At the very least, it looks like these "fine people" are willing to do their best to make the J6 Pardons look a the really bad idea and, like DJT, they're not wasting any time to do it.
What we have done to Afghani SIV refugees who aided our military is a disgusting stain on our country. And I hope people like Will Selber never let people forget. Lord knows I won't stop discussing it.
Wonder if anyone besides me thinks that Trump doesn't give a crap about optics at this point. He thumbed his nose at rules and decorum, exposed our "guardrails" as nothing more than a quaint honor system incapable of stopping him, changed the game to suit himself, and won. Why would he be concerned with optics?
When Trump declare only two genders in America, I laughed. Today Marco Rubio directed the State Department to stop processing passport applications for trans folk. That affects two family members who currently hold expired passports with birthnames and biological markers that don't match their driver's licenses. The consequences will start to pile up, along with enough rage to fuel the blowback. I will not stand down.
I really love tying the pardons to Biden. Take an unpopular move by an unpopular president and make Trump look even worse. Do not defend Biden, denounce the move and make it clear that Trump is even worse than the bad Biden move.
I wrote an email to Justice Sotomayer today to remind her they will be on the bench a lot longer than Trump's reign of terror and they need to do the right thing and not become personal pawns of this predator pig.
Today from my work phone, I called both Texas Senators and left voicemails I'm a professor and my students are very afraid for their family members who have lived here for decades. They ask me to help because I'm their government professor, but I have no answers for them.
CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!!!
Put pressure on these weak motherfuckers!! We have agency!!
The pardons for all.. including the most violent and seditious of the Jan 6 rioters..should be coupled with Trumps abandonment of our Afghan allies. Together, those two actions define Trump as the horrid, soulless wretch that he is. The Dems and MAGA opposition groups should work together to focus their attacks using those two issues as a focal point. When it comes to driving a point home, repetition leads to success. Let's use the facts and Trumps own abuses to bury him.
There is an interesting and perverse symmetry to Trump’s immoral (and threat to national security) pardoning of about 1600 J6 criminals, and his immoral (and also a threat to national security) slap in the face refusal to allow 1600 Afghans who served the U.S. during the war to immigrate here. He’s letting bad people out of jail, and (insofar as they served the U.S. at risk to themselves in a hot war) refusing to let good people into the country, to taste that same freedom.
The J6ers are a more obvious threat to national security. But coldly cutting ties w our Afghan allies makes it harder in future to cultivate allies, including those w valuable language skills and knowledge of culture and terrain, etc.
Trump is of course taking the short, self-interested view, because he’s not making these decisions by considering the long-term interests of America. As w virtually every decision he makes, the question he’s asking is: what’s in it for me? That should be the sign on his Oval Office desk. Not: “the buck stops here” (he has openly repudiated such a slogan, see Covid pandemic response), but: “What’s in it for me?” That is the dark North Star for essentially all his decisions.
He wants the J6ers freed, to be his loyal Brownshirts.
And he’s slapping our Afghan allies in the face, bc he knows his base will approve of keeping brown-skinned Muslims out of the country, no matter how bravely they served the U.S.
President Biden's failed withdrawal from Afghanistan was dictated by the surrender of the Trump administration to the Telaban Trump had blocked the Afghans who worked with are troops during his frist term. Even those approved to relocate to the US was stopped. Their Muslims. He has already repeated the process in his 2nd day of his 2nd administration. If you think Biden's withdrawal form Afghanistan was terrible, I would suggest you take a look at the withdrawal from Vietnam. Our troops were under fire as they left. Left essentially all the South Koreans that help our troops there. You don't have to read anything just watch the news coverage of the withdrawal. People hanging of helicopters as the left. So from someone who faced the draft during Vietnam, Biden's withdrawal was peaceful in comparison. The blame for the Afghanies who worked with our troops falls mainly on Trump.
Let's put this simply - the Trump pardons say that it's ok to attack and beat up police and invade and despoil public buildings. The pardons also say that Trump doesn't care about what citizen juries do - juries aren't important, only Trump's opinions count. Violent offenders have free reign.
this should be a warning to police throughout the country that they are sitting ducks for attacks by anyone who disagrees with them - Trump won't defend you if he agrees in any way with the attackers.
