Marc Caputo of Axios reported today that Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of all the January 6 rioters convicted of crimes for that day’s events, including those who attacked police officers, was a spur of the moment decision by Trump apparently designed to get the issue behind him quickly.
On Monday Bishop Budde looked evil directly in the eye and spoke truth. Later Trump, hiding in the WH spewed out venom in response. Who was courageous and who was a coward?
thank you--I want the paperback which is out of stock for now, so I'm on the wait list, but the Kindle version is available. I also posted on my BlueSky account!
Thank you, Jane, for gently reminding us folks to BUY from LOCAL small businesses. I personally am cementing my attention to not buy ANYTHING, as much as realistically possible, from big corporations and nothing from the many big corporations that donated solely to Trump (i. e. GEICO, Tractor Supply, Smuckers, L L. Bean, and so many more).
Let's support our communities, and even if it seems like a mere gesture, eschew big business that cares not a whit about us.
Eileen, as an atheist/agnostic, I get troubled whenever I hear the expression "god is on their side". It's been used to justify inhumanity for centuries. Trump himself said in his 2nd inaugural rant that he was saved from death by god after his ear was nicked.
I watched the good bishop's homily on YouTube, and found it powerful.
If there is a god, I hope that the felon is soon raptured or otherwise taken from us.
Bishop Budde is a polemicist of just the right kind in reactionary America which is being unfurled in T 2.0 . Here also is a short bio on her.... Mariann Edgar Budde: A Bishop of Justice Defending LGBTQ+ and Immigrant Rights Kindle Edition
Per the WaPo: “ In a break from years past, Tuesday’s service was planned last summer, so that the readings and speaker list would be more or less the same regardless of who won the presidency. “That was very much by design,” said cathedral spokesperson Kevin Eckstrom. ‘This is a service for the nation, it is a service for all Americans. Not for a particular person.’ “
lol well she tops Presbyterians in the USA - the Washington DC cathedral. but her record sure speaks for itself! I gather the Ts haven't got their claws on presidential prayer breakfasts, but I'm sure they'll work hard. As far as american presbyterians are concerned, i hope they back her and her sentiments
Frank, my sister is an Elder in her tiny Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Oregon (First Presbyterian on Second St. as they say.) It is an incredibly progressive church (all 14 of them).
God works in ways we will never fully understand.........he answers prayers.........there must be many living in fear now and looking to heaven for protection from the demonic satanic forces unleashed Jan 20.
I began reading Heather's letter today with my usual cup of coffee and bowl of blueberries. I started tearing up 🥲 with the first paragraph and was bawling into my blueberries by the time I finished reading. As WJB says, I am living in fear, and I'm not an immigrant or a DEI hire fearing for my life and/job. With the stroke of a pen, Donald Trump, along with the creators of Project 2025, are trying to strip us of our peace, our security, and of course our freedoms that we never thought we'd lose. I know I can't wallow in my fear and anger. I'm so appreciative of the lawyers and others who will fight for these injustices to be righted. I am surrounded by Trump cultists and if I hadn't found Heather, Meidas Touch, Anthony Davis, Tennesee Brando and other truth tellers, I would be in a depression. I feel when watching these posts that I'm not alone in my astonishment, disillusionment, disappointment, and anger at what has come upon us. I have tried talking with Trumpers. I have sent letters and emails to legislators in my district and state. Nobody seems to want to hear the truth about Trump- one of the most arrogant, despicable men who's ever lived. That these people can't see this truth is what's so frustrating to me.
Oh well. I will get a fresh bowl of blueberries, another cup of coffee, and try to keep my chin (chins- I'm 76 ☺️) up.
Thanks to all on this post who see the truth and are trying to share it.
I don't think she was "chosen", they just went to her church. She's a bishop, that's pretty high up there, right? (I know zip about organized religion and while I certainly respect what she said, her position discounts it for me.)
Exactly so, Jon. The National Cathedral is an Episcopal church. Her Grace is the Presiding Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C. She wasn’t the one out of place, he was.
I think she spoke because she is the Bishop of Washington (DC) which is the top person of the Episcopal Church in that area (her Diocese). The National Cathedral, where the event took place, is an Episcopal Cathedral. Many other clerics spoke as well (from different faiths) but she was the host. Proud Episcopalian here.
As the Bishop of Washington, DC, Bishop Budde is the logical person to preach at the National Cathedral in Washington for this traditional Service of Prayer for the Nation held on the day after a presidential inauguration. The Bishop is the head of the Episopal Church in that diocese, and the Cathedral is the "seat" of the Bishop .
Yes, we can all be glad that she is the Bishop there for "a time such as this."
Just FYI Audible is a subsidiary of Amazon. As is Kindle. We and our representatives have let this monopoly happen. Unregulated capitalism is not good for anyone.
You can purchase the book directly from the publisher.
The last time something like this happened on this scale, someone wrote a book. Although Viktor Frankl’s entire family was murdered in the holocaust, he managed to survive by setting himself the task of understanding why otherwise ordinary people supported leaders who acted callously, inhumanly, and without any limitations of conscience. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, originally published in 1946, he came very close. His insights made him one of the giants of the first century of the new field of psychology, and a target for criticism within his own community of holocaust survivors for daring to try to understand evil.
From a hindsight perspective, Frankl has probably gotten closer than anyone, but he was at a disadvantage. It was not until the 1980s that Benjamin Libet would conduct the most important experiment in the short history of the field of psychology, and since then, the collective that is the field of psychology has failed to put the pieces together. As a result, in our war against evil, we’ve been treating the symptoms when we should be curing the disease. Curing the disease means understanding its root cause.
To read Frankl’s book, and I’m sure the same is true of Bishop Budde’s book, is to gain insights into the importance of the task at hand and the enemy we face, but they are both operating at the level of symptoms in lieu of cause. We still have a small window of opportunity to fix this. We need a collective understanding of the root cause. If someone out there knows what that is, please let us know. But if you're buying and reading Bishop Budde’s book, I'm suggesting you also do something less expensive and time consuming.
I’m not charging a subscription fee for my newsletter. I am publishing a weekly series of short (< 1,200 word) essays explaining the root cause of the authoritarian disease. Yesterday’s edition describes Libet’s experiment, which in turn describes what might appear to be the limit of our scientific knowledge of how the human mind works.
If all you want to do is complain, then pardon the interruption. If you think I’m delusional, and you’re smart enough to pass high school biology, then please subscribe, identify the flaw in my simple logic, and let me know. I’m all ears. Otherwise, if you want to cure the authoritarian disease, then please subscribe and let’s talk.
This is a superb post James. Your few likes here reflects our sometimes pause at lengthy ones. Dr Frankl’s family was shot while he was forced to watch. I like Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman too for a look at hot trumpet gained such enormous appeal. All here might check your blue light exposure if you’re losing sleep. Strong hearts, brave hearts, we step in to the fires.
Joan, thank you for bringing Gabor Mate to my attention. He does add plenty to our understanding. However, as I assumed, he is doing what everyone in the field of psychology does. They try something they hope will work. If it works, then they keep doing it and iterate. If something doesn't work, they (hopefully) stop doing it. What they don't do is understand the real root cause because they misunderstand the most important experiment is the history of the field of psychology. Or I'm overlooking something simple that no one is bothering to bring to my attention.
James, your approach is far too academic for my abilities. I prefer to look at history, social and political history of why do people do what they do. Why does a person take a selfie stand g at a cliff and fall off?
My understanding is that birth sides of a political struggle tango and both sides become damaged. If the society is well off, more then likely it will moderate itself. Germany chose a dictator on account of the punishment meted to the nation from the WWI Versailles Agreements. In our nation we have suffered under several inferior leaderships that has cost the US dearly. We invaded not one but two nations under W Bush. His daddy invaded another in the Golf War. Our foreign policies have destabilized the Middle East and now it has destabilized Europe. The Reagan period ushered in less regulation and opened the door to savage quest for riches by the wealthy.
The democrats have pushed so far to the left we don’t even realize how far we have gone. The Democratic Party was once the party of the working class and largely white working class but we have abandoned them and we don’t even realize it. So they turned to the party that does not have their interests at all. Zero.
Trump is not conservative or liberal. He has no ethics. He will sell his dead mother for peanuts if she was worth such peanuts. Money is his only quest.
In my opinion, our side (I do identify as liberal/conservative) must change our obtuse ways or we will be condemned to continue making the same mistakes. And frankly, I don’t think we will make the necessary changes to return to significant majorities to rule for the foreseeable future. I have been specific with positions needed to be made and I have been thoroughly castigated for them which leads me to believe that we are unable to understand what is taking place and to make accommodations in order to bring us back to a degree of sanity. I don’t see this happening anytime soon. It’s human nature to continue making the same missteps.
Joan, I'm sure it does. I'll check it out. However, my argument is that adding "plenty to the understanding" built on an unstable foundation is not what we need in this moment. What we need in this moment is the stable foundation. See my first (351 word) newsletter:
James R. Carey -- Viktor Frankl's book, "Man's Search for Meaning", has been on my bookshelves since the 1970s. Time to read it again! (For maybe the 4th or 5th time.)
I am sure Frankl's strength of mind helped him survive. But survival in the camps depended greatly on chance, luck, and an extra few calories of food.
That said, those so brutalized and traumatized that they became fatalistic were termed 'Muselmanner.' And had an higher incidence of death.
"Viktor Frankl, who survived internment in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, wrote in his memoirs that the term was first used by camp's prisoners to refer to the Kapos –prisoners assigned to supervise forced labor by the SS guards− as to them, the term "Muslim" carried a connotation of barbarism.[5] On the other hand, Eugen Kogon, who survived internment in Buchenwald, wrote that the term originated from Nazi staff-members, who ascribed the Muselmann's apparent apathy to their circumstances (likely the result of weakness and acute hunger) to Islamic fatalism."
