Kirk Gallaway

Well Benjamin,that was a total rehash,complete with "won't settle worst President ever", Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley", and "good riddance". And actually we did get the book recommendation, only yesterday. Are you sure we can't interest you one last time in "identity politics?"

Good Post W! I agree S.T., you do need time to consider how good a President was, and the historians generally agree with you. This topic has been discussed here and even though I'm not as well versed in it to look into their methodology, I find it interesting. When I was in High School the 2 Presidential failures were Grant and Harding and Buchanan was in the the near failing category. At the time Truman was the more recent President rising in esteem, and James Polk was historic Dark horse who made good and was in the near great category with Andrew Jackson. The consensus among historians at the time was that expansion and annexation was part of the U.S. "manifest destiny" and they pretty much didn't care how many of the native peoples or black slaves they had to squash or subjugate to achieve it. That's no longer much in vogue now. S.T. I am curious as to what you think will bolster the consensus about Trump in the future? I think Trump's most significant contribution will be that he was the first President to recognize the China economic threat, which will only get greater and if you have kids, does threaten future generations IMO. It's hard for me to imagine anything else. If we are eventually able to have Universal Health Care in some form. Obama's Presidency will be hailed as the President who got the ball rolling, as well as successfully guiding us out of the Great Recession. I'm not that keen about that, because that could be all out the window, if another economic disaster of that magnitude happens this decade. But if not, I think the prevailing attitude would be "All's well that ends well", which seems to be the Historian recurring theme.

I like your stream of lines, Benjamin and I'm largely in agreement, but that could be deceiving.. Benjamin:Trump's follies just do not match the horrors of LBJ-Nixon, or even Bush Jr. So if Trump continues polarizing the nation in public office exile, and it foments a U.S. Civil War, would that be enough to get him out of the "small potatoes" category? Or would you argue that that was going to happen anyway? That same argument could probably be made for LBJ and Nixon as you could argue they were just part of a grand bureaucratic locomotive that was inevitably heading toward a SE Asia War, and they had little choice about it, because JFK wasn't going for it and look what happened to him? So the unnecessary loss of life and destruction is a chief criterion in determining a poor, in this case Presidency? I'd agree it's important. We have such a existential clash going on right now between people who have determined that saving as many lives as possible is desirable in a pandemic, by strongly scaling down an economy, even given the obvious trade offs of unemployment, stagnant lives and all the accompanying exacerbated problems, and then on the other side, those who say that the major priority is economic well being for a greater number of people at some considerable expense of lives. Benjamin said: What is happening to Americans today is a corporatist-elite agenda, an undeclared economic assault on the nation's middle class, whatever your race or sex. Smedley Butler's take on foreign policy only needs updating, not revision. OK, I'd agree. Benjamin said: Cliff said:Because he was a sociopathic wanna-be dictator whose narcissism was only matched by his incompetence. I agree with Cliff here, there is no mystery why the financials elites wanted him out, and it's for the reasons Cliff said. I think a big myth about Trump that sustains to this day was that Trump was an anti elitist. Yes he wouldn't be asked for dinner by the Rothschilds, but that ultimately means nothing. Though it's never a monolithic consensus, and some had their doubts, many of which were largely to come true, the U.S. and international markets loved Trump! They loved the lower taxes and his regulatory regime. They loved his anti government stance, and how he fueled it with anti government "deep state" conspiracies, and pulled in the very people they have been plotting successfully the last 40 years to dispossess. Because they really want to shut down the "administrative state' , make the government much smaller and run largely by private interests. In a time where confidence in government and institutions is at an all time low, Trump made the government even more ineffectual. To his followers , he's dismantling the "Deep State", but in reality he's purged the government of many very able career civil servants. Trump exposed a certain myth about the government deep state. Most of that is sort of steeped in the JFK era, when the U.S.controlled half the world's resources after World War ll and Government was expanding beyond itself with greater and greater budgets and it attracted very capable people who competed with each other and were able to amass a great deal of power. Things are much more bureaucratic now. Government jobs aren't near as desirable. There will always be skepticism about the DOD, the intelligence agencies, the DOJ, Homeland Security and government overreach into citizen's lives. But dismantling the SEC, regulatory agencies, the EPA, the Department of the interior,Labor, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Transportation and Veterans Affairs that Trump has done was really like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. and the overall effects of that could last a long time. Any thoughts, anyone? P.S. Oh S.T., you know what they say about U.S. J.B. presidents always preceding a Civil War, right?

