unilaterally on blue tribe members, when it cannot convince in legitimate ways. This is not some May-December relationship in which a bully gets to push around those who are kinder and gentler, as Hemingway was in the film. Romanticizing Trump's bad behavior doesn't make him more palatable to blue readers at this blog. His attempts to use Mariel Hemingway to normalize Trump's sexual behavior stinks. There are only 5 women on the jury, suggesting that they were deliberately excluded in order to prevent female judgments of Trump's illicit behavior from affecting the trial outcome. That is about as fair as when Woody manipulated a very young Hemingway into doing things in his film that she did not want to do. My hope is that the men on the jury will see past Somerby's sexual fantasies and do the right thing in their deliberations.
Here is the ACLU amicus brief:
Deletehttps://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-files-brief-arguing-trump-gag-order-violates-the-first-amendment
"A federal appeals court panel has preserved most of a gag order on former President Donald Trump in his federal election-interference case in Washington, D.C.
DeleteThe three-judge panel concluded that some of Trump's remarks "pose a significant and imminent threat to the orderly adjudication" of justice but said the lower court judge's gag order swept in too much speech protected by the First Amendment.
Siding with Trump, the ACLU says a judge's gag order in Jan. 6 case is too sweeping.
Siding with Trump, the ACLU says a judge's gag order in Jan. 6 case is too sweeping
The appeals court ruling would allow Trump to make public statements about the special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, but not other prosecutors, court staffers or their family members — if those remarks were designed to interfere with lawyers' or court staff's work on the four-count felony case against Trump."
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/08/1218261920/trump-gag-order-jan-6-case
Bob didn’t think the lethal riot on the Capitol
ReplyDeleteTrump provoked was Election Interference either. When Cheney’s committee dropped
the evidence in his lap, he vainly tried to
refute it, then just walked away. In the
Florida documents case, where Trump
clearly is claiming his illegal acts were
legal, Bob said he had a valid defense
because we can’t prove he doesn’t
believe what he is saying. Etc, etc,
etc…….
The New York case is not that hard
to understand, though there are some
ambiguities and wriggle room. What
is not complex is Trump’s trying to
intimidate jury members and ignore
gag orders. His claim that the Court
is being surround, the block roped off,
so that his supporters can’t get in
is something Bob should confront.
Is this clear untruth another thing we
must not term a lie because Trump
might actually believe it?
Trump’s actions here are hard to
defend and not that murky. So Bob
tries to argue on moral grounds, don’t
we see the pain all this will bring people
who like Trump?
Here Bob inadvertently reveals a bad
flaw on the liberal side. With a few
exceptions, almost nothing has been said
about the damage done to the Country
in normalizing Trump or what the damage
will be in letting him go. To many things
have not even been modestly confronted.
And if you don’t think so, imagine Joe
Biden having the Democratic Convention
In the White House and work from there.
Imagine how sad and depressed poor Roy Moore must have been when he was told that he could not marry a 14 year old! That poor poor man. And he was such a "good catch" with his District Attorney job and his fine suits and spending money! Any 14 year old should have been happy just to bask in his reflected glory. Those stupid laws!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's a problem with the libel/slander laws in the US; the way they don't protect the "public figures".
Someone publishing unconfirmed tales told by Daniels and such should be held liable, even when the target is a "public figure". This way this kinds of "election interferences" will be kept to a minimum.
Same goes, by the way, for wild fantasies: accusing candidates and politicians of being "mentally ill" or "a threat to our democracy". Make fear- and hate-mongers liable.
Make annoying commenters liable.
DeleteTrump could have sued McDougal and Daniels for libel or slander, but the defense is truth. Trump did what he is accused of doing, which is why those women's stories can be published without him being able to suppress them. They are true (or true enough that Trump could not prevail in a lawsuit). They have as much right to free speech as Trump has. Wild fantasies would not be able to win such a suit, to the extent that they are untrue and would lose in court. Trump has used legal threats and actual suits to harrass people and suppress their claims for years, because he has enough money to pay lawyers to exhaust the funds of those seeking legal redress. It is how he gets away with calling other people names, and not paying bills he owes.
DeleteThe right has been calling Trump's legal tactics "lawfare" and they right considers it an unfair tactic when used against Trump himself, but not when Trump uses against other people to evade his own responsibilities.
Peggy Mellon Hitchcock has died.
ReplyDeleteAloha, Peggy.
DeleteHemingway says to Woody: "Your concerns are my concerns."
ReplyDeleteIt is always that way with narcissists. Their concerns are primary and others are expected to assume that burden as their own.
