bigtree
bigtree's JournalIf you're spending time worrying over our Dem incumbent, you're doing opposition politics wrong
...co-opting mostly meaningless polls this early out in the race is actually co-opting someone else's self-serving narrative.
Elections are certainly a referendum on the incumbent, but this race is against someone who also has a track record in office, a record of failure and criminality which outstrips concerns over 'age' and other minor faults Biden may have.
It's the opposition's hope, and the media's ambition, to equalize Trump's 91 criminal charges with Pres. Biden's record of many historic accomplishments and achievements.
That criminality isn't some abstract theme running in the background of the republican candidacy. It's a dominate theme which Trump, himself, is elevating above all else as his most prominent appeal. He wants the race to be a referendum on his criminal guilt vs. what amounts to a demagogic whispering campaign against his Democratic opponent.
More than that, Trump republicans believe that if they focus enough on Pres, Biden's fitness, it will allow them to highlight Kamala Harris as next-in line, and enable them to introduce the racism and misogyny which animates republican voters like none else.
What Democrats have in this WH is a strong and capable team which is laser-focused on elevating Americans' needs and interests above the self-interest of a republican political class obsessed with propping up a dissembling criminal.
It makes no sense to ask ourselves if any of this media-driven, push polling concern is a real threat to Pres. Biden. Voters' aren't as 'anxious' about the president as they are about the prospect of this media normalizing this multi-felony indicted criminal as a legitimate political challenge to our historically successful Dem incumbent.
The real worry is that voters may be snookered into accepting the media narrative. Therefore, our challenge is to keep turning the discussion back to the actual choices in this election, and to avoid handwinging over media-driven narratives which equalize petty concerns with clear and present threats to our democracy.
Media's sleeping on Trump's vow to "sign [insurrectionists'] pardons or commutations on day one"
...the former president running to assume office again has promised to pardon the people Merrick Garland's DOJ and the FBI apprehended and prosecuted for their assault on the nation's Capitol attempting to halt the certification of votes by Congress in a presidential election.
CNN:
Trump on Friday said he would appoint a task force to review the cases of people he claimed had been unjustly prosecuted related to their political beliefs by the Biden administration, should he win a second term in 2024.
“Tonight, I’m announcing that the moment I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner whose been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration,” Trump said at the Pray Vote Stand Summit hosted by the Family Research Council in Washington, DC.
Trump said he wanted to “study the situation very quickly, and sign their pardons or commutations on day one.”
It is utterly disqualifying, but this treasonous promise been pushed out of the public view and replaced with a repetition of 'unease' and worry over the 'age' of a man who's a mere three-years older than Trump - one of the most legislatively successful presidents in our nation's history as evidenced by the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, the $550 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $280 billion Chips and Science Act, as well as the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act, the climate and healthcare spending bill.
This press covering the criminally-indicted era Trump has married coverage of politics and pols to ratings and subscriptions like they're impartial referees, as if their only task is just to avoid offending either party's supporters any more than the other.
They've reduced their already vacuous coverage of this election to the equivalent of shouting questions at Pres. Biden they already know the banal answers to, across the graveyard where his family members are buried. Can you imagine that?
What was the actual journalistic value in MTP's Welker asking the multi-felony indicted, former occupant of the WH who she insisted on calling 'Mr. President' about Hunter Biden instead of the myriad issues and scandals surrounding his own children?
Why is the press intent on treating the man indicted on 91 charges as a legitimate presidential candidate? Moreover, why have they just brushed over the fact that Trump just vowed to use his office, if elected, to roil both democracy and our laws by engaging in the very same anti-democratic thuggery that he was impeached and then later arrested for?
Trump bullied Saudis to cut production and raise oil prices, then republicans refused to act
...Trump is now just outright lying about oil prices, claiming Pres. Biden's responsible for high gas prices today.
We shouldn't just recoil from the increase in the price of oil, or, as some in the media have, just bandy the price around like Democrats should be fearful of outside forces influencing the price of oil as Saudis have done for decades and decades.
We should be shouting from the rooftops about what Trump and congressional republicans have done to keep oil prices high.
When Trump was president, using his republican Congress as his enforcer, he DEMANDED Saudis CUT their oil production, or lose U.S. military support, all to keep oil prices HIGH to benefit U.S. oil interests.
Reuters, Apr. 2020:
In an April 2 phone call, Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that unless the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started cutting oil production, he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the kingdom, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The effort illustrated Trump’s strong desire to protect the U.S. oil industry from a historic price meltdown as governments shut down economies worldwide to fight the virus. It also reflected a telling reversal of Trump’s longstanding criticism of the oil cartel, which he has blasted for raising energy costs for Americans with supply cuts that usually lead to higher gasoline prices. Now, Trump was asking OPEC to slash output.
