De Nile Is a River in Egypt, Washington, D.C. Steve Peoples of the AP: “Almost two weeks after Republicans lost badly in elections
in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, many GOP leaders
insist there is no problem with the party’s policies, its message or ... Donald Trump’s leadership. Trump says Democrats and the media are misleading voters who are concerned about high costs and the economy. Republican officials aiming to avoid another defeat in next fall’s midterms are encouraging candidates to embrace the president fully and talk more about his accomplishments. Those
are the major takeaways from a series of private conversations,
briefings and official talking points involving major Republican
decision-makers across Washington, including inside the White House,
after their party’s losses Nov. 4. Their assessment highlights the
extent to which the fate of the Republican Party is tied to Trump, a
term-limited president who insists the economy under his watch has never been stronger.”
Timothy Snyder on Substack: The "end of the United States is possible, in part, because our president and vice-president ... are inside a grift bubble, they push for authoritarianism in their own interest, without reckoning with the possibility that their actions can wreck the country. For them, America is a limitless passive resource.... Trump and Vance imagine, because it has worked thus far, that they can grift endlessly. They do not understand that their grift depends upon what I will unashamedly call the honest labor and decent convictions of millions of Americans." Snyder goes on to argue that the "grift bubble" is ultimately self-defeating. MB: Perhaps the wryest -- and most memorable -- observation in the essay is this: "... imagine ... that you are the vice-president. Your grift is that you claim to understand poor people, whose problems, you say, are the fault of gays, immigrants, and billionaires; and then you rise to power thanks to the money and support of a gay immigrant billionaire."
In his column, David French of the New York Times describes Pope Leo as the Anti-Trump. His argument has a few strengths & some weaknesses, but what struck me is this statistic he cites: “... according to exit polls, if you removed white evangelical votes from the 2024 presidential election, Trump would have lost in a 58-to-40 percent landslide, which would have been more than enough to turn the Electoral College in Kamala Harris’s favor.” This appears to be a gift link.
Eduardo Medina & Sonia Rao of the New York Times: “The Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigrants arrived in Charlotte this weekend, resulting in 81 arrests on Saturday. It continued on Sunday, with Border Patrol agents fanning out across the largest city in North Carolina. An immigrant rights group said the tally, reported by a senior Border Patrol official on social media, was the largest number of immigrant arrests in the state’s recent history. The presence of the agents, led by Gregory Bovino, who directed similar operations in Chicago and Los Angeles this year, has startled people in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Much of that growth has been spurred by international migration, especially from Latin America. The city is also home to large corporations in the retail, banking and manufacturing sectors. The increase in immigration has drawn the attention of Trump administration officials, who have been targeting communities with large immigrant populations for enforcement efforts. The North Carolina operation, dubbed 'Charlotte’s Web' ... has already drawn criticism for its aggressive tactics, with local officials telling people to record their interactions with agents.” The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The "plan" seems to be to go in and disrupt cities & communities within those cities that are humming along as they usually do. It's inexcusable. Earlier Sunday, I linked a Guardian story about Willy Aceituno, a Charlotte man who is a U.S. citizen. Immigration agents stopped him twice, broke the window of his vehicle, pulled him from the vehicle and threw him to the ground. Here's video:
Sophia Tareen & Christine Fernando of the AP: “As an unprecedented immigration crackdown enters a third month, a growing number of Chicago residents are fighting back against what they deem a racist and aggressive overreach of the federal government. The Democratic stronghold’s response has tapped established activists and everyday residents from wealthy suburbs to working class neighborhoods. They say their efforts — community patrols, rapid responders, school escorts, vendor buyouts, honking horns and blowing whistles — are a uniquely Chicago response that other cities ... Donald Trump has targeted for federal intervention want to model.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
Marie: Okay for once I did get some news from SNL. Had I not seen the two segments above, I would not have known to look up this story: ~~~
~~~ Joey Esposito of Snopes: True Claim: “'Mark Epstein, brother of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, once sent his brother an email that suggested he ask former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon “if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”'” It's not clear who Bubba is, though some speculate it's Bill Clinton. Mark Epstein's message may be “in jest.” MB: Mark Epstein is still alive and doing interviews, so maybe somebody could ask him about that.
