The most memorable image of the Reagan assassination attempt. In part, I recall it as the first time I ever saw an Uzi.
Let’s look at some headlines before the convention evening gets rolling:
- Trump urges Russia to interfere (again) in U.S. politics — Yet another thing that, taken all by itself, would sink the hopes of any candidate in any normal election year. But watch — it won’t slow down Trump? Why? Because anyone who would consider voting for him doesn’t understand how outrageous what he said is.
- Prison minister, family vouch for serial Columbia child molester’s freedom — Do you think a child molester should ever, EVER be free again? This is a crime that tests my opposition to the death penalty, that makes one almost doubt the wisdom of the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Seems like the very least we could do is make sure such people are never in a position to get near a child again…
- Man Who Tried to Kill Reagan in 1981 Will Be Released — I’d let this guy go before I’d let a child molester go. Which is moot, because I wouldn’t have let this guy go, either.
- All Charges Dropped Against Officers in Freddie Gray Case — Not sure what to say aside from the fact that this seems a logical outcome based on what I’ve heard about the evidence in the case. It’s ironic — there have been some truly horrific cases in which cops have wrongly shot black men. The case in North Charleston comes to mind. But the weird thing is, two of the cases that initially launched Black Lives Matter were based on protesters leaping to shaky conclusions.
- How Tim Kaine Went From City Council To Vice Presidential Candidate — Tonight will be our first good look at the guy who will be vice president unless the majority of voters really do go stark raving mad in November.
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As I understand child molesters tend to stay child molesters. I’m not in favor of locking people away forever, but let’s make an exception with these predators.
I find the Freddie Gray case problematical. Since they clearly had him cuffed, he had no way of protecting himself from a “rough ride” or even an emergency stop. I feel sure that they were not intent upon killing him, but most drunk drivers aren’t intending to kill anyone either. I can see negligent manslaughter as a charge. At the same time, apparently the DA did such a bad job of presenting the evidence, or insisting on making it more than it was, that no one was convicted. I can also see the black community’s response. Police brutality toward minorities, up to and including murder, occurs a lot more than most of us think. In addition, casual insult and humiliation of their community (eg. being stopped for “driving while black”) happens so often that it badly distorts their perception of what happened even when the violence toward the subject was within reason.
Yes! And that’s what happened in Ferguson. The problem wasn’t what happened to Michael Brown — because we don’t KNOW what happened, except that he was killed — so much as the horrible relationship the cops there had with the community.
Well we know the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” narrative was a total fabrication according to the Justice Department. Perpetuating that myth made matters worse.
“Seems like the very least we could do is make sure such people are never in a position to get near a child again…”
I know of a very nice island in the southern Indian Ocean. There are a great number of magnificent species of birds there, but it is entirely uninhabited by human children.
Might I suggest a one-way passage for such people?
North Sentinel Island would be a better choice.
Let them eat smelly cabbages…
I guess the story of the French Catholic priest who was murdered during a mass didn’t make the cut, eh? Too commonplace nowadays, I guess. Sort of a “Dog bites man” story at this point.
Was that today? Seems like it happened a day or two ago. But hey, let’s talk about it…
On the Trump hacking comments, they don’t really make sense. According to that piece, Trump said:
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,”
The FBI has the server. They’ve had it for quite awhile now. It’s not hackable at this point. Obviously, the server was hackable when Hillary had the server in her basement, but it’s safe now. So what is Trump calling for? Is he calling for the Russians to physically break into the FBI’s headquarters and steal Hillary’s computer?
At this point, the Russians either have the e-mails or they don’t, right? So, as a famous person once said, “At this point, what difference does it make?”
Basically, Trump is stupid.
How is he stupid… it got people talking about Hillary’s e-mails again, and on the front page of every news outlet didn’t it? That was more the point than asking Russia for help. Besides, Russia probably already as them as does the FBI. We just need for Snowden to release them.
See what I mean? It’s impossible to get anyone who would consider voting for Trump to understand at all what an outrage it is for a man who would be president to call on the Russians to spy on us…
You mean they’re not spying on us already, and they were just waiting on an invitation?
What’s outrageous is that there are 33,000 e-mails that were scrubbed from her personal server. This is no different than the non-electronic way of running the paper shredders at full speed when the investigators are walking in the front door. Were Chelsea’s wedding plans that secret?
But like I said, the Russians already have them, as do we. We’re just waiting on a release date.
Speaking of Trump’s intelligence levels…
I was struck by what Trump said here:
Despite the usual thing — that he doesn’t speak in complete sentences — I was impressed that he used the “gives… pause” phrase.