Unfortunately, it looks like the Democrats are just going to rush through this thing and fail for a second time, when new evidence could be coming in after it's finished. If there's an eventual goal of prohibiting Trump from running again, I don't know what the hurry is. They've got a few years, but realistically it should be done this year. They could just postpone the start, lie low, continue with their legislative agenda, and let the DOJ investigation take it's course, and then proceed, and continue to let Vance and the New York courts and whatever other state courts prosecute Trump.

Of course a link to her article wouldn't hurt Jim. Jim says, Neither do I think he is the worst president in history. Anyone who thinks that does not realize how bad some of the American presidents really were. That's funny Cliff, I remember back in 2018, I speculated that Trump could be the most corrupt President in U.S. History, and Jim scoffed at that with his characteristic high school snippiness, and said something to the effect. "I shouldn't even spend time talking to you, I mean with Nixon and Murray Chotiner?", Trump's scale of international corruption makes Nixon look like a choir boy, Carl Bernstein even said it. I'd be curious, having some more direct exposure, what Doug thinks of that comparison. Yes Caitlain Johnston, the self described "utopian prepper" that Jim has posted at least 4 or 5 links of articles over the years from Consortium News. That Jim is awakening from his false illusions about Caitlan Johnston, is probably a good thing. She like Jim, would disavow being a Trumpie, yet could never bring herself to really expose Trump, but sort of passed him off as sort of a minor annoyance. That her sense of denial is like any other Trump Republican should hardly be a surprise. Though there were parts of every article I could agree with,often I could see she was operating under a major fallacy.. It was those links and several others I found on the site that convinced me that although CN had been quite good over a number of years, that since Robert Parry's passing, that almost anyone could put an article in Consortium News now.

That is funny W! If Trump did steal vaccine to sell to the Russians, At first I think there would be a hush then this same group of Republicans Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mc Carthy, Rubio,Lindsey Graham,MC Connell would say Trump's behavior was awful. Then they'd wait a few days until the shock wore down , and then say, "On came on, now, this hardly rises to the level of impeachment, besides he's out of office!" Just like they did with the Capitol riots. Chris, I assumed as it turned out by Dave's response, correctly that Dave thought Rand Paul was younger than he thought. I'm not sure I agree with you about 70 being a good age, I think it's getting up there. 60's is ok, but IMO those guys have lost their marbles. In the U.S.,they often "balance the ticket". an example would be Biden picking Harris, who is Black. Asian and 22 years younger. Pence/Paul would be totally white corn belt. That could probably pull in Texas, but they'd have to do more to get Florida, and they need both of them.

Hey, do you think if we found out that all this missing covid vaccine was actually stolen by Trump and sold to the Russians through the black market. Do you think there would be any greater chance of the Republicans convicting Trump? I wouldn't bet on it!

No,they couldn't win. They're both sort of old. They will be 65 and 62. The only factor that's hard to a gauge is how will Trump wear when he's out of office without a real megaphone? There are some of his supporters who will support no one else but Trump. It is good question though. Who would succeed Trump?

This thread has hit Page no. 400 !!! I wonder if this is a forum record. This will forever be a time capsule on this period preceding the 2020 election! I checked and only 20 pages ago, did we double what I believe was the previous record at least since I've been here, and that is the "Mark Zaid" thread initially started by Jim as a commentary about his suspicions of an overly zealous impeachment prosecution of President Trump, citing Zaid's skepticism about re opening an investigation into I believe the RFK assassination. But Jim later had comments that he had perhaps joined our forces against Trump. So, so much for that. Anyway, Congratulations to all who have posted! As to the fact no award can be can be completely unblemished, Unfortunately, even after 2 months of Wheeler's absence, it was only until recently that Steve Thomas had become the contributor with the most posts. Yes a sizable amount of our content was Wheeler's zombie spamming. But there were a lot of quality posts as well. ****** I don't know what Mitch Mac Connell's plan was to finger Trump for the Capitol Insurrection, and then just back down today. I suppose he just wanted to be the 67th vote. You'd think he'd have some incentive after his losing his post, but I'm sure as always, he's calculated in his cynical transparency, that for this second in time, it is the most prudent thing he can do to regain his role as majority leader in 2022, as there's nothing else in life that matters to him. ******* Now I'm just going to indulge. Yes I'm sure Gary Gaetz is a foremost proponent of the School Lunch Programs. Hyeahh, and Ted Cruz , supposedly this foremost proponent of "free market innovation". Yeah right!

