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So there you have it; a very abbreviated history of voting rights in America. But I applaud Dr. Richardson for distilling it in this fashion. Exhaustive and detailed historical essays always lose me in the details. Our current crisis in the national political Zeitgeist isn't unique. The nation has had peak moments surrounding assualts of voting rights before. We're not voting on amendments to the constitution this November. Nor are we voting to return the senior leadership of the Republican half of the Senate for the most part. But we do have the opportunity to vote against the Big Lie in any race where a candidate has endorsed it, or has been endorsed by the author of the Big Lie. Given my location, I may not get the opportunity to cast an influential vote, but many, many of my proud Independent peers will have that opportunity and I implore them to pay attention and vote to send the Big Lie back under the rock from which it crawled out almost 6 years ago. One thing that trash novel author can't tolerate is being associated with "Losers", nor can he risk being branded a Loser himself. The strongest message, short of an indictment, we can send him is convincing evidence that he and his ideas are now considered Losers by the majority of America.

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Nathan, he is worse than a loser. He is a Benedict Arnold. May he be indicted and sentenced by his peers. Period. As Heather points out in Garfield’s incredible speech, Garfield never saw in his Civil War service, a Black man betray the Union. Just white men…now that says it all.

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The people who are Republicans today and support the big lie would have been Democrats in the past. Since the 60’s the parties have gradually flip flopped. This Republican Party is NOT the party of Lincoln. The current Republicans match up with the traitors of the Confederacy.

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My grandmother (a child of the deep south) always voted Democrat. She never looked at policy or any history about the candidate. She voted for FDR, Truman, Humpfrey, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton. When asked about her party loyalty, she would always say, "My Daddy always voted Democrat, and so do I." Her Daddy was a bigwig in the KKK in north Florida.

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(Putting my reply here, but keeping in mind all the other comments...)

Things were similar in my family. My mom grew up in a solidly Democrat household, and her family (one of the First Families of North Carolina) had been Democrats as long as the party had been in existence. Her father, and all his kin, thought FDR was the Second Coming. They idolized both him and Eleanor. Safe to say, they were in line with the more liberal side of the Democratic party. My mom voted for FDR in 1944. Then she met and married my dad, who came from a family of staunch NC Republicans, also seen as fairly liberal in the solid Democrat South. Being the dutiful wife (ugh!), she switched parties and in '48 voted for Dewey (she said, "I just couldn't stand Truman..."), and then proceeded to vote Republican in every race through 2004. However, in the past 20 years (she passed away last year at 97) I saw her evolve and change a lot of her views. It was gradual, but, as she was a voracious reader of history, I could tell that the more she read, the more she questioned and changed many things she'd long believed. Biographies were her bread & butter, and the more she read of Truman, JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Carter (she always liked him, but didn't vote for him), Obama, and EVEN the Clintons, she increasingly admired them. She really did a 180 on Truman! It was something I relished and found gratifying on many levels. It was like she came full circle and was back in the Democrat "fold" she'd started out as a young woman. It showed something that I think most of us on here certainly believe: the power of history to instruct and guide our present. But, it also can challenge us to confront things we grew up believing, but then finding out that the truth was something else entirely. I do think there have been SOME people in the South--many in my generation--that have allowed themselves to alter and re-assess some of what they believed in the past. Views down here have changed a LOT. But, there is still work to do. Heather's letter today is one I dearly wish my mom could have read. I think she would have found it really interesting and very enlightening.

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Wish more people could be like your mother, interested in learning and able to grow and change her mind. So sorry for your loss.

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Thanks for this, Bruce. After a few years of not being able to talk with my mother (90 years old and still jet-skiing) she wrote to me that she's no longer a Trumper.

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Rosalind, it's ironic that even in today's world of universal access to "information" so many simply mimic your grandmother's actions. I have friends who are decent people - none of them racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. - but who are what I call legacy Republicans. If Daddy did it, they do the same, even with the advantage of a good education. I marvel at their ire when discussing socialism, as though it's the same as communism.

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My husband votes Republican because his parents were. I ask why he can't think for himself but somehow he believes he does even with Sran Laura and Tucker in his ear constantly.

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I'll admit that I just don't understand how people can find anything that Tucker & Co. say credible. Like Alex Jones, they spout outrageous garbage just to boost their ratings. I guess their fans don't know that the whole crew is laughing at them for falling for their schtick.

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Nancy, I would be surprised to find a dozen US Citizens in one room who know the difference. Their Social Security is part of the social safety net that supports their retirement security. I've been a Democratic Socialist since I met Michael Harrington, a Christian Democratic Socialist, but you likely know who he was....

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Oh, they just ignore the fact that Social Security and Medicare are part of a social safety net, and they were happy to get their Rescue checks. However, they rail against Biden's "runaway spending," regardless of the fact that these programs are beneficial to all of us.

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Fascinating irony, Rosalind.

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Wow. So your great grandfather was a bigwig in the KKK. I think it's brave to acknowledge that. I just saw What the Constitution Means to Me on Prime. I didn't realize that the topic was a foundation for exploring abuse of women and women's rights, and I was very moved/disturbed at writer/performer Heidi Schreck's story of her own history of spousal abuse on her mother's side of the family. But the story needs to be told. Over and over until we get it. And I think it's the same with our racist history. So thank you. Blessings,

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Well, he was a bigwig in NE Florida. He built 3 Southern Baptist churches and beat his sons (there were 11 kids in all). His tombstone in the "white" Palatka cemetery says, "a friend to his fellow man and a lover of Christ" with KKK in big letters on the pediment.

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Thank you, Terry. I'm preparing a sermon for this coming Sunday. I just love it when the prophets (Jeremiah and Isaiah 5) speak truth to power so perfectly!

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Rosalind, do you think your Grandmother knew her history? Asking for a friend…

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Of course she knew her history. But knowing one's history can mean taking it within the context of your life. For example, her father was a good man because he gave his 'Darkies' Sunday off, just like it says in the Bible. The Klan had women's groups and children's groups. I guess I'll write a book one day - if you're steeped in a culture, you rarely can see it as anything but normal.

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Oh my gosh…no one ever told her?! Ironic indeed

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Not ironic at all. When it came to her Daddy, all was sacred. She was born in 1911.

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Well, at least she voted for FDR, Truman ... Kennedy, Clinton, et al, not realizing that the team had been renamed.

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I wonder how many women voted as their dad or husband being the dutiful daughter or wife. And how many of these women never bothered to learn the actual views of the people they voted for, just blindly obeyed as that was the proper order of the patriarchy with man over woman. And women were taught they were intellectually inferior. In my family my great grandmother stood out among my racist grandparents. Ida was born in 1896 in Silex, Missouri. She married and moved over to the Pacific NW. She kept current reading the newspaper and voted on the side of progress against her conservative husband. I recall my mom saying her husband refused to let her drive so one day she and a friend jacked open the garage door and took the car for a spin, got in an accident and put it back in the garage banged up. My great grandfather asked her what happened to the car and she denied knowing anything about it. It took courage to stand up against the ways of the small town she was raised in. She was always fiercely independent and stood her ground all the way into her twilight years.

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It's difficult, and takes courage, to maintain one's intellectual, moral-ethical and political integrity when the dominant figures in your world believe and behave differently. Often they demand demonstrations of fealty, not satisfied with outward neutrality or silence. I don't fault many women for "falling in line" when faced with daunting circumstances. Traditional marriage was often a form of indentured servitude, near slavery. Survival became the primary directive. Simply living to withstand that environment, or outliving it were badges of courage and honor. These individuals were silent heroes to their children and others, me included.

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No woman in my family was ever taught she was intellectually inferior!

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You are very fortunate.

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In mine they were. And there are a huge group out there that still believe this. Many of them follow Sam Harris.

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True, and those of us who are old enough watched it happen with Nixon's "southern strategy." However, the flip started earlier, with the advent of FDR and the New Deal -- after the big-business GOP crashed the economy. In many ways, the New Deal was racist both in conception and in effect, so the "New Deal coalition" included the Southern Democrats -- who indeed held serious power in Congress thanks to the seniority they acquired living in one-party states. The "southern strategy," along with the GOP's appeal to anti-choice evangelicals after Roe v. Wade was decided in January 1973, broke up the New Deal coalition for good -- and set the GOP on the road to becoming the racist, misogynist, anti-democratic, plutocrat-friendly mob it is today.

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Thank you. I said in my own comment that I'm missing the part of history that explains how we've switched so that the Republicans are the party against civil and voting rights. I wondered if it was connected to the GOP's needing more members and making a devil's deal with the evangelicals and Baptists. I need to understand more why you say the New Deal was racist. Filling in so many gaps in my knowledge of US history! Blessings,

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Heather McGhee's _The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together_ does a good job of explaining this, plus it's an excellent book by a longtime policy adept. For instance, domestic work and agriculture (where most Black people were employed) were excluded from minimum wage and overtime laws, and the GI Bill (1944) didn't benefit many Black veterans "as local administrators funneled most Black servicemen to segregated vocational schools," not colleges. Black and Latino/a families were much less able to take advantage of the GI Bill's mortgage benefit because of redlining -- generations later this continues to explain why families of color have a much lower net worth than white families: homeownership was a key way for a family to build wealth.

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Well, and one reason that Black GIs were "funneled" to historically Black institutions was that colleges and universities in much of the nation (especially, but by no means exclusively, in the South) simply refused to enroll Blacks; the handful of historically Black colleges that existed did their best but simply lacked the resources to gear up for the demand.

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Those Dems who fled to the Republican Party then were tagged as Dixicrats. They would be the roots of the current rotten tree now calling themselves the party of trump

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They were called Dixiecrats *before* they became Republicans. Dixiecrat = Dixie + (Demo)crat.

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But why did they flee to the Republican party if it was the party of voting rights? I have so much to learn!

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It’s in the name, “Dixiecrats”. They embodied the remnants of the Southern white boys party. With the Brown v Board decision, the passage of the Civil Rights act, the Voting Rights Act, the good old boys decided that their party was leaving them(sound familiar?), the ‘60s were marred with assassinations and all sorts of civil unrest so republicans start painting themselves as the “law and order” party. After Tricky Dick took office, the new Republican Party joined up with the Moral Majority and the rest, they say, is history. If you haven’t read about the ‘60s-‘80s, it was a very interesting period to live through.

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Thank you! I knew it also had something to do with Gingrich and the Reagan era, but I wasn't sure how they got there from early 1900's. And I was in the convent from 63-68 (no news allowed!) and then spent a few years recovering so I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to what was happening in the larger scene.

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JrnnSH, what you wrote is true. What is fascinating about the flip is that the Dems were the southern party until Nixon’s era made a strong move to capture the southern states using race as their ploy. This, of course, followed after the Dems finally pushed for civil rights and voter legislation. Clearly, the next big push must be to build the Dem majority and pass legislation like the John L. Lewis Voter Protection law and other measures to stop the states who have and are preparing to suppress minority voters.

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OK, and if you go back a little further, to HCR territory, you'll LOL every time the GOP is called "the Party of Lincoln" because the white South turned Democratic because *Lincoln and the people behind Reconstruction were Republicans.* I think the big Republican freakout in the last 40 years, and especially since Barack Obama was elected president, is because they've finally figured out that the Democratic Party is not just another white people's party: we really are working toward a multi-racial, multi-cultural democracy. Some Democrats, notably the so-called "moderates," aren't exactly OK with that but I think they'll eventually come along.

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Susanna J. Sturgis, I do hope you are right about the “moderates.” BTW, I have hated that term since people first got nervous about “progressives” (another ill-defined word) telling us we needed Biden, the moderate to win the election. As I noted on different venues, it puzzles me that no sooner than he got elected everyone started to go on about low approval ratings and then whisper ageist comments suggesting he was “looking too old.” Whatever the case, I do hope that we all come around and focus on issues, not labels or age. Biden and we can be proud of what he has accomplished, especially as we continue to learn how deeply DJT gutted the talent of our civil servants who are the backbone of our working democracy. Thank you for your insightful post.

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I wish I had read this before my own comment of asking how the defenders of civil rights switched from Republicans to Democrats. I wondered if it's because the cynical power grabbers figured out that they need more voters and people carrying the legacy of southern democrats would respond well to their "Christian Nationalist" calling?

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The cynical power grabbers know they need more voters. That’s how abortion became such a contentious issue. I grew up a Democrat in NC. When I registered to vote at 18, there were so few Republicans, there was not even a Republican primary. But I am an exception. I am a liberal Democrat when so many of the folks I grew up with in rural NC are Republicans, who would have no problem being a “Christian Nationalist,” not truly understanding what that term really means. My voting philosophy lines up with Jim Wallis. “If it’s not good news for the poor, it’s heresy.Period.”

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I love Jim Wallis. That's a great quote. I read a while ago that he and other clergy were getting together as as alternative voice to the "Christians" that were recruited by the GOP. But I haven't seen anything else.

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Sadly, their voices are only as loud as how much they are amplified by the media. There's no truth they can utter that is as outrageous and sensational as those touting the Big Lie. They need other pathways of amplification. I have yet to see Jim Wallis' face and a quote on a billboard sign.

