Any sane person that votes MAGA automatically loses their “sane” designation! I have seen many disappointed Trumpers state their displeasure with the Grifter Thief Warmonger but say they just cannot for a Democrat! TOTAL INSANITY!!!
There was a FB post warning MAGATS that Democrats were going to take their guns while they were at the polls, so they should all stay home and guard them.
Stephen, thank you for providing the link to this important and timely documentary. Since T1.0 and his anonymous letter published in 2018 by the NYT, Miles Taylor has tenaciously spoke out against this corrupt, rotten, cruel cabal of grifters and thieves.
As the film points out, the only filter left to stop the sociopathic lunatic and his aiders and abettors is the power of the ballot box. Our only hope is that the midterms next week will deliver the comeuppance these haters of government of, by and for the people so richly deserve.
The very future of our nation and the world depends on it.
It is not like trump and the republicans did not tell everyone what they were going to do once in power; they published a detailed document. For all those who now find themselves negatively affected, they could have avoided it and had a better life today if they had only voted for Harris. Her plans were also clear. Just not evil and destructive.
Polls are unreliable and I am not comfortable with any predictions. Indeed, I won't be comfortable until a Dem-controlled Congress is fully seated on January 3rd. We are in real danger and the rabid opposition is not going to give up.
"the undaunted voters who have already cast their ballots and those who will — come hell or high water — make it to the polls by Nov. 3 are preserving the power of ordinary voters to choose their leaders; the cornerstone of our democracy."
In times of stress I sometimes revert to my Catholic upbringing. I am praying to St. Anthony to help us find our republic again, before it is completely lost.
Voting is our power to make positive change in our world and our communties.
This fingernail biting isn't good for you. The whole "polls are unreliable" thing is false; you just need a little bit of discernment and caution. Good polls are NOT totally unreliable.
And a thank you for preserving our rights goes squarely to you, Norm and all the Contrarians. YOU are the ones litigating the attacks on our rights, and are doing a damn good job. Thank you, thank you, thank you.🙏
Yes, all the election protection workers and lawyers I've known over the years are heroes of mine. I'm thinking of one I know who had to move to California after his wife got DOGE'd out of her federal job and she got a job out there. But his work is national and he still has his office here. Much of it is civil rights work and constitutional law.
Even here in Scarlet Alabama a new poll is showing the governor’s race is within the margin of error. In other polling it shows 62% of Alabama’s voters are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs regarding the economy here. If that translates to a Doug Jones win then the scarlet shade will significantly fade. District 2 is now a toss-up. I think it’s awesome to see minorities voting in huge numbers across America. This is definitely a huge backlash against Trump’s regime.
Over the last few weeks I have slowly become more hopeful that America is becoming serious about restoring order and the rule of law. I fervently hope that this election will provide a springboard for a new, more democratic government and a return to the America that I have always loved. In Colorado, voting is easy and the process well protected. I wish it were so throughout our country.
Despite my hopeful outlook, I won’t rest easy until after the ballots have been counted nationally.
Even in Oregon where we have been securely voting exclusively by mail, with signature matches and online tracking, some MAGA types have told me they are suspicious about their ballots. This has only occurred in the past couple of years due to Trumpian propaganda. Exasperated, I told them to just not vote if they are having such problems with democracy as Oregonians voted for VBM in 1998!
Those Federal Judges did a great job of annihilating the DOJ's ridiculous cases, but they didn't go far enough.
I'm not a lawyer, but I gather that when one takes the oath required to join the bar, they agree not to bring before the court a frivolous, meritless case or a case unsupported by evidence. Clearly, Don the Con's henchmen and henchwomen had their fingers crossed when they recited that part of the oath.
The judge has 2 options. First, they can refer those attorneys to the disciplinary committees of their relevant bar associations-- with penalties that could go as far as disbarment. Some judges, but not enough, have done that.
