Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "The Lincoln Project"
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Trump lives by the rules of the coward's playbook.
Rule 1. Take credit for everything, but responsibility for nothing. Always blame others for acts that you have clearly committed, and take credit for positive things that you had absolutely nothing to do with.
Rule 2. Never tell the truth, when a lie will do just fine. Lie about all things, great and small.
Rule 3. Take advantage of any crisis, and use them as an excuse to unleash your true authoritarian nature.
Rule 4. Become the victim, and the " strongman." You must master the art of playing the poor victim, juxtaposed with playing the "strongman" that always wins.
Rule 5. Never put anyone or anything before yourself, unless you're physically using that person or thing as a shield.
Rule 6. Betrayal is a good thing.
Rule 7. Loyalty is a one way street that runs from everyone else straight to you.
Rule 8. When in doubt, blame Obama.
Rule 9. In any situation, always ask yourself "what would a man of integrity do? What would a man with intestinal fortitude do? What would a man of physical and moral courage do?" And then do the exact opposite.
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"Since Donald was elected, I’ve been surprised by nothing he’s done or said. But I have been shocked by the wholesale abdication of responsibility by the Republican party during this election campaign and throughout the past four years. I didn’t understand the extent to which they would be willing to enable him in Congress and in his cabinet. If they had done their job and acted as a separate branch of government, he would have been contained. By siding with him 100% of the time, they have ensured we are now faced with several concurrent disasters that are getting exponentially worse.
No other president in history has been able to push the envelope the way Donald does. He’s always trying to see what he can get away with and, as I have seen through the course of his life, he’s always got away with everything. No one holds him accountable. He constantly gets rewarded for failing. The Republicans understood what he was capable of and have allowed him to push through an agenda that is completely at odds with what the majority wants.
My theory about the way Donald has run his campaign is that he knows he’s in desperate shape, so he’s going to burn it all down, sow more chaos and division, because that’s where he succeeds. He knows that he’s losing – he’ll deny it mightily – and at some level he understands what’s at stake. If he loses, he’s probably going to prison. So, if he’s going down, he’s going to take us all down with him.
I’ve always believed that deep down Donald is a terrified little boy. The amount of fear he’s feeling now has got to be unhinging him. Not only did he get sick with the virus, there’s the tax story and his prospects in the election looking really bad right now. He’s got to be absolutely panicked.
He’s ignored the severity of the pandemic all year because the idea of illness as weakness is so deeply ingrained in his family, that even an association with it is unacceptable. But now his statement – you can beat it, don’t be afraid of it – is going to result in more people becoming sick, and many of those will die. Even before he said that, I believed he was engaging in ma55murder, but that sealed it for me. Anybody who’s capable of putting hundreds of millions of people at risk to avoid looking bad doesn’t care about you."
--Bob Woodward
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A descendant of Robert E. Lee stepped down as pastor of a small NC church after his comments supporting racial justice sparked a backlash.
The general's distant nephew, the Rev. Robert W. Lee IV, issued a statement saying he resigned from Bethany United Church of Christ in Winston-Salem after the congregation decided to put his tenure to a vote.
Some church members were not comfortable with Lee’s remarks during the MTV awards when he introduced the mother of Heather Heyer, who was killed in Charlottesville while protesting against white supremacy.
“We have made my ancestor an idol of white supremacy, racism, and hate,” he said on the music network. “As a pastor, it is my moral duty to speak out against racism, America's original sin.”
Although Lee issued an apology to church members for causing them pain with his remarks, he said he continues to “strongly support” removal of monuments to his ancestor and other Confederates..
To me, this is proof that some Christians only talk the talk. But there are some who actually walk the walk like this pastor. Kudos to you Reverend Lee.
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Trump thought he could just BS his way through the presidency the same way he has BS'ed his way through life, and everything would be just fine.
Trump has never solved a problem in his life. Trump IS the problem. He has always been an agent of chaos and destruction.
In the end, he really doesn't care what happens to the country. It's all just a game to him, and the objective of the game is for him to extract as much personal wealth as he can before everyone finally catches on to his con, and realizes that he has no clue what he's doing. He has done the exact same thing with his fake charity foundation , his fake university, and his casinos.
Even as his casinos did poorly, Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen. And that is Trump in a nutshell. A narcissistic sociopathic con-man who only cares about himself, and will use others to achieve his own self-serving desires.
In interviews with The Times, Trump acknowledged that high debt and lagging revenues had plagued his casinos. He repeatedly emphasized that what really mattered about his time in Atlantic City was that he had made a lot of money there.
Trump assembled his casino empire by borrowing money at such high interest rates — after telling regulators he would not — that the businesses had almost no chance to succeed.
His casino companies made four trips to bankruptcy court, each time persuading bondholders to accept less money rather than be wiped out. But the companies repeatedly added more expensive debt and returned to the court for protection from lenders.
