Anchors Away

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Attribution: Sinking Democracy by Bill Day, FloridaPolitics.com

In a wannabe dictator’s path to complete takeover is the destruction of institutions like fair elections, justice, education and free press – the anchors of democracy.

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106 thoughts on “Anchors Away”

  1. this from 6 months ago. we were warned so why the shock and surprise?

    Jan 28, 2025 Public Matters
    In his book “On Tyranny,” Yale University history professor Tim Snyder writes, “You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case.” As the country begins a second Donald Trump presidency, Snyder spoke to Public Matters about what the next four years might look like, and about how questions over cost of living and gender influence people’s votes.


  2. The Smithsonian removed Donald Trump from an exhibit on presidential impeachments at the American History Museum, the president says we shouldn’t trust the government’s own economic data, planning is underway for a giant golden ballroom to be constructed at the White House, and HBO Max streamed “The Golden Age” in Spanish to all viewers last night.

  3. https://newrepublic.com/

    Trump’s Domestic Use of Military Set to Get Worse, Leaked Memo Shows
    A Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by TNR signals top-level discussions about a potential escalation of the Pentagon’s domestic anti-immigration role, and lays out new details.

    President Donald Trump has already enmeshed the U.S. military in domestic law enforcement operations involving immigration to an unprecedented degree. He has authorized a major military buildup at the border. He has maximized the use of military planes for deportations, complete with the White House pumping out imagery of migrants getting frog-marched onto souped-up military aircraft. He sent the National Guard into Los Angeles amid large-scale protests there—and then sent in the Marines.
    But an internal memo circulated inside the Department of Homeland Security suggests that Trump’s use of the military for domestic law enforcement on immigration could soon get worse. The memo—obtained by The New Republic—provides a glimpse into the thinking of top officials as they seek to involve the Defense Department more deeply in these domestic operations, and it has unnerved experts who believe it portends a frightening escalation.
    The memo lays out the need to persuade top Pentagon officials to get much more serious about using the military to combat illegal immigration—and not just at the border. It suggests that DHS is anticipating many more uses of the military in urban centers, noting that L.A.-style operations may be needed “for years to come.” And it likens the threat posed by transnational gangs and cartels to having “Al Qaeda or ISIS cells and fighters operating freely inside America,” hinting at a ramped-up militarized posture inside the interior.
    “The memo is alarming, because it speaks to the intent to use the military within the United States at a level not seen since Japanese internment,” Carrie Lee, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told me. “The military is the most powerful, coercive tool our country has. We don’t want the military doing law enforcement. It absolutely undermines the rule of law.”
    The memo was authored by Philip Hegseth—the younger brother of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—who is a senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and DHS liaison officer to the Defense Department. As such, it also sheds light on Hegseth the Younger’s role, which has been the subject of media speculation labeling him an obscure but influential figure in his brother’s MAGA orbit.
    The memo outlines the itinerary for a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials, with the goal of better coordinating the agencies’ activities in “defense of the homeland.” It details goals that Philip Hegseth hopes to accomplish in the meeting and outlines points he wants DHS officials to impress on Pentagon attendees.
    Participants listed comprise the very top levels of both agencies, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several of his top advisers, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine, and NORTHCOM Commander Gregory Guillot. Staff include Phil Hegseth and acting ICE Commissioner Todd Lyons.
    “Due to the sensitive nature of the meeting, minimal written policy or background information can be provided in this briefing memo,” the memo says.
    Lee of the German Marshall Fund told me this suggests “they understand that actions they’re taking are skirting the line.”
    The primary goal of the meeting, the memo says, is to foster “new ideas for how the two departments can better plan for national security and illegal immigration.” Then it adds this:
    The U.S. military leadership (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and NORTHCOM) need to feel—for the first time—the urgency of the homeland defense mission. They need to understand the threat, what’s at stake, and the political importance the administration has placed on this issue.
    Experts I spoke with were surprised at how bluntly that suggests DHS pressure on the Defense Department to get the military much more involved in immigration enforcement, potential tension between top officials at both agencies over this imperative, and possible resistance to it by Pentagon officials. The memo says aligning both agencies this way “is a priority of POTUS,” meaning Trump.
    [… continues with more details and then concludes…]
    “Normalizing routine military support to law enforcement could create a kind of domestic ‘forever war,’ but one that is uniquely dangerous,” the Brennan Center’s Nunn told me. “As the Founders well understood, a military that is turned inward is a threat to both democracy and individual liberty.”

