How hard is Trump being pressed by his legal team to cut a deal, and take his lumps?
There's gotta be some epic knock-down drag-out fisticuffs going on in the dark recesses of Mar-A-Lago right now.
More:
How long before Trump attacks Mark Meadows?
If he doesn't - if he takes it easy on Meadows - what will that say about how maybe Trump's starting to get the word that he can't do the things he loves to do?
And if he can't stomp-n-stumble-n-wreck-the-jungle, what's his play?
The big one at about 12:50: "We the people" - the voters - are the victims of Trump's criminal acts. We have the right to not be excluded from witnessing the proceedings against him.
(a) RIGHTS OF CRIME VICTIMS. A crime victim has the following rights:
The right to be reasonably protected from the accused.
The right to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any public court proceeding, or any parole proceeding, involving the crime or of any release or escape of the accused.
The right not to be excluded from any such public court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving clear and convincing evidence, determines that testimony by the victim would be materially altered if the victim heard other testimony at that proceeding.
The right to be reasonably heard at any public proceeding in the district court involving release, plea, sentencing, or any parole proceeding.
The reasonable right to confer with the attorney for the Government in the case.
The right to full and timely restitution as provided in law.
The right to proceedings free from unreasonable delay.
The right to be treated with fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and privacy.
The right to be informed in a timely manner of any plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement.
The right to be informed of the rights under this section and the services described in section 503(c) of the Victims' Rights and Restitution Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 10607(c)) and provided contact information for the Office of the Victims' Rights Ombudsman of the Department of Justice.
Prominent Pastor Speaks Out Against Christian Nationalism as 'Heresy'
The traditional approach to politics and faith is often seen as a competition between two sides: left vs. right, woke vs. unwoke, Red State Jesus vs. Blue State Jesus. However, the Rev. William J. Barber II, a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and contemporary leader who has been compared to Martin Luther King Jr., has developed a different approach: "fusion politics."
This approach brings together coalitions that often transcend the traditional conservative vs. progressive divide. Barber believes that by uniting marginalized groups such as the poor, immigrants, working-class whites, religious minorities, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community, a powerful force for change can be created. (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Barber argues that these groups share a common enemy, citing how the same forces that demonize immigrants also attack low-wage workers, the same politicians that deny living wages also suppress the vote, and the same people who deny the climate crisis and refuse to act are also willing to deny access to healthcare to millions of Americans.
By leading one of the nation’s most sustained and visible anti-poverty efforts as co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Barber has become one of the country's most prominent activists and speakers, known for his fusion politics approach.
Who is Rev. William J Barber II?
Rev. William J. Barber II has made a name for himself as a powerful speaker and organizer, known for his "fusion politics" approach. He delivered an electrifying speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention that was called a "drop the mic" moment by one commentator. Barber also regularly organizes and marches with groups such as fast-food workers and union members, at a time when both political parties have been accused of ignoring the working class.
Barber has also been outspoken about the importance of voter turnout among marginalized communities, saying, "there is a sleeping giant in America." He believes that poor and low-wealth folks now make up 30% of the electorate in every state and over 40% of the electorate in every state where the margin of victory for the presidency was less than 3%. He argues that if these marginalized communities vote, they could fundamentally shift every election in the country.
Starting this month, Barber will take his fusion politics approach to the Ivy League as the founding director of Yale Divinity School's new Center for Public Theology and Public Policy. In this role, he hopes to train a new generation of leaders who will be comfortable "creating a just society both in the academy and in the streets."
Rev. William J. Barber II has announced that he will step down as pastor of the North Carolina church where he has served for 30 years, but he has made it clear that he is not retiring from activism. He remains the president of Repairers of the Breach, a nonprofit organization that promotes moral fusion politics.
Against Christian Nationalism
Barber has recently spoken out against White Christian nationalism, a movement that insists that the US was founded as a Christian nation and seeks to erase the separation of church and state.
