Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
Donald Trump is known for his lies. Now that he has finally made up his mind about his stance on abortion, he has chosen to suport it with another lie.
See the FACT CHECK on his wildly inaccurate claim:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/politics/fact-check-trump-abortion-roe-overturned-legal-scholars/index.html
Last week I was watching the circus where lawyers for Donald Trump and various co-defendants are trying to disqualify the District Attorney (DA) in Georgia from the RICO case related to the conspiracy to steal the 2020 election for President. By watching I mean that I watched some of the hearing on TV but mostly have been following it on the news.
My main interest is in the potential trial but a bit enhanced because I lived in Georgia for 30 years.
Continue reading “Disqualifying the District Attorney (DA) in Georgia from the RICO case”
I was just reading about the criminal charges for the Brazil insurrection in 2022 and was wondering if the 2021 insurrection in the US was at least a partial inspiration. The article was Bolsonaro and Allies Planned a Coup, Brazil Police Say and it starts like this:
Continue reading “Was January 6 insurrection an inspiration for the Brazil insurrection?”
It appears that quite a few Republicans want to eliminate US aid to Ukraine. I previously called this group The Appeasement Caucus. Just appease Putin and let him take Ukraine. You would have thought they would have learned from history that appeasement is not a good strategy. See Hitler and World War 2 for a good example.
Continue reading “Putin’s Pals screw Ukraine and the border with a single move”
House Speaker Mike Johnson tied aid to Ukraine to immigration reform. On his visit to the border, he repeated his demand Now a bipartisan agreement has been reached in the Senate on Immigration reform has been reached and President Biden is agreeable. All depends on Mike Johnson and his majority in the House.
Continue reading “Speaker Mike Johnson and the failure to govern”
As mentioned previously, I get a daily email from Just Security.
Yesterday’s email mentioned an interesting article on presidential pardons. This power has been abused by numerous Presidents and Donald Trump could use it to pardon himself if re-elected and has also mentioned pardon numerous criminals including those who are in jail after being convicted of crimes in the January 6 insurrection.
The authors discuss the role of Congress in curbing abuse of the presidential pardon and increasing transparency. I hope you find “Congress Can Curb Abuse of the Presidential Pardon Power” as interesting as I did.
I have been a follower of the Just Security website https://www.justsecurity.org/ for several years. I get their daily email highlighting what is published that day and read articles that I look interesting to me.
As a citizen I have been concerned with many of Donald Trump stated goals if he wins a second term. As a former civil servant (30 years at CDC) I have been disturbed by his plans to politicize the federal civil service.
Yesterday there was an article called Trump’s Stated Goals for the U.S. Intelligence Community: Assessing the Impact – https://www.justsecurity.org/90714/trumps-stated-goals-for-the-u-s-intelligence-community-assessing-the-impact/
It starts like this:
Continue reading “Just Security, National Security, and a second Trump Presidency”
It seems the Republican party will take a chance on former President Donald Trump. The insurrectionist and former President is way ahead in the primary and is considered the likely nominee. So far state judges have ruled against attempts to exclude him from the primary ballot but at least some of those decisions are being appealed
Continue reading “Republicans take a chance on Trump”
During the David Frost interviews former president Richard Nixon said: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”.
Is that really that different from former president Trump’s claim of immunity ?
Was Nixon right then ? Is Trump right now ?
The 2 former Presidents make very similar claims but this has never been decided by a court since the issue has never arisen before. I suspect it will be decided by the Supreme Court either right away or after a delay in the appeals court.
Judge Chutkan placed a limited gag order on defendant Donald Trump to stop him from launching a “pretrial smear campaign” while respecting his rights to pursue his presidential campaign. Since the defendant appealed the order, she put it on hold to allow the defense to appeal her ruling.
I do not believe it was Judge Chutkan’s intent to give Donald Trump time to conduct his smear campaign, yet that was precisely the result.
It seems to me that Judge Chutkan should reverse her decision on the hold and reimpose the gag order before the defendant is allowed to do more damage.
I wrote about this a few years ago but it seem this needs to be repeated. So I’ll copy what I wrote I wrote and add a little bit.
The philosopher George Santayana said that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Wikipedia has an interesting article on Historic recurrence which I ran across as I was thinking about history repeating itself.
I was reading “The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic” by Benjamin Carter Hett and this quote got me thinking about this.
Continue reading “Is history repeating itself, again?”
President Trump–Again? by Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a short book. I read it in one evening. For a short book it does cover a lot of ground. And I should mention that my review copy was very current, covering events that happened just a few weeks ago. I thank Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the privilege of reading this review copy.
Continue reading “President Trump–Again?”
Trump humor from the New Yorker in the last few days. In these dark days for our country, we all need a few laughs.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/a-once-in-a-lifetime-summer-spectacle
This one is a few weeks old but still funny.
Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, has been indicted in Georgia for his role in trying to disenfranchise thousands of Georgia voters by by participating in Donald Trumps’s conspiracy including asking the Georgia Secretary of State to violate his oath.
Does he actually believe this was part of his his official duties?
Continue reading “Does Mark Meadows believe this was part of his official duties?”
This may be one of those records that stands forever or at least a very long time. A good example of this type of record is Lou Gehrig’s record of playing in 2,130 consecutive baseball games. This record stood for 56 years until surpassed by Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles.
Donald Trump’s may be an even greater record. In over 200 years of US history, no former President has ever been criminally indicted as far as I know. But in just in a few months, Donald Trump has been criminally indicted 4 times.
Continue reading “Donald Trump sets a record”