Thank you for your detailed accounting of the destruction of our democracy, Heather.
From Alt National Park Service today…
…DOGE was never about saving Americans money. It was about gaining access to your data and building a weaponized political machine to use against the public.
Why is Elon still allowed to freely access data in every government system and then arbitrarily fire whoever he wants to?
He fired air traffic controllers that he deemed to be DEI hires further crippling this already understaffed department. And he is forcing his Starlink and other AI systems into several government agencies without a clue of the functions their staff performs.
And Bondi sits by and does nothing but look for ways to prosecute Democrats who try to stop Trump from crippling our government.
GOP Congress people are silent and complicit -- Elizabeth Warren said they won't even look her in the eye -- she said they know what's up and they know it's wrong but they've lost their integrity and have no fidelity to the oath they took.
Marcella, it seems our media is scared of their shadow, so let a toddler-man's threats keep them from doing their jobs. They fire anyone who would tell the truth as in "60 Minutes, the Washington Post" and the rest. Even NPR, the current target of Trump's Folly has done everything it can to normalize Trump in the past decade. We are going to need media that do stand for truth and can get it out more loudly than the right-wing authoritarians who are bent on wrecking this nation (for their own gains, of course).
Yes, both NPR & PBS have tried to normalize trump over the past 10 or so years, at least. They also tried to smother Bernie's campaign while he was running for President, when polls showed he could beat trump. For this long time follower of both news sources, its been profoundly disappointing. One of the reasons we have had to deal with trump at all has been all the support of a compliant media, including the major newspapers as well.
Ruth, as Miselle points out below, many of us get our news from online sources as do other people. We do watch local TV news and forgo the national news unless we want to see the lead story for some reason.
Not yet, but both are being covered here and in other places on Substack and by The Guardian, The Contrarian, States Newsroom, and other non-legacy media that are steadily gaining audience by presenting reality as it is rather than as it generates clicks.
I am heartened by the Local media coverage of the "empty seat" town halls (and the fewer ones with actual Repos,) and of the marches, often using photos and video from the participants themselves. Support your local news! That coverage is then amalgamated on sm and percolates up to the msm (to MSNBC and CNN and a couple others, and then even to Fox, which tries to frame it as "illegal" but is spreading the word lol) MEANWHILE the strategy of protests scattered across the country (not to mention Bernie and AOC's successful tour against the Oligarchs) is impacting all these smaller towns and cities Directly, IRL. Is that a tingle of hope I feel deep inside my heart?
Elizabeth Warren is right. Look at Pete Hegseth. Overseeing the largest military in the world is a critical job that requires knowledge, experience and expertise. It is in those ways similar to doing open heart surgery. I wonder how many of Elizabeth's GOP colleagues who approved Hegseth for Secretary of Defense would approve of him to do their own open heart surgery if ever they needed it. His credentials for that job would be every bit as good as they are for his present job!
"Instead, he is surrounded by those who appear convinced that displays of dominance will make the U.S. even stronger than it was when Trump took office and that destroying the government will free up great men to reorder society."
Probably both. That is Trump's idea of how to "Make America Great Again" that is failing miserably. It is a worthy goal, but there is a much better way to do it. Tell Congress to impeach Trump!
While not true of all, it is true of too many, as verified by aware Democrats calling for entrenched Senator Charles Schumer to step aside because they perceive the damage wrought by his and his fellow partisan "moderates" attempts to appease a power-crazed ruling class of wealthy benefactors through disastrous complicity with their chosen "cowboys." We are NOT acting in a movie steeped in the mythical dualism of evil and innocence distinguished by those wearing black and white Stetsons or partisan affiliations.
The strongest and best players like Bernie Sanders, AOC, Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and others are out there doing the job and, at the end of the day, will get it done despite the roadblocks put up by Schumer, intentional or otherwise. BTW, there are no "newbies" in that group.
"20 Year old man "Cristian" has been ordered returned to the U.S.A. from CECOT!
Per Reuters 4/24/25 4:39 PM yesterday afternoon a 2nd disappeared Maryland man has been ordered returned by Maryland Judge STEPHANIE GALLAGHER.
The Court is only using the 20 year old's first name "Cristian" whose status was the subject of a settlement agreement that Judge Gallagher herself confirmed in her MD court!
UPDATE "The Baltimore Banner" Friday 4/25/25 at 5:03 AM Eastern:
"Senator Van Hollen is a work horse."
"Paging Senator Van Hollen, you have an urgent phone call" 🙏.
We need Bacon to behave more like a general and less like a politician. Jerry started touting him as a possible part of the opposition from the inception of Feathers and Bacon has yet to validate that hope. He talks a good show, but votes the party line every time. He hasn't shown the abject cowardice that Joni Ernst has, but he hasn't helped much either.
I stil have hope... note the reaction of the protesors ..we need a full court press....and I'm grateful that he speaks out....so does Turner to a lesser extent.
I have a great deal of hope, and we'll take everything we can get. There's an Empty Chair Town Hall in MO-2 this afternoon and I'm hoping for an impressive turnout.
Kudos to Bacon for being a DOD hawk and a hater of Putin.
But where are the other Nebraska Senators and Congresscritters on Hogsbreath and Walsh? Joni Ernst is former military and voted for Hogsbreath. And so did Grassley, Deb Fisher and Pete Ricketts. As many of you recall Deb Fisher's white supremacist husband refused to shake Kamala's hand during the campaign last year.
laurie, of course they know. They could stop this nonsense very quickly by standing up as a group. Among other things they are afraid, but can't seem to get the idea that there is power in numbers. And they love their power and access to money as well.
Glenn Kirschner made an interesting statement recently. Licenses to practice law are issued by state bar associations only. No lawyer is licensed by the federal government. Even lawyers who work for the DOJ depend on their individual state licenses to practice law in Washington, DC.
Moreover, state bar associations do not need to wait for a referral to review an unethical lawyer's license for disbarment. There is an electronic network that alerts state bar associations to unethical behavior of their licensed attorneys, wherever they may be practicing.
Some of the nonsense Trump's DOJ lawyers are bringing into federal courts could cost them their licenses back home. Witness Rudy Giuliani.
True, but it's like house-cleaning or police work. Just because it always happens "after the fact" is no reason to stop doing it. Otherwise, we'd live in filth and squalor, or lawless anarchy.
Thank you for your mention of this, Kathy. These days, and over the last 100 plus days, I have wondered where the American Bar Association is in all of this. Has it no power over Bondi? And over that of attorneys doing Trump's lawless bidding, within and outside of the administration? Perhaps the ABA is doing more than I realize, and may even have a part in the multiple lawsuits against the tumult of illegal acts against the American people.
They may well be waiting just long enough for Bondi to get enough rope to hang herself. Usually, that's how prosecutors work to make sure one is assuredly indicted.
The ABA is a voluntary organization and doesn’t license attorneys. They are licensed in their individual states. Bondi would be subject to disciplinary action before the Florida Bar, and ultimately if the Florida Bar establishes the necessary burden of proof in disciplinary hearings, she could be subject to hearing before the Supreme Court of Florida. Glenn Kirschner is correct in his description of how the disciplinary and licensing processes work. You have to seek admission to practice before the U.S. District Courts. The Southern District of Ohio made you take a test to distinguish Ohio and Federal civil procedure rules, but generally admission to Federal practice is easy. You would need it if you practiced bankruptcy law.
How kind of you to offer a detailed response, Kathy. This clarifies what was a curiosity, and frankly, judgmental on my part. Not the first time I’ve been one and the other, simultaneously, truth be told. Thank you for your explanation, and graciousness.
Kathy, I hope so. Bondi is so bad that she should not be in any job having to do with enforcing the law. And I am truly disappointed in the secretary of labor from Oregon. I thought she would be do better, but she is already trying to put tape over her employee's mouths.
And per Rachel Maddow, the convicted felon yesterday told Blondi Bondi (no offense to blondes) to investigate ActBlue's fundraising for Democrats, whether foreign money has come in to the organization. Meanwhile he is pushing his meme coin by offering dinner with the president and a VIP tour of the White House to the highest bidders, who can use untraceable bitcoin to purchase his product.
It’s not laughable, it’s insane that they investigate Act Blue for outside money when cheeto has done that for his two elections (Russia and Hungary) to name a few!
Elon Musk bought and paid for Donald Trump's victory. Musk rampaging through government agencies works for Russell Vought's vision of government, and Trump's insatiable desire for revenge against thr mythical deep stat.
I unfortunately don’t have a source for this but it speaks to your point:
The most influential person most Americans have never even heard of—Russell Vought—is quietly running the show behind Trump’s aggressive push to fire career civil servants and shut down entire federal agencies. Vought’s roots run deep in the right-wing policy world: he previously served as vice president of Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, and later founded the Center for Renewing America, a group focused on advancing Christian nationalist policies and opposing progressive reforms. His policy vision is anything but moderate—he’s a key architect and co-author of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s sweeping blueprint to consolidate executive power, purge the civil service, and dismantle the very agencies that protect Americans’ rights, health, and environment.
As the main force behind Project 2025, Vought outlined plans to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees, making it easier to replace them with Trump loyalists and eliminate job protections. He’s advocated for slashing government funding, defunding agencies like the EPA, and halting critical regulations, all while casting civil servants as “villains” obstructing the conservative agenda. His section of the nearly 900-page Project 2025 document calls for an unprecedented concentration of power in the presidency, a move critics warn is constitutionally alarming and threatens the survival of democratic self-governance.
What Vought wants for America is a government remade in Trump’s image: smaller, more authoritarian, and driven by Christian nationalist ideals. He’s not just another bureaucrat—he’s the chief strategist behind the mass firings and agency shutdowns, intent on gutting the federal government’s ability to serve ordinary people. For progressives and anyone concerned about democracy, Vought’s agenda is a direct assault on the foundational principles of public service, equality, and checks and balances.
Because Gary, we are still sitting about, treating and pontificating about this academically. You have to know for certain that what's left of the former republican party leadership is "not" going to do anything - unless they're forced to.
DOGE? Never heard of them, not here anyway. That was the story from Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the General Services Administration, when he was asked last month during an all-hands meeting with staff: Who from the GSA worked for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency? Wired reported yesterday tht DOGE is now infiltrating every government department and accessing databases (IRS, DHS and even voter records) to surveil and track immigrants and Heaven know what else, a master database that has nothing at all to do with eliminating fraud and abuse. Thus, the US Digital Service is now the US DOGE Service. All the gathered data will eventually be stored on servers owned by Palantir, Peter Thiel's company. There's been nothing like since The Blob.
Two of the greatest myths of 21st Century America. "Trump and Musk are good businessmen."
Trump is an abused child in a 78 year old body who negotiates on social media. "STOP Vlad!" Pathetic is being too kind. And the tariffs "adventure" is right out of "Idiocracy".
Musk is a Jack Welch on steroids after a lobotomy. Without billionaire buddies he would have been deported back to South Africa to work with his dad to bring back Apartheid.
Neither one of them know anything about efficiency. Both have acquired wealth through inheritance, masquerade, manipulation and intimidation. Smart enough to bully. Stupid enough to hurt millions if not billions of people and all manner of organic life on the planet.
Musk did not create anything. He bought into Tesla and other entities. Tesla is tanking (Yay!!). Twitter is a polluted mess that has lost much of its value. He is hugely dependent on government contracts for revenue. His DOGE actions are aimed at increasing his personal wealth by putting his companies into spaces that he’s damaged, like air traffic control. This regime is doing such awful damage to this country so the greedy bastards can steal everything from the rest of us.
Sean Duffy is Transportation Secretary. Duffy is responsible for doing Musk's bidding. Duffy agrees with DEI harms to air traffic control and pilots. Like all Trump's Cabinet, they agreed to jobs carrying out Trump's orders. They agree with Trump and Project 2025 or they would not be in Trump's government.
The other things he’s doing are illegal and sneaky. One is to steal our private data to spy on Federal employees critical of Trump (which they can do outside of work and on their own without mentioning their employee status,) he has illegally accessed and stolen data without legal permission to do so. Trump does not have the authority to let Muskrat get this info. Federal employees can’t access data in general except for data necessary to do their jobs.
The people Muskrat engaged to do this haven’t passed background checks or been vetted to engage in stealing this info. They installed buggy and untested software onto Social Security’s website.
The second thing Muskrat wants to do is to find out confidential data on his competitors so he can get a leg up on them and take unfair advantage of his insider knowledge.
The third thing Muskrat is doing is to shut down or defang any agencies investigating him. USAID’s inspector general was investigating Muskrat for possibly turning off Ukraine’s Starlink satellites before two separate Russian attacks. CFPB would have authority to regulate the payment service he wants to start in conjunction with X. Muskrat has also tangled with the SEC over his X messages.
I personally have some suspicions that Muskrat’s Space X contracts contain clauses common to government contracts that forbid him from openly endorsing, funding or campaigning for a candidate, and he has breached his contracts. We don’t have public access to the contracts, but we should. Muskrat’s dubious contracts with the Russians and Chinese cause and his drug use have prevented him from receiving a security clearance for his own Spacex data. Muskrat is a huge bundle of blatant conflicts of interest. He’s also starting to get Trump’s other officials angry st him because of Muskrat’s own belief he’s the smartest guy in the room (not always) and his narcissism. Muskrat has had shouting matches with Peter Navarro and Scott Bessent. For once, I think Muskrat was correct on tariffs. We produce very few products here and contrary to what Trump and Navarro think, they are not going to encourage industries to return here. Trump managed to tank the economy and to give Xi Jinping the boost Xi never expected.
I am beginning to think that AI is actually an oxymoron. How intelligent is it to pollute in order to find solutions to pollution? How smart is it to address the climate crisis by causing it?
As I have written before, ‘You’ and ‘we’ the commenters are a gift, ray of hope, gift in ‘reality’, not disguise, in thoughtful response to Heather…. Thank YOU
Need to look carefully at Thiel (Vance’s backer) also. It’s racism running this crowd which is destructive to our constitution and our future on the planet—even to the planet itself.
I am concerned that they want to track everyone. I think this push to make us get the “RealId” is just another way they can track our movements inside the USA.
Real ID has been around for a long time, pushed off and off again due to public resistance and a product of the erosion of our freedoms since 9/11. That was the event that spurred Americans to freely relinquish their right to privacy when they didn't raise holy hell about the Patriot Act. I was extremely disappointed Obama didn't make an effort to touch it.
RealId……..REAL ID, A new Drivers License that proves who you really are. Kind of like having your proper papers once used in Germany during World War II.
My Florida driver’s license was due to be updated by January 1st this year. I got my first (restricted) Florida driver’s license at the age of 14 in 1959. The state now requires that I prove that I’m me. In order to do so, I was required to have a certified copy of my birth certificate, of my first marriage, of my divorce, and of my second marriage, two proofs that I live at my present address (moved to this house in 1994), and my social security number. A bit more of a hassle than a male faces. If you don’t have all of those certified copies, it can take time & money to acquire them. All these years (since I was 21, as the law was then) I voted just using my driver’s license, and no one questioned me. Seems a bit of overkill & hassle.
These are the requirements outlined in the yet-to-be-passed SAVE Act (a misnomer, of course). Nevertheless, a Real ID isn't sufficient to register to vote or update voter registration. Make it make sense!
In order to register to vote in Florida, you must have either a valid and current Florida driver license, or Florida ID card, or last four digits of your social security number. When you go to vote, they ask for signature & photo ID. There are a list of acceptable photo & signature ID’s. The only one I have is my driver’s license.
Shout out to Star Trek TNG!! Who knew back when the original Star Trek TV show was on that it would become such an important part of our lexicon & society?
According to a report on Wired in February, there were eight lawsuits are related to DOGE’s alleged access to sensitive data that hinge on the Watergate-inspired Privacy Act of 1974 ( a later report on NBC news suggests that has risen to 11). One lawsuits describes DOGE's data acquisition as "the largest and most consequential data breach in US history". There are however a couple of vague exceptions to the restrictions imposed by the Act on data collection concerning the need for sharing to perform one's duties and also for 'routine use'. It's not clear whether DOGE could justify their activities under either exception. The ACLU is also suing the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs for some transparency about exactly what DOGE is doing.
Was there ever a philosophical, data driven, thoughtful analysis and explanation of DOGE's and Trump's approach to governance? They continue to speak to us in obscure and incomprehensible language. Secrecy or unintelligibility abound.
Agreed. I have felt the same way about the actual mission of Musk. I worry about the back doors installed by the Muskrats, and where our information is going. Constant chaos to hide what is really going on. Makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I am not.
Yes, Thank you for the detailed reporting but nowhere are the others responsible mentioned. 2025 authors. tRump is their puppet as much as Reagan was their actor. The roots of the White Supremacy are deep in the current Republican Party.
Kari, you are right about the real aims of Musk and the rest of the toddlers. They should all be in jail, but somehow, we don't have a mechanism for imprisoning the folks who are the ones who have broken the law or rather laws. Money makes the difference. I guess it is easier to kidnap people off the streets and toss them away in private hellholes and toss young people in jail for doing drugs or something else just to survive than to put away the ones who are really doing harm to this nation and our people.
I hope I'm not the only one who finds it crazy that Steve Bannon in now the voice of reason within the admin with respect to protecting our personal and private data.
HCR writes: "Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told reporters on Tuesday that in order to conduct the study, the NIH is collecting Americans’ private medical records from federal and commercial databases, including from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service, medication records from pharmacies, and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers."
