The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Special Supplement: TFG, Issue 169B, August 6, 2023 (V4 #13B)
He a heathen stealin'
All of our freedoms
Only thing we can call it
Call it trump Treason—from “Trump Treason,” Free R Me
TFG: This was a week that was, but only one of many yet to come
What He Did, Steve Schmidt, The Warning, 8/3/23: “Donald Trump tried to overthrow the American republic because he lost an election. Nearly every single Republican member of Congress helped him do it by suborning his ceaseless and premeditated lies. They stoked the fires of incitement that led to Trump’s coup as his collaborators and partners. Ambition and fear overwhelmed their duty and patriotism.”
The Trump January 6 Indictment, Annotated, Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman, NY Times, 8/1/23
Trump and Math, Scott Galloway, No Mercy/No Malice, 8/4/23: “President Trump is an obese 77-year-old male. Any sentence to a prison facility is likely a death sentence.”
The 45 pages that skewer Trump’s bid to destroy American democracy: Two and half years in the making, special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment presents a devastating case laced with telling detail, Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, 8/2/23: “Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power.”
The biggest misconception about Trump's third criminal indictment, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 8/3/23: “If all Trump did was lie, there would be no indictment. But Trump didn't just lie. Trump, working in concert with his co-conspirators, "pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results." DW: Trump’s First Amendment right has no bearing on his breaking the law. Dismiss the Republican frame!
Trump’s Third Indictment and the End of Automatic Impunity: Jack Smith’s prosecution for conspiracy has led to a familiar blowback defense: prosecute the powerful and everyone will get hurt, David Dayen, American Prospect, 8/2/23: “Worrying about the consequences of prosecuting crimes against democracy has not led to fewer crimes against democracy. Ending automatic impunity is the bare minimum to expect of a country that professes to follow the rule of law.”
Invasion of the Democracy Snatchers: This week’s indictment details how Trump and his co-conspirators tried to destroy American democracy by creating empty replicas of its procedures and values, Fintan O’Toole, NY Review of Books, 8/4/23
George Washington knew when it was time to go, unlike Trump, because the founders worried about the judgment of history, Maurizio Valsania, The Conversation, 8/3/23: “Relinquishing power and retiring were the best way to ensure Washington’s glory and reputation. Apparently, passing the scepter to the next generation and worrying over one’s reputation don’t come as naturally today – at least to some.”
These slivers of energy,
bits and pieces
of images we retain
despite what we are taught
accompany me now,
hold my hand
when everyday living
declares it is
at war with life.
—from “I Pick Away,” Margaret Randall
The Madisonian Case Against Trump: Protecting the republic from people like Donald Trump is the whole point of the U.S. Constitution, Francisco Toro, Persuasion, 8/4/23: “The founding generation was petrified of the class of events to which January 6th belongs. They were haunted by the worry that in overthrowing monarchical authority they would inadvertently set the new republic on the path first to anarchy and then to tyranny. Rather like the makers of Artificial Intelligence today, Madison, Hamilton and the rest of the gang were acutely aware that they were meddling with awesome powers, and that getting it wrong could have disastrous consequences for the future.”
The most serious Trump indictment yet – a criminal law scholar explains the charges of using ‘dishonesty, fraud and deceit’ to cling to power, Gabriel J. Chin, The Conversation, 8/1/23: “The conspiracy charges are helpful to the prosecution because under the rules of evidence, any statements made, or acts done, by a co-conspirator to further the conspiracy can be used against Trump.
So, even though Trump is the only person named and indicted in this case, a wide range of evidence from others’ actions will be available against him.”
The New Trump Indictment and the Reckoning Ahead: With the former President still far ahead of the rest of the Republican field, the American electorate is headed for a crucial test, David Remnick, New Yorker, 8/1/23: “The third and latest indictment against Trump sets out four charges and makes the case against him in the plainest terms. “Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power,” the introduction to the forty-five-page document reads—and where have you seen a more succinct summary of criminal intent?”
The Biggest Issue for 2024: Can Humanity Survive Trump & the GOP? So, yeah, let’s take seriously the existential threat a GOP president represents to our nation, the nations of the world, and all life on Earth. The stakes have literally never been higher...Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 8/2/23
Who was it that set up a system
Supposedly democratic system
Where you end up always voting for the lesser of two evils?
I mean, Was George Washington the lesser of two evils?
Sometimes I wonder ...
—from “Wide, Wide River,” The Fugs
Free media got Trump elected in 2016. Now the cable shows are doing it all over again, Lucian Truscott IV, Newsletter, 8/4/23: “The mainstream media and cable news are making a huge, very costly mistake again. They’re covering Defendant Trump’s legal troubles in the same way they covered his rallies in 2016 – wall-to-wall, every useless, repetitive moment he shows his spray-tanned face.”
Stormy Daniels May Have the Last Word on Donald Trump: The New York case, often downplayed as the weakest of four potential indictments against the ex-president, could be his biggest legal threat, James Risen, The Intercept, 7/30/23
The hour of choosing has arrived, Steve Schmidt, The Warning, 8/6/23: “Trump’s rise is a symptom, not the cause, of America’s current cancer. A man like Trump simply does not get elected to the presidency of a stable and healthy country. He is a marker of decay and a catalyst for it. His presidency was a vicious cycle of degradations, national humiliations, collaboration, betrayal, failure and incandescent cowardice. It has led us here — to this epic hour where the citizens of the United States must make a decision for the future that will either begin an era of renewal and reform, or one that cripples American democracy and murders the republic born in 1776. Whatever the choice may be, it will be made by this generation of Americans on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary of independence.”
No more free media for the biggest skinflint who ever ran for president or any other office, for that matter. Report on the indictments, tell us what the charges are and what they mean, report on the trials whenever they happen, and make Defendant Trump pay for every other minute of time he gets on TV or anywhere else.—Lucian Truscott IV
We must wake up America: So, yeah, let’s take seriously the existential threat a MAGA president represents to our nation, the nations of the world, and all life on Earth. The stakes have literally never been higher.—Thom Hartmann
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
—from “America,” Allen Ginsberg
Hard times ain't quit and we ain't quit.
—Meridel LeSueur
There is no safe place.
—Bill McKibben
Hope is not happiness or confidence or inner peace; it’s a commitment to search for possibilities.
—Rebecca Solnit
Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent.
—Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook
Look at me I ain't your enemy
Don't believe everything you hear
This is no time to fight each other
What we need, what we need
—from “Solidarity,” Black Uhuru, written by Steven van Zandt
Stay strong. Organize. Work together. Tell everyone you know to vote.
Love to all—David