Louisiana Voice

I watched the ABC-News interview with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Sunday and I have to admit I was disappointed at the lack of research shown by David Muir and Southeastern Louisiana University alumnus, Robin Roberts who lobbed softball after softball at the Democratic nominees.

Muir, for example, asked Biden to respond to Trump charges that Biden, if elected, would “defund” police departments, a claim that Biden naturally denied on its face.

He was being truthful, of course. His record in the Senate underscores that in spades.

In 1981, for example, the General Accounting Office released a report commissioned by Biden which called for more extensive use of the use of CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE, a provision that law enforcement agencies across the country have abused well beyond its intended use, Jefferson Davis Parish being a prime example of such abuse. Read more HERE.

Under that law, if you so much as lend your vehicle to a friend who then uses it to transport or even possess a small quantity of marijuana, you can lose your car to the local law enforcement agency which can use it in undercover raids or sell it outright. The same goes for your residence, should your teenager be caught with an illegal drug in your home.

In one instance in northern California, a family owned several hundred acres of prime forest land. Unbeknownst to the owners, a small, remote corner of their property was used to grow marijuana by trespassers. They lost their entire property to asset forfeiture when the growers were busted because the burden of proof is on the property owner to show that he was not part of the ongoing drug operation/possession. In other words, the innocent until proven guilty concept is turned on its head.

Radley Balko, an award-winning investigative reporter, in his 2014 book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, writes that in 1989, when President G.H.W Bush pushed his Byrne grant program, which infused federal cash into local police programs, many Democrats, including Biden, said the bill didn’t go far enough.

Biden, who then chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Associated Press that Bush’s bill, “quite frankly, is not tough enough, bold enough, or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand.”

Among other things that both the Reagan and first Bush administrations advocated was defunding….not the police, but treatment centers for addicts. Treatment centers, they claimed, just did not work. And the Biden-led Democrats agreed. That issue should have come up Sunday night.

Thus, was born the SWAT assault teams that, originating in Los Angeles, proliferated to the remote corners of the country, found in virtually every municipal and county law enforcement agency – with or without the proper training.

Originally intended for riots and dealing with hostage situations, the use of SWAT teams became so commonplace that Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio employed one in a raid that rendered embarrassing results. With ramrod attached, an urban assault vehicle with none other than actor Steven Seagal at the controls, knocked down a residence in order to bust an apparent community-threatening cockfighting operation. Seagal justified his participation by saying he didn’t like animal abuse. The chickens seized in the raid were euthanized. Problem solved. Euthanizing chickens: how humiliating.

None of these examples were addressed in Sunday night’s so-called tough interview. I would have liked to have Biden explain that as well as his verbal abuse of Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings back in 1991.

For the reasons above, I would have preferred a stronger (and yes, younger – we’re the same age) candidate like Corey Booker or Mayor Pete, but I’m forced to go with the hand I was dealt.

So, even with those negatives – and they certainly are that – I can still see no way out of the mess we’re in today other than supporting his candidacy over a pretender, a shop-worn failure such as Donald Trump.

There is an online service (I suppose one could call it a service) called Quora which fields questions from readers on a multitude of subjects, the most popular ones being about The Beatles and Donald Trump, mixed in with the deeply personal ones involving sexual encounters, overcoming bullies, etc.

One that caught my eye as recently as last Friday was this: “Why is Donald Trump criticized so mercilessly? Is he really that bad?”

I cite this particular one not because of the question, but because of the responses provided by several readers. There are several good explanations but the first one is by far, the best.

You can read all of them HERE.

It’s worth your time to read them all.

“The greatest threat facing the nation was an insider threat and still is. The insider threat is sitting in the Oval Office.”

—Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, on MSNBC network last week. [Okay, I know, the FBI doesn’t have the greatest credibility in the eyes of Trump and his crowd, but still…]

“Who needs Vladimir Putin when we have Donald Trump? If you were Vladimir Putin and you wanted to disrupt this election, what would you do? You’d spread disinformation. You’d make people doubt the legitimacy of the vote. You’d peddle conspiracy theories and you might want to mess with mail-in voting. That’s all happening without him. Our president is doing that. It’s very clear that Trump will use every lever of governmental power to stay in office. There’ll be many mail-in votes and the mail-in votes will be very different than the same-day votes. What he will do – and it will be very much on brand for Donald Trump – is declare victory on election night and then, as the mail-in votes are counted, he will insist that that they are not legitimate, that the election is being stolen from him, and I think that has the potential to create massive doubt and chaos.”

—Conservative author and broadcaster Charlie Sykes. [Trump supporters, did you get that “conservative” part?]

“The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!”

—Idiot child Trump tweet, Aug. 22, 2020, 6:49 a.m. [The “deep state” is everywhere…and nowhere.]

“Trump has been saying mail-in ballots will bring fraud to the election but absentee ballots are legit. Which is it? It can’t be both ways. I laughed because if the campaign actually took information from other times, they have reached out to me, they’d know I won’t vote for Trump despite being a registered Republican.”

—Chandler Carranza, after receiving an absentee ballot in the mail with the Tangerine Toddler’s smiling photo on it. [Again, Trumpettes, did you catch the words “registered Republican”? And do you understand the irony of Trump’s voting by mail-in ballot?]

“The committee found that Trump’s team knew ahead of time that emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee by Russian intelligence agents would appear in Wikileaks, and worked with Wikileaks to produce an ‘October surprise’ toward winning that election. Despite Trump’s recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with (Roger) Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone’s access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions.”

—-Republican-majority Senate Intelligence Committee report on the 2016 Trump campaign. [So, while the word “collusion” is not mentioned specifically…]

“I think you take a look at the great people President Trump has surrounded himself with, some of the brilliant women and some of the brilliant leaders. I would say that overall, the president has had a very good track record of hiring excellent people.”

—Trump adviser Jason Miller, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Aug. 23, 2020.  [Bannon, Flynn, Manafort, Gates, Cohen, Papadopoulos, Stone…]

“We don’t have any authority to do that at the department.”

—Acting Department of Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf, on sending agents to guard polling places in the November election. [Gawd, at last someone in the administration who gets it right.]

“[H]istory will record Mr. Trump’s presidency as a march of wanton, uninterrupted, tragic destruction.”

—The Washington Post editorial board, Aug. 22, 2020.

“You’ve been there less than a month. Wouldn’t you want to get the opinion of the unions and the mailing community on what might happen if you cut service like this? He never talked to us or sought our input.”

—Postal Service union leader Mark Dimondstein, on Louis DeJoy’s proposed slash and burn cuts to the USPS.

“We’re going to have everything,” the president said. “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to hopefully have U.S. attorneys and we’re going to have everybody, and attorney generals. But it’s very hard.”

—Trump, on his controversial plan to deploy law enforcement officials to monitor polls in the Nov. 3 election, Aug. 21, 2020. [Hey, dumbass, sheriff’s deputies, state and municipal police are commanded at the local level; you don’t have that authority, even if it does sound like something that your palls Putin or Kim Jong Un, or Hitler’s SS would do.

“This is just such an old, dirty voter suppression tactic. There is no doubt that this is about instilling fear and depressing participation in communities of color.”

–Kristen Clarke, who heads the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Aug. 21, 2020

“The reason why the Republican Party was under a consent decree for 40 years was for precisely this kind of behavior in 1981. It would be unfortunate if, having come out from under that consent decree, they now try to repeat those tactics.”

—Marc Elias, lead attorney for the Democratic Party’s voting litigation efforts., Aug. 21, 2020.

“He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this. His g**d****d tweet and lying, oh my God, The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy s**t. It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”

—Then-federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, watching her brother on Fox News discussing how he was handling child separations at the U.S. Southern border. [No one knows you better than family.]