You are correct. Part of Frankl's survival was due to luck and the other part was due to his pragmatic optimism. Authoritarians don't care if we're naively optimistic or cynically pessimistic, but pragmatic optimism is their kryptonite.
James, you might try looking at laziness (sloth?) as a starting point. Eve was too lazy to ask permission re: eating an apple and Adam was too lazy to check things out when offered said apple. Racism is largely a result of lazy thinking. Despotism, weather in a small group, a town, or a nation, is just a bunch of people trying to take a short cut to real leadership and power. The same can be said about cult members and their leaders. Of course, there is far more involved than this in the genesis of evil, but I believe this is where it starts.
Your description is accurate, but what is the obvious and effective cure for laziness? If you don't know how to cure what you've identified as the cause, then you've identified a symptom. If you've identified the root cause, then what needs to be done is obvious. In other words, at least to me, laziness is just one of many symptoms.
Thank-you, James, for posing this question, and for making me think. There are a couple of concepts that come to mind. The physical notion of inertia, that we tend to keep doing what we do until some force is applied, or Buckminster Fuller's idea of a basic shape making up everything - in his case a tetrahedron, as a way to look at the basic building blocks of everything. What is the 'tetrahedron' of human interactions? What forces act on them? One school of thought is that all thoughts and actions are either an act of love or a cry for it. Is my reply to you a loving act or the admission of the need for love? Being able to identify this in ourselves is key, as is the correct loving response. Responding to someone's cry for love with our own cries builds strife, as does an an act of love that does not address a crier's need - this in fact can be quite damaging.
Am I still describing symptoms? Probably. I doubt I can solve this problem/dilemma on my own. Maybe we can get farther together.
Yes. By my count, about 400 generations (aka 100 centuries), but our species is much older. To the best of our knowledge, our species emerged roughly 12,000 generations ago, and hunter-gatherer bands are invariably egalitarian in lieu of authoritarian. So, proportionately, our species is like a 13-year-old trying to adjust to a new reality less than half a year after childhood's end.
Without getting into specifics, only a few people are smart enough to be brain surgeons and rocket scientists, but literally everyone is capable of being sufficiently wise, and that's all that is necessary.
It's better go slow in the right direction than to go fast in the wrong direction, and it is likewise better to be wise with a low IQ than to be Elon Musk.
Thanks Rhonda - In North Carolina we have a lot to fight for-need to be brave and bold! Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin will not be allowed to bypass a state trial court in his effort to block 65,000 or more votes from counting in his election against Democrat Allison Riggs. The state’s highest court issued an order Wednesday sending the case back to Wake County Superior Court to address his election challenge.
The 5-1 decision prompted four justices to write separate opinions. The North Carolina Supreme Court acted as the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals prepares for oral arguments Monday dealing with the same dispute.
gawd no, please do not put one more dollar into Jeff Bezos’ pocket (one reasonably presumes these days that “I ordered the book” usually means “I clicked on an Amazon link”).
Please visit your local bookstore with the book's info: they are nice people who deserve our support, who can get it to you fast —or they might just have copies sitting on the shelf.
Trump to Bishop Budde: “How dare you implore me to be kind to American citizens? I’ve never been kind to anyone. I’ve always been an asshole. And I will continue to be an asshole!”
I was intrigued that he found the service unexciting. Then I remembered that just before Christmas he muscled his way into the Notre Dame de Paris consecration, which was a display, a full-on show with orchestra and even Lang-Lang(!) Macron loves theatre, but I don't think the Olympic Games designer was the best choice for that occasion. Anyway, Trump may have imagined that he was going to be similarly glorified. Not very used to church - unless it's where they lay hands on him and pray aloud while he stands smirking like a cat being tickled under the chin.
It’s his malignant narcissism. If he’s not the center of attention, forget about it. I see that as a potential problem between Trump and his new bff Muskrat.
As I have said to many of my Christian family members & friends that support Sideshow Don ... If Jesus returned to us today, his 1st words would be "Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot !
The execution of Jesus was political. The Romans used the cross to terrify people. This is what happens when you defy Rome. The Cross and the Lynching Tree. James Cone. January 6th: they erected a noose and a put up a cross. Lynching is much the same as a crucifiction . GOP=Romans
That story, uniquely in John, is a great one. Scholarship suggests it was inserted after the original work, what i like about it was that instead of being a "miraculous" add on, it was an icon of psychological reframing. Of course, was then and still is axiomatic that less than perfect human beings have to define, implement and maintain rules , customs, laws which is another way of defining humanity as a "rule making"species. Stoning was never stopped other than by larger scale authorities which took on the job for themselves. On the side, Jesus may have had special sympathy for the adulterous woman, he may well have been "illegitimately" conceived himself, and he may also have noted some double standards involved.
But Trump, in his delusional state, has said that the fact that the marksman back in Michigan had bad aim means that God has chosen him to make over the world in his (Trump's) own image.
Maybe Bishop Budde should fact-check with God on that.
She might also tell us what became of the boy on the roof, when he had been shot twice and died. No family? We usually get a page of petty details, with pictures.
I tend to agree. Unless it was staged. That's my little detour into conspiracy world. The thing is how do you know with a guy like that, who walks through his life making up things?
"Do not ascribe to conspiracy that which is just as easily ascribed to pure chance. "
Words to live by. The abilities of that "marksman" to accurately hit Trump closely enough to make him bleed but not kill him is virtually impossible to imagine. He was just a very poor marksman.
Trump doesn't even remember which state he almost died in. I almost pity the Crooks kid who died on that roof in Pennsylvania. He got off eight rounds from an assault rifle. It's a shame he was so incompetent.
At least they didn't make him suffer the embarrassment of a trial.
I took it more as a WARNING from God for Trump to change his ways.
As for the shooting being staged, who knows? I'm more concerned about someone of power addressing the comments Trump made prior to election of "having a secret" and then just the other day saying that Musk "knows the computers."
The shooter was a poor shot. I believe he tried to get on his high school rifle team but didn’t make it. He did kill at least one man, a father protecting his family. I didn’t hear any mention of that man at the inauguration…I don’t think it was divine intervention that kills one man to save another…just dumb luck on Trump’s part and really bad luck on the dead man and his family. May his memory be blessed.
Thank you Lynell! I sent a card as did several people I know.
It would be wonderful if thousands upon thousands of thank you cards arrived there.
I hope that would be covered in the news, mailbags piled up, and even better, notes posted on a wall(s) somewhere. Visual media coverage! Pictures speak louder than words!
Neil Brown, she emulated Jesus beautifully. And a loving God. Her strength to love shone brightly in that space. And as a loving action does, it has illuminated many hearts far beyond.
Trump is in direct opposition to everything Christ taught . . . in fact, take this for what you will, but we might even call him an anti-Christ. Whether you want to use the definite article and put a cap on the anti- is a theological question I leave to others . . . .
I don’t know about that, but I do know he’s spent his whole life indulging in every one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Greed, gluttony and lust come to mind here.
Ooops Philo, let's not elevate him thus far, all the Evangelicals wait with baited breath for End Times, for which they need to get their hands on a suitable candidate! anyway, anti-christ was generally a pejorative term antagonists hurled at their opponents . Eg Luther on the pope, not that he started the practice!
We all know (or as adults, should know) his type. The mediocrity who hides his smallness and insecurity behind a show of bravado. If he thinks at all, he thinks nobody can see the truth of what he is. The guy who always has a clever rejoinder but never walks the walk. The guy whose momma never loved him enough and whose successful daddy gave him a wad of money and wrote him off. The school yard bully who runs away or backs down if anyone has the temerity to challenge him.
Maybe I should feel sorry for this pathetic piece of garbage - this waste of harvestable organs. I'm proud to say that I don't think I can. There is a great world full of real people who deserve whatever tiny bit of empathy I could muster.
It's all I can do to understand how forty percent of my "peers" miserably FAILED to discharge the ONLY responsibility they have as American citizens.
>> Serve in the military? Something to avoid.
>> Pay your income tax? Only if you can't afford a legal professional to rep you.
>> Take care of your kids? Cheaper than serial divorce.
I'll stay in this shithole nation because the people I love cannot easily move with me.
I'll stay because I'm too f**king stubborn to leave.
I'll stay because a life of work has earned me enough to afford to escape, should I wish to.
I'll stay because I'm a foolish optimist and believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that NEXT TIME we will all be responsible adults and vote if we have another opportunity to do so.
Thirty percent (30%) - a smidge over seventy million of us - voted to destroy America.
Thirty percent (30%) - a smidge under seventy million of us - voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Forty percent (40%) - eighty million people, give or take a few thousand - CHOSE not to vote. Suppression? Sure. Dirty tricks, fraud, and criminal tampering? I'm sure a bit of that too. But election after election, every couple of years, we (the people) take the American promise for granted.
Sixty five percent (65%) is the high water mark for voting. I know that, by and large, we suck at math in this Great Land. If the average citizen could count to twenty without taking their socks off, we might still be able to compete in a world grounded in science and technology.
For myself, I need little and have enough to get by for another 10 or 20 years. The kids have pride and accomplishment and enough to float their boats. I'll settle in and appreciate the blessings of living in interesting times.
Shad had their full attention. Our felon-in-chief, slump-shouldered, slack jawed, a vacant stare on his umbrage was certainly on a "hot" seat in an unfamiliar location. Bishop Budde showed immense courage to say those piercing, heartfelt words, so necessary for a terrified populace.
