As is sometimes the case in American politics, a bill that many people are likely not paying a great deal of attention to is likely to have enormous impact on the nation’s future.
Take the Kate Cox case, too. She wanted the baby -- wants babies in the future. But the extreme Republican ideologues intend to interfere in everyone's lives, as dictators, like Putin.
Many Russians have left that country -- many of the talented, educated young. Partly for the idiot terror and genocide against Ukraine -- but also because Putin and his oligarchs have so robbed Russia that virtually no one can afford to have babies there. Population seriously falls, denying Putin his soldiers and his tax base for the future. Of course, too, Putin has a program in place to kidnap thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian children, raise them as Russians.
Millions of Americans face something similar, being part of working classes whose jobs by the millions cynical U.S. billionaires offshored. The minimum wage lives so many have now leave millions short of a future, like their Russian counterparts. No one's building housing for these Americans. They can't afford babies. The white ones have extra bitterness toward the brown-skinned hopefuls at the U.S. southern border.
Too many parallels between these two countries where oligarchs, nationalists, ideologues, and billionaire thieves terrorize similarly.
A side effect of the abortion ban here in Texas is that medical students specializing in OB/GYN are not applying to Texas schools since they cannot learn abortion care. Since doctors tend to practice in the geographical area of their residency, Texas will soon have fewer new OB/GYN’s and, once again, women (especially rural women) will suffer.
It's not just Texas either. Any state that penalizes a medical practitioner or with holds funding for women's health will suffer the same consequences.
Imagine if Congress were to pass a national 6 - 15 week abortion ban with no exceptions. Hayley already said she would sign a 6 week abortion ban if she becomes President. And so would Trump, DeSatan and Vivi.
Perhaps I am just crazy, but if news were to break that somewhere in the history of Trump and his sons, abortions have been funded--would anyone be surprised?
No, Miselle, of course not. Abortion will still be available for the wealthy who can afford to fly off somewhere and get one. These heinous laws will fall mostly on the poor and the middle class who will be caught like the woman in Texas who has been to the ER already four times, but the doctors there are afraid to do anything. She is lucky that she can afford to go out of state to obtain one. I can't help but wonder what might happen to her once she gets back. Texas is and be increasingly a wasteland for women's health among other things.
Not at all. Essentially the white Faux-Christian Nationalists are willing to accept that TFFG and many other MAGANAZI politicians serially violateing the last 8 of the commandments unless they are Democrats or Independents or uppity RINO women like Liz Cheney.
6. "You shall not murder.
7 “You shall not commit adultery.
8 “You shall not steal.
9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”
I’ve never understood the ‘rationale’ for these bans. There are so many ways to minimize abortions that have to do with good health care and education. It’s a one trick pony(sorry ponies) that grabs sentiment without substance.
I heard somewhere this morning that Cox's attorneys (or doctor?) "didn't make their case." Why on earth is a medical decision up to a group of judges with no medical training whatsoever?! Infuriating.
Let me even take that further - I live in a suburb in DFW. I cannot tell you how many people I come in contact with that HAVE NO INSURANCE. And try and find a primary care around here.... Now plastic surgery or spas in your hair salons performing all kinds of "treatments" can be found on EVERY CORNER. Health care is something Texas doesn't do.....
EVERY DAY - but then they would win wouldn't they. No I'll stay and try and help out those in need anyway I can. This is a silent war we are waging in the USA
What can we do to help you? I started imagining an Underground Railroad of sorts that would whisk away those in need of locally restricted abortions. It would bring them to the service provider they needed and back again. Now you made it clear this service needs to be applied more broadly to health care in general. Also thanks for your clear minded support on the front lines. Also let’s support Ukrainian frontline battles.
No one mentions the effect on the two existing children of what their mother (and father) are going through. That too is important. Republicans do not care about people it seems. Only slogans. Very Nazi.
Well, actually, a lot of people are talking about that. And trying to figure out how to help. 1st: Donate to Planned Parenthood so they have the resources to give needed health care to women right now as women desperately seek t outside Texas. 2nd: write and call your Congressional people if you don't live in Texas and tell them your concern. 3rd: Write letters to the every media you have access to about your concerns, not only about women in Texas, but everywhere in the country about this atrocity toward women. It has the potential to impact ALL of us.
Yes, it impacts us all. We don't hear very much about the "collateral damage" that occurs to the whole family when the woman is absent, for whatever reason. Just as in the case of alcoholism - the fall out or collateral damage is done to many, spouses, children, and extended family, damage not just to the alcoholic.
The radical right ideologues don't know and don't care. That they harm real people is of no concern to them. I wish and hope we can find a way for their supporters to see the harm, and understand that they are also the victims of the harm they think is only being done to their (manufactured) enemies.
I don't know...they've shown zero concern for mass shooting victims of any age, or family members dying of Covid because of lies about vaccines. Their 'just gonna have to suck it up' righteous attitude will be their undoing one way or another in the end.
Including the daughter of an obgyn who went to med school in Texas but practices elsewhere. She was planning to also do med school in Texas but that has changed.
Elena, I think you are quite right, based on what I'm hearing from ppl I know in Texas. But you are right about not only voter suppression, but legal and social suppression as well. We can help by donating to groups who are working on getting out the vote, and organizations who are working to overturn the laws on both abortion and voter suppression (ACLU and Planned Parenthood are two that come readily to mind). Even a few dollars a month can help make a difference.
It would be a serious political coup if Texas could go Blue. I lived there for over 60 years, but finally found an exit ramp, so I saw it go from Blue to Blood Red. I just can't believe that it will ever go back; but I lived in areas that were very Conservative. (I could not stand those aggressive, snobby, rich people.)
"Millions of Americans face something similar, being part of working classes whose jobs by the millions cynical U.S. billionaires offshored. "
Now now.
Jack Welch, also known as "Neutron Jack", was the first CEO to fire American workers by the thousands and outsource everything (manufacturing and engineering) to China. Of course, the extra money that was made by GE as a result went into GIGANTIC bonuses for? Yep. Jack Welch.
You can still find the articles in the Harvard Business Review FAWNING over Welch like he was a HERO of Capitalism.
They called him "Neutron Jack" because, after he was done, all of the buildings that had formerly housed the thousands of GE workers were empty. Like a Neutron bomb had gone off.
But, Jack had his GIGANTIC bonuses and Harvard had it's hero.
And the rest of us? Well, the Harvard Business Review cared not one whit about that.
Mike, my father would have read your comment out loud with great approval (he passed at age 93 in 2021). He was a career GE worker and despised ‘Neutron Jack’ and the ‘Harvard School of Business Management ‘ that made GE more about media and stock investments and no longer about product ingenuity and innovation. The new ‘managers’ turned away lucrative work and contracts and intentionally crippled the workers’ plants for tax write offs. Jack Welch was the personification of the disgusting side of unbridled capitalism. His book ‘Winning’ written with his Harvard Review spouse said more about the demise of family values and the middle class than all the culture wars the GOP can drum up.
You are so correct...."no longer about product ingenuity and innovation"...."tax write offs"...."unbridled capitalism".... "demise of family values....the middle class"....."culture wars"....
So much more we could be creating and so much more we could accomplish together if we spent more time respecting one another and working together to accomplish more for the future and wellbeing of our earth and for better care and concern for one another.
President Joe Biden and his team have lots of such good plans for our nation ...for our big and diverse family.... for the well-being of our planet.
Yes, but those who made money destroying what it was don't care. They are only interested in money and power. This will be the demise of the planet and eventually the elite because all the money in the world will not fix the problems which are staring at us. At some point, faster approaching than a lot of people think, there will be no place to go.
This is the time to retell the story of my professor of Medieval French language and lit. He got his PhD at Harvard at 20 and in his 6O’s bragged that he got his degree “while Harvard was still a university,” the year before they put in the Business School. I learned later that the business school also quit its once required ethics course.
My neighbor in Lincoln, NE was the lead engineer on the GE team that developed the first motion detection exterior lights. He asked me if he noticed that he had none on his house. After shaking my head he said, "It's because they aren't very reliable." I laughed.
He spent his entire career as a GE engineer working mostly in R&D. I'm guessing not many companies spend much on R&D these days including GE, AT&T and IBM. Instead, they buy up startups that develop new technologies.
LOL, I used to be a senior editor at HBR and Welch's wife was my boss before she married him. The people who adored him are like MAGATs -- in their eyes he could do no wrong.
HBR also adored Frederick Taylor, whom they called the 'father of scientific management' and who ground people into bits. Charlie Chaplain made fun of Taylor's inhumane philosophy in "Modern Times."
I thought I could help the captains of industry become a bit more humane via the articles I worked on....but....they are still locked into their cruel zero-sum games.
GE wasn't the first, but perhaps the first major company.
When Congress enacted legislation in the early 1990's to allow H-1Bs they froze the salary for H-1B engineers, programmers and other technical jobs at $60K if they worked onshore. This was enacted mostly to address the Y2K issues. Offshore talent provided for the programmers were paid $3-7/hour. Many of the Asian (Indian, Chinese & Russian mostly) companies offered them $60K but when they arrived took out money for housing and other expenses so they would pay them much less. And of course Congress didn't index the $60K so even today that amount is the same. This is much like the minimum wage law that works to keep wages down but in the technical sector. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Allstate and dozens of companies have been able to pay American engineers much less because of the H-1Bs and offshore technicians.
Throughout the 1990's I assisted Fortune 500 financial firms modify their systems for Y2K. They LOVED hiring the H-1Bs who often lacked experience and the technical skills to do the job. I worked with hundreds of programmers from India and Russia. Many of them were very competent but most were barely able to understand the work they were expected to do.
You mention Jack Welch-- GE Capital bought in Indians to take over all of their IT work supplemented by offshore personnel with very limited English language skills. The offshore programmers were paid about $5/hour and expected to work 50-60 hour weeks.
But this backfired on GE Capital when they couldn't process their current blocks of policies and had to bring in American consultants to fix their systems Their business knowledge and communication skills were also lacking. After a couple of years, GE Capital cancelled all of their contracts with the offshore contracting companies, most of which were Indian based.
This story was not unique to GE Capital.
I still work with dozens of Indians most of whom have excellent technical, business and language skills. The offshore companies have adapted very well to the offshore model for the most part and the offshore programmers are compensated much better than they were in the 1990's.
But, ever since 1990, American programmer's compensation has suffered because of the H-1B legislation and the greedy behavior of American BODs with the widget mentality that all programmers, engineers and technicians are interchangeable.
I worked for a company for 25 years who was a competitor of GE Appliances. There was a time when they were really considered a "threat" because their appliance business was small (in comparison) and at one point pretty good. All we made were appliances so there was always a fear of a hostile take over of my company. Then, their appliance quality really went downhill. We also had a financial arm like GE Capital. It was quite profitable. There eventually came a time back in the 90's when that part of the business was going to be sold. GE Capital wanted it, but my company wouldn't sell it to them. It was sold to another company that was then purchased by GE Capital. Talk about a slap in our faces!
In the 1980's I worked for a small life insurance company that wanted to grow through acquisition. I was also on a committee that included several other IT people from other life insurance companies. One of the other members of the committee was working for a company that I heard was selling part or all of their business. I asked him if they had had any offers and he replied, "I've lost my last 4 jobs through acquisitions and I'm not telling anyone anything to hasten my losing this one."
End of conversation.
The next time I saw him was about a year later and yes, he was working for another company.
Sadder still, how all of U.S. corporate academe -- all -- acquiesced in the Powell memo's schemes for its silo (and group identity) neutering, and subservience to U.S. billionaire alliances with the Chinese communist cadres, the Putin and Mohammed bin Salman murderous dictators, and all the Orban, Erdogan, Modi, Sisi, Netanyahu, Assad, Duterte, Bolsonaro, and other nationalists competing only with the U.S. billionaire allies in hate-spewing social media.
I lived through the destruction of GE by Jack Welch not as GE employee but as a customer for large rolling mill moters. We came to say, GE stood for "go elsewhere". We did, to Siemens, ABB, Toshiba, who were better suppliers and had better technology.
But the biggest damage Jack Welch did was as a model for other companies. Especially cutting of experienced technical folks. You always have what we used to say were engineers with 5 years of experience 4 times. But you need people like that in large plants, they do a job that freshmen can't.
There was Welch, and there also was immigration, which is another cudgel big biz used to keep wages down.
Just as the GOP is in denial about global warming, the Democratic party is in denial about immigration, with their own form of American exceptionalism that encompasses the belief that we can take in unlimited numbers of immigrants without damaging our country.
There's a book: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck ($14on Amazon). It's scholarly, covering the relevant academic economic literaature, s well as black periodicals, statements of Black Leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were downwardly mobile due to immigration, and yet it's highly readable, partly because the author was a journalist.
The book gives the lie to the notion that there are jobs Americans won't do. The author interviewed a bunch of recently laid off Black poultry workers. Would they take their old jobs back, if offered, he asked them. No, they told him. On the current wages, they'd have to live in their cars, or many to a house.
The same thing happened in a lot of trades. I can tell you that in the landscaping trade, it became impossible to make a bid low enough to get the job if you hired American "American" workers instead of Latin workers, because the Americans required a higher salary in order to be able to live decently, and the Latin workers were living three to a house and under conditions that most Americans wouldn't tolerate. I imagine this applies to quite a few low-wage jobs.
I'm sure it does. Thanks for this personal testimonial. I actually sent HCR a copy of the book, probably almost two years ago, but I've seen no sign that she's looked at it.
Well said Mike. I would add that any CEO who requires that 10% of his workforce be fired each year has a pretty bad record for training and development. In fact, what he is declaring is a failure to cultivate his staff. He is ignoring the costs of training new employees.
And...imagine working for a firm that holds a firing ax over everyone. Imagine how that encourages political maneuvering vs performance.
Jack Welch was a con man menace. A terrible manager.
Mike, thanks for the history. But dissing Jack Welch isn't really helpful right now. Indignation isn't going to fix this unless it is accompanied by strategic action. Talk is cheap. Get active. If you already are, please share what you are doing to change things so other people know about it. Right now that's what matters.
Except more like Putin's useful stooge auxiliary. Evil Putin is certainly no friend of Trump & company, much less a friend of the US. Money just pouring from Russia for the Trump family? Russian spooks working clandestinely to get Trump elected? It's transparently a set up. Are Republicans so high on their own mendacity that that they think that Putin is working for them? Much less America.
And the case of Navalny, now missing, casting a bleak shadow over what might happen to challengers of the noxious maga movement if they are allowed to win.
No, these narcissists are really happy to be in the service of such a big, strong man as Putin. They think they are BFF, but Putin will dispose of them in an eyewink as soon as they aren't useful to him anymore - that's what they don't want to see when they are kissing up to him.
Right you are, JL! Putin can barely disguise his contempt when he meets with GOP leaders. Remember GWB's soul mate? DJT accepted as truth Putin's lies? Stupidity on display and intensification of danger to our country.
