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Will Trump End Up In Prison?

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#33

Thanks for thinking of me, but I don’t have much scheduled free time lately and the little I do, I’d rather get some exercise outside or stay involved with M4A efforts which is the only movement I follow closely.

I’ll keep an eye out for your future comments after you hear the event.

Just to restate for others:

  1. I am completely opposed to nuclear weapons and DU munitions.

  2. I am opposed to any new current (Gen III) nuclear plants being built and want to abandon the 1 or 2 that may still be under construction (I haven’t been following their status)

  3. I am for a reasoned assessment of the risks of all currently operating plants and targeting dates for their decommissioning that make sense. The one nearest to NYC should be one of the earliest decommissions.

  4. I am for any reclamation efforts at mining sites which I’m aware are often on native land and employment of local Native Americans should be preferred (one of a few cases of affirmative action I support).

  5. I support research into some of the best Gen IV reactor designs that @Trog so often talks about here, but I understand the timeline makes it hard to get much help (in CO2 reduction) from these designs before 2030 to 2040.

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#34

I call bullshit on that. If the Democrat Establishment and their MSM had the backbones to call out the crime and be prepared to go to war over it when it’s happening, yes, these criminals would be wearing stripes.

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#35

This is a history lesson, but imo the flaw is in its treatment accorded LBJ as a victim of the wily Dick Nixon in the 1968 sabotage of “peace negotiations” involving Vietnam.

It is a strange revision of history to have LBJ portrayed as a victim of his conflict in Vietnam.
From Thom’s text: “in 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson was desperately trying to end the Vietnam War.” Those, like myself, who lived during those years, read this and differ.

LBJ and the US MIC pushed this country into Vietnam after the 1964 election, and the tragic escalation in 1965 produced the fiasco of an undeclared war with a half-million US troops in Vietnam.

Already by early 1966 it was a publicly debated debacle, and in October, 1966, Vermont’s Senator George Aiken stated in the Senate, “Let’s declare victory and go home.”

Months later, April, 1967, Dr. King put his life on the line to beg LBJ to return to his “War on Poverty” and stop his war in Vietnam. “The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.” His stand cost him his life.

LBJ squandered human lives, earthly resources, and common sense advice for four years, so it is difficult to summon much sympathy for him.

Revisionist history on LBJ is a current thing, I guess. Late in the primary campaign, Bernie also had kind remarks toward LBJ, albeit primarily on his establishing Medicare. As with Thom, this reverence of LBJ appears to be a litmus teat on fealty to the Democratic Party. Remembering history, it’s a lot to ask of a person.

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#36

Speaking of Thom and RT, in 2005 I caught an episode of Thom’s show during which he offered a compelling explanation of the stolen 2004 election, hinging on the state of Ohio returns.

Exit polling showed John Kerry winning Ohio by 3%, and news outlets began calling the state for Kerry. That was before the computer “vote flipping” occurred, as Thom explained, and after that action happened, the news outlets retracted their announcements. The win in Ohio for W Bush actually determined the overall winner, and W got 4 more years.

Thom’s account never got traction in the major news media. It disappeared after that day.

In this day of trump squawk and his lies about his winning the 2020 election, one hesitates to bring up computer voting fraud. Bev Harris wrote the book, Black Box Voting (2003), and that morphed into ~BlackBoxVoting.org. It would be helpful if this group could impact US elections in a positive way.

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#37

The Republican party knows all too well about "voter fraud."

They wrote the book on it.

Yet they deny it vehemently.

"Lie, Deny, Cheat." Short but sweet, Mission Statement of the Republican Party.

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#38

Exactly. I hadn’t read the article until seeing your comment. I’m not a Thom Hartmann fan and this article reminds me why. Not only won’t I have any sympathy for LBJ because of Vietnam (which I consider the most important litmus test which almost every US politician failed miserably on), I don’t buy into the Oliver Stone fantasy (echoed by too many here) that had JFK not been killed, he would have got us out of Vietnam. You can follow our immoral acts in Vietnam back to Truman and they touch every president until it was over, but JFK was a significant factor in making things worse and laying the groundwork for things getting much much worse under LBJ. If you haven’t seen the piece in the LA times by Alexander Cockburn, I highly recommend it (~https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oe-goldstein22-2008nov22-story.html).

And on top of this LBJ nonsense out of Hartmann, such as:

In a phone call to Nixon himself just before the election, LBJ begged him to stop sabotaging the peace process, noting that he was almost certainly going to win the election and inherit the war anyway.

What? Beg Richard Nixon for something? What did he expect the result of that was going to be? If LBJ was actually a moral actor, he simply would have outed Nixon directly to the US public and explain exactly why the war was the monstrous crime that it was, and why he could not run for reelection after being a part of it and let the corrupt leaders in the South know that they will take the deal and Nixon won’t be able to save their hides (and didn’t anyway).

But on top of that, I have to read through more Russiagate nonsense. Sounds like Hartmann really believes Russia had a significant effect on the 2016 election (in which case, he’s an idiot), or he wants to push something he knows to be ridiculously exaggerated to us (which is worse).