Brava and kudos for her action. As a devout agnostic, I can honestly praise her Christian values. It will be remembered as turning point. Thank you beaucoups.
Where are all the other leaders of organized religion on this? What a shame they are. Why aren’t they asserting the same teachings of Christianity? IF THE HISTORICAL CHRIST MADE THESE PLEAS HERE AND NOW ? So much of the focus of organized Christianity is on sex and reproductive rights. Why aren’t they organizing and marching and praying for an end to the continuing barrage of bad behavior and greed and corruption by corporate leaders. Yes corporations. Fowling our water and air ! Adding more and more co2 to the air . Cheating and duping incentive people? Where is their outrage ?
As an atheist, I have little interest in what organizers of religion do or say. But I will admit it is sad that the days of people like the Berrigan brothers seem to be mostly long gone, with a few like Bishop Budde excepted. It seems like most of this started during the tenure of Reagan, another (like Trump) who overpromoted his religiosity while acting wholly antithetical to any actual idealistic aspect of religion.
As a non-theist, I have a tiny bit of interest in what followers of the one god say from time to time. John Pavlovitz is another worth paying attention to.
Many are too busy planting their lips on the Trump thing's derriere to speak. But when some of the so called ministers in my area do manage to speak, you wouldn't believe some of the things that come out of their mouths.
Amen Neil. Bishop Budde has made herself an icon for all that is right and humane about dealing with immigrants (most of whom contribute to the American economy) , DEI, and human rights in general. On the side, I love how, in a little eastern Canadian province she has been posted over and over, myself included. I needn't bother detailing how repelled commentators were on T 2.0 himself.
If Franklin Graham said it, it might mean something. Need an ecumenical coalition. How about a canonical order!
Excommunicate MAGATs! “The Catholic Church’s foundational teaching calls us to uphold the sacredness of human life and the God-given dignity of the human person.” The bishops, who remain adamantly anti-abortion, nevertheless reminded us that “care for immigrants, refugees, and the poor is part of the same teaching of the Church that requires us to protect the most vulnerable among us, especially unborn children, the elderly and the infirm.” In short, you cannot be “pro-life” and go after the poor, the infirm and immigrants living peaceably within our borders.
And one (or more) R legislators wants her ‘deported,’ their answer for everything.
I called my own rep, Tim Burchett, a moron if there ever was one, and asked the person who answered his phone whether he supported the release of violent criminals. Answer: yes. I was shocked. So I clarified what I heard: “Rep Burchett supports President Trump, so, yes.”
Trump has put bullseyes on the backs of policemen. This is so outrageous especially when there was no response from the Law and Order party, the Republicans. If I were a member of the Secret Service, how could I be expected to take a bullet for Trump, a man who has absolutely no respect for our police or military? We must resist and fight this man every step of the way or else we are complicit.
The Heritage Foundation (who take credit for authorizing Project 2025) labeled their group as a “Think Tank” in order to sound intelligent. Let’s list every Corporation and every single contributing PROJECT 2025 author publicly and broadcast it on Substack for a daily advertisement of their Anti-Democratic recklessness that goes against the Constitution’s OATH OF OFFICE.
List these companies Publicly where? If you have the list try asking the “legacy” media to publish them, or even better get every local newspaper, ask AARP to run the list in its magazine etc. More importantly, explain what each company of the list does AND what may be its particular benefit by having supported Project 2025.
The Heritage Foundation, which is tax exempt as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization under the Internal Revenue Code, should lose its tax exempt status. I looked at a recent Heritage Foundation Form 990, which is the tax report 501(c)(3) organizations are required to file annually and learned this fact: of over $100,000,000 in gross revenues (exempt from taxation) Heritage Foundation spent over $60,000,000 on lobbying. 501(c)(3)s are enjoined to spend no more than an "insubstantial amount," usually interpreted to mean no more than 20 percent, of their gross income on activities like lobbying. Complaints about exempt organization improprieties can be filed using IRS Form 33909 (I think I remember the form number correctly but it can easily be found online). The form must be supported by evidence but the organization's Form 990 annual filings are public record and can be submitted to support a complaint. The Heritage Foundation should be put out of business
Mike Johnson says 'Republicans are not looking back' and OMB nominee Russell Vought, Project 2025 co-author, said 'certainly Trump's executive orders have nothing to do with Project 2025.' As if.
Lie Lie Lie is the Trump nominee MO. Smirk is the Trump nominee accessory du jour.
Watch Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse question the truculent Vought on executive orders (even Chair Lindsay Graham wanted an answer):
Vought is an amplifier of the unconstitutional unified executive theory - which proclaims that in his person the president is the executive branch. L'etat c'est moi. But Vought doesn't stop at the executive. He's also intent on castrating the legislative branch by cutting off Congress' power of the purse and giving it to Trump - through the unconstitutional theory of impoundment. Impoundment lets the executive freeze funds appropriated by Congress Impoundment of funds appropriated for Ukraine is part of what got Trump impeached the first time. He's at it again.
Freezing funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021.
During a 90-day review period, each agencies are to submit recommendations to both the Director of the National Economic Council (NEC) Kevin Hasett*( and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) RUSSELL VOUGHT Disbursements may resume only if deemed consistent with any adopted recommendations.
*Hassett is primarily an American Enterprise hack and Trump sycophant who coauthored the 1999 ' Dow 36,000', arguing that the stock market was about to have a massive swing upward and would reach 36,000 by 2004. In fact, the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, causing a massive decline in stock market prices. For 2 years the Dow hovered at about 2000. The Dow did not reach 36,000 until late 2021.
As a Trump advisor Hassett built a model that indicated that COVID-19 deaths would drop off to near zero by May 2020. Hassett's model contradicted known scientific assessments and in fact Covid deaths spiked between 2020 and 2022.
Trump has now used his public office to create a private militia of domestic terrorists. And a tool for new recruitment.
Just as the Federalist Society Supreme Court put Trump above the law, Trump's Project 2025 executive branch will put Trump terrorists under the shield of government.
While the GOP legislature will give up its legislative authority and power of the purse to Russell Vought OMB unconstitutional impoundment - where Trump can just take funds appropriated by Congress through negotiation.
Of Note, Vivek Ramaswamy is out of DOGE... Elon Musk is now feuding with DJT over DJT's big A.I. Announcement of 'StarGate'.... We'll see if Elon gets ejected... The Pardons were apparently a Rash-Decision... Seems DJT has no patience... They were a Spur-Of-Moment Rash Decision... DJT has little Patience, DJT doesn't think through... Psychologists have said that DJT thinks of himself as a Cartoon SuperHero... His Advancing Dementia Is Not Helping....
His ego might think superhero but Donold is the embodiment of a supervillain Incessant rantings and hateful rhetoric to cause division and strife, seeming to take glee in inflicting pain and suffering on others, scheming, bilking, grifting, hell bent on destroying our Nation. Surrounding himself with sycophants and other equally malicious supervillains, like an actual Legion of Doom. Taking the form of a fascist regime with actual Nazis, like Elon the Ketamine Kid giving a 'sieg heil' salute--twice! or the Proud Boys & Oathkeepers as brownshirt shock troops...
Actually signing the pardons may have been rash but he touted his intention to pardon all these criminals that he called “political prisoners “ for months while campaigning. Now he has really unleashed criminals out onto our streets.
Absolutely, Mike, and all the cops and other LEOs who stood behind him, both literally and figuratively, should be ashamed of themselves if they are at all surprised.
Colette, on a better note, one of them from my own state of NH, was given jail time and a 3-year probation for entering the Capitol and stealing the Senate book of procedure. (He said he was drinking during the event.) However, he says that he shouldn't have been pardoned: that what he did was wrong and he deserved the punishment. How many others were contrite? Doubtful that there are more than a handful.
De Wine gave Jon Husted Vance’s senate seat, even though Ramaswamy wanted it, and now Ramaswamy wants to run for governor since De Wine is term limited from running again. Unfortunately we have plenty of other obnoxious potential candidates. Ramaswamy would perhaps be too obnoxious for even the GQP to consider him.
My hope is, Swarmy is the GOP pick in '26. Even in The Most Corrupt State of Ohio, he is a hated POS, and it should open the door for Dr. Amy Acton to be elected. And, as an added bonus, we'll also have the honor of voting WhoSaid out of the Senate, just before he's busted for corruption, and takes the cell next to former Speaker Householder.
Won't Sherrod Brown run in 26 to regain a Democratic Ohio Senate seat? He was always extremely popular in Ohio. I love women candidates but I would think Brown has the best shot at defeating someone like Swarmy
He hasn't said anything as of yet, so I don't know. I personally would like to see either him or Tim Ryan run against WhoSaid for the Senate seat. Of course, this IS Ohio, and trying to find logic here is like trying to find a whale in Lake Erie! But I'm all in with Dr. Acton for Gov!
Trust me, Vance is more intelligent and dangerous than Trump. He believes in Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel’s obnoxiously anti democratic and authoritarian social philosophies, and Thiel bought Vance his Senate seat in Ohio.
So true, listen to Curtis on the NYT Daily podcast last week for a taste… my vote, women’s votes and Black votes done to start. Then the king takes over, no more elections. Sound like anything tRump mentioned during a rally?
lin*, as to your last paragraph, I suspect there's going to be pushback by Congress. A lot, if not most, of the IRA and CHIPS money has gone/is going to red states
The Secret Service is complicit with him. As is Fools & Buffoons, Inc., as I used to call them 50 years ago. I'm sure they'll be quite happy to start COINTELPRO over again, at his request.
