McGahn Accepts Bullying

I. McGahn Accepts Bullying
President Trump accused Don McGahn, former White House counsel, of lying under oath before the Mueller Special Counsel team. So, from a hero as one who may have saved the Trump presidency by refusing the order to fire Mueller, McGahn has morphed into a person who has allowed himself to be bullied by Trump, and won't even be willing to save his own good name, by obeying an order to not testify before Congress, thus facilitating Trump's ability to escape any penalties for his unlawful behavior.

Kellyanne Conway has not paid any price for her many violations of the Hatch Act. She has denigrated many Democratic candidates, and promoted the candidacies of Republicans. She has also used a Fox  appearance to make a televised pitch for Ivanka Trump's products.

II. Conflicting Views on Notre Dame Rebirth
'Within France itself, the Notre Dame fire laid bare another, more complicated fragility: a tension rippling through the country, pitting the urge to preserve the past, and traditions of an exceedingly proud nation, against the need to overhaul its hidebound ways and modernize its system." "Although among the Yellow Vest protesters there is a sense of injustice that the Notre Dame fire has brought huge generosity, while their own struggles have not." [1]

Although donations have come from around the world, much money is from the French themselves, in a country where philanthropy is not commonplace, and is only partly tax-deductible.

III. Handing the Enemy an Ax
In the July 29/August 5, 2019 issue of The Nation, letter-writer Peter McRobbie believes that the Democratic primary field will "sort itself out." He cautions, however, that "let us not hand the enemy an ax." "The alternative is four more years of white supremacy, climate denial, nuclear brinksmanship, rampant corruption, Constitution trampling, immigrant trashing, and much more."

ADDENDUMS:
*One database shows that since August 1, 1966 when a student sniper fired from a tower of the University of Texas to the present, at least 1,196 people have been killed in mass shootings, defined as four or more being killed.

*The Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism has found that nearly 75 percent of extremist murders committed in the U.S. over the past decade were carried out by people espousing white extremist ideology.

*A new Hill-Harris X poll found that 51 percent of Republicans; 50 percent of Democrats; and 58 percent of independents responded that the federal deficit must be dealt with immediately.

*Attorney General William Barr has said that the DoJ will throughly investigate the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City. He warned that alleged co-conspirators "should not rest easy."

*Kellyanne Conway argued that the Trump retweet of a post that the Clintons may have been involved in the suicide of Jeffery Epstein was simply the President wanting "everything to be investigated."

*The U.S. is threatening to leave the New START Treaty.

Footnote:
[1[ Vivienne Walt, "Rising from the ashes..." TIME, August 5, 2019.