Somerby says to us: "CONCERNS: Their concerns are our concerns!"
Thus he puts us into the Hemingway role and we must accept the burden of their concerns. Not vice versa.
In a normal relationship, the concerns of both members become shared and our concerns are our concerns to be addressed in partnership.
This is why narcissists have such difficulty with relationships. They want their concerns to be primary and the concerns of others to be secondary (or better yet, nonexistent). Trump is like that -- he doesn't pay much attention to Melania's concerns until she has to act out by wearing a jacket with a slogan on it, to make her point to him. He shows her no consideration whatsoever.
He expresses fury against women who want something back in their dealings with him. Women recognize that dynamic and that is why Trump has been losing their votes, even in the red tribe. Yes, there are women who are content with the crumbs he drops from his table, but the self-respecting ones want nothing to do with him. And that is going to cost Trump the election.
Because adult women, independent women who know their own worth, don't want Trump's concerns to be their concerns. They want a president who will make the voters' concerns HIS concerns, and Trump is incapable of that.
Woody Allen wrote the film Manhattan. Hemingway's "Your concerns are my concerns" is his idea of love. He is trying to show that Hemingway loves the Woody character. He captures her immaturity with that statement. She is a child approaching adulthood who is looking forward to independence but also frightened by it. It may seem nice to have an adult man take care of you for the rest of your life, so she offers him what she herself wants, someone to take care of her concerns. That is the appeal of older men for younger women. To the extent that the man is attracted by youthful beauty, he isn't interested in nurturing a dependent. That is about giving not taking. In the normal course of things, the younger woman grows up and realizes that her needs are as valid as his, and that she can support herself, and the relationship falls apart or changes. To the extent that men who like teens are self-focused and cannot change, they will break up.
DeleteIn the Roy Moore scenario, a young girl who weds a much older man, will have gotten pregnant, dropped out of school, and have mouths to feed by the time she recognizes she needs to be more assertive and independent. She may find herself trapped by economics and unable to escape a man who feels threatened by her adult needs.
This is kind of what happened to Lauren Boebert.
One man's slightly off topic opinion: I believe Woody lifted this ending in large part from Chaplin's "City Lights."
DeleteAlso, Woody recorded his production on “film” a medium which he did not invent.
DeleteHenry Cuellar is innocent.
ReplyDeletehttps://abc7ny.com/rep-henry-cuellar-says-he-is-innocent-ahead-of-potential-indictment/14760755/
I'm sorry, but Our Host is way wide of the target today.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't Stormy Daniels, but David Pecker who engaged in "election interference"--if you're willing to apply that term to a clear case of campaign finance violations.
Pecker, Cohen, and Trump put their heads together and came up with a plan to "catch-and-kill" negative stories about Trump. Pecker financed a couple of such "catches" and in doing so, made illegal contributions to the Trump campaign.
Pecker struggled to get then-candidate Trump to honor his agreement to reimburse him for his expenses in killing negative stories. Meanwhile, Pecker also followed through on his agreement to run negative--and entirely fanciful--stories about candidate Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination. Ted Cruz's father helped assassinate JFK!
Finally, Pecker was no longer willing to be "the bank" for catching and killing scandal stories, so Cohen had to step in. Then, with Trump's cooperation, he took out a loan against his home and used a portion of that money to create a fake "consulting" company to pay Daniels for signing a "nondisclosure agreement."
Trump paid him back in installments over a period of months. When he did so, Trump had these reimbursement payments noted on his books as payments toward a legal retainer agreement with Cohen. What's more, the total amount of the reimbursements were more than double what Cohen initially paid out. Why? So Cohen could classify those payments as income--which they were not.
So what we have is a New York-based business keeping a doctored set of books in an attempt to hide a series of illegal campaign contributions. Is Trump guilty of these crimes? We're about to find out.
Nice summary. Look at what an elaborate, cheating, deceitful scheme all this was -- all of it obviously aimed at influencing the election. And yet Somerby thinks all of this wasn't any big deal and shouldn't be the subject of a lawsuit.
DeleteDear Bob:
ReplyDeleteThere is no border crisis.
From CNBC:
Immigrant workers made up 18.6% of the workforce last year, a new record, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Many of those workers are taking open positions in agriculture, technology and health care, fields where labor supply has been a challenge.
The government predicts that the influx of immigrant workers will grow gross domestic product over the next decade by $7 trillion.
@Jim Jensen,
DeleteIt sounds like CNBC is advocating replacing American citizens with illegal migrants.