Carmen, thank you for reminding US of that idiotic bit. It’s so stupid that, always looking at W as stupid, I forget that Trump had a start, though maybe as a useful idiot, a head start.
Men anywhere imposing sociopathic dominance, religious or not, though the misnomer "fundamentalism" generally indicates this. It's a weird, perhaps evolutionary throwback to when individual (primarily male) physical strength was an advantage to survival and a marker of status. I don't know why some elements of many societies cling to it so tenaciously; especially "fundamentalists" around the world, such as "fundamentalist" Islam, or Judaism. Moreover I have trouble relating to the idea that the most honorable models of human behavior are the oldest. We can certainly learn from the past, but we learn every day; and pass it on. We evolved to do that. Our arts, sciences, and governments did that. Our lives would likely be much nastier, more brutish and shorter if we did not.
We need the MSM on board as well. They need to start covering all of the Biden administration accomplishments. One front page story a day in each paper and part of the lead-in monologue for each network host.
If you are an oligarchic democracy threatens your power. In order to hold on to power you need scapegoats. And we know who they are. Hard to imagine that the GOP has become the party of Putin (thank you Christopher for that gem). There is something truly amiss with these folks.
One of the arms of Russian corruption is human trafficking. Some of the children are being trafficked and used by pedophiles and sexual predators. If there is a God, may he soon end Putin's days on earth. And now Navalny is missing.
Always, always they bleat like sheep, protecting the unborn but not giving 2 figs for the health of women and minorities. Their ugly misogyny is so transparent, I'm surprised their wives have not sent them packing. But then, they are shameless. I keep thinking of the day when their impunity bites them in the butt. I believe you are correct. There is some associating with Putin in all of their behaviors. Either they worship his power and money or they are receiving rewards for contributitng to the end of democracy, the end of freedom.
I agree! To think that we have someone running for POTUS that is aligning himself and his party with Nazis who my dad went to war to stop is just too much.
I am glad my greatest generation parents have passed away. They would be horrified to see where we are today. They would think their sacrifices to save the world were being wasted.
makes me cry and don't forget the boomer generation of men who sacrificed their lives in Vietnam as we were countering the spread of communism. and the Korean war.
They are in thrall to Russia, and in particular to Putin. It would not surprise me to learn there are deals under the table. There is also the oil wealth connection; one of Russia's most valuable resources. Many of the Republicans directly benefit from the extraction economy, too. In essence, they have been bought for the illusion of power and the proximity to wealth. They buy the hype of white male supremacy under the rubric of Christian Nationalism. Following Putin's ruthless example, citizens are only pawns in their game, and human rights are a non-starter. As with MAGA, loyalty is rewarded, but disloyalty is punished quite severely. Every day they seem more pathological.
Its a couple of things: payback for Zelensky not doing what Trump asked him to do (announce an investigation of Hunter Biden). And payment for Russia’s continued meddling in US elections.
It is a terrible betrayal to the American people and our democracy. These people were not voted in to give their allegiance to Putin and Russia.They are traitors imho.
Especially with Republicans meeting with the Heritage Foundation sponsored anti-American Viktor Orban get together. JD Vance called Agent Orange America's Hilter in 2016. He also said that if we don't give under educated poor white men something they will vote for a demagogue. Like he did. Yesterday, he said Ukraine is going to have to give up some of their territories to Russia. JD Vance is one of those individuals no matter how much he acquires in life will always be poor inside. He has a spirit of poverty. JD wants a journalist prosecuted for speaking the truth about Agent Orange. Viktor Orban wannabe.
In regards to the Texas abortion case, read page 449 of Project 2025 written by nutjob Roger Severino. It states Viktor Orban policies on families and sex. It's twisted. The whole report is about 996 pages. Happy reading.
This has been going on for decades--the RNC is an Organized Crime Syndicate tied to the Mogilevich Russian Mob. Trump has been mobbed all his life; the number of Repugs directly working with Putin, et al amounts to an agency of traitors. YEARS of this--as Hilary Clinton warned: “There is a vast network of right-wing conspiracy seeking to overthrow this democracy.”
Corruption at every turn, here in America, and in Russia. Dems and Biden-Harris must call out the R’s for continuously putting our country at risk. The R’s have absolutely no policies other than to disrupt fundings for Israel and Ukraine and to give their undying support for a wannabe dictator, Donald J Trump. According to Rachel Maddow, on her show tonight, Congress has passed a total of 22 bills for the entire year. It goes to show that the R’s cannot form a thought or run a country.
Jack Smith, today, filed a petition to bypass the appellate court and go straight to SCOTUS for a ruling about Trump and his definition “immunity”. Smith is tired of the many delays Trump’s legal team has been using to bide for more time. I want to experience elation if SC rules against The Don.
Remember Jack Teixeira, the 21 year old Discord leaker of Pentagon secrets? WaPo reported how those papers got leaked, to whom, and how our government officials ignored what he was doing. I am gifting the article here: https://wapo.st/3teYBxm
Zelenskyy is in the US and will speak to the Senate tomorrow. It is essential that he gets the funding needed because, like Heather pointed out, if not, then Putin wins. If that ends up being the case, every single Democrat who we have elected, should be accusing the R’s of being Russia operatives. They must say it loud, clearly, and repetitively!
I ALMOST totally agree with you J L, except for one thing: Jack Smith, for some reason unfathomable to me, is opposing the law suits to have the D.C. trial of Trump for insurrection televised. If it is not televised, Faux and other right-wing media will spin the results. if it is televised they cannot do that. I think this would be the most highly viewed court case ever, far beyond the O. J. Simpson trial.
(Former Federal prosecutor, Glenn Kirschner, has pointed to 18 U.S.C. § 3771. Crime victims' rights:
(a) RIGHTS OF CRIME VICTIMS.--A crime victim has the following rights:
...
(3) The right not to be excluded from any such public court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving clear and convincing evidence, determines that testimony by the victim would be materially altered if the victim heard other testimony at that proceeding.
...
Glenn Kirschner notes that when the crime is an attempt to overthrow an election, the victims are ALL the voters whose votes the alleged criminal attempted to render void. This argument would seem to make the case for allowing the broadcast of the trial a very strong one.)
If the Colorado case to keep Trump off the ballot (using the 14th Amendment, Section 3 prohibition of insurrectionists who formerly swore an oath to support the Constitution from running for any office) fails in the Supreme Court, and Trump becomes the Republican candidate for President, our last chance to avoid a fascist regime is educating the American electorate. Televising Trump's trial for insurrection would seem like our best remaining hope.
100% agree on live televising of the Trump trial. It not only should be done, it MUST be done. This is too important for Americans to watch to withhold live and gavel to gavel coverage.
The judge can and will control any "circus" that results.
While I'd like to see the trial I don't know about her "control". It seems to this observer that she has already had plenty of reasons to lock him up before trial and still hasn't. With the clickbait media clamoring for another Trumpism no matter how smelly it is, Jack Smith has a point. Do we need to suffer through every lie this piece of garbage will spew into the legal system?
I think we do need the trial, for the reason you cite: every lie he tells will be destroyed immediately on live TV by Jack Smith, making TFG look like the criminal he is. It's the best way to deflate him: letting him puncture his own balloon in a setting not under his control.
Methinks the judge is smart to not jail him, because it makes him a martyr to the jury pool. He will cross the line at some point with a pointed threat at a court worker, and then she can lock him up as a clear and present danger rather than on his "free speech." She and Smith are playing this well, I believe.
Any human can miscalculate, but I think Garland picked a winner with Mr. Smith. He radiates professionalism (like water in a desiccated desert) and I have always had mixed feelings about TV and trials. I think the case can be made both ways but expect theatrics from the Orange Orifice. Is that better televised, or sketched? Transcribed in the news, or recorded? An interesting exploration of the appeal of Santos ( https://theconversation.com/santos-now-booted-from-the-house-got-elected-as-a-master-of-duplicity-heres-how-it-worked-218742 ) notes:
"Empirical research has long revealed that voters are overwhelmingly influenced by politicians’ nonverbal communication."
This worked almost literally like a charm for selling the inane illogic of Ronald Reagan. the point at which relative reason in modern national politics started really heading off the rails. And the press must be "pressed" to focus on the facts, Mam, not what outrageous ploy Trump tries next; the chess moves or the food fight.
Judge Tanya Chutkan has shown a masterful ability to keep any potential Trump grandstanding under control, so there will not be a circus atmosphere. She will not permit that to happen.
Publishing the entire result at the conclusion will not saturate the public with the reality of the substance of the trial. How many would take the time to go through that record? By contrast, the daily, highly entertaining spectacle would have high saturation. We need it to reach all of the reachable. Our democracy at that point might depend on it.
The thought of Judge Chutkan keeping Trump's grandstanding under control brought another thought to mind: If the trial is televised, viewers will witness Trump in a passive, essentially helpless situation. The reality of seeing that on a daily basis would undermine his carefully cultivated self-image as being in-command and powerful. Could that break the spell over his cult followers? Maybe it would.
A problem is that many of us saw the Jan 6 insurrection in real time, saw the impeachment hearings, watched the Jan 6 Committee. We know what we saw and heard. But who saw those or ignored them or didn’t give a rip and support the MAGA candidates anyway 🤔? No change except maybe more bombast.Boggles the mind and pains the soul. The short clips from the trial will be spun any way the media wants them to be, and those who might profit from seeing their guy squirm won’t be watching. Sorry to be cynical, but the recent past pretty much confirms this.
Core MAGA are "hypnotized" by cult dynamics, but we need to rally all the support we can get. Many people tell me that they deliberately ignore politics to stay sane; understandable, but democracy can't survive on that. We are in the midst of a clear and present danger. Mitch McConnell et al seemed to glory in not even needing to try to go though the motions of a due process in the Trump Impeachment voting. A crap precedent for sure, but I think the Jan 6th Committee hit the MAGA's where it hurt. I saw it as a turning point in our passivity in the face of corruption. It bothered the "GOP" enough that they cast out two of their own, and Liz Cheney has not stayed quiet about it.
Rachel noted of the 22 bills passed 1 was for a Commemormive Coin, 2 to rename medical buildings, 3 for Budget CR's & a bust of Alfred E. Newmam with the motto "What Me Worry".
JACK Smith's Perition was GRANTED. SCOTUS ordered Trump's Reply due by 12/20/23. Spring Trial is on Track. : )
Repetition works for big lies; but it's also part of learning. I believe social movements gain by keeping the uncomfortable in our face; until it registers.
Call outs, call outs, call outs. I wouldn't even call them "Russian operatives". For one thing, Russian operatives seem more canny than that; but they are certainly playing the fools in Putin's games; and they are a frickin' threat to US and world security. Why oh, why oh, why would we take the side of Putin? It's self destructive!
"Today, 75 years later, Hitler is regarded as one of history's great villains. So it's easy to forget how slowly and reluctantly the worlds most powerful democracies mobilized to stop him. France and Britain did declare war on Germany two days after the invasion of Poland, but it would take them another eight months before they engaged in full-scale war with the Nazis. The United States wouldn't join the war against Hitler until December 1941, a full two years after the war began.
Why did Adolf Hitler invade Poland?
Hitler salutes as he oversees troops during the Nazi occupation of Poland. The troops march in formation toward a wooden bridge, constructed by the Nazis across the San River, near Jarolaw, Poland. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The short answer is that Adolf Hitler was a ruthless dictator with dreams of conquering all of Europe. Annexing Poland was a step in that larger plan. The Polish military wasn't powerful enough to resist him, and Hitler calculated — correctly, as it turns out — that Europe's other powers wouldn't intervene in time.
The invasion of Poland occurred almost exactly 25 years after the start of World War I in August 1914. That war ended in Germany's defeat, and in 1919 the victorious allies carved up territory that had been part of Germany, Austria-Hungary (Germany's defeated ally), and Russia (which had fallen to the Bolsheviks) into an array of new countries.
After World War I, the allies took territory away from Germany
This map shows how World War I reshaped Europe. The red lines show the new borders drawn by the victorious Allies at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. (Fluteflute) Fluteflute
One of these new countries was Poland, which before 1919 had last existed as an independent nation in 1795. Another was Czechoslovakia — its awkward name reflects the Allies' decision to combine areas dominated by two different ethnic groups, Czechs and Slovaks, into a single nation.
Hitler was contemptuous of these new nations, which he regarded as artificial creations of the Allies. There were significant German populations in both countries, and Hitler used trumped-up concern for their welfare as a pretext to demand territorial concessions."
There was a huge number of anti-Semitic supporters of Hitler in this country. They were loud and proud, held public meetings. Charles Lindbergh was one of them.
It is creepy, especially given the experience of the horrors of WWII how much of a wink and nod extreme right gets in the US, such as Ammon Bundy (though he seen more resistance recently).
Can we publicize that Putin is KGB trained, an inheritor of Stalin, gulags, and kills as easily as he brushes away a crumb? I hope we don’t have Murza and Navalny to mourn as martyrs at Christmas, though both are in mortal danger.
Thank you for the link on how Teixeira obtained the very highest access to the most secret information the US has. And then posted it to multiple places on Discord where it has been disseminated world wide.
I wonder if our military is now recruiting far right young people as part of its recruiting efforts?
Scary, isn’t it? How did this very disruptive kid with a past like his, end up with being able to access government secrets? A few heads have already rolled and I imagine more will also.
Unconstitutional spending is a violation of their oath to protect defend the constitution and every legislator who votes for it needs to pay the bill instead of expecting the people they represent to be responsible.
I'm thinking Joe needs a communications professional for messaging and how to maximize the "Bully Pulpit" that is part and parcel of the Presidency. Likely (just speculating ) that such a thing as bully anything runs contrary to Joe's nature. I can imagine that growing up with a speech impediment made him a frequent target of bullying, and thereby "imprinted him." In contrast, "OiD" was / is a bully by nature, so used and abused the bully pulpit effectively to his (it's) ends. That must change !!! *Calling Dr. DPR ! Get on the 'bat phone' to Joe, Doc ! Lol....
A year and a half ago, the worst Supreme Court in my lifetime issued one of the single worst decisions in our Court's history. For the first time ever, the U.S. Supreme Court retracted a right that it had previously granted, a conditional right to bodily autonomy for women to decide their own reproductive choices, and a privacy based right that was relied upon for generations of American women for fifty years. I have long been troubled by the very concept of abortion, finding it as the recently departed first female Justice Sandra Day O'Connor did, most troubling.
Yet far more troubling is the very idea that a right of such piercing intimacy and incisive importance could be washed away after half a century, based not upon newly discovered scientific evidence, or new facts, or even newly refashioned argument, but simply due to the fact that the Court's membership had changed.
Stare decisis be damned, privacy be scoffed at, women be patronized, and dignity be sent to the increasingly burgeoning servants' quarters, while Messrs. Alito and Thomas decide what's right for All.
Harry Blackmun's months of monastic scholarship in the bowels of the Mayo Clinic Library which led to the agonizing illumination of Roe v. Wade, meet Sam Alito, fresh from the gilded salmon boat with Paul Singer, and blithely quoting out of context medieval text proffered for him by Leonard Leo.
