Four days ago, on Saturday, August 26, in the early afternoon, a heavily armed, 21-year-old white supremacist in a tactical vest and mask, who had written a number of racist manifestos and had swastikas painted on his rifle, murdered three Black Americans at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida.
Well said. I have been beating around the bush about the dangers of the Republican Party. Thanks for pointing out that we, in the USA, have an Internal Terrorist Threat.
"Systemic racism is so embedded in systems that it often is assumed to reflect the natural, inevitable order of things."
Systemic discrimination is a threat to inclusivity, fairness, equal rights for everyone, and the entire democracy and unfortunately, it is perpetuated by the Republicans. Worse, it is happening at that time when the world's societies are strengthening their civilization. The party is doing political disempowerment as well as disenfranchisement by suppressing the will of the people to vote and gerrymandering which has been a historical systemic racism and of course the modern-day systemic racism. Even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 2021 saw the passing or consideration of gerrymandering by some Republican-leaning states to redraw electoral boundaries to exclude voters that are unlikely to vote the party in power. Unfortunately, the most affected were people of color during the Republican era and even in states where Republicans holds power. If it took almost more than 200 years to end slavery, the systemic discrimination can take centuries given that it is hidden in legal institutions like political parties and economic structures. But, the good news is that it seems judicial systems have become immune to manipulation from the power-hungry political parties. They rejected armtwisting theatrics from Donald Trump and the Republican Party and overturned some barbaric, discriminatory legislations in some states.
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One portion of the judicial system that has failed to do their duty is the Right Wing members of SCOTUS (bought and paid by the Federalist Society) They have abandoned the concepts of Juris Prudence, i.e. precedent and judicial ethics. Instead, they are using ideology for their "decisions".
Well, in a shocking decision, the SCOTUS ruled Alabama must re-district to create 2 Black Districts--and the Alabama Legislature refused, creating only 1.
Of course, there's another lawsuit, and it will go to the SCOTUS again. But what's the point if the Republicans refuse to do what the rulings demand done?
President Andrew Jackson is supposed to have stated: "The Supreme Court has ruled. Now let them enforce it." Then he ignored the ruling and did what he wanted. The Republicans admire Jackson tremendously, so see nothing wrong with following his precedent.
Here in Kenya, there is an initiative dubbed as Linda Katiba (protect the constitution). Is there any initiative in US like this that is designed to protect the constitution?
I appreciate your perspective EKN. Another issue for the entire world is how to deal with the malign effects of colonialism and conquest, which established white European supremacist ideologies everywhere, and often translated them (in the years after decolonization, the success of which has been at best spotty) into elitist supremacist ideologies that justified extreme levels of violence and corruption. This has then made it possible for white supremacists to reinforce their ideologies in the colonizer countries. European colonialism and its effects have still not been adequately addressed by any of the former colonizers. The reparations discussions going on in Canada--and similar conversations in Australia and New Zealand--are merely the first drops in the bucket.
Thank you Linda. Your response coincided with what intended to write about systemic colonialism in West Africa and I am happy that you have given me another perspective about it. Thanks
Many or most R’s aren’t MAGA’s, they just hate to pay taxes and don’t want the gvt regulating their businesses. Most R’s I know, including my brothers and bro-in-law HATE paying taxes and they’ll vote for anyone who will put a few more $$ in their pockets in the form of a tax cut, regardless of the other outcomes. They white men, who don’t get pregnant, are never sexually harassed or suffer from racism. R lawmakers know this and buy their votes by promising to reduce government and cut their taxes! Then they put in their extreme agendas that in the end, hurt everyone.
It's a bet your brothers and bro-in-law wouldn't hate to call 911 in an emergency such as their house on fire a loved one having a heart attack. Bet they don't hate driving on city, county, state and interstate streets, roads and highways. There are countless ways anti-taxers willingly use tax-funded services that are vital to a functioning society.
You are correct. And since they are over 65, they would hate to pay for a health insurance policy on the open market without Medicare, or lose SS, which is what their party is promising to eliminate.
The first thing that comes to my mind about regulation is... if the capitalists weren't so selfish and uninterested in their customers and their world, they wouldn't need regulation. AND as already mentioned... taxes pay for services we take for granted: public schools, police departments, fire departments, libraries, traffic and street lights, paved roads, etc. The people who resent paying taxes would be the first to complain about these services going away.
Ask those who hate to pay taxes if they would mind not using the roads, airports, schools, national parks that we, who want to pay back into our country to truly “make it great again, pay for. We would like to see them banned from using anything we have paid for.
Dumb is bad, stupid is worse, Nazi’s not nice, Fascism deadly! Grow up and find out just what being a grown up looks like. Paying taxes and supporting a country that follows the laws of regulation and order give those people who understand the merits a peaceful, loving place to be free.
Come join us, but put down your guns and your anger... we don’t allow either in our tax code!
I disagree. Every Republican knows exactly what they've accepted in exchange for lowering corporate taxes (the GOP doesn't put money in anyone's pocket). They don't even bother hiding their fascism anymore. Sorry, but being a MAGA or not doesn't matter when the entire party is in lockstep behind Trump and thinks he's being persecuted.
That "Internal Terrorist Threat" is domestic terrorism against which there are no laws - for now. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been exposing domestic terrorist groups for years. Those groups have grown exponentially.
“Among DVEs [Domestic Violent Extremists], we judge that white supremacist extremists (WSEs) will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland through 2021.”
Narcissistic Republicans so distort their own self-serving sense of legitimacy that their claimed right to resort to violence takes on a terrorist dimension, but I think that under the hood is an obsession with domination which has motivated tyrannies for eons. We have been fools to watch is rise so passively. It is the key problem at the root of so many others.
"but I think that under the hood is an obsession with domination which has motivated tyrannies for eons."
JL, My own (limited) experience with bullies, which, most Republicans are acting out in a similar manner as a middle school or high school bully, is that they are fearful and cowardly. That fear and sense of inadequacy that they carry forces them to want to feel superior BUT they can only feel that way with the weak because the strong frighten them easily away.
Republicans look like the high school bully to me.
A black man in TN speaks eloquently and makes the white man sound like an idiot? Silence him.
A black woman in Georgia pulls together one of the most effective campaigns in generations for governor? Well, the dumb white governor removes everyone who is black from the polls by "purging".
Bullies are with us in almost every endeavor. The (mostly man, but sometimes woman) who is so afraid of being found out as weak and dumb that they try to dominate every aspect of their involvement.
I just pulled back from a volunteer effort because of my exposure to a white woman with this problem personality. I don't need to waste my time engaging.
Sadly, the only way forward with a real bully in a situation that matters? A fistfight where the person being bullied beats the living snot out of the bully, in public if possible.
So, maybe the Pubs are right. Maybe we are headed for a fistfight.
Agreed, but the whole philosophy of violence means the supply of bullies never ends, and their numbers ebb and flow at different times in different places, and "decent" people can have a bullying side. It seems to me that one of the most essential missions of government is to discourage abuses of power, although despotic goverment can be the primary instrument of abuse. Government is meant to arrest significant abusers and provide peaceful ways to resolve significant conflicts, though a lot of that in contingent on income. It make sense to minimize the occurrence of violence in our society, but some take pride in dispensing it. The persecution of Alexander Vindman and Ruby Freeman and her daughter is violence. The separation of immigrant families was and is violence; a crime against humanity.
" . . . the supply of bullies never ends . . ." So true. So many ways to bully others. From verbal assaults, to fights in the schoolyard, stealing lunch money, to gangs, sociopaths, fascists. My perspective on bullies in schools has broadened since Columbine. Previously, bullies were described as being isolated, insecure and frightened--maybe overcompensating for being picked on. This wasn't true for the new cohort of murderers. They were arrogant, overindulged, entitled sociopaths. They believed they had the right to do whatever they wanted. Their malignant grandiosity was so fueled by video games, movies, music, et al., that they had no sense of what death actually meant. {Side note: My students always teased me for not having a cell phone. After Columbine, they insisted I get one. They were so proud of me when I agreed. When I brought it to school, they showed me how to use it, and then many of them entered their cell numbers in my Contacts file!}
From what I can tell bullies, boys and girls, appear with each new generation in schoolyards across the world. The job of responsible citizens is to prevent and discourage abuses of power of any sort, be they a matter of asymmetric physical strength, "ganging up", misuse of money, position, or weaponry. Trump once bragged about suing a critic, claiming to know her could not win, but because is was a crushing financial burden on his critic and not for him. Abuse of governmental power is corruption and/or tyranny. Abuse of weapons and violence is Putin's invasion of Ukraine, or a mugger with a knife or gun in an alley. Abuse of power is rape. It is US racism or any unjust tyranny of the majority, or as in sexism, or Apartheid, a privileged minority. That's the principle enemy of our species, even as an enabler of climate abuse. If we fail to contain it, it could kill us all.
Sadly, they cherry-pick the things they like, and discard all the messages that promote charity, kindness, compassion, sharing, humility, love, mercy, understanding,, unity, forgiveness, sharing, gratitude, and honesty.
Without those things, though, how can they call themselves "Christian?"
The history of Christianity and any religion I am aware of has a split history between compassion and sociopathy. MLK hung with better angels, (9/11 and burning at the stake, evil personified. As I read the words ascribed to Jesus, I see counsel against violence, yet some self-proclaimed "Christians" glory in it.
I wouldn't make such a dire split, religion plays a variety of supportive social roles. Jesus was not straightforward in his various counsels. When several Galilean towns including his base of operations Capernaum didn't live up to his expectations he cursed them all totally, saying they would be cast into a fate worse than Sodom.. why? because they didn't accept his message. "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." Matt 11, Luke 10 A very interesting man!
Experts have known for decades that the greatest terrorist threat to the US is right wing domestic terrorism. In 2009 a Department of Homeland Security report laid out the real dangers and Republicans reacted with such a disingenuous fury that Janet Napolitano apologized and retracted it.
From the WBUR article, quoting a former DHS official: "“The far left has engaged in property destruction, they've targeted the police, but it hasn't risen to the level of deadly violence that we see from white supremacists and even militia groups plotting to kidnap governors and assassinate political figures,” he says. “So there is no apples to apples comparison.”"
So all the rhetoric about the "dangers" of the Black Lives Matter movement and "Antifa" is just a load of *%$#. They are NOT equal!
In Portland, the far left has done exactly that. However, there has always been an element there that I see as apolitical. They are only interested in trashing property for the sake of vandalism. So now whenever there is a protest of some kind, these weasels appear and give legitimate protest a bad name. Last night on the local news was a story about a guy who has been breaking windows. He has been arrested several times, but always is freed and then goes right back to breaking windows. This time, if i am remembering correctly, he is being kept in jail. The real problem, is of course, the wing nuts who have persistently tried to intimidate by swaggering around in camo with all weapons. There is also the insidious route via school boards who enact regressive politics and people who have made school board meetings almost impossible to hold in person. Last night on the national news there was a story about the Houston Public Schools being taken over and libraries being made into study halls and discipline centers. The greased pig who is heading this up walked around the reporter's questions. I noted, as a former high school librarian, that certain teachers and administrators have always viewed libraries as a place to send unruly students. I rode herd on a lot of such students. I made my views known to administrators who basically treated me as a complainer. We did have an official study hall and I ended being the bad guy when I had to ban certain students from coming to the library from the study hall.
That's what this LFAA community is so good for. It stupefies me that a DHS report was actually suppressed by the party that is responsible for this threat. That's fascism in a nutshell.
If only the dems would of been paying attention the last 50 years, if only they would of paid attention and stood up for Howard Dean's 50 state strategy. If only the dem party would not of sidelined Bernie Sanders. But still I vote blue no matter who but it gets very tiring. Look what they did to themselves and this country..........
Unfortunately this is true. Many of us were apathetic. We voted blue, knew Reagan was a puppet (especially those from California knew this well), and were very busy in our own lives, or working locally, not nationally. We never expected such an unbelievable greedy crook would take over -- Not in AMERICA! Democracy must be participated in to work, and the crooks that have been in office since we were kids got further and further away from the People, and more into their little greedy clicks, constantly trying to one-up each other and forgetting who they were and what they were elected to do. Term limits should be required at ALL levels of government, including the Supreme Court.
Subscribers, please forgive me for jumping the line, but I do have important news that is on the front page of today's New York Times. (excerpt)
'Under oath and under fire, Donald J. Trump sat for a seven-hour interview with the New York attorney general’s office in April, part of the civil fraud case against him and his company.'
'But as lawyers from the office grilled Mr. Trump on the inner-workings of his family business, which is accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars, he responded with a series of meandering non sequiturs, political digressions and self-aggrandizing defenses.'
'Asked about his authority at the Trump Organization while he was in the White House, Mr. Trump responded that he considered the presidency “the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives.”
'“I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” he explained, and then added: “And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”
'Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination when initially questioned by the office last year, he answered questions from the attorney general, Letitia James, and her lawyers in the April deposition, a transcript of which was unsealed on Wednesday.' (NewYorkTimes) See gifted link below.
I guess Putin must have let his pet boy (tRUMP) know that he might use nuclear weapons because he is losing his ill fated war with Ukraine under Biden.
So, when Trump becomes President he will immediately stop support for Ukraine (because his Daddy Putin told him to) BUT he will claim he is saving the world from nuclear war instead of just being Putin's pet dog.
Good comment, but do you have to conflate the former guy with a body part that is an oft very attractive secondary sex characteristic, which originally evolved as one of a suite of body parts that enable us to run? (H. sapiens is the only primate with buttocks, and the only primate that can run. Other adaptations for running include the nuchal ligament, the achilles tendon, the ability to sweat, and relative hairlessness compared to most other mammals. Running enabled us to chase prey animals until we wore them out. Harvard's Daniel Lieberman is the major student of this.
Hi Fern. I see you already shared this article 3 hours ago! I just started reading it (before starting my games) a few minutes ago and had to stop reading to share. It’s jaw dropping and belongs on the front page of all responsible msm. Let’s hope everyone reads and shares. Now going back to read the rest. 😳😱🤯
Hope, I do not know how far you have gotten with your learning of 'misogynoir'. I thought, perhaps, this would interest you. I read it on one of Northwestern University's websites.
'How many words are in the English language? No one truly knows. Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States, estimates there are over a million words. Whatever the number, add one more. “Misogynoir” — the newest word included in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary — was coined by Northwestern’s School of Communication associate professor Moya Bailey.'
'What is misogynoir?'
'Misogynoir brings together the words “misogyny” and “noir,” the latter meaning “black” in French. Bailey, who teaches in the department of communication studies, first used misogynoir in a 2010 posting to the Crunk Feminist Collective blog to describe the specific type of oppression that Black women experience often characterized by a combination of racism and sexism.'
“The real root of misogynoir is how people perceive and treat Black women and understand them to be worthy of respect and care,” Bailey said. “Changes have to happen at the structural level of our society, not just the individual behaviors.” (By Steven J. Lewis, Northwestern In the News, for Journalism)
I am not an expert concerning D. Trump's personality. My personal opinion is that hatred seems baked into his nature and directed at his enemies as he perceives the threats, which cover a wide variety of human beings; it could be directed at anyone.
They are THE MAFIA and the RICO Act is appropriately applied to each and every one of them. Our Justice Department helps stave off the Republican desires and the tension is between democracy and being a third world oligarchy.
Linda, I think of the Republicans more as the Ku Klux Klan, because in large part it is primarily built on hatred - hatred of Blacks, Hispanics, Females, Gays, Immigrants and Jews. "White Protestant supremacy now, white Protestant supremacy forever. " Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland," about the rise of the KKK in the Midwest in the 1920's is eery when comparing it with the rise of MAGA in the 2020's. They're the same.
I just finished reading that book. Frightening! I agree with you, Richard, that KKK and MAGA today “They’re the same”. Maybe the only difference is today they don’t wear white robes and pointed white hoods!
Richard, thanks for the book recommendation. I also recommend Prof Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. She discusses the rise of what we are now seeing post Vietnam war. It is an important book to get the big picture of the people involved and how the Republican party is increasingly or perhaps at this point, solely filled with these people.
Thank you for this reference to Kathleen Belew's book. I will order it. Right now I am re-reading Thomas Frank's book, "What's the Matter with Kansas," how the wealthy use (still doing it) wedge issues to get average Americans to vote against their own best economic interests.
Except this time there is ample Catholicism at work. All conservative SCOTUS justices, Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society and the Kochs, school vouchers to private religious schools and the end of separation of state and religion...Billions of dollars for rising to fascism
Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has probably inflicted more torture on more people than any other entity or person in history. Mussolini, Hitler and DeSantis were and are Catholics. So, sadly, no surprise.
So, what we have is so-called Christians voting for Trump because they are more in line with what Trump "preaches" than they are with what Jesus preached: "Even as you do it unto the least of these . . ." Racism trumps love and caring.
I am glad you say "so-called Christians," because I have been reading articles that many of the Evangelicals and followers of Trump and his ilk are complaining that they don't want to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ because they are too "WOKE!" Well, if you don't believe in Jesus then you are not a Christian, but it seems like another case of the Emperor's New Clothes, where no one dares to stand up to these people and tell them they are not Christians, and cannot have tax exemption. Can you get tax exempt status if your religion is worshipping Trump? I hope not with my tax dollars.
‘So-called’, yes. They use His words like a sledgehammer, without a thought to what they mean. I don’t call them Christians; they are hypocrites at best.
Camilla, the problem is that these people get to pretend they are Christians and represent Christianity, which is the world' dominant religion. They get catered to for this status, which is totally not real. The Emperor is wearing no clothing and instead of waiting for the children to point it out, which they are doing, we adults should be doing it for them.
Stephen, I just glanced at your comment and my mind read the first sentence as “Time to face Fasicsts”….before I quickly realized my mistake….or maybe not!
Interesting thought - a terrorist organization. You know, I think that they are. They clearly want to replace our democratic system with one controlled by white Christian fanatics (or so-called Christians), attacking Jews, Muslims, immigrants, waging war on female rights, circumventing the democratic process (one person, one vote, majority rule) by gerrymandering districts and disqualifying others.
Interestingly, German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) at first sympathized with many Nazi ideas, but in 1933, he changed his mind because of Hitler’s actions against the church. Because he spoke out about the error of his own previous beliefs as well as the silent complicity of the German people, he was repeatedly arrested and spent eight years in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. After the war, he lectured extensively using his famous statement as a confession of his own inadequacy, and to urge others to stand up to injustice. For more info: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists
___________
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
I call them the New American Nazi Party, to differentiate from the old one. The Nazi party had a certain agenda, and it seems similar to the one we are seeing the Republican party and the titans of industry here backing. German corporate owners funded the Nazis thinking they would serve them but they get taken over and killed by them in some cases.
I agree, but the Republicans are a collection of people, not an abstract group. We thinking people, as opposed to believing people must discover and correct the aspects of society that rewards this evil behavior, else we just complain.
A mob is a collection of people who have made themselves into an abstract group. Nazis were a collection of people who made themselves into an abstract group. The mob that trashed our nation's capitol in 2021 were a collection of people.
Mob mentality is real https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-a-mob-mentality. Take a look at the lynch mobs in the South the cheerfully tortured black people to death, brought their kids, and made a part of it. "Social" media make it easier for individuals to become part of a mob. Once that happens, you can't reason with individual members of the mob. You can only defend yourself against them.
Oh my dear God, I cannot read beyond the first paragraph. I live in Ireland where gun-related incidents are very, very rare, especially since the Good Friday Agreement, whereby the IRA and other organisations laid down their weapons and released us all from the hell of the Troubles, 1969 to 1994.
I will come back and read the rest later, but my Heart and Prayers go out to all those in the United States who suffer from gun violence. May it end soon, I pray, may it end soon....
I'll repeat this as many times as I have to... 1) There is no Republican Party. They are now the MAGANAZI Party. 2) The southern evangelical churches are front organizations for the Ku Klux Klan. 3) The go-to coping mechanism for the MAGANAZI base is violence.
I think that the problem is that trumpers do not know what fascism, socialism, authoritarianism, etc. are. They call democrats communists or fascists. They don't know what they are supporting. When they do, it will be too late.
I believe you're spot on with that thought; they don't know what they're angry, resentful, and afraid of. They don't understand that for instance, even if Bernie, a social democrat as I think he's called himself is no threat. Even if the whole party were socialist democrats, it would still be no threat. The thing, the big thing that differentiates this country and has saved it several times, is the checks and balances (unless they get rigged), and separation of powers.
If people knew what the various political types were they could make a rational decision. trumpers don't realize that trump/republicans want to decimate our government and have no checks and balances. One person controls every thing. trump wants to run the US like Putin runs Russia.
Yes. Progressive Capitalist. Exactly. And that has been his downfall--and thus, ours. It's so frustrating that such a brilliant humanitarian--and his advisors--couldn't understand the importance of effective marketing.
Yes, frustrating, even exasperating. Frankly, Michelle was simply wrong: "When they go low, we go high." What we need to do is go direct, directly to the ways in which their focus is being diverted by wedge issues. But, then, racism gets mixed in and that makes the task more narrow. There are still more of us than them, but the case in Georgia where the legislators there wanted to weaponize the system to remove Fani Willis is a reminder to us that the "South isn't dead yet." It's trying to make a comeback.
The Rs that I know are wealthy, low-info, shallow thinkers who erroneously believe T will protect their money. The other stuff never penetrates their bubble. Unfortunately, there are plenty of them in Las Vegas--mission central for right-wing Rs.