Does anyone know how the federal government can access commercial databases (like medication records from pharmacies) and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers? Wouldn't it be a huge HIPAA violation for a commercial pharmacy to share that information? And companies like Garmin or Apple....are they just giving up the data that our smartwatches track? I don't understand how the government/NIH can get their hands on this data without having permission from the private individuals themselves.
I'm a slow reader so I love listening to people at up to 2x speed, especially with a good transcript. Even with my bad ears, one of my favorites is Michael Lewis telling some of the stories in his books as he appears on various podcasts in very contemporary discussions. The Fifth Risk, is great at showing what transition briefings became, with each President's teams seeming to do better each time. To me they preserved and passed on some of the hard won lessons as they learned as they went along, making it easier for those who followed , no matter which party was in power. Trump, as the Fifth Risk show ignored almost all of it, though Chris Christie had at least gotten a start on it before Trump fired him.
It’s time for the Republicans in congress to grow a spine. If a body as dominated by a corrupt ideology as the Supreme Court can do so, once they realized their authority was threatened, then congress can do so as well.
The issue is separation of powers.
Appealing to their collective sense of decency may be useless, but appealing to their collective need for power may reach enough of them to tip things in our favor.
Agreed, and "The computer was connected to the internet on an unsecured commercial line, making it highly susceptible to hacking". Very highly. Do they really want to ride this run-away clown car all the way over the cliff?
Yup, deal with the devil, don't be surprised when he puts you in hell. Did Trump REALLY think Putin was going to "play nice" just because Trump wanted him to?
Anne-Louise, the very start predated the escalator ride by many years. It's a good bet that a file on Trump existed in Dmitry Medvedev's Kremlin long before Putin assumed the presidency in 2012, owing to the Trump Organization's longstanding relationships with Bratva-controlled businesses in the NYC metropolitan area.
Absolutely correct, Stephanie and Anne-Louise! tRump is not in Vladimir’s pocket, he’s simply being bypassed as easily as an upended orange traffic cone.
Stephanie,do you really think that Putin ''probably'' can see through trump's weakness, narcissism and mental fog. You can bet Vance's life that Putin can absolutely see through trump's everything and unfortunately winn.
No, Jon, methinks tRump’s “Vladimir, STOP!” simply provides the MAGAts a preface excuse to walk away from any Ukraine peace deal they claimed they would provide, an excuse they have been seeking since that shameful display of bullying Zelensky in the oval office. It is quite clear that even a wholesale capitulation of Ukraine’s territory already occupied and demand they not join NATO were not enough for Putin. He wants the whole thing.
Yes Jon, put yourself in the mind of a severe narcissist and you'll "think"everything and anything it's going to go your way regardless of what reality and common sense tells everybody else.
Putin is likely seething over Trump's tepid scolding yesterday. Trump assured the world that he would end the war on Day 1 because of his finally tuned negotiating skills.
It's time for Trump to visit Putin and bow down to the master. If we're lucky Trump might trip and fall from a 10th floor window like so many others who dared to cross Putin. Or maybe Air Force One will mysteriously explode as he heads back to the US. It's happened to many Russian oligarchs and military commanders. I can see why Trump is afraid to meet Putin in Russia.
Wait... you're not actually suggesting that Putin might be behind some of those airliners that have been blown up while carrying passengers that Putin was fighting? Really?
Trump was asked yesterday what concessions the Russians had indicated they were prepared to make to secure peace with Ukraine. His answer: 'stopping the war, stopping taking over the whole country. That's a pretty big concession.' The Art of the Deal?
This is an important read. It should be republished widely, front page like “have you no sense of decency” was. Glenn Kirschner is saying we have to tell republicans to cross the aisle and save democracy. It’s only been 100 days and HCR has given us a fantastic summary of the chaos and lies that even the brainwashed could understand.
I'd seen most of these bits over the past 10 years. Such an utter fool he has long been. I knew it. Many knew it. But tens of millions got the same idiot educations, took the same idiot tests, endured the same idiot corporate media, the same idiot -- but more conniving, more evilly intended social media billionaires.
How and what will motivate Republicans? Until there are laws about integrity in social media. Until Fox and newsmax are held accountable we can’t expect lasting change
Aggregated public sentiment can exert a profound impact. Just wrecking things may be fun for some for a while, but then you have to live in the rubble.
Republicans in congress will lose all of their power to the executive if they don’t fight back. They don’t have to have good motives to reject the power grab.
In my frequent emails to my senators and representatives (all deep-Red GOP members), I’ve asked them that exact question: what purpose do you serve when you give up your role as a co-equal branch of government?!
The separation of powers and placing the president above the law are two primary reasons the whole concept of the “unitary executive” is completely unconstitutional. It also presumes that Republicans will hold onto power forever.
I think John Roberts’ majority knew it started it’s own dissolution with the Trump vs US decision. Alito & the Thomases decline to join the meek theatrics & are betting on protection by the Christofascist broligarchy.
Remember, Veronica, a few facts all in the same category (or, categories: two).
1) The convicted criminal at the top spends hours every morning caking layers of colored greasy oils onto his fat, fat pig's face. And more time waving, spraying, blow-drying, and combing/brushing whatever you call it on top of his fat, fat, pig's head.
2) Vance has to allot time, too, to his mascara treatments.
3 Hegseth needed to convert office space for himself at the Pentagon now reserved for make-up teams always on the ready to make him up for the screen time that is this narcissist's number one priority.
I'm not the first to note this: these anti-trans dudes all so heavily into drag. As, in a second category, Nancy Mace, Joni Ernst, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Gazpacho similarly all tilt to their own muscled-up testosterone world.
Showbiz owned by corporations collectively organized as malignant sociopaths id. fascist mafia state oligopolists produced the social conditioning that enabled the Musk Trump Vance (MTV) freakshow; T, V, & H with their daily, “I’m ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille” preparations & drama, & Elon (Leon) with his gender enhancing plastic surgeries. The tribal / cultural dynamic is essentially a death cult. <> An evidence sample: The Dylan movie - Rolling Stone is PG. We saw it in a big chain theatre. What normally is 10 to 15 minutes of previews was 35 f’ing minutes of intensely loud, & long clips of intensely brutal violence. We paid to see a nice movie but were extorted into a choice of leaving or bear the extra cost of their depravity. The whole racket is owned by sickos. We need more opportunities for people to do things in nature, face to face working on & creating mutually beneficial projects. It goes back to the
The attacks on Ukraine will continue. The gutting of our government will continue. The Republicans' refusal to admit to being the cause of all this destruction will continue. The protests will continue. Until some divine intervention removes a whole lot of evil from the planet. Or we, the people, do.
I agree although I'm not sure God is on our side as she is watching us destroy our beautiful planet, James.
However, we sure can stop this shit. Here's a summary of what we already know works. Now is the time to run a full field press:
The gutting of the US government refers to the deliberate weakening or dismantling of federal institutions, the civil service, and the core pillars of American democracy. This process is currently being accelerated by coordinated efforts among political loyalists, ideological actors, and powerful private interests. To counteract this trend, a broad, multi-level response is required—one that involves citizens, civil society, lawmakers, media, and the private sector. Below are concrete strategies and actions to help stop the gutting of the US government.
1. Demand Accountability and Legal Action
• Track ongoing lawsuits and legal challenges to abuses of power. Support organizations such as the ACLU, Democracy Forward, and Protect Democracy, which are actively litigating against overreach and unlawful actions.
• Contact your representatives directly—calls and in-person questions at town halls are especially effective—to demand oversight and action against attempts to undermine government systems or concentrate power in unaccountable hands.
2. Protect Government Workers and Whistleblowers
• Advocate for stronger whistleblower protections at both federal and state levels to shield civil servants who expose wrongdoing.
• Support legal defense funds for government employees who are fired or retaliated against for upholding the law and ethical standards.
• Encourage documentation of abuses within agencies to ensure evidence is available for future accountability.
3. Strengthen Democratic Institutions and Safeguards
• Support reforms that protect the independence of the civil service and prevent politicization of federal agencies.
• Advocate for legislative reforms such as the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to secure free and fair elections and safeguard against manipulation or subversion.
• Push for ethics and anti-corruption laws, including transparency in political spending, public financing of campaigns, and restrictions on conflicts of interest for public officials.
4. Mobilize Civil Society and Build Broad Coalitions
• Join or support coalitions of pro-democracy actors, including advocacy groups, unions, faith organizations, and local civic associations, to create a united front against anti-democratic maneuvers.
• Volunteer with organizations defending civil rights, voting rights, and marginalized communities targeted by government overreach.
• Encourage the private sector, especially technology companies, to uphold democratic norms and resist capitulation to anti-democratic pressures.
5. Defend Rule of Law and Judicial Independence
• Insist on the impartiality and independence of the Justice Department and judiciary. Support policies that insulate these institutions from political interference.
• Demand oversight and transparency in judicial appointments and oppose efforts to pack courts with partisan loyalists.
6. Promote Transparency and Investigative Journalism
• Subscribe to and support independent news outlets that investigate government actions and expose corruption or abuses of power.
• Demand congressional investigations into undue private sector influence over public institutions, especially when it threatens national security or public welfare.
7. Engage at State and Local Levels
• Many pro-democracy reforms can be enacted at the state and local levels, such as independent redistricting commissions, expanded voting access, and local ethics laws.
• Participate in state and local elections, ballot initiatives, and public hearings to ensure democratic reforms are implemented from the ground up.
Please stop this nonsense. Even if there is even a shred of evidence that you are right, it makes no difference because that part of the show is over. You can't relitigate the 2024 election any more than Trump was able to relitigate the 2020 election.
Looking backwards, even if there is actually some truth there (which I highly doubt) it is just "pissing in the wind" as they say.
We need to look forward for concrete steps to salvage this democracy. There are no knights in shining armor coming to help us, we need to do the heavy lifting ourselves. Wasting time moaning about something that can't be changed is just that, a waste of time.
That's precisely why they use those tactics Kathy, they actually take voters off the voting process and they are well targeted. Sometimes 1% here or there makes a big difference.
We have failed to protect our Democracy. At the federal level it is gone.
If we are honest with ourselves we know now that everything has changed. We have TO OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE that we have a new Regime in place that does not believe in our constitution, the rule of law or any thing else but power and money. We have let Democracy silp through our fingers and our greatest fears are here NOW. We have to focus. We have to act now, We know what is coming,
Lou, How will you know what’s coming if you haven’t fully figured what has already happened? You must discover exactly what has been changed in order to put it right again. It is not enough to say “everything’s changed.” We need a map at least as clear and detailed as Project 2025 was, a “Road back to the future in 2027."
Jon Rosen, you miss the point entirely if you see discovering all the ways the vote was gerrymandered, suppressed, manipulated, discounted, rejected and ballot totaling distorted (enumerated?) is solely to relitigate the 2024 election. More to the point, how will you protect the NEXT election if you don’t have accurate information from the last election?? How do you avoid repeating history of you don’t have historical facts? THAT is what Heather Cox Richardson’s LFAA is all about!
Stop kidding yourselves and take responsibility for what you've done. Only then will you get a clear idea of the mess you're in. 77 million people voted for this clown and very few of those people appear to be regretting their decision (so far anyway). Amidst all the poor approval ratings that Trump has received recently (the worst of any president apart from, well, Trump himself first time around) his base support has remained unshakeable. Meanwhile, polling on the Democratic party, your only serious opposition, is tanking even worse than Trump. Trump is just an ugly manifestation of much deeper and more fundamental problems in American politics and society. When he's gone they will all still be there.
That may be true, Russell, but we sure as hell don't need the current crop of idiots trying to rewrite it. The original writers didn't think beyond 20 years into the future. Today's clowns can't think beyond day after tomorrow.
Agreed, Dale Rowett. and opening a constitutional convention at this point in time would be inviting the right wing extremist to take it over and create just exactly what they want—a christo-fascist unitary government.
No written Constitution is going to be perfect and to some extent you will always be dependent on the good faith of the politicians and the judges, but you need to end up with a living, breathing document. There's two ways that can be achieved: by a more enlightened jurisprudence concerned less with the text than with the principles underlying the text; or by making the document less resistant to change so that it reflects the needs of the day. Your Constitution has been amended only 27 times in 230 years and only five times since the 1950s. A Constitution should be generally respected and adhered to but should not be treated as lapidary.
Do you think we have amended our Constitution enough or not enough in the past 75 years?
A highly amendable Constitution creates a risk of a society in constant flux, changeable (sometimes dangerously) on a moment's whim.
A resistant Constitution creates a risk of not being able to respond to real changing world conditions.
As you head towards extreme, both sides have problems.
The problem I see is that we are a polarized society and that is REAL. Maybe what we really need is a division (yeah I know, we tried that one before 😔 and it wasn't exactly a real winning solution, was it. )
Unfortunately I don't know if there is a real solution possible. My "techno geek" side says there HAS TO BE a solution. But my "humanities" side (there Phil, I said the word!) Thinks maybe in the modern world the problem is too intractable.
And at 74, I don't think I'll be around long enough to see the outcome. Which is sad of course, I wish I could.
Okay, Jon, let me put it like this. If I were tasked with writing a constitution for the UK I wouldn't start with the Magna Carta. Similarly, I don't think that you're going to amend your way out of the straitjacket that is your Constitution. There are simply too many imponderables. Here's some examples. Trump is pushing the boundaries of his Article 2 executive powers so that they override the supervision of the courts (his administration has just arrested a judge, FFS). His claims are based on the so-called Unitary Executive Theory which contradicts the separation of powers that underpins every democracy in the world. He's threatening your basic freedoms under the First Amendment. Nobody knows what the 2nd Amendment means for gun control because of the language it's couched in. It's by no means clear that either your Congress or your Supreme Court is going to resist Trump's authoritarian diktats (because that's what they are). Finally, try and get an answer to the question: 'what happens if Trump ignores court orders?' Constitutional lawyers and academics tell you that these are 'uncharted waters'. That answer ought to terrify any rational person who believes in the rule of law.
It's not obvious to everyone, Bruce. The reverence that Americans attach to that sclerotic document still astonishes me. It's like the government and courts here in the UK depending on the Magna Carta. The legal doctrine known as 'Originalism' reminds me of nothing so much as biblical literalism. Although I'm not sure I'm altogether happy about this but Trump seems to share my disdain for your Constitution -
Divine intervention, if such a thing actually exists is fine by me. Suggesting human intervention, however, is dangerous because none of us should want a society where we decide it is acceptable to violate laws to push our democracy in the direction we favor.
Because if we decide it is acceptable to do it, what makes it impossible for the opposition to say "well they did it, so we can too".
That is what the founding fathers of this country fought AGAINST and if we decide it is now okay to do that, this country is doomed. We may be doomed anyway, but if we are going down, I hope we don't sacrifice the principles that made us a unique country.
Jon, I hate it when you're right. But of course you are. IF it was a suggestion. And there are people out there that would take it that way, and act upon it. And that's what I think you meant.
Well I'm glad you at least read my stuff LOL. I like to think that somehow we have come past the era when shooting people in the streets was considered a reasonable way to deal with problems. Although 300 million legal guns in this country suggests maybe we aren't there yet, sigh.
There is some faint hope that the legal system will find its way to remove the entire set of traitors in the government (that means, to me, every one of the congress critters who stood and applauded the orange menace in the well of the House, and the legion of toadies he has put in place to tear the government apart). We have the laws: now we need to find the courage to enforce them.
Not just the courage. We need to be in the majority. Which right now we are not. And maybe we need to reckon with the fact that half of our voting population doesn't agree with us and do they have s right to their opinions too? Or not?
Because if they don't, what do we have then? I left wing dictatorship? Is that any better than a right wing one? Maybe, but it has many of the same problems.
I agree that this country doesn't need that many guns. I've known some people that were far too obsessed with them. Still, if divine intervention were possible, I wouldn't mind if Andrew Jackson made an appearance in our time and challenged agent orange to a duel.
Sir James Vanderbilt Poel, please sign the general Strike if you haven’t. Needed3% of the population. All of us here, and all your family, friends, colleagues: generalstrikeus.com.
At first I dilly dallied thinking Oh oh. ‘They’ll come for me….or I’ll be on a list…. Or…’ I shocked myself with my fear. I went back in and signed up this time thinking rationally: take action! action action or you can pretend which would put me on the same puppet stage as the complicit wobblers.
That’s why it’s important that hegseth has failed to reshape the military to his liking. They wouldn’t do it. That gives civil society some time in which to act. The more people get involved in nonviolent public action, the sooner this tragic farce ends. All the varieties of nonviolent opposition matter. The public gatherings are a crucial support for the independent journalists, the lawsuits, the universities who are banding together, the nonprofits doing the same, the electeds.
Indeed. Since Repubs enable this madness and only a handful of Dems shout out about it, it’s going to take a massive public push. 47 and his cronies will not stop until the people stop him. I wish there was another way.
Like dust in a grain silo with a match. Which is exactly what the Orange son of God wants. We want peaceful but complete resistance https://generalstrikeus.com/ tries to accomplish that, along with other resistance movements. We must operate within the rule of law, or Trump will have reason to set the military against us. A powder keg is the last thing we want. Constant, determined peaceful resistance to every one of their insane actions is the only way to prevent the use of the insurrection Act. In my view. Was what I meant with "Yep"
They do not have the support to pull it off, or it would be happening. They are losing support in the polls and being opposed by the judiciary. If they go there without adequate power and support, they know the game will be up.
