Maher
bragged that he had dinner with Trump — “a dinner that was set up by my
friend Kid Rock.” Yes, when your access to the leader of the free world
is coordinated by a rap-rock-country novelty act — a man who has assaulted a strip-club DJ, waved Confederate flags and hurled homophobic slurs at his own fans — you might want to reevaluate your choices. But Maher treated it like an RSVP to the Met Gala.
“I’m
not the leader of anything,” Maher proclaimed, “except maybe a
contingent of centrist-minded people who think there’s got to be a
better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.”
In
his own narcissistic head, Maher envisions himself as the messiah of
moderates. Seriously? There are real centrist leaders out there —
legislators, governors, community organizers — people who have actually
done something for policy improvements.
Maher
assured his audience, “What I’m gonna do is report exactly what
happened,” as though he were offering some kind of groundbreaking
journalism. Right. Because when we think of trustworthy, hard-hitting
reporting, we immediately picture … Bill Maher — the guy who pauses his
own punchlines to flirt with Megyn Kelly.
Maher’s White House visit wasn’t reporting. It was the equivalent of watching TMZ try to cover the Geneva Convention.
He
even tried to humanize Trump by declaring, “I’ve never seen him laugh
in public. But he does, including at himself. And it’s not fake. Believe
me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it.”
Although Maher has never held elected office, never written legislation, never studied foreign policy or constitutional law, he is indeed an expert in fake laughter. If you’ve ever heard the sweetened, over-enthusiastic studio audience guffaws that accompany his weekly monologues, it’s undeniable that nobody is more familiar with fake laughs.
Friday, April 18, 2025. We're all a blink away from seeing
democracy in Chump Land -- unless of course we don't see it with our own
eyes because Chump shipped us off to a prison in a foreign land.
The Politics of Destruction are pulling Donald Chump right down the sewage drain.
Yesterday
was Senator Chris Van Hollen spent his second day in a row in El
Salvador. That is the country where Convicted Felon Chump has been
sending people to rot in human rights disaster of a prison that's
honestly little more than a torture chamber. The people were given no
due process and one of them, Kilmar Ábrego García, is a constituent of
Senator Van Hollen. With Donald Chump refusing to follow the Supreme
Court's order that he facilitate the return of Kilmar to the United
States, the senator flew to El Salvador on Wednesday.
He was denied access to Kilmar.
The attention that resulted from media around the world
probably explains why, late yesterday, the senator was finally allowed
to see Kilmar.
Later on Thursday, a federal court ruled
against the Trump administration in case which could mean government
officials are deposed over the deportation.
In its judgement, the three-judge panel said:
"The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this
country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is
the foundation of our constitutional order."
Mr
Ábrego García's lawyers are suing the US government for sending him to a
mega-prison in El Salvador in March, in what the Trump administration
has admitted was an error.
Lawrence O'Donnell offered this commentary on MSNBC last night.
Chump's
a crook and people are rightly worried so the administration that
refused to go before the courts has started attempting to try Kilmer in
the press. Daniella Silva (NBC NEWS) reports:
The
Department of Justice shared records, not previously made public,
detailing how police officers in Maryland assessed Abrego Garcia was a
member of the MS-13 gang during a 2019 arrest. He had no criminal
history at the time, which the documents also state, and his attorneys
have denied that he is a gang member.
In
a document titled “gang field interview sheet,” the Prince George’s
County Police Department detailed how in March 2019 they approached
Abrego Garcia along with three others for loitering at a Home Depot
parking lot in Hyattsville. Abrego Garcia said in a court filing he was
there looking for day labor work.
Police
said he was wearing “a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of
money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents” on the
bills.
The officers said such
insignia — indicating “ver, oir, y callar” or “see no evil, hear no evil
and say no evil” — was “indicative of the Hispanic gang culture.” The
officers said they consulted with a reliable confidential source, who
“advised that [Abrego Garcia] is the rank of ‘Chequeo‘ with the moniker
of ‘Chele’” in the gang.
Calvin Kline.
I
think I've talked about this before. I do a ton of public speaking and
always have. Sometimes it's a favor for a friend. I do not remember
what the thing was for but it was mutual friend of Elaine
and mine and I was there to speak on healing -- believe it or not --
and there was a police officer who was like Cliff Claven on CHEERS (or
like the security guard the same actor played in Goldie Hawn's
PROTOCOL). And he was speaking about teens and gang violence.
One
sign of being a gangster -- he 'taught' -- was wearing designer
clothes. Like Calvin Kline which he had on the monitors and on his hand
out.
Calvin Kline?
Never
heard of him. I was wearing a Calvin Klein dress -- and fragrance -- I
was obsessed with CK during that period -- it was right after I wrapped
up an Armani clothes obsession. (Shout out to Michelle Pfeiffer, great
lady, who wore a black Armani dress that ended my obsession with
Armani because nobody wore or wears Armani better than Michelle, it's
like a second skin on her. And I wisely moved on to another designer.)
(And friendship with Michelle is why Ava and I avoided reviewing any
David E. Kelly series at THIRD for years. We broke that rule with BIG
LITTLE LIES and did so because Laura Dern -- a very talented actress but
also a very generous person -- during the filming of BIG LITTLE LIES
could not stop praising the performance Nicole Kidman was giving. And
we agreed we'd review it when it came out because it is so very rare to
hear any actor go to the lengths that Laura did in praising another
actor's work. Again, Laura is a very generous person.)
Calvin
Klein is reduced to CK and some gangs do wear it (Crip Killer) or did.
But, no, someone wearing a CK t-shirt, jeans, off the rack or designer
clothes was not a gangster because they were wearing that article of
clothing. Millions of people bought CK t-shirts and jeans throughout
the country -- millions who were not gang members.
I
laugh when people try to present some circumstantial nonsense as proof
of criminal activity. I especially laugh when they present it as though
it's coming from an expert. I especially love the experts who cite
things like Calvin Klein in a prepared and planned speech in front of
hundreds and they misspell Calvin Klein on handouts and the monitor.
A lot of people make a lot of claims. Claims are not the same as facts.
Chicago
Bulls cap? I'm not a basketball fan. But I've owned a Bulls cap and
an Indiana Pacers cap. So I wore CK and I had a Bulls cap -- look out
Kirsti Noam's a'coming for me!!!!!
