A large crowd of protesters calling for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the Trump administration sent to a notorious terrorist prison in El Salvador, milled around the courthouse this afternoon where U.S.
We all can applaud Harvard's leadership in confronting the bully's newest turn in criminality.
But there's the sub text Heather also cited -- how the orange felon in the White House is carefully using his war on immigrants, colored immigrants, to shore up his base.
But his base includes Putin -- and today Anderson Cooper had on a whistleblower on a massive data breach.
That is, very soon upon Elon Musk and his incel boys beginning their run of havoc from inside the most sensitive information sources in the U.S. government, there came a sudden and unprecedented spike of info suckage.
This whistleblower reported how he tracked this massive sucking to Elon Musk’s Starlink (his satellite transmission system) – and, much worse, how in the first 15 minutes of this transfer Russian sources logged into it 20 times.
Musk let Putin into the most sensitive areas of U.S. security, including nuke.
The criminality, treason, and betrayal just go way past our garden variety hatred and racism.
I think a Russian IP address was repeatedly trying to log in and a large amount of data was said to be transferred to who knows where as the process was opaque. For sure this needs to be investigated and if there is there, not smoothed over like Trumps gross mishandling of classified documents. This could be the most serious breach of national security in our nation's history. Even if it turns out to be less bad than it sounds, just the overall unsupervised, unqualified, casual access of Musk and his minions qualifies as an unprecedented security risk in and of itself.
The convicted felon in the White House used even those convictions, J L, to promote himself.
His base ate it up. Putin loved it. The world's already-set dictators had to hand it to him. And virtually every right-wing-inclined cult follower just had to follow obeisantly more.
For four years, since Jan. 6's insurrection, the fat, waddling, heavily-caked-on face has just lorded it over all. He's got to be coasting, imagining he can break all rules, get away with everything -- and let Musk insouciantly in back doors to do Putin's bidding.
I can only hope Sen. Van Hollen is successful and has at least a few fellow travelers to El Salvador to affirm his efforts. That should hold the despicable so-called president for a day or two. Then, visible efforts to remove him and his half-mad toadies from office should begin. This is the most bizarre nightmare of my lifetime. The longer Trump and Co play with the soul of the world, the more entrenched they will become.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D -MD) is a workhorse of Congress. He first represented the district now represented by Rep. Jamie Raskin. He is especially knowledgeable about the Near East. (His father was a Foreign Service officer who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.) During his first campaign Van Hollen publicly denounced the Iraq War. Recently he continually admonished the Biden administration to heed State Department and Department of Defense analyses documenting Israeli IDF violations of US and international humanitarian law - which should have resulted in enforcing Leahy Laws to pause offensive military aid to Israel.
I have long thought Van Hollen would be a formidable presidential contender. (And that he was one of the potential deep bench of presidential contenders which the Clinton DNC suppressed to insure Hillary's 'her turn' debacle.)
Rachel Maddow interviewed Senator Van Hollen on the TRMS, Ep65 at the 27:25 minute mark:
Senator: "The goal of my visiit talk to people her [El Salvador] about the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia". The Judge is proceeding on contempt charges.
I don't understand how you guys do it. You keep back in the wrong horse every single time now you're supporting a wife beater as well as an illegal gang member. Does it get any worse for you? Yes, it does every single day. Keep it up your approval rating has gone from the mid 40s during Biden to right at 20% now
Hillary’s “her turn” promoted by the DNC is what got the insipid orange turd elected. 🤬 It’s obvious that she would have made a better president, hell anyone that really cares about our nation would have been better than the convicted felon. If she hadn’t been so entitled and arrogant she would have won, we didn’t need what’s her name from FL who ran the DNC to pick our president for us, she still pisses me off every time I see her face in the house.
"Entitled and arrogant" describes the Traitor who won with Russian interference. That and the continuing homegrown American legacy of misogyny and racism has brought the U.S. to its knees.
When women are assertive they're labeled "entitled, arrogant and bit**es" She was and is a very smart, capable, competent women who would have made a much better president than many the Republican Party has offered in recent years. Instead the American electorate voted in a demented dictator man baby.
You mean Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Dick? I still am pissed at her for sidelining Bernie and his ideas!! I was voting for Hillary anyway but ignoring him was a HUGE mistake!
I partially agree with the opinion that Hillary had some 'attitude.'
I describe it with the analogy of a job interview: Qualified for the position, just didn't interview well. My guess is that more pre-maga republicans would have found her more a as a consensuses partner than an adversary.
Are you guys wonder why your approval ratings are in the toilet? The insipid turd? Problem with you guys as you actually think you won the election and you haven’t figured it out yet. 45. More wonderful months ahead gird your loins.
Yeah a workhorse of opportunity? What a sucker you are . He goes to El Salvador to help a gang member. But doesn’t even have the DECENCY to call the mother of the slain mother of five.by this gang members convicted in an hour and a half. Not even To offer condolences. Scumbag.
Read the ENTIRE story of Rachel Morin and how she was brutally beaten, Dragged 150 ft to be raped while her body had scrapes all over and her head bleeding.
I can only hope that Sen. Van Hollen doesn't end up in their custody and that Mr. Garcia is alive. Given that right and wrong, truth and lies have flipped in our country, I don't think either is a given.
The only thing worse was the separation of children from their parents during his first stint.
I just learned that more visas have been revoked from students at one of my alma maters, Temple U. This administration keeps shooting itself in the foot--what parent in their right mind would send their kid to study in the US?
See Sophia, how the gullible believe things that are untrue. Go look it up. It was Obama that separated children from their parents and put them in cages, not Trump. Ooooops oooops and oooops again. I’ll look it up you can see the kids with the cages when Obama was president
So far, he has gotten away with everything except his rape conviction. Biden's administration was good, but the dems were/are complicit in the creation of this cult leader. He should've been locked up a LONG time ago. Presidents are exempt from crimes, now candidates are exempt. Pfft. He made a mockery of our dept of justice.
the choice of merit garland was a poor choice...jack smith would hav been much more effective in convicting the felon rapist and getting him behind bars
Garland was, indeed, a bad choice. Let's keep in mind that Biden would not have offered Garland that consolation prize if Moscow Mitch McConnell hadn't denied Garland's hearing for appointment to SCOTUS, in which he most likely would have been confirmed.
Garland's slow, methodical approach and his obsession with not appearing partisan are exactly the characteristics needed for a supreme court justice. They are not suitable for an attorney general. As a member of SCOTUS, he would have offset the lawlessness of Clarence and blocked an opening for Kavanaugh or Barrett.
When looking for whom to blame, go to the source: Mitch McConnell.
Yes, I feel Biden picked people for the wrong reasons. I’m not saying they’re not smart, good people but I think many of them were not equipped for the roles they were given. Garland was not a go getter and should have never been in that role.
I disagree - garland was not required anything... yes Obama should have made a big stink about it and not allowed the evil Mitch to get away with that bs but it did not require Biden to compensate him in any way.Biden is so milk toast when we needed a fighter!
Maybe that’s because he was innocent all along. Omg. Wow every single case against him was a piece of “invented” crap that they had to reinvent the expiration status to bring it back to life, even though it had expired.
No, Merrick Garland made a mockery of the justice system Roger Stone Steve Bannon And the only liar amongst them was a guy who testified against Trump, Michael cohen and a prostitute/porn star those were the star witnesses quite a case you mount Lmao
The residents of Western North Carolina who are still living with the effects of Helene sadly ought not be surprised by the administration 's denial of an extension of FEMA benefits. Trump exploited unhappiness and impatience with FEMA for his own reasons, and never had any intention of providing assistance to people who lost homes and businesses.
bitchy, news story this week about a flood in WA state where FEMA has denied help. There was also one recently in Oregon in Burns near where Bundy held the Malheur Reserve captive and got away with it. Our governor has declared an emergency, but I haven't heard about any FEMA request which would probably be denied. These are folks that most likely voted for death star.
Of course T would deny WA any assistance- T has hated our state since our elected officials have refused to bow down to the orange turd. We offended T.
This FEMA denial is another example of a complete and total lack of empathy, something that shouldn't surprise me, but always does. People need help, not a cutting off of aid. Then again, it's of a piece with the cutting off of aid to those overseas who need it desperately. Trump doesn't understand, or more accurately, care, about human suffering anywhere, including here. As a country, despite its warts, the USA has been a beacon of hope for millions for a long time. No more.
I'm reminded of the husband of my father's first cousin, and a Thanksgiving dinner many years ago. He was born an Englishman, joined the RAF at the beginning of WWII, and spent three years based in India, from which he participated in bombing runs from India to Singapore, etc., flights he described as "hours of boredom, culminating in 10 minutes of sheer terror."
He became an American citizen, and loved this country. I bring him up because at that dinner my late father made a rather innocent comment I don't remember, about a subject I don't remember, which elicited a response I do remember, from the ex-Englishman, which was, "You're here because of an accident of birth, people like me are here because we chose this country to be ours."
Obama deported 2 million people 2 million illegals. Where was the outcry from the when that happened? Where was the outcry from the left where he fired 500,000 federal employees ? Huh. You guys have nothing but two things hypocrisy and double standards. And that’s why you keep losing.
According to Federal Times.com, which I quote: "During President Obama's administration, there were no widespread layoffs of federal employees, but there was a pay freeze from 2011 to 2013, which affected employee compensation. The overall number of federal workers did decrease slightly during his term, primarily due to budget constraints and economic conditions." Layoffs there were, in the main due to layoffs at the state and local levels. By the end of the first three years of Obama's first term 636,000 state and local jobs had been cut. There was a large public jobs deficit, but not because Obama fired federal workers. Labor Department statistics show the federal workforce had grown by 143,000 employees by 2011. Obama did try to get more pay raises, and was blocked by Congressional Republicans. There were many retirements, as usual, and there was a little thing called a Recession that he inherited, something that reduced tax receipts for all levels of government.
As for deportations you throw out a figure of 2,000,000, which is inaccurate. It was actually a tad over 3,000,000, but done legally, and something that got Obama tagged with the moniker, "Deporter-in-Chief." Some were self-deported, but the actually final total ended up being 5.24 million who were either "returned" or "removed", (there is a big difference; you should look it up and enlighten yourself), from the US between 2009 and 2016. 91% were removed because of criminal convictions, again, a different scenario from today's wild west rules. In comparison, by 2019 Trump's "removal" order for convicted criminals had dropped to 41%. Not so good! By the way, illegal immigration is a crime, a simple civil crime, most certainly not a felony. Your destroyer-in-chief neither knows, nor cares, about such niceties as the law.
But you also failed to understand is what it cost us year after year to fund immigration, illegal immigration border, protection, and had we built the wall and been allowed to build the wall we would’ve saved billions upon billions of dollars and billions upon billions of deportation costs. By the way, when Obama took office bush, had made a significant effort in increasing the system for border, protect protection, which Obama inherited. Try reading more than one article and seeing how many people he actually deported and if each, and every one of them had a hearing, what a joke.
Everything we decry and loathe about the abuses of power daily carried out by the Trump regime would be available to Democrats if we owned a Trifecta. If the electorate grants Democratic candidates control of Congress and the White House, and a transfer of power is permitted by the GOP incumbents (no guarantee!), will we use that power to try to restore normality to our politics, or will we go on our own Revenge Agenda, and arrest the whole lot of MAGA traitors? The Oligarchy has played its hand…US Politics is now class warfare, and while too many Democrats are non-combatants or worse, the GOP has a 100% Professional Volunteer Army.
You want to blame Trump for all this, and that is justified. But in doing so you are not addressing the real problem - the half of American voters who, already having sufficient experience with Trump during his first term, re-elected him knowing who and what he was, and denying it in the terribly misguided imagining that a men who so disdained and disavowed the pillars of our republic was fit to resolve any of their pet issues.
Raging at Trump is indeed cathartic, and god knows we can use all the cathartic we can get, but he is only the symptom, not the cause.
And for the first time, a president is actually doing what he promised to do.
And for you there, James exactly the same thing that Obama Clinton, Gore, Sanders, Schumer, and all the other Democrats said they were going to do when they were in power and that’s all he’s doing is exactly the same but you guys not a peep from you two-faced hypocrites
Hardly for the first time. You might want to check on what Presidents like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and many others promised to do did. A minimal understanding of American history might be of great benefit to you. It might also inform you about the circumstances of our founding and the nature and content of the Constitution, a document Trump has proven to throughly disdain and disavow. But I imagine that’s okay with you.
I grant you that Trump is working hard to do what he implicitly promised to do - to take over the US government for his own purposes. That’s not what any of those you named promised nor did. But it is what Stalin, Hitler, Putin, Xi, Orban, Modi, and all the rest of those dictators promised and did.
I’ve read through many of your posts in this thread, and I see there the same delusional rantings so common among Trumpists, who usually treat the facts simply as an inconvenient nuisance, and the red meat of Trump himself.
Have at it as you will. But you might want to look around you now and again to see the growing backlash against your hero and the growing buyers' remorse among those who voted for him. (Been to any Republican town hall meetings lately?) You’ve hitched your wagon to a very dark star.
I hitched my wagon to the best president in the last 30 years. I’m not a republican and haven’t been my whole life. I was a democrat when I was younger, but John Kennedy, you speak of if he were alive today he’d be a middle of the road republican
So tell me something genius, how is no tax on tips no tax on Social Security and no tax on overtime beneficial to him ? I think you are a mad delusional to your middle name. Take over the government for his own purposes. ? Yikes. TDS will soon be a real disease and they will soon be medication’s but I doubt Phil work because they’re now running through people’s veins like their own blood It’s so amazing just to see the heat over nothing
Here’s a suggestion for you shut off the TV. Don’t read the newspaper don’t blog here. Don’t post here and then tell me if anything in your daily life has changed. In four years from now if you’re a levelheaded individual which is doubtful and dubious, you may be lucky enough to see the light.
Actually, you might wanna look around CNN has one gentleman that did an evaluation of the Republicans actually regret their vote and an overwhelming 4% said that they did. Lololol. So stop listening to the rumors and don’t be so gullible. Actually, it’s probably 100 million people that would vote for him now and if the tariffs come out well it’ll be 125 million.
Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensitive NLRB data : NPR
DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
For cybersecurity professionals, a failure to log activity is a cardinal sin and contradicts best practices as recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as the FBI and the National Security Agency.
Within minutes after DOGE accessed the NLRB's systems, someone with an IP address in Russia started trying to log in, according to Berulis' disclosure. The attempts were "near real-time," according to the disclosure. Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming. Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created DOGE accounts — and the person had the correct username and password, according to Berulis. While it's possible the user was disguising their location, it's highly unlikely they'd appear to be coming from Russia if they wanted to avoid suspicion, cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR explained.
On their own, a few failed login attempts from a Russian IP address aren't a smoking gun, those cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR said. But given the overall picture of activity, it's a concerning sign that foreign adversaries may already be searching for ways into government systems that DOGE engineers may have left exposed.
I watched this last night on Rachel Maddow's show. The whistleblower and his sharp attorney were on. Excellent interview. Chilling was the threat taped to the whistleblower's door where he's lived less than 2 months that showed a drone photo of him walking his dog. These "we know where you live" threats are what's getting people to keep quiet. Kudos to this guy and his attorney who didn't.
I watched as well and would like to give a big hand to the courageous whistleblower and his attorney for coming forward. Hopefully this will give courage to others to come forward. Now how about the GOP? Sadly, just kidding.
Now you know why Republicans are vehemently bent on shutting down NPR. Please everyone, if you are not already then become members of your local NPR station.
And PBS as well, lin•. But Republicans have been trying to eliminate federal funding of both systems for years. This time they may actually get away with it.
And look at what Heather wrote about the felon's response to CBS reporting: he wants to pull their broadcast license.
Check out Fred Roger’s speech before Congress decades ago asking for more federal support. The two agencies had to go out and use folks like one of the Koch brothers to support themselves and I have felt things have slid sometimes more than others though always some shining standouts. They do the best they can under adverse circumstances. Check out the funders and where shows are placed time wise. Check out not only your local station but others and see if there are any differences . It’s like the libraries only they are sometimes better funded. Each library and each head has different sources of strengths and weaknesses and follow where the support from the community flows.
Then check out the BBC and its non commercial aspect and check on other countries stations. What works what doesn’t work and what are the strengths and weaknesses of all of these system of the humanities of community with information and cultural of these times.
I've been a sustaining member of Blue Ridge Public Radio in Western NC for many years. I don't know what I would do without this service. It was especially helpful in the days after Helene.
Lisa, I’m in E TN. Please make sure your fellow Carolinians know TRUMP has blocked additional funding for FEMA. I heard from a MAGA supporter whose son lives in Asheville the Biden admin’s FEMA was not on the ground in NC. I didn’t believe her, but Trump’s lies are de rigueur.
And what would our society do without public-serving as opposed to profit-serving services. I am not opposed to service at a profit, but some things are far too important to be left to that. There are aspects of life that free enterprise is not motivated to serve, and that's provable. There are also abuses of any system that must be regulated.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"
Lin•, let me first acknowledge that my reply doesn't address the point of your comment. But yours is the first in this conversation to mention the "Republican Party."
I've been thinking for several days, now, that it may be time to stop using that moniker and refer to the party as what it is: the Nazi Party.
It would provide clarity regarding what the party is and what it wants.
And rightfully so and it’s about time you obviously didn’t see the hearing where they decided not to cover at all the hoax that was the hunters laptop. Oooops. And denegrated Trump time and time. I sent some links here. Why don’t you go? Look them up unless you want to stay in denial
Same for whistleblower records at my former agency.
Labor Leaders Fear Elon Musk and DOGE Could Gain Access to Whistleblower Files
What Happened: The AFL-CIO and former OSHA officials warn that Musk’s operatives are embedded at the Department of Labor, and may gain access to sensitive whistleblower files. Musk's companies—Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company—have over 50 active OSHA investigations for workplace injuries and safety violations.
Why It Matters: Musk’s operatives inside federal agencies pose a dangerous conflict of interest—especially as whistleblowers from Musk-linked and Trump-aligned companies seek protection. Their confidential files could be weaponized to punish them, turning oversight into retaliation.
Sure looks like Elon is getting a fantastic return on His investment, unlike the rest of us. WAKE UP America! ( just to be clear, I didn't "invest" in T***P)
We all know they are taking every bit of sensitive information and probably adding back doors to every program. This is who they are and why they are there.
Well, you would like to think that wouldn’t you? The problem with people like you is, you didn’t see the hearing in front of the Congress, where statements were made by the heads of NPR and PBS. Look it up Harvey try to face reality. And by the way, you’re a liberal media bias that you think is correct. CNN MSNBC and ABC have recently been sued for lying about different issues, revolving around personalities and politics making up stories about people and getting sued in the process. AND LOSING ALL THREE LAWSUITS VERY RECENTLY. OOOOOOPS so much for liberal bias being correct see if you can find the interview and read the most blasphemous statements by NPR and PBS about what they think about conservatives on the Trump administration. You’re gonna have to turn the page and turn the channel You’re on the wrong side of the events as well. What a surprise. .
Those less wealthy or poor are lazy and stupid and do not deserve the hard-earned money from us wealthy and brilliant entrepreneurs who made America Great. Those cogs in our wheels of progress deserve enough to survive, so they can work their fingers to the bone, making us rich.