COINTELPRO was an FBI operation directed by Hoover, and we only know about it because some people burglarized the FBI office in Media, PA., and they disclosed the information to a press that was then unafraid to disclose it. I could definitely see Kash Patel running an operation like that. The FBI directors are limited to 10 year terms because no one wants another FBI director like Hoover.
Not agents out in the field whose positions will be shared with Putin who would never be so foolish as to reveal the positions of his agents, or North Korea, or China, or Iran.
Sorry to say Laurie but, if Ca$h Patel is confirmed as FBI director, he is going to employ everyone of them to serve as stormtroopers against his " enemy list ".
My Proud Boy neighbor down the road, who literally "went postal" 30 years ago at a USPS job, and is on disability and is not allowed to have guns or ammunition, has both. He has been doing target practice in his back woods. What will he be hunting?
The same argument about J6 pardoned convicts with respect to the Secret Service would apply to the FBI. It's a fun meme but I can't see it having any basis in reality.
I have to believe that even in a Trump administration, anyone with a criminal conviction, even if pardoned, wouldn't be able to get close to being assigned to the Secret Service.
The Policemen helped to put this bullseye on their backs by endorsing and presumably voting for Trump. They got what they asked for. Of course the rest of us got it too. As for Law and Order, just because they claim it does not make the Republicans the party of Law and Order. In fact, since the Republican party is also the party of lies, what they say tends to patently not be true except when they tell us they want to create terrible laws and policies.
Trump is in the presidency for 2 reasons. Second is to avoid prison, first is to make himself the richest man in the world by openly monetizing the role, and tying himself to dark monies there is going to be no accounting for his wealth from his grifting presidency. I believe he wants to surpass Musk and Putin for wealth, and perhaps to become the first trillionaire.
How do we protect ourselves? Not just at home with militias being given carte blanche to commit violent crimes and murder. What will happen with air travel? Why fire the head of TSA? How will that effect security? Will this person be replaced with someone who wants to change procedures? Trump does not have to worry about the safety of planes he flies in because he and his family will all be flying in private planes.
Yep. Ironically, you're going to have to live by the creep's own words: "You're gonna have to fight like hell, or you're not gonna have a country anymore." By next week, Xitter and Facebook will be the official government communication tools, and every medium that doesn't say nice things about Donny-boy will be forbidden. Journalists who publish nasty things about him can expect the Proud Boys on their door steps. Honestly, I really fear for Professor Richardson's life (amongst others)...
I asked a Trump supporter today what she thought of him pardoning men who violently assaulted police officers on Jan 6. I was especially curious because she has spent years working in a prison. Her response was, it’s the same as Biden letting all those criminals across the border. That’s it for me. She’s clearly so brainwashed by the cult that she cannot remember what’s really important any longer. It did not give me a lot of hope that his supporters will have an issue with the pardons.
Yep they have a stupid, shallow, vacuous, and utterly irrelevant whataboutism for everything. Anytime one of them tries to run one up the flagpole with me, it’s an instant conversation ender.
Remember, they are the ones stupid enough to think the most willfully-ignorant moron in history is smart. Which makes them all "dumber than shit." I hope the birdflu virus kills them all.
It's a matter of time until they destroy each other. How much time? At what cost? No one knows. But stupidity and corruption this grotesque will not hold. To answer my own questions, I think it will take years and cost hundreds of lives (millions if it takes WW3 to end it).
Idiocracy is right. But my favorite part here is the quote by Heather Thomas: “So when all was said and done, the only country that opened [its] prisons and sent crazy murderous criminals to prey upon innocent American citizens, was us.” Exactly. And who did that? Trump and immigrant Musk.
Heather - or someone - has explained why he talks about immigrants including people "from mental institutions" - he doesn't know the meaning of "asylum".
FAFO. I don’t feel bad for the FOP or the Police Union or anyone who voted for the convicted felon. They got what they voted for. All they had to do was listen to the felon and they would have known that this would happen. Oh well……
Susan, it is what they wanted; they believe the garbage they have consumed that there was a peaceful demonstration and a tour of the capitol. I am stunned.
So part of his plan to dismantle the Federal government includes making it unsafe to fly? That ought to make for an interesting few years. Maybe he and his billionaire buddies want to keep the airways free for their private planes.
With the damage he's doing to the aviation industry with those actions, even flying private will become markedly more dangerous. I'm retired from the airline industry and I'm starting to think twice about flying after that Executive Disorder.
This level of psychosis deserves its own chapter in the DSM-6 when it comes out. At the rate Trump is going, he'll be eligible for his third impeachment before another week is out.
I'm sure there are already more than enough diagnoses throughout the DSM to classify his aberrant behavior than there are potential articles of impeachment, but yeah let's add another one.
As a retired Fed, the requirement to rat on a colleague disgusts me no end. Gestapo, anyone? KGB?
Not only is trump and his administration threatening many (or even most) Americans, he is creating the potential for disaster in so many areas, particularly by silencing Health and Human Services. Does he want to make sure that we are all as unprepared for the next pandemic as we were for Covid 19? I suppose it's just more magical thinking on the part of FOTUS, who really doesn't ever think beyond satisfying whatever his latest grudge happens to be.
He is going to face a bird flu pandemic and he and RFK Jr. will collectively handle it as incompetently as Trump behaved with COViD. He had a vaccine created, but it became an item of fealty to Trump not to take it, even as social media teemed with antivax nonsense.
Easy. If another pandemic breaks out, they'll blame it on the Dems and the illegal immigrants, and the Proud Boys will have all the more reasons to go out and lynch these people. Problem solved.
Thank you for commenting on this. I check the CDC website, and at least of this moment, the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report which would be published today is not up on the CDC website. I posted a link to the WaPo article about this yesterday.
He’s been even more hopeless than I expected, which took serious effort. Now we have a mob of Project 2025 henchmen surrounding their useful idiot in the WH and dropping their fever dream EOs in front of him, with little chance that his squirrel-like attention span will cause any sort of reflection before he wields the Sharpie. It’s going to be a long four years, or however long until Vance is installed while Mango Gramps shuffles off to his Florida senior living facility.
We were all forewarned that (Liar, Fraud, Con, Grifter, Sex-abuser, Scumbag, Convicted Felon) Trump’s re-election would bring on another four-year-long shit show.
My dad and I don’t think Trump plans on leaving office. After all, no one timely held him accountable for his first insurrection, and I would not recommend using their tactics.
When do Trump and his children receive their monthly stipends from Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Hungary? Has he decided which of those countries get the next Trump resort and golf course? Does Elisa Stefanik have a tip jar at her UN office so diplomats can express their appreciation for Trump? I assume Trump's tip jars are spread throughout the White House.
Love Heather's litany of today's ongoing criminality from our convicted criminal in chief.
Best, for those of us keeping tabs, is not only how the billionaires suck up to the convicted criminal, but so, too, have a lot of mainstream, legacy media -- today's chief instance being CNN boss Mark Thompson redefining his journalists' need for “being open.”
As he warned Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, and other top journalists there, being open now means suck up, kiss up to the convicted criminal – ignoring, skittering around, playing dumb towards history, forgetting the convicted criminal’s still operant threats, vows, and public intentions.
Those of us who don’t get paid anything may say what we like to each other. We may note the fat orange felon’s continuing criminality, his longstanding stirring up of racism, goading stochastic violence, virulent hatreds, and his total absence of any concern for any public good.
Gotta love billionaires and kiss-ups like this CNN boss demanding bows to the world’s #1 criminal-in-chief.
No offense to the fat orange one’s pals Putin, Orban, Netanyahu, Xi, Kim, Mohammed bin Salman, Sisi, Erdogan, Duterte, Milei, and Meloni.
CNN anchor Jim Acosta repeatedly asked Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) whether violent Jan 6 insurrectionists should be let released. At first, Burchett said, “If they were truly violent, no,” but then immediately claimed that he just didn’t know if they were, in fact, violent. When Acosta noted CNNN was simultaneously airing footage of the violence and that Burchett was there that day, Burchett instantly tried a politician’s pivot by asking why Acosta wasn’t condemning Biden’s preemptive pardons. Acosta wasn’t having it and repeatedly pressed Burchett to “take a stand.” Burchett then tried dodging the question by asserting Trump hadn’t issued blanket pardons, apparently referring to the commutations of Proud Boy and Oath Keeper criminals. So Acosta asked specifically whether the leaders of those self-styled militias should be released. Burchett again dodged by peddling the lie that FBI agents “were in that mess” and should have been prosecuted. When Acosta asked how Republicans can still claim to support the police while also supporting Trump’s mass pardon of people who attacked police Burchett tried another classic “whataboutism” move by lying that nobody was prosecuted for violence during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. He then launched into a broad, fact-free attack on CNN, to which Acosta replied. “We (CNN) didn’t storm the Capitol. These people did! And President Trump let them out of jail! Why not just say: ‘You were wrong, Mr. President?’ Why can’t you say it?” Of course, Burchett couldn’t say it. Asked whether he is concerned any of the released insurrectionists would commit more crimes, Burchett insisted they’d “go back to jail” unless “Joe Biden appointed judges” or “Soros-backed” district attorneys oversaw the cases.
Thanks for this, Dave. It is similar to the jousting I have been doing with my retired cop cohort; in one, both a former rangemaster and a former coworker claim that Ashleigh Babbitt was murdered.
I told them (in much more detail than this) that if they believed that, I had failed as a use of force instructor.
From the Clarence court, which lies to the country as to favorite criminal being above the law, to Dems who did control the Senate but hadn't the heart to vote on the verity of the Constitution's Article 14, Section Three -- which would have disqualified that fat chunk of lard.
From most of mainstream, legacy media ever playing both-sides-ism to the billionaires insanely grotesquely backing only the criminal side.