Ah but the States, please you liberals and secularists, the States will decide.
The State of Tejas has certainly decided, hasn't it?
Pardon my mixing metaphors from Heather's Letter of tonight, but I'd much rather have heard that Alexi Navalny was freed and that Ken Paxton was lost somewhere in the dank, never ending labyrinth of the Texas prison system.
Daniel, Like you, I worry about a High Court that would ignore 50 years of settled precedent in Roe, and would overturn a fundamental right relied upon by tens of millions every year. But, I also worry that a court willing to do that to a protection, over and over again reaffirmed, will do it to other fundamental protections.
Matt, While, as you indicate, the VRA nearly has been entirely gutted, I would expect, if we don’t vote in more Democrats and expand the Court, increasingly more protections wedded to social democratic institutions will be scrubbed, and, of course, the people who most will suffer likely will be the most disadvantaged.
Republicans have fumed about "legislating from the bench", but as in everything the do, they cover the ugliness of their actions by accusing everybody else of the crime they commit, while spreading a cloud of Orwellian, self-righteous fury. Current Republican "justices" were sent as saboteurs, not guards nor students of the Constitution.
Women may not act in accordance with their conscience
-- will they count for their owners as 5/8 of a human being under the new dispensation?
-- physicians are not permitted to practice medicine freely (the medical needs of their patients determined in advance by politicians on bases having no connection whatsoever either with said patients, with medicine or with any cause apart from political manipulation);
-- judges may not exercise judgment, verdicts and sentencing prejudged (prisons, especially private ones, MUST be kept supplied with slave labor);
-- teachers and librarians may be fired (or worse) for exposing children or even adults to literature or information placed on the Index by their political betters;
-- states' rights alone count, not those of the federal government, and states rights are to be determined by those in power, regardless of the Constitution of the USA or citizens' wishes...
Well, they've said it again and again -- nothing else counts, only winning. And plainly, winner takes all, so there's no need to trouble with what to do after having won, it's whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want it...
The "morning after pill" should be over the counter and readily accessible as it almost was until that, too, was halted. To me, it's hard to argue that taking it is an abortion, but of course, someone has. No one need know, no others are placed in jeopardy such as doctors and people willing to transport, and no harrassment at the clinic entrance. At least in this case, it's "one and done."
I'm less than halfway through Tim Alberta's book “The Power, the Kingdom, and the Glory,” but it has become clear to me that Christians in America feel that they are under attack, and so they feel justified in being dishonest (in self-defense dontchaknow) and using DJT as their secret weapon.
I've made some more progress in reading Tim Alberta's book, and, so far, at least, I accept his explanation that Christians in this country are genuinely panicked because they believe that the U.S.A. should be a Christian country. That is to say that their beliefs should control the country, to the exclusion, in setting policy, of all other faiths and philosophies. And they sense that the special consideration and influence that they have long enjoyed are slipping away. So, they feel threatened and are fighting to preserve their power, by any means necessary. So, they feel justified in following the dishonest, godless buffoon who is leading them in battle. [Tim Alberta didn't say all of that. I drew some conclusions from the recent history that he recounts.]
They all—whether individuals like Putin, Orban, Tr*mp, or Netanyahu, or nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or groups like Hamas, the Taliban, the KKK, or The OathKeepers—share the same zeal and obsession for denying OTHERS (women, people of color, the LGBTQ, immigrants or those who hold different religious beliefs, or none at all) every one of the freedoms, they want to reserve exclusively for themselves.
There is NO hypocrisy—only a deep-rooted belief and value system where a wealthy, well-connected few distract (through endless culture wars and faux-aggrieved victimhood), and divide (by stoking fear and hatred), to ensure they don’t ever have to pay what they owe, or be held accountable, all so they can hold onto their power through minority rule, and the denial of basic democratic norms and everyone else’s fundamental human rights.
This is fascism, no matter its label (MAGA or Nazi), country of origin, or dear leader...and this is the enemy we must ALL stand against, each and everyone of us who is on the side of justice, equality, and freedoms...
Let’s not forget about the religions which have long supported their endeavors. Religions and the elite (those at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy) have had a symbiotic relationship since antiquity. Religion is part of the framework holding the socioeconomic hierarchy in place.
If there truly is an All Powerful God, why are there starving and dying children and why does this evil continue to flourish?
Faith is no longer a good enough answer. Evil is alive and well amongst us and our only hope for survival is to speak out and stand up against it. Everywhere not just in these safe forums with those that are the same. We can refuel here and then go out into the world and speak out loud to everyone. Strangers in the shops, clerks in the stores, worshippers in the churches, teachers , coworkers and friends. We no longer can sit angrily and idly by. These fascists with their magas are going to steal our freedom. Then it will be too LATE.
"If there truly is an All Powerful God, why are there starving and dying children and why does this evil continue to flourish?"
Good question and the Protestants, at least, have an answer at the ready which appears to quell their own doubts about the existence of God instantly.
That answer??
--> God Granted mankind "Free Will". Now, NOWHERE in the Bible does it say this clearly. However.....
--->The Protestants let God off the hook for all the bad stuff on earth, and, there is, as Trump might say, A LOT, however, the Protestants simultaneously give God credit for all the good stuff.<---
Georgia Girl, there you have it. Everything good that happens to you? God.
All the bad stuff that happens? Satan or Human evil.
I wish my wife looked at my faults and banished them so easily.
And? Guess what? The folks pushing for Fascism ALSO think that Trump is God's chosen.
If all of the above seems head spinning and daft, well, I did not invent it. But, people did.
You and I are of same thoughts. I just want for those like us to tell the truth to ALL of God’s children. No empty explanations. Just living the example
I would say the Romans and the Greeks assembled the Bible led by a Greek guy named Athanasius.
Much of the current Old Testament prior to that was assembled and actively utilized by those living in the current areas known as Israel.
A Greek guy named Athanasius then assembled, in Greek, the bulk of what is known as the New Testament. At the conference of Nicaea which was indeed sponsored by the Roman leader Constantine.
But, Constantine's mother was Greek.......so....I am sure he identified more as Greek than Roman.
It’s more than that. Since antiquity, elites have permitted religions to practice, funded them, and supported them as there was something in it for them. That something is social influence/control. Religions help teach a social order which benefits the elites. They also ignore the sins of the elites, and demonize certain groups - independent / intelligent / non-conservative/traditional women, Gay/Lesbians, those of other religions, and anyone else the elite deem enemies.
This symbiotic relationship helps keep both in power. Democracy takes away their power by redistributing some wealth & power to the people and by providing a safety net and protection from abusive employers. Religions gain followers by being needed by people to calm their fears and help them when they’re needy. If people have the power to help themselves, they’re less dependent upon religion.
It's time to use the word traitors to describe them. Cowards and enablers who are afraid to do what might bring a Trump-favored primary rival have forgotten that they pledged an oath to the Constitution, not to a wannabe dictator.
The fascist GQP are domestic terrorists and there isn't a bottom to how low these cretins can sink to. There seems to be no end to this appalling insanity from them.
The RNC is an organized crime syndicate with Russian mob ties. They even have a division involved with foreign meddling that works with Russian spy agencies. Where do you think people like Manafort, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, Ron Lauder, and the rest were spending their time over in Hundary, Czechoslovakia and Ukraine?
"pledged an oath to the Constitution, not to a wannabe dictator."
Words to carve in stone. The word that works for me is narcissists, but there must be a less technical synonym. They are self-centered, self-serving, self-righteous bullies. They are proud of cheating to win, and indifferent to the harm the inflict on America, on our nation, and on many, many individuals; immigrant families destroyed by losing a child, families grieving for a family member who could have been saved from COVID, victims of racism an slander aimed at people such as Ruby Freeman and many others. They have torn a page from the playbook of Joe McCarty and carried it even further than even he, for dishonesty and absence of decency.
Narcissism has become epidemic in this country. I see it everyday-among many young white men, and among elected leaders who forget that they are elected to serve we, the people. Tfg normalized this form of insanity and it has taken root here in Florida in alarming ways. Thanks to Desantis, we are the next Hungary, with Texas not far behind. Narcissism, wealth consolidated to provide an “above the law” mentality, an agenda that allows rights for “me but not for thee”, and more-a cruelty, complete lack of empathy, inability to hear reason or to engage in civil discourse-it’s all here-like it was stated above, I can not believe this is my country anymore. The Biden Administration is doing great things, but their inability to articulate that above the loud lies of the GOP might help Republicans murder democracy. They aren’t only killing our Constitution, but they are killing the most basic tenets of community and humanity we have tried to nurture in our families and communities. The very basic values of honesty, integrity, kindness, and compassion are being destroyed right along with our Constitution. The fact that they have hijacked the name “Christian” and use it for their purposes is one of the worst things of all-there is NOTHING of Christ in them. I am grieving for my country.
Malignant narcissism has always been a thing, and black and native people have seen some of the most malignant forms of it. My perceived right to rob you of your unalienable human rights puts it right up in to the red "danger" zone, even in even more seeming civil encounters. Any sort of abuse or bullying, and our former President Trump just loves to bully.
I suspect that the more than doubling of world population in my lifetime makes it harder to maintain a sense of cultural community without fragmentation, yet that is essential to our aspirational way of life. I also think we are fools to allow commercial motives to dominate the character of our mass media. I am no foe of commerce, but excessive commercialism encourages infantilization, social disengagement, and over-identification of well-being and status with consumption. I see it in myself. I see it in the ongoing "vibe" of my region, as the decades pass. We are unique individuals, AND we are members of a whole society. Both. If human society perishes, so does our whole human sentient take on it, the realm and compass of human experience.
And most of them are pro-birthers but never say a word about the MAGANAZI politicians that pretend they follow the laws in the Bible. Do they really think the convicted rapist Trump has never committed adultery or bore false witness against his neighbors?
Human egos appear vulnerable (some, apparently more than others, and I think certain styles of nurture have a lot to do with it) to a "supremacy" complex. The universe is thought to revolve around the Earth, our particular race is the "master race", and male gender the master gender; our preferences are also God's preferences, and God has singled out our country, or even our specific denomination, ands even me as His favorites, perhaps the only people worthy to live. Is that not ego gone malignant, and usurping our "better angels"? The tendency is to see and condemn it in others and not in ourselves; and I suspect it infect most, if not all of us in some way; certainly myself included. Yet it can also be largely balanced and contained by integrity, conscience, and compassion. I would not apply those latter terms to Trump, and too ,often those who seem free of conscience are able to summon the narcissistic "Mr or Ms "Hyde" in in many others. Toxic ego slants everything; e.g., torture is execrable, except when we do it.
We have an ego for a reason, ego Latin for "I", but it is social suicide, and becomes suicidal for our whole species, to allow it to be the only thing that matters.
Yup, they can, do, and will, without adequate resistance. Like climate change, we have been kinda passive while it kept becoming palpably worse; but we're approaching tipping points. We can't afford to take it anymore.
The fact that he was from an oil producing nation is less troubling than his resistance to rapid transition to alternative sources of energy, like having a Philip Morris exec. chair a conference on lung cancer.
The Russian news celebration of the Republican cowardice being a victory for Putin should be turned into billboards in the districts of EVERY one of the corrupt traitorous GQP slime that are creating this latest outrage.
Recently someone posting here used the tag line "how it works" to focus on any single Biden/Democrat accomplishment and its effects on real people. I thought at the time that this would be a good billboard scheme, filling in the accomplishment blank with something good for the nation or even something local to a state/county.
It is not governance they, the GOP, seek or exhibit. It is the power a bully seeks and exercises out of fear of being found to be truly outdated and obsolete. They are acting out fear, and that makes them dangerous because they will do anything to keep things as they once were no matter how wrongheaded they once were. It is up to those who have faith in a free and open society to take the lead and wake the nation up to the realities of what’s at stake. So far, they are failing.
Just waking up, politically, one of my neighbors will be a huge effort... but will teach me gentle persuasion.. kindness and attentiveness always win out... my message is: “We are all in this together...”let’s get creative and build something for our little town..something that will be useful for years to come for everyone here now...
and all those new ones old and infant, too
Starts with a ‘dream’ I’ve heard... my anger has never delivered anything but distress and hurt.. this pulling apart of everything I’ve celebrated for my 80 years in our ‘advanced’ country requires more effort from ALL of us ... to win hearts and MINDS to make the changes that can support ALL who are here now and those many brave enough or otherwise forced
To leave their homes for safety and a new opportunity to live in peace. WE HAVE TO HONOR our history... we are from immigration 99% of us... historically...
There is absolutely no good news in Heather’s letter….tonight…..really just about every fiscal ‘delay’ helps the Russians, weakens the US and jeopardizes the Ukrainians AND NATO. OR weakens basic health care protections in severely challenged pregnancies OR challenges some other basic tenet of democracy …ending on the note of Nalvany’s disappearance from Russian records…and quite possibly from life itself.
I’m going to ignore Heather’s 1950s cringe-worthy attempt to demonize Russia in her otherwise laudable critique of GOP extremism, to give you, and other commenters here, some good news. You’re welcome.
I am a former Foreign Service Officer who had experienced the importance of NATO during the Cold War and fervently believe that the Biden-organized coalition defending the sovereignty of Ukraine against Putin’s brutal Greater Russia invasion is a post-Cold War imperative.
In October President Biden had submitted a legislative request for a budgetary supplemental for $110 billion, of which a majority was for imperative military assistance for Ukraine. At the time, I considered it unimaginable that, more than two months later, this $60 billion would be left in legislative limbo.
The Trumpists are threatening to hold this $60 billion hostage to a cockamamie insistence that a not-yet-on-the-drawing-board massive immigration program be enacted. I find this a despicable hostage/blackmail stance that brings to mind then-President Trump’s ‘will-he-or-won’t he’ pull the United States out of NATO. [Putin must be chuckling.]
I do not watch television news. I am gobsmacked that, in the media—New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, The Guardian—in recent days I find NOTHING about the prospective legislative betrayal of our commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty or that Congress is on the cusp of a long Christmas vacation.
Instead, recent headlines have focused on how three female college presidents mishandled ‘genocide’ in a rambunctious congressional hearing.
Even Mitch the Switch McConnell has pivoted from his previous 100% support for Ukraine. While President Biden is bringing President Zelensky to the White House, Trumpists are hosting Vicktor Orban at a conference where his anti-Ukraine/pro-Putin commitments will be highlighted.
As a kid, I recall how isolationists were appalled at the thought that Franklin Roosevelt would provide imperative military assistance to Winston Churchill’s England, that was standing alone against Hitler-occupied Western Europe. England survived, was the launch pad for D-Day, and Hitler was defeated.
I have a similar anger at those blackmailing Trumpublican legislators. STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL YOU AUTHORIZE $60 BILLION TO PERMIT UKRAINE TO MAINTAIN ITS SOVEREIGNTY.
