Category: Politics Page 7 of 35

Presidential caucuses have been Connie’s specialty in Iowa as she followed the elections of 2004, 2008, 2012 and wrote the 2 books “Obama’s Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House.” She also continues to follow politics by avidly reading everything she can get her hands on, including “Rolling Stone,” “Mother Jones,” “Newsmax,” “Time,” etc.

The GOP’s strategy for 2024 is now clear, and this is laid out in the June 17th issue of “The Week” magazine.

Challenge all election losses and “cause chaos” in heavily Democratic districts. A top Michigan Republican operative was recently recorded discussing plans to recruit “an army” of party-trained poll workers, who, unlike poll watchers, have direct influence over vote-counting procedures.

Thousands of MAGA followers have volunteered for this task, most of whom believe Donald Trump’s Big Lie of rampant voter fraud in 2020. (Trump had 50,000 poll watchers in the 2020 election).

If installed as poll workers (not watchers, but workers), they would be connected with GOP lawyers and “party friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts” in Democratic-leaning districts across the country.

Then, Republican state legislatures would have an excuse to ignore election results and choose a slate of Republican electors. This sophisticated “precinct strategy” is being led by Steve Bannon, the Machiavellian former Trump strategist, said Eric Lutz in “Vanity Fair.” Bannon took part in the failed effort overturn 2020’s results, but, this time, he plans to “hijack the infrastructure of the election system.” (Let us not forget that Bannon was convicted of scamming contributors and sought and received a presidential pardon, so he has been proven to be crooked in more ways than one.)

Trump/Cheney/McCarthy: Three on a Match

The GOP’s anti-democratic efforts are based on a simple premise, said Greg Argent in “The Washington Post.” “Much of the voting in Democratic areas should be presumed to be illegitimate.”

Most Republicans now insist that “voting is pure and unsullied” in rural areas dominated by the GOP, but “marred by widespread fraud” in cities with lots of non-white Democrats, even though most of the fraud that WAS found during the various investigations in 2020 was by Republicans, but in very small numbers not sufficient to change the election outcome.

To insure a GOP victory in 2024, Trumpists have even created an “America First” slate of 2020 election deniers running for various state offices, according to Alexandra Berzon in “The New York Times.” America First candidates have a good shot at winning powerful offices in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—four swing states “where a relatively small number of ballots have decided presidential victories.”

The 2020 insurrection has become an “institutionalized” movement, said Jonathan Chait in “New York” magazine. Tellingly, the Bannon operation “has met virtually no intraparty resistance,” with GOP officials widely agreeing that all “Democratic election victories are inherently illegitimate.” This is the antithesis of what should be happening in our democracy.

The Capitol, Washington, D.C.

In 2020, Trump’s efforts to overturn the election “Spectacularly failed,” and culminated in the January 6^th violent assault on Congress. The next time, in 2024, the goal will be to “successfully and legally contest and overturn an unfavorable election outcome”—even though that is overturning the will of the voters.

Pay attention. This is the blue print and it is being proven every day the January 6^th Commission meets.

Second Day of January 6th Commission Hearings: DJT Lies (A Lot)

By Connie Wilson

On June 14, 2022

In Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Interviews, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

I’m watching the second day of 1/6 Committee Hearings and Chris Stirewalt, former digital politics editor of Fox News, is bragging about the University of Chicago colleague who had built a truly advanced predicting method for predicting elections. It was this creation that allowed Stirewalt to call Arizona for Biden early—and got him fired. (“Good work! You correctly called Arizona well before any other network! You’re fired!”)

Trump/Cheney/McCarthy: Three on a Match

Stirewalt approved calling Arizona for Biden during the 2020 election. For his expertise in accurately calling Arizona for Biden, he was fired. Stirewalt just said that Trump’s chances of winning the election after that night were “none.”

“In a recount, you’re talking about hundreds of votes…In modern history we’re talking about hundreds of votes. The idea that through any normal process he was going to win, were zero. You’re better off to play the Power Ball then to try to do this three times,” said Stirewalt, who noted that DJT needed to swing 3 states to his column (not just one) to change the 2020 presidential election results.

Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, has also said that Trump’s lead grew more narrow as the night went on, and in some places Biden surpassed Trump in the vote totals. “Every single— multiple times — we paid attention to those numbers, I was feeling less confident.” He described himself as feeling, “very, very, very bleak.” His belief was that chances for success for Trump in the presidential election were 5 to 10 %, if not lower. He saw no realistic legal challenges changing the outcome. (Stepien avoided having to show up in person because his wife went into labor.)

“I described some of my frustration with some of the claims that people would throw at President Trump, telling him to look at what happened in various states. This is an example of that. In Arizona, someone had thrown out the claim that there were thousands of illegal citizens, people not eligible to vote, who had voted in Arizona. With the margins being as close as they were, that could potentially matter. So, this wild claim was thrown out, which, on its face, did not seem realistic or possible. I recall the response to that. The reality of that was overseas voters, not illegal voters.” (Campaign manager Bill Stepien).

Stepien was termed “Team Normal” after Rudy Giuiliani (et. al.) came on the scene.
“During the 2^nd week, Trump was growing increasingly unhappy with Justin Clarke and that paved the way for Justin to be moved out and Mayor Giuiliani to be moved in. For all intents and purposes he (Rudy) became the campaign manager. I inherited the campaign about 150 days in at a time when the campaign was at a low point in the polls. There was a great deal wrong with the campaign. Most of my day was spent fixing the things that could be fixed with 150 days left in the campaign.”

TEAM NORMAL

Trump threw out the normal people (Stepien, etc.) and brought in Rudy Giuiliani and attorney Sidney Powell. Sidney Powell got up onstage and recited pure gibberish. Eric Herschmann, former White House Advisor said, “What they were proposing I thought was nuts.” Herschmann went on to recite some of the crazier theories that Trump’s campaign threw out (China, Philippines, Hugo Chavez, etc.). “Not the approach I would take if I was you,” said Jared Kushner to his father-in-law when the crazies came out of the woodwork and began throwing out complete and utter fabrications of how the vote was “stolen.”

