This afternoon, Congress passed a new continuing resolution necessary to fund the government past the upcoming deadlines in the previous continuing resolution. Those deadlines were tomorrow (January 19) and February 2. The deadlines in the new measure are March 1 and March 8. This is the third continuing resolution passed in four months as extremist Republicans have refused to fund the government unless they get a wish list of concessions to their ideology.
If, “in 1879, well aware of the stakes in the fight, newspapers made the case that the government was under assault” why can’t our media do the same????
Seems to me that the major concern of today’s media, with few exceptions, is their approval ratings! It is also a concern of mine that large corporate, ultra conservative entities are buying out smaller, local newspapers to spew their propaganda!
Exactly. The reason I subscribed to Heather Cox Richardson is that she is a Historian and gives a good prospective of what is happening in the USA and the World. I have taken several college courses but Heather refreshes my memory and adds details that was never included in my college history studies.
HCR's newsletters inform us how our history has brought us to the place we are now. So much of the mainstream media is owned by large corporations interested only in the bottom line. Fox "News" has done untold damage to the country spewing far right propaganda.
Anthony, yes, her letters are informative, and the historical context is always welcome, and I often learn stuff I didn't know before.
But, in fairness, she is a cheerleader for Biden and the Democrats. That's okay, because I tend to disagree with most of the MAGA nonsense, OTOH, I don't think that her posts are those of an objective historian. Maybe there is no such thing.
In an interview on NPR, she said that she was writing for people who would look back 100 years hence. Well, if the world lasts that long, those reading her letters 100 years from now will get a warped perspective.
In all fairness, HCR has always considered herself a republican and comes from a state that has always been considered conservative and republican. I personally think that she looks at the world from the perspective of history and that she has been horrified by what she has seen and heard from where the republican party is today. She, like so many others, see President Biden as a good man and president who is up against a clear and present danger both from #45 and his minions that he would throw aside at the drop of a hat.
Being a Republican from Maine is not like being a MAGA Republican from Tennessee (a la Johnson) or any number of states. Be that as it may, I understand and agree that one SHOULD be horrified at so much of what the Republicans are doing. But that is an opinion, not a chronicle of history.
I too think that Biden is a good man and that he comes at most things from a good place in his heart.
And, yes, I too think that Trump is a clear and present danger and one with zero loyalty as you point out.
You can also read my reply to Rhonda in this thread for an explanation.
If you have the time, read David French's newsletter. He is an opinion columnist for the NYT and wrote about why Trump should be kept out of the WH. It's a well-written piece. I have written a lengthy analysis of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and addressed all the objections and counterarguments in my post on Substack. You can see it by clicking the icon to the left of my name.
I like your comment. I very much like HCR. But I mostly find the comments maddening, and go months without even looking at them.
Case in point: the person who commented on your post by essentially repeating what you sad, but in 50% more words. Then directed you to another newsletter and her own writing, I guess to bring your thoughts up to her loftier level?
I think I need a few more weeks away from the comment section.
Where did you get the idea she’s trying to be an objective historian? She doesn’t claim that.
About half of her text each day is historical, and I find it factually objective. Then she uses that history to illuminate that the MAGA movement apes some of our worst history, that we have seen this before, and eventually overcame most of it. She also compares the current administration—mostly favorably—to presidential administrations of the past 90 years, and to the Progressive Era.
Her comparisons, her interpretations of today are not objective. They are meant to be illuminating and persuasive. I think historians a hundred years from now will find great value in the thoughts of a public intellectual.
As I wrote in response to another comment, I got the impression that HCR is purporting to be—not just trying to be—an objective historian from the interview she had on NPR where her recent book was discussed. I think it was on the On Point program produced by WBUR.
You agree with me that her interpretations of today are not objective. I agree that they are meant to be persuasive.
That's why I think it is more opinion-writing than history.
As for future readers, we don't know. But modern historians spend quite a bit of time assessing the accuracy of contemporaneous accounts. Future historians will have her letters and the comments to assist them.
You've characterized Dr. Richardson as biased in general terms without providing specifics to support your position. Generalizations are inherently false.
Maybe she's a "cheerleader" for Joe because he deserves it. It's always possible, you know. Just because you aren't doesn't mean that your view is correct and hers incorrect.
I consider Joe to be the best president since FDR, and I'm willing to provide support for that conclusion, if you'd like, but you can, of course, find it on your own if you look for it objectively. (I'm a Bernie Bro, didn't want Joe, but the scales finally fell from my eyes, and I realized that Joe has done an amazing job in a very tough environment.)
I’m reminded of what a friend told me in 84, the Republicans only have to stir the pot enough to have the democrats form a circular firing squad to neutralize any opposition. Seems like the same as 40 years ago and probably just human nature. Oh well there is one slight difference in my opinion and that is the abandonment of democracy where a vote dictates choices for the group. Instead it seems a single person is inclined to block and/or hold hostage any process for any reason. Having said that I don’t believe a criminal should be allowed to circumvent our judicial system by pushing a case out for a vote. Just my opinion.
Thanks for your comment. I think you should re-read what I wrote. With all respect, I think you've missed the point.
I did not say that HCR doesn't tell the truth. In fact, I pointed out that I agree with her views.
However, too often, her letters are cheering on what Biden says or does.
IMHO, that is the function of an opinion columnist, not a historian. But these are her letters and she's free to say whatever she wishes. I'm just pointing out that, as with the history of Reconstruction, there are so-called historians who chronicled that period from a very biased perspective.
I think I speak the truth. If you don't agree, that's fine. But I don't think it is appropriate to denigrate my ability to tell truth from bias especially since you don't know me at all.
If you have the time, read my post on this forum about why Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars Trump. That will give you a better sense of my views as well as my effort to be objective about the complex legal issues. You can click on the icon at the left of my reply and get to the Breakfast with Bwana page.
Again, thanks for the comment. Be well and stay safe.
What exactly are your grounds for saying that. If you wrote that she doesn’t cover everything, I could agree, but as to a “warped perspective,” I would most definitely disagree. (As a student of history from fourth grade and having lived through WWII, although I will not speak as an expert, I am very alert to point of view, which these days is frequently seen as “bias,” and therefore negative.)
I did not write that she doesn't cover everything and neither would I make a meaningless observation like that. NO ONE can cover everything and I have no expectation that anyone would.
I think you misunderstood my point which is that if one is writing history for people 100-150 years hence, which is what HCR claimed in her interview on WBUR, then it has to be accurate and not skewed. What I was referring to is the "warped" perspective that people would get 100-150 years from now without doing a lot of digging to understand the context.
I guess what I should have said is she is not writing history, but an opinion chronicle.
That's okay. I agree with most of her views, but I think they can be presented without cheerleading and bashing.
Anil, I appreciate your courage in raising doubts about the objectivity of HCR's posts. As a history buff and liberal, I sometimes bristle a little at how incomplete or one-sided Dr. Richardson's articles are. Like you, I value the historical information, agree with her conclusions, and continue reading her daily.
My only disagreement with your comment is that I don't consider this a "warped perspective". I would say it's often incomplete or a bit one-sided, which to me has a different connotation than "warped".
My hope is that everyone left of center will be - as we desperately want those on the right to be - questioning, and skeptical of the narratives we're being presented. If we're not, it's extremely easy for all of us to keep thinking "that adds to my certainty that my worldview is 100% right". Americans have gone way, way down that road, and it may destroy us.
Perhaps the word "warped" is harsh. I was referring to the perspective that readers 100 years hence will get since it will take considerable effort to understand the context in which her remarks were made.
I disagree. I believe Pres. Biden to be a man for his time as was FDR. I think for you to quibble about whether someone is giving a biased view of how he is handling the affairs of state at this point in time is a bit absurd. After all if he doesn’t win it’s not only the end of democracy in the US but the end of the free world.
Why does it always devolve to labels? If one doesn't care for the facts as presented, do the research. Labels are generally ad hominem attacks that avoid the subjects at hand. Deflection, not discovery.
I respectfully disagree with you. Maybe she does have a pro Biden slant and I happen to agree with her. I have never heard her call people the names and spew the vituperative language that trump or republicans have done. I see Biden as a person who choose to go the high road instead of the low one.
I just checked with my financial advisor to make sure *I* didn't get bought out by Sinclair Media while I was taking a nap. He says I am all good, but apparently he just got bought out by Sinclair, so who knows if I can trust him?
Sinclair Media: It's like Body Snatchers! Or the Dick Van Dyke walnuts-in-the-closet episode, but with democracy at risk, instead of our thumbs!
The Dems sold their souls to the devil when they voted to change the law that prohibited ownership of a tv outlet and a newspaper in the same market!
NYPost was saved from bankruptcy preserving Union jobs,but the floodgate was opened for Murdoch and subsequently Sinclair group to poison the media outlets with the vile hate mongering and outright lies!
It will be nothing, which is where it was headed anyway. Sinclair is spending big in an effort to turn Baltimore into a right wing metropolis that would resemble the distopia William Bourroughs imagined in The Wild Boys (1971).
In happier media news, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is adding new reporters to be located in rural areas of the state, since Minnesota has a large political divide between its urban residents and rural residents. This means that the Tribune will be reporting from areas that have lost local newspapers and are currently served largely by Sinclair's radio network.
Our local rag has long been owned by Gannett which has made it not worth reading for the most part. I do look at a few local stories and the obits. Now that Gannett owns the Eugene Register Guard, we sometimes get stories, especially sports, written by one of their people. Salem is the state capital, but all we have is something to line a bird cage with. We subscribe online mainly to read obits. There are also a couple online news sources, one of which is much better and tuned in to politics.
I cancelled my subscription and increased my donation to the Baltimore Banner. The journalists need to have an employer who will respect their journalistic integrity and we locals need to pony up so we can read quality local journalism. The Baltimore Banner is a nonprofit currently running on a shoe string. Join me in preserving the free press.
Oh yes; and warnings were made. No one listened. *Small i personally sent out those warnings long ago, as I observed the media consolidations as they started, and again in reference specifically to the rural area 'grabs' by Sinclair. Back then, folks more or less considered me a 'kook' or alarmist of some sort. I also had major 'alarm bells' go off in my head when McConnel and the R dominant senate chose by hook and crook, to vote down Obama's appointment for the SCOTUS, Merrick Garland - that was absolutely unprecedented to my memory and obviously an extremist move. That action, further solidified my foreboding of what has come to pass. In fact, a personal champion of mine who I've supported from his first ever appearance on the state political scene has a spouse who is published writer. At that time and before I followed said spouse on FB where writing was shared. When hand wringing therein began over the Garland pass, I opined that the only option was mass demonstrations and appeals of protest, without cease. I never gained any traction there to begin with, much less on that, so I've abandoned all that. I've written to said champion repeatedly, but get little more than 'form' letters in return, if at all. You get passed off to their 'helpers' whose job it seems is to do little more than blow smoke up your tail. It's so frustrating, to say the least. This has been 'my' experience since said champion was elected. My sense is there must be some "A" list that one is on or not; I'm sure I'm not on any "A" list. Shame of that is that as plugged in as I am, I had much to say early on; I was certain that union support of dems was failing and that America, in general, and specifically working class (dirty hands) were P.O.'d to a self interest destructive level. I felt and knew that as early as 2003 and it scared hell out of me, if I'm honest. Regardless though, I continue to support this champion because the votes it casts on all things, mirror what my votes would be; I'm 'one of those' that checks such things. Anyway, enough of my rambling..
Not so far, Project 2025 is ready to hit the ground running, with more money behind it than all our twenty dollar donations could match in a million years.
True, the wealthy oligarchs have purchased and continue to purchase media outlets, propagandizing their own disinformation. HCR gives us valuable information in terms of perspective and current events. Using info from a recent letter of hers I fashioned this letter below to the Palm Beach Post which was published today (1/19/2024):
GOP opposes ‘takers’ getting health care
The question is why? What is it that would cause elected politicians of the Republican Party callously to deny 2.5 million Floridians of needed health care? There is history within the GOP that helps to explain this cruelty. The New Deal wiped out the existing oligarchies and created a middle class. Blacks and minority communities, however, were excluded. Women remained mostly subordinate. This started to change in the 1950s and 1960s.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson noted that Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan used the same arguments as the plantation owners and western oligarchs to push back. Their argument: There are makers and takers. Takers just want handouts. Giving handouts means taking from those who are self-reliant, thus taking their liberty and destroying democracy.
Florida House Speaker, Republican Paul Renner, makes this argument as to why the Republican politicians will not vote for Medicaid expansion in Florida. If the vast number of Floridians want a government of the people, by the people and for the people, fair wages and healthcare, it must vote Republicans out of office.
Maybe if takers were healthy and had a real social safety net....they could become makers. Unfortunately, we all aren't born into supportive circumstances, nor with the same avenues to navigate society. I worked with poor people all of my professional career and was frequently astounded by their ability to manage, not overcome, the horrific barriers put in front of them. I've also seen how existing social safety nets fall so very short of helping that we should be ashamed as a society. I see how my white privilege has helped me in every step and all aspects of my life. I see how being a female has been a small barrier on some occasions, impenetrable barrier on others, to the prosperity allowed to my social strata.
Republican rhetoric is nothing more than a righteous reason to stratify our society into people who are worthy and people who aren't.
They are not , they are arrogant, selfish, and cruel. They have been taught that because they were born rich, or fought their way to the top, often by exploiting others, that they must be special. So, they buy media coverage to tell the world. One of the worst examples bought Twitter.
People like Paul Renner are pointing to the wrong people as takers. The real takers are the morbidly rich, who do things like engage in stock buybacks, which is really just stock price manipulation. They are not investing in companies by utilizing stock buybacks. If the "makers" are so self reliant, why do they need to manipulate the system to the detriment of everyone else?
The Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society, the Hoover Institute, the Koch Bros. and more, not only have no use for this prescription of government enunciated by Frances Perkins, the architect of the New Deal:
"The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to provide the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life."
Why? In part because they do not want their profits and property taken by taxes to support social welfare programs, i.e., programs to support the vast majority of Americans, the real makers. Their success has resulted in massive tax cuts, driving our national debt to $34 trillion. To save this republic, we have no option but to win control and start taking back some of the wealth taken by these oligarchs and large corporations out of the American economy.
Thank you for this reference, Kathy. I will check it out. Right now the Lakeland Democratic Club is putting together our strategic plan on how to help our local and state-wide candidates best.
Maybe, just maybe, now that the Republicans have relegated women and ordinary citizens to the bottom of the rung (abortion, high home insurance rates, refusing to expand Medicaid at no cost to Florida taxpayers) they will see that their interests are best represented by Democratic politicians.
Once there were very few media outlets that pandered to the most extreme, today they are many so those outlets have far more nut jobs believing nonsense and to a larger extent have paved the way for the likes of a low-life conman to become president of the richest most powerful country on Earth. Thank you RW media - motivated by MONEY - the country be damned.
‘Twas ever thus. As AJ Liebling wrote, “The press is free only to the man who owns one.” And late-19th century newspapers—which pretty much had a monopoly on mass communications—were not, generally speaking, beacons of enlightenment. With a few exceptions (NYT) they were bought and paid for. Go and read about the war between the LA Times and the printers’ union that led to the bombing of the paper, and two of Clarence Darron’s greatest cases. Today, the NYT, though highly imperfect, is sounding the drum against the dangers represented by Trump, and as Election Day approaches we’ll see much more of that. But those outlets need help, and ordinary citizens can do much more than in the past, through social media (which I abhor), emails, YouTube, etc. So, in the words attributed to Joe Hill, “Don’t mourn, but organize.”
Yes Anthony, large corporations are buying up small papers. This is happening in nearly all commercial activities and also by on-line activities. Retail, hospitals, medical associations, rental housing, auto sales, insurance, education, entertainment - nearly any place where money is exchanged. A small number of huge international corporations will soon control every aspect of our lives. Orwell saw it coming.
In my humble opinion, For Profit Hospitals are an abomination, an insult to our welfare and society. I miss the neighborhood bookstores and blame Amazon but it does not threaten my welfare, The thought that when I am admitted to a hospital that some distant auditor is seeking ways to make as much money off my care as possible is frightening. That they and even the ensurers are collaborating to extract more money from the Government is particularly galling.
And also radio and tv! Of particular concern is the shift in public television. (In our 7 county region of the San Joaquin Valley of California, the local PBS station's antagonistic board and management have been taken over by right wing, ag industry operatives. PBS is apparently aware but has done nothing publicly known to respond to entreaties requesting the station, KVPT CH18 adhere to PBS editorial standards of fairness and balance. Hopefully, the station remains a rogue outlier. This edition of HCR's "Letter" includes interesting mention of how Poland's public broadcasting had been taken over. We're seeing in real time how that works here in the SJV of Cali.) NOTE: Some models of contemporary "Smart" tvs are not capable of picking up PBS's "Passport" App for accessing streamed programming.
Too true, unfortunately. Paraphrasing Les Moonves, before his ouster from CBS, Trump was undeniably bad for the US, but very good for CBS’s bottom line.
Anthony Wilkins, your concern is valid in my opinion. But thank goodness, the love of personal freedoms for all, beginning with voting rights and nurtures that love Democracy, media such as Substack has given writers such as Heather, Jay Kuo, Joyce Vance, Robert Hubble and way to keep the torch of freedom burning for all of us. Professor Heather gives us the long perspective of our history to better understand that protecting freedom is an on going part of the engagement we must tend to always.
“. . . smaller, local newspapers . . . “ and Sinclair Broadcast Group buying up local television stations turning local tv news into miniature Fox News tRUmpistas, to the detriment of fair & balanced reporting (remembering the days that Walter Cronkite announced Eric Sevareid’s commentary).
