Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the effort of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen to convince the federal court to show leniency in his sentencing. While Cohen should get credit for cooperation, it must be balanced against two high countervailing considerations. First, Cohen spent much of the last two years threatening people and obstructing efforts to disclose wrongdoing. Second, he is an officer of the court. Judges generally do not look kindly upon lawyers violating their oaths and becoming vehicles for crimes and wrongdoing.
Here is the column:
Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen is in federal court today, trying to cut one last deal by convincing a judge that he does not deserve a day in jail for knowingly lying to Congress. The reason? Cohen insists that he has shown the “personal resolve, notwithstanding past errors, to repoint his internal compass true north toward a productive, ethical and thoroughly law abiding life.” The assumption is that special counsel Robert Mueller was standing just north of Cohen when he wrote that statement.
Cohen has never shown loyalty to anything or anyone but himself, according to the record compiled in the special counsel investigation. He betrayed the bar, his friends, and his clients whenever it suited his interests. He often planned ahead with moves like secretly taping his clients as a type of evidence nest egg for hard times. This is why I once described Cohen as meeting the classic Sam Houston definition of someone as having “all the characteristics of a dog except loyalty.”
For his own part, President Trump quickly tossed aside any sensible notion of decorum or detachment in demanding that his former friend and lawyer be sent to jail to rot: “You mean he can do all of the TERRIBLE, unrelated to Trump, things having to do with fraud, big loans, taxis, etc., and not serve a long prison term? He makes up stories to get a GREAT & ALREADY reduced deal for himself.” Trump then added: “He lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence.”
Trump seemed oblivious to the fact that the same logic would demand that his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, be sent away for life. Manafort makes Cohen look like a mere piker when it comes to fraud. Where Cohen was an opportunistic thief operating around New York, Manafort was running a one man global criminal enterprise. Yet, Trump has dangled a pardon in front of Manafort, who reportedly defied Mueller and his team in the investigation, as well as complimented Manafort on how he refused “make up stories in order to get a deal” as did Cohen.
However, this is another example of how Trump may be right for the wrong reason. I have been a longtime critic of Cohen and early in the administration recommended that Trump sever ties with him before he metastasized as an existential threat. The president ignored such advice and pulled Cohen even closer, even as his lack of legal skills and ethics snowballed in scandal. The only concern of Cohen is Cohen himself. When Trump promised access to wealth and power, he was his loyal hatchet man, promising to take a bullet for him. When the special counsel discovered his myriad criminal acts, Cohen became a Mueller man.
His “past errors” include victimizing more vulnerable people. He distinguished himself as a thug who threatened journalists, university students, and anyone else deemed a threat to Trump. When he appears for his sentencing, I recommend that the judge read some of his prior statements when his “internal compass” was pointed, as it always was, to his own interests. In 2015, when Harvard Lampoon staffers played a prank on Trump by having him sit in the stolen “president’s chair” from the Harvard Crimson for a photo and an endorsement, Cohen threatened the students with ruin. He is quoted as saying: “I’m gonna come up to Harvard. You’re all gonna get expelled. If this photo gets out, you’ll be outta that school faster than you know it. I can be up there tomorrow.”
Then there was his threat against former Daily Beast reporter Tim Mak, who simply wrote about a biography by former Newsweek reporter Harry Hurt. The biography, titled “Lost Tycoon,” includes allegations in a sworn deposition from Trump’s first wife, Ivana, that Trump raped her. In a phone call recorded by Mak, Cohen told the reporter: “You’re talking about Donald Trump, you’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, a presidential candidate, as well as private individual, who never raped anybody and, of course, understand that by the very definition you can’t rape your spouse,” the latter, of course, being legally incorrect. Cohen declared: “Mark my words for it, I will make sure that you and I meet one day over in the courthouse and I will take you for every penny you still don’t have, and I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else.”
Likewise, that “internal compass” did not seem to twitch as he persuaded AT&T and other companies to give him millions of dollars for access to Trump before his inauguration. Then Cohen decided to offer up Trump to Mueller, he made hundreds of thousands of dollars on GoFundMe as an effective witness for hire for donors who want Trump out of office. This is why the filing for no jail time is a request for leniency that borders on lunacy. The judge in the District of Columbia court should, instead, point Cohen “true north” all the way to the federal lockup in Pennsylvania.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
“Trump, Russia and lessons from the mob: Did ‘godfathers’ steer collusion probe?”
– John Solomon
The Hill
https://itk.thehill.com/opinion/white-house/419193-trump-russia-and-lessons-from-the-mob-did-godfathers-steer-collusion
“Back in the mafia’s heyday, FBI and IRS agents had a set of surveillance rules. If one mobster showed up in town, pay notice. If two arrived, be suspicious. If three or four were in the same vicinity, something was going down. And if five or more headed to the same neck of the woods, a meeting of consiglieri or La Cosa Nostra’s council was likely happening. (This, because there were always five families in New York and some adjunct families elsewhere that made up the council’s leadership.) There also was another rule of thumb: Mobsters would always have the same calling card, or excuse, to be in town. Attending a funeral (the mid-1980s mob meeting in Chicago) or a vacation in the sticks (the infamous 1957 gathering in upstate New York) were some of the more memorable ones.
Early in my reporting that unraveled the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion probe, tying it to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses, I started to see patterns just as in the old mob meetings: FBI or intelligence-connected figures kept showing up in Trump Town USA during the 2016 campaign with a common calling card.
The question now is, who sent them and why?”
______________________________________
The Obama Coup D’etat in America – to serve and perpetuate the “Deep State.”
That’s who and why.
“Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen…”
– Professor Turley
_______________
Did Michael Cohen have only one client over the span of his career?
It appears you, Professor, are “fixing” the liberal case on a continuing basis.
gosh geo you’re as hard on poor turley as the pinkos here. cut the guy some slack
Why did the, at least, medium rare professor selectively include the name of only one of Cohen’s clients? Did Cohen have only one client for whom he “fixed” or otherwise performed? Was Cohen an employee of President Trump or an independent contractor with multiple other clients. “Former Trump fixer…” sounds like an employee. Was that Professor Turley’s intent? I like, “an attorney previously retained by President Trump, Michael Cohen, is in court today…”
you know kind of like when a lawyer practices criminal law then they call him a criminal lawyer; ,,,,, drunk driving lawyer, drug dealer lawyer, mafia lawyer etc. it kind of sucks for lawyers but we can hang!
Yeah, but that’s generic.
This is a political blog with a public audience over which the Professor is exerting significant influence.
And why only “…Trump fixer?”
G,
Slander 2cute by half.
I’m not sure why he does that, but hell somedays I still don’t understand why I say foolish things. 2 each their own.