“I made it clear that I did not agree in putting out this stuff about the election being stolen and I thought it was bull shit and that’ why I left when I did.” (Bill Barr, former Attorney General under Trump and a Republican).

So ended the first panel of Day #2. Barr said that Trump began making claims of election fraud immediately after his loss.

Bill Barr: “”When we received specific and credible reports of fraud, we looked into them. There was an avalanche of all these accusations of fraud. It was like playing Whack-A-Mole. I knew that many of these claims were silly and totally bogus. They did not give me the feeling that there was any substance there.” Hence, the term “There’s no there there.

On November 23^rd, Barr spoke with Trump: “On Nov. 23, I had not spoken to Trump since the election; it was getting awkward, because obviously he had lost the election. I came over to meet with the President in the Oval Office. This is leading up to Kushner. The President said there had been major fraud and as soon as the facts were out the outcome of the election would be reversed. Then he got to the Dept. of Justice not thinking that they had any business looking into these claims. (“The department Is not an extension of your legal team.’) We’re looking into claims and they’re just not meritorious and they’re not panning out.” Barr said, “How long is he gonna’ carry on with this stolen election stuff? How long is it gonna’ go on?”

Mark Meadows said, “I think he is becoming more realistic and knows there are limits to how far we can take this. Between Nov. 23 and Nov. 29th things began to deteriorate. DJT said, on a Fox News show (Maria Bertolini) that there had been “vote dumps on election night.” This was completely bogus and fraudulent. ”

Barr told the Associated Press on Nov. 1^st that there was no proof of fraud. Barr kept insisting that there was no evidence to support fraud.

The Capitol, Washington, D.C.

“I set up a lunch with the AP reporter Mike Balsamo and made the statement, ‘Today we have not seen fraud on a scale that could predict a different outcome in the election.'” He had a previously scheduled Mark Meadows meeting. Barr assumed he might be fired and alerted his secretary that she might have to pack up his stuff, so don’t go home. Meadows told Barr that the President was angry. He went to Pat Cippolini’s office and Trump called both of them to the Oval Office. Barr: “Trump was “as mad as I’ve ever seen him.” He raised the “big vote dump” in Detroit and Barr explained to him that there were 630 precincts in Detroit and they centralize the voting process in Detroit, so the normal process involved boxes coming in at all different hours (something that Fox repeatedly tried to show as proof of fraud.)”

Barr: “I told him the claims of fraud were bull shit and he was indignant about that. The Dominion Voting Machine claims were among the most disturbing allegations. There was exactly zero basis for these claims. I told him that the fact that these machines had negated the people’s votes was “crazy stuff” and that they were “wasting their time on it” and it was doing “a grave disservice to the country.”

Trump is shown in a clip dated Dec. 2, 2020, talking about a vote dump in Michigan. This was complete B.S. “We have a company that’s very suspect.” He went on to condemn Dominion’s voting system. Barr again told the President that there was nothing to these claims, on Dec. 14^th. Barr: “When I went in and sat down, he went off on a monologue that there was now definitive evidence that there was fraud with these Dominion machines. “The report means that I’m going to have a second term.” To be frank, it looked very amateurish, to me. It did not have the credentials of the people involved, etc. It didn’t have any supporting information for it. I thought, “Boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has become detached from reality— if he really believes this stuff,” said Barr. “There never was an indication of any interest in the actual facts. My opinion then and now is that the election was not stolen by fraud, including the 2,000 mules movie.”

In a nutshell, the movie was unimpressive. He was waiting to see if there was photographic evidence, but it did not exist. “The cell phone data is singularly unimpressive.” The premise was indefensible. (Cell phones in the presence of ballot boxes were, somehow, going to be evidence/proof of fraud.) Barr: “When the movie came out, the photographic evidence was lacking. It didn’t establish widespread illegal harvesting. It’s not clear that, even if you can show harvesting, this is going to change the outcome of the election. It is still the duty of the party to show that there was evidence to validate throwing out votes.”

Barr: “Before the election, it was possible to talk sense to the President, but after the election, he didn’t seem to be listening. I was inclined not to stay around if he wasn’t listening.” (Bill Barr quit on Dec. 14, 2020).

Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Attorney General: “People are telling me this, or I’ve heard this, this impropriety in Atlanta or wherever, but we were in a position to say, you’re getting bad information That’s not correct. That has been debunked.”

Derek Lyons (former counsel to Trump): “Various allegations of fraud were discussed and we were told that none of those allegations had been substantiated to the point that they could be used to challenge the election.”

(Alex Cannon, former campaign lawyer for Trump, discussing a phone call from Peter Navarro): “I recall him asking me questions about Dominion and some other categories. I remember telling him that I didn’t believe the Dominion allegations because the hand recount in Georgia would resolve any questions with that vote. Chris Krebbs had recently released a report saying the election was honest. Peter Navarro phoned me and called me ‘an agent of the Deep State trying to conspire against President Trump.’ I never took another call from Mr. Navarro.”

Alex Cannon went on to say that he, personally, was not finding anything that would support overturning the election.

Richard Donoghue, Former Acting Attorney General: “We’ve looked at Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan. The report of 68% error rate in Michigan was actually 1 in 15,000, a very low error rate. If you gave him (Trump) a very direct answer on one allegation he would move to another allegation. One claim was by a truck driver who believed that he had transported a truck full of ballots from NY to Pennsylvania. I essentially said, We have looked at that allegation from both sides. That allegation was not supported by the evidence. Again, Trump said, “Okay. What about the others?” He asked about Georgia. The president kept fixating on suitcases rolled out from under tables in Georgia. There is just how they move ballots around that facility. There is nothing suspicious about the movement of those ballots at all. I told him that the video did not support any evidence of multiple counting for Biden. Then, he went off on dead people voting and American Indians voting. I told him flat out that much of the information he was getting was false or was simply not supported by the evidence.”

