I once had immense respect for Shapiro and his astonishing intellect. But right about the time Lindsey Graham and Cruz flushed their meager veneer of principles down the toilet, so did Shapiro. All in the service of money and power
There was a lot of negativity and I think righteous indignation at the consistent inconsistency and the chronic hypocrisy of so many people on the right. So I just wanted to thank Charlie for including Mona’s piece this morning.
I’ve sometimes disagreed with Mona but I’ve grown to really respect and admire her. She is absolutely fearless and is never afraid to speak het mind so if she still thought Biden was too old or if she had continued to believe that it would be better for the country if we did not indictment Trump, she would continued to say so.
But Mona has that ability that hypocrites and people who have made a regular habit of cognitive dissonance lack - a genuine desire to “get it right” rather than “just assuming you’re right” and “never backing down”.
I’ve met very few people with this ability - and fewer people seem capable of being able to re-evaluate prior beliefs the older they get. You can call it introspection or curiosity or, as I do, epistemic humility. But I think it’s the most important quality (apart from courage) that keeps people young at heart and distinguishes people of genuine character and integrity from those who just pretend to have it.
Joe Biden is 4 years older than Trump. Just compare the two of them. Biden is in relatively good physical shape, and while prone to verbal gaffes, at least can make a coherent speech. Then listen to Trump speak. A lot of word salad. He can barely finish a thought. He just rambles at the podium. The Age thing is not the biggest problem. It's Competence. Many people live into their nineties and they are not all basket cases. So drop the carping about Biden's age. He is going to run and win against Trump
Poor Geoff Duncan (former Lt. Governor of Georgia). That darned Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because of "his lack of effort" and his "cockamamie schemes to overturn the election" he would have won if he had only tried harder! And because of "Trump's self-centered stewardship", the Republicans lost the Senate, "especially galling, as it involved a pair of easily winnable runoffs in Georgia". And to top it all off, Trump is mad at Duncan for not going along with the schemes, even misspelling his name and mixing him up in his tweets with Representative Jeff Duncan from South Carolina!
Boy, that Donald Trump. If he hadn't done all the dumb stuff he did, those Democrats would have lost , the Republicans would still be in power, and all would be right with the world, or at least Geoff Duncan's--dare I say self-centered--world.
The lists of hypocrisies can seem endless, but we shouldn't forget the "federalism/state rights" crowd that crowed over the Dobbs decision but now derides GA for "piling in" on going after Trump and his band of conspirators.
| “He made a mockery of the tenets of journalism.”
If you consider prime time news yack shows journalism. They certainly aren't news REPORTING, at their best shallow news analysis, more often pack editorializing. Some resemblance to journalism, like some jackals look like dogs.
Poor Geoff Duncan (former Lt. Governor of Georgia). That darned Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because of "his lack of effort" and his "cockamamie schemes to overturn the election" he would have won if he had only tried harder! And because of "Trump's self-centered stewardship", the Republicans lost the Senate, "especially galling, as it involved a pair of easily winnable runoffs in Georgia". And to top it all off, Trump is mad at Duncan for not going along with the schemes, even misspelling his name and mixing him up in his tweets with Representative Jeff Duncan from South Carolina!
Boy, that Donald Trump. If he hadn't done all the dumb stuff he did, those Democrats would have lost , the Republicans would still be in power, and all would be right with the world, or at least Geoff Duncan's--dare I say self-centered--world.
Ref: Charlie's succinct summary of the second story he mentions at the top of today's Shots (WaPo on why Trump might fear the GA indictment the most)...
This is what Trump's cognitive neurologist will ask him to memorize for the next evaluation:
I must thank you for your, I want to say exhaustive, but I can’t quite, coverage of the Georgia indictment. What you cover, you cover admirably well, but there remains one blind spot in the story that you have not covered. I refer to the heroes of the sordid tale. Yes, Brad Raffensperger and some of his associates displayed heroism in standing up to Trump in the days before Jan. 6, 2021, but so did the people your coverage neglects to mention. For those, I refer you to this article from the New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/175016/trump-georgia-indictment-ruby-freeman-wandrea-moss-american-heroes, which covers it well.