American citizens do not take those jobs, that is why they are open to immigrants, and this has been the case for over 100 years. America would be up a creek without a paddle without the contributions made by immigrants, both documented and undocumented.
Delete
Delete@1:07 PM
Right. So, instead of paying wages attractive to American citizens, CNBC is advocating replacing American citizens with illegal migrants.
Replace how you dumb fuck?
Delete
DeleteThe Replacement Theory is racist rubbish.
It is not merely an issue with wages, it is the type of work, American citizens do not do, at scale, farm work or yard work or household work, etc.
Concerns over immigration are performative, Republicans trot it out every election cycle to motivate their base, while they refuse to do anything on the issue other than to dehumanize immigrants.
America has had migrant workers for a long time, they have contributed mightily to the success of America, to think otherwise is just ignorance.
American citizens won't do this "type of work", for any wage. Is this what you're saying, 1:41 PM?
DeleteWhich is why millions of illegals need to be allowed to cross the border. Do I get this right?
Over many years I watched undocumented Mexicans insulate operating steam piping inside buildings with temperatures at the ceiling reaching over 200 degrees F. I never watched legal white people doing that.
DeleteThe Chinese and the Irish built the railroads. The Chinese usually did the dangerous blasting work using explosives. This is documented by pay records. The Irish did the heavy lifting and backbreaking manual labor.
DeleteI'm with Joe: "pay 'em more."
DeleteStrengthen unions!
DeleteJoe Biden’s Job-Growth Boasts Built on Illegal Migration
Deletehttps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/joe-biden-s-job-growth-boasts-built-on-illegal-migration/ar-BB1iiGtl
"The data revealed that all of the additional jobs created under Biden above the 2019 level are held by migrants, while U.S.-born workers have not fully regained their 2019 employment levels."
How is this not replacement? Sure it is. Replacing the purportedly lazy American citizens with purportedly hard-working undocumented Mexicans, as in 3:24 PM. CNBC boasting about "...the influx of immigrant workers will grow gross domestic product over the next decade by $7 trillion", according 12:51 PM.
Screwing over labor is as American as apple pie and baseball.
DeleteWho are these anti-Americans who don't want a $30/ hour minimum wage?
Delete"In Blue America, we're rarely told that the ACLU declared Judge Merchan's gag order to be unconstitutional,"
ReplyDeleteIn Blue America we're not told that because it isn't true. The link provided by Our Host returns a story that says the ACLU opined that a gag order by federal judge Tanya Chutkan to be unconstitutional. The story doesn't mention Merchan's order.
My mistake. The *story* mentions Merchan's order. The ACLU's opinion does not.
DeleteAfter around 50 years of ACLU membership, my wife and I left the ACLU because it turned into just another liberal organization. I am pleased to see them taking stand for free speech, even when their stand helps a Republican.
DeleteDIC is talking shit again about "used" to be a member of the ACLU. The ACLU does have a long history of standing up for the rights of abhorrent organizations like today's Repuke party. Makes sense for the ACLU to represent the Repube thugs just like they did in the past for the Nazis, as the Rethuglicans are now aligned with the Nazis.
Delete@3:30 see ACLU, Once a Defender of Free Speech, Goes After a Whistleblower as an example of the change in the organization.
Deletehttps://www.yahoo.com/news/aclu-once-defender-free-speech-110037765.html
Big DIC - go see The Skokie Case: How I Came To Represent The Free Speech Rights Of Nazis https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/skokie-case-how-i-came-represent-free-speech-rights-nazis
DeleteJesus Dave I read your gross link. Are you an official GOP inspector of little girls genitals? Hang around the tennis courts looking up pubescent teen girls skirts?
DeleteDiC: You know who else used to be stalwart defenders of individual rights?
DeleteRepublicans.
DiC: OK, I looked at your story. Once again, it's a spectacular, scary-sounding headline without a story to back it up.
DeleteJamie Reed could indeed be considered a whistleblower. But that's only tangentially related to the subpoenas issued in the case Noe v. Parson. Reed is listed as a defense witness. The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU of Missouri. The Cole County circuit court issued subpoenas for documents including some of Reed's email communications. Initially, the subpoenas included communications with one or more journalists. Those requests apparently have been dropped.
Being a whistleblower does not create an automatic shield of immunity in any and all future legal actions. The charge that the ACLU is targeting Reed is a headline-grabbing sensation, but there's nothing to back that charge up.
Good points, Quaker. I didn't look for as many cites as possible to demonstrate the change in the ACLU. But, I recall a number of such. Here's a better source from the NY Times. Since it's behind a paywall, I quote extensively
DeleteA.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis
An organization that has defended the First Amendment rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan is split by an internal debate over whether supporting progressive causes is more important.