A
top Trump administration official said those demanding due process for a
wrongly deported Maryland dad might themselves be accused of “aiding
and abetting criminals and terrorists.”
Appearing
on Rob Schmitt Tonight on Newsmax, Donald Trump’s senior director for
counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, suggested critics of Kilmar Abrego
Garcia’s incarceration in a Salvadoran megaprison might even be
committing a federal crime.
He said: “It’s
not left and right, It’s not even Republican or Democrat. There’s one
line that divides us: Do you love America or do you hate America? It’s
really quite that simple.”
Gorka,
born in the U.K. to Hungarian parents, suggested in the Tuesday
interview that Democrats who argue that Abrego Garcia should be returned
to the U.S.—per the Supreme Court’s orders—don’t “love America.”
The
former Newsmax host added that those who dissent against the Trump
administration’s actions are “on the side of the cartel members, on the
side of the illegal aliens on the side of the terrorists.”
He
went even further, saying: “And you have to ask yourself, are they
technically aiding and abetting them? Because aiding and abetting
criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute.”
Gorka
failed to mention that Abrego Garcia’s alleged links to the MS-13
gang—used to justify his deportation—are flimsy at best, based upon a
single allegation made in a field interview report from 2019 and a
confidential informant telling police he was a member of the gang.
Better
get ready for the handcuffs, I guess. Gorka is proof of one important
thing, though a number of stupid people are born in this country, a
number of the stupid in this country do come from other countries -- the
United Kingdom in Gorka's case.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary and strong language. President Trump’s plan to have migrants — and potentially U.S. citizens
— rounded up, flown to El Salvador, and confined there in a maximum
security facility that specializes in indefinite detention meets that
bar. However, even when news coverage and criticism has acknowledged
Trump’s vision is almost certainly illegal and unquestionably dangerous,
it has often used fairly normal terminology and referred to the flights
as deportations to a “prison.” That is not what is happening. President
Trump is sending people to the camps.
The distinction comes from some of the unique features of the
Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, the infamous El Salvadoran
facility that is holding people on behalf of the Trump administration. A
“prison” is most typicallydefined
as an institution holding inmates who have been sentenced for a crime.
And, of course, most sentences have an end date. However, El Salvadoran
President Nayib Bukele and his government have boasted that people placed in CECOT, “have no chance of getting out.”
Because of the prospect of indefinite detention and the lack of due
process the Trump administration has afforded the people it has sent to
CECOT, experts who spoke to TPM said the facility could be more
accurately described as a “concentration camp,” “penal colony,” or
“permanent prison camp.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement took violent steps earlier this
week to arrest a Guatemalan man who not only has no criminal record but
wasn’t even the target authorities were looking for, according to his
lawyer.
Juan Francisco Méndez, a 29-year old Guatemalan
immigrant, was arrested without a warrant Monday in New Bedford,
Massachusetts—but that’s not the only shady thing about this arrest.
Méndez and his wife, Marilú Domingo Ortiz, were in their car when a pair of armed officers stopped them. In a video shared by The New Bedford Light,
the couple told the officers that they were waiting for his lawyer to
arrive before speaking with the agents. When Ortiz asked whether they
had a warrant for her husband’s arrest, the officers did not respond.
When asked if she could leave, they said, “No.”
In a statement, ICE told The New Republic that Méndez “refused to comply with officers’ instructions and resisted apprehension.”
The
officers continued to ask Ortiz to roll down her window to speak. After
some time, one of the officers, who was wearing a bulletproof vest,
violently smashed the back window of Méndez’s car with what appeared to
be a pickax.
This
is the country we live in now and you damn well remember who put us
here -- MAGA and DSA. Both are crazed and both f**ked over democracy.
They both believe in tearing down the system. They are where the
fringes meet because politics is not a linear line with one extreme on
the far right over a line and another extreme on the other end of that
line, it's a loop and the extremists meet and bump into each other as it
loops around -- extremists from the right and from the left. It's why
so many DSAs rush over to the extreme right as they age. It's why the
Jimmy Dores and others can so easily move over to MAGA or claim they're
"MAGA Communists."
And they put us where we are now.
This is what we're trapped in now for the next years. This is where we are and, again, we need to remember who put us here.
Some
agreed with what I wrote regarding David Hogg yesterday, some didn't,
some agreed with a portion or disagreed with a portion of it.
Just
to make it as clear as possible, the Democratic Party does not grow via
knee jerk responses. Trying to shut down a conversation is not helpful
for the party. David has said A and the next person can say B and a
conversation can get rolling.
He
needs to explain exactly what he's talking about and do so on camera.
No more of this print interviews on the topic where we're dependent upon
a journalist for what gets printed from an interview. We need to here
him in full, not pull quotes that are included to attract readers.
David is young and that's a plus and it's a minus. Some people are old and that's a plus and that's a minus.
I'm
not afraid of diversity, I embrace it. And we can learn from other
viewpoints. David can see something in a different way. He should be
allowed to express that. Other should listen, take it in, evaluate it,
comment on it and keep the conversation going.
As
it goes currently, I support him on this though certain details may
emerge that would make it necessary for him to step down from his
official position. I pull support on the idea completely if this ends
up a Cenk-Kyle scam where a bunch of Socialists are brought in to try to
take over the party (Cenk and Kyle's Justice Democrats had and has no
Democrats, it was and is an organization for Socialist candidates). I
walk from that idea and will actively work to destroy it if that's the
case. DSA helped put Chump into the White House. Norman Solomon,
Rahsida Tlaib and all the other Socialists worked overtime to trash
Kamala.
And they always knew this could suppress turnout but they didn't care.
Just like they always knew that the election would come down to either Kamala or Chump.
They
made their choice to actively work to destroy the Democratic Party.
So, no, I'm not for any scheme or plan that works to reward that
behavior.
And considering
that destroying Kamala's campaign resulted in the hellhole we are now
living in, there's no way that actual Democrats are going to let that
trash slide on back in acting like they did nothing wrong.
The White House’s attempt to halt proceedings in the case of mistakenly deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was smacked down by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in a blistering ruling Thursday.
“It
is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But
in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right
to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the
semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional
order,” the panel wrote in its ruling. “Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.
