Just days before Labor Day, a holiday designed to celebrate the importance and power of American workers in the United States, the Transportation Department cancelled $679 million in funding for offshore wind projects, and the Department of Energy announced it is withdrawing a $716 million loan guarantee to complete infrastructure for an offshore wind project in New Jersey.
>>>These cancellations reflect President Donald J. Trump’s apparent determination to kill off wind and solar power initiatives and to force the United States to depend on fossil fuels.<<<
Perhaps it has become habit to use the terms 'Trump' and 'Trump administration' interchangeably. But let's be clear: Trump does not have the intellectual capacity or strategic planning ability to execute all these things that are being attributed to him. He is a person who lives by whim and impulse and streaks of vengeance, who knows very little about the world, who famously refused to read his Presidential Daily Briefings (PDB) during his first term (and probably still doesn't) because he didn't understand them (or they bored him) but could not tolerate anyone explaining them to him, such is the depth of his fragile insecurity. We would do well to make it clear, as often as possible, that it's the Project 2025 team, and other ultra-conservative wealthy elites - and in this particular case those wealthy elites are captains of the fossil fuel industry - who are feeding Trump his marching orders.
These Project 2025 conspirators are systematically disempowering every level of our democratic society and culture and creating a kind of isolation that is fed by fear of loss of all that provides our citizens with the means to meet the basic needs that sustain lives. The result is increased anger and discontent that then produces more chaos in our communities. People are then consumed with crisis on the local level. This gives these traitors everything they need to turn this into a bigger crisis or emergency that they think warrants bringing in the military. Wake up everyone. Do everything you know how to order to fight back. Do not succumb to learned helplessness.
As Heather stated in the piece, Trump often negates what Biden began and this story (written 5 years ago) from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums," illustrates this. Enjoy:
What Some Ancient Rulers Have in Common with Trump
During ancient Egyptian dynasties, monarchs often defaced or destroyed statues representing the previous ruler to erase the reputation and deeds of the former ruler. Sometimes damage was limited to facial disfigurement as with Pharaoh Senwosrett III (1878-1840 BC) whose nose was broken off because ancients believed that the life force emanates through the nose.
Trump shares this goal when renegotiating and tearing up Clinton and Obama-era treaties.
NAFTA is one such remake that removes Clinton’s name from the global trade agreement. As Politico writer Adam Behsudi quotes Lori Wallace, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch said, “For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or any other same-old, same-old trade deal.” There are no improvements -- only the removal of the Obama legacy and any other former president’s name.
This symbolic effigy-smashing of Obama extends to the Iran Nuclear Deal, to recertify to Congress every 90 days that the Iranians are complying with the rules; the Paris Climate Agreement; The Affordable Healthcare Act and all other agreements that Obama successfully negotiated regarding the environment and human rights.
In the land that I call home, tens of millions of Americans who couldn’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola, resulting in the election of a malevolent quasi-life form that makes George W. seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one. Maybe our next president, if we are still electing presidents that is, will take cues from Trump and the ancients as well. A good start would be to remove any future White House portrait of him that might eventually be installed.
When Trump is gone—and make no mistake, that day is coming—I predict our people will DEMAND that every. Single. Thing. about that man is irradiated from the Earth. When this is over, and one day as with all things in life—it will be over. I think people will rise up together, all at once all over our country and Just Say NO! That’s enough. NO MORE!
He will likely order his goons to “shoot us in the legs” or something and it’s likely he’ll take citizens to jail for peacefully speaking truth to power.
Will our National Guardsmen or local sheriffs or police or ICE, will they shoot at or arrest their fellow Americans for simply speaking out and demanding change and standing their own ground?
Some will. Most won’t. But ANY is way too many! People will be injured or killed.
I hope and pray we find a peaceful way to end this, but these clowns are working at light speed now. I agree It’s not Trump. They send him out to play golf and show off how important he is all day. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller and the Project 2025 gang are having a field day shutting down the government and along with it, our country.
Shit is gonna keep hitting the fan at greater and greater speed. Just Because they CAN. They are gleefully wielding power they only dreamed of, and doing it Very Badly. They do not care what happens because THEY will be fine. Such small, limited thinking!
The JOB is to wreck every single thing they encounter and the more needy the recipients, the more quickly and deeply their monies can be cut because they have no power to fight back. Cruelty gets extra points, it even gets laughs in certain circles.
No, I don’t see these clowns responding to peaceful protestors, no matter how large their group, with anything but force. I just don’t. They WILL try that route first though. It’s who they are.
Tim Snyder, in his book "On Freedom", "Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: We think we’re free if we can do and say as we please, and protect ourselves from government overreach. But true freedom isn’t so much freedom from as freedom to—the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible."
Trump being gone will bring forward all who fortify pro-broligarchy values daily. We have so much work to do! Reading about the job losses from cutting all the renewable projects makes me cry that too many young able workers will be deprived of their livelihoods.
Another scary thought is how much these people seem to be detached from humanity. They think of themselves as these gods who aren’t afflicted by the nuisances of life.
They work their bodies buff, inject teen male blood into their veins, live in gated isolation, imagine a “better” world in space. They are, as Walz put it, WEIRDOS detached from reality and none seem the slightest bit happy here on earth. They don’t care people will be out of work. They lack the most important thing a leader of humans needs….EMPATHY. We, the People, who are not in their wealthy inner circle are the “other”, the enemy. If we generate anything of value, they will confiscate it. If we don’t, we are shunned, cast out to fend for ourselves.
It is OUR tax dollars they are stealing from projects that are meant to better OUR lives. Research grants aren’t given to Harvard to throw hoists toity parties. They are given to them so our Second child doesn’t die of leukemia like the first, so our spouses won’t die of breats cancer or heart disease or diabetes, so our kids won’t be crippled by polio and their beloved grandmother not sniffed out early by Covid.
They are taking OUR tax dollars and stealing it from projects that will allow our children to breath and have healthy water AND lower our energy costs without intolerable 105 degree weather. They are using OUR tax dollars to pay their personal attorneys to rig elections and keep them in power to steal even more. They are extorting out Allie’s, thereby making us targets for retaliation.
They are taking out children’s information and allowing it to fall into the hands of predators instead of protecting them. They are using OUR tax dollars to go on personal vendettas and STEALING resources from agencies meant to protect our bank accounts and our children from drug and human traffickers.
They think they can isolate themselves from the misery everyone else will live with. In their bubbles with their families and preferred friends. Private military protection, clean water and air, Whole Foods.
For them it will be a nightmare. Seriously, can you imagine a paradise that includes your family...like forever?
There must be Sci-fi books about this kind of scenario.
Exactly. The opposite of genuine liberty is tyranny, and tyranny is impunity for some and subjugation for others. ANY others. Lincoln saw that clearly in his momentous Gettysburg Address.
The founding Declaration states "--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --". Securing what? An environment of freedom. Self evidently we don't just declare that; we build and protect it together: "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
An environment of freedom, of rights maintained for ALL, is a civilized society. Our form of governance bequeathed to ALL of us a share of responsibility for this, as well as a share of choice. Somehow emphasis of the latter seems to often obscure discussion of the former. It is those liberating responsibilities we bear as individuals, and as a society, that the predatory plutocrats systematically defame. The burden of lives that we could easily preserve with foreign aid. The burden of a history we did not create, yet have within our power the ability to at least partially redress some inherited, unjust circumstances. The quality of life we will bequeath to our children and beyond.
Trump's cruelty, the depth and breadth of it, boggles the mind. The heartlessness is staggering. As with USAID, loss of life means absolutely nothing to Trump and his team. There is zero empathy among the entire lot of them. So, it raises the question: what can be said for those who voted for and who continue to support Trump and his gang?
Check out the horrifying book, "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers", by John Dean and Bob Altemeyer. It will demonstrate that between 30 and 40% of the electorate actually want to live under a right-wing authoritarian government. That's MAGA. Once you understand that, you understand why Trump's approval rating never goes below a certain point, no matter what he does or says.
I believe it was Shakespeare who said, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Trump worships at the alter of filthy lucre and POWER. It blows my mind how so many so-called Christians support him when he is the antithesis of what Jesus preached. Truly a conundrum!
It is insulting to say that Dr. Snyder is "hiding" from anything! We should all have half his courage. Tim Snyder is not "hiding" in Canada. As he has explained publicly, his wife, who is also a renown scholar, was the instigator of the move and it was worked out as a family. Have you followed his work, massive fundraising projects, and travels in Ukraine?!? Did you hear his rousing, inspirational demonstration speech in Philadelphia?
I can picture in my mind the long bread lines during the Great Depression and people all over the streets shabby with no place to go. We could easily return to those scenes!
Probably center mass Kathryn. They will shoot us center mass. The Trump admin. is pushing the issue in order to force a rebellion which they will use to escalate control and seize more power over the citizenry. They will continue to constrict and constrain American demonstrations until ICE and the U.S. military personnel are actively firing on the masses. Emergency powers and Martial law are coming as sure as the sun rises in the morning. At present more Americans are becoming more enraged at the tactics employed by ICE. The only course forward is to demobilize ICE through political action in Congress which is not likely given the Republican stranglehold in the political theater. Trump’s theatrics have only one direction; control by force. His tawdry tactics are taking the road to dictatorship. Project 2025 is the anaconda enveloping the nation. We must find a way, as with McCarthyism, to feed it upon itself.
The MAGA contingent has served its purpose in bringing about the birth of P2025. Like all mothers in the new political spectre, Mother Maga will quietly be given her place as barefoot and bereft of rights as patriarchy reasserts religious control of American liberties.
Trump has his Rasputin in Steven Miller and he will adjoin Thiel’s Vance in governance until one or the other asserts dominance as Stalin did over Lenin.
It's one thing to be a National Guardsman in South Carolina and think you're a bad ass, but quite another to be taken out of your hick town and be plopped down in the middle of one of America's biggest cities and told to "subdue" it. I'm not counting DC as one of America's biggest cities, by the way, because it isn't.
And times have changed since Kent State. If the National Guard starts shooting in Chicago, NYC, or Los Angeles, they will also be shot at. Then they'll want nothing more than to run back to their little hick towns and hide under the covers.
I believe if you walk near the graves of Justice Antonin G. Scalia at Fairfax Memorial Park in Virginia, Garden of the Crucifixion, Lot 870, Site A, or Senator Joseph R. McCarthy at Saint Mary's Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin Coordinates: 44.24470, -88.44190, it would be wise to wear rubber Galoshes.
I'll see you in the line, Bill. But it wouldn't surprise me if a Republican Congress, if still in power, approves construction of a large Greco-Roman mausoleum over his body on the National Mall.
Here is an idea. In the film "The Great Escape" the prisoners hide dirt from the tunnels they were digging during the night in bags worn inside their pant legs. Then when out in the yard at daytime they had strings to release it at their feet so they could just scatter the dirt around the ground of the prison yard under the guards' noses. They would then kick the dirt around to blend it into the surface soil.
You’ve nailed the sickness of it—how cruelty has become the punchline in their circles, how power for them is just wreckage for sport. The thing about Trump and his operators is that they don’t believe in governing, only breaking. It’s demolition as policy. And yes, when people rise up—and they will—force is the only language this gang knows. That’s what makes them dangerous.
But power built on fear rots fast. Guardsmen, cops, ICE—they’re not a single mind. Some will do the dirty work. Many won’t. History is clear: regimes that rely on turning ordinary men against their neighbors collapse when enough refuse. The Project 2025 crowd thinks cruelty is strength, but it’s weakness. They’ve already overplayed their hand. When the tide turns, and it will, the backlash will be fierce.
The day is coming when this country says no more—and when it does, Trump and his wrecking crew won’t just be gone, they’ll be remembered for what they were: small men wielding borrowed power, broken on the very ground they tried to scorch.
Do you remember from Sunday school hearing that Jesus said Do Unto Others whatever you can get away with? Project 2025 Christians promise a bloodless revolution if the rest of us allow it.
Carol, 'they' must have a very different Bible they study. Jesus got crucified because the crowd of rich & bad men overruled any court. Their leader washed his hands saying he didn't want Jesus' blood on his hands. He was still guilty of allowing a murder on his watch. Maybe that is what it may come to- blood being spilled.
Let’s hope that happens sooner than later. They are wrecking this country at breakneck speed. We’ll have quite a mess to clean up when they’re through. If that cleanup happens many years from now, it’ll be that much more difficult. Right now, we can potentially get our experts and scientists back. Years from now, not so likely.
Jen, too many local sheriffs are the same. I do not think ours in Marion County, here in Oregon, is, but many in other counties are. Our county commission is all R and now they are suing to get clear direction on LE helping ICE. They know the answer, but are wasting my tax dollars with this nonsense. This is from a death star acolyte on the board who never misses a chance to show her colors. Most sheriffs in the state support this. Btw, a local man is one of those people ICE arrested on the fire line in WA.
Michele, which the ICE agents did in direct violation of rules of engagement during a crisis such as a fire. They could have at least waited until their shift was over, not barging in & upsetting the concentration the fir crew needed to safely do their work!
That’s the thing. They’ve got lots of individual law enforcement on their side. Who is gonna stop a coup in the Capitol today? Trump is in charge of the city police as well as Capitol police, National Guard and military. So tell me, are a bunch of Democrats going to go up against all THAT?! He wasn’t kidding about his MAGAS never having to vote again! We must do something NOW and it has to be BIG!
It's SO obvious that the current regime, including the Federalist Society members of the SCOTUS, has zero respect for "the people". As in mere voters, who are just a short step above Palestinians , immigrants, countries that have not yet bended the knee.
I still maintain that it will all start falling apart when Trump’s gone. There will be a power grab and many will try to fill those shoes, but no one will be successful at it. Certainly not JD! Look how often he puts his foot in it now and gets LOTS of flak even from his own people. He does not have the balls or the personality to carry it off.
The Supreme Court judges he put there? They have been turning the USA into what we have now with their decisions. The wealthy can buy elections, the Pres. is King and women must make cannon fodder, like or lump it.
Yup Kathryn, keep T on the golf course & away from anyone with brains & sanity. I'm waiting for all his minions to be running rapidly away from the nest we find them in!
While we criticize Trump and get on our high horses about what we know better, where are the reasons we need wind mills and solar power? Our story should have gone out numerous times long before now, Solar power is necessary Education is freedom and as long as we allow or do not counteract Fox "news" we are doomed. In NC we spent 1 billion dollars in school vouchers. I billion our taxpayers paid. Welfare for the rich. Do you think the majority of rural Americans know by voting republican they are voting for the demise of their public schools? This knowledge could flip states from red to blue, Instead you probably see the publicity around bad public schools, more often not correct. The Republicans are lying about public schools and winning at making their argument. Voucher schools do not have to allow any student, if they are a 501 C 3, they do not pay property tax or capital gains tax. Who is benefiting from that money? Did you see this information distributed in your state, especially at a rural level? I was told it would take the dems a million dollar pole (in NC) to see if it could be an issue for our dems to take up in their campaign and then 1 million to get the word out. Folks we got to do better than this. In my opinion the dems bet the bank on their stance on abortion. Women's rights are important but it takes more than one issue to win and we better start defending the dems on public schools and the economy.
You had me until "Women's rights are important but". We ought to be capable of championing more than one critical issue at a time. Without our rights, without our autonomy, without our access to vote, half the population is unable to join in the rest of the pushback. Women's rights remain fragile at the moment. Let's not pit ourselves against each other any further.
Dems have been a day late and a dollar short on every issue. It took military troops and Ice agents invading American cities to wake up democratic governors.
The GOP could stop this at any time. The Dems have offered and with great difficulty accomplished things like the Affordable Care Act, the infrastructure bill that brought us not only jobs but a concerted effort to mitigate climate change. The Dems brought us an economy that was the envy of the world just a few short years ago. The Dems created and promoted legislation toe address the immigration issue in as humane, economically responsible way. And the GOP fought them at every turn. I'm not spending my energy being bitter about them. The GOP could turn this around instantly. They need to feel the burden and the responsibility here and that's who we need to be calling out.
I really think the ones who understand what GOP is trying to do & want it to stop have been threatened with their jobs & the 'safety' of their families. We've already seen some results against the good ones. Most of GOP is too embarrassed to admit to the public they made big mistakes. They won't change.
Has even MSNBC addressed the fact that allegations about voter fraud in Pa were burried by an incoming Republican state AG?
Has MSM ever mentioned the internal election audit that was performed?
“In December 2024, I was personally involved in an NSA‑authorized forensic audit of the 2024 election. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz won—by a wide margin. Trump lost dramatically. There are multiple layers of complexity to this cover‑up, including transnational organized crime syndicates that extend far beyond the United States and our elections. To that point, I work in the human trafficking sector, which intersects with the stolen election(s) and has ties to Trump and Epstein—not to President Biden, Vice President Harris, or Governor Walz, but to the Democrats and other allied interests responsible for burying the audit.” — Adam Zarnowski, ex-CIA agent and author of Jörmungandr
Daniel, there were sure a big bunch of crime related to the 2024 election- as there was fir T's 1st election. Wish someone could figure out WHERE all the the audits are hidden. What was the movie with Nicolas Cage in the Library of Congress finding a document? This reminded me of that movie.
I’m afraid we have become a nation of morons, where not getting educated is a badge of honor, voting directly against your economic interests makes perfect sense, and sucking up to a guy who who could care less if you lived or died makes you feel empowered. These idiots are celebrating the dismantling of our collaborative democracy as if it was a great idea. I never thought I would ever consider this, but it leaving is starting to look better every day. But to where? The Department of War is likely to start WWIII and then nowhere will be safe. The price of eggs, my ass!!!!!!🤬🤬🤬
Excellent points, Sandra! Your post actually gets down to What Is the Platform of the Democratic Party? Yesterday, a distant cousin of mine posted this on Social Media. Is my cousin wrong?
Here is her post:
Republican Platform - Free Enterprise, Secure Borders, Honest Elections, Real Journalism, Ethical Judiciary, Civil Rights, Moral Standards, Personal Liberty.
Democrat (sic) Platform - Hate Trump
I BELIEVE this is what Republicans believe, but don’t
Democrats also support Free Enterprise, Secure Borders, Honest Elections, Real Journalism, Ethical Judiciary, Civil Rights, Moral Standards, Personal Liberty?
Free Enterprise--as long as you donate to Trump and give 10% of your company
Secure Borders--torture fellow humans despite your religious beliefs.
Honest Elections--gerrymander and supress those who'd vote against you.
Real Journalism--regurgitate whatever the masses want to hear, even if it results in 3/4 of a Billion $$ fine
Ethical Judiciary--let the SCOTUS be sold to the highest bidders
Civil Rights--laws for thee but not for me
Moral Standards--apply only to others. As long as I am a billionaire, I can have multiple wives and cheat on them, have children out of wedlock, can have sex with my same sex or with children, can steal money any way I can, and indulge in porn.
Personal Liberty--ME before the common good! Always. In every case. No mask, even if I'm near people with cancer. I can stockpile an arsenal of weapons, even if I live in the safest area of the safest town in the safest state, because I just MIGHT be paranoid. I don't need to follow traffic rules or speed limits, because NOBODY is going to mess with MY FREEDOM.
I'm so (BAD WORD!!!!) tired of what is the Democrat platform!! Harris pounded her platform and DEMOCRACY as she stumped for the election, but mainstream media chose to focus on her laughing. MAINSTREAM MEDIA DID THAT.
What was the Trump platform? SERIOUSLY? WHAT WAS IT? Lock up people who look different than you. Oh, and Hanibel Lecter and sharks and batteries. Period.
