I am so pleased with the Substacks as a news source. Their insight and honesty beat the newspapers by far. They are my main source of current affairs now.
Maybe there is the natural evolutionary state of man climbing down from trees. Thence to picking berries and forging. Then farming with workers now doing the heave duties as owners accumulate. Then a primitive form of collective self rule followed by sets of democratic forms of government which is followed by Tyrannical forms with Kim Sung Un and Putin being the most evolved.
The human species is toast. Can’t wait to vaca in Panmonjum for a little R & R. If I can bring some weight losing drugs like that little blue diabetes pill from Jardiance to Mr. Un, I’ll be a hero to the autocrats.
We, the people, have a collective survival instinct. The worst thing we can do is assume it won't work. The second worst thing we can do is assume that all we have to do is sit back and watch it work without our help. The minimum we must do is assume it will work with our active participation.
My thanks to our ancestors for doing the minimum, and I know they did because they would not otherwise have had descendants. Let's get together and pay that debt forward.
James Carey, I agree with you, and I'm frustrated that I don't do enough to spread the word to the "I don't watch the news about politics, because it is so upsetting" crowd. I send election postcards, etc., but the best thing I can think of is forwarding Heather's Letters to 15 friends, hoping that the "upset" among them will educate themselves and help to save this nation.
“One thing, I don’t know why; It doesn’t even matter how hard you try.” —Linkin Park, from “In the End”
The reason it doesn’t matter how hard you try is because of the butterfly effect (small actions have enormous long-term effects). The thing that does matter is making sure your small actions support the moral “everyone matters” team and not the immoral “we matter, and you don’t” team.
You can say that now, but you won't be able to say that on the day we live in a nation where people will not be judged by the chromosomes of their genome but by the content of their character.
The corporate media has failed egregiously to report "warts and all" about Trump, aiding and abetting the normalization of his malignant narcissism and sociopathy. It no longer holds power to account. We should hold it to account by withdrawing our readership.
I gave up on WAPO a month ago. I follow: Civil Discourse Joyce Vance, The Status Quo, What Did Joe Biden Do Today, Robert Reich, Adam Kinzinger, Rick Wilson’s Substack, The Hartmann Report, Chop Wood Carry Water, among others.
Thanks! I follow the same except what did joe and chop wood. I will check them out. I pay for joyce (and her chickens), cafe insider and shero. I, also, like Tiedrich. He often has a tidbit not revealed elsewhere.
yes, and his substack, "Thinking about..." - and anything else he's written. His Yale course, "The Making of Modern Ukraine," posted on YouTube is excellent, along with many other of his discussions posted there.
If the WAPO published this news today: "Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States." It's HCR's lead, and nobody did anything about it when Barr sat on it, does that mean it can't be another prosecution? Oh, I see. Another "official act" with immunity? This is another felony from the lying SOS and his Scorruptus.
HCR, Hubbell, sometimes Robert Reich, often Joyce Vance. I don't have time to do much more - and I often find it useful to read as many posts in the comments section as I have time for.
In addition to everyone already mentioned, don't forget Jess Piper (The View From Rural Missouri). Also, for someone who doesn't consider himself progressive. who is a former Republican (but is very honest and very smart), Daniel Drezner. For people who care about Israel/Palestine, there is Peter Beinhart. Unfortunately, I can't afford to be a paid subscriber to all the good folks who are writing substacks that are better than the big media. I wish there was some sort of package subscription deal, where I could choose which 10 of them I wanted to read every morning and my subscription got distributed (in obviously small bits!) to whoever I read.
In addition to all the excellent suggestions so far, if you are a podcast listener, I recommend Stay Tuned with Preet. Preet Bharara is a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York (fired by Trump) and he discusses legal issues in the news with a number of guests. Joyce Vance is on at least once a week. I don’t have time to read as many newsletters as I’d like (usually 3 a day), listening to podcasts while I’m driving or doing housework allows me to add to it and I appreciate learning about the legal ins and outs of issues.
Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Robert Hubble, Dan Rather, Thom Hartman. For economic updates, Robert Reich and Paul Krugman. For an authoritarian watch, Diane Francis and Ruth Ben-Ghiat. I no longer subscribe to newspapers but receive The Guardian's online updates for a voluntary donation. Sometimes, I check the footnotes of the contributors and read their sources. I was following Margaret Atwood for her cheeky point of view, but lately, she has not contributed.
Public Notice, Talking Points Memo, Timothy Snyder Thinking About) who is author of On Tyranny and more recently On Freedom, Robert Reich, Joyce Vance and You Tubes Midas Touch Network: Legal AF
I canceled the NYTimes after their call for Biden to withdraw from the bid for the presidency "for the good of the nation," and THEN said absolutely NOTHING about the copious lies and blather that came out of TFG the night of the so-called debate, and routinely made no mention of the obvious decline in TFG's cognition and reasoning, or the fact that he IS A CONVICTED FELON.
I've flat-out had enough of people making excuses -- any excuses -- for why TFG should be anyone's choice for the Presidency.
There was also that extremely strange comment from the NYT executive editor (whose name I keep spacing) about how it would be fun / challenging / exciting / whatever to cover another Trump presidency. This guy's priorities, thought I, are completely screwed up.
Yep...same reason for me. The editorial board was blatantly showing a weird bias for a paper with their reputation...I couldn't stomach it anymore. I cancelled over the phone so I could tell a human working there why I was cancelling. I said I was cancelling because of journalistic negligence and am hoping it was passed on. I was taking the digital only version, but at least three or four people in my condo building were taking the print version and have noticed recently when I pick up my Denver Post in the lobby there were zero Times in the bundle. I hope they feel the financial and reputational fallout.
The Guardian was the last media I cancelled. Was a subscriber and then they both-sided when that report came out with the politically hatchet job on Biden's supposed memory issues. Heather is pretty much the only news I consume. While there's nothing wrong with following all of the Midas touch-oriented content (substacks included), it all feels like beating a dead horse to me and does nothing for me.
Definitely worth it. I get both the US and UK editions. Most of what I know about the UK and Europe more generally I get from either the Guardian or Al Jazeera.
All of the above except WaPo &....for breaking news I go to Daily Kos. Almost everyday I read HCR & I Robert Hubbell. Intermittently: Lucian Truscott, Mary Trump, Hopium Chronicles, Your Local Epidemiologist, Steve Schmit & That's another fine mess.
Well, the NYT and the WAPO are the sources for much of this muckraking that is distilled, summarized, and clarified here in this Substack. They also provide data on maps covering a wide range of topics that are not political. Thus, I will continue to subscribe to both. Ditto for ProPublica and the Economist, and I forget what else.
Since I can afford to donate to political campaigns, I feel it is also important to support the actual sources of data used to illuminate truth.
I give less weight to their editorial pages, though.
ProPublica, unlike the other sources you note, is nonprofit. They do work in cooperation on some pieces with the NYT, but ProPublica's focus appears to be more specifically on citizen's rights, investigating and reporting corruption (kudos again for their great reporting on SCOTUS, particularly Thomas). Democracy oriented.
The MSM still has the international resources and contacts and there are still some old-school journalists who believe in using their position for the purpose of speaking truth to power as well as the general public. The story of Trump getting $10 million from el-Sisi of Egypt to donate to his own campaign could only be done by a large organization with international resources and national clout, not to mention paying journalists while they researched. But as the sole source of information, they have blind spots as well as deliberate obstructive policies when it comes to stories such as the Palestinian genocide.
I heard about the Trump-al-Sisi story yesterday on MSNBC's Deadline Whitehouse, where Carol Leonnig appeared. Let's see what Bill Barr does to wash the newest stink off of himself.
What was the general reporting about Trump's meeting with el-Sisi, the invite, etc.? I seem to remember that I was more horrified than the general reaction that an authoritarian leader was being treated like a close friend.
Interesting. If a media sources digs up dirt about someone you hate, they're accurate, and if they are not as hard on someone else you hate, with all their sources, they're blind.
They have a chance to turn it around. Bezos has been asked to reconsider his choice of CEO. They don't have to stay in the gutter. We will welcome them back as allies of democracy when they once again report responsibly.
There have been so many great substacks/podcasts mentioned. I haven't noticed yet, but might have missed it in someone's remarks, Marc Elias' great work on Democracy Docket. So worthy of subscribers, including paid. He and is team are doing Herculean work for our imperiled democracy.
Of course, considering the lowered journalistic standards at the WaPo and the NYTimes in their reporting about US politics these days, it's possible Heather might decline to compromise her own standards to be published by them.
"Outstanding" journalists at the New York Times and the Washington Post are nothing more than puppets bowing to oligarchs and nepos. These major resources have lost their way, the independence long cherished left with the falling profits. When Jaime Dimon and George Clooney are given front page editorial space to inform the reader of their superior knowledge? Journalism is dead.
Dr Richardson is much more insightful re: the actual machinations of today's politics than any of the journalists working for the big three are. Unfortunately, these important elements now need to be vetted. This is not John Peter Zenger's editorial or publishing world.
You say Dr. Richardson is "much more insightful..." and that journalists at legacy media are puppets. That seems to contradict the fact that today's letter starts, "...Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported..." I appreciate that Heather takes the time to read widely, pull together the threads of today's and, where appropriate, tie it to history.
"Outstanding" journalists at the New York Times and the Washington Post are nothing more than puppets bowing to oligarchs and nepos.
You paint with much too broad a brush. Both papers have serious problems with fearless and independent reporting, but to say that all the reporters are salaaming puppets is highly inaccurate. Many of the stories Heather writes about are based on reporting from these papers.
Maybe don't read just the editorials. I find them most unsatisfying. Any article that doesn't substantiate its assertions is just a writer getting paid by the word, not for excellence in reporting.
Thank you, Heather C Richardson, for your Herculean (and Sisyphean) work panning for nuggets in mainstream media. I just cancelled my NYT subscription precisely because those nuggets are buried beneath so much rubbish. A recent «news» item included a reference to «President Donald J Trump» followed within the SAME paragraph by a reference to «Ms Harris». This outrageous slander was corrected post publication and probably buried with other nuggets on the back pages—too late, the damage had already been done. I read thousands of similar examples of this normalization.
If the quality of the articles in a pub like Wash post or NYTimes is MOL randomly distributed—some good, some bad, some in the middle—it’s going to be true by definition that stories like the one Heather relied on today are uncommon. They may have worked on thst for a year, employed other reporters and technical people. I can hardly image the cost of that story—quarter million $ has to be too low, half million, closer to a million? Takes very deep pockets and strong motivation to stay committed to that work. I’m willing to continue sending both of those orgs my few dollars each month to help with this work even though I’m VERY unhappy with lots of things they’ve been doing lately
Carole Leonig is a consistently wonderful reporter in the Washington Post. I believe the current article is a result of research done for a book she is writing with her co-author. It may be that she is still with the Post because they allow her the time and space (and resources) to do this type of deeply researched long-form investigative journalism. However, the NYT is just awful, and has been for some time. If the best they can offer is Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, that says it all.
Joan I find that there is some excellent investigative reporting in the WaPo, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Politico, and even in the NYT. Even the WSj apparently has the occasional worthwhile investigative report.
I agree that the ‘age factor’ reporting by the NYT and WAPo was dreadfully slanted. HOWEVER, with President Biden no longer the candidate, I sense a sharper tone against Trump—at a minimum, they should simply report accurately what he says.
The Week magazine has some excellent coverage of both sides of a major story reported in the press.The Economist is better on financial than political investigative reporting.
I just think we have to avoid the curmudgeon factor and damn the press in toto when there are excellent investigative reporters. We can't all be in little cubbyholes
Goodness...all those years the news was shared and we had no idea what was really going on ( So America for example ...Chile)
Abandoning the Times and the WaPo, not a good plan from my point of view
Newsletters are great,* particularly Letters from an American, but they aren’t all as reliable as HCR’s and have nothing like the breadth and depth of The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The "breadth" and "depth" of the Sulzberger Sniper and the Bezos Bugle are used to put the organizational thumb on the scale in favor of Trump because the MSM lost half their subscribers/readers/viewers after Trump left office, and the intergalactic widgetmakers who own them demand they become "profitable" again. They see another Trump term as the way back to eyeballs and subscriptions. Profitability is their sole concern. The Executive Editor of the New York Times is on the record in an interview back in June that "defending democracy" is not the job of the Times, and that indeed 'democracy" is just another "issue," like inflation.
So, you go ahead and think you still live in the 1970s when the Times published the Pentagon Papers and the Post published Woodward and Bernstein. But be assured, those days are long gone.
"They see another Trump term as the way back to eyeballs and subscriptions. "
I think that is Bezos' least concern. Another Trump term will give him and the other billionaires absolute power because the Orange Felon will destroy democracy, crippling the power ordinary people (might) have over the self-absorbed billionaire kings. THAT is why they want him back in the White House: to have democracy utterly destroyed, so they can simply BUY the power they want. And they know that the Orange Blob can be bought to do anything, if the price is right... If money equals power, they will be all-powerful.
People on these substacks are cancelling the NYTimes. MeidasTouch.......2.7 million......David Pakman....3 million online subscribers.......there is no need for the Times anymore.......waste of $$$$$$$
I kept a subscription to the NYT - though I was reading it less and less, and when I was, was so often infuriated by their clearly deliberate headline misframing. After eight or nine years of watching this odd - and intentional - misframing of reports on those they wished to either undermine (Biden) or to elevate (DJT), I cancelled my subscription when the Times did their one-two punch by publishing Thos. Friedman's piece calling for President Biden to drop out, followed quickly by their editorial board calling for the same. The reason I gave when I cancelled via the Times' online form: "You didn't say the felon should drop out."
I could have offered many more reasons, going back years.
As has been noted, the NYT does offer occasional truly outstanding, indepth articles that can only be done with resources like theirs (the expose of DJT's years' long tax fraud; the genocide of the Yazidis at the hands of ISIS - a story that deserves follow up now; and more.) But I'd finally had it with their campaign against President Biden. That was it, for me. President Biden deserved better. So do Americans.
Did he say democracy is not worth defending or did he say it’s not the NYTimes job to defend democracy? A newspaper’s job is to report news and present fact-based, well reasoned opinions. Doing that job is vital to the health and well being of a democracy. When a demagogue like Trump gets traction and threatens to sabotage our democracy and replace it with an authoritarian regime it is a newspapers job to report what’s happening and present opinions about what’s happening. That’s different from attacking and trying to defeat the demagogue. In a democracy, the people, hopefully well informed by a free press, deal with the demagogue themselves.
The NYT (and other msm outlets, too) softballed trump in its framing/headlinig of reports on him - to give him an advantage. And it has done negative framing/headlining of reports on Biden. It's been obvious and consistent.
The msm depends on the weirdness of trump to get clicks and revenue. So, they're sustaining him by the angling of reports because they think they need him. And by doing so, they are influencing voters on trump's behalf.
The Executive Editor of the New York Times is on the record in an interview back in June that "defending democracy" is not the job of the Times, and that indeed 'democracy" is just another "issue," like inflation.
IMO that's not the same as saying Democracy is not worth defending. The job of the news media is to provide us with information so we citizens can defend Democracy - the responsibility to defend it by voting. Voting should be mandatory. L&B&L
Yes, it is up to the public to vote, but the whole point of a free press is to act as a bulwark against corruption and for democracy. If they have their thumbs on the scale in their reporting, they aren't holding up their end of the bargain. How can the ordinary reader get a realistic grasp of events if the reporting is skewed? As it now stands, the MSM enjoys journalistic freedom without accountability for acting as an interested party instead of an objective recorder of fact.
I don't think that voting should be mandatory, but I appreciate your assessment of the "defending democracy" statement. I think it is the correct assessment. My initial response was that the statement was awful, but you talked me off that ledge.
