Cleveland.com

Here is a good Letter from the Editor of cleveland.com. Truth is still going to win, eventually, no matter how long Trump & Co try to delay things. Bravo for this Letter! Although it SHOULD be so commonplace as to need no cheers.

Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts: Letter from the Editor

• Published: Mar. 30, 2024, 8:16 a.m.

By 
• Chris Quinn, Editor, cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer

A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy:

Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian.

I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him.

The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator.

The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump.

This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle is hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.

The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.

As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.

Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it?

The March 25 edition of the New Yorker magazine offers some insight. It includes a detailed review of a new book about Adolf Hitler, focused on the year 1932. It’s called “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” and is by historian Timothy W. Ryback. It explains how German leaders – including some in the media -- thought they could use Hitler as a means to get power for themselves and were willing to look past his obvious deficiencies to get where they wanted. In tolerating and using Hitler as a means to an end, they helped create the monstrous dictator responsible for millions of deaths.

How are those German leaders different from people in Congress saying the election was stolen or that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection aimed at destroying our government? They know the truth, but they deny it. They see Trump as a means to an end – power for themselves and their “team” – even if it means repeatedly telling lies.

Sadly, many believe the lies. They trust people in authority, without questioning the obvious discrepancies or relying on their own eyes. These are the people who take offense to the truths we tell about Trump. No one in our newsroom gets up in the morning wanting to make a segment of readers feel bad. No one seeks to demean anyone. We understand what a privilege it is to be welcomed into the lives of the millions of people who visit our platforms each month for news, sports and entertainment. But our duty is to the truth.

Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany.

I hope not.

In our newsroom, we’ll do our part. Much as it offends some who read us, we will continue to tell the truth about Trump.

I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com

Thanks for reading.

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Jeff Tiedrich

Jeff is always a hoot. He piles on the invective, ridicule and profanity so you don't have to, unless you want to. For some reason, however, Jeff formats his stuff so strangely that its becomes hard to republish. Possibly very smart. So, I've just posted the first 2 paragraphs of Jeff's latest column. To read the rest, and you should, click on the Original link below.

what kind of dipshit buys a bible from a racist adulterer 

there’s no bottom to this greasy little grifter’s barrel

JEFF TIEDRICH

MAR 28, 2024

Little Donny Fuckface is what would happen if the seven Deadly Sins became a real boy. let’s run through the list: pride — yup. greed — you betcha. lust — just ask Ivanka. envy — no shit. gluttony — have you seen his waistline? wrath — ducked any ketchup bottles lately? sloth — the lazy fuck drives his golf cart right up onto the green.

so it’s only natural that the quadrice-indicted twice-impeached popular-vote-losing adderall-huffing insurrection-leading testimony-ducking judge-threatening lawyer-ignoring witness-tampering day-one-dictatoring disabled-veteran-dishonoring inheritance-squandering rube-fleecing clown-makeup-smearing language-mangling serial-sexual-predating draft-dodging casino-bankrupting butler-bullying daughter-perving hush-money-paying real-estate-scamming bone-spur-faking ketchup-hurling justice-obstructing classified-war-plan-thieving golf-cheating weather-map-defacing horse-paste-promoting paper-towel-flinging race-baiting tax-evading evidence-destroying charity-defrauding money-laundering diaper-filling 88-count fluorescent tangerine felony factory is hawking Bibles now.

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Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower has been a staunch progressive forever and a favorite of mine even before the Rolling Thunder Down-Home Democracy Tour spawned by Shrubya Bush. Jim has been fighting the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought to Be for many years. You can find Jim on the Creators website linked below.

Should We Be Polite as the GOP Stomps on Our Democratic Rights?

Jim Hightower

March 27, 2024

When a fox attacks a hen house, is it uncivil for the hens to raise a ruckus?

Two Supreme Court justices say it is. Elevating collegiality above social justice, right-wing extremist Amy Coney Barrett and progressive jurist Sonia Sotomayor have jointly been hailing America's top court as a model of genteel political discourse, claiming that the six Republicans and three Democrats disagree agreeably. "We do not interrupt one another, and we never raise our voices," Barrett primly lectured to a recent conference of civics teachers. Sotomayor chimed in that court decorum frowns on any internal comments that "could be viewed (by other justices) as hurtful."

