The 1st and 2nd graders I teach are better at taking responsibility for their actions than our president is…heck, even my 2 year old is 🤦♀️
Be LOUD. These are unprecedented times and we deserve WAY better 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Probably because your 2nd graders have more empathy, more emotional intelligence, and a stronger moral compass than Trump and his entire Cabinet... combined.
Yes, the 2nd graders clearly have more empathy, more emotional intelligence and a stronger moral compass than Donald J. Trump, who is an empty, hollow sorry excuse of a human being. I have seen more "humanity" expressed by animals in the wild that the "Hollow Man" has. The hollowness is why Trump needs all of the external props with his name on them to confirm that he is "somebody."
Richard, I see him as just a bag of malevolent air which is polluting not only our country but the world. Our young taxi driver in Portugal when we were there during the his first run, noted this.
"New Epstein Epstein Revelations' credited to LISA RUBIN & MYCHAEL SCHNELL documenting 7 missing Epstein documents & confirmed by MS NOW. Three (3) of the Epstein Files are FBI- DOJ interviews of a personal victim of Donald J. Trump.
The missing documents are listed in a court index under a coded number were interviews (plural) of a witness that declared she was raped & battered (later hit in the head) by DJT when she was between13 & 15 years old.
An authorized person was allowed to view the unreacted files confirmed there were four (4) interviews of the witness between 2017-2019.
Separately NPR's STEPHEN FOWLER reports a total fifty(50) missing documents.
He's a deranged and mentally ill person who believes he has control over our nation. We the people must combine or voices and strength and stop this madness...NOW!
So, Trump is not the first "Hollow Man" to wield power. It may just be that there is nothing new in the Universe. It's our sad lot that this miserable, sorry excuse for a human had to emerge in our time. Perhaps better us than our children and grandchildren. We must wage the fight to defeat this evil. The words from the poem, "In Flanders Fields" comes to mind: "To you from failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields."
You need to read the poem and the poem you quote written by a Canadian WWI soldier! T S Eliot a fled American front Louis who I think saw some of the lynchings and racist violence. His mother social worker abd they lived in the edge of the great area of respectable streets. If one dies close reading the method taught post WWII in lit classes one sees abd heard the African American story. Similar to how one sees abd hears that in Rick abd Roll. The underground music and sounds and yes horrors at intertwined with every human being and group. We all hold pain and tragedy in our American bones and fines. And unless and until we all acknowledge this we all are hollow.
Once again unable go edit all! No matter how hard I try failed efforts petals sling my path.
The 3 dots at the right edge of your name (top line), allow you to edit your comment, at least as I see mine on a PC.
Others clicking on someone else's will see choices to; Copy link, Restack, Collapse, or Report (the Report option can hide the comment from your screen but doesn't hide it from others).
I make so many typos lately, that I gave up trying to edit all of them. That is unless others have commented and I reread what I wrote and determine the typos are bad enough to make the comment a bit too difficult to understand.
We get the meaning well enough, but if you want to correct some, you can by seeing the different options when you click on the same 3 dots on your own comment.
The difference is; Edit will appear above Copy link, Restack, and Collapse. Delete will replace Report at the bottom.
As you can see by my comment, Edited appears after I made changes.
So now they’re not posting my post all the time they’re hiding them or burying them but the 73 Democrat dementia Democrats should have a sandbox to play in with our pails and shovels labeled with their names in big print so that the entire American public would be able to see who the children are in the room
And the string of losses continue. Do you know what some people realize while they want to be bold and pepper voices heard you can’t at the same time keep emphasizing your stupidity and ignorance by posting again and again, which is exactly what you’re doing. You should take out an ad in New York somewhere. Here is Richard Sutherland, a dummy who keeps posting in entities. Can’t tell the difference, between facts and fiction, nor does he care to
Hey Richard, you’re like one of the most ignorant upside down human beings I’ve ever me. What Trump should’ve done to show the maturity of the left is to build a sandbox right outside the opening to the venue with pails and shovels labeled with the names of every single congress person that’s not showing up for the state of the union. That way, the children could play in a venue where they belong.
Mr. sender, with all do respect, I find nothing you write now nor have I ever found anything you have written that has any substance of intelligence. You rant, you rave, you accuse, but nothing has any substance attached to it. Are you really just the orange face or taco or the chump or trump writing these worthless insults? Frankly, I usually ignore what you write because I know know just how thoughtless and rude it will be. But tonight it was better to read your comments than to listen to the incompasitated baffoon on tv tonight. Now that I've wasted my time reading your comments, I'm not sure if I should have wasted time listening to or reading either.
And after further review, mark what I figure it out as you’re allergic to facts you break out in a liberal rash. When you hear something that doesn’t fit into your narrow, minded, close, minded object that’s about 3 feet above your ass.
Nothing make a big deal of it because I use voice texting and you may as well, but it’s due process not do process
But by the way you wanna hear how some of you people think I actually had some lady tell me well he might’ve closed the border, but he didn’t do it legally. Holy sh.
Well, if you haven’t read any of my post marc unfortunately here’s one. I wrote back in May for your enjoyment and reading pleasure. And they’re 62 more that I have in my arsenal for future posting
Bullet points of Trump’s wins .. this is the assertion as I read articles from various publications. 1. Closed the border in only 75 days when AOC and Mayorkas and Harris (aka the border czar) said that the NOY ONLY THAT THE BORDER WAS SECURE, but only way to do it was legislation/aka mass amnesty) which, of course would take years. It didn’t fall the public when 10 to 15,000 illegals cross the border every day while the people in the administration continue to tell the story of the border being secure And as well, the Democrats attempted to allow these folks to vote. Attem
millions of illegals to come across the border, courtesy of the Democrats in order to get them to vote. Ooops true. Proof 148 congressman vote to allow non-citizens to vote. New York City stats along with state Supreme Court vote.
Removing criminal illegals And deporting many
Iran nuclear strike .. TACO acronym up in smoke and other countries now know he means business.
Israel, Iranian cease fire
African peace agreement, and Cease fire
India Pakistan agreement and Cease fire
The NATO deal with Rutte calling him daddy and thanking him
Supreme Court rulings list them all
Stock market NASDAQ and S&P hit all time high Dow on its way.
Fraud at USAID including for pleading guilty to $500 million of fraud
2.7 billion of fraud against Medicare caught where 13 billion was committed if not stopped
Big beautiful Bill
$9B dollar recision bill…defunding NPR AND PBS… taking taxpayers off the hook
Economy surprises all the negative pundits
Job growth exceeding expectation.
Lowest inflation in four years at 2.7 versus prediction of 2.6.
First budget surplus in 20 years in June. Good news at least for now bringing in billions in tariffs
Goodbye Department of Education, who lead our worldwide educational level from being first in the world in 1979 with Carter ..to 18th in 2009. Two currently ranked 40th in the world.
Rasmussen poll is the country headed in the right direction the highest rating in the last 29 years.
Gas prices… on memorial day lowest in five years. Eggs down from seven dollars a dozen to under three dollars a dozen
The left cult
The recent healthcare fraud takedown revealed over $14.6 billion in fraudulent claims against Medicare, resulting in criminal charges against 324 individuals, including healthcare professionals. This operation is the largest of its kind in U.S. history, highlighting extensive schemes that exploited federal health
Post the meme about liberals say? On the other page
They want to cleanse this country and arrest as many people as possible because we’re only going after brown people.
This is about your advertising in a very positive incredibly positive statement. I’m going to make here.
As a former chairman of one of the largest advertising companies in the world with an ANNUAL budget for advertising of half $1 billion I congratulate you on the Sydney Sweeney advertising campaign, but I have a bit of advice for you in a good way
Take it to the next level. Quickly grab a gorgeous black woman and put her in your jeans and do the exact same commercial then do it with an Asian then do it with a Hispanic, then put all four of them in the same commercial. And overtime you’ll win the hearts and minds of all the idiots who have been protesting and an inventing innuendo that didn’t exist in your ads.
You can thank me later
Actually, I think we should rename this thread. The world’s capital and official home of TDS.
I don’t wanna give them too much credit or overdeliver, but I actually think that pretty much fits. when you see people fighting so vigorously to protect criminals and criminal activity. Boggles the mind. And unfortunately, diminishes the actual, intelligent quotient of its inhabitants.
Trump on his interview from 1997 with Larry King
If you Would like to see some Expert economic prediction…. Here’s an interview from 1987 with Larry King and it’s amazing how correct this person was and his predictions.
Yea, the ones not being eaten in Springfield, Ohio..... sorry could not help myself ... the Felon said that in the debate and it got him votes. When I see cats and dogs written now it is my immediate image. I agree with your statement by the way.
You have to ask....who were the parents of these maga evildoers; what childhood experiences led them to want to abolish all our social institutions and the destruction of democracy and the constitution; having no interest or concern for wisdom and truth, and their support for the rise of a wicked tyrant?? Challenging ignorance and prejudice is an ongoing and will be a multi-year campaign. How uncertain will be our hopes in this miserable and fragile life??
Sadly, many voted for trump because they couldn't be bothered to pay attention to what trump has always been or to the principles that drive the right-wing, that have always driven them. Who knows how many allow themselves to be manipulated by their social media feeds.
If there could be anything worthwhile to come from the destruction wrought by the fascist GOP, is meaningful regulation of toxic social media and AI.
Chances are that those Trump supporters will never admit their error. I haven't looked into it but there may be accounts by those Germans who initially supported Hitler but then had an epiphany and came to identify the cause for their support and why it was in error. I think that it is virtually impossible for a white Christian nationalist to come to terms with his/her thinking. We go back in time here to the early 1950's and Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer." I see two elements at the core of Trump's support: 1) racism (white Christian supremacy, including the Great Replacement Theory adherents such as Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes) and 2) anti-feminism (overturning Roe v Wade and passing the SAVE Act, placing huge burdens on females in terms of voting,) to name just two.
A study was done on who the Trump voters were in the 2016 election, researched and published by two Univ. of Kansas professors: "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" Feb. 2018 edition of the peer-reviewed journal, "Critical Sociology." The conclusion? They share Trump's hates and prejudices and want him to punish, to crush the immigrants, women's and gay rights advocates and more.
https://t.co/tNmg9DCEoZ Check this out. These are the faces of Americans that were killed by illegal aliens last year alone. This is all they could fit in one picture.
Yeah, you didn’t see any empathy tonight did you Stephen you ignorant fool
The whole night was about empathy for Americans not for illegals that have killed Americans. That’s the difference between your morons and human beings.
All your first and second graders combined surely couldn't do as much damage to the sandbox (let alone the country) as this wretched cabal of scumbags and scalawags.
Exactly. I taught for almost four decades, and I never met a child, even the ones with anger issues, with as much desire to destroy as our president has. When he said he could “do absolutely ‘terrible’ things to foreign countries” my first reaction was, Why? What is the point?
I get it. I taught some very wealthy and entitled children, and spent a lot of effort on getting them to accept personal responsibility for their actions. It is the work of a framework and a concerted effort to spend time discussing their actions. I also always started the year with a book that I read aloud, and taught the children how to reflect on and discuss books while I read to them. It was called "Double Dog Dare" by Lisa Graff. There are characters in the book that everyone understands. When I got a kid who was an Brendon or an Andre, and at a certain point in the year I could say, "Are you being a Brendon?" or "Are you being an Andre?" While they might protest this, I would point out the similarities, and it was powerful for them to make the connections because the characters in the book had helped them to be on the outside looking in. The last Brendon I had, had 2 Andres who followed him. I ended up having a good relationship with Brendon and one of the Andres, but the other Andre, whose mom was dealing with cancer did not come around. I don't know what he is doing today, but I would worry for him. He needs therapy to not end up like the mean people. I had a girl Brendon, and I totally cut down her social network of Andres, and once that happened, and I had a conversation with her mom about how she was leading everyone to follow breaking the school rules and the girls she liked had decided in my class they did not want to be like that. Once she understood that they could like her and would play with her, but only if she engaged in prosocial behavior, and then with conversations and guidance she turned her social life around. Then, just as this fragile change had come about, our school shut down from Covid. In the classes I had during Covid, everyone was sweet, and there were other challenges to deal with.
Unfortunately, teachers like you are in short supply.Like you, I taught for more than 3 decades. Teacher training programs do not emphasize what you so ably described.
Eadie/Linda: Remember the movie, "The Bad Seed?" Trump's childhood must have been a devastatingly miserable, horrible experience, resulting in a person who has not a single redeeming quality. Inherited? Congenital? Conditioned? There is no question but that Trump has ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder.)
Yet I know a few people who see Trump as the Second Messiah.
The county in which I taught once purchased a program called Character Counts. It was used for a while, then was replaced by STEM - science, technology, engineering and math - good for job applications but devoid of character building, personal responsibility.... you know the rest.
Laurie, Lisa Graff is an excellent writer. It is my fourth grade beginning of the year book to read aloud. For third grade "Justin Case: School Drool, and Other Daily Disasters " by Rachel Vail is my beginning of the year read aloud. There we focus on handling being in class without you close friends, and the need to make new friends, also a theme in DDD and we use the rope he has to climb as a metaphor for each person's individual challenges. The children have to figure out what their third grade "rope to climb" is and at the end of the year we see how they have done with that.
It has always been a good time whether reading aloud to my students or my own children.
I awakened twenty-five minutes ago from dreams which came close to convincing me I had left my senses. I immediately fired up my email, read this morning's LFAA, and realized, "at long last", Angus King, my Senator, seems finally awakened fully to reality and his own "sense of decency" (when last I heard Joseph Welch say it live on June 9, 1954 as I was about to graduate from high school). I'm off to breakfast but realized immediately after I needed to write still another letter to King to try and get him off his patrician butt in the Senate and join a sustained, righteous, and successful Democrat and citizen rebellion against the pressing threat to the Republic. When it's done, succinct, and off, I'll post it here. (63 'likes' here when I posted the letter disappeared, probably because of posting algorithms respecting extended editing ??)
The letter:
Dear Senator King,
Two hours ago at breakfast table I spoke of my intent to support your absence at SOTU HCR spoke to from your letter declaring your intent to skip Trump's SOTU address tonight. However, almost immediately I found myself persuaded by a tablemate that doing so was, in fact, inconsistent with your obligation as our Senator to oversee all of Trump's official actions. She made the case that just because Trump behaves badly can't justify the nonperformance of your own. Sure, the President's performance has been deeply flawed, in all kinds of ways. His contempt for comity. the courts, legislators, citizens, whole peoples and nations, his immoderate discourse, could ground a rationale for justifying your absence from the hall.
What we loyal, thinking, caring Americans out here expect of you is the full performance of all your obligations, including the grueling torture of his SOTU's. That includes observing, understanding, countering, and defeating Donald J. Trump's excruciatingly course, insensitive, prejudicial, illegal, flawed actions and inclinations including the incompetence and unconstitutional bent of so many of his appointees. Your immediate task as our Senator is to do as much as you are capable of the delicate, demanding work of the sustenance of our democracy including, painful as it may be, suffering through his official performances so that you can undertake and speak convincingly to the concomitant oversight responsibilities acquired when we elected you. How else can you achieve, in both appearance and actuality, your core obligation to shore up the Republic in all the dozens of ways necessary to assure, not just its survival as a liberal democracy going forward, but strengthened in all the ways DJT's authoritarian tendencies have revealed requisite to assuring its robust continuance for at least a second 250 year run?
Three critical dates lie ahead. The crucial mid terms occur in just eight fleeting months. Two months later must see 16 additional conducting critical and sweeping oversight hearings of the weaknesses revealed in Trump's 'leadership' inclinations and actions to clearly indicate the profound stakes involved in the 2028 Presidential election. Only that way can the people be informed of the extent of Trump's damage and the wisdom of halting and the rebuilding aimed at correcting the weakneses Trump's and others' actions have revealed. Presuming there is a defining win for the supporters of liberal democracy, two months after the Dem's achieve that, starting in 2029 will mark the launch of a decade plus of the critical and precise shoring up and corrective action to the Constitution -- the rights, rule of law, balance of powers, and so forth -- to project the abiding message of America for another two centuries or more.
Modeling the responsible performance of good government is a sound concomitant to all of this. As a citizen I have tried to bring forth enabling ideas requisite to all this and in much greater detail to Democratic leadership in America. Over going-on three years I have yet to receive a single response, even so much as an acknowledgement, to my efforts. (I am just vain enough to believe, however, that after the first shutdown sending a direct email to your D.C. office as forceful as this one, you did indeed almost immediately adjust your public stance in effect acknowledging similar observations to those -- as these-- I then raised.) Feedback on Substack has encouraged me to continue on, nonetheless, until I can no longer meet my own standards.
Sincerely ,
Hendrik D. Gideonse. Constituent, Brooklin ME
Professor Emeritus of Education and Policy Science and Dean Emeritus
I think you should have gone with your first instinct. No Democrat or Independent should be an audience for this fascist president’s speech tonight. In every way possible he has shown his complete disdain for the Constitution; he has broken his oath. It is not a Senator’s job to listen to this man’s every lying word. Sitting there gives him honor, and that is the opposite of the Senator’s job, which is to obey the Constitution.
I respectfully disagree. Two wrongs don't make a right. When I elect Congress Critters one of the roles they're supposed to undertake is oversight of the Executive Branch. Part of that is personally appearing at sessions aimed at requiring officers to expound on accomplishments and takes on "what's goin' on" with the principals and their appointees. For the first time in literally decades I've not watched SOTU's. Because King's not going to I feel I have to so I can let him know tomorrow morning in an e-mail exactly what I think he missed and I expect him as MY Senator to attend to. ()Writing this to you this afternoon is a warm-up for that as you'll see below.)