From Republicans all sycophants for their lying fat orange guy to Dems with so totally zero grounding in any humanities as to America's working classes as to cede all that vote to the guy playing garbage man, the guy playing McDonald's French fry boy, the guy maligning all immigrants with the criminal status he himself has multiply earned for his own criminal self.
Accuse me, too, of both-sides-ism because I malign Dems for their out-of-touch elite dehumanization in the same sentence I malign Republicans for that and so much worse?
Remember MSNBC's Brian Williams opening line for his show The Eleventh Hour during Trump's first term: "Day 3 of the Trump administration." Unfortunately, there's nothing even a little bit surprising about what Trump has done so far. All very consistent with what he said he would do and/or what other knowledgeable people said he would do. The people who got it wrong are Trump allies and apologists who said it was all rhetoric and he would never do any of it.
On Monday Bishop Budde looked evil directly in the eye and spoke truth. Later Trump, hiding in the WH spewed out venom in response. Who was courageous and who was a coward?
Bishop Budde has actually written a book called, “ How to Be Brave” . She put that into action from the pulpit on Tuesday. I just ordered the book…
thank you--I want the paperback which is out of stock for now, so I'm on the wait list, but the Kindle version is available. I also posted on my BlueSky account!
I will order Bishop Mariann Budde’s book and the bio FROM my LOCAL bookstore today.
Thank you, Jane, for gently reminding us folks to BUY from LOCAL small businesses. I personally am cementing my attention to not buy ANYTHING, as much as realistically possible, from big corporations and nothing from the many big corporations that donated solely to Trump (i. e. GEICO, Tractor Supply, Smuckers, L L. Bean, and so many more).
Let's support our communities, and even if it seems like a mere gesture, eschew big business that cares not a whit about us.
Kitterman. Consumer boycotts of big is one of our most effective tools,
D Kitterman, is there a list somewhere of the corps that supported 45/47 FELON/
Jane -- Not supporting those who directly put small bookstore owners out of business. Thank you!
The Bishop is brave because she is right. Trump only has his rattling tongue which only spouts lies. The Bishop has God on her side.
Eileen, as an atheist/agnostic, I get troubled whenever I hear the expression "god is on their side". It's been used to justify inhumanity for centuries. Trump himself said in his 2nd inaugural rant that he was saved from death by god after his ear was nicked.
I watched the good bishop's homily on YouTube, and found it powerful.
If there is a god, I hope that the felon is soon raptured or otherwise taken from us.
It’s available on audiobooks.
Audible and kindle are both subsidiaries of Amazon. The book is published by Avery a division of Penguin and you can buy directly from them.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/705987/how-we-learn-to-be-brave-by-mariann-edgar-budde/
A lot of the rest of the world uses Kobo e-readers.
Nice to have a reader that doesn't involve Amazon
The book, “How to Learn to Be Brave,” is also available on Audible. Bishop Budde is the reader.
Bishop Budde is a polemicist of just the right kind in reactionary America which is being unfurled in T 2.0 . Here also is a short bio on her.... Mariann Edgar Budde: A Bishop of Justice Defending LGBTQ+ and Immigrant Rights Kindle Edition
I wonder how she was chosen to speak? Someone didn't do their research? That is kind of perfect!
Per the WaPo: “ In a break from years past, Tuesday’s service was planned last summer, so that the readings and speaker list would be more or less the same regardless of who won the presidency. “That was very much by design,” said cathedral spokesperson Kevin Eckstrom. ‘This is a service for the nation, it is a service for all Americans. Not for a particular person.’ “
lol well she tops Presbyterians in the USA - the Washington DC cathedral. but her record sure speaks for itself! I gather the Ts haven't got their claws on presidential prayer breakfasts, but I'm sure they'll work hard. As far as american presbyterians are concerned, i hope they back her and her sentiments
Frank, my sister is an Elder in her tiny Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Oregon (First Presbyterian on Second St. as they say.) It is an incredibly progressive church (all 14 of them).
God works in ways we will never fully understand.........he answers prayers.........there must be many living in fear now and looking to heaven for protection from the demonic satanic forces unleashed Jan 20.
I began reading Heather's letter today with my usual cup of coffee and bowl of blueberries. I started tearing up 🥲 with the first paragraph and was bawling into my blueberries by the time I finished reading. As WJB says, I am living in fear, and I'm not an immigrant or a DEI hire fearing for my life and/job. With the stroke of a pen, Donald Trump, along with the creators of Project 2025, are trying to strip us of our peace, our security, and of course our freedoms that we never thought we'd lose. I know I can't wallow in my fear and anger. I'm so appreciative of the lawyers and others who will fight for these injustices to be righted. I am surrounded by Trump cultists and if I hadn't found Heather, Meidas Touch, Anthony Davis, Tennesee Brando and other truth tellers, I would be in a depression. I feel when watching these posts that I'm not alone in my astonishment, disillusionment, disappointment, and anger at what has come upon us. I have tried talking with Trumpers. I have sent letters and emails to legislators in my district and state. Nobody seems to want to hear the truth about Trump- one of the most arrogant, despicable men who's ever lived. That these people can't see this truth is what's so frustrating to me.
Oh well. I will get a fresh bowl of blueberries, another cup of coffee, and try to keep my chin (chins- I'm 76 ☺️) up.
Thanks to all on this post who see the truth and are trying to share it.
The best advice i ever heard on prayers is "God helps them who helps themselves"
I don't think she was "chosen", they just went to her church. She's a bishop, that's pretty high up there, right? (I know zip about organized religion and while I certainly respect what she said, her position discounts it for me.)
Exactly so, Jon. The National Cathedral is an Episcopal church. Her Grace is the Presiding Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C. She wasn’t the one out of place, he was.
I think she spoke because she is the Bishop of Washington (DC) which is the top person of the Episcopal Church in that area (her Diocese). The National Cathedral, where the event took place, is an Episcopal Cathedral. Many other clerics spoke as well (from different faiths) but she was the host. Proud Episcopalian here.
As the Bishop of Washington, DC, Bishop Budde is the logical person to preach at the National Cathedral in Washington for this traditional Service of Prayer for the Nation held on the day after a presidential inauguration. The Bishop is the head of the Episopal Church in that diocese, and the Cathedral is the "seat" of the Bishop .
Yes, we can all be glad that she is the Bishop there for "a time such as this."
I checked my library and reserved the audio version. “It will be available for checkout in less than 5 YEARS”!😆
Thanks, just bought it!
Just FYI Audible is a subsidiary of Amazon. As is Kindle. We and our representatives have let this monopoly happen. Unregulated capitalism is not good for anyone.
You can purchase the book directly from the publisher.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/705987/how-we-learn-to-be-brave-by-mariann-edgar-budde/
The last time something like this happened on this scale, someone wrote a book. Although Viktor Frankl’s entire family was murdered in the holocaust, he managed to survive by setting himself the task of understanding why otherwise ordinary people supported leaders who acted callously, inhumanly, and without any limitations of conscience. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, originally published in 1946, he came very close. His insights made him one of the giants of the first century of the new field of psychology, and a target for criticism within his own community of holocaust survivors for daring to try to understand evil.
From a hindsight perspective, Frankl has probably gotten closer than anyone, but he was at a disadvantage. It was not until the 1980s that Benjamin Libet would conduct the most important experiment in the short history of the field of psychology, and since then, the collective that is the field of psychology has failed to put the pieces together. As a result, in our war against evil, we’ve been treating the symptoms when we should be curing the disease. Curing the disease means understanding its root cause.
To read Frankl’s book, and I’m sure the same is true of Bishop Budde’s book, is to gain insights into the importance of the task at hand and the enemy we face, but they are both operating at the level of symptoms in lieu of cause. We still have a small window of opportunity to fix this. We need a collective understanding of the root cause. If someone out there knows what that is, please let us know. But if you're buying and reading Bishop Budde’s book, I'm suggesting you also do something less expensive and time consuming.
I’m not charging a subscription fee for my newsletter. I am publishing a weekly series of short (< 1,200 word) essays explaining the root cause of the authoritarian disease. Yesterday’s edition describes Libet’s experiment, which in turn describes what might appear to be the limit of our scientific knowledge of how the human mind works.
If all you want to do is complain, then pardon the interruption. If you think I’m delusional, and you’re smart enough to pass high school biology, then please subscribe, identify the flaw in my simple logic, and let me know. I’m all ears. Otherwise, if you want to cure the authoritarian disease, then please subscribe and let’s talk.
Here’s a link to yesterday’s newsletter: https://open.substack.com/pub/jamesrcarey/p/the-libet-experiment-e02?r=2nayrh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=post%20viewer
This is a superb post James. Your few likes here reflects our sometimes pause at lengthy ones. Dr Frankl’s family was shot while he was forced to watch. I like Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman too for a look at hot trumpet gained such enormous appeal. All here might check your blue light exposure if you’re losing sleep. Strong hearts, brave hearts, we step in to the fires.
I'll take a look and add that Gabor Mate's work, however you investigate it (books, YouTube videos, webinars) adds plenty to the understanding.
Joan, thank you for bringing Gabor Mate to my attention. He does add plenty to our understanding. However, as I assumed, he is doing what everyone in the field of psychology does. They try something they hope will work. If it works, then they keep doing it and iterate. If something doesn't work, they (hopefully) stop doing it. What they don't do is understand the real root cause because they misunderstand the most important experiment is the history of the field of psychology. Or I'm overlooking something simple that no one is bothering to bring to my attention.
James, your approach is far too academic for my abilities. I prefer to look at history, social and political history of why do people do what they do. Why does a person take a selfie stand g at a cliff and fall off?