Until Fox News and NewsMax are held accountable we could consistently see ourselves back in this situation of lies influencing voters. We have to change the root cause. Misinformation must end. Cable “news” and unlimited campaign contributions.
An Economist/YouGov poll found “Trump’s approval rating was –13, with 54% of Americans disapproving of the way he is handling the presidency and only 41% approving”.
I agree. The des- and misinformation problem needs to be solved. I believe this is the reason for the 41% that still believe in the flat out lies and gaslighting.
Unfortunately it's not ALL "flat out lies and gaslighting".
For instance, there ARE over 10,000,000 people living in this county who are here illegally. That "Trump fact" is indeed a fact. Both Republican and Democratic administrative have ignored that "detail" for decades because no one wanted to take the draconian steps needed to fix it. Every administration just looked the other way and it got worse.
Personally I HATE Trump's "send 'em all home" approach because I think many if not most of those undocumented immigrants have helped our society. But that doesn't change the fact that under our current laws they are ALL breaking it and SHOULD ALL be sent out of the country. Otherwise, what is the purpose of a law which is just ignored?
So that Is a dilemma and to say this is all caused by Trump is nonsense. Trump is just trying to solve the problem although he is turning it into a shitshow because of his ineptitude.
How do we solve it? The only solution that makes ANY sense to me is to end our current policy of limiting immigration and extend open borders to all who aren't criminals in their own countries. Those people who are here illegally but who uphold our laws and work and pay taxes can and should stay. ALL of them. Including people who aren't here yet. Eliminate most of ICE which would solve another huge problem.
You can NOT say "we can't do that!" and yet not agree with Trump's desire to send them all back because that is the height of hypocrisy.
If the law says they should be deported, then they should be deported, otherwise the law means nothing. And then, whether it's Trump who imposes it or we ourselves, we no longer have a democracy. The only solution I can see is to change the law. Another 10 or more years of just turning our back on the problem will only make our country worse.
I believe you’re right. As long as it takes up to 20 years for a Mexican immigrant to get legal immigrant status (unless his future employer gets an application in the green card “lottery”), we will have illegal Mexican immigrants.
That's why I actively support elimination of restrictions of working in the US for anyone except a known criminal (for other than immigration "crimes"). If you are here to work, we should welcome that. We are the third largest country in the world, we certainly have an economy capable of dealing with it. In fact we obviously due because otherwise a lot of those here illegally wouldn't be.
Sure there are a few people who come here to take advantage of our laws supporting indigent, etc.
The real issue is Congresses unwilling to put on big-boy pants and do their jobs (as usual). For decades congress just wanted to beat the other party with the issue—it was so provocative! Congress has the power to make immigration laws and procedures and refuses to do so. This is on them.
Congress has made laws over and over again. It doesn't matter. This isn't a legal problem, its a cultural one. We want the benefits of people being here to do jobs that many of us wouldn't want but we aren't willing to pay the political price to actually do it right.
The problem is that we've done that before (several times in fact) and then we go right back and it starts all over again. The FACT is (I believe) that we have one of the largest and (so far) strongest economies in the world and people want to be here. So one-time amnesties do not solve the problem.
The reality is that our country deep down really WANTS the people to come here and work, we just don't want to actually have to see them or deal with them. It's part of our racist nature that goes back several hundred years (not everyone of course but culturally it is true).
We've done this with Chinese laborers, European laborers, Jewish merchants, Indian academics, over and over, just different people each time.
Now it's Mexicans and South Americans. The origination points and skin colors change, but the song remains the same.
I just think it's time to own up to this bias we have and at least legally try to put an end to it. I can't see any other real path to an effective solution.
Because we are fed illusions or comforting myths or diverted by spectacle. Despite the valiant efforts of the New York Times and PBS Newshour, NPR, and others, who practice good journalism, our standards have been lowered, when entities such as Newsmax, Christian Networks, and other severely right wing media are considered bona fide newscasts, and who only serve the powerful, not providing the public with objective news.
Plus the rise of social media created a chaotic information environment. There are still journalists and news analyists doing good work (Thanks Heather!). It's just harder for most people to discern where to find them. If they are even interested.
One, has to wonder if some are "just" saying that they believe the flat out lies and gaslighting. The point. A reason is needed. Whether it's the real reason or not?
I like the Welsh proposal about telling the truth. Lies and "alternative facts" cannot be permitted. Even to allow FOX to call itself news is misleading. For whatever reason, some people continue to believe the lie even when they have been told it's a lie.
Well the problem there of course is our historical view of "free press". It will be hard to implement an approach that lets one side determine what the other side can say. Because one person's truth is another person's canard. Yes there are probably "absolute truths" in there but most of it is less about "absolutes" and more about "opinions". We no longer have much tolerance at all for other people's opinions and I believe that is true in both sides not just "theirs".
I know a bunch of people will jump in here and say "but it's not US, we do respect others, it's just THEY don't" and all I can say is LISTEN TO YOURSELVES!
And this is coming from a die hard left wing "American commie" (me) who marched in Washington in 1969 and put up the fight against right wing politics for years.
I guess it's my old age but I think we All Need to TRY to respect EVERYONE'S views (and yes our opposition needs to do the same) because as long as we keep yelling at each other, we are not ever going to fix this.
One good thing about Bill Maher's show is he is willing to talk to those with opposing views. You can criticize his visit with Trump but I think he was right to go. We will not make progress towards healing our great divide unless we are willing to talk to each other with civility.
The problem with Trump of course is that HE treats NO ONE with "civility". He either fawns over somebody with fake obsequiousness or he taunts them and calls them bizarre names. With some people he starts out one way and then shifts. Half of his cabinet was ridiculed by him publicly (for instance Rubio as "little Marco" is now his Secretary of State).
Sandra, if no were for the chronic stupidity of a huge part of the American voters, trump's approval would be 1%, exactly the percentage of super rich people getting all the benefits including part of his family. Unfortunately there's no cure for stupidity.
Well Sandra, you wanna know that MSNBC CBS and CNN have all been fined OR SUED for lies and defamation on their website including their heroes Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and I always forget the last lady the blonde just got fined substantially and lost three cases and now a fourth posted by Trump a $20 billion lawsuit for CBS for lying and editing a live Interview by Kamala Harris just weeks before the election THAT IS MY UNDERSTANDING
By the way for those of you gullible that live by polls good luck to you Kamala Harris was supposed to be Donald Trump and all the polls. Oooops.
It’s better to live in reality. Try that.
AND BY THE WAY, IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR HEATHER TO TALK ABOUT WHERE THE HELL WAS OBAMA WHEN RUSSIA TOOK CRIMEA / UKRAINE, WHERE THE HELL WAS BIDEN WHEN RUSSIA TOOK PARTS OF UKRAINE? Oooops
Your unsubstantiated claim that "MSNBC CBS and CNN have all been fined OR SUED for lies and defamation" is another lie among many. You've learned your gaslighting lessons well from the orange convict who's was convicted by the unanimous verdicts of 6 juries which included his supporters. "It's better to live in reality. Try that."
In fact Fox/Murdoch was not just sued but was convicted and fined 3/4 of a billion dollars for lying.
In fact Smartmatic has settled a lawsuit accusing right-wing television network One America News of defamation by falsely claiming that the voting technology company rigged the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
In fact A Delaware judge has found that Newsmax, a conservative news outlet, broadcast false and defamatory claims about the role Dominion, a voting technology company, played in the 2020 presidential election.
The list goes on. And yet here you are spreading the Fox/Murdoch/convict's propaganda against all evidence to the contrary. Despite the fact that you seem to have an overblown sense of self importance, you and your ilk have no credibility at this late date.
And by the way, I don’t believe a thing that comes out of Trump’s mouth, but you obviously haven’t been listening to my posts in the past
I don’t like him I don’t like his lack of tact. I don’t like some of his insults, although some people need to be insulted I like everything that comes out of his pen. And intelligent people should be able to separate the two based on the long serving parable. Do not watch what people say watch what they do
Or actions speak louder than words. And I had to laugh and laugh and laugh all 77 million of us have more credibility than the 75 million of you based on everything I’ve said and everything I’ve told the lady below and you wonder why your approval rating is 20% and you think you have any credibility whatsoever. You, my friend, need a mirror and an antidote for TDS big time in my opinion
And one more thing about you guys you are great at avoiding the truth.
Put together a whole list of disclaimers against the post made above
If you keep this up, I’m telling you you will have Republicans in power for the next 12 years and that’s not a good thing for the country. The only reprieve you may have is every time one party is in total control of the presidency and both houses of Congress during the midterms that’s reversed… that my friend is why Trump as smart as he is, is moving to get these things done before hand. And he won’t have to worry about anything if he gets this beautiful bill passed and it includes no tax on Social Security no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. He will have 100 million votes in this next election. It’ll set a record.
And one more thing about you, you are great at avoiding the truth.
There will be no tax on SS because he will have done away with SS/Medicare/Medicaid according to plan. You obviously haven't gone to the trouble of reading Project 2025 which is the gop platform. I doubt he will have your 100 million votes after he accomplishes that smart, beautiful move.
BTW we're not friends by any measure. But please continue with "one more thing".
And with every post you make , you dig yourself a deeper grave. I pay INCOME TAX on 85% of my Social Security benefits.
If you continue to look at project 25 as what’s leading this country right now, you’re about as gullible as they come. But you go ahead and keep it up. It’s really working for you pre-election you had a 46% approval rating and now it’s barely breaking 20. And you back men in women’s sports all your Congress people, except for two voted for that And apparently 90% of people don’t want to repatriate Maryland men LMAO back to this country yet your party backs that and making fools of themselves in the process.. your people on the left still haven’t even identified why you lost the election democracy did this they had elected Donald Trump they kept the house red they kept the Senate red. They kept the electoral college they won the popular vote and 85% of the counties in this country went redder. And you people still don’t get it
They lied about Biden’s health. They covered it up all your legacy media covered it up and now even your all your liberal pundits are coming clean. They lied about his mental acuity. And now they’re taking the side of the legal gang member well totally avoiding the mother of Rachael Moran who is beating brutally, cracked skull, raped and murdered and now their five children have no mother an ABC, NBC, and CBS refused to cover it the mother speech at all. She spoke from the White House and cnn and S NBC were covering a Trump speaking, but as soon as the mother came to the microphone, they cut her off and went to another story. Your party is now run by idiots if it’s being run at all, actually, it might be because I’ve been running into the ground and that’s not a good thing for America
I actually believe that the research site you go to our left-leaning organizations that won’t even tell you the truth all three of these lawsuits having to do with lies or defamation.
The fourth one is against CBS for 20 billion from Trump for editing a live interview with Kamala Harris two weeks before the election changing her words that she actually said first. Oooops
And you are correct did I say anything about Fox’s lawsuit? Did I say it was a phony lawsuit? Did I say it didn’t happen and why don’t you see how and why it happened. From Alternate sources not just one
The 41% in a living breathing example. IT doesn’t know or respect the history of our republic. IT still smarts from the fact that the pendulum ALWAYS swings back in the other direction…pushing IT back into the shadows where IT belongs
Bye bye - you look so much better in my rear view mirror.
PS by the way, maybe you didn’t identify it, but the swinging back is called Trump in the White House versus Biden. The swinging back can’t be more evident than that oops.
I guess in Vermont they don’t look at reality just poles I why don’t you look at every poll that it said, Kamala was gonna beat Trump. How do you people exist? And just so you know their Vermont girl you’ve got another 45 months before you can make a judgment you can make a judgment anytime you want if you wanna look like a fool, but that’s fine. It’s all in the results.
I love when everybody panicked when the market dropped two days in a row whatever everybody was oh my God oh my God, oh my God
To only have it back shortly thereafter my portfolio for example is down 1/2 of one percent For more beautiful years to deal with get with the program
Yep, if you can only stand the Truth keep digging. Your approval rating went from 47% down to 19. And it’s cratering more. You’re one of those who can either capable of avoiding the facts or living in your own little realm with TDS.
Finally, perhaps you want to give this a little thought. Someone asked me why the hell I was here. You call it poking the bear. Let me tell you what a different potential analysis could be.
It takes sand to make the pearl otherwise it’s just an average oyster
I’m throwing sand into this oyster disregard it at your own peril
Well, Martha, tell me why it’s not a success. And I’ll give you those successes once I hear your answer. I’ll give you 10 reasons for incredible success, even though it’s only the first 90 days.
I’ll give you a hint house that the most important thing to Americans in survey after survey after survey was illegal immigration. 11,000 illegals including many criminals, already captured on a DAILY basis were allowed to pass through into our country. Including Even as Trump has now proven, prisons and purposely sent by South American countries such as Venezuela, and today it’s only seventy a day.
This happened, despite the incredibly deceitful lies by Biden Mayorcas, and the border czar herself Kamala Harris. And you wonder why you lost an election.?
But I’ll await your definition of the lack of success in 90 days. This is after dealing with that with Mr. non compos mentis, that the left-wing legacy media allowed to go through as if he were sharp as a tack, and as mentally sharp as ever. And only now it’s coming out in droves, especially by liberal pundits
And I know I never hear from you, so since that’s the fact, I thought I’d provide this little ditty as well. To all the Trump and America haters here
Here’s one more post for the day and I’m gonna pass this around on another post because this is another thread. On the day that the market went down, I don’t remember like 1700 points or more. And it wasn’t even in the top five Everybody here was thrilled. Everybody here was clapping, because Trump failed, and America failed and it was an indication of his ever declining popularity and direction for America. I just showed how hating and how much TDS runs through your bones here. The market has come back to almost the same point. It was after that drop AND NOT ONCE did Anybody here said oh my God things are getting better. Things are turning around the market is back. Do you know why we both know.Why.
The craziest thing was that idiot Walz was thrilled talking about the drop in the market when he didn’t realize that the Minnesota pension fund had 175 million shares of Tesla stock and it lost a quarter of $1 billion. All he cared about was the failure of Trump.
And America has been coming back gradually as I suggested it would, but nobody seem to have any patience all they have is anti-American rhetoric. And we have 45 more beautiful months to go and we won’t know how it happened how it ends until it’s over.
Just saw a Very interesting Poll from CNN. In April 2024 , 80% of Democrats said their congressional leadership would make the right choices and do the right thing. In April 2025 that number is 20%.
Well the voters are actually showing their wisdom. And from CNN of all places
I haven’t got any need for attention from anybody on these threads Least of all someone who doesn’t respond to a specific question? But if that’s what your imagination tells you no problem
I would just like to get a straight answer from somebody and unfortunately, when someone is right/correct, any answer they give is going to be incorrect, so people would rather not move forward and post a contrary opinion. Well, I’m Jewish, and although he was Jewish…. But from what I’ve read there is only one.
Again, what they call a non-response response as usual.
It has taken too long for too many Americans to realize what most readers of this newsletter already knew. That Trump was a cruel, lawless president in his first term and even worse in his second term. I know I should not feel this much anger towards my fellow Americans because they voted for this man…but I do.
No need to apologize…So many are doing their best, in any way they can, to move things in a healthier direction. How this happened is what needs to be examined and that’s a very long, deep fear based on how individuals identify as American and their differences…No strong, common identity…
Rhonda, I think that the examination of "how we got this way" lies in the foundation of our country. We stole the land of the Indigenous Peoples, and did our level best to exterminate them and their culture. We imported Blacks into chattel slavery and made our wealth on the backs of humans deemed to be inferior to white men of European descent. We refused the idea that women are equal to men.
I will never figure out why millions re-enlisted for a ticket in steerage on the Titanic a second time. A SECOND time. As though the first harrowing clusterfuck of incompetence, crowd size infatuation, vanity, vaccine denialism, demonizing refugees, kowtowing to Putin, groveling before Kim Jong-Un, wasn't enough. In my own little blue bubble I guess, but I never imagined America could possibly be that stupid. Something something about the price of eggs. Never mind the Nazi Madison Square Garden rallies, calling people "vermin", the absurdity of claiming Haitians are eating cats and dogs on TV while Kamala Harris and most people with brains roared with laughter.
Yet here we are. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. He intends to annex Canada, invade Panama, surrender Ukraine, invade Greenland, declare war on NATO. This cruel clique won't go down without fighting, gaslighting. They already flood MSNBC and CNN with their absurd, gaslighting Trump-is-fighting-for-you ads 24/7. It is very difficult to get people to leave a cult of their own free will. People will burn their own house down before admitting they've been conned by a snake-oil salesman. I am hoping it can be done without massive violence, but I fear what may lie ahead.
Though she didn't mean for it to be prophetic, Kellyanne Conway described what is happening when she spoke of alternate facts. tRump lives and functions in his own reality. Amazingly, he has convinced a cadre of believers that he is right. What will those remaining 1,361 days yield? Unless reality can again be acknowledged not much good will emerge in the future.
Except is not ALL LIES JL, and we all know that. Sure there are plenty of lies but some of his views are based on real problems. Immigration is my hot topic. Trumps view on immigration is actually based on fact most of the time. There ARE indeed over 10,000,000 people here illegally. To deny that fact is just being an idiot.