After narrowly escaping financial ruin in the early 1990s by delaying payments on his debts, Trump avoided a second potential crisis by taking his casinos public and shifting the risk to stockholders.
And he never was able to draw in enough gamblers to support all of the borrowing. During a decade when other casinos there thrived, Trump’s lagged, posting huge losses year after year. Stock and bondholders lost more than $1.5 billion.
Trump now says that he left Atlantic City at the perfect time. Well no sh't. He left after he had ruined everything, and there was no more money for him to grift. The record shows that he struggled to hang on to his casinos years after the city had peaked, and failed only because his investors no longer wanted him in a management role..
He just did not put the equity into the projects he should have to keep them solvent,” said H. Steven Norton, a casino consultant. “When he went bankrupt, he not only cost bondholders money, but he hurt a lot of small businesses that helped him construct the Taj Mahal.”
In an interview with the Times, Trump said “Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a long time.” Like a true sociopath, Trump boasts about how he ravaged Atlantic City, without any regard for all the people and businesses he hurt along the way.
Beth Rosser of West Chester, Pa., is still bitter over what happened to her father, whose company Triad Building Specialties nearly collapsed when Trump took the Taj into bankruptcy. It took three years to recover any money owed for his work on Trump's casino" she said, and her father received only 30 cents on the dollar.
“Trump crawled his way to the top on the back of little guys, one of them being my father,” said Ms. Rosser, who runs Triad today. “He had no regard for thousands of men and women who worked on those projects."
“He put a number of local contractors and suppliers out of business when he didn’t pay them,” said Steven P. Perskie, who was New Jersey’s top casino regulator in the early 1990s. “So when he left Atlantic City, it wasn’t, ‘Sorry to see you go.’ It was, ‘How fast can you get the he// out of here?’”
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In her new book, Trump's niece Mary describes Donald as a “toxic” bully who practices “cheating as a way of life,” and someone who values money above anything.
In the forward to his new book entitled “Disloyal, A Memoir,” Michael Cohen writes: “Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages, because doing anything — and I mean anything — to ‘win’ has always been his business model and way of life,” he added.
Trump will definitely try to cheat in order to win reelection. Trump is a natural born loser, therefore he has to cheat. He's never achieved anything in his life without lying and cheating.
Trump's failure as a president was inevitable. Trump was never equipped to do his job. He doesn't have the necessary tools or the wherewithal to do his job. Trump is grossly incapacitated intellectually, mentally, emotionally, temperamentally, socially, and psychologically. He couldn't properly do his job as president even if he wanted to. (Which he doesn't) Trump was always going to fail, and he was always going to blame his failures on someone or something. Lying, cheating, and bullying are his only tools for survival. They are the tools of his trade, which is being an agent of chaos, misery, and destruction. It's all he knows. He is a sad and pathetic excuse for a human being. In fact, he is less of a human being, and more of a collection of every human flaw known to mankind, all rolled into one man.
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Multiple Obama-era officials have said they left the Trump administration with a 2016 “pandemic playbook” that detailed exact steps to take in the event of an infectious disease outbreak.
"What President Obama did leave Trump, was a global health infrastructure that we had set up, informed by the lessons of the Ebola outbreak,” Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy National Security Adviser under Obama said, referring to the NSC pandemic directorate that was dismantled by the Trump in 2018.
Trump’s elimination of the office suggested, along with his proposed budget cuts for the CDC, that he did not see, comprehend, or care about the threat of pandemics. Trump has defended his record, arguing, “I’m a "businessperson." I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly.”
Except experts argue that’s not how pandemic preparedness works, and that's definitely not how a virus works. “You build a fire department ahead of time,” Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security stated. “You don’t wait for a fire.”
“One year later I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like COVID-19,” Beth Cameron, the first director of the unit, wrote in an op-ed. She said the directorate was set up to be the “smoke alarm” and get ahead of emergencies and sound a warning at the earliest sign of fire — “all with the goal of avoiding a six-alarm fire.”
Ronald Klain, the White House Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February 2015, tweeted out a link to a document titled “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.”
Trump spent "two months of completely ignoring every bit of scientific advice," Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute stated in mid-March. "We've wasted two months. And this is not a disease where you're allowed to waste two months."
Jha criticized Trump for telling Americans that everything was "under control" when it was very clear to anybody paying attention that it was not under control."
"I don't use these words lightly, and it's incredibly painful for me to say it," he said, adding: "The cost of all of this is that tens of thousands of Americans are going to die unnecessarily. It was wholly preventable, and not just preventable in hindsight — it was preventable in foresight. Everybody said this is how it was going to play out if they didn't act."
The document is a 69-page National Security Council guidebook developed in 2016 with the goal of assisting leaders “in coordinating a complex U.S. Government response to a high-consequence emerging disease threat anywhere in the world.” It outlined questions to ask, who should be asked to get the answers and what key decisions should be made.
