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Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Hi Friends, Now Trump has gone even more full MAGA with J.D.Vance. Trump would never read the 2025 doctrine of decimating our democracy, but Vance will. He is even more extreme on abortion then Trump...Trump could care less about abortion but figures he better tow the line. The dems have to get the word out in all those red States and swing states that the republican party is anti womens reproductive rights ...We have to make sure at the ballot box that they never get in. Now to depress us more, they have election deniers in different states that could refuse to certify that States votes...I hope the case will be made loud and clear what a danger Trump and Vance are and Americans will wake up....Love to all, Joanie

Jack Mallory

Well said, Joanie. I don't believe calling someone a danger to democracy is tantamount to calling for violence. 

This popped up in my FB memories today, from 6 years ago. Only six years. McCain must be spinning in his grave these days.

John McCain and I have never been political soul mates. But you've got to admire a guy who tells it like it is. 

Senator John McCain, on today's Trump-Putin press conference: 

“Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.

“President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world.

“It is tempting to describe the press conference as a pathetic rout – as an illustration of the perils of under-preparation and inexperience. But these were not the errant tweets of a novice politician. These were the deliberate choices of a president who seems determined to realize his delusions of a warm relationship with Putin’s regime without any regard for the true nature of his rule, his violent disregard for the sovereignty of his neighbors, his complicity in the slaughter of the Syrian people, his violation of international treaties, and his assault on democratic institutions throughout the world. 

“Coming close on the heels of President Trump’s bombastic and erratic conduct towards our closest friends and allies in Brussels and Britain, today’s press conference marks a recent low point in the history of the American Presidency. That the president was attended in Helsinki by a team of competent and patriotic advisors makes his blunders and capitulations all the more painful and inexplicable.

“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are—a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. American presidents must be the champions of that cause if it is to succeed. Americans are waiting and hoping for President Trump to embrace that sacred responsibility. One can only hope they are not waiting totally in vain.”

Donald Trump--"I like people who weren't captured."

Jay Shackford

Great find, Jack, as true today as it was six years ago. 

Jack Mallory

​In the it's a strange world we live in department:

Trump supporter at RNC: “I’ve been to seventy-nine Trump rallies. These rallies are fun. I’ve developed a friendship with ex-Deadheads—Jerry died and now they follow Trump.” 
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/trump-unity-and-maga-miracles-at-the-rnc

Jerry died and now they follow Trump. Figure THAT out!

Robert Hall

Jack Mallory

Has anyone on the Forum ever known someone well-enough to be convinced they might as evil as Adolph Hitler, only to discover that they were actually honest, decent, and democracy-loving enough to be President of the United States? 

If you had come to the former conclusion, what would you have to see, or be offered, to change your opinion to the latter?

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Jack, I agree...the J.D Vance transformation is remarkable and that is why is smells to high heaven...(hope I got that term right). His explanation is that the media swayed him with the horrible things they were saying about Trump but then he saw the light...I guess there are lots of people who fall for that. I hope the Dems post his comments about Trump next to his born again ones...Love, Joanie

Joan Ruggles (Young)

Trying to keep my mind off the sad state of our politics in the US. So here's a pic of my recently harvested lavender which I will be taking to the mill to be turned into lavender oil. The second is some of the lavender we saw on our group hike this week. Mine wasn't that pretty, but it sure smells good. Smelling lavender or it's oil is said to be calming. I'm going to need a gallon over the next 4 months.

Nora Skinker (Morton)

But Jack said there WAS no gnashing of teeth, so I'm calm...even without lavender oil. 

So, how are you doing, Joanie, now that it's not IF Biden drops out, but WHEN? Hoping you can find a sense of calm, knowing you did your part to keep him in. Following domestic sniper fire, a newly discovered Iranian-backed plot to kill Trump, & undercover keystone cops protecting him, there's no telling what this election will look like come November. Meanwhile, who's leading our country for the next 6 months? Just curious.

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Not so fast Nori.  Joe Biden is running the country for the next 6 months and hopefully longer.  He has been the President who has gotten the most done for our country since FDR.  He got the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed, the chips bill passed and huge climate initiatives.  He organized NATO  to help Ukraine against Trump's pal Putin. He supports a women's right to reproductive healthcare and got thru some gun safety legislation. Under his administration there are unbelievable job numbers.  I guess you don't like any of those things he has done since you act like his past record of accomplishments means no one is running the country.  .  Not so fast Nori saying it's just when Biden steps down, not if.  Biden got 14 million primary votes.  There are strong coalitions  that want him to stay in.  The feeling is that he can't be forced to give up the nomination he won.    I'm still with Allan Lichtman, a historian, who has successfully predicted 10 out of the last 11 elections and who says the best chance to beat Trump is President Biden.  Biden was on fire prosecuting the case against Trump in his Michigan rally and ongoing so I disagree with your conclusions Nori.   Love, Joanie

