Today’s rally in Walnut Creek, protesting the many crimes and impeachable offenses of The Orange One and his enablers, was so encouraging for everyone who loves democracy. Great signs, boundless camaraderie, and best of all, audible support from more drivers than I’ve ever heard before. As angel Clarence would say, “Every time a car honks, a voter chooses truth.”
Linda Riebel
Russians!!
I was there! As a moderate, I usually don’t attend events like this. I leave the political fighting to the right and the left. But it took my mind off the stress in my life, and gave us something to do before tonight’s A’s game… which was a lot of fun. LET’S GO OAKLAND!
I would hardly consider trial by protest democracy. Because you or the media has declared someone guilty does not automatically make it true. The sad fact is that the last three Presidents we’ve had are all guilty of war crimes yet there have been no protests against these crimes. It saddens me that what this country does inside its borders is the only thing that concerns the left. We are killing innocent children daily and have been meddling in elections in other countries for quite some time. I did not vote for President Trump (yes I said it because, like it or not, it is a fact) but I am appalled by the vitriol coming from the left. You have clearly forgotten the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so I leave you with this…
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The full article is definitely worth a read.
“What many Russians, but few Americans, know is that 20 years before Russia tried to swing an American presidential election, America tried to swing a presidential election in Russia. The year was 1996. Boris Yeltsin was seeking a second term, and Bill Clinton desperately wanted to help. “I want this guy to win so bad,” he told Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, “it hurts.”
Clinton liked Yeltsin personally. He considered him Russia’s best hope for embracing democracy and capitalism. And he appreciated Yeltsin’s acquiescence during NATO’s march eastward, into the former Soviet bloc.
Unfortunately for Clinton, ordinary Russians appreciated their leader far less. Yeltsin’s “shock-therapy” economic reforms had reduced the government’s safety net, and produced a spike in unemployment and inflation. Between 1990 and 1994, the average life expectancy among Russian men had dropped by an astonishing six years. When Yeltsin began his reelection campaign in January 1996, his approval rating stood at 6 percent, lower than Stalin’s.
So the Clinton administration sprang into action. It lobbied the International Monetary Fund to give Russia a $10 billion loan, some of which Yeltsin distributed to woo voters. Upon arriving in a given city, he often announced, “My pockets are full.”
Three American political consultants—including Richard Dresner, a veteran of Clinton’s campaigns in Arkansas—went to work on Yeltsin’s reelection bid. Every week, Dresner sent the White House the Yeltsin campaign’s internal polling. And before traveling to meet Yeltsin in April, Clinton asked Dresner what he should say in Moscow to boost his buddy’s campaign.
It worked. In a stunning turnaround, Yeltsin—who had begun the campaign in last place—defeated his communist rival in the election’s final round by 13 percentage points. Talbott declared that “a number of international observers have judged this to be a free and fair election.” But Michael Meadowcroft, a Brit who led the election-observer team of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, later claimed there had been widespread voter fraud, which he had been pressured not to expose. In Chechnya, which international observers believe contained fewer than 500,000 adults, one million people voted, and Yeltsin—despite prosecuting a brutal war in the region—won exactly 70 percent. “They’d been bombed out of existence, and there they were all supposedly voting for Yeltsin,” exclaimed Meadowcroft. “It’s like what happens in Cameroon.” Thomas Graham, who served as the chief political analyst at the U.S. embassy in Moscow during the campaign, later conceded that Clinton officials knew the election wasn’t truly fair. “This was a classic case,” he admitted, “of the ends justifying the means.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/the-us-has-a-long-history-of-election-meddling/565538/
Pamela, Since when is a protest a trial? Catchy phrase, but seems to betray a limited understanding of the words “protest” “trial” and “democracy.”
When you use rhetoric like “protesting the many crimes and impeachable offenses of The Orange One and his enablers” you have already decided that he’s guilty.
Pamela… You make a valid point. There’s a reason most Americans are moderates. The left and the right are narrow minded towards their own ideology, and moderates don’t have an ideology. You’re always welcome to join us in “the center.”
It was a great day to be outside with lots of amazing people. I’ll leave it there but I am hopeful.