Nicole Lurie, another Obama administration official, confirmed the existence of the NSC pandemic playbook and also said similar documents were created for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The playbook listed types of infectious disease threats that could emerge. “Novel coronaviruses” were among pathogens flagged as having potential to cause heightened concern.
“We absolutely did leave a plan. It was called a playbook,” said Lisa Monaco, former homeland security adviser to President Obama. The goal, she said, was to share the lessons learned during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks..
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February 2016
Ted Cruz: "Donald can't defend his own record. Whenever you point out what he's actually said, he just screams, 'liar.' He insults you. He attacks you. He makes it personal, and he gets very rattled. He doesn't like anyone pointing to his actual, substantive record. And I think that's a sign of weakness."
May 2016
Ted Cruz on Trump: "This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies — practically every word that comes out of his mouth. He's narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen."
“I think he’s a kook, I think he’s krazy. I think he’s unfit for office."
--Lindsey Graham on Trump, Feb, 2016
"Here’s what you’re buying: He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. And you know how you make America great again, by telling Donald Trump to go to he//."
--Lindsey Graham on Trump, Dec 8, 2015
Trump: "I'm not taking responsibility for any of this. People are acting as if I'm a REAL president, and a real leader. I'm the same guy who betrayed America in front of the entire world in Helsinki. I'm nothing more than a fraud, who with the help of Putin, managed to con my way into the Oval Office. Plus most people knew I was fundamentally unfit intellectually, morally, temperamentally, emotionally, and psychologically to be president. Someone as mentally unstable and divorced from reality as I clearly am, should have NEVER been allowed anywhere near the White House..
So again, don't blame me, blame the people who were dumb enough to vote for me. Blame republicans in Congress who aided, abetted, and pardoned my crimes. Blame people like Lindsey Graham and Moscow Mitch. They both know exactly who and what I am, but yet they continue to defend me. So you see, I'm the same person that I've always been, an irredeemable con-man and a sociopath, but you already knew that."
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Trivia question: "Who goes to Moscow on the 4th of July to celebrate America's Independence day?
Republicans, that's who.
In 2018, eight republican lawmakers celebrated the 4th of July inMoscow: Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, who led the delegation, along with Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana, Steve Daines of Montana, North Dakota’s John Hoeven, Jerry Moran of Kansas, South Dakota’s John Thune, and Rep. Kay Granger of Texas. The dubious reason they gave for the trip was “engagement."
The group met with a number of RussianAgents, and keyRussian officials, including foreign minister and former RussianAmbassador to the US, the two who 14 months earlier were photographed by the RussianPress yukking it up with Trump in the Oval Office, the day after Trump fired Comey for daring to do his job of investigatingRussian interference in our elections. To this day, we have no way of knowing what was discussed during their visit toMoscow, as the media was barred from the closed-door meetings, much to the delight of the GloatingRussians.
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U.S. intelligence officials with the National Center for Medical Intelligence issued a report in late November warning that a virus was taking root in China. Analysts concluded it could be a "cataclysmic event,” and the report was shared with the White House, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency. There were multiple briefings about the report throughout Dec, Jan, and Feb for the National Security Council, and the White House..
On Dec. 31, China publicly confirmed that dozens of people in Wuhan were being treated for pneumonia-like symptoms. Three days later, on Jan. 3, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said he first learned of the spread of the virus in China at a White House briefing attended by CDC and Prevention director Robert Redfield. Trump fired Alex Azar shortly there after because he knew too much.
Public-health experts have stated that Trump's early efforts to downplay the threat of the virus robbed the US of valuable time needed to prepare for what is now a pandemic — potentially costing thousands of lives...
You need a president who’s willing to hear bad news, willing to understand that they’re going to have to focus on something that they may have not intended to focus on. President trump clearly did not want to hear that bad news when he heard about the outbreak in coronavirus,”
--Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy National Security Adviser under President Obama..
Trump spent "two months of completely ignoring every bit of scientific advice," Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute stated in mid-March. "We've wasted two months. And this is not a disease where you're allowed to waste two months."
Jha criticized Trump for telling Americans that everything was "under control" when it was very clear to anybody paying attention that it was not under control."
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I think America needs to have a long conversation about Trump and his crime family's close business relationships with Jyna.
Trump and his crime family have many lucrative business deals with China. Trump's products are manufactured in China. And Ivanka has conveniently received more than 30 new trademark deals in China since Trump became president. This is what happens when you have a president who from day one was compromised by greed and his own self-serving interests.
The Trumps are the landlord to one of China’s top state-owned banks, which has occupied the 20th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan since 2008. The bank’s lease is worth close to $2 million annually, according to industry estimates and a bank filing.
And despite Trump's rhetoric about American manufacturing, assembly-line workers in China still produce blouses, shoes and handbags for the clothing line created by Ivanka. Trump’s business interest in China is long-standing. He began applying for trademarks there in 2005, and in 2012, the Trump Hotel Collection opened an office in Shanghai, its first in Asia.
