Selective Outrage
The list of crimes, lies told, corruption, self-dealing, fraud, theft, extortion, sexual misconduct, insurrection, obstruction, conspiracy, and cruelty committed by TFG is long, growing, and in plain sight. Predictably, though, that very same list is totally invisible to MAGA Republicans. Fearful of retribution from their mouth-breathing base and TFG himself, they perform more gymnastics than an Olympic athlete to avoid seeing what is obvious to the rest of us. Congressional Republicans had TWO opportunities to get rid of him, and made the wrong decision. Since he’s left office, they have continued to cow tow to him, regularly doing the MAGA Hajj to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his ring (and his ass).
It’s no surprise then, that the GOP has been completely blind to the slow motion train wreck of TFGland including investigations and convictions for tax fraud, election denial, insurrection, and, of course, his hoarding and concealment of over 11,000 US government documents including 100 classified documents and 90 empty folders marked classified. They’ve also ignored the fact that the National Archives tried to get the documents back for 18 months, finally getting a federal grand jury subpoena that TFG promptly ignored. When the FBI took the radical step of going and getting the documents themselves, GOP screamers amplified his lies that it was a “smash and grab” and “all they had to do was ask.” They then fabricated the story that he “declassified” these documents “in his mind” tryin to excuse TFG’s behavior.
Then comes the discoveries of classified documents at Biden’s home and former office. Numbering about 20, having those documents was sloppy at best, but was immediately reported to the National Archives, and Biden is cooperating in the investigation. The incident is certainly not helpful to Biden, but it’s extremely unlikely there was any nefarious intent in having these documents. Conversely, Trump took something like 50 boxes of government documents when he finally left office, concealed them, lied about having them, moved them several times to avoid having them found, and even had his lawyers lie that there were no more documents after returning about 20 boxes last year. Beyond his attraction to shiny things, a worse reason for keeping them, as Maggie Haberman of the NYTimes reported, TFG was trying to use his possession of US government documents as trade bait to get files from the DOJ about their investigation of his longstanding relationship with the Russians and their interference in the 2016 election. Believing you can trade something you stole for something that you would never get in a million years is insane, which explains why TFG thought it was such a good idea.
Not surprisingly, while looking the other way on TFG’s hoarding of thousands of documents, Republicans are going apeshit over the discovery of the 20 documents in Biden’s possession, and they are already launching an investigation of the incident in the House. I say fine, investigate your ass off. However, the Dems must be uncharacteristically aggressive here. Each time the Republicans introduce some testimony or evidence about the Biden documents, the Dems must introduce ten times that amount of evidence of TFG’s hoarding, and then concealing his possession of the thousands of documents he took. This is eye for an eye, fighting fire with fire. It’s time to take their selective outrage and turn it on them in public.
The Chaos Wing of the GOP is going after a jaywalker while a serial arsonist is burning down the Capitol. It fits.
And Merrick Garland – someone needs to do something about him! For two years he hid out at the DOJ, now he has two tfg appointed Special Prosecutors, yet he has seemingly done nothing!
1kowtow
2And now the repugnantican house of vengeance wants to somehow expunge TFFG’s impeachment.
3And warning, hang on to your pants next week as you can expect fireworks over the debt ceiling. You can expect your 401k’s and retirement accounts to take a major hit among other disasters if repugnanticans are successful.
If the situation wasn’t so ridiculous would be rofl with the latest QNP faux outrage. While President Biden’s team discovered ~20 documents after discovering the first batch which they promptly turned over through the appropriate agencies which sent them searching for more to ensure they’d done the correct thing with all documents which brought the sum total to the ~20 number.
Anyone recall the total number of boxes tRump removed? As for the “classification” in either case. No problem with President Biden being investigated. But. Lordy. The discrepancies between how fast tRump has not been investigated and has obstructed versus how the Biden Team has cooperated? Calling apples/oranges BS on the media and the right-wing sycophants. Oops. Maybe that last statement was redundant.
As for the over classification that happens to protect sources or for whatevuh reason. That does happen. When I was a junior officer with the USAF one of the many additional duties that flow downhill like an avalanche was Squadron intell office. Cannot begin to enumerate the number of times I left my not so warm cot to retrieve “eyes only” crap that most of you had read months earlier in magazines. I’d share specifics. But. Again. That would be negligent of me lest I confirm something our adversaries would love to have confirmed. Which is where President Biden and myself differ from Orange Foolius.