And
this is where we all have to hope the rule of law holds. Every day, we
have to take a deep breath and hope. And DSA put us here. Our
democracy could die at any minute. So, no, plans to back DSAers? Not
with money from the Democratic Party. And right now if you're are a DNC
official and you're not supporting Democrats or you're supporting
Socialists over Democrats, your ass needs to resign your position.
“[President]
Donald Trump is finding fewer and fewer supplicants for his series of
extortion attempts,” penned MSNBC Opinion Editor James Downie.
The
"extortion attempts" he’s talking about include Trump's call for Ivy
League schools to curb and conduct investigations into anti-Israel
protests on campus, as well as public schools need to adopt his
anti-CRT/DEI ideals.
Downie
noted, “The schools are not alone: From law firms to corner offices,
some of America’s most prestigious institutions are finding their
spines—or at least their voices—in the face of Trump’s power grabs.”
The
columnist is observing a “vibe shift” in Americans’ feelings toward
Trump’s policies, and he says it is showing in the polls.
“Trump’s
net approval on immigration issues is minus 5%; on deportations
specifically, it’s minus 10%,” Downie opined. “When politicians and
pundits try to conjure a more pro-MAGA vibe shift, they not only
overstate the popularity of Trump’s agenda, but they also understate the
scale and the fury of his opposition."
The
whole country is under attack from Chump. We can't afford the nonsense
of the DSA. We can't afford their Politics of Destruction or their cry
baby, fantasy world tantrums. In 2024, it was Kamala or Chump. The
DSA launched a months long public tantrum. They were Cartman. They
wanted the new iPad and when they were told that mom could only afford
the Toshiba, they threw their tantrum in the store and ended up getting
nothing.
We're all paying for that tantrum.
And we will be paying for it for the next few years. If we're lucky and
the system holds -- the same system that MAGA and DSA wish to destroy
-- if we're lucky and the system holds, we might still have a democracy
when Chump leaves office.
A
leaked draft of the Department of Health and Human Services’ next
budget shows that the Trump administration plans to eliminate a storied
toddler health program among other major cuts, according to The Washington Post.
The
proposal, which was generated by the Office of Management and Budget,
would slash overall HHS spending by about a third, from $121 billion to
$80 billion.
One of the
programs to be eliminated is Head Start, the long-running initiative
that provides toddlers from low-income families with education and
health services. It began in 1965 as part of former President Lyndon B.
Johnson’s “war on poverty.”
Currently, Head
Start receives about $12 billion and enrolls around 800,000 children. It
was among the targets of Project 2025, the far-right political playbook
that Donald Trump denied having familiarity with while on the campaign
trail. Trump’s OMB is now led by Russell Vought, the main author of
Project 2025—one of a number of contributors now in high-profile
administration roles.
Children's
lives are being destroyed. This is Chump Land and every adult knew
what it was going to be like to live there so, no, I don't hand out
excuses to DSA. They wanted to show the Democrats how powerful they
were and then they'd be catered too.
Excuse
me? You're pariah now. The same way Ralph Nader was in 2000. And has
remained ever since. There is no comeback in the foreseeable future.
And there certainly isn't a comeback for DSA -- or even a hall pass --
while we're living under the madmen they put back into the White House.
Daniel
Berulis. He's a whistleblower that we noted in the Wednesday and
Thursday snapshot. Rachel Maddow spoke with him on her MSNBC program
Tuesday night.
Berulis
says that certain computer systems, known as DOGE, were linked to
Starlink, a satellite internet service, and that this connection may
have allowed people using Russian IP addresses to gain access to highly
sensitive government databases.
Starlink,
created by tech billionaire Elon Musk, provides internet access from
satellites in space. It’s used in remote locations and even by parts of
the U.S. military. But Berulis alleges that this powerful network became
a weak point in American cybersecurity. He claims that newly created
usernames—linked to Russian internet locations—were used to enter
systems that should have been locked down.
Berulis
made these statements during an interview on national television. He
appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, alongside his lawyer Andrew
Bakaj, who supported the claims with additional warnings about national
security.
One of the systems allegedly accessed was
the Mission Launch Readiness Board (MLRB) database. This system holds
important information about launch schedules and operations, which are
vital to U.S. space missions. According to Berulis, DOGE engineers
accessed these files without the proper clearance, raising serious
questions about how these systems were being managed.
Even
more concerning, Andrew Bakaj warned that DOGE engineers may have
unintentionally (or intentionally) exposed parts of the U.S. Department
of Energy systems. These include systems connected to the country’s
nuclear stockpile management—one of the most critical parts of U.S.
national security.
Elon
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) foot soldiers paid
another visit Wednesday to the federal agency where they were accused of
causing a “significant cybersecurity breach.”
A
whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) made the
accusation in an explosive NPR report Tuesday, offering evidence that
DOGE took large amounts of data from the agency’s systems and risked a
breach by foreign adversaries in the process.
Daniel
Berulis, an IT staffer at the NLRB, said he first noticed the “breach”
when large amounts of data left the agency’s systems after DOGE
staffers—who insisted that their actions not be tracked—gained access.
He also claimed to have observed suspicious log-in attempts from an IP
address in Russia using DOGE’s new accounts.
A source told Forbes
that representatives with the Department of Government Efficiency
(DOGE) arrived at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Wednesday for a two-hour meeting with leadership.
The topic of the meeting and the identities of the DOGE staffers involved remain unclear.
“If
DOGE wasn’t here before, the story prompted them to pay us a visit
today,” the source with knowledge of the meeting told Forbes. “All I
know is that two to three people from DOGE are meeting with agency heads
right now.”
DOGE’s presence comes a day after
NLRB general counsel William Cowen assured agency staffers in a Tuesday
email that DOGE has not been in contact with the agency.
Where
are the Congressional hearings? We need Congressional hearings on this
right now to get to the bottom of what happened or didn't happen.
Where
are the hearings? The GOP controls both houses of Congress and they're
scared living in Chump Land just like everybody else. David Gilmour (MEDIAITE) reports:
Senator
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) openly admitted that she and her Republican
colleagues were “all afraid” of “retaliation” from President Donald
Trump as she criticized what she called “unlawful” executive overreach
and sweeping federal cuts.