When asked why poverty is so urgent to face now, Barber responded: "Doctor King used to say America has a high blood pressure of creeds, but an anemia of deeds. In every generation we’ve had to have a moment to focus on the urgency of the right now. We will never be able to fix our democracy until we fully face these issues. We will constantly ebb and flow out of recessions because inequality hurts us all." Barber also cites Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz's book "The Price of Inequality," which argues that it costs more as a nation for these inequalities to exist than it would for us to fix them. Barber also argues that paying a living wage would not hurt business, but rather it is the lack of it that does.
Rev. William J. Barber II, an advocate of "fusion politics" has spoken out against the concept of White Christian nationalism, arguing that it is flawed because it goes against the core values of Christianity.
He explains that the scriptures say that God loves all people and that if a nation is going to embrace Christian values, then one must know what those values are, and they certainly aren't discriminatory or exclusive. He also explains his view of the word “evangel” which means good news and that when Jesus used that phrase it was in his first sermon, which was a public policy sermon. He said it in the face of Caesar, where Caesar had hurt and exploited the poor. He also explains that he embraces the kind of evangelicalism that Jesus embraces and that is to start where Jesus started, preaching good news to the poor.
He also speaks about his health challenges and how he keeps going year after year and keeps himself from being burned out. He finds inspiration in reading the Bible and seeing that all the people that God used in a major way had some physical challenge, it helped him overcome any pity party and made him see that Moses couldn't talk, Ezekiel had strange post-traumatic syndrome types of emotional issues, Jeremiah was crying all the time from his struggles with depression, Paul had a physical thorn in the flesh, Jesus was acquainted with sorrow.
"We should help people? OK, yeah - we'll help you rationalize your fear and hatred. Hell, we'll invent something for you to hate if you start feeling kind and generous toward anyone but the people we identify as acceptable. We're going to work hard to keep you isolated and afraid, so you won't be able to make common cause with each other - to solve problems - or demand solutions from a government that actually works - fuck that. But most of all, we're trying to make sure you never see that we're the ones creating these problems in the first place."
Ask the Trump-humpers why they're loyal to DumFux News, and lots of them will tell you it's because guys like Tucker Carlson understand the struggles of "the real America".
"He gets me."
"He tells the truth that the mainstream liberal media hides from us."
Brian Tyler Cohen points out the Face In A Crowd moment - which will likely have no negative effect on the distilled and purified evil at the core of the MAGAvolk.
These people are re-programmable meat bags (thanks Driftglass).
Carlson calls them great, they crow about being great.
Hillary calls them a basket of deplorables, they crow about being deplorable.
They're told to hate empathy - they hate it.
They're told to love everything that's the opposite of love - they do that.
Point out that they're not behaving like the Christians they claim to be, and they say you don't understand because you're not a "real Christian".
Marjorie Taylor Green is not the Speaker Of the House - but Kevin McCarthy has to coddle her in order to keep the Loudmouth Caucus in line, which means she's calling the shots, so yeah - at the very least, she's The Shadow Speaker.
Marjorie Taylor Green is also not the head of the GOP, but she's the Queen Of The Wingnuts, and so yeah - she kinda is in charge of the party's immediate fortune, so she's calling the shots there too.
Greene has captured a significant minority voting bloc, which gives her enormously out-sized power. Right now, she's still more or less sheltered by being Trump's surrogate, so the question is: How long before she's able to cut him loose so she can go whole hog on her own?
And is everybody good with the Rick Scott thing?
How much more clearly do Republicans have to say it? Right now, we have the basics in place for good solid civic stability - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - and the GOP is absolutely intent on killing it all off. Why is that?
In Fog of East Palestine’s Crisis, Politicians Write Their Own Stories
The train derailment in Eastern Ohio has spawned conspiracy theories and contradictory narratives, with politicians from both parties parading through town to further their agendas.
To Democrats, the train derailment and chemical leak in the hamlet of East Palestine, Ohio, is a story of logic, action and consequences: Rail safety regulations put in place by the Obama administration were intended to prevent just such accidents. The Trump administration gutted them.
All of which is actually true, but notice how the phrasing invites the inference that it's really just a political opinion on the part of the Dems.