Thank you Heather. It is remarkable that all Americans, regardless of political party affinity, aren't furious that the leading GOP Presidential candidate has given, and continues to give aid and comfort to Putin, an adversarial enemy of the US. And the GOP publicly embraces Orban -an enemy of democracy. This has been ongoing since Trump directed convicted criminal Flynn to undermine sanctions against Russia for their illegal annexation of Crimea, and their documented interference in the US elections.
I do hope the women of Texas -as well as fathers of daughters, grandfathers of granddaughters, and everyone else understands what has unfolded in Texas. In the 21st century, forcing someone to travel out of a legal jurisdiction to obtain a necessary medical procedure evokes historically ignorant and egregious decisions predicated upon when a society prioritized religious beliefs over scientific facts and evidence. If Texas (or any other State of the Union) wishes to return to the 6th century -they should do so, and relinquish any scientific advancement since the end of the dark ages in the 15th century. I'm certain the 'Justice' Alito can help them resurrect the witch trials which he enjoys referencing in his religious proclamations masquerading as Supreme Court decisions.
It is even more remarkable that all Americans aren’t furious that the current POTUS gives, and continues to give aid and comfort to occupier Israel in its commission of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and collective punishment in Gaza.
Oh, right, Israel is our friend, while Russia is the commie villain we all must fear.
Interestingly, people’s concern, over one thing, more than one thing, or many things, can be manipulated by government propaganda and narrative. The degree to which Americans have bought into the story that Ukraine is all about Putin, or more absurdly, the threat to NATO, is indicative of how easily information can be pushed/suppressed to control the masses.
Cute. Especially for someone who ‘writes leadership matters’.
I’m not saying Putin is a big misunderstood teddy bear. You should know better than to write that, even in an absurd masturbatory lead in to your ‘I’ll show this guy’ with my ‘Putin bad’ links list.
Pussy Riot? More cute. And Putin is worse than Biden keeping Julian Assange in prison how, exactly?
Thanks George, for making my point. Hope things are going well for you at Hamilton 68.
“ Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in “agony” and that it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.” One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!” Another: “Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.”
It appears to me that the “domestic terrorists” aligned with Putin (AKA the MAGA GOP) is getting stronger not weaker. Recent polls show Trump way ahead in Iowa (gaining something like 8 percentage points in the last month).
I know it’s not possible for President Biden to declare we are at war with this internal threat, but I believe he needs to explain even more clearly than he has to date just what kind of sociopolitical dynamics we’ve got going on here in America. He says this is a fight for “the soul of America,” but that phrase is way too church sermon like for me. When terrorists take a country hostage, stronger language is required!
"He says this is a fight for “the soul of America,” but that phrase is way too church sermon like for me. When terrorists take a country hostage, stronger language is required!"
Thank you. It’s almost as if Joe Biden doesn’t want to name names… because he worked with a lot of these people before the GOP lost its mind. I think for the good if the country he needs to get angry. He never seems angry to me. Senator Schumer has this problem too. Always being polite. Well, democracy may die because the Democrats won’t take the gloves off!
I think any higher power would say "you humans are making this mess, you fix it". WE have to do the work. Turning it over to the gods doesn't help at all, it creates passivity. Please know that I am not attacking you, Carol O, I understand the human need to do that, it is ancient. But it doesn't stop fascism. The gods didn't end the Holocaust, the sacrifices of the Resistance and many grunt soldiers from many countries stopped it.
Yes, our anger is real, I feel it and the fear too.....yet we also must find love to use as our motivation if we are to survive. Let us find inspiration in those who resisted Hitler, those who were beaten in Birmingham AL in the 60s, the Texan woman who had to leave Texas to protect her body, the Ukrainians defending their freedom. Let us feel our love for the children in both Israel and Palestine and resist for their sake.
Meanwhile, let us sleep well so we have the strength and the love to carry on.
As a Unitarian agnostic, and former condensed matter physicist, I couldn't agree more. If gods exists, they they have to be present in this universe. I don't doubt there are higher beings than humans somewhere in the vast expanse that is the known universe. But how will they communicate with us in a timely fashion given the speed of light and vast distances in the universe!
Sorry to go on a rant, but I believe consciousness is local and there is no mystical conscious superpower that commands the entire universe! That said, consciousness itself is no doubt some kind of miracle that none of us understand, including physicists!
I once-upon-a-time was a Unitarian agnostic (raised as a UU) and now I am just an agnostic. One who WISHES that I had had the math aptitude to become a physicist. My atheist neurologist doesn't realize he is really an agnostic, but I suspect he is when his eyes shine and he gets sooooo happy talking about the beauty of physics and the mystery of consciousness. Your post reminded me of him.
He said he also didn't have the math to be a physicist and he encouraged me to read lay physics books to keep my brain strong. Do you have any recommendations?
Also, regarding Carl Sagan, Al Gore, and even disgraced Minnesota Senator Dave Durenberger (redeeming himself in my opinion!), watch this video on a hearing in the 1980s on global warming:
For an entertaining read, check out "Surely Your Joking, Mr. Feynman", by Richard Feynman, one of the great physicists on par with Newton and Einstein, just a lot better at math than either of them!
Many of the books written by physicists for non-physicists I find interesting, but craving more. They typically don't go into the math. And also, putting myself in the laypersons shoes, I'd probably be mostly wondering what the heck they are talking about.
And so I'd definitely recommend all of Carl Sagan's books. They are inspiring for everyone!
Prayer may often have degenerated into childishly begging gods for favors but I got the impression from Carol O's first piece that hers is fulfilling the invaluable function of putting one in touch with one's truer self and striving to do the seemingly impossible.
Does it matter how one achieves the aim of bringing fellow citizens together on the understanding that we are all in the same boat, and sink or swim together?
*
It's for sure that we'll need the inspiration of our highest faculties but I just saw Carol's second note and that I can see only as a desperate call for strength in the face of the ordeal we all face.
I still sympathize but... we are all One... and therein lies the force on which we must draw in coping with self-appointed tin gods and their benighted followers.
Depends on how we pray—do we ask God to fix everything or do we ask for strength to endure, to see clearly what our individual roles are and to ask for faith to go forward when everything looks to be stacked against our efforts?
That's more or less what I was trying to say, very well expressed. Except, you don't even have to be a deist or formally religious to find true inspiration. That could be an immense help, yet both approaches could also be a hindrance if ego gets in the way.
I'm referring to what I've seen, to good examples. And to human beings of whom I've read, like Etty Hillesum.
I misquote but it's worth it. "On the seventh day, God rested. He looked at his work of creation and said, "Oh, well, it was only a six-day job." I love being irreverent.
No offense but from what I have seen of God’s action thus far in my life. We truly must stand up and take action ourselves or nothing will be done. These Godless men who are aiding and abetting Trump aren’t winning because of their silence.
Note that the last news reported is that Navaley is missing. If Trump is elected, we can expect to see many Americans go “missing” and people dying because politicians, not doctors, decide your medical care for crazy and cruel ideological nonsense. Texas’s Attorney General is worse than Dr. Mengeles.
Jeri, it may be too soon, but is there a backlash from the TX SC saying Kate Cox’s doctors are not qualified to determine if she should be an exception to TX’s no exceptions rule?
"Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in 'agony' and that it was 'difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.' One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!' Another: 'Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.'" SHAME ON THE REPUBLICANS!! How is this not a betrayal of our nation? And what ought the punishment to be for this despicable behavior?
The Orange Sadist said that execution was the appropriate punishment for traitors when he was speaking of the man who helped save our democracy: General Mark Milley!
As with so many LFAAs, tonight’s is packed with reasons why voters should vote for Democrats. The problem, in my view, largely rests with leadership’s seeming reluctance, baffling from my vantage point, to travel the country, seeking to show, especially those who doubt that Democrats care about their interests and concerns, precisely how the Republican far-right blueprint runs counter to virtually every aspect of the public interest.
The Dems have a niceness + a fear problem. We're in the trenches now. They're using scare tactics to fund raise when people are already in fear on both 'sides'. Speaking truth is essential - don't water it down and don't lecture. This is not a "It's going away because enough people will come to their senses by next year" time.
Bullies and ignoramuses must be called out By Their Actions. Enough with the descriptors and adjectives already.
Robin, While I don’t have a ready answer to explain the reluctance, I can say, unequivocally, that a large swath of Republican votes will run counter to the interests and concerns of those who cast them unless Democrats become increasingly focused and disciplined and not allow Republican deceptions and distortions to go unanswered.
I take that as a given and that's something that won't be understood by many until the consequences rain down. We need to be talking to the people in the middle, especially the ones in the gerrymandared districts.
Robin, While we need to attend to races up and down the ballot, focusing for a moment exclusively on the presidency, I understand, out of 330 million people, 400,000 or so will decide the 2024 election from a handful of districts in a handful of battleground states that include Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and now seemingly Michigan. If I’m right, and given the stakes, I believe we all need to structure our work around this map.
Additionally, I would note, when speaking with voters, I increasingly use the line from American writer Rebecca Solnit “A vote is a chess move, not a valentine.” I find it quite effective, specifically when speaking with the substantial swath of Democrats unenthused about Biden.
Good way to light it up. To the unenthused: It's very plain that Rs don't even know how to govern. Only
22 bills passed this year in Rep.controlled Congress at a time when Biden is qualitatively proposing and implementing however he can to get around their unfulfilled promises- a la McCarthy's agreement w him already broken by Jordan/Johnson i.e. can't even get along in their own party to pass needed bills. The comparison is 362 in ‘20-'21 after Trump and 2 years with Biden. The average since 1789 to now is 200-600. Point out actions - not the age thing, not how they're ‘feeling’ today. It's about knowing facts, working with those because those are the actions that count. People are better off with truth tho they may not realize it yet, or bother to look it up.
They seem to have had a head-stuck-in-the-sand problem (for maybe 40 years now). They always seem to be playing catch-up after the Rs make a move/demand like this. Didn’t they see immigration as a huge issue (hint 1: it always is)? Isn’t there a plan for that?
I suspect Biden and others are waiting for January 1 to big out the big guns and put Biden on the road as much as he can.
Also thinking about televising the trail. What are the chances of putting it on 24 hour time delay? That way we get to see what actually occurred and not depend on what ever news station people choose to watch “says” happened in court that day. I think that will cut down on the circus and let everyone see and hear what happened and if the news the day before was truthful in its reporting.
The GOP now stands for the Government of Putin. That has become fact.
Correct you are, Christopher.
Take the Kate Cox case, too. She wanted the baby -- wants babies in the future. But the extreme Republican ideologues intend to interfere in everyone's lives, as dictators, like Putin.
Many Russians have left that country -- many of the talented, educated young. Partly for the idiot terror and genocide against Ukraine -- but also because Putin and his oligarchs have so robbed Russia that virtually no one can afford to have babies there. Population seriously falls, denying Putin his soldiers and his tax base for the future. Of course, too, Putin has a program in place to kidnap thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian children, raise them as Russians.
Millions of Americans face something similar, being part of working classes whose jobs by the millions cynical U.S. billionaires offshored. The minimum wage lives so many have now leave millions short of a future, like their Russian counterparts. No one's building housing for these Americans. They can't afford babies. The white ones have extra bitterness toward the brown-skinned hopefuls at the U.S. southern border.
Too many parallels between these two countries where oligarchs, nationalists, ideologues, and billionaire thieves terrorize similarly.
GOP as Government of Putin, indeed.
Phil,
A side effect of the abortion ban here in Texas is that medical students specializing in OB/GYN are not applying to Texas schools since they cannot learn abortion care. Since doctors tend to practice in the geographical area of their residency, Texas will soon have fewer new OB/GYN’s and, once again, women (especially rural women) will suffer.
It's not just Texas either. Any state that penalizes a medical practitioner or with holds funding for women's health will suffer the same consequences.
Imagine if Congress were to pass a national 6 - 15 week abortion ban with no exceptions. Hayley already said she would sign a 6 week abortion ban if she becomes President. And so would Trump, DeSatan and Vivi.
Perhaps I am just crazy, but if news were to break that somewhere in the history of Trump and his sons, abortions have been funded--would anyone be surprised?
No, Miselle, of course not. Abortion will still be available for the wealthy who can afford to fly off somewhere and get one. These heinous laws will fall mostly on the poor and the middle class who will be caught like the woman in Texas who has been to the ER already four times, but the doctors there are afraid to do anything. She is lucky that she can afford to go out of state to obtain one. I can't help but wonder what might happen to her once she gets back. Texas is and be increasingly a wasteland for women's health among other things.
Well not you or me - but remember the interview regarding grabbing women by their genitals and exactly how much that influenced his voters?
Not at all. Essentially the white Faux-Christian Nationalists are willing to accept that TFFG and many other MAGANAZI politicians serially violateing the last 8 of the commandments unless they are Democrats or Independents or uppity RINO women like Liz Cheney.
6. "You shall not murder.
7 “You shall not commit adultery.
8 “You shall not steal.
9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”
I’ve never understood the ‘rationale’ for these bans. There are so many ways to minimize abortions that have to do with good health care and education. It’s a one trick pony(sorry ponies) that grabs sentiment without substance.
I heard somewhere this morning that Cox's attorneys (or doctor?) "didn't make their case." Why on earth is a medical decision up to a group of judges with no medical training whatsoever?! Infuriating.
No kidding. Just like the Taliban Trump appointee that banned Mifepristone. His training was obviously in advanced misogyny.
Let me even take that further - I live in a suburb in DFW. I cannot tell you how many people I come in contact with that HAVE NO INSURANCE. And try and find a primary care around here.... Now plastic surgery or spas in your hair salons performing all kinds of "treatments" can be found on EVERY CORNER. Health care is something Texas doesn't do.....
If I were there, I’d move. You might think about it.
EVERY DAY - but then they would win wouldn't they. No I'll stay and try and help out those in need anyway I can. This is a silent war we are waging in the USA
What can we do to help you? I started imagining an Underground Railroad of sorts that would whisk away those in need of locally restricted abortions. It would bring them to the service provider they needed and back again. Now you made it clear this service needs to be applied more broadly to health care in general. Also thanks for your clear minded support on the front lines. Also let’s support Ukrainian frontline battles.
My wife is a Texan. She would not move back there any more than moving to any repressive country.
😔
Corporations that moved to Texas bc greed will find it increasingly difficult to hire people with any intelligence.
Let’s hope you are correct!
No one mentions the effect on the two existing children of what their mother (and father) are going through. That too is important. Republicans do not care about people it seems. Only slogans. Very Nazi.
Virginia, no one mentions the effect of a mother who goes septic (huge ICU bills to pay) or who dies because of the pregnancy.
Well, actually, a lot of people are talking about that. And trying to figure out how to help. 1st: Donate to Planned Parenthood so they have the resources to give needed health care to women right now as women desperately seek t outside Texas. 2nd: write and call your Congressional people if you don't live in Texas and tell them your concern. 3rd: Write letters to the every media you have access to about your concerns, not only about women in Texas, but everywhere in the country about this atrocity toward women. It has the potential to impact ALL of us.