My understanding is that birth sides of a political struggle tango and both sides become damaged. If the society is well off, more then likely it will moderate itself. Germany chose a dictator on account of the punishment meted to the nation from the WWI Versailles Agreements. In our nation we have suffered under several inferior leaderships that has cost the US dearly. We invaded not one but two nations under W Bush. His daddy invaded another in the Golf War. Our foreign policies have destabilized the Middle East and now it has destabilized Europe. The Reagan period ushered in less regulation and opened the door to savage quest for riches by the wealthy.
The democrats have pushed so far to the left we don’t even realize how far we have gone. The Democratic Party was once the party of the working class and largely white working class but we have abandoned them and we don’t even realize it. So they turned to the party that does not have their interests at all. Zero.
Trump is not conservative or liberal. He has no ethics. He will sell his dead mother for peanuts if she was worth such peanuts. Money is his only quest.
In my opinion, our side (I do identify as liberal/conservative) must change our obtuse ways or we will be condemned to continue making the same mistakes. And frankly, I don’t think we will make the necessary changes to return to significant majorities to rule for the foreseeable future. I have been specific with positions needed to be made and I have been thoroughly castigated for them which leads me to believe that we are unable to understand what is taking place and to make accommodations in order to bring us back to a degree of sanity. I don’t see this happening anytime soon. It’s human nature to continue making the same missteps.
Joan, I'm sure it does. I'll check it out. However, my argument is that adding "plenty to the understanding" built on an unstable foundation is not what we need in this moment. What we need in this moment is the stable foundation. See my first (351 word) newsletter:
Link: https://jamesrcarey.substack.com/p/a-stable-foundation-e01?r=2nayrh
James R. Carey -- Viktor Frankl's book, "Man's Search for Meaning", has been on my bookshelves since the 1970s. Time to read it again! (For maybe the 4th or 5th time.)
I was going to say the same thing. I'm pretty certain I read the book for the first time when I was in high school.
I am sure Frankl's strength of mind helped him survive. But survival in the camps depended greatly on chance, luck, and an extra few calories of food.
That said, those so brutalized and traumatized that they became fatalistic were termed 'Muselmanner.' And had an higher incidence of death.
"Viktor Frankl, who survived internment in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, wrote in his memoirs that the term was first used by camp's prisoners to refer to the Kapos –prisoners assigned to supervise forced labor by the SS guards− as to them, the term "Muslim" carried a connotation of barbarism.[5] On the other hand, Eugen Kogon, who survived internment in Buchenwald, wrote that the term originated from Nazi staff-members, who ascribed the Muselmann's apparent apathy to their circumstances (likely the result of weakness and acute hunger) to Islamic fatalism."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muselmann
You are correct. Part of Frankl's survival was due to luck and the other part was due to his pragmatic optimism. Authoritarians don't care if we're naively optimistic or cynically pessimistic, but pragmatic optimism is their kryptonite.
James, you might try looking at laziness (sloth?) as a starting point. Eve was too lazy to ask permission re: eating an apple and Adam was too lazy to check things out when offered said apple. Racism is largely a result of lazy thinking. Despotism, weather in a small group, a town, or a nation, is just a bunch of people trying to take a short cut to real leadership and power. The same can be said about cult members and their leaders. Of course, there is far more involved than this in the genesis of evil, but I believe this is where it starts.
Your description is accurate, but what is the obvious and effective cure for laziness? If you don't know how to cure what you've identified as the cause, then you've identified a symptom. If you've identified the root cause, then what needs to be done is obvious. In other words, at least to me, laziness is just one of many symptoms.
Thank-you, James, for posing this question, and for making me think. There are a couple of concepts that come to mind. The physical notion of inertia, that we tend to keep doing what we do until some force is applied, or Buckminster Fuller's idea of a basic shape making up everything - in his case a tetrahedron, as a way to look at the basic building blocks of everything. What is the 'tetrahedron' of human interactions? What forces act on them? One school of thought is that all thoughts and actions are either an act of love or a cry for it. Is my reply to you a loving act or the admission of the need for love? Being able to identify this in ourselves is key, as is the correct loving response. Responding to someone's cry for love with our own cries builds strife, as does an an act of love that does not address a crier's need - this in fact can be quite damaging.
Am I still describing symptoms? Probably. I doubt I can solve this problem/dilemma on my own. Maybe we can get farther together.
Noted, James, good for you. You likely well know that this sort of thing has a very long history in the annals of humankind.
Yes. By my count, about 400 generations (aka 100 centuries), but our species is much older. To the best of our knowledge, our species emerged roughly 12,000 generations ago, and hunter-gatherer bands are invariably egalitarian in lieu of authoritarian. So, proportionately, our species is like a 13-year-old trying to adjust to a new reality less than half a year after childhood's end.
More importantly? is human precociousness across the board. More likely an evolutionary quantum leap than just being a teenager.
Without getting into specifics, only a few people are smart enough to be brain surgeons and rocket scientists, but literally everyone is capable of being sufficiently wise, and that's all that is necessary.
It's better go slow in the right direction than to go fast in the wrong direction, and it is likewise better to be wise with a low IQ than to be Elon Musk.
Interesting concepts here, James. Thank you. I look forward to learning more.
thank you, will check out your writing...
I’ve ordered her book too!
Thanks Rhonda - In North Carolina we have a lot to fight for-need to be brave and bold! Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin will not be allowed to bypass a state trial court in his effort to block 65,000 or more votes from counting in his election against Democrat Allison Riggs. The state’s highest court issued an order Wednesday sending the case back to Wake County Superior Court to address his election challenge.
The 5-1 decision prompted four justices to write separate opinions. The North Carolina Supreme Court acted as the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals prepares for oral arguments Monday dealing with the same dispute.
“I just ordered the book…”
gawd no, please do not put one more dollar into Jeff Bezos’ pocket (one reasonably presumes these days that “I ordered the book” usually means “I clicked on an Amazon link”).
Please visit your local bookstore with the book's info: they are nice people who deserve our support, who can get it to you fast —or they might just have copies sitting on the shelf.
Yes and then trump had the shamelessness to say SHE should apologize to the American people. There is no limit to his ability to make me sick.
He has no shame, and his definition of who’s American is much narrower than anyone else’s.
Reactionary and atavistic white at every level.
Well, some are sicker than others, though Trump may elevate his sickness to a superlative.
no limit, indeed, B Evans! You aren't the only person repulsed by T 2.0
Trump to Bishop Budde: “How dare you implore me to be kind to American citizens? I’ve never been kind to anyone. I’ve always been an asshole. And I will continue to be an asshole!”
I was intrigued that he found the service unexciting. Then I remembered that just before Christmas he muscled his way into the Notre Dame de Paris consecration, which was a display, a full-on show with orchestra and even Lang-Lang(!) Macron loves theatre, but I don't think the Olympic Games designer was the best choice for that occasion. Anyway, Trump may have imagined that he was going to be similarly glorified. Not very used to church - unless it's where they lay hands on him and pray aloud while he stands smirking like a cat being tickled under the chin.
It’s his malignant narcissism. If he’s not the center of attention, forget about it. I see that as a potential problem between Trump and his new bff Muskrat.
Wasn't he the center of attention when the good bishop was dumping on him?
I so shake my head of those images of all those fine evangelical ministers laying their hands on him "in prayer"....
A brave, brave lady in deed and in fact.
Hey, J.C. brought religion into politics when he asked a mob: "Let he who is without sin cast the stone."
Jesus did not shy from calling out abusers, but stood for the abused. That would put him (for sure) on Trump's Enemies List.
Indeed, Jesus, the original DEI proponent. The hypocrisy of these crazed so called "christians" is downright nauseating.
As I have said to many of my Christian family members & friends that support Sideshow Don ... If Jesus returned to us today, his 1st words would be "Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot !
And then he’d slap his forehead and say “time to start over.”
The execution of Jesus was political. The Romans used the cross to terrify people. This is what happens when you defy Rome. The Cross and the Lynching Tree. James Cone. January 6th: they erected a noose and a put up a cross. Lynching is much the same as a crucifiction . GOP=Romans
He’s probably already on it!
That story, uniquely in John, is a great one. Scholarship suggests it was inserted after the original work, what i like about it was that instead of being a "miraculous" add on, it was an icon of psychological reframing. Of course, was then and still is axiomatic that less than perfect human beings have to define, implement and maintain rules , customs, laws which is another way of defining humanity as a "rule making"species. Stoning was never stopped other than by larger scale authorities which took on the job for themselves. On the side, Jesus may have had special sympathy for the adulterous woman, he may well have been "illegitimately" conceived himself, and he may also have noted some double standards involved.
Levity insert: Upon a single rock flying towards Him, Jesus says "Mom, I hate it when you do that!"
But Trump, in his delusional state, has said that the fact that the marksman back in Michigan had bad aim means that God has chosen him to make over the world in his (Trump's) own image.
Maybe Bishop Budde should fact-check with God on that.
She might also tell us what became of the boy on the roof, when he had been shot twice and died. No family? We usually get a page of petty details, with pictures.
Very goood question!
In my opinion, that whole thing was staged anyway.
I'm tending to that view myself.
But I'm an old guy and entitled to my conspiracy theories.
Now, about that "grassy knoll" business down in Dallas . . . .
Robert Phillips -- Thanks for an early morning chuckle!
😉
Everything points to it.
Of look up how many times Hitler was "spared" in the many assassination attempts on his life!!!
that is so right! and sometimes, esp the suitcase attempt, SO close.
If I did it God wanted it. If you did it, no.
Stupid "marksman" used the wrong gun. Trump would have died if a good shooter was using the right rifle.