Meantime in the real news that’s not covered here we more Ph’d everyday then the day before.
naturalnews.com
“Cohen has never shown loyalty to anything or anyone but himself, according to the record compiled in the special counsel investigation. He betrayed the bar, his friends, and his clients whenever it suited his interests. He often planned ahead with moves like secretly taping his clients as a type of evidence nest egg for hard times. This is why I once described Cohen as meeting the classic Sam Houston definition of someone as having “all the characteristics of a dog except loyalty.”
– Professor Turley
_______________
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please allow me to introduce my star witness and fellow attorney, Michael Cohen.”
FWIW, I hear that Michael Cohen is asking that if he is sentenced, that he do his time in the Federal pen at Otisville, New York, which, by helicopter, is about 45 minutes from Broadway. . . Hmmmm. Cohen. 45 minutes from Broadway. . . .Parody Song time!!!
Only 45 Minutes From Broadway???
To the Tune of the Chorus Thereof
A Parody Song by Squeeky Fromm
Only forty-five minutes from Broadway
Think of the changes it brings;
From the Armani suits,
Into prison work boots!
And the laundry and cleaning up things!
Oh! What a fine bunch of cell mates!
Oh! what a gay atmosphere;
I’ll take the top bunk,
Try to protect my junk!
And pray I don’t come out a queer!
Only forty-five minutes from Broadway!
I’ll miss the booze and the chicks!
And nights at Time Square!
I wish I was there!
And not in the pen in the sticks!
Oh! Why did I screw with those floozies!
Why did I lie to the bank???
And my taxes! Oy vey!
I’ll sure miss Broadway!
When I hear those old prison doors, CLANK!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
If you don’t know the melody, then listen here, at the chorus:
Oh my!
i vote for Morgantown WV FCI. They got a nice minsec camp up there i hear
and Appalachia is just the right place for a New Yawka like Cohen
I can just imagine Cohen doing grits. Like in My Cousin Vinny!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Here’s something no one has apparently explained to you, so I’ll do it: there’s a huge difference between writing poetry, which requires artistic talent, appreciation of beauty, insight into poignant things, character, nostalgia, the meaning of life, and limerick writing. You are not poet. You have no poetic talent. You just write dumb rhyming limericks–and not even good ones. Some limericks are clever and funny. Yours are not. You routinely show your pathetic ignorance, racism, xenophobia and homophobia, none of which is the stuff of poetry.
Everybody’s a critic!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky:
Well, I like them and I won the St. James Poetry Prize in elementary school and the most creative “Reading is Fun” poster award!! So there, Anonymous.
Thank you, Mespo! I knew that somebody who is truly smart like you would appreciate my stuff! Fie on anonymous!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Anonymous prefers fanciful poems that vomit flower petals.
Darren,
Just wanted to let you know I was able to fix the email notification problem I was having for new comments.
I went into WordPress and discovered it didn’t show I was following this blog. What is odd is I would receive email notifications of JT’s new posts daily but not the other. Anyway, all I needed to do was put in the URL for this blog and then select follow.
Glad that it’s working for you Olly. Thanks for letting me know the specifics as to what happened in your case in the event someone else asks with a similar problem.
🙂
“…fanciful poems that vomit flower petals.”
Hear, hear! May I plagiarize that, with attribution, of course?
have at it. no attribution needed
mespo – since you slapped your credentials on the table like that, I was in Honors English Lit and I love Squeeky’s poetry. However, I also love Troma film productions, so you have to take that into account. 😉
Troma, oh those hazardous waste creature, what was his name?
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – The Toxic Avenger. 😉
That’s right! I get him and Misty Mundae mixed up all the time! My last boyfriend was big into both of them.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – can I just say your last bf had good taste in both girl friends and films. 😉
PaulCS
Plus, thank you for liking my stuff!!!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
wiki says of another ancient poet hater, the Greek Archilochus, who wrote following about a coward who threw down his shield and ran:
Although his work now only survives in fragments, he was revered by the ancient Greeks as one of their most brilliant authors, able to be mentioned in the same breath as Homer and Hesiod,[6] yet he was also censured by them as the archetypal poet of blame[7]—his invectives were even said to have driven his former fiancée and her father to suicide. He presented himself as a man of few illusions either in war or in love, such as in the following elegy, where discretion is seen to be the better part of valour:
Ἀσπίδι μὲν Σαΐων τις ἀγάλλεται, ἥν παρὰ θάμνῳ
ἔντος ἀμώμητον κάλλιπον οὐκ ἐθέλων·
αὐτὸν δ’ ἔκ μ’ ἐσάωσα· τί μοι μέλει ἀσπὶς ἐκείνη;
Ἐρρέτω· ἐξαῦτις κτήσομαι οὐ κακίω.[8]
One of the Saians (Thracian tribe) now delights in the shield I discarded
Unwillingly near a bush, for it was perfectly good,
But at least I got myself safely out. Why should I care for that shield?
Let it go. Some other time I’ll find another no worse.
Oh, I love stuff like this! I love the notes to the Wasteland, and learning all the things that I never learned, because I did not have a classical education.
As far as Pound, I keep trying to get thru his Cantos, and I even have the Companion, but then life intervenes and I have to clean the cat pan or something.
But Ezra Pound would certainly understand that. About the cats. He had several.
I have a copy of the Wasteland Facsimile, and all Pounds notes and deletions. Did you hear about Eliot and “https://www.amazon.com/Inventions-March-Hare-Poems-1909-1917-ebook/dp/B011H55L3M”
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
oh yes they trash TS Elliot too
like trashing Joseph Conrad, racist racist racist
and Herman Melville was gay
it never ends– until we end it
Pound is too dense for me yet, I’m not that smart, but maybe if I live long enough i will get it
He is too dense for me, too. That is why I bought the Companion notes. Then, it is still too dense for a quick read. The Cantos are something you have to study, I think.
Not at all like Idylls of the King.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Here’s poetry even the most dishrag of a snowflake can feel safe in reading:
Safe Poem
Interjection comma subject infinitive indefinite-article adjective adjective direct-object period
Demonstrative-contraction-of-auxiliary-verb adverb preposition temporal-direct-object semi-colon
Interjection comma subject contracted-auxiliary-verb simile
Demonstrative-contraction-of-auxiliary-verb adverb preposition temporal-direct-object period
Mr Kurtz – pragmatic and alive. 😉
It looks like Squeaky has a fan that can’t admit Squeaky has everything Anonymous wishes she had.
