[Nigel Mace]

You are probaly right, Andrew and the effort is hardly worth making, however....

Charlie, one minor, alleged and hypocritical act, somewhat remote in time from the current dispute, does not make any case at all of alleged general applicabiliy. Your assault on Warren does not address any of her critique of Sessions. It is simply mud-slinging - and the ripeness and/or reality of irrelevant mud does not elevate it above that.

I would be interested where you find that I desire to destroy anyone, let alone my "countrymen" - whether, Scots, British or European. If you cannot identify such a place, I would appreciate it if you would withdraw the accusation.

May, however, is busy on a project which, as a matter of economic fact, is set to have seriously negative consequences for millions of my fellow "countrymen", measured in terms of any of these three groups. That is one of the reasons - among many more, all open to rational debate - why I detest what she is doing and why I will work flat-out when the new independence referendum comes to break free of a UK, of which I was once, many decades ago, so proud, and which she and her party are dismantling. The 'destroying' of its "union" is, ironically, very much at the centre of the, doubtless unintended, consequences of her actions.

[Charlie Southerland]

I don't consider it an accusation, Nigel. I have seen John Whitworth castigated, mocked and ridiculed for his opinions. You and others are quick to say he is a wonderful poet, but...

You are free to do that as long as John doesn't mind, and John seems to handle his business with much aplomb. But it does get old. One would think that a contemporary poet of John's caliber would be more respected all around.

If it is all in good fun between you, then certainly, I withdraw my remarks. I maintain that such repeated acts does have at least a residual effect on ones reputation and possibly their book sales. And John has yet to stand for an political office. Imagine if he did.


I agree with you Bob, 100%. Extreme criticism is different than demeaning a colleague with whom you've worked for some years and likely haven't had the balls to accuse him to his face at any time prior to.

The problem with the letter is that there are accusation that cannot be confirmed, only denied. That's a nasty business to my mind. Attorneys at Law have a code to live by too. I have found that the majority of attorneys violate their pledge when they wake up in the morning. How to pick a good one for the SC? I don't know.

[Andrew Frisardi]

But Charlie, if hypocrisy is the new integrity the Trumpkins are way out in front.

Take the b.s. they're slinging about the Yemen raid. Spicer says:

"It’s absolutely a success. And I think anyone who would suggest it’s not a success [he's referring here most of all to John McCain] does disservice to the life of Chief Ryan Owens. He fought knowing what was at stake in that mission.

Yet by Trump's own standards--having said during the campaign that McCain wasn't a true war hero because he got caught--Ryan Owens must be a real loser because he got killed.

Shamelessness is the new pride, and the Trumpkins are proud to show it.

Btw, about your doubt that millions of people might be bigots or at least tacitly support blatant bigotry and racism: you betch'ya it can happen, bit by bit little by little the laws and institutions can be tailored to fit the "alternative truth." And before long, people are lining up for the stuff. Try Fascist Italy. It happened, it really did.

[Brian Allgar]

Charlie, I'll leave the vitriolic accusations based on Trumpian "alternative truth" to you. I prefer to try to determine the facts.

"In April 2012, the Boston Herald sparked a campaign controversy when it reported that from 1986 to 1995 Warren had listed herself as a minority in the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) directories. Harvard Law School had publicized her minority status in response to criticisms about a lack of faculty diversity, but Warren said that she was unaware of this until she read about it in a newspaper during the 2012 election. Scott Brown, her Republican opponent in the Senate race, speculatedxtthat she had fabricated Native American heritage to gain advantage in the job market. Former colleagues and supervisors at universities where she had worked stated that Warren's ancestry played no role in her hiring. Warren responded to the allegations, saying that she had self-identified as a minority in the directories in order to meet others with similar tribal roots. Her brothers defended her, stating that they "grew up listening to our mother and grandmother and other relatives talk about our family's Cherokee and Delaware heritage". In her 2014 autobiography, Warren described the allegations as untrue and hurtful. The New England Historic Genealogical Society found a family newsletter that alluded to a marriage license application that listed Elizabeth Warren’s great-great-great grandmother as a Cherokee, but could not find the primary document and found no proof of her descent. The Oklahoma Historical Society said that finding a definitive answer about Native American heritage can be difficult because of intermarriage and deliberate avoidance of registration."