Do I agree with Trump's solution to the issue? Hell no, but to say it is a lie is absurd... for every Garcia who is being mistreated by ICE there are a thousand or more people who under current law SHOULD be deported if we don't fix the law. We focus on the "tough cases" because it let's us hide or ignore the reality of the easy ones.
Face it if we followed our current immigration laws correctly, maybe not 10,000,000 people but almost certainly 9,500,000 people would need to be deported. We would lose that huge labor base for jobs that most American citizens don't even want. Working in meat packing plants. Day laborers in the fields. People who clean our homes.
We need to fix this. Not the way Trump wants to but we can't ignore it either. And saying Trump only works on lies is just an ignorant way to let us once again turn away from the real problem.
The elephant in this room is $$$. It is impossible to manage immigration without funding, which the right has refused to provide. The preference it seems was to head ‘em up, move ‘em out outside the rule of law. They never expected the snatching of low hanging fruit to cause so much legal blowback and outrage. However they’re pretty good at closing their eyes to the waste of $30mil for each drone uselessly sacrificed against the Houthis and the limitless $47 golf budget.
We've tried and failed due to obstruction and filibustering by the gop.
A bipartisan immigration bill was defeated in the gop controlled House under Boehner's leadership when Obama was president in 2014.
And then again in 2024 the gop defeated an immigration bill their party negotiated with Democrats, a stunning turnaround less than 48 hours after it was released by ultra-conservative, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and blessed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even though the bill contained nearly everything the gop wanted.
As long as we are under the minority rule of the gop cult I doubt we'll fix anything much less immigration reform. Therein lies the "real problem" you refer to.
In hate to point this out but from 2009 until 2011 and then again from 2021 until 2023 Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. And Democrats failed to solve any of these problems we face today either. It's easy to blame the other side but it's not very productive to ignore your own failings too. The fact is most of the people running things aren't really trying to solve these problems they are trying to keep themselves in office. Maybe we do need to impose very strict rules about staying in Congress. I'm not a fan of term limits but maybe I'm wrong. Something needs to be fixed, that's pretty clear.
We’ll get a better crystal or Ouija board. The dems are FAMOUS OR PERHAPS INFAMOUS FOR PREDICTING ANYTHING correctly.
Especially climate change. Hoax of the century. Or Biden running for re-election.
dems had a great idea. Let’s pretend Biden is as sharp as a tack cause Pocahontas recently said he was fine….in fact he could actually stand on his own two feet. Omg. She actually said that. And let’s place a different non compos mentís candidate to replace him and throw 2 BILLION DOAARS IN THE TRASH.
When are we going to talk about the existential threat the Trump regime presents to the environment and to environmental safeguards? If we don't have a habitable planet, NOBODY is going to have a viable economy. This issue was almost never even mentioned during the 2024 election, and it also seems to be getting omitted from most polls, either by oversight or by design.
12th of Never, Talia. All the immediate stuff that is filling the news is shiny and new, but we are destroying our only home at an ever increasing rate.
I think many people miss an important point about Trump's unique genius. For example, he is anxious to let Putin simply have everything he wants because Trump knows as soon as Hitler took Poland, that's all he wanted and the world was at peace again.
Trump subscribes to the Reagan, rugged individual American frame. In another example, when Trump bought casinos or started other businesses, eventually the only one left at the bankrupt business was the criminal-elect himself. Alone. Perhaps scarred, but riding off into the sunset (leaving a wake of unpaid union and non-union workers behind).
Reagan told us how bad government was. "I'm with the government and I'm here to help" was one of the hilarious frames created by the co-star to Bonzo and prior to the criminal-elect, arguably the worst President of the 20th Century. Reagan demonstrated just how bad government could be by shifting the cost of higher education to students and their families, weakening labor unions, and shifting wealth from the middle class to his wealthy donors and friends.
Also, I take offense at the statement "the dog has caught the car." My dog is smart, loving, has empathy, and can chase her ball. The only thing she has in common with the criminal-elect is her love of Burger King -or really just about any food. Ask her if she wants a cookie and she lights up faster than Trump selling crypto, $400 "gold" tennis shoes, or violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution.
One part of today's LFAA, Steve Bannon warning on the use of data, I seem to recall his involvement in the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal in which people's social data was used in the criminal-elect's rise to power in 2016 and Brexit.
RFK Jr. is doing all he can to make Social Security great again by speeding the deaths of the American population. Since you don't reach full retirement until age 67 (and I'm certain the GOP would like to push that to 70, 72, or 75), the sooner you die, the faster your own investment in the Social Security system can go back into the pool. Dying faster, from the GOP perspective, is far better than the alternative -making all people pay the same percentage into the fund -including wealthy GOP donors to strengthen the system.
And people seem to be hyper-critical of Pete "Warfighter" Hegseth. Criticize if you wish, however I (along with many of our Foreign adversaries) appreciate the new DoD transparency. While it may endanger some pilots and frontline military personnel -they are so unimportant they don't even have their own Make Up studio like Pete has.
And finally, you seem to think the criminal-elect is not winning the unilaterally declared tariff war. People seem to think he doesn't know what he's doing. He has the element of surprise here. No one knows what he'll do next. And global markets and economies are reacting to his every word. He says "tariff" and the market drops 1,000 points. He says "no tariff" and the market skyrockets 1,000 points. It's a good thing people like Pam "Bribe Me" Barbie Bondi are paying attention and making sure no one is profiting from those extreme market swings.
"Reagan demonstrated just how bad government could be by shifting the cost of higher education to students and their families, weakening labor unions, and shifting wealth from the middle class to his wealthy donors and friends."
If government is so bad, and it's a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose to blame for that? Borrowing from Churchill, democracy is the worst form of government, except for known alternatives. Plutocracy is definitely worse for the preponderance of society. Feudalism sucked.
Use this spreadsheet to call/email/write any of our representatives as often as possible. Not just your own state reps, reach out to those in other states. Be as loud as you can and share this. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
No, not a cowboy. The archetypal American cowboy is a loner but never a control freak. I think "mob boss" is the stereotype you're looking for. Someone who operates outside societal norms and wins through intimidation.
In the coming years, Trump, and a not insignificant portion of Americans will learn that American greatness over the past few decades as China and Russia entered the global economy, was based on, as you note, our alliances and partnerships. Win win actually works.
We will all learn that the US terms of trade were very slanted in our direction at the end of 2024 and, like Britain post Brexit, renegotiations will lead to worse terms. Don Jr.'s talk about ensuring nobody would work for the President who thought they knew better than his father rings in my ears daily.
On our alliances, here's a great interview with William Burns noting all these matters and more (you even get to hear Chuck Hagel admit he's drinking more these days since the administration changed).
ps a through line in all things Trump is the mendacity, from non-existent Trade negotiations to his dealing with the courts on immigrants...it's so corrosive to civic life
Dr. Fiona Hill has a most interesting perspective on Trump and Putin which is worth a listen as the Ukraine negotiations go from bad to worse.
What if Trump is not so much a Russian stooge as a man-child lost in the 80s who wants to win a Nobel Peace Prize. He'll sacrifice the UN charter based world order, and Ukraine, to get an award.
I just listened to the entire interview. Thank you for posting this! Take aways: Russia is already implementing another world war: hostage taking, assassinations, poisonings, tampering with cable and gas lines; Europe is really under siege and has been for a long time. The US has been navigating toward a Russia-like society for some time, and with Trump at the helm, and his focus on disunity, disruption etc., we will be hemorrhaging freedoms; Trump will maim us for life. (I enjoyed hearing about the sarcasm Putin enjoys thrusting at Trump, who is too fucking stupid to realize that what Trump thinks as flattery is actually mockery, taunting and sarcasm; people discuss the relationship like a teenage romance.) You all must listen to this. There's much more than I can post.
Thank you, David. Fiona Hill is brilliant and sees the incredible complexity of the world. Can you imagine how it must be for her to continually process all this?
I can sense her frustration for sure. She spends decades becoming a Russia expert and then the Donald shows up.
If you have the time you might want to check out this interview of Military Strategist, Sarah Paine. Like Dr. Hill, she's a woman who had to work harder than the men and it shows. Her frustration is also very apparent.
Nither Carter nor Clinton. Negotiating on social media somethig as important as a peace deal might be a teenager way to be on the spot but I don't think teenagers are that stupid.
Heather early on here says "those same people talking about individualism to secure votes also knew that the world has never worked this way."
I'm not sure the fat orange felon in the White House at all understands how the world really needs alliances, and government programs to help all, other programs progressively to tax those more few more comfortable, still others with regulations to guard against, rein in the predators.
That convicted criminal in the White House, I think, really just imagines himself special, super. His fantasies let him hold in contempt all those government workers, all those people cooperating with each other. He has led a life of crime, a life of easy rape, a scenario with himself as the one entertainer craved by all to entertain all, to keep himself in the center of all spectacle -- even just with all the lies he spews, the insanities he's somehow led himself to believe (tariffs, good? Putin and the other mass murderers better?).
And that entire Republican party. Possible for it to be so craven, so cynical as it seems now long to have become?
He fancies himself a king or dictator unconstrained by law. The closest example to absolute monarch I can think of is Vajiralongkorn of Thailand, who seems to be one of the absolutist Thai monarchs of the past. Even George III was a constitutional monarch unable to act without the advice and consent of Parliament, and he signed the laws his ministers brought before him, even the acts that led Americans to revolt.
After that, though, where to begin? I'm overwhelmed.
It's a circus of mindless ineptitude and hubris being played out by a group of "rugged cowboy individualists" with Guilty Donald & his mentor Vladdy at the head. Each one is making unilateral decisions and wrecking (and then plundering) the tools of our society. Saki once wrote about a painter who composed a piece titled "Barbary Apes wrecking a drawing room". He was a very foresighted author.
Thanks, Heather! Friends: there’s something you can do today from ANYWHERE. Judge Allison Riggs (D) won the NC Supreme Court race this fall. Her opponent is trying to overturn the election by throwing out thousands of votes. Judge Riggs and allies are giving an update tonight on what YOU can do to help make.sure these folks’ votes count. Info to sign up:
Thank you for your detailed accounting of the destruction of our democracy, Heather.
From Alt National Park Service today…
…DOGE was never about saving Americans money. It was about gaining access to your data and building a weaponized political machine to use against the public.
Why is Elon still allowed to freely access data in every government system and then arbitrarily fire whoever he wants to?
He fired air traffic controllers that he deemed to be DEI hires further crippling this already understaffed department. And he is forcing his Starlink and other AI systems into several government agencies without a clue of the functions their staff performs.
And Bondi sits by and does nothing but look for ways to prosecute Democrats who try to stop Trump from crippling our government.
GOP Congress people are silent and complicit -- Elizabeth Warren said they won't even look her in the eye -- she said they know what's up and they know it's wrong but they've lost their integrity and have no fidelity to the oath they took.
And THIS is what needs to be amplified from now til the next election!!
Yes, but the media is not covering this or the marches well.
Marcella, it seems our media is scared of their shadow, so let a toddler-man's threats keep them from doing their jobs. They fire anyone who would tell the truth as in "60 Minutes, the Washington Post" and the rest. Even NPR, the current target of Trump's Folly has done everything it can to normalize Trump in the past decade. We are going to need media that do stand for truth and can get it out more loudly than the right-wing authoritarians who are bent on wrecking this nation (for their own gains, of course).
That is why Substack and YouTube journalists are so important!
It's vital that we subscribe to them--paid subscriptions if we can, free if nothing else.
It's an internet driven society and our tasks of helping drive the postitive and truthful messages up in the computer algorithm cannot be minimized.
Yes, both NPR & PBS have tried to normalize trump over the past 10 or so years, at least. They also tried to smother Bernie's campaign while he was running for President, when polls showed he could beat trump. For this long time follower of both news sources, its been profoundly disappointing. One of the reasons we have had to deal with trump at all has been all the support of a compliant media, including the major newspapers as well.
Ruth, as Miselle points out below, many of us get our news from online sources as do other people. We do watch local TV news and forgo the national news unless we want to see the lead story for some reason.
The Contrarian is a solid online news source re: current political & world events. Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen created it.
Not yet, but both are being covered here and in other places on Substack and by The Guardian, The Contrarian, States Newsroom, and other non-legacy media that are steadily gaining audience by presenting reality as it is rather than as it generates clicks.
Fortunately, reality has a liberal bias. (Don't forget MeidasTouch)
I am heartened by the Local media coverage of the "empty seat" town halls (and the fewer ones with actual Repos,) and of the marches, often using photos and video from the participants themselves. Support your local news! That coverage is then amalgamated on sm and percolates up to the msm (to MSNBC and CNN and a couple others, and then even to Fox, which tries to frame it as "illegal" but is spreading the word lol) MEANWHILE the strategy of protests scattered across the country (not to mention Bernie and AOC's successful tour against the Oligarchs) is impacting all these smaller towns and cities Directly, IRL. Is that a tingle of hope I feel deep inside my heart?
Elizabeth Warren is right. Look at Pete Hegseth. Overseeing the largest military in the world is a critical job that requires knowledge, experience and expertise. It is in those ways similar to doing open heart surgery. I wonder how many of Elizabeth's GOP colleagues who approved Hegseth for Secretary of Defense would approve of him to do their own open heart surgery if ever they needed it. His credentials for that job would be every bit as good as they are for his present job!
"Instead, he is surrounded by those who appear convinced that displays of dominance will make the U.S. even stronger than it was when Trump took office and that destroying the government will free up great men to reorder society."
I don't know if I should laugh or cry....
Probably both. That is Trump's idea of how to "Make America Great Again" that is failing miserably. It is a worthy goal, but there is a much better way to do it. Tell Congress to impeach Trump!
They never had any integrity to begin with.
While not true of all, it is true of too many, as verified by aware Democrats calling for entrenched Senator Charles Schumer to step aside because they perceive the damage wrought by his and his fellow partisan "moderates" attempts to appease a power-crazed ruling class of wealthy benefactors through disastrous complicity with their chosen "cowboys." We are NOT acting in a movie steeped in the mythical dualism of evil and innocence distinguished by those wearing black and white Stetsons or partisan affiliations.
Bench your strongest and best players and let the newbies play the game and see at the end of the day if the government is shut down or running.
The strongest and best players like Bernie Sanders, AOC, Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and others are out there doing the job and, at the end of the day, will get it done despite the roadblocks put up by Schumer, intentional or otherwise. BTW, there are no "newbies" in that group.
Who are our strongest and best players?
Just to clarify Ed, I was thinking only republican and a few democrats into that bag of no integrity people. Thanks for your reply 👍
You may be right but I have no idea what you mean.
Please let me out of this circle jerk . My arm is tired and nothing is happening.
BREAKING:
"20 Year old man "Cristian" has been ordered returned to the U.S.A. from CECOT!
Per Reuters 4/24/25 4:39 PM yesterday afternoon a 2nd disappeared Maryland man has been ordered returned by Maryland Judge STEPHANIE GALLAGHER.
The Court is only using the 20 year old's first name "Cristian" whose status was the subject of a settlement agreement that Judge Gallagher herself confirmed in her MD court!
UPDATE "The Baltimore Banner" Friday 4/25/25 at 5:03 AM Eastern:
"Senator Van Hollen is a work horse."
"Paging Senator Van Hollen, you have an urgent phone call" 🙏.
****************************************************************
Maybe they’ll start thinking about their “oath” when they notice trump’s poll numbers going down.
We need more Don Bacon's. https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-protestors-praise-don-bacon-for-criticism-of-defense-secretary/64556879
Feathers of Hope. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
We need Bacon to behave more like a general and less like a politician. Jerry started touting him as a possible part of the opposition from the inception of Feathers and Bacon has yet to validate that hope. He talks a good show, but votes the party line every time. He hasn't shown the abject cowardice that Joni Ernst has, but he hasn't helped much either.
I stil have hope... note the reaction of the protesors ..we need a full court press....and I'm grateful that he speaks out....so does Turner to a lesser extent.
Hegseth and Gabbard are gifts.....
I have a great deal of hope, and we'll take everything we can get. There's an Empty Chair Town Hall in MO-2 this afternoon and I'm hoping for an impressive turnout.
Kudos to Bacon for being a DOD hawk and a hater of Putin.
But where are the other Nebraska Senators and Congresscritters on Hogsbreath and Walsh? Joni Ernst is former military and voted for Hogsbreath. And so did Grassley, Deb Fisher and Pete Ricketts. As many of you recall Deb Fisher's white supremacist husband refused to shake Kamala's hand during the campaign last year.
laurie, of course they know. They could stop this nonsense very quickly by standing up as a group. Among other things they are afraid, but can't seem to get the idea that there is power in numbers. And they love their power and access to money as well.
Hakeem Jeffries needs to get a few R's on board to actually protect the country from trumps worst. And help protect them.
They can stay silent and cowering. But when this regime comes for them, there will be no one to save them. History will not be silent.
I believe that Laurie.
She won’t prosecute Muskrat for illegally stealing our data as she should. Eventually, she may find herself defending herself before the Florida Bar.
It will be a great day when Barbie Bondi gets her law license revoked!
Please don't insult Barbie (the doll). She's an accomplished woman and successful at many varied careers. 😊
Pam Bondi should be impeached, removed from office, indicted, tried, and disbarred.
Glenn Kirschner made an interesting statement recently. Licenses to practice law are issued by state bar associations only. No lawyer is licensed by the federal government. Even lawyers who work for the DOJ depend on their individual state licenses to practice law in Washington, DC.