Nora Skinker (Morton)

Well, that certainly quells any previous reservations. Thank you, Joanie. With so many prominent party voices going public with concerns, was wondering if you were starting to acquiesce. Fight on, good lady! 
And yes, you are right to notice that many Trump skeptics have become followers. If you are interested in learning more about JDV, his memoir (a NYT's bestseller & motion picture) is entitled "Hillbilly Elegy". Quite a story. 

Jack Mallory

Point of common decency made for my career police and fire fighter besties John and Stuart: I was tempted to just send Nori's "keystone cops" remark to them and let them respond, but I hate to remind them just how low the public can sometimes go. 

When ridiculing those whose jobs are to put their lives on the line for all of us, it only seems appropriate to detail, with evidence, the reasons for lampooning them. So Nori, as someone with expertise in dangerous, high risk jobs, tell us what the police and Secret Service did wrong to earn your scorn, and how it could have been done better. Please be specific. 
 

I sure could have used your advice in Vietnam!

Nora Skinker (Morton)

Scorn? If criticizing the embarrassing breakdown in security at Saturday's chain-of-events is showing scorn for those who lay down their lives for us, then I feel sorry for you, Jack. Hopefully, more facts will be revealed after hearings with Kimberly Cheatle. More importantly, lessons may be learned & changes made. Til then, 'keystone' applies.

Thanks for the laughs, Bob Newhart! RIP

Jack Mallory

So, Nori, you haven't got a clue how better security could have been provided, and remain, in your ignorance, scornful of those under fire in the assassination attempt. 
 

Of the half dozen or so Secret Service agents who rushed onto the stage to cover Trump, even as other agents were returning the sniper's fire, who was bumbling? Who was incompetent? Who was foolish? These are all terms commonly associated with "keystone" cops. Was the local police officer lifted onto the roof occupied by the sniper bumbling? Do you call him "keystone" because he fell from the roof and was injured when detected by the sniper? How incompetent was the agent who returned fire and killed the sniper? How about the local police officer who photographed the sniper and circulated the photo 20 minutes before the shooting--bumbling? Foolish? 

Or was the incompetence not with those who immediately responded to the shots, but with the overall planning? 

Yes, more facts will undoubtedly be revealed. Lessons will hopefully be learned, changes made. But in the meanwhile, scorn for those who protect us is shameful. 
 

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Joan, the lavender in the fields you have is gorgeous..Yes, its such a calming herb. I love the smell of it too. Enjoy its calming effect and its beautiful too.

Love, Joanie

Jack Mallory

Loons do for me what lavender does for others! Or loons and their surroundings. Yesterday on, yes, you guessed it, Grafton Pond. 
 

Deb shot me while I shot loons. 
 

We all know how good a swim in a pond feels!

I think he was dressed for the prom.

And of course there was a heron!

**********

If I was extreme in my condemnation of Nori's scorn for those  who try to protect government officials in what can seem like a nation gone mad with violence, I apologize. It is, to some degree, a hangover from days when I wore a uniform. A different moral and political context, but attacks on those who take the risks are offensive.

Jack Mallory

Philosophical Question for today:

Many believe in an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent god. Others do not. When bad things happen to people is this the righteous punishment of a just god, or the random failure of a keystone god?

Jay Shackford

“Good Grief Charlie Brown”

July 19,2024

Watching Donald Trump’s rambling 93-minute diatribe disguised as an acceptance speech last night, gave me new energy and hope:  “Good grief Charlie Brown, we can beat this guy,” I said to myself.

His dark, low-energy speech filled with at least 22 lies — focusing on his brush with death to the deportation of millions of immigrants to the big steal and his so-called political persecutions— left me with the feeling that if we can’t beat this old con artist we should pack our bags and get out of Dodge. 

Get real. Trump got a nick on his ear but as the so-called “Chosen One”  he played the sympathy card for all it was worth, bringing tears to many spectators. Give me a break.  

Had Trump followed the law like our classmate Jack and not dodged the draft with his father pressuring a podiatrist (operating out of store front office in a building owned by Fred Trump in Queens) to write a letter to Trump’s local draft board claiming that his poor son had crippling bone spurs, Donald Trump could have been drafted, gone to Vietnam and could have come home in a body bag — as many Americans did during the peak of the war in 1968-69.   Now that’s something for Trump fans to tear up about. It wasn’t through the grace of God that saved him Saturday night; it was pure luck.  