As a governor and Senator I was a strong King supporter, until recently, when he seems to have lost the crispness and insight I once admired. He has not espoused a leadership role in addressing Trump's authoritarian proclivities. When last fall he abruptly stopped the first government closure he mentioned not a word about Trump's autocratic postures. I immediate wrote a protest for that serious omission; he then changed his tune the next day in a communication to the Portland Press Herald without acknow-ledging anything about why. I had a chance to note that in a letter which the Press Herald approved for publication though I never saw it because I'm not a subscriber.
This country, my country, is in deep trouble. I'm the 90-year-old child of immigrants who came permanently after WW I, met in NY, married and I was their first born. I had superior public schooling and made what turned out to be powerful choices to college and graduate school. I love this country. I hate what it has become under Trump but I understand, now, that it has taken fifty years getting to this point of the why/how it's decay started and in the past ten gathered steam. I worked as a Fed for seven years early in my career. My best estimate, given the sizes of the tasks needed for correction is five to one against it happening.
NO PLANNING is being done even conjecturally to determine what those tasks are or how to win them on the tasks facing us even if we win the 2028 elections big time; the impediments and the societal/technological/ dispositional/intellectual/informational dispositions, facing us that very, very few people are addressing.
Getting from the Declaration to the ratification of the Constitution 1788 took twelve years. To address the revealed weaknesses of the current document given current modern, historical, and evolving technologies, the anti-democratic tendencies of the electoral college and the Senate's role in Congress, plus the deep divides in the Nation measured against the cumbersome nature of provisions for amendments could not possibility be completed within that same time frame. But without imaginative and thorough planning and substantial nation-wide effort effort even that strikes me as highly improbable. For my granddaughters' sake I'll keep having at it until I can't anymore.
Absolutely yes, VERY seriously. Attendance is not a sign of respect unless its demanded by the speaker. Article II of the Constitution requires it of the President for the benefit of the Congress. When I vote for Congress Critters I expect them to oversee the Executive Branch; one of whose leadership responsibilities is to periodically inform them of the state of the union. They're obliged to listen; it has nothing to do with whether or not they respect the President. Surely Republicans had no trouble disrespecting Biden at his SOTU's. In fact many of them attended precisely to have an audience of one they could DISrespect! I might even make the argument that refusing to show actually indicates disrespect for the Congress' responsibilities as well as the Constitution, hence the capitalization of VERY in the first line.
It's, we hope, we have a friend who substituted recently in a third grade classroom and it was chaos. Interestingly that particular school is in a conservative R voting area.
A century ago the 16th Amendment brought us the IRS as it was intended to reduce cost by ending tariffs. Trump brought back tariffs to make us all pay the taxes of the billionaires who received tax cuts from his Big Ugly Bill. Now we pay the increased cost of imported goods due to his tariffs lie plus we pay IRS. My proposed model amendment in my Memorandum to We the People at UnitedWeAmend.org is my way of being LOUD about that plus many more probelms the Roberts 6 has created. Please find time to read and share it. Send it to elected officials, family and friends. The issues addressed therein need a national dialogue.
I thank Dale Rowett of LexiGraphics.Pro for his talent, knowledge and experience of interpretation and presentation of what was originally just words and a dream into something beautiful.
Albert the question is how do we turn this awareness into a movement against the Trump and Epstein classes? I find it not surprising at all that the person who shot Trump shot him because Trump no longer embodies what he has stood for to MAGA. He is not MAGA enough. Julie Roginsky had spoken to this in an article on MAGA 2.0 saying that they are crazy and really extreme and consider Trump a sell out. Some of these people are Nick Fuentes and Candice Owens. They are Nazis of different genders and colors, but Nazis just the same. They want to destroy Trump and rebuild things in their own ideology.
After Julie wrote this, Jeff Tiedrich posted a piece with Nick Fuentes raging.
This video is of Nick Fuentes telling his people not to vote, is from Jeff Tiedrich's Substack. It reminds me of how Julie Roginsky talked about how the MAGA 2.0 is just unrecognizably scary and how they have factioned off of MAGA 1.0 and feel that they are all big sell outs. The thing is that this is not satire, this is how he really feels about things. https://youtu.be/xhVNs4sibXA?si=kzkR2xCsrSUjUK0w
Linda, I'll start by acknowledging that I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I suspect that most MAGA "influencers" don't believe what they spew, or at least they didn't start out that way. Many have made comments that gave me a clue. Steve Bannon comes to mind.
There is a kind of nihilistic "it's-all-going-to-hell-anyway-so-I'll-just-say-shit-to-see-what-kind-of-reaction-I-get" tone to a lot of MAGA influencer rhetoric. But social media amplifies this grandiloquence and generates massive numbers that stroke the egos of the posters. Fame and followers are intoxicating and addictive. To maintain that "high," these influencers escalate the outrage of their rhetoric to keep their audience engaged.
I think history will remember Mark Zuckerberg as one of the worst humans ever to draw breath. I wonder how long – or even if – antisocial media would be "a thing" if he hadn't started Facebook.
I agree. Steve Bannon and other clowns are performers. Their every performance is only to keep the press focused on them and thus less time actually reporting. The more sexiest and racist they get then the more they promote it as normal and thus the more they divide and conquer America. Our goal must first be unity because without it we cannot win. Thus UnitedWeAmend.org
Well Linda, I don’t know what to say about Fuentes, but Candace Owen’s will need to change her color if she hopes lead in any MAGA circles. As for all that has happened since Trump took office, I am concentrating on one point to make from here on out: IMPEACH!!! We need to promote rallies around the nation for this one single movement. Start with the Capital, then the WH, and every state House in the nation. We’ve given him all the time we can afford.
I miss the point about how Nazi the Nazis are. We focus only on who and how many we are. The Memorandum begins to discuss that near the final pages before the model amendment. Keep in mind the truth that every major revolution in history began with only two or three people working together. John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere were key American Revolutionary leaders in Boston. Buy the book " Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky. Youth say there are newer and maybe better books but this one has survived time. Maybe attend a meeting or two of a progressive group; Move-On, NOW, ... and find a couple of people who want to make Good Trouble. Read that book together and work within your Congressional District to inform people about what the Nazis (Roberts 6) are doing. Read my Memorandum as it informs about that from beginning to end.
Linda, I think taxpayers file a class action against him for repayment of tariff dollars. We sue for use of taxpayer dollars for hiring killing of U.S. citizens, sue him for killing fishermen in international waters, and using dollars without congressional support. He needs stopped with money.
That explains why he wants to remove the cap on running up the national debt. He needs Tariffs so he can brag about how many billions he is bringing in from American consumers.
Thank you, Megan. I needed a new one. Yes, grade schoolers are more responsible. The book title that could help the person even is Everyything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Of course there is much more to know, but those essential lessons need to be learned and used.
I too have always felt that the 3-5 graders I have taught understand government and right and wrong better than this government leadership. We did governmental simulations and they got to understand things pretty well. We developed party planks and they created campaigns for candidates, and then we weave the winning ideas into our classroom for the remainder of the year. They have always been big on environmental issues, and this led to a clean water campaign.
I am living in Germany and have started an Indivisible Abroad group in my city. It is keeping me busy. I am also a member of Democrats Abroad which is heavily involved with GOTV in our locations abroad. Last night I got the good news that the primary ballot I mailed on February 2, has arrived at the Board of Elections in my city. Yay!
Yes, thanks Megan for the spreadsheet and Linda, for all your efforts abroad!
Floridians,TOMORROW is the House vote on the FL version of the SAVE Act.Remember…. Florida Real ID is NOT proof of citizenship and student ID’s would not be allowed for students to vote!
Also Per Reuter's, Phil Stewart, disclosed that a new "Joint U.S. Interagency Task force Counter Cartel", JUSTFCC "provided a detailed target package" to lead the Mexican Army to their targeted kill of cartel leader, EL MENCHO.
How does a citizen find out more facts about a how a new powerful federal Agency works? Alas, the federal 'interagency' structure of the new U.S. operation insulates JUSTFCC from Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests. We will have to rely on Reuters and/or other sources that do exist.
Regardless, as Heather posted, another 3 persons were killed in military airstrikes in the'Eastern Pacific' circa 2/22/26 bringing the total killed by trump's targets wherever to at least 137.
“A report about classified documents has itself been classified from the public.”
A federal judge has permanently barred the release of Volume II of special counsel Jack Smith’s report examining the classified documents case involving Donald Trump. The order binds not only the current attorney general, Pam Bondi, but her successors as well. In other words, this is not a pause. It is a burial.
…Cannon’s reasoning rests on familiar constitutional language. The defendants were never convicted. They retain the presumption of innocence. Releasing the report, she argues, would risk “manifest injustice.”
On paper, that sounds restrained and principled. In practice, it feels like refusing to return the final exam because the grading process became controversial. If no one sees the red ink, technically, no one was embarrassed.
The implication is subtle but powerful. Unless guilt is formally declared in court, the public has no legitimate claim to the assembled facts. Investigation becomes an internal memo rather than a civic reckoning.
By sealing it, the court ensures that it will loom larger in imagination than it might have on paper. You cannot quote what you cannot read. You cannot challenge specific passages. You can only speculate.
Norms are remarkably flexible tools. They expand when we demand exposure and contract when exposure becomes inconvenient. Transparency is a virtue until it threatens someone powerful. Then it becomes a potential injustice.
Convictions are not the only measure of democratic health. Context matters. Explanations matter. Citizens are routinely asked to assess judgment, character, and adherence to law, not merely to tally guilty verdicts. Remove the explanatory layer, and accountability shrinks to a binary.
I have always thought that there is evidence of a sell of information in these files. Follow the money. After all, the banking records was his red line in the first term. This ruling pretty much confirms that theory.
Rickey, as horrendous as the actions of the sex trafficking ring are and as disgusting as the behavior of our Epstein Class is, I believe that the real substance of those files lies in the financial and espionage components of the conduct.
I cannot articulate just how repulsive that entire scenario is to me.
Ellie Leonard has distinguished, herself as an organizer, teacher of other decoders (mostly amateurs at it to start out), and quiet/gentle spur to the pursuit and interconnections of millions of documents mangled in all sorts of ways by the incompetents at the FBI and the DOJ. I was trained first as a political scientist, then a historian and in the latter role I was obliged to read written 19th century records of letters before typewriters and carbons. To save expensive paper costs, copies of official correspondence were retained by writing on both sides of sheets, first, one way horizontally, then turned 90 degrees and written directly across the completed sheet, then turned over and repeated twice more so that one sheet contained four sides. Decoding was sometimes a bear!. Compare than to the cross-checking of relating Trumpstein documents to one another after virtually indiscriminating redactions complicated by multiplistic nicknames, single letter 'handles' and the like. Ellie's persistence, gentility and reserve, all despite her clear disgust over the then entire meshuge and unconscionable delays in addressing it for the survivors and the governing delays, is truly remarkable.
As I have said on other sites, If I were CJ Roberts, I'd convene a hearing for Trump to show cause why he is not in contempt of SCOTUS.
"The court's Friday ruling was "deeply disappointing". The justices who joined the majority opinion should be "absolutely ashamed" and lacked the courage to "do the right thing", Trump said, turning his response into a sweeping attack against a co-equal branch of government.
"The broadside was remarkable even for a president known for blowing past political norms and publicly berating those who challenge his authority.
"I'm ashamed of certain members of the court. Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country," Trump said at the start of a press conference at the White House, which was held a few hours after the decision was released.
"Trump did not mince words from there as he assessed the decision, which held that presidents do not have inherent authority to impose sweeping tariffs on any country.
"For the next 45 minutes, Trump criticised the ruling and made the case that he would find other methods to continue imposing tariffs on other countries. But throughout he repeatedly returned to the justices in ways that made clear he felt personally slighted by the decision."
It's not surprising, Daniel. Donald's life of almost 80 years has been no more than a series of transactions. "I do this for you and expect you to do that for me." His father modeled this transactional way of life, as did his grandfather, the pimp (nothing more transactional than sex for money).
Donald placed Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett on The Court – for a lifetime – with very clear and specific expectations that they are always to give him deference – for a lifetime. To his mind, they have "reneged" on "the deal." For his entire life, Donald has made a policy of punishing those he believes have betrayed him, regardless of who they are. This is the Bratva way.
Trump is a loser who is now in a rage, referring to the "ridiculous and poorly crafted supreme court decision".
In the wake of Trump’s "ridiculous and poorly crafted" Tweets and Truth Socials (sic), it’s increasingly clear that America and the world has a dire need for someone to do an intervention.
There is no clearer evidence that American leadership of the world order is gone than the willingness of our trade partners to turn their backs and walk away, joining new trading partnerships that exclude us. The US economy is going to tank because markets need certainty; all they are getting from Trump is chaos.
The EU countries are leading the pushback against diplomatic bullying. Kushner’s blackballing is a major act of retaliation after he dissed the French by refusing to meet their demand for his presence. That only adds to the pushback from Denmark and Greenland over the latest “hospital ship” fiasco. Diplomatic bridges are being burnt.
Trump is having a breakdown. It looks like Mike Johnson has decided to push him over the edge by saying the House is unlikely to support new tariffs. He may be testing the waters for aligning with JD Vance on an Article 25, Section 4, pre-midterm removal of Trump. That, followed by Vance dumping all of the Epstein files, including the new ones in the hidden storage areas, could be cast as MAGA saving the country, and all of the blue wave calculations would have to be revised. It would be a last-ditch effort to salvage something from the midterms.
How Trump gets through the State of the Union tonight will be evidence of how delusional he is.
Yikes. But I have to say, I’d take that horrible scenario over continuing with Trump. And we just need to show up this November in droves. It will be a year of intense work for those of us who know the stakes to convince everyone to unite and vote. I still can’t comprehend people who know what’s happening but who still think not voting is a statement and display of their voice. They scare me more than Trump.
They certainly are. Foreign markets have been outperforming. The US is the laggard. Once this interlude of chaos ends with more decoupling from the US economy, they will recover first.
The less US treasury bonds are seen as a safe haven, the lower the demand for dollars and the higher US inflation will be. The Euro is already being positioned to be the next reserve currency.
The certainty is going to be outside the US. You will know for sure when commodities start being priced in Euros instead of dollars. China is also trying to do that.
Even if he goes, the "administration" Trump put in place will remain. Cruelty will remain a feature, as will ineptitude, graft, and lawlessness. When challenged by the public or genuine crises, as it will certainly be after removing Trump, a Vance/Thiel administration will remain fascist and corrupt. Such regimes always double down on repressive policies. We The People have HAD IT with such policies, weather wielded by a failed real-estate broker, an ivy-league NAZI, or delusional tech-bro.
I don't think releasing the Trumpstein files will save any of them.
I agree. The Trump regime will remain with a more obedient frontman in Vance. Lots more reasons to be worried about “domestic terrorists” interfering with the election if Trump is gone. At the same time, they will be touting “a return to sanity” and “election fraud” until the midterms. The filibuster will go in the Senate because they need a simple majority to get through legislation to give them more leverage through voter suppression and start a war against dissent in political discourse.
Even Robert Reich and Heather in her “What the Heck Just Happened” videos are saying they think it will get worse before it gets better…
Thank you for the link! It rings true, all of it, including the prediction of getting worse before it has a chance of getting better. It's all very frightening! BTW, Reich is so smart. I subscribe to quite a few substacks, and I haven't added his; but I know he always provides up-to-date information and a sage perspective.
This is an existential issue for the Republicans. This is also a criminal enterprise, and keeping the majority is essential. In a righteous House, Gonzales would be expelled.
I think if another R dies of natural causes, they would put in a body double. They hid Rep. Kay Grainger for months when she was suffering from dementia, to avoid a special election.
More to the point, the expulsion of George Santos took 11 months from when he was sworn in to when he was finally expelled.
Here’s a link to all the procedural steps that have to be followed according to the Congressional Research Service.
I think so too, beyond what the oligarchs will tolerate. AI should do well in an authoritarian state, but not when the US is being excluded from major new economic alliances that will shut them out of desirable markets. The crazier Trump behaves, the closer the oligarchs will get to dumping him for Vance ahead of the midterms.
Again, Georgia, you may have just proven yourself our best, most far-seeing analyst. The possibility of an actual 25th Amendment rebellion against Trump had not occurred to me, primarily because I remain convinced he is feigning madness, and that any anti-Trump reverberation within the RepubliKlan Party is therefore scripted deception. But what you suggest is one sure way to delude the infinitely gullible Moronic Majority into voting against the Democrats, particularly if tariff-relief is bolstered by sustained (or more likely escalated) ecogenocidal hatefulness, particularly persecution of women and minorities, plus additional price reductions due to environmental rape. (This is not cynicism; I will never forget the apocalyptic hatred of our Mother Earth expressed by two proto-ChristoNazi slogans: "Organic Is Satanic" and "Environmental Is Of The Devil," both of which I saw -- and photographed -- on church reader-boards c. 1971 or so, those pix among the thousands destroyed by the 1 September 1983 arson that obliterated all my significant work.)
My wife's family lost their house in a lighting fire in 1982 that included all the correspondence between her parents when her Dad was in Laos/Cambodia USAF detached USSF as a helo pilot. I cannot imagine losing your life's work that way.
Shakespeare again: Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. (Hamlet was acting madder and madder, which his guilty uncle the usurper correctly detected as a tactical ploy).
Highlights: "I'm great, everything is great, Biden sucks, supreme court sucks, other leaders suck, election rigged, Melania movie great, tariffs great, liberals suck, I truly believe all my lies- as you can see, I'm batshit crazy!" There you go.
Butt butt butt the S&P500 is stalling out, and what’s holding it up are the defensive sectors, which are the ones that show up at the party just when the band stops playing, and they are ready to turn out the lights.
