There it is.
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Garland sat on his dick for 20 months - MORE THAN A YEAR AND A HALF AFTER BEING SWORN IN. He only finally got off his lazy ass in November of 2022. We need to start demanding answers from him. Is he secretly a fascist? Because it sure seems like it.
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But you’re changing the subject. Right now we’re talking about Garland who could have simply let the law play out, but instead protected Trump. Why?
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Miller has read the Melian Dialogue, and taken the wrong lesson from it.
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I seriously doubt that Miller has read Thucidydes, or even knows who he was.
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ultimately though it was Biden that failed us. too many years of comity…
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2026 will be a time for sober reflection on the State of America and it is about time. HST’s alcoholic, stoned, nihilistic ruminations gave clear insight into the heart of darkness at America’s core.
We will see if Blitzkrieg is a short term tactic or long term strategy. “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
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I’m sure he’s at least familiar with who Thucydides is, and he may even have read selections from the historian, whom many political scientists consider a “father of political science.” After all, Miller was a poli sci major at Duke. But he doesn’t have to have read Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue to be familiar with the claim that “…the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Those words are often quoted by political scientists as a summary of political realism.
ETA: Kimberly Guilfoyle told a NYT reporter that she developed an interest in ancient Greece when she took two ancient history courses at UCal Davis, and you could infer from the article that one of the reasons she and Newsom honeymooned in Greece was the interest those courses had sparked in her. I have no reason to think she’s lying or doing anything more than exaggerating. And of course two undergrad courses (one might have been in Roman history) and a honeymoon are hardly adequate preparation for an ambassadorship to Greece. Just sayin’ that you never know what people might have studied in college, or read since, that has had an impact on their thinking.
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Among other things, I think you are engaged in a hindsight reconstruction of the facts. The US had never had a president like trump and the US had never prosecuted an ex-president. There was no precedent - a sober, apolitical process was warranted. Making sure that trump was charged with crimes that would stick was warranted. In hindsight we can say that we wish Garland had been more bold. And we can damn sure say that he SHOULD have been more bold. But we and Garland could not have predicted that the the stonewalling in Florida and the DC Circuit was going to be successful or that the SupCt was essentially going to declare couping and theft of top secret documents to be official presidential actions free from prosecutorial review.
And as @blandsten pointed out above, this is essentially on the American voter (and the media). The voters knew EXACTLY who trump is and they voted for him anyway. Thanks, racism and misogyny.
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Assume, contrary to the actual facts, that everything Jack Smith ended up charging him with over J6 was known to DOJ on January 28, 2021. The Sicko Six are still in firm control of SCOTUS. You think they would have found religion and let the case go to trial? Fuck no.
Where we lost the plot was not J6. It was trump v. U.S.
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Capt. Ahab (Moby Dick) welds his crew to his maniacal quest. Kurtz (Heart of Darkness) terrorizes the native tribes to his authority. These fictional characters are American. Trump is more than half fiction, a myth of his own making, with the aid of the hard right media-sphere. Malignant narcissists create their own cults to serve their own purpose and there are more than one on the far right.
Trump’s promise and purpose is to break the government deadlock, disrupt the balance, end the trench warfare that Republicans and Democrats have been locked in since the Nixon and Reagan era. Trump is their weapon to blow through the Constitution, political opposition, Law, Institutions, and whatever else is in their way. This is what MAGA wants and it is not coming, not incremental, it is here.