I like Squeeky’s poems which are on topic and I find Anonymous repetitive and uninformed.
lets not forget that Ezra Pound was quite literally a fascist
does that disqualify him as a poet? in anon’s foolish eyes of course
along with nazi political and legal theorist carl schmitt
and nazi philosopher martin heidegger
thow out the work of nazi physicist werner heisenberg
throw out the work of the nazi rocket scientist who put a man on the moon with NASA werner von braun. i could go on and on.
it’s equally as foolish as when they toss out the work of a jewish thinker because he was a jew. let’s say karl marx who had many many penetrating and keen insights with perennial value or even the monstrous Lenin and Mao. IF they said something true then it was true regardless of their perspective. But this kind of stupidity always pops up somewhere.
one thing i can credit the jewish-academic left for doing, in the 20th century, is not tossing out Heidegger; indeed they became his foremost exponents. such things evade narrow minds saturated with the reflexive ad hominem habits of small minded political activists
Thank you Allan! It makes me want to write even more!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
If you think my poetry is bad, I ought to show you some truly bad poetry! But I am going to spare you from that, and not give you the link.
Plus, here is one of my REAL poems, which I chose to not try to get published! But, it is probably over your head because it is very literary!
Tinder is the Night
A Poem by Squeeky Fromm
Was it love at first swipe
Which brought us here?
Or did mere shallow need steer
Us to these cheap sheets.
Passions of the lowest sort.
A spasm of momentary lust.
Perhaps a simple game of parry and thrust?
Smiling now, I know mean feats.
My life is in books, and in the past.
I truly do not know if I spoke,
“Dick Diver”, would you get the joke?
Or would you slap me, and leave the bed?
Unlike Tiresias, I am not blind.
I see by light of moon and star,
We are not ships passing in the night.
Two garbage scows are all we are.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Keats got nothing on you, Squeeky!
Thank you again, Mespo! Here is another one of my real efforts:
A Hint of Death
by Squeeky Fromm
Sometimes in August, the Summer’s Breath
Blows from the North, with a hint of Death.
Something cold, for just a moment
Spills the Truth, lets slip the Secret.
Whispering to you, so indistinct,
So brief, you shudder. No time to think.
Blowing around you, then is gone.
Nothing quite to put your finger on.
Yet somehow, the Summer play
Can not continue the same way.
The ending of the Story told,
Too soon the warmth will turn to cold.
Too soon the young will turn to old.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Plus, there is a really pretty picture at the link
https://squeekyfrommgr.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/a-hint-of-death/
You still don’t get it–what you write is NOT poetry. It’s dumb rhyming limericks, usually expressing some racist, xenophobic, homophobic or other negative thing. Ignorant people like you who use words like “pickanniny”, “queer”, “fag”, etc. do not have poetic souls.
That is just your opinion! OK, you asked for it, so here! Here is you some truly ATROCIOUS Poetry!
He’ll Never Row His Boat To Shore!
The Saga of Michael Brown
There was a store in Ferguson town
With grocery goods and meats.
And in one day strolled Michael Brown,
Who stole some Swisher Sweets.
To mix tobacco with some pot
Is what he meant to do.
Though smoking certainly is not
A healthy thing to do.
Abetted in this robbery
By his friend D. Johnson,
Who then would tell a great big lie
As soon as it was done.
And thus began the fatal chain
All across the nation.
Just like those things that happen in
Final Destination.
The post-death autopsy, it found
Michael weighed three hundred,.
And he would throw his weight around.
Getting what he wanted.
Meanwhile an innocent white cop
Was out there on patrol,
When he made a 10-20 stop,
On Michael on a stroll.
Officer Wilson was his name
Just 26 years old.
A man with no real claim to fame,
Who did what he was told.
He requested that Michael halt,
And step out of the road.
What happened next was Michel’s fault
As to the car he strode!
Reaching through the window with
His gentle giant paw.
Brown punched Wilson in the head
Before he even saw!
Then Brown then tried to steal his gun
To shoot Poor Wilson dead.
But even though Wilson was stunned,
This brave man kept his head!
Michael Brown was so much bigger
Still Wilson kept his gun,
And though dazed, he pulled the trigger.
This was shot number one.
Brown then backed away and ran,
But then turned back around,
Then madly charged the policeman
So Wilson shot him down.
Wilson plugged him six more times!
And only then Brown stopped.
Was he high, or was it his crimes?
Or Suicide by Cop?
Brown lay there in the blood and gore,
As people gathered round.
He’ll never row his boat to shore.
He will not make a sound.
Meanwhile Johnson lied that Wilson
Shot Brown down like a brute,
While Brown kneeled, his hands to the sun
And begging, “Please don’t shoot!”
Johnson’s lies got spread all around
And caused an angry mob.
Poor Wilson got run out of town,
Just for doing his job.
Then, a grand jury heard the case,
With all the evidence.
Finding Johnson was way off base
And Wilson’s innocence.
But still the lie was spread around
There wasn’t justice yet.
Criminal blacks burned down the town,
Lest we forget! Lest we forget!
This is a saga about the recent events in Ferguson. I believe I have a unique perspective, because I am an assistant manager at a convenience store, and there are all kinds of mean people who come in and dare you to stop them from stealing things
——-
Now THAT, is what is bad poetry! I have been trying for years to get him to write more, but I think he is maybe dead or something, because he doesn’t answer my emails.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“assistant manager at a convenience store”. Yep.
That was not my poem, although I wish I had thought of the title. The poet is a guy named Charles Tanz, who I encountered online like 7 or 8 years ago. Here is a link to his website:
https://charlestanz.wordpress.com/
Some of his ideas are good, but his meter is all screwed to heck and back. It makes his work hard to read, because when you get going, he strains the rhyme and then you trip all over the words. I could probably whip him into poetic shape, but I have not had a reply from him in years.
I actually like his Thank God It’s Only Chlamydia! poem.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
oh i think it’s poetry and all my liberal teecherz n skewl tole me annathin i writes is poetry and it dont have to rime
Thank you, Good Anonymous! I think Bad Anonymous is just sooo jealous that he/she/it is not an artiste like me!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Yes, Bad Anonymous is having a bad day and just taking it out on you, Squeeky. Like it’s some kind of poetry expert or something. Very negative person. Probably homophobic, racist, bigoted, sexist, and unsanitary also.
Ignore it, and please keep sharing your poetry with us!!!
Thank you sooo much, FFS!!! And all the other poetry lovers here on this thread!
Bad Anonymous does not bother me! One day, I shall write him a pickaninny poem, where he/she/it is the ninny I shall pick!! He is not the first person to toss rotten eggs and veggies at me!
I shall overcome!!! Like Cyranose De Bergerac, I shall tilt at various bad things, and croak with my nom de plume unsullied!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The emotionally disturbed faux lawyer / nurse is now instructing us all on imaginative literature.