4Dear fellow customers – as much as I agree that Biden did the right thing… What happened was not immediately disclosed to the public. I find that disturbing.
Granted, not as much as the constant chaos of TFG, but still disturbing.
I believe Garland was correct in appointing two Republican special investigators – that’s the best way to minimize bias claims by the opposition.
Justice shall roll down like waters. Have faith.
5Here’s the difference. There was no announcement of the FBI taking the docs from Mar a Lago either. The only reason we know about that is TFG’s screaming from the rooftops. Biden complied with the Presidential Records Act which does not include public disclosure. There is one reason for this mess and one only…DJT.
6Grandma Ada, I think you need to do a bit more research on what is and has been going on at the DOJ. Merrick Garland has been working steadily and not “hiding out”.
7“The Chaos Wing of the GOP is going after a jaywalker while a serial arsonist is burning down the Capitol. It fits.”
That may be the most succinct description of the behavior of the Grossly Obstructive Party I’ve seen yet.
8Republicans, the party of false equivalence. They could claim a dog and a rock are the same thing.
“They’re almost the same color!”
9“If I name the rock, they both have names!”
Knowing full well that following does not make me popular amongst my fellow customers: I’m with Malarkey@5.
10IMO, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Besides, my hope was/is that we democrats could do better than “but… but… but what about Trump’s … (fill the blank)”.
I’m old and I try to have at least 1 thought every day. It’s 930 of Saturday nite and finally I had one. A new name for TFG t….. etc etc. Reading his gibber from released interviews in his SDNY rape and defamation case I was stricken by the fact that he’s like everyone’s DRUNK UNCLE. When we were young we used to listen to him, but as we age we listen less and less (at least most of us do) and recognize gibberish for what it is. With that small bit of esplaining, I give you ADU (could be adieu but that aint spelled right) for AMERICA’S DRUNK UNCLE. Nite nite all
11FrauFree- I also agree but am conflicted. I’m going out on a limb to say Biden advisors strongly suggested that he not disclose during the 2022 midterms as it might have influenced the election, especially in the senate. I would also add that he was not obligated by law to disclose it. He and his attorneys did quickly provide the documents and have kept hunting for more. There is no reasonable comparison to what TFFG did for 18 months and continues to do so. The scope of Biden’s classified document issues compared to what TFFG moved is really as El Jefe commented, like arresting a jaywalker compared to a serial arsonist.
12Dammit, Joe.
13One glaring difference between the two situations that I haven’t heard mentioned is that one those two people was impeached for basically trying to blackmail a a foreign leader into doing his bidding, which coincidentally was to get intelligence to use against his political enemy.
14FrauFree @ 10 and Steve @ 11, it’s all good at the WMDBS. Trust in MS. JJ that we can agree to disagree because we all share in the same common goals and objectives.
Reference back to El Jefe @ 6. The law is the law, and from I’ve observed President Biden has gone above and beyond to comply. Whereas the Orange Foolius has done nothing except obstruct and prevaricate/LIE.
Believe me FrauFree we “get” your concerns and agree with you. The current laws are far from perfect. We deserve better for sure. My apologies that I am uncomfortable about disclosing what I experienced with the classification system vs transparency. There is a line between “loose lips Sink ships” as shown by TFG tRump and what President Biden has possibly erred.
FFIW Biden was not my first choice in the Nevaduh caucus system. But so far, he’s about a 80+ with me. That btw is a plus 5%n above our late Senator Harry Reid and former Senate Majority Leader.
lol My long winded point? There is no perfect in politics, but there is decency. For that Biden gets my vote on this latest faux outrage.
15TFG was trying to use his possession of US government documents as trade bait to get files from the DOJ about their investigation of his longstanding relationship with the Russians and their interference in the 2016 election.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. The Russians are way too smart to have had anything to do with Trump except perhaps some of the oligarchs used his companies to launder money. The companies had industrial rated washing machines.
If you want to look for foreign interference look at Saudi Arabia and Israel.
16@jrk – Actually, no. Putin wanted TFG in the Oval to weaken the US and it worked. He clearly has kompromat on TFG and it shows. TFG’s weakness is blatantly apparent. As an example, he blurted out classified information to the Russians in the Oval office in 2017, where he allowed them in with no US staff or US press. Israel and Saudi are also problems, but nothing like the Russians’ influence over TFG.
