I can see Trump has only a few paths to being elected this fall. All of them are quite nefarious. Here’s how I see it:
a: Indict Democrats. Attorney John Durham will issue a report and possibly indictments for the purpose of affecting the election. It is a United States tradition not to do such things shortly before an election. Trump is desperate so tradition be damned. Attorney General Barr has already said the tradition will not be followed. I will examine the actions of Durham on Monday through Friday over the next two weeks in relation to his prosecution of FBI Agent John Connolly.
b: Secure Russian Assistance. Trump’s fear of discussing Russian providing arms for the Taliban and its paying of money to have American soldiers killed with Putin is telling. He does not want to alienate him and lose his assistance in the upcoming election. There is no doubt it will come. As one article noted Russia’s goal: (Reversing St Francis of Assisi’s prayer) “is to bring discord in place of harmony, error instead of truth, and despair where there is hope.” It went on to note: “The hostile takeover of the once-moderate US Republican party by Trumpian nationalists on the right and the destruction of classical liberalism by the zealotry of political correctness on the left makes America more vulnerable than ever to the kind of toxic nihilism put out by the Kremlin.”
You must recall: “In 2000, it was clear that the FSB blew up the buildings in order to declare war on the Chechen Republic, and this would result with Vladimir Putin being elected a tough leader” With Russia deeply involved in the election, will an incident occur that will shake up America? I suggest it is highly possible.
c: Voter Suppression: If the Republican Party is known for anything its being adverse to democracy and one person one vote. It has worked endlessly wherever it is in charge to make voting more difficult by closing voting stations and imposing greater restrictions on voters. It is in its interest to limit the vote.
Trump and Barr have both come out – Barr reaffirmed this at a hearing during the week – that there could be millions of fraudulent mail-in ballots being sent by foreign governments to affect our election. When asked by Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon if he had any evidence that would happen he said no. Then he added it is common sense. Why are they trying to delegitimize mail-in voting? Five states have nothing but that and never had a problem. No one has had problems.
I suggest Trump and Barr will act along with the Postmaster General to bar mail-in-ballots from the U.S.mail. They will use the excuse of preventing the mail from being used for fraud. It has been done in the past to other type materials.
d Frighten Suburbanites: You recall the caravans of Central American people coming up to invade the country and the sending of American troops to protect our country before the 2018 election. This time its telling the people in suburbia that there are caravans of inner city folk of color planning to come into their neighborhoods. In one of the most racist statements ever, Trump is pursuing that line to get elected.
One final thought: Is it too old to have any importance today? I write of the First Amendment. Here’s what it says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Reading some comments it appears some think that assembly idea is a bad thing. They say the people have not been assembling peacefully. If the inclusion of a handful of provocateurs or right wing or left wing terrorists into an otherwise peaceful demonstration of tens of thousands of people turns them into non peaceful assemblies you might as well do away with that right.
The right to free speech is not destroyed because some yell “fire” in a crowded theater; so the right to assembly should not be destroyed because of some hoodlums.
Stay safe……
So what if he is a author from Maine…..
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/01/nicholson-baker-i-fear-america-has-become-a-bloated-roadkill-cadaver
Nicholson Baker: ‘I fear America has become a bloated roadkill cadaver’
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/26/with-facebook-we-are-already-through-the-looking-glass
… And though we know the name “Cambridge Analytica” and were momentarily outraged by Facebook’s complicity in allowing 87 million people’s personal data to be stolen and repurposed including by the Trump campaign. A $5bn fine was paid but no individuals were held to account…
For Trump 2020, the band is back together. The chief data scientist of Cambridge Analytica, Matt Oczkowski has launched a new firm, Data Propria, which is working with the digital director of Trump’s 2016 campaign Brad Parscale. And Trump is testing his limits. Can he place ads that feature Nazi symbols? Yes. (Taken down but only after accruing millions of views.) Can he spread lies about mail-in fraud? Yes. Can he threaten Black Lives Matter protesters with violence? Yes. Will be he be able to use Facebook to dispute the election? Watch this space.
