On Friday, Democracy Forward Foundation sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to make it respond to its request for the release of the Epstein files, as well as all communications the administration has exchanged over the files and President Donald Trump’s inclusion in them, as required under the Freedom of Information Act.
Reading this one felt like watching a magician you already know is palming the card except in this case, the magician is screaming, “LOOK AT MY OTHER HAND!” while emptying your pockets in broad daylight.
Trump’s D.C. takeover talk isn’t just a sideshow, it’s a test run. The man knows the law is his camouflage now. Judges, seals, and case numbers make it look legitimate like it’s all happening in the marble halls of justice instead of the backroom of a mob social club. And the Epstein file stall? That’s about keeping the audience arguing over the theater curtains while the vault gets cleaned out.
The Founders did imagine power-hungry con men like this. That’s why they borrowed from Indigenous governance models with real checks and balances as well as separation of powers and it wasn’t an afterthought; it was the lock on the liquor cabinet. But those checks only work if the people in power actually turn the key, and right now too many are scared to touch it.
And that’s the part that’s eating at me. This isn’t loud, table-flipping Trumpism anymore because it’s quiet, suit-and-tie vengeance with the full blessing of the system. He doesn’t have to break the law when he can bend it until it sings his tune.
So yeah, the headlines say “Washington in crisis,” but if you read between the lines, it’s about how you turn the capital of a democracy into a personal fiefdom step by procedural step. We’re all watching the play, but we’d better start reading the stage directions too. Www.xplisset.com
For all their prescience and profoundly accurate cynicism about the fallibility of human beings, our Founders did not predict the rise of political parties, much less a bizarre state of nature when the interests of a cult would simply override the interests of another branch of supposedly co-equal government.
Today’s Republican Party is an assemblage of toads (a knot?), a collection of slobbering imbeciles, cowards and foul men brimming with dishonor. Paraphrasing Liz Cheney, one day this bizarre cult will be history, but the worminess of Lindsey Graham, the hypocrisy of Thom Tillis, the posturing smugness of Josh Hawley, the cynicism of Kentucky Fried Voldemort — and the ghost of sad, lost Lisa Murkowski wandering the halls of Congress in her blankie — will remain forever.
If you've ever noticed, there have been many democracies founded since this one came off the production line.
No other democracy - alive or dead - in the past 200 years has used the fucked-up idiocy of our system. That's because our system was designed by rich people to make the rest of us think we had something that worked.
But it did work, not for every one of course, yet our framework was the undisputed inspiration for countless revolutions after ours, for our own suffrage movement, the Abolitionist and anti-slavery moments, the civil rights, ERA and gay movements. They all drew inspiration from the spirit as well as the frame of a government based on law, rather than the caprice of a despot.
I listened to an interview of Pete Buttigieg on Pod Save America yesterday. Boy is he smart. He says, rightly, we shouldn’t attempt to go back to what we had exactly, because that would put us back to what led to 47. Rather we should have a plan to improve on what we had.
It was a good start, and it was a stunningly radical innovation for the 1770s. But when we should have kept going from there, we didn't. We slow walked when we should have taken long bold steps.
That's come back to bite us now, and there's a LOT of catching up we're going to have to do. We'll never be able to go back and reconstruct some more comforting previous time - even if that time wasn't all that long ago. Let go of that fantasy. Our only way is forward.
Don't forget that our Supreme Court didn't help matters when it ruled that the President cannot be prosecuted for doing anything that is considered his " official duties". That decision was certainly a game changer.
Yup, that act alone was the final nail in the democratic coffin. Democracy ceases to exist when one person is given unrestrained power and is above the law. Game over with that ruling.
The Supreme Court didn’t just change the game — they rigged it in a few crucial ways. And sure, we could blame them, but those hacks only got there because of that idiotic relic, the Electoral College.
The supreme 6 criminals are all in on the criminality of the felon child rapist. They support his tactics to destroy our system and use the constitution as toilet paper...the rot started at the top...
The Biden Administration, and Biden himself, did many great things. However, it let a couple of big problems slide in favor of looking forward, not back, I suppose. One of the most important of those was failing to address the grotesquely unjudicial Supreme Court - the six black robed super legislators. From Citizens United to ruling Trump can act criminally without consequences, that perversion of our Constitution is well on the way to destroying our democracy. Addressing that has to be high on the list of things the next Democratic Administration must do.
Which is why when I got the licence plate 1776 by chance, I've kept it ever since, car after car. John Brown, Grandfather to Harper's Ferry John Brown is my five times Great. He died of Dysentery in a tent in serving under Washington in 1776,
Abe didn’t slow walk, but his successors backtracked. At times, it’s been two steps forward and one back. In recent years, it’s been one step forward and two back. Now reverse is the direction of the right, if the left allows it.
You know JD. We probably should quit electing birds to Congress. First they build their nest and then they feather it. We need to pull those feathers out of the contract before the concrete trucks arrive.
That slow walking was because they were trying to have it both ways: the inspirational rhetoric of equality, and also protect what some people had already acquired from the unpaid labor of un-equals. That tension is still with us today.
It is not a matter of we are "approaching" or if . . . we are now living under authoritarian rule. A batshit crazy person (convicted of 34 felonies and has the nuclear code!) is spewing vitriol and nonsense from the "podium" of an "occupied" WH while literally flushing everything that gave some meaning to self government, education, rule of law, the 4th estate, the arts; to say nothing of the bribery he is using as "diplomacy".
Why isn't this man in a strait jacket and in an unpadded cell?! It really does blow my mind that he is allowed to continue. He gets a pass and the masses go about their business because . . . why? How and when did we become so helpless?
There is no answer or many answers but the bottom line is this is a disaster domestically and globally. I wouldn't be surprised if he offered Alaska to Putin to stop bombing Ukraine. Then Sarah Palin (remember those "good 'ole days"?) could say instead "Russia can see me in my house from the Kremlin"
I share your outrage, but let's look at some flickers of light offered by today's newsletter--the growing manifestation of trump's demise. I was delighted to hear about the Democracy Forward Foundation suing the DOJ and the FBI for the release of the Epstein files. How long can these agencies ignore the suit? The lawlessness is outlandish but I feel that a tsunami is building. Public outrage at not only toward Epstein's behavior but to the blatant coverup as well is swelling in a pressure cooker. The victims are ever present and growing bolder. The one that goes by Katie Johnson who's suit against trump for raping her at Epstein's house at a party when just 13 and a virgin was dismissed in 2016 is now resurrecting it. There are certain red lines that even MAGAs will not allow to be crossed....
Many have come and gone. We could have learned what did work and what didn’t. Repubs learned that to win they had to cheat since a functional government for the people was more popular. We got a lot right. But deliberate and well-founded evil, wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible upside down, flim flamed the fools. If the 2/3 who question this road to ruin would get serious about opposition, and our MSM noticed, maybe a turn around. In Texas, if you aren’t a MAGAt, you ignore and keep your head down. Most have no clue. Not a recipe for change if the MAGAts are gung ho missionaries. As chump says, they have momentum and “legitimate” power. The only road block seems to be Epstein. More bumps in the road are necessary even if the rough ride is hard to take.
Yes, getting old physically sucks but supposedly, "with age comes wisdom." We were supposed to teach our children well. That didn't happen and if you read Phil's rants about education, we failed and failed bigly. We taught tolerance - free speech, freedom of religion and all that - but we needed to be intolerant of intolerance. When the "Christian" nationalists started pushing, when we had evangelicals putting their hands on a corrupt and evil man to pray and think he's divine (what sane and rational person would allow that?), and members of Congress blatantly hold a "Christian" prayer circle thanking "God" for the passage of a budget that will destroy our country and people's lives, you know it's gotten out of hand. Charlottesville, with Nazis and KKK marching and chanting? This needed a HEAVY hand to shut it down. Instead, we soft peddled because we have freedom of speech and freedom of choice. We have to let people express themselves (sarcastic tone here). We wanted to follow the law while they continued to break it. By the time rumpy got "elected" by cheating, as he always does, and pardoned the J6ers, it was over. The longer this goes on, the more and more difficult it becomes to dislodge.
👍 Especially when you turn your back on the young person you used to be, become a crotchety old coot in a bathrobe yelling 'get off my lawn!' make no effort to adapt, grow, be flexible, learn new things, re-invent yourself, expand your horizons....!
The wrench in the works has always been the fourth estate and since the 1960's, the fifth estate.
Heather writes about the press in her book "Wounded Knee" and how they lie to influence the voters. And, of course, others have as well.
Trump didn't choose 30 Fox News employees to work in the administration because of their brilliance. He chose them because of their willingness to work for Murdoch knowing full well, that integrity is frowned upon and lies and deception are required.
As many of you saw yesterday, Hogbreath is attending a DC church that is pushing for a repeal of the 19th amendment. Those pesky women voters are nothing but trouble and he has been working hard to cull them from all branches of the military.
So now Fox and it's clones as well as The NY Times and the WAPO will be reporting ad nauseam on this for the next several days, attempting to divert America's attention from everything Epstein.
The comments by that odious pastor and the re-posting by Hogbreath are clarion calls to women and those who support them everywhere -- calling for the subjugation of over half the population should have been front page news everywhere.
Exactly, lauriemcf. There is no justification for upholding patriarchy. I used to hear these same assertions from very conservative religious family members about a man needing to be the head of the house and a woman not being "lesser" (just having a different vocation), but you can't derive that arrangement from reason.
Speaking of being run over and demolished by bad theology, I've been wondering what effect social media like the reasoned voices on Substack would have had in 1930s Germany. Can anyone spin that out? Could Hitler have been stopped by stronger underground networks? Can Trump be stopped?
Just saw "Cabaret" at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is far more than cringe-worthy, and that production is devastating. Here we are.
Then, as now, the people right-wing demagogues appeal to are (were) steeped in fear --- fear of others, fear of neighbors, fear of themselves, fear of having to make difficult choices in politics and economics and open to a political movement that tells (told) them there was no need -- all they had to was get rid of this or that group and their troubles would be over.
Fear and demonization in politics seem to go hand-in-hand, like death and taxes, including exposure to self-selected media. We have our Faux TV, they had their Volkischer Beobachter, and later, Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer (Breitbart?). History may not repeat itself exactly, but right now it's doing so much rhyming our ears just hurt.
TC, if you're thinking about France, remember: they are on their fifth republic and their trajectory of representative government was interrupted by several monarchies and Napoleonic "empires." Why? Because they did not embed a system like ours for amending the constitution, requiring the rewriting of the entire document. Britain doesn't have a written constitution. Canada gained its independence (it was overseen by a Governor Royal) in 1867. Most of the former Crown Colonies of the British Empire (that is, those that were white settler colonies) were made sort-of independent with the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1926 (formalized in 1931), which happens to be the same time as the Balfour Declaration. This is not to say that our system is working, because it has utterly broken down. And the reasons why do include the fact that elite white men invented the system to ensure their dominance over everyone else and when you have a system in which white patriarchy is embedded into its very foundations, those who want to preserve and ensure their power will got to any lengths to prevent others from benefiting. HCR points out on a daily basis the ways in which the executive office (that is, Miller and Vought because the Felon is not in charge of anything except his McDonald's order) has taken over powers granted in the Constitution to Congress. That is now a meaningless distinction because both Congress and the SCOTUS have abrogated their responsibilities to the people living in the USA (ALL the people living here) and have ceded all their power to the executive. So every time I read or hear of yet another horror and the whining "b-b-b-ut he can't do that!" my response is "who is gonna stop him?" In a word: no one.
The creation of the Senate — strike one. Gerrymandering — strike two. Unlimited money in politics — strike three. And with three strikes, we’re out: out of a functioning democracy, leaving us with a DINO — Democracy In Name Only.
That’s a very simplistic and seriously distorted description of the Founder’s intent.
Our Republic was and remains the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted. It was designed as the antidote for four millennia of top down rule, but its success or failure rested entirely on ‘We the People’ together having just enough of the courage, the honesty, the compassion, the understanding, the tolerance, the humility, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much justice and equity as is humanly possible.
Was the original design flawed? Of course. No one could have expected those guys in the funny suits and weird whigs to get such an undertaking completely right the first time around. But they also gave us the chance to fix it even as we lived it.
Congress sharpened its claws until it had no claws left. They became a sloth of bears trying to get at the honey in trees out of reach. Whence came prime minister Tesla with his chainsaw. He got the honey and ran off to his den. Again.
But Elon Musk's Edward Coristine "Big Balls", 19 years old, is still wreaking havoc on the government. He was made a permanent employee in May 2025 as a Senior Advisor GS-15 (highest pay grade) while at the General Services Administration. He resigned in June and is now using his programming skills at the Social Security Administration. He has quite a resume for such a young person.
And I am so tired of the references to him: "...Coristine, also known as "Big Balls"...". He's "known" by that nickname because he gave it to himself, probably as a pre-teen gamer. He's the classic little guy who wants to be a big guy and thinks that means swaggering around bullying people. (Physical size has nothing to do with it. The president is probably at least twice Coristine's physical size, and has the same attitude.) But his magic trick is working, because, lo and behold, he is always referred to by his chosen nickname - but now, he's "known as". It would be more accurate to say, "...Coristine, who calls himself ... "
You are right Vivian. SS has always been the prime target. To allow SS is to allow the beating heart 💗 of America. The whole ghist is that Americans are too lazy to work and seek only to sponge off the hard working rich. No matter how you beat around the bush that is the prime time complaint making colored folks and religion numbers two and three.These are the complaints I field again and again and again.
big balls is the Beatle boring into the pine trees. Once under the bark he girdles the tree. Now the trees are dying in the millions. The western forest is dying in the millions. Soon his contamination will annihilate social security and society as we know it will be altered.
The “idiocy of our system” has worked for almost 250 years. It’s failing at the moment because we elected or appointed disgraceful, self-serving, power-hungry criminals and conspiracy theorists. “It’s Come To This” has it right, and I admire his classy choice of descriptors.
The decline of democracy is due to "we" the people. Social scientist and Professor Shawn Rosenberg wrote that democracy all over the world was dying and soon it's last gasp would escape our atmosphere. That was in 2019. Read about it here:
We will not recover from this. The inexorable slide for democracy in the world will leave us with three Orwellian countries, China, Russia, and TrumpNation, all others will be absorbed. The three will fight with one another until the inevitable someone hits a button.
