Just a week ago, a judge ordered the release of the affidavit on which the FBI applied for a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. That document revealed that Trump had taken highly classified documents from the government and held them in insecure locations. That document was horrifying, but it referred only to documents the government had already recovered, not the ones for which it would go on to search for on August 8.
What TFG has done is terrifying and appears to have cost US intelligence operatives their lives (among all else) but what’s more frightening is the response of large news organizations that seem to be very much in the pockets of GOP operatives. Terrifying. How do we escape the bonds of efforts to turn our government into a totalitarian regime if the press plays along?
I'm a new subscriber and love what you're doing. Please don't stop. What's also scary is the fact that so many networks did not broadcast Biden's important speech. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/02/biden-speech-network-coverage-independence-hall/. It is killing me (and the U.S.) that so many fail to see that it's not politics as usual any more but instead one party trying to govern versus the other party dead set against democratic governance. Without sufficient press coverage of this it will be even harder to keep our democracy.
The speech was historic. It sits with the Gettysburg Address and FDR’s 2nd Inaugural Address in importance. President Biden may have a speech problem but his words are true and powerful. He is leading in a time of great peril rivaling 1860 or the 1930s. We have been waiting for a leader to call Trump and the MAGAs what they are.
What they are NOT is half the country. What they are NOT are honorable Americans.
The president told the truth and has called upon every citizen to heed our better angels.
The media, or most of it, continues to lie, or at least equivocate to the point of blather.
And the fact that a veteran journalist left CNN hours after actually saying something real should concern us all. Did he leave CNN of his own accord?
In the end Harwood spoke the truth. The new leaders of CNN do not see truth as a business they are involved in. They want to be fair and balanced which to them means a person who makes statements that can be proven true by observation of objective reality matched on air with a person who makes statements that cannot be proven true by such observation. Basically, they want to put a person who claims the temperature outside is 80 degrees and brings a thermometer to the discussion with a person who claims the temperature outside is 1000 degrees because Trump said so. The movie "Idiocracy" should be required viewing of all citizens,
The scariest thing to me is the number of empty folders marked "Classified." Were the documents that were supposed to be in them just not properly put back? Or was something else done with them? Also, how many of the documents were copied? And if any were copied, who got the copies?
It was not easy to read through the Letter today and keep in mind that it was non-fiction. Heather Cox Richardson manages to keep her composure as she runs through the accumulation of 11,000 documents or photographs that DjT continued to withhold; 'unprecedented'; 'TOP SECRET'; 'destruction of our national security'; 'the very foundations of our republic' …you know the drill you've read the Letter. Did you want to throw-up, maybe you did.
This guy was president. To the endless list of his sins -- should we add the hoarding classified government documents? The Republicans, what species are they? This whole picture, including MAGA, militias, religious fundamentalism, growing gun violence, shorter life-span of Americans, the fossil fuel sector's strangulation of life on earth ___ How can I now say 'Happy Labor Day Weekend'?
Protests at the NEH Estate of Leonard Leo and The Leonard Leo Graffiti Project
Protests outside the NorthEast Harbor estate of right wing religious extremist Republican power broker Leonard Leo continue. The leadership of the police are protecting our civil rights and seem to be reining in rogue cops. Our local newspaper, The Mount Desert Islander, published an extraordinary frank and formidable editorial 'Freedom for All'. Unlike the hand crafted Leo Supreme Court, our home town independent paper defends equality before the law.
The graffiti project continues. An admirer of Leo tried to hit me with her car, backed up, and tried again. A woman who identified herself as a friend of Leo's wrested my phone out of my hand as I was videoing her husband threatening me, legally an assault. Local activists will take turns escorting me.
The real story is the Bar Harbor Town Manager. It seems that when Leo could not get the police to arrest me, he started calling the Town Manager - with whom it seems he's had more success. Not content with directing Highway Division crews to remove the chalkings each morning. He's had a crew follow me around with buckets of water. He's written me a threatening letter and accosted me on the street and threatened me.