Yes, it impacts us all. We don't hear very much about the "collateral damage" that occurs to the whole family when the woman is absent, for whatever reason. Just as in the case of alcoholism - the fall out or collateral damage is done to many, spouses, children, and extended family, damage not just to the alcoholic.
No woman is safe there, it just makes me crazy-mad and sad
The radical right ideologues don't know and don't care. That they harm real people is of no concern to them. I wish and hope we can find a way for their supporters to see the harm, and understand that they are also the victims of the harm they think is only being done to their (manufactured) enemies.
I don't know...they've shown zero concern for mass shooting victims of any age, or family members dying of Covid because of lies about vaccines. Their 'just gonna have to suck it up' righteous attitude will be their undoing one way or another in the end.
Including the daughter of an obgyn who went to med school in Texas but practices elsewhere. She was planning to also do med school in Texas but that has changed.
Potential correction on that side-effect will happen when TX turns blue.
Do you really see that happening? I don't think the rich, powerful Republicans will allow it.
TX is already quite purple, but voter suppression and ballot tossing is limiting blue voters
Elena, I think you are quite right, based on what I'm hearing from ppl I know in Texas. But you are right about not only voter suppression, but legal and social suppression as well. We can help by donating to groups who are working on getting out the vote, and organizations who are working to overturn the laws on both abortion and voter suppression (ACLU and Planned Parenthood are two that come readily to mind). Even a few dollars a month can help make a difference.
It would be a serious political coup if Texas could go Blue. I lived there for over 60 years, but finally found an exit ramp, so I saw it go from Blue to Blood Red. I just can't believe that it will ever go back; but I lived in areas that were very Conservative. (I could not stand those aggressive, snobby, rich people.)
Shameful policies with maybe unintended(?) consequences.
"Millions of Americans face something similar, being part of working classes whose jobs by the millions cynical U.S. billionaires offshored. "
Now now.
Jack Welch, also known as "Neutron Jack", was the first CEO to fire American workers by the thousands and outsource everything (manufacturing and engineering) to China. Of course, the extra money that was made by GE as a result went into GIGANTIC bonuses for? Yep. Jack Welch.
You can still find the articles in the Harvard Business Review FAWNING over Welch like he was a HERO of Capitalism.
They called him "Neutron Jack" because, after he was done, all of the buildings that had formerly housed the thousands of GE workers were empty. Like a Neutron bomb had gone off.
But, Jack had his GIGANTIC bonuses and Harvard had it's hero.
And the rest of us? Well, the Harvard Business Review cared not one whit about that.
Mike, my father would have read your comment out loud with great approval (he passed at age 93 in 2021). He was a career GE worker and despised ‘Neutron Jack’ and the ‘Harvard School of Business Management ‘ that made GE more about media and stock investments and no longer about product ingenuity and innovation. The new ‘managers’ turned away lucrative work and contracts and intentionally crippled the workers’ plants for tax write offs. Jack Welch was the personification of the disgusting side of unbridled capitalism. His book ‘Winning’ written with his Harvard Review spouse said more about the demise of family values and the middle class than all the culture wars the GOP can drum up.
Heather Elowe,
You are so correct...."no longer about product ingenuity and innovation"...."tax write offs"...."unbridled capitalism".... "demise of family values....the middle class"....."culture wars"....
So much more we could be creating and so much more we could accomplish together if we spent more time respecting one another and working together to accomplish more for the future and wellbeing of our earth and for better care and concern for one another.
President Joe Biden and his team have lots of such good plans for our nation ...for our big and diverse family.... for the well-being of our planet.
And GE Is a much smaller and less influential company than it used to be.
Yes, but those who made money destroying what it was don't care. They are only interested in money and power. This will be the demise of the planet and eventually the elite because all the money in the world will not fix the problems which are staring at us. At some point, faster approaching than a lot of people think, there will be no place to go.
And their products are no longer well made.
This is the time to retell the story of my professor of Medieval French language and lit. He got his PhD at Harvard at 20 and in his 6O’s bragged that he got his degree “while Harvard was still a university,” the year before they put in the Business School. I learned later that the business school also quit its once required ethics course.
I knew a woman who couldn't find a business ethics class so she enrolled in divinity school.
My neighbor in Lincoln, NE was the lead engineer on the GE team that developed the first motion detection exterior lights. He asked me if he noticed that he had none on his house. After shaking my head he said, "It's because they aren't very reliable." I laughed.
He spent his entire career as a GE engineer working mostly in R&D. I'm guessing not many companies spend much on R&D these days including GE, AT&T and IBM. Instead, they buy up startups that develop new technologies.
LOL, I used to be a senior editor at HBR and Welch's wife was my boss before she married him. The people who adored him are like MAGATs -- in their eyes he could do no wrong.
HBR also adored Frederick Taylor, whom they called the 'father of scientific management' and who ground people into bits. Charlie Chaplain made fun of Taylor's inhumane philosophy in "Modern Times."
I thought I could help the captains of industry become a bit more humane via the articles I worked on....but....they are still locked into their cruel zero-sum games.
I quit in 2009.....
GE wasn't the first, but perhaps the first major company.
When Congress enacted legislation in the early 1990's to allow H-1Bs they froze the salary for H-1B engineers, programmers and other technical jobs at $60K if they worked onshore. This was enacted mostly to address the Y2K issues. Offshore talent provided for the programmers were paid $3-7/hour. Many of the Asian (Indian, Chinese & Russian mostly) companies offered them $60K but when they arrived took out money for housing and other expenses so they would pay them much less. And of course Congress didn't index the $60K so even today that amount is the same. This is much like the minimum wage law that works to keep wages down but in the technical sector. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Allstate and dozens of companies have been able to pay American engineers much less because of the H-1Bs and offshore technicians.
Throughout the 1990's I assisted Fortune 500 financial firms modify their systems for Y2K. They LOVED hiring the H-1Bs who often lacked experience and the technical skills to do the job. I worked with hundreds of programmers from India and Russia. Many of them were very competent but most were barely able to understand the work they were expected to do.
You mention Jack Welch-- GE Capital bought in Indians to take over all of their IT work supplemented by offshore personnel with very limited English language skills. The offshore programmers were paid about $5/hour and expected to work 50-60 hour weeks.
But this backfired on GE Capital when they couldn't process their current blocks of policies and had to bring in American consultants to fix their systems Their business knowledge and communication skills were also lacking. After a couple of years, GE Capital cancelled all of their contracts with the offshore contracting companies, most of which were Indian based.
This story was not unique to GE Capital.
I still work with dozens of Indians most of whom have excellent technical, business and language skills. The offshore companies have adapted very well to the offshore model for the most part and the offshore programmers are compensated much better than they were in the 1990's.
But, ever since 1990, American programmer's compensation has suffered because of the H-1B legislation and the greedy behavior of American BODs with the widget mentality that all programmers, engineers and technicians are interchangeable.
I worked for a company for 25 years who was a competitor of GE Appliances. There was a time when they were really considered a "threat" because their appliance business was small (in comparison) and at one point pretty good. All we made were appliances so there was always a fear of a hostile take over of my company. Then, their appliance quality really went downhill. We also had a financial arm like GE Capital. It was quite profitable. There eventually came a time back in the 90's when that part of the business was going to be sold. GE Capital wanted it, but my company wouldn't sell it to them. It was sold to another company that was then purchased by GE Capital. Talk about a slap in our faces!
In the 1980's I worked for a small life insurance company that wanted to grow through acquisition. I was also on a committee that included several other IT people from other life insurance companies. One of the other members of the committee was working for a company that I heard was selling part or all of their business. I asked him if they had had any offers and he replied, "I've lost my last 4 jobs through acquisitions and I'm not telling anyone anything to hasten my losing this one."
End of conversation.
The next time I saw him was about a year later and yes, he was working for another company.
Yes, Mike.
Sadly, yes.
Sadder still, how all of U.S. corporate academe -- all -- acquiesced in the Powell memo's schemes for its silo (and group identity) neutering, and subservience to U.S. billionaire alliances with the Chinese communist cadres, the Putin and Mohammed bin Salman murderous dictators, and all the Orban, Erdogan, Modi, Sisi, Netanyahu, Assad, Duterte, Bolsonaro, and other nationalists competing only with the U.S. billionaire allies in hate-spewing social media.
I lived through the destruction of GE by Jack Welch not as GE employee but as a customer for large rolling mill moters. We came to say, GE stood for "go elsewhere". We did, to Siemens, ABB, Toshiba, who were better suppliers and had better technology.
But the biggest damage Jack Welch did was as a model for other companies. Especially cutting of experienced technical folks. You always have what we used to say were engineers with 5 years of experience 4 times. But you need people like that in large plants, they do a job that freshmen can't.
There was Welch, and there also was immigration, which is another cudgel big biz used to keep wages down.
Just as the GOP is in denial about global warming, the Democratic party is in denial about immigration, with their own form of American exceptionalism that encompasses the belief that we can take in unlimited numbers of immigrants without damaging our country.
There's a book: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck ($14on Amazon). It's scholarly, covering the relevant academic economic literaature, s well as black periodicals, statements of Black Leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were downwardly mobile due to immigration, and yet it's highly readable, partly because the author was a journalist.
The book gives the lie to the notion that there are jobs Americans won't do. The author interviewed a bunch of recently laid off Black poultry workers. Would they take their old jobs back, if offered, he asked them. No, they told him. On the current wages, they'd have to live in their cars, or many to a house.
The same thing happened in a lot of trades. I can tell you that in the landscaping trade, it became impossible to make a bid low enough to get the job if you hired American "American" workers instead of Latin workers, because the Americans required a higher salary in order to be able to live decently, and the Latin workers were living three to a house and under conditions that most Americans wouldn't tolerate. I imagine this applies to quite a few low-wage jobs.
I'm sure it does. Thanks for this personal testimonial. I actually sent HCR a copy of the book, probably almost two years ago, but I've seen no sign that she's looked at it.
Well said Mike. I would add that any CEO who requires that 10% of his workforce be fired each year has a pretty bad record for training and development. In fact, what he is declaring is a failure to cultivate his staff. He is ignoring the costs of training new employees.
And...imagine working for a firm that holds a firing ax over everyone. Imagine how that encourages political maneuvering vs performance.
Jack Welch was a con man menace. A terrible manager.
Mike, thanks for the history. But dissing Jack Welch isn't really helpful right now. Indignation isn't going to fix this unless it is accompanied by strategic action. Talk is cheap. Get active. If you already are, please share what you are doing to change things so other people know about it. Right now that's what matters.
Except more like Putin's useful stooge auxiliary. Evil Putin is certainly no friend of Trump & company, much less a friend of the US. Money just pouring from Russia for the Trump family? Russian spooks working clandestinely to get Trump elected? It's transparently a set up. Are Republicans so high on their own mendacity that that they think that Putin is working for them? Much less America.
And the case of Navalny, now missing, casting a bleak shadow over what might happen to challengers of the noxious maga movement if they are allowed to win.
I’m surprised he has survived this long, honestly.
No, these narcissists are really happy to be in the service of such a big, strong man as Putin. They think they are BFF, but Putin will dispose of them in an eyewink as soon as they aren't useful to him anymore - that's what they don't want to see when they are kissing up to him.
And they forget or never knew how Putin deals with traitors.
"Oh, but he won't do that to ME..."
Those who screw unto others will screw unto you.
Or any inconvenient person.
" but Putin will dispose of them in an eyewink as soon as they aren't useful to him anymore"
The apparent MO of His Orangeness as well.
Right you are, JL! Putin can barely disguise his contempt when he meets with GOP leaders. Remember GWB's soul mate? DJT accepted as truth Putin's lies? Stupidity on display and intensification of danger to our country.
Carmen, thank you for reminding US of that idiotic bit. It’s so stupid that, always looking at W as stupid, I forget that Trump had a start, though maybe as a useful idiot, a head start.
And Putin is dastardly and vain, but he is not an idiot.
Thanks for making that clear. Sadly, I was referring to the US leaders.
"The enemy of the enemy is my friend." White "Christian" men wanting to keep power.
Men anywhere imposing sociopathic dominance, religious or not, though the misnomer "fundamentalism" generally indicates this. It's a weird, perhaps evolutionary throwback to when individual (primarily male) physical strength was an advantage to survival and a marker of status. I don't know why some elements of many societies cling to it so tenaciously; especially "fundamentalists" around the world, such as "fundamentalist" Islam, or Judaism. Moreover I have trouble relating to the idea that the most honorable models of human behavior are the oldest. We can certainly learn from the past, but we learn every day; and pass it on. We evolved to do that. Our arts, sciences, and governments did that. Our lives would likely be much nastier, more brutish and shorter if we did not.
What should we do??
Get out and speak the truth to all people and VOTE
We need the MSM on board as well. They need to start covering all of the Biden administration accomplishments. One front page story a day in each paper and part of the lead-in monologue for each network host.
Right now it's Trump Trump Trump. Enough already.
If you are an oligarchic democracy threatens your power. In order to hold on to power you need scapegoats. And we know who they are. Hard to imagine that the GOP has become the party of Putin (thank you Christopher for that gem). There is something truly amiss with these folks.
I believe they should have had their own DX when the DSMV-TR was published.
One of the arms of Russian corruption is human trafficking. Some of the children are being trafficked and used by pedophiles and sexual predators. If there is a God, may he soon end Putin's days on earth. And now Navalny is missing.
Always, always they bleat like sheep, protecting the unborn but not giving 2 figs for the health of women and minorities. Their ugly misogyny is so transparent, I'm surprised their wives have not sent them packing. But then, they are shameless. I keep thinking of the day when their impunity bites them in the butt. I believe you are correct. There is some associating with Putin in all of their behaviors. Either they worship his power and money or they are receiving rewards for contributitng to the end of democracy, the end of freedom.
Traitors! Every last one of them. I have to keep asking myself, what has become of my country?
I agree! To think that we have someone running for POTUS that is aligning himself and his party with Nazis who my dad went to war to stop is just too much.
I am glad my greatest generation parents have passed away. They would be horrified to see where we are today. They would think their sacrifices to save the world were being wasted.
makes me cry and don't forget the boomer generation of men who sacrificed their lives in Vietnam as we were countering the spread of communism. and the Korean war.
Exactly. Now we know what happened in Germany when people allowed Hitler to take power in an election.
Why are Republicans siding with Russia and Putin and are against funding Ukraine?
They are in thrall to Russia, and in particular to Putin. It would not surprise me to learn there are deals under the table. There is also the oil wealth connection; one of Russia's most valuable resources. Many of the Republicans directly benefit from the extraction economy, too. In essence, they have been bought for the illusion of power and the proximity to wealth. They buy the hype of white male supremacy under the rubric of Christian Nationalism. Following Putin's ruthless example, citizens are only pawns in their game, and human rights are a non-starter. As with MAGA, loyalty is rewarded, but disloyalty is punished quite severely. Every day they seem more pathological.