17P.P. @14: another major difference in the two cases that no one in the media seems to be pointing out: Biden is President. Trump is not. It’s possible the current President has valid access to classified docs; it is not possible that T**** does.
18Also, as I understand it (and this is second hand), Trump tried to horse trade the documents he had for documents he wanted (Hillary’s emails I believe) from the National Archives.
19That’s a great point Professor. IfJoe had the same respect for our constitutional democracy that his predecessor has, he could use said predecessor’s line of reasoning explaining the whole situation away.
20“I just decided the places where I kept those documents was secure. Cause I said so and I’m the President.”
And in Uncle Joe’s case, he’d actually have a leg to stand on.
Another difference is TFFG said he could declassify documents himself by just thinking (not sure with what) about it, thus he did nothing illegal. Joe didn’t even suggest that cuz he knows it doesn’t work that way.
21Steve @ 21: Too true. But that’s the kinda thing Democrat House members need to keep throwing out like big noisy hand grenades in front of the crazy clown car parade about to come barrelling down the highway.
22Every chance they get.
IMO it’s about time for us democrats to stop comparing TFG and Joe. Democrat House members should look FORWARD instead of wasting time looking BACK, wasting energy throwing those hand grenades P.P. is talking about.
TFG is most likely done anyway, at least I can’t see him as Repugs candidate in Nov. 2024. He has too much baggage even for his own party. But Joe did what he did and we need to deal with it like adults, instead of keep saying “but TFG did 200% worse things.” Yes of course he did. But that’s Joe who is president of USA today, not TFG.
23IMHO, since the MSM is trying to make the 2 situations of moving classified documents equivalent, I’m fine with pointing out the differences. I agree, we need to look forward- and I hope that includes accountability for TFFG on a number of fronts. It’s hard to imagine he’s still in the conversation for 2024, but he is. The grand old party (puke) still tries to cover for everything he did and make the cases it’s all part of the deep state (I guess that means us). On MLK day, many of the red states also try to celebrate the confederacy. We’ve not moved past that in parts of the country so what makes us think they’ll abandon their hero I call trumpf.
24FrauFree, I understand that point of view, and I respect it.
You might be surprised to hear that I agree with it to a point. But with repugnantcans now controlling the House, the way forward will be heavily influenced by their actions, and Democrats’ responses. There’s no getting around that.
trump may very well have lost his influence and not be their nominee. But whether they remain loyal to him or not, they’ve gone full blown, wholeheartedly down the road that he, more than anybody else has shown them that works for fascists all over the world.
They’ve CHOSEN that path for themselves.
And for us too.
Personally, I feel like keeping some of the spotlight on him is the best way to keep them from camouflaging the path they want us on.
And as far as tactics, believe me, the hand grenades are not the only things we rely on by a long shot. Only one tool.
WE STILL HAVE THE TRUTH ON OUR SIDE.
Repugnantcans very seldom do.
Our rhetorical bombs and flame throwers have the added benefit of being ACTUALLY righteous, instead of the gaslighting kind.
And there’s plenty of room, and plenty of folks to argue calmly, rationally and positively.
And everything in between.
25We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
IMHO, repugnantcans notsamuch.
Anyhoo, like always, that’s just my opinion and I’m just as full of shit as anybody else.
P.P. – I agree that we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Sort of OT, but: IMO the two party system is the one to blame for the country hurting as it does today. The “them versus us” mentality from both sides. Who is not with us, is against us etc.
26People have only 2 options to choose from, and that is the proven recipe for radicalism. We could really use a third party IMO, maybe even fourth and fifth…
Fran, there are at least three different Parties in the Democratic coalition that can’t always be nice to each other. All we seem to have in common is anti-QGOP.
27Never overestimate the American public’s ability to distinguish between roughly parallel transgressions. Sure there are differences but trying to enumerate them quickly gets bogged down in smaller and smaller points of meaningless difference. Just when Joe was getting appreciated for the many fine actions and trends that he initiated-a real chance of avoiding a recession, for example-these Trump-like failures appear. Coupled with his long history of being on the wrong side of developments (Anita Hill por ejemplo), this could very well kill a second term.
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