STEVE SCHMIDT: ” It was an absolute honor to talk to Ken Burns, famed documentarian and national treasure, to talk about the importance of telling America’s story. In this brief clip, we discuss what changed in the Republican party in the last 10-15 years and how we can fix it.”
Tag: Steve Schmidt
What a joke
Here’s the link to this article.
AUG 25, 2023
It is hard to sort through the surreality and absurdity of the FOX-hosted MAGA/GOP debate for the “also rans” that linger 40 points behind front runner Donald Trump, who faces 91 felony charges across four different jurisdictions, thus far. Absurdities piled up on top of one another, while hypocrisy, grandiosity, delusion and performative posturing could have been confused by a casual observer as being the necessary qualifications to run for president as a Republican.
Sixty-two years ago, a 43-year-old man rose and swore the 35-word oath that made him the 35th president of the United States. He was a decorated naval officer and combat veteran, who had served as a US senator for eight years and a congressman for six. He was thoughtful, observant, introspective and skeptical. His inaugural address ranks among the greatest in American history, and included these prescient words that I couldn’t stop thinking about last night as a 38-year-old demagogue and fame-seeking millennial took control of the debate from a feckless lineup of collaborators, appeasers, and FOX propagandists, with a fusillade of weapons- grade nuttery, rice paper-thin ignorance, and mind-bending naïveté wrapped together by ad hominem character attacks.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge–and more.
To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do–for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.
To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom–and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.
They most certainly did. Deep inside.
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There were some astonishing and illuminating moments from the FOX-fest, such as when Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis looked left and right before deciding whether to put their hands up and pledge to support Trump for president whether he is convicted, imprisoned, or anything else — no matter what, forever and ever.
Both men came into the debate filled with the conviction that shouting and inconsistencies are the key to projecting strength to an audience of extremists. Clearly when it comes to thinking on his feet and mirroring others, DeSantis was stuck in the pudding compared to Pence, who had much more experience. Let’s watch him do the same thing with water during a White House meeting with Trump before the former president and current criminal defendant tried to hang him:
‘Tis the season for revisionist history, and Mike Pence has made clear that Mike Pence is a hero for telling the man who incited an insurrection that killed and maimed, that he couldn’t help him overturn the election. He tried and thought about it, but when he called Dan Quayle, he told Pence that he was nuts and quite the hero. Watching Mike Pence perform his squinty-eyed, pious Reagan imitation right down to his canned and cheesy line that he is a “Christian, conservative and a Republican — in that order” has always been aneurysm-inducing for people with common sense and character. Mike Pence is a former cigarette spokesperson and lobbyist, who used donor money to live off during his first losing congressional race. He is a fraud, an extremist, and profoundly full of shit. After everything, when the question came about whether he’ll be behind the man who burned down what he said matters most, he made clear what he values — and it isn’t America. I guess there has always been a reason for Mike Pence why American wasn’t on his list. Mike Pence was Donald Trump’s partner and accomplice in all things — except one at the end. Remember though, but for Pence, we never would have gotten there.
Nikki Haley is the exact same person. There were moments in the debate where she appeared honest, cogent, strong, competent and principled. Of course none of those things are true, as has been ably demonstrated over the last seven years. She proved it when her hand shot up during the Trump forever auction. No matter what, she will be with Trump, whom she spent the debate excoriating by proxy through her castigations of Ramaswamy as an unprepared gadly for aping Trump’s positions 100% as his “mini me.” It makes no sense.
The abortion section of the debate was deeply chilling, and should terrify American women who don’t want their Republican member of Congress joining them in their bedroom, MD’s or pastor’s office. Though Mike Pence’s political career is at an end “The Handmaid’s Tale” is not. Can someone call casting please? What a commander he’d make. Chilling though he was, and as extreme as everyone else was, the DeSantis comments were memorable, right? I’m not the only person in America who heard him talk about a friend who survived multiple abortions, and was born in a pan, right? Please tell me I’m not alone in knowing that’s made up. The reason why I’m asking is because it’s important, given there is no such thing as up-to-the-moment of birth elective abortions that Republicans keep talking about. It isn’t real, and it’s never challenged. The failure of the Democratic Party to wrestle this issue into reality is appalling. Nevertheless, Nikki Haley was correct with regards to her worry about the political backlash that is coming to the nuttiness. There will likely be a women’s tsunami at the polls, unless America’s women are ready to sign up for transportation backwards in time about 60 years. I suspect it’s an offer they will enthusiastically refuse.
Lastly, there was the rushed and nervous discussion around the Trump coup that was handled by FOX and the candidates, except Christie and Hutchison, as a live incendiary device on a timer. There are no words to describe the trivialization of the greatest act of treachery and political misconduct in American history by the very same news anchor — Bret Baier— who kicked off the madness with his worries about delivering the news that the orange führer had lost the election to his manipulated, incited and radicalized audience.
What a small, petty affair last night was.
Oh, and Asa Hutchison appears to be a normal, responsible, serious person. He’s clearly in the wrong party to have a chance.
Yesterday, I said the “debate would be a travesty and a farce.” Looking back, I was way too optimistic. What a joke.
The peaceful transfer of power
Here’s the link to this article. Read and be sure to watch each of the short video clips.