Nice, easy-to-understand explanation connecting the business cycle and the sector rotations in terms of intermediate term performance in the stock market:
Yes! If I had a wish on a Genie lantern, it would be that every person who gets what MAGA and Trump are, would today drop all use or support of platforms and companies who give voice to them. Cold Turkey. It would not harm us in any way to drop X or not buy from Amazon or just stop purchasing from Home Depot. It would send a loud chilling message to our media, to MAGA and to each other that we are sane and are not party to trumps twisted reality.
I have never used X, and have boycotted Amazon and Home Depot for about a year now. However, I am having difficulty figuring out how to dump AT&T for phone service... But I will share that CutOffTheSpigot (here on substack) offers alternatives for many things, and resistandunsubscribe.com also offers good advice.
Signe, I share your dilemma with AT&T. Their network is the ONLY network that has adequate coverage in my remotely rural area. My solution was to go with Red Pocket Mobile, a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator). I'm still on the AT&T network, but I console myself that I'm indirectly paying only a fraction of what I'd pay AT&T directly. Consumer Cellular is another well-known MVNO and gets a perfect score from Goods Unite Us. Red Pocket isn't rated, but their prices are a better value.
Signe, I just did a little research to satisfy my own conscience. Red Pocket Mobile was founded by Joshua Gordon and he remains the CEO. He is also the founder of the Democracy Council, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to strengthening democratic institutions around the world.
"Ridiculous" is suddenly the mot du jour. When Pam Bondi used it, I thought she was parroting Trump. Bit of both, I guess. Has everyone seen the wonderful New Irish Song, "Oh, Pam Bondi"? You Tube. It's very good. (In fact, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBXvuKSBw50
With an interesting final sequence of digging a hole in a golf course, which then pans to a little headstone.
For those of us who simply can not hack the harangutan ad infinitum, ad nauseam my fellow conservative and patriot, Dr William Kristol, and smart young reporter, Mr Andrew Egger, present a pre-mortem. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-polls-stink-will-sotu-turn?utm_source=live-stream-redirect&triedRedirect=true I wish all Democrats and the few courageous Republicans would either boycott the speech or boo and hold pix of every human being shot by storm-trumpers OR not show up, leving said pix in their seats,
I'm at 90 from a January 1, 1936 conception. Wanna bet whose has shrunk the most??? I admire your efforts. Mine keep me going, too. Today and yesterday I've already done a half a week's work with 1966 as the baseline week's requirement . . .
Who knows. I was totally baffled when I read that the Trump-handpicked Extreme Court actuallly ruled _against_ Donny-boy… Maybe they’ll reconsider their support somewhat.
Actually, the fact that anyone (Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas) ruled against the majority on what should have been a 9-0 decision just goes to show you how little they care for the US Constitution.
Alito claimed the Dobb's decision was based on the original US Constitution ignoring any of the amendments after the Bill of Rights. And now he ignores sections of the original US Constitution in the tariff decision.
No surprise that Thomas voted in favor of the tariff's since he so obviously hates America and is morally bankrupt.
And Kavanaugh has abandoned all legal basis for several of his decisions of late.
Trump has recently declared that Kavanaugh is his new favourite. I wonder if he's just heard that he's a fellow sex pest? Trump claims that he had "read all the paragraphs" i.e. of Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion, something he claimed he was easily able to do because he has "great comprehnsion". Strangely though since then almost everything he's said about the SCOTUS ruling has been wrong. There have been around a 1,000 lawsuits already from US companies demanding their money back.
The lawsuits are a good start, but what about the hundreds of companies that Trump bankrupted with his chaotic tariffs. It's not easy to start over after a bankruptcy, unless you're Trump.
No question that I like beer sold his soul to the con man. I recall when he came back after a lunch break during his confirmation hearing and was mean-drunk-angry. He had to have taken a call from dear leader and received orders to fight like hell - ala Roy Cohn - and not give an inch on anything. Dear leader promised to see him confirmed - but at a price. His dissenting opinion is just the latest example.
Lawrence O'Donnell described Kavanaugh's dissent as his application for the CJ's position if/when Roberts retires. In no other universe than this president's would Kavanaugh have been appointed to the Supreme Court. I still think he might be writing these days from some beer-filled man cave.
“Alito claimed the Dobb's decision was based on the original US Constitution ignoring any of the amendments after the Bill of Rights. And now he ignores sections of the original US Constitution in the tariff decision.”
Great point, and confirms for the 10 millionth time that the only thing the fascist right-wing has going for it is its hypocrisy.
DM, while I have become a long-term pessimist about our prospects as a species, I suspect Trump is crashing and burning as we speak, and that the brighter right-wankers, er wingers, on the Court have figured this out and do not want to go down on that ship despite their being part owners of the debacle (please forgive my mixed up metaphors).
Our stables will soon require a thorough cleaning.
Cleaning? I fear the 250- year accumulation of felonies is a dung-heap too deep and compacted to remove, even with mechanized equipment. The stables themselves must be rebuilt on unspoiled ground.
Surely the lifetime majority on the Donald J. Trump Supreme Court of the Unified Reich was aware of the felonious president's intent to defy its ruling. This suggests the Republican appointees voted as they did merely to give themselves a plausible denial to possible impeachment charges of being nothing more than the felonious president's co-conspirators.
I presume most countries have come to the realization that what Georgia wrote in her comments above will happen; i.e. Trump's time is up and Vance will follow the agenda, as was originally planned by Thiel, Musk, Adelson and all the other donors. Otherwise our allies would not suddenly act in defiance with such unison (as Heather specified). I can't wait to see how Johnson, Vance, Rubio... and all of Trump's cronies, will (if at all) distance themselves from Trump after their seemingly total fealty to him.
Unfortunately, if Georgia's analysis is correct, it will -- as she points out -- also enable the ChristoNazis to present themselves as saviors of the nation, which could deny the Democrats any chance of winning the midterms.
Only if they make the same mistakes as 2024. They need to run a Pritzker/Newsom ticket, in my humble opinion. And then give Pete Buttegeig the Secretary of State position so he can restore our standing around the world. If they run Kamala it is a non starter.
Ms. Jamieson: I "liked" your reply for its "only if they make the same mistakes as 2024," not for your choice of candidates. Pritzker probably, Buttegeig maybe, but most certainly (not) Newsom, whose alleged progressive outlook is merely "change-we-can-believe-in" deception, proven so by his fight to protect the state's plutocrats from taxation. (Note Newsom is supporting the Silicon Valley Nazis, who are fighting the proposal with the weaponized omnipotence of their effectively infinite wealth, which tells us all we need to know to accurately diagnose Newsom's true ideology.) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/california-wealth-tax-proposal-splits-democrats-ahead-of-midterms/ar-AA1WC6k3
They bumped the important part of the decision, how to unwind the mess, back down to the lower court, so it will be ages before the money from the collected tariffs has to be returned to somebody (not us)--that's a compensation prize to Trump that he can lay on them for no "tariff dividend" check showing up before the mid-terms.
As ever, the general public, who actually have paid the tariffs,will not be made whole in favor of the company's that passed the cost of the tariffs on. Like the banks bailed out during the Great Recession.
In the Trump regime money only flows one way, uphill from the poor to the uber-rich. It is the guiding principle of the grift. We are truly ithe victims of the largest criminal enterprise of all time. New affronts daily.
For those of us who simply can not hack the harangutan ad infinitum, ad nauseam my fellow conservative and patriot, Dr William Kristol, and smart young reporter, Mr Andrew Egger, present a pre-mortem. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-polls-stink-will-sotu-turn?utm_source=live-stream-redirect&triedRedirect=true I wish all Democrats and the few courageous Republicans would either boycott the speech or boo and hold pix of every human being shot by storm-trumpers OR not show up, leving said pix in their seats,
While we can't be certain, the odds are about 99.97% that tomorrow evening, we will be treated to a raging, incoherent sermon filled with snarling and drooling, loaded with self-righteous hissy fits of rage, dementia, self-pity, and passive-aggressive nastiness. He might announce a sudden attack against Iran without explaining why (or lying about it), claiming victory even before the first salvo.
The whinefest will be long, boring, and adorned with swagger about all the bizarre "accomplishments" he has wreaked upon us, reflecting only his own personal achievements of grift, graft and gimme. He will accuse others of criminality and ill intent he himself is guilty of, as well as claim credit for things he was not the author of. (He will probably make faces at Chief Justice Roberts while boasting about how his incoherent, incomprehensible, illegal, and incompetently slapped-on tariffs are really the best thing for life on earth since sliced bread.)
Keep a scorecard (if you're masochistic enough to watch) for underhanded, bizarre attacks on Joe Biden (complete with histrionic facial grimacing for the cameras), multiple distractions, grotesque stupidity and moral wretchedness. But you needn't worry about one topic -- not a single word about the sprawling financial scandal and human tragedy known as the "Epstein Files" (which implicate him directly) will be uttered.
I’m going to miss it altogether. He is not my president. I’m going steelhead fishing in my wooden boat with a good tarp a warm bed and a riverside February camp. I hope it snows as the barometer falls and you guys can see an old man eating his filet on a wild river and escape with me sitting by the fire light. Know me by the light of the fire burning bright, as they say. F$$$ t$$$$ and the pig he rode in on.
Too bad Nancy Pelosi is no longer the Speaker of the House. It would be fun to watch her reaction to his BS.
Every House member is up for reelection (or else they decided to abandon this shit-show). Their fawning over Trump's words will make great political ads this fall.
I am looking forward to Governor Spanberger’s response, though in reality I’ll probably record the whole thing and watch tomorrow when fast forward is a tool.
I have no illusions. None of my campaneros of summer will join. It will be cold dark and the night long. No matter the discomfort level I will be grinning, stupidly happy, and unaware of a single bullshit word of his majesty for 2 glorious days which will not count against my lifetime. I apologize to you all for the abanDONment.
The Salmon, below Salmon Idaho. For you Ally I got my boat plan from a trip to Eugene. A “Rapid Robert” from the pages of Roger L. Fletchers “Drift Boats & River Dories.” He wanted to preserve the history of the McKenzie boats. Delightful historian retired from OSU. Retired in 97 so he’s getting long in the tooth.
How cool! Several years ago, there was a celebration of Drift Boats along the McKenzie River. One of the Eugene Symphony Guild members who had a home along Goodpasture Island Road hosted a fund raiser, and asked our chamber group (Oregon Tuba Ensemble) to play for it. Mr. Fletcher was the guest of honor and gave an amazing presentation on that book.
I know I heard strains of a tuba coming down the McKenzie. Swear to dog. Every time I smiled out loud and got another mouthful of mosquitoes just thinking about it.
Now that sounds like a plan Pat. Getting a line wet is the most sane thing I can imagine. Alas here in GA the Steelhead live only in our dreams. May you get the snow as well as a hatch, a reverse snowfall, truly a magical moment on any river. 🙏
I’m putting all my Luck 🍀 on no ice. At 4000’ elevation in late February floating ice means your line freezes. You have to scrub it between retrieves and when your reel locks up hand over hand. I’ll take your magic.
I read that during a phone call with the US men's hockey team he told them, “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” laughing at his own stupid ass joke, which resulted in roaring laughter from the team. Then he added, “I do believe I would probably be impeached” if I didn’t invite the USA women’s team. The women's team has not accepted his so-called invite. If the men on the Men's team were actually adults they would likewise not show up.
If the men on the US Olympic hockey team were of the Miracle on Ice of 1980, they'd have refused. Sadly, they're professional hockey players and not amateurs. Of course, watching Ka$h Pattel acting like a frat boy was pretty cool. <SARCASM font>
Patel really was having fun. His assignment to go to the Olympics allowed him to leave the FBI building and not have to act like he knows what he is doing. Imagine that kind of job pressure for even one day.
Every one of this bunch have the “fake it until you make……” except they do not even care if they ever make it. Because what can anybody do about it for the next 3 years? They are having the time of their lives on the taxpayers tab, and they have absolutely no conscience about it. We can hate them, be repulsed and disgusted by them but they simply do not have the capacity to care.
This is Trump’s legacy. He is and has always been too stupid to understand that doubling down on obnoxious/ criminal behavior will eventually lead to your downfall.
I cannot bear to watch or listen to him - so I will trust the observations of people in this group and other substack groups and the snippets Nicole Wallace will undoubtedly show and be talking about. It's bound to be a rage fueled shit show -- and I do worry he will announce war with Iran. Why war with Iran??? And Huckabee should be immediately recalled after his atrocious comments claiming that the Old Testament gives Israel the right to take over the whole Middle East. We are officially in the land of insanity.
Too bad MTG resigned. It would be fun to watch her troll Trump during the speech. Or at least during the low-lights everyone is going to show for the next several days.
Speaking of MTG…where is our strange, loud mouthed heroine? Is she still helping the Epstein survivors? Perhaps it was yet another cowardly, self-serving act for her to quit after speaking out. I hope not but am not holding my breath…
So I’ll have cspan, on mute, on tv. On the computer, i’ll watch live one of the other SOU alternatives, the swamp one, or the Mobilize Peoples alternative livestream SOU. (See other post from TJ with links.)
Would be great to watch a “mystery science theater” live co-broadcast presentation of the SOU, with live rebuttal, popcorn throwing, and general rabble response in real time….
This will likely be unprecedented…. News channels don’t broadcast most of his long, fumbling, incoherent rant-rages, he’s such an em-bare-ass-ment, mainstream news media are avoiding full exposure and airing just short clips, which is just providing him cover and hiding his mental decline and the (pre-existing) hideousness. At the SOU, maybe it all gets uncovered.
I'm going to take a sold dose of anti-nausea medication and watch it for indications of his true condition. (We know he learned acting skills as a vidiot star, and I suspect he is feigning madness to lay a foundation for an insanity defense in the unlikely event this criminal nation actually grows the courage to impeach him.)
Spot on, and then if there is a god, pressure to invoke the 25th will begin to build from this night on. There is a point at which they can no longer hide his descent into clinical insanity.
What a fantastic check-list ICTT! I usually cannot stomach Trump on live TV, but I will gut it out and check off each of your predictions as they happen. You should be writing speeches for a Democratic presidential candidate.
If you watch the whine-fest, It's Come To This, you are a braver man than I.
For those of us who simply can not hack the harangutan ad infinitum, ad nauseam my fellow conservative and patriot, Dr William Kristol, and smart young reporter, Mr Andrew Egger, present a pre-mortem. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-polls-stink-will-sotu-turn?utm_source=live-stream-redirect&triedRedirect=true I wish all Democrats and the few courageous Republicans would either boycott the speech or boo and hold pix of every human being shot by storm-trumpers OR not show up, leving said pix in their seats,
Donnie’s popularity is sinking further and further down. We know it and the EU knows it. If nothing else, we must install the strongest of guardrails that prohibits criminals from holding any type of office, when we get back into power. There will be so many messes to clean up.
In the meantime, I had to laugh when France turned its back on our illegitimate Ambassador, Charles Kushner, another criminal. By ousting him from gaining access to any French nationals, they are really saying that they’ll not permit Donnie to pull strings either.
We have Americans stranded in Mexico and snowstorms to contend with in the East Coast. The West is getting more rain tomorrow and the Sierras will be getting that and snow. All is not well but someday, hopefully soon, we will all see the light at the end of this horrific tunnel.
And late news is that Britain has now arrested its own former Ambassador to the US -- one of Jeffrey Epstein's BFFs -- turning him over to US custody. You can see him wringing his little ambassadorial hands behind Trump in the Oval Orifice (right next to a smirking, swaggering, eyelined JD Wanker) last May....
I find it concerning in the extreme that the US military has agreed to commit piracy on the high seas. Piracy is illegal, has always been illegal, and all military officers surely know this. That makes any orders from the Commander in Chief or any of his sycophants illegal, and every person in the US military is required, by military regulations, to refuse to carry out such orders. Yet, military personnel have proceeded with impunity to violate their regulations, and most of the press, including the legit press (but not including HCR) has downplayed the seriousness of those violations. What gives?
Let me think. Hand picked military leadership? Or how to gain a star military leadership. I told a general and his senior staff to roll down their blouse sleeves as they boarded my helicopter as we prepared to takeoff for the Parrot’s Beak. On their refusal I grounded the aircraft. I will simply state that I had seen enough skin slide off burned arms to warrant combat protocol. Most people can’t visualize that the skin comes off like a long sleeved glove usually up to the elbow in one piece whole. Command must be held in abeyance as well as any rank personnel. Furthermore they must use the least force necessary to complete a military objective. Hogsbreath is out of control.
Yeah. It kinda slides off there, then they cut your arms down to relieve the swelling. And then, if you've made it that far, the real journey begins. It is a ghastly business, Pat.
A young black soldier at a fire base reached up to me as he burned. I grabbed his hand and the sleeve came loose. I don’t think there is a way to measure his agony. I had to let go and get down in the fire with him and heave him out of the hole he was in. I was in nomex fireproof flight gear. That was the first time we ever closed the doors as we medivaced him to 24 evac in Bien Hoa. His painful screams still bring a river of tears. He begged for his mother to save him. Under his black skin his arms were ghostly white. He was shirtless from the waist up burned in the explosion of an artillery powder bag. We had just landed and I was checking for bullet holes when he was engulfed. I never knew if he lived. I hated burns the most. When the missiles strike the boats the men burn as they are ripped apart. Hogsbreath should be vaporized thusly. I am so so sorry you were burned. You are so down to earth henceforth you are the Great Scot to me.
I appreciate that Pat. No need to feel sorry tho. Heck, I fashioned a pretty full and good life and came through it all with my sense of humor still intact.
Very frightening and has nothing to do with drugs, rather it is moving from little horrors to greater ones. Read: Into That Darkness to see how a very ordinary policeman ultimately became Commandant of a concentration camp. We're seeing this strategy in real time with an ever greater number of lives that don't matter.
The former U.S. military will go down in infamy as oath-breakers. No doubt seduced by ChristoNazi dogma and promised the promotions and loot implicit in wars of conquest, they have become the felonious president's war-criminal legions of death.
