Last week a Russian colonel was shot five times in the chest. Suicide.
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| Maria Yankina, a victim of a window. |
Maria Yankina, 58, was the woman who fell. It was an "accident." Valdim Boiko, 44, was ruled to have "self-executed" himself.
I put accident and self-executed in quotation marks because everyone knows better. The cause of death ruling is pretext. Putin is sending out warnings with unmistakable and literal body language. The cliche of pirates is that "dead men tell no tales." In reality dead bodies tell an unmistakable message. Don't get on the wrong side of Putin. A public hanging or firing squad would force people to acknowledge the truth. This way people can know but pretend they don't.
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| "I see nothing. I hear nothing." |
My own congressman, U.S. Representative Cliff Bentz, Republican, is unexceptional in his caucus. He has started his second term as a U.S. Representative in a solidly red district. He is a lawyer, White, male, a long-time conservative Republican who quietly made the transition from Reagan, Bush and Romney into Trump-ism. He is pro-gun and pro-life. He supported McCarthy as Speaker. He voted to expel Liz Cheney from GOP leadership. There are no surprises in any of that.
In his first vote in Congress back in 2021 on the evening of January 6 he voted along with a majority of his GOP caucus to disallow the electoral votes of Pennsylvania. He said he deplored the violence earlier that day but “I am committed to listening to the opinions of my constituents." His Republican constituents believed that Trump surely won and Biden surely cheated. Oregon's mail-in balloting has gone off without incident for decades, but Trump and Fox said mailed ballots were rigged and ballots were counted improperly. The public believed them. Governors, the cyber security officials, the Attorney General, and the Justice Department said the election was legitimate, but there was a critical missing part. Fox News kept sowing seeds of doubt. Republicans in the House and Senate, with deep roots and national credibility, mumbled. They were legislators. Policy makers. They did not want to stand in front of a stampede. Cliff Bentz was new. If seasoned Republican legislators weren't telling people that Biden won the election, then who was he to try to turn the stampede? Bentz found a pretext, saying the Pennsylvania Supreme Court must not have understood Pennsylvania election law. He went along with the herd. He needed a pretext.
Cliff Bentz was on local television on Friday. The anchor asked Rep. Bentz if he would support Donald Trump in 2024.
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| KOBI "Five on Five" February 24, 2023 |
One of the challenges for future students of this era will be why it was that so many "normal Republicans," people who stand for the pledge of allegiance, people who say they respect the Constitution, people whose careers have been in the law, have been willing to tolerate behavior in Donald Trump that flagrantly violates the public trust. It was obvious from Bentz's answers that he prefers anyone other than Trump. He was wiggling and squirming. He voiced the opinion that the right candidate would be able to serve a potential eight years, not merely four more. He could not bear to say that Donald Trump is disqualified for office; that he attempted to undermine democracy. He organized a multi-pronged effort to undermine the vote, to get state legislatures to overturn their own voters, to build slates of "alternative electors," to claim falsely that the Justice Department found widespread fraud, and to demand a Vice President throw out ballots. No. That cannot be said aloud. Trump might endorse a primary opponent, the political equivalent of falling from a high window.
GOP leaders go along because they are afraid of the monster their own media created for them. Too few people stood up to object when it mattered. Now the herd is accustomed to being lied to. Officeholders missed their window of opportinity. Now they need to go along. They justify it with pretexts.
Russian leaders can pretend that these two people died by accident and suicide. They need to, to avoid their own high window. GOP leaders can pretend Trump is just another GOP president who did nothing disqualifying.
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11 comments:
Those of his constituents who do believe In The Constitution , the Declaration and have been paying even a modicum of attention, have known Qliff Bentz to be a lying Coward since he was in the Oregon Legislature leading walkout because of the inability of his Caucus to find a single reasonable, factual argument with which to oppose some climate legislation they disagreed with. Leopards don't change their spots, and neither do Drumpf type politicians. Because he is a coward, morally, and probably physically as well, Bentz will go along to get along until the Republic is sundered completely. I'm surprised he showed up on KOBI, instead of the Sinclair owned KTVL. I used to think Walden was deplorable, b I t Bentz make Greg look like FDR or. Winston Churchill.
Comparing Putin’s lies to those of Republicans has a lot of merit. As we speak, Republicans are preparing to withdraw support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, which experts have pointed out is actually a war of democracy vs. autocracy. Republicans made it clear on and after Jan. 6 that they favor autocracy, so why would they want to support a war against it? This really is a pivotal point in history, not only for the U.S. and Ukraine, but for democracy in general.
Also testing. Seems to work now. Will send separate email.
Your test comment appeared.
In a situation like what you describe for your representative, I think I would choose to be something like the Nazi military officers who chose not to stand out and be immediately executed, but instead kept their position and waited, hoping for an opportunity to assassinate der Fuehrer.
Liz Cheney stood up for principle; out the window she went, politically speaking. A noble gesture, but to what effect?
When a large proportion of your political constituency goes nuts, is it better to ride that bull hoping to direct it, or jump off and watch from the sidelines as it continues its rampage?
The more I think about this, the less I am sure which way is better; but my personal inclinations lean towards choosing a potential opportunity for effective action.
ORD2 has about 1/5 of the population of the State. They want to be part of Idaho, which is even less diverse than Oregon. Saying that it's not clear that Idaho wants them.
"House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel (D-Boise) also pointed out that these sparsely populated areas have high rates of Medicaid enrollment, meaning it could be an added expense to Idaho taxpayers.
“These are very, very low-income counties, folks, and if they join Idaho, they’re about to lose one of their top sources of revenue, which is weed sales to Idahoans,” Rubel said."
Yikes!
It's my guess the Democratic Party considers ORD2 a lost cause.
Peter, why do you use the phrase "pro life" when you refer to someone who is against a woman's right to make her own healt care decisions?
Associated Press uses antiabortion, which is the right term.
I think, Rick, that the DNC and DCCC abandoned ORD2 to the tender mercies of the Repugs during Bob Smiths tenure, which was high point of Republicans holding the seat. Bentz is the end result of Republican surrender to Autocracy beginning about the time of St. Ronnie, if not earlier.
It'd be really nice if those in ORD2 so enamored with Idaho would simply move there instead of trying to move Idaho here. In fact, I kind of like MTG's idea of a national divorce. Let the whack jobs with their conspiracy theories and alternative facts have their idiocracy with all the guns and pollution they want.
Bob Smith? What a fine man. One of the only people of either party who was a genuine statesman. For example,I pretty regularly left messages at his telephone, and he pretty regularly returned my calls. We’d have fairly
long conversations. Although we disagreed with much regularity, I think each learned a few things from the other.
ALL other state and federal representatives since then? I’m lucky if the form letters I get in response to my phone calls or emails barely address their subjects. Merkely has started to be a bit more responsive, but just a bit.
I wonder if MTG has ever seen a map of red and blue states. A big problem is how many blue states folks would have to cross two or more, international borders to drive from home to other blue divorcees.
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