As soon as President Donald Trump took office, his administration froze great swaths of government funding, apparently to test the theory popular with Project 2025 authors that the 1974 law forbidding the president from “impounding” money Congress had appropriated was unconstitutional.
…And yet too many Americans think that corrupt people like Trump and Musk are finding so much corruption that whole functions of government are corrupt and are to be stopped.
Biden policies did not distinguish between red and blue states. Trump makes obvious his unequal approach to punish blue states.
This is a time for heroes to stand up to this developing idiocracy.
Remember G.W. Bush trying to say that? "Fool me once, shame on you, food me twice . . . well, you can't fool me twice." He couldn't bring his small, narcissistic self to say it.
Hey we’re adults here, we can handle ‘piece of shit’ as a great and powerful device to note what is happening and that it’s been true for a while…no more Puritans! People have sex, we act out our liberal faith, we are diverse with in the very human race, and our diversity and resiliency come from this wondrous humanness. And yes we can swear when needed…oh, and women are even more fully human and without whom none of us would exist…time to honor the Mother of us all! Make them responsibility for their horrible behaviors and the consequences of their actions!
As is her pattern, Maine Sen. Susan Collins seemed poised to be a No vote on Trump's worst nominees. And has now caved. There'd be no purchase in primarying her, although she does rely on well publicized pork Maine gave 3 of our 4 electoral college votes to Harris, however after round-heels Susie found an excuse to vote for Kavanaugh, our neighbor Project 2025 funder Leonard Leo held a fund raiser for her. Please raise your voices. Vote No on Gabbard, Patel, McMahon.
I fail to see how those fools do not realize how badly this will end for them. If they have any sense, they know that the populace of America will not stand for being thrown into poverty and chaos. They are on a fools' errand and are at the bottom of the food chain. They will be the first to suffer at the hands of those they are failing to protect.
Screwing the farmers should be a deal breaker for KS, IA, etc. Eventually the rest of the country will be affected. There is an interesting fellow I came across in TikTok (something I never watch), a farmer in SW MO, who took the time to explain to and reach out to a young farmer who was quite misled by rural RW media, and did a bang-up job. His name is Will Westmoreland if you want to hear a voice of sanity.
ML and it will not be just the farmers, but also their communities and states. I did see on a thread about the farmers, some who were adamantly insisting that they did not vote for death star. Unfortunately, they are in the minority. One of the things that I like about today's letter is how even CEOs and banks are frazzled. They like stable, not chaos.
Yes,they are fearful but they need to grow spines. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Voldemort expects undying loyalty but will turn on them in an instant. Just look at how he treated and talked about Mike Pence and Bill Barr (just to name a couple of his former allies). The minute they wouldn’t do his criminal bidding he did his best to destroy them. Pure EVIL.
Celeste k., your comment: “ If they have any sense, they know that the populace of America will not stand for being thrown into poverty and chaos.” “THEY” already know that the populace will stand for being thrown into poverty and chaos. It happened to them during the cheat-o’s first term. And what did “they” do? Elect him again. Cult worship rationalizes away the pain and chaos and makes it feel like a religious pilgrimage.
In the first term, life sustaining programs and such were not on the chopping block by an outsider being given the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. This time will be bad for those who were conned with outrageous empty promises with, unfortunately, the rest of us. Maybe in the long run, whoever is left standing will remember how true it is that we are all in this together. I simply don't believe there are that many cult worshippers willing to starve along with their families for the sake of one flaccid old man and his drug addicted lackey.
It IS fear, celeste k. When 'he' released (pardoned) the Gestapo from prison, the understanding among the 'quiet' Republicans (NAZIs) was "toe the line, or else". They are in fear of their and their families' lives.
By choice, Sen. Susan Collins morphed into a jellyfish – devoid of spine or integrity – an insult to the memory of Margaret Chase Smith. Mainers deserve and should want much better for America.
Gary, we must spread the word, a la Paul Revere, that next year -- on April 19, 2025 -- we will mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. And a year later, on July 4, 2026, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country -- the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Later that year will be the fall midterms.
These are meaningful observances that should be used to rally an opposition, starting now. What an opportunity: the linkage is a perfect PR message.
I live a bit more than a half-hour away from Lexington and Concord, and I expect that there will be gatherings of protest on that day (Patriot's Day in MA) and I plan to attend.
Of the three Tulsi Gabbard is the most dangerous. She like Trump gets her information from Russia and shares ours with the Kremlin. Why anyone would vote for her confirmation. Now why Susan Collins did not break ranks.
The answer is survival. Fear of being hounded out office and losing all the riches rank and privileges that go with it. Susan Collins is no different from all the rest. Our of fear for the loss of these things, all Republicans will stand with Trump come what may. They now are a captive crew aboard his ship. Don't expect any to abandon it.
Some referred to threats even in his first term. But you’re right—they’re worse now that his own personal militia has been released from prison. Mary Trump has said tfg is a coward but always willing to say “let’s you and him fight.”
Indeed. Trump's own private militia, on standby, "locked & loaded," awaiting orders from the fascist strongman. Also, the Kash Patel-led secret police (just like Putin's).
Seems to me, by their inaction, a lot of democrats are complicit for the same reasons. After more than 50 years as a registered Democrat, I switched to Independent. As a progressive, why I want to be seen as supporting party which isn't?
Done! All 7 offices contacted. You made it eeazy-peeazy by providing those phone numbers! I saw a video message from AOC yesterday reminding us that contacting our members of congress ( and other people’s members of congress when helpful) is an action that non-democrats outperform us by about 4:1. On hot button issues it’s goes up to 11:1 according to political staffers. So one of the major reasons that the crazy right-wing agenda gets amplified is because WE miss the easiest opportunity to civically engage: by making a phone call. I have resolved to step up and call, call, call. I did it today while drinking my morning tea.
Collins is scared. We all should be. She’s not just scared of being primaried. The coming AI disruption could be catastrophic. Once out of the power structure of an authoritarian regime, she could lose everything. She should have stood up a long long time ago. Hope she got herself a good deal from ‘Elon’.
Sad , isn’t it that Susie Collins, Lisa murkowski and??? NO ONE??? What traitors they are, folding to such an incompetent, evil man. I shake with rage every morning!!! Undoubtedly they confirm Kash Patel and tulsi gabbard. The republicans are not worth spit !!!
Tulsi Gabbard lied to the Senate committee when she said she was not aware "until today" that a prominent Syrian cleric that she met with had threatened to unleash suicide terrorists on the U.S. She lied under oath and it is provable. Republicans who vote to confirm her need to be held accountable the very first time an American is injured or dies by terrorist activities in the U.S. And even if we can avoid a terrorist attack, Tulsi Gabbard should go to jail for lying to Congress. What kind of cowards have Republican voters sent to Congress?
We cannot rely on senators. DEMs are outnumbered and Republicans are threatened by Trump. Only organized protests of voters can save America. Lincoln said divided house annot stand. Our choice is to become servants of King Trump or go down with t he country, unles we succeed in taking back the government.
As the mid-terms approach I suspect that there will be quite a few ready to go public unless Trump gets a grip on inflation. There are already grim warnings from the Federal Reserve. His territorial ambitions have very little to do with the price of beans.
In other news today, from a post by the Alt National Park Service (Facebook):
“What the actual *?! The White House has designated Mr. Musk’s office, the United States DOGE Service, as an entity protected from public records requests and most judicial intervention until at least 2034, by classifying its documents as presidential records.”
Aside from suggesting that the President can throw a cloak of secrecy over anything and everything he does, and share that cloak with anyone, what this amounts to is the announcement of one more way in which Trump and Musk and their conspirators intend to defy court orders. No court they say can know what they have or what they are up to. Why ? Because "it's classified" ?
The records of a conspiracy to overthrow the lawfully government of the United States ? A fictitious arm of government ? Or a confidential alter ego ?
This imaginative government records disappearing trick won't stand the light of day in court
Legal acts in pursuit of an illegal objective are considered a racket and are illegal. If our legal system holds, this “protection order” will eventually be overturned. In the meantime, the very foundations of are democracy are being undermined. Being “woke” to reality has become extremely painful.
This is almost too poetic. "Gulf of America" describes exactly what Trump has created since the moment he began campaigning for President in 2015. I cannot recall a time when this country was more deeply divided, beyond just political or philosophical differences -- it seems to have metastasized into profound differences in morals and fundamental values that divide us.
If anyone needs to be fired, it’s tRump. What gets me, is that in any other paid position, if you deviated from your job description and started running amok, hurting the business, you’d be fired by your employers. And if I’m not mistaken, the American people are the ones in charge of hiring and firing presidents. Maybe this has slipped his mind. As Napoleon once said, ‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’
Trump and his BFF Musk think they are free to ignore the law at will. Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon has had worse effects than he ever imagined.
Blue state residents have already been punished by capping the state and local tax deduction. And so some of us blue state residents are taxed twice on the same income.
Trump and Musk froze USDA funding for farmers as HCR states. EVERY state is an agricultural state.
And by dissolving the Department of Education, who is going to pay for the Special Ed programs? Are we all willing to pay an additional $1,000 or more in property taxes for special education and for the other programs or are we going to integrate these kids into the classroom with the other kids.
Democracy Labs is using your suggestion of highlighting Musk's unpopularity tied to how if affects people's every day lives - especially in red states. In each case there is a link to Musk's DOGE boys and the congressperson / Senator for the district which being hurt. So it becomes clear to a farmer (say) hurt by the shutdown of USAID why he is suffering and who the elected rep to hold accountable it. The blogs and maps are being published twice a day in line with the latest Musk outrage.
American farmers ruined by Musk killing USAID: Check this map
And for the record, special ed covers a range of behaviors and aptitudes. 2 of my grandkids are extremely bright yet have needed paras in the early grades. My 6th-grade granddaughter (who read at middle school-level when she was in 2nd grade) no longer does. She loves Greek mythology, knows all the gods, and is learning Greek through Duolingo.
Most of the kids with special needs are already integrated into the regular classroom; they just have access to help. Without out those funds they won’t have access to help.
And their minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Trump loves to bring in H-2Bs and pay them slave wages and Bezos does everything he can to screw the Amazon workers. Walmart also pays as little as possible wherever they can and then fight the local communities to not pay their fair share of property taxes.
BUY LOCAL. It's time for a general strike agains the oligarch owned businesses. If you have to pay more for groceries at a local chain, do it. Walmart takes in 1/3 of the money spent on groceries in the US and is implementing dynamic pricing so they can drive their competition out of business by instantly lowering the items the other grocery stores are putting on sale.
Let's support the companies that aren't trying to dismantle the federal government.
Buy nothing if possible but if there is something essential buy from a small privately owned local business. We have enough time to prepare for this so stock up now!
I am lucky to have several WinCo grocery stores in our area. Even though an Albertsons store is nearby (like, less than 2 miles) as is a Fred Meyer (aka Kroger), WinCo is an employee owned grocery chain that has a remarkable selection of everything.
