Maya Miller of the New York Times reported today that the congressional phone system has been jammed with tens of millions of calls from outraged constituents contacting their representatives to demand that they stand against President Donald Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk as they unilaterally dismantle the United States government and gain access to Americans’ private information.
Thank you Dr. Richardson. I hear concerns regarding the Project 2025, SAVE ACT and the possibility that it could become a vehicle restricting women's voting rights? Appears it stipulates that only a birth certificate or a US passport will be considered acceptable for voting ID. For women who have legally taken their husband's last name a birth certificate will not be a match with current legal name. Not all have a US passport. This could disenfranchise a large number of female voters if true. I would appreciate if you would investigate and discuss should these concerns be legitimate.
I have suspected that Elon Musk is in the treasury disemboweling USAID, medicare, medicaid, social security, the dept of Education right now as a scare tactic to get the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling because all of the fuddling around and cutting that he does, is not going to get them the kind of tax breaks that he wants himself and his fellow non-tax paying billionaires to have.
Pulling from his speech he said, '"The government of the United States is not a private company. It is (currently) fundamentally at odds with how this system is supposed to work.”
Having worked in the private sector for over 100 insurance companies and banks as well as dozens of other businesses, EVERY single company takes security of their employees, clients and data seriously. Even when all of the computers were air-gapped, security was stressed. Many large companies, outsource their credit card processing because they know these companies can secure their personal information better and they don't want the liability that comes with a data breach.
And every President and Congress has done the same thing -- until now.
It is shocking that NONE of the Fortune 1000 companies are speaking out against Trump and Musk. If they are, their voices are being drowned out by the corporate media. Oddly enough, it's Rupert Murdoch's WSJ that has been the most vocal opponent of Musk and Trump.
We need to keep calling and emailing our Senators and Congressmen.
Dr. Richardson is fortunate to be represented by Angus King. And I proudly shout, 'That's my Senator!" Sadly, our other Senator is Susan Collins.
Susan Collins is a Republican flunky who lip synced modest sentiments when she co-endorsed the right-wing Supremes who then demolished RvW, among other things.
Gary, You make a good point. We've been calling Congress (and in my case, also my Governor JB Pritzker, and Attny General Kwame Raoul) but perhaps we SHOULD start calling major corporations as well--while NOT giving up on calling the elected officials.
Great idea! People are flocking to Costco and turning their backs on Target. It's time we shop with our conscience by researching the companies before we shop. I am not renewing my Prime membership this year and try to thrift whenever possible.
The one thing the corporations understand is money and they won't do well if they need the customers who are shopping elsewhere. Not all people can forgo Amazon, for example, because they do not have discretionary income or they live in a place, likely rural, where they cannot easily get what they need. The people who really fry me are those that I know could afford to shop elsewhere, but buy from Amazon because it is convenient.
Gale, I ran across a book, THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY, a while back by chance. I decided to download the sample on Kindle, thinking it was about the United States. It was about Germeny in the 1930. The similarities between hitler rise to power and what is happenning with trump/musk/republican party is far beyond frightening
It does not matter what party Mr King is affiliated with, he spoke the truth and the Repubnazis confirmed Vought anyway. They are all just sitting back waiting to see what their share of the loot is going to be. Assholes!
Today's republican politicians will go down in history as the villains who helped destroy this country. I am living in a state of disbelief and outrage at their complicity with what Trump is doing.
It may not matter to you, but if I were Senator King, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was a Republican. Also, his political affiliation, or lack thereof, is a part of the historical record, so we should keep to the facts and the truth and not casually assign a party to anyone.
Thank you, Betsy Smith, for that extremely important message. I am so thankful for Senator Angus King, and I do not understand how anyone could not heed his word and vote as he did.
Senator King took his Republican colleagues to task because of their willingness to overlook the Trump administration’s attack on the U.S. Constitution.
In this comment, I’m taking my scientific colleagues to task for our collective willingness to overlook our community's Trump-enabling disregard for science.
Right now—literally at this moment—that essential structural component of our social system is under a direct and consequential assault, not on a particular step in the scientific method, but on the essential foundation of the practice itself.
To the people reading who have a science degree, and who are criticizing Republican politicians while ignoring this message, then I consider that evidence in support of the idea that you are doing what they are doing.
Here’s what to do instead. Do what hundreds have done. Read my simple logic. And then do what only a handful of people have bothered to do. Challenge my simple logic with an open minded willingness to challenge your own implicit assumptions.
I apologize for going after scientists, but I consider you to be my community. We are no worse than other communities, but for the sake of democracy and freedom, let’s be better. Let’s stop being part of the collective chorus of “do as say and not as I do” messages.
I live with a scientist and among scientists, none of whom support Trump or what is going on. It is shocking. I also know people who have been in clinical trials for cancer and are concerned that this has come to an end. When making things hard means killing people, then if people accept that they are missing the point of having a government.
James, thank you for this post. I am not a scientist, but I read a lot of science. My book right now is Into the Unknown about the cosmos. I will read your substack a little later as I have just up and have not had breakfast. Good idea too to share your link.
There's no chance to confuse Angus King, a real decent, honorable and incorruptible with a strong backbone senator with the hypocrite Susan Collins, but thanks for the warning anyway Betsy.
I have always had the highest regard for Angus King. My respect for Susan Collins' independence has been eroding and her statement substantiating her vote for Russell Voght has put her in the trash:
“When I am evaluating cabinet nominees, I base my support on whether the person is qualified for the job, not on whether I agree with all of their positions,” Collins said in a statement. “I have applied that standard to nominations from both Republican and Democratic Presidents and I believe that Presidents are entitled to broad discretion when selecting cabinet secretaries.”
Zero capacity to judge who is qualified for the job....
I wrote her in 2017, when Trump had nominated a white supremacist evangelical judge from Tennessee. I told her his outspoken views were indicative of a person of low character.
She said that character doesn't matter only qualifications. I wish I'd kept that letter.
Plus when she voted for Kavanaugh, she gave a rambling incoherent speech and that's when she lost many of his forever.
For sure. In fact, Susan Collins has shown time and again she is willing to roll with the Republican Team regardless of the consequences. Afterward, she’ll say things like “Kavanaugh assured me he would uphold precedent. He misled me to believe he would not upend Roe vs Wade.”
The people of Maine should have voted her out long ago. She followed several female Senators who were committed to governing and checking the power of presidents. She has no backbone or concern for the well-being of Maine citizens or the Constitution of the United States. To wit, she’s just another anti-government fraud from a wealthy family.
Yes, he did, meaning colleagues across the aisle or in the same room, not fellow party members. I believe that reference was misunderstood by some people, but I expect they understand now.
And as far as I can tell, Sanders did not participate in the Democratic Vote No On Vought talkathon. When I phoned to ask, his staffers said "We cannot comment on that."
King says the right kinds of things but here is the thing I think about: Taking An Oath... of any kind. It is a tactical endeavor in cultures to indicate loyalty, membership and obedience to a recognizable and agreed upon social construct. In our case, what is or should be recognizable is that our nation's construct is LAW(s). Oaths and vows are fictional but we give them meaning because we trust that the system will be beneficial to us. The preamble says it all. It ends with "And To Our Posterity"...our kids, our grandkids and on and on into the future.
I joined the USMC, pledged the oath at age 18 and I bet, no, I guarantee, that I had never come across the idea of an oath, I did not know what it ment, but I did the oath with my right hand raised. At age 22, I vowed to a standard wedding vow, you know "Till Death do us part" stuff. Now at age 77, I finally get it. Now I am proud that I am a Veteran, I am proud that I have been married to the same woman for 52 years and we are both old now with our posterity. This isn't about me. It is about us. In our society. Vows and Oaths mean very little, even to those who want them to be important. Those things we are supposed to care about and make important no longer are. Money/wealth is more important, that invisible God and his so-called son, Jesus along with christian religions is more important, dishonesty, lies and deciets are now a necessity. Our governments, even in their mediocrity, were trying to fulfill their responsibility to the constitution. That is, doing what is worth trying to make better or as the preamble says, make a More Perfect Union. Power and control now is more important and wealth is the engine. Laws enacted to create stability in our society are perceived to be broken so the baby goes out with the bathwater. The Outlaw class has been given a chance to emerge into the public realm, given respectability. throwing the whole system under the bus is okay. The threat of the enforcement of laws doesn't frighten too many of us now, especially if you are wealthy. So oaths to protect the constitution are irrelevant. Not to me but 70 million plus are ready to throw it all away...and they are just fu*king happy to do it.
Not wanting to ascribe to the millions of Cult members more thoughtfulness than they deserve, I'm guessing that the vast majority of them have no more idea of the importance of an oath or a vow than you did in your youth. I'm not sure how to open any minds to what they are so casually discarding, but again, I'm not sure that they are actually happy to throw our democracy in the trash. I think it's more that they don't see how our democracy affects their lives.
Betsy, Thank you for sharing that perspective. It is really hard to understand how anyone grown, and in that kind of a position could be blind to the meaning of the oath, their purpose, and their responsibilities. I do understand that a lot of people rote words in some situations, and sometimes comprehend later in life, or not, but If someone is in our government or in any office, I think there should be means of being sure they understand what the Old means, and that they will uphold it.
Yes, cult is a word to ascribe to some of these folks. It used to be that the Democratic party was the one with a "Big Tent". Where a whole diverse group of citizens had collected for political purposes. Repgs now resemble that trope more than dems. Dems are stuck being the minority that thinks that understanding is essential to do stuff like oath taking and vows are meaningful. So now there are wealthy billionaires occupying the office and wanting to tear it all apart to create an oligarchy. There are hardcore ideological conservatives wanting to "shrink government". There are true cult groups like christian nationalists with plans for a theocracy to replace our republic, and then we have "freedom lovers" of all sorts. There's overt misogynists, and racists wanting women and people of color to accept their subservient place in society. A big tent indeed.
But using oaths to firm up citizens' responsibilities and loyalties just doesn't have the gravitas that is intended when the population is uninformed. To understand you have to be informed, thoughtful, civilized, friendly, generous, educated, and considerate. You have to be a fully developed ADULT. In my own life, I was not that, not an adult. So it takes one to know one. The word Democracy is overused I think. Everybody (We The People) gets a chance to determine how society develops. But the Framers didn't trust most of the population to be qualified. They knew a dumbed down population wouldn't make good decisions. They understood how fragile a pure democracy could be. they were right. I am not proposing a limited democracy, I am proposing that every citizen have a requirement to be informed and responsible. How that happens, I don't know. As congresswoman Ilhan Omar pointed out a few years ago, "It's all about the Benjamins". Money is more important than laws.
Angus King is not a Republican. He's an independent aligned with the Democrats, like Bernie Sanders.
By definition, Republicans -- with vanishingly rare exceptions -- lack courage and are without principles. They only have interests. They are waiting to divvy up the spoils with Musk when his coup d'etat has been consolidated and confirmed. I hope they appreciate the personal risk they will face sooner or later. As I recall Hitler took his own life rather than face the music.
Chump will never have the “courage” that Hitler had. His MAGAts will never see him as the problem without Ike. I hope I live long enough to see him wind up like Mussolini. As muskrat said, this is our chance, we’ll never have another one. So folks, it’s now or never. Time to see them for the reconstituted Nazis that they are proud to emulate. And, is there a democrat that can emulate Angus King…
Just to clarify--Jamie Raskin is a Democrat--a Representative--from Maryland. It is a bit misleading to describe him as simply a "Rep." He is much to smart and caring to ever fall into that other category.
As a DC native, I remember that there are still a few old-fashioned lampposts located here and there around town, pretty easy to throw a rope over, just tall enough that even Musk's nose won't touch the sidewalk.
Yes, hopefully, like Mussolini. I don't know if i will live long enough as I am an old woman. Keep hoping that someone will channel the Praetorian Guard. Of course, death star has announced that if he is assassinated, Iran will be obliterated. So someone who wants that to happen might be tempted.
David, methinks you may not be recognizing the many threats Republicans face if they do not stay in line, not just threats of being primaried by candidates (like J D Vance) backed by various Republican billionaire donors (e.g.- Musk, Thiele, Koch Bros, etc), but actual physical threats by tRump’s goons to themselves or their families and children and relatives. tRump is basically a mobster bent on revenge for the many hurts he imagines himself having suffered.
John, it is never easy to admit error, but it is the first step on the long -- even dangerous -- road to doing the right thing.
Liz Cheney stuck her neck out, as did Adam Kinzinger. I am not aware that either is in hiding.
It is one thing to be a corrupt, racist, misogynist, xenophobic, gun-loving, planet-hating sleaze-ball politician, quite another to acquiesce in the destruction of our defective yet still-barely-functioning democracy and the US Constitution all Senators and Representatives have sworn to uphold.
The situation is serious and our responses to it need to be serious. There is nowhere to hide. Personal courage is a requirement for public office these days.
While I understand the threats against their lives, I don’t understand the threats about being challenged in a primary. Who would want a job when it is merely doing the work of the musk ox and destroying the Constitution? What kind of work is that and why fight for it. Besides, in two (or more) years, it might be a badge of honor to have stood up to these ransackers. Hopefully, it will be a badge of honor by next week!
Remember, Trump is backed by Musk, who happens to be the wealthiest man on the planet. Who's to say the cowardly Republicans aren't being monetarily bought off? Shut up, and I'll give you a lot of money. Say something, and you'll be frozen out for life! It's not a stretch of the imagination to see that happening.
Tracy: Badges? Badges? They don't want no stinkin' badges! They're after the gold, hoping it hasn't already gone with the wind.
It may be that most GOP Senators and Representatives are now true believers. Their party and their squalid progression from Reaganism to Trumpishness over the past 40+ years makes me think that they really believe they are on to something now, that Elon Musk will be the secret ingredient in their recipe for disaster.
Good comment John. To intimidate, as done intentionally by some (call it) entity, be it a person, "the mob", whatever.., is one thing. But, to 'feel' intimidated by something perceived as a threat becomes fear. For example, will your new car get "keyed" (scratched) by someone(?) if you drive around with a Stop DOGE decal on the window? That's intimidation, and it comes from this caustic, retribution-themed political environment we have fallen into. Will an Oath-Keeper see that decal and 'teach you a lesson'? That's fear. If we don't put a stop to this Trump/Musk/DOGE insanity pretty quickly, we'll need to change ThePledge to read: One nation, Under Fear, with retribution for all.
"Among the more disturbing conclusions she [Hannah Arendt] reached were those about Eichmann himself: “Despite all the efforts of the prosecution, everybody could see that this man was not a ‘monster,’ but it was difficult indeed not to suspect that he was a clown.” He was not the incarnation of evil, she wrote; he was “thoughtless,” unable to reflect on the fact that what he was doing was wrong. “The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak [in anything but clichés] was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else.”
"It cannot be forgotten in any discussion of Adolf Eichmann’s criminality that he relied on a staff of dedicated Nazis in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the center of the Third Reich’s terror apparatus, to carry out the monstrous directives of Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Heinrich Müller. Overshadowed by Eichmann himself, most of these men have escaped the attention of the American public. They include Theodor Dannecker (1913-1945), Dieter Wisliceny (1911-1948), Franz Novak (1913-1983), Rolf Günther (1913-1945), and Alois Brunner (1912- c. 2010). Slightly younger than Eichmann—none of them had reached the age of 35 when World War II ended—they exhibited a terrifying combination of attention to detail and steadfast commitment to the core ideas of Nazism."
I wonder whether Musk's young employees have any ideological commitment at all. In campaigning for causes and candidates, I have encountered something it is hard for me to put a word on. Perhaps a frivolous nihilism. In this case, perhaps opportunists at the center of power romanticizing themselves as rebels.
Interesting train of thought, lin• I believe you're in the right ballpark with "nihilism" as being their ideological standard. As I started to think more on this critically, I couldn't come up with anything more descriptive that "romanticizing themselves as rebels".
My mind turned to outlaw motorcycle gangs (speaking of nihilists who are in search of a brotherhood) as I was poking about my brains for a comparison. Not the criminal enterprise ones (Hells Angels, Mongols, Outlaws, Banditos) but the next level down of Gypsy Jokers, Free Souls, Brother Speed, and Devils Disciples. With bikers that I've come into contact with, their nihilism isn't frivolous, but their commitment to criminal conduct of all forms as expressing their "rebelliousness" is where they are similar.
lin•, I think you're onto something, although I analyze it slightly differently, and I'll ask you indulgence to follow my train of thought. Here goes:
If I'm not mistaken, Elon's little band of digital vandals are all boys. This would be a reflection of Elon's misogyny-adjacent view that females of the species are meant to be grateful vessels for the gestation of his super-deluxe, extra-special sperm, and not the important work of developing technology.
In my experience (acknowledging exceptions to every rule), women tend to be omnibus thinkers. That is, at any given moment, a woman may be mentally processing topics from multiple segments of her life. By contrast, men tend to be compartmental thinkers. That is, a man's brain is hard-wired to focus on whatever is in front of him, to the exclusion of whatever other matters exist in his life.
My experience working with and observing young men who are "computer geniuses" bears this out. Staring at a screen and tapping on a keyboard is better than sex for them. When working on a computer project, they are transported into a euphoric trance-like state that lingers even between sessions at the keyboard.
All that is to say that these boys may have opinions*, but those opinions don't motivate them to do what they're doing. Several of Musk's crew are experienced hackers. They achieve euphoria by finding stuff to break and breaking it. For them, throwing rocks and hearing the sound of shattered glass is its own reward.
To assume they view themselves as warriors is to give them credit for a nonexistent morality. Nihilism requires 360-degree thought in order to reach the conclusion that nothing matters. Computer hackers are slightly different. Although nothing else matters to them, it's because they've never given any thought to anything but breaking and entering.
*Marko Elez, who resigned from DOGE, does have obnoxious opinions, but there's no evidence to suggest these opinions motivated him to be one of Musk's vandals.
Agree. To hackers such as the DODGY [purposeful spelling to tap into British slang meaning dishonest and destructive] young men, these government computers are grand puzzles that they can solve and then later, even better to them, have complete control or destroy it after the puzzle solution.
Lin.., you're first paragraph causes me to think of Christi Noem, for some strange reason. She, being 'the face' of ICE, riding into town on a horse, wearing that ranch-wagon hat, brown (fake) haircurls flowing down over her enlarged chest (flak-vest), accompanied by her death squad(s). Such a sweetheart. Yo!! Yerrr unner arrest.., cuff em!
Is there a way to download these? Especially the one from .gov, which likely will be taken down very soon? All I know to do is copy and paste the entire article. There must be a better way. Thanks in advance.
I keep hoping that Elon will drive to his next agency demolition in one of his cars equipped with the explode or autonomous-drive-into-a-tractor-trailer-truck options.
Probably wants to abolish Restatement of Torts 402 A strict liability.
DOJ just decided it will no longer pursue Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) that requires individuals and entities to register with the Department of Justice (DOJ) if they work on behalf of a fothe reign entity in the US. FARA was enacted in 1938. Kushner, Trup acted as agents for Saudi...even took over the PGA. Trump properties in Saudi, Oman, etc.
IMHO the Musk interference in the elections should be actionable under state law.
Musk is in litigation with the NLRB, alleging that it is unconstitutional and Trump's DOJ has declined to defend the agency.
I always thought some USAID employees were CIA operatives. Same in the state department. Here in Baghdad By the Sea we had many businesses tht were CIA fronts, run out of the North South Center at the University of Miami.
Hey Gary, never too late to turn over a new leaf, even for people who have never done a selfless thing in their lives. But I would be disappointed to not see them rotting in a prison cell, maybe the one west of Pueblo and south of Canon City, CO.
New leaf? I've been asking talking heads to interview Mike Turner.
Elon Musk’s Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink’s Contracts in Ukraine.
"The Lever reported Tuesday that USAID’s inspector general was in the process of investigating its own public-private partnership between Musk’s Starlink and the Ukrainian government at the time that the billionaire’s DOGE crippled the agency. Publicly available information about that probe is still online. An announcement from last May reads: “The USAID Office of Inspector General, Inspections and Evaluations Division, is initiating an inspection of USAID’s oversight of Starlink satellite terminals provided to the Government of Ukraine. Our objectives are to determine how (1) the Government of Ukraine used the USAID-provided Starlink terminals, and (2) USAID monitored the Government of Ukraine’s use of USAID-provided Starlink terminals.”
"Musk has called the agency “evil” and a “criminal organization,” though the fact that USAID was investigating the Starlink activities may suggest ulterior motivations for the billionaire’s vitriol. It’s unclear what the Starlink probe’s status is right now."
Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio was removed from his position atop the powerful House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, telling CBS News that House Speaker Mike Johnson fired him, citing "concerns from Mar-a-Lago."
Also interview other House Repunlicans like Brianb Fitzpatrick, and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, like my rep, Elvira Salazar.
Even better would be to have him occupy Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's old cell at the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution, and have him also serve out the rest of the sentence he commuted for the ex-convict, ex-Illinois Governor in addition to at least a similar 14 year sentence Blagojevich was serving.
Yes he did, Frank. I just hope Americans today are at least dimly aware of the dynamics of that failed experiment and how Europe's and our slow response to what was happening in Germany, despite Hitler's making no secret of his intentions while spewing big, attention-getting lies, was essential to his initial success at realizing his revolting dreams.
If the Democrats don't get on a war footing soon and if the less evil 2 of the 6 right-wing and/or corrupt SCOTUS judges fail to see the danger in Trump (a known liar and imbecile) deferring to Musk (arguably an evil genius), then this will degenerate into war one way or another with possible consequences greatly exceeding WW2 (given how many of the world's nukes are still on standby).
I am also astounded at how rarely the MSM is permitting the expression "coup d'etat" to appear in news articles or even reader comments. Not one headline even in the NYT as far as I know.
I worked 10 years in a high tech company. While none of the programmers were traitors, nevertheless not much is more fun than a programming challenge. And if you’re 20 years old, you’ll live forever and the future is ahead, so why consider the long-term implications of what you’re doing, if you’re even able to do so at that age.
David... "Coup d'etat"???? C'mon dude..NOBODY knows WTF that IS..., or MEANS..., let alone IS. Hahahahhaaa.., is that some kind of acronym?? Why put it in the headlines? Waste of space. We want to know what kind of thong Blake Lively wears.., ferr crissakes! David, you and I need a break.
This is a reason not to raise the debt ceiling. I suspect their plan is to steal the money from the Treasury and bankrupt the country. Either outright stealing or losing it when the US buys crypto.
The Debt Ceiling is on the way to becoming dead letter law. Trump's Treasury Secretary will do anything Elon Musk tells him to. And Musk is well on this way to wrecking the federal government and the American economy along with it. He will lead it in to bankruptcy and it will not be able to borrow its way out ceiling or no ceiling. We can expect it will stiff its largest customer first...The Social Security Administration. Trump has direct control of all federal spending through Musk and will short circuit all laws in using it.
I'm checking my bank account several times a day watching for my Social Security deposit. I've not heard anyone say they've NOT received theirs. If that should happen, there'll be hell to pay. Certainly there will be many senior voices screaming.
See my suggestion that I made about cutting out the middleman, the US Government & depositing our taxes directly into the bank accounts of billionaires! It's grotesque sarcasm at its worst but I think it gets the point across.
Freud talked about ID,Ego and Super Ego..am suggesting a refresher course. The hole subject which does equate to the whole bears connection to Rabbit Holes -which whole sections fall into , half of America is giving it a liberal concept -but getting duped/taken for a ride/fooled …well many ,if not most ,have been there/done that .The costs can be devastating. Thus a system of checks and balances is needed.
And here we are..our checks and balance system is being upended…
Truth and Facts…
Right and Wrongs..
Rich and Poor
Major issues are maneuvered ,manipulated and J.Q. Public subject to dis/misinformation.
Repeatedly we ‘hear’ concepts…never a factual accounting..lots of news currently on fraud and abuse but no evidence NONE…NADA
Repeatedly we see lips service the concepts but no accountability for “family threatened if they don’t “ is just one of those avenues, bribes/lies mere portions -some of the others.
Repeatedly we see laws broken and the game of delay ,deny ,and disruption distract and destroy even the rule of law.
Repeatedly we saw, read history, and improved the world to now see it overthrown by dictators …autocracy on the gain. “Wait till the next pandemic hits”? The last one wasn’t proof positive how ego works? ( thanks, Frank great example).
If you can’t see the ‘COUP’ happening ..you’re in the Kult.
Yes…REPEATEDLY history…repeats itself.
Roll up your sleeves. Buckle up. Get yer big pants on.
But.., so far.., the White Right people have not had to suffer being taken out of their mobil-homes, condo's, apartments, du-plex's, townhomes, 4 bedrom/3 car garage gated communities.., etc. So, no problem. Huh? Strangely enough, I've not seen that happening to any extremely dark-skinned (black.., not Kamala Harris black) people either. Just people who look like they crawled over the border. So, is there some kind of Trumpian strategy at work here. Like, let's not alienate the "black" population, and we can pull this off? And, watch they will pull this off. Once they pull it off, then watch who gets thrown under the bus. Ask Mandella.