In 1984 (published 1949) even sex was considered a duty, not a pleasure, just as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale written in 1985 expresses.
The literary world has been warning of this for decades. Social scientists not until the last decade. And now it's too late. There is nowhere to go that will not sooner or later be taken over by one of the big three. Putin and Trump are going to divide up Ukraine this month. Within a short period of time, once Trump gets computer processing manufacturing out of Taiwan, he will cede it to China. I think he and China have already agreed to give him the time to get manufacturing here in the U.S.
The only choice is to fight or bow the knee. As an old Vietnam veteran I can no longer fight, but I would if I could. I hope I'm not around to see what happens to the rest of you. There are still so goddamned many that are unable to comprehend what is happening.
It did work, because our Constitution allowed for change, and we were changing for the better - for a short time. There is no Utopia, and even if there were, it wouldn't happen overnight, or even over a couple of centuries. It would have to grow - like a Redwood tree.
Now, the Ghastly Old Perverts and those billionaires who will never be filled or sated, are taking an axe to that Redwood, and systematically destroying all the progress that's been made, especially over the past 100 years.
Like it or not, we had a preview of today's republican party in the form of one Jeff Flake. True to form, he gave us plenty of warning as to the cowardice embedded in such low lifes when he had the chance to rebel and refute the cowardice of his fellow republicans only to fall in line knowing that, even he, would not be in the Senate seat he then held. Imagine the crack, at least, in the republican mindset had Flake voted no against Kavanaugh. However, sadly, even cowards, like Flake, knowing fully well that they need not worry about the voter's wrath, bow down to the acidic indolence of one DJT. And Graham and Tillis, among many others, follow suit in Lemming manner. They not only have no clothes; they also have no legs.
Do not forget Bob Corker as well. And as much as Liz Cheney and Adam Kisinger are elevated to high status for their stand against tRump, they voted for his proposals well over 90% of the time.
Rickey, thank you for pointing out the truth about Cheney and Kinzinger. While I appreciate their participation in the J6 investigative committee, I am of the opinion that they did the right thing for the wrong reason: that Trump damaged the Republican brand and they were conducting damage control.
Republicans are nothing if not experts in couching their ulterior motives in high-sounding, patriotic language.
I could stand to be in the same room with Cheney and Kinzinger, unlike most Republicans, but I strongly object to Democrats' tendency to canonize those two as saints.
I didn't mean to forget about all those folks. At least Cheney and Kisinger had the gonads to call out Trump when they did. However, you're correct in calling out Bob Corker. Before he took flight like Flake did, he could have shown courage concerning Kavanaugh and decided not to.
While many of the Founders publically eschewed ‘factionalism’ as they called it, several of them actually initiated our two party system. The Federalists and Democratic- Republicans were certainly not the well-oiled and well ossified binary system today’s two parties have become, but even a casual look at the election of 1800 will reveal almost all of the traits and tricks of our modern maelstrom.
The framers also were decidedly against too much democratization as we've seen. They designed a republic in order to avoid the inevitable outcome of democracies, the raise of populist ideologues, ergo, Trump.
"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." ~A.Lincoln
Keep an eye on the '26 elections being "postponed" until the cities and streets are "safe", made so by ICE, FBI and Nat'l Guard (the last becoming "his" private army)
It's a damn shame ninety million of us forgot to vote. Again. Maybe we get another chance to fix it next November. I can wish but I think I just saw a bunch of flying pigs.
Democrats need to blanket all of the colleges and universities across the country registering students to vote and recruiting the bright young Democrats for the future.
David Hogg is doing this as well as many others. There are no more conservative politicians in the US only Fascists that fantasize about the US becoming an authoritarian oligarchy, of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
Registering to vote is a good thing, voting in an election is a whole different process. Encouraging those whom are registered to vote is the challenge.
I'm not sure Gen Z will help with the incel culture that's currently metastasizing in their ranks. It really feels like the world is just going all toxic.
I’m super OVER the thank you for your attention to this matter Sign off. Apparently someone put that on there for him and he doesn’t know how to remove it….
Anything, Annie, his tiny little hands can grab is his.
This includes the underage girls pals Jeffrey and Ghislaine provided at their N.Y. and Palm Beach mansions, the women he might accost on airplanes and dressing rooms, and his daughter Ivanka all through her teen years as the many photos online of that attest.
Next -- anything his armies of thugs might attack.
Remember, too, Annie, his concentration camps are now funded by his Republican sycophants in Congress. If we here supplementing Heather ever travel by airplane where TSA agents are posted, watch out. They'll soon enough have lists of our names designated for these camps.
Phil, I just traveled to Europe and back. I was concerned about being singled out (while at the same time wondering who’d bother with a grandmother like me). I can say definitively no TSA or CBP agent was the least interested in me. Also, I’m not certain they were much interested in anything from the looks of them. TBH, it looked to me their ranks were thinned by “waste, fraud and abuse.” They have to be as dispirited as other government employees, especially as employees are forced over to ICE or lose their jobs.
He wants to turn it into a big (biggest!) beautiful (beautiful-est !) theme park ever: Trumpty Dumpty's MAGA World🎢 🎡🤡. Bring the family.👨👩👧👦 Bring proof of citizenship!
But he is breaking the law. He's always broken the law, yet he's only been convicted once. Those checks and balances you mention are failing and you urgently need a new Constitution that doesn't lend itself to the sort of perverse interpretations to which it has been subjected recently by your Supreme Court or the type of judicial activism that has actually guaranteed many your freedoms in the past.
He's a convicted fraudster; he's been impeached twice both times without consequence; he's lost a defamation suit because a jury believed that he committed a sexual assault; he's a moron who has surrounded himself with incompetent lackeys and yet millions of Americans have voted for him twice and seem quite willing to do so again. People power cuts both ways.
Hello Xavier... Seems to me that the Heritage Foundation Gamed This Out like a War-Game against the Post '60s American Urban Society... I agree that "Red Queen' DJT is trying to turn DC into his personal Fiefdom... Practice for other Cities Perhaps?
Apache… you just nailed it like a Pentagon war-game slide they’d never declassify.
This isn’t just Trump playing King of D.C. for kicks . Heritage and their Project 2025 brain trust are running the urban control simulation in real time. And like you said, they’re pulling the “post-’60s American city” playbook right off the shelf — the one that treats Black and brown urban centers as chessboards for proving how far they can stretch executive muscle without the Constitution snapping back.
D.C. is the test kitchen. If the dish comes out just right — courts cowed, press distracted, public confused — you better believe they’ll try serving it in Chicago, Philly, Atlanta… maybe even New York if they think they’ve softened it up enough.
It’s not just about turning one city into a fiefdom. It’s about showing the rest of the country that the concept works. And once that precedent’s baked in, good luck putting it back in the box.
And let’s not forget while we’re all watching this power grab play out he’s been working overtime to keep eyes off those Epstein files. That’s not coincidence ya’ll, that’s stagecraft.
Thanks Xavier... Love Your Prose... You Are A Kool Dude.... Furthering their Game, they are packing the Federal Courts with their Acolytes... Quiet Infiltration of the only thing Slowing the Red Queen... Be Real Concerned When Clarence Thomas Retires....
The Epstein files are going from smoldering stage to wildfire.
My hope is that the states will grow balls and rebel. As for trump, creativity without taste has it's downfall. Just wait until the cavernous ballroom monstrosity makes the WH and him look so utterly puny....
Xplisset, I think the potential takeover of New York City is the main reason (not the given one) Eric Adams was shielded from the consequences of his corruption, and Trump is so vehemently opposed to Zohran Mamdani.
Indebted to Trump, Adams would hand the city over on a silver platter. Mamdani would not. What authoritarian, despotic cabal wouldn't want to control the seat of global commerce?
Hello Phil... A little Different... In LA, it was commandeered CA National Guard, and Posse Commitas USMC Troops.... Thus Far the Red Queen wants to only use Federal LE like ICE does.. We'll See....
Apache, I like the Red Queen tag. I hadn’t considered this before, but President QPQ must be transitioning to a full-blown TRANS. Wouldn’t that be a hoot!
LA was the opening skirmish. The center held. The flankers were repulsed. The enemy retreated in a rout. DC is a ruse. The real battle is in Texas. Trust me, they must break the color barrier to its knees and drag the bodies across the border. That is the battle they cannot win. When you see who has skin in the game you can understand who hasn’t a ghost of a chance.
EPSTEIN FILES, DISTRACTIONS, AND A CRUMBLING PRESIDENCY
I see Trump’s presidency rotting from the inside out. Now that a lawsuit is pushing to release the Epstein files with his name in them, he is lashing out, smearing Pelosi, threatening to seize D.C., fumbling with Putin. It is all smoke and mirrors. I am not fooled for a second. The harder he tries to distract, the more obvious it becomes that he is terrified of what is in those files. When they drop, no circus act will save him.
I like Jeff Tiedrich's comments with a recurring ending. We could all follow his example.
"the only thing you need to know about the Mad King’s rooftop antics is that Donny’s name is on every page of the Epstein Files."
I've made allusions in the past, but I'll be more direct. Given what we already know about Donald's proclivities, there is no doubt in my mind that he has statutorily raped numerous underage girls. There are receipts, and he is desperately trying to hide them.
Donald was much, much closer to Jeffery than he wants anyone to know. Judging by body language in photos depicting them, these are two men who've seen each other naked, and not in a locker room context.
Donny was a Democrat when Epstein was peddling little girls. I know JD wants everyone to ignore that those billionaire left-leaning pedophiles didn’t include him but I’m sure he was at the top of the list.
The only left-leaning billionaires I can think of are George Soros and Warren Buffet. And I doubt either of them leans left when it comes to their money. For that matter, the same could be said of Donald when he was a "Democrat." Soros and Buffett seem unlikely suspects for pedophilia to me. Donald, however, is a well-known sexual predator with an attraction to younger females. He's made a cringey, lustful comment about his own daughter. He publicly drew the line at age 12, so that must be his limit.
The overlap between billionaires and Republicans is almost total, so it's more than likely that Epstein's "friends" were Republicans, with a stray Democrat here and there.
During Bill Clinton's governorship, I lived in the Governor's Mansion neighborhood and was good friends with one of his "targets," so I'm fairly familiar with his adventures. He was an inveterate womanizer, but to my knowledge, limited his interest to women of legal age. He may have been a guest of Epstein, but if the "offerings" were not to his taste, he probably didn't return. Maybe I'll be surprised if the files are released.
'But those checks only work if the people in power actually turn the key' -- so true and still all they are doing is looking the other way and whistling a happy tune. Total abdication of duty.
And every day, the offspring of elite colluders and perpetrators are being groomed as Next-Generation Takers. As you have said, Xplisett, the Constitution is NOT a suggestion.
Xplisset, your quote: "The Founders did imagine power-hungry con men like this. That’s why they borrowed from Indigenous governance models with real checks and balances as well as separation of powers and it wasn’t an afterthought; it was the lock on the liquor cabinet. " Is so true. We listened to a speaker who focused on the Indigenous people meeting with some of the Founders and how what they had to say influenced their decisions. The U.S. Great Seal shows the eagle clutching a bundle of arrows with the implication that we are stronger when we are together. The lecture was held this summer in the Duportail house with Valley Forge nearby. (Gen. Louis Le Beque de Presle Duportail).
And we’d better be prepared to deal with this; between decorating the Oval Office as if it were a bordello, adding that grotesque monstrosity he calls a ballroom to the grounds and blathering on about taking over the city, he’s setting things up for permanent residency. The White House is his, and the city will soon be his, and come January 20, 2028, no matter who’s elected, he ain’t leaving.
John, I don't think Donald's decorating inspiration is a bordello. They are generally furnished with flocked wallpapers and velveteens, with a heavy use of garnet reds and burgundies, utilized to stimulate the appetites.
Clearly, Donald's aesthetics and his obsession with gold leaf and crystal, are drawn directly from the Grand Kremlin Palace. The rendering for his planned "ballroom" is a replica of Georgievsky Hall located inside the palace.
Apache… Street smart? Man, I spent 20 years as a patrol officer. You work that long on the street, you learn to smell a setup before the ink even dries on the playbook.
This whole Heritage war-game? Yeah, I’ve seen that movie. You start small run the hustle on one block, one city then scale it up once you know the marks will fall for it. And D.C.? That’s just the test run before they roll it nationwide.
And here’s the part folks miss which is while everybody’s watching the front door, “Red Queen” over there is yanking our attention off the Epstein files like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Only difference? This rabbit’s wearing a gold plated subpoena. www.xplisset.com
This morning, both the Times and Post are reporting that the FBI is temporarily "re-assigning" 120 FBI agents, who would otherwise be working on domestic terrorism, cybercrime, child trafficking, to "night patrol" work as beat cops in DC to "fight crime."
I've never worked as a beat cop, but if I had, having an inexperienced, know-nothing-about-street-crime FBI agent in the car with me, overseeing my every move, wouldn't exactly fill me with comfort and joy. You can bet this was a new "Off With His Head" executive order from outside the FBI (and no, Kash Patel doesn't count).
You forgot, Xplisset, the Distraction in Alaska a few days hence.
Except, for the people of the Ukraine, and those of the European democracies (and a hand-full in Asia), the coming sell-out to Putin will be no mere distraction only.
Yes - we are sending an incompetent toddler who worships our enemy and thinks bullying is negotiating to a meeting with a former KGB operative who will likely walk away without having to concede anything and who will continue to destroy Ukraine with impunity (unless Europe steps up). What could possibly go wrong?
One has to wonder if Vance is "promoting" the Epstein files on purpose; that would be an easy way to ascend to the presidency if Trump were removed upon implication in abuse.
But if Trump is impeached for treason, the entire administration is removed from office.
Article II, Section 4:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
On August 15 Trump will learn first-hand from Putin that the Kremlin has copies of all the Epstein files -- has the dirt (with video) on the underage girls, as well as other clandestine real estate and money laundering activity Trump was engaged in.
