We don't need more investigations that demonstrate Trump's corruption and criminality. We need Democratic strategists and politicians who can deftly package the information (we already have) to use proactively against Republicans to frame the narrative.
ProPublica gift wrapped a detailed report of a brilliant investigation into SCOTUS, and Durbin/Whitehouse promptly did nothing with the information.
Part of the reason that information about Trump lands with a thud is that Democrats do nothing with the information...they believe that raw information is sufficient, whereas voters see their inaction as proof of government dysfunction.
The 1/6 Committee was the sole example of a different approach, largely because of Cheney's role in shaping the narrative.
Trump sold his soul and our country to the Russians many years before his Presidency and his illicit income from other foreign sources. In 2008, Trump Jr. announced that the "Trump organization no longer worked with U.S. banks (because they refused to loan Trump money due to his four bankruptcies) and they were now working with Russian banks and had received $100 million. (www.businessinsider) This is millions of dollars of black cash funneled into the U.S. via Trump's real estate deals as laundered money. It hurts our economy but benefitted Trump. So at least ten years prior to the Russians maneuvering Trump into the White House, Trump was on the KGB payroll. Russians loan money to foreigners for one reason - to gain control of that person, their assets, or their country. They also loaned $9.8 million to Marie LePen who is the French presidential opposition leader. Americans need to WAKE UP and realize the level of corruption that Trump has brought to our country, our government, and our way of life. Elizabeth
Dear Jamie: Let's dig some more please. In a 2008 conference, Trump Jr. announced that the Trump organization had received $100 million from Russian banks. I spent the majority of my career in Russia and Central Asia - about 20 years, became bi-cultural, and wrote the bestseller From Democracy to Democrazy (www.democrazy2020.org). Russian banks do not just lend money without expecting something in return other than interest. This money was a bribe and enabled Trump to continue processing Russian black cash into the U.S. via his real estate businesses. This is millions of dollars which hurt our economy but benefited Trump. So honestly - Trump was on the KGB payroll for years. He doesn't care where the money comes from, and the stupidity of this man is beyond belief. He sold his soul and our country to the Russians at least ten years before he was sleeping in the WH or before he received millions of dollars from the Chinese and others. Is he a traitor - you bet!
We need for the Dems in Congress to create a study that proves Trump has used century-old mass mind manipulation - telling lies over and over until they are perceived as the truth. When hatred are included in the lies - which Trump used daily - then a chemical in the human brain is released to enact violence. This is exactly what we saw on January 6th. Once a person is brainwashed, independent thought can be impossible. Jim Jones, who thought he was God, amassed a group of about 900 followers. He told them all to drink KoolAid laced with poison, and they all perished. Hitler converted an entire peaceful nation into mass murderers and 6 to7 million humans were tortured and murdered.
China, Russia, Austria, Italy, and a host of other dictator-led countries have used these cohesive methodologies. Lo and behold it is now found in the U.S. In 2022, I was at a book signing event at a Barnes and Noble in Tucson. A middle-aged woman came up to me and said "I think Putin is a great leader." I was so shocked that I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Trump had said these exact same words only one week prior. Yesterday (January 4th), an Iowa voter was asked what it would take for her to change her vote from Trump - and all she could think of was a tragedy.
It is time for the Dems of our country to yell and jump up and down. We need to develop a detoxification methodology that can be universally fed to Republicans so they - at a minimum - realize the corruption that Trump has unleashed in our country and how he is manipulating them - like asking for contributions for his criminal trials and then he doesn't pay his attorneys but pockets this money.
We need for Congress and the Courts to move faster. Time is running out, and once it stops our entire form of government may be lost. Elizabeth Graham
"Imagine if upon release of Raskin’s report, a Senate Democratic chairman with jurisdiction over these foreign payments had taken up the baton: This report proves that Donald Trump accepted cash payments from foreign governments throughout his presidency, and suggests we have much more to learn; we’re going to get to the bottom of all of it.
Isn’t that a nice thought?"
Getting past my initial reaction of despair (because I agree further action from our feckless Dem politicos is unlikely), here is my question: just *who* are the potential Senate Chairs who might plausibly be able to do something here? Can you name them & give us contact information to direct comments urging them to take action?
Yeah, as of now it's going to be one more barely remembered Trump transgression. The Times ran it on Page 14 in the paper; I saw it at the bottom of their website for a minute or two; didn't see it at all on the Post's site. Can't someone in Biden's beloved Senate give him some help?