AUG 18, 2023
American greatness has been fueled and sustained by qualities of character that are timeless and sorely needed during these days of national crisis. There should be no mistake about this being a moment of crisis or blindness about its cause, or who specifically is responsible.
The three greatest American presidents — Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt — collectively created America, saved the Union, ended slavery, and saved the world from tyranny. Each man’s greatest achievements and service were fueled by their exceptional character and dedication to virtue.
Washington was a man of exceptional humility, who repeatedly walked away from power to set in motion a new epoch of history. He was an example of the restraint necessary to sustain a republic. His actions awed the world, as well as the people of our young nation. When he passed he was eulogized as first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.
Lincoln demonstrated iron strength, indomitability, fortitude and magnanimity. His second inaugural is the greatest speech in America’s secular canon. Its words are transcendent.
He makes clear that the cause of war was the moral catastrophe of slavery. His determination is absolute.
Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’
So is his grace and magnanimity:
With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Franklin Roosevelt had the gift of faith, and because of it, he possessed a bottomless wellspring of optimism. Because of it, he was fearless — and made his nation so. His last inaugural address was the shortest in history. It stood at 544 words, but remains remarkable nonetheless as a declaration of moral purpose around a national purpose. FDR was a man without doubt by the end. His faith was in us, and it was not misplaced then or now. Here is what he said:
Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, my friends, you will understand and, I believe, agree with my wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief.
We Americans of today, together with our allies, are passing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage–of our resolve–of our wisdom–our essential democracy.
If we meet that test–successfully and honorably–we shall perform a service of historic importance which men and women and children will honor throughout all time.
As I stand here today, having taken the solemn oath of office in the presence of my fellow countrymen–in the presence of our God– I know that it is America’s purpose that we shall not fail.
In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war.
We can and we will achieve such a peace.
We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately–but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes–but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.
I remember that my old schoolmaster, Dr. Peabody, said, in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled: “Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights–then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.”
Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy.
And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons– at a fearful cost–and we shall profit by them.
We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger.
We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.
We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear.
We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.
The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples in an anguished world.
So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly–to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men–to the achievement of His will to peace on earth.
Eighty-two days later he was dead.
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Harry Truman had been vice president for just 82 days when he was received by Eleanor Roosevelt in her study in the White House on April 12, 1945. He had been playing poker in Speaker Sam Rayburn’s hideaway when a call came summoning him back to the White House.
Harry, the president is dead.
Truman responded:
Is there anything I can do for you?
Eleanor Roosevelt, a giant of the 20th century, replied:
No, Mr. President. Is there anything I can do for you? You are the one in trouble now.
Truman, a decorated combat veteran of the First World War, recalled his emotions this way, telling reporters the following day:
I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.
Why did he feel that way? What burden was thrust upon him?
It was the burden imposed by the most solemn oath that exists in American public life. Thirty-five words long, it is specifically proscribed in the US Constitution, and was taken for the first time on March 4, 1789, by George Washington. When Truman raised his hand, he was the 32nd person in American history to swear it. When he did, he became president of the United States of America. His styling was simple and unadorned. “Mr. President” is what we call the person who swears that oath. Here it is:
I do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
When it is sworn, executive power is either renewed or transferred. For 223 years, including through civil war, world war, assassination, economic depression and presidential resignation, it was peacefully transferred.
The first time it was peacefully transferred occurred in 1797. John Adams was fully aware that the unprecedented event was regarded with amazement. He recognized the significance of the moment and spoke about the “great uncertainty” that had followed the revolution and the establishment of the republic. The achievement was fresh, new, extraordinary and filled with promise and peril. This is how Adams described the achievement that would utterly transform world history and human civilization:
But this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people. And what object or consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence.
In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or chance.
The peaceful transfer of power is at the core of the American system of government and way of life. Its endurance was mistakenly interpreted by most of the country as permanence. It is not an inherited right. It marks renewal and recommitment to the core of the American revolution and the ideals that animate America. When power is transferred in America, it is a powerful and profound moment.
It is important to understand the desecration and chaos Trump and his mob have wrought with their attack against America. They have normalized conspiracy. They have made the truth and lie equal in a public square contaminated by the toxic sewage of division, propaganda and misinformation. They have assaulted the essence of America through a conspiracy to seize power that was bestowed by the American people on Joe Biden. The treachery is historic, unprecedented and ongoing. The days ahead will test America’s spirit, resolve and democracy.
Below are the moments when power was transferred. Listen to select words of the inaugural speeches of America’s Democratic and Republican presidents. Do you see the continuity and the majesty of what Trump and his filthy accomplices desecrated?
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Dwight Eisenhower, 1953
John F. Kennedy, 1963
Jimmy Carter, 1976
Ronald Reagan, 1980
Bill Clinton, 2000
Do you ever think about the Boomers?
Here’s the link to this article. A must read. Be sure and watch each video clip.
Do you ever think about the Boomers? I don’t very often, but I suspect I do more than most — which is barely at all. I wonder why the overwhelming majority of Americans never think about them and their potential. It’s almost as if they don’t exist at all. But of course they do.