Here's an online 'discounter' I use. They are wonderful !!! They don't have everything, and not the same things every time, but everything is fresh, sealed, AND free shipping over $50.00, which is real easy to reach. https://martie.com/. Check them out!!
The Opinion essay presents a plausible roadmap for Musk’s grand plan: first, neutralize oversight; purge gov employees, third: reshape:replace the Agency and Department employees with a new information ecosystem through AI-driven platforms; and finally, establish a new paradigm where control is exerted not through laws or elections, but through the manipulation of perception itself. The first “squeeze” is the purging of departments and federal agency employees—clearing the way for AI-driven governance to take hold. As Orwell warned:
“We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”
Ted, this is one of the most terrifying posts I've ever read. If this is true, we may have no choice but to either urge secession by blue states or flee individually for someplace that is actually sane. I will not live, ever, in an AI-driven Orwellian nightmare.
I called my (MAGAdly rabid) rep’s office yesterday. His aide told me, first, DOGE was actually an Obama creation under another name (!!) and (second) that there was even more waste than we even knew!! He took offense when I said President Musk though I also said President Trump. So much for an oath to the constitution.
Yes,I agree.I have several “ friends” on Facebook who are extolling the virtues of Musk and Trump’s feigned interest in cleaning up wasteful government spending.These people are not grasping at what is really happening.This wasteful spending is Trump, Vance and Musk taking control of our country’s purse strings which is something that only Congress can do.This is a constitutional crisis of epic proportions.
That needs a small bit of extra info - the Republican members of Congress are complicit in any damage done by them. The Republicans in Congress are also voting to confirm all the dubious dodgers and liars Trump nominated for key leadership positions in his regime who will enact his treasonous agenda against America and Americans.
They are winning the DISINFORMATION WAR ! We must fight back in every conceivable way we can. THIS IS IT ! This is our future as democracy on other line.
Pray tell, where are the voicers of the Dems in both the House and Senate who are not yet speaking in outrage and using every tool at their disposal to impede America's own version of the 'Rape of Nanking'??? Frankly (and, regretfully, I need to say so, in proud respect for what HCR is daily doing for us right now), most of the comments here so far today don't reflect the full weight and power of her posts for the last three weeks. We can think better and more pointedly and more completely than the posts I've read until now, can't we???.
Trump does not have the brain power to sign all these executive orders. They were all prepared ahead of time by the Project 2025 creators and just put in front of him to sign. And like any good puppet, he has done so. He does not have the bandwidth to think ahead or even consider the consequences of his actions.
"We are in a Constitutional crisis. There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.” Dean of the U.C. Berkeley School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky.
DEMs should forget about minor issues such as DEI now. They should focus on the fact that the voters did not vote Trump as he is conducting now. He deceived them. Deceiving people who he deals with has been his life and now he has done that to voters. DEMs should start voicing in unison "We want to take our government back from Musk to the people." There is no more democrates vs Repbulicans.
Heather I raised this question on your FB page but figure you’re unlikely to find it buried in the pile.
I wondered how many of these orders you feel are likely to have been written by Trump vs having been constructed by others - such as Vought, Vance, Musk, etc - and just plopped in front of him to be signed.
A lot of this stuff seems beyond Trumps brain power and too “in the weeds” to actually be of much interest to him. I doubt he knows that many of these departments exist , let alone the names of those who run them.
More consistent with Trump’s character and capacity would seem to be the outlandishly grandiose ( buying Gaza for a Trump development) and the petty (firing the extraordinary musician Jon Batiste from the board of the Kennedy Center because he’s black and has latex at the Super Bowl).
You have a good grasp of it: T**** could not have come up with all this moving and shaking of the government without considerable help - which is pretty obvious in the influence shown by the authors of Project 2025. Rachel Maddow had a good list tonight of the appointees of T****: a list of a couple dozen folks who had two things in common: a) a distinct lack of competence for the job for which they had been chosen, and b) had recently lost at least one bid for elective office. And he could not have found them all by himself: he had to have major help. As for the Gaza Trump resort, that was an idea probably put in his head by Jared - he of the $2B gift from the Saudis.
Yes, I’ve imagined the “bros” sitting around the drinks table at Mar-a-lago tossing out the most outlandish cabinet picks they could imagine as a test of how quickly and successfully they could own republican members of Congress (and of course the incompetent, corrupt tools who could never otherwise have dreamed of occupying such lofty positions)
Goes deeper than that. By having incompetence lead each department and agency, it just makes their case stronger to replace the core of the federal government with AI systems to manage and execute government.
But they write the code, holding all the keys that open all the resource doors as they see fit. Congress is obsolete to them. Peter Theil told us democracy was obsolete. Now I know what he meant.
Reagan was sometimes jaw dropping out of it during his terms, enough that journalists noticed it, though many laughed it off as lovable. We now not that he was likely suffering early Alzheimer's. I don't have an evidence based picture of how much of "The Reagan Revolution" was cooked up by hyper-wealthy plutocrats, but it was their interests Reagan best served. He seemed better suited for his "B" movie acting career that a cunning master strategist.
Yes, JL, it certainly seems that the worst of all this has its roots in Reaganism. He got elected because he lucked out with the Iran hostage event and Carter's failed attempt to rescue them in a timely way, and then lucked out again with the arrival of Gorbachev in the USSR.
I remember him as a classist, racist MF, first in a growing list of incompetent recent GOP Presidents.
And Americans have no one to blame but our intellectually lazy selves.
Depends on who you talk to I guess...he was transparently cramming the fashy lies down the state's collective gullet. Just a warmup for the national stage.
Regarding the Iranian hostage crisis, there is the 1980 October Surprise theory that suggests Reagan's "luck" had more to do with Republican back-channel interference. Which seems suspiciously like a prototype for the delay of an Israeli-Hamas truce, producing the same electoral result.
Doonesbury comic had many panels about the presidents’s brain. I miss that strip and the other comics I used to read. It helped to have several that kept you aware of the cognitive distance in the political world.
Tho not a comic strip. Jon Stewart really gets to the meat of the problem and adds some humanity to soothe your jangled senses. He has excellent guests, too. Always informative.
trump, like Reagan is a useful puppet. trump wants to prove he can get away with anything, that’s his narcissism playing out. And most important, he wants to stay out of jail. He, like Reagan, is totally selling out democracy. Why? Becasue he can. And laugh all the way to the bank.
Well said J L but Reagan barely qualified as B movie actor but you can't deny he started to roll back on all that made America great. Other people just had to keep pushing this country down the hill and here is where we are. This is their last push and our last chance of stopping them.
I'd bet the farm that the answer to your question is, "All of them." The First Felon is a figurehead, a wind-up machine programmed with some general directions and a few inflammatory outbursts for the day to blurt out and riff off of, the more hateful and outrageous the better. He cares not about policy, ideology, geopolitics, or any other big ideas. He wants only to line his own pockets and enjoy the trappings and ostentation of his office forever, all at taxpayer expense, and in the course of that do the least amount of actual work possible.
I suspect that you are correct. I doubt that he has anything approaching the requisite intelligence to author these orders. He’s just the user interface, not the operating system.
Don't know what you're specifically experiencing, Mark, but here's one that happens frequently to me: there is a specific command that uses the shift key and something very close to it (control or function, I suspect) that deletes whatever you've written. If you catch it right away, control z will restore it.
As much, if not more, than any of them, the role of Goebbels clone Stephen Miller is central to Trump's emphasis on fear, cruelty and hate. Miller now has more power than he ever had before.
(As a former mid-high level state official, it was clear to me that every busy high government official, including the very scrupulous ones (there are many) has >LOTS< of help, and substantially depends on those he / she chooses to trust, of the smarter and more knowledgeable staff, friends, friends of friends - one often even needs the expertise of 'interested' parties. In most domains these others have the most knowledge, no matter how 'smart' you (think you) are.
As someone brought in from another state, I was also substantially dependent on ALL the people passed over in my hiring... remarkably skilled and professional, they were.
But yes, in short, T. WROTE NOT ONE of these E.O.s. Not his thing, not his capacity, & candidly, not his role.
As Mark Proulx expressed most eloquently above, "He's just the user interface, not the OS."
BUT T. chose whom to trust & empower, and THEIR WORKS ARE HIS RESPONSIBILITY.)
As Grover Norquist so clearly stated around 1999, "We have everything in place. We just need a President to sign the legislation a republican Congress sends over. He was referencing the next GOP POTUS anticipating GW Bush as he saw how easily he signed things over in Texas.
Like all executives and Presidents, Trump’s papers are drafted by staff members. The bosses who can read review the drafts and make any needed changes. Trump is able to find the right line and sign his name.
I think you are exactly right. Trump is quite literally out in the weeds on the golf course. Much of this is constructed by others following Project 2025. There are evil people in the world driven by greed and power. Musk is certainly one. And our tax dollars are paying him!
Penny, I believe that Musk is NOT being paid any kind of salary in his “DOGE” appointment but rather is paying himself by way of the treasury computers by eliminating payments to his competitors and funneling ever more government contracts to himself. One suspects anything described as “corrupt” or “fraudulent” or “wasteful” is merely spending on his competitors or on anything from which he doesn’t benefit.
How about the picture on his FACEBOOK page! Head and shoulders shot of him against a deep concert hall background, hands raised as if calling the orchestra to attention. He should have had the "hair" sculpted to look like Bernstein.
He needs a cone-shaped wizard's hat like Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"; ocean waves and the heavens dancing in response to his tiny waving finger.
I did not watch the game, and I am delighted with the outcome. I am a traditionalist when it comes to the National Anthem, and usually cannot stand anything other than a crisp rendition, in 3/4 time, at 110-120 bpm, preferably instrumental and if sung, it is sung without vocal embellishment. Jon Baptiste's version was in 4/4 time, varied in its delivery, and had some vocal embellishment... and was stunningly beautiful.
Yup, fully agree with you, Amy! AND, Stephen Miller is a Dangerous Dude. But, the “reversing” of the renaming of Fort Bragg is notable, as well. Biden renamed it Fort Liberty, and Hegseth just “renamed” it Fort Bragg. The reason Biden got rid of Fort Bragg is because it was named after BRAXTON Bragg, a West Point graduate who fought for the Confederacy. Hegseth (and Trump) are obviously in agreement with Biden - shocker, but the press is not covering this very well. Hegseth only returned the BRAGG name, but for a different guy. As reported by Newsmax: “The new name honors the heroic service of Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II veteran awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his extraordinary bravery during the Battle of the Bulge.”
NOT for Braxton. It’s for Roland - although the spin is basically - See??? We OWN the Left.
Tr-mp doesn’t write these things. He doesn’t even read them. Somebody tells him what they say, and he gets out his marker. The guy is merely the auto-pen for PrezEM-usk.
Yep: Stephen Miller (whom Andy Borowitz described the other day as "going directly form his bar mitzvah into Hitler Youth) is the author of most of them, I suspect, and the Felon in Chief has not read any of them.
