AverageOldGuy
AverageOldGuy's JournalThe "moron" faction is holding Congress hostage
Two former Members of Congress from Virginia spoke at an event in Charlottesville Friday where they decried the current do-nothing Congress.
L. F. Payne, Democrat, who represented Virginia's 5th District 1988 - 1997, and Barbara Comstock, Republican, who represented the 10th District 2015-2019, both now members of the Former Members of Congress organization, were quite vocal as to the reason for the do-nothing Congress.
Now serving as president of Former Members of Congress, or FMC, a bipartisan nonprofit group, part of Payne’s job is to help remedy that dysfunction. But it’s a tall order.
“Then the next idiot knows, ‘Great, I’ll get coverage. I can raise money if I say something even more stupid than what Marjorie said.’ Unfortunately, that’s what’s rewarded in the press,” Comstock said.
Am I allowed to mention another blog on DU?
I'm a regular reader and very occasional commentator on Daily Kos. Kos appears to have been down for several hours -- I checked it just before midnight Friday night EDST and it was good, but around 0700 Saturday EDST and now I get This site can’t be reached.
Everything else is good.
Anyone else?
Or did they announce they would be down and I missed it??
Thanks.
Joe Manchin and two other dimwit Democrats . . .
Here is the intro from an article on the Lawyers,, Guns, and Money blog — go there and read the article tiled “Bipartisan Charade”.
QUOTE
…..the story of how a lawyer who is on the verge of becoming the first-ever Muslim American federal appellate court judge is having his nomination blocked by Democratic senators, who have decided to go along with a transparently absurd Republican smear campaign.
END QUOTE
Of course Manchin is one of the three Democrats.
It's the End Times, the End Times, I tell you!!
Bridge collapse in Baltimore.
Huge earthquake in Taiwan.
Earthquake this morning in NY and NJ.
Eclipse Monday.
And the Beast with Seven Heads from Revelation 13 emerging from the ocean at Mar-A-Lago and roaming the Earth.
If you are NOT . . .
. . . in danger of having NY AG Letitia James seize your property and bank accounts tomorrow, RAISE YOUR HAND!!
What are Trump's properties REALLY worth?
This is amazing. I don't pretend to understand most of the financial and legal terminology, but, it's clear that Trump's "real estate empire" is -- to use a legal term -- a pile of steaming bullshit.
Read it here -- NY AG James' details of the finances surrounding Trump's properties.
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/tto_release_properties_addendum_-_final.pdf
Do you suppose I could convert my little 2-acre tract in rural VA into a members-only resort, claim a value of $200,000 for each of 60 non-existent initiation fees, and get a local bank to front me enough to replace one of my over 200,000 mile cars?
Will his foreign friends bail out Trump?
The Twitter-verse (should we say "X-verse) and the socialistcommieliberal media are all cranked up about how Trump must come up with $1/2 billion by 5:00 PM Monday or the NY AG will seize everything Trump owns, down to Melania's underwear drawer and the golf carts at Mar-A-Lago.
Ah, but never fear!!! Trump's close friends will bail him out -- Saudis, Putin, Orban, China . . .
I doubt it. Of course, I've been wrong about as often as I've been right, but, let's cut through the crap.
As much as Putin, Orban, and the Saudis -- and likely the Chinese -- would like to see Trump win in November, they are not stupid people. They are hard-headed thugs who have survived this long by not being stupid. They all recognize that Trump is a terminally stupid dumbass flash in the pan.
They know Trump is not a sure thing in November. In fact, as we are seeing here, they, too, are seeing -- 20% more or less of Republican voters do not want Trump. 35% of Republicans will cut off their own genitals to vote for Trump, 25-30% will hold their noses and vote for him, but that leaves 25-30% of GOP voters who will (1) leave their presidential vote blank, or, (2) hold their noses and vote for Biden. Putin, Orban, Saudis, Chinese -- they are not as stupid as the NYT editorial staff and they likely have decided Trump will lose and he is not worth $450 million.
Besides, Putin, Orban, Saudis, Chinese likely have decided they must co-exist with Biden for another four years and there is no benefit to them to piss off ol' Joe.
My conclusion: Trump can beg, plead, piss and moan all he wants. When Trump's lawyers call asking for the loan of half-a-billion, his close friends in Russia, Hungary, China, MidEast, will answer "Hello . . . Trump? Trump who? You must have a wrong number." Click.
Judge Loose Cannon is only a small part of the problem
Based on the response to my post yesterday about the loony draft jury instructions presented by Judge Loose Cannon to Jack Smith and Trump's defense attorneys, it appears as though there is still a large percentage -- maybe even a majority -- of Democrats who want to play nice and who think the rest of the world plays nice.
First let's look at some facts, from Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump
In case anyone missed it, there's a very conservative rightwing organization calling themselves The Federalist Society, made up of conservative attorneys who want nothing more than to return us to the days when Blacks sat in the back of the bus, women stayed in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant, gays stayed in the closet, and old white men ruled. Laugh all you want, but that's what they are and that's where they want to take the country. One Leonard Leo works for the Federalist Society, with a LOT of money from various conservative donors. His goal over the past decade has been to identify attorneys and judges who (1) are young (so they will be on the bench for 40-60 years) and (2) are hard core rightwing to the point of being proto-Fascists.
And that, folks, is how Judge Loose Cannon got on the bench.