The group of large corporations and ultra conservative entities you speak of formed a group called the Council for National Policy during the Reagan administration in 1981. So for the last forty plus years they have been degrading our democracy and is one of the reasons we find ourselves in such a dire situation. The other reason is that Democrats have not been playing the role of the loyal opposition by failing to adequately challenge this attack on democracy.
My sentiment, too. The Republicans are guilty of polite insurrection by sabotaging governing and the rule of law. Of course they're no good at governing even if they believed in democracy.
Texas has a pledge of allegiance to its state flag. I wonder.... Do some Texans feel conflicted about saying the Texas pledge after pledging allegiance to the U.S. flag?
I’ve never heard of that before and I’m 61 years married to a former Texan from Lufkin. After retirement, we bought low income houses and rented to HUD tenants in Tyler. Many friends and relatives are/were teachers. Our son , a teacher in Phoenix suburb, graduated from SFA in Nacogdoches and keeps up with former classmates. Have never heard mention of a state anthem, especially one sung in school. I’ve certainly seen MAGA nutcases (Tyler is home of Louie Goemert) and I have seen heard opinions of some very rich, well connected Republican people. Since the rise of monsters Abbott and Paxton (also creeps Cruz, Comer, et al,)I have no desire to return. Anyone want to buy a house or two?
I don't know if there is an anthem; I referred to a pledge of allegiance to the state flag/state of Texas. I'll be in Lufkin tomorrow, visiting a friend...
I agree that TX is in open rebellion! We should stop all sorts of federal funding to TX since clearly they don’t want to be part of the United States of America. Perhaps Mexico would want them back.
There is a great deal of abject cruelty disguised under the veneer of politeness. Nowhere was this more evident than in the South during slavery and then again under Jim Crow.
Slight nitpick: they think that dominating and subjugating IS governing, because it is "standing strong" for "traditional values." What you and I are thinking of as governing (i.e. good-faith bargaining over policy) is "weakness" that lets people "take advantage," and this "woke lunacy" (used to be "bleeding-heart madness") leads to "social unravelling."
It's important to have all the terms and definitions straight, y'know.
Asleep at the wheel? Knocked unconscious? Hypnotized and proud of it? How could anyone NOT want to be woke - aware, awake enough to see injustice and deceit?
Answer: "We don't want to think about it. We just want to yell about being "replaced" and we like our history filtered and finely tuned to reflect our superiority."
Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead into the land of Hitler, Orwell and Huxley. My only regret about being this old is that I won't live long enough to see the MAGA madness be just a horrible footnote in our history. Like the America Firsters of the 1930's.
I was born as Hitler marched into Paris; and as the first baby into a NON-profit group health insurance company my Dad had created in NYC.
It deeply bothers me that few know the streams of history including me. Even the well educated. But apparently you do, and others who comment here as well. Heather’s Letters are a god given gift to me daily.
My regret also. Hope the children and grandchildren of the greatest generation become woke. Making that word a slur was a deliberate and evil attack on sanity
I believe I read that the term "woke" was popularized in the South among the Black community by a traveling musician by the name of Led Belly. He used it in his songs as a warning about lynchings. Please correct me if I've got that wrong.
As an old soldier I can only say that Trump and his base's fantasy of pulling the trigger doesn't include swimming around in their guts. It's a horrid way to be enlightened.
If this old cop understands your description as someone who has not really thought of what it means to kill another human intentionally, then I agree 100%. I wouldn't call it enlightened, I'd call it psychotic.
I agree the Republican Majority in the House are doing everything they can to sabotage the smooth running of our Government. Since the Republicans gained the Majority, the House is constantly in a stalemate. Hardly any useful legislation was considered or passed in 2023.
In Oregon, our State Senate has been stymied by Republican Senators every session since 2019. The Republican Senators don't like something, they decide who will WALKOUT so there is No Quorum. Last year we passed a Constitutional Amendment for Oregon stating that whomever does not show up on the floor, cannot run in the next election. Of course, sickness does not count against them. But this year, same deal, several Republican Senators walked out again defying the will of the citizens of Oregon. Here that's called "busting the law".
So I want to know is where the Republican Party gets the idea that they are The Law and Order Party? Is it only the laws that they choose to respect? You figure that out.
I am concerned about our governing bodies in general. Are some able to identify all of our states and capitals? Do they know where our American Indian populations live? Do they know the needs of our immigrants and how and where best to meet basic needs so that they can begin a safe and productive life? Obviously, many so called "leaders" are willing to disrupt our fellow citizens to cause chaos and promote anger rather than communicate and solve problems.
Do some have a desire at all to preserve our parks rather than to retake this land for its resources....for THEIR personal benefit!!!
I am afraid that many of our most recent electorate are like scavengers....hunting for themselves and taking what is easily availabe .
When I see a hero like the wonderful Ms Crockett in Texas...I think WOW...yes, we still have heroines. We do have persons of character who are standing up and speaking out for our country. Thanks to each of you!!!
Here we go again. Here is the Cambridge dictionary definition of republican-
republican noun [ C ]
a supporter of government by elected representatives of the people rather than government by a king or queen
Hmmmm. They are clearly Fascists that want an authoritarian just like TFFG's Putin. Even GOP is a stretch unless it means Grinches Ogres and Plutocrats.
I was referring, too vaguely it seems, to the Republicans in Congress. My poorly made point was that while they're better behaved than those who stormed the Capitol, they're just as dangerous.
Michael I fulsomely agree with what you say. What’s frightening is that Trump and his sycophants could win in November, as the low road beats the high road.
Keith, I became nauseated when I watched an interview with Bob Woodward several months ago. He was asked, "Do you think Trump can win the election? Woodward said, "Yes."
In between hard Coup d'états, Republicans are engaged in soft coups. All for the greater good of the wealthy who will not stop until they turn the US and the world into a giant fiefdom.
Because our media is much more diverse today than it was then and communication is instantaneous. Also, there are those who are happy when the government is under assault. When obstructionists who proclaim that the government can do no good prevent it from doing anything at all, they feel as if they have been vindicated.
Actions speak louder than words and the "anti-government" crowd is very pro-government when it benefits them, or enables them to boss others around. No?
The "government" the bullies genuinely hate is "of, by and for the people. Like, ALL the people; even those they consider themselves better than.
I wish they could see my daughter in law and her family who Mexican and live and work in Mexico!!! They are doctors, engineers, dentists. They have children who are growing into their professions.
My grandchildren attend wonderful schools with caring teachers. They live on the Pacific coast.
In Monterrey, Mexico, years ago our church in South Carolina began going on mission trips to Monterrey, Mexico. We went to serve , repairing homes, assisting with church growth but, we were the ones blessed. My son worked hard mixing concrete. He was so strong and he was proud that he could give his strength to serve. He fell in love with Mexico, its culture and its people. He met his wife, a doctor when he served years later on a mission trip to help with hurricane relief. Her father, a strong Presbyterian, was strict and the leader of his family....excellence and discipline were required early from his children. Both he and his wife were teachers.
We falsely judge others.....we miss out by not respecting and showing love to one another.
It's almost as if these are people that are attempting to *escape* poverty, crime, and violence, and are not interested in committing it themselves! Quite reluctant to, in fact!
It's the prospect of building a real future, still the American dream. I have personal experience. In the America I found more than 30 years ago, there was so much to do and opportunity compared to where I came from, that I certainly didn't have a second to think about crime, probably the same as today's immigrants. Immigration reform with clear rules, carried out humanely is a MUST.
It worked for me, too Bruce and my "working harder" to achieve the American dream has been over fifty of my 70 years. But, it isn't so for many others in today's times where the working-harder part now doesn't achieve it whether born here or not. Here's a link to an interview with the author of a new book on the American West where the dream that worked for us has become a "myth" for others as right-wing extremism is entrenching itself. Not sure I agree with all her observations but it's a worthwhile perspective.
You are correct. Crime is for those like Donald Trump who inherit $573 million dollars from a criminal father and then keep the criminal enterprise going with the able help of the City of NY.
Betsy, remember that, back in 2021, Chip Roy (R-Tx) said that their idea was to sow chaos so that Congress would accomplish nothing and people would blame Biden.
The problem for them is that he is doing a good job for the American people. They are withholding funding to Ukraine only because of the border crisis which is all they have in the coming election. I wish this MAGA base would search for the truth instead of what is force fed them by Fox.
Deborah, the base is doing what we all default to when we don't feel that things are going to hell in a hand basket; they're listening to the news that agrees with their world view without doing further research.
I've used the ideas from the book "Beyond Contempt" to drill down without attacking (or seeming to attack) to see what matters to friends/family, find common ground, and go from there. Some of that is asking whether they believe what the Associated Press (which was/is the majority of news articles in their local paper--Walter Cronkite always quoted AP). If they agree to believing the AP, then ask if they'd like to Google what the AP has to say on the subject. If not, ask what news sources they trust and why they trust them. Talk about news versus opinions and ask them which category their news falls into. You get the idea.
Ah yes Woody Guthrie. Was thinking those could be the Clash lyrics but then I know they surely were inspired by him and so many others that covered 'Pretty Boy Floyd'.
Woody Guthrie's prominently displayed message on his guitar "This Machine Kills Fascists" is even more necessary today and hopefully inspiring a call to arms against the impending totalitarian cast and characters trying to squelch our hopes and dreams.
"Paul Moore vividly remembers the Baltimore Sun in its heyday, not so long ago.
'More than 400 newsroom staff, six foreign bureaus and a 12-person Washington bureau,' Moore recalled. He was the Sun’s deputy managing editor (and, for a time, its public editor) until 2009. 'We were a full-service newspaper, covering the country, the region and the world' .And winning multiple Pulitzer prizes for the quality of its aggressive, ambitious journalism.
Then came all manner of misfortune – a series of bad owners, the stunning downturn in newspaper economics and – just this week – the paper’s purchase by David D Smith, who runs Sinclair Inc, a Maryland-based media company that made itself infamous a few years ago when it ordered its local journalists in dozens of markets to repeat, word for word, the same rightwing 'editorial' about fake news. The identical segments had a hostage-video vibe."
I watched that segment on one of the two local stations that became Sinclair stations a while back. This is the first time I've heard "hostage video vibe" as a description, and boy howdy, is that ever accurate.
You beat me to it! I found that to be the most important sentence in the article. The problem is, we simply do not have that type of media today. Today newspapers, legitimate news stations, and what passes as cable television news is largely corporate owned and managed. The messages are managed and sometimes the messages protect the corporate structures bottom line.
If you want real news in this country you have to turn to independent sources, much like this newsletter (thank you HCR!). Unfortunately, the masses largely don't pay attention to begin with. How to direct their attention towards smaller non-corporate media outlets is a mystery. We have to figure this out though. Our country and our children's lives depend on it.
I remember when newspapers and Walter’s 30 minutes was all there was. Not perfect but no “alternative facts” bull Schitt.
Now it’s like Italian writer Umberto Eco said “Social media gives Legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. Then they were quickly silenced, but now they have the same rightTo speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.”
At this point, understanding the ownership of the media is the oligarchs who have a vested interest in destroying the Democratic agenda, I pay attention to what they are telling the people, even if just to refute it, and I get my information from other sources. Thanks to individual Substack writers like Prof. Richardson, and sources like The Guardian, Propublica, The Lever, The Intercept, Carnegie Foundation for Peace, Counterterrorism Update, and various foreign press that I also consume, I get a bigger and often different picture than the mainstream press provides. I am worried for Poland, and the countries around that are succumbing to fascism. I am back and forth between the USA and the EU, and living in Germany right now. Here there is a big discussion about a meeting in November that took place in Potsdammn, where members of the AfD met with Nazis and business leaders to discuss an agenda that would send people Black and Brown people living in Germany, even those who are born and raised, and those who have German citizenship to Africa. This is why I have called the AfD, The New German Nazi Party. The discussion is can the AfD legally exist? I also think that more members will be under scrutiny and the revelation that this is an agenda that they have is probably one that others will follow. Look at England's handling of refugees under Rishi Sunac. I see the immigration agenda much more complexly thanks to reading Prof. Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, where she explains that it has been an agenda since the late 1980s, early 1990s to normalize their racism by taking on an anti-immigrant agenda instead of being so explicitly racist, hoping to gain traction in mainstream politics, and then take over and create a White Supremacist Nation State. This was a shared agenda of White Nationalists from around the planet. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674286078
In Germany, I have joined Democrats Abroad, the German branch, and specifically the one local to where I live. They are organized on issues salient to Americans living abroad, and on making sure that people's votes from abroad count. I recommend that all Democrats living abroad join this organization for that very purpose of getting advice on how to vote from abroad. https://www.democratsabroad.org/
Too many of us have become lazy thinkers. The need to NOT be ostrasized by the group has become more important than seeking out the truth. Empty gossip has become a powerful tool, used to keep out those who think too much on their own.
Because too many of our news is dominated by media outlets that are after the Almighty Dollar and are really propaganda machines. Too many "journalists" do not report the factual news. They cleverly slant information to present their opinion. It's called Yellow Journalism.
The commendable Lynne McQuaker Kavner (my friend for thirty years) makes an excellent point. Our nation is in peril, with insufficiently strong voices making this point. I hope the decent majority of Americans will rise up and loudly proclaim the danger that Donald Trump and his acolytes represent.
They have but too many gave up. The Dallas Morning News, which I pay for the print edition, seems intent on running off print subscribers. I’m lucky if I get it half the time, after much gnashing of teeth..
Loved the Chronicle when I lived South of Houston. I prefer print but they don't make it easy. And then blame subscribers for ditching them. I'm tired of paying full price for half paper.
And they blame the subscribers. Time their plan to ditch print was outted. They have been whining about losing subscribers for ages, no wonder. I suggested that they pay delivery people enough to keep up cars, etc. Kids don't deliver papers on bikes anymore.
The days of the mainstream media being the 4th Estate are definitely in retrograde. The true voices for democracy are buried from the front pages and headlines in favor of pandering to the lowest common denominator. The truth about dysfunctional government at all levels does not drive clicks and views like over sensationalized tripe does.
Real journalism is alive and well but you have to dig for it and be willing to get out of the habit of relying on bright shiny soundbites and blurbs to get your information. The fact that you're here proves you're willing to do that but this is just one cog in the wheel.
To understand why the media refuses to write about the elephant in the room is simple, it's in their best financial interest not to do that. I posted this article from The American Prospect earlier but it's worth repeating because it can set folks on a path to get the answers to the questions outlets like NYT and WaPo bury deep inside.
Metaphors Journalists Live By (Part I)
One of the reasons political journalism is so ill-equipped for this moment in America is because of its stubborn adherence to outdated frames.
Kick-the-can financing threatens the U.S. credit rating, which impacts the federal government's constant borrowing, which threatens all the worthwhile programs that Congress funded before the schizophrenic Republicans took over the House. Maybe that's their plan...
They always have one overarching plan -- cut taxes and spend like crazy when there is a GOP President. Also, take away rights and benefits from everyone but the rich and corporations so the plutocrats can steal elections. When there is a Democrat, complain about the deficit, the border and people of color.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
I’m more subtle than you. I have very strong feelings regarding his actions re: Iraq. My Marine Corps son-in-law, an officer with three young children, was in the invasion force. My husband and I had to be completely supportive for their sake, but we were furious. There was a plus side. Both sets of grandparents were close enough to Camp Pendleton where they lived to be able to step in for all their different activities and become very close. That’s the only time in their 30+ years of marriage that we were so available. We’re also proud of the fact our son-in-law received a Bronze Star for the job he did in pre-planning and carrying through once there. The worst part none of us ever heard a word about how his unit was doing. From the time they arrived in Kuwait until they were ordered back there in preparation to come home, no word. They also had never received any of our letters or care packages. All that worry and fear for one man’s need to show his dad what he could do, and another man with no conscience could make a fortune. Despicable.
We drove past one of the most disheveled and disheartening homeless encampments in Oakland yesterday. I thought of all the good that could be done to alleviate some of this poverty through good governance. Oligarchs that choose to feather their own already over feathered nests at the expense of everyone else have to be stopped.
Regarding Ukraine, the ongoing war has seen ongoing permutations among the countries of the European Union. Poland became Ukraine's good buddy, dreaming of expanded borders. Then the wheels came off that, and then the conservative nationalist Polish government got voted out. The return of the liberal globalist Donald Tusk appears to signify Polish subservience to Germany, which brings forth the question:
The insight into the difficulties that Poland is having in rehabilitating their civil service is a useful predictive model for what we will be faced with when we pull off the next Age of Reform. We’ll be rid of Trump, one way or another, but then we’ll have to do what Germany had to do, following WWII. We’ll have to seek out all the Benedict Arnolds that have been embedded into our institutions. Seek them out and marginalize them one way or the other.
William Burke, "Resolute Square (folks from Lincoln Project)" just posted an excellent article in their free newsletter, titled, Surviving an Authoritarian Regime by Martin Mycielski who specifically outlines what to expect in a Dictatorship.
Good call. Italy had a tough time after WWII with their Fascists. There were so many. It's thorny but it's worth the fight to see if we can create a healthy democracy that works more equitably. Very murky out these just now but as Plato put it, "The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men." Not acceptable.