Boomers, of course, are the nickname for America’s fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, which are the most powerful weapons of war in the history of human civilization. Here are their names:
USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN 730), Bangor, WA
USS Alabama (SSBN 731), Bangor, WA
USS Alaska (SSBN 732), Kings Bay, GA
USS Nevada (SSBN 733), Bangor, WA
USS Tennessee (SSBN 734), Kings Bay, GA
USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735), Bangor, WA
USS West Virginia (SSBN 736), Portsmouth, VA
USS Kentucky (SSBN 737), Bangor, WA
USS Maryland (SSBN 738), Kings Bay, GA
USS Nebraska (SSBN 739), Bangor, WA
USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740), Kings Bay, GA
USS Maine (SSBN 741), Bangor, WA
USS Wyoming (SSBN 742), Kings Bay, GA
USS Louisiana (SSBN 743), Bangor, WA
Aboard them are men and women from all 50 US states and territories. They are US Navy sailors, and are in the business of deterrence, which means they will be the first to know if Armageddon is at hand. After that, they will be the first to wonder what happens next.
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Let’s watch Commanding Officer John Gage of the USS Pennsylvania contemplate the end of human civilization and what it would be like aboard the ship that fired the missiles after the fact. Before watching though, are you at all interested in the personality type of the man who is wearing the silver oak leaves on his collar? What makes him tick? What is unique about his character, judgement and intellect that would interest the US Navy in turning over the keys to the most potent weapon that ever existed and the lives of those under his command?
Let’s watch:
Here is a remarkable scene from the fire control room aboard the ship. Notice the ages of the crew and the diversity. For those unfamiliar with naval rank, the Black man with two silver bars on his collar is in charge. He is a lieutenant. Look at the bridge of the ship and the faces. Right now, at this exact second, there is a crew of Americans in a ballistic missile submarine lurking, hidden, in each of the world’s oceans. They are training, preparing and readying. They are preparing to execute an order they simultaneously pray they will never receive. Let’s watch the captain explain the process by which he would launch nuclear weapons from his ship via ballistic missiles:
The commander in chief is the president of the United States. The crew will follow his orders and they will fire the missiles. The American people choose the person who can give that order. Why don’t we ever talk about that? Why aren’t politicians ever asked about it? It is real.
Let’s watch Martha Raddatz of ABC News talk to some of the women crew aboard the USS Maine. Listen to her describe the deadliest weapon in the world:
When you see the young Lieutenant Jg Erin Chandler handle the nuclear launch key what do you see?
What is it that a citizen owes her and her shipmates? How should we think about the young people who will hand the keys to the captain, who will launch the missiles that will annihilate civilization? Don’t we owe them wisdom and circumspection in our voting choice? Don’t we owe ourselves, our children and their descendants someone more stable, secure and trustworthy than Donald Trump?
Here is another question raised by the broad indifference Americans seem to have towards the country in which our descendants will live. When do we stop caring at all about what happens, and when? Is it after our grandkids? We don’t care what happens to their kids and their grandkids? Is it too far forward after that? Never let it be said that selfishness doesn’t kill in America.
Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks she might be vice president in the next Trump administration. She told The Atlanta Constitution-Journal about her ambitions, saying the following about potentially running for the Senate:
I haven’t made up my mind whether I will do that or not. I have a lot of things to think about. Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?
Now watch the captain talk about how the hidden submarine communicates with the commander in chief, receives its orders and prepares to fire. Lest there be any doubt around whether the order to fire would be disobeyed the captain will put your mind to rest. The missiles will be fired:
Donald Trump controls the Republican Party at an institutional level. Fully. He is unambiguously the boss. He is an accused felon facing nearly 100 criminal charges that include being at the center of the greatest criminal conspiracy in American history. He is running on a platform of retribution, revenge, threat and division. His intimations toward violence and chaos will inspire the results he hopes for.
We should all think about Boomers and the awesome responsibility of their crews and officers. We should think about their commander in chief. We live in an age of disgrace and unfitness that is both epic and conquerable. Moving past it requires zero tolerance for the extremism and cult of personality that has broken faith with American values in the name of Donald Trump. They have betrayed an idea for a person, and the surrender of a political party’s elected members to the whims of a despot has been as pathetic as it had been despicable. Whatever cowardice it represents, it will be viewed as unpardonable by history. The harsh judgement ahead will scorn the cowardice that allowed a fascist movement to plant, root and thrive on American soil in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.
America’s politics is covered as a game by much of the American media, which brings the same slimy touch to the endeavor of politics that wife beater and Trump fanboy Dana White brings to the UFC. It’s not a game. It’s life and death. This era must end. It is dangerous beyond any measure.
We should all think about our Boomers. We should think about the young men and women aboard them. They will survive the first wave. It is said that when the missiles launch, the survivors will envy the dead. In the end, there is only one American who is ever given the power and discretion to launch the weapons of extinction. That person is the president of the United States of America. What type of sick society would ever invest that power again in a man like Donald Trump.? What type of broken media would pretend the powers of the office don’t exist? What type of people are we?
In the end, we will know. America gets the chance to vote on its own euthanasia.
Newsom-DeSantis debate is about the future of America
Here’s the link to this article.
AUG 5, 2023
I’m going to make a prediction.
The forthcoming debate between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis, hosted by Sean Hannity on Fox News, will humiliate Ron DeSantis. It will demonstrate how extreme Florida politics has become, and effectively end Ron DeSantis’s life in national politics.
Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, will emerge from the Fox lion’s den unscathed and victorious with his national stature cemented.