TC, I always enjoy your posts and this one is right on the mark. There are aspects of the NYT that I enjoy, not found in the first section like art, puzzles, science, food, book reviews, etc. Sometimes I read individual essays, but I never read the front section like i used to. The local rag does not have a Saturday paper, so no delivery of the NYT...so we print out the crossword. Also some newspaper owner in Portland of a small rag has been arrested in Alabama for making all sorts of dire threats....clearly a wing nut.
Appreciate your concern. I just tried the link and it worked fine. I think that, to be spam, the link has to be generated by a robot or program of some kind, usually for some commercial or propaganda purpose. I posted the link myself and it’s to a newsletter (beehive, not substack) with an essay which I wrote that I think (hope) folks would like.
Kathaleen B Parker -- Thanks for the warning. I hadn't clicked on "Jamie Baldwin's" link because it looked to me to be totally self-serving. Not interested.
What I've been saying since the beginning but HCR's content would upstage most MSM! Her Letters, videos and connecting the dots has been a stellar education for 4+ years!
The story of the $10million bribe appeared in the August 2nd issue of the Washington Post
by Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig (who appeared on MSNBC). It is in depth investigative reporting that is still sorely needed - but it has become more difficult to shift through the major newspapers.
What is so discouraging is there is no end to the crimes committed by trump and his republican minions. I still don't understand why he is not in jail after being convicted of 34 felonies. Every criminal act he commits gets appealed ad infinitum (while he is free to roam and pillage the country) and he is constantly given deference because he is a "presidential candidate". And, we have to constantly be exposed to every piece of vitriolic garbage that comes out of his mouth as though he is actually a normal person. Jiminy Cricket! Our institutions are based on trust and the DOJ has been greatly diminished due to the actions and strangle hold of a criminally insane person along with all his minions starting with Bill Barr and the SCOTUS.
And the decision by the 6 GQP appointed justices to hand Trump broad immunity is a huge slap in the face to the public who wants Trump to be held legally accountable. The Founders never envisioned the President as being above the law. The Founders expected the President to be subject to the law. The GQP wants an imperial president, the rest of us not so much.
Given the enormous sums of laundered money involved in these complicated corrupt global transactions, the SCOTUS justices’ reported “gifts” are a bargain. We MUST reform the Court.
The GQP needs to move to Hungary, Orban has it organized just the way they like it, we however believe in freedom, with a president who acts within the law and is subject to it. The SC immunity decision was like a slap in the face to the American people, that slap by the way was just the latest in a long history of slaps we have been enduring from the Roberts court. We need to add 4 more justices asap and revisit that history, a major correction is in order. 💥🙏
I knew some of the men who filmed the ‘56 Hungarian uprising and escaped with the negative, they went on to win academy awards filming feature films. There are good people everywhere and we have benefited by their decisions to move on, hey everyone of us reading this are products of those kind of decisions. 😎
I remember the couple hundred thousands of Hungarian Refugees after 1956 and the 1957 Operation Safe Haven that brought a lot of the best and brightest here. I always thought most came to the US since I remember a few Hungarian-American Clubs near places we lived. I wonder what the range of their thoughts are now.
Paul Krugman of the NYTimes still writes a fact based column. He is not a fan of Trump's economic policies to be sure, but he makes a lot of predictions about the economy and if he's wrong, he points out where and how he messed up and credits the economists that got it right.
Catherine Rampell of the WAPO parses the economy differently from Paul Krugman looking at pieces of the economy or specific departments in the Federal Government but she is ALWAYS a good read.
I trust their expertise and they don't seem to be handcuffed by their editors like others at the NYTimes and WAPO.
These two are the exception! Recent analysis of those outlets articles showed twice as many anti-Biden articles as anti maga creature! That’s the problem.
Once again we see where Bill Barr interfered on behalf of the traitor. For all his disgust about the traitor and January 6, he did the traitor’s bidding for essentially four years. Despite all the disgust, he will vote for him again this November. His enablers are as corrupt as he is.
I'm old enough to remember John Mitchell and his wife Martha. Psychiatrists actually thought she was crazy because they couldn't believe what she said about Nixon's part in Watergate.
I too remember the Mitchells! Martha was a bit unfiltered but as a 50-something guy (2 decades younger than me said the other day in reference to a group of us "older" golfing ladies - "unfiltered comes with wisdom :)" There appears to be a longer, more visible thread of corruption with republican administrations. It seems the dems (who have most definitely had their issues!!) spend most of their 1st term cleaning up the damage done by a previous republican administration. This past decade with trump as the "leader" of a whack job cult is just many more magnitudes off the richter scale!
Thank goodness for Joe stepping aside (yet still mentoring and working all the back channels) and for Kamala to step up (100% supported by democratic leadership) and take this to the finish line! The positivity and enthusiastic momentum across a wide demographic range is pure joy and hope!!
She will not bend to some editor marking up her copy to follow the whims of the oligarch who has bought the distressed paper - here's looking at you Jeff Bezos - Substacks is the only "free press" available these days.
For sure......Still LOL how the Eagles tribute band had to pull out of the Orange Inaug way back!!! The outrage was precious......I threw out all the Nugent vinal from my 2000 plus lps years ago.......would NEVER degrade my records with a Trump supporing piece of shit........Nugent/Rock....
You are absolutely right Paine would have been with us on Substack, and it is the only “free press” available unfortunately. Bezos can afford if the WP goes under (I hope it doesn’t), the 4th generation heir to the NYT doesn’t seem to have the passion that built his paper’s reputation for investigative journalism, he’s probably watching with alarm the rapid changing of the underpinning of his wealth which helps explain but in no way justifies their pandering to the maggot base with their gloves on treatment of the orange turd. No matter how white your gloves are, if you handle a steaming hot turd it’s going to be hard to hide the evidence that’s on your hands. We have 3 months left for the NYT to get rid of those gloves and act responsibly, we’ll see won’t we. 🙏
The lead investor in Substack was Andreesen Horowitz, not a bastion of liberal progress, maybe the opposite. Quotes could be helpful here . . . it’s maddening, we have to use the best tools we have — b.rad
thanks, I've been looking for the board of directors of Substack, but the web site doesn't seem to list corporate info as normal . . . and even where they are incorporated [ edit - Delaware ]. This SEC doc below seems to indicate that Andrew Chen is a director, so that is direct oversight from somewhere in the Andreesen orbit, as I understand things. This may be the 'equity crowdfunding round' referenced by Crunchbase. . . . what does it mean? curious, b.rad
A lot of us aren't aware that there are many many MAGA substacks. In overall, Substack really does try to provide "something for everyone." I'm happy that our part of the whole is as conducive to communication and organizing as it is. None of the annoying ads and "pushed" items found in the rest of social media. Right now I will take what I can get.
Dr Richardson you make an outstanding contribution to public discourse at a time when that discourse is being polluted by a toxic deluge of misinformation and disinformation. More power to you.
Yeah, TC, if it bleeds it ledes. Can’t figure out if they are vultures or vampires. That said, I honor the “truth tellers” out there even tho their voices are not broadcast widely.
Podcasts can be found with a keyword search, and when you start following the honest ones who research topics, they are great news sources...Apple Podcasts are not as greedy as Spotify, so the paywall advertising is not as annoying.
It exists, but not in any clear-running streams. It's in the hugely polluted quagmire of oligarchies and crime lords. Perhaps we should stop calling it "the press" and start calling it "the puke." It doesn't squeeze the juice out of events, it dredges up sludge and regurgitates it.
Dr Richardson researches multiple news reporting sources daily, as can be seen in her links. Her talent is in “connecting the dots” in plain language, with historical context. At this, she has no contemporary equal.
The way he "thinks", it seems plausible that he thinks he was put on this Earth to play the ultimate "trump card": to be the first person to successfully assail, or subvert, or overthrow American Democracy.
Sloganeering and tips aren’t even tips of the iceberg and aren’t going to tip the balance. If they did it’s a hell of a comment on who we are as a people if we are that shallow. This is like that clickbait that starts out “This one weird hack will clear up toe fungus overnight!”
Why not do everything all at the same time? You can't predict what will become popular, or what "goes viral". If you think of something, put it out there. I usually write paragraphs, but this little bit of word play seemed amusing, so I put it out there. Do everything you can think of doing, in the time that remains. If you are in a war, in a firefight, and you run out of ammo, you don't stop fighting, you keep fighting with anything you can find to use as a weapon. We're in a fight for our lives, and our way of living.
Think about it. Can YOU do everything all at the same time?
“If you are in a war, in a firefight…” “We're in a fight for our lives…” “…this little bit of word play seemed amusing, so I put it out there.”
Am I on the battlefield or watching standup? Is this all some trivial entertainment?
Your call to action, and I understand the need for action, lands as panic driven. People acting from a sense of panic aren’t thinking, they are merely reacting and acting without thinking is exactly what so many of ”them” are doing that “we” are voting against. We have become them! “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Fighting fire with fire works with fire but not so much with people unless you are willing to use them as fodder in a desperate attempt to not die.
It reminds me of a scene from a movie I recently watched with a son, mother, and third man trapped in a room filling with water seemingly without possibility of escape. The man in his panic grabbed the boy and pushed him under in a frantic attempt to keep his head above water. The mother was able to grab the man and push him under and drown him before he was able to drown her son. It as vicious violent horrific terrifying scene as could be portrayed. People who stopped thinking and were acting from pure instinct to survive.
Now of course I’m not against survival. That’s plainly stupid. I saying there’s more to life than just surviving. One obvious needs to be responsible for one’s survival, however, survival as the purpose of life is pitiful.
Aliveness, maximizing the greatest amount of love, health, happiness, and full self-expression is a purpose worth living for. Trading survival for aliveness is exactly what being righteous and making others wrong produces. Being justified and invalidated others produces. Winning at all costs while having others lose produces. Dominating while avoiding the domination of others produces. All these moves maximizes survival of our positions, of our worldview at the cost of our aliveness. We win the battle while losing sight of what we are battling for.
People do horrifying things when panic sets in and thinking ends. Do you really think using the language of war and whipping people into an unthinking mob taking desperate action is a good strategy?
I know it really takes something to deescalate ourselves. And what I am suggesting requires compassion for ourselves first. Once there we naturally have it for others.
Yes, we need to take actions and connect with others and have conversations that leave them in action having conversations, etc. I just can’t see evoking the feelings of being at war, of calling forth a you or me rather than you and me kind of positionality is going to end up anyplace good even if Harris is elected as we will be as divided and perhaps even more so. So we’re damned either way.
The division must end here and now. Today! And the end of division begins within each of us.
I see that you are relatively new here -- your first post on Substack was in June of this year. Please allow me to introduce myself. I've been offering comments on Professor Heather Cox Richardson's LFAA almost since the beginning.
I am not in a panic. I have no fear. I lost my sense of fear in Vietnam in '69-'70. After returning home from the war I applied, successfully, for discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. I have endeavored ever since the war to become a thorough-going pacifist. As part of that effort I stopped eating meat in January of 1975, and I have avoided eating meat for the past 49 years. I abhor violent behavior. I urge everyone to work relentlessly for peace and the end of hostilities. Unsuccessfully thus far, as it turns out.
Your essay concluded with this: "The division must end here and now. Today! And the end of division begins within each of us." Son, I and many others have been working for peace and unity for at least the past half century. If you have been a regular reader here, you would know this is true. Your decree faces some formidable obstacles. There is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon in cults of various kinds, that messaging from outsiders is not allowed to penetrate into the inner sanctum of the cult. Many of us believe that most people are good and decent at heart. But for various reasons, they lose sight of what's right when confronted by a skillful charlatan or snake-oil salesman. You can order them to "Unite! Now!" but your words of wisdom will not penetrate their inner shields. So we try to help as many as possible to "see the light". If we are successful, our candidate will win. But there is no legal or legitimate way to guarantee the outcome of the election.
In case you don't already know of the work of John Pavlovitz, who writes here on Substack. I think you would find his writing engaging, insightful, and useful.
Some of us believe that if the 45th president does not legitimately win the election in November, then it seems highly probable that he and his minions will make another attempt at a coup. However, unlike the last time we had a violent insurrection, the President will not sit idly by, watching it play out on live TV. Our defense intelligence agencies will be on high alert; local law enforcement will be on high alert; everyone who has sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC will be on high alert.
I think you will not succeed if you demand that the nation must unify "Today!" You need to be polite.
It raises something and what it raises isn’t spirit. It’s more like stirring the mind up into a manic state of excitement that people confuse with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm comes from a deeper place than mere excitement. Excitement has a kind of unthinking frantic energy like kids on Christmas morning tearing into boxes to get to the present. There’s a kind of unconsciousness automaticity where what is happening isn’t really present for the present opener. Then, the present isn’t really enjoyed or appreciated so they move onto the next and next until there’s nothing left and they’re left with “Gee, is that it?” Tired out and still unsatisfied and looking for the next thrill. Maybe some more sugary, something that keeps the excitement going…
What I’m saying is that there is a great deal of difference between being inspired and being excited. I think the call to action in this immediate thread about slogans or tips is more about generating excitement than be inspiring, a calling forth spirit or what I’d call Being from which enthusiasm shows.
BS, the tone and tenor of your comments suggest that you are new to this community of followers of Professor Heather Cox Richardson. Your closing paragraph suggests to me that your experience here in this community lacks sufficient context -- normally gained by reading HCR every day for some time, and reading the words offered up by her "commentariat" -- which would help you to understand that a single brief comment today is often part of a much fuller context written here over the course of many weeks, months, and for some of us, years. If you have been a faithful "every day" reader here since you joined Substack in June, then I cannot help you. If you have been reading here every day, then I suggest you ponder the term "politesse". It means "formal politeness or ettiquette". Some of the things you wrote in this conversation were not polite.
Ken, I wonder if you coined the "Don-Old" nickname?
I used it once or twice since your post. I rendered it in something I wrote since then as Old Don-Old. Not sure if someone else added the "Old" in front of your "Don-Old", or if that was my addition. So today I was reading at the news aggregator "Nation of Change", a piece by Robert S. Becker, dated today 6th of August, "The bad boy nightmare struts its finale—blunting, even crushing MAGA mayhem". I found this sentence: "All reminiscent of the Central Park Five and Birtherism, plus the Charlottesville protest disgraces—confirming Old Don-Old’s racial malice." Maybe Robert Becker picked it up from our word-play here?!
Unlike newspaper or TV stories, Heather ALWAYS provides links to the news she presents. The news stories are expected to be accurate and fact-checked to have two reliable sources. Heather rarely, if ever, quotes Fox News or Newsmax because they no longer fact check their stories. I'm sure there are many other sites she doesn't trust.
And "trust" is easy to lose and very difficult to gain back.
Actually they had fact checkers during the 2020 election. They were the first to call AZ for Biden. A couple of days later Fox fired their fact checkers.
I doubt that Rupert ever cared what the truth was. Just made up his truth when he could get away with it. He got his tail in a crack in the UK with the dirty tricks. He might have hired a few for specific purposes but he sure didn’t like what they found out in AZ. All I ever saw was total BS, but my bff and her family loved every entertaining lie.
That could possibly happen if the legacy media were no longer owned and run by billionaire oligarchs who want to control the levers of government and industry so they can tilt the table to make themselves even richer and more powerful.
Democracy drowns in corruption, hey WaPo, NYT, CNN, WSJ, MSNBC, etc.
When will the major newspapers stop making people who only choose to read the news, letters to the editor, and op-eds stop making them pay for sports, entertainment, and want ads?
Well, get this. The Baltimore Sun was recently purchased by David Smith, the owner of conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, which has turned a weak local paper into a more conservative paper, with FOX 45 banners (owned by Sinclair) frequenting the front page. (I am growling as I write this). There is also a Carroll County Times daily version of the Sun that serves a more rural readership that is strongly Trump territory. Yesterday the Baltimore Sun had an article outlining Project 2025, and even though many of the same articles from the Baltimore version are repeated in the Carroll County Times version, any info about 2025 is not offered in the CCTimes, which would help inform the un/misinformed. Trump/Maga readers simply never see ANYTHING that would enlighten their voter motivations. Both versions produce a conservative contributor that turns out an unserious, poorly written misinformational word salad of conservative cliches and memes, but little in the way of fact.
