Jennings is right about one thing: the end of the war was declared on June 27 at the White House when the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda
signed a peace deal facilitated by the U.S. to help end the
decades long deadly fighting in eastern Congo while helping the U.S. government
and American companies gain access to critical minerals in the region.
“Today, the violence and destruction comes to an end, and
the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity, harmony,
prosperity and peace,” President Donald Trump told the foreign ministers of the
two countries at a White House meeting.
So, it's all over.... except when it's not, because
While the deal is seen as a turning point, analysts don’t
believe it will quickly end the fighting because the most prominent armed group
says it does not apply to it. Many Congolese see it mainly as an opportunity
for the U.S. to acquire critical minerals needed for much of the world’s
technology after their government reached out to Trump for support in fighting
the rebels.
Trump has pushed to gain access to such minerals at a time
when the United States and China are actively competing for influence in
Africa.
President Trump specializes in signing deals, purportedly to end wars, which leave out a major party to the war. It's how he sold out the U.S.-backed Afghan government when he signed a "peace" agreement with the Taliban in 2020 and left Kabul out in the cold. In east-central Africa
The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group is the most prominent
armed group in the conflict, and its major advance early this year left bodies
on the streets. With 7 million people displaced in Congo, the United Nations
has called it “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises
on Earth.”
Congo hopes the U.S. will provide it with the security
support needed to fight the rebels and possibly get them to withdraw from the
key cities of Goma and Bukavu, and from the entire region where Rwanda is
estimated to have up to 4,000 troops. Rwanda has said that it’s defending its
territorial interests and not supporting M23.
So Trump- uh, er, the USA- gets mineral rights, Congo gets military assistance, and Rwanda gets to say that it has made peace and of course, not supporting the rebel group because, well, it signed a peace treaty. Meanwhile
M23 rebels have suggested that the agreement won’t be
binding for them. The rebel group hasn’t been directly involved in the planned
peace deal, although it has been part of other ongoing peace talks.
Trump does it again! He makes a deal and appears to broker a peace he hasn't produced. And he has plenty of Republican stooges, Scott Jennings one of the most avid, to make way for the authoritarian.
said that universal orders likely exceed the equitable
authority that Congress has granted to the federal courts. Justice Amy Coney
Barrett authored the majority opinion for the 6-3 court, with the liberal
justices in dissent.
The court granted the Trump administration request to narrow
the reach of the injunctions blocking the president's executive order while
proceedings move forward, but "only to the extent that the injunctions are
broader than necessary to provide complete relief" to plaintiffs who can
sue, Barrett wrote. The justices did not address the question of whether Mr.
Trump's order is constitutional, and the administration has said agencies have
30 days to issue public guidance about implementation of the policy, allowing
time for more challenges to be filed.
In a wrongheaded and disingenuous piece for The Atlantic, Nicholas Bagley, former counsel to Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, stated "I don't see this as a partisan issue." In eight years as President, Barack Obama issued 276 orders and in four years, President Biden signed 162. Fewer than six months into his second term, President Trump has issued 164 such orders. Not partisan, my ass.
Noting Trump v. CASA "takes away the ability of lower-court judges to issue nationwide, Elie Mystal concedes
I’m not actually a fan of nationwide injunctions. The system can be incredibly politicized. Republican judges use nationwide injunctions all the time to stymie the agenda of Democratic presidents. Democratic judges use nationwide injunctions to slow down the Trump administration. Whether a president gets to have their agenda often depends on whether the opposition party can find a friendly lower-court judge.
However
Nationwide injunctions have been a thing for a long time. The court could have addressed the issue in a myriad of other cases (including, you know, any where the Biden administration was subjected to a nationwide injunction). They chose to do so here, on this issue, where lifting the nationwide injunction will have the direct and immediate impact of letting Trump and Miller take away citizenship on a case-by-case basis....
nationwide injunctions make sense when it comes to national issues involving civil and human rights: issues like, say, the Constitution’s very clearly stated definition of national citizenship. After all, one’s fundamental rights should not wildly change if they miss their exit on the interstate.
The Court waited until a Democrat was out of the presidency and a Republican who already has called himself "King of America" was in. Moreover, as Steve M. recognizes
....the Court's Republicans know they won't try to push the
boundaries of the acceptable the way Trump has.
Taking guns away from the law-abiding? That only happens in
the fever dreams of Republicans. Bill Clinton was president for eight years and
it didn't happen. Barack Obama was president for eight years and it didn't
happen. Joe Biden was president for four years and it didn't happen. It hasn't
happened in the bluest of states. Even when there have been restrictions on who
can own guns or at what age a particular kind of gun can be purchased, no
Democratic administration has even suggested going house to house and rounding
up firearms that had previously been obtained legally. "Red flag"
laws exist, but no one is being deprived of weapons without a good reason,
subject to due process. And even an assault weapons ban wouldn't prevent a
would-be purchaser of assault weapons from buying any other kind of gun -- or a
dozen guns of other kinds -- instead.
And there simply isn't a strain of liberal legal thought
that tosses the Constitution, law, and precedent out the window and says that
whatever liberals want is the Framers' intention. No one who'd uphold a
statewide gun confiscation program would ever be appointed to the federal
bench, even if Democrats held the White House and the Senate.
And I know of no Democrats who want to deprive any religious
denomination of the right to worship.
The idea that only Democrats use nationwide injunctions is false. The reason we don’t have student debt forgiveness from President Biden is because Republicans got a nationwide injunction.
When the Supreme Court could restrain a President Biden, who needed little restraint, it chose to do so. When it faced a challenge to Trump's order to end the birthright citizenship inarguably guaranteed by the Constitution, it gave a victory on the larger issue of nationwide injunctions to a man who has called for the termination of the Constitution.
In the first 100 days of this term, President Trump had issued eight national emergency declarations, though President Biden issued only two in the same time frame, and President Obama none in the first 100 days of either of his terms. In this environment, the nation's High Court, with four far-right Justices and the intimidated Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, has elected to give Donald Trump de facto power other Presidents were not given. And because it is Donald Trump.
