Special to the Mirror by Karen Davis, PhD, President of United Poultry Concerns in Machipongo.
On Sunday morning November 18, I was listening to the classical music station, WHRO, in Norfolk, VA, when a feature called Bird Notes, hosted by WHRO’s Program Director Dwight Davis (no relation to me), came on and, wouldn’t you know, the bird being featured that day was the turkey. Sure enough, the familiar refrain was soon sounded: “Turkeys are not high up on the intelligence scale.”
I sent a quick email to Mr. Davis, who replied he’d get back to me after the holiday, and on Monday, he did. He wrote at some length, saying he did not mean his characterization of turkeys as a “slight”; simply that “By implying that turkeys were of low intelligence, I was merely trying to be objective and place them in some sort of continuum.”
He went on to say that there is not a lot of “hard evidence about bird intelligence to refer to; indeed, it is hard to define what ‘bird intelligence’ means,” citing a paucity of experimental evidence of avian intelligence while conceding that the survival of turkeys for millennia, despite being hunted, could, he supposed, “be construed as a mark of intelligence.”
People, he said, who are around animals, especially domesticated ones, including turkeys, and begin to feel an attachment to them, may on that basis “consider them smart because we’ve adapted to them and they to us” and we can relate to those animals. Thus, he said, “we give them human-like characteristics.”
Mr. Davis concluded that he “did not mean to be disparaging to turkeys,” but was “merely offering a general, bird-oriented feature for Thanksgiving” and would “tread more thoughtfully and lightly” the next time he discusses turkeys.
To this, I wrote back:
Thank you very much for your response to my email last week expressing my shock and dismay at hearing you tell listeners of “Bird Notes” that turkeys “are not high up on the intelligence scale,” or words to that effect. This characterization of turkeys is not “objective” at all. Avian intelligence does not fit a vertical scale from “lowest” to “highest.” Ranking the diversity of individual animals and species on an IQ scale has no more to do with the actual cognitive complexity and evolution of other species than ranking human individuals, ethnicities, etc., has.
I must underscore that representing turkeys and chickens as cognitively inferior to song birds, raptors, or whoever is being invoked for comparison, perpetuates false and demeaning stereotypes with no relevance to any of these birds. It’s time that we quit representing birds who have the particular misfortunate of being classed as “food” animals as “dumb,” “dirty,” and so on. There is no “continuum” of avian or any other animal intelligence in nature. E.g., who’s “smarter”? Parrots or porcupines? Dogs or ducks? Cats or kangaroos? To characterize turkeys as ‘low” on some arbitrarily-contrived kindergarten-level scale of measurement certainly is a slight. As if these birds weren’t already burdened with the misery and degradation our species inflicts on them every day, all day for “food” nobody needs or has any right to have.
We now realize that ranking human ethnicities, races, sexes, and the like is ridiculous and unjust. The same applies to the ranking of other animals, and it’s time for us to stop this nonsense.
Here is a PDF of my book More Than A Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality Chapter 8, “The Mind and Behavior of Turkeys,” examines the false stereotypes versus what we now know and can reasonably surmise about turkeys and chickens – creatures who could never live successfully in the natural world if they were not super alert, attentive, subjectively aware, able to make quick decisions and do a thousand other things required by the rigors of daily life. Chickens evolved in the tropical forests of Asia, as I’m sure you know. Chickens are intelligent, emotional birds. Their wild relatives continue to occupy these forests that our species is destroying for “beef,” “chicken,” and factory-farmed animal feed.
So thank you again very much for taking the time to respond to my concerns. Please do not denigrate our fellow creatures any more by circulating misperceptions and misrepresentations of them. We have an ethical obligation to be just and accurate in our portrayals of those who cannot defend themselves against us and who are not in themselves the creatures we thoughtlessly or intentionally trash and make fun of.
Karen Davis, PhD is the president and founder of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization and sanctuary for chickens in Virginia that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. Karen is the author of More Than A Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality, Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry, and The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities. She has been inducted into the National Animal Rights Hall of Fame for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Liberation.
Abe P. Knob says
I had TURKEY noodle soup for dinner tonight. Sooooo gooood!
Abe P. Knob says
Why’d the chicken cross the road?