Oh I get it Jim, it's just an invite. Sorry to get political. Of course I understand for you why not go wherever you're invited? But it looks like this guy Jason is sort of a Banon , "dismantle the administrative state type guy". He proposes to "join up with us libertarians to restore a system based on free-markets, private property, voluntary charity, and a limited-government republic. That’s the way to a healthy, peaceful, prosperous, harmonious, and free society". Ok, I'd like to see how he would handle the economic displacement from the current pandemic, or if his answer to that would have been to do less than Trump and aim for herd immunity with probably twice the deaths we now suffer? He seems like he's for healthy world trade so we can hardly call him an anti globalist, which is fine with me but where I think we can all agree is that he is more against US. interventionism, but there a lot more to it than that. I definitely agree with him in that I'm against GW's push to privatize Social Security, particularly given that only 4 years later we were to witness a great stock market crash and the Great Recession, which of course would have been an apocryphal disaster! But his problem with privatizing Social Security is that it was just a piecemeal change to appease Libertarians which seems to indicate he has bigger plans, and what else would that be but to eliminate Social Security altogether? I love how he wraps up in a very cute phrase "the welfare -warfare state", like they're one and the same, or at least they sort of follow each other. Of course anyone who hears can't help but agree. Who likes "welfare and warfare"? Just letting you know! ****** Interesting story Greg!

Wow. it appears if this doesn't convict Trump, then we have to accept nothing will. Trump in the last weekend tried to oust the acting AG Rosen, to install this Jeffrey Clarke to invalidate the Georgia election results but all the heads of DOJ would have resigned so Trump backed off. So there was some cause for the Trump fanatics to believe the inauguration day "storm". That Trump would have taken control, invoke martial law and hold on to power. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/22/politics/trump-doj-attorney-plan-replace-acting-ag-false-election-claims/index.html

I noticed Fox News lead their broadcast yesterday with antifa rather than the changeover of power, emphasizing how the left can't control itself, even though just 2 weeks ago, the Trumpies overthrew the Capitol. At this juncture it's so counterproductive. Most people just need a rest and to reflect.

Unfortunately It's a hard time for Q anon supporters, who believed that Trump would use the military yesterday at the last minute and initiate the "storm". They could swear Trump was dog whistling them to that effect. It could have been so awesome! Now the hard core Neo Fascist, White Supremacy groups are swooping in online to convert the Q Anons. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-20/inauguration-sows-doubt-among-qanon-conspiracy-theorists

Arnold getting covid vaccine. Follow me, if you want to live!

.Doug, I was going to ask you in your "Profiles on Spartacus Thread", you talk of the Tom Huston and his Huston Plan which Nixon at least partially implemented, which sounded rather ominous,"The Huston Plan gave new domestic and international powers to the intelligence community, including break-ins, domestic surveillance, and surreptitious entries. It remains classified "Top Secret' I was going to ask you at the time if you knew which parts were implemented. So Huston is the originator of a plan that greatly increased surveillance on both foreign subjects and our own citizens. Yet now here he sounds like the ultimate Libertarian , actually threatening to leave Facebook and Twitter though he admittedly doesn't use them much because I assume he's upset at the action they've taken against Trump and Parler and this "Jihad against Conservatives "to go to of all places Putin's Russia. You see the contradiction. Can you straighten me out on where this guys at?

Right on Cliff, It's not over yet. Now we have to deal with Jim's wacko conspiracy theories! Sounds like a Harris Navalny- Putin nightmare!! heh heh heh heh heh

Really Andrew, If Trump just issued a pardon and Biden just accepted Trump's pardon, and just pulled out and conceded now. Maybe we could just go on with our lives!! I still believe it's possible! But the way it is now. No way can I accept this!