MAGA extremists have no idea how to handle California’s razor sharp and habitually underestimated second term governor, who is a first rate communicator, fearless on issues of liberty and freedom, and aggressive on the debate stage. Newsom will maintain an affable bearing and friendly smile, while skewing the absurdities and delusions of the Tallahassee Mussolini, who seeks the presidency of the United States to “slit throats.”
Gavin Newsom has a very different temperament and character. Here is a true story about Gavin Newsom. He gave me the best parenting advice anyone has ever given me, and I will always be grateful to him for that:
James Redford produced and directed an HBO documentary called ‘The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia,’ in which Governor Newsom is featured. Newsom subsequently created a brilliant children’s book about dyslexia that has helped multitudes of American parents and kids deal with the challenges and opportunities facing dyslexic kids.
Many years ago, I found myself having a conversation with Newsom about my then five-year-old son, who had just been diagnosed as dyslexic. There was a room full of people who were eager to talk to the Lt. Governor, but he didn’t excuse himself from the conversation. He said there would definitely be obstacles to face and overcome, but that, in the end, my son would come to realize that his learning difference was “his great gift.” Whatever anyone else may think of what he told me, I regard it as brilliant, and more importantly, true. More than that, on every occasion I have seen him since, he has asked how my son is doing.
He is a good man. He is decent, and he cares about leaving the world better off. He cares about leaving America stronger for our descendants. He understands the concepts of obligation and responsibility that defend liberty that Ron DeSantis disdains and denigrates with his actions and performative cruelties. This will all come through during the Hannity debate. Newsom’s fearlessness of the MAGA mob will give courage to decent Americans — even those who disagree with him on some issues — to take a stand against the smallness, vindictiveness, and appalling disregard for the American way of life that DeSantis demonstrates through word and deed.
The American creed and the MAGA creed are oppositional, irreconcilable and diametrically opposed. The MAGA creed is a grotesquerie that imposed a dogma of obedience and submission upon the weak-minded who believe jingoism is patriotism and progress is revanchism. The concept of individual responsibility has been replaced by a gospel of grievance and resentment. It is accompanied by a shrill chorus of victimization and whining that has abandoned grit, perseverance, duty, responsibility and self-respect in favor of their opposites.
Today, the taker reigns supreme inside of the MAGA delusion-sphere in which a vast audience of brittle sheep have been coddled in their hallucinations, as opposed to being confronted directly with reality through a medium that used to be called “The News.” The world that Gavin Newsom is entering believes the lies they have been fed. The propaganda has been ceaseless and effective. Generally speaking, there have been few antidotes offered against it, and it has spread far and wide.
The Hannity audience is as deluded as it gets. No doubt vast segments believe Portland and Seattle were destroyed as thoroughly as Hiroshima by Black Lives Matter and Antifa. They have been primed to be abused with lies, lies, lies and more lies. It is tragic, but also predictable because the lie is a feature of every autocratic system and movement there has ever been. The lie is to the tyrant what gravity is for everyone else. It anchors everything. Everything is touched by gravity, as all things are touched by the lie — until the moment the veil is pierced with the truth. In this regard, Gavin Newsom is playing the role of a Cold War president speaking directly to the Soviet people without the filter of state propagandists interfering. What Hannity’s audience will hear is a profound moral choice laid out. Gavin Newsom will be making the case for America.
A twisted theology has taken root in America over the Trump era. Its despicable apostles have become the everyday voices of extremism to which we have become desensitized, at our peril. The rhetoric of fascist Charlie Kirk calling for prison or the death penalty for President Biden isn’t just a federal crime, but an inherently political proposition. The MAGA right is now explicitly embracing the murder, assassination, mayhem, street violence, and disorder that it had previously intimated. Listen:
Revenge. Intimidation. Threats. Retribution. Death. Is this what we want? Is it possible this is what the American people will choose on the eve of the 250th anniversary of American independence? Does the coalition of the extreme and apathetic outnumber the patriotic, tolerant and decent? Is thuggery appealing? If not, why are Biden and Trump running even in the polls? Shouldn’t we the people talk about such things?
Ron DeSantis may be the worst presidential candidate of the last 50 years who has received any attention whatsoever from the national media. He is a most peculiar man — to say the least.
Rarely, if ever, is the sheltered Fox crowd exposed to the concept of complexity and pragmatism. The governor of California is afforded no such luxuries, given that he has one of America’s most complicated jobs. He will be a worthy messenger from the world where there isn’t much appetite for civil war, shooting protesters, locking up political opponents, or excusing the most reckless and depraved behavior possible as essential to protecting America.
This debate will be one worth watching. It is always worth watching when America is being defended against treachery and corruption. The argument matters. The principles matter. I can’t wait to watch.
What he did
Here’s the link to this article. I encourage you to subscribe to Steve Schmidt’s The Warning.
AUG 3, 2023
Donald Trump tried to overthrow the American republic because he lost an election. Nearly every single Republican member of Congress helped him do it by suborning his ceaseless and premeditated lies. They stoked the fires of incitement that led to Trump’s coup as his collaborators and partners. Ambition and fear overwhelmed their duty and patriotism.