Trump business relationships with China are among the main examples plaintiffs in multiple court cases have cited in allegations that Trump is violating the Constitution’s “emoluments clause” by accepting payments from foreign governments.
Two of the Trump Organization’s foreign partners — developers in Dubai and Indonesia, each building residential complexes that include a Trump golf course — have announced new partnerships with state-run Chinese companies. On June 10 2018, Dubai’s Damac Properties announced that the state-run China State Construction Engineering Corp. had been awarded a contract to build roads and infrastructure at the new Akoya Oxygen. Trump will be paid to operate a golf course there, his second in the area, and paid for the use of his name.
In May 2018, Trump’s partner in Indonesia — MNC Corp. — announced that it had signed a construction contract with another state-run Chinese company, the Metallurgical Corporation of China, for its planned Lido City development. Plans for that project, in a mountainous area of West Java, include a Trump-branded golf.
Days later, Trump announced his support for Chinese-backed telecommunications firm ZTE, a departure from his previously aggressive stance toward Chinese industry that prompted ethical experts to question whether the two actions were related. But of course they were related. This is Don the con we're talking about.
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On April 18, 2019, a redacted copy of Mueller’s report was released to the public. The Mueller report builds on the U.S. intelligence conclusion that there were two campaigns to elect Trump— one run by Trump and one run by the Russian government. The Mueller report clearly identified connections between the Trump campaign and Russia...
A total of 272 contacts between Trump’s team and Russia-linked operatives were identified, including at least 38 meetings. We now know that at least 33 high-ranking campaign officials and Trump advisers had or were at least aware of contacts with Russia-linked operatives during the campaign and transition, including Trump himself, Don Jr, Manafort, Flynn, Jared, Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, and Roger Stone, just to name a few. But what's worse, is the fact that they all lied about these contacts. None of these contacts were ever reported to the proper authorities. Instead, the Trump team tried to cover them up, every single one of them..
The question every American should be asking is why were there so many contacts(272) between Trump’s people and Russian officials and operatives, and why did Trump and his people lie about those contacts?
Helsinki July 16, 2018.
Trump: "My people came to me, Dan Coates came to me, and some others, they said they think it's Russia, I have President Putin, he just said it's not Russia . I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today."
Make no mistake, Putin is America's enemy, and not because we want him to be, he's America's enemy because that's what he has chosen to be. Trump is a Russian asset, and not because that's what we want him to be, he's a Russian asset simply because that's what he has chosen to be. We should treat them both accordingly with the choices that they have made..
Semper Fi..
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The dawn of American democracy didn’t come in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence. It didn’t come in 1788, when the Constitution was ratified by the states, or in 1789, when George Washington took office. According to Harry Rubenstein, chair and curator of the Division of Political History at the American History Museum, the symbolic birth of our system of government didn’t come until its noble ideals were actually put to the test. On September 19, 215 years ago, Washington published his farewell address, marking one the first peaceful transfers of power in American history and cementing the country’s status as a stable, democratic state.
This moment, Rubenstein says, “is crucial for creating the in-and-out system of government that we have. And this is unique. In that time and era, politicians would gain power, or kings would stay in office until theyDie.” At that nascent stage in American history, before precedents such as the two-term limit were even set, many were uncertain about what would happen after a galvanizing figure like Washington resigned office. But at this critical juncture, the leadership of Washington and others proved more than adequate to preserve the democracy. “Stepping down is unique,” says Rubenstein. “It’s a powerful statement about Washington and American democracy.”
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Public-health experts have stated that Trump's early efforts to downplay the threat of the virus robbed the US of valuable time needed to prepare for what is now a pandemic — potentially costing thousands of lives...
You need a president who’s willing to hear bad news, willing to understand that they’re going to have to focus on something that they may have not intended to focus on. President trump clearly did not want to hear that bad news when he heard about the outbreak in coronavirus,”
--Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy National Security Adviser under President Obama..
Trump spent "two months of completely ignoring every bit of scientific advice," Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute stated in mid-March. "We've wasted two months. And this is not a disease where you're allowed to waste two months."
Jha, who received his doctorate in medicine from Harvard Medical school, criticized Trump for telling Americans that everything was "under control" when it was very clear to anybody paying attention that it was not under control."
"I don't use these words lightly, and it's incredibly painful for me to say it," he said, adding: "The cost of all of this is that tens of thousands of Americans are going to die unnecessarily." He went on to say: "It was wholly preventable, and not just preventable in hindsight — it was preventable in foresight. Everybody said this is how it was going to play out if they didn't act."
Trump said that COVID-19 “came out of nowhere” and “blindsided the world.” His comments left scientists, doctors, and national security experts in a state of disbelief. Experts had been warning about the next pandemic for years and criticized the Trump’s decision in 2018 to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House, charged with preparing for WHEN, NOT if, another pandemic would hit the nation.