If Brad Raffensperger had not stood up to Trump, who knows what might have happened after Jan 6. The same thing can (and MUST) be said of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. I want to talk about the slanders that were hurled about Freeman and Moss by Trump and Giuliani. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were not “professional vote scammers”. They were paid $16/hour for their day’s service. Ruby Freeman was passing a mint to her daughter, not a USB stick. It only looked like a vial of crack cocaine to someone determined to see crack cocaine (and of course it had to be crack cocaine, not the powdered variety preferred by wealthier people). Giuliani has admitted to lying about Freeman and Moss but sticks to the despicable lie that they weren’t damaged by his lie. Not damaged? They had to permanently leave their homes!
All this is well-known. But I want to delve a bit deeper here. The lies of Trump and Giuliani were designed to be red meat hurled at Trump’s mostly white base. For them, merely to mention “professional vote-scammer” and “vials of crack cocaine” were tantamount to proof of same. No presumption of innocence to urban black folk.
The lies of Trump and Giuliani were probably accepted by Rev. Stephen Cliffgard Lee who came down from Illinois to provide the “spiritual guidance” needed for Ruby Freeman to confess her crimes. That’s my charitable assumption. Either he believed the Trump/Fox spin on this or he had an even more nefarious mind than I’m willing to give him credit for. Thinking that Freeman was resisting his offer because he was white (did the thought that she might be innocent occur to him?) he recruited a Black man, Harrison Floyd, an activist in Black Voices for Trump to see where he could get with Freeman. Floyd in turn, reached out to another member of Black Voices for Trump, Trevian Kutti, to do the actual intervention with Freeman. She has quite a “rap sheet” herself, as featured in an article by Hunter Walker in Talking Points Memo - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trevian-kutti-harrison-floyd-steve-lee-fani-willis.
Note the projection here. “Professional vote-scammer” flows effortlessly off the lips of Trump and Giuliani and sticks to ordinary urban Black folks like glue, which dupes like Rev. Lee believe instantly and spring into action. Realizing the racial gap between himself and Freeman he recruits, well, real “professional vote scammers” like Trevian Kutti to intimidate Ruby Freeman.
In 2020, protesters over the murder of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, demanded that we “say their names.” That applies equally in 2023 to heroes Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Their stories are also part of the Georgia indictment and must not be airbrushed out. They are also important.
Personally, I think the one everyone forgets, and which I think is the most damning, is that conservatives freaked out when liberal activists said 'defund the police' because police are driving around in military gear and shooting innocent people.
Apparently, Defund the Police is bad, but Defund the FBI is good, now that they're mad at the FBI. Who they loved in 2016, because they said the FBI were going after Clinton.
As always, it's never their own character that matters, but other people's. It never their actions that have consequences, only other people's.
That is why you are the Bulwark.!! Besides all your writers, there are also lots of people here that give comments that are rational and truthful. That gives me hope. After reading about the hypocrisy of all those I don't know if hypocrisy is the only right word. I feel as if suddenly I were in my home and the house starts to shake and I don't know if it is a hurricane, a tornado or an earthquake. I never felt that way before. Yes, as a Democrat and did not care for Reagan, Nixon, Bush, but at least they were just flawed humans I did not agree with. I liked that Clinton got impeached for having a BJ at the White House even if I had voted for him and liked him. This is a democracy I thought, and we go on with our day to day lives and as citizens, the government has our back, flawed as it is. I also thought that democracy would continue to evolve because we would learn from history. I still believe that is possible, but what is happening now is a shock to our minds and emotions. We should recover soon and continue playing chess while they are scrambling playing checkers but knocking the board anytime, they lose.
The person behind Mueller She Wrote said something like: "I wouldn't vote for Liz Cneney. I disagree with her on about 99% of the issues. I don't want her to be president. But if she were elected president, I wouldn't worry about the survival of our democracy. It's different with Trump."
Anti-Trump conservatives see things in a similar way (more or less in reverse). It's the thinking that guides Judge Luttig: The nation can survive "policies I don't favor," but not a direct assault on its most basic principles: that even the president is subject to the law, and that the president steps aside after losing an election.
Donald Trump is psychologically unable to respect either of those principles.
What's worse is that he's boosted by people who claim that his disregard for rules and laws and election results is rooted in a courageous commitment to defending the American system. Maybe some of them believe it -- or maybe they just think "policies I disfavor" is worse than disdain for rules.
Tucker Carlson? That's a name I'd almost forgotten. What happened to him?
I once had immense respect for Shapiro and his astonishing intellect. But right about the time Lindsey Graham and Cruz flushed their meager veneer of principles down the toilet, so did Shapiro. All in the service of money and power
There was a lot of negativity and I think righteous indignation at the consistent inconsistency and the chronic hypocrisy of so many people on the right. So I just wanted to thank Charlie for including Mona’s piece this morning.
