Gramalibby53's Blog

Oh boy-these folks are getting scarier by the day!

Just today I found out about a new book that has been published and is being given out at Trump rallies, called ^”….The Christ”. I couldn’t believe it, so I looked it up, and yes, you can buy it on Amazon for $21.95…so I looked up the author, a former Dutch South African (remember apartheid?) footballer now living in the US. I went to Fb and was appalled by the conversation he was having with some of his ….”followers”… about Black Lives Matter and other bullshit…

So I joined the conversation.

You racist assholes can cuddle up with your hatred for blm and your love for the most traitorous, dishonest manipulator of power & media since Hitler; but that makes YOU parties to the presence of the anti-Christ. You’ve stewed in your own ignorance and self pity for so long you’ve celebrated the rise of one who has engendered and encouraged hate, distrust, and bigotry-all towards citizens of the very country you so purport to love. And by calling him “Christ”, you not only feed his already massive ego, but you perpetuate the notion that by “following” him, you’ve got a free pass to be as cruel and ugly to whoever you deem worthy of it, and you won’t face any negative consequences either.

Ahhh, but just ask those folks who are sitting in prison right now for attempting to turn the US into a monarchy instead of a democracy, or who proclaim that “Blue Lives Matter” while they beat and even MURDER Capitol Police officers just how much your beloved leader cares about them now that they can’t vote. Ask yourselves how that sleazy man child who pays less in taxes than you do, who doesn’t pay his other debts, or pay for services that working people have provided him, or who has over 2,000 publicly verifiable lies just during the 4 years of his reign could be viewed by any “godly” human as Christ-like? His thirst for power is greater than that of King Herod, and he will say and do anything—ANYTHING—to get other people to do the dirty work to put him at the top of the heap, and will disavow any part of any plot that OTHERS put out to get him there, throwing them not just under the bus, but to the wolves besides.

He has broken nearly every Commandment given to Moses, and has no respect whatsoever for the two that Jesus considered the only ones you need to pay attention to-love God and love others as you love yourself. His malignant self-love has no room for loving anyone else, and he washes his hands of anyone who questions him, and destroys those who embarrasses or disagrees with him.

His loyalty is to the “lenders and merchants” that Jesus threw out of the Temple, saying that a rich man has as great a chance at getting into heaven as a camel has getting through the eye of a needle. Yet he has used his power & position to enrich himself and his family, and to make it possible for other rich men and himself to pay less taxes while he does nothing to provide you or me or any other working person with proper education, roads, health care, working conditions, housing or food security.

He put laws into place that say oil companies can strip lands reserved for generations in order to make more money, stripped as many environmental protections as he could, lied about the devastation of the COVID virus, and maligned the premier scientific research organization and top doctors in the world when they dared to tell the truth about it.

He cared so little for his supporters then that he had massive, ticketed rallies, without mask protocols, that became “super spreader” events, and people were hospitalized and DIED because they “believed in” him, and that their “faith” would protect them from harm. Do you know how many people spent their last moments on earth alone, with only hospital nurses with them, who admitted that, yes, the virus was “real” and they wished they’d listened to the doctors? How many of those nearly 1 million funerals did your “savior” attend, do you suppose? Or how many sympathy cards he sent out? Or how many he even acknowledged had lived or died. I know the answer to those questions and so do you.

But the deceiver you call “The Christ” continued to lie to his acolytes, had more rallies, ridiculed the use of life/saving masks, made little to no effort to get the plague under control, and continued to lie-to YOU-and the rest of the world about every single thing he did!

He set up a “special fund” with his scurvy pal Steve Bannon to raise money FROM HIS OWN SUPPORTERS to build the wall on the border that never saw a dime-because it went straight into Bannon’s and Trump’s pockets.

Remember that admonition from God in the Bible that warns of “false prophets” that may really be the devil in disguise? You have been, and continue to be, blinded by your own “prophet” and been totally deceived by his bullshit. I would pity you if I thought you were actually interested in the truth or searching for a true “Christ”, but by proliferating such a profound hatred for those who disagree with you, it’s obvious that your soul has been corrupted beyond hope, and the best I can hope for with you and those who read your propaganda is that you never attain any positions of power or politics wherein you could further damage the people around you.