And the blame for the security breach is not on Musk & minions alone… it is on the person who gave Musk access to the info - Trump. Let’s see how Trump tries to wiggle out of this… because he will try. But he did it so publicly and boasted about it and his own words can testify against him.
We thought Signalgate was the most serious breach in our history, but this? WOW! How can this NOT be investigated now that Signalgate has quickly fallen off the radar?
TDS is now part of your heart and soul and it's gonna cause you an early death in my opinion. Wake up, take some meds, get things right with your head and stop exposing your delusion to the world.
Plus, JL since he and the Rat have shut down all the military, Pentagon and other cyber crime and tracking delartments, there's nothing to stop them. If the drunk and the bimbo (hired for her 2 BIG assets) conduct all our classified secure business on their personal ipads, then we just gave the store away.
I'm praying for big, nasty metasticized polyps (and pain, lots of pain)
As I’ve said a hundred times, I would have taken my chances with the good generals, the Joint Chiefs of Staff to save the constitution by suspending it as a military coup to prevent the traitor now inhabiting the White House from doing the irreversible harm he a doing. And I was castigated for suggesting such a move.
Well now, does anyone wish to castigate me now? I stated early on that our democratic form of government was on the cusp of being destroyed. The generals could have saved us. There will be nothing left after this era ends. Life as we have known it has ended. Arm yourselves and at least follow Patrick Henry’s admonishment, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Looking back for decisions unmade does not take us forward. This is not a "castigation" - just a suggestion that you are beating a dead horse. We are all in this together.
We could all have multiple suggestions for what we "should have done". But I have parked mine in the back of my brain with the hundreds of other "mistakes" I/We might have made. Let's keep the worms in the can and look ahead.
I think we should focus on identifying and applauding the leaders that are standing up to the Fascists. Senator Van Hollen, Harvard's president, Jamie Raskin, several judges and so many more. The People are rising up. Saturday will be another crescendo as we try to celebrate 250 years. Many more moments of speaking out ahead.
My signs: "NO KINGS, Not then, Not now" or "Arrest Musk, Free Garcia". Forward ho...
Thank you for the voice of reason. Beating a dead horse gets you nothing and distracts you from learning from your mistakes. Look at how AOC is being reinvented by her part in the Oligarchs rallies — ss a friend said, “she’s no longer a New York kook, but someone who understands us and is willing to fight for us.”
Someone said to me that they felt they were moderate or middle of the road politically and AOC and Bernie were too "progressive" or too radical. I offered up their positions on healthcare and taxes and asked if they disagreed. The response was "well, no, not really".
AOC and Bernie and Chris Murphy and others on the "left" are beginning to sound like "mainstream reasonable". And yet, they haven't really changed their messages. It's about everyone getting the basics and the rich paying a fair share. Easier to grasp now, me thinks.
My theory is that the oligarchs are and will take this too far - hurt too many average folks of all persuasions - and we will restore decency.
I saw AOC and Bernie yesterday. They came to out to our blue dot in the middle of MAGA territory in CA. AOC was inspiring and called out my Congressman David Valadao, who is MIA for his constituents. She covered the history of Citizens United and how we got here with billionaires running the Country. I now fully support her and her agenda. Best sign of hope/change I've seen since the no hand on Bible shite show.
Yeah, I mean, wasn’t that just like some kid telling their mama a lie and swearing it was the truth with their fingers crossed behind their back?! How infantile. That should have been a red flag for the Christian Nationalists but they are already so great at lying to themselves for the story they want to believe that they barely gave it a moment’s pause.
MSM has regularly labeled AOC and Bernie as "extreme left" which entirely ignores what extreme left actually is. Joe Manchin was never mentioned in my memory without the title "centrist" or "moderate". No one, and certainly no politician has all the answers, but I have found AOC and Sanders to be civil, reasonable and professional while being slandered and hated even by many democrats. I think they better focus on the roots of our problems, and offer worthwhile perspective. Corrupted or negligent politics replaces information with propaganda. AOC and Sanders have always been worth listening to.
Well… I’ve often said that our left is pulling to far to the left and the ugly reaction is what we have. The truth is that a few issues that weee missed in the past 25 years have turned our nation into crazy nation. The era of Reagan and even Bush I didn’t help. Bush after all launched his Gulf War which inspired bin Ladin to observe American troops stationed in Arabia and launched 9/11. But the small points we missed were Ralph Nadar ruining it for Al Gore in 2000. Subsequent Apointments to the Supreme Court and the worst was Roberts decision on corporate donations to campaigns. This was the linchpin that has all but destroyed out political system. Once again as usual, I’m the messenger of doom. I’m just reporting what I observed. How we get out of this mess is anyone’s guess.
How we get out of this mess lies in reversing the way we got into it. “We the People” learning from our mistakes. Sounds so mundane against all the rhetoric, but in the end it is the only way out that preserves the Republic.
I do not castigate you for your ‘good generals’ suggestion, only point out that shattering one of the most crucial aspects of the Constitution (civilian control of the military) in order to save the Constitution only opens the door to its destruction.
Instead of wasting time with such speculative junk, check out Feathers of Hope.
26 Senate Republicans voted to fund Ukraine, many more House Republicans. Many call Trump a liar when he says Ukraine started the war. Many didn't sign up to be members of the axis of evil.
I have been keeping an eye out for my next protest signs Bill, both your No Kings and Arrest Musk are nice and tight, something that a person driving by could read with a glance. 👍🏻👍🏻💥
My previous signs said too much! Lacked a clear message. At the April 5th event a woman next to me had a sign that said "Honk for Hands Off!" The horns were deafening and affirming.
Don’t forget Bernie Sanders and AOC. Pretty much the only ones going to and addressing the very republicans who voted for Trump. To draw a crowd of over 12,000 in a red district in an intensely red state like Idaho is something I never even contemplated seeing.
Good generals will not follow illegitimate orders but by definition they do not stage military coups.
Your bent, for a strong man solution to the problems of democratic government, puts you in bed with MAGA. Those craving a simplistic solution to complex problems. You just disagree in what constitutes a benevolent dictatorship.
Like the Jan 6 insurrectionists you prefer a brutal overturning of democratic institutions to the hard work of making representative government work - but you go a step further in the institutional violence you want to inflict.
Despite their perversions, MAGA at least preserves remnants of constitutional procedures of government. If they break government we can at least fix it. Coming back from a military coup would be much more difficult.
Yes, but ICE officers don't seem to believe any order is illegitimate. A man was pulled out of his car in New Bedford, MA on Monday, even though the ICE agents were looking for someone with a different name. His wife is here having been granted asylum; he also gets that. No criminal record. He's still in detention. The Gestapo has become a reality in today's United States.
Which is why perhaps well armed citizens might just be the only alternative to totalitarianism and Ive always been a major gun control advocate. This is only the beginning. Those of us who speak up and protest are next.
I agree 100%. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was intended to be a good revolution. As was Chairman Mao's. I am sure there are many such examples. "Coming back from a military coup would be much more difficult."
The Russian revolution of 2017 would have been successful if the Mensheviks had been able to stay in power. The Bolvsheviks, a small extremist group, overthrew the moderates and the rest is history.
lin•, SPOT ON. Mr. Katz's call last year for a military overthrow was both troubling and myopic: the very notion of a military takeover in the U.S. is chilling to consider, and because it fails to consider the several possible consequences of such an action, none of which are good (no matter the intentions of a "good" general.)
I just skip past his monologues. Expediency is useful when a train is speeding toward you, but the choice to step off the tracks is usually more effective than trying to stop the train with one’s forearm
Bill could benefit from a course in “cause and effect” that evaluates on more than one level of “effect”
You simply don’t get what is happening. The “good generals” wouldn’t be transferring national secrets to our historic enemies, buddy. Put that in your proverbial pipe and smoke it. I’ve said there is no good alternative but I would have taken the lesser bad option because in 4 fricken years, you will have gone through the Trump university re-education camp with electrode scars on your arms as a reminder of daily forced rendition sequences and a reminder if any old world notions of freedom remain, you will return to The Happy Trump Camp for a little remedial education. 😜😜👀
Here is a little something I wrote from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." It has come to pass. A Fireside Chat
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt began a series of informal radio chats to the American public during a turbulent time in the 1930s. The radio back then was to communicating as Twitter is today. Here is an excerpt:
“My fellow Americans, it is whispered by some that only by abandoning our freedom, our ideals, our way of life, can we rebuild our defenses adequately, can we match the strength of the aggressors. …I do not share these fears.”
Trump demands a quaint, televised, fireside chat to compete with FDR. Here is a sneak preview:
“My friends, Hillary Clinton will never see the inside of the White House again as long as I
live.
“You people love me so much that I know you want to keep me as your president for life. The Constitution now allows this extended appointment of the executive branch. Our blessed homeland needs me to lead it. I have authorized The Enabling Act, borrowed from German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s proposal to restrict powers of the Reichstag in 1933. His SS troops made legislators give up their civil liberties and transfer state powers to the Reich government. I’m pleased to tell you that the Democrats will sign away their legislative powers while my ICE agents surround the House of Representatives. I have the power to dissolve Congress and allow my Cabinet to pass much needed laws to Make America Great Again. And I pledge to you that all fake impeachment activity to convict me has ended.
“I also pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. And we will remove all undocumented immigrants that are poisoning the blood of our country. And we will remove the portrait of African-born Barack Hussein Obama from the White House wall.
“My first act tomorrow will be to have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Shiftless Adam Schiff picked up for questioning to ascertain their patriotism for the United States.
“I know I’ve been accused of a quid pro quo with Ukraine. There is nothing wrong with finding the truth about liars and cheats like Slow Joe Biden. And there’s nothing wrong asking a nation to help with uncovering wrongdoing by a corrupt man. As your President for Life, I will always tell you the truth. When I make a promise to you, I keep it.
“This concludes the first of my fireside chats. I can’t wait to tell you what I have in store for other scum Trump haters.”
It sounds like something Trump would say, you’ve mastered his style well. I think it sounds like the ridiculous posts Trump puts on Untruth Antisocial!
Sorry to say Bill but we are so tired of winning that we can't even pay attention to you anymore ,but at soon as we have a break we are going to stop castigating you. I promise to do that on the first day. 😅
Bill, my reply as a joke. It's a very stressful time all the time and I think that a little bit of humor is always welcome. Hope you feel the same way. 😄
Gary, we don't need to go to the extreme and be like them in scope and time frame. I've been predicated not to be by the book all the time otherwise we'll loose everything forever (scope and time frame). Avoidance to stretch the limits due our noble instinct in times of extreme peril, almost guaranteed our irrelevantce. We don't need to kill the patient to save the patient. Thanks for your reply 👍
If Seegar is your mentor and hero that doesn't seem to square with your position on a military junta. I find it doubtful the Class of '68 would agree with such a solution.
The conundrum is which is a fib? It is the idea that a military junta could save our democracy, or that Pete Seegar was a mentor and hero?
Yes, you can thunk a military junta is a lesser evil, except that you are assuming the good generals would be able to easily defeat the "bad" generals (Flynn?) and re-establish our Republic without a lot of turmoil, bloodshed, or suffering. No one should assume that. It won't be like Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. It would be nation wide with pitched battles not only between good and bad generals but with self-styled militias, the Oathkeepers, Trump supporting police, and fringe elements like the Proud Boys running cities and states sometimes in open conflict with Antifa, the ISO and their ilk. It would devolve into chaos, not like our revolution, but like the French or Russian revolutions, with Reigns of Terror, Maoist executions and Stalinesque Gulags. Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass.
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it~Santayana
Bill, I fear you are sounding increasingly like Bill’s Vanity Tantrums! 'Twould seem more valuable to discuss and promote those inroads into tRump's & Muskrat’s ongoing insurrection that have been recently reported "without fear or favor."
Yes. I do “castigate” you, not simply for the suggestion , suggestions are a right as are opinions. No, I criticize the simple minded notion that exercising a reactionary reflex is somehow a solution. Actually, what you suggest is something under different circumstances a Marjorie Greene might proffer.
We are not in constitutional rigor mortis at this time. There are paths to follow, actions to occur, a constitution and underlying system of laws, something Grassley seems to have conveniently forgotten, 2 houses of Congress, and the American people. We have a history that confirms rigor mortis is not incipient.
You might well begin a non-anecdotal study of the historical results of military coups and their aftermath.
So then, if you’d like to call this little observation a castigation, so be it.
I’m as sure as sure can be that this is deliberate and carefully planned. Not at all Surprised. Just not sure who is yanking chump’s chains and how much. Vlad is definitely on the take. Project 2025 cretins are also writing the script, but how much are they allied with Vlad. Chump may be torn apart and left for trash before this plays out. His ass may be more kicked than kissed. His cult has been useful so far, and Stephen Miller is the most virulent one but will they become irrelevant as the others want their priorities attended to. Chump thinks that the big tax cut will solve his problems. But will republicans in Congress continue this charade. Opposition to this hell is growing, but will it matter if Vlad is inside the gate.
Bernie Sanders is right in condemning oligarchs. That is the commonality that Trump wishes he could buy into. Putin is one, if not the one, of the world's richest men. Many Republicans also worship at the altar of oligarchs and, therefore, adore Putin. It isn't about national boundaries and loyalties for Trump. It's about the international cabal of (almost all) white men of wealth and their extraordinary sense of privilege, including, but not limited to, lying with impunity, repression of lesser folk, and causing suffering or even death of so-called enemies. Oh, and they often clothe themselves in religious supremacy, whether Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
And just who are the oilygarchys? Could we have a list on alphabetical order,please? It's time to analyze those folks and figure out their weak spots. I would bet they are connected to old royalty and cherish their genes as much as their money.
Miriam Adelson, Robin Arkley II (purveyor of hidden, untaxed bribes to Alito), George Birnbaum, Harlan Crow (a Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Larry Ellison, Wayne Huizenga (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Charles Koch, Leonard Leo, Bernie Little (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Timothy Mellon, Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Paul “Tony” Novelly (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Dennis Prager, David Rivkin (defender of Alito medieval corruption and his contemporary corruption, too), Steve Schwartzman, Paul Singer, David Sokol (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Peter Thiel, Anthony Welters (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer) Jeffrey Yass, Jeff Zuckerberg and families DeVos, Kushner, Mercer, Sackler, Uihlein.
WELL DONE Phil! A most excellent beginning to a most useful catalogue of those whose political backing should make us highly suspicious. This is precisely the antidote, or partial antidote to the Citizen’s United decision which never included the need or even advisability of the secrecy of donors, of those whose money was considered to be “Free Speech!” I notice you haven’t included the names of Michael Bloomberg or George Soros. I assume you have not included them in your list as they have never to my knowledge advocated for the disruption or significant alteration of our Constitutional Democracy or the rule of law.
Excellent post, Phil! This is also a useful list on which to base one's buying (more accurately, boycotting) research. For example, the popular packing supply company, Uline (phonetic spelling of family name) is owned by the Uihleins. I was a customer until I learned who the owners are.
Elon Musk has said on more than one occasion he thinks he has superior genes (ha!) It explains why he has used IVF to father sons only with a variety of women. His first former wife, Justine, is mother to four sons and a transgender daughter. He has fathered sons with other women, and one of the mothers of his other sons is complaining that Musk has not paid her child support for her son. Musk is not a very involved father, and if he’s seen with one of his sons, it’s only for a photo op or personal protection.
Trump also believes that he has superior genes, which is garbage. He’s dumber than a stump and is convinced of his own superior thinking and business acumen, neither of which he has.
As appalling is his hubris, Kathy, it seems most prominent how Muskrat’s genetic loading appears to have bypassed anything coding for empathy, although I concede that may be entirely the result of his focus and concentration of Y-driven characteristics. : >(
Oily— garchs are the right emphasis. Right here in our country, much, if not most, wealth is generated through old fossil fuel ties, such as the Kochs. Middle Eastern wealth is almost exclusively the result of oil—the Saudis, for example. Gaza and its Mediterranean shores are reputed reserves of petroleum, thus Netanyahu's ruthless removals of Palestinians. Russia is also rich in petroleum, and that is how Putin and his gang made most of their wealth. It's a partial list, but the tech wizards are knocking on the doors, too. It's the story of The Killers of the Flower Moon writ much, much larger.
There is a really good TED talk by Carole Cadwalladr "This is a digital coup." She has experience of being targeted, and fighting with GoFundMe (or something similar, can't remember) money. She says it is the tech bros. She posts the photo of Zuckerberg, etc., at the inauguration.
JD, while perhaps just parsing nuance, it seems most evident from recent forays deep into the anti-world of protective tariffs that it isn’t a matter of Vlad pulling the strings or tRump “being in Vlad's pocket.” The oligarch class of multibillionaires relatively quickly put a stop to tRump’s excesses which were so obviously threatening the world of trade and economics. Vlad has been ubiquitously visible in most any and all efforts to get the current world order to splinter and break up, witness the much earlier campaign for Brexit which has become so clear in NOT aiding Britain economically or politically for that matter. Like most “supreme leaders” he and his ilk (think China) stand to benefit from those nations and national alliances which they can move toward disruption allowing them more space politically and economically to prosper in the remaining cracks and openings.
You are very skilled at parsing nuance. I don’t think chump has been stopped. Insanity (or lifelong malignant narcissism) is hard to stop or manage.
I remember decades ago when USSR and China allied and I thought the end was near. But their clash came and it was not friendly. They may take another look, and any idiot could have seen that Brexit would be a disaster, like we should have seen that chump would be - again. You gave more info and a nuanced vision. Thank you for that. I would just say that chump’s history with Russia predates Vlad, but Vlad currently has the power. Review pics from Helsinki. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially one.
I don't think I ever doubted that Musk's job was to access and control information. He just used the excuse of "fraud and waste" as a smokescreen. This is how this administration functions. Chaos and lies and distractions. What a disaster!
I am convinced that Trump's and Musk's agendas are parallel but separate. They are parallel in that Trump is seeking to become the wealthiest man in the world, and Musk intends to maintain his position as the world's wealthiest man. In a real sense, the two men are in competition.
However, Musk, with a superior (to Trump) intellect, has a broader goal. He believes himself to be a "citizen of the universe" and intends, not only to have the most money, but to have the most power. In other words, he intends to control the course of human events. He aims to do this by controlling all of the world's data. He is the personification of megalomania.
4/14/25 Update: MD Senator Chris Von Hollen is flying 🛩 to El Salvador at this moment to seek the release of the Building Trade union apprentice & bring him back to his Maryland home.🙏
2025 Recent Historical Context:
2/4/25 ➖NYT "U.S. Begins Flying 'Migrants' to Guantanamo Bay";
➖ Illinois News Bureau is an additional credited source
3/15/25 ➖ 261 sent to CECOT, 137 persons Under the Enemy Alien Act of 1798
3/19/25 ➖ Reuters' 23.45 EDT posted fact; Aerial photo of CECOT in Teoluca
➖ Credited to Associated Press' photographer Salvador Melendez
3/31/25 ➖ 17 deportees flown to CECOT in U.S.Cargo plane from Charleston, S.C.
4/12/25 ➖ 10 flown out per Secretary of State Marco Rubio from Guantanamo Bay
4/15/25. ➖ Judge Paula Xinis Orders Homeland Security & State Department officials to sit for sworn deposition testimony in 7 days
What is needed now is software that populates all communications among among all actors with admissible facts including graphic a diagrams.
Calling all Whistleblowers! We need an Immediate copy of the contractual "agreement" between the El Salvador Dictator & the Wanna Be an Orange Autocrat.