MS:
I don’t understand how people who know all these things – and know how the Russians interfered with our 2016 election – can continue to support Trump who is the worst president by far America has ever had since he doesn’t even pretend that he is president of all the states – when he saw it was only the blue states that were being ravaged by the coronavirus he thought that was good because they did not vote for him and he could use it for political gain by attacking the Democratic governors.
Before all this mail-in broohaha, the assault on voters was in full swing. As an attorney, is there any guiding principle in law that prevents enactment of statutes, ordinances etc. that while accomplishing the goal, create a greater abuse?
The excuse for changing voting requirements in certain districts was to prevent voter fraud–people not allowed to vote, illegally voting. In case after case the numbers of illegal voters was miniscule and did not effect the out comes. After the tightening, the numbers of legal voters deprived was proportionally off the chart. In one precinct where 3 illegal voters were found, out of a total vote 5,248, 1500 legal voters were not allowed to vote.
This example was repeated time after time. I do not need to tell you which party was target of these patently partisan shenanigans.
This is the best answer I can give you to
your question.
In 1962 at Concord Prison in West Concord Mass Timothy Leary
was administering Pscilocybin to a small group of inmates.
He was hoping to change criminal behaviour bu using psychedelics.
The Inmates were given Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha , The Bead Game;
Aldous Huxley ‘s The Doors of Perception , The Tibetan Book of the Dead
and other books to try and frame their psychedelic experiences.
Harvard grad student Gunther Weil was working with Timothy Leary
at the time and introduced the works of Gurdjieff. Weil would later
be instrumental in introducing Iron Shirt Kung Fu master Mantak Chi
to the United States along with Qui Gong.
See
https://psychedelicsalon.com/salon2-056-the-harvard-psychedelic-club/
Also see
https://maps.org/news-letters/v09n4/09410con.bk.html
For more on Gurdjieff see
http://www.creationsmagazine.com/articles/C102/StClair.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qftYyjV9tsk
Stay safe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/01/alexander-vindman-retiring-oped/?hpid=hp_save-opinions-float-right-4-0_opinion-card-a-right%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
Alexander Vindman: Coming forward ended my career. I still believe doing what’s right matters.
Ms
To quote Lt. Colonel Vindman: “Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.” Think of it.
Vindman is bitter. He went outside the chain of command (his superior Morrison attests to this); Vindman disclosed to a whistleblower the contents of a Presidential Communication with a foreign leader.
Vindman also lied to Congress.
Vindman is bitter because he was discharged for insubordination. His twin brother also was fired and escorted out of the White House on the same day.
The facts are not in dispute.
See, e.g., https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/11/vindman-caught-in-another-lie-tim-morrison-testimony-blows-up-another-one-of-vindmans-outrageous-claims-video/
Democrats and their media allies have been resisting and stalling an investigation into the origins of the failed Trump campaign-Russian “Collusion“ investigation for nearly 4 years. First, they claimed House investigations were a “distraction” from the Mueller investigation. They have been trashing AG Barr since his appointment in an effort to injure the credibility of the Durham investigation. US Attorney Durham Is a “career DOJ employee,” usually the Gold standard, if they attack Barr or Trump. Now it’s suddenly too close to the election. Spare me.
Thankfully there are videos to show the extent of the rioting and looting. Have you been around Newbury St. lately? Democrats also want to renew an Obama executive order Trump withdrew, withholding federal funds for towns which don’t rezone and pay for high density, low income housing. Black people who can afford the housing are welcome. Inner city gangs are not. Suburbia is right to be afraid of the Democrats.
Brian:
Trump has been in office for over 3 1/2 years. The first two years he had both houses of Congress. How can the Democrats have stopped the Republicans from doing anything during that time or even lately when they control the Senate and the AG’s office. The origins of the Russian Collusion investigation were clear. The FBI saw that members of Trump’s team were coordinating with Russians. What more do they need. Enough of the foolishness. Obama were he interested in intruding himself into the investigation could have made public what was going on between Russian and the Trump team and also that Russia was interfering in the US election. Perhaps I should remind you of what the Republican lead Senate Intelligence Committee found: “that the IRA (St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency sought to influence the 2016 presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin.” And “The Committee found that the IRA’ s information warfare campaign was broad in scope and entailed objectives beyond the result of the 2016 presidential election. . . .” And perhaps you want to tell us what Trump’s response to that was?