I believe that the majority of the masses are more apt to be followers than leaders. They listen for powerful voices and choose amongst them. When there is only one voice, there isn't a choice. When one voice overwhelms the others, there isn't really a choice. Many of those "Christians" actually have messages and beliefs deep inside, instilled during childhood through church and school, but they can be easily subverted, distorted by current voices. As followers, they need powerful voices who speak the truth, rather than some absurd distortion of the same.

In other words, not only "where are the leaders?", but how can their messages be sufficiently amplified to reach the greater scope of pre-conditioned minds that would respond to the message? It's not evangelism, per se, but a compatible social doctrinal objective to help people support sound moral/ethical principles in their political choices.

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hear, hear. Wallis speaks as an evangelical FOR the poor, regardless of their personal beliefs. In fact that's the teaching of Jesus, who specifically identified with individuals who weren't inside the fence. Justice isn't purely for anglo christians. It isn't just for citizens, not even just for legal residents. It's for human beings where you find them. Just like there will ALWAYS be poor, there will always be rich. Would anyone conclude that the rich need special attention or protections? They have learned how to succeed in the system, even with an non-level playing field. Change the playing field and it's likely that they'll remain rich. We focus on the poor because they are UNABLE to compete with the current rules, for a myriad of reasons. Just because they're "losers" by one definition or another, we believe that they deserve basic dignity, safety, autonomy as a function of being part of the tribe. The problems start when you begin defining tribe as something more restrictive than homo-sapien. I think most Americans believe that an Amazonian tribal member and a Chinese rural peasant deserve the same basic human rights and societal benefits as we purport to offer to every American. America distinguishes itself as a place where the country speaks for those who find themselves unable to effectively advocate for themselves. Who would we BE as a nation if that weren't a fundamental part of our "governance of, by and for the people" creed?

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The switch from (white) Southern Democrat to Republican was definitely motivated big-time by the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Nixon capitalized on that with his southern strategy. My understanding is that in the early/mid 1970s the GOP figured this was not going to be enough to get them back to the White House and national power, so after Roe came down they went for the white anti-choice religious vote, Evangelical and Catholic. Especially in urban areas, ethnic Catholics had a long history of allegiance to Democrats (and to labor), so they often didn't switch parties, but at least in my state (MA) that's where quite a few anti-choice and abortion-ambivalent Democrats come from. Also thinking about former rep. Dan Lipinski from the Chicago area and Rep. Henry Cuellar in TX.

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The flipping started earlier. Democrats added labor to their coalition in the early 20th c. Then the welfare state. Civil rights cemented it in the 60s. Lately they have been reversing as labor has been moving to the populist candidate. Recently Trump.

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Just curious: Who are you counting as "labor"?

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The working class: the socioeconomic group consisting of people who are employed in manual or industrial work.

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Ain’t politics fun???

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Elizabeth, unfortunately, we now have a black man on the S court that appears far too ready to take directions from his wife and to betray the Union.

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Well, according to President Garfield, Clarence Thomas is the first. He doesn’t identify as a Black man, and his wife doesn’t identify as a free woman, able to make her own decisions. They follow a cult leader who is a traitor 100% to our country. There you have it.

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Clarence Thomas is an Oreo. He thinks he is white on the inside. Weird thing is, if you are blind, he would not be white...he would be...just... a human. An indecent one for many of us, but still just a human loved and controlled by a traitor to America, a conspiracy theorist who should be in prison about now for all her interferences against our government.

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A black man who is a white supremacist

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A black man who is a male supremacist.

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So true. He should never have been confirmed.

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Joe Biden was the head of the committee overseeing Thomas’ choice. We have him to thank. Kavanaugh’s another one….who should never have been confirmed. We still don’t listen to women in this effing country. This is what we get as a result.

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Anita Hill tried to warn us . . . .

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Exactly. Like Coney Barrett hates women who are liberated and think for themselves. What have we come to?

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With the appointment of "Justice" Thomas, the Bush I administration thumbed its nose at the legacy of his predecessor, Justice Thurgood Marshall. The administration also thumbed its nose at the liberals who were demanding that the only Black justice on the Court be succeeded by a Black justice. (The liberals probably thought they were going to get another justice with extensive civil rights experience. Ha ha ha.) The hearings were horrible and not only because Anita Hill was trashed. IIRC the Senate Judiciary Committee (chaired by Sen. Joe Biden) was 100% white and male. Read excerpts from the hearings and you'll probably be struck by the senators' cluelessness about how sexual harassment works.

An intriguing thing about Thomas is that for his first two decades on the Court he was rarely more than a bump on a log. (To be fair, this is not uncommon for a token from any group.) As the Court tilted more and more rightward, esp. with the addition of the three Trump appointees, he's come into his own as an "originalist" with a strong misogynist streak. I'm guessing wife Ginni has played a role in this. It's also worth noting that in his movement away from youthful liberalism he was reportedly much influenced by Thomas Sowell, a conservative Black intellectual. (There are advantages to being a capable Black man in a white-male-dominated party that doesn't want to be called racist.)

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From his white wife....

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A large portion of the electorate recognizes the all-purpose criminal that he is and our heart's desire is indictment, conviction and a striped suit. Then there is the criminal himself. His thinly veiled worst nightmare is to be branded "loser". There's nothing better than losing an election, second best is having all your endorsed candidates lose their election to be branded a loser. Even though he'll steam, spout and bluster about "rigged" elections, at the end of it all, when the votes are counted and his candidates return home and into obscurity, that defines the loser. Its a shame we don't vote on media coverage directly. If we could vote him into obscurity in the public eye, that would be an even worse sentence. He holds a rally and nobody comes, most importantly no cameras and reporters come. I'm willing to accept a variety of consequences. I'd be secretly happy if the central kitchen at Mara Lago went up in flames. Or, a tsunami flooded the grounds, or if a whole golfcourse disappeared into a sinkhole. I'd consider events like that to be karmic justice. Solitary in a supermax would be better. Or, mandatory chain-gang time while orange changes to burnt orange. The egomaniac's nightmare is public humiliation.

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Nathan, I prefer your last two options. I've been interested in the few recent candid photos of him. He's suffering, and it's obvious.

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The ball is in Georgia's court where Trump is on tape trying to obstruct the election process in his attempt to have the Ga. Sec. of State "find votes." If he isn't indicted for this crime, he never will be.

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Yes. Question is whether the bald truth has any sway at this moment in our history. When Orban is Republican’s choice for guest speaker

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The selection of such an extremist as Orban as the quest speaker rails against my hope that the Republican party would moderate its positions.

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It’s the same as inviting Adolph Hitler to speak if we were in the 1930’s. Pretty scathing of those Repugnants. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does!

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Elisabeth, that’s perfect “ “…inviting Adolph Hitler to speak…” We’re going backwards and the repugs are leading the way. While we watch. Can’t we still hear that voice in the McCarthy hearings: “You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?“ Mr. Welch to Mr. Cohn. 1954.

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I so agree with that. I was just thinking about that this morning. That alone speaks volumes about the present day Republican Party.

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Yes, it's pretty "out there" where the MAGA crowd wants to take America when you idolize & put on a pedestal a dictator or two.

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Lincoln should have let the South go

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To be what? To become a continental version of a Caribbean banana republic? The history of the south is intimately connected to the West Indies. The issue was freeing human beings from slavery. What would we have at our southeastern border had we had just "let the South go"? The mistake we made was then not holding the conspirators accountable, and worse, allowing them to resume their roles running the states and holding Congressional seats. We must not make that mistake again. This isn't about the South. It is about our entire country and about the lives of all of us.

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I like your comment but your ❤️ won’t light up.

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Had we let the South go a lot of slaves would have escaped to the North. And currently, we would not be having to worry about losing our Democracy. As a country, had we let the South go, these days we'd probably have a lot in common with Scandinavia--good education for all, healthcare for all, a justice system dedicated to rehabilitation rather than punishment, a good social safety net, and we'd probably have begun combating global warming 2-3 decades ago, and well on our way to zero CO2.

The South probably would have given up on slavery, either because it doesn't work well or because of international pressure, or both, and if they were sensible, they'd be following our example.

There would be no Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett, Gorsuch on the SCOTUS, and no McConnell. Politics would be boring.

On the other hand, you're absolutely correct about the big mistakes we made. I'm just not as confident as you that your scenario would have worked, but but it might have worked.

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Some of what you say might have come about, but I seriously doubt it would have been as straight forward as you seem to assume. Racism and slavery both existed in northern states, and then there was the pesky business about settling the west. It more likely simply would have been an uglier version of what did happen.

At any rate, we cannot change the past but by changing the way it has influenced the present, so that we can work for a more equitable and compassionate future. At least, we are certainly in agreement about the need to address the current state of affairs so that those responsible are held accountable.

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It's useful to remember that the United States were less than 100 years old at the time of the Civil War. Remember the speech, "four score and seven years ago" . There were concepts enshrined in the constitution equally revered by southerners as northerners at that time. Their interpretation of the constitution, and to whom it applied, was different in the two regions. And remember, neither side thought to even question whether women ought to be considered as equally protected under the law. Any sizeable group of people bound together under commonly held beliefs will find themselves stratifying and segregating along lines defined not by their unanimity, but by their DIFFERENCES. There would BE no politics if everyone was of a single mind.

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I've had that thought! But I trust that President Lincoln had the greater insight to make such a painful choice. I, on the other hand would just like to be done with the absurd, sociopathic right wingers. How did they get that way? Begone!

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I rather think that Lincoln had too much faith in the human decency of the Southerners, or else that the decision was economic, as my best friend, the academic political scientist/economist says.

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I don't think they "got that way" Much of sociopathic narcissism is genetic predisposition with a lot of environmental reinforcement.

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Oh no! And they are the party of heterosexual cohabitation with a mandate to procreate!!

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It's not limited to the South - Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, New Hampshire, to name just a few, are all a threat.

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I know, but a few states by themselves wouldn't be nearly the threat that more than half the states are.

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I don't know enough to argue this point, and it's an interesting one.

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Don't ignore the fact that the rest of the country's voters are watching, and the optics are just as bad as SCOTUS' trashing of Roe. The vote on abortion in Kansas was largely Republicans, as there aren't that many Democrats in that red state. While it was specific to abortion, clearly the sane Republicans aren't thrilled. They can't be happy about Orban either.

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Kansas may be an outlier

Look what happened in Minnesota!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/06/morning-after-pill-contraception-judge-minnesota

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I followed the link and read. It was and is a good reality check. I am happy about Kansas but believe it is imperative to put the champagne back in the cooler and take nothing - as in NOTHING - for granted. Instead we must double down on fighting these draconian and dystopian state and SCOTUS moves to undermine women’s abortion rights & healthcare as well as the rights of Transgender, gay & queer folk. And could I mention fighting like our life depends on it to stop the continuing assaults with AK-47s or AR-15s. Vote in 2022 up and down the ballot for those who seek to help citizens.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Good grief, Joan! We're in deep trouble. Of course, the solution is to have a large enough majority in the House and Senate to keep us from being dependent on Manchin and Sinema, then to codify Roe v. Wade and other legislation that will make these abominations by a minority in this country a thing of the past. Yes, I know it's a long shot.

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Many think Georgia is the “smoking gun” of this whole coup. I noticed a tidbit in the NYT or Washington Post today that there is Republican state push back to the prosecutor. They want to discredit her ahead of time, in anticipation of how huge this case will be. Hold onto your hats and fasten your seatbelts!

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The confusing thing is...how come all the "discrediting" sticks to Dems and the outrageous Republicans get a pass??

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Who’s giving them a pass, Joan? Not us! Not Liz Cheney…and all those great patriots fighting this.

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Yes of course not us!

Let's hope Liz Cheney is re elected

Do you think she might be?

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If all Republicans demonstrated two characteristics, I'd be perfectly willing to regard them with equal esteem; first, allegiance to the constitution rather than to individuals in positions of power; second; understanding and behavior demonstrating that negotiation and compromise are in the nature of legislative politics, not an enemy of same. Political opinion is something like a Bell curve in 3 dimensions. On any given issue, there will be those who group around the mean and a fraction of outliers. Party line voting distorts reality. Party line voting out of touch with the broad electorate further distorts reality. Forgetting that, once in office, you represent ALL people in your district or state even further distorts reality. I like Cheney for the one obvious fact that she is loyal to the constitution. I doubt I would vote in lockstep with her, but I can respect her views; just not own them.

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I think I read there is a recall effort to get Fani Willis out of office.

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MLM, I think they have no chance, nevertheless, of course, they up to no good. See the following detailed article.

'Donald Trump’s allies in Georgia are mounting a campaign to recall Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her investigation into the then president’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and are seeking to recruit high-dollar donors

to fund it, according to sources familiar with the effort.'

'The organizers of the campaign concede that the obstacles to a successful recall in Georgia are high, making the chances of getting a recall vote on the ballot before Willis makes her decision on whether to indict Trump and his associates remote at best.

But a source involved in the effort told Yahoo News that the aim is to use the recall campaign as a way to politically damage the Democratic district attorney, portraying her as a partisan actor who is ignoring soaring crime rates in Atlanta in order to target high-profile Republicans. A side benefit of that game plan, another source familiar with the campaign said, is to potentially influence a jury pool down the road should a case against Trump go to trial.'