We extradite people all the time. We also have been able to get some of our enemies, let alone our allies to release people.
I've yet to see a report mentioning our treaties with El Salvador and our extradition history with them.
BTW, the Vatican probably can't help us extradite him as they have many times when we tried to get people out of Cuba, because Bukele's father converted from Christianity to Islam in the 1980s, became an Imam, and founded four mosques in El Salvador.
We don't live in a perfect world....even if Garcia is returned, he is subject to deportation to anyplace except El Salvador.
He had a hearing befora an IJ -- Immigration Judge -- who, in effect paroled him because to return to El Salvador was to jeopardize his life.
No doubt Trump is in contempt, but the procedure could be extradition.
We have a checkered history with El Salvador. From AI
Challenges and Disputes:
There have been reports of the Salvadoran government refusing to extradite MS-13 gang leaders to the United States, despite extradition requests.
Some argue that the Salvadoran government may be protecting certain gang members, possibly in exchange for a reduction in violence.
This situation has led to tensions between the United States and El Salvador, with the U.S. government publicly pressuring El Salvador to extradite the gang leaders.
Key Points:
The extradition treaty provides a legal framework for transferring individuals to face justice in either country.
There are ongoing disputes and challenges related to the extradition of MS-13 gang leaders, with some reports suggesting that the Salvadoran government may be shielding certain individuals.
The situation has led to tensions between the two countries, with the U.S. government publicly pressuring El Salvador to comply with extradition requests
Wow. I hope he gets a lot of publicity and he is successful. This now becomes a contest of wills. Freeing him shows the right thing to do and stopping his freedom says to Trump that no one will tell him what to do.
There was an article in the New Yorker yesterday which contends that Harvard may have missed a trick by allowing the Trump administration to characterise its bullying tactics as justified by asserting that there had been violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, instead of resisting the administarion on First Amendment free speech grounds. The 1964 Act does not even mention religion, although it's being used ostensibly to clamp down on antisemitism on the dubious grounds that jews are an ethnic group or have shared ancestry (a view that has not yet been ruled on by SCOTUS).
So let's not go overboard in praising Harvard. That same New Yorker article reminds us that when SCOTUS justice Elena Kagan was dean of Harvard she opposed open resistance to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the U.S. military’s policy on gay service members under the Clinton and Bush administrations for fear of losing access to government subsidies.
Russell, you mention something here that I think is relevant: the definition of "Anti-Semitism" has morphed to mean "Anti-Israel" rather than "Anti-Jew".
In it's original form (which I presume hasn't changed since the last time I looked at it) seven of the eleven examples of antisemitism given related not to jews per se but rather to the state of Israel.
Yet if Israel is by definition a Jewish state, how do you separate them? When we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq some on the the left accused the US of Islamophobia. Are these double standards?
It was only in 2018 that Israel passed a law declaring that only Jews had the right of self-determination in the country. It was criticised then by the EU, Israeli Arab political leaders, Israeli opposition politicians and liberal Jewish groups in the US. There are 1.8 million Arabs in Israel, about 20% of the total population. It's not a question of definition but arrogation by a right-wing Israeli government. If I lived in the US I would be at risk of deportation just for pointing this out.
That may be, but it has been recognized from it's independence as a Jewish State with Hebrew as its official language, the flag has the Star of David on it, the national Anthem is the Hatikvah, the state emblem is a menorah, any Jew or family member of a Jew is allowed the right of return, (Aliyah), and cannot be turned away. To say it is has been a Jewish state only since the passage of the Basic Law is a bit Trumpian in logic. (That is to say in denial of facts and/or illogical). I am certainly not arguing that any criticism of Israeli policy is anti-semitic, however we can not ignore those who fail to recognize her existence as a homeland for all Jews in the midst of Islamic theocracies. Not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, yet clearly some is. No one can reasonably argue that the long conflict in the Middle East would continue as it has if Israel were truly a secular state. She is a democracy with rights for all citizens, indeed the Arabic language holds a special status, but she is also the homeland for the Jews and was established as such.
Rachel Maddow had the whistleblower from the NLRB and his attorney on TRMS last night; it was a chilling interview. The whistleblower had a threatening letter taped to his door (in a place he has lived in for less than 2 months) along with a photo of him walking his dog. Whatever data the DOGEbros got went directly to Russia; he reported several attempts to log on using proper passwords, etc. but were denied due to a Russian IP address.
Is one more infraction…needed ? To rid us of this ,since the get go , game playing narcissist?
Not likely.
That 25% (their base) which ,yes , includes Putin,Orban, now the newest pon/syncophant, Bukele, and any/all the remaining ‘dicts’ (dictators) support this/their ongoing charade …accounts -you got it ,folks -100% for the waste,fraud, immigration woes, by their very existence topped by lies cooked by selfish evilness.
You’d think by this time ,2,025 years minimally of this evidence -feudal through present day, we’d know an ass and their con gamers in record breaking time vs them breaking every record …unprecedented ?
I am not the sharpest tool in this box by any stretch …and saw it in 2015!
But no….they continue to wreak the havoc game thumbing their noses in daily virtual display.
Cheeto is now also going after CBS. I hope they take a strong stand against the bully. Power and money. But ABC, CBS and NBC should NEVER pay him a dime just like he avoids paying his debts from all his crimes!
The social app Telegram was posted on the DOGE website for about a week or so in February, inviting anyone who wanted to "participate" to do so with a Telegram account. I still wonder how many files were sent and how many hacks happened in the short period of time it was up there. I am not that computer savvy but was dumbfounded when I saw this. Musk is nothing short of a traitor and needs to hang.
Phil, thanks for the info. It is no surprise. With muskrat and his incels, we might a well have the Russians and any other enemy sitting in the room. Treason is correct.
Rachel Maddox interviewed this whistleblower on her show on MSNBC last night with his attorney. The whistleblower especially wanted to speak publicly because he is aware of other employees in other government departments who are aware of other breaches but don’t want to speak up due to concerns for their own safety.
The traditional sentence for treason is to be shot. I don’t like guns and am twitchy about executions in general. But for Musk and Trump, I am just fine with that outcome. The only other possibility I would love for Trump is confinement in solitary at a high security prison…with only 1 hour a day outside alone. Hell for a performer like trump. You don’t want to know what I was imagining on Monday…..for his orange gracelessness
Most of the readers here will be unaware of this, but the fact that China and Vietnam are working together to create a market is Huge News. The Chinese and the Vietnamese have been blood enemies since the Han forced the Vietnamese tribes out of southeastern China and down into the Indochina peninsula around 3,000 years ago. The enmity even held during our war there, when the Chinese provided a minimum of aid (the fact they were in the middle of the Cultural Revolution was a contributor). Couple this with the moves to create a common market with Japan - the two countries have been sworn enemies since the Kamikaze wind sank the Mongol invasion fleet 1,300 years ago, not to mention the aftereffects of World War II - and you can see just how irrelevant Trump has made the US. The world is moving on without that place that has 5% of the world's population yet manages to produce 95% of the world's bullshit.
Trump is just a tool to be used, in my opinion, by much more powerful people.
It is heartrending to see our so called "leaders" as "yes men and women" before Trump....each so fearful...so stiff...or some foolishly arrogant in their compliance to his every command. The confidence some display at their "we've got you" attitude is both frightening and sad.
This is not the USA on display!
I am so grateful for each and every person who is standing up and speaking out for freedom, for fairness and decency. My husband and I have participated in a gathering of freedom loving citizens. It was invigorating to see the display of courage and love for our country. Crowds are appearing everywhere, small and large. We are standing up for our rights as Americans....each and all of us!!!
No one in America should be imprisoned ANYWHERE without a trial! We are a nation of laws!!!!
Emily, you are absolutely right, the scumbag president is just a puppet with the ability to pull out of his skull the right stupid sligan for the occasion. In return he is allowed to get him and his family richer and reinforce his ego as a "most powerful man on earth"
Emily, you are absolutely right, the scumbag president is just a puppet with the ability to pull out of his skull the right stupid sligan for the occasion. In return he is allowed to get him and his family richer and reinforce his ego as a "most powerful man on earth"
Exactly, and I know he knew about it. One Australian man who is a commenter on another site I visit took Trump at his word, but I explained you can’t do that with Trump as he is such a chronic liar.
The Republicans and the entire MSM, and especially The NY Times and FOX News, constantly repeated the phrase, "chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan." I wrote to the editor of the Times about reusing the phrase ad nauseam. I called it lazy journalism. I believe the editor actually listened and I haven't seen the phrase used in a NY Times article since.
Not to bury my point, but we ALL need to label the tariff's as "chaotic" and/or a few other choice words. The Republicans and FOX News also used the word "mess" when they talked about the Biden administrations handling of the economy.
So maybe when we talk about the tariffs, we always say the "chaotic tariffs" and when we talk about the deportations say "unlawful deportations" or something similar.
If you watch the Comedy Central interviews of the stupid attendees at the Trump rallies, they used the word "mess" when talking about what the Biden administration was doing.
You see the Republicans do this time and again when they want to turn the general population against something the Democrats are pushing.
Are they any propaganda experts out there that can help with this?
In the meantime, I am going to label the tariffs "chaotic", and the deportations "messy".
I agree with repeating pejoratives (“messy”, “chaotic”, “disastrous”, etc.) every time a tRump activity is mentioned.
But the illegal round-up of persons off American streets are not deportations. It takes a legal process and hearings to make a deportation. These are kidnappings.
Stuart Stevens, writing in Lincoln Square, has called for state Attorneys General to file kidnapping charges against those responsible.
This is an excellent idea, and I also thank you for pointing out to the NYT their laziness about the Afghanistan coverage. Yes, the tariff use is, indeed, chaotic.
Something that slipped right by me. Was not aware of the histories, so thank you. Relationships do evolve, don’t they. Sounds like grudges were held for centuries and now chump has forced realignments that will echo for more centuries. He may get his wish for America First, but only for MAGAts. The rest of us and the world will live with the America that has spent all the goodwill that heroic bravery earned us eighty years ago. Chump has truly been a transformative force. He will have added America to his long list of failures. LOSER, LOSER, LOSER
Although I agree with you, I can't forget the 5,000 years of China's history the Chinese representative mentioned, and I realised - really, when it comes to national development it is pretty comparable to human development, and from that point of view, the US, just as Canada and Australia, are just babies. What we're seeing in the US currently are growing pains, as horrible and terrible as it is for the current cohort. Many other countries have been there before, in one or the other way. We'll see what the next developmental stage will turn out to be.
Sabine, well-observed! Yet the Declaration of Independence and Constitution represented the first time in those enormously long histories of world governments that adults banded together to promote and fight for the notion that adult citizens could govern themselves without a king or emperor or supreme protector/being. This idea, though a “new baby” on the stage of nationhood, was the first time, at least in the modern era, a nation believed it could rule itself, a very grown up idea indeed.
China has certainly been there and done that in more ways than I can count. I wouldn’t say that it has reached a pinnacle although since Mao, they have made great strides for their people. Well, some of them. As to us, I hate to compare deliberate evil with the rebellious teen years. Personally, I prefer boring support and efficiency for all…. Now that gives one the freedom that everybody says they want.
I agree, Sabine. I've been saying we are in our adolescence as a nation, which explains a lot. And as Homo Sapiens Sapiens, we are still evolving and have a long, long way yet to go. But changes are occurring quickly now, which is forcing a huge growth spurt for us all (ultimately towards betterment, I fervently hope and pray).
The MAGAt base voters are suffering harm from tariffs and the disruption of global markets, and from the gutting and cuts to essential government services on which they depend, so even they will start to wake up to the deviation Trump is creating.
The Sino-Vietnamese War of early 1979 drew my attention but not as much as Iran.
Though I knew people who knew much more, they couldn't share very much other than the general history. Most of the more interesting stories were from engineers from so many other countries that worked for the aerospace company I worked at for a dozen years (half approaching the end of the Cold War, and half tapering off after the end of the Cold War). The ones that could share more were former Peace Corps volunteers and USAID workers. A few wouldn't say exactly who they worked for, just leaving me believe they were other parts of our better soft power efforts around the world.
The Vietnamese, during their anti- colonial wars, did not seek support from. China. That has long been a contentious relationship. They were forced to fight and then defeated first France, then the US. With few remaining options, they chose and had the support of arms from the relatively remote USSR.
This groundbreaking Viet reconciliation with China is a direct result of Drumpf’s now declared economic world war.
I’m not surprised. The late Neil Sheehan had a lot to say about Vietnam’s determination to keep its independence from China in his book “A Bright Shining Lie.” Vietnam was a trading partner of ours before Trump had to upend everything with his tariffs. Only Trump could ally Vietnam with China. Mary Trump sees her uncle’s actions as an attempt to be a bully and flex his muscle to the rest of the world. The Orange Menace lacks the wit and understanding to know that many necessary products are no longer made here, and people would be hit too hard to buy even domestic products. We don’t have the manufacturing capacity we once did.
Thanks for the history lesson TC. And history is being writing as we read your comment. The vacuum created by the moron president and horde of followers are being rapidly and expectedly filling up by China to our loose.
Unfortunately, I think the only nation that will benefit from Trump’s tariffs is Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic of China. Xi is the one person who could defeat Trump on this issue.
The bright spot here is that this new relationship could indicate that there is hope, however slim, that unforeseen outside events could also unexpectedly cause a rapprochement between longtime enemies in the Middle East.
TC, I once heard that Vietnam and/or the South China Sea are sites of oil reserves. That was one reason for the Western pursuit of Vietnam. Do you know if this is true?
This is exactly right TCinLA: The world is moving on without that place that has 5% of the world's population yet manages to produce 95% of the world's bullshit. Yep! You said it!
When Trump was elected in 2016, Trump endorsed Orbán, and Orbán started attacking universities — forcing the Central European University out of Hungary.
John believes Trump is emulating Orbán’s playbook. (Steve Bannon once declared that “Orbán was Trump before there was Trump.”)
Orbân’s playbook has 10 parts, according to John:
One: Take over your party and enforce internal party discipline by using political threats and intimidation to stamp out all party dissent.
Two: Build your base by appealing to fear and hate, branding immigrants and cultural minorities as dangers to society, and demonizing your opponents as enemies of the people.
Three: Use disinformation and lies to justify what you’re doing.
Four: Use your election victory to claim a sweeping mandate — especially if you don’t win a majority.
Five: Centralize your power by destroying the civil service.
Six: Redefine the rule of law as rule by executive decree. Weaponize the state against all democratic opponents. Demonize anyone who doesn’t support the leader as an “enemy of the people.”
Seven: Eliminate checks and balances and separation of powers by taking over the legislature, the courts, the media, and civil society. Target opponents with regulatory penalties like tax audits, educational penalties such as denials of accreditation, political penalties like harassment investigations, physical penalties like withdrawing police protection, and criminal penalties like prosecution.
Eight: Rely on your oligarchs — hugely wealthy business and financial leaders — to supervise the economy and reward them with special access to state resources, tax cuts, and subsidies.
Nine: Ally yourself with other authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and support his effort to undermine European democracies and attack sovereign countries like Ukraine.
Ten: Get the public to believe that all this is necessary, and that resistance is futile.
We all see it happening in real time. We need to stop it somehow.
No doubt about it, Donold is insane, not he might be. So if follows that any so-called tariff plan is just another hare-brained scheme of his since he is obviously insane. It's hard to believe some people are just now coming to this conclusion.
He’s never had to live in the real world because Daddy Fred’s wealth cushioned him from reality and Daddy Fred made Donald into a sociopath like himself. Now, Trump’s malignant narcissism and sociopathy are mixed with Trump’s encroaching dementia. It didn’t surprise me when Trump attacked Biden for Biden’s supposed dementia, because it’s actually Trump’s problem and MAGA projects more than a motion picture projector.
Sachs blamed Trump’s economic policies for triggering a $10 trillion loss in global wealth, warning that the U.S. is now flirting with authoritarianism under “one-man rule by emergency decree.”
The blistering critique comes amid rising fears that Trump’s return to power could reignite economic instability worldwide.
NTALYA, TÜRKİYE - APRIL 11, 2025: Türkiye's Minister of Treasury and Finance Mehmet Simsek and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) President Jeffrey Sachs attended the "Protectionism: The End of Globalization?" panel moderated by TRT World's Adnan Nawaz.
The event brings together global leaders, policymakers, and experts to tackle critical global challenges, such as geopolitical tensions, inequality, violence, and climate change, while exploring ways diplomacy can restore stability and foster international cooperation.
Only 40% think he “should keep deporting people despite a court order to stop,” although 76% of Republicans think he should violate a court order.
There are approximately 186 million registered voters in the United States. This would suggest that 74.4 million people believe that the criminal-elect should disregard the rule of law and act as a fascist tyrant authoritarian king.
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, September 18, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by Elizabeth Powel if we have a republic or a monarchy."A republic if you can keep it" replied Dr. Franklin.
It's unfortunate so many fought and died for independence from the tyranny of monarchy. So many fought and died for equality in the so-called "Civil War". And so many spilled blood and paid the ultimate sacrifice fighting fascist evil in World War II -to just welcome a criminal-elect fascist tyrant authoritarian king in 2024.
Every billionaire who supports Project 2025 and Trump because of your eternally unsatisfied greed. Every elected member of the GOP for your betrayal of oath of office and fealty to Trump. And for every person who either voted for this or rationalized not voting due to racism, misogyny, xenophobia, willful ignorance, or the price of eggs -you have all betrayed the legacy of courage and sacrifice of multiple generations of Americans.
George, your main point holds, but your numbers are off. Of the 186 million registered voters, 36 million voters are registered Republicans. 76% of 36 million = 27.3 million, which is still a helluva scary number of people supporting this violation of a court order.
Pre-caffeination it appeared as though 40% of all voters. The below paragraph, upon re-parsing, post-caffeination, it is still a bit ambiguous -especially when at certain points it does not generalize and is specific as to party (or in the case of Republicans, a criminal enterprise).
From my perspective we have a serious problem if any significant part of the population is cheering the abandonment of the rule of law.
While I despised the rulings of the incompetent and partisan Aileen Cannon, there is an appeals process.
The same Reuters/Ipsos poll says that 82% of Americans, including 68% of Republicans, think “the president should obey federal court rulings even if he disagrees with them.” Only 40% think he “should keep deporting people despite a court order to stop,” although 76% of Republicans think he should violate a court order.
But Trump voters are stupid and when they talk only other stupid Republicans listen to what they say.
"You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Attributed to A. Lincoln.
Most die hard Republicans are the "some of the people ALL the time." Stick the letter (R) behind Bernie's or AOC's name and they would agree with most of what they say.
There is more than a dotted line connection between the billionaires behavior and their education. We have allowed the study of the liberal arts to become a joke with nearly absolute emphasis on science and engineering. As a result the so called geniuses creating AI and wonderful electronic devices seem to have no understanding of history, civics, the arts, etc. Business schools have told them that it’s all about the numbers which fits nicely into their worldview. The pendulum has to swing back to a place where we balance ALL teaching all disciplines not just software engineering and not just history but enough of both so that a brilliant scientist can understand civics and a brilliant historian can understand math and physics.
Thank you Neil. I suspect it feeds into pushing the extremes of an economic system in which Milton Friedman stated the only responsibility of a business is to maximize profit. It has created a large volume of managers who view people as resource capacity on a spreadsheet, and very few leaders who inspire with a vision for creating societal value through innovation. The idea of people as a sink or swim cog in a profit wheel has led to generations of narrowing opportunity and economic despair.