I agree!! Many here on the forum look for the daily YouTube clips from "Beau of the Fifth Column" and he has a lot of people who, as he would put it, think differently from him. I don't know how to contact him, but I sure wish he'd do a clip EXPLAINING these to viewers. A series on each one, which also then could be added to social media accounts. Anyone reading this who knows how to reach him, (or perhaps even knows him personally?) please advise. I think his 3 minute clips are palatable for even the most impatient viewers, and as the GOP/MAGA heats up for the election, these labels are going to be tossed about quite often.
Or better, Andrew Johnson should have appropriately punished the treasonous seditionists so they could not renew their control of the South. In so many ways the nation keeps fighting that same Civil War.
Picking Andrew Johnson as his running mate was one of Lincoln's biggest mistakes. My strong impression was that Johnson was deliberately enabling the seditionists.
Well said, Joanne: "A Faustian bargain that we're still paying for." But to be fair, a lot of people were fooled by Johnson. Being a poor white Southerner he had such a resentment against the planter aristocracy that Republicans (which at the time were the good guys) believed he would be hard on the Confederate traitors. Instead, Johnson required all the slaveowners to come to Washington and grovel to him for a pardon.
And pardon them he did.
This mess was all about his ego, nothing more. Sound familiar?
That seems to be a common strategy in presidential campaigns, but a very poor one. The VP should be the ideal understudy to take the presidents role if and when needed.
Faustian might be a tad strong of a word Joanne. The civil war didn't begin and end all that led up to it, nor obviously what we still have yet today. For sure it was a calculation by Lincoln and his best advisors, based on many things; olive branch - sure, but more. See this for more if you like, via Smithsonian. Cheers > https://americanhistory.si.edu/lincoln/election-1864
Joanne, exactly so! Just like the founding fathers had before him, Lincoln was trying to knit together the vastly different culture and businesses of the South with the North and made some pretty bold moves to do so, up to and including going to war. Choosing Andrew Johnson as a running mate was just such a choice. I fear these are choices that are necessary in such a diverse and powerful nation!
Indeed Carmen; I have been saying in this space that there has never been meaningful enough consequences for anti-american actions; I cited the more recent of actions, but the hate, greed, sordidness, etc., goes back much further - even beyond the civil war, as we shall learn and have learned here and elsewhere. For the life of me, I don't think I'll ever be able to adequately comprehend what drives and sustains the evil within them and the monied coalitions that support them and their aims. Most likely the monied supporters figure they'll get what they want in the end - likely dominion, power, and money, as compensation for their participation.. One wonders if they could hold on to what they think they gained in such an end. Let's sustain the good fight, is all I know I can do. Peace....
Hindsight is always 20/20, of course. But the losers should have been subjected to Nuremberg-style trials and hanged for what they did. Instead, they were sent home and allowed to keep their weapons, horses, and lands. They weren’t punished at all. They realized they could mount an armed insurrection against the government and come close to succeeding.
Yes, and that's why I hope so fervently that today's felons, if proven to be so, will enjoy absolutely no quarter or mercy that we'd continue to suffer from; especially considering that we still have a rigged SCOTUS that needs dealt with for posterity sake, and ours.
Republicans in name only (essentially the entire party) have been actively been summoning up the ghost of the Confederacy as part of their partisan power play.
I may be wrong, but I think as I go about educating folks to facts in evidence, I've also got to be patient enough to listen; some grievances of individuals following the anger and resentment have nothing to do with Confederate grievances. Some do, usually the professional instigator types, who'll take the argument back to the original State cessions in the early 1800's when some of the original 13 colonies had major land claims west of the Appalachians, all the way to the Mississippi River. However, in the end it still comes down to honor, and honoring pledges made before their day, to hang together or separately in becoming a Union.
Agreed listening is essential to "liberty and justice for all". Democracy must be a conversation, or it won't work. That's becoming harder as the scale of society grows. You remind me to pay more attention to "listening" as a crucial social dynamic and driver of justice. I recall Desmond Tutu saying something about truth (telling one's "truth" and having it heard) was key to reconciliation, and he appeared to prove it.
It is tempting to oversimplify, especially in a venue such as this, but Confederate mythology appears to play a major role in the"GOP's" power plays. Thus they invoke and protect it.
It's not just the south anymore. The republicans have become a malignant, metastatic mass of hatred, lies, self delusion, and destruction with one intention...destroy everything and everyone...including themselves. Palin's threats of civil war have revealed the mainline republican craving. There is no UNITED STATES in their alternate reality. And in their zeal to drag us back to a divisive history they are destroying themselves, just as the Civil War did. HATE DESTROYS HATE. It is no longer a fringe movement...it has become their main intention.
Yes actually there are millions of us liberals in the south. You just don't notice us for all the rabid, screaming trumpicans. But we are quietly going about the business of building our numbers.
David, I have long felt the same way. Think of all the DNA that was lost on the battlefield whether from bullets or disease. All the families that were destroyed. And for what?
If the North had permanently occupied the South with troops and established new institutions that gave full representation to Blacks, perhaps the effort would have been justified. But it would have required a lot more blood letting. The nation was exhausted and just wanted it to end. So now we pay the price for that fatigue.
There should have been accountability and consequences! Those who lynched should have been arrested and punished. The leaders of that evil war should have been prosecuted and punished. Examples made. Flying or displaying the Confederate battle flag should have been a crime. A price to be paid for treason! Maybe, then we could have justified all that blood letting. Maybe.
And maybe not. Maybe the same bigotry would have just been pushed down a little further - emerging again like a cancer that can't be conquered.
But it's all too late for those considerations. Millions of very fine people live in the South. And the North is also infested with that "Plantation Attitude". It's not simple on a regional basis.
All we can do now is outvote them. And shame them. And continue to condemn them. Trump is a symbol. He is about to be crushed. And with a lot of effort we will have a Blue Trifecta in 2024.
There will ALWAYS be MAGANAZIs. It's like playing whack a mole. But we have no choice but to keep whacking. Eventually, they will be an ever more shrunken minority. Demographics and education are on our side.
But doesn't it really feel like the Civil War never ended? Heather's book explains "How the South Won the Civil War". Yet the battles continue...
We have friends who live down there. I hate to make generalizations because one size doesn't fit all. I would find it difficult to leave my state. My kids, grandchildren all live here. I was born a raised here, even bought the house my parents bought 1963 Big time ties. Fortunately I like cool/cold weather and dislike the hot humid weather I have experienced in FL. BTW our library has a display of banned books :)
No, but it was just the South back at the time of the Civil War. If Lincoln had let the South go, it would have been a numerically small country, and probably the North would have ended up with most of what's west of the Mississippi River, and the rednecks wouldn't be all over the Rocky Mountain west.
Many industries in the North benefited from slavery and were not in a hurry to see it end. Some northern states recognized slave ownership for southern folks who moved north and brought their slaves. "Slavery was a dominant feature of the antebellum South, but it was also pervasive in the pre-Civil War North—the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have a history of slavery." For more info see: https://www.history.com/news/slavery-new-england-rhode-island#
Massachusetts did send the first all Black regiment into the Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts, and from my own reading, I'm skeptical about slavery in Massachusetts at least in the 19th century. I've read alot about John Murray Forbes' life, a railroad magnate who built a few ships pro-bono for the Union, and went to England in 1863 both to get loans for the union and to do informal diplomacy to try to keep the British from going into the Civil War on the Southern side, and I think if there's been slavery in Mass in the 19th century, I would have found out about it from that reading.
Sorry--didn't understand the exclusivity of you post. I was just adding to the list of places where the southern racist, weapon-toting mentality still thrives.
Said Gov. Jay Inslee in 2021 “We have to be Paul Revere every chance we get to let people know what is at risk and why it is at risk. We live it. Every time we eat breakfast we think about these things,” Governor Jay Inslee of Washington told CNN.
“I don’t think you can be overly concerned about this. The American psyche has not recognized we were one vice-president away from a coup.”
Thank you, Christopher, for your concern and for your prayers. We are rapidly sinking into an abyss of violence and racism, and I don't know how we are going to get free. Bless you.
Christopher, As with so many others, I am deeply grateful for your compassion. Regrettably, gun violence in the States and the Second Amendment are inextricably linked. Starting back in the seventies, and culminating with District of Columbia v. Heller, wherein the Supreme Court, in 2008, held (5-4) that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to possess firearms, a fraud of immeasurable proportion was perpetrated on the American people.
To clarify, I start with the Amendment’s text: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Note, first, that the 5 purported Originalists arbitrarily determined that “well-regulated” referred exclusively to “Militia,” and not to “people.” Equally egregious, a quick glance at the Fourth Amendment would have confirmed that our Founders designated the term “persons” when referring to the individual and “people” when referring to the collective.
I don’t mean to offend, but prayers will not help. We need to educate increasingly more people about how the High Court, willfully, perpetrated a deceptive and distorted interpretation of the Second Amendment. Perhaps, then, we’ll have a shot at getting it repealed.
It is hard for me to see how one can claim in good conscience that an goon with a gun should do almost anything they like with it. I've lost count of the number of right wingers who told me that the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms so we can fight AGAINST the goverment if we decide we sufficiently disagree with it, but the Constitution says:
"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;"
That sounds nothing whatsoever like MAGA cosplaytriot paramilitary groups.
1. The Militia is a military unit of government, not of Americans at large. As such, Militias must be formed, commanded, funded, and controlled by government. Citizens cannot form Militias on their own; those are private armies, which are forbidden by law in all 50 states.
2. The Second Amendment protects the right of individual Americans to own and use weapons for any LAWFUL purpose, including but not limited to service in a government Militia. Since insurrection and rebellion are, per the Constitution, unlawful, anyone who takes up arms against the government cannot claim that 2A immunizes them against criminal charges. Individuals are free to own and use weapons to their hearts' content, but cannot use them illegally.
3. So a goon with a gun cannot, by law, Constitution, or Bill of Rights, use their guns to commit crimes.
4. Under the 1A right of free association, people can form clubs and call themselves Militias if they wish. But the moment this club points a gun at another citizens and orders them to do or not do something, they will be arrested on felony charges. These so-called citizen Militias are just bowling leagues with guns, they have zero authority to enforce anything.
I like this, Shane. I'd add that with rights come responsibilities. You have the right to own a gun. You have the responsibility to make sure it is used in a lawful manner.
100 percent agree. Good news is that literally 99.9 percent of American gun owners do just that, using their weapons safely and responsibly. Bad news is that 0.1 percent of 320 million Americans is a lot of potentially irresponsible users.
The tricky part is crafting laws and programs that curb the 0.5 percent--criminals, the suicidal, and fools--without stepping on the 2A rights of the 99.9 percent who play by the rules.
Thank you for this, D4N, I appreciate your thoughtfulness. It's the right of every non-felonious and non-mentally-ill American to own guns. It's the responsibility of every gun owner to not use their weapons illegally. The same goes for every right--use them responsibly and you'll get no beef from me.
Shane appreciate your clarity. And continuing D4N's response .... the clarity of your info, esp. #4 should be placed boldly on giant billboards across our nation!!!!
Great post. Also it’s reassuring to look at gun murders in the US over time which have decreased considerably per capita. If gun laws were actually enforced and appropriate prison sentences were administered we could really see a more significant decrease.
Agreed except that I recall when a man brandishing several guns and a fack jacket showed up at a shopping mall, the area was evacuated. He was arrested, but on other charges. The news claimed that technically he was within his rights. When a black man picked up a BB gun being sold at a Walmart, he was shot dead as a perceived threat. I recall the arrest of an individual who bought a military surplus practice bomb (a mock up) and tried to take it home in a bus. The Bundy Gang who menaced officials with rifles was found innocent of breaking the law. We don't seem to know if we're coming or going on weapons, except that a lot of POC get shot.
All true, and all maddening and heartbreaking. Just because one has the absolute right to do something (walk around with a rifle on one's back) doesn't mean one always should. I have the right to play bagpipes in my yard from noon to 1 every day. But if it will wake my neighbor who works nights and sleep days, I should go to a park instead.
One of the few gun-control measures for which I would vote is banning open carry of weapons. Since every state now permits concealed carry, every American has a way to carry a weapon for self-protection. That eliminates the need for open carry, and I would advise that we follow through.
Openly displaying weapons--particularly rifles--makes passersby nervous. They're right to feel that way. Someone willing to bully the people around him because "mah rights" is not a person I entirely trust. People should be able to eat their pancakes without worrying whether Jeb With the Rifle and Combat Clothes is going to order the Grand Slam or open fire.
Such fear is corrosive, and since concealed carry is universally available, I'd get rid of open carry. Bonus? It's damn near impossible to fit an AR-15 under a T-shirt, so gun carriers will leave their rifles at home and carry less-powerful handguns.
Concealing one's weapons while in public will also reduce the number of excuses police have to shoot people "guilty" only of Walking While Black.
Should I post this on Senator Daines or Rep Rosendale of MT fb page, the avalanche of replies from ration to obscene would bury me! These are not rational people!
Oh, yes, that's exactly what you'll get--an avalanche of happy shiny people saying "well done, Carole, we agree!"
/s of course. Every time I post this view on social media other than Heather I get the avalanche of hate from both sides. Leftists claim I'm a gun nut who enjoys the smell of murdered children--yes, an actual quote--and rightists rant I'm an unAmerican Communist who wants to take their guns.
In reality, I'm a liberal who likes guns, uses them responsibly, and knows what the Militia clause and 2A actually mean.
I'm adding No. 5 as I wait for the pancakes portion of my breakfast . . .
5. The Founders needlessly complicated this issue by using the term "militia" for two different things. They called the government military units authorized to enforce our laws "the militia," but also called all the citizens eligible to be drafted into those units to serve as soldiers "the militia."
Since the citizens in the militia pool can't take any action on their own--they must be drafted into a government-authorized fighting militia to have the legal power to enforce laws--the Founders would have been smart to use a different term for them: "American Reserve" or somesuch. "National Guard" is taken, alas.
Two names for two functions would take the wind out of the sails of people who insist that since they're part of the militia--and they are, we all are, you, me, Heather, we're all Minutemen--they are entitled to pick up weapons and push people around legally. No, they can't.
Because I know you from elsewhere, Shane, and these people do not, I need to stand up and disagree with your basic premise that you're a good guy with a gun.
You don't know anything about me, Alexandra, and don't pretend you do. I didn't claim to be a "good guy with a gun." I support the right of Americans to own and use guns lawfully. You do not, as you believe nobody should own guns.
Oh yes, I do. I know very specific details about you and if there were a process for objecting to a man owning a gun I would be very happy to testify as to why some men should not be allowed to own guns.
I don't believe NO ONE should own guns. But I am going to object every time I see an instance of your self-reporting that you are a good guy and that 99.9% of gun owners are good guys.
@J L Graham, in my view, you’re well on your way to powerfully mounting the argument opposing the “right wingers,” to whom you refer, by invoking Constitutional text “[t]hat sounds nothing whatsoever like MAGA… paramilitary groups.”
Ally, I deleted “cosplaytriot” because I considered it a distracting ad hominem attack, attacking the character of the referenced persons rather than the argument itself.
I remain furious that a so called Supreme Court was able to justify increased gun violence on the second half of the second amendment.
Addressing the second amendment without reference to the role of the militia is a fragment not a decision.
Had we a Congress with any character this obscene promotion of lethal peril would have been immediately corrected. But we suffer the very deadly results of a legislature poisoned with the Gun Industry and Republican vacuity.
Art, While you and I clearly are on the same page, I minimally would modify your statement to read, “choosing to focus on the…half” that fed his self serving impulses.
..And much more; Roe vs Wade, Citizen's United, etc. ad nauseum. We need new standards and tests for SCOTUS, as well accountability and consequences that don't exist.
@D4N, While, of course, you’re right, I hesitate to dilute my reply to Christopher’s dismay over gun violence in the States by packing my response with a host of other issues.
I get it Barb, and I 'get' your reasons, having admired your contributions here since you joined in. I read and reacted; I mean the list just keeps growing doesn't it ? Brava ~
SCOTUS ruled correctly on the Second Amendment, so it is neither a deceptive nor a distorted interpretation. 2A has always protected the right of individual Americans to own and use guns; that right is not tied to service in a government Militia.
What the "we need guns to topple the government!" freaks ignore is that 2A only protects the LAWFUL use of weapons. Since the Constitution specifically spells out insurrection and rebellion as crimes, individual Americans who use their guns against government are criminals who can and should arrested and thrown into prison if convicted.
Finally, "people" and "persons" are used interchangeably to refer to individual Americans. 1st and 2nd Amendments both use "people" to refer to individuals: "The right of the people to freely assemble" in the 1st, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" in the 2nd. In both cases those are individuals, not a collective. Since you brought up the 4th, that text uses both terms: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Both terms address individuals, not a collective.
Which makes sense---the Constitution spells out what government can do, the Bill of Rights spells out what government is prohibited from doing.
Shane, Because I neither agree, for reasons cited, that the five Justices “ruled correctly on the Second Amendment” nor that our founders, given my textual understanding, enlisted the terms “people” and “persons” randomly “to refer to individual Americans,” I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Shane, I believe each of us is doing the same and, consequently, often, though not always, are exerting a meaningful impact on one another’s thinking and subsequent actions.
Well said, and agreed. Best thing about these forums is seeing intelligent people lay out their arguments and proofs and weighing them against our own.
Lisa, In response, I defer to President Lincoln’s views on political persuasion, particularly to his thoughts related to the power of molding public sentiment. “Public sentiment,” Lincoln stated, is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
All I can say is that a lack of education combined with biased media and a culture war make changing public sentiment a distant fantasy from my perspective.
I agree, and think effective presidents and other leaders can help us to focus and collaborate on what matters. For their part, they must articulate a compelling vision around which support may gather.
What will be remembered is vivid articulation of timeless values and and appealing, actionable goals, like in the fragments of text and speeches delivered in the past that now linger and endure in our memories. There is also an essential place for reports and policy, but aspiration enables inspiration.
If enough people believe real change is needed it is likely to happen. It's a big IF, but prediction of the future is always iffy, even though some trends have a lot of momentum.
Lisa, you are hitting on the one aspect of this centuries-old conflict in values, the media we have now which didn't exist in this form before. For the first time in history we don't have the printed page but rather we have a pantheon of algorithm-driven "news" outlets which can provide whatever brand or slant of "news" you wish to read or hear but which all have in common, a design to keep readers engaged and coming back. As we have often bemoaned in these pages, "what bleeds leads." But somewhat less dramatically, whatever deals with controversial or shocking topics or stances is more likely to get readers and listeners to click on it, again and again. It is the essence of what keeps TFG in the news day after day, week after week, year after year. I fear it may be a fundamental flaw of capitalism which becomes almost impossible to balance or offset with government restraint and regulation, which is to say a government "of, by and for the people." This is the truly new thing we must grapple with more successfully if we are to ever hope for "an educated public."
I'm thinking news crafted to draw attention, but focusing on positive things the left is doing. Done in an attractive attention-grabbing way, especially by contrasting what came before with the new improvements that Biden and the Democrats are making. Take a page from successful children's shows and Faux news itself. I think cable has more impact than social media because it's the source of new information, in our case truthful. Social media seems more focused on soliciting opinion and makes a good follow-up to TV or radio. I don't believe that the right are prone to read in depth.
@J L Graham, I just read your enclosed Balko piece and believe it does a stunning job of enumerating the dire consequences of not addressing qualified immunity that virtually shields law enforcement officials from personal liability for their actions, even if unconstitutional.
Balko piece ? Is that a WaPo opinion post ? I can't read WaPo due to the paywall. Please articulate a bit about it so I can look elsewhere, if you will = or JL if he will ? Thx *edit > I have a bil brother and a soon to be son in law that are officers. Qualified immunity comes up in conversations at times; bil brother is angry with challenges to it. I listen and struggle.
I was hired as a Deputy Sheriff in 1985, assigned to the jail, as almost all new hires were that lacked prior law enforcement experience. My "hire group" had 12 people in it as we were the first group of new hires since the department rehired all of the deputies it had laid off in the early 80's when timber revenue all but stopped. I was assigned to patrol in 1987, and retired as a patrol deputy in 2013, having served as a sergeant in an "acting in capacity" role intermittently consistently from 1998-2003. I became a "Survival Skills" instructor in 1994 with an emphasis on training deputies in use of force applications that were not firearms related. From 2008-2013 I was our department's legal use of force expert and provided assessments of use of force, mostly from jail lawsuits, for the county counsel to use in its defense of these lawsuits. I attended Caliber Press's "Street Survival Seminars" 3 times between 1989 and 2005, and attended several classes taught by Lt. Col. Grossman 1998-2010. I developed our use of force curriculum with another deputy in 2006 that became part of our revised General Orders up through 2021 when they were revised in response to case law and some other focal changes in department philosophy.
My motivation for becoming a UoF Instructor was simple: We were seldom trained, and when we did get training, it was presented by guys who were students of martial arts, who were very proficient at several different disciplines, and taught techniques that required a LOT of dedicated practice to maintain proficiency. My focus initially was with finding techniques that required gross motor skills, were easier to master, and would work for the deputy that was at work at 3:00 a.m. after insufficient sleep, and hadn't been to the gym recently. As I got more involved, I started focusing on the components of both force justification and documentation (writing good reports) and the best ways to handle the emotional and psychological reactions to different use of force incidents.
Front story: I got lots of good information from Grossman's classes on how to prepare people for having to use deadly force in the defense of self/others, and cultivating a "survival mindset" that recognized the traumatic impact of direct interpersonal human violence (whether in a deadly force situation or in one requiring personal defense skills) and how to mitigate the psychological reactions. I also became involved in our Peer Support team, which is rooted in the ICISF* model of defining critical incidents and how to handle them in a way that keeps your department and your personnel healthy.