I think that’s because I associate it with Shakespeare. You know, Hamlet’s soliloquy. I wouldn’t have thought that was in his repertoire. Maybe it’s a lot more common than I thought…
It’s almost like he’s a bright, literate guy who POSES as an inarticulate boob — and he slipped for a moment…
By the way, here’s the most illuminating graf in that Post story:
Which causes me to respond, maybe not. But there is all the evidence we need that Trump WANTS them to…
Oh, and have you ever run across this site, which offers “no fear Shakespeare?” It translates the Bard into mind-numblingly prosaic pablum.
It changes “Must give us pause” to “That’s certainly something to worry about.”
Wow. Why not just take the whole play and burn it, if you’re going to do that…
“Despite the usual thing — that he doesn’t speak in complete sentences — I was impressed that he used the “gives… pause” phrase.”
I haven’t seen the press conference or the transcript, but I would be willing bet he’s mirroring a reporter’s question there. I bet the question contains “Does it give you pause…”
When I ask questions in a deposition, I get answers like that quite often. For instance, if I ask:
Q: Do you believe that tossing bricks off a three-story construction site roof is completely safe?
A: I don’t believe that tossing bricks…
or
Q: Do you worry when your spouse doesn’t come home on time or call?
A: I worry when that happens and he’s been drinking.
People who aren’t disciplined (or who don’t practice with their lawyer before a deposition) can to fall into a pattern of mirroring your question.
Projection. If you want to know why a Democrat / Progressive / Stinkin’ Commie is making a charge, it’s to divert attention, to conceal what’s really going on by impugning the integrity of the opponent, usually by charging the opponent by what the speaker and homies are really up to.
In April, 2015, the New York Times published a little story about how Pravda ran a headline trumpeting Putin’s latest success: Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.
Through the deal Vlad and his boys ended up owning, among other things, 20% of the US uranium supply. The deal had a lot of players, most of whom made generous contributions to the Clinton Foundation, and was approved by the State Department, at the time run by Hillary Clinton.
Methinks this might come up again thanks to the charges of treason being leveled against The Donald.
Actually, the reason we’re talking about it isn’t mysterious. It’s because Trump said he’d like Russia to dig up Hillary’s emails. Not long after saying maybe he wouldn’t keep our NATO obligations. And mere days after Wikileaks released those DNC emails, with timing intended to do maximum damage to Trump’s opponent.
THAT’s why we’re talking about it…
If it turns out that Russia was not involved in the leak, would you then be interested in the actual content of the emails or not?
I want to follow your lead on this matter because when we talk about the NSA spying on Americans, you’re okay with it because what’s the big deal if you have nothing to hide? And we spy on our allies and our enemies all the time. That’s no big deal either.
So the real concern should only be if the Russians fabricated emails to make Democrats look bad. Haven’t heard anything that suggests the emails are false yet so maybe we should consider the contents? Things like Politico.com reporters running stories by the campaign before publication, Debbie Wasserman Schulz having secret meetings with the head of MSNBC to try and butter them up and get him to rein in on air talent who criticized her… those apparently are trivial compared to massive speculation about the who leaked or Trump’s obvious joke about calling on Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails.
Well, Hillary called for the release of her emails first:Hillary for America National Press Secretary Brian Fallon released the following statement Friday after the intelligence community demanded that more than 20 emails from Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department be fully withheld from public release:
“We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails. Since first providing her emails to the State Department more than one year ago, Hillary Clinton has urged that they be made available to the public. We feel no differently today.
“After a process that has been dominated by bureaucratic infighting that has too often played out in public view, the loudest and leakiest participants in this interagency dispute have now prevailed in blocking any release of these emails. This flies in the face of the fact that these emails were unmarked at the time they were sent, and have been called ‘innocuous’ by certain intelligence officials. We understand that these emails were likely originated on the State Department’s unclassified system before they were ever shared with Secretary Clinton, and they have remained on the department’s unclassified system for years. And, in at least one case, the emails appear to involve information from a published news article.
“This appears to be over-classification run amok. We will pursue all appropriate avenues to see that her emails are released in a manner consistent with her call last year.”
Trump is just adding to the “appropriate avenues.”
Bryan is correct, Trump was referring to Hillary’s lost emails, asking the Rooskies to release them if they had hacked them before Hillary deleted them.
If the emails are indeed personal, dealing with matters of yoga, weddings, and such. But if the emails do indeed contain national security secrets, who’s guilty of treason?
The media and Democrats are playing the old game of misdirection:
– Take what a person has said,
– Change it,
– Attack what the person did not say.
“What if the emails do contain national security secrets?” What if the sky is falling? Even if they did it has been 4 years now since Clinton sent them, without terrible much obvious damage. What if the sky is falling? What if Martians land? What ifs can go on forever. Let’s stick to what we have.
