Message Forum - GENERAL

Joan, thanks for your post. I heard about our intelligence finding credible info that the Russians were offering bounty for killing American soldiers in Afghanistan. That is so horrible. To think Trump is trying to get Putin into the G7 meeting. If Trump got the intelligence and did nothing, that is awful...if he didn't get it, then that is terrible but I hear maybe there was fear of his reaction. Afterall he called Putin 5 times since March and they appear to be best buds...this is really bad. Love, Joanie

06/30/20 02:31 PM

#12267

I don't know if I'm a "member" of vote.vets, Joan, but I've sent them $, they send me emails (like everybody else, too many emails). I hadn't seen that ad, thanks for posting it.

Is inviting Russia to join the G7 after they've been buying the deaths of our troops "giving aid and comfort to" or "adhering to" our enemies? (Article III, Section 3, U.S. Constitution)

He either didn't know about the bounty the Russians were offering the Taliban for dead Americans, or he knew but did nothing. In the first case, he's incompetent in his creation of a staff which failed to brief him on danger to our troops, and in his failure to subsequently make changes in his staff. In the second case, he's both incompetent, dishonest in his lies to the American people, and perhaps treasonous. Given his track record for honesty, I'm guessing the latter.

If Tump's conciliation and other pandering to Putin encouraged him to order or permit attacks which killed our soldiers, those who voted for him own a piece of those deaths.

This just in from the NYT on the subject.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/russian-bounties-afghanistan-intelligence.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20200630&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta&regi_id=35824785&segment_id=32257&user_id=a15e134e4f525911a2024c50fe83fd1f

06/30/20 02:37 PM

#12268

Helen Lambie (Goldstein)

Thanks for the link to youtube, Joan. I watched it and then watched the ad that followed it which is a Vets ad for Tammy Duckworth. Two great ads worth watching. And old bone spurs will have to face this reality

06/30/20 02:49 PM

#12269

Rather than the dust bin of history, I think Trump is headed for a featured role as the worst American president in our history. He'd be lucky to be as forgotten as NH's own Franklin Pierce, whose failures created the conditions for the Civil War; instead, his revolting personal character traits and his subversion of the Constitution will be seen as even worse than those of Dick Nixon. I once would not have believed I would ever say that about any president after Dick. And saying so I'm reminded again of those who voted for both..

06/30/20 02:49 PM

#12270

https://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2020/06/30

Nice cartoon Helen. Here is another one that is very good about the present day situation. Love, Joanie

06/30/20 03:28 PM

#12271

Tammy Duckworth on our Commander in Chief's failures to protect our troops. I seem to have inadvertently stolen some of her talking points! Great minds . . .

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1277714864258121730?fbclid=IwAR03J4MT9DDfLT1F1xet-gT5Z55pC4qH2hx3NM2OY_ECvvD9Ts-DfQDRqvg

06/30/20 06:30 PM

#12272

Helen Lambie (Goldstein)

I have to quote Nori here, as it was sent to me in an email:

“I have no idea who wrote this but I found it interesting. What do you think? “

1. One week before Trump’s inauguration, officials briefed him on a likely pandemic

2. In 2017, cut HHS/CDC funds

3. He was briefed on a NSC report in 2017 “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats“

4. In 2018 he fired the NSC pandemic preparedness & global health security teams

5. In 2018 he cut the budget for the service contract to keep the national stock pile maintained

6. Jan. 2019, the DNI released the “worldwide threat assessment of the intelligence community report” outlining a pandemic threat

7. In 2019, he placed large tariffs on Chinese imports of medical supplies that would be needed in a pandemic

8. He ignored a 2019 a HHS/FEMA/DHS exercise that showed large problems with preparedness (Crimson Contagion Simulation)

9. At the BioDefense Summit in April 2019 he was briefed about a pandemic threat

10. FEMA released “The 2019 The National Treat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment” in July that predicted that a nationwide pandemic would result in a shortage of medical supplies, hospitals would be overwhelmed and the economy would shut down

11. In Sept. 2019, he cut the Pandemic Early Warning System (PREDICT)

12. In late 2019 the WHO transmitted information about the Covid-19 discovery and spread in China to the WH

13. Is stalling the release of the 2020 DNI report warning of a global pandemic

14. Nov. 2019 the military's (NCMI) analysts reported that the upcoming possible pandemic “could be a cataclysmic event.”