A senior U.S. official told Reuters that the administration notified Saudi leaders that, without production cuts, “there would be no way to stop the U.S. Congress from imposing restrictions that could lead to a withdrawal of U.S. forces.”
Asked what he told the Crown Prince Mohammed, Trump said: “They were having a hard time making a deal. And I met telephonically with him, and we were able to reach a deal” for production cuts, Trump said.
“I thought he and President Putin, Vladimir Putin, were very reasonable,” Trump said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-trump-saudi-specialreport-idUSKBN22C1V4
More importantly, the entire republican party has voted to keep gas prices high. When Democrats voted to end gas gouging, every single republican in Congress voted NO.
The bill backed by House Democrats would have given President Biden authority to declare an energy emergency that would make it unlawful to increase gasoline and home energy fuel prices in an “excessive” or exploitative manner. The bill directed the Federal Trade Commission to punish companies that engage in price gouging.
Also, republicans' claim that Pres. Biden overseen a decline in oil production in the US is provably false: US oil production is set to reach an all-time high of 12.8 million barrels a day this year and 13.1 million in 2024, higher than under Trump or any prior president.
Moreover, the IEA forecast is for oil prices to IMPROVE next year:
U.S. oil production is forecast to average an all-time high of 12.8 million barrels a day this year and keep growing to 13.1 million in 2024, the federal Energy Information Administration said in its latest forecast. That’s up from the most recent trough of 5 million barrels a day in 2008, and probably enough to help the U.S. to keep its title as the No. 1 global crude oil producer.
Global forces, meanwhile, could cause pump prices to ease next year, with the Paris-based International Energy Agency forecasting that oil supply next year will outstrip demand.
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McCarthy's inpeachment plan is to use a fake whistleblower to say Garland interfered w/Hunter probe
...but we have Merrick Garland critics falling over themselves to criticize Biden's AG for staying out of whatever Weiss is doing, or criticizing him for not denying Trump DOJ's U.S. Attorney the special counsel designation he requested.
Whatever Garland can be criticized for, jumping on him for following the lead of Pres. Biden in avoiding any perception of interference in the investigation or prosecution of his son has to be one of the most mindless pursuits out there for anyone identifying as a Democrat.
Any legitimacy House republicans may dream of achieving behind their barrel-of-monkeys impeachment scheme hangs on their Trump-linked insistence that it's Pres. Biden directing DOJ, not the independent prosecutors who've been given free reign by Garland to bring charges anywhere they find evidence.
Most of the handwringing attacks on Garland after Weiss announced the gun charges assume there's something Garland could do, should do, or would do to alter some move Weiss might make against Hunter - even falsely supposing it was the Special Counsel designation which allowed Weiss to bring or initiate gun charges which he could have leveled against Hunter at any time in his 5 year investigation.
There is nothing Garland could, can, or will do to affect the Weiss effort in any way that limits his authority or ability to carry it out as the SC sees fit, like it or not. That was made perfectly clear when Pres. Biden decided to keep Weiss, along with Durham, after letting the rest of the Trump DOJ appointees go.
No one is helping Hunter Biden, or more importantly, the President, by expecting Garland to touch the Weiss investigation with as much as a ten-foot pole.
All of the hyperbolic slinging of insults and derision on Garland for following the president's lead is just politically amateurish, and a bit embarrassing for people trying to make a legal argument; advocating what would amount to the interference republicans are desperately looking for to ignite their dud of an impeachment bomb.
Looking forward to republicans twisting over Hunter's gun charges*
...holding my breath here waiting for the GOP to rant on and on about Hunter Biden’s 2nd Amendment rights.
Whatever the heck this is supposed to do with Pres. Biden is going to be even more of a puzzle for House republicans. It's unconnected to any financial crime, and there's no clue from Weiss about what happened to the charges for paying taxes late that were in the plea deal (paying taxes obviously another republican fav).
Two of the charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, according to the indictment. The less serious charge carries a maximum of 5 years of incarceration.
The original plea deal "required Biden to enter a pretrial diversion program, an option typically applied to nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems. In all, he would have spent about two years on probation but avoided jail time if he kept to the terms of the deal, which included not owning a gun or engaging in criminal conduct."
The dispute which reportedly blew up his plea deal before the judge was over an understanding Hunter says he had with the prosecutor to get immunity from any more charges stemming from the five-year investigation.
That understanding Hunter believes he agreed to would have closed the book on Weiss' sham investigation which, to the embarrassment of republicans who've openly intended to exploit the now-SC's probe all the way to the election, didn't conclude with ANY of their salacious claims about a laptop or Burisma.