I can't remember ever having used a toilet that could have consumed a whole sheet of paper, much less dozens, without clogging. Whatever happened to the White House plumbers? (Whoops! Wrong Republican administration.)
That made me pause, too. The only way I see that working is ... you want a visual? I'll give you a visual!
Donald standing in front of the toilet, his pants and boxers around his ankles, tearing each sheet of paper into strips, tossing them into the pot, waiting for the shreds to get soggy and limp, then flushing.
Somewhat remarkable that such a POS could even flush the toilet really. But then Donold does seem to have some weird Freudian obsession with toilets beyond the obvious treason and criminality of flushing sensitive information(or squirreling top secret/confidential documents away in the bathroom next to the toilet).
Rants about low flow toilets. Gold plated commodes that epitomize the felon's extreme tackiness, tastelessness, baseness. A torrent of executive orders, bureaucratic sabotage, constant, incessant insanity and kakistocracy in the ongoing nightmare attempt to flush our entire Nation down the toilet...
Stealing is not part of his “official duties” and the extreme court had better come to understand that. Otherwise, we can just ignore them because they are bought and paid for corrupt judges. Their ridiculous decisions are an embarrassment to the concept of justice. I think the blue states, however many are left, just need to ignore everything going on…deportations, agency closures, firings, etc. Just disregard all of President Musk’s orders. Ignore any orders that Pam Bondi issues because she is a f&ing liar! The MAGA GOP has failed the people of the country, the law, the constitution and their oath of office.
We had a naked tRump statue here in Seattle and I wanted to take some brown shoe polish down there and Rump it as well as tie a sign around his next...Felon #PO1135809.
He has a golden toilet in New York I think. I think of a toilet when I think of him and not a golden one!
Hold Republicans accountable for their action. We mapped the farms hurt by Trump shutting down USAID. This is overlaid the Congressional rep and Senator for that area. Makes it easier for farmers to hold their rep accountable. The map also includes the major ports hurt as exports of USAID shipments come to a screeching halt. Elections have consquences...
American farmers ruined by Musk killing USAID: Check this map
As a retired historian I take the long view. I would not want to be a Republican senator or representative, nor would I want to be the feckless and tone deaf Chuck Schumer at this point. History will be pointedly critical of this Supreme Court, and I can only imagine that the electorate will be considered as anything more than as a frothing Roman mob. It will not be kind to Dems (good morning "honorable" Sen. Fetterman!) who still don't understand that they must oppose with every tool they have. It will not be kind to those who, through a distorted logic, as Masha Gessen wrote yesterday, are compliant.
All of this reminds me of the lines from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises on going bankrupt. How did fascism come to America? First gradually, then all at once.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
Aut pars republicana delenda est aut res publica americana morietur. Tempus fugit.
"Either the Republican party must be destroyed or the American republic will die. Time flies"
You think the Republican Party is still alive?
The American people need to realise that there IS no "Republican Party" left. It's all "MAGA!" now. . . if you vote Republican, you're voting MAGA - even if you think your a nice patriotic person.
It was a hostile takeover by the insurgents of a third party. MAGA Is a third party and we still have a two party system. The Republicans are gone. Now the MAGA strongman is only as strong as the Democrats allow him to be. They need to get off their backs and fight. Now.
Not exactly Daniel, the neo nazis have at hand infinitely more powerful tools of mass communication and knowledge to use them than the originals ever dreamed of.
Facebook, X, Truth Social, FOX, right wing radio. All Hitler had were the rallies and the people’s radio receivers. Very sophisticated propaganda tools.
@ Daniel. Yes it is a new NAZI movement. When you look back at all the events since the year 2,000, it is a lot of trauma packed into the last 25 years. People are running to anyone who promises safety and a return to prosperity. If we didn’t see it coming, it is there out in the open right now.
I think it goes back at least another 25 years before that, Jack. When Ford pardoned Nixon, you could almost hear the light bulbs turning on in all the power-hungry racists around the nation. Couple years later, they got their polished mouthpiece in Ronnie Ray-Gun, and we've been sliding downhill ever since.
Sympathetic to Andrew Marvell's take on the subject, in To his Coy Mistress, ending "Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run."
The sooner we face the fact that Trump, Musk, Russell Vought and Project 2025 are out to break the United States the better, because it is only then that we will really be able to fight them. If we kid ourselves that they are either not serious, or not dangerous, or similarly rationalize their behavior, we are enabling them. We have met the enemy and it is them. Their pretense of “efficiency” is merely camouflage. Don’t fall for it.
Yes! Our nation is under attack by those who seek to destroy us. These traitors have drunk Putin’s and Orban’s cool aid and have given up their will and honor to be suckled by the Big Orange Pig. While the power thirsty Tech Bro Oligarchs pull the strings. It is a full on attack. Donating to legal groups and calling to urge our Senators and Representatives to stand up to the attackers is good. But definitely not enough! Our quandary is when do we take to the streets in force? And will that be enough? The educators and senators who were turned away from the Dept of Education. Next time they must just push their way in. No more decorum. But what else is needed?
False equivalence. Context is everything. Insisting on entrance to a government agency building is not the same as breaching and vandalizing the seat of government while terrorizing and murdering the public servants tasked with protecting and finalizing an election.
It’s hard to believe that anyone buys their bullschittery. Efficiency is just for the MAGAts who have had brains eaten by worms. Camouflage is the game they are playing. W played it too, but Dems never caught on.
It's also Chuck Schumer, who, as recent majority leader of the U.S. Senate, could have called a vote on whether to clear the orange felon of insurrection, or to leave Article 14, Section Three in force.
If the fat orange felon hadn't gotten the necessary 2/3 for clearance from insurrection, he would have been disqualified from any elective office anywhere in America.
I don’t agree that Chuck Schumer is the enemy. Calling him that to me trivializes what Trump, Musk, Russell Vought et. al. are doing. There doesn’t seem to me to be any equivalence here at all.
William, I think about half the population are already facing the facts of what's going on. The other half would never do that out of ignorance and cultism. A percentage of this last group that was mistaken but not too stupid will start feeling the pain of the policies being implemented as we speak and reconsider. Maybe.
We can give up on those who support Trump, Musk and company, or we can try to convince them they made a mistake. Giving up means we change no one’s mind; trying means we at least have a chance to change some minds—and maybe all of them.
I think we are in agreement William. We can show them the right path forward but they need to feel the pain of their decision first. It's painful to recognize we made a mistake and there're psychological mechanisms to cope with that, namely, denial and rationalization.
So much of Heather’s yesterday yet speaks crucially to our crisis today.
Such as key reminder: “Congress alone has the right to make laws. It alone has the power to . . .” – and here she specifies more exactly. As if we still had laws – as if even our elites might abide by them.
Let’s not forget our newest who now put themselves over laws: our young geeks, nerds, gnomes, incels.
They’re ours: products of our schools, social media, plastics in everyone’s blood streams, highway carbons, dark money billionaires, and mega-corrupted, multiply-perjured Clarence court.
Mike “Howdy Doodie” Johnson approves. All Republicans – spineless, ignorant of history, dehumanized – also approve”: applaud, lie, cover for criminality.
Putin, Xi, Kim, Orban, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Modi, Sisi, Milei and all their consort even more warmly approve.
Trump held a car boot sale for rulership of the US and Muskolini bought himself a "ticket to rule" for a mere 270 million dollars. So that was the price of American democracy... Putin must be laughing his balls off, and Biden must be crying a hole in the ground watching these stooges break down everything he built up in four years in just two weeks...
Yep, and that crash is exactly the idea. Then who profits the most when the economy crashes? Precisely. It's the insanely rich who become even more insanely rich every time the markets crash...
Like the poetry and appreciate the wit and wisdom regarding speaking to the humanity in the ‘other’, (sometimes) even more than speaking reason to those who can hear.
But I still have hopes for reason in speaking to the humanity in others… and here’s another clever bit on that front:
Reason by Josephine Miles (1911-1985)
Said, Pull her up a bit will you, Mac, I want to unload there.
Said, Pull her up my rear end, first come first served.
Said, give her the gun, Bud, he needs a taste of his own bumper.
Then the usher came out and got into the act:
Said, Pull her up, pull her up a bit, we need this space, sir.
Said, For God's sake, is this still a free country or what?
Mark, you cannot reason with unreasonable people. Reason will not penetrate the dis and mis information that they sup on and take as absolute gospel. You cannot respectfully show/tell/explain them any information, statistics, data that runs contrary to their sincerely held beliefs. Facts do not supersede belief.
For a moment I thought you had forgotten Venezuela 's Maduro from the very elite list you compiled but then, I remember we bought him in a deal to send back Venezuelans in exchange for oil that we don't need. Such a good step forward for our allies building policies. Proud to be American.
If Trump and his minions don’t obey the rulings of the courts, which i believe is likely, then who will enforce the law against them? This situation is becoming increasingly intolerable.
Yes, if the co-presidents refuse to abide by the court’s orders and the court orders the US Marshal’s Service to force compliance (the US Marshal’s Service is under the DOJ and the executive branch) rotted pumpkin will simply order them not to abide by the court’s orders. We are standing on a dangerous precipice right now.
George was looking sadly from his wall portrait in the Oval Office at a smiling Clarence Thomas giving the oath of office to Plastic Pam Bondi. Who knew Clarence could crack a smile. Poor George.
I respect Liz's integrity wrt the US constitution. But I don't support her political positions as they were in the past. Jamie and AOC are great. Philips is young and talks sense.
I was coming to HCR's Substack to make this very point. And to wonder if Roberts and the Justices will be as easy to be steamrolled as Johnson, et al. The SCOTUS doesn't have to worry about Trump/Musk/Shanahan's threats to run someone against them in a primary. Will they give up their power as easily? However, if the answer is no, who will enforce the rule of law? As Vincent has pointed out, the situation is becoming increasingly intolerable... and volatile.
Find your info on substack, bluesky, community organizations, your trusted peers, and foreign public & reader supported press like The Guardian. Read widely, believe nothing without broad substantiation.
Commercial MSM is for sale, and always has been. PLEASE! spend your limited remaining attention under self-direction. Forget the MSM.
Vincent, the answer to your is: nobody is going to enforce the laws and they know it. That's Congress job but we don't have a functioning one. That's why they are playing rough and risking very little. Sorry to say.
We are now seeing what is possible when a common thug who also happens to be a convicted felon has the power that comes with the Presidency. Like all criminals he surrounds himself with either other criminals who think obeying the law is, to use his term from another context, “suckers and losers “ or totally inept operatives who will do whatever he wants. As bad as he is the Republican Congress members are worse - they know he is lying and an existential threat to our entire system of government and yet continue to rubber stamp each absurd lie he utters.
He must feel rejuvenated. "You're fired", all day and every day, and nobody's thought of telling him it's not real - he can't do that. Although the Law, that battered watchdog, is now shaking itself and baring its teeth.