Its a couple of things: payback for Zelensky not doing what Trump asked him to do (announce an investigation of Hunter Biden). And payment for Russia’s continued meddling in US elections.
It is a terrible betrayal to the American people and our democracy. These people were not voted in to give their allegiance to Putin and Russia.They are traitors imho.
Here is your answer. https://youtu.be/I8P80A8vy9I?si=egHqjvBm28Da7AT5
Yes. It has been fact for a while, but now it has become obvious. They don't even try to hide it at all.
Pride before a fall, is my fervent hope.
Especially with Republicans meeting with the Heritage Foundation sponsored anti-American Viktor Orban get together. JD Vance called Agent Orange America's Hilter in 2016. He also said that if we don't give under educated poor white men something they will vote for a demagogue. Like he did. Yesterday, he said Ukraine is going to have to give up some of their territories to Russia. JD Vance is one of those individuals no matter how much he acquires in life will always be poor inside. He has a spirit of poverty. JD wants a journalist prosecuted for speaking the truth about Agent Orange. Viktor Orban wannabe.
In regards to the Texas abortion case, read page 449 of Project 2025 written by nutjob Roger Severino. It states Viktor Orban policies on families and sex. It's twisted. The whole report is about 996 pages. Happy reading.
Thanks for the page reference, Lisa.
“From the moment of conception…
“Abortion and euthanasia are not health care.”
Yes, thank you, Lisa. The quotation is chilling.
I’ve said it all along, but I’m still not happy about being right on this one… Wish I wasn't.
This has been going on for decades--the RNC is an Organized Crime Syndicate tied to the Mogilevich Russian Mob. Trump has been mobbed all his life; the number of Repugs directly working with Putin, et al amounts to an agency of traitors. YEARS of this--as Hilary Clinton warned: “There is a vast network of right-wing conspiracy seeking to overthrow this democracy.”
Also Guns Over People.
I'm going to steal that one.
Corruption at every turn, here in America, and in Russia. Dems and Biden-Harris must call out the R’s for continuously putting our country at risk. The R’s have absolutely no policies other than to disrupt fundings for Israel and Ukraine and to give their undying support for a wannabe dictator, Donald J Trump. According to Rachel Maddow, on her show tonight, Congress has passed a total of 22 bills for the entire year. It goes to show that the R’s cannot form a thought or run a country.
Jack Smith, today, filed a petition to bypass the appellate court and go straight to SCOTUS for a ruling about Trump and his definition “immunity”. Smith is tired of the many delays Trump’s legal team has been using to bide for more time. I want to experience elation if SC rules against The Don.
Remember Jack Teixeira, the 21 year old Discord leaker of Pentagon secrets? WaPo reported how those papers got leaked, to whom, and how our government officials ignored what he was doing. I am gifting the article here: https://wapo.st/3teYBxm
Zelenskyy is in the US and will speak to the Senate tomorrow. It is essential that he gets the funding needed because, like Heather pointed out, if not, then Putin wins. If that ends up being the case, every single Democrat who we have elected, should be accusing the R’s of being Russia operatives. They must say it loud, clearly, and repetitively!
Joyce goes deep on the Jack Smith filing. It might help me sleep tonight.
Jack Smith seems so...... sane.
I ALMOST totally agree with you J L, except for one thing: Jack Smith, for some reason unfathomable to me, is opposing the law suits to have the D.C. trial of Trump for insurrection televised. If it is not televised, Faux and other right-wing media will spin the results. if it is televised they cannot do that. I think this would be the most highly viewed court case ever, far beyond the O. J. Simpson trial.
(Former Federal prosecutor, Glenn Kirschner, has pointed to 18 U.S.C. § 3771. Crime victims' rights:
(a) RIGHTS OF CRIME VICTIMS.--A crime victim has the following rights:
...
(3) The right not to be excluded from any such public court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving clear and convincing evidence, determines that testimony by the victim would be materially altered if the victim heard other testimony at that proceeding.
...
Glenn Kirschner notes that when the crime is an attempt to overthrow an election, the victims are ALL the voters whose votes the alleged criminal attempted to render void. This argument would seem to make the case for allowing the broadcast of the trial a very strong one.)
If the Colorado case to keep Trump off the ballot (using the 14th Amendment, Section 3 prohibition of insurrectionists who formerly swore an oath to support the Constitution from running for any office) fails in the Supreme Court, and Trump becomes the Republican candidate for President, our last chance to avoid a fascist regime is educating the American electorate. Televising Trump's trial for insurrection would seem like our best remaining hope.
100% agree on live televising of the Trump trial. It not only should be done, it MUST be done. This is too important for Americans to watch to withhold live and gavel to gavel coverage.
The judge can and will control any "circus" that results.
While I'd like to see the trial I don't know about her "control". It seems to this observer that she has already had plenty of reasons to lock him up before trial and still hasn't. With the clickbait media clamoring for another Trumpism no matter how smelly it is, Jack Smith has a point. Do we need to suffer through every lie this piece of garbage will spew into the legal system?
I think we do need the trial, for the reason you cite: every lie he tells will be destroyed immediately on live TV by Jack Smith, making TFG look like the criminal he is. It's the best way to deflate him: letting him puncture his own balloon in a setting not under his control.
Methinks the judge is smart to not jail him, because it makes him a martyr to the jury pool. He will cross the line at some point with a pointed threat at a court worker, and then she can lock him up as a clear and present danger rather than on his "free speech." She and Smith are playing this well, I believe.
I trust Jack Smith. I am sure he has a very good reason for banning tv cameras.
Any human can miscalculate, but I think Garland picked a winner with Mr. Smith. He radiates professionalism (like water in a desiccated desert) and I have always had mixed feelings about TV and trials. I think the case can be made both ways but expect theatrics from the Orange Orifice. Is that better televised, or sketched? Transcribed in the news, or recorded? An interesting exploration of the appeal of Santos ( https://theconversation.com/santos-now-booted-from-the-house-got-elected-as-a-master-of-duplicity-heres-how-it-worked-218742 ) notes:
"Empirical research has long revealed that voters are overwhelmingly influenced by politicians’ nonverbal communication."
This worked almost literally like a charm for selling the inane illogic of Ronald Reagan. the point at which relative reason in modern national politics started really heading off the rails. And the press must be "pressed" to focus on the facts, Mam, not what outrageous ploy Trump tries next; the chess moves or the food fight.
Judge Tanya Chutkan has shown a masterful ability to keep any potential Trump grandstanding under control, so there will not be a circus atmosphere. She will not permit that to happen.
Publishing the entire result at the conclusion will not saturate the public with the reality of the substance of the trial. How many would take the time to go through that record? By contrast, the daily, highly entertaining spectacle would have high saturation. We need it to reach all of the reachable. Our democracy at that point might depend on it.
The thought of Judge Chutkan keeping Trump's grandstanding under control brought another thought to mind: If the trial is televised, viewers will witness Trump in a passive, essentially helpless situation. The reality of seeing that on a daily basis would undermine his carefully cultivated self-image as being in-command and powerful. Could that break the spell over his cult followers? Maybe it would.
Also, media companies are looking at innovative ways to allow the public to be informed.
Live text? My Google Pixel 6 cell-phone/computer does that easily.
A problem is that many of us saw the Jan 6 insurrection in real time, saw the impeachment hearings, watched the Jan 6 Committee. We know what we saw and heard. But who saw those or ignored them or didn’t give a rip and support the MAGA candidates anyway 🤔? No change except maybe more bombast.Boggles the mind and pains the soul. The short clips from the trial will be spun any way the media wants them to be, and those who might profit from seeing their guy squirm won’t be watching. Sorry to be cynical, but the recent past pretty much confirms this.
Core MAGA are "hypnotized" by cult dynamics, but we need to rally all the support we can get. Many people tell me that they deliberately ignore politics to stay sane; understandable, but democracy can't survive on that. We are in the midst of a clear and present danger. Mitch McConnell et al seemed to glory in not even needing to try to go though the motions of a due process in the Trump Impeachment voting. A crap precedent for sure, but I think the Jan 6th Committee hit the MAGA's where it hurt. I saw it as a turning point in our passivity in the face of corruption. It bothered the "GOP" enough that they cast out two of their own, and Liz Cheney has not stayed quiet about it.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth has, is, and will be Trump Truth.
Trump Truth is an oxymoron. It's also double-plus ungood.
Trump Truth, which his followers believe in, despite the Real Truth. They will never cave in.
Trump's Truth has always been " truth as I see it."
What a distorted view. Unvelievable!!
Rachel noted of the 22 bills passed 1 was for a Commemormive Coin, 2 to rename medical buildings, 3 for Budget CR's & a bust of Alfred E. Newmam with the motto "What Me Worry".
JACK Smith's Perition was GRANTED. SCOTUS ordered Trump's Reply due by 12/20/23. Spring Trial is on Track. : )
So idiotic, these bills that have no teeth!
MEDIA must say it loudly, clearly, repetitively & NOW!
Repetition works for big lies; but it's also part of learning. I believe social movements gain by keeping the uncomfortable in our face; until it registers.
Call outs, call outs, call outs. I wouldn't even call them "Russian operatives". For one thing, Russian operatives seem more canny than that; but they are certainly playing the fools in Putin's games; and they are a frickin' threat to US and world security. Why oh, why oh, why would we take the side of Putin? It's self destructive!
It is self destructive to support Donald Trump
That's what his cult members have- "self destruction" and they don't even know it.
What has "Reaganomics" done for and what has it done to, the bulk of the "GOP" supporters?
Do they not consider that Putin would like to rule far than Ukraine? That his dream is to rule America.
Certainly more of Europe for starters. People there are terrified.
Deja vu?
"Today, 75 years later, Hitler is regarded as one of history's great villains. So it's easy to forget how slowly and reluctantly the worlds most powerful democracies mobilized to stop him. France and Britain did declare war on Germany two days after the invasion of Poland, but it would take them another eight months before they engaged in full-scale war with the Nazis. The United States wouldn't join the war against Hitler until December 1941, a full two years after the war began.
Why did Adolf Hitler invade Poland?
Hitler salutes as he oversees troops during the Nazi occupation of Poland. The troops march in formation toward a wooden bridge, constructed by the Nazis across the San River, near Jarolaw, Poland. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The short answer is that Adolf Hitler was a ruthless dictator with dreams of conquering all of Europe. Annexing Poland was a step in that larger plan. The Polish military wasn't powerful enough to resist him, and Hitler calculated — correctly, as it turns out — that Europe's other powers wouldn't intervene in time.
The invasion of Poland occurred almost exactly 25 years after the start of World War I in August 1914. That war ended in Germany's defeat, and in 1919 the victorious allies carved up territory that had been part of Germany, Austria-Hungary (Germany's defeated ally), and Russia (which had fallen to the Bolsheviks) into an array of new countries.
After World War I, the allies took territory away from Germany
This map shows how World War I reshaped Europe. The red lines show the new borders drawn by the victorious Allies at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. (Fluteflute) Fluteflute
One of these new countries was Poland, which before 1919 had last existed as an independent nation in 1795. Another was Czechoslovakia — its awkward name reflects the Allies' decision to combine areas dominated by two different ethnic groups, Czechs and Slovaks, into a single nation.
Hitler was contemptuous of these new nations, which he regarded as artificial creations of the Allies. There were significant German populations in both countries, and Hitler used trumped-up concern for their welfare as a pretext to demand territorial concessions."
https://www.vox.com/2014/9/1/6084029/hitlers-invasion-of-poland-explained
There was a huge number of anti-Semitic supporters of Hitler in this country. They were loud and proud, held public meetings. Charles Lindbergh was one of them.
It is creepy, especially given the experience of the horrors of WWII how much of a wink and nod extreme right gets in the US, such as Ammon Bundy (though he seen more resistance recently).
Can we publicize that Putin is KGB trained, an inheritor of Stalin, gulags, and kills as easily as he brushes away a crumb? I hope we don’t have Murza and Navalny to mourn as martyrs at Christmas, though both are in mortal danger.
Trump is a wannabee dictator; Putin is one.
Marlene,
Thank you for the link on how Teixeira obtained the very highest access to the most secret information the US has. And then posted it to multiple places on Discord where it has been disseminated world wide.
I wonder if our military is now recruiting far right young people as part of its recruiting efforts?
Like the Nazi's did prior to WW II.
It can happen here.
Scary, isn’t it? How did this very disruptive kid with a past like his, end up with being able to access government secrets? A few heads have already rolled and I imagine more will also.
Unconstitutional spending is a violation of their oath to protect defend the constitution and every legislator who votes for it needs to pay the bill instead of expecting the people they represent to be responsible.
These ‘legislators’ need to be voted OUT of office next year. I hope they have opponents for reelection who are effective in their voters.
Marlene -- Right on!
I'm thinking Joe needs a communications professional for messaging and how to maximize the "Bully Pulpit" that is part and parcel of the Presidency. Likely (just speculating ) that such a thing as bully anything runs contrary to Joe's nature. I can imagine that growing up with a speech impediment made him a frequent target of bullying, and thereby "imprinted him." In contrast, "OiD" was / is a bully by nature, so used and abused the bully pulpit effectively to his (it's) ends. That must change !!! *Calling Dr. DPR ! Get on the 'bat phone' to Joe, Doc ! Lol....
A year and a half ago, the worst Supreme Court in my lifetime issued one of the single worst decisions in our Court's history. For the first time ever, the U.S. Supreme Court retracted a right that it had previously granted, a conditional right to bodily autonomy for women to decide their own reproductive choices, and a privacy based right that was relied upon for generations of American women for fifty years. I have long been troubled by the very concept of abortion, finding it as the recently departed first female Justice Sandra Day O'Connor did, most troubling.
Yet far more troubling is the very idea that a right of such piercing intimacy and incisive importance could be washed away after half a century, based not upon newly discovered scientific evidence, or new facts, or even newly refashioned argument, but simply due to the fact that the Court's membership had changed.
Stare decisis be damned, privacy be scoffed at, women be patronized, and dignity be sent to the increasingly burgeoning servants' quarters, while Messrs. Alito and Thomas decide what's right for All.
Harry Blackmun's months of monastic scholarship in the bowels of the Mayo Clinic Library which led to the agonizing illumination of Roe v. Wade, meet Sam Alito, fresh from the gilded salmon boat with Paul Singer, and blithely quoting out of context medieval text proffered for him by Leonard Leo.
Ah but the States, please you liberals and secularists, the States will decide.
The State of Tejas has certainly decided, hasn't it?
Pardon my mixing metaphors from Heather's Letter of tonight, but I'd much rather have heard that Alexi Navalny was freed and that Ken Paxton was lost somewhere in the dank, never ending labyrinth of the Texas prison system.
Daniel, Like you, I worry about a High Court that would ignore 50 years of settled precedent in Roe, and would overturn a fundamental right relied upon by tens of millions every year. But, I also worry that a court willing to do that to a protection, over and over again reaffirmed, will do it to other fundamental protections.