It's not completely clear where this is heading, but the Supreme Court is increasingly content to give the Administration a blank check to continue its march toward tyranny.
Like I said the other night - one way to keep things from leaking is to not share it with leakers. Trump totally justified in freezing out these snakes. pic.twitter.com/YKFo99CkNJ
The classified intelligence that President Trump disclosed
in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided
by Israel, according to a current and a former American official familiar with
how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential
diplomatic complication to an episode that has renewed questions about how the
White House handles sensitive intelligence.
Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies
and runs one of the most active espionage networks in the Middle East. Mr.
Trump’s boasting about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the
Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries and raises the
possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally
and Israel’s main threat in the region.
This wasn't the most dangerous intelligence breach of the first Trump Administration- no, not by a long shot, because Donald Trump
improperly stored in his Florida estate sensitive documents
on nuclear capabilities, repeatedly enlisted aides and lawyers to help him hide
records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showed off a Pentagon “plan of
attack” and classified map, according to a sweeping felony indictment that
paints a damning portrait of the former president’s treatment of national
security information.
The conduct alleged in the historic indictment — the first
federal case against a former president — cuts to the heart of any president’s
responsibility to safeguard the government’s most valuable secrets. Prosecutors
say the documents he stowed, refused to return and in some cases showed to
visitors risked jeopardizing not only relations with foreign nations but also
the safety of troops and confidential sources….
The 49-page indictment centers on hundreds of classified
documents that Trump took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago upon
leaving office in January 2021. Even as “tens of thousands of members and
guests” visited Mar-a-Lago between the end of Trump’s presidency and August
2022, when the FBI obtained a search warrant, documents were recklessly stored
in spaces including a “ballroom, a bathroom and shower, and office space, his
bedroom, and a storage room.”
The indictment claims that, for a two-month period between
January and March 15, 2021, some of Trump’s boxes were stored in one of
Mar-a-Lago’s gilded ballrooms. A picture included in the indictment shows boxes
stacked in rows on the ballroom’s stage.
This was not done innocently or merely carelessly. Instead
Prosecutors allege that Trump, who claimed without evidence
that he had declassified all the documents before leaving office, understood
his duty to care for classified information but shirked it anyway. It details a
July 2021 meeting in Bedminster in which he boasted about having held onto a
classified document prepared by the military about a potential attack on
another country.
“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,”
the indictment quotes him as saying, citing an audio recording. He also said he
could have declassified the document but “Now I can’t, you know, but this is
still a secret,” according to the indictment.
Trump even engaged others in his schemes, all the more to make them vulnerable to his blackmail. Therefore
Using Trump’s own words and actions, as recounted to
prosecutors by lawyers, aides and other witnesses, the indictment alleges both
a refusal to return the documents despite more than a year’s worth of
government demands but also steps that he encouraged others around him to take
to conceal the records.
For instance, prosecutors say, after the Justice Department
issued a subpoena for the records in May 2022, Trump asked his own lawyers if
he could defy the request and said words to the effect of, “I don’t want
anybody looking through my boxes.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have
anything here?” one of his lawyers described him as saying.
This was a man actively involved in concealing his guilt, of which he was well aware. So
...before his own lawyer searched the property for
classified records, the indictment says, Trump directed aides to remove from
the Mar-a-Lago storage room boxes of documents so that they would not be found
during the search and therefore handed over to the government.
Weeks later, when Justice Department officials arrived at
Mar-a-Lago to collect the records, they were handed a folder with only 38
documents and an untrue letter attesting that all documents responsive to the
subpoena had been turned over. That day, even as Trump assured investigators
that he was “an open book,” aides loaded several of Trump’s boxes onto a plane
bound for Bedminster, the indictment alleges.
But suspecting that many more remained inside, the FBI
obtained a search warrant and returned in August to recover more than 100
additional documents. The Justice Department says Trump held onto more than 300
classified documents, including some at the top secret level.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case against Trump and his two co-defendants but
The government
was challenging the Trump-appointed judge’s dismissal on appeal when he won the
election, which led the DOJ to withdraw the appeal as to Trump, due to federal
policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Once Trump took office, it
seemed like he would either pardon his former co-defendants or move to dismiss
the appeal against them, and the Justice Department did the latter.
Cannon herself was grossly prejudicial toward Trump, though it no longer mattered once Trump was elected in November, 2024. The Supreme Court (in Trump v. United States) already had ruled that a sitting President is above the law and continuation of the case against the newly-elected President may have revealed that he had transferred classified documents to foreign countries. And We the People must not be aware that our President is an extreme national security risk.
As the late, great French novelist Albert Camus once wrote, "decent folks must be allowed to sleep easy o'nights, mustn't they?" It would be, he added, "shockingly bad taste to linger on such details, that's common knowledge." And we won't have to linger on the truth and other details, even though
.... the dismissal removes the rationale cited by the
DOJ under then-Attorney General Merrick Garland for keeping special counsel
Jack Smith’s classified documents report volume under wraps. That is, Joe
Biden’s attorney general agreed not to release that volume so long as the case
was technically still pending against Nauta and De Oliveira.
The report is now in the hands of the Justice Department, headed by Pam Bondi, who obviously will not release the report because it would seriously implicate the man who appointed her and expects total obedience, Donald Trump. (Similarly, she has not released most of the Epstein files, though Trump's name can be redacted the many times it undoubtedly appears in them.)
No one knows for sure what Donald Trump has done with the documents he stole (and it looks like we never will). However, he did not steal them to line the bottom of a bird cage, nor to use them as emergency toilet paper, nor to invite prosecution for a felony simply so that he could brag about what he did. He took them for a purpose, whether or not the purpose has been accomplished. So Scott Jennings should spare us the invective about "freezing out these snakes" when in the world of snakes, Donald Trump is the top taipan.
