DL Open Thread: Thursday, August 18, 2022
Trump Goes After FBI. Trying to attack the most culturally-conservative, white Christian, Fed agency is kinda ironic:
Historically, though, the F.B.I. has been arguably the most culturally conservative and traditionally white Christian institution in the entire U.S. government. It’s an institution so culturally conservative, even by the standards of law enforcement, that Democratic presidents have never felt comfortable — or politically emboldened — enough to nominate a Democrat to head the bureau.
That’s right: Far from being a bastion of progressive thinking, every single director of the F.B.I. has been a Republican-aligned official, going all the way back to its creation. Such history suggests that the issue here is Mr. Trump and not institutional bias.
That political conservatism in the bureau’s ranks traces back to the culture that Hoover cultivated for a half-century, when the bureau viewed its role as policing and protecting a uniquely conservative (and Christian) view of the United States.
The irony of Donald Trump and Republicans demonizing the F.B.I. is that over the course of its century-plus existence, the bureau has actually stood as one of America’s cultural bulwarks protecting the nation from “radicals” and “subversives” who sought to diversify the United States beyond its traditional white, male, Christian power structure. Hoover seemed to fight his entire life to preserve the unique “mom, baseball and apple pie” nostalgia that would crystallize around the “Leave It to Beaver” idyll of the 1950s.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s chief financial officer is expected to plead guilty to tax violations Thursday in a deal that would require him to testify about illicit business practices at the former president’s company, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Allen Weisselberg is charged with taking more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation from the Trump Organization over several years, including untaxed perks like rent, car payments and school tuition.
The plea deal would require Weisselberg to speak in court Thursday about the company’s role in the alleged compensation arrangement and possibly serve as a witness when the Trump Organization goes on trial in October on related charges, the people said. Weisselberg also will not implicate Mr. Trump or his family should he take the stand, The New York Times reports.
Psychiatrist Who Warned Of Trump’s Behavior Proven Correct. She lost her professorship at Yale, but her views have been vindicated:
No former president since John Tyler—who later became a Confederate lawmaker—has warmed to the prospect of civil war quite as much as Trump, who in late May “re-truthed” a post on his social media platform positing it as a solution for our “failing” nation. His followers may be on the same page. In a poll published a week or so later, more than half of the Republican respondents said America “seems headed toward a civil war in the near future.” The Mar-a-Lago search generated further talk of civil war on social media channels, along with calls to target judges and federal agents that at least one participant acted upon.
According to (Professor Bandy) Lee, Trump’s extreme dangerousness puts him in a completely different category from previous Republican presidents, who merely endorsed a set of harsh economic policies that are associated with increased violence. In contrast to past presidents with likely personality disorders, she believes, Trump has a psychological profile that is common among violent offenders. “There is typically a developmental arrest caused by early trauma or abandonment,” Lee says. “As adults, they still act like children in the playground; convinced that might makes right, they often can’t stop bullying others. “Trump’s mother, Lee points out, became chronically ill when he turned two, and his father was cruel and emotionally unavailable, repeatedly urging his son to be “a killer.”
Despite the scolding directed her way by influential psychiatrists, Lee contends that she has never broken the Goldwater Rule, which, as she wrote in 2017, “is the norm of ordinary practice I happen to agree with.” In The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, she and her co-authors challenged Trump’s fitness to serve based on his behavior rather than on a diagnosis per se. “The issue that we are raising is not whether Trump is mentally ill,” Gilligan writes in his chapter. “It is whether he is dangerous.” As proof of the psychological peril at hand, the authors point to Trump’s angry tirades and verbal abuse of subordinates, his admiration of authoritarian leaders, conspiratorial fantasies, aversion to facts, and attraction to violence.
Excellent article, well worth reading.
Rethugs Go After the League Of Women Voters. This most non-partisan of organizations is now portrayed as a vehicle of the Woke Left. Moving the Overton Window even further to the right:
Republicans are increasingly pushing back hard against the league, casting it as a collection of angry leftists rather than friendly do-gooders.
And with more right-leaning candidates snubbing the league, voters are less likely to hear directly from those candidates in unscripted and unfiltered forums where their views can receive greater visibility and scrutiny. That pushback sidelines the league at a time when misinformation has become a significant force in elections at every level.
“The League of Women Voters, while that sounds like a nice organization, they don’t do a lot of nice work,” Catalina Lauf, a Republican candidate for Congress in Illinois, said in a video posted in May on Instagram, explaining her reasoning for refusing to participate in a league-sponsored debate.
The league, she claimed, “peddles Marxist ideology” and is “anti-American.”
Higher Education: Cannabis Career Scholarships Available In Delaware.
What do you want to talk about?
The convicted state auditor “has the goods” on politicians. Maybe why Pete is keeping such a low profile?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C-GK2C-GK3C&ref=watch_permalink&v=5767604479924959
Norman Oliver is a blowhard who should never be trusted about anything.
I’m sure Mark could tell us some stories about how Stormin’ Norman lives what passes for the high life.
I think Republicans have become victims of their own bubble-dwelling ways. Sure, they can demonize the FBI and the League of Women Voters to each other, but this just makes them look like loons to anyone who isn’t inside the bubble. And according to polls, it’s having that effect.