I tend to agree. Unless it was staged. That's my little detour into conspiracy world. The thing is how do you know with a guy like that, who walks through his life making up things?
"Do not ascribe to conspiracy that which is just as easily ascribed to pure chance. "
Words to live by. The abilities of that "marksman" to accurately hit Trump closely enough to make him bleed but not kill him is virtually impossible to imagine. He was just a very poor marksman.
Trump, instead of the man standing with his family, just behind him, who was blasted into oblivion.
Lan Mosher -- And then Trump would qualify as a martyr and live on in infamy.
Trump doesn't even remember which state he almost died in. I almost pity the Crooks kid who died on that roof in Pennsylvania. He got off eight rounds from an assault rifle. It's a shame he was so incompetent.
At least they didn't make him suffer the embarrassment of a trial.
Trump couldn’t spare a thought for the man who died or another man who was seriously injured.
Didn't work out to well for the fireman who was took a bullet meant for Trump though.
I took it more as a WARNING from God for Trump to change his ways.
As for the shooting being staged, who knows? I'm more concerned about someone of power addressing the comments Trump made prior to election of "having a secret" and then just the other day saying that Musk "knows the computers."
lol, very good, the marksman "just missed".... with no higher explanation, whatever regrets some of us might now have.
The shooter was a poor shot. I believe he tried to get on his high school rifle team but didn’t make it. He did kill at least one man, a father protecting his family. I didn’t hear any mention of that man at the inauguration…I don’t think it was divine intervention that kills one man to save another…just dumb luck on Trump’s part and really bad luck on the dead man and his family. May his memory be blessed.
pure unadorned luck, Michele Trump did express sentiment for the murdered man at the Republican Convention, and wounded others.
Someone provided an address for those of us who want to send a thank-you card to the Reverend:
Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde
Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC
3101 Wisconsin Ave, N.W.
Washington, DC 20116
Thanks for repeating the address.
Sorry to forget who first posted it. Was it you, Susan? If so, thank you!
Susan, I couldn't get through 680 comments yesterday; glad Lynell repeated it.
Or to donate to support Bishop Budde’s diocese, here’s a link:
https://edow.org/give/
You can designate your donation in honor of Bishop Budde’s courage and integrity if you wish.
Done! Thank you.
Thank you Lynell! I sent a card as did several people I know.
It would be wonderful if thousands upon thousands of thank you cards arrived there.
I hope that would be covered in the news, mailbags piled up, and even better, notes posted on a wall(s) somewhere. Visual media coverage! Pictures speak louder than words!
Morning, Lynell, and thank you!
Neil Brown, she emulated Jesus beautifully. And a loving God. Her strength to love shone brightly in that space. And as a loving action does, it has illuminated many hearts far beyond.
Trump is in direct opposition to everything Christ taught . . . in fact, take this for what you will, but we might even call him an anti-Christ. Whether you want to use the definite article and put a cap on the anti- is a theological question I leave to others . . . .
I don’t know about that, but I do know he’s spent his whole life indulging in every one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Greed, gluttony and lust come to mind here.
Ooops Philo, let's not elevate him thus far, all the Evangelicals wait with baited breath for End Times, for which they need to get their hands on a suitable candidate! anyway, anti-christ was generally a pejorative term antagonists hurled at their opponents . Eg Luther on the pope, not that he started the practice!
Donald John Trump is the epitome of cowardice.
We all know (or as adults, should know) his type. The mediocrity who hides his smallness and insecurity behind a show of bravado. If he thinks at all, he thinks nobody can see the truth of what he is. The guy who always has a clever rejoinder but never walks the walk. The guy whose momma never loved him enough and whose successful daddy gave him a wad of money and wrote him off. The school yard bully who runs away or backs down if anyone has the temerity to challenge him.
Maybe I should feel sorry for this pathetic piece of garbage - this waste of harvestable organs. I'm proud to say that I don't think I can. There is a great world full of real people who deserve whatever tiny bit of empathy I could muster.
It's all I can do to understand how forty percent of my "peers" miserably FAILED to discharge the ONLY responsibility they have as American citizens.
>> Serve in the military? Something to avoid.
>> Pay your income tax? Only if you can't afford a legal professional to rep you.
>> Take care of your kids? Cheaper than serial divorce.
I'll stay in this shithole nation because the people I love cannot easily move with me.
I'll stay because I'm too f**king stubborn to leave.
I'll stay because a life of work has earned me enough to afford to escape, should I wish to.
I'll stay because I'm a foolish optimist and believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that NEXT TIME we will all be responsible adults and vote if we have another opportunity to do so.
Thirty percent (30%) - a smidge over seventy million of us - voted to destroy America.
Thirty percent (30%) - a smidge under seventy million of us - voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Forty percent (40%) - eighty million people, give or take a few thousand - CHOSE not to vote. Suppression? Sure. Dirty tricks, fraud, and criminal tampering? I'm sure a bit of that too. But election after election, every couple of years, we (the people) take the American promise for granted.
Sixty five percent (65%) is the high water mark for voting. I know that, by and large, we suck at math in this Great Land. If the average citizen could count to twenty without taking their socks off, we might still be able to compete in a world grounded in science and technology.
For myself, I need little and have enough to get by for another 10 or 20 years. The kids have pride and accomplishment and enough to float their boats. I'll settle in and appreciate the blessings of living in interesting times.
Organs definitely not salvageable!
Exactly so. Who would want that heart?
Shad had their full attention. Our felon-in-chief, slump-shouldered, slack jawed, a vacant stare on his umbrage was certainly on a "hot" seat in an unfamiliar location. Bishop Budde showed immense courage to say those piercing, heartfelt words, so necessary for a terrified populace.
Brava and kudos for her action. As a devout agnostic, I can honestly praise her Christian values. It will be remembered as turning point. Thank you beaucoups.
Where are all the other leaders of organized religion on this? What a shame they are. Why aren’t they asserting the same teachings of Christianity? IF THE HISTORICAL CHRIST MADE THESE PLEAS HERE AND NOW ? So much of the focus of organized Christianity is on sex and reproductive rights. Why aren’t they organizing and marching and praying for an end to the continuing barrage of bad behavior and greed and corruption by corporate leaders. Yes corporations. Fowling our water and air ! Adding more and more co2 to the air . Cheating and duping incentive people? Where is their outrage ?
As an atheist, I have little interest in what organizers of religion do or say. But I will admit it is sad that the days of people like the Berrigan brothers seem to be mostly long gone, with a few like Bishop Budde excepted. It seems like most of this started during the tenure of Reagan, another (like Trump) who overpromoted his religiosity while acting wholly antithetical to any actual idealistic aspect of religion.
As a non-theist, I have a tiny bit of interest in what followers of the one god say from time to time. John Pavlovitz is another worth paying attention to.
Many are too busy planting their lips on the Trump thing's derriere to speak. But when some of the so called ministers in my area do manage to speak, you wouldn't believe some of the things that come out of their mouths.
As noted by Ned McDoodle: ‘Hey, J.C. brought religion into politics when he asked a mob’: "Let he who is without sin cast the stone."
Or as in the Stone’s recording of ‘Sympathy For The Devil’
When after all it was you and me
ℍ𝕖 𝕚𝕤 𝕊𝕒𝕥𝕒𝕟.
Great font.
"My name is legion . . . "
Amen Neil. Bishop Budde has made herself an icon for all that is right and humane about dealing with immigrants (most of whom contribute to the American economy) , DEI, and human rights in general. On the side, I love how, in a little eastern Canadian province she has been posted over and over, myself included. I needn't bother detailing how repelled commentators were on T 2.0 himself.
If Franklin Graham said it, it might mean something. Need an ecumenical coalition. How about a canonical order!
Excommunicate MAGATs! “The Catholic Church’s foundational teaching calls us to uphold the sacredness of human life and the God-given dignity of the human person.” The bishops, who remain adamantly anti-abortion, nevertheless reminded us that “care for immigrants, refugees, and the poor is part of the same teaching of the Church that requires us to protect the most vulnerable among us, especially unborn children, the elderly and the infirm.” In short, you cannot be “pro-life” and go after the poor, the infirm and immigrants living peaceably within our borders.
And one (or more) R legislators wants her ‘deported,’ their answer for everything.
I called my own rep, Tim Burchett, a moron if there ever was one, and asked the person who answered his phone whether he supported the release of violent criminals. Answer: yes. I was shocked. So I clarified what I heard: “Rep Burchett supports President Trump, so, yes.”
‼️‼️
🤮
Deported to where? New Jersey?
The courageous speaking truth to power...
Trump has put bullseyes on the backs of policemen. This is so outrageous especially when there was no response from the Law and Order party, the Republicans. If I were a member of the Secret Service, how could I be expected to take a bullet for Trump, a man who has absolutely no respect for our police or military? We must resist and fight this man every step of the way or else we are complicit.
The Heritage Foundation (who take credit for authorizing Project 2025) labeled their group as a “Think Tank” in order to sound intelligent. Let’s list every Corporation and every single contributing PROJECT 2025 author publicly and broadcast it on Substack for a daily advertisement of their Anti-Democratic recklessness that goes against the Constitution’s OATH OF OFFICE.
List these companies Publicly where? If you have the list try asking the “legacy” media to publish them, or even better get every local newspaper, ask AARP to run the list in its magazine etc. More importantly, explain what each company of the list does AND what may be its particular benefit by having supported Project 2025.