Reuters, published by CNBC: "... Donald Trump bought at least $82 million in corporate and municipal bonds from late August to early October including new investments in sectors benefiting from his policies, financial disclosures made public on Saturday showed.... The disclosures, made under a 1978 transparency law called the Ethics in Government Act, do not list exact amounts for each purchase, only providing a broad range. The maximum total value of the bond purchases exceeded $337 million, according to the filings. Most of the assets listed in Saturday’s disclosures consist of bonds issued by municipalities, states, counties, school districts and other entities with ties to public agencies. Trump’s new bond investments span several industries, including sectors that have already benefited, or are benefiting, from his administration’s policy changes such as financial deregulation.... Trump also acquired Intel bonds after the U.S. government, under Trump’s direction, acquired a stake in the company."
Gary Legum of Wonkette reprises some of the newly-reported Trumpy schemes "to suck all of America’s money out of our Treasury.... The next president is going to walk into the Treasury and find it resembles a bank vault post-heist. Even the copper wiring might have been ripped out of the walls and flown down to Mar-a-Lago." ~~~
~~~ A couple of days ago, Gary Legum brought out the long friendship, as reflected in the email exchanges between Jeffrey Epstein & Ken Starr, the formerly-prissy special counsel who tut-tutted about Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. If you were around back in the day and thought Starr was at least as creepy as Clinton, Legum's review likely will harden that impression. MB: I'd definitely recommend giving Legum's column a read. I do wonder if just for moment, as he was hunting & pecking on his keyboard, a fleeting thought crossed Ken's filthy-mush mind -- “Is it right & proper to send 'Yuletide hugs' to a Jewish pedophile?”
Kyle Cheney of Politico: “... Donald Trump has — for the second time — pardoned Dan Wilson, a militia member who joined the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 and was also convicted of illegally possessing firearms in his Kentucky home. Trump had already erased Wilson’s felony conviction for his role in the riot when he issued his Inauguration Day pardon for all of the participants in the attack. But Wilson was one of a handful of Jan. 6 defendants who remained incarcerated for other federal crimes. He was due to be released from prison in 2028.... Wilson ... has identified himself as a member of the Oath Keepers and Gray Ghost Partisan Rangers militia.... U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, sentenced Wilson to five years in prison, a sentence that began shortly before Trump took office.” Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Justin Glawe of Public Notice has a nice review of Trump's serial abuse of the pardon power. MB: A real Congress could and would impeach & convict Trump for these abuses, but we haven't had a useful Congress for several decades. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: Donald “Trump issued pardons this weekend to two people convicted of crimes stemming from the events of Jan. 6, 2021, but not directly tied to the attack on the Capitol, expanding the scope of the broad clemency he had already granted to those caught up in the prosecutions related to the riot.... They were part of Mr. Trump’s continuing efforts to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 and to depict those who took part in the storming of the Capitol not as criminals, but rather as victims of a weaponized justice system — much like he sees himself. Mr. Trump issued the first of the two pardons on Friday night to Daniel Edwin Wilson.... Ed Martin, a longtime supporter of the Jan. 6 rioters who is the Justice Department’s pardon attorney..., also announced the pardon of Suzanne Kaye, a Florida woman who had been sentenced two years ago to 18 months in prison for threatening to shoot F.B.I. agents who had sought to question her about her involvement in the Capitol attack.” ~~~
~~~ Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: Donald “Trump also pardoned Joseph Schwartz, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty last year in a $38 million tax fraud scheme.”
Gregory Svirnovskiy & Ben Johansen of Politico: “... Donald Trump escalated his feud with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Saturday, as Democrats delighted over the latest relationship to turn sour in MAGA world. 'Lightweight Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!), betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left, performed poorly on the pathetic View, and became the RINO that we all know she always was,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. Trump said he severed ties with Greene on Friday, withdrawing his endorsement of the GOP firebrand and longtime ally in a series of social media posts and reposts in which he accused her of pulling away only after he convinced her not to run for Georgia’s Senate seat. Greene — who the president also described as 'Marjorie “Traitor” Green,' Saturday morning — has repeatedly bucked the party line in recent months.... [Congressional] Democrats have cheered on the breakup between the two onetime allies, looking to further drive a wedge between the president and his base.” ~~~
~~~ Alexandra Marquez of NBC News: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who was once one of ... Donald Trump's most vocal supporters, said Saturday that she's facing threats following the president's criticism of her on social media. 'I am now being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world. The man I supported and helped get elected,' Greene wrote in a post on X on Saturday."