To get away from Karen Jolley Davis! Only to be eaten by meeee!!!
Susan says
Karen Jolly Davis collects seaglass. Dr. Karen Davis is a world renowned expert on various avian species.
Note: Thank you. Editorial staff was asleep at the wheel and did not catch that!
Paul Plante says
Susan, so good to see you as always, and to hear your commentary on issues of the day, such as these turkeys who are now terrorizing human beings, and as we can see from the above, it is not just Staten Island.
No, this is bigger than that, and one really has to wonder what it is going to take before Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House of Representatives finally wake up to just how serious a threat to our national security these insurrectionist turkeys present.
What on earth can they be waiting for?
These people being attacked by these turkeys are as American as any of the rest of us, so why is nothing being done for them?
Surely some of them are Democrats, which brings us to this article from the Albany, New York Times Union, the newspaper of record for the Democrat-controlled capital city of Democrat-controlled New York State, entitled “Rogue wild turkey running amok in Colonie,” (what would Karen Davis have to say about this?) by Paul Grondahl on Thursday, February 11, 2016, where we learn as follows:
Colonie – There is a rogue wild turkey striking fear, and a touch of frivolity, into the heart of this suburban town.
The territorial tom has stopped traffic on Old Maxwell Road, accosted a Times Union employee, chased library patrons and repeatedly tried to breach the lobby’s sliding glass doors at the newspaper office.
end quotes
Now, there we are talking a terrorist attack on a good, solid Democrat newspaper that sings the praises of Young Andy Cuomo, said to be the next Democrat president of this country in 2020, Young Andy being tight with Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton and yes, people, even Nancy Pelosi herself, so why have the Democrats said nothing and let these attacks on the media go on?
Getting back to the Times Union story:
The gobbler’s lovelorn chirping to communicate with a foraging hen echoed across the hollows and woodlots that dot the quiet stretch of bungalows, vacant fields and commercial properties off Albany Shaker Road near Northway Exit 4 on Wednesday.
The turkey thus far has stopped short of interrupting services at the Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa Church.
Times Union arts writer Amy Biancolli was not so lucky.
She was chased and lunged at during a recent noontime walk.
She fended off the aggressive tom with a stick — and a few choice expletives hurled at the turkey’s curdled shrieks.
“It was terrifying,” she said.
“I was shaking.”
“I stopped running and my knees buckled.”
Anne-Marie Sheehan rushed to help Biancolli.
“It sounded like someone was being mugged,” said Sheehan, instructor of the New Visions program for aspiring high school journalists.
“The turkey was menacing Amy, circling around her, plumping out his feathers.
He wouldn’t back down,” Sheehan said.
end quotes
You’re a woman, Susan, how can anyone just turn their back on American women getting attacked by Turkeys here in America?
The Democrats claim to be an “up with women” political party, which I personally think is hog****, unless the women have a lot of money, so why their silence here?
Here is a woman who was chased and lunged at during a noontime walk by this terrorist turkey, so why are no tears being shed in America for her?
Getting back to the Times Union story and further acts of terrorism by this turkey, we have:
She and students work in a bungalow adjacent to the newspaper plant, where Sheehan has shooed the turkey out of the driveway and even off the roof of her car.
On Monday at 8 a.m., when Barb Goodwin went to unlock the sliding glass front doors of the newspaper’s lobby, the turkey had its beak and fleshy snood pressed to the glass.
“I couldn’t tell if he was looking at his reflection or the Hearst eagle on the wall.”
“He really wanted to get in,” said Goodwin, a front desk receptionist.
She’s dispatched wayward birds, bats and a persistent woodchuck over the past 16 years.
Stephanie Rawling, classified ad and sales service rep, grew up with chickens on a farm in Stephentown, Rensselaer County, and offered to deal with the turkey.
“If you stomp after them, they’ll run,” she said.
The technique seemed to work for a moment, but then the turkey reared its blue, red and white wattled head and chased her back into the lobby.
Dan Couto, vice president of operations, took evasive action.
The motion sensors on the sliding doors were disabled.
“He seemed particularly emboldened,” Couto said.
He sent his burly colleague, Brad Calhoun, director of engineering and technical services, to the parking lot to investigate.
Calhoun was forced to retreat when the squawking turkey charged him.
