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A comparison between FDR and Trump in their Thanksgiving speeches.
“I’ve made a tremendous difference in the country. This country is so much stronger now than it was when I took office that you wouldn’t believe it,” said Trump. “I mean, you see, but so much stronger people can’t even believe it. When I see foreign leaders they say we cannot believe the difference in strength between the United States now and the United States two years ago. Made a lot of progress.”
and
“May we ask guidance in more surely learning the ancient truth that greed and selfishness and striving for undue riches can never bring lasting happiness or good to the individual or to his neighbors.
May we be grateful for the passing of dark days; for the new spirit of dependence one on another; for the closer unity of all parts of our wide land; for the greater friendship between employers and those who toil; for a clearer knowledge by all nations that we seek no conquests and ask only honorable engagements by all peoples to respect the lands and rights of their neighbors; for the brighter day to which we can win through by seeking the help of God in a more unselfish striving for the common bettering of mankind.”
Can you guess which is the FDR quote and which is Trump’s?
There’s my “TDS” expression for the morning.
Through this link is essential reading for anyone who assumes based on the Bob Marley song that Haile Selassie was a force for progress.
While we have so many people in this country willing to look the other way with corruption when the regime makes them feel comfortable if not heroic in their bigotries, people in other countries are willing to take huge chances for a better future. This young Chilean woman and her friends are protesting in the context of a not-so-distant murderous history of their country where a US-backed regime killed the elected President and many of his advisers, assassinated opposition leaders around the world including Washington DC were our own government pretty much looked the other way, and rounded up thousands of young activists like these and tortured and/or killed them while for years afterward people who spoke up simply “disappeared.”
Just a little context as our own President is already starting to purge the military and agencies of career officials who won’t suck up to him as millions here defend the indefensible.
With the discussions about Harriet Tubman of late I had been trying to remember a made-for-kids-TV movie from the early 70s in which a young man escaped from slavery and all I could remember was a constant refrain “follow the north star” (it comes up in Harriet too). I have only vague memories of it and I couldn’t remember the name of the film. Since I was watching stuff about Tubman and the Railroad, this popped up on my youtube recommendations. As it turns out, the film was entitled “Follow the North Star.” Go figure.
I remember it was an after school special. My parents both worked so I spent afternoons with a baby-sitter down the street who made a few bucks watching other parents’ kids until the parents came home. I remember that she was a bit conservative and told a friend of hers that “I’m happy to make some money watching the children, but a woman’s place is in the home” in reference to mothers who worked.
Anyway, normally we watched Kimba, Speed Racer, and the New Zoo Review on her television if we didn’t go out to play. But her son was flipping through the channels and this film was on. We watched it for about 15 minutes before his mother came from the back room and changed the channel saying, “This is depressing kids. America needs to move forward not backwards!”
This was during the Nixon-McGovern campaign so everything was politically charged. She was actually a nice enough woman. As a snack she sometimes served us hot dogs rolled into a corn tortilla with mustard and it stuck with me well into adulthood. (Nothing but mustard – keep it simple). But I was, in the third grade, disappointed when she turned off an educational program for cartoons because it was “depressing.”
However, it did air more than once and I was finally able to watch it at my own home at some point. I had known about slavery from books and class lessons, but I think watching this film brought it home to me. I have no idea how well written or accurate it was as I haven’t had the opportunity to rewatch it. But to my 8-year-old mind it made the concept more personal – sinking in that real people I could relate to actually lived as slaves.
Anyway, I’ll watch it later and if I have anything intelligent to say about it I will post it.
At this point the only people who are still in the Trump administration are kiss-ass sycophants. Pompeo is taking it off the deep end.
Lanny Davis discusses the Hamilton standard for impeachment.
And the third question I ask of Rep. Hurd is the most important: If these are the constitutional standards for impeachment, and these are the indisputable facts, why would you not vote for impeachment? Specifically, my question is: If not now, then when?
I had speculated that the reason that the House Democrats aren’t going to push the subpoenas of the bigger fish in court is that it will be on the Senate in the trial. Justice Roberts will be making the evidence decisions. Yes, he can be overridden by a majority of the Senate, but that would look really bad. So I suspected that in the final report, Schiff will simply say, “We subpoenaed them. They didn’t show. Maybe they will be more cooperative with you (the Senate).”
Well, that’s exactly his thinking. At that point it will be in the Republicans’ court. They can all anyone they want. Joe Biden and/or his son. Adam Schiff. Whatever they think will get to the core of the truth, as they want it revealed. They could even, in theory, prevent Democrats from asking questions. All that – in an election season.
And as Esquire notes, it was quite the dump!
1) That Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani’s Volga Bagmen who now sits under federal indictment, has indicated that he can put Rep. Devin Nunes, the famous White House lawn ornament, in the middle of the effort to concoct the Ukrainian Fantasy about the ratfcking of the 2016 election.
2) That the inspector general of the Department of Justice will produce his report on December 9, and early reports are that, while it will be critical of sloppiness in the FBI, it will state that there was no bias against the president* in how the FBI investigation into the involvement of the Russian ratfckers was launched. Not that this will do anything to silence the screeching of the flying monkeys, but it pretty conclusively slams the door on the notion that the previous administration’s concern for the Trump campaign and Russia was the manifestation of some sort of dark manipulation based on inherent bias.
3) That The New York Times reports that the intelligence community has concluded that the entire Ukrainian Fantasy about the ratfcking of the 2016 election is an intercontinental okey-doke perpetrated by the Russian intelligence services.
In a briefing that closely aligned with Dr. Hill’s testimony, American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a years long campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election, according to three American officials. The briefing came as Republicans stepped up their defenses of Mr. Trump in the Ukraine affair.
4) That a massive release of State Department documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request ropes in practically everyone, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the effort to smear former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich, in order to get her out of the way so that the shakedown might proceed. This, of course, involves Rudy Giuliani, because anything that’s screwed up about this administration now involves Rudy Giuliani.
You have to admit. That’s one helluva Friday.
So now Nunes says he will sue CNN, the Daily Beast, etc.
So let’s see, he’s already sued Esquire, Twitter, Fusion GPS, Campaign for Accountability, the Fresno Bee, a fruit farmer, and a fake cow. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Meanwhile, a prominent House Democrat is saying that there will probably be an ethics investigation.
Sohum Parlance II 
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