But I think there's another remedy that the judges could invoke but as far as I know have not. Let's face it, when someone brings a meritless suit against someone else, that other person has to hire an attorney to represent them, even if it's just to get the judge to dismiss the case. And that costs money! So even if the persecuted person wins, they're still out some money. So I think the Judge in the case has the option to make the person bringing a frivolous case pay for the opposing lawyer's legal fees! I think that's the Judge's authority, independent of the bar association. When the person bringing the frivolous case is a Federal attorney, I'm not sure if the DOJ would have to pay the opposing lawyer bills, or if the attorney who signed those papers would be held liable personally for paying those bills. Either it would give some of Don the Con's flunkeys pause before they put their "John Hancock" on a law brief.
The problem with that idea is that these incompetent government attorneys under an unscrupulous regime do not have to pay for their dubious lawsuits out of their own pockets. Win or lose, they are stealing out of our pockets and they know it. If they faced both disbarment AND had to pay for the corruption of the judicial system themselves maybe they wouldn’t be so eager to please an unhinged totalitarian.
Ivan, I appreciate your point of view, and I agree with it in principle, but ...
I echo Judy W's opinion. Every time I learn about a legal case brought against a city, state or federal agency, and the plaintiff wins a monetary judgment, I am disheartened. The damages are paid, not by the offending officials, but by the taxpayers in that jurisdiction.
The plaintiff deserves to be made whole, but our tax dollars should not be wasted on paying for the offenses of unscrupulous government officials.
If judgments were to cause personal financial pain to unprincipled government officials, they might be less enthusiastic about malfeasance. Hell, they might even be less interested in entering government service.
Note: When a judge refers a crooked attorney to his/her bar for review, that can cause financial pain, but only if the bar revokes the bad attorney's license. Not enough of that happens.
I see your point but respectfully disagree. Big entities like the Feds, like Don the Con's organization have large in-house legal departments staffed by attorneys on salary, who earn the same money whether they actually do work or not. So for all practical purposes the gov't, or the Trump Organization have bottomless legal resources and can bleed a regular person plaintiff dry, even if the regular person has a valid case.
Don the Con made an art out of this when, in his building days, he'd stiff mom-and-pop contractors of their agreed fee. M&P would sue for the money, and Don the Con would flood them with pleadings, allegations, etc, all of them bogus. And even when M&P won the case, Don would appeal, which dragged the case out even more and ran up M&P's lawyer bills. And even when he lost the appeal, Don would still not pay up, forcing Mom and Pop to go back to court! Don is pulling the same stunts with the DOJ as he did before. The long and short of it is even when Mom and Pop had a fair case, and when they won, they'd still end up losing, and often going bankrupt, due to the time and expense of fighting. And that's just not right.
So while in a perfect world the DOJ lawyers would be held personally liable for filing a meritless case, I'd rather see our tax dollars go to making aggrieved people whole again then seeing them harmed because the true bad guys get off without having to pay.
Just a note: The U.S. Government, including the DOJ, does not have the power to license attorneys. All attorneys working for the DOJ are licensed by the states where they have previously passed the Bar and practiced law. If they lose their license(s) from states, they cannot work for DOJ.
The only way to make them financially pay for their malpractice is to disbar them. Otherwise, their misdeeds are paid for by us taxpayers. You may be okay with that, but I am not.
The purpose of government is to defend its population from outside harm and provide a better life for all its citizens through infrastructure and safety nets, funded by taxes.
The purpose of government is not to compensate a few people who are harmed by its malfeasant employees.
I understand, but as you said in your first post, the plaintiff deserves to be made whole. Given that the DOJ can launch a war of attrition against a plaintiff, purely for spite, and drive that plaintiff (or a criminal defendant brought up on groundless charges) into bankruptcy, just how can the plaintiff be made whole if the government attorney who signed the papers is not liable? Maybe ideally the law or regulation should change to make the lawyer personally liable, but that's probably not going to happen any time soon, if ever. So I say we just hold our noses and say that having taxpayers foot the bill is preferable to having an innocent person victimized by a vindictive government, pay the price.
