The hagiography of some reporting at the time of his death does a disservice to both history and the future. And, of course, there are other "blots" to note.

His investigation of the My Lai massacre resulted in his characterization of events as, essentially, boys will be boys; there were only good relationships between the Americans and the Vietnamese. Some saw it as a whitewash.

As President Clinton's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inherited from Daddy Bush, Powell openly and publicly spoke against Clinton's plan to allow individuals of any sexual orientation serve in the military. His behavior was close, if not actually, insubordination. "Unit Cohesion" was his code name and resulted in President Clinton having to go to a military base and rescind his proposal.

 In its stead, was the odious Don't Ask, Don't Tell. A policy that affected the lives of many gay men and women in military service, only now fully being rectified with changes in discharge status and veteran benefits. And, of course, put the military at a disadvantage when translators, many who were gay, were needed in the Iraq war.

Less well known, was Powell's role in helping out his boss, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. During the Iran-Contra Investigation, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, found that Weinberger was  untruthful regarding records and a diary.

 In 1987 Powell, then his senior military assistant, in sworn deposition, testified that to his knowledge Weinberger did not keep a diary. Four years later, Walsh found he did keep a diary. in 1992, contradicting his statement in another sworn deposition that he observed a diary.  Indeed, Powell helped Weinberger maintain a diary of events. All to support Weinberger's current story.  

Not surprising to viewers of Republican members at hearings such as the former guy's impeachments. It is my hope, however, that Mr. Garland will have been disabused, if need be, of the notion that the Republican Party is a real American political party.

After a long career of being referred to as "your honor", all standing on his entry, along with other graces of judicial and public office, his disrespectful, if not contemptuous, treatment may be a needed eye-opener.

Attorney General Garland is a well-credentialed man of integrity. His demeanor lawyerly and his temperament between cautious and measured. I am hopeful that beneath his gentlemanly presence is  steely fortitude.   He, and the democracy, need it.

 I remember you well in the Willard Hotel
You n Rudy n Steve and Bernard
Givin' us head on the unmade bed
Desperate to push the canard

Those were the reason an' that was DC
We were runnin' for the money and the cult
And that was called treason by anyone sane
Probably still is for those of them left

Ah, but you got away with it, didn't you, baby?
You whipped up and urged on the crowd
You got away, I never once heard you say
This is crazy
This is treason
And all of that jiving around

I remember you well in Willard Hotel
You were famous, your pud  a mushroom
You told me again you don't talk to the help
But for me you would make an exception

And clenching your fist for the ones like us
Who oppress and betray and deny
You fixed yourself, you said: Well, never mind
It'll be ugly but we'll make it fly.

And you got away with it, didn't you, baby?
You whipped up and urged on the crowd
You got away, I never once heard you say
This is crazy
This is treason
And all of that jiving around

Texas state Rep. Matt Krause (R) "has launched an investigation into Texas school districts over the type of books they have, particularly if they pertain to race or sexuality or `make students feel discomfort,'" the Texas Tribune reports.

"Krause's letter provides a 16-page list of about 850 book titles and asks the districts if they have these books, how many copies they have and how much money they spent on the books."

IMO yard signs are stupid.  I have never placed a yard sign or a bumper sticker.   And I always vote.  Pretty sure I'm not alone.

Another man said he had been commenting online about the case since it happened, then began talking about his support for the Second Amendment. Schroeder stopped him.

"I've said it before and I'm going to say it again, this is not a political trial," Schroeder said. "To the extent that this trial is about the Constitution, it's about the right to a fair trial."

The juror was seated.  After he told the judge he did not think he could be fair.

A woman was dismissed because she said she thought the fact he had an assault weapon probably meant he was there to use it.

This same judge said the dead people could not be called victims but COULD be called rioters, looters or arsonists.

Republicans have built their church on this BS.  Not just CRT but Dr Seuss, caravans, emails, whatever the outrage of the moment is.  Democrats have to find a better way of responding to this and stop assuming people are not this stupid.

Having initially escaped ARVN's assault on Gia Long Palace (the presidential residence) in Saigon via an underground tunnel, Diem, his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu and two loyalists took refuge at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Cholon district. In a subsequent phone call the following day to the American embassy from Cholon, Diem was induced to surrender by U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge with a promise of exile for him and his family in a country to be determined.

However, once they were in the custody of ARVN soldiers, both Ngo brothers were summarily executed without trial by gunfire and bayonets on direct orders of one of ARVN's coup leaders, Gen. Duong Vanh Minh. At Ambassador Lodge's direction, U.S. embassy personnel dutifully but erroneously reported Gen. Minh's false assurances that the brothers had committed suicide to the State Dept. in Washington.