Orgasmic all day every day. He did say at one point that each presidential day would be like an episode of the very best tv show, with him vanquishing his enemies…
If he's a common thug, how did he beat us? He did not 'happen' to win.
Eyes open, please, this is a bloody serious and complex fight with some of the most capable disinformation purveyors in the world, and at the moment they hold considerable power, but not all.
Lots of people have already been hurt; likely even more people will die, perhaps many.
We need to understand not what they say, but how they persuade, and then do better.
We need to know that ?half of those who voted for him, are more like us, if they had our information.
And still no acknowledgement of the coup from the MSM. And Fluffer Barbie Karoline Leavitt will continue to gaslight from the podium, while Mr. Toad Johnson lies to us from the House. The shite storm continues unabated.
I think it's VERY useful for us all to amplify to our friends and followers that RED states are getting hit hardest by this executive order madness and slash and burn cuts. Blue states sue and get instant relief - red states are left fundless.
—— But, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance notes, the only relief sought is for the twenty-two Democratic-led states that have sued, keeping Republican-dominated states from freeloading on their Democratic counterparts. As Josh Marshall noted today in Talking Points Memo, it appears a pattern is emerging in which Democratic-led states are suing the administration while officials from Republican-led states, which are even harder hit by Trump’s cuts than their Democratic-led counterparts, are asking Trump directly for help or exceptions.——
Yes to AMPLIFICATION to red states. We need red states’ voters to get wise to what is happening and to call their Reps too. They are in this with us. We need them to awaken to the danger we are all in.
Avery, they are liking what is happening. They absolutely LOVE getting rid of anything that promotes anything other than white, male, Christian, heteronormative, cisgendered superiority. So what if farmers lose the ability to sell their product to USAID? No non-deserving people get that food. So what if people die from AIDS? They deserve it. What they love most of all are the made up numbers showing "graft".
The ecstasy of the MAGAsm, especially by the willfully ignorant and the insatiably greedy, will be relatively short-lived – until the grim realities of The Big Con set in. Delusions can evaporate fast.
Steven Livitsky, in an article titled "The New Authoritarianism" for The Atlantic, writes:
"Democracy is not yet lost. The Trump administration will be politically vulnerable. Unlike successful elected authoritarians such as Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and Vladimir Putin in Russia, Trump lacks broad popular support. His approval rating has almost never surpassed 50 percent, and incompetence, overreach, and unpopular policies will almost certainly dampen public support for the new administration. An autocratic president with an approval rating below 50 percent is still dangerous, but far less so than one with 80 percent support. The new administration’s political weakness will open up opportunities for opposition in the courtroom, on the streets, and at the ballot box."
Stark evidence of Hitler's National Socialism here and now. A disgrace beyond words. Think of the millions who perished in Wordl War II because of that pathologically insane tyrant. Tell them they fought and died in vain. Because if this goes on, they did. And new bodies will have to pile up until the resistance prevails. Message to Mr. Trump: you are a loser, have been all your life. You and your lawless associates will fail spectacularly. We will see to that no matter how long it takes.
And, as a sidebar to all these concerns (thanks, Professor Richardson for recounting them so clearly), on Monday the 10th, the team POTUS has entrusted with weeding out fraud and such, cancelled contracts between the US Department of Education research arm (Institute of Educational Research) and dozens-scores-hundreds of organizations. The cancellations affect data that US citizens follow for evidence about educational progress and how to improve it...especially my hobby horse (giddy-ap!), special education and disabilities. Of course, this is small potatoes, so I've only found coverage from NPR, Politico, and Education Week...sigh.
…And yet too many Americans think that corrupt people like Trump and Musk are finding so much corruption that whole functions of government are corrupt and are to be stopped.
Biden policies did not distinguish between red and blue states. Trump makes obvious his unequal approach to punish blue states.
This is a time for heroes to stand up to this developing idiocracy.
Four Republican “heroes” in the senate is what we need. There do not appear to be any. Definitely not four.
Mitch McHindenberg owns much of this destruction for giving this POS an acquittal in second impeachment.
Shame, tar & feathers would be kind compared to my thoughts.
Senator Collins is thinking about it.
She's always "thinking about it" with her "grave concerns" and then she folds.
In Maine there is a truism about Susan Collins: Susan Collins only votes against her party when it costs her NOTHING.
Isn’t that like most politicians do?
Why do they keep re-electing that old bag?
(as an 85 year old, I calls 'em like I sees them)
But then they vote her back into office.
As far as I'm concerned when she voted for Russel Voght as OMB Director she was flushed down my toilet....
Both Bennet and Hickenlooper did here. I cannot imagine why
I just this minute read on Forbes that she will vote to confirm JFK Jr. as head of HHS. Disgusting. (All of them, actually)
How does it go? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. She never seems to learn.
Remember G.W. Bush trying to say that? "Fool me once, shame on you, food me twice . . . well, you can't fool me twice." He couldn't bring his small, narcissistic self to say it.
Like Melania, Susan really doesn't care
Learn what? She keeps getting reelected!
That’s a real knee slapper!
But she’s at least concerned.
she is concerned
Act some point I wish she would ‘get off the pot!’
Not to mention what he did to the SC!!! He should rot in hell.
Hey we’re adults here, we can handle ‘piece of shit’ as a great and powerful device to note what is happening and that it’s been true for a while…no more Puritans! People have sex, we act out our liberal faith, we are diverse with in the very human race, and our diversity and resiliency come from this wondrous humanness. And yes we can swear when needed…oh, and women are even more fully human and without whom none of us would exist…time to honor the Mother of us all! Make them responsibility for their horrible behaviors and the consequences of their actions!
That was a collective suicide pact, and now we are paying the consequences.
He owns it ALL.
True, but isn't it sad and revealing that we've lowered the bar of what constitutes a "hero" to "doing what you took an oath to do"?
Exactly!!! The new standard for heroism is “simply doing what I’m paid to do.”
Or doing what the Zuck newsfeed tells me to ( without me even knowing it)
Sarah, yes. And it only would take some of them acting as a group to be an end to this.
As is her pattern, Maine Sen. Susan Collins seemed poised to be a No vote on Trump's worst nominees. And has now caved. There'd be no purchase in primarying her, although she does rely on well publicized pork Maine gave 3 of our 4 electoral college votes to Harris, however after round-heels Susie found an excuse to vote for Kavanaugh, our neighbor Project 2025 funder Leonard Leo held a fund raiser for her. Please raise your voices. Vote No on Gabbard, Patel, McMahon.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 224-2523
Augusta
(207) 622-8414
Bangor
(207) 945-0417
Biddeford
(207) 283-1101
Caribou
(207) 493-7873
Lewiston
(207) 784-6969
Portland
(207) 618-5560
The GOP senators are complicit and are supporting fascism.
GOP = gang of predators
GOP-gang of pussies!
Dee, or the Grifting Oligarchs Party, as I like to call them.
I fail to see how those fools do not realize how badly this will end for them. If they have any sense, they know that the populace of America will not stand for being thrown into poverty and chaos. They are on a fools' errand and are at the bottom of the food chain. They will be the first to suffer at the hands of those they are failing to protect.
If it is fear, their fears are grossly misplaced.
Screwing the farmers should be a deal breaker for KS, IA, etc. Eventually the rest of the country will be affected. There is an interesting fellow I came across in TikTok (something I never watch), a farmer in SW MO, who took the time to explain to and reach out to a young farmer who was quite misled by rural RW media, and did a bang-up job. His name is Will Westmoreland if you want to hear a voice of sanity.
Didn't he quietly pay off farmers the last he screwed them?
Thanks. Lots of farmers in the MAGA-leaning place I live. I will check him out.
ML and it will not be just the farmers, but also their communities and states. I did see on a thread about the farmers, some who were adamantly insisting that they did not vote for death star. Unfortunately, they are in the minority. One of the things that I like about today's letter is how even CEOs and banks are frazzled. They like stable, not chaos.
(I never watch TikTok either)
Yes,they are fearful but they need to grow spines. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Voldemort expects undying loyalty but will turn on them in an instant. Just look at how he treated and talked about Mike Pence and Bill Barr (just to name a couple of his former allies). The minute they wouldn’t do his criminal bidding he did his best to destroy them. Pure EVIL.
Celeste k., your comment: “ If they have any sense, they know that the populace of America will not stand for being thrown into poverty and chaos.” “THEY” already know that the populace will stand for being thrown into poverty and chaos. It happened to them during the cheat-o’s first term. And what did “they” do? Elect him again. Cult worship rationalizes away the pain and chaos and makes it feel like a religious pilgrimage.
In the first term, life sustaining programs and such were not on the chopping block by an outsider being given the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. This time will be bad for those who were conned with outrageous empty promises with, unfortunately, the rest of us. Maybe in the long run, whoever is left standing will remember how true it is that we are all in this together. I simply don't believe there are that many cult worshippers willing to starve along with their families for the sake of one flaccid old man and his drug addicted lackey.
It IS fear, celeste k. When 'he' released (pardoned) the Gestapo from prison, the understanding among the 'quiet' Republicans (NAZIs) was "toe the line, or else". They are in fear of their and their families' lives.
As I said, their fear, while real, in the long run is misplaced. For them and any comfortable future they may have envisioned for themselves.
Their great-great grandchildren will pretend they don't know them....
As is the house gop
By choice, Sen. Susan Collins morphed into a jellyfish – devoid of spine or integrity – an insult to the memory of Margaret Chase Smith. Mainers deserve and should want much better for America.
No, Miss Collins has been thinking about it.
Thank goodness she has those pearls – and her bottomless reservoir of, um, *concern*.
And Kennedy, Jr. For goodness sakes, don't forget the crazy.
Here is hoping that Collins does not survive a Democratic challenge in 26. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard-senate-test-vote.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Here's to hoping that we still have a Republic with three branches of government in 2026.
It looking more like we will only have one branch beholden to the oligarchs, just like Russia and Hungary.
Gary, we must spread the word, a la Paul Revere, that next year -- on April 19, 2025 -- we will mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. And a year later, on July 4, 2026, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country -- the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Later that year will be the fall midterms.
These are meaningful observances that should be used to rally an opposition, starting now. What an opportunity: the linkage is a perfect PR message.
I live a bit more than a half-hour away from Lexington and Concord, and I expect that there will be gatherings of protest on that day (Patriot's Day in MA) and I plan to attend.
I can only hope that there will be protests across the country. Will the army be used to quell the protests. Ugly times are coming.
Ha, Doug, that is my birthday....the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
Of the three Tulsi Gabbard is the most dangerous. She like Trump gets her information from Russia and shares ours with the Kremlin. Why anyone would vote for her confirmation. Now why Susan Collins did not break ranks.
The answer is survival. Fear of being hounded out office and losing all the riches rank and privileges that go with it. Susan Collins is no different from all the rest. Our of fear for the loss of these things, all Republicans will stand with Trump come what may. They now are a captive crew aboard his ship. Don't expect any to abandon it.