“The Executive’s requested relief, however, would wreak havoc…”
That’s ALL Trump and his do-nothing lickspittle Republicans acolytes do. They are the Enemy of the people. The Cancerous Enemy within. OUT with them! Praying for a Blue Tsunami cure! VOTE BLUE!
Let's all be certain to vote against the MAGATs (AKA Republican AKA GOP AKA RusskiPutican) at every possible opportunity for every level of government from local to state to federal.
The only part of the Revolutionary and Civil War that is over is the military part. The political fight continues. Per Jefferson, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Those who were on the losing side passed their beliefs and values to their descendants who are still here and who still want the same things - a king, a theocracy, slavery, political or economic domination, etc. The age-old solution, genocide and ethnic cleansing, was not uniformly practiced here - except for the Native American population. Stability requires a Nash style equilibrium in which all parties come to understand that the dynamic equilibrium is the best solution available. Ignorance or self-imposed dogmatic blindness to any other point of view can result in attempts to disrupt the system with a major cost to all parties. In principle, self-interest of the other stakeholders should drive us back to an equilibrium eventually. In metal work this would be called an annealing treatment. By design, change is possible, but the price is high.
With all the disinformation and craziness in our world now reading your morning columns and listening to “coffee with contrarians” has kept me sane (& informed on what is really happening)! Thank you Jen & Norm for all you are doing and have done!
Any sane person that votes MAGA automatically loses their “sane” designation! I have seen many disappointed Trumpers state their displeasure with the Grifter Thief Warmonger but say they just cannot for a Democrat! TOTAL INSANITY!!!
Then tell them to stay home, not vote.
I don't think anyone should stay home but if that's their choice, oh well. I can't head down to the red rural areas and force them to go to the polls.
There was a FB post warning MAGATS that Democrats were going to take their guns while they were at the polls, so they should all stay home and guard them.
I cannot agree more! If you have not viewed the documentary 'Corruptionland' here is the link. It is quite powerful!
https://www.corruptionland.org
Stephen, thank you for providing the link to this important and timely documentary. Since T1.0 and his anonymous letter published in 2018 by the NYT, Miles Taylor has tenaciously spoke out against this corrupt, rotten, cruel cabal of grifters and thieves.
As the film points out, the only filter left to stop the sociopathic lunatic and his aiders and abettors is the power of the ballot box. Our only hope is that the midterms next week will deliver the comeuppance these haters of government of, by and for the people so richly deserve.
The very future of our nation and the world depends on it.
It is not like trump and the republicans did not tell everyone what they were going to do once in power; they published a detailed document. For all those who now find themselves negatively affected, they could have avoided it and had a better life today if they had only voted for Harris. Her plans were also clear. Just not evil and destructive.
Polls are unreliable and I am not comfortable with any predictions. Indeed, I won't be comfortable until a Dem-controlled Congress is fully seated on January 3rd. We are in real danger and the rabid opposition is not going to give up.
"the undaunted voters who have already cast their ballots and those who will — come hell or high water — make it to the polls by Nov. 3 are preserving the power of ordinary voters to choose their leaders; the cornerstone of our democracy."
In times of stress I sometimes revert to my Catholic upbringing. I am praying to St. Anthony to help us find our republic again, before it is completely lost.
Voting is our power to make positive change in our world and our communties.
My late mother-in-law used to pray to St. Anthony for good parking spots.
This fingernail biting isn't good for you. The whole "polls are unreliable" thing is false; you just need a little bit of discernment and caution. Good polls are NOT totally unreliable.
Polls ain't helpful; they turn campaigns into horse races.
Wow. Thanks for the galsplaining.
And a thank you for preserving our rights goes squarely to you, Norm and all the Contrarians. YOU are the ones litigating the attacks on our rights, and are doing a damn good job. Thank you, thank you, thank you.🙏
Yes, all the election protection workers and lawyers I've known over the years are heroes of mine. I'm thinking of one I know who had to move to California after his wife got DOGE'd out of her federal job and she got a job out there. But his work is national and he still has his office here. Much of it is civil rights work and constitutional law.