Is t odd that Americans aren’t up in arms over Trump pa 750$ in tax and Musk paying 0. And yet they voted for him. . That should be the news…. and when the groceries, cost of living is still horrendous… maybe then they will wake up!
Far too many are low-info voters and many do not follow politics at ALL. Many others are simply frustrated (deservedly so) and looking for a literal "strong man" to bail them out. When you see the last category interviewed outside a trump rally, you notice NONE of the can point to any specific thing he has actually done for them to "make things so great". They can only repeat the same common phrases they hear out of the orange mouth, which is also the exact same verbiage repeated ad nauseum by faux. And if you ask one "so, where IS the sky falling?" they cannot give a straight answer. So, no, they will not know about the tax payments. But the current musk disruption to everything federal right now offers the opportunity for almost every one of us to feel "hit" on a personal level by at least one action. EX: the school teacher who just heard that the Dept of Education might be eliminated. (News to her..). She is scared to lose her job and she is MAD AS HELL AT TRUMP. THIS is the kind of situation we need to take advantage of in order to capture people's attention. (The possibilities re Social Security alone, could unite us all!)
Likely most Americans do not know this. Not the 77+ mil that voted for Trump or the 93 mil eligible voters who stayed home. Or else the super wealthy who also do not pay taxes voted for them because they would support such policies.
If I were American, I’d consider a Federal Tax Strike. If enough participate, it will crush the pretentions of the dictatorship. Send your taxes to your states.
I was thinking more that the Blue States should gather the federal and state taxes and run their own mini government, but Ruth Ben-Ghiat points out that dividing our country serves Putin's interests of destroying the US. Our best bet to keep Putin at bay is still to fight for our government to be responsive to the people. However, since about 70% of GDP comes from Biden voting counties, perhaps they should join and form a United blue States of America coalition.
Those who live in blue states and don't want to be a part of it, can move to red states and vice versa. However, that means developing computer systems that Musk and his DOGE minions cannot access.
I’m afraid she’s 18 years too late. The country started to split when the Tea Party emerged and when the future tech oligarchs managed to persuade people and politicians that they had everyone’s freedom at heart when they resisted regulations. You are seeing the consequences of those events.
Not so sure this is all a distraction tactic -- they want to own the world. But inherently dictators don't share the stage. And with Elon on the cover of Time sitting in the presidential chair -- well, let's watch the fight from here.
Shouldn't Trump be put under arrest for breaking into US buildings and agencies? If not Federal Police, have local police. Either State, municipal or district. If a random person walked in off the street, would they not be arrested? Musk should be put in a cell. Immediately!
Musk should be deported back to South African in shackles as a criminal and let them impound his money. After his USAID moves I am sure he will be really popular with his original government.
In fact, I am for a campaign encouraging Billionaires in the US to go elsewhere if they don't want to pay taxes. There are plenty of tax shelter countries that they could live in.
Senator King's speech; he reminds me of my fave history teacher in *high school. ⚖️
EDIT: Please pardon my not writing "high school" when I wrote my comment initially. Boarding school was tough for me. Ben Sylvester and three other teachers -- two of whom were fellow Midwesterners and all four alumni of Harvard -- looked out for me, not that I was their equal intellectually but that their crimson hearts exuded charity. I remain thankful to them to this day.
Thank you for that link. This was one of the most moving speeches but obviously there were dead brains in the Senate because it appears no Republicans listened, heard, and understood what he was saying.
I used to judge what Vietnamese could tell me by the way they said which way to go, able to tell by looking at their eyes that they couldn't be seen to be helping me, so I would find a way not go the way they were outwardly telling me to go, while trying not to get them in trouble with the people that were watching them.
I felt sort of the same way, watching some of my old party members having trouble being convincing in what they felt they had to say.
Thanks. One of the worst parts of all this, for me, is having even just a small idea of what life is like when people spy on each other for the sake of following Big Brother. Mostly this comes from "1984" - but also from stories I hear like yours. So, I've been calling Senator Tillis, complaining about Musk in the payment system.
I have exchanged emails with Senator King many times during the past 12 years. He always responds, many times the correspondence is not a form letter either.
Almost all of the Senators I have emailed or written to, have responded, but mostly with form letters.
The other two that also respond with seemingly personal responses are Don Bacon (R-NE) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL). I often disagreed with their responses but at least they took the time.
Susan Collins used to respond, but I think I pissed her off. Plus, I know what she would say anyway. Once in a while she will still send me a form letter.
Several years ago, my wife and I were waiting for our flight to board at the Portland, ME airport. Our first leg was to DC. Also waiting were both of the ME Senators-- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Neither one of them sat down, both of them pacing the waiting area and neither one acknowledged the other with even an eye glance. No idea why they wouldn't talk to each other. Additionally neither of them had any obvious security which was not uncommon. I wonder if that's still the case.
Gary, how times have changed. So much. Remember when sensible people voted for the person, not the party?
As Mainers, back in the day, we Democrats voted for Collins and Snowe because they were reasonable and had the interests of Mainers at heart. We were sad to see Snowe depart. But being a senator (or judge) shouldn't be a life sentence.
We retired, left Maine to be near family. That was before Collins took the turn to the dark side. Before she trusted asswipes to become Extreme Court Justices and now...backing a tool of Putin.
I believe that at one time, those two senators worked together for the good of the people. But I suspect that now....Olympia wouldn't want to be in the same room with the traitor Collins has become.
Bill, for a long time, we had a similar situation in Oregon. Bob Packwood and Mark Hatfield were both Republicans, but worked their tails off for both Oregon and the country. I voted for both of them. I voted for Gordon Smith (R) the first time he ran, and I was impressed that he and Ron Wyden would walk into the Senate chamber together, shake hands, and go to their respective sides of the chamber.
Senators Packwood and Hatfield were old school "cooperative" conservatives. The latter was a key Republican 'swing' vote on the Panama Canal treaty. I do not recall Senator Smith. After looking him up, he sounds like an impressive Senator, reminding me of Senator Flake.
Senator Snowe always impressed me as a quintessentially New English class act. Like so many others, she proved that the best U.S. citizens are often among the newest. Her triumphs and her stateliness certainly earned Senator King's high praise as a tough act to follow. He has kept Senator Snowe's quiet, determined gait.
I remember Senator King's first speech on the Senate floor after succeeding Senator Snowe. His tribute to her moved everyone, except those in dire need of a heart implant.
It was there at that very airport in July of ‘44 my father died, the beginning of my life waiting to see my father , the AF pilot, and the end for so many others. Most of us struggle to make our world a little better, life goes on, there have been times harder than this for me, but I so appreciate you others, the ‘struggles’/these letters/encouragement/the many stories.
I love a good story.
We are watching one story unfold. Its foundations are classic. Not enough recognize its worth let alone its Lessons …carry on please
WOWerful, Patricia. Uplifting, too. Thank you for making me a better man if only for the few hours.
P.S. EDIT: Patricia, I am sure that you have done your father very proud. I wish He could have been there to see you become the fine woman you sound like me to be and are, I am sure.
Thank you all: Beryl, Daniel, Jim, Anne, Gary, Bill, Ally, Bern, Patricia, and Jenn. What a wonderful discussion after my insipid comment. Senator King, in my uninformed if not humble opinion, is the statesman of the Senate. He once gave a speech remembering the battle of Gettysburg and the role played by Maine' main man, Joshua Chamberlain, in cutting off a Confederate flanking maneuver.
That speech reminded me of one of my role models in life: Ben Sylvester, my history teacher in ninth and eleventh grades for Ancient Greece, Medieval Britain, and the U.S. Civil War. Like Mr Sylvester, there was no pedantry by Senator King. The Senator simply had so much enthusiasm for the subject that he could not resist taking the opportunity to show us a way rather than prove how smart he is.
With these stories of Senator Snowe and Senator King, the Jeffersonian term of natural aristocrat (aristoi) comes to mind in half a synaptic flash. Thank y'all again for a refreshing set of memories and comments. Here is Senator King's speech from 2013. https://youtu.be/IPqcb03yvQk Please pardon my not writing "high school" when I wrote my comment initially. Boarding school was tough for me.
Ben Sylvester and three other teachers -- two of whom were fellow Midwesterners and all four alumni of Harvard -- looked out for me, not that I was their equal intellectually but that their crimson hearts exuded charity. I remain thankful to them to this day.
One who betrays one's country, a cause, or a trust, especially one who commits treason. One who violates his allegiance and betrays his country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country. See treason.
traitor (to somebody/something) a person who betrays their friends, their country, etc. by giving away secrets about them, by lying to or about them or by doing other things that will harm them
I believe that DJT mentioned during his Catatonic Presser with the Japanese Prime Minister today, that the DoD is next for Elon's Pirate Wrecking Crew... Let's see how that goes... That will be the Canary in the Coal Mine...
THAT will be the moment that the curtain gets yanked aside and we know how thorough and scripted this all is. The unspeakable damage already done tells me that this is by design BEYOND the wildly reckless shock opener from these assholes. What is being said and done, as policy and intent representing what used to be a lawfully and justly represented great nation, just verified to the watching world that such a truly good idea was fleeting.
I spent fifty years in the U.S. military, minus a sixteen year gap spent as an Alaska State Trooper and federal court security officer. (I re-enlisted into my Air Guard unit at age 44, because murdering filth attack my country.) Under DoD, my security clearance was no higher than “Secret” — the standard which permits most of the daily function of maintaining our nation’s defense assets. I valued it, and the many fantastic challenges it allowed me to do. It was the best expression of pride and belief in what we ALL had. I was incredibly proud of the bright, energetic and wonderfully capable young people I served with.
I believed in the standards and expectations of conduct that kept it all working. “UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT — FEDERAL INSTALLATION — NO TRESPASSING — UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS SUBJECT TO ARREST — USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED.” Trump sarcastically dismissed that concept in a single stroke, and handed a South African the keys to the treasury and functioning heart of what was our nation. Musk never had any intent to comply with the oath of citizenship he snatched and ran with. That nullifies it — breaking a “deal” ya know. He is still just a predatory, illegal alien… the image next to the definition. Trump dropped his cue-card of the oath of office onto the capitol steps, thought “F*uck THAT!…,” and held out his ring for millions to start kissing. That deal, ‘Take TWO Everybody…!,’ only cost him a shit-load of Chinese-produced hats. Nobody was minding the door. I kept raging at this night:“Where is the goddamn security watch! Stop these f*uckers — they’re inside the wire!”
Musk should have been slapped back down to the bottom of Treasury’s steps, and escorted to deportation like the true, malicious animal he is. Silence, instead. For Christ’s sake, all of you still under DoD — with security creds, weapons systems, procedure check-lists — this old E-8 is wondering how you’re gonna play this. Your commander-in-chief is driving his elected bulldozer backwards. A responsible watch officer needs to hit “SELF DESTRUCT” — smartly — unless you’re all okay with this, and actually calling the shots.
At least don’t let him enable the nukes and turn the keys. Elon’s wunderkinder are back there, right now, selling hacker tokens and playing Wargames.”
Thanks, Dana. There are oaths we take that mean something. Today, we have people who mouth the words but have no freaking idea what an oath means, and who it is sworn to.
I learned how not to disarm electrically activated Claymore mines after I had removed the electrical primers from two that my assistant had yanked on the cords and deposited at his feet at Tan An. It was dark and I thought it safer to disable them than to leave them and look for someone better qualified. The EOD guy I found to take them said they were years old and could have easily gone off. I was able to travel solo after another incident with the same dangerously careless individual and refusal to ever again have him travel with me.
I referred to " an explosive experience" metaphorically " and in hope you took it that way. In any case I hope they find a solid lane of defense when they try to seriously mess up with the DOD.
No worries, that is how I took it. The EOD guys and Medics were some of my favorite heroes, especially one Conscientious Objector who would never want a weapon, yet run through fire so intense that the infantry guys were shooting blind, not sticking their heads up enough to see what they were shooting at. It only took one mission with him coming to their aid under such fire to earn their undying respect and appreciation.
Including His.... Let's see what Elon's Raiders 'Find'... Let's see the Institutional Reaction... The Senior DoD Leadership is Sworn to Defend-The-Constitution-Against-All-Enemies-Foreign-And-Domestic... Remember there was DoD Pushback against DJT 1.0 desire to shoot Demonstrators in Washington DC ... Mark Esper was DoD SecDef back then... Mark Milley was JCS then as well... Now DJT 2.0 wants to try them both for traitors... BTW: The DoD is the largest Employer in the Country... Will Elon 'Find' enough waste to fund his massive Tax-Cut?
Bonny, I agree!! As i was reading Heather's letter and the message that Sen. King was delivering to the Reublicans in congress, I thought, "Surely, they will not vote to confirm a man who has promised to rip the constitution to shreds right before our eyes." Then I read the sentence that said they DID, despite listening to all the truths that Sen. King tried to remind them of. They are as despicable as Trump,Musk,and Vought.😝
What the MAGAt senators and representatives fail to take into account is that the pendulum WILL swing back in the other direction. They are thinking they can just support Heritage Foundation policies while they are trending and things will be fine. The Heritage Foundation is a terrorist organization, functioning at this point in time, to tear the country apart by tearing the Constitution apart. Ignoring our laws and Constitution to hurt people to get what the white supremacy people want will eventually take them down.
I feel the same way Bonny. After the filibuster in the Senate by the Democrats on Russell Vought’s confirmation, I believe every single Republican voted to confirm him.
It is very disappointing to see a once great political party literally shirting its pants to appease a wouldbe dictator and his henchmen. The Republican Party was founded by men of courage
and Integrity. It is very hard to find a Republican who exhibits those virtues these days.
I think that we're dealing with treason. Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance, i.e., the Constitution. The Republican elected officials (Senators and Congress men and women) are attacking the Constitution and Trump is their weapon.
They only care about two things: 1) protecting their seat in Congress 2) getting more tax cuts for the wealthy. They don't give a damn about us common folk.
The fact that the congressional capons willingly gave up their responsibilities to avoid a possible primary from musk and trump shows that they have no spine,no integrity and no honor nor do they have any intention of honoring their oath to protect and defend the constitution . The founders would have tarred and feathered them and run them out of town on a rail if not tried them for treason and hung them.
Agree Bonny. I've been wondering over the past 9 years "who is paying them?" "who is threatening them?" "what is it about the 'cult' that has scrambled their brains so completely that they are unable to listen to people like Angus King and Heather Cox Richardson?" The list of "them" includes all Republicans in all branches of government who continue to vote for this destructive shit show. Protests in the street and phone calls to senators and elected Republicans in the HOR obviously have no effect on how they vote. We MUST make them pay at the ballot box. With every vote they cast, they are violating their oaths to uphold the Constitution. And, as an aside, the physicians among them who have abandoned their doctor jobs in exchange for political theater (I'm talking to you Bill Cassidy and your vote for RFK JR), are violating the Hippocratic Oath you swore to that says "DO NO HARM".
I think the “real ID. “ will be required. It replaces your drivers license. It get it you need your original social security card, original birth certificate and a bill with your current address on it. So, good luck, if you’ve had any incidence in your life that caused you to lose any of these things b
I am so glad that most folks who get married nowadays keep their “original” name…back in ‘67 when, three days after my 18th birthday, I got married, it was traditional to take the husband’s name….and my original, somewhat unusual, name used to be teased about a lot in grade/high school….so switching was OK by me. HOWEVER, some 20 years later (having separated after 7 years…tho’ remaining “family” all the following years) I was about to get married again, so we finally divorced….by this time I DIDN’T want to change my name, but thought it would be really really rude to keep my ex’s name (lol…should have in retrospect!), so went ahead and adopted my new hubby’s name. Well well well…after nearly a decade that union, too, bit the dust & I had an opportunity to, via the divorce proceedings, to alter my last name w/o cost—kinda baked into the process. Yeah, what a pain in the ass it is to do…by then I had a more complicated economic life and changing up ALL my accounts/contacts/etc., was overwhelming so I let it slide, even tho the name no longer “meant” anything to me…could have as easily been “hey you!”. Forward a number of years to try to get a “real ID” and OMG the hoops and documentation for each and every name change that did not match my birth certificate was a teeth-grinding ordeal. Most men have NO clue how this impacts so many women. I am heartened to see most of my nieces keeping their original names…yay on them! That this now, along with all the other hassles associated, impacting potential voter ID laws is beyond galling. Yet another societal/cultural inequality being manifest. Just the paperwork hassle is reason enough to keep one’s original name!!!! [can you tell it still pisses me off?!😡]
I initially tried the double-barreled route - using both my last name and my husband's -- a total source of confusion -- come places had me by one name and some by the other. In my late 40s, when I was about to graduate from Law School - I wanted my original name on my diploma -- it was a tedious and expensive process getting my name back -- I had to file with the court - publish in various papers AND even get my husband's 'permission'! But I'm so glad I did -- it's the name that fits me.
Barbara, You have adduced many of the reasons I have preached to women residents I taught in medical school to keep their maiden names, especially if they are the names on their professional degrees (MD, PhD, etc) so they DON’T have to go through the ordeals you experienced. While my wife took my name, both of my daughters have kept their birth names despite my never having discussed the issue with them. I think it has become increasingly clear that if we truly believe in equal rights, it only makes sense to keep your own name despite some hassles which may arise with picking up one’s own kids from school!
It’s amazing that it’s even an issue here in the 21st century; I think women along with most men, have NO idea what name changes entail. I married at 33 and couldn’t conceive of no longer being that person.
An engineer at the aerospace company I worked at did the opposite, taking his wife's last name. I'd rather see partner names if both are to be used. Perhaps chosen or professional name if just one (as the Screen Actor's Guild, and Popes seems to do).
P.S. It always bugged me that I could never find Dot Tucker's history for lack of knowing her maiden name. She was the first woman that really impressed me as someone who could do unusual things better than so many men I had been impressed by. She had been a WASP pilot as I found out when I met her as an 11 year old fan of all things about military aircraft. I couldn't name a WWII military aircraft that she hadn't flown, and imagined her as one of the already licensed pilots that knew more than the military trainers that initially judged her skills.
I, as a man that got married in 1965, never understood the reason or logic for the wife to adopt the husband's last name. It was of saying, this woman is mine, my property?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: The "institution of marriage" is a religious construct that originated in patriarchies of the Global East, where women were and in many cultures, still are the property of men. Even though religions have split off into myriad branches, including countless "christian" branches, all still cling to the patriarchies on which they were founded.
Same, I am with you as are a LOT of women. The younger generation figured it out (for the most part). Both my girls kept their maiden name and it’s a doozy!
I had a similar experience. As a young woman in 1976, I took my husband's name. Fast forward 32 years to a divorce, and kept that married name for another 11 years. As I approached remarriage, I wasn't taking my ex's last name into a new union, nor did I want my new husband's name. So I made the change back to the name I was born with. What a pain!! New driver's lice, passport, etc. I tell all women, Don't change your name! It's who you are, and so costly to reclaim.
when I (male) moved to Kansas and swapped my old DL for the Real ID drivers license, i had to bring my original b-cert, plus a social security card (the passport i held at the time was expired). To prove citizenship. Then to prove residence i had utility bill and property tax (i suppose a rental contract would have worked).
If birthright citizenship is nullified, the b-cert woudn’t have proven citizenship — what would have?
So, will Mr Vought be proposing a federal “citizen ID card” next? Who will be able to vote?
Unfortunately that’s incorrect. I’ve researched all day. 100% the text says it does NOT allow a REAL ID for proof of citizenship. It’s written in a tricky way re REAL ID. Also the text doesn’t mention names at all, or if people need to re-register, as registration needs to be done in person with documents proving US citizenship. There’s no information on hyphenated names or maiden names being now one’s legal middle name. And who knows if they will change the bill or when it would be passed (26 co sponsors I think, all R - for the Senate. House already passed.) IE. will there be time (or the departments) to change one’s legal name & passport.
In the State of Florida, when you get a driver’s license, you need to prove who you are by showing a certified copy of your birth certificate. And if you are a woman who took her husband’s name when she married, you will need to show a certified copy of your marriage certificate, and if you were divorced and remarried, you need to show a certified copy of your divorce and a certified copy of your second marriage.
You provided yet another reason that I believe women who get married shouldn't take their husband's name. She can divorce and remarry as often as she likes and not be bothered with the paper trail required to vote, like any man. Just a simple birth certificate is needed. It's all a bunch of hooey.
Of course in the case of those who are VERY old, such as my dad, and have no access to a birth certificate (his was destroyed in a fire...and no one living who can testify to his birth) they are out of luck. May have served in WWII but still can't prove their citizenship with the approved documents. As I said, t's a bunch of hooey, but here we are.
Perhaps we should challenge every registered Republican woman, though I would prefer prevention of things like what should be penalties for interfering with the right of any legitimate voter equal to the fines and jail time for any actual fraudulent voter. As I wrote to relatives in Georgia:
Something is Rotten in Georgia. We went to Greg Palast's premier of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" back in 2016 to see the shenanigans Kris Kobach (Kansas Sec of State) and Brian Kemp (then Georgia Sec of State) were pulling with the infamous Cross Check lists Kobach produced. Vigilantes Inc. is much more sophisticated in purging voters enmasse. So far it looks like at least 300,000 out of half a million challenged by the 40,000 or so "Vigilantes" recruited by "True the Vote."
To see how they stole the 2024 election, see a few glaring cases such as Georgia's Pamela Reardon challenged 32,379 voters and Alter Russell challenged 4,000 or so including Major Gamaliel Turner, who Palast brought to meet the challenger in person. To me, Reardon and Russel should be subject to the same $10,000 fine and jail time any real illegal voter would face, and at least sued for the same amount by every legitimate voter they prevented from voting. Actually they should sue the state, too since they made the laws that let people suppress other's rights.
I'd like to sue them, too for giving us a phoney winner if a real investigation shows their cheating really did produce the popular vote loss, and even the electoral loss.
[I should note I suspect the 2024 election was stolen, but the 32,379 challenged votes were for the 2020 election, they used slightly different suppression techniques for 2024]
Thanks for this information. I also read an article by Palast about how voter suppression got us where we are today. Why is this information not more well known? If we just let it slide (like it seems we are), then no election going forward will be fair.
I freaking LOVE the idea of fining those who challenge legitimate votes. We MUST give people consequences for bad behavior or it will never change!
Often, when counties send letters to challenged voters, no one appears at a hearing to defend their eligibility. But in the Savannah suburb of Bryan County on Oct. 10, a room full of angry voters applauded as the county board dismissed challenges because the person who filed them didn’t appear for a hearing.
“I’m frustrated with this entire process, that we all had to be here today,” Michael Smith said at the hearing. “I’m frustrated that our state passed a poorly thought-out law that required and allowed somebody to do this to all of us...”
To me that indicates some reforms were made (the person who filed the challenges didn't appear at the hearing), so we should see what else they were doing to suppress votes.
Make people like Pamela Reardon appear at hearings with the voters she challenged back in 2020 that tried to vote but were denied effectively enough to not have their vote accepted and counted. Let them sue her or have her pay the fines an illegal voter would be subjected to for each and every one that could prove they should have been eligible, tried to vote, and could have if not for her unfounded challenge.
My spouse just went through this in Florida. Pissed off is to put it lightly. She is 74 and just needed her drivers license renewed. It became a career.
I turned 80 on January first this year, so had to renew my license. Pissed doesn’t begin to describe it. I got my first driver’s license here in Florida at the age of 14, a restricted/learner’s license. Also needed two proofs that my home where I have lived for 29 years is a valid address for me.
Welcome to Florida, where DeSantis has been implementing P2025 for years. Now his wife is talking about running for Governor when he’s termed out.
Florida had voted in 2018 that felons could vote after they had completed the terms of their conviction (with some exceptions). After that passed with 64.55% of the vote, DeSantis & the Republican legislature said that any fines also had to be paid prior to having their rights restored. However, they are unable to tell former felons a definite dollar amount which might be due. Some amounts are so large that a person would have to win the lottery to be able to vote again. That was not the intent of passing that amendment, but Republicans are afraid that this would increase the vote for the Democrats.
Another beef of mine, Florida is one of the few states to not expand Medicaid. Make Florida sick again. Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege.
You don’t want to get me started on my opinion of “Red Tide Rick” who made a fortune defrauding the government when he was CEO of Columbia/HCA. He pleaded the 5th 75 times, but left the company with a fortune & no jail time. I cannot understand why any person would ever vote for such a corrupt individual, but here we are.
I’m in Florida and had to obtain my Real ID several years ago. Fortunately I had all my paperwork including original birth certificate and amended birth certificate.
International adoptees have even greater challenges and risk deportation.
My passport expires this year and I’m in the process of getting my legal name changed back to my maiden name, even though I’m still married and have no plans to divorce my husband.
Yes Terry, it was all written down. It has been in clear sight for years. Everybody had heard of Project 2025..... and they also said it in words, and the voters of the USA chose it.
So it is happening, just as they said.
