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Susan Rohrbach's avatar

I too read in the wee hours. Usually there is something positive to take from her words, so I can go to sleep. Not tonight though. I am so angry and discouraged that people can just flat out lie and continually get away with it.

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Janet W.'s avatar

Going through the lying, "back room dealing" etc. at the local town level as well. It is insidious and so frustrating!! Thank goodness I'm able to get into a kayak, on a bicycle, have a great group of fellow pickleball players, and golfing ladies to help maintain a minimum amount of sanity . . . although my golf game is not the best stress buster :)

I do worry about my adult kids who are also so discouraged and depressed with what they see as a very dim future. My eldest said when trump occupied the WH, his craziness and that of his supporters would be a disaster for the rest of their lives. Makes me so sad, angry, and helpless. In all seriousness, I don't know how Biden holds it together but God bless him!

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JDinTX's avatar

At least your eldest knows the score, so many of the young around me donтАЩt even know that the game is afoot.

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Janet W.'s avatar

I agree! And, it is downright scary.

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JL Riley's avatar

What an unfortunately sad reality for us тАж but a [frightening] ignorance for them!

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Karen Jacob's avatar

Young minds are developed at an early age. Our toddlers will be indoctrinated like the kidnapped Ukrainian children have been. Children not born yet will never know what we had. They will think it is normal to live in fear of expressing themselves, have an all supreme person who controls every aspect of life and will send out the government military at the least sign of "insurrection." They will think that uniformed children always march with weapons to show loyalty to the state.

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Marge Wherley's avatar

And their history classes will state that African slaves learned valuable skills while enslaved. In fact, the whole slavery thing was a massive jobs training program that those damn Yankees never understood because they hate people of color.

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JDinTX's avatar

My nightmare

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Michele's avatar

Karen, we were having our hair cut last week when our hairdresser showed us a picture of some of his young relatives. The older one, aged 11, was surreptitiously throwing the white power sign with a smirk on her face.

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James Vander Poel's avatar

Reminds me of being heckled by some young (not even teenage) T**** supporters while marching with my fellow Democrats in a local parade back in 2016. How many generations are going to be screwed up by MAGA?

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Ned McDoodle's avatar

Many have been all along. Trump gave them permission to go public.

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Karen Jacob's avatar

I wonder where she got that attitude from?

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Michele's avatar

Hmmm. Yes.

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Kathy Clark's avatar

Some do.....Gen Z https://dream4america.org/

This is an amazing group of our young.

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JDinTX's avatar

Send some to Texas. Around here they look like the deer caught in the headlights. At least some do

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Richard Sutherland's avatar

It is a tough case with many reasons to feel discouraged. "Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat." тАФ F. Scott Fitzgerald, author.

We must never give up. Posterity is counting on us to stay the course.

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Tracy Sample's avatar

And the people pushing trump's levers are to be taken very seriously. They will absolutely implement Project 2025 and overturn the last 100 years of progress, making life miserable for all our families. That people need the threat of Roe being overturned to get out and vote, with fascism breathing down our backs, is terribly sad and infuriating. Americans are sleepwalking into the abyss.

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Karen Jacob's avatar

Let us say trump is the sleeping aid for the multitude. About 50-70 million people have sleep problems (about the number of people who voted for trump in the last election). The problem with sleep aids is that are side effects, some of which are unusual thinking patterns and behavior changes. Remember your best longtime friend (who moved south) and will no longer talk to you because you said you didn't like trump? Another symptom could be a slowdown in brain activity. hmmm They are also addicting. Gotta have trump no matter what he says or does.

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Sandra P. Campbell's avatar

Janet, I've recently been reminded of a bumper sticker about stress that I saw in an Orlando parking lot in the late 1980s - "Stress - that tension between your head and heart when you want to smack the living $hit out of some a$$hole who richly deserves it" (or words close to that).

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Marge Wherley's avatar

One bumper sticker I saw in Oklahoma back then said тАЬDonтАЩt argue with your wife - dicker.тАЭ

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James Vander Poel's avatar

Thanks for the addition to my collection of bumper stickers. I didn't have that one.

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linтАв's avatar

"Going through the lying, "back room dealing" etc. at the local town level as well."

Yes. Here in Bar Harbor, Maine, town councillors use executive sessions *and* misinformation campaigns. They use their office to try to shut out residents who challenge them. While praising themselves for openness. One of the council culprits is now running for state office. Against someone who would be worse. It brings home the frustrations of voting for 'the lesser of two evils.' But it does not exempt us from the responsibility to do so.

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Janet W.'s avatar

Unfortunately, it is everywhere. I even subjected myself to participating on different boards to do the business of the residents in public! Ha, what was I thinking?! A small group hounded me relentlessly (threats, nastiness) - what really got them (in addition to a woman sitting at the "head of the table") was when I would state we worked for the residents not for a specific employee or two of the Town! And, the drum beat of nefarious activities continues!

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

Participation: the double-edged sword. We are encouraged to take an active role in the political process; yet when we do, we are subjected to the garbage that goes along with it, both from our peers and our constituents. My sister has been on the Planning Commission for her small town of Phoenix, OR since the dreadful fires in 2020. My dyslexic, high school grad (just barely), community focused sister has been subjected to some really awful internal and external fighting and is just done.