Recently, a woman argued online that the Republicans have the big corporations “in their pockets” so they can do what they want. My reply was that the Repubs don’t have the NRA, the oil companies, big pharma, etc in their pockets, it’s the other way around…those big corporations have the slime balls in the corporate pockets…promising big money for those who play their way.

And sadly, it’s not just Repubs, either….look at Joe Manchin’s role in defeating every climate bill because he’s in the coal companies’ pockets, and stipulations he’s made about big pharma so his “little girl” can make millions working for the drug companies.

And they have the f-ing balls to whine about “…Joe Biden’s son…”

We’ve made the mistake too long of laughing off their seemingly stupid and twisted ideas about the world, believing, as we tend to do, that the ideas or plots are so brazen or ridiculous that no one could possibly take them seriously. Right?

Wrong. Unfortunately, we should be realizing that for those in power, this is all a game. Everything…Life. Politics. Money. And POWER. And like any game we might play, it’s all about WINNING. In the United States, it’s a game that involves convincing MILLIONS of people that the twisted lies and “alternative facts” of those in power, and their ability to “game” the constitution are all part of it…and they are WINNING, folks.

The co-opting of “patriotic” rhetoric had worked very well, but Nixon was, if only slightly, a bit of a pimple for the Republicans. Americans were wary of a government that lied to them about a war they didn’t understand, soldiers and police who would sic dogs on and beat citizens, and believed that government was not a helpful or positive entity working for the American people, they were all motivated by money & greed. After the Nixon debacle, Republican strategists agreed that they would need a new “game”, a new veneer to win back the conservative voters who had begun to fear the “anything goes” sentiment that had finally broken through the Republican wall of control: abortion was legal, the VietNam war was finally over, women and black people were growing in strength and numbers in demanding equal rights, and even gay people were coming out of their closets and demanding fair treatment. It was time put those radicals back in their respective places. But…how?

The answer came in the form of a little known evangelical preacher from South Carolina named Jerry Falwell.

Another evangelical minister, Billy Graham, had successfully preached his itinerant revivalist message with enough passion and quiet assurance to have been invited to the White House a number of times over the years, and had become a sort of unofficial advisor to several Presidents.

But the Reverend Falwell was far more ambitious, and had his eye on not simply having the occasional words of advice to the President, whoever it may be at the time, but to have his hand in the actual policy making process that determined the direction the nation would go. And he had a vision of a Christian nation that he would later claim was directed to him by god himself.

So Jerry Falwell met with a strangely powerful and energetic woman named Phyllis Schlafly who believed that women had no need for an equal rights amendment, that women could have everything they ever wanted if they simply acknowledged that (I’m paraphrasing now) they kept their legs open and their mouths shut. Their power was greatest when they were “the woman behind the man” and that all that “women’s lib” noise meant that women would have to go to war and to work and would want to be like men and be in politics—all of which would surely hurt women because women really didn’t want to do those things.

Schlafly of course, was not at home with her mouth closed, though, she was making speeches at various Republican campaign rallies, advising politicians on campaign strategies, and showing up on talk shows from early morning til the late-night shows. Jerry Falwell knew where he was going to put his money. And it wasn’t into the collection plate.

About 40 years ago, leaders of conservative Republican politics met to devise a strategy to win and maintain power in any way they could. Their first commandment was to co-opt the notion of “patriotism”. They knew that by claiming to be the “true” patriots of America would be an almost automatic call to those who wanted to preserve “American exceptionalism”, and would sway great numbers of Americans to their side of the political spectrum. It worked, too-Richard Nixon, a mediocre politician with a chip on his shoulder and a loathing of Eastern “elite liberals” managed to wrangle his way into the White House- twice. When it was discovered that he actually approved (or gave the order) to use criminal actions to preserve his position for a second term, it became a certainty that his Presidency would end in disgrace and impeachment, he left. He went to his grave believing that “he was not a crook” and never admitting to any wrongdoing.