True, like she/he/it would probably not like Charles Bukowski either. Which, this poem of his is appropriate:
—–
A 340 Dollar Horse And A Hundred Dollar Whore –
Poem by Charles Bukowski
don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me
at the racetrack any day half drunk
betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,
but let me tell you, there are some women there
who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you
look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores
you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke
dealing out so much breast and ass and the way
it’s all hung together, you look and you look and
you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women
and then there is something else that wants to make you
tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven
across the back of the john; anyhow, the season
was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,
all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,
the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners
themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:
a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;
he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly
and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.
the driver broke him wide
took him out by the fence where he’d be alone
even if he had to travel four times as far,
and that’s the way he went it
all the way by the outer fence
traveling two miles in one
and he won like he was mad as hell
and he wasn’t even tired,
and the biggest blonde of all
all ass and breast, hardly anything else
went to the payoff window with me.
that night I couldn’t destroy her
although the springs shot sparks
and they pounded on the walls.
later she sat there in her slip
drinking Old Grandad
and she said
what’s a guy like you doing
living in a dump like this?
and I said
I’m a poet
and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.
you? you . . . a poet?
I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.
but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,
and all thanks to an ugly horse
who wrote this poem.
Charles Bukowski
Poems by Charles Bukowski : 5 / 151
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-340-dollar-horse-and-a-hundred-dollar-whore/
——-
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
DSS – next she will be a drama critic.
Paul when DSS’s next rebirth occurs, can he be born again with the initials DSS?
Allan – not my call.
clever, fitzgerald’s character dick diver, tiresias the blind prophet of apollo made into a woman for years
poetry is fun, takes some effort, like music, and prigs can never do it well
I am glad somebody got the literary references. The “Tinder” dating app pun on Fitzgeralds “Tender is the Night”, where Dick Diver was a character, and also a seedy reference “diving on a dick.”. Blind Tiresias who also appeared T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland, and witnessed a tawdry love scene between the carbuncular clerk, and the chick. I even worked a sound pun, “know mean feat”, and “love at first swipe.”
Even the whole ships passing in the night allusion is tied to a poet, Longfellow, who wrote: “Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”
Which, is from his poem, Tales From a Wayside Inn, which you can find here:
https://www.enotes.com/topics/tales-wayside-inn/quotes/ships-that-pass-night
Like I said, my life is in books and the past. And this whole poem is kind of a tale from a wayside inn. I really believe that I could have gotten this one published. But, I have others. The real joy comes from the act of creation, even on the sillier stuff.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
keep it up, it’s good to create
I hate tinder and facebook and all that garbage.
i can do this kind of internet stuff but for meeting people i am strictly old fashioned
i finished henry miller’s tropic of cancer last night now there is a book that was a lot better than i expected it to be
I haven’t read that one yet, but I have read Anais Nin in the past! You know, The Delta of Venus is NOT a book about calculus!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
tropic of cancer was banned for obscenity. by our standards it is not obscene.
i don’t know why i picked it up after all these years. just a fluke. lucky one.
however, i found it to be a great counterpoint to a book i loved when i was a teenager (old guy now) The Sun Also Rises
Miller’s writing is wordy where Hemingway’s was terse
imaginative where his was purely descriptive
but they both had the likewise sense of being an American and how different that was from the French. not in strictly good or bad ways just different
Squeeky – I thought Nin was a fine writer. So was Sappho who really seemed to have a thing for young men, not women. I think she was running a training school for sluts.
Mr Kurtz – read the Satyricon. It is a trip into depravity.
You can’t like Fitzgerald without loving Keats:
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
-Ode to a Nightingale.
Never a better instance of pen to paper except maybe this:
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
– Ode on a Grecian Urn
i wonder was kipling a real poet? here you tell me if you like, i do:
THE WRATH OF THE AWAKENED SAXON
by Rudyard Kipling
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.
Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not suddently bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.
I love me some Kipling! My father had this little volume called Barrack Room Ballads, and I loved it! I think I maybe stole it from him, but I am not sure. Anyway, I remember it had The Grave of The Hundred Head in it, and maybe Danny Deever.
I also love his Recessional which starts off:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Did you know somebody did a song of Gunga Din??? (Which I have the movie dvd) Let me find it, google google google…!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Vxqydpmus
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
here’s a swedish poem i have been obsessed with for a year or so
basically it’s about a seductive mountain-troll-woman who wants a Christian knight who is so chaste that he won’t be swayed by her pagan charms and promises
Herr Mannelig
(Swedish folk story rendered by “In Extremo”)[gamarna covered it too]
Oh, I love that one, too! I have downloaded about a half dozen versions of it! If you like that, you may like Krummi! Valravn does a fantastic version of it. Here is one with lyrics in English and Icelandic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgWqXwjYfIs
They do one with a guy in a giant bird costume. But here is the one I listen to most, which is just a live practice, I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Y3cLAOyMQ
I am amazed at how they get that much sound out of so few instruments.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Oh, and speaking of foreign poems, I have an uncle who is really into some of the Arthurian ones, and he put me on to this old Welsh poem. There are translations out there, but I find the sound of the words beautiful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKvWPcaORns
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Kipling is called racist now and they don’t like the poem “If”
my high school football coach gave to us to build our character. we won every game that season, incidentally
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8B4dhHUN9A
today character is what? I’ll just leave it at that
This is my favorite poet. He is 99 this year.
I Am Waiting
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “I Am Waiting” from A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation, http://www.wwnorton.com/nd/welcome.htm.
I like him, too! I have a lot of his poetry, in several books. Mostly City Lights. Have you ever checked into the Evergreen website? They are trying to restart it:
Here is a recent Coover piece, which I bought this book today at OR Books.
https://evergreenreview.com/read/the-enchanted-prince/
I hope you enjoy!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – I went to his City Lights book store and bought some books. It is a great book store. Great comfortable chairs to sit and read in.
At least the liberals in those days were better read.
The SJWs today, and most Democrats are like bags of hammers compared to them.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – speaking of Gunga Din, did you see the British Film Institute wants to get ride of all villains with scars? Next they will get rid of villains who are gay or lesbian.
Mein Gott! You gotta be kidding me??? What are they going to do with Scarface???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – digitally remove it????
You are an ignorant philistine. I refer you to this poem by Catallus. You probably havent heard of him. You have no Latin, so you can’t translate, but let me suggest the translation of this infamous poem is findable online. Suffice to say we can’t put it on here in English. If we read it aloud, it would be one “bleep” after another.
Let’s just say, it would make Squeaky blush
Paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
Nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est,
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici
et quod pruriat
incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis,
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
Vos quod milia multa basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
Paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.
anon said:
“…poetry, which requires artistic talent, appreciation of beauty, insight into poignant things, character, nostalgia, the meaning of life, and limerick writing. You are not poet. You have no poetic talent. You just write dumb rhyming limericks–and not even good ones. Some limericks are clever and funny. Yours are not. You routinely show your pathetic ignorance, racism, xenophobia and homophobia, none of which is the stuff of poetry.”