I'd like to thank whoever that D-list Ohio congressman is in today's letter for stating clearly what we all feel and know: it isn't about the spending. It has never been about the spending. Repubs don't want to spend *any* amount on *anything* with *any* possibility of directly helping individuals in need. American conservatives just hate helping people. Okay, I will be more specific, more fair: in my experience, conservatives absolutely loathe the idea of helping people they don't personally know. The idea that anyone they don't personally approve of might get a penny of theirs for any reason drives them absolutely mental. See, there is a right way and a wrong way to live, and that way is their way, and if you are not living the right way (their way), then you deserve whatever punishment the world gives to you until you wise up and convert. The idea that dollars from the pockets of the good and pure could be taken to be wasted on the dirty and slovenly is viewed as upside-down-inside-out-black-is-white a moral violation to conservatives as letting a homeless child starve outside the house of someone with a Rolls-Royce in their driveway would be to a liberal. This is the root of most domestic policy conflicts, always has been. It has never been a more-or-less spending level argument but a right-and-wrong moral argument, with spending levels an in-vain quantified proxy. As such, do not ever expect reasonableness or compromise with the other side on this; would *you* compromise your base beliefs for expediency?
When you are budgeting for a society of almost 400 million, budgets are a moral document. We are caught between two moral methods: punish to conform, or nurture to excel? Your vote in a few months will decide the people who will decide which wins out.
Will, I sincerely hope to see that one day, you are a wildly successful politician, or a speechwriter, or a Substack guru of your own. Your voice and your way with words deserve to be much more widely shared than here in our little Substack world. Whenever I see a post of yours, I know I’m about to be delighted. Thank you.
I commend Dr. Richardson for informing us that history says it is possible to pull this country out of the tailspin that it is in and get it back on course. Her perspective does not keep me from being very pessimistic, but might offer enough hope to allow me to keep acting to help the cause despite my pessimism.
I also think cities are a stronghold of democracy, economic might, and strength in diversity. May they prove a shield against bigotry and the foes of democracy.
“ Chastened, the leaders of the Democratic Party marginalized former Confederates and turned to northern cities to reestablish the party, beginning the transition to the party that would, fifty years later, usher in the New Deal.”
Philly is still here, and loyal to the Constitution and amendments. A wise insurrectionist once said “bad things happen in Philly.“ Bad things like good things for democracy and pluralism. The worst of MAGA ideologies are just not compatible with real life here.
As a former NYC person, I can testify to how widely and deeply the shrinking blob dump is despised. I’m hoping it’s so in Boston, Chicago, Detroit et al and spreading across our continent 🙏
Philly is still here, and loyal to the Constitution and amendments. That’s good news but unfortunately, for many people, party loyalty is still dominant in our country. I believe we need less of that and more attention to the quality of all candidates and to vote for those who support the Constitution and good governance.
Don’t count on New York. It has been turning into a Republican voting State - not extremist yet in most areas, but it is changing since much of the State is ideologically Red. NYC is a densely packed dot which is not all of New York.
Most of the elected representatives have been conservative Democrats who rarely work to help regular people. Their only claim to Blue flame is that they don’t make waves about POCs or LGBTQIA+ to avoid offending voters.
It’s clear the wealthy and their corporations have more say than regular people given the lack of affordable housing, the social segregation practices by real estate firms and banks, and the monopolies taking over the healthcare sector such as the Christian Health Network.
New York has also been helping fund religions for years with tax exempt status and beneficial policies such as allowing them to own significant amounts of property, including multi-family dwellings. Nearly all homes in a number of whole towns are owned by religions and rented to their members. Religions and elites have long worked together to control society in such a way which benefits both in terms of maintaining power. So I don’t see NY as a solidly Blue State for much longer.
I am cautiously optimistic that our society still has enough sanity left to stop Trump, but danger lurks everywhere, and the long term fight is just beginning. Business as usual is not sustainable. We can wait to be forced to recalibrate by getting massively smacked, or we can start examining priorities now, and be better prepared.
The big difference, it seems to me, is that this is the first time in our history that a single individual, rather than a group of people, has such leverage. I heard Speaker Johnson say that he had spoken with that individual several times recently, and that individual is not an elected member of our government and hasn't been since 2021.
Yeah. I wondered about that. “that individual “ would be a laughing stock has been if it weren’t for the spineless thugs and opportunists who keep resuscitating him. He is brain dead and rotting from the inside out. Let it take its course.
There is something beyond repulsive about Speaker Johnson who envisions himself as a second Moses appointed by God seeking direction from The Abominable Showman. Smarmy little fuzz ball, that one. Soft in the head, I'd say.
Where are the moderate Independents? Is this the real majority? How many news organizations report what moderates say or think because it doesn't put coin in their pockets. The polls have proved to be grossly inaccurate because most people no longer have land lines which was the best source for accurately polling. Are there any newspapers and stations that have added personnel or subscribers have increased since 2021?
Just this week, my wife read me a story that cable subscribers have dropped to under 50% of households. We cancelled ours this week saving $165/month. We were foolish for holding out as long as we did.
Gary, curious what platforms are you using for streaming? I am going to cancel my cable also. My cable/internet combined is increasing to $187 a month. Way too much when I only watch a few channels, and mostly it is background noise while I work, or for my dogs when I leave the house. Every year I call and bargain for a lower rate, which is a painful hours long process of trying to even speak with a real person. Time to drop cable!
We stream Netflix, Prime, Britbox, Acorn, Paramount+, Apple, HBO MAXX.
We've also tried Sling and Hulu but when we finished a few series like The Handmaid's Tale and a few others we canceled. Pandora is a good music channel but we don't subscribe to it. We used VUDU for quite a while and still have it out there because once you watch something you own it and can rewatch it anytime without charge.
We watch a lot of YouTube videos but haven't tried the YouTube channel so can't really say much about it.
Hope that helps and you save quite a bit of money.
See above comment. We have used Roku's to control our streaming platforms and been very happy with them. My daughter's TV has the streaming controller built in so she doesn't need a Roku.
I was hoping you would comment on the following information about Trump’s “fantastic” win in Iowa.
“Trump had received support from a mere fifty-six thousand caucus-goers, amounting to some seven per cent of the registered Republicans in the state and just three per cent of over-all registered voters in Iowa. Iowa represents less than 1% of US population”
By Susan B. Glasser
She sees a realistic view of how bizarre the press is and how they cover the man who would be America’s Hitler dictator. This needs to be explained to all Americans. Iowa doesn’t remotely resemble America.
Iowa doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t. Overwhelmingly white. Total population = 3.2million, equal to a small city here in California. Of the 2 million or so registered voters, all of about 110,000 turned out to caucus. Of those, half voted for the Vulgar Talking Yam.
Means that half didn’t. Iowa is determinative of zilch. Is the media bored? Lazy? Looking for something, anything to write about? If the answer to any of these is yes, then look for something else to fixate on. Lord knows there are plenty of other, much more important issues.
How about this? The Vulgar Talking Yam is running a shadow government, at least on immigration, by forcing the House leadership to do absolutely nothing on immigration and, by extension, holding up desperately needed aid to Israel and Ukraine because the Yam doesn’t want the Ds to have the prize of immigration reform to run on.
God forbid, he is elected. Precisely zero will be done about immigration, other than his wet dream of building giant camps to put people in, whether legal immigrants or undocumented.
Marla, The Iowa Caucuses are similar to Valentines Day; for no good reason, every four years the Pagans hold a “Celebration of Attention”, which the Media covers in a breathless cry as if to say “We’ll make the sun rise tomorrow (again)
That's been a talking point on MSNBC this week: how T**** actually lost in Iowa, based on the percentages of GQP voters who DIDN'T vote for him. Not only are his supporters in the minority of their party, they're in the minority in the US: white, evangelical Christian fascists.
David French of the NY Times has written a piece that should be read by every Federal and State jurist in the Country, "What the Civil War and Reconstruction teaches us about the proper use of the 14th Amendment. I think you would greatly relate to it.
I just read that. Thanks. Excellent article. Agent Orange is unhinged. His mental illness is dictating the course. This is all about revenge. Hell is not just coming, it's here. He NEVER feels remorse. It's not in his DNA.
The GQP wants someone else to clean up this toxic dump they created. Ideologies are the GQP's poison. Like the moron from I think Idaho that wrote a bill to stop 'furries' in schools. This is about the truth verses the lies. MSM knows this. We all know this. But, Agent Orange sells the news. He is profitable for them. MSM sell us out with their both sides bs. .
Many of us are exhausted. Apathy isn't going to be easy to battle. This insurrection started the day Biden won and continues to this day. The enemy is within the bowls of our government and our Supreme Court. Overlords they're not.
The insurrection started when the Supreme Court began to accept the concept of corporate personhood as precedent back in the 1880s. It’s been settled law ever since, culminating in Citizens United.
The corporate control of our ‘government’, caused 1/6, not Trump. Until a large enough coalition of Americans can come together to kill the concept of corporate personhood, and its money as speech companion, we’ll continue to circle the drain.
No, it was never a "harmless defoliant". Monsanto knew its effects, and it and other companies ignored them. Just like companies today ignore the damage already done by the clear and present danger who gets tagged with the nickname, and the damage he will do. The comments by the financial elites at Davos bear this out: they don't really care who wins, and too many of them would rather have T****, thinking he's more pro-business. It'a all about the money, and these elites just don't give a damn about anyone else.
Millions suffer to this day from the consequences. Vietnam populations exposed suffer from numerous cancers and so do their children to this day. Again, we are the collateral damage of the profiteers.
Davos says, 'trust us'. They are cold, callous and clueless.
You got it Bryan, they are the best. and helpfulness is in their DNA. They should be our Congress critters and Senators. Mandatory. Two terms, then back to the library.
I am expecting the DC Court of Appeals Panel to rule on Amendment 14, Section 3 immunity before the end of January. Like many, I will go directly to disposition sentence on the last page of the Opinion.looking for a prompt Remand Order.
I am.not ruling the possibility that SCOTUS will DENY Certerori particularly because of Wreck's post today setting up the US President as King George 3.
Will, I was already a big fan of your mind through your commentary, and though I’ve been a reader of LFAA since day 3 (grace à Rebecca Solnit), I’ve never been a paid subscriber (precariat class). Until today. Today I excitedly paid $5 so I could let you know that your perfectly placed Violent Femmes shoutout would not float off into infinity. I caught it.
This article is excellent—by the always excellent David French. Here is the phrase that reflects what I have been thinking: “…why does anyone believe it will be safer to keep him on the ballot? Why presume that the upheaval and violence that could greet his defeat at the polls would be any less than the upheaval and violence that could greet his disqualification from the ballot?”
Thanks for the link Danielle-French makes a good argument for disqualifying Trump now based on his involvement with the January 6th modern day insurrection.
The first shot for this insurrection wasn’t fired at Sumter-it was a tweet inviting people to DC to be “wild” along with all of the plots and lies he promoted. There are others in Congress who should be disqualified as well.
French also highlights how easy it’s been for White Americans to throw Black Americans under the bus so they can get on with their lives.
This capitulation to domestic terrorists has harmed our ability to “form a more perfect union”. It’s also cost a lot of harm to Americans with darker skin.
Trump and the Republicans would be nowhere without racism. We’ll soon see where SCOTUS lands on the issue and what kind of nation we really are… will “law and order” prevail or not?
(There is a gift link below and I don't believe I have quoted inappropriately for copyright issues.)
This article is well worth reading - you don't have to support everything the NYT publishes to make a subscription worthwhile. A sampling of the David French NYT article (*** emphasis mine): "Critics of applying Section 3 to Trump have correctly and eloquently argued that removing him from the race could trigger a convulsive and potentially violent backlash in the American body politic. Millions of Americans would feel as if their choice was taken from them and that scheming elites were destroying American democracy.
***But doesn’t that sound exactly like MAGA’s response to the last election? ***. In 2020, Trump faced the voters, participated in a free and fair election, and refused to accept the outcome. "
There is a gift link below and I don't believe I have quoted inappropriately for copyright issues.
Thank you for always making history relevant to current events and putting both in a way that is relatable and understandable. I feel smarter, and certainly better informed, because I read your posts. I’m proud to have renewed my subscription. You are worth every penny and then some!
Deja vu all over again. Let's work towards a Blue wave and vote the Republicans who cannot govern, especially the so-called Freedom Caucus, out of Congress.
I sincerely hope we don't fall into the trap that Trump himself is the problem, and if he loses the election and is convicted of one or more crimes, we're home free. The Republicans have been playing hardball and viciously unconstitutional politics for years, handing over the wealth of the nation to the funders of the party. Just like 1877.
I must voice a slight yet perhaps significant rebuttal to Heather's final paragraphs of tonight.
Yes, the last President elected from the House of Representative, James Garfield of Hey-oh-OHIO, was elected in 1880. And yes, he was a wonderful progressive on the issue of race relations in the wake of the Civil War wherein he was a Union officer. He was also the first college Professor elected President.
Yet tragically, he did not last a year into his term when he was shot in the gut at the train station in DC by Charles Guiteau, a "disgruntled office seeker", i.e., the "lone gunman" of his time, and lay in mortal agony for over two months before he passed away, leaving the Presidency in the capable yet questionable hands of Chester A. Arthur, the President with perhaps the best moniker, certainly the best mutton chops, but of questionable fire in the belly.
All of Garfield's progressivism on the issues of post-Civil War racial reconciliation, died with him in the darkened tunnels of the train station.
There has been only one other college professor to reside in the White House since him, and that was Woodrow Wilson, a perverse mix of brainy progressivism on some issues, yet deeply rooted racism on others. This is the same Woodrow Wilson that while beneficially ushering in the new fashion of ties and starched collars, most deleteriously poured concrete onto the foundation of official segregation and blessed Jim Crow, while he delighted in watching "A Birth of a Nation" from the original White House theater. His dragging US into WWI due to the "attack" on the Lusitania and the Zimmerman note (not a Bob Dylan scribbling) would come later.
Considering that Grover Cleveland was the first Democratic President post Civil War, and Wilson was the next, it seems overly optimistic to the point of Pollyanna-ish to state that "the leaders of the Democratic Party marginalized former Confederates and turned to northern cities to reestablish the party, beginning the transition to the party that would, fifty hears later, usher in the New Deal"
Even FDR himself, for all his magnificent contributions, compromised the cause of our fellow Americans of darker skin, allowing them to linger in the shadows sans protection so he could gain the votes of the Southern Democratic segregationists for his New Deal measures.
The right wingers in Congress, along with their fellow cult members, not only know nothing about history, but know less about the present or future! Power, control & blind support for the Orange dummy are their primary objectives! They’re nothing but stumbling blocks to our future! Thank you Dr. Richardson for providing sunlight to the predicament!
A great huge deal is being made out of the loss of life in Gaza, while *at the exact same time* children are dying in Ukraine, families are torn apart, towns and villages are being destroyed, people are without food. A lot of anger is expressed, by new people, towards those who bomb Gaza. **AT THE SAME TIME, The same thing is happening in Ukraine and is ignored. Moreover, American lawmakers are very publically, very personally, declaring with their individual votes that they will not help the people ***in the Ukraine*** who are without food, who are wounded, who are homeless, and, that they, as a group and individually, do not care about the Ukrainian people and they do not care how many ***Ukrainians*** die. All these goings-on have occurred T the same time as an increase in hatred expressed toward Jews. What has been given to these legislators that is worth the death and destruction in the Ukraine and the increase of hatred in this country?
In today’s Letter “irreconcilable opposition” was quoted to explain why it has been so difficult
for the reelected former prime minister Donald Tusk to reestablish democracy in Poland. His opponents ‘… are trying to retain control over Poland through their seizure of key levers of government.’
How does “irreconcilable opposition” apply to Trump and his party’?
This from Eugene Robinson’s Opinion ‘House Republicans are practicing political nihilism:
‘Bipartisan Senate negotiators and the White House say they are close to a deal on legislation to alleviate what everyone agrees is an emergency. It would give Republicans much of what they want regarding the southern border — beefed-up security against illegal crossings, tightened asylum rules, provision for more detentions and expulsions, perhaps even limits on President Biden’s authority to “parole” certain groups of immigrants into the country.’
‘The package would also approve billions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine, which the administration says is urgently needed but some House Republicans oppose. This is how bitterly contested issues are resolved in Washington: One side gets some wins and makes some concessions, the other side does the same, and both sides claim they got the better of the deal. And maybe, in the end, some good gets done.’
‘But after Biden met with congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) immediately threw doubt on the very idea of an agreement that addresses both the border and Ukraine. His position has been that the border question has to be resolved first, and that any solution has to be based on draconian House-passed legislation that would, among other things, require building 900 miles of Trump’s border wall. For both the Senate and Biden, Johnson’s demand is a non-starter.’
'Why would House Republicans balk at a chance to ease the crisis at the border that they’ve been braying about for years? Because they would rather have the issue as a cudgel for Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee, to use against Biden in November.'
“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Tex.) told CNN this month when asked about the idea of a border deal. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”
'Nehls has a habit of blurting out, uncensored, what the Republican Party really thinks. Last month, as the House approved an impeachment inquiry against Biden, GOP leaders bloviated about how they were taking the step more in sorrow than in anger. But Nehls told USA Today that his aim was to give the twice-impeached Trump “a little bit of ammo to fire back” in the general election campaign.'
'Partisanship is one thing, but what Republicans are practicing is something very different. It is political nihilism. It’s not about enacting policies or fulfilling responsibilities but, rather, about accentuating voters’ fears, anxieties and resentments — and doing whatever Trump wants them to do.'
“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all,” Trump posted Wednesday on Truth Social, “unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, Country!”
'Trump’s pronouncement appeared designed to prevent any wobbling by Johnson following the White House meeting with Biden. The screed confirmed Rep. Jamie Raskin’s analysis: “Rather than joining Democrats and Biden in good-faith, bipartisan negotiations to make progress on immigration, they are taking orders from Donald Trump and actively obstructing a bipartisan border deal,” the Maryland Democrat said at a House Oversight and Accountability hearing this week.'
'It’s not just immigration. Some MAGA Republicans are also obstructing $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, which the White House says is desperately needed to sustain Kyiv’s resistance against invading Russian forces. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has threatened to file a motion to oust Johnson as speaker if he agreed to the Ukraine funding bill — a move that would thrust the House, once again, into leaderless chaos.'