South American immigrants voted for it and women voted for it.
Nineteen Eighty Four should have been titled Twenty twenty five.
George Orwell got the title wrong. (and he didn't predict the ball point pen btw.)
Indeed they are not. Please, everyone reading, this--go to your web news aggregator, be it Yahoo, MSN.com, whatever, search for and click on news stories that report upon these under-reported news. Click like buttons if you can. Help promote the computer algorithms such that these news stories trend.
It's a small thing, but just like the single phone call, together we make things happen.
Neil deGrasse Tyson posted on his FB page about 6? months ago a statement I paraphrase here: "How much more advanced would humanity be if the women who make up 50% of the world's population had always had equal access to opportunities enjoyed by men?" How much more advanced, indeed. The abject fear of men (not just white men) of women's abilities has always driven civilization. Gerda Lerner laid it out way back in the 1986 in The Creation of Patriarchy: we are in the state we are in because of male fears of being irrelevant and their use of terrorist tactics to oppress and control women. Donna Zuckerberg (yes, the Suckerberg's sister), who is a prominent ancient history scholar with a PhD from Princeton, outlines the ways in which modern men in the West use the ridiculous, malignant "scientific" rationales for the oppression of women that originated in ancient Greece and Rome in her book Not All Dead White Men. I fear that the moronic Todd Akin, who lost his senate race back in 2012 against Claire McCaskill because he claimed that women could "shut that whole thing down" (meaning ovulation and implantation) if they were "legitimately raped," would be elected today. If he weren't already dead. May he rot in hell.
I'm an "Independent" Mainer who has long supported Angus King, after finding "team loyalty/competition" gets in the way of common sense. When King remarked, "As an independent, my motto is: SIMPLY DO THE RIGHT THING." If he appears to side with Democrats during his multiple terms, it suggests that supporting a trickle-up prosperity theory has historically made this country a better place for all. I continue to be grateful he chose to stay in the fray for this hard chapter.
Loads of people in the USA do not have birth certificates. Also, as observed by Mary Lou Clark, even folk with accessible birth certificates no longer bear the same name. This doesn’t only apply to married women. It denies suffrage. It disenfranchises 100s of millions of people. It does this deliberately and with a perverse and frankly sickening intent.
The entire document is rife with hypocrisy and falsehood.
Time for women to step up and tell the men we have been taking their surnames for a long time now. Men and children should start taking the women's names! Only fair.
I think--though I'm not 100% sure--that this would apply to a woman who tries to register to vote for the first time, not to someone who has voted in the past and has a voter card. Nevertheless, it's fully intended to keep more women from being able to vote..
But what hooey! The name of the game is unfettered power, so elections will be shot through with fraud, if there are any (remember, “you won’t have to vote again.”) Gotta keep resisting! And supporting the resisters.
It would disenfranchise whole swathes of voters. Perhaps forty percent and.mostly poor or disabled or disadvantaged in some respects and yes more likely than not female.
I would guess that many if not most Americans do not have passports. And almost as many do not have their birth certificates or would know how to find them.
In order to get a passport you need proof of citizenship. That usually comes in the form of a birth certificate and that is probably required in all cases. But query what does a birth certificate do to help a naturalized citizen get a passport or to register to vote as it is ?
Due to the passage of time, extraordinary events like fires, and casual neglect the just may no longer be records regarding the births of some Americans. And note records may be lost or changed or rendered useless or inaccessible by adoption.
Project 2025 is not merely a political agenda. It is the plan for a conspiracy to overthrow the lawful government of the United States. .It is inimical to our Constitution. It is being implemented by equally illegal means. And it's author has just been given control over the nations spending by the Senate.
“ It would disenfranchise whole swathes of voters. ”
Exactly. The rump always says exactly what he intends to do. Like when he said, “you’re not going to need to vote in elections any more.”
Vought or Musk will be appointed CEO of the USA and run things from unitary executive, dondon can take off to play golf 7 days a week as he ceded control to the CEO. Peter Thiel’s philosopher/libertarian guru wrote as much in, like 2009….
Yes, well stated. But it did NO good. What is the matter with the R's? It is way beyond me to understand. Can the rule of law hold? Can the courts function? It certainly didn't work out that way in Trump's impeachment - McConnell was wrong.
You are right Alec but our republic and democracy are in life support mow. We have to prevent anyone in this horde confronting us to disconnect the machine
What I don't understand is how members of Congress can be so worried about being primaried, given that if they continue to hand over power at this astounding rate, there won't BE any mid-terms. There will be no more elections for many years to come. What jobs do they think they'll be saving by bowing down this fast?
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
“Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian and Coast Guardsman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price,” Milley continued. “And we are not easily intimidated.” Gen. Mark Milley
If we ask that kind of dedication to the idea of America from the military, what is reasonable to expect of those trusted to make, judge and carry out our laws??? And from ourselves?
They take an oath to the Constitution, too. I think even Donald was afraid he would burst into flames if he put his hand on a Bible and lied through his teeth (again) this Jan. 20.
No President in American history has ever committed such a flagrant violation of his oath of office as Donald Trump. Clearly, half the voters in our country don’t care. It will baffle me for the rest of my life.
Not half the voters, and incredibly, not even half of the voters who showed up. I have read in a number of different places (including from HCR, who is always a credibly source) that more people voted against Donald Trump in 2024 than voted for him. That's a small bright spot in this.
What's hard for me to believe is how many eligible people don't care enough to vote, but at least as bad this time were the people who refused to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because they weren't "perfect" in the eyes of the people who helped get us where we are now. See especially: "I won't vote for Harris because I don't agree with her about Gaza! I'm going to show how much this matters to me by not voting for her!" Bet they're *really* happy with Donald's plans for the region. Dolts.
The difference between US servicemen and women and Republican politicians is the willingness to serve their country - not to mention do a hard day’s work.
And that’s why Millie no longer has a job because he doesn’t understand the constitution and his obligation to protect America at all costs and not turn traitor because he doesn’t agree with the president
Everyone, save yourself the hassle of reading Rick Sender’s pro-Trump rhetoric. Click his name. Click three dots at top right. At the bottom, it says “Block Rick Sender”.
Republicans aren't worried. They are all in on the plans to turn America into a Christian sharia autocracy. They are looking forward to never having to worry about elections again, having a lock on their seat for eternity.
Actually, if you wanna read it all as your Moniker says he said all religions but nice job and if you were at CBS you’d also be sued for distorting the truth
Actually I like it & brought a smile to my face just reading it…a lost opportunity to be sure, a “what could have been” & perhaps a wish for the future, even if not in that exact configuration.
You need to leave this group and go into a Trump anti American group. Your comments are off the wall and not appreciated. Btw, this reply is directed to Rick Sender.
I keep trying, but then I get some other fool who engages me questions facts and reality and I feel compelled to respond.
Please tell Elizabeth that she somewhat backwards. There’s no such thing as a Trump anti-American group. Actually, he just got another trillion dollars from Japan as an investment in America and apparently also has Europe considering lowering its tariffs on importing American vehicles from 10% to 2 1/2% and he keeps winning. Lowest illegal immigration numbers in 20 years.
And he keeps finding more fraud, waste, and abuse in a number of governmental agencies. You would think that America would be happy that be more money to spend on America alas, too many un Americans here.
doge has just barely touched The surface but has already unearth vast sums of money, including money going back as far as 2003 to the tune of $2.7 trillion of waste fraud and abuse
Ssa has been paying dead people for 20 years 70,000 of them actually.
So much money that they could’ve been paying an additional 90,000 people $22,000 a year for the last 10 years
You might want to try keeping abreast of these things
Oh and I also forgot what’s going on in CBS in the $10 billion lawsuit that looks like it’s growing every day for them trying to distort an election and they’re in negotiations now to settle, but it’s getting bigger now that they’ve released the entire transcript of the interview with Harris
Nothing but good news these days glad you asked
By the way, you never did answer the question are you related to the Greenman family by any chance?
BTW, Rick, speaking of SSA, what do you think about the elimination of the WEP and GPO provisions in SSA? This was a REPEAL on something that occurred ‘way back in 1983 - over 40 years ago. I guess a whole bunch of SS retirees have been shorted by that GOVERNMENT for many, many years. How unfair is that, Rick?
You are correct, Rick, about the SSA overpayment. Here’s an article from the AP dated January 15, 2025.
“ The U.S. government clawed back more than $31 million in Social Security payments that improperly went to dead people, a recovery that one official said Wednesday was “just the tip of the iceberg.”
The money was reclaimed as part of a five-month pilot program after Congress gave the Department of Treasury temporary access to the Social Security Administration‘s “Full Death Master File” for three years as part of the omnibus appropriations bill in 2021. The SSA maintains the most complete federal database of individuals who have died, and the file contains more than 142 million records, which go back to 1899, according to the Treasury.
The Treasury projects that it will recover more than $215 million during its three-year access period, which runs from December 2023 through 2026.
“These results are just the tip of the iceberg,” the Treasury’s Fiscal Assistant Secretary David Lebryk said in a news release. He urged Congress to give the Treasury full access to the master file, saying it would “significantly reduce fraud, improve program integrity, and better safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
Acceleration, flack and camouflage are powerful tactics for a marginal group to gain a foothold in a somewhat larger group and so on. Like a virus. Same deal.
Getting elected to the US Congress and Senate is expensive, costing millions of dollars. Getting re-elected has been historically easy for incumbents, but things have changed. Popular office holders can be overwhelmed by a puppet opponent funded by very rich donors. Are they trying to save themselves a losing campaign?
Thank Supreme Court Justice John Roberts for that. To reduce what he wrote to both its meaning and result, very clear from the very beginning, dollars are votes.
Thank you very much your honor Judge Roberts for your clear sighted rearrangement of what democracy really means. You are not the worst ever. No, you stand shoulder to shoulder among them.
Thank you , Heather, for keeping up with the roller-coaster news of the rolling coup. I'm astonished that the House Republicans are so willing to transfer their power to appropriate funds to Musk and his goons. What a horrible, shameful abdication of responsibility to their constituents, the government, and the US Constitution.
Everyone with intelligence would know what a bull would do in a china shop and would do something to prevent that from happening. Unfortunately, there weren't enough intelligent voters in this country to prevent the destruction of our institutions and 250 years of democracy as is happening now. Hope it's not too late to rescue some of the pieces to start all over again in a more perfect union
It’s not what USA does. It’s what they do but they shouldn’t be doing that they can go back to doing the right thing. Instead of wasting money. Hopefully at the end of the rainbow everybody here will wake up and realize we’ve just saved a couple trillion dollars.
You can get as creative as you want in your colorful descriptions here, Mr. Sender.........It's still clear who and what you are: an apologist for those selling out the United States of America.
You know what Eli here’s a crack up for you. There are many people who post and post and post and post for days who know each other very well who commiserate with each other all the time and not until I observe for a month or so, and came on and became an active participant here that I ever see the word troll. It’s only when somebody has a difference of opinion and wants someone here to see both sides of the story that someone becomes a troll. I hope you’re never in a courtroom and you’re not allowed to have a defense.
The problem Rick isn’t a “difference of opinion”, it’s a refusal or inability to accept facts. Republicans are particularly susceptible to this in recent decades as they put power above safeguarding democracy - which is the purpose for which Congress established USAID. People don’t read anymore, so opinions have become uninformed. Believe what you like, but it doesn’t make your opinion well informed or accurate. I’m sure though that sharing your ‘gut’ opinion makes you feel better. Have a nice day.
You obviously have not seen some of the ridiculous projects from USA ID otherwise you would wise up and I understand the need for USA ID and the purpose for UASAID and it’s being abused beyond reproach
Change the channel and see the massive sums of money being spent on bullshit total unnecessary bullshit abroad. That’s all you need to see.
Hey, Rick - To me, it looks like We, the People are at a Fork in the Road to Governing: the Deliberative, Open, Rules-based, Clumsy (DORC) version vs the Secretive, Top-Down, Unopposed, Private (STUP) version. They way I see it - the general public become impatient with the WAY typical government works - local, state, federal. It’s too slow and, they believe, too expensive! (I mean - THEY make us pay TAXES!!). But, also, the general public is disillusioned with the “corporate way” of doing things. They say things like - “How does a gas station on my corner sell Regular for $2.99 a gallon, yet another gas station about a half mile away - and near the freeway - sell the same stuff for $3.74 per gallon?”
The Fork to follow?? Democratically-elected Representatives or Corporations?
What I think is, you don’t answer questions what I think is everything you said above is relatively irrelevant to the problems at hand today
All the unnecessary hate just because the man’s name is Trump when all he’s trying to do is exactly what Obama and Clinton did exactly!
Of course, government works too slow, but if they work that slow, they should at least be efficient and they’re neither speaking.
If you or I ran our company like the government runs it, we’d be out of business
People don’t have a choice in dealing with the government when they’re getting benefits from them But if you had a choice of going to different companies to paying in and receiving your benefits, you’d realize it
There’s no fork in the road at all AT ALL. THIS PRESIDENT IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK AND OUT OF SHEER HATE AND IGNORANCE. THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS NOW AT A 31% POPULARITY RATE WHILE TRUMP CONTINUES TO SUCCEED AT EVERY TURN, BOTH NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY.
they called him an antisemite, and he’s Israel’s best friend and supporter. They called him a misogynist and they just kicked men out of women’s sports.
They call him a failure and he owns hotels and golf courses all over the world and a $10 billion social media company and it’s been president twice What a failure
I’m frankly sick and tired this bullshit and anybody that fights him at this point in time because every American needs to support him. Period
Laura, this follower of the conman, was over on Robert Reich's Substack...he left. You can just imagine him with his gold watch and tennis shoes, red MAGA hat, flags waving and his Chinese (America First) Oompa Loompa Bible under his arm. These followers, like him, can't deny that this orange man, is a SALESMAN that continues to sell his followers a line of s**t along with the merch that never stops flowing. Don-old and his wife are always selling crypto or clothing or some new thing to fleece their followers...their base. It's sad to hear how taken in they are...but there it is. Just ignore this sad case. He will no doubt respond to this...no big deal. He's just messed up that's all, he drank the kool aid.
You left because you don’t like to be involved with people YOU believe to be “anti-Americans and socialists” (no apostrophe) or “communists who don’t believe in America”? Are you talking about the people on this Substack Comment section? Are these people - including me - not American citizens? I mean, I was born in the USA and that gives me a birthright citizenship status. I can’t speak for others on this thread, but I have a feeling that many of “these people” that you don’t want to be “involved” with are actually tax-paying US citizens! I’d be willing to venture that many of these folks have served their country in the military or the police or as firefighters or, even, lowly 5th grade teachers. I have to tell you, Rick, tolerance is sometimes a difficult chore.
Let me follow up this post with some more information. Some of my favorite human beings were fifth grade teachers nobody is less worthy . Nobody is beyond helping when they need help, but priorities are important tolerance is not difficult at all at all at all at all at all, priorities are what make tolerance different. And in life, you choose the priorities that seem to need the most attention and then you winnow it down from there. Btw I served six years in the military during the Vietnam era.
The people that I don’t wanna be involved with are the people that can’t literally determine right from wrong good from evil and all stems from pre-ordained hate in their system put there by propagandists.
My honest opinion, Paul there are a lot of people here whose hate overrides common sense and that’s what bothers me most
17 days into his presidency and already they’re talking impeachment.
It’s not enough that the two previous impeachments didn’t work and that it caused in many circles Trump to get reelected
Also, I’m assuming that you know who pays the bulk of the income tax in this country By category
You have every right to your misguided opinions, and you hate your needless hate. And your refusal to look at yourself and your party that now have a 30% or so approval rating by Americans and a 60% disapproval rate. And for liberals and Democrats, that’s abysmal you would expect that about Republicans.
You are absolutely correct you have the right to be as ignorant as you wanna be or as hateful as you wanna be no one stopping you other than yourself and your party is a joke right now
I’m messed up? Wow. You guys desperately need a mirror and a lot of self introspection. You just lost massively and you haven’t even imagined why and every day you continue to lose more even though America is gaining despite your useless protestations.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did exactly what Trump is doing right now and trying to reduce the deficit and reductions and force, etc. in fact if you take Trump‘s mouth or Trump‘s voice and place them over the images of Obama and Clinton while they speak, it’s exactly the words that those two were speaking but just because it’s Trump You lash out in hate you fools
As I said earlier at the end of the rainbow, this country’s gonna save a couple trillion dollars and gonna be able to serve Americans much better like the people that just lost everything in California or North Carolina
Now they’re looking at Social Security and seeing we’ve paid 70,000 odd people who’ve been dead for years and we’re still paying them millions of dollars and that’s just tip of the iceberg so you keep going cooling like you know what the hell you’re talking about and stop the hate.
Because that’s all you become are just haters
Ignore me at your own will I have no problem with it at all?
And this is only a beginning, Dave. They found out that during Obama’s administration 63000 people were already dead and still getting checks and the deaths had already been reported. So you just keep living in denial and that’s fine with the rest of us.
Here’s one more little Diddy when they try to blame Trump for stuff that has nothing to do with Trump
The bird flu outbreak is the deadliest in U.S. history ...In April 2024, some hens began dying of bird flu after testing positive for the H5N1 virus. 50 milllion
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."
Hmmmmm, Hey, Rick….There IS common ground here - if you look realistically. Republicans AND Democrats (and Independents) want to reduce the nation’s deficit. The difference is HOW to do the reductions. What SPECIFICALLY do you think should be done to allow us to live within our means? Will raising taxes be the answer? Or will lowering taxes get that “trickle-down” going? What EXPENSES should we cut? AND - HOW should we make those budget changes?
Paul, that is a very astute common sense post and question. The easy answer is simply easy. First, you go after the fruit that’s lying on the ground rotting which is all the waste fraud and abuse and then you decide what to do with all the money that you find.
If you’re the fiscal conservative that you say you are, hopefully you’ve seen the money that’s being spent around the world for some of the most ridiculous sexual DEI tourism related bullshit that I’ve ever seen
I’d like to list a few, but each one is more ridiculous than the one before. I wish everybody could agree on the first premise, but they’re fighting at every turn, but they didn’t fight when Clinton and Obama wanted to do exactly the same thing. Please search the video of Al Gore speaking with Clinton by him side, talking about reduction in force Killing redundant jobs hi baby hi sweetie hello OK fine and Obama saying the exact same thing but as soon as the words come out of Trump’s mouth, he is every word in the book.
that we are spending we wouldn’t even spend it here so first you find that and then you decide how to allocate it Then you get both bodies of Congress together and say OK here’s where I won’t give here’s where you won’t give. Here’s where we both give let’s give a little and get something done and that’s why I like Clinton because at least he did that.
50,000,000 for condoms 20, million for Sesame Street show in Iraq. And after abandoning Afghanistan Where we should’ve never been in the first place we’re throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to them for more bullshit And all Trump is trying to do is to stop it
Dude, give it up. You have no idea what democracy is (hint: not absence if government), much less how a democratic government needs to run. Right now we have two traitors leading the executive (maybe three actually) and they richly deserve the bill that will eventually come due. Now go take your word spray to the ignorant who are willing to be baffled by bs.
Here’s a couple articles on CBS’s lawsuit by Trump for distortion of news and election interference.
"Perhaps most egregiously, the segment made almost no mention of Hamas’ actions that started this war, placing Palestinian civilians in Gaza in harm’s way for years by embedding weapons and other terrorist infrastructure in civilian areas," the Jewish advocacy group added.
"The segment only briefly referred to Hamas’ massacre on October 7, 2023, described their fighters as "militants" rather than terrorists, and even went so far as to elevate the outlandish notion that, following Hamas’ October 7 attack, Israel should have sought to make peace with Hamas terrorists rather than act in self-defense."
There are too many links and I can’t be everyone’s research assistant. I’m sorry there’s a lot of intelligent well red people here and I think would be very easy for you to look at sites perhaps some that you’ve never looked at before like Fox or CNN or MSNBC and at least see what their Showing as far as waste and abuse and I have sent some copies of articles. All I did was type in what I was looking for and there’s 20 articles about it so please do that then we’ll have something to discuss.
And by the way, you’ve probably noticed by now that I voice text everything and so if there’s a misspell, I apologize but I believe fervently in content over form. This is not my college thesis. I’m writing. It’s a point. I’m trying to make and I know it’s getting across. And you know what else there are so many times that I’ve responded to people and never hear from them again because I think they actually think through what I’m saying and realize that it’s correct. If you will look at other paper trail here on this sub stack venue you’ll find a number of articles that I’ve posted having to do with waste fraud and abuse at the Social Security administration at Medicare. They were paying dead people for the last 20 years than a nonprofit organization has found $2.7 trillion in monies that should’ve never been allocated. The list is so extensive it’s pathetic and the fact that it’s been just unearthed now with information dating back to 2003 turns my stomach beyond belief. Please go check it out.
Apparently 40,000 federal employees have reportedly accepted a resignation. How is it saving out taxpayer money to pay them for 8 months of work that they are not doing? and paying a loyal trumpet who replaces them to do the same job? That is not efficient nor saving any money. Of course Musk thinks you can just remove essential services like medical staff, fire scientists, meteorologists etc with no negative impact…. because he is actually an arrogant narcissist that doesn’t bother to learn about how our government actually works. The goal is NOT efficiency. It is loyalty without merit.
Yeah, but who says that the offer to pay them will be honored? You-know-who is known for stiffing folks he owes money to…what recourse would they have to demand compensation? If they will gut the good works of USAID/FBI/CIA, etc, you’d almost have to be looney to believe anything they “promised”!!!!
They don’t give a whit about efficiency. They just want power. It’s just a scam as are all the lies. And people just lap it up. What a bunch of idiots buy chump’s nonsense. MAGAts line up to worship the golden calf that is pure fools gold. All the puppeteers pulling the strings know what he is but are orgasmic as they use his flamethrower to “own the libs.” What evil we have to fight. These are not political differences, they are deliberately evil.
Not only that, but think of the cost bringing all those USAid workers and their families back here. The departments that arrange moving people around have been fired. There is not HR, they are gone. These families who overseas many don't own homes here. They have no homes to go back too. How do I know this? My son and daughter in law have worked for USAid for 20 yrs.
Any money that gets spent on things you don't agree with comes from funds appropriated by Congress for a specific purpose. If Congress passes funding legislation for a given project that means it approves of it.
Just because you don't like how the government spends its money doesn't mean that any fraud has committed. You are certainly entitled, as an American citizen, to object to how those funds are allocated, but if you don't like where the money goes, talk to Congress.
It is absolutely illegal for any entity to seek to remove or reduce committed funds from the treasury system.
Well, they just started to touch Social Security and what do you think they found? What a surprise we’ve been paying thousands dead people. Four decades why don’t you go look? Tell lady Hemsworth below as well have her check it out hundreds of millions of dollars paid by Social Security to dead people and people that didn’t deserve the money. It was paid by mistake for decades. There’s your pot of gold lady and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to suffer in your ignorance it’s a self-inflicted wound.
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."
You do know that all these reforms can be accomplished without destroying our government. All it takes is a Republican Party willing to actually govern instead of the continuous performance art that they have been doing for decades.
Look up JustFacts.org. Looks like a shiny rightwing website whose aim is to provide snippets of data pulled from news, various govt sites like OMB and GAO etc to promote rightwing propaganda. The site uses 100’s of bits of data. Shock and awe. Vomiting up volumes of citations to back up the right wing bias. This Rick Sender sounds like one of their shiny bots.
The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals "may have improperly received benefits" since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 "stimulus checks" were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.
By the way, illegal immigration is that it’s lowest level in the last 20 years. And now illegals have the chance to leave the country before they have to suffer, living the rest of their lives in a El Salvadoran prison with the worst MS 13 convicts. Not bad for only 17 days in office.
The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals "may have improperly received benefits" since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 "stimulus checks" were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023." SSN tip of the ie]iceberg.
I’m not quite sure why, but with all that was so important and disturbing (and moving) in your column, the thing that most broke my heart was the dismantling of the beautiful tradition of the Kennedy Center and its defiling by the piss of this abomination of a human. There is such extraordinary pettiness in this, like raping someone’s lovely wife while the family watches. He defocates on everything beautiful. It’s his aphrodisiac.
Throughout our history, the Kennedy Center has enjoyed strong support from members of congress and their staffs—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Since our doors opened in1971, we have had a collaborative relationship with every presidential administration. Since that time, the Kennedy Center has had a bi-partisan board of trustees that has supported the arts in a non-partisan fashion.
While we are a living memorial to President Kennedy, we are also a unique public-private partnership. The Center is supported by federal annual appropriations for the upkeep and maintenance of the building as a federal memorial, or approximately 16% of the total operating budget. Support for the Center’s artistic programming comes from ticket sales, donations, rental income, and other revenue sources.
The Kennedy Center is aware of the post made recently by POTUS on social media. We have received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees. We are aware that some members of our board have received termination notices from the administration.
Per the Center’s governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the Center’s board members. There is nothing in the Center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board.