BEE GONE: A POLITICAL PARABLE

59 of the nation’s leading election security experts testified that there was NO evidence of significant voting fraud in the nation’s election.

SECOND PANEL OF WITNESSES

Mr. Schmidt, city of Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. Mr. Pak.(Georgia) Mr. Ginsberg (leading GOP lawyer for litigation. Represented “W” in Bush v. Gore.

Ms. Lofgren asked the questions.

Mr. Pak, U.S. Attorney for the northern district of Georgia, appointed by Trump.

Q: Were you asked to investigate claims of voter fraud? (from Ms. Lofgren)

A: Dec. 4^th of 2020 Barr asked me if I had seen a certain video tape of Rudy Giuliani in a Senate Subcommittee hearing about the tape in Atlanta of votes being moved. (This was the tape that my daughter-in-law was impressed by.)

The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office investigated. Mr. Pak found that the alleged black suitcase was actually an official lock box where ballots were kept safe. The lock box was kept under the table. There was a misunderstanding that they were done counting ballots for the night and the vote counters were sent home. Then they realized they weren’t done for the night and needed to bring back the official ballot box and they brought back the lock box from under the counter and began counting again. Mr. Giuiliani only played a clip that showed them pulling the lock box from under the table, when the entire tape shows that it was an official ballot box that was kept under the table. Once they discovered that they needed to keep counting, they brought the ballot box out from under the table, where it was kept, and continued counting. The allegations made by Mr. Giuiliani were false.

Mr. Donoghue (former Attorney General): Re the interviews in Fulton County:

“Bee Gone: A Political Parable”

“I don’t know how they were initially communicated. They came out in subsequent conversation. I told the President myself that several times that these allegations of ballots being smuggled in in a suitcase were not true.”

Mr. Pak (left Jan., 2021): Bobby Christine came in after Pak – “Mr. Christine continued investigation but was unable to find any fraud that affected the election. There was none.”

BILL BARR: “The president has repeatedly suggested that there was some kind of outpouring of votes in Philadelphia, as recently as when he walked off the NPR set. He made a comment about how there were more votes in Philadelphia than there were voters. That is absolute rubbish. There was nothing strange about the Philadelphia turnout. There was nothing strange once you actually look at the votes. In Philadelphia Trump ran weaker than 2 of the state’s candidates, he ran weaker than the other elements on the Republican ticket.”

Q: How about Pennsylvania and absentee ballots? (Question from Ms. Lofgren)

A: (from Barr) Giuliani raised this in Gettysburg. “The problem is that he threw out this number. He threw out the # of applications for the GOP primary and compared it to the votes cast in the actual GOP primary: apples to oranges. Once you compared apples to apples there was no discrepancy.”

Mr. Schmidt, Republican member of the 3-member commission tasked with overseeing elections in Philadelphia.

Q: Giuiliani said 8,000 dead people voted in Philadelphia. (Question about this from Ms. Lofgren)

A: Not only was there no evidence of 8,000 dead voters, there wasn’t even evidence of 8 dead voters.

Q: Even Mr. Trump’s campaign lawyers knew this was bogus. (Eric Herschmann) “They never proved the allegations that they were alleging.”

Q: “A guy named Al Schmidt is being used Big Time by the fake news media to explain how honest things were in the election in Philadelphia.” This was a tweet from President Trump that resulted in death threats for you and your family.

A: The threats prior to that tweet were pretty general, but, after that tweet, the threats became much more specific, much more graphic, and included not just me by name but included members of my family, their ages, our home address, etc. That was what changed with that tweet.”

Nov. 12, 2020: “Your husband should tell the truth or your kids will suffer.” (Example of a threatening letter sent to Al Schmidt because he would not collude with Trump on charges of election fraud in Philadelphia and Trump called him out by name on Twitter.)

Mr. Ginsberg’s credentials: National Council on Republican Campaigns in 2004, 2012. Key role in Florida recount. Served as Co-chair of Presidential Campaign on Republican Election(s).

Q: How was the Trump campaign post-campaign different from others? (from Ms. Lofgren)

A: In the normal course of things, we do a couple of things. 1) Analyze precincts with abnormalities and send people to investigate (2) Poll watchers will be used and they will be talked to about irregularities. The Trump campaign talked about having 50,000 poll watchers. In the normal course, their reports would be analyzed. The 2020 campaign was not close. The most narrow margin was 20,000 (Az): “You just don’t make up those kinds of margins in recounts.” That put the Trump campaign on a sort of process of bringing cases without the evidence you need to have.

Q: Did any court find any credible evidence?

A: No. I’ve looked at 60 cases with more than 180 counts. Sixty-two post-election cases filed up to Jan., 2021. Sixty losses and only one victory that did not affect the election outcome for either man.

Q: What do you say about the claims about their day in court? (from Ms. Lofgren)

A: About half of those cases were dismissed at the procedural level, for lack of evidence. In the other, there was discussion of the merits within the complaint. In no instance did the court find that the charges of fraud were real. There had been post-election reviews in each of the 6 states that could have changed the election outcome, including the farcical Cyber Ninjas in Arizona, Michigan, etc. No credible evidence of fraud found in any of those cases. (from Mr. Ginsberg)

January 6th Commission Hearings Open with a Bang on June 9th, Thursday

By Connie Wilson

On June 10, 2022

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics, Television

Thursday Night, June 9th, Commission Hearings About the January 6th Coup D’Etat:

Liz Cheney and backlash over her anti-Trump stance. She will pay the ultimate price for being loyal to the U.S. Constitution and calling out Trump’s treason.