So it seems evident that Elizabeth Warren has good reason to believe that she has Cherokee blood - or do you think that the mention of a marriage license application (even if the primary document can't be found) listing her great-great-great-grandmother as a Cherokee was a lie planted many generations earlier in case the as-yet unborn Elizabeth might find it useful some day?

On reflection, knowing you, you're probably able to convince yourself that that's exactly what happened.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

I hear you on record Charlie Southerland. Speaking up in hope for vindication of Trump, and in doing so, making a clear appearance in the public sphere. I also here your ease and comfort with another human being being torn from her children for using a fake social security number to go to work, to work hard, and to receive a meager salary. A sixth degree felony made necessary by politicized laws. With that social, she likely received a W-2 and thus paid her taxes in withholding, likely more than she owed. Your president however likely paid nowhere near what he owed that same year. You allow a construct of the State to define a human being rather than have the courage to actually look at who she is, why people are here, and who actually benefits from their immigration. You are a willing subject of what is happening. I hear you.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Whether she read Eichmann correctly or not, Hannah Arendt's concept of the banality of evil still stands. It is the inability or unwillingness to think past the offered blinds that filled the cattle cars. And has never stopped since. Call your representatives, go to the town halls, build a movement to recall them for collusion if possible. Find any spark of a counter institution growing up in your town and join it, no matter its weak points. Get your hands filthy with the million hypocrisies and inconsistencies of our entire existence in this State. Please.

[Jim Moonan]

I'm in love...

https://www.facebook.com/Maher/video...4432004832297/

[Charlie Southerland]

Yeah, Brian, I know. There are websites and stories abounding about Warren. Most of the tribes don't believe her because she's unbelievable, and in fact, the whole wedding certificate thing is a pretty good cover since it can't be found( are we in birther territory yet) and the fact that while at Harvard, she never met a single time with the Native American group on campus, not a single time. Apparently, it must have been some deplorable tribe that was beneath her standing. Yeah, I know, Brian. I get it. You could argue about it all day if you wish. But here's the thing, She has accused a sitting US Senator of discrimination and racism without a shred of proof he had done or been either.

If you want to settle this whole thing, then I propose that I'll forget about Liawatha and her claims, if you guys admit that there was nothing wrong with Sessions becoming the US Attorney General. That as far as you're concerned, he's as clean as the driven snow. Deal? Otherwise, I don't mind doubling down on what I've read about her. There's lots and lots and lots. Since it is clear that Sessons isn't a racist or a bigot, and that he is supremely qualified for the job, you have far less material to work with. Ms. Warren's gonna run for president in four years and we'll take it up again at that time.

Andrew, stop digging the hole you're in. Let's take a vote here and now to see who would agree to let anyone steal their identity.

I vote no.


I bet she is with her children right now. They ( her children) can come and go across the border at will.

Now if we could figure out how to get Mexico to trade her back for all the gang members and drug dealers who live here. Let's talk about them for awhile, Andrew.

I didn't think so.

[John Whitworth]

Ah Nigel. 'Romancing'? You mean lying of course.

[Nigel Mace]

You are so far behind the pace here, John, I had some trouble in finding what you were referring to! However, now I've tracked it down - post 232 - let me reply.

No, John, I didn't mean "lying", as if you read what I was saying carefully, you will find that I was attempting a courteous and clear paraphrase of Charlie's accusations (vide "your drift would appear to be").
The meaning was his, not mine.

Now that I have wasted an hour or so of my life following up many of the tangled skeins of this supposedly politically 'significant' story, I have discovered that it amounts to diddly-squat. A utterly useless piece of innuendo piled on assertion, amounting to nothing of any significance, save that it illuminates a pretty amateur attempt at character assasination - which, even if proved, which it clealry is not - would not affect the real arguments about Sessions fitness, or not, for his new role.

What all this does do, for me as someone outside of the polity concerned, is to raise serious questions about the purposes of those public figures who chose not only to employ this tactic, but to couch it in often somewhat racially offensive language. Their behaviour, of course, on its own proves nothing - but it does not make me ready to trust their good intent.