Who has $5 million to spare? Maybe Melinda Gates, George Clooney, or some similar, wealthy patron? With an annual operating budget of about $32 million, let's get the Kennedy Center off of the approximately 16% federal appropriations support and void any federal influence. There can never be a Trump board chairman at the Kennedy Center.
What I don’t understand about this is the statement that the new administration can replace trustees. My understanding of the statutes (though obviously they know them far better than I do) is that this is a confessional power, not executive power and that all board members must be approved by Congress and serve for 6 years. The board elects their own president.
Back in the Soviet era of Russia, art was commandeered in a similar way. All art was to convey only “socialist realism.” So this is his “fascist realism.” Art often becomes a form of dissent and this is an attempt to put a boot on it.
Thank you for reporting King's heroic attempt to appeal to Republican morality and sanity. Maybe the one-two punch strategy of that passionate patriotism and Yippie-reminiscent trolling like Pritzker's is the way to go.
“[W]e're experiencing in real time exactly what the framers most feared. When you clear away the smoke, clear away the DOGE, the executive orders, foreign policy pronouncements, more fundamentally what's happening is the shredding of the constitutional structure itself. And we have a profound responsibility…to stop it.” Senator Angus King (I - Maine)
Was there any doubt? We couldn't stop Pete Hegseth who is a known spousal abuser and misogynist. And the Rs have a SIX vote margin in the Senate so beating them requires FOUR R votes to side with us, assuming no D goes the other way. It's a terribly difficult margin to overcome. We will be lucky if even one of the REALLY bad nominees (RFKjr, Gabbard or Pay we l) loses. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Agree. Gabbard surprises me—we can't find four Republicans to vote against her—that says something, but we should remember Gaetz was rejected. Even in Gaetz's case, we got what is even worse in Bondi. We need to keep our enemies close. I would rather nominate Rick Sender than put forward another Huckabee Sanders.
Not holding my breath because Project 2025 is in the house or OMB as the case may be.
I always appreciate you, Jon. Time to chop and carry. Best to you.
Tim
Speaking of which, I think it might be time to delete digital footprints. Are you going to do that? Asking for a friend.
You can. Completeness isn't the goal, just prudence. Meta, Google, OpenAI and X can't legally hold it for over two or three months - without legit reasons - which of course they can manufacture - your data is valuable to them. They honestly don't want to long term if you idle your presence. The government can do things it shouldn't - and it is. Now is the time.
It takes effort. I'm more than willing to share my resources, but I'm not the angel here. I have digital issues of my own. Each company has there own method to follow GDPR (EU standard) and CCPA (California standard) guidelines - which don't apply to everyone but they have to follow regardless - allowing others to take back their data as best they can.
Tim
Funny story: When I deleted my FB account many years ago, they wouldn't let me do it without contacting someone I hadn't talked to in nearly a decade. It is easier now. That was a cheap cup of coffee. I have never looked back. I like SubStack, but we need to find a more secure forum—like the Matrix-based decentralized and open-source forums. I use Element to keep in touch with college buddies, siblings, and fellow deviants. That would have its own vulnerabilites and issues - I'm not an angel - or smart for that matter. Pulling down that data and holding that hard drive is liberating, and also a sad death. We could be so much more than we are.
I agree but it may be forced to go underground for a few years. As is often said, it will get darker in this tunnel at least for a while, before the light returns.
That Republicans can ignore King is frightening. Phone calls are good. I’ve made mine and will continue. I fear that we are on the verge of a civil war or a military coup. I did something today I never thought I would. I bought a gun. I don’t know what good it will do, but, at 82, I do not plan to go gently into the good night.
I do not see any difference now between Putin invading Ukraine and Trump/Musk invading America. I would be buying a gun too. Hopefully Milley and co are strategising as we speak.
Oh c'mon Kazz, there is a HUGE difference. Putin invaded an independent sovereign nation. Trump can't "invade" America, he is is President (like it or not). It is HIS country so he doesn't HAVE to "invade" it as Putin needed to do to try to win back the Ukraine.
And trust me Milley isn't strategising anything. He will go public and argue for different outcomes but he is no fool. He knows a military action against the US is doomed to fail.
Right now we need to enter a 2 year holding strategy, try to lose a little as possible and then wage a serious election campaign in 2026 to win back the Congress. That is, I believe, the ONLY viable option.
And hope that enough peeps who voted for Trump in 2024 are affected enough to realize what a moronic decision they made.
Thank you, Jon. I appreciate your calm and knowledgeable posts. "And trust me Milley isn't strategizing anything." Thank you. And your comments on strategy - I agree, I agree, I agree.
Unlike you, I am hopeful. Before the election, for some reason, I was reading WWll books. Not many, but enough, and ones I really liked. "The Splendid and the Vile," for instance. I was inspired in the reading, and now that inspiration is bearing fruit. Churchill told his daughter-in-law Pamela, "If the Germans come, grab a kitchen knife and kill as many as you can." She was horrified. I would have been horrified. But at this remove, knowing the Allies won, I can laugh. So, it gives me hope to revisit how dire things looked then, and to revisit Churchill's message of the need for heart.
I don't think you are entirely hopeless. Right? "And hope that enough peeps..."
I don't mean to bug you. I so appreciate your posts. Thank you!!!
No, I'm not ENTIRELY hopeless at all. But I am a 73 year old man whose activist days are well behind me (in the 60s, 70s and 80s for the most part). I am saddened because my own children (30 somethings) don't seem to see anything alarming in what we face today.
I yearn for new leadership with the fire in their bellies from the era I passed through when we took down a Democratic president who was in the process of killing 65,000 American youth in Vietnam, but what did we replace it with? Richard Nixon! And then Ronald Reagan. Two terribly flawed Presidents who look like heroes today in the face of Trump (even though they weren't CLOSE!) The best man who ran for President in the past 60 years, Jimmy Carter, we let him get away. Someday someone will write a book about that great American tragedy, letting a greasy Hollywood actor beat a great American President. Truly sad.
Can we recover? I hope so. I want to believe it, but I don't think the answer is in giving up all the things that have made us great. Sacrificing democracy to save it seems to me to be fruitless task. In the end we will only be judged by our values and if we decide to let those go, even for the moment, we will not leave a great legacy.
I think you are an activist here. I'm a 72 year old woman, and I believe that there is a very big role for those of our age to play. Most of us have more time, and if we've learned anything in life, we have that to add. Our parents went through the Depression and WWll, and this is the crisis for us. It surprises me, though not for long, that more people don't see it as it is, an existential constitutional crisis, a coup, the ultimate threat. But awareness is always the first step and denial is so powerful. Anyway, here we are. And, so far, this is a war of words, a fact for which I am grateful. Well, and money. But not too violent yet.
Yes, Reagan and Carter. Trump. How immature of us. "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I believe that. Maybe we learn.
No, we should not sacrifice democracy. Greece lost its democracy. Maybe that is to be our fate, but we won't lose it without a map for future democracies and a host of hero stories.
Thank you for answering me and thank you for every one of your posts. My favorites.
Wow, thank you for that response, truly. Sometimes, even here, I think I am yelling into the wind. I am watching this week closely. There will be more court decisions, most of which I expect will go against Trump but the murmuring seems to be that we should expect Trump to pull an Andrew Jackson and tell the courts to KMA.
The scariest part for me is the Musk influence. The bulk of his appointments don't scare me too much, as they are mostly "losers". Rachel last night did actually great run-down of ALL the cabinet and sun cabinet appointees and how many of them lost their last (or in some cases only) run for office.
But Musk obviously is a wild card who has both influence AND money and he is at least comparatively intelligent. He also does drugs (isn't THAT special given the huge antidrug attitude from most nominal Republicans!) which to me makes him at least potentially unstable (his favorite drug is ketamine).
I will be watching closely. If action becomes necessary, I will get ready but I sure hope Trump blinks before that happens.
I do not think we can bank on the midterm elections. I think IF we even have federal elections again, people will be “allowed” to vote based on some process dreamt up by the backers of Project 2025 and Musk and Co. People will have to meet some kind of criteria (white, male, homeowner for example). Musk has all of our data so he can grant the access. I fear women are going to lose the right to vote in federal elections followed by many other groups such as gay married and so forth. After that many states will pay Musk to help them change voter access at the state level too. I think it is a house of cards already teetering.
Mary Ellen, I think of Nathan Hale, American Spy during “our”Revolution, saying to the British as they prepared to hang him (learned it in 3rd grade):”I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
Thank you for spelling out the questions I’m asking. Speed is of the essence and I cannot think how to protect real patriots if this horror goes on much longer.
Thanks Jon, your considered and knowledgeable responses always make perfect sense. However IMHO the obscene and outrageous nature of trump/musk rolling into government, into the Treasury, and into people’s lives - rounding them up and carting them off in shackles, feels like, and may as well be, an invasion of tanks.
No chance. First of all who will follow them? A military coup takes LOTS of peeps especially in a country with a standing military of almost 2 million. The chances of getting even 10% of those forces to follow Austin and Milley is pretty close to zip. And failure of such a coup would lead to serious jail time, possibly even execution. Keep in mind that any attempt like that is a SERIOUS violation of federal law no matter how Trump has abased the law.
There is no legal ground for such a coup. And one thing all coups know is that the ONLY way to survive is to win. Which in this country with the kind of military we have (the largest on earth) is highly unlikely.
It may sound like a wonderful fantasy but that is what it is, a fantasy.
Not only a fantasy, but a dangerous statement to attribute to a social media presence. @Virginia - I hope that isn't your real name (Tim is not my assigned name at birth btw) and anyone who liked that comment, have sense. Our freedoms are fleeting when we can't even walk into public buildings.
Tim
This message brought to you by the knights who say ni.
Hey, friends, a military coup is never a wonderful fantasy. Ask anyone who’s lived through one. Fortunately, neither of the men you named would consider such a crime.
“[W]e're experiencing in real time exactly what the framers most feared. When you clear away the smoke, clear away the DOGE, the executive orders, foreign policy pronouncements, more fundamentally what's happening is the shredding of the constitutional structure itself. And we have a profound responsibility…to stop it.”
At least he said it. May it be amplified. Told and retold, in a roar.
Keep calling! It’s working! Leave messages. Do not go quietly into the good night of authoritarianism. It takes just a few minutes to contact your representatives using http://www.5calls.org Do it NOW!
I am quite sure there is system in place tracking same numbers calling repeatedly. So unless everyone calls once these stats are skewed and they are likely already aware.
Public ridicule by prominent figures -- there's a technique that ought to get some regular play. I bet it'd significantly accelerate the rate of rash stupidity and unforced errors from the notoriously thin-skinned and insecure orange criminal, with a full meltdown and attendant bungling and blundering.
Yes!!! The terrain is wide open for mockery, irony, sarcasm, satire.....any and all ways of " laughing at" a guy who absolutely cannot take it. Editorial cartoons are coming alive these days...succinctly capturing the hypocrisy and dangerous craziness of the current political actors. May SNL live long and prosper!!!
Senator King's statement is nice, but apparently, the person wasn't filabustered. Why don't the Democrats put a hold on all confirmations? Why don't they have they have the Journal of the Senate read each day? Why don't they deny unanimous consent on every action? Why don't they require every bill be read in its entirety three times? There are things the Senate Democrats can do besides talk, and they don't seem to be doing them.
There is only so much that can be done, and the Democrats aren't doing them. Use the Senate rules and require bills to be read three times. Why don't they put a hold on all confirmations? There are actions that require unanimous consent--exercise it.
Exactly. They refused to vote on Garland. They obstruct when they are in power. They destroy when they are in power. They enrich themselves no matter what at the expense of the health and well being of millions. Filibuster to save democracy!
Guys. The filibuster is no longer available for cabinet confirmations or Supreme Court nominees. It was removed from Senate rules by Republicans under McConnell, so there's now a limit to the amount of time a senator can hold the floor.
What the Dems are doing now is refusing to yield a single minute of their allotted floor time. This does keep them talking much longer than they normally would - hence the overnight speeches this week - but they aren't allowed to go on forever like they could in a real filibuster. Unfortunately that is their biggest wrench in the toolbag at the moment, and it can only do so much.
The GOP was in power when the Garland nomination was under consideration. That how McConnell kept him off the court. We (Dems) are NOT in power now. It's a BIG difference. And as noted elsewhere, filibusters are no longer available for confirmations.
The citizenry who are against this Trump/Musk attack on our government are the majority. It is us who have to exercise our citizenship by hounding our “elected representatives” until they ( most especially the Republicans) understand that we are not going to tolerate an Authoritarian takeover by billionaire miscreants.
“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. For this reason, that convention which passed the ordinance of government, laid its foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time. BUT NO BARRIER WAS PROVIDED BETWEEN THESE SEVERAL POWERS. The judiciary and the executive members were left dependent on the legislative for their subsistence in office, and some of them for their continuance in it. If, therefore, the legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made; nor, if made, can be effectual; because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of acts of Assembly, which will render them obligatory on the other branches. They have accordingly, in many instances, decided rights which should have been left to judiciary controversy, and the direction of the executive, during the whole time of their session, is becoming habitual and familiar.”
Well, well, well. Let's make these demonstrations just the start. Just the warm up before the game. This is going to take coordinated effort over years. But we can do it.
And be prepared to go even further. Hate to say it but this is war.
Be warned - legacy media will not give much credence to our efforts.
Instead of the Washington Post subscribe to The Guardian.
Contribute to The American Prospect.
Join Blue Sky.
Share information to a Facebook group.
Donate what you can afford. Five Dollars here and five dollars there matters.
***If you can possibly handle it, join the demonstrations. And share photos.
'...“self-coup” — when a legitimately elected leader uses his position to seize total control, eliminating legal and constitutional restraints on his power. Are Musk and Trump trying to pull off an autogolpe here? Of course they are. And they are doing so with, as far as I can tell, the full support of every Republican in the House and the Senate.'
Of course strategies and instructions come from Russia.
They serving the criminal in the White House unite in one criminal enterprise -- serving as terrorists in the destruction of the institutions that had built some modicum of democracy in the U.S.
In addition to being a clown, a racist, a rapist, convicted criminal and lifelong business fraud, the fat orange guy is serving most happily as terrorist for Putin. He's angry yet having all those institutions serving ordinary people. Life should be only for the benefits of the rich, as under Putin life is only for the benefits of the oligarchs.
And the rich, and the oligarchs hate "the people." They hate humanities -- that's why they disappeared from U.S. schools in the same way so many Russian intellectuals, poets, and writers disappeared.
We're witnessing a mass vulgarity.
What a tide, an onslaught Heather yet valiantly notes, chronicles, details -- as if her decency, and that of -- what? how many others? -- might make it a contest.
I’ve never seen more conspiracy theory wrists than in a zoo. By the way, you might wanna listen to the leader of Japan, who said it’s not worthy to respond to conspiracy, theories or hypotheticals. But you guys are to 31% approval rate you just keep doing it and digging yourself more of a hole
Hey Bob, this purchaser of Oompa Loompa merch was over on Robert Reich's Substack. He no doubt has all the stuff that the orange conman sells. He's messed up in his head with the lies of Don-old. He spreads them like a virus.
It's sad. Can't get angry with cult mentality. Just have to see the name and read on by to the next entry. He'll probably go to other substacks too.
Phil, our esteemed commenter Bill Katz has "conversed" with this subject and vouches for him as a "real person". I'm certain that Bill Katz is a real person; my "relationship" here on Substack is that I will not comment nor engage with him.
How can you tell if it's an AI bot? I guess if it isn't sentient maybe it isn't sad just disturbing. Maybe Rick the p***k is an AI bot so thinking that it's a person is a mistake on my part.
Many women in the past several decades have approached the fat orange guy as if it were human -- only to learn it's nothing more than another fat, make-up-caked reptilian predator/rapist.
Many banks have dealt with it as if it were a business interest -- only to learn it's a guaranteed thief, fraud, grifter, con man.
Many foreign leaders have met with the sleazy, oozing sludge as if it were an official elected by the American people -- only to learn it's long been a gold rain appendage to Putin and his murderous cronies and Eastern Orthodox bearded, long-skirted, gold-and-other-bejeweled-clanking, murder-&-hatred-incanting priests.
Many voters -- tens of millions -- have voted for their reality TV-addicted, American-school "educated," and standardized-test-dehumanized, only to learn: nothing.
In the words of Jay Kuo, you’re peeing in the cheerios again, Phil. How about pitching in instead of shooting us in the foot. We need you in the fight.
Thank you Dr. Richardson. I hear concerns regarding the Project 2025, SAVE ACT and the possibility that it could become a vehicle restricting women's voting rights? Appears it stipulates that only a birth certificate or a US passport will be considered acceptable for voting ID. For women who have legally taken their husband's last name a birth certificate will not be a match with current legal name. Not all have a US passport. This could disenfranchise a large number of female voters if true. I would appreciate if you would investigate and discuss should these concerns be legitimate.
The utter abdication of the GOP of all their power and responsibilities is, to me, the most depressing part of this.
I have suspected that Elon Musk is in the treasury disemboweling USAID, medicare, medicaid, social security, the dept of Education right now as a scare tactic to get the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling because all of the fuddling around and cutting that he does, is not going to get them the kind of tax breaks that he wants himself and his fellow non-tax paying billionaires to have.
Angus King is not a Republican. Like Bernie, he's an Independent, who aligns with the Dems. Please do not confuse him with Susan Collins.
Pulling from his speech he said, '"The government of the United States is not a private company. It is (currently) fundamentally at odds with how this system is supposed to work.”
Having worked in the private sector for over 100 insurance companies and banks as well as dozens of other businesses, EVERY single company takes security of their employees, clients and data seriously. Even when all of the computers were air-gapped, security was stressed. Many large companies, outsource their credit card processing because they know these companies can secure their personal information better and they don't want the liability that comes with a data breach.
And every President and Congress has done the same thing -- until now.
It is shocking that NONE of the Fortune 1000 companies are speaking out against Trump and Musk. If they are, their voices are being drowned out by the corporate media. Oddly enough, it's Rupert Murdoch's WSJ that has been the most vocal opponent of Musk and Trump.
We need to keep calling and emailing our Senators and Congressmen.
Dr. Richardson is fortunate to be represented by Angus King. And I proudly shout, 'That's my Senator!" Sadly, our other Senator is Susan Collins.
Susan Collins is a Republican flunky who lip synced modest sentiments when she co-endorsed the right-wing Supremes who then demolished RvW, among other things.
Frank, nicely put, lip synced, indeed, listening to her, I wonder if she has a brain at all.
She, of the "he's learned his lesson" explanation for her decision not to convict Trump at his second impeachment.
Susan Collins is "very concerned" about what she's hearing that DOGE is doing.
Find the YouTube video of Susan Collins being concerned--sad and funny
Aww c'mon, give her some credit. She was "concerned" after all.
Gary, You make a good point. We've been calling Congress (and in my case, also my Governor JB Pritzker, and Attny General Kwame Raoul) but perhaps we SHOULD start calling major corporations as well--while NOT giving up on calling the elected officials.
Great idea! People are flocking to Costco and turning their backs on Target. It's time we shop with our conscience by researching the companies before we shop. I am not renewing my Prime membership this year and try to thrift whenever possible.
The one thing the corporations understand is money and they won't do well if they need the customers who are shopping elsewhere. Not all people can forgo Amazon, for example, because they do not have discretionary income or they live in a place, likely rural, where they cannot easily get what they need. The people who really fry me are those that I know could afford to shop elsewhere, but buy from Amazon because it is convenient.
Check out Goods Unite Us!
It lists hundreds businesses/corporations and their political affiliations in an easy to access app.
And where were the German industrialist in the 1930s?
Asking for a friend
Well, gale, we know where they were: aiding and abetting.
gale watts, this (gifted) link to an Atlantic article tells the tale of one German industrialist in the 1930's:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/hitler-oligarchs-hugenberg-nazi/681584/?gift=K61-d0uf936y6WnbG9pzPhgLr2km3OD3DinTWdhEw_A&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Gale, I ran across a book, THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY, a while back by chance. I decided to download the sample on Kindle, thinking it was about the United States. It was about Germeny in the 1930. The similarities between hitler rise to power and what is happenning with trump/musk/republican party is far beyond frightening
With Hitler, many of them
We used to have Senator Bob Casey. To our shame we lost him to an oligarch
It does not matter what party Mr King is affiliated with, he spoke the truth and the Repubnazis confirmed Vought anyway. They are all just sitting back waiting to see what their share of the loot is going to be. Assholes!
Today's republican politicians will go down in history as the villains who helped destroy this country. I am living in a state of disbelief and outrage at their complicity with what Trump is doing.
They are evil.
It may not matter to you, but if I were Senator King, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was a Republican. Also, his political affiliation, or lack thereof, is a part of the historical record, so we should keep to the facts and the truth and not casually assign a party to anyone.
Thank you, Betsy Smith, for that extremely important message. I am so thankful for Senator Angus King, and I do not understand how anyone could not heed his word and vote as he did.
Thanks for pointing that out. I have changed my comment.
Senator King took his Republican colleagues to task because of their willingness to overlook the Trump administration’s attack on the U.S. Constitution.
In this comment, I’m taking my scientific colleagues to task for our collective willingness to overlook our community's Trump-enabling disregard for science.
Right now—literally at this moment—that essential structural component of our social system is under a direct and consequential assault, not on a particular step in the scientific method, but on the essential foundation of the practice itself.
To the people reading who have a science degree, and who are criticizing Republican politicians while ignoring this message, then I consider that evidence in support of the idea that you are doing what they are doing.
Here’s what to do instead. Do what hundreds have done. Read my simple logic. And then do what only a handful of people have bothered to do. Challenge my simple logic with an open minded willingness to challenge your own implicit assumptions.
I apologize for going after scientists, but I consider you to be my community. We are no worse than other communities, but for the sake of democracy and freedom, let’s be better. Let’s stop being part of the collective chorus of “do as say and not as I do” messages.
Here’s the link to my fee-free newsletter that I hope a few of you will read: https://substack.com/home/post/p-156539511
Thank you James. I will share this link.
I live with a scientist and among scientists, none of whom support Trump or what is going on. It is shocking. I also know people who have been in clinical trials for cancer and are concerned that this has come to an end. When making things hard means killing people, then if people accept that they are missing the point of having a government.
James, thank you for this post. I am not a scientist, but I read a lot of science. My book right now is Into the Unknown about the cosmos. I will read your substack a little later as I have just up and have not had breakfast. Good idea too to share your link.
Very interesting, James. I look forward to reading this A few times to comprehend better. Thank you
Thank you for doing that, Linda.
There's no chance to confuse Angus King, a real decent, honorable and incorruptible with a strong backbone senator with the hypocrite Susan Collins, but thanks for the warning anyway Betsy.
I have always had the highest regard for Angus King. My respect for Susan Collins' independence has been eroding and her statement substantiating her vote for Russell Voght has put her in the trash:
“When I am evaluating cabinet nominees, I base my support on whether the person is qualified for the job, not on whether I agree with all of their positions,” Collins said in a statement. “I have applied that standard to nominations from both Republican and Democratic Presidents and I believe that Presidents are entitled to broad discretion when selecting cabinet secretaries.”
Zero capacity to judge who is qualified for the job....
I wrote her in 2017, when Trump had nominated a white supremacist evangelical judge from Tennessee. I told her his outspoken views were indicative of a person of low character.
She said that character doesn't matter only qualifications. I wish I'd kept that letter.
Plus when she voted for Kavanaugh, she gave a rambling incoherent speech and that's when she lost many of his forever.
ZERO.
For sure. In fact, Susan Collins has shown time and again she is willing to roll with the Republican Team regardless of the consequences. Afterward, she’ll say things like “Kavanaugh assured me he would uphold precedent. He misled me to believe he would not upend Roe vs Wade.”
The people of Maine should have voted her out long ago. She followed several female Senators who were committed to governing and checking the power of presidents. She has no backbone or concern for the well-being of Maine citizens or the Constitution of the United States. To wit, she’s just another anti-government fraud from a wealthy family.
She came very close to getting ousted in 2020. If it wasn't for Leonard Leo brining in the Republican billionaires she would have gotten beat.
She used to be very supportive of Mainers especially women and underprivileged. But now, she only supports the oligarchs.
To wit, she is just one more disgraceful R who has surrendered to an immoral man and his sycophants.
I’m confused—where did the poster to whom you responded say King was a Republican? In any case, King’s speech was right on the money.
She corrected her comment.
Ah. Guess I didn’t see the original.
I think they used the phrase "Republican colleagues."
Yes, he did, meaning colleagues across the aisle or in the same room, not fellow party members. I believe that reference was misunderstood by some people, but I expect they understand now.
Edited/corrected from original as described in later responses
Betsy - why would anyone confuse Angus King with "concerned" Susan Collins? He, like Bernie, has been forthright regarding his statements.
Betsy, it would be hard to confuse anyone with all talk, no walk, I have concerns, Susie Q. I can't even stand the sound of her vacuous voice.