The firing of Claudine Gay made me sad. It was ironic that a black woman was made a scapegoat for seeming insufficiently anti-racist: she wasn't anti-anti-semitic enough, in their view. I have heard even Jews on the Left complain that she was too mealy-mouthed. Not all of these people have thought about the difference between saying something offensive in a seminar--"Israel was created by neo-imperialist forces in Europe and the US and is an illegitimate state"--and screaming "Down with Zionism!" at Jewish students attending a Hillel event, for example. That's the difference between saying something controversial and probably wrong, and harassment.
In my own small college town, this confusion exists: some tenured professors on the Left threatened and doxxed a conservative adjunct for being "racist." They created a flyer with a picture of him on it, with the words "You are on our list" underneath and other words accusing him of racism and a few other thought crimes. They distributed this flyer one night on the campus of Tennessee Tech university. The targeted professor came in the next morning, saw the flyers with his face on them, freaked out, and called the police.
The professors who created the flyer were censured and disciplined (but not fired) by the university. They counter-sued, alleging that their "freedom of speech" had been abridged. (The judge threw out that case.) Many Democrats in my town believed that their freedom of speech had indeed been curtailed. I tried without success to explain that harassing and threatening a colleague is not protected speech and should never be. (Anyway the first amendment is about the GOVERNMENT abridging speech, not a university.) Nobody believed me except the other liberal faculty members who were afraid that there would be retaliation against liberal professors. The last thing we need is to be doxxed in a red state! The whole episode was very dispiriting, and it made Democrats in our town look bad. Nevertheless some Democrats were quite proud and said it was "good trouble." I was just ashamed and frightened.
I am afraid that 2024 is going to be one long episode of culture war, maybe especially in academia: people weaponizing small mistakes and trying to get their enemies fired. It will be like China during the Cultural Revolution.
All true but members and hill staff *know* this works and still won't do it. When it comes to politics they're stupid and generally intellectually lazy but they're not that stupid. Stakeholders (including activists) should all be having a discussion about the best ways to hem in Trump legally and politically but the discussion is incomplete without discussing the Dark Matter here: the reasons Hill Dems and strategists simply don't want to mount a response to this.
That’s a remarkably content-free message in isolation. Saying “there’s a secret force you don’t understand which explains apparent counter-interest behavior” is almost tautological; it applies to any situation from poker to industrial standardization bodies, for motivations from unwarranted chumminess to financial profit to blackmail to assassination.
The reasons they don't want to do this are not secret and everyone on the Hill understands them. They're happy to tell you or the press and they certainly don't consider themselves as engaging in counter-interest behavior or a secret plot. They think they are savvy and viewpoints like this website are naive. The Capitol Hill groupthink is the dark matter in these twitter discussions about 'Why won't they just do what works' not, you know, for human existence.
Public positions aren’t always what they seem. Putting out a pro-law-and-order OpEd may do little good if there is not a large enough faction to enforce the law (part of me is screaming “what??”), and arguing for enforcing the law apparently has its downsides. Better then to remain silent, until the faction looks like a bandwagon.
I guess I still don’t feel like I understand whose opinions about what need to change to what2, and what kind of change to the reward/penalty matrix would encourage that change.
For most of these guys on the Hill, and for the ones we would see as the biggest offenders, their private position is generally their public position. You don't quietly disagree with Nancy Pelosi's political strategy and then support Hakeen Jefferies for leadership but he had overwhelming support. Most Dems on the Hill, staff, members, lobbyists, consultants, believe that not doing something is more effective than doing something and trying is less effective than cutting your losses. The ones who disagree you generally already see squawking to the press or labeled troublemakers.
Why? Everyone is unique, but generally a mix of fatalism born of the last fifty years of fighting backlash politics (many of these fossils have been there most of that time) and the fact that the DCCC recruits lemmings who will play nicely with donors and not cause trouble and that's certainly the temperment who stays on the Hill in the shadow class of lobbyist staffers.
How do you change it? Good luck, that's kind of the question this blog revolves around. Their 'reward/penalty matrix' as individuals is absolutely to keep their heads down whether we think it hurts the party of the progressive movement as a whole. They didn't get better committees by challenging Pelosi in caucus meetings. They absolutely do not care if some activist yells at them at a town hall meeting. The average caucus member has been eagerly eating up the absolutely stupidest political analysis for years from Jim Clyburn in caucus meetings and they aren't going to change now. If you want change you're going to have to hope (or work toward) incoming members are better. If Trump doesn't change them, the only thing i can think of that would bring wholesale change would be if a DC outsider gets the Presidential nomination in 4 years and pressures Congressional Dems and the committees to suck less.