There are valuable nuggets of information in both those trainings, Caliber Press and Grossman's "bullet proof mind" and "killology." They are NOT the main course of those trainings, however. The "Warrior Mindset" did a nice job bringing situational awareness to average cops who frequently overlooked obvious personal danger risks in their citizen encounters. It succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in creating a culture where the warrior mentality is taken as gospel and not critically examined. I think that I was able to impart the positive components of those trainings, and to identify that "just because you can doesn't mean you should" when it came to use of force options.
My great grandfather who shared my first and last name was an English chief of police who, at least by family legend (I never met him) held very high ethical standards in his department. I think of police work as a noble profession that requires very high ethical standard and should be honored when those are observed. My Great Grandfather almost killed someone in the line of duty and it haunted him. The notion of having great sex after taking a life, even justifiably, seems very sick to me.
And yes, thank you for "just because you can doesn't mean you should", a lesson we all need to keep in mind.
I am very seriously thinking of moving out of the USA. I am sick of living here surrounded by the despicable ''Confederates A-holes'' We have been harassed by them time and again here.
My wife just obtained her Greek Citizenship and my kids are in process now.
Unfortunately, the only way I can become a Greek Citizen is to buy $500,000 worth of property. Yes, I can live there as along as I want as long as I am married to my wife, but, in Greece, it is either blood or money that make citizenship. Not marriage.
Greeks are a well educated, rational society, at least for now.
I was considering going to Nova Scotia Canada, but i read on their online web-site the Halifax Chronicle Herald newspaper that they had a shooting up there that killed 3 people. Is nowhere in North America safe now??? This happened about 3 weeks ago.
We are in Costa Rica most of the year. Although there is just beginning to be some crime there beyond petty thievery, it is the kindest most peaceful country we’ve ever known. We’ve been welcomed by the local community but we live in the mountains where people are kind and the weather is moderate. No heat or air needed. There are sweet spots in the world still if you’re thinking of watching from afar. But you may have to endure bureaucracies that are corrupt and stupid rather than violent or racist.
My youngest son went down to Costa Rica last year on a mission thing for his church, and he liked it there too, but where he was at, it was in the lower elevations and it was hot and humid down there like it is here in GA at this time of year, ( heat and humidity doesn't bother him at all) i absolutely cannot tolerate hot or humid weather. I just went outside for a few minutes, ( it's midnight here)
and i got so hot and sweaty i had to come back into the house in air conditioning and my fan. I have a weather station here that is very accurate, and it's currently 73 degrees with the humidity a stifling 90 percent. It does sound good down there, but i want to move to a location where it snows a good bit in the winter too. It rarely snows here any more, we used to get 2 or sometimes 3 good snows in the winter here, but now it hasn't snowed hardly at all here in the past 6 years. I have been checked for thyroid problems many times in the past by my doctors, but they said there was nothing wrong with my thyroid. I keep telling them i cannot stand hot or humid weather at all. I have to take about 10 medications for my heart and blood pressure, i had open heart surgery 9 years ago, so that could factor in my severe intolerance to heat and humidity. Anyway, after next month the heat and humidity will be gone until late May of next year. Thank goodness.. But, the idiot and insane MAGA's will still be here in their attempt to make the United States a Fascist Dictatorship.
John - the East Coast of Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland are filled with peaceable, friendly people. We live in Central Canada and Quebec is much more populated but again our people here are not as easily whipped into anger. We don't own guns and are judiciary is separate from voting manipulation. Thank goodness!
The Prairies and Western Canadians are of the same ilk but the oil barons tend to stir the waters. West Coasters are proud of our Charter of Rights as are all Canadians, again no guns there.
Welcome John - if you decide to come north to Canada, but please leave the guns and that over-the-too rugged individualism at the border. We working on Peace, Welfare and Good Government for everyone.
Thank you very much for your informative reply. And i also do not own ANY firearms, i detest those things and we don't even shoot firecrackers here any longer because it frightens our little dogs and our 12 cats. I will be honest, i just LOVE Canada and i have several web cams online and view them every day most in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and a few in Quebec. I have quite a few more reasons to want to move there than just the insane politics that are going on here, this may sound nuts, but i love SNOW. We rarely get snow here now, it used to snow at least once here a winter, but no snow since 2018 now here, and that is very frustrating to me. I used to talk with a lady that lives on Prince Edward Island and i really liked her, but i haven't seen her online in a while now. I had found a little house in Springhill, Nova Scotia that i really liked and it was an older house that had been completely remodeled inside and outside and it was beautiful on the interior with a big stainless steel refrigerator, and all new flooring and everything. I am still wondering why the cost of it was unusually low, it was listed for only $57,000. I like Dartmouth, NS too just across the bay from Halifax. I am a very peaceful type of person and do not bother anyone and i do not have any police record either. I have a question, when i do come to Canada, do merchants and businesses accept the American Dollars, or will i have to convert my cash to Canadian dollars? I occasionally get Canadian coins in my change when i buy something here. I recently got a1945 Canadian dime that looked to be pure silver, my son looked it up and said it was worth 5 dollars.. I fly Canadian desk flags in my house.
My husband often says he wishes his dad, the grandson of Irish immigrants to the U.S., had pursued dual citizenship. In the past we've looked into moving to Scotland or Ireland, but immigration is more restricted there than we expected.
Dear Christopher, We ALL suffer from the gun violence in the US. It is ubiquitous and very frightening. I am living abroad in India on a farm. I feel far safer here!
We have an odd association of personal and national power with violence in this country. I know that at least some in several other countries find it weird. I distantly recall a panel of UK commentators discussing violence in Ireland at the height of the Troubles. At one point one of the speakers claimed that statistically several US cities were more dangerous at the time.
JL, Sadly "violence" seems to be a "quick fix" vs using reason which may take time and or patience or working to communicate regarding another opinion or belief .
Caring for our fellowman...attempting to understand one another takes time.....it takes presence.....it takes listening to opposing opinions or beliefs. Shooting someone ends an argument quickly but does not solve anything. It only leads to further pain.
Too many people are alone with their "monsters". This is a major problem in our world.
Yes, Emily. Too many people are "alone with their monsters." And the words after "caring for our fellowman ..." made me immediately picture Joe Biden. It takes presence, it takes listening to resolve our differences. May we be blessed with the leadership needed to find our way through today's troubles. Thank you for your thoughts.
I think of what we call "Conservatism" as opposed to "conservative" in the sense of cautious, as a the preference for punishment as a way of controlling human behavior. It's not that I think punishment is never warranted but the contact I have had over a lifetime with what I would judge to be "Conservative" (and politically right leaning) homes often seemed to terrorize children who strayed from parental demand, some of it pretty creepy. I would call some of it "child abuse", although my evidence is clearly only anecdotal. I have seen studies that suggest mistreatment of kids can lead them to self-harm or abuse of others. I recall when a Washington State Assemblyman introduced a bill making it legal to beat children to any point short of permanent physical injury, citing Biblical justification. It did not pass, but represents a point of view. A local man and "his pastor" beat a one-year-old to death according to the local paper, because the kid reportedly "refused to touch his toes". Obviously an extreme example, but some of that energy seems more widespread. It is said that monsters lurk in every psyche, but we don't necessarily need to act them out.
I wonder if this made national news? At a Chicago White Sox home game the other night, two women SITTING INSIDE the park, watching the game, were hit by gunfire. It's been a long time since I attended a game, but I would assume (correct me if I'm wrong WS fans!) you must go through a metal detector or have a bag search? Cameras everywhere in the park, the news feed shows people waving down security. How the heck did THAT happen?
For those of us that live in blue and purple states, do not for one second think your state government is immune from the hate, misogyny and xenophobia if the Fascist MAGAts take control of your legislatures, courts and/or governorships.
In Maine, we got a taste of having a Fascist moron as our governor (Paul LePage) for 8 years. He was a disaster for the state vetoing any bill that he wasn't on board with. Since leaving office the Republicans have suffered at the polls. Even Susan Collins barely beat an unknown Democrat to win her 5th term.
Do not support any Republican, even if you think they will be a better dog catcher than their Democratic opponent.
There is a podcast episode by Crash Barry about him. Polhaus doesn't seem to be very smart or very well funded. It's a pretty decent episode but long. Crash has been in ME for many years if you aren't familiar with him. He's a decent journalist and easy to listen to.
It's worth checking out, but it's kind of long -- like 90 minutes I think.
Anyway, I get the impression from the podcast that he won't be in ME very long. I certainly hope not.
Crash Barry does a series about the Catholic priest pedophiles in and around Springfield, MA. I didn't realize there are/were over 80 priests that the church labeled as pedophiles.
I'm not a big fan of the Catholic Church patriarchy and the way they get away with pretty much everything illegal.
I looked briefly at his twitter/x account (I don't twit, so can't read them extensively). He's apparently done quite a lot both there and in his pod about the noisy loonies here in Maine.
And I'm so very sorry to read about what has happened to Chris Northrup. I think I actually met her back in the 1980s or 90s when she was still doing good things about women's health.
Yes, that is it. Sorry, I didn't provide the link earlier.
A few weeks ago I drove from ME to Omaha for my 50th high school reunion and I listened to lots of podcasts. This one definitely stood out since this weirdo is trying to set up around Lincoln, ME.
I just wonder how you get people to lay down their weapons. We have people who take their guns to church and Walmarts. It would be easier to require a woman to give up her purse.
Thank you, Christopher. I hope you are right. But I don't think I've lost touch with the reality of gun violence. My little town in Massachusetts can be quite bucolic, but we have an organization called "Gun Owners Action League" that can best be described as the right wing of the NRA. The town voted to spend $2M to preserve the summer home of Daniel Wesson: an ugly white elephant of a buillding that should be used as a fire-training-exercise site, burned to the ground and replaced with affordable housing. Even here we have way too many guns. And even here, the chance of reducing their number approaches zero.
We hope and choose to believe that it's all due to a decided minority that are so deeply bigoted, small, and without any honor. That they've been adopted under a major party tent and banner is the more troubling for many reasons, among them desperation for dominion shared by so many seemingly disparate aims. Recent history of their actions does display one commonality between all the seeming incongruous; no scruples - anything... anything goes to 'win.' Thank you for your kind thoughts; may providence and good sense ever prevail in Ireland, for you and yours. Best wishes and gratitude friend.
and to all the "trolls" who flood social media after the high-profile gun violence incidents
(because, in fact, most of the 300 people shot EVERY DAY IN THE USA don't make national headlines) saying laws don't work and we need even MORE guns,
I say "you REALLY intend to do NOTHING to protect YOUR CHILD from senseless gun violence?"
Because the youth of today, who are of the post- September 11, 2001 era and are traumatized by mass shooter drills and admonitions to "Run. Hide. Fight." are NOT going to be ignored. They intend to be HEARD. And their VOTE is their VOICE. Time to throw OUT any politician who is not going to address the VERY REAL CRISES affecting the Earth's climate and the public health dangers that include gun violence, opioid addictions and domestic terrorism from institutionalized racism.
It seems the right-wing has become so desperate to hold onto power at this point that they're prepared to lie and cheat *publicly* and *openly* -- and ignore any laws and rulings that they don't like. The very opposite of how a democracy should work!
Sean, if you want to know what TFG and his supporters are up to, just look at what they accuse others of doing. While they’re obsessed with a laptop (shades of emails) and Burisma, Ivanka and Jared had government jobs, Ivanka got Chinese patents and Jared got a large Saudi account to manage. Trump properties are , for the first time, the sites of Liv/PGA golf tournaments. They accuse libs of “cancel culture” while they remove books from libraries and call for boycotts because a beverage maker had a trans person as a spokesperson.
Meanwhile the Saudi’s invoked a million barrels a day reduction in production beyond what Opec+ has in place. This keeps oil prices high, earning them more money and us paying more at the pump.
They think they are clever and by exploiting laws they legitimize their efforts to disenfranchise Americans. They are wrong and there will be hell to pay if they don’t stop. For all of us.
It's important for Democratic party to reach out to the people and get their message across about the Mega Republicans and what they stand for and the consequences if they win in 24.
The current version of the Republican Party is just a continuation of the January 6 insurrection. The world has changed and they don’t like it. People have come to America from all over the world to seek their fortune and to live in freedom. But they aren’t just coming from Europe anymore. The new immigrates, like all who have come before them, work hard and are entrepreneurial. Men and women are building new technologies and new medicines. But the old, white, Christian male power structure is fighting against the changes. They are more than willing to give up democracy, justice, and any notion of equality. Lies, cheating, and violence are all that they have left.
Strength, vigilance, courage, and truth are all on our side. Stay the course.
Speaking of voter suppression, in Idaho, Gov. Little's Administration no longer will allow polling places on college or university campuses. If a student wants to vote they have to go off campus. That's one way to suppress younger Voters, take the polling places OFF CAMPUS.
Private colleges can still allow polling places, but of course that would depend on the college’s denomination of Christianity, wouldn’t it. Governor Little should really have zero to say about the voting process- conflict of interest!
Idaho seems to have gone over the line and is establishing their own country with a white, fascist government. From what I read, they are losing doctors, women, and educators at an alarming rate. They encourage the use of armed intimidation tactics, and they don't care if their transgressions are obvious. I'm not sure what they are so afraid of, and I don't know who is benefitting. But, I'm far away so maybe I'm wrong. -- I'm enough of a liberal to realize I can make mistakes.
Diana, can they still do what I did in college, and vote absentee? College registrars are usually notaries, and can do whatever authorization is necessary. I agree, it’s much easier having polling places on campus, but I’m sure the poli sci departments would love to turn it into a lesson in persistence.
I am disgusted by the things the Republican Party is doing--it's as bad as you say.
But immigration to the US has some big downsides, on which the left is in denial, in the same way the right is in denial about global warming. In 1980, meatpackers were Black, and making a decent middle class wage. By that decade's end, they were immigrants, toiling for barely more than minimum wage, under atrocious conditions where amputations were a regular occurrence.
Business uses immigration as a way of lowering wages, or keeping them down. The GOP was instrumental in pushing immigration numbers up to the current million legal immigrants annually in 1991. Of course, illegal immigrants are more exploitable even than legal immigrants, which is why the GOP has pushed for amnesties, beginning with the Reagan amnesty. (Mark Z'berg's FWD.us does the same thing.)
You can read about this in the highly readable, yet scholarly book, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck (296 footnotes, $14 on amazon last I checked). Beck covers the relevant academic economic literature, Black periodicals, statements from Black leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were downwardly mobile due to mass immigration, and gov't commissions on immigration reform, notably the Barbara Jordan commission under Clinton. Jordan, the Black Texas Democrat who made her name on the Judiciary Committee during Watergate, recommended cutting legal immigration roughly in half, and strict enforcement of immigration laws. Unfortunately, she died shortly after the Commission presented its findings. Had her recommendations been implemented, it's unlikely that Trump, whose signature issue was immigration, would never have been elected.
The book gives the lie to the notion that there are jobs Americans won't do. The author interviewed Black workers who had then recently lot their jobs at a poultry plant to immigrants. Would they take their jobs back if offered? No, the workers told him. The wages were so low they'd have to live in their cars, or else many to a house.
The issue you raise is not due to immigration, it is due to Reagan and other right-wingers watering down labour protection laws. The same has happened in Europe. Capitalist extremism will always try to shaft their workers. Back in the 19th Century, British industrialists used to invite poor Irish workers to break strikes and undercut the contracted workers in their factories (it led to some serious anti-Irish violence). These tactics are still in use.
It's both. Immigration is a major tool capitalists use to shaft their workers. Mass immigration also made it easier for Reagan et al. to undercut unions. The book I described shows that immigration has been used throughout most of our country's history to keep wages down for American workers. Cesar Chavez denounced illegal immigrants because he understood how they undercut his members' wages. (you can google it.) I get the feeling you skipped over most of my comment.
What a web of deceit. And the harm that overpopulation does to our country's natural habitat, not to mention quality of life, is not even a topic anymore. Immigration is an unrelenting problem and payback for centuries of exploitation of their countries of origin by the first world.
I believe the extremism we’re seeing is the death scream of the old way. It doesn’t want to end and would rather kill and be killed than stop. The world is watching and waiting to see what happens in 2024. Putin must be laughing out loud at the mess we’re in.
It is incumbent on all of us to work to register voters--young voters, voters of color, voters with disabilities--all voters, and then to make sure that, come November, they all vote, whether in person at the polls or by mail. We need to volunteer to go for training to work at our polls and to uphold the rights of all of our citizens to vote. We need to tell all of our legislators to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We need to write to encourage voters to exercise their rights, whether through letter-writing or post-card writing campaigns or phone calling or texting or canvassing. There is something that each of us can do. If we want to keep our democracy, we must find our niche and go to work. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Agree Betsy, but it's not the "blue States" to worry about it's the far more numerous, but much smaller in population "red States" who are setting themselves in position to lie, cheat steal and declare trump the winner. Even if he spends his days in a jail cell in a jump suit that matches his skin.
That sounds terrifying. I don't know what "people like me" means, but you can still engage in letter-writing through Vote Forward or making phone calls or sending texts to other parts of the country in support of a large variety of candidates. I send wishes for your safety and for a time when you can participate in democracy by voting.
Silence from people who have a different point of view is what “they”count on. Make contact with reasonable people around your state- there are good candidates running against the bullies in more moderate counties who will be encouraged by your support. All voices need to be heard.
In MT we are up against another Red trump supporter running a well financed campaign against our only democratic Senator. Also we have a strong woman candidate, Monica Tranel, who barely lost last election to Ryan Zinke. Dark $$$$$$ needs to banned from politics!
Very true! In the low population Western states, it is appalling to see millions of dollars pouring in from outside interests- it is a form of election interference, I think.
I live in Michigan. One early morning we had helicopters flying overhead, and lots of black SUVs tearing up and down the road. My husband went down to see what was going on, and there was a property surrounded. Some of the people involved in the plot to kidnap our Governor lived there. Ugh.
Because I am not a millionaire or upper class and could not afford to move to CO or another enlightened state and keep my simple rural life which fully supports my well being.
Granted, but why would it be life threatening to vote in your state? Lots of liberals vote in illiberal states, what do you believe would happen to you?
Your statement that the math tells the story is, I hope, the clarion call to all Democrats to vote for Biden/Harris in numbers that far exceed the 2020 vote. Younger voters will make the difference. They are so mad about the end of Roe vs Wade and the climate deniers that they will come out in force. Grey haired attempts to stop this movement will not succeed , as we have seen in state after state when it came to a vote, not a legislative coup. Racism, although generational, is now diluted by the educated youth. It’s the McConnells, Graham’s, and Tubervilles, and their like that will now see their voters flock to more democratic, minority candidates. Biden is speaking to them, empowering them, hiring them. We have to help him achieve that goal.
All of us, no matter our age, that believe in Democracy have to do the work to make sure that the young people get out and vote. We need to support each other!
I have never forgot what David Brooks said when he was asked to be a TV commentator for the march of athletes into the stadium during a past Summer Olympics. He said he always enjoyed watching the athletes march in by country. There would be white Europeans, distinguishable Asians, Black Africans, Latinos, and so forth. Then the USA athletes would come in, and it looked like they had taken all the other countries and mixed them all together to make the Americans. Our strength is our diversity.
So TRUE! Diversity and inclusion is a powerful advantage for innovation. Having worked in technology development industries for nearly 40 years (as a while male), I've been fortunate to be surrounded by a diverse group of people (across many companies) and the most creative and innovative companies have been those that focus on ideas, not who came up with them. Brilliance is color/gender/everything_else blind. . .
I often wonder how white supremacists rationalize their own practical adoration of the African American sports icons (such as football players) they fanatically cheer for. Hmmm…
Guess they have no recourse but to accept that athletic greatness knows no color barriers!
(To the white supremacist mind), in sports and entertainment, Black Americans perform at the pleasure of white audiences. They earn great money, even more than many of their White fans, but they aren’t allowed to speak to the troubles their race endures. “Shut up and dribble,” or “I stand for the Pledge.”
"Stoehr calls these white supremacists 'Realamericans' who believe they should rule and, if they can’t do so lawfully, believe they are justified in taking the law into their own hands." They are the complete opposite of true Americans. We are living in the days of the mid-1930's in Germany. What are WE going to do about it?
We also need to speak up, not just to confront overt terrorist threats. Attend school board meetings, city council meetings, county commissioners meetings, zoning board meetings. Join local social groups which fund raise. Support your local libraries, museums, community centers and other nonprofits like arts organizations for kids or elders. Start a local nonprofit providing support of kids or elders-Meals on Wheels or whatnot. Encourage your church to do inclusion events. Host a weekly pancake breakfast before Sunday services. Food is always a good draw. Write letters to the editors of local newspapers if there is one. Start a community newsletter if there is not one. Don’t make politics the focus, but discuss community building ideas. Include historical facts and stories. Include informational stories about how to benefit from new technologies. Start your own club- Knitting and wine tasting, Thursday night Classic Movies, Gardening for Health and beauty, Etc,etc. You know that old saying, “Feel universally, think globally, act locally.” East to say, I know, but getting people away from the clutches of fear mongering media is always a good thing.
This is excellent advice! It’s because people weren’t paying attention that many white supremacists ensconced themselves in school boards, county commissions, etc. The Mt. Shasta community is a good example. The community building clubs and activities bring people together to enjoy life and find common ground. Maybe that way we can start to change a few people’s minds, then they’ll also vote Blue.