Initially, the investigation centered around Biden’s finances related to overseas business ties and consulting work. Over time, investigators with multiple agencies focused closely on whether Biden did not report all of his income, and whether he lied on gun purchase paperwork in 2018
So what is this, except for Weiss punishing Hunter Biden for daring to challenge the prosecutor's authority to keep digging? Why is he moving forward with harsher charges, without any protections against incarceration?
We can all now see this recently-elevated special counsel flailing around, trying to find something to hurt Hunter with, without any logic at all except this persecution prosecution. It shouldn't be legal to just sit on Hunter Biden until he can find something else to accuse him of, but here we are.
Weiss' wheel of misfortune of charges is just harassment, borne out of Trump-era misuse of the Justice Dept. which has now turned into actual jeopardy for Hunter Biden.
* https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hunter-biden-indicted-federal-gun-charges-rcna39623
'I will show you fear in a handful of dust'
. . . this is an essay/article I wrote on September 10, 2006. I would have wanted to write something new for the remembrances over the years since, but I think this says it all for me. -Ron
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust." -- T.S. Eliot
Is there anything more repugnant than hearing bin-Laden's taunting words so close to the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks? I don't mean the latest video he sent Bush to amp up the president's fear and smear campaign. I'm not thinking of the grainy shots of bin-Laden greeting his accomplices out in the open air of his mountain refuge.
Bush has been practicing his new protection scheme this past week with a series of speeches in which, as the explainer-in-chief, he's been methodical and zealous in his elevation of Osama bin-Laden; carefully reciting the most offensive and threatening of the terrorist's statements and dispatches. Beginning in the second in his series of speeches, Bush chose the moment right after he had remarked on the "flood of painful memories" and the "horror of watching planes fly into the World Trade Center", to amplify bin-Laden's gloating remarks that the attack was "an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor, unmatched by any in humankind." On Sept.11 he'll travel to New York's 'Ground Zero' looking for a pile of rubble and a bullhorn to elevate himself and talk down to us from some lofty perch.
Bush is desperate to revive and re-animate the demoted specter he had called his "prime suspect" in 2001. "I want justice," Bush had said then. "There's an old poster out West… I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.' Six months after the attacks, however, he simply turned away from his 'hunt' and acted as if he didn't care anymore about catching him. Our forces had Bin-Laden cornered at Tora Bora, and then, he was allowed to escape into the mountains. "I don't know where he is," Bush replied when asked why the terrorist hadn't been caught. "I-I'll repeat what I said, Bush sputtered, "I am truly not that concerned about him."
It's five years from the date of the attacks, and Bush has finally found cause for concern. His party is poised to lose their majority in the House and, possibly, in the Senate. Voter opposition to Bush's occupation in Iraq has pulled his republicans down in the polls and threatens to take away the power that enabled him commit the troops to Iraq and keep them there. The specter of Osama bin-Laden is the only wedge Bush has to rally his dwindling base and convince voters that his party should be allowed to continue to lord over the authority they squandered in the five years since the attacks.
It's strange to hear Bush bring up bin-Laden. Bush has barely mentioned the terrorist since he claimed to be unconcerned about his whereabouts. In fact, the Senate went ahead and unanimously passed a Democratic amendment this week which restored the Pentagon unit charged with finding bin-Laden that Bush just up and closed without offering an alternative strategy or effort. In Bush's updated, 'National Strategy for Combating Terrorism' that he references in his speeches, Osama bin-Laden is mentioned only once, in a reference to his 'privileged upbringing'. Dredging up all of the offensive rhetoric from bin-Laden now is designed to re-inflate those emotions that were so raw right after the horror unfolded; that uncertainty and anxiety which made Americans fold in the face of his consolidation of power.
Bush's own initial reaction to the terrorist attacks on 9-11 was a mix of paranoia and bluster as he cast the fight as a defense of 'freedom' that he said the attackers wanted to 'destroy'. "They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other," he declared in an address to a joint session of Congress. In his statement at the signing of the "anti-terrorism," Patriot Act, in October 2001, six weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, President Bush claimed that the measure would counter the threat of enemies that "recognize no barrier of morality and have no conscience." He sought to assure that the measure "upheld and respected the civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution." He ends his statement with a pledge to enforce the law with "all of the urgency of a nation at war."
However, the President neglected to tell us which war he was referring to. The anti-terrorism measure was cobbled together in a few short months to take political advantage of the urge in Congress for a legislative response to the terrorist attacks, despite the president's claim that the bill was "carefully drafted and considered." It was a direct assault on the liberty, privacy, and free expression of all Americans.