The wretched truth is that with scant exceptions the entirety of the Republican Party from its elected officials, party officials, donors, activists and volunteers abandoned America in favor of their faction. George Washington’s fears had come to pass just as his warnings went unheeded by this generation of Americans. In his farewell address on September 17, 1796, he said the following:
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Every American has an absolute obligation and duty to read the details of the most important criminal indictment in American history carefully and thoroughly. The language is stark, vivid and declarative. The indictment rejects the jaundiced notion that there is dispute around the details of the election. Instead, it boldly embraces reality in a way that the overwhelming majority of the American media has refused to do so on a consistent basis. It declares flatly and directly:
He absolutely did lose the 2020 presidential election. Yet, he wanted power. What he did was try and take it through a conspiracy of lies and thuggery. Though he knew he lost, he didn’t care. What followed was the most reprehensible actions in American history by an American president. They represent a betrayal of stupendous dimensions. What Donald Trump did was amoral, illegal and nearly cataclysmic.
The Warning with Steve Schmidt is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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Donald Trump desecrated the sacrifices and patriotism of the men and women who laid down their lives so America could endure and survive. He tried to take America away from all of us. Donald Trump isn’t just a failed and seditious president and an accused criminal, he is an abomination and every loyal citizen should be enraged by what he did. He assaulted our ancestors and our descendants, while trying to burn down our way of life and taking our right to choose our leaders from us. It cannot be forgiven, excused, rationalized or minimized. The propaganda of Fox News and all of its derivative media cannot hide the simple truth. Trump tried to destroy the United States. He is a domestic enemy.
We must not allow the ambitions of one man and his cabal to destroy the American way of life. It cannot happen. It must be fiercely opposed. Donald Trump and his cause are a national cancer, and it remains deeply embedded in our politics. This age of extremism must yield, or democracy will be lost.
The only thing that matters is that the Republican frontrunner doesn’t believe in democracy. He is running on a platform of revenge and retribution.
Everything is on the line in 2024. Will it be America’s last election not decided in advance?
Let’s hope not, and let’s work very hard to make sure it isn’t.
The MAGA vandals
Here’s the link to this article.
AUG 1, 2023
America is being vandalized. Specifically, the American people are being abused and denigrated by their politicians. More precisely, they have become the targets of systemic gaslighting from the MAGA radicals and fascists who seek power by overturning democracy — lest they be forced to share it with a political opposition.
This era has shown that cowardice, dishonesty, idolatry and a bottomless disregard for shame are a potent rocket fuel for advancement within the corrupted ranks of the MAGA sewer. The abandonment of principle, integrity and decency have become credentials in a toxic culture in which grievance, entitlement and taking are virtuous, while empathy, duty and responsibility are for losers. This is the polluted river in which Kevin McCarthy is a champion swimmer.
His noxious pablum is unrestrained by reality, truth or any worry that he will ever be asked about it again after sundown. Here is a a perfect example from CNN quoting the oft-lying Speaker and the only one ever called a p***y on the floor of the House by another member of Congress. Here’s McCarthy being taken at face value by CNN, which seems oblivious to his Orwellian slop. McCarthy asks:
How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry.
Yes, the truth. Kevin McCarthy has certainly shown himself its staunch defender. Lol.
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Anyway, this pursuit for truth, which apparently includes launching an impeachment inquiry against the president of the United States without any evidence whatsoever, and assailing his son for cruelty’s sake and satisfying the bloodlust of a political mob, has led the kitty of the House to a familiar figure when it comes to grotesque hypocrisy and impeachments. CNN sets the stage perfectly for the sinister arrival of Newt Gingrich, the last GOP speaker to illegitimately impeach a Democratic president over nonsense. Proving that anything remains possible in America, that very same speaker would one day be able to accompany Callista Gingrich, his former mistress and now wife, to the Vatican where Donald Trump honored Catholics and their faith by making her ambassador to the Holy See.
According to CNN:
Speaker Kevin McCarthy in recent weeks has heard similar advice from both a senior House Republican and an influential conservative lawyer: prioritize the impeachment of President Joe Biden over a member of his Cabinet.
Part of the thinking, according to multiple sources familiar with the internal discussions, is that if House Republicans are going to expend precious resources on the politically tricky task of an impeachment, they might as well go after their highest target as opposed to the attorney general or secretary of homeland security.
And McCarthy – who sources said has also been consulting with former House GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich on the issue – has warmed up to an idea that has long been relegated to the fringes of his conference.
“The fringes of his conference” is quite a description and declaration of naïveté from CNN about reality. There is no fringe in the MAGA majority. It is an undulating blob of layered imbecility, cowardice, vice, extremism, ignorance, ambition, incompetence and scheming, bubbling and gurgling together in a ceaseless assault against democracy. The fringe and its middle are identical. MAGA is round and without edges.
The proposition at hand for the country is whether a majority will tolerate the lies, corruption, malice and cruelty offered by the MAGA GOP because of the imperfections of the Democratic Party. There is no comparison between the two in terms of comportment, ethics and political morality. MAGA tried to overthrow the government, and is running on a scorched earth platform of revenge and retribution. Alongside the confederacy, Jim Crow and McCarthyism, MAGA is amongst the most odious concoctions ever created from the fumes of American nativism and know- nothingness. It is a pestilence.
In the end, the American people have to decide what the future of the nation will be. Perhaps the majority is ready to end the American experiment begun in 1776 and passed down for nearly 250 years. Are you? I’m definitely not.
The inmates are running the congressional asylum
Here’s the link to this article.