Even here in Scarlet Alabama a new poll is showing the governor’s race is within the margin of error. In other polling it shows 62% of Alabama’s voters are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs regarding the economy here. If that translates to a Doug Jones win then the scarlet shade will significantly fade. District 2 is now a toss-up. I think it’s awesome to see minorities voting in huge numbers across America. This is definitely a huge backlash against Trump’s regime.
By working to protect their own vote, they are protecting all of our rights. We owe them a debt of gratitude.
If they elect Tuberville, they're really going to be "dissatisfied."
Reading this article first thing in the morning has set the tone for my entire day, hopeful and encouraged! Thank you, it was much needed!
I'm with you...I can breath ( for now )
I know. We need to stop being such doomsters. It only hurts us, drags us down and sometimes paralyzes us.
Over the last few weeks I have slowly become more hopeful that America is becoming serious about restoring order and the rule of law. I fervently hope that this election will provide a springboard for a new, more democratic government and a return to the America that I have always loved. In Colorado, voting is easy and the process well protected. I wish it were so throughout our country.
Despite my hopeful outlook, I won’t rest easy until after the ballots have been counted nationally.
And certified.
Even in Oregon where we have been securely voting exclusively by mail, with signature matches and online tracking, some MAGA types have told me they are suspicious about their ballots. This has only occurred in the past couple of years due to Trumpian propaganda. Exasperated, I told them to just not vote if they are having such problems with democracy as Oregonians voted for VBM in 1998!
Fortunately, Trump's bad faith, and that of the other MAGATs, is exceeded only by their incompetence, as they seem likely to score multiple own goals.
Those Federal Judges did a great job of annihilating the DOJ's ridiculous cases, but they didn't go far enough.
I'm not a lawyer, but I gather that when one takes the oath required to join the bar, they agree not to bring before the court a frivolous, meritless case or a case unsupported by evidence. Clearly, Don the Con's henchmen and henchwomen had their fingers crossed when they recited that part of the oath.
The judge has 2 options. First, they can refer those attorneys to the disciplinary committees of their relevant bar associations-- with penalties that could go as far as disbarment. Some judges, but not enough, have done that.
But I think there's another remedy that the judges could invoke but as far as I know have not. Let's face it, when someone brings a meritless suit against someone else, that other person has to hire an attorney to represent them, even if it's just to get the judge to dismiss the case. And that costs money! So even if the persecuted person wins, they're still out some money. So I think the Judge in the case has the option to make the person bringing a frivolous case pay for the opposing lawyer's legal fees! I think that's the Judge's authority, independent of the bar association. When the person bringing the frivolous case is a Federal attorney, I'm not sure if the DOJ would have to pay the opposing lawyer bills, or if the attorney who signed those papers would be held liable personally for paying those bills. Either it would give some of Don the Con's flunkeys pause before they put their "John Hancock" on a law brief.
The problem with that idea is that these incompetent government attorneys under an unscrupulous regime do not have to pay for their dubious lawsuits out of their own pockets. Win or lose, they are stealing out of our pockets and they know it. If they faced both disbarment AND had to pay for the corruption of the judicial system themselves maybe they wouldn’t be so eager to please an unhinged totalitarian.
Ivan, I appreciate your point of view, and I agree with it in principle, but ...
I echo Judy W's opinion. Every time I learn about a legal case brought against a city, state or federal agency, and the plaintiff wins a monetary judgment, I am disheartened. The damages are paid, not by the offending officials, but by the taxpayers in that jurisdiction.
The plaintiff deserves to be made whole, but our tax dollars should not be wasted on paying for the offenses of unscrupulous government officials.
If judgments were to cause personal financial pain to unprincipled government officials, they might be less enthusiastic about malfeasance. Hell, they might even be less interested in entering government service.
Note: When a judge refers a crooked attorney to his/her bar for review, that can cause financial pain, but only if the bar revokes the bad attorney's license. Not enough of that happens.