'And to what end? Not even Greene and her most unhinged colleagues can seriously think their extreme agenda, however thin it might be, could ever be accepted by the Democrats who control the Senate or their not-so-MAGA colleagues in Senate GOP leadership — to say nothing of Biden, who can veto any nonsense that reaches his desk.
‘If Republicans really cared about out-of-control spending or taking inventory of U.S. commitments abroad or easing the humanitarian crisis at the border, they would negotiate and compromise. Instead, they posture. They issue sound bites. Occasionally, they eat their own.’ (WAPO, Eugene Robinson)
How can the US govern under these circumstances? Are we plagued by “irreconcilable opposition”? What is the political philosophy of Trump and his party? You wince, do you, at my attaching philosophy to Donald J. Trump? I do, too.
‘Until the final weeks of Trump’s term, the guardrails of American democracy seemed to hold firm. The institutions of the federal government remained relatively intact, and civil servants largely secure and uncorrupted. The United States experienced democratic backsliding but not democratic collapse.’
‘In a second term, however, a newly emboldened Trump could well attack democracy itself. The MAGA Republican Party of his making has openly explored ways to transform states where they control all branches of government. States that were once pluralistic democracies with at least some chance of a transfer of power are coming to resemble one-party regimes directed by a minority of the population. (Anne Applebaum’s report from Tennessee is a case history in point.)’
‘In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s putative rival for the 2024 Republican nomination, has turned his state into a laboratory for testing how a determined, calculating, uninhibited authoritarian can maximize executive power. In many respects, he has already accomplished at the state level what Trump did not have the discipline and focus to do at the federal level. And DeSantis has created a blueprint for other Republican state leaders to follow.’
‘Just as state Republicans have become more ruthlessly autocratic in their methods, a new Trump presidency would be much more efficiently goal-oriented at the federal level. A huge transformation of the administrative state is being deliberately planned. The government agencies and civil service he has decried as the “deep state” would be purged or politicized, and the “retribution” he has promised against his enemies would also be carried out. The “unitary executive” theory long promoted by some Republicans would become the reality of an unabashed authoritarianism.’
‘The very last months of the Trump presidency foreshadowed what a second term would entail. When formerly loyal vassals such as Attorney General William Barr and Defense Secretary Mark Esper demonstrated that they would not cross the line into unconstitutional insurgency, Trump sought sycophants for whom no such line existed. In a new Trump administration, total devotion to the leader would be the sole qualification for appointment.’
‘Unlike previous fascist leaders with their cult of war, Trump still offers appeasement to dictators abroad, but he now promises something much closer to dictatorship at home. For me, what Trump is offering for his second presidency will meet the threshold, and the label I’d choose to describe it would be “isolationist fascism.” Until now, such a concept would have been an oxymoron, a historical phenomenon without precedent. Trump continues to break every mold.’ (AtlanticMag.) Sorry that I could provide a gifted link to the piece below.
Christopher R. Browning is the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942.
Their fat orange guy dug the U.S. eight trillion (or was it eight billion?) dollars deeper in debt to throw taxpayer money to the billionaire classes, and to corporations to buy back stock and up bonuses to those already at the top.
It's an insanity, not just comedy.
To join it, one simply has to love those like the orange diaper guy (he now, too, with the syphilitic hands) who trade exclusively in lies.
What brought about so many Americans eager for lies, for psychotic fantasies so far from the human truths which used to uphold the higher standards as when schools yet had humanities in them?
Do so many so sink because K-12 killed off the higher standards of humanities so to float the standardized testers? Because "higher' ed marginalized humanities for all its silo neuterdom now?
The humanities are in part how we pass along culture, and we have in large part ceded that function to people who will do anything for a buck. The humanities are how we explore and record the experience of being human, the taste of honey, not just the carbohydrate content. I say this as a former science major still in love with science, but also the arts.
Standardized tests are not entirely useless, but they tend to filter out a lot of the things that matter most, and while we need some overlap of common ground in order to communicate and cooperate, there is really no such thing as a standard human, nor should there be. Beehive conformity and solidarity are two very different things.
They kind of are, though. They test how good you are at taking that test on that day. I took several of the supposedly gold-standard Advanced Placement Subject tests in late high school (so, about 12 years ago). I got the same score in what was considered my best subject as I got in the subject where I didn't even read a third of the textbook (thanks, undiagnosed Major Depression!). They theoretically helped me get into college, but by the time I got there I remembered absolutely nothing from the test that theoretically proved I was smart so...?
My Dad was in disbelief when he realized that the universities had to admit people in the Covid years without the SAT/ACT/AP/etc. It was like he couldn't conceptualize how the schools didn't just shut down until they could be administered again. How could Harvard ever tell that they weren't admitting dummies? Gee, I dunno, any of the myriad of ways they used for 300 years before the racket began?
One thing one might notice about our species is that while successful reproduction in many other species has to do with performing some instinctual ritual as perfectly as possible, we humans have diverse interests and talents. May in society consider that a flaw when it's really a feature; a key to our collective knowhow and adaptability. There is still seems to be a social yearning for a one-size-fit-all notion of "perfection", yet humanity started to cook when we pushed back against enforced conformity; the "Enlightenment", for example.
Back in the Bad Old Days, didn't colleges have freshman "cut classes" intended to weed out nonperformers? E. G., English-100, where the instructor was a merciless terror who'd flunk your paper for a misspelled word, etc., and the policy was that E-100 was the pre-req course for all other courses!
"You could enter Harvard easily. Staying in Harvard was not."
Some genuinely elite schools like MIT still operate that way regarding math, I hear.
My parents both have stories of these types of academic dictators. (They both went to Berkeley) Just so no one has any idea I went to an Ivy League, I did not! I went to UC Irvine, which was/is apparently highly ranked by whatever metrics people use for this sort of thing, but not the metrics which would preclude me from hating absolutely everything about it.
It has taken me the years since I finished to come to grips with how it is possible that I could be a) smart, and b) hate school. These were always presented as mutually inclusive concepts to me my whole life, and I was "the smart/gifted one" from a young age, so I just kept plugging away at doing the one thing that made me utterly miserable, until finally I had to admit just how much I loathed it, which meant I must have actually been stupid all along. But time and space (and a good therapist) has helped me see: what people recognized in me as intelligence IS real, my spirit simply never could be comfortable doing the things that society decided that intelligence should be put toward.
We as a society are have a poor grasp of how our species benefits from neurodiversity. No two of us are alike, and that's what keeps things interesting. A dog knows that every human is biologically unique, and can pick out one's scent out of hundreds.
Right there with you in the smart/hate school bucket. The herding cows through a chute paradigm infects so much of our educational system, and it gets worse the higher(Ed) one travels.
The pressure to ‘declare a major’ put upon eighteen year-old kids is absurd.
Will, I think the “I” word (intelligence) is oft times confused the more important concept of Insight, the natural curiosity that allows “rote book learnin’” to be utilized to “see” complex problems in a way that prioritizes root causes and potential solutions in real time
Is there any course of study to develop insight? I don’t know. But if there was, I think it would be ine you enjoyed and excelled at
Standardized tests benefited me the many years ago I took them. Got me scholarships, $$$.
Still, I never liked them. Once, I answered every Q by #2-penciling-in the circle for letter "B."
Since the Powell memo of 1971, however, and the concerted program by the commercial classes to up the biz schools, banks, and already-coddled upper tax brackets, humanities were seen as first target to neuter, marginalize, eliminate. Sorry if I use passive voice here, when the record shows plainly how a new Heritage Foundation, a new ALEC, and mega-enlarged Hoover Institution did what they did.
Anybody, J. L., turns out empty, humanly gutted this way if schools have no humanities.
Standardized tests very well measure efficiencies (skills corporations need). These efficiencies cover some gamut, but as you say here, they're "standardized, disposable."
To get human beings, skilled at seeing others as specifically natured, inhabiting their issues, their communities, we need talk, essaying, feedback, essay revisions -- and some allusions to whatever humanities best apply.
Not a school system in the world does this. Zero. All serve above all the mercantile vulgarities fawned over by the dark money vulgar, the administrators of pabulum, the obsequious servers of demagogues, dictators, and royal murderers.
Some hours ago, "MLMinET," I sent you a reply, but it didn't appear.
Basically, reply noted how Will Bunch's book used anecdote on how the banks devastated what had been an open and great system of land grant colleges and universities, written into legislation by Justin Morrill, and signed by Abraham Lincoln, in 1862.
Destroyed -- undercut, defunded, turned into neutered silos, and into the largest revenue of hostage profiteering by U.S. banks of any debt system in American history. All for the far-right offshoring U.S. working-class jobs and growing the wealth gap in favor of the billionaire classes aligned with dictators and oligarchs abroad.
Please note, too, "MLMinET," how U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse also recently wrote "The Scheme," on how these far-right foundations (particularly the Federalist Society) took over the federal judiciary also for the billionaires, just as Will Bunch traced same psychopath doing so for the banks.
If, “in 1879, well aware of the stakes in the fight, newspapers made the case that the government was under assault” why can’t our media do the same????
Seems to me that the major concern of today’s media, with few exceptions, is their approval ratings! It is also a concern of mine that large corporate, ultra conservative entities are buying out smaller, local newspapers to spew their propaganda!
Exactly. The reason I subscribed to Heather Cox Richardson is that she is a Historian and gives a good prospective of what is happening in the USA and the World. I have taken several college courses but Heather refreshes my memory and adds details that was never included in my college history studies.
HCR's newsletters inform us how our history has brought us to the place we are now. So much of the mainstream media is owned by large corporations interested only in the bottom line. Fox "News" has done untold damage to the country spewing far right propaganda.
Agree totally! Dr. HCR is one of a very few that can be trusted for factual & truthful information!
Anthony, yes, her letters are informative, and the historical context is always welcome, and I often learn stuff I didn't know before.
But, in fairness, she is a cheerleader for Biden and the Democrats. That's okay, because I tend to disagree with most of the MAGA nonsense, OTOH, I don't think that her posts are those of an objective historian. Maybe there is no such thing.
In an interview on NPR, she said that she was writing for people who would look back 100 years hence. Well, if the world lasts that long, those reading her letters 100 years from now will get a warped perspective.
In all fairness, HCR has always considered herself a republican and comes from a state that has always been considered conservative and republican. I personally think that she looks at the world from the perspective of history and that she has been horrified by what she has seen and heard from where the republican party is today. She, like so many others, see President Biden as a good man and president who is up against a clear and present danger both from #45 and his minions that he would throw aside at the drop of a hat.
Colette
Thanks for your post.
Being a Republican from Maine is not like being a MAGA Republican from Tennessee (a la Johnson) or any number of states. Be that as it may, I understand and agree that one SHOULD be horrified at so much of what the Republicans are doing. But that is an opinion, not a chronicle of history.
I too think that Biden is a good man and that he comes at most things from a good place in his heart.
And, yes, I too think that Trump is a clear and present danger and one with zero loyalty as you point out.
You can also read my reply to Rhonda in this thread for an explanation.
If you have the time, read David French's newsletter. He is an opinion columnist for the NYT and wrote about why Trump should be kept out of the WH. It's a well-written piece. I have written a lengthy analysis of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and addressed all the objections and counterarguments in my post on Substack. You can see it by clicking the icon to the left of my name.
Thanks again.
Be well and stay safe.
I like your comment. I very much like HCR. But I mostly find the comments maddening, and go months without even looking at them.
Case in point: the person who commented on your post by essentially repeating what you sad, but in 50% more words. Then directed you to another newsletter and her own writing, I guess to bring your thoughts up to her loftier level?
I think I need a few more weeks away from the comment section.
Where did you get the idea she’s trying to be an objective historian? She doesn’t claim that.
About half of her text each day is historical, and I find it factually objective. Then she uses that history to illuminate that the MAGA movement apes some of our worst history, that we have seen this before, and eventually overcame most of it. She also compares the current administration—mostly favorably—to presidential administrations of the past 90 years, and to the Progressive Era.
Her comparisons, her interpretations of today are not objective. They are meant to be illuminating and persuasive. I think historians a hundred years from now will find great value in the thoughts of a public intellectual.
Tom
Thanks for the question and comment.
As I wrote in response to another comment, I got the impression that HCR is purporting to be—not just trying to be—an objective historian from the interview she had on NPR where her recent book was discussed. I think it was on the On Point program produced by WBUR.
You agree with me that her interpretations of today are not objective. I agree that they are meant to be persuasive.
That's why I think it is more opinion-writing than history.
As for future readers, we don't know. But modern historians spend quite a bit of time assessing the accuracy of contemporaneous accounts. Future historians will have her letters and the comments to assist them.
You've characterized Dr. Richardson as biased in general terms without providing specifics to support your position. Generalizations are inherently false.
Lucy
Thanks for your comment.
Respectfully, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I don't see the word "biased" in my post but if that's what you understand the word "cheerleader" to mean, that's okay.
You may want to re-read what I wrote since you've utterly missed the point.
Be well and stay safe.
Maybe she's a "cheerleader" for Joe because he deserves it. It's always possible, you know. Just because you aren't doesn't mean that your view is correct and hers incorrect.
I consider Joe to be the best president since FDR, and I'm willing to provide support for that conclusion, if you'd like, but you can, of course, find it on your own if you look for it objectively. (I'm a Bernie Bro, didn't want Joe, but the scales finally fell from my eyes, and I realized that Joe has done an amazing job in a very tough environment.)
I’m reminded of what a friend told me in 84, the Republicans only have to stir the pot enough to have the democrats form a circular firing squad to neutralize any opposition. Seems like the same as 40 years ago and probably just human nature. Oh well there is one slight difference in my opinion and that is the abandonment of democracy where a vote dictates choices for the group. Instead it seems a single person is inclined to block and/or hold hostage any process for any reason. Having said that I don’t believe a criminal should be allowed to circumvent our judicial system by pushing a case out for a vote. Just my opinion.
Her perspective is anything but warped. What is your problem with truth tellers????
Rhonda
Thanks for your comment. I think you should re-read what I wrote. With all respect, I think you've missed the point.
I did not say that HCR doesn't tell the truth. In fact, I pointed out that I agree with her views.
However, too often, her letters are cheering on what Biden says or does.
IMHO, that is the function of an opinion columnist, not a historian. But these are her letters and she's free to say whatever she wishes. I'm just pointing out that, as with the history of Reconstruction, there are so-called historians who chronicled that period from a very biased perspective.
I think I speak the truth. If you don't agree, that's fine. But I don't think it is appropriate to denigrate my ability to tell truth from bias especially since you don't know me at all.
If you have the time, read my post on this forum about why Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars Trump. That will give you a better sense of my views as well as my effort to be objective about the complex legal issues. You can click on the icon at the left of my reply and get to the Breakfast with Bwana page.
Again, thanks for the comment. Be well and stay safe.
Facts are liberal, didn't you know? Not truth -- facts.
Which is code for Democrats and Biden .
Biden needs all the cheering he can get. The other choice is crazy & authoritarian!
Anthony
I agree but my point was not about the choices we have, but rather about objectivity.
What exactly are your grounds for saying that. If you wrote that she doesn’t cover everything, I could agree, but as to a “warped perspective,” I would most definitely disagree. (As a student of history from fourth grade and having lived through WWII, although I will not speak as an expert, I am very alert to point of view, which these days is frequently seen as “bias,” and therefore negative.)
Virginia, thanks for your comment.
I did not write that she doesn't cover everything and neither would I make a meaningless observation like that. NO ONE can cover everything and I have no expectation that anyone would.
I think you misunderstood my point which is that if one is writing history for people 100-150 years hence, which is what HCR claimed in her interview on WBUR, then it has to be accurate and not skewed. What I was referring to is the "warped" perspective that people would get 100-150 years from now without doing a lot of digging to understand the context.
I guess what I should have said is she is not writing history, but an opinion chronicle.
That's okay. I agree with most of her views, but I think they can be presented without cheerleading and bashing.
Anil, I appreciate your courage in raising doubts about the objectivity of HCR's posts. As a history buff and liberal, I sometimes bristle a little at how incomplete or one-sided Dr. Richardson's articles are. Like you, I value the historical information, agree with her conclusions, and continue reading her daily.
My only disagreement with your comment is that I don't consider this a "warped perspective". I would say it's often incomplete or a bit one-sided, which to me has a different connotation than "warped".
My hope is that everyone left of center will be - as we desperately want those on the right to be - questioning, and skeptical of the narratives we're being presented. If we're not, it's extremely easy for all of us to keep thinking "that adds to my certainty that my worldview is 100% right". Americans have gone way, way down that road, and it may destroy us.
Tyler
Thanks for your comment.
Perhaps the word "warped" is harsh. I was referring to the perspective that readers 100 years hence will get since it will take considerable effort to understand the context in which her remarks were made.
I agree with what you write.
Be well and stay safe.
I disagree. I believe Pres. Biden to be a man for his time as was FDR. I think for you to quibble about whether someone is giving a biased view of how he is handling the affairs of state at this point in time is a bit absurd. After all if he doesn’t win it’s not only the end of democracy in the US but the end of the free world.
Robert🙏😳
Why does it always devolve to labels? If one doesn't care for the facts as presented, do the research. Labels are generally ad hominem attacks that avoid the subjects at hand. Deflection, not discovery.
I respectfully disagree with you. Maybe she does have a pro Biden slant and I happen to agree with her. I have never heard her call people the names and spew the vituperative language that trump or republicans have done. I see Biden as a person who choose to go the high road instead of the low one.
All history is subjective. It's of course, based on who is looking into the past.
Her letters are priceless. I hate it when she takes a well-deserved break.