That defiance, and Ford’s preemptive pardon in the face of obvious criminality seem like petty crimes compared to todays political environment, but it did what it was supposed to do…it cracked the veneer of the pretense that “all men are created equal” and that “no man is above the law”. That crack in the veneer gave politicians (like Mitch McConnell, Devin Nunes, Ron Johnson, Thom Tillis, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, etc) access to a government that could potentially make them extremely wealthy, provide them with power and prestige their own mediocrity wouldn’t allow in any other profession. It could also include their vengeful attacks on any person or group they perceived as a threat. With every victory, they grew. With every loss, they got stronger and meaner..

The meeting of Schlafly and Falwell and other powerful Republicans would have huge impact on politics then, and the policies outlined by that meeting were adopted by the Republican Party and written into their platform, where many remain today. In it, we see the marriage of the Republican Party and evangelical Christianity in all of its theocratic proposals and unashamed in the assertion, despite words written to specifically forbid such an infusion. And despite the Republican claims of righteous patriotism and superior Christianity, those theocratic proposals have led us to where we find ourselves today-

With the sick premise that women should no longer be able to control their own bodies; that people of color should not be allowed to vote, shop, drive, or play in the park or else they will be shot; that the framers of our Constitution, specifically included that religion and politics must remain separate entities were just kidding, they really wanted this to be a “Christian” nation. (But not a peace-loving, accepting, tolerant, forgiving Christian-like-Jesus Christian, but a Christianity that declares men to be dominant, ruthless, warriors in the pursuit of what they claim their god wants-DOMINION over the earth & all that’s in it.) That includes the absolute KNOWLEDGE that it doesnt matter if they destroy the Earth’s natural resources, because “god” won’t let the Earth be destroyed -unless He wants it to be.

And if that’s the case, then, that’s alright, too, because they are so convinced of their own “exceptionalism” that they know that not only will they go to Heaven, but that when they get there, they are so f-ing important and special that they will occupy the best seats in the house. (Something along the lines of that 7 virgins thing, I guess) What that means is that they don’t have to worry about the rest of the human race, or the oceans, animals, air, etc., because none of those things are as special to god as those god has “chosen”.

Which also might explain the ability of all of those “special” people-from the working stiffs to the highest levels of government leadership-to justify their hatred of people who don’t look, speak, act, or believe the same way they do, even or maybe especially when that calls for acts of violence, murder, malicious deceit, false propaganda, or stripping of those “bad” human rights.

It might also justify the blind eyes of those followers who can “forgive” members of the Supreme Court for LYING in order to get a job so they can do “gods will”, or the leader of a supposedly “Christian” nation who admits to molesting scores of women and laughs about it, but then lies as easily as he breathes, as long as he claims he’s doing it “for the sake of the country” or “because the media doesn’t like him”.

I suppose it also helps those “Christians” believe that “evil” lives in Democrats, that it is an act of god’s will that they take up arms, corral their hate, flock together against their fellow citizens and prepare to commit MURDER in response to the man they have been convinced is god’s own messenger.
In this “exceptional” bubble of excuses and ignorance, there is no room for compassion, no reason for facts, no doubt of their own correctness. There is only certainty in their own convictions, hate for those who don’t share them, and license for whatever they deem righteous in pursuit of their winning the game.

These are not people to be laughed at or disregarded as fools….these are people who pose as great a threat to humanity as Russia does for Ukraine, or Stalin did for the intelligencia, or Hitler did for the Jews. For those with gentle hearts, brilliant minds, and passionate love for life on earth, it’s time to move. It’s time to stand up and stop the vile dismemberment of our country-and maybe even our suffering planet. That means VOTE, yes, but it also means ACTION. Do more. Speak up. Help others. Run for office. Volunteer. Our lives depend on us.

President Biden’s remarkable record of accomplishment under nearly impossible circumstances  

Rob Schofield 11/9/2021 Top Story,Weekly Briefing 

The Democratic Party’s “big tent” may be smaller today than it was even a half-century ago when it made room for civil rights and anti-war activists, big city union hardhats, and southern segregationists, but make no mistake, 21st century party leaders must still attempt to herd an extremely unwieldy assemblage of cats.