Across Old Maxwell Road, patrons at the William K. Sanford Town Library complained about being chased to their cars in the parking lot last week.
Workers at a back door had to use another entrance when the turkey took up position there.
“We advised people not to approach the turkey.”
“It can be mean,” said librarian Joe Nash.
A staffer called police.
Cops dispatched animal control officer Jim Ainscoe on Monday.
It was his first turkey call in 13 years on the job.
“I chased it back into the woods a couple times,” Ainscoe said.
He returned to his animal control van.
The turkey trotted after its rear bumper.
“He kept evading me, so I just let him be,” Ainscoe said.
“We don’t get involved with trying to catch and relocate wildlife.”
He contacted the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Senior wildlife biologist Karl Parker has been outfoxed by more than one wild turkey in nearly 30 years at the DEC.
He investigated complaints in 1998 by residents of Loughlin Street near the University at Albany, where residents fed a 30-pound tom and treated it like a mascot.
There was a standoff with the U.S. Postal Service after a letter carrier was regularly harassed by the bird.
Residents compromised by installing mailboxes at the curb so the carrier could remain safely inside the mail truck.
Mail service resumed.
Neighbors grieved when the turkey was struck and killed by an SUV on Fuller Road in 2003.
Parker was called to an area near Siena College a few years ago where a letter carrier and joggers were chased by an aggressive gobbler.
“The turkey was smart enough to avoid capture each time,” Parker said.
He speculated the turkey perhaps felt threatened by the eagle logo on the mail truck.
“I wish I knew what was going on inside that walnut-sized brain of theirs,” he said.
end quotes
Maybe that is an answer Karen Davis can give him, Susan, given that she is an expert on the various avian species which include the turkey, of course.
In the meantime, Susan, you are educated.
You are discerning.
What is it that you can make of any of this?
And what can we possibly do now to appease these turkeys after all these years of abuse we have heaped on them?
Or are we past the tipping point?
Chicken Little says
and they both pay the same price, per pound, for a fryer, a roaster or a capon.
Stuart Bell says
Support the Chicken Farmers of Delmarva, for they have fed your families for generations.
Paul Plante says
Reminds me of stories of turkeys who have been terrorizing people down on Staten island in New York City as we first see from a Mother Nature Network article entitled “Flock of feral turkeys terrorizes Staten Island homeowners” by Matt Hickman on December 4, 2013, as follows:
Last week, the Internet was abuzz with news that a roving rafter of feral turkeys — a hybrid of wild and domestic fowl, to be clear — have been disturbing the peace in a big way in decidedly non-rural Staten Island: destroying gardens, pooping on lawns, causing traffic jams, and disturbing homeowners, many whom have their property damaged by the birds, with early morning sexy-time parties.
I didn’t share this story when it first hit the wires as I didn’t want to upset poultry-sensitive readers as they were sitting down to chow down on their Thanksgiving birds.
Also, it’s not exactly breaking news.
The rapidly multiplying, marauding feral turkeys have been a “serious issue” in the New York City borough for some years now although the birds’ headache-inducing antics have just now started to make international headlines.
The fact that the birds, which roost at the South Beach Psychiatric Center (not to be confused with the notorious, now-abandoned Willowbrook State School because that would be just too perfect), have garnered so much media attention in recent days that the Staten Island Advance was prompted to chime in and declare: “Yes, world: Staten Island has turkey issues.”
As reported by the Advance, the turkeys first appeared decades ago on Staten Island’s East Shore before slowly making their way to other areas of the island where they loiter, gobble, and stop traffic.
Still, it’s within the confines of the island’s East Shore neighborhoods, particularly those in close vicinity to the South Beach campus, where most of the Galliformes-related drama — the “turkeys eat their shrubs and garden vegetables, frighten small children and snatch cookies out of their hands, wake families up before sunrise and cross the streets in indolent flocks that seem impervious to impatient drivers” reported the New York Times in 2011 — continues to occur.
Seventy-year-old Dongan Hills resident Barbara Laing and her neighbors have dealt with hundreds of gobblers and hens descending on their neighborhood for over a decade now — it all started after another East Shore resident allegedly dumped the first generation of offending turkeys on the grounds of the nearby psychiatric hospital.