They have already overturned the Voting Rights Act. And now Jim Crow is back in fashion in the southern US.
Matt, While, as you indicate, the VRA nearly has been entirely gutted, I would expect, if we don’t vote in more Democrats and expand the Court, increasingly more protections wedded to social democratic institutions will be scrubbed, and, of course, the people who most will suffer likely will be the most disadvantaged.
Not certain that Jim Crow ever really left the South.
To get stare decisis restored we must vote in Blue then get 4 more in SCOTUS who can make up 50 years and go forward.
Republicans have fumed about "legislating from the bench", but as in everything the do, they cover the ugliness of their actions by accusing everybody else of the crime they commit, while spreading a cloud of Orwellian, self-righteous fury. Current Republican "justices" were sent as saboteurs, not guards nor students of the Constitution.
Must be those mirror neurons causing their projection.
The wrong mirror neurons: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the MAGAest one of all?
The mirror neurons are reflecting back their projections.
Women may not act in accordance with their conscience
-- will they count for their owners as 5/8 of a human being under the new dispensation?
-- physicians are not permitted to practice medicine freely (the medical needs of their patients determined in advance by politicians on bases having no connection whatsoever either with said patients, with medicine or with any cause apart from political manipulation);
-- judges may not exercise judgment, verdicts and sentencing prejudged (prisons, especially private ones, MUST be kept supplied with slave labor);
-- teachers and librarians may be fired (or worse) for exposing children or even adults to literature or information placed on the Index by their political betters;
-- states' rights alone count, not those of the federal government, and states rights are to be determined by those in power, regardless of the Constitution of the USA or citizens' wishes...
State's Rights really don't count, either - as evidenced by the Republican push for a national abortion ban.
Well, they've said it again and again -- nothing else counts, only winning. And plainly, winner takes all, so there's no need to trouble with what to do after having won, it's whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want it...
The "morning after pill" should be over the counter and readily accessible as it almost was until that, too, was halted. To me, it's hard to argue that taking it is an abortion, but of course, someone has. No one need know, no others are placed in jeopardy such as doctors and people willing to transport, and no harrassment at the clinic entrance. At least in this case, it's "one and done."
I'm less than halfway through Tim Alberta's book “The Power, the Kingdom, and the Glory,” but it has become clear to me that Christians in America feel that they are under attack, and so they feel justified in being dishonest (in self-defense dontchaknow) and using DJT as their secret weapon.
I've made some more progress in reading Tim Alberta's book, and, so far, at least, I accept his explanation that Christians in this country are genuinely panicked because they believe that the U.S.A. should be a Christian country. That is to say that their beliefs should control the country, to the exclusion, in setting policy, of all other faiths and philosophies. And they sense that the special consideration and influence that they have long enjoyed are slipping away. So, they feel threatened and are fighting to preserve their power, by any means necessary. So, they feel justified in following the dishonest, godless buffoon who is leading them in battle. [Tim Alberta didn't say all of that. I drew some conclusions from the recent history that he recounts.]
They all—whether individuals like Putin, Orban, Tr*mp, or Netanyahu, or nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or groups like Hamas, the Taliban, the KKK, or The OathKeepers—share the same zeal and obsession for denying OTHERS (women, people of color, the LGBTQ, immigrants or those who hold different religious beliefs, or none at all) every one of the freedoms, they want to reserve exclusively for themselves.
There is NO hypocrisy—only a deep-rooted belief and value system where a wealthy, well-connected few distract (through endless culture wars and faux-aggrieved victimhood), and divide (by stoking fear and hatred), to ensure they don’t ever have to pay what they owe, or be held accountable, all so they can hold onto their power through minority rule, and the denial of basic democratic norms and everyone else’s fundamental human rights.
This is fascism, no matter its label (MAGA or Nazi), country of origin, or dear leader...and this is the enemy we must ALL stand against, each and everyone of us who is on the side of justice, equality, and freedoms...
Let’s not forget about the religions which have long supported their endeavors. Religions and the elite (those at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy) have had a symbiotic relationship since antiquity. Religion is part of the framework holding the socioeconomic hierarchy in place.
If there truly is an All Powerful God, why are there starving and dying children and why does this evil continue to flourish?
Faith is no longer a good enough answer. Evil is alive and well amongst us and our only hope for survival is to speak out and stand up against it. Everywhere not just in these safe forums with those that are the same. We can refuel here and then go out into the world and speak out loud to everyone. Strangers in the shops, clerks in the stores, worshippers in the churches, teachers , coworkers and friends. We no longer can sit angrily and idly by. These fascists with their magas are going to steal our freedom. Then it will be too LATE.
"If there truly is an All Powerful God, why are there starving and dying children and why does this evil continue to flourish?"
Good question and the Protestants, at least, have an answer at the ready which appears to quell their own doubts about the existence of God instantly.
That answer??
--> God Granted mankind "Free Will". Now, NOWHERE in the Bible does it say this clearly. However.....
--->The Protestants let God off the hook for all the bad stuff on earth, and, there is, as Trump might say, A LOT, however, the Protestants simultaneously give God credit for all the good stuff.<---
Georgia Girl, there you have it. Everything good that happens to you? God.
All the bad stuff that happens? Satan or Human evil.
I wish my wife looked at my faults and banished them so easily.
And? Guess what? The folks pushing for Fascism ALSO think that Trump is God's chosen.
If all of the above seems head spinning and daft, well, I did not invent it. But, people did.
And Mike Johnson declares himself their Moses
Mike Johnson needs to get lost.
Yes! And when he hits on George Washington Zelenskyy over money, it raises my hackles!
You and I are of same thoughts. I just want for those like us to tell the truth to ALL of God’s children. No empty explanations. Just living the example
That's why the Romans wrote the Bible, 350/400 ish AD.
I would say the Romans and the Greeks assembled the Bible led by a Greek guy named Athanasius.
Much of the current Old Testament prior to that was assembled and actively utilized by those living in the current areas known as Israel.
A Greek guy named Athanasius then assembled, in Greek, the bulk of what is known as the New Testament. At the conference of Nicaea which was indeed sponsored by the Roman leader Constantine.
But, Constantine's mother was Greek.......so....I am sure he identified more as Greek than Roman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria
I once read the entire collected works of Athanasius. Very interesting fellow.
He never uses the term Satan or otherwise outsources "Evil".
In fact, in his writings he refers to "Evil" as OUR CHOICE to take the low road over the high road.
The Father of the Bible did NOT believe that "The Devil Makes us Do It".
Pretty interesting fellow this Athanasius guy.
Not helpful to write such gross oversimplifications.
And "gross" doesn't begin to describe this one.
There's a word for spouting about what one doesn't know:
SUPERSTITION.
The Catholic Church was all too happy to take Leonard Leo’s millions . . .
True, but were they really Leo's millions if they were grifted from MAGANAZI's?
Like Rick Scott and Matt Goetz, who buy each election with money stolen from the Federal Government Medicare & Medicaid systems.
Make that orgainized religious sects following the beliefs of their leadership.
It’s more than that. Since antiquity, elites have permitted religions to practice, funded them, and supported them as there was something in it for them. That something is social influence/control. Religions help teach a social order which benefits the elites. They also ignore the sins of the elites, and demonize certain groups - independent / intelligent / non-conservative/traditional women, Gay/Lesbians, those of other religions, and anyone else the elite deem enemies.
This symbiotic relationship helps keep both in power. Democracy takes away their power by redistributing some wealth & power to the people and by providing a safety net and protection from abusive employers. Religions gain followers by being needed by people to calm their fears and help them when they’re needy. If people have the power to help themselves, they’re less dependent upon religion.
I never imagined we'd be fighting the same war my dad did.
Just when you think the GOP can't sink any lower, they do!
It's time to use the word traitors to describe them. Cowards and enablers who are afraid to do what might bring a Trump-favored primary rival have forgotten that they pledged an oath to the Constitution, not to a wannabe dictator.
Using the word traitors to describe the MAGA leadership?
How miserably inadequate.
In Russia suchlike would not even be labeled "foreign agents". They'd be dead.
And this is the kind of regime you may soon have in America. Unless people can be dragged from their drugged sleep.
The fascist GQP are domestic terrorists and there isn't a bottom to how low these cretins can sink to. There seems to be no end to this appalling insanity from them.
The RNC is an organized crime syndicate with Russian mob ties. They even have a division involved with foreign meddling that works with Russian spy agencies. Where do you think people like Manafort, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, Ron Lauder, and the rest were spending their time over in Hundary, Czechoslovakia and Ukraine?
"pledged an oath to the Constitution, not to a wannabe dictator."
Words to carve in stone. The word that works for me is narcissists, but there must be a less technical synonym. They are self-centered, self-serving, self-righteous bullies. They are proud of cheating to win, and indifferent to the harm the inflict on America, on our nation, and on many, many individuals; immigrant families destroyed by losing a child, families grieving for a family member who could have been saved from COVID, victims of racism an slander aimed at people such as Ruby Freeman and many others. They have torn a page from the playbook of Joe McCarty and carried it even further than even he, for dishonesty and absence of decency.
Narcissism has become epidemic in this country. I see it everyday-among many young white men, and among elected leaders who forget that they are elected to serve we, the people. Tfg normalized this form of insanity and it has taken root here in Florida in alarming ways. Thanks to Desantis, we are the next Hungary, with Texas not far behind. Narcissism, wealth consolidated to provide an “above the law” mentality, an agenda that allows rights for “me but not for thee”, and more-a cruelty, complete lack of empathy, inability to hear reason or to engage in civil discourse-it’s all here-like it was stated above, I can not believe this is my country anymore. The Biden Administration is doing great things, but their inability to articulate that above the loud lies of the GOP might help Republicans murder democracy. They aren’t only killing our Constitution, but they are killing the most basic tenets of community and humanity we have tried to nurture in our families and communities. The very basic values of honesty, integrity, kindness, and compassion are being destroyed right along with our Constitution. The fact that they have hijacked the name “Christian” and use it for their purposes is one of the worst things of all-there is NOTHING of Christ in them. I am grieving for my country.
Malignant narcissism has always been a thing, and black and native people have seen some of the most malignant forms of it. My perceived right to rob you of your unalienable human rights puts it right up in to the red "danger" zone, even in even more seeming civil encounters. Any sort of abuse or bullying, and our former President Trump just loves to bully.
I suspect that the more than doubling of world population in my lifetime makes it harder to maintain a sense of cultural community without fragmentation, yet that is essential to our aspirational way of life. I also think we are fools to allow commercial motives to dominate the character of our mass media. I am no foe of commerce, but excessive commercialism encourages infantilization, social disengagement, and over-identification of well-being and status with consumption. I see it in myself. I see it in the ongoing "vibe" of my region, as the decades pass. We are unique individuals, AND we are members of a whole society. Both. If human society perishes, so does our whole human sentient take on it, the realm and compass of human experience.
😘
And most of them are pro-birthers but never say a word about the MAGANAZI politicians that pretend they follow the laws in the Bible. Do they really think the convicted rapist Trump has never committed adultery or bore false witness against his neighbors?
Human egos appear vulnerable (some, apparently more than others, and I think certain styles of nurture have a lot to do with it) to a "supremacy" complex. The universe is thought to revolve around the Earth, our particular race is the "master race", and male gender the master gender; our preferences are also God's preferences, and God has singled out our country, or even our specific denomination, ands even me as His favorites, perhaps the only people worthy to live. Is that not ego gone malignant, and usurping our "better angels"? The tendency is to see and condemn it in others and not in ourselves; and I suspect it infect most, if not all of us in some way; certainly myself included. Yet it can also be largely balanced and contained by integrity, conscience, and compassion. I would not apply those latter terms to Trump, and too ,often those who seem free of conscience are able to summon the narcissistic "Mr or Ms "Hyde" in in many others. Toxic ego slants everything; e.g., torture is execrable, except when we do it.
We have an ego for a reason, ego Latin for "I", but it is social suicide, and becomes suicidal for our whole species, to allow it to be the only thing that matters.
And they will sink much, much deeper with enough electoral clout.
I hate to "like" that comment. It is true, totally true, but I'd rather be able to "agree" rather than "like" such a horrendous truth.
Yup, they can, do, and will, without adequate resistance. Like climate change, we have been kinda passive while it kept becoming palpably worse; but we're approaching tipping points. We can't afford to take it anymore.
And now, something else horrible—the chair of COP is/was from an oil producing nation, and wants to keep fossil fuels flowing!
The fact that he was from an oil producing nation is less troubling than his resistance to rapid transition to alternative sources of energy, like having a Philip Morris exec. chair a conference on lung cancer.
The Russian news celebration of the Republican cowardice being a victory for Putin should be turned into billboards in the districts of EVERY one of the corrupt traitorous GQP slime that are creating this latest outrage.
GOP = Putin's playthings.
Bulletin boards- good idea. Let’s start on the language part.
"Did You Know?" series followed perhaps monthly by
"Presenting The Facts", then
"How This Affects You", then
"What Are Your Choices?",
then "(name) Proposes..."
Recently someone posting here used the tag line "how it works" to focus on any single Biden/Democrat accomplishment and its effects on real people. I thought at the time that this would be a good billboard scheme, filling in the accomplishment blank with something good for the nation or even something local to a state/county.
It is not governance they, the GOP, seek or exhibit. It is the power a bully seeks and exercises out of fear of being found to be truly outdated and obsolete. They are acting out fear, and that makes them dangerous because they will do anything to keep things as they once were no matter how wrongheaded they once were. It is up to those who have faith in a free and open society to take the lead and wake the nation up to the realities of what’s at stake. So far, they are failing.
Keep it up Steve.
Just waking up, politically, one of my neighbors will be a huge effort... but will teach me gentle persuasion.. kindness and attentiveness always win out... my message is: “We are all in this together...”let’s get creative and build something for our little town..something that will be useful for years to come for everyone here now...
and all those new ones old and infant, too
Starts with a ‘dream’ I’ve heard... my anger has never delivered anything but distress and hurt.. this pulling apart of everything I’ve celebrated for my 80 years in our ‘advanced’ country requires more effort from ALL of us ... to win hearts and MINDS to make the changes that can support ALL who are here now and those many brave enough or otherwise forced
To leave their homes for safety and a new opportunity to live in peace. WE HAVE TO HONOR our history... we are from immigration 99% of us... historically...
Pray and carry your message of hope
There is absolutely no good news in Heather’s letter….tonight…..really just about every fiscal ‘delay’ helps the Russians, weakens the US and jeopardizes the Ukrainians AND NATO. OR weakens basic health care protections in severely challenged pregnancies OR challenges some other basic tenet of democracy …ending on the note of Nalvany’s disappearance from Russian records…and quite possibly from life itself.
Well, I respect Heather no end for not just giving us the good news, but giving us the truth! (I know we all do, that is why we subscribe.)
We must be strong, strong as the Ukrainians, strong as the Palestinian children, strong as the Israeli hostages....let our love give us strength.