I want to know about the threats Republican senators have been getting.
They are implied, Susan. When 'he' released the Gestapo from prison, the message was loud and clear to ALL Republicans. On ALL levels.
Some referred to threats even in his first term. But you’re right—they’re worse now that his own personal militia has been released from prison. Mary Trump has said tfg is a coward but always willing to say “let’s you and him fight.”
re "released the Gestapo from prison":
Indeed. Trump's own private militia, on standby, "locked & loaded," awaiting orders from the fascist strongman. Also, the Kash Patel-led secret police (just like Putin's).
Seems like something more overt, Daniel — for example, Joni Ernst had good reasons (and the courage) to vote “no” on Hegseth, and then “poof*!
That they’ll be “primaried” in the next election with money from Elon Musk.
Seems to me, by their inaction, a lot of democrats are complicit for the same reasons. After more than 50 years as a registered Democrat, I switched to Independent. As a progressive, why I want to be seen as supporting party which isn't?
Done! All 7 offices contacted. You made it eeazy-peeazy by providing those phone numbers! I saw a video message from AOC yesterday reminding us that contacting our members of congress ( and other people’s members of congress when helpful) is an action that non-democrats outperform us by about 4:1. On hot button issues it’s goes up to 11:1 according to political staffers. So one of the major reasons that the crazy right-wing agenda gets amplified is because WE miss the easiest opportunity to civically engage: by making a phone call. I have resolved to step up and call, call, call. I did it today while drinking my morning tea.
Collins is still waiting to see if Trump has “learned his lesson” from being impeached. She’s just another partisan hack. Truly a useless POS.
She is very wishy-washy and clearly not trustworthy. Vote her out of office!
Hate to be cliche but cliches exist because they contain some element of the truth. So here goes: Sen. Collins is very concerned.
Collins is scared. We all should be. She’s not just scared of being primaried. The coming AI disruption could be catastrophic. Once out of the power structure of an authoritarian regime, she could lose everything. She should have stood up a long long time ago. Hope she got herself a good deal from ‘Elon’.
Crickets.
Sad , isn’t it that Susie Collins, Lisa murkowski and??? NO ONE??? What traitors they are, folding to such an incompetent, evil man. I shake with rage every morning!!! Undoubtedly they confirm Kash Patel and tulsi gabbard. The republicans are not worth spit !!!
We can hope for courage in four.
Heroes? they'd just be doing their Constitutional duty.... political allegiance has become primeval.
Tulsi Gabbard lied to the Senate committee when she said she was not aware "until today" that a prominent Syrian cleric that she met with had threatened to unleash suicide terrorists on the U.S. She lied under oath and it is provable. Republicans who vote to confirm her need to be held accountable the very first time an American is injured or dies by terrorist activities in the U.S. And even if we can avoid a terrorist attack, Tulsi Gabbard should go to jail for lying to Congress. What kind of cowards have Republican voters sent to Congress?
We cannot rely on senators. DEMs are outnumbered and Republicans are threatened by Trump. Only organized protests of voters can save America. Lincoln said divided house annot stand. Our choice is to become servants of King Trump or go down with t he country, unles we succeed in taking back the government.
Well there's always Susan "I'm concerned " Collins.
Murkowski. 7 Republicans voted to impeach Trump the second time.
Some senators are complicit......
As the mid-terms approach I suspect that there will be quite a few ready to go public unless Trump gets a grip on inflation. There are already grim warnings from the Federal Reserve. His territorial ambitions have very little to do with the price of beans.
Avery 🥴😈
NOT ONE!
Would you settle down with only one republican heroes instead? Maybe not Avery. This is the time we need them the most.
In other news today, from a post by the Alt National Park Service (Facebook):
“What the actual *?! The White House has designated Mr. Musk’s office, the United States DOGE Service, as an entity protected from public records requests and most judicial intervention until at least 2034, by classifying its documents as presidential records.”
Really?!
BC they know what they are doing is illegal and destroying the constitution
100%
Seriously? WTAF
Aside from suggesting that the President can throw a cloak of secrecy over anything and everything he does, and share that cloak with anyone, what this amounts to is the announcement of one more way in which Trump and Musk and their conspirators intend to defy court orders. No court they say can know what they have or what they are up to. Why ? Because "it's classified" ?
The records of a conspiracy to overthrow the lawfully government of the United States ? A fictitious arm of government ? Or a confidential alter ego ?
This imaginative government records disappearing trick won't stand the light of day in court
The courts are NOT going to save us
These last three weeks they have performed admirably. But we’ll have to see…
Hasn't reached the bought and paid for 'Supremes' yet
Admirable maybe, the crooks are not ceasing illegal activity though. Therein lies the headache.
Tyler, Make America Get Attorneys. It appears to be our only hope at the moment.
That is total bullshit!
Legal acts in pursuit of an illegal objective are considered a racket and are illegal. If our legal system holds, this “protection order” will eventually be overturned. In the meantime, the very foundations of are democracy are being undermined. Being “woke” to reality has become extremely painful.
OMG
Alt National Park Service deserves our utmost support. They are doing work that I support fully.
Is Elon using AI to find loopholes? So he can continue to gut government and replace it with AI model decision making of his choosing?”
If they wanted to find corruption they would be bringing in forensic accountants - not recent high school graduates.
Exactly!! Coders don’t find fraud and waste. They code!
100% performative.
Trump created the gulf of America; between MAGA morality.
"... between MAGA morality and the deep blue sea", you were saying? ;)
This is almost too poetic. "Gulf of America" describes exactly what Trump has created since the moment he began campaigning for President in 2015. I cannot recall a time when this country was more deeply divided, beyond just political or philosophical differences -- it seems to have metastasized into profound differences in morals and fundamental values that divide us.
The GOP’s embrace of the Tea Party opened Pandora’s box, and Trump has been pulling out everything he can find.
And "we all" should let them know our appreciation and gratitude, in any and every way possible. Soon.
Trump and the whole frickin' GOP takes the cake for corruption.
If anyone needs to be fired, it’s tRump. What gets me, is that in any other paid position, if you deviated from your job description and started running amok, hurting the business, you’d be fired by your employers. And if I’m not mistaken, the American people are the ones in charge of hiring and firing presidents. Maybe this has slipped his mind. As Napoleon once said, ‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’
Read Lucian Truscott’s recent essay quoting a former USMA professor.
Trump and his BFF Musk think they are free to ignore the law at will. Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon has had worse effects than he ever imagined.
Blue state residents have already been punished by capping the state and local tax deduction. And so some of us blue state residents are taxed twice on the same income.
Trump and Musk froze USDA funding for farmers as HCR states. EVERY state is an agricultural state.
And by dissolving the Department of Education, who is going to pay for the Special Ed programs? Are we all willing to pay an additional $1,000 or more in property taxes for special education and for the other programs or are we going to integrate these kids into the classroom with the other kids.
Useful info from Deepak Puri/Democracy Labs.⬇️
Democracy Labs is using your suggestion of highlighting Musk's unpopularity tied to how if affects people's every day lives - especially in red states. In each case there is a link to Musk's DOGE boys and the congressperson / Senator for the district which being hurt. So it becomes clear to a farmer (say) hurt by the shutdown of USAID why he is suffering and who the elected rep to hold accountable it. The blogs and maps are being published twice a day in line with the latest Musk outrage.
American farmers ruined by Musk killing USAID: Check this map
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/02/08/american-farmers-ruined-by-musk-killing-usaid-check-this-map/
Cancer patients sacrificed to give billionaires more tax cuts: National Institute of Health defunded
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/02/10/cancer-patients-sacrificed-to-give-billionaires-more-tax-cuts-national-institute-of-health-defunded/
Where are $26,900,000,000 of your Social Security funds going? Guantanamo Bay!
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/02/09/guantanamo-bay-will-take-billions-from-social-security-funding/
How many Americans may die as Trump cuts medical research funding to give tax cuts to billionaires? Check this map!
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/02/09/nih-funding-cut-to-pay-for-billionaire-tax-cut-covid-death-count/
Who exposed a list of CIA agents by unclassified email and put a target on their backs?
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/02/09/cia-names-exposed-by-unclassified-email/
Gary, the special ed kids are already integrated.
And for the record, special ed covers a range of behaviors and aptitudes. 2 of my grandkids are extremely bright yet have needed paras in the early grades. My 6th-grade granddaughter (who read at middle school-level when she was in 2nd grade) no longer does. She loves Greek mythology, knows all the gods, and is learning Greek through Duolingo.
Most of the kids with special needs are already integrated into the regular classroom; they just have access to help. Without out those funds they won’t have access to help.
Considering my real estate taxes increased from about 6k to 10k this year, count me out.
Blue states aren’t the only ones with SALT though
Mostly though, at least a high tax rates. For example many southern states have no income tax. Of course they have property taxes.
And their minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Trump loves to bring in H-2Bs and pay them slave wages and Bezos does everything he can to screw the Amazon workers. Walmart also pays as little as possible wherever they can and then fight the local communities to not pay their fair share of property taxes.
BUY LOCAL. It's time for a general strike agains the oligarch owned businesses. If you have to pay more for groceries at a local chain, do it. Walmart takes in 1/3 of the money spent on groceries in the US and is implementing dynamic pricing so they can drive their competition out of business by instantly lowering the items the other grocery stores are putting on sale.
Let's support the companies that aren't trying to dismantle the federal government.
2/28 seems to be a date swirling around on social media, as a Buy Local Only day.
Buy nothing if possible but if there is something essential buy from a small privately owned local business. We have enough time to prepare for this so stock up now!
I am lucky to have several WinCo grocery stores in our area. Even though an Albertsons store is nearby (like, less than 2 miles) as is a Fred Meyer (aka Kroger), WinCo is an employee owned grocery chain that has a remarkable selection of everything.
Here's an online 'discounter' I use. They are wonderful !!! They don't have everything, and not the same things every time, but everything is fresh, sealed, AND free shipping over $50.00, which is real easy to reach. https://martie.com/. Check them out!!
Thanks Daniel, Just download the app...Looks fabulous.
Only 7 states have no state income tax; 2 are blue and 1 is a swing state. So eliminating the SALT deduction screws everyone, R and D alike.
TN has no state income tax, and it’s definitely neither blue nor a swing state.
Many (most) southern states get back more from the feds than they send in taxes.
Matt, Blue states are givers. Red states are takers.
I wonder how many people will not file taxes in April?
Musk’s remaining first 100 days explained right here:
https://techpolicy.press/anatomy-of-an-ai-coup
The Opinion essay presents a plausible roadmap for Musk’s grand plan: first, neutralize oversight; purge gov employees, third: reshape:replace the Agency and Department employees with a new information ecosystem through AI-driven platforms; and finally, establish a new paradigm where control is exerted not through laws or elections, but through the manipulation of perception itself. The first “squeeze” is the purging of departments and federal agency employees—clearing the way for AI-driven governance to take hold. As Orwell warned:
“We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”
Ted, this is one of the most terrifying posts I've ever read. If this is true, we may have no choice but to either urge secession by blue states or flee individually for someplace that is actually sane. I will not live, ever, in an AI-driven Orwellian nightmare.