Newsweek sets a rather vivid scene:
Barbara Laing takes a drag on a menthol cigarillo, maneuvering her maroon power chair between chalky piles of feral turkey feces strewn across the yard.
Mr. Darcy, a teacup Yorkshire terrier in a skeleton jumpsuit, shivers by her feet, yipping as more and more turkeys, the ones responsible for the poop, perch on Laing’s leafless red maple.
The heavy turkeys sit in her flower beds, fatally smashing the petals.
They feast on the increasingly meager fruits of Laing’s fig, pear, and cherry trees.
Their waste so extensively litters the lawn that it gets caught in the wheels of Liang’s power chair and tracks into her house.
The mailman, Wharton, has refused to deliver letters because there’s simply too much guano on the ground.
Laing tells Newsweek: “When the sun comes up, they all come down from the tree, screaming.”
“Then, they walk all the way down to the psych center.”
“And that’s where they hang out all day.”
She adds: “We don’t get no help.”
There have, however, been numerous attempts, some failed and some successful, to “help” beleaguered North Shore residents cope with the aggressive turkeys.
In 2007, the same year a Dongan Hills resident was arrested for firing bottle rockets at the birds, officials announced that they had found a “silver bullet” — coating unhatched eggs with vegetable oil during breeding season to prevent the embryos from hatching.
Given that the population of turkeys has only grown since 2007, it’s safe to say that the scheme didn’t pan out as planned.
The Department of Environmental Conservation has also provided homeowners with tips on how to keep the “filthy” and “horrible” creatures, to quote one terrified East Shore resident, off of their lawns — tips that don’t involve fireworks or illegal hunting like spraying them with garden hoses, not feeding them, etc.
This past August, the US Department of Agriculture rounded up around 80 of the birds on the grounds of the psychiatric hospital with the full blessing of the DEC.
After their capture, the birds were “Butterballed” — or, to put it politely, sent off for “poultry processing” — although after public outcry, petitions, and protests held by animal rights activists, about 30 of the turkeys were rescued and sent to live out their days at an animal sanctuary in the Catskills.
A little more than a month later, another group of several dozen turkeys were captured, all of them killed.
Moving forward, officials are considering slaughtering the remaining birds and donating the meat to local food pantries — “if the meat tests fit for human consumption, it will be donated to charity,” a USDA spokesperson tells Newsweek — as an alternative to euthanizing them and discarding the bodies.
Many Staten Island residents such as Laing who have suffered extensive property damage from the turkeys but don’t want to seem them killed, wonder why the birds can’t just be rounded up and sent into the wild in lieu of the slaughterhouse.
The short explanation?
The offending fowl aren’t technically wild but wild/domestic hybrids.
Releasing birds that have spent the entirety of their lives in an urban environment into the wild could be detrimental, even cruel.
One alternative that hasn’t been explored as far I know: Sending them down to the Drunken Monkey and letting Big Ang set them straight.
end quotes
I wonder what Karen Davis would have to say to all of that.
Lawrence DiRe says
Yous are really making me homesick now.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Having lived under the principles of “I may not agree with what yo have to say but will defend to the death your right to say it” I was SO READY to defend KJD………UNTIL I saw this……….” The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities.”
KJD, there is NO COMPARISON. NONE. To even present a case is as vile a reach as I’ve ever encountered.
Now, I’m off to make croquettes……….turkey, bien sur.
Paul Plante says
And coming back to what Karen Davis is saying here when she says, “I must underscore that representing turkeys and chickens as cognitively inferior to song birds, raptors, or whoever is being invoked for comparison, perpetuates false and demeaning stereotypes with no relevance to any of these birds.”
Reading through that article above about the turkeys of Staten Island certainly backs up her statement about representing turkeys as cognitively inferior to raptors perpetuating a false stereotype, because these Staten Island turkeys know exactly what it is they are doing, and to whom, and why.
Pray the raptors don’t decide to get hostile against humans the way the falsely stereotyped turkeys are now doing – that would make life interesting, alright, which takes us back to what Karen Davis is saying here when she says, “(I)t’s time that we quit representing birds who have the particular misfortunate of being classed as ‘food’ animals as ‘dumb,’ ‘dirty,’ and so on.”
