Teresa Hanafin writes Fast Forward for the Boston Globe almost daily
She wrote about Nikki Haley’s new book and her defense of Trump.
Haley was on one of the cable talk shows and she said Trump should not be impeached because he did not get the Ukrainian president to hold a press conference and he did give Ukraine the money that Congress appropriated. This is akin to saying that a bank robber should not be charged with a crime if he didn’t get the money, and an attempted murder is not a crime because no one died.
She is not the “moderate” Republican that the press hoped for. She is a Trumper through and through. We know Trump admires loyalty above all else.
Nikki Haley, who’s either angling to replace VP Mike Pence on the 2020 ticket or positioning herself for a presidential run in 2024, took a whack at former chief of staff John Kelly and former secretary of state Rex Tillerson in her new book, which is out tomorrow.
She wrote that the two men, alarmed by some of Trump’s words and actions, approached her about joining them in trying to save Trump from some of his worst impulses and steer him toward more rational and reasonable decisions. Otherwise, Tillerson told her, some of Trump’s actions could cause people to die (um, such as Kurds?).
Haley chose to characterize their efforts as “undermining” Trump, substituting their judgment for his even though he was elected and they weren’t. “It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” she wrote about their attitude, evidently unaware that half the country agrees with them.
It’s interesting that she has revealed that concerns about Trump weren’t confined to mid-level officials; those who worked with him closely every day were alarmed. Yet this is the guy she has chosen to embrace.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s somewhat amusing to have Nikki Haley point her gun at John Kelly and Rex Tillerson. I hope she keeps saying that Kelly and Tillerson are treasonous men who need to be locked up for not being willing to cover up for the “perfect” Trump the way Attorney General William Bar is.
Jim Jordan, an Ohioan in the U.S House, has competition in the Senate for his title, the dumbest politician in D.C. The competition is Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn, a Koch stooge.
She attributed to Jesus, a quote from a Shakespeare play and she reversed the meaning of the quote.
Please share Blackburn’s quote.
Would someone send Jim Jordan a suit jacket?
I read the other day that a former wrestler at Ohio State, where he was assistant wrestling coach, has filed a lawsuit against Jordan for failing to act on his complaint about the head wrestling coach, who was a serial sexual predator on wrestlers.
Blackburn’s tweet:
“A 3-year, coordinated effort has been underway to remove @realDonaldTrump from office.
“Jesus warned us — watch out for the lawyers.”
To which someone replied that it wasn’t Jesus but Shakespeare, referencing Henry IV, Part II: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
But she could well have have referring to “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.” Luke 11:52
This makes some sense in the context, for Jesus is here describing overly legalistic folks who have caused others to stray from the path.
So, if she’s a Trump supporter she is, ipso facto, an idiot, but she might actually have the reference right. The bizarre and amusing thing is that she would equate following Trumpty with knowledge, with spiritual knowledge even. But that’s a pretty common trope among Evangelical nutcases these days.
Evangelicals that support Trump know nothing about scripture, NOTHING!
Whatever cult these Always Trump Evangelicals belong to that calls itself a Christian sect allowed their brains to be hacked and scrambled into mush.
If they knew anything about what Jesus Christ taught, they would know that if JC returned today, his rage would explode like when he expelled the merchants and money changers from the Temple, accusing them of turning the Temple into “a den of thieves” through their commercial activities.
But this time, Jesus would have to arrive with a Special Forces squad of six Archangels to protect him from being assassinated by one of Trump’s hard-core followers.
And imagine the “Chosen One” Donald Trump’s Tweets spewing hate and threats at Jesus if he returned to straighten out the world.
Even if Jesus Christ arrived from outer space (without s space ship or space suit) surrounded by winged archangels and landed in Times Square, Trump and his followers would call him a fake. And when God lost his temper and showered Trump’s followers with fire and brimstone, Trump would declare war on God and attack with nuclear weapons.
As a tennessean, I wish to express my hostility to your characterization of stooges. Comparing Blackburn to a stooge will give all the stooges, not just the three, a bad name.
“She wrote that the two men, alarmed by some of Trump’s words and actions, approached her about joining them in trying to save Trump from some of his worst impulses and steer him toward more rational and reasonable decisions.”
At least she is admitting that there were people around Trump who were trying to ‘save him from his worst impulses’. I don’t understand why anyone would want to support Trump. His time is ending and anyone who supports him long term will find their career ending sooner than desired.
Here is a video of Trump speaking on the Letterman show. I look at how DJT spoke when he was younger and how he speaks now. The comparison is why I think Donald is suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s. On this video he is actually saying he loves what he has been doing and can speak in complete sentences. One never hears the Orange Buffoon saying he loves anything. Letterman introduces him as the author of “Art of the Deal” which he doesn’t disclaim.
Donald Trump on Letterman, 1986-87
Feb 21, 2017
Trump’s first appearance was in a remote that aired October 1, 1986: Dave paid a quick visit to his office at Trump Tower. (This was referenced in the next clip.)