It was supposed to be the celebration of a grand career, as the American Civil Liberties Union presented a prestigious award to the longtime lawyer David Goldberger. He had argued one of its most famous cases, defending the free speech rights of Nazis in the 1970s to march in Skokie, Ill., home to many Holocaust survivors.
Mr. Goldberger, now 79, adored the A.C.L.U. But at his celebratory luncheon in 2017, he listened to one speaker after another and felt a growing unease.
A law professor argued that the free speech rights of the far right were not worthy of defense by the A.C.L.U. and that Black people experienced offensive speech far more viscerally than white allies. In the hallway outside, an A.C.L.U. official argued it was perfectly legitimate for his lawyers to decline to defend hate speech.
Mr. Goldberger, a Jew who defended the free speech of those whose views he found repugnant, felt profoundly discouraged.
“I got the sense it was more important for A.C.L.U. staff to identify with clients and progressive causes than to stand on principle,” he said in a recent interview. “Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind.”
The A.C.L.U., America’s high temple of free speech and civil liberties, has emerged as a muscular and richly funded progressive powerhouse in recent years, taking on the Trump administration in more than 400 lawsuits. But the organization finds itself riven with internal tensions over whether it has stepped away from a founding principle — unwavering devotion to the First Amendment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
Somerby's ahistorical take on Lincoln is sad.
ReplyDeleteLincoln had little concern for the South, as he conducted one of the most brutal wars in history in order to end racial chattel slavery in America.
Somerby is not skilled at propaganda, he half-heartedly throws out easily debunked nonsense, it seems his urge to be relevant combined with his lack of integrity are hindering him from being effective. He seems most comfortable when he is irrationally chiding what he calls the "blue tribe", gaining an emotional comfort from scolding his perceived opponents, lashing out at them for not recognizing his importance.
Truth be told, Somerby is so pathetic, it makes me feel better about my own relatively uneventful life. I am not saving the world, but I am also not petulantly trying to make things worse, like Somerby is.
Lincoln loved the South. Tough love.
DeleteLincoln also believed that the south’s secession was the end of democracy in the world. He refused to abide it.
DeleteI keep being told that Somerby isn't a Right-winger, but the laziness Somerby displays in his posts makes me think that couldn't possibly be the case.
Delete"Bill Clinton said worst things to me on the golf course" Trump wisecracked in his now mostly forgotten post "Grab them by the pussy" apology, an apology he has all but taken back over time: "That's the way it is with stars, rightly or
ReplyDeletewrongly."
It was clear from the outset that Trump, called on bad
behavior, will point at his rivals and accuse them of the
same thing. In the matter of misusing the DOJ for his own
petty interests, he OPENLY does what he accuses of
Biden of doing with no evidence. Actually this is where
the Bob Somerby of long ago and far away might have
been useful, as the Press allows him to get away with
this without challenge. Yet the New Bob is only concerned
with Trump's fragile mental state.
So Bob is onto something when he brings up Ken
Starr (and Christopher Hitchens) nutball Jenifer Flowers.
It just something, in his retreat from common sense and
fair judgement, Bob Somerby ran away from a long time
ago.
"If so, how about Daniels' initial request for a million dollars, in the absence of which she would be forced to tell her pointless story?"
ReplyDeleteThis little gem has me stumped. I can't find a source for the claim that Daniels made an initial request for a million dollars. I also can't find any source suggesting she asked for the money in exchange for *not* telling her story. In all the stories I can find, Daniels is asking for the money in exchange for telling her story.
Any help out there?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-trial-keith-davidson-stormy-daniels-lawyer-testimony/
Delete"An attorney who represented two women seeking payments in 2016 for their silence .... detailed the settlement agreement between Daniels and Trump that Davidson ultimately reached with Cohen days before the 2016 election. He said the deal included a $1 million penalty for any breach ... "
3:24 doesn't back up Somerby's claim. The '$1 million penalty for any breach' would have been levied against Daniels. It wasn't a request for a million dollars from Daniels.
Delete
ReplyDeleteI have 75 cubic feet of delicious word-salads in my storage unit, to spam Somerby's blog. I sniff my fingers. Somerby is an ass.
I am Corby.
And delicious.
DeleteI am Corby.
https://youtu.be/ke4Lq9QbNqo?si=aU3n7VtWlVCvfjrM
DeleteCecelia's link is to a genuinely funny video. Not to be missed.