"Pardoner-in-Chief" rang a bell in my head. Where had I heard that word "Pardoner" before? Hmmm, in one of my college English classes. The Pardoner's Tale from Chaucer. How appropriate. The Pardoner was a fraud and a grifter and a man who bilked the unwise and credulous out of their money. He was also a phony Christian. Ah, well. What's old is new again. One of the lines from Chaucer that has stuck in my mind all these years is this (spoken to the Pardoner): "I would that I had your balls in my hand, Instead of relics, or a sanctuary. Let me cut them off, I will help you carry them; They shall be enshrined in a hog's turd."
Really, "It was a morally bad decision."? How about:
"It was a categorically immoral and evil decision."
or
"President Trump pardoning his insurrectionists who assaulted police officers should be considered a national catastrophe on the order of Pearl Harbor, or 911."
I understand y'all have a big mess of very broad information to cover. But wouldn't it be responsible to tell us what that insurrectionist did to get his self arrested almost immediately after he was pardoned? That guy needs to be a split-screen meme like as at the bottom of this newsletter.
This is why details are important. It's a gun possession charge, apparently connected to the same charges as his Jan 6th conviction. The patriot is being further persecuted by liberals. I can't use that.
I do think this is an important point. "J6 insurrectionist arrested on gun charge" isn't right. This guy is a legitimately bad dude. He was convicted for domestic violence by strangulation in June 2017. He had two other convictions for resisting arrest by violence and battery on a law enforcement officer, but those might be when he was taken into custody for his January 6 activities. (I couldn't figure that out from the documents I found.)
But giving these MAGA loons the room to say, "See? The press is dishonest. This guy didn't do another crime. The corrupt Joe Biden DoJ was waiting outside the jail to jail him again on some BS gun charge that will get thrown out as soon as a judge looks at it!" That's not good.
Daniel Ball deserves to be in prison for what he did. He's out because of Trump. There isn't anything more to this. The press needs to get these things right.
And another "fine" person of note from the J6 crowd:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/28/jan-6-rioter-pardon-andrew-taake
So much easier to solicit minor when you're not in prison!
At the very least, it looks like these "fine people" are willing to do their best to make the J6 Pardons look a the really bad idea and, like DJT, they're not wasting any time to do it.
https://apnews.com/article/indiana-man-killed-trump-pardon-matthew-huttle-8c674e76c8e3c5ef1610ed29d0669050
Since when do government agencies have CEO’s??
What we have done to Afghani SIV refugees who aided our military is a disgusting stain on our country. And I hope people like Will Selber never let people forget. Lord knows I won't stop discussing it.
Wonder if anyone besides me thinks that Trump doesn't give a crap about optics at this point. He thumbed his nose at rules and decorum, exposed our "guardrails" as nothing more than a quaint honor system incapable of stopping him, changed the game to suit himself, and won. Why would he be concerned with optics?
When Trump declare only two genders in America, I laughed. Today Marco Rubio directed the State Department to stop processing passport applications for trans folk. That affects two family members who currently hold expired passports with birthnames and biological markers that don't match their driver's licenses. The consequences will start to pile up, along with enough rage to fuel the blowback. I will not stand down.
I really love tying the pardons to Biden. Take an unpopular move by an unpopular president and make Trump look even worse. Do not defend Biden, denounce the move and make it clear that Trump is even worse than the bad Biden move.
I wrote an email to Justice Sotomayer today to remind her they will be on the bench a lot longer than Trump's reign of terror and they need to do the right thing and not become personal pawns of this predator pig.
CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!!
Today from my work phone, I called both Texas Senators and left voicemails I'm a professor and my students are very afraid for their family members who have lived here for decades. They ask me to help because I'm their government professor, but I have no answers for them.
CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!!!
Put pressure on these weak motherfuckers!! We have agency!!
The pardons for all.. including the most violent and seditious of the Jan 6 rioters..should be coupled with Trumps abandonment of our Afghan allies. Together, those two actions define Trump as the horrid, soulless wretch that he is. The Dems and MAGA opposition groups should work together to focus their attacks using those two issues as a focal point. When it comes to driving a point home, repetition leads to success. Let's use the facts and Trumps own abuses to bury him.