I don't know you can really heap a bunch of theory on this. This is a group of people who do (what some see as) stupid things because they want to. If you want to change what they're doing, you're going to need new people.
Thank you, that helps a lot. I owe you a decent response, but moving half a mile has turned into a three day ordeal. (I am currently lying on a hardwood floor with a black plastic bag of towels as a pillow, and I keep drifting into sleep.) So just this placeholder for now.
It's ok, I have watched A Few Good Men, Trial of the Chicago Seven, and enough The West Wing to know The System, The Process, and The Constitution will save us. No one need expend any effort, throw any mud, or throw any punches.
I think ANOTHER impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump should be in order, yes? I mean there’s an impeachment inquiry that was launched into Joe Biden over a pickup truck and with absolutely zero damming information such as this information. Will it happen? Absolutely not. Why? Republicans are too afraid of Donald Trump and what he COULD do IF he wins in 2024. I believe the democrats are creating a safety net here that, if for some reason, Trump does win 2024, their hope is that they can get the majorities back in congress and launch the inquiry then. And if they do, will the THIRD impeachment process net a different result than the other two? Who knows, but not likely.
We don't need more investigations that demonstrate Trump's corruption and criminality. We need Democratic strategists and politicians who can deftly package the information (we already have) to use proactively against Republicans to frame the narrative.
ProPublica gift wrapped a detailed report of a brilliant investigation into SCOTUS, and Durbin/Whitehouse promptly did nothing with the information.
Part of the reason that information about Trump lands with a thud is that Democrats do nothing with the information...they believe that raw information is sufficient, whereas voters see their inaction as proof of government dysfunction.
The 1/6 Committee was the sole example of a different approach, largely because of Cheney's role in shaping the narrative.
Yes.
Trump sold his soul and our country to the Russians many years before his Presidency and his illicit income from other foreign sources. In 2008, Trump Jr. announced that the "Trump organization no longer worked with U.S. banks (because they refused to loan Trump money due to his four bankruptcies) and they were now working with Russian banks and had received $100 million. (www.businessinsider) This is millions of dollars of black cash funneled into the U.S. via Trump's real estate deals as laundered money. It hurts our economy but benefitted Trump. So at least ten years prior to the Russians maneuvering Trump into the White House, Trump was on the KGB payroll. Russians loan money to foreigners for one reason - to gain control of that person, their assets, or their country. They also loaned $9.8 million to Marie LePen who is the French presidential opposition leader. Americans need to WAKE UP and realize the level of corruption that Trump has brought to our country, our government, and our way of life. Elizabeth
Dear Jamie: Let's dig some more please. In a 2008 conference, Trump Jr. announced that the Trump organization had received $100 million from Russian banks. I spent the majority of my career in Russia and Central Asia - about 20 years, became bi-cultural, and wrote the bestseller From Democracy to Democrazy (www.democrazy2020.org). Russian banks do not just lend money without expecting something in return other than interest. This money was a bribe and enabled Trump to continue processing Russian black cash into the U.S. via his real estate businesses. This is millions of dollars which hurt our economy but benefited Trump. So honestly - Trump was on the KGB payroll for years. He doesn't care where the money comes from, and the stupidity of this man is beyond belief. He sold his soul and our country to the Russians at least ten years before he was sleeping in the WH or before he received millions of dollars from the Chinese and others. Is he a traitor - you bet!
We need for the Dems in Congress to create a study that proves Trump has used century-old mass mind manipulation - telling lies over and over until they are perceived as the truth. When hatred are included in the lies - which Trump used daily - then a chemical in the human brain is released to enact violence. This is exactly what we saw on January 6th. Once a person is brainwashed, independent thought can be impossible. Jim Jones, who thought he was God, amassed a group of about 900 followers. He told them all to drink KoolAid laced with poison, and they all perished. Hitler converted an entire peaceful nation into mass murderers and 6 to7 million humans were tortured and murdered.