These Staten Island turkeys are proving her point in spades about “(I)t’s time that we quit representing birds who have the particular misfortunate of being classed as ‘food’ animals as ‘dumb,'” because they know just what they are doing, and it is interesting to see them turning people into a ready source of food, for them, because they know people are docile and easily manipulated through fear and intimidation into giving up their food instead of fighting for it.
For that, of course, some are now calling the turkeys bullies, but the turkeys, as we shall seen see from a more recent update, really don’t give a damn about what might bother some weak-in-the-knee human being.
Getting back to Karen Davis, she tells us that to characterize turkeys as ‘low” on some arbitrarily-contrived kindergarten-level scale of measurement certainly is a slight, as if these birds weren’t already burdened with the misery and degradation our species inflicts on them every day, all day for “food” nobody needs or has any right to have.
Karen Davis, the turkeys, at least of Staten Island, have heard you, and they are rebelling, fighting back against this misery inflicted upon them by humans, and the degradation, as we can clearly see in the Albany, New York Times Union article entitled “Turkeys terrorize Staten Island – Neighborhoods overrun with birds set to be trapped” by Corey Kilgannon and Nate Schweber on 22 Nov. 2018, as follows:
Of all the complications of living in New York City, you might not imagine wild turkeys making the list.
But for years, growing flocks of them have held sway in a section of Staten Island where every day is turkey day.
While most Americans wrestle with a turkey only on Thanksgiving — brining, basting and broiling a frozen version of the species — residents here tangle with them year-round: on lawns, wandering the streets, roosting on parked cars.
But soon Staten Island’s wild turkeys will roam here no more.
They, however, will meet a far more pleasant fate than their diningtable-bound counterparts.
The estimated 250 turkeys that have staked their claim to the neighborhoods of Ocean Breeze and Dongan Hills just south of the Verrazzano-narrows Bridge will be trapped and removed over the next few months to a wildlife sanctuary in upstate New York.
It is an ambitious roundup — previous removal attempts have ensnared only a fraction of the flock, leaving the remainder — leftovers? — to repopulate and bounce back even stronger.
“If we don’t get all of them, it’s just going to keep happening,” said Steven Matteo, a New York City councilman who represents the neighborhood and who helped secure $100,000 in city funds for the latest removal attempt.
The turkeys, which can grow up to 3 feet high, are a major source of constituent complaints, said Matteo, who routinely gets updates and notifications by email.
Older residents, he said, tend to call to report aggressive turkeys on the lawn or roosting in their trees.
end quotes
The turkeys, which have been studying humans as a species for a long time, and the turkeys have learned from their studies that human old people are generally too weak to fight back, so the turkeys know the old people as soft targets, which is a real testimonial as to the real intelligence level of these birds, which is higher than that of human beings, as we see from returning to that Ties Union article as follows:
“The turkeys hop up on cars now,” he said.
“You see them crossing the street, 10 or 15 at a time.”
end quotes
Talk about representing, all right, these turkeys know where it’s at on that score, alright – you got a point you want made, why take over a highway as the best way to get the point made, and who is trying to tell us these turkeys are stupid?
Getting back to the turkeys:
On Tuesday afternoon, more than two dozen of them clucked, flapped, gobbled and stopped traffic on Seaview Avenue near Staten Island University Hospital, on whose grassy grounds the turkeys are a constant presence.
“I thought I was seeing things.”
“It’s quite unbelievable,” Mike Pidoto, 58, a security worker who was visiting the hospital, said.
He had to honk at the turkeys and nudge his car through the flock.
Staten Island residents are strongly divided over the turkeys.
Some homeowners and drivers call them an aggressive nuisance.
“This is a terrible bird,” said Mohammed Imam, 65, who runs the Big Yellow Grill food truck outside the hospital.
As their numbers have increased, so has their boldness for begging food from his customers, he said, sometimes grabbing food out of the hands of children.
“They grab kids’ hot dogs.”
“This is not right,” Imam said.
“They have to do something, this stupid bird.”
end quotes
Now, see what Karen Davis is talking about here with regard to people talking smack about turkeys by calling them dumb – a turkey who knows to come to a human food truck for an easy meal is hardly stupid.