Barr is not a “career DOJ employee.” He worked in the DOJ from 1989 to 1993. He was in private practice as a corporate attorney until 2019. He donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates. He is a life long Republican. In 2017 he said ” Barr said there was “nothing inherently wrong” with Donald Trump’s calls for investigating Hillary Clinton while the two were both running for president.” His actions have always been anti-Democratic presidents or positions. He does not represent the American people but serves as Trump’s consigliari.
Almost all of the demonstrations have been peaceful. There were some riots and looting. That was caused by a fraction of the demonstrators. No one knows who caused the damage, it could very well been people who infiltrated the peaceful demonstrations to make them look less peaceful. Read the Constitution, the people do have the right to peaceably assemble – 99% of them have done that. Would you take away that right because there was some looting? What about the people that were peacefully assembled who were attacked by Trump Troops so he could hold up a Bible in front of a church?
Don’t you understand we are all American citizens. That the suburbs do not belong to the rich. That accommodations should be made for our fellow citizens. No one speaks of inner city gangs except you. Do you equate poor folk with inner city gangs? You surprise me with your attitude toward poor or middle class people. This nation is for all the people not for the few you want to protect from the poor, not all blacks but whites and others. I just can’t figure out why the Democrats who want others to share in open spaces of the suburbs and their good schools are to be feared.
No one I know opposes peaceable, peaceful assemblies. Twenty five years ago the Massachusetts courts did try to destroy the Veterans annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade by orders to alter the Parade’s expressive content. The Veterans in fact were forced to cancel their 1994 parade rather than showcase unwanted messages and unwanted groups. SCOTUS unanimously scolded the State Courts’ action writing they had acted “without lawful justification.” Not a good thing for jurists to do, but an increasingly common phenomenon in Massachusetts and in other leftist-liberal jurisdictions.
A small minority? Tens of thousands have looted and destroyed and unlawfully occupied private property from Boston’s Newbury Street to Portland Oregon, and in many Democratic-run cities throughout the nation. Some Democratic mayors and governors seemed to sanction the unlawful destruction. Many did little to protect citizens businesses and private property and government buildings, monuments and statues. A disgrace. “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do and say nothing.”
Did not you see the riots? Have you not witnessed the fires and boarded up businesses?
I disagree with your assessment. I’d label it far fetched, distorted, a bit paranoid, and, in part, simply factually false. Notice, I am not criticizing you as a person, I am criticizing your ideas, your reasoning. Correcting a person’s false views is sometimes a duty to insure misinformation is not spread, or at least to present opposing views, so both sides of issues may be aired.
Correction: Previously I had written that the sin of saying something bad about someone even if true is calumny . . . . .I admit this was a mistake . . .that sin is called detraction.
For an excellent summary of about a dozen sins subsumed under gossip, see the following: https://aleteia.org/2015/01/16/the-sin-of-gossip/
(examples: Reviling, Backbiting, Calumny, Slander, Detraction, Tale Bearing, Derision, and Cursing.) As W.S. wrote in Othello, “he that filches from me my good name
robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.”
William:
Talk straight. The unwanted groups were gays and other members of the LGBTQ community. The veterans group opposed them because they were gay. Plain and simple. Do you still thing that was a correct position?
You make things up: You say “Tens of thousands have looted and destroyed and unlawfully occupied private property.” A total fiction.
You say those many thousand “have looted and destroyed and unlawfully occupied private property from Boston’s Newbury Street to Portland Oregon, and in many Democratic-run cities throughout the nation.”
What about the Republican-run cities. No demonstrations that caused destruction there? Largest Republican-run city: “The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department says it paid out nearly $2 million in overtime throughout the course of protests and riots in the county.” Second largest: ” Sheriff: Rioters flung rocks at officers and vandalized police vehicles downtown. JACKSONVILLE, Fla.” Third largest: “Charges of riot participation will not be filed against protesters in Fort Worth,”
The demonstrations mostly peaceful and some with persons rioting (could be from any side) are not only going on in Democratic run cities.