This is a pretty good article about how an Obama supporter turned Trumpie and died of a heart attack at the Capitol Riots. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-radicalization-of-kevin-greeson

Mac Connell's talking tougher. The real issue with him is how much power does he have to preserve the future Republican brand by purging Trump? In the house he'd have little sway because they're 2/3 Trump in favor of the recount.. But in the Senate only 14%of the Republicans favored the recount.

Yeah, didn't you hear Dave? the mods killed him. Paradoxically, both him and Spector will always be geniuses, in their own mind!

Right on Dave!, actually I hate any thread with Wheeler's name on it, though I take it that was a sincere post election reconciliation gesture to Wheeler, by Cliff that events have shown was never truly accepted by Wheeler. Jeff's fine but what is he going to give us, Canadian Mountie Punk? We know he wasn't well. We've heard the stories for years. That's why they put him away. The first one with Specter's "Wall of Sound" the Crystals "Uptown". where they successfully rhyme "tenement" with "pay much rent". Still the great string arrangements with a little piccicado! I love these women! And this is a less produced version. and a bit flawed. I just wish I could combine the first version with this old film of Harlem.

You are starting to hear about these Trump cult stories from family members and neighbors. It's not exactly the same,as this guy has been a right winger before Trump. Paul Gosar, Congressman from Arizona is being investigated as an inside man in the Capitol riots, along with Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks. Their connection is to Ali Alexander who claims to be the first one to conceive of the Jan. 6th, "Stop the Steal" Capitol Protests. Some interesting background about Gosar. His re election was opposed in campaign ads from 6 of his siblings! , who in this ad highlighted in this piece, all look like pretty cool people! Now his siblings are accusing their brother of Treason, they say he has "blood on his hands" and are lobbying Congress for an investigation. Here his brother makes the case for the investigation. He also says in the past, his brother Paul was a white supremecist, an Obama birther, and accuses George Soros of being a N-z- sympathizer. Same old stuff.

It's turned out just as I said, total protective overkill! Washington is an armed camp with 25,000 troops, more than they ever had in Baghdad!, some sleeping on the Capitol floor! These Trumpies are certainly crazy, but anybody would have to be Jonestown , suicidal crazy to take on Washington this weekend, or even the day of Biden's inauguration. It could easily be a total non event. But that doesn't preclude separate acts of terrorism. If they were really cunning they might be refocusing on State Capitols. I notice Newsome here in California has called out 1000 National Guardsman. *** Despite our Q Anon Shaman Bullhorns guy's afadavit, the DOJ has come out and said that there is no direct evidence of kill/capture teams in the Capitol riot so far. https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/15/957201436/u-s-says-rioters-at-capitol-aimed-to-capture-and-assassinate-elected-officials But then, there is another Newsweek article about an FBI witness who say the Proud Boys intended to kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. Apparently there's a conflict in public statements between the FBI and DOJ. https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-intended-kill-mike-pence-nancy-pelosi-fbi-witness-says-1562062 Fox News is bashing AOC for alluding to a threatening incident she can't disclose when she was in sequestration. I don't think they are going to be able to prove Trump had a direct hand in anything outside of inciting a riot on the Capitol, (which you'd think would be enough, right?) So the way it will stand, unless Mac Connell has the influence to persuade other Senators under the banner to continue the present Republican Party. There's certainly not enough time to do a proper investigation that would prove complicity and conceivably turn 17 Republican Senators to convict, strip Trump of privileges and ensure he'll never run again, investigate the inside influences, politicians, police influences throughout the country, and find whoever else is complicit. I don't know exactly how it works, Maybe the House could withhold the articles, focus on the Covid relief, let the DOJ and this Pelosi appointment Honore do their ongoing investigation, and give their results to Congress. And they can act then. Don't want to impeach a third time, out of office! JMO

Wapo said; They've now determined by piecing together the timeline that Pence came within one minute of being killed, and even less time if the group that swore to kill him recognized him down a hall! This because these uninformed morons actually believed Pence had the power to throw the election to Trump because Trump told them so! https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/dc-capitol-rioters-nearly-reached-vice-president-mike-pence.html