15. Dec.’19-Feb ‘20 NCMI briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the WH several times

16. He ignored over 12 PDB’s in Jan-Feb ‘20, then lied to the public

17. He refuses to employ a DPA to get national testing

18. He muzzled the CDC, Taskforce, and created a “shadow” Taskforce

19. He defunded the W.H.O.

20. Fires Dr. Bright, vaccine expert

21. Refused efforts for N95 mask production

22. Refuses to develop a US testing/tracing/tracking plan

06/30/20 06:35 PM

#12273

Helen Lambie (Goldstein)

And now for the cherry on top! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iyRFGzy0vs

06/30/20 07:48 PM

#12274

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/transcript-hannity-trump/

Helen, that's not fair and you know it. All those facts and quotes from the traitorous main stream media don't begin to represent fairly the accomplishments and vision of our President.

To be fair, get your information from an objective source, like Sean Hannity at Fox. Mr. Hannity showed our leader the respect of asking him a reasonable question about his plans for a second term--no slick, liberal trickery, just a straightforward question:

So there you go, Miss Smartypants. Couldn't be any clearer than that. If you can't understand the President's vision, his goals for America, it's because you're a typical libtard. Let's Make America Great Again!

06/30/20 09:35 PM

#12275

Jay Shackford

Cheater-in-Chief

Donald Trump has an unnatural and inexhaustible ability to cheat in virtually everything he does. Look at his record:

He cheats on his wives – all three of them;
He cheats playing golf;
He cheats the draft board to dodge the draft;
He cheats in school;
He cheats in business – tenants as well as contractors and other business associates.
He cheats his bankers by filing bankruptcy and walking away from his debts.
He cheats on his friends – firing or discarding them whenever he wishes.
He cheats on his taxes;
He cheats when running for the presidency;
He even cheats when telling America how much he weighs;
He cheats on American soldiers he is duty-bound to honor by allowing the Russians to put a bounty on U.S. service men and women serving in Afghanistan.
He cheats the American people and humans throughout the world by refusing to tell the truth about the Coronavirus.

Next to lying, cheating is Trump’s greatest gift. If Trump were anyone else, who would care. But Donald Trump is President of the United States and the leader of the free world. And his lying and cheating are literally killing tens of thousands of people at home and perhaps millions abroad. His lying and cheating are destroying the economy, bringing untold misery to millions of American families fighting to survive, pushing our health-care system to the brink of collapse and deeply dividing the country with his racist rhetoric and actions.

If you want a liar and cheater for the next four years, Donald Trump is your man.

06/30/20 09:36 PM

#12276

No, Jay. No sugar cane plantation. Just helping the local humanity in a place that hungered & still hungers each & every day for help to survive. One needs not go out looking for ways to contribute. Opportunities abound.
Whew. Watching Joe Biden struggle to find words at his first press conference today was excruciating. I can not remember a single campaign in my lifetime that depends so heavily on the strength of a running mate as Biden's campaign. With all that lies ahead, if he wins the WH, I can't imagine the toll it would take on him.
Setting that sad situation aside, here are some lighter things to ponder: a beautiful photo taken by my sister-in-law of swans in Alaska & some cartoons to hopefully bring smiles.

06/30/20 10:11 PM

#12277

https://www.celebrityhealthfitness.com/44789/donald-trump-slurring-words/

Hi Forum friends, Here is a sampling of our Presidents speeches. Love, Joanie P.S. the article speaks of his sniffing sounds. I was kind of alarmed at many of the speeches where Trump does extremely loud sniffing.