Catallus definitely not in your poet’s canon!
not sure if that poem above qualifies as homophobic or what, but, here’s a hint, irrumabo, does not mean anything like ruminate, and paedicabo does not mean pedagogy
please, anonymous, do not ignore, give us your amazing cultural insights! i await your wisdom on this topic
here’s some more racist, hateful, offensive poetry for ya anon from the turn of the 20th century
i have this one memorized and recite it to correct myself,
if I ever start to whine overmuch about “justice”——-
Might was right when Caesar bled
Upon the stones of Rome,
Might was right when Genghis led
His hordes over Danube’s foam,
And might was right when German troops
Poured down through Paris way,
It’s the gospel of the ancient world
And the logic of today.
Behind all kings and presidents –
All government and law,
Are army-corps and cannoneers –
To hold the world in awe.
And sword-strong races own the earth,
And ride the conqueror’s car –
And liberty has never been won
Except by deeds of war.
What are the lords of hoarded gold –
The silent Semite rings?
What are the plunder-patriots –
High-pontiffs, priests and kings?
What are they but bold master-minds,
Best fitted for the fray who comprehend
And vanquish by – the logic of today.
Cain’s knotted club is scepter still –
The “right of man” is fraud:
Christ’s ethics are for creeping things –
True manhood smiles at “god”.
For might is right when empires sink
In storms of steel and flame;
And it is right when weakling breeds –
Are hunted down like game.
Then what’s the use of dreaming dreams –
That “each shall get his own”?
By forceless votes of meek-eyed thralls,
Who blindly sweat and moan? no!
A curse is on their cankered brains –
Their very bones decay
Trace your fate in the iron game,
It’s the logic of today.
The strong must ever rule the weak,
Is grim primordial law –
On earth’s broad racial threshing floor,
The meek are beaten straw –
Then ride to power o’er foemen’s necks
Let nothing bar your way:
If you are fit you’ll rule and reign,
Is the logic of today.
You must prove you’re right by deeds of might –
Of splendor and reknown.
If need be, march through flames of hell,
To dash opponents down – if need be,
Die on scaffold high –
In the morning’s misty grey:
For “liberty or death” is still the logic of today.
Might was right when Gideon led
The “chosen” tribes of old,
And it was right when Titus burnt,
Their temple roofed with gold:
And might was right from Bunker’s hill,
To far Manilla bay,
By land and flood it’s wrote in blood –
The gospel of today.
“Put not your trust in princes”
Is a saying old and true,
“Put not your hope in governments”
Rranslateth it anew.
All “books of law” and “golden rules”
Are fashioned to betray:
“The survival of the strongest”
Is the gospel of today.
Might was right when Carthage flames
Lit up the punic foam –
And when the naked steel of Gaul
Weighed down the spoil of Rome;
And might was right when Richmond fell –
And at Thermopylae –
It’s the logic of the ancient world –
And the gospel of today.
Where pendant suns in millions swing,
Around this whirling earth,
It’s might, it’s force that holds the brakes,
And steers through death and birth:
Force governs all organic life,
Inspires all right and wrong.
It’s nature’s plan to weed-out man,
And test who are the strong.
Cowboy doggerel.
In Mueller I trust.
Don’t mess with the Marine. You won’t live long enough to regret it.
he’s a real shock trooper of the Deep State alright and a saboteur of the duly elected POTUS
along with the other functionaries of the Deep State that have now thrown the trade negotiations and disputes with China into what will actually merit the name “trade war” and that is not good, wow., Really stupid!
Watch the dutiful functionary, Robert Mueller, perpetuate the Tenet and Powell lie of WMD in Iraq:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/05/21/when_comey_and_mueller_bungled_the_anthrax_case_133953.html
In Matthew Hopkins Marco trusts.
Hey Mueller – why don’t you post under your own name?
JT, You got to know when to hold them & when to fold them
“Son, I’ve made a life Out of readin’ people’s faces Knowin’ what the cards were
By the way they held their eyes So if you don’t mind me sayin’ I can see you’re out of aces For a taste of your whiskey I’ll give you some advice”
Meuller will leave the table at best even, is my prediction, and finally once this flap is over, sally off to an overdue retirement
He should not have gone for one last harmful and embarssing run at the casino I think but his reputation was already poor after botching the hells angel rico trial, after botching the cleanup of the whitey bulger FBI crime collaboration, after botching the anthrax investigation, after certifying to the nonexistent WMDs as pretext for iraq war, he is DESPICABLE go home already the house doesnt want your action and neither do the other players!
here’s my favorite gambling song
ace of spades by MOTORHEAD
SAUDIS DUPED U.S. MILITARY VETERANS..
INTO LOBBYING TRIP WITH STAY AT TRUMP HOTEL
Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at President Trump’s D.C. hotel within a month of Trump’s election in 2016 — paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months, according to organizers of the trips and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
At the time, these lobbyists were reserving large numbers of D.C.-area hotel rooms as part of an unorthodox campaign that offered U.S. military veterans a free trip to Washington — then sent them to Capitol Hill to lobby against a law the Saudis opposed, according to veterans and organizers.
At first, Saudi lobbyists put the veterans up in Northern Virginia. Then, in December 2016, they switched most of their business to the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. In all, the lobbyists spent more than $270,000 to house six groups of visiting veterans at the Trump hotel, which Trump still owns.
Those bookings have fueled a pair of federal lawsuits alleging Trump violated the Constitution by taking improper payments from foreign governments.
During this period, records show, the average nightly rate at the hotel was $768. The lobbyists who ran the trips say they chose Trump’s hotel strictly because it offered a discount from that rate and had rooms available, not to curry favor with Trump.
“Absolutely not. It had nothing to do with that. Not one bit,” said Michael Gibson, a Maryland-based political operative who helped organize the trips.
Some of the veterans who stayed at Trump’s hotel say they were kept in the dark about the Saudis’ role in the trips. Now, they wonder if they were used twice over: not just to deliver someone else’s message to Congress, but also to deliver business to the Trump Organization.
“It made all the sense in the world, when we found out that the Saudis had paid for it,” Henry Garcia, a Navy veteran from San Antonio who went on three trips. He said the organizers never said anything about Saudi Arabia when they invited him.
He believed the trips were organized by other veterans, but that puzzled him, because this group spent money like no veterans group he had ever worked with. There were private hotel rooms, open bars, free dinners. Then, Garcia said, one of the organizers who had been drinking minibar champagne mentioned a Saudi prince.
“I said, ‘Oh, we were just used to give Trump money,’ ” Garcia said.
The Washington firm Qorvis/MSLGroup, which has long represented the Saudi government in the United States, paid the organizers of the “veterans fly-in” trips, according to lobbying disclosure forms. The firm declined to comment.