I’ve sometimes disagreed with Mona but I’ve grown to really respect and admire her. She is absolutely fearless and is never afraid to speak het mind so if she still thought Biden was too old or if she had continued to believe that it would be better for the country if we did not indictment Trump, she would continued to say so.
But Mona has that ability that hypocrites and people who have made a regular habit of cognitive dissonance lack - a genuine desire to “get it right” rather than “just assuming you’re right” and “never backing down”.
I’ve met very few people with this ability - and fewer people seem capable of being able to re-evaluate prior beliefs the older they get. You can call it introspection or curiosity or, as I do, epistemic humility. But I think it’s the most important quality (apart from courage) that keeps people young at heart and distinguishes people of genuine character and integrity from those who just pretend to have it.
Joe Biden is 4 years older than Trump. Just compare the two of them. Biden is in relatively good physical shape, and while prone to verbal gaffes, at least can make a coherent speech. Then listen to Trump speak. A lot of word salad. He can barely finish a thought. He just rambles at the podium. The Age thing is not the biggest problem. It's Competence. Many people live into their nineties and they are not all basket cases. So drop the carping about Biden's age. He is going to run and win against Trump
Poor Geoff Duncan (former Lt. Governor of Georgia). That darned Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because of "his lack of effort" and his "cockamamie schemes to overturn the election" he would have won if he had only tried harder! And because of "Trump's self-centered stewardship", the Republicans lost the Senate, "especially galling, as it involved a pair of easily winnable runoffs in Georgia". And to top it all off, Trump is mad at Duncan for not going along with the schemes, even misspelling his name and mixing him up in his tweets with Representative Jeff Duncan from South Carolina!
Boy, that Donald Trump. If he hadn't done all the dumb stuff he did, those Democrats would have lost , the Republicans would still be in power, and all would be right with the world, or at least Geoff Duncan's--dare I say self-centered--world.
The lists of hypocrisies can seem endless, but we shouldn't forget the "federalism/state rights" crowd that crowed over the Dobbs decision but now derides GA for "piling in" on going after Trump and his band of conspirators.
| “He made a mockery of the tenets of journalism.”
If you consider prime time news yack shows journalism. They certainly aren't news REPORTING, at their best shallow news analysis, more often pack editorializing. Some resemblance to journalism, like some jackals look like dogs.
Poor Geoff Duncan (former Lt. Governor of Georgia). That darned Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because of "his lack of effort" and his "cockamamie schemes to overturn the election" he would have won if he had only tried harder! And because of "Trump's self-centered stewardship", the Republicans lost the Senate, "especially galling, as it involved a pair of easily winnable runoffs in Georgia". And to top it all off, Trump is mad at Duncan for not going along with the schemes, even misspelling his name and mixing him up in his tweets with Representative Jeff Duncan from South Carolina!
Boy, that Donald Trump. If he hadn't done all the dumb stuff he did, those Democrats would have lost , the Republicans would still be in power, and all would be right with the world, or at least Geoff Duncan's--dare I say self-centered--world.
Good job today Charlie.
Ref: Charlie's succinct summary of the second story he mentions at the top of today's Shots (WaPo on why Trump might fear the GA indictment the most)...
This is what Trump's cognitive neurologist will ask him to memorize for the next evaluation:
"Prison, pardons, RICO, mugshots, bail restrictions, TV"
I think he'll ace it again, just like in the fall of 2020.
Charlie:
I must thank you for your, I want to say exhaustive, but I can’t quite, coverage of the Georgia indictment. What you cover, you cover admirably well, but there remains one blind spot in the story that you have not covered. I refer to the heroes of the sordid tale. Yes, Brad Raffensperger and some of his associates displayed heroism in standing up to Trump in the days before Jan. 6, 2021, but so did the people your coverage neglects to mention. For those, I refer you to this article from the New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/175016/trump-georgia-indictment-ruby-freeman-wandrea-moss-american-heroes, which covers it well.
If Brad Raffensperger had not stood up to Trump, who knows what might have happened after Jan 6. The same thing can (and MUST) be said of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. I want to talk about the slanders that were hurled about Freeman and Moss by Trump and Giuliani. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were not “professional vote scammers”. They were paid $16/hour for their day’s service. Ruby Freeman was passing a mint to her daughter, not a USB stick. It only looked like a vial of crack cocaine to someone determined to see crack cocaine (and of course it had to be crack cocaine, not the powdered variety preferred by wealthier people). Giuliani has admitted to lying about Freeman and Moss but sticks to the despicable lie that they weren’t damaged by his lie. Not damaged? They had to permanently leave their homes!