WOW, Miselle! You are fantastic! Now, I have to decide whether I should give you credit for these great insights or just steal them. Hmmmm, what would Trump do? (I should probably do the opposite, right?)
Both heroes and villains comprise history, but yeah, Trumps wants his name on everything. He has been erecting his image on public buildings like a classic tin-pot dictator.
We need to bring back the Roman custom of "Damnatio memoriae." When someone was so hated and despised, his name and face would literally be chiseled off of statues, inscriptions, etc.
I recall seeing a statue of some person who slayed (adjective chiseled away) "Indians". That seemed appropriate. Germany preserved some death camps as a historical fact, as repentance, and as a warning. For the most part I think Nazi symbology was removed.
Although trump is destroying our social fabric, our world standing, our environment, our trust in government... I am not afraid to celebrate: my health; having a chance to live another day; celebrate with gratitude and laughter the small favors; for just waking up each day; the sunlight coming through the window; with exhales and deep breaths; celebrating showing up, making a mess with protests, repeating.....
So important not to forget the joy and beauty all around us.
I feel sorry for Trump (in a very weird way of course). He has no friends, no interests or hobbies, no curiosity about anything, no appreciation for truth, beauty, rhyme or reason, no compassion or honor, never did one damn thing for anybody else, not even a cat or a dog, nobody loves him (except for his vile progeny, Uday and Qusay).
He fits my definition of an absolutely wretched human being who filled his entire wasted life with mammon.
I hear he’s worried about his standing with God. He should be.
Trump has tons of adoring followers, but they attach to a projection, not the real deal. Surely, for all his hubris, Trump knows he is a fraud, or he would not be soooo thin-skinned about the slightest criticism or imagined slight. Right away, that should tell people something.
The foundation of honest-to-goodness love is truth, or it isn't really love. Love lets down the mask. We "confess" our love, we "confess" our errors. We are love and are loved for what we are, not just our presentation. Love does not mean accepting abusive behavior, or even maintaining a face to face relationship. Some people are a danger to society, and yet deserve some fundamental protection of human decency, even in a prison. "Love" in the sense of "I love pecan pie" is a different use of the word.
Stephanie, I'm with you. One of our neighbors had a pre-Labor Day get together at her home yesterday, and two of the boys showed up at the house for a good old-fashioned scavenger hunt which I was actually able to help this with the last piece. The boys were so happy and carefree, and it felt so normal and nostalgic (having participated in a few of those in my teen years) that my own spirit felt temporarily lighter as well.
@Bill Katz. Yes, we in CT who remember that we are “The Constitution State” are getting it done. Part of getting it done is to make sure our history is taught to the younger ones who never learned it or who have forgotten it. All of our schools need to have ready access to cptv whose programming has been subtly, but brilliantly been targeting the issues with historical drama and documentaries as pushback.
I think (based on my admittedly limited experience) that we can do a far better job of making history personally relevant. Not just a put-on merit badge for an educated person, but a tool for personal understanding, and do so as a societal value, not just drop the burden on the schools. The truth (both the good and the bad of it) shall make us free. How can we adequately navigate the opportunities, hazards, and uncertainties of life without the most faithful charts available? Artificial flavors, artificial behaviors, artificial reality, are poor substitutes for the real thing. Even elaborate fantasies, that don't pretend to be anything else, can pack a payload of profound truth if not practiced to deceive.
I’ve always had a problem with Trump’s wish to remove images of past presidents to lesser known or seen spaces(like maybe, even the basement). My suggestion would be to leave a portrait of Trump up with his face covered by a stocking complete with the hosiery flopping at the top with the proximal part of the hosiery covering his neck. He has disrespected so much of the nation’s past presidents and leaders that his image should be forevermore tarnished and disrespected.
I like especially the part about DJT making W seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one!
I recommend reading the book, Tribe, by Sebastian Junger. It's a 2 hour read, and when you're done you'll understand at gut level how humans need each other to live their best lives and do their best.
After I'd read read Tribe--years later--I read Endurance by Alfred Lansing, about how Ernest Shackleton and his 28 men all made it back to civilization alive after Antarctic ice chewed up their boat and spat it out, leaving them stranded. For the 15 months it took them to reach civilization, they were cold, damp, and often hungry. But they worked together to save themselves and each other, something that is so much more understandable after you've read Tribe.
We need to come together to change the politics in this nation.
I think the day will come when his Grumpy Cat-fobbing-himself-off-as-Winston Churchill portrait will be in the White House, but hanging upside down. It will start a tradition, and no subsequent President will dare reverse it.
If you bring up Egyptian dynasties, I bring up the history of Israel. After the dynasty of David - Solomon that ended in BC 975 it took only 250+ years that Israel, a part of the divided kingdom was captured, and in BC 590 the kingdom of Judah. America has lasted so far 250 years. It is possible that the democracy could end. We must realize that a dynasty does not mean lasting forever. We must act for the country to keep alive and prosper. It is our doing.
Hey Bill, we could use T's pictures as target practice. Ancient history shows us that not much has changed, there will always be a fox in the hen house for us to discover & REMOVE>
I keep reminding myself how much these vile people thrive on chaos and resentment. It is indeed about a larger project, with Trump the useful comedian drooling from his mouth. It serves as a great distraction from what is happening all around us.
Most normal people try to shun chaos, rather than feed off it. As a consequence, we imagine that this little bit of chaos or that ghastliness will somehow serve as their undoing, the magic potion to undo the poison and bring the whole house of cards down. That’s what I fear when I see so many of us talking about the “Epstein Files.” Perverse as it may sound, it’s a great cover for them, as they try to undo all our institutions, our honor, laws and our future to benefit a small clique of deranged individuals.
As hard as our task is, it’s so much more than just getting rid of the demented figurehead waddling in front of the madmen. The madmen and their cult work behind him.
When Nancy MacClean published “Democracy in Chains,” I asked her, history prof at Duke University, if she could get the administration to rescind Stephen Miller’s degree, she wrote back that she could not. I find it appropriate that a “tobacco university” should continue poisoning the American people. (Admission: 3 degrees from UNC-CH, which, closed by Native Americans, existed before Harvard. It reopened after Harvard was founded.)
Members of White House adviser Stephen Miller’s graduating class at Duke University have a message for the Steve Bannon protege: you don’t represent the values we learned at school.
“We find it impossible to see in your words and actions any glimmer of the university values we so cherish, nor the slightest suggestion that you spent four of your most formative years at the same dynamic, diverse institution of higher education we did,” the petition signed by more than 3,500 people reads.
According to the signers, the diversity on Duke’s campus and extracurricular life should have taught Miller the importance of “intellectual honesty, tolerance, diversity, and respect that we seek to promote in the world...”
Yes ICTT, there are very vile people in positions of power. Can we demand other truths be revealed instead of screaming about Epstein? GOP is using his name as a distraction from the real shit they are doing. And yes, I want the women harmed by Epstein & Maxwell to be heard in a courtroom. They can have a great moment in allowing our court system more reason to keep Maxwell in prison & work to figure out who all was busy 'playing' with those girls & women.
The fattest, sickest orange goon of them all will be tickled when he gets American suffering to fever pitch, so he can declare not only martial law, but also end to all American elections.
"He will certainly do his best to make you think and fear that . . .."
So you think the I.C.E. raids grabbing people from courthouse hallways, grabbing volunteer firefighters from active fire-fighting, grabbing farmworkers, grabbing mothers from cars and leaving little children alone inside those cars, and, heavily armed, wearing no identification, grabbing, grabbing, grabbing, then disappearing them illegally, without due process -- you think this is all just theatrics?
It's all just a game to make us "think and fear," with no human consequences you can see, or even more vengeful intentions going forward?
Well, ICTT, you certainly do echo most all top Dems in America.
Oh yes, that’s EXACTLY what I said, Phil. Gosh you just outed me once and for all, didn’t you? 🤪
For such a strong advocate against standardized testing, you don’t do such a great job reading what people actually say, rather than what you pretend they said and put in their mouths for them free of charge.
ICTT, Phil makes many good comments other than on testing.
Phil, ICTT's argument has merit. We just don't know how much is theater and how much Trump truly cares about anything aside from gaining power and wealth. You are right that people are suffering.
You'd said, as I quoted you, "He will certainly do his best to make you think and fear that . . .." But now I need to quote what you said first, before that quote from you.
Before it, you said, "he's not going to do that." And after the bit I quoted first from you, you concluded, "but that isn't going to happen."
"That," being his passionately serious, venomous, hate-filled campaign for hatred, free elections contravening, police state, and authoritarianism.
Yes, ICTT -- addictions to testing will blind as to human evils. But, too, vacancy as to humanities will blind even more fatally as to the human damage you dismiss.
We’re all having our bad days. Bearing witness in this chaos is some days almost unbearable. When all else fails, think of Aristophanes. This has gotten far too big for Gilbert and Sullivan.
I think that much of the contrast between the now nominal "Republcian" Party, and Democrats is that the latter's general inclination is divide power while the former strives to divide people. Empowerment vs Overpowerment.
Many Congressional Republicans privately admit Trump is nuts but they are intimidated. We have another chance to get them to save the country next week.
I, for one, do NOT understand why those Congressional Republicans you mention are so terrified of being primaried that they quit. Intimidated by having someone run against you? Good grief!
Ally, some of the ones who have spoken out tell of harassment of their families & friends in person, by mail, online. I'm not sure I would have the strength to face all that shit. I think it's deeper than a threat to their government job. There are some very mean people in the GOP.
Judith Wilcox: " ... this gives the traitors everything they need to turn the into a bigger crisis ...". Spot-on Judith 🎯 So let's prepare for next week's crisis -- an attack by federal troops, ICE & other federal agents on CHICAGO in the first week of September.
To get started, I spotted with the help of a Google AI search, REUTERS author, SUSAN HARVEY's 8/30/25, headline at 2:46 PDT earlier today:
"Chicago Mayor [BRANDON JOHNSON] says Chicago police will not aid federal troops or agents" during any Trump led attack on Chicago, Illinois. I am expecting a vital LFAA between 9/3-9/5 from Heather.
Speaking of 9/3/25 -- those of who are already activists (you don't have to be lawyer) on DEMOCRACY DOCKET can simply upgrade their DD subscription to join a 9/3/25 ZOOM featuring HEATHER COX RICHARDSON & Democracy Docket's MARC ELIAS.
I am already upgraded to a little over $10/week & hope Zoom's real time CHAT function is available to all Zoom participants.
Anne-Louise, I agree. I worry about her because the going is gonna get worse and we need her. Besides the Letter and her twice weekly Politics Chat, she's been doing SO MANY OTHER INTERVIEWS/PODCASTS. I cannot keep up with them all. There must have been at least three others this week.
You're right about the systematic nature of this. But here's what worries me more than their playbook—it's working because we're still talking about it like it's some grand conspiracy.
It's not. It's just business.
These aren't mustache-twirling villains in a back room. They're accountants with power, bean counters who've figured out that chaos is profitable. Keep people scared, keep them broke, keep them fighting each other over scraps while the real money flows upward.
The military part? That's not the endgame—that's just another line item. Private contractors, surveillance tech, detention facilities. All of it generates revenue for the right people.
Your anger is justified. Your call to fight back is necessary. But we need to stop giving these grifters credit for being master strategists. They're just really good at what they've always been good at: taking things that work and breaking them for profit.
The question isn't whether they're traitors. The question is whether we're willing to admit that our system was designed to let them do exactly what they're doing.
Fighting back means more than resisting their emergency. It means building something they can't break and sell back to us.
Just max out your points. Get above everybody else. They've not human, not people, not parts of communities or nature. In fact, for the people slick for testing, and for corporate rule, the human, people, communities, and nature never show.
"He refers to climate change as a “hoax,” says that windmills cause cancer, and falsely claims that renewable energy is more expensive than other ways to generate power."
What is sad is how many people believe this sh*t. Never would I have imagined how most Americans lack critical thinking....
Yes to both observations. When we get out the other side of this mess I would love to see a revamped Department of education develop a curriculum developmentally suited to each cognitive stage that helps develop age appropriated critical thinking and problem solving skills. I would also like to see Civics course restored to the high school curriculum so that the kids understand the meaning and importance of our Constitution and what it means to be a responsible citizen. Freedom only exists when there is a discipline that is followed to preserve our individual and collective rights. Freedom comes with responsibilities. That lesson exists across cultures and levels of consciousness from the mundane to the mystical.
I am all for that if kids are actually taught how to do that without using AI to write it for them. I had grad students who couldn’t write to save themselves. I had to teach them how to do it and then send them off to the writing center.
And it's impossible to do without love. One has got to love the emergence of the person, the special, unique individual -- the surprise qualities, experiences, complications within "others."
After love come the skills. Some basic. Others multiply rich and diverse.
This moniker is precisely how we should be understanding our national nightmare under Trump. It’s not MAGA…it’s not even Trump himself; he’s just the rotting meat sack in human form who created a dead space which serves as the empty vessel into which the Project 2025 maggots have slithered into & been welcomed to inhabit and feed off in this, our democracy in extremis. In the process of taking over the ‘25ers have further evolved & speciated ultimately posing very great threat to us and what has been our deceptively comfortable way of living this awful Decade of Trump.
Our real enemy has hidden within the gilt-edged, Trumpian circus while these nefarious ‘25ers methodically consume their dying host employing an obviously well-planned administrative coup from within—just as a real maggot would consume a rotting corpse.
The major difference, though, is that a biological maggot performs a useful job in the recycling of matter and energy in this biosphere. The ‘25ers, like Steven Miller & his ilk, exist only to seize and then dominate the society, which for good reason they have been heretofore marginalized from. As Trump creates the permission structure, the ‘25ers invade, take over, and accelerate the rot in our societal systems as they seek to dominate.
It is uncertain to me that the fraudulent Project 2025 charade has not gone past the point of no return; pro-democracy advocates have a big task ahead to exterminate these consumers of rot, one that must not fail.
I agree with your take on chaos, Judith. It will be easier for the right-wing to complete the coup if chaos extends to the local level. The fossil fuel industry has been subsidized since the beginning of the industrial age.
And trump's policies look to be aimed at the destruction of the renewable power industry. I guess if you want to breathe clean air or have clean water, you are woke and must be forced to pay for the energy to build data centers with higher electricity bills. God forbid you have the ability to install renewable power on your property at a reasonable price and reduce your reliance on the power company. The disregard for the local economy and the ability of good, high paying jobs, means nothing to right-wingers or the ultra-rich who are the investor class. All things equal, all segments of the power industry should enjoy equal subsidies, if there are any subsidies at all. Then the market will decide the winners and losers.
Thank you, Judith Wilcox. Perfect response to the chaos. Everyone can “resist” as the French did under Nazi occupation. And there is an old US slogan (WWI or II):”Now is the time for every good [person] to come to the aid of the country. Note to W Bush: “homeland” is “heimweh”, Hitler’s word.
(Any corrections to the above are welcomed, but the message is clear.)
"Wealthy elites" have played a longstanding historical role in hoarding prosperity, and this is not the first time in US history they pushed extreme agenda. Trump is a talented conman and hate monger, but the impetus toward plutocracy and authoritarianism over the last half century is a whole lot more complicated and organized than the celebrity of any line of presidents, and money always can buy organization, while grass roots movements have to build it bit by bit, in a nation where diversity of agendas in a feature, not a bug. Is not the outright purchase of political outcomes the essence of political corruption?
You mean like every time there is a Republican President they drive the economy into recession? More than half the states are already in recession and the two worst economies are TX and FL. If a major hurricane hits either state and FEMA doesn't help with the recovery, things will get very ugly for Trump.
From a macro standpoint Trump was handed the greatest economy in the world.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, where we had a flourishing economy, besides the obvious, Trump killed our tourist economy. This doesn't affect most rural Florida counties that vote heavily MAGA, but here we don't need a hurricane for things to get ugly. Added to that both the Trump administration and our governor and state legilatiure are anti DEI, and half our population is hispanic and we have a large Black minority that are mocked and discriminated against.
I repetedly post: Miami healthcare CEO Michael “Mike” B. Fernandez wrote the following open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and members of the Republican Cuban-American Miami-Dade congressional delegation: U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar.
"For decades, I have stood with you in defense of the freedoms we cherish, those we were denied in the country of our birth and found in the grace of this one.
"I know what it means to flee tyranny. Like you, I carry that history in my bones and that pain in my heart.
"But like a growing number in our community, I have watched with dismay as the very values we once found sanctuary in are now being attacked by a previously unthinkable threat — the sitting president of the United States."
Texas and Florida -- the two states where Donald and Jeffrey's pal Ghislaine has served parts of her 20-year sentence for the rape of girls by the rich and powerful to whom she trafficked them.
Good thing the U.S. has a Constitution and adjacent rule of law that might prevent from public office any adjudicated rapist, convicted business fraud, insurrectionist, fossil fuel enabler, and friend to all the world's worst dictators.
To my surprise, the devastating floods in TX recently and the lack of emergency support haven’t seemed to have had a deleterious effect on either Abbott OR 47, while the people affected are left dangling. To be fair, I hope I am wrong.
We can only hope! These very red states need to have their eyes opened and quit thinking that the policies of the Democrats are just "woke". They are not. They are to protect us ALL!
Here's hoping that both of those things happen, and please add Louisiana to that list, because Mike Johnson.
Slightly off topic: Netflix is currently airing a three episode documentary on Hurricane Katrina, this being the 20th anniversary. In addition to the sheer devastation, it highlights how the government and media perverted the racial divide.
Not entirely correct: Trump has real animus towards wind power. He's railed against the turbines off-shore in Scotland because he believes they 'ruin' the view from his golf course in Aberdeenshire and he's had this stance for morw than a decade.
He is just as deranged as RFK Jr. only now he is targeting the blue states and climate control advocates while at the same time he is taking away resources that promise to help both individuals of all parties manage to survive the financial disasters he has created in the economy.
Power tends to corrupt. It seems to me that there is a point at which great wealth can isolate a human being from the fate of the rest of humanity. In some of the internal communication that was made public from Bank Crisis bankrupted firms, it appeared to me that some officers within ill fated corporations were aware of how fragile the subprime business was becoming, but valued the continuance torrent of profit over the long term fate of the company, much less the nation.
Musk didn't like the policies of Twitter, so he bought it, and immediately behaved in ways that lost shareholders significant money. He can can afford to treat Xitter as a personal toy, irrespective of whether the company prospers. The Guardian wrote about how billionaires are building fortified Bond villain lairs to wait out the apocalypse that their shenanigans are making more likely.
The far more diverse array of smaller businesses I grew up among appeared to be much more invested it the fate of the community. Why would they not be?
I think we are already seeing that it is not going well. It will get worse before it gets better. I do believe that we can collectively through persistent group and individual actions on the local level block their attempts.
I think that really is part of it, and that there is a lot more to it. He advertised political favors for sale to the fossil fuel industry during his campaign.
Yes. I also remember when gas prices went sky high overnight. A Bush nod to his cronies in the oil industry. And, those oil prices never went back down to where they were...But, really, all this talk about what THEY do or will do next...To me, what WE do is the bottom line. Historically, as Prof Richardson so often illustrates, the American people value democracy and freedom as ideals. Those are principles of the Constitution. Project 2025 is in the minority and, like in the past, if history repeats, the people of the U.S. will rise to the challenge to protect those ideals.