How sweet that the Supremes are so judiciously cordial inside their marble sanctuary. But how bitter that the court's lockstep Republican ideologues are so crudely slapping down women's rights, running roughshod over our environmental protections, stomping on voting rights, enthroning plutocracy, imposing theocracy ... and so awful much more. Yet, when any of the three progressive justices do publicly assail these blatantly partisan, anti-democratic edicts, Barrett decorously decries their "stridency," demurely chiding that "the court should turn the national temperature down, not up."

Yoo-hoo, Madame Supreme, can you even hear yourself? Your very elevation to the High Court was a strident affront to our democracy and to the very idea of justice, rammed through in a flagrantly partisan power play by a lame-duck president and a corrupt Republican senator. Please, spare us your phony lectures on judicial propriety!

America would still be an English colony if the rebels of 1776 had not "stridently" risen up and impolitely confronted the kind of elitist governmental authoritarianism that Barrett & Co. wants to re-impose on us. Come on, progressives — get rude! Democracy demands that we be confrontational ... not courtly.

HOW OILY IS BIG OIL'S LATEST PR CAMPAIGN?

If you're concerned about fossil fuels and climate change, consider an energy source that, according to its backers, will make everyday living "comfortable and healthier."

What is this miraculous substance? Oil.

Huh? Yes, that filthy scourge of our planet and health is being ballyhooed as our globe's energy and environmental salvation! By whom? Of course: The American Petroleum Institute, the powerhouse lobbying front for ExxonMobil and other petro-profiteers. API recently bragged that it will pour tens of millions of dollars into a PR blitz during this year's presidential election to demonize clean energy sources and demand that government promote more fossil fuel production. 

API's campaign slogan is "Lights On Energy" — but the luminosity of its media message is mighty dim. Start with the fact that Big Oil has zero public credibility, having routinely gouged us on prices for years and knowingly lied to us for decades about not causing climate change.

Second, the demand by oil barons that government "quit intruding into the free market" by encouraging alternative energy is a whiney embarrassment. Hello — for more than a century, oil corporations have gorged on billions and billions of dollars in taxpayer handouts, and the fossil fuel industry received $757 billion of incentives in 2023! (Didn't their mommas ever teach them not to talk with their mouths full?)

Also pathetic is their partisan wail that President Joe Biden is restricting their production and profits. Hello again: U.S. oil production reached a record high last year, Big Oil's profits are soaring, and they're now jacking up our gas prices again. Meanwhile, 2023 was the hottest year our globe ever recorded.

Let's reflect the heat back on these greedheads. For facts and action items, go to fossilfree4health.org.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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Noel Casler

Noel Casler's writings can be found on Substack. I wonder how long before some right-wing billionaire tries to buy out (and destroy) Substack?

'I Think We're Alone Now'

by Noel Casler

March 24, 2024

Time can be a healer or a hindrance. 

In the case of Donald J. Trump vs. the D.O.J. it seems to be benefiting the former and frustrating the latter.

‘Time is NOT on our side’ I would shout into my car rants, of which I did many on this subject early into AG Merrick Garland’s tenure. 

I am admittedly no legal expert but most assuredly I am an informal one on Donald Trump - and that is the last guy you want to let run out the clock.

Trump has spent his lifetime using the courts as a weapon - on both sides of lawsuits. 

The fact that he had been involved in over 4,000 suits BEFORE he became POTUS was to me one of the most serious indictments of the man’s character - and it seemingly went unremarked upon in mainstream media. 

Now here we are with a good chance he may be able to stall several of his cases until after the election. 

With help from a Supreme Court that he stacked with Federalist Society stooges and charlatans, and a District Judge that appears to be the judicial equivalent of a dirty bomb. 

Aileen Cannon will blow up the government’s chances of prosecuting Trump on the stolen documents case before the American people head to the polls in perhaps the most consequential election of our lifetime.

That’s not justice anyway you spin it but the hampering and corruption of justice - and that’s how Trump has always been taught to play it. 

From his days with Roy Cohn and the sleazy tricks Trump picked up from him - through the latest round of grifters and strip mall legal eagles that appear as if Trump found them in a ‘hot lawyer’ google search - the former president has all too often gotten away with making the courts proceed on his timeline. 

In essence, he has found his ‘battle rhythm’ while the D.O.J. has not; Jack Smith though seems like a man who has moved with alacrity and has wasted no time, my only wish is that he had been appointed earlier so there would be much more of it. 