Putin leverages all this to demand Trump give him all of Ukraine. Trump, conscience-stricken, announces press conference, saying he's asked J. D. Vance to resign as V.P. and has asked Kamala to take that position. When she does, he, Trump will resign -- so the nation may have a fresh start.
Perhaps, this will be a face-off of one criminal extortionist facing another across the table. I can just see J.D. salivating in the wings. Everything that happens, now, is drawing him one step closer to the W.H.
Sen. Ron Wyden says 'follow the money' on Epstein, cites $1.1 billion in wire transfers
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, cited a Treasury Department file showing nearly 4,725 wire transfers totaling $1.1 billion in one Jeffrey Epstein account.
WTF. This is a smoking cannon and Trump's fingerprints are all over it. And then there are the hundreds of Epstein and Trump victims many of whom have come forward to testify. Why doesn't anyone give a fuck about their testimony?
Release the list of pedophiles. Why does it matter if they are Democrats or Republicans? A pedophile is a pedophile and we end up losing half of the Congress so be it.
It has occurred to me that the victims could be the biggest danger—they know names. They are being overlooked big time, and I hope they step forward en masse.
After the fact, 10 years after Epstein got the deal of the century and Trump got a get out of jail card, DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility investigated but concluded that Acosta committed no professional wrongdoing and violated no ethics standards.
The non-prosecution agreement was signed over 10 years earlier when Acosta was U.S. attorney for South Florida. “Acosta’s decision to decline to initiate a federal prosecution of Epstein was within the scope of his authority, and OPR did not find evidence that his decision was based on corruption or other impermissible considerations, such as Epstein’s wealth, status, or associations.”
After the executive summary was released, Acosta, who had refused to answer the Miami Herald’s questions about his actions, issued a two-page statement saying it “fully debunks allegations that the [United States Attorney’s Office in South Florida] improperly cut Epstein a ‘sweetheart deal’ or purposefully avoided investigating potential wrongdoing by various prominent individuals.”
The Herald got parts of the report. “While OPR did not find that Department attorneys engaged in professional misconduct, OPR concluded that the victims were not treated with the forthrightness and sensitivity expected by the Department,” the statement said.
It seems to me that any investigation would have identified who the unnamed co-conspirators were.
Maybe Acosta’s former top assistant, Jeffrey Sloman; ex-criminal chief Matthew Menchel; former case prosecutor Marie Villafaña, who had prepared a sex-trafficking indictment against Epstein that was not filed; and her boss, Andrew Lourie can elucidate us.
Maxwell alleges she is one of the protected class and wants to invoke that get out of jail free card in her petition for cert to SCOTUS.
I'm convinced he owed big money to the mob (besides just being generally embarrassing to have around), and so they sold him and his debts to the Russians. From a gangster's point of view it was win-win.
It turned out the Russians knew just what to do with him.
Garrett, "the mob," is actually Bratva, the Russian mob. No selling of debt was needed because the Russians already held it. Unlike most other organized crime, Bratva is directly connected to the Kremlin.
That was my next thought following HCR's statement in that regard. Yes, that's a possible alternate motive. To 'grease' tfg's exit to start his ascendancy. Sparks could fly in any case.
Vance's choice to stir up the Epstein files interest by commenting feels strategic to me as well. Yes, he can be inept. But I believe he is ambitious and part of something larger than himself.
I think Vance is just smart enough to respond when his puppet strings are pulled. I don't think he'll be more dangerous than trump but I think we'll find out soon.
I guess that depends on who's pulling the strings of the puppet. Pretty sure JD is smart enough to know the "it's only Democrats on Epstein Island" line doesn't work. Not after MAGA crowd have been asking why the Democrats didn't release the files when it was so damaging to their opponents, the same question would apply if it's only Democratic leaders visiting the island.
My first thought on hearing that the meeting would be at the VP’s house: they were planning the succession - 47 resigns, jd becomes president, and then pardons him like Ford did Nixon.
“Hegseth reposted a CNN report featuring a religious leader named Doug Wilson sharing his backward views—views Hegseth clearly supports. “Women are the kind of people people come out of,” Wilson says, before adding, “it doesn’t take any talent.” Other religious leaders in Wilson’s orbit join in to explain to reporters that the man is the head of the household and the wife’s job is to submit. Then they delve into their belief that women shouldn’t be able to vote, with one pastor saying he supports repeal of the 19th Amendment.”
Does this idiot not realize that every woman who has given birth was bravely willing to literally risk her life to give life? Without that amazing “talent” he couldn’t exist, What a contemptible person,
All of the men in trumps orbit have sexual misconduct allegations and or convictions, Our country is being run by ignorant , malicious, maladapted, predatory men who hate women and anyone else who doesn’t agree with them, Normally this would have been an action that would have required Hegseth’s resignation, but we only hear silence, How did our country stoop so low?
Sexual abuse of minors is more common than you think. Often perpetrated within families, it is under reported and misunderstood. The perpetrators - primarily men - are deeply insecure combined with a pathological nee to control and dominate - women and children are the easiest target. Whether sexual or violent, this toxic view has become rampant across all social groups. Women have no talent? It is precisely their clear, strong, capable talent that makes these men feel so emasculated they need to exert control. Birth rates are down, I wonder why?
When I attended school in the 1960's every elementary teacher I had was a white woman. And our lower middle class class had no persons of color except two Asians.
Our core class of about 20 students was together for most of our K-12 years. Most of the class ended up attending college and more than statically should have became professionals and successful entrepreneurs.
But, the girls were treated differently in class. One of our classmates graduated summa-cum-laude from Iowa State University and yet, it seems the boys were the ones that were praised for their achievements in the classroom. Subconsciously the boys competed with the boys because the girls were dismissed as not being our equals.
I hope girls are treated better by our education system now, but the Trump administration wants all of you uppity women to stay at home and raise your boys to be the future of the country.
I am 74 - and was criticized by some man for "wasting my father's money on college" and asked by counselors if I wanted to be a teacher or a nurse, as if those were the only 2 choices. Thankfully I was raised by parents who told me I could be anything -- and over time I became an art historian, then a graphic designer and, in my 40s, I became a lawyer and practiced for the next 20 years. I was so lucky to have parents who encouraged me -- not every girl did.
I am 80 years old and had the good fortune of parents, especially my father, who encouraged and supported higher education for my sister and I. I am grateful!
I'll be 74 next month. I vividly remember going into the counselor's office in 8th grade to set up my high school curriculum. As I was walking toward his desk to sit down, he asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I said a veterinarian, he laughed at me. I can still hear it. He said, "Girls can't be vets. Vets have to take a lot of chemistry and math and girls aren't good at stuff like that. Why don't you be a nurse or a teacher instead?" I so admire women who went ahead and did it anyway. I, sadly, buckled under. What a world we would have if everyone was encouraged to succeed, if we helped each other achieve and follow their dream (as long as it was within the law and with harm to none - there are some people out there with evil intentions).
Kathy, I’m also 73. Back when we were young many school vocational counselors were enamored of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank and we all took the test. I remember a boy who got exactly the same scores as I did. He was advised to become a doctor or a lawyer. I was advised to be a nurse or a social worker. I was shocked but totally unaware of systemic gender-based bias at that age. While I shrugged the test off I ultimately did become a social worker and then a human services manager and finally a national expert and trainer on homelessness. So. There.
P.S. The SVIB was finally retired, years later, as hopelessly biased!
Your counselor obviously didn’t know about nursing programs in colleges. The nursing curriculum is based on lots of science and math. I was lucky to attend a BSN program and graduated in 1974. It wasn’t a common pathway to nursing, but it is now.
I did too. Became an analytical chemist snd the second woman in sales at HP bc the founders didn't understand that side of the business. The electronics side were all dudes.
I worked for a high-tech company started in 1984. The founder, a young engineer (who recruited me btw), ask what I was thinking going to college and majoring in ENGLISH. No offense, engineers, but this was typical.
I challenge that fat-fuck of a pastor to be pregnant for 9 months and then endure 22 hours of labor -- and then to breast feed and care for an infant while recovering from labor. There should have been collective outrage over this re-posting.
We can choose to stop getting distracted by this stuff. Hegseth posted it to get a reaction, get some attention and deflect from his downfall and it worked. Some preacher's rantings do not qualify as a removal of a woman's right to vote. We must keep our focus. We are in a coup.
Project 2025 does want to remove woman’s rights, Christian Nationalists see woman as existing only to have children and support a husband. They are second class citizens, They have already taken away rights by reversing Roe, and now trying to deny Mifepristone and Misoprostol. Too many woman have already died because this right has been taken away, Vouchers are going to religious schools. Our taxpayers money is being spent indoctrinating yiung boys and girls into believing this rot. This is not a distraction, but just one more of the many many rights this regime is taking away,
This was about women voting. The video was about women voting. Neither Hegseth nor the preacher have any power to stop women from voting. These cranks have been talking about women not voting for years.
People from this regime will continue to deflect from the real and present danger as long as people run around getting pulled off the crisis at hand.
It is odd that Wilson can remark that motherhood and mothering take such little talent, all the while he’s imagining what a fancy piece of work impregnation is. His is such an odd and perverse vanity, so shallow a wit. A church tailor made for the carefully coifed Pete. And such a perfect fit.
Every time this religiously based misogynistic nonsense emerges again from the mouths (not brains, because no brainpower is involved) of men of no consequence, my response has always been : “ yes, since having males in power has been such a success so far, right?”
I understand the sentiment and it’s not baseless. One thing, while one can cite opposing examples, overall and historically gender has not made the difference nor is there any reason why it should, power of any scale isn’t a solitary person. It’s the person who counts to whatever extent they can or care.
I have to point out that in this era of Trumpist insanity, it has been women by and large who have stood up to Donnie’s crimes and have called him out for the rapist,felon and evil man that he is.
Yes and well you should. I do not minimize the importance of anyone’s impact on society. I’ve been watching this clown since the early 70’s and his father for a few years before that.
I think he wears alarm bells for personal jewelry. He’s committed just about every serious crime I can think of. Let’s not forget the masses of other crimes. The only thing he manages to do more often is lie. With each breath he lies twice … I mean, who does that? I know he’s not the only person with these qualities. But him I know.
He’s spent no jail time? His sister was a Federal Judge before she had to step down to prevent an investigation. Since Drumpf can’t read to save his life, how do you figure he’s managed this? He seems to know more about the different courts than most actual attorneys.
There is good moral basis to legislate sterilization of all of Fred Trumps spawn. From Fred’s father all the way down to the present (adult) generation, there is an obvious genetic propensity for low intelligence blended with a completely amoral personality defect. All of Trumps grandkids should be monitored for the trait.
Re: How did we stooped so low ... Hillary Clinton was in my IMO the most qualified candidate for President in our history. Putin, James Comey and Bernie Sanders all help Trump win but only by a small amount. Then Biden and his scary as hell debate performance made many swing voters not trust the Democrats for hiding the real Biden. Yeah, even though Harris was an Attorney General of the largest State voters trusted a felon convicted of Sexual assault, Defamation, Tax Fraud, Election Interferences with Business Fraud and charged with Sedition, Racketeering; Espionage and Obstruction of Justice. IMO we need to accept that racist misogynist hate and fear was at the center of Trump winning a second term. We must play to win from here on out. That means learn from the past and accept the nature of this beast we call the "United States of America." Winning is everything.
No. We can. We have done it. We also ran a white women and that says who "We" are. What I am saying is we lost two out of the three times Trump ran and that says who the USA is and we need to learn from that hard truth.
Our country stooped so low the first time the Republican Party nominated Drumpf for President. Then again when Small Hands was elected President. And then, the already feral Republicans nominated Taco Fold for President once again, and incredibly again, as though the digestive system of the nation had a total reversal of the normal order of function and the nation returned the Orange Turd to office.
I think that’s when we as a nation stooped so very low that we seem to have so difficult a time attempting to rise once more.
For all of us, I expect the burning question is, will we?
I have had the feeling that history will prove that Trump did not legitimately win the E C , that there was massive cheating by Rethugs in the background. Cheating is, after all, the chief talent of the right wing.
I don’t see any problem myself in leaving it all behind. I didn’t usher it in either, wouldn’t have.
There is an ailment, fortunately rare, where the entire function of the human alimentary canal entirely reverses itself. Unpleasant, very. One may readily disagree, but it does seem to be the political phase we have entered.
It hasn’t been during living memory but the British would put human heads on pikes and line the bridge to Parliament either them. It was way before the advent of radio. I suppose it was felt there was a need.
We shouldn’t forget him. 45 years ago he was the Presidential nominee chosen at the beginning of our 2nd step toward authoritarianism. Nixon marked the first. With G W Bush’s nomination the Republican party marked the third step. At this time we are not standing at the threshold. We may actually be crossing it.
“ Women are the kind of people people come out of” is about the most ignorant sentence (and grammatical construction) I’ve ever heard. But at least he called us people.
And men are people who need 80 to 300 million sperm for one to (perhaps) fertilise the egg within the person out of whom comes a person. That sure as hell takes no talent.
Yes, and what happens to a family when the father dies with cancer leaving a wife to care for a double duo of a trouble making 10 and 12 year old.
My mom rolled up her sleeves and took care of everything SUCCESSFULLY
in spit of the trouble my younger brother and I gave her…I would dare any man to try to do all that she did!!!!
She took care of our home. managed investments, rented acres of farmland, sent my brother to military school and both of us to college, rescued me from a cult.
Thank God one thing I did that pleased her was to marry my husband whom I met in the cult but who visited her off and on until she kidnapped me!!!
She never remarried….she never complained…..also she was treasurer of her Sunday School Class for years and years. She always kept herself looking perfectly beautiful!!!!
The dictator feels many of us haven’t gotten the message. He’s the dictator.
He hates blacks who aren’t, “Yassah Massah” to him – and the District of Columbia has a half million who won’t bow and scrape. So, as he’s got his private thug army of I.D.-free I.C.E. goons, he’s got more police state knaves in Kash Patel’s F.B.I. It’s not really Kash Patel’s. It’s his, the dictator’s.
Americans need to be taught a lesson. The dictator will teach it. Don’t question him. If his thugs round up a few dozen uppity in D.C., Americans need to see them deported – just like that – to 3rd-world hellholes. Even if they’re U.S. citizens? Doesn’t matter.