Unless I am badly mistaken, JL, no administration or regime has ever taken away most of the political favors and breaks the various fossil fuel companies have had since at least the mid-20th century. The death of electric-powered intraurban and interurban transport was largely due to undue support for rubber and petroleum-powered transportation. Our low gasoline prices reflect both that and the cowardice of elected politicians to end those supports in the face of political pressure from those fossil fuel elites. The orange ogre just promised more of the same and fewer exploration restrictions for an industry outliving its beneficial life.
"Just then, they discovered thirty or forty windmills in that plain. And as soon as don Quixote saw them, he said to his squire: “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we could have ever hoped. Look over there, Sancho Panza, my friend, where there are thirty or more monstrous giants with whom I plan to do battle and take all their lives, and with their spoils we’ll start to get rich. This is righteous warfare, and it’s a great service to God to rid the earth of such a wicked seed.” -'Don Quixote'
Our sick orange Donald and all his sycophants in high places aim only at the regular, decent people with whom I grew up.
Me, I, a kid in 1950s America, a youth in 1960s America, who could take democracy for granted, could take for granted, too, decency, the ideal of a level playing field, of everybody else as each as much a person as myself.
My experience too. I have been reflecting on that…my life in the50’s, 60’s, 70’s, etc and what was going on in the country and the world at that time that I was vaguely aware of but never worried that democracy would fail. But here we are, and my fear is for my children and grandchildren and all of our progeny who will live through the aftermath. I’m beginning to write my memories of my time here against the background of history ( that I am learning from Heather) to leave for my children. I will want them to know that I, and many decent people did not vote for this chaos and destruction. And that we protested and railed against it in the ways we were able.
Deborah, we must be the same age; your comments are mind exactly. My dad was a very young man when drafted into WWII, and his service and that of all the others from that time, fighting fascism, are on my mind constantly. I am so resentful of the people who voted for this man—I knew what was going to happen. If they did, they didn’t care. If they didn’t, they should have.
My Dad was an "old" man (26) when he enlisted in the Army in 1942. He was 41 when I was born (he and Mom started late). He would be absolutely disgusted with what we have seen since 2015 (thankfully, he passed in 1987 and has not seen where we've gone as a nation.)
Thanks for those reminders to include …especially about the music. Memory is closely tied to music as I find I’m immediately drawn back to a time and event in the past by listening to those old songs. Nostalgia fuels memories.
Classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder with psychotic features. He is totally delusional at this point and the whole world knows it. In any other context he would have been hospitalized by now.
We have been teased this week about life after Trump with JD trying to calm the waters. There are fish with more charisma and charm than JD. And the harder he tries, the more glaring it becomes that he was born with his foot in his mouth.
Hopefully Trump will drift into either full scale dementia or a coma which would 1) put JD in charge and 2) freeze the actions of the MAGAs since they wouldn't dare roll back changes made by the Trump administration in case Trump recovered.
Perhaps Scotland should nationalize all tRump properties within there borders. In fact every country with any property bearing tRump name should be nationalized and income from said properties be used for the advancement of of the people of that country which more likely than not have been screwed over by Trump and his companies.
I see his not as an administration but as a regime. They are not administrating anything, they are simply destroying. The wind farm in New Jersey and the one for Rhode Island and Connecticut have one other thing in common besides renewable energy, they are in blue states. Would he be as quick to cancel a wind farm project if it was in the Gulf of Mexico for Louisiana or Alabama or Texas? Especially if the project was just months away from completion?
If I may expand on an observation by our hostess, "Trump often seems to construct policies mostly to erase the legacies of"... all humanitarian civilization.
The largest wind farm I have ever driven through was in Ohio, near Purdue University. In twilight it was was simply beautiful. Will it be destroyed? I think not.
Sorry Phil. I knew it was a red state and should have known geography better. The important thing for me was the beauty of the wind farm at twighlight. It was like being in a gallery of moving art. Removed as I am from college football (rmy first acquaintance with Purdue was hearing about its football team), I would have been hard pressed to think “Indiana.” Thank you. I won’t forget.
When I was in high school, I read John Dos Passos's three-volume set of novels, the three together as "U.S.A." Its characters roamed the Midwest and, therefore, so did I. Loved the prairies. The small towns. Lakes. Rivers. Tall, tall hardwood trees. Railroad lines. All its classic writers.
Joyce Vance and Kim Scheppele discuss lessons learned from history but most importantly what we can do NOW. The actions of Governors Newsom, Pritzker and more, in addition to the health experts forming a Collaboration of Northeastern States are models of fighting the consolidation of power in our federal government.
It’s 40 minutes of important conversation. Please take time to listen.
Thank you, Kari. It is important for morale to hear about what others are doing. And essential for us to call our Representatives. Weekends are a good time to call. Leave a message. It doesn't matter what message. "My name is ___. I am a resident of _____ County. The chaos at the CDC is terrible and I want you to call RFK, Jr to appear before Congress."
I completely AGREE! We need a PLAN from Dems, and leadership to carry it out! MAGA didn’t get where they are without PLANNING! Dems have been asleep at the wheel. Someone in government needs to be writing our own Project 2028 to include restoration of essential agencies, laws that need to be passed so this can never happen again and a step by step plan of how to make that happen quickly. They could not be doing what they are doing so quickly without a guidebook!
Megan Rothery regularly posts here a Google doc that is extensive—every senator and representative and their contact information, their committee assignments, etc. My reps are are delusional sycophants, and they have to take my calls so I call regularly, but I’m going to leave a message for Bill Cassidy, MD, of Louisiana about RFK’s efforts to let us all die, for one action I plan.
Excellent idea, MLM. I left a scathing post on Lisa Murkowski's FB page (yeah, I know it is like urinating into a tornado) regarding a post she made criticizing RFKJr. I think that I will add her to Cassidy since, while I am not a constituent of theirs, their decisions to confirm that lizard are impacting me directly.
Thank you, Michael H. It is our custom to attribute most actions of an administration to that president and usually that president has at least a glancing knowledge of what's being done in his name. Not so with Cheeto. He's being well and truly handled by an unelected cabal under the control of Christian Nationalist Russell Voght. Meanwhile DJT concerns himself with turning the White House into gaudy casino.
There are several other nasty players like Leonard Leo, who will be the money man working to get Senators reelected and to bring more Catholic fascist judges into the courts. And Stephen Miller, of course. Elon is laying low for now, but as the primaries come up he and the other oligarchs will finance their campaigns. And Pam Bondi will do absolutely nothing to prosecute any of the administrations crimes. Hogsbreath is dismantling the military and driving away potential recruits. And Bessant, is with holding Congressionally allocated funds with absolutely no justification. And then, of course there's Kristi Noem who is the first person evil and cruel enough for the Fascist Senate to approve. The list goes on of course--the most incompetent and evil cabinet ever assembled.
There is not one member of Regime_47 who isn't a vile human being. Not one who has any degree of competence (education, training, experience) in the field to which they've been appointed. Not one who is in the least bit concerned with the well-being of America and its inhabitants. What nauseates me is that the US Senate gave this kakistocracy its stamp of approval.
The Founders could never have envisioned a situation where an unfit person was reelected to the presidency after he'd twice been impeached for cause; where the Supreme Court was infested with ideologues who are aligned with the goal of destroying the republic; and where the Congress serves not the people but their king.
Are the majority of Americans going to let him take down this country? People must notice the loss of their job, their neighbors of color whose Dad was taken away by masked men with guns, the children shot and killed while praying in church, the only hospital within hours closing, the local business failing.
Aren’t they gonna get mad and abandon their support for him? Will he turn on them? Hell yes he will! He’s turned on every person who’s ever gotten close to him eventually. Every one! I think they are pretty sure they’ve covered ALL their bases this time so the coup succeeds. Being in control of the country and Washington DC certainly gives them a huge edge.
Words and phrases attributable to trump by reputable sources: an individual created in a lab, raised without love, who will laser us into a pile of ashes; a big man baby; he is the weaniest of dictators there is; has deep seated issues and wants to work them out through hate and torment other human beings; a dangerous man entrusted with a card in his pocket that can launch nuclear weapons; he is a case of arrested development; he is an 8 year old with an uzzi - whose parents may say -- well he may have blown up the school mascot, but he's still a good boy - but he's still an 8 year old with an uzzi.....!!
So good of you to note the dark forces behind the police state they want, finally openly to solidify full control by the moneyed, the oligarchs, and their allied evangelical ideologues and white nationalists.
The evil that is Project 2025 will live in long after the orange cocksplat's departure. He's really not driving anything but vengeance and his 1983 fantasy world now. But he's very useful to the sick likes of Russell Vought, who's never done an actual job in his life, and Stephen Miller, mentally and morally ill as well.
And that’s another question: WHAT are they doing with all the money they are clawing back from everywhere? Pocketing it? Paying down the National Debt? What is their plan for OUR MONEY?
Nice to get Heather's contrast of the Donald insanities compared to real American progress.
That's in the energy sphere. But we can note, too, similarly insanity at the Department of Health and Human Services -- where today Bernie Sanders called on its head, RFK Jr., to resign.
But this RFK Jr. atop H.H.S. fits in perfectly with all Donald’s cabinet appointments.
He’s a fool, a lout, a crank, and an illiterate amateur, as are all his peer cabinet heads.
But this incompetence so reliably atop criminal Donald’s kingdom all aids that sick orange felon’s number one priority, which has been to be cruel, to shriek hysteria, spread hate speech, and for point of the police state to arm all the I.C.E. goons to grab people from our streets and illegally disappear them.
All nightmare scenarios. As if but fabulist fiction. And that’s what we have now from our sickest elites.
Trump is a marionette dancing to the strings controlled by his oligarch, extremist masters. He is not smart enough to do anything but sign whatever executive orders they shove in front of his face. The fact that what used to be the Republican Party has abdicated in abject cowardice its role in upholding its responsibilities to protect Americans from a truly corrupt regime is reprehensible.
Don't forget the venal angle- RFK Jr stands to gain a great deal in the vexatious lawsuits if the 'Advisory' body as reconstituted says that some vaccines are unsafe (on no credible basis).
Maybe RFK2 is the nail in the Kennedy Clan dynasty.
There might be some good Kennedys in the pipeline but we'll never know because there's no way we would ever again trust them behind the wheel of anything more powerful than a toy car.
Most of the Kennedy Family has spoken out & frequently, against RFK. I don't know where he got the brain worm from but, thankfully, he didn't infect his cousins.
I am convinced RFK, Jr. is severely mentally ill. He is a lawyer and as such he is supposed to have logical reasoning skills. Yet he is appointed to do a job which most people would reasonably conclude requires a special medical education and work experience which he has zero, zip, nada of. Moreover, the importance of the job is the health and therefore the safety of the entire nation thus we are all at risk here. People who claim to love him, like his wife actress Cheryl Hines, need to seek help for him. In fact I feel he should be put on a psychiatric hold for several days which can be done in cases like this where an individual poses a serious risk of harm to themselves or others. Trump also needs to be put on a psychiatric hold also because he is not removing RFK, Jr.
You may be one of the many extended Kennedy family members who know this ogre much more closer up than do the rest of us.
But, more likely, all the bears, whales, deer, coons, rabbits, muskrats, squirrels, chipmunks and other sources of his brainworm-infested diet pooled their resources and had you voice their unanimous opinion.
Since Congress is rubber stamping everything DonOLD demands, let's cut their budgets. The only one of my representatives that responds to emails or phone calls is Angus King. Susan Collins quit responding or having town halls years ago and Jared Golden only communicates through his weekly update.
Terms limits? OK, but two terms? Everyone with real wok experience knows a job like that takes at least two years to just begin to understand how things work and establish relationships. Yes, relationships in governing matter. And it ignores the value of institutional knowledge.
Governance by ZOOM? That's just ignorant. Anyone who has used ZOOM to manage a business, organization or project knows ZOOM is not the same as in person meetings and working in an on-site environment.
Travel to foreign countries? Yes please, our representatives should see first hand what they are dealing with when they have to make decisions about foreign affairs. I would hope a representative would travel to Ukraine and see for themselves what the situation is before making decisions about our involvement.
All I got from this guy is the same kind of reasoning MAGA makes, simple solutions to complicated problems from someone who has likely never had to deal with governing or management at even a medium scale.
I think he is confused about the difference between a representative government and being a conduit for populism. See where that is getting us?
Term limits, yes. A senate term is 6 years, and three terms is 18 years. If we look at congressional office as a job one gets after attaining a certain level of expertise or experience through study or employment, that 18 years is good. A representative term is 2 years and with the same assumption as gaining expertise, then 18 years should be good for them too. I'd like to see age limits as well, and given the state of things, 75 seems to be a good cut off age. SCOTUS should also be in this arena:13 Justices, rotating the Chief Justice assignment every 10 years.
Travel: Limit non-essential travel, especially overseas vacation type that is not related to any congressional business. I'm with you on Zoom; have that available in case of illness/injury/emergency but NOT as a primary way of doing business.
My thoughts on the senate are the same, three or four terms sounds right. I like four myself, think back on the job, the ones with 24 years seemed the wisest.
The same for the house 20 years.
I'm not sure why having 13 justices solves anything. Please explain.
I'm not in disagreement on travel, Yet as I look at the travel history and rules, I wonder if some of the impression that these travels are vacations paid for by us is more myth than fact.
Gary, re: SCOTUS justices; there are 13 US Circuit Courts; 12 that oversee groups of District Courts and the US Court of Appeals (which addresses mostly patent law). It is a good idea to have an odd number of justices. Currently, each SCOTUS judge oversees one or two of the Circuit Courts which hear appeals from the numerous Federal District Courts, which are the triers of fact. With 9 SCOTUS Justices, it means that 4 of them are responsible for review out of multiple Circuit Courts. I know little to nothing about the US Court of Appeals and how they decide patent law, but their cases occasionally end up at the SCOTUS.
I would also have the Chief Justice position rotate on a 5 year schedule.
I like your counters, Gary. You nab his flaws where he has them.
Still, more ZOOM time (not all ZOOM) time, and more time in home districts would obviate the reliance reps in D.C. have in being wined-&-dined by lobbyists.
Might also diminish the mealy-mouthed vocabularies of the too-many mainstream journalists who live in D.C. only for the epidemic they have there for "access" journalism.
I've met U.S. reps (and their wives) in foreign countries where I've lived. Sadly, none were interested in the book shops with many very good works in English translation on those local cultures. Just going abroad all by itself doesn't automatically open eyes already trained to some of the zombie customs of U.S. schools.
Heather you shed so much light every day. When you have a chance, I wish you would focus your laser beam on what the goons and kakistocrats on the Project 25 team are doing to spread enough misinformation to enable them to survive the disasters, mayhem and horror they are spreading far and wide. They must be working on some scheme to blind enough people to reality to make this mess survivable for themselves, and we need to know what it is so we can set about destroying it. Is it only Fox News and the rest of the usual suspects? I bet there is something new and worse going on.
About ten years ago, we put up a small garage and situated it so that the solar panels on the roof would receive maximum sunlight. On last month's bill from Eversource, we had a credit of over $800.00. We haven't paid an electric bill in years. Even in the winter, with fewer hours of sunlight, we still come out ahead. I won't list all of the craziness that is the result of spurning clean, reliable, renewable energy--Heather went through them all. Clearly, this regime does nothing right.
Kakistocracy - government by the worst. No one person in this cabal of criminals is fit for any office, capable of running anything, incompetent and stupid to the maximum. And dedicated to the destruction of the government they allegedly "serve" in.
So are most of the MAGAs. They watch Fox News and get a kick out of "owning the libs", while everything they buy is more expensive and wages are stagnant.
We have a gubernatorial election this year in Virginia. In a “discussion” yesterday about Winsome Sears (vs. Abigail Spanberger) a Sears supporter railed on about all the great things current Governor Youngkin, with Sears as his Lieutenant Governor, had done for Virginia. This person was clueless that these projects were all beneficiaries of the CHIPS and Infrastructure Acts. Fox News indeed.
Last week we had 17 solar panels installed on our roof, and already we’re off the electrical grid. It is the best decision we ever made, because today’s solar panels are even more efficient than those early models.
Good for you! We got solar panels a year and a half ago, and at that time we were told we needed 24. Our electricity costs us nothing and we sell a lot of it back to the utility company. At this rate it may not take us 8 years to make up for the initial expense. Plus we got a huge tax break in April. Hope you can still get a tax break!
Betsy, this regime does nothing right, for us, but a lot of good for those in the coal and oil companies that write those policies. I still can't understand why this fascist regime is called "populist" when everything they do it's against the people.😩
Trump successfully used a populist approach but it was all lies and disinformation. A few of the deluded are catching on, but most are still caught in the Fox and friends media trap.
Professor Richardson, you draw the line clean: canceling offshore wind grants and loans days before Labor Day doesn’t just stall climate progress; it rips union paychecks out of places that finally had a growth engine. Revolution Wind was 80% built, powering 350,000+ homes, anchoring shipbuilding and manufacturing across 40 states—shut down “without clear reason.” That’s not fiscal prudence. That’s an amber light to investors: America’s rules are political, not predictable.
Meanwhile the country’s most stressed grid which runs from Virginia to Illinois faces higher demand from AI data centers while renewable cuts halve new capacity compared to pre-cut projections. Prices go up, growth slows, and China sprints ahead on clean-energy export power.
This ain’t left vs right. It’s extractive vs generative economics: a few firms holding the spigot vs many communities building and maintaining what we live on. Every turbine wired, EV charger installed, and solar panel bolted is a job with wages, healthcare, and a pension. You don’t kill that kind of progress; you build on it. www.xplisset.com
Another consideration to this whole energy mess is the clean energy provided by the Niagara Falls hydropower plants that supply over 2.3 million Kw of power on the Canadian side and 2.7 million Kw on the US side. (https://www.niagarafrontier.com/power.html).
47 and his tariff threats to Canada ticked them off to the point where there were counter threats to stop providing power to the US or charge equally exorbitant tariffs. Friendly agreements and treaties between our two countries that have been maintained for over 100 years could all be lost.
My daughter married a Canadian. She said she was noticing new brands of Canadian beer on the grocer's shelves. She mentioned it to an employee who said they were dialing back on US imports, thus the novel brands. That is likely true of other US products, and seems unlikely to snap back to the way it was, even if Trump rolled back his stupid tariffs tomorrow.
and we Canadians proudly continue our boycott of all things American, including visiting. I could have shortened my drive by 1 day by driving through Maine and New Hampshire but there was no way in hell I'll drive thru your country , for my safety and you'll not get one dime from me until that fascist regime ( not just trump) is GONE.
I used to travel annually to Utah ,AZ or to NYC but refused to during trump 1.0 and now during trump 2.0.
The world cares about you. It's heartbreaking to watch as you collapse. Never thought I'd see it in my lifetime. Got to get rid of the oligarchs and the Christo fascists controlling it all
The border towns in ME like Calais and Houlton are floundering without the Canadians. Walgreens is closing several rural stores in ME and many other businesses have already gone under.
Next will be the rural hospitals here. Several rural hospitals have already closed and more will be forced to close.
We miss the Canadians that have come here year after year. But, no more. They are pissed off and rightfully so.
Last week the US border patrol handcuffed a Canadian woman who was going to spend a week with her Native American boyfriend in ME. The US Border patrol said that she had too many clothes for a one week visit as the reason for arresting her. The US Border patrol also confiscated a 25 year old ceremonial drum that he made and has been using at pow-wows since he made it.
I think it was Stephen Miller that said that "Cruelty is the POINT."
I am reflecting on ALL the decisions coming out of this sicko administration and it's hard to find one that doesn't hurt people.
This crew has the same vengeful sort of minds and hearts as the kids that shoot up schools and churches. It is unbridled hate.