This lip sync by Sara Cooper may have been posted already but its just so funny showing Trump suggesting a treatment for the coronavirus. Well, I guess its not really funny when you think that this is the President of the US...Love, Joanie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDKW75ueIU

07/01/20 12:28 AM

#12278

Jerry Morgan

Hell if I were driving a pickup truck full of machete wielding Haitians I too probably wouldn't be afraid of going most anywhere in Haiti. Probably could do the same thing in Baltimore. As a matter of fact I did walk around Baltimore sans Haitians Inner Harbor Festival of Lights and didn't feel particularly uncomfortable but according to Nora I must have a death Wish. Same thing in NYC. South Bronx, Red Hook Brooklyn and the LowerEast Side. Les McCann concert Anacostia SE, Old Griffith Stadium, and SW Market Inn. All without a serious incident after all these years. The one time a haole pulled a gun on a friend and I was in Bethesda during the day. Partially street savvy, luck and good friends in the neighborhood. There are times I would be more cautious of going somewhere or maybe taking a cab but not because of race but because of the potential for crime or other reasons. I have experienced a degree of hate and racism recently here in Hawaii. Many is the time I have been called an F..king Haole (derogatory for white) and my son was often the one that was bullied in school because he was a haole and to this day there exists in most schools in Hawaii some form of kill haole day. Haoles are the minority that takes most of the heat from old transgressions inflicted on the local hawaiian people here.

I am not a systemic racist. But, I sure can dislike certain individuals of all races including my own. Maybe it has to do with my upbringing. God knows back when I was growing up in Bethesda Black Lives didn't matter much. My grandmother (the southern belle that she was another name for racist) felt that our housekeeper was lovable but was quick to use the N word behind her back. I remember once Viola was arrested by the Bethesda police for waiting at the bus stop after dark. My mom had to contact her ex-boyfriend (the police chief) to set things right. I loved Vi unconditionally when my mom died she was my surrogate mom and I was the only haole at her funeral when she died in Rockville. I wonder how many people from Bethesda would take the bus to play with her grandkids or others that lived in the African American neighborhood in good ole redneck Rockville. Maybe my attitudes were formed by my adult relationships with people of color. The industry that I worked in i(white guys didn't work in kaka). I knew a Japanese engineer that told his Japanese wife's family that he worked in water because he would have been ostracized if they knew what he really did. It is so multi-ethnic that you didn't have time to develop the hate that you need to be a racist. You worked and partied and cried and laughed with all. One day a Polish community in Hamtramck, Greek in Detroit, Blues clubs on 8 Mile and on and on. Maybe its because Mr. Bruce was my son's godfather a mountain of a black man and you called him Mr. Bruce because he warranted that respect. Career military, Viet Vet sometimes and my closest confidant all the time. Maybe I don't have the hate because my best friend (West Point) married a highly educated highly successful forensic scientist with the Maryland State Police laboratory from New Orleans asked me to be the Godfather for their two multi-racial kids. Do you think I cared a bit about their race their ethnicity, Comeon man. Maybe it was marching with MLK or the Black Panthers or VVAW protests in Washington or in Biloxi Mississippi. Sorry I just didn't have the time to hate. I was too busy thinking that all lives matter.

07/01/20 07:41 AM

#12279

Thanks for your very personal moving post Jerry. I liked reading about your different experiences and that as you put it, you didn't have time to hate. Love, Joanie

07/01/20 08:43 AM

#12280

Nice, Jerry. All sounds about right. Am happy for your always feeling safe. Envious, really. It might be related to gender. I have always felt it necessary to tread more carefully than my brothers.
A very wise & Black Shelby Steele suggests to those of his race that they are free & should just go live their lives, following their own destiny.
Meanwhile, I think that we Americans of all colors are doing just that, because we believe our dreams can be realized in this country & that our own lives matter. To those who don't believe those things, seem to find despair. JMO

Enjoy this day!

