I disagree with Ms. Hutchinson being called a heroine. In the moment, maybe. But she was on board with the Trump administration and everything they did. On board with the denigration of Alexander Vindman. On board with the kids in cages. On board with the Muslim ban. On board with "very fine people on both sides". On board with the horrendous handing of Covid. And so on.
Don Moynihan's piece titled "The rot runs deeper" provides a disturbing (and revealing) counterpoint to Trumpite notions about presidential powers. I recall loyalists routinely protesting that Trump was "the duly elected president" in response to efforts to scrutinize his actions and hold him within the bounds of law -- as though endorsing his own presumption that there should be no restraints on his action.
Moynihan looks at Wisconsin, where a Democrat has been the duly elected governor for a few years, but the Republican-controlled legislature has done everything it can to prevent him from appointing his own officials to carry out his agenda. At the same time, GOP gerrymandering gives the party legislative power out of proportion to the popular vote.
In both situations, Republicans of course will claim that they are devoted to preserving the constitutional republic from its domestic enemies. I will grant that some on the left are less attached to the constitutional order than to a utopian vision to which the Constitution might put up impediments. But it's become clear to me that many on the right on less attached to the constitutional order than to their own vision of a more perfect social order, which can't be achieved when people have constitutional rights and when policies require majority support (if only indirectly).
Her speech was great, and the audience seemed receptive. The question is for the audience - well, what are you going to do now? Still kowtow to the former traitor-in-chief?
And yet total blockade would have been better than what we got. The argument can also be made that her victory would only have delayed the inevitable. And the version of Trump we would have faced might actually have been competent.
Aside from the ketchup and broken china stories the most interesting part of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony to me is that Trump actually wanted to lead the march on the Capitol and that he was angered
when he was denied.
I had always assumed he was blowing smoke up everyone's asses and had NO intention of going anywhere near the protesters. BUT if what she said is true then it is pretty clear that he envisioned a whole different motion picture. The strong man leading his troops to the Capitol and perhaps right into the House of Representatives and up the aisle to confront and call out Mike Pence. Was he ready to declare martial law? What exactly was HIS plan that was being frustrated by others.
Again his willingness to compromise his personal safety in order to have the desired visual of a packed venue for his speech was telling. "They don't want to hurt me..."
With the benefit of 20/20 backward vision it really is too bad that he wasn't allowed to act out his pageant as he wanted. The insanity. The grandstanding and ultimately the transfer of power to Joe Biden anyway.
And the obvious need to invoke the 25th Amendment and make Pence President for 2 weeks.
This makes me wonder if a speechwriter may have written a little speech for Trump's envisioned victorious march up to the Speaker's podium. That would be interesting reading if it exists.
Liz Cheney is a true hero for being the only Republican of her stature to stand up in defense of democracy and forcefully renounce Trump and all of his works and all of his pomps.
However, most all of her other political beliefs are anathema.
Re: Texas secession: It should be made abundantly clear to would-be secessionists that not only would they be seceding from the US but their retirees and veterans would be seceding from Social Security, Medicare and Veterans' Benefits, among other things. And that the US Military would be removing their bases, NASA would leave, as well as any other federal offices, etc. And that just scratches the surface; there's a long list of consequences, some major, some minor, that would be associated with even a peaceful and amicable departure. It's doubtful they've thought about those things for even a second, but I don't suppose the crazies would care much, anyway. Cuz freedumb!
And of course this doesn't even mention how badly this would roil financial markets as investors become concerned about a full scale breakup of the USA and whether payments on federal debt would continue. A full-scale dissolution of the US would have the very real potential of being a civilization-ending event. People who talk about secession casually - whether as being part of a state that wants to leave or as someone saying "good riddance" about another state - need to be painfully aware of that fact.
Being part of a pluralistic society can sometimes suck, particularly when you don't get your way. But the alternatives are almost certainly a whole lot worse. As hard as it seems sometimes, the far better path is to figure out a way to coexist within the country we have.
This isn't 1860 when the US wasn't even a hundred years old. It was also a country that most of the advanced countries didn't really consider a big deal. The South could possibly have existed on its own for a few years at least, especially since Britain was willing to help them (cotton being king, of course). But in today's world - nope. BTW, not sure what you mean about SS disappearing - existing recipients would still get their money. The future recipients - nope. And remember, most of the red states need federal money, the blue not so much. Talk is cheap, thinking isn't.