DeleteLooks like Hope Hicks may have sunk Trump
ReplyDeletetoday. She needs to send Bob a memo:
you can stop with the “deny deny deny”
now.
"At any rate, did you follow the narrow logic employed by Daniels' former rep? Her first denial was technically accurate because her alleged encounter with Donald J. Trump actually wasn't "romantic."
ReplyDeleteHer second denial was technically accurate because that same alleged encounter didn't even rise to the level of being a "relationship!" So it went back in the day, when Daniels was giving the impression that she and the future commander didn't get it on."
Daniels engaged in sex as part of her work because she was a paid sex worker. Trump did not pay her for sex. He coerced sex from her by appearing naked on the bed while Daniels was in the bathroom and then requiring her to either put out or fight him off, in an unpleasant way. He manipulated her into having sex with him, an act that she generally sold for a living. In a sense, he robbed her.
Daniels has consistently said that she approached Trump in order to discuss appearing on his Apprentice show as a contestant. She was a reasonable candidate for that because she was a film producer with her own company. She had dinner with Trump in order to discuss that. Trump's motives were apparently different, since he did not offer her a role on his show subsequent to their dinner, even though she did have sex with him, as he demanded.
A business dinner like that, even one involving sex (as many of her roles in adult films did) is not a "relationship" much less a romantic relationship. They were not friends much less lovers. He took physical advantage of her but used the incentive of an Apprentice show role instead of physical force to obtain sex with her. There was not even a business relationship between them.
This is clearly spelled out in everything Daniels has said about the encounter with Trump. It sounds highly believable to me and it is consistent with many of Trump's other encounters with women, in which he backed them into a corner and forced them to have sex. Look at E. Jean Carroll's testimony, or the stories of the many other women who have come forward. Look at Trump's own words on the Access Hollywood tape.
But Somerby doubts Daniels' story. Why? He doesn't explain his reservations. He has, however, called her a con artist and grifter, instead of a business person or sex worker. He has stated no basis for saying that.
Karen McDougal is a different situation. She described a 10-month long love affair with Trump, with many meetings. She believed that Trump was in love with her and she said she was in love with him. She may have expected Trump to leave Melania for her (as Trump left Ivana for Maples). Her situation is not the same as Daniels' single encounter in a business context. Daniels is denying the kind of relationship that McDougal claims occurred with Trump.
It is fine for Somerby to decide to disbelieve Daniels, but if he is going to spend paragraphs disbelieving her "denials" of a more substantial relationship with Trump, he needs to explain why he is calling her a liar.
Somerby doesn’t have opinions about Daniels. He is just trying to discredit her as a witness to help Trump’s trial. That may be the only point of today’s post.
DeleteMaybe the point is it's easier for the red tribe to discredit her than we understand.
DeleteThe trial isn’t really about her, is it?
DeleteHow do you mean?
Delete11:26: whether she’s telling the truth, lying, or a grifter, Trump illegally used campaign funds to pay her off.
Delete"Trump illegally used campaign funds to pay her off"
DeleteHow so?
The catch and kill operation at National Enquirer was an unreported campaign donation. So was Michael Cohen's payoff and services negotiating it. Trump's payments to reimburse Cohen came from his business and were misrepresented as "legal services" when they were actually to support Trump's campaign.
DeleteSomerby's opinion about Daniels is that she is not telling the truth. He has called her a con artist and grifter on many occasions now, going back to 2018 when Somerby chose to believe Trump's version of what happened between them. Somerby has said that Daniels approached Trump for hush money, which is extortion.
Delete@10:06 AM
Delete"catch and kill operation" was a campaign donation?
"payoff and services negotiating it" was a campaign donation?
Trump's payments were misrepresented?
And all this together is "illegally used campaign funds"?
Sorry, but it all sounds like an idiotic word-salad.
It’s fascinating watching Somerby and his supporters trying this case outside the courtroom.
DeleteI can't wait until Donald J Chickenshit testifies in this trial and clears it all up. Bwahahahaha!!!
DeleteThe judge had to take time yesterday to inform Von Shitznpantz that he has an absolute right to testify and contrary to the LIES the fucking coward tells his cult followers, nobody is fucking preventing him from testifying.
Trump's layers are trying to silence him (on the witness stand).
DeleteHow do we know the catch and kill operation at National Enquirer was an unreported campaign donation?
DeleteGee, 12:46, I don’t suppose there’s any way to ascertain that, outside of, I don’t know, reading the trial transcript.
DeleteI’ve never seen anyone, outside a Fox News talking head, do more to attack this case than Somerby.
ReplyDeleteTrump will not replace us.
ReplyDelete