Moreover, state bar associations do not need to wait for a referral to review an unethical lawyer's license for disbarment. There is an electronic network that alerts state bar associations to unethical behavior of their licensed attorneys, wherever they may be practicing.
Some of the nonsense Trump's DOJ lawyers are bringing into federal courts could cost them their licenses back home. Witness Rudy Giuliani.
Yes, but way after the fact.
True, but it's like house-cleaning or police work. Just because it always happens "after the fact" is no reason to stop doing it. Otherwise, we'd live in filth and squalor, or lawless anarchy.
That is interesting. Tantalizing in fact. Thx Dale
Thank you for your mention of this, Kathy. These days, and over the last 100 plus days, I have wondered where the American Bar Association is in all of this. Has it no power over Bondi? And over that of attorneys doing Trump's lawless bidding, within and outside of the administration? Perhaps the ABA is doing more than I realize, and may even have a part in the multiple lawsuits against the tumult of illegal acts against the American people.
They may well be waiting just long enough for Bondi to get enough rope to hang herself. Usually, that's how prosecutors work to make sure one is assuredly indicted.
The ABA is a voluntary organization and doesn’t license attorneys. They are licensed in their individual states. Bondi would be subject to disciplinary action before the Florida Bar, and ultimately if the Florida Bar establishes the necessary burden of proof in disciplinary hearings, she could be subject to hearing before the Supreme Court of Florida. Glenn Kirschner is correct in his description of how the disciplinary and licensing processes work. You have to seek admission to practice before the U.S. District Courts. The Southern District of Ohio made you take a test to distinguish Ohio and Federal civil procedure rules, but generally admission to Federal practice is easy. You would need it if you practiced bankruptcy law.
How kind of you to offer a detailed response, Kathy. This clarifies what was a curiosity, and frankly, judgmental on my part. Not the first time I’ve been one and the other, simultaneously, truth be told. Thank you for your explanation, and graciousness.
May you be a prophet, even if only on this statement.
Florida Bar sounds like a chewy sweet snack.
☺️ With Sunshine Soda!
I dunno, I went to a low-life dive bar. I kinda like the chewy sweet snack that sticks to everything.
🤣
🤣 Considering the state of that state, it's likely complicit with the status quo. I would not be at all shocked if that were so.
By then it might be too late Kathy.
Kathy, I hope so. Bondi is so bad that she should not be in any job having to do with enforcing the law. And I am truly disappointed in the secretary of labor from Oregon. I thought she would be do better, but she is already trying to put tape over her employee's mouths.
Right after the Republican President plants a gold plated knife in her back. I can't say I will have much sympathy for her.
Kathy. God willing she will be ousted.
Let hope there is a long line behind her just waiting for theirs, justice has taken a back seat thanks to the corruption , SC , and such as A.Cannon.
NAH! Florida loves Blond Bondi.
That's Bottle Blond Bondi to you!
Bottle blonde and Botox Bondi
🤣
And per Rachel Maddow, the convicted felon yesterday told Blondi Bondi (no offense to blondes) to investigate ActBlue's fundraising for Democrats, whether foreign money has come in to the organization. Meanwhile he is pushing his meme coin by offering dinner with the president and a VIP tour of the White House to the highest bidders, who can use untraceable bitcoin to purchase his product.
The difference is ActBlue is fundraising for all Democrats. Trump is fundraising for Trump. Trump is Grift.
Yes, Mary — that's clearly so, and the felon is using ActBlue as a smokescreen to cover his corruption.
It’s not laughable, it’s insane that they investigate Act Blue for outside money when cheeto has done that for his two elections (Russia and Hungary) to name a few!
Every accusation is a mirror reflection of trump's own crimes. That sounds like a trite saying but it has happened time after time.
Yep; projection.
He projects more than a movie projector.
Elon Musk bought and paid for Donald Trump's victory. Musk rampaging through government agencies works for Russell Vought's vision of government, and Trump's insatiable desire for revenge against thr mythical deep stat.
I unfortunately don’t have a source for this but it speaks to your point:
The most influential person most Americans have never even heard of—Russell Vought—is quietly running the show behind Trump’s aggressive push to fire career civil servants and shut down entire federal agencies. Vought’s roots run deep in the right-wing policy world: he previously served as vice president of Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, and later founded the Center for Renewing America, a group focused on advancing Christian nationalist policies and opposing progressive reforms. His policy vision is anything but moderate—he’s a key architect and co-author of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s sweeping blueprint to consolidate executive power, purge the civil service, and dismantle the very agencies that protect Americans’ rights, health, and environment.
As the main force behind Project 2025, Vought outlined plans to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees, making it easier to replace them with Trump loyalists and eliminate job protections. He’s advocated for slashing government funding, defunding agencies like the EPA, and halting critical regulations, all while casting civil servants as “villains” obstructing the conservative agenda. His section of the nearly 900-page Project 2025 document calls for an unprecedented concentration of power in the presidency, a move critics warn is constitutionally alarming and threatens the survival of democratic self-governance.
What Vought wants for America is a government remade in Trump’s image: smaller, more authoritarian, and driven by Christian nationalist ideals. He’s not just another bureaucrat—he’s the chief strategist behind the mass firings and agency shutdowns, intent on gutting the federal government’s ability to serve ordinary people. For progressives and anyone concerned about democracy, Vought’s agenda is a direct assault on the foundational principles of public service, equality, and checks and balances.
They want to distract you from the fact it’s Trump and his minions that are creating a real deep state to perpetuate their own power.
Trump is drunk on money. 🤬
Vance and his MUSKrat lover are drunk on power. 😱
Bondi and Millier are drunk on malice. 😵
Hegseth is simply drunk. 🤢
Because Gary, we are still sitting about, treating and pontificating about this academically. You have to know for certain that what's left of the former republican party leadership is "not" going to do anything - unless they're forced to.
She is a Putin favorite
DOGE? Never heard of them, not here anyway. That was the story from Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the General Services Administration, when he was asked last month during an all-hands meeting with staff: Who from the GSA worked for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency? Wired reported yesterday tht DOGE is now infiltrating every government department and accessing databases (IRS, DHS and even voter records) to surveil and track immigrants and Heaven know what else, a master database that has nothing at all to do with eliminating fraud and abuse. Thus, the US Digital Service is now the US DOGE Service. All the gathered data will eventually be stored on servers owned by Palantir, Peter Thiel's company. There's been nothing like since The Blob.
Two of the greatest myths of 21st Century America. "Trump and Musk are good businessmen."
Trump is an abused child in a 78 year old body who negotiates on social media. "STOP Vlad!" Pathetic is being too kind. And the tariffs "adventure" is right out of "Idiocracy".
Musk is a Jack Welch on steroids after a lobotomy. Without billionaire buddies he would have been deported back to South Africa to work with his dad to bring back Apartheid.
Neither one of them know anything about efficiency. Both have acquired wealth through inheritance, masquerade, manipulation and intimidation. Smart enough to bully. Stupid enough to hurt millions if not billions of people and all manner of organic life on the planet.
Just one example of Musk's many atrocities:
https://www.muskwatch.com/p/musk-accused-of-polluting-impoverished
Musk did not create anything. He bought into Tesla and other entities. Tesla is tanking (Yay!!). Twitter is a polluted mess that has lost much of its value. He is hugely dependent on government contracts for revenue. His DOGE actions are aimed at increasing his personal wealth by putting his companies into spaces that he’s damaged, like air traffic control. This regime is doing such awful damage to this country so the greedy bastards can steal everything from the rest of us.
Sean Duffy is Transportation Secretary. Duffy is responsible for doing Musk's bidding. Duffy agrees with DEI harms to air traffic control and pilots. Like all Trump's Cabinet, they agreed to jobs carrying out Trump's orders. They agree with Trump and Project 2025 or they would not be in Trump's government.
The other things he’s doing are illegal and sneaky. One is to steal our private data to spy on Federal employees critical of Trump (which they can do outside of work and on their own without mentioning their employee status,) he has illegally accessed and stolen data without legal permission to do so. Trump does not have the authority to let Muskrat get this info. Federal employees can’t access data in general except for data necessary to do their jobs.
The people Muskrat engaged to do this haven’t passed background checks or been vetted to engage in stealing this info. They installed buggy and untested software onto Social Security’s website.
The second thing Muskrat wants to do is to find out confidential data on his competitors so he can get a leg up on them and take unfair advantage of his insider knowledge.
The third thing Muskrat is doing is to shut down or defang any agencies investigating him. USAID’s inspector general was investigating Muskrat for possibly turning off Ukraine’s Starlink satellites before two separate Russian attacks. CFPB would have authority to regulate the payment service he wants to start in conjunction with X. Muskrat has also tangled with the SEC over his X messages.
I personally have some suspicions that Muskrat’s Space X contracts contain clauses common to government contracts that forbid him from openly endorsing, funding or campaigning for a candidate, and he has breached his contracts. We don’t have public access to the contracts, but we should. Muskrat’s dubious contracts with the Russians and Chinese cause and his drug use have prevented him from receiving a security clearance for his own Spacex data. Muskrat is a huge bundle of blatant conflicts of interest. He’s also starting to get Trump’s other officials angry st him because of Muskrat’s own belief he’s the smartest guy in the room (not always) and his narcissism. Muskrat has had shouting matches with Peter Navarro and Scott Bessent. For once, I think Muskrat was correct on tariffs. We produce very few products here and contrary to what Trump and Navarro think, they are not going to encourage industries to return here. Trump managed to tank the economy and to give Xi Jinping the boost Xi never expected.
Bill, I saw that story reported in the Guardian a little while ago -
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/elon-musk-xai-memphis
A recent study looked at the increasingly high costs of these new data centres.
- https://epoch.ai/blog/trends-in-ai-supercomputers
It's not just energy demands, but water too to keep the servers from overheating -
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water
It's little wonder that tech billionaires want a de-regulated planning system to build these things and are relying on Trump to deliver.
I am beginning to think that AI is actually an oxymoron. How intelligent is it to pollute in order to find solutions to pollution? How smart is it to address the climate crisis by causing it?
If you believe commentators like Naomi Klein, the tech billionaires have long given up on trying to solve the climate crisis -
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk
As I have written before, ‘You’ and ‘we’ the commenters are a gift, ray of hope, gift in ‘reality’, not disguise, in thoughtful response to Heather…. Thank YOU
Wow! Thanks to investigative journalism! Everybody read and digest that level of self service of just one billionaire. Share muskwatch extensively…
Need to look carefully at Thiel (Vance’s backer) also. It’s racism running this crowd which is destructive to our constitution and our future on the planet—even to the planet itself.
Yes Jane. That's another publication by Judd Legum. Heather watches him too.
Musk Watch > Judd Legum is involved there.
Thank you for sharing this, it is horrifying!!!
I am concerned that they want to track everyone. I think this push to make us get the “RealId” is just another way they can track our movements inside the USA.
Real ID has been around for a long time, pushed off and off again due to public resistance and a product of the erosion of our freedoms since 9/11. That was the event that spurred Americans to freely relinquish their right to privacy when they didn't raise holy hell about the Patriot Act. I was extremely disappointed Obama didn't make an effort to touch it.
RealId……..REAL ID, A new Drivers License that proves who you really are. Kind of like having your proper papers once used in Germany during World War II.
My Florida driver’s license was due to be updated by January 1st this year. I got my first (restricted) Florida driver’s license at the age of 14 in 1959. The state now requires that I prove that I’m me. In order to do so, I was required to have a certified copy of my birth certificate, of my first marriage, of my divorce, and of my second marriage, two proofs that I live at my present address (moved to this house in 1994), and my social security number. A bit more of a hassle than a male faces. If you don’t have all of those certified copies, it can take time & money to acquire them. All these years (since I was 21, as the law was then) I voted just using my driver’s license, and no one questioned me. Seems a bit of overkill & hassle.
Real ID has always been discrimination against anyone who's changed their name for any reason. I've said that from the time it was introduced.
I have refused to do this. I have a passport and a passport card that I will use when flying domestically
I need a driver’s license here in Florida, so that would not be an option for me.
These are the requirements outlined in the yet-to-be-passed SAVE Act (a misnomer, of course). Nevertheless, a Real ID isn't sufficient to register to vote or update voter registration. Make it make sense!
Making sense would be the opposite of the point they're trying to make.
In order to register to vote in Florida, you must have either a valid and current Florida driver license, or Florida ID card, or last four digits of your social security number. When you go to vote, they ask for signature & photo ID. There are a list of acceptable photo & signature ID’s. The only one I have is my driver’s license.
😲
The modern autocrat's wet dream.
The Blob? That’s Donald Trump, right?
😂
Or The Borg (Remember "Resistance is Futile"? Turned out not to be true!).
Shout out to Star Trek TNG!! Who knew back when the original Star Trek TV show was on that it would become such an important part of our lexicon & society?
How and who can stop Peter Thiel from having all the data? Can he be called in by a court to explain this crime?
According to a report on Wired in February, there were eight lawsuits are related to DOGE’s alleged access to sensitive data that hinge on the Watergate-inspired Privacy Act of 1974 ( a later report on NBC news suggests that has risen to 11). One lawsuits describes DOGE's data acquisition as "the largest and most consequential data breach in US history". There are however a couple of vague exceptions to the restrictions imposed by the Act on data collection concerning the need for sharing to perform one's duties and also for 'routine use'. It's not clear whether DOGE could justify their activities under either exception. The ACLU is also suing the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs for some transparency about exactly what DOGE is doing.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/doge-lawsuits-11-cases-musk-group-focus-data-privacy-rcna191695
Was there ever a philosophical, data driven, thoughtful analysis and explanation of DOGE's and Trump's approach to governance? They continue to speak to us in obscure and incomprehensible language. Secrecy or unintelligibility abound.
No -- "willy nilly" is their method -- they didn't even bother to find out what the employees they fired actually did.
No, because you can’t. Obscure and in incomprehensible are their normal speaking styles. Oh, and bombast and bloviation.
Agreed. I have felt the same way about the actual mission of Musk. I worry about the back doors installed by the Muskrats, and where our information is going. Constant chaos to hide what is really going on. Makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I am not.
Your concerns are normal, not conspiracy based. Anyone who values privacy and worries about identity theft should feel the exact same way.
Yes, Thank you for the detailed reporting but nowhere are the others responsible mentioned. 2025 authors. tRump is their puppet as much as Reagan was their actor. The roots of the White Supremacy are deep in the current Republican Party.
Kari, you are right about the real aims of Musk and the rest of the toddlers. They should all be in jail, but somehow, we don't have a mechanism for imprisoning the folks who are the ones who have broken the law or rather laws. Money makes the difference. I guess it is easier to kidnap people off the streets and toss them away in private hellholes and toss young people in jail for doing drugs or something else just to survive than to put away the ones who are really doing harm to this nation and our people.
I hope I'm not the only one who finds it crazy that Steve Bannon in now the voice of reason within the admin with respect to protecting our personal and private data.
HCR writes: "Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told reporters on Tuesday that in order to conduct the study, the NIH is collecting Americans’ private medical records from federal and commercial databases, including from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service, medication records from pharmacies, and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers."
Does anyone know how the federal government can access commercial databases (like medication records from pharmacies) and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers? Wouldn't it be a huge HIPAA violation for a commercial pharmacy to share that information? And companies like Garmin or Apple....are they just giving up the data that our smartwatches track? I don't understand how the government/NIH can get their hands on this data without having permission from the private individuals themselves.
Makes sense. SCOTUS and Congress cannot match Executive Branch one on one base. But jointly, namely SCOTUS +Congress can stop Executive.
https://rickey125.substack.com/p/if-you-believe-that-then-i-have-a
I'm a slow reader so I love listening to people at up to 2x speed, especially with a good transcript. Even with my bad ears, one of my favorites is Michael Lewis telling some of the stories in his books as he appears on various podcasts in very contemporary discussions. The Fifth Risk, is great at showing what transition briefings became, with each President's teams seeming to do better each time. To me they preserved and passed on some of the hard won lessons as they learned as they went along, making it easier for those who followed , no matter which party was in power. Trump, as the Fifth Risk show ignored almost all of it, though Chris Christie had at least gotten a start on it before Trump fired him.
Michael Lewis is my hero, always worthy of attention.
Speaking of which, where is Christie these days? Anyone know?
Strange times we live in when I tend to trust the statements of the Chinese government more than I do the bool-sheet of my own. 🤔🤬🤢😵😱🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑
Oh my goodness…and so it begins! Arresting judges😢
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/25/us/trump-news?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20250425&instance_id=153307&nl=breaking-news®i_id=85848109&segment_id=196732&user_id=cf5fe02a5b6965ab0ee6a4f74a491c54&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Exactly. It was about access and power.
It’s time for the Republicans in congress to grow a spine. If a body as dominated by a corrupt ideology as the Supreme Court can do so, once they realized their authority was threatened, then congress can do so as well.
The issue is separation of powers.
Appealing to their collective sense of decency may be useless, but appealing to their collective need for power may reach enough of them to tip things in our favor.
Agreed, and "The computer was connected to the internet on an unsecured commercial line, making it highly susceptible to hacking". Very highly. Do they really want to ride this run-away clown car all the way over the cliff?
Does it matter, J L, what they might "want"?
Isn't the only Q, really: What does Putin want?