The Unbearable Lightness of Being JayDee. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “Vance is simultaneously prominent and marginal, a highly visible figure with nothing better to do than idle near the edges of American politics.... What is the actual, practical difference between Vance’s call for the removal and potential expropriation of 'illegal' immigrants — defined in terms of ethnic and racial difference — and [Nazi-admiring Nick] Fuentes’s vision of a white ethno-state in what is now the United States? They look about the same to me.”
Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: When Congress created the Homeland Security Department after September 11, 2001, it “was tasked with preventing terrorism, protecting the president, investigating transnational crime and responding to natural disasters, among other duties. Immigration enforcement was one of many responsibilities, but it was not envisioned as D.H.S.’s singular function. Today, the Trump administration has remade the agency into a veritable Department of Deportation.... Thousands of agents being redirected to immigration duties.... Even highly trained specialists have been pulled into immigration work.... Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of Mr. Trump’s deportation agenda, holds a regular morning conference call with top government officials to plan and execute the massive operation.... CE’s budget is expected to nearly triple and its staff to grow by 66 percent, an investment that will make it the nation’s highest-funded law enforcement agency.”
Erik Verduzco of the AP: “Federal officials confirmed Saturday that a surge of immigration enforcement in North Carolina’s largest city [Charlotte] has begun, as agents were seen making arrests in multiple locations.... Local officials including Mayor Vi Lyles criticized such actions, saying in a statement that they 'are causing unnecessary fear and uncertainty.'... Crime is down in the city this year through August, compared with the same months in 2024. Homicides, rapes, robberies and motor vehicle thefts fell by more than 20%, according to AH Datalytics. But ... Donald Trump’s administration has seized upon the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train to argue that Democratic-led cities fail to protect residents. A man with a lengthy criminal record has been charged with the woman’s murder.” ~~~
~~~ Edward Helmore of the Guardian & Agencies: “Local media reports said that among the locations targeted by masked federal agents was a church in east Charlotte, where an arrest was made while about 15 to 20 church members were doing yard work on the property. The pastor at the church, who did not want to identify himself or his church, told the Charlotte Observer that agents reportedly asked no questions and showed no identification before taking the man away.... Willy Aceituno, a 46-year-old Honduran-born US citizen, said he was on his way to work Saturday when he saw 'a lot of Latinos running', chased by 'a lot of border patrol agents'. Aceituno said he was stopped twice by agents. During the second encounter, he said, he was forced from his vehicle by agents who broke the window of his vehicle. 'I told them: “I’m an American citizen,”’ he told the Associated Press. 'They wanted to know where I was born, or they didn’t believe I was an American citizen.' Aceituno said he was taken to a border patrol vehicle and later released after showing documents proving his citizenship.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Well, of course these people were locked up or at least detained. One of them was doing yard work, for Pete's sake (okay, it was volunteer work, at a church, with lots of other volunteers, but still), and another was driving while Latino.
Two Sides of the Story. (1) Josh Marcus of the Independent: "Protests around a Chicago-area Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility descended into chaos on Friday resulting in 21 arrests and four officers being injured.... Videos captured a hundreds-strong crowd and police in riot gear pinning protesters to the ground and arresting them." ~~~
~~~ (2) Jack Jenkins of Religious News Service: “In video recorded on Friday (Nov. 14) outside the embattled U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, the Rev. Michael Woolf stands alongside fellow protesters, fiddling awkwardly with his backpack as faith leaders and other protesters chant slogans at a line of police officers. A moment later, one officer can be seen walking forward, grabbing Woolf by the wrist and yanking. Demonstrators attempted to hold on to Woolf, who was wearing a clerical collar, but four officers wrenched him from the crowd and tossed him to the ground. After turning him onto his stomach, officers proceeded to arrest Woolf, and removed him to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Maywood, Illinois. 'I’ve got bruises all over my body,' Woolf, an American Baptist minister who is pastor of Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois, told Religion News Service.... Cook County Police said 21 people were arrested at the demonstration, all but one of whom were charged with 'Obstruction/Disorderly Conduct/Pedestrian Walking on Highways.' Participants said at least seven of those arrested were faith leaders.... The Department of Homeland Security... [wrote] in an X post on Friday..., 'Womp womp, cry all you want. These criminal illegal aliens aren’t getting released.' The post called the demonstrators 'violent rioters' and 'imbecilic morons' who need to 'get a job.'”