The Town Code does not mention graffiti but The Town Manager is broadcasting that I am violating local laws and costing the town $100 a day. He is quoted in the paper that " I’m not in a position to want to arrest her for this, but she needs to be held accountable for what she’s doing, which is a violation of our local laws."
What do you think he is suggesting when he says that 'although he is not in a position to want me arrested that I need to be held accountable.' As there are no pertinent local laws, is it a rhetorical device? Having little to do with reporting existing facts but presented to direct future events.
'Violation of our local laws. She needs to be held accountable.' Establishing an us and them. Next steps? Held accountable - how and by whom?
Leo also seems to be crafting a narrative where I am a criminal victimizing the town by damaging public property and wasting town resources. Of course, that takes the spotlight off his misdeeds - for some.
In a situation of escalating threats and actual violence, it seems irresponsible.
The good news is that on the street, the response of people ,who glance at or stop and read the message and ask questions, is overwhelmingly positive!
Why is tfg still walking around free and now taking up all the oxygen out of our country again?
Timing will be crucial now. If there is to be an indictment it has to happen before mid-term elections to stop him. Also to stop the constant fundraising he is doing off of this situation -- which he created and of which he now presents himself as victim.
I doubt that the public will ever know what belonged in those empty folders or what steps that the intelligence community is now taking to protect their possibly compromised human sources. The CIA has already noticed that too many foreign sources are being lost recently. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.amp.html
Harwood is just the latest person to be fired by CNN since they were bought by Warner Brothers Discovery, which has John Malone on its board. Yes, the same John Malone who said:
“ I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” he said. Then he suggested a model: “Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have ‘news’ news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions.”
He’s ignoring that Fox News has lost its two chief respected journalists (Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith) because they refused to tell untruths and called out others for presenting “alternative facts”.
My heart is with the officers and civilians who may have suffered deep losses and even the loss of life in this horribly callous action by the most grotesque president there ever was. His pathology is nothing short of evil. It is a visceral experience to read tonight's LFAA. Nevertheless, the support he receives from his party and his minions goes on. It is almost as if their minds have been snatched. The scenario is as chilling as any that movie fiction could have portrayed.
It gives me great pleasure to hear that Bill Barr talked about the use of the word “unprecedented. “I kept reading that what the justice department did, what the judge did, what the house committee did, etc. etc. etc. , was unprecedented. My ordinary little citizen brain kept thinking “Yeah, but what Trump did was unprecedented.” To my mind Trump set a precedent. Not a legal one, perhaps, but enough of a behavioral one to demand an unprecedented response. Not sure I am saying this very clearly but I hope you get my drift.
Every time I think that the information relevant to 45’s push to retain power and control couldn’t possibly be worse, it becomes worse. The potential harm to our national security and to our standing among other has be terribly compromised. After listening to the Red Wine and Blue broadcast last night, I feel more hopeful about the outcome in November. Thank you Heather for backing this program and for keeping us continually up to date on the important events occurring around us.
The Cretin News Network is now under the control of a Wall Street "genius in his own mind" named David Zaslav, who now runs Warner Brothers Discovery - he brought the Discovery to the wedding. His "accomplishment" was turning the Discovery networks into "reality" TV trash for the morons. He is already demonstrating he knows zip zero nada about the Warner Brothers side. As far as CNN is concerned, he is listening to Uber-Trumper Comcast CEO Nazi John Malone to make the network more "Republican friendly" and "centrist." Zaslav will likely take about two years for his incompetence and ignorance to destroy WBD, which also harms CNN at a time when even the idiot network is needed.
The creative class in Hollywood are stepping waaaaaay back. As I told my new literary agent this week, "No publishing houses associated with WBD" when she takes the new book proposal out for a walk.
What TFG has done is terrifying and appears to have cost US intelligence operatives their lives (among all else) but what’s more frightening is the response of large news organizations that seem to be very much in the pockets of GOP operatives. Terrifying. How do we escape the bonds of efforts to turn our government into a totalitarian regime if the press plays along?