[This has been] a time in which the nation’s new leader has sought to respond to a long and hugely daunting list of unprecedented global and national crises, all while his party has clung to congressional majorities that have constantly wobbled between razor thin and nonexistent.

Remind yourself for a moment of the scale and scope of the challenges Biden faced when he took office:

• Forty-one weeks ago, our nation had just survived a violent attempted coup d’état and 
• the outgoing president who had spurred it on by refusing to acknowledge the fact of his defeat was about to be impeached for a second time. 
• Meanwhile, daily deaths from a global pandemic were peaking at their highest levels, 
• the national economy remained a mess, 
• and a dire, worsening, and largely unaddressed environmental emergency continued to place the planet in an ever-tightening grip.

Only Abraham Lincoln and possibly Franklin Roosevelt entered their presidencies under more difficult circumstances.

What’s more, unlike Lincoln and Roosevelt who took office at a time in which their parties enjoyed large congressional majorities, Biden entered the oval office with no such advantage. Indeed, it was only thanks to two near-miraculous come-from-behind wins in a pair of January Georgia Senate runoffs that Democrats wield any authority at all on Capitol Hill.

Now add to all this the fact that the impossibly narrow Democratic Senate “majority” (51-50 thanks to the presence of Vice President Harris) includes determined ideological conservatives like West Virginia’s Manchin and Arizona’s Sinema, and that the antiquated Senate filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to pass almost anything meaningful, and it’s a marvel that the nation has not descended into complete political gridlock and chaos.

Instead, under the President’s coherent, sober, and science-based leadership, the nation has aggressively locked horns with the pandemic by undertaking one of the largest and most successful mass vaccination campaigns in human history – a campaign that, despite persistent sabotage efforts from some on the political right, has saved millions of lives.

Meanwhile, thanks in large measure to Biden’s aggressive and on-the-mark stimulus policies, the economy has revived at a record pace and huge strides have been made in slashing poverty – especially child poverty.

And then there is the climate emergency, where, thanks to the President’s vision and simple common sense, the U.S. has rapidly transformed its role from that of science and reality-denying roadblock to a global leader. There are still miles to travel in this realm, but the massive infrastructure legislation finally approved by small bipartisan majorities in both house of Congress further cements this vitally important policy 180.

Now add to all this the literally thousands of talented and diverse appointees Biden has named to the judiciary, the ambassadorial corps, and the leadership of numerous regulatory agencies – most of whom have already effected huge and positive federal policy shifts in everything from student loans to toxic chemicals to human rights – and the magnitude of his administration’s accomplishments in less than 300 days looms even larger.

Has the Biden presidency been perfect? Of course not. Like all of his predecessors, Biden has made his share of mistakes. Like Barack Obama, he’s likely wasted too much time in search of imaginary common ground with ideological conservatives determined to undermine him at every turn. While necessary, the Afghanistan withdrawal could have proceeded more smoothly. And as with many other presidents, one also yearns at times for a leader with the kind of rhetorical gifts that would enable him to easily skewer and deflate his adversaries and inspire widespread support for the kind of wholesale progressive changes the nation needs.

But, in the end, this is quibbling. In light of the huge political challenges under which he’s been forced to operate (and especially in comparison to the lawless corruption and intellectual vacuity of his predecessor that inspired night terrors in millions – maybe  even billions – of humans), Joe Biden has achieved a remarkable record of accomplishment. Whatever the future holds, our nation will be forever in his debt.