Marcia Brown of Politico: “Millions of Americans greeted the end of the government shutdown — and the resumption of food stamp benefits — with relief. But others are learning they could soon lose federal food aid permanently. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins directed USDA staff during the record-setting 43-day shutdown to continue ushering states toward compliance with Republicans’ signature tax and spending law, which is projected to kick millions out of the nation’s largest anti-hunger program.... Changes [to SNAP], combined with other provisions in the new law [-- Trump's so-called Big, Beautiful Bill --], will represent the most significant cuts to the social safety net in decades. And it all comes as low-income families are confronting stagnating wages that aren’t keeping up with the skyrocketing cost of living.... Under the new law, parents and older Americans will be required to meet stricter work requirements, and states eventually will have to share in the cost of SNAP benefits, which could force further program cuts, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Tens of thousands of legal immigrants will also lose access to the program under the law.”
13 comments:
Another sermon in two parts:
TURKEY TALK
November seems a good time to talk turkey.
Although Americans have been talking turkey since at least 1824 when the phrase, meaning to talk “openly and frankly,” was first recorded (mentalfloss.com), there’s much we’re reluctant to talk turkey about.
At family gatherings we’re enjoined to avoid politics and religion for fear of causing controversy or giving offense, and though we live in a capitalist society in which money dominates our lives, we seldom talk openly about how well our economy serves us.
According to a recent New York Times report, many Americans would say it’s not serving most of us very well. Those in the top ten percent now account for nearly half of consumer spending. The wealthy minority is keeping the overall economy afloat.
A friend said to me the other day that the high stock market indicated an economy in good shape. Presumably, he’s invested in the market. Sixty-two percent of Americans are, but more than one third are not. For those who don’t own stocks, and even for most who do, the market is not the economy. In fact, for most stockholders the market is not even their market. Since the top one percent own more than half of the nation’s stocks, the market is really the one percent’s (fool.com), not my friend’s or ours.
Maybe if we talked turkey a little more, we’d have known what was coming when Republicans passed their Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), raising medical insurance premiums for those on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and limiting Medicaid and food stamp (SNAP) eligibility. The government shutdown has brought attention to what should have been obvious then. Though Republicans have been saying for more than a decade they know how to provide economical health coverage for everyone, they really don’t. Explanations for their absent plan range from Trump’s “concept of a plan” to House Speaker Mike Jonhson’s recent claim that Republicans really do have one but it’s a secret (msn.com). For decades now, health care for me but not for thee has been the real Republican plan.
Refusing to make SNAP payments during the shutdown despite court orders to do so (nytimes.com), holding millions of children, the disabled, and the working poor hostage as the shutdown dragged on only heightened the Republican insult to struggling Americans.
Some may have been shocked by Republican behavior, but two-tier wealth distribution is an old American story. It was no surprise that the person who “donated” $130 million of his pocket change to “pay the troops” during the shutdown belonged to the same family that has funded the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025 economic playbook, now faithfully followed by the Trump administration.
His name is Timothy Mellon, and any American with some knowledge of history should know the Mellon name. His grandfather, Andrew Mellon, a member of Philadelphia's Mellon banking family, served as Secretary of the Treasury during the 1920’s. His policies over that period included support for tariffs and lower taxes on the rich. He was not coincidentally Treasury Secretary when Wall Street imploded, and the Great Depression began.
Part II
“Think tanks” like the Heritage Foundation exist to advance the interests of the wealthy. Despite what thoughtful economists have learned from the Great Depression, these thinkers continue to lobby for lower income taxes on the rich and more tariffs, essentially a sales tax that’s falls on everyone. Sound familiar?