From that document came a flood of legislative 'remedies' that would take advantage of the administration's blanket excuse of 'national security' that they and their minions in Congress draped over every stalled piece of legislation that could be remotely tied to their 'war on terror'.
But, their transparent politicking with their new anti-terror tools had nothing at all to do with catching the perpetrators they said were responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Their hunt became eclipsed by the violence their Iraq diversion had produced. Iraq became a terror magnet, just as Bush had planned. Instead of just "fighting them over there", our occupation had the effect of producing more individuals with a grudge who would do our troops, our interests, and our allies harm.
No amount of saber-rattling at Iran, showdowns with North Korea, or escalation of troops in Iraq to further prop up the crumbling Maliki regime can substitute for bringing bin-Laden to justice. Five years on the loose has made the terrorist into an inspiration for others who have been provoked by the mindless collateral killings by the U.S. in Bush's dual Mideast occupations. Yet, Bush has decided to elevate bin-Laden even more in his speeches and remembrances leading up to the 9-11 commemorations.
In Bush's radio address for Sunday, he speaks of a 'solemn occasion' and proceeds to muddy it up with more of bin-Laden's taunts. The president advances the terrorist's call for a Caliphate as he bids us to "hear the words" of the terrorist. "Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks, "A great step toward the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous Caliphate," Bush tells us. "Al Qaeda and its allies reject any possibility of coexistence with those they call "infidels."
Hear the words of Osama bin Laden," Bush says about his partner. In their respective protection schemes, both use the extreme violent reactions of the other to justify their self-appointed roles as saviors and protectors of their followers. Both are counting on their words to elicit fear among their minions and their foes alike, but, Bush is playing bin-Laden's surrogate in this latest promotion; elevating the terrorist to a political equal, looking to give bin-Laden's words a place in our commemorations; hoping Americans will focus on the barbarity and zeal of the attacker rather than his own inability to suppress and capture him.
So, Monday, in his 9-11 commemoration tour, Bush will return to Ground Zero, looking for rubble and a bull horn to elevate his made-up role as protector-in-chief. But, the residents there have gone on with their lives, removed the debris, and paved over the hallowed ground for politicians to come and preach, and for others, to pray.
All that is left in that city of the tragedy of September 11 are survivors and memories; and dust; the scattered remains from those pernicious, poisonous mountains of dust that exploded from the towers as they fell. The dust of the humanity of innocents and terrorists alike co-mingled with the debris, hovering for an eternity before it fell down upon the city; memories and the past inextricably mingled in the miasmic haze.
Bush can do nothing this September 11 except stir up settled dust from that hallowed ground; stirring up resentments and recriminations, deliberately soiling his immaculate cloak. He will not be there to unify our nation, as it had come together on its own right after the attacks. He's coming to Ground Zero with bin-Laden's specter on his sleeve, looking for a political lift out of his swaggering militarism.
He will be looking to widen the divide that he's been nurturing since he ascended to power between those who have resisted his imperious grab for false authority in the wake of the violence, and those who still believe that he's protecting them with his blustering militarism and assaults on our own civil liberties.
However, there is no pile of rubble and humanity left in New York, or anywhere else, that Bush can stand on and bullhorn his way back into the nation's confidence. Some of the disturbed dust has revealed a shameful, reckless indifference to catching bin-Laden, as those individuals in the top echelons of our government who were responsible for directing our nation's defenses ignored the myriad of reports coming from the agents in the field. His 'War on Terrorism' has been nothing more than a scam unleashed against the liberties of blameless Americans, and his collateral military campaigns have had a unifying effect among those combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan who would resist his swaggering imperialism and consolidation of power.
Bush spoke of "vigilance" at the end of his radio address. "With vigilance, determination and courage, we will defeat the enemies of freedom," he says, "and we will leave behind a more peaceful world for our children and our grandchildren. That's an amazing contradiction to his own strident use of our nation's military to overthrow and occupy two sovereign nations in his term. It's a load of hubris from Bush, who has pledged to continue the occupation of Iraq "as long as he's president", and has bequeathed the disaster to "future presidents.'"
Abraham Lincoln spoke of our responsibility to vigilance at a debate in Edwardsville, Illinois, on September 11, 1858:
"While the people retain their virtue and vigilance," he said, "no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years."
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoast, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle."
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit, which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere." Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your down doors."
"Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage," Lincoln warned, "and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."
We must resolve ourselves to vigilance against Bush's campaign to divide Americans into those who support his terror policies that he regards as patriots; and those who resist his imperious assaults on our civil liberties, diversion of forces and resources to Iraq, and his failure to catch the perpetrators defined in the very authorization that he claims gives him the power to ignore our nation's laws and our Constitution, that he portrays as traitors.