A balanced approach valuing economic growth and opportunity, while valuing art, humanities, philosophy doesn't fit within the narcissistic worldview of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, or anyone comprising the criminal elect's Cabinet.
"although 76% of Republicans think he should violate a court order."
Undoubtedly approval of such presidential lawlessness ONLY extends to a member of their own party. That's exactly what equal justice and rule of law isn't.
Last Thursday, Gustaf Kilander of The Independent reported that “fund managers quietly fear Trump doesn’t have a tariff plan and that he ‘might be insane.’”
"Insane tariffs" would be another good catch phrase along with "chaotic tariffs".
When you're talking to your MAGA acquaintances, always label the tariffs as "insane" or "chaotic". It's like arguing with the words "Make America Great Again". Everyone wants to MAGA and almost everyone think the tariffs are "insane" and "chaotic".
Mary Trump thinks the tariffs are a way for Trump to bully and challenge other nations, but what they will really do is cause unnecessary hardship for ordinary people. The Orange Menace seems to be blissfully unaware that we no longer make many necessary goods at home, because of the dubious economic policies we’ve pursued over the last 45 years. We have to import necessary goods from abroad, and many of them come from China. Trump is an ignoramus about economics and many other things.
There was an interview last night on the PBS News Hour with an expert on "rare earth minerals" which are the key components of our new car and tech components. Most of it is mined in China. The US has about 1.5% of the product - ALL of which is shipped to China for refinement and then back to us. We are completely at the mercy of China for most of the refined rare earth and ALL of the "super rare earth" materials that are essential for our economy.
Making a trade war on the country you NEED the most is even more insane than making a trade war on the customers you NEED.
Gary is spot on when he says all of this is "insane" and "chaotic" - it's also the height of incompetence. Ignorant, stupid, self destructive ineptitude. Also known as clueless and "NUTS"!
Could it be that the "titans of industry" will finally join the chorus of people saying: "This guy doesn't know what he is doing?"
As I've mentioned, many people lost their small to medium sized manufacturing businesses to China, Mexico, etc. during the 1980's and 1990's. And then they went on to earn good money doing something else.
Why in the world would they want to restart a business that had failed years ago and chance losing everything again, when they are now living a comfortable life.
This reminds me of Trump’s stupid remarks about coal miners wanting to return to coal mining. The only reason coal miners became coal miners was because it was the only decent paid employment available. They didn’t want their children to do the work, and they knew mining would inevitably impair their health with black lung disease. Trump had a phony press conference at which one of the people posing as a coal miner was actually a mine supervisor, not a miner. In addition, Trump would be likely to cut any programs that funded treatment for black lung disease or pensions.
😎 Good point about cutting programs and pensions. Millions of people's 401-Ks are in the tank because of his chaotic tariffs.
There were around 50,000 coal mining jobs in the US in 2020 and it has steadily been declining. Trump could learn all of this information but he prefers his "alternate" facts to the real facts.
According to Wikipedia, there are 290 coal powered electricity plants in operation in the US generating about 17% of our electricity.
As you mentioned, why would anyone want their kids to grow up to be coal miners?
"blissfully unaware"....this description of the person who is holding the once honorable position of President of the USA....is unfortunately true in so many ways...
What the Drumpf economic world war is causing is political realignment worldwide. It’s not going in our favor. And it won’t disappear overnight when he’s gone. I wouldn’t burden him with the mantle of intent. That lies elsewhere.
Rupert sees no problem with whitewashing everything chump does and misrepresents (lies) about democrats non stop. The “smartest people in the room” (like at Enron) buy the bull Schitt, so it’s not just the moronic imbeciles rooting for the “cleansing” of America. I guess Goebbels proved that smart can be more insane in more creative ways than dumb. Can certainly do more damage. Learned that working at public high school.
“Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?” one man asked, to applause and calls of “Yeah!” from around the room. When Grassley said no, because that wasn’t a power of Congress, the man replied: “The Supreme Court said to bring him back!” and others chimed in, “They’re defying the Constitution.”
Just where is the responsibility of our three branches of government to keep each other honest, even with respect unintentional errors? What about the integrity of Constitutional boundaries? What about unalienable rights?
I wish that someone in the crowd had yelled at Grassley that Congress can impeach a President who won’t support the Constitution. Grassley can’t be allowed to get away with his “Aw, shucks, I guess there’s just nothing anyone can do” BS.
We should be protesting for the swift return OF EVERY SINGLE PERSON from that prison back to the U.S. It really really troubles me that we are allowing ourselves to get sidetracked by only focusing on one of many.
Agree. Could it be this regime's admission that a mistake was made was intentionally done with the sole purpose of sidetracking everyone with our outrage? While giving Traitor the opportunity to intimidate not only all of us with his most recent specific threats, but also those on the Supreme Farce?
I just read this harrowing point on Ruth Ben-Ghiat's substack: "Yet there is another reason Abrego Garcia is useful as a captive body: his fate speaks to the apparent randomness of authoritarian repression. Autocracies encourage compliance by telegraphing that anyone can be a target. And now “anyone,” including, theoretically, U.S. citizens born in the United States, could end up in a Salvadoran hellhole from which there is no exit."
Trump is a sociopath who will never take responsibility for anything, and he will never apologize or admit he’s wrong. The last two items are part of what Roy Cohn taught him.
Trump used the same words when asked whether he took personal responsibility for the activities of DOGE. He's never taken personal responsibility for anything that goes wrong. - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wuQE98TCGVg
"With Trump having won concessions from Columbia University and then announced those concessions were only the beginning of his demands, other universities are banding together to defend education, academic freedom, and freedom of speech"
====
"We all know that even when we satisfy one demand, Mr. Trump will come back with another, bigger demand. That’s not diplomacy; it’s blackmail." - Jean Chrétien
Canada has excellent universities, and it's a lot closer. Did I read this evening that Timothy Snyder has take a leave from Yale to spend time in Canada, at the University of Toronto?
"I did not leave Yale because of Donald Trump, or because of Columbia, or because of threats to Yale — but that would be a reasonable thing to do and that is a decision that people will make. More scholars will leave the United States if universities cannot make the case for themselves and stand together while doing it. The business of universities is to exemplify and create the conditions of liberty. There are reasons why tyrants come after universities first, and this is the main one. I never once felt at Yale the slightest sense that I should or should not say or write anything in particular; it is important that everyone have that sense. What is coming to the United States now is an attempt by the federal government to encourage conformism and denunciations for the purpose of spreading terror and idiocy. This is hugely challenging to all of those who run our universities; self-defense begins with claiming the concepts. Universities are and should name themselves champions of freedom. "
I hardly blame Dr. Snyder and his wife, who is also an academic, or Dr. Jason Stanley for leaving the United States. It’s frightening to think that we were once a safe haven for people coming from totalitarianism abroad, and now we are governed by a wannabe dictator.
But the efforts to pull funding for research at all universities are real and ongoing. There is a lot of research funded by the federal government that just won’t happen anymore. Important research, on topics like health including cancer research, technology, climate change, alternative energy and fuel etc. When that research isn’t funded anymore, how will universities run their hospitals, pay their faculty, and fund their graduate students? What will happen to undergraduate tuition at state institutions? We will quickly lose our hard-won standing as one of the leading countries of higher education, and we will all be poorer for it.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is only happening at the Ivies, and that they somehow deserve it because they are elite or have large endowments. Federal funding isn’t a hand-out, it’s paying for research. It isn’t just happening at the Ivies, and they’re elite because of their rigorous standards. The administration has just chosen them to start with because there’s a thread of resentment in this country against people who studied at these elite institutions, even among those educated there, like JD Vance and Trump himself, and that makes them think the public will accept what they’re doing, and make it easier for them to go after state schools next.
As Jim says above, at some point researchers and faculty will leave and go elsewhere. Just like Timothy Snyder. If we were younger, my husband and I would likely be considering that already. It’s profoundly depressing to see your life’s work at risk for no reason whatsoever.
These are all fair points to my poorly expressed point that gave an impression I didn't mean to give.
Trump's tentacles have already reached further than the US. Non-US universities where US researchers' partners work are also being examined for policies and other research of which Trump disapproves.
Non-US researchers are also deciding not to attend conferences in the US. And, if that's happening, I expect other trips between research partner countries will also be disturbed and won't always be replaceable by things like Zoom meetings.
Germany also had plenty of good universities, even some of the best before Hitler. We got a good percentage of the Professors (and could have had more if they didn't restrict the percentages of Jewish Professors at some universities).
Now we are sure to lose many that see opportunities to do their best work elsewhere (not to mention the ones forced out of Universities here, who's spouses or colleagues will prefer to also leave).
The anti-intellectualism of the Trump administration reminds me of countries like Cuba, Turkey, and Russia where the most educated are feared. It was not very long ago that being highly educated was respected in our nation.
One would have to be totally oblivious of reality not to see that Trump’s economic policies especially surrounding tariffs are detrimental to our well-being. Just the fact that these were obviously not well planned and challenging to clarify should give all of us pause.
Extrajudicial actions make a mockery of our history and Constitution.
How much longer do we have to endure this constant foolishness!
Historically there has always been an anti-intellectual bent to American Society. The only people who respect intellectuals are other intellectuals. Talk to working class people, especially those who work with their hands, in the trades or people who work the land. These Americans often feel that those with intellectual skills look down on the work that they do. Until we see and respect “all labor” and see all Americans contributing to this society, this anti- intellectual bent will exist. My father was an immigrant who worked as a carpenter. I was the first person in my family (including all my cousins on this side of the Atlantic) to get a college degree and then two graduate degrees, but I am deeply connected to working class values, and I have always understood that we need all kinds of skills to keep this country functioning. When we disrespect the working class, we only hurt ourselves. We see this disrespect in DOGE hacking away at our institutions that provided needed services for the American people, and the current president hacking away at the rule of law. This will not end well.
This is true. I do respect people who do necessary labor and trades. Their work is essential. What I don’t respect is people marketing lies to the public to mislead the public into thinking Trump cares about them and their problems. Trump only cares about himself and his bank accounts.
Actually, education is highly prized in Cuba. University graduates may not be able to find jobs in their field, but the scientific and medical advances in Cuba, advances that they have shared with many equally poor nations, are undeniable.
This anti-intellectualism predates Trump. Chris Mooney, for example, wrote about attacks on science by the Bush administration in his book 'The Republican War On Science'. The fossil fuel industry has mounted concerted attacks on climate science ever since Exxon discovered the links between CO2 emissions and the Greenhouse Effect way back in the 1970s. Republican attacks on evolution theory have been the subject of two SCOTUS rulings and in 1990 creationism evolved into intelligent design theory, an attempt to promote creationism by another name - https://ncse.ngo/ten-major-court-cases-about-evolution-and-creationism
I know someone who has a relatively new small business. Their supplier just informed them that the price of goods is going up 35%. Can this business survive? As a fairly new small business, it is not yet a strong, profit-making enterprise. Will its customers be able to afford such an increase in prices? The repercussions of Trump's tariff's hit not only Wall St.and major investors. They threaten the kinds of small business on which our prosperity as a nation depends.
"JPMorgan said this week that Trump’s tariffs mean that he is “on track to deliver one of the largest US tax hikes on record,” taxes that will fall on poorer Americans rather than the wealthy and corporations."
"Americans generally like Trump’s approach to immigration—a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said 49% were in favor—they hate the specifics"
Or to put it simply - they approve of amputating legs that have athlete's foot - they just don't like it being done with a hacksaw and no anaesthetic - and they don't want to know the name of the patient. Or that he has a wife and three kids.
Other Universities are banding together to withstand the assault on academic freedom. The truism is that you can never fight authoritarianism alone.
For a huge treat go over to Meidas Touch and watch this:
LIVE: Michael Cohen and Jim Acosta HOLD LIVE Town Hall
This town hall was so refreshing. To get to see people like Acosta, Don Lemon and others unscripted, unfiltered and doing the work of Democracy will lift your spirits.
Meidas Touch now has 4.71M subscribers. This means we are establishing our own megaphone.
We are building an alternative media platform. It takes time. I have seen people set free from the confines of corporate media. Acosta and Lemon are different people. The print media folks who have come into the Substack community such as Jennifer Rubin are writing some excellent stuff.
As to social media. I was never much of a social media person. Now. I am on Bluesky. It is a breath of fresh air with brilliant minds such as Timothy Snyder, Andrew Weissman, Rebecca Solnit, Barack Obama and many others.
Meidas Touch now has more views than Rogan.
I recommend you get involved with the exciting revolution in how Americans receive their information.
Isn't it? We are working to keep Bluesky free of junk. Currently there is a discussion on the proliferation of memes/cartoons depicting women in hyper-sexualized images. We are reporting/blocking the accounts/hiding the posts etc. Bluesky is so easy to use in cleanup. No oligarchs running things.
I never joke about the SS, or anything connected to Hitler. Miller is obviously a troubled person whose particular brand of hate is frightening. He inspires me to fight harder than ever.
We all can applaud Harvard's leadership in confronting the bully's newest turn in criminality.
But there's the sub text Heather also cited -- how the orange felon in the White House is carefully using his war on immigrants, colored immigrants, to shore up his base.
But his base includes Putin -- and today Anderson Cooper had on a whistleblower on a massive data breach.
That is, very soon upon Elon Musk and his incel boys beginning their run of havoc from inside the most sensitive information sources in the U.S. government, there came a sudden and unprecedented spike of info suckage.
This whistleblower reported how he tracked this massive sucking to Elon Musk’s Starlink (his satellite transmission system) – and, much worse, how in the first 15 minutes of this transfer Russian sources logged into it 20 times.
Musk let Putin into the most sensitive areas of U.S. security, including nuke.
The criminality, treason, and betrayal just go way past our garden variety hatred and racism.
I think a Russian IP address was repeatedly trying to log in and a large amount of data was said to be transferred to who knows where as the process was opaque. For sure this needs to be investigated and if there is there, not smoothed over like Trumps gross mishandling of classified documents. This could be the most serious breach of national security in our nation's history. Even if it turns out to be less bad than it sounds, just the overall unsupervised, unqualified, casual access of Musk and his minions qualifies as an unprecedented security risk in and of itself.
The convicted felon in the White House used even those convictions, J L, to promote himself.
His base ate it up. Putin loved it. The world's already-set dictators had to hand it to him. And virtually every right-wing-inclined cult follower just had to follow obeisantly more.
For four years, since Jan. 6's insurrection, the fat, waddling, heavily-caked-on face has just lorded it over all. He's got to be coasting, imagining he can break all rules, get away with everything -- and let Musk insouciantly in back doors to do Putin's bidding.
I can only hope Sen. Van Hollen is successful and has at least a few fellow travelers to El Salvador to affirm his efforts. That should hold the despicable so-called president for a day or two. Then, visible efforts to remove him and his half-mad toadies from office should begin. This is the most bizarre nightmare of my lifetime. The longer Trump and Co play with the soul of the world, the more entrenched they will become.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D -MD) is a workhorse of Congress. He first represented the district now represented by Rep. Jamie Raskin. He is especially knowledgeable about the Near East. (His father was a Foreign Service officer who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.) During his first campaign Van Hollen publicly denounced the Iraq War. Recently he continually admonished the Biden administration to heed State Department and Department of Defense analyses documenting Israeli IDF violations of US and international humanitarian law - which should have resulted in enforcing Leahy Laws to pause offensive military aid to Israel.
I have long thought Van Hollen would be a formidable presidential contender. (And that he was one of the potential deep bench of presidential contenders which the Clinton DNC suppressed to insure Hillary's 'her turn' debacle.)
(.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Van_Hollen.
With so much in the news, I appreciate the information on Van Hollen, especially the encouraging idea that he would be a good president.
Senator Van Hollen is flying 🛩 to El Salvador at this very moment.
******************************************************************
Wenesday 9 PM Eastern:
Rachel Maddow interviewed Senator Van Hollen on the TRMS, Ep65 at the 27:25 minute mark:
Senator: "The goal of my visiit talk to people her [El Salvador] about the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia". The Judge is proceeding on contempt charges.
Let's pray that he makes it home alive!
There should be a contingent of Dems flying with him. Enough is enough!
🙏
You know, Brianne I thought you were the smarter than this.
Specially, as a one time attorney You shouldn’t be backing MS 13 gang members and wife, beaters and illegal immigrants
Why don’t you try backing America for a change?
Dumb and dumber on TV how stupid could they be back in the wrong horse yet again?
I don't understand how you guys do it. You keep back in the wrong horse every single time now you're supporting a wife beater as well as an illegal gang member. Does it get any worse for you? Yes, it does every single day. Keep it up your approval rating has gone from the mid 40s during Biden to right at 20% now
And dropping Van Haollens stunt was exactly that
Thanks, Lin* It is always good to read your input. As my grandmother used to say, "You are one smart cookie."
My mother used to say "Smart and a token will get you on the subway. You have to roll up your sleeves and get to work."
Hillary’s “her turn” promoted by the DNC is what got the insipid orange turd elected. 🤬 It’s obvious that she would have made a better president, hell anyone that really cares about our nation would have been better than the convicted felon. If she hadn’t been so entitled and arrogant she would have won, we didn’t need what’s her name from FL who ran the DNC to pick our president for us, she still pisses me off every time I see her face in the house.
"Entitled and arrogant" describes the Traitor who won with Russian interference. That and the continuing homegrown American legacy of misogyny and racism has brought the U.S. to its knees.
When women are assertive they're labeled "entitled, arrogant and bit**es" She was and is a very smart, capable, competent women who would have made a much better president than many the Republican Party has offered in recent years. Instead the American electorate voted in a demented dictator man baby.
You mean Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Dick? I still am pissed at her for sidelining Bernie and his ideas!! I was voting for Hillary anyway but ignoring him was a HUGE mistake!
I partially agree with the opinion that Hillary had some 'attitude.'
I describe it with the analogy of a job interview: Qualified for the position, just didn't interview well. My guess is that more pre-maga republicans would have found her more a as a consensuses partner than an adversary.
Are you guys wonder why your approval ratings are in the toilet? The insipid turd? Problem with you guys as you actually think you won the election and you haven’t figured it out yet. 45. More wonderful months ahead gird your loins.
So if Van Hollen fall against the Iraq war why didn’t he fight against the Ukraine war?
https://nypost.com/2024/06/21/us-news/horrific-new-details-revealed-about-rachel-morins-brutal-rape-and-murder-as-suspect-denied-bail/
Yeah a workhorse of opportunity? What a sucker you are . He goes to El Salvador to help a gang member. But doesn’t even have the DECENCY to call the mother of the slain mother of five.by this gang members convicted in an hour and a half. Not even To offer condolences. Scumbag.
Read the ENTIRE story of Rachel Morin and how she was brutally beaten, Dragged 150 ft to be raped while her body had scrapes all over and her head bleeding.
Classic Trumpian distraction - that was some other guy, not Abrego Garcia so it is entirely irrelevant.
"she was brutally beaten, Dragged 150 ft to be raped while her body had scrapes all over and her head bleeding..."
___Native-born American misogynists do similar things with some regularity.
None of which has anything to do with Abrego Garcia.
I can only hope that Sen. Van Hollen doesn't end up in their custody and that Mr. Garcia is alive. Given that right and wrong, truth and lies have flipped in our country, I don't think either is a given.