It should. Timothy Mellon and other ultra-wealthy conservatives, including the Coors and Koch families (desmog.com), are Trump’s economic whisperers. The BBB bill lowered taxes on the rich, stuck it to the poor, and now Trump’s erratic tariffs, some recently raised on Canada because Trump didn’t like an ad aired during the World Series and those imposed on Brazil because he doesn’t like Brazil’s leader, are supposed to make up for the BBB’s shortfall, but they won’t. Even given a fifty percent tariff on all imports, they can’t (econofact.org). They will just cost American consumers more.
So, whose country is it? Does it belong to those invited to Trump’s lavish Great Gatsby-themed Halloween Mar-a-Lago party (usatoday.com) and to the future guests at the new $300 million White House ballroom? Or to those about to lose their health insurance coverage and to millions of SNAP beneficiaries the Republicans used as bargaining chips in the shutdown tussle?
The answer clearly depends on the economic tier to which you belong. If only the current White House were not so devoted to displaying the garish gilt of wealth (rollingstone.com), this Republican president might feel a little guilt for what he’s doing to the country.
Enough turkey-talk for now.
Have a good Thanksgiving.
Omaha Steaks CEO Nate Rempe
"If you think beef is expensive now, just wait until next year when prices could soar nearly 60%
“So we are headed for what I’m calling the $10-a-pound reality by third quarter of ’26,” he predicted. “Families are going to see $10-a-pound ground beef in the grocery store.”
According to the latest consumer price index data, the average price of ground beef was $6.323 a pound in September. That’s up 14% since January and 26% from January 2024."
Like the stocks, beef could soon be mostly for the 1%.
Trans Troops
"A group of 17 transgender members of the Air Force are suing the U.S. government over what they say is the military’s unlawful revocation of their early retirement pensions and benefits. The lawsuit comes several months after the Air Force confirmed that it would deny all transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years the option to retire early and would instead separate them without retirement benefits."
The Files Just Won't Die
Corrupt-o-Matic
Recommended by HCR, a 30 minute youtube lecture on: Why the Rich Don’t Pay Taxes
Boston College law professor Ray Madoff, author of The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, explains how a century of tax policy created two Americas: one that pays taxes and one that doesn’t.
Drawing on her new book, Madoff reveals how the wealthy use legal tools—inheritance loopholes, trusts, and philanthropy—to avoid taxation altogether. She shows how “charitable giving” often benefits billionaires more than the public, and how our tax code has quietly built an American aristocracy.
Madoff calls for a new vision of stewardship—where wealth is once again tied to responsibility, and the public good comes before private dynasties.
Wow, light dawns on Marblehead, as we used to say in Eastern Massachusetts (maybe they still do).
MTG is finding out the down side of siccing crazed MAGA loons on someone by screeching about them and calling them names or spewing crazy things about them on the various winger antisocial media sites. Who knew?
While Greene's apostasy might be welcome in some circles, it shows just how much of her past MAGAfied meshugaas was likely performative. Now that she's looking at higher office (some talk about her running for president), she's all of a sudden realized that all that Jewish space laser woo-woo doesn't make her look presidential (or even vaguely sane). So the question now is how much of her latest switch to nominally normal neurological functioning is authentic or just another mask.
Not that I mind a little civil war in MAGAdom. Maybe they can stage their own Bullshit Run. Oh, wait. They already do that, but it's more like a Bullshit gallop.
$46 Trillion!!!
Wendy, thanks for the heads up on Ray Madoff. I have to say I did a mental double take when I saw the name "Madoff" connected to the rich not paying taxes, but it turns out she's goldmine of information, solid data on the one percenters delivered without requiring the reader/listener to have a post-doc in economics.
I found this video of her (linked above) in which she opens with the following:
In 2024, the government took in $5 trillion in taxes. It spent $6.8 trillion, a $1.8 trillion shorfall. At the same time, the amount of wealth owned by the richest Americans (Fatty included) is a staggering $46 trillion.
Discuss.
Check her out. She is a professor at Boston College Law school and has a bunch of videos I plan on watching.