The dictator won’t be questioned. Those Q’s about what he and pal Jeffrey were doing with underage girls? Don’t ask. Only remember: if you’re famous, they let you do it. Just as his Quislings Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and his and Mitch’s additional three have let him perch above and beyond us.
Putin is stealing and SELLING UKRANIAN CHILDREN!! ARREST PUTIN IN ALASKA ON 8/15/25. MAXIMUM SANCTIONS ON PUTIN AND RUSSIA. STOP EXPORTS FROM RUSSIA THROUGH THE ARTIC. AND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD RELEASE ALL OF THE EPSTEIN FILES.
Hello ICTT.... Israel is not either.... Today, 10-Aug-2025, the Israeli Air-force targeted & killed 6-International Correspondents camped outside the one of the last functioning Hospitals in Gaza, Shifa.... Can't Tell Me That Was Accidental.... Indeed the IDF admitted that this was a Air-Strike to kill Al-Jazeera Correspondent Anas Al Sharif, and his Team Intentionally... Last Year, 2024, Al Sharif, and his Team won a Pulitzer Prize documenting the Carnage is Gaza... His Team was targeted by the Israelis since...
no, it was not an accident. idf tried to get to Palestinian journalist Al-Sharif who they accuse of being a leader of a Hamas cell. killing him and more al-jazeera journalists ... they don't care to add 5 more journalists to the 200+ that already died in this terrible war.
Thanks Marli... Easy to label someone a Terrorist when they are Dead... Maybe the IDF doesn't want to have any Witnesses to Netanyahu's 'Final Soution' that they can't Control...
It's complicated, but I think the short answer is no. Biden voluntarily cooperated with the International Criminal Court in certain instances, even though the United States formally withdrew from what's called the Rome Statute that set it in the mid-1980s. Bill Clinton signed the Statute, but Congress did not ratify It (I think).
That's the dream I had last night: as soon as Putin stepped foot on American soil Trump had him arrested...for war crimes. What a show that would be. Epstein would be forgotten.
Our Representatives have packed their bags and gone home for summer vacation. Wish I could, but no one is paying for my travel or my grocery bill that rises daily. And I need to stay on the phone leaving messages to them about the fading American Dream as the REGIME spends day in ,day out doing what Authoritarian Fascists do best. Diverting... We The People from The REAL matters at hand. It is so exhausting trying to keep up with the daily smut and evilness that a person just wants to hide under the covers. FOCUS All the Religious Right, all the Women Bashers, all the sleeze bag vile spewing members of the REGIME given free reign on all the WEENIE media outlets 24/7 FOCUS Do not let them steal our FOCUS They are loving that we are dumbstruck by their lies and slime. FOCUS People of DC rise up
call for help we are out here FOCUS do not let them steal your city! FOCUS We will not
let them steal OUR AMERICA! FOCUS I need to make more calls, make more signs, sleep.
And the bond market. If the tariffs drive inflation and tank jobs, people won't have the money to spend. If investors stop buying the treasury bonds which keep the whole thing going, no amount of covering up unfavourable measures will help.
IMHO the plan is to "privatize" all government assets. The Trump administration is reportedly taking mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC) public, per the Wall Street Journal. The report adds that officials believe the offering could raise $30 billion in such a debut, valuing the two at "roughly $500 billion."
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, and those in a committee that fits your topic. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. We deserve better ❤️🩹🤍💙
I will go check, thank you! I checked links recently when I made shorter documents for each state, but honestly I have been curious if links will ever be changed
In 1976, when I was 21, I was 1 of 22 Russian-speaking guides (and the youngest) at America’s only international exhibition on the bicentennial, called “USA: The 200 Years,” which was held at Moscow’s Sokolniki Park during the month of November, attracting several hundred thousand visitors in less than 30 days.
The exhibit was a warts-off display of American pride, complete with a Conestoga Wagon, a circle-rama presentation of ‘America the Beautiful’ from Disneyland — and us. I stood in front of 3 towering 20-foot high replicas of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights translated into Russian. We just offered ourselves, like Geishas, to a public hungry for information about the outside world not filtered through the lens of Pravda. The conversations were open — remarkably so — free-wheeling, unstructured, uncensored, with a great deal of warmth and spontaneous humor on both sides.
But the KGB did try to sabotage us from time to time. On a regular basis, sometimes several times a day, teens and tweens, always boys, were told to stand near us and shout “Otdai Alyasku!” (“Give Alaska Back!”) as though that would somehow shame us all to embarrassed silence. The crowds would just laugh. We never engaged them. After a few minutes, bored and confused, they would just walk away.
I cannot believe (or maybe I can!) Trump would be dumb enough to actually *INVITE* Putin, an internationally wanted war criminal, to Alaska, of all places on earth, a place filled with Russian ghosts, the true jewel in the crown for slobbering nationalists hoping Stalin and Catherine the Great might both yet stage a comeback from the grave. Why not Sudetenland instead, while oom-pah bands belt out “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles”?
That's very interesting, what an experience to have 'back in the U.S.S.R.' Probably didn't even know how lucky you are, at the time. Guess that was during the Brevhnev era.
I think Americans did want to give Alaska back initially, in 1867, when it was widely known as Seward's Icebox after he had purchased it as Secretary of State. From the Klondike gold rush and later oil discoveries, world renowned fishing, wildlife and wilderness abounding to the edge of the world, it's another gem that makes America so special(or what it should be).
I can't believe this either. Trump inviting Putin to anywhere in the U.S. is despicable and repulsive. But to invite Putin to Alaska is really off-putting and has an even more sinister and treasonous angle to it.
Since Putin has been declared a criminal by the International Court ( of which, for some reason the US is not a member), if the meeting were held elsewhere, there is a chance Putin would be arrested. And Vlad's best friend Donny doesn't want that.
And furthermore without any Ukrainian representation which rather suggests that the intention is that Zelensky will once again be presented with a fait accompli with the usual threats of withdrawal of US military aid (something they've already done three times since Trump was inaugurated) if he doesn't accept. It's about as abysmal a plan as anything Trump has so far devised.
Indeed. I consider myself blessed and fortunate. I learned a great deal, mostly about how vulnerable and insecure the Soviet state actually was, long before glasnost and perestroika. Perhaps that is why I refuse to give into despair about us right now, though I do have my moments.
I wonder now whether Russia will ever have another leader possessing both conscience and brains. Gorbachev was as astonished as the CIA at how rapidly what had seemed so secure and permanent came tumbling down. Yeltsin was actually a tender-hearted man (I have some stories), but too much of a drunk in love with blowing up things to lead a movement to re-build something good from the remnants.
Enter a small-time, potato-headed, German-speaking KGB agent...
To our Republican Oath-breakers in Congress "We the People" are feeling your betrayal and are watching what you do. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Trump, like Macbeth, continues to hallucinate as the darkness in his mind worsens.And his ministers still cover for his crimes. The DoJ can refuse the Freedom of Information Act requests by invoking executive privilege. Trump’s spewing hate speech remains protected. The do-nothing Congress refuses to assert its Constitutional authority.
So, a delusional Trump soon meets with an imperious Putin in Alaska, to redraw the map of Ukraine. Perhaps Putin also will ask for the return of Alaska to Mother Russia as well? Why stop with Ukraine?
You can bet your ass Putin won’t just politely ask, any more than Alaska was Trump’s idea. The nationalists in Mother Russia are already wetting their panties about this one. About the DUMBEST gesture the dumbest President in American history could ever agree to, just so an internationally wanted war criminal wouldn't be arrested on the spot in Switzerland.
President Donald Trump and his driver were cruising along a country road one night when all of a sudden they hit a pig, killing it instantly.
Trump told his driver to go up to the farmhouse and explain to the owners what had happened. About one hour later Trump sees his driver staggering back to the car with a bottle of wine in one hand, a cigar in the other and his clothes all ripped and torn.
"What happened to you?" asked Trump
"Well, the Farmer gave me the wine, his wife gave me the cigar and his 19-year-old daughter made mad passionate love to me."
"My God, what did you tell them?" asks Trump.
The driver replies, "I'm president Donald Trump's driver, the pig is dead.”
Thank you, Heather, so very much. Your analyses and accurate historical perspectives are truly helpful to so many of us. You are a bright light of truth in a political sea of chaos. We have hope.
The repeated closing, “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” like an impersonal closing to a business memo to an underling, to me, is another indication of Trump’s mental deterioration. It’s also an indication of the timidity, the cowardice, of those “advising” him. Any PR specialist would would advise the boss to swap that rather cold phrase for something more uplifting. Trump has made it clear to those around him, “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
That closing line of his pisses me off. He doesn’t have my attention and who does he think he is to make serious public announcements on social media instead of a press conference? He doesn’t want questions and he can’t articulate his next dastardly act coherently, so Miller writes those little F U announcements to Americans. The time has come to shut down his campaign to take over America.
I think he is the puppet master based on his contributions to Project 2025. I doubt Trump has even read Project 2025 so he can push the agenda they lay out for him but he is illiterate, in my opinion. I am interested in your thoughts about the Truth Social blasts.
Reading this one felt like watching a magician you already know is palming the card except in this case, the magician is screaming, “LOOK AT MY OTHER HAND!” while emptying your pockets in broad daylight.
Trump’s D.C. takeover talk isn’t just a sideshow, it’s a test run. The man knows the law is his camouflage now. Judges, seals, and case numbers make it look legitimate like it’s all happening in the marble halls of justice instead of the backroom of a mob social club. And the Epstein file stall? That’s about keeping the audience arguing over the theater curtains while the vault gets cleaned out.
The Founders did imagine power-hungry con men like this. That’s why they borrowed from Indigenous governance models with real checks and balances as well as separation of powers and it wasn’t an afterthought; it was the lock on the liquor cabinet. But those checks only work if the people in power actually turn the key, and right now too many are scared to touch it.
And that’s the part that’s eating at me. This isn’t loud, table-flipping Trumpism anymore because it’s quiet, suit-and-tie vengeance with the full blessing of the system. He doesn’t have to break the law when he can bend it until it sings his tune.
So yeah, the headlines say “Washington in crisis,” but if you read between the lines, it’s about how you turn the capital of a democracy into a personal fiefdom step by procedural step. We’re all watching the play, but we’d better start reading the stage directions too. Www.xplisset.com
For all their prescience and profoundly accurate cynicism about the fallibility of human beings, our Founders did not predict the rise of political parties, much less a bizarre state of nature when the interests of a cult would simply override the interests of another branch of supposedly co-equal government.
Today’s Republican Party is an assemblage of toads (a knot?), a collection of slobbering imbeciles, cowards and foul men brimming with dishonor. Paraphrasing Liz Cheney, one day this bizarre cult will be history, but the worminess of Lindsey Graham, the hypocrisy of Thom Tillis, the posturing smugness of Josh Hawley, the cynicism of Kentucky Fried Voldemort — and the ghost of sad, lost Lisa Murkowski wandering the halls of Congress in her blankie — will remain forever.
If you've ever noticed, there have been many democracies founded since this one came off the production line.
No other democracy - alive or dead - in the past 200 years has used the fucked-up idiocy of our system. That's because our system was designed by rich people to make the rest of us think we had something that worked.
But it did work, not for every one of course, yet our framework was the undisputed inspiration for countless revolutions after ours, for our own suffrage movement, the Abolitionist and anti-slavery moments, the civil rights, ERA and gay movements. They all drew inspiration from the spirit as well as the frame of a government based on law, rather than the caprice of a despot.
I listened to an interview of Pete Buttigieg on Pod Save America yesterday. Boy is he smart. He says, rightly, we shouldn’t attempt to go back to what we had exactly, because that would put us back to what led to 47. Rather we should have a plan to improve on what we had.
Yes ML.., good call on "Pete B". Corey Booker too.
Booker? Who voted for 5 of the worst of Trump's Cabinet Choices? He talks a good game, but votes Trump.
I’ve been thinking, we need a better, younger, stronger Senate Leader. Cory Booker, maybe?
HCR is always saying...no going back
Right MLMinET & do not be distracted by Trump's ploy to take Maxwell-Epstein out of the headlines.
Trump is going to put Pam Bondi/the doj in control of the 'DC Metro Police District'. Per MSNBC's Monica Alba DC crime is at a 30 year low.
Regardless, Trump must formally notify Congress within 30 days of any federal takeover of a city police force. Full Stop.
A Senate & House "Joint Resolution" to authorize any such action is required as a matter of settled law.
Taxpayers get ready for an extremely expensive Photo Op.
PS: The Acronym: "DC" also stands for "Distraction Cycle".
It was a good start, and it was a stunningly radical innovation for the 1770s. But when we should have kept going from there, we didn't. We slow walked when we should have taken long bold steps.
That's come back to bite us now, and there's a LOT of catching up we're going to have to do. We'll never be able to go back and reconstruct some more comforting previous time - even if that time wasn't all that long ago. Let go of that fantasy. Our only way is forward.
Don't forget that our Supreme Court didn't help matters when it ruled that the President cannot be prosecuted for doing anything that is considered his " official duties". That decision was certainly a game changer.
Yup, that act alone was the final nail in the democratic coffin. Democracy ceases to exist when one person is given unrestrained power and is above the law. Game over with that ruling.
The Supreme Court didn’t just change the game — they rigged it in a few crucial ways. And sure, we could blame them, but those hacks only got there because of that idiotic relic, the Electoral College.
The supreme 6 criminals are all in on the criminality of the felon child rapist. They support his tactics to destroy our system and use the constitution as toilet paper...the rot started at the top...
OR, KMD, that corporations were people who deserved freedom to contribute limitless amounts of money in the guise of “free speech”!
The Biden Administration, and Biden himself, did many great things. However, it let a couple of big problems slide in favor of looking forward, not back, I suppose. One of the most important of those was failing to address the grotesquely unjudicial Supreme Court - the six black robed super legislators. From Citizens United to ruling Trump can act criminally without consequences, that perversion of our Constitution is well on the way to destroying our democracy. Addressing that has to be high on the list of things the next Democratic Administration must do.
And their decision on Citizen's United has played a big part too.