Yes, yes, this writer is a fan, obviously. But what he says is truthful and written with eyes open to the accomplishments and flaws of our current President. But he’s not the only one: To begin with, Tim Rowland, a Herald-Mail columnist, reminds us,

 “Joe Biden has not raped public lands. He has not separated children from their parents. He has not funneled taxpayer money into his own private properties. He has not tried to undermine the U.S. census. He has not lied about the weather. He has not tried to strip millions of Americans of health care. He has not tried to overthrow election results.“

Beyond that low bar set before him, he has managed to achieve a few things.  Here is an abbreviated list thanks to Oliver Willis, a long-time political blogger:

• Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, providing over $1.2 trillion in infrastructure spending in every state in the country
• Biden enacted an action plan to alleviate supply chain problems at ports and waterways
• Biden issued comprehensive guidelines for military and veteran suicide prevention strategies
• Biden signed a law providing a cost-of-living adjustment for veterans disability benefits
• Biden signed the K-12 Cybersecurity Act which protects sensitive information maintained by schools across the country
• Biden restarted posting White House visitor logs after Donald Trump had stopped doing so
• Biden ordered multiple agencies to enact policies that will increase the supply of affordable homes in America
• Biden signed a law expanding access for veterans to therapy dogs and service dogs
• Biden cancelled student loan debt for more than 300,000 Americans with severe disabilities (over $5.8 billion worth of debt)
• Biden canceled $55.6 million in student debt for students of for-profit schools
• Biden has the narrowest pay gap between women and men in the White House of any president
• The Biden administration released rules that protect patients from unexpected medical bills.
• Biden signed the American Rescue Plan (aka COVID-19 Stimulus) providing $1.9 trillion of relief to the American economy
• Biden (and Vice President Kamala Harris) released their 2021 tax returns, after Trump refused to release his for his entire four-year term.
• Biden increased the minimum wage for thousands of federal contractors to $15/hr
• Stimulus payments from the American Rescue Plan were sent via direct deposit just 24 hours after the plan was signed into law
• Biden directed $2.5 billion in funding to specifically address America’s mental illness and addiction crisis
• The American Rescue Plan restores funding to veterans programs, including programs to assist veterans’ mental health, that had been cut under Trump
• American Rescue Plan provides money to the airline industry, preventing tens of thousands of aviation jobs who will no longer be furloughed
• Socially disadvantaged (including Black, Latino, Asian-American, and Native American) farmers will get $4 billion from the American Rescue Plan in debt relief, while another $1 billion will create a racial equity commission.
• Biden revoked a Trump executive order mandating stricter work rules on people seeking welfare help.
• Biden restored labor rights to workers at the Department of Defense.
• Biden got rid of a Trump order that used COVID as an excuse for deregulation.
• Biden undid a Trump-era mandate that said federal buildings had to be constructed in classical style.
• Biden revoked a Trump order that suspended federal funds from going to purported “anarchist jurisdictions.”
• Biden issued an executive order requiring political appointees to take an ethics pledge.
• Biden signed pension relief, keeping more than 100 pension plans solvent and providing retirement benefits to millions.
• Biden terminated a 2018 Trump agreement that put up roadblocks to families trying to help undocumented immigrant children
• Biden revoked a Trump executive order suspending the issuing of visas that used the pandemic as an excuse to do so.
• Biden canceled the National State of Emergency which had allowed Trump to divert federal funds to his border wall project.
• Biden allocated $5 billion from FEMA for communities affected by climate-related disasters
• Biden returned the United States to the Paris Climate Accord
• Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline
• Biden blocked drilling at the Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
• Biden ordered a stop to the issuing of new leases for oil and gas exploration on public lands
• Biden signed legislation increasing the amount that can be spent providing assistance to Americans returning from Afghanistan from $1 million to $10 million
• Biden had the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) recognize that laws forbidding sex discrimination in health care also apply to LGBTQ+ people, reversing a Trump’s policy
• Biden rejoined the United Nations Human Rights Council, after America left it under Trump.
• Biden had the Department of Defense double the number of military health teams assisting hospitals with COVID-19.
• Biden expanded COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs.
• Biden ordered the TSA to double fines for travelers who refuse to mask.
• Biden instructed the Department of Education to pay teachers or school officials who had their pay withheld for instituting mask mandates.
• Biden is requiring that the staffs of nursing homes are vaccinated or they will lose their federal funding.
• Biden extended the pause on student loan repayment until January 31 2022 due to COVID-19
• Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to accelerate vaccine development. This led to enough vaccine being produced to have supply for every adult American by May 2021 instead of the original date of July 2021.
• Biden secured 200 million extra doses of vaccine for a total of 300 million available vaccine doses by July 2021.
• 37,000 people were evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, by the US military in 8 days
• Biden signed legislation awarding Congressional Gold Medals to Capitol Police who responded to the January 6 attack on the Capitol
• Biden told Russian president Vladimir Putin the United States would no longer “roll over” for his aggressive actions.
• Biden rescinded the Trump administration’s decision to designate Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as a terrorist group. The designation was widely criticized by international organizations at the time.
• Biden threw out 32 last-minute nominations offered by the Trump administration. Included in the rejections were judicial appointments supported by conservatives.
• Biden expanded the Bears Ears national monument (reversing Trump), restored the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and restored protection of  the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument
• Biden ended large-scale logging at Tongass National Forest in Alaska
• Biden ended the 20-year long war in Afghanistan, evacuating over 120,000 people from the country
• Biden had the United States rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO)
• Biden levied sanctions against Russian officials in retaliation for the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