JUL 26, 2023
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a living symbol of national decay. Her prominence is fueled by the preeminence of dimwittedness, ignorance and idiocy over intelligence, wisdom and common sense within the United States Congress.
Let’s watch:
Truly, there are no words. Serious political parties from serious nations do not elevate people like this. She is a fool and a hypocrite of such stupendous dimensions that it is almost impossible to comprehend the totality of it all. MTG is a conspiracy theorist. Yet in 2023, she is a GOP front runner to be Trump’s vice presidential running mate.
Tommy Tuberville is another MAGA politician who is unfit for a position of public responsibility as a senator in the United States Senate. The vapid former Auburn football coach seems like he was cooked up in a boiling pot of cliches about southern football coaches who can barely read, function or think off of the gridiron. Here is how Wikipedia describes the addled airhead from Alabama:
Tuberville invested $1.9 million in GLC Enterprises, which the Securities and Exchange Commission called an $80 million Ponzi scheme.[122] He lost about $150,000 when the business closed in 2011.[123]
At Auburn, Tuberville participated in the Auburn Church of Christ.[124]
Tuberville’s interests include “NASCAR, golf, football, hunting and fishing, [and] America’s military”. He enjoys country and western music.[125]
It is most unfortunate for hundreds of America’s most senior career military officers that the “coach” has taken an interest in their careers and the institutions they have served for most of their adult lives. Tuberville is currently holding up the promotions of more than 265 senior military officers, and has the potential to instruct the promotions of more than 650 military officers by the end of the year. It is quite an accomplishment for a man who has repeatedly lied and exaggerated about his father’s World War II service, from making up stories about his five Bronze Star and Purple Heart decorations to his involvement in the liberation of Paris.
Here is how Stars and Stripes has framed the issue, and the outrage of hundreds of military families whose lives have been thrown into chaos as part of the collateral damage from Tuberville’s war on the US military:
Hundreds of military spouses are demanding Senate leaders find a way to end an Alabama Republican senator’s single-handed blockade of more than 280 senior officer promotions.
Roughly 500 spouses in a petition delivered Monday on Capitol Hill blasted Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s procedural hold on all general and admiral promotions as an “inappropriate and unpatriotic” political maneuver that harms the impacted officers and their families. Tuberville has blocked the Senate from confirming batches of general and admiral nominations by voice vote since February in protest of a Pentagon policy that reimburses service members for travel expenses incurred to seek certain reproductive health care banned in several states, including abortions, and allows them to use their personal leave to do so.
“No matter your political beliefs, we must agree that service members and military families will not be used as political leverage,” the Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that advocates for military spouses and families, wrote in the letter to Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the upper chamber’s majority and minority leaders, respectively. “It’s time to end this political showmanship and recommit to respect the service and sacrifice of those who pledge to defend this nation.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had this to say about the matter, which was also reported by Stars and Stripes:
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at the Pentagon that he expected Tuberville’s hold on military promotions was making U.S. adversaries “pretty happy that we create this kind of turbulence [and] put that on our force.”
It is an incredible comment. The Secretary of Defense is remarking that hostile powers are delighted with the chaos a US Senator from Alabama is causing in the US military. It is frightening, unacceptable and infuriating.
There is a simple truth about this rancid age. Atop the list of national threats are many of America’s politicians who reside in a spectrum of craziness, ignorance, certitude and arrogance that is unbound by concepts such as patriotism, duty, obligation or responsibility. The American people deserve better. However, in order to get it, they are going to have to care a lot more than they do now. Looking at MTG and Tommy Tuberville, it is clear that the inmates are running the congressional asylum.
That’s a bad thing — for all of of us.
On Sunday, I shared my thoughts after seeing ‘Oppenheimer.’ I haven’t stopped thinking about it as it serves as a perfect reminder of the dangers of electing someone as corrupt and evil as Donald Trump, and giving them the ability to start a nuclear war. In this commentary, I also talk about how sycophants like Kevin McCarthy and others only serve to increase the danger we all face by submitting to Trump’s every whim:
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”
Here’s the link to this article.
JUL 23, 2023
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” — J. Robert Oppenheimer
‘Oppenheimer’ is an extraordinary and stunning movie. Seventy-eight years have passed since the Trinity test site outside of Los Alamos, New Mexico. It marked the beginning of a new epoch in history, where mankind harnessed the powers of the gods and became capable of triggering Armageddon.
Matt Damon plays General Leslie Groves, the architect of the Manhattan Project. He perfectly captures 2023 America’s lassitude towards the weapons that remain poised to destroy human civilization. Here is what Damon said:
How did I forget about this? It’s like the Cold War ended and my brain played a trick on me and said, ‘OK, let’s put that away, you don’t have to worry about that anymore’ — which is absurd.
But as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine “suddenly overnight it became the most important thing for us all to think about again.
Damon is one of the greatest actors of his generation, and among the most thoughtful as well. His comments aren’t an expression of vapidity or disinterest, but rather a spot-on assessment of how the overwhelming number of Americans think about the weapons that can destroy 10,000 years of human civilization and history in an instant.
I’ve written about this subject before. General Douglas MacArthur was the first person to speak directly to the existential issues raised by the dawn of the nuclear weapons age. They remain dire and true 78 years later.