I called my (MAGAdly rabid) rep’s office yesterday. His aide told me, first, DOGE was actually an Obama creation under another name (!!) and (second) that there was even more waste than we even knew!! He took offense when I said President Musk though I also said President Trump. So much for an oath to the constitution.
Jeebus. Good for you.
Holy Moly! Well done, MLMinET!
Yes,I agree.I have several “ friends” on Facebook who are extolling the virtues of Musk and Trump’s feigned interest in cleaning up wasteful government spending.These people are not grasping at what is really happening.This wasteful spending is Trump, Vance and Musk taking control of our country’s purse strings which is something that only Congress can do.This is a constitutional crisis of epic proportions.
Victoria, Congress happily presented them the purse and is complicit in any damage done by them.
That needs a small bit of extra info - the Republican members of Congress are complicit in any damage done by them. The Republicans in Congress are also voting to confirm all the dubious dodgers and liars Trump nominated for key leadership positions in his regime who will enact his treasonous agenda against America and Americans.
They are winning the DISINFORMATION WAR ! We must fight back in every conceivable way we can. THIS IS IT ! This is our future as democracy on other line.
Pray tell, where are the voicers of the Dems in both the House and Senate who are not yet speaking in outrage and using every tool at their disposal to impede America's own version of the 'Rape of Nanking'??? Frankly (and, regretfully, I need to say so, in proud respect for what HCR is daily doing for us right now), most of the comments here so far today don't reflect the full weight and power of her posts for the last three weeks. We can think better and more pointedly and more completely than the posts I've read until now, can't we???.
Trump does not have the brain power to sign all these executive orders. They were all prepared ahead of time by the Project 2025 creators and just put in front of him to sign. And like any good puppet, he has done so. He does not have the bandwidth to think ahead or even consider the consequences of his actions.
Stevie “Don’t Search the Crawlspace” Miller has been handing them to Trump to sign, and I’m sure explaining them thoroughly. 🙄
And treason, I will add.
"We are in a Constitutional crisis. There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.” Dean of the U.C. Berkeley School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky.
DEMs should forget about minor issues such as DEI now. They should focus on the fact that the voters did not vote Trump as he is conducting now. He deceived them. Deceiving people who he deals with has been his life and now he has done that to voters. DEMs should start voicing in unison "We want to take our government back from Musk to the people." There is no more democrates vs Repbulicans.
Heather I raised this question on your FB page but figure you’re unlikely to find it buried in the pile.
I wondered how many of these orders you feel are likely to have been written by Trump vs having been constructed by others - such as Vought, Vance, Musk, etc - and just plopped in front of him to be signed.
A lot of this stuff seems beyond Trumps brain power and too “in the weeds” to actually be of much interest to him. I doubt he knows that many of these departments exist , let alone the names of those who run them.
More consistent with Trump’s character and capacity would seem to be the outlandishly grandiose ( buying Gaza for a Trump development) and the petty (firing the extraordinary musician Jon Batiste from the board of the Kennedy Center because he’s black and has latex at the Super Bowl).
You have a good grasp of it: T**** could not have come up with all this moving and shaking of the government without considerable help - which is pretty obvious in the influence shown by the authors of Project 2025. Rachel Maddow had a good list tonight of the appointees of T****: a list of a couple dozen folks who had two things in common: a) a distinct lack of competence for the job for which they had been chosen, and b) had recently lost at least one bid for elective office. And he could not have found them all by himself: he had to have major help. As for the Gaza Trump resort, that was an idea probably put in his head by Jared - he of the $2B gift from the Saudis.
Yes, I’ve imagined the “bros” sitting around the drinks table at Mar-a-lago tossing out the most outlandish cabinet picks they could imagine as a test of how quickly and successfully they could own republican members of Congress (and of course the incompetent, corrupt tools who could never otherwise have dreamed of occupying such lofty positions)
Goes deeper than that. By having incompetence lead each department and agency, it just makes their case stronger to replace the core of the federal government with AI systems to manage and execute government.
But they write the code, holding all the keys that open all the resource doors as they see fit. Congress is obsolete to them. Peter Theil told us democracy was obsolete. Now I know what he meant.
This is not a drill.
Convulsing with laughter.
Reagan was sometimes jaw dropping out of it during his terms, enough that journalists noticed it, though many laughed it off as lovable. We now not that he was likely suffering early Alzheimer's. I don't have an evidence based picture of how much of "The Reagan Revolution" was cooked up by hyper-wealthy plutocrats, but it was their interests Reagan best served. He seemed better suited for his "B" movie acting career that a cunning master strategist.
Yes, JL, it certainly seems that the worst of all this has its roots in Reaganism. He got elected because he lucked out with the Iran hostage event and Carter's failed attempt to rescue them in a timely way, and then lucked out again with the arrival of Gorbachev in the USSR.
I remember him as a classist, racist MF, first in a growing list of incompetent recent GOP Presidents.
And Americans have no one to blame but our intellectually lazy selves.
We Californians tried to warn y'all...
Well, yes you did, but maybe not enough of y'all... As I recall he was a pretty popular Governor.
Depends on who you talk to I guess...he was transparently cramming the fashy lies down the state's collective gullet. Just a warmup for the national stage.
Regarding the Iranian hostage crisis, there is the 1980 October Surprise theory that suggests Reagan's "luck" had more to do with Republican back-channel interference. Which seems suspiciously like a prototype for the delay of an Israeli-Hamas truce, producing the same electoral result.
Doonesbury comic had many panels about the presidents’s brain. I miss that strip and the other comics I used to read. It helped to have several that kept you aware of the cognitive distance in the political world.
Tho not a comic strip. Jon Stewart really gets to the meat of the problem and adds some humanity to soothe your jangled senses. He has excellent guests, too. Always informative.
trump, like Reagan is a useful puppet. trump wants to prove he can get away with anything, that’s his narcissism playing out. And most important, he wants to stay out of jail. He, like Reagan, is totally selling out democracy. Why? Becasue he can. And laugh all the way to the bank.
Well said J L but Reagan barely qualified as B movie actor but you can't deny he started to roll back on all that made America great. Other people just had to keep pushing this country down the hill and here is where we are. This is their last push and our last chance of stopping them.
So we have had two “entertainer” Presidents—both could carry the message of evil intended “others” willing to do the dirty work behind the scenes.
Heritage Foundation
Gaza Health Resort isn't new - we laughed at that last time. Yes, must be a Jared-era thing.
I'd bet the farm that the answer to your question is, "All of them." The First Felon is a figurehead, a wind-up machine programmed with some general directions and a few inflammatory outbursts for the day to blurt out and riff off of, the more hateful and outrageous the better. He cares not about policy, ideology, geopolitics, or any other big ideas. He wants only to line his own pockets and enjoy the trappings and ostentation of his office forever, all at taxpayer expense, and in the course of that do the least amount of actual work possible.
He wants to be declared the most important person in the Universe.
Times magazine is designing a special edition framed in gold for the occasion.
Tr-mp is PrezEM-sk’s auto-pen.
My dyslexic brain came up with "Skum" by accident. I kinda like it.
I do not find it coincidental, that both his names are four-letter words...
I suspect that you are correct. I doubt that he has anything approaching the requisite intelligence to author these orders. He’s just the user interface, not the operating system.
And there are all kinds of back doors by now...
That's the next frightening aspect.
What ever happened to extensive beta testing before release to market?
How quaint. That’s so 20th century
Not the intellect nor the attention span.
He calls it "The Weave" (as in to practice to deceive).
Banning paper straws and stopping pennies from being made are the outer limit Trump’s abilities.
These are the shiny objects he's given to play with while the criminals in the P2025 mob do the real destructive work behind the scenes.
Well, his "social media" are certainly equipped with the latest AI, even if it can't cope with the misplaced caps.
"The Tool" Mark.
And there's no tool like an old tool.
I wrote a longer response, which magically disappeared thanks to MY OS, but, fortunately, yours is better! ;)
A stray motion can blow away compositions here pretty easily, and that seems to be a feature of Substack.
appreciate the commiseration!
Don't know what you're specifically experiencing, Mark, but here's one that happens frequently to me: there is a specific command that uses the shift key and something very close to it (control or function, I suspect) that deletes whatever you've written. If you catch it right away, control z will restore it.
Or just a display. A heartless, race-baiting automaton.
Rubber stamp, Mark.
re "Vought, Vance, Musk, etc":
As much, if not more, than any of them, the role of Goebbels clone Stephen Miller is central to Trump's emphasis on fear, cruelty and hate. Miller now has more power than he ever had before.
Stephen Miller is terrror-fying.
If Miller were to time-travel to Germany in the 1930s and early '40s, he would fit right in.
Miller is a thoroughly repellent human being.
His dead eyes, in particular, signal he's capable of *anything* – none of it good.
(As a former mid-high level state official, it was clear to me that every busy high government official, including the very scrupulous ones (there are many) has >LOTS< of help, and substantially depends on those he / she chooses to trust, of the smarter and more knowledgeable staff, friends, friends of friends - one often even needs the expertise of 'interested' parties. In most domains these others have the most knowledge, no matter how 'smart' you (think you) are.
As someone brought in from another state, I was also substantially dependent on ALL the people passed over in my hiring... remarkably skilled and professional, they were.
But yes, in short, T. WROTE NOT ONE of these E.O.s. Not his thing, not his capacity, & candidly, not his role.
As Mark Proulx expressed most eloquently above, "He's just the user interface, not the OS."
BUT T. chose whom to trust & empower, and THEIR WORKS ARE HIS RESPONSIBILITY.)
As Grover Norquist so clearly stated around 1999, "We have everything in place. We just need a President to sign the legislation a republican Congress sends over. He was referencing the next GOP POTUS anticipating GW Bush as he saw how easily he signed things over in Texas.
Norquist has always been very near the top of my list for the most destructive in my old party.
In brief:
If it's crazy, it's trump.
If it's sinister and complex - It's the Gang of 25.
Like all executives and Presidents, Trump’s papers are drafted by staff members. The bosses who can read review the drafts and make any needed changes. Trump is able to find the right line and sign his name.
I think you are exactly right. Trump is quite literally out in the weeds on the golf course. Much of this is constructed by others following Project 2025. There are evil people in the world driven by greed and power. Musk is certainly one. And our tax dollars are paying him!
Penny, I believe that Musk is NOT being paid any kind of salary in his “DOGE” appointment but rather is paying himself by way of the treasury computers by eliminating payments to his competitors and funneling ever more government contracts to himself. One suspects anything described as “corrupt” or “fraudulent” or “wasteful” is merely spending on his competitors or on anything from which he doesn’t benefit.