As the ceasefire teetered on the brink of collapse Tuesday
morning, Trump, who has promised to end longstanding wars during his presidency
and has openly angled for a Nobel Peace Prize, didn’t hide his frustration at
both Israel and Iran for violating the deal he had heralded one day earlier.
“We have two countries that have been fighting so long and
so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” Trump told reporters
on the White House lawn before departing to meet with NATO allies in the
Netherlands.
The president also suggested that the two countries might
not have broken the ceasefire intentionally but quickly added that he planned
to speak with Israeli leaders to persuade them to call off additional attacks.
Fox News, at least a little favorable to the Trump Administration, does not understand the politics of profanity, circa 2025. In its telling
"I'm not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, okay,
now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop
everything you have on them. So I'm not happy with them. I'm not happy with
Iran either, but I'm really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning,"
Trump said.
He continued, "We basically have two countries that
have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don't know what the ****
they're doing."
A mere three months after Donald Trump first was inaugurated as President- over eight years ago- CNN noticed
Swearing has become such a part of Democratic stump speeches
that profane clips have become routine in Democratic National Committee
Chairman Tom Perez’s speeches. With children on stage behind him, Perez told an
audience in Las Vegas this weekend that Trump “doesn’t give a shit about health
care.”
Perez, President Barack Obama’s former labor secretary, made
similar comments earlier this year.
“They call it a skinny budget, I call it a shitty budget,”
Perez said in Portland, Maine.
Maybe it’s a calculated move to conjure up excitement. Maybe
it’s a direct response to the President Donald Trump, who repeatedly riled up
campaign crowds with expletives incorporated into policy pronouncements.
Whatever the motivation, it appears to be a trend – and it’s not just Perez.
Perhaps not coincidentally, this propensity has reappeared in recent months. Acknowledging, "cursing, of course, is not new in American politics," Politico nonetheless recognizes
.... the breadth of swearing is unmistakable, newly
fashionable among members of a party in the wilderness who are looking for
shortcuts to authenticity to channel voters’ rage.
In recent days, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said he wanted
the “intern” at the National Republican Campaign Congressional Committee who
posted “racist shit” on X fired. And appraising the landscape of Trump’s
America, Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii noted this week that the “stock market is
down but at least everything is more expensive and services are getting
shittier.”
Politics, the late Andrew Breitbart once observed, is
downstream of culture. And linguistically speaking, Democrats are up a certain
creek.
Trump beat them to it, using curses increasingly in his
march back to the White House, though for some Democrats it is part of their
native tongue.
“I mean, I was swearing before Trump, so I can’t really
blame it on him,” Gallego told POLITICO. “I’m gonna blame it more on being in
the Marines for as long as I was.”
Of course, that was at least 18 years ago, when Gallego was in his low-to-mid '20s, and he's now a worldly, mature individual. Well, at least worldly.
There is a reason Democrats do this. Donald Trump started it, and he now has won the presidency twice. Positive reinforcement.
Caitlin Legacki, described as "a Democratic campaign veteran," remarked
If elected officials are going to cuss, they have to mean it. If it's authentic to who they are and how they're feeling, voters will probably be fine with it and even relate to it. But if it's not authentic, there's nothing more cringeworthy."
Oh, give me a break. These are national party leaders or officials elected district-wide or statewide. They know precisely what they're doing or saying. It's not authentic but it works because there is nothing more important to be a successful politician than to be able to fake authenticity.
As we should expect, there is no one who can fake authenticity better than an actor. That's the point of acting- convincing viewers you're someone you're not.
And as luck would have it, we have a bad businessman and very good actor in the White House. He's someone who can believably remark "We have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing."
Trump may have been channeling the zeitgeist and the fears of the public. The current conflict has only contributed to the long-held perspective of Americans that opposing parties in the Middle East always have been fighting and always will. Further, the common instinct (in this and other unpleasant matters) is to howl "they don't know what they're doing."
The cherry on top is for Trump to invoke a profanity. H.L. Mencken is said to have once quipped "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American. (Underestimate or overestimate anything long enough and you will go broke, but you know what he meant.) Here comes along an excellent actor turned politician who once said "I love the poorly educated," and this remark, complete with expletive, is stated perfectly.
Of course, Iran and Israel both know what they're doing, and they've been doing it. In May, "Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called Israel a 'cancerous tumor' that he vowed would be 'eradicated,'" a boast consistent with previous rhetoric and effort to become a nuclear power. Israel responded with a bombing attack it claimed has set Iran's program back by "two to three years" and, not incidentally, decimated the nation's air defense.
The USA then bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities, setting Tehran's goal back by anywhere from a few months to several years. In response, Iran launched a bunch of missiles at a U.S. military base in the Middle East, which (at least according to President Trump) it warned the USA of. This resulted- as apparently expected- in little damage and no lives lost. hence no American response which might have decimated the country. Quite a sensible move on the regional chessboard by a country clearly quite aware of what it was, and is, doing.
So President Trump's reaction to this lacked credibility, never a priority of his. However, it was an accurate reflection of the emotional response of most Americans and further degrades the credibility of Iran and Israel in their eyes. He will more likely be considered the consummate dealmaker if there is an agreement because "they don't know what the ( ) they're doing."
Iran and Israel know what they're doing. So, too, does Donald Trump, given that his goal is to win the Nobel Peace Prize, whatever his contribution- or lack thereof- to stability in the region.
For decades, Republicans attacked Democrats for President Jimmy Carter's description of America as in "malaise." In the offending speech, Carter never invoked the term "malaise," but facts are optional.
Similarly, Republicans nowadays condemn President Joe Biden for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan- which took place five years ago, in August of 2021. Though the withdrawal from Afghanistan was bungled, it is is unnecessary to defend Biden himself in order to take a Republican, eat him (or her) up, and spit him out when the demagogy arises.
Only the left could twist the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army into whining about “fascism” and production value.