It's either a mass psychosis or they are all under Putin's thumb. The latter may be my paranoia. But you can bet Putin chuckles every day as he watches his buddy wreck the country - firing, dismantling, defunding all the good people and good stuff.
I visualize Putin sitting with a few of his closest Oligarch buddies each evening. Someone pours them a vodka. Putin, raises his glass and asks:
"OK, what has my American friend done today to help us cripple the US?"
"Well sir, they are firing their best medical leaders and scientists!"
I can't find the article right now. Susan Collins got involved, but there hasn't been a follow-up story. I thought it was reported in the Bangor Daily News, but it may have been the Portland paper.
GJ, you made me gag with this story. So, who gets to decide how many pairs of underpants you are allowed to travel with? And the drum???? I predict there will be lots of cardiac events & disease on the ICE population.
JL, I believe the reasons Tortoise McConnell and Quack Paul were against the tariffs to Canada were that Canadians love their Kentucky bourbon...
I'm pretty sure several local breweries have taken a hit from not exporting to Canada. (I don't care if Ninkasi gets trounced; they utilize a beverage delivery firm that failed to reach a contract with the local Teamsters. The Teamsters struck, and Bigfoot locked 'em out. Pepsi and Ninkasi are never getting purchased in my home again.
Well stated. Extractive energy needs us all to be weak and dependent. Generative energy gives us true agency. It also leads to a healthier planet and a more vibrant and sustainable (rather than brittle and unsustainable) economic system. The fact that China is sprinting ahead into the vacuum this regime has created around clean energy is yet another signal of the end of the “American century.” We are nothing but a pariah banana republic with nukes now.
That's right. Whoever he's working for, it's not the United States of America, which he and his cohorts clearly want to destroy so thoroughly it can never come back. They are salting the earth in every way they can think of.
Beside a posing a philosophical endorsement of a republic, the founding Declaration of Independence is an indictment of abuses by a king, but the desire of some to be the autocrats is born anew with each generation. We grapple with the same old serpent once again.
Lex, in the mid seventies, we had Ted Bundy on the loose in Seattle. He used his "charm" to convince women to help him- faked a broken bone or injury- managed to take the women away & then killed them. I couldn't leave my dorm without another girl & a guy during that time. Charming SOB.
I'm old enough to remember, Cindy. Bundy's usually the first example people think of when you tell them that sociopaths can be charming. It's what makes them so dangerous -- you can't always see their sociopathy coming.
Trump's "style" is very clumsy; but I guess some mistake that for authenticity. Even without malice on either side, I know it's easy to project onto other people, and the sociopathic predator lays an appealing trap.
He hates any input apart from endorsement and adoration. And of course he hates and fears those bearing any counter-evidence of his inherent, unfailing superiority. He has seized very dangerous powers, but his sense of self is fragile.
Without a doubt. Bigly. Some people only think they are "up" when keeping other "down". They are the villains, not heroes, of the human story, and yet many seem not to know the difference. Even those who suffer under a tyrant's heel.
Actually, he hardly sleeps at all at night from I’ve read. He has tremendous bags under his eyes, gave you noticed? And he tweets a lot at night when normal people are sleeping.
He seems to be following Putin’s playbook for total power in Russia. I wonder how much advise Putin has given him (the latest seems to be getting rid of mail-in voting) and how many financial plans he has made with Putin.
The press should be talking about the fact that anyone can secretly invest in Trump's crypto scam. Anyone can bribe the President of the United States of America.
When we consider not only the regressive energy policies, but the perverse attacks on public health, the broadsides on social safety net programs, the destruction of America's historical role in the amelioration of international suffering, the reversal of environmental progress---the list goes on...---the only conclusion that makes any sense to me is that he hates this country. I mean, literally hates it. I don't know about the cabal of hangers on, enablers, greedy bottom feeders and sycophants who serve him, but the only motive that covers the entirety of his noxious ruination is that he truly hates this country. He hates that he has never gained the social elite's imprimatur, the grace of a man he can never match, the wittiness of the satirists who prick him, the beauty of the stars we love, the prowess of the athletes we admire...none of it. Even in the empty hall of narcissistic echoes that exists under the roadkill that passes for hair, he knows he is small, ugly, stupid, graceless. In his closing years, he is focused on punishing the country that he knows he befouls. He knows that the idolization he craves comes only from a subset of Americans who are as foul as he is.
You're right - he hates all of us who have laughed at him, failed to recognize his great genius, who call him a "lifetime loser" (which he is), we who will never open the glass door he's had his nose pressed against all his life and allow the likes of something like him to be accepted in civilized society, we who know him for the worthless piece of shit he has always been - the truth that sends him to the Golden Throne every night to rail against us Lies Anti-Social, when the fact he was born a failed loser becomes more than he can bear.
He is not the major problem. He's a distraction. Project 2025, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society and Stephen Miller are the brains behind this. Peter Thiel and friends provide the funds.
Kompromat. Putin and Xi want Arctic resources. TACO wants a share of the pie, thinking he will live to see the rewards. It’s why he’s against renewables. Xi is playing the long game in investing in renewables and also possessing the natural resources of the melting Arctic. What Putin has on TACO may be highly influential. Gawd I hate falling into conspiracy theory but I’m afraid it’s evident. The TACO/Xi meeting may be another piece of the puzzle.
Yes. TACO is transactional. Next, he will use Federal money the way he did with Intel. He will entangle himself with Russian oil, the oligarchs from both countries will celebrate on yachts drifting through the formerly ice bound Arctic Ocean.
I also hate the "conspiracy stuff". But the actions of this monster just keep inviting it.
Putin and Russian money pulled him out of his many bankruptcies AND option helped him win the election in 2016 and I think it will be proven someday? that Putin helped him win this past election.
He's a democidal sociopathic malignant narcissist...first it's their inner circle they hate and then the hatred expands further as his mental state declines. And he doesn't care who dies along the way.
My mother-in-law has had veinous insufficiency for several years. The blood-flow in one of her legs was so weak they replaced the vein. And now that is failing so the next step, according to her doctor is amputation.
Imagine Trump with only one leg. No more golfing for sure.
Many amputees play golf but TACO’s age may preclude his ability to adapt. Did your MIL have infusions that would align with the bruising of his hand? I’m shocked the location hasn’t been changed to a less visible area.
I’ve had a bazillion iv’s. The ones in the hand hurt like hell! I request a change when it’s possible. I get it about the collapse. My stage 4 colon cancer survivor husband has awful veins from treatments.
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, and those in a committee that fits your topic. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. We deserve better ❤️🩹🤍💙
Well said! The more concentrated the means for energy production are, the more centralized its political control. So it once was with National Socialism. But diversity of energy production promotes greater state and local autonomy, more efficiency, less centralized control.
And as has been been pointed out, we are under the control of a nationalist regime, now decdicated to state "socialism" - i..e., "nationalist socialism."
In energy production, in health care, in finance, in international relations, in the arts, in every area of human endeavor, the Republicans are marching together in the wrong direction, and roughly half of the adult population of the US is right there marching with them, continuing to perpetrate crimes against humanity, doubling down on the cime against humanity that they committed by voting for Trump. We won’t know until November of next year whether there is a sliver of hope of saving civilization, but even then, even if there is by some miracle a blue tsunami, saving civilization is still a longshot, not least because we will still be saddled with roughly a hundred million members of the US electorate who are malicious, cruel, and willfully ignorant and who cannot by any means be corralled into spaces where they can be stopped from acts of willful obstruction of progress in projects that might give civilization a modest hope of survival.
I would only challenge one small point — I seriously doubt half the country is with him, especially now. Every major “policy” he has is now underwater, sometimes by large amounts.
One-third the country voted for him, for an awful lot of spectacularly bad reasons, one-third did not, and another third didn’t vote at all. That was last November, and it’s clear from the town halls and special by-elections, that situation is changing. That’s why the Texas fuckheads instituted a second redistricting in 10 years. They know what’s coming.
I wonder if even that will save them, though. Winter is coming.
Yes. Way less than half. We are suffering under minority rule. This will change.
75 million for Harris
77 million for Trump (33%)
80+ million didn't vote
The largest bloc of voters are Independents. We have every reason to hope that the old phrase "Throw the bums out!" will reverberate in November 2026.
The anger at the voting booth will be epic. The pain to be caused by the last 6 months of madness has only begun to be felt. Rising cost of everything, loss of jobs, loss of healthcare, closing of hospitals, FEMA not there when needed, lack of essential workers in our food network, lack construction workers, veteran care delayed or N/A, illness and death due to the vaccine fiasco....my fingers are getting numb typing.
The MAGA NAZI PROJECT 2025 OLIGARCH ALLIANCE will be defeated because SO many people will suffer. Karma Cops are coming. Too slowly. But they are suiting up.
Nonody knows where the electorate stands now, much less where it will stand a year from now. I haven’t seen any strong evidence that Trump voters have changed their minds. As to the 80 million non-voters, it seems likely that low-information voters are over-represented in that group. Since low-information voters lean R, I think their votes would have increased Trump’s margin. So, my guess is that the louts among us, the ones who actively desire a cruel autocracy that will punish people they don’t like, comprise, still now, over a hundred million of the electorate and may well remain at that level a year from now. Even if we were to outvote them, they would continue to be obstructive and capable of nullifying any progress Democrats might try to make in the unlikely event that they regain governing power.
I live in Texas and the lack of response to the fatal floods in the "flash flood alley" last spring hasn't had any impact on the Texas fuckheads so far. This latest event ONLY killed lots of children and adults. People do not matter to Texas fuckheads. Infrastructure, oil wells, oil processing plants and such are ALL that matter to Texas fuckheads. The lead fuckhead, Abbott, would not have tried to save his own mother in that flood.
There are so many guns in Texas, and they are owned by democrats, too. I predict Texas will be the first state to initiate our second Civil War. Rethuglicans will fire the first shot. Us democrats don't "love our guns" but we sure know how to use them.
Do you really think we'll make it to next year - that they will actually allow an election? If so, I think you're delusional. It's not going to happen. This regime will need to be physically removed, and soon, if we've any hope of reviving what was once the United States of America.
This is an interesting idea. I see a down side as well---It would add to the pressure on Republicans who are doing everything that Trump wants them today with nary a whimper if they saw a huge wave of people registering as Democrats. It would add to the evidence of recent special elections and generic ballot polls and low approval polls for Trump's policies. Right now, though, there's such a lot of press about low Dem registration rates and approval that I think that gives a little reassurance to Republicans. I'm not saying that only Dems should be the opposition to Trump in any way, and I agree that they have been weak and late to the fight. I'm simply raising the question about weakening Dems further.
I can't help wondering where all the billions of dollars Trump & Co are cutting are going? Why do I have the feeling they're somehow being funneled into Trump family and MAGA bank accounts? It seems like the old fantasy of robbing Fort Knox.
Heather, “kill” is the operative word. The oligarchs want to continue poisoning us with coal mining and gas explorations offshore. Now we know that one of the worst U.S. oil conglomerates will be in cahoots with Putin’s main oil companies. Oh joy!
Thank you for reminding everyone the accomplishments Biden put forth to rebuild a nation that put its people before all else.
1st thing I did when I moved back into my house in Hawaii in late 2022 was installing solar panels (PV). It took 8 months to get it installed due to heavy market demand for panels, electricians & permits. Before PV, monthly bill was $375 (considered cheap for Oahu). After PV… $32, itemized… $25 for the utility connection to my meter & tax.
Same for us here in Hilo, Hawaii. And I run an EV car as well. We also have a "summer condo" in Minnesota, rent a portion of a community solar array, have a second EV, and annually receive a @200-$300 electrical bill credit. Oh, and the cost of the solar array in Hilo Hawaii was paid off years ago.
I forgot to mention my EV. My PV install came with Telsa Power Wall batteries which at the time were subsidized by the Inflation Reduction Act. Over 50% of the cost of my install was covered by Fed and State tax incentives. I guess Elan thought that gov't spending wasn't a waste.
>>>These cancellations reflect President Donald J. Trump’s apparent determination to kill off wind and solar power initiatives and to force the United States to depend on fossil fuels.<<<
Perhaps it has become habit to use the terms 'Trump' and 'Trump administration' interchangeably. But let's be clear: Trump does not have the intellectual capacity or strategic planning ability to execute all these things that are being attributed to him. He is a person who lives by whim and impulse and streaks of vengeance, who knows very little about the world, who famously refused to read his Presidential Daily Briefings (PDB) during his first term (and probably still doesn't) because he didn't understand them (or they bored him) but could not tolerate anyone explaining them to him, such is the depth of his fragile insecurity. We would do well to make it clear, as often as possible, that it's the Project 2025 team, and other ultra-conservative wealthy elites - and in this particular case those wealthy elites are captains of the fossil fuel industry - who are feeding Trump his marching orders.
These Project 2025 conspirators are systematically disempowering every level of our democratic society and culture and creating a kind of isolation that is fed by fear of loss of all that provides our citizens with the means to meet the basic needs that sustain lives. The result is increased anger and discontent that then produces more chaos in our communities. People are then consumed with crisis on the local level. This gives these traitors everything they need to turn this into a bigger crisis or emergency that they think warrants bringing in the military. Wake up everyone. Do everything you know how to order to fight back. Do not succumb to learned helplessness.
As Heather stated in the piece, Trump often negates what Biden began and this story (written 5 years ago) from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums," illustrates this. Enjoy:
What Some Ancient Rulers Have in Common with Trump
During ancient Egyptian dynasties, monarchs often defaced or destroyed statues representing the previous ruler to erase the reputation and deeds of the former ruler. Sometimes damage was limited to facial disfigurement as with Pharaoh Senwosrett III (1878-1840 BC) whose nose was broken off because ancients believed that the life force emanates through the nose.
Trump shares this goal when renegotiating and tearing up Clinton and Obama-era treaties.
NAFTA is one such remake that removes Clinton’s name from the global trade agreement. As Politico writer Adam Behsudi quotes Lori Wallace, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch said, “For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or any other same-old, same-old trade deal.” There are no improvements -- only the removal of the Obama legacy and any other former president’s name.
This symbolic effigy-smashing of Obama extends to the Iran Nuclear Deal, to recertify to Congress every 90 days that the Iranians are complying with the rules; the Paris Climate Agreement; The Affordable Healthcare Act and all other agreements that Obama successfully negotiated regarding the environment and human rights.
In the land that I call home, tens of millions of Americans who couldn’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola, resulting in the election of a malevolent quasi-life form that makes George W. seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one. Maybe our next president, if we are still electing presidents that is, will take cues from Trump and the ancients as well. A good start would be to remove any future White House portrait of him that might eventually be installed.
When Trump is gone—and make no mistake, that day is coming—I predict our people will DEMAND that every. Single. Thing. about that man is irradiated from the Earth. When this is over, and one day as with all things in life—it will be over. I think people will rise up together, all at once all over our country and Just Say NO! That’s enough. NO MORE!
He will likely order his goons to “shoot us in the legs” or something and it’s likely he’ll take citizens to jail for peacefully speaking truth to power.
Will our National Guardsmen or local sheriffs or police or ICE, will they shoot at or arrest their fellow Americans for simply speaking out and demanding change and standing their own ground?
Some will. Most won’t. But ANY is way too many! People will be injured or killed.
I hope and pray we find a peaceful way to end this, but these clowns are working at light speed now. I agree It’s not Trump. They send him out to play golf and show off how important he is all day. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller and the Project 2025 gang are having a field day shutting down the government and along with it, our country.
Shit is gonna keep hitting the fan at greater and greater speed. Just Because they CAN. They are gleefully wielding power they only dreamed of, and doing it Very Badly. They do not care what happens because THEY will be fine. Such small, limited thinking!
The JOB is to wreck every single thing they encounter and the more needy the recipients, the more quickly and deeply their monies can be cut because they have no power to fight back. Cruelty gets extra points, it even gets laughs in certain circles.
No, I don’t see these clowns responding to peaceful protestors, no matter how large their group, with anything but force. I just don’t. They WILL try that route first though. It’s who they are.
Tim Snyder, in his book "On Freedom", "Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: We think we’re free if we can do and say as we please, and protect ourselves from government overreach. But true freedom isn’t so much freedom from as freedom to—the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible."
Trump being gone will bring forward all who fortify pro-broligarchy values daily. We have so much work to do! Reading about the job losses from cutting all the renewable projects makes me cry that too many young able workers will be deprived of their livelihoods.
Another scary thought is how much these people seem to be detached from humanity. They think of themselves as these gods who aren’t afflicted by the nuisances of life.
They work their bodies buff, inject teen male blood into their veins, live in gated isolation, imagine a “better” world in space. They are, as Walz put it, WEIRDOS detached from reality and none seem the slightest bit happy here on earth. They don’t care people will be out of work. They lack the most important thing a leader of humans needs….EMPATHY. We, the People, who are not in their wealthy inner circle are the “other”, the enemy. If we generate anything of value, they will confiscate it. If we don’t, we are shunned, cast out to fend for ourselves.
It is OUR tax dollars they are stealing from projects that are meant to better OUR lives. Research grants aren’t given to Harvard to throw hoists toity parties. They are given to them so our Second child doesn’t die of leukemia like the first, so our spouses won’t die of breats cancer or heart disease or diabetes, so our kids won’t be crippled by polio and their beloved grandmother not sniffed out early by Covid.
They are taking OUR tax dollars and stealing it from projects that will allow our children to breath and have healthy water AND lower our energy costs without intolerable 105 degree weather. They are using OUR tax dollars to pay their personal attorneys to rig elections and keep them in power to steal even more. They are extorting out Allie’s, thereby making us targets for retaliation.
They are taking out children’s information and allowing it to fall into the hands of predators instead of protecting them. They are using OUR tax dollars to go on personal vendettas and STEALING resources from agencies meant to protect our bank accounts and our children from drug and human traffickers.
Well said, Marcus!
Not that we can wait for it, but these malignant thieves are sitting ducks for Karma..
Amazingly well said and I hope your surge of energy keeps having power to release more from others.
They think they can isolate themselves from the misery everyone else will live with. In their bubbles with their families and preferred friends. Private military protection, clean water and air, Whole Foods.
For them it will be a nightmare. Seriously, can you imagine a paradise that includes your family...like forever?
There must be Sci-fi books about this kind of scenario.
". . . detached from humanity," exactly, Marcus.
Please check out Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police" for our best accounting of how this detachment systematically came into place.
Right on Marcus! A WH full of thieves. They can't all keep hiding the retribution We The People will visit on them.
Precisely
Exactly. The opposite of genuine liberty is tyranny, and tyranny is impunity for some and subjugation for others. ANY others. Lincoln saw that clearly in his momentous Gettysburg Address.
The founding Declaration states "--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --". Securing what? An environment of freedom. Self evidently we don't just declare that; we build and protect it together: "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
An environment of freedom, of rights maintained for ALL, is a civilized society. Our form of governance bequeathed to ALL of us a share of responsibility for this, as well as a share of choice. Somehow emphasis of the latter seems to often obscure discussion of the former. It is those liberating responsibilities we bear as individuals, and as a society, that the predatory plutocrats systematically defame. The burden of lives that we could easily preserve with foreign aid. The burden of a history we did not create, yet have within our power the ability to at least partially redress some inherited, unjust circumstances. The quality of life we will bequeath to our children and beyond.
A very poignant poem:
https://andreagibson.org/homesick-a-plea-for-our-planet
Trump's cruelty, the depth and breadth of it, boggles the mind. The heartlessness is staggering. As with USAID, loss of life means absolutely nothing to Trump and his team. There is zero empathy among the entire lot of them. So, it raises the question: what can be said for those who voted for and who continue to support Trump and his gang?