Brian Tyler Cohen just released an essay outlining this. https://plus.briantylercohen.com/p/elons-fraud-search-exposed-as-a-fraud
How about the picture on his FACEBOOK page! Head and shoulders shot of him against a deep concert hall background, hands raised as if calling the orchestra to attention. He should have had the "hair" sculpted to look like Bernstein.
He needs a cone-shaped wizard's hat like Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"; ocean waves and the heavens dancing in response to his tiny waving finger.
100%.
Trump has no capacity. He has a licensee deal of sorts. Like a puppet for Voight and Musk. Each represent their camps of libertarian world view.
Voight’s camp wants to gut everything not defense related from the federal government.
Musk camp wants to replace only what he wants with AI infrastructure, replacing humans.
This is not a drill.
Wasn’t Jon Baptiste’s anthem beautiful? So original and so New Orleans. The man’s a national treasure.
I did not watch the game, and I am delighted with the outcome. I am a traditionalist when it comes to the National Anthem, and usually cannot stand anything other than a crisp rendition, in 3/4 time, at 110-120 bpm, preferably instrumental and if sung, it is sung without vocal embellishment. Jon Baptiste's version was in 4/4 time, varied in its delivery, and had some vocal embellishment... and was stunningly beautiful.
Yup, fully agree with you, Amy! AND, Stephen Miller is a Dangerous Dude. But, the “reversing” of the renaming of Fort Bragg is notable, as well. Biden renamed it Fort Liberty, and Hegseth just “renamed” it Fort Bragg. The reason Biden got rid of Fort Bragg is because it was named after BRAXTON Bragg, a West Point graduate who fought for the Confederacy. Hegseth (and Trump) are obviously in agreement with Biden - shocker, but the press is not covering this very well. Hegseth only returned the BRAGG name, but for a different guy. As reported by Newsmax: “The new name honors the heroic service of Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II veteran awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his extraordinary bravery during the Battle of the Bulge.”
NOT for Braxton. It’s for Roland - although the spin is basically - See??? We OWN the Left.
Actually, no, you are AGREEING with the Left.
Tr-mp doesn’t write these things. He doesn’t even read them. Somebody tells him what they say, and he gets out his marker. The guy is merely the auto-pen for PrezEM-usk.
Yep: Stephen Miller (whom Andy Borowitz described the other day as "going directly form his bar mitzvah into Hitler Youth) is the author of most of them, I suspect, and the Felon in Chief has not read any of them.
He "wrote" none of it. He likely "dictated" the childish resentful stuff, and the attorneys who wrote the orders mucked them up to his satisfaction.
The rest came out the the dark money apparatus that is the heritage foundation
Spot on Amy.
Flushing presidential records down the toilet is part of his official duties??
That pretty much jumped out at me, too. How is that an appropriate and legal action for a President, Supreme Court?
And the visual on that is bizarre.
I can't remember ever having used a toilet that could have consumed a whole sheet of paper, much less dozens, without clogging. Whatever happened to the White House plumbers? (Whoops! Wrong Republican administration.)
That's why he needed real plumbers so often.
It was a toilet specially designed for the felon personal use . It was really big.
I know!
When he could have delegated that illegal task to a DEI hire.
🤷♀️
Subpoena the Mar-a-Lago plumber.
Except didn’t the flushing incident happen while he was in office, and it was White House plumbing, which is the complicating issue, right?
And the White House's plumber and the designer of the huge toilet used by the felon .
Billy Liar.
That made me pause, too. The only way I see that working is ... you want a visual? I'll give you a visual!
Donald standing in front of the toilet, his pants and boxers around his ankles, tearing each sheet of paper into strips, tossing them into the pot, waiting for the shreds to get soggy and limp, then flushing.
Somewhat remarkable that such a POS could even flush the toilet really. But then Donold does seem to have some weird Freudian obsession with toilets beyond the obvious treason and criminality of flushing sensitive information(or squirreling top secret/confidential documents away in the bathroom next to the toilet).
Rants about low flow toilets. Gold plated commodes that epitomize the felon's extreme tackiness, tastelessness, baseness. A torrent of executive orders, bureaucratic sabotage, constant, incessant insanity and kakistocracy in the ongoing nightmare attempt to flush our entire Nation down the toilet...
There seems no toilet big enough to flush all his C**P but he keeps trying to make it all of the US, North America, and too much of the whole Planet.
My goodness! you're a poet.
Stealing is not part of his “official duties” and the extreme court had better come to understand that. Otherwise, we can just ignore them because they are bought and paid for corrupt judges. Their ridiculous decisions are an embarrassment to the concept of justice. I think the blue states, however many are left, just need to ignore everything going on…deportations, agency closures, firings, etc. Just disregard all of President Musk’s orders. Ignore any orders that Pam Bondi issues because she is a f&ing liar! The MAGA GOP has failed the people of the country, the law, the constitution and their oath of office.
We had a naked tRump statue here in Seattle and I wanted to take some brown shoe polish down there and Rump it as well as tie a sign around his next...Felon #PO1135809.
He has a golden toilet in New York I think. I think of a toilet when I think of him and not a golden one!
Hold Republicans accountable for their action. We mapped the farms hurt by Trump shutting down USAID. This is overlaid the Congressional rep and Senator for that area. Makes it easier for farmers to hold their rep accountable. The map also includes the major ports hurt as exports of USAID shipments come to a screeching halt. Elections have consquences...
American farmers ruined by Musk killing USAID: Check this map
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/02/08/american-farmers-ruined-by-musk-killing-usaid-check-this-map/
Brilliant map. Allows me to talk to my neighbors about USAID that directly affects the surrounding neighbors in our county. Thank you!!
Thanks for the map. Good job.
Thank you. this is excellent.
As a retired historian I take the long view. I would not want to be a Republican senator or representative, nor would I want to be the feckless and tone deaf Chuck Schumer at this point. History will be pointedly critical of this Supreme Court, and I can only imagine that the electorate will be considered as anything more than as a frothing Roman mob. It will not be kind to Dems (good morning "honorable" Sen. Fetterman!) who still don't understand that they must oppose with every tool they have. It will not be kind to those who, through a distorted logic, as Masha Gessen wrote yesterday, are compliant.
All of this reminds me of the lines from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises on going bankrupt. How did fascism come to America? First gradually, then all at once.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
Aut pars republicana delenda est aut res publica americana morietur. Tempus fugit.
But fighting Fascism works the same way. Slowly. Slowly. Then all at once.
👆this!!!
So I Googled:
"Either the Republican party must be destroyed or the American republic will die. Time flies"
You think the Republican Party is still alive?
The American people need to realise that there IS no "Republican Party" left. It's all "MAGA!" now. . . if you vote Republican, you're voting MAGA - even if you think your a nice patriotic person.
It was a hostile takeover by the insurgents of a third party. MAGA Is a third party and we still have a two party system. The Republicans are gone. Now the MAGA strongman is only as strong as the Democrats allow him to be. They need to get off their backs and fight. Now.
Supported with back up from US
They are the reincarnation of the NAZIs. Virtually exact copies!
Not exactly Daniel, the neo nazis have at hand infinitely more powerful tools of mass communication and knowledge to use them than the originals ever dreamed of.
Facebook, X, Truth Social, FOX, right wing radio. All Hitler had were the rallies and the people’s radio receivers. Very sophisticated propaganda tools.
I would add movies to your mix Jack..
Thanks for your reply 👍
Very true, and adds to the coming demise
Thanks for your reply 👍
Although I really wish we were conversing about a different subject matter.
@ Daniel. Yes it is a new NAZI movement. When you look back at all the events since the year 2,000, it is a lot of trauma packed into the last 25 years. People are running to anyone who promises safety and a return to prosperity. If we didn’t see it coming, it is there out in the open right now.
I think it goes back at least another 25 years before that, Jack. When Ford pardoned Nixon, you could almost hear the light bulbs turning on in all the power-hungry racists around the nation. Couple years later, they got their polished mouthpiece in Ronnie Ray-Gun, and we've been sliding downhill ever since.
And lots of us don't have much tempus left.
tell me about it... ;)
Sympathetic to Andrew Marvell's take on the subject, in To his Coy Mistress, ending "Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run."
Maybe he's read Andrew Marvell? The couplet following those eloquent five prepositions, says "O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned," Watch your back, Elon...
Mark if we can make the sur run, can we make the felon do the same?
Mettertyd my vriend.
The sooner we face the fact that Trump, Musk, Russell Vought and Project 2025 are out to break the United States the better, because it is only then that we will really be able to fight them. If we kid ourselves that they are either not serious, or not dangerous, or similarly rationalize their behavior, we are enabling them. We have met the enemy and it is them. Their pretense of “efficiency” is merely camouflage. Don’t fall for it.
Yes! Our nation is under attack by those who seek to destroy us. These traitors have drunk Putin’s and Orban’s cool aid and have given up their will and honor to be suckled by the Big Orange Pig. While the power thirsty Tech Bro Oligarchs pull the strings. It is a full on attack. Donating to legal groups and calling to urge our Senators and Representatives to stand up to the attackers is good. But definitely not enough! Our quandary is when do we take to the streets in force? And will that be enough? The educators and senators who were turned away from the Dept of Education. Next time they must just push their way in. No more decorum. But what else is needed?
There is a very fine line here. "Push their way in" becomes the liberal equivalent of Jan 6th and is something that must be avoided at all costs.
False equivalence. Context is everything. Insisting on entrance to a government agency building is not the same as breaching and vandalizing the seat of government while terrorizing and murdering the public servants tasked with protecting and finalizing an election.
The face off will come.
& The face will come off.
Make sure you're fully armed, because THEY ARE!!
It’s hard to believe that anyone buys their bullschittery. Efficiency is just for the MAGAts who have had brains eaten by worms. Camouflage is the game they are playing. W played it too, but Dems never caught on.
The enemy, William?
It's also Chuck Schumer, who, as recent majority leader of the U.S. Senate, could have called a vote on whether to clear the orange felon of insurrection, or to leave Article 14, Section Three in force.
If the fat orange felon hadn't gotten the necessary 2/3 for clearance from insurrection, he would have been disqualified from any elective office anywhere in America.
I don’t agree that Chuck Schumer is the enemy. Calling him that to me trivializes what Trump, Musk, Russell Vought et. al. are doing. There doesn’t seem to me to be any equivalence here at all.
William, I think about half the population are already facing the facts of what's going on. The other half would never do that out of ignorance and cultism. A percentage of this last group that was mistaken but not too stupid will start feeling the pain of the policies being implemented as we speak and reconsider. Maybe.
We can give up on those who support Trump, Musk and company, or we can try to convince them they made a mistake. Giving up means we change no one’s mind; trying means we at least have a chance to change some minds—and maybe all of them.
I think we are in agreement William. We can show them the right path forward but they need to feel the pain of their decision first. It's painful to recognize we made a mistake and there're psychological mechanisms to cope with that, namely, denial and rationalization.
So much of Heather’s yesterday yet speaks crucially to our crisis today.