The Heritage Foundation, which is tax exempt as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization under the Internal Revenue Code, should lose its tax exempt status. I looked at a recent Heritage Foundation Form 990, which is the tax report 501(c)(3) organizations are required to file annually and learned this fact: of over $100,000,000 in gross revenues (exempt from taxation) Heritage Foundation spent over $60,000,000 on lobbying. 501(c)(3)s are enjoined to spend no more than an "insubstantial amount," usually interpreted to mean no more than 20 percent, of their gross income on activities like lobbying. Complaints about exempt organization improprieties can be filed using IRS Form 33909 (I think I remember the form number correctly but it can easily be found online). The form must be supported by evidence but the organization's Form 990 annual filings are public record and can be submitted to support a complaint. The Heritage Foundation should be put out of business
Mike Johnson says 'Republicans are not looking back' and OMB nominee Russell Vought, Project 2025 co-author, said 'certainly Trump's executive orders have nothing to do with Project 2025.' As if.
Lie Lie Lie is the Trump nominee MO. Smirk is the Trump nominee accessory du jour.
Watch Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse question the truculent Vought on executive orders (even Chair Lindsay Graham wanted an answer):
https://youtu.be/I5eJaZafSMQ?si=uPYWAJGkUM0FAhpz
Watch Sen. Patty Murray question the truculent Vought on impoundment:
https://youtu.be/Qv_lF0q7rbI?si=D5w1W85om6tWD80q
Vought is an amplifier of the unconstitutional unified executive theory - which proclaims that in his person the president is the executive branch. L'etat c'est moi. But Vought doesn't stop at the executive. He's also intent on castrating the legislative branch by cutting off Congress' power of the purse and giving it to Trump - through the unconstitutional theory of impoundment. Impoundment lets the executive freeze funds appropriated by Congress Impoundment of funds appropriated for Ukraine is part of what got Trump impeached the first time. He's at it again.
Freezing funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021.
During a 90-day review period, each agencies are to submit recommendations to both the Director of the National Economic Council (NEC) Kevin Hasett*( and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) RUSSELL VOUGHT Disbursements may resume only if deemed consistent with any adopted recommendations.
*Hassett is primarily an American Enterprise hack and Trump sycophant who coauthored the 1999 ' Dow 36,000', arguing that the stock market was about to have a massive swing upward and would reach 36,000 by 2004. In fact, the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, causing a massive decline in stock market prices. For 2 years the Dow hovered at about 2000. The Dow did not reach 36,000 until late 2021.
As a Trump advisor Hassett built a model that indicated that COVID-19 deaths would drop off to near zero by May 2020. Hassett's model contradicted known scientific assessments and in fact Covid deaths spiked between 2020 and 2022.
lin• -- Thanks so much for your two YouTube links! Senator Whitehouse is incredible, as always.
Trump has now used his public office to create a private militia of domestic terrorists. And a tool for new recruitment.
Just as the Federalist Society Supreme Court put Trump above the law, Trump's Project 2025 executive branch will put Trump terrorists under the shield of government.
While the GOP legislature will give up its legislative authority and power of the purse to Russell Vought OMB unconstitutional impoundment - where Trump can just take funds appropriated by Congress through negotiation.
Of Note, Vivek Ramaswamy is out of DOGE... Elon Musk is now feuding with DJT over DJT's big A.I. Announcement of 'StarGate'.... We'll see if Elon gets ejected... The Pardons were apparently a Rash-Decision... Seems DJT has no patience... They were a Spur-Of-Moment Rash Decision... DJT has little Patience, DJT doesn't think through... Psychologists have said that DJT thinks of himself as a Cartoon SuperHero... His Advancing Dementia Is Not Helping....
His ego might think superhero but Donold is the embodiment of a supervillain Incessant rantings and hateful rhetoric to cause division and strife, seeming to take glee in inflicting pain and suffering on others, scheming, bilking, grifting, hell bent on destroying our Nation. Surrounding himself with sycophants and other equally malicious supervillains, like an actual Legion of Doom. Taking the form of a fascist regime with actual Nazis, like Elon the Ketamine Kid giving a 'sieg heil' salute--twice! or the Proud Boys & Oathkeepers as brownshirt shock troops...
Actually signing the pardons may have been rash but he touted his intention to pardon all these criminals that he called “political prisoners “ for months while campaigning. Now he has really unleashed criminals out onto our streets.
That wasn't a warning, about those "hundreds of criminals and murderers roaming our streets", it was a promise.
Absolutely, Mike, and all the cops and other LEOs who stood behind him, both literally and figuratively, should be ashamed of themselves if they are at all surprised.
Colette, on a better note, one of them from my own state of NH, was given jail time and a 3-year probation for entering the Capitol and stealing the Senate book of procedure. (He said he was drinking during the event.) However, he says that he shouldn't have been pardoned: that what he did was wrong and he deserved the punishment. How many others were contrite? Doubtful that there are more than a handful.
De Wine gave Jon Husted Vance’s senate seat, even though Ramaswamy wanted it, and now Ramaswamy wants to run for governor since De Wine is term limited from running again. Unfortunately we have plenty of other obnoxious potential candidates. Ramaswamy would perhaps be too obnoxious for even the GQP to consider him.
My hope is, Swarmy is the GOP pick in '26. Even in The Most Corrupt State of Ohio, he is a hated POS, and it should open the door for Dr. Amy Acton to be elected. And, as an added bonus, we'll also have the honor of voting WhoSaid out of the Senate, just before he's busted for corruption, and takes the cell next to former Speaker Householder.
Won't Sherrod Brown run in 26 to regain a Democratic Ohio Senate seat? He was always extremely popular in Ohio. I love women candidates but I would think Brown has the best shot at defeating someone like Swarmy
He hasn't said anything as of yet, so I don't know. I personally would like to see either him or Tim Ryan run against WhoSaid for the Senate seat. Of course, this IS Ohio, and trying to find logic here is like trying to find a whale in Lake Erie! But I'm all in with Dr. Acton for Gov!
James David Vance is looking better each day.
Trust me, Vance is more intelligent and dangerous than Trump. He believes in Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel’s obnoxiously anti democratic and authoritarian social philosophies, and Thiel bought Vance his Senate seat in Ohio.
So true, listen to Curtis on the NYT Daily podcast last week for a taste… my vote, women’s votes and Black votes done to start. Then the king takes over, no more elections. Sound like anything tRump mentioned during a rally?
We Are Not In A Good Place... It has been said, that the Creator Protects Babes, And The United States...
Not in the least. He is not impulsive; he is calculating and well-managed.
Super-Hero or Super-Villain? Super-Villains are cruel and vain. Heroes have better manners.
😵🤯😡
lin*, as to your last paragraph, I suspect there's going to be pushback by Congress. A lot, if not most, of the IRA and CHIPS money has gone/is going to red states
Hope you’re right!
Elizabeth, I heard even Rand Paul is saying that Congress has control of the purse strings.
Of course, if any the Secret Service agents resign, Trump will replace them w/ Proud Boys.
The Secret Service is complicit with him. As is Fools & Buffoons, Inc., as I used to call them 50 years ago. I'm sure they'll be quite happy to start COINTELPRO over again, at his request.
Remember their deleted texts after Jan 6th?
COINTELPRO was an FBI operation directed by Hoover, and we only know about it because some people burglarized the FBI office in Media, PA., and they disclosed the information to a press that was then unafraid to disclose it. I could definitely see Kash Patel running an operation like that. The FBI directors are limited to 10 year terms because no one wants another FBI director like Hoover.
Kathy, 10 years or less, given recent history. That position is once again no longer arm's length from the president.
Not agents out in the field whose positions will be shared with Putin who would never be so foolish as to reveal the positions of his agents, or North Korea, or China, or Iran.
Sorry to say Laurie but, if Ca$h Patel is confirmed as FBI director, he is going to employ everyone of them to serve as stormtroopers against his " enemy list ".
Here’s the Wikipedia page on the Sturmabteilung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
The Brownshirts are coming.
I believe it.
My Proud Boy neighbor down the road, who literally "went postal" 30 years ago at a USPS job, and is on disability and is not allowed to have guns or ammunition, has both. He has been doing target practice in his back woods. What will he be hunting?
Thanks Derek.
The same argument about J6 pardoned convicts with respect to the Secret Service would apply to the FBI. It's a fun meme but I can't see it having any basis in reality.
Jon, don't waste your time, nothing coming from them has any basis in reality.
No joke.
I have to believe that even in a Trump administration, anyone with a criminal conviction, even if pardoned, wouldn't be able to get close to being assigned to the Secret Service.
Don't need them, Jon. They are already there, sworn.
Self preservation. See: Caligula. Praetorian Guard.
Rep. Raskin had something to say about this: https://open.substack.com/pub/politicususanews/p/jamie-raskin-demolishes-republicans?r=nnpdg&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for the link, Dave A.
Dave, thanks!
Excellent! Go Raskin!!! Thanks, Dave!
Excellent link, Dave. Thank you!
The Policemen helped to put this bullseye on their backs by endorsing and presumably voting for Trump. They got what they asked for. Of course the rest of us got it too. As for Law and Order, just because they claim it does not make the Republicans the party of Law and Order. In fact, since the Republican party is also the party of lies, what they say tends to patently not be true except when they tell us they want to create terrible laws and policies.
Trump is in the presidency for 2 reasons. Second is to avoid prison, first is to make himself the richest man in the world by openly monetizing the role, and tying himself to dark monies there is going to be no accounting for his wealth from his grifting presidency. I believe he wants to surpass Musk and Putin for wealth, and perhaps to become the first trillionaire.
How do we protect ourselves? Not just at home with militias being given carte blanche to commit violent crimes and murder. What will happen with air travel? Why fire the head of TSA? How will that effect security? Will this person be replaced with someone who wants to change procedures? Trump does not have to worry about the safety of planes he flies in because he and his