Liz Cheney opened the impressive Opening of the January 6th Commission with these words: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

• Trump believed the rioters were “doing what they should be doing,” Cheney said, and yelled at advisers who said that he should call them off. He said that rioters who chanted about hanging Pence “maybe” had “the right idea.”

• The committee played video of Bill Barr, the former attorney general, saying that he had called Trump’s fraud claims “bullshit” and “crazy stuff.” Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, testified that she “accepted” what Barr said.

• Footage shot by a documentary filmmaker embedded with the Proud Boys showed members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, two far-right groups who stormed the Capitol, meeting on the evening before the attack. This footage had not been aired previously and included the violent assault on a female Capitol officer, who testified in person and suffered a brain injury during the assault on the Capitol.

Trump/Cheney/McCarthy

• In video testimonies, several rioters said that they had stormed the Capitol in response to Trump’s summons. “He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on Jan. 6,” one said. It seems logical that the individual who planned it all (i.e., Donald J. Trump) should also be charged and should suffer the consequences of selling out his country to attempt to hang onto power, no matter what.

• Cheney said that Pence, not Trump, ordered the National Guard to the Capitol during the attack, and that “multiple” House Republicans sought pardons over their efforts to overturn the election.

• My thoughts on the request by several Trump loyalists for pardons for their actions during January 6th, before he left office, begs this question: “If there was nothing illegal going on, why would any of these Trump loyalists need to be pardoned?” The obvious conclusion is that they knew damn well that they were playing with fire, and when the effort to overthrow the duly elected president did not succeed, some of them began scrambling for cover.

The second day/date of the hearings will be at 10 a.m. on Monday, June 13th.

The January 6th Committee Hearings Hit the Air Waves Thursday, 6/9, at 7 p.m. (CDT)

By Connie Wilson

On June 5, 2022

In Editorial, Education, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics, Pop Culture, Television

Trump/Cheney/McCarthy

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot released new details Thursday about its first hearing, scheduled to kick off in prime time on Thursday, June 9.

June 9th, television-watchers, is this coming Thursday (as I write this on Sunday, 6/5) and the timing for those of us in the Midwest on MSNBC, Channel 356, will be 7 p.m. CDT.

“The committee will present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” the panel said.

Additional information about witnesses will be released this coming week, the committee said.

The hearing, scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET, is expected to focus on former President Donald Trump’s role in the violence that unfolded at the Capitol during the official counting of the Electoral College votes before a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. In a civil court filing in March, the House committee argued it has “a good-faith basis for concluding that [Trump] and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has said the hearings will include testimony from witnesses “we’ve not heard from before.”

One of those witnesses, who was hauled off a plane in leg irons as a flight risk, may be Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s inner circle who was among the most obnoxious spokespeople ever to grace the air waves. Navarro emerged as a legend in his own mind, moving away from the trade issues he was supposed to be expert in, to talk about matters as diverse as Covid-19 and the economy. Where he was supposedly going when apprehended at the airport has been variously reported as Nashville, but apparently those in a position of power had misgivings about his attitude towards telling the truth about his involvement in the January 6th coup d’etat.

There is a rumor that Jared and Ivanka Trump may take center stage via video-taped testimony during the televised hearings, although we will all have to wait and see if they say anything of note. Rachael Maddow and others will be handling the broadcast duties Thursday night.

Meanwhile, a lot of buzz has been created by a comedy duo who took the microphone during the NRA’s ill-advised Texas convention and more-or-less chastised the NRA for getting a lot of us killed by opposing sensible gun control laws. (The look on Wayne LaPierre’s face as they sound off on ” how Wayne LaPierre has offered thoughts AND prayers” is priceless. Check it out on YouTube or wherever you seek out memorable news moments.)

The Road Home & the Washington Correspondents’ Dinner

By Connie Wilson

On April 30, 2022

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, News, Politics, Pop Culture, travel

By the time you read this, I will probably be back in East Moline, Illinois, home base.

Poplar Bluffs, Missouri, on April 29th, 2022.

I’m writing from St. Louis, Missouri at my brother-in-law’s house. When we arrived, we went out to see the site where niece Megan and her husband (Aaron) and daughter (Winnie) will be building their new house. [They plan to move from Denver to St. Louis]. ETA: spring of 2023.

We also visited the grave of my dear sister-in-law Wendy, who died April 18, 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic from an accumulation of illnesses, including lymphoma. It would be so much better for us and for the world if Wendy were here, in person, to go out to dinner with us. Sixty-two is far too young to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Austin Tice (#freeaustintice) has been held prisoner in Syria for years and is being saluted at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. The president of the journalists’ association is mentioning other prisoners held and, also, Maksim Levin, Vira Hyryo, Bren Renaud, Oksana Baulin, Sasha Kuvshyova Zakrezews, —all journalists killed in Ukraine. Benjamin Hall of ABC News is recovering from injuries. (I’m sure I missed a few). “How It Happened” won an award for Axis, a film documenting the end of days of the Trump administration.

Biden Remarks: “Excited to be here among the only group with a lower approval rating than I have.” “We had a horrible plague, followed by 2 years of Covid.” “It would really have been a real coup if my predecessor had attended this dinner.” “Calvin Coolidge attended the first correspondents’ dinner in 1924. I remember telling him, ‘Just get up there and be yourself.'” “The good news is that I have a real shot at replacing James Corden. Great performers going out after 8 years at the top. Sounds about right to me.” “I’ve never had to open before Trevor Noah before. He called me ‘America’s new dad.’ I’m excited to be called a new anything.” Reference to all of Fox News members all being there, vaccinated and boosted. (Tough opposition from Democrats is referenced, as he talked about how he expected confrontation, but from REPUBLICANS.) “There’s nothing that I can say about the GOP that Kevin McCarthy hasn’t already said on tape.”