I think that a mandatory service commitment should be required of all 18 year old citizens. Military, Peace Corps, or a new Civilian Conservation Corps. Two years, and you must leave your region of the country. Put everyone on an equal footing.
Probably, at the grunt level, but conscripts were never dominant at the brass level. It’s the brass who have violated the oath. Their reputation for standing up for the Constitution was way overrated, apparently.
“These trees can live through droughts, fires, storms, and climate shifts that would kill almost anything else.
But as an engineer this is what I’m fixated on:
The tallest tree in the world has roots that only go 6-12 feet deep.
That should be impossible. A 300-foot tree with shallow roots makes no sense from an engineering perspective.
But… Sequoias don't survive alone.
Their root systems spread 50-80 feet wide and interweave with every other sequoia around them.
They share nutrients, water, and structural support. When storms come in, they support each other.
The forest is the system: Not the individual trees.
I couldn't stop thinking about this.
Most people try to build resilience by making themselves bigger, stronger, more independent. They stockpile resources, they build higher walls, they go it alone.
But the most resilient systems in nature are interconnected.
Maybe the question isn't "how do I become more self-sufficient?" but "how do I become more meaningfully connected to the right systems?"” ~Rob Avis
JaKsaa, recently read about the forest tree root + mycelium interconnection for communication…a “web” connection if you will. Sometimes I pause and wonder at the human’s “synthetic” electronic connections developed when we have so many natural systems that are interconnected and communicate in ways we have yet to understand. Humans seem to be slow learners whilst trashing the best of what we DO have…sigh.
I agree Barbara, which is why when I saw a journalist on Substack post this short video on meditation - it kinda links the vibrations within natures ecosystem with the vibrations in human consciousness…
“Filmmaker David Lynch's Diagram for Transcendental Consciousness is one of the greatest, easiest to understand explanations for how our reality is made of MIND first, MATTER second.
A passing reference to matter - brain matter - the human brain, in its multidimensional connections... as complex as the universe...
One of the side-effects of the Kremlin psychopath's bid to divorce the Russian people from the human race has been to restrict the country's scientific work to the service of his wars. No more contact with live forces, suppressed, silenced. Tatiana Chernigovskaya is a lively, highly communicative speaker in her native language, while what she had to say here in English is a cold, clear presentation of her work, without the wit...
Still, ponder what she has to say. Interesting, too, if one can access the seminar in which she and Russian scientists and philosophers talked with the Dalai Lama. What I now find are a series of interviews in which both her voice and that of the interviewer are dubbed into English.
Typically, terrifyingly, the current development of AI seems to be largely in the hands of Big Money/hitech speculators that view it simply and solely in terms of ultra-profitability and the ultimate power grab.
I think that is a primary divide between the right and left -- the left embraces community and the right is out for the individuals with power and hell with community - who they then describe as parasites. Totally different world views.
🦋 This fantastic 2023 podcast interview with Alan Alda…is so good if you can get past the first few minutes of annoying commercials. 💕 Sadly, we lost this wonderful scientist, and so it’s hard to find a better interview as this 35-minute recording with Alan Alda (who is elderly and his podcast shows are great to hear when you can find them).
Karen Bakker’s The Sounds of Life book and audiobook presents a deep critique of the idea that only humans use language and intelligence, by showing the complex ways that nonhuman species like whales, elephants, plants, and corals communicate. I have this book as an ‘audiobook’. Her book lets us eavesdrop on the chatter between creatures – even plants – that our ears can’t detect. And reveals how new technologies, including AI, are opening the possibility of our being able to converse with other animals. 🦋
We humans are—as Koko said—often too stupid to have understood the potential for communicating with one another, let alone with other animals... All too often, but by no means always.
For a start, we are for the most part very weak when it comes to knowing and communicating with... ourselves... Consequently, off we go trying to relate to, striving to depend upon all that is outside of and alien to us. In exchange, we weaken and lose our powerful inborn faculties. It’s all too like the tale of Esau exchanging his birthright for a mess of pottage…
When I was a kid, all attempts to inculcate religious belief in me failed. How could I pretend to believe in what found no resonance in me?
Yet if the kind nuns who were trying so hard to teach me had told me this phrase of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, they could have converted me on the spot:
“Believe me, you will find more lessons in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.”
Likewise, I could have understood how Saint Francis of Assisi communicated with animals and with all that lives.
As it is, I regard the baboon pack on the mountain behind where I lived in South Africa as among my first teachers. From them I learned much about politics and group interactions. Since this education depended on harsh object lessons, I and my friend were lucky to escape with our lives after an unintentional intrusion on the pack’s territory. If there was one thing we knew it was that while other animals like springbok panicked and often died in wildfires, the baboons had moved to safety very early on, probably well before the first human alarm.
One day, visiting another place, I was lucky enough to see what happens when a pack leader’s faculties begin to fail him. The fight to expel and replace the ailing leader lasted all day. Driven out, he will have died alone.
We human beings tend—like generals fighting the last war—to regress from being the masters of our knowledge to becoming its habit-bound prisoners, hobbled by its limitations. Long before Trump entrusted the Pentagon to an obedient fool, the huge organization had—like Goliath seeing what looked like an unarmed, unprotected shepherd lad coming at him—become strategically incompetent. Outwitted by a handful of Islamist fanatics wielding cardboard cutters, they and their often intellectually gifted political masters let themselves be tricked into massive and deeply inappropriate reactions, dragging equally incompetent NATO allies into irrelevant and counterproductive wars, the cackhanded occupation of Iraq and the decades-long foolishness of regime change in Afghanistan. As though tigers and leopards can be transformed into domestic pussy cats…
Baboons, wolves, African wild dogs are incapable of selecting a misleader.
Only human beings can do that.
We are strong on destruction, very much including self-destruction.
And as we are every day seeing, the survival instincts of supposedly civilized mankind are weak or non-existent.
*
Time to pause and get a grip on ourselves, fight free of mass delusions and dig down to rediscover who we really are and what we are here on earth for. Current chaos, wars and mass confusion provide a much needed prompt to get back down to basics… while, if we still can.
Thanks Nancy - I found your recommendation as Underland by Robert Macfarlane in the local library and checked it out as an audiobook. The Libby app said Macfarlane as a great nature writer of this generation. It's nice to have a book to push the politics from your head. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Julie - I grabbed my tablet and borrowed 'The Hidden Life of Trees' by Peter Wohlleben from local library as audio book. It looks like there are three other books, too. Thanks for sharing!
Excellent post, JaKssa. I grew up camping in the coastal redwood forests of Northern California, and have visited Sequoia National Park once. Those trees are amazing, and have such a relationship with the world around them. There are entire ecosystems in the crowns of the Coastal Redwoods that are simply fascinating.
Closer to my childhood home is the area around Crater Lake National Park. In the USFS forest outside the park is a feature they call "The Living Stump". It is a tree about 8" in diameter that was cut over 150 years ago that grew bark over the cut surface and is alive via the root network of all the trees in the area.
Definitely a clue to success. Meaningfully connected to the right systems.
Very cool Ally. Speaking of Trees, there's a photographer, Beth Moon, who travels around the world photographing ancient Trees. Her portraits were featured at a gallery in Bolinas, CA years ago for her book 'Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees'. I love the miracle of mother nature.
Frankly, I am surprised Donald Trump knows the significance of upper-case and lower-case letters when referring to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Not sure he's writing all of this. But if he contends that lower case letters show some form of disrespect then donold trump should have it heaped upon him.
So much to unpack here, thinking HCR is clearing the deck on having the whole letter tomorrow dedicated to the SOTU. Not bothering to watching the spews of lies, and especially since he said the quiet part outloud it’s going to be “a long one”. Yea not going to sit and watch and listen a PedoFührer’s rantings…
Today what was shocking was the whistleblower testimony. All the massive cuts to training ICE agents. Especially teaching these recruits in an even shorter training program to use unconstitutional tactics, and attacking, brutalizing and detaining people without a judicial warrant. There’s nothing that could be paid back in compensation as to the illegalities that occurred in Minnesota or all the families, especially Good’s and Pretti’s. Absolutely everyone, as ICE is spreading in other areas. Sobering testimony…
Yea going to tune in to both of these if possible..
“People's State of the Union": Hosted by MoveOn and MeidasTouch on the National Mall, this event serves as a direct alternative, featuring perspectives from Americans impacted by administration policies.
Hoping the USA men’s Hockey team follow suit as the USA Women’s Hockey team and not attend…If not those men should not take any of their gold medals on their trip…Finding women have more cajones than most men..
Since this odious POS loves nothing more than playing carnival-barker to a captive audience, millions of us will be tuning in elsewhere. The absolute least we can do is tune out when he tunes in. Thanks for the announcements of far more worthwhile alternatives.
“Ever since taking office a year ago, the President has shown no respect for the principles upon which this country is based—the Constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law, and the rights guaranteed to every person under the Constitution. His actions have done tremendous harm to the American people, to our standing among nations, and to our institutions of government. For this reason, I cannot in good conscience participate in a function with this President at its center. To do so would require me to ignore all that has gone before and to pay him a measure of respect which he has not earned. I will not be attending the State of the Union address.” Senator Angus King (I-ME) said in a statement
I like it Margie. He's got many nicknames because he's such a cruel and hateful ass. Like TOFU - "Trump Only F*cks Up" and TACO "Trump Always Chickens Out". The list goes on and on....
If Kash Patel was preoccupied chugging champagne and getting all hot and tingly in the men's hockey locker room in Milan at public expense, how will he be able to pursue the perpetrators who instigated that shameful act of dastardliness involving a blanket belonging to Kristi Noem? Wadical-wibewal tewwwowists who stow it are still on the loose. When can we start seeing mass arrests? Or was there a cover-up? Today, it's Blankiegate. Tomorrow, we attack Iran. That'll take care of it.... 🤪
It wasn't even champagne, but crappy Michelob Ultra that Kash was swigging down like he was at a frat party. Even putting on a gold medal like he was part of the men's hockey team, kind of like el jefe...
Kash Patel's reward for hiding the Epstein Files? Check Patel's luxury jet trips to the Olympics, date nights and hunting trips on tax payer funded trips with this interactive map.
Do the math. If each time Trump breaks the law and institutes illegal tariffs, it takes the Supreme Court nearly a year to decide cases through regular order and there are four different mechanisms Congress wrote into various sections of U.S. Code, then it will take the rest of Trump's term of office to fully block him unless the court uses their emergency docket to impose temporary restraining orders or temporary injunctions. We are looking at three more years of trade mayhem. The rest of the world looks as if it's ready to move on as if we don't exist. While Trump may well collapse the U.S. economy, the other countries and trading blocs are doing whatever is necessary to make sure we don't take them down with us.
The 1st and 2nd graders I teach are better at taking responsibility for their actions than our president is…heck, even my 2 year old is 🤦♀️
Be LOUD. These are unprecedented times and we deserve WAY better 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
Probably because your 2nd graders have more empathy, more emotional intelligence, and a stronger moral compass than Trump and his entire Cabinet... combined.
Yes, the 2nd graders clearly have more empathy, more emotional intelligence and a stronger moral compass than Donald J. Trump, who is an empty, hollow sorry excuse of a human being. I have seen more "humanity" expressed by animals in the wild that the "Hollow Man" has. The hollowness is why Trump needs all of the external props with his name on them to confirm that he is "somebody."
Richard, I see him as just a bag of malevolent air which is polluting not only our country but the world. Our young taxi driver in Portugal when we were there during the his first run, noted this.
BREAKING just today, 2/24/26:
"New Epstein Epstein Revelations' credited to LISA RUBIN & MYCHAEL SCHNELL documenting 7 missing Epstein documents & confirmed by MS NOW. Three (3) of the Epstein Files are FBI- DOJ interviews of a personal victim of Donald J. Trump.
The missing documents are listed in a court index under a coded number were interviews (plural) of a witness that declared she was raped & battered (later hit in the head) by DJT when she was between13 & 15 years old.
An authorized person was allowed to view the unreacted files confirmed there were four (4) interviews of the witness between 2017-2019.
Separately NPR's STEPHEN FOWLER reports a total fifty(50) missing documents.
****************************************************************************
The Wall Street Journal's KEN THOMAS noted tonight's SOTU will be the last big audience before the 2026 Midterms about 30 million.
The Women's Olympic Hockey team declined an invitation to attend the SOTU. You did not go Women's Team. 🎯
I would like to see Epstein survivors in the Gallery together acting as they chose. 🙏
Yes, what a great thought - the Epstein/Trump survivors in the audience, raising hell. Brilliant.
Just "the survivers" united silent presence would be so poweful.
One of the Oregon reps has invited an Epstein survivor. The rep herself is holding a virtual town hall of some kind.
Hollow as Hell, because the demons are here.
He's a deranged and mentally ill person who believes he has control over our nation. We the people must combine or voices and strength and stop this madness...NOW!
Hollow Man says it very sicinctly.
Hollow Creature
Carole, let's be grateful that we are not "Donald Trumps."
That's very well said.
T S Eliot wrote a poem entitled Hollow Men. Worth a read.
So, Trump is not the first "Hollow Man" to wield power. It may just be that there is nothing new in the Universe. It's our sad lot that this miserable, sorry excuse for a human had to emerge in our time. Perhaps better us than our children and grandchildren. We must wage the fight to defeat this evil. The words from the poem, "In Flanders Fields" comes to mind: "To you from failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields."
It's up to us.
You need to read the poem and the poem you quote written by a Canadian WWI soldier! T S Eliot a fled American front Louis who I think saw some of the lynchings and racist violence. His mother social worker abd they lived in the edge of the great area of respectable streets. If one dies close reading the method taught post WWII in lit classes one sees abd heard the African American story. Similar to how one sees abd hears that in Rick abd Roll. The underground music and sounds and yes horrors at intertwined with every human being and group. We all hold pain and tragedy in our American bones and fines. And unless and until we all acknowledge this we all are hollow.
Once again unable go edit all! No matter how hard I try failed efforts petals sling my path.
You get your point across - THAT's more important!!
The 3 dots at the right edge of your name (top line), allow you to edit your comment, at least as I see mine on a PC.
Others clicking on someone else's will see choices to; Copy link, Restack, Collapse, or Report (the Report option can hide the comment from your screen but doesn't hide it from others).
I make so many typos lately, that I gave up trying to edit all of them. That is unless others have commented and I reread what I wrote and determine the typos are bad enough to make the comment a bit too difficult to understand.
We get the meaning well enough, but if you want to correct some, you can by seeing the different options when you click on the same 3 dots on your own comment.
The difference is; Edit will appear above Copy link, Restack, and Collapse. Delete will replace Report at the bottom.
As you can see by my comment, Edited appears after I made changes.
So now they’re not posting my post all the time they’re hiding them or burying them but the 73 Democrat dementia Democrats should have a sandbox to play in with our pails and shovels labeled with their names in big print so that the entire American public would be able to see who the children are in the room
And the string of losses continue. Do you know what some people realize while they want to be bold and pepper voices heard you can’t at the same time keep emphasizing your stupidity and ignorance by posting again and again, which is exactly what you’re doing. You should take out an ad in New York somewhere. Here is Richard Sutherland, a dummy who keeps posting in entities. Can’t tell the difference, between facts and fiction, nor does he care to
Hey Richard, you’re like one of the most ignorant upside down human beings I’ve ever me. What Trump should’ve done to show the maturity of the left is to build a sandbox right outside the opening to the venue with pails and shovels labeled with the names of every single congress person that’s not showing up for the state of the union. That way, the children could play in a venue where they belong.
Mr. sender, with all do respect, I find nothing you write now nor have I ever found anything you have written that has any substance of intelligence. You rant, you rave, you accuse, but nothing has any substance attached to it. Are you really just the orange face or taco or the chump or trump writing these worthless insults? Frankly, I usually ignore what you write because I know know just how thoughtless and rude it will be. But tonight it was better to read your comments than to listen to the incompasitated baffoon on tv tonight. Now that I've wasted my time reading your comments, I'm not sure if I should have wasted time listening to or reading either.
And after further review, mark what I figure it out as you’re allergic to facts you break out in a liberal rash. When you hear something that doesn’t fit into your narrow, minded, close, minded object that’s about 3 feet above your ass.
I’ve done nothing but give you facts and now you’re just a hit-and-run coward
Nothing make a big deal of it because I use voice texting and you may as well, but it’s due process not do process
But by the way you wanna hear how some of you people think I actually had some lady tell me well he might’ve closed the border, but he didn’t do it legally. Holy sh.
Well, if you haven’t read any of my post marc unfortunately here’s one. I wrote back in May for your enjoyment and reading pleasure. And they’re 62 more that I have in my arsenal for future posting
Bullet points of Trump’s wins .. this is the assertion as I read articles from various publications. 1. Closed the border in only 75 days when AOC and Mayorkas and Harris (aka the border czar) said that the NOY ONLY THAT THE BORDER WAS SECURE, but only way to do it was legislation/aka mass amnesty) which, of course would take years. It didn’t fall the public when 10 to 15,000 illegals cross the border every day while the people in the administration continue to tell the story of the border being secure And as well, the Democrats attempted to allow these folks to vote. Attem
millions of illegals to come across the border, courtesy of the Democrats in order to get them to vote. Ooops true. Proof 148 congressman vote to allow non-citizens to vote. New York City stats along with state Supreme Court vote.
Removing criminal illegals And deporting many
Iran nuclear strike .. TACO acronym up in smoke and other countries now know he means business.
Israel, Iranian cease fire
African peace agreement, and Cease fire
India Pakistan agreement and Cease fire
The NATO deal with Rutte calling him daddy and thanking him
Supreme Court rulings list them all
Stock market NASDAQ and S&P hit all time high Dow on its way.