And as the Times Union article makes clear, Karen Davis is not alone in being a champion for the turkeys, as follows:
But others consider the turkeys — which may have grown out of a small group released more than 20 years ago on the grounds of the nearby South Beach Psychiatric Center — quirky mascots of the neighborhood.
Jeanette Liubicich, a nurse, spoke of the turkeys in almost heroic terms and called the city’s plan to remove them “disgusting.”
“They survived Hurricane Sandy, they survived big blizzards, they really have a right to live here,” she said.
“They’re more Staten Island than Staten Islanders are Staten Island.”
Rasheen Taitt, 43, a mechanic, said the turkeys bring “flair” to the neighborhood, adding, “Where else can you see this in the city?”
end quotes
That show of support for the turkeys sure should make Karen Davis feel good about herself and all warm and squishy inside.
But there is also a dark side to these turkeys, might one even dare to venture to say, a sinister side, as again we can clearly see from the Times Union article as follows:
On Seaview Avenue, the turkeys were blocking an ambulance, which tried to disperse the flock with its siren.
This backfired, as five more turkeys came running over to join their obstructive feathered friends.
Lou Tobacco, an associate executive director at Staten Island University Hospital, said the turkeys often get in the way of employee and visitor vehicles.
“We’re fortunate that there’s not been a major car accident,” he said.
“They just stop in the middle of the road.”
“They’re not afraid of cars.
“They rule the roost, pardon the pun,” he added.
“They walk around the grounds, the parking lots.”
Tobacco said the turkeys’ droppings get tracked into the hospital, and “during mating season, they get very aggressive and violent,” sometimes charging at people.
“That’s the last thing you need: You visit a loved one, and you get chased by a turkey,” Tobacco said.
He recalled past removal attempts that involved wildlife handlers trying to lure turkeys into traps with cornmeal.
“I told them, ‘These are Staten Island turkeys.”
“You have to put a mozzarella sandwich or a slice of pizza in there,’” he said.
The goal this time is to catch the turkeys and relocate them to And-hof Animals, a wildlife sanctuary in Catskill, New York, that is already home to 160 turkeys from Staten Island that have been sent there by wildlife handlers in recent years.
They live on an 8-acre, fenced-in “turkey kingdom” in the woods, the sanctuary’s founder, Kurt Andernach, said.
Unlike earlier roundups, Andernach said he believed the funding this time would ensure a complete job.
The effort would entail setting up “large, humane traps” with remote-controlled doors that can be closed when turkeys wander in to eat the grain left inside.
Andernach said the Staten Island turkeys fall somewhere between being wild and being domesticated like those raised on a farm for food.
Releasing them into the wild would be a death sentence.
en d quotes
And people think it is the turkeys that are stupid?
Guess again, people, guess again.
Paul Plante says
And OMG, people, talk about a “turkey” here, and let me be clear that I am using that term “turkey” this time as slang, as opposed to a direct reference to the bird itself, where “turkey” in this case is defined as “a thing or person that fails; a dud,” all we need do is refer to the New York Times article “Prosecutors’ Narrative Is Clear: Trump Defrauded Voters. But What Does It Mean?” by Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos on 9 December 2018, where we are fed the following bull****, to wit:
WASHINGTON — The latest revelations by prosecutors investigating President Trump and his team draw a portrait of a candidate who personally directed an illegal scheme to manipulate the 2016 election and whose advisers had more contact with Russia than Mr. Trump has ever acknowledged.
In the narrative that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and New York prosecutors are building, Mr. Trump continued to secretly seek to do business in Russia deep into his presidential campaign even as Russian agents made more efforts to influence him.
At the same time, in this account he ordered hush payments to two women to suppress stories of impropriety in violation of campaign finance law.
The prosecutors made clear in a sentencing memo filed on Friday that they viewed efforts by Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, to squelch the stories as nothing less than a perversion of a democratic election — and by extension they effectively accused the president of defrauding voters, questioning the legitimacy of his victory.
end quotes
HUH?
Defrauding the voters?
Let me tell you, people, in this lifetime of mine, I have heard plenty of pure bull**** and hog**** and horse**** from our politicians, especially at the national level, right on into the White House, but this pretty much takes the cake with regard to sheer stupidity.