And as far as I can tell, Sanders did not participate in the Democratic Vote No On Vought talkathon. When I phoned to ask, his staffers said "We cannot comment on that."
Susan Collins. What self serving twit. You have my sympathies. But at least you have Senator King
King says the right kinds of things but here is the thing I think about: Taking An Oath... of any kind. It is a tactical endeavor in cultures to indicate loyalty, membership and obedience to a recognizable and agreed upon social construct. In our case, what is or should be recognizable is that our nation's construct is LAW(s). Oaths and vows are fictional but we give them meaning because we trust that the system will be beneficial to us. The preamble says it all. It ends with "And To Our Posterity"...our kids, our grandkids and on and on into the future.
I joined the USMC, pledged the oath at age 18 and I bet, no, I guarantee, that I had never come across the idea of an oath, I did not know what it ment, but I did the oath with my right hand raised. At age 22, I vowed to a standard wedding vow, you know "Till Death do us part" stuff. Now at age 77, I finally get it. Now I am proud that I am a Veteran, I am proud that I have been married to the same woman for 52 years and we are both old now with our posterity. This isn't about me. It is about us. In our society. Vows and Oaths mean very little, even to those who want them to be important. Those things we are supposed to care about and make important no longer are. Money/wealth is more important, that invisible God and his so-called son, Jesus along with christian religions is more important, dishonesty, lies and deciets are now a necessity. Our governments, even in their mediocrity, were trying to fulfill their responsibility to the constitution. That is, doing what is worth trying to make better or as the preamble says, make a More Perfect Union. Power and control now is more important and wealth is the engine. Laws enacted to create stability in our society are perceived to be broken so the baby goes out with the bathwater. The Outlaw class has been given a chance to emerge into the public realm, given respectability. throwing the whole system under the bus is okay. The threat of the enforcement of laws doesn't frighten too many of us now, especially if you are wealthy. So oaths to protect the constitution are irrelevant. Not to me but 70 million plus are ready to throw it all away...and they are just fu*king happy to do it.
Not wanting to ascribe to the millions of Cult members more thoughtfulness than they deserve, I'm guessing that the vast majority of them have no more idea of the importance of an oath or a vow than you did in your youth. I'm not sure how to open any minds to what they are so casually discarding, but again, I'm not sure that they are actually happy to throw our democracy in the trash. I think it's more that they don't see how our democracy affects their lives.
Betsy, Thank you for sharing that perspective. It is really hard to understand how anyone grown, and in that kind of a position could be blind to the meaning of the oath, their purpose, and their responsibilities. I do understand that a lot of people rote words in some situations, and sometimes comprehend later in life, or not, but If someone is in our government or in any office, I think there should be means of being sure they understand what the Old means, and that they will uphold it.
Yes, cult is a word to ascribe to some of these folks. It used to be that the Democratic party was the one with a "Big Tent". Where a whole diverse group of citizens had collected for political purposes. Repgs now resemble that trope more than dems. Dems are stuck being the minority that thinks that understanding is essential to do stuff like oath taking and vows are meaningful. So now there are wealthy billionaires occupying the office and wanting to tear it all apart to create an oligarchy. There are hardcore ideological conservatives wanting to "shrink government". There are true cult groups like christian nationalists with plans for a theocracy to replace our republic, and then we have "freedom lovers" of all sorts. There's overt misogynists, and racists wanting women and people of color to accept their subservient place in society. A big tent indeed.
But using oaths to firm up citizens' responsibilities and loyalties just doesn't have the gravitas that is intended when the population is uninformed. To understand you have to be informed, thoughtful, civilized, friendly, generous, educated, and considerate. You have to be a fully developed ADULT. In my own life, I was not that, not an adult. So it takes one to know one. The word Democracy is overused I think. Everybody (We The People) gets a chance to determine how society develops. But the Framers didn't trust most of the population to be qualified. They knew a dumbed down population wouldn't make good decisions. They understood how fragile a pure democracy could be. they were right. I am not proposing a limited democracy, I am proposing that every citizen have a requirement to be informed and responsible. How that happens, I don't know. As congresswoman Ilhan Omar pointed out a few years ago, "It's all about the Benjamins". Money is more important than laws.
Angus King is not a Republican. He's an independent aligned with the Democrats, like Bernie Sanders.
By definition, Republicans -- with vanishingly rare exceptions -- lack courage and are without principles. They only have interests. They are waiting to divvy up the spoils with Musk when his coup d'etat has been consolidated and confirmed. I hope they appreciate the personal risk they will face sooner or later. As I recall Hitler took his own life rather than face the music.
Chump will never have the “courage” that Hitler had. His MAGAts will never see him as the problem without Ike. I hope I live long enough to see him wind up like Mussolini. As muskrat said, this is our chance, we’ll never have another one. So folks, it’s now or never. Time to see them for the reconstituted Nazis that they are proud to emulate. And, is there a democrat that can emulate Angus King…
Jaimie Raskin, a Rep. from MD.
Just to clarify--Jamie Raskin is a Democrat--a Representative--from Maryland. It is a bit misleading to describe him as simply a "Rep." He is much to smart and caring to ever fall into that other category.
Hooray for Jamie Raskin!
As a DC native, I remember that there are still a few old-fashioned lampposts located here and there around town, pretty easy to throw a rope over, just tall enough that even Musk's nose won't touch the sidewalk.
On the other hand, he might just decide to skip out to Mars one of these days. If his rocket doesn't blow up again.
Just don't use the lampposts in Philadelphia as they're all greased up and ready for the post SuperBowl celebratory climbings.
I would prefer to see him end up like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (except not having Trump commutation of his 14-year prison sentence).
Yes, hopefully, like Mussolini. I don't know if i will live long enough as I am an old woman. Keep hoping that someone will channel the Praetorian Guard. Of course, death star has announced that if he is assassinated, Iran will be obliterated. So someone who wants that to happen might be tempted.
If we could get rid of musk it'd be much easier to deal with this coup; therein lies the rub.
David, methinks you may not be recognizing the many threats Republicans face if they do not stay in line, not just threats of being primaried by candidates (like J D Vance) backed by various Republican billionaire donors (e.g.- Musk, Thiele, Koch Bros, etc), but actual physical threats by tRump’s goons to themselves or their families and children and relatives. tRump is basically a mobster bent on revenge for the many hurts he imagines himself having suffered.
John, it is never easy to admit error, but it is the first step on the long -- even dangerous -- road to doing the right thing.
Liz Cheney stuck her neck out, as did Adam Kinzinger. I am not aware that either is in hiding.
It is one thing to be a corrupt, racist, misogynist, xenophobic, gun-loving, planet-hating sleaze-ball politician, quite another to acquiesce in the destruction of our defective yet still-barely-functioning democracy and the US Constitution all Senators and Representatives have sworn to uphold.
The situation is serious and our responses to it need to be serious. There is nowhere to hide. Personal courage is a requirement for public office these days.
Beautifully stated. Thank you, David, for setting down what many of us are thinking.
While I understand the threats against their lives, I don’t understand the threats about being challenged in a primary. Who would want a job when it is merely doing the work of the musk ox and destroying the Constitution? What kind of work is that and why fight for it. Besides, in two (or more) years, it might be a badge of honor to have stood up to these ransackers. Hopefully, it will be a badge of honor by next week!
Remember, Trump is backed by Musk, who happens to be the wealthiest man on the planet. Who's to say the cowardly Republicans aren't being monetarily bought off? Shut up, and I'll give you a lot of money. Say something, and you'll be frozen out for life! It's not a stretch of the imagination to see that happening.
Tracy: Badges? Badges? They don't want no stinkin' badges! They're after the gold, hoping it hasn't already gone with the wind.
It may be that most GOP Senators and Representatives are now true believers. Their party and their squalid progression from Reaganism to Trumpishness over the past 40+ years makes me think that they really believe they are on to something now, that Elon Musk will be the secret ingredient in their recipe for disaster.
Good comment John. To intimidate, as done intentionally by some (call it) entity, be it a person, "the mob", whatever.., is one thing. But, to 'feel' intimidated by something perceived as a threat becomes fear. For example, will your new car get "keyed" (scratched) by someone(?) if you drive around with a Stop DOGE decal on the window? That's intimidation, and it comes from this caustic, retribution-themed political environment we have fallen into. Will an Oath-Keeper see that decal and 'teach you a lesson'? That's fear. If we don't put a stop to this Trump/Musk/DOGE insanity pretty quickly, we'll need to change ThePledge to read: One nation, Under Fear, with retribution for all.
And, forget the rest.
Two inches either way at a Pennsylvania rally and we would have this problem.
Well, maybe a slightly different problem.
Very well said and true. This episode of our democracy experiment will not end peacefully as a result I'm afraid.
Sorry. I have changed my comment to reflect this new understanding. I misread.
Linda, since Substack has removed the "edited" note, I will often use a banner **edited**. It helps.
"Among the more disturbing conclusions she [Hannah Arendt] reached were those about Eichmann himself: “Despite all the efforts of the prosecution, everybody could see that this man was not a ‘monster,’ but it was difficult indeed not to suspect that he was a clown.” He was not the incarnation of evil, she wrote; he was “thoughtless,” unable to reflect on the fact that what he was doing was wrong. “The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak [in anything but clichés] was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else.”
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/marchapril/feature/the-trial-hannah-arendt
"It cannot be forgotten in any discussion of Adolf Eichmann’s criminality that he relied on a staff of dedicated Nazis in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the center of the Third Reich’s terror apparatus, to carry out the monstrous directives of Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Heinrich Müller. Overshadowed by Eichmann himself, most of these men have escaped the attention of the American public. They include Theodor Dannecker (1913-1945), Dieter Wisliceny (1911-1948), Franz Novak (1913-1983), Rolf Günther (1913-1945), and Alois Brunner (1912- c. 2010). Slightly younger than Eichmann—none of them had reached the age of 35 when World War II ended—they exhibited a terrifying combination of attention to detail and steadfast commitment to the core ideas of Nazism."
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/organizing-genocide-theodor-dannecker-eichmanns-deportation-specialist
I wonder whether Musk's young employees have any ideological commitment at all. In campaigning for causes and candidates, I have encountered something it is hard for me to put a word on. Perhaps a frivolous nihilism. In this case, perhaps opportunists at the center of power romanticizing themselves as rebels.
Interesting train of thought, lin• I believe you're in the right ballpark with "nihilism" as being their ideological standard. As I started to think more on this critically, I couldn't come up with anything more descriptive that "romanticizing themselves as rebels".
My mind turned to outlaw motorcycle gangs (speaking of nihilists who are in search of a brotherhood) as I was poking about my brains for a comparison. Not the criminal enterprise ones (Hells Angels, Mongols, Outlaws, Banditos) but the next level down of Gypsy Jokers, Free Souls, Brother Speed, and Devils Disciples. With bikers that I've come into contact with, their nihilism isn't frivolous, but their commitment to criminal conduct of all forms as expressing their "rebelliousness" is where they are similar.
lin•, I think you're onto something, although I analyze it slightly differently, and I'll ask you indulgence to follow my train of thought. Here goes:
If I'm not mistaken, Elon's little band of digital vandals are all boys. This would be a reflection of Elon's misogyny-adjacent view that females of the species are meant to be grateful vessels for the gestation of his super-deluxe, extra-special sperm, and not the important work of developing technology.
In my experience (acknowledging exceptions to every rule), women tend to be omnibus thinkers. That is, at any given moment, a woman may be mentally processing topics from multiple segments of her life. By contrast, men tend to be compartmental thinkers. That is, a man's brain is hard-wired to focus on whatever is in front of him, to the exclusion of whatever other matters exist in his life.
My experience working with and observing young men who are "computer geniuses" bears this out. Staring at a screen and tapping on a keyboard is better than sex for them. When working on a computer project, they are transported into a euphoric trance-like state that lingers even between sessions at the keyboard.
All that is to say that these boys may have opinions*, but those opinions don't motivate them to do what they're doing. Several of Musk's crew are experienced hackers. They achieve euphoria by finding stuff to break and breaking it. For them, throwing rocks and hearing the sound of shattered glass is its own reward.
To assume they view themselves as warriors is to give them credit for a nonexistent morality. Nihilism requires 360-degree thought in order to reach the conclusion that nothing matters. Computer hackers are slightly different. Although nothing else matters to them, it's because they've never given any thought to anything but breaking and entering.
*Marko Elez, who resigned from DOGE, does have obnoxious opinions, but there's no evidence to suggest these opinions motivated him to be one of Musk's vandals.
Agree. To hackers such as the DODGY [purposeful spelling to tap into British slang meaning dishonest and destructive] young men, these government computers are grand puzzles that they can solve and then later, even better to them, have complete control or destroy it after the puzzle solution.
Lin.., you're first paragraph causes me to think of Christi Noem, for some strange reason. She, being 'the face' of ICE, riding into town on a horse, wearing that ranch-wagon hat, brown (fake) haircurls flowing down over her enlarged chest (flak-vest), accompanied by her death squad(s). Such a sweetheart. Yo!! Yerrr unner arrest.., cuff em!
Is there a way to download these? Especially the one from .gov, which likely will be taken down very soon? All I know to do is copy and paste the entire article. There must be a better way. Thanks in advance.
" As I recall Hitler took his own life rather than face the music."
I have to admit. I have fantasized about Trump and Musk doing the same thing David.
I keep hoping that Elon will drive to his next agency demolition in one of his cars equipped with the explode or autonomous-drive-into-a-tractor-trailer-truck options.
Probably wants to abolish Restatement of Torts 402 A strict liability.
DOJ just decided it will no longer pursue Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) that requires individuals and entities to register with the Department of Justice (DOJ) if they work on behalf of a fothe reign entity in the US. FARA was enacted in 1938. Kushner, Trup acted as agents for Saudi...even took over the PGA. Trump properties in Saudi, Oman, etc.
IMHO the Musk interference in the elections should be actionable under state law.
Musk is in litigation with the NLRB, alleging that it is unconstitutional and Trump's DOJ has declined to defend the agency.
I always thought some USAID employees were CIA operatives. Same in the state department. Here in Baghdad By the Sea we had many businesses tht were CIA fronts, run out of the North South Center at the University of Miami.
Hey Gary, never too late to turn over a new leaf, even for people who have never done a selfless thing in their lives. But I would be disappointed to not see them rotting in a prison cell, maybe the one west of Pueblo and south of Canon City, CO.
New leaf? I've been asking talking heads to interview Mike Turner.
Elon Musk’s Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink’s Contracts in Ukraine.
"The Lever reported Tuesday that USAID’s inspector general was in the process of investigating its own public-private partnership between Musk’s Starlink and the Ukrainian government at the time that the billionaire’s DOGE crippled the agency. Publicly available information about that probe is still online. An announcement from last May reads: “The USAID Office of Inspector General, Inspections and Evaluations Division, is initiating an inspection of USAID’s oversight of Starlink satellite terminals provided to the Government of Ukraine. Our objectives are to determine how (1) the Government of Ukraine used the USAID-provided Starlink terminals, and (2) USAID monitored the Government of Ukraine’s use of USAID-provided Starlink terminals.”
"Musk has called the agency “evil” and a “criminal organization,” though the fact that USAID was investigating the Starlink activities may suggest ulterior motivations for the billionaire’s vitriol. It’s unclear what the Starlink probe’s status is right now."
Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio was removed from his position atop the powerful House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, telling CBS News that House Speaker Mike Johnson fired him, citing "concerns from Mar-a-Lago."
Also interview other House Repunlicans like Brianb Fitzpatrick, and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, like my rep, Elvira Salazar.
Even better would be to have him occupy Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's old cell at the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution, and have him also serve out the rest of the sentence he commuted for the ex-convict, ex-Illinois Governor in addition to at least a similar 14 year sentence Blagojevich was serving.
Haven't we all?
Hitler took his entire nation on a Valhalla plunge, leaving millions dead in their wake.
Yes he did, Frank. I just hope Americans today are at least dimly aware of the dynamics of that failed experiment and how Europe's and our slow response to what was happening in Germany, despite Hitler's making no secret of his intentions while spewing big, attention-getting lies, was essential to his initial success at realizing his revolting dreams.
If the Democrats don't get on a war footing soon and if the less evil 2 of the 6 right-wing and/or corrupt SCOTUS judges fail to see the danger in Trump (a known liar and imbecile) deferring to Musk (arguably an evil genius), then this will degenerate into war one way or another with possible consequences greatly exceeding WW2 (given how many of the world's nukes are still on standby).
I am also astounded at how rarely the MSM is permitting the expression "coup d'etat" to appear in news articles or even reader comments. Not one headline even in the NYT as far as I know.
I worked 10 years in a high tech company. While none of the programmers were traitors, nevertheless not much is more fun than a programming challenge. And if you’re 20 years old, you’ll live forever and the future is ahead, so why consider the long-term implications of what you’re doing, if you’re even able to do so at that age.
David... "Coup d'etat"???? C'mon dude..NOBODY knows WTF that IS..., or MEANS..., let alone IS. Hahahahhaaa.., is that some kind of acronym?? Why put it in the headlines? Waste of space. We want to know what kind of thong Blake Lively wears.., ferr crissakes! David, you and I need a break.
This is a reason not to raise the debt ceiling. I suspect their plan is to steal the money from the Treasury and bankrupt the country. Either outright stealing or losing it when the US buys crypto.
The Debt Ceiling is on the way to becoming dead letter law. Trump's Treasury Secretary will do anything Elon Musk tells him to. And Musk is well on this way to wrecking the federal government and the American economy along with it. He will lead it in to bankruptcy and it will not be able to borrow its way out ceiling or no ceiling. We can expect it will stiff its largest customer first...The Social Security Administration. Trump has direct control of all federal spending through Musk and will short circuit all laws in using it.
I'm checking my bank account several times a day watching for my Social Security deposit. I've not heard anyone say they've NOT received theirs. If that should happen, there'll be hell to pay. Certainly there will be many senior voices screaming.
It's the one thing that could unite the entire country, no matter WHICH party anyone's affiliated with..
See my suggestion that I made about cutting out the middleman, the US Government & depositing our taxes directly into the bank accounts of billionaires! It's grotesque sarcasm at its worst but I think it gets the point across.
It's one of the concepts that is motivating me NOT to submit my federal taxes... BUT lotsa ramifications to consider..
Freud talked about ID,Ego and Super Ego..am suggesting a refresher course. The hole subject which does equate to the whole bears connection to Rabbit Holes -which whole sections fall into , half of America is giving it a liberal concept -but getting duped/taken for a ride/fooled …well many ,if not most ,have been there/done that .The costs can be devastating. Thus a system of checks and balances is needed.
And here we are..our checks and balance system is being upended…
Truth and Facts…
Right and Wrongs..
Rich and Poor
Major issues are maneuvered ,manipulated and J.Q. Public subject to dis/misinformation.
Repeatedly we ‘hear’ concepts…never a factual accounting..lots of news currently on fraud and abuse but no evidence NONE…NADA
Repeatedly we see lips service the concepts but no accountability for “family threatened if they don’t “ is just one of those avenues, bribes/lies mere portions -some of the others.
Repeatedly we see laws broken and the game of delay ,deny ,and disruption distract and destroy even the rule of law.
Repeatedly we saw, read history, and improved the world to now see it overthrown by dictators …autocracy on the gain. “Wait till the next pandemic hits”? The last one wasn’t proof positive how ego works? ( thanks, Frank great example).
If you can’t see the ‘COUP’ happening ..you’re in the Kult.
Yes…REPEATEDLY history…repeats itself.
Roll up your sleeves. Buckle up. Get yer big pants on.
💙🫶
But.., so far.., the White Right people have not had to suffer being taken out of their mobil-homes, condo's, apartments, du-plex's, townhomes, 4 bedrom/3 car garage gated communities.., etc. So, no problem. Huh? Strangely enough, I've not seen that happening to any extremely dark-skinned (black.., not Kamala Harris black) people either. Just people who look like they crawled over the border. So, is there some kind of Trumpian strategy at work here. Like, let's not alienate the "black" population, and we can pull this off? And, watch they will pull this off. Once they pull it off, then watch who gets thrown under the bus. Ask Mandella.
Is t odd that Americans aren’t up in arms over Trump pa 750$ in tax and Musk paying 0. And yet they voted for him. . That should be the news…. and when the groceries, cost of living is still horrendous… maybe then they will wake up!
Far too many are low-info voters and many do not follow politics at ALL. Many others are simply frustrated (deservedly so) and looking for a literal "strong man" to bail them out. When you see the last category interviewed outside a trump rally, you notice NONE of the can point to any specific thing he has actually done for them to "make things so great". They can only repeat the same common phrases they hear out of the orange mouth, which is also the exact same verbiage repeated ad nauseum by faux. And if you ask one "so, where IS the sky falling?" they cannot give a straight answer. So, no, they will not know about the tax payments. But the current musk disruption to everything federal right now offers the opportunity for almost every one of us to feel "hit" on a personal level by at least one action. EX: the school teacher who just heard that the Dept of Education might be eliminated. (News to her..). She is scared to lose her job and she is MAD AS HELL AT TRUMP. THIS is the kind of situation we need to take advantage of in order to capture people's attention. (The possibilities re Social Security alone, could unite us all!)
Likely most Americans do not know this. Not the 77+ mil that voted for Trump or the 93 mil eligible voters who stayed home. Or else the super wealthy who also do not pay taxes voted for them because they would support such policies.
If I were American, I’d consider a Federal Tax Strike. If enough participate, it will crush the pretentions of the dictatorship. Send your taxes to your states.
I'm thinking the same but trying to determine what the ramifications might be for any individual about to do this..
I was thinking more that the Blue States should gather the federal and state taxes and run their own mini government, but Ruth Ben-Ghiat points out that dividing our country serves Putin's interests of destroying the US. Our best bet to keep Putin at bay is still to fight for our government to be responsive to the people. However, since about 70% of GDP comes from Biden voting counties, perhaps they should join and form a United blue States of America coalition.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/
Those who live in blue states and don't want to be a part of it, can move to red states and vice versa. However, that means developing computer systems that Musk and his DOGE minions cannot access.
I’m afraid she’s 18 years too late. The country started to split when the Tea Party emerged and when the future tech oligarchs managed to persuade people and politicians that they had everyone’s freedom at heart when they resisted regulations. You are seeing the consequences of those events.
Sophie, my mom always says only death is final. If you are alive one can still learn and figure out how to resist!
Not so sure this is all a distraction tactic -- they want to own the world. But inherently dictators don't share the stage. And with Elon on the cover of Time sitting in the presidential chair -- well, let's watch the fight from here.
Shouldn't Trump be put under arrest for breaking into US buildings and agencies? If not Federal Police, have local police. Either State, municipal or district. If a random person walked in off the street, would they not be arrested? Musk should be put in a cell. Immediately!
Musk should be deported back to South African in shackles as a criminal and let them impound his money. After his USAID moves I am sure he will be really popular with his original government.
In fact, I am for a campaign encouraging Billionaires in the US to go elsewhere if they don't want to pay taxes. There are plenty of tax shelter countries that they could live in.
And who will do it?
If US citizens themselves don’t resist, it’s all over.
Craven quislings, all. R.I.P. my erstwhile party. 🤢
https://youtu.be/2K-opkJsOEw 💡
Senator King's speech; he reminds me of my fave history teacher in *high school. ⚖️
EDIT: Please pardon my not writing "high school" when I wrote my comment initially. Boarding school was tough for me. Ben Sylvester and three other teachers -- two of whom were fellow Midwesterners and all four alumni of Harvard -- looked out for me, not that I was their equal intellectually but that their crimson hearts exuded charity. I remain thankful to them to this day.
Thank you for that link. This was one of the most moving speeches but obviously there were dead brains in the Senate because it appears no Republicans listened, heard, and understood what he was saying.
They were under orders, and being watched
I used to judge what Vietnamese could tell me by the way they said which way to go, able to tell by looking at their eyes that they couldn't be seen to be helping me, so I would find a way not go the way they were outwardly telling me to go, while trying not to get them in trouble with the people that were watching them.
I felt sort of the same way, watching some of my old party members having trouble being convincing in what they felt they had to say.
Thanks. One of the worst parts of all this, for me, is having even just a small idea of what life is like when people spy on each other for the sake of following Big Brother. Mostly this comes from "1984" - but also from stories I hear like yours. So, I've been calling Senator Tillis, complaining about Musk in the payment system.
When were you visiting Viêt Nam? What an interesting story, Jim. Thank you.
I had thought that Senator Collins would vote with her sibling Senator.
I have exchanged emails with Senator King many times during the past 12 years. He always responds, many times the correspondence is not a form letter either.
Almost all of the Senators I have emailed or written to, have responded, but mostly with form letters.
The other two that also respond with seemingly personal responses are Don Bacon (R-NE) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL). I often disagreed with their responses but at least they took the time.
Susan Collins used to respond, but I think I pissed her off. Plus, I know what she would say anyway. Once in a while she will still send me a form letter.