Yup, deal with the devil, don't be surprised when he puts you in hell. Did Trump REALLY think Putin was going to "play nice" just because Trump wanted him to?
Un-f'ing- believable.
Putin can probably see through Trump's weaknesses and narcissism, maybe even his mental deterioration.
I think he has from the start. I mean, the very start - the golden escalator start.
Anne-Louise, the very start predated the escalator ride by many years. It's a good bet that a file on Trump existed in Dmitry Medvedev's Kremlin long before Putin assumed the presidency in 2012, owing to the Trump Organization's longstanding relationships with Bratva-controlled businesses in the NYC metropolitan area.
Absolutely correct, Stephanie and Anne-Louise! tRump is not in Vladimir’s pocket, he’s simply being bypassed as easily as an upended orange traffic cone.
Way, way before that, methinks.
Stephanie,do you really think that Putin ''probably'' can see through trump's weakness, narcissism and mental fog. You can bet Vance's life that Putin can absolutely see through trump's everything and unfortunately winn.
No, Jon, methinks tRump’s “Vladimir, STOP!” simply provides the MAGAts a preface excuse to walk away from any Ukraine peace deal they claimed they would provide, an excuse they have been seeking since that shameful display of bullying Zelensky in the oval office. It is quite clear that even a wholesale capitulation of Ukraine’s territory already occupied and demand they not join NATO were not enough for Putin. He wants the whole thing.
Yes, I think he did.
Yes Jon, put yourself in the mind of a severe narcissist and you'll "think"everything and anything it's going to go your way regardless of what reality and common sense tells everybody else.
Yes, he can't answer a simple press question without wandering into how well things are going, and listing a few of them with invented statistics.
He thinks he owns the center of the universe and everything rotates around him. Poor guy.
Putin is likely seething over Trump's tepid scolding yesterday. Trump assured the world that he would end the war on Day 1 because of his finally tuned negotiating skills.
It's time for Trump to visit Putin and bow down to the master. If we're lucky Trump might trip and fall from a 10th floor window like so many others who dared to cross Putin. Or maybe Air Force One will mysteriously explode as he heads back to the US. It's happened to many Russian oligarchs and military commanders. I can see why Trump is afraid to meet Putin in Russia.
The old defenestration trick never fails. 🙀😳🤡
Nah, GJ Loft! Why would Putin seek to destroy the most successful force he’s ever manipulated to destroy the USA from within?!
Wait... you're not actually suggesting that Putin might be behind some of those airliners that have been blown up while carrying passengers that Putin was fighting? Really?
(Hand on chin like Jack Benny)
I can't believe it!
Why would he do a thing like that?
What is the world coming to?
😃 (not that it's funny... but it IS funny!)
I'm recalling the air crash that took out the erring head of Wagner...and whoever was unfortunate enough to be in the same plane.
Trump was asked yesterday what concessions the Russians had indicated they were prepared to make to secure peace with Ukraine. His answer: 'stopping the war, stopping taking over the whole country. That's a pretty big concession.' The Art of the Deal?
There speaks the master of The Deal.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/tony-schwartz-trumps-ghostwriter-says-writing-the-art-of-the-deal-is-the-greatest-regret-of-his-life/
This is an important read. It should be republished widely, front page like “have you no sense of decency” was. Glenn Kirschner is saying we have to tell republicans to cross the aisle and save democracy. It’s only been 100 days and HCR has given us a fantastic summary of the chaos and lies that even the brainwashed could understand.
more like the art of the steal...
Master-bater of the Deal.
Sorry I hope that didn't offend TOO many people. My sense of humor extends in the direction of the late George Carlin.
I just can't help it. It's the way my mother brought me up! :-)
It's a good job Trump university didn't offer a history course while it was up and running -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtgzVARrPu4
Thanks for the link, Russell.
I'd seen most of these bits over the past 10 years. Such an utter fool he has long been. I knew it. Many knew it. But tens of millions got the same idiot educations, took the same idiot tests, endured the same idiot corporate media, the same idiot -- but more conniving, more evilly intended social media billionaires.
The Art of Appeasement,
Exactly that Phil, to ride the clown car over the cliff, because he, Putin, knows exactly what would happen.
Yes J L, as irresponsibly toddlers, they want to ride this clown car over the cliff just to see what happens.
How and what will motivate Republicans? Until there are laws about integrity in social media. Until Fox and newsmax are held accountable we can’t expect lasting change
Aggregated public sentiment can exert a profound impact. Just wrecking things may be fun for some for a while, but then you have to live in the rubble.
Yes, most of us will have to live in the rubble. But the wealthy few will just step over the mess and walk away.
Once the majority of voters are living in the rubble…
Republicans in congress will lose all of their power to the executive if they don’t fight back. They don’t have to have good motives to reject the power grab.
Annabel, they might lose their power but not their jobs and the perks. All too important to them.
You know, Annabel, "Republicans in Congress" refers to something quite public.
"Republicans in congress," however, refers to something quite pubic.
🤣🤣🤣
Junior high brain LOVES it!!!
Sadly so....
In my frequent emails to my senators and representatives (all deep-Red GOP members), I’ve asked them that exact question: what purpose do you serve when you give up your role as a co-equal branch of government?!
they get a fat juicy salary and do nothing...
Wildly gracious benefits, inside trade tips to enrich themselves and corporate benefits, in short, they get rich.
Do you ever get a reply?
Just the standard boilerplate “thank you for contacting our office”. I did get added to my representative’s MAGA newsletter, though. 🤦🏼♀️
They can't reply from under the bed.
Thank you for contacting your representatives. It can be discouraging in a deep red state, but important.
Courage
The separation of powers and placing the president above the law are two primary reasons the whole concept of the “unitary executive” is completely unconstitutional. It also presumes that Republicans will hold onto power forever.
That is the point. They can’t get the American people to like their policies so underhanded means are all they have.
If by power you are referring to reelection I completely agree.
I think John Roberts’ majority knew it started it’s own dissolution with the Trump vs US decision. Alito & the Thomases decline to join the meek theatrics & are betting on protection by the Christofascist broligarchy.
Loved the woman who said they are becoming invertebrates!
The males need to grow balls (Fat chance of that!)
Remember, Veronica, a few facts all in the same category (or, categories: two).
1) The convicted criminal at the top spends hours every morning caking layers of colored greasy oils onto his fat, fat pig's face. And more time waving, spraying, blow-drying, and combing/brushing whatever you call it on top of his fat, fat, pig's head.
2) Vance has to allot time, too, to his mascara treatments.
3 Hegseth needed to convert office space for himself at the Pentagon now reserved for make-up teams always on the ready to make him up for the screen time that is this narcissist's number one priority.
I'm not the first to note this: these anti-trans dudes all so heavily into drag. As, in a second category, Nancy Mace, Joni Ernst, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Gazpacho similarly all tilt to their own muscled-up testosterone world.
Showbiz owned by corporations collectively organized as malignant sociopaths id. fascist mafia state oligopolists produced the social conditioning that enabled the Musk Trump Vance (MTV) freakshow; T, V, & H with their daily, “I’m ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille” preparations & drama, & Elon (Leon) with his gender enhancing plastic surgeries. The tribal / cultural dynamic is essentially a death cult. <> An evidence sample: The Dylan movie - Rolling Stone is PG. We saw it in a big chain theatre. What normally is 10 to 15 minutes of previews was 35 f’ing minutes of intensely loud, & long clips of intensely brutal violence. We paid to see a nice movie but were extorted into a choice of leaving or bear the extra cost of their depravity. The whole racket is owned by sickos. We need more opportunities for people to do things in nature, face to face working on & creating mutually beneficial projects. It goes back to the
old saying: Think global. Act local.
True, and well said. Thanks
Slugs ain't got no spines to grow (no offense to slugs).
If only they'd go off to the garden and decimate the brussels sprouts...
I think only a shellacking in the midterms will wake that up. And we have a lot more pain to suffer before that happens.
If they don't wake up NOW a real midterm is unlikely. It will be Russian style "elections" from now on.
We have an advantage over Russians and many other countries in that our elections are run by the states and decentralized.
That is true NOW--but if the Regime is not checked, and soon, that could change. They are throwing out the constitution, page by page.
Fortunately they are a bunch of incompetents. Frankly I worry more about voter suppression within the states than anything the orange 🤡 might attempt.
The attacks on Ukraine will continue. The gutting of our government will continue. The Republicans' refusal to admit to being the cause of all this destruction will continue. The protests will continue. Until some divine intervention removes a whole lot of evil from the planet. Or we, the people, do.
I agree although I'm not sure God is on our side as she is watching us destroy our beautiful planet, James.
However, we sure can stop this shit. Here's a summary of what we already know works. Now is the time to run a full field press:
The gutting of the US government refers to the deliberate weakening or dismantling of federal institutions, the civil service, and the core pillars of American democracy. This process is currently being accelerated by coordinated efforts among political loyalists, ideological actors, and powerful private interests. To counteract this trend, a broad, multi-level response is required—one that involves citizens, civil society, lawmakers, media, and the private sector. Below are concrete strategies and actions to help stop the gutting of the US government.
1. Demand Accountability and Legal Action
• Track ongoing lawsuits and legal challenges to abuses of power. Support organizations such as the ACLU, Democracy Forward, and Protect Democracy, which are actively litigating against overreach and unlawful actions.
• Contact your representatives directly—calls and in-person questions at town halls are especially effective—to demand oversight and action against attempts to undermine government systems or concentrate power in unaccountable hands.
2. Protect Government Workers and Whistleblowers
• Advocate for stronger whistleblower protections at both federal and state levels to shield civil servants who expose wrongdoing.
• Support legal defense funds for government employees who are fired or retaliated against for upholding the law and ethical standards.
• Encourage documentation of abuses within agencies to ensure evidence is available for future accountability.
3. Strengthen Democratic Institutions and Safeguards
• Support reforms that protect the independence of the civil service and prevent politicization of federal agencies.
• Advocate for legislative reforms such as the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to secure free and fair elections and safeguard against manipulation or subversion.
• Push for ethics and anti-corruption laws, including transparency in political spending, public financing of campaigns, and restrictions on conflicts of interest for public officials.
4. Mobilize Civil Society and Build Broad Coalitions
• Join or support coalitions of pro-democracy actors, including advocacy groups, unions, faith organizations, and local civic associations, to create a united front against anti-democratic maneuvers.
• Volunteer with organizations defending civil rights, voting rights, and marginalized communities targeted by government overreach.
• Encourage the private sector, especially technology companies, to uphold democratic norms and resist capitulation to anti-democratic pressures.
5. Defend Rule of Law and Judicial Independence
• Insist on the impartiality and independence of the Justice Department and judiciary. Support policies that insulate these institutions from political interference.
• Demand oversight and transparency in judicial appointments and oppose efforts to pack courts with partisan loyalists.
6. Promote Transparency and Investigative Journalism
• Subscribe to and support independent news outlets that investigate government actions and expose corruption or abuses of power.
• Demand congressional investigations into undue private sector influence over public institutions, especially when it threatens national security or public welfare.
7. Engage at State and Local Levels
• Many pro-democracy reforms can be enacted at the state and local levels, such as independent redistricting commissions, expanded voting access, and local ethics laws.
• Participate in state and local elections, ballot initiatives, and public hearings to ensure democratic reforms are implemented from the ground up.
God tested us both in 2016 and 2024. We failed both tests. I wonder if we're ever going to get another do-over.
No, we didn't fail. Trump won the election by CHEATING. See the Vigilantes Inc video at gregpalast.com or look on Utube.
Please stop this nonsense. Even if there is even a shred of evidence that you are right, it makes no difference because that part of the show is over. You can't relitigate the 2024 election any more than Trump was able to relitigate the 2020 election.
Looking backwards, even if there is actually some truth there (which I highly doubt) it is just "pissing in the wind" as they say.
We need to look forward for concrete steps to salvage this democracy. There are no knights in shining armor coming to help us, we need to do the heavy lifting ourselves. Wasting time moaning about something that can't be changed is just that, a waste of time.
I agree, although I think the old standby tactics of voter suppression and purges were involved.
That's precisely why they use those tactics Kathy, they actually take voters off the voting process and they are well targeted. Sometimes 1% here or there makes a big difference.
YOU ARE SO RIGHT JON ROSEN!
We have failed to protect our Democracy. At the federal level it is gone.
If we are honest with ourselves we know now that everything has changed. We have TO OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE that we have a new Regime in place that does not believe in our constitution, the rule of law or any thing else but power and money. We have let Democracy silp through our fingers and our greatest fears are here NOW. We have to focus. We have to act now, We know what is coming,
Lou, How will you know what’s coming if you haven’t fully figured what has already happened? You must discover exactly what has been changed in order to put it right again. It is not enough to say “everything’s changed.” We need a map at least as clear and detailed as Project 2025 was, a “Road back to the future in 2027."
Jon Rosen, you miss the point entirely if you see discovering all the ways the vote was gerrymandered, suppressed, manipulated, discounted, rejected and ballot totaling distorted (enumerated?) is solely to relitigate the 2024 election. More to the point, how will you protect the NEXT election if you don’t have accurate information from the last election?? How do you avoid repeating history of you don’t have historical facts? THAT is what Heather Cox Richardson’s LFAA is all about!
Stop kidding yourselves and take responsibility for what you've done. Only then will you get a clear idea of the mess you're in. 77 million people voted for this clown and very few of those people appear to be regretting their decision (so far anyway). Amidst all the poor approval ratings that Trump has received recently (the worst of any president apart from, well, Trump himself first time around) his base support has remained unshakeable. Meanwhile, polling on the Democratic party, your only serious opposition, is tanking even worse than Trump. Trump is just an ugly manifestation of much deeper and more fundamental problems in American politics and society. When he's gone they will all still be there.
Well, there's half of the responsibility.
I sense God getting blamed for the damndest things here.
Well, she is pissed.
James, love the “she”! I always pray to Mother Father God.
Thank god I don't pray to any God! Lol!
Mother, father, sister, brother, its still rock and roll to me!
You guys need a new Constitution.
That may be true, Russell, but we sure as hell don't need the current crop of idiots trying to rewrite it. The original writers didn't think beyond 20 years into the future. Today's clowns can't think beyond day after tomorrow.
Agreed, Dale Rowett. and opening a constitutional convention at this point in time would be inviting the right wing extremist to take it over and create just exactly what they want—a christo-fascist unitary government.
No written Constitution is going to be perfect and to some extent you will always be dependent on the good faith of the politicians and the judges, but you need to end up with a living, breathing document. There's two ways that can be achieved: by a more enlightened jurisprudence concerned less with the text than with the principles underlying the text; or by making the document less resistant to change so that it reflects the needs of the day. Your Constitution has been amended only 27 times in 230 years and only five times since the 1950s. A Constitution should be generally respected and adhered to but should not be treated as lapidary.
Sorry Russell but I'm confused.
Do you think we have amended our Constitution enough or not enough in the past 75 years?
A highly amendable Constitution creates a risk of a society in constant flux, changeable (sometimes dangerously) on a moment's whim.
A resistant Constitution creates a risk of not being able to respond to real changing world conditions.
As you head towards extreme, both sides have problems.
The problem I see is that we are a polarized society and that is REAL. Maybe what we really need is a division (yeah I know, we tried that one before 😔 and it wasn't exactly a real winning solution, was it. )
Unfortunately I don't know if there is a real solution possible. My "techno geek" side says there HAS TO BE a solution. But my "humanities" side (there Phil, I said the word!) Thinks maybe in the modern world the problem is too intractable.
And at 74, I don't think I'll be around long enough to see the outcome. Which is sad of course, I wish I could.
Okay, Jon, let me put it like this. If I were tasked with writing a constitution for the UK I wouldn't start with the Magna Carta. Similarly, I don't think that you're going to amend your way out of the straitjacket that is your Constitution. There are simply too many imponderables. Here's some examples. Trump is pushing the boundaries of his Article 2 executive powers so that they override the supervision of the courts (his administration has just arrested a judge, FFS). His claims are based on the so-called Unitary Executive Theory which contradicts the separation of powers that underpins every democracy in the world. He's threatening your basic freedoms under the First Amendment. Nobody knows what the 2nd Amendment means for gun control because of the language it's couched in. It's by no means clear that either your Congress or your Supreme Court is going to resist Trump's authoritarian diktats (because that's what they are). Finally, try and get an answer to the question: 'what happens if Trump ignores court orders?' Constitutional lawyers and academics tell you that these are 'uncharted waters'. That answer ought to terrify any rational person who believes in the rule of law.
no shit, Sherlock!
It's not obvious to everyone, Bruce. The reverence that Americans attach to that sclerotic document still astonishes me. It's like the government and courts here in the UK depending on the Magna Carta. The legal doctrine known as 'Originalism' reminds me of nothing so much as biblical literalism. Although I'm not sure I'm altogether happy about this but Trump seems to share my disdain for your Constitution -
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/trump-constitution-oath-14th-amendment-rcna127049
VERY well enumerated and categorized bruce! Thank you!
The end of Trump cannot come soon enough, either by divine or human intervention.
Divine intervention, if such a thing actually exists is fine by me. Suggesting human intervention, however, is dangerous because none of us should want a society where we decide it is acceptable to violate laws to push our democracy in the direction we favor.
Because if we decide it is acceptable to do it, what makes it impossible for the opposition to say "well they did it, so we can too".