Remarks from Trevor Noah:

“That was really great. I got a promise that I will not be going to prison.” (a reference to Biden’s introduction, where he told him that he could make fun of the President of the United States and not go to prison.)

“One of the nation’s most distinguished Super Spreader events. The second someone offered you a free dinner you all turned into Joe Rogan. Dr. Fauci dropped out, but Pete Davidson thought it was okay. You could have picked any comedian but you picked an African variant. Get comfortable, but don’t get too comfortable, Jeffrey Toobin.”

“You may have noticed I’m going to be telling some jokes tonight. I’m a comedian, not Kristin Synema.

Reference to the Oscars: “What if I make a really mean joke about Kellye Anne Conway and then her husband rushes up on the stage and thanks me?” (Chris Cuomo slam). Governor Abbott is providing free buses for the Telemundo table.”

(Ron DeSantis jokes, re his presidential ambitions). “You’re smarter than him. You’re fitter than him. You can walk down ramps.”

(To Biden): “I was a little confused as to why you picked me, but then I was told that you get your highest approval ratings when you’re standing next to a bi-racial Black guy.”

“Jill Biden is still teaching because she’s still paying off her student debt.” “Unemployment at 3.3%—2% if you don’t count the Cuomo family.” [Shots at MSNBC.] Shots at Joe & Mikka (“most adorable HR violation in town.”).

Mick Mulvaney (hired by CBS) was a target of Trevor Noah. “So many other huge talents who can no longer be mentioned in Florida.”

Chuck Todd: “I’d ask for a follow-up, but I know you don’t know what that is.” (slam)

“An interview with (Australian) Jonathan Swan is like being interviewed by a koala bear.”

NPR: “I wish you guys didn’t always have to beg for money. Maybe you’re spending too much on those tote bags. Who’s designing those things? Gucci?”

Fox News: “I think they get a bad rap. It just depends on when you watch. It’s relatively normal in the afternoon, but just wait until the sun goes down.” (“Their segments on Corona virus moved their viewers–right into the ICU.”) “Tucker Carlson: who else could fill an entire show each night asking questions that Google could easily answer?”

CNN: “I blame John King. Your magic wall can predict everything, but you spend $300 million on CNN+ and the wall can’t predict its failure?” CNN Breaking News banner: “Did they just turn it on during the O.J. case and just never figured out how to get rid of it?”

“The media is in a tough position: you’re battling conspiracy theories. (Named 3 biggies) and said, “And that’s just the people in this room.”

Conclusion: Serious message about the Fourth Estate and how it gives voice to those who, otherwise, would not have one. “Every single one of you is a bastion of democracy. If you ever begin to doubt, look no further than what is happening in Ukraine. In America you have the right to seek the truth and speak the truth, even if it makes people in power uncomfortable. Do you know how amazing that is? Do you really understand what a blessing that is? Maybe it’s happened so long that you don’t remember. Ask yourself this question: if Russian journalists who are losing their liveliood and their lives trying to tell stories or ask questions, would they be using that freedom in the same way that you do?”

So, the Correspondents’ Dinner on CNN was a four-hour entertainment fest that wasted 2 of the hours with replays of the Ukrainian conflict.

The “celebrities” that I saw were Kim Kardashian, and the guy who is now the lead on “Billions.” Aside from him, Don Lemon was about the most well-known, although Harry Hamlin entered with someone I think was his daughter, and his hair had been dyed blonde. Strange.

This night was no 2015 Seth Meyer performance, but Trevor Noah was topical and delivered well. The lack of any Grade “A” celebrities was noteworthy, with a very few exceptions, but it was a chance for Biden to show that he is not a thin-skinned dictator who can dish it out, but can’t take it, which DJT modeled at this same dinner in 2015.

Is the World Ready for A Political Fresh Prince?

By Connie Wilson

On April 2, 2022

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Interviews, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics, Pop Culture, Television

(Quotes from August 10, 2016, Adam Howard, NBC News)

Will Smith

Six years ago, when “Oscars So White” preceded “Oscars So Black” as a theme, [spearheaded by Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, who was annoyed that Smith was not nominated for his role in “Concussion,”] the remarks below were made to NBC’s reporter Adam Howard.

The article sub-title was this: Is America ready for the “Fresh Prince” as President? Maybe setting one’s sights on the top office in the land is premature, but what office do you think Will Smith will be angling for?

Donald J. Trump shook up traditional notions of who can be considered a credible candidate for the White House, and his stint on “The Apprentice” is at least partially responsible for the four years of Trump. Smith himself has hinted at a career change, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2015: “I look at the political landscape, I think that there might be a future out there for me. They might need me out there.”

It seems that Will Smith has publicly blown up his film career with his behavior on March 27^th at the Oscars. This article from six years ago seems to point to a new direction that Will Smith might be contemplating, so let’s just lay it out there with these quotes from the actor himself.

As an established A-list star entering a new phase of his life and career, Smith may also feel more liberated to speak his mind. For instance, during a “Suicide Squad” press event in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Smith spoke candidly about the perception of anti-Muslim bias back in the U.S. “The Middle East can’t allow Fox News to be the arbiter of the imagery, you know. So cinema is a huge way to be able to deliver the truth of the soul of a place to a global audience.”

Smith then went on to pointedly attack Trump’s controversial Muslim ban proposal: “As painful as it is to hear Donald Trump talk, and as embarrassing as it is as an American to hear him talk, I think it’s good,” Smith said. “We get to know who people are and now we get to cleanse it out of our country.”