I'm a new subscriber and love what you're doing. Please don't stop. What's also scary is the fact that so many networks did not broadcast Biden's important speech. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/02/biden-speech-network-coverage-independence-hall/. It is killing me (and the U.S.) that so many fail to see that it's not politics as usual any more but instead one party trying to govern versus the other party dead set against democratic governance. Without sufficient press coverage of this it will be even harder to keep our democracy.
The number of Russian “accident” and “suicides” recently makes me wonder if Trump has already exposed HUMINT to his pal, Putin.
The speech was historic. It sits with the Gettysburg Address and FDR’s 2nd Inaugural Address in importance. President Biden may have a speech problem but his words are true and powerful. He is leading in a time of great peril rivaling 1860 or the 1930s. We have been waiting for a leader to call Trump and the MAGAs what they are.
What they are NOT is half the country. What they are NOT are honorable Americans.
The president told the truth and has called upon every citizen to heed our better angels.
The media, or most of it, continues to lie, or at least equivocate to the point of blather.
And the fact that a veteran journalist left CNN hours after actually saying something real should concern us all. Did he leave CNN of his own accord?
In the end Harwood spoke the truth. The new leaders of CNN do not see truth as a business they are involved in. They want to be fair and balanced which to them means a person who makes statements that can be proven true by observation of objective reality matched on air with a person who makes statements that cannot be proven true by such observation. Basically, they want to put a person who claims the temperature outside is 80 degrees and brings a thermometer to the discussion with a person who claims the temperature outside is 1000 degrees because Trump said so. The movie "Idiocracy" should be required viewing of all citizens,
The scariest thing to me is the number of empty folders marked "Classified." Were the documents that were supposed to be in them just not properly put back? Or was something else done with them? Also, how many of the documents were copied? And if any were copied, who got the copies?
It was not easy to read through the Letter today and keep in mind that it was non-fiction. Heather Cox Richardson manages to keep her composure as she runs through the accumulation of 11,000 documents or photographs that DjT continued to withhold; 'unprecedented'; 'TOP SECRET'; 'destruction of our national security'; 'the very foundations of our republic' …you know the drill you've read the Letter. Did you want to throw-up, maybe you did.
This guy was president. To the endless list of his sins -- should we add the hoarding classified government documents? The Republicans, what species are they? This whole picture, including MAGA, militias, religious fundamentalism, growing gun violence, shorter life-span of Americans, the fossil fuel sector's strangulation of life on earth ___ How can I now say 'Happy Labor Day Weekend'?
Off Topic:
Protests at the NEH Estate of Leonard Leo and The Leonard Leo Graffiti Project
Protests outside the NorthEast Harbor estate of right wing religious extremist Republican power broker Leonard Leo continue. The leadership of the police are protecting our civil rights and seem to be reining in rogue cops. Our local newspaper, The Mount Desert Islander, published an extraordinary frank and formidable editorial 'Freedom for All'. Unlike the hand crafted Leo Supreme Court, our home town independent paper defends equality before the law.
The graffiti project continues. An admirer of Leo tried to hit me with her car, backed up, and tried again. A woman who identified herself as a friend of Leo's wrested my phone out of my hand as I was videoing her husband threatening me, legally an assault. Local activists will take turns escorting me.
The real story is the Bar Harbor Town Manager. It seems that when Leo could not get the police to arrest me, he started calling the Town Manager - with whom it seems he's had more success. Not content with directing Highway Division crews to remove the chalkings each morning. He's had a crew follow me around with buckets of water. He's written me a threatening letter and accosted me on the street and threatened me.
The Town Code does not mention graffiti but The Town Manager is broadcasting that I am violating local laws and costing the town $100 a day. He is quoted in the paper that " I’m not in a position to want to arrest her for this, but she needs to be held accountable for what she’s doing, which is a violation of our local laws."
What do you think he is suggesting when he says that 'although he is not in a position to want me arrested that I need to be held accountable.' As there are no pertinent local laws, is it a rhetorical device? Having little to do with reporting existing facts but presented to direct future events.