  4. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/maddow-u-s-profoundly-changed-by-authoritarian-leader-we-re-beyond-waiting-and-seeing-now/

    Rachel Maddow points out that the thing most Americans were dreading has come to pass, and the United States has changed profoundly in only six months of authoritarian rule. “We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country.” With freedoms likely to continue to be curtailed in deference to Donald Trump’s power, that means Americans have the most tools for democratic resistance right now.

  5. attribution: Kevin Kallaugher (KAL) is the editorial cartoonist for The Economist magazine of London and The Baltimore Sun. His work has appeared in more than 100 publications worldwide, including Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, & The Washington Post

  6. Rachel was on fire last night with this subject. She simply enumerated the conditions found in autocratic regimes as now reflected in the US. It may not have impinged on your personal life as yet, but we are now in a dictatorship.

    YouTube thumbnail

  11. Brian Stelter’s commentary on Maddow vs Trump

    Maddow says ‘dictatorship’ is here

    While Fox’s Sean Hannity celebrated the latest examples of Trump-aligned agencies investigating Trump opponents last night, over on MSNBC, the country’s most-watched progressive host delivered a distressing monologue. “We do now live in a country that has an authoritarian leader in charge. We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country,” Rachel Maddow said.

    She cited “secret police,” “black site prison camps,” and “shows of force,” among other examples. “The question is no longer how to prepare for this risk or how to try to avert it, but rather how to fight it now that it is here and in effect,” Maddow said. She ended the segment, as she often has since January, by highlighting protests and other democratic tools.

    What a contrast between MSNBC and CNBC 👇

    Trump calls into ‘Squawk Box’

    Trump continued to justify his abrupt firing of the BLS boss over “phony” jobs numbers, telling Joe Kernen on CNBC a few minutes ago, “it’s a highly political situation. It’s totally rigged. Smart people know it. People with common sense know it. And a lot of people like to keep their head under the covers and just not believe it.”

    Kernen gingerly tried to correct some of Trump’s misstatements but mostly encouraged him to keep talking. The president spent more than 30 minutes on the phone, and at the end, Kernen lobbied him to start calling in on a weekly basis again…

    >> The editors of National Review say “Trump is shooting the messenger of bad economic news, not unlike when China discontinues inconvenient data series that make the Communist Party look bad.”

    >> Big picture: Information is power, and Trump wants to control more of it. His power moves have been evident all throughout his second term — and the individual headlines should be analyzed as part of a pattern rather than one-offs.

  12. The conditioning of the troops for a Maxwell pardon begins.
    Newsmax host Greg Kelly often leads the way for Trump propaganda projects. This will probably get him another one-on-one with Trump, and a another trip to Mar-a-Lago…

    GREG KELLY (HOST): I do have a feeling that she has been — she just might be a victim. She just might be. There was a rush to judgment. There was a lot of chaos there for a while.

    Yep, she’s a victim of the Deep State. That claim is just around the corner.

  14. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/epstein-abuse-survivor-virginia-giuffre-wanted-files-released-death-fa-rcna222375

    Asked specifically Tuesday whether Giuffre was among the people Epstein had “stolen” from the spa at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, President Donald Trump said: “I think that was one of the people. He stole her.”

    Giuffre was a locker room attendant at the Florida club in the summer of 2000, when she was 16.

    The White House has said Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago “for being a creep.”

  15. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrgp05yvyno

    Ms Giuffre was born Virginia Roberts in California in 1983, before her family relocated to Florida. At seven, she said she was sexually abused by a family friend and her later childhood was spent in and out of foster care.

    She met Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite, in 2000 while working as a locker room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Maxwell offered her an interview for the chance to train as a massage therapist, she said, and took her to Jeffrey Epstein.