Actually Britain needed wheat from the North more than it needed cotton from the South. It was one thing to starve the Irish *en masse* but to starve the English factory workers would have been harmful to their upper classes who ran things back then.
Maybe, but Queen Victoria supposedly offered help, though the government remained officially neutral. And several British companies did aid the south with money and arms.
Social Security and Medicare are Federal programs. If your state leaves the union, especially on the basis of supposed state sovereignty, it may well be that access to Federal programs is forfeited by the citizens of the new sovereign country.
Under current law, yes. All congress would need to do - and there wouldn't be any TX legislators to stop this - is pass a new law that says payments would cease to anyone in secessionist states.
Hardball? Yes. Would it hurt innocent people who had nothing to do with secession? Again, yes. But any non-violent action should be on the table in such a scenario, and again, it may well be the quickest way to bring would-be secessionists to heel. It's like applying sanctions to a country like Russia. Of course the sanctions hurt the innocents more than the guilty, but it's done to hopefully goad the innocents into encouraging the guilty to change their ways.
Yes and no. My mother had emergency surgery in a foreign country and Medicare covered it even without a previous authorization. I think it may have been because the total cost was a tenth of what it would have been in the US. However, you are correct that according to the CMS booklet Medicare does not cover medical services outside the US.
I don't see any reason why the US government should continue making benefits payments to people who don't want to be part of the US. Continuing payments would be playing too nice and cutting off benefits should be the first thing they do. Would-be secessionists would lose most of their support right quick if that happened. If it was made clear from the get-go that benefits payments would cease, secessionist support among the +50 crowd would be virtually nil. Besides, if a state like Texas actually succeeded in seceding, it's unlikely the federal government would be able to continue borrowing money, anyway, plus tax receipts would be cut significantly due to the economic chaos secession would cause. They'd almost have to stop payments out of simple necessity.
You want to be your own country? Fine, you get to do all of it, the good and the bad, the tough and the easy. You don't get to just "own the libs" by seceding and then let Uncle Sam continue paying your bills.
I also think that any state government that actually tries secession should have their assets frozen that are held outside the state. I'm less sure about private citizens of the state, but certainly any ringleaders should have their assets frozen. There are other things along these lines that should be done as well.
Play hard enough along lines like this and would-be secessionists could be brought to heel without firing a shot and ideally deterred from even considering it in the first place.
Rep. Cheney and I would not agree on any policy issues since our perspectives are inherently different and often incompatible. She is a conservative republican and I am a liberal democrat. However, I have the upmost respect for the positions she has taken against TFG and those who would aid and abet in the destruction of our democracy. She has been a strong and necessary force on the January 6 Committee and the Dems have been wise to put her front and center and have her do many of the presentations.
There is something that Rep. Cheney and I absolutely agree on. During her speech at The Ronald Reagan Library she spoke about the importance of women's voices on the national and international stage. As she put it…”Men are running the world and it isn’t going all that well.”
Re Texas secession, apparently the Texas GOP has forgotten how it all ended the last time they tried that. Those who ignore history are doomed...well, you know the rest. And in an effort not to ignore history, let's remember that Grant's forbearance toward the defeated South, in a misguided effort to heal the rift, is one of the reasons we're back at this point 150 years later. This time, the lead traitors should be summarily executed and their followers imprisoned.
No, the old rules no longer work. TFG (or somebody like him) will come in and issue blanket pardons. The lead traitors should be give real, irreversible consequences.
Liz Cheney & Cassidy Hutchinson are American heroes straight up. Never in my adult life did I think I'd be rooting this hard for a Cheney, yet here we are (shrugs).
I disagree with Ms. Hutchinson being called a heroine. In the moment, maybe. But she was on board with the Trump administration and everything they did. On board with the denigration of Alexander Vindman. On board with the kids in cages. On board with the Muslim ban. On board with "very fine people on both sides". On board with the horrendous handing of Covid. And so on.
Not a heroine.
I agree. She has a very serious, and straightforward way of questioning and explaining. No drama.
Don Moynihan's piece titled "The rot runs deeper" provides a disturbing (and revealing) counterpoint to Trumpite notions about presidential powers. I recall loyalists routinely protesting that Trump was "the duly elected president" in response to efforts to scrutinize his actions and hold him within the bounds of law -- as though endorsing his own presumption that there should be no restraints on his action.