Heather Cox Richardson is sorely needed for the enrichment and education of Americans everywhere, but I agree that it is a crap shoot when you can no longer trust newspaper business models to operate ethically.
The Baltimore Sun as it was before David Smith—weak? It long had an excellent reputation.
Shocking but not surprising that Carroll County Times refrained from informing about Project 2025. I read that Smith intended to turn Baltimore County MAGA Republican.
Stephanie Miller, our top progressive radio host has been using Heathers reporting on-air. She is now in good company along with Malcolme Nance, Joy Reid,Joyce Vance and other front line journalists........check out Stephanie and Kamala Harris when they were both on Larry King together. Still on YOUTUBE
I'm still perplexed that Robert Mueller was so easily played by Bill Barr and the Trump crime organization. He and James Comey could have helped prevent a grifter becoming President.
It appears we have a bunch of overgrown arrogant ultra-wealthy frat boys and criminals trying to take over the world. I'd love to know how their values and morality got so warped and twisted, how they became so lacking in empathy and non-transactional human connection. Were they like this as children? Such wasted, pathetic lives.
Sounds to me like it’s time to subpoena Robert Mueller & William Barr to appear before a Joint congressional committee co-chaired by Rep.Jamie Raskin, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Is some kind of statute of limitations preventing Jack Smith from adding some new charges? Hell, the trials for all of Trump’s other grifting aren’t going to wrap up before the election anyway so let’s widen the net on consequences. The manure pile only seems to be growing larger.
An indictment can be amended but it's not easy. Assuming the veracity of these disclosures, it might be easier, legally and logistically, to seek a separate indictment.
Barr hogtied Mueller. He found the evidence or strong circumstantial evidence to be highly suspicious and wasn’t allowed to do anything with it. Trump claimed the report as a victory when in reality it wasn’t. The victory was in silencing Mueller.
Mueller got thwarted by Rosenstein first; Rosenstein wouldn’t let Mueller go after the dirty deals Trump did with Deutsche bank by following the money. And that happened because he chickened out when Trump screamed there was a red line being crossed if they went after the money. There’s also the scary retirement of Justice Kennedy and the fact that his son did deals with Trump at Deutsche bank. The Special Counsel should have mowed over Trump. You could argue Mueller’s warning about an iron triangle was already in place. By the time Barr got office, he just blatantly shut down anything that had a whiff of hurting Trump. We all saw it, but we were all powerless to do anything over it except vote Trump out of office and hold him accountable in court. I don’t think anybody could’ve imagined SCOTUS that provided immunity and delays so that Trump could skirt the law again and again. Now we have Elon Musk who thinks he’s God and has more money than nations combined. And he has satellites. This guy is out of control. I don’t know what laws can rein him in? No individual citizen should have this kind of power. We thought Rupert Murdoch was scary. This is a brand new kind of scary.
He was probably “hogtied” by corrupt Barr but couldn’t he have found a way to talk?? I don’t think he wanted to rock the boat, and isn’t he also a Republican?
One question no one asked Mueller when he testified was "do you feel you investigation was allowed to be completed or was it shut down?" Not sure what his answer would have been, but if he had been honest I think shut down might have been said. I would love that question to be asked. Seems it never is.
There seems to be a dearth of courage or honor these days, so when Sheldon Whitehouse, Jamie Raskin, and a few others like them start asking questions or point out obvious dishonesty, my heart races in gratitude for decency.
Robert Mueller has been a great public servant and leader. His testimony before the House Committee at Adam Schiff’s insistence, as you may remember, and as cited in Schiff’s book, showed us that Mr. Mueller was succumbing to an unacknowledged neurological disorder of age. Tragically, he could not testify as to the results of the investigation. He could not expand on the findings any further than to say he stood by what the report concludes. Mr. Schiff recounted his regret at putting Mr. Mueller through that hearing.
Hi Marcia! I read Adam Schiff's book, "Midnight in Washington" and want to first acknowledge your point: Mr. Mueller had declined and was no longer in a position to bear down on the bad guys. Secondly, I'm so glad to read that you read the book. I thought it is a tour de force of politics, policy and recent history. It is both mesmerizing and upsetting as we are still contending with the lawlessness of Trump and people in the institutions who supposedly took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
Mueller worked in a system that had guardrails to protect people who are presumed innocent; a system in which he obeyed his boss, and that boss was securely vetted by the US Senate. His first indication that his boss was not impartial was when Bill Barr summarized his Russian interference report and claimed there was no coordination with the Trump campaign. By then, Mueller was already gone.
These background organizers are the brains behind Trump - Trump wouldn't know how to pick a properly corrupt attorney general without the organization - a criminal Deep State.
... and Peter Theil, Leonard Leo, and other oligarchs and a cluster of hugely funded shadowy nonprofit organizations (whose tax exempt status should be revoked by the IRS on numerous grounds). See "Inside the Trump Plan for 2025" by Jonathan Blitzen in the July 22 New Yorker.
The classic definition in a government inside of the government. A nice version could be the group of civil servants in our government that keep things running when trouble comes to destabilize our normal society. A powerful and well connected group could destabilize normal, and subvert processes to their liking. That seems to be the case with the SCOTUS, and that's the tip of the iceberg.
Betsy, TFFFG was marinated in Teflon from birth…stuck to him like glue despite all his “losses” (indictments/court case losses & consequences) over the years. I remain amazed that he has not (yet) experienced his final comeuppance which is long long long overdue. Hope springs eternal…tho he will never “get” or understand any of it, delusional in his god-like invincibility as he is….at this point I don’t think he has the cognitive capacity to recognize any of this. “They’re coming to take me away ha ha, they’re coming to take me away hee hee”…. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xRCbdFrSSc]
If there were a French Revolution style coup, he would still be whining about his unfair treatment and the fake news from the basket his head fell into. The oversized orange baby is programmed to whine eternally.
One begins by looking at DJT's upbringing. His father was part of the extremist right wing group...The John Birch Society... and also radical when it came to guns. And it's for certain, he's not the smartest on the block, before the nation’s largest professional association of Black journalists to question the racial identity of his rival for the White House this fall, telling a shocked National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago that Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black.” Maybe, just maybe he's actually calling in more and more people to vote against him. And then there is Vance who, in 2021, said 'We have to GO TO WAR against the idea that women don't have to have kids.' Mama, mia!
It might be educational to understand why some people have such warped values, but truthfully, I don’t really care “why.” What I care about is we haven’t done a damn thing to hold these type of people accountable for their behavior. That is the bottom line for me. There should be a point in time where the courts tell TFG that all his appeals are frivolous and wasting everyone’s time and throw them out.
When I hear concerns about it’s unprecedented to do this or do that because TFG was a former president I laugh. He is unprecedented in the history of our country! And the supremes don’t give a flying f**k for precedent…why should we when it comes to the convicted felon? He belongs in jail not the campaign trail.
This particular article gives me grave concern, maybe even more so than project 2025.
Wayyyy too much private / dark money in the electoral process. Elections need huge $$$ to cover public media et al, so a public, managed subsidy courtesy of tax payers at large might be the best approach, and limits on transparent private $$$, might help... a little.
Overgrown, puerile, arrogant, ultra-wealthy frat boys of mediocre intelligence or worse is what Western Civilization has promoted for 3000 years: that is what white male privilege is all about. When people lionize the likes of Julius Caesar (whose Latin literary skill was so basic, we use it for first-year Latin instruction), folks forget that the people doing the lionizing are the SAME PEOPLE: privilege white men. They have dominated the discourse all along. Time's up.
I wish that a lack of empathy were merely the result of bad childhood care. Rather, I lament, it is
characteristic of much of American history: the gun-centered violence of the Wild West; the enslavement oil Blacks; the decimation of the native American Indians; virulent anti-Semitism; violence against the labor unions, and what about the MAGA embrace of the mentally ill, bigot, and racist Donald Trump? A good therapist might be able to straighten out a problem patient, but what are you going to do with a dysfunctional nation? Let's hope our votes for the good guys will count.
Lawrence, I imagine you'd agree that this is not just an American problem, but seems to be built into human nature; or at least the squelching of empathy seems to be built-in. Way too many examples in global history and current events.
Read Mary’s book about Don’s upbringing. It takes a monster to raise one. It’s actually quite amazing that there is a much goodness in the world as there is. Lastly, only evil recognizes evil. There is no evil for an infant.
I agree, going forward we have to look at what factors are contributing to criminal mentality, how we are enabling it as a society, but there doesn't seem to be clear-cut answers as to why some have opportunity & abuse it while others with or without much do not. At this point we have to deal strictly with stopping the destructive behavior, then we can go on to understanding how it develops. It's past time we do. The extreme dysfunction we are witnessing is a symptom of much we have turned a blind eye to culturally, letting corruption take hold. Whatever the influences of their childhoods, it didn't happen in a vacuum. Current events are a wake-up call for all of us to step up as adults, to do everything in our power to stop the waste of lives.
Let us not forget that Bill Barr was actually Attorney General of the United States at that time. And the freedom caucus wielded a lot of power then. If T is elected again, it will be much worse. He says there won't even be a justice dept. It'll just be T.
These voter registration scams are dangerous but reek of desperation. If you want to help counteract this crap and help register Democrats volunteer with Field Team 6.
Also, no single individual should have anything close to a billion dollars. We desperately need a wealth tax to blunt the accumulation of wealth and property by the 0.1%.
Just remember, DeSantis blew through $160 million in his “failure to launch” that included a major ground operation and door-knocking campaign .We all know how that turned out ….
Jason, while the ultra wealthy should pay taxes at rates that reflect the benefits they've accrued by simply operating in our still-liberal society (in other words, much more), I hesitate to agree with you on imposing an arbitrary limit on oncoming and accumulated wealth. That's the point at which the epithet "socialism" starts to stick.
The smartest selfish move by Trump when he was president? Appointing William Barr as attorney general, who must be the most corrupt head of the Justice Department in modern times.
It's abundantly clear that the nation needs a larger, stronger, and more effective JD, including the FBI, to combat the sophisticated global criminals, many of whom pose as upstanding citizens.
I am waiting for evidence sufficient to indict Barr for his role in obstructing and suppressing Mueller’s work to surface and be made known to the American public. Barr was as corrupt as it comes.
Whatever we may think of Jeff Sessions’s politics, he was not corrupt, and Trump could not handle him.
Sessions is another example of someone who would never be found in a second Trump administration. His resistance to Trump's autocracy is exactly what a Unitary Executive function is designed to make impossible. Barr is a “Unitarian” in this very regard. I hope the majority of Americans see right through this fake Constitutional construction of Executive powers soon.
I understand using "Unitarian" in this context, but I'd prefer a different word. As a Unitarian Universalist, our beliefs and practices are the opposite of DT and his type. Please go to www.uua.org to learn more.
Read Prequel and listen to ULTRA and you will find that the CONsevative leaders do not respond appropriately to being investigated. They get very defensive and claim..."witch hunt". Not unlike the traitors following the Civil War that were allowed to skate. We have a bad history of elected leaders abusing our laws to block prosecution when they break the law.
Read VERY carefully. t does not intend to lose. The extent of corruption, malfeasance and chicanery is enormous. There is not an avenue he will not use and the mauling of election processes in swing states is gigantic. While he and his minions are creating a circus of weirdness, amusement and distraction, the real nasty business is going on where we don't see it. Again, he does not intent to lose and there is no facet of American life or democracy he will not soil to do it.
I fear you are right. There is no bottom for Trump and his gang. They may have already rigged the election by putting their people in the right places, including the courts.
I believe the Dems only recourse is to turn out the votes in such large numbers than they can’t be denied.
It was 7 million last time ! If it’s 10x that, the same 💩💩💩💩will happen unless the media stops being fascinated by the orange ape and the Biden administration puts up some guardrails even if repubs cry boohoo, it’s political. Reading today’s column took my breath away with the slime of that bunch of immoral, greedy deviants.
Linda, I fear that even with overwhelming Democratic election results, T's forces will scream fraud, wrangle judicial rulings in their favor, take power, and our recourse will be non-violent opposition until violence erupts. Then T's forces will say: We told you it would be peaceful unless you choose otherwise.
They will certainly try. Our options include 1) work hard, however we each can, for an overwhelming victory at the ballot box, 2) support Marc Elias and his crew of election lawyers already fighting back in the courts, 3) build up Democracy momentum any other way you can think of.
We each need to figure out what we can do, and do it. Small contributions add up. That’s as true about sending postcards or texts as it is about money.
This will only happen if Democrats continue their historically repetetive habit of laying down and letting the Republicans roll over us and rape the constitution and any form of decency or simple humanity. Democrats need to stop dithering, wringing their hands, gnashing their teeth, stand up and fix what's broken about our campaign finance, SCOTUS, Electoral college, and voting rights. Please!
Linda T - read about a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation. Ziklag’s 2024 agenda reads like the work of a political organization.
There isn't much detail available on Ziklag: it's a very secretive, very exclusive little clublet of the ultra wealthy SUPPOSEDLY for charity....but I highly doubt their charity will aid anything except their own power.
This is really frightening! The idea of using AI to add conservative religious voters after “purging” the undesirable ones from the existing voter rolls—-This cannot be allowed to happen — or can it?
The planning for this has been in the works for decades. Heather has written about this. Maybe someone could put in the link because my memory unfortunately does not have space for everything these days!
The Democracy Docket team of Marc Elias is gearing up. It’s looking like this round they’ll have more than Trump’s 61 lawsuits from 2020 and need our support to prepare now.
Remember Bannon's parting shot: "He can't not lose." From me, 5 hours later: Good grief! it's the overload. Or perhaps just my age... What I meant was of course "He can't not win".
I hope he’s right, but SCOTUS remains a problem— evidence or no evidence. I have to trust that there are enough honest Americans to see through to truth…and can act on it—there are so many ways trust(and verify) can be corrupted.
Yes. tRump -We have all the votes we need. Kevin Roberts - we are winning in ways the left does not even know. tRump - vote just this one time and you will never have to vote again.
Agreed! Marilyn, you nailed it. When they go low, they are actually already lower. In my opinion, Clarence, Thomas and Alito need to be indicted for bribery. We keep playing softball when the criminals are playing hardball.
Obviously the theme of Heather's letter this evening is dirty money.
I wonder if these allegations against the grifting golden gibbous gibbon will be investigated further, or is there enough to put him and Barr in the same prison cell?
One problem? The statute of limitation for any kind of indictment is over. The only value now is further evidence that the tangerine turd is corrupt beyond our wildest dreams.
he was never briefed on it. Which pisses me off..Not one agent loyal to the country felt it necessary to debrief or spill the beans to Garland when he ve ame AG. Not one! thats another reason whybthe GOP delayed Garland's appointment..rin out the clock. They bloody well knew what trump and Barr did
Since he's safe from prosecution on this one, he might be tempted to boast about having gotten away with it and pretty much admit to breaking the law. That it involves his being paid money from a foreign government might give some voters pause.
Why such a short 5-year statute of limitations? How does that compare with others? In California the limitations vary according to the offense. Some refer to when the offense was discovered, not when it occurred. No statute of limitations for treason.
I have been reading the 1947 novel, by Dorothy B. Hughes, "In a Lonely Place." An amazing dissection into what apparently makes felons, murderers, and other frauds tick. It all applies directly to our greasy-made-up, fat, vituperative con man.
They know, deep in themselves, that they hate themselves. They know some key things that are missing. They know their origin flaws. And they must lie, cover up, dress up, totally act in dissembling ways to occupy the new, feigned, false identity they crave.