Carol,
Wrong! He said he loves uneducated people.
With DeVos in charge of ED, there will be more of them.
Haley is joining the likes of Nunes, Jordan, Bevin, and Gaetz in auditioning for a spot in the Trump Administration. You can add those specific players on Fox as well.
John Kelly and former secretary of state Rex Tillerson both took the same oath of office that Donald Trump did.
Donald Trump tramples that oath of office almost daily.
John Kelly and Rex Tillerson were upholding the oath they took to be concerned about Trump’s flagrant violations of the oath.
“Donald Trump has repeatedly violated his oath of office: Reason enough for impeachment
“No one in living memory has done less to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution’ than Donald Trump”
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/donald-trump-has-repeatedly-violated-his-oath-of-office-reason-enough-for-impeachment/
“Trump has violated his oath to the Constitution … His first act as President … President Trump then promptly broke his word.”
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-constitution-first-day-office-55d1f0668c27/
I previously thought Haley had some brain cells. I must have been mistaken.
With her brain missing, there is room for a tiny, tiny little Donald Trump to live inside her skull with a bullhorn shouting what he wants her to say.
You worry about her brain. I worry about her nose and where it’s been.
What, exactly, is a “perfect phone call”? He means, ofc, that his call was proper, above board, on the up and up, appropriate, but this Jabba trailing slime through our body politic cannot even speak his native tongue. He is a traitor with the cognitive capacity of a toddler and the moral compass of wasp larvae. Go ahead, Haley, defend him. History will not be kind to those who did.
cx: What, exactly, is a “perfect phone call”? He means, ofc, or would mean if he were capable of thinking this clearly, that his call was proper, above board, on the up and up, appropriate, but this Jabba trailing slime through our body politic cannot even speak his native tongue. To Trump, he of the “best genes,” the way to improve a statement is not, as a writer does, to make it more precise, more truthful, but to make it BIGGER–to go with the hyperbole. And so we get his name in big, gold letters on every piece of property he owns; the over-the-top rococo of the world’s tackiest dwellings–his homes in Trump Tower and Mar-a-lago; the gold seat buckles on his private airplane. Trump is a traitor with the cognitive capacity of a toddler and the moral compass of wasp larvae, the spoiled rich boy with the Elvis-on-velvet tastes, the psycho with no feelings for no one but himself. Go ahead, Haley, defend him. History will not be kind to those who did.
Any Republican, like Haley, who defends Trump after all he has done and said, has destroyed any possibility of bipartisan support for a presidential run. Apparently she thinks she can get his base to love her, but they will remember that she removed Confederate flags in SC after the church massacre in Charleston.
Everyone passing through Tampa on the i-75 corridor drives by a gigantic Confederate flag off the side of the highway, a blight upon the city and unconscionable intrusion of racism into public space.
I wonder if Trump has, in his entire adult life, ever read a novel.
I wonder if Trump has, in his entire adult life ever read a book.
I would love to see questions about such matters asked of candidates in debates–questions with follow-ups to ascertain whether they are lying. Name two novels and two histories that have profoundly influenced you and that you think every President should have read and explain why. Take a moment to think about this, and we’ll come back for your answer in a bit.
We do a better job of vetting someone who is going to run a local gas station and mini-mart than we do vetting someone who is going to be the head of the Executive branch and commander-in-chief.
George Bush, Jr., referred to these as “gotcha questions.” Clearly, if someone like Trump can be elected president, we need a lot more such questions.
DT’s first wife said the Orange Slime kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed and bookmarked the passages he “loved” the most and read them over and over.
In 1990, “Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed … Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist,” Marie Brenner wrote. …
Trump then recalled, “Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of ‘Mein Kampf,’ and he’s a Jew.” …
In the Vanity Fair article, Ivana Trump told a friend that her husband’s cousin, John Walter “clicks his heels and says, ‘Heil Hitler,” when visiting Trump’s office.
https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8
If low voter turnout is working for the Republicans, theres is no incentive to change this statistic. People have been dropped from voter registration rolls.
I have a friend whose mother, in her 90’s, wasn’t allowed to vote. She didn’t have a birth certificate and doesn’t drive. She brought all sorts of papers showing where she lived but it wasn’t good enough. Her daughter wasn’t able to get what was needed for her to be able to vote.
I went on a protest a couple of years ago posting notices on people’s doors, and talking to them if they answered the doorbell. 500,000 had been dropped in NW Indiana.
………………………………..
Hoosier voters fall short on civic duty, study shows
2 hrs ago
The bipartisan study looks at eight years of data that show Hoosiers volunteer, give and participate in their communities at rates higher than the national average. Indiana residents, for instance, rank second nationally in sharing their opinions online, 12th in discussing issues with family and friends, and eighth in frequently consuming news about social, political and local issues.