Democrats need to VIGOROUSLY PUSH VOTER REGISTRATION and MAIL-IN BALLOTS. The LATTER is streamlined in Maryland which permits PERMANENT Registration for MAIL-IN BALLOTS -- good so long as you VOTE. The League of Women Voters produces a SUPERB VOTERS GUIDE with backgrounds on Candidates to GUIDE the AT-HOME VOTER. IT'S A MODEL FOR ALL STATES.
Maryland indeed is a model state when it comes to voting. I use the League’s non-partisan guide each election. We’ve had Republicans like Hogan and Democrats like Ross. That’s why if it weren’t for looking at what Younglin is doing to Virginia, we’d get complacent.
Agreed. I recently moved from Illinois to Arizona for family reasons, and was pleasantly surprised at how good AZ is at the voting thing. I signed up for permanent mail-in ballots when I got my new drivers' license; it's good as long as I don't skip more than two consecutive elections.
AZ also sends to every household a voting guide that lists every candidate in every race, a summary of that candidate's positions on various issues, and statements from a variety of organizations left, center, right, and non-political describing those candidates and why they endorse or reject their candidacy. Ditto on every other ballot initiative such as raising the property tax to provide additional funding for rural fire protection districts.
It's a marvelous system, and I spent hours studying each race with this handbook so I could vote intelligently in the last election.
Oregon is the same way. I am often asked for input on judicial, DA/Sheriff, and ballot measures that impact law enforcement from many of my friends. It is wonderful to sit down and discuss the issues and the impacts of outcomes.
Washington state does the same thing. All voting is mail in, everyone is sent the ballot and non-partisan voter guide. You can mail it in or there are drop boxes at every library and government building. I’m sure there are other places but the library was most convenient for me so I never had to go find another one.
I wonder how we can guarantee that the mail-in ballots actually arrive and are actually counted. I’ve been mailing in my ballots from abroad for several decades. It used to be a simple process - just go to the post office and send my ballot by airmail. But then in the year 2000 it became very apparent that we couldn’t take voting for granted anymore. It’s very likely that many of the ballots from abroad that year were just dumped in the trash. So for the next election, our Democrats Abroad group had us send our ballots by FedEx, costing much more than before. Then FedEx came under suspicion so I switched to DHL at the cost of $80 to mail in my ballot. The election after that, I faxed in my ballot because it wasn’t delivered in time and was impossible to mail it back by the deadline. The post office said they couldn’t guarantee when it would get there, it could take over a month. Who knows if it was counted? It’s been one headache after another! If the Democrats ever get a majority in both Houses of Congress again, I hope the first thing they will do is change the voting laws to one person, one vote, and make voting mandatory like in Australia. (And maybe even simplify the tax laws to a basic flat tax rate of 5 or 10% tax on one’s gross income for everyone making over $50,000 a year, companies and corporations included. Forget tax deductions and tax lawyers.) Not to mention, eliminating the lifelong benefits and income politicians receive even if they’ve only been elected once or twice. What else can we change to make America an well-functioning, happy country again?
I am almost 70. I grew up in NC in the 60's and 70's. I now live In Wilmington, NC. We were not taught about the 1898 Wilmington coup also known as the Wilmington Race Riots. It has been since I moved here to Wilmington thatI learned about that terrible coup. There was a park named for the leader of the coup because he gave the land for the park (for the use of white people). The name of the park was changed. The coup leader's descendants don't want to be associated with his legacy.
Ron DiSantis wants Florida students to grow up ignorant like I did. The truth eventually comes out; it refuses to stay buried. The history I was taught was lying by omission.
Sadly, white supremacy undergirds the entire history of the US and not just in relation to Black people. Anytime white Europeans exploring the New World came into contact with native peoples, violence inevitably followed. Native people were portrayed as savages and scum. Therefore, it was ok to kill them, steal their land, break treaties with them, etc. White Europeans considered themselves better than anyone else. Their descendants are still acting on that delusion.
I hope you weathered the storm OK. My best friend's sister lives in Wilmington (she produces "Cape Fear's Going Green" if you ever see it lying around, and her partner is heavily involved with WHQR Public Radio (he usually sleeps at the station during hurricanes.)
Yes. Our republic is at stake. This is like the period after the attack on Pearl Harbor, except the news media refuses to acknowledge we are at war… Democracy is at war with Fascism! The 2024 election is NOT between two political parties.
Steven I was alive and 3 years old when Pearl Harbor occurred..my sister was born on Dec 7th….and I remember the war and the post war period…my dad was on a ship in the South Pacific in charge of landing craft ..he was at all the major ‘events’ in that war in the Pacific including the signing of the peace treaty…and I watched his ship come under the Golden Gate Bridge when he returned.
I don’t think this period is the same.
That was a war where there was commonality of purpose and very clear agendas….
No One was in much doubt about what must be done, what price must be paid…what the ‘costs’ were….
My fathers sister ship was kamikazed with no survivors….
Todays period lacks commonality of purpose, accurate information broadly understood and accepted and coherence in action plans….
Our TV screens mock us with ‘calendars’ for the next year and a half of the multiple court dates/appearances/trials ….that the evil Orange one is to participate in….even the most dedicated ‘newsie’ finds this complex data overwhelming.
And the political ‘palate’ is less than appealing with competing 80 year olds…..one far far better than the other but both way too old…..
My Dad was on the Trian..a troop carrier going over and practically a hospital ship coming home…
The Japanese left dying/starving guys on the docks at the end of the war and my Dad described just how grim that was…these guys were in such bad shape that Dad’s guys literally stayed with them initially to help them just take tiny tastes or drinks as their bodies couldn’t handle more and the ship had a lot of refrigeration which very sadly was used to bring a number of these guys who couldn’t be saved..back for burial.
I think there were long periods of extreme boredom and a lot of poker and cribbage played….but it was a WORLD WAR..I once asked my mom what had been the hardest thing they had had to go through and she said..”the Second World War..we didn’t know if we could win it”.
Fortunately, today we have the internet, and the awful, anti-American antics of the far right can now be scrutinized by everyone everywhere. Remember the Marion County Record, the newspaper raided by the police? Or Nazi Christopher Polhus, who’s trying to open a Nazi training camp in a town north of Bangor, Maine? Or the crazies in the Tennessee legislature and their continued attempts to prevent speech on the floor of the state legislature by legislators?
No one outside an extremely small and local group of people would have known anything at all about any of this, to say nothing of the rotten “Moms for Liberty”, or the plan by Llano, Texas, to defund its public library over its thwarted attempt at book-banning.
In a way, I’m glad T**** got elected – it has turned over a whole lot of rocks and exposed a whole lot of writhing maggots to the light of day. Now that we know the extent of the risk more clearly, we can do something about it together. And keep in mind that the people holding these unacceptable beliefs got them from somewhere and have been severely damaged by them – their upbringing, their exposure to False News et als., their hate-mongering “church” pastors. Notwithstanding they are acting in the most anti-American way, they still live here and so must be considered to be Americans, and it is important to hope that they can be cured of their delusions and stop harming other people.
Vote Blue, no matter who, in every election, for every position.
Lynn…I agree with your assessment….but it is COMPLEXITY PLUS and nerds like Heather’s readers ‘get it’ but the average voter sees a sea of chaos and doesn’t have time or energy to thoroughly inform themselves….
The unity and purpose of the World War 2 period was essential and seminal in that struggle …
We don’t have that today.
Vote blue is the best most folks can/will do.
And while Biden is the obvious choice ….he is old…I’m 85…I absolutely assure you that Biden is too old for a second term.
Fortunately, Biden doesn't have to run the country all by himself. He has a bright, skilled vice president and an excellent, qualified cabinet. Biden, in fact, HAS hired "the best people", as exemplified by the recovery we've seen so far from the devastation wrought by the worst president the US has ever seen. And there is hope the recovery will keep on. I'm not wearing blinders as to Biden's age, but there isn't another Democrat in my opinion who has a snowball's chance of winning the presidency in 2024.
Lynn I agree that Biden hires good folks including a relative of mine ..if he has a health crisis before the ‘general’ I could see Newsom or Widner as a viable candidate…
Nope, I'm not, but I am in my late 60s, and really hopeful that in the next 6 years the younger, more liberal Democratic politicians are brought along so that for the 2028 election there will be some very electable possibilities for both President and Vice President. Whitmer, Buttigieg, Newsom, maybe by that time Kelly, Allred or Jeffries, or other young US Senators. But none of them is ready for 2024, in my opinion. I wish that were not the case, but it is.
Lynn, Newsom has run the largest state in the nation successfully and is in his second term…very effectively dealt with a recall….(and was lieutenant governor for two terms before that) and another relative of mine worked for him for several years….and I’ve seen it …up close and personal .
We’d be OK with Newsom…and I suspect, most of the others, too…
Late 60s are great and I remember those years with pleasure..two decades ago.
What I’ve seen and I’m a gerontologist…is that from an actuarial point it’s just plain clear that mid 80s (where Biden will end up and I am right now) if one is fortunate one’s mind is more or less intact but even that is problematical….indeed “if one is even here” is clearly another part of it…..
And the number of health issues alone are a burden to deal with…and dealing with the country/whole world is just plain dumb…
I can use fancy language if you want but you get the point.
Claude McKay, born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in 1889, was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities. His philosophically ambitious fiction, including tales of Black life in both Jamaica and America, addresses instinctual/intellectual duality, which McKay found central to the Black individual’s efforts to cope in a racist society. He is the author of The Passion of Claude McKay: Selected Poetry and Prose (1973), The Dialectic Poetry of Claude McKay (1972), Selected Poems (1953), Harlem Shadows (1922), Constab Ballads (1912), and Songs of Jamaica (1912), among many other books of poetry and prose.
The son of peasant farmers, McKay was infused with pride in his African heritage. His early literary interests, though, were in English poetry. Under the tutelage of his brother, schoolteacher Uriah Theophilus McKay, and a neighboring Englishman, Walter Jekyll, McKay studied the British masters—including John Milton, Alexander Pope, and the later Romantics—and European philosophers such as eminent pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer, whose works Jekyll was then translating from German into English. It was Jekyll who advised aspiring poet McKay to write verse in Jamaican dialect. (PoetryFoundation)
Thanks, Fern--I used McKay's extraordinary "If We Must Die" for 15 years in my 10th grade English classes. I now incorporate it into my Anti-Nazi Resistance presentations about Abba Kovner's exhortation to the Vilna Ghetto Partisans, to "not go silently like lambs to the slaughter."
It looks like we're going to need all of McKay's people and many more. The GOP would not be going to the extremes they're going to if they didn't feel their base was tough enough to back them all the way. Since the 2020 election and esp since Jan 6th, the message has been delivered to the party leaders: the white GOP minority wants power, maintenance of their status quo, for as long as they can hold it, and they don't care what they have to do to keep it or retake it.
When you think about it, which is worse, to be pitied as the hogs which were caught, or to be held in contempt as the mad and cowardly dogs which caught them? People who have been defamed (E Jean Carroll, Shay Moss, Ruby Freeman) or the slanderer/libeleor (the unspeakable T**** and R G) who committed defamation? I know who I'd rather spend time with, and which I would hold up as a horrible example.
Sickening. The more they lose, the more radical the changes they propose. And after the hurricane had made landfall in Florida and passed into Georgia, Biden was commending the people on the ground for preparation and assuring people that they would not be forsaken.
The hurricane was a huge gift to De Santis. He wasn't doing well on the campaign trail and he had an excuse to come home and manage response to the storm. By taking charge, he is showing himself to be a competent and compassionate governor.
My fear is that this show of competence will boost his appeal to non-Trump Republicans and other voters. I tend to be a worry wart, so I'll wait to see what other readers think.
I don’t think this hurricane is going to overcome the autocratic rulings DeSantis has foisted on Florida through a super majority legislature. What it can do is highlight Biden’s rapid support of Florida during this new disaster.
Biden "checkmated " him before he could do his usual schtick about the failings of the federal government and Biden in particular.
The President held a presser today during which he, point by point, calmly laid out all the steps he and his administration had already taken, even before the storm hit, to assure Gov DeSantis of the administrations complete support. If DeSantis opens his mouth with one negative bit about this............
I figure the same. The DeSantis campaign is in trouble. He is playing HERO due to Hurricane Idalia. I would like to point out that after Hurricane Ian, migrant labor did a great deal of the clean-up. Who is going to do the labor this time? DeSantis and his Republican Legislature has passed legislation making it difficult to hire immigrant laborers. I think DeSantis has "painted" himself into a corner as far as available cleanup workers. His policies are coming back to bite him in the butt.
And i do hope his evil policies come back to bite him in his filthy butt. And i am glad he was booed by black Floridians. I only wish they had some rotten tomatoes to throw at him. There is nothing good about that evil cretin. DeSatan is a dirty low down rotten racist.
Fear not. That dog still has his same bark, he just has to get out away from his cage to yelp some more. He e we I’ll surely hit his campaign trail again and spew his narcissistic sociopathic hatred towards blacks, Jews, minorities, and tell how he’s going to gun down immigrants seeking asylum at the border and leave them lay for the buzzards.
Meanwhile, in an act of poetic justice, Mother Nature’s Idalia (name of the Greek goddess of love and beauty) fell a 100-year-old oak tree on the Florida governor’s mansion. Furthermore, one cannot overlook the irony that 77% of the bearers of “Idalia” as a female first name are Hispanic.
DeSatan is incapable of putting on a show of competence. He’ll hack things up by threatening to slit someone’s throat or shoot at would-be border crossers, or jail some random teachers and librarians.
And maybe he’ll put on those knee-high white boots again and remove any doubts about potential competence.
The optics are better for a minute but I don't think he'll draw a lasting bump (who really knows with Republicans). Let's watch him address the losses in his state without insurers. He should be raked over the coals. Reasonable chance he'll be doing this again before the election.
Fellow Floridians, If you’re not familiar with Jason Garcia( former investigative reporter for Orlando Sentinel) , he does deep dives into all things DeSantis. Trump-appointed judges are calling out him out !
"[S]how" of competence is exactly right. It is a show, a sham, and because Desantis is incompetent to repair the damage wrought by the storm, the damage they've suffered, uncorrected by Desantis, coupled with the crazy, autocratic, anti-education, regressive policies of his administration, will tell seriously against him in any election he cares to run in next. Honestly, I can't see him getting the nomination for the thugs' candidate for 2024, unless T**** is actually dead, which means Desantis will probably try for another governorship in Florida, and go down to defeat.
Agreed…and the way he has bristled when asked about our ever escalating cost of property insurance over last couple days will not bode well with Floridians.
How can there be so much hate and intolerance in a nation so many claim is a “Christian nation”? I’m not saying America is a Christian nation, but the fundamental teachings of Jesus revolve around “Loving thy neighbor”. Full stop. End of story.
They are not true Christians. In fact, evangelicals are beginning to openly criticize Jesus Christ himself, considering him to have been too weak and liberal!!!
What they want is white Christian Nationalism. Full Stop. They no longer follow the teachings of Christ, but when they try to impose their version of the Christian religion, they get to wear that cross.
Time to face facts. The "Republican" Party is now just a terrorist front organization.
Well said. I have been beating around the bush about the dangers of the Republican Party. Thanks for pointing out that we, in the USA, have an Internal Terrorist Threat.
"Systemic racism is so embedded in systems that it often is assumed to reflect the natural, inevitable order of things."
Systemic discrimination is a threat to inclusivity, fairness, equal rights for everyone, and the entire democracy and unfortunately, it is perpetuated by the Republicans. Worse, it is happening at that time when the world's societies are strengthening their civilization. The party is doing political disempowerment as well as disenfranchisement by suppressing the will of the people to vote and gerrymandering which has been a historical systemic racism and of course the modern-day systemic racism. Even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 2021 saw the passing or consideration of gerrymandering by some Republican-leaning states to redraw electoral boundaries to exclude voters that are unlikely to vote the party in power. Unfortunately, the most affected were people of color during the Republican era and even in states where Republicans holds power. If it took almost more than 200 years to end slavery, the systemic discrimination can take centuries given that it is hidden in legal institutions like political parties and economic structures. But, the good news is that it seems judicial systems have become immune to manipulation from the power-hungry political parties. They rejected armtwisting theatrics from Donald Trump and the Republican Party and overturned some barbaric, discriminatory legislations in some states.
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One portion of the judicial system that has failed to do their duty is the Right Wing members of SCOTUS (bought and paid by the Federalist Society) They have abandoned the concepts of Juris Prudence, i.e. precedent and judicial ethics. Instead, they are using ideology for their "decisions".
Selective ethics, like those who practice “selective” Christianity.
Well, in a shocking decision, the SCOTUS ruled Alabama must re-district to create 2 Black Districts--and the Alabama Legislature refused, creating only 1.
Of course, there's another lawsuit, and it will go to the SCOTUS again. But what's the point if the Republicans refuse to do what the rulings demand done?
President Andrew Jackson is supposed to have stated: "The Supreme Court has ruled. Now let them enforce it." Then he ignored the ruling and did what he wanted. The Republicans admire Jackson tremendously, so see nothing wrong with following his precedent.
Glad to know. I know the judicial system, just like any other institution, might not be as perfect as it should based on constitutionalism.
Yes, that doesn't appear in those members' lexicon any more.
Here in Kenya, there is an initiative dubbed as Linda Katiba (protect the constitution). Is there any initiative in US like this that is designed to protect the constitution?
They have caused the death of stare decisis.
I appreciate your perspective EKN. Another issue for the entire world is how to deal with the malign effects of colonialism and conquest, which established white European supremacist ideologies everywhere, and often translated them (in the years after decolonization, the success of which has been at best spotty) into elitist supremacist ideologies that justified extreme levels of violence and corruption. This has then made it possible for white supremacists to reinforce their ideologies in the colonizer countries. European colonialism and its effects have still not been adequately addressed by any of the former colonizers. The reparations discussions going on in Canada--and similar conversations in Australia and New Zealand--are merely the first drops in the bucket.
Thank you Linda. Your response coincided with what intended to write about systemic colonialism in West Africa and I am happy that you have given me another perspective about it. Thanks
Many or most R’s aren’t MAGA’s, they just hate to pay taxes and don’t want the gvt regulating their businesses. Most R’s I know, including my brothers and bro-in-law HATE paying taxes and they’ll vote for anyone who will put a few more $$ in their pockets in the form of a tax cut, regardless of the other outcomes. They white men, who don’t get pregnant, are never sexually harassed or suffer from racism. R lawmakers know this and buy their votes by promising to reduce government and cut their taxes! Then they put in their extreme agendas that in the end, hurt everyone.
It's a bet your brothers and bro-in-law wouldn't hate to call 911 in an emergency such as their house on fire a loved one having a heart attack. Bet they don't hate driving on city, county, state and interstate streets, roads and highways. There are countless ways anti-taxers willingly use tax-funded services that are vital to a functioning society.
You are correct. And since they are over 65, they would hate to pay for a health insurance policy on the open market without Medicare, or lose SS, which is what their party is promising to eliminate.
So hypocritical, IMO.
No doubt you have pointed this out to your brothers and brother-in-law.
Fish don’t see the water they swim in
Sorry jerrianneh,
I wrote this same thought , different words , before I read your well written reply.
The first thing that comes to my mind about regulation is... if the capitalists weren't so selfish and uninterested in their customers and their world, they wouldn't need regulation. AND as already mentioned... taxes pay for services we take for granted: public schools, police departments, fire departments, libraries, traffic and street lights, paved roads, etc. The people who resent paying taxes would be the first to complain about these services going away.
Cathy,
Ask those who hate to pay taxes if they would mind not using the roads, airports, schools, national parks that we, who want to pay back into our country to truly “make it great again, pay for. We would like to see them banned from using anything we have paid for.
Dumb is bad, stupid is worse, Nazi’s not nice, Fascism deadly! Grow up and find out just what being a grown up looks like. Paying taxes and supporting a country that follows the laws of regulation and order give those people who understand the merits a peaceful, loving place to be free.
Come join us, but put down your guns and your anger... we don’t allow either in our tax code!
I disagree. Every Republican knows exactly what they've accepted in exchange for lowering corporate taxes (the GOP doesn't put money in anyone's pocket). They don't even bother hiding their fascism anymore. Sorry, but being a MAGA or not doesn't matter when the entire party is in lockstep behind Trump and thinks he's being persecuted.
So they say. And yet, when it comes down to voting, they vote MAGA every time.
That "Internal Terrorist Threat" is domestic terrorism against which there are no laws - for now. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been exposing domestic terrorist groups for years. Those groups have grown exponentially.
The Department of Homeland Security draft document: White supremacists are greatest terror threat
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/white-supremacists-terror-threat-dhs-409236
“Among DVEs [Domestic Violent Extremists], we judge that white supremacist extremists (WSEs) will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland through 2021.”
It's a good thought, but that population is HUGE.
I call Rs the party of death and I stopped voting for any R years ago.
And a duty to take action. I am now talking to myself.
Narcissistic Republicans so distort their own self-serving sense of legitimacy that their claimed right to resort to violence takes on a terrorist dimension, but I think that under the hood is an obsession with domination which has motivated tyrannies for eons. We have been fools to watch is rise so passively. It is the key problem at the root of so many others.
"but I think that under the hood is an obsession with domination which has motivated tyrannies for eons."
JL, My own (limited) experience with bullies, which, most Republicans are acting out in a similar manner as a middle school or high school bully, is that they are fearful and cowardly. That fear and sense of inadequacy that they carry forces them to want to feel superior BUT they can only feel that way with the weak because the strong frighten them easily away.
Republicans look like the high school bully to me.
A black man in TN speaks eloquently and makes the white man sound like an idiot? Silence him.
A black woman in Georgia pulls together one of the most effective campaigns in generations for governor? Well, the dumb white governor removes everyone who is black from the polls by "purging".