Such as key reminder: “Congress alone has the right to make laws. It alone has the power to . . .” – and here she specifies more exactly. As if we still had laws – as if even our elites might abide by them.
Let’s not forget our newest who now put themselves over laws: our young geeks, nerds, gnomes, incels.
They’re ours: products of our schools, social media, plastics in everyone’s blood streams, highway carbons, dark money billionaires, and mega-corrupted, multiply-perjured Clarence court.
Mike “Howdy Doodie” Johnson approves. All Republicans – spineless, ignorant of history, dehumanized – also approve”: applaud, lie, cover for criminality.
Putin, Xi, Kim, Orban, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Modi, Sisi, Milei and all their consort even more warmly approve.
Trump held a car boot sale for rulership of the US and Muskolini bought himself a "ticket to rule" for a mere 270 million dollars. So that was the price of American democracy... Putin must be laughing his balls off, and Biden must be crying a hole in the ground watching these stooges break down everything he built up in four years in just two weeks...
We're in deep do do, man,
But real $h*t has yet to hit the fan.
If the courts fail, the markets will fall...
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
(Probably not over 'til the fat lady sings' in 2026. In the interim,
we must learn to talk respectfully to those we need to hear reason.)
Yep, and that crash is exactly the idea. Then who profits the most when the economy crashes? Precisely. It's the insanely rich who become even more insanely rich every time the markets crash...
Need to hear reason?
No, instead, Mark, to hear the human.
Reason devolves by the standardized tests
To A-B-C-D how the living dead always know best.
Best as to how the suck-up billionaires
Know and love how their top criminal fares
As he leaves his fascist incels free
To destroy our democracy.
Like the poetry and appreciate the wit and wisdom regarding speaking to the humanity in the ‘other’, (sometimes) even more than speaking reason to those who can hear.
But I still have hopes for reason in speaking to the humanity in others… and here’s another clever bit on that front:
Reason by Josephine Miles (1911-1985)
Said, Pull her up a bit will you, Mac, I want to unload there.
Said, Pull her up my rear end, first come first served.
Said, give her the gun, Bud, he needs a taste of his own bumper.
Then the usher came out and got into the act:
Said, Pull her up, pull her up a bit, we need this space, sir.
Said, For God's sake, is this still a free country or what?
You go back and take care of Gary Cooper's horse
And leave me handle my own car.
Saw them unloading the lame old lady,
Ducked out under the wheel and gave her an elbow.
Said, All you needed to do was just explain;
Reason, Reason is my middle name.
Mark, you cannot reason with unreasonable people. Reason will not penetrate the dis and mis information that they sup on and take as absolute gospel. You cannot respectfully show/tell/explain them any information, statistics, data that runs contrary to their sincerely held beliefs. Facts do not supersede belief.
I’m afraid your assessment is poised to prove true.
Nailed it Dutch Mike
Putin won’t be in the shadow for long…
For a moment I thought you had forgotten Venezuela 's Maduro from the very elite list you compiled but then, I remember we bought him in a deal to send back Venezuelans in exchange for oil that we don't need. Such a good step forward for our allies building policies. Proud to be American.
If Trump and his minions don’t obey the rulings of the courts, which i believe is likely, then who will enforce the law against them? This situation is becoming increasingly intolerable.
Yes, if the co-presidents refuse to abide by the court’s orders and the court orders the US Marshal’s Service to force compliance (the US Marshal’s Service is under the DOJ and the executive branch) rotted pumpkin will simply order them not to abide by the court’s orders. We are standing on a dangerous precipice right now.
Indeed. Where's George Washington?
George was looking sadly from his wall portrait in the Oval Office at a smiling Clarence Thomas giving the oath of office to Plastic Pam Bondi. Who knew Clarence could crack a smile. Poor George.
Well, with that terrible dentition, I guess he didn't do much smiling. And our George Washington? Someone like Jamie Raskin? or Liz Cheney? Or AOC?
I respect Liz's integrity wrt the US constitution. But I don't support her political positions as they were in the past. Jamie and AOC are great. Philips is young and talks sense.
Well said Reader. 👏
I was coming to HCR's Substack to make this very point. And to wonder if Roberts and the Justices will be as easy to be steamrolled as Johnson, et al. The SCOTUS doesn't have to worry about Trump/Musk/Shanahan's threats to run someone against them in a primary. Will they give up their power as easily? However, if the answer is no, who will enforce the rule of law? As Vincent has pointed out, the situation is becoming increasingly intolerable... and volatile.
It's not over yet.
As expressed by others above, maintain the resistance and the pressure!
Correction will come slowly, slowly, ... then all at once.
Hoping for correction before a breakdown into massive chaos.
Jill if scotus give up their power, they preserve their power. I know, it's a paradox but it is what it is.
Will our MSM even tell us…
Find your info on substack, bluesky, community organizations, your trusted peers, and foreign public & reader supported press like The Guardian. Read widely, believe nothing without broad substantiation.
Commercial MSM is for sale, and always has been. PLEASE! spend your limited remaining attention under self-direction. Forget the MSM.
Vincent, the answer to your is: nobody is going to enforce the laws and they know it. That's Congress job but we don't have a functioning one. That's why they are playing rough and risking very little. Sorry to say.
Thank you, Heather, for your dedication to comprehensive write-ups and sourcing.
Brilliant and tireless (at what personal cost?)
I'm going to play selfish here, but I hope she is not going to take off, at least, the week off that she deserves. 😇
Tuck Frump and his Project 2025 puppet masters.
We are now seeing what is possible when a common thug who also happens to be a convicted felon has the power that comes with the Presidency. Like all criminals he surrounds himself with either other criminals who think obeying the law is, to use his term from another context, “suckers and losers “ or totally inept operatives who will do whatever he wants. As bad as he is the Republican Congress members are worse - they know he is lying and an existential threat to our entire system of government and yet continue to rubber stamp each absurd lie he utters.
He must feel rejuvenated. "You're fired", all day and every day, and nobody's thought of telling him it's not real - he can't do that. Although the Law, that battered watchdog, is now shaking itself and baring its teeth.
Don't kid yourself. He is a raging black hole. There's no such thing as real satisfaction for someone so hollow.
Orgasmic all day every day. He did say at one point that each presidential day would be like an episode of the very best tv show, with him vanquishing his enemies…
Each presidential day feels like a century. Absolutely tiredness 😩
Not optimal to underestimate one's opponent.
If he's a common thug, how did he beat us? He did not 'happen' to win.
Eyes open, please, this is a bloody serious and complex fight with some of the most capable disinformation purveyors in the world, and at the moment they hold considerable power, but not all.
Lots of people have already been hurt; likely even more people will die, perhaps many.
We need to understand not what they say, but how they persuade, and then do better.
We need to know that ?half of those who voted for him, are more like us, if they had our information.
And still no acknowledgement of the coup from the MSM. And Fluffer Barbie Karoline Leavitt will continue to gaslight from the podium, while Mr. Toad Johnson lies to us from the House. The shite storm continues unabated.
Regarding the MSM, including the so-called legacy media, here's a case in point:
The New York Times posted an article Monday
with the headline "Trump 2.0 Heralds an Aggressive Flexing of Power."
"Flexing," really?
If we were to use the plain ol' intellectually honest English language, shouldn't it be "Abusing"?
After all, we're talking about serial lawlessness and assaults on the Constitution, aren't we?
Donald Trump didn't get impeached twice (and indicted four times) for "Flexing," did he?
By normalizing and sane-washing, The Times remains part of the problem, not part of the solution.
They have been bought and sold...don't read a word they publish - it's all just to placate the felon...
Barbie! of course!
I think it's VERY useful for us all to amplify to our friends and followers that RED states are getting hit hardest by this executive order madness and slash and burn cuts. Blue states sue and get instant relief - red states are left fundless.
And keep those calls up! https://5calls.org
—— But, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance notes, the only relief sought is for the twenty-two Democratic-led states that have sued, keeping Republican-dominated states from freeloading on their Democratic counterparts. As Josh Marshall noted today in Talking Points Memo, it appears a pattern is emerging in which Democratic-led states are suing the administration while officials from Republican-led states, which are even harder hit by Trump’s cuts than their Democratic-led counterparts, are asking Trump directly for help or exceptions.——
Yes to AMPLIFICATION to red states. We need red states’ voters to get wise to what is happening and to call their Reps too. They are in this with us. We need them to awaken to the danger we are all in.
Exactly, Avery!
Avery, they are liking what is happening. They absolutely LOVE getting rid of anything that promotes anything other than white, male, Christian, heteronormative, cisgendered superiority. So what if farmers lose the ability to sell their product to USAID? No non-deserving people get that food. So what if people die from AIDS? They deserve it. What they love most of all are the made up numbers showing "graft".
Hard to "like" that statement, but I think it's true. "What's in it for ME?"
And I like it Alex.
Karma.
The ecstasy of the MAGAsm, especially by the willfully ignorant and the insatiably greedy, will be relatively short-lived – until the grim realities of The Big Con set in. Delusions can evaporate fast.
Steven Livitsky, in an article titled "The New Authoritarianism" for The Atlantic, writes:
"Democracy is not yet lost. The Trump administration will be politically vulnerable. Unlike successful elected authoritarians such as Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and Vladimir Putin in Russia, Trump lacks broad popular support. His approval rating has almost never surpassed 50 percent, and incompetence, overreach, and unpopular policies will almost certainly dampen public support for the new administration. An autocratic president with an approval rating below 50 percent is still dangerous, but far less so than one with 80 percent support. The new administration’s political weakness will open up opportunities for opposition in the courtroom, on the streets, and at the ballot box."
***
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/trump-competitive-authoritarian/681609/
***
Our institutions have been shaken to their core, but they tend to be resilient. So let's keep hope alive.
Gene, “MAGAtism?”
In this instance, MAGAsm is intended. Rhymes with orgasm. Guaranteed not to last forever.
Gene, Fair enough! I think I like yours better!
Just decided to have a little fun (a near-impossibility when the subject is MAGAts).
Stark evidence of Hitler's National Socialism here and now. A disgrace beyond words. Think of the millions who perished in Wordl War II because of that pathologically insane tyrant. Tell them they fought and died in vain. Because if this goes on, they did. And new bodies will have to pile up until the resistance prevails. Message to Mr. Trump: you are a loser, have been all your life. You and your lawless associates will fail spectacularly. We will see to that no matter how long it takes.
And, as a sidebar to all these concerns (thanks, Professor Richardson for recounting them so clearly), on Monday the 10th, the team POTUS has entrusted with weeding out fraud and such, cancelled contracts between the US Department of Education research arm (Institute of Educational Research) and dozens-scores-hundreds of organizations. The cancellations affect data that US citizens follow for evidence about educational progress and how to improve it...especially my hobby horse (giddy-ap!), special education and disabilities. Of course, this is small potatoes, so I've only found coverage from NPR, Politico, and Education Week...sigh.