    What she had expected to be a job interview was in fact the beginning of years of abuse, according to Ms Giuffre.

    *Looks like Maxwell was the “creep” who took to Epstein. Also, Epstein kept his membership at Mar-A-Lago for seven years after Maxwell took Guiffre to him. This 7-year timespan included Epstein’s 50th birthday when Don-old drew him a picture with “secret” words.

  17. ‘Uniquely dangerous’: Leaked DHS memo details secret plans for domestic ‘forever war’
    A leaked Department of Homeland Security memo reveals a plan to dramatically increase the use of the U.S. armed forces on American streets in domestic law enforcement roles, especially in immigration, for “years.”… More in link

    A reminder that we have been here before:

    He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
    He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
    For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
    For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

  19. PatD, thanks for posting the attribution. I forgot to create a caption box when I wrote the code over the weekend for our new sidebar features like On The Spit. Will get on that, then we can put credits in when needed.

  23. Thanks guys for flagging the Maddow video — and thanks Jamie for “co-hosting” again. Putting this on YouTube and TikTok in hopes of reaching people who don’t watch her, maybe even don’t know who she is..

  27. Rachel was alarming but also encouraging last evening. Her clips of the Nebraska town haller putting a price tag on Dodo’s abuses gave cause for hope. Fascism isn’t free. It isn’t saving any money. It’s costing a bundle to oppress and persecute human beings.

    Imo, we might be missing the boat by over-playing the threat-to-democracy rhetoric. Maggers loathe “democrats” and not being adept at subtleties of language, they confuse democrats with democracy. They are more afraid of the people they believe democracy brings into their midst.

    The message should be it’s America that’s under threat. Our existence as a free country. Maggers may still care about that. They must be persuaded it’s freedom itself that Dodo most endangers.

  29. If SCOTUS doesn’t overturn Maxwell’s conviction (as her attorney requested in April), she has been moved to Club Fed and is feeling some undeserved relief.
    After the 2028 election, there will be a pardon if she’s still at camp of the non-concentration variety.

  30. Yes Ivy, one of the big myths about dictatorship is that it’s more efficient than democracry. Only at consolidating power — but when you only hire know=nothing loyalists to run the government it can’t deliver services or control spending.

  31. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/How+suite!+Trump%27s+Brit+of+all+right.-a061140675

    ust weeks after ditching his second wife, America’s best-known billionaire Donald Trump has fallen under the spell of a 20-year-old English girl.

    Trump, 50, who has failed in his bid to secure the services of Princess Diana’s butler Paul Burrell, was in search of another British trophy when he met London model Anouska De Georgiou at a party in Manhattan.

    Several American millionaires already had their eyes on Anouska. But she was there with Robert Maxwell’s daughter Ghislaine, who has introduced several of her attractive friends to the property developer.

    And none of his would-be rivals owned a vast mansion in Florida like Donald does: Mar-a-Lago (where I have dined with him and his outgoing wife Marla) is enough to make any young girl go weak at the knees.

    After their meeting, Trump flew Madam Maxwell and the model south to the sunshine state, where all three enjoyed a happy weekend together. When they returned to New York, Anouska was installed in one of Donald’s many apartments there.

    Ms De Georgiou likes older men – she went out once or twice with Joanna Lumley’s ex-husband Jeremy Lloyd, who is 45 years her senior.

    Doubtless it is the start of a long (by Trump standards it already is) friendship.

  32. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/6/9/2034367/-Epstein-Rape-Victim-Was-Passed-on-to-Donald-Trump-by-Ghislaine-Maxwell

    A woman who says that she was groomed and raped by Jeffrey Epstein as a teen-ager was passed on to Donald Trump by Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump then installed her in one of his apartments.

    The woman’s name is Anouska De Georgiou. Her relationships with Epstein and Trump are both well known, but that it was Ghislaine Maxwell who transferred her from the former to the latter has been overlooked, despite the fact that the details were reported at the time in London’s Sunday Mirror (November 23, 1997, page 14).

    *Craig – The thread is pulling in a weird direction.