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True, but so was everyone in the Biden administration and every Democratic leader who failed and refused to make it their first order of business to put Trump and every other Republican insurrectionists in jail. Democrats were and are all cowards, who are afraid that if they take action and do the right thing, it will harm their political chances. Contrast Trump and the republicans who boldly throw the Constitution out the window, do whatever they want, legal or illegal, and say, “so what? we are in power so eff off.” Republicans may be wrong but, unlike Democrats, they take action to do what they told their voters they would do, they give their voters what they want, and they screw their opponents like they promised to do. Democrats are afraid to do anything because they are afraid to get punched back like the cowardly weaklings who give up their lunch rather than fight back against the bullies and get a black eye. Until Democrats grow a collective pair of balls, there will be no stopping the Republicans and their version of government at will of their leader. Democrats may win an election or two, but, like Obama, Republicans won’t let them govern or make appointments while in office, and Dems will sit back and let the Republicans tie their hands again, just like Obama and Biden. So it’s bigger than just Merrick Garland, there’s a rot of self-serving complacency that has set into the Democratic party and weakened it to its core. Until we get rid of those rotten members, the Democrats will never be able to successfully restore and defend America.
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nah, it was 01/28 when the republican party chose their side. And all Qevin got was kicked out.
Still has the taste of dick in his mouth.
eta: that’s how bipartisan Biden was, don;t rock the boat baby!
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There is plenty of blame here. An insurrection demanded an immediate response. Much was known of Trump’s hand in the insurection on January 6. Wilkerson was a career DOJ employee. Acting AG Monty Wilkerson should have had Trump arrested on January 21. At the very least, he should have named a special counsel.
I understand Obama’s nomination of Garland for the Supreme Court. It was a gambit to maneuver a “bipartisan” pick past Mitch McConnell. Garland, at least, would have been a keen defender of precedent. Biden should never have named a Federalist Society member as AG.
Merrick Garland was chosen to project calm, restraint, and respect for institutions. In a normal moment, those traits might have been virtues. But this was not a normal moment.
After January 6th, the country needed an Attorney General who understood that the rule of law only survives if it is enforced without fear or favor. Instead, Garland approached the Department of Justice as though the greatest risk was appearing political -rather than allowing a failed coup to go insufficiently answered.
The result was hesitation where urgency was required. While foot soldiers were prosecuted promptly, accountability for those who organized, financed, and incited the attack came slowly, if at all. Justice delayed is not neutrality; it is a decision with consequences. Delay allowed evidence to grow stale, witnesses to scatter, statutes of limitation to loom, and public confidence to erode.
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Thanks so much for the kind words! It’s not about my own experience that day, but I did co-write The Breach with Denver Riggleman. The book shares his story of a brief, intense stint in Congress as well as an insider account of the J6 Committee investigation.
I am obviously biased but I think it’s a worthwhile read if you care about this topic!
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I don’t disagree. Every fucking Democrat over the age of 40 is living in a different fucking time. The older they are, the worse it is. All geriatric Democrats need to go, and I’m sick of hearing about the brave women who broke the glass ceiling, that was two fucking generations ago. If your resume stops around 1980, fuck off. After we oust all the fucking elderly idiots, let’s rip the fucking DNC down and burn it to the ground. It’s a breeding ground for corporate democrat bullshit.
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We have spent untold billions on national defense, national security, CIA, military, military intelligence, spy vs spy, and all those agencies and people just let a Russian agent walk in and run for prez. I blame all of them…and Obama…for complete lack of imagination and defending the country.
That doesn’t mean that the real blame for all of this doesn’t lie with the Rs and the malefactors and enablers of Chump. It does. But it really matters how we use the power and the govt. when we are in control…and protecting our govt. and constitution and natsec are the prime directives.
So it surely it isn’t just Biden or Biden/Garland. What a colossal, mind-blowing, TOTAL failure across the board. All the agencies, all the departments, all those decades and trillions? spent. Each and every one of those agencies and all of the people working there…a lot of tough talk. A lot of how desperate and dangerous the job of protecting our nation was. All that “if I told you, I’d have to kill you” derring-do and chest beating and they all folded like a used kleenex.
Still, when it was MORE than obvious what was going on, it fell to Biden and the US Govt. under his direction that decided nothing much needed to be done. Business as usual, file some charges. Nothing to get too excited about, no special measures needed.
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