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The Screaming Moderate

I believe her. Mostly.

6/29/2022

2 Comments

 
I don’t believe Cassidy Hutchinson intentionally lied on the stand, at all. I believe she testified honestly to what she knows first-hand and to what she heard second-hand.

Why would a 26-year-old just beginning her professional life swear an oath to tell the truth, with millions of eyes and ears watching and listening, live, and then lie about the most mob-bossy president we’ve ever known?

Why would she lie when she risked any political capital she may have had? Why would she lie in the face of what I'm sure were -- and are  -- death threats aimed at her?

Why would she lie even heading to other careers where future bosses might hesitate because she lied about a former president?

Answer: are you kidding me? Of course she wouldn’t lie.

Some of her testimony needs corroboration. The attack by the former president on a Secret Service agent needs corroboration. Already there are reports the agents involved are willing to testify that the former president did not go for the steering wheel or his lead agent’s throat. That's information she got in a conversation with a deputy chief of staff (who was an agent himself) and with the lead agent who was in the room. Why she’d make that up, I don’t know.

Because that was but a pebble in her earthquake testimony,

She dropped boulders, like Trump knowing “his people” were carrying weapons on Jan. 6. But they weren’t there to “hurt” him so it was okay.

He knew who they might hurt though.

Another boulder was former New York City hero Rudy Giuliani who is ending his career as nothing but a lackey for a narcissistic president. Giuliani didn’t even have enough sense to keep his mouth shut when talking to Hutchinson who was walking him to his car (not sure why he needed escorting). And if she was so low-level why would Giuliani raise the coming insurrection with her?

Donald Trump’s feeble attempts to say he hardly knew her, she has horrible handwriting, and she wanted to go to Mar-a-Lago with his team don’t cut it. We’ve heard them all before. He’s lied every time about friends or acquaintances who were loyal to him, until they weren’t.

Even his former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, says he believes her.

Fact is, for most of us Trump has no credibility whatsoever. If he told the truth, we’d think he’s lying.

Plus, efforts to make her sound like an unimportant go-fer staff member are weak. Anyone who has been in the West Wing knows that the space, especially on the floor with the Oval Office, is very small. Many offices are small to fit more in. It is highly sought after real estate and sends a message to others that you are, literally, steps from the Oval Office.

Unimportant people aren’t put steps from the Oval.

She was not unimportant, especially to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who trusted her with attending very high-level meetings with him. Again, not a job lightly assigned, especially at the level Meadows was operating. Especially with top secret matters on the agenda.

The fact that this young woman – she just turned 26-years-old – sat in that hearing room and answered questions without her hands or voice shaking, answers she knew would upset further an already upset former president to whom loyalty is everything, was not lying. 

Trump may think that’s an easy thing to pull off, since he pulls it off all the time.  

Most people don’t raise their hand and take an oath to tell the truth and then lie. Not with the consequences at stake.

To prove that you just had to see that video of former Trump National Security Advisor Micheal Flynn, with his attorney at his elbow, taking the Fifth even to the question of whether he thinks the violence on Jan. 6th was justified. The Fifth! If that showed anything, it showed that, at least, Flynn swearing to tell the truth was rife with consequences for him if he lied. So he avoided lying.

And as Trump said in 2015, if you take the Fifth, you’re guilty.

Which explains why he’s not testifying to straighten out the record that he claims needs straightening. But it doesn’t need straightening out.

Just ask someone you can trust.

Like Cassidy Hutchison.

2 Comments

Abortion. Complicated? Or not?

6/25/2022

1 Comment

 
The U.S. Supreme Court throwing out the precedent-setting Roe v. Wade ruling obviously draws strong feelings on both sides of the issue.  Some say is a complicated issue.

Many of us grew up believing that the Court would never take away a right it had in the past “given” to the American people, or ruled constitutional. And, if abortion has a moral aspect to it, I always viewed that as a religious aspect, and the Constitution grants us freedom of religion. Or to believe in nothing if you choose.

All the talk about Roe being decided badly by prior courts is balderdash.

Subsequent courts reaffirmed the decision which was, by the way, a ruling made nearly 50 years ago by a court majority comprised of seven votes, five of whom were nominated by Republican presidents.

Ironic, in a sense, that yesterday’s decision to toss out that precedent was made by five justices nominated by Republican presidents. Interesting looking at life through America’s 2022 political lens and how different the Republican Party is from itself 50 years ago, or even 15 years ago.