The thing you need to understand most about Donald Trump is there is probably nothing more enticing to him at this moment than the idea of being called and becoming a ‘Strongman’. 

It distills his political ambitions into a succinct and stupefyingly simple ideology: that of the corrupt bully with an almost paranoiac sense of insecurity roiling just below his paper-thin skin. 

In Trump it scratches an itch that runs much deeper than even his greed, lust for power and considerable criminal and financial exposure demand. 

It goes much deeper - and aims at a core defect of perhaps the most twisted man to ever occupy the American cultural and political stage. 

That is the desire to lash out, seek retribution and punish those he feels have slighted him. 

Slights could be something as simple as reflecting back to Trump his own insecurities and shortcomings. 

The former reality TV star doesn’t like anyone around him to get more attention that he does, it is a direct threat in his warped mind. 

Guys like Mitt Romney, better looking, with real hair and real money, never stood a chance working alongside of him in Washington - and it is why Trump chased anyone who wasn’t a complete toadstool out of the Republican Party. 

He will do the same to the United States as a whole if he is ever returned to power.

 

Any group Trump views as undesirable will come under attack by his increasingly intolerant and well-armed base of absolute morons.

 

And while they are indeed morons, they’re a new breed of wretched and hyper-connected morons being exposed to a level of brainwashing that frankly we have not seen the likes of before.

 

The salute to the ‘January 6th hostages’ - while music played in the background and Trump stood saluting as the recited in ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ - in a video that Donald himself produced - was downright chilling once you got past the clownish absurdity of it all. 

The former president went on, of course, to call migrants ‘not people’ and promised ‘a bloodbath for this country’ if he was not re-elected. 

An attempt to walk back the violent rhetoric by claiming it was meant to discuss only the ‘automobile industry’ is a classic Trump tactic; subterfuge that his supporters can use in the conservative ecosphere to push back in the larger media climate. 

While the message still resonates and reaches its intended audience.

 

Much like his “Stand back and stand by” directive to the Proud Boys during a presidential debate in 2020. 

Or his words on the morning of January 6th - when he knew the clock was ticking on voter certification and he was jumping out of his saggy orange skin to get in front of an armed MAGA crowd and fire up their march to the US Capitol - but Secret Service magnetometers were slowing entry to the Ellipse. 

“I don’t f*king care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f*cking mags away” Trump said that morning, as related in Congressional testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson. 

In my opinion he should have been arrested shortly after uttering those words - as it fully showed his intent and his lack of interest in the rule of law - not to mention his goal of overturning and election and staying in power. 

Its almost an affront to the senses that we are once again faced with such a villain leading a political party.

A gutless, hollowed-out party made up of midway freaks and grifters that are only here to scam and self-enrich - and appear to be multiplying as the avenues to share information on progressive candidates and actual fact-based news reporting is shrinking. 

Most especially in the markets that the GOP and the dark money behind conservative politics has been mining. 

This could pose very real strategic advantages for conservatives should they seek a repeat of Trump’s post-2020 election strategy which was an attempted heist of democracy itself. 

Has MSNBC gamed-out a potential ‘long game’ play where Ronna McDaniel is on air this coming election night when Trump inevitably starts claiming the election was stolen and urges MAGA to take action on his behalf? 

If she were to even give slight deference to such incendiary statements on NBC News in a high-stakes moment like election night it could be very dangerous. 

There is nothing in Ronna McDaniel’s past behavior that says she would not do that since she was all too happy to push fraudulent elector schemes on behalf of her old boss in 2020. 

The fact that she is being rewarded with a 300K on-air contributor contract by NBC News just weeks after the monster she helped protect for many years pushed her out at the RNC (and replaced her with Lara Trump), a move itself that was reported on as signs of obvious corruption at MSNBC, shows how much money has replaced morality in much of our media landscape. 

In the end it will come down to us a people showing up and voting. 

Our greatest resource as a nation is our ability to mobilize and work together for the greater good. 

Our finest moments have always sprung from a similar stream. 

The cool waters of consciousness and empathy will serve us better than the bubbling cauldron of hate and the headwaters of bile being served up by men who claim to build but can only destroy. 

For they lack both vision and skill and make up for it with bluster and sleight of oh-so-tiny hand. 

There is a clear path ahead and while it may not be easy, it will represent progress and a further push forward towards equality for all, and economic justice and empathy in our politics and policy. 

That path is clear. 

Vote Blue.

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