That is what the founding fathers of this country fought AGAINST and if we decide it is now okay to do that, this country is doomed. We may be doomed anyway, but if we are going down, I hope we don't sacrifice the principles that made us a unique country.
The rule of law.
Without that, nothing else matters..
Jon, I hate it when you're right. But of course you are. IF it was a suggestion. And there are people out there that would take it that way, and act upon it. And that's what I think you meant.
Well I'm glad you at least read my stuff LOL. I like to think that somehow we have come past the era when shooting people in the streets was considered a reasonable way to deal with problems. Although 300 million legal guns in this country suggests maybe we aren't there yet, sigh.
There is some faint hope that the legal system will find its way to remove the entire set of traitors in the government (that means, to me, every one of the congress critters who stood and applauded the orange menace in the well of the House, and the legion of toadies he has put in place to tear the government apart). We have the laws: now we need to find the courage to enforce them.
Not just the courage. We need to be in the majority. Which right now we are not. And maybe we need to reckon with the fact that half of our voting population doesn't agree with us and do they have s right to their opinions too? Or not?
Because if they don't, what do we have then? I left wing dictatorship? Is that any better than a right wing one? Maybe, but it has many of the same problems.
I agree that this country doesn't need that many guns. I've known some people that were far too obsessed with them. Still, if divine intervention were possible, I wouldn't mind if Andrew Jackson made an appearance in our time and challenged agent orange to a duel.
Agreed. Trump is making the assumption we would behave the way he does, which is incorrect.
How come we never get whataboutism concerning Equal Justice Under Law?
Sir James Vanderbilt Poel, please sign the general Strike if you haven’t. Needed3% of the population. All of us here, and all your family, friends, colleagues: generalstrikeus.com.
At first I dilly dallied thinking Oh oh. ‘They’ll come for me….or I’ll be on a list…. Or…’ I shocked myself with my fear. I went back in and signed up this time thinking rationally: take action! action action or you can pretend which would put me on the same puppet stage as the complicit wobblers.
Martial law is in the air. I predict that the beast and the White House will issue such an edict by summer.
That’s why it’s important that hegseth has failed to reshape the military to his liking. They wouldn’t do it. That gives civil society some time in which to act. The more people get involved in nonviolent public action, the sooner this tragic farce ends. All the varieties of nonviolent opposition matter. The public gatherings are a crucial support for the independent journalists, the lawsuits, the universities who are banding together, the nonprofits doing the same, the electeds.
Don't you think martial law would ignite the powderkeg?
Indeed. Since Repubs enable this madness and only a handful of Dems shout out about it, it’s going to take a massive public push. 47 and his cronies will not stop until the people stop him. I wish there was another way.
Our entire system needs a massive overhaul.
It might help if the existing system were used in the mean time, instead of destroyed outright.
Yep
Uh-huh.
Like dust in a grain silo with a match. Which is exactly what the Orange son of God wants. We want peaceful but complete resistance https://generalstrikeus.com/ tries to accomplish that, along with other resistance movements. We must operate within the rule of law, or Trump will have reason to set the military against us. A powder keg is the last thing we want. Constant, determined peaceful resistance to every one of their insane actions is the only way to prevent the use of the insurrection Act. In my view. Was what I meant with "Yep"
He is running out of other bad options.
They do not have the support to pull it off, or it would be happening. They are losing support in the polls and being opposed by the judiciary. If they go there without adequate power and support, they know the game will be up.
My opinion anyway…
I think that’s the plan too.
A combination of the divine and we, the people, would be ideal, James. I think we need that divine help.
Until Fox News and NewsMax are held accountable we could consistently see ourselves back in this situation of lies influencing voters. We have to change the root cause. Misinformation must end. Cable “news” and unlimited campaign contributions.
An Economist/YouGov poll found “Trump’s approval rating was –13, with 54% of Americans disapproving of the way he is handling the presidency and only 41% approving”.
How can 41% approve?
I agree. The des- and misinformation problem needs to be solved. I believe this is the reason for the 41% that still believe in the flat out lies and gaslighting.
Unfortunately it's not ALL "flat out lies and gaslighting".
For instance, there ARE over 10,000,000 people living in this county who are here illegally. That "Trump fact" is indeed a fact. Both Republican and Democratic administrative have ignored that "detail" for decades because no one wanted to take the draconian steps needed to fix it. Every administration just looked the other way and it got worse.
Personally I HATE Trump's "send 'em all home" approach because I think many if not most of those undocumented immigrants have helped our society. But that doesn't change the fact that under our current laws they are ALL breaking it and SHOULD ALL be sent out of the country. Otherwise, what is the purpose of a law which is just ignored?
So that Is a dilemma and to say this is all caused by Trump is nonsense. Trump is just trying to solve the problem although he is turning it into a shitshow because of his ineptitude.
How do we solve it? The only solution that makes ANY sense to me is to end our current policy of limiting immigration and extend open borders to all who aren't criminals in their own countries. Those people who are here illegally but who uphold our laws and work and pay taxes can and should stay. ALL of them. Including people who aren't here yet. Eliminate most of ICE which would solve another huge problem.
You can NOT say "we can't do that!" and yet not agree with Trump's desire to send them all back because that is the height of hypocrisy.
If the law says they should be deported, then they should be deported, otherwise the law means nothing. And then, whether it's Trump who imposes it or we ourselves, we no longer have a democracy. The only solution I can see is to change the law. Another 10 or more years of just turning our back on the problem will only make our country worse.
Jon,
I believe you’re right. As long as it takes up to 20 years for a Mexican immigrant to get legal immigrant status (unless his future employer gets an application in the green card “lottery”), we will have illegal Mexican immigrants.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-typical-timeline-for-a-Mexican-citizen-to-obtain-a-green-card-Are-there-any-alternative-methods-to-expedite-this-process
That's why I actively support elimination of restrictions of working in the US for anyone except a known criminal (for other than immigration "crimes"). If you are here to work, we should welcome that. We are the third largest country in the world, we certainly have an economy capable of dealing with it. In fact we obviously due because otherwise a lot of those here illegally wouldn't be.
Sure there are a few people who come here to take advantage of our laws supporting indigent, etc.
But most come here to work.
The real issue is Congresses unwilling to put on big-boy pants and do their jobs (as usual). For decades congress just wanted to beat the other party with the issue—it was so provocative! Congress has the power to make immigration laws and procedures and refuses to do so. This is on them.
Congress has made laws over and over again. It doesn't matter. This isn't a legal problem, its a cultural one. We want the benefits of people being here to do jobs that many of us wouldn't want but we aren't willing to pay the political price to actually do it right.
I wish it were somehow different but it isn't.
How about an amnesty? Give them time to make the necessary applications (a year?)
Amnesty, the dread word that Ronald Reagan used against Democrats when he didn’t like their approach to immigration..
The problem is that we've done that before (several times in fact) and then we go right back and it starts all over again. The FACT is (I believe) that we have one of the largest and (so far) strongest economies in the world and people want to be here. So one-time amnesties do not solve the problem.
The reality is that our country deep down really WANTS the people to come here and work, we just don't want to actually have to see them or deal with them. It's part of our racist nature that goes back several hundred years (not everyone of course but culturally it is true).
We've done this with Chinese laborers, European laborers, Jewish merchants, Indian academics, over and over, just different people each time.
Now it's Mexicans and South Americans. The origination points and skin colors change, but the song remains the same.
I just think it's time to own up to this bias we have and at least legally try to put an end to it. I can't see any other real path to an effective solution.
Because we are fed illusions or comforting myths or diverted by spectacle. Despite the valiant efforts of the New York Times and PBS Newshour, NPR, and others, who practice good journalism, our standards have been lowered, when entities such as Newsmax, Christian Networks, and other severely right wing media are considered bona fide newscasts, and who only serve the powerful, not providing the public with objective news.
Reliable public information sources struggle because the rules regulating broadcast media were repealed in 1987 (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fairness-Doctrine).
Plus the rise of social media created a chaotic information environment. There are still journalists and news analyists doing good work (Thanks Heather!). It's just harder for most people to discern where to find them. If they are even interested.
One, has to wonder if some are "just" saying that they believe the flat out lies and gaslighting. The point. A reason is needed. Whether it's the real reason or not?
I like the Welsh proposal about telling the truth. Lies and "alternative facts" cannot be permitted. Even to allow FOX to call itself news is misleading. For whatever reason, some people continue to believe the lie even when they have been told it's a lie.
Well the problem there of course is our historical view of "free press". It will be hard to implement an approach that lets one side determine what the other side can say. Because one person's truth is another person's canard. Yes there are probably "absolute truths" in there but most of it is less about "absolutes" and more about "opinions". We no longer have much tolerance at all for other people's opinions and I believe that is true in both sides not just "theirs".
I know a bunch of people will jump in here and say "but it's not US, we do respect others, it's just THEY don't" and all I can say is LISTEN TO YOURSELVES!
And this is coming from a die hard left wing "American commie" (me) who marched in Washington in 1969 and put up the fight against right wing politics for years.
I guess it's my old age but I think we All Need to TRY to respect EVERYONE'S views (and yes our opposition needs to do the same) because as long as we keep yelling at each other, we are not ever going to fix this.
Sigh...
One good thing about Bill Maher's show is he is willing to talk to those with opposing views. You can criticize his visit with Trump but I think he was right to go. We will not make progress towards healing our great divide unless we are willing to talk to each other with civility.
The problem with Trump of course is that HE treats NO ONE with "civility". He either fawns over somebody with fake obsequiousness or he taunts them and calls them bizarre names. With some people he starts out one way and then shifts. Half of his cabinet was ridiculed by him publicly (for instance Rubio as "little Marco" is now his Secretary of State).
Trump is just grotesque.
Sandra, if no were for the chronic stupidity of a huge part of the American voters, trump's approval would be 1%, exactly the percentage of super rich people getting all the benefits including part of his family. Unfortunately there's no cure for stupidity.
Well Sandra, you wanna know that MSNBC CBS and CNN have all been fined OR SUED for lies and defamation on their website including their heroes Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and I always forget the last lady the blonde just got fined substantially and lost three cases and now a fourth posted by Trump a $20 billion lawsuit for CBS for lying and editing a live Interview by Kamala Harris just weeks before the election THAT IS MY UNDERSTANDING
By the way for those of you gullible that live by polls good luck to you Kamala Harris was supposed to be Donald Trump and all the polls. Oooops.
It’s better to live in reality. Try that.
AND BY THE WAY, IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR HEATHER TO TALK ABOUT WHERE THE HELL WAS OBAMA WHEN RUSSIA TOOK CRIMEA / UKRAINE, WHERE THE HELL WAS BIDEN WHEN RUSSIA TOOK PARTS OF UKRAINE? Oooops
Your unsubstantiated claim that "MSNBC CBS and CNN have all been fined OR SUED for lies and defamation" is another lie among many. You've learned your gaslighting lessons well from the orange convict who's was convicted by the unanimous verdicts of 6 juries which included his supporters. "It's better to live in reality. Try that."
In fact Fox/Murdoch was not just sued but was convicted and fined 3/4 of a billion dollars for lying.
In fact Smartmatic has settled a lawsuit accusing right-wing television network One America News of defamation by falsely claiming that the voting technology company rigged the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
In fact A Delaware judge has found that Newsmax, a conservative news outlet, broadcast false and defamatory claims about the role Dominion, a voting technology company, played in the 2020 presidential election.
The list goes on. And yet here you are spreading the Fox/Murdoch/convict's propaganda against all evidence to the contrary. Despite the fact that you seem to have an overblown sense of self importance, you and your ilk have no credibility at this late date.
And by the way, I don’t believe a thing that comes out of Trump’s mouth, but you obviously haven’t been listening to my posts in the past
I don’t like him I don’t like his lack of tact. I don’t like some of his insults, although some people need to be insulted I like everything that comes out of his pen. And intelligent people should be able to separate the two based on the long serving parable. Do not watch what people say watch what they do
Or actions speak louder than words. And I had to laugh and laugh and laugh all 77 million of us have more credibility than the 75 million of you based on everything I’ve said and everything I’ve told the lady below and you wonder why your approval rating is 20% and you think you have any credibility whatsoever. You, my friend, need a mirror and an antidote for TDS big time in my opinion
And one more thing about you guys you are great at avoiding the truth.
Put together a whole list of disclaimers against the post made above
If you keep this up, I’m telling you you will have Republicans in power for the next 12 years and that’s not a good thing for the country. The only reprieve you may have is every time one party is in total control of the presidency and both houses of Congress during the midterms that’s reversed… that my friend is why Trump as smart as he is, is moving to get these things done before hand. And he won’t have to worry about anything if he gets this beautiful bill passed and it includes no tax on Social Security no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. He will have 100 million votes in this next election. It’ll set a record.
And one more thing about you, you are great at avoiding the truth.
There will be no tax on SS because he will have done away with SS/Medicare/Medicaid according to plan. You obviously haven't gone to the trouble of reading Project 2025 which is the gop platform. I doubt he will have your 100 million votes after he accomplishes that smart, beautiful move.
BTW we're not friends by any measure. But please continue with "one more thing".
And with every post you make , you dig yourself a deeper grave. I pay INCOME TAX on 85% of my Social Security benefits.
If you continue to look at project 25 as what’s leading this country right now, you’re about as gullible as they come. But you go ahead and keep it up. It’s really working for you pre-election you had a 46% approval rating and now it’s barely breaking 20. And you back men in women’s sports all your Congress people, except for two voted for that And apparently 90% of people don’t want to repatriate Maryland men LMAO back to this country yet your party backs that and making fools of themselves in the process.. your people on the left still haven’t even identified why you lost the election democracy did this they had elected Donald Trump they kept the house red they kept the Senate red. They kept the electoral college they won the popular vote and 85% of the counties in this country went redder. And you people still don’t get it
They lied about Biden’s health. They covered it up all your legacy media covered it up and now even your all your liberal pundits are coming clean. They lied about his mental acuity. And now they’re taking the side of the legal gang member well totally avoiding the mother of Rachael Moran who is beating brutally, cracked skull, raped and murdered and now their five children have no mother an ABC, NBC, and CBS refused to cover it the mother speech at all. She spoke from the White House and cnn and S NBC were covering a Trump speaking, but as soon as the mother came to the microphone, they cut her off and went to another story. Your party is now run by idiots if it’s being run at all, actually, it might be because I’ve been running into the ground and that’s not a good thing for America
Here’s number one the other two are coming.
https://apnews.com/article/abc-trump-lawsuit-defamation-stephanopoulos-04aea8663310af39ae2a85f4c1a56d68
Here’s number two and they settled it. The suit was for 20 million I believe.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/nbc-defamation-settlement-georgia-doctor-finalized-court-following-msnbcs-uterus-collector-coverage
Here Is an alternate source
https://freebeacon.com/media/nbc-settles-defamation-lawsuit-with-georgia-doctor-whom-rachel-maddow-dubbed-the-uterus-collector-avoiding-high-stakes-trial/
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/21/nx-s1-5305268/nbc-settles-lawsuit-ice-doctor-msnbc-maddow-georgia-detainee#:~:text=The%20stories%20aired%20in%20September,multiple%20NBC%20statements%20are%20false.%22
And number three and wait till you see number four
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5251209/cnn-defamation-afghanistan-evacuations-black-market
I actually believe that the research site you go to our left-leaning organizations that won’t even tell you the truth all three of these lawsuits having to do with lies or defamation.
The fourth one is against CBS for 20 billion from Trump for editing a live interview with Kamala Harris two weeks before the election changing her words that she actually said first. Oooops
So tell me some more about these phony lawsuits
And you are correct did I say anything about Fox’s lawsuit? Did I say it was a phony lawsuit? Did I say it didn’t happen and why don’t you see how and why it happened. From Alternate sources not just one
4 more glorious years of whining liberal lemmings and successes of the Trump administration. Doesn’t get much better than this…..BUT IT WILL.
Ahhhh…there it is folks!
The 41% in a living breathing example. IT doesn’t know or respect the history of our republic. IT still smarts from the fact that the pendulum ALWAYS swings back in the other direction…pushing IT back into the shadows where IT belongs
Bye bye - you look so much better in my rear view mirror.
PS by the way, maybe you didn’t identify it, but the swinging back is called Trump in the White House versus Biden. The swinging back can’t be more evident than that oops.
I guess in Vermont they don’t look at reality just poles I why don’t you look at every poll that it said, Kamala was gonna beat Trump. How do you people exist? And just so you know their Vermont girl you’ve got another 45 months before you can make a judgment you can make a judgment anytime you want if you wanna look like a fool, but that’s fine. It’s all in the results.
I love when everybody panicked when the market dropped two days in a row whatever everybody was oh my God oh my God, oh my God
To only have it back shortly thereafter my portfolio for example is down 1/2 of one percent For more beautiful years to deal with get with the program
HAHAHAHA….poking the bear…it’s just so E A S Y
Yep, if you can only stand the Truth keep digging. Your approval rating went from 47% down to 19. And it’s cratering more. You’re one of those who can either capable of avoiding the facts or living in your own little realm with TDS.
Finally, perhaps you want to give this a little thought. Someone asked me why the hell I was here. You call it poking the bear. Let me tell you what a different potential analysis could be.