Murkowski’s
comments came during a 45-minute session at The Foraker Group’s annual
leadership summit and stands as one of the starkest public admissions
from a Republican yet of the political pressure facing those in the
party who push back against Trump policy or rhetoric.
“We are all afraid,” Murkowski told the crowd on Monday.
Pausing,
she added: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place
where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m
oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation
is real. And that’s not right.”
Murkowski went
on to criticize what she called an “unlawful” approach to implementing
service cuts and recounted her staff’s constant scramble to confirm and
mitigate rumors of abrupt changes.
“It is as hard as anything I have been engaged in, in the 20-plus years I’ve been in the Senate,” she said.
They're
all afraid but some like suck up Lindsey Graham won't admit it and want
to pretend like everything's normal -- as normal as that alleged
international female flight attendant that he insists upon claiming he
fell in love with -- despite the fact that most people say the closest
he ever got to a flight attendant was dressing up Saturday nights
as Connie Sellecca's character on FLYING HIGH back when he was a young
man.
Elbridge
Colby has been confirmed as undersecretary of policy at the Pentagon
following a 54-45 Senate vote. The role will be pivotal in shaping U.S.
defense strategies. Vice President JD Vance criticized former Senate
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell for opposing the nomination, claiming
his actions were politically driven and petty.
McConnell
was the only GOP senator to vote against Colby. He raised concerns that
Colby’s policy focus on the Indo-Pacific may weaken key alliances
elsewhere.
McConnell said, “Make no mistake: America will not be made great again by those who are content to manage our decline.”
Pay attention, Lindsey. "There
are no second acts in American lives," F. Scott Fitzgerald is famous
for writing. But it's equally true that, in films, a strong ending can
make up for a lot and sell tickets. Mitch is not long for this world.
It's not as though he can clean up all the wrong he did. However, he
can go out strong. You might try learning from that.
We'll wind down with this from THE BLACK COMMENTATOR.
The flop and failure that is
Will Smith remains. He's spent a fortune to get positive spin and it's
just not working. Last year's BAD BOYS was supposed to be evidence that
he was 'back' after his assault of Chris Rock and after the world
learning Will was Jada's cuck. The film did not make as much as the
previous one and the previous one was released during COVID. In
addition, it wasn't 'Will's film.' Martin Lawrence was the co-star and
he was returning to portray one of his most popular characters.
So
stop with the Will's back nonsense. And credit to Stan for pointing
that out repeatedly in real time. An e-mail came in saying that I
ragged on Will's album. That I called it a flop. I did. And I called
out the liars at HUFFINGTON POST and elsewhere who said it was going to
be a big hit and then who said it was a hit. And I noted that
critically the album was a dud and loser.
They've stopped lying and I had other things to focus on.
But
then, as I said, an e-mail came in. I was so mean and I was so wrong
and blah blah blah. I don't know. Is this Willow or Jaden e-mailing?
Is it someone depending on Will for money?
The album bombed. It was a huge dud.
Guess what?
I was wrong.
It's not a huge dud, it's whatever's worse than that.
Based
on a True Story was the first Will Smith album that failed to chart in
America, not appearing on any Billboard charts.[23][24] In the U.K. the
album did not appear on the Top 100 UK Albums Chart although it did
chart for one week at #62 on the UK Album Downloads Chart. Media reports
noted that this chart placement was a result of 36 digital downloads in
the album's first week of release.[25]
Not on any BILLBOARD chart.
BILLBOARD
does an R&B/Hip Hop albums chart, a rap albums chart and the album
could have made either of those charts. But did not.
In addition, there is the big BILLBOARD album chart that covers all genre and is BILLBOARD's Top 200 Albums.
Will did not make that list. A weekly chart with 200 slots on it.
And Will's new album never made that chart.
It flopped. I want to make a spring board diver joke, but I'll be kind instead.
Will's
album is a flop. The biggest flop of the year thus far. A ton of
money was spent to produce that nonsense. More was spent to advertise
and push it. And no one wanted it.
Thursday, April 16, 2025. Senator Chris Van Hollen goes to El Salvador,
David Hogg has a new advocacy plan, Chump continues to destroy the
economy, and much more.
Let's start this morning with THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW's interview last night with Senator Chris Van Hollen.
Kilmar
Abrego Garcia is in El Salvador still. This despite the fact that the
Supreme Court has ordered the White House to facilitate Kilmar's return
home to the United States. Kilmar is one of the senator's
constituents. He traveled yesterday to El Salvador and requested to
meet with Kilmar but was denied.
US Embassy
staff told Senator Van Hollen that they were not working in any way on
this issue, that no one in the administration had told them to. As the
senator explained to Rachel, "It's pretty clear that the Trump
administration has not lifted a finger to implement that court order."
The senator met with the vice president of El Salvador but he was not allowed to meet with Kilmar.
Rachel
had noted the GOP Congress members and Homeland Security Secretary
Kristi Noem had been able to get into the prison and do photo ops that
they then post and circulate to the media "and make social media
content" and she's right but what stood out to me when she was noting
these Abu Ghraib type photos were the faces.
Why are their faces exposed?
I'm
not talking about the MAGA trash. I'm talking about the prisoners.
And since Kristi is posing for them with an inane grin on her face -- in
what could be photographic evidence in an international trial for War
Crimes, these are apparently some of the 300 Venezuelans that Chump
tossed out of the country even when the courts had ordered that these
people could not be removed from the country, that they had a right to
due process.
So what's the excuse for MAGA trash like Kristi to be posting these people's faces online?
The senator was not allowed to even speak with Kilmar over the phone.
The
corrupt government of El Salvador denied him any access at all to his
constituent. He's not the first to be denied. The War Criminal in
charge of El Salvador also refused to allow the UN access in January of last year.
Let's pause for just a moment here. Yesterday's snapshot
noted Rachel Maddow's interview with a whistleblower Tuesday night.
And we noted that MSNBC hadn't posted it on YOUTUBE -- this despite all
the praise the segment received on BLUESKY and despite the importance of
the interview. An e-mail to the public account passed on that MSNBC
hadn't posted it but someone else has.