The Saudi Embassy did not respond to questions for this story. Trump hotel executives, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss their clients, said they were unaware at the time that Saudi Arabia was ultimately footing the bill and declined to comment on the rates they offer to guests.
These transactions have become ammunition for plaintiffs in two lawsuits alleging that Trump violated the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause by taking payments from foreign governments. On Tuesday, the attorneys general in Maryland and the District subpoenaed 13 Trump business entities and 18 competing businesses, largely in search of records of foreign spending at the hotel.
Edited from: “Saudi Funded Lobbyist Paid For 500 Rooms At Trump’s Hotel After 2016 Election”
Last Night’s WASHINGTON POST
REASON SAUDIS DUPED OUR VETERANS:
When these trips began, in late 2016, the Saudi government was on a losing streak in Washington.
In late September, Congress had overridden a veto from President Barack Obama and passed a law the Saudis vehemently opposed: the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, called JASTA. The new law, backed by the families of Sept. 11 victims, opened the door to costly litigation alleging that the Saudi government bore some blame. Of the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks, 15 were Saudi citizens.
In response, the Saudis tried something new. To battle one of America’s most revered groups — the Sept. 11 families — they recruited allies from another.
They went looking for veterans.
Edited from same article as above.
ABOVE ARTICLE NOTES THE GRAVE CONFLICTS..
PRESENTED BY THE TRUMP HOTEL WASHINGTON
Whether Trump knew at the time his hotel was being used by a dubious lobbying effort, is irrelevant at this point. His mere ownership of said hotel creates an automatic conflict. Therefore when Trump casts doubts on the Khashoggi murder, it only looks that much worse.
When Jimmy Carter became President, he fully divested himself of his family’s only asset: the Carter peanut business. Trump not only refused to divest, he refused to divulge his tax returns, so Congress and Americans could find out where conflicts might lie. GHWB’s funeral has brought into sharper focus the fact that Trump has no redeeming qualities: he is not an honorable person, not a patriot, not altruistic, not a man of character and his entire run for POTUS was solely to be in a position to require the world to kiss his ass, for attention and adulation, to get Trump Moscow built, and to get Saudi financing for his projects.
it’s amazing God has given you the gift of seeing into the hearts of other men, to know their secret motivations and deepest thoughts!
Very impressive “anonymous”
When Jimmy Carter became President, he fully divested himself of his family’s only asset: the Carter peanut business.
He did nothing of the kind. He turned supervision of the business over to the family lawyer, Charles Kirbo.
And if you fancy the Carter’s never diversified their assets, I’m vending bridges.
CARTER PUT PEANUT BUSINESS IN BLIND TRUST
This article, by Fox Business, notes that the peanut business was put in a blind trust. Charles Kirbo may have been the trustee, but it was a ‘blind’ trust and the business declined dramatically during Carter’s presidency.
Carter’s alcoholic brother Billy owned a portion of the business. And during Carter’s presidency, Billy mismanaged the business. Said business was eventually sold to agricultural giant Archer-Daniels-Midland. But it appears that whatever money Carter made from that sale were used to pay off debts the business had incurred.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/what-is-a-blind-trust-and-why-it-may-be-donald-trumps-best-option
and the business declined dramatically during Carter’s presidency. Carter’s alcoholic brother Billy owned a portion of the business. And during Carter’s presidency, Billy mismanaged the business.
Billy managed the business from 1963 to 1976 and it’s assets were usually said to be about $6 million as of the latter date. (A contextually similar value today would be about $40 million).
Charles Kirbo was a lawyer. He didn’t necessarily know what he was doing. He was part of Carter’s camarilla, and that’s why he was there. While we’re at it, agribusiness isn’t a happening industry. It’s relative decline has been quite rapid since about 1920. Sales of agricultural goods are quite price sensitive, producers operate on slim margins, and unpredictable flux in incomes is the order of the day.
The Fox article doesn’t mention Billy’s mismanagement. That was in other stories from the same Google search. They said Billy kept writing overdraft checks related to the business’ operations and those overdrafts eventually became a scandal involving the National Bank of Georgia.
Carter did the right thing. The fat rodeo clown totally blew off Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. Not even a wave or nod of the head to acknowledge the oldest living U.S. President.
From the video clip that I saw on the news, it looked like Trump also failed to acknowledge either of the Clintons.
Is it possible that there is still bad blood between them?😄
it was a funeral, not a meet and greet.
now go translate that poem of Catallus i assigned you for homework
on the contrary, the hotel is a hotel, he owns it, anybody can stay there. calm down!
To be on the safe side, guests at that hotel should not be charged for their stays there.
Since payment of their hotel bills is considered an “emolument” by those who are pressing this issue, free lodging might quell their outrage.
Trump also could sell his intetest in the hotel, but then we’d see the argument made that any payment he received from the sale would also be an emolument.
So again, just to be on the safe side, he’d need to give it away.
If Trump wants to own a hotel near the White House, he should stay out of Washington politics. Presumably Trump was too busy with his empire to have time for the presidency.
But Trump supporters like to cast this impression that we are so ‘lucky’ to have Trump as president, that only petty quibblers object to his conflicts; a laughably ridiculous defense.
saudis, what a bunch of foul smelling, camel-riding cutthroats. horrible
you can’t lay it on trump, he said more negative stuff about them during the campaign than any american politician ever had before
but with the Deep State shackles around his feet, he’s crippled at dealing firmly with them
i read a book by victor ostrovsky once that described the kinds of things mossad would arrange for visiting politicos from the US en vacances in Israel. very spicy stuff! makes that look tame
“by way of deception” and “the other side of deception” were the titles if memory serves
JT is shocked, shocked I tell ya that Trump has surrounded himself with bile filled swamped creatures such as Trump himself. Any other person might get the benefit of doubt for some very bad decisions and mistakes but Trump has and will be a incompetent unwell person that only cares for one thing…Himself. Standing or protecting Trump will not end well for anybody.
I feel pretty good about supporting Trump thank you. But I’m a nobody.
Avenatti is about to lose his Ferrari, and multiple valuable assets, in his divorce settlement, but let’s focus on Cohen.
“Avenatti is about to lose his Ferrari, and multiple valuable assets, in his divorce settlement …”
********************
Do tell. I’m always up for some good ol’ Avenatti schadenfreude!
Not only that, Mespo….this flurry of negative news might damage his chances for his 2020 bid for the presidency.😉😄
OMG NO! Here I found it:
http://milnenews.com/2018/12/06/michael-avenatti-forced-to-hand-over-ferrari-37897-a-month-in-child-support-and-a-share-in-private-jet-to-ex-wife/
Why does Icarus come to mind? 😉
I know I shouldn’t smile as I’ve sat by the river many decades &….
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/419376-avenatti-says-his-chances-of-beating-trump-have-only-gone-up
mespo – evidently the wife found the money the other creditors could not find. 😉 He is going to be living in his Prius, using the trunk for his office.