Trump’s elimination of the office suggested, along with his proposed budget cuts for the CDC, that he did not see or comprehend the threat of pandemics.
“One year later I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like COVID-19,” Beth Cameron, the first director of the unit, wrote in an op-ed. She said the directorate was set up to be the “smoke alarm” and get ahead of emergencies and sound a warning at the earliest sign of fire — “all with the goal of avoiding a six-alarm fire.”
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Trump: "I'm not taking responsibility for any of this. People are acting like I'm a REAL president and a real leader. I'm the same guy who betrayed America in front of the entire world in Helsinki. I'm nothing more than a fraud, who with the help of Putin, managed to con my way into the Oval Office. Plus most people knew I was fundamentally unfit intellectually, morally, temperamentally, emotionally, and psychologically to be president. Someone as mentally unstable and divorced from reality as I clearly am, should have NEVER been allowed anywhere near the White House...
So again, don't blame me, blame the people who were dumb enough to vote for me. Blame republicans in Congress who aided, abetted, and pardoned my crimes. Blame people like Lindsey Graham and Moscow Mitch. They both know exactly who and what I am, but yet they continue to defend me. For crying out loud, Lindsey Graham even stated on fox, that I was in fact, a Krazy, race-baiting bigot. So you see, I'm the same person that I've always been, an irredeemable con-man and a sociopath, but you already knew that."
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For the last four straight years, Trump, along with his surrogates, have adopted and used some of the most fiendish propaganda tactics on his followers. They have told so many lies, that Trump’s followers can no longer distinguish truth from fiction.
Goebbels in 1941 said, “There are so many lies that truth and swindle can scarcely be distinguished."
"It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition, and a psychological understanding of the people concerned, that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise."
-- Joseph Goebbels
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
And ye shall know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH shall set you free
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At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked a question as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention, a lady asked Dr. Franklin: “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Benjamin Franklin replied: “A republic....if you can keep it.”
Trump is now telling us that we can no longer keep it..
This election will determine whether or not we keep our 244 year old democratic republic, or see it replaced with a tyrant and his despotic monarchy. Make no mistake, America is in a fight for it's very survival, and Trump has made it abundantly clear that this country isn't big enough for him and our democratic republic, so therefore one of them MUST GO!!!
On Nov 3rd, make a decision. Who's side are you on?
Biden/Harris 2020💙
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This MLK quote should be read by every republican in public office every morning whenever they wake up.
"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
"In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong."
--Charles Dickens
This quote aptly describes Mike Johnson, and McConnell.
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At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked a question as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention, a lady asked Dr. Franklin: “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Benjamin Franklin replied: “A republic....if you can keep it.”
Trump is now telling us that we can no longer keep it.
This election will determine whether or not we keep our 244 year old democratic republic, or see it replaced with a tyrant and his despotic monarchy. Make no mistake, America is in a fight for it's very survival, and Trump has made it abundantly clear that this country isn't big enough for him and our democratic republic, so therefore one of them MUST GO!!!
On Nov 3rd, make a decision. Who's side are you on?
Biden/Harris 2020💙
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Putin, Kim Jong Un, Duterte, Erdogan, Bolsonaro, MBS, Xi Jinping, and Al-Assad all have one thing in common. They are all brutal strongmen and dictators who demand respect, loyalty, and dogmatic obedience to them and them alone. This is exactly why Trump has a sick and demented admiration for these tyrants. He sees himself as one of them.
Time and time again, Trump keeps telling us exactly who and what he is. But unfortunately some people still refuse to believe him, or even listen to what he's saying.
June 15 2018
Trump praises Kim Jung Un's control over his people.
"He's the head of the country," Trump said of Kim during a Fox interview.
"And I mean he's the strong head. Don't let anyone think anything different."
"He speaks and his people sit up at attention," Trump added. "I want my people to do the same."
Deep down, Trump has always despised America and our democratic republic. He has nothing but contempt for our Constitution, and the " idea" of America. Trump has always favored despotic dictatorships. That's why he speaks so highly of tyrants like Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi, Duterte, and MBS. And anyone who has been paying attention, knows that Trump has never hidden his true feelings about any of this. When someone repeatedly tells you, and shows you who they are, it would behoove you to believe them.
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In 2018, Johnson and a group of Republicans wanted to show their patriotism by spending the 4th of July celebrating America's independence in Moscow.
In 2018, eight republican lawmakers celebrated the 4th of July inMoscow: Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, who led the delegation, along with Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana, Steve Daines of Montana, North Dakota’s John Hoeven, Jerry Moran of Kansas, South Dakota’s John Thune, and Rep. Kay Granger of Texas. The dubious reason they gave for the trip was “engagement."