“The purpose is to politicize it,” said one high-ranking Georgia Republican involved in the recall effort, who asked not to be publicly identified discussing a politically sensitive matter. “The message here is, ‘OK, you [Willis] want to play this [political] game, we’ll make this about politics.’”

'That source, who is helping to raise money for the effort, said Trump and his associates at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida are “aware” of the recall campaign and that among those actively involved in the effort are David Shafer, the Georgia Republican Party chairman, and Brad Carver, a prominent GOP lawyer in the state. Both men are among the 16 so-called fake electors in Georgia who recently received target letters from Willis informing them they were facing potential indictments in her probe.'

'Among the donors who the organizers are talking to about potentially funding the recall campaign is Bernard Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot and a strong Trump backer, who is widely regarded as the wealthiest man in the state. Marcus could not be reached for comment. Shafer and Carver did not respond to messages seeking comment for this article.'

'The recall campaign burst into public view this week when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., retweeted a recall message from Bill White, a pro-Trump activist from Buckhead, the wealthy, predominantly white section of Atlanta. “The Fulton County DA is using Fulton County taxpayer’s money for her personal political witch hunt against Pres Trump, but will NOT prosecute crime plaguing Atlanta! Atlanta has WORSE crime than Chicago! RECALL!!!” wrote Greene. (YahooNews) See link below for complete article.

https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-trump-allies-launch-effort-to-recall-fulton-county-da-fani-willis-224315547.html

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Yes, that's the article I read too.

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Yes, it’s worse then “discrediting” her. Well, she is going to have to hang on tight! We are with you, Fani Willis!!

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Sadly, I fear you're right.

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Why am I not surprised. I have not heard too much about how her work is proceeding. Hope she can get it done.

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She's been getting a lot done. We were hearing more about her before Merrick Garland began to gain traction.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Nathan, I just read an article about Josh Hawley, who reminds me of a scrawny little bully in my fifth-grade class back in Miami. What I could never figure out was the other kids, who seemingly would like to be bullies and tried to stay close to the real bully. I can't help but think of that bully in my elementary school class, who would use words like "Losers" - especially when he was losing the game...

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I came to the conclusion after Jan. 6th event that perhaps one of the reasons people accept Trump's awful behavior is that is the environment they were raised in. It's why domestic violence ends up becoming generational. Combine that with some serious psychosis, and you end up with a Trump.

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I put a great deal of weight on the decision of “news” organizations who adopted the “Scream and Shout” style of reporting instead of analytical investigation. Similar to substituting trained debaters with the like of Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones.

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Trump himself was raised in an awful environment. He's like his father. See Mary Trump's book: Too Much--Never Enough.

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And for Trump and rich white male enablers it is privilege and entitlement.

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His father essentially worked with the mob crime families in NY-- he appeared to learn to act like mobsters. His whole personality is one shallow, empty reality act. (basically what a narcissist is-- the most important thing is what the one in the mirror can get from the world to fill his black hole of a soul.

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The rich and white in this country seem to be made of the same cloth.

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People gravitate towards what they're familiar with.

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I've always thought that those who stick close to the bully do so to avoid becoming a target of the bully. They feel it's "protection" and they're as afraid of the bully as anyone else is. Perhaps that's why their minions always defend them with such vigor?

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It's certainly a top reason. Just look at the Republican Party...

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Yes, but people close to death star have learned, in many instances, what the bottom of the bus looks like.

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What's the adage? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer....

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LBJ is said to say, "It's better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent, pissing in." It could have been Teddy Roosevelt. I'm sure one of our group will know...

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LBJ said it referring to J Edgar Hoover

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Heard it attributed to Lincoln.

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Nope. I just googled, did Lincoln say, "It's better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent, pissing in."

In multiple links that came up, It was always LBJ who said that--never Lincoln. I don't think Lincoln would have said that. But it's totally in character for LBJ.

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remember that grade school retort; "I know you are, but what am I?" The oversimplified logic was, I"f I name you the bully, then by definition it can't be me". What is the definition between two bullies in a room together? I think it is a "street fight". It's hard to have a designated bully without a designated victim(s). Broadly speaking, we are brought up to understand that it's not ok to behave like a bully. The few who act that way are "breaking the rules". They were either inadequately socialized or are socially pathologic. Megalomaniacal narcissism is definitely sociopathic behavior. Amazingly, mild cases of such psychopathology can be paradoxically endearing, even humorous. Politics is one of those arenas where scrawny little kids can grow into bullying behavior and get away with it. There was a time when swords, pistols and fisticuffs were part of congressional debate tactics.

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Don't understand the 2nd sentence.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Sandra VO (Maryland) - Don't understand the 2nd sentence. ("What I could never figure out was the other kids, who seemingly would like to be bullies and tried to stay close to the real bully.")

Bullies always seem to be surrounded by "followers" (Admirers?) who for whatever reason(s) give him/her encouragement.

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The reason is something kids learn by the 3rd grade. Survival. Support the bully so he (or she!) won't turn against you. That's why mean girls (mean boys) run in packs. In this case, the pack is named "Republican."

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My new computer program reprogrammed what I wanted to say. I've corrected it now.

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So much at stake. Not just a push back of “ the lie” and Truump. There seems to be a virus in the land and I don’t mean covid. The psychotic refusal to attend to the facts, the multiple court rulings that have declared Biden won fair and square. The infusion of $$$$ to manipulate the hate along these deluded lines of thought… How would Johnson’s speech be heard today? I wonder

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Is it that international "helpers" are more daring now than in Johnson's day?

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Along with massive propaganda rallies and megaphones like twitter, fox and breitbart.

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truth has become transactional, a sort of non-sanctioned currency in trade. Perhaps this is one way that civilizations slowly crumble?

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Amen and Hallelujah, Nathan.

🗽

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Those of us who live in places where most people reject the Big Lie may not be able to vote against its advocates, but we can give money, and make calls, and send postcards to defeat them.

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Jon recommend you google Walk the Walk which is an organization which has NO paid employees All $$ goes to getting out vote BUT as they ( the workers in those places) have said on numerous zoom calls to Donators ...calls and postcards from people who don't know you, essentially strangers, are not what works.

Walk the Walk ...They are supporting people who live and work in the communities that must come out and vote. They have relationships in those towns and can help a voter to get to the polls if necessary. I believe there are other such organizations but this is the one I know and when you listen on zoom calls to their contacts in Georgia and Wisconsin you can see how strategic and smart they are. But it is a slog ...

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That's good, but it's not clear that postcards are ineffective. Robert Hubbell, in Today's Edition (on Substack) has discussed this several times this week, since I and a number of other readers pointed out an article in NYT suggested that postcards and such may be counter-productive. Robert is pretty convincing that they aren't. They may affect only 1-3% of voters, but that is frequently decisive.

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slog?

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Not? It feels exhausting ( to me)

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Send postcards?

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Many organizations dedicated to democracy and getting out the vote have programs for writing postcards to get their message out

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Postcards to Voters

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I sent thousands of post cards to: Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. Thousands. Myself. It makes people feel connected to. Very effective in some places.

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What do they say???

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We are asked to give the same message on every card, handwritten: Please vote in the next election….it is what our democracy counts on…this is a moment when voting means our future….stuff like that.

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Would this work??: "The handful of white men who cling so desperately to a Country that doesn’t exist anymore will pass. Tick tock (not tik tok) the time is coming… I trust I will be alive long enough to see that happen. In the mean time I vote and I support people who are working for the concepts and acceptance that I thought we already had. You should too."

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How do they get to the right people? [Drop them from an airplane? :-)]

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Too bad we can't put this HCR letter on them and mail them.

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Field Team 6 has postcard writing opportunities and the emphasis is on registering to vote.

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Look up Postcards to Voters, although there are other similar organizations.

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Thank you! I hadn’t thought of it that way, but so true, showing him that he is a big loser, which can cut him to the core. He knows deep inside what he is, but is afraid to acknowledge it.

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He is as bad at losing as he is at everything else.

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You speak for me

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Thank you for your words and the reminder to call out the Liar for who and what he is. Past tme to turn the tables on this charlatan and send him and his enablers to a well deserved permanent retirement.

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part of his calculus regarding 2024 will be whether HE believes he can win, apart from what even his closest advisors are saying (and, you know what they will be saying). He could declare, run and then find "the grand excuse" to pull out just before the '24 GOP primaries and allow a "personally picked" competitor become the heir apparent. What we hope is for indictment and a muzzle at the very least, but strong negative messages along the way might shake his narcissistic little ego to a degree and compel him to choose the least cowardly way to back out and still declare some kind of Pyrrhic victory. Just look at his endorsement in a recent GOP primary, for "Eric" when both candidates held the same first name. He will absolutely claim his influence in assisting the winner. So BLATENTLY narcissistic, even a 3rd grader could call that out. If all his endorsed candidates lose in the general election, let him spin all he wants. Privately, he'll have to acknowledge to himself that the strategy didn't work.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Donald J. Trump has lost so often in court, at the ballot box and at telling the truth, he is the USA's BIGGEST LOSER.

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Speaking of “sabre rattling” by losers, here is a recent commentary by Beau of the Fifth Column regarding Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. I think it illuminated the media’s cartoonish obsession for ad revenue. 🙄 https://youtu.be/BLoEj8EGQg4

🗽

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over 100k views in 24 hours; he has a bit of traction. He looks the part of rural Kentucky. His point however, is well taken. China will do what it chooses and prepares to do. It is taking advantage of Pelosi's political statement to make one of it's own, consistent with its' long term strategy for Taiwan. The thing about the Chinese; they can be very patient.

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He always reminds me that appearances are not always what they seem.

🗽

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Liked but it didn’t show up.

So true statement!

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Thanks for the link! That was quite a logical, sensible analysis.

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Nathan, this is an amazing excellent post. You are exactly right to suggest the biggest message we voters can send is to vote everyone from dog catcher to governor OUT if they ever got behind the lie, failed to

Impeach the most impeachable president of our lifetime, or promote conspiracy theories, etc. None of these folks can be excused and like Trump that should never be allowed to return to office or enter an elected office for the first time. Voting to keep them out would be the best thing for this country - no exceptions. NONE!!!

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thanks; if you want to "hit'm where it hurts", its useful to figure out where/how they feel pain.

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Nathan, from your lips to God's ear, although I agree with Elizabeth Iler about our current Benedict Arnold!

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That's an insult to Benedict Arnold. It really is. Arnold was a true patriot, for a long time. He probably won the decisive battle at Saratoga, and his delaying action on Lake Champlain had a lot to do with the outcome of that battle, too. He was embittered that others grabbed credit that he thought--rightly--was due to him. After he deserted to the British he led a loyalist column in Virginia and has the distinction of having been perhaps the best general on both sides in the same war. Kenneth Roberts, a novelist popular in the 30's, 40's and early '50s, wrote a series of books about the Revolution, and in several of them gave a well-rounded portrait of Arnold. So Arnold was a far better creature than TFG.

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Jon, you're correct, and my response was a reflexive reaction to Arnold having been labeled a traitor. Actually, Trump stands alone in his efforts to overthrow our democracy, with lots of help from the Russians and our own miscreants.

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All so true, Nathan Kemalyan!! Thank you

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Amen and Amen, Nathan!!🌿

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An excellent recitation on the history of civil and voting rights under the US Constitution.

I would like to add that this very week, CPAC, a significant arm and master of the Republican agenda met in Texas to restore the white supremacy that white southerners created over a period of 100 or more years before the Civil War. As HCR's history lesson states, it returned in full vengeance after the War for another 100 years. And it continues today. We might add that the recent US Supreme Court overturning of ROE v WADE and the response of many Republican controlled states is challenging the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. All of the decisions rolling back women's healthcare rights are gender discrimination against women by significant representative majorities of white men. Kansas demonstrates that when all citizens are included, we have a much better chance for preserving our civil and Constitutional rights.

White male supremacy is still here being openly talked about and planned for by CPAC members and their speakers. Viktor Orban, Donald Trump, FOX personalities, Republican governors, representatives in Congress and in state legislatures. These men are all equivalent to Afghanistan's Taliban. Don't ever dismiss or forget this. Not one of these people is Christian anymore than the Taliban are Muslim. They are all male authoritarians.

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Couldn’t be truer. But the cult grinds on. May they be crushed with a vengeance in Nov.

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🙏🏿🙏🏽🙏🏼🙏🏻

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Absolutely. The "Christian Nationalists" are more like Nazis than Jesus. We need to say it over and over. "American Taliban" is the name to use.

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Thank you, David. I fully agree and will always have that image in my mind of Taliban, armed to the teeth, male all, unsmiling all, harsh and edgy. They really cannot handle female energy. OMG. The Repugs either, unless they are a 1950’s version of certain women, who most of us threw out the window as we grew up in the sixties.

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It is hard to believe how openly they are doing this. I catch myself blinking and pinching myself. For all their claims of "socialism" on the left, which is false as we all know, here they are, putting a bona fide authoritarian on the stage and worshiping him. It has never been more important to vote.

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I watched some of those CPAC speeches with a friend who lived in Germany as a little girl in the immediate years after WWII. She doesn’t apologize for calling them what they are- Nazis. During the 2016 election and until that cesspool left the White House, so many of us were shouted down and told not to be calling Trump, Stone, Bannon, etc., Nazis. We were labelled over reaching and way worse. I desperately wish the fear and concerns we had then were not coming further true before our eyes.