Fraud at USAID including for pleading guilty to $500 million of fraud
2.7 billion of fraud against Medicare caught where 13 billion was committed if not stopped
Big beautiful Bill
$9B dollar recision bill…defunding NPR AND PBS… taking taxpayers off the hook
Economy surprises all the negative pundits
Job growth exceeding expectation.
Lowest inflation in four years at 2.7 versus prediction of 2.6.
First budget surplus in 20 years in June. Good news at least for now bringing in billions in tariffs
Goodbye Department of Education, who lead our worldwide educational level from being first in the world in 1979 with Carter ..to 18th in 2009. Two currently ranked 40th in the world.
Rasmussen poll is the country headed in the right direction the highest rating in the last 29 years.
Gas prices… on memorial day lowest in five years. Eggs down from seven dollars a dozen to under three dollars a dozen
The left cult
The recent healthcare fraud takedown revealed over $14.6 billion in fraudulent claims against Medicare, resulting in criminal charges against 324 individuals, including healthcare professionals. This operation is the largest of its kind in U.S. history, highlighting extensive schemes that exploited federal health
Post the meme about liberals say? On the other page
They want to cleanse this country and arrest as many people as possible because we’re only going after brown people.
This is about your advertising in a very positive incredibly positive statement. I’m going to make here.
As a former chairman of one of the largest advertising companies in the world with an ANNUAL budget for advertising of half $1 billion I congratulate you on the Sydney Sweeney advertising campaign, but I have a bit of advice for you in a good way
Take it to the next level. Quickly grab a gorgeous black woman and put her in your jeans and do the exact same commercial then do it with an Asian then do it with a Hispanic, then put all four of them in the same commercial. And overtime you’ll win the hearts and minds of all the idiots who have been protesting and an inventing innuendo that didn’t exist in your ads.
You can thank me later
Actually, I think we should rename this thread. The world’s capital and official home of TDS.
I don’t wanna give them too much credit or overdeliver, but I actually think that pretty much fits. when you see people fighting so vigorously to protect criminals and criminal activity. Boggles the mind. And unfortunately, diminishes the actual, intelligent quotient of its inhabitants.
Trump on his interview from 1997 with Larry King
If you Would like to see some Expert economic prediction…. Here’s an interview from 1987 with Larry King and it’s amazing how correct this person was and his predictions.
https://x.com/RickyDoggin/status/1952223617884070313
blah blah blah. I didn't read this last one either. Nor will I. However, I still wonder what your problem is. But, seriously ? i could care less.
Cats and dogs show much more empathy than DT.
Yea, the ones not being eaten in Springfield, Ohio..... sorry could not help myself ... the Felon said that in the debate and it got him votes. When I see cats and dogs written now it is my immediate image. I agree with your statement by the way.
😂😂😂🤣
Hale, cats and especially dogs are better than too many humans.
You have to ask....who were the parents of these maga evildoers; what childhood experiences led them to want to abolish all our social institutions and the destruction of democracy and the constitution; having no interest or concern for wisdom and truth, and their support for the rise of a wicked tyrant?? Challenging ignorance and prejudice is an ongoing and will be a multi-year campaign. How uncertain will be our hopes in this miserable and fragile life??
Sadly, many voted for trump because they couldn't be bothered to pay attention to what trump has always been or to the principles that drive the right-wing, that have always driven them. Who knows how many allow themselves to be manipulated by their social media feeds.
If there could be anything worthwhile to come from the destruction wrought by the fascist GOP, is meaningful regulation of toxic social media and AI.
Sadly and how many for whom it would be a huge psychological lift to admit they were wrong?
Chances are that those Trump supporters will never admit their error. I haven't looked into it but there may be accounts by those Germans who initially supported Hitler but then had an epiphany and came to identify the cause for their support and why it was in error. I think that it is virtually impossible for a white Christian nationalist to come to terms with his/her thinking. We go back in time here to the early 1950's and Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer." I see two elements at the core of Trump's support: 1) racism (white Christian supremacy, including the Great Replacement Theory adherents such as Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes) and 2) anti-feminism (overturning Roe v Wade and passing the SAVE Act, placing huge burdens on females in terms of voting,) to name just two.
You're probably right....these groups require the continual use of propaganda for their maintenance and other life-destroying myths.
A study was done on who the Trump voters were in the 2016 election, researched and published by two Univ. of Kansas professors: "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" Feb. 2018 edition of the peer-reviewed journal, "Critical Sociology." The conclusion? They share Trump's hates and prejudices and want him to punish, to crush the immigrants, women's and gay rights advocates and more.
Still reading the communist manifesto, Richard. ? And why is it that you people choose to live in history
Yep, exactly!!
https://t.co/tNmg9DCEoZ Check this out. These are the faces of Americans that were killed by illegal aliens last year alone. This is all they could fit in one picture.
Yeah, you didn’t see any empathy tonight did you Stephen you ignorant fool
The whole night was about empathy for Americans not for illegals that have killed Americans. That’s the difference between your morons and human beings.
All your first and second graders combined surely couldn't do as much damage to the sandbox (let alone the country) as this wretched cabal of scumbags and scalawags.
And more importantly, they would not want to.
Exactly. I taught for almost four decades, and I never met a child, even the ones with anger issues, with as much desire to destroy as our president has. When he said he could “do absolutely ‘terrible’ things to foreign countries” my first reaction was, Why? What is the point?
I get it. I taught some very wealthy and entitled children, and spent a lot of effort on getting them to accept personal responsibility for their actions. It is the work of a framework and a concerted effort to spend time discussing their actions. I also always started the year with a book that I read aloud, and taught the children how to reflect on and discuss books while I read to them. It was called "Double Dog Dare" by Lisa Graff. There are characters in the book that everyone understands. When I got a kid who was an Brendon or an Andre, and at a certain point in the year I could say, "Are you being a Brendon?" or "Are you being an Andre?" While they might protest this, I would point out the similarities, and it was powerful for them to make the connections because the characters in the book had helped them to be on the outside looking in. The last Brendon I had, had 2 Andres who followed him. I ended up having a good relationship with Brendon and one of the Andres, but the other Andre, whose mom was dealing with cancer did not come around. I don't know what he is doing today, but I would worry for him. He needs therapy to not end up like the mean people. I had a girl Brendon, and I totally cut down her social network of Andres, and once that happened, and I had a conversation with her mom about how she was leading everyone to follow breaking the school rules and the girls she liked had decided in my class they did not want to be like that. Once she understood that they could like her and would play with her, but only if she engaged in prosocial behavior, and then with conversations and guidance she turned her social life around. Then, just as this fragile change had come about, our school shut down from Covid. In the classes I had during Covid, everyone was sweet, and there were other challenges to deal with.
Unfortunately, teachers like you are in short supply.Like you, I taught for more than 3 decades. Teacher training programs do not emphasize what you so ably described.
Eadie/Linda: Remember the movie, "The Bad Seed?" Trump's childhood must have been a devastatingly miserable, horrible experience, resulting in a person who has not a single redeeming quality. Inherited? Congenital? Conditioned? There is no question but that Trump has ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder.)
Yet I know a few people who see Trump as the Second Messiah.
The county in which I taught once purchased a program called Character Counts. It was used for a while, then was replaced by STEM - science, technology, engineering and math - good for job applications but devoid of character building, personal responsibility.... you know the rest.
Wow! Thank you, Linda, for these thoughtful remarks. I will read Double Dog Dare as soon as possible. It sounds like a powerful and necessary read.
Laurie, Lisa Graff is an excellent writer. It is my fourth grade beginning of the year book to read aloud. For third grade "Justin Case: School Drool, and Other Daily Disasters " by Rachel Vail is my beginning of the year read aloud. There we focus on handling being in class without you close friends, and the need to make new friends, also a theme in DDD and we use the rope he has to climb as a metaphor for each person's individual challenges. The children have to figure out what their third grade "rope to climb" is and at the end of the year we see how they have done with that.
It has always been a good time whether reading aloud to my students or my own children.
Excellent story. Well done!! Sometimes human behavior can result in swift reversals given the circumstances and a wise and dedicated teacher!
✌🏾
Teaching is the most important part of humanity. It always has been.
I used to have a bumper sticker on my old car that said, "Teaching is the Gift of a Lifetime." I still feel that way.
World politics is like an ecology. Eliminating an annoying or even offensive party can be self-defeating in unforseen ways.
The precariousness of life and the caprices of fortune - the bad times are just beginning.
I would like to see what happens if the German courts eliminate the AfD as the Constitution says they should Bob.
I awakened twenty-five minutes ago from dreams which came close to convincing me I had left my senses. I immediately fired up my email, read this morning's LFAA, and realized, "at long last", Angus King, my Senator, seems finally awakened fully to reality and his own "sense of decency" (when last I heard Joseph Welch say it live on June 9, 1954 as I was about to graduate from high school). I'm off to breakfast but realized immediately after I needed to write still another letter to King to try and get him off his patrician butt in the Senate and join a sustained, righteous, and successful Democrat and citizen rebellion against the pressing threat to the Republic. When it's done, succinct, and off, I'll post it here. (63 'likes' here when I posted the letter disappeared, probably because of posting algorithms respecting extended editing ??)
The letter:
Dear Senator King,
Two hours ago at breakfast table I spoke of my intent to support your absence at SOTU HCR spoke to from your letter declaring your intent to skip Trump's SOTU address tonight. However, almost immediately I found myself persuaded by a tablemate that doing so was, in fact, inconsistent with your obligation as our Senator to oversee all of Trump's official actions. She made the case that just because Trump behaves badly can't justify the nonperformance of your own. Sure, the President's performance has been deeply flawed, in all kinds of ways. His contempt for comity. the courts, legislators, citizens, whole peoples and nations, his immoderate discourse, could ground a rationale for justifying your absence from the hall.
What we loyal, thinking, caring Americans out here expect of you is the full performance of all your obligations, including the grueling torture of his SOTU's. That includes observing, understanding, countering, and defeating Donald J. Trump's excruciatingly course, insensitive, prejudicial, illegal, flawed actions and inclinations including the incompetence and unconstitutional bent of so many of his appointees. Your immediate task as our Senator is to do as much as you are capable of the delicate, demanding work of the sustenance of our democracy including, painful as it may be, suffering through his official performances so that you can undertake and speak convincingly to the concomitant oversight responsibilities acquired when we elected you. How else can you achieve, in both appearance and actuality, your core obligation to shore up the Republic in all the dozens of ways necessary to assure, not just its survival as a liberal democracy going forward, but strengthened in all the ways DJT's authoritarian tendencies have revealed requisite to assuring its robust continuance for at least a second 250 year run?
Three critical dates lie ahead. The crucial mid terms occur in just eight fleeting months. Two months later must see 16 additional conducting critical and sweeping oversight hearings of the weaknesses revealed in Trump's 'leadership' inclinations and actions to clearly indicate the profound stakes involved in the 2028 Presidential election. Only that way can the people be informed of the extent of Trump's damage and the wisdom of halting and the rebuilding aimed at correcting the weakneses Trump's and others' actions have revealed. Presuming there is a defining win for the supporters of liberal democracy, two months after the Dem's achieve that, starting in 2029 will mark the launch of a decade plus of the critical and precise shoring up and corrective action to the Constitution -- the rights, rule of law, balance of powers, and so forth -- to project the abiding message of America for another two centuries or more.
Modeling the responsible performance of good government is a sound concomitant to all of this. As a citizen I have tried to bring forth enabling ideas requisite to all this and in much greater detail to Democratic leadership in America. Over going-on three years I have yet to receive a single response, even so much as an acknowledgement, to my efforts. (I am just vain enough to believe, however, that after the first shutdown sending a direct email to your D.C. office as forceful as this one, you did indeed almost immediately adjust your public stance in effect acknowledging similar observations to those -- as these-- I then raised.) Feedback on Substack has encouraged me to continue on, nonetheless, until I can no longer meet my own standards.
Sincerely ,
Hendrik D. Gideonse. Constituent, Brooklin ME
Professor Emeritus of Education and Policy Science and Dean Emeritus
University of Cincinnati
I think you should have gone with your first instinct. No Democrat or Independent should be an audience for this fascist president’s speech tonight. In every way possible he has shown his complete disdain for the Constitution; he has broken his oath. It is not a Senator’s job to listen to this man’s every lying word. Sitting there gives him honor, and that is the opposite of the Senator’s job, which is to obey the Constitution.
I respectfully disagree. Two wrongs don't make a right. When I elect Congress Critters one of the roles they're supposed to undertake is oversight of the Executive Branch. Part of that is personally appearing at sessions aimed at requiring officers to expound on accomplishments and takes on "what's goin' on" with the principals and their appointees. For the first time in literally decades I've not watched SOTU's. Because King's not going to I feel I have to so I can let him know tomorrow morning in an e-mail exactly what I think he missed and I expect him as MY Senator to attend to. ()Writing this to you this afternoon is a warm-up for that as you'll see below.)
As a governor and Senator I was a strong King supporter, until recently, when he seems to have lost the crispness and insight I once admired. He has not espoused a leadership role in addressing Trump's authoritarian proclivities. When last fall he abruptly stopped the first government closure he mentioned not a word about Trump's autocratic postures. I immediate wrote a protest for that serious omission; he then changed his tune the next day in a communication to the Portland Press Herald without acknow-ledging anything about why. I had a chance to note that in a letter which the Press Herald approved for publication though I never saw it because I'm not a subscriber.
This country, my country, is in deep trouble. I'm the 90-year-old child of immigrants who came permanently after WW I, met in NY, married and I was their first born. I had superior public schooling and made what turned out to be powerful choices to college and graduate school. I love this country. I hate what it has become under Trump but I understand, now, that it has taken fifty years getting to this point of the why/how it's decay started and in the past ten gathered steam. I worked as a Fed for seven years early in my career. My best estimate, given the sizes of the tasks needed for correction is five to one against it happening.
NO PLANNING is being done even conjecturally to determine what those tasks are or how to win them on the tasks facing us even if we win the 2028 elections big time; the impediments and the societal/technological/ dispositional/intellectual/informational dispositions, facing us that very, very few people are addressing.
Getting from the Declaration to the ratification of the Constitution 1788 took twelve years. To address the revealed weaknesses of the current document given current modern, historical, and evolving technologies, the anti-democratic tendencies of the electoral college and the Senate's role in Congress, plus the deep divides in the Nation measured against the cumbersome nature of provisions for amendments could not possibility be completed within that same time frame. But without imaginative and thorough planning and substantial nation-wide effort effort even that strikes me as highly improbable. For my granddaughters' sake I'll keep having at it until I can't anymore.
Seriously? Senator King can just as easily perform his duties as Senator without a forced sign of respect to a man who deserves none.
Absolutely yes, VERY seriously. Attendance is not a sign of respect unless its demanded by the speaker. Article II of the Constitution requires it of the President for the benefit of the Congress. When I vote for Congress Critters I expect them to oversee the Executive Branch; one of whose leadership responsibilities is to periodically inform them of the state of the union. They're obliged to listen; it has nothing to do with whether or not they respect the President. Surely Republicans had no trouble disrespecting Biden at his SOTU's. In fact many of them attended precisely to have an audience of one they could DISrespect! I might even make the argument that refusing to show actually indicates disrespect for the Congress' responsibilities as well as the Constitution, hence the capitalization of VERY in the first line.
So, he can watch it on YouTube later. 🙄
Be sure to give Sen. Angus King his script: "at long last..."
It's, we hope, we have a friend who substituted recently in a third grade classroom and it was chaos. Interestingly that particular school is in a conservative R voting area.
cid:E4F4D238-B638-4DD2-8E8F-D928EFBB2CD2
And once again, that affect insight here, are you Oregon let me show you a nice illustration of you there
A century ago the 16th Amendment brought us the IRS as it was intended to reduce cost by ending tariffs. Trump brought back tariffs to make us all pay the taxes of the billionaires who received tax cuts from his Big Ugly Bill. Now we pay the increased cost of imported goods due to his tariffs lie plus we pay IRS. My proposed model amendment in my Memorandum to We the People at UnitedWeAmend.org is my way of being LOUD about that plus many more probelms the Roberts 6 has created. Please find time to read and share it. Send it to elected officials, family and friends. The issues addressed therein need a national dialogue.
I thank Dale Rowett of LexiGraphics.Pro for his talent, knowledge and experience of interpretation and presentation of what was originally just words and a dream into something beautiful.
Albert the question is how do we turn this awareness into a movement against the Trump and Epstein classes? I find it not surprising at all that the person who shot Trump shot him because Trump no longer embodies what he has stood for to MAGA. He is not MAGA enough. Julie Roginsky had spoken to this in an article on MAGA 2.0 saying that they are crazy and really extreme and consider Trump a sell out. Some of these people are Nick Fuentes and Candice Owens. They are Nazis of different genders and colors, but Nazis just the same. They want to destroy Trump and rebuild things in their own ideology.
https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/there-is-something-scarier-afoot?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
After Julie wrote this, Jeff Tiedrich posted a piece with Nick Fuentes raging.
This video is of Nick Fuentes telling his people not to vote, is from Jeff Tiedrich's Substack. It reminds me of how Julie Roginsky talked about how the MAGA 2.0 is just unrecognizably scary and how they have factioned off of MAGA 1.0 and feel that they are all big sell outs. The thing is that this is not satire, this is how he really feels about things. https://youtu.be/xhVNs4sibXA?si=kzkR2xCsrSUjUK0w
Linda, I'll start by acknowledging that I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I suspect that most MAGA "influencers" don't believe what they spew, or at least they didn't start out that way. Many have made comments that gave me a clue. Steve Bannon comes to mind.
There is a kind of nihilistic "it's-all-going-to-hell-anyway-so-I'll-just-say-shit-to-see-what-kind-of-reaction-I-get" tone to a lot of MAGA influencer rhetoric. But social media amplifies this grandiloquence and generates massive numbers that stroke the egos of the posters. Fame and followers are intoxicating and addictive. To maintain that "high," these influencers escalate the outrage of their rhetoric to keep their audience engaged.