The writing is on the wall. Trump once again showed America what he’s all about — an old, bat-shit crazy, narcissistic, convicted felon who has cheated and lied his way through life with a $400 million inheritance in his pocket and is totally unfit and unqualified for the office of the Presidency.  He doesn’t have a clue on how to unite the country — much less govern it. 

My gut tells me that covid-stricken Joe Biden will graciously step aside from the race this weekend or near future and turn over the baton to Kamala Harris — Trump’s worst nightmare.  Kamala will pick a young, articulate, thoughtful  running mate who will eat JD’s lunch in the debate.  If Kamala were not a mixed-race female,  I would go with New Jersey Senator Corry Booker or Gretchen Whitmer who is governor of the battleground state of Michigan. But I think we need to balance the ticket. And the Democrats have plenty of good candidates. 

My long shot as a VP is former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan, who barely lost to JD Vance in the Ohio Senate race in 2022.  Ryan was up by 3% in the polls at Labor Day before coal-dust Mitch and Peter Thiel  (who was born in Frankfort, Germany, made his billions in Silicon Valley inventing PayPal and took JD under his wings and made him a rich man) pumped millions of dollars into JD’s race in the final months when, at the same time, the Democratic Party left Ryan’s campaign coffers empty.    

Ryan,51, is from a suburb in Youngstown, Ohio (a very good football and hockey town) — an old steel town in northeastern Ohio in what used to be the industrial heartland of America.  He went to Bowling Green for undergraduate school and then law school at the University of New Hampshire. 

Articulate and outspoken, he can tell you better than Vance what it’s like growing up in the forgotten heartland of America, and he could compete very easily with an overly ambitious and phony JD Vance who went from a “never-Trumper” once calling Trump “America’s Hitler” and converted himself to the biggest ass-kissing Trump loyalist during his year-long audition for the VP job. He did absolutely nothing in his first year-and-a-half in the Senate except block Democratic nominees for judicial appointments. By choosing JD, Trump was doubling down on extremism.  

Here’s a quote from Vance’s 2021 campaign:  “This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term.’ And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages.”

But there are plenty of other young, talented candidates who could fill out the Kamala Harris ticket — Governor Josh Shapiro from the critical state of Pennsylvania just to name one.  Governor Michael Bennett of Colorado is another.  

This weekend could be critical to the Presidential race and the future of America.  We need to let Joe Biden step down on his own terms with the grace and dignity that he so deserves.  By doing so, the American people will remember with warmth and respect and as one of our best Presidents of modern times. 

Nora Skinker (Morton)

Hmm.  Am pondering how my message signaled a feeling that security personnel are worthless or that I hold them in despicable contempt  After contemplation, it did not signal anything of the kind. However, my post signaled something within you, Jack, and that's unfortunate.  Without critical scrutiny of the event, perhaps nothing would change. And for many, changes need to be made. For starters, a woman (or a man either, for that matter) who's height is about 5' 5'' can not shield properly a man who is 6' 3" or more and therefore it would seem, she should not have been assigned to do so.  Trump's head continued to be in full view of the camera, before the number of assailants could be ascertained. In my mind, that should not happen. In my mind, also, with a KNOWN danger in the area, perhaps it would have been better to keep the probable target OFF THE STAGE, until the suspect (AKA oddly-acting individual which turned out to be the actual threat) was indeed, dealt with.  Other men were gravely injured and a precious soul perished needlessly AND, as the honorable director herself admitted, the buck stops with her..  Hindsight is 20/20 but questions may be asked and answered when she is under oath to tell the truth. Did they do some things right? Yes! But I'm guessing she and the Service and local PD are embarrassed at what occurred and the role each played.  I can only hope they are. Having lived a long time, dimes to dollars the blame will go to poor communication, a shortage of resources and no one will lose his or her job.. Well, maybe some low level head will roll. Oops. Yes, perhaps I have lived too long. 

Jay, so that you may explore a new perspective on growing up in America through the new VEEP nominee's lens, I recommend you read his memoir. Get back to me! I like Tim and was hoping he would dethrone Biden  but, alas, no one was given a primary shot. He is dynamic and would be a welcome shot in the arm for the Left's chances. Crusty old guys like Biden and Trump call their own shots and don't accept irrelevence gracefully.

As for God's intervention, we are probably all keystone cops in the eyes of God.  But I have faith that He loves me anyway.

Jack Mallory

Yes, Nori, as I said I have personal reasons to be sensitive to condemnation of those who wear uniforms in public service. You may have personal reasons to want to scorn them, I don't know. 