Daniel
Berulis risked a great deal to come forward and inform our Congress and
We The People about suspicious activity that DOGE has carried out and
how someone with a Russia IP address repeatedly tried to log on to a new
account just created by DOGE -- the person had the user name and the
password and, were it not for their IP address being in Russia -- they
would've gotten into the system. This is a major story. If you haven't
already caught Rachel's interview, please stream it now.
In
a letter to the administration, the university’s attorneys note that
these demands not only violate the First Amendment but also require
“unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the
government has not proven through mandatory processes established by
Congress and required by law.”
In addition, the letter also objects to the government’s coercive tactics.
“No
less objectionable is the condition, first made explicit in the letter
of March 31, 2025, that Harvard accede to these terms or risk the loss
of billions of dollars in federal funding critical to vital research and
innovation that has saved and improved lives and allowed Harvard to
play a central role in making our country’s scientific, medical, and
other research communities the standard-bearers for the world,” they
write.
Predictably, the administration almost immediately froze $2 billion in federal funds for Harvard.
But Trump didn’t stop there.
In
true mobster-like fashion, he also threatened the university with
revoking its tax-exempt status and taxing it as a “Political Entity if
it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist
inspired/supporting “Sickness.”
What does it mean? Who knows; but it is clearly a threat.
But
why are we telling you this? After all, it’s not exactly news when
Trump tries to blackmail or coerce someone to get what he wants.
That’s right, and this article isn’t actually about that.
Instead, it is about Trump not coercing someone… and that someone is El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
If
the US president had any interest in bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the
man his administration illegally deported to El Salvador, back to the
US, then he could surely compel his counterpart to produce him.
Exactly.
And he could certainly do something as simple as stop payment on the $6
million US tax payers are having to fork over to El Salvador for the
300 people Chump sent there. On that money, Ariana Figueroa (BALTIMORE SUN) reports:
The
U.S. State Department is paying El Salvador $6 million to house
hundreds of immigrants deported from the United States in an immense and
brutal prison there, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
But
a U.S. law bars the department’s financial support of “units of foreign
security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff
in prisons — facing credible allegations of gross human rights
violations. That has led those who wrote what’s known as the Leahy Law
and enforced it for years to question the legality of the $6 million
payment made as President Donald Trump carries out his campaign of mass
deportation.
The Trump administration on March
15 sent 261 men to CECOT, after invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798
to apply to Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members
of the gang Tren de Aragua.
On March 30,
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an additional 17 nationals from El
Salvador were sent to CECOT, again alleging gang ties. On Sunday, Rubio
said 10 more men were sent to the prison in El Salvador, and noted how
“the alliance between” the U.S. and El Salvador “has become an example
for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”
Tim
Rieser, the main author of the Leahy Law while a longtime foreign
policy aide to former U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said
the $6 million payment for those migrants’ incarceration for up to a
year is likely a violation of the law.
“Sending
migrants who have not been charged or convicted of any crime to the
maximum-security terrorism prison in El Salvador, where they have no
access to lawyers or their families, where they have no rights of due
process, and with no idea if they will ever be released, held in cruel
and shockingly degrading conditions, would certainly appear to violate
the Leahy Law,” Rieser told States Newsroom.
Against
the backdrop of President Nayib Bukele’s official visit to the White
House on 14 April, Amnesty International released a public statement
warning of the deepening human rights crisis in El Salvador and the
complicit stance now taken by the United States by partaking in
repressive practices that violate international law.
In
the light of the recent arbitrary expulsion of Venezuelan nationals
from the United States to CECOT, a Salvadoran mega prison, which has not
only worsened the human rights situation in El Salvador, but also sets
an alarming precedent of repressive cooperation between governments
leading to the enforced disappearance of 261 individuals, Ana Piquer,
Americas director at Amnesty International, said:
“El
Salvador is implementing a systematic state policy of massive and
arbitrary deprivation of liberty. After three years, more than 85,000
individuals remain behind bars without sufficient admissible evidence,
the victims of a judicial system now transformed into a tool for
collective punishment and widespread repression. Attempts to export this
policy to the situation of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the
United States highlights the lack of protection and the risk that
hundreds of thousands of people now face of having their human rights
violated by not one, not two, but three different states.
“This
repressive cooperation has now led to the enforced disappearance of
more than 200 Venezuelan nationals arbitrarily deported to El Salvador’s
CECOT. This situation further entrenches the vulnerability of the
victims, who have been deliberately deprived of their right to a
defence, to due process and contact with their relatives and lawyers,
causing deep distress to both those detained and their families.
Cooperation between states must be centred on improving the living
conditions of the population, not on dismantling their human rights.”
Amnesty
International called on the Salvadoran and US authorities to bring an
immediate end to these actions, ensure full respect for human rights,
restore due process, guarantee the right to asylum and the principle of
non-refoulement, and effectively protect all detainees from torture,
incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance.
Piquer
concluded: “We remind the authorities in El Salvador and the United
States of America that the rights to freedom, a fair trial, asylum,
legal defence and protection against torture and enforced disappearance
are not privileges, but rather obligations that their governments must
uphold at all times. Security cannot be built on the ashes of justice,
nor can models that replace the violence of criminal organizations with
institutional violence be considered a success.“
Human Rights Watch covers El Salvador and the War Criminal leading the nation here and we'll note this from it:
Local and international
human rights groups have documented mass arbitrary detention, torture,
and, in some cases, sexual violence against women and girls in
detention, and enforced disappearances. Authorities have not reported
charging, indicting or convicting any police or military officers in
connection with these abuses. In a September report,
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), found “reports”
of “widespread and systematic human rights violations” and urged
authorities to “end the state of emergency.”
Many detainees have
no apparent connections to gang-related violence. Arrests often appear
to be based on the detainees’ appearance and anonymous complaints,
rather than on evidence. Security forces routinely fail to present
warrants or provide reasons for arrests. Many detentions appear to have
been driven by a policy of “quotas” imposed by commanders of the
National Civil Police.
Mass imprisonment
has raised El Salvador’s prison population to an estimated 108,000
detainees, exceeding the prison capacity by 38,000, and worsening
already poor prison conditions. An alarming 1.7 percent of the country’s
population is now detained.
At least 261 detainees have died in prison during the state of emergency, Cristosal, a human rights group, reported in July. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said in June 2023 that 142 investigations into deaths in custody had been closed.