Bullies are with us in almost every endeavor. The (mostly man, but sometimes woman) who is so afraid of being found out as weak and dumb that they try to dominate every aspect of their involvement.
I just pulled back from a volunteer effort because of my exposure to a white woman with this problem personality. I don't need to waste my time engaging.
Sadly, the only way forward with a real bully in a situation that matters? A fistfight where the person being bullied beats the living snot out of the bully, in public if possible.
So, maybe the Pubs are right. Maybe we are headed for a fistfight.
IF so, it won't be my first.
Here’s another way— fight them in court and spread the truth that they are tying themselves to a very deranged sociopath. Gift NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/nyregion/trump-deposition-excerpts.html?unlocked_article_code=45V1FmPSC6PAUgfBuLWf-whag3XLT853Xtvi4z_w3ubmfORabtvVRYbcWT_HwiH3zESRSSQcNFwGsLQeRp3Vk8fuyg6YtxK8b7r_BTW2VrDZ9RxwCA2kPxPBttoy8s7LyUcJ6S3aMvVaNNjgf5PjSRjkLFcsmAXkYAR_cff_WbWXArsA_O_SIlYk2klt-mvsqi0uDjJ1t_VFdLjYrVDM5Va17tiBdgTXlhnnVWRaVq1DbBxpFrsTqItCMC7wpfbYTQe16IRcMKhZt6QmG2D40QtVZ0__7vBf7uzchGQJnFRpHFPDqnDuEqlZzj47DtC9buqGTWgsHnarAivqBsDuUfxmS8Y&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
A rambling, incoherent narrative. The end statement from Wallace says it all.
Thanks, Gigi, for the gift article!
My brother was bullied in school, and he told me, "Sometimes, you just have to fight. They won't leave you alone unless you do."
Agreed, but the whole philosophy of violence means the supply of bullies never ends, and their numbers ebb and flow at different times in different places, and "decent" people can have a bullying side. It seems to me that one of the most essential missions of government is to discourage abuses of power, although despotic goverment can be the primary instrument of abuse. Government is meant to arrest significant abusers and provide peaceful ways to resolve significant conflicts, though a lot of that in contingent on income. It make sense to minimize the occurrence of violence in our society, but some take pride in dispensing it. The persecution of Alexander Vindman and Ruby Freeman and her daughter is violence. The separation of immigrant families was and is violence; a crime against humanity.
" . . . the supply of bullies never ends . . ." So true. So many ways to bully others. From verbal assaults, to fights in the schoolyard, stealing lunch money, to gangs, sociopaths, fascists. My perspective on bullies in schools has broadened since Columbine. Previously, bullies were described as being isolated, insecure and frightened--maybe overcompensating for being picked on. This wasn't true for the new cohort of murderers. They were arrogant, overindulged, entitled sociopaths. They believed they had the right to do whatever they wanted. Their malignant grandiosity was so fueled by video games, movies, music, et al., that they had no sense of what death actually meant. {Side note: My students always teased me for not having a cell phone. After Columbine, they insisted I get one. They were so proud of me when I agreed. When I brought it to school, they showed me how to use it, and then many of them entered their cell numbers in my Contacts file!}
From what I can tell bullies, boys and girls, appear with each new generation in schoolyards across the world. The job of responsible citizens is to prevent and discourage abuses of power of any sort, be they a matter of asymmetric physical strength, "ganging up", misuse of money, position, or weaponry. Trump once bragged about suing a critic, claiming to know her could not win, but because is was a crushing financial burden on his critic and not for him. Abuse of governmental power is corruption and/or tyranny. Abuse of weapons and violence is Putin's invasion of Ukraine, or a mugger with a knife or gun in an alley. Abuse of power is rape. It is US racism or any unjust tyranny of the majority, or as in sexism, or Apartheid, a privileged minority. That's the principle enemy of our species, even as an enabler of climate abuse. If we fail to contain it, it could kill us all.
J L--Yes--exactly.
Theocratic white nationalist evangelicals are inherently autocratic. Straight out of the Good Book.
Sadly, they cherry-pick the things they like, and discard all the messages that promote charity, kindness, compassion, sharing, humility, love, mercy, understanding,, unity, forgiveness, sharing, gratitude, and honesty.
Without those things, though, how can they call themselves "Christian?"
they also cherry pick the virtues you itemized. Unfortunately this is not something new in the history of Christianity.
The history of Christianity and any religion I am aware of has a split history between compassion and sociopathy. MLK hung with better angels, (9/11 and burning at the stake, evil personified. As I read the words ascribed to Jesus, I see counsel against violence, yet some self-proclaimed "Christians" glory in it.
I wouldn't make such a dire split, religion plays a variety of supportive social roles. Jesus was not straightforward in his various counsels. When several Galilean towns including his base of operations Capernaum didn't live up to his expectations he cursed them all totally, saying they would be cast into a fate worse than Sodom.. why? because they didn't accept his message. "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." Matt 11, Luke 10 A very interesting man!
Exactly! Remove Civics from the school curriculum, insert the Bible and young people think Theocracy is the new normal.
Mixing church and state corrupts both.
The Founding Fathers knew that and wrote the founding documents accordingly.
Experts have known for decades that the greatest terrorist threat to the US is right wing domestic terrorism. In 2009 a Department of Homeland Security report laid out the real dangers and Republicans reacted with such a disingenuous fury that Janet Napolitano apologized and retracted it.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/inside-dhs-former-top-analyst-says-agency-bowed-political-pressure
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/02/02/right-wing-political-violence-warning
Thank you for this reminder. I think the media also sided with Republican outrage as well.
I'm sure Faux did.
And others followed suit
From the WBUR article, quoting a former DHS official: "“The far left has engaged in property destruction, they've targeted the police, but it hasn't risen to the level of deadly violence that we see from white supremacists and even militia groups plotting to kidnap governors and assassinate political figures,” he says. “So there is no apples to apples comparison.”"
So all the rhetoric about the "dangers" of the Black Lives Matter movement and "Antifa" is just a load of *%$#. They are NOT equal!
In Portland, the far left has done exactly that. However, there has always been an element there that I see as apolitical. They are only interested in trashing property for the sake of vandalism. So now whenever there is a protest of some kind, these weasels appear and give legitimate protest a bad name. Last night on the local news was a story about a guy who has been breaking windows. He has been arrested several times, but always is freed and then goes right back to breaking windows. This time, if i am remembering correctly, he is being kept in jail. The real problem, is of course, the wing nuts who have persistently tried to intimidate by swaggering around in camo with all weapons. There is also the insidious route via school boards who enact regressive politics and people who have made school board meetings almost impossible to hold in person. Last night on the national news there was a story about the Houston Public Schools being taken over and libraries being made into study halls and discipline centers. The greased pig who is heading this up walked around the reporter's questions. I noted, as a former high school librarian, that certain teachers and administrators have always viewed libraries as a place to send unruly students. I rode herd on a lot of such students. I made my views known to administrators who basically treated me as a complainer. We did have an official study hall and I ended being the bad guy when I had to ban certain students from coming to the library from the study hall.
Ah yes, I remember it well. Those good old administrators had their own special ways of bullying teachers.
Exactly so.
Thank you, Alexandra, for providing these extremely informative links. The back story is always important to know.
That's what this LFAA community is so good for. It stupefies me that a DHS report was actually suppressed by the party that is responsible for this threat. That's fascism in a nutshell.
If only the dems would of been paying attention the last 50 years, if only they would of paid attention and stood up for Howard Dean's 50 state strategy. If only the dem party would not of sidelined Bernie Sanders. But still I vote blue no matter who but it gets very tiring. Look what they did to themselves and this country..........
Unfortunately this is true. Many of us were apathetic. We voted blue, knew Reagan was a puppet (especially those from California knew this well), and were very busy in our own lives, or working locally, not nationally. We never expected such an unbelievable greedy crook would take over -- Not in AMERICA! Democracy must be participated in to work, and the crooks that have been in office since we were kids got further and further away from the People, and more into their little greedy clicks, constantly trying to one-up each other and forgetting who they were and what they were elected to do. Term limits should be required at ALL levels of government, including the Supreme Court.
Thanks, Alexandra!
You’re right, that’s exactly what it is! They are doing their best to scrape it off onto us but they completely own it!
Subscribers, please forgive me for jumping the line, but I do have important news that is on the front page of today's New York Times. (excerpt)
'Under oath and under fire, Donald J. Trump sat for a seven-hour interview with the New York attorney general’s office in April, part of the civil fraud case against him and his company.'
'But as lawyers from the office grilled Mr. Trump on the inner-workings of his family business, which is accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars, he responded with a series of meandering non sequiturs, political digressions and self-aggrandizing defenses.'
'Asked about his authority at the Trump Organization while he was in the White House, Mr. Trump responded that he considered the presidency “the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives.”
'“I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” he explained, and then added: “And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”
'Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination when initially questioned by the office last year, he answered questions from the attorney general, Letitia James, and her lawyers in the April deposition, a transcript of which was unsealed on Wednesday.' (NewYorkTimes) See gifted link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/nyregion/trump-deposition-excerpts.html?unlocked_article_code=VuVwpqby8u4vLRE3FcpS05N2mRTvC5pr8FaMfSVZPAoFxRsnStiHqQxwxQyJNcBwY65GqFVk51eSZcl6xIVcNgbXBki93czVYURsdNNx8_BYWANIMbGalmywvuUKxq4ZB_543_eesOLxGJqmXInAXb4WboSB6d68OC2zuePOgxhiA5YgL2VxJBAmWHwU_Bd-d-HbDuD4-5h4ahT40Nv9ObCCfgMYi_oTttCoY79T1cruaqB3GljZDrBdj55hV6PFP4J48q-bs42YuBBo7uh7EpxIoOsNTqgC21sw7jAMddPss2T4gF248V4-KTy0_2vgUSfoyUJVnW03zFA2NSeoINHHu1w&smid=url-share
I guess Putin must have let his pet boy (tRUMP) know that he might use nuclear weapons because he is losing his ill fated war with Ukraine under Biden.
So, when Trump becomes President he will immediately stop support for Ukraine (because his Daddy Putin told him to) BUT he will claim he is saving the world from nuclear war instead of just being Putin's pet dog.
Good comment, but do you have to conflate the former guy with a body part that is an oft very attractive secondary sex characteristic, which originally evolved as one of a suite of body parts that enable us to run? (H. sapiens is the only primate with buttocks, and the only primate that can run. Other adaptations for running include the nuchal ligament, the achilles tendon, the ability to sweat, and relative hairlessness compared to most other mammals. Running enabled us to chase prey animals until we wore them out. Harvard's Daniel Lieberman is the major student of this.
Hi Fern. I see you already shared this article 3 hours ago! I just started reading it (before starting my games) a few minutes ago and had to stop reading to share. It’s jaw dropping and belongs on the front page of all responsible msm. Let’s hope everyone reads and shares. Now going back to read the rest. 😳😱🤯
Wow! He's "the most honest person in the world"?!?! Laughable.
Yup, a 215 pound package of virtue.
Somehow I think it's 250+ pounds... ;)
I saw an old video of him from 2017 when he said he weighed 235, and he was much slimmer then, so I think you're right.
Thank you, Fern.
Fern-Thanks so much for sharing the article. I've posted it to my political FB groups.
No doubt because he knows he is losing, he might as well have the world blow up.
Trump is compelled to demonstrate his existence and value. It is reflected in his endless presence.
Fern, I just found this word, new to me, "misogynoir." A particular hatred aimed at black women, especially those in government. Yikes!
Hope, I do not know how far you have gotten with your learning of 'misogynoir'. I thought, perhaps, this would interest you. I read it on one of Northwestern University's websites.
'How many words are in the English language? No one truly knows. Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States, estimates there are over a million words. Whatever the number, add one more. “Misogynoir” — the newest word included in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary — was coined by Northwestern’s School of Communication associate professor Moya Bailey.'
'What is misogynoir?'
'Misogynoir brings together the words “misogyny” and “noir,” the latter meaning “black” in French. Bailey, who teaches in the department of communication studies, first used misogynoir in a 2010 posting to the Crunk Feminist Collective blog to describe the specific type of oppression that Black women experience often characterized by a combination of racism and sexism.'
“The real root of misogynoir is how people perceive and treat Black women and understand them to be worthy of respect and care,” Bailey said. “Changes have to happen at the structural level of our society, not just the individual behaviors.” (By Steven J. Lewis, Northwestern In the News, for Journalism)
I am not an expert concerning D. Trump's personality. My personal opinion is that hatred seems baked into his nature and directed at his enemies as he perceives the threats, which cover a wide variety of human beings; it could be directed at anyone.
Salud, Hope.
Thank you, Fern. Once again I am astounded by your repertoire of information. Keep on keeping on...
Thanks, as always, Fern, for sharing such fascinating info!
The Republican Party has become the American Taliban.
Yes, this is definitely true.
They are THE MAFIA and the RICO Act is appropriately applied to each and every one of them. Our Justice Department helps stave off the Republican desires and the tension is between democracy and being a third world oligarchy.
Linda, I think of the Republicans more as the Ku Klux Klan, because in large part it is primarily built on hatred - hatred of Blacks, Hispanics, Females, Gays, Immigrants and Jews. "White Protestant supremacy now, white Protestant supremacy forever. " Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland," about the rise of the KKK in the Midwest in the 1920's is eery when comparing it with the rise of MAGA in the 2020's. They're the same.
I just finished reading that book. Frightening! I agree with you, Richard, that KKK and MAGA today “They’re the same”. Maybe the only difference is today they don’t wear white robes and pointed white hoods!
It is scary and sad. Next, “The Anger Games:Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election and Why?” Google it.
Richard, thanks for the book recommendation. I also recommend Prof Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. She discusses the rise of what we are now seeing post Vietnam war. It is an important book to get the big picture of the people involved and how the Republican party is increasingly or perhaps at this point, solely filled with these people.
Thank you for this reference to Kathleen Belew's book. I will order it. Right now I am re-reading Thomas Frank's book, "What's the Matter with Kansas," how the wealthy use (still doing it) wedge issues to get average Americans to vote against their own best economic interests.
Except this time there is ample Catholicism at work. All conservative SCOTUS justices, Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society and the Kochs, school vouchers to private religious schools and the end of separation of state and religion...Billions of dollars for rising to fascism
Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has probably inflicted more torture on more people than any other entity or person in history. Mussolini, Hitler and DeSantis were and are Catholics. So, sadly, no surprise.
Richard and Deborah, they are the same, indeed, even to the point of saying the quiet part out loud and not caring who hears them.
So, what we have is so-called Christians voting for Trump because they are more in line with what Trump "preaches" than they are with what Jesus preached: "Even as you do it unto the least of these . . ." Racism trumps love and caring.
I am glad you say "so-called Christians," because I have been reading articles that many of the Evangelicals and followers of Trump and his ilk are complaining that they don't want to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ because they are too "WOKE!" Well, if you don't believe in Jesus then you are not a Christian, but it seems like another case of the Emperor's New Clothes, where no one dares to stand up to these people and tell them they are not Christians, and cannot have tax exemption. Can you get tax exempt status if your religion is worshipping Trump? I hope not with my tax dollars.
Linda, that is a real hornet's nest. They shouldn't, but who wants to challenge it and become a marked person?
‘So-called’, yes. They use His words like a sledgehammer, without a thought to what they mean. I don’t call them Christians; they are hypocrites at best.
Camilla, the problem is that these people get to pretend they are Christians and represent Christianity, which is the world' dominant religion. They get catered to for this status, which is totally not real. The Emperor is wearing no clothing and instead of waiting for the children to point it out, which they are doing, we adults should be doing it for them.
Stephen, I just glanced at your comment and my mind read the first sentence as “Time to face Fasicsts”….before I quickly realized my mistake….or maybe not!
Respectfully, they aren’t a “front”, they’re a terrorist organization, period.
Interesting thought - a terrorist organization. You know, I think that they are. They clearly want to replace our democratic system with one controlled by white Christian fanatics (or so-called Christians), attacking Jews, Muslims, immigrants, waging war on female rights, circumventing the democratic process (one person, one vote, majority rule) by gerrymandering districts and disqualifying others.
Your comment reminds me of the poem from World War Two era, They came for…
Interestingly, German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) at first sympathized with many Nazi ideas, but in 1933, he changed his mind because of Hitler’s actions against the church. Because he spoke out about the error of his own previous beliefs as well as the silent complicity of the German people, he was repeatedly arrested and spent eight years in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. After the war, he lectured extensively using his famous statement as a confession of his own inadequacy, and to urge others to stand up to injustice. For more info: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists
___________
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Thank you for the history on the origin of the quote.
They are Nazi-like, aren’t they?
Yes they are.
Nazi-like is Nazi!
SPOT ON.
The Republican party has become the American Taliban.
I call them the New American Nazi Party, to differentiate from the old one. The Nazi party had a certain agenda, and it seems similar to the one we are seeing the Republican party and the titans of industry here backing. German corporate owners funded the Nazis thinking they would serve them but they get taken over and killed by them in some cases.
Agreed. They are truly dangerous
I agree, but the Republicans are a collection of people, not an abstract group. We thinking people, as opposed to believing people must discover and correct the aspects of society that rewards this evil behavior, else we just complain.
A mob is a collection of people who have made themselves into an abstract group. Nazis were a collection of people who made themselves into an abstract group. The mob that trashed our nation's capitol in 2021 were a collection of people.
Mob mentality is real https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-a-mob-mentality. Take a look at the lynch mobs in the South the cheerfully tortured black people to death, brought their kids, and made a part of it. "Social" media make it easier for individuals to become part of a mob. Once that happens, you can't reason with individual members of the mob. You can only defend yourself against them.
Most of the MAGA are older people. They’ll be racists for the rest of their lives.
They are acting like a cult. That is why one no longer sees them as individuals.
Time to investigate the people that fund them!
Perfect. Brief and to the point. Now for the rest of us to muster the guts and stop the pretending to confront their mind fucking.
Oh my dear God, I cannot read beyond the first paragraph. I live in Ireland where gun-related incidents are very, very rare, especially since the Good Friday Agreement, whereby the IRA and other organisations laid down their weapons and released us all from the hell of the Troubles, 1969 to 1994.
I will come back and read the rest later, but my Heart and Prayers go out to all those in the United States who suffer from gun violence. May it end soon, I pray, may it end soon....
I'll repeat this as many times as I have to... 1) There is no Republican Party. They are now the MAGANAZI Party. 2) The southern evangelical churches are front organizations for the Ku Klux Klan. 3) The go-to coping mechanism for the MAGANAZI base is violence.
I think that the problem is that trumpers do not know what fascism, socialism, authoritarianism, etc. are. They call democrats communists or fascists. They don't know what they are supporting. When they do, it will be too late.
I believe you're spot on with that thought; they don't know what they're angry, resentful, and afraid of. They don't understand that for instance, even if Bernie, a social democrat as I think he's called himself is no threat. Even if the whole party were socialist democrats, it would still be no threat. The thing, the big thing that differentiates this country and has saved it several times, is the checks and balances (unless they get rigged), and separation of powers.
If people knew what the various political types were they could make a rational decision. trumpers don't realize that trump/republicans want to decimate our government and have no checks and balances. One person controls every thing. trump wants to run the US like Putin runs Russia.
Bernie makes a mistake calling himself a Social Democrat. He should have called himself a Progressive Capitalist. That’s what he is.
Yes. Progressive Capitalist. Exactly. And that has been his downfall--and thus, ours. It's so frustrating that such a brilliant humanitarian--and his advisors--couldn't understand the importance of effective marketing.
Yes, frustrating, even exasperating. Frankly, Michelle was simply wrong: "When they go low, we go high." What we need to do is go direct, directly to the ways in which their focus is being diverted by wedge issues. But, then, racism gets mixed in and that makes the task more narrow. There are still more of us than them, but the case in Georgia where the legislators there wanted to weaponize the system to remove Fani Willis is a reminder to us that the "South isn't dead yet." It's trying to make a comeback.
Just the way so many "good" people became nazis.
But they do know whom and what they support - a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic malignant narcissist.
The Rs that I know are wealthy, low-info, shallow thinkers who erroneously believe T will protect their money. The other stuff never penetrates their bubble. Unfortunately, there are plenty of them in Las Vegas--mission central for right-wing Rs.
I agree!! Many here on the forum look for the daily YouTube clips from "Beau of the Fifth Column" and he has a lot of people who, as he would put it, think differently from him. I don't know how to contact him, but I sure wish he'd do a clip EXPLAINING these to viewers. A series on each one, which also then could be added to social media accounts. Anyone reading this who knows how to reach him, (or perhaps even knows him personally?) please advise. I think his 3 minute clips are palatable for even the most impatient viewers, and as the GOP/MAGA heats up for the election, these labels are going to be tossed about quite often.
I keep saying: Lincoln should have let the South go.
Or better, Andrew Johnson should have appropriately punished the treasonous seditionists so they could not renew their control of the South. In so many ways the nation keeps fighting that same Civil War.
Picking Andrew Johnson as his running mate was one of Lincoln's biggest mistakes. My strong impression was that Johnson was deliberately enabling the seditionists.
Didn't Lincoln deliberately choose Johnson in order to placate and cultivate Southern support? It was a Faustian bargain that we're still paying for.
Well said, Joanne: "A Faustian bargain that we're still paying for." But to be fair, a lot of people were fooled by Johnson. Being a poor white Southerner he had such a resentment against the planter aristocracy that Republicans (which at the time were the good guys) believed he would be hard on the Confederate traitors. Instead, Johnson required all the slaveowners to come to Washington and grovel to him for a pardon.
And pardon them he did.