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LH, agree. My former co-worker grew up in Germany, born after WWII. She came into my office wide eyed after one of Trump's early policy actions, I think it was the Muslim ban, and said something to the effect of, he is just like Hitler. She was shocked at how blatant it was.

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Absolutely. I got kicked off youtube for using the term Nazi in 2016. That is the only thing I could think would get me kicked off. I eventually created a new eddress...and youtube has come a long way in tolerating Truth, now.

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I made a comment to a "friend" that what I was seeing from Republiqans these days looked more like the Taliban than the "friendly opposition". I was scathingly and resoundingly refuted. I then posted a side by side comparison of what the Taliban of the Middle East said regarding the roles of women, and what the American Taliban (I should have also thrown in "white Christian Nationalists" but this was several years ago) seemed to want for its population. They were freaking identical. I was unfriended and blocked. Snowflake.

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I am sorry you list a friend over it all. It has been very tough over the past 4-6 yrs to maintain relationships with friends, family, and colleagues.

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Where can I find that comparison? I would love to send it to a friend or two. I'm not on Facebook any longer so if it is a Facebook posting I'll be sorry to miss it.

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There was a side by side picture of women under Taliban rule. Before and after, circulating on social media. Before picture could have been from any city in America. Completely free. No burka or hijabs in sight. Laughing living free. And the after Taliban became rule picture they were in full coverings huddled together solemn walking in a group. A warning for us in America that it could happen here!

We have to exercise our right to vote, or we will lose that right under the Republican christian nationalists!

Vote like our democracy depends on it, because it does!

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Denise, don’t forget who put the Taliban in power….George Bushes I and II. The Repugnants with Democratic support of course, funded Osama Bin Landen to the tune of BILLIONS of our tax dollars, to equip caves with high tech systems in the Taliban’s war under Bin Laden to defeat the Soviet Union. It IS happening here, in the United States, with the roll back of women’s rights and voting rights and killing of Black people in open daylight. We live in a fascist state in many areas of our lives now. VOTE and get everyone you know and everyone they know, to VOTE.

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Exactly! Such an overlooked piece of information.

In Texas, our group tries to keep the fascist word at a minimum. The red right shuts down if you point it out. But there’s not much of a dialogue there anyway. We’re focusing on people that are registered and don’t vote. And registering people who aren’t registered. People who are open to listening! But Beto talks to his non supporters! He gravitates to them at rallies. He calls them if he can when they post things against him on social media. He’s making believers out of the opposition! We are ready to change the course!

Texas has a great shot at going Democrat! 💙

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I've heard other people either in Texas or with Texas connections say similar things. Some lifelong Texans I am acquainted with were planning to leave Texas, but are reconsidering. They say that there appears to be a subtle shift in things and want to wait to see. They have always had a pretty good feel for things in Texas. It makes me feel hopeful. There are good people in Texas who do not like what has been happening in leadership and want to see it changed. Fingers crossed.

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Beto out raised Abbott in the last reporting deadline. With just grassroots donations. No corporate donations. Texans are sick of Abbott’s back stabbing two faced politics. He’s blocked federal funding and is part of the Republicans that want to secede from the United States. He’s a self serving snake. Texans are ready for Beto!

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The press reported it, but for some reason there wasn't the kind of ground-swell resistance there should have been. The Bushes were somehow exempt from the kind of close examination that most administrations are subject to. Oh, it didn't go unnoticed- just did not rise to the level it needed. I still wonder why. Bush the father was so refined; son W was thought a nonentity without much agency of his own. What could go wrong?

A lot, it turned out. Beginning with Reagan, sliding past Clinton (who always struck me as a little too accommodating of Republican foibles) and flowing seemlessly through the Bushes. Obama at least kept our moral compass pointing the right way, but was hamstrung by a Congress still under the moral control of the likes of Newt Gingrich in the House and then Mitch in the Senate.

Then came TFG, and it all came to a head. Maybe in a way TFG did us a favor. It's hard to pretend everything is fine when things sneak up on you. TFG and his cronies brought it all out into the open where we had to take a good close look at the reality of where we are as a nation. Media focuses on where things are going wrong. Then Kansas made them (and us) realize that those of us who have been saying "Yes, we can make a difference" were right. We can. We are the people, and we have the vote.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

As much as I admired Obama for his clear rhetoric and ideals...I can't forget that he was a alumnus--as was both Bill and Hillary Clinton--of the DLC.

That acronym stands for the Democratic Leadership Council which led the Democratic Party away from it's traditional base in order to feed off Wall Street and other big money donors. This was done to compete with the R's mega fund-raising, because the DLC felt the Dems were falling behind in re-election and campaign money department.

Thus, the Democratic party began to ignore and abandon their small d base. That's the simplistic version--there are a host of other reasons that factor in...but I think of the DLC as a Dem version of ALEC and neither has been good for the U.S. citizens as a whole--although they have proven quite lucrative to individuals who are part of those rather secretive organizations.

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CPAC and Trump rallies are now routinely held, no longer an annual convention or a political campaign. They have become tent revivals for a White Nationalist religion, where fantastical stories are told and believed.

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Along with the Republican Taliban, we can add the Shiite Christians that follow CPAC!

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

What the history about civil and

voting rights teaches Blacks and women is: we are going to have to be willing to engage in a protracted fight - even put our lives on the line - to achieve those rights and maintain those rights. Those rights did not emerge from the soaring rhetoric of white white male presidents, such as Garfield, they were the hard fought gains from literally decades of blood, sweat, and tears of Black and women activists putting themselves on the front lines of protests and social change.

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IMO calling these WS men authoritarians is like calling an atom bomb a flash bang. Since 1865 KKK has amply demonstrated the sadistic psychopathy of these men and those who enable them. Their unending terrorism is amping up. And they are now in present day loud and proud.

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Maybe they should be referred to as the American Taliban.

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Nancy, they are being referred to as the American Taliban, because that is just what they are!

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Thank you Heather for the clarity of your telling.

This history must be retold to new and to old generations, simply and clearly, to reset the stage that is our story, struggle, truth, passage to future. The three points I take away from this retelling are these:

Power unchecked will grow among those who require that democracy and freedom's benefits only belong to a selected few. All others are to be exploited for that benefit. They will, at different times, go by the names of Christian, Democrat, Republican, Nationalist, whatever is convincing.

Second, the law and its enforcement will be the tool used to sustain this power through persuasion or carefully selective enforcement. Laws written by men with submission of some of us serves none of us. Laws, imagined by men with justice, liberty, and opportunity in mind are the tools by which we, regardless of party, local, or other conditions inate to us, curb the excesses of those who deem us today lossers and tomorrow as unworthy and unentitled to rights intented in our constitution and as our democracy evolves towards it's promise.

Third, there will always be men of the moment and a time to hear the wisdom of voices given to demanding and convincing and drawing us to the moment to act, to right, to vote, and to change us. These men of the moment will be exceptional, not because of their background or some aptitude, but because they are able to grasp the arc of changes rising within and among their brethern and take the moment to lead, to apply their power, whether for good or evil. Not all will do so with honor or in our interests. Some will be surprises, gifts of heritage and experiences that informed and formed character and an ability to defy and convince others.

Finally, this clear telling must be repeated to keep us vigilent and able to with consideration and speed give voice and contain the forces that would narrow power to the few who, regardless of party or personal beliefs, will redirect our laws and institutions away from the rights and protections for free and equal Americans.

Thank you, Heather. This is a keeper LFAA.

(PS I use men here in the inclusive sense of all. I'm old-school in ✍️. )

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So well said, David on all points! Thank you!

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I couldn’t agree more, well said. I use the term, “Old White Men” but the truth is it is White male supremacy…..Thank you

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Bravo, David! Thanks for sticking up for us women!

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I had not considered how quotable Garfield was, so many thanks for shining a light on him.

Growing up where I did, in North Dakota, in the 80’s, the concept of racism was an abstraction. We learned black people were ‘freed’ and that was about it. Civil rights struggles were not taught in civics class and thus I regarded ‘black people’ as… well… just people. I had no reason to think otherwise.

It took going to college and meeting (my first) black people to understand that despite the fact that they are, ‘just people,’ they actually suffered from this ‘concept’ of racism… as weird as this sounds, now, I had no idea this concept existed. It was an awakening, for me, because I could not even begin to understand the concept.

I joined the Black Student Union immediately and actually ran underneath (for VP) a black woman who ran for student body president. We did well, but well enough to win in North Dakota in the 90’s, but we made a statement.

I hope Annie Littlefield kept her voice and is kicking ass someplace even now (I expect she is) but I thank her and all her friends who were so gobsmacked at the time with my naivety.

A big part of me… probably all of my being, is still in disbelief that we even have to face this continued assault on BLACK people. As much as I want to change minds and opinions, I’ve resigned myself to my vote and to give my money to folks like Stacy Adams. It was very gratifying to ‘cash’ my Trump check and write the same out to her, for her campaign.

Sadly there is no part of this Country that isn’t stained by ghosts of slavery. No other country is, by my estimation, as bad, actually. And that is a stain on us.

I am confident that this will end. The handful of white men who cling so desperately to a Country that doesn’t exist anymore will pass. Tick tock (not tik tok) the time is coming… I trust I will be alive long enough to see that happen. In the mean time I vote and I support people who are working for the concepts and acceptance that I thought we already had. You should too.

Someone said something like: the easiest way to take power from someone is to convince them they don’t have any. We do have the power and I am 100% convinced that it is in us to make change happen. Red is Dead.

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How very on target you are, some of us were late understanding the gravity of our historical sin, but we have tried to make amends. We have killed the America of the cretins over and over, yet they prove that the power of hate seeps and corrupts. LBJ said it best. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Wish Clarence would figure this out, useful fool that he is…

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Nothing ever truer as that homespun quote spoken by LBJ. I use it often when talking frankly to people that are tied up in the Big Lie and have no idea how to see otherwise. The “picking his pocket” resonates with some of them. There are people that have lost a lot of money supporting Trump and his ilk. And for some, it makes them dig their heels into the muck even harder. But they know the loss of their money is troublesome.

🗽

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I am amazed at people complain complain complaining about inflation and what it is doing to their incomes--and yet will send hard earned money (or retirement funds) to pay for the "legal defense" of a "billionaire". Don't they, even for a moment, wonder why the "billionaire" can't pay his own bills?!?!? How STUPID can they be?

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Yes. And as I’ve told many people, “stupid” is a choice so be discerning in your choices.

🗽

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Your last sentence says it all, Miselle.

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Great LBJ quote, Jeri, to resurrect!

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Is this quote the basis/theory behind the book "Caste"?

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I love your story. I grew up in a small town in NC. We weren’t taught anything about slavery but just how the South “shall rise again”. Women of all shapes, sizes, and colors have suffered but you know what? We won’t stand for that anymore. We are so done being dictated and talked down to. The Pro-Rape Party is extreme now. They need not hide behind their white robes because we know who their leaders are now. All of us sane individuals will prevail. We just have to.

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Growing up in Texas it was very similar white washed history. A great history teacher in middle school even seemed to skim over those pesky Civil War years to focus on WWII and fascism.

When my daughter was in college, she got me into a lecture, on my visit,that was optional and some kids were saying they didn’t want to go. The speaker was Robert Parris Moses! In my white washed bubble I’d never heard of Bob Moses. And I had my eyes opened! Bought his book, and our cluster of students and I couldn’t stop talking about what he had to say! Amazing experience and boy how naïve I was! A definite turning point for me and my daughter and pretty much lit the activist torch right there and then!

The more you know! Cue shooting star with a rainbow!

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Marlene, I heard your "Pro-Rape Party" phrase on Greg Olear's Five/8 podcast! LB says we need to put forward the narrative that what is happening as a result of Dobbs is an effort to force women to give birth "for the State." Just like enslaved women were forced to give birth to compensate for the dismantling of the slave trade (from Africa) so that the white enslavers had a continuum of labor for their plantations.

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Can’t ❤️ but I am happy Greg used it! These abhorrent white people (mostly men, sorry) simply can’t put 2 and 2 together. Women made them, not God, or another species. Time for women to take these fools out! I have said it before, we should drop plane loads of vibrators into shithole states. Attached to each one will be a message “Have fun! You won’t get pregnant this way!”

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Oh, Marlene; to use the phrase: You're a caution!

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Maybe the notes should say “Caution! Enjoy this toy, ladies!”

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Agree that its time to consider new terms. I now refer to anti-abortion folks as “forced birthers”.

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Sounds too much like Handmaid's Tale to me.

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Actually, I think it was guest speaker Shireen Mitchell who was saying something like the Handmaid's Tale was a fictional narrative; what her ancestors went through was real.

Video is 1hr36min. My memory doesn't allow me to tell you exactly where this was said.

https://youtu.be/cYCMG_aS9lY

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Not only the Pro-Rape party, Marlene, but the "Forced Birth" party as I think of that poor 10 year old Ohio girl b4 getting help in Indiana, the "Viktor Orbán" party.... Appaling what is happening in this country!