The decision also demonstrates that America, which is a democracy -- majority rules -- now is governed almost completely by a minority:


  • The justices who voted to throw out Roe, were nominated by Republican presidents, most of whom were elected without winning the popular vote.
  • A strong majority of Americans (Democrats and Republicans) opposed throwing out Roe but a minority of Americans won the day.
  • A minority of one (Sen. Mitch McConnell) held up President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland,  until an election could take place which chose a Republican, who McConnell knew would appoint a justice he supported, one that would vote to overthrow Roe.
  • Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who voted for Justice Neal Gorsuch, a key player in the Roe decision, is the single vote (for the most part) controlling legislation on the Democratic side these days.
  • The minority in America supported the other Supreme Court decision last week approving the carrying of concealed weapons.

Sens. Manchin and “moderate” Republican Susan Collins of Maine have said they were “misled” by nominees for the court who strongly implied, and some would say outright said, they were not the types to overthrow precedent or Roe.

But those justices were exactly that type when judgement day came.

Did they lie when they testified to Congress? Many nominees in their confirmation hearings hedge the truth, by a lot. Now, nominees’ answers are “nuanced,” to say the least.

If Collins and/or Manchin, or others, think the nominees lied in their Congressional hearings, they should file articles of impeachment against the justice(s) rather than whine they were “misled.” This is much too big a deal to whine and not investigate your options.

Justice Clarence Thomas, key to the decision we got, said that there are other rights we have under the Constitution and Court rulings that should be reviewed. Like same-sex marriage. Like access to contraceptives. Like same-sex relationships.

Republican colleagues of his went out of their way to say this decision did not presage overturning other “rights.” Um hmm.

One precedent Thomas neglected to mention is Loving v. Virginia which holds that the Court ruled laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses. Thomas is in an interracial marriage. He is married to Ginny Thomas whose role in former President Trump’s coup attempt is still being investigated. Think he’ll upend his marriage by ruling it unconstitutional?

Curious, too, that Thomas rarely spoke in Court hearings and never asked questions. Until he was in the majority. Now you can’t shut him up.

Most importantly, different religions treat abortion in different ways. The Constitution - in it's original wording (no interpretation required) gives us all freedom of religion. Some religions believe abortion is wrong and contrary to the teachings of their religion. They clearly are among the minority that wanted Roe overthrown.

Other religions, though, don’t teach that.

For example, the Jewish Talmud, the text most central to Jewish law, states that a fetus is “mere water” and not granted person-hood until birth.

That belief doesn’t hold that everyone must adhere to it. Clearly other religions beliefs must be respected. But the Jewish belief, too, must be respected as much as those religions who ban abortion in the free America we know and love(d). 

If we are to have freedom of religion, then choice in abortions is the right American law:

Choose it if you want. Don’t choose if you don’t.

Overall, not really that complicated.


1 Comment

As the Beatles said, I say it's my birthday

6/9/2022

8 Comments

 
 I turn 72 today.

Lordy.

Let me get two things out of the way:
  1. Getting older is way better than the alternative.
  2. I’m luckier than most, I know. I have a fabulous, smart, loving wife. I have three great daughters who gave me six beautiful grandchildren one of whom gave me, so far, one adorable great-granddaughter.

Ok, moving along.

I had a good career with jobs that were fun, challenging and rewarding. I retired about eight years ago and adapted to retired life quite quickly. And, I’m very good at being retired; I think I found my calling!

I live in a fabulous location. I’m having a good life. I have issues all old(er) folks have: the hearing aid arrives next week; the cataracts were done a couple years ago;  I had a stroke nearly 20 years ago that, thankfully, left few long-term issues.

I have more doctors than I have shoes. And my annual visits to doctors now take about a month to fit in rather than the one-and-done annual physical of years ago.

In short, lots more people have a lot more to complain about than I do.

I do have a few complaints, but they’re really not about me:
  • I wish our politics weren’t so divided and painful to watch
  • I wish there were more of us who answer policy issues with “let’s talk about it” than those who respond with immovable “yesses” or “no’s”
  • I wish kids weren’t brutally killed in their classrooms or anywhere for that matter
  • I wish people were not brutally killed while they were praying or getting groceries or, again, anywhere for that matter
  • I wish an 11-year-old girl didn’t have to smear herself with her best friend’s blood to survive a mass shooting
 Mostly, I wish wishes came true.


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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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