The Library of America recently put out its two-volume edition of American women crime writers of the 1940s and '50, in which this Dorothy Hughes "In a Lonely Place" appears.
Let's celebrate some of our key, perhaps unduly neglected women, as we do Kamala over such dreg alternatives poisoning too many at the white male (and Clarence) corrupted top.
The clear take-away of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Presidential immunity is that the President has immunity for acts committed within the scope of his authority as the President of the United States. He does not have immunity for acts committed outside of that scope. These latter acts are commonly referred to as "ultra vires acts". The issues before the District Court will boil own to: What acts did Donald Trump perform or commit as the President of the United States and what acts did he perform or commit as a candidate running for President of the United States? In my opinion, almost all of the acts alleged in the indictment relate to acts performed outside the scope of his Presidential authority but within his private capacity as a candidate for President, thereby conferring no immunity upon him for such acts. This trial should proceed upon the findings of the D.C. District Court, which Trump can appeal should he be convicted.
L. D. , the problem is that Trump can appeal the decision that the acts were not official to the Supreme Court and their ruling is that only they can ultimately decide whether the act was within his official duties.
You are correct Mary, but I am advocating that, as in usual cases, Trump's right to appeal should be after conviction, not before, which would probably extend the trial out for another year. This case needs to go to trial NOW. The people need to hear the evidence NOW. If Trump gets re-elected, he will shut down all indictments and investigations against him and prevent the re-opening of recently revealed allegations such as the Washington Post's revelation yesterday that after meeting with the President of Egypt before the 2016 election, his campaign received from the Egyptian President a sack of cash in small denominations totaling $10 million. This came to light after Trump was elected but Bill Barr, the Attorney General, quashed it.
The voters who need to know about this long history of corruption won't get the news on Fox or Newsmax or wherever else they get their information. So the question for which I don't have any answers is how can we share this news with them in a way that they can hear?
I used to consider myself a person who was open and tolerant of other political perspectives. But no longer.! In my eyes, someone can be a Republican, but if they support TFG then they are willfully ignorant and beyond redemption. They are now, in my eyes, people of the same worthless class as the felon…men and women alike. They have no excuse worthy of consideration and most likely their minds are filled with hate.
In my 72 years, I have never experienced such hate in my own heart for an individual or group as I do the current maga congress and court, TFG and his cult members. To recognize this in myself is deeply disappointing and disorienting to my self concept.
I'm not on x or TikTok but maybe somebody can report from there if there is a swing towards reporting this kind of needed information going out to that audience.
Your assumption is that if they knew the truth they'd be horrified. All evidence is that, on the contrary, they'd applaud. This is a group of people who believe that norms, rules, and laws are for suckers, weaklings, and losers.
Fox voters are not our mission. They are not salvageable. They also constitute between 10% and 12.5% of voters (WaPo Sept. 2022 analysis and Gallup figures).
Our mission is clear:
Independents 52% (and growing)
Democrats 23%
Never-Trumpers. 12.5%
We can do this, people, with a decisive number of votes in November!
I agree with you that Fox voters are unlikely to change their minds, but as a lifelong educator, I believe that most people are educable. Teachers often don't see the seeds that we plant grow and thrive, but we do what we can whenever and wherever we can.
There are none so deaf as those who refuse to hear. The change you are looking for over there needs to happen “over-here.” You/I have zero control and therefore zero power over there. Remember, it’s you and me not you or me.
Could we organize an ad campaign on Fox and Newsmax and OAN similar to (or in collaboration with) the Lincoln Project containing content from Heather's Letters or about Project 2025? We have the numbers to self fund such an effort and we bypass the mealy mouthed MSM by becoming our own media.
Another huge consequential Letter thanks to Heather Cox Richardson. On another related note, Simone Biles quips on social media: "I love my Black Job 🖤"
My schedule is disrupted completely. I’m helping my wife’s aunt and uncle move from the Bay Area to Oregon. I’ve not seen a single women’s soccer or basketball game, but I did watch badminton and equestrian last night, then the swimming highlights.
It helps that the Professor is posting earlier in the day….brings us closer!
Yes, don’t by a T car, use X, or pump up his cabal. And perhaps Congress can rethink the NASA spaceX work. There was a Tesla in the BiMart parking lot whose alarm was randomly going off, would stop, then start…the owner, older white guy, came out and tried various things, then opened and closed the hood. He said this would fix it for a while but the latch was bad…I noted how much the car depended on its electronics and he shook his head. That new musky car smell. sad…and they thing they are Superman. Really truly.
Let's please not get into EV bashing and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) when they are needed stop burning oil in order to help arrest global warming. Teslas very rarely catch on fire, relative to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, percentage-wise. Even the GM Bolt's that had faulty batteries causing fires were still much rarer than ICE fires.
Say what you will but the damn things are almost impossible to extinguish unlike gas powered cars. They are horrible for the poor firefighters who are called to help. I’m certainly not against a better way to power our vehicles but this may not be the ideal answer.
NASA will rue the day they signed up with Musk or Boeing. They should be ruing already. Of course Elon has the money that NASA should have but one day that may change.
I'm sure NASA already greatly rues partnering with Boeing. Their capsule is stuck up there at ISS.
As far as EVs I think it is a mistake to try and jump headlong into full electric vehicles. There isn't the infrastructure for them. If I was going to buy a new vehicle I would go for a hybrid.
Thanks Professor, this is very illuminating and troubling. Why hasn’t an indictment been brought against the entirety of the CONCON campaign by the Justice department over this violation. If this is allowed to stand, if the AGOUS Barr is not indicted and prosecuted for aiding and abetting in the willful violation of our campaign laws rules and regulations and CONDON is not prosecuted, we set ourselves, as a county, on a slippery slope of deciding which laws apply to our leaders and which laws they are allowed to violate with impunity. I am with Joe on term limits for the SCOTUS justices and I would add an age limit as well. That age limit. Should be 65 and either the length of term or the age limit being reached is the threshold for retirement. It should be an impeachable offense to deliberately fail to report GODTS from wealthy donors and then fail to recuse themselves from cases in which those donors are involved with. The enemy of democracy is not the middle to lower income brown and black faces, it is the faces of the suit and tie corporate and ultra extreme religious right.
El condenado ex Presidente es el enemigo del estado y el enemigo de la democracia. Si el llega ser Presidente de la República, dudo que nosotros latinos, negros, hispanos tendrán la oportunidad de participar en el sueño y experimentar la libertad que es la democracia. La arma que tenemos para el combate que viene es nuestro voto. El voto para el condenado ex president es voto para la autocracia como estamos tratando de escapar bajo los dictadores como se encuentran en los países Latinoamericanos y Cuba. Hay que resistir las mentiras que se pasa como verdaderos en la iglesia evangélicas y los noticieros como Fox. Sus vida y sus esperanzas dependen de ello.
The rot. The enemy within. Our traditional judiciary may prove to be inadequate to address the firehose of corruption in the Trump years, but the good historians will catch it all. One litmus test for our system, as far as I’m concerned, is whether or not Donald J Trump is ever escorted into a prison cell. If not, justice has failed us.
It is fitting that DEMs nominate Kamala Harris, former prosecutor for their candidate for presidency. CNN must schedule a few debates Harris vs Trump, and include questions on Trump money sources. This election shaping up to become the open desperate fight of democracy against autocracy in America.
There was no debate. CNN moderators did not follow their own rules and turn off Donnie’s mic any time he started going off topic which was constantly. He lied, he did not answer the questions, and CNN was totally inept at presenting anything helpful for a fair election.
My opinion: CNN was complicit in the disaster that passed for a debate last month. They should not be involved in anyway in future debates for this election.
When will Heather be published in major newspapers and regularly reported on in the major news outlets?
I am so pleased with the Substacks as a news source. Their insight and honesty beat the newspapers by far. They are my main source of current affairs now.
I understand President Maduro, I mean former President Trump employ the same cook, I mean crook.
Maybe there is the natural evolutionary state of man climbing down from trees. Thence to picking berries and forging. Then farming with workers now doing the heave duties as owners accumulate. Then a primitive form of collective self rule followed by sets of democratic forms of government which is followed by Tyrannical forms with Kim Sung Un and Putin being the most evolved.
The human species is toast. Can’t wait to vaca in Panmonjum for a little R & R. If I can bring some weight losing drugs like that little blue diabetes pill from Jardiance to Mr. Un, I’ll be a hero to the autocrats.
We, the people, have a collective survival instinct. The worst thing we can do is assume it won't work. The second worst thing we can do is assume that all we have to do is sit back and watch it work without our help. The minimum we must do is assume it will work with our active participation.
My thanks to our ancestors for doing the minimum, and I know they did because they would not otherwise have had descendants. Let's get together and pay that debt forward.
James Carey, I agree with you, and I'm frustrated that I don't do enough to spread the word to the "I don't watch the news about politics, because it is so upsetting" crowd. I send election postcards, etc., but the best thing I can think of is forwarding Heather's Letters to 15 friends, hoping that the "upset" among them will educate themselves and help to save this nation.
“One thing, I don’t know why; It doesn’t even matter how hard you try.” —Linkin Park, from “In the End”
The reason it doesn’t matter how hard you try is because of the butterfly effect (small actions have enormous long-term effects). The thing that does matter is making sure your small actions support the moral “everyone matters” team and not the immoral “we matter, and you don’t” team.
I believe XX-chromosome people have a collective survival instinct. I'm not at all sure about the XYs.
You can say that now, but you won't be able to say that on the day we live in a nation where people will not be judged by the chromosomes of their genome but by the content of their character.
Sad compilation Bill, too close to call yet…but thoughts and prayers🤦♀️
Wow, who pissed in your cornflakes? Is that why you say human species is toast?
Who are your top follows? I need to replace WAPO, whom I recently canceled.
The corporate media has failed egregiously to report "warts and all" about Trump, aiding and abetting the normalization of his malignant narcissism and sociopathy. It no longer holds power to account. We should hold it to account by withdrawing our readership.
I agree.
I gave up on WAPO a month ago. I follow: Civil Discourse Joyce Vance, The Status Quo, What Did Joe Biden Do Today, Robert Reich, Adam Kinzinger, Rick Wilson’s Substack, The Hartmann Report, Chop Wood Carry Water, among others.
I also follow Everyone Is Entitled To My Own Opinion. His rants are laden with swear words, but reading his Substack is cathartic.
Thanks! I follow the same except what did joe and chop wood. I will check them out. I pay for joyce (and her chickens), cafe insider and shero. I, also, like Tiedrich. He often has a tidbit not revealed elsewhere.
Ruth Ben Ghiat, Jay Kuo.
Right: I forgot to mention Jay Kuo among my follows.
I will add Ruth to my follows. Thanks!
Robert Reich and Joyce Vance.
The Guardian
Been reading lots of Books on fascism and
Read Timothy Snyder's "Road to Unfreedom".
yes, and his substack, "Thinking about..." - and anything else he's written. His Yale course, "The Making of Modern Ukraine," posted on YouTube is excellent, along with many other of his discussions posted there.
I just got it!
Definitely the Guardian, and pay attention to Al Jazeera. I dropped the NYT after 2016 and am about to drop WaPo.
I hang onto the WaPo just for Jennifer Rubin. She's great.
If the WAPO published this news today: "Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States." It's HCR's lead, and nobody did anything about it when Barr sat on it, does that mean it can't be another prosecution? Oh, I see. Another "official act" with immunity? This is another felony from the lying SOS and his Scorruptus.
She and Eugene Robinson are pretty much all that's keeping me onboard for now.
Thanks! Will do. And the Tim Snyder on You tube!
Robert Reich shared his last course on Wealth and Poverty on You Tube. Excellent!
HCR, Hubbell, sometimes Robert Reich, often Joyce Vance. I don't have time to do much more - and I often find it useful to read as many posts in the comments section as I have time for.
In addition to everyone already mentioned, don't forget Jess Piper (The View From Rural Missouri). Also, for someone who doesn't consider himself progressive. who is a former Republican (but is very honest and very smart), Daniel Drezner. For people who care about Israel/Palestine, there is Peter Beinhart. Unfortunately, I can't afford to be a paid subscriber to all the good folks who are writing substacks that are better than the big media. I wish there was some sort of package subscription deal, where I could choose which 10 of them I wanted to read every morning and my subscription got distributed (in obviously small bits!) to whoever I read.
Yes re Jess....😊 ...I agree, there are many who I wud read if I cud subscribe.....worthy idea!!!!
Robert Hubbell, TC in LA, Rick Wilson too
Click around when people comment about different writers and you will find your trusted news sources.
I’ll check on Hubbell. Thanks!
In addition to all the excellent suggestions so far, if you are a podcast listener, I recommend Stay Tuned with Preet. Preet Bharara is a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York (fired by Trump) and he discusses legal issues in the news with a number of guests. Joyce Vance is on at least once a week. I don’t have time to read as many newsletters as I’d like (usually 3 a day), listening to podcasts while I’m driving or doing housework allows me to add to it and I appreciate learning about the legal ins and outs of issues.
Just read in another comment you already follow Cafe Insider. I’ll leave the comment in case it’s helpful for anyone else.
Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Robert Hubble, Dan Rather, Thom Hartman. For economic updates, Robert Reich and Paul Krugman. For an authoritarian watch, Diane Francis and Ruth Ben-Ghiat. I no longer subscribe to newspapers but receive The Guardian's online updates for a voluntary donation. Sometimes, I check the footnotes of the contributors and read their sources. I was following Margaret Atwood for her cheeky point of view, but lately, she has not contributed.
similar to who I read and follow. Really enjoy Atwood's take
Heather, Reich, Vance…
Public Notice, Talking Points Memo, Timothy Snyder Thinking About) who is author of On Tyranny and more recently On Freedom, Robert Reich, Joyce Vance and You Tubes Midas Touch Network: Legal AF
Another fervent democracy booster is Robert Hubbell. His Substack is called Today's Edition.
I recently cancelled the NY Times and now get my news from The Guardian and HRC.
I canceled the NYTimes after their call for Biden to withdraw from the bid for the presidency "for the good of the nation," and THEN said absolutely NOTHING about the copious lies and blather that came out of TFG the night of the so-called debate, and routinely made no mention of the obvious decline in TFG's cognition and reasoning, or the fact that he IS A CONVICTED FELON.
I've flat-out had enough of people making excuses -- any excuses -- for why TFG should be anyone's choice for the Presidency.
There was also that extremely strange comment from the NYT executive editor (whose name I keep spacing) about how it would be fun / challenging / exciting / whatever to cover another Trump presidency. This guy's priorities, thought I, are completely screwed up.
Yep...same reason for me. The editorial board was blatantly showing a weird bias for a paper with their reputation...I couldn't stomach it anymore. I cancelled over the phone so I could tell a human working there why I was cancelling. I said I was cancelling because of journalistic negligence and am hoping it was passed on. I was taking the digital only version, but at least three or four people in my condo building were taking the print version and have noticed recently when I pick up my Denver Post in the lobby there were zero Times in the bundle. I hope they feel the financial and reputational fallout.
I will make it a point to read the Guardian more consistently. Thanks.
The Guardian was the last media I cancelled. Was a subscriber and then they both-sided when that report came out with the politically hatchet job on Biden's supposed memory issues. Heather is pretty much the only news I consume. While there's nothing wrong with following all of the Midas touch-oriented content (substacks included), it all feels like beating a dead horse to me and does nothing for me.
Definitely worth it. I get both the US and UK editions. Most of what I know about the UK and Europe more generally I get from either the Guardian or Al Jazeera.
For a challenge, try Quora.
The Guardian has some good writers and articles.
All of the above except WaPo &....for breaking news I go to Daily Kos. Almost everyday I read HCR & I Robert Hubbell. Intermittently: Lucian Truscott, Mary Trump, Hopium Chronicles, Your Local Epidemiologist, Steve Schmit & That's another fine mess.