Moynihan looks at Wisconsin, where a Democrat has been the duly elected governor for a few years, but the Republican-controlled legislature has done everything it can to prevent him from appointing his own officials to carry out his agenda. At the same time, GOP gerrymandering gives the party legislative power out of proportion to the popular vote.
In both situations, Republicans of course will claim that they are devoted to preserving the constitutional republic from its domestic enemies. I will grant that some on the left are less attached to the constitutional order than to a utopian vision to which the Constitution might put up impediments. But it's become clear to me that many on the right on less attached to the constitutional order than to their own vision of a more perfect social order, which can't be achieved when people have constitutional rights and when policies require majority support (if only indirectly).
Her speech was great, and the audience seemed receptive. The question is for the audience - well, what are you going to do now? Still kowtow to the former traitor-in-chief?
And yet total blockade would have been better than what we got. The argument can also be made that her victory would only have delayed the inevitable. And the version of Trump we would have faced might actually have been competent.
Aside from the ketchup and broken china stories the most interesting part of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony to me is that Trump actually wanted to lead the march on the Capitol and that he was angered
when he was denied.
I had always assumed he was blowing smoke up everyone's asses and had NO intention of going anywhere near the protesters. BUT if what she said is true then it is pretty clear that he envisioned a whole different motion picture. The strong man leading his troops to the Capitol and perhaps right into the House of Representatives and up the aisle to confront and call out Mike Pence. Was he ready to declare martial law? What exactly was HIS plan that was being frustrated by others.
Again his willingness to compromise his personal safety in order to have the desired visual of a packed venue for his speech was telling. "They don't want to hurt me..."
With the benefit of 20/20 backward vision it really is too bad that he wasn't allowed to act out his pageant as he wanted. The insanity. The grandstanding and ultimately the transfer of power to Joe Biden anyway.
And the obvious need to invoke the 25th Amendment and make Pence President for 2 weeks.
This makes me wonder if a speechwriter may have written a little speech for Trump's envisioned victorious march up to the Speaker's podium. That would be interesting reading if it exists.
That would be true but he is so enamored of his own brilliance that he would just riff the whole thing in a cascading word salad.
Plus there would be the danger of alerting his handlers of his plan... or maybe he was actually kidnapped and forced back to the White House.
I would love details about THAT decision making process because perhaps he really believed that was the plan until they forced him to go home.
It is a weird world when a man who controls the nuclear codes can't get his Uber detail to go where he wants them to go!
Rep. Mike Gallagher however brave he sounded on January 6 nevertheless voted to acquit Trump in the second impeachment trial. GFY Mikey.
Bad link about Tim's book :(
Liz Cheney is a true hero for being the only Republican of her stature to stand up in defense of democracy and forcefully renounce Trump and all of his works and all of his pomps.
However, most all of her other political beliefs are anathema.
These two things can be true at the same time.
Liz sounds like the next president.
Re: Texas secession: It should be made abundantly clear to would-be secessionists that not only would they be seceding from the US but their retirees and veterans would be seceding from Social Security, Medicare and Veterans' Benefits, among other things. And that the US Military would be removing their bases, NASA would leave, as well as any other federal offices, etc. And that just scratches the surface; there's a long list of consequences, some major, some minor, that would be associated with even a peaceful and amicable departure. It's doubtful they've thought about those things for even a second, but I don't suppose the crazies would care much, anyway. Cuz freedumb!
And of course this doesn't even mention how badly this would roil financial markets as investors become concerned about a full scale breakup of the USA and whether payments on federal debt would continue. A full-scale dissolution of the US would have the very real potential of being a civilization-ending event. People who talk about secession casually - whether as being part of a state that wants to leave or as someone saying "good riddance" about another state - need to be painfully aware of that fact.
Being part of a pluralistic society can sometimes suck, particularly when you don't get your way. But the alternatives are almost certainly a whole lot worse. As hard as it seems sometimes, the far better path is to figure out a way to coexist within the country we have.
This isn't 1860 when the US wasn't even a hundred years old. It was also a country that most of the advanced countries didn't really consider a big deal. The South could possibly have existed on its own for a few years at least, especially since Britain was willing to help them (cotton being king, of course). But in today's world - nope. BTW, not sure what you mean about SS disappearing - existing recipients would still get their money. The future recipients - nope. And remember, most of the red states need federal money, the blue not so much. Talk is cheap, thinking isn't.