The winds of catastrophe are stirring
·
JAN 31
Even though nuclear weapons have not been deployed in combat since 1945 does not mean that they no longer exist. There are thousands of them under the control of the following nations: United States, Russia, China, UK, France, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and India. The most nuclear arsenal in the world belongs to the United States, and it consists of three elements. The United States can deliver its nuclear weapons to any spot on Earth via airplane, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile and submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile. The weapons are under the command and control of the US Armed Forces, and can be launched on orders from the president of the United States. Since Harry Truman, the following Americans have held the unilateral power to destroy the world: Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. One of these men is unlike the others.
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During the hectic days after January 6, Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously queried Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley about the security of America’s nuclear arsenal. Milley responded that he had everything under control. Overwhelmingly, the American media and people yawned at the news, and believed what Milley told Pelosi — which is absolutely not true. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff isn’t part of the decision-making process when it comes to Armageddon. The president alone has that authority.
Everything in the American government is designed to move slowly — except one thing. The launch of the nuclear weapons are the exception. Should the president give the order, it will be carried out by highly-trained professionals who will not hesitate to execute it. In fact, right now, in this second, they are at their duty posts at the bottom of a silo, under the seas or in the air, awaiting the order.
What Matt Damon said is true for most of us in 2023 because no sane society would choose Donald Trump as the person to hold the power of extinction. Yet, we did.
The world came extremely close to nuclear war in October of 1962. Perhaps the only reason it didn’t was the profound wisdom, steeliness and courage of John Kennedy. Today, we have replaced wisdom with a deluded moral infancy and addlement that makes a mockery of the life and death issues that rest on the president’s desk.
We live in a cynical time in which there is so much evil operating in plain sight all over the world. Yet, after 78 years of having the power to destroy the planet, mankind has not pulled the trigger. It is a blink of an eye and an eternity all at once. What lies ahead is unknown, but it will be dangerous and deadly. What keeps us safe is judgement and morality. When that disappears all that is left is the mushroom cloud.
Why have we stopped believing these weapons exist — like all weapons — to be used?
‘Oppenheimer’ helps us remember the world in which we live. I recommend that you go to see it.
The winds of catastrophe are stirring
Here’s the link to this article.
JAN 31, 2023
There are a confluence of dangerous events occurring that have the potential to trigger global catastrophe at the end of the lifespans of the generation that endured human civilization’s greatest one. They are nearly all gone. Eleven years from now, it is estimated that there will be less than 1,000 American veterans left out of 16 million that served in the Second World War. Today, there are slightly more than 100,000 alive from a war that killed 400,000 Americans, and defined an era that came to be known as the “American century.”
During it, the United States became the most powerful nation in world history, and the guarantor of the international order that emerged in the aftermath of the destruction of the Axis powers. Since then, the world has seen the greatest expansions of prosperity and freedom in the annals of human history. Though there remains great injustice and inequality there has never been a comparable 80 year period of progress — ever. The expansion of human rights and dignity, democracy, international cooperation coupled with stunning scientific, technological and medical advances are astonishing when judged against the sweep of human history. The pace of progress, change and the disruptions that come with it are continuing to quicken. They have have taken us to the brink of a new age of artificial intelligence and powerful machines that will be able to think, decide, act, and perhaps kill. We live in an era in which the genetic foundation of human beings can be altered in a laboratory, and where space will become a frontier for economic development and exploitation.
The United States has been a clumsy and unwise hegemon at times. It has blundered and made costly errors that include interference in the sovereign affairs of too many countries with a heavy hand and three tragic wars — in both Vietnam and Iraq, which were wars of choice, and one in Afghanistan, which was a war of necessity that drifted into an experiment, and then defeat.
Yet, for nearly 80 years the United States has played a singular role, despite all of its many flaws, in holding back an inexorable tide that has risen higher across each century of human existence. It is a tide of death and suffering caused by war.
There are two generations of Americans that have led the United States since 1961. Joe Biden is the only member of the “silent” generation to reach the White House and the first president in history to take back power from a younger generation — the “baby boomers,” whose parents were part of the generation born between 1901 and 1927.
Generationally, those Americans were part of a cohort that stands out. They are unique among the named generations that are inevitably shaped by the seismic events that define epochs of history, cultural transformations and war.
Their children are the “baby boomers,” who were defined by the 1960s, the Vietnam War, civil rights movement, peace movement, assassinations and Watergate. They were the largest generation in American history. The “millennial” generation eclipsed them in size and dwarf the younger generations named “Z” and “Alpha.” There is only one American generation that is called “greatest.”
The “greatest” generation was the name of a book that told the story of America’s oldest living generation by the legendary Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News anchor and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The name stuck. It became the moniker of an entire generation that included within their numbers plenty of arch segregationists. Yet, it fit because the events that defined their lifetimes included the greatest economic crisis in world history, the greatest war in world history, the greatest rebuilding in world history, the greatest economic expansion in world history and the most sustained era of global peace in world history. The Second World War remains the greatest catastrophe in human history. As an event, it stands at the edge of living experience and history. Soon there will be no eyewitnesses to the landing beaches, concentration camps, naval battles and air war left. There will be no living humans who are devoted to making sure there is no catastrophe that exceeds what happened to humanity in the 1930s and 1940s.
There are two facts of this moment that are indisputable.