I see your point but respectfully disagree. Big entities like the Feds, like Don the Con's organization have large in-house legal departments staffed by attorneys on salary, who earn the same money whether they actually do work or not. So for all practical purposes the gov't, or the Trump Organization have bottomless legal resources and can bleed a regular person plaintiff dry, even if the regular person has a valid case.
Don the Con made an art out of this when, in his building days, he'd stiff mom-and-pop contractors of their agreed fee. M&P would sue for the money, and Don the Con would flood them with pleadings, allegations, etc, all of them bogus. And even when M&P won the case, Don would appeal, which dragged the case out even more and ran up M&P's lawyer bills. And even when he lost the appeal, Don would still not pay up, forcing Mom and Pop to go back to court! Don is pulling the same stunts with the DOJ as he did before. The long and short of it is even when Mom and Pop had a fair case, and when they won, they'd still end up losing, and often going bankrupt, due to the time and expense of fighting. And that's just not right.
So while in a perfect world the DOJ lawyers would be held personally liable for filing a meritless case, I'd rather see our tax dollars go to making aggrieved people whole again then seeing them harmed because the true bad guys get off without having to pay.
Just a note: The U.S. Government, including the DOJ, does not have the power to license attorneys. All attorneys working for the DOJ are licensed by the states where they have previously passed the Bar and practiced law. If they lose their license(s) from states, they cannot work for DOJ.
The only way to make them financially pay for their malpractice is to disbar them. Otherwise, their misdeeds are paid for by us taxpayers. You may be okay with that, but I am not.
The purpose of government is to defend its population from outside harm and provide a better life for all its citizens through infrastructure and safety nets, funded by taxes.
The purpose of government is not to compensate a few people who are harmed by its malfeasant employees.
I understand, but as you said in your first post, the plaintiff deserves to be made whole. Given that the DOJ can launch a war of attrition against a plaintiff, purely for spite, and drive that plaintiff (or a criminal defendant brought up on groundless charges) into bankruptcy, just how can the plaintiff be made whole if the government attorney who signed the papers is not liable? Maybe ideally the law or regulation should change to make the lawyer personally liable, but that's probably not going to happen any time soon, if ever. So I say we just hold our noses and say that having taxpayers foot the bill is preferable to having an innocent person victimized by a vindictive government, pay the price.
“The Executive’s requested relief, however, would wreak havoc…”
That’s ALL Trump and his do-nothing lickspittle Republicans acolytes do. They are the Enemy of the people. The Cancerous Enemy within. OUT with them! Praying for a Blue Tsunami cure! VOTE BLUE!
Always a joy to read Jen’s informative and optimistic posts.
Let's all be certain to vote against the MAGATs (AKA Republican AKA GOP AKA RusskiPutican) at every possible opportunity for every level of government from local to state to federal.
(MAGATs = Make America GREEDY Again Trumpists)
The only part of the Revolutionary and Civil War that is over is the military part. The political fight continues. Per Jefferson, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Those who were on the losing side passed their beliefs and values to their descendants who are still here and who still want the same things - a king, a theocracy, slavery, political or economic domination, etc. The age-old solution, genocide and ethnic cleansing, was not uniformly practiced here - except for the Native American population. Stability requires a Nash style equilibrium in which all parties come to understand that the dynamic equilibrium is the best solution available. Ignorance or self-imposed dogmatic blindness to any other point of view can result in attempts to disrupt the system with a major cost to all parties. In principle, self-interest of the other stakeholders should drive us back to an equilibrium eventually. In metal work this would be called an annealing treatment. By design, change is possible, but the price is high.
The white male Christian core of Trump's extremist MAGA cult followers have their eyes set on enabling the resurrection of the Jim Crow laws.
True. But free thinking women, and intelligent males of every ethnic group are not going backwards.
With emphasis on "intelligent".
Yes! That’s an important distinction!
I agree with the proposed label. This isn't the Roberts Court; it's the MAGA Court.
VOTE!
With all the disinformation and craziness in our world now reading your morning columns and listening to “coffee with contrarians” has kept me sane (& informed on what is really happening)! Thank you Jen & Norm for all you are doing and have done!