The group met with a number of RussianAgents, and keyRussian officials, including foreign minister and former RussianAmbassador to the US, the two who 14 months earlier were photographed by the RussianPress yukking it up with Trump in the Oval Office, the day after Trump fired Comey for daring to do his job of investigatingRussian interference in our elections. To this day, we have no way of knowing what was discussed during their visit toMoscow, as the media was barred from the closed-door meetings, much to the delight of the GloatingRussians.
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The true character of an individual will always be revealed when they are faced with a crisis or adversity. And the eternal question will always be: at the moment of truth, when it truly mattered, what did they do? How did they respond?
In the midst of a national health crisis, when America needed a leader the most, Trump has categorically failed. He failed at the moment of truth. It has been a catastrophic failure, with lethal consequences. His lies, indifference, and downplaying of the coronavirus pandemic, will be remembered as the greatest dereliction of duty in presidential history. It is why this virus will be remembered by historians as The TrumpVirus, and rightfully so, because it didn't have to be this way. The needless loss of more than 200 thousand American lives is now Trump's legacy.
We owe it to the more than 220 thousand American souls that are no longer with us, to remove Trump from office.
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History: "Why oh why must I continually repeat myself? Sometimes I feel as if people believe I actually enjoy repeating myself. How many more times must I show the world what happens when people allow despotic and authoritarian dictators like Adolf, Mussolini, Lenin Stalin, Putin, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Un, and now Trump to come to power. It NEVER ends well. It never has, and it never will. But YOU people don't learn, and you clearly don't pay attention. It's like you're suffering from chronic amnesia. I have even gone so far as to keep a trash-heap of old tattered authoritarian regimes of the past as a reminder, and a warning, for the world to see. But alas, I am forced to repeat myself yet again, because you people don't learn.
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“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
―Thomas Paine, The Crisis
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked a question as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention, a lady asked Dr. Franklin: “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Benjamin Franklin replied: “A republic....if you can keep it.”
Trump and the Republican party are telling us that we can no longer keep it. They are telling us that the "idea" that is America, is over.
This election will determine whether or not we keep our 244 year old democratic republic, or see it replaced with a tyrant and his despotic monarchy. Make no mistake, America is in a fight for it's very survival, because Trump and his henchmen have made it abundantly clear that this country isn't big enough for him and our democratic republic, so therefore one of them MUST GO!!!
So you see, the choices are clear. On Nov 3rd, make a decision. America vs Trump, democracy vs tyranny. Who's side are you on?
“If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“The actions of government, we are told, bear down only on imprudent souls who provoke them. The man who resigns himself and keeps silent is always safe. Reassured by this worthless and specious argument, we do not protest against the oppressors. Instead we find fault with the victims. Nobody knows how to be brave even prudentially. Everyone stays silent, keeping his head low in the self-deceiving hope of disarming the powers that be by his silence. People give despotism free access, flattering themselves they will be treated with consideration. Eyes to the ground, each person walks in silence the narrow path leading him safely to the tomb.”
― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments
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“If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“The actions of government, we are told, bear down only on imprudent souls who provoke them. The man who resigns himself and keeps silent is always safe. Reassured by this worthless and specious argument, we do not protest against the oppressors. Instead we find fault with the victims. Nobody knows how to be brave even prudentially. Everyone stays silent, keeping his head low in the self-deceiving hope of disarming the powers that be by his silence. People give despotism free access, flattering themselves they will be treated with consideration. Eyes to the ground, each person walks in silence the narrow path leading him safely to the tomb.”
― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments
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History: "Why oh why must I continually repeat myself? Sometimes I feel as if people believe I actually enjoy repeating myself. How many more times must I show the world what happens when people allow despotic and authoritarian dictators like Adolf, Mussolini, Lenin Stalin, Putin, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Un, and now Trump to come to power. It NEVER ends well. It never has, and it never will. But YOU people don't learn, and you clearly don't pay attention. It's like you're suffering from chronic amnesia. I have even gone so far as to keep a trash-heap of old tattered authoritarian regimes of the past as a reminder, and a warning, for the world to see. But alas, I am forced to repeat myself yet again, because you people don't learn.
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"Last night, a man stole my Prada purse at gunpoint. After it happened, I told him, "I'm calling the police mister." He responded "Mrs. Bowers, please don't. That won't promote unity and healing. And we need to come together after that horrific robbery we both just experienced."
I'm kidding.That wasn't someone who robbed me. It was the Republicans who aided and abetted Donald Trump’s domestic terrorists who swarmed the Capitol in hopes of overturning our democracy. Instead, they just posed for selfies in silly costumes while criming. Yeah, they're that stupid. Oh, and they also ki//ed some people. Yes, the same folks who are all about "Blue Lives Matter" and "Respect the Flag" disrespected the flag to end a blue life. It's almost as if they don't REALLY believe any of the things they say. Which is why I side-eye any calls for bipartisanship from them now. "Oops, our attempt at a bloody, treasonous insurrection failed. So let's just forget the whole thing. Bygones and hold hands." While they regroup on their latest app for white supremacists.