It takes sand to make the pearl otherwise it’s just an average oyster
I’m throwing sand into this oyster disregard it at your own peril
Interesting definition of success
Well, Martha, tell me why it’s not a success. And I’ll give you those successes once I hear your answer. I’ll give you 10 reasons for incredible success, even though it’s only the first 90 days.
I’ll give you a hint house that the most important thing to Americans in survey after survey after survey was illegal immigration. 11,000 illegals including many criminals, already captured on a DAILY basis were allowed to pass through into our country. Including Even as Trump has now proven, prisons and purposely sent by South American countries such as Venezuela, and today it’s only seventy a day.
This happened, despite the incredibly deceitful lies by Biden Mayorcas, and the border czar herself Kamala Harris. And you wonder why you lost an election.?
But I’ll await your definition of the lack of success in 90 days. This is after dealing with that with Mr. non compos mentis, that the left-wing legacy media allowed to go through as if he were sharp as a tack, and as mentally sharp as ever. And only now it’s coming out in droves, especially by liberal pundits
And I know I never hear from you, so since that’s the fact, I thought I’d provide this little ditty as well. To all the Trump and America haters here
Here’s one more post for the day and I’m gonna pass this around on another post because this is another thread. On the day that the market went down, I don’t remember like 1700 points or more. And it wasn’t even in the top five Everybody here was thrilled. Everybody here was clapping, because Trump failed, and America failed and it was an indication of his ever declining popularity and direction for America. I just showed how hating and how much TDS runs through your bones here. The market has come back to almost the same point. It was after that drop AND NOT ONCE did Anybody here said oh my God things are getting better. Things are turning around the market is back. Do you know why we both know.Why.
The craziest thing was that idiot Walz was thrilled talking about the drop in the market when he didn’t realize that the Minnesota pension fund had 175 million shares of Tesla stock and it lost a quarter of $1 billion. All he cared about was the failure of Trump.
And America has been coming back gradually as I suggested it would, but nobody seem to have any patience all they have is anti-American rhetoric. And we have 45 more beautiful months to go and we won’t know how it happened how it ends until it’s over.
I sense your need for attention
I define success as taking care of the least of these
But I have a different Jesus
Just saw a Very interesting Poll from CNN. In April 2024 , 80% of Democrats said their congressional leadership would make the right choices and do the right thing. In April 2025 that number is 20%.
Well the voters are actually showing their wisdom. And from CNN of all places
I haven’t got any need for attention from anybody on these threads Least of all someone who doesn’t respond to a specific question? But if that’s what your imagination tells you no problem
I would just like to get a straight answer from somebody and unfortunately, when someone is right/correct, any answer they give is going to be incorrect, so people would rather not move forward and post a contrary opinion. Well, I’m Jewish, and although he was Jewish…. But from what I’ve read there is only one.
Again, what they call a non-response response as usual.
It has taken too long for too many Americans to realize what most readers of this newsletter already knew. That Trump was a cruel, lawless president in his first term and even worse in his second term. I know I should not feel this much anger towards my fellow Americans because they voted for this man…but I do.
I do to…And i’m Canadian. Scared to the bone…
I feel a need to apologize to our Canadian neighbors and friends for this president.
No need to apologize…So many are doing their best, in any way they can, to move things in a healthier direction. How this happened is what needs to be examined and that’s a very long, deep fear based on how individuals identify as American and their differences…No strong, common identity…
Rhonda, I think that the examination of "how we got this way" lies in the foundation of our country. We stole the land of the Indigenous Peoples, and did our level best to exterminate them and their culture. We imported Blacks into chattel slavery and made our wealth on the backs of humans deemed to be inferior to white men of European descent. We refused the idea that women are equal to men.
I do as well. Who is Trump to assume he can violate Canadian or Greenland’s sovereignty? And of course Trump is busily wrecking our economy.
To Trump the globe is just real estate.
Phil, the anger I feel is that they STILL support him, to the tune of a 41% approval rating. That should be 0%.
I will never figure out why millions re-enlisted for a ticket in steerage on the Titanic a second time. A SECOND time. As though the first harrowing clusterfuck of incompetence, crowd size infatuation, vanity, vaccine denialism, demonizing refugees, kowtowing to Putin, groveling before Kim Jong-Un, wasn't enough. In my own little blue bubble I guess, but I never imagined America could possibly be that stupid. Something something about the price of eggs. Never mind the Nazi Madison Square Garden rallies, calling people "vermin", the absurdity of claiming Haitians are eating cats and dogs on TV while Kamala Harris and most people with brains roared with laughter.
Yet here we are. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. He intends to annex Canada, invade Panama, surrender Ukraine, invade Greenland, declare war on NATO. This cruel clique won't go down without fighting, gaslighting. They already flood MSNBC and CNN with their absurd, gaslighting Trump-is-fighting-for-you ads 24/7. It is very difficult to get people to leave a cult of their own free will. People will burn their own house down before admitting they've been conned by a snake-oil salesman. I am hoping it can be done without massive violence, but I fear what may lie ahead.
So glad I get your letter. I am a contributor because we need you. Thank you.
Though she didn't mean for it to be prophetic, Kellyanne Conway described what is happening when she spoke of alternate facts. tRump lives and functions in his own reality. Amazingly, he has convinced a cadre of believers that he is right. What will those remaining 1,361 days yield? Unless reality can again be acknowledged not much good will emerge in the future.
All lies all the time is surely getting old.
Except is not ALL LIES JL, and we all know that. Sure there are plenty of lies but some of his views are based on real problems. Immigration is my hot topic. Trumps view on immigration is actually based on fact most of the time. There ARE indeed over 10,000,000 people here illegally. To deny that fact is just being an idiot.
Do I agree with Trump's solution to the issue? Hell no, but to say it is a lie is absurd... for every Garcia who is being mistreated by ICE there are a thousand or more people who under current law SHOULD be deported if we don't fix the law. We focus on the "tough cases" because it let's us hide or ignore the reality of the easy ones.
Face it if we followed our current immigration laws correctly, maybe not 10,000,000 people but almost certainly 9,500,000 people would need to be deported. We would lose that huge labor base for jobs that most American citizens don't even want. Working in meat packing plants. Day laborers in the fields. People who clean our homes.
We need to fix this. Not the way Trump wants to but we can't ignore it either. And saying Trump only works on lies is just an ignorant way to let us once again turn away from the real problem.
I can’t think of one problem that we have today that repubs have not created or made worse. Not one
The elephant in this room is $$$. It is impossible to manage immigration without funding, which the right has refused to provide. The preference it seems was to head ‘em up, move ‘em out outside the rule of law. They never expected the snatching of low hanging fruit to cause so much legal blowback and outrage. However they’re pretty good at closing their eyes to the waste of $30mil for each drone uselessly sacrificed against the Houthis and the limitless $47 golf budget.
"We need to fix this."
We've tried and failed due to obstruction and filibustering by the gop.
A bipartisan immigration bill was defeated in the gop controlled House under Boehner's leadership when Obama was president in 2014.
And then again in 2024 the gop defeated an immigration bill their party negotiated with Democrats, a stunning turnaround less than 48 hours after it was released by ultra-conservative, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and blessed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even though the bill contained nearly everything the gop wanted.
As long as we are under the minority rule of the gop cult I doubt we'll fix anything much less immigration reform. Therein lies the "real problem" you refer to.
In hate to point this out but from 2009 until 2011 and then again from 2021 until 2023 Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. And Democrats failed to solve any of these problems we face today either. It's easy to blame the other side but it's not very productive to ignore your own failings too. The fact is most of the people running things aren't really trying to solve these problems they are trying to keep themselves in office. Maybe we do need to impose very strict rules about staying in Congress. I'm not a fan of term limits but maybe I'm wrong. Something needs to be fixed, that's pretty clear.
"Don't just stand there, do SOMETHING!"
But when these lies are told over and over again, sadly they become objective truth.
It was a deliberate ploy to create alternatives to truth. Deliberate and carefully planned…
We’ll get a better crystal or Ouija board. The dems are FAMOUS OR PERHAPS INFAMOUS FOR PREDICTING ANYTHING correctly.
Especially climate change. Hoax of the century. Or Biden running for re-election.
dems had a great idea. Let’s pretend Biden is as sharp as a tack cause Pocahontas recently said he was fine….in fact he could actually stand on his own two feet. Omg. She actually said that. And let’s place a different non compos mentís candidate to replace him and throw 2 BILLION DOAARS IN THE TRASH.
New nomaclature of the dems party. NIA-TDS PARTY
When are we going to talk about the existential threat the Trump regime presents to the environment and to environmental safeguards? If we don't have a habitable planet, NOBODY is going to have a viable economy. This issue was almost never even mentioned during the 2024 election, and it also seems to be getting omitted from most polls, either by oversight or by design.
12th of Never, Talia. All the immediate stuff that is filling the news is shiny and new, but we are destroying our only home at an ever increasing rate.
Thank you Professor Richardson.
I think many people miss an important point about Trump's unique genius. For example, he is anxious to let Putin simply have everything he wants because Trump knows as soon as Hitler took Poland, that's all he wanted and the world was at peace again.
Trump subscribes to the Reagan, rugged individual American frame. In another example, when Trump bought casinos or started other businesses, eventually the only one left at the bankrupt business was the criminal-elect himself. Alone. Perhaps scarred, but riding off into the sunset (leaving a wake of unpaid union and non-union workers behind).
Reagan told us how bad government was. "I'm with the government and I'm here to help" was one of the hilarious frames created by the co-star to Bonzo and prior to the criminal-elect, arguably the worst President of the 20th Century. Reagan demonstrated just how bad government could be by shifting the cost of higher education to students and their families, weakening labor unions, and shifting wealth from the middle class to his wealthy donors and friends.
Also, I take offense at the statement "the dog has caught the car." My dog is smart, loving, has empathy, and can chase her ball. The only thing she has in common with the criminal-elect is her love of Burger King -or really just about any food. Ask her if she wants a cookie and she lights up faster than Trump selling crypto, $400 "gold" tennis shoes, or violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution.
One part of today's LFAA, Steve Bannon warning on the use of data, I seem to recall his involvement in the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal in which people's social data was used in the criminal-elect's rise to power in 2016 and Brexit.
RFK Jr. is doing all he can to make Social Security great again by speeding the deaths of the American population. Since you don't reach full retirement until age 67 (and I'm certain the GOP would like to push that to 70, 72, or 75), the sooner you die, the faster your own investment in the Social Security system can go back into the pool. Dying faster, from the GOP perspective, is far better than the alternative -making all people pay the same percentage into the fund -including wealthy GOP donors to strengthen the system.
And people seem to be hyper-critical of Pete "Warfighter" Hegseth. Criticize if you wish, however I (along with many of our Foreign adversaries) appreciate the new DoD transparency. While it may endanger some pilots and frontline military personnel -they are so unimportant they don't even have their own Make Up studio like Pete has.
And finally, you seem to think the criminal-elect is not winning the unilaterally declared tariff war. People seem to think he doesn't know what he's doing. He has the element of surprise here. No one knows what he'll do next. And global markets and economies are reacting to his every word. He says "tariff" and the market drops 1,000 points. He says "no tariff" and the market skyrockets 1,000 points. It's a good thing people like Pam "Bribe Me" Barbie Bondi are paying attention and making sure no one is profiting from those extreme market swings.
Yours in service.
"Reagan demonstrated just how bad government could be by shifting the cost of higher education to students and their families, weakening labor unions, and shifting wealth from the middle class to his wealthy donors and friends."
If government is so bad, and it's a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose to blame for that? Borrowing from Churchill, democracy is the worst form of government, except for known alternatives. Plutocracy is definitely worse for the preponderance of society. Feudalism sucked.
Thank you JL. Reagan most certainly demonstrated the impact of government exclusively representing the interests of the wealthy.
Schmuppy! Puppy!
Woof! (don't tell Noem).
Keep being loud!
Use this spreadsheet to call/email/write any of our representatives as often as possible. Not just your own state reps, reach out to those in other states. Be as loud as you can and share this. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit
No, not a cowboy. The archetypal American cowboy is a loner but never a control freak. I think "mob boss" is the stereotype you're looking for. Someone who operates outside societal norms and wins through intimidation.
I also have a hard time picturing Trump that way. A cowboy from Queens? Don't think so...
Donnie reminds me more of Sonny Corleone with a dash of PT Barnum and Elmer Gantry thrown in for good measure. What a goon.
Talia, please see my reply to Tom Trent. HCR knows exactly what she is looking for.
In the coming years, Trump, and a not insignificant portion of Americans will learn that American greatness over the past few decades as China and Russia entered the global economy, was based on, as you note, our alliances and partnerships. Win win actually works.
We will all learn that the US terms of trade were very slanted in our direction at the end of 2024 and, like Britain post Brexit, renegotiations will lead to worse terms. Don Jr.'s talk about ensuring nobody would work for the President who thought they knew better than his father rings in my ears daily.
On our alliances, here's a great interview with William Burns noting all these matters and more (you even get to hear Chuck Hagel admit he's drinking more these days since the administration changed).
ps a through line in all things Trump is the mendacity, from non-existent Trade negotiations to his dealing with the courts on immigrants...it's so corrosive to civic life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG4ytxzjd6U&t=3s
Dr. Fiona Hill has a most interesting perspective on Trump and Putin which is worth a listen as the Ukraine negotiations go from bad to worse.
What if Trump is not so much a Russian stooge as a man-child lost in the 80s who wants to win a Nobel Peace Prize. He'll sacrifice the UN charter based world order, and Ukraine, to get an award.
https://youtu.be/GxfrJ5smAU8?si=oSept0-cc1W6poa3
I just listened to the entire interview. Thank you for posting this! Take aways: Russia is already implementing another world war: hostage taking, assassinations, poisonings, tampering with cable and gas lines; Europe is really under siege and has been for a long time. The US has been navigating toward a Russia-like society for some time, and with Trump at the helm, and his focus on disunity, disruption etc., we will be hemorrhaging freedoms; Trump will maim us for life. (I enjoyed hearing about the sarcasm Putin enjoys thrusting at Trump, who is too fucking stupid to realize that what Trump thinks as flattery is actually mockery, taunting and sarcasm; people discuss the relationship like a teenage romance.) You all must listen to this. There's much more than I can post.
Thank you, David. Fiona Hill is brilliant and sees the incredible complexity of the world. Can you imagine how it must be for her to continually process all this?
I can sense her frustration for sure. She spends decades becoming a Russia expert and then the Donald shows up.
If you have the time you might want to check out this interview of Military Strategist, Sarah Paine. Like Dr. Hill, she's a woman who had to work harder than the men and it shows. Her frustration is also very apparent.
https://youtu.be/QT3hoxOwtgQ?si=4wq0gkhwAfoA1XfR
Just another reminder of the costs of breaking trade agreements. "UK must pay to join EU defence fund"
Will NATO, if it survives, charge us if we wish to rejoin after Trump?
https://www.ft.com/content/08a57b8f-2965-41c9-b39e-3cdb9723786c
WHAT, YOU LOST PUTINS TELEPHONE NUMBER?
““Vladimir, STOP!” wrote President Donald Trump on his social media site this morning.”
Trump, STOP! You are a joke at this time. Social Media to negotiate Peace? Is that how Carter or Clinton would have done it?
Nither Carter nor Clinton. Negotiating on social media somethig as important as a peace deal might be a teenager way to be on the spot but I don't think teenagers are that stupid.
I wonder.
Heather early on here says "those same people talking about individualism to secure votes also knew that the world has never worked this way."
I'm not sure the fat orange felon in the White House at all understands how the world really needs alliances, and government programs to help all, other programs progressively to tax those more few more comfortable, still others with regulations to guard against, rein in the predators.
That convicted criminal in the White House, I think, really just imagines himself special, super. His fantasies let him hold in contempt all those government workers, all those people cooperating with each other. He has led a life of crime, a life of easy rape, a scenario with himself as the one entertainer craved by all to entertain all, to keep himself in the center of all spectacle -- even just with all the lies he spews, the insanities he's somehow led himself to believe (tariffs, good? Putin and the other mass murderers better?).
And that entire Republican party. Possible for it to be so craven, so cynical as it seems now long to have become?
No longer "The Party of Lincoln", that's for sure.
He fancies himself a king or dictator unconstrained by law. The closest example to absolute monarch I can think of is Vajiralongkorn of Thailand, who seems to be one of the absolutist Thai monarchs of the past. Even George III was a constitutional monarch unable to act without the advice and consent of Parliament, and he signed the laws his ministers brought before him, even the acts that led Americans to revolt.
Excellent letter, once again. Thanks Dr. Heather!
After that, though, where to begin? I'm overwhelmed.
It's a circus of mindless ineptitude and hubris being played out by a group of "rugged cowboy individualists" with Guilty Donald & his mentor Vladdy at the head. Each one is making unilateral decisions and wrecking (and then plundering) the tools of our society. Saki once wrote about a painter who composed a piece titled "Barbary Apes wrecking a drawing room". He was a very foresighted author.
Thanks, Heather! Friends: there’s something you can do today from ANYWHERE. Judge Allison Riggs (D) won the NC Supreme Court race this fall. Her opponent is trying to overturn the election by throwing out thousands of votes. Judge Riggs and allies are giving an update tonight on what YOU can do to help make.sure these folks’ votes count. Info to sign up:
WHEN: Friday 4/25 (today) at 5:30 pm EDT
LINK TO SIGN UP: https://mobilize.us/s/IP85Lx/a