Which is why when I got the licence plate 1776 by chance, I've kept it ever since, car after car. John Brown, Grandfather to Harper's Ferry John Brown is my five times Great. He died of Dysentery in a tent in serving under Washington in 1776,
Abe didn’t slow walk, but his successors backtracked. At times, it’s been two steps forward and one back. In recent years, it’s been one step forward and two back. Now reverse is the direction of the right, if the left allows it.
You know JD. We probably should quit electing birds to Congress. First they build their nest and then they feather it. We need to pull those feathers out of the contract before the concrete trucks arrive.
Feels like the Texas Two Step with all the progress and regression, no?
Hello Garret... Like that Old Stones Song. 'Time Waits For No One...'...
Or...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEj8lUx0gwY&list=RDsEj8lUx0gwY&start_radio=1
That slow walking was because they were trying to have it both ways: the inspirational rhetoric of equality, and also protect what some people had already acquired from the unpaid labor of un-equals. That tension is still with us today.
It is not a matter of we are "approaching" or if . . . we are now living under authoritarian rule. A batshit crazy person (convicted of 34 felonies and has the nuclear code!) is spewing vitriol and nonsense from the "podium" of an "occupied" WH while literally flushing everything that gave some meaning to self government, education, rule of law, the 4th estate, the arts; to say nothing of the bribery he is using as "diplomacy".
Why isn't this man in a strait jacket and in an unpadded cell?! It really does blow my mind that he is allowed to continue. He gets a pass and the masses go about their business because . . . why? How and when did we become so helpless?
There is no answer or many answers but the bottom line is this is a disaster domestically and globally. I wouldn't be surprised if he offered Alaska to Putin to stop bombing Ukraine. Then Sarah Palin (remember those "good 'ole days"?) could say instead "Russia can see me in my house from the Kremlin"
I share your outrage, but let's look at some flickers of light offered by today's newsletter--the growing manifestation of trump's demise. I was delighted to hear about the Democracy Forward Foundation suing the DOJ and the FBI for the release of the Epstein files. How long can these agencies ignore the suit? The lawlessness is outlandish but I feel that a tsunami is building. Public outrage at not only toward Epstein's behavior but to the blatant coverup as well is swelling in a pressure cooker. The victims are ever present and growing bolder. The one that goes by Katie Johnson who's suit against trump for raping her at Epstein's house at a party when just 13 and a virgin was dismissed in 2016 is now resurrecting it. There are certain red lines that even MAGAs will not allow to be crossed....
Katy Johnson is resurrecting her suit?
┗(•ˇ_ˇ•)―→ Spot on, Janet!
Many have come and gone. We could have learned what did work and what didn’t. Repubs learned that to win they had to cheat since a functional government for the people was more popular. We got a lot right. But deliberate and well-founded evil, wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible upside down, flim flamed the fools. If the 2/3 who question this road to ruin would get serious about opposition, and our MSM noticed, maybe a turn around. In Texas, if you aren’t a MAGAt, you ignore and keep your head down. Most have no clue. Not a recipe for change if the MAGAts are gung ho missionaries. As chump says, they have momentum and “legitimate” power. The only road block seems to be Epstein. More bumps in the road are necessary even if the rough ride is hard to take.
“A functional government for the people” A yellow rose to you JD.
Hello It's-Come-To-This.... Those times were Simpler, and the USA was much Smaller... Countries Age... Societies Age... Getting Old Sucks...
Yes, getting old physically sucks but supposedly, "with age comes wisdom." We were supposed to teach our children well. That didn't happen and if you read Phil's rants about education, we failed and failed bigly. We taught tolerance - free speech, freedom of religion and all that - but we needed to be intolerant of intolerance. When the "Christian" nationalists started pushing, when we had evangelicals putting their hands on a corrupt and evil man to pray and think he's divine (what sane and rational person would allow that?), and members of Congress blatantly hold a "Christian" prayer circle thanking "God" for the passage of a budget that will destroy our country and people's lives, you know it's gotten out of hand. Charlottesville, with Nazis and KKK marching and chanting? This needed a HEAVY hand to shut it down. Instead, we soft peddled because we have freedom of speech and freedom of choice. We have to let people express themselves (sarcastic tone here). We wanted to follow the law while they continued to break it. By the time rumpy got "elected" by cheating, as he always does, and pardoned the J6ers, it was over. The longer this goes on, the more and more difficult it becomes to dislodge.
👍 Especially when you turn your back on the young person you used to be, become a crotchety old coot in a bathrobe yelling 'get off my lawn!' make no effort to adapt, grow, be flexible, learn new things, re-invent yourself, expand your horizons....!
Hello ICTT.... There are Reasons why Old, Inflexible Things Break, and We are only Granted Finite Lifetimes... There Is A Circle Of Life...
The wrench in the works has always been the fourth estate and since the 1960's, the fifth estate.
Heather writes about the press in her book "Wounded Knee" and how they lie to influence the voters. And, of course, others have as well.
Trump didn't choose 30 Fox News employees to work in the administration because of their brilliance. He chose them because of their willingness to work for Murdoch knowing full well, that integrity is frowned upon and lies and deception are required.
As many of you saw yesterday, Hogbreath is attending a DC church that is pushing for a repeal of the 19th amendment. Those pesky women voters are nothing but trouble and he has been working hard to cull them from all branches of the military.
So now Fox and it's clones as well as The NY Times and the WAPO will be reporting ad nauseam on this for the next several days, attempting to divert America's attention from everything Epstein.
The comments by that odious pastor and the re-posting by Hogbreath are clarion calls to women and those who support them everywhere -- calling for the subjugation of over half the population should have been front page news everywhere.
Exactly, lauriemcf. There is no justification for upholding patriarchy. I used to hear these same assertions from very conservative religious family members about a man needing to be the head of the house and a woman not being "lesser" (just having a different vocation), but you can't derive that arrangement from reason.
Speaking of being run over and demolished by bad theology, I've been wondering what effect social media like the reasoned voices on Substack would have had in 1930s Germany. Can anyone spin that out? Could Hitler have been stopped by stronger underground networks? Can Trump be stopped?
Just saw "Cabaret" at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is far more than cringe-worthy, and that production is devastating. Here we are.
Then, as now, the people right-wing demagogues appeal to are (were) steeped in fear --- fear of others, fear of neighbors, fear of themselves, fear of having to make difficult choices in politics and economics and open to a political movement that tells (told) them there was no need -- all they had to was get rid of this or that group and their troubles would be over.
Fear and demonization in politics seem to go hand-in-hand, like death and taxes, including exposure to self-selected media. We have our Faux TV, they had their Volkischer Beobachter, and later, Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer (Breitbart?). History may not repeat itself exactly, but right now it's doing so much rhyming our ears just hurt.
The collective power of American women is enough to flick off this pesky creature like a dog flicks off fleas....
TC, if you're thinking about France, remember: they are on their fifth republic and their trajectory of representative government was interrupted by several monarchies and Napoleonic "empires." Why? Because they did not embed a system like ours for amending the constitution, requiring the rewriting of the entire document. Britain doesn't have a written constitution. Canada gained its independence (it was overseen by a Governor Royal) in 1867. Most of the former Crown Colonies of the British Empire (that is, those that were white settler colonies) were made sort-of independent with the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1926 (formalized in 1931), which happens to be the same time as the Balfour Declaration. This is not to say that our system is working, because it has utterly broken down. And the reasons why do include the fact that elite white men invented the system to ensure their dominance over everyone else and when you have a system in which white patriarchy is embedded into its very foundations, those who want to preserve and ensure their power will got to any lengths to prevent others from benefiting. HCR points out on a daily basis the ways in which the executive office (that is, Miller and Vought because the Felon is not in charge of anything except his McDonald's order) has taken over powers granted in the Constitution to Congress. That is now a meaningless distinction because both Congress and the SCOTUS have abrogated their responsibilities to the people living in the USA (ALL the people living here) and have ceded all their power to the executive. So every time I read or hear of yet another horror and the whining "b-b-b-ut he can't do that!" my response is "who is gonna stop him?" In a word: no one.
The creation of the Senate — strike one. Gerrymandering — strike two. Unlimited money in politics — strike three. And with three strikes, we’re out: out of a functioning democracy, leaving us with a DINO — Democracy In Name Only.
That’s a very simplistic and seriously distorted description of the Founder’s intent.
Our Republic was and remains the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted. It was designed as the antidote for four millennia of top down rule, but its success or failure rested entirely on ‘We the People’ together having just enough of the courage, the honesty, the compassion, the understanding, the tolerance, the humility, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much justice and equity as is humanly possible.
Was the original design flawed? Of course. No one could have expected those guys in the funny suits and weird whigs to get such an undertaking completely right the first time around. But they also gave us the chance to fix it even as we lived it.
If we have not done so, the fault is ours.
In 1787, as it is so now, it was always Benjamin Franklin's "you have a republic, madam....if you can keep it."
And his other trenchant observation - "Passion rules, and she seldom rules wisely"
Congress sharpened its claws until it had no claws left. They became a sloth of bears trying to get at the honey in trees out of reach. Whence came prime minister Tesla with his chainsaw. He got the honey and ran off to his den. Again.
But Elon Musk's Edward Coristine "Big Balls", 19 years old, is still wreaking havoc on the government. He was made a permanent employee in May 2025 as a Senior Advisor GS-15 (highest pay grade) while at the General Services Administration. He resigned in June and is now using his programming skills at the Social Security Administration. He has quite a resume for such a young person.
And I am so tired of the references to him: "...Coristine, also known as "Big Balls"...". He's "known" by that nickname because he gave it to himself, probably as a pre-teen gamer. He's the classic little guy who wants to be a big guy and thinks that means swaggering around bullying people. (Physical size has nothing to do with it. The president is probably at least twice Coristine's physical size, and has the same attitude.) But his magic trick is working, because, lo and behold, he is always referred to by his chosen nickname - but now, he's "known as". It would be more accurate to say, "...Coristine, who calls himself ... "
Just call him edWad.
You are right Vivian. SS has always been the prime target. To allow SS is to allow the beating heart 💗 of America. The whole ghist is that Americans are too lazy to work and seek only to sponge off the hard working rich. No matter how you beat around the bush that is the prime time complaint making colored folks and religion numbers two and three.These are the complaints I field again and again and again.
big balls is the Beatle boring into the pine trees. Once under the bark he girdles the tree. Now the trees are dying in the millions. The western forest is dying in the millions. Soon his contamination will annihilate social security and society as we know it will be altered.
And yet, we have the longest-lived “functioning”system in the world, and over 250 years we haven’t done half-bad.
It's the other half, currently on display, that worries me.
The “idiocy of our system” has worked for almost 250 years. It’s failing at the moment because we elected or appointed disgraceful, self-serving, power-hungry criminals and conspiracy theorists. “It’s Come To This” has it right, and I admire his classy choice of descriptors.
Bravo, TC!
you were brainwashed to be you were infallible with the bs
" American Exceptionalism "
The decline of democracy is due to "we" the people. Social scientist and Professor Shawn Rosenberg wrote that democracy all over the world was dying and soon it's last gasp would escape our atmosphere. That was in 2019. Read about it here:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-rosenberg-democracy-228045/
We will not recover from this. The inexorable slide for democracy in the world will leave us with three Orwellian countries, China, Russia, and TrumpNation, all others will be absorbed. The three will fight with one another until the inevitable someone hits a button.
In 1984 (published 1949) even sex was considered a duty, not a pleasure, just as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale written in 1985 expresses.
The literary world has been warning of this for decades. Social scientists not until the last decade. And now it's too late. There is nowhere to go that will not sooner or later be taken over by one of the big three. Putin and Trump are going to divide up Ukraine this month. Within a short period of time, once Trump gets computer processing manufacturing out of Taiwan, he will cede it to China. I think he and China have already agreed to give him the time to get manufacturing here in the U.S.
The only choice is to fight or bow the knee. As an old Vietnam veteran I can no longer fight, but I would if I could. I hope I'm not around to see what happens to the rest of you. There are still so goddamned many that are unable to comprehend what is happening.
It did work, because our Constitution allowed for change, and we were changing for the better - for a short time. There is no Utopia, and even if there were, it wouldn't happen overnight, or even over a couple of centuries. It would have to grow - like a Redwood tree.
Now, the Ghastly Old Perverts and those billionaires who will never be filled or sated, are taking an axe to that Redwood, and systematically destroying all the progress that's been made, especially over the past 100 years.
TC
Military takeover of DC?
https://open.substack.com/pub/thiswillhold/p/is-trump-planning-a-military-takeover?r=9vmv5&utm_medium=ios
THIS IS IT!!!!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/11/nation/trump-presidency-live-updates/
Like it or not, we had a preview of today's republican party in the form of one Jeff Flake. True to form, he gave us plenty of warning as to the cowardice embedded in such low lifes when he had the chance to rebel and refute the cowardice of his fellow republicans only to fall in line knowing that, even he, would not be in the Senate seat he then held. Imagine the crack, at least, in the republican mindset had Flake voted no against Kavanaugh. However, sadly, even cowards, like Flake, knowing fully well that they need not worry about the voter's wrath, bow down to the acidic indolence of one DJT. And Graham and Tillis, among many others, follow suit in Lemming manner. They not only have no clothes; they also have no legs.
Do not forget Bob Corker as well. And as much as Liz Cheney and Adam Kisinger are elevated to high status for their stand against tRump, they voted for his proposals well over 90% of the time.
Rickey, thank you for pointing out the truth about Cheney and Kinzinger. While I appreciate their participation in the J6 investigative committee, I am of the opinion that they did the right thing for the wrong reason: that Trump damaged the Republican brand and they were conducting damage control.
Republicans are nothing if not experts in couching their ulterior motives in high-sounding, patriotic language.
I could stand to be in the same room with Cheney and Kinzinger, unlike most Republicans, but I strongly object to Democrats' tendency to canonize those two as saints.
I didn't mean to forget about all those folks. At least Cheney and Kisinger had the gonads to call out Trump when they did. However, you're correct in calling out Bob Corker. Before he took flight like Flake did, he could have shown courage concerning Kavanaugh and decided not to.
I feel so sorry for these guys' children and grandchildren....
And let's toss the ever-oh-so-concerned Susan Collins into the mix!