Several years ago, my wife and I were waiting for our flight to board at the Portland, ME airport. Our first leg was to DC. Also waiting were both of the ME Senators-- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Neither one of them sat down, both of them pacing the waiting area and neither one acknowledged the other with even an eye glance. No idea why they wouldn't talk to each other. Additionally neither of them had any obvious security which was not uncommon. I wonder if that's still the case.
Gary, how times have changed. So much. Remember when sensible people voted for the person, not the party?
As Mainers, back in the day, we Democrats voted for Collins and Snowe because they were reasonable and had the interests of Mainers at heart. We were sad to see Snowe depart. But being a senator (or judge) shouldn't be a life sentence.
We retired, left Maine to be near family. That was before Collins took the turn to the dark side. Before she trusted asswipes to become Extreme Court Justices and now...backing a tool of Putin.
I believe that at one time, those two senators worked together for the good of the people. But I suspect that now....Olympia wouldn't want to be in the same room with the traitor Collins has become.
Bill, for a long time, we had a similar situation in Oregon. Bob Packwood and Mark Hatfield were both Republicans, but worked their tails off for both Oregon and the country. I voted for both of them. I voted for Gordon Smith (R) the first time he ran, and I was impressed that he and Ron Wyden would walk into the Senate chamber together, shake hands, and go to their respective sides of the chamber.
I’m a fellow Oregonian. I remember when Smith and Wyden had town hall meetings together.
Senators Packwood and Hatfield were old school "cooperative" conservatives. The latter was a key Republican 'swing' vote on the Panama Canal treaty. I do not recall Senator Smith. After looking him up, he sounds like an impressive Senator, reminding me of Senator Flake.
Senator Snowe always impressed me as a quintessentially New English class act. Like so many others, she proved that the best U.S. citizens are often among the newest. Her triumphs and her stateliness certainly earned Senator King's high praise as a tough act to follow. He has kept Senator Snowe's quiet, determined gait.
I remember Senator King's first speech on the Senate floor after succeeding Senator Snowe. His tribute to her moved everyone, except those in dire need of a heart implant.
I bumped into Senator Glenn in airports a couple times. Just another passenger getting in line.
It was there at that very airport in July of ‘44 my father died, the beginning of my life waiting to see my father , the AF pilot, and the end for so many others. Most of us struggle to make our world a little better, life goes on, there have been times harder than this for me, but I so appreciate you others, the ‘struggles’/these letters/encouragement/the many stories.
I love a good story.
We are watching one story unfold. Its foundations are classic. Not enough recognize its worth let alone its Lessons …carry on please
WOWerful, Patricia. Uplifting, too. Thank you for making me a better man if only for the few hours.
P.S. EDIT: Patricia, I am sure that you have done your father very proud. I wish He could have been there to see you become the fine woman you sound like me to be and are, I am sure.
I have no use for Susan Collins. She has no real concern for her constituents. She likes being the center of attention while she sits on the fence.
Thank you all: Beryl, Daniel, Jim, Anne, Gary, Bill, Ally, Bern, Patricia, and Jenn. What a wonderful discussion after my insipid comment. Senator King, in my uninformed if not humble opinion, is the statesman of the Senate. He once gave a speech remembering the battle of Gettysburg and the role played by Maine' main man, Joshua Chamberlain, in cutting off a Confederate flanking maneuver.
That speech reminded me of one of my role models in life: Ben Sylvester, my history teacher in ninth and eleventh grades for Ancient Greece, Medieval Britain, and the U.S. Civil War. Like Mr Sylvester, there was no pedantry by Senator King. The Senator simply had so much enthusiasm for the subject that he could not resist taking the opportunity to show us a way rather than prove how smart he is.
With these stories of Senator Snowe and Senator King, the Jeffersonian term of natural aristocrat (aristoi) comes to mind in half a synaptic flash. Thank y'all again for a refreshing set of memories and comments. Here is Senator King's speech from 2013. https://youtu.be/IPqcb03yvQk Please pardon my not writing "high school" when I wrote my comment initially. Boarding school was tough for me.
Ben Sylvester and three other teachers -- two of whom were fellow Midwesterners and all four alumni of Harvard -- looked out for me, not that I was their equal intellectually but that their crimson hearts exuded charity. I remain thankful to them to this day.
The GOP just preens and gets a free lunch. Their heads should all be on pikes and displayed.
This all Game-Of-Thrones with a Mad-King...
We're trying to "Hold the Door" but I fear we are about to be trampled. Where is Jon Snow when you need him? Or for that matter, Jaime Lannister?
Heck, out of all of them, I want Tyrion! He reads and knows things, and knows how to have a good time, too!!
(LOL--shout out to Peter Dinklage! What a phenomenal actor!!)
I have a pint glass that says: "I drink and I know things." Definitely the best actor in the show!
Chris good thing you propose to display their heads and not their hearts because they don't have any.
traitor /trā′tər/
noun
One who betrays one's country, a cause, or a trust, especially one who commits treason. One who violates his allegiance and betrays his country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country. See treason.
traitor (to somebody/something) a person who betrays their friends, their country, etc. by giving away secrets about them, by lying to or about them or by doing other things that will harm them
I believe that DJT mentioned during his Catatonic Presser with the Japanese Prime Minister today, that the DoD is next for Elon's Pirate Wrecking Crew... Let's see how that goes... That will be the Canary in the Coal Mine...
THAT will be the moment that the curtain gets yanked aside and we know how thorough and scripted this all is. The unspeakable damage already done tells me that this is by design BEYOND the wildly reckless shock opener from these assholes. What is being said and done, as policy and intent representing what used to be a lawfully and justly represented great nation, just verified to the watching world that such a truly good idea was fleeting.
I spent fifty years in the U.S. military, minus a sixteen year gap spent as an Alaska State Trooper and federal court security officer. (I re-enlisted into my Air Guard unit at age 44, because murdering filth attack my country.) Under DoD, my security clearance was no higher than “Secret” — the standard which permits most of the daily function of maintaining our nation’s defense assets. I valued it, and the many fantastic challenges it allowed me to do. It was the best expression of pride and belief in what we ALL had. I was incredibly proud of the bright, energetic and wonderfully capable young people I served with.
I believed in the standards and expectations of conduct that kept it all working. “UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT — FEDERAL INSTALLATION — NO TRESPASSING — UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS SUBJECT TO ARREST — USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED.” Trump sarcastically dismissed that concept in a single stroke, and handed a South African the keys to the treasury and functioning heart of what was our nation. Musk never had any intent to comply with the oath of citizenship he snatched and ran with. That nullifies it — breaking a “deal” ya know. He is still just a predatory, illegal alien… the image next to the definition. Trump dropped his cue-card of the oath of office onto the capitol steps, thought “F*uck THAT!…,” and held out his ring for millions to start kissing. That deal, ‘Take TWO Everybody…!,’ only cost him a shit-load of Chinese-produced hats. Nobody was minding the door. I kept raging at this night:“Where is the goddamn security watch! Stop these f*uckers — they’re inside the wire!”
Musk should have been slapped back down to the bottom of Treasury’s steps, and escorted to deportation like the true, malicious animal he is. Silence, instead. For Christ’s sake, all of you still under DoD — with security creds, weapons systems, procedure check-lists — this old E-8 is wondering how you’re gonna play this. Your commander-in-chief is driving his elected bulldozer backwards. A responsible watch officer needs to hit “SELF DESTRUCT” — smartly — unless you’re all okay with this, and actually calling the shots.
At least don’t let him enable the nukes and turn the keys. Elon’s wunderkinder are back there, right now, selling hacker tokens and playing Wargames.”
Thanks, Dana. There are oaths we take that mean something. Today, we have people who mouth the words but have no freaking idea what an oath means, and who it is sworn to.
Oathbreakers, all.
The canary is dead
Well all be able to smell the gas as DigeBoys dig…
It's going to be, appropriately, an explosive experience.
I learned how not to disarm electrically activated Claymore mines after I had removed the electrical primers from two that my assistant had yanked on the cords and deposited at his feet at Tan An. It was dark and I thought it safer to disable them than to leave them and look for someone better qualified. The EOD guy I found to take them said they were years old and could have easily gone off. I was able to travel solo after another incident with the same dangerously careless individual and refusal to ever again have him travel with me.
I referred to " an explosive experience" metaphorically " and in hope you took it that way. In any case I hope they find a solid lane of defense when they try to seriously mess up with the DOD.
Thanks for your service. 🫡
No worries, that is how I took it. The EOD guys and Medics were some of my favorite heroes, especially one Conscientious Objector who would never want a weapon, yet run through fire so intense that the infantry guys were shooting blind, not sticking their heads up enough to see what they were shooting at. It only took one mission with him coming to their aid under such fire to earn their undying respect and appreciation.
There's a lot of waste there (in the DoD), but Elon will be stepping on big toes of he slows down that money stream.
Including His.... Let's see what Elon's Raiders 'Find'... Let's see the Institutional Reaction... The Senior DoD Leadership is Sworn to Defend-The-Constitution-Against-All-Enemies-Foreign-And-Domestic... Remember there was DoD Pushback against DJT 1.0 desire to shoot Demonstrators in Washington DC ... Mark Esper was DoD SecDef back then... Mark Milley was JCS then as well... Now DJT 2.0 wants to try them both for traitors... BTW: The DoD is the largest Employer in the Country... Will Elon 'Find' enough waste to fund his massive Tax-Cut?
Bonny, I agree!! As i was reading Heather's letter and the message that Sen. King was delivering to the Reublicans in congress, I thought, "Surely, they will not vote to confirm a man who has promised to rip the constitution to shreds right before our eyes." Then I read the sentence that said they DID, despite listening to all the truths that Sen. King tried to remind them of. They are as despicable as Trump,Musk,and Vought.😝
Unbelievable!!
They seem not to grasp that release of private information will affect them and their family members too.
A point that I have made to the many Dem and GOP officials I have called. I tell them that Musk is putting them out of a job.
I include that reminder too.
What the MAGAt senators and representatives fail to take into account is that the pendulum WILL swing back in the other direction. They are thinking they can just support Heritage Foundation policies while they are trending and things will be fine. The Heritage Foundation is a terrorist organization, functioning at this point in time, to tear the country apart by tearing the Constitution apart. Ignoring our laws and Constitution to hurt people to get what the white supremacy people want will eventually take them down.
I feel the same way Bonny. After the filibuster in the Senate by the Democrats on Russell Vought’s confirmation, I believe every single Republican voted to confirm him.
It is very disappointing to see a once great political party literally shirting its pants to appease a wouldbe dictator and his henchmen. The Republican Party was founded by men of courage
and Integrity. It is very hard to find a Republican who exhibits those virtues these days.
I think that we're dealing with treason. Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance, i.e., the Constitution. The Republican elected officials (Senators and Congress men and women) are attacking the Constitution and Trump is their weapon.
They only care about two things: 1) protecting their seat in Congress 2) getting more tax cuts for the wealthy. They don't give a damn about us common folk.
They have been lobotomized en masse.
Politics is all about power.
Trump's political power comes from his social media operation - drives discussion, inflames, affects belief, and thus politics.
The fact that the congressional capons willingly gave up their responsibilities to avoid a possible primary from musk and trump shows that they have no spine,no integrity and no honor nor do they have any intention of honoring their oath to protect and defend the constitution . The founders would have tarred and feathered them and run them out of town on a rail if not tried them for treason and hung them.
Agree Bonny. I've been wondering over the past 9 years "who is paying them?" "who is threatening them?" "what is it about the 'cult' that has scrambled their brains so completely that they are unable to listen to people like Angus King and Heather Cox Richardson?" The list of "them" includes all Republicans in all branches of government who continue to vote for this destructive shit show. Protests in the street and phone calls to senators and elected Republicans in the HOR obviously have no effect on how they vote. We MUST make them pay at the ballot box. With every vote they cast, they are violating their oaths to uphold the Constitution. And, as an aside, the physicians among them who have abandoned their doctor jobs in exchange for political theater (I'm talking to you Bill Cassidy and your vote for RFK JR), are violating the Hippocratic Oath you swore to that says "DO NO HARM".
And a despicable demonstration of their sell-out attitudes!
I think the “real ID. “ will be required. It replaces your drivers license. It get it you need your original social security card, original birth certificate and a bill with your current address on it. So, good luck, if you’ve had any incidence in your life that caused you to lose any of these things b
I am so glad that most folks who get married nowadays keep their “original” name…back in ‘67 when, three days after my 18th birthday, I got married, it was traditional to take the husband’s name….and my original, somewhat unusual, name used to be teased about a lot in grade/high school….so switching was OK by me. HOWEVER, some 20 years later (having separated after 7 years…tho’ remaining “family” all the following years) I was about to get married again, so we finally divorced….by this time I DIDN’T want to change my name, but thought it would be really really rude to keep my ex’s name (lol…should have in retrospect!), so went ahead and adopted my new hubby’s name. Well well well…after nearly a decade that union, too, bit the dust & I had an opportunity to, via the divorce proceedings, to alter my last name w/o cost—kinda baked into the process. Yeah, what a pain in the ass it is to do…by then I had a more complicated economic life and changing up ALL my accounts/contacts/etc., was overwhelming so I let it slide, even tho the name no longer “meant” anything to me…could have as easily been “hey you!”. Forward a number of years to try to get a “real ID” and OMG the hoops and documentation for each and every name change that did not match my birth certificate was a teeth-grinding ordeal. Most men have NO clue how this impacts so many women. I am heartened to see most of my nieces keeping their original names…yay on them! That this now, along with all the other hassles associated, impacting potential voter ID laws is beyond galling. Yet another societal/cultural inequality being manifest. Just the paperwork hassle is reason enough to keep one’s original name!!!! [can you tell it still pisses me off?!😡]
I initially tried the double-barreled route - using both my last name and my husband's -- a total source of confusion -- come places had me by one name and some by the other. In my late 40s, when I was about to graduate from Law School - I wanted my original name on my diploma -- it was a tedious and expensive process getting my name back -- I had to file with the court - publish in various papers AND even get my husband's 'permission'! But I'm so glad I did -- it's the name that fits me.
Barbara, You have adduced many of the reasons I have preached to women residents I taught in medical school to keep their maiden names, especially if they are the names on their professional degrees (MD, PhD, etc) so they DON’T have to go through the ordeals you experienced. While my wife took my name, both of my daughters have kept their birth names despite my never having discussed the issue with them. I think it has become increasingly clear that if we truly believe in equal rights, it only makes sense to keep your own name despite some hassles which may arise with picking up one’s own kids from school!
It’s amazing that it’s even an issue here in the 21st century; I think women along with most men, have NO idea what name changes entail. I married at 33 and couldn’t conceive of no longer being that person.
My sister kept her maiden name for professional reasons.
An engineer at the aerospace company I worked at did the opposite, taking his wife's last name. I'd rather see partner names if both are to be used. Perhaps chosen or professional name if just one (as the Screen Actor's Guild, and Popes seems to do).
P.S. It always bugged me that I could never find Dot Tucker's history for lack of knowing her maiden name. She was the first woman that really impressed me as someone who could do unusual things better than so many men I had been impressed by. She had been a WASP pilot as I found out when I met her as an 11 year old fan of all things about military aircraft. I couldn't name a WWII military aircraft that she hadn't flown, and imagined her as one of the already licensed pilots that knew more than the military trainers that initially judged her skills.
I, as a man that got married in 1965, never understood the reason or logic for the wife to adopt the husband's last name. It was of saying, this woman is mine, my property?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: The "institution of marriage" is a religious construct that originated in patriarchies of the Global East, where women were and in many cultures, still are the property of men. Even though religions have split off into myriad branches, including countless "christian" branches, all still cling to the patriarchies on which they were founded.
Thanks for your input Dale
Barbara,
Same, I am with you as are a LOT of women. The younger generation figured it out (for the most part). Both my girls kept their maiden name and it’s a doozy!
I had a similar experience. As a young woman in 1976, I took my husband's name. Fast forward 32 years to a divorce, and kept that married name for another 11 years. As I approached remarriage, I wasn't taking my ex's last name into a new union, nor did I want my new husband's name. So I made the change back to the name I was born with. What a pain!! New driver's lice, passport, etc. I tell all women, Don't change your name! It's who you are, and so costly to reclaim.
Real ID is insufficient for this. Also note that it prevents online registration and other people doing registration in the field.
when I (male) moved to Kansas and swapped my old DL for the Real ID drivers license, i had to bring my original b-cert, plus a social security card (the passport i held at the time was expired). To prove citizenship. Then to prove residence i had utility bill and property tax (i suppose a rental contract would have worked).
If birthright citizenship is nullified, the b-cert woudn’t have proven citizenship — what would have?
So, will Mr Vought be proposing a federal “citizen ID card” next? Who will be able to vote?
Unfortunately that’s incorrect. I’ve researched all day. 100% the text says it does NOT allow a REAL ID for proof of citizenship. It’s written in a tricky way re REAL ID. Also the text doesn’t mention names at all, or if people need to re-register, as registration needs to be done in person with documents proving US citizenship. There’s no information on hyphenated names or maiden names being now one’s legal middle name. And who knows if they will change the bill or when it would be passed (26 co sponsors I think, all R - for the Senate. House already passed.) IE. will there be time (or the departments) to change one’s legal name & passport.
Julie, I think I’m spoiled living in Massachusetts and working the polls here. Thanks for the heads up.
In the State of Florida, when you get a driver’s license, you need to prove who you are by showing a certified copy of your birth certificate. And if you are a woman who took her husband’s name when she married, you will need to show a certified copy of your marriage certificate, and if you were divorced and remarried, you need to show a certified copy of your divorce and a certified copy of your second marriage.
You provided yet another reason that I believe women who get married shouldn't take their husband's name. She can divorce and remarry as often as she likes and not be bothered with the paper trail required to vote, like any man. Just a simple birth certificate is needed. It's all a bunch of hooey.
Of course in the case of those who are VERY old, such as my dad, and have no access to a birth certificate (his was destroyed in a fire...and no one living who can testify to his birth) they are out of luck. May have served in WWII but still can't prove their citizenship with the approved documents. As I said, t's a bunch of hooey, but here we are.
Perhaps we should challenge every registered Republican woman, though I would prefer prevention of things like what should be penalties for interfering with the right of any legitimate voter equal to the fines and jail time for any actual fraudulent voter. As I wrote to relatives in Georgia:
Something is Rotten in Georgia. We went to Greg Palast's premier of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" back in 2016 to see the shenanigans Kris Kobach (Kansas Sec of State) and Brian Kemp (then Georgia Sec of State) were pulling with the infamous Cross Check lists Kobach produced. Vigilantes Inc. is much more sophisticated in purging voters enmasse. So far it looks like at least 300,000 out of half a million challenged by the 40,000 or so "Vigilantes" recruited by "True the Vote."
To see how they stole the 2024 election, see a few glaring cases such as Georgia's Pamela Reardon challenged 32,379 voters and Alter Russell challenged 4,000 or so including Major Gamaliel Turner, who Palast brought to meet the challenger in person. To me, Reardon and Russel should be subject to the same $10,000 fine and jail time any real illegal voter would face, and at least sued for the same amount by every legitimate voter they prevented from voting. Actually they should sue the state, too since they made the laws that let people suppress other's rights.
I'd like to sue them, too for giving us a phoney winner if a real investigation shows their cheating really did produce the popular vote loss, and even the electoral loss.
See https://www.watchvigilantesinc.com/
[I should note I suspect the 2024 election was stolen, but the 32,379 challenged votes were for the 2020 election, they used slightly different suppression techniques for 2024]
Thanks for this information. I also read an article by Palast about how voter suppression got us where we are today. Why is this information not more well known? If we just let it slide (like it seems we are), then no election going forward will be fair.
I freaking LOVE the idea of fining those who challenge legitimate votes. We MUST give people consequences for bad behavior or it will never change!
Actually, we should look at what they have done in the latest elections to make their underhanded tactics more effective than the 2020 election where Trump lost but down ticket Republicans perhaps won more than they would have without such suppression. See https://apnews.com/article/georgia-voter-challenges-2024-election-f817bc282ea44e008af74f6bf5793bd1
"...A room full of angry voters
Often, when counties send letters to challenged voters, no one appears at a hearing to defend their eligibility. But in the Savannah suburb of Bryan County on Oct. 10, a room full of angry voters applauded as the county board dismissed challenges because the person who filed them didn’t appear for a hearing.
“I’m frustrated with this entire process, that we all had to be here today,” Michael Smith said at the hearing. “I’m frustrated that our state passed a poorly thought-out law that required and allowed somebody to do this to all of us...”
To me that indicates some reforms were made (the person who filed the challenges didn't appear at the hearing), so we should see what else they were doing to suppress votes.
Make people like Pamela Reardon appear at hearings with the voters she challenged back in 2020 that tried to vote but were denied effectively enough to not have their vote accepted and counted. Let them sue her or have her pay the fines an illegal voter would be subjected to for each and every one that could prove they should have been eligible, tried to vote, and could have if not for her unfounded challenge.
What’s happening now in NC is another test of democracy. The loser of the state supreme court race wants to throw out 60,000 votes!
Some good news to celebrate here. Thanks to Democracy Docket,yesterday a NC judge rejected the GOP lies about these 60,000 legal ballots!
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/north-carolina-judge-rejects-gop-state-supreme-court-candidates-bid-to-throw-out-60k-ballots/
My spouse just went through this in Florida. Pissed off is to put it lightly. She is 74 and just needed her drivers license renewed. It became a career.
I turned 80 on January first this year, so had to renew my license. Pissed doesn’t begin to describe it. I got my first driver’s license here in Florida at the age of 14, a restricted/learner’s license. Also needed two proofs that my home where I have lived for 29 years is a valid address for me.
Welcome to Florida, where DeSantis has been implementing P2025 for years. Now his wife is talking about running for Governor when he’s termed out.
Florida had voted in 2018 that felons could vote after they had completed the terms of their conviction (with some exceptions). After that passed with 64.55% of the vote, DeSantis & the Republican legislature said that any fines also had to be paid prior to having their rights restored. However, they are unable to tell former felons a definite dollar amount which might be due. Some amounts are so large that a person would have to win the lottery to be able to vote again. That was not the intent of passing that amendment, but Republicans are afraid that this would increase the vote for the Democrats.
Another beef of mine, Florida is one of the few states to not expand Medicaid. Make Florida sick again. Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege.
Jean, you can thank Rick Scott for the Medicaid thing......
You don’t want to get me started on my opinion of “Red Tide Rick” who made a fortune defrauding the government when he was CEO of Columbia/HCA. He pleaded the 5th 75 times, but left the company with a fortune & no jail time. I cannot understand why any person would ever vote for such a corrupt individual, but here we are.
The only thing I can come up with is that those who vote for him like what he says he wants to do.
Jean, South Carolina also did not expand Medicaid!
It's another backdoor way to suppress your vote.
I’m in Florida and had to obtain my Real ID several years ago. Fortunately I had all my paperwork including original birth certificate and amended birth certificate.
International adoptees have even greater challenges and risk deportation.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2020/12/16/international-adoption-does-not-guarantee-adoptees-us-citizenship/6310358002/
VoteRiders is able to assist with obtaining an ID and services are free.
https://www.voteriders.org/
Ouch!
Absolutely spot on with this. Looks like an end run around the 19th Amendment.
My passport expires this year and I’m in the process of getting my legal name changed back to my maiden name, even though I’m still married and have no plans to divorce my husband.
This is not a mistake. The point of Project 25 is to install white men as the top of the hierarchy. Women will be eliminated from having power.
Yes Terry, it was all written down. It has been in clear sight for years. Everybody had heard of Project 2025..... and they also said it in words, and the voters of the USA chose it.
So it is happening, just as they said.
South American immigrants voted for it and women voted for it.
Nineteen Eighty Four should have been titled Twenty twenty five.
George Orwell got the title wrong. (and he didn't predict the ball point pen btw.)
So there you are, we got there in the end.
Democracy is given away.
Can someone please organize some massive demonstration?!!
Massive demonstrations ARE going on - in all 50 states. But the mainstream media is not reporting on them.
Indeed they are not. Please, everyone reading, this--go to your web news aggregator, be it Yahoo, MSN.com, whatever, search for and click on news stories that report upon these under-reported news. Click like buttons if you can. Help promote the computer algorithms such that these news stories trend.
It's a small thing, but just like the single phone call, together we make things happen.
Mary Lou, thank you for bringing up female voters. John Gibbs (and how many of his fellow Republicans?) believes that women should not be voting because they are not logical enough. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/09/21/politics/john-gibbs-womens-suffrage-19th-amendment-kfile
OMG -- and it's the women primarily who have stood up for Democracy and the rule of law and called out Trump and his merry band of limp-dicks.