Actually Britain needed wheat from the North more than it needed cotton from the South. It was one thing to starve the Irish *en masse* but to starve the English factory workers would have been harmful to their upper classes who ran things back then.
Maybe, but Queen Victoria supposedly offered help, though the government remained officially neutral. And several British companies did aid the south with money and arms.
Social Security and Medicare are Federal programs. If your state leaves the union, especially on the basis of supposed state sovereignty, it may well be that access to Federal programs is forfeited by the citizens of the new sovereign country.
You can collect social security if you move out of the country. Medicare has different rules, as doctors have to opt into it.
Under current law, yes. All congress would need to do - and there wouldn't be any TX legislators to stop this - is pass a new law that says payments would cease to anyone in secessionist states.
Hardball? Yes. Would it hurt innocent people who had nothing to do with secession? Again, yes. But any non-violent action should be on the table in such a scenario, and again, it may well be the quickest way to bring would-be secessionists to heel. It's like applying sanctions to a country like Russia. Of course the sanctions hurt the innocents more than the guilty, but it's done to hopefully goad the innocents into encouraging the guilty to change their ways.
Even under current law, Medicare can pay for nothing outside the US.
Yes and no. My mother had emergency surgery in a foreign country and Medicare covered it even without a previous authorization. I think it may have been because the total cost was a tenth of what it would have been in the US. However, you are correct that according to the CMS booklet Medicare does not cover medical services outside the US.
I don't see any reason why the US government should continue making benefits payments to people who don't want to be part of the US. Continuing payments would be playing too nice and cutting off benefits should be the first thing they do. Would-be secessionists would lose most of their support right quick if that happened. If it was made clear from the get-go that benefits payments would cease, secessionist support among the +50 crowd would be virtually nil. Besides, if a state like Texas actually succeeded in seceding, it's unlikely the federal government would be able to continue borrowing money, anyway, plus tax receipts would be cut significantly due to the economic chaos secession would cause. They'd almost have to stop payments out of simple necessity.
You want to be your own country? Fine, you get to do all of it, the good and the bad, the tough and the easy. You don't get to just "own the libs" by seceding and then let Uncle Sam continue paying your bills.
I also think that any state government that actually tries secession should have their assets frozen that are held outside the state. I'm less sure about private citizens of the state, but certainly any ringleaders should have their assets frozen. There are other things along these lines that should be done as well.
Play hard enough along lines like this and would-be secessionists could be brought to heel without firing a shot and ideally deterred from even considering it in the first place.
They haven't thought about anything beyond some kind of emotional satisfaction.
Hey Charlie- your Liz notes left out her proclamation that it’s time for us to let a gal try running things. Truth! JDLDenver
What makes you think women are better? Some of the worst MAGAs are women - Green, Boebert, Noem.
"Ironically, the only state in American history to hold a previous referendum on secession was Texas, in 1861."
This is not true. Virginia also had a referendum, on May 23, 1861.
"Where other states that eventually joined the Confederacy relied on state legislatures to proclaim their secession"
In Virginia, a special convention voted to secede and then to hold the referendum.
We really need to get our facts right.
What Liz said…
Rep. Cheney and I would not agree on any policy issues since our perspectives are inherently different and often incompatible. She is a conservative republican and I am a liberal democrat. However, I have the upmost respect for the positions she has taken against TFG and those who would aid and abet in the destruction of our democracy. She has been a strong and necessary force on the January 6 Committee and the Dems have been wise to put her front and center and have her do many of the presentations.
There is something that Rep. Cheney and I absolutely agree on. During her speech at The Ronald Reagan Library she spoke about the importance of women's voices on the national and international stage. As she put it…”Men are running the world and it isn’t going all that well.”
Re Texas secession, apparently the Texas GOP has forgotten how it all ended the last time they tried that. Those who ignore history are doomed...well, you know the rest. And in an effort not to ignore history, let's remember that Grant's forbearance toward the defeated South, in a misguided effort to heal the rift, is one of the reasons we're back at this point 150 years later. This time, the lead traitors should be summarily executed and their followers imprisoned.
I'd settle on Gitmo for life.
No, the old rules no longer work. TFG (or somebody like him) will come in and issue blanket pardons. The lead traitors should be give real, irreversible consequences.
Forcible confiscation of all their assets would be nice too.
Liz Cheney & Cassidy Hutchinson are American heroes straight up. Never in my adult life did I think I'd be rooting this hard for a Cheney, yet here we are (shrugs).