This mess was all about his ego, nothing more. Sound familiar?
That seems to be a common strategy in presidential campaigns, but a very poor one. The VP should be the ideal understudy to take the presidents role if and when needed.
Faustian might be a tad strong of a word Joanne. The civil war didn't begin and end all that led up to it, nor obviously what we still have yet today. For sure it was a calculation by Lincoln and his best advisors, based on many things; olive branch - sure, but more. See this for more if you like, via Smithsonian. Cheers > https://americanhistory.si.edu/lincoln/election-1864
Joanne, exactly so! Just like the founding fathers had before him, Lincoln was trying to knit together the vastly different culture and businesses of the South with the North and made some pretty bold moves to do so, up to and including going to war. Choosing Andrew Johnson as a running mate was just such a choice. I fear these are choices that are necessary in such a diverse and powerful nation!
I'm pretty sure you're right. Thanks for that.
I agree.
Indeed Carmen; I have been saying in this space that there has never been meaningful enough consequences for anti-american actions; I cited the more recent of actions, but the hate, greed, sordidness, etc., goes back much further - even beyond the civil war, as we shall learn and have learned here and elsewhere. For the life of me, I don't think I'll ever be able to adequately comprehend what drives and sustains the evil within them and the monied coalitions that support them and their aims. Most likely the monied supporters figure they'll get what they want in the end - likely dominion, power, and money, as compensation for their participation.. One wonders if they could hold on to what they think they gained in such an end. Let's sustain the good fight, is all I know I can do. Peace....
Hindsight is always 20/20, of course. But the losers should have been subjected to Nuremberg-style trials and hanged for what they did. Instead, they were sent home and allowed to keep their weapons, horses, and lands. They weren’t punished at all. They realized they could mount an armed insurrection against the government and come close to succeeding.
Yes, and that's why I hope so fervently that today's felons, if proven to be so, will enjoy absolutely no quarter or mercy that we'd continue to suffer from; especially considering that we still have a rigged SCOTUS that needs dealt with for posterity sake, and ours.
Republicans in name only (essentially the entire party) have been actively been summoning up the ghost of the Confederacy as part of their partisan power play.
I may be wrong, but I think as I go about educating folks to facts in evidence, I've also got to be patient enough to listen; some grievances of individuals following the anger and resentment have nothing to do with Confederate grievances. Some do, usually the professional instigator types, who'll take the argument back to the original State cessions in the early 1800's when some of the original 13 colonies had major land claims west of the Appalachians, all the way to the Mississippi River. However, in the end it still comes down to honor, and honoring pledges made before their day, to hang together or separately in becoming a Union.
Agreed listening is essential to "liberty and justice for all". Democracy must be a conversation, or it won't work. That's becoming harder as the scale of society grows. You remind me to pay more attention to "listening" as a crucial social dynamic and driver of justice. I recall Desmond Tutu saying something about truth (telling one's "truth" and having it heard) was key to reconciliation, and he appeared to prove it.
It is tempting to oversimplify, especially in a venue such as this, but Confederate mythology appears to play a major role in the"GOP's" power plays. Thus they invoke and protect it.
Or better yet, he should have been assassinated.
What would have been the result of an assassination?
Ouch! No doubt the damage he did has persisted to the present. Not a fan of murder as a solution.
I agree but we are the most violent nation on earth. And for that one moment in the history of time when Lincoln made that bad decision.
It's not just the south anymore. The republicans have become a malignant, metastatic mass of hatred, lies, self delusion, and destruction with one intention...destroy everything and everyone...including themselves. Palin's threats of civil war have revealed the mainline republican craving. There is no UNITED STATES in their alternate reality. And in their zeal to drag us back to a divisive history they are destroying themselves, just as the Civil War did. HATE DESTROYS HATE. It is no longer a fringe movement...it has become their main intention.
And then there are millions and millions in the South who are as liberal as can be. (Myself included.)
Millions?
Yes actually there are millions of us liberals in the south. You just don't notice us for all the rabid, screaming trumpicans. But we are quietly going about the business of building our numbers.
David, I have long felt the same way. Think of all the DNA that was lost on the battlefield whether from bullets or disease. All the families that were destroyed. And for what?
If the North had permanently occupied the South with troops and established new institutions that gave full representation to Blacks, perhaps the effort would have been justified. But it would have required a lot more blood letting. The nation was exhausted and just wanted it to end. So now we pay the price for that fatigue.
There should have been accountability and consequences! Those who lynched should have been arrested and punished. The leaders of that evil war should have been prosecuted and punished. Examples made. Flying or displaying the Confederate battle flag should have been a crime. A price to be paid for treason! Maybe, then we could have justified all that blood letting. Maybe.
And maybe not. Maybe the same bigotry would have just been pushed down a little further - emerging again like a cancer that can't be conquered.
But it's all too late for those considerations. Millions of very fine people live in the South. And the North is also infested with that "Plantation Attitude". It's not simple on a regional basis.
All we can do now is outvote them. And shame them. And continue to condemn them. Trump is a symbol. He is about to be crushed. And with a lot of effort we will have a Blue Trifecta in 2024.
There will ALWAYS be MAGANAZIs. It's like playing whack a mole. But we have no choice but to keep whacking. Eventually, they will be an ever more shrunken minority. Demographics and education are on our side.
But doesn't it really feel like the Civil War never ended? Heather's book explains "How the South Won the Civil War". Yet the battles continue...
I agree with you , Bill, but when you say "shame them"?? They have no shame.
Trump surely does not, a trait of a sociopath.
Miselle: Exactly!
It is never too late. FL and TX have been acting like different countries. No more FEMA, and they won't have to worry about Biden visiting them.
Not all Floridians support what the governor and legislature are doing here. Some of us are stuck here and are outnumbered.
We have friends who live down there. I hate to make generalizations because one size doesn't fit all. I would find it difficult to leave my state. My kids, grandchildren all live here. I was born a raised here, even bought the house my parents bought 1963 Big time ties. Fortunately I like cool/cold weather and dislike the hot humid weather I have experienced in FL. BTW our library has a display of banned books :)
No, but it was just the South back at the time of the Civil War. If Lincoln had let the South go, it would have been a numerically small country, and probably the North would have ended up with most of what's west of the Mississippi River, and the rednecks wouldn't be all over the Rocky Mountain west.
Many industries in the North benefited from slavery and were not in a hurry to see it end. Some northern states recognized slave ownership for southern folks who moved north and brought their slaves. "Slavery was a dominant feature of the antebellum South, but it was also pervasive in the pre-Civil War North—the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have a history of slavery." For more info see: https://www.history.com/news/slavery-new-england-rhode-island#
This is horrifying.
Massachusetts did send the first all Black regiment into the Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts, and from my own reading, I'm skeptical about slavery in Massachusetts at least in the 19th century. I've read alot about John Murray Forbes' life, a railroad magnate who built a few ships pro-bono for the Union, and went to England in 1863 both to get loans for the union and to do informal diplomacy to try to keep the British from going into the Civil War on the Southern side, and I think if there's been slavery in Mass in the 19th century, I would have found out about it from that reading.
And Nevada, and Michigan, and parts of California, and . . .
Sorry--didn't understand the exclusivity of you post. I was just adding to the list of places where the southern racist, weapon-toting mentality still thrives.
And just keep on repeating it, Greg! This is the Truth, and cannot be spoken too often, or to too many people.
Said Gov. Jay Inslee in 2021 “We have to be Paul Revere every chance we get to let people know what is at risk and why it is at risk. We live it. Every time we eat breakfast we think about these things,” Governor Jay Inslee of Washington told CNN.
“I don’t think you can be overly concerned about this. The American psyche has not recognized we were one vice-president away from a coup.”
I really like and admire what he said, and he is so right. What is he doing these days JL ? :*edit in = never mind JL, I looked him up. Admirable man.
He ran for president aboard a strongly environmental message, but it didn't sell. Like Carter, he is not a strong TV performer.
Too intelligent.
Outstanding post! I have the deepest respect for Governor Inslee. His final sentence is POWERFUL.
Well said!
Completely agree with point number one and three.
Thank you, Christopher, for your concern and for your prayers. We are rapidly sinking into an abyss of violence and racism, and I don't know how we are going to get free. Bless you.
Christopher, As with so many others, I am deeply grateful for your compassion. Regrettably, gun violence in the States and the Second Amendment are inextricably linked. Starting back in the seventies, and culminating with District of Columbia v. Heller, wherein the Supreme Court, in 2008, held (5-4) that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to possess firearms, a fraud of immeasurable proportion was perpetrated on the American people.
To clarify, I start with the Amendment’s text: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Note, first, that the 5 purported Originalists arbitrarily determined that “well-regulated” referred exclusively to “Militia,” and not to “people.” Equally egregious, a quick glance at the Fourth Amendment would have confirmed that our Founders designated the term “persons” when referring to the individual and “people” when referring to the collective.
I don’t mean to offend, but prayers will not help. We need to educate increasingly more people about how the High Court, willfully, perpetrated a deceptive and distorted interpretation of the Second Amendment. Perhaps, then, we’ll have a shot at getting it repealed.
It is hard for me to see how one can claim in good conscience that an goon with a gun should do almost anything they like with it. I've lost count of the number of right wingers who told me that the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms so we can fight AGAINST the goverment if we decide we sufficiently disagree with it, but the Constitution says:
"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;"
That sounds nothing whatsoever like MAGA cosplaytriot paramilitary groups.
Several things to note about what you said:
1. The Militia is a military unit of government, not of Americans at large. As such, Militias must be formed, commanded, funded, and controlled by government. Citizens cannot form Militias on their own; those are private armies, which are forbidden by law in all 50 states.
2. The Second Amendment protects the right of individual Americans to own and use weapons for any LAWFUL purpose, including but not limited to service in a government Militia. Since insurrection and rebellion are, per the Constitution, unlawful, anyone who takes up arms against the government cannot claim that 2A immunizes them against criminal charges. Individuals are free to own and use weapons to their hearts' content, but cannot use them illegally.
3. So a goon with a gun cannot, by law, Constitution, or Bill of Rights, use their guns to commit crimes.
4. Under the 1A right of free association, people can form clubs and call themselves Militias if they wish. But the moment this club points a gun at another citizens and orders them to do or not do something, they will be arrested on felony charges. These so-called citizen Militias are just bowling leagues with guns, they have zero authority to enforce anything.
I like this, Shane. I'd add that with rights come responsibilities. You have the right to own a gun. You have the responsibility to make sure it is used in a lawful manner.
" I'd add that with rights come responsibilities."
We should emblazon that one on our money, along with E Pluribus Unum.
100 percent agree. Good news is that literally 99.9 percent of American gun owners do just that, using their weapons safely and responsibly. Bad news is that 0.1 percent of 320 million Americans is a lot of potentially irresponsible users.
The tricky part is crafting laws and programs that curb the 0.5 percent--criminals, the suicidal, and fools--without stepping on the 2A rights of the 99.9 percent who play by the rules.
Source for this statistic? " . . . literally 99.9 percent of American gun owners do just that, . . ."
Well stated Shane. *edit > In your words that should be posted online, in every newspaper left, and broadcast outlets, across the nation. jmho
Thank you for this, D4N, I appreciate your thoughtfulness. It's the right of every non-felonious and non-mentally-ill American to own guns. It's the responsibility of every gun owner to not use their weapons illegally. The same goes for every right--use them responsibly and you'll get no beef from me.
Shane appreciate your clarity. And continuing D4N's response .... the clarity of your info, esp. #4 should be placed boldly on giant billboards across our nation!!!!
Great post. Also it’s reassuring to look at gun murders in the US over time which have decreased considerably per capita. If gun laws were actually enforced and appropriate prison sentences were administered we could really see a more significant decrease.
Agreed except that I recall when a man brandishing several guns and a fack jacket showed up at a shopping mall, the area was evacuated. He was arrested, but on other charges. The news claimed that technically he was within his rights. When a black man picked up a BB gun being sold at a Walmart, he was shot dead as a perceived threat. I recall the arrest of an individual who bought a military surplus practice bomb (a mock up) and tried to take it home in a bus. The Bundy Gang who menaced officials with rifles was found innocent of breaking the law. We don't seem to know if we're coming or going on weapons, except that a lot of POC get shot.
So tragically true.
All true, and all maddening and heartbreaking. Just because one has the absolute right to do something (walk around with a rifle on one's back) doesn't mean one always should. I have the right to play bagpipes in my yard from noon to 1 every day. But if it will wake my neighbor who works nights and sleep days, I should go to a park instead.
One of the few gun-control measures for which I would vote is banning open carry of weapons. Since every state now permits concealed carry, every American has a way to carry a weapon for self-protection. That eliminates the need for open carry, and I would advise that we follow through.
Openly displaying weapons--particularly rifles--makes passersby nervous. They're right to feel that way. Someone willing to bully the people around him because "mah rights" is not a person I entirely trust. People should be able to eat their pancakes without worrying whether Jeb With the Rifle and Combat Clothes is going to order the Grand Slam or open fire.
Such fear is corrosive, and since concealed carry is universally available, I'd get rid of open carry. Bonus? It's damn near impossible to fit an AR-15 under a T-shirt, so gun carriers will leave their rifles at home and carry less-powerful handguns.
Concealing one's weapons while in public will also reduce the number of excuses police have to shoot people "guilty" only of Walking While Black.
Should I post this on Senator Daines or Rep Rosendale of MT fb page, the avalanche of replies from ration to obscene would bury me! These are not rational people!
Oh, yes, that's exactly what you'll get--an avalanche of happy shiny people saying "well done, Carole, we agree!"
/s of course. Every time I post this view on social media other than Heather I get the avalanche of hate from both sides. Leftists claim I'm a gun nut who enjoys the smell of murdered children--yes, an actual quote--and rightists rant I'm an unAmerican Communist who wants to take their guns.
In reality, I'm a liberal who likes guns, uses them responsibly, and knows what the Militia clause and 2A actually mean.
Very well put!
Which "Leftists" made that claim? Someone who spouts vile anti-gun insults is not necessarily a "leftist."
So sad . . .
I'm adding No. 5 as I wait for the pancakes portion of my breakfast . . .
5. The Founders needlessly complicated this issue by using the term "militia" for two different things. They called the government military units authorized to enforce our laws "the militia," but also called all the citizens eligible to be drafted into those units to serve as soldiers "the militia."
Since the citizens in the militia pool can't take any action on their own--they must be drafted into a government-authorized fighting militia to have the legal power to enforce laws--the Founders would have been smart to use a different term for them: "American Reserve" or somesuch. "National Guard" is taken, alas.
Two names for two functions would take the wind out of the sails of people who insist that since they're part of the militia--and they are, we all are, you, me, Heather, we're all Minutemen--they are entitled to pick up weapons and push people around legally. No, they can't.
Because I know you from elsewhere, Shane, and these people do not, I need to stand up and disagree with your basic premise that you're a good guy with a gun.
You don't know anything about me, Alexandra, and don't pretend you do. I didn't claim to be a "good guy with a gun." I support the right of Americans to own and use guns lawfully. You do not, as you believe nobody should own guns.
Oh yes, I do. I know very specific details about you and if there were a process for objecting to a man owning a gun I would be very happy to testify as to why some men should not be allowed to own guns.
I don't believe NO ONE should own guns. But I am going to object every time I see an instance of your self-reporting that you are a good guy and that 99.9% of gun owners are good guys.
Tragically evocative of "Bowling for Columbine."
@J L Graham, in my view, you’re well on your way to powerfully mounting the argument opposing the “right wingers,” to whom you refer, by invoking Constitutional text “[t]hat sounds nothing whatsoever like MAGA… paramilitary groups.”
I dunno, I was thrilled by JL's use of "cosplatriot" in describing the MAGAt wannabees.
Ally, I deleted “cosplaytriot” because I considered it a distracting ad hominem attack, attacking the character of the referenced persons rather than the argument itself.
Barbara Jo Krieger: Good point--but it was a particularly apt linguistic label!
Like, where is this discipline prescribed by Congress;"
I remain furious that a so called Supreme Court was able to justify increased gun violence on the second half of the second amendment.
Addressing the second amendment without reference to the role of the militia is a fragment not a decision.
Had we a Congress with any character this obscene promotion of lethal peril would have been immediately corrected. But we suffer the very deadly results of a legislature poisoned with the Gun Industry and Republican vacuity.
Art, I share your outrage and also would note I particularly was struck by how you characterized the ruling as “a fragment not a decision.”
Alito himself failed to quote the amendment choosing to focus on the Republican half.
Art, While you and I clearly are on the same page, I minimally would modify your statement to read, “choosing to focus on the…half” that fed his self serving impulses.
..And much more; Roe vs Wade, Citizen's United, etc. ad nauseum. We need new standards and tests for SCOTUS, as well accountability and consequences that don't exist.
@D4N, While, of course, you’re right, I hesitate to dilute my reply to Christopher’s dismay over gun violence in the States by packing my response with a host of other issues.
I get it Barb, and I 'get' your reasons, having admired your contributions here since you joined in. I read and reacted; I mean the list just keeps growing doesn't it ? Brava ~
SCOTUS ruled correctly on the Second Amendment, so it is neither a deceptive nor a distorted interpretation. 2A has always protected the right of individual Americans to own and use guns; that right is not tied to service in a government Militia.
What the "we need guns to topple the government!" freaks ignore is that 2A only protects the LAWFUL use of weapons. Since the Constitution specifically spells out insurrection and rebellion as crimes, individual Americans who use their guns against government are criminals who can and should arrested and thrown into prison if convicted.
Finally, "people" and "persons" are used interchangeably to refer to individual Americans. 1st and 2nd Amendments both use "people" to refer to individuals: "The right of the people to freely assemble" in the 1st, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" in the 2nd. In both cases those are individuals, not a collective. Since you brought up the 4th, that text uses both terms: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Both terms address individuals, not a collective.
Which makes sense---the Constitution spells out what government can do, the Bill of Rights spells out what government is prohibited from doing.
Shane, Because I neither agree, for reasons cited, that the five Justices “ruled correctly on the Second Amendment” nor that our founders, given my textual understanding, enlisted the terms “people” and “persons” randomly “to refer to individual Americans,” I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Oh, that's fine, Barbara. I don't insist anyone agree with me on anything, I'm only presenting what I believe to be true.
Shane, I believe each of us is doing the same and, consequently, often, though not always, are exerting a meaningful impact on one another’s thinking and subsequent actions.
Well said, and agreed. Best thing about these forums is seeing intelligent people lay out their arguments and proofs and weighing them against our own.
Barbara, thanks for keeping us on track. I appreciate your knowledgeable responses.
I also hope we have a SHOT at repealing the Second Amendment.
But isn't it too late? The country is massively saturated with weapons of war. These wouldn't be turned in without a fight. Still worth doing, though.
Lisa, In response, I defer to President Lincoln’s views on political persuasion, particularly to his thoughts related to the power of molding public sentiment. “Public sentiment,” Lincoln stated, is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
All I can say is that a lack of education combined with biased media and a culture war make changing public sentiment a distant fantasy from my perspective.
Lisa, In my view, the one piece you’re leaving out is a presidency that takes full advantage of the bully pulpit.
Maybe. For better or worse. But many of our most eloquent persuaders have been hated by the right (FDR) or shot dead (Lincoln, JFK, MLK).
I agree, and think effective presidents and other leaders can help us to focus and collaborate on what matters. For their part, they must articulate a compelling vision around which support may gather.
What will be remembered is vivid articulation of timeless values and and appealing, actionable goals, like in the fragments of text and speeches delivered in the past that now linger and endure in our memories. There is also an essential place for reports and policy, but aspiration enables inspiration.
If enough people believe real change is needed it is likely to happen. It's a big IF, but prediction of the future is always iffy, even though some trends have a lot of momentum.
Lisa, you are hitting on the one aspect of this centuries-old conflict in values, the media we have now which didn't exist in this form before. For the first time in history we don't have the printed page but rather we have a pantheon of algorithm-driven "news" outlets which can provide whatever brand or slant of "news" you wish to read or hear but which all have in common, a design to keep readers engaged and coming back. As we have often bemoaned in these pages, "what bleeds leads." But somewhat less dramatically, whatever deals with controversial or shocking topics or stances is more likely to get readers and listeners to click on it, again and again. It is the essence of what keeps TFG in the news day after day, week after week, year after year. I fear it may be a fundamental flaw of capitalism which becomes almost impossible to balance or offset with government restraint and regulation, which is to say a government "of, by and for the people." This is the truly new thing we must grapple with more successfully if we are to ever hope for "an educated public."
I'm thinking news crafted to draw attention, but focusing on positive things the left is doing. Done in an attractive attention-grabbing way, especially by contrasting what came before with the new improvements that Biden and the Democrats are making. Take a page from successful children's shows and Faux news itself. I think cable has more impact than social media because it's the source of new information, in our case truthful. Social media seems more focused on soliciting opinion and makes a good follow-up to TV or radio. I don't believe that the right are prone to read in depth.
I agree and add that I think the gun, though it be a ready means to violence, is not so important as the presumed right to use deadly force to work one's will. I believe that there are defensive, emergency situations where deadly force is justified, but only as a last resort. Some people want to kill https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/a-day-with-killology-police-trainer-dave-grossman/
My thoughts and feeling align with yours JL.
@J L Graham, I just read your enclosed Balko piece and believe it does a stunning job of enumerating the dire consequences of not addressing qualified immunity that virtually shields law enforcement officials from personal liability for their actions, even if unconstitutional.