As they say in the Democratic Party, “Move on!”
The past doesn’t matter… that’s why you delay and delay and delay until people just give up.
Let’s just face facts – for those who have decided on Hillary or Trump already, there is NOTHING that will change their minds. Nothing. There is always an excuse, always an “but he/she is worse”, always some misdirection.
I am fascinated more by how quickly talking points are able to flow through the media and into the minds of the partisan followers. The whole “Russia wants Trump to win” theme didn’t magically appear in everyone’s head at the same time. Those who believe that nonsense read it somewhere first, then read it in other places to reinforce the idea, then started disseminating it. No time was spent actually trying to understand why Putin would want Trump to be President, why he would do so in such a blatant manner… it’s just a “Polly wants a cracker” level reflexive response.
I believe the phrase is, “At this point, what difference does it make?”.
Unfortunately, Trump makes others look stupid.
Could someone explain to me why Russia would want Trump as President? Has Obama done anything in his eight years to limit Russia in any way? What would Hillary do that would concern Russia?
Seems like if Trump is the loose cannon everyone thinks he is, he’d be the last guy who they’d want in office. Trump might actually stand up to Putin. MIGHT.
No. They’re buds. Putin is what Trump wants to be.
And Hillary Clinton is not Obama, particularly when it comes to international affairs.
So Putin would be dumb enough to order the hacking of the DNC and release the damning DNC emails thinking that nobody would ever put two and two together to connect Trump to Putin. Is that what we’re supposed to believe?
What would Hillary do that Obama hasn’t done?
And what could Trump possibly do to help Putin? Ask NATO member nations to actually contribute the money they agreed to contribute for the privilege of having the U.S. defend them?
I’ve never understood the fear of Russia… do people still exist who think Russia is going to attack the U.S.? If it happens, neither country will survive.
“I’ve never understood the fear of Russia…”
Go to the Baltic. Ask a Latvian…
Oh, wait, I forgot — it’s 1801 and we’re an insignificant little country that only cares about what happens within its own borders. (And remember, we never WERE such a country. Jefferson liked to pretend we were, but he’s the guy who sent the U.S. Navy after the Barbary Pirates.)
And THAT is why Trump, in his infinite, unprecedented wisdom, is willing to blow off NATO. Who CARES what happens to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia? Right?
What are we willing to do to protect Latvia? Start a war? Let’s see you sell THAT to the American public. But, no, we’re the U.S. of A. We can control everything in the world. We’ve got everything covered here at home already.
What would Russia controlling Latvia do to us? Please try not to use a domino analogy.
Where have we demonstrated effectiveness this century in our attempts to broker peace? or maybe we really aren’t interested in peace, right? What do you do with the world’s largest military if there’s noone to fight?
Making peace isn’t the military’s job. That’s the job of the civilian government. The military’s job is to kill people and break things.
Where have we demonstrated effectiveness this century in our attempts to broker peace? or maybe we really aren’t interested in peace, right? What do you do with the world’s largest military if there’s noone to fight?
It’s not ones and zeros, Doug. “Start a war” isn’t the first option.
Of course, if there was war, it would be Putin starting it, not us…
Speaking of NATO, I’m reminded of an anecdote I may have told before.
I’ve visited the White House only once, in 1998. I went there to interview Mike McCurry for a column. Mike arranged for me to attend two other things while I was there, before the interview. One was the White House press briefing, which was particularly interesting because the press was all in his face about Monica Lewinsky.
The other was a more formal affair in the East Room — it was a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of NATO. All sorts of fine words were said about the importance of the alliance (words that probably would not persuade an isolationist like Doug), and I was glad to be there. But the most memorable thing about it was a tiny, human detail… when President Clinton made his entrance after most of us were in place (me wedged in the back of the room with the media types), he did so very slowly because he had Strom Thurmond holding onto his arm. Before taking his place at the podium, the president very kindly and respectfully saw Strom to his seat.
That struck me.
It was doubly interesting because one of my purposes in being there was to meet with Strom and assess his condition in that election year. (When I did interview him at his office, he was more alert and with it than I had expected.)
Interestingly, when the ceremony was over, I saw Strom descending the steps there on the North side of the House, where cars pull up under the canopy. He was doing better than I’d expected — WAY better than Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was looking pretty rocky. He lived another 5 years, but looked like he was on his last legs that day…
So then what would Hillary do if Russia moved on Latvia? Draw a line in the tundra?
It’s not war or no war. What could we do to stop Russia? Would we have to get approval from NATO first? Would it matter whether Latvia had paid their required dues or not?