You fit the Greg Gutfeld description of a new department of government, created for all the lefties like you
Called the department of imaginary crisis lol.
Thank you for the compliment; however, I'd prefer the former Justice Department, the one that understood actual justice.
I agree.
The only thing worse was the separation of children from their parents during his first stint.
I just learned that more visas have been revoked from students at one of my alma maters, Temple U. This administration keeps shooting itself in the foot--what parent in their right mind would send their kid to study in the US?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-immigrants/
This is Elite from Snopes and left, leaning fact checker.
And this is why you people are out to lunch because you believe every piece of crap news, that the liberal media throw at you, which is not factual.
Obama built the cages, Obama separated, families Obama put kids in the cages
See Sophia, how the gullible believe things that are untrue. Go look it up. It was Obama that separated children from their parents and put them in cages, not Trump. Ooooops oooops and oooops again. I’ll look it up you can see the kids with the cages when Obama was president
So far, he has gotten away with everything except his rape conviction. Biden's administration was good, but the dems were/are complicit in the creation of this cult leader. He should've been locked up a LONG time ago. Presidents are exempt from crimes, now candidates are exempt. Pfft. He made a mockery of our dept of justice.
the choice of merit garland was a poor choice...jack smith would hav been much more effective in convicting the felon rapist and getting him behind bars
Garland was, indeed, a bad choice. Let's keep in mind that Biden would not have offered Garland that consolation prize if Moscow Mitch McConnell hadn't denied Garland's hearing for appointment to SCOTUS, in which he most likely would have been confirmed.
Garland's slow, methodical approach and his obsession with not appearing partisan are exactly the characteristics needed for a supreme court justice. They are not suitable for an attorney general. As a member of SCOTUS, he would have offset the lawlessness of Clarence and blocked an opening for Kavanaugh or Barrett.
When looking for whom to blame, go to the source: Mitch McConnell.
Yes, I feel Biden picked people for the wrong reasons. I’m not saying they’re not smart, good people but I think many of them were not equipped for the roles they were given. Garland was not a go getter and should have never been in that role.
Not to mention the self-righteous coldness of a Gorsuch.
I disagree - garland was not required anything... yes Obama should have made a big stink about it and not allowed the evil Mitch to get away with that bs but it did not require Biden to compensate him in any way.Biden is so milk toast when we needed a fighter!
And continues to do so.
Maybe that’s because he was innocent all along. Omg. Wow every single case against him was a piece of “invented” crap that they had to reinvent the expiration status to bring it back to life, even though it had expired.
No, Merrick Garland made a mockery of the justice system Roger Stone Steve Bannon And the only liar amongst them was a guy who testified against Trump, Michael cohen and a prostitute/porn star those were the star witnesses quite a case you mount Lmao
The residents of Western North Carolina who are still living with the effects of Helene sadly ought not be surprised by the administration 's denial of an extension of FEMA benefits. Trump exploited unhappiness and impatience with FEMA for his own reasons, and never had any intention of providing assistance to people who lost homes and businesses.
bitchy, news story this week about a flood in WA state where FEMA has denied help. There was also one recently in Oregon in Burns near where Bundy held the Malheur Reserve captive and got away with it. Our governor has declared an emergency, but I haven't heard about any FEMA request which would probably be denied. These are folks that most likely voted for death star.
Of course T would deny WA any assistance- T has hated our state since our elected officials have refused to bow down to the orange turd. We offended T.
This FEMA denial is another example of a complete and total lack of empathy, something that shouldn't surprise me, but always does. People need help, not a cutting off of aid. Then again, it's of a piece with the cutting off of aid to those overseas who need it desperately. Trump doesn't understand, or more accurately, care, about human suffering anywhere, including here. As a country, despite its warts, the USA has been a beacon of hope for millions for a long time. No more.
I'm reminded of the husband of my father's first cousin, and a Thanksgiving dinner many years ago. He was born an Englishman, joined the RAF at the beginning of WWII, and spent three years based in India, from which he participated in bombing runs from India to Singapore, etc., flights he described as "hours of boredom, culminating in 10 minutes of sheer terror."
He became an American citizen, and loved this country. I bring him up because at that dinner my late father made a rather innocent comment I don't remember, about a subject I don't remember, which elicited a response I do remember, from the ex-Englishman, which was, "You're here because of an accident of birth, people like me are here because we chose this country to be ours."
Obama deported 2 million people 2 million illegals. Where was the outcry from the when that happened? Where was the outcry from the left where he fired 500,000 federal employees ? Huh. You guys have nothing but two things hypocrisy and double standards. And that’s why you keep losing.
According to Federal Times.com, which I quote: "During President Obama's administration, there were no widespread layoffs of federal employees, but there was a pay freeze from 2011 to 2013, which affected employee compensation. The overall number of federal workers did decrease slightly during his term, primarily due to budget constraints and economic conditions." Layoffs there were, in the main due to layoffs at the state and local levels. By the end of the first three years of Obama's first term 636,000 state and local jobs had been cut. There was a large public jobs deficit, but not because Obama fired federal workers. Labor Department statistics show the federal workforce had grown by 143,000 employees by 2011. Obama did try to get more pay raises, and was blocked by Congressional Republicans. There were many retirements, as usual, and there was a little thing called a Recession that he inherited, something that reduced tax receipts for all levels of government.
As for deportations you throw out a figure of 2,000,000, which is inaccurate. It was actually a tad over 3,000,000, but done legally, and something that got Obama tagged with the moniker, "Deporter-in-Chief." Some were self-deported, but the actually final total ended up being 5.24 million who were either "returned" or "removed", (there is a big difference; you should look it up and enlighten yourself), from the US between 2009 and 2016. 91% were removed because of criminal convictions, again, a different scenario from today's wild west rules. In comparison, by 2019 Trump's "removal" order for convicted criminals had dropped to 41%. Not so good! By the way, illegal immigration is a crime, a simple civil crime, most certainly not a felony. Your destroyer-in-chief neither knows, nor cares, about such niceties as the law.
But you also failed to understand is what it cost us year after year to fund immigration, illegal immigration border, protection, and had we built the wall and been allowed to build the wall we would’ve saved billions upon billions of dollars and billions upon billions of deportation costs. By the way, when Obama took office bush, had made a significant effort in increasing the system for border, protect protection, which Obama inherited. Try reading more than one article and seeing how many people he actually deported and if each, and every one of them had a hearing, what a joke.
Everything we decry and loathe about the abuses of power daily carried out by the Trump regime would be available to Democrats if we owned a Trifecta. If the electorate grants Democratic candidates control of Congress and the White House, and a transfer of power is permitted by the GOP incumbents (no guarantee!), will we use that power to try to restore normality to our politics, or will we go on our own Revenge Agenda, and arrest the whole lot of MAGA traitors? The Oligarchy has played its hand…US Politics is now class warfare, and while too many Democrats are non-combatants or worse, the GOP has a 100% Professional Volunteer Army.
Wow…20% approval rating for democrats and sinking because of irrational thoughts like these. Keep it going
You want to blame Trump for all this, and that is justified. But in doing so you are not addressing the real problem - the half of American voters who, already having sufficient experience with Trump during his first term, re-elected him knowing who and what he was, and denying it in the terribly misguided imagining that a men who so disdained and disavowed the pillars of our republic was fit to resolve any of their pet issues.
Raging at Trump is indeed cathartic, and god knows we can use all the cathartic we can get, but he is only the symptom, not the cause.
And for the first time, a president is actually doing what he promised to do.
And for you there, James exactly the same thing that Obama Clinton, Gore, Sanders, Schumer, and all the other Democrats said they were going to do when they were in power and that’s all he’s doing is exactly the same but you guys not a peep from you two-faced hypocrites
Hardly for the first time. You might want to check on what Presidents like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and many others promised to do did. A minimal understanding of American history might be of great benefit to you. It might also inform you about the circumstances of our founding and the nature and content of the Constitution, a document Trump has proven to throughly disdain and disavow. But I imagine that’s okay with you.
I grant you that Trump is working hard to do what he implicitly promised to do - to take over the US government for his own purposes. That’s not what any of those you named promised nor did. But it is what Stalin, Hitler, Putin, Xi, Orban, Modi, and all the rest of those dictators promised and did.
I’ve read through many of your posts in this thread, and I see there the same delusional rantings so common among Trumpists, who usually treat the facts simply as an inconvenient nuisance, and the red meat of Trump himself.
Have at it as you will. But you might want to look around you now and again to see the growing backlash against your hero and the growing buyers' remorse among those who voted for him. (Been to any Republican town hall meetings lately?) You’ve hitched your wagon to a very dark star.
I hitched my wagon to the best president in the last 30 years. I’m not a republican and haven’t been my whole life. I was a democrat when I was younger, but John Kennedy, you speak of if he were alive today he’d be a middle of the road republican
So tell me something genius, how is no tax on tips no tax on Social Security and no tax on overtime beneficial to him ? I think you are a mad delusional to your middle name. Take over the government for his own purposes. ? Yikes. TDS will soon be a real disease and they will soon be medication’s but I doubt Phil work because they’re now running through people’s veins like their own blood It’s so amazing just to see the heat over nothing
Here’s a suggestion for you shut off the TV. Don’t read the newspaper don’t blog here. Don’t post here and then tell me if anything in your daily life has changed. In four years from now if you’re a levelheaded individual which is doubtful and dubious, you may be lucky enough to see the light.
Actually, you might wanna look around CNN has one gentleman that did an evaluation of the Republicans actually regret their vote and an overwhelming 4% said that they did. Lololol. So stop listening to the rumors and don’t be so gullible. Actually, it’s probably 100 million people that would vote for him now and if the tariffs come out well it’ll be 125 million.
Adding Putin to your story only enhances the flavor of stupidity
Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensitive NLRB data : NPR
DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
For cybersecurity professionals, a failure to log activity is a cardinal sin and contradicts best practices as recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as the FBI and the National Security Agency.
Within minutes after DOGE accessed the NLRB's systems, someone with an IP address in Russia started trying to log in, according to Berulis' disclosure. The attempts were "near real-time," according to the disclosure. Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming. Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created DOGE accounts — and the person had the correct username and password, according to Berulis. While it's possible the user was disguising their location, it's highly unlikely they'd appear to be coming from Russia if they wanted to avoid suspicion, cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR explained.
On their own, a few failed login attempts from a Russian IP address aren't a smoking gun, those cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR said. But given the overall picture of activity, it's a concerning sign that foreign adversaries may already be searching for ways into government systems that DOGE engineers may have left exposed.
.https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security.
I watched this last night on Rachel Maddow's show. The whistleblower and his sharp attorney were on. Excellent interview. Chilling was the threat taped to the whistleblower's door where he's lived less than 2 months that showed a drone photo of him walking his dog. These "we know where you live" threats are what's getting people to keep quiet. Kudos to this guy and his attorney who didn't.
I watched as well and would like to give a big hand to the courageous whistleblower and his attorney for coming forward. Hopefully this will give courage to others to come forward. Now how about the GOP? Sadly, just kidding.
They're using lie detectors.
I am so grateful that eyes are on this.
Now you know why Republicans are vehemently bent on shutting down NPR. Please everyone, if you are not already then become members of your local NPR station.
And PBS as well, lin•. But Republicans have been trying to eliminate federal funding of both systems for years. This time they may actually get away with it.
And look at what Heather wrote about the felon's response to CBS reporting: he wants to pull their broadcast license.
Remember to donate and support public television and radio.
Check out Fred Roger’s speech before Congress decades ago asking for more federal support. The two agencies had to go out and use folks like one of the Koch brothers to support themselves and I have felt things have slid sometimes more than others though always some shining standouts. They do the best they can under adverse circumstances. Check out the funders and where shows are placed time wise. Check out not only your local station but others and see if there are any differences . It’s like the libraries only they are sometimes better funded. Each library and each head has different sources of strengths and weaknesses and follow where the support from the community flows.
Then check out the BBC and its non commercial aspect and check on other countries stations. What works what doesn’t work and what are the strengths and weaknesses of all of these system of the humanities of community with information and cultural of these times.
I've been a sustaining member of Blue Ridge Public Radio in Western NC for many years. I don't know what I would do without this service. It was especially helpful in the days after Helene.
Lisa, I’m in E TN. Please make sure your fellow Carolinians know TRUMP has blocked additional funding for FEMA. I heard from a MAGA supporter whose son lives in Asheville the Biden admin’s FEMA was not on the ground in NC. I didn’t believe her, but Trump’s lies are de rigueur.
And what would our society do without public-serving as opposed to profit-serving services. I am not opposed to service at a profit, but some things are far too important to be left to that. There are aspects of life that free enterprise is not motivated to serve, and that's provable. There are also abuses of any system that must be regulated.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"
Lin•, let me first acknowledge that my reply doesn't address the point of your comment. But yours is the first in this conversation to mention the "Republican Party."
I've been thinking for several days, now, that it may be time to stop using that moniker and refer to the party as what it is: the Nazi Party.
It would provide clarity regarding what the party is and what it wants.
THIS^
We need to fund public-serving organizations.
Also donations to honest outfits such as Associated Press.
Before they come for us.
It’s been a govt funded mouthpiece for the left for years…GUESS YOU DIDNT SEE THE PUBLIC HEARINGS ……ONE EAR AND INE EYE. TRY USING THEM BOTH
And rightfully so and it’s about time you obviously didn’t see the hearing where they decided not to cover at all the hoax that was the hunters laptop. Oooops. And denegrated Trump time and time. I sent some links here. Why don’t you go? Look them up unless you want to stay in denial
All aspects of the data breach were discussed in detail on Rachel Maddow's shown on Tuesday 4/15 Evening.
Same for whistleblower records at my former agency.
Labor Leaders Fear Elon Musk and DOGE Could Gain Access to Whistleblower Files
What Happened: The AFL-CIO and former OSHA officials warn that Musk’s operatives are embedded at the Department of Labor, and may gain access to sensitive whistleblower files. Musk's companies—Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company—have over 50 active OSHA investigations for workplace injuries and safety violations.
Why It Matters: Musk’s operatives inside federal agencies pose a dangerous conflict of interest—especially as whistleblowers from Musk-linked and Trump-aligned companies seek protection. Their confidential files could be weaponized to punish them, turning oversight into retaliation.
Source: WIRED
Sure looks like Elon is getting a fantastic return on His investment, unlike the rest of us. WAKE UP America! ( just to be clear, I didn't "invest" in T***P)
We all know they are taking every bit of sensitive information and probably adding back doors to every program. This is who they are and why they are there.
And that reporting is a big part of the reasoning behind the attempt to defund NPR.
Well, I suspect Lynn has got to be a bot because he doubles down on ignorance
He’s just like Chuck Schumer Schumer doesn’t make the same mistake twice he makes it multiple times just to make sure. Sounds familiar there Lin?
NPR has been gone for years.
Why do MAGAts hate NPR? Because the truth has a liberal bias.
https://www.c-span.org/program/house-committee/npr-and-pbs-executives-testify-before-house-doge-subcommittee/657351
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrczLZuErNM
https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-doge-subcommittee-holds-npr-and-pbs-executives-accountable-for-leftist-propaganda-funded-by-taxpayer-dollars/ go get a life Harvey
https://apnews.com/article/doge-pbs-npr-elon-trump-musk-99a40be6cbbe8932047afe371f91fdc5
Not the bench and that they covered up the entire Hunter Biden laptop, story and now lament having done so a little bit too late oops.
Well, you would like to think that wouldn’t you? The problem with people like you is, you didn’t see the hearing in front of the Congress, where statements were made by the heads of NPR and PBS. Look it up Harvey try to face reality. And by the way, you’re a liberal media bias that you think is correct. CNN MSNBC and ABC have recently been sued for lying about different issues, revolving around personalities and politics making up stories about people and getting sued in the process. AND LOSING ALL THREE LAWSUITS VERY RECENTLY. OOOOOOPS so much for liberal bias being correct see if you can find the interview and read the most blasphemous statements by NPR and PBS about what they think about conservatives on the Trump administration. You’re gonna have to turn the page and turn the channel You’re on the wrong side of the events as well. What a surprise. .
I bet it feels great to be such a righteous ____!
It is criminal, and they deserve prison time.
You think?
Trump/Musk are beyond sadistic.
Those less wealthy or poor are lazy and stupid and do not deserve the hard-earned money from us wealthy and brilliant entrepreneurs who made America Great. Those cogs in our wheels of progress deserve enough to survive, so they can work their fingers to the bone, making us rich.
As well as correct. Long overdue reset
TRMS covered the Russian IP address in her interview last night. This was just one of how many agencies (looking at the VA and SSA) specifically.
I had to rewind to make sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing. 🤯
Spot on Ally 🎯.
And the blame for the security breach is not on Musk & minions alone… it is on the person who gave Musk access to the info - Trump. Let’s see how Trump tries to wiggle out of this… because he will try. But he did it so publicly and boasted about it and his own words can testify against him.
This is treasonous.
We thought Signalgate was the most serious breach in our history, but this? WOW! How can this NOT be investigated now that Signalgate has quickly fallen off the radar?
Whether or not this is investigated is a moot; they l already have the data.
TDS is now part of your heart and soul and it's gonna cause you an early death in my opinion. Wake up, take some meds, get things right with your head and stop exposing your delusion to the world.
Plus, JL since he and the Rat have shut down all the military, Pentagon and other cyber crime and tracking delartments, there's nothing to stop them. If the drunk and the bimbo (hired for her 2 BIG assets) conduct all our classified secure business on their personal ipads, then we just gave the store away.
I'm praying for big, nasty metasticized polyps (and pain, lots of pain)
As I’ve said a hundred times, I would have taken my chances with the good generals, the Joint Chiefs of Staff to save the constitution by suspending it as a military coup to prevent the traitor now inhabiting the White House from doing the irreversible harm he a doing. And I was castigated for suggesting such a move.
Well now, does anyone wish to castigate me now? I stated early on that our democratic form of government was on the cusp of being destroyed. The generals could have saved us. There will be nothing left after this era ends. Life as we have known it has ended. Arm yourselves and at least follow Patrick Henry’s admonishment, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Bill Katz,
Looking back for decisions unmade does not take us forward. This is not a "castigation" - just a suggestion that you are beating a dead horse. We are all in this together.
We could all have multiple suggestions for what we "should have done". But I have parked mine in the back of my brain with the hundreds of other "mistakes" I/We might have made. Let's keep the worms in the can and look ahead.
I think we should focus on identifying and applauding the leaders that are standing up to the Fascists. Senator Van Hollen, Harvard's president, Jamie Raskin, several judges and so many more. The People are rising up. Saturday will be another crescendo as we try to celebrate 250 years. Many more moments of speaking out ahead.
My signs: "NO KINGS, Not then, Not now" or "Arrest Musk, Free Garcia". Forward ho...
Bill,
Thank you for the voice of reason. Beating a dead horse gets you nothing and distracts you from learning from your mistakes. Look at how AOC is being reinvented by her part in the Oligarchs rallies — ss a friend said, “she’s no longer a New York kook, but someone who understands us and is willing to fight for us.”
Someone said to me that they felt they were moderate or middle of the road politically and AOC and Bernie were too "progressive" or too radical. I offered up their positions on healthcare and taxes and asked if they disagreed. The response was "well, no, not really".