'Violation of our local laws. She needs to be held accountable.' Establishing an us and them. Next steps? Held accountable - how and by whom?
Leo also seems to be crafting a narrative where I am a criminal victimizing the town by damaging public property and wasting town resources. Of course, that takes the spotlight off his misdeeds - for some.
In a situation of escalating threats and actual violence, it seems irresponsible.
The good news is that on the street, the response of people ,who glance at or stop and read the message and ask questions, is overwhelmingly positive!
Why is tfg still walking around free and now taking up all the oxygen out of our country again?
Timing will be crucial now. If there is to be an indictment it has to happen before mid-term elections to stop him. Also to stop the constant fundraising he is doing off of this situation -- which he created and of which he now presents himself as victim.
I doubt that the public will ever know what belonged in those empty folders or what steps that the intelligence community is now taking to protect their possibly compromised human sources. The CIA has already noticed that too many foreign sources are being lost recently. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.amp.html
Harwood is just the latest person to be fired by CNN since they were bought by Warner Brothers Discovery, which has John Malone on its board. Yes, the same John Malone who said:
“ I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” he said. Then he suggested a model: “Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have ‘news’ news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions.”
He’s ignoring that Fox News has lost its two chief respected journalists (Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith) because they refused to tell untruths and called out others for presenting “alternative facts”.
https://www.vox.com/2022/8/26/23322761/cnn-john-malone-david-zaslav-chris-licht-brian-stelter-fox-peter-kafka-column
Thank you Heather.
I feel we have entered the territory where this Country is in far more trouble than we could have possibly imagined a year ago.
A year ago I thought things couldn't possibly get worse. Yet here we are in full force.
The implications of the missing documents are endless. None of the answers to this question could possibly be plausible.
We are in for a very rough ride. Hold on to your hat, folks.
Be safe. Be well.
My heart is with the officers and civilians who may have suffered deep losses and even the loss of life in this horribly callous action by the most grotesque president there ever was. His pathology is nothing short of evil. It is a visceral experience to read tonight's LFAA. Nevertheless, the support he receives from his party and his minions goes on. It is almost as if their minds have been snatched. The scenario is as chilling as any that movie fiction could have portrayed.
It gives me great pleasure to hear that Bill Barr talked about the use of the word “unprecedented. “I kept reading that what the justice department did, what the judge did, what the house committee did, etc. etc. etc. , was unprecedented. My ordinary little citizen brain kept thinking “Yeah, but what Trump did was unprecedented.” To my mind Trump set a precedent. Not a legal one, perhaps, but enough of a behavioral one to demand an unprecedented response. Not sure I am saying this very clearly but I hope you get my drift.
Every time I think that the information relevant to 45’s push to retain power and control couldn’t possibly be worse, it becomes worse. The potential harm to our national security and to our standing among other has be terribly compromised. After listening to the Red Wine and Blue broadcast last night, I feel more hopeful about the outcome in November. Thank you Heather for backing this program and for keeping us continually up to date on the important events occurring around us.
The Cretin News Network is now under the control of a Wall Street "genius in his own mind" named David Zaslav, who now runs Warner Brothers Discovery - he brought the Discovery to the wedding. His "accomplishment" was turning the Discovery networks into "reality" TV trash for the morons. He is already demonstrating he knows zip zero nada about the Warner Brothers side. As far as CNN is concerned, he is listening to Uber-Trumper Comcast CEO Nazi John Malone to make the network more "Republican friendly" and "centrist." Zaslav will likely take about two years for his incompetence and ignorance to destroy WBD, which also harms CNN at a time when even the idiot network is needed.
The creative class in Hollywood are stepping waaaaaay back. As I told my new literary agent this week, "No publishing houses associated with WBD" when she takes the new book proposal out for a walk.
Is CNN trying to become Fox News Light? Good luck to it if that’s the case, because consumers will always go for the original, not a cheap knock-off.