Remember after 9/11, when everyone was all, "Let's not go after Bin Laden for that lapse into terrorism. If you do, he'll just do more terrorism. Instead, let's just send him a Gwyneth Paltrow vageen candle, and work with him towards unity and healing?" Yeah, I don't either. But the insurrection at the Capitol never would have happened without 2 things: 1 Donald - and the rest of the Republicans'- lies about the election. 2, something not getting nearly as much attention: Christian nationalists. The riot was full of them. But then again, so is any gathering of white supremacists. There were Dominionist prayers before, during, and after the Capitol's windows were smashed. The mob was invoking their "Thou Shall Not Ki//" mascot, while they were ki//ing.
So what is it now? "Render unto Caesar - a Molotov cocktail!!" Or " Onward Christian domestic terrorists?" Frankly, I blame in part the gimmick called "Religious Freedom." It has taught us that the laws that apply to so-called "everyone" don't apply to conservative Christians. That makes us....oh, what is the word? LAWLESS. Because when I hear the "Well, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley didn't actually storm the Capitol" defense, I'm reminded of how popular the "Well, Bin Laden didn't actually fly the planes" defense was after 9/11. You know, cause Charles Manson never actually ki//ed anyone either.
Criming is so much more tidy when you get others to do it for you. Because pretending to care about pretend election fraud, to overturn a REAL election, is inciting REAL sedition. And when the Christian Nationalists you inspire namedrop you while they're committing domestic terrorism -- congratulations!!
You know your reckless encouragement worked."
--Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian
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Steve Bannon once said proudly: “I am a Leninist.” Bannon said that Lenin wanted to destroy the Russian state (which was true) and that he had the same goals for Amerca. “I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment" Bannon said.
From the look of Trump’s time in White House, Bannon installed a bevy of Leninist political tactics that could have come straight from the Bolshevik leader’s playbook..
Two days after Lenin seized power in Russia a century ago, he began an assault on the free press – and his successors in the USSR did not let up for the next 70 years. Putin is literally following in Lenin's footsteps, and Trump would love to follow in Putin's footsteps.
Three days after Trump’s inauguration Bannon told the NYT: “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen … I want you to quote this. "The media here is the opposition party." This was the beginning of Trump's war on the free press, which is a must for any demagogue.
At a rally held by Steve Bannon in March of last year, an angry and hostile woman took the mic and said, “Never in my life did I think I would like to see a dictator, but if there’s gonna be one, I want it to be Trump!” which was met with loud cheers and applause from Bannon and the crowd of cultists. It goes without saying that any American who would cheer for that, doesn't believe in liberty, freedom, or the Constitution.
Since information from the press can undermine a dictator's spell over his cultists, they will often attack and demonized the free press. They will usually claim that the media can't be trusted. They have even called out for violence against news outlets that oppose them, claiming that the press is part of a deep state conspiracy against them, or claiming that leading newspapers were simply personally out to get him. No dictator can survive in a country that has a free press. This fact was not lost on Lenin, and neither is that fact lost on Trump. The truth has been, and will always be, Trump's nemesis
Bannon helped to creat the hate-filled language of alt-right politics, which is decidedly Leninist in tone. Above all, Lenin needed to invent enemies he had to be seen to defeat. In post- revolutionary Russia it was the “elite” a word Lenin used frequently. And he despised so-called “experts” who claimed a monopoly of knowledge. He often said that a worker with five days’ training could run a government department. He scapegoated opponents and labelled them “enemies of the people”.
Lenin abolished the existing legal system and started afresh. Within a few weeks his regime closed down the first freely elected parliament in Russia’s history – and the Soviets never allowed another one. It would be wrong to assume that the next step for Trump is the abolition of Congress, or the construction of labour camps. But the unprecedented war by tweet between Trump and the judiciary over his executive orders has real echoes of Lenin.
Lenin would very likely have identified 2016 as a revolutionary moment. He matters today not because of his flawed and bloody answers, but because he was asking questions similar to those we are asking today. In his quest for power, Lenin promised people anything and everything. He offered simple solutions to complex issues. He lied unashamedly. He justified himself on the basis that winning meant everything; the ends justified the means. Lenin was the godfather of post-truth politics. Powerful people have learned depressing lessons from him. In order for our democratic republic to survive, Trump must be defeated.
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There is more than enough evidence to charge Trump with criminal negligent homicide of at least 200 thousand Americans.
In proving negligent homicide, the prosecution only needs to establish that the defendants knew the risks associated with their actions.
1. The defendant was aware of the risks associated with the actions that led to the other person’s death. ✔
2. The defendant acted, or failed to act appropriately in a dangerous situation, and that action or inaction caused the victim’s death. ✔
3. There is a direct link between the defendant’s conduct and the victim’s death. ✔
Trump has admitted to downplaying the virus from the very beginning. He has been telling lies to the American since January, and with lethal consequences.