Mary, time to trot out the following song that I’ve posted many times….a fitting one, I think, in response to Gibb’s assertions: Keb’ Mo’ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FciQeRGYFlw&pp=ygUza2ViIG1vIHB1dCBhIHdvbWFuIGluIGNoYXJnZSBzb25nIHdpdGggcm9zYW5uZSBjYXNo
Neil deGrasse Tyson posted on his FB page about 6? months ago a statement I paraphrase here: "How much more advanced would humanity be if the women who make up 50% of the world's population had always had equal access to opportunities enjoyed by men?" How much more advanced, indeed. The abject fear of men (not just white men) of women's abilities has always driven civilization. Gerda Lerner laid it out way back in the 1986 in The Creation of Patriarchy: we are in the state we are in because of male fears of being irrelevant and their use of terrorist tactics to oppress and control women. Donna Zuckerberg (yes, the Suckerberg's sister), who is a prominent ancient history scholar with a PhD from Princeton, outlines the ways in which modern men in the West use the ridiculous, malignant "scientific" rationales for the oppression of women that originated in ancient Greece and Rome in her book Not All Dead White Men. I fear that the moronic Todd Akin, who lost his senate race back in 2012 against Claire McCaskill because he claimed that women could "shut that whole thing down" (meaning ovulation and implantation) if they were "legitimately raped," would be elected today. If he weren't already dead. May he rot in hell.
What a freaking buffoon -- you would have thought this cave man logic would have withered and died away by now - but noooooooo.
I'm an "Independent" Mainer who has long supported Angus King, after finding "team loyalty/competition" gets in the way of common sense. When King remarked, "As an independent, my motto is: SIMPLY DO THE RIGHT THING." If he appears to side with Democrats during his multiple terms, it suggests that supporting a trickle-up prosperity theory has historically made this country a better place for all. I continue to be grateful he chose to stay in the fray for this hard chapter.
Loads of people in the USA do not have birth certificates. Also, as observed by Mary Lou Clark, even folk with accessible birth certificates no longer bear the same name. This doesn’t only apply to married women. It denies suffrage. It disenfranchises 100s of millions of people. It does this deliberately and with a perverse and frankly sickening intent.
The entire document is rife with hypocrisy and falsehood.
Time for women to step up and tell the men we have been taking their surnames for a long time now. Men and children should start taking the women's names! Only fair.
I think--though I'm not 100% sure--that this would apply to a woman who tries to register to vote for the first time, not to someone who has voted in the past and has a voter card. Nevertheless, it's fully intended to keep more women from being able to vote..
Another reason to keep birth names when marrying.
But what hooey! The name of the game is unfettered power, so elections will be shot through with fraud, if there are any (remember, “you won’t have to vote again.”) Gotta keep resisting! And supporting the resisters.
It is my understanding that this is in some states but not all.
What you have identified sounds like a feature, not a bug.
It would disenfranchise whole swathes of voters. Perhaps forty percent and.mostly poor or disabled or disadvantaged in some respects and yes more likely than not female.
I would guess that many if not most Americans do not have passports. And almost as many do not have their birth certificates or would know how to find them.
In order to get a passport you need proof of citizenship. That usually comes in the form of a birth certificate and that is probably required in all cases. But query what does a birth certificate do to help a naturalized citizen get a passport or to register to vote as it is ?
Due to the passage of time, extraordinary events like fires, and casual neglect the just may no longer be records regarding the births of some Americans. And note records may be lost or changed or rendered useless or inaccessible by adoption.
Project 2025 is not merely a political agenda. It is the plan for a conspiracy to overthrow the lawful government of the United States. .It is inimical to our Constitution. It is being implemented by equally illegal means. And it's author has just been given control over the nations spending by the Senate.
“ It would disenfranchise whole swathes of voters. ”
Exactly. The rump always says exactly what he intends to do. Like when he said, “you’re not going to need to vote in elections any more.”
Vought or Musk will be appointed CEO of the USA and run things from unitary executive, dondon can take off to play golf 7 days a week as he ceded control to the CEO. Peter Thiel’s philosopher/libertarian guru wrote as much in, like 2009….
Another brilliant essay. And bless Angus King
Yes, well stated. But it did NO good. What is the matter with the R's? It is way beyond me to understand. Can the rule of law hold? Can the courts function? It certainly didn't work out that way in Trump's impeachment - McConnell was wrong.
And JB Pritzker!! I'm proud of my Governor!!
Green Bay native here! I laughed out loud at that announcement.
Reminds me that there must be something bracing still in New England.
The Republic is a belief. Democracy is a belief. These things are spiritual. They will not die.
You are right Alec but our republic and democracy are in life support mow. We have to prevent anyone in this horde confronting us to disconnect the machine
What I don't understand is how members of Congress can be so worried about being primaried, given that if they continue to hand over power at this astounding rate, there won't BE any mid-terms. There will be no more elections for many years to come. What jobs do they think they'll be saving by bowing down this fast?
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
“Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian and Coast Guardsman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price,” Milley continued. “And we are not easily intimidated.” Gen. Mark Milley
If we ask that kind of dedication to the idea of America from the military, what is reasonable to expect of those trusted to make, judge and carry out our laws??? And from ourselves?
They take an oath to the Constitution, too. I think even Donald was afraid he would burst into flames if he put his hand on a Bible and lied through his teeth (again) this Jan. 20.
Recall that the flame burst out through his ear last time.
No President in American history has ever committed such a flagrant violation of his oath of office as Donald Trump. Clearly, half the voters in our country don’t care. It will baffle me for the rest of my life.
Not half the voters, and incredibly, not even half of the voters who showed up. I have read in a number of different places (including from HCR, who is always a credibly source) that more people voted against Donald Trump in 2024 than voted for him. That's a small bright spot in this.
What's hard for me to believe is how many eligible people don't care enough to vote, but at least as bad this time were the people who refused to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because they weren't "perfect" in the eyes of the people who helped get us where we are now. See especially: "I won't vote for Harris because I don't agree with her about Gaza! I'm going to show how much this matters to me by not voting for her!" Bet they're *really* happy with Donald's plans for the region. Dolts.
I’m suggesting once again you change your name it’s a losing ticket and it will never come back and it will only get worse
The difference between US servicemen and women and Republican politicians is the willingness to serve their country - not to mention do a hard day’s work.
And that’s why Millie no longer has a job because he doesn’t understand the constitution and his obligation to protect America at all costs and not turn traitor because he doesn’t agree with the president
I’m speaking to Rick Sender.
And you do not understand the agency of honor.
And YOU have no understanding of the purpose of "service", do you?
Blinded by their insider trading profits, perhaps.
Everyone, save yourself the hassle of reading Rick Sender’s pro-Trump rhetoric. Click his name. Click three dots at top right. At the bottom, it says “Block Rick Sender”.
Thank you!!!! Done.
Thank you! Sended Sender away.
Sender is a Русский жопический клоун
Thx for the tip!
I didn't know that was possible! Thank you.
Yes, Susan! I did that weeks ago and it worked perfectly! Such a relief!
Republicans aren't worried. They are all in on the plans to turn America into a Christian sharia autocracy. They are looking forward to never having to worry about elections again, having a lock on their seat for eternity.
Actually, if you wanna read it all as your Moniker says he said all religions but nice job and if you were at CBS you’d also be sued for distorting the truth
Have you noticed any antisemitism in this country by any chance?
Wow, are you at the bad end of a losing ticket change your name ASAP
I'm actually planning to do that. It was obviously chosen in a more hopeful time.
Ignore this troll.
That’s what most of you do here you ignore facts in evidence
Actually I like it & brought a smile to my face just reading it…a lost opportunity to be sure, a “what could have been” & perhaps a wish for the future, even if not in that exact configuration.
You need to leave this group and go into a Trump anti American group. Your comments are off the wall and not appreciated. Btw, this reply is directed to Rick Sender.
Hey, look!! Rick has returned!! How ya doing, Rick? I thought you had written your last Comment!!??
I keep trying, but then I get some other fool who engages me questions facts and reality and I feel compelled to respond.
Please tell Elizabeth that she somewhat backwards. There’s no such thing as a Trump anti-American group. Actually, he just got another trillion dollars from Japan as an investment in America and apparently also has Europe considering lowering its tariffs on importing American vehicles from 10% to 2 1/2% and he keeps winning. Lowest illegal immigration numbers in 20 years.
And he keeps finding more fraud, waste, and abuse in a number of governmental agencies. You would think that America would be happy that be more money to spend on America alas, too many un Americans here.
doge has just barely touched The surface but has already unearth vast sums of money, including money going back as far as 2003 to the tune of $2.7 trillion of waste fraud and abuse
Ssa has been paying dead people for 20 years 70,000 of them actually.
So much money that they could’ve been paying an additional 90,000 people $22,000 a year for the last 10 years
You might want to try keeping abreast of these things
Oh and I also forgot what’s going on in CBS in the $10 billion lawsuit that looks like it’s growing every day for them trying to distort an election and they’re in negotiations now to settle, but it’s getting bigger now that they’ve released the entire transcript of the interview with Harris
Nothing but good news these days glad you asked
By the way, you never did answer the question are you related to the Greenman family by any chance?
Yeah, Rick, that’s a great way to make America First by allowing Nippon Steel (Trump kept calling it “Nissan”) to “invest” in US Steel.
BTW, Rick, speaking of SSA, what do you think about the elimination of the WEP and GPO provisions in SSA? This was a REPEAL on something that occurred ‘way back in 1983 - over 40 years ago. I guess a whole bunch of SS retirees have been shorted by that GOVERNMENT for many, many years. How unfair is that, Rick?
You are correct, Rick, about the SSA overpayment. Here’s an article from the AP dated January 15, 2025.
“ The U.S. government clawed back more than $31 million in Social Security payments that improperly went to dead people, a recovery that one official said Wednesday was “just the tip of the iceberg.”
The money was reclaimed as part of a five-month pilot program after Congress gave the Department of Treasury temporary access to the Social Security Administration‘s “Full Death Master File” for three years as part of the omnibus appropriations bill in 2021. The SSA maintains the most complete federal database of individuals who have died, and the file contains more than 142 million records, which go back to 1899, according to the Treasury.
The Treasury projects that it will recover more than $215 million during its three-year access period, which runs from December 2023 through 2026.
“These results are just the tip of the iceberg,” the Treasury’s Fiscal Assistant Secretary David Lebryk said in a news release. He urged Congress to give the Treasury full access to the master file, saying it would “significantly reduce fraud, improve program integrity, and better safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
All of which can be accomplished without destroying the entire government. There is another agenda here that you apparently cannot comprehend.
Did you notice the DATES of the information I sent? All pre-Trump.
Please answer my questions about The Great Replacement Theory.
Still voice texting, right, Rick? “Please tell Elizabeth that she somewhat backwards.” HUH??
Nope, not related!
You ask a good question.
Perhaps they fear being sent to a reeducation “camp”.
They're doing everything they can to make those happen sooner rather than later.
Acceleration, flack and camouflage are powerful tactics for a marginal group to gain a foothold in a somewhat larger group and so on. Like a virus. Same deal.
Getting elected to the US Congress and Senate is expensive, costing millions of dollars. Getting re-elected has been historically easy for incumbents, but things have changed. Popular office holders can be overwhelmed by a puppet opponent funded by very rich donors. Are they trying to save themselves a losing campaign?
Thank Supreme Court Justice John Roberts for that. To reduce what he wrote to both its meaning and result, very clear from the very beginning, dollars are votes.
Thank you very much your honor Judge Roberts for your clear sighted rearrangement of what democracy really means. You are not the worst ever. No, you stand shoulder to shoulder among them.
Thank you , Heather, for keeping up with the roller-coaster news of the rolling coup. I'm astonished that the House Republicans are so willing to transfer their power to appropriate funds to Musk and his goons. What a horrible, shameful abdication of responsibility to their constituents, the government, and the US Constitution.
For more about what USAID does, I recommend a story by Lucian Truscott IV in his Substack - it's all about cows and a USAID worker in Afghanistan. https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/why-should-we-care-about-usaid
A bull in a china shop needs no particular talent to wreak havoc.
Everyone with intelligence would know what a bull would do in a china shop and would do something to prevent that from happening. Unfortunately, there weren't enough intelligent voters in this country to prevent the destruction of our institutions and 250 years of democracy as is happening now. Hope it's not too late to rescue some of the pieces to start all over again in a more perfect union
What an excellent link, LaurieOregon—thank you for posting this.
It’s not what USA does. It’s what they do but they shouldn’t be doing that they can go back to doing the right thing. Instead of wasting money. Hopefully at the end of the rainbow everybody here will wake up and realize we’ve just saved a couple trillion dollars.
You can get as creative as you want in your colorful descriptions here, Mr. Sender.........It's still clear who and what you are: an apologist for those selling out the United States of America.
He's a well-known troll on this substack. Ignore him.
Report him
And just "collapse" him. It's easy and feels like I am cleaning up the page.
Good response! Withholding a reinforcer from him while gaining a satisfying result for yourself!
Yeah God forbid you hear another side of the story.
Or “scroll on by” sung to the Dion Warwick tune “Walk on By”…
You can spot his MAGAtism a mile away. Blocked.
You know what Eli here’s a crack up for you. There are many people who post and post and post and post for days who know each other very well who commiserate with each other all the time and not until I observe for a month or so, and came on and became an active participant here that I ever see the word troll. It’s only when somebody has a difference of opinion and wants someone here to see both sides of the story that someone becomes a troll. I hope you’re never in a courtroom and you’re not allowed to have a defense.
The problem Rick isn’t a “difference of opinion”, it’s a refusal or inability to accept facts. Republicans are particularly susceptible to this in recent decades as they put power above safeguarding democracy - which is the purpose for which Congress established USAID. People don’t read anymore, so opinions have become uninformed. Believe what you like, but it doesn’t make your opinion well informed or accurate. I’m sure though that sharing your ‘gut’ opinion makes you feel better. Have a nice day.
You obviously have not seen some of the ridiculous projects from USA ID otherwise you would wise up and I understand the need for USA ID and the purpose for UASAID and it’s being abused beyond reproach
Change the channel and see the massive sums of money being spent on bullshit total unnecessary bullshit abroad. That’s all you need to see.
Well said.
Hey, Rick - To me, it looks like We, the People are at a Fork in the Road to Governing: the Deliberative, Open, Rules-based, Clumsy (DORC) version vs the Secretive, Top-Down, Unopposed, Private (STUP) version. They way I see it - the general public become impatient with the WAY typical government works - local, state, federal. It’s too slow and, they believe, too expensive! (I mean - THEY make us pay TAXES!!). But, also, the general public is disillusioned with the “corporate way” of doing things. They say things like - “How does a gas station on my corner sell Regular for $2.99 a gallon, yet another gas station about a half mile away - and near the freeway - sell the same stuff for $3.74 per gallon?”
The Fork to follow?? Democratically-elected Representatives or Corporations?
What do YOU think, Rick?
What I think is, you don’t answer questions what I think is everything you said above is relatively irrelevant to the problems at hand today
All the unnecessary hate just because the man’s name is Trump when all he’s trying to do is exactly what Obama and Clinton did exactly!
Of course, government works too slow, but if they work that slow, they should at least be efficient and they’re neither speaking.
If you or I ran our company like the government runs it, we’d be out of business
People don’t have a choice in dealing with the government when they’re getting benefits from them But if you had a choice of going to different companies to paying in and receiving your benefits, you’d realize it
There’s no fork in the road at all AT ALL. THIS PRESIDENT IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK AND OUT OF SHEER HATE AND IGNORANCE. THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS NOW AT A 31% POPULARITY RATE WHILE TRUMP CONTINUES TO SUCCEED AT EVERY TURN, BOTH NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY.
they called him an antisemite, and he’s Israel’s best friend and supporter. They called him a misogynist and they just kicked men out of women’s sports.
They call him a failure and he owns hotels and golf courses all over the world and a $10 billion social media company and it’s been president twice What a failure
I’m frankly sick and tired this bullshit and anybody that fights him at this point in time because every American needs to support him. Period
Laura, this follower of the conman, was over on Robert Reich's Substack...he left. You can just imagine him with his gold watch and tennis shoes, red MAGA hat, flags waving and his Chinese (America First) Oompa Loompa Bible under his arm. These followers, like him, can't deny that this orange man, is a SALESMAN that continues to sell his followers a line of s**t along with the merch that never stops flowing. Don-old and his wife are always selling crypto or clothing or some new thing to fleece their followers...their base. It's sad to hear how taken in they are...but there it is. Just ignore this sad case. He will no doubt respond to this...no big deal. He's just messed up that's all, he drank the kool aid.
I left because I don’t like to be involved with anti-Americans and socialist’s or worse communists who don’t believe in America.
You left because you don’t like to be involved with people YOU believe to be “anti-Americans and socialists” (no apostrophe) or “communists who don’t believe in America”? Are you talking about the people on this Substack Comment section? Are these people - including me - not American citizens? I mean, I was born in the USA and that gives me a birthright citizenship status. I can’t speak for others on this thread, but I have a feeling that many of “these people” that you don’t want to be “involved” with are actually tax-paying US citizens! I’d be willing to venture that many of these folks have served their country in the military or the police or as firefighters or, even, lowly 5th grade teachers. I have to tell you, Rick, tolerance is sometimes a difficult chore.
Let me follow up this post with some more information. Some of my favorite human beings were fifth grade teachers nobody is less worthy . Nobody is beyond helping when they need help, but priorities are important tolerance is not difficult at all at all at all at all at all, priorities are what make tolerance different. And in life, you choose the priorities that seem to need the most attention and then you winnow it down from there. Btw I served six years in the military during the Vietnam era.
The people that I don’t wanna be involved with are the people that can’t literally determine right from wrong good from evil and all stems from pre-ordained hate in their system put there by propagandists.
My honest opinion, Paul there are a lot of people here whose hate overrides common sense and that’s what bothers me most
17 days into his presidency and already they’re talking impeachment.
It’s not enough that the two previous impeachments didn’t work and that it caused in many circles Trump to get reelected
Also, I’m assuming that you know who pays the bulk of the income tax in this country By category
You have every right to your misguided opinions, and you hate your needless hate. And your refusal to look at yourself and your party that now have a 30% or so approval rating by Americans and a 60% disapproval rate. And for liberals and Democrats, that’s abysmal you would expect that about Republicans.
You know, Rick, that LIBERALS have 1st Amendment rights, don’t you?
You are absolutely correct you have the right to be as ignorant as you wanna be or as hateful as you wanna be no one stopping you other than yourself and your party is a joke right now
I’m messed up? Wow. You guys desperately need a mirror and a lot of self introspection. You just lost massively and you haven’t even imagined why and every day you continue to lose more even though America is gaining despite your useless protestations.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did exactly what Trump is doing right now and trying to reduce the deficit and reductions and force, etc. in fact if you take Trump‘s mouth or Trump‘s voice and place them over the images of Obama and Clinton while they speak, it’s exactly the words that those two were speaking but just because it’s Trump You lash out in hate you fools
As I said earlier at the end of the rainbow, this country’s gonna save a couple trillion dollars and gonna be able to serve Americans much better like the people that just lost everything in California or North Carolina
Now they’re looking at Social Security and seeing we’ve paid 70,000 odd people who’ve been dead for years and we’re still paying them millions of dollars and that’s just tip of the iceberg so you keep going cooling like you know what the hell you’re talking about and stop the hate.
Because that’s all you become are just haters
Ignore me at your own will I have no problem with it at all?
If you believe the money cut from the USAID is going to help average Americans, like the folks in NC or CA, you are very, very naive.
And this is only a beginning, Dave. They found out that during Obama’s administration 63000 people were already dead and still getting checks and the deaths had already been reported. So you just keep living in denial and that’s fine with the rest of us.
Here’s one more little Diddy when they try to blame Trump for stuff that has nothing to do with Trump
The bird flu outbreak is the deadliest in U.S. history ...In April 2024, some hens began dying of bird flu after testing positive for the H5N1 virus. 50 milllion
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."
Hmmmmm, Hey, Rick….There IS common ground here - if you look realistically. Republicans AND Democrats (and Independents) want to reduce the nation’s deficit. The difference is HOW to do the reductions. What SPECIFICALLY do you think should be done to allow us to live within our means? Will raising taxes be the answer? Or will lowering taxes get that “trickle-down” going? What EXPENSES should we cut? AND - HOW should we make those budget changes?
Paul, that is a very astute common sense post and question. The easy answer is simply easy. First, you go after the fruit that’s lying on the ground rotting which is all the waste fraud and abuse and then you decide what to do with all the money that you find.
If you’re the fiscal conservative that you say you are, hopefully you’ve seen the money that’s being spent around the world for some of the most ridiculous sexual DEI tourism related bullshit that I’ve ever seen
I’d like to list a few, but each one is more ridiculous than the one before. I wish everybody could agree on the first premise, but they’re fighting at every turn, but they didn’t fight when Clinton and Obama wanted to do exactly the same thing. Please search the video of Al Gore speaking with Clinton by him side, talking about reduction in force Killing redundant jobs hi baby hi sweetie hello OK fine and Obama saying the exact same thing but as soon as the words come out of Trump’s mouth, he is every word in the book.
that we are spending we wouldn’t even spend it here so first you find that and then you decide how to allocate it Then you get both bodies of Congress together and say OK here’s where I won’t give here’s where you won’t give. Here’s where we both give let’s give a little and get something done and that’s why I like Clinton because at least he did that.
50,000,000 for condoms 20, million for Sesame Street show in Iraq. And after abandoning Afghanistan Where we should’ve never been in the first place we’re throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to them for more bullshit And all Trump is trying to do is to stop it
Dude, give it up. You have no idea what democracy is (hint: not absence if government), much less how a democratic government needs to run. Right now we have two traitors leading the executive (maybe three actually) and they richly deserve the bill that will eventually come due. Now go take your word spray to the ignorant who are willing to be baffled by bs.
Here’s a couple articles on CBS’s lawsuit by Trump for distortion of news and election interference.
"Perhaps most egregiously, the segment made almost no mention of Hamas’ actions that started this war, placing Palestinian civilians in Gaza in harm’s way for years by embedding weapons and other terrorist infrastructure in civilian areas," the Jewish advocacy group added.
"The segment only briefly referred to Hamas’ massacre on October 7, 2023, described their fighters as "militants" rather than terrorists, and even went so far as to elevate the outlandish notion that, following Hamas’ October 7 attack, Israel should have sought to make peace with Hamas terrorists rather than act in self-defense."
Have you sent LINKS to those articles, Rick?
Oh and by the way, the reason I asked about your last name or your heritage is because there’s a chance that we might even be related
We’re not. And Palatine is a pretty small town.
There are too many links and I can’t be everyone’s research assistant. I’m sorry there’s a lot of intelligent well red people here and I think would be very easy for you to look at sites perhaps some that you’ve never looked at before like Fox or CNN or MSNBC and at least see what their Showing as far as waste and abuse and I have sent some copies of articles. All I did was type in what I was looking for and there’s 20 articles about it so please do that then we’ll have something to discuss.
And by the way, you’ve probably noticed by now that I voice text everything and so if there’s a misspell, I apologize but I believe fervently in content over form. This is not my college thesis. I’m writing. It’s a point. I’m trying to make and I know it’s getting across. And you know what else there are so many times that I’ve responded to people and never hear from them again because I think they actually think through what I’m saying and realize that it’s correct. If you will look at other paper trail here on this sub stack venue you’ll find a number of articles that I’ve posted having to do with waste fraud and abuse at the Social Security administration at Medicare. They were paying dead people for the last 20 years than a nonprofit organization has found $2.7 trillion in monies that should’ve never been allocated. The list is so extensive it’s pathetic and the fact that it’s been just unearthed now with information dating back to 2003 turns my stomach beyond belief. Please go check it out.
I just wanted links to the two articles you quoted. Sorry to overload your agenda.
Apparently 40,000 federal employees have reportedly accepted a resignation. How is it saving out taxpayer money to pay them for 8 months of work that they are not doing? and paying a loyal trumpet who replaces them to do the same job? That is not efficient nor saving any money. Of course Musk thinks you can just remove essential services like medical staff, fire scientists, meteorologists etc with no negative impact…. because he is actually an arrogant narcissist that doesn’t bother to learn about how our government actually works. The goal is NOT efficiency. It is loyalty without merit.
Yeah, but who says that the offer to pay them will be honored? You-know-who is known for stiffing folks he owes money to…what recourse would they have to demand compensation? If they will gut the good works of USAID/FBI/CIA, etc, you’d almost have to be looney to believe anything they “promised”!!!!
You said it best, you’d have to be looney to believe anything they ”promised.” That’s what cults are
You can count on it, they will be stiffed.
They don’t give a whit about efficiency. They just want power. It’s just a scam as are all the lies. And people just lap it up. What a bunch of idiots buy chump’s nonsense. MAGAts line up to worship the golden calf that is pure fools gold. All the puppeteers pulling the strings know what he is but are orgasmic as they use his flamethrower to “own the libs.” What evil we have to fight. These are not political differences, they are deliberately evil.
OK, then when they save a couple trillion dollars and find a couple trillion more you don’t get a dime OK
Not only that, but think of the cost bringing all those USAid workers and their families back here. The departments that arrange moving people around have been fired. There is not HR, they are gone. These families who overseas many don't own homes here. They have no homes to go back too. How do I know this? My son and daughter in law have worked for USAid for 20 yrs.