Maybe that’s because the only time they’re proud of our military gear is when the Taliban is parading it through the streets after Biden’s botched withdrawal.… pic.twitter.com/0QiYdEqK2N
MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen explained in January
In the midst of an increasingly chaotic situation, ordinary
Afghans overran the Kabul airport. Some were so desperate that they hung on to
planes taking off from the runways, falling to their deaths. Later, a suicide
bombing attack at Kabul airport by an ISIS-K terrorist killed more than 170
Afghans and 13 American soldiers. Biden’s poll numbers immediately faltered and
never recovered.
But there’s another part of the Afghan withdrawal that
rarely gets mentioned. The collapse of the Afghan government turned what began
as an evacuation effort into a massive humanitarian airlift. In less than three
weeks, U.S. military commanders evacuated more than 125,000 people out of the
country — both Americans and Afghans who had worked with U.S. officials during
the war. It was the single largest noncombatant evacuation airlift in American
history — and an extraordinary example of ingenuity and grit.
The withdrawal itself wasn't America's finest hour. However, the decision by President Biden to withdraw was almost unavoidable, given that the country as a whole wanted out and virtually no Republican questioned the decision itself, which was far more significant than the withdrawal itself.
These days, there is no Republican- Wesley Hunt or any other- who has the courage to question the policy. And it's a wise strategy, given that President Trump painted his successor into a corner on this. As Amber Phillips of The Washington Post reported in August of 2021
When Trump came into office, he was pretty transparent- he just wanted out of Afghanistan. "Trump had no real sense of what was at stake in the war or why to stay," writes Georgetown professor Paul Miller in a digestible history of the 20-year-war.
It should have come as no surprise, then, that the Taliban got pretty sweet terms from The World's Greatest Deal Maker as
The deal laid out an explicit timetable for the United States and NAto to pull out their forces: In the first 100 days or so, they would reduce troops from 14,000 to 8,600 and leave five military bases. Over the next nine months, they would vacate all the rest. "The United States, its allies, and the Coalition will complete withdrawal of all remaining forces from Afghanistan within the remaining nine and a half (9.5) months," the deal reads. "The United States, its allies, and the Coalition will withdraw all their forces from remaining bases."
Phillips wrote "the United States would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners; the Taliban would release 1,000 of its prisoners" or, as the late, great, but mathematically-challenged Jim Morrison once put it,"five to one, baby, one in five." And
One gaping problem, say scholars (including some from the Trump administration): The peace agreement came with no enforcement mechanism for the Taliban to keep its word.
The Taliban basically had to sign a pledge saying it wouldn't harbor terrorists. Nowhere did the Taliban have to- nor did it choose to- denounce al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan, Miller writes....
Overall, it was a pretty good deal for the Taliban, critics said. "Trump all but assured the future course of events would reflect the Taliban's interests far more than the United States," Miller writes. H.R. McMaster, Trump's second national security adviser, has recently called it "a surrender agreement with the Taliban." Another member of Trump's National Security Council said it was "a very weak agreement."
In a glimpse into the kind of deals which Donald Trump makes when he does not hold all the cards
A few months after the agreement was signed, there was plenty of evidence that the Taliban wasn't as sincere as it appeared about peace. The United Nations said it had evidence that al-Qaeda was "integrated" into the Taliban. The Taliban launched dozens of attacks in Afghanistan, ramping up its violence.
"The Taliban views the negotiations as a necessary step to ensure the removal of U.S. and other foreign troops under the U.S.-Taliban agreement, but the Taliban likely does not perceive that it has any obligation to make substantive concessions or compromises," a U.S. inspector general report read.
When the deal was eventually consummated in Doha, Qatar in February of 2020, the Taliban "agreed to start peace talks with the Afghan government and consider a cease-fie with the government." Yet
Before the peace talks really got going got going, Trump had already started withdrawing thousands of troops, and he fired his defense secretary, (Mark T.) Esper, after he wrote a memo disagreeing. (Esper later said that Trump's withdrawing too many troops too soon contributed to what we see now in Afghanistan)....
When Biden took over, there were just 3,500 U.S. troops left in the country (from a high of 100,000 during the Obama years). he pushed back the date of the planned withdrawal from May 1 to four months later, but he kept the deal intact. U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/1 attacks.
The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities this past weekend was uncharacteristic of President Trump. Although it turns out that the scheming fascist does not always chicken out (TacoTrump), Trump did so in 2020. As Phillips noted
"I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we're not all wasting time" Trump said as he announced the agreement. He added as an aside: "If bad things happen, we'll go back with a force like no one's ever seen."
It was only a matter of time before those "bad things" would "happen. Therefore, we read in August of 2022, "experts say the downfall of (President Ashraf) Ghani's government was inevitable once NATO forces started withdrawing from the war-ravaged country in May 2021 as a result of Washington's deal with the Taliban in February 2020." It was a deal the President struck without including NATO (whose forces were present) nor the Afghan government. with a terrorist organization of whom activist Zahra Hussein in Kabul remarked "Today is a dark day, and as I was watching the deal being signed, I had this bad feeling that it would result in their return to power rather than in peace."
That's why Republicans such as Wesley Hunt refer to Biden's "botched withdrawal" and only in passing while moving seamlessly from one unrelated topic to another. The act of withdrawal has had far less impact on Afghanistan or even the USA than did the thoroughly botched agreement President Donald J. Trump made with terrorists he trusted.
Donald Trump did perform his photo-op of "honoring our heroes with strength and respect." Still, we need to remember that he once characterized "my personal Vietnam" as avoiding a "social disease" while dating in the 1980s, bragging "I feel like a great and very brave soldier." That's our President and his lickspittle, Wesley Hunt
On a recent Chuck ToddCast, host Chuck Todd and writer Mark Leibovich discussed the leadership vacuum in the Democratic Party, especially as it pertains to former President Barack Obama. At 4:56 of the video below, Leibovich comments
No, I completely agree. But I do think, look my piece wasn't really calling for Obama to do much- but I mean, just showing up at a march or something. You don't have to say anything. It would get all kind of press coverage- it would be sort of quiet leadership by example, like this is important enough for me to show up, whatever it is, one of the NO Kings this this weekend or something, so the kind of counter-programming around-
Don't be silly. On No Kings day, the Obamas attended the wedding of former Alex Soros and former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin at the grand estate in the Hamptons of Soros' father, George. The guest list was "power-packed, including the Obamas, Anna Wintour, Kamala Harris and husband Dough Emhoff, Senator Chuck Schumer and Nicky Hilton Rothschild, all escorted by valets. Boyz to Men performed at the reception."