Totally agree - avid follower - love that HCR gives us historical context and facts - I also enjoy Jen Psaki’s frankness
Jen calls it like she sees it, for sure!
One might ask other Americans to describe what the “New Deal”actually did for this country. We are not an educated group. This is what hurts us most.
Devious and evil beings like that education has been so homogenized as to take all facts out and leave only the pulp of
lousy entertainment in!
Start advertising for the elimination of all the good the New Deal represents and challenge our citizens to wonder what that would mean to THEM???!!
Yup. The guy running Sinclair media just bought the Baltimore Sun.
I just checked with my financial advisor to make sure *I* didn't get bought out by Sinclair Media while I was taking a nap. He says I am all good, but apparently he just got bought out by Sinclair, so who knows if I can trust him?
Sinclair Media: It's like Body Snatchers! Or the Dick Van Dyke walnuts-in-the-closet episode, but with democracy at risk, instead of our thumbs!
They have been very busy, while our “advisors” napped
you got it, resist
It will be another New York Post. But it’s not just Rupert anymore. Bill Moyers warned about Sinclair years ago.
The Dems sold their souls to the devil when they voted to change the law that prohibited ownership of a tv outlet and a newspaper in the same market!
NYPost was saved from bankruptcy preserving Union jobs,but the floodgate was opened for Murdoch and subsequently Sinclair group to poison the media outlets with the vile hate mongering and outright lies!
Thought that was a Reagan thing
It will be nothing, which is where it was headed anyway. Sinclair is spending big in an effort to turn Baltimore into a right wing metropolis that would resemble the distopia William Bourroughs imagined in The Wild Boys (1971).
Baltimorians are NOT happy about Sinclair.
We watched gentrification enrich a very select few and displace the many into further slumlord hands like JarVanka.
100% agree with you, as far as the city line. Baltimore County, especially north and east of the city, is pretty solidly MAGA country.
All over the land
Yes, but Baltimore is Sinclair's headquarters, so we're getting extra special treatment.
In happier media news, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is adding new reporters to be located in rural areas of the state, since Minnesota has a large political divide between its urban residents and rural residents. This means that the Tribune will be reporting from areas that have lost local newspapers and are currently served largely by Sinclair's radio network.
Our local rag has long been owned by Gannett which has made it not worth reading for the most part. I do look at a few local stories and the obits. Now that Gannett owns the Eugene Register Guard, we sometimes get stories, especially sports, written by one of their people. Salem is the state capital, but all we have is something to line a bird cage with. We subscribe online mainly to read obits. There are also a couple online news sources, one of which is much better and tuned in to politics.
I cancelled my subscription and increased my donation to the Baltimore Banner. The journalists need to have an employer who will respect their journalistic integrity and we locals need to pony up so we can read quality local journalism. The Baltimore Banner is a nonprofit currently running on a shoe string. Join me in preserving the free press.
I need to look as I have not heard of this one in our area.
Oh no!
Carol out here summing up the last 8 years in 2 syllables.
This has been going on much longer than 8 years. Reagan and Clinton ushered in this era of media monopolization.
Clinton, how did I miss him in the media business?
Oh yes; and warnings were made. No one listened. *Small i personally sent out those warnings long ago, as I observed the media consolidations as they started, and again in reference specifically to the rural area 'grabs' by Sinclair. Back then, folks more or less considered me a 'kook' or alarmist of some sort. I also had major 'alarm bells' go off in my head when McConnel and the R dominant senate chose by hook and crook, to vote down Obama's appointment for the SCOTUS, Merrick Garland - that was absolutely unprecedented to my memory and obviously an extremist move. That action, further solidified my foreboding of what has come to pass. In fact, a personal champion of mine who I've supported from his first ever appearance on the state political scene has a spouse who is published writer. At that time and before I followed said spouse on FB where writing was shared. When hand wringing therein began over the Garland pass, I opined that the only option was mass demonstrations and appeals of protest, without cease. I never gained any traction there to begin with, much less on that, so I've abandoned all that. I've written to said champion repeatedly, but get little more than 'form' letters in return, if at all. You get passed off to their 'helpers' whose job it seems is to do little more than blow smoke up your tail. It's so frustrating, to say the least. This has been 'my' experience since said champion was elected. My sense is there must be some "A" list that one is on or not; I'm sure I'm not on any "A" list. Shame of that is that as plugged in as I am, I had much to say early on; I was certain that union support of dems was failing and that America, in general, and specifically working class (dirty hands) were P.O.'d to a self interest destructive level. I felt and knew that as early as 2003 and it scared hell out of me, if I'm honest. Regardless though, I continue to support this champion because the votes it casts on all things, mirror what my votes would be; I'm 'one of those' that checks such things. Anyway, enough of my rambling..
Lose the media and you lose it all. America has a way to go before it gets into the mess Poland was in.
The media and the education system were main battlegrounds.
Not so far, Project 2025 is ready to hit the ground running, with more money behind it than all our twenty dollar donations could match in a million years.
This is frightening!
And here lies the true danger to America.
And those of us in Baltimore area are not very happy about it. May readership plumet and ruin their spoils and propaganda machine.
Oh, sh!t
Ugh!
Brenda,I noticed that....not good. We never watch the local Sinclair station (Channel 2 in Portland OR) unless it is a sporting event.
True, the wealthy oligarchs have purchased and continue to purchase media outlets, propagandizing their own disinformation. HCR gives us valuable information in terms of perspective and current events. Using info from a recent letter of hers I fashioned this letter below to the Palm Beach Post which was published today (1/19/2024):
GOP opposes ‘takers’ getting health care
The question is why? What is it that would cause elected politicians of the Republican Party callously to deny 2.5 million Floridians of needed health care? There is history within the GOP that helps to explain this cruelty. The New Deal wiped out the existing oligarchies and created a middle class. Blacks and minority communities, however, were excluded. Women remained mostly subordinate. This started to change in the 1950s and 1960s.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson noted that Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan used the same arguments as the plantation owners and western oligarchs to push back. Their argument: There are makers and takers. Takers just want handouts. Giving handouts means taking from those who are self-reliant, thus taking their liberty and destroying democracy.
Florida House Speaker, Republican Paul Renner, makes this argument as to why the Republican politicians will not vote for Medicaid expansion in Florida. If the vast number of Floridians want a government of the people, by the people and for the people, fair wages and healthcare, it must vote Republicans out of office.
Richard Sutherland, Lakeland
Maybe if takers were healthy and had a real social safety net....they could become makers. Unfortunately, we all aren't born into supportive circumstances, nor with the same avenues to navigate society. I worked with poor people all of my professional career and was frequently astounded by their ability to manage, not overcome, the horrific barriers put in front of them. I've also seen how existing social safety nets fall so very short of helping that we should be ashamed as a society. I see how my white privilege has helped me in every step and all aspects of my life. I see how being a female has been a small barrier on some occasions, impenetrable barrier on others, to the prosperity allowed to my social strata.
Republican rhetoric is nothing more than a righteous reason to stratify our society into people who are worthy and people who aren't.
Why must humanity be so stingy?
They are not , they are arrogant, selfish, and cruel. They have been taught that because they were born rich, or fought their way to the top, often by exploiting others, that they must be special. So, they buy media coverage to tell the world. One of the worst examples bought Twitter.
People like Paul Renner are pointing to the wrong people as takers. The real takers are the morbidly rich, who do things like engage in stock buybacks, which is really just stock price manipulation. They are not investing in companies by utilizing stock buybacks. If the "makers" are so self reliant, why do they need to manipulate the system to the detriment of everyone else?
They are worse than takers - they're fleecers!
fleecer
noun
One who fleeces or strips; one who takes by fraud or severe exactions.
One who fleeces or strips unjustly, especially by trickery or fraud.
A person who fleeces; a swindler.
Words matter.
TFG (et al.) in a dictionary, insert picture.
Not just media. Pharmeceutical companies, health care providers, rental properties, the Supreme Court.
7 mountains. It is a real threat to society and is fed by Zealots, false profits, and the power hungry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Mountain_Mandate#:~:text=It%20holds%20that%20there%20are,entertainment%2C%20business%2C%20and%20government.
Nicely done, Richard Sutherland. Florida needs you!
-J. McCarthy
I have had a few occasions where local Republicans asked me why I had to leave California and move to Florida. I've asked myself that question, too.
It’s a good question - the two states couldn’t be more different politically speaking.
👏👏
The Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society, the Hoover Institute, the Koch Bros. and more, not only have no use for this prescription of government enunciated by Frances Perkins, the architect of the New Deal:
"The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to provide the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life."
Why? In part because they do not want their profits and property taken by taxes to support social welfare programs, i.e., programs to support the vast majority of Americans, the real makers. Their success has resulted in massive tax cuts, driving our national debt to $34 trillion. To save this republic, we have no option but to win control and start taking back some of the wealth taken by these oligarchs and large corporations out of the American economy.
Richard, if you’re not familiar, you may be interested in Jason Garcia, former investigative journalist for Orlando Sentinel.
https://jasongarcia.substack.com/p/florida-has-the-most-unfair-tax-code
Thank you for this reference, Kathy. I will check it out. Right now the Lakeland Democratic Club is putting together our strategic plan on how to help our local and state-wide candidates best.
Maybe, just maybe, now that the Republicans have relegated women and ordinary citizens to the bottom of the rung (abortion, high home insurance rates, refusing to expand Medicaid at no cost to Florida taxpayers) they will see that their interests are best represented by Democratic politicians.
We’ll said👍
Lewis Powell Memo, 7 mountains tied together.
Once there were very few media outlets that pandered to the most extreme, today they are many so those outlets have far more nut jobs believing nonsense and to a larger extent have paved the way for the likes of a low-life conman to become president of the richest most powerful country on Earth. Thank you RW media - motivated by MONEY - the country be damned.
‘Twas ever thus. As AJ Liebling wrote, “The press is free only to the man who owns one.” And late-19th century newspapers—which pretty much had a monopoly on mass communications—were not, generally speaking, beacons of enlightenment. With a few exceptions (NYT) they were bought and paid for. Go and read about the war between the LA Times and the printers’ union that led to the bombing of the paper, and two of Clarence Darron’s greatest cases. Today, the NYT, though highly imperfect, is sounding the drum against the dangers represented by Trump, and as Election Day approaches we’ll see much more of that. But those outlets need help, and ordinary citizens can do much more than in the past, through social media (which I abhor), emails, YouTube, etc. So, in the words attributed to Joe Hill, “Don’t mourn, but organize.”
Yes Anthony, large corporations are buying up small papers. This is happening in nearly all commercial activities and also by on-line activities. Retail, hospitals, medical associations, rental housing, auto sales, insurance, education, entertainment - nearly any place where money is exchanged. A small number of huge international corporations will soon control every aspect of our lives. Orwell saw it coming.
Monopoly power. Break 'em up!
In my humble opinion, For Profit Hospitals are an abomination, an insult to our welfare and society. I miss the neighborhood bookstores and blame Amazon but it does not threaten my welfare, The thought that when I am admitted to a hospital that some distant auditor is seeking ways to make as much money off my care as possible is frightening. That they and even the ensurers are collaborating to extract more money from the Government is particularly galling.
And also radio and tv! Of particular concern is the shift in public television. (In our 7 county region of the San Joaquin Valley of California, the local PBS station's antagonistic board and management have been taken over by right wing, ag industry operatives. PBS is apparently aware but has done nothing publicly known to respond to entreaties requesting the station, KVPT CH18 adhere to PBS editorial standards of fairness and balance. Hopefully, the station remains a rogue outlier. This edition of HCR's "Letter" includes interesting mention of how Poland's public broadcasting had been taken over. We're seeing in real time how that works here in the SJV of Cali.) NOTE: Some models of contemporary "Smart" tvs are not capable of picking up PBS's "Passport" App for accessing streamed programming.
Too true, unfortunately. Paraphrasing Les Moonves, before his ouster from CBS, Trump was undeniably bad for the US, but very good for CBS’s bottom line.
Anthony Wilkins, your concern is valid in my opinion. But thank goodness, the love of personal freedoms for all, beginning with voting rights and nurtures that love Democracy, media such as Substack has given writers such as Heather, Jay Kuo, Joyce Vance, Robert Hubble and way to keep the torch of freedom burning for all of us. Professor Heather gives us the long perspective of our history to better understand that protecting freedom is an on going part of the engagement we must tend to always.
“. . . smaller, local newspapers . . . “ and Sinclair Broadcast Group buying up local television stations turning local tv news into miniature Fox News tRUmpistas, to the detriment of fair & balanced reporting (remembering the days that Walter Cronkite announced Eric Sevareid’s commentary).
The group of large corporations and ultra conservative entities you speak of formed a group called the Council for National Policy during the Reagan administration in 1981. So for the last forty plus years they have been degrading our democracy and is one of the reasons we find ourselves in such a dire situation. The other reason is that Democrats have not been playing the role of the loyal opposition by failing to adequately challenge this attack on democracy.
Robert🙏😟
Sinclair Media just bought out Baltimore Sun. Sinister development.
I agree, but instead of approval ratings, the reason is money.
Ratings like the disastrous trump sham townhall. Some executive took a beating for that.
Sinclair just bought the Baltimore Sun, a Pulitzer prize winner of 2020.
It seems to be happening
My sentiment, too. The Republicans are guilty of polite insurrection by sabotaging governing and the rule of law. Of course they're no good at governing even if they believed in democracy.
Polite??? Texas is in open rebellion, and letting people die while their thugs watch from the river banks. I say: Crimes against humanity!
Texas has a pledge of allegiance to its state flag. I wonder.... Do some Texans feel conflicted about saying the Texas pledge after pledging allegiance to the U.S. flag?
I’ve never heard of that before and I’m 61 years married to a former Texan from Lufkin. After retirement, we bought low income houses and rented to HUD tenants in Tyler. Many friends and relatives are/were teachers. Our son , a teacher in Phoenix suburb, graduated from SFA in Nacogdoches and keeps up with former classmates. Have never heard mention of a state anthem, especially one sung in school. I’ve certainly seen MAGA nutcases (Tyler is home of Louie Goemert) and I have seen heard opinions of some very rich, well connected Republican people. Since the rise of monsters Abbott and Paxton (also creeps Cruz, Comer, et al,)I have no desire to return. Anyone want to buy a house or two?
I don't know if there is an anthem; I referred to a pledge of allegiance to the state flag/state of Texas. I'll be in Lufkin tomorrow, visiting a friend...
Good question. Where in East Texas? I have a good friend who grew up in Nacogdoches.
I'd rather not say, as one never knows how ones' employers view such questioning... I've been to Nacogdoches many times.
Understood! Mike S, who comments here a lot, is from that neck of the woods as well.
I agree that TX is in open rebellion! We should stop all sorts of federal funding to TX since clearly they don’t want to be part of the United States of America. Perhaps Mexico would want them back.
Maybe we should give it back to the First People of Texas. Like the Caddo, Karankawa and Coahuiltecans and so many other tribes and first people.
There is a great deal of abject cruelty disguised under the veneer of politeness. Nowhere was this more evident than in the South during slavery and then again under Jim Crow.
and now
Yes, exactly, only this time I don't see even a thin veneer of politeness. It's just ugly after ugly, hate, fear, ignorance, and greed.
They aim to dominate, subjugate, not govern.
Slight nitpick: they think that dominating and subjugating IS governing, because it is "standing strong" for "traditional values." What you and I are thinking of as governing (i.e. good-faith bargaining over policy) is "weakness" that lets people "take advantage," and this "woke lunacy" (used to be "bleeding-heart madness") leads to "social unravelling."
It's important to have all the terms and definitions straight, y'know.
Proud to be woke. Christopher Rufo is just a sleazy Frank Luntz.
Also proud. What is the opposite of "woke"?
Asleep at the wheel? Knocked unconscious? Hypnotized and proud of it? How could anyone NOT want to be woke - aware, awake enough to see injustice and deceit?
Answer: "We don't want to think about it. We just want to yell about being "replaced" and we like our history filtered and finely tuned to reflect our superiority."
Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead into the land of Hitler, Orwell and Huxley. My only regret about being this old is that I won't live long enough to see the MAGA madness be just a horrible footnote in our history. Like the America Firsters of the 1930's.
From your mouth to my ears, Bill.
I was born as Hitler marched into Paris; and as the first baby into a NON-profit group health insurance company my Dad had created in NYC.
It deeply bothers me that few know the streams of history including me. Even the well educated. But apparently you do, and others who comment here as well. Heather’s Letters are a god given gift to me daily.
My regret also. Hope the children and grandchildren of the greatest generation become woke. Making that word a slur was a deliberate and evil attack on sanity
Bill, brainwashed is another answer.
Bill, I'm going with "willfully unconscious" as the opposite of "woke".
I believe I read that the term "woke" was popularized in the South among the Black community by a traveling musician by the name of Led Belly. He used it in his songs as a warning about lynchings. Please correct me if I've got that wrong.
I hope we don't have to wait that long!
Just like you. Plus proud to be called AntiFa.
Will, pastors say evangelical Christians are telling them that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is “weak”.
https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak
And the "chief minister" of Iowa says literally: "Trump may be a flawed person but he is an instrument of God."
They make dystopian movies about people like this....
But for balance and morning sanity there is this:
https://www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/
I visit this site periodically with my optimistic coffee - a good way to start the day. We're going to win.
Powerful document, Bill.
Good advice. I appreciate the reminder.
As an old soldier I can only say that Trump and his base's fantasy of pulling the trigger doesn't include swimming around in their guts. It's a horrid way to be enlightened.
If this old cop understands your description as someone who has not really thought of what it means to kill another human intentionally, then I agree 100%. I wouldn't call it enlightened, I'd call it psychotic.