I think history will remember Mark Zuckerberg as one of the worst humans ever to draw breath. I wonder how long – or even if – antisocial media would be "a thing" if he hadn't started Facebook.
I agree. Steve Bannon and other clowns are performers. Their every performance is only to keep the press focused on them and thus less time actually reporting. The more sexiest and racist they get then the more they promote it as normal and thus the more they divide and conquer America. Our goal must first be unity because without it we cannot win. Thus UnitedWeAmend.org
Well Linda, I don’t know what to say about Fuentes, but Candace Owen’s will need to change her color if she hopes lead in any MAGA circles. As for all that has happened since Trump took office, I am concentrating on one point to make from here on out: IMPEACH!!! We need to promote rallies around the nation for this one single movement. Start with the Capital, then the WH, and every state House in the nation. We’ve given him all the time we can afford.
I miss the point about how Nazi the Nazis are. We focus only on who and how many we are. The Memorandum begins to discuss that near the final pages before the model amendment. Keep in mind the truth that every major revolution in history began with only two or three people working together. John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere were key American Revolutionary leaders in Boston. Buy the book " Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky. Youth say there are newer and maybe better books but this one has survived time. Maybe attend a meeting or two of a progressive group; Move-On, NOW, ... and find a couple of people who want to make Good Trouble. Read that book together and work within your Congressional District to inform people about what the Nazis (Roberts 6) are doing. Read my Memorandum as it informs about that from beginning to end.
Linda, I think taxpayers file a class action against him for repayment of tariff dollars. We sue for use of taxpayer dollars for hiring killing of U.S. citizens, sue him for killing fishermen in international waters, and using dollars without congressional support. He needs stopped with money.
Cynthia, that sounds like a good plan to me.
In actual fact, the tax cuts are way more costly than the amount brought in by tariffs.
The NYT had an article showing the costs of everything in the Big Ugly Bill. The tax cuts were huge, bigger than everything else put together.
That explains why he wants to remove the cap on running up the national debt. He needs Tariffs so he can brag about how many billions he is bringing in from American consumers.
Yes. We are more trillions into debt than we were before and a larger portion of our taxes go to pay interest on the debt.
Thank you, Megan. I needed a new one. Yes, grade schoolers are more responsible. The book title that could help the person even is Everyything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Of course there is much more to know, but those essential lessons need to be learned and used.
Yep - your suggestion is a very good one. It is a good and short.
Thank you! Short helps. I fell asleep before posting it last night, then woke up, holding the phone, and tapped Post.
This morning I corrected typos which I could not see originally.
Judy, I have that book somewhere.
The petulant man-child defacing and squatting in the White House needs to be put on a time-out for at least the next 3 years.
And banned from taking part in all things on Planet Earth.
horhai....permanent time out.
Megan, thanks for the spreadsheet.
I too have always felt that the 3-5 graders I have taught understand government and right and wrong better than this government leadership. We did governmental simulations and they got to understand things pretty well. We developed party planks and they created campaigns for candidates, and then we weave the winning ideas into our classroom for the remainder of the year. They have always been big on environmental issues, and this led to a clean water campaign.
I am living in Germany and have started an Indivisible Abroad group in my city. It is keeping me busy. I am also a member of Democrats Abroad which is heavily involved with GOTV in our locations abroad. Last night I got the good news that the primary ballot I mailed on February 2, has arrived at the Board of Elections in my city. Yay!
Yes, thanks Megan for the spreadsheet and Linda, for all your efforts abroad!
Floridians,TOMORROW is the House vote on the FL version of the SAVE Act.Remember…. Florida Real ID is NOT proof of citizenship and student ID’s would not be allowed for students to vote!
📲📲📲
https://www.flhouse.gov/
Translation how Florida continues to secure its move from democracy to anocracy
Yay!!
Whew! Now waiting for a family member's to arrive.
Also Per Reuter's, Phil Stewart, disclosed that a new "Joint U.S. Interagency Task force Counter Cartel", JUSTFCC "provided a detailed target package" to lead the Mexican Army to their targeted kill of cartel leader, EL MENCHO.
How does a citizen find out more facts about a how a new powerful federal Agency works? Alas, the federal 'interagency' structure of the new U.S. operation insulates JUSTFCC from Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests. We will have to rely on Reuters and/or other sources that do exist.
Regardless, as Heather posted, another 3 persons were killed in military airstrikes in the'Eastern Pacific' circa 2/22/26 bringing the total killed by trump's targets wherever to at least 137.
“A report about classified documents has itself been classified from the public.”
A federal judge has permanently barred the release of Volume II of special counsel Jack Smith’s report examining the classified documents case involving Donald Trump. The order binds not only the current attorney general, Pam Bondi, but her successors as well. In other words, this is not a pause. It is a burial.
…Cannon’s reasoning rests on familiar constitutional language. The defendants were never convicted. They retain the presumption of innocence. Releasing the report, she argues, would risk “manifest injustice.”
On paper, that sounds restrained and principled. In practice, it feels like refusing to return the final exam because the grading process became controversial. If no one sees the red ink, technically, no one was embarrassed.
The implication is subtle but powerful. Unless guilt is formally declared in court, the public has no legitimate claim to the assembled facts. Investigation becomes an internal memo rather than a civic reckoning.
By sealing it, the court ensures that it will loom larger in imagination than it might have on paper. You cannot quote what you cannot read. You cannot challenge specific passages. You can only speculate.
Norms are remarkably flexible tools. They expand when we demand exposure and contract when exposure becomes inconvenient. Transparency is a virtue until it threatens someone powerful. Then it becomes a potential injustice.
Convictions are not the only measure of democratic health. Context matters. Explanations matter. Citizens are routinely asked to assess judgment, character, and adherence to law, not merely to tally guilty verdicts. Remove the explanatory layer, and accountability shrinks to a binary.
https://essayx.substack.com/p/democracy-redacted
I have always thought that there is evidence of a sell of information in these files. Follow the money. After all, the banking records was his red line in the first term. This ruling pretty much confirms that theory.
Rickey, as horrendous as the actions of the sex trafficking ring are and as disgusting as the behavior of our Epstein Class is, I believe that the real substance of those files lies in the financial and espionage components of the conduct.
I cannot articulate just how repulsive that entire scenario is to me.
Ellie Leonard has distinguished, herself as an organizer, teacher of other decoders (mostly amateurs at it to start out), and quiet/gentle spur to the pursuit and interconnections of millions of documents mangled in all sorts of ways by the incompetents at the FBI and the DOJ. I was trained first as a political scientist, then a historian and in the latter role I was obliged to read written 19th century records of letters before typewriters and carbons. To save expensive paper costs, copies of official correspondence were retained by writing on both sides of sheets, first, one way horizontally, then turned 90 degrees and written directly across the completed sheet, then turned over and repeated twice more so that one sheet contained four sides. Decoding was sometimes a bear!. Compare than to the cross-checking of relating Trumpstein documents to one another after virtually indiscriminating redactions complicated by multiplistic nicknames, single letter 'handles' and the like. Ellie's persistence, gentility and reserve, all despite her clear disgust over the then entire meshuge and unconscionable delays in addressing it for the survivors and the governing delays, is truly remarkable.
I have shared your Goodtrouble link already this morning. I also use https://www.thoughtco.com/write-effective-letters-to-congress-3322301. and
https://www.govtrack.us/.
From Dylan Thomas a call for us all to remember :
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Impeachment?
my dog is better at telling the truth!
Unlike the human "animal".
As I have said on other sites, If I were CJ Roberts, I'd convene a hearing for Trump to show cause why he is not in contempt of SCOTUS.
"The court's Friday ruling was "deeply disappointing". The justices who joined the majority opinion should be "absolutely ashamed" and lacked the courage to "do the right thing", Trump said, turning his response into a sweeping attack against a co-equal branch of government.
"The broadside was remarkable even for a president known for blowing past political norms and publicly berating those who challenge his authority.
"I'm ashamed of certain members of the court. Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country," Trump said at the start of a press conference at the White House, which was held a few hours after the decision was released.
"Trump did not mince words from there as he assessed the decision, which held that presidents do not have inherent authority to impose sweeping tariffs on any country.
"For the next 45 minutes, Trump criticised the ruling and made the case that he would find other methods to continue imposing tariffs on other countries. But throughout he repeatedly returned to the justices in ways that made clear he felt personally slighted by the decision."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9g0e7zd8wo
It's not surprising, Daniel. Donald's life of almost 80 years has been no more than a series of transactions. "I do this for you and expect you to do that for me." His father modeled this transactional way of life, as did his grandfather, the pimp (nothing more transactional than sex for money).
Donald placed Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett on The Court – for a lifetime – with very clear and specific expectations that they are always to give him deference – for a lifetime. To his mind, they have "reneged" on "the deal." For his entire life, Donald has made a policy of punishing those he believes have betrayed him, regardless of who they are. This is the Bratva way.
I can't remember the cite now, but didn't he also call them slime balls?
Retired 2nd grade teacher here...... Yep! You're right! 🤗
Thanks, Megan. As always.
Empathy is a deal breaker for the modern GOP. Retribution replaces it as a core principle.
Well said. And yes, we are all constituents of the United States.
Trump is a loser who is now in a rage, referring to the "ridiculous and poorly crafted supreme court decision".
In the wake of Trump’s "ridiculous and poorly crafted" Tweets and Truth Socials (sic), it’s increasingly clear that America and the world has a dire need for someone to do an intervention.
PS. Bring a straitjacket!
There is no clearer evidence that American leadership of the world order is gone than the willingness of our trade partners to turn their backs and walk away, joining new trading partnerships that exclude us. The US economy is going to tank because markets need certainty; all they are getting from Trump is chaos.
The EU countries are leading the pushback against diplomatic bullying. Kushner’s blackballing is a major act of retaliation after he dissed the French by refusing to meet their demand for his presence. That only adds to the pushback from Denmark and Greenland over the latest “hospital ship” fiasco. Diplomatic bridges are being burnt.
Trump is having a breakdown. It looks like Mike Johnson has decided to push him over the edge by saying the House is unlikely to support new tariffs. He may be testing the waters for aligning with JD Vance on an Article 25, Section 4, pre-midterm removal of Trump. That, followed by Vance dumping all of the Epstein files, including the new ones in the hidden storage areas, could be cast as MAGA saving the country, and all of the blue wave calculations would have to be revised. It would be a last-ditch effort to salvage something from the midterms.
How Trump gets through the State of the Union tonight will be evidence of how delusional he is.
Yikes. But I have to say, I’d take that horrible scenario over continuing with Trump. And we just need to show up this November in droves. It will be a year of intense work for those of us who know the stakes to convince everyone to unite and vote. I still can’t comprehend people who know what’s happening but who still think not voting is a statement and display of their voice. They scare me more than Trump.
The market needs certainty, but it also needs customers. Ours are going elsewhere.
They certainly are. Foreign markets have been outperforming. The US is the laggard. Once this interlude of chaos ends with more decoupling from the US economy, they will recover first.
The less US treasury bonds are seen as a safe haven, the lower the demand for dollars and the higher US inflation will be. The Euro is already being positioned to be the next reserve currency.
The certainty is going to be outside the US. You will know for sure when commodities start being priced in Euros instead of dollars. China is also trying to do that.
Even if he goes, the "administration" Trump put in place will remain. Cruelty will remain a feature, as will ineptitude, graft, and lawlessness. When challenged by the public or genuine crises, as it will certainly be after removing Trump, a Vance/Thiel administration will remain fascist and corrupt. Such regimes always double down on repressive policies. We The People have HAD IT with such policies, weather wielded by a failed real-estate broker, an ivy-league NAZI, or delusional tech-bro.
I don't think releasing the Trumpstein files will save any of them.
I agree. The Trump regime will remain with a more obedient frontman in Vance. Lots more reasons to be worried about “domestic terrorists” interfering with the election if Trump is gone. At the same time, they will be touting “a return to sanity” and “election fraud” until the midterms. The filibuster will go in the Senate because they need a simple majority to get through legislation to give them more leverage through voter suppression and start a war against dissent in political discourse.
Even Robert Reich and Heather in her “What the Heck Just Happened” videos are saying they think it will get worse before it gets better…
Oh, I haven't read that RR and HCR said it would get worse. I don't discount that, but if they said it, I'm really scared!
The Robert Reich warning
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-saving-the-last-best
Thank you for the link! It rings true, all of it, including the prediction of getting worse before it has a chance of getting better. It's all very frightening! BTW, Reich is so smart. I subscribe to quite a few substacks, and I haven't added his; but I know he always provides up-to-date information and a sage perspective.
HCR has been saying it since Inauguration Day.
If they lose another republican that scenario you describe will not happen. I'm thinking of Gonzales.
This is an existential issue for the Republicans. This is also a criminal enterprise, and keeping the majority is essential. In a righteous House, Gonzales would be expelled.
I think if another R dies of natural causes, they would put in a body double. They hid Rep. Kay Grainger for months when she was suffering from dementia, to avoid a special election.
More to the point, the expulsion of George Santos took 11 months from when he was sworn in to when he was finally expelled.
Here’s a link to all the procedural steps that have to be followed according to the Congressional Research Service.
ww.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45078.html
The final step of expulsion requires a 2/3 majority of the House. And therein lies the rub.
I think, Georgia, he's going to put on an unprecedented display of over-the-top madness.
I think so too, beyond what the oligarchs will tolerate. AI should do well in an authoritarian state, but not when the US is being excluded from major new economic alliances that will shut them out of desirable markets. The crazier Trump behaves, the closer the oligarchs will get to dumping him for Vance ahead of the midterms.
Again, Georgia, you may have just proven yourself our best, most far-seeing analyst. The possibility of an actual 25th Amendment rebellion against Trump had not occurred to me, primarily because I remain convinced he is feigning madness, and that any anti-Trump reverberation within the RepubliKlan Party is therefore scripted deception. But what you suggest is one sure way to delude the infinitely gullible Moronic Majority into voting against the Democrats, particularly if tariff-relief is bolstered by sustained (or more likely escalated) ecogenocidal hatefulness, particularly persecution of women and minorities, plus additional price reductions due to environmental rape. (This is not cynicism; I will never forget the apocalyptic hatred of our Mother Earth expressed by two proto-ChristoNazi slogans: "Organic Is Satanic" and "Environmental Is Of The Devil," both of which I saw -- and photographed -- on church reader-boards c. 1971 or so, those pix among the thousands destroyed by the 1 September 1983 arson that obliterated all my significant work.)
I am so sorry your work was lost to arson.
My wife's family lost their house in a lighting fire in 1982 that included all the correspondence between her parents when her Dad was in Laos/Cambodia USAF detached USSF as a helo pilot. I cannot imagine losing your life's work that way.
Shakespeare again: Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. (Hamlet was acting madder and madder, which his guilty uncle the usurper correctly detected as a tactical ploy).
I'm sure we'll get "highlights" so can avoid sitting through the monstrous stuodiity
Highlights: "I'm great, everything is great, Biden sucks, supreme court sucks, other leaders suck, election rigged, Melania movie great, tariffs great, liberals suck, I truly believe all my lies- as you can see, I'm batshit crazy!" There you go.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Uxo8RgTljpk
For those, like me, who will not click on youtube links without first knowing what they present… the youtube metadata for the link is
“ Could the dollar lose its dominance? | The Economist
For eight decades the US dollar has been the linchpin of global trade and finance. But today confidence in it is faltering. #dollar #economy #finance
Video supported by @mishcon_de_reya
Read more: https://econ.st/46yTlFl
(How did I get that without watching the video?
Search the internet for youtube data extractor. Then Copy paste a youtube link.)
Great link on how the dollar is losing its luster as the world’s reserve currency. Thanks!
Butt butt butt the stock market is booming.
Butt butt butt the S&P500 is stalling out, and what’s holding it up are the defensive sectors, which are the ones that show up at the party just when the band stops playing, and they are ready to turn out the lights.
Nice, easy-to-understand explanation connecting the business cycle and the sector rotations in terms of intermediate term performance in the stock market:
https://chartschool.stockcharts.com/table-of-contents/market-analysis/sector-rotation-analysis
I was being sarcastic. /s
That won't happen if democratic leadership is proactive.
John Oliver did a deep dive into how X has devolved into a cess-pool of far-right hate and slander on this episode.
Anyone out there still using X? Time to abandon the platform completely.
Yes! If I had a wish on a Genie lantern, it would be that every person who gets what MAGA and Trump are, would today drop all use or support of platforms and companies who give voice to them. Cold Turkey. It would not harm us in any way to drop X or not buy from Amazon or just stop purchasing from Home Depot. It would send a loud chilling message to our media, to MAGA and to each other that we are sane and are not party to trumps twisted reality.
I have never used X, and have boycotted Amazon and Home Depot for about a year now. However, I am having difficulty figuring out how to dump AT&T for phone service... But I will share that CutOffTheSpigot (here on substack) offers alternatives for many things, and resistandunsubscribe.com also offers good advice.
Signe, I share your dilemma with AT&T. Their network is the ONLY network that has adequate coverage in my remotely rural area. My solution was to go with Red Pocket Mobile, a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator). I'm still on the AT&T network, but I console myself that I'm indirectly paying only a fraction of what I'd pay AT&T directly. Consumer Cellular is another well-known MVNO and gets a perfect score from Goods Unite Us. Red Pocket isn't rated, but their prices are a better value.
Thanks for the tip! I avoided Consumer Cellular based on advice from CutOffTheSpigot that they're owned by a questionable private equity firm: https://cutoffthespigot.substack.com/p/cellphone-carrier-alternatives-so
Signe, I just did a little research to satisfy my own conscience. Red Pocket Mobile was founded by Joshua Gordon and he remains the CEO. He is also the founder of the Democracy Council, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to strengthening democratic institutions around the world.