And that's an important preface, cuz here comes the Both-Sides Razor-Blade-In-The-Apple:
To Republicans, East Palestine is a symbol of something far larger and more emotional: a forgotten town in a conservative state, like so many others in Middle America, struggling for survival against an uncaring mega-corporation and an unseeing government whose concerns have never included the likes of a town of 4,718 souls.
Carrying those irreconcilable narratives, politicians have begun parading through East Palestine with their own agendas to pursue. On Wednesday, it was the former president and current presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, handing out branded water and campaign hats, while assuring the supportive crowd, “You are not forgotten.”
On Thursday, three weeks after 38 Norfolk Southern rail cars carrying toxic chemicals skipped the tracks in East Palestine and, days later, a plume of vinyl chloride was intentionally released over the town, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg arrived, having spent days jousting with Republicans over safety regulations.
“What I’m really proud of is the community that I saw here,” he told a retinue of right-wing reporters shouting questions at him. “You’ve got federal agencies, you’ve got local first responders, you’ve got states, but most of all you’ve got a community that’s been through a lot, that I think is pretty frustrated with people trying to take political advantage of this situation.”
In some sense, both sides are right, both sides are wrong and, in the bifurcated politics of this American moment, none of the arguments much matter.
In 2015, after the deadly derailment of an Amtrak train traveling too fast outside Philadelphia, President Barack Obama moved to mandate the installation of lifesaving automatic braking technology by 2023 over the protests of the largest rail companies. In 2018, as part of a broad regulatory rollback, Mr. Trump repealed the rule.
But, according to the website PolitiFact, the rule would have had no impact on the East Palestine derailment. The Norfolk Southern train would not have been covered because it would not have been categorized as a high-hazard cargo train. Besides, the National Transportation Safety Board initially pointed to the failure of a wheel bearing, not the train’s speed, as the cause of the derailment.
Such details did not stop the White House from issuing a formal statement on Wednesday with the headline, “Republicans, stop dismantling rail safety and selling out communities like East Palestine to the rail lobby.” Nor did it dissuade the anti-Trump Lincoln Project from releasing a video on Wednesday squarely blaming the former president.
Still, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy, called the accident “100 percent preventable” at a news conference on Thursday in Washington.
“I don’t understand why this has gotten so political — this is a community that is suffering,” she added.
Republicans have simply ignored that debate, instead pressing the seemingly contradictory cases that the Biden administration cares more about Ukraine than East Palestine and that the White House concocted the downing of three unidentified flying objects to distract attention from the derailment — which would imply that, in fact, officials care a lot.
The derailment’s aftermath coincided with Mr. Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine — by rail — and his speech in Poland, in which he pledged billions of dollars more in military support for Ukraine. That fed the Republican narrative that, for all his talk of caring for blue-collar workers, the president would rather deal with geopolitics than a domestic problem.
Neglect and the late arrival of assistance became the dominant talking points about Eastern Ohio on Fox News and in an array of other conservative news outlets, even as the Biden administration said repeatedly that federal officials had arrived on the scene of the accident within hours.
And in Columbiana County, where East Palestine sits, Republicans have been playing on their home field. Mr. Trump won the county with 72 percent of the vote in 2020, against Mr. Biden’s 27 percent.
“On Presidents’ Day in our country, he is over in Ukraine,” Mayor Trent Conaway of East Palestine fumed this week. “That tells you what kind of guy he is.”
Conspiracy theories have only deepened the trauma, bouncing around far-right podcasts and conservative celebrities’ social media accounts before reaching Congress via Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the once-fringe Republican from Georgia whose alliance with Speaker Kevin McCarthy has brought her to the center of congressional power.
“East Palestine, Ohio, is undergoing an ecological disaster because authorities blew up the train derailment cars carrying hazardous chemicals and press are being arrested for trying to tell the story,” she wrote on Twitter over dramatic footage of the fiery plume and its aftermath. “Oh but UFO’s!”
The Trump campaign on Thursday abetted the narrative with a day-by-day timeline of “Neglect and Betrayal,” including “Feb 5: Shoots the spy balloon down” and “Feb 13: Dodges questions about unidentified objects downed on Sunday,” followed by, “Feb 16: Delivered a response to unidentified objects in the sky and screened the movie ‘Till.’”