I think if Russia invaded Latvia, I’m guessing the government of Latvia would be begging us to come to their aid and invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty. In your scenario, this is the beginning of WWIII.
And in Trump’s scenario, it’s meh, so what?
He might even have some admiring words for Putin’s “strength”…
“What are we willing to do to protect Latvia?”
Well, we’ve signed a treaty that says an attack on Latvia is an attack on us. I guess that’s the answer, isn’t it?
Has Latvia lived up to its end of the treaty? According to Obama, they haven’t:
“In April, Obama called for European nations to do more to support the military campaign against the Islamic State and to each contribute their “full share — 2 percent of GDP — towards our common security.” The president added, “That is something that doesn’t always happen — and I’ll be honest: Sometimes Europe has been complacent about its own defense.””
So are we OBLIGATED to defend Latvia if they are not willing to pay for the benefit?
It’s sort of like my neighbor running over to my house to use my alarm system when someone breaks into his house. I guess I could be neighborly and allow it, but if he is spending his money on a fancy vacation instead of paying the monthly fee, I might feel a little less charitable.
But I know some think we should just defend everyone, everywhere, all the time without thinking about the cost.
If you don’t think that Latvia is living up to their treaty obligations, then kick them out of NATO.
And it’s not like your neighbor analogy. We have an agreement to defend them.
It would be like if you and your neighbor have an agreement to come to each other’s aid if either one of your houses is burglarized, and your neighbor hasn’t been buying the requisite amount of ammo or going to the range to practice.
If you don’t feel like he’s living up to his end of the bargain, then you let him know that the agreement is over. You don’t wait until he’s being broken into and then let him know “Hey sorry, you didn’t buy enough ammo, this is your notice that I’m not helping you.“
And perhaps it would be better to have individual treaties rather than try and forge alliances with a larger group of diverse countries. Too much cat herding and internal negotiation I would think in NATO.
Maybe you should go back to 1948 and suggest that…
Yes, because everything that happened in the 40’s is relevant today. The greatest generation, don’t you know.
A smart person would review any and all treaties to determine if they provide value and if all parties were living up to the standards.
“As of this month, the Baltic countries combined had a few dozen troops among the 12,900 deployed to Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led training mission, Operation Resolute Support”
What would we do without those few dozen troops keeping us safe from terrorism. In return, all we have to do is agree to defend them against a superpower with nukes. Good deal!
Fine. You don’t want to be in NATO. That’s at least a position that has the virtue of being honest, even if it’s not the correct position. But you can’t say that we should remain in NATO and just let our allies fend for themselves in direct contradiction to our agreement.
What do we get out of the arrangement? Latvia is one of the most recent countries to join. And they are not meeting the requirements. They want the benefits without paying the price. How liberal of them…
Note to self: Don’t enter into mutual assistance agreements with Doug.
Especially if you aren’t going to live up to your part of the agreement. I expect you to bring all your firepower, not a BB gun.
But if we want to call it charity, let’s do that. Not pretend it’s anything else. We are a nation of laws, right? The rules of participation matter.
This just in!
Clapper on Hacker: Chill!
NID nods to same old same old, too early to blame the Rooskies.
Says Vlad’s paranoid, blames US for more than what we actually do, would try to do to unto us what he thinks we’re doing unto him.
Also says, “I’m shocked somebody did some hacking. That’s never happened before.”
As I understand it, here are the facts:
— The Russians hacked the DNC, some time back.
— What we don’t know is whether they passed the material to Wikileaks, or what the motive might be.
In other words, we don’t KNOW that the Russians hacked Americans in order to throw the election to Trump.
We DO know that Trump has asked them to…
Brad,
Are you willing to accept that if Hillary wins, you will see gay marriage nationwide and no chance of any laws that would restrict abortion in your lifetime? That’s the deal with the devil you are making.
You think that changes with Trump? He can’t remember what his position is from day to day. And he doesn’t have the slightest understanding of the pro-life position.
The way you frame it, I could never support a Democrat (with rare exceptions, like Bob Casey). And that would be crazy, because as often as not, the Democrat is the better candidate.
If I did that, I might as well become a Republican. Which I’m not going to do…
We’re back to that uncomfortable argument I keep having with Doug. Unlike him, I have NO trouble choosing the less-bad candidate. Why? Because I understand that ONE of them will be elected, no matter what I do. I have no interest in quixotic gestures.
And it’s made infinitely easier when one of the candidates is light-years less bad than the other. It almost gets into the realm of ones and zeroes. Hillary Clinton is a member of the set of people who are conceivable as POTUS. Trump is absolutely, unquestionably, not.