"By the frame of the government under which we live," Lincoln said, "these same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals."
Come, November we must hasten the return of our democracy to our hands. No amount of fear-mongering from Bush and his murderous specter should be allowed to stand in the way. Bush should not be allowed to dictate our future to us, using the voice of this terrorist's violence.
Listen to Marc Elias speak on the Georgia law/commission republicans want to use to remove DA Willis
...speaking to Brian Tyler Cohen.
Marc points out the obvious, that the law says the opposite of the political reasons republicans say they want to use it for; namely that it's intended to encourage prosecutions, NOT stop a solid, multi-indicted RICO case.
He doesn't believe it would survive a court challenge; maybe not even surviving the lawsuits Ga. DAs are pursuing right now.
It would be nice if Maddow and others spreading fear on this would bother to present an argument AGAINST what republicans SAY they'll do, instead of just parroting republican claims and intentions and insisting to us that they're all-powerful and inviolable.
Check it out: (forward it to Rachel Maddow 
)
That's it for Trump. He had one job, and he failed
...his job was to delay until after the election, but Judge Chutkan went ahead today and set his election interference trial for early March 2024.
He had a year of it all planned out where he could ignore the procedural hearings and live it up on the campaign trail railing against his indictments, basically raising money for his defense.
He'll still be able to do that (if he keeps his threatening, interfering mouth shut), but the specter of impending doom will make his road trip a desperate, sad affair as supporters remind themselves of his mantra that losers don't deserve to win and start to hide their maga gear under the bed and in the closet.
All of Trump's grandiose imaginings about going into the election without a conviction have been made so remote by this decision that only the deepest delusion his addled mind can conjure can make that rationalization real for him anymore.
His mind will swirl back to the sights and smell of the Ga. jail where was arrested, and he'll dwell on the maddeningly mundane orderliness of the court and corrections staffs in every processing he's faced and how blithely and routinely they took away any pretense of the power he assumed he still possesses.
The Defendant's entire life is now reduced to that measly six months in-between right now, and that ominous, inevitable beginning of his imminent end. He can't not know this inevitability, and it will crush him like nothing else in his entire political romp and rampage.
I wouldn't worry about that Georgia commission removing Fani Willis, or ending the RICO case
...there's a good deal of apprehension circulating about the prospect of Ga. republicans favorable to Trump using a new Ga. law, signed by Gov. Kemp, which allows a commission to consider from the list of violations of office or duty in the legislation, misconduct charges raised against DA's and other justice officials in the state to the point of removal.
As Rachel Maddow has repeatedly warned, Ga. republicans can't be trusted with this seemingly tailor-made tool to remove Fani Willis from her office and end the Trump RICO prosecution. But the worry over the state of the Willis prosecutions may be premature.
As the AJC noted before the law passed:
"The two bills Willis is objecting to were framed this year as a way to have state oversight of a group of locally elected District Attorneys who had run afoul of GOP lawmakers — either by refusing to prosecute laws the General Assembly had passed or by getting into trouble with the law themselves."
There have been no claims from anyone that DA Willis has refused to honor the decision of any grand jury, or refused to prosecute any criminal case based on any General Assembly mandate.
But the open criticisms of Willis's prosecution haven't been about any refusal to prosecute - they've actually been about a prosecution republicans don't like, including the recent call from a solitary republican state legislator to convene a Special Session to stop Fani Willis from continuing with this prosecution.
The notion of republicans succeeding in twisting this clear legislative tool to spur MORE prosecutions into a effort to BLOCK prosecutions, takes more than just hubris. It'll require a very public effort which openly obstructs justice in a case where the evidence of criminality isn't actually a secret.
It's not only that contradiction of intent which is in their way. The law, itself, lays bare any intention to use the commission to advance any such personal or political vendetta or undue interference.
Consider the provisions accusers would need to overcome as they try to use the commission to remove a justice official:
It's totally conceivable that some confluence of individuals and events advantaged by this law could pull Fani Willis away from her RICO prosecution. It's much less conceivable that such a move would end it.
Besides, there are already Ga. DAs working to challenge the commission in court, and that alone serves to neuter this republican wet dream, if it doesn't make it so remote as to make it as much of a concern as every other ineffectual maga bump in the road.
A republican effort to oust DA Willis would not go as swimmingly as Trump's defenders might hope. It will take something more imaginative than expecting a commission wielding an mandate to ENCOURAGE charges from DAs, to stand in the way of a RICO prosecution full of evidence of multiple crimes by multiple perps.
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