It was in character, and the kind of leadership Barack Obama has continually displayed.
Todd responded to Leibovich
It would be quite the- can you name the last former President that would have protested a sitting President... You and I both know Obama kind of is a believer in those protocols. He really appreciated that (George W.) Bush....
The way that Bush has behaved I think is a model. I think Obama almost uses that as a role model.
Oh, yes, because Donald Trump, who has sent US Marines to Los Angeles, and the National Guard there over Governor Newsom's objections, always has followed protocol himself.
Leibovich then noted
oh, yea, it's the most appealing. If you are in that presidential club, it's the most appealing model of all because all you've gotta do is whatever the heck you want and make tons of money and nobody is gonna bother you. Um, the difference between the two of them is there's not a soul in the Republican Party who says, and certainly not a lot in the Democratic Party, who wants George Bush anywhere near their enterprise, right?
Right. And it's not as if former President Obama won't speak out against today's extraordinary status quo. On Wednesday, CNN's Aaron Blake reported
Barack Obama delved into domestic politics Tuesday night in
a way he rarely does – and the content was pretty remarkable.
Speaking to the Connecticut Forum in Hartford, the former
president called for institutions, law firms, universities, members of both
parties and even Justice Department figures to make “uncomfortable” sacrifices
to defend a democracy he argued is increasingly under fire in President Donald
Trump’s second term.
But the kicker is "he suggested, without ever using Trump's name, that the US was 'dangerously close' to a more autocratic government." Blake continued
“What’s happening is that we now have a situation in which
all of us are going to be tested in some way, and we are going to have to then
decide what our commitments are,” Obama said, according to a transcript of his
remarks provided by his office. "It will be uncomfortable for a time, but that's how you know it's a commitment- because you do it when it's hard, not just when it's easy, not just when it's trendy, not just when it's cool."
The former President could have added "although if there's a hip and fashionable affair to attend at the palatial mansion of a multi-billionaire donor, old school rap music for the cherry on top, don't pass it up." Yet, the always aware Obama
specifically cited how law firms that don’t cow to
Trump will have to accept reduced billings — “which means you cannot remodel
that kitchen in your house in the Hamptons this summer” — and businesses that
resist the administration’s bullying may have to deal with retribution like
politically oriented investigations or mergers being held up.
He even twice pointed to people who work in Trump’s Justice
Department, painting them as a bulwark in upholding the Constitution in the
face of the president’s threats.
It was a significant call for a broad-scale resistance from
the most popular and significant Democratic figure of the 21st century. And it
comes at an important time, as the grassroots have risen up in protest like
they haven’t since the start of Trump’s first term, but as the party still
faces a remarkable leadership vacuum.
Still
His appearance, however, was also somewhat discordant.
If you haven’t heard much about Obama’s comments, there’s a
reason for that. He chose to deliver them at an event at which audio and video
recordings were prohibited. If the idea was to disseminate this clarion call to
the broader public, it was a weird choice of venues.
Obama never uttered the word “Trump” once. Throughout his
remarks, it was clear what he was talking about. But he opted for broad
generalities rather than specifics about who and what are threatening
democracy.
He did include winks and nods to what everyone likely knew
he was talking about.
“I mean, if you follow regularly what is said by those who
are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment
to … our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work,” Obama
said.
He also warned about government being “captured by those
who, let’s say, have a weak attachment to democracy.”
After some cheers and applause, Obama said, “Well, I don’t
even think that’s a controversial statement at this point … It was a
controversial statement; now it is self-acknowledged.”
But is it self-acknowledged? Perhaps in a room full of
people who would turn out to see Barack Obama.
Leibovich would agree. At nearly the end of this segment with Todd, he recognized
I mean, I do think that the problem with Obama has been how he has conducted his post-presidency to some degree is in addition to his absence from the ten-alarm fire we've lived, we're living through now, and were to some degree earlier is when he does come out in public, he does so in such a way that reinforces every worst stereotype of the modern Democratic party, which is wealthy, which is removed, which is not at all affected by Trump's America or like in- I mean, this is like, hey look, my new, I mean... such as anytime he's got a new playlist that comes out or a new- oh, here are my book recommendations.
Well, that's how it has always been with the risk-averse Barack Obama. He has the ability to speak and act with "a nod and a wink" understood by the people who agree with him and, fortuitously, largely ignored by those who don't. It has been a feature of his success, which overshadowed his embodiment of virtually everything voters now associate unhappily with the Democratic Party.
Nonetheless, he remains widely popular with Democrats at a time when rallying the base is a prerequisite for an effective strategy. Obama would have aided that significantly had he not figuratively gone fishing on Saturday, June 14, 2025. In his recent remarks, the ex-President displayed his tendency- disturbing, were Democrats not eager to ignore it- to avoid invoking the word "Trump."
Notwithstanding Chuck Todd's archaic perspective, Barack Obama doesn't go easy on the incumbent primarily because he's dedicated to "protocol." Obama knows the score, has paid attention to the last ten years, and almost surely realizes the "when they go low, we go high" strategy is grievously outdated.
It may be simply the common instinct, unfortunate but understandable, of people not to get involved.. However, it's inexcusable in a former President when our existence as a representative democracy is imperiled. More likely, the ex-President is afraid of the vitriol the incumbent will hurl at him if he directly criticizes him and/or fears Trump has something on him which would sully his reputation. In either case, Barack Obama is qualified to give the Democratic Party, and the democratic republic we've benefited from so long, a boost, and his resistance should be alarming.