Most excellent question, Richard.
And since you ask it, inviting answer, here's mine: all those U.S. schools where humanities went away and testing took over.
For more, please see Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police."
Check out the horrifying book, "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers", by John Dean and Bob Altemeyer. It will demonstrate that between 30 and 40% of the electorate actually want to live under a right-wing authoritarian government. That's MAGA. Once you understand that, you understand why Trump's approval rating never goes below a certain point, no matter what he does or says.
I believe it was Shakespeare who said, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Trump worships at the alter of filthy lucre and POWER. It blows my mind how so many so-called Christians support him when he is the antithesis of what Jesus preached. Truly a conundrum!
And the current admin thinks they will all be fine. Where the hell are these young workers supposed to find food & housing?
In I.C.E., Cindy.
Tim Snyder is hiding in Canada. Here is where the fight is.
He is protecting himself and his family in Canada.
He discussed that in his column- he's not hiding.
It is insulting to say that Dr. Snyder is "hiding" from anything! We should all have half his courage. Tim Snyder is not "hiding" in Canada. As he has explained publicly, his wife, who is also a renown scholar, was the instigator of the move and it was worked out as a family. Have you followed his work, massive fundraising projects, and travels in Ukraine?!? Did you hear his rousing, inspirational demonstration speech in Philadelphia?
He accepted the job before Trump was re-elected. Not hiding.
I can picture in my mind the long bread lines during the Great Depression and people all over the streets shabby with no place to go. We could easily return to those scenes!
We are being deprived of our “pursuit of happiness”!
Brava, Joan!
Probably center mass Kathryn. They will shoot us center mass. The Trump admin. is pushing the issue in order to force a rebellion which they will use to escalate control and seize more power over the citizenry. They will continue to constrict and constrain American demonstrations until ICE and the U.S. military personnel are actively firing on the masses. Emergency powers and Martial law are coming as sure as the sun rises in the morning. At present more Americans are becoming more enraged at the tactics employed by ICE. The only course forward is to demobilize ICE through political action in Congress which is not likely given the Republican stranglehold in the political theater. Trump’s theatrics have only one direction; control by force. His tawdry tactics are taking the road to dictatorship. Project 2025 is the anaconda enveloping the nation. We must find a way, as with McCarthyism, to feed it upon itself.
The MAGA contingent has served its purpose in bringing about the birth of P2025. Like all mothers in the new political spectre, Mother Maga will quietly be given her place as barefoot and bereft of rights as patriarchy reasserts religious control of American liberties.
Trump has his Rasputin in Steven Miller and he will adjoin Thiel’s Vance in governance until one or the other asserts dominance as Stalin did over Lenin.
Martial.
Hi, Pat -
It's one thing to be a National Guardsman in South Carolina and think you're a bad ass, but quite another to be taken out of your hick town and be plopped down in the middle of one of America's biggest cities and told to "subdue" it. I'm not counting DC as one of America's biggest cities, by the way, because it isn't.
And times have changed since Kent State. If the National Guard starts shooting in Chicago, NYC, or Los Angeles, they will also be shot at. Then they'll want nothing more than to run back to their little hick towns and hide under the covers.
Oops. Thanks Anne-Louise.
Oh, yes! There is a piece of history we should all re- read- Rasputin's influence. Definitely Steven Miller. Boy I bet his house is haunted
Cave, Cindy. By day, bats hang upside down in caves.
When trump is gone I will shit on his grave. I’ve already made this promise to my mother’s memory so I can’t get out of it even if I wanted to.
I believe if you walk near the graves of Justice Antonin G. Scalia at Fairfax Memorial Park in Virginia, Garden of the Crucifixion, Lot 870, Site A, or Senator Joseph R. McCarthy at Saint Mary's Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin Coordinates: 44.24470, -88.44190, it would be wise to wear rubber Galoshes.
I've got a long list of graves I plan to piss on, starting with Rush Limbaugh's.
Joel, I'd have to squat but, Limbaugh's grave is one I'd like to hit.
In the meantime, it is possible to purchase toilet paper with Trump's face on each sheet.
We have a roll for a 'keepsake'.
WHERE can I get that? I definitely have to have some of that TP!
I'll see you in the line, Bill. But it wouldn't surprise me if a Republican Congress, if still in power, approves construction of a large Greco-Roman mausoleum over his body on the National Mall.
If there is a way that I can get you a roll of toilet paper, I would be honored to do so. Please leave the refuse stuck to his tombstone.
Trump's resting place will have security detail and be in a Golden Castle.....But, do your best....
Here is an idea. In the film "The Great Escape" the prisoners hide dirt from the tunnels they were digging during the night in bags worn inside their pant legs. Then when out in the yard at daytime they had strings to release it at their feet so they could just scatter the dirt around the ground of the prison yard under the guards' noses. They would then kick the dirt around to blend it into the surface soil.
You’ve nailed the sickness of it—how cruelty has become the punchline in their circles, how power for them is just wreckage for sport. The thing about Trump and his operators is that they don’t believe in governing, only breaking. It’s demolition as policy. And yes, when people rise up—and they will—force is the only language this gang knows. That’s what makes them dangerous.
But power built on fear rots fast. Guardsmen, cops, ICE—they’re not a single mind. Some will do the dirty work. Many won’t. History is clear: regimes that rely on turning ordinary men against their neighbors collapse when enough refuse. The Project 2025 crowd thinks cruelty is strength, but it’s weakness. They’ve already overplayed their hand. When the tide turns, and it will, the backlash will be fierce.
The day is coming when this country says no more—and when it does, Trump and his wrecking crew won’t just be gone, they’ll be remembered for what they were: small men wielding borrowed power, broken on the very ground they tried to scorch.
You may like Burnt-Ground.com
Do you remember from Sunday school hearing that Jesus said Do Unto Others whatever you can get away with? Project 2025 Christians promise a bloodless revolution if the rest of us allow it.
Carol, 'they' must have a very different Bible they study. Jesus got crucified because the crowd of rich & bad men overruled any court. Their leader washed his hands saying he didn't want Jesus' blood on his hands. He was still guilty of allowing a murder on his watch. Maybe that is what it may come to- blood being spilled.
excellent analogy
You may like Burnt-Ground.com
Let’s hope that happens sooner than later. They are wrecking this country at breakneck speed. We’ll have quite a mess to clean up when they’re through. If that cleanup happens many years from now, it’ll be that much more difficult. Right now, we can potentially get our experts and scientists back. Years from now, not so likely.
My local sheriff is a Nazi, campaigning with proud boyz two years ago. So no.
Jen, too many local sheriffs are the same. I do not think ours in Marion County, here in Oregon, is, but many in other counties are. Our county commission is all R and now they are suing to get clear direction on LE helping ICE. They know the answer, but are wasting my tax dollars with this nonsense. This is from a death star acolyte on the board who never misses a chance to show her colors. Most sheriffs in the state support this. Btw, a local man is one of those people ICE arrested on the fire line in WA.
Michele, which the ICE agents did in direct violation of rules of engagement during a crisis such as a fire. They could have at least waited until their shift was over, not barging in & upsetting the concentration the fir crew needed to safely do their work!
Constitutional Sheriffs are very dangerous
That’s the thing. They’ve got lots of individual law enforcement on their side. Who is gonna stop a coup in the Capitol today? Trump is in charge of the city police as well as Capitol police, National Guard and military. So tell me, are a bunch of Democrats going to go up against all THAT?! He wasn’t kidding about his MAGAS never having to vote again! We must do something NOW and it has to be BIG!
That or he be held as Mao is in China.
History will fail to remember the horrors.
MAGA will rewrite history to make him a idol, they already believe he is.
What they haven't realised is that that's ALL he is.
A golden calf...all glitter and hollow inside
We cannot wait for that imagined day to come. Get rid of him now. Permanently. The world will rejoice.
But HOW?!
I’m with you, Michael!
It's SO obvious that the current regime, including the Federalist Society members of the SCOTUS, has zero respect for "the people". As in mere voters, who are just a short step above Palestinians , immigrants, countries that have not yet bended the knee.
I no longer identify as a proud American.
To POTUS: Clots and Prayers.
When Trump is gone, the regime will still be there and, in all likelihood. JD will be the new pawn.
I still maintain that it will all start falling apart when Trump’s gone. There will be a power grab and many will try to fill those shoes, but no one will be successful at it. Certainly not JD! Look how often he puts his foot in it now and gets LOTS of flak even from his own people. He does not have the balls or the personality to carry it off.
And the rats will be running in the streets, looking for a new place to hide. Orkin anyone?
Look for the power behind the throne.
Donald, JD is SO stupid. I don't believe the left over GOP will let him into that office. They will find a way to make him 'disappear'.
JD was Peter Theil’s choice and a friend of Donny Jr’s. Otherwise, a no go.
Sadly, I believe you are right, Kathryn.
The Supreme Court judges he put there? They have been turning the USA into what we have now with their decisions. The wealthy can buy elections, the Pres. is King and women must make cannon fodder, like or lump it.
Yup Kathryn, keep T on the golf course & away from anyone with brains & sanity. I'm waiting for all his minions to be running rapidly away from the nest we find them in!
While we criticize Trump and get on our high horses about what we know better, where are the reasons we need wind mills and solar power? Our story should have gone out numerous times long before now, Solar power is necessary Education is freedom and as long as we allow or do not counteract Fox "news" we are doomed. In NC we spent 1 billion dollars in school vouchers. I billion our taxpayers paid. Welfare for the rich. Do you think the majority of rural Americans know by voting republican they are voting for the demise of their public schools? This knowledge could flip states from red to blue, Instead you probably see the publicity around bad public schools, more often not correct. The Republicans are lying about public schools and winning at making their argument. Voucher schools do not have to allow any student, if they are a 501 C 3, they do not pay property tax or capital gains tax. Who is benefiting from that money? Did you see this information distributed in your state, especially at a rural level? I was told it would take the dems a million dollar pole (in NC) to see if it could be an issue for our dems to take up in their campaign and then 1 million to get the word out. Folks we got to do better than this. In my opinion the dems bet the bank on their stance on abortion. Women's rights are important but it takes more than one issue to win and we better start defending the dems on public schools and the economy.
You had me until "Women's rights are important but". We ought to be capable of championing more than one critical issue at a time. Without our rights, without our autonomy, without our access to vote, half the population is unable to join in the rest of the pushback. Women's rights remain fragile at the moment. Let's not pit ourselves against each other any further.
Dems have been a day late and a dollar short on every issue. It took military troops and Ice agents invading American cities to wake up democratic governors.
The GOP could stop this at any time. The Dems have offered and with great difficulty accomplished things like the Affordable Care Act, the infrastructure bill that brought us not only jobs but a concerted effort to mitigate climate change. The Dems brought us an economy that was the envy of the world just a few short years ago. The Dems created and promoted legislation toe address the immigration issue in as humane, economically responsible way. And the GOP fought them at every turn. I'm not spending my energy being bitter about them. The GOP could turn this around instantly. They need to feel the burden and the responsibility here and that's who we need to be calling out.
I really think the ones who understand what GOP is trying to do & want it to stop have been threatened with their jobs & the 'safety' of their families. We've already seen some results against the good ones. Most of GOP is too embarrassed to admit to the public they made big mistakes. They won't change.
Bonny, who said they can't?
We ran on those issues. They're in the platform.
We wuz robbed.
Did Trump admit Musk stole Pennsylvania?
Has even MSNBC addressed the fact that allegations about voter fraud in Pa were burried by an incoming Republican state AG?
Has MSM ever mentioned the internal election audit that was performed?
“In December 2024, I was personally involved in an NSA‑authorized forensic audit of the 2024 election. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz won—by a wide margin. Trump lost dramatically. There are multiple layers of complexity to this cover‑up, including transnational organized crime syndicates that extend far beyond the United States and our elections. To that point, I work in the human trafficking sector, which intersects with the stolen election(s) and has ties to Trump and Epstein—not to President Biden, Vice President Harris, or Governor Walz, but to the Democrats and other allied interests responsible for burying the audit.” — Adam Zarnowski, ex-CIA agent and author of Jörmungandr
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/ex-cia-whistleblower-the-nsa-audited
Who else was involved?
Has MSM discussed the Greg Palast allegation re voter intimidation?
https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
I wish that were true.
But the exit polls do not support that conclusion.
Daniel, there were sure a big bunch of crime related to the 2024 election- as there was fir T's 1st election. Wish someone could figure out WHERE all the the audits are hidden. What was the movie with Nicolas Cage in the Library of Congress finding a document? This reminded me of that movie.
Daniel, thank you!
I’m afraid we have become a nation of morons, where not getting educated is a badge of honor, voting directly against your economic interests makes perfect sense, and sucking up to a guy who who could care less if you lived or died makes you feel empowered. These idiots are celebrating the dismantling of our collaborative democracy as if it was a great idea. I never thought I would ever consider this, but it leaving is starting to look better every day. But to where? The Department of War is likely to start WWIII and then nowhere will be safe. The price of eggs, my ass!!!!!!🤬🤬🤬
Yup on morons. Even when Trump called them "poorly educated" they embraced that. Unreal.
What have the educated done to cause that? How have we left rural America so disengaged they align with trump
Excellent points, Sandra! Your post actually gets down to What Is the Platform of the Democratic Party? Yesterday, a distant cousin of mine posted this on Social Media. Is my cousin wrong?
Here is her post:
Republican Platform - Free Enterprise, Secure Borders, Honest Elections, Real Journalism, Ethical Judiciary, Civil Rights, Moral Standards, Personal Liberty.
Democrat (sic) Platform - Hate Trump
I BELIEVE this is what Republicans believe, but don’t
Democrats also support Free Enterprise, Secure Borders, Honest Elections, Real Journalism, Ethical Judiciary, Civil Rights, Moral Standards, Personal Liberty?
I suggest you sent this to your cousin:
Free Enterprise--as long as you donate to Trump and give 10% of your company
Secure Borders--torture fellow humans despite your religious beliefs.
Honest Elections--gerrymander and supress those who'd vote against you.
Real Journalism--regurgitate whatever the masses want to hear, even if it results in 3/4 of a Billion $$ fine
Ethical Judiciary--let the SCOTUS be sold to the highest bidders
Civil Rights--laws for thee but not for me
Moral Standards--apply only to others. As long as I am a billionaire, I can have multiple wives and cheat on them, have children out of wedlock, can have sex with my same sex or with children, can steal money any way I can, and indulge in porn.
Personal Liberty--ME before the common good! Always. In every case. No mask, even if I'm near people with cancer. I can stockpile an arsenal of weapons, even if I live in the safest area of the safest town in the safest state, because I just MIGHT be paranoid. I don't need to follow traffic rules or speed limits, because NOBODY is going to mess with MY FREEDOM.
I'm so (BAD WORD!!!!) tired of what is the Democrat platform!! Harris pounded her platform and DEMOCRACY as she stumped for the election, but mainstream media chose to focus on her laughing. MAINSTREAM MEDIA DID THAT.
What was the Trump platform? SERIOUSLY? WHAT WAS IT? Lock up people who look different than you. Oh, and Hanibel Lecter and sharks and batteries. Period.
WOW, Miselle! You are fantastic! Now, I have to decide whether I should give you credit for these great insights or just steal them. Hmmmm, what would Trump do? (I should probably do the opposite, right?)
Oh Miselle, you sure can get your points across. Thank you for your words. Always a pleasure to read your comments.
Your cousin's a MAGAt moron, and you may tell her I said so. Also, ask her when the last time was that she read a book.
Standard Republican talking points.
Sandra Simpson, I’m confused: do you mean a million-dollar poll instead of pole, as in billboard?
We really do need to pick our battles, even though the choices will be very hard.
They didn't really even fight for abortion until it's fate was already determined.
It's "poll".
Both heroes and villains comprise history, but yeah, Trumps wants his name on everything. He has been erecting his image on public buildings like a classic tin-pot dictator.
We need to bring back the Roman custom of "Damnatio memoriae." When someone was so hated and despised, his name and face would literally be chiseled off of statues, inscriptions, etc.
I recall seeing a statue of some person who slayed (adjective chiseled away) "Indians". That seemed appropriate. Germany preserved some death camps as a historical fact, as repentance, and as a warning. For the most part I think Nazi symbology was removed.
Although trump is destroying our social fabric, our world standing, our environment, our trust in government... I am not afraid to celebrate: my health; having a chance to live another day; celebrate with gratitude and laughter the small favors; for just waking up each day; the sunlight coming through the window; with exhales and deep breaths; celebrating showing up, making a mess with protests, repeating.....
So important not to forget the joy and beauty all around us.
I feel sorry for Trump (in a very weird way of course). He has no friends, no interests or hobbies, no curiosity about anything, no appreciation for truth, beauty, rhyme or reason, no compassion or honor, never did one damn thing for anybody else, not even a cat or a dog, nobody loves him (except for his vile progeny, Uday and Qusay).
He fits my definition of an absolutely wretched human being who filled his entire wasted life with mammon.
I hear he’s worried about his standing with God. He should be.
Trump has tons of adoring followers, but they attach to a projection, not the real deal. Surely, for all his hubris, Trump knows he is a fraud, or he would not be soooo thin-skinned about the slightest criticism or imagined slight. Right away, that should tell people something.
The foundation of honest-to-goodness love is truth, or it isn't really love. Love lets down the mask. We "confess" our love, we "confess" our errors. We are love and are loved for what we are, not just our presentation. Love does not mean accepting abusive behavior, or even maintaining a face to face relationship. Some people are a danger to society, and yet deserve some fundamental protection of human decency, even in a prison. "Love" in the sense of "I love pecan pie" is a different use of the word.
All dictators are thin skinned.
Stephanie, I'm with you. One of our neighbors had a pre-Labor Day get together at her home yesterday, and two of the boys showed up at the house for a good old-fashioned scavenger hunt which I was actually able to help this with the last piece. The boys were so happy and carefree, and it felt so normal and nostalgic (having participated in a few of those in my teen years) that my own spirit felt temporarily lighter as well.
@Bill Katz. Yes, we in CT who remember that we are “The Constitution State” are getting it done. Part of getting it done is to make sure our history is taught to the younger ones who never learned it or who have forgotten it. All of our schools need to have ready access to cptv whose programming has been subtly, but brilliantly been targeting the issues with historical drama and documentaries as pushback.
I think (based on my admittedly limited experience) that we can do a far better job of making history personally relevant. Not just a put-on merit badge for an educated person, but a tool for personal understanding, and do so as a societal value, not just drop the burden on the schools. The truth (both the good and the bad of it) shall make us free. How can we adequately navigate the opportunities, hazards, and uncertainties of life without the most faithful charts available? Artificial flavors, artificial behaviors, artificial reality, are poor substitutes for the real thing. Even elaborate fantasies, that don't pretend to be anything else, can pack a payload of profound truth if not practiced to deceive.
yup -- we need to treasure those moments.....
I’ve always had a problem with Trump’s wish to remove images of past presidents to lesser known or seen spaces(like maybe, even the basement). My suggestion would be to leave a portrait of Trump up with his face covered by a stocking complete with the hosiery flopping at the top with the proximal part of the hosiery covering his neck. He has disrespected so much of the nation’s past presidents and leaders that his image should be forevermore tarnished and disrespected.
I like especially the part about DJT making W seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one!
I recommend reading the book, Tribe, by Sebastian Junger. It's a 2 hour read, and when you're done you'll understand at gut level how humans need each other to live their best lives and do their best.