These comments came just a week after Smith lamented that the Republican presidential candidate’s rhetoric towards women had found a captive audience. “For a man to be able to publicly refer to a woman as a fat pig (Rosie O’Donnell), that makes me teary,” he said during an interview with news.com.au. “And for people to applaud, that is absolutely f***king insanity to me. My grandmother would have smacked my teeth out of my head if I had referred to a woman as a fat pig. And I cannot understand how people can clap for that. It’s absolutely collective insanity. If one of my sons — I am getting furious just thinking about it — if one of my sons said that in a public place, they couldn’t even live in my house anymore.”

“For me, deep down in my heart, I believe that America won’t and we can’t elect Trump,” he added.

But Smith’s streak of outspokenness hasn’t just been limited to the presidential race. During an appearance earlier this month (August, 2016) on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” the actor spoke with a degree of cynicism about the claim that racial divisions have never been worse.

“Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed,” he told Fallon then.

Earlier in the year, Will Smith had backed his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith ‘s call for an African American Boycott of the Oscars, after the Academy Awards failed to recognize a single actor or actress of color (including himself, a would-be contender for the drama “Concussion”) for the second year in a row.”

So, the remarks made to NBC’s reporter Adam Howard are above; draw your own conclusions.

Since North Carolina and Kansas will play for the NCAA Championship on Monday, April 4th and that predicting season is almost over, we can then begin the pools on whether or not there will be regime change in Russia AND for which office the Fresh Prince might best run.

Right now, watching “Saturday Night Live” (which featured a clever, but questionable skit about mental acuity in cases like aphasia or dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease) the host of “SNL” has declared himself the “least famous host of ‘SNL,’” which may be true. I can’t even tell you what his name is (Jerrod Carmichael; I cheated and looked). He just informed us that he is the star of a television comedy special in which he comes out as gay. Jerrod says that we are in an Andy Warhol Fever Dream right now. Having just watched the documentary the “Velvet Underground” with real footage from Andy Warhol’s The Factory era, I agree. When will we break out the dark glasses to be able to tolerate the chaos?

Comedian Carmichael is trying to “heal the nation” by talking about Will Smith’s Oscar brouhaha.

Jerrod’s parting remark to the “SNL” audience and directed to former President Barack Obama: “You got us all hopped up on hope and change, Barack. We need you back, because I think you’re going to have to talk about it. The nation needs to heal.”

“Split At the Root” Is Documentary About the Southern Border Crisis & the Zero Tolerance Policy of DJT

By Connie Wilson

On March 20, 2022

In Movies, Politics, Reviews

Linda Goldstein Knowlton, Director of “Split at the Root” at SXSW.

In looking over the documentaries that were part of SXSW 2022 I was looking forward to “Split at the Root,” directed by Linda Goldstein Knowlton, the story of the separation of mothers from their children as a result of the 2018 Trump Administration’s Zero Tolerance policy at our southern border. It turned out to be extremely long (100 minutes) and mainly a talking head approach featuring the women held hostage in the detention cells at the border. Yeni Rodriguez speaks Spanish and there are English subtitles, but, honestly, the documentary seemed as though it were 3 hours long. Judicious editing could have made this a much better work. I’d recommend watching Dan Parkland’s “Unhinged” as a good example of how to edit a documentary.

Yeni Gonzalez is a good spokesperson for the cause. She memorized all the names, phone numbers and addresses of other female detainees at the Eloy, Arizona, La Palma Correctional Center so that the U.S. group could contact them to try to help them. Another female detainee is Rosayra Pablo Cruz who sold her house in Guatemala in order to get the money to try to bring herself and two of her four children to the United States. They began the arduous journey by truck from Guatemala to the Mexican border and were nearly kidnapped while en route. Also, according to the documentary, three years had passed and she had not seen her daughters, left home in Guatemala, in that time.

On 6/14/2018 six hundred children were removed from their parents’ custody and put into “the ice box,” as the detainees called the wire detention cages, because of the Zero Tolerance Policy. Rosayra said, “I wanted to come to the U.S. to have a better life, not to be separated from my children.” After days, a $12,000 bond was required to release Rosayra, (who, of course, did not have $12,000). It was three months before Rosayra saw her two sons again and it has been three years since she has seen her daughters. In her deepest despair a Biblical verse came to her (Matthew 6/4/30): “If your Father provides for the birds, how much more will He provide for you?”

“Split at the Root” chronicles the tragedy of families separated at the border during the Trump administration.

A group of women who thought the Zero Tolerance Policy was unconscionable began organizing informally to try to help the women incarcerated in the cages at the border. They called themselves Immigrant Families Together and began gathering money online through GoFundMe campaigns to bond out the women. For Yeni Gonzalez’s $7,500 bond, the money was gathered within 12 hours, but the question was how to get her from Arizona to New York City. It ended up being necessary to do so via caravan, with the American women calling the Zero Tolerance Policy “an unspeakable shame.” The word from Rosayra and Yeni, “Fight, because with the help of these women you will succeed.”

By July 4^th three women at a time were being bonded out. By the end of July, 2019, a federal judge ordered the border officials to stop separating families. Mass releases led to chaotic scenes. Thirty-seven children were left stranded in vans for 11 to 39 hours because of the poor administration of the government’s policies. A child with a broken femur was put into the cage and given only an aspirin for pain. One detainee, Irmi, Yeni’s roommate while in detention, was diagnosed with 4^th stage cancer of the esophagus. She also had tumors In her stomach, but she was unable to get any medical treatment while in custody and, consequently, died soon after being released. A mother who had a C-section was placed back into the caged area, sleeping on hard concrete with her newborn baby, for 3 days.

Of 2,551 children separated from their parents, as of July, 2018, 517 remain separated from their parents, despite the July, 2018, ruling to stop separating families. Asylum hearings need to be scheduled to remain in the U.S. The asylum acceptance rate is normally between 40% to 97%. In 2020 the number of children listed as being separated from their parents was listed as 4,368.

The end statistic listed in the documentary is that 2,127 kids still have not been reunited with their parents. One hundred and twenty-four bonds have been paid by the organization, which is a non-profit, staffed by volunteer women.