First of all, Trump has been an open book for many, many years now, and if they are somehow deceived by anything he does or says today, they must be totally braindead, and so should not be allowed to vote in the first place, because stupid people make stupid choices, which is why in America, the American people do not elect a president – the Electoral College does – for the exact reason that the American people can be so easily deceived, which makes them untrustworthy to elect directly the chief executive of this nation – a basic point about our Republican frame of government at the federal level you would think these hotshot prosecutors would be well aware of, but apparently are not, along with Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who said in an interview on Saturday that Trump was at the center of a massive fraud against the American people.
What tripe that is, Jerrold, and with all due respect, dude, you sound like a real moron making that foolish charge, which takes us back to the New York Times article as follows:
The framers of the Constitution specifically envisioned impeachment as a remedy for removing a president who obtained office through corrupt means, and legal scholars have long concluded that the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” does not necessarily require a statutory crime.
end quotes
Ah, yes, people, the “framers” of the Constitution.
So let us take a look at what the “framers” actually did provide us with to specifically head off the problem of an American president obtaining office through corrupt means, which should not be possible in our frame of government according to Alexander Hamilton in FEDERALIST No. 68, The Mode of Electing the President, from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York on Friday, March 14, 1788, as follows:
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided.
This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.
end quotes
Now, people, think about what is bein g said there – the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.
Now, those are the people who elected Trump, so how is it that Trump managed to deceive them, pray tell?
Were the framers who gave us that system of electing a president wrong?
Is that what the Democrats are really trying to tell us here?
As to Trump’s bidness dealings in Russia that are supposedly so secret, if one turns to WIKIPEDIA under “Trump’s business dealings with Russia,” one finds as follows:
Donald Trump has pursued business deals in Russia since 1987, and has sometimes traveled there to explore potential business opportunities.
In 1996, Trump trademark applications were submitted for potential Russian real estate development deals.
Trump’s partners and children have repeatedly visited Moscow, connecting with developers and government officials to explore joint venture opportunities.
Trump was never able to successfully conclude any real estate deals in Russia.
However, individual Russians have invested heavily in Trump properties, and following Trump’s bankruptcies in the 1990s he borrowed money from Russian sources.
In 2008 his son Donald Trump Jr. said that Russia was an important source of money for the Trump businesses.
end quotes
So where is the BIG SECRET, people, besides in the fertile and over-active imagination of Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who said in an interview on Saturday that Trump was at the center of a massive fraud against the American people?
Getting back to Federalist No. 68:
A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.
This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States.
But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.
end quotes
What the framers were concerned about was protecting our liberty from the politicians, including this Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, as we can clearly see from FEDERALIST No. 51, The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments, from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York by either Alexander Hamilton or Jemmy Madison on Friday, February 8, 1788, to wit:
It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.
But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
end quotes
There, people notwithstanding all this constant stream of BULL**** we keep hearing from the Democrats and the thumb-sucking main-stream media in this country about the intentions of the “founders,” there they mare in black and white – the checks and balances in the Constitution exist to control the abuses of government, and as we can clearly see here, these checks and balances are breaking down big-time as the Democrats in the House of Representatives try to put forth a proposition that today, an American president serves at their pleasure, which takes us back to Federalist No. 68, as follows:
The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.
And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.
end quotes
Ah, yes, people, in the minds of the framers who were tryin g to put in place a system of government to protect us from its abuses, nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption in the election of a president, so then, how exactly was Trump able pull off a massive fraud on the American people to gain the White House?
Wouldn’t the fraud really have needed to be pulled on the electoral college?
Getting back to Federalist No. 68:
These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.
How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?
end quotes
WHOA!
Look at that, people – 230 years ago, the founders were already contemplating that the Russians would try to interfere in our presidential elections, so they provided us with safeguards to prevent that from happening.
And now Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is telling us that Trump managed on his own to breach those safeguards by having his lawyer Cohen tell us lies.
But those lies told to us are immaterial, given that we do not elect the president, which takes us back again to Federalist No. 68 as follows:.
But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention.
They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment.
And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office.
No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors.
Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias.
Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it.
The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means.
Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves.
He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence.
This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President.
Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.
Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.
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Think about it, people – according to the real founders, not the imaginary ones the Democrats rely on, the process of electing a president in this country affords a moral certainty that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.
So, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, tell us, dude, how did the process break down this time?
The American people would truly like to know!