After I'd read read Tribe--years later--I read Endurance by Alfred Lansing, about how Ernest Shackleton and his 28 men all made it back to civilization alive after Antarctic ice chewed up their boat and spat it out, leaving them stranded. For the 15 months it took them to reach civilization, they were cold, damp, and often hungry. But they worked together to save themselves and each other, something that is so much more understandable after you've read Tribe.
We need to come together to change the politics in this nation.
We need to come together to form a new nation. The chasm in this country is insurmountable.
I think the day will come when his Grumpy Cat-fobbing-himself-off-as-Winston Churchill portrait will be in the White House, but hanging upside down. It will start a tradition, and no subsequent President will dare reverse it.
At least I hope so.
If you bring up Egyptian dynasties, I bring up the history of Israel. After the dynasty of David - Solomon that ended in BC 975 it took only 250+ years that Israel, a part of the divided kingdom was captured, and in BC 590 the kingdom of Judah. America has lasted so far 250 years. It is possible that the democracy could end. We must realize that a dynasty does not mean lasting forever. We must act for the country to keep alive and prosper. It is our doing.
I hope I will long enough to witness the day when I will not see or hear anything that has to do with this POS, or his ilk, including P2025.
Hey Bill, we could use T's pictures as target practice. Ancient history shows us that not much has changed, there will always be a fox in the hen house for us to discover & REMOVE>
I keep reminding myself how much these vile people thrive on chaos and resentment. It is indeed about a larger project, with Trump the useful comedian drooling from his mouth. It serves as a great distraction from what is happening all around us.
Most normal people try to shun chaos, rather than feed off it. As a consequence, we imagine that this little bit of chaos or that ghastliness will somehow serve as their undoing, the magic potion to undo the poison and bring the whole house of cards down. That’s what I fear when I see so many of us talking about the “Epstein Files.” Perverse as it may sound, it’s a great cover for them, as they try to undo all our institutions, our honor, laws and our future to benefit a small clique of deranged individuals.
As hard as our task is, it’s so much more than just getting rid of the demented figurehead waddling in front of the madmen. The madmen and their cult work behind him.
ICCT, you are 100% right on; we must get rid of the "power behind the throne" as it were; Project 2025, the oligarchs, and the Christian Nationalists.
I think your last paragraph is spot on.
When Nancy MacClean published “Democracy in Chains,” I asked her, history prof at Duke University, if she could get the administration to rescind Stephen Miller’s degree, she wrote back that she could not. I find it appropriate that a “tobacco university” should continue poisoning the American people. (Admission: 3 degrees from UNC-CH, which, closed by Native Americans, existed before Harvard. It reopened after Harvard was founded.)
Thanks for the clue that led to https://forward.com/fast-forward/367775/stephen-miller-gets-protest-letter-from-duke-classmates/
"...By Daniel J. Solomon March 31, 2017
Members of White House adviser Stephen Miller’s graduating class at Duke University have a message for the Steve Bannon protege: you don’t represent the values we learned at school.
“We find it impossible to see in your words and actions any glimmer of the university values we so cherish, nor the slightest suggestion that you spent four of your most formative years at the same dynamic, diverse institution of higher education we did,” the petition signed by more than 3,500 people reads.
According to the signers, the diversity on Duke’s campus and extracurricular life should have taught Miller the importance of “intellectual honesty, tolerance, diversity, and respect that we seek to promote in the world...”
Jim, Thank you for the history reminder. Miller is such a POS. a Nazi without the uniform. Is he married? Children? Heaven help them.
His wife, Cindy, has a podcast for conservative women.
And, thanks to Daniel J Solomon for his wonderful reporting skills!
Yes ICTT, there are very vile people in positions of power. Can we demand other truths be revealed instead of screaming about Epstein? GOP is using his name as a distraction from the real shit they are doing. And yes, I want the women harmed by Epstein & Maxwell to be heard in a courtroom. They can have a great moment in allowing our court system more reason to keep Maxwell in prison & work to figure out who all was busy 'playing' with those girls & women.
💯
Good point, Judith.
The fattest, sickest orange goon of them all will be tickled when he gets American suffering to fever pitch, so he can declare not only martial law, but also end to all American elections.
We in Connecticut will get the job done along with rode island.
Here's hoping...
He’s not going to do that. He will certainly do his best to make you think and fear that, but that isn’t going to happen.
"He will certainly do his best to make you think and fear that . . .."
So you think the I.C.E. raids grabbing people from courthouse hallways, grabbing volunteer firefighters from active fire-fighting, grabbing farmworkers, grabbing mothers from cars and leaving little children alone inside those cars, and, heavily armed, wearing no identification, grabbing, grabbing, grabbing, then disappearing them illegally, without due process -- you think this is all just theatrics?
It's all just a game to make us "think and fear," with no human consequences you can see, or even more vengeful intentions going forward?
Well, ICTT, you certainly do echo most all top Dems in America.
Oh yes, that’s EXACTLY what I said, Phil. Gosh you just outed me once and for all, didn’t you? 🤪
For such a strong advocate against standardized testing, you don’t do such a great job reading what people actually say, rather than what you pretend they said and put in their mouths for them free of charge.
What is going on with you two?
ICTT, Phil makes many good comments other than on testing.
Phil, ICTT's argument has merit. We just don't know how much is theater and how much Trump truly cares about anything aside from gaining power and wealth. You are right that people are suffering.
You both make valid arguments.
I like both of you. This makes me sad.
Save the bitterness for the Rick's of the world.
OK, dear ICTT, I left out the kicker from you.
You'd said, as I quoted you, "He will certainly do his best to make you think and fear that . . .." But now I need to quote what you said first, before that quote from you.
Before it, you said, "he's not going to do that." And after the bit I quoted first from you, you concluded, "but that isn't going to happen."
"That," being his passionately serious, venomous, hate-filled campaign for hatred, free elections contravening, police state, and authoritarianism.
Yes, ICTT -- addictions to testing will blind as to human evils. But, too, vacancy as to humanities will blind even more fatally as to the human damage you dismiss.
just stop with all the doom posting
We’re all having our bad days. Bearing witness in this chaos is some days almost unbearable. When all else fails, think of Aristophanes. This has gotten far too big for Gilbert and Sullivan.
I think that much of the contrast between the now nominal "Republcian" Party, and Democrats is that the latter's general inclination is divide power while the former strives to divide people. Empowerment vs Overpowerment.
Many Congressional Republicans privately admit Trump is nuts but they are intimidated. We have another chance to get them to save the country next week.
. https://removalcoalition.org
I, for one, do NOT understand why those Congressional Republicans you mention are so terrified of being primaried that they quit. Intimidated by having someone run against you? Good grief!
Ally, some of the ones who have spoken out tell of harassment of their families & friends in person, by mail, online. I'm not sure I would have the strength to face all that shit. I think it's deeper than a threat to their government job. There are some very mean people in the GOP.
Judith Wilcox: " ... this gives the traitors everything they need to turn the into a bigger crisis ...". Spot-on Judith 🎯 So let's prepare for next week's crisis -- an attack by federal troops, ICE & other federal agents on CHICAGO in the first week of September.
To get started, I spotted with the help of a Google AI search, REUTERS author, SUSAN HARVEY's 8/30/25, headline at 2:46 PDT earlier today:
"Chicago Mayor [BRANDON JOHNSON] says Chicago police will not aid federal troops or agents" during any Trump led attack on Chicago, Illinois. I am expecting a vital LFAA between 9/3-9/5 from Heather.
Speaking of 9/3/25 -- those of who are already activists (you don't have to be lawyer) on DEMOCRACY DOCKET can simply upgrade their DD subscription to join a 9/3/25 ZOOM featuring HEATHER COX RICHARDSON & Democracy Docket's MARC ELIAS.
I am already upgraded to a little over $10/week & hope Zoom's real time CHAT function is available to all Zoom participants.
Stay Safe All
I hope Heather is doing all this podcasting from home. Her work level is rising.
Anne-Louise, I agree. I worry about her because the going is gonna get worse and we need her. Besides the Letter and her twice weekly Politics Chat, she's been doing SO MANY OTHER INTERVIEWS/PODCASTS. I cannot keep up with them all. There must have been at least three others this week.
Got that right Miselle & now Heather has the upcoming Zoom with Marc Elias, Democracy Docket at 7 PM Eastern & 4 PM PDT.
Tech is not a problem ... neither is security for Heather or Marc.
You're right about the systematic nature of this. But here's what worries me more than their playbook—it's working because we're still talking about it like it's some grand conspiracy.
It's not. It's just business.
These aren't mustache-twirling villains in a back room. They're accountants with power, bean counters who've figured out that chaos is profitable. Keep people scared, keep them broke, keep them fighting each other over scraps while the real money flows upward.
The military part? That's not the endgame—that's just another line item. Private contractors, surveillance tech, detention facilities. All of it generates revenue for the right people.
Your anger is justified. Your call to fight back is necessary. But we need to stop giving these grifters credit for being master strategists. They're just really good at what they've always been good at: taking things that work and breaking them for profit.
The question isn't whether they're traitors. The question is whether we're willing to admit that our system was designed to let them do exactly what they're doing.
Fighting back means more than resisting their emergency. It means building something they can't break and sell back to us.
You may like Burnt-Ground.com
How to become a sociopath:
"The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits."
-- Milton Friedman
His, J L, same philosophy as testing's.
Just max out your points. Get above everybody else. They've not human, not people, not parts of communities or nature. In fact, for the people slick for testing, and for corporate rule, the human, people, communities, and nature never show.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Yeats, "The Second Coming"
"He refers to climate change as a “hoax,” says that windmills cause cancer, and falsely claims that renewable energy is more expensive than other ways to generate power."
What is sad is how many people believe this sh*t. Never would I have imagined how most Americans lack critical thinking....
Yes to both observations. When we get out the other side of this mess I would love to see a revamped Department of education develop a curriculum developmentally suited to each cognitive stage that helps develop age appropriated critical thinking and problem solving skills. I would also like to see Civics course restored to the high school curriculum so that the kids understand the meaning and importance of our Constitution and what it means to be a responsible citizen. Freedom only exists when there is a discipline that is followed to preserve our individual and collective rights. Freedom comes with responsibilities. That lesson exists across cultures and levels of consciousness from the mundane to the mystical.
Essay writing, Judith.
Essay writing aimed at seeing real people around us (starting with in the same classroom) and quoting (directly, indirectly) the best from them.
Then, expanding to quote from novels, histories, memoirs, other books, other arts.
I am all for that if kids are actually taught how to do that without using AI to write it for them. I had grad students who couldn’t write to save themselves. I had to teach them how to do it and then send them off to the writing center.
Yes, Judith, there's an art to teaching writing.
And it's impossible to do without love. One has got to love the emergence of the person, the special, unique individual -- the surprise qualities, experiences, complications within "others."
After love come the skills. Some basic. Others multiply rich and diverse.
Yes, we've taken our freedom for granted....
“…Project 2025 conspirators…”
This moniker is precisely how we should be understanding our national nightmare under Trump. It’s not MAGA…it’s not even Trump himself; he’s just the rotting meat sack in human form who created a dead space which serves as the empty vessel into which the Project 2025 maggots have slithered into & been welcomed to inhabit and feed off in this, our democracy in extremis. In the process of taking over the ‘25ers have further evolved & speciated ultimately posing very great threat to us and what has been our deceptively comfortable way of living this awful Decade of Trump.
Our real enemy has hidden within the gilt-edged, Trumpian circus while these nefarious ‘25ers methodically consume their dying host employing an obviously well-planned administrative coup from within—just as a real maggot would consume a rotting corpse.
The major difference, though, is that a biological maggot performs a useful job in the recycling of matter and energy in this biosphere. The ‘25ers, like Steven Miller & his ilk, exist only to seize and then dominate the society, which for good reason they have been heretofore marginalized from. As Trump creates the permission structure, the ‘25ers invade, take over, and accelerate the rot in our societal systems as they seek to dominate.
It is uncertain to me that the fraudulent Project 2025 charade has not gone past the point of no return; pro-democracy advocates have a big task ahead to exterminate these consumers of rot, one that must not fail.
Yes! Project 2025 is massive. These people are organized and they’re not going away. Whether they’ve permanently captured the R party is unclear.
Tariffs and a fondness for Putin aren’t in P2025. Those are Trumpian add-ons. But Vance sure has the Putin schtick down pat.
I agree with your take on chaos, Judith. It will be easier for the right-wing to complete the coup if chaos extends to the local level. The fossil fuel industry has been subsidized since the beginning of the industrial age.
And trump's policies look to be aimed at the destruction of the renewable power industry. I guess if you want to breathe clean air or have clean water, you are woke and must be forced to pay for the energy to build data centers with higher electricity bills. God forbid you have the ability to install renewable power on your property at a reasonable price and reduce your reliance on the power company. The disregard for the local economy and the ability of good, high paying jobs, means nothing to right-wingers or the ultra-rich who are the investor class. All things equal, all segments of the power industry should enjoy equal subsidies, if there are any subsidies at all. Then the market will decide the winners and losers.
Thank you, Judith Wilcox. Perfect response to the chaos. Everyone can “resist” as the French did under Nazi occupation. And there is an old US slogan (WWI or II):”Now is the time for every good [person] to come to the aid of the country. Note to W Bush: “homeland” is “heimweh”, Hitler’s word.
(Any corrections to the above are welcomed, but the message is clear.)
Absolutely, Judith!
"Wealthy elites" have played a longstanding historical role in hoarding prosperity, and this is not the first time in US history they pushed extreme agenda. Trump is a talented conman and hate monger, but the impetus toward plutocracy and authoritarianism over the last half century is a whole lot more complicated and organized than the celebrity of any line of presidents, and money always can buy organization, while grass roots movements have to build it bit by bit, in a nation where diversity of agendas in a feature, not a bug. Is not the outright purchase of political outcomes the essence of political corruption?
You mean like every time there is a Republican President they drive the economy into recession? More than half the states are already in recession and the two worst economies are TX and FL. If a major hurricane hits either state and FEMA doesn't help with the recovery, things will get very ugly for Trump.
All politics is (and are) local.
From a macro standpoint Trump was handed the greatest economy in the world.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, where we had a flourishing economy, besides the obvious, Trump killed our tourist economy. This doesn't affect most rural Florida counties that vote heavily MAGA, but here we don't need a hurricane for things to get ugly. Added to that both the Trump administration and our governor and state legilatiure are anti DEI, and half our population is hispanic and we have a large Black minority that are mocked and discriminated against.
I repetedly post: Miami healthcare CEO Michael “Mike” B. Fernandez wrote the following open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and members of the Republican Cuban-American Miami-Dade congressional delegation: U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar.
"For decades, I have stood with you in defense of the freedoms we cherish, those we were denied in the country of our birth and found in the grace of this one.
"I know what it means to flee tyranny. Like you, I carry that history in my bones and that pain in my heart.
"But like a growing number in our community, I have watched with dismay as the very values we once found sanctuary in are now being attacked by a previously unthinkable threat — the sitting president of the United States."
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article304271841.html#storylink=cpy
It only takes a few Congressional Republicans to stop this stuff, and we have thrfeee who should have the motive.
Daniel, thank you for the statement of CEO of Miami Healthcare. Disgusting how many politicians have no empathy. They just want to count their $$$
Charming, GJ.
Texas and Florida -- the two states where Donald and Jeffrey's pal Ghislaine has served parts of her 20-year sentence for the rape of girls by the rich and powerful to whom she trafficked them.
Good thing the U.S. has a Constitution and adjacent rule of law that might prevent from public office any adjudicated rapist, convicted business fraud, insurrectionist, fossil fuel enabler, and friend to all the world's worst dictators.
Oh... they'll probably celebrate these events as the second coming of the Lord or the advent of the rapture!!
🤣🤣🤣
Until they count the # of dead GOPers in TX & FL. They'll blame it on 'us'.
To my surprise, the devastating floods in TX recently and the lack of emergency support haven’t seemed to have had a deleterious effect on either Abbott OR 47, while the people affected are left dangling. To be fair, I hope I am wrong.
MLMinET, Since TX is so vast, I wonder if Abbott & company worked very hard to NOT show/ share the total effects of the floods.
We can only hope! These very red states need to have their eyes opened and quit thinking that the policies of the Democrats are just "woke". They are not. They are to protect us ALL!
Here's hoping that both of those things happen, and please add Louisiana to that list, because Mike Johnson.
Slightly off topic: Netflix is currently airing a three episode documentary on Hurricane Katrina, this being the 20th anniversary. In addition to the sheer devastation, it highlights how the government and media perverted the racial divide.
Actions have consequences and these two states overwhelmingly voted for Trump!
This administrations lack of response to Guadalupe River disaster should be a warning going forward.
For some reason, MAGAs don’t learn . They will go over a cliff with Trump and I would gladly push them over!
Christine, can I help?
Oh gee, how terrible for them. Thoughts and prayers for them.
But first they will get very ugly for the people who’ll have to suffer without any help!
GJ, I'd bet on the fact that TX & FL would get ALL the help they need- T will make it so.
Or will Trump just get uglier for US, pushed by MAGA?
The last time the Oligarchs in the US wielded this much power was the Gilded Age, and that led to the great depression.
Not entirely correct: Trump has real animus towards wind power. He's railed against the turbines off-shore in Scotland because he believes they 'ruin' the view from his golf course in Aberdeenshire and he's had this stance for morw than a decade.
He is just as deranged as RFK Jr. only now he is targeting the blue states and climate control advocates while at the same time he is taking away resources that promise to help both individuals of all parties manage to survive the financial disasters he has created in the economy.
Power tends to corrupt. It seems to me that there is a point at which great wealth can isolate a human being from the fate of the rest of humanity. In some of the internal communication that was made public from Bank Crisis bankrupted firms, it appeared to me that some officers within ill fated corporations were aware of how fragile the subprime business was becoming, but valued the continuance torrent of profit over the long term fate of the company, much less the nation.
Musk didn't like the policies of Twitter, so he bought it, and immediately behaved in ways that lost shareholders significant money. He can can afford to treat Xitter as a personal toy, irrespective of whether the company prospers. The Guardian wrote about how billionaires are building fortified Bond villain lairs to wait out the apocalypse that their shenanigans are making more likely.
The far more diverse array of smaller businesses I grew up among appeared to be much more invested it the fate of the community. Why would they not be?
Charming, J L:
" . . . great wealth can isolate a human being from the fate of the rest of humanity."
Add to that testing, in the same service.
Can we guess this is not likely to go well?
I think we are already seeing that it is not going well. It will get worse before it gets better. I do believe that we can collectively through persistent group and individual actions on the local level block their attempts.
Oh Judith, I so hope you are correct!
I think that really is part of it, and that there is a lot more to it. He advertised political favors for sale to the fossil fuel industry during his campaign.
Yes. I also remember when gas prices went sky high overnight. A Bush nod to his cronies in the oil industry. And, those oil prices never went back down to where they were...But, really, all this talk about what THEY do or will do next...To me, what WE do is the bottom line. Historically, as Prof Richardson so often illustrates, the American people value democracy and freedom as ideals. Those are principles of the Constitution. Project 2025 is in the minority and, like in the past, if history repeats, the people of the U.S. will rise to the challenge to protect those ideals.
Ours have crept up 50 cents a gallon here in Oregon during the first half of the first year of this administration.
Wow!!! And no affordable electric cars with enough charging stations...