Well, the NYT and the WAPO are the sources for much of this muckraking that is distilled, summarized, and clarified here in this Substack. They also provide data on maps covering a wide range of topics that are not political. Thus, I will continue to subscribe to both. Ditto for ProPublica and the Economist, and I forget what else.
Since I can afford to donate to political campaigns, I feel it is also important to support the actual sources of data used to illuminate truth.
I give less weight to their editorial pages, though.
ProPublica, unlike the other sources you note, is nonprofit. They do work in cooperation on some pieces with the NYT, but ProPublica's focus appears to be more specifically on citizen's rights, investigating and reporting corruption (kudos again for their great reporting on SCOTUS, particularly Thomas). Democracy oriented.
Me too! The world has changed. We can no longer look to mainstream media for honest, impartial reporting.
The MSM still has the international resources and contacts and there are still some old-school journalists who believe in using their position for the purpose of speaking truth to power as well as the general public. The story of Trump getting $10 million from el-Sisi of Egypt to donate to his own campaign could only be done by a large organization with international resources and national clout, not to mention paying journalists while they researched. But as the sole source of information, they have blind spots as well as deliberate obstructive policies when it comes to stories such as the Palestinian genocide.
I heard about the Trump-al-Sisi story yesterday on MSNBC's Deadline Whitehouse, where Carol Leonnig appeared. Let's see what Bill Barr does to wash the newest stink off of himself.
What was the general reporting about Trump's meeting with el-Sisi, the invite, etc.? I seem to remember that I was more horrified than the general reaction that an authoritarian leader was being treated like a close friend.
Interesting. If a media sources digs up dirt about someone you hate, they're accurate, and if they are not as hard on someone else you hate, with all their sources, they're blind.
Got it.
Just a point, WaPo did publish the investigative report at the top of their page. So I'm confused.
I subscribe to WaPo and my local paper. They aren’t perfect, but I believe in supporting them even in their imperfection.
They have a chance to turn it around. Bezos has been asked to reconsider his choice of CEO. They don't have to stay in the gutter. We will welcome them back as allies of democracy when they once again report responsibly.
Martha, it's doubtless because Carol Leonnig works for the WaPo, and book will appear on the shelves soon.
There have been so many great substacks/podcasts mentioned. I haven't noticed yet, but might have missed it in someone's remarks, Marc Elias' great work on Democracy Docket. So worthy of subscribers, including paid. He and is team are doing Herculean work for our imperiled democracy.
Problem being the limited reach of these sources of information .
But we can spread the word -- We The People!
Mine too! Only honest news communications in the nation.
Of course, considering the lowered journalistic standards at the WaPo and the NYTimes in their reporting about US politics these days, it's possible Heather might decline to compromise her own standards to be published by them.
In general, I agree. However, HCR cites here and pretty often the work of specific outstanding journalists at WaPo and the NYT.
That's different. She is citing sources, she is not buying the whole kit and caboodle.
That's why I said, above, that HCR cites specific journalists at those outlets.
And major outlets provide resources for journalists that is an important element for their reporting. That's not saying those outlets aren't flawed.
"Outstanding" journalists at the New York Times and the Washington Post are nothing more than puppets bowing to oligarchs and nepos. These major resources have lost their way, the independence long cherished left with the falling profits. When Jaime Dimon and George Clooney are given front page editorial space to inform the reader of their superior knowledge? Journalism is dead.
Dr Richardson is much more insightful re: the actual machinations of today's politics than any of the journalists working for the big three are. Unfortunately, these important elements now need to be vetted. This is not John Peter Zenger's editorial or publishing world.
You say Dr. Richardson is "much more insightful..." and that journalists at legacy media are puppets. That seems to contradict the fact that today's letter starts, "...Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported..." I appreciate that Heather takes the time to read widely, pull together the threads of today's and, where appropriate, tie it to history.
"Outstanding" journalists at the New York Times and the Washington Post are nothing more than puppets bowing to oligarchs and nepos.
You paint with much too broad a brush. Both papers have serious problems with fearless and independent reporting, but to say that all the reporters are salaaming puppets is highly inaccurate. Many of the stories Heather writes about are based on reporting from these papers.
Maybe don't read just the editorials. I find them most unsatisfying. Any article that doesn't substantiate its assertions is just a writer getting paid by the word, not for excellence in reporting.
Thank you, Heather C Richardson, for your Herculean (and Sisyphean) work panning for nuggets in mainstream media. I just cancelled my NYT subscription precisely because those nuggets are buried beneath so much rubbish. A recent «news» item included a reference to «President Donald J Trump» followed within the SAME paragraph by a reference to «Ms Harris». This outrageous slander was corrected post publication and probably buried with other nuggets on the back pages—too late, the damage had already been done. I read thousands of similar examples of this normalization.
Use good information when you find it. You can find a diamond in a rubbish heap but you have to be able to recognize it when you see it.
Few and far between…
In this piece HCR is citing the WaPo reporters who researched and broke this huge story. There is some excellent reporting
Unfortunately the "good stuff" is the minority of what shows up.
If the quality of the articles in a pub like Wash post or NYTimes is MOL randomly distributed—some good, some bad, some in the middle—it’s going to be true by definition that stories like the one Heather relied on today are uncommon. They may have worked on thst for a year, employed other reporters and technical people. I can hardly image the cost of that story—quarter million $ has to be too low, half million, closer to a million? Takes very deep pockets and strong motivation to stay committed to that work. I’m willing to continue sending both of those orgs my few dollars each month to help with this work even though I’m VERY unhappy with lots of things they’ve been doing lately
Carole Leonig is a consistently wonderful reporter in the Washington Post. I believe the current article is a result of research done for a book she is writing with her co-author. It may be that she is still with the Post because they allow her the time and space (and resources) to do this type of deeply researched long-form investigative journalism. However, the NYT is just awful, and has been for some time. If the best they can offer is Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, that says it all.
Joan I find that there is some excellent investigative reporting in the WaPo, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Politico, and even in the NYT. Even the WSj apparently has the occasional worthwhile investigative report.
I agree that the ‘age factor’ reporting by the NYT and WAPo was dreadfully slanted. HOWEVER, with President Biden no longer the candidate, I sense a sharper tone against Trump—at a minimum, they should simply report accurately what he says.
The Week magazine has some excellent coverage of both sides of a major story reported in the press.The Economist is better on financial than political investigative reporting.
Yes I read all those sources too
I just think we have to avoid the curmudgeon factor and damn the press in toto when there are excellent investigative reporters. We can't all be in little cubbyholes
Goodness...all those years the news was shared and we had no idea what was really going on ( So America for example ...Chile)
Abandoning the Times and the WaPo, not a good plan from my point of view
Newsletters are great,* particularly Letters from an American, but they aren’t all as reliable as HCR’s and have nothing like the breadth and depth of The New York Times and The Washington Post.
*Here’s another one of my favorites:
https://james-newsletter-62b730.beehiiv.com/
The "breadth" and "depth" of the Sulzberger Sniper and the Bezos Bugle are used to put the organizational thumb on the scale in favor of Trump because the MSM lost half their subscribers/readers/viewers after Trump left office, and the intergalactic widgetmakers who own them demand they become "profitable" again. They see another Trump term as the way back to eyeballs and subscriptions. Profitability is their sole concern. The Executive Editor of the New York Times is on the record in an interview back in June that "defending democracy" is not the job of the Times, and that indeed 'democracy" is just another "issue," like inflation.
So, you go ahead and think you still live in the 1970s when the Times published the Pentagon Papers and the Post published Woodward and Bernstein. But be assured, those days are long gone.
"They see another Trump term as the way back to eyeballs and subscriptions. "
I think that is Bezos' least concern. Another Trump term will give him and the other billionaires absolute power because the Orange Felon will destroy democracy, crippling the power ordinary people (might) have over the self-absorbed billionaire kings. THAT is why they want him back in the White House: to have democracy utterly destroyed, so they can simply BUY the power they want. And they know that the Orange Blob can be bought to do anything, if the price is right... If money equals power, they will be all-powerful.
Is it just me, or is convicted felon DonOld looking and acting more and more like Jabba the Hut?
He is the face (and putrid body) of evil, but the web supporting him is just $$$/💪
Yes. Looking, acting AND talking, I'd say.
I can only say “wow” to the NYT executive editor. Democracy is not worth defending. We don’t have a chance when we lose this support.
The NYT should have subscribers leave - that line - 'Democracy is not worth defending' - is awful.
People on these substacks are cancelling the NYTimes. MeidasTouch.......2.7 million......David Pakman....3 million online subscribers.......there is no need for the Times anymore.......waste of $$$$$$$
I kept a subscription to the NYT - though I was reading it less and less, and when I was, was so often infuriated by their clearly deliberate headline misframing. After eight or nine years of watching this odd - and intentional - misframing of reports on those they wished to either undermine (Biden) or to elevate (DJT), I cancelled my subscription when the Times did their one-two punch by publishing Thos. Friedman's piece calling for President Biden to drop out, followed quickly by their editorial board calling for the same. The reason I gave when I cancelled via the Times' online form: "You didn't say the felon should drop out."
I could have offered many more reasons, going back years.
As has been noted, the NYT does offer occasional truly outstanding, indepth articles that can only be done with resources like theirs (the expose of DJT's years' long tax fraud; the genocide of the Yazidis at the hands of ISIS - a story that deserves follow up now; and more.) But I'd finally had it with their campaign against President Biden. That was it, for me. President Biden deserved better. So do Americans.
Did he say democracy is not worth defending or did he say it’s not the NYTimes job to defend democracy? A newspaper’s job is to report news and present fact-based, well reasoned opinions. Doing that job is vital to the health and well being of a democracy. When a demagogue like Trump gets traction and threatens to sabotage our democracy and replace it with an authoritarian regime it is a newspapers job to report what’s happening and present opinions about what’s happening. That’s different from attacking and trying to defeat the demagogue. In a democracy, the people, hopefully well informed by a free press, deal with the demagogue themselves.
The NYT (and other msm outlets, too) softballed trump in its framing/headlinig of reports on him - to give him an advantage. And it has done negative framing/headlining of reports on Biden. It's been obvious and consistent.
The msm depends on the weirdness of trump to get clicks and revenue. So, they're sustaining him by the angling of reports because they think they need him. And by doing so, they are influencing voters on trump's behalf.
The Executive Editor of the New York Times is on the record in an interview back in June that "defending democracy" is not the job of the Times, and that indeed 'democracy" is just another "issue," like inflation.
IMO that's not the same as saying Democracy is not worth defending. The job of the news media is to provide us with information so we citizens can defend Democracy - the responsibility to defend it by voting. Voting should be mandatory. L&B&L
Hopefully Heather will do an investigation of the NYTimes. Keep on cancelling subscriptions and investing in these great substacks.
Yes, it is up to the public to vote, but the whole point of a free press is to act as a bulwark against corruption and for democracy. If they have their thumbs on the scale in their reporting, they aren't holding up their end of the bargain. How can the ordinary reader get a realistic grasp of events if the reporting is skewed? As it now stands, the MSM enjoys journalistic freedom without accountability for acting as an interested party instead of an objective recorder of fact.
I don't think that voting should be mandatory, but I appreciate your assessment of the "defending democracy" statement. I think it is the correct assessment. My initial response was that the statement was awful, but you talked me off that ledge.
TCinLA Well said!
TC, I always enjoy your posts and this one is right on the mark. There are aspects of the NYT that I enjoy, not found in the first section like art, puzzles, science, food, book reviews, etc. Sometimes I read individual essays, but I never read the front section like i used to. The local rag does not have a Saturday paper, so no delivery of the NYT...so we print out the crossword. Also some newspaper owner in Portland of a small rag has been arrested in Alabama for making all sorts of dire threats....clearly a wing nut.
I tried to like your comment but apparently you have blocked me from doing so. Just for calling you out for calling people names.
you're not blocked
Strange. Sorry to accuse you!
TCinLA. Sad but too true.
Your link was taken over by some different page.
Link is SPAM - watch out
Appreciate your concern. I just tried the link and it worked fine. I think that, to be spam, the link has to be generated by a robot or program of some kind, usually for some commercial or propaganda purpose. I posted the link myself and it’s to a newsletter (beehive, not substack) with an essay which I wrote that I think (hope) folks would like.
Kathaleen B Parker -- Thanks for the warning. I hadn't clicked on "Jamie Baldwin's" link because it looked to me to be totally self-serving. Not interested.
Jamie Baldwin. Scare quotes not required!
Excellent digital hygiene KATHLEEN & Judith ✔︎
That is for sure.
Why tarnish your reputation?
January 2017 as the date for the withdrawal of $10 million from an Egyptian bank is peculiar, isn’t it? The election was over.
What I've been saying since the beginning but HCR's content would upstage most MSM! Her Letters, videos and connecting the dots has been a stellar education for 4+ years!
The story of the $10million bribe appeared in the August 2nd issue of the Washington Post
by Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig (who appeared on MSNBC). It is in depth investigative reporting that is still sorely needed - but it has become more difficult to shift through the major newspapers.
What is so discouraging is there is no end to the crimes committed by trump and his republican minions. I still don't understand why he is not in jail after being convicted of 34 felonies. Every criminal act he commits gets appealed ad infinitum (while he is free to roam and pillage the country) and he is constantly given deference because he is a "presidential candidate". And, we have to constantly be exposed to every piece of vitriolic garbage that comes out of his mouth as though he is actually a normal person. Jiminy Cricket! Our institutions are based on trust and the DOJ has been greatly diminished due to the actions and strangle hold of a criminally insane person along with all his minions starting with Bill Barr and the SCOTUS.
And the decision by the 6 GQP appointed justices to hand Trump broad immunity is a huge slap in the face to the public who wants Trump to be held legally accountable. The Founders never envisioned the President as being above the law. The Founders expected the President to be subject to the law. The GQP wants an imperial president, the rest of us not so much.
Given the enormous sums of laundered money involved in these complicated corrupt global transactions, the SCOTUS justices’ reported “gifts” are a bargain. We MUST reform the Court.
The GQP needs to move to Hungary, Orban has it organized just the way they like it, we however believe in freedom, with a president who acts within the law and is subject to it. The SC immunity decision was like a slap in the face to the American people, that slap by the way was just the latest in a long history of slaps we have been enduring from the Roberts court. We need to add 4 more justices asap and revisit that history, a major correction is in order. 💥🙏
I agree with you on both counts. The GQP might love Orban’s Hungary but many young and educated Hungarians are leaving.
I knew some of the men who filmed the ‘56 Hungarian uprising and escaped with the negative, they went on to win academy awards filming feature films. There are good people everywhere and we have benefited by their decisions to move on, hey everyone of us reading this are products of those kind of decisions. 😎
I remember the couple hundred thousands of Hungarian Refugees after 1956 and the 1957 Operation Safe Haven that brought a lot of the best and brightest here. I always thought most came to the US since I remember a few Hungarian-American Clubs near places we lived. I wonder what the range of their thoughts are now.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Americans
Seems there are almost 1.4 million by descent and 4 million with ethnic Hungarian background.
I quite like the proposal Biden has laid out for reforming the court, actually.
The founders never considered SCOTUS would be corrupt.
Paul Krugman of the NYTimes still writes a fact based column. He is not a fan of Trump's economic policies to be sure, but he makes a lot of predictions about the economy and if he's wrong, he points out where and how he messed up and credits the economists that got it right.
Catherine Rampell of the WAPO parses the economy differently from Paul Krugman looking at pieces of the economy or specific departments in the Federal Government but she is ALWAYS a good read.
I trust their expertise and they don't seem to be handcuffed by their editors like others at the NYTimes and WAPO.
These two are the exception! Recent analysis of those outlets articles showed twice as many anti-Biden articles as anti maga creature! That’s the problem.