AOC and Bernie and Chris Murphy and others on the "left" are beginning to sound like "mainstream reasonable". And yet, they haven't really changed their messages. It's about everyone getting the basics and the rich paying a fair share. Easier to grasp now, me thinks.
My theory is that the oligarchs are and will take this too far - hurt too many average folks of all persuasions - and we will restore decency.
I saw AOC and Bernie yesterday. They came to out to our blue dot in the middle of MAGA territory in CA. AOC was inspiring and called out my Congressman David Valadao, who is MIA for his constituents. She covered the history of Citizens United and how we got here with billionaires running the Country. I now fully support her and her agenda. Best sign of hope/change I've seen since the no hand on Bible shite show.
Yeah, I mean, wasn’t that just like some kid telling their mama a lie and swearing it was the truth with their fingers crossed behind their back?! How infantile. That should have been a red flag for the Christian Nationalists but they are already so great at lying to themselves for the story they want to believe that they barely gave it a moment’s pause.
MSM has regularly labeled AOC and Bernie as "extreme left" which entirely ignores what extreme left actually is. Joe Manchin was never mentioned in my memory without the title "centrist" or "moderate". No one, and certainly no politician has all the answers, but I have found AOC and Sanders to be civil, reasonable and professional while being slandered and hated even by many democrats. I think they better focus on the roots of our problems, and offer worthwhile perspective. Corrupted or negligent politics replaces information with propaganda. AOC and Sanders have always been worth listening to.
Well… I’ve often said that our left is pulling to far to the left and the ugly reaction is what we have. The truth is that a few issues that weee missed in the past 25 years have turned our nation into crazy nation. The era of Reagan and even Bush I didn’t help. Bush after all launched his Gulf War which inspired bin Ladin to observe American troops stationed in Arabia and launched 9/11. But the small points we missed were Ralph Nadar ruining it for Al Gore in 2000. Subsequent Apointments to the Supreme Court and the worst was Roberts decision on corporate donations to campaigns. This was the linchpin that has all but destroyed out political system. Once again as usual, I’m the messenger of doom. I’m just reporting what I observed. How we get out of this mess is anyone’s guess.
How we get out of this mess lies in reversing the way we got into it. “We the People” learning from our mistakes. Sounds so mundane against all the rhetoric, but in the end it is the only way out that preserves the Republic.
I do not castigate you for your ‘good generals’ suggestion, only point out that shattering one of the most crucial aspects of the Constitution (civilian control of the military) in order to save the Constitution only opens the door to its destruction.
Instead of wasting time with such speculative junk, check out Feathers of Hope.
26 Senate Republicans voted to fund Ukraine, many more House Republicans. Many call Trump a liar when he says Ukraine started the war. Many didn't sign up to be members of the axis of evil.
https://bacon.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2616
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r8d7q0200o
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r8d7q0200o
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/14/2316376/-Trump-blames-Putin-s-victims-for-getting-attacked-by-Putin?detail=emaildkre
Bill, I agree, and I'm thinking about "Swap Musk for Garcia".
I have been keeping an eye out for my next protest signs Bill, both your No Kings and Arrest Musk are nice and tight, something that a person driving by could read with a glance. 👍🏻👍🏻💥
My previous signs said too much! Lacked a clear message. At the April 5th event a woman next to me had a sign that said "Honk for Hands Off!" The horns were deafening and affirming.
100% correct! HANDS OFF! Saturday 19 April. Millions in the streets, waking Congress from their slumber.
Don’t forget Bernie Sanders and AOC. Pretty much the only ones going to and addressing the very republicans who voted for Trump. To draw a crowd of over 12,000 in a red district in an intensely red state like Idaho is something I never even contemplated seeing.
Good generals will not follow illegitimate orders but by definition they do not stage military coups.
Your bent, for a strong man solution to the problems of democratic government, puts you in bed with MAGA. Those craving a simplistic solution to complex problems. You just disagree in what constitutes a benevolent dictatorship.
Like the Jan 6 insurrectionists you prefer a brutal overturning of democratic institutions to the hard work of making representative government work - but you go a step further in the institutional violence you want to inflict.
Despite their perversions, MAGA at least preserves remnants of constitutional procedures of government. If they break government we can at least fix it. Coming back from a military coup would be much more difficult.
Yes, but ICE officers don't seem to believe any order is illegitimate. A man was pulled out of his car in New Bedford, MA on Monday, even though the ICE agents were looking for someone with a different name. His wife is here having been granted asylum; he also gets that. No criminal record. He's still in detention. The Gestapo has become a reality in today's United States.
Which is why perhaps well armed citizens might just be the only alternative to totalitarianism and Ive always been a major gun control advocate. This is only the beginning. Those of us who speak up and protest are next.
I agree 100%. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was intended to be a good revolution. As was Chairman Mao's. I am sure there are many such examples. "Coming back from a military coup would be much more difficult."
The Russian revolution of 2017 would have been successful if the Mensheviks had been able to stay in power. The Bolvsheviks, a small extremist group, overthrew the moderates and the rest is history.
lin•, SPOT ON. Mr. Katz's call last year for a military overthrow was both troubling and myopic: the very notion of a military takeover in the U.S. is chilling to consider, and because it fails to consider the several possible consequences of such an action, none of which are good (no matter the intentions of a "good" general.)
I just skip past his monologues. Expediency is useful when a train is speeding toward you, but the choice to step off the tracks is usually more effective than trying to stop the train with one’s forearm
Bill could benefit from a course in “cause and effect” that evaluates on more than one level of “effect”
You simply don’t get what is happening. The “good generals” wouldn’t be transferring national secrets to our historic enemies, buddy. Put that in your proverbial pipe and smoke it. I’ve said there is no good alternative but I would have taken the lesser bad option because in 4 fricken years, you will have gone through the Trump university re-education camp with electrode scars on your arms as a reminder of daily forced rendition sequences and a reminder if any old world notions of freedom remain, you will return to The Happy Trump Camp for a little remedial education. 😜😜👀
Here is a little something I wrote from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." It has come to pass. A Fireside Chat
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt began a series of informal radio chats to the American public during a turbulent time in the 1930s. The radio back then was to communicating as Twitter is today. Here is an excerpt:
“My fellow Americans, it is whispered by some that only by abandoning our freedom, our ideals, our way of life, can we rebuild our defenses adequately, can we match the strength of the aggressors. …I do not share these fears.”
Trump demands a quaint, televised, fireside chat to compete with FDR. Here is a sneak preview:
“My friends, Hillary Clinton will never see the inside of the White House again as long as I
live.
“You people love me so much that I know you want to keep me as your president for life. The Constitution now allows this extended appointment of the executive branch. Our blessed homeland needs me to lead it. I have authorized The Enabling Act, borrowed from German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s proposal to restrict powers of the Reichstag in 1933. His SS troops made legislators give up their civil liberties and transfer state powers to the Reich government. I’m pleased to tell you that the Democrats will sign away their legislative powers while my ICE agents surround the House of Representatives. I have the power to dissolve Congress and allow my Cabinet to pass much needed laws to Make America Great Again. And I pledge to you that all fake impeachment activity to convict me has ended.
“I also pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. And we will remove all undocumented immigrants that are poisoning the blood of our country. And we will remove the portrait of African-born Barack Hussein Obama from the White House wall.
“My first act tomorrow will be to have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Shiftless Adam Schiff picked up for questioning to ascertain their patriotism for the United States.
“I know I’ve been accused of a quid pro quo with Ukraine. There is nothing wrong with finding the truth about liars and cheats like Slow Joe Biden. And there’s nothing wrong asking a nation to help with uncovering wrongdoing by a corrupt man. As your President for Life, I will always tell you the truth. When I make a promise to you, I keep it.
“This concludes the first of my fireside chats. I can’t wait to tell you what I have in store for other scum Trump haters.”
It sounds like something Trump would say, you’ve mastered his style well. I think it sounds like the ridiculous posts Trump puts on Untruth Antisocial!
Tee hee… thank you. For an amateur I think I done good. Mama would be proud.
Sorry to say Bill but we are so tired of winning that we can't even pay attention to you anymore ,but at soon as we have a break we are going to stop castigating you. I promise to do that on the first day. 😅
Keep yawning and winning it’s good for you.
Bill, my reply as a joke. It's a very stressful time all the time and I think that a little bit of humor is always welcome. Hope you feel the same way. 😄
Going outside of the Rule of Law to protect the Rule of Law?
Remember, "“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” The Battle of Ben Tre, Vietnam. An absurdity to justify an action.
Gary, we don't need to go to the extreme and be like them in scope and time frame. I've been predicated not to be by the book all the time otherwise we'll loose everything forever (scope and time frame). Avoidance to stretch the limits due our noble instinct in times of extreme peril, almost guaranteed our irrelevantce. We don't need to kill the patient to save the patient. Thanks for your reply 👍
Let me tell you a little story from. Acros the sea
about a town called Ben Tre
Sitting on the river and peaceful as you please
‘Till it got caught between two ideologies
Confrontation, western civilization at stake
Done by the river come a marching along
The local chapter of the Viet cong
Went into town With their flags a waving
It was easy to see that town needed saving
Pete Seeger — my biggest mentor and hero.
If Seegar is your mentor and hero that doesn't seem to square with your position on a military junta. I find it doubtful the Class of '68 would agree with such a solution.
Ah shucks. I caught in another fib. Dag. Maybe I just thunk which might be the lesser evil, no?
The conundrum is which is a fib? It is the idea that a military junta could save our democracy, or that Pete Seegar was a mentor and hero?
Yes, you can thunk a military junta is a lesser evil, except that you are assuming the good generals would be able to easily defeat the "bad" generals (Flynn?) and re-establish our Republic without a lot of turmoil, bloodshed, or suffering. No one should assume that. It won't be like Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. It would be nation wide with pitched battles not only between good and bad generals but with self-styled militias, the Oathkeepers, Trump supporting police, and fringe elements like the Proud Boys running cities and states sometimes in open conflict with Antifa, the ISO and their ilk. It would devolve into chaos, not like our revolution, but like the French or Russian revolutions, with Reigns of Terror, Maoist executions and Stalinesque Gulags. Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass.
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it~Santayana
Between the devil and the deep blue sea
So your solution to a ruthless dictator is a benevolent dictator? No thank, no king.
Bill, I fear you are sounding increasingly like Bill’s Vanity Tantrums! 'Twould seem more valuable to discuss and promote those inroads into tRump's & Muskrat’s ongoing insurrection that have been recently reported "without fear or favor."
So I’m the messenger of doom. See ya at the Donald Trump University Re-education Camp.
I too called for a military coup to save us.
Yes. I do “castigate” you, not simply for the suggestion , suggestions are a right as are opinions. No, I criticize the simple minded notion that exercising a reactionary reflex is somehow a solution. Actually, what you suggest is something under different circumstances a Marjorie Greene might proffer.
We are not in constitutional rigor mortis at this time. There are paths to follow, actions to occur, a constitution and underlying system of laws, something Grassley seems to have conveniently forgotten, 2 houses of Congress, and the American people. We have a history that confirms rigor mortis is not incipient.
You might well begin a non-anecdotal study of the historical results of military coups and their aftermath.
So then, if you’d like to call this little observation a castigation, so be it.
Does anyone know about April 19 protests?
I’m as sure as sure can be that this is deliberate and carefully planned. Not at all Surprised. Just not sure who is yanking chump’s chains and how much. Vlad is definitely on the take. Project 2025 cretins are also writing the script, but how much are they allied with Vlad. Chump may be torn apart and left for trash before this plays out. His ass may be more kicked than kissed. His cult has been useful so far, and Stephen Miller is the most virulent one but will they become irrelevant as the others want their priorities attended to. Chump thinks that the big tax cut will solve his problems. But will republicans in Congress continue this charade. Opposition to this hell is growing, but will it matter if Vlad is inside the gate.
Bernie Sanders is right in condemning oligarchs. That is the commonality that Trump wishes he could buy into. Putin is one, if not the one, of the world's richest men. Many Republicans also worship at the altar of oligarchs and, therefore, adore Putin. It isn't about national boundaries and loyalties for Trump. It's about the international cabal of (almost all) white men of wealth and their extraordinary sense of privilege, including, but not limited to, lying with impunity, repression of lesser folk, and causing suffering or even death of so-called enemies. Oh, and they often clothe themselves in religious supremacy, whether Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
And just who are the oilygarchys? Could we have a list on alphabetical order,please? It's time to analyze those folks and figure out their weak spots. I would bet they are connected to old royalty and cherish their genes as much as their money.
Alphabetical order, as requested, Susan:
Miriam Adelson, Robin Arkley II (purveyor of hidden, untaxed bribes to Alito), George Birnbaum, Harlan Crow (a Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Larry Ellison, Wayne Huizenga (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Charles Koch, Leonard Leo, Bernie Little (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Timothy Mellon, Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Paul “Tony” Novelly (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Dennis Prager, David Rivkin (defender of Alito medieval corruption and his contemporary corruption, too), Steve Schwartzman, Paul Singer, David Sokol (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer), Peter Thiel, Anthony Welters (another Clarence Thomas subsidizer) Jeffrey Yass, Jeff Zuckerberg and families DeVos, Kushner, Mercer, Sackler, Uihlein.
WELL DONE Phil! A most excellent beginning to a most useful catalogue of those whose political backing should make us highly suspicious. This is precisely the antidote, or partial antidote to the Citizen’s United decision which never included the need or even advisability of the secrecy of donors, of those whose money was considered to be “Free Speech!” I notice you haven’t included the names of Michael Bloomberg or George Soros. I assume you have not included them in your list as they have never to my knowledge advocated for the disruption or significant alteration of our Constitutional Democracy or the rule of law.
Awesome, Phil. TY!
Excellent post Phil Balla & more than awesome. Software will organize all the data complete with graphics.
Excellent post, Phil! This is also a useful list on which to base one's buying (more accurately, boycotting) research. For example, the popular packing supply company, Uline (phonetic spelling of family name) is owned by the Uihleins. I was a customer until I learned who the owners are.
I'm curious, Phil; why did you leave off Jeff Bezos?
Will correct that, Dale.
Thank you.
Always be sure you don't use those Uhlein boxes. I made the mistake of ordering a few dozen for my work. I have learned...
Elon Musk has said on more than one occasion he thinks he has superior genes (ha!) It explains why he has used IVF to father sons only with a variety of women. His first former wife, Justine, is mother to four sons and a transgender daughter. He has fathered sons with other women, and one of the mothers of his other sons is complaining that Musk has not paid her child support for her son. Musk is not a very involved father, and if he’s seen with one of his sons, it’s only for a photo op or personal protection.
Trump also believes that he has superior genes, which is garbage. He’s dumber than a stump and is convinced of his own superior thinking and business acumen, neither of which he has.
As appalling is his hubris, Kathy, it seems most prominent how Muskrat’s genetic loading appears to have bypassed anything coding for empathy, although I concede that may be entirely the result of his focus and concentration of Y-driven characteristics. : >(
Oily— garchs are the right emphasis. Right here in our country, much, if not most, wealth is generated through old fossil fuel ties, such as the Kochs. Middle Eastern wealth is almost exclusively the result of oil—the Saudis, for example. Gaza and its Mediterranean shores are reputed reserves of petroleum, thus Netanyahu's ruthless removals of Palestinians. Russia is also rich in petroleum, and that is how Putin and his gang made most of their wealth. It's a partial list, but the tech wizards are knocking on the doors, too. It's the story of The Killers of the Flower Moon writ much, much larger.
There is a really good TED talk by Carole Cadwalladr "This is a digital coup." She has experience of being targeted, and fighting with GoFundMe (or something similar, can't remember) money. She says it is the tech bros. She posts the photo of Zuckerberg, etc., at the inauguration.
Anne B right on target! 18 minutes well worth anyone’s time to view: https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_this_is_what_a_digital_coup_looks_like
Can’t disagree with a word, funny how religion is a commonality
Funny how every conflict in recorded history has its roots in religion.
When any group of humans comes to believe their superiority is ordained by an imaginary deity, trouble is sure to follow.
Guaranteed. Elmer Gantry’s everywhere
JD, while perhaps just parsing nuance, it seems most evident from recent forays deep into the anti-world of protective tariffs that it isn’t a matter of Vlad pulling the strings or tRump “being in Vlad's pocket.” The oligarch class of multibillionaires relatively quickly put a stop to tRump’s excesses which were so obviously threatening the world of trade and economics. Vlad has been ubiquitously visible in most any and all efforts to get the current world order to splinter and break up, witness the much earlier campaign for Brexit which has become so clear in NOT aiding Britain economically or politically for that matter. Like most “supreme leaders” he and his ilk (think China) stand to benefit from those nations and national alliances which they can move toward disruption allowing them more space politically and economically to prosper in the remaining cracks and openings.
You are very skilled at parsing nuance. I don’t think chump has been stopped. Insanity (or lifelong malignant narcissism) is hard to stop or manage.
I remember decades ago when USSR and China allied and I thought the end was near. But their clash came and it was not friendly. They may take another look, and any idiot could have seen that Brexit would be a disaster, like we should have seen that chump would be - again. You gave more info and a nuanced vision. Thank you for that. I would just say that chump’s history with Russia predates Vlad, but Vlad currently has the power. Review pics from Helsinki. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially one.
I don't think I ever doubted that Musk's job was to access and control information. He just used the excuse of "fraud and waste" as a smokescreen. This is how this administration functions. Chaos and lies and distractions. What a disaster!
And he was scrubbing all information about himself and his projects, which have been under scrutiny for misdeeds.
I am convinced that Trump's and Musk's agendas are parallel but separate. They are parallel in that Trump is seeking to become the wealthiest man in the world, and Musk intends to maintain his position as the world's wealthiest man. In a real sense, the two men are in competition.
However, Musk, with a superior (to Trump) intellect, has a broader goal. He believes himself to be a "citizen of the universe" and intends, not only to have the most money, but to have the most power. In other words, he intends to control the course of human events. He aims to do this by controlling all of the world's data. He is the personification of megalomania.
They know how to do smoke screens. W/Dickie were experts with Frank Luntz to tutor liars.
4/14/25 Update: MD Senator Chris Von Hollen is flying 🛩 to El Salvador at this moment to seek the release of the Building Trade union apprentice & bring him back to his Maryland home.🙏
2025 Recent Historical Context:
2/4/25 ➖NYT "U.S. Begins Flying 'Migrants' to Guantanamo Bay";
➖ Illinois News Bureau is an additional credited source
3/15/25 ➖ 261 sent to CECOT, 137 persons Under the Enemy Alien Act of 1798
3/19/25 ➖ Reuters' 23.45 EDT posted fact; Aerial photo of CECOT in Teoluca
➖ Credited to Associated Press' photographer Salvador Melendez
3/31/25 ➖ 17 deportees flown to CECOT in U.S.Cargo plane from Charleston, S.C.
4/12/25 ➖ 10 flown out per Secretary of State Marco Rubio from Guantanamo Bay
4/15/25. ➖ Judge Paula Xinis Orders Homeland Security & State Department officials to sit for sworn deposition testimony in 7 days
What is needed now is software that populates all communications among among all actors with admissible facts including graphic a diagrams.
I've yet to see a report mentioning our treaties with El Salvador and our extradition history with them.
Calling all Whistleblowers! We need an Immediate copy of the contractual "agreement" between the El Salvador Dictator & the Wanna Be an Orange Autocrat.
FOIA asap.
