Douglas Caddy Posted December 11, 2021 Share Posted December 11, 2021 AT HIS DEATH, BOB DOLE FEARED FOR THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY BY ALLAN C. BROWNFELD————————————————————————————————————————————The death of Bob Dole has taken from us the kind of public servant democracies depend upon if they are to survive, and thrive. Today, when Democrats and Republicans tend to view themselves as enemies rather than joint participants in the democratic enterprise of governing, the very future of our society is open to question.The Founding Fathers feared that the democratic society they were creating might not last. John Adams declared that, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.”At his death, Bob Dole feared for America’s future. He left behind an important statement, headlined, “America needs unity to rediscover its greatness.” He recalled that, “Many times during my time as majority leader I would step out on my office balcony overlooking the National Mall and be reminded of what made my journey possible. Facing me were monuments to our nation’s first commander in chief , the author of our Declaration of Independence, and the president who held our union together. In the distance were the countless graves of those who gave their lives so that we could live free. That inspiring view came back to me as I watched the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol…I thought about the symbol of our democracy consumed by anger, hatred and violence.”To survive, in Dole’s view, we need bipartisanship and a willingness to compromise, but something beyond this as well: “I cannot pretend that I have not been a loyal champion for my party, but I always served my country best when I did so first and foremost as an American. I fought for veterans benefits not as a Republican but as someone who witnessed the heroism of our service members firsthand. I advocated for those with disabilities not as a member of the GOP but as someone who personally understood the limitations of a world without basic accommodations. I stood up for those going hungry not as a leader in my party but as someone who had seen too many folks sweat through a hard day’s work without being able to put dinner on the table.”The narrow partisanship of the current moment, the refusal to compromise, is something Bob Dole hopes we will move beyond: “When we prioritize principles over party and humanity over personal legacy, we accomplish far more as a nation. By leading with a shared faith in one another, we become America at its best: a beacon of hope, a source of comfort in crisis, a shield against those who threaten freedom….Our nation has certainly faced periods of division, but at the end of the day, we have always found ways to come together.”At his funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral, Dole was eulogized by both President Biden, with whom he served in the Senate for many years, and the former Democratic leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle. Discussing Dole, Daschle recalled, “Bob liked to share a story from when he was first elected to Congress and a reporter asked what his agenda would be. He said, ‘I’m going to sit and watch for a couple of days, and then I’ll stand up for what’s right.’ That’s exactly what he did. He stood up for minorities early in his career when he broke party ranks and supported the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. He stood up for the elderly and worked with Democratic Sen.Daniel Patrick Moynihan (N.Y.) to save Social Security. He stood up for the young and worked with my fellow South Dakotan George McGovern on nutrition assistance. He stood up for the disabled and worked with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on the Americans With Disabilities Act…His life was a testament to Will Rogers’s truth: that the things that make us human—-the laughs we share and the burdens we bear——can make us great.”Bob Dole’s death came at a time when democracy is not only being increasingly challenged in our own country, but appears to be in retreat throughout the world. Freedom House reports that 2020 was the 15th consecutive year of freedom declining around the world. “Nearly 75 per cent of the world’s population lived in a country that faced deterioration last year,” Freedom House found. This year—-with Tunisia, Myanmar, Sudan and Afghanistan all becoming more tyrannical—-is no better. Things could soon become worse as Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and China threatens Taiwan. As Anne Applebaum writes in The Atlantic, “The Bad Guys are winning.”In our own country, democracy is also being challenged. Our political parties are not working together to solve the nation’s problems. Bipartisanship and compromise, essential ingredients if democracy is to work, are viewed with contempt by many. In a Pew Research Center poll this year, only 17 per cent of the people in 16 democratic countries expressed confidence in the United States as a role model for democracy.Bob Dole concluded his final statement with the hope that America would rediscover the values it once held dear: “I do