In January, El Salvador rejected a request for a visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
Grasp
that Chump sent those 300 Venezuelans to a country where checks and
balances have been destroyed, where the War Criminal just won
re-election despite the law barring him from legally running, where
prison abuse is rampant and where the prisons are overcrowded.
Dirty MAGA freaks, you feeling good about Chump now? Still pretending to be Christians, though, right?
If
you missed it, Ava and I addressed the Chump supporters Christian
Nationalist 'movement' in "MEDIA: YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS and your non-friends too!" and we noted that the reason they're lying
about Jesus and empathy is because you can't be MAGA and have empathy.
So they lie and distort while pretending to be disciples of the
Christian faith. In other times, they perverted Christianity for
greed.
That's the thing
about Chump and his chumps, there is no compassion, there is only evil
and hate. That's what they run on. They are The Politics of
Destruction and they will destroy this country if they are not reigned
in and if they do not receive strong pushback.
The
recent raid by federal agents on two homes owned by a China-born
cybersecurity professor has shocked his community and struck fear
through fellow academics.
Xiaofeng Wang had
been questioned by his employers at Indiana University in December about
alleged undisclosed payments from China for a project that also
received U.S. federal research grants, and though he hasn't been charged
with any crimes, he was fired on the same day as the raids in an
apparent violation of the school's own policy, reported The Guardian.
[. . .]
Other Asian American academics fear that Trump is taking aim against them.
“[It]
brings chills to our spines," said Gang Chen, a professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “What is particularly troubling
in this case is that Indiana University fired him and his wife without
due process, presuming guilt instead of innocence."
Chen,
who has dual American and Chinese nationality, was charged by the DOJ
in January 2021, during the final weeks of Trump's first term, for
allegedly failing to disclose links to Chinese organizations on a grant
application for a federally funded project, but those charges were
dismissed a year later.
“The investigations on
Professor Wang and his firing creates huge fear among researchers of
Chinese descent, especially students and postdoctorates from China,"
Chen said. "It is clear that such events, together with legislation and
hostile rhetoric, are driving out talents. I learned that many Chinese
students and postdoctorates here are considering leaving the U.S.”
The
Trump administration is working hard to convince the public that its
mass-deportation campaign is fully under way. Over the past several
weeks, federal agents have seized foreign students off the streets,
raided worksites, and shipped detainees to a supermax prison in El
Salvador using wartime powers adopted under the John Adams
administration.
The tactics
have spread fear and created a showreel of social-media-ready highlights
for the White House. But they have not brought U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement much closer to delivering the “millions” of
deportations President Donald Trump has set as a goal.
“We
need more money,” Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” told me in an
interview. “We won’t fail if we get the resources we need.”
Using
the budget-reconciliation process, Republican lawmakers are now
preparing to lavish ICE with a colossal funding increase—enough to pay
for the kind of social and demographic transformation of the United
States that immigration hard-liners have long fantasized about
achieving.
Although GOP factions in the House and
Senate have squabbled over the contours of the bill, spending heavily on
immigration enforcement has bicameral support. The reconciliation bill
in the Senate would provide $175 billion over the next decade. A House
version proposes $90 billion.
To put those sums in perspective, the entire annual budget of ICE is about $9 billion.
Didn't have to be this way.
But
you had the Rashida Tlaibs working overtime, posing as Democrats on
garbage like DEMOCRACY NOW!, and trashing Kamala Harris. There are
things every day that I could write about. Sometimes I don't because I
want to see first if anyone else does. Chump inferred in the only
debate with Kamala that she was a whore. And I waited and waited to see
who was going to step forward, what lefty media or MSM, and call it
out. None did.
It was
sexist and it was racist. But too many on the left were indulging in
their own sexism and racism to notice what Chump was doing.
'A
Black woman? Oh, that's not happening' -- that was the attitude. The
way that they savaged her -- I'm talking about people on the left,
Socialists and Gaza Freaks among others -- that had never been done to a
man before nor was it done to any woman -- not even Hillary in 2016.
But a Black woman, that was too much for them. That Black woman wasn't
going to do what she wanted, she wasn't go to do what she proposed, no,
she was going to do what they said or they would destroy her.
You need to grasp that.
This
was a visceral reaction for some people because they can't have a Black
woman in charge. They don't respect and they're not going to
recognize. The hatred spewed at her?
Look,
I supported John Kerry -- and I know John -- but, honestly, I supported
him in part because he was bland but electable. The Iraq War? John was all over the
map -- he supported it before he didn't ("I was for the Iraq War before
I was against it." -- did we tell him do this, do that, have this
speaker, have that or we're not voting for you!
No,
we didn't. And we had boots on the ground in Iraq. And Iraqis were
dying not because the US shipped some weapons but because the US
declared war on Iraq. When Barack ran he said troops home in ten months
but then he waffled on it. And everyone looked the other way --
including Tom Hayden -- we had a huge fight over that.
I can provide many other examples.
No male candidate for president on the Dem side has ever faced what Kamala had to face from the left. No one.
We did it to her, we didn't do it to any of the hims. As a country, we wouldn't presume to speak to a man that
way. Which, by the way, continues to this day as evidenced by the fact
that genocide isn't a charge CODESTINK and the others want to make
against Donald though they were happy to happy to make it against Kamala
who wasn't the president.
They would never treat a man the way they treated Kamala.
And
even now, when their panic should have subsided since they got what
they wanted (the scary Black woman's not in the Oval Office), they won't
acknowledge
that they held her to a different standard and treated her differently
because as a woman and as Black person, they didn't feel the need to
respect her and they damn well couldn't see her as the boss of this
country. It was just too much for them -- and, again, we're talking
about the left.
I've
pointed out Tim Walz's b.s. of trashing Kamala. John Edwards didn't do that to John Kerry.
No v.p. nominee has attacked the top of the ticket.
But fat ass Tim thought he could.
We're
all supposed to pretend that this break with convention has nothing to
do with the fact that Kamala's a woman and a woman of color?
The
left is not free of racism. You'll find lots of on the fringes.
That's how a Matt Taibbi or Aaron Mate, for example, is able to move
from the far left over to the right-wing.
You
couldn't see a Black woman in the ultimate position of power in the
US. Your racism was too great -- again, I'm talking about the left
right now.