State Department should have an El Salvador desk...... Same with CIA,
We extradite people all the time. We also have been able to get some of our enemies, let alone our allies to release people.
I've yet to see a report mentioning our treaties with El Salvador and our extradition history with them.
BTW, the Vatican probably can't help us extradite him as they have many times when we tried to get people out of Cuba, because Bukele's father converted from Christianity to Islam in the 1980s, became an Imam, and founded four mosques in El Salvador.
We don't live in a perfect world....even if Garcia is returned, he is subject to deportation to anyplace except El Salvador.
He had a hearing befora an IJ -- Immigration Judge -- who, in effect paroled him because to return to El Salvador was to jeopardize his life.
No doubt Trump is in contempt, but the procedure could be extradition.
https://www.oas.org/ext/Portals/33/Files/TreatiesB/USA_biltreat_elsal_eng_1.pdf
We have a checkered history with El Salvador. From AI
Challenges and Disputes:
There have been reports of the Salvadoran government refusing to extradite MS-13 gang leaders to the United States, despite extradition requests.
Some argue that the Salvadoran government may be protecting certain gang members, possibly in exchange for a reduction in violence.
This situation has led to tensions between the United States and El Salvador, with the U.S. government publicly pressuring El Salvador to extradite the gang leaders.
Key Points:
The extradition treaty provides a legal framework for transferring individuals to face justice in either country.
There are ongoing disputes and challenges related to the extradition of MS-13 gang leaders, with some reports suggesting that the Salvadoran government may be shielding certain individuals.
The situation has led to tensions between the two countries, with the U.S. government publicly pressuring El Salvador to comply with extradition requests
Excellent work product Daniel Solomon.
Wow. I hope he gets a lot of publicity and he is successful. This now becomes a contest of wills. Freeing him shows the right thing to do and stopping his freedom says to Trump that no one will tell him what to do.
There was an article in the New Yorker yesterday which contends that Harvard may have missed a trick by allowing the Trump administration to characterise its bullying tactics as justified by asserting that there had been violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, instead of resisting the administarion on First Amendment free speech grounds. The 1964 Act does not even mention religion, although it's being used ostensibly to clamp down on antisemitism on the dubious grounds that jews are an ethnic group or have shared ancestry (a view that has not yet been ruled on by SCOTUS).
Harvard has made some pretty ignominious concessions aleady to the Trump administration. They forced out Claudine Gay last year on spurious charges of plagiarism, and they also now appear to have done the same to two faculty members - https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/29/harvard-middle-eastern-studies-departures
In January, the university agreed to embrace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in a settlement reached in federal court in Boston. This controversial definition seems more concerned with attacks on the state of Israel than with attacks on jews - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/02/the-government-should-not-impose-a-faulty-definition-of-antisemitism-on-universities
So let's not go overboard in praising Harvard. That same New Yorker article reminds us that when SCOTUS justice Elena Kagan was dean of Harvard she opposed open resistance to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the U.S. military’s policy on gay service members under the Clinton and Bush administrations for fear of losing access to government subsidies.
Russell, you mention something here that I think is relevant: the definition of "Anti-Semitism" has morphed to mean "Anti-Israel" rather than "Anti-Jew".
In it's original form (which I presume hasn't changed since the last time I looked at it) seven of the eleven examples of antisemitism given related not to jews per se but rather to the state of Israel.
Yet if Israel is by definition a Jewish state, how do you separate them? When we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq some on the the left accused the US of Islamophobia. Are these double standards?
It was only in 2018 that Israel passed a law declaring that only Jews had the right of self-determination in the country. It was criticised then by the EU, Israeli Arab political leaders, Israeli opposition politicians and liberal Jewish groups in the US. There are 1.8 million Arabs in Israel, about 20% of the total population. It's not a question of definition but arrogation by a right-wing Israeli government. If I lived in the US I would be at risk of deportation just for pointing this out.
That may be, but it has been recognized from it's independence as a Jewish State with Hebrew as its official language, the flag has the Star of David on it, the national Anthem is the Hatikvah, the state emblem is a menorah, any Jew or family member of a Jew is allowed the right of return, (Aliyah), and cannot be turned away. To say it is has been a Jewish state only since the passage of the Basic Law is a bit Trumpian in logic. (That is to say in denial of facts and/or illogical). I am certainly not arguing that any criticism of Israeli policy is anti-semitic, however we can not ignore those who fail to recognize her existence as a homeland for all Jews in the midst of Islamic theocracies. Not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, yet clearly some is. No one can reasonably argue that the long conflict in the Middle East would continue as it has if Israel were truly a secular state. She is a democracy with rights for all citizens, indeed the Arabic language holds a special status, but she is also the homeland for the Jews and was established as such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_state
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Declaration_of_Independence
Rachel Maddow had the whistleblower from the NLRB and his attorney on TRMS last night; it was a chilling interview. The whistleblower had a threatening letter taped to his door (in a place he has lived in for less than 2 months) along with a photo of him walking his dog. Whatever data the DOGEbros got went directly to Russia; he reported several attempts to log on using proper passwords, etc. but were denied due to a Russian IP address.
Wow Sheriff ... spot-on🎯 again.
Is one more infraction…needed ? To rid us of this ,since the get go , game playing narcissist?
Not likely.
That 25% (their base) which ,yes , includes Putin,Orban, now the newest pon/syncophant, Bukele, and any/all the remaining ‘dicts’ (dictators) support this/their ongoing charade …accounts -you got it ,folks -100% for the waste,fraud, immigration woes, by their very existence topped by lies cooked by selfish evilness.
You’d think by this time ,2,025 years minimally of this evidence -feudal through present day, we’d know an ass and their con gamers in record breaking time vs them breaking every record …unprecedented ?
I am not the sharpest tool in this box by any stretch …and saw it in 2015!
But no….they continue to wreak the havoc game thumbing their noses in daily virtual display.
Why?
Phil. Thank You
Cheeto is now also going after CBS. I hope they take a strong stand against the bully. Power and money. But ABC, CBS and NBC should NEVER pay him a dime just like he avoids paying his debts from all his crimes!
My husband read a suggestion last night that we all should adopt.
Don’t call out actions protests. Say we are protectors of the Constitution.
Protest has a negative connotation, protector is positive.
And after he's wreaked havoc in the U.S. Elon and his crew of techies might just abscond to Russia...
The social app Telegram was posted on the DOGE website for about a week or so in February, inviting anyone who wanted to "participate" to do so with a Telegram account. I still wonder how many files were sent and how many hacks happened in the short period of time it was up there. I am not that computer savvy but was dumbfounded when I saw this. Musk is nothing short of a traitor and needs to hang.
Phil, thanks for the info. It is no surprise. With muskrat and his incels, we might a well have the Russians and any other enemy sitting in the room. Treason is correct.
This really must be addresses immediately, and Musk must be prosecuted now!
Rachel Maddox interviewed this whistleblower on her show on MSNBC last night with his attorney. The whistleblower especially wanted to speak publicly because he is aware of other employees in other government departments who are aware of other breaches but don’t want to speak up due to concerns for their own safety.
The traditional sentence for treason is to be shot. I don’t like guns and am twitchy about executions in general. But for Musk and Trump, I am just fine with that outcome. The only other possibility I would love for Trump is confinement in solitary at a high security prison…with only 1 hour a day outside alone. Hell for a performer like trump. You don’t want to know what I was imagining on Monday…..for his orange gracelessness
Most of the readers here will be unaware of this, but the fact that China and Vietnam are working together to create a market is Huge News. The Chinese and the Vietnamese have been blood enemies since the Han forced the Vietnamese tribes out of southeastern China and down into the Indochina peninsula around 3,000 years ago. The enmity even held during our war there, when the Chinese provided a minimum of aid (the fact they were in the middle of the Cultural Revolution was a contributor). Couple this with the moves to create a common market with Japan - the two countries have been sworn enemies since the Kamikaze wind sank the Mongol invasion fleet 1,300 years ago, not to mention the aftereffects of World War II - and you can see just how irrelevant Trump has made the US. The world is moving on without that place that has 5% of the world's population yet manages to produce 95% of the world's bullshit.
.
Trump has bankrupted every business he's had.... why do you think your country will be any different?
I think he’s wrecking our country. It’s not at all surprising he’s done so, what is surprising is the speed at which it’s occurring.
It's all, step by step, spelled out in Proyect 2025 Kathy, the one the moron didn't know anything about, remember?
Ricardo Grinbank,
Trump is just a tool to be used, in my opinion, by much more powerful people.
It is heartrending to see our so called "leaders" as "yes men and women" before Trump....each so fearful...so stiff...or some foolishly arrogant in their compliance to his every command. The confidence some display at their "we've got you" attitude is both frightening and sad.
This is not the USA on display!
I am so grateful for each and every person who is standing up and speaking out for freedom, for fairness and decency. My husband and I have participated in a gathering of freedom loving citizens. It was invigorating to see the display of courage and love for our country. Crowds are appearing everywhere, small and large. We are standing up for our rights as Americans....each and all of us!!!
No one in America should be imprisoned ANYWHERE without a trial! We are a nation of laws!!!!
Emily, you are absolutely right, the scumbag president is just a puppet with the ability to pull out of his skull the right stupid sligan for the occasion. In return he is allowed to get him and his family richer and reinforce his ego as a "most powerful man on earth"
I would say the " biggest moron on earth "
Thanks for your reply Emily 👍
Emily, I salute you and your husband for your participation in the defense of this country. You both are exemplary. 🫡
Emily, you are absolutely right, the scumbag president is just a puppet with the ability to pull out of his skull the right stupid sligan for the occasion. In return he is allowed to get him and his family richer and reinforce his ego as a "most powerful man on earth"
I would say the " biggest moron on earth "
Thanks for your reply Emily 👍
But he’s not doing it the way they laid it out. He’s rushing in and even messing that up. He’s corrupting their corruption.
That's good Sussie. Could you imagine the profund and permanent damage to our country had they been efficient ?
Exactly, and I know he knew about it. One Australian man who is a commenter on another site I visit took Trump at his word, but I explained you can’t do that with Trump as he is such a chronic liar.
Christopher, in order to break up our country, the moron had a lot of help from the American people and still.
I think that's the plan...
The Republicans and the entire MSM, and especially The NY Times and FOX News, constantly repeated the phrase, "chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan." I wrote to the editor of the Times about reusing the phrase ad nauseam. I called it lazy journalism. I believe the editor actually listened and I haven't seen the phrase used in a NY Times article since.
Not to bury my point, but we ALL need to label the tariff's as "chaotic" and/or a few other choice words. The Republicans and FOX News also used the word "mess" when they talked about the Biden administrations handling of the economy.
So maybe when we talk about the tariffs, we always say the "chaotic tariffs" and when we talk about the deportations say "unlawful deportations" or something similar.
If you watch the Comedy Central interviews of the stupid attendees at the Trump rallies, they used the word "mess" when talking about what the Biden administration was doing.
You see the Republicans do this time and again when they want to turn the general population against something the Democrats are pushing.
Are they any propaganda experts out there that can help with this?
In the meantime, I am going to label the tariffs "chaotic", and the deportations "messy".
And also illegal GJ.
I agree with repeating pejoratives (“messy”, “chaotic”, “disastrous”, etc.) every time a tRump activity is mentioned.
But the illegal round-up of persons off American streets are not deportations. It takes a legal process and hearings to make a deportation. These are kidnappings.
Stuart Stevens, writing in Lincoln Square, has called for state Attorneys General to file kidnapping charges against those responsible.
https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/trump-and-co-are-breaking-laws-arrest
GJ, I've been saying for a while now we have to call tariffs what they really are: Trump's Consumer Tax.
This is an excellent idea, and I also thank you for pointing out to the NYT their laziness about the Afghanistan coverage. Yes, the tariff use is, indeed, chaotic.
Gary, Antonia Scatton has done good work on how to “categorize the chaos, starting with tariffs.”
https://reframingamerica.substack.com/p/funnell-the-firehose
Her “Do Not Associate” list is also really helpful.
https://reframingamerica.substack.com/p/do-not-associate
Yes, all of us, but especially the Democratic leadership, sorely need to adopt more effective communications strategies.
This is good information for creating protest signs, too.
Something that slipped right by me. Was not aware of the histories, so thank you. Relationships do evolve, don’t they. Sounds like grudges were held for centuries and now chump has forced realignments that will echo for more centuries. He may get his wish for America First, but only for MAGAts. The rest of us and the world will live with the America that has spent all the goodwill that heroic bravery earned us eighty years ago. Chump has truly been a transformative force. He will have added America to his long list of failures. LOSER, LOSER, LOSER
Although I agree with you, I can't forget the 5,000 years of China's history the Chinese representative mentioned, and I realised - really, when it comes to national development it is pretty comparable to human development, and from that point of view, the US, just as Canada and Australia, are just babies. What we're seeing in the US currently are growing pains, as horrible and terrible as it is for the current cohort. Many other countries have been there before, in one or the other way. We'll see what the next developmental stage will turn out to be.
Sabine, well-observed! Yet the Declaration of Independence and Constitution represented the first time in those enormously long histories of world governments that adults banded together to promote and fight for the notion that adult citizens could govern themselves without a king or emperor or supreme protector/being. This idea, though a “new baby” on the stage of nationhood, was the first time, at least in the modern era, a nation believed it could rule itself, a very grown up idea indeed.
China has certainly been there and done that in more ways than I can count. I wouldn’t say that it has reached a pinnacle although since Mao, they have made great strides for their people. Well, some of them. As to us, I hate to compare deliberate evil with the rebellious teen years. Personally, I prefer boring support and efficiency for all…. Now that gives one the freedom that everybody says they want.
The problem was that Mao killed large numbers of his fellow Chinese citizens doing with famines and imprisonment.
After Mao was the point. But our cretins are capable of Mao’s actions and seem to have no fondness for fellow citizens, except for toadies
It’s true, and I think Trump and his minions plan to put ordinary citizens through hell.
I agree, Sabine. I've been saying we are in our adolescence as a nation, which explains a lot. And as Homo Sapiens Sapiens, we are still evolving and have a long, long way yet to go. But changes are occurring quickly now, which is forcing a huge growth spurt for us all (ultimately towards betterment, I fervently hope and pray).
The MAGAt base voters are suffering harm from tariffs and the disruption of global markets, and from the gutting and cuts to essential government services on which they depend, so even they will start to wake up to the deviation Trump is creating.
Not my MAGAt bro, but he is very vulnerable
Give it time. Enlightenment does not happen instantly.
Understatement, never hold your breath
The Vietnamese fought a number of wars against China to guarantee their independence.
The Sino-Vietnamese War of early 1979 drew my attention but not as much as Iran.
Though I knew people who knew much more, they couldn't share very much other than the general history. Most of the more interesting stories were from engineers from so many other countries that worked for the aerospace company I worked at for a dozen years (half approaching the end of the Cold War, and half tapering off after the end of the Cold War). The ones that could share more were former Peace Corps volunteers and USAID workers. A few wouldn't say exactly who they worked for, just leaving me believe they were other parts of our better soft power efforts around the world.
The Vietnamese, during their anti- colonial wars, did not seek support from. China. That has long been a contentious relationship. They were forced to fight and then defeated first France, then the US. With few remaining options, they chose and had the support of arms from the relatively remote USSR.
This groundbreaking Viet reconciliation with China is a direct result of Drumpf’s now declared economic world war.
I’m not surprised. The late Neil Sheehan had a lot to say about Vietnam’s determination to keep its independence from China in his book “A Bright Shining Lie.” Vietnam was a trading partner of ours before Trump had to upend everything with his tariffs. Only Trump could ally Vietnam with China. Mary Trump sees her uncle’s actions as an attempt to be a bully and flex his muscle to the rest of the world. The Orange Menace lacks the wit and understanding to know that many necessary products are no longer made here, and people would be hit too hard to buy even domestic products. We don’t have the manufacturing capacity we once did.
Thanks for the history lesson TC. And history is being writing as we read your comment. The vacuum created by the moron president and horde of followers are being rapidly and expectedly filling up by China to our loose.
Unfortunately, I think the only nation that will benefit from Trump’s tariffs is Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic of China. Xi is the one person who could defeat Trump on this issue.
The bright spot here is that this new relationship could indicate that there is hope, however slim, that unforeseen outside events could also unexpectedly cause a rapprochement between longtime enemies in the Middle East.
“Rapprochement” would be nice. Has happened before with sane heads in charge?
"5% of the world's population yet manages to produce 95% of the world's bullshit."
This needs to be on a bumper sticker.
That's why learning historu is so critical, TC, so thank you for your contributions!
TC, I once heard that Vietnam and/or the South China Sea are sites of oil reserves. That was one reason for the Western pursuit of Vietnam. Do you know if this is true?
This is exactly right TCinLA: The world is moving on without that place that has 5% of the world's population yet manages to produce 95% of the world's bullshit. Yep! You said it!
Tdump will never be able to see his lack of importance, here or abroad.
Never, but my most fervent wish
Perhaps we can unite Russia and Ukraine and make Zelenskyy the president of this new country
“fund managers quietly fear Trump doesn’t have a tariff plan and that he ‘might be insane.’”
To be trite: well, d'uh.
All Trump has is a takeover plan. Any resulting damage to our nation and its people is not his concern.
This from Timothy Snyder's post yesterday-
When Trump was elected in 2016, Trump endorsed Orbán, and Orbán started attacking universities — forcing the Central European University out of Hungary.
John believes Trump is emulating Orbán’s playbook. (Steve Bannon once declared that “Orbán was Trump before there was Trump.”)
Orbân’s playbook has 10 parts, according to John:
One: Take over your party and enforce internal party discipline by using political threats and intimidation to stamp out all party dissent.
Two: Build your base by appealing to fear and hate, branding immigrants and cultural minorities as dangers to society, and demonizing your opponents as enemies of the people.
Three: Use disinformation and lies to justify what you’re doing.
Four: Use your election victory to claim a sweeping mandate — especially if you don’t win a majority.
Five: Centralize your power by destroying the civil service.
Six: Redefine the rule of law as rule by executive decree. Weaponize the state against all democratic opponents. Demonize anyone who doesn’t support the leader as an “enemy of the people.”
Seven: Eliminate checks and balances and separation of powers by taking over the legislature, the courts, the media, and civil society. Target opponents with regulatory penalties like tax audits, educational penalties such as denials of accreditation, political penalties like harassment investigations, physical penalties like withdrawing police protection, and criminal penalties like prosecution.
Eight: Rely on your oligarchs — hugely wealthy business and financial leaders — to supervise the economy and reward them with special access to state resources, tax cuts, and subsidies.
Nine: Ally yourself with other authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and support his effort to undermine European democracies and attack sovereign countries like Ukraine.
Ten: Get the public to believe that all this is necessary, and that resistance is futile.
We all see it happening in real time. We need to stop it somehow.
Thanks for sharing this. Definitely what we see playing out. It really needs to be stopped.
No doubt about it, Donold is insane, not he might be. So if follows that any so-called tariff plan is just another hare-brained scheme of his since he is obviously insane. It's hard to believe some people are just now coming to this conclusion.