Paul Krugman has been my sapiocrush for years. Lordy, what a smart guy! I miss him since getting rid of NYT.
Once again we see where Bill Barr interfered on behalf of the traitor. For all his disgust about the traitor and January 6, he did the traitor’s bidding for essentially four years. Despite all the disgust, he will vote for him again this November. His enablers are as corrupt as he is.
Sometimes I amuse myself with the question, "Who is the more mentally ill, Bill Barr or Steve Bannon?"
To me neither Barr nor Bannon are mentally ill. They are simply evil.
Keep HCR's LFA's as it is... DON'T SCREW WITH IT. Haven't you learned that yet? It aint broke.., so don't try to make it or fix it til it is broke.
Janet,
Yes ma’am!
I’m with you.
Nah, it didn't start with Bill Barr.
I'm old enough to remember John Mitchell and his wife Martha. Psychiatrists actually thought she was crazy because they couldn't believe what she said about Nixon's part in Watergate.
I too remember the Mitchells! Martha was a bit unfiltered but as a 50-something guy (2 decades younger than me said the other day in reference to a group of us "older" golfing ladies - "unfiltered comes with wisdom :)" There appears to be a longer, more visible thread of corruption with republican administrations. It seems the dems (who have most definitely had their issues!!) spend most of their 1st term cleaning up the damage done by a previous republican administration. This past decade with trump as the "leader" of a whack job cult is just many more magnitudes off the richter scale!
Thank goodness for Joe stepping aside (yet still mentoring and working all the back channels) and for Kamala to step up (100% supported by democratic leadership) and take this to the finish line! The positivity and enthusiastic momentum across a wide demographic range is pure joy and hope!!
Janet W.- amen amen. Why isn’t he in jail???
When the cows come home.
She will not bend to some editor marking up her copy to follow the whims of the oligarch who has bought the distressed paper - here's looking at you Jeff Bezos - Substacks is the only "free press" available these days.
Thomas Paine would have written for Substack.
Rolling Stone has funded several excellent deep dives over the past several years.
I suspect that most musicians are supporting Kamala and abhor DonOld.
Except talentless hacks like Ted Nugent and Kid Rock (hilarious irony with that handle).
For sure......Still LOL how the Eagles tribute band had to pull out of the Orange Inaug way back!!! The outrage was precious......I threw out all the Nugent vinal from my 2000 plus lps years ago.......would NEVER degrade my records with a Trump supporing piece of shit........Nugent/Rock....
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-swing-state-officials-election-deniers-1235069692/?mc_cid=fdbb0ed4b8&mc_eid=8ead1e1021
You are absolutely right Paine would have been with us on Substack, and it is the only “free press” available unfortunately. Bezos can afford if the WP goes under (I hope it doesn’t), the 4th generation heir to the NYT doesn’t seem to have the passion that built his paper’s reputation for investigative journalism, he’s probably watching with alarm the rapid changing of the underpinning of his wealth which helps explain but in no way justifies their pandering to the maggot base with their gloves on treatment of the orange turd. No matter how white your gloves are, if you handle a steaming hot turd it’s going to be hard to hide the evidence that’s on your hands. We have 3 months left for the NYT to get rid of those gloves and act responsibly, we’ll see won’t we. 🙏
The lead investor in Substack was Andreesen Horowitz, not a bastion of liberal progress, maybe the opposite. Quotes could be helpful here . . . it’s maddening, we have to use the best tools we have — b.rad
They're not involved anymore.
thanks, I've been looking for the board of directors of Substack, but the web site doesn't seem to list corporate info as normal . . . and even where they are incorporated [ edit - Delaware ]. This SEC doc below seems to indicate that Andrew Chen is a director, so that is direct oversight from somewhere in the Andreesen orbit, as I understand things. This may be the 'equity crowdfunding round' referenced by Crunchbase. . . . what does it mean? curious, b.rad
See SEC posting <https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783191/000194776123000002/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml>
A lot of us aren't aware that there are many many MAGA substacks. In overall, Substack really does try to provide "something for everyone." I'm happy that our part of the whole is as conducive to communication and organizing as it is. None of the annoying ads and "pushed" items found in the rest of social media. Right now I will take what I can get.
!
Dr Richardson you make an outstanding contribution to public discourse at a time when that discourse is being polluted by a toxic deluge of misinformation and disinformation. More power to you.
seriously. Where is the main stream press on all this.
They're busy promoting Trump because the last time they were profitable was when he was in office, creating 'controversy."
Yeah, TC, if it bleeds it ledes. Can’t figure out if they are vultures or vampires. That said, I honor the “truth tellers” out there even tho their voices are not broadcast widely.
"Vultures or vampires"?
The Crime Lords are both, working together in symbiosis.
Vampires bleed the body politic to death, vultures feed on the remains.
Lol….now just waiting for Hollywood to exploit this amalgam! Vulpires! Vamtures!
Does the ‘mainstream press’ really exist now?
No.
Podcasts can be found with a keyword search, and when you start following the honest ones who research topics, they are great news sources...Apple Podcasts are not as greedy as Spotify, so the paywall advertising is not as annoying.
But it’s still a pasture of silos
It exists, but not in any clear-running streams. It's in the hugely polluted quagmire of oligarchies and crime lords. Perhaps we should stop calling it "the press" and start calling it "the puke." It doesn't squeeze the juice out of events, it dredges up sludge and regurgitates it.
The Washington Post broke the $10 million to Trump from Egypt's dictator story Aug. 2 and it was also on MSNBC's "Dateline White House" August 2.
WaPo headlines and moves on these days, unlike Ben Bradlee
Dr Richardson researches multiple news reporting sources daily, as can be seen in her links. Her talent is in “connecting the dots” in plain language, with historical context. At this, she has no contemporary equal.
Not when, but how. We are in a desparate fight against autocracy.
Possible campaign slogans:
Don't let Donald trump Democracy!
or
Don't let Donald Trump trump Democracy!
The way he "thinks", it seems plausible that he thinks he was put on this Earth to play the ultimate "trump card": to be the first person to successfully assail, or subvert, or overthrow American Democracy.
Dunno, kinda like thump trump’s rump.
CHOOSE DEMOCRACY ✔️Over Dictatorship
VOTE ✔️HARRIS
https://stddonald.com/product/biden-harris-yard-sign-for-2024/
🪧🇺🇸
Sloganeering and tips aren’t even tips of the iceberg and aren’t going to tip the balance. If they did it’s a hell of a comment on who we are as a people if we are that shallow. This is like that clickbait that starts out “This one weird hack will clear up toe fungus overnight!”
Why not do everything all at the same time? You can't predict what will become popular, or what "goes viral". If you think of something, put it out there. I usually write paragraphs, but this little bit of word play seemed amusing, so I put it out there. Do everything you can think of doing, in the time that remains. If you are in a war, in a firefight, and you run out of ammo, you don't stop fighting, you keep fighting with anything you can find to use as a weapon. We're in a fight for our lives, and our way of living.
“Why not do everything all at the same time?”
Think about it. Can YOU do everything all at the same time?
“If you are in a war, in a firefight…” “We're in a fight for our lives…” “…this little bit of word play seemed amusing, so I put it out there.”
Am I on the battlefield or watching standup? Is this all some trivial entertainment?
Your call to action, and I understand the need for action, lands as panic driven. People acting from a sense of panic aren’t thinking, they are merely reacting and acting without thinking is exactly what so many of ”them” are doing that “we” are voting against. We have become them! “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Fighting fire with fire works with fire but not so much with people unless you are willing to use them as fodder in a desperate attempt to not die.
It reminds me of a scene from a movie I recently watched with a son, mother, and third man trapped in a room filling with water seemingly without possibility of escape. The man in his panic grabbed the boy and pushed him under in a frantic attempt to keep his head above water. The mother was able to grab the man and push him under and drown him before he was able to drown her son. It as vicious violent horrific terrifying scene as could be portrayed. People who stopped thinking and were acting from pure instinct to survive.
Now of course I’m not against survival. That’s plainly stupid. I saying there’s more to life than just surviving. One obvious needs to be responsible for one’s survival, however, survival as the purpose of life is pitiful.
Aliveness, maximizing the greatest amount of love, health, happiness, and full self-expression is a purpose worth living for. Trading survival for aliveness is exactly what being righteous and making others wrong produces. Being justified and invalidated others produces. Winning at all costs while having others lose produces. Dominating while avoiding the domination of others produces. All these moves maximizes survival of our positions, of our worldview at the cost of our aliveness. We win the battle while losing sight of what we are battling for.
People do horrifying things when panic sets in and thinking ends. Do you really think using the language of war and whipping people into an unthinking mob taking desperate action is a good strategy?
I know it really takes something to deescalate ourselves. And what I am suggesting requires compassion for ourselves first. Once there we naturally have it for others.
Yes, we need to take actions and connect with others and have conversations that leave them in action having conversations, etc. I just can’t see evoking the feelings of being at war, of calling forth a you or me rather than you and me kind of positionality is going to end up anyplace good even if Harris is elected as we will be as divided and perhaps even more so. So we’re damned either way.
The division must end here and now. Today! And the end of division begins within each of us.
Bern Shanfield,
I see that you are relatively new here -- your first post on Substack was in June of this year. Please allow me to introduce myself. I've been offering comments on Professor Heather Cox Richardson's LFAA almost since the beginning.
I am not in a panic. I have no fear. I lost my sense of fear in Vietnam in '69-'70. After returning home from the war I applied, successfully, for discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. I have endeavored ever since the war to become a thorough-going pacifist. As part of that effort I stopped eating meat in January of 1975, and I have avoided eating meat for the past 49 years. I abhor violent behavior. I urge everyone to work relentlessly for peace and the end of hostilities. Unsuccessfully thus far, as it turns out.
Your essay concluded with this: "The division must end here and now. Today! And the end of division begins within each of us." Son, I and many others have been working for peace and unity for at least the past half century. If you have been a regular reader here, you would know this is true. Your decree faces some formidable obstacles. There is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon in cults of various kinds, that messaging from outsiders is not allowed to penetrate into the inner sanctum of the cult. Many of us believe that most people are good and decent at heart. But for various reasons, they lose sight of what's right when confronted by a skillful charlatan or snake-oil salesman. You can order them to "Unite! Now!" but your words of wisdom will not penetrate their inner shields. So we try to help as many as possible to "see the light". If we are successful, our candidate will win. But there is no legal or legitimate way to guarantee the outcome of the election.
In case you don't already know of the work of John Pavlovitz, who writes here on Substack. I think you would find his writing engaging, insightful, and useful.
Some of us believe that if the 45th president does not legitimately win the election in November, then it seems highly probable that he and his minions will make another attempt at a coup. However, unlike the last time we had a violent insurrection, the President will not sit idly by, watching it play out on live TV. Our defense intelligence agencies will be on high alert; local law enforcement will be on high alert; everyone who has sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC will be on high alert.
I think you will not succeed if you demand that the nation must unify "Today!" You need to be polite.
This sort of thing raises people's spirits though, and that seems very important to me.
It raises something and what it raises isn’t spirit. It’s more like stirring the mind up into a manic state of excitement that people confuse with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm comes from a deeper place than mere excitement. Excitement has a kind of unthinking frantic energy like kids on Christmas morning tearing into boxes to get to the present. There’s a kind of unconsciousness automaticity where what is happening isn’t really present for the present opener. Then, the present isn’t really enjoyed or appreciated so they move onto the next and next until there’s nothing left and they’re left with “Gee, is that it?” Tired out and still unsatisfied and looking for the next thrill. Maybe some more sugary, something that keeps the excitement going…
What I’m saying is that there is a great deal of difference between being inspired and being excited. I think the call to action in this immediate thread about slogans or tips is more about generating excitement than be inspiring, a calling forth spirit or what I’d call Being from which enthusiasm shows.
BS, the tone and tenor of your comments suggest that you are new to this community of followers of Professor Heather Cox Richardson. Your closing paragraph suggests to me that your experience here in this community lacks sufficient context -- normally gained by reading HCR every day for some time, and reading the words offered up by her "commentariat" -- which would help you to understand that a single brief comment today is often part of a much fuller context written here over the course of many weeks, months, and for some of us, years. If you have been a faithful "every day" reader here since you joined Substack in June, then I cannot help you. If you have been reading here every day, then I suggest you ponder the term "politesse". It means "formal politeness or ettiquette". Some of the things you wrote in this conversation were not polite.
Bern, I respectfully disagree.
He dreams big, but it’s a nightmare for everybody else
Don’t Let Don-Old Trump Democracy.
A bumper sticker?
Ken, I wonder if you coined the "Don-Old" nickname?
I used it once or twice since your post. I rendered it in something I wrote since then as Old Don-Old. Not sure if someone else added the "Old" in front of your "Don-Old", or if that was my addition. So today I was reading at the news aggregator "Nation of Change", a piece by Robert S. Becker, dated today 6th of August, "The bad boy nightmare struts its finale—blunting, even crushing MAGA mayhem". I found this sentence: "All reminiscent of the Central Park Five and Birtherism, plus the Charlottesville protest disgraces—confirming Old Don-Old’s racial malice." Maybe Robert Becker picked it up from our word-play here?!
https://www.nationofchange.org/2024/08/06/the-bad-boy-nightmare-struts-its-finale-blunting-even-crushing-maga-mayhem/
Unlike newspaper or TV stories, Heather ALWAYS provides links to the news she presents. The news stories are expected to be accurate and fact-checked to have two reliable sources. Heather rarely, if ever, quotes Fox News or Newsmax because they no longer fact check their stories. I'm sure there are many other sites she doesn't trust.
And "trust" is easy to lose and very difficult to gain back.
Did Fox ever fact check. I remember when they came on the air. Lies and spin all the way.
Actually they had fact checkers during the 2020 election. They were the first to call AZ for Biden. A couple of days later Fox fired their fact checkers.
Maybe they hired more. I never heard.
I doubt that Rupert ever cared what the truth was. Just made up his truth when he could get away with it. He got his tail in a crack in the UK with the dirty tricks. He might have hired a few for specific purposes but he sure didn’t like what they found out in AZ. All I ever saw was total BS, but my bff and her family loved every entertaining lie.
That could possibly happen if the legacy media were no longer owned and run by billionaire oligarchs who want to control the levers of government and industry so they can tilt the table to make themselves even richer and more powerful.
Democracy drowns in corruption, hey WaPo, NYT, CNN, WSJ, MSNBC, etc.
When will the major newspapers stop making people who only choose to read the news, letters to the editor, and op-eds stop making them pay for sports, entertainment, and want ads?
Well, get this. The Baltimore Sun was recently purchased by David Smith, the owner of conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, which has turned a weak local paper into a more conservative paper, with FOX 45 banners (owned by Sinclair) frequenting the front page. (I am growling as I write this). There is also a Carroll County Times daily version of the Sun that serves a more rural readership that is strongly Trump territory. Yesterday the Baltimore Sun had an article outlining Project 2025, and even though many of the same articles from the Baltimore version are repeated in the Carroll County Times version, any info about 2025 is not offered in the CCTimes, which would help inform the un/misinformed. Trump/Maga readers simply never see ANYTHING that would enlighten their voter motivations. Both versions produce a conservative contributor that turns out an unserious, poorly written misinformational word salad of conservative cliches and memes, but little in the way of fact.
Heather Cox Richardson is sorely needed for the enrichment and education of Americans everywhere, but I agree that it is a crap shoot when you can no longer trust newspaper business models to operate ethically.
The Baltimore Sun as it was before David Smith—weak? It long had an excellent reputation.
Shocking but not surprising that Carroll County Times refrained from informing about Project 2025. I read that Smith intended to turn Baltimore County MAGA Republican.
Not one moment too soon.
Let me know when it happens; I will likely be pre-occupied by barfing.