So you put
Chump in the White House and now you want to pretend like you didn't and
you want to pretend like we didn't see your racism and sexism.
We saw. We witnessed. It's why so many Black women have chosen to sit out protests.
I do not blame them and there are so many days when I'm tempted to do the same.
Like
when a fat ass Tim Walz -- in all his fat Whiteness -- thinks he can
attack Kamala for the 'crime' of saying she told you so.
She did tell everyone so.
You
know who else did? Taraji P. Henson. She, more than anyone, put
Project 2025 on the minds of Americans. But she was attacked for it --
by the right? Yeah, but I'm talking about the left. Or are we all
supposed to ignore that Nina Turner -- who reads White -- attacked
Taraji for that.
Now I'm
not Taraji's biggest fan. She should have shut her damn mouth about
money ahead of the release of THE COLOR PURPLE. That was not going to
help her (and it didn't) and it wasn't going to help the film (it harmed
the film). Brenda Russell's work alone deserved a wider audience. And
most of us, most Black people in the entertainment field, are fully
aware of what happens when Black people are the leads in a big budget
film and it doesn't reach a certain mark. That film becomes an excuse
for the studios -- which really don't want to make films with a large
cast of Black people to begin with. So Taraji never should have
talked about that until, if she had to talk about it, after the film
left theaters.
So don't think I'm some huge Taraji-does-no-wrong person.
But her standing on that stage and talking Project 2025 was major and important and she deserved only applause for that.
She didn't get much of it from the left. Again, like Kamala, Taraji's a woman and she's Black.
I
don't know how much disrespect Tim Walz and others think we're going to
endure, Black women, before we just say "F**k you all" and turn on our
heels and walk?
I don't
need it, I don't want it. I'm not going to put up with it. Or with the
continued attacks on Kamala (make a point to read Betty's "Kamala for governor of California? Absolutely!" and grasp that even when the polling data is on Kamala's side, she's being attacked and told not to run for governor.)
It's
really funny how the left so often tries to use us as props and they
utter praise that they don't really mean. How many times has Socialist
Laura Flanders cited us and encouraged others to be like us? But there
was Laura ripping into Kamala Harris. I don't think we came up with the
phrase "Vote Like A Black Woman" but some on the left did. So it was
vote like a Black woman -- as a dictate -- up until a Black woman was
running.
'We can never get
over the scars and shame of slavery' -- insist some White leftists.
They'll tell us 'I support reparations.' Really? Because voting for a
qualified Black woman to be president -- especially when she's running
against a convicted felon who you know is a danger to the planet? -- to
me that's where you start with reparations -- putting the qualified
Black woman into the Oval Office.
Boeing’s
787 Dreamliner jet is a multinational concoction, made of parts from
around the globe. Wings from Japan. Doors from France. Portions of the
fuselage are built in Italy before they are shipped to the United States
to be assembled by workers in South Carolina.
It’s
an arrangement made possible by a nearly 50-year-old trade agreement
that allowed Boeing and other players in the U.S. aerospace industry to
sell airplanes and buy parts from anywhere in the world, duty-free.
Now
President Donald Trump’s global tariffs threaten to disrupt this
interlocking supply chain. For the first time in nearly half a century,
Boeing will pay a levy to import those wings, doors and other
components. For now, there is a new 10 percent tax on most imports. But
that levy could rise depending on what the president decides during a
90-day reprieve he declared before stiffer tariffs land on most
countries.
While Trump has said his sweeping
protective tariffs will reduce the U.S. trade deficit, the levies on
Boeing’s parts supply line will tax a company that is America’s biggest
exporter of goods. About 80 percent of Boeing’s multimillion-dollar
planes are shipped to overseas customers.
“These
tariffs and trade restrictions have unleashed chaos in the global
aerospace and airline industry,” said Ken Quinn, a partner at Clyde
& Co and former general counsel at the Federal Aviation
Administration. “It’s only harmful and destructive.”
Need more examples of how Chump's tanking the US economy? Rob Wile (NBC NEWS) reports,
"Stocks sank Wednesday after computer chipmaker Nvidia announced it was
recording a $5.5 billion charge to comply with a new Trump
administration rule on tech-related exports. Shares of Nvidia fell more
than 5% soon after markets opened, causing the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell as
much as 1.7%. The S&P 500 declined as much 1%. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average fell as much as 0.4% or about 150 points." Jonathan J. Cooper (AP) notes,
"Trump was elected with a promise to improve the economy, lower taxes
and control inflation, addressing voters who said overwhelmingly that
the economy was the top issue facing the country. But for retirees like
[Susan] Hemphill, the Republican president's economic stewardship has
been defined by the roller coaster of the stock market and fears his
tariffs will lead to higher inflation." Rachel Siegel (WASHINGTON POST) reports:
President
Donald Trump’s tariffs are “highly likely” to spur a temporary rise in
inflation, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell said Wednesday,
cautioning that those effects could end up being longer-lasting —
prompting markets to slide and extend day-long losses.
Speaking
before the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell said more persistent risks
to inflation depend on how much tariffs end up affecting the economy and
how long it takes trade policy to pass through to prices. Investors
grew nervous throughout Powell’s remarks, especially because there is so
much uncertainty around how long the inflation could last, triggering a
market sell-off.
By market close, the Dow
Jones Industrial Average was down roughly 700 points, or 1.7 percent,
and the S&P 500 had fallen 2.2 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq
composite index, which has born the weight of the trade war in
particular, was down 3 percent. Chipmakers Nvidia and AMD said in
company filings that Trump’s recent executive orders would result in
major write-downs of the value of chips. Nvidia and AMD both saw their
share prices fall roughly 7 percent in trading.
At what point does even the most extreme of Chumps for Chump have to admit just what a destructive force Donald is? Will Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) report do it:
President
Donald Trump's social media company is marketing "America First"
accounts that would allow him to personally benefit from the tariffs
that have been roiling the stock market and lopping value off the
dollar.
Trump Media and Technology Group
(TMTG), the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social,
announced Tuesday that it was marketing a series of actively managed
investment accounts to allow investment in companies that benefit from
the president's agenda, and independent journalist Judd Legum reported
that his tariff policies could be used to manipulate the value of those
accounts.
