Mary Trump Barry died today. She was known as the protective big sister toward Donald but she knew what he was. His niece Mary Trump spoke with her about him for her book and recorded the conversation. It was something: Maryanne Trump Barry was serving as a federal judge when she heard her brother, President Trump, suggest on Fox News, “maybe I’ll have to put her at the border” amid a wave of refugees entering the United States. At the time, children were being separated from their parents and put in cramped quarters while court hearings dragged on. “All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump. “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.” Barry, 83, was aghast at how her 74-year-old brother operated as president. “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying.
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Jay Rosen’s reporting principle As tedious as it is commenting on Donad Trump’s latest verbal atrocities, as well as on the relentless 2024 horse-race coverage in the press, it would be far more tedious seeing Trump abolish the United States if given half a chance. Or any Republican Trump wannabes, for that matter. I’m already musing about bumper stickers. ABOLISH AMERICA | VOTE TRUMP. Four words. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen has a six-word formulation for how the press should be reporting the 2024 presidential race instead of its reflexive horse-race framing: “Not the odds, but the stakes.” That’s my shortand for the organizing principle we most need from journalists covering the 2024 election. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy. Rosen thinks (in this case, anyway) Axios gets it right. Stakes: “I am more worried for America today than I was on January 6,” Michael Luttig tells the Guardian.
Eating the Big Enchilada one bite at a time From the point of view of private profit, one of these analysts enthusiastically observes, “the K-12 market is the Big Enchilada”. (2007) What is the largest portion of the budget in all 50 states? (2011) Money laundering for the masses (2012) “Folks, they want to destroy public education,” the state Senate minority leader told a room full of supporters last year. (2014) Venture capitalist, Eric Hippeau, believes the “education market is ripe for disruption.” (2014) Readers know by now that the promotion of school “choice” is not aboutand the diversion of public ed funds into private academies (“the money follows the child“) is not about what’s best for America’s children. Like so many other special-interest enthusiasms, it’s about the investor class chasing public money. Oh sure, they’ll leverage the religious right’s paranoia that public schools are indoctrinating little Dick and Jane in the ways of Satanic multiculturalism and science. But they’re just investors’ useful idiots.
The Art of the Con Don Jr. testified for the defense in the NY fraud trial on Monday and spent his time talking about his father’s brilliance and his company’s success: n a return appearance at a trial that has featured a parade of Trumps on the stand as they fight for the future of their family business, the junior Mr. Trump testified in bursts of hyperbole and platitudes. His rhetoric sounded as though it had been ripped from the pages of an airline magazine or a travel brochure, and he saved the highest praise for the man who he said made it all happen: his father, a “visionary” who is “an artist with real estate” and “creates things that other people would never envision.” Yet some of his high-flying claims clashed with present-day reality. In recent years, the Trump Organization has shrunk, as the family name was scrubbed from some of the properties he extolled, taken off buildings in New York, Washington and, soon, Hawaii. Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street have also, at times, lost a number of tenants. Some of the former president’s properties struggled even to turn a profit.
You’ll note that person is still anonymous. Is he keeping his options open in case Trump wins a second term? A man’s gotta make a living, amirite? What’s a little traitorous behavior between friends? This is all obvious, of course, to any sentient being. And yet millions of people think Trump is the better choice for president again over Biden who has done an excellent job in difficult circumstances, even some who voted for Biden in 2020. (Lead in the water? What?) This is the man they think is so terrific:
Slightly left of centrist U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Virginia Democrat, will run for governor in 2025, the Associated Press reports this morning: Spanberger, a three-term Democrat, made the announcement in a campaign video, highlighting the importance of lowering prescription drug prices, growing the middle class and easing inflation. In a video titled “What Matters Most,” Spanberger also emphasized the importance of recruiting and retaining teachers “and stopping extremists from shredding women’s reproductive rights.” “Our country and our Commonwealth are facing fundamental threats to our rights, our freedoms, and to our democracy,” Spanberger said. “While some politicians in Richmond focus on banning abortion and books, what they’re not doing is helping people.” Spanberger’s run for governor has been rumored since July. Let’s hope she has a Democrat lined up to run competititvely in 2024 for her 7th Congressional District House seat. The former CIA officer and law enforcement officer for the U.S.
Dual threats We raised the alarm yesterday both about Donald Trump’s Nazi-adjacent eliminationist rhetoric and his “concentration” on creating detention camps in a second term. We have also spread lots of pixels describing the New Apostolic Reformation that views Trump as an instrument of God. Trump and Stephen Miller want to lock up and deport all immigrants not to their liking, and to eventually cut off paths to immigration for the same. That’s the political cleansing of America they seek. But the Seven Mountains people backing Trump want religious purification as well. They will dismiss any and all his personal, political, and criminal failings to advance that end. All of them, they don’t want to govern, they want to rule. There will be cracks on the road to Christian Dominion and local infighting, as Fred Clarkson details at Salon. Plus a healthy dose of wishcasting and Christian soldiers cosplay. But right now these people hold actual political power in the Speaker of the House. Janine Melnitz : Yes, of course they’re serious… Think they’re not serious? Remember Jan. 6?
Caligula next? I suppose he’ll either have to build a whole lot of mental institutions or send them (us?) to the homeless internment camps where he promises there will be plenty of mental health facilities. So it’s all good.
Double Down I agree whole heartedly with Good. They need to keep pushing a national ban with no exceptions. That’s what the people want and they should be willing to give it to them. Don’t hold back! In all seriousness, I doubt most GOP pols will take this tack. They know they’ve caught the car and it’s dragging them face down through every election where it’s an issue. But any division among the wingnuts with the evangelicals for whom this is their organizing principles is welcome.
Following up on the post below, this is fun. I’d love to see the press do more of it: Meanwhile, a little family dissension in MAGAland: I assume Roger is Roger Stone. I’d love to know what turned him away, He was a major MAGA cultist at one time. Here’s a story about Joe in 2022: Joe Flynn was getting animated. Standing in the sanctuary of the Living Hope Church in Englewood, a giant cross hanging on the stone wall behind him, Flynn was telling a crowd of 75 people gathered for the Liberty Tree Patriots meeting about his efforts to overturn one election and influence another. Flynn is the brother of former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Both now live in Englewood in southern Sarasota County. The brothers helped lead a push to overturn the 2020 election based on unfounded voting fraud claims. Having failed, the Flynns increasingly are turning their attention to influencing elections in 2022 and beyond. They could be a potent force in GOP politics locally, statewide and nationally, one determined to influence public policy.