Balko piece ? Is that a WaPo opinion post ? I can't read WaPo due to the paywall. Please articulate a bit about it so I can look elsewhere, if you will = or JL if he will ? Thx *edit > I have a bil brother and a soon to be son in law that are officers. Qualified immunity comes up in conversations at times; bil brother is angry with challenges to it. I listen and struggle.
Well, now... Back story:
I was hired as a Deputy Sheriff in 1985, assigned to the jail, as almost all new hires were that lacked prior law enforcement experience. My "hire group" had 12 people in it as we were the first group of new hires since the department rehired all of the deputies it had laid off in the early 80's when timber revenue all but stopped. I was assigned to patrol in 1987, and retired as a patrol deputy in 2013, having served as a sergeant in an "acting in capacity" role intermittently consistently from 1998-2003. I became a "Survival Skills" instructor in 1994 with an emphasis on training deputies in use of force applications that were not firearms related. From 2008-2013 I was our department's legal use of force expert and provided assessments of use of force, mostly from jail lawsuits, for the county counsel to use in its defense of these lawsuits. I attended Caliber Press's "Street Survival Seminars" 3 times between 1989 and 2005, and attended several classes taught by Lt. Col. Grossman 1998-2010. I developed our use of force curriculum with another deputy in 2006 that became part of our revised General Orders up through 2021 when they were revised in response to case law and some other focal changes in department philosophy.
My motivation for becoming a UoF Instructor was simple: We were seldom trained, and when we did get training, it was presented by guys who were students of martial arts, who were very proficient at several different disciplines, and taught techniques that required a LOT of dedicated practice to maintain proficiency. My focus initially was with finding techniques that required gross motor skills, were easier to master, and would work for the deputy that was at work at 3:00 a.m. after insufficient sleep, and hadn't been to the gym recently. As I got more involved, I started focusing on the components of both force justification and documentation (writing good reports) and the best ways to handle the emotional and psychological reactions to different use of force incidents.
Front story: I got lots of good information from Grossman's classes on how to prepare people for having to use deadly force in the defense of self/others, and cultivating a "survival mindset" that recognized the traumatic impact of direct interpersonal human violence (whether in a deadly force situation or in one requiring personal defense skills) and how to mitigate the psychological reactions. I also became involved in our Peer Support team, which is rooted in the ICISF* model of defining critical incidents and how to handle them in a way that keeps your department and your personnel healthy.
There are valuable nuggets of information in both those trainings, Caliber Press and Grossman's "bullet proof mind" and "killology." They are NOT the main course of those trainings, however. The "Warrior Mindset" did a nice job bringing situational awareness to average cops who frequently overlooked obvious personal danger risks in their citizen encounters. It succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in creating a culture where the warrior mentality is taken as gospel and not critically examined. I think that I was able to impart the positive components of those trainings, and to identify that "just because you can doesn't mean you should" when it came to use of force options.
My great grandfather who shared my first and last name was an English chief of police who, at least by family legend (I never met him) held very high ethical standards in his department. I think of police work as a noble profession that requires very high ethical standard and should be honored when those are observed. My Great Grandfather almost killed someone in the line of duty and it haunted him. The notion of having great sex after taking a life, even justifiably, seems very sick to me.
And yes, thank you for "just because you can doesn't mean you should", a lesson we all need to keep in mind.
Add Churchill’s probably apocryphal “Never, never, never , give up!”
Let them keep their guns…..outlaw ammunition!
Excellent idea!
Nice use of the word, "shot"! "Perhaps, then, we’ll have a shot at getting it repealed."
I am thinking of moving out of the USA. Does Ireland welcome immigrants?
I am very seriously thinking of moving out of the USA. I am sick of living here surrounded by the despicable ''Confederates A-holes'' We have been harassed by them time and again here.
My wife just obtained her Greek Citizenship and my kids are in process now.
Unfortunately, the only way I can become a Greek Citizen is to buy $500,000 worth of property. Yes, I can live there as along as I want as long as I am married to my wife, but, in Greece, it is either blood or money that make citizenship. Not marriage.
Greeks are a well educated, rational society, at least for now.
I was considering going to Nova Scotia Canada, but i read on their online web-site the Halifax Chronicle Herald newspaper that they had a shooting up there that killed 3 people. Is nowhere in North America safe now??? This happened about 3 weeks ago.
We are in Costa Rica most of the year. Although there is just beginning to be some crime there beyond petty thievery, it is the kindest most peaceful country we’ve ever known. We’ve been welcomed by the local community but we live in the mountains where people are kind and the weather is moderate. No heat or air needed. There are sweet spots in the world still if you’re thinking of watching from afar. But you may have to endure bureaucracies that are corrupt and stupid rather than violent or racist.
My youngest son went down to Costa Rica last year on a mission thing for his church, and he liked it there too, but where he was at, it was in the lower elevations and it was hot and humid down there like it is here in GA at this time of year, ( heat and humidity doesn't bother him at all) i absolutely cannot tolerate hot or humid weather. I just went outside for a few minutes, ( it's midnight here)
and i got so hot and sweaty i had to come back into the house in air conditioning and my fan. I have a weather station here that is very accurate, and it's currently 73 degrees with the humidity a stifling 90 percent. It does sound good down there, but i want to move to a location where it snows a good bit in the winter too. It rarely snows here any more, we used to get 2 or sometimes 3 good snows in the winter here, but now it hasn't snowed hardly at all here in the past 6 years. I have been checked for thyroid problems many times in the past by my doctors, but they said there was nothing wrong with my thyroid. I keep telling them i cannot stand hot or humid weather at all. I have to take about 10 medications for my heart and blood pressure, i had open heart surgery 9 years ago, so that could factor in my severe intolerance to heat and humidity. Anyway, after next month the heat and humidity will be gone until late May of next year. Thank goodness.. But, the idiot and insane MAGA's will still be here in their attempt to make the United States a Fascist Dictatorship.
John - the East Coast of Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland are filled with peaceable, friendly people. We live in Central Canada and Quebec is much more populated but again our people here are not as easily whipped into anger. We don't own guns and are judiciary is separate from voting manipulation. Thank goodness!
The Prairies and Western Canadians are of the same ilk but the oil barons tend to stir the waters. West Coasters are proud of our Charter of Rights as are all Canadians, again no guns there.
Welcome John - if you decide to come north to Canada, but please leave the guns and that over-the-too rugged individualism at the border. We working on Peace, Welfare and Good Government for everyone.
Thank you very much for your informative reply. And i also do not own ANY firearms, i detest those things and we don't even shoot firecrackers here any longer because it frightens our little dogs and our 12 cats. I will be honest, i just LOVE Canada and i have several web cams online and view them every day most in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and a few in Quebec. I have quite a few more reasons to want to move there than just the insane politics that are going on here, this may sound nuts, but i love SNOW. We rarely get snow here now, it used to snow at least once here a winter, but no snow since 2018 now here, and that is very frustrating to me. I used to talk with a lady that lives on Prince Edward Island and i really liked her, but i haven't seen her online in a while now. I had found a little house in Springhill, Nova Scotia that i really liked and it was an older house that had been completely remodeled inside and outside and it was beautiful on the interior with a big stainless steel refrigerator, and all new flooring and everything. I am still wondering why the cost of it was unusually low, it was listed for only $57,000. I like Dartmouth, NS too just across the bay from Halifax. I am a very peaceful type of person and do not bother anyone and i do not have any police record either. I have a question, when i do come to Canada, do merchants and businesses accept the American Dollars, or will i have to convert my cash to Canadian dollars? I occasionally get Canadian coins in my change when i buy something here. I recently got a1945 Canadian dime that looked to be pure silver, my son looked it up and said it was worth 5 dollars.. I fly Canadian desk flags in my house.
I don't think Canada has anywhere near the number of mass shootings we have in the U.S. Nova Scotia is lovely.
It does sound tempting.
Australia often does.
My husband often says he wishes his dad, the grandson of Irish immigrants to the U.S., had pursued dual citizenship. In the past we've looked into moving to Scotland or Ireland, but immigration is more restricted there than we expected.
Bless you for your compassion.
Dear Christopher, We ALL suffer from the gun violence in the US. It is ubiquitous and very frightening. I am living abroad in India on a farm. I feel far safer here!
We have an odd association of personal and national power with violence in this country. I know that at least some in several other countries find it weird. I distantly recall a panel of UK commentators discussing violence in Ireland at the height of the Troubles. At one point one of the speakers claimed that statistically several US cities were more dangerous at the time.
JL, Sadly "violence" seems to be a "quick fix" vs using reason which may take time and or patience or working to communicate regarding another opinion or belief .
Caring for our fellowman...attempting to understand one another takes time.....it takes presence.....it takes listening to opposing opinions or beliefs. Shooting someone ends an argument quickly but does not solve anything. It only leads to further pain.
Too many people are alone with their "monsters". This is a major problem in our world.
Yes, Emily. Too many people are "alone with their monsters." And the words after "caring for our fellowman ..." made me immediately picture Joe Biden. It takes presence, it takes listening to resolve our differences. May we be blessed with the leadership needed to find our way through today's troubles. Thank you for your thoughts.
I think of what we call "Conservatism" as opposed to "conservative" in the sense of cautious, as a the preference for punishment as a way of controlling human behavior. It's not that I think punishment is never warranted but the contact I have had over a lifetime with what I would judge to be "Conservative" (and politically right leaning) homes often seemed to terrorize children who strayed from parental demand, some of it pretty creepy. I would call some of it "child abuse", although my evidence is clearly only anecdotal. I have seen studies that suggest mistreatment of kids can lead them to self-harm or abuse of others. I recall when a Washington State Assemblyman introduced a bill making it legal to beat children to any point short of permanent physical injury, citing Biblical justification. It did not pass, but represents a point of view. A local man and "his pastor" beat a one-year-old to death according to the local paper, because the kid reportedly "refused to touch his toes". Obviously an extreme example, but some of that energy seems more widespread. It is said that monsters lurk in every psyche, but we don't necessarily need to act them out.
Oh I'd not dispute that claim at all JL.
I wonder if this made national news? At a Chicago White Sox home game the other night, two women SITTING INSIDE the park, watching the game, were hit by gunfire. It's been a long time since I attended a game, but I would assume (correct me if I'm wrong WS fans!) you must go through a metal detector or have a bag search? Cameras everywhere in the park, the news feed shows people waving down security. How the heck did THAT happen?
For those of us that live in blue and purple states, do not for one second think your state government is immune from the hate, misogyny and xenophobia if the Fascist MAGAts take control of your legislatures, courts and/or governorships.
In Maine, we got a taste of having a Fascist moron as our governor (Paul LePage) for 8 years. He was a disaster for the state vetoing any bill that he wasn't on board with. Since leaving office the Republicans have suffered at the polls. Even Susan Collins barely beat an unknown Democrat to win her 5th term.
Do not support any Republican, even if you think they will be a better dog catcher than their Democratic opponent.
I occasionally voted Republican for a minor office. Now the "GOP" is a RICO.
Gary, have you heard of this swine, who came here from Texas? Christopher Polhaus, who bought some land north of Bangor to set us a Nazi training camp. https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2023-08-30/proposal-to-prevent-paramilitary-and-neo-nazi-training-camps-sparks-free-speech-debate.
Just the kind of neighbor we want here in Maine. Gak.
There is a podcast episode by Crash Barry about him. Polhaus doesn't seem to be very smart or very well funded. It's a pretty decent episode but long. Crash has been in ME for many years if you aren't familiar with him. He's a decent journalist and easy to listen to.
It's worth checking out, but it's kind of long -- like 90 minutes I think.
Anyway, I get the impression from the podcast that he won't be in ME very long. I certainly hope not.
Crash Barry does a series about the Catholic priest pedophiles in and around Springfield, MA. I didn't realize there are/were over 80 priests that the church labeled as pedophiles.
I'm not a big fan of the Catholic Church patriarchy and the way they get away with pretty much everything illegal.
I found https://devilsanddirtbags.podbean.com/.
"devils and dirtbags" (seriously?)
I looked briefly at his twitter/x account (I don't twit, so can't read them extensively). He's apparently done quite a lot both there and in his pod about the noisy loonies here in Maine.
And I'm so very sorry to read about what has happened to Chris Northrup. I think I actually met her back in the 1980s or 90s when she was still doing good things about women's health.
Yes, that is it. Sorry, I didn't provide the link earlier.
A few weeks ago I drove from ME to Omaha for my 50th high school reunion and I listened to lots of podcasts. This one definitely stood out since this weirdo is trying to set up around Lincoln, ME.
Thank you Christopher Eccles,
May peace continue to sing to all in your beautiful county.. Your prayers are much appreciated. ❤️
I just wonder how you get people to lay down their weapons. We have people who take their guns to church and Walmarts. It would be easier to require a woman to give up her purse.
Thank you, Christopher. I hope you are right. But I don't think I've lost touch with the reality of gun violence. My little town in Massachusetts can be quite bucolic, but we have an organization called "Gun Owners Action League" that can best be described as the right wing of the NRA. The town voted to spend $2M to preserve the summer home of Daniel Wesson: an ugly white elephant of a buillding that should be used as a fire-training-exercise site, burned to the ground and replaced with affordable housing. Even here we have way too many guns. And even here, the chance of reducing their number approaches zero.
We hope and choose to believe that it's all due to a decided minority that are so deeply bigoted, small, and without any honor. That they've been adopted under a major party tent and banner is the more troubling for many reasons, among them desperation for dominion shared by so many seemingly disparate aims. Recent history of their actions does display one commonality between all the seeming incongruous; no scruples - anything... anything goes to 'win.' Thank you for your kind thoughts; may providence and good sense ever prevail in Ireland, for you and yours. Best wishes and gratitude friend.
and to all the "trolls" who flood social media after the high-profile gun violence incidents
(because, in fact, most of the 300 people shot EVERY DAY IN THE USA don't make national headlines) saying laws don't work and we need even MORE guns,
I say "you REALLY intend to do NOTHING to protect YOUR CHILD from senseless gun violence?"
Because the youth of today, who are of the post- September 11, 2001 era and are traumatized by mass shooter drills and admonitions to "Run. Hide. Fight." are NOT going to be ignored. They intend to be HEARD. And their VOTE is their VOICE. Time to throw OUT any politician who is not going to address the VERY REAL CRISES affecting the Earth's climate and the public health dangers that include gun violence, opioid addictions and domestic terrorism from institutionalized racism.
Silence is complicit violence.
A BLUE WAVE is coming.
It seems the right-wing has become so desperate to hold onto power at this point that they're prepared to lie and cheat *publicly* and *openly* -- and ignore any laws and rulings that they don't like. The very opposite of how a democracy should work!
Sean, if you want to know what TFG and his supporters are up to, just look at what they accuse others of doing. While they’re obsessed with a laptop (shades of emails) and Burisma, Ivanka and Jared had government jobs, Ivanka got Chinese patents and Jared got a large Saudi account to manage. Trump properties are , for the first time, the sites of Liv/PGA golf tournaments. They accuse libs of “cancel culture” while they remove books from libraries and call for boycotts because a beverage maker had a trans person as a spokesperson.
Jared got $2 billion ($2,000,000,000) of Saudi money to manage.
And Mnuchin received another billion five for Liberty Capital.
Eeeww.
Meanwhile the Saudi’s invoked a million barrels a day reduction in production beyond what Opec+ has in place. This keeps oil prices high, earning them more money and us paying more at the pump.
Add in Jared getting Qatar $$$$$ bailing him out of a building mess WHILE HE WAS STILL "WORKING" in the WH!
Shelia, I’d forgotten that! Thanks for reminding me.
Agreed -- huge amounts of "projection" going on!
Yes. They are literally an outlaw organization.
They've been working at this long enough. It just took a lifelong thug like Trump to encourage the maggots to crawl out of the woodwork.
I think it was from under rocks
They think they are clever and by exploiting laws they legitimize their efforts to disenfranchise Americans. They are wrong and there will be hell to pay if they don’t stop. For all of us.
(Do you mean "if we don't stop them"?)
It's important for Democratic party to reach out to the people and get their message across about the Mega Republicans and what they stand for and the consequences if they win in 24.
The current version of the Republican Party is just a continuation of the January 6 insurrection. The world has changed and they don’t like it. People have come to America from all over the world to seek their fortune and to live in freedom. But they aren’t just coming from Europe anymore. The new immigrates, like all who have come before them, work hard and are entrepreneurial. Men and women are building new technologies and new medicines. But the old, white, Christian male power structure is fighting against the changes. They are more than willing to give up democracy, justice, and any notion of equality. Lies, cheating, and violence are all that they have left.
Strength, vigilance, courage, and truth are all on our side. Stay the course.
Speaking of voter suppression, in Idaho, Gov. Little's Administration no longer will allow polling places on college or university campuses. If a student wants to vote they have to go off campus. That's one way to suppress younger Voters, take the polling places OFF CAMPUS.
Wow! They are afraid to let Americans vote.
Private colleges can still allow polling places, but of course that would depend on the college’s denomination of Christianity, wouldn’t it. Governor Little should really have zero to say about the voting process- conflict of interest!
Idaho seems to have gone over the line and is establishing their own country with a white, fascist government. From what I read, they are losing doctors, women, and educators at an alarming rate. They encourage the use of armed intimidation tactics, and they don't care if their transgressions are obvious. I'm not sure what they are so afraid of, and I don't know who is benefitting. But, I'm far away so maybe I'm wrong. -- I'm enough of a liberal to realize I can make mistakes.
Diana, can they still do what I did in college, and vote absentee? College registrars are usually notaries, and can do whatever authorization is necessary. I agree, it’s much easier having polling places on campus, but I’m sure the poli sci departments would love to turn it into a lesson in persistence.
I can’t think of a more significant way for Idaho to demonstrate a separation of generations than moving polls off campus.
I bet the result will be a swarm of young voters becoming Democrats.
I am disgusted by the things the Republican Party is doing--it's as bad as you say.
But immigration to the US has some big downsides, on which the left is in denial, in the same way the right is in denial about global warming. In 1980, meatpackers were Black, and making a decent middle class wage. By that decade's end, they were immigrants, toiling for barely more than minimum wage, under atrocious conditions where amputations were a regular occurrence.
Business uses immigration as a way of lowering wages, or keeping them down. The GOP was instrumental in pushing immigration numbers up to the current million legal immigrants annually in 1991. Of course, illegal immigrants are more exploitable even than legal immigrants, which is why the GOP has pushed for amnesties, beginning with the Reagan amnesty. (Mark Z'berg's FWD.us does the same thing.)
You can read about this in the highly readable, yet scholarly book, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck (296 footnotes, $14 on amazon last I checked). Beck covers the relevant academic economic literature, Black periodicals, statements from Black leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were downwardly mobile due to mass immigration, and gov't commissions on immigration reform, notably the Barbara Jordan commission under Clinton. Jordan, the Black Texas Democrat who made her name on the Judiciary Committee during Watergate, recommended cutting legal immigration roughly in half, and strict enforcement of immigration laws. Unfortunately, she died shortly after the Commission presented its findings. Had her recommendations been implemented, it's unlikely that Trump, whose signature issue was immigration, would never have been elected.
The book gives the lie to the notion that there are jobs Americans won't do. The author interviewed Black workers who had then recently lot their jobs at a poultry plant to immigrants. Would they take their jobs back if offered? No, the workers told him. The wages were so low they'd have to live in their cars, or else many to a house.
The issue you raise is not due to immigration, it is due to Reagan and other right-wingers watering down labour protection laws. The same has happened in Europe. Capitalist extremism will always try to shaft their workers. Back in the 19th Century, British industrialists used to invite poor Irish workers to break strikes and undercut the contracted workers in their factories (it led to some serious anti-Irish violence). These tactics are still in use.
It's both. Immigration is a major tool capitalists use to shaft their workers. Mass immigration also made it easier for Reagan et al. to undercut unions. The book I described shows that immigration has been used throughout most of our country's history to keep wages down for American workers. Cesar Chavez denounced illegal immigrants because he understood how they undercut his members' wages. (you can google it.) I get the feeling you skipped over most of my comment.
What a web of deceit. And the harm that overpopulation does to our country's natural habitat, not to mention quality of life, is not even a topic anymore. Immigration is an unrelenting problem and payback for centuries of exploitation of their countries of origin by the first world.
I believe the extremism we’re seeing is the death scream of the old way. It doesn’t want to end and would rather kill and be killed than stop. The world is watching and waiting to see what happens in 2024. Putin must be laughing out loud at the mess we’re in.
IF Trump had the cunning and nerve of Putin, Biden would have fallen out of a window in 2015.
Interestingly, some of the few right-wing minority pols are especially insidious, e.g. Thomas, Hailey, Ramaswamy and that Proud Boys leader.
It is incumbent on all of us to work to register voters--young voters, voters of color, voters with disabilities--all voters, and then to make sure that, come November, they all vote, whether in person at the polls or by mail. We need to volunteer to go for training to work at our polls and to uphold the rights of all of our citizens to vote. We need to tell all of our legislators to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We need to write to encourage voters to exercise their rights, whether through letter-writing or post-card writing campaigns or phone calling or texting or canvassing. There is something that each of us can do. If we want to keep our democracy, we must find our niche and go to work. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Agree Betsy, but it's not the "blue States" to worry about it's the far more numerous, but much smaller in population "red States" who are setting themselves in position to lie, cheat steal and declare trump the winner. Even if he spends his days in a jail cell in a jump suit that matches his skin.
It would be life threatening for people like me to register to vote in my state/county.
That sounds terrifying. I don't know what "people like me" means, but you can still engage in letter-writing through Vote Forward or making phone calls or sending texts to other parts of the country in support of a large variety of candidates. I send wishes for your safety and for a time when you can participate in democracy by voting.