I just can’t handle people like Hartmann or CNN or MSNBC who will NEVER hold democrats to account for anything significant (sure, they’ll cover a scandal here and there that will take down an individual democrat who has been deemed sacrifacable like Al Franken, but nothing systematic).

I can only handle these days listening to alternative media like anything Aaron Mate has to say. He has a lot to say on the lies we are currently getting about Syria, Russian bounties, Venezuela, and other important stories. CD has a lot of different authors and for me to keep my sanity, I’m going have to remember the ones I can’t read anymore. I realize I’m committing a breach of Common Dreams policy where I’m not supposed to criticize the authors, so if this post gets taken down, I won’t be surprised, but I can’t take it anymore. I’d like to see a lot more pieces here from the Grayzone or other sources I respect a lot more than Hartmann.

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#39

Omg! To put all that in one concise article is stunning in its breadth of depravity. What a bunch of deranged, shameless bastards.

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#40

I would venture to say that this sword rattling by the Biden administration is theater. Ignore it. As for the guy starving himself…let him. We all have a right to self determination. My guess? He is terminally ill anyway.

#41

The American justice system is famously rigged in favor of the wealthy. Trump being imprisoned is certainly possible but I would not count on it.

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#42

That’s a good brief history, 1945 until 1975.
Five US administrations, covering 30 years of opposition to self-determination in Vietnam.

My reading of James Douglass’ superb lengthy volume, JFK and the Unspeakable. Why He Died and Why It Matters (2008), influences my thinking. As Douglass explains JFK’s pivot away from Vietnam, I have to agree with him. LBJ was president when the conflict immensely escalated.

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#43

I would rather see him lose his coveted real estate holdings, golf courses, private dick club and chunks of his crappy brand. Better punishment than prison. Those are the things he loves—take them.

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#44

Well put.

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#45

Excellent book!

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#46

If you get a chance to read that piece by Cockburn, I’d be curious where you think reality lies based on your read from Douglass - closer to Stone, or closer to Cockburn? I don’t know that much, but I feel like this Camelot myth is pretty strong with a lot of people and it feels like Stone was bitten by it (even though I do still like him and have greatly enjoyed his recent interviews with Robert Scheer and Michael Moore).

I started watching a short documentary on Amazon Prime called The American War and it was pretty disturbing - I couldn’t even finish it in one sitting - need to finish it soon. The Agent Orange spraying by us and the film of the French burning the boats as they left made me sick to my stomach. I know all the numbers which are disturbing enough, but there is something more visceral about seeing it on film.

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#47

Used to play tennis w this nut, he cheats.

#48

The probability of Donald croaking from the obvious is north of 75% over the next 24 months.

#49

Thanks, dara. I followed the link, and I read the column, “JFK and Vietnam,” although it was written by Gordon Goldstein. If you have a link to an Alex Cockburn column, send it.

Some of JFK’s press conferences are available to view on Youtube, and I’m struck that JFK at times mentions Laos, almost never Vietnam, though Goldstein’s article recalls that McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor, surmised, “Laos was never really ours after 1954…Vietnam is…”

Goldstein’s commentary agrees largely with James Douglass’ views on this, from my take. Goldstein concludes:
“That Kennedy as commander in chief was not provided the opportunity to determine a different fate for the United States in Vietnam deepens the tragedy of his loss and also underscores his profound legacy…: The judgment of the commander in chief… ultimately determines the difference between war and peace.”

#50

Ouch. I didn’t follow the link from the search engine as I thought it was the right one and as I don’t have a subscription to LA times, I was trying to not add 1 to my read count.

This is the right one:

~https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-12-26-me-1179-story.html

Is the other piece any good? Maybe I should read it.

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#51

Very, very, true! I posted during the so-called Democratic debates that the whole thing was a farce for the politically naive. At that time I said that Bernie was being used as a sacrificial lamb to make voters believe America is a Democracy and the Biden/Harris ticket had already been selected for POTUS.

#52

Thanks, dara, for making the effort to send the A. Cockburn article. I just read it.

These are Cockburn’s Christmas musings from 1991, and he had seen Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. My 1st thought was some astonishment that it’s been 30 years since that film was released. A moment of,
“Was it that long ago?”

The Cockburn piece is a fairly brief essay, and it’s a pronounced contrast in tone and message to James Douglass’ book. Cockburn presents his arranged critique of JFK’s foreign policy in a brief paragraph, and Douglass has the benefit of 500 pages of explanations.

Goldstein’s article that you cited mentions “the glamor, intelligence, wit, and possibility,” and all these years later (58!) I’m still a sucker for his administration. I live a few blocks from John F. Kennedy Road, and also John Kennedy Elementary School, here in Dubuque. An inveterate Irish American, I still cheer for the one of us, among “a nation of brilliant failures” (Oscar Wilde) who reached the top, and stayed there for a thousand days.

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