It's a metaphor slam! Let the good ones roll, Xplissit and It's Come to This!
While many of the Founders publically eschewed ‘factionalism’ as they called it, several of them actually initiated our two party system. The Federalists and Democratic- Republicans were certainly not the well-oiled and well ossified binary system today’s two parties have become, but even a casual look at the election of 1800 will reveal almost all of the traits and tricks of our modern maelstrom.
That's quite a cast of characters you paint. The terrifying fact is that they're not of a novel, but truly exist....
The framers also were decidedly against too much democratization as we've seen. They designed a republic in order to avoid the inevitable outcome of democracies, the raise of populist ideologues, ergo, Trump.
"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." ~A.Lincoln
It's, my first smile this am...Fried Voldemort.
Oh my It's come to this. Adjectives sure help one draw mental pictures!
Keep an eye on the '26 elections being "postponed" until the cities and streets are "safe", made so by ICE, FBI and Nat'l Guard (the last becoming "his" private army)
They did predict the rise of “factions.” They believed Congress would jealously protect its power from The Executive branch.
Very funny but there are tears behind the smile.
Your metaphors are to die for. 😍
It's a damn shame ninety million of us forgot to vote. Again. Maybe we get another chance to fix it next November. I can wish but I think I just saw a bunch of flying pigs.
Democrats need to blanket all of the colleges and universities across the country registering students to vote and recruiting the bright young Democrats for the future.
David Hogg is doing this as well as many others. There are no more conservative politicians in the US only Fascists that fantasize about the US becoming an authoritarian oligarchy, of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
What say you Gen-Z?
Registering to vote is a good thing, voting in an election is a whole different process. Encouraging those whom are registered to vote is the challenge.
I'm not sure Gen Z will help with the incel culture that's currently metastasizing in their ranks. It really feels like the world is just going all toxic.
There are some who are ready. The question is whether that will be enough.
No, Concerned Citizen. That was just a bunch of lard around the waist of orange Pig Face.
"Forgot to vote." Psy ops.
This is the real issue!
So he is imagining DC will be his for the foreseeable future I imagine?
My Preccccccioussssssss. He's truly insane with vengeance and and avarice!
Hello Bruce... "My Preccccccioussssssss."..... Excellent!!!...
Can't you just see/hear him saying it...?
He's nuts and throwing a lot of shit on the wall. Thank you for your attention on this matter.
But he's been "Mr. Nice Guy!" He said so. And woe is me, he won't be "Mr. Nice Guy" anymore.
I don't think Donald Trump has ever had a "nice" bone, or organ, or platelet in his body.
His niece, Mary, can attest to that ... and has, in her book, Too Much and Never Enough.
I’m super OVER the thank you for your attention to this matter Sign off. Apparently someone put that on there for him and he doesn’t know how to remove it….
I think the sign off is part of his cognitive decline.
To go with the ketchup
And why isn't DC the 51st state and Puerto Rico the 52nd?
I'm guessing Brown people?
Anything, Annie, his tiny little hands can grab is his.
This includes the underage girls pals Jeffrey and Ghislaine provided at their N.Y. and Palm Beach mansions, the women he might accost on airplanes and dressing rooms, and his daughter Ivanka all through her teen years as the many photos online of that attest.
Next -- anything his armies of thugs might attack.
Remember, too, Annie, his concentration camps are now funded by his Republican sycophants in Congress. If we here supplementing Heather ever travel by airplane where TSA agents are posted, watch out. They'll soon enough have lists of our names designated for these camps.
Phil, I just traveled to Europe and back. I was concerned about being singled out (while at the same time wondering who’d bother with a grandmother like me). I can say definitively no TSA or CBP agent was the least interested in me. Also, I’m not certain they were much interested in anything from the looks of them. TBH, it looked to me their ranks were thinned by “waste, fraud and abuse.” They have to be as dispirited as other government employees, especially as employees are forced over to ICE or lose their jobs.
Do you really have to imagine? He's already cemented over the rose garden....
Just look at the crappy renovations he has done. He ain't leaving.
He wants to turn it into a big (biggest!) beautiful (beautiful-est !) theme park ever: Trumpty Dumpty's MAGA World🎢 🎡🤡. Bring the family.👨👩👧👦 Bring proof of citizenship!
But he is breaking the law. He's always broken the law, yet he's only been convicted once. Those checks and balances you mention are failing and you urgently need a new Constitution that doesn't lend itself to the sort of perverse interpretations to which it has been subjected recently by your Supreme Court or the type of judicial activism that has actually guaranteed many your freedoms in the past.
He's a convicted fraudster; he's been impeached twice both times without consequence; he's lost a defamation suit because a jury believed that he committed a sexual assault; he's a moron who has surrounded himself with incompetent lackeys and yet millions of Americans have voted for him twice and seem quite willing to do so again. People power cuts both ways.
Hello Xavier... Seems to me that the Heritage Foundation Gamed This Out like a War-Game against the Post '60s American Urban Society... I agree that "Red Queen' DJT is trying to turn DC into his personal Fiefdom... Practice for other Cities Perhaps?
Apache… you just nailed it like a Pentagon war-game slide they’d never declassify.
This isn’t just Trump playing King of D.C. for kicks . Heritage and their Project 2025 brain trust are running the urban control simulation in real time. And like you said, they’re pulling the “post-’60s American city” playbook right off the shelf — the one that treats Black and brown urban centers as chessboards for proving how far they can stretch executive muscle without the Constitution snapping back.
D.C. is the test kitchen. If the dish comes out just right — courts cowed, press distracted, public confused — you better believe they’ll try serving it in Chicago, Philly, Atlanta… maybe even New York if they think they’ve softened it up enough.
It’s not just about turning one city into a fiefdom. It’s about showing the rest of the country that the concept works. And once that precedent’s baked in, good luck putting it back in the box.
And let’s not forget while we’re all watching this power grab play out he’s been working overtime to keep eyes off those Epstein files. That’s not coincidence ya’ll, that’s stagecraft.
Thanks Xavier... Love Your Prose... You Are A Kool Dude.... Furthering their Game, they are packing the Federal Courts with their Acolytes... Quiet Infiltration of the only thing Slowing the Red Queen... Be Real Concerned When Clarence Thomas Retires....
The Epstein files are going from smoldering stage to wildfire.
My hope is that the states will grow balls and rebel. As for trump, creativity without taste has it's downfall. Just wait until the cavernous ballroom monstrosity makes the WH and him look so utterly puny....
Xplisset, I think the potential takeover of New York City is the main reason (not the given one) Eric Adams was shielded from the consequences of his corruption, and Trump is so vehemently opposed to Zohran Mamdani.
Indebted to Trump, Adams would hand the city over on a silver platter. Mamdani would not. What authoritarian, despotic cabal wouldn't want to control the seat of global commerce?
Not quite, Apache. L.A. was practice for D.C.
Hello Phil... A little Different... In LA, it was commandeered CA National Guard, and Posse Commitas USMC Troops.... Thus Far the Red Queen wants to only use Federal LE like ICE does.. We'll See....
Apache, I like the Red Queen tag. I hadn’t considered this before, but President QPQ must be transitioning to a full-blown TRANS. Wouldn’t that be a hoot!
LA was the opening skirmish. The center held. The flankers were repulsed. The enemy retreated in a rout. DC is a ruse. The real battle is in Texas. Trust me, they must break the color barrier to its knees and drag the bodies across the border. That is the battle they cannot win. When you see who has skin in the game you can understand who hasn’t a ghost of a chance.
EPSTEIN FILES, DISTRACTIONS, AND A CRUMBLING PRESIDENCY
I see Trump’s presidency rotting from the inside out. Now that a lawsuit is pushing to release the Epstein files with his name in them, he is lashing out, smearing Pelosi, threatening to seize D.C., fumbling with Putin. It is all smoke and mirrors. I am not fooled for a second. The harder he tries to distract, the more obvious it becomes that he is terrified of what is in those files. When they drop, no circus act will save him.
Somehow we must all find the courage and focus not to lose sight of that, mustn't we?
I like Jeff Tiedrich's comments with a recurring ending. We could all follow his example.
"the only thing you need to know about the Mad King’s rooftop antics is that Donny’s name is on every page of the Epstein Files."
I've made allusions in the past, but I'll be more direct. Given what we already know about Donald's proclivities, there is no doubt in my mind that he has statutorily raped numerous underage girls. There are receipts, and he is desperately trying to hide them.
Donald was much, much closer to Jeffery than he wants anyone to know. Judging by body language in photos depicting them, these are two men who've seen each other naked, and not in a locker room context.
Donny was a Democrat when Epstein was peddling little girls. I know JD wants everyone to ignore that those billionaire left-leaning pedophiles didn’t include him but I’m sure he was at the top of the list.
The only left-leaning billionaires I can think of are George Soros and Warren Buffet. And I doubt either of them leans left when it comes to their money. For that matter, the same could be said of Donald when he was a "Democrat." Soros and Buffett seem unlikely suspects for pedophilia to me. Donald, however, is a well-known sexual predator with an attraction to younger females. He's made a cringey, lustful comment about his own daughter. He publicly drew the line at age 12, so that must be his limit.
The overlap between billionaires and Republicans is almost total, so it's more than likely that Epstein's "friends" were Republicans, with a stray Democrat here and there.
During Bill Clinton's governorship, I lived in the Governor's Mansion neighborhood and was good friends with one of his "targets," so I'm fairly familiar with his adventures. He was an inveterate womanizer, but to my knowledge, limited his interest to women of legal age. He may have been a guest of Epstein, but if the "offerings" were not to his taste, he probably didn't return. Maybe I'll be surprised if the files are released.
That is my most recent hope… my recurring dream that the Epstein Files will finally be his Achilles Heel.
'But those checks only work if the people in power actually turn the key' -- so true and still all they are doing is looking the other way and whistling a happy tune. Total abdication of duty.
There is also a very particular Trumpian animus in this as DC is a Black-majority city.
And every day, the offspring of elite colluders and perpetrators are being groomed as Next-Generation Takers. As you have said, Xplisett, the Constitution is NOT a suggestion.
Xplisset, your quote: "The Founders did imagine power-hungry con men like this. That’s why they borrowed from Indigenous governance models with real checks and balances as well as separation of powers and it wasn’t an afterthought; it was the lock on the liquor cabinet. " Is so true. We listened to a speaker who focused on the Indigenous people meeting with some of the Founders and how what they had to say influenced their decisions. The U.S. Great Seal shows the eagle clutching a bundle of arrows with the implication that we are stronger when we are together. The lecture was held this summer in the Duportail house with Valley Forge nearby. (Gen. Louis Le Beque de Presle Duportail).
Couldn't agree with you more Xplissit, as I said in my comment.
And we’d better be prepared to deal with this; between decorating the Oval Office as if it were a bordello, adding that grotesque monstrosity he calls a ballroom to the grounds and blathering on about taking over the city, he’s setting things up for permanent residency. The White House is his, and the city will soon be his, and come January 20, 2028, no matter who’s elected, he ain’t leaving.
John, I don't think Donald's decorating inspiration is a bordello. They are generally furnished with flocked wallpapers and velveteens, with a heavy use of garnet reds and burgundies, utilized to stimulate the appetites.
Clearly, Donald's aesthetics and his obsession with gold leaf and crystal, are drawn directly from the Grand Kremlin Palace. The rendering for his planned "ballroom" is a replica of Georgievsky Hall located inside the palace.
https://youtu.be/JZtJHYdBpGE
Interior starts at 1:00.
Has he replaced the curtains yet with maroon velvet? Gold braid tir-backs?
Hello Xavier... Are You 'Street Smart'?....
Apache… Street smart? Man, I spent 20 years as a patrol officer. You work that long on the street, you learn to smell a setup before the ink even dries on the playbook.
This whole Heritage war-game? Yeah, I’ve seen that movie. You start small run the hustle on one block, one city then scale it up once you know the marks will fall for it. And D.C.? That’s just the test run before they roll it nationwide.
And here’s the part folks miss which is while everybody’s watching the front door, “Red Queen” over there is yanking our attention off the Epstein files like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Only difference? This rabbit’s wearing a gold plated subpoena. www.xplisset.com
This morning, both the Times and Post are reporting that the FBI is temporarily "re-assigning" 120 FBI agents, who would otherwise be working on domestic terrorism, cybercrime, child trafficking, to "night patrol" work as beat cops in DC to "fight crime."
I've never worked as a beat cop, but if I had, having an inexperienced, know-nothing-about-street-crime FBI agent in the car with me, overseeing my every move, wouldn't exactly fill me with comfort and joy. You can bet this was a new "Off With His Head" executive order from outside the FBI (and no, Kash Patel doesn't count).
You forgot, Xplisset, the Distraction in Alaska a few days hence.
Except, for the people of the Ukraine, and those of the European democracies (and a hand-full in Asia), the coming sell-out to Putin will be no mere distraction only.
Yes - we are sending an incompetent toddler who worships our enemy and thinks bullying is negotiating to a meeting with a former KGB operative who will likely walk away without having to concede anything and who will continue to destroy Ukraine with impunity (unless Europe steps up). What could possibly go wrong?
Sellout, selloff: I anticipate as the Ruski plane touches down in Alaska, a huge banner on the tarmac will unfurl reading "WELCOME HOME!"
Another straightforward report today Professor. Thank you.
I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV, but it’s pretty clear that tromp
Is really losing his capacities very quickly.
Who is protecting our democracy?
Not Congress. Not the Senate. Not SCOTUS! Not The Heritage Foundation!
Who?
Are you at least in the streets protesting? Resistance works.
One has to wonder if Vance is "promoting" the Epstein files on purpose; that would be an easy way to ascend to the presidency if Trump were removed upon implication in abuse.
Don’t think for a second the Maybelline Bitch isn’t thinking that one through as we type.
Please stop. This is misogyny. I realize it seems ok when applied to an enemy, but it is still unnecessary.
It's a prison term, it means something very specific there. It's who he is. And yes, it is also misogyny. Both things are true.
Are you ok with using misogyny in how you talk?
But if Trump is impeached for treason, the entire administration is removed from office.
Article II, Section 4:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Yup.
Not quite, Steve.