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Michele's avatar

Ally,It is certainly a double edged sword. Here in Salem we have a fairly liberal city council. Now the current mayor, Hoyt, is running against a wing nut Hoyt, no relation. Once agains some interest at our hair dressers. Wing nut Hoyt and her husband catered their wedding, then they saw her in pictures with some other local wing nuts. They are gay and they know very well which people stand with them and it is not R wing nuts. We are not in the city, but we recently got a robocall from wing nut Hoyt. I couldn't put an end to it fast enough. Kudos to your sister for being involved and I am sure that in any city in southern Oregon, it is even more difficult than it is here.

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Kathy Clark's avatar

you are probably just too close to Idaho.....it rubs off.

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Michele's avatar

Luckily Salem is not close to Idaho, but we have plenty of wing nuts right here in River City.

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SAH Vashon's avatar

ЁЯШе. The Phoenix and Talent fire was terrifying.

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

The Almeda fire was, indeed. Even today, driving Hwy 99 from Phoenix to Ashland, you can see how the creek funnelled the flames. My sister's church at the corner of Second and Church was spared; the Jackson County Fuel Committee's building just to the north across Second burned to the ground.

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SAH Vashon's avatar

I never remember the name of the fire (despite its memorable devastation) but our neighborтАЩs son lost his home in Talent. His girlfriend only had time to grab the dog and flee in the car after the authorities came and pounded on the front doorЁЯШв.

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

It was devastating to that area.

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Susan Rohrbach's avatar

Here too--so discouraging. Our situation sounds very similar. I have been involved in town government for many years and am still on a committee. The newly elected Council people sound reasonable, or at least some of them do, but their supporters are putting out misinformation and attacking people personally. I have been banned from one of their Facebook pages--so now I can't challenge misinformation, and so many people are tuned into this person. It's bad at all levels!

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Michele's avatar

Janet, we have no children, but I have many nephews and nieces, greats and great greats. One set has ties to Norway where they could go to survive a little longer. The rest of them are stuck in deep ruts in southern Illinois, and Indiana. I would be surprised if they even vote. My nephew's wife however, doesn't know conspiracy theories from the truth. She did tell me recently that she appreciated my commentary, so at least she reads it.

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Kathy Clark's avatar

Send them this link: https://dream4america.org/

They might see what young voters are supporting

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Michele's avatar

You are supposing they can read and understand. They are too busy having children and working, if they work, in scut jobs. One of my nieces has started a crochet business and kudos to her.

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Russell Meyer's avatar

Yes, it's astonishing how the mere repetition of a lie gives it a presence. Then, the media's repetition of the lie amplifies and implants it in the public imagination. And so, this vapor becomes a topic for discussion. It attains a quasi-reality because even a false hypothesis exists.

Yep, no more sleep for me either. I too broke the Letters From and Civil Discourse-with-morning-coffee rule.

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JDinTX's avatar

That description of how to lie effectively came straight from Mien Kampf; I can believe that chump read one book in his life. The part on telling a тАЬbig lieтАЭ effectively came straight from the master of lying. Chump is his best student.

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LeslieN's avatar

I believe Stephen Miller read the book and gave cliff notes version to Traitor.

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JDinTX's avatar

Maybe later, but chump had the idea from way back.

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Patricia F. Neyman's avatar

I like chump but unfortunately this guy is not dumb, at least in certain ways. How about Trumpler to remind us that he loves Hitler.

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JDinTX's avatar

Guess we are the chumps, at least those adoring fools. I like Trumpler, the MAGAts need a reminder. Of course, I would love to hear the last of him someday

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Linda Bailey's avatar

Susan, I have stopped reading Heather's Letter in the wee hours. I am finding it harder to read it at any hour.

The reality is that we are in big trouble and have been for a long time.

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Kathy Clark's avatar

Fortunately, here in Alaska the letter arrives usually well after bedtime, so I read with morning toast and coffee.

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JennSH from NC's avatar

A majority of the people do not want these draconian bans on abortion, which is healthcare. The people also want to support Ukraine. That tRump has so much influence on our national life currently boggles my mind. Our national politics has deteriorated as tRump has shown more and more signs of dementia. The America that the Japanese prime minister spoke about seems like an America of the 20th century but not the 21st.

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Karen Jacob's avatar

What is worse is that it is not the majority of the people who feel that way. A few who vote the way trump wants and not what the people want. Look at the abortion issue. A very few want the draconian measures some states have mandated. The IVF rule, seriously? I suppose not allowing people to use this procedure will force them to go without their own child or force them to adopt a lot of those babies who no one wanted. I guess that is sort of one way to solve a problem.

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JDinTX's avatar

Those that want to rule the rest of us feel that success is theirs. I heartedly disagree

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MisTBlu's avatar

The IVF thing strikes at the heart of their idiotic "life begins at conception" stance. Given the number of babies that are born from the procedure, the chances are high that they know someone (personally or as their representative) whose children are the result of IVF.

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Karen Jacob's avatar

J.A. Jance, The A List. Fiction but it goes into the fact that the doctor for IVF used his sperm. A lot of red heads were roaming around.

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Deborah Timlin's avatar

PO1135809 needs to be gone.

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