There is an interesting and perverse symmetry to Trump’s immoral (and threat to national security) pardoning of about 1600 J6 criminals, and his immoral (and also a threat to national security) slap in the face refusal to allow 1600 Afghans who served the U.S. during the war to immigrate here. He’s letting bad people out of jail, and (insofar as they served the U.S. at risk to themselves in a hot war) refusing to let good people into the country, to taste that same freedom.
The J6ers are a more obvious threat to national security. But coldly cutting ties w our Afghan allies makes it harder in future to cultivate allies, including those w valuable language skills and knowledge of culture and terrain, etc.
Trump is of course taking the short, self-interested view, because he’s not making these decisions by considering the long-term interests of America. As w virtually every decision he makes, the question he’s asking is: what’s in it for me? That should be the sign on his Oval Office desk. Not: “the buck stops here” (he has openly repudiated such a slogan, see Covid pandemic response), but: “What’s in it for me?” That is the dark North Star for essentially all his decisions.
He wants the J6ers freed, to be his loyal Brownshirts.
And he’s slapping our Afghan allies in the face, bc he knows his base will approve of keeping brown-skinned Muslims out of the country, no matter how bravely they served the U.S.
He is consistently self-interested and horrid.
And it’s only just begun.
President Biden's failed withdrawal from Afghanistan was dictated by the surrender of the Trump administration to the Telaban Trump had blocked the Afghans who worked with are troops during his frist term. Even those approved to relocate to the US was stopped. Their Muslims. He has already repeated the process in his 2nd day of his 2nd administration. If you think Biden's withdrawal form Afghanistan was terrible, I would suggest you take a look at the withdrawal from Vietnam. Our troops were under fire as they left. Left essentially all the South Koreans that help our troops there. You don't have to read anything just watch the news coverage of the withdrawal. People hanging of helicopters as the left. So from someone who faced the draft during Vietnam, Biden's withdrawal was peaceful in comparison. The blame for the Afghanies who worked with our troops falls mainly on Trump.
Let's put this simply - the Trump pardons say that it's ok to attack and beat up police and invade and despoil public buildings. The pardons also say that Trump doesn't care about what citizen juries do - juries aren't important, only Trump's opinions count. Violent offenders have free reign.
this should be a warning to police throughout the country that they are sitting ducks for attacks by anyone who disagrees with them - Trump won't defend you if he agrees in any way with the attackers.
"Pardoner-in-Chief" rang a bell in my head. Where had I heard that word "Pardoner" before? Hmmm, in one of my college English classes. The Pardoner's Tale from Chaucer. How appropriate. The Pardoner was a fraud and a grifter and a man who bilked the unwise and credulous out of their money. He was also a phony Christian. Ah, well. What's old is new again. One of the lines from Chaucer that has stuck in my mind all these years is this (spoken to the Pardoner): "I would that I had your balls in my hand, Instead of relics, or a sanctuary. Let me cut them off, I will help you carry them; They shall be enshrined in a hog's turd."
Really, "It was a morally bad decision."? How about:
"It was a categorically immoral and evil decision."
or
"President Trump pardoning his insurrectionists who assaulted police officers should be considered a national catastrophe on the order of Pearl Harbor, or 911."
I understand y'all have a big mess of very broad information to cover. But wouldn't it be responsible to tell us what that insurrectionist did to get his self arrested almost immediately after he was pardoned? That guy needs to be a split-screen meme like as at the bottom of this newsletter.
Your wish is my command (except for the split screen) https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5100384-daniel-ball-arrest-gun-charges-jan-6-pardon/
This is why details are important. It's a gun possession charge, apparently connected to the same charges as his Jan 6th conviction. The patriot is being further persecuted by liberals. I can't use that.
I do think this is an important point. "J6 insurrectionist arrested on gun charge" isn't right. This guy is a legitimately bad dude. He was convicted for domestic violence by strangulation in June 2017. He had two other convictions for resisting arrest by violence and battery on a law enforcement officer, but those might be when he was taken into custody for his January 6 activities. (I couldn't figure that out from the documents I found.)
But giving these MAGA loons the room to say, "See? The press is dishonest. This guy didn't do another crime. The corrupt Joe Biden DoJ was waiting outside the jail to jail him again on some BS gun charge that will get thrown out as soon as a judge looks at it!" That's not good.
Daniel Ball deserves to be in prison for what he did. He's out because of Trump. There isn't anything more to this. The press needs to get these things right.