But obfuscate all you want, no weaseling out of it. You referred to those in uniform, protecting the First Felon, as undercover keystone cops. "Following domestic sniper fire, a newly discovered Iranian-backed plot to kill Trump, & undercover keystone cops protecting him." Not some of them, not the organizers or leadership, but a tarring of all cops present with the same unevidenced brush. 

Done with this. 

********

Very pretty Clymene moth just outside the kitchen door. Thanks, Wikipedia!

Jay Shackford

Nori, I read his book and I wasn't impressed.  Also, watched the Netflix movie.  Admittedly, he has an interesting background, but he's not presidential timber. In my opinion, he's blinded by ambition, recognizing that Trump, if elected, has about a 30% or less chance of finiishing his term.  So he was willing to say anything to get the nomination. It's the chance of a lifetime.   I did, however, like his wife.  Impressive background, smart, articulate and looks real and good without dyed hair, many facelifts and tons of make up;   Perhaps we could have a debate between her and Melania.

Talking about Melania,  Did you catch the shots when she walked to her seat in the balcony,  Absolutely no interaction or eye contact between her and the Trump kids. When Eric came over to sit next to her, she didn't even recognize him. Poor Eric looked very uncomfortable.  Very interesting.  If Trump's elected, she doesn't plan to return to the White House.  

Nora Skinker (Morton)

WOW! That moth looks like a "Nawlins Saints fan.  Great mascot!

Since you never referred to my "rally" examples as failures, Jack, I assume you agree they are pretty glaring.. The Secret Service has not made such faux pas since the Reagan shooting.  Monday, I'll be absorbing the Cheatle proceedings and I hope you will too.  Maybe we can reconnect and compare notes,  when they are completed. Unless you are truly done and that would be a shame because I love to learn your positions.  They often affirm my own thoughts for me.

Jay, sorry but I wasn't paying much attention to who was looking at whom last night. Too bad Whoopi Goldberg isn't on the forum.  She could possibly high five you, knowing exactly to what you are referring.  Never cared or noticed the make-up or cosmetic surgeries either.  I'm useless! I was actually focused on the many stories coming from friends and families who had found Trump helpful, kind, funny and caring through the many years.  Was particularly glad to hear from women who had been given jobs which usually had gone to men before.  As one who fearlessly wants to be seen as strong and shrewd, those stories shed light on a different, softer man behind the scenes.  That said, yes, he went back to his old combative, bragging, apolitical ways last night, as time (too much time) went on.  He's a mess! But for some...actually i would say 'many"... he is real, which seems unlike most career politicians are perceived to be.  Love him or hate him, he's who almost half the country wants to be the bearer of change this year.  I sincerely hope there is a formidable opponent, so issues can be sorted through and clearer to an eager electorate.  

As a postscript: am happy you read Vance's  book.  I haven't seen the film version but intend to. Do his campaign words (from the paragraph of values you cited) sweep too large a swath for you? Would like to hear where/how you differ.

Jack Mallory

Anyone with the questionable judgement or integrity, or both, to first evaluate a man as the next Hitler and then as a worthy President of the United States seems a poor choice as a Vice President. 

*********

​I will point out that I look pretty good without dyed hair, many facelifts, and a ton of makeup! 

Jack Mallory

A useful timeline of the event. Compiles much of what we've heard episodically over the last week into a narrative format. No pay wall.

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/19/nx-s1-5041734/trump-shooting-assassination-crooks-bulter-secret-service

Jack Mallory

Ahhh! Accusations of Keystone Cop incompetency, short Secret Service agents, should have known where that originated! 

"we all saw the video of the shooting's aftermath, where a female agent a foot shorter than Trump tried to cover his body and another struggled to holster her gun. It made the Keystone Cops look like Kojak."

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/secret-service-shambles-reveals-white-house-where-buck-stops-nowhere

Nori, why does anyone interested in the truth watch the news from a source that has had over a 3/4 BILLION DOLLAR judgement against it for producing false news?

************
My friend Agent 36, the retired DC MPD officer, offered this on FB:  

"A few thoughts about attempted assassination of former President Trump.

". . . I see where the attempt has some idiots blaming the fact that females were on the Secret Service detail. Ok idiots listen up. I have had the pleasure of working alongside many women police officers in places where you would piss your pants just being there, much less doing some police work and without any hesitation state firmly that women officers can do the job. ie. Jane Wayne, Toni C-B, Betty E. anyone of them could open a can of whip ass.

"Enough for today. God Bless."

I haven't mentioned the forum Keystone Cops reference to him, I worry about his blood pressure.