FairAndUNbalanced.com

 
From Frances Langum:

“It would be a great way for middle-class Americans to own stock,” says Stephen Moore.

Here we go again. Another clip to put on Democratic advertising.

They WANT to take your Social Security, America.

We’ve already posted (and saved to the C&L archives) Lindsey Graham promising Laura Ingraham that there must be cuts to entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to “deal with” the deficit. He said that on camera this year.

That. Medicare. and. Social. Security. Are. Promises. We. Can’t. Keep.

And Stephen Moore knows that by planting this seed on Fox and Friends is his best chance to get Trump’s ear on more tax cuts for billionaires, tucked into language about the middle class. “Capital Gains Rollover” is conserva-speak for “play the market for free” for rich people.

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From Jonathan Bernstein:

The most likely outcome may still be a close-to-party-line impeachment in the House and acquittal in the Senate.

But remember that conservative Republicans stuck with President Richard Nixon in 1974 … right up until they didn’t. Trump’s seemingly unanimous support right now is similar to the backing that Nixon had even as his original cover-up collapsed in early 1973; as the Senate Watergate committee hearings dominated that summer; as the Saturday Night Massacre unfolded in October; and as the House judiciary committee debated and voted on specific articles of impeachment in 1974. And then: The smoking gun tape came out and it all collapsed immediately. Even Nixon’s strongest supporter on the judiciary committee, the Jim Jordan of the day, who had just vigorously defended the president during televised deliberations, flipped and said he’d vote to impeach on the House floor.

That suggests Nixon’s support was never as solid as it seemed. Which in turn suggests we just can’t know how firm Trump’s support is among congressional Republicans this time.

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From Hart Williams at The Moderate Voice:

Dean was calm, level headed, clearly nervous and under a great deal of stress. And he came forward and outed the whole Nixon gang. He showed that rarest of qualities, moral courage.

It is curious – curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. ‑ Mark Twain

From that point onwards, Watergate kept getting bigger, moving along as a historical drama, almost of its own accord. But it was big, and it turns out that no matter how bad you though old Tricky Dick was, he was worse. And that was the John Dean moment.

John Dean testified the next two days, but I could only catch the newspaper accounts. I worked from 7 am to 2 PM and then 5 pm to 2 AM the other six days. (The food was great and I didn’t have any time to spend my paychecks. The wizened salad lady cooked us a northern New Mexican meal before our shift started, an amazingly good, private restaurant.)

But that John Dean moment had opened up a can of worms that was much bigger than anyone to that moment realized. And the drama played out over the next year and change.

Dean’s testimony continued to rock the nation while I cracked eggs, cleaned shrimp, made croutons, cut endless tomatoes, lettuce, chopped garlic, etc. I still use what I learned in that kitchen, long ago, working for minimum wage, each and every day of my cooking life.

Watergate, though, faded.

Watching Ambassador Sondland testify today, I sensed many — though not all — of the conflicts and pressures that John Dean had felt. And I also felt that veil ripped asunder.

There’s a thing I half remember called Zymurgy’s Law which posits that once you open a can of worms, you always need a BIGGER can to get them back into.

Today’s link in the chain was the direct link back to Trump. And the whole gang knew about it.

That pop you heard was a BIG can of worms opening.

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From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

Trigger warning: suicide, self-harm

“I’m done living.”

It was a few days after Christmas and I was sitting in a car outside our Central New York hotel, with heavy snow swiftly obscuring the world outside the windows. My tears turned cold as they ran down my cheeks, and my labored breath shot white clouds like fireworks in front of me.

After months of a slow and steady slide into a now lingering sadness—all my exhausted mind could now process was, “I’m done.”

I didn’t want to kill myself (at least I didn’t process it that way in that moment), I just felt as though I’d exhausted every possibility that a living person could to not feel like this: prayer, therapy, meditation, medication, working out, nature, journaling, art, breathing exercises, positive thinking—and it was all presently failing me. I’d simply run out of options and energy, and I was done.

It didn’t matter that all the objective evidence of my life testified that I should be happy, that I was fortunate, that I had so much to be grateful for, so much to want to live for—none of that registered in that moment, none of that tipped the scales toward hope. The dire story I told myself didn’t require data. It never does.