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Grew up there too, know it well.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

I agree that in the northern tier of western states we had so few black Americans that we were able to coalesce our tendency to support racism against the Indian Nations as a viable alternative. No one out here can wash their hands of racism. For native Americans the struggle for their human rights has never diminished. For that struggle we are still stained. You may note that these states are primarily red states locked in the grasp of ignorance and Republican ideology.

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In CA, our biggest stain was the internment of Japanese Americans. And yet, the Japanese people contributed so much to our society. Unfortunately, Asians are suffering dangerous physical attacks in San Francisco. The question is why? It’s maddening!

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"We learned black people were ‘freed’ and that was about it." H. Alan, I was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Maryland suburbs. This is exactly what I learned as well.

The rest of your commentary resonates with me - as I suspect many here - because of its simplicity in the telling.

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Same here, from lily white sundown town Medford, OR.

I started first grade in 1964, and was in 4th grade when RFK and MLK were assassinated. Only the circumstances of MKL's assassination were talked about, not the why of what he was doing.

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Ally, you and I have had the same experience growing up. It's just in the past few years that I've truly learned what it all represents. And now that I've been introduced to this letter, I read every morning first thing, and pass it on because I know I am not the only one who grew up uninformed. And still now, so many I know are uninformed. Many choose not to talk about politics but I think it's more than politics. It's basic humanity and when you start to dig deeper, individual truths start to come to the surface. I have been enlightened and think differently about many people that I've known for years. There are many that I don't care to bother with anymore. Disagreements are no longer over petty things. I just want to deal with good, decent human beings anymore!

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Can’t ❤️ but I agree with your last sentence, Jeanne!

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You have forgotten the OVER ONE MILLION Indigenous Peoples murdered to have "America"!

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Not forgotten. Just not mentioned this time.

Any number of readers here have commented on the founding of the US being based on the theft of Indigenous lands/the slaughter of the Indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Blacks. Today's letter touches on the issues surrounding the US history around Black voting rights. Not mentioned today is the exclusion of the Indigenous from the right to vote until 1924; it has been discussed at length previously.

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Choosing when to state a fact does not make the argument that ignores said fact valid. Intersectionality is the reality. Choosing what portion of the experience of people of color to consider is a subtle form of racism. Black people did not and do not have lived experience separate from other oppressed persons in this country. The voices of women and people of color are completely absent in the words of the persons HCR quoted in this segment. I watched the events of the 60s and lost my brother in Viet Nam. And I suffered nearly consistent and blatant unopposed sexual harassment and anti-semitism in my work as a Behavioral Analyst contracted to Federal Law Enforcement for 27 years. My experience and the experience of other women and people of color other than Black people is just as valid and separating it as a matter of convenience is a microaggression.

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As a lesbian, I am well aware of microaggressions, am not unaware of women's issues and I am also aware that my ancestors were not enslaved.

I think Annie is more polite than I care to be today.

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This letter has been running for almost 3 years. We have covered all the topics you mention in depth and know we have just begun. There are people of color here and if you read long enough you will learn that we do speak for ourselves and do not need scolding on our behalf. No one letter represents all the thoughts of its writer, let alone the entire community around "Letter from an American". In addition, Dr Richardson has done a remarkable series of live informal video lectures on Facebook on various topics of American political history. She has the insight to know that she cannot speak FOR indigenous and other people-of-color, but she can tell our story through America's history.

Good luck with your incipient political blog. Remember to use your own voice to tell your story.

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Oh dear, I certainly could tap a blue streak about that, too. I have many many indigenous friends and they had a strong presence at my college. Among the other languages I’ve studied, I studied Lakota while there and the successful push towards the transition from the fighting “Sioux” was initiated while I was in college there by a friend of mine.

Those who like to characterize slavery as America’s “original” sin clearly don’t understand that before there were fields to harvest there were people that had to be cleared. And we know it: the ‘trail of tears’ wasn’t the Cherokee people mourning as they left it was named for the white people watching and crying because they KNEW it was wrong. That’s the original sin here. But in no way was I ignoring this in my post, it just was not the focus.🙏🏼

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Yes H. Alan, it boils down to the many many sins of whites. Some of us weren’t and aren’t very kind. It makes me ill. Daughter of Holocaust victims here.

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Agree. It is the paradox of humanity that we get the DaVincis and the Hitlers in the same cereal box. I’d like to think that the beauty and creativity that represents humanity is winning the race, but balance that against the immense damage and suffering a few bags of shit are/were capable of and it’s a toss-up. I hope we are evolving out of it.🙏🏼

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“ It is the paradox of humanity that we get the DaVincis and the Hitlers in the same cereal box.” What a beautiful turn of phrase you’ve written.

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Why thank you. I just turn the spigot on and words flow so it was not a deeply-considered one, but I needed to make the point that we are all the same but not. :) Peace be with you.

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I like your comparison and yes, I would like to revel in your last sentence too.

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Your story will resonate with many, H.Alan. Thank you for the entire post.

Salud. 🗽

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Thank you for reminding me of hope

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Beautifully said H. Alan!

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Perhaps this is “your” Annie:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annielittlefield

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Yep! We lost touch as will happen, but seems she did well! I had no doubt. Thanks for that! I’ll reach out after only 30 years and see if she needs a VP for a larger run! 😎🤔🥰

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How fun! I hope she is receptive. Please let us know. We’re rooting for you!

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Oh Ashley, wouldn’t that be wonderful if it is?

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"Gentlemen" It took another 40 years for the 19th amendment to be added to the Constitution from Garfield's idealistic speech. Now a hundred years later women are being forced back into second class citizenship. Government MANdated forced pregnancy. Every morning I wake up muttering "Those bastards!" referring to the Extreme Court and all those in the Republican Party who put them in power over all of us. November 8 is a day of accountability, a day to not only restore all our rights but to make sure they become explicitly enumerated by the People in the Constitution. Re-elect No One!

Ad Astra Per Aspera - To the Stars through Difficulties! ❤️🤍💙KANSAS❤️🤍💙

True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice. – Jane Addams

We the People, All of Us including Women this time!

¡Nosotros la gente, todos nosotros incluyendo mujeres esta vez!

¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

The people united shall never be defeated!

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“True peace is not merely the absence of war; it is the presence of justice.” Jane Addams, who tried to improve life for the poor in the Gilded Age, when the modus operandi of the country was every man for himself. It confounds me that people under the Republican label are intentionally trying to HURT people. They want to be involved in the most intimate areas of people’s lives, but the don’t want to put guardrails on the profiteering behavior of corporations.

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So well said JennSH NC!

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love that muttering part - so understand that

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“Extreme Court” for sure Cathy!

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Not sure what "Re-elect no one" will accomplish, Cathy. I'd say the Democrats, and Indpendents in Kansas, have made progress in the last 18 months. Not that there isn't more to be done, i.e. Voting Rights, restoration of women's rights, more Democratic Supreme Ct Judges, more on climate change, etc, but think we have made progress with only 50 senators.

Also love the Jane Addam's quote!

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Re-elect No One is a conversation starter for talking politics with anyone. One thing people from all political persuasions tend to agree on is our government is broken. Term limits for Congress and the Extreme Court is something a lot of us would like to see. Representatives and Senators who can't play well with others is a large part of our frustration with Congress. This goes back to Newt Gingrich in the 1990s who started this obstructionist playbook. The two party system is becoming an extreme left and super extreme right with half the population in the middle like myself feeling unrepresented! I also believe it is time to pass the baton to the younger generations. Voting the incumbent Republicans out is certainly one way to start accomplishing this. Yes, there might be an exception here or there. Personally I've decided - vowed - not to vote for any Republicans because they are now an autocratic "Christian" Nationalist Party of cruelty. Their version of Christianity is certainly not the Love thy neighbor version of its tenets. The entire GOP Party must be held accountable. We, the People, all of us this time!

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I never did vote for any Republicans, so am lost in this a bit. Nevertheless any of us who read the LFAA have more in common than not.

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Re-elect no Republicans.

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"Government MANdated pregnancies."

"Extreme Court."

"We the People, All of Us, Including WOMEN This time."

Thanks Cathy.

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YES, MaryPat!

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This so touched my heart, Heather, as I read this from France and read the results of the Arizona primary. Kansas gave us hope until Indiana pulled the rug out from under us. Please, everyone, get out the vote! We must stamp out this progressively advancing disease, systematically taking away our rights, continually whipping up lies and inspiring more and more conspiracies. I only hope it's not too late. This senior will be out there as soon as I'm back in the States.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Safe travels. And think of this, Ronni. I didn’t feel any rug pulled out from under me. That was just a collective gasp of indignation as Gov Holcomb and Indiana legislators showed their collective ass. Wait until one of their largest employers pulls their rug out ‘the closet and flies away.

🗽

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I agree, Christine. No rug, just a bigger fight ahead in Indiana. We ain’t goin’ back, that’s all!

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Eli Lily is planning to leave Indiana

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No they stated they will not "hire" from the state .....

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

It will become more than that. EL provides $ to their employees who need to seek reproductive health care elsewhere. The new “law” makes telehealth appts “illegal” when seeking a provider for abortion. The appt must be in person. So now there is that expense. How they will enforce that is beyond me. The fact that it is part of the new law is way beyond reason.

🗽

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Christine, I’d really like to believe that that will happen. But despite their fine words, Eli Lilly is again donating money to congressional representatives who voted against certifying the election. And they are not alone.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/eli-lilly-takes-heat-campaign-contributions-election-objectors

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As this letter demonstrates, history is a loop. Sometimes progress is ascending, sometimes descending. The loop, obviously, is in a descending mode today. Or maybe the right word is reversal.

But what strikes me most is the language used by LBJ regarding the Voting Rights Act. The sheer intellectual nature of his words cast us today as occupying a severely devolved era. It's striking and depressing.

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So true, LBJ was a giant of a man. Too bad, Vietnam overshadows so much of his legacy.

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Vietnam was a big lie from the Gulf of Tonkin onwards. They all knew-- LBJ, Westmoreland, Kissinger, McNamara, Nixon, and kept sending young men to die for their lies and profits. Women were killed there, too. The names of eight of them are on the Wall in DC. Blaming the outcome of the war on those who fought it remains obscene and a national shame.

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Laura, I agree. To add to your list: U.S. support for Ho Chi Minh during W.W II but cutting him off afterwards, supporting France in recolonizing Vietnam after WW II, our violating the agreement to hold elections throughout Vietnam as we had pledged in the agreement following the French defeat.

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I remain disgusted by how some leaders in the Democratic party chose to undercut LBJ - and Hubert Humphrey - over Vietnam. They sold out the Civil Rights movement. They cost Humphrey the presidency. And they gave us Nixon who continued the Vietnam war.

The Civil Rights movement had a revolutionary potential. The movement could have pressed for civil rights for other groups such as the women's movement and equal pay for equal work. That alone would have aided working class women to climb out of poverty for one example.

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Most men of the sixties political left, of any race, were as male supremacist as their counterparts on the political right. That’s why many women joined together in feminist circles and actions. Men were never going to push for women’s rights.

And the war in Viet Nam was no trivial matter. Thousands of people were dying. To this day, veterans here are dying of Agent Orange exposure. No doubt the same is true for Vietnamese. Humphrey would have continued that war, just like LBJ did after running on an anti war platform. Nixon, with all his flaws, managed to end that war.

LBJ, for all his accomplishments, was responding to the Civil Rights movement, not leading it. Look to Black people for those honors.

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Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem -- just to name a few.

"You Don't Own Me," Lesley Gore:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDUjeR01wnU

"LBJ, for all his accomplishments, was responding to the Civil Rights movement, not leading it. Look to Black people for those honors."

Nichelle Nichols, MLK Jr, John Lewis, Ella Baker, Septima Clark - just to name a few.

100%, Joan.

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Wow!

You don't own me

I'm not just one of your many toys

You don't own me

Don't say I can't go with other boys

And don't tell me what to do

Don't tell me what to say

And please, when I go out with you

Don't put me on display 'cause

You don't own me

Don't try to change me in any way

You don't own me

Don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay

I don't tell you what to say

I don't tell you what to do

So just let me be myself

That's all I ask of you

I'm young, and I love to be young

I'm free, and I love to be free

To live my life the way I want

To say and do whatever I please

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Thank you, Ron. In my opinion, it's really as simple as that; something that all humans want.

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I’m sending out that particular Lesley Gore rendition to some acquaintances of mine that still admire the Stepford Wives traditions of their mothers.

Morning fab Lynell. You are on it today.

🗽

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Just to advise, my toast yesterday was a fabulous rum punch, concocted after I stained about 1/3 of the deck space at our house.

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Morning, Christine! Oops...it's afternoon now.

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Morning, Lynell! Thank you for the link. One of my favorite takes on "It's My Party" was done by a local songwriter/performer that grew up in Ashland, OR and is currently based in Seattle, Lisa Koch. She sang a version with switched pronouns to honor Leslie Gore.

https://heylisa.com/bio

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What a jewel, Ally! Never been so instantly entertained! "Are you blind?" "No, just persecuted."

Thanks for introducing me to Ms. Lisa Koch.

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Powerful comment Joan! The inconvenient truth is something that those on the left and the right have a hard time accepting. But any hope of a better tomorrow for everyone depends on it.

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Example. Good points Joan.

