The Inside Story

[Third quarterly estimated tax payment due today.]

Whatever you think of Michael Cohen, his memoir, Disloyal, seems in the main more than plausible. Why would he lie? To get a reduced sentence? That ship has sailed. To win a pardon? Not with this book.

Page 17: “I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.”

For 10 years, Cohen was Trump’s first call most mornings, last call most evenings . . . as “inner circle” as anyone could possibly have been. Loyal beyond words.

If only there were a way to get people like Carl and Tom to read Disloyal . . . and then find them an off-ramp quietly to acknowledge they were conned. That they, too, have been enabling a really bad guy.

Understandably, that’s an exceptionally difficult thing for any proud, bright, fundamentally good person to accept.

Three powerful videos, just a minute or two each:

Reject the hate.

Trump on 9/11.

Trump is not like you.

Following up on yesterday’s comments on socialism . . .

Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.

Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.

Socialism is what they called farm price supports.

Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.

Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.

Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.

What he really means is “Down with Progress–down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” and “down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.” That’s all he means.

— Harry S. Truman, 1952

BONUS:

A bit of opera with your pasta. Or your pizza.

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