But the research also found voter registration and turnout in Indiana has been consistently ranked well below the national average, both historically and in the present day….
“Indiana’s national rankings on voter registration and voting turnout, two major indicators of civic health, show there is significant room for improvement,” the Indiana Bar Foundation said in a news release. “A trend of placing in the bottom 10 of all states on voting, and bottom third on voter registration, is persistent since 2010. Data from the 2018 midterm elections show that while there was improvement, the state remained low on these indicators.”
The index advises state leaders to do more to promote civic engagement, including by assembling a civic education task force that will study how civic education is taught to people of all ages across the state. The task force would be charged with making specific policy recommendations to improve civic instruction, programs and outcomes across the state.
The index also recommends that Indiana improve voter turnout by at least 20%, or 500,000 voters, in the 2020 election in order to move from the bottom 10 states to the top 10…
https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/hoosier-voters-fall-short-on-civic-duty-study-shows/article_f550cb15-041a-5fb5-b596-a3aa929192f9.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
After the disputed 2000 election, I served on a federal commission (chaired by Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford).
We looked into every aspect of voting.
In most states, any form of ID was sufficient to register: a hunting license, a Social Security card, a driver ID, even in some places a bill from a local store.
That the Repugnicans have to depend upon gerrymandering and vote suppression to hang onto power should be a clue to them. LOL.
Oops, cx: “to hang on to power”
The on is a particle, part of the phrasal verb “hang on.”
The continuous string of lies never ends.
This comes from the WH:
West Wing Reads
Trump Delivers a Salute to Veterans at Historic NYC Parade
“President Donald Trump paid tribute Monday to all Americans who have worn a military uniform, from the Revolution through present-day conflicts. He spoke at the start of the annual New York City Veterans Day parade,” Richard Sisk reports for Military.com.
President Trump became the first sitting U.S. President to attend the parade. “Our veterans risked everything for us. Now, it is our duty to serve and protect them,” he said.
“The House impeachment effort is a brazen attempt to protect the ‘independence’ of the permanent bureaucracy. It’s bureaucracy versus democracy, and the ironically named Democratic Party has gone to the mattresses to oppose the threat that elections pose to permanent bureaucratic power,” Adam Mill writes in The Federalist.
“While Democrats pursue their partisan crusade to impeach President Trump, their own constituents continue to benefit from his policies in the form of new jobs and better wages, reduced income inequality, a more equitable criminal justice system, and — at long last — real progress toward curbing the opioid crisis . . . But don’t expect to hear about these bipartisan achievements from the anti-Trump media,” former CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder writes in Fox News.
President Trump was “overwhelmingly cheered by the crowd at the Alabama Crimson Tide vs LSU game” Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa. During the game’s first timeout, the President and First Lady Melania Trump “were shown in the stadium’s four video screens and prolonged applause began, followed by scattered chants of ‘USA! USA! USA!’ Trump smiled and waved to the crowd,” Paul Gattis reports for AL.com.
“Border mayors from Brownsville to San Diego have signed on to resolutions in support of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement,” saying that USMCA must be ratified quickly by Congress to modernize NAFTA, Luis Montoya reports for the Rio Grande Guardian.
Impeachment.
In the 231 years since our Constitution was ratified, the House of Representatives has only impeached two presidents, neither convicted. By resigning, Richard Nixon escaped the verdict of the House and Senate but did not escape the verdict of history.
We’re at a pivotal moment in history again.
Impeachment is a solemn process, one that we do not undertake lightly. As the evidence mounts, as the truth is revealed, it is more clear every day that Congress has a duty to act.
The President may claim his interactions with Ukraine were “perfect”, but his actions tell the tale. By desperately trying to cover it up, lie about it, and withhold evidence about it, Donald Trump reveals that he knew his actions were wrong.
He has lied. He has corrupted. He has obstructed.
He put his own personal interests above our national security.
He abused the power we placed in his hands.
If we fail to hold him to account, we fail the American people and the democratic republic we have built together.
I’ve taken an oath to defend our Constitution. I will keep that oath.
That’s why I voted to start the formal impeachment process in the House.
I do not celebrate that vote. But I am resolute. The American people deserve a president, now and forever, who puts their interests above his own.
Joe Kennedy…Massachusetts
Joseph Patrick Kennedy III (born October 4, 1980) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, his congressional district extends from the western suburbs of Boston to the state’s South Coast.
How to watch the impeachment hearings this week
Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Time: 10 a.m. ET
Who: Bill Taylor, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, and George Kent, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs
Online stream: CBSN, in the player above and on your mobile or streaming device
On TV: CBS affiliates
Date: Friday, November 15, 2019
Time: Likely 9 a.m. ET
Who: Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine
Online stream: CBSN, in the player above and on your mobile or streaming device
On TV: CBS affiliates
The inquiry centers around a phone call Mr. Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, in which he urged Zelensky to investigate potential political opponent Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, while the elder Biden was vice president.