I agree the Republican Majority in the House are doing everything they can to sabotage the smooth running of our Government. Since the Republicans gained the Majority, the House is constantly in a stalemate. Hardly any useful legislation was considered or passed in 2023.
In Oregon, our State Senate has been stymied by Republican Senators every session since 2019. The Republican Senators don't like something, they decide who will WALKOUT so there is No Quorum. Last year we passed a Constitutional Amendment for Oregon stating that whomever does not show up on the floor, cannot run in the next election. Of course, sickness does not count against them. But this year, same deal, several Republican Senators walked out again defying the will of the citizens of Oregon. Here that's called "busting the law".
So I want to know is where the Republican Party gets the idea that they are The Law and Order Party? Is it only the laws that they choose to respect? You figure that out.
Only takes one jackass to tear down a barn. attributed to Sam Rayburn, back when Texas had a sane politician
Diana Olson,
I am concerned about our governing bodies in general. Are some able to identify all of our states and capitals? Do they know where our American Indian populations live? Do they know the needs of our immigrants and how and where best to meet basic needs so that they can begin a safe and productive life? Obviously, many so called "leaders" are willing to disrupt our fellow citizens to cause chaos and promote anger rather than communicate and solve problems.
Do some have a desire at all to preserve our parks rather than to retake this land for its resources....for THEIR personal benefit!!!
I am afraid that many of our most recent electorate are like scavengers....hunting for themselves and taking what is easily availabe .
When I see a hero like the wonderful Ms Crockett in Texas...I think WOW...yes, we still have heroines. We do have persons of character who are standing up and speaking out for our country. Thanks to each of you!!!
Thank you Diana!
Here we go again. Here is the Cambridge dictionary definition of republican-
republican noun [ C ]
a supporter of government by elected representatives of the people rather than government by a king or queen
Hmmmm. They are clearly Fascists that want an authoritarian just like TFFG's Putin. Even GOP is a stretch unless it means Grinches Ogres and Plutocrats.
Perhaps the real reason they are pulling dictionaries from the schools in the “sunshine” state !
Is that really true, I ask, who had a dictionary under every student’s desk?
Unfortunely,yes.
https://scrippsnews.com/stories/dictionaries-among-1-600-books-pulled-from-florida-school-district/
They say whatever they think will serve their purpose, just like tfg.
Polite??
Think that Foxx woman yelling “Shut Up” cracked the veneer of politeness they assume. Talk about pearl clutching. I was horrified.
My exact thought!! Polite? They're anything but.
“Polite” maybe in the sense of no guns and military (yet)
I was referring, too vaguely it seems, to the Republicans in Congress. My poorly made point was that while they're better behaved than those who stormed the Capitol, they're just as dangerous.
Michael I fulsomely agree with what you say. What’s frightening is that Trump and his sycophants could win in November, as the low road beats the high road.
Keith, I became nauseated when I watched an interview with Bob Woodward several months ago. He was asked, "Do you think Trump can win the election? Woodward said, "Yes."
Pam However nauseating, if the election was today I consider it probable that Trump would win. BUT IT IS 10 MONTHS AWAY!
Keith, will Trump's followers see the truth about him in 10 months?
Based on their activities in the last 8 years, I see nothing happening that will change their minds about him.
Hope enough of us will band together to prevent this madness.
And yes. I get literally nauseated when I see or hear Trump.
PAM Throw Up Trump!
TFFG and his sycophants will only win if Democrats and Independents stay home.
We need to get out the vote to insure the future of our Republic.
Look at the IA caucuses (or is it caucii) 14% Republican turnout.
But they are very good at obstruction, which pairs well with destruction of chump crowd
In between hard Coup d'états, Republicans are engaged in soft coups. All for the greater good of the wealthy who will not stop until they turn the US and the world into a giant fiefdom.
The MSM is complicit, as well.
I'm not sure how *polite* they are. Listen to Louie Gohmert or Empty Gee lately?
Over regulate, under fund, blame the govt for not doing its job
Because our media is much more diverse today than it was then and communication is instantaneous. Also, there are those who are happy when the government is under assault. When obstructionists who proclaim that the government can do no good prevent it from doing anything at all, they feel as if they have been vindicated.
Actions speak louder than words and the "anti-government" crowd is very pro-government when it benefits them, or enables them to boss others around. No?
The "government" the bullies genuinely hate is "of, by and for the people. Like, ALL the people; even those they consider themselves better than.
"An Oklahoma lawmaker is facing backlash for proposing a discriminatory bill that deems people of Hispanic descent as 'terrorists' ”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/18/oklahoma-bill-labels-hispanic-people-terrorists
JL Graham,
I wish they could see my daughter in law and her family who Mexican and live and work in Mexico!!! They are doctors, engineers, dentists. They have children who are growing into their professions.
My grandchildren attend wonderful schools with caring teachers. They live on the Pacific coast.
In Monterrey, Mexico, years ago our church in South Carolina began going on mission trips to Monterrey, Mexico. We went to serve , repairing homes, assisting with church growth but, we were the ones blessed. My son worked hard mixing concrete. He was so strong and he was proud that he could give his strength to serve. He fell in love with Mexico, its culture and its people. He met his wife, a doctor when he served years later on a mission trip to help with hurricane relief. Her father, a strong Presbyterian, was strict and the leader of his family....excellence and discipline were required early from his children. Both he and his wife were teachers.
We falsely judge others.....we miss out by not respecting and showing love to one another.
Hispanics work, pay taxes and commit less crime than some.
Fun fact: studies in recent years show that undocumented immigrants actually commit crimes at a notably LOWER rate than U.S. citizens. (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/undocumented-immigrants-are-half-as-likely-to-be-arrested-for-violent-crimes-as-u-s-born-citizens/)
It's almost as if these are people that are attempting to *escape* poverty, crime, and violence, and are not interested in committing it themselves! Quite reluctant to, in fact!
It's the prospect of building a real future, still the American dream. I have personal experience. In the America I found more than 30 years ago, there was so much to do and opportunity compared to where I came from, that I certainly didn't have a second to think about crime, probably the same as today's immigrants. Immigration reform with clear rules, carried out humanely is a MUST.
It worked for me, too Bruce and my "working harder" to achieve the American dream has been over fifty of my 70 years. But, it isn't so for many others in today's times where the working-harder part now doesn't achieve it whether born here or not. Here's a link to an interview with the author of a new book on the American West where the dream that worked for us has become a "myth" for others as right-wing extremism is entrenching itself. Not sure I agree with all her observations but it's a worthwhile perspective.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/true-west-book-interview-betsy-gaines-quammen_n_65a7e37be4b041f1ce644683
I chose to live in America 60 years ago, yikes - am I really that old?! I was working in my first week here and paid taxes in my first paycheck.
Bruce,
You are correct. Crime is for those like Donald Trump who inherit $573 million dollars from a criminal father and then keep the criminal enterprise going with the able help of the City of NY.
A nation created by colonists with a "complicated" history. My public school history book had a chapter titled "The Great Melting Pot".
Curious, Bruce: where did you come from?
Government as prime bully. The Repub way.
Modern Republicans sell supremacy. They get to tell everybody else what to do with no accountability for themselves.
The idea of equality is foreign to them
“Any person who:
1. Is of Hispanic descent living within the state of Oklahoma; “
No words…except at least my Hispanic husband is not deemed a “terrorist” (yet) in Florida.
Thanks, JL. Sharing with Courier Newsroom/Floricua staff.
It is illustrative of the degree of malignant narcissism that the cult now calling itself "the Republican Party" now promotes.
Wow! Really?
Betsy, remember that, back in 2021, Chip Roy (R-Tx) said that their idea was to sow chaos so that Congress would accomplish nothing and people would blame Biden.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/07/07/politics/chip-roy-democratic-obstruction-2022/index.html
The problem for them is that he is doing a good job for the American people. They are withholding funding to Ukraine only because of the border crisis which is all they have in the coming election. I wish this MAGA base would search for the truth instead of what is force fed them by Fox.
Deborah, the base is doing what we all default to when we don't feel that things are going to hell in a hand basket; they're listening to the news that agrees with their world view without doing further research.
I've used the ideas from the book "Beyond Contempt" to drill down without attacking (or seeming to attack) to see what matters to friends/family, find common ground, and go from there. Some of that is asking whether they believe what the Associated Press (which was/is the majority of news articles in their local paper--Walter Cronkite always quoted AP). If they agree to believing the AP, then ask if they'd like to Google what the AP has to say on the subject. If not, ask what news sources they trust and why they trust them. Talk about news versus opinions and ask them which category their news falls into. You get the idea.
Yes I do. I do try this at times and it is a great idea. It is tough however when you do it with a diehard MAGA .
I’m so tired of the Chip Roy’s of this world. Time to get going and write some more postcards.
I would guess it’s because most of the media are in bed with the monster.
"Free Market" is MAGA Newspeak for "monopoly".
i.e. 'The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism'
Some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen.
Ah yes Woody Guthrie. Was thinking those could be the Clash lyrics but then I know they surely were inspired by him and so many others that covered 'Pretty Boy Floyd'.
Woody Guthrie's prominently displayed message on his guitar "This Machine Kills Fascists" is even more necessary today and hopefully inspiring a call to arms against the impending totalitarian cast and characters trying to squelch our hopes and dreams.
Horhai, good one.
There it is JL
The free marketers claim to be against monopolies, but their philosophy provides zero ways to prevent them.
"Paul Moore vividly remembers the Baltimore Sun in its heyday, not so long ago.
'More than 400 newsroom staff, six foreign bureaus and a 12-person Washington bureau,' Moore recalled. He was the Sun’s deputy managing editor (and, for a time, its public editor) until 2009. 'We were a full-service newspaper, covering the country, the region and the world' .And winning multiple Pulitzer prizes for the quality of its aggressive, ambitious journalism.
Then came all manner of misfortune – a series of bad owners, the stunning downturn in newspaper economics and – just this week – the paper’s purchase by David D Smith, who runs Sinclair Inc, a Maryland-based media company that made itself infamous a few years ago when it ordered its local journalists in dozens of markets to repeat, word for word, the same rightwing 'editorial' about fake news. The identical segments had a hostage-video vibe."
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2024/jan/18/local-newspapers-media-chain-ownership-baltimore-sun-sinclair
Read this last night. Well worth the time. Baltimore deserves better.
J L, this is why I subscribe to the Houston Chronicle—to keep an independent watchdog on Houston and Texas politics.
I watched that segment on one of the two local stations that became Sinclair stations a while back. This is the first time I've heard "hostage video vibe" as a description, and boy howdy, is that ever accurate.
You beat me to it! I found that to be the most important sentence in the article. The problem is, we simply do not have that type of media today. Today newspapers, legitimate news stations, and what passes as cable television news is largely corporate owned and managed. The messages are managed and sometimes the messages protect the corporate structures bottom line.
If you want real news in this country you have to turn to independent sources, much like this newsletter (thank you HCR!). Unfortunately, the masses largely don't pay attention to begin with. How to direct their attention towards smaller non-corporate media outlets is a mystery. We have to figure this out though. Our country and our children's lives depend on it.
I remember when newspapers and Walter’s 30 minutes was all there was. Not perfect but no “alternative facts” bull Schitt.
Now it’s like Italian writer Umberto Eco said “Social media gives Legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. Then they were quickly silenced, but now they have the same rightTo speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.”
We are figuring it out. This is it.
Look what happened this week to the Baltimore Sun.
And the Annapolis paper also.
At this point, understanding the ownership of the media is the oligarchs who have a vested interest in destroying the Democratic agenda, I pay attention to what they are telling the people, even if just to refute it, and I get my information from other sources. Thanks to individual Substack writers like Prof. Richardson, and sources like The Guardian, Propublica, The Lever, The Intercept, Carnegie Foundation for Peace, Counterterrorism Update, and various foreign press that I also consume, I get a bigger and often different picture than the mainstream press provides. I am worried for Poland, and the countries around that are succumbing to fascism. I am back and forth between the USA and the EU, and living in Germany right now. Here there is a big discussion about a meeting in November that took place in Potsdammn, where members of the AfD met with Nazis and business leaders to discuss an agenda that would send people Black and Brown people living in Germany, even those who are born and raised, and those who have German citizenship to Africa. This is why I have called the AfD, The New German Nazi Party. The discussion is can the AfD legally exist? I also think that more members will be under scrutiny and the revelation that this is an agenda that they have is probably one that others will follow. Look at England's handling of refugees under Rishi Sunac. I see the immigration agenda much more complexly thanks to reading Prof. Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, where she explains that it has been an agenda since the late 1980s, early 1990s to normalize their racism by taking on an anti-immigrant agenda instead of being so explicitly racist, hoping to gain traction in mainstream politics, and then take over and create a White Supremacist Nation State. This was a shared agenda of White Nationalists from around the planet. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674286078
In Germany, I have joined Democrats Abroad, the German branch, and specifically the one local to where I live. They are organized on issues salient to Americans living abroad, and on making sure that people's votes from abroad count. I recommend that all Democrats living abroad join this organization for that very purpose of getting advice on how to vote from abroad. https://www.democratsabroad.org/
Here’s my endorsement for Democrats Abroad. They do good work!
Linda,
Too many of us have become lazy thinkers. The need to NOT be ostrasized by the group has become more important than seeking out the truth. Empty gossip has become a powerful tool, used to keep out those who think too much on their own.
Because too many of our news is dominated by media outlets that are after the Almighty Dollar and are really propaganda machines. Too many "journalists" do not report the factual news. They cleverly slant information to present their opinion. It's called Yellow Journalism.
Not new, but harder to recognize.
The commendable Lynne McQuaker Kavner (my friend for thirty years) makes an excellent point. Our nation is in peril, with insufficiently strong voices making this point. I hope the decent majority of Americans will rise up and loudly proclaim the danger that Donald Trump and his acolytes represent.
Hope, but drown out the brute leading the pack of clowns. (Last part stolen from a book review.). Too good to pass up.
Because the newspapers in this country have been eviscerated by social media.
They have but too many gave up. The Dallas Morning News, which I pay for the print edition, seems intent on running off print subscribers. I’m lucky if I get it half the time, after much gnashing of teeth..
"gnashing of teeth"......reminds me of the book (children's) "Where the Wild Things Are" now on the Banned Books List'
Mine are about ground down
Jeri, that’s why I now subscribe to the digital version of the Houston Chronicle.
Loved the Chronicle when I lived South of Houston. I prefer print but they don't make it easy. And then blame subscribers for ditching them. I'm tired of paying full price for half paper.
The Chronicle kept raising the print price and there was no option to lock in a price. In our block, they went from 6 papers to just us.
And they blame the subscribers. Time their plan to ditch print was outted. They have been whining about losing subscribers for ages, no wonder. I suggested that they pay delivery people enough to keep up cars, etc. Kids don't deliver papers on bikes anymore.
The days of the mainstream media being the 4th Estate are definitely in retrograde. The true voices for democracy are buried from the front pages and headlines in favor of pandering to the lowest common denominator. The truth about dysfunctional government at all levels does not drive clicks and views like over sensationalized tripe does.
Real journalism is alive and well but you have to dig for it and be willing to get out of the habit of relying on bright shiny soundbites and blurbs to get your information. The fact that you're here proves you're willing to do that but this is just one cog in the wheel.
To understand why the media refuses to write about the elephant in the room is simple, it's in their best financial interest not to do that. I posted this article from The American Prospect earlier but it's worth repeating because it can set folks on a path to get the answers to the questions outlets like NYT and WaPo bury deep inside.
Metaphors Journalists Live By (Part I)
One of the reasons political journalism is so ill-equipped for this moment in America is because of its stubborn adherence to outdated frames.
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-17-metaphors-journalists-live-by-part-i/
It is the money, the bottom line. Sad.
Yesterday's NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/18/opinion/trump-cabinet-election-2024.html
Media can’t or won’t. GOP is a customer of theirs too. And they (gop) brings into much profit, especially an election year.
I share your concern.
As the can is once again kicked down the road, we have to wonder how long Mike Johnson will keep his position. Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker!
Kick-the-can financing threatens the U.S. credit rating, which impacts the federal government's constant borrowing, which threatens all the worthwhile programs that Congress funded before the schizophrenic Republicans took over the House. Maybe that's their plan...
John,
Republicans have no actual plan. There real goal is MAPA.
Make America Poor Again. Outsourcing. Offshoring. You name anything that makes Americans more Poor and Republicans support it.
They always have one overarching plan -- cut taxes and spend like crazy when there is a GOP President. Also, take away rights and benefits from everyone but the rich and corporations so the plutocrats can steal elections. When there is a Democrat, complain about the deficit, the border and people of color.
Gary Loft- exactly right, that is always the GOP plan
Yep.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
--George W. Bush
Wow, and look what a job he did for us.
I think you really meant:
Wow, look at what an unmitigated disaster Bush II was and look! He killed more than 400,000 innocent Iraqi's and Afghan citizens.
BUT??? Haliburton stock increased by 500% based on thousands of "no bid" contracts.
I mean, what's not to like about total, unbridled corruption?
I’m more subtle than you. I have very strong feelings regarding his actions re: Iraq. My Marine Corps son-in-law, an officer with three young children, was in the invasion force. My husband and I had to be completely supportive for their sake, but we were furious. There was a plus side. Both sets of grandparents were close enough to Camp Pendleton where they lived to be able to step in for all their different activities and become very close. That’s the only time in their 30+ years of marriage that we were so available. We’re also proud of the fact our son-in-law received a Bronze Star for the job he did in pre-planning and carrying through once there. The worst part none of us ever heard a word about how his unit was doing. From the time they arrived in Kuwait until they were ordered back there in preparation to come home, no word. They also had never received any of our letters or care packages. All that worry and fear for one man’s need to show his dad what he could do, and another man with no conscience could make a fortune. Despicable.