The Black Lives Matter movement generally failed, perhaps in part because the Say Her Name Campaign did not gain much traction. Other than that of Ms. Taylor, the names of these women did not become commonly known and even in late 2020, the "Breonna Taylor" was probably unknown to a great many Americans.
Nonetheless, the concept was a very wise one, which- in his own twisted way- Mr. Trump understands.
During Elizabeth Warren's 2012 Senate campaign in Massachusetts, she claimed to have some Native American/American Indian/ tribal ancestry, which she since has largely verified and which evidently never was used for political gain. It gained currency, though, with identification of "Pocahontas" with Senator Warren during Trump's first presidential campaign, in 2016.
At that time, Trump was asked a question about Elizabeth Warren and in the next 85 seconds of condemning her because she had claimed a measure of tribal ancestry, mentioned the Senator's name once.
When in April of 2017 President Trump spoke before the NRA, he said that the Democratic field of candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination would be swamped, and added "it may be Pocahontas, remember that, and she is not big for the NRA, that I can tell 'ya."
Soon after, in May, a bi-partisan organization which describes itself as "the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization in the country," issued a statement noting
In the next election, you are going to be swamped with candidates, but you’re not going to be wasting your time…It may be Pocahontas, remember that,” said President Trump during his NRA address, referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren. While campaigning for president in 2016, candidate Trump also invoked the name of the well-known historical Native figure to belittle Warren. In fact, the cultural misappropriation of Native American cultures and traditions unfortunately was a common occurrence during the 2016 election season, with multiple attacks by candidates and their surrogates during debates, rallies, and live broadcast appearances. As an example, radio personality Howie Carr conducted a war whoop while on the podium at a presidential rally.
revived his derogatory nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
D-Mass., on Monday, referring to her as "Pocahontas" during an event
honoring Native American veterans at the White House.
Trump told the veterans: "You were here long before any
of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was
here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas."
The families of the Navajo war veterans who were honored were, ahem, not amused.
In the first State of the Union Address of his second term, Trump received relatively little response following one applause line, then followed it with "you want to keep it going for another five minutes, yea, yea, you would say "Pocahontas says yes." He then changed subjects while Elizabeth Warren, who finally has figured it out, smiled and applauded.
America's foremost bigot and budding fascist is at it again:
Trump on the debt ceiling: "Pocahontas even agreed with me. She's been wanting to get rid of the debt ceiling because she said it's too violent. It is violent." pic.twitter.com/Kd33uBEJV4
He does it periodically because he gets no pushback; it's a freebie, a shout-out to his supporters which garners little attention from the media. He gets a pass because he is clever enough not to mention Warren's name, except when necessary to make it absolutely clear of whom he is speaking.
So say her name, as the African-American Policy Forum should appreciate.The President, unless he has no choice, does not. His base, undoubtedly approving, knows who he's talking about while two or three of them know the actual details of the case.
Those details now are irrelevant, especially while Trump is President of the United States of America and Elizabeth Warren is only one of 100 senators. But say her name. Trump loves to punch down. However, doing so becomes less effective and more risky when the opponent's name is acknowledged.
Directly connect the name of a US Senator and a misunderstood young woman from the 1600s. In its 2017 statement, the NCAI commented "we cannot and will not stand silent when our Native ancestors, cultures, and histories are used in a derogatory manner for political gain." That organization may not, but the news media does when it stays silent, or changes the subject, when Trump invokes "Pocahontas." At a minimum one reporter can ask the President "who are you talking about, Mr. President" or "please tell us whom you are talking about, Sir."
Trump might ignore the question or more likely, attack the interlocutor, thus making clear the value of the question. In either case, the news outlet could- and should- report that the President refused to answer the query. If he does mention Warren, he lays bare bigotry beyond reference to "Pocahontas.". Whatever the response, it is a legitimate question and the reporter and his/her emplyer will survive.
condemned the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, calling
on all Americans to denounce such "sick" violence.
The US president was quick to call for unity in the hours
after a gunman shot Trump in the ear, killed one member of the crowd and
injured two others at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The gunman was shot dead
by Secret Service agents.
In a statement issued within an hour of the attack, Mr Biden
said there was "no place in America for this. We must unite as one nation
to condemn it. It's sick, it's sick"...
He said he was "grateful to hear that he's safe and
doing well. I'm praying for him and his family and for all those at the rally.
Jill [Biden] and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to
safety."
The White House later said Mr Biden spoke to his Republican
election rival by telephone after he had left hospital, while Biden campaign
managers said they were pulling television adverts as quickly as possible in
the wake of the attempt on Trump's life.
Nor did other prominent Democrats leave the condemnation of their political rival as Vice President and likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala
Harris said in a statement that she was
"relieved" Trump was not seriously injured in what she described as a
"senseless shooting".
"Violence such as this has no place in our
nation," she added. "We must all condemn this abhorrent act and do
our part to ensure that it does not lead to more violence."
Ms Pelosi, the former House Speaker who helped impeach Trump
twice, said she was praying for him.
"As one whose family has been the victim of political
violence, I know first-hand that political violence of any kind has no place in
our society. I thank God that former President Trump is safe," Ms Pelosi
wrote on X/Twitter.
Ms Pelosi's husband suffered a fractured skull and other
injuries after a man broke into her California home with a hammer trying to
find her.
Both Mr Clinton and Mr Obama echoed the comments, saying
violence had no place in politics and wishing Trump their prayers.
Days after a Minnesota state lawmaker was killed and another
injured in a "politically motivated assassination," President Donald
Trump said on Tuesday that he would not call the state's governor, eschewing a
traditional presidential response to tragedies.
"Why would I call him? I could call and say, ‘Hi, how
you doing?’ The guy doesn’t have a clue," Trump said, referring to Gov.
Tim Walz, D-Minn., who was the vice presidential contender facing off against
Trump's ticket in 2024. "He’s a mess. So I could be nice and call, but why
waste time?"
Presidents have historically called state and local
politicians on both sides of the aisle to lend their support in the aftermath
of violent tragedies like natural disasters or high-profile shootings.