I gave only one example, the women's movement to which you responded with some of the complications, and certainly there was the Vietnam War with its huge death toll, Napalm, agent orange, Lt. Calley's massacre of a village (which was not uncommon), etc. I do not mean to claim that making a policy choice is a simple matter. It never is.

But I considered noting other groups that the Civil Rights movement was well organized to move into. Heck, one could even point out that your clause "most men of the sixties political left, of any race, were as male supremacist ..." could easily be modified and applied to the Civil Rights movement itself. That is that the Civil Rights movement itself was also an uphill battle, and yet we had some successes followed by another long silence of fifty years so far this time of inaction on issues pertinent to the African American community. I could have instead picked out issues from the Roosevelt coalition that were still outstanding especially issues pertaining to America's middle and lower classes.

Due to the logic of discussions, I won't speak more of LBJ and Humphrey though I believe you do them a disservice as well as to the many non-Blacks who were instrumental in the Civil Rights movement including Schwerner and Goodman who are Jews.

But I need note that Nixon did not end the Vietnam War. The war lasted beyond August 9th, 1974 when Nixon said "and revoir."

I cannot take credit for this idea of the Civil Rights Movement as having Revolutionary potential as it was not my own. I had learned it from a friend and mentor, Bayard Rustin.

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Only Nixon and Trump in my lifetime have openly reached out to the enemy in treasonous fashion to help assure their election to president. They so disgraced and defiled themselves. Those who supported and followed them are now and forever defiled.

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Which enemy did Nixon openly reach out 'in a treasonous fashion to help assure' his election to president?

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Fern, In October 1968, Nixon derailed the Paris Peace talks by promising the South Vietnamese a better settlement were they to delay negotiating a peace agreement until after Nixon was elected.

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I didn't know that, thank you for the tidbit. I've always had the sense that the tragedy of Trump was somehow predicated on how we handled Nixon, the similarities seem so thick. Then, our society was resilient enough to expel Nixon once his crimes and near-crimes came to light. But we truncated the process by letting him retire to San Clemente and live out his days in obscurity, rather than some more severe punishment. Now, the sickness that led to Nixon has overtaken the whole Republican Party. We'll never know how it might have been...

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Please see my post just above or below (its position changes) from the University of Virginia, Miller Center. I believe in covers your reply.

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That was not a treasonous act.

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Nixon, prior to his election, got in touch with the VIetnamese, with whom the Johnson administration was conducting settlement talks, and promised them a better deal if they waited until he was in office. So they waited.

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Please see my post from the University of Virginia, Miller Center, which I believe covers you reply.

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That most likely is the devil.

🗽

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

He asked North Vietnam to delay the Paris peace talks and prolong the war until he was elected assuring them he would give them a better deal. They accepted. The war raged on. American soldiers continued to die as a direct result. TREASON in wartime. If not treason what is colluding with the enemy during wartime.

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Did you read the historical note I posted? North Vietnam did not agree.

'Treason refers to the betrayal of one's own country by attempting to overthrow the government through waging war against the state or materially aiding its enemies.' See link below for more detail.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/treason#:~:text=Treason%20refers%20to%20the%20betrayal,or%20materially%20aiding%20its%20enemies.

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In case there is any confusion about Pat Cole's statement, perhaps, this historical information will be useful from the University of Virginia, Miller Center. It is a long excerpt. See the link below to complete reading the summary.

RICHARD NIXON: FOREIGN AFFAIRS

By Ken Hughes

President Richard Nixon, like his arch-rival President John F. Kennedy, was far more interested in foreign policy than in domestic affairs. It was in this arena that Nixon intended to make his mark. Although his base of support was within the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and although he had made his own career as a militant opponent of Communism, Nixon saw opportunities to improve relations with the Soviet Union and establish relations with the People's Republic of China. Politically, he hoped to gain credit for easing Cold War tensions; geopolitically, he hoped to use the strengthened relations with Moscow and Beijing as leverage to pressure North Vietnam to end the war—or at least interrupt it —with a settlement. He would play China against the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union against China, and both against North Vietnam.

Nixon took office intending to secure control over foreign policy in the White House. He kept Secretary of State William Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird out of the loop on key matters of foreign policy. The instrument of his control over what he called "the bureaucracy" was his assistant for national security affairs, Henry Kissinger. So closely did the two work together that they are sometimes referred to as "Nixinger." Together, they used the National Security Council staff to concentrate power in the White House—that is to say, within themselves.

Opening to China

A year before his election, Nixon had written in Foreign Affairs of the Chinese, that "There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation." Relations between the two great communist powers, the Soviet Union and China, had been deteriorating since the 1950s and had erupted into open conflict with border clashes during Nixon's first year in office. The President sensed opportunity and began to send out tentative diplomatic feelers to China. Reversing Cold War precedent, he publicly referred to the Communist nation by its official name, the People's Republic of China.A breakthrough of sorts occurred in the spring of 1971, when Mao Zedong invited an American table tennis team to China for some exhibition matches. Before long, Nixon dispatched Kissinger to secret meetings with Chinese officials. As America's foremost anti-Communist politician of the Cold War, Nixon was in a unique position to launch a diplomatic opening to China, leading to the birth of a new political maxim: "Only Nixon could go to China." The announcement that the President would make an unprecedented trip to Beijing caused a sensation among the American people, who had seen little of the world's most populous nation since the Communists had taken power. Nixon's visit to China in February 1972 was widely televised and heavily viewed. It was only a first step, but a decisive one, in the budding rapprochement between the two states.

Detente With the Soviet Union

The announcement of the Beijing summit produced an immediate improvement in American relations with the U.S.S.R.—namely, an invitation for Nixon to meet with Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev in Russia. It was a sign that Nixon's effort at "triangulation" was working; fear of improved relations between China and America was leading the Soviets to better their own relations with America, just as Nixon hoped. In meeting with the Soviet leader, Nixon became the first President to visit Moscow.

Of more lasting importance were the treaties the two men signed to control the growth of nuclear arms. The agreements—a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty—did not end the arms race, but they paved the way for future pacts which sought to reduce and eliminate arms. Nixon also negotiated and signed agreements on science, space, and trade.

Withdrawal from Vietnam

While Nixon tried to use improved relations with the Soviets and Chinese to pressure North Vietnam to reach a settlement, he could only negotiate a flawed agreement that merely interrupted, rather than ended, the war.

In his first year in office, Nixon had tried to settle the war on favorable terms. Through secret negotiations between Kissinger and the North Vietnamese, the President warned that if major progress were not made by November 1, 1969, "we will be compelled—with great reluctance—to take measures of the greatest consequences." The NSC staff made plans for some of those options, including the resumed bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. Nixon then took a step designed both to interfere with Communist supplies and to signal a willingness to act irrationally to achieve his goals—he secretly ordered the bombing of Communist supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia. Also in keeping with his intention to convey a sense of presidential irrationality—Nixon as "madman"—he launched a worldwide nuclear alert.

None of it worked. The North Vietnamese did not yield; Nixon did not carry out his threats; the war continued. Nixon did not know how to bring the conflict to a successful resolution.

The President did not reveal any of this to the American people. Publicly, he said his strategy was a combination of negotiating and "Vietnamization," a program to train and arm the South Vietnamese to take over responsibility for their own defense, thus enabling American troops to withdraw. He began the withdrawals even before he issued his secret ultimatum to the Communists, periodically announcing partial troop withdrawals throughout his first term.

After a coup in Cambodia replaced neutralist leader Prince Sihanouk with a pro-American military government of dubious survivability, Nixon ordered a temporary invasion of Cambodia—the administration called it an incursion—by American troops. The domestic response included the largest round of antiwar protests in American history. It was during these protests in May 1970 that National Guardsmen fired at rock-throwing protestors at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four. Two weeks later, police fired on students at Jackson State University in Mississippi, leaving two more dead.

By the end of the year, Nixon was planning to finish the American military withdrawal from Vietnam within eighteen months. Kissinger talked him out of it. Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, recorded this discussion in his diary on December 21, 1970. "Henry was in for a while and the President discussed a possible trip for next year. He's thinking about going to Vietnam in April [1971] or whenever we decide to make the basic end-of-the-war announcement. His idea would be to tour around the country, build up [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van] Thieu and so forth, and then make the announcement right afterwards. Henry argues against a commitment that early to withdraw all combat troops because he feels that if we pull them out by the end of '71, trouble can start mounting in '72 that we won't be able to deal with, and which we'll have to answer for at the elections. He prefers instead a commitment to have them all out by the end of '72 so that we won't have to deliver finally until after the [US presidential] elections [in November 1972] and therefore can keep our flanks protected. This would certainly seem to make more sense, and the President seemed to agree in general, but he wants Henry to work up plans on it." (MillerCener) see link below.

https://millercenter.org/president/nixon/foreign-affairs

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Good intentions pave the way to hell. For all of Trumps overtures to foreign nations apposed to American ideals I suppose his pure overtures of angelic idealism are akin to Nixon’s delving in to foreign relations for the same righteous reasons. Both mens good intentions some how were the result of them obtaining ( or hoping to ) political power. In my book it doesn’t count as much who you say you are, rather who others say you are. Results count. Nixon was a traitorous bastard in my bedside book. I lived in the midst of his resulting slaughter. Of the peace that never came. Whoever can forgive him, good on them.

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The strength of your expression overwhelms your lack of clarity.

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I venture to say, Michael, “devolved” AND “evolved”. There’s always a yin and a yang in every struggle.

🗽

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Sometimes, when I am most disheartened, I remind myself that all organisms and systems seek a state of homeostasis. And then remember that some reach such a state, known as death. Hopefully, it is the former that our energy and compassion achieves before the later is the last swinging of our pendulum.

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Good Trouble 🗽

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Thank you Heather.

Voter suppression has never been resolved in this Country. It has always been an issue or talking point. Revolving door politics. Amendments have been brought forth in attempts to corral this insidious problem.

Yet it is still here and I feel that will be the deciding factor in the upcoming election.

How can this still be a problem?

Be safe. Be well.

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Because the white man just will not give it up.

You be safe as well, Linda.

🗽

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Makes me embarrassed to be white and have something in common with vermin.

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If enough of us white folks own up to our own complicity (mostly by ignorance or by looking away), IMO it will go a long way toward the fixin'.

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Yup! Sadly, for too many, ignorance is bliss.

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Take heart Jeri. While your pigment may have paled, remember we are all “ Out Of Africa.” To deride another race is to deride us all. No special hatred reserved. No prisoners taken. We are one together

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I am troubled by this, Jeri. Being white is nothing to be embarrassed about. Be embarrassed for other people's behavior, and when possible use it as a way to support the struggle for equity in practice. You do that here, almost every day, in your posts. "Whiteness", like "blackness", is an artificial construct: it did not exist before the Euro push for empire, pushed by greed and power-seeking. We are changing that with our small actions adding up, each of us, never mind the degree of our individual melanation.

I've mentioned before that because I am albinistic (partial penetration), I am often assumed to be white by people who do not know me. That for me is problematic, because I identify indigenous. On the other hand, sometimes lightly melanated people say things in my presence that they would not say in the presence of a person with a decent amount of melanin. That gives me some insights that can lend power to my voice when I do speak.

I have to say that writing this was quite fun - playing with ways to describe our beautiful spectrum of coloration. But the main point is that color is not the same thing as culture, but sometimes is used as a way of creating caste and power within a culture. We do not have to accept that construct.

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Smiling here, Annie D. Stratton.

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Bless you, Lynell. Me, too.

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Though we commonly associate the 1965 Voting Right Act with the Selma March, it was actually set in motion during freedom summer. That previous summer, right after signing the civil rights bill, LBJ turned to his attorney general and said, “I want you to write me the toughest goddamn voting rights act you can.” It took a year to get it signed but it made America a democracy, until 2013 when the Supreme Court overturned it and now the same types of voter suppression is on the rise again.

https://www.theattic.space/home-page-blogs/2017/10/20/fannie-lou-hamer-is-this-america

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And this fact hurts my heart 💔

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As an American history teacher, I know how challenging it can be to contextualize the flip in the historical Dem / Rep positions on race. HCR, well done here.

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There are actually three political parties in America: the national conservative party, the national progressive party, and the southernist party, a regional entity. The two national parties are fairly evenly divided nationally, so the Southernist party has allied itself which whichever of the two national parties would allow it its "peculiar institutions" as the parasite it is. After the Democrat's "treason" in the 60s, when Nixon invited the Southernists to ally with the Republican party they decided they would take control this time to make sure there was no "treason." We all know what happens when a parasite attempts to take control of a host.

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TC, have you come across Colin Woodward's "American Nations...a history of the 11 rival regional cultures of North America"? It's well worth the read and would posit more than three parties in reality but an variable alliance between 11 founding cultures after the European invasion.

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An important book. I read it and learned a lot. We ignore our roots at our peril. Much of what we act out is preordained by our family's culture and I believe a lot of the continuing hatred and bigotry is hard wired in our DNA. We live in silos of misinformation. I have no scientific evidence to support this. But I look at conflicts all over the world and I see generation after generation fighting the same stupid battles over and over again. The Middle East? Ireland and Scotland? Imagine being Polish. Or the Balkans. China/Korea/Japan? Or the American south. Is it the universal human condition to fear and oppress rather than cooperate and embrace? In some ways our evolutionary progress might be surpassed by the Bonobos. Not that simple, I know.