  35. From previous link:

    “This all happened back when Trump was a Democrat, so clearly the article was not politically motivated. Note that De Georgiou was only one of several young women that Ghislaine introduced to Trump.”

  37. https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/trump-hispanic-farm-workers-b2802324.html

    Trump suggested people who live “in the inner city” are “not doing that [farm] work” but Hispanic migrants do it “naturally”.

    He then launched into a story about a conversation he had once had with a farmer.

    Trump says he asked, “What happens if they get a bad back?” to which the farmer allegedly responded, “They don’t get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back, they die”.

    *Military uprising? Other countries? The TikTok astrologer said April of 2026 is looking super warish.

  39. An interesting nonTrumpian bit of information
    There are probably several books and many PHD dissertations in this chart.

    coal production by country since the beginning of the industrial age.
    BTW, I don’t think China exports much coal, and it imports a lot of Australian coal.

  40. Trump says he asked, “What happens if they get a bad back?”

    … a question someone who’s never done any kind of manual labor in their entire life asks

    a real friend of the working man

  43. I just don’t see how Democrats and liberals win social-media-addled status-seeking wealth-chasing young people of voting age with their mesaaging and philosophy

    would you want to hang out with you if you were 20? you wouldn’t

    and then you’ll wonder why you lose the next election cycle

    Dems have become the party of scolds and there ain’t nothing a young person hates more

    (that doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but YOU GOTTA WIN ELECTIONS)

    purge the party

  44. The other option, if you had any kind of fucking leadership coordinating any kind of political resistance would be Trump-lite, of which you have plenty, Andrew Cuomo being an example

    Do you think Trump-lite is going to generate enthusiasm with the youth-voters you need?

  45. “Back going out” gags were a mainstay of 50’s and 60’s Sit-Coms.

    As usual, something he heard on the TV

  46. Anon.
    The Democrats are really good at identifying problems.
    That is part of their problem, true.
    Even though they are also very good at solving problems. They have been cleaning up Republican screwups for the last 30 years but they never run on this.
    So in the end the Democrats are all scary scary but when it come to solutions democrats never make the case.
    So, to a broad group of the voters it doesn’t really matter.

    Jack

  47. https://apnews.com/article/tartaglione-murder-sentence-849cb86c7d3c80d797813fe6c0153d6d

    Tartaglione was not Epstein’s cellmate at the time of his death, but his lawyer claimed he was a “critical witness” in the ensuing suicide investigation.

    He had shared a cell with Epstein weeks earlier in 2019, when the wealthy financier was discovered with bruises on his neck and then placed on suicide watch.

    A retired police officer convicted of murdering four people, including a man he tortured and strangled over stolen drug money…Nicholas Tartaglione …was briefly a cellmate of Jeffery Epstein…

  49. https://www.enstarz.com/articles/241530/20250711/jeffrey-epsteins-secret-suicide-note-reveals-he-tried-hire-cellmate-kill-him-before-fatal.htm

    The former cellmate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein claims the disgraced financier offered him money to take his life before dying by suicide in 2019 — and revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed suicide note.

    Jeffrey Epstein tried killing himself when he was in the cell with me,” Tartaglione said. “I woke up and I brought him back with CPR. And to prove this point, Jeffrey Epstein wrote a suicide note.”

    According to Tartaglione, the note was later ordered into court by a judge presiding over his own legal proceedings. “My lawyers had to bring it in. They even got handwriting experts to prove he wrote it,” he said, adding that Epstein hid the note inside one of Tartaglione’s books.

    *Handwriting would match if the note were written under duress, too.

  50. when it come to solutions democrats never make the case

    …because there is zero coordination, just a million monkeys

  51. BID
    Epstein is so last week, everybody knows.
    What’s next? How do you use it to change people minds?
    Just repeating how disgusted you are isn’t enough. What is next, now that you have them listening.
    This is the Democrat’s problem, they don’t know what is next. Part of their problem is they can’t connect with ordinary working class folks. Their idea of connecting with the working class is to meet with a bunch of rich over paid union leaders. Then do a photo op with a hard hat. Then they go back to their coastal world. Where God knows what they tell themselves about the experience.