Batting down another conspiratorial rumor, the East Palestine fire chief, Keith Drabick, had to spend time this week assuring people that medical identification bracelets being passed out to residents in case they showed signs of debilitation were not tracking devices for the government.
The fever pitch of distrust was understandable for a community that saw what appeared to be an apocalyptic plume of chemicals rise from the wreckage on the rail line, then filmed dead fish and frogs in East Palestine’s streams and complained of headaches, sore throats, coughing and skin rashes — all as government officials assured them the air and water were safe.
But if East Palestine felt ignored in the immediate aftermath of the derailment, its travails are now playing out on a vast national tableau of partisan politics.
The environmental activist Erin Brockovich is planning a town hall event on Friday at the town high school. Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman-turned-conservative-gadfly, took a spin through the town earlier in the week, then rushed to the television cameras to describe it.
The Fox News anchor Bret Baier did concede that visits to train derailments by transportation secretaries, including Mr. Trump’s, Elaine Chao, were rare, especially when the accidents did not cause fatalities.
But more broadly, the derailment has been a chance for Republicans and their supporters in the conservative news media to showcase the white, working-class voters who flocked to Mr. Trump, and whom Mr. Biden has struggled to win back — and the power that Mr. Trump and other celebrities who remain in his orbit still hold in places like East Palestine.
After Mr. Trump on Wednesday praised John Rourke, the owner of the Florida-based company Blue Line Moving, for his relief efforts in Ohio, Tucker Carlson invited Mr. Rourke onto his top-rated cable news show to let him rip into the current president.
“The fact that President Biden has refused to come to this small town when he’s supposed to be Scranton Joe, a small-town hero of the working man, and he can’t even show his face in a town of American citizens that need his leadership, that need the government’s help terribly, he proved what everybody, I think, already knew in this country, is that he’s not the leader for this country,” Mr. Rourke said Wednesday night. “Donald J. Trump is the leader that we all know he is, and he is the leader of this country.”
On Thursday, Mr. Buttigieg showed up after weeks of Republican taunts demanding to know why he had not bothered. But it was Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump confidant, who garnered much of the attention from residents and local politicians as he toured the accident site and signed memorabilia.
“Politicians come in and they make a big show and then they don’t come back,” he said, promising, “This is a come-back situation.”
Things must be looking really bad for The Trump Criming Team - or they think they're really close to tipping us over the brink into full blown chaos, in order to tear it all down and install the plutocracy that so many of them dream about.
This level of crazy isn't inadvertent or merely coincidental.
Year 2 - get all the programs stood up, and the projects identified
Year 3 - get the money out the door, to where it's needed, and get the projects started
"Buy American" requirements provide incentive to create American jobs and American manufacturing
Baltimore Harbor Tunnel opened in 1873, and the Hudson River Tunnel in NYC was started in 1920 - time for a few upgrades
2700 bridges, and 70,000 miles of highway, tagged for repair &/or redesign
BTW, when was the last time we heard a DOT Secretary well enough versed in highway safety that he could talk coherently about "after-crash care" as a component of paring back the 40,000 traffic fatalities every year?
If you're into bombast and fuckery, hire a Republican.
If you want competence and effectiveness on a budget, go with the Democrats.
BTW 2, when Republicans balk at raising the debt limit, keep in mind that one of their shitty little maneuvers will likely be to get Biden to cut back on funding the infrastructure projects, so they can turn around and blame Biden for not coming thru on the deal. You heard it here first.
You are not clear-eyed and pragmatic - you are coin-operated, and playing both ends from the middle.
And BTW, who the fuck dresses you? You look like some middle schooler trying to impress the other kids by showing up wearing après ski boots, to make sure someone asks about her weekend so she can brag about learning the Stem Christi turn at Vail on Saturday.
The American people gave us the majority, and an opportunity...
We need to care about the issues they care about...
Lotsa people in the primary...
He tries so very hard to ignore Trump, and talk away from the question Stephanopoulus asked, but then - "I will support whoever the Republican nominee is..."
Brian Tyler Cohen