Unless I am badly mistaken, JL, no administration or regime has ever taken away most of the political favors and breaks the various fossil fuel companies have had since at least the mid-20th century. The death of electric-powered intraurban and interurban transport was largely due to undue support for rubber and petroleum-powered transportation. Our low gasoline prices reflect both that and the cowardice of elected politicians to end those supports in the face of political pressure from those fossil fuel elites. The orange ogre just promised more of the same and fewer exploration restrictions for an industry outliving its beneficial life.
Don the ConQuixote always tilting at windmills.
"Just then, they discovered thirty or forty windmills in that plain. And as soon as don Quixote saw them, he said to his squire: “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we could have ever hoped. Look over there, Sancho Panza, my friend, where there are thirty or more monstrous giants with whom I plan to do battle and take all their lives, and with their spoils we’ll start to get rich. This is righteous warfare, and it’s a great service to God to rid the earth of such a wicked seed.” -'Don Quixote'
Don Quixote at least aimed at monsters.
Our sick orange Donald and all his sycophants in high places aim only at the regular, decent people with whom I grew up.
Me, I, a kid in 1950s America, a youth in 1960s America, who could take democracy for granted, could take for granted, too, decency, the ideal of a level playing field, of everybody else as each as much a person as myself.
My experience too. I have been reflecting on that…my life in the50’s, 60’s, 70’s, etc and what was going on in the country and the world at that time that I was vaguely aware of but never worried that democracy would fail. But here we are, and my fear is for my children and grandchildren and all of our progeny who will live through the aftermath. I’m beginning to write my memories of my time here against the background of history ( that I am learning from Heather) to leave for my children. I will want them to know that I, and many decent people did not vote for this chaos and destruction. And that we protested and railed against it in the ways we were able.
Deborah, we must be the same age; your comments are mind exactly. My dad was a very young man when drafted into WWII, and his service and that of all the others from that time, fighting fascism, are on my mind constantly. I am so resentful of the people who voted for this man—I knew what was going to happen. If they did, they didn’t care. If they didn’t, they should have.
My Dad was an "old" man (26) when he enlisted in the Army in 1942. He was 41 when I was born (he and Mom started late). He would be absolutely disgusted with what we have seen since 2015 (thankfully, he passed in 1987 and has not seen where we've gone as a nation.)
As you write for your children and grandchildren, Deborah, write for us, too.
Maybe you'll recall TV shows, books you read (in school or out), movies you saw, songs we all heard back then.
Thanks for those reminders to include …especially about the music. Memory is closely tied to music as I find I’m immediately drawn back to a time and event in the past by listening to those old songs. Nostalgia fuels memories.
I think we could use a more noble Don Quixote.
Si, verdad.
Of course, Trump’s hatred of wind turbines HAD to be personal! Does anything else matter in his pea brain? He cares for nothing but himself!
Classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder with psychotic features. He is totally delusional at this point and the whole world knows it. In any other context he would have been hospitalized by now.
We have been teased this week about life after Trump with JD trying to calm the waters. There are fish with more charisma and charm than JD. And the harder he tries, the more glaring it becomes that he was born with his foot in his mouth.
Hopefully Trump will drift into either full scale dementia or a coma which would 1) put JD in charge and 2) freeze the actions of the MAGAs since they wouldn't dare roll back changes made by the Trump administration in case Trump recovered.
He would have been jailed by now.
MLMinET, I think you misspelled "should".
<can't decide if the sarcasm font, the snark font, or the wink font should apply here>
Judith, I am offering to hold the key to T's padded cell....
It all about appearances.
But he is a climate change denier. Standard MAGA.
Perhaps Scotland should nationalize all tRump properties within there borders. In fact every country with any property bearing tRump name should be nationalized and income from said properties be used for the advancement of of the people of that country which more likely than not have been screwed over by Trump and his companies.
I see his not as an administration but as a regime. They are not administrating anything, they are simply destroying. The wind farm in New Jersey and the one for Rhode Island and Connecticut have one other thing in common besides renewable energy, they are in blue states. Would he be as quick to cancel a wind farm project if it was in the Gulf of Mexico for Louisiana or Alabama or Texas? Especially if the project was just months away from completion?
If I may expand on an observation by our hostess, "Trump often seems to construct policies mostly to erase the legacies of"... all humanitarian civilization.
The largest wind farm I have ever driven through was in Ohio, near Purdue University. In twilight it was was simply beautiful. Will it be destroyed? I think not.
Purdue is in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Sorry Phil. I knew it was a red state and should have known geography better. The important thing for me was the beauty of the wind farm at twighlight. It was like being in a gallery of moving art. Removed as I am from college football (rmy first acquaintance with Purdue was hearing about its football team), I would have been hard pressed to think “Indiana.” Thank you. I won’t forget.
Simple enough, Virginia.
When I was in high school, I read John Dos Passos's three-volume set of novels, the three together as "U.S.A." Its characters roamed the Midwest and, therefore, so did I. Loved the prairies. The small towns. Lakes. Rivers. Tall, tall hardwood trees. Railroad lines. All its classic writers.
Joyce Vance and Kim Scheppele discuss lessons learned from history but most importantly what we can do NOW. The actions of Governors Newsom, Pritzker and more, in addition to the health experts forming a Collaboration of Northeastern States are models of fighting the consolidation of power in our federal government.
It’s 40 minutes of important conversation. Please take time to listen.
https://substack.com/@joycevance/note/c-150858797?r=9vmv5&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
https://open.substack.com/pub/joycevance/p/1984-lessons-learned?r=9vmv5&utm_medium=ios
Thank you, Kari. It is important for morale to hear about what others are doing. And essential for us to call our Representatives. Weekends are a good time to call. Leave a message. It doesn't matter what message. "My name is ___. I am a resident of _____ County. The chaos at the CDC is terrible and I want you to call RFK, Jr to appear before Congress."
Or whatever is the issue of the day.
Kari, the governors and the people need the backing from democrats in congress. We need to see much more coordination of effort.
I completely AGREE! We need a PLAN from Dems, and leadership to carry it out! MAGA didn’t get where they are without PLANNING! Dems have been asleep at the wheel. Someone in government needs to be writing our own Project 2028 to include restoration of essential agencies, laws that need to be passed so this can never happen again and a step by step plan of how to make that happen quickly. They could not be doing what they are doing so quickly without a guidebook!
Good idea. It's a good thing to ask our Representatives to do.
Megan Rothery regularly posts here a Google doc that is extensive—every senator and representative and their contact information, their committee assignments, etc. My reps are are delusional sycophants, and they have to take my calls so I call regularly, but I’m going to leave a message for Bill Cassidy, MD, of Louisiana about RFK’s efforts to let us all die, for one action I plan.
Excellent idea, MLM. I left a scathing post on Lisa Murkowski's FB page (yeah, I know it is like urinating into a tornado) regarding a post she made criticizing RFKJr. I think that I will add her to Cassidy since, while I am not a constituent of theirs, their decisions to confirm that lizard are impacting me directly.
I'm calling Cassidy as well.
And Putin
Thank you, Michael H. It is our custom to attribute most actions of an administration to that president and usually that president has at least a glancing knowledge of what's being done in his name. Not so with Cheeto. He's being well and truly handled by an unelected cabal under the control of Christian Nationalist Russell Voght. Meanwhile DJT concerns himself with turning the White House into gaudy casino.
There are several other nasty players like Leonard Leo, who will be the money man working to get Senators reelected and to bring more Catholic fascist judges into the courts. And Stephen Miller, of course. Elon is laying low for now, but as the primaries come up he and the other oligarchs will finance their campaigns. And Pam Bondi will do absolutely nothing to prosecute any of the administrations crimes. Hogsbreath is dismantling the military and driving away potential recruits. And Bessant, is with holding Congressionally allocated funds with absolutely no justification. And then, of course there's Kristi Noem who is the first person evil and cruel enough for the Fascist Senate to approve. The list goes on of course--the most incompetent and evil cabinet ever assembled.
There is not one member of Regime_47 who isn't a vile human being. Not one who has any degree of competence (education, training, experience) in the field to which they've been appointed. Not one who is in the least bit concerned with the well-being of America and its inhabitants. What nauseates me is that the US Senate gave this kakistocracy its stamp of approval.
The Founders could never have envisioned a situation where an unfit person was reelected to the presidency after he'd twice been impeached for cause; where the Supreme Court was infested with ideologues who are aligned with the goal of destroying the republic; and where the Congress serves not the people but their king.
Are the majority of Americans going to let him take down this country? People must notice the loss of their job, their neighbors of color whose Dad was taken away by masked men with guns, the children shot and killed while praying in church, the only hospital within hours closing, the local business failing.
Aren’t they gonna get mad and abandon their support for him? Will he turn on them? Hell yes he will! He’s turned on every person who’s ever gotten close to him eventually. Every one! I think they are pretty sure they’ve covered ALL their bases this time so the coup succeeds. Being in control of the country and Washington DC certainly gives them a huge edge.
Even worse, Peter Thiel
Words and phrases attributable to trump by reputable sources: an individual created in a lab, raised without love, who will laser us into a pile of ashes; a big man baby; he is the weaniest of dictators there is; has deep seated issues and wants to work them out through hate and torment other human beings; a dangerous man entrusted with a card in his pocket that can launch nuclear weapons; he is a case of arrested development; he is an 8 year old with an uzzi - whose parents may say -- well he may have blown up the school mascot, but he's still a good boy - but he's still an 8 year old with an uzzi.....!!
Very true - Trump is a TOOL - of Vladimir Putin, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller, and others. Maybe even his children…
Yes. Trump is just the playboy for the Project 2025 people and the Heritage Foundation - the real drivers of this administration's decisions...
Also, Leslie, long time playboy for Jeffrey and Ghislaine.
It's been coming a long time, Michael.
So good of you to note the dark forces behind the police state they want, finally openly to solidify full control by the moneyed, the oligarchs, and their allied evangelical ideologues and white nationalists.
But it IS what he's wants. He has expressed his desire to cancel alternative sources of energy. He will willingly stop all these programs.
The evil that is Project 2025 will live in long after the orange cocksplat's departure. He's really not driving anything but vengeance and his 1983 fantasy world now. But he's very useful to the sick likes of Russell Vought, who's never done an actual job in his life, and Stephen Miller, mentally and morally ill as well.
LOVE “cocksplat”! I learned a new word and it’s a perfect one for Trump!
Instead of ultra-conservative wealthy elites, call them radically greedy morbidly rich stealing from the rest of us.
And that’s another question: WHAT are they doing with all the money they are clawing back from everywhere? Pocketing it? Paying down the National Debt? What is their plan for OUR MONEY?
Nice to get Heather's contrast of the Donald insanities compared to real American progress.
That's in the energy sphere. But we can note, too, similarly insanity at the Department of Health and Human Services -- where today Bernie Sanders called on its head, RFK Jr., to resign.
But this RFK Jr. atop H.H.S. fits in perfectly with all Donald’s cabinet appointments.
He’s a fool, a lout, a crank, and an illiterate amateur, as are all his peer cabinet heads.
But this incompetence so reliably atop criminal Donald’s kingdom all aids that sick orange felon’s number one priority, which has been to be cruel, to shriek hysteria, spread hate speech, and for point of the police state to arm all the I.C.E. goons to grab people from our streets and illegally disappear them.
All nightmare scenarios. As if but fabulist fiction. And that’s what we have now from our sickest elites.
tRump is a distraction. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and Stephen Miller are calling the shots.
I agree Eadie- along with Putin who got his puppet elected in 2016 and with the help of lies by fox tv and musk - in 2024.
Trump is a marionette dancing to the strings controlled by his oligarch, extremist masters. He is not smart enough to do anything but sign whatever executive orders they shove in front of his face. The fact that what used to be the Republican Party has abdicated in abject cowardice its role in upholding its responsibilities to protect Americans from a truly corrupt regime is reprehensible.
Well said, Joel.
Exactly! Thank you for bringing this up.
Don Tuixote- literally tilting at windmills
But with ignoble motives.
Don't forget the venal angle- RFK Jr stands to gain a great deal in the vexatious lawsuits if the 'Advisory' body as reconstituted says that some vaccines are unsafe (on no credible basis).
Maybe RFK2 is the nail in the Kennedy Clan dynasty.
There might be some good Kennedys in the pipeline but we'll never know because there's no way we would ever again trust them behind the wheel of anything more powerful than a toy car.
Most of the Kennedy Family has spoken out & frequently, against RFK. I don't know where he got the brain worm from but, thankfully, he didn't infect his cousins.
Fair, and their public remonstrations are admirable.
Kill Jr!!!
I am convinced RFK, Jr. is severely mentally ill. He is a lawyer and as such he is supposed to have logical reasoning skills. Yet he is appointed to do a job which most people would reasonably conclude requires a special medical education and work experience which he has zero, zip, nada of. Moreover, the importance of the job is the health and therefore the safety of the entire nation thus we are all at risk here. People who claim to love him, like his wife actress Cheryl Hines, need to seek help for him. In fact I feel he should be put on a psychiatric hold for several days which can be done in cases like this where an individual poses a serious risk of harm to themselves or others. Trump also needs to be put on a psychiatric hold also because he is not removing RFK, Jr.
Oh, but he believes with all his (alleged) heart that he is right and saving the world!!
Oh wait, I just made your point.
This is important, thank you. I agree with you completely and the damage he is doing to the nation's health and to research is devastating.
Probably didn't help his brain with the drugs he is purported to have taken in his life. His head sure isn't on right!
and then there's the brain worm thing...
Easy, easy now, Edish.
You may be one of the many extended Kennedy family members who know this ogre much more closer up than do the rest of us.
But, more likely, all the bears, whales, deer, coons, rabbits, muskrats, squirrels, chipmunks and other sources of his brainworm-infested diet pooled their resources and had you voice their unanimous opinion.
Excellent summary of our current societal risk!!
Since Congress is rubber stamping everything DonOLD demands, let's cut their budgets. The only one of my representatives that responds to emails or phone calls is Angus King. Susan Collins quit responding or having town halls years ago and Jared Golden only communicates through his weekly update.
Super good five rules in your video, Margaret-Rose.
I disagree with this guy in a lot of ways.
Terms limits? OK, but two terms? Everyone with real wok experience knows a job like that takes at least two years to just begin to understand how things work and establish relationships. Yes, relationships in governing matter. And it ignores the value of institutional knowledge.
Governance by ZOOM? That's just ignorant. Anyone who has used ZOOM to manage a business, organization or project knows ZOOM is not the same as in person meetings and working in an on-site environment.
Travel to foreign countries? Yes please, our representatives should see first hand what they are dealing with when they have to make decisions about foreign affairs. I would hope a representative would travel to Ukraine and see for themselves what the situation is before making decisions about our involvement.
All I got from this guy is the same kind of reasoning MAGA makes, simple solutions to complicated problems from someone who has likely never had to deal with governing or management at even a medium scale.
I think he is confused about the difference between a representative government and being a conduit for populism. See where that is getting us?
I'd like to offer a counter point here:
Term limits, yes. A senate term is 6 years, and three terms is 18 years. If we look at congressional office as a job one gets after attaining a certain level of expertise or experience through study or employment, that 18 years is good. A representative term is 2 years and with the same assumption as gaining expertise, then 18 years should be good for them too. I'd like to see age limits as well, and given the state of things, 75 seems to be a good cut off age. SCOTUS should also be in this arena:13 Justices, rotating the Chief Justice assignment every 10 years.
Travel: Limit non-essential travel, especially overseas vacation type that is not related to any congressional business. I'm with you on Zoom; have that available in case of illness/injury/emergency but NOT as a primary way of doing business.
Methinks that sounds like a view from the front row 😉
Naw, just someone who makes mischief in the back row!!
We're on the same page.
On term limits, I agree, two terms is too little.
My thoughts on the senate are the same, three or four terms sounds right. I like four myself, think back on the job, the ones with 24 years seemed the wisest.
The same for the house 20 years.
I'm not sure why having 13 justices solves anything. Please explain.
I'm not in disagreement on travel, Yet as I look at the travel history and rules, I wonder if some of the impression that these travels are vacations paid for by us is more myth than fact.
https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/Official-Congressional-Travel-Updated.pdf
https://www.congressionalinstitute.org/2018/09/27/busting-congressional-myths/
Gary, re: SCOTUS justices; there are 13 US Circuit Courts; 12 that oversee groups of District Courts and the US Court of Appeals (which addresses mostly patent law). It is a good idea to have an odd number of justices. Currently, each SCOTUS judge oversees one or two of the Circuit Courts which hear appeals from the numerous Federal District Courts, which are the triers of fact. With 9 SCOTUS Justices, it means that 4 of them are responsible for review out of multiple Circuit Courts. I know little to nothing about the US Court of Appeals and how they decide patent law, but their cases occasionally end up at the SCOTUS.
I would also have the Chief Justice position rotate on a 5 year schedule.
I see the reasoning behind 13.
Can you imagine how long and drawn out a court proceeding would be with 13 justices questioning the attorneys.
I'd lean toward ten years for the CJ and both age and term limits.
I like your counters, Gary. You nab his flaws where he has them.
Still, more ZOOM time (not all ZOOM) time, and more time in home districts would obviate the reliance reps in D.C. have in being wined-&-dined by lobbyists.
Might also diminish the mealy-mouthed vocabularies of the too-many mainstream journalists who live in D.C. only for the epidemic they have there for "access" journalism.
I've met U.S. reps (and their wives) in foreign countries where I've lived. Sadly, none were interested in the book shops with many very good works in English translation on those local cultures. Just going abroad all by itself doesn't automatically open eyes already trained to some of the zombie customs of U.S. schools.
WOW! Thank you for the link Margaret Rose.
Heather you shed so much light every day. When you have a chance, I wish you would focus your laser beam on what the goons and kakistocrats on the Project 25 team are doing to spread enough misinformation to enable them to survive the disasters, mayhem and horror they are spreading far and wide. They must be working on some scheme to blind enough people to reality to make this mess survivable for themselves, and we need to know what it is so we can set about destroying it. Is it only Fox News and the rest of the usual suspects? I bet there is something new and worse going on.
They think that they somehow will be spared from the fallout. Apparently, none of them have read Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death."
About ten years ago, we put up a small garage and situated it so that the solar panels on the roof would receive maximum sunlight. On last month's bill from Eversource, we had a credit of over $800.00. We haven't paid an electric bill in years. Even in the winter, with fewer hours of sunlight, we still come out ahead. I won't list all of the craziness that is the result of spurning clean, reliable, renewable energy--Heather went through them all. Clearly, this regime does nothing right.
Kakistocracy - government by the worst. No one person in this cabal of criminals is fit for any office, capable of running anything, incompetent and stupid to the maximum. And dedicated to the destruction of the government they allegedly "serve" in.
But the billionaires are happy, just as planned.
So are most of the MAGAs. They watch Fox News and get a kick out of "owning the libs", while everything they buy is more expensive and wages are stagnant.
We have a gubernatorial election this year in Virginia. In a “discussion” yesterday about Winsome Sears (vs. Abigail Spanberger) a Sears supporter railed on about all the great things current Governor Youngkin, with Sears as his Lieutenant Governor, had done for Virginia. This person was clueless that these projects were all beneficiaries of the CHIPS and Infrastructure Acts. Fox News indeed.
Add insult to injury, and they're getting paid to do it by our tax dollars. I earned my annuity as a proud former federal employee for 31 years.
Last week we had 17 solar panels installed on our roof, and already we’re off the electrical grid. It is the best decision we ever made, because today’s solar panels are even more efficient than those early models.
Good for you! We got solar panels a year and a half ago, and at that time we were told we needed 24. Our electricity costs us nothing and we sell a lot of it back to the utility company. At this rate it may not take us 8 years to make up for the initial expense. Plus we got a huge tax break in April. Hope you can still get a tax break!