He’s never had to live in the real world because Daddy Fred’s wealth cushioned him from reality and Daddy Fred made Donald into a sociopath like himself. Now, Trump’s malignant narcissism and sociopathy are mixed with Trump’s encroaching dementia. It didn’t surprise me when Trump attacked Biden for Biden’s supposed dementia, because it’s actually Trump’s problem and MAGA projects more than a motion picture projector.
well, Sachs really brought forth Trumps fumbles at the recent ADF2025…
https://youtu.be/r5ojbEIX8Nw?si=9OTduR574sb9vrMH
Sachs blamed Trump’s economic policies for triggering a $10 trillion loss in global wealth, warning that the U.S. is now flirting with authoritarianism under “one-man rule by emergency decree.”
The blistering critique comes amid rising fears that Trump’s return to power could reignite economic instability worldwide.
NTALYA, TÜRKİYE - APRIL 11, 2025: Türkiye's Minister of Treasury and Finance Mehmet Simsek and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) President Jeffrey Sachs attended the "Protectionism: The End of Globalization?" panel moderated by TRT World's Adnan Nawaz.
The event brings together global leaders, policymakers, and experts to tackle critical global challenges, such as geopolitical tensions, inequality, violence, and climate change, while exploring ways diplomacy can restore stability and foster international cooperation.
Do they still think that he "might" be insane? What a bunch of morons.
It’s not trite, it is “well d’uh”! 🤷♂️
Thank you Professor Richardson.
Only 40% think he “should keep deporting people despite a court order to stop,” although 76% of Republicans think he should violate a court order.
There are approximately 186 million registered voters in the United States. This would suggest that 74.4 million people believe that the criminal-elect should disregard the rule of law and act as a fascist tyrant authoritarian king.
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, September 18, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by Elizabeth Powel if we have a republic or a monarchy."A republic if you can keep it" replied Dr. Franklin.
It's unfortunate so many fought and died for independence from the tyranny of monarchy. So many fought and died for equality in the so-called "Civil War". And so many spilled blood and paid the ultimate sacrifice fighting fascist evil in World War II -to just welcome a criminal-elect fascist tyrant authoritarian king in 2024.
Every billionaire who supports Project 2025 and Trump because of your eternally unsatisfied greed. Every elected member of the GOP for your betrayal of oath of office and fealty to Trump. And for every person who either voted for this or rationalized not voting due to racism, misogyny, xenophobia, willful ignorance, or the price of eggs -you have all betrayed the legacy of courage and sacrifice of multiple generations of Americans.
George, your main point holds, but your numbers are off. Of the 186 million registered voters, 36 million voters are registered Republicans. 76% of 36 million = 27.3 million, which is still a helluva scary number of people supporting this violation of a court order.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-voters-have-a-party-affiliation/
Thank you Ellie.
Pre-caffeination it appeared as though 40% of all voters. The below paragraph, upon re-parsing, post-caffeination, it is still a bit ambiguous -especially when at certain points it does not generalize and is specific as to party (or in the case of Republicans, a criminal enterprise).
From my perspective we have a serious problem if any significant part of the population is cheering the abandonment of the rule of law.
While I despised the rulings of the incompetent and partisan Aileen Cannon, there is an appeals process.
The same Reuters/Ipsos poll says that 82% of Americans, including 68% of Republicans, think “the president should obey federal court rulings even if he disagrees with them.” Only 40% think he “should keep deporting people despite a court order to stop,” although 76% of Republicans think he should violate a court order.
But Trump voters are stupid and when they talk only other stupid Republicans listen to what they say.
"You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Attributed to A. Lincoln.
Most die hard Republicans are the "some of the people ALL the time." Stick the letter (R) behind Bernie's or AOC's name and they would agree with most of what they say.
No doubt whatsoever…
There is more than a dotted line connection between the billionaires behavior and their education. We have allowed the study of the liberal arts to become a joke with nearly absolute emphasis on science and engineering. As a result the so called geniuses creating AI and wonderful electronic devices seem to have no understanding of history, civics, the arts, etc. Business schools have told them that it’s all about the numbers which fits nicely into their worldview. The pendulum has to swing back to a place where we balance ALL teaching all disciplines not just software engineering and not just history but enough of both so that a brilliant scientist can understand civics and a brilliant historian can understand math and physics.
Thank you Neil. I suspect it feeds into pushing the extremes of an economic system in which Milton Friedman stated the only responsibility of a business is to maximize profit. It has created a large volume of managers who view people as resource capacity on a spreadsheet, and very few leaders who inspire with a vision for creating societal value through innovation. The idea of people as a sink or swim cog in a profit wheel has led to generations of narrowing opportunity and economic despair.
A balanced approach valuing economic growth and opportunity, while valuing art, humanities, philosophy doesn't fit within the narcissistic worldview of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, or anyone comprising the criminal elect's Cabinet.
"although 76% of Republicans think he should violate a court order."
Undoubtedly approval of such presidential lawlessness ONLY extends to a member of their own party. That's exactly what equal justice and rule of law isn't.
I found this stat dumbfounding. (I shouldn't find anything dumbfounding by this point...)
Last Thursday, Gustaf Kilander of The Independent reported that “fund managers quietly fear Trump doesn’t have a tariff plan and that he ‘might be insane.’”
"Insane tariffs" would be another good catch phrase along with "chaotic tariffs".
When you're talking to your MAGA acquaintances, always label the tariffs as "insane" or "chaotic". It's like arguing with the words "Make America Great Again". Everyone wants to MAGA and almost everyone think the tariffs are "insane" and "chaotic".
Mary Trump thinks the tariffs are a way for Trump to bully and challenge other nations, but what they will really do is cause unnecessary hardship for ordinary people. The Orange Menace seems to be blissfully unaware that we no longer make many necessary goods at home, because of the dubious economic policies we’ve pursued over the last 45 years. We have to import necessary goods from abroad, and many of them come from China. Trump is an ignoramus about economics and many other things.
Kathy, you nailed it.
There was an interview last night on the PBS News Hour with an expert on "rare earth minerals" which are the key components of our new car and tech components. Most of it is mined in China. The US has about 1.5% of the product - ALL of which is shipped to China for refinement and then back to us. We are completely at the mercy of China for most of the refined rare earth and ALL of the "super rare earth" materials that are essential for our economy.
Making a trade war on the country you NEED the most is even more insane than making a trade war on the customers you NEED.
Gary is spot on when he says all of this is "insane" and "chaotic" - it's also the height of incompetence. Ignorant, stupid, self destructive ineptitude. Also known as clueless and "NUTS"!
Could it be that the "titans of industry" will finally join the chorus of people saying: "This guy doesn't know what he is doing?"
I agree Kathy.
As I've mentioned, many people lost their small to medium sized manufacturing businesses to China, Mexico, etc. during the 1980's and 1990's. And then they went on to earn good money doing something else.
Why in the world would they want to restart a business that had failed years ago and chance losing everything again, when they are now living a comfortable life.
This reminds me of Trump’s stupid remarks about coal miners wanting to return to coal mining. The only reason coal miners became coal miners was because it was the only decent paid employment available. They didn’t want their children to do the work, and they knew mining would inevitably impair their health with black lung disease. Trump had a phony press conference at which one of the people posing as a coal miner was actually a mine supervisor, not a miner. In addition, Trump would be likely to cut any programs that funded treatment for black lung disease or pensions.
😎 Good point about cutting programs and pensions. Millions of people's 401-Ks are in the tank because of his chaotic tariffs.
There were around 50,000 coal mining jobs in the US in 2020 and it has steadily been declining. Trump could learn all of this information but he prefers his "alternate" facts to the real facts.
According to Wikipedia, there are 290 coal powered electricity plants in operation in the US generating about 17% of our electricity.
As you mentioned, why would anyone want their kids to grow up to be coal miners?
DOGE has already cut CDC workers who aided miners’ health: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5356067/niosh-cdc-coal-miner-black-lung-trump-doge
Despicable.
Despicable and typical.
Kathy Hughes,
"blissfully unaware"....this description of the person who is holding the once honorable position of President of the USA....is unfortunately true in so many ways...
What the Drumpf economic world war is causing is political realignment worldwide. It’s not going in our favor. And it won’t disappear overnight when he’s gone. I wouldn’t burden him with the mantle of intent. That lies elsewhere.
Rupert sees no problem with whitewashing everything chump does and misrepresents (lies) about democrats non stop. The “smartest people in the room” (like at Enron) buy the bull Schitt, so it’s not just the moronic imbeciles rooting for the “cleansing” of America. I guess Goebbels proved that smart can be more insane in more creative ways than dumb. Can certainly do more damage. Learned that working at public high school.
“Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?” one man asked, to applause and calls of “Yeah!” from around the room. When Grassley said no, because that wasn’t a power of Congress, the man replied: “The Supreme Court said to bring him back!” and others chimed in, “They’re defying the Constitution.”
Just where is the responsibility of our three branches of government to keep each other honest, even with respect unintentional errors? What about the integrity of Constitutional boundaries? What about unalienable rights?
I wish that someone in the crowd had yelled at Grassley that Congress can impeach a President who won’t support the Constitution. Grassley can’t be allowed to get away with his “Aw, shucks, I guess there’s just nothing anyone can do” BS.
JL Graham,
What about the additional prisons Trump wants built in El Salvador?
As you stated, JL...."What about the integrity of Constitutional boundaries? What about unalienable rights?"
We should be protesting for the swift return OF EVERY SINGLE PERSON from that prison back to the U.S. It really really troubles me that we are allowing ourselves to get sidetracked by only focusing on one of many.
Agree. Could it be this regime's admission that a mistake was made was intentionally done with the sole purpose of sidetracking everyone with our outrage? While giving Traitor the opportunity to intimidate not only all of us with his most recent specific threats, but also those on the Supreme Farce?
Makes sense to me.
I just read this harrowing point on Ruth Ben-Ghiat's substack: "Yet there is another reason Abrego Garcia is useful as a captive body: his fate speaks to the apparent randomness of authoritarian repression. Autocracies encourage compliance by telegraphing that anyone can be a target. And now “anyone,” including, theoretically, U.S. citizens born in the United States, could end up in a Salvadoran hellhole from which there is no exit."
“…we all know what’s going on, but it’s impossible right now to know which individual is responsible for the stonewalling.”
The individual responsible is the President of the United States. The fat orange puff ball owns all of it.
President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk; “The buck stops here.”
Unfortunately, Trump’s sign reads what it has read all his life: Who? Me?
Next to that sign is another that reads; "So sue me."
Trump is a sociopath who will never take responsibility for anything, and he will never apologize or admit he’s wrong. The last two items are part of what Roy Cohn taught him.
His sign says, "$1,000,000.00 Minimum for 1 Minute of attention"
Trump used the same words when asked whether he took personal responsibility for the activities of DOGE. He's never taken personal responsibility for anything that goes wrong. - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wuQE98TCGVg
Charging them with contempt should make matters clear immediately. I don't think we are going to like the answer.
No, but as Franklin said, those who put security over freedom, deserve neither. Or something like that…
"With Trump having won concessions from Columbia University and then announced those concessions were only the beginning of his demands, other universities are banding together to defend education, academic freedom, and freedom of speech"
====
"We all know that even when we satisfy one demand, Mr. Trump will come back with another, bigger demand. That’s not diplomacy; it’s blackmail." - Jean Chrétien
He is as trustworthy as the fox guarding the hen house.
Maybe it’s time to attend Cambridge and Oxford, if one wants a decent education…
Canada has excellent universities, and it's a lot closer. Did I read this evening that Timothy Snyder has take a leave from Yale to spend time in Canada, at the University of Toronto?
Snyder on leaving Yale: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/04/04/snyder-on-leaving-yale/
Especially telling:
"I did not leave Yale because of Donald Trump, or because of Columbia, or because of threats to Yale — but that would be a reasonable thing to do and that is a decision that people will make. More scholars will leave the United States if universities cannot make the case for themselves and stand together while doing it. The business of universities is to exemplify and create the conditions of liberty. There are reasons why tyrants come after universities first, and this is the main one. I never once felt at Yale the slightest sense that I should or should not say or write anything in particular; it is important that everyone have that sense. What is coming to the United States now is an attempt by the federal government to encourage conformism and denunciations for the purpose of spreading terror and idiocy. This is hugely challenging to all of those who run our universities; self-defense begins with claiming the concepts. Universities are and should name themselves champions of freedom. "
I hardly blame Dr. Snyder and his wife, who is also an academic, or Dr. Jason Stanley for leaving the United States. It’s frightening to think that we were once a safe haven for people coming from totalitarianism abroad, and now we are governed by a wannabe dictator.
Surely the US has plenty of good universities, Ivy League or not.
We do, for now.
But the efforts to pull funding for research at all universities are real and ongoing. There is a lot of research funded by the federal government that just won’t happen anymore. Important research, on topics like health including cancer research, technology, climate change, alternative energy and fuel etc. When that research isn’t funded anymore, how will universities run their hospitals, pay their faculty, and fund their graduate students? What will happen to undergraduate tuition at state institutions? We will quickly lose our hard-won standing as one of the leading countries of higher education, and we will all be poorer for it.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is only happening at the Ivies, and that they somehow deserve it because they are elite or have large endowments. Federal funding isn’t a hand-out, it’s paying for research. It isn’t just happening at the Ivies, and they’re elite because of their rigorous standards. The administration has just chosen them to start with because there’s a thread of resentment in this country against people who studied at these elite institutions, even among those educated there, like JD Vance and Trump himself, and that makes them think the public will accept what they’re doing, and make it easier for them to go after state schools next.
As Jim says above, at some point researchers and faculty will leave and go elsewhere. Just like Timothy Snyder. If we were younger, my husband and I would likely be considering that already. It’s profoundly depressing to see your life’s work at risk for no reason whatsoever.
These are all fair points to my poorly expressed point that gave an impression I didn't mean to give.
Trump's tentacles have already reached further than the US. Non-US universities where US researchers' partners work are also being examined for policies and other research of which Trump disapproves.
Non-US researchers are also deciding not to attend conferences in the US. And, if that's happening, I expect other trips between research partner countries will also be disturbed and won't always be replaceable by things like Zoom meetings.
Germany also had plenty of good universities, even some of the best before Hitler. We got a good percentage of the Professors (and could have had more if they didn't restrict the percentages of Jewish Professors at some universities).
Now we are sure to lose many that see opportunities to do their best work elsewhere (not to mention the ones forced out of Universities here, who's spouses or colleagues will prefer to also leave).
The anti-intellectualism of the Trump administration reminds me of countries like Cuba, Turkey, and Russia where the most educated are feared. It was not very long ago that being highly educated was respected in our nation.
One would have to be totally oblivious of reality not to see that Trump’s economic policies especially surrounding tariffs are detrimental to our well-being. Just the fact that these were obviously not well planned and challenging to clarify should give all of us pause.
Extrajudicial actions make a mockery of our history and Constitution.
How much longer do we have to endure this constant foolishness!
Historically there has always been an anti-intellectual bent to American Society. The only people who respect intellectuals are other intellectuals. Talk to working class people, especially those who work with their hands, in the trades or people who work the land. These Americans often feel that those with intellectual skills look down on the work that they do. Until we see and respect “all labor” and see all Americans contributing to this society, this anti- intellectual bent will exist. My father was an immigrant who worked as a carpenter. I was the first person in my family (including all my cousins on this side of the Atlantic) to get a college degree and then two graduate degrees, but I am deeply connected to working class values, and I have always understood that we need all kinds of skills to keep this country functioning. When we disrespect the working class, we only hurt ourselves. We see this disrespect in DOGE hacking away at our institutions that provided needed services for the American people, and the current president hacking away at the rule of law. This will not end well.
This is true. I do respect people who do necessary labor and trades. Their work is essential. What I don’t respect is people marketing lies to the public to mislead the public into thinking Trump cares about them and their problems. Trump only cares about himself and his bank accounts.
Actually, education is highly prized in Cuba. University graduates may not be able to find jobs in their field, but the scientific and medical advances in Cuba, advances that they have shared with many equally poor nations, are undeniable.
I was thinking about the time so many educated Cubans fled Castro.
I am aware that many doctors in Latin America are Cuban and are well-educated.
This anti-intellectualism predates Trump. Chris Mooney, for example, wrote about attacks on science by the Bush administration in his book 'The Republican War On Science'. The fossil fuel industry has mounted concerted attacks on climate science ever since Exxon discovered the links between CO2 emissions and the Greenhouse Effect way back in the 1970s. Republican attacks on evolution theory have been the subject of two SCOTUS rulings and in 1990 creationism evolved into intelligent design theory, an attempt to promote creationism by another name - https://ncse.ngo/ten-major-court-cases-about-evolution-and-creationism
I know someone who has a relatively new small business. Their supplier just informed them that the price of goods is going up 35%. Can this business survive? As a fairly new small business, it is not yet a strong, profit-making enterprise. Will its customers be able to afford such an increase in prices? The repercussions of Trump's tariff's hit not only Wall St.and major investors. They threaten the kinds of small business on which our prosperity as a nation depends.
Betsy, they are treating even more, the middle class, the heart of our country and economy.
The idea of an economic bill of rights should become clear, if not already.
"JPMorgan said this week that Trump’s tariffs mean that he is “on track to deliver one of the largest US tax hikes on record,” taxes that will fall on poorer Americans rather than the wealthy and corporations."
Reaganomics Mission Accomplished!
Thank you for all you do!!!
"Americans generally like Trump’s approach to immigration—a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said 49% were in favor—they hate the specifics"
Or to put it simply - they approve of amputating legs that have athlete's foot - they just don't like it being done with a hacksaw and no anaesthetic - and they don't want to know the name of the patient. Or that he has a wife and three kids.
Thank you! This just made my day. Just lovely.
Other Universities are banding together to withstand the assault on academic freedom. The truism is that you can never fight authoritarianism alone.
For a huge treat go over to Meidas Touch and watch this:
LIVE: Michael Cohen and Jim Acosta HOLD LIVE Town Hall
This town hall was so refreshing. To get to see people like Acosta, Don Lemon and others unscripted, unfiltered and doing the work of Democracy will lift your spirits.
Meidas Touch now has 4.71M subscribers. This means we are establishing our own megaphone.
Still can’t touch Fox and clones. Social media has turned into a cesspool. Lots more to do. I do see a few spines emerge
We are building an alternative media platform. It takes time. I have seen people set free from the confines of corporate media. Acosta and Lemon are different people. The print media folks who have come into the Substack community such as Jennifer Rubin are writing some excellent stuff.
As to social media. I was never much of a social media person. Now. I am on Bluesky. It is a breath of fresh air with brilliant minds such as Timothy Snyder, Andrew Weissman, Rebecca Solnit, Barack Obama and many others.
Meidas Touch now has more views than Rogan.
I recommend you get involved with the exciting revolution in how Americans receive their information.
I have
Great! I couldn't tell by your earlier comment.
Jdintx@bluesky.social. Better than T or FB
Isn't it? We are working to keep Bluesky free of junk. Currently there is a discussion on the proliferation of memes/cartoons depicting women in hyper-sexualized images. We are reporting/blocking the accounts/hiding the posts etc. Bluesky is so easy to use in cleanup. No oligarchs running things.
Barbara, please don't give them any advice. Maybe, in their delirium they still can't picture Miller in his Waffen SS Obersturmbandführer Uniform.
Some SERIOUSLY indoctrinated BAD men and and stuff that Waffen SS. Beware! Miller is a BAD man!
A true Nazi.
Evil to the bone
I never joke about the SS, or anything connected to Hitler. Miller is obviously a troubled person whose particular brand of hate is frightening. He inspires me to fight harder than ever.