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It is that simple, Bill, I believe. So many people have resisted the original download guidepost most important to sustained human existence. “There is enough to go around.” A refusal to believe this has bred greed, oppression, and fear.

🗽

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Well said, Sister! There IS enough to go around. Don't hoard it, don't buy 12 yachts.

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Bill Your ‘we live in silos of misinformation’ is spot on. I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia. At age 19 & 20 I led student groups to Egypt, Israel, and Sudan. Then I returned to Egypt for several years to write NASSER’S NEW EGYPT: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS, before, in the Foreign Service, spending six years in/on Congo and three in Chile.

I felt like a stranger during my occasional visits to where i had grown up. It seemed a Western European enclave where most folks lacked both knowledge and interest in the non-European environments I had experienced. Back in the 50s/early 60s I witnessed this Western European proclivity in upper levels of the State Department and in CIA.

Our chance at upper government levels of understanding massive changes in China at that time was zippo—sweet (bitter) Madame Chang who went to Wellesley and Henry Luce of Time/Life who idolized the missionary view of China.

Of course presence in a foreign environment does not assure ‘assimilation.’ My British uncle, an army colonel, had spent years in Egypt. He was gobsmacked that I would waste my time writing abut ‘those wogs.’

I confess that I have ignorant perceptions of areas of my own country, especially the Middle West and the South—these may be my major ‘silos of misinformation.

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I salute your wordly experience and admire your humility. The former is not my wheelhouse. The latter is one of my "works in progress".

I continually thank my departed parents for their sense of treating people as true individuals regardless of origins. Some of that may have come from their WWII experiences.

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Bill It was a challenge, with my years of experience in the Congo, to regularly brief Secretary Rusk, Under Secretary George Ball, and Deputy Under Secretary Governor Harriman on the Congo foreign hostage crisis in 1964. Ball and Harriman were totally European oriented and Rusk had some Far East misexperience.

At times I felt like Tonto (‘him say’). How do you explain a Congolese military when a battalion leaves its truck engines running so they can flee after the first shot? How can ‘Europeans’ understand feticheurs (witch doctors’)and soldiers who wrap weeds around their guns to avoid witch craft? How can you explain that a member of the Congolese government (Cleophas Kamitatu) was simultaneously on the payroll of CIA, Belgian surete, and the KGB?

I admit to some rather imaginative analysis and storytelling. Governor Harriman accepted my analysis of how 25 well-trained mercenaries could blunt the rebel attack. [In fact, 17 German mercenaries, with pygmies with poison darts, achieved this at Coquihatville.]

While the 7th floor entertained the idea of a mercenary/Belgian-led Congolese army sweep into Stanleyville to rescue over 3,000 foreign hostages, I had been with this unit in Kindu a week earlier and had to disabuse them of this traditional thinking. [512 Belgians in the Red Devil battalion together with American C-130s accomplished the mission.]

I had spent a month in Baghdad in 1960, including 21/2 hours with the bizarre president, Abdel Karim Qassim, who was killed three years later in a coup authorized by JFK, which provided Saddam Hussein his ladder to domination.

I am convinced that, because of a European-thinking wrongheadedness, the calumny of Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan over two decades occurred. This lack of cultural understanding is still bedeviling some of our official decision making.

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You are so exactly right about the "blinders" of the upper reaches of government. When we won in 1945, all the Establishment of the time could see was the opportunity to replace Britain as the world's imperial power. Had FDR ("a traitor to his class" as they all said) lived, he wanted to use American power to keep the Europeans from returning to their lost empires, and to work with those countries to become independent. Can you imagine a middle east where the "example" wasn't Nasser but rather Mossadegh, a pro-western (but anti-colonialist) leader who wanted to use his country's resources for the support and betterment of his people. If the world's first anti-colonial state had lived up to its ideals and promoted that for the next 50 years? We really would have defeated Communism, by more than our ability to outspend them on weapons no one could use.

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Good Morning Bill! I suggest that the scientific evidence to support this may be found in the numerous studies of tribalism. Tribalism is what is "hard-wired" in our DNA. Some of us evolve and break free from how we were raised and what we were taught to believe, but most don't.

I have postulated that individuals operate within their personal "comfort zone." Generally, those who have become more educated and enlightened have larger comfort zones and therefore are naturally more inclusive. Clearly, the majority of people have a small, narrowly defined comfort zone which as you would expect is quite exclusionary.

When you understand the concepts of tribalism and the subset of individual comfort zones, then you can understand how easy it is for extraordinarily self-serving wealthy oligarchs and megalomaniacal fanatics to manipulate and exploit these concepts. Throughout history at the core of every confrontation to divide and conquer is some form of tribalism. History is littered with dramatic examples of people putting their lives on the line for a "cause" they are hard-wired to believe in.

What is most disheartening to me is that civilization really hasn't become any more civil.

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Chips Spot on! Tribalism flourishes in America. In Africa one’s tribe determines who is favored and who is shafted. Colonialism as associated with regional tribalism—US in Latin America and the British in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

In dealing with China, the Chinese, who were imperial for thousands of years, feel deeply the Western humiliation they experienced from the Opium War onward. Against this historical backdrop, the prospects for a short-term accommodation with China to me seem exceedingly unlikely.

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May I suggest that rather than continuing to misuse the term "hard-wired", which implies something immutable and which is an example of binary thinking, try using the term "conditioned", which is more accurate. Even your own arguments on this topic amply demonstrate that people change and grow, and the very instances you use as examples show the reality of that: stepping away from binary thinking to include other ways of seeing things. "Family beliefs", "silos of information", the "tribalism" that is the outgrowth of perceived or actual mistreatment are examples of binary thinking. The word "conditioned" is not only more accurate but also allows for the ability to change that is also amply demonstrated in the historical and cultural record - as the examples you mention also affirm.

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Stuart My like button doesn’t work. I wonder, if Woodward’s wrote his ‘11 rival regional cultures’ today he might expand to nearly two dozen sub cultures (spelled kultur?).

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Keith - your "Like" button does work, but sometimes Substack won't show it. If you hit "refresh" you will see you are "liking" everything you clicked on. It's a "Substack thing." It's also why sometimes a post doesn't show up - it's really there, just not on the screen you're on until you "refresh."

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Another friend recommended that book just last week. It sounded dry.

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NLM Perhaps Woodward’s book would be a more comfortable read in the bath or the shower. I found his thoughtful analysis both stimulating and discouraging. E Plurus Unum indeed.

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Keith, I found it highly selective in what he chose to use as criteria, and a bit loose in the analysis. I agree it is worth reading if only to grasp the underlying concept that we are already regionalizing, but probably not in the ways Woodward suggests. Gosh, it is hard to predict the future. Woodward offers a way of thinking about how the USA functions today, but would be a poor choice for thinking about where we might be going. I don't think it is going to stand the test of time. The concepts are not new, or original.

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Anne I agree that Woodward’s book is interesting though clearly not definitive. When I get discouraged, I reread Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America. I relish his focus on more ups than downs in America’s down-and-up cycles. I hope that he is borne out during our current kerfuffles.

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Yes, it's really excellent. I think what we see nationally is all the "allied" sub-cultures act in what looks like "unity", but the fact it is always changing and seems fluid is explained by this multiple cultures concept.

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I have not heard of that book. Just ordered it. Thank you.

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Another subject, but one you know very well, have written the book, The Cactus Air Force: Air War over Guadalcanal, which just came out and teach subscribers of your 'That's Another Fine Mess' as no one else could.

'A U.S. Return to Guadalcanal, in Another Tense Historical Moment'

'At a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of a crucial battle in the Pacific, two daughters of men who served there reflected on the lessons of war.'

'Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Australia and daughter of John F. Kennedy, presented medals on Sunday to Nelma Ane and John Koloni, the descendants of men who saved her father during World War II.'

'Caroline Kennedy, the United States ambassador to Australia, and Wendy Sherman, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, stood together at dawn on Sunday on the island of Guadalcanal to honor the 80th anniversary of the World War II battle there that nearly led to the death of their fathers, and that redefined America’s role across Asia.'

'Then and now, there was violence, great-power competition and jittery concern about the future. Their visit occurred as China’s military was expected to wrap up 72 hours of drills around Taiwan simulating an invasion. And in their remarks at events with officials from Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Solomon Islands, both officials emphasized that the region — and the world — finds itself at another crossroads.'

'Ms. Kennedy, surrounded by local well-wishers, promised to “honor those who came before us and to work and do our best to leave a legacy for those who follow.” (NYTimes)

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Jim Brown, my first cousin and a Quaker, was with the Marine First Division that invaded Guadalcanal in November 1942. He spoke little about it. In island hopping he was the only member of his platoon who was not killed or severely wounded. Mentally he never escaped these experiences.

After going to college on the GI Bill Jim had a distinguished career in journalism. On the largest Providence newspaper he and the publisher differed on Vietnam policy. Jim was fired and joined the editorial board of the New York Times, where his views on Vietnam were published. He did not then know that, as a Foreign Service Officer, I had twice refused our Saigon ambassador’s ‘invitation to join him.

In his last years I understand that Jim had nightmares about his Marine South Pacific experiences.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Keith, I literally have the goose bumps. TC has described it as forbidding as anything we cannot even imagine. I have ordered his book. It would be worthwhile for you both to talk. I have a feeling that he may no longer be on the forum, but I think he shows up early each morning.

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I am reminded of the couple in the 1930s who, fearing a world war, searched for the safest place in the world. They moved to Guadalcanal.

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Keith, Is this true or irony?

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Fern It seemed true when I read about it many years ago. I believe that I remembered it accurately because of Jim’s visit to Guadalcanal.

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"Smart" parasites, like most viruses, develops over time to be less dangerous to their hosts in order to better survive themselves. There have been viruses though, that were so extremely dangerous to their hosts that they disappeared from killing all they had to live from. William H McNeil, in Plagues in History, makes this point regarding micro parasites, and hints that the same goes for makro parasites. For architects, like me, I think this is so: we are less dangerous to people than we used to be. It may take generations, but I think the direction is clear even with many back lashes.

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I appreciated your post, Olof. The following defines how parasites are different from viruses and bacteria.

'Parasites are part of a large group of organisms called eukaryotes. Parasites are different from bacteria or viruses because their cells share many features with human cells including a defined nucleus. Parasites are usually larger than bacteria, although some environmentally resistant forms are nearly as small.' (vivotesting.com)

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William McNeil's book is from the 80-ies. Maybe he, as I and TC, was thinking of a wider meaning of 'parasites', as someone living from someone else, when he wrote about 'the adaption pattern of parasites'. Maybe the adaption pattern would be 'longing for symbiosis'. For my part, as an architect who spent 80% of my time doing crafts work, I would say it has been a point to do things that people really want and need. For prime ministers it would be fair to say that they are mostly less dangerous to people than emperors.

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Olof, I edited my reply to you. From here on out it is up-to-date., 🌿

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

PS Yes, in the wider sense as being eaten up by them from the inside out, that is probably what McNeil intended.

Otherwise, Olof, no sense talking around the facts. A parasite is not a virus and never has been. As to prime ministers, I don't know enough about each through history to weigh the differences between them and emperors. A few ministers, I'm sure controlled the emperor, but I don't believe that we are prepared to figure it out this morning. It is always a pleasure to chat with you. Olof. Cheers!

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McNeil was referring to the evolutionary pattern of for instance what we now call 'children's disease' like measles, and small pox: once deadly, but thriving on young individuals and making most of them immune for life. None the less catastrophically lethal in South America when the Europeans arrived.

As prime minister I was thinking of elected heads of state, and not of an emperor's chosen man. The division of power is a great step to make power over others less dangerous. Cheers! Thanks for the response.

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That was the piece de resistance, and the very issue that the country needs to understand.

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With Kamala's tie breaking vote needed, the Dems passed the "Inflation Reduction Act" after enduring a hellish Saturday Senate session. The Act has many positive planks that had to pass the Parliamentarian's scrutiny & a deluge of purposeful delay tactics by Lindsay & the Seditionists. But, the Dens got it mostly done for many millions of citizens. R's were able to strip the cap on the Cost of Imsulin 57-43 (60 needed). Per a Yale study 14 percent of Insulin Users spend 40 percent of their income after food & lodging on Insulin. Further details to go but near a done deal.

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We're close; but today's vote was simply to move the bill forward to the floor. There are still land mines--some being planted by a Democrat--to get the bill to the final floor vote.

I don't count on anything coming out of the Senate as passed into law until I see the signing ceremony.

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Wait til the ink is dry. The cretins will never stop

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Who’s the democrat? And why, if s/he voted for it?

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Bernie has committed to voting for the bill, but...

During the vote-a-rama, when anyone may propose amendments and many of them are proposed simply to force the other side to vote against popular items for attack ads, Bernie plans to propose amendments for everything HE/far left Progressives (also called Democratic Socialists--good name, doncha think?/s) did not get that was in his original $6Trillion Build Back Better. Just so his "sub party" of Democratic Socialists will have attack ads against "centrist" Democrats to try to unseat them.