If W. said it I, by definition, ignore it.
W had an estimated IQ of 81. One point above special needs.
Well yes, every one of the past five Presidents has been a cokw-head, or at least a user.
We drove past one of the most disheveled and disheartening homeless encampments in Oakland yesterday. I thought of all the good that could be done to alleviate some of this poverty through good governance. Oligarchs that choose to feather their own already over feathered nests at the expense of everyone else have to be stopped.
Hey,
Bezos makes the news every day with his world tour accompanied by his, umm, well, ok, really, his hooker.
Would that be wife #2 or someone new? Such a guy.
Not about making Americans poor, rather holding on to, and increasing, the power necessary to make the rich richer, which leads to….
leads to... "higher, tighter and righter" transfer of wealth, per Bush, Sr.
The "Planets" spew Propaganda. Reported.
...said the defender of George H.W. Bush. Way to go, troll.
Well, yeah
Regarding Ukraine, the ongoing war has seen ongoing permutations among the countries of the European Union. Poland became Ukraine's good buddy, dreaming of expanded borders. Then the wheels came off that, and then the conservative nationalist Polish government got voted out. The return of the liberal globalist Donald Tusk appears to signify Polish subservience to Germany, which brings forth the question:
Is Germany rebuilding "Fortress Europe"?
https://korybko.substack.com/p/germany-is-rebuilding-fortress-europe
The insight into the difficulties that Poland is having in rehabilitating their civil service is a useful predictive model for what we will be faced with when we pull off the next Age of Reform. We’ll be rid of Trump, one way or another, but then we’ll have to do what Germany had to do, following WWII. We’ll have to seek out all the Benedict Arnolds that have been embedded into our institutions. Seek them out and marginalize them one way or the other.
William Burke, "Resolute Square (folks from Lincoln Project)" just posted an excellent article in their free newsletter, titled, Surviving an Authoritarian Regime by Martin Mycielski who specifically outlines what to expect in a Dictatorship.
I remember history, but thanks
But without Ike. BIG difference
Good call. Italy had a tough time after WWII with their Fascists. There were so many. It's thorny but it's worth the fight to see if we can create a healthy democracy that works more equitably. Very murky out these just now but as Plato put it, "The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men." Not acceptable.
I'd like to thank whoever that D-list Ohio congressman is in today's letter for stating clearly what we all feel and know: it isn't about the spending. It has never been about the spending. Repubs don't want to spend *any* amount on *anything* with *any* possibility of directly helping individuals in need. American conservatives just hate helping people. Okay, I will be more specific, more fair: in my experience, conservatives absolutely loathe the idea of helping people they don't personally know. The idea that anyone they don't personally approve of might get a penny of theirs for any reason drives them absolutely mental. See, there is a right way and a wrong way to live, and that way is their way, and if you are not living the right way (their way), then you deserve whatever punishment the world gives to you until you wise up and convert. The idea that dollars from the pockets of the good and pure could be taken to be wasted on the dirty and slovenly is viewed as upside-down-inside-out-black-is-white a moral violation to conservatives as letting a homeless child starve outside the house of someone with a Rolls-Royce in their driveway would be to a liberal. This is the root of most domestic policy conflicts, always has been. It has never been a more-or-less spending level argument but a right-and-wrong moral argument, with spending levels an in-vain quantified proxy. As such, do not ever expect reasonableness or compromise with the other side on this; would *you* compromise your base beliefs for expediency?
When you are budgeting for a society of almost 400 million, budgets are a moral document. We are caught between two moral methods: punish to conform, or nurture to excel? Your vote in a few months will decide the people who will decide which wins out.
Will, I sincerely hope to see that one day, you are a wildly successful politician, or a speechwriter, or a Substack guru of your own. Your voice and your way with words deserve to be much more widely shared than here in our little Substack world. Whenever I see a post of yours, I know I’m about to be delighted. Thank you.
Totally agree KR. Im waiting for Will's first book.
Thank you, KR (and Gail, Barbara, Ally, etc.). Everyone here is perpetually too, too kind.
“…punish to conform, or nurture to excel?”
Nailed it.
Beat me to it, Gail.
I just love Will’s writing!
Will, you nailed it!
Well said. I agree 100%.
I tend to agree with your assessment...sadly.
I commend Dr. Richardson for informing us that history says it is possible to pull this country out of the tailspin that it is in and get it back on course. Her perspective does not keep me from being very pessimistic, but might offer enough hope to allow me to keep acting to help the cause despite my pessimism.
I also think cities are a stronghold of democracy, economic might, and strength in diversity. May they prove a shield against bigotry and the foes of democracy.
“ Chastened, the leaders of the Democratic Party marginalized former Confederates and turned to northern cities to reestablish the party, beginning the transition to the party that would, fifty years later, usher in the New Deal.”
Philly is still here, and loyal to the Constitution and amendments. A wise insurrectionist once said “bad things happen in Philly.“ Bad things like good things for democracy and pluralism. The worst of MAGA ideologies are just not compatible with real life here.
Thank you Ryan, I’m breathing again.
As a former NYC person, I can testify to how widely and deeply the shrinking blob dump is despised. I’m hoping it’s so in Boston, Chicago, Detroit et al and spreading across our continent 🙏
Philly is still here, and loyal to the Constitution and amendments. That’s good news but unfortunately, for many people, party loyalty is still dominant in our country. I believe we need less of that and more attention to the quality of all candidates and to vote for those who support the Constitution and good governance.
Don’t count on New York. It has been turning into a Republican voting State - not extremist yet in most areas, but it is changing since much of the State is ideologically Red. NYC is a densely packed dot which is not all of New York.
Most of the elected representatives have been conservative Democrats who rarely work to help regular people. Their only claim to Blue flame is that they don’t make waves about POCs or LGBTQIA+ to avoid offending voters.
It’s clear the wealthy and their corporations have more say than regular people given the lack of affordable housing, the social segregation practices by real estate firms and banks, and the monopolies taking over the healthcare sector such as the Christian Health Network.
New York has also been helping fund religions for years with tax exempt status and beneficial policies such as allowing them to own significant amounts of property, including multi-family dwellings. Nearly all homes in a number of whole towns are owned by religions and rented to their members. Religions and elites have long worked together to control society in such a way which benefits both in terms of maintaining power. So I don’t see NY as a solidly Blue State for much longer.
That central Pennsylvania as Arkansas is creeping north. We too are anchored by Philly and Pittsburgh, with a radically conservative land in between.
I am cautiously optimistic that our society still has enough sanity left to stop Trump, but danger lurks everywhere, and the long term fight is just beginning. Business as usual is not sustainable. We can wait to be forced to recalibrate by getting massively smacked, or we can start examining priorities now, and be better prepared.
The big difference, it seems to me, is that this is the first time in our history that a single individual, rather than a group of people, has such leverage. I heard Speaker Johnson say that he had spoken with that individual several times recently, and that individual is not an elected member of our government and hasn't been since 2021.
Progwoman, hmm, I hadn't thought about it that way. He's definitely a proxy for Putin and anyone who will enrich him.
Putin is the real puppeteer
Right you are Jeri.
Putin doesn’t come close to being the real puppeteer.
That’s McCarthy talk, and I’m referencing Joe, not Kevin.
You need to update your enemies list
He is the puppeteer, thanks to arsewipe McCarthy, who has left the carnage for us to deal with.
This individual aka PO1135809 is also in constant contact with Fox entertainment per Laura Ingram.
Yeah. I wondered about that. “that individual “ would be a laughing stock has been if it weren’t for the spineless thugs and opportunists who keep resuscitating him. He is brain dead and rotting from the inside out. Let it take its course.
There is something beyond repulsive about Speaker Johnson who envisions himself as a second Moses appointed by God seeking direction from The Abominable Showman. Smarmy little fuzz ball, that one. Soft in the head, I'd say.
The Eagles?
Yup, we got find, find, find out. SOON.
Where are the moderate Independents? Is this the real majority? How many news organizations report what moderates say or think because it doesn't put coin in their pockets. The polls have proved to be grossly inaccurate because most people no longer have land lines which was the best source for accurately polling. Are there any newspapers and stations that have added personnel or subscribers have increased since 2021?
Just this week, my wife read me a story that cable subscribers have dropped to under 50% of households. We cancelled ours this week saving $165/month. We were foolish for holding out as long as we did.
In the words of the Everly Brothers-
Stream, Stream, Stream, Stream....
Gary, curious what platforms are you using for streaming? I am going to cancel my cable also. My cable/internet combined is increasing to $187 a month. Way too much when I only watch a few channels, and mostly it is background noise while I work, or for my dogs when I leave the house. Every year I call and bargain for a lower rate, which is a painful hours long process of trying to even speak with a real person. Time to drop cable!
We stream Netflix, Prime, Britbox, Acorn, Paramount+, Apple, HBO MAXX.
We've also tried Sling and Hulu but when we finished a few series like The Handmaid's Tale and a few others we canceled. Pandora is a good music channel but we don't subscribe to it. We used VUDU for quite a while and still have it out there because once you watch something you own it and can rewatch it anytime without charge.
We watch a lot of YouTube videos but haven't tried the YouTube channel so can't really say much about it.
Hope that helps and you save quite a bit of money.
I forgot to mention we use Roku's as the streaming supervisor.
Gary please do share the streaming service.
See above comment. We have used Roku's to control our streaming platforms and been very happy with them. My daughter's TV has the streaming controller built in so she doesn't need a Roku.
Agree with you completely. Be prepared! (Sounding like a boy scout)
Fortune favors the prepared mind.
Michael,
I am pretty pessimistic too. History is not really on our side I don't think.
I am reading Dr. Richardson's "How the South Won the Civil War". Definitely not an optimistic history book. Not a bit.
Michael Biales
I share optimism that the guardrails will hold and democracy will prevail.
Voters identify as Americans first and supporters of party second. Traditional conservatives are turned off by MAGA rabid extremism.
Failure is not an option
I was hoping you would comment on the following information about Trump’s “fantastic” win in Iowa.
“Trump had received support from a mere fifty-six thousand caucus-goers, amounting to some seven per cent of the registered Republicans in the state and just three per cent of over-all registered voters in Iowa. Iowa represents less than 1% of US population”
By Susan B. Glasser
She sees a realistic view of how bizarre the press is and how they cover the man who would be America’s Hitler dictator. This needs to be explained to all Americans. Iowa doesn’t remotely resemble America.
Iowa doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t. Overwhelmingly white. Total population = 3.2million, equal to a small city here in California. Of the 2 million or so registered voters, all of about 110,000 turned out to caucus. Of those, half voted for the Vulgar Talking Yam.
Means that half didn’t. Iowa is determinative of zilch. Is the media bored? Lazy? Looking for something, anything to write about? If the answer to any of these is yes, then look for something else to fixate on. Lord knows there are plenty of other, much more important issues.
How about this? The Vulgar Talking Yam is running a shadow government, at least on immigration, by forcing the House leadership to do absolutely nothing on immigration and, by extension, holding up desperately needed aid to Israel and Ukraine because the Yam doesn’t want the Ds to have the prize of immigration reform to run on.
God forbid, he is elected. Precisely zero will be done about immigration, other than his wet dream of building giant camps to put people in, whether legal immigrants or undocumented.
Marla, The Iowa Caucuses are similar to Valentines Day; for no good reason, every four years the Pagans hold a “Celebration of Attention”, which the Media covers in a breathless cry as if to say “We’ll make the sun rise tomorrow (again)
The media covered it like the second coming of Chirst. They haven't learned a thing.
That's been a talking point on MSNBC this week: how T**** actually lost in Iowa, based on the percentages of GQP voters who DIDN'T vote for him. Not only are his supporters in the minority of their party, they're in the minority in the US: white, evangelical Christian fascists.
It has been the talking point on MSNBC, but they also covered Iowa obsessively. It was ridiculous.
Agreed. They are as guilty as any other of the MSM in giving too much air time to the Orange Skidmark.
It is perspective!
David French of the NY Times has written a piece that should be read by every Federal and State jurist in the Country, "What the Civil War and Reconstruction teaches us about the proper use of the 14th Amendment. I think you would greatly relate to it.
Peter
Here’s the link, article is gifted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/opinion/trump-14th-amendment-history.html?unlocked_article_code=1.O00.Fu-G.YzY2cUW6kxxs&smid=url-share
I just read that. Thanks. Excellent article. Agent Orange is unhinged. His mental illness is dictating the course. This is all about revenge. Hell is not just coming, it's here. He NEVER feels remorse. It's not in his DNA.
The GQP wants someone else to clean up this toxic dump they created. Ideologies are the GQP's poison. Like the moron from I think Idaho that wrote a bill to stop 'furries' in schools. This is about the truth verses the lies. MSM knows this. We all know this. But, Agent Orange sells the news. He is profitable for them. MSM sell us out with their both sides bs. .
Many of us are exhausted. Apathy isn't going to be easy to battle. This insurrection started the day Biden won and continues to this day. The enemy is within the bowls of our government and our Supreme Court. Overlords they're not.
The insurrection started when the Supreme Court began to accept the concept of corporate personhood as precedent back in the 1880s. It’s been settled law ever since, culminating in Citizens United.
The corporate control of our ‘government’, caused 1/6, not Trump. Until a large enough coalition of Americans can come together to kill the concept of corporate personhood, and its money as speech companion, we’ll continue to circle the drain.
HJR-54. MoveToAmend.org
The 1820's 'spoils system' hasn't changed in 200 years.
Yeah. Too radical a concept to keep people who do what they do well, or if replacing someone, hire an expert in a particular field instead of a crony.
Couple the spoils system with the cut government crowd, and you get guaranteed dysfunction.
Administrative law before SCOTUS now.
When my ship went up the Saigon River in 1965 Agent Orange was a harmless defoliant.
No, it was never a "harmless defoliant". Monsanto knew its effects, and it and other companies ignored them. Just like companies today ignore the damage already done by the clear and present danger who gets tagged with the nickname, and the damage he will do. The comments by the financial elites at Davos bear this out: they don't really care who wins, and too many of them would rather have T****, thinking he's more pro-business. It'a all about the money, and these elites just don't give a damn about anyone else.
James, I believe that was exactly Alec's point.
XA
Millions suffer to this day from the consequences. Vietnam populations exposed suffer from numerous cancers and so do their children to this day. Again, we are the collateral damage of the profiteers.
Davos says, 'trust us'. They are cold, callous and clueless.
And today's Agent Orange is equally "harmless".
Alec, I have a handful of friends who are reaping the benefits of their exposure to this "harmless defoliant". I hope you're OK.
I’m better than ok. I’m lucky. Thanks.
I am glad to hear that.
Evolution works in mysterious ways.
Oh, I appreciate the magnitude of what you said so deeply in my heart that I cannot hit the “heart” response.
XA
It started before Biden won.
The perfect 'tool' for destruction of this sort.
I always trust Librarians. They get it done.
I used to pick jurors from pools that were sometimes more than 160 individuals.
Librarians? I love 'em.
The can speak with concise factual answers.Super syntax.
They have a Library code system to keep track of books for avid readers.
One of the few in a sea of faces paying attention to the Judge.
One of my overused court mantras was 'Use you common sense'! Librarians? No problem.
Fines for miscreants ... well you get it ... I love them.
You got it Bryan, they are the best. and helpfulness is in their DNA. They should be our Congress critters and Senators. Mandatory. Two terms, then back to the library.
Thanks, Rideout, I never considered the genetic angle, a distinct cognitive advantage.
They got it. By the way, that's me last name, but I'm used to it. Your profile says California. I'm in LA Co., Altadena. You?
Thank you Danielle for the gifted NY Link.
I am expecting the DC Court of Appeals Panel to rule on Amendment 14, Section 3 immunity before the end of January. Like many, I will go directly to disposition sentence on the last page of the Opinion.looking for a prompt Remand Order.
I am.not ruling the possibility that SCOTUS will DENY Certerori particularly because of Wreck's post today setting up the US President as King George 3.
More like Henry 8, but not nearly as smart.
History rhymes.
Second verse, same as the first!
Although you can't step in the same river twice.
Will, I was already a big fan of your mind through your commentary, and though I’ve been a reader of LFAA since day 3 (grace à Rebecca Solnit), I’ve never been a paid subscriber (precariat class). Until today. Today I excitedly paid $5 so I could let you know that your perfectly placed Violent Femmes shoutout would not float off into infinity. I caught it.
Nicely done, sir.
Little bit louder and a whole lot worse!!!
This article is excellent—by the always excellent David French. Here is the phrase that reflects what I have been thinking: “…why does anyone believe it will be safer to keep him on the ballot? Why presume that the upheaval and violence that could greet his defeat at the polls would be any less than the upheaval and violence that could greet his disqualification from the ballot?”
Thanks for the link Danielle-French makes a good argument for disqualifying Trump now based on his involvement with the January 6th modern day insurrection.
The first shot for this insurrection wasn’t fired at Sumter-it was a tweet inviting people to DC to be “wild” along with all of the plots and lies he promoted. There are others in Congress who should be disqualified as well.
French also highlights how easy it’s been for White Americans to throw Black Americans under the bus so they can get on with their lives.
This capitulation to domestic terrorists has harmed our ability to “form a more perfect union”. It’s also cost a lot of harm to Americans with darker skin.
Trump and the Republicans would be nowhere without racism. We’ll soon see where SCOTUS lands on the issue and what kind of nation we really are… will “law and order” prevail or not?
Thank you
Thank you!
Thank You, Danielle.
Thank you Danielle (NM) and peterplus4. Excellent article.
I will try to find it - thank you...