That’s a list of less than HALF of Joe Biden’s accomplishments in his first year in office. For the complete list, go to Oliver Willis.com

Oliver Willis, a Senior Writer for The American Independent and former Research Fellow at Media Matters for America.

How many well-respected retired Republican government officials and military generals will it take to convince the American populace that the Republican Party is no longer a highly-esteemed or respected group of intelligent, small-government, party of businessmen?

Life-long and hard core Republicans who have disavowed their relationship with the Party. People like:

Former Chairman of the Republican Party Michael Steele,

Former Speaker of the House John Boehner, who says:  “There is no Republican party. There’s a Trump party.”

Universally recognized ultra-conservative writer and outspoken commentator George Will, 

Another conservative writer  Nicholas Kristoff, 

Former GW Bush communications director Nicolle Wallace, 

Former Florida Congressman David Jolly,

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, (campaign manager for Mitt Romney’s Presidential bid in 2016)

Hard hitting journalist (think: Watergate) Bob Woodward, 

Retired Generals McCaffrey, and Honore (in charge of the Katrina cleanup, for two)

Long time Republican Broadcaster and commentator Charlie Sykes, 

Republican pundit Rick Wilson,

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones, who has been a Republican for 45 years and has been elected mayor four times as a Republican, has left the party.

Former Arizona attorney general Grant Woods, 

Former head of the FBI James Comey (not surprising, I suppose)

Finally, former Republican columnist at the Atlantic Peter Wehner, who writes, 

Donald Trump did not cause the Corona Virus. Neither did the Democrats blow it out of proportion for political gain. But Trump has absolutely shirked any responsibility for containing the virus and is STILL withholding life-saving medical supplies sitting in reserve somewhere because Jared Kushner has deemed them unavailable for the states, because “these are OURS”.  Because the strategy for this White House is to avoid responsibility for the deaths accruing daily by “allowing” the Governors of each state to decide what they want to do, and withholding those life-saving supplies to those Governors who are “appropriately grateful” to him when asking for help.  

“Today I see the Republican Party through the clarifying prism of Donald Trump, who consistently appealed to the ugliest instincts and attitudes of the GOP base—in 2011, when he entered the political stage by promoting a racist conspiracy theory, and in 2016, when he won the GOP nomination.”

If this recent upending of the lives of every person around the world does not make every single one of us pause and take a closer look at what is developing before our eyes, and the tragic mishandling of every possible opportunity to become a real leader of all US citizens, not just those who have managed to curry favor from him, then I feel we are lost-and not just those who have died because of it. 

OK.  Just a couple of reminders about who it is that has been called in a desperate attempt to provide some legitimately to the team of lawyers standing in front of the Senate trying to distract their “jurors” in deciding the fate of the President. 

Alan Dershowitz is a nearly ancient defense /appellate attorney that has defended many heinous criminals, some of them famous, over the decades of his career.  He appears to revel in the spotlight, is cantankerous and argumentative.  A natural for the Trump defense team and he’s ready.