Despite the failure to make this documentary into the good documentary it could have been, the information contained in it is important to share with the American public. I, like most American mothers, am appalled at the Zero Tolerance Policy of the Trump Administration and how it affected these immigrant women. The Trump Administration’s incompetence in not even keeping records of the families they separated, in some cases forever, is unconscionable. (Even the Nazis kept good records, at least).

The Trump Administration’s misdeeds of this sort are akin to the early days of our nation when the U.S. government sold the Indians down the stream. The misdeeds of the Trump Administration will forever be a black mark in American history, and we haven’t even revealed all of his crimes against humanity yet.

“The Big Conn” Premieres at SXSW; Streams on Apple TV May 6th

By Connie Wilson

On March 19, 2022

In Movies, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics, Reviews, Television

The log line for the Apple TV documentary “The Big Conn” is as follows: “Eric C. Conn was a lawyer living a little too large in eastern Kentucky…until two whistleblowers realized he was at the center of government fraud worth over half a billion dollars, one of the largest in U.S. history. And that was just the beginning.” The investigative documentary series is helmed by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte.

The four-part investigative series had its World Premiere at SXSW and it will launch, globally, on May 6^th. It is a fascinating look at a man who is described as “an evil Robin Hood” for securing Social Security Disability payments for his Kentucky and West Virginia clients in 30 days, at a time when the Social Security Administration was backlogged for 18 months. In the process, Eric Christopher Conn made big bucks and spent the money just as fast as he got it. His office employees document a globe-trotting habit of traveling for one week of every month to exotic ports of call such as Thailand, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Las Vegas. In many instances (16, at least) Eric would return to Pikesville, Kentucky with a brand-new bride.

The mind boggles merely at the concept of someone loony enough to marry 16 times. He can’t even keep his wives’ nationalities straight, but managed to list 5 United States citizens, 5 from Columbia, 1 from Vietnam, 1 from the Philippines, 1 from Ecuador and 1 from the Dominican Republic. (Later, he admitted that he might have forgotten one or two of his wives from foreign countries). The first thought that pops into your head is, “Who does that?”

The answer to that rhetorical question is given by one attorney involved in the case, who says: “You’re dealing with a guy who doesn’t have a moral compass. You can’t get mad at a snake for being a snake.” Trey Alford, an Assistant District Attorney who ultimately refused to give up on the case, described it as “the ultimate trifecta: bad lawyers, bad judges and bad doctors.”

Despite the heroic and persistent efforts of two honest Master Docket Clerks to blow the whistle on Eric’s high, wide and handsome shenanigans, it took over 6 years for anything to be done. Conn had made himself a Big Name in Appalachia, better-known than Ali or Elvis, with extensive use of billboards, television and other forms of advertising, and, even after he was accused of graft and corruption, clients flocked to his offices for his services because he guaranteed he’d get them a check within 30 days, and he usually did.

Con handled 1800 cases between 2006 and 2010 and the amount of fraud for the government that they would need to recover to break even was estimated at $2.62 billion, when you factor in the payments to applicants who were unqualified to receive them, over years of their dependence on the $900 a month to (in one case) $2,000 a month disability payments. The problem after the fall of Conn is that there were 1500 applicants, some of whom were genuinely deserving, but the Social Security Administration now had to solve the mess they had created for themselves by being completely indifferent to the reports that the whistle blowers, Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith, had been making for years.

The lid was blown off the corrupt scheme when a “Wall Street Journal” reporter named Damian Paletta, who is now the economics reporter for the “Wall Street Journal” (and the author of a book about Donald Trump’s time in office entitled “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History”) journeyed to Appalachia and did a story on the situation. Paletta is not unsympathetic to the legitimate disabled and was, himself, disabled as a youngster.

The message that comes through, loud and clear, is that the Social Security Administration did an extremely poor job of policing its own. Shame on them!

Secondly, the true heroes and heroines of the story are not recognized at all. They include whistle-blowers Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith, various attorneys, including Ned Pillersdorf, Trey Aldorf, and “Wall Street Journal” journalist Damian Paletta.

Meanwhile, we can all ask whether the corrupt Judge Daugherty, whose alcoholism and arrest of his daughter set off the scheme in the first place was properly punished, when he ended up serving only a few months of a short (4 year) sentence.

The only one of the three (Dr. Atkins), characterized as a “whore doctor” during Congressional testimony, who refused to take a deal and went for a jury trial did worse than those who copped a plea. But did any of the three principals receive adequate punishment for such large-scale fraud?

To find out how they ended up, watch the four-part series premiering globally on May 6^th with sections entitled: “Mr. Social Security” (#1); “United We Stand; Divided We Fall” (#2); “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” (#3) and the finale, which will spell out the sad end of this story of greed, corruption, incompetence and stasis.

Looming Constitutional Crisis?

By Connie Wilson

On February 7, 2022

In Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

BEE GONE: A POLITICAL PARABLE

According to Bruce Ackermanand Gerard Magliocca of Politico, if Donald Trump does run for president in 2024, it “will provoke a genuine constitutional crisis” that will make January, 2021, seem tame.

The “disqualification clause” of the 14^th Amendment expressly bars any person from holding office if he “engaged in insurrection.” Democrats are already exploring using this clause to prevent Trump from running again. As more and more details of Trump’s complete involvement in the coup d’etat of January 6^th emerge, it is surprising that Democrats have not pushed for this much sooner.

Under our election laws, every state would have to decide whether to bar Trump from being on the ballot. Inevitably, more liberal states would disqualify Trump, while conservative states would insist Trump did not engage in an insurrection. Trump is likely to promote a stand-in candidate in the blue states, but with three candidates in the race, none may win the necessary 270 electoral votes.