Silence from people who have a different point of view is what “they”count on. Make contact with reasonable people around your state- there are good candidates running against the bullies in more moderate counties who will be encouraged by your support. All voices need to be heard.
In MT we are up against another Red trump supporter running a well financed campaign against our only democratic Senator. Also we have a strong woman candidate, Monica Tranel, who barely lost last election to Ryan Zinke. Dark $$$$$$ needs to banned from politics!
Very true! In the low population Western states, it is appalling to see millions of dollars pouring in from outside interests- it is a form of election interference, I think.
I too live in a very Red part of your state. There is a militia group down the street & around the corner from me.
I live in Michigan. One early morning we had helicopters flying overhead, and lots of black SUVs tearing up and down the road. My husband went down to see what was going on, and there was a property surrounded. Some of the people involved in the plot to kidnap our Governor lived there. Ugh.
Why?
Because I am not a millionaire or upper class and could not afford to move to CO or another enlightened state and keep my simple rural life which fully supports my well being.
Granted, but why would it be life threatening to vote in your state? Lots of liberals vote in illiberal states, what do you believe would happen to you?
Your statement that the math tells the story is, I hope, the clarion call to all Democrats to vote for Biden/Harris in numbers that far exceed the 2020 vote. Younger voters will make the difference. They are so mad about the end of Roe vs Wade and the climate deniers that they will come out in force. Grey haired attempts to stop this movement will not succeed , as we have seen in state after state when it came to a vote, not a legislative coup. Racism, although generational, is now diluted by the educated youth. It’s the McConnells, Graham’s, and Tubervilles, and their like that will now see their voters flock to more democratic, minority candidates. Biden is speaking to them, empowering them, hiring them. We have to help him achieve that goal.
All of us, no matter our age, that believe in Democracy have to do the work to make sure that the young people get out and vote. We need to support each other!
Very well said, Diane.. great comment.
I have never forgot what David Brooks said when he was asked to be a TV commentator for the march of athletes into the stadium during a past Summer Olympics. He said he always enjoyed watching the athletes march in by country. There would be white Europeans, distinguishable Asians, Black Africans, Latinos, and so forth. Then the USA athletes would come in, and it looked like they had taken all the other countries and mixed them all together to make the Americans. Our strength is our diversity.
So TRUE! Diversity and inclusion is a powerful advantage for innovation. Having worked in technology development industries for nearly 40 years (as a while male), I've been fortunate to be surrounded by a diverse group of people (across many companies) and the most creative and innovative companies have been those that focus on ideas, not who came up with them. Brilliance is color/gender/everything_else blind. . .
I often wonder how white supremacists rationalize their own practical adoration of the African American sports icons (such as football players) they fanatically cheer for. Hmmm…
Guess they have no recourse but to accept that athletic greatness knows no color barriers!
(To the white supremacist mind), in sports and entertainment, Black Americans perform at the pleasure of white audiences. They earn great money, even more than many of their White fans, but they aren’t allowed to speak to the troubles their race endures. “Shut up and dribble,” or “I stand for the Pledge.”
We could show the world how it’s done, we were on the way, til hate (likely greed/power) took over
"Stoehr calls these white supremacists 'Realamericans' who believe they should rule and, if they can’t do so lawfully, believe they are justified in taking the law into their own hands." They are the complete opposite of true Americans. We are living in the days of the mid-1930's in Germany. What are WE going to do about it?
We also need to speak up, not just to confront overt terrorist threats. Attend school board meetings, city council meetings, county commissioners meetings, zoning board meetings. Join local social groups which fund raise. Support your local libraries, museums, community centers and other nonprofits like arts organizations for kids or elders. Start a local nonprofit providing support of kids or elders-Meals on Wheels or whatnot. Encourage your church to do inclusion events. Host a weekly pancake breakfast before Sunday services. Food is always a good draw. Write letters to the editors of local newspapers if there is one. Start a community newsletter if there is not one. Don’t make politics the focus, but discuss community building ideas. Include historical facts and stories. Include informational stories about how to benefit from new technologies. Start your own club- Knitting and wine tasting, Thursday night Classic Movies, Gardening for Health and beauty, Etc,etc. You know that old saying, “Feel universally, think globally, act locally.” East to say, I know, but getting people away from the clutches of fear mongering media is always a good thing.
This is excellent advice! It’s because people weren’t paying attention that many white supremacists ensconced themselves in school boards, county commissions, etc. The Mt. Shasta community is a good example. The community building clubs and activities bring people together to enjoy life and find common ground. Maybe that way we can start to change a few people’s minds, then they’ll also vote Blue.
Thanks, Kristin!
VOTE BLUE in each and every election. Fight gerrymandering, sue the idiots blocking democracy, talk to our neighbors....work tirelessly.
Democrats need to VIGOROUSLY PUSH VOTER REGISTRATION and MAIL-IN BALLOTS. The LATTER is streamlined in Maryland which permits PERMANENT Registration for MAIL-IN BALLOTS -- good so long as you VOTE. The League of Women Voters produces a SUPERB VOTERS GUIDE with backgrounds on Candidates to GUIDE the AT-HOME VOTER. IT'S A MODEL FOR ALL STATES.
Maryland indeed is a model state when it comes to voting. I use the League’s non-partisan guide each election. We’ve had Republicans like Hogan and Democrats like Ross. That’s why if it weren’t for looking at what Younglin is doing to Virginia, we’d get complacent.
Agreed. I recently moved from Illinois to Arizona for family reasons, and was pleasantly surprised at how good AZ is at the voting thing. I signed up for permanent mail-in ballots when I got my new drivers' license; it's good as long as I don't skip more than two consecutive elections.
AZ also sends to every household a voting guide that lists every candidate in every race, a summary of that candidate's positions on various issues, and statements from a variety of organizations left, center, right, and non-political describing those candidates and why they endorse or reject their candidacy. Ditto on every other ballot initiative such as raising the property tax to provide additional funding for rural fire protection districts.
It's a marvelous system, and I spent hours studying each race with this handbook so I could vote intelligently in the last election.
Oregon is the same way. I am often asked for input on judicial, DA/Sheriff, and ballot measures that impact law enforcement from many of my friends. It is wonderful to sit down and discuss the issues and the impacts of outcomes.
Same in California with prepaid postage, all you have to do is drop it in the mail - apparently too much effort for 40%+ of our voters.
Or drop off boxes located nearby. We also receive notice that our ballots have been collected.
Washington state does the same thing. All voting is mail in, everyone is sent the ballot and non-partisan voter guide. You can mail it in or there are drop boxes at every library and government building. I’m sure there are other places but the library was most convenient for me so I never had to go find another one.
I wonder how we can guarantee that the mail-in ballots actually arrive and are actually counted. I’ve been mailing in my ballots from abroad for several decades. It used to be a simple process - just go to the post office and send my ballot by airmail. But then in the year 2000 it became very apparent that we couldn’t take voting for granted anymore. It’s very likely that many of the ballots from abroad that year were just dumped in the trash. So for the next election, our Democrats Abroad group had us send our ballots by FedEx, costing much more than before. Then FedEx came under suspicion so I switched to DHL at the cost of $80 to mail in my ballot. The election after that, I faxed in my ballot because it wasn’t delivered in time and was impossible to mail it back by the deadline. The post office said they couldn’t guarantee when it would get there, it could take over a month. Who knows if it was counted? It’s been one headache after another! If the Democrats ever get a majority in both Houses of Congress again, I hope the first thing they will do is change the voting laws to one person, one vote, and make voting mandatory like in Australia. (And maybe even simplify the tax laws to a basic flat tax rate of 5 or 10% tax on one’s gross income for everyone making over $50,000 a year, companies and corporations included. Forget tax deductions and tax lawyers.) Not to mention, eliminating the lifelong benefits and income politicians receive even if they’ve only been elected once or twice. What else can we change to make America an well-functioning, happy country again?
America, wake up! Stop this madness.
Thx Professor for the history up to today. I can’t be more ashamed....
I am almost 70. I grew up in NC in the 60's and 70's. I now live In Wilmington, NC. We were not taught about the 1898 Wilmington coup also known as the Wilmington Race Riots. It has been since I moved here to Wilmington thatI learned about that terrible coup. There was a park named for the leader of the coup because he gave the land for the park (for the use of white people). The name of the park was changed. The coup leader's descendants don't want to be associated with his legacy.
Ron DiSantis wants Florida students to grow up ignorant like I did. The truth eventually comes out; it refuses to stay buried. The history I was taught was lying by omission.
Sadly, white supremacy undergirds the entire history of the US and not just in relation to Black people. Anytime white Europeans exploring the New World came into contact with native peoples, violence inevitably followed. Native people were portrayed as savages and scum. Therefore, it was ok to kill them, steal their land, break treaties with them, etc. White Europeans considered themselves better than anyone else. Their descendants are still acting on that delusion.
I hope you weathered the storm OK. My best friend's sister lives in Wilmington (she produces "Cape Fear's Going Green" if you ever see it lying around, and her partner is heavily involved with WHQR Public Radio (he usually sleeps at the station during hurricanes.)
Isn’t that just what Governor Ron Desantis is so opposed to? He doesn’t want our children to learn the history that would make them feel ashamed.
Our native Americans. What we did to them and still do… I am more than ashamed.K
My sentiments exactly.
Coretta Scott King famously commented that every generation has to replay its role of advancing black voting rights…
Heather just outlined this generations multifaceted challenge…very effectively.
Very very sadly THIS GENERATION’S challenge is especially ugly and hate filled and our very Republic is at stake.
Yes. Our republic is at stake. This is like the period after the attack on Pearl Harbor, except the news media refuses to acknowledge we are at war… Democracy is at war with Fascism! The 2024 election is NOT between two political parties.
Agreed, Steven. if they are afraid of Socialism, they should be shivering in their shoes for fear of fascism.
Steven I was alive and 3 years old when Pearl Harbor occurred..my sister was born on Dec 7th….and I remember the war and the post war period…my dad was on a ship in the South Pacific in charge of landing craft ..he was at all the major ‘events’ in that war in the Pacific including the signing of the peace treaty…and I watched his ship come under the Golden Gate Bridge when he returned.
I don’t think this period is the same.
That was a war where there was commonality of purpose and very clear agendas….
No One was in much doubt about what must be done, what price must be paid…what the ‘costs’ were….
My fathers sister ship was kamikazed with no survivors….
Todays period lacks commonality of purpose, accurate information broadly understood and accepted and coherence in action plans….
Our TV screens mock us with ‘calendars’ for the next year and a half of the multiple court dates/appearances/trials ….that the evil Orange one is to participate in….even the most dedicated ‘newsie’ finds this complex data overwhelming.
And the political ‘palate’ is less than appealing with competing 80 year olds…..one far far better than the other but both way too old…..
It’s a God awful mess.
You have a great story to tell. I hope you are sharing this everywhere.
What ship was he on? I have a friend whose grandfather was a young EM at that time; his brother was on the USS Missouri.
My Dad was on the Trian..a troop carrier going over and practically a hospital ship coming home…
The Japanese left dying/starving guys on the docks at the end of the war and my Dad described just how grim that was…these guys were in such bad shape that Dad’s guys literally stayed with them initially to help them just take tiny tastes or drinks as their bodies couldn’t handle more and the ship had a lot of refrigeration which very sadly was used to bring a number of these guys who couldn’t be saved..back for burial.
Grim indeed. My Dad was USAAC in the China Burma Theater. He had it comparatively easy.
I think there were long periods of extreme boredom and a lot of poker and cribbage played….but it was a WORLD WAR..I once asked my mom what had been the hardest thing they had had to go through and she said..”the Second World War..we didn’t know if we could win it”.
Fortunately, today we have the internet, and the awful, anti-American antics of the far right can now be scrutinized by everyone everywhere. Remember the Marion County Record, the newspaper raided by the police? Or Nazi Christopher Polhus, who’s trying to open a Nazi training camp in a town north of Bangor, Maine? Or the crazies in the Tennessee legislature and their continued attempts to prevent speech on the floor of the state legislature by legislators?
No one outside an extremely small and local group of people would have known anything at all about any of this, to say nothing of the rotten “Moms for Liberty”, or the plan by Llano, Texas, to defund its public library over its thwarted attempt at book-banning.
In a way, I’m glad T**** got elected – it has turned over a whole lot of rocks and exposed a whole lot of writhing maggots to the light of day. Now that we know the extent of the risk more clearly, we can do something about it together. And keep in mind that the people holding these unacceptable beliefs got them from somewhere and have been severely damaged by them – their upbringing, their exposure to False News et als., their hate-mongering “church” pastors. Notwithstanding they are acting in the most anti-American way, they still live here and so must be considered to be Americans, and it is important to hope that they can be cured of their delusions and stop harming other people.
Vote Blue, no matter who, in every election, for every position.
Lynn…I agree with your assessment….but it is COMPLEXITY PLUS and nerds like Heather’s readers ‘get it’ but the average voter sees a sea of chaos and doesn’t have time or energy to thoroughly inform themselves….
The unity and purpose of the World War 2 period was essential and seminal in that struggle …
We don’t have that today.
Vote blue is the best most folks can/will do.
And while Biden is the obvious choice ….he is old…I’m 85…I absolutely assure you that Biden is too old for a second term.
Fortunately, Biden doesn't have to run the country all by himself. He has a bright, skilled vice president and an excellent, qualified cabinet. Biden, in fact, HAS hired "the best people", as exemplified by the recovery we've seen so far from the devastation wrought by the worst president the US has ever seen. And there is hope the recovery will keep on. I'm not wearing blinders as to Biden's age, but there isn't another Democrat in my opinion who has a snowball's chance of winning the presidency in 2024.
Lynn I agree that Biden hires good folks including a relative of mine ..if he has a health crisis before the ‘general’ I could see Newsom or Widner as a viable candidate…
I’m guessing you are not in your mid 80s….
Nope, I'm not, but I am in my late 60s, and really hopeful that in the next 6 years the younger, more liberal Democratic politicians are brought along so that for the 2028 election there will be some very electable possibilities for both President and Vice President. Whitmer, Buttigieg, Newsom, maybe by that time Kelly, Allred or Jeffries, or other young US Senators. But none of them is ready for 2024, in my opinion. I wish that were not the case, but it is.
Lynn, Newsom has run the largest state in the nation successfully and is in his second term…very effectively dealt with a recall….(and was lieutenant governor for two terms before that) and another relative of mine worked for him for several years….and I’ve seen it …up close and personal .
We’d be OK with Newsom…and I suspect, most of the others, too…
Late 60s are great and I remember those years with pleasure..two decades ago.
What I’ve seen and I’m a gerontologist…is that from an actuarial point it’s just plain clear that mid 80s (where Biden will end up and I am right now) if one is fortunate one’s mind is more or less intact but even that is problematical….indeed “if one is even here” is clearly another part of it…..
And the number of health issues alone are a burden to deal with…and dealing with the country/whole world is just plain dumb…
I can use fancy language if you want but you get the point.
If We Must Die
BY CLAUDE MCKAY
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Claude McKay
1889–1948
Claude McKay, born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in 1889, was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities. His philosophically ambitious fiction, including tales of Black life in both Jamaica and America, addresses instinctual/intellectual duality, which McKay found central to the Black individual’s efforts to cope in a racist society. He is the author of The Passion of Claude McKay: Selected Poetry and Prose (1973), The Dialectic Poetry of Claude McKay (1972), Selected Poems (1953), Harlem Shadows (1922), Constab Ballads (1912), and Songs of Jamaica (1912), among many other books of poetry and prose.
The son of peasant farmers, McKay was infused with pride in his African heritage. His early literary interests, though, were in English poetry. Under the tutelage of his brother, schoolteacher Uriah Theophilus McKay, and a neighboring Englishman, Walter Jekyll, McKay studied the British masters—including John Milton, Alexander Pope, and the later Romantics—and European philosophers such as eminent pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer, whose works Jekyll was then translating from German into English. It was Jekyll who advised aspiring poet McKay to write verse in Jamaican dialect. (PoetryFoundation)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44694/if-we-must-die
Thanks, Fern--I used McKay's extraordinary "If We Must Die" for 15 years in my 10th grade English classes. I now incorporate it into my Anti-Nazi Resistance presentations about Abba Kovner's exhortation to the Vilna Ghetto Partisans, to "not go silently like lambs to the slaughter."
Thank you, Joanne, for telling us of your work as teacher spreading the light to young American students.
It looks like we're going to need all of McKay's people and many more. The GOP would not be going to the extremes they're going to if they didn't feel their base was tough enough to back them all the way. Since the 2020 election and esp since Jan 6th, the message has been delivered to the party leaders: the white GOP minority wants power, maintenance of their status quo, for as long as they can hold it, and they don't care what they have to do to keep it or retake it.
When you think about it, which is worse, to be pitied as the hogs which were caught, or to be held in contempt as the mad and cowardly dogs which caught them? People who have been defamed (E Jean Carroll, Shay Moss, Ruby Freeman) or the slanderer/libeleor (the unspeakable T**** and R G) who committed defamation? I know who I'd rather spend time with, and which I would hold up as a horrible example.
Sickening. The more they lose, the more radical the changes they propose. And after the hurricane had made landfall in Florida and passed into Georgia, Biden was commending the people on the ground for preparation and assuring people that they would not be forsaken.
Time to divorce them! Why stay hooked up together?
The hurricane was a huge gift to De Santis. He wasn't doing well on the campaign trail and he had an excuse to come home and manage response to the storm. By taking charge, he is showing himself to be a competent and compassionate governor.
My fear is that this show of competence will boost his appeal to non-Trump Republicans and other voters. I tend to be a worry wart, so I'll wait to see what other readers think.
I don’t think this hurricane is going to overcome the autocratic rulings DeSantis has foisted on Florida through a super majority legislature. What it can do is highlight Biden’s rapid support of Florida during this new disaster.
Biden "checkmated " him before he could do his usual schtick about the failings of the federal government and Biden in particular.
The President held a presser today during which he, point by point, calmly laid out all the steps he and his administration had already taken, even before the storm hit, to assure Gov DeSantis of the administrations complete support. If DeSantis opens his mouth with one negative bit about this............
I figure the same. The DeSantis campaign is in trouble. He is playing HERO due to Hurricane Idalia. I would like to point out that after Hurricane Ian, migrant labor did a great deal of the clean-up. Who is going to do the labor this time? DeSantis and his Republican Legislature has passed legislation making it difficult to hire immigrant laborers. I think DeSantis has "painted" himself into a corner as far as available cleanup workers. His policies are coming back to bite him in the butt.
And i do hope his evil policies come back to bite him in his filthy butt. And i am glad he was booed by black Floridians. I only wish they had some rotten tomatoes to throw at him. There is nothing good about that evil cretin. DeSatan is a dirty low down rotten racist.
I hope it bites more than the hind of the nether regions...
Fear not. That dog still has his same bark, he just has to get out away from his cage to yelp some more. He e we I’ll surely hit his campaign trail again and spew his narcissistic sociopathic hatred towards blacks, Jews, minorities, and tell how he’s going to gun down immigrants seeking asylum at the border and leave them lay for the buzzards.
Meanwhile, in an act of poetic justice, Mother Nature’s Idalia (name of the Greek goddess of love and beauty) fell a 100-year-old oak tree on the Florida governor’s mansion. Furthermore, one cannot overlook the irony that 77% of the bearers of “Idalia” as a female first name are Hispanic.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-idalia-florida-governors-mansion-oak-tree-falls-casey-desantis-twitter/
https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/I/ID/IDALIA/index.amp
There’s really nothing to worry about.
DeSatan is incapable of putting on a show of competence. He’ll hack things up by threatening to slit someone’s throat or shoot at would-be border crossers, or jail some random teachers and librarians.
And maybe he’ll put on those knee-high white boots again and remove any doubts about potential competence.
The optics are better for a minute but I don't think he'll draw a lasting bump (who really knows with Republicans). Let's watch him address the losses in his state without insurers. He should be raked over the coals. Reasonable chance he'll be doing this again before the election.
Fellow Floridians, If you’re not familiar with Jason Garcia( former investigative reporter for Orlando Sentinel) , he does deep dives into all things DeSantis. Trump-appointed judges are calling out him out !
https://open.substack.com/pub/jasongarcia/p/a-lawyer-for-ron-desantis-revealed?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Fascinating! Thank you!
"[S]how" of competence is exactly right. It is a show, a sham, and because Desantis is incompetent to repair the damage wrought by the storm, the damage they've suffered, uncorrected by Desantis, coupled with the crazy, autocratic, anti-education, regressive policies of his administration, will tell seriously against him in any election he cares to run in next. Honestly, I can't see him getting the nomination for the thugs' candidate for 2024, unless T**** is actually dead, which means Desantis will probably try for another governorship in Florida, and go down to defeat.
I saw that a 100 year old tree fell on the Governor's mansion. Nobody was hurt.
If it was a Democrat and certain Evangelical preachers (ahem) were still alive, what do you think would be thundering from the pulpet?
Agreed…and the way he has bristled when asked about our ever escalating cost of property insurance over last couple days will not bode well with Floridians.
How can there be so much hate and intolerance in a nation so many claim is a “Christian nation”? I’m not saying America is a Christian nation, but the fundamental teachings of Jesus revolve around “Loving thy neighbor”. Full stop. End of story.
They are not true Christians. In fact, evangelicals are beginning to openly criticize Jesus Christ himself, considering him to have been too weak and liberal!!!
https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak
Maybe Donnie will ascend for them.
LOL!
What they want is white Christian Nationalism. Full Stop. They no longer follow the teachings of Christ, but when they try to impose their version of the Christian religion, they get to wear that cross.