As he wrote in his 2013 memoir, “Taking the Stand,” “If you don’t have the law or legal facts on your side, argue your case in the court of public opinion.” 

But perhaps those in the position of defending Donald Trump would be better off taking a pass…having their client’s name and case added to Dershowitz’s list of infamous clients:

• Jeffrey Epstein (rape, human trafficking, sexual abuse)
• O.J. Simpson (murder of his wife and friend)
• Klaus von Bulow (overdosing his wife on insulin & putting her in a coma for decades)
• Mike Tyson (rape of a beauty contestant)
• Porn star Harry Reems (abuse of porn actress during filming)
• Leona Helmsley (tax fraud and money laundering)
• Reverend Jim Bakker (defrauding his church parishioners of millions)
• Michael Milken (securities fraud, tax evasion)

A fine, fine, group of folks, to be sure. 

It’s not a complete surprise that Dershowitz would find himself swimming in a swamp of such “deplorables”.  Described by those who knew him as a young man describe him as being aggressive, aloof, arrogant. But such descriptions are obviously subjective matters of opinion, of course.  His actions during the divorce from his wife Sue, however, have been documented as the acrimonious separation proceeded. 

Sue filed for divorce in 1973, and they finally went to court in early 1976. She had intended to file for joint custody and a psychiatrist specially brought in to evaluate her disposition initially determined that she was fit and eligible for custody. Dershowitz, however, demanded sole custody of the kids. Several weeks after the psychiatric evaluation, after Dershowitz continued to maintain that his wife was not fit, and even despite the judge’s written opinion that Dershowitz’s behavior toward his wife“negatively affected the plaintiff’s health to the extent that she required medical treatment and briefly some psychiatric therapy”. The “case” against her included testimony from her best friend who was by then married to Dershowitz’s younger brother. He won full custody.

In addition to denying his wife access to their children, during the support phase of the proceedings, he was equally brutal.

When Sue “maintained that Dershowitz had substantially understated his income,” Dershowitz went to the Judge, offering “proof” of rather paltry financial capabilities. 

He got affidavits from two different doctors stating that he had developed hypertension from working too much and too strenuously, and one of those docs recommended that he “slow down from his present hectic professional pace.” He would therefore not be able to provide alimony of any substantial amount, and the judge agreed. He decided that Dershowitz should pay Sue a modest sum for five years and nothing beyond that.

In the meantime, Dershowitz had developed a reputation as a savvy, if unusual, defense and appeals lawyer.  By the time he was 28, he became a full professor at Harvard and an active member of the National Board of the ACLU.

In 1982, while Dershowitz was a professor at the Harvard School of Law met the woman who would be his second wife. They moved in together, and were married in 1986; They bought a lovely house in historic Cambridge and vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard.

In the meantime, Sue moved to New York, worked as a research librarian for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and drowned in the East River on New Year’s Eve, 1983, in an apparent suicide.

The curious relationship he shared with child molester/trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he shared a great many meetings, parties, conversations, etc. offers a glimpse, perhaps, into the nature of Dershowitz’s attitude toward the criminal mind, especially when it is the mind of a man. 

“In Dershowitz’s view, men who are accused of rape, there has got to be a defense,” one female student from the 1991 class recalled. “He had convoluted ways of thinking about how men could misinterpret a lack of consent.”

In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece in the early 1990’s he even argued against statutory-rape laws. His position? That sure, sex between adults and very young children should be criminally sanctioned, but sex between adults and teens over the age of puberty, at about 15 years old, should have no such sanctions, since  “voluntary sex is so common in their age group.” 

In 2015, Dershowitz settled a lawsuit between himself and Virginia 

Giuffre, one of Epstein’s “employees” who claimed that she’d had sex with several of Epstein’s friends, including six encounters with Dershowitz. 

This is one of the lawyers defending the President of the United States of America.  I’m comforted knowing his defense team includes persons of such esteemed character, aren’t you??

Bing
— Read on www.bing.com/amp/s/time.com/5707713/bill-taylor-opening-statement-impeachment-inquiry/?amp=true