Under the 12^th Amendment, the House would then pick the president. But if a majority of state delegations choose Trump, as is likely, Democrats will challenge the legality of his presidency in the House and in the courts.

Months may go by with no clear President of the United States, amidst massive, violent street demonstrations. (Think January 6^th on steroids).

The Supreme Court and the military would be forced to choose sides. The Supreme Court has, historically, “chosen sides” in some very twisted fashion, based on the underlying biases of the constituents. Consider this example, as outlined in the new book “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court.” Orville Vernon Burton & Armand Derfner)

The Dred Scott free-or-slave case caused the Chief Justice, Taney (a pro-slavery slave owner), to hold that “no Black person could ever be an American citizen” and that no Congress could ever stop slavery from spreading everywhere. (This was the first act of Congress In 50 years to be declared unconstitutional, the first since Marbury v. Madison in 1803.)

If the Supreme Court thought its pro-slavery pronouncements resolved all disputes over slavery, that notion exploded in the Civil War of 1861-1865.

“American democracy may never recover from this collapse of the rule of law.” The precept involving the “peaceful transfer of power,” necessary for the continuation of our democracy, will be seriously impaired or destroyed by Trump’s refusal to stop spreading the Big Lie re “Stop the Steal.”

Katie Couric’s “Going There” Autobiography Entertains

By Connie Wilson

On January 16, 2022

In Books, Politics, Pop Culture, Reviews, Television

Katie Couric autobiography.

I just finished reading Katie Couric’s autobiography, “Going There.”

I had read that she “burned a lot of bridges” but now, at 64, maybe that doesn’t matter to her.

The NBC “Today” show years with co-anchor Matt Lauer come off as her “best” times, and the move to CBS to become the first solo female anchor of an evening newscast seems to have been a mistake. She was not welcomed with open arms and the deal for her to do pieces on “Sixty Minutes” was especially problematic. Oprah Winfrey came and went in a nano-second on “Sixty Minutes.” You can sort of figure out why when you hear about the lack of a warm, collegial feeling amongst the staff. A direct quote from Lesley Stahl to the Hollywood Reporter is, “I just wanted to be a survivor.”

Couric’s stint as the global news anchor of Yahoo News sounds the least productive, among those jobs where she was employed by a large organization. When Yahoo hired Katie for a pretty penny, they fired the staff of veteran journalists around the country, of which I was one. We didn’t make a lot of money reporting on the news in our local areas, but many of the journalists nationwide, like me, were as well-qualified as Ms. Couric to report on our particular neck of the woods. Our money went to Katie, so we were all summarily fired, without even enough time to get our stories down from the Associated Content website. I must admit that this impacted my opinion of Katie Couric, at the time.

I’ve mellowed some since that abrupt uprooting, and it did lead to two books on the 2008 Obama campaign (“Obama’s Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House”), which, otherwise, would have remained blog ramblings from the field that took place over 24 months of time. After I learned, unexpectedly and with no warning, that none of our writing would be preserved, I hired two teachers who were off for the summer and we split up the areas by topic.

Katie Couric’s current “job,” supported/organized by her second husband John Molner, is something known as Katie Couric Media. She admits, in the book’s closing chapter that, “It’s an adjustment when the white-hot spotlight moves on.” That seems to be true. She founded KCM in 2017, after a short-lived stint with Yahoo, usurping local reporters.

She also wrote this autobiography. Katie’s second husband, John Molner, told her, “If you’re not going to be honest, don’t write a book.”

That certainly seems like sound advice. Katie seems to have been honest even past the point of no return. She shares that she had breast reduction surgery, and she endured a colonoscopy on live TV, following the death of her husband Jay Monahan from colon cancer at the age of 43. She was certainly giving viewers an in-depth look into Katie Couric.

Katie is also very up front about her dating life before and after Jay. We learn how Larry King hit on her when she was an unknown. (He accepted her rejection of him in a gentlemanly fashion.) She talks about her cougar romance with a young swain, Brooks Perlin. One admirer who got away (and broke up with her) was Tom Werner, one-half of the powerhouse producing team Carsey-Werner, responsible for such hits as “The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne.” Werner comes off as a moneyed narcissist with all the sensitivity of Donald Trump.

Speaking of which DJT does make an appearance in the book, in ways both positive and negative. She is able to secure permission for filming in Central Park from Trump, but they have a falling out and he bad-mouths her to the press as a “third-rate journalist.” Even though she had attended the Donald’s marriage to Melania, when their paths cross in a restaurant, he pointedly ignores her.

She mentions an attempt to fix her up with Michael Jackson, an ill-fated attempt that goes nowhere. Her 50^th birthday bash is described in some detail, as is the going away party when Katie leaves NBC. We should all be so lucky as to have Tony Bennett serenading us on our birthday(s).

The plot of Jennifer Anniston’s “The Morning Show” is pretty much limned in Katie’s many remarks about her on-air partnership with Matt Lauer. You definitely get the feeling that she liked the Matt she knew and—-just like Jennifer Anniston’s character on the television show—-she says she never saw the seamy side of Matt Lauer. After his fall from grace, sadly, they basically never speak again in any meaningful fashion.

The name-dropping of journalistic names is non-stop—Charlie Rose, Sarah Palin, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer, Scott Pelley— but the down-to-earth tributes to her mom and dad and two sisters are just as omnipresent. We learn of her brave struggle alongside husband Jay Monahan, who died at only 43, leaving Couric as the single mother of two little girls. Later, as she explores her husband’s Southern roots and his love of Civil War re-enactments, Couric gets in a plug for racial equality as revealed by her now-grown daughters’ insights. (They are horrified by what their father’s obsession with the Old South represented.)

It’s a snapshot of the historic times that Couric covered as a reporter and, while her profile as a broadcaster doesn’t seem to be extending as far into the senior years with as much pizzazz as Barbara Walters’ career did, she still has had one hell of a ride.