The best way for Trump, Cohen, Corsi, et al to be vindicated is to tell the truth about their real and profuse collusion with Israel and Saudi Arabia to sway the election. They should lay out their Israeli and Saudi collusion in great detail. That would immediately shut down the Mueller investigation, as well as any other similar investigation.
…and also their use of UK company, Cambridge Analytica, to sway the election. They should keep emphasizing the fact that those relationships had far more impact on the election than any communications they had with Russians.
ha ha did you not notice that Hillary was the darling of Wall street donors and also the defense industry? wow your perspective is very um perplexing i think is the word for it
Had you considered Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” for the illustration?
Patricia Foster – which version, there are several.
I like Munch’s Madonna, too. Too bad Brutus killed himself, instead of being killed, or that would make a great pic for this article, too.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
https://goo.gl/images/Cfg8Yu
Patricia and Paul,…
Given some of the things that are going on, I like the image of these guys better for some of the columns.😄
You keep saying what a lousy lawyer he was, but you don’t practice in New York and the only cases you handle are rarefied appellate matters. He’s a man who has known how to leverage what assets he has.
My take on Cohen is that he’s a certain sort of Jewish-Italian striver of which I’ve known a few. Society’s laws and conventions are not categorical imperatives, but guidelines which tolerably tell you what sort of activity is bad for business. Violating those guidelines is a matter of actuarial calculation. The point is to be ‘smart’, not to be ethical in an abstract sense, because ethics doesn’t exist outside the web of human relations.
If that’s the case, Cohen is going to understand the right and the good as ‘taking care of your own’. ‘Your own’ are ordered in concentric circles. At the center is your wife, your children and perhaps your family-of-origin. Next circle out are your third and fourth and fifth degree relations, your old pals, &c. Next circle out are standing business relations, adult friends &c. When you’re under threat, you shed the outer circles and protect the inner circle as far as possible. Trump et al are expendable if that’s what you have to do to protect the well-being of people closer to you.
Cohen’s an unscrupulous man with bad manners. I think it’s wrong to see him as a comprehensively selfish creature.
That was a really great analysis!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
New York State does have a comprehensive set of professional responsibility rules that apply to all attorneys regardless of their practice area. It’s clear that MC has ventured well beyond “sharp practice” for which NYC lawyers are known.
I liked the way he hassled the Harvard brats! His best story by far. Otherwise lock him up. Lol
Aren’t you describing Dante’s Inferno?
Mespo,
That was my reaction as well. This is JT’s 2nd attempt at this compass story having deleted his own post on Dec. 2nd. I’m not sure what’s going on with him lately, but he seems totally unaware that he keeps stepping on the hypocrisy rake.
Anonymous:
” … the hypocrisy rake.”
*********************************
Love it. Very Sideshow Bob.
Presumably the first posting (which posted too early and quickly taken down) was related to the timing issue with articles that first appear on The Hill website. (Some people spend way too much time here.)
When thieves fall out.
Cohen is like a nun who screws for a few dollars and will cross her legs and damage you when she gets nasty. Lots of nuns will engage in sex. It is against all norms– except the nun norm. The same is now happening with lawyers in America. They used to have standards and now have …. What do they now have? ItShay on their feet? Toys in the attic? Lame brains?
“The judge in the District of Columbia court should, instead, point Cohen “true north” all the way to the federal lockup in Pennsylvania.”
**************
Isn’t this exactly what Trump tweeted (and was castigated for as tossing away “any sensible notion of decorum or detachment”) without the reference to FCI Lewisburg?
Let’s see: “He lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence.”
Looks pretty close to these eyes.
mespo,
That was my reaction as well. I don’t know what is going on with JT lately but he seems completely unaware that he keeps stepping on the hypocrisy rake. Perhaps he’s transitioning his style to be more appealing to the Democrat-controlled House in January should they be looking for testimony from what Hirono describes as really smart people. This comment (and others) from Turley certainly demonstrates he considers his bestest legal advice unassailable.
I have been a longtime critic of Cohen and early in the administration recommended that Trump sever ties with him before he metastasized as an existential threat. The president ignored such advice and pulled Cohen even closer, even as his lack of legal skills and ethics snowballed in scandal.
Another of JT’s I knew he was no good the minute I laid eyes on him comment. Just like Avenatti.
See above reply to your Doppelganger, Anonymous.
Yeah, I was in the middle of typing and *poof* it posted. I still cannot get notifications of comments after checking the appropriate boxes. I’ve asked Darren 3 times for assistance on various threads but I have no idea if he’s replying because I’m not receiving a notification.
Olly,…
I’ve had more issues/ problems with the comments section in the past 3-4 months than I had in the entire 3-4 years before that.
I’ve noticed different people posting about different problems….some that I have experienced, some I haven’t.
The problems seemed to coincide with whatever modifications were made to the site c. August 2018.
Thanks Tom. I thought I had avoided that. What’s interesting is this problem only popped up after I made a series of critical comments about JT. One of them was on the Cohen post he made on 12/2. Not long after my comment he deleted the post. I’m confident the 2 are unrelated but…
Of all the defendants, Cohen is the one with whom I have the least sympathy. Given Corsi’s statement on manufactured guilty pleas, I think Cohen was willing to sign whatever they put in front of him to get the least amount of time possible. I am with DJT, lock him away and throw away the key.
Paul:
If we add in Avennati for his potential misdemeanor domestic battery charge, where does Cohen rate? Remember “she hit me first.”
Paul – You cite Corsi as someone to believe? A man who makes his living peddling conspiracy theories. Birther anyone? Yes Cohen is an ass, but one with tapes and records.
Like you, I can’t stand Corsi. He is a worm. He wrote a whole book about Obama, a good one actually, called Obamanation. Even though Corsi ran for President for The Constitution Party (IIRC), he never mentioned the “two citizen parent” crap. Not once. Then. when that idiotic legal theory came out, Corsi jumped aboard. Which, that group of birthers are among the stupidest and/or lyingest bunch people who ever lived.
BUT – – – I put many people on the Left into that same camp. Mentally speaking, and mindset speaking, they are right up there with the Birthers! People like you, Isaac, Natatcha and several others are right there spewing out the same lame inanities over and over completely oblivious to reality. They look at Trump, the way Birthers looked at Obama – – – someone who isn’t the president! Obama, because he was not a natural born citizen, and Trump, because he didn’t win the popular vote, or he colluded with Russians, or whateve. Both groups make the law and reality into whatever they want it to be for their own mental health. Or more properly their mental ill health.
You see what made certain birthers completely bonkers, was self-delusion, and a refusal to live in the real world. And that mindset does not restrict itself to Birthers. Nope, not at all.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – I’m going to do one of my semi-annual mostly agree with you posts. You didn’t mention, understandably, that that group of stupid/lying birthers was unofficially led by Trump for quite some time and he still throws them a bone from time to time.