All this is well-known. But I want to delve a bit deeper here. The lies of Trump and Giuliani were designed to be red meat hurled at Trump’s mostly white base. For them, merely to mention “professional vote-scammer” and “vials of crack cocaine” were tantamount to proof of same. No presumption of innocence to urban black folk.
The lies of Trump and Giuliani were probably accepted by Rev. Stephen Cliffgard Lee who came down from Illinois to provide the “spiritual guidance” needed for Ruby Freeman to confess her crimes. That’s my charitable assumption. Either he believed the Trump/Fox spin on this or he had an even more nefarious mind than I’m willing to give him credit for. Thinking that Freeman was resisting his offer because he was white (did the thought that she might be innocent occur to him?) he recruited a Black man, Harrison Floyd, an activist in Black Voices for Trump to see where he could get with Freeman. Floyd in turn, reached out to another member of Black Voices for Trump, Trevian Kutti, to do the actual intervention with Freeman. She has quite a “rap sheet” herself, as featured in an article by Hunter Walker in Talking Points Memo - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trevian-kutti-harrison-floyd-steve-lee-fani-willis.
Note the projection here. “Professional vote-scammer” flows effortlessly off the lips of Trump and Giuliani and sticks to ordinary urban Black folks like glue, which dupes like Rev. Lee believe instantly and spring into action. Realizing the racial gap between himself and Freeman he recruits, well, real “professional vote scammers” like Trevian Kutti to intimidate Ruby Freeman.
In 2020, protesters over the murder of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, demanded that we “say their names.” That applies equally in 2023 to heroes Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Their stories are also part of the Georgia indictment and must not be airbrushed out. They are also important.
Personally, I think the one everyone forgets, and which I think is the most damning, is that conservatives freaked out when liberal activists said 'defund the police' because police are driving around in military gear and shooting innocent people.
Apparently, Defund the Police is bad, but Defund the FBI is good, now that they're mad at the FBI. Who they loved in 2016, because they said the FBI were going after Clinton.
As always, it's never their own character that matters, but other people's. It never their actions that have consequences, only other people's.
That is why you are the Bulwark.!! Besides all your writers, there are also lots of people here that give comments that are rational and truthful. That gives me hope. After reading about the hypocrisy of all those I don't know if hypocrisy is the only right word. I feel as if suddenly I were in my home and the house starts to shake and I don't know if it is a hurricane, a tornado or an earthquake. I never felt that way before. Yes, as a Democrat and did not care for Reagan, Nixon, Bush, but at least they were just flawed humans I did not agree with. I liked that Clinton got impeached for having a BJ at the White House even if I had voted for him and liked him. This is a democracy I thought, and we go on with our day to day lives and as citizens, the government has our back, flawed as it is. I also thought that democracy would continue to evolve because we would learn from history. I still believe that is possible, but what is happening now is a shock to our minds and emotions. We should recover soon and continue playing chess while they are scrambling playing checkers but knocking the board anytime, they lose.
The person behind Mueller She Wrote said something like: "I wouldn't vote for Liz Cneney. I disagree with her on about 99% of the issues. I don't want her to be president. But if she were elected president, I wouldn't worry about the survival of our democracy. It's different with Trump."
Anti-Trump conservatives see things in a similar way (more or less in reverse). It's the thinking that guides Judge Luttig: The nation can survive "policies I don't favor," but not a direct assault on its most basic principles: that even the president is subject to the law, and that the president steps aside after losing an election.
Donald Trump is psychologically unable to respect either of those principles.
What's worse is that he's boosted by people who claim that his disregard for rules and laws and election results is rooted in a courageous commitment to defending the American system. Maybe some of them believe it -- or maybe they just think "policies I disfavor" is worse than disdain for rules.
Most traumatic part for Trump of being arraigned in Fulton County will be the weigh-in. Yes, there's a weigh-in.
Is the weight announced?
Remind me again why Mandala Barnes wasn't the better choice for WI?
I think it had something to do with skin color.
[Edit] I should have mentioned that I don't, however, think this was a factor in Charlie's case.
Hemingway's Lounge I found, but it is permanently closed. Don't worry, we can find some place for a chat and some grub.