have hope that our country will rediscover its greatness. Perhaps it is the optimism that comes from spending 98 years as a proud American. I grew up in what others have called the Greatest Generation. Together, we put an end to poopoo tyranny. Our nation confronted Jim Crow, split the atom, eliminated the anguish of polio, planted our flag on the moon, and tore down the Berlin Wall. Rising above partisanship, we made historic gains in feeding the hungry and housing the homeless. To make a more perfect union, we swung open the doors of economic opportunity for women who were ready to rise to their fullest potential and leave shattered glass ceilings behind them.”Bob Dole also brought humor to our political life. President Biden, who served with Dole in the U.S. Senate for 25 years, joked about Dole being the deciding vote to continue funding Amtrak, which Biden used to commute between Delaware and Washington, D.C. Dole was asked, , “Why, in God’s name, did you vote to continue to fund Amtrak?” He replied, “If I didn’t, Biden would stay overnight and cause more trouble.” Biden says, “Dole would have made it as a stand-up comedian.”Our current political life does not reflect the values Bob Dole represented so well. He lived in an era, not very long ago, when American politics worked. Let us hope that we will rediscover the values that he represented so well. ## Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Allison Posted December 11, 2021 Share Posted December 11, 2021 Assange will be extradited? Good. He deserves it for this alone: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Carter Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 1 hour ago, Matt Allison said: Assange will be extradited? Good. He deserves it for this alone: The quote you share was featured in an article by Julia Ioffe and published in The Atlantic in November 2017. The correspondence the article was based on was conducted by individuals at the Wikileaks organization, not Assange personally. In fact, Assange’s internet connectivity had been cut months before the communications in question. So what’s your trip, Matt? Why do you seem to support, if not relish, the prospect of a life-sentence in an American Super-Max prison for a journalist / publisher who never worked inside the United States, based on, in your formulation, quotations he was not even personally responsible for? I thought your utterly naive comment that Powell’s 2003 UN misrepresentation was simply his being “fooled” by “contemporaneous intelligence” was peak credulity, but here you expose a disturbingly casual sadistic streak as well. Do you know that The Atlantic piece from which the quote you provide appeared, was ripped by other journalists for deliberately editing materials to mislead the readers of the story as to the “actual meaning and purpose of the exchanges with Donald Jr. remain at least somewhat open to interpretation.” https://reason.com/2017/11/14/did-the-atlantic-prove-wikileaks-knew-it/ As analyst Caitlin Johnstone pointed out, Ioffe edited one of the messages to infer that Wikileaks was seeking to deflect attention from its self-perception as a “pro-Trump pro-Russia” source - an inference which immediately was widely re-tweeted and reported in the US mainstream media - when in fact the organization was noting that the inference was instead something “the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.” Big difference. Journalistic malpractice: “If you exclude important information while communicating that you have not, you are blatantly lying to your readers.” “WikiLeaks comes off looking weird and sleazy in a way that will likely damage its reputation even further than the mainstream media campaign to smear the outlet already has. WikiLeaks is seen asking for favors Trump never fulfilled, making recommendations Trump Jr. didn't act upon, and asking for leaks Trump Jr. never gave them, which when you step back and think about it are actually fairly normal things for a leak outlet to do, all things considered.” https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-atlantic-commits-malpractice-selectively-edits-to-smear-wikileaks-65ecd7c2468f Julian Assange published factual information which revealed high crimes and misdemeanours of elite persons who act with impunity under cover of official secrecy. He did a service for all of us, and will unfortunately have his head metaphorically mounted on a pike as an example to any who might think to follow. This travesty of justice demeans and cheapens our society’s heritage and legal traditions, even as it empowers the very worst amongst us. It will be a historic marker for the rapid degeneration into the end stage of whatever it is we have become. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W. Niederhut Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 (edited) Julian Assange’s Hatred of Hillary Clinton Was No Secret. His Advice to Donald Trump Was. Some longtime supporters of Julian Assange were appalled when his secret correspondence with the Trump campaign was revealed this week. https://theintercept.com/2017/11/15/wikileaks-julian-assange-donald-trump-jr-hillary-clinton/ November 17, 2017 Excerpt The revelation that WikiLeaks secretly offered help to Donald Trump’s campaign, in a series of private Twitter messages sent to the candidate’s son Donald Trump Jr., gave ammunition to the group’s many detractors and also sparked anger from some longtime supporters of the organization and its founder, Julian Assange. One of the most high-profile dissenters was journalist Barrett Brown, whose crowdsourced investigations of hacked corporate documents later posted on WikiLeaks led to a prison sentence. Brown had a visceral reaction to the news, first reported by The Atlantic, that WikiLeaks had been advising the Trump campaign. In a series of tweets and Facebook videos, Brown accused Assange of having compromised “the movement” to expose corporate and government wrongdoing by acting as a covert political operative. Brown explained that he had defended WikiLeaks for releasing emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, “because it was an appropriate thing for a transparency org to do.” But, he added, “working with an authoritarian would-be leader to deceive the public is indefensible and disgusting.” He was particularly outraged by an Oct. 21, 2016 message, in which Assange had appealed to Trump Jr. to let WikiLeaks publish one or more of his father’s tax returns in order to make his group’s attacks on Hillary Clinton seem less biased. “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” the Assange-controlled @Wikileaks account suggested. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.” Edited December 12, 2021 by W. Niederhut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 Many independent people wondered if Trump was the least bad option in recent times. Assange has an encyclopedia of legitimate reasons to loathe, detest and revile the Donks and 'Phants in the US. Evidently, the Biden Administration wants Assange in prison for revealing Hillary's e-mails, which revealed how the Clinton wing of the Donk party stole the 2016 primary election from Sanders. I am very uncomfortable with prosecuting, let alone incarcerating, people who publish documents that come into their hands. The signal is sent: Do not publish anything, unless you can afford lawyers and you might go to prison anyway. All citizens lose in this scenario, now becoming the norm. And that is the face of the modern Donk party: They want to control the news, they want gatekeepers, and they have made little secret about it. If you like throwing Assange into prison, then you like having the "news" as curated by the Donks and 'Phants. Good luck with that. I would hope that people who are deeply knowledgeable about the JFKA, and the related control and manipulation of the media, would regard prosecuting Assange as an abomination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 (edited) Ben:Assange has an encyclopedia of legitimate reasons to loathe, detest and revile the Donks and 'Phants in the US. And Ben doesn't go into it. Does that answer anything or absolve anybody? It's only fueling a case for Assange's extreme bias! What W. was talking about is what I had also heard. Assange approached Donald Trump Jr. for Wiki leaks to ask for a year of Donald Trump's tax returns to dampen the perception that wiki leaks was acting as a tool for Donald Trump. If Jeff has is that Assange internet connectivity was cut off during that period as well, that strikes me as very weak as I'm sure Assange is adept at communicating through any number of non traceable channels as well. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson is a gift that keeps giving . We now find out that Tuckers son Buckley (another aristocratic twist,father like son, a son with a surname for a first name!) was inside the Capitol on !/6! Hence there is an untold connection in Tucker Carlson's 3 part series, Patriot Purge (which Ben was recommending for us all to see)using his position to propagandize reasons for his son's presence which he has been quiet about for 11 months! Will this in any way, effect the Fox Nation or Ben's perception of Carlson? Probably not! https://www.salon.com/2021/12/11/tucker-carlson-says-son-was-in-us-capitol-building-on-jan-6/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tucker-carlson-son-capitol-building-riot-b1973389.html Edited December 12, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Bulman Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Kirk Gallaway said: Ben:Assange has an encyclopedia of legitimate reasons to loathe, detest and revile the Donks and 'Phants in the US. And Ben doesn't go into it. Does that answer anything or absolve anybody? It's only fueling a case for Assange's extreme bias! What W. was talking about is what I had also heard. Assange approached Donald Trump Jr. for Wiki leaks to ask for a year of Donald Trump's tax returns to dampen the perception that wiki leaks was acting as a tool for Donald Trump. If Jeff has is that Assange internet connectivity was cut off during that period as well, that strikes me as very weak as I'm sure Assange is adept at communicating through any number of non traceable channels as well. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson is a gift that keeps giving . We now find out that Tuckers son Buckley (another aristocratic twist,father like son, a son with a surname for a first name!) was inside the Capitol on !/6! Hence there is an untold connection in Tucker Carlson's 3 part series, Patriot Purge (which Ben was recommending for us all to see)using his position to propagandize reasons for his son's presence which he has been quiet about for 11 months! Will this in any way, effect the Fox Nation or Ben's perception of Carlson? Probably not! https://www.salon.com/2021/12/11/tucker-carlson-says-son-was-in-us-capitol-building-on-jan-6/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tucker-carlson-son-capitol-building-riot-b1973389.html That's wild Kirk. Carlson's son Inside the House on 1/6. Shouldn't he be prosecuted for breaking and entering at the least, of a Federal facility? A felony? But he'll probably become a darling of the far right like Rittenhouse. Give him an AR-15 as an award for his initiative. Edited December 12, 2021 by Ron Bulman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 (edited) Ron, I'm not completely sure what to make of it, because his son does work for a congressman. So where was his son and why has Carlson kept it a secret for so long? It should be public knowledge. You would have thought if Carlson didn't reveal it, someone would have asked him by now. But he does get by not answering a lot of things, once when asked if he was covid vaccinated he absurdly responded by asking the questioner "who are all the people you've had sex with?", as if there's any comparison in questions. This is weird, i just got finished watching a basketball game, and on ABC,they're playing a 90 minute long, 2021 documentary called "JFK unsolved". It does show Hoover's call to LBJ, and a clip of Josiah Thompson and I see it's not just a revamp of a dozen or so pro WR film documentaries I've seen before. I got to see where this goes. Edited December 12, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 "JFK unsolved" Warren report is a coverup,Now we have Vince Salandria meeting Josiah Thompson. We're behind the Grassy Knoll now, Holland Bowers. If anybody is on the West Coast, turn on ABC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 Completed- Josiah Thompson gig-- triangulation, JFK 2 headshots , one from TSBD, one from Grassy Knoll. It is the most most pro JFK conspiracy show I've seen on any of the major U.S. networks since Sylvia Chase and also the Crenshaw interview, both on ABC, almost 30 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Schwartz Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 Steve T., more on that powerpoint presentation (re: Mark Meadows)..https://www.aol.com/news/player-powerpoint-election-overthrow-plot-024329871.html Trump and his flunkies want to install a non- democratic government in the open. Those that killed JFK and covered it up installed a non-democratic government, but they did it under cover. History doesn't repeat itselr, but it rhymes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Hammond Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 15 hours ago, Matt Allison said: Assange will be extradited? Good. He deserves it for this alone: Matt could you explain what is wrong with this passage ? I appear to be missing something, genuinely I can't see what your issue is here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Allison Posted December 13, 2021 Share Posted December 13, 2021 My "trip" Jeff, is democracy. Don't try to blame someone else for that message that was sent to Trump Jr. Do you spend this much time trying to bring down democracy in your own country, or is it just the United States you're working on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted December 13, 2021 Share Posted December 13, 2021 This is what the Donk Party has come to? It warms the cockles of the Donk heart to throw Julian Assange into prison? Really? Throwing a bunch of 1/6 lulus into prison for years, like Mr. Buffalo Horns? Ramping up internet censorship? Lionizing Liz Cheney and George Bush jr.? Extolling the virtues of the national security state? Declaring people guilty, not on the basis of convictions or confessions, but on accusations? I have seen all of this before....the old, establishment GOP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Hammond Posted December 13, 2021 Share Posted December 13, 2021 1 minute ago, Benjamin Cole said: This is what the Donk Party has come to? It warms the cockles of the Donk heart to throw Julian Assange into prison? Really? Throwing a bunch of 1/6 lulus into prison for years, like Mr. Buffalo Horns? Ramping up internet censorship? Lionizing Liz Cheney and George Bush jr.? Extolling the virtues of the national security state? Declaring people guilty, not on the basis of convictions or confessions, but on accusations? I have seen all of this before....the old, establishment GOP. This thread is a scar on the 'JFK debate' forum . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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