    Jack

  52. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/05/jeffrey-epstein-letters-photos

    …Tuesday after the New York Times published a trove of previously unseen letters to Epstein from numerous powerful figures as well as unseen photographs from inside his Manhattan mansion.

    In a letter from film-maker Woody Allen, Allen reminisced about Epstein’s dinner parties at his Upper East Side townhouse and described the gatherings as “always interesting”. He noted that the parties included “politicians, scientists, teachers, magicians, comedians, intellectuals, journalists” and “even royalty”.

    Allen also described the dinners as “well served”: “I say well served – often it’s by some professional houseman and just as often by several young women” who he said reminded him of “Castle Dracula where Lugosi has three young female vampires who service the place.”

    In addition to the letters, the Times also published photos from inside Epstein’s seven-story Manhattan mansion.

    Surveillance cameras can be seen in Epstein’s bedroom and an adjoining room. In his “massage room”, where many underaged victims said that they were sexually assaulted by Epstein, the Times reports that there were paintings of naked women, shelves of lubricant, and a large silver ball and chain.

    *This is not the 50th birthday book.

  54. https://www.rawstory.com/kash-patel-epstein-files-2673857044/

    FBI Director Kash Patel took a step that could pave the way to justifying the release of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, an analyst wrote Monday.

    National security analyst Marcy Wheeler pointed out that last week Patel released documents that included information about uncharged third parties in former special counsel John Durham’s investigation into Robert Mueller and his probe into Russia’s interference in the 2020 election.

    In doing so, Patel “disseminated ‘unfounded theories’ about them, most notably Julianne Smith, the woman John Durham suspected of entering into a conspiracy to frame Donald Trump,” wrote Wheeler.

    Smith was a private citizen in 2016 when Russian spies tried to frame her, Wheeler recalled. Durham wanted to link her to wrongdoing, but failed after it became clear that the evidence was falsified.

    Wheeler went on to walk through why she believes the case against Smith was “grotesquely stupid,” but she argued that by releasing this information, Patel created a precedent.

    “Under DOJ guidelines — under the pretext that DOJ and FBI adopted less than a month ago — Smith is the kind of private citizen whose name you continue to mask, as Durham did in the public release two years ago,” wrote Wheeler. “Certainly, there’s far less public interest in knowing the ID of someone the SVR framed nine years ago than knowing why the President is making overt efforts to silence the sexual predator who, by his own confession, ‘stole’ underage girls from his spa, recruiting at least one into sex slavery.”

    Patel made the name public, even though Smith had nothing to do with the matter.

    It “pretty much demolishes his excuse for hiding details about what Trump knew about Ghislaine Maxwell stealing his girls,” said Wheeler.

  55. 🚨 The Ghislaine Maxwell rewrite has begun.

    Trump loyalists now calling her a deep state victim.

    Greg Kelly, Alan Dershowitz, and the spin machine want you to forget what she did — and prepare for the pardon to protect the President.

    🎈 Watch the trial balloons go up:

  58. Jack, you are so right to press for next steps. Outrage without strategy is just performance.

    Step one is breaking the trance. Step two is showing that the system isn’t just broken — it’s rigged by design. And step three is reminding folks, especially working people, that they’re not crazy or alone for feeling like they’ve been left out of the deal.

    The Epstein story is not about reliving the past. It’s about exposing the habits of power, the patterns of cover-up, and the people who’d rather bury truth than share power. That’s not just a media story. That’s a democracy story.

    And it’s the first blood I’ve seen drawn on this second Trump presidency.