Trump is asked if he’s called @GovTimWalz: “I’m not calling him … he’s a mess so you know, I could be nice and call him but why waste time?”
In a now-deleted post, Utah Republican senator Mile Lee had tweeted
“this is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.” In
another, he posted a photo of the suspect in the case and captioned it,
"Nightmare on Waltz Street," an apparent reference to the state's
Democratic governor, Tim Walz.
Senatee Minority Leader (God help us!) Chuck Schumer and Minnesota senators Amy Klobuchar:and Tina Smith each appeared to have asked Senator Lee to take the post down. The Utahn did so, though removing a scurrilous post after right-wingers have digested and applauded it does not make the situation any better. Its message already has been received by supporters and its impact made. There has been no apology or concession of error and if deletion makes them feel better, there are many qualified therapists in the Washington, D.C. area.
But leave it to Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin to take it one step further (backward). On the Senate floor, he declared (at 2:09 of the video below) in decrying Lee's action
Another one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle tweeted around the shooting "the degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is stunning and terrifying." To attempt to politicize this tragedy is absolutely unsettling. This rhetoric from elected officials is beyond dangerous and incites even more violence. It is reprehensible and must be called out on both sides of the aisle- both sides of the aisle.
Say it, Durbin. Say it: Republicans. Democrats call political violence out consistently and make no attempt to defend it. Yet while a few Republicans have criticized the crime "others have used it as an opportunity to poke fun at their Democratic opponents, or suggest that they somehow instigated the violence.": Critically
on X, prominent rightwing figures were quick to promote
conspiracy theories about what happened. Elon Musk, the erstwhile Trump
sidekick who runs Tesla, shared a tweet from a pro-Trump account that read, in
part: “The left has become a full blown domestic terrorist organization.”
“The far left is murderously violent” Musk wrote in his
reply, which Lee shared, adding: “Fact check: TRUE”.
Laura Loomer, the rightwing extremist who is said to have
played a role in encouraging Trump to fire national security officials, alleged
the suspect had ties to the “No Kings” protests that took place nationwide on
Saturday, and that Walz knew him.
They do it because it works. Literally in the case of the pro-forced birth Trumpist in Minnesota and Kyle Rittenhouse (also in Minnesota), the far right brings the guns. The more responsible and respectable Republicans in public life take their cue from them, and especially from Donald Trump, fomenting a civil war. . Democrats are bringing a knife to a gunfight.
The likes of Durbin, Schumer, Klobuchar, and Smith don't understand that virtually every Republican is not their friend. These individuals- Stepfords, mostly- are more than "the other side of the aisle." They don't feel the shame you want them to, and will continue to support the fascistic authoritarian in the White House. It's not "both sides." It's yours, and Donald Trump.
Interviewer tells woman "well, Trump just slashed prescription drug prices by 50 to 80 percent. Are you unhappy with that? MAGAit tweeter responds "do you have any advice for her?"
American Liberal woman says America is “TRASH” 🇺🇸
“The United States is kind of trash, doesn’t treat its people well.”
With the luxury of a moment to think about it, my advice would be to ask her interlocutor "How will they be slashed and when?" The answer is complicated, and it's very likely he'd be unable to answer coherently and accurately. The President's executive order appears to be well-intended and, the BBC indicated in mid-May, "is much wider than previous efforts to bring down costs." However
.... many details are yet to be worked out.
The wording directs US officials to make sure that deals
over drug costs made by foreign countries do not result in "unreasonable
or discriminatory" price hikes for Americans.
But what exactly is covered by those terms is unclear – as
is the question of what measures the White House would take if
"unreasonable" practices are discovered.
The White House also wants drug companies to sell more
products directly to consumers - cutting out insurance companies and
pharmaceutical benefit managers - and look into importing drugs from foreign
countries where they are sold at lower prices. That idea has previously hit
stumbling blocks over safety and trade rules.
An official said that Monday's order was the start of
negotiations between the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and
industry.
The order also proposed that the US be given Most Favoured
Nation (MFN) status – meaning drug companies would be asked to match the lowest
price for a drug abroad when selling to US consumers.
"Big pharma will either abide by this principle
voluntarily or we'll use the power of the federal government to ensure that we
are paying the same price as other countries," Trump told reporters.
It was unclear what mechanism the White House would use to
punish drug companies that refuse to voluntarily comply.
Drug prices are very opaque, according to Alan Sager, a
professor of health policy at Boston University. Drug manufacturers could
easily argue that they were complying with the order by touting the price
discounts that they already routinely provide on very high listed retail
prices, he told the BBC.
"Will they act? Maybe. Will they claim they act?
Sure," Prof Sager said….
To try to retain their profits in the US, drugs companies
could simply pull out of other nations in which they are selling their products
more cheaply, according to researchers Darius Lakdawalla and Dana Goldman at
the University of Southern California.
The researchers also said that foreign governments routinely
underestimated the true value of drugs to patients, and that "shifting to
a European pricing model in the US would lead to shorter, less healthy lives
for Americans".
I have my doubts about that but God is in the details, and the details here don't favor a likelihood of sharply reduced drug prices. And this guy is on much shakier ground- well, quicksand- when he says Trump has "lost a billion dollars in net worth since his first Administration."
I don't know when this short, highly misleading video was made. Perhaps Trump, a terrible businessman, perhaps did lose net worth since his first Administration, when he was a private citizen rather than aa profit-seeking Chief Executive. However, Trump's wealth took off once he took office in January. In late May, Peter Baker of The New York Times reported
The Trump family and its business partners have collected
$320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate
deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington
called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past
few months alone.
Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Mr.
Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential
library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated
to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed
on all previous American presidents combined.
And Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia
club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before
taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they
chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr.
Trump personally.
"Perhaps" wasn't necessary and probably was inaccurate given that
By conventional Washington standards, according to students
of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the
most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing
even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals.