On August 15 Trump will learn first-hand from Putin that the Kremlin has copies of all the Epstein files -- has the dirt (with video) on the underage girls, as well as other clandestine real estate and money laundering activity Trump was engaged in.
Putin leverages all this to demand Trump give him all of Ukraine. Trump, conscience-stricken, announces press conference, saying he's asked J. D. Vance to resign as V.P. and has asked Kamala to take that position. When she does, he, Trump will resign -- so the nation may have a fresh start.
Conscience.
Dream on, Phil …
You beat me to it Cathy, that is exactly what I was going to write as a reply 🙏
Perhaps, this will be a face-off of one criminal extortionist facing another across the table. I can just see J.D. salivating in the wings. Everything that happens, now, is drawing him one step closer to the W.H.
Great sarcasm, Phill! I love the use of the words 'conscience' and 'Trump' in the same paragraph!
Phil, you have made my evening. On that note I'm going to set aside my smartphone and call it an evening before I read any more bad news.
@Phil Balla, In what world does this happen as you’ve described?
It’s sarcasm / satire.
Surely you mean "conscience" as the science of conning, which is the only one DJT excels at.
Conscience.......you are kidding right???
Shirley you jest.
No I don't. And please, don't call me Shirley!
( I HAD to!! )
lol...
Yeah…right.
One could only hope 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Conscience??? LOLOLOL
Sen. Ron Wyden says 'follow the money' on Epstein, cites $1.1 billion in wire transfers
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, cited a Treasury Department file showing nearly 4,725 wire transfers totaling $1.1 billion in one Jeffrey Epstein account.
WTF. This is a smoking cannon and Trump's fingerprints are all over it. And then there are the hundreds of Epstein and Trump victims many of whom have come forward to testify. Why doesn't anyone give a fuck about their testimony?
Release the list of pedophiles. Why does it matter if they are Democrats or Republicans? A pedophile is a pedophile and we end up losing half of the Congress so be it.
It has occurred to me that the victims could be the biggest danger—they know names. They are being overlooked big time, and I hope they step forward en masse.
Justice Department investigation.
After the fact, 10 years after Epstein got the deal of the century and Trump got a get out of jail card, DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility investigated but concluded that Acosta committed no professional wrongdoing and violated no ethics standards.
The non-prosecution agreement was signed over 10 years earlier when Acosta was U.S. attorney for South Florida. “Acosta’s decision to decline to initiate a federal prosecution of Epstein was within the scope of his authority, and OPR did not find evidence that his decision was based on corruption or other impermissible considerations, such as Epstein’s wealth, status, or associations.”
After the executive summary was released, Acosta, who had refused to answer the Miami Herald’s questions about his actions, issued a two-page statement saying it “fully debunks allegations that the [United States Attorney’s Office in South Florida] improperly cut Epstein a ‘sweetheart deal’ or purposefully avoided investigating potential wrongdoing by various prominent individuals.”
The Herald got parts of the report. “While OPR did not find that Department attorneys engaged in professional misconduct, OPR concluded that the victims were not treated with the forthrightness and sensitivity expected by the Department,” the statement said.
It seems to me that any investigation would have identified who the unnamed co-conspirators were.
Maybe Acosta’s former top assistant, Jeffrey Sloman; ex-criminal chief Matthew Menchel; former case prosecutor Marie Villafaña, who had prepared a sex-trafficking indictment against Epstein that was not filed; and her boss, Andrew Lourie can elucidate us.
Maxwell alleges she is one of the protected class and wants to invoke that get out of jail free card in her petition for cert to SCOTUS.
Donnie was compromised from the get-go.
I'm convinced he owed big money to the mob (besides just being generally embarrassing to have around), and so they sold him and his debts to the Russians. From a gangster's point of view it was win-win.
It turned out the Russians knew just what to do with him.
Garrett, "the mob," is actually Bratva, the Russian mob. No selling of debt was needed because the Russians already held it. Unlike most other organized crime, Bratva is directly connected to the Kremlin.
But your conclusion is correct.
That was my next thought following HCR's statement in that regard. Yes, that's a possible alternate motive. To 'grease' tfg's exit to start his ascendancy. Sparks could fly in any case.
You would think that if the Epstein files protected Dems, this administration would be releasing every word.
Or, way deep steve, he is a total stupid guy groomed to the core by Peter Thiel.
Doesn't seem as though there is any question about Vance being Thiel's surrogate.
Absolutely Steve.
Vance's choice to stir up the Epstein files interest by commenting feels strategic to me as well. Yes, he can be inept. But I believe he is ambitious and part of something larger than himself.
If only we could poke rump into getting rid of Vance for “treason” or something…..
J.D. could be worse than tRump if that were possible.
it is possible.
I think Vance is just smart enough to respond when his puppet strings are pulled. I don't think he'll be more dangerous than trump but I think we'll find out soon.
I guess that depends on who's pulling the strings of the puppet. Pretty sure JD is smart enough to know the "it's only Democrats on Epstein Island" line doesn't work. Not after MAGA crowd have been asking why the Democrats didn't release the files when it was so damaging to their opponents, the same question would apply if it's only Democratic leaders visiting the island.
Ahem, cough, cough - That makes sense & raises the question, what are the real internal dynamics now in the 47 administration / maladministration?
My first thought on hearing that the meeting would be at the VP’s house: they were planning the succession - 47 resigns, jd becomes president, and then pardons him like Ford did Nixon.
yeah, that seems about right
also Joyce Vance reported,
“Hegseth reposted a CNN report featuring a religious leader named Doug Wilson sharing his backward views—views Hegseth clearly supports. “Women are the kind of people people come out of,” Wilson says, before adding, “it doesn’t take any talent.” Other religious leaders in Wilson’s orbit join in to explain to reporters that the man is the head of the household and the wife’s job is to submit. Then they delve into their belief that women shouldn’t be able to vote, with one pastor saying he supports repeal of the 19th Amendment.”
Does this idiot not realize that every woman who has given birth was bravely willing to literally risk her life to give life? Without that amazing “talent” he couldn’t exist, What a contemptible person,
All of the men in trumps orbit have sexual misconduct allegations and or convictions, Our country is being run by ignorant , malicious, maladapted, predatory men who hate women and anyone else who doesn’t agree with them, Normally this would have been an action that would have required Hegseth’s resignation, but we only hear silence, How did our country stoop so low?
Sexual abuse of minors is more common than you think. Often perpetrated within families, it is under reported and misunderstood. The perpetrators - primarily men - are deeply insecure combined with a pathological nee to control and dominate - women and children are the easiest target. Whether sexual or violent, this toxic view has become rampant across all social groups. Women have no talent? It is precisely their clear, strong, capable talent that makes these men feel so emasculated they need to exert control. Birth rates are down, I wonder why?
When I attended school in the 1960's every elementary teacher I had was a white woman. And our lower middle class class had no persons of color except two Asians.
Our core class of about 20 students was together for most of our K-12 years. Most of the class ended up attending college and more than statically should have became professionals and successful entrepreneurs.
But, the girls were treated differently in class. One of our classmates graduated summa-cum-laude from Iowa State University and yet, it seems the boys were the ones that were praised for their achievements in the classroom. Subconsciously the boys competed with the boys because the girls were dismissed as not being our equals.
I hope girls are treated better by our education system now, but the Trump administration wants all of you uppity women to stay at home and raise your boys to be the future of the country.
I am 74 - and was criticized by some man for "wasting my father's money on college" and asked by counselors if I wanted to be a teacher or a nurse, as if those were the only 2 choices. Thankfully I was raised by parents who told me I could be anything -- and over time I became an art historian, then a graphic designer and, in my 40s, I became a lawyer and practiced for the next 20 years. I was so lucky to have parents who encouraged me -- not every girl did.
Yes, you were lucky to have parents who encouraged you. Not all of us did.
Extremely lucky.
I am 80 years old and had the good fortune of parents, especially my father, who encouraged and supported higher education for my sister and I. I am grateful!
I'll be 74 next month. I vividly remember going into the counselor's office in 8th grade to set up my high school curriculum. As I was walking toward his desk to sit down, he asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I said a veterinarian, he laughed at me. I can still hear it. He said, "Girls can't be vets. Vets have to take a lot of chemistry and math and girls aren't good at stuff like that. Why don't you be a nurse or a teacher instead?" I so admire women who went ahead and did it anyway. I, sadly, buckled under. What a world we would have if everyone was encouraged to succeed, if we helped each other achieve and follow their dream (as long as it was within the law and with harm to none - there are some people out there with evil intentions).
Kathy, I’m also 73. Back when we were young many school vocational counselors were enamored of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank and we all took the test. I remember a boy who got exactly the same scores as I did. He was advised to become a doctor or a lawyer. I was advised to be a nurse or a social worker. I was shocked but totally unaware of systemic gender-based bias at that age. While I shrugged the test off I ultimately did become a social worker and then a human services manager and finally a national expert and trainer on homelessness. So. There.
P.S. The SVIB was finally retired, years later, as hopelessly biased!
Your counselor obviously didn’t know about nursing programs in colleges. The nursing curriculum is based on lots of science and math. I was lucky to attend a BSN program and graduated in 1974. It wasn’t a common pathway to nursing, but it is now.
I did too. Became an analytical chemist snd the second woman in sales at HP bc the founders didn't understand that side of the business. The electronics side were all dudes.
I worked for a high-tech company started in 1984. The founder, a young engineer (who recruited me btw), ask what I was thinking going to college and majoring in ENGLISH. No offense, engineers, but this was typical.
I challenge that fat-fuck of a pastor to be pregnant for 9 months and then endure 22 hours of labor -- and then to breast feed and care for an infant while recovering from labor. There should have been collective outrage over this re-posting.
Not to mention to push out of one's body a being with the head the size of an average melon...
Been there, done that.
We can choose to stop getting distracted by this stuff. Hegseth posted it to get a reaction, get some attention and deflect from his downfall and it worked. Some preacher's rantings do not qualify as a removal of a woman's right to vote. We must keep our focus. We are in a coup.
Project 2025 does want to remove woman’s rights, Christian Nationalists see woman as existing only to have children and support a husband. They are second class citizens, They have already taken away rights by reversing Roe, and now trying to deny Mifepristone and Misoprostol. Too many woman have already died because this right has been taken away, Vouchers are going to religious schools. Our taxpayers money is being spent indoctrinating yiung boys and girls into believing this rot. This is not a distraction, but just one more of the many many rights this regime is taking away,
This was about women voting. The video was about women voting. Neither Hegseth nor the preacher have any power to stop women from voting. These cranks have been talking about women not voting for years.
People from this regime will continue to deflect from the real and present danger as long as people run around getting pulled off the crisis at hand.
It is odd that Wilson can remark that motherhood and mothering take such little talent, all the while he’s imagining what a fancy piece of work impregnation is. His is such an odd and perverse vanity, so shallow a wit. A church tailor made for the carefully coifed Pete. And such a perfect fit.
Leave him alone with the kids, including an infant, for a week. That should fix him.
Uuuuuhhhh, maybe best not
Dude must hate his mom...
Every time this religiously based misogynistic nonsense emerges again from the mouths (not brains, because no brainpower is involved) of men of no consequence, my response has always been : “ yes, since having males in power has been such a success so far, right?”
I understand the sentiment and it’s not baseless. One thing, while one can cite opposing examples, overall and historically gender has not made the difference nor is there any reason why it should, power of any scale isn’t a solitary person. It’s the person who counts to whatever extent they can or care.
I have to point out that in this era of Trumpist insanity, it has been women by and large who have stood up to Donnie’s crimes and have called him out for the rapist,felon and evil man that he is.
Yes and well you should. I do not minimize the importance of anyone’s impact on society. I’ve been watching this clown since the early 70’s and his father for a few years before that.
I think he wears alarm bells for personal jewelry. He’s committed just about every serious crime I can think of. Let’s not forget the masses of other crimes. The only thing he manages to do more often is lie. With each breath he lies twice … I mean, who does that? I know he’s not the only person with these qualities. But him I know.
He’s spent no jail time? His sister was a Federal Judge before she had to step down to prevent an investigation. Since Drumpf can’t read to save his life, how do you figure he’s managed this? He seems to know more about the different courts than most actual attorneys.
There is good moral basis to legislate sterilization of all of Fred Trumps spawn. From Fred’s father all the way down to the present (adult) generation, there is an obvious genetic propensity for low intelligence blended with a completely amoral personality defect. All of Trumps grandkids should be monitored for the trait.
Re: How did we stooped so low ... Hillary Clinton was in my IMO the most qualified candidate for President in our history. Putin, James Comey and Bernie Sanders all help Trump win but only by a small amount. Then Biden and his scary as hell debate performance made many swing voters not trust the Democrats for hiding the real Biden. Yeah, even though Harris was an Attorney General of the largest State voters trusted a felon convicted of Sexual assault, Defamation, Tax Fraud, Election Interferences with Business Fraud and charged with Sedition, Racketeering; Espionage and Obstruction of Justice. IMO we need to accept that racist misogynist hate and fear was at the center of Trump winning a second term. We must play to win from here on out. That means learn from the past and accept the nature of this beast we call the "United States of America." Winning is everything.
Are you saying that we can’t run a non-white or woman candidate?
No. We can. We have done it. We also ran a white women and that says who "We" are. What I am saying is we lost two out of the three times Trump ran and that says who the USA is and we need to learn from that hard truth.
Our country stooped so low the first time the Republican Party nominated Drumpf for President. Then again when Small Hands was elected President. And then, the already feral Republicans nominated Taco Fold for President once again, and incredibly again, as though the digestive system of the nation had a total reversal of the normal order of function and the nation returned the Orange Turd to office.
I think that’s when we as a nation stooped so very low that we seem to have so difficult a time attempting to rise once more.
For all of us, I expect the burning question is, will we?
Or he didn’t actually win.
I have had the feeling that history will prove that Trump did not legitimately win the E C , that there was massive cheating by Rethugs in the background. Cheating is, after all, the chief talent of the right wing.
drumpf
small hands
taco fold
orange turd
When we can erase his nasty way of talking from our national vocabulary we can begin to reclaim a part of our national identity-civil discourse
Easy. Remove him from political life and any like him. We’ll all know when we’ve arrived.
