Perhaps 112 years ago, what Teddy Roosevelt wanted so desperately for our nation actually could have been accomplished, though it certainly seems out of reach now.
What we can do, which will win back some of the control we’ve lost to the corporations, is overturn Citizens United, the catastrophic 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to donate as much as they like to manipulate our elections.
As previously discussed, there is really very little to admire about Bill Barr. He used nothing but deceit to support and protect Trump, directly violating his oath of office.
When it was clear that Trump’s criminality was in the process of taking everyone down, Barr included, he skipped town and figured out a way to clear his reputation and make lots of money in the process.
This from Trump toady Jim Jordan, to which energy investment analyst Robert Rapier replied: Someone should ask him which of these pipelines (see below) are closed.
What’s the disconnect here? My best guess is that it’s the reaction to one of the right wing talking points: The United States was energy independent until Biden came along (which, of course, it wasn’t). This, I can only believe, is a reference to the president’s putting a stop to the Keystone XL pipeline when he came into office.
Anyone who understands the first thing about the subject knows that the pipeline would have taken at least three years to complete, even if legal wranglings didn’t hold it up indefinitely. In any case. it has exactly zero effect on today’s oil supply. It’s likely Jordan knows this, but also knows he’s talking to an audience that is totally ignorant of the facts at hand.
Shameful.
The answer goes like this:
Republicans are actually two groups of people: the amoral rich (~20%) and the poorly educated working class (~80%). (more…)
Of course, all decent people concern themselves with the quality of life that our descendants will face.
Having said that, I’d be a liar if I said I never had the thought expressed in the meme here.
From this piece in Mother Jones:
In his forthcoming memoir recounting his time in the Trump White House, Bill Barr is clearly eager to shed the image of a doggedly loyal attorney general. “Off the rails” is how Barr describes his former boss in the book, a disparagement that made headlines last month. Trump’s persistent election lies are “bullshit,” Barr told NPR in a recent interview promoting his book release. Even the title of Barr’s memoir, One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of An Attorney General, gestures at seething frustration.
Barr’s resistance to Trump’s lies about a stolen election, which sparked his resignation in December 2020, is indeed notable; his new interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, in which Barr repeated his condemnation of Trump’s ongoing election fraud claims, has already produced a three-page letter from the former president.
That’s all fine. But we’re talking about a man who said that, in 2024, he’d vote for Trump if he is the nominee.
Do we want to talk about “off the rails?”
If your moral code supports voting for someone who is still trying to overturn the election thus overthrowing the U.S. government , I’m afraid we’re pretty much done with you as a decent and credible actor.
I never suffered under that particular assumption.
But I did assume that people who lacked that basic understanding would have the good sense not to make assertions that broadcast their ignorance to the entire world.
I’m not so sure about what Gandhi said here. It seems like history features waves of good and evil leaders, yet perhaps the metaphor of the pendulum that oscillates between two extremes is better.
Ancient Rome had a great number of terrible emperors, and the last 1600 years since has seen an uncountable number of tyrants.
Now we have Putin, Jong-un, Ping, Erdogan, Duterte, Orbán, Bolsonaro, and probably 50 other dictators whose names few of us would recognize. And don’t forget that Trump is not yet gone from political power.
It’s true that nothing, regardless of its moral value, lasts forever, but it’s hard to believe that things are improving.
Re: my post of scientists’ logos, a reader says, “I really don’t know the three that are above Borlaug.”This is a little esoteric, and definitely off-topic, but I thought it was cool.
I had to look up Norman Borlaug. He was an American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution.