I'm now a converted BIG FAN of Perjury Traitor (see I used this before HE did--)Greed...NOT. There is no point in believing one word she says. Smarter Rs than her ( Rand Paul etc.) occasionally do sound reasonable, but the entire ethic of Rs is disinformation, distortion, application of said d and d to platform dedicated to passing on all lies and withholding all truth (ie Faux), and all related misinformation which turn out to be lies. We make a dire mistake if we interpret her support for the release of THE FILES as anything rather than transient performance art. It's like Dick Cheney's sudden support for gays when his daughter exits her closet. We can't trust any of them.
Jeanne,
Far be it from me to say anything nice about Darth Cheney, but I've always thought his change of heart was authentic. I know that some parents and other family members, especially in years past might have rejected someone in the family who came out, but I think (and hope) that's mostly a thing of the past. If you love someone, you love them no matter what. Well, maybe if it comes out they sacrifice children in devil worship services you might have second thoughts...
But here's where the whole DEI concept is so important. It becomes terribly difficult to hate someone or a group when you know that person or someone from that group. I remember as a kid some other guy in the neighborhood who would on and on about nigger this and nigger that, but then I brought up another kid who hung with us all the time, a kid who was black. I said "What about this kid?" His response..."He's not a nigger, he's a good kid". Duh. But it's only because he knew that kid.
Inclusion is all about introducing members of other groups into our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, etc. When you know someone, unless they're complete assholes, it's hard to say you hate them just because of skin color or sexual orientation. A lot of the guys I grew up with were pretty homophobic, but only because they got it from their parents and the general feeling from various social mores. But as we got older, it became clear that a guy we knew well was gay. No one rejected him. He was a great guy and it didn't matter who he wanted to go out with. He was a friend.
Inclusion matters. I think for someone like Dick Cheney, It might have been a lightbulb moment. At least I hope so. I give him credit for standing up for his kid. Admittedly, at that point, he didn't have much to lose by doing so, but he didn't have to do it so publicly. I would hope that a lot more people would feel the same way if they came into contact more frequently with members of other groups. The whole movement against DEI is born of fear and hatred. DEI is the opposite of that.
More of that, please.
Just incredible that stricter work requirements are being demanded of the most vulnerable Americans, put in place by a indolent fat man who barely works three hours a day, takes three day golf vacations every week, and authorized by a Republican congress that just had a two month paid vacation while millions of. Americans went hungry and hundreds of thousands went without pay for that same period. Maybe these lazy, incrediby indulged moochers should be saddled with their own job requirements. Go to work, do your fucking job, and shut the fuck up about how "hard" you have it.
Ken Burns' new documentary on the American Revolution is sure to piss off many MAGAts, as it includes in its panoply of the birth of the nation women, blacks, and American Indians, rather than a solid wall of white men. Images of slaves being sold in the colonies will certainly set hair afire among the Himmler Miller brigade, since they've been screeching that slavery was not important and barely existed in America, and when and if it did, was no big deal.
One line stood out as we seem to be on the brink of a new war of choice initiated by another ignoramus: In war, nothing works as planned. Nothing is guaranteed.
In other words, shit happens. I sincerely doubt the Orange Monster or any of his slavish acolytes watched tonight, except insofar as they sought new fodder for additional outrage. Had he done so, I'm guessing he'd be too busy rage-tweeting to pay attention to such a sage warning.
Good stuff so far. Looking forward to the next episode. Took my kid to visit Lexington and Concord last summer (I used to live a few hundred yards from the Lexington green for a few years) and we walked across the Old North Bridge to where the Acton militiamen opened fire on the British. Pretty cool for him to see it in a different light than a quiet summer day with a few tourists on hand. A few of the restored homes nearby still have bullet holes in the siding from the shots heard round the world. We're back there again, fighting a king and his armed thugs who would subdue us and force us to kiss his fat royal ass.
Major John Buttrick, seeing the commander of the Acton militia, Isaac Davis, shot down, exhorted his men to "Fire, for god's sake, fire!"
Maybe we're not using muskets, but standing up to this new would-be king is no less vital today than it was that day in Concord so long ago.
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