The bodies of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were returned to Saigon, where they were hastily buried in unmarked graves at the French colonial cemetery of Mac Dinh Chi, which ironically was located next to what was then Ambassador Lodge's own personal residence.

In 1983, Vietnam's communist government declared Mac Ding Chi Cemetery to be a corrupt vestige of the country's French colonial past and gave family members of that cemetery's deceased residents two months to exhume and relocate their remains elsewhere. The Ngo family had the bodies of Diem and Nhu disinterred and reburied at Lai Thieu, the French military cemetery in Binh Duong Province, 16 miles from present-day Ho Chi Ming City.

Thinking of my own father on this day, who was a USMC officer serving as a counterinsurgency expert with MACV in South Vietnam. Back then, he had led his attached unit, the 4th Vietnamese Marine Battalion, into Saigon and deployed his men outside Gia Long Palace before withdrawing himself to the nearby U.S. embassy just prior to the initial assault, so as to avoid any later claim of U.S. involvement in the sad events of that day and next.

Although he subsequently lamented and quickly regretted his own role in helping to facilitate the ARVN military coup in a letter to my mother dated Nov. 5, 1963, in which he openly mused about resigning his commission in protest, my father would continue serving in his capacity as MACV counterinsurgency advisor until he lost his own life 103 days later, while attempting to thwart a Viet Cong terrorist attack on the Capital Kinh Do movie theater within Saigon's American compound, which was then located a few blocks south of Gia Long Palace. He's buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

May all those who died in the tragic folly that was the Vietnam War rest in peace, and may the rest of us finally if belatedly absorb the obvious and costly lessons of our country's grievously misguided efforts in that misbegotten conflict.

When Democrats lose, they blame--eac other.

This year's "education" and critical race theory are last cycle's "economic anxiety".

 When the electorate feels they are not getting improvements in their lives from Democrats in nine months of holding office,, they turn to Republicans who they know will do nothing for them.

A. non- embarrassing Trumpist makeover with swastikas covered over and without orange makeup is in vogue.

It's been a long time coming, but Michelle Wu has also been playing the long game building her visibility over time.  Meanwhile, her opponent leaned hard on her "Boston" cred, leaned into the accent, leaned into being raised in the city, leaned into the Boston stereotype as hard as she could and the end result wasn't even close as voters rejected that message loud and clear.

As I assert, the Republican Party is not a legitimate political American Party and should not be treated as such.  It had no platform in 2020 because it needs none, It's policy is to do whatever it's authoritarian criminal leader wants done. Youngkin was not exactly what they wanted. But he will do. A bullhorn of racism is preferred to a dog whistle.  But, the media is exclaiming Youngkin as the answer to Trumpism-- a less vulgar fascist.  Youngkin pledges never again to close schools.  He won't have to with the progress made on the pandemic and now, children vaccinations.  

"Dow is over 36,000. Unemployment has dropped from 6.3% in Jan. to 4.8%. Over 5 million jobs added, a record. 220 million vaccines in 10 months. And only 30% of country think US is on right track. The Democratic Party has a huge messaging problem."

-- Former GOP strategist Stuart Stevens, on Twitter.

You know, after 20 months of really trying to do the right thing by my fellow Americans during a pandemic that's now killed over 750,000 of us, I simply have no more f*cks to offer these antivax Scheisskopfs, who've all loudly and arrogantly proclaimed that there is no us in them because - surprise! - there never was any us in them, nor will there ever be.

So, f*ck Aaron Rodgers, and f*ck these sports journalists and pundits who prioritize football over COVID by trying to downplay his despicable public statements. If he gets sick, and / or the NFL suspends him for having both openly mocked league protocols and recklessly exposed players and coaches with his self-absorbed behavior, he will have brought it on himself.

After presenting his ID, the voting official told the boy he needed to be 18 to vote in Virginia.  The official did offer him the opportunity to register to vote for when he hit 18, but he declined and left the polling place.

Young Youngkin returned in 20 minutes and insisted he be allowed to vote because he said, a friend also 17, had been allowed to vote. He was, once again, told he was not eligible.

Since Youngkin, the older, campaigned on "education" he should now champion the teaching of Civics in Virginia schools putting it top on a "parent centered" educational task force.

It says I'm "outsider left"

Powell became the first Black national security adviser, the first Black chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff and after his retirement from active duty, later served as President George W. Bush's first secretary of State.

Those acknowledgements out of the way, it must be noted that when then-Sec. of State Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations General Assembly in 2003 and offered what we now know to be a false pretext for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, which ultimately led to the deaths over 125,000 Iraqis and nearly 5,000 U.S. military personnel, he became complicit in a war crime.