"TMTG said the new
investment accounts would 'offer investors access to curated, thematic
investment strategies rooted in American values and priorities,'" Legum
wrote on his Popular Information newsletter. "Among the themes are 'Made
in America,' which presumably would focus on companies that would
benefit from tariffs on competitors who make goods abroad and import
them to the United States."
At what point is the corruption and destruction just too much?
The
United States economy is projected to lose $90 billion in revenue this
year given President Donald Trump's behavior and polices as president.
The
billions lost are expected to come from lost tourism and export
revenue, including the boycotting of American products, according to
Goldman Sachs. Bloomberg reports that many internationals are avoiding
taking a trip to the United States given Donald Trump's newest policies
as the 47th President of the United States.
Tourists
are worried about coming into the country due to potential problems at
the border given the Trump administration's strict crackdown on
immigration while others are simply boycotting America and it's product
to protest Donald Trump's newest tariffs, his treatment of international
allies, and more. It comes after Trump suffered a mental collapse after
a 'senile' moment last week and came up with a ludicrous way to make
himself look taller.
Other
damage he's doing? The United States makes a lot of money from
foreigners traveling here for various events, conventions and sight
seeing journeys. Dallas, TX? A magnet for people around the world who
want to remember President John F. Kennedy. And a ton of people do
because President Kennedy was a monumental and historical figure --
unlike his nephew Tiny Balls Junior who is an embarrassment. Florida?
The incredible beaches. Key Largo, Key West. DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL
STUDIOS FLORIDA THEME PARK, Daytona Beach, The Dahil Museum, etc, etc.
California? DISNEYLAND Park, the wineries, the film studios, the Golden
Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39, the beaches,
the San Diego Zoo, Catalina Island, Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Big Basin
Redwoods State Park,
Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, Mission San Juan Bautista . . . New York has the Statue of
Liberty, the Museum Of Modern Art, Central Park, Empire State Building,
Time Square, Grand Central Terminal . . . That's just a few things in a
few states. Most of the states have major tourist attractions. And
tourists from outside the US coming here accounts for a lot of money
each year.
Do you get how
much money that is? How many industries that impacts? You've got the
airline industry, you've got the car industry if the visitors rent a
car, you've got taxis and Ubers, you've got hotels and motels, you've
got eateries, you've got bars, many of the points of interest have fees
visitors have to pay, you've got the clothing industry since travelers
often purchase an outfit or two (or a t-shirt or two) in addition to
what they've packed, you've got shops -- souvenir and regular shops.
Or it did.
Do we grasp how much money Chump's running off?
In
2023, international travelers poured an estimated $213 billion --
billion -- into the US economy. That amounted to approximately $584
million a day.
And now
Chump's making us pariah around the world. See, sending people to a
gulag in El Salvador doesn't really argue for freedom and democracy.
And since Chump declares these deportations and imprisonments require no
trials, if you're in Paris, you really think Las Vegas or whatever is
worth seeing when, while you're visiting the US, you might accidentally
get caught up in one of Chump's dragnets and end up being taken not back
to France but a to prison -- one where the are no rules or guidelines
and people are tortured.
Chris Hayes covered the topic last night on his MSNBC show.
We've got one more issue we need to squeeze in. David Hogg. WBUR reports:
Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg
says he wants to fund primary challenges against Democratic lawmakers
who he feels are “asleep at the wheel” and not fighting President Trump
hard enough.
“What we're looking for are people who are effective leaders to fight back against Donald Trump,” Hogg, the founder of Leaders We Deserve,
said. “And I think good examples of what that looks like are like what
our senator from Maryland is doing by going to El Salvador to say we
need to do something about the fact that Donald Trump is disappearing
people, members of families, for example, and taking them to El
Salvador. And what we're trying to do right now is make sure that we
rally our base and that we make sure that we have effective Democrats in
our solid seats and we want to help win majorities as well in Congress,
which is why we're not challenging people in more competitive races.”
Many people are in a panic and many people are thrilled.
David
might need to step down from his DNC post. I'm not saying he has to
but I'm saying he might need to consider that because this does come off
as a conflict.
I'm not saying not to pursue
his desired action. I see the need for it but it does seem in conflict
with DNC rules and guidelines.
Some are slamming him and saying he's too young and doesn't know this and doesn't know that.
They are right about one thing: He is young.
And we need young blood in the party. And we need to be open to fresh ideas.
He also needs to be open to sharing.
"Progressive."
You mean Socialists? You're not going to find a lot of support for
that after DSA rat-f**ked the Democratic Party in 2024. Their campaing
against Kamala will not be forgotten nor forgiven.
"Progressive." You damn well better define it.
Because
that's the only guidance you've provided. What is progressive? You
have to define it. Is it supporting Medicare For All, for example?
What is it?
We don't need an airy label that so many have hidden behind.
You're announcing you're doing this, then you need to explain exactly what this is.
And if this not about actual Democrats getting into office, you need to resign your post.
I'm
fine with him pursuing his advocacy and holding his post -- unless this
is a move that intendes to push Democrats out of office to replace them
with non-Democrats. If that's the case, he doesn't need to part of the
DNC.
I think he has every right to explore
this topic and to do his advocacy. And if it's not in opposition to the
Democratic Party, no problem he should be able to do both the advocacy
and hold DNC office.
I think a conversation
should have been started about this and not an announcement. It's too
late for that now, so we're left with it being out of order timeline
wise but we still need the conversation.
That includes how this could help the party -- and it could.
It also includes noting things like Joe Lieberman.
We
wanted him out. He was a War Hawk. We donated to Ned Lamont who
primaried Joe. Ned won the primary. Joe then ran in the general
election as an independent. And Joe remained in the Senate.
What are the aims of David's proposal?
What
do we think the cost of a heated primary that might leave somone David
objects to still on the ballot but deeply wounded ahead of the general
election?
There's a lot to talk about. The discussion needs to be had.
I
support David as long as this is about Democrats and not about
we-all-pretend-Socialist-Rashida-is-a-Democrat and we oust an actual
Democrat from office.
He's put this option on
the table. He needs to address it at length. He needs to comment and
others need to comment back to create a real and honest conversation.
Some
are already screaming for his head. I am not. I think this is a
needed conversation and I hope he goes into greater detail what he's
attempting.