“I’ve been watching and writing about corruption for 50
years, and my head is still spinning,” said Michael Johnston, a professor
emeritus at Colgate University and author of multiple books on corruption in
the United States.
President Trump bought excellent, cheap insurance because
There will be no official investigations because Mr. Trump
has made sure of it. He has fired government inspectors general and ethics
watchdogs, installed partisan loyalists to run the Justice Department, F.B.I.
and regulatory agencies and dominated a Republican-controlled Congress
unwilling to hold hearings…
Moreover, he has not given it all up; in fact, he is still
making money from his private business interests run by his sons, and
independent estimates indicate that he has hardly sacrificed financially by
entering politics. Forbes estimated Mr. Trump’s net worth at $5.1 billion in
March, a full $1.2 billion higher than the year before and the highest it has
ever been in the magazine’s rankings.
Yet, the truly funny- not funny- part of this guy's tweet is how horrible it is that "American Liberal woman" believes the USA is trash; a faceless, anonymous woman who is not a public figure or even an "influencer."
Asked by Bill O'Reilly in an interview in February of 2017 about Vladimir Putin, Trump argued "there are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What, do you think? Our country's so innocent?" He didn't specify who those killers were who resembled Vladimir Putin.
Not a gaffe. On October 30, 2022, in a Truth Social post almost completely ignored and then completely forgotten (except here), Donald Trump contended "Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil." (Also, Americans are "bloated, fat, and disgusting.") Rigged and crooked? That may have been projection. But "evil?" Well, that, too.
This is not somebody who evidently believes that the USA is evil- which, some would suggest, is worse than "trash"- it is the President of the United States of America. So my larger advice for the interviewee is not to go around hating on our country, adding to the huge chasm among Americans. Donald Trump does enough of that for all of us.
No one with any sense of decency would say the following. Therefore, I will: Marjorie Taylor Greene is right!
MTG on Sen Padilla: "If he's attacking police officers and he's aggressively attacking the Secretary of Homeland, yes he should be arrested. No one is above the law."
If Senator Alex Padilla "is attacking police officers and he's aggressively attacking the Secretary of Homeland," he should be arrested. However, Padilla did not attack the officers at Kristi Noem's news conference on Thursday, nor did he attack the Homeland Security secretary, let alone do so aggressively. And if he did so- which he did not- it would be a case of the past tense: "if he attacked the individuals" rather than is attacking. Literally, Representative Greene is being fairly liberal here; her hypothetical posits that Padilla is doing so fairly regularly rather than only once. You might even say that she is soft on crime.
Ironically, Noem is incorrect only when she asserts "no one is above the law."
We know one person who is above the law. The Supreme Court told us so in Trump v. United States. You will recall
A federal grand jury indicted former President Donald J. Trump on four counts for conduct that occurred during his Presidency following the November 2020 election. The indictment alleged that after losing that election, Trump conspired to overturn it by spreading knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the collecting, counting, and certifying of the election results.
Trump moved to dismiss the indictment based on Presidential immunity, arguing that a President has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions performed within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities, and that the indictment’s allegations fell within the core of his official duties.
The District Court denied Trump’s motion to dismiss, holding that former Presidents do not possess federal criminal immunity for any acts. The D. C. Circuit affirmed. Both the District Court and the D. C. Circuit declined to decide whether the indicted conduct involved official acts. Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.
In Trump v. United States, the court’s
Republican-appointed justices — including the three Trump appointees —
announced a brand new constitutional immunity from criminal liability for
presidents’ “official acts,” or anything a president may do using the powers of
the office. The court’s decision ensures that future presidents — including
Trump himself should he win reelection in November — will know that they can
escape criminal accountability for blatantly criminal acts, no matter how
corrupt. Even acts that strike at the heart of our democracy, like resisting
the peaceful transition of power, could not be prosecuted.
The court tried to cast its opinion as restrained,
emphasizing that it rejected former President Trump’s most extreme claim: that
presidents can only be prosecuted for crimes for which they had already been
impeached. But as Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out in a powerful dissent,
there is nothing measured about the opinion or its consequences. The court
grants absolute immunity against criminal prosecution for any of a president’s
“core” executive acts, which the court went on to define as including any use
of the Justice Department—an ostensibly and traditionally independent
agency–for criminal investigation. And it grants “presumptive” immunity for any
acts within the “outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” While the
latter immunity is in theory rebuttable, the court set such a high standard for
rebutting it that it may be effectively absolute as well.
It gets worse because
... the court also held that official acts cannot even be used
as evidence to support a crime committed in the president’s personal capacity,
making it even more difficult for prosecutors to indict a president even for
purely private criminal acts. The court purports to leave much of the work of
hashing out the details in Trump’s case to lower courts. But the standards it
announced will make holding any president criminally accountable
extraordinarily difficult.
In the case of one of those crimes Donald Trump might commit in a personal capacity, such as raping a woman or engaging in massive financial fraud, it might be nearly impossible to gain a conviction without referring to an official act as evidence of the personal crime committed.
In the most extreme- maybe- example of a crime arguably committed in an official capacity, President Trump orders Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent. (Just kidding- Trump lacks the courage to allow his fingerprints on anything, so he would simply give the boys a nod and a wink and send them on their way.}
After the deed is done and there is clamor for prosecution, the President would claim it was an official act. In response to recent anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, Trump complained "You know, if we didn't attack this one very strongly, you'd have them all over he country but I can inform the rest of the country, that when they do it, if they do it, they're going to be met with equal or greater force." If a political opponent who protested a foreign policy of the federal government is killed, President Trump would argue that the assassination was necessary to protect the troops. He would call it a national security issue, that the morale of the "troops" was undermined, and dare courts to defy him.
"No one is above the law" is a myth. Ironically, the insistence of media personalities to repeat this shibboleth, commonly met with no pushback, increases the likelihood that when President Trump clearly and inarguably violates the la-, in an official or unofficial capacity- there will be widespread acceptance in the public. And the courts might then be completely submissive to the man who alternately claims to be a king, and complains that he is not treated as one.