Betsy, this regime does nothing right, for us, but a lot of good for those in the coal and oil companies that write those policies. I still can't understand why this fascist regime is called "populist" when everything they do it's against the people.😩
Trump successfully used a populist approach but it was all lies and disinformation. A few of the deluded are catching on, but most are still caught in the Fox and friends media trap.
It is populist for the sociopaths who make up the right-wing and the GOP(fascist party).
MAGA loves videos of migrants getting rounded up and sent to Alligator Alcatraz.
Killing wind kills wages.
Professor Richardson, you draw the line clean: canceling offshore wind grants and loans days before Labor Day doesn’t just stall climate progress; it rips union paychecks out of places that finally had a growth engine. Revolution Wind was 80% built, powering 350,000+ homes, anchoring shipbuilding and manufacturing across 40 states—shut down “without clear reason.” That’s not fiscal prudence. That’s an amber light to investors: America’s rules are political, not predictable.
Meanwhile the country’s most stressed grid which runs from Virginia to Illinois faces higher demand from AI data centers while renewable cuts halve new capacity compared to pre-cut projections. Prices go up, growth slows, and China sprints ahead on clean-energy export power.
This ain’t left vs right. It’s extractive vs generative economics: a few firms holding the spigot vs many communities building and maintaining what we live on. Every turbine wired, EV charger installed, and solar panel bolted is a job with wages, healthcare, and a pension. You don’t kill that kind of progress; you build on it. www.xplisset.com
Thank you Xplissit.
Another consideration to this whole energy mess is the clean energy provided by the Niagara Falls hydropower plants that supply over 2.3 million Kw of power on the Canadian side and 2.7 million Kw on the US side. (https://www.niagarafrontier.com/power.html).
The blackout in 2003 “plunged more than 50 million people into darkness in the northeast US and Canada.” https://practical.engineering/blog/2022/2/9/what-really-happened-during-the-2003-blackout#:~:text=On%20August%2014%2C%202003%2C%20a%20cascading%20failure,economic%20impact%20north%20of%20ten%20billion%20dollars.
47 and his tariff threats to Canada ticked them off to the point where there were counter threats to stop providing power to the US or charge equally exorbitant tariffs. Friendly agreements and treaties between our two countries that have been maintained for over 100 years could all be lost.
My daughter married a Canadian. She said she was noticing new brands of Canadian beer on the grocer's shelves. She mentioned it to an employee who said they were dialing back on US imports, thus the novel brands. That is likely true of other US products, and seems unlikely to snap back to the way it was, even if Trump rolled back his stupid tariffs tomorrow.
and we Canadians proudly continue our boycott of all things American, including visiting. I could have shortened my drive by 1 day by driving through Maine and New Hampshire but there was no way in hell I'll drive thru your country , for my safety and you'll not get one dime from me until that fascist regime ( not just trump) is GONE.
I used to travel annually to Utah ,AZ or to NYC but refused to during trump 1.0 and now during trump 2.0.
The world cares about you. It's heartbreaking to watch as you collapse. Never thought I'd see it in my lifetime. Got to get rid of the oligarchs and the Christo fascists controlling it all
The border towns in ME like Calais and Houlton are floundering without the Canadians. Walgreens is closing several rural stores in ME and many other businesses have already gone under.
Next will be the rural hospitals here. Several rural hospitals have already closed and more will be forced to close.
We miss the Canadians that have come here year after year. But, no more. They are pissed off and rightfully so.
Last week the US border patrol handcuffed a Canadian woman who was going to spend a week with her Native American boyfriend in ME. The US Border patrol said that she had too many clothes for a one week visit as the reason for arresting her. The US Border patrol also confiscated a 25 year old ceremonial drum that he made and has been using at pow-wows since he made it.
What the hell? Why would they confiscate his drum? Were they traveling together? This is a story I’d like to share.
I think it was Stephen Miller that said that "Cruelty is the POINT."
I am reflecting on ALL the decisions coming out of this sicko administration and it's hard to find one that doesn't hurt people.
This crew has the same vengeful sort of minds and hearts as the kids that shoot up schools and churches. It is unbridled hate.
It's either a mass psychosis or they are all under Putin's thumb. The latter may be my paranoia. But you can bet Putin chuckles every day as he watches his buddy wreck the country - firing, dismantling, defunding all the good people and good stuff.
I visualize Putin sitting with a few of his closest Oligarch buddies each evening. Someone pours them a vodka. Putin, raises his glass and asks:
"OK, what has my American friend done today to help us cripple the US?"
"Well sir, they are firing their best medical leaders and scientists!"
"Really good! Na Zdorovie"
"More vodka, sir?"
"Tonight, YES! Good boy, Donnie, good boy!"
I can't find the article right now. Susan Collins got involved, but there hasn't been a follow-up story. I thought it was reported in the Bangor Daily News, but it may have been the Portland paper.
Just found the information. This is abhorrent. Here’s one article. The information about his drum and feathers is unclear. https://observer-me.com/2025/08/26/news/wabanaki-elder-and-fiancee-in-canada-allege-harassment-by-u-s-border-officials/#:~:text=David%20Slagger%2C%2063%2C%20a%20member,New%20Brunswick%20Premier%20Susan%20Holt.
GJ, you made me gag with this story. So, who gets to decide how many pairs of underpants you are allowed to travel with? And the drum???? I predict there will be lots of cardiac events & disease on the ICE population.
Just shaking my head. When we would go on vacation my daughter would pack ALL of her clothes. She would be in jail if she weren't so white.
JL, I believe the reasons Tortoise McConnell and Quack Paul were against the tariffs to Canada were that Canadians love their Kentucky bourbon...
I'm pretty sure several local breweries have taken a hit from not exporting to Canada. (I don't care if Ninkasi gets trounced; they utilize a beverage delivery firm that failed to reach a contract with the local Teamsters. The Teamsters struck, and Bigfoot locked 'em out. Pepsi and Ninkasi are never getting purchased in my home again.
Well stated. Extractive energy needs us all to be weak and dependent. Generative energy gives us true agency. It also leads to a healthier planet and a more vibrant and sustainable (rather than brittle and unsustainable) economic system. The fact that China is sprinting ahead into the vacuum this regime has created around clean energy is yet another signal of the end of the “American century.” We are nothing but a pariah banana republic with nukes now.
Pretty much.
Well said, xplisset.
Russia and China will benefit. For this alone he should be kicked out on his ass. He is clearly not working for the good of the American people.
That's right. Whoever he's working for, it's not the United States of America, which he and his cohorts clearly want to destroy so thoroughly it can never come back. They are salting the earth in every way they can think of.
Beside a posing a philosophical endorsement of a republic, the founding Declaration of Independence is an indictment of abuses by a king, but the desire of some to be the autocrats is born anew with each generation. We grapple with the same old serpent once again.
Same old serpent indeed.
He doesn't give two pins for the American people.
Par for the course with sociopaths. Strange the adoring following they often gather.
That's the problem with sociopaths: They can be very charming.
Lex, in the mid seventies, we had Ted Bundy on the loose in Seattle. He used his "charm" to convince women to help him- faked a broken bone or injury- managed to take the women away & then killed them. I couldn't leave my dorm without another girl & a guy during that time. Charming SOB.
I'm old enough to remember, Cindy. Bundy's usually the first example people think of when you tell them that sociopaths can be charming. It's what makes them so dangerous -- you can't always see their sociopathy coming.
Trump's "style" is very clumsy; but I guess some mistake that for authenticity. Even without malice on either side, I know it's easy to project onto other people, and the sociopathic predator lays an appealing trap.
Beguiling predator.
Golden words he will pour in your ear, but his lies can't disguise what you fear.
He seems to actually hate most of us.
He hates any input apart from endorsement and adoration. And of course he hates and fears those bearing any counter-evidence of his inherent, unfailing superiority. He has seized very dangerous powers, but his sense of self is fragile.
Agreed. It seems that he also is a racist and a misogynist.
Without a doubt. Bigly. Some people only think they are "up" when keeping other "down". They are the villains, not heroes, of the human story, and yet many seem not to know the difference. Even those who suffer under a tyrant's heel.
I hate him back!!! Although. I do draw the distinction: I hate EVERYTHING he does, but I don’t know him personally
I mean, he sleeps at night, but I don't know how.
Actually, he hardly sleeps at all at night from I’ve read. He has tremendous bags under his eyes, gave you noticed? And he tweets a lot at night when normal people are sleeping.
He seems to be following Putin’s playbook for total power in Russia. I wonder how much advise Putin has given him (the latest seems to be getting rid of mail-in voting) and how many financial plans he has made with Putin.
The press should be talking about the fact that anyone can secretly invest in Trump's crypto scam. Anyone can bribe the President of the United States of America.
If they can afford the market price.
"money pouring in from Russia" That's like mother's milk to Trump.
Orban of Hungary, Terry.
He's the one who's counseled Donald the most from his, Putin's, & Netanyahu's playbook.
Thanks. That makes sense.
His whole party is funded and controlled by the ultra-rich.
The "Powell Memo".
No, duh!
When we consider not only the regressive energy policies, but the perverse attacks on public health, the broadsides on social safety net programs, the destruction of America's historical role in the amelioration of international suffering, the reversal of environmental progress---the list goes on...---the only conclusion that makes any sense to me is that he hates this country. I mean, literally hates it. I don't know about the cabal of hangers on, enablers, greedy bottom feeders and sycophants who serve him, but the only motive that covers the entirety of his noxious ruination is that he truly hates this country. He hates that he has never gained the social elite's imprimatur, the grace of a man he can never match, the wittiness of the satirists who prick him, the beauty of the stars we love, the prowess of the athletes we admire...none of it. Even in the empty hall of narcissistic echoes that exists under the roadkill that passes for hair, he knows he is small, ugly, stupid, graceless. In his closing years, he is focused on punishing the country that he knows he befouls. He knows that the idolization he craves comes only from a subset of Americans who are as foul as he is.
You're right - he hates all of us who have laughed at him, failed to recognize his great genius, who call him a "lifetime loser" (which he is), we who will never open the glass door he's had his nose pressed against all his life and allow the likes of something like him to be accepted in civilized society, we who know him for the worthless piece of shit he has always been - the truth that sends him to the Golden Throne every night to rail against us Lies Anti-Social, when the fact he was born a failed loser becomes more than he can bear.
He is not the major problem. He's a distraction. Project 2025, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society and Stephen Miller are the brains behind this. Peter Thiel and friends provide the funds.
I agree. It’s the only explanation for the sum total. Mind boggling.
It DOES explain his cruelty. His "Vengeance Tour".
But it doesn't explain his kid glove treatment of mass murderer Putin.
Kompromat. Putin and Xi want Arctic resources. TACO wants a share of the pie, thinking he will live to see the rewards. It’s why he’s against renewables. Xi is playing the long game in investing in renewables and also possessing the natural resources of the melting Arctic. What Putin has on TACO may be highly influential. Gawd I hate falling into conspiracy theory but I’m afraid it’s evident. The TACO/Xi meeting may be another piece of the puzzle.
Yes. TACO is transactional. Next, he will use Federal money the way he did with Intel. He will entangle himself with Russian oil, the oligarchs from both countries will celebrate on yachts drifting through the formerly ice bound Arctic Ocean.
I also hate the "conspiracy stuff". But the actions of this monster just keep inviting it.
Putin and Russian money pulled him out of his many bankruptcies AND option helped him win the election in 2016 and I think it will be proven someday? that Putin helped him win this past election.
Most well-put, Marilyn.
Many bits of most truly lofty, pithy, on target prose here. And delivered in most beautifully balanced rhythms, too.
He's a democidal sociopathic malignant narcissist...first it's their inner circle they hate and then the hatred expands further as his mental state declines. And he doesn't care who dies along the way.
He truly is the most vile pos of a human being.
This. Is. Madness….rage, omnicidal, social murder. He will take us all with him.
My mother-in-law has had veinous insufficiency for several years. The blood-flow in one of her legs was so weak they replaced the vein. And now that is failing so the next step, according to her doctor is amputation.
Imagine Trump with only one leg. No more golfing for sure.
Many amputees play golf but TACO’s age may preclude his ability to adapt. Did your MIL have infusions that would align with the bruising of his hand? I’m shocked the location hasn’t been changed to a less visible area.
Probably already collapsed. Either that, or ffpotus insists on the hand location.
I’ve had a bazillion iv’s. The ones in the hand hurt like hell! I request a change when it’s possible. I get it about the collapse. My stage 4 colon cancer survivor husband has awful veins from treatments.
I’m limited to left side sticks. Thankfully, I got a catheter port for chemo, so most of them are accessible…
So did he, but it was removed after chemo, and it’s been nearly 20 years. I don’t really know why it became an issue. Hugs.
That is so well said!!!
This is full blown theft of the Treasury.
This is Project 2025.
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, and those in a committee that fits your topic. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. We deserve better ❤️🩹🤍💙
Thanks, Megan! I've shared this with some friends who are thrilled to get it.
You’re amazing! Thank you 💜
<curtsies>
I know its been said many times before but I am now ready to believe it:
All becomes clear when you realize that Trump is working for Russia and Putin.
Even the “hidden” part where large oil companies are making arrangements with Russian oil companies makes sense as part of the strategy.
I mean, what’s a little authoritarianism when you can secretly make billions by coordination with your enemies?
https://open.substack.com/pub/michaeldsellers/p/trump-and-kgb-new-allegations-by?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=gfzoo
Wow. This all falls in line with Russia and China’s plans for arctic drilling. No wonder TACO doesn’t like renewables. He sees $$$$$$$
Well said! The more concentrated the means for energy production are, the more centralized its political control. So it once was with National Socialism. But diversity of energy production promotes greater state and local autonomy, more efficiency, less centralized control.
And as has been been pointed out, we are under the control of a nationalist regime, now decdicated to state "socialism" - i..e., "nationalist socialism."
In energy production, in health care, in finance, in international relations, in the arts, in every area of human endeavor, the Republicans are marching together in the wrong direction, and roughly half of the adult population of the US is right there marching with them, continuing to perpetrate crimes against humanity, doubling down on the cime against humanity that they committed by voting for Trump. We won’t know until November of next year whether there is a sliver of hope of saving civilization, but even then, even if there is by some miracle a blue tsunami, saving civilization is still a longshot, not least because we will still be saddled with roughly a hundred million members of the US electorate who are malicious, cruel, and willfully ignorant and who cannot by any means be corralled into spaces where they can be stopped from acts of willful obstruction of progress in projects that might give civilization a modest hope of survival.
I would only challenge one small point — I seriously doubt half the country is with him, especially now. Every major “policy” he has is now underwater, sometimes by large amounts.
One-third the country voted for him, for an awful lot of spectacularly bad reasons, one-third did not, and another third didn’t vote at all. That was last November, and it’s clear from the town halls and special by-elections, that situation is changing. That’s why the Texas fuckheads instituted a second redistricting in 10 years. They know what’s coming.
I wonder if even that will save them, though. Winter is coming.
Yes. Way less than half. We are suffering under minority rule. This will change.
75 million for Harris
77 million for Trump (33%)
80+ million didn't vote
The largest bloc of voters are Independents. We have every reason to hope that the old phrase "Throw the bums out!" will reverberate in November 2026.
The anger at the voting booth will be epic. The pain to be caused by the last 6 months of madness has only begun to be felt. Rising cost of everything, loss of jobs, loss of healthcare, closing of hospitals, FEMA not there when needed, lack of essential workers in our food network, lack construction workers, veteran care delayed or N/A, illness and death due to the vaccine fiasco....my fingers are getting numb typing.
The MAGA NAZI PROJECT 2025 OLIGARCH ALLIANCE will be defeated because SO many people will suffer. Karma Cops are coming. Too slowly. But they are suiting up.
Nonody knows where the electorate stands now, much less where it will stand a year from now. I haven’t seen any strong evidence that Trump voters have changed their minds. As to the 80 million non-voters, it seems likely that low-information voters are over-represented in that group. Since low-information voters lean R, I think their votes would have increased Trump’s margin. So, my guess is that the louts among us, the ones who actively desire a cruel autocracy that will punish people they don’t like, comprise, still now, over a hundred million of the electorate and may well remain at that level a year from now. Even if we were to outvote them, they would continue to be obstructive and capable of nullifying any progress Democrats might try to make in the unlikely event that they regain governing power.
I live in Texas and the lack of response to the fatal floods in the "flash flood alley" last spring hasn't had any impact on the Texas fuckheads so far. This latest event ONLY killed lots of children and adults. People do not matter to Texas fuckheads. Infrastructure, oil wells, oil processing plants and such are ALL that matter to Texas fuckheads. The lead fuckhead, Abbott, would not have tried to save his own mother in that flood.
There are so many guns in Texas, and they are owned by democrats, too. I predict Texas will be the first state to initiate our second Civil War. Rethuglicans will fire the first shot. Us democrats don't "love our guns" but we sure know how to use them.
Do you really think we'll make it to next year - that they will actually allow an election? If so, I think you're delusional. It's not going to happen. This regime will need to be physically removed, and soon, if we've any hope of reviving what was once the United States of America.
I would not bet on it. Not without good odds, anyway.
Crazy tango we’re dancing… one step forward, three steps backwards. The good news is 2026 midterms are getting closer everyday.
BTW - change your voter registration to independent or no party affiliation. Screw with their ability to gerrymander. 😉🤫
I've recommended this before, I'm unaffiliated. Let's pray we'll have a country left by then that manages to have an election.
I’m not sure that’s useful. Voting records from past elections are pulled. I’m not sure that voter registration plays a large role.
Agreed, but I doubt it hurts 😃
This is an interesting idea. I see a down side as well---It would add to the pressure on Republicans who are doing everything that Trump wants them today with nary a whimper if they saw a huge wave of people registering as Democrats. It would add to the evidence of recent special elections and generic ballot polls and low approval polls for Trump's policies. Right now, though, there's such a lot of press about low Dem registration rates and approval that I think that gives a little reassurance to Republicans. I'm not saying that only Dems should be the opposition to Trump in any way, and I agree that they have been weak and late to the fight. I'm simply raising the question about weakening Dems further.
I can't help wondering where all the billions of dollars Trump & Co are cutting are going? Why do I have the feeling they're somehow being funneled into Trump family and MAGA bank accounts? It seems like the old fantasy of robbing Fort Knox.
Heather, “kill” is the operative word. The oligarchs want to continue poisoning us with coal mining and gas explorations offshore. Now we know that one of the worst U.S. oil conglomerates will be in cahoots with Putin’s main oil companies. Oh joy!
Thank you for reminding everyone the accomplishments Biden put forth to rebuild a nation that put its people before all else.
1st thing I did when I moved back into my house in Hawaii in late 2022 was installing solar panels (PV). It took 8 months to get it installed due to heavy market demand for panels, electricians & permits. Before PV, monthly bill was $375 (considered cheap for Oahu). After PV… $32, itemized… $25 for the utility connection to my meter & tax.
Same for us here in Hilo, Hawaii. And I run an EV car as well. We also have a "summer condo" in Minnesota, rent a portion of a community solar array, have a second EV, and annually receive a @200-$300 electrical bill credit. Oh, and the cost of the solar array in Hilo Hawaii was paid off years ago.
I forgot to mention my EV. My PV install came with Telsa Power Wall batteries which at the time were subsidized by the Inflation Reduction Act. Over 50% of the cost of my install was covered by Fed and State tax incentives. I guess Elan thought that gov't spending wasn't a waste.