I feel better already!
https://www.redpocket.com
I dropped all you mention and more over a year ago. Where ya been? Jump in! The water is warm.
Me too. It's not as hard as people make it out to be.
I did when the idiot Elon bought it and now anytime, I get directed to X, I immediately hit the back key.
Twitter: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7ZG_xWYLzI
Thank you! Hilarious and afterwards, scary!
Thank you for that. Just watched.
I got off that when musk bought it. Don’t do Facebook insta or threads either. Just substack and blue sky and LinkedIn just for professional reasons.
I closed my X account and deleted the app as soon as Musk came out as a Nazi.
it's unfathomable to me that people who see the evil-doing of musk still use X.
I left Facebook ages ago. When twitter became X I left that one also. I do as little business with the megabastards as I can.
Trump wants unquestioned loyalty. Ne NEVER extends it.
Trump only extends loyalty for a very large fee.
Trump is never more than transactional.
"Ridiculous" is suddenly the mot du jour. When Pam Bondi used it, I thought she was parroting Trump. Bit of both, I guess. Has everyone seen the wonderful New Irish Song, "Oh, Pam Bondi"? You Tube. It's very good. (In fact, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBXvuKSBw50
With an interesting final sequence of digging a hole in a golf course, which then pans to a little headstone.
I love this, Anne-Louise! But as someone commented below the video, that harpy doesn't deserve such a beautiful Irish melody.
It heightens the irony. And those facial expressions AI'd from her performance in the Senate.
Wow!!!
Thank you for sharing the link, A-L!
@Anne-Louise Luccarinia
thank you! I've sent that youtube to everyone I know...
Oh good! It's brilliant.
Trump is so embarrassing. Anyone who can't see that is also embarrassing.
A binky would be realistic.
...and a gag.
For those of us who simply can not hack the harangutan ad infinitum, ad nauseam my fellow conservative and patriot, Dr William Kristol, and smart young reporter, Mr Andrew Egger, present a pre-mortem. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-polls-stink-will-sotu-turn?utm_source=live-stream-redirect&triedRedirect=true I wish all Democrats and the few courageous Republicans would either boycott the speech or boo and hold pix of every human being shot by storm-trumpers OR not show up, leving said pix in their seats,
harangutan ad infinitum, ad nauseam -- love the phrase!
*Anything to keep my shrinking grey matter somewhat active!
I'm at 90 from a January 1, 1936 conception. Wanna bet whose has shrunk the most??? I admire your efforts. Mine keep me going, too. Today and yesterday I've already done a half a week's work with 1966 as the baseline week's requirement . . .
You are old enough to be my father, but you are young enough to be my brother. G-D bless you, Hendrik.🫱🏻🫲🏽
The Supreme Court may want to revisit the ruling on Presidential immunity now that they are on the receiving end of a tantrum?
Who knows. I was totally baffled when I read that the Trump-handpicked Extreme Court actuallly ruled _against_ Donny-boy… Maybe they’ll reconsider their support somewhat.
Actually, the fact that anyone (Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas) ruled against the majority on what should have been a 9-0 decision just goes to show you how little they care for the US Constitution.
Alito claimed the Dobb's decision was based on the original US Constitution ignoring any of the amendments after the Bill of Rights. And now he ignores sections of the original US Constitution in the tariff decision.
No surprise that Thomas voted in favor of the tariff's since he so obviously hates America and is morally bankrupt.
And Kavanaugh has abandoned all legal basis for several of his decisions of late.
Trump has recently declared that Kavanaugh is his new favourite. I wonder if he's just heard that he's a fellow sex pest? Trump claims that he had "read all the paragraphs" i.e. of Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion, something he claimed he was easily able to do because he has "great comprehnsion". Strangely though since then almost everything he's said about the SCOTUS ruling has been wrong. There have been around a 1,000 lawsuits already from US companies demanding their money back.
The lawsuits are a good start, but what about the hundreds of companies that Trump bankrupted with his chaotic tariffs. It's not easy to start over after a bankruptcy, unless you're Trump.
They really are the 3 stooges.
No question that I like beer sold his soul to the con man. I recall when he came back after a lunch break during his confirmation hearing and was mean-drunk-angry. He had to have taken a call from dear leader and received orders to fight like hell - ala Roy Cohn - and not give an inch on anything. Dear leader promised to see him confirmed - but at a price. His dissenting opinion is just the latest example.
Has anyone run their name thru Trumpstein files?
Lawrence O'Donnell described Kavanaugh's dissent as his application for the CJ's position if/when Roberts retires. In no other universe than this president's would Kavanaugh have been appointed to the Supreme Court. I still think he might be writing these days from some beer-filled man cave.
“Alito claimed the Dobb's decision was based on the original US Constitution ignoring any of the amendments after the Bill of Rights. And now he ignores sections of the original US Constitution in the tariff decision.”
Great point, and confirms for the 10 millionth time that the only thing the fascist right-wing has going for it is its hypocrisy.
DM, while I have become a long-term pessimist about our prospects as a species, I suspect Trump is crashing and burning as we speak, and that the brighter right-wankers, er wingers, on the Court have figured this out and do not want to go down on that ship despite their being part owners of the debacle (please forgive my mixed up metaphors).
Our stables will soon require a thorough cleaning.
Cleaning? I fear the 250- year accumulation of felonies is a dung-heap too deep and compacted to remove, even with mechanized equipment. The stables themselves must be rebuilt on unspoiled ground.
Surely the lifetime majority on the Donald J. Trump Supreme Court of the Unified Reich was aware of the felonious president's intent to defy its ruling. This suggests the Republican appointees voted as they did merely to give themselves a plausible denial to possible impeachment charges of being nothing more than the felonious president's co-conspirators.
I presume most countries have come to the realization that what Georgia wrote in her comments above will happen; i.e. Trump's time is up and Vance will follow the agenda, as was originally planned by Thiel, Musk, Adelson and all the other donors. Otherwise our allies would not suddenly act in defiance with such unison (as Heather specified). I can't wait to see how Johnson, Vance, Rubio... and all of Trump's cronies, will (if at all) distance themselves from Trump after their seemingly total fealty to him.
Unfortunately, if Georgia's analysis is correct, it will -- as she points out -- also enable the ChristoNazis to present themselves as saviors of the nation, which could deny the Democrats any chance of winning the midterms.
Only if they make the same mistakes as 2024. They need to run a Pritzker/Newsom ticket, in my humble opinion. And then give Pete Buttegeig the Secretary of State position so he can restore our standing around the world. If they run Kamala it is a non starter.
I like the idea of Buttegeig as Sec of State. He has the intellect and diplomacy to carry it off like few others could.
Ms. Jamieson: I "liked" your reply for its "only if they make the same mistakes as 2024," not for your choice of candidates. Pritzker probably, Buttegeig maybe, but most certainly (not) Newsom, whose alleged progressive outlook is merely "change-we-can-believe-in" deception, proven so by his fight to protect the state's plutocrats from taxation. (Note Newsom is supporting the Silicon Valley Nazis, who are fighting the proposal with the weaponized omnipotence of their effectively infinite wealth, which tells us all we need to know to accurately diagnose Newsom's true ideology.) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/california-wealth-tax-proposal-splits-democrats-ahead-of-midterms/ar-AA1WC6k3
How about, Ligia, Mark Kelly / Jamie Raskin?
Or, Jamie Raskin / Mark Kelly?
Not Newsom. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I like the idea of Buttigieg in the cabinet; SecDef would be a good spot, but SecState is as well.
Thanks, Loren, for your concise comment.
They bumped the important part of the decision, how to unwind the mess, back down to the lower court, so it will be ages before the money from the collected tariffs has to be returned to somebody (not us)--that's a compensation prize to Trump that he can lay on them for no "tariff dividend" check showing up before the mid-terms.
As ever, the general public, who actually have paid the tariffs,will not be made whole in favor of the company's that passed the cost of the tariffs on. Like the banks bailed out during the Great Recession.
In the Trump regime money only flows one way, uphill from the poor to the uber-rich. It is the guiding principle of the grift. We are truly ithe victims of the largest criminal enterprise of all time. New affronts daily.
Yes. Didn’t they create the monster?
God I hope so. But not holding my breath….
If only----
I like the way you think, Frank!
For those of us who simply can not hack the harangutan ad infinitum, ad nauseam my fellow conservative and patriot, Dr William Kristol, and smart young reporter, Mr Andrew Egger, present a pre-mortem. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-polls-stink-will-sotu-turn?utm_source=live-stream-redirect&triedRedirect=true I wish all Democrats and the few courageous Republicans would either boycott the speech or boo and hold pix of every human being shot by storm-trumpers OR not show up, leving said pix in their seats,
While we can't be certain, the odds are about 99.97% that tomorrow evening, we will be treated to a raging, incoherent sermon filled with snarling and drooling, loaded with self-righteous hissy fits of rage, dementia, self-pity, and passive-aggressive nastiness. He might announce a sudden attack against Iran without explaining why (or lying about it), claiming victory even before the first salvo.
The whinefest will be long, boring, and adorned with swagger about all the bizarre "accomplishments" he has wreaked upon us, reflecting only his own personal achievements of grift, graft and gimme. He will accuse others of criminality and ill intent he himself is guilty of, as well as claim credit for things he was not the author of. (He will probably make faces at Chief Justice Roberts while boasting about how his incoherent, incomprehensible, illegal, and incompetently slapped-on tariffs are really the best thing for life on earth since sliced bread.)
Keep a scorecard (if you're masochistic enough to watch) for underhanded, bizarre attacks on Joe Biden (complete with histrionic facial grimacing for the cameras), multiple distractions, grotesque stupidity and moral wretchedness. But you needn't worry about one topic -- not a single word about the sprawling financial scandal and human tragedy known as the "Epstein Files" (which implicate him directly) will be uttered.
I’m going to miss it altogether. He is not my president. I’m going steelhead fishing in my wooden boat with a good tarp a warm bed and a riverside February camp. I hope it snows as the barometer falls and you guys can see an old man eating his filet on a wild river and escape with me sitting by the fire light. Know me by the light of the fire burning bright, as they say. F$$$ t$$$$ and the pig he rode in on.
Too bad Nancy Pelosi is no longer the Speaker of the House. It would be fun to watch her reaction to his BS.
Every House member is up for reelection (or else they decided to abandon this shit-show). Their fawning over Trump's words will make great political ads this fall.
Hoping someone will rip up Donold’s SOTU speech like Nancy Pelosi did when she was Speaker of the House.
I'm hoping, horhai, no Dems will be sitting anywhere near all the zombie cultists.
I am looking forward to Governor Spanberger’s response, though in reality I’ll probably record the whole thing and watch tomorrow when fast forward is a tool.
Lovely image. I can almost taste the steelhead... A moment of serenity within the kaleidoscope of chaos that whirls around us...
I have no illusions. None of my campaneros of summer will join. It will be cold dark and the night long. No matter the discomfort level I will be grinning, stupidly happy, and unaware of a single bullshit word of his majesty for 2 glorious days which will not count against my lifetime. I apologize to you all for the abanDONment.
I’m also going to miss it all together….but for those who can stomach,Robert Hubbell has created a BINGO card!
How to watch the State of the Union (or not) and maintain your sanity.
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/how-to-watch-the-state-of-the-union?
Tight lines, Pat! Cheers!
Can I come too? I can bring some homemade biscuits and Southern Comfort for a quick snack.
Sure.
What river? Sounds delightful.
The Salmon, below Salmon Idaho. For you Ally I got my boat plan from a trip to Eugene. A “Rapid Robert” from the pages of Roger L. Fletchers “Drift Boats & River Dories.” He wanted to preserve the history of the McKenzie boats. Delightful historian retired from OSU. Retired in 97 so he’s getting long in the tooth.
How cool! Several years ago, there was a celebration of Drift Boats along the McKenzie River. One of the Eugene Symphony Guild members who had a home along Goodpasture Island Road hosted a fund raiser, and asked our chamber group (Oregon Tuba Ensemble) to play for it. Mr. Fletcher was the guest of honor and gave an amazing presentation on that book.
I know I heard strains of a tuba coming down the McKenzie. Swear to dog. Every time I smiled out loud and got another mouthful of mosquitoes just thinking about it.
I'll see if I can find the video that the U of O tuba studio made a couple years ago...
Now that sounds like a plan Pat. Getting a line wet is the most sane thing I can imagine. Alas here in GA the Steelhead live only in our dreams. May you get the snow as well as a hatch, a reverse snowfall, truly a magical moment on any river. 🙏
I’m putting all my Luck 🍀 on no ice. At 4000’ elevation in late February floating ice means your line freezes. You have to scrub it between retrieves and when your reel locks up hand over hand. I’ll take your magic.
I read that during a phone call with the US men's hockey team he told them, “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” laughing at his own stupid ass joke, which resulted in roaring laughter from the team. Then he added, “I do believe I would probably be impeached” if I didn’t invite the USA women’s team. The women's team has not accepted his so-called invite. If the men on the Men's team were actually adults they would likewise not show up.
If the men on the US Olympic hockey team were of the Miracle on Ice of 1980, they'd have refused. Sadly, they're professional hockey players and not amateurs. Of course, watching Ka$h Pattel acting like a frat boy was pretty cool. <SARCASM font>
Patel really was having fun. His assignment to go to the Olympics allowed him to leave the FBI building and not have to act like he knows what he is doing. Imagine that kind of job pressure for even one day.
Every one of this bunch have the “fake it until you make……” except they do not even care if they ever make it. Because what can anybody do about it for the next 3 years? They are having the time of their lives on the taxpayers tab, and they have absolutely no conscience about it. We can hate them, be repulsed and disgusted by them but they simply do not have the capacity to care.
This is Trump’s legacy. He is and has always been too stupid to understand that doubling down on obnoxious/ criminal behavior will eventually lead to your downfall.
You have to have enough self-awareness in order for that to happen. I don't think he has that.
Someone should "doctor" the video, inserting regularly a clip of Nancy Pelosi calmly tearing the transcript in half.
yes -- and slow clapping!
I smile at the memory. I wonder if anyone has started writing her biography?
I cannot bear to watch or listen to him - so I will trust the observations of people in this group and other substack groups and the snippets Nicole Wallace will undoubtedly show and be talking about. It's bound to be a rage fueled shit show -- and I do worry he will announce war with Iran. Why war with Iran??? And Huckabee should be immediately recalled after his atrocious comments claiming that the Old Testament gives Israel the right to take over the whole Middle East. We are officially in the land of insanity.
Shitshow....yes, that's it. The original....
Ah, yes. There is certain to be silence on the Trump–Epstein Pedo-files...
Question: Instead of watching Trump’s "State of the Union" speech, what are You doing tonight? (This should be fun!)
7pm State of the Swamp with Defiance.org
8pm People's State of the Union with MoveOn.org
I will be attending an environmental lecture. I certainly have no interest in listening to his delusional rants.
Too bad MTG resigned. It would be fun to watch her troll Trump during the speech. Or at least during the low-lights everyone is going to show for the next several days.
Speaking of MTG…where is our strange, loud mouthed heroine? Is she still helping the Epstein survivors? Perhaps it was yet another cowardly, self-serving act for her to quit after speaking out. I hope not but am not holding my breath…
I’m hoping to see dems and the supremes walk out.
So I’ll have cspan, on mute, on tv. On the computer, i’ll watch live one of the other SOU alternatives, the swamp one, or the Mobilize Peoples alternative livestream SOU. (See other post from TJ with links.)
Would be great to watch a “mystery science theater” live co-broadcast presentation of the SOU, with live rebuttal, popcorn throwing, and general rabble response in real time….
This will likely be unprecedented…. News channels don’t broadcast most of his long, fumbling, incoherent rant-rages, he’s such an em-bare-ass-ment, mainstream news media are avoiding full exposure and airing just short clips, which is just providing him cover and hiding his mental decline and the (pre-existing) hideousness. At the SOU, maybe it all gets uncovered.
How I’d love a “mystery science theater” simulcast!
So it’s Tuesday night, we have our answer. Just 4 Supremes in attendence: J-Roberts, E-Kagan, B-Kavanaugh, and A-C-Barrett.
Watching counter programming at Defiance.org.
State of American Fascism and Hallucinations
Maybe he'll announce that judges who opposed tariffs will be sent to internment camps. Or maybe that the vourt will be replaced by Trump GPT SOCIAL.
What I always do on Tuesday nights in February: Watch the director of my community band.
It would be a great trick if someone could turn off the prompter during Trump’s talk.
How would we know? 😜
I'm just going to turn off the TV.
Not tuning in to Earth 2 going for sanity .. Thinking the gag reflex has been exercised way too often, my friend.
I'm going to take a sold dose of anti-nausea medication and watch it for indications of his true condition. (We know he learned acting skills as a vidiot star, and I suspect he is feigning madness to lay a foundation for an insanity defense in the unlikely event this criminal nation actually grows the courage to impeach him.)
Well predicted, “This”.
Spot on, and then if there is a god, pressure to invoke the 25th will begin to build from this night on. There is a point at which they can no longer hide his descent into clinical insanity.
What a fantastic check-list ICTT! I usually cannot stomach Trump on live TV, but I will gut it out and check off each of your predictions as they happen. You should be writing speeches for a Democratic presidential candidate.
If you watch the whine-fest, It's Come To This, you are a braver man than I.
For those of us who simply can not hack the harangutan ad infinitum, ad nauseam my fellow conservative and patriot, Dr William Kristol, and smart young reporter, Mr Andrew Egger, present a pre-mortem. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-polls-stink-will-sotu-turn?utm_source=live-stream-redirect&triedRedirect=true I wish all Democrats and the few courageous Republicans would either boycott the speech or boo and hold pix of every human being shot by storm-trumpers OR not show up, leving said pix in their seats,
Donnie’s popularity is sinking further and further down. We know it and the EU knows it. If nothing else, we must install the strongest of guardrails that prohibits criminals from holding any type of office, when we get back into power. There will be so many messes to clean up.