  59. Craig
    The easy answer, they are right, she is the scape goat and the pretense that justice was done. That lets all those rich mother fuckers off the hook, and they get to party on. Probably with another person like her finding gullible 14 yr olds to party with. It never stops.
    It is how the world works for us ordinary folks. We break some minor law, we do the hard time in jail and those fuckers can screw 14yr olds, get sweetheart deals and party on.
    BTW, Dershowitz should know he made his fortune lining up sweetheart deals for those fuckers.
    Jack

  60. I am putting together a list of the Trump world’s most dizzying reversals, now that they’re trying to turn Maxwell into a martyr.
    Any others? A few come to mind:
    — Lindsey Graham, from dumb & disloyal to great American, back and forth many times
    — Elon, from genius to crazy
    — Little Kim, from “rocket man” to love letters
    — Putin, from “brilliant” invasion to “disappointing”
    As we used to say in the newsroom, three examples make a trend — five is mathematical certainty.
    So i need just one more

  61. In my morning news read.
    Dershowitz is whining and complaining about the folks in Martha’s Vinyard. Seems the locals don’t like his kind of trash either.

    Jack

  65. even after Caesar overthrew the republic, there were still people saying “how do we save the republic?”

    …they were all murdered, except Cato, he beat them to it

  66. Epstein is the only big crack in the MAGAt-verse, and even though we think we know what we know, there had to be proof and there is possibly more to it.
    Who in the world would anyone let it go? That’s exactly what Orange PedOTUS wants. Why would anyone go along with him?

  67. JD is not Marc Anthony or Agrippa in this analogy

    He’s not even that favored slave of Caesar’s, either

  68. …love you, BiD, but stupidity is repeating actions and expecting different results. You’ve been trying to bring Trump down for eight years. He’s stronger than ever.

  69. trump isn’t the disease he’s the symptom

    The right strategic play is to let them tear themselves apart while presenting a more sensible alternative

  73. The young folks unable to buy a house or get decent medical care need to be reminded that the CEO-to-worker pay ratio has dramatically increased since the 1950s. In the 1950s, CEOs typically earned about 20 times more than their average workers. By 2020, this ratio had surged to 351 times, according to CNBC. This widening gap reflects a significant increase in income inequality, with CEO compensation growing at a much faster rate than that of the average worker.

  75. *Tax the rich! Dude is trying to gaslight an entire room of his constituents who are informed and angry about theft, lies and fascism.

  79. here’s something everyone can understand…. the price of living… or as someone once reminded us… it’s the economy, stupid!

  82. yeah that faux quote including the word “insanity” doesn’t make sense that’s why i amend it

    “Persistence is not stupidity, Anon”

    that’s not even objectively true. I support you sticking up for BiD though, while also standing by what i said, as trite as you may find it! 🤗

  83. i support anything that damages Trump but politically you’re better off with him in power until the midterms,
    Do you really want him to swap out with JD who and then have JD absolve himself of all political culpability at that time?

    I’m trying to thread a needle you can’t even see

    while holding no string

  84. I don’t think Mike Flood is a bit worried about a few loud college kids. Now if some older folks had shown up and started chanting “protect our farmers, stop the tariffs” he might have been a little more worried. The kids won’t vote for him but farm country is his base.

    Jack

  85. College kids don’t go to town halls Jack

    I’ll argue with all of you at once just like the old days! 😊

  86. At least some of the media are correct the more blatant Trump lies. Not to his face mind you, but at least as follow up after airing interviews. He was on a roll with some oldies about getting California water (which was actually wasted as it was in reserve for agriculture during the summer heat). Then there was the actual figures on jobs before the election (he claims high to serve Biden when they were actually low). So much for his excuse for the firing.

  87. Anon,
    Lincoln is a college town, of course they were there, along with the usual collection of liberal imports that college towns collect. They were the ones making the noise or so it looked like on the video. There were also a lot of everyday Nebraskans. I think it might have been informative to get some of their opinions about the meeting too. But all we got was the standard crazy shots, the yelling crowd and ample time for Flood to look calm and collected.

  88. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rupert-murdoch-trump-health-epstein-b2802484.html

    …Rupert Murdoch has agreed to give Donald Trump regular health updates in a deal to postpone Murdoch’s deposition in the president’s $10 billion lawsuit over a Wall Street Journal article about a “bawdy” birthday letter Trump allegedly wrote to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

    The deal comes a week after the president’s lawyers called on the 94-year-old Murdoch to be deposed within the next 15 days due to his advanced age and health problems over the years, implying that the Fox News founder could die before the case went to trial.