Yes there are people on the left that are delusional about Trump and if you asked them why, they couldn’t explain it in their own words, only repeat what they heard others say, not always accurately.
I would dispute that the reason many on the right didn’t accept Obama as President as being they didn’t believe he was a “natural born citizen.” Far too many made it perfectly clear they had another reason driving them.
While some, perhaps many on the left believe Trump didn’t fairly win the office, I think that number pales compared to those that see him as a crook too stupid to be an effective President. All the gains of the stock market from the beginning of the year are gone. Impact of his trade war are just starting to kick in. Despite Gerrymandering he lost 40 House seats and several governorships. Several from his campaign/administration have been indicted or admitted guilt to crimes and that number will likely increase within a week (icluding his son). He doesn’t read much, write well, or speak sensibly. Yet I don’t want him Impeached simply because I despise him. I’m quite willing to wait for evidence that has yet to be produced in public, before making that call.
Trump was NEVER the leader of the Birthers. That would probably be Mario Apuzzo, or The Compost and Email, or Orly Taitz, Or Deputy Zullo.
Trump said he didn’t believe Obama was for real, and a few days later, Obama coughed up the alleged real long form birth certificate. As far as birtherism=racism, I wrote this article back in May 2011:
https://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/obotski-wrong-polls-prove-birtherism-was-not-about-racism/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The question for America is not about “birthers” but about the objectivity of its judicial branch which is compelled by fundamental law to deny presidential eligibility to a simple “citizen” who will never be a “natural born citizen.”
All presidents before Obama had two parents who were citizens at the time of the candidate’s birth. Two parents as citizens at the time of birth of the candidate establishes a “natural born citizen.” In Obama’s case, only one parent, the mother, being a citizen establishes a simple “citizen” – the father being a citizen of a foreign country.
Interestingly, the status-of-parents preclusion from eligibility of Obama now applies to Kamala Harris who had NO or ZERO parents who were American citizens at the time of her birth.
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“Senator Kamala Harris’s staff has refused to answer any questions regarding the citizenship status of her parents when she was born. The normal path to becoming a naturalized U.S. Citizen takes five years. Kamala Harris was born in 1964. Her father emigrated from Jamaica to the USA in 1961. Her mother emigrated from India to the USA in 1960. Thus there was not sufficient time for either of Kamala’s parents to become naturalized U.S. Citizens. Kamala’s father eventually became a naturalized U.S. Citizen per his bio. It is not known at this time if Kamala’s mother ever became a naturalized U.S. Citizen.”
– Kerchner Genealogy
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That the Constitution does not “define terms” and that the Constitution is not a dictionary does not bear. The American Founders accepted and employed the definition of “natural born citizen,” published in the Law of Nations, 1758, which, according to Ben Franklin, was “…continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting,…”
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Ben Franklin letter December 9, 1775, thanking Charles Dumas for 3 copies of the Law of Nations:
“…I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author…”
George:
Kerchner is constantly on the poop deck, if you know what I mean. There is simply no parental requirement that a person born in the U.S. needs to be a natural born citizen. There are some negative requirements, that they can not be invading troops, or foreign diplomats. Hopefully, they can’t be border-hopping illegal aliens, either, but SCOTUS needs to decide that.
That two citizen parent stuff is sheer hogwash, and imaginary law.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Thank you. Here’s some more “hogwash.” Obama will never be eligible for the U.S. presidency.
Facts:
– Franklin thanks Dumas for copies of the Law of Nations, meaning they possessed, accepted and employed it.
– Jay and Washington initiated the requirement of a “natural born citizen” to preclude foreign allegiances by the commander-in-chief.
– All previous Presidents had two parents who were citizens.
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Law of Nations, Vattel, 1758
Book 1, Ch. 19
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
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Ben Franklin letter December 9, 1775, thanking Charles Dumas for 3 copies of the Law of Nations:
“…I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author…”
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To George Washington from John Jay, 25 July 1787
From John Jay
New York 25 July 1787
Dear Sir
I was this morning honored with your Excellency’s Favor of the 22d
Inst: & immediately delivered the Letter it enclosed to Commodore
Jones, who being detained by Business, did not go in the french Packet,
which sailed Yesterday.
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to
provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the
administration of our national Government, and to declare
expressly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolved on, any but a natural born Citizen.
Mrs Jay is obliged by your attention, and assures You of her perfect
Esteem & Regard—with similar Sentiments the most cordial and sincere
I remain Dear Sir Your faithful Friend & Servt
John Jay
Squeeky – Trump wasn’t the original birther, I think it safe to say that at one time he was the loudest, most prominent, and most influential one for a period of time. The period you referred to as “a few days” lasted not only years before the birth certificate came out, but years afterward as well.
I read your article regarding birtherism and racism. The latin term, “non-sequitor,” came to mind. I’d be the first to say that the two are not equal. One could be a birther and not be racist… merely stupid. What birtherism was though was an opportunity, back in the days when racists made an attempt not to appear to be racist instead of as Steve Bannon suggests, wearing the label as a badge of honor. It provided an opportunity for racists to publicly demonstrate their hatred for a man yet give it an acceptable label.
Reading your larticle I found myself substituting, “showing one’s tax returns” which had been the norm for every other Presidential candidate for “providing a birth certificate” which seems so normal yet had been asked of no one before. The same people outraged at Obama for not submitting to those demands have had little problem ignoring Trump’s deviation from the norm. Will any of you be shocked to find you got a fraud and a criminal in the White House? We’re all watching as his fellow criminals are slowly being revealed and punished. It’s an excellent thing that it is hard to remove a President. Evidence and facts will soon be presented to show whether it’s necessary.
I eagerly await the sentencing memo on Manafort. Today’s the day. It could be a very long memo. Hopefully they’ll organize it so that the crimes to which Manafort has already pled guilty are rehashed separately from the crimes and lies that Manafort committed and told after he accepted the plea deal. It’s the new stuff that should be the most revealing. Any information in the memo about Trump’s pardon offer to Manafort in exchange for Manafort’s silence will make it much harder for Trump actually to pardon Manafort. That, in turn, could force Manafort finally to tell the truth.
Boing, boing.
Another earthquake? Or just another rusty pogo stick?
having used everyone for his own ends he reminds me of a defendant in the Nuremberg trials. where a plea of guilty was coupled with a plea for clemency. Didn’t work their either. Lately that seems to be the method used by the left to defend their errant party members. No Galahads in that bunch
“But judge, have mercy, I’m an orphan,” said the man convicted of murdering his parents.
It seems to many of it’s Muler & his team that need to be pick up on a Mental Health Check.