DL Open Thread: Sunday, May 5, 2024
A tease: I was witness to the single most visionary speech I’ve ever heard from a Delaware candidate yesterday. End of tease. More to come. Soon.
Trump Dumps Top Campaign Lawyer. His ‘crime’? Thinking for himself and saying it out loud:
The top lawyer at the Republican Party is resigning after he cited conflicts with his other work obligations and after Donald Trump grew angry about his criticism of the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, people familiar with the situation said Saturday night.
The lawyer, Charlie Spies, is a long-respected GOP election operative who was hired by Trump’s top lieutenants in March after the former president engineered a takeover of the Republican National Committee, which in recent years has been the party’s main operation in both fundraising and field operations.
Spies had been tasked with leading the party’s vast legal spending and election integrity program, and his hire was viewed as a sign Trump’s RNC could attract significant party talent.
Trump aides had worked to save Spies from being ousted after learning Trump was angry about his previous comments. They’re trying to convince Trump that Spies was a stronger election lawyer than others and to forgive the comments, said people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Robert Reich: Crackdown On Protestors Is 1968 All Over Again:
I’ve met with students at Berkeley, where I teach. I’ve visited with faculty at Columbia University. I’ve spoken by phone with young people and professors at many other universities.
My conclusion: while protest movements are often ignited by many different things and attract an assortment of people with a range of motives, this one is centered on one thing: moral outrage at the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people – most of them women and children – in Gaza.
To interpret these protests as anything else – as antisemitic or anti-Zionist or anti-American or pro-Palestinian – is to miss the essence of what’s going on and why.
I have sharp memories of the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, in which I participated some 55 years ago.
I remember being appalled at the unnecessary carnage in Vietnam. I was incensed that the first world, white and rich, was randomly killing people in the third world, mostly non-white and poor. As an American, I felt morally complicit.
I was angry at college administrators who summoned police to clear protesters – using teargas, stun guns and mass arrests. The response only added fuel to the flames.
The anti-Vietnam war movement became fodder for rightwing politicians like Richard Nixon, demanding “law and order”. The spectacle also appalled many non-college, working-class people who viewed the students as pampered, selfish, anti-American, unpatriotic.
I had spent months working for the anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. The convention nominated Hubert Humphrey. That November, the nation voted in Richard Nixon as president.
History, as it is said, doesn’t repeat itself. It only rhymes.
The mistakes made at one point in time have an eerie way of re-emerging two generations later, as memories fade.
Lest there was any doubt:
What do you want to talk about?
My wife got an e-mail from Our PAL Val this morning, touting her endorsement of Bethany Hall Long. THAT will sway my wife’s vote. Not.
It’s imperative that we keep the disgraced former auditor out of Leg Hall.
If you’re gonna donate to only one primary in DE, I’d argue this is the one.
Go Claire!
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/claire-for-delaware-1
Agreed! KMG has some big names behind her, I don’t get it.
Robert Reich (I’m a subscriber) misses a few things.
In 1968 the voting age was 21 and many protesters had no other political voice. There was an active draft at age 18 with a real chance of being sent into combat. Neither is true today.
Today’s colleges have dramatically more foreign students, who dominate coverage of the protests. Their chants, slogans, and attitudes seem a continuation of the anti-American, anti-Israel politics that dominates Islamic majority countries.
Reich misses the opportunity to educate his students about current geopolitics, especially the Sunni-Shiite division and radicalism which is preventing a path to peace and Palestinian rights far more than anything Israel is doing.
Reich is too quick to dismiss anti-semitism – it is only one layer deep in the protesters’ demands.
The tell is that protesters’ demands are absolute. After BDS, withholding aid, etc…. then what? What action is Israel supposed to take to restore investment or US aid?
The anwer is – nothing. Their goal is to permanently harm Israel, not to influence it. The demands are dog-whistles for the elimination of Israel and its inhabitants.
Oh Jesus Fucking Christ. Why don’t you just start your own blog where you can spout this crap to your heart’s content.
You can call the blog:
An Audience Of One.
El Som – I’m sorry bro but this guy puck is out of his fucking mind.
I’d like him to explain how the Sunni-Shia dynamic hinders peace more than say 75 years of violent Zionist apartheid. There are more Druze and certainly more Christians in Gaza and the West Bank than Shia Muslims! Lol. Gaza specifically is like 97% Sunni.
Guy just calls everyone anti semitic lol. Just absurd
All I know is I’d like to see less “Eric Blair.”
Probably time for ‘The Management’ to figure out what to do about these monkeys throwing poop exchanges.
No attempts at communication, just an endless battle of words that nobody, including the readers, can win.
I think it’s the smugness re: “Eric Blair”
El Som says “An Audience of One”
I point out the absurdity of the Sunni/Shia point. I reference historians and relevant facts in posts. I’m sorry all these anonymous people are not nice, I guess? I literally post once or twice a week lol.
Very weird. I am allowed to be insulted but not insult OK. Which argument do you disagree with and why?
You’ve both been hurling insults at each other.
Don’t try to work the refs.
I’m about ready to moderate both of you.
In other words, move on or move out.
It’s not what anybody’s saying specifically, it’s what I said months ago: Nobody is changing anybody’s mind, and the issue is being mainstreamed, IMO, mainly to sow discord among Democrats. It’s working, too.