In the meantime, I had to laugh when France turned its back on our illegitimate Ambassador, Charles Kushner, another criminal. By ousting him from gaining access to any French nationals, they are really saying that they’ll not permit Donnie to pull strings either.
We have Americans stranded in Mexico and snowstorms to contend with in the East Coast. The West is getting more rain tomorrow and the Sierras will be getting that and snow. All is not well but someday, hopefully soon, we will all see the light at the end of this horrific tunnel.
And late news is that Britain has now arrested its own former Ambassador to the US -- one of Jeffrey Epstein's BFFs -- turning him over to US custody. You can see him wringing his little ambassadorial hands behind Trump in the Oval Orifice (right next to a smirking, swaggering, eyelined JD Wanker) last May....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/room-trump-let-slip-real-210829771.html
Obi Wanker-Newbie...
☺️
I'm surprised they don't just declare him *persona non grata* and expel him from the country.
That may soon happen to Trumpassador Kushner. https://apnews.com/article/france-us-ambassador-kushner-far-right-0e10e3ec131969b1dea25a61cf0b00bc
I find it concerning in the extreme that the US military has agreed to commit piracy on the high seas. Piracy is illegal, has always been illegal, and all military officers surely know this. That makes any orders from the Commander in Chief or any of his sycophants illegal, and every person in the US military is required, by military regulations, to refuse to carry out such orders. Yet, military personnel have proceeded with impunity to violate their regulations, and most of the press, including the legit press (but not including HCR) has downplayed the seriousness of those violations. What gives?
Let me think. Hand picked military leadership? Or how to gain a star military leadership. I told a general and his senior staff to roll down their blouse sleeves as they boarded my helicopter as we prepared to takeoff for the Parrot’s Beak. On their refusal I grounded the aircraft. I will simply state that I had seen enough skin slide off burned arms to warrant combat protocol. Most people can’t visualize that the skin comes off like a long sleeved glove usually up to the elbow in one piece whole. Command must be held in abeyance as well as any rank personnel. Furthermore they must use the least force necessary to complete a military objective. Hogsbreath is out of control.
Yeah. It kinda slides off there, then they cut your arms down to relieve the swelling. And then, if you've made it that far, the real journey begins. It is a ghastly business, Pat.
I can’t put a like to that Gregg. Just like one cannot put that sleeve back on.
Those original sleeves are gone, but the surgeons fashioned me a couple different ones that have stood up over the last 40 years or so.
A young black soldier at a fire base reached up to me as he burned. I grabbed his hand and the sleeve came loose. I don’t think there is a way to measure his agony. I had to let go and get down in the fire with him and heave him out of the hole he was in. I was in nomex fireproof flight gear. That was the first time we ever closed the doors as we medivaced him to 24 evac in Bien Hoa. His painful screams still bring a river of tears. He begged for his mother to save him. Under his black skin his arms were ghostly white. He was shirtless from the waist up burned in the explosion of an artillery powder bag. We had just landed and I was checking for bullet holes when he was engulfed. I never knew if he lived. I hated burns the most. When the missiles strike the boats the men burn as they are ripped apart. Hogsbreath should be vaporized thusly. I am so so sorry you were burned. You are so down to earth henceforth you are the Great Scot to me.
I appreciate that Pat. No need to feel sorry tho. Heck, I fashioned a pretty full and good life and came through it all with my sense of humor still intact.
Very frightening and has nothing to do with drugs, rather it is moving from little horrors to greater ones. Read: Into That Darkness to see how a very ordinary policeman ultimately became Commandant of a concentration camp. We're seeing this strategy in real time with an ever greater number of lives that don't matter.
The former U.S. military will go down in infamy as oath-breakers. No doubt seduced by ChristoNazi dogma and promised the promotions and loot implicit in wars of conquest, they have become the felonious president's war-criminal legions of death.
The American military went down the tubes when they got their all volunteer army.
Military service is a great equalizer.
I think that a mandatory service commitment should be required of all 18 year old citizens. Military, Peace Corps, or a new Civilian Conservation Corps. Two years, and you must leave your region of the country. Put everyone on an equal footing.
Probably, at the grunt level, but conscripts were never dominant at the brass level. It’s the brass who have violated the oath. Their reputation for standing up for the Constitution was way overrated, apparently.
“Most people think sequoias survive because they're massive.
But that's not even close to the real reason.
If you’ve ever had the privilege standing beside one of these giants, you’ll find it hard NOT to think of resilience.”
https://substack.com/@tracychrest989204/note/c-160235733?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
“These trees can live through droughts, fires, storms, and climate shifts that would kill almost anything else.
But as an engineer this is what I’m fixated on:
The tallest tree in the world has roots that only go 6-12 feet deep.
That should be impossible. A 300-foot tree with shallow roots makes no sense from an engineering perspective.
But… Sequoias don't survive alone.
Their root systems spread 50-80 feet wide and interweave with every other sequoia around them.
They share nutrients, water, and structural support. When storms come in, they support each other.
The forest is the system: Not the individual trees.
I couldn't stop thinking about this.
Most people try to build resilience by making themselves bigger, stronger, more independent. They stockpile resources, they build higher walls, they go it alone.
But the most resilient systems in nature are interconnected.
Maybe the question isn't "how do I become more self-sufficient?" but "how do I become more meaningfully connected to the right systems?"” ~Rob Avis
TRACY CHEREST | SEP 26 2025 | Substack
.
JaKsaa, recently read about the forest tree root + mycelium interconnection for communication…a “web” connection if you will. Sometimes I pause and wonder at the human’s “synthetic” electronic connections developed when we have so many natural systems that are interconnected and communicate in ways we have yet to understand. Humans seem to be slow learners whilst trashing the best of what we DO have…sigh.
I agree Barbara, which is why when I saw a journalist on Substack post this short video on meditation - it kinda links the vibrations within natures ecosystem with the vibrations in human consciousness…
(click attached link) from @drewponder
https://substack.com/@drewponder/note/c-216305819?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
“Filmmaker David Lynch's Diagram for Transcendental Consciousness is one of the greatest, easiest to understand explanations for how our reality is made of MIND first, MATTER second.
I promise this is genuinely worth your time.
It's fantastic.” ~DrewPonder
JaKsaa you are a systems thinker and I appreciate that. Depth plus breadth. Excellent.
David Lynch's clip is remarkable. Going within to understand the all.
A passing reference to matter - brain matter - the human brain, in its multidimensional connections... as complex as the universe...
One of the side-effects of the Kremlin psychopath's bid to divorce the Russian people from the human race has been to restrict the country's scientific work to the service of his wars. No more contact with live forces, suppressed, silenced. Tatiana Chernigovskaya is a lively, highly communicative speaker in her native language, while what she had to say here in English is a cold, clear presentation of her work, without the wit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwaLHHMfuiM
Still, ponder what she has to say. Interesting, too, if one can access the seminar in which she and Russian scientists and philosophers talked with the Dalai Lama. What I now find are a series of interviews in which both her voice and that of the interviewer are dubbed into English.
Typically, terrifyingly, the current development of AI seems to be largely in the hands of Big Money/hitech speculators that view it simply and solely in terms of ultra-profitability and the ultimate power grab.
Sounds like Avatar
I think that is a primary divide between the right and left -- the left embraces community and the right is out for the individuals with power and hell with community - who they then describe as parasites. Totally different world views.
And while they describe them as parasites, will fleece them over and over and over again.
https://clear-vivid-with-alan-alda.simplecast.com/episodes/karen-bakker-the-sounds-of-life-iIhmowuy?t=0m0s
🦋 This fantastic 2023 podcast interview with Alan Alda…is so good if you can get past the first few minutes of annoying commercials. 💕 Sadly, we lost this wonderful scientist, and so it’s hard to find a better interview as this 35-minute recording with Alan Alda (who is elderly and his podcast shows are great to hear when you can find them).
Karen Bakker’s The Sounds of Life book and audiobook presents a deep critique of the idea that only humans use language and intelligence, by showing the complex ways that nonhuman species like whales, elephants, plants, and corals communicate. I have this book as an ‘audiobook’. Her book lets us eavesdrop on the chatter between creatures – even plants – that our ears can’t detect. And reveals how new technologies, including AI, are opening the possibility of our being able to converse with other animals. 🦋
The gorilla, Koko, using sign language, shook her head and said "Humans, stupid. Stupid." Wonderful insight from one of our cousin creatures.
We humans are—as Koko said—often too stupid to have understood the potential for communicating with one another, let alone with other animals... All too often, but by no means always.
For a start, we are for the most part very weak when it comes to knowing and communicating with... ourselves... Consequently, off we go trying to relate to, striving to depend upon all that is outside of and alien to us. In exchange, we weaken and lose our powerful inborn faculties. It’s all too like the tale of Esau exchanging his birthright for a mess of pottage…
When I was a kid, all attempts to inculcate religious belief in me failed. How could I pretend to believe in what found no resonance in me?
Yet if the kind nuns who were trying so hard to teach me had told me this phrase of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, they could have converted me on the spot:
“Believe me, you will find more lessons in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bernard_of_Clairvaux
Likewise, I could have understood how Saint Francis of Assisi communicated with animals and with all that lives.
As it is, I regard the baboon pack on the mountain behind where I lived in South Africa as among my first teachers. From them I learned much about politics and group interactions. Since this education depended on harsh object lessons, I and my friend were lucky to escape with our lives after an unintentional intrusion on the pack’s territory. If there was one thing we knew it was that while other animals like springbok panicked and often died in wildfires, the baboons had moved to safety very early on, probably well before the first human alarm.
One day, visiting another place, I was lucky enough to see what happens when a pack leader’s faculties begin to fail him. The fight to expel and replace the ailing leader lasted all day. Driven out, he will have died alone.
We human beings tend—like generals fighting the last war—to regress from being the masters of our knowledge to becoming its habit-bound prisoners, hobbled by its limitations. Long before Trump entrusted the Pentagon to an obedient fool, the huge organization had—like Goliath seeing what looked like an unarmed, unprotected shepherd lad coming at him—become strategically incompetent. Outwitted by a handful of Islamist fanatics wielding cardboard cutters, they and their often intellectually gifted political masters let themselves be tricked into massive and deeply inappropriate reactions, dragging equally incompetent NATO allies into irrelevant and counterproductive wars, the cackhanded occupation of Iraq and the decades-long foolishness of regime change in Afghanistan. As though tigers and leopards can be transformed into domestic pussy cats…
Baboons, wolves, African wild dogs are incapable of selecting a misleader.
Only human beings can do that.
We are strong on destruction, very much including self-destruction.
And as we are every day seeing, the survival instincts of supposedly civilized mankind are weak or non-existent.
*
Time to pause and get a grip on ourselves, fight free of mass delusions and dig down to rediscover who we really are and what we are here on earth for. Current chaos, wars and mass confusion provide a much needed prompt to get back down to basics… while, if we still can.
Do you know author Wohlleben, the "The Hidden Life of Trees?" Amazing look at the secret, precious, relationships among all living things!
I'm currently reading Underworld by Robert McFadden, another excellent book about what lives under us. I highly recommend it.
Thanks Nancy - I found your recommendation as Underland by Robert Macfarlane in the local library and checked it out as an audiobook. The Libby app said Macfarlane as a great nature writer of this generation. It's nice to have a book to push the politics from your head. Thanks for sharing!
Will check this out, Nancy..Thanks!
Thanks Julie - I grabbed my tablet and borrowed 'The Hidden Life of Trees' by Peter Wohlleben from local library as audio book. It looks like there are three other books, too. Thanks for sharing!
Excellent post, JaKssa. I grew up camping in the coastal redwood forests of Northern California, and have visited Sequoia National Park once. Those trees are amazing, and have such a relationship with the world around them. There are entire ecosystems in the crowns of the Coastal Redwoods that are simply fascinating.
Closer to my childhood home is the area around Crater Lake National Park. In the USFS forest outside the park is a feature they call "The Living Stump". It is a tree about 8" in diameter that was cut over 150 years ago that grew bark over the cut surface and is alive via the root network of all the trees in the area.
Definitely a clue to success. Meaningfully connected to the right systems.
Very cool Ally. Speaking of Trees, there's a photographer, Beth Moon, who travels around the world photographing ancient Trees. Her portraits were featured at a gallery in Bolinas, CA years ago for her book 'Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees'. I love the miracle of mother nature.
Frankly, I am surprised Donald Trump knows the significance of upper-case and lower-case letters when referring to the Supreme Court of the United States.
UPPER CASE LETTERS ARE FOR BIG, IMPORTANT STUFF!!!!!!!
🤣
Trademarked by ffpotus, I am sure.
Not sure he's writing all of this. But if he contends that lower case letters show some form of disrespect then donold trump should have it heaped upon him.
Don’t jump to conclusions. Mad King Donald has consultants.
Indeed!
The reason I refuse to capitalize trump is due to my complete lack of respect for him and his party.
Thank you Professor HCR.
So much to unpack here, thinking HCR is clearing the deck on having the whole letter tomorrow dedicated to the SOTU. Not bothering to watching the spews of lies, and especially since he said the quiet part outloud it’s going to be “a long one”. Yea not going to sit and watch and listen a PedoFührer’s rantings…
Today what was shocking was the whistleblower testimony. All the massive cuts to training ICE agents. Especially teaching these recruits in an even shorter training program to use unconstitutional tactics, and attacking, brutalizing and detaining people without a judicial warrant. There’s nothing that could be paid back in compensation as to the illegalities that occurred in Minnesota or all the families, especially Good’s and Pretti’s. Absolutely everyone, as ICE is spreading in other areas. Sobering testimony…
Yea going to tune in to both of these if possible..
“People's State of the Union": Hosted by MoveOn and MeidasTouch on the National Mall, this event serves as a direct alternative, featuring perspectives from Americans impacted by administration policies.
https://www.mobilize.us/moveon/event/903012/
“State of the Swamp": An earlier event on the same day featuring analysis.
https://www.defiance.org/sotu
Hoping the USA men’s Hockey team follow suit as the USA Women’s Hockey team and not attend…If not those men should not take any of their gold medals on their trip…Finding women have more cajones than most men..
Since this odious POS loves nothing more than playing carnival-barker to a captive audience, millions of us will be tuning in elsewhere. The absolute least we can do is tune out when he tunes in. Thanks for the announcements of far more worthwhile alternatives.
“Ever since taking office a year ago, the President has shown no respect for the principles upon which this country is based—the Constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law, and the rights guaranteed to every person under the Constitution. His actions have done tremendous harm to the American people, to our standing among nations, and to our institutions of government. For this reason, I cannot in good conscience participate in a function with this President at its center. To do so would require me to ignore all that has gone before and to pay him a measure of respect which he has not earned. I will not be attending the State of the Union address.” Senator Angus King (I-ME) said in a statement
As Robert De Niro said on Nicole Wallace's "All the Best People" -- it's time to strap your balls on!
From now on, I will only refer to the president as “pino” in small letters (“ president in name only”due to my total lack of respect for him)
🤣good one, Margie!!!
I saw him referred to as Pedodant in a meme yesterday. Priceless!
I like it Margie. He's got many nicknames because he's such a cruel and hateful ass. Like TOFU - "Trump Only F*cks Up" and TACO "Trump Always Chickens Out". The list goes on and on....
TACO tuesday, tacos for dinner tonight, everyone!
Tofu tacos!!!
ffpotus for me: first felon president of the united states.
Still waiting for all of my extra ballots.
I know a lot of Republicans and none have complained about not getting them in the mail.
Yeah, i vote by mail in KS since 2014, and 35 years in Oregon before that, and not a single extra ballot received!
For some reason I don't understand, they sent all yours to me here in the mountains of Japan.
One thing I don't understand, J. L, why are all the postage stamps in Russian?
Tomorrow is a great time to watch the Epstein documentary on Netflix. Trump doesn't say a word.
I’m still surprised the Orange Goblin King hasn’t issued a decree in which he makes Netflix illegal and forbidden…
Bite your tongue!
If Kash Patel was preoccupied chugging champagne and getting all hot and tingly in the men's hockey locker room in Milan at public expense, how will he be able to pursue the perpetrators who instigated that shameful act of dastardliness involving a blanket belonging to Kristi Noem? Wadical-wibewal tewwwowists who stow it are still on the loose. When can we start seeing mass arrests? Or was there a cover-up? Today, it's Blankiegate. Tomorrow, we attack Iran. That'll take care of it.... 🤪
It wasn't even champagne, but crappy Michelob Ultra that Kash was swigging down like he was at a frat party. Even putting on a gold medal like he was part of the men's hockey team, kind of like el jefe...
A poser.
Poseur in the headlights...
We need to give Crash a break. He probably went to Milan to look for Nancy Guthrie.
Kash Patel's reward for hiding the Epstein Files? Check Patel's luxury jet trips to the Olympics, date nights and hunting trips on tax payer funded trips with this interactive map.
https://thedemlabs.org/2026/02/22/kash-patel-fbi-jet-milan-olympics-hockey-locker-room-scandal-2026/
Do the math. If each time Trump breaks the law and institutes illegal tariffs, it takes the Supreme Court nearly a year to decide cases through regular order and there are four different mechanisms Congress wrote into various sections of U.S. Code, then it will take the rest of Trump's term of office to fully block him unless the court uses their emergency docket to impose temporary restraining orders or temporary injunctions. We are looking at three more years of trade mayhem. The rest of the world looks as if it's ready to move on as if we don't exist. While Trump may well collapse the U.S. economy, the other countries and trading blocs are doing whatever is necessary to make sure we don't take them down with us.
"It has already been gotten..." So embarrassing!