Excellent comment!
And Action
I’m going to ignore Heather’s 1950s cringe-worthy attempt to demonize Russia in her otherwise laudable critique of GOP extremism, to give you, and other commenters here, some good news. You’re welcome.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-google-loses-antitrust-case?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=11524&post_id=139710776&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eov1&utm_medium=email
I am a former Foreign Service Officer who had experienced the importance of NATO during the Cold War and fervently believe that the Biden-organized coalition defending the sovereignty of Ukraine against Putin’s brutal Greater Russia invasion is a post-Cold War imperative.
In October President Biden had submitted a legislative request for a budgetary supplemental for $110 billion, of which a majority was for imperative military assistance for Ukraine. At the time, I considered it unimaginable that, more than two months later, this $60 billion would be left in legislative limbo.
The Trumpists are threatening to hold this $60 billion hostage to a cockamamie insistence that a not-yet-on-the-drawing-board massive immigration program be enacted. I find this a despicable hostage/blackmail stance that brings to mind then-President Trump’s ‘will-he-or-won’t he’ pull the United States out of NATO. [Putin must be chuckling.]
I do not watch television news. I am gobsmacked that, in the media—New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, The Guardian—in recent days I find NOTHING about the prospective legislative betrayal of our commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty or that Congress is on the cusp of a long Christmas vacation.
Instead, recent headlines have focused on how three female college presidents mishandled ‘genocide’ in a rambunctious congressional hearing.
Even Mitch the Switch McConnell has pivoted from his previous 100% support for Ukraine. While President Biden is bringing President Zelensky to the White House, Trumpists are hosting Vicktor Orban at a conference where his anti-Ukraine/pro-Putin commitments will be highlighted.
As a kid, I recall how isolationists were appalled at the thought that Franklin Roosevelt would provide imperative military assistance to Winston Churchill’s England, that was standing alone against Hitler-occupied Western Europe. England survived, was the launch pad for D-Day, and Hitler was defeated.
I have a similar anger at those blackmailing Trumpublican legislators. STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL YOU AUTHORIZE $60 BILLION TO PERMIT UKRAINE TO MAINTAIN ITS SOVEREIGNTY.
ANYTHING LESS I CONSIDER TREASONOUS!
Thank you, Keith.
Keith is our current Foreign Service Officer ... Officer.
And I so appreciate his perspective and experience!
You remember history, if only the repubs did.
Well said Keith
Thank you Heather. It is remarkable that all Americans, regardless of political party affinity, aren't furious that the leading GOP Presidential candidate has given, and continues to give aid and comfort to Putin, an adversarial enemy of the US. And the GOP publicly embraces Orban -an enemy of democracy. This has been ongoing since Trump directed convicted criminal Flynn to undermine sanctions against Russia for their illegal annexation of Crimea, and their documented interference in the US elections.
I do hope the women of Texas -as well as fathers of daughters, grandfathers of granddaughters, and everyone else understands what has unfolded in Texas. In the 21st century, forcing someone to travel out of a legal jurisdiction to obtain a necessary medical procedure evokes historically ignorant and egregious decisions predicated upon when a society prioritized religious beliefs over scientific facts and evidence. If Texas (or any other State of the Union) wishes to return to the 6th century -they should do so, and relinquish any scientific advancement since the end of the dark ages in the 15th century. I'm certain the 'Justice' Alito can help them resurrect the witch trials which he enjoys referencing in his religious proclamations masquerading as Supreme Court decisions.
It is even more remarkable that all Americans aren’t furious that the current POTUS gives, and continues to give aid and comfort to occupier Israel in its commission of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and collective punishment in Gaza.
Oh, right, Israel is our friend, while Russia is the commie villain we all must fear.
American propaganda is the best. We’re #1!
Interestingly, people can be concerned by more than one thing at a time.
Interestingly, people’s concern, over one thing, more than one thing, or many things, can be manipulated by government propaganda and narrative. The degree to which Americans have bought into the story that Ukraine is all about Putin, or more absurdly, the threat to NATO, is indicative of how easily information can be pushed/suppressed to control the masses.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/12/11/ukrainian-maidan-massacre-false-flag/
How are things going for you at the Internet Research Agency https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-muellers-indictment-reveals-about-russias-internet-research-agency?
Sounds like you know Putin far better than I do. Are you saying he's just a big misunderstood teddy bear?
Unless...
You sing in a band critical of him.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-puts-pussy-riot-member-international-wanted-list-tass-2023-11-07/
You are a sovereign nation with some territory he would like to annex.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/03/13/russia-s-real-aims-in-crimea-pub-54914
You are a political opponent.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/02/jailed-putin-critic-alexei-navalny-faces-new-charges
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-navalny-removed-prison-colony-whereabouts-unclear-supporters-2023-12-11/
https://apnews.com/article/russia-crackdown-protest-putin-ukraine-dissent-f0006697d93d3d0553c5ccec5abbdd0f
You are critical of him and are gravity challenged.
https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/22/accidental-defenestration-and-murder-suicides-too-common-among-russian-oligarchs-and-putin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/
Winter is coming and Putin is making sure Ukrainian people have no heat.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/06/ukraine-russian-attacks-energy-grid-threaten-civilians
Well done, George!
Cute. Especially for someone who ‘writes leadership matters’.
I’m not saying Putin is a big misunderstood teddy bear. You should know better than to write that, even in an absurd masturbatory lead in to your ‘I’ll show this guy’ with my ‘Putin bad’ links list.
Pussy Riot? More cute. And Putin is worse than Biden keeping Julian Assange in prison how, exactly?
Thanks George, for making my point. Hope things are going well for you at Hamilton 68.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/05/28/most-propaganda-looks-nothing-like-this/
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/06/16/why-propaganda-works/
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/in-a-world-ruled-by-propaganda-a?publication_id=82124&isFreemail=true
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-illusory-truth-effect-and-the?publication_id=82124&isFreemail=true
“ Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in “agony” and that it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.” One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!” Another: “Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.”
Truly HORRIFYING!
It appears to me that the “domestic terrorists” aligned with Putin (AKA the MAGA GOP) is getting stronger not weaker. Recent polls show Trump way ahead in Iowa (gaining something like 8 percentage points in the last month).
I know it’s not possible for President Biden to declare we are at war with this internal threat, but I believe he needs to explain even more clearly than he has to date just what kind of sociopolitical dynamics we’ve got going on here in America. He says this is a fight for “the soul of America,” but that phrase is way too church sermon like for me. When terrorists take a country hostage, stronger language is required!
"He says this is a fight for “the soul of America,” but that phrase is way too church sermon like for me. When terrorists take a country hostage, stronger language is required!"
TOTALLY AGREE!
Thank you. It’s almost as if Joe Biden doesn’t want to name names… because he worked with a lot of these people before the GOP lost its mind. I think for the good if the country he needs to get angry. He never seems angry to me. Senator Schumer has this problem too. Always being polite. Well, democracy may die because the Democrats won’t take the gloves off!
And every one of US needs to explain this in whatever ways work for us, not leave it to Biden alone.
If u read the WH postings by GQp, it is alarming that so many care to vilify Pres Biden
This is one of the scariest letters I've read. I shouldn't read it before I go to bed.
Truly has me all angered & fear-filled. On a Monday evening. Got to turn this all over to god/hp/PowerGreaterThanAllofUs here...
I think any higher power would say "you humans are making this mess, you fix it". WE have to do the work. Turning it over to the gods doesn't help at all, it creates passivity. Please know that I am not attacking you, Carol O, I understand the human need to do that, it is ancient. But it doesn't stop fascism. The gods didn't end the Holocaust, the sacrifices of the Resistance and many grunt soldiers from many countries stopped it.
Yes, our anger is real, I feel it and the fear too.....yet we also must find love to use as our motivation if we are to survive. Let us find inspiration in those who resisted Hitler, those who were beaten in Birmingham AL in the 60s, the Texan woman who had to leave Texas to protect her body, the Ukrainians defending their freedom. Let us feel our love for the children in both Israel and Palestine and resist for their sake.
Meanwhile, let us sleep well so we have the strength and the love to carry on.
As a Unitarian agnostic, and former condensed matter physicist, I couldn't agree more. If gods exists, they they have to be present in this universe. I don't doubt there are higher beings than humans somewhere in the vast expanse that is the known universe. But how will they communicate with us in a timely fashion given the speed of light and vast distances in the universe!
Sorry to go on a rant, but I believe consciousness is local and there is no mystical conscious superpower that commands the entire universe! That said, consciousness itself is no doubt some kind of miracle that none of us understand, including physicists!
Higher beings are smarter than to associate with us.
Matt Fulkerson, thank you! I love your "rant".
I once-upon-a-time was a Unitarian agnostic (raised as a UU) and now I am just an agnostic. One who WISHES that I had had the math aptitude to become a physicist. My atheist neurologist doesn't realize he is really an agnostic, but I suspect he is when his eyes shine and he gets sooooo happy talking about the beauty of physics and the mystery of consciousness. Your post reminded me of him.
He said he also didn't have the math to be a physicist and he encouraged me to read lay physics books to keep my brain strong. Do you have any recommendations?
Also, regarding Carl Sagan, Al Gore, and even disgraced Minnesota Senator Dave Durenberger (redeeming himself in my opinion!), watch this video on a hearing in the 1980s on global warming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI
This is the most important issue by far of our generation and those thereafter. Besides that, politics will always be an issue of course.
For an entertaining read, check out "Surely Your Joking, Mr. Feynman", by Richard Feynman, one of the great physicists on par with Newton and Einstein, just a lot better at math than either of them!
Many of the books written by physicists for non-physicists I find interesting, but craving more. They typically don't go into the math. And also, putting myself in the laypersons shoes, I'd probably be mostly wondering what the heck they are talking about.
And so I'd definitely recommend all of Carl Sagan's books. They are inspiring for everyone!
A wonderful gift .. your words here
Denee,
Prayer may often have degenerated into childishly begging gods for favors but I got the impression from Carol O's first piece that hers is fulfilling the invaluable function of putting one in touch with one's truer self and striving to do the seemingly impossible.
Does it matter how one achieves the aim of bringing fellow citizens together on the understanding that we are all in the same boat, and sink or swim together?
*
It's for sure that we'll need the inspiration of our highest faculties but I just saw Carol's second note and that I can see only as a desperate call for strength in the face of the ordeal we all face.
I still sympathize but... we are all One... and therein lies the force on which we must draw in coping with self-appointed tin gods and their benighted followers.
Depends on how we pray—do we ask God to fix everything or do we ask for strength to endure, to see clearly what our individual roles are and to ask for faith to go forward when everything looks to be stacked against our efforts?
MLMinET,
That's more or less what I was trying to say, very well expressed. Except, you don't even have to be a deist or formally religious to find true inspiration. That could be an immense help, yet both approaches could also be a hindrance if ego gets in the way.
I'm referring to what I've seen, to good examples. And to human beings of whom I've read, like Etty Hillesum.
I misquote but it's worth it. "On the seventh day, God rested. He looked at his work of creation and said, "Oh, well, it was only a six-day job." I love being irreverent.
No offense but from what I have seen of God’s action thus far in my life. We truly must stand up and take action ourselves or nothing will be done. These Godless men who are aiding and abetting Trump aren’t winning because of their silence.
Note that the last news reported is that Navaley is missing. If Trump is elected, we can expect to see many Americans go “missing” and people dying because politicians, not doctors, decide your medical care for crazy and cruel ideological nonsense. Texas’s Attorney General is worse than Dr. Mengeles.
Exactly
Jeri, it may be too soon, but is there a backlash from the TX SC saying Kate Cox’s doctors are not qualified to determine if she should be an exception to TX’s no exceptions rule?
The evil Texas trio rule. No human characteristics, ever
"Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in 'agony' and that it was 'difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.' One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!' Another: 'Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.'" SHAME ON THE REPUBLICANS!! How is this not a betrayal of our nation? And what ought the punishment to be for this despicable behavior?
Traitors should go to prison.
The Orange Sadist said that execution was the appropriate punishment for traitors when he was speaking of the man who helped save our democracy: General Mark Milley!
We can extrapolate can’t we?
As with so many LFAAs, tonight’s is packed with reasons why voters should vote for Democrats. The problem, in my view, largely rests with leadership’s seeming reluctance, baffling from my vantage point, to travel the country, seeking to show, especially those who doubt that Democrats care about their interests and concerns, precisely how the Republican far-right blueprint runs counter to virtually every aspect of the public interest.
The Dems have a niceness + a fear problem. We're in the trenches now. They're using scare tactics to fund raise when people are already in fear on both 'sides'. Speaking truth is essential - don't water it down and don't lecture. This is not a "It's going away because enough people will come to their senses by next year" time.
Bullies and ignoramuses must be called out By Their Actions. Enough with the descriptors and adjectives already.
Robin, While I don’t have a ready answer to explain the reluctance, I can say, unequivocally, that a large swath of Republican votes will run counter to the interests and concerns of those who cast them unless Democrats become increasingly focused and disciplined and not allow Republican deceptions and distortions to go unanswered.
I take that as a given and that's something that won't be understood by many until the consequences rain down. We need to be talking to the people in the middle, especially the ones in the gerrymandared districts.
Robin, While we need to attend to races up and down the ballot, focusing for a moment exclusively on the presidency, I understand, out of 330 million people, 400,000 or so will decide the 2024 election from a handful of districts in a handful of battleground states that include Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and now seemingly Michigan. If I’m right, and given the stakes, I believe we all need to structure our work around this map.
Additionally, I would note, when speaking with voters, I increasingly use the line from American writer Rebecca Solnit “A vote is a chess move, not a valentine.” I find it quite effective, specifically when speaking with the substantial swath of Democrats unenthused about Biden.
Good way to light it up. To the unenthused: It's very plain that Rs don't even know how to govern. Only
22 bills passed this year in Rep.controlled Congress at a time when Biden is qualitatively proposing and implementing however he can to get around their unfulfilled promises- a la McCarthy's agreement w him already broken by Jordan/Johnson i.e. can't even get along in their own party to pass needed bills. The comparison is 362 in ‘20-'21 after Trump and 2 years with Biden. The average since 1789 to now is 200-600. Point out actions - not the age thing, not how they're ‘feeling’ today. It's about knowing facts, working with those because those are the actions that count. People are better off with truth tho they may not realize it yet, or bother to look it up.
They seem to have had a head-stuck-in-the-sand problem (for maybe 40 years now). They always seem to be playing catch-up after the Rs make a move/demand like this. Didn’t they see immigration as a huge issue (hint 1: it always is)? Isn’t there a plan for that?
I suspect Biden and others are waiting for January 1 to big out the big guns and put Biden on the road as much as he can.
Also thinking about televising the trail. What are the chances of putting it on 24 hour time delay? That way we get to see what actually occurred and not depend on what ever news station people choose to watch “says” happened in court that day. I think that will cut down on the circus and let everyone see and hear what happened and if the news the day before was truthful in its reporting.