Dear Ms. Kirkland … Thank you for the article, and for your concluding paragraph:
We’re now at a moment where Fox hosts are routinely calling for top FBI officials to be dragged off in handcuffs, and the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee believes he is tasked with investigating the DOJ and FBI themselves.
A friend of mine observed long ago that fear of fire can unite a crowded theatre more than the play itself. Perhaps this is what we are seeing today: a picture of panic.
But if there were justice in the world, wouldn’t Nunes already have obstructed it?
Trump and his flying monkeys are doing everything they can to destroy American Democracy.
Think Congress will ‘step up’ and protect us from this Orange Menace? Hah.
Run for office- the 2018 elections are 10 months away! And if Trump and Louie Gohmert and Steve King can get elected what’s to stop a qualified candidate?
Become a Precinct Committee Officer, sometimes it’s a Ward officer. You’ll meet with neighborhood Dems and get out the vote. Find good citizens willing to run for office.
Register people to vote. If you need to help people overcome the GOP-led Voter run-around help them do that.
Run for School Board. Make sure Civics is being properly taught. Think a majority of America knows how government works? Just 26% of eligible voters in America voted for Trump and half of eligible voters stayed home last November. Today’s 12-year olds will be voting for President in 8 years.
Run for Mayor, City Council, County Commissioner, Borough Assembly.
Get appointed to your Planning Commission. Know everything going on in your community.
Run for State Legislature or Congress. The next census is in 2020, just a year and a half from now, when we redraw Congressional Districts. And Trump is ALREADY trying to rig the census!
And get rid of GERRYMANDERING! Safe GOP seats gave us such intellectual giants as Louie Gohmert and Steve King. In most cases it’s the state Legislature that draws Congressional boundaries. Make it FAIR, OPEN and HONEST! We can do this!
Overturn Citizens United. Money is NOT speech and Corporations are NOT people- at least not until Texas executes one, and overturn any voter ID laws that are clearly an attempt to disenfranchise the poor and people of color.
.
“Those who would purposely mislead or seek to confuse others are bad people. Worse, they are evil.”
-Kathleen Parker
You Got To Run!
Trump and his flying monkeys are just the latest face of those who have spent the last 52 years working to destroy American Democracy. In the time from after Barry Goldwater’s candidacy for president was crushed by LBJ in 1964 until today, they have spent billions of dollars convincing the American public that politics is stupid and boring, it has no impact on your life, voting is a waste of time and if you do vote it won’t count anyway. I encourage everyone to search for and read The Powell Memo, written by (then future) Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell to understand how this country was functionally taken over by the Corporatocracy, with both Parties complicit in that takeover. Understanding that is the key to understanding the reality we live in today and how to effectively change it for the better…
Sorry, lifelong Republicans, your party belongs to “movement conservatives” now. They are true believers, have no ethics, and don’t give a rip about you. You are screwed.
[quote=“carlosfiance, post:7, topic:68092”]
It’s pretty scary that a “news” organization like Fox is able to convince a large swath of Republicans that a demonstrably right-leaning organization like the FBI is filled to the brim with conspiring lefties.[/quote]
Yes. Of course they convinced people using a private email server, sending emails to a total of 13 people was a major security risk and worthy of putting someone in jail.
Meanwhile there doesn’t appear to be any risk from the president openly conversing and carrying a cellphone or discussing highly classified material in the middle of a country club.
Perhaps I’m just old, but the last time I remember the FBI being in the news in a big way about political things, it was the appearance of nooses on the desks of black agents. Just not buying the liberal thing.
I don’t believe there is any law enforcement group in the US that has a liberal bias. If I had to bet I’d guess the vast majority of folks that go into law enforcement are very conserative people. Being conserative, wanting people to follow rules, and wanting people that break rules be punished, seem to go hand in hand.
To protect Trump from the federal investigation into Russia’s election
interference, the White House and Capitol Hill Republicans have had to
manufacture an image of the nation’s premiere law enforcement agency
that has no basis in reality.
…
But it does have a basis in 'trump reality’™.
donnie has said he’s the only one who matters so he gets to say what reality is at any given moment.
FBI agents are not superhuman nonpartisans. All those middle aged rightwing Republican white guys who populate its ranks are not immune to the basic appeal of Trumpism. Just saying.
Not just how he GOT it…BUT how he’s kept it after his “unmasking” debacle in the fall.
“Those who would purposely mislead or seek to confuse others are bad people. Worse, they are evil.”
-Kathleen Parker
Kathleen Parker? Isn’t that the blonde conservative twit opinion writer? I’ve replied to her many times over the years, especially during W, reminding her what an idiot she is. This quote may sound good, but she’s an idiot.
I would bet there are at least a hundred readers here who can tell the same story that I have. It is about a young man who grew up in a conservative, military-retired family and was on his way to a successful financial career with one of the big accounting firms. While working toward his CPA, he abruptly quit and joined the FBI. His parents, friends of mine, were upset at first, but have watched the young man spend the last 15 years fighting crime and finding a meaning to his life. It’s not certain, but likely, that he as well as his parents voted Republican in the last election. At the moment, Trump may be winning the war of words with his base, but he is losing the best and brightest, like this young man.
A relative just died a few months ago. He was a retired military, guy, a Fox News Republican who lived in the deep south. He was rabidly anti democrat and thought PBO and HRC were the Devil himself. I’m sure you have similar relatives.
After he died, his wife told me that he was also a devoted fan of–really–Hallmark movies. Those sappy movies filled with nostalgia for a time that never was, predictably solvable problems, and happy endings.
He never missed them. He had to get home to watch his “Hallmark” every night. I’m completely serious about this. At first it made no sense to me. But then I think I got it.
I think, since Reagan, the the GOP has been incredibly successful in peddling this Happy vision of life that was just barely out of reach, but with one more tax cut, we’d get there.
Now, for a completely personal agenda, Trump has cashed that “Happy” check and drained the “Mythical Nostalgia” account and is going into hock. He’s taking a huge gamble on some horrible vision of who and where we are and the dystopia we live in. He’s letting his borrowed cash ride on every throw of the dice.
He’s expecting the same enthusiasm for his Saw movie as my relative had for his Hallmarks. The effect is jarring to me. I hope it is also jarring to republicans.
In tRumpworld, you can attack the law enforcement agency investigating you, as long as you are not Black and attacking local police…
I guess “moderate country club” Republicans loved the FBI as long as they were cracking hippie skulls. Now that the FBI is kicking over the rocks that expose their misdeeds… it’s a different story.
There has never been a Democratic FBI Director. Never. They have all been Republican because Democratic Presidents are afraid of appointing Democrats to that position.
No, I don’t know why they are afraid. They just are.
Obama’s appointment of Comey was one of his worst mistakes.
And the very next hour, tell them it isn’t when they investigate Hillary and then tell them it is again.
Doublethink is the living heart of authoritarianism. The natural authoritarians, the people who are psychologically or neurologically predisposed to authoritarianism because they are naturally fearful and have very low disgust thresholds, take to it like ducks to water. No need to force them. They do it to themselves.
Descriptions like this always make me think of the Frank Burns character from MAS*H.
I still haven’t figured out how Nunes (with the help of the White House) can alter a 4 page document after it was voted out of the House by GOPers in one form, and still be released to the public without another vote on the alterations. That’s some shady stuff he’s got going on.