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First, the United States is burdened for the first time since secession with a political party that is utterly, fundamentally, and absolutely incapable of governing. It is a hive of corruption, madness, malice, incompetence, grift, fraud and irredeemable dishonesty. It is led by a rogues’ gallery of unfit, self-interested, proudly ignorant, and despicable cowards, who have abandoned every previously stated principle and piety with acts of servility, cowardice, arrogance, duplicity and submission.
Second, the 15th century was deadlier than the 14th, as the 19th century was deadlier than the 18th, 17th and 16th. The momentum of human suffering and death was driven by the Industrial Revolution through the birth of the atomic age, and the dawn of an era in which mankind possessed the power to cause its own extinction and trigger its own Armageddon.
The 20th century cannot be forgotten because it was so lethal and demonstrated the savagery of which human beings are capable. It was a century of unequalled blood thirstiness and madness during which the greatest horrors and crimes ever recorded were committed. When it ended, two nuclear powers stood at the brink of destruction for 45 long years. They fought against each other in vicious proxy wars all over the world, but the deadly momentum of warfare that killed more people in the next war than the last was held back. Ultimately, the Soviet regime, built on the principles of totalitarianism, crumbled against the superior system led by the United States. There was even a book that proclaimed we had arrived at the “end of history.” Francis Fukuyama, its author, was celebrated and acclaimed. Today, it looks like a boast reminiscent of the arrogance of the White Star Line that played along with the hyped rhetoric that declared, “Not even God himself could sink this ship.” The collapse of the Berlin Wall was so sudden that it took on the trappings of the miraculous during the moment of excitement, liberation and possibility. Perhaps the most stunning achievement since its collapse might be the fact that for multiple living generations it seems like it never existed at all.
The first global war began in August of 1914. There was no comparable event in human history to which it was comparable. It killed 16 million people, and among them were 116,000 Americans in a spasm of violence between 1917-1918. The war destroyed the Austro-Hungarian empire, Ottoman empire, defeated and humiliated Imperial Germany, redrew the boundaries of the Middle East and Arabia and beggared the British and French empires. The horror of trench warfare and the protracted stalemate triggered a search for meaning in the cause within the democracies whose societies were being shattered by the losses. The cause became a “war to end all wars.” Nobody in the moment could imagine worse. How could they?
The next war would start slightly more than 20 years after the “war to end all wars” ended. The Second World War would kill more than 85 million people around the world. Most historians label its beginning as September 1, 1939, and end on September 2, 1945. The truth is that the killing began in the mid 1930s with aggression by fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. The world looked away until it was too late.
When the Second World War ended, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, a highly decorated veteran of the First World War and the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, accepted the surrender of the Japanese Empire aboard the battleship USS Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay at the beginning of the atomic age. Unlike the unconditional surrender of Germany, which was done in private, the surrender of the Japanese was the most listened to global broadcast in history on that September day in 1945. MacArthur’s comments were divided into two parts, separated by the signing of the surrender documents by the defeated Japanese representatives and victorious Allies.
Here is what he said during the first part of the ceremony:
We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored.
The issues involving divergent ideals and ideologies have been determined on the battlefields of the world, and hence are not for our discussion or debate.
Nor is it for us here to meet, representing as we do a majority of the peoples of the earth, in a spirit of distrust, malice, or hatred.
But rather it is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone befits the sacred purposes we are about to serve, committing all of our peoples unreservedly to faithful compliance with the undertakings they are here formally to assume.
It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past — a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice.
After the surrender document was signed MacArthur delivered an address that spoke to the realities of the new era during which mankind held the power of extinction over the entire planet.
Here is what he said:
Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won…
A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war.
Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. We have had our last chance. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.
There are few words that have ever been spoken that are more profound. They should be considered at a moment when public character has been disintegrated in a vat of MAGA acid, and one of America’s two political parties has been seized by an extremist cause that combines recklessness, stupidity, malice and dishonesty into an ideology of nothing that could cost everything.
There is a simple question that deserves contemplation. Is humanity’s most deadly event in front of us or behind us? Has the centuries-long escalation of violence come to its end, or will the 21st century become the deadliest of all?
The world is interconnected, and it seems to be spiraling.
The war in Ukraine is intensifying.
The Netanyahu extremist government in Israel has incited chaos, and provoked what might become a third intifada.
Military strikes were launched against Iran, which has become the principal supplier of weapons and drones to the beleaguered, yet lethal Russians.
The United States Marine Corps opened its first new base in 70 years with the establishment of Camp Blaz in Guam. Should war come with China over Taiwan, they will be the first American ground forces in the fight in much the way the 1st Marine Division was against the Japanese on Guadalcanal.
As reported by NBC News, a four-star US Air Force General has made clear in a memo the urgency for American forces that he thinks war might come in the Taiwan Straits in 2025.
Iranian warships are currently visiting Brazil.
More than 100,000 Americans will be killed by Mexican cartel-produced fentanyl in 2023.
There have been frivolous and corrupt eras before this one. They all ended. Most ended suddenly. Films and literature memorialize those last fleeting moments of peace before the storm that washes away the excess, and restores human memory about the meaning of war, death and suffering.
I believe that MacArthur is correct about the linkage between human survival and human character in an era in which there are weapons that could extinct civilization in the hands of people who don’t remember — and don’t appreciate — the greatest catastrophe in human history. We are at a dangerous hour. It is made more dangerous by the collapse of character across the whole of the elected leadership of the Republican Congress.
The Pencil Driven Life 