Now, go back to the quote from Wikipedia above -- there are 234 of these assholes on the federal bench and they will be making decisions favorable to Trump and to people like him when everyone here on DU is dead and forgotten.
Judge Cannon's draft jury instructions are basically an order to the jury to find Trump not guilty. Period. That's it and all your legal theories will not alter that fact.
She did not arrive at this alone. I guarantee she is being fed instructions, not by Trump and his people -- they are too stupid -- but those instructions are coming from Federalist Society attorneys.
No, she is not smart. She was a local magistrate judge, hearing speeding ticket cases. She was picked by Leo because she was known to be 1,000% reliably rightwingnut.
All of which brings me to my final questions: Will we Democrats ever reach the point where we stop bringing a pillow to a gunfight? Will we ever realize that when the other guy is on the ground with several gunshot wounds, the best thing for us to do is reload?
Clausewitz tells us “war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means,”. The reverse is also true -- politics is war without guns.
Decades ago in a place called Vietnam (you can read about it in some history books, it takes up a couple of paragraphs) I humped the bush with a 50-60 pound rucksack on my back, an M16 in my hand, and a Kabar on my hip -- look it up. The Kabar is for opening C-ration cans, cutting det cord, chopping bamboo, and gutting people from navel to breastbone. I -- as did a lot of GIs -- managed to bring my Kabar home with me; I still have it, it's on my rolltop desk with dried bloodstains on the leather handle; I use it mainly to open and slice watermelon. Every one of us Democrats needs to own and use a Kabar -- philosophically speaking, of course, right?
I live in a red, rural VA county; I'm 80 yrs old. My 26 yr old truck has a few bumper stickers and decals identifying me as a Vietnam vet, Ranger, and Proud Democrat. Ever since the 2016 election, when I had a pistol pulled on me because of my Proud Democrat bumper sticker, I have suffered yard signs stolen, shot up, burned; harassed while driving; cursed to my face in the grocery and hardware; and been told to leave the church we attended because "Democrats are of the Devil." For the past ten years, I have carried a pistol in all three vehicles, and a shotgun and AR-15 in the truck -- and I'm not the only Democrat in the county who does the same.
These people are serious, very, very serious. MTG and Boebert may be buffoons, but the ones in the shadows are not -- they are armed, they are dangerous. Where do you think the Jan 6'ers came from? Judge Cannon and the other 233 Trump appointees may not be armed, but they are far more dangerous because they make the laws.
Read up on the Federalist Society and Project 2025 then tell me how harmless they are. Judge Cannon is merely the tip of a very big iceberg.
Judge Loose Cannon declares Trump NOT GUILTY
I'm watching Lawrence, someone else may have the details, however -- Judge Loose Cannon has released an item that she plans to include in the jury instructions. She will tell the jury that a President has full authority to declare any document to be "personal material" and is therefore allowed to keep it.
She has released to Jack Smith and the defense her proposed jury instructions, they have until April 2 to reply.
I'll try to find the full wording, if anyone else has it, post it.
It's time for Jack Smith to haul her dumb ass before the 11th Circuit and have her removed from the case.
The Virginia Way: What happens when Democrats don't vote
Here in Ol' Virginny we celebrate "The Virginia Way" -- which means if you want to be elected to a state office, you cozy up to Dominion Power who will bless you with tons of $$$. But that's for another day.
This is what happens when Democrats don't GET OUT AND VOTE.
Background:
-- In VA, we vote in odd-numbered years -- 2019, 2021, 2023 . . .
-- Gov, Lt Gov, and Atty General are four-year terms -- 2017, 2021, 2025. Gov cannot be re-elected, although former governor can wait four years and run again.
-- Our General Assembly consists of Senate (44) and House of Delegates (100).
---- State Senators serve four-year terms and are elected all at once: 2019, 2023, 2027.
---- Delegates serve for two years: 2019, 2021, 2023, 2025.
---- Thus, every so often we elect the entire General Assembly: 2019, 2023, 2027.
VA Democrats got into the habit of voting once every four years -- in the Presidential election. For the longest time, Virginia was like all Southern states -- thanks to the Reagan-Nixon Southern Strategy, our old-line white supremacist Democrats all became white-supremacist Republicans and we continued to elect them. Then, in the early 2000's, things began to turn around, mainly with the population decline in rural areas and population growth in urban and suburban areas turning the state blue. Eventually we elected Democrats as Gov, Lt Gov, and Atty General, as well as taking over the General Assembly -- and VA started to progress out of the darkness.
Democrats became complacent and we are now stuck with Trump supporters as Gov and AG and a gun-totin', anti-abortion Republlcan LtGov. Here's how that happened.
Look at these numbers.
2020 Presidential Election, Virginia
Biden 2,413,568
Trump 1,962,430
2021 Gubernatorial Election, Virginia
Youngkin 1,663,596 Difference from Trump: -15%
McAuliffe 1,600,116 Difference from Biden: -34%
One year after Biden took Virginia, 15% fewer Republicans voted while 34% fewer Democrats voted.
And that, folks, is what happens when Democrats stick up our noses and say "Well, the Democratic candidate is not 100% in line with me on every single issue." We lose.
Not only that, but in 2021, Republicans took over the House of Delegates and came within two seats of taking the State Senate. We Democrats stepped up in 2023, held on to the Senate and took back the House of Delegates, and now we have stopped our pro-Trump lame duck Governor from inflicting any more damage.
VOTE BLUE, NO MATTER WHO.
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