China, Russia, Austria, Italy, and a host of other dictator-led countries have used these cohesive methodologies. Lo and behold it is now found in the U.S. In 2022, I was at a book signing event at a Barnes and Noble in Tucson. A middle-aged woman came up to me and said "I think Putin is a great leader." I was so shocked that I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Trump had said these exact same words only one week prior. Yesterday (January 4th), an Iowa voter was asked what it would take for her to change her vote from Trump - and all she could think of was a tragedy.
It is time for the Dems of our country to yell and jump up and down. We need to develop a detoxification methodology that can be universally fed to Republicans so they - at a minimum - realize the corruption that Trump has unleashed in our country and how he is manipulating them - like asking for contributions for his criminal trials and then he doesn't pay his attorneys but pockets this money.
We need for Congress and the Courts to move faster. Time is running out, and once it stops our entire form of government may be lost. Elizabeth Graham
Brian, I wholeheartedly agree with this thought;
"Imagine if upon release of Raskin’s report, a Senate Democratic chairman with jurisdiction over these foreign payments had taken up the baton: This report proves that Donald Trump accepted cash payments from foreign governments throughout his presidency, and suggests we have much more to learn; we’re going to get to the bottom of all of it.
Isn’t that a nice thought?"
Getting past my initial reaction of despair (because I agree further action from our feckless Dem politicos is unlikely), here is my question: just *who* are the potential Senate Chairs who might plausibly be able to do something here? Can you name them & give us contact information to direct comments urging them to take action?
Thanks, and happy weekend.
Yeah, as of now it's going to be one more barely remembered Trump transgression. The Times ran it on Page 14 in the paper; I saw it at the bottom of their website for a minute or two; didn't see it at all on the Post's site. Can't someone in Biden's beloved Senate give him some help?
Repetition repetition repetition. Keep saying it: "Corrupt Donald Trump, Corrupt Donald Trump, Corrupt.."
Brian gets it as always. Please Dems, get after it!
The firing of Claudine Gay made me sad. It was ironic that a black woman was made a scapegoat for seeming insufficiently anti-racist: she wasn't anti-anti-semitic enough, in their view. I have heard even Jews on the Left complain that she was too mealy-mouthed. Not all of these people have thought about the difference between saying something offensive in a seminar--"Israel was created by neo-imperialist forces in Europe and the US and is an illegitimate state"--and screaming "Down with Zionism!" at Jewish students attending a Hillel event, for example. That's the difference between saying something controversial and probably wrong, and harassment.
In my own small college town, this confusion exists: some tenured professors on the Left threatened and doxxed a conservative adjunct for being "racist." They created a flyer with a picture of him on it, with the words "You are on our list" underneath and other words accusing him of racism and a few other thought crimes. They distributed this flyer one night on the campus of Tennessee Tech university. The targeted professor came in the next morning, saw the flyers with his face on them, freaked out, and called the police.
The professors who created the flyer were censured and disciplined (but not fired) by the university. They counter-sued, alleging that their "freedom of speech" had been abridged. (The judge threw out that case.) Many Democrats in my town believed that their freedom of speech had indeed been curtailed. I tried without success to explain that harassing and threatening a colleague is not protected speech and should never be. (Anyway the first amendment is about the GOVERNMENT abridging speech, not a university.) Nobody believed me except the other liberal faculty members who were afraid that there would be retaliation against liberal professors. The last thing we need is to be doxxed in a red state! The whole episode was very dispiriting, and it made Democrats in our town look bad. Nevertheless some Democrats were quite proud and said it was "good trouble." I was just ashamed and frightened.
I am afraid that 2024 is going to be one long episode of culture war, maybe especially in academia: people weaponizing small mistakes and trying to get their enemies fired. It will be like China during the Cultural Revolution.
"It has the potential to damage Trump and turn the GOP’s Biden impeachment from a dangerous nuisance into a joke."
"turn it into"?? Nonsense. The GOP’s Biden impeachment has ALWAYS been a joke.
An an obvious one at that.
All true but members and hill staff *know* this works and still won't do it. When it comes to politics they're stupid and generally intellectually lazy but they're not that stupid. Stakeholders (including activists) should all be having a discussion about the best ways to hem in Trump legally and politically but the discussion is incomplete without discussing the Dark Matter here: the reasons Hill Dems and strategists simply don't want to mount a response to this.
That’s a remarkably content-free message in isolation. Saying “there’s a secret force you don’t understand which explains apparent counter-interest behavior” is almost tautological; it applies to any situation from poker to industrial standardization bodies, for motivations from unwarranted chumminess to financial profit to blackmail to assassination.