07/01/20 09:39 AM

#12281

There is great cause for some to feel despair as still to this day there are innocent lives lost due to the color of their skin. There needs to be change in policing and in economic injustice and healthcare and voting etc. Minority areas have often very few polling areas open causing huge lines to suppress voting.. Martin Luther King was fighting for justice and equality.. He said in his last speech, "But it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the mountaintop. I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land."..the next day he was assassinated and still in 2020, there are the murders of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, Eric Garner and so many others. We have not reached the mountaintop as a Nation but people of all colors are marching together so there is hope that one day we could get there. love joanie

07/01/20 10:25 AM

#12282

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/style/mask-america-freedom-coronavirus.html

Just had this published as a letter to the editor in the NYT:

"I spent a year in Vietnam spending much of almost every day wearing a three pound steel helmet and and an 8-10 lb. armored vest. They were uncomfortable and did not provide anything like full protection from small arms fire or shrapnel. But they provided some, and I was an officer and responsible for getting OTHERS to wear them by setting an example.

"The main difference between military PPE and masks (other than the difference between many lbs and an ounce or two) is that you wear body armor for yourself, you wear masks for others. This is the President's great failure—the failure to set the example that we mask to protect those who may be at greater risk than ourselves. Like being in the military, mask wearing is a service to to the nation. It does not surprise me that this President has no concept of sacrificing for others, national service or setting an example."

Here's the article that generated the letter:

07/01/20 10:27 AM

#12283

Very good post Jack, love joanie

07/01/20 03:07 PM

#12284

A big day in "my" publishing life. First, the NYT letter comment, and now Larry Robert's book is out in a pre-general release to contributors. Larry has been working on this for years, so it wasn't timed to nearly coincide with troops in the streets of Washington almost 50 years later. The epigraph, which again must have been written before the current events, is prescient:
"Whenever American institutions have provided a hysterical response to an emergency situation, we have come later to regret it." Judge Harold H. Greene.

Larry tells me, "Wrote it long before the current mess, but I was confident America would be in an emergency again at some point...."
I not only get another small increment of the 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol promised us, but I'm mentioned in an acknowledgement sentence which also includes John Dean. Not something I ever would have imagined.

Book will be generally available July 28th.

Comments

07/01/20 03:54 PM

#12285

Repeated congratulations, Jack! It's always such a pleasure to be recognized & the NYT is smart to use your words to represent the thinking of many, probably most, of their devoted following. I have pondered some of the reasons why Trump has decided to wear a mask only intermittently. He has voiced a concern that his hands are near or on his face much more as a result of handling his mask & I agree with that. Since COVID, we volunteers are required to wear masks to deliver meals to shut-ins & I am unconsciously handling it constantly hour after hour during our delivery days. My head aches, I sneeze a lot & am congested. I must remove it at times just to catch my breath, as I feel smothered & slightly claustrophobic. I can't imagine the heat Trump would get if he complained as I am now. Perhaps he has personal reasons or a concern with breathing his own carbon dioxide. Whatever his reason, I'm grateful he is, like most of us, being true to himself. If things go "further south" statistically, he most likely will bite the bullet & oblige. As for me today, I am grateful to be free to make that decision myself & handle it in a way that feels appropriate to me. Though Biden has expressed that, were he in the WH, he would mandate masks for the US, it's my understanding that it is not up to the president, however, to mandate wearing masks. That is the role of local authorities.

07/01/20 04:00 PM

#12286

Here is an interesting viewpoint about polls from the former Speaker, as well as a smile & a reminder:

07/01/20 08:19 PM

#12287

https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2020/07/01/2297718/hundreds-of-george-w-bush-administration-officials-to-back-biden-group-says

Looks like Trump is losing a lot of Republicans now...look at this article. Love, Joanie

07/01/20 09:09 PM

#12288