“President Trump has tried every dirty trick in the book — and a few new ones — to cast doubts about the workings of Joe Biden’s brain. But Trump has been focusing on entirely the wrong organ. Biden’s appeal is from the heart.”

—Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, Aug. 20, 2020.

“Biden goes to church so regularly that he doesn’t even need tear gas,”

—Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, emceeing the Democratic virtual convention, in reference to Trump’s Bible photo op in Lafayette Square.

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“This is yet another major win in the fight against dark money in politics. It will be much harder for donors to anonymously contribute to groups that advertise in elections. This is a great day for transparency and democracy.”

—Jordan Libowitz, spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), on a decision by a federal appeals court that is considered a defeat for Sen. Mitch McConnell and Republican political operative Karl Rove, the man behind the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame and who was instrumental in the framing and imprisonment of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/obama-pardon-don-siegelman

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/don-siegelman-on-how-the-political-assassination-of-a-governor-threatens-the-nation/

“We are not letting people be evicted.”

—Donald Trump, on Aug. 11, upon approving executive actions after stimulus negotiations with Congress stalled.

“[W]e are very likely to see millions of renters face displacement or eviction, starting in September and October. Trump literally did nothing to stop or prevent evictions. There’s no requirement to do anything.”

–Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, on Aug. 21, 2020.

“Trump seems as drawn to QAnon conspiracy theorists as sycophants are to him. [He] consorts with knaves and fools, plays around with dumb ideas and gives little thought to the safety and welfare of 330 million Americans. He lives to indulge in cheap tricks that make him look good and thus worthy of adulation. He sickens.”

—Op-ed by Washington Post columnist Colbert King, Aug. 21, 2020.

“You said the president seemed to embrace it. I didn’t hear that. I heard the president talk about he appreciates people that support him.”

—Vice President Mike (Casper the Ghost) Pence, like the obedient milquetoast he is, denying the obvious. [Sure, Casper, and we all heard (or read) Trump’s laudatory tweets about QAnon proponent Marjorie Taylor Greene’s win in that Georgia congressional primary where he called her a “future Republican star, a real winner.” Now you can return to your appointed place somewhere behind Trump and watch in stony silence as you normally do.]

“I’ve had discussions with Marjorie Greene, she won that primary, and she recently came out and denounced the Q organization. I do not agree with their beliefs at all, and she denounced those,”

—House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R0Calif.) [Yeah, and David renounced, denounced and otherwise tried to distance himself from the KKK when it was politically expedient for him in his various political races – but once his elective ambitions ended, he returned to the fold  So, if it walks like a wingnut and quacks like a wingnut…she’s probably a wingnut.]

Have a can of wingnuts:

“I haven’t been dealing with him for a very long period of time. I don’t like that project. I thought it was being done for showboating reasons.”

—Donald Trump, disavowing (Mission Impossible-style) any connection to the private funding project run by former adviser Steve Bannon and claiming (Donald Trump-style) that he hardly knows has had little contact with Bannon.

“[P]rivate enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else,”

—Donald Trump, Jr., speaking at a symposium hosted by the group in New Mexico in 2019. [Oops. But like daddy, Donnie will try to weasel his way out of tight spots. Read on.]

“His previous praise of the group was based on what he was led to believe about their supposed intention to help build the wall on the southern border and if he and others were deceived, the group deserves to be held accountable for their actions,”

—Donald Trump, Jr. spokesperson Amanda Miller, in trying to distance Donnie from Bannon’s scheme. [Have you ever seen cockroaches scramble for cover when you turn the lights on in a room?]

“Why in the world would the president not kick Q’anon supporters’ butts? Nut jobs, rascists (sic), haters have no place in either party.”

—Jeb Bush (R-Florida) tweet, Aug. 19, 2020.

“QAnon is a dangerous lunacy that should have no place in American politics.”

—Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), on Thursday. [But don’t you see? They love Trump and that makes them “very fine people,” just like those white supremacists in Charlottesville.]