(There is a gift link below and I don't believe I have quoted inappropriately for copyright issues.)
This article is well worth reading - you don't have to support everything the NYT publishes to make a subscription worthwhile. A sampling of the David French NYT article (*** emphasis mine): "Critics of applying Section 3 to Trump have correctly and eloquently argued that removing him from the race could trigger a convulsive and potentially violent backlash in the American body politic. Millions of Americans would feel as if their choice was taken from them and that scheming elites were destroying American democracy.
***But doesn’t that sound exactly like MAGA’s response to the last election? ***. In 2020, Trump faced the voters, participated in a free and fair election, and refused to accept the outcome. "
There is a gift link below and I don't believe I have quoted inappropriately for copyright issues.
Thank you for always making history relevant to current events and putting both in a way that is relatable and understandable. I feel smarter, and certainly better informed, because I read your posts. I’m proud to have renewed my subscription. You are worth every penny and then some!
We seem to keep fighting a lot of the same battles over and over. Could we possibly learn some of these lessons for good?
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. Wendell Phillips. (Recalled by J M Hawley)
Wasn't that from Benjamin Franklin?
Double like button, where is it ?
Apparently not
Deja vu all over again. Let's work towards a Blue wave and vote the Republicans who cannot govern, especially the so-called Freedom Caucus, out of Congress.
Surely some on the fence are going weary government by tantrum? Sanity is no so bad after all.
I sincerely hope we don't fall into the trap that Trump himself is the problem, and if he loses the election and is convicted of one or more crimes, we're home free. The Republicans have been playing hardball and viciously unconstitutional politics for years, handing over the wealth of the nation to the funders of the party. Just like 1877.
Evening to All!
I must voice a slight yet perhaps significant rebuttal to Heather's final paragraphs of tonight.
Yes, the last President elected from the House of Representative, James Garfield of Hey-oh-OHIO, was elected in 1880. And yes, he was a wonderful progressive on the issue of race relations in the wake of the Civil War wherein he was a Union officer. He was also the first college Professor elected President.
Yet tragically, he did not last a year into his term when he was shot in the gut at the train station in DC by Charles Guiteau, a "disgruntled office seeker", i.e., the "lone gunman" of his time, and lay in mortal agony for over two months before he passed away, leaving the Presidency in the capable yet questionable hands of Chester A. Arthur, the President with perhaps the best moniker, certainly the best mutton chops, but of questionable fire in the belly.
All of Garfield's progressivism on the issues of post-Civil War racial reconciliation, died with him in the darkened tunnels of the train station.
There has been only one other college professor to reside in the White House since him, and that was Woodrow Wilson, a perverse mix of brainy progressivism on some issues, yet deeply rooted racism on others. This is the same Woodrow Wilson that while beneficially ushering in the new fashion of ties and starched collars, most deleteriously poured concrete onto the foundation of official segregation and blessed Jim Crow, while he delighted in watching "A Birth of a Nation" from the original White House theater. His dragging US into WWI due to the "attack" on the Lusitania and the Zimmerman note (not a Bob Dylan scribbling) would come later.
Considering that Grover Cleveland was the first Democratic President post Civil War, and Wilson was the next, it seems overly optimistic to the point of Pollyanna-ish to state that "the leaders of the Democratic Party marginalized former Confederates and turned to northern cities to reestablish the party, beginning the transition to the party that would, fifty hears later, usher in the New Deal"
Even FDR himself, for all his magnificent contributions, compromised the cause of our fellow Americans of darker skin, allowing them to linger in the shadows sans protection so he could gain the votes of the Southern Democratic segregationists for his New Deal measures.
Facts. The truth is sometimes harsh. Thanks for shining a spotlight on the way racism has shaped the American way”.
The right wingers in Congress, along with their fellow cult members, not only know nothing about history, but know less about the present or future! Power, control & blind support for the Orange dummy are their primary objectives! They’re nothing but stumbling blocks to our future! Thank you Dr. Richardson for providing sunlight to the predicament!
Their evil superpower has been to make up everything. Where does that leave us as reality intrudes?
Well, it leaves the people in reality quite grumpy at their neighbors.
The reality-free among us don't notice reality intruding, because, well... they never cared for it anyway!
It has a way of catching up with us.
All of those cult members (in or out of congress) feed off the hatred of "other". Cannot forget that part.
A great huge deal is being made out of the loss of life in Gaza, while *at the exact same time* children are dying in Ukraine, families are torn apart, towns and villages are being destroyed, people are without food. A lot of anger is expressed, by new people, towards those who bomb Gaza. **AT THE SAME TIME, The same thing is happening in Ukraine and is ignored. Moreover, American lawmakers are very publically, very personally, declaring with their individual votes that they will not help the people ***in the Ukraine*** who are without food, who are wounded, who are homeless, and, that they, as a group and individually, do not care about the Ukrainian people and they do not care how many ***Ukrainians*** die. All these goings-on have occurred T the same time as an increase in hatred expressed toward Jews. What has been given to these legislators that is worth the death and destruction in the Ukraine and the increase of hatred in this country?
We, the good ‘ol USA, have played a major role in wrecking Ukraine.
We live in a collective fantasy world in our assessment of all things Russia.
Americans need to be exposed to more than corporate media spewing government propaganda; listen to voices outside that bubble. Example here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNoDM68EjM&t=249s
We have guts! Let’s prove it. Apparently, some don’t. Thx Professor. We, the people.
“irreconcilable opposition”
In today’s Letter “irreconcilable opposition” was quoted to explain why it has been so difficult
for the reelected former prime minister Donald Tusk to reestablish democracy in Poland. His opponents ‘… are trying to retain control over Poland through their seizure of key levers of government.’
How does “irreconcilable opposition” apply to Trump and his party’?
This from Eugene Robinson’s Opinion ‘House Republicans are practicing political nihilism:
‘Bipartisan Senate negotiators and the White House say they are close to a deal on legislation to alleviate what everyone agrees is an emergency. It would give Republicans much of what they want regarding the southern border — beefed-up security against illegal crossings, tightened asylum rules, provision for more detentions and expulsions, perhaps even limits on President Biden’s authority to “parole” certain groups of immigrants into the country.’
‘The package would also approve billions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine, which the administration says is urgently needed but some House Republicans oppose. This is how bitterly contested issues are resolved in Washington: One side gets some wins and makes some concessions, the other side does the same, and both sides claim they got the better of the deal. And maybe, in the end, some good gets done.’
‘But after Biden met with congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) immediately threw doubt on the very idea of an agreement that addresses both the border and Ukraine. His position has been that the border question has to be resolved first, and that any solution has to be based on draconian House-passed legislation that would, among other things, require building 900 miles of Trump’s border wall. For both the Senate and Biden, Johnson’s demand is a non-starter.’
'Why would House Republicans balk at a chance to ease the crisis at the border that they’ve been braying about for years? Because they would rather have the issue as a cudgel for Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee, to use against Biden in November.'
“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Tex.) told CNN this month when asked about the idea of a border deal. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”
'Nehls has a habit of blurting out, uncensored, what the Republican Party really thinks. Last month, as the House approved an impeachment inquiry against Biden, GOP leaders bloviated about how they were taking the step more in sorrow than in anger. But Nehls told USA Today that his aim was to give the twice-impeached Trump “a little bit of ammo to fire back” in the general election campaign.'
'Partisanship is one thing, but what Republicans are practicing is something very different. It is political nihilism. It’s not about enacting policies or fulfilling responsibilities but, rather, about accentuating voters’ fears, anxieties and resentments — and doing whatever Trump wants them to do.'
“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all,” Trump posted Wednesday on Truth Social, “unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, Country!”
'Trump’s pronouncement appeared designed to prevent any wobbling by Johnson following the White House meeting with Biden. The screed confirmed Rep. Jamie Raskin’s analysis: “Rather than joining Democrats and Biden in good-faith, bipartisan negotiations to make progress on immigration, they are taking orders from Donald Trump and actively obstructing a bipartisan border deal,” the Maryland Democrat said at a House Oversight and Accountability hearing this week.'
'It’s not just immigration. Some MAGA Republicans are also obstructing $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, which the White House says is desperately needed to sustain Kyiv’s resistance against invading Russian forces. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has threatened to file a motion to oust Johnson as speaker if he agreed to the Ukraine funding bill — a move that would thrust the House, once again, into leaderless chaos.'
'And to what end? Not even Greene and her most unhinged colleagues can seriously think their extreme agenda, however thin it might be, could ever be accepted by the Democrats who control the Senate or their not-so-MAGA colleagues in Senate GOP leadership — to say nothing of Biden, who can veto any nonsense that reaches his desk.
‘If Republicans really cared about out-of-control spending or taking inventory of U.S. commitments abroad or easing the humanitarian crisis at the border, they would negotiate and compromise. Instead, they posture. They issue sound bites. Occasionally, they eat their own.’ (WAPO, Eugene Robinson)
How can the US govern under these circumstances? Are we plagued by “irreconcilable opposition”? What is the political philosophy of Trump and his party? You wince, do you, at my attaching philosophy to Donald J. Trump? I do, too.
‘Until the final weeks of Trump’s term, the guardrails of American democracy seemed to hold firm. The institutions of the federal government remained relatively intact, and civil servants largely secure and uncorrupted. The United States experienced democratic backsliding but not democratic collapse.’
‘In a second term, however, a newly emboldened Trump could well attack democracy itself. The MAGA Republican Party of his making has openly explored ways to transform states where they control all branches of government. States that were once pluralistic democracies with at least some chance of a transfer of power are coming to resemble one-party regimes directed by a minority of the population. (Anne Applebaum’s report from Tennessee is a case history in point.)’
‘In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s putative rival for the 2024 Republican nomination, has turned his state into a laboratory for testing how a determined, calculating, uninhibited authoritarian can maximize executive power. In many respects, he has already accomplished at the state level what Trump did not have the discipline and focus to do at the federal level. And DeSantis has created a blueprint for other Republican state leaders to follow.’
‘Just as state Republicans have become more ruthlessly autocratic in their methods, a new Trump presidency would be much more efficiently goal-oriented at the federal level. A huge transformation of the administrative state is being deliberately planned. The government agencies and civil service he has decried as the “deep state” would be purged or politicized, and the “retribution” he has promised against his enemies would also be carried out. The “unitary executive” theory long promoted by some Republicans would become the reality of an unabashed authoritarianism.’
‘The very last months of the Trump presidency foreshadowed what a second term would entail. When formerly loyal vassals such as Attorney General William Barr and Defense Secretary Mark Esper demonstrated that they would not cross the line into unconstitutional insurgency, Trump sought sycophants for whom no such line existed. In a new Trump administration, total devotion to the leader would be the sole qualification for appointment.’
‘Unlike previous fascist leaders with their cult of war, Trump still offers appeasement to dictators abroad, but he now promises something much closer to dictatorship at home. For me, what Trump is offering for his second presidency will meet the threshold, and the label I’d choose to describe it would be “isolationist fascism.” Until now, such a concept would have been an oxymoron, a historical phenomenon without precedent. Trump continues to break every mold.’ (AtlanticMag.) Sorry that I could provide a gifted link to the piece below.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/trump-second-term-isolationist-fascism/674791/
Christopher R. Browning is the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942.
Such comedy, Republicans crying over deficit.
Their fat orange guy dug the U.S. eight trillion (or was it eight billion?) dollars deeper in debt to throw taxpayer money to the billionaire classes, and to corporations to buy back stock and up bonuses to those already at the top.
It's an insanity, not just comedy.
To join it, one simply has to love those like the orange diaper guy (he now, too, with the syphilitic hands) who trade exclusively in lies.
What brought about so many Americans eager for lies, for psychotic fantasies so far from the human truths which used to uphold the higher standards as when schools yet had humanities in them?
Do so many so sink because K-12 killed off the higher standards of humanities so to float the standardized testers? Because "higher' ed marginalized humanities for all its silo neuterdom now?
The humanities are in part how we pass along culture, and we have in large part ceded that function to people who will do anything for a buck. The humanities are how we explore and record the experience of being human, the taste of honey, not just the carbohydrate content. I say this as a former science major still in love with science, but also the arts.
Standardized tests are not entirely useless, but they tend to filter out a lot of the things that matter most, and while we need some overlap of common ground in order to communicate and cooperate, there is really no such thing as a standard human, nor should there be. Beehive conformity and solidarity are two very different things.
"Standardized tests are not entirely useless..."
They kind of are, though. They test how good you are at taking that test on that day. I took several of the supposedly gold-standard Advanced Placement Subject tests in late high school (so, about 12 years ago). I got the same score in what was considered my best subject as I got in the subject where I didn't even read a third of the textbook (thanks, undiagnosed Major Depression!). They theoretically helped me get into college, but by the time I got there I remembered absolutely nothing from the test that theoretically proved I was smart so...?
My Dad was in disbelief when he realized that the universities had to admit people in the Covid years without the SAT/ACT/AP/etc. It was like he couldn't conceptualize how the schools didn't just shut down until they could be administered again. How could Harvard ever tell that they weren't admitting dummies? Gee, I dunno, any of the myriad of ways they used for 300 years before the racket began?
One thing one might notice about our species is that while successful reproduction in many other species has to do with performing some instinctual ritual as perfectly as possible, we humans have diverse interests and talents. May in society consider that a flaw when it's really a feature; a key to our collective knowhow and adaptability. There is still seems to be a social yearning for a one-size-fit-all notion of "perfection", yet humanity started to cook when we pushed back against enforced conformity; the "Enlightenment", for example.
Back in the Bad Old Days, didn't colleges have freshman "cut classes" intended to weed out nonperformers? E. G., English-100, where the instructor was a merciless terror who'd flunk your paper for a misspelled word, etc., and the policy was that E-100 was the pre-req course for all other courses!
"You could enter Harvard easily. Staying in Harvard was not."
Some genuinely elite schools like MIT still operate that way regarding math, I hear.
My parents both have stories of these types of academic dictators. (They both went to Berkeley) Just so no one has any idea I went to an Ivy League, I did not! I went to UC Irvine, which was/is apparently highly ranked by whatever metrics people use for this sort of thing, but not the metrics which would preclude me from hating absolutely everything about it.
It has taken me the years since I finished to come to grips with how it is possible that I could be a) smart, and b) hate school. These were always presented as mutually inclusive concepts to me my whole life, and I was "the smart/gifted one" from a young age, so I just kept plugging away at doing the one thing that made me utterly miserable, until finally I had to admit just how much I loathed it, which meant I must have actually been stupid all along. But time and space (and a good therapist) has helped me see: what people recognized in me as intelligence IS real, my spirit simply never could be comfortable doing the things that society decided that intelligence should be put toward.
We as a society are have a poor grasp of how our species benefits from neurodiversity. No two of us are alike, and that's what keeps things interesting. A dog knows that every human is biologically unique, and can pick out one's scent out of hundreds.
How amazingly true
What do you do now? You appear to have a great deal of self-awareness.
Right there with you in the smart/hate school bucket. The herding cows through a chute paradigm infects so much of our educational system, and it gets worse the higher(Ed) one travels.
The pressure to ‘declare a major’ put upon eighteen year-old kids is absurd.
Will, I think the “I” word (intelligence) is oft times confused the more important concept of Insight, the natural curiosity that allows “rote book learnin’” to be utilized to “see” complex problems in a way that prioritizes root causes and potential solutions in real time
Is there any course of study to develop insight? I don’t know. But if there was, I think it would be ine you enjoyed and excelled at
Dave, this is genuinely one of the nicest compliments anyone has ever given me, in person or online. Food for thought, too. Thank you so much.
Thank you, J. L.
Standardized tests benefited me the many years ago I took them. Got me scholarships, $$$.
Still, I never liked them. Once, I answered every Q by #2-penciling-in the circle for letter "B."
Since the Powell memo of 1971, however, and the concerted program by the commercial classes to up the biz schools, banks, and already-coddled upper tax brackets, humanities were seen as first target to neuter, marginalize, eliminate. Sorry if I use passive voice here, when the record shows plainly how a new Heritage Foundation, a new ALEC, and mega-enlarged Hoover Institution did what they did.
The Corporatists want standardized, disposable parts; robotic flesh when they cant get hydraulics and steel.
Anybody, J. L., turns out empty, humanly gutted this way if schools have no humanities.
Standardized tests very well measure efficiencies (skills corporations need). These efficiencies cover some gamut, but as you say here, they're "standardized, disposable."
To get human beings, skilled at seeing others as specifically natured, inhabiting their issues, their communities, we need talk, essaying, feedback, essay revisions -- and some allusions to whatever humanities best apply.
Not a school system in the world does this. Zero. All serve above all the mercantile vulgarities fawned over by the dark money vulgar, the administrators of pabulum, the obsequious servers of demagogues, dictators, and royal murderers.
Have you read “After the Ivory Tower Falls” by will Bunch? Enlightening in the extreme to me.
Some hours ago, "MLMinET," I sent you a reply, but it didn't appear.
Basically, reply noted how Will Bunch's book used anecdote on how the banks devastated what had been an open and great system of land grant colleges and universities, written into legislation by Justin Morrill, and signed by Abraham Lincoln, in 1862.
Destroyed -- undercut, defunded, turned into neutered silos, and into the largest revenue of hostage profiteering by U.S. banks of any debt system in American history. All for the far-right offshoring U.S. working-class jobs and growing the wealth gap in favor of the billionaire classes aligned with dictators and oligarchs abroad.
Please note, too, "MLMinET," how U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse also recently wrote "The Scheme," on how these far-right foundations (particularly the Federalist Society) took over the federal judiciary also for the billionaires, just as Will Bunch traced same psychopath doing so for the banks.
I love your turn of phrase about honey. What a perfect example, and poetic as well.