The reasons they don't want to do this are not secret and everyone on the Hill understands them. They're happy to tell you or the press and they certainly don't consider themselves as engaging in counter-interest behavior or a secret plot. They think they are savvy and viewpoints like this website are naive. The Capitol Hill groupthink is the dark matter in these twitter discussions about 'Why won't they just do what works' not, you know, for human existence.
Public positions aren’t always what they seem. Putting out a pro-law-and-order OpEd may do little good if there is not a large enough faction to enforce the law (part of me is screaming “what??”), and arguing for enforcing the law apparently has its downsides. Better then to remain silent, until the faction looks like a bandwagon.
I guess I still don’t feel like I understand whose opinions about what need to change to what2, and what kind of change to the reward/penalty matrix would encourage that change.
For most of these guys on the Hill, and for the ones we would see as the biggest offenders, their private position is generally their public position. You don't quietly disagree with Nancy Pelosi's political strategy and then support Hakeen Jefferies for leadership but he had overwhelming support. Most Dems on the Hill, staff, members, lobbyists, consultants, believe that not doing something is more effective than doing something and trying is less effective than cutting your losses. The ones who disagree you generally already see squawking to the press or labeled troublemakers.
Why? Everyone is unique, but generally a mix of fatalism born of the last fifty years of fighting backlash politics (many of these fossils have been there most of that time) and the fact that the DCCC recruits lemmings who will play nicely with donors and not cause trouble and that's certainly the temperment who stays on the Hill in the shadow class of lobbyist staffers.
How do you change it? Good luck, that's kind of the question this blog revolves around. Their 'reward/penalty matrix' as individuals is absolutely to keep their heads down whether we think it hurts the party of the progressive movement as a whole. They didn't get better committees by challenging Pelosi in caucus meetings. They absolutely do not care if some activist yells at them at a town hall meeting. The average caucus member has been eagerly eating up the absolutely stupidest political analysis for years from Jim Clyburn in caucus meetings and they aren't going to change now. If you want change you're going to have to hope (or work toward) incoming members are better. If Trump doesn't change them, the only thing i can think of that would bring wholesale change would be if a DC outsider gets the Presidential nomination in 4 years and pressures Congressional Dems and the committees to suck less.
I don't know you can really heap a bunch of theory on this. This is a group of people who do (what some see as) stupid things because they want to. If you want to change what they're doing, you're going to need new people.
Thank you, that helps a lot. I owe you a decent response, but moving half a mile has turned into a three day ordeal. (I am currently lying on a hardwood floor with a black plastic bag of towels as a pillow, and I keep drifting into sleep.) So just this placeholder for now.
It's ok, I have watched A Few Good Men, Trial of the Chicago Seven, and enough The West Wing to know The System, The Process, and The Constitution will save us. No one need expend any effort, throw any mud, or throw any punches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAbab8aP4_A
That video was excellent. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
#LHU.
I think ANOTHER impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump should be in order, yes? I mean there’s an impeachment inquiry that was launched into Joe Biden over a pickup truck and with absolutely zero damming information such as this information. Will it happen? Absolutely not. Why? Republicans are too afraid of Donald Trump and what he COULD do IF he wins in 2024. I believe the democrats are creating a safety net here that, if for some reason, Trump does win 2024, their hope is that they can get the majorities back in congress and launch the inquiry then. And if they do, will the THIRD impeachment process net a different result than the other two? Who knows, but not likely.
"Democrats by contrast tend to act as though it’s rarely worth the effort—after all, most informational digs yield nothing of value."
As you point out, ANY information dig yields value. It may not lead to anything of note, but the digging itself can be powerful ammunition.
The way the Republicans play the game shows that over and over. The Democrats are pathetically poor players who never seem to learn.
"Democrats by contrast tend to act as though it’s rarely worth the effort—after all, most informational digs yield nothing of value."
As you point out, ANY information dig yields value. It may not lead to anything of note, but the digging itself can be powerful ammunition.
The way the Republicans play the game shows that over and over. The Democrats are pathetically poor players who never seem to learn.
Once again DOJ is frickin worthless. Jesus H Pete
Spence, the Dems need to hire you
agreed
This, this, dear God somebody please do this.
I think it's in Turley's contract that he doesn't have to deal with anything as vulgar as facts, but yeah.