There is some question whether the Bush administration ever fully shared with Powell the truth about Iraqi WMD before he went to New York to cloak the flimsy U.S. rationale for invasion with his highly regarded persona, which was forever stained by that embarrassing and shameful performance. The U.N. declined to sanction the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

Apparently Powell had harbored significant doubts about the veracity of the case he made to the U.N. But rather than be a good soldier and resign his position as Secretary of State, he played the loyal soldier by allowing the Bush administration to piggyback off his good name for its own short-term ends, and he consequently paid a price for it.

Powell later expressed regret, in obvious retrospect, for what happened in Iraq. But while he was still held in high esteem in many circles in D.C., his public reputation for being a straight shooter never fully recovered from that foreign policy and diplomatic debacle.

Now, personally speaking, I believe few people deserve to have others define their lives solely by their biggest mistakes and regrets. But as errors go, the Iraq War was a significant one - the foreign policy equivalent of an own goal, so to speak.

To discuss Colin Powell's significant legacy of military and public service without any mention of Iraq would be a disservice to that otherwise-honorable man. And I'm of no doubt that he knew and accepted it. That's why in the Bush administration, he stood out as a Mensch amongst toadies, and why he exited public life with more than his fair share of warts, thanks to the company he kept.

Supreme Court will consider fast track appeal of Texas abortion law

So, you can now make that "WAS Washington State's head football coach." Because per the governor's earlier directive, Coach Rolo was fired today by WSU, halfway through the season despite the Cougars having posted a 4-3 record thus far, including three straight victories over Cal, Oregon State and Stanford just prior to his dismissal.

Yes, Rolo's a Republican who voted for Trump, but he's still my friend, who I've known for over 20 years. I'm just incredibly embarrassed for him. To be perfectly blunt, Rolo's refusal to get vaccinated was an absolutely insane reason for him to have first risked his dream job, and then lost it. He arrived in Pullman, WA in Jan. 2020 with a reputation as a fun-loving guy who instilled in his players a winning attitude. He's now departing with the label "anti-vax crackpot" attached to his professional credentials.

As I noted earlier in other threads, the time for asking people nicely to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is over. Now, it's about the consequences for such willful defiance. I just never figured that such consequences would come raining down upon the head of someone I've known for a long time. I really thought Rolo was smarter than that.

While Gov. Inslee will no doubt receive a lot of flack - particularly from the football-loving WSU alumni association - for Rolo's ouster, kudos to him for holding firm and not making exceptions. I feel very bad for my friend, but he left WSU with no choice but to follow through on Inslee's order and terminate him.

Homicide Charges Recommended Against Bolsonaro

October 19, 2021 at 3:39 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 45 Comments

"A Brazilian congressional panel is set to recommend mass homicide charges against President Jair Bolsonaro, asserting that he intentionally let the coronavirus rip through the country and kill hundreds of thousands in a failed bid to achieve herd immunity and revive Latin America's largest economy," the New York Times reports.

"The extraordinary accusations appear in a nearly 1,200-page report that effectively blames Mr. Bolsonaro's policies for the deaths of more than 300,000 Brazilians, half of the nation's coronavirus death toll, and urges the Brazilian authorities to imprison the president."

So, they are going to change the name of Facebook.  
Why?  I mean i understand why.  But really, why?  Do they seriously think that will change anything.  Other than the name.  I agree with Rick Wilson they can call it Miss Mary Sunshine's Cute Kitten Memetown  and it will still be exactly what its always been.

Sinema Agrees to Broad Tax Hike Outline to Fund Biden Agenda

Defending Trump's Letter to the Editor

October 28, 2021 at 4:27 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 125 Comments

The Wall Street Journal defends running a letter to the editor from Donald Trump arguing that the 2020 election in Pennsylvania was stolen:

"We trust our readers to make up their own minds about his statement. And we think it's news when an ex-President who may run in 2024 wrote what he did, even if (or perhaps especially if) his claims are bananas."

What was not unanimous, and showed a big split, was whether to just remove the offending books or to remove such books and then burn them. The leader of the burn faction wants to read such books first to check them out and then burn them.

The concerns seemed to focus specifically on a young adult fiction book called "33 Snowfish" by Adam Rapp, which is about runaways and has LGBT themes. A school board member claimed that having Rapp's book on its shelves means that the schools "would rather have our kids reading gay porn than about Christ."  

Quote of the Day

November 11, 2021 at 9:45 am EST By Taegan Goddard 39 Comments

"I'm really worried about a return of Donald Trump this time, because this time, the Velociraptors have figured out how to work the doorknobs."

-- Former Bush speechwriter David Frum, in a conversation with Matt Lewis, on why Donald Trump's second term would be even worse.