All other Dems are trying very, very hard to ask him not to do that, but they can't stop him. If enough Republicans join him--which they might as an attack strategy--they can get one or two of Bernie's amendments passed, and the whole bill has to go back to the Parliamentarian for assessment and re-writing--or a decision that it can't go forward at all.

Bernie is, and always has been, an Independent and feels no loyalty to the Democratic Party as a whole Bernie's loyalty is now only to "his brand" and those who will do as he wants, the Democratic Socialists, even if it hurts the Democratic Party writ large. I don't think anyone reading this will miss how strongly I feel about what Bernie is planning to do if the other Dems in the Senate cannot stop him.

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Thank you Heather.

Dang, as far as we’ve come, so far we’ve again fallen.

Clarence Thomas, what the hell is wrong with you?

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Re: Clarence Thomas - There is a podcast called Behind the Bastards that is doing a series on him. There are two episodes up and two more to come. His early life probably explains A LOT about him. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/

They are using a biography written by Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson as one of their sources - Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas.

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That is a great title. I'm sure it is a take off on "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holliday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGY9HvChXk

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Thank you, Judy. Some friends in the black community have mentioned this book to me. I couldn't manage reading the book at the time but maybe now I can. The podcast at least.

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Deep, deep anger.

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He was deeply flawed from the get-go. Will never forget those hearings.. Anita Hill ... Alan Simpson, Joe Biden... yes... deep, deep anger... no biz whatever in that position.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Two Peas in a Pod: ALEX JONES & TRUMP

President Biden, his administration and the Democratic Party have taken giant steps to bring Democracy and decency back to the United States of America. ‘United’, and 'fair and free elections', along with much else are the work in progress. The following excerpted article from the Washington Post is about two people who have committed crimes against humanity as they have sown hatred and mistrust among the American people. They must be appropriately dealt with along with their enablers.

‘In roughly 10 years since he declared the deadliest elementary school shooting in U.S. history to be a “giant hoax,” Infowars founder Alex Jones has been denounced and de-platformed by tech giants such as Facebook, YouTube and Spotify, and faced significant financial blows. The latest came Thursday when a jury ruled that Jones had to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages to the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting after he created a “living hell” for the family.’

‘But as Jones’s false claims and rants launched him into the national political dialogue, his ascent has arguably been solidified, thanks to Donald Trump and Joe Rogan embracing Jones and endorsing his ideas to online audiences of millions of people in recent years.’

‘Jones’s 2015 interview with Trump offered a window into some of the future president’s talking points at his rallies.’

“Your reputation is amazing,” Trump told Jones at the time.’

‘Jones going on “The Joe Rogan Experience” in 2020 allowed him to push false claims about coronavirus vaccination on Spotify, where he had been banned. A clip shared widely on Twitter this week shows how Rogan, whose show has an estimated audience of 11 million per episode, has previously defended Jones as “hilarious” and having entertainment value.’

“What is he doing that’s so awful?” Rogan asked. “It’s entertaining!”

‘Representatives for Trump and Rogan did not immediately respond to requests for comment early Friday.’

‘Alex Jones must pay $4.1 million to Sandy Hook parents, jury rules

‘The decision from an Austin jury on Thursday means that Jones could pay significantly less than the $150 million sought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, for remarks after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that left 26 people, 20 of them young children, dead. It remains to be seen how much Jones, 48, might be ordered to pay in punitive damages. The jury is expected to return Friday to weigh that amount — a sum that could be considerably higher.’

‘Shortly after the Sandy Hook shooting, Jones, who has previously promoted conspiracy theories about the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 attacks, falsely claimed that “no one died” at the school and that the attack was “staged” and “manufactured” by gun-control advocates. The remarks not only outraged grieving parents but also led to death threats and abuse from strangers. After Heslin told the jury this week that the false claims had made his life a “living hell,” Jones conceded in court to the family that the shooting was “100 percent real.”

“Neil and Scarlett are thrilled with the result and look forward to putting Mr. Jones’s money to good use,” Mark Bankston, a lawyer for the parents, told The Washington Post on Thursday. “With punitive damages still to be decided and multiple additional defamation lawsuits pending, it is clear that Mr. Jones’s time on the American stage is finally coming to an end.”

‘His presence on the national stage was elevated when Trump, who became the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, agreed to be interviewed on Infowars. Trump and Jones said the December 2015 interview was arranged by Trump confidant Roger Stone — years later Jones and Stone would be subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.’

“I will not let you down,” Trump said to the Infowars founder.

Jones has acknowledged the impression he seemed to have on Trump, taking credit for introducing the then-candidate to the idea that media members were his “enemy.”

“It is surreal to talk about issues here on-air, and then, word-for-word, hear Trump say it two days later,” Jones told his audience at the time.’

‘The connection between Trump and Jones was documented in “United States of Conspiracy,” a 2020 special from PBS’s “Frontline.” One of the lies Jones spread on his show was that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama founded the Islamic State. Trump repeated Jones’s false claim about Clinton and Obama at one of the Republican candidate’s rallies before the 2016 presidential election, according to PBS. Trump repeated, during an interview with Fox News, another of Jones’s lies: that the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) was associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.’

‘Former Infowars staffers told “Frontline” how Trump seemingly using Jones’s false claims as his own was “a super power trip for Alex that was irresistible.”

“Someone in the mainstream — Trump — using the words that Jones had been using for decades, I think that emboldened Jones, and it changed him as a personality,” said Josh Owens, a former video editor at Infowars.’

‘The support from Trump elevated Jones in the national conversation, as when Fox News host Tucker Carlson hailed Jones as “one of the most popular journalists on the right.” Joe Walsh, the former GOP congressman from Illinois who has since become a vocal critic of Trump and his allies in the Republican Party, noted on Twitter this week how “there’s really no difference between Alex Jones and Donald Trump. None.”

But the raised profile also cost Jones. In 2018, Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify were among the platforms to ban all content from Jones and Infowars for violating their hate-speech guidelines. After Roku dropped Infowars in 2019, Jones shared a cryptic post to his Instagram account of a tweet from Infowars reporter Owen Shroyer, which featured an artistic banner of Jones’s face looking enraged.’

“Strike me down now and I only become more powerful,” Shroyer wrote.

Roku gave Infowars a platform reaching millions. After hours of outrage, it backed down.’

‘In the podcasting world, Rogan is one of its premier personalities. Rogan, a lightning rod for controversy who has a huge following, came to an agreement with Spotify in 2020 for a reported $100 million for his podcast library.’

‘So when Rogan welcomed Jones on his show in October 2020, the Infowars host listed a series of falsehoods surrounding coronavirus safety measures such as vaccination and masking, climate science and the polio vaccine. During the course of the three-hour appearance, Rogan also referenced Jones’s lies surrounding the Sandy Hook shooting.’ (WAPO) See gifted link below.

https://wapo.st/3vLhtSy

‘Mr. Jones, the supplement-slinging conspiracy theorist, was ordered to pay more than $45 million in damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of a 6-year-old who was murdered in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The jury’s verdict came after Mr. Jones was found liable for defaming Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis, whom for years he falsely accused of being crisis actors in a “false flag” operation plotted by the government.’ (NYTimes)

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A familiar name crept up in your quotes. Roger Stone! He seems to be the conduit in bringing the most disgusting grotesque people together. Jones should be dead meat now. But wait...the DOJ will be investigating him also because he too, stirred up the insurrectionist crowd on 1/6. It will be a pleasure to see him continually sweat and squirm. We should be privy to watching the same with the Orange Baby.

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Roger has been the catalyst for so much of our woes, starting with Nixon then allying with Atwater, and Manafort, just the very best at creating chaos. When will Roger become dead meat? I will live for the day.

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Good to be with you, Marlene. Yes, Stone is a keystone -- there is more than one among the traitors. I don't want to look at them Marlene, just want them gone forever.

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So do I, Fern. I want them gone from this planet.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

They are so bad,, it hurts to look at them as doing so causes us to recall the evil they have done.

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Something about that Stone is so creepy to me! I have posted earlier this week that when I envision Satan, I don't see a red-skinned, bearded, horned and forked tail creature, I see a man who somehow makes your skin crawl without really knowing why. He fits the bill.

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The fact that this jerk has an image of Nixon tattooed on his back says a lot about him.

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I was vaguely aware of the evil of Jones. When I first heard his blather, I thought, who is stupid enough to buy that Schitt. Then tuned him out. Chump shined the light on evil because he is evil. There is too much hate among us. But, I will never see MAGAts as anything but vermin, deliberately ignorant and so proud. The deprogramming must be swift and powerful. Go J6 for leading the way.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Evil to the marrow, Alex Jones, and made a fortune at it. That these devils do business as with Trump and how many others without consequences reflects on our 'Rule of Law' and level of morality.

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Weird, how I had only met one woman that I called evil, until 2000, then they seem to ooze out everywhere. Guess they had been oozing for awhile. Barbara Jordan and Everett Dirksen made me think right had won after Nixon. Silly me.

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I feel a reticence to cast the first stone. However, truth and justice need some big wins. Banning and fining Jones will never mitigate the damage he’s done - but may it be a harbinger of what’s to come.

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There is no way to 'understand' someone like Jones. His high octane, proud immorality tied to the profit motive, Jean-Pierre, with a total absence of conscience is more than troubling just to describe.

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At risk of seeming to be a Pollyanna, I rewatched “All the President’s Men” last night. Pre-viewing, I was wallowing in despair over voting rights, redistricting, and the wholesale assault on women. The movie reminded me that balance can be restored. But only if and when people of courage force the restoration.

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

I agree. One of the ways we can be effective is talk with our family members (know what we are talking about and how to listen), friends, neighbors... and work with a grassroots organization. We need to act. organize and support each other -- you know all this. Sometimes it helps to remind ourselves. Cheers!

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Aug 7, 2022·edited Aug 7, 2022

Good morning Dr. Richardson,

What a perfectly constructed essay this LFAA is today. Like our best writers, what you didn’t say is the point of your essay. The old editorial guidance directing authors to show and not tell is presented in your essay. It is a great piece of prose. Congratulations and thank you. What a treat it is to wake up and begin the day with your work.

JPD

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This country owes sooo much to Black people. Despite the horrors visited upon them and continuing, as group they express far less grievance and complaints than Southern whites who perpetrated the injustices. WONDERFUL to read how Garfield said as much! Look at those things for which the former Confederate States are proud, foods, music genres, instruments, cuisines, devices, etc., they were created by Black people who had less. It is unfair to ask, but no group do I trust as much as Black people, to vote responsibly for the good of the country. As a group Black people vote at higher rates than others except non-hispanic whites, but if their voting percentages increased as they did on the two Obama elections, they could save our democracy. I had this conversation with a BLM founder who in essence said 'we are tired, someone else do it'. I do not see another reliable group to save our democracy. If we are waiting for GOP to save itself and democracy, I'm not liking our odds. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/large-racial-turnout-gap-persisted-2020-election

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NAACP (surely you have heard of them?) has a very strong outreach in black communities and are thriving again. In some areas, Urban League, though a different kind of organization, is also working hard at getting out the vote. Then there are the organizations in many many places -Stacey Abrams is a prime example- who are doing amazing work. BLM is not a political group: it is an advocacy group who put their bodies on the line to raise awareness of violence against people of color. I agree that they should not have to also be responsible for what other groups are already doing.

By the way, NAACP began as a coalition of a black organization and a group of non-blacks who also were interested in improving conditions for colored people. They decided that they could accomplish things best by working together, and created NAACP. It is still an organization whose membership comes from every imaginable background in America. Perhaps you could convert your concern into working with them on their mission to save democracy. There's a branch near you. Every hand counts. https://naacp.org

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I am already doing, been doing for years, all things you mention. You miss my point.

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I was teasing you a bit, and throwing out some info for everyone who may not be familiar. I fully agree with the first part of your post. But then you seemed to go off on a tangent.

In particular, I was responding to this part of your post:

"I had this conversation with a BLM founder who in essence said 'we are tired, someone else do it'. I do not see another reliable group to save our democracy. "

There are a number of reliable organizations working with black voters, so I named some of them because you didn't. In that respect, it was misleading. Why throw out BLM as if because they aren't the kind of organization you expected, nothing is happening? LOTS is happening. I did not assume that you weren't doing things: it seemed clear from your letter that you are involved. But you left the impression that something was missing. I am not sure what your point was. I'd be happy to hear you elucidate it.

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I did not mean BLM or it is not happening. I meant this leader of BLM expressed a sentiment, 'us Black people are tired let someone else (not a Black person) do it' as relevant, understandable and that it is impressive Black people vote at such high numbers given the obstacles designed to frustrate them...but my observation is that Black people (regardless of any affiliation with NAACP, BLM, etc...) is perhaps our best shot as saving our democracy. I'm not counting on any sector of white people to come charging out and save our democracy.

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This column is so resonant with our times. Such a powerful reminder that America is based on a core set of values that have always been present, if not always acted upon.

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Not really! The rich white men "founders" some of whom owned slaves they raped then raped their own children do not represent core values of democracy! America has no core set of values other than capitalism, racism and genocide if history is reviewed. Some singular moments in our history represent a surge of egalitarianism and pursuit of justice. The overwhelming commonality of US history is unrepentant violence against women, the poor, and people of color. Period.

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