Trump told Woodward he's been minimizing the threat posed by the outbreak.
Trump: "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down," Trump said.
Trump during February 7 phone call with Bob Woodward:
"It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than your, you know, your even your strenuous flus. This is 5% vs 1%. You know so, this is deadly stuff."
Three weeks after that call, Trump told this lie to the public during a February 26 White House press conference:
Trump: "It's a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for. And we'll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner.?
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Trump has more in common with Fidel Castro and past and current communist dictators, than he does with former US Presidents.
In May of 2018, when China's President Xi Jinping, leader of the COMMUNIST PARTY of China, changed the country’s constitution to allow him to stay in power indefinitely, Trump, who admires dictators, said it was a good idea, and he had dreams of doing the same thing.
During remarks at Mar-a-Lago, delivered inside the ballroom during a lunch and fundraiser, Trump praised the Chinese president’s power grab, and said he wouldn’t mind trying it himself.
Trump: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”
Trump is currently working on giving it a shot as we speak.
● Replacing the rule of law with the law of rule—courtesy of Bill Barr—as accused allies receive pardons and praise while enemies are threatened with arbitrary prosecution.
● Engaging in multiple obstructions of justice, such as firing FBI director James Comey and urging White House counsel Don McGahn to lie to Mueller.
● Basing an entire convention on himself—no platform, Trumps proliferating like Borgias—and on the daily violation of the anti-monarchical Hatch Act because “no one cares,” according to his apologist Mark Meadows.
● Worsening economic inequality by shifting trillions through tax breaks to “American Oligarchs,” in Andrea Bernstein’s useful phrase, who then gratefully support his assaults on environmental and consumer laws to make even more money.
● Inciting violence by hyperbolic attacks on opponents, embracing neo-nazi5 while ignoring warnings from the FBI about the number-one domestic threat, right-wing violence.
● Enthusiastically embracing many of the world’s leading dictators—Putin, Xi, Bolsonaro, Kim Jung Un, Sisi, Duterte, Erdogan.
● Repeating Covid-19 falsehoods in order to pressure Republican governors to prematurely reopen the economy and schools, causing the avoidable deaths of over 100,000 Americans so far.
● Attempting to stymie postal delivery to, in effect, steal millions of mail-in ballots… and the election.
● Erupting with a lava of lies—now up to an average of 22 a day, to bury rivals and reality (Goebbels in 1941 said, “There are so many lies that truth and swindle can scarcely be distinguished."
● Attempting to delegitimize the Fourth Estate (the free press) as “enemies of the people,” using Stalin’s odious phrase.
● Bullying neutral sources of information—the CDC, DNI, FDA, regulatory agencies—to bend their expected integrity to his political needs.
● Milking public office for private gain by treating “his” federal government like he treated the Trump Organization.
● Attempting to criminally extort the president of Ukraine in order to smear Joe Biden.
● Fiiring career professionals and “independent” inspectors general for doing their job, increasingly having a government of cronies, cranks, multimillionaires, relatives, and unconfirmable third-raters.
● Ignoring all congressional subpoenas (when Nixon ignored eight of them, it became the third article in his impeachment, “Contempt of Congress”).
● Saying things such as “I alone can fix it” and “with Article II, I can do whatever I want,” as well as praising Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist party, when it changed the country’s constitution, making Xi Jinping ruler for life.
If you add it all up, What do you see? "It all has one purpose,” said Sally Yates, former acting attorney general, “to remove any check on his abuse of power.” It is brazen and deviant despotism.
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There is more than enough evidence to charge Trump with criminal negligent homicide of at least 200 thousand Americans.
In proving negligent homicide, the prosecution only needs to establish that the defendants knew the risks associated with their actions.
1. The defendant was aware of the risks associated with the actions that led to the other person’s death. ✔
2. The defendant acted, or failed to act appropriately in a dangerous situation, and that action or inaction caused the victim’s death. ✔
3. There is a direct link between the defendant’s conduct and the victim’s death. ✔
Trump has admitted to downplaying the virus from the very beginning. He has been telling lies to the American since January, and with lethal consequences.
Trump told Woodward he's been minimizing the threat posed by the outbreak.
Trump: "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down," Trump said.
Trump during February 7 phone call with Bob Woodward:
"It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than your, you know, your even your strenuous flus. This is 5% vs 1%. You know so, this is deadly stuff."
Three weeks after that call, Trump told this lie to the public during a February 26 White House press conference:
Trump: "It's a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for. And we'll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner."
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Trump will be remembered as the chaos and disorder president. He is the cloven hoofed purveyor of fear & loathing, of pandemics & death. He is a provocateur of mayhem & upheaval. He is a merchant of lies & deception. And he is tried his best to create an America in his own image: vile, dark, hopeless, bleak, backwards, malignant, grotesque, ignorant, selfish, indecent, malicious, debased, indifferent, and malevolent.
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