Matt, your commentary has become too distorted. We understand you hate Trump. Others on this site hate him, too.. No surprise. But now you hate, as Hillary did, the Deplorables, all who support Trump. You can’t understand how anyone could vote for Trump again. I recall in last election you said something similar, that you knew no one who was voting for Trump, and early on election day when the first poll results were coming in, you trumpeted and heralded Hillary’s victory.
The St Pat’s Parade case decided by the US Supreme Court you reduce to another ad hominem attack, a false one, the Vets hated gays. I recall you expressed sympathy for the State Courts’ decisions that the STate could force speech.
You should re read my book, the book reviews, the Lawyers Weekly Articles, the fact that the Hurley Case has been cited thousands of times as a precedent for free speech rights, throughout the country, and the Case and my book, From Trial Court (co authored with Paul Walkowski) has been cited worldwide in scholarly works on First Amendment Freedoms
As for looting, rioting, destruction, property occupation, the vast, vast majority of damage was one in Democrat run cities, and continues to be done in some, Portland, for example. Months of unabated destruction.
You turn a blind eye to facts, and distort the past.
Matt, writes: “William: . . “You make things up: You say ‘Tens of thousands have looted and destroyed and unlawfully occupied private property.” A total fiction…”
I guess my eyes and ears were deceiving me over these last ten weeks, and it must have been a hallucination. Those rioters, looters, statue destroyers, monument destroyers, building defacers, occupiers across the country in scores if not hundreds of American cities and towns . . .all a Total Fiction . . .perhaps you are right Matt and there were only a handful of miscreants who broke a few windows, and so the police had to arrest tens of thousands of them, and the estimates of property damage is in the billions of dollars. . . oh no that was back in June.
The estimate for one city on June 29: “In Minneapolis, where some 400 businesses were damaged, owners and insurance experts estimate costs of the damage to exceed $500 million, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.”
So, when the Facts are staring us in the face, it’s best to call them Fictions. Then we can win every argument . . . ,
I conclude it is hopeless attempting to reason with Trump haters suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
God save American from the likes of Hillary and her Hillarians who view their fellow Americans as deplorables, and themselves as “enlightened.”
What hubrus!
From NBC on June 2, 2020
4,400 people arrested nationwide in “protests” . . .”peaceful protests”
Linda Givetash
62d ago / 5:08 AM EDT
At least 4,400 people arrested in protests nationwide
More than 4,400 people were arrested in relation to protests across the country this weekend, according to a tally by the Associated Press.
The tally from at least 36 cities includes arrests for a range of reasons, from breaking curfews to blocking highways and theft.
Los Angeles had the highest number of arrests at 931, followed by New York City with 790. In Minneapolis, where the death of George Floyd sparked the national violence, the Associated Press reported that 155 people were arrested.”
By June, even the leftist Media was admitting the property damage of recent riots would far exceed the five days of L.A. riots, about 1.4 billion in current dollars.
Peaceful protesters numbered in the millions, rioters, looters, property destroyers numbered in the tens of thousands or more.
2. A July 9th article: “Across the nation, 250 CVS pharmacies and 350 Walgreens, both of which housed drugs and controlled substances, were looted.” Peaceable protesters. If you had just ten looters per store that would be 6,000 looters for just two chains.
A fiction?
From June 1 Daily Mall . . .widespread destruction, looting, 4,000 arrests across the U.Shttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8377277/Americans-survey-damage-sixth-night-riots.html>
Just fiction.
Be aware of your own distortion: 250 stores were not looted but damaged to some degree. 60 stores were closed. Presumably they did not open looted stores.
Wa-llahi! I despise the “deplorables” because they are dick-in-the-dirt dumb.
We’re inching toward civil war. The barricades beckon. Folks in Louisville show up for protests armed to the teeth (NFA). They’ve started a trend. The Left is getting militant. The cops are losing their monopoly on deadly violence. Dump Trump before it’s too late.
All praise to the militants. All power to the dialectic.
As I understood it, the gay message was the target-not gay people. Gays had marched for years (Larry DiCara et al) and were welcome.