That’s what people don’t understand about those of us who live with the inner monsters: intellectually we understand that this makes no sense, which is often part of the problem. We don’t just feel terrible—we feel guilty for feeling so terrible.

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The Haldeman maneuver didn’t really work for Nixon.

Trump has a more fanatic following.
Maybe they’ll fall into line.

As if I needed another reminder of my age, Donald Trump brings Bob Haldeman to my mind.

Haldeman was indignant 46 years ago during the Watergate hearings. John Dean had not lied, exactly, but he had misled the world by leaving out something important.

Dean had remembered talking with President Nixon about Watergate burglars. They had been caught and put in jail. They were being pressured to name names. They were about to tell an angry Judge John Sirica just who had ordered them to break into Democratic headquarters.

And they were demanding money from the Nixon people to keep quiet.

John Dean had discussed that demand with his boss, the President of the United States. And he told the Senate Committee on Watergate how that talk had gone:

I told the president about the fact there was no money to pay these individuals, to meet their demands. He asked me how much it would cost. I told him I could only make an estimate, that it might be as high as a million dollars or more.

He told me that that was no problem. He also looked over at Haldeman and repeated the same statement.

Well, that wraps it, I thought at the time. I was young.

Then it was Haldeman’s turn at the witness table. He denied being in that conversation at all.

President Nixon had been secretly recording conversations and this one was on tape. The President refused to let the Senate listen to the tapes, and he refused to let special investigators listen to them.

But Haldeman had been allowed. Even though he wasn’t there – he explained Dean was lying about that – he had heard everything in that conversation on tape and he could let the committee and the world know precisely what Dean had left out.
Continue reading “Nixon and Haldeman Explain How to Save Trump”

• After a stroke that disabled him for a month, Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post is back, comparing our current president with well-respected presidents in our history. Guess who falls short!
   
• Scotties Toy Box has discovered the subversive underground document containing treasonous anti-Trump words, and exposed the very first never-Trumper.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein counts the ways Trump insider Gordon Sondland just made it harder for Republicans to duck.
   
• Green Eagle admits it will be impossible to get 20 Republican senators to vote their conscience and remove Mr. Trump from office with two thirds of the Senate. So he helps out with a way to get impeachment done anyway; with the help of a military parade.

Continue reading “Jack Back, 1st Never-Trumper, 50 min Call, War & Oil, Sondland Sings”

 

From Tommy Christopher:

Former Trump Official Rips Republicans for Believing ‘Fictional’ Russian Propaganda on Ukraine Interference

Former National Security Council official Fiona Hill tore into congressional Republicans —and by extension, President Donald Trump — at an impeachment hearing, excoriating them for believing the “fictional” narrative that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Hill, who was the top Russia adviser on Trump’s NSC until her departure in July, appeared as a witness at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in the Trump impeachment inquiry, and had some sharp words for Republican members of the committee.

But before Hill began her testimony, Ranking Republican Member Devin Nunes tried a prebuttal of sorts by handing out a copy of the House GOP report on Russian interference, and defended his Ukraine conspiracy by saying that “it is entirely possible for two separate nations to engage in election meddling at the same time.”

After introducing herself and providing compelling biographical information, Hill said: “Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did.”

“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” Hill said

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From The Onion:
 
Click to see brief video

Highlights Of The Fifth Democratic Debate

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From jobsanger:

There are some of my brothers and sisters in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party that still like to say there is no difference between the two parties, and that’s why the Democratic Party must move much farther to the left. While I would like to see more progressive ideas passed in Congress, it’s just not true that there is no difference between the parties.

As the chart above shows, there is a huge difference.

– See the Chart –
 

 
From PZ Myers:

She called out to him, where he was working on Christmas dinner, a very Dad thing for him to do, and all I heard in the distance was a strangled yell and “GOD. DAMNED. CAT!” and Mom laughed and said he can’t come to the phone right now.

So those were my father’s last words to me. I have tried to live by them ever since.

The next morning my mother called to say he had died in his sleep. I missed my chance to talk back and tell him all the things Chabon said to his father. Oh well. We were never estranged, there was never any conflict between us, so I guess we just lived those things instead.

I’d still like to have that conversation, though. God damned cat.

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