Any money that gets spent on things you don't agree with comes from funds appropriated by Congress for a specific purpose. If Congress passes funding legislation for a given project that means it approves of it.
Just because you don't like how the government spends its money doesn't mean that any fraud has committed. You are certainly entitled, as an American citizen, to object to how those funds are allocated, but if you don't like where the money goes, talk to Congress.
It is absolutely illegal for any entity to seek to remove or reduce committed funds from the treasury system.
Well, they just started to touch Social Security and what do you think they found? What a surprise we’ve been paying thousands dead people. Four decades why don’t you go look? Tell lady Hemsworth below as well have her check it out hundreds of millions of dollars paid by Social Security to dead people and people that didn’t deserve the money. It was paid by mistake for decades. There’s your pot of gold lady and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to suffer in your ignorance it’s a self-inflicted wound.
Rick Sender = Russian disinformation. Ignore.
Troll
Suggest you voice yr opinion on fox, where some talking head with big hair and a nice body might listen to it.
Actually, Dan 70% of the viewing audience now watches them that’s now the third leading net work and it’s a news net work. Ooooops
CNN and MSNBC were in big trouble but now they’re being boosted by Trump’s presidency but they were both on the chopping block
You mean the "pot of gold" at the "end of the rainbow"? I take it you believe in leprechauns, too.
How does that money saved help anyone? 🤔
Oh you’re one of those,eh?
If money is your god and the only thing you care about,that might matter. Many of us can be fiscally responsible without becoming slaves to money.
If money is all you care about, that might matter. Some of us can be fiscally responsible without becoming slaves to money.
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."
You do know that all these reforms can be accomplished without destroying our government. All it takes is a Republican Party willing to actually govern instead of the continuous performance art that they have been doing for decades.
“a non-profit research group”? Which one?
Look up JustFacts.org. Looks like a shiny rightwing website whose aim is to provide snippets of data pulled from news, various govt sites like OMB and GAO etc to promote rightwing propaganda. The site uses 100’s of bits of data. Shock and awe. Vomiting up volumes of citations to back up the right wing bias. This Rick Sender sounds like one of their shiny bots.
Thank you, Laurie, for sharing this article. Very interesting. I have shared it.
The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals "may have improperly received benefits" since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 "stimulus checks" were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.
By the way, illegal immigration is that it’s lowest level in the last 20 years. And now illegals have the chance to leave the country before they have to suffer, living the rest of their lives in a El Salvadoran prison with the worst MS 13 convicts. Not bad for only 17 days in office.
I am a USAID whistleblower. I've got to admit, Musk is mostly right about agency's waste
It would be fair to say that USAID is a baby suffering in filthy bathwater that hasn’t been cleaned for decades
The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals "may have improperly received benefits" since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 "stimulus checks" were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."
Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023." SSN tip of the ie]iceberg.
I’m not quite sure why, but with all that was so important and disturbing (and moving) in your column, the thing that most broke my heart was the dismantling of the beautiful tradition of the Kennedy Center and its defiling by the piss of this abomination of a human. There is such extraordinary pettiness in this, like raping someone’s lovely wife while the family watches. He defocates on everything beautiful. It’s his aphrodisiac.
It's some real Kim Jong Un shit, isn't it.
Agree. Statement on their website:
Throughout our history, the Kennedy Center has enjoyed strong support from members of congress and their staffs—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Since our doors opened in1971, we have had a collaborative relationship with every presidential administration. Since that time, the Kennedy Center has had a bi-partisan board of trustees that has supported the arts in a non-partisan fashion.
While we are a living memorial to President Kennedy, we are also a unique public-private partnership. The Center is supported by federal annual appropriations for the upkeep and maintenance of the building as a federal memorial, or approximately 16% of the total operating budget. Support for the Center’s artistic programming comes from ticket sales, donations, rental income, and other revenue sources.
The Kennedy Center is aware of the post made recently by POTUS on social media. We have received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees. We are aware that some members of our board have received termination notices from the administration.
Per the Center’s governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the Center’s board members. There is nothing in the Center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board.
https://www.kennedy-center.org/kennedy-center-statement/
Who has $5 million to spare? Maybe Melinda Gates, George Clooney, or some similar, wealthy patron? With an annual operating budget of about $32 million, let's get the Kennedy Center off of the approximately 16% federal appropriations support and void any federal influence. There can never be a Trump board chairman at the Kennedy Center.
McKenzie Scott should do it.
What I don’t understand about this is the statement that the new administration can replace trustees. My understanding of the statutes (though obviously they know them far better than I do) is that this is a confessional power, not executive power and that all board members must be approved by Congress and serve for 6 years. The board elects their own president.
heartbreaking - your writing is poignant and beautiful
Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2025 Kennedy Center Honorees for Lifetime Achievement in Dancing Against Democracy:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGNRaWizZ0l/?igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==
WARNING: Do not view that instagram clip without a barf bag nearby.
Amy, that is well articulated and so, so descriptive. Thank you.
Back in the Soviet era of Russia, art was commandeered in a similar way. All art was to convey only “socialist realism.” So this is his “fascist realism.” Art often becomes a form of dissent and this is an attempt to put a boot on it.
Nazis did similar. Stole and hid works of value, burned others.
Agree!!!!
Thank you for reporting King's heroic attempt to appeal to Republican morality and sanity. Maybe the one-two punch strategy of that passionate patriotism and Yippie-reminiscent trolling like Pritzker's is the way to go.
“[W]e're experiencing in real time exactly what the framers most feared. When you clear away the smoke, clear away the DOGE, the executive orders, foreign policy pronouncements, more fundamentally what's happening is the shredding of the constitutional structure itself. And we have a profound responsibility…to stop it.” Senator Angus King (I - Maine)
And yet, they confirmed Vought, and they do not stop, they continue.
Was there any doubt? We couldn't stop Pete Hegseth who is a known spousal abuser and misogynist. And the Rs have a SIX vote margin in the Senate so beating them requires FOUR R votes to side with us, assuming no D goes the other way. It's a terribly difficult margin to overcome. We will be lucky if even one of the REALLY bad nominees (RFKjr, Gabbard or Pay we l) loses. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Please Jon, don't hold your breath, it would take too long and I would like to keep reading your comments 😀 thanks.
Jon,
Agree. Gabbard surprises me—we can't find four Republicans to vote against her—that says something, but we should remember Gaetz was rejected. Even in Gaetz's case, we got what is even worse in Bondi. We need to keep our enemies close. I would rather nominate Rick Sender than put forward another Huckabee Sanders.
Not holding my breath because Project 2025 is in the house or OMB as the case may be.
I always appreciate you, Jon. Time to chop and carry. Best to you.
Tim
Speaking of which, I think it might be time to delete digital footprints. Are you going to do that? Asking for a friend.
Can you ever truly delete digital footprints?
Miselle, how do you delete digital footprints?
I am not a techie, but having an email address, and even posting comments on here, wouldn't that be trackable?
With digital mud!
Hey listen if we can't still laugh in the face of this obscenity we call a President, we really ARE doomed already!
Miselle,
You can. Completeness isn't the goal, just prudence. Meta, Google, OpenAI and X can't legally hold it for over two or three months - without legit reasons - which of course they can manufacture - your data is valuable to them. They honestly don't want to long term if you idle your presence. The government can do things it shouldn't - and it is. Now is the time.
It takes effort. I'm more than willing to share my resources, but I'm not the angel here. I have digital issues of my own. Each company has there own method to follow GDPR (EU standard) and CCPA (California standard) guidelines - which don't apply to everyone but they have to follow regardless - allowing others to take back their data as best they can.
Tim
Funny story: When I deleted my FB account many years ago, they wouldn't let me do it without contacting someone I hadn't talked to in nearly a decade. It is easier now. That was a cheap cup of coffee. I have never looked back. I like SubStack, but we need to find a more secure forum—like the Matrix-based decentralized and open-source forums. I use Element to keep in touch with college buddies, siblings, and fellow deviants. That would have its own vulnerabilites and issues - I'm not an angel - or smart for that matter. Pulling down that data and holding that hard drive is liberating, and also a sad death. We could be so much more than we are.
well, I have never had ANY social media accounts, but I do comment on here. I suspect the "digital fingerprint" is more than just social media.
I have seen that you can get your own VPN to hide your location. That seems a bit extreme to me.
OH MY GOD! NOT RICK SENDER!!!!
ROTFLMAO!
He predicted this himself. I don't know what part our elected Democrats failed to read.
I don't think any elected Democrats failed to read it. The Rs are playing with a deck they've been stacking since the beginning of the country.
The democratic Republic of the United States is a spiritual belief. It will not die.
I agree but it may be forced to go underground for a few years. As is often said, it will get darker in this tunnel at least for a while, before the light returns.
I love that, Alec. Will hold that thought and keep taking political action to back it up.
XA
Alexandra, love, love, love Angus King! Wish there were senators in South Carolina who had his ethics and bravery!
That Republicans can ignore King is frightening. Phone calls are good. I’ve made mine and will continue. I fear that we are on the verge of a civil war or a military coup. I did something today I never thought I would. I bought a gun. I don’t know what good it will do, but, at 82, I do not plan to go gently into the good night.
I do not see any difference now between Putin invading Ukraine and Trump/Musk invading America. I would be buying a gun too. Hopefully Milley and co are strategising as we speak.
Oh c'mon Kazz, there is a HUGE difference. Putin invaded an independent sovereign nation. Trump can't "invade" America, he is is President (like it or not). It is HIS country so he doesn't HAVE to "invade" it as Putin needed to do to try to win back the Ukraine.
And trust me Milley isn't strategising anything. He will go public and argue for different outcomes but he is no fool. He knows a military action against the US is doomed to fail.
Right now we need to enter a 2 year holding strategy, try to lose a little as possible and then wage a serious election campaign in 2026 to win back the Congress. That is, I believe, the ONLY viable option.
And hope that enough peeps who voted for Trump in 2024 are affected enough to realize what a moronic decision they made.
I am unfortunately not hopeful.
Trump is a “useful idiot” for Putin. In that sense America is only his birth country. His only real allegiance is to money wherever it comes from.
Thank you, Jon. I appreciate your calm and knowledgeable posts. "And trust me Milley isn't strategizing anything." Thank you. And your comments on strategy - I agree, I agree, I agree.
Unlike you, I am hopeful. Before the election, for some reason, I was reading WWll books. Not many, but enough, and ones I really liked. "The Splendid and the Vile," for instance. I was inspired in the reading, and now that inspiration is bearing fruit. Churchill told his daughter-in-law Pamela, "If the Germans come, grab a kitchen knife and kill as many as you can." She was horrified. I would have been horrified. But at this remove, knowing the Allies won, I can laugh. So, it gives me hope to revisit how dire things looked then, and to revisit Churchill's message of the need for heart.
I don't think you are entirely hopeless. Right? "And hope that enough peeps..."
I don't mean to bug you. I so appreciate your posts. Thank you!!!
No, I'm not ENTIRELY hopeless at all. But I am a 73 year old man whose activist days are well behind me (in the 60s, 70s and 80s for the most part). I am saddened because my own children (30 somethings) don't seem to see anything alarming in what we face today.
I yearn for new leadership with the fire in their bellies from the era I passed through when we took down a Democratic president who was in the process of killing 65,000 American youth in Vietnam, but what did we replace it with? Richard Nixon! And then Ronald Reagan. Two terribly flawed Presidents who look like heroes today in the face of Trump (even though they weren't CLOSE!) The best man who ran for President in the past 60 years, Jimmy Carter, we let him get away. Someday someone will write a book about that great American tragedy, letting a greasy Hollywood actor beat a great American President. Truly sad.
Can we recover? I hope so. I want to believe it, but I don't think the answer is in giving up all the things that have made us great. Sacrificing democracy to save it seems to me to be fruitless task. In the end we will only be judged by our values and if we decide to let those go, even for the moment, we will not leave a great legacy.
I think you are an activist here. I'm a 72 year old woman, and I believe that there is a very big role for those of our age to play. Most of us have more time, and if we've learned anything in life, we have that to add. Our parents went through the Depression and WWll, and this is the crisis for us. It surprises me, though not for long, that more people don't see it as it is, an existential constitutional crisis, a coup, the ultimate threat. But awareness is always the first step and denial is so powerful. Anyway, here we are. And, so far, this is a war of words, a fact for which I am grateful. Well, and money. But not too violent yet.
Yes, Reagan and Carter. Trump. How immature of us. "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I believe that. Maybe we learn.
No, we should not sacrifice democracy. Greece lost its democracy. Maybe that is to be our fate, but we won't lose it without a map for future democracies and a host of hero stories.
Thank you for answering me and thank you for every one of your posts. My favorites.
Wow, thank you for that response, truly. Sometimes, even here, I think I am yelling into the wind. I am watching this week closely. There will be more court decisions, most of which I expect will go against Trump but the murmuring seems to be that we should expect Trump to pull an Andrew Jackson and tell the courts to KMA.
The scariest part for me is the Musk influence. The bulk of his appointments don't scare me too much, as they are mostly "losers". Rachel last night did actually great run-down of ALL the cabinet and sun cabinet appointees and how many of them lost their last (or in some cases only) run for office.
But Musk obviously is a wild card who has both influence AND money and he is at least comparatively intelligent. He also does drugs (isn't THAT special given the huge antidrug attitude from most nominal Republicans!) which to me makes him at least potentially unstable (his favorite drug is ketamine).
I will be watching closely. If action becomes necessary, I will get ready but I sure hope Trump blinks before that happens.
I do not think we can bank on the midterm elections. I think IF we even have federal elections again, people will be “allowed” to vote based on some process dreamt up by the backers of Project 2025 and Musk and Co. People will have to meet some kind of criteria (white, male, homeowner for example). Musk has all of our data so he can grant the access. I fear women are going to lose the right to vote in federal elections followed by many other groups such as gay married and so forth. After that many states will pay Musk to help them change voter access at the state level too. I think it is a house of cards already teetering.
Mary Ellen, I think of Nathan Hale, American Spy during “our”Revolution, saying to the British as they prepared to hang him (learned it in 3rd grade):”I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
Thank you for spelling out the questions I’m asking. Speed is of the essence and I cannot think how to protect real patriots if this horror goes on much longer.
Thanks Jon, your considered and knowledgeable responses always make perfect sense. However IMHO the obscene and outrageous nature of trump/musk rolling into government, into the Treasury, and into people’s lives - rounding them up and carting them off in shackles, feels like, and may as well be, an invasion of tanks.
This is beginning to have the vague whiff of trolling . . . .
FYI Here’s the plan:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
A military coup led by Milley and Lloyd Austin May be the answer.
No chance. First of all who will follow them? A military coup takes LOTS of peeps especially in a country with a standing military of almost 2 million. The chances of getting even 10% of those forces to follow Austin and Milley is pretty close to zip. And failure of such a coup would lead to serious jail time, possibly even execution. Keep in mind that any attempt like that is a SERIOUS violation of federal law no matter how Trump has abased the law.
There is no legal ground for such a coup. And one thing all coups know is that the ONLY way to survive is to win. Which in this country with the kind of military we have (the largest on earth) is highly unlikely.
It may sound like a wonderful fantasy but that is what it is, a fantasy.
Jon,
Not only a fantasy, but a dangerous statement to attribute to a social media presence. @Virginia - I hope that isn't your real name (Tim is not my assigned name at birth btw) and anyone who liked that comment, have sense. Our freedoms are fleeting when we can't even walk into public buildings.
Tim
This message brought to you by the knights who say ni.
And fart in your general direction!!
I WARNED you, but did you listen to me?
Oh no, you KNEW, didn't you? Oh, it's just a harmless little BUNNY isn't it?
... Listen, you might learn something.
"Don't be the bunny!" My favorite song from Urinetown The Musical!
Hey, friends, a military coup is never a wonderful fantasy. Ask anyone who’s lived through one. Fortunately, neither of the men you named would consider such a crime.
Forget what I said above about whiff . . . stench . . .
So just curl up in despair for the next four years . . . or will it be forty . . . or four hundred . . .
Talking about "legal" ground against Trump? You are going on permanent ignore.
You are a troll.
“[W]e're experiencing in real time exactly what the framers most feared. When you clear away the smoke, clear away the DOGE, the executive orders, foreign policy pronouncements, more fundamentally what's happening is the shredding of the constitutional structure itself. And we have a profound responsibility…to stop it.”
At least he said it. May it be amplified. Told and retold, in a roar.
Keep calling! It’s working! Leave messages. Do not go quietly into the good night of authoritarianism. It takes just a few minutes to contact your representatives using http://www.5calls.org Do it NOW!
Love love love this app.
Super helpful.
"Good night of authoritarianism" ????
Thank you, I will!
I am quite sure there is system in place tracking same numbers calling repeatedly. So unless everyone calls once these stats are skewed and they are likely already aware.
Did it. Thank you. Announced it on bluesky.
Thank you Mr Welsh.
Yes. Because. Here’s “their” plan: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
Lake Illinois it is.
There is humor at the bottom of the ocean. Funny but not funny. Brilliant nonetheless.
Pritzker channels The Onion.
Public ridicule by prominent figures -- there's a technique that ought to get some regular play. I bet it'd significantly accelerate the rate of rash stupidity and unforced errors from the notoriously thin-skinned and insecure orange criminal, with a full meltdown and attendant bungling and blundering.
Yes!!! The terrain is wide open for mockery, irony, sarcasm, satire.....any and all ways of " laughing at" a guy who absolutely cannot take it. Editorial cartoons are coming alive these days...succinctly capturing the hypocrisy and dangerous craziness of the current political actors. May SNL live long and prosper!!!
Senator King's statement is nice, but apparently, the person wasn't filabustered. Why don't the Democrats put a hold on all confirmations? Why don't they have they have the Journal of the Senate read each day? Why don't they deny unanimous consent on every action? Why don't they require every bill be read in its entirety three times? There are things the Senate Democrats can do besides talk, and they don't seem to be doing them.
Fillabuster these fascist.
Bullies aren't the solution. Bullies are "The Problem".
There's just so much you can do when you’re in the minority
There is only so much that can be done, and the Democrats aren't doing them. Use the Senate rules and require bills to be read three times. Why don't they put a hold on all confirmations? There are actions that require unanimous consent--exercise it.
Exactly. They refused to vote on Garland. They obstruct when they are in power. They destroy when they are in power. They enrich themselves no matter what at the expense of the health and well being of millions. Filibuster to save democracy!
Guys. The filibuster is no longer available for cabinet confirmations or Supreme Court nominees. It was removed from Senate rules by Republicans under McConnell, so there's now a limit to the amount of time a senator can hold the floor.
What the Dems are doing now is refusing to yield a single minute of their allotted floor time. This does keep them talking much longer than they normally would - hence the overnight speeches this week - but they aren't allowed to go on forever like they could in a real filibuster. Unfortunately that is their biggest wrench in the toolbag at the moment, and it can only do so much.
Hard to “like” this one. Yet another McConnell legacy to despise.
The GOP was in power when the Garland nomination was under consideration. That how McConnell kept him off the court. We (Dems) are NOT in power now. It's a BIG difference. And as noted elsewhere, filibusters are no longer available for confirmations.
But doing nothing is a statement implying acceptance. Which quickly reads as support for the actions /activity
I ity… etc.
The citizenry who are against this Trump/Musk attack on our government are the majority. It is us who have to exercise our citizenship by hounding our “elected representatives” until they ( most especially the Republicans) understand that we are not going to tolerate an Authoritarian takeover by billionaire miscreants.
“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. For this reason, that convention which passed the ordinance of government, laid its foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time. BUT NO BARRIER WAS PROVIDED BETWEEN THESE SEVERAL POWERS. The judiciary and the executive members were left dependent on the legislative for their subsistence in office, and some of them for their continuance in it. If, therefore, the legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made; nor, if made, can be effectual; because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of acts of Assembly, which will render them obligatory on the other branches. They have accordingly, in many instances, decided rights which should have been left to judiciary controversy, and the direction of the executive, during the whole time of their session, is becoming habitual and familiar.”
Well, well, well. Let's make these demonstrations just the start. Just the warm up before the game. This is going to take coordinated effort over years. But we can do it.
And be prepared to go even further. Hate to say it but this is war.
Be warned - legacy media will not give much credence to our efforts.
Instead of the Washington Post subscribe to The Guardian.
Contribute to The American Prospect.
Join Blue Sky.
Share information to a Facebook group.
Donate what you can afford. Five Dollars here and five dollars there matters.
***If you can possibly handle it, join the demonstrations. And share photos.
SPREAD THE WORD.
The American Prospect -- https://prospect.org
Blue Sky. -- https://bsky.app
The New Republic. -- https://newrepublic.com
Democracy Docket. -- https://www.democracydocket.com
Pro Publica. -- https://www.propublica.org
Brennan Center. -- https://www.brennancenter.org
Vaya con Dios
The Contrarian...
Than you.
Thank you again, Heather. I would also urge folks to read Paul Krugman’s piece today titled, Autogolpe (self coup).
'...“self-coup” — when a legitimately elected leader uses his position to seize total control, eliminating legal and constitutional restraints on his power. Are Musk and Trump trying to pull off an autogolpe here? Of course they are. And they are doing so with, as far as I can tell, the full support of every Republican in the House and the Senate.'
- Paul Krugman
"I’ve also instructed my team to work diligently to prepare for an important announcement next week regarding the Mississippi River. "
Blessed are those who put things in perspective.
One thing I can say in seeing the many senators speaking up recently, my eye is on Chris Murphy. I think he has what it takes to be President.
Of course strategies and instructions come from Russia.
They serving the criminal in the White House unite in one criminal enterprise -- serving as terrorists in the destruction of the institutions that had built some modicum of democracy in the U.S.
In addition to being a clown, a racist, a rapist, convicted criminal and lifelong business fraud, the fat orange guy is serving most happily as terrorist for Putin. He's angry yet having all those institutions serving ordinary people. Life should be only for the benefits of the rich, as under Putin life is only for the benefits of the oligarchs.
And the rich, and the oligarchs hate "the people." They hate humanities -- that's why they disappeared from U.S. schools in the same way so many Russian intellectuals, poets, and writers disappeared.
We're witnessing a mass vulgarity.
What a tide, an onslaught Heather yet valiantly notes, chronicles, details -- as if her decency, and that of -- what? how many others? -- might make it a contest.
Putin needed to resort to a hot war attempting to conquer Ukraine.
Oligarchs hate the sciences too, when their work conflicts with ideology.
And decency. What does real decency look like? Not like McCarthyism, apparently, and we are seeing it rise on steroids.
I’ve never seen more conspiracy theory wrists than in a zoo. By the way, you might wanna listen to the leader of Japan, who said it’s not worthy to respond to conspiracy, theories or hypotheticals. But you guys are to 31% approval rate you just keep doing it and digging yourself more of a hole
You've found "conspiracy theory wrists" in a zoo??
Do tell!
Dictating it, he is too lazy to write it himself.
"It" is too lazy to write it "itself, "Carol.
Putin, however, pays well to grads of Russian junior high schools who claim proficiency in English.
Hey Bob, this purchaser of Oompa Loompa merch was over on Robert Reich's Substack. He no doubt has all the stuff that the orange conman sells. He's messed up in his head with the lies of Don-old. He spreads them like a virus.
It's sad. Can't get angry with cult mentality. Just have to see the name and read on by to the next entry. He'll probably go to other substacks too.
"Sad" pertains to human qualities, Dee, also maybe natural disasters.
Does it pertain to AI bots, too?
Phil, our esteemed commenter Bill Katz has "conversed" with this subject and vouches for him as a "real person". I'm certain that Bill Katz is a real person; my "relationship" here on Substack is that I will not comment nor engage with him.
How can you tell if it's an AI bot? I guess if it isn't sentient maybe it isn't sad just disturbing. Maybe Rick the p***k is an AI bot so thinking that it's a person is a mistake on my part.
We all make that mistake sometimes, Dee.
Many women in the past several decades have approached the fat orange guy as if it were human -- only to learn it's nothing more than another fat, make-up-caked reptilian predator/rapist.
Many banks have dealt with it as if it were a business interest -- only to learn it's a guaranteed thief, fraud, grifter, con man.
Many foreign leaders have met with the sleazy, oozing sludge as if it were an official elected by the American people -- only to learn it's long been a gold rain appendage to Putin and his murderous cronies and Eastern Orthodox bearded, long-skirted, gold-and-other-bejeweled-clanking, murder-&-hatred-incanting priests.
Many voters -- tens of millions -- have voted for their reality TV-addicted, American-school "educated," and standardized-test-dehumanized, only to learn: nothing.
Oh, please DON'T.
Oh!! DO TELL us about “conspiracy theories “. They are the lifeblood of the
Fox?news rightwing.
In the words of Jay Kuo, you’re peeing in the cheerios again, Phil. How about pitching in instead of shooting us in the foot. We need you in the fight.