    “If Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss the Complaint is denied, then Defendant Murdoch’s deposition shall occur in person, at a mutually agreed upon location in the United States, within thirty (30) calendar days of the order denying the Motion to Dismiss,” the order further notes.

    Additionally, Murdoch must provide “a sworn declaration describing his current health condition” within three days of the order of stipulation being filed and give “regularly scheduled updates” about his health to the president. The order was signed Tuesday by Judge Darrin Gayles.

    “Failure to provide updates in the agreed-upon manner, as set forth in the Abatement Agreement, shall result in an expedited deposition of Defendant Murdoch,” the order adds.

    The president sued the WSJ and Murdoch on July 18, a day after the paper ran its bombshell report that Trump had given Epstein a raunchy card for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. The letter, which the president has called a “fake thing,” reportedly contains a drawing of a naked woman with Trump’s signature mimicking pubic hair.

    Trump has publicly fumed that Murdoch, with whom he’s had a complicated on-again/off-again mutually beneficial friendship, had promised him “he would take care of” killing the WSJ story, but apparently “did not have the power to do so.”

    *Rupert could’ve, but JD paid him a visit do he didn’t, IMO.

  89. There were many older people at that town hall & some of them went to the mic and asked good questions. One that I haven’t heard asked directly to a Repug before: Who is going to pay off this debt?

  91. Lincoln is a college town, of course they were there, along with the usual collection of liberal imports that college towns collect. They were the ones making the noise

    did you take an exit poll or are you just…

  92. repeating actions and expecting different results is the definition of stupidity. It means you don’t learn.

    I know you guys think you know what I think Einstein said, but you don’t

  93. Anon
    I just looked at the tape, both the one I linked to and BiD’s. And listened to it. You can tell a lot by listening. The attendees were a full range of locals. The yelling voices were obviously young voices. They might have been highschoolers.
    Jack

  94. My favorite Einstein quote:

    “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.

    —”Old Man’s Advice to Youth: ‘Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'” LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64”
    ― Albert Einstein

  95. dude, you’re old and I’m getting there. All voices sound young to us.

    I couldn’t even make out what they were chanting so I don’t know how you’re determining ages from collective voice pitch

  98. Nancy Mace, running for governor in SC, promises to be “trump in high heels.”

    Cato…..what a fuckin’ hard ass.

  99. You couldn’t make out “tax the rich”?

    There’s a guy at 2:30 mark who is not a college kid, nor are any of the folks standing behind him waiting their turn.
    Back in the day, UNL held gold Krugerrands from SA. We protested; they divested. Youth is not a bad thing, it’s just a phase. Age doesn’t always bring wisdom, at least not in all things; it’s just a phase.
    I’m glad anyone is speaking up to tRUMP’s bootlickers.

  100. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ghislaine-maxwell-grand-jury-testimony-1.7601668

    In a court filing, Maxwell’s lawyers said the release of the materials would jeopardize a potential retrial if she succeeds in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her conviction. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

    “The reputational harm from releasing incomplete, potentially misleading grand jury testimony, untested by cross-examination, would be severe and irrevocable,” her lawyers wrote.

    *Victims have testified that she not only procured and groomed them, she took part in the abuse. Based on the account from 1997, Maxwell not only trafficked victims to Epstein, but at least one (Anoushka) was transferred from Epstein to tRUMP.

  102. The Supreme Court Prepares to End Voting Rights as We Know Them

    The Republican-appointed justices have decided it is time to fully destroy the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

    It’s a perverse argument. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to enforce the vision of equality enacted that animated the 14th and 15th Amendments. Indeed, the VRA was enacted under Congress’ express authority to use legislation to enforce the equal protection and voting rights guarantees of the post-Civil War amendments to the Constitution. Now, Republican lawyers are attacking the law, arguing that equal treatment of minority voters is actually discrimination against white voters. The amendments that ushered in a Second Founding of political equality are being reinterpreted to resurrect white supremacy.

    *One of them was Clarence Thomas, FFS. He was 17-ish when VRA was passed.

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