I wonder. Is it possible to overnight erase the residual anger, cursing and name calling? Guess we will see.
I don’t see any problem myself in leaving it all behind. I didn’t usher it in either, wouldn’t have.
There is an ailment, fortunately rare, where the entire function of the human alimentary canal entirely reverses itself. Unpleasant, very. One may readily disagree, but it does seem to be the political phase we have entered.
It hasn’t been during living memory but the British would put human heads on pikes and line the bridge to Parliament either them. It was way before the advent of radio. I suppose it was felt there was a need.
Been stooping low with W before that..
No let's not forget the glorified dolt reagan
We shouldn’t forget him. 45 years ago he was the Presidential nominee chosen at the beginning of our 2nd step toward authoritarianism. Nixon marked the first. With G W Bush’s nomination the Republican party marked the third step. At this time we are not standing at the threshold. We may actually be crossing it.
“ Women are the kind of people people come out of” is about the most ignorant sentence (and grammatical construction) I’ve ever heard. But at least he called us people.
And men are people who need 80 to 300 million sperm for one to (perhaps) fertilise the egg within the person out of whom comes a person. That sure as hell takes no talent.
Excellent point.
People ignore at our peril.
Yes, and what happens to a family when the father dies with cancer leaving a wife to care for a double duo of a trouble making 10 and 12 year old.
My mom rolled up her sleeves and took care of everything SUCCESSFULLY
in spit of the trouble my younger brother and I gave her…I would dare any man to try to do all that she did!!!!
She took care of our home. managed investments, rented acres of farmland, sent my brother to military school and both of us to college, rescued me from a cult.
Thank God one thing I did that pleased her was to marry my husband whom I met in the cult but who visited her off and on until she kidnapped me!!!
She never remarried….she never complained…..also she was treasurer of her Sunday School Class for years and years. She always kept herself looking perfectly beautiful!!!!
I'm afraid you haven't had to 'stoop' for quite some time now.
The dictator feels many of us haven’t gotten the message. He’s the dictator.
He hates blacks who aren’t, “Yassah Massah” to him – and the District of Columbia has a half million who won’t bow and scrape. So, as he’s got his private thug army of I.D.-free I.C.E. goons, he’s got more police state knaves in Kash Patel’s F.B.I. It’s not really Kash Patel’s. It’s his, the dictator’s.
Americans need to be taught a lesson. The dictator will teach it. Don’t question him. If his thugs round up a few dozen uppity in D.C., Americans need to see them deported – just like that – to 3rd-world hellholes. Even if they’re U.S. citizens? Doesn’t matter.
The dictator won’t be questioned. Those Q’s about what he and pal Jeffrey were doing with underage girls? Don’t ask. Only remember: if you’re famous, they let you do it. Just as his Quislings Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and his and Mitch’s additional three have let him perch above and beyond us.
Putin is stealing and SELLING UKRANIAN CHILDREN!! ARREST PUTIN IN ALASKA ON 8/15/25. MAXIMUM SANCTIONS ON PUTIN AND RUSSIA. STOP EXPORTS FROM RUSSIA THROUGH THE ARTIC. AND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD RELEASE ALL OF THE EPSTEIN FILES.
Sadly, we are not signatories to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, one of the world’s few outliers that are not.
Hello ICTT.... Israel is not either.... Today, 10-Aug-2025, the Israeli Air-force targeted & killed 6-International Correspondents camped outside the one of the last functioning Hospitals in Gaza, Shifa.... Can't Tell Me That Was Accidental.... Indeed the IDF admitted that this was a Air-Strike to kill Al-Jazeera Correspondent Anas Al Sharif, and his Team Intentionally... Last Year, 2024, Al Sharif, and his Team won a Pulitzer Prize documenting the Carnage is Gaza... His Team was targeted by the Israelis since...
no, it was not an accident. idf tried to get to Palestinian journalist Al-Sharif who they accuse of being a leader of a Hamas cell. killing him and more al-jazeera journalists ... they don't care to add 5 more journalists to the 200+ that already died in this terrible war.
Thanks Marli... Easy to label someone a Terrorist when they are Dead... Maybe the IDF doesn't want to have any Witnesses to Netanyahu's 'Final Soution' that they can't Control...
"Calling Al-Sharif “one of Gaza’s bravest journalists,” Al Jazeera said the attack “is a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.” [https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/anas-al-sharif-al-jazeera-journalist-killed-israeli-strikes-gaza-war/article69919022.ece]
But can’t that court send Interpol to arrest Putin while he is out of the country????
It's complicated, but I think the short answer is no. Biden voluntarily cooperated with the International Criminal Court in certain instances, even though the United States formally withdrew from what's called the Rome Statute that set it in the mid-1980s. Bill Clinton signed the Statute, but Congress did not ratify It (I think).
SO SO RIGHT! Thanks for my NEW SIGNAGE!
ARREST PUTIN ON AMERICAN SOIL !!!
RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES NOW !!!
That's the dream I had last night: as soon as Putin stepped foot on American soil Trump had him arrested...for war crimes. What a show that would be. Epstein would be forgotten.
The dream...Putin's plane makes an emergency landing on a melting ice floe.
He is met by a platoon of angry polar bears.
There is 1 thing keeping the House of Cards that is the Trump administration from collapsing - the stock market.
This is why he fired the head of the BLS and went on CNBC a few days later.
He can't let the economic truth out.
He must keep the stock market up.
He will fail.
Our Representatives have packed their bags and gone home for summer vacation. Wish I could, but no one is paying for my travel or my grocery bill that rises daily. And I need to stay on the phone leaving messages to them about the fading American Dream as the REGIME spends day in ,day out doing what Authoritarian Fascists do best. Diverting... We The People from The REAL matters at hand. It is so exhausting trying to keep up with the daily smut and evilness that a person just wants to hide under the covers. FOCUS All the Religious Right, all the Women Bashers, all the sleeze bag vile spewing members of the REGIME given free reign on all the WEENIE media outlets 24/7 FOCUS Do not let them steal our FOCUS They are loving that we are dumbstruck by their lies and slime. FOCUS People of DC rise up
call for help we are out here FOCUS do not let them steal your city! FOCUS We will not
let them steal OUR AMERICA! FOCUS I need to make more calls, make more signs, sleep.
Tomorrow need to stand at the interstate.
And the bond market. If the tariffs drive inflation and tank jobs, people won't have the money to spend. If investors stop buying the treasury bonds which keep the whole thing going, no amount of covering up unfavourable measures will help.
IMHO the plan is to "privatize" all government assets. The Trump administration is reportedly taking mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC) public, per the Wall Street Journal. The report adds that officials believe the offering could raise $30 billion in such a debut, valuing the two at "roughly $500 billion."
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article311636923.html#storylink=cpy
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, and those in a committee that fits your topic. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. We deserve better ❤️🩹🤍💙
I thank you every day Megan Rothery!
me too!! Thank you Megan!!!
🩷 you’re welcome!!
Aww! You’re welcome!!
Go Megan go ! Brava ~
I can't use the Texas emails. I've tried, but they don't seem to work, Megan. Maybe they know of your determination.
I just checked the Senator’s links and a couple in the House, they seem to be working. Could you let me know which ones aren’t for you?
I will go check, thank you! I checked links recently when I made shorter documents for each state, but honestly I have been curious if links will ever be changed
In 1976, when I was 21, I was 1 of 22 Russian-speaking guides (and the youngest) at America’s only international exhibition on the bicentennial, called “USA: The 200 Years,” which was held at Moscow’s Sokolniki Park during the month of November, attracting several hundred thousand visitors in less than 30 days.
The exhibit was a warts-off display of American pride, complete with a Conestoga Wagon, a circle-rama presentation of ‘America the Beautiful’ from Disneyland — and us. I stood in front of 3 towering 20-foot high replicas of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights translated into Russian. We just offered ourselves, like Geishas, to a public hungry for information about the outside world not filtered through the lens of Pravda. The conversations were open — remarkably so — free-wheeling, unstructured, uncensored, with a great deal of warmth and spontaneous humor on both sides.
But the KGB did try to sabotage us from time to time. On a regular basis, sometimes several times a day, teens and tweens, always boys, were told to stand near us and shout “Otdai Alyasku!” (“Give Alaska Back!”) as though that would somehow shame us all to embarrassed silence. The crowds would just laugh. We never engaged them. After a few minutes, bored and confused, they would just walk away.
I cannot believe (or maybe I can!) Trump would be dumb enough to actually *INVITE* Putin, an internationally wanted war criminal, to Alaska, of all places on earth, a place filled with Russian ghosts, the true jewel in the crown for slobbering nationalists hoping Stalin and Catherine the Great might both yet stage a comeback from the grave. Why not Sudetenland instead, while oom-pah bands belt out “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles”?
That's very interesting, what an experience to have 'back in the U.S.S.R.' Probably didn't even know how lucky you are, at the time. Guess that was during the Brevhnev era.
I think Americans did want to give Alaska back initially, in 1867, when it was widely known as Seward's Icebox after he had purchased it as Secretary of State. From the Klondike gold rush and later oil discoveries, world renowned fishing, wildlife and wilderness abounding to the edge of the world, it's another gem that makes America so special(or what it should be).
I can't believe this either. Trump inviting Putin to anywhere in the U.S. is despicable and repulsive. But to invite Putin to Alaska is really off-putting and has an even more sinister and treasonous angle to it.
Since Putin has been declared a criminal by the International Court ( of which, for some reason the US is not a member), if the meeting were held elsewhere, there is a chance Putin would be arrested. And Vlad's best friend Donny doesn't want that.
And furthermore without any Ukrainian representation which rather suggests that the intention is that Zelensky will once again be presented with a fait accompli with the usual threats of withdrawal of US military aid (something they've already done three times since Trump was inaugurated) if he doesn't accept. It's about as abysmal a plan as anything Trump has so far devised.
With any luck at all Zelensky might send ambassador drones in his stead. Imagine a 2for. Look for a Ukrainian fishing boat offshore. FvHope
Trump is now talking about arranging a meeting between the two leaders, something that Putin has never agreed to do.
Trump is not acting for American interests and it is probable he is beholden to Putin.
What an incredible opportunity you had.
Indeed. I consider myself blessed and fortunate. I learned a great deal, mostly about how vulnerable and insecure the Soviet state actually was, long before glasnost and perestroika. Perhaps that is why I refuse to give into despair about us right now, though I do have my moments.
I wonder now whether Russia will ever have another leader possessing both conscience and brains. Gorbachev was as astonished as the CIA at how rapidly what had seemed so secure and permanent came tumbling down. Yeltsin was actually a tender-hearted man (I have some stories), but too much of a drunk in love with blowing up things to lead a movement to re-build something good from the remnants.
Enter a small-time, potato-headed, German-speaking KGB agent...
To our Republican Oath-breakers in Congress "We the People" are feeling your betrayal and are watching what you do. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Here's Megan's spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/Goodtrouble
Trump, like Macbeth, continues to hallucinate as the darkness in his mind worsens.And his ministers still cover for his crimes. The DoJ can refuse the Freedom of Information Act requests by invoking executive privilege. Trump’s spewing hate speech remains protected. The do-nothing Congress refuses to assert its Constitutional authority.
So, a delusional Trump soon meets with an imperious Putin in Alaska, to redraw the map of Ukraine. Perhaps Putin also will ask for the return of Alaska to Mother Russia as well? Why stop with Ukraine?
You can bet your ass Putin won’t just politely ask, any more than Alaska was Trump’s idea. The nationalists in Mother Russia are already wetting their panties about this one. About the DUMBEST gesture the dumbest President in American history could ever agree to, just so an internationally wanted war criminal wouldn't be arrested on the spot in Switzerland.
Two if you count Netanyahu.
President Donald Trump and his driver were cruising along a country road one night when all of a sudden they hit a pig, killing it instantly.
Trump told his driver to go up to the farmhouse and explain to the owners what had happened. About one hour later Trump sees his driver staggering back to the car with a bottle of wine in one hand, a cigar in the other and his clothes all ripped and torn.
"What happened to you?" asked Trump
"Well, the Farmer gave me the wine, his wife gave me the cigar and his 19-year-old daughter made mad passionate love to me."
"My God, what did you tell them?" asks Trump.
The driver replies, "I'm president Donald Trump's driver, the pig is dead.”
🇺🇸 🗽
Joke by Joe Witkowski - Substack
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🎯😎
✅
Perhaps Vance knew exactly what he was doing on Sunday Morning Futures.
Thank you, Heather, so very much. Your analyses and accurate historical perspectives are truly helpful to so many of us. You are a bright light of truth in a political sea of chaos. We have hope.
Crossing my fingers that Trump doesn't give up Alaska, too.
Will the People of Alaska make a citizens' arrest?
If the price is right and his family has a cut of that transaction.....why not.
The repeated closing, “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” like an impersonal closing to a business memo to an underling, to me, is another indication of Trump’s mental deterioration. It’s also an indication of the timidity, the cowardice, of those “advising” him. Any PR specialist would would advise the boss to swap that rather cold phrase for something more uplifting. Trump has made it clear to those around him, “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
That closing line of his pisses me off. He doesn’t have my attention and who does he think he is to make serious public announcements on social media instead of a press conference? He doesn’t want questions and he can’t articulate his next dastardly act coherently, so Miller writes those little F U announcements to Americans. The time has come to shut down his campaign to take over America.
It tells me he doesn’t know to whom he is speaking. It’s such a bizarre statement to end a rant. Does he think he’s writing an interoffice memo?
I think he does believe it’s a command in the form of a memo.
So you think it is Miller who is composing these paragraphs and that stupid phrase at the end?
I think he is the puppet master based on his contributions to Project 2025. I doubt Trump has even read Project 2025 so he can push the agenda they lay out for him but he is illiterate, in my opinion. I am interested in your thoughts about the Truth Social blasts.
Ooooo that crafty Vance. Wonder what he has got up his sleeve.
"Wonder what he has got up his sleeve;" Peter Thiel, perhaps?
Thiel might be 'up' something else.
For sure V has something up his sleeve. Get the popcorn ready!
Mr V can be much more trouble than Mr T; he may live 40 years longer.