Lady Heather is her own boss! No need for greedy media execs to try to control her!
Much rather have her stay here.
Stephanie Miller, our top progressive radio host has been using Heathers reporting on-air. She is now in good company along with Malcolme Nance, Joy Reid,Joyce Vance and other front line journalists........check out Stephanie and Kamala Harris when they were both on Larry King together. Still on YOUTUBE
I'm still perplexed that Robert Mueller was so easily played by Bill Barr and the Trump crime organization. He and James Comey could have helped prevent a grifter becoming President.
It appears we have a bunch of overgrown arrogant ultra-wealthy frat boys and criminals trying to take over the world. I'd love to know how their values and morality got so warped and twisted, how they became so lacking in empathy and non-transactional human connection. Were they like this as children? Such wasted, pathetic lives.
Sounds to me like it’s time to subpoena Robert Mueller & William Barr to appear before a Joint congressional committee co-chaired by Rep.Jamie Raskin, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Is some kind of statute of limitations preventing Jack Smith from adding some new charges? Hell, the trials for all of Trump’s other grifting aren’t going to wrap up before the election anyway so let’s widen the net on consequences. The manure pile only seems to be growing larger.
Mueller turned that case over to the US attorney because his charter as a Special Counsel was to investigate Russian involvement in the election.
Isn’t he now a private citizen who can speak?
Sadly, I think Murller is probably no longer up to it cognitively.
He seemed competent enough at the time.
I doubt it.
An indictment can be amended but it's not easy. Assuming the veracity of these disclosures, it might be easier, legally and logistically, to seek a separate indictment.
Barr hogtied Mueller. He found the evidence or strong circumstantial evidence to be highly suspicious and wasn’t allowed to do anything with it. Trump claimed the report as a victory when in reality it wasn’t. The victory was in silencing Mueller.
Mueller got thwarted by Rosenstein first; Rosenstein wouldn’t let Mueller go after the dirty deals Trump did with Deutsche bank by following the money. And that happened because he chickened out when Trump screamed there was a red line being crossed if they went after the money. There’s also the scary retirement of Justice Kennedy and the fact that his son did deals with Trump at Deutsche bank. The Special Counsel should have mowed over Trump. You could argue Mueller’s warning about an iron triangle was already in place. By the time Barr got office, he just blatantly shut down anything that had a whiff of hurting Trump. We all saw it, but we were all powerless to do anything over it except vote Trump out of office and hold him accountable in court. I don’t think anybody could’ve imagined SCOTUS that provided immunity and delays so that Trump could skirt the law again and again. Now we have Elon Musk who thinks he’s God and has more money than nations combined. And he has satellites. This guy is out of control. I don’t know what laws can rein him in? No individual citizen should have this kind of power. We thought Rupert Murdoch was scary. This is a brand new kind of scary.
Yes it is. And a whole new level of narcissism...
exactly it was Muelker who had warned THE FBINaboutvthecIron Curtain and then he went silent
I look forward to hearing what Andrew Weismann has to say about all of this, stay tuned to MSNBC this week.
He was probably “hogtied” by corrupt Barr but couldn’t he have found a way to talk?? I don’t think he wanted to rock the boat, and isn’t he also a Republican?
I don’t know if he is a Republican or not, but my perception is that he was too wimpy to rock the boat. Don’t know the reason for that either.
Mueller acted in good faith, Barr did not. Barr was Mueller’s superior as AG.
Still
One question no one asked Mueller when he testified was "do you feel you investigation was allowed to be completed or was it shut down?" Not sure what his answer would have been, but if he had been honest I think shut down might have been said. I would love that question to be asked. Seems it never is.
There seems to be a dearth of courage or honor these days, so when Sheldon Whitehouse, Jamie Raskin, and a few others like them start asking questions or point out obvious dishonesty, my heart races in gratitude for decency.
I think Mueller wanted to write his report and the get out of dodge. Why didn’t we ever hear more from him?
I’d love to know the answer to that very question.
Robert Mueller has been a great public servant and leader. His testimony before the House Committee at Adam Schiff’s insistence, as you may remember, and as cited in Schiff’s book, showed us that Mr. Mueller was succumbing to an unacknowledged neurological disorder of age. Tragically, he could not testify as to the results of the investigation. He could not expand on the findings any further than to say he stood by what the report concludes. Mr. Schiff recounted his regret at putting Mr. Mueller through that hearing.
Hi Marcia! I read Adam Schiff's book, "Midnight in Washington" and want to first acknowledge your point: Mr. Mueller had declined and was no longer in a position to bear down on the bad guys. Secondly, I'm so glad to read that you read the book. I thought it is a tour de force of politics, policy and recent history. It is both mesmerizing and upsetting as we are still contending with the lawlessness of Trump and people in the institutions who supposedly took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
Mueller worked in a system that had guardrails to protect people who are presumed innocent; a system in which he obeyed his boss, and that boss was securely vetted by the US Senate. His first indication that his boss was not impartial was when Bill Barr summarized his Russian interference report and claimed there was no coordination with the Trump campaign. By then, Mueller was already gone.
Mueller could have spoken out. He knows stuff. He is a traitor
He seemed scared..
So are we all, thinking about the future is terrifying.
Manure is useful.
These people are not.
The election fraud case for 2016 ran out 2 years ago I read.
“The WaPo report ends with the observation that the statute of limitations for illegal campaign contributions expired more than two years ago.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/tpmmorningmemo/p/trump-doj-allegedly-stymied-probe
Barr has already been called before a congressional committee. Watch Harris grill him and see how well that goes. You get nothing.
These background organizers are the brains behind Trump - Trump wouldn't know how to pick a properly corrupt attorney general without the organization - a criminal Deep State.
Heritage Foundation?
... and Peter Theil, Leonard Leo, and other oligarchs and a cluster of hugely funded shadowy nonprofit organizations (whose tax exempt status should be revoked by the IRS on numerous grounds). See "Inside the Trump Plan for 2025" by Jonathan Blitzen in the July 22 New Yorker.
I suspect!
Is that the truth! The “Deep state” they rail against is them! In fact, any thing they say deny doing, is what they come out to be/represent.
The classic definition in a government inside of the government. A nice version could be the group of civil servants in our government that keep things running when trouble comes to destabilize our normal society. A powerful and well connected group could destabilize normal, and subvert processes to their liking. That seems to be the case with the SCOTUS, and that's the tip of the iceberg.
They aren't really so much in the background. They are listed in the front of Project 2025 document
I think you’ve summed up the root cause of our problems :
“ bunch of overgrown arrogant ultra-wealthy frat boys and criminals trying to take over the world. ”
Maybe they're bored.
From the little I know, Trump got the greed gene from his father.
And don’t forget Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn, who helped mold his style of never give an inch, and deny, deny, deny. Bottom feeders both.
Betsy, TFFFG was marinated in Teflon from birth…stuck to him like glue despite all his “losses” (indictments/court case losses & consequences) over the years. I remain amazed that he has not (yet) experienced his final comeuppance which is long long long overdue. Hope springs eternal…tho he will never “get” or understand any of it, delusional in his god-like invincibility as he is….at this point I don’t think he has the cognitive capacity to recognize any of this. “They’re coming to take me away ha ha, they’re coming to take me away hee hee”…. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xRCbdFrSSc]
Barbara Keating -- Thanks for the YouTube reminder! Had forgotten that very funny song!
Barbara, thanks for reminding me of that song that my group would intone while studying for exams.
Hopefully, the toxic PFOA's in that Teflon will be his hopefully miserable end.
If there were a French Revolution style coup, he would still be whining about his unfair treatment and the fake news from the basket his head fell into. The oversized orange baby is programmed to whine eternally.
Maureen, one of my nicknames for him is “Whiney the Poo”…..
From his grandfather, the pimp.
But Fred was a teacher of the worst sort. Greedy, racist bastard as well.
One begins by looking at DJT's upbringing. His father was part of the extremist right wing group...The John Birch Society... and also radical when it came to guns. And it's for certain, he's not the smartest on the block, before the nation’s largest professional association of Black journalists to question the racial identity of his rival for the White House this fall, telling a shocked National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago that Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black.” Maybe, just maybe he's actually calling in more and more people to vote against him. And then there is Vance who, in 2021, said 'We have to GO TO WAR against the idea that women don't have to have kids.' Mama, mia!
This bears repeating: ''overgrown arrogant ultra-wealthy frat boys and criminals '' Perfect.
It might be educational to understand why some people have such warped values, but truthfully, I don’t really care “why.” What I care about is we haven’t done a damn thing to hold these type of people accountable for their behavior. That is the bottom line for me. There should be a point in time where the courts tell TFG that all his appeals are frivolous and wasting everyone’s time and throw them out.
When I hear concerns about it’s unprecedented to do this or do that because TFG was a former president I laugh. He is unprecedented in the history of our country! And the supremes don’t give a flying f**k for precedent…why should we when it comes to the convicted felon? He belongs in jail not the campaign trail.
This particular article gives me grave concern, maybe even more so than project 2025.
Wayyyy too much private / dark money in the electoral process. Elections need huge $$$ to cover public media et al, so a public, managed subsidy courtesy of tax payers at large might be the best approach, and limits on transparent private $$$, might help... a little.
Overgrown, puerile, arrogant, ultra-wealthy frat boys of mediocre intelligence or worse is what Western Civilization has promoted for 3000 years: that is what white male privilege is all about. When people lionize the likes of Julius Caesar (whose Latin literary skill was so basic, we use it for first-year Latin instruction), folks forget that the people doing the lionizing are the SAME PEOPLE: privilege white men. They have dominated the discourse all along. Time's up.
Comey for sure. Had he acted differently, Trump wouldn’t have been elected, and we—and he—would have been spared a great deal of grief.
Greed. Money. That's it. Throw in some power and ego.
I wish that a lack of empathy were merely the result of bad childhood care. Rather, I lament, it is
characteristic of much of American history: the gun-centered violence of the Wild West; the enslavement oil Blacks; the decimation of the native American Indians; virulent anti-Semitism; violence against the labor unions, and what about the MAGA embrace of the mentally ill, bigot, and racist Donald Trump? A good therapist might be able to straighten out a problem patient, but what are you going to do with a dysfunctional nation? Let's hope our votes for the good guys will count.
Lawrence, I imagine you'd agree that this is not just an American problem, but seems to be built into human nature; or at least the squelching of empathy seems to be built-in. Way too many examples in global history and current events.
“I'm still perplexed that Robert Mueller was so easily played by Bill Barr and the Trump crime organization.”
Mueller dealt with Barr, his nominal superior as AG, in good faith. Bill Barr was not acting in good faith.
I agree. I struggle with how Mueller, with his years of experience, could have been so naive about Barr and other pro-Trump VIPs.
It’s really all about the money and power they seem to crave.
Read Mary’s book about Don’s upbringing. It takes a monster to raise one. It’s actually quite amazing that there is a much goodness in the world as there is. Lastly, only evil recognizes evil. There is no evil for an infant.
I agree, going forward we have to look at what factors are contributing to criminal mentality, how we are enabling it as a society, but there doesn't seem to be clear-cut answers as to why some have opportunity & abuse it while others with or without much do not. At this point we have to deal strictly with stopping the destructive behavior, then we can go on to understanding how it develops. It's past time we do. The extreme dysfunction we are witnessing is a symptom of much we have turned a blind eye to culturally, letting corruption take hold. Whatever the influences of their childhoods, it didn't happen in a vacuum. Current events are a wake-up call for all of us to step up as adults, to do everything in our power to stop the waste of lives.
Let us not forget that Bill Barr was actually Attorney General of the United States at that time. And the freedom caucus wielded a lot of power then. If T is elected again, it will be much worse. He says there won't even be a justice dept. It'll just be T.
These voter registration scams are dangerous but reek of desperation. If you want to help counteract this crap and help register Democrats volunteer with Field Team 6.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Also, no single individual should have anything close to a billion dollars. We desperately need a wealth tax to blunt the accumulation of wealth and property by the 0.1%.
Yep. Robert Hubble and Jessica Craven will turn you on to other powerful groups too.
Agreed, Jason .All the more reason to GOTV!
Just remember, DeSantis blew through $160 million in his “failure to launch” that included a major ground operation and door-knocking campaign .We all know how that turned out ….
✍️🚶♀️💲📲👕🛒🪧
Jason, while the ultra wealthy should pay taxes at rates that reflect the benefits they've accrued by simply operating in our still-liberal society (in other words, much more), I hesitate to agree with you on imposing an arbitrary limit on oncoming and accumulated wealth. That's the point at which the epithet "socialism" starts to stick.
The smartest selfish move by Trump when he was president? Appointing William Barr as attorney general, who must be the most corrupt head of the Justice Department in modern times.
It's abundantly clear that the nation needs a larger, stronger, and more effective JD, including the FBI, to combat the sophisticated global criminals, many of whom pose as upstanding citizens.
I am waiting for evidence sufficient to indict Barr for his role in obstructing and suppressing Mueller’s work to surface and be made known to the American public. Barr was as corrupt as it comes.
Whatever we may think of Jeff Sessions’s politics, he was not corrupt, and Trump could not handle him.
Sessions is another example of someone who would never be found in a second Trump administration. His resistance to Trump's autocracy is exactly what a Unitary Executive function is designed to make impossible. Barr is a “Unitarian” in this very regard. I hope the majority of Americans see right through this fake Constitutional construction of Executive powers soon.
“ Barr was as corrupt as it comes.”
Barr was up to his eyeballs in the Iran-Contra debacle.
Not to mention his family's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein
What?
I read Barr’s father hired J. Epstein to teach in his private school.
I remember that too, now you mention it.
All the nasty and corrupt crap is inter generational. Look at Gorsuch
Epstein didn't graduate from college and had no teaching experience. How did that happen at Dalton, one of the top private schools in New York?
If Sessions and others were so upstanding citizens, why didn’t they expose CFDT’s corruption and help stop him from ever stepping inside the WH again?
Like Pence, Sessions was more of a coward acting in his own self interest.
I understand using "Unitarian" in this context, but I'd prefer a different word. As a Unitarian Universalist, our beliefs and practices are the opposite of DT and his type. Please go to www.uua.org to learn more.
I always chuckled at the fact that his father, when he was head of Dalton, hired Epstein as a math teacher, even though he had never attended college.
One of the premier girls schools in Manhattan had an uneducated predator on staff and Barr's father gave him the job. Wonder why.
Dalton is co-ed.
When Epstein taught there it was co-ed. Barr's father made that change. Dalton began as a girl's school.
I thought it started as a Boy's School.
Read Prequel and listen to ULTRA and you will find that the CONsevative leaders do not respond appropriately to being investigated. They get very defensive and claim..."witch hunt". Not unlike the traitors following the Civil War that were allowed to skate. We have a bad history of elected leaders abusing our laws to block prosecution when they break the law.
Barr was corrupt in the womb. He kept Reagan and HW out of jail.
Read VERY carefully. t does not intend to lose. The extent of corruption, malfeasance and chicanery is enormous. There is not an avenue he will not use and the mauling of election processes in swing states is gigantic. While he and his minions are creating a circus of weirdness, amusement and distraction, the real nasty business is going on where we don't see it. Again, he does not intent to lose and there is no facet of American life or democracy he will not soil to do it.
I fear you are right. There is no bottom for Trump and his gang. They may have already rigged the election by putting their people in the right places, including the courts.
I believe the Dems only recourse is to turn out the votes in such large numbers than they can’t be denied.
It was 7 million last time ! If it’s 10x that, the same 💩💩💩💩will happen unless the media stops being fascinated by the orange ape and the Biden administration puts up some guardrails even if repubs cry boohoo, it’s political. Reading today’s column took my breath away with the slime of that bunch of immoral, greedy deviants.
Linda, I fear that even with overwhelming Democratic election results, T's forces will scream fraud, wrangle judicial rulings in their favor, take power, and our recourse will be non-violent opposition until violence erupts. Then T's forces will say: We told you it would be peaceful unless you choose otherwise.
They will certainly try. Our options include 1) work hard, however we each can, for an overwhelming victory at the ballot box, 2) support Marc Elias and his crew of election lawyers already fighting back in the courts, 3) build up Democracy momentum any other way you can think of.
We each need to figure out what we can do, and do it. Small contributions add up. That’s as true about sending postcards or texts as it is about money.
They plan to harangue Dems into backing down. With SC support. Rerun of 2000
This will only happen if Democrats continue their historically repetetive habit of laying down and letting the Republicans roll over us and rape the constitution and any form of decency or simple humanity. Democrats need to stop dithering, wringing their hands, gnashing their teeth, stand up and fix what's broken about our campaign finance, SCOTUS, Electoral college, and voting rights. Please!
Yes, he’s already signaled that warning…directly.
Linda T - read about a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation. Ziklag’s 2024 agenda reads like the work of a political organization.
Yes ..I'm hoping Heather comments on Ziklag soon!
There isn't much detail available on Ziklag: it's a very secretive, very exclusive little clublet of the ultra wealthy SUPPOSEDLY for charity....but I highly doubt their charity will aid anything except their own power.
ProPublica just came out with their deep dive into Ziklag....https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ziklag-secret-christian-charity-2024-election
Thank you for that link! I will read immediately.
This is really frightening! The idea of using AI to add conservative religious voters after “purging” the undesirable ones from the existing voter rolls—-This cannot be allowed to happen — or can it?
Pax, thank you for the link!
Never heard of them
Trump may claim he doesn't need the votes because he's already got a 6-3 SCOTUS vote in the bag.
Bingo, David.
The planning for this has been in the works for decades. Heather has written about this. Maybe someone could put in the link because my memory unfortunately does not have space for everything these days!
They feel that they have it rigged already. Who doesn’t see that
The Democracy Docket team of Marc Elias is gearing up. It’s looking like this round they’ll have more than Trump’s 61 lawsuits from 2020 and need our support to prepare now.
https://www.democracydocket.com/
Thanks for the democracy Docket link, but reading their GOP tactics is horrifying. I signed up to be a poll worker - I want to be on the front lines!
Yup, I'm going to be a ballot clerk for our town. It's gonna be a l-o-n-g day and prolly a long few weeks post election day.
Good for you--working at the polls means long days, but is so fulfilling!
Love that guy!
Remember Bannon's parting shot: "He can't not lose." From me, 5 hours later: Good grief! it's the overload. Or perhaps just my age... What I meant was of course "He can't not win".
Also go read Lucian Truscott's newsletter tonight for an antidote of facts about whatthe election deniers can and cannot do.
I hope he’s right, but SCOTUS remains a problem— evidence or no evidence. I have to trust that there are enough honest Americans to see through to truth…and can act on it—there are so many ways trust(and verify) can be corrupted.
Yes--thanks for mentioning that, Tom. I read it last thing before I went to bed and it enabled a reasonably peaceful night.
I very much agree. Jan 6 th was just the testing ground, win or lose, there will be violence and corruption to keep t in power.
Yes. tRump -We have all the votes we need. Kevin Roberts - we are winning in ways the left does not even know. tRump - vote just this one time and you will never have to vote again.
LISTEN!
Kevin Robert’s has creative toxic brains on the job. They are way ahead of us
Agreed! Marilyn, you nailed it. When they go low, they are actually already lower. In my opinion, Clarence, Thomas and Alito need to be indicted for bribery. We keep playing softball when the criminals are playing hardball.
You are 100% right. And we blather at our peril
The presidency was just Trump's side hustle.
A 4 year season of The Apprentice
Stunning. There's evidence that Trump took $10m from al Sisi ... and Barr killed the case? How is he not already in jail?
Amazing what you can get away with when you are the Attorney General. Recall, he sent a letter to Trump effectively asking for the AG position.
Barr is such a schlubby little toady. They both deserve far worse than jail. Dantean circles of hell punishment is required for their crimes.
How are any of these criminals not already in jail?
He was our “law”
Obviously the theme of Heather's letter this evening is dirty money.
I wonder if these allegations against the grifting golden gibbous gibbon will be investigated further, or is there enough to put him and Barr in the same prison cell?
2 billion to the family from the Saudi’s
One problem? The statute of limitation for any kind of indictment is over. The only value now is further evidence that the tangerine turd is corrupt beyond our wildest dreams.
DJT: the grift that just keeps on grifting.
Carol-Ann, Sad but true. Hey, his obituary just grew by another paragraph under the heading “Crimes and Alleged Criminal Behavior”.
Sadly, the statute of limitations expired after 5 years, in Jan 2022.
WaPo article (long):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/08/02/trump-campaign-egypt-investigation/
What was Garland's excuse for not picking up the investigation? He has been a tremendous disappointment.
The case was buried so deep no one knew it was there.
he was never briefed on it. Which pisses me off..Not one agent loyal to the country felt it necessary to debrief or spill the beans to Garland when he ve ame AG. Not one! thats another reason whybthe GOP delayed Garland's appointment..rin out the clock. They bloody well knew what trump and Barr did
Since he's safe from prosecution on this one, he might be tempted to boast about having gotten away with it and pretty much admit to breaking the law. That it involves his being paid money from a foreign government might give some voters pause.
Nuts. But not surprising in this pathetic chapter of our national history.
!!!
Why such a short 5-year statute of limitations? How does that compare with others? In California the limitations vary according to the offense. Some refer to when the offense was discovered, not when it occurred. No statute of limitations for treason.
So much sordid history behind the orange felon.
I have been reading the 1947 novel, by Dorothy B. Hughes, "In a Lonely Place." An amazing dissection into what apparently makes felons, murderers, and other frauds tick. It all applies directly to our greasy-made-up, fat, vituperative con man.
They know, deep in themselves, that they hate themselves. They know some key things that are missing. They know their origin flaws. And they must lie, cover up, dress up, totally act in dissembling ways to occupy the new, feigned, false identity they crave.
The Library of America recently put out its two-volume edition of American women crime writers of the 1940s and '50, in which this Dorothy Hughes "In a Lonely Place" appears.
Let's celebrate some of our key, perhaps unduly neglected women, as we do Kamala over such dreg alternatives poisoning too many at the white male (and Clarence) corrupted top.
The clear take-away of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Presidential immunity is that the President has immunity for acts committed within the scope of his authority as the President of the United States. He does not have immunity for acts committed outside of that scope. These latter acts are commonly referred to as "ultra vires acts". The issues before the District Court will boil own to: What acts did Donald Trump perform or commit as the President of the United States and what acts did he perform or commit as a candidate running for President of the United States? In my opinion, almost all of the acts alleged in the indictment relate to acts performed outside the scope of his Presidential authority but within his private capacity as a candidate for President, thereby conferring no immunity upon him for such acts. This trial should proceed upon the findings of the D.C. District Court, which Trump can appeal should he be convicted.
L. D. , the problem is that Trump can appeal the decision that the acts were not official to the Supreme Court and their ruling is that only they can ultimately decide whether the act was within his official duties.
You are correct Mary, but I am advocating that, as in usual cases, Trump's right to appeal should be after conviction, not before, which would probably extend the trial out for another year. This case needs to go to trial NOW. The people need to hear the evidence NOW. If Trump gets re-elected, he will shut down all indictments and investigations against him and prevent the re-opening of recently revealed allegations such as the Washington Post's revelation yesterday that after meeting with the President of Egypt before the 2016 election, his campaign received from the Egyptian President a sack of cash in small denominations totaling $10 million. This came to light after Trump was elected but Bill Barr, the Attorney General, quashed it.
And fast.
As Stalin said, what matters is who counts the votes. In this case, what matters is the judge who determines what constitutes an official act.
The voters who need to know about this long history of corruption won't get the news on Fox or Newsmax or wherever else they get their information. So the question for which I don't have any answers is how can we share this news with them in a way that they can hear?
I used to consider myself a person who was open and tolerant of other political perspectives. But no longer.! In my eyes, someone can be a Republican, but if they support TFG then they are willfully ignorant and beyond redemption. They are now, in my eyes, people of the same worthless class as the felon…men and women alike. They have no excuse worthy of consideration and most likely their minds are filled with hate.
In my 72 years, I have never experienced such hate in my own heart for an individual or group as I do the current maga congress and court, TFG and his cult members. To recognize this in myself is deeply disappointing and disorienting to my self concept.
Agree!!
I'm with you on that. Never loathed an individual or group as much as I do anyone who supports trump
Thank you Doreen! I don’t feel so alone now.
HCR's 8/2 LFAA & my post with remand order verbatim below is already out to many.in AZ, CA & ORE.
Betsy, that’s why I love Pete Buttigieg on Fox News. The Daily show has a couple of good clips.
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Djli0_oKMG-0&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiOzLnJxdiHAxWqHNAFHT8AHfIQwqsBegQIGRAG&usg=AOvVaw0xLXk9NNFsHUL2Z8rCVKLm
I'm not on x or TikTok but maybe somebody can report from there if there is a swing towards reporting this kind of needed information going out to that audience.
Your assumption is that if they knew the truth they'd be horrified. All evidence is that, on the contrary, they'd applaud. This is a group of people who believe that norms, rules, and laws are for suckers, weaklings, and losers.
Fox voters are not our mission. They are not salvageable. They also constitute between 10% and 12.5% of voters (WaPo Sept. 2022 analysis and Gallup figures).
Our mission is clear:
Independents 52% (and growing)
Democrats 23%
Never-Trumpers. 12.5%
We can do this, people, with a decisive number of votes in November!
We Will Not Go Back!
I agree with you that Fox voters are unlikely to change their minds, but as a lifelong educator, I believe that most people are educable. Teachers often don't see the seeds that we plant grow and thrive, but we do what we can whenever and wherever we can.
Write to the parent media corporations and demand - Make our mainstream media accountable for what's happening in the world.
There are none so deaf as those who refuse to hear. The change you are looking for over there needs to happen “over-here.” You/I have zero control and therefore zero power over there. Remember, it’s you and me not you or me.
Could we organize an ad campaign on Fox and Newsmax and OAN similar to (or in collaboration with) the Lincoln Project containing content from Heather's Letters or about Project 2025? We have the numbers to self fund such an effort and we bypass the mealy mouthed MSM by becoming our own media.
Another huge consequential Letter thanks to Heather Cox Richardson. On another related note, Simone Biles quips on social media: "I love my Black Job 🖤"
https://x.com/Simone_Biles/status/1819284274224173147
Evening, Lynell! I saw these Biles piece. Pure gold…but of course it was.
Ooh, nice one, Ally..."pure gold," indeed!
The Olympics has interrupted my regularly scheduled sleep time. Which puts you and I in divided time slots...Morvening? Evmorning?
My schedule is disrupted completely. I’m helping my wife’s aunt and uncle move from the Bay Area to Oregon. I’ve not seen a single women’s soccer or basketball game, but I did watch badminton and equestrian last night, then the swimming highlights.
It helps that the Professor is posting earlier in the day….brings us closer!
You must have cable? Only have antenna TV, so never got to see badminton or equestrian. It's all good, though.
Hope the move ends smoothly for you and your wife and in-laws!
Yes, Dish at the Motel and cable at home. We push on to Ashland today; maybe a 5-6 hour drive.
So looking forward to the only thing I have to read about Tfg is how many years he gets in prison. Being a criminal is in his DNA.
Isn’t what Musk et al are doing illegal? Can they be stopped?
Yes, don’t by a T car, use X, or pump up his cabal. And perhaps Congress can rethink the NASA spaceX work. There was a Tesla in the BiMart parking lot whose alarm was randomly going off, would stop, then start…the owner, older white guy, came out and tried various things, then opened and closed the hood. He said this would fix it for a while but the latch was bad…I noted how much the car depended on its electronics and he shook his head. That new musky car smell. sad…and they thing they are Superman. Really truly.
Yes, make the tinny toys Not The Official Car of White Liberals Who Think They Did A Good Thing By Buying One.
Tesla's stock was down 35% at the end of 2nd Qrt 2024.
Their batteries are treacherous fire hazards as well.
Let's please not get into EV bashing and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) when they are needed stop burning oil in order to help arrest global warming. Teslas very rarely catch on fire, relative to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, percentage-wise. Even the GM Bolt's that had faulty batteries causing fires were still much rarer than ICE fires.
Say what you will but the damn things are almost impossible to extinguish unlike gas powered cars. They are horrible for the poor firefighters who are called to help. I’m certainly not against a better way to power our vehicles but this may not be the ideal answer.
Yes very important to vote with our dollar as much as we can. Don't support the bastard with your money there are other options.
NASA will rue the day they signed up with Musk or Boeing. They should be ruing already. Of course Elon has the money that NASA should have but one day that may change.
I'm sure NASA already greatly rues partnering with Boeing. Their capsule is stuck up there at ISS.
As far as EVs I think it is a mistake to try and jump headlong into full electric vehicles. There isn't the infrastructure for them. If I was going to buy a new vehicle I would go for a hybrid.
Thanks Professor, this is very illuminating and troubling. Why hasn’t an indictment been brought against the entirety of the CONCON campaign by the Justice department over this violation. If this is allowed to stand, if the AGOUS Barr is not indicted and prosecuted for aiding and abetting in the willful violation of our campaign laws rules and regulations and CONDON is not prosecuted, we set ourselves, as a county, on a slippery slope of deciding which laws apply to our leaders and which laws they are allowed to violate with impunity. I am with Joe on term limits for the SCOTUS justices and I would add an age limit as well. That age limit. Should be 65 and either the length of term or the age limit being reached is the threshold for retirement. It should be an impeachable offense to deliberately fail to report GODTS from wealthy donors and then fail to recuse themselves from cases in which those donors are involved with. The enemy of democracy is not the middle to lower income brown and black faces, it is the faces of the suit and tie corporate and ultra extreme religious right.
El condenado ex Presidente es el enemigo del estado y el enemigo de la democracia. Si el llega ser Presidente de la República, dudo que nosotros latinos, negros, hispanos tendrán la oportunidad de participar en el sueño y experimentar la libertad que es la democracia. La arma que tenemos para el combate que viene es nuestro voto. El voto para el condenado ex president es voto para la autocracia como estamos tratando de escapar bajo los dictadores como se encuentran en los países Latinoamericanos y Cuba. Hay que resistir las mentiras que se pasa como verdaderos en la iglesia evangélicas y los noticieros como Fox. Sus vida y sus esperanzas dependen de ello.
The rot. The enemy within. Our traditional judiciary may prove to be inadequate to address the firehose of corruption in the Trump years, but the good historians will catch it all. One litmus test for our system, as far as I’m concerned, is whether or not Donald J Trump is ever escorted into a prison cell. If not, justice has failed us.
Tienes mucha razón! Vota azul 💙💙💙!!!
The beautiful Spanish language. Habla verdad.
Panamakelly, unfortunately, the statute of limitations has expired for these charges, so no charges can be brought.
It is fitting that DEMs nominate Kamala Harris, former prosecutor for their candidate for presidency. CNN must schedule a few debates Harris vs Trump, and include questions on Trump money sources. This election shaping up to become the open desperate fight of democracy against autocracy in America.
There was no debate. CNN moderators did not follow their own rules and turn off Donnie’s mic any time he started going off topic which was constantly. He lied, he did not answer the questions, and CNN was totally inept at presenting anything helpful for a fair election.
That's why it's known as the Cretin News Network.
My opinion: CNN was complicit in the disaster that passed for a debate last month. They should not be involved in anyway in future debates for this election.
The Cretin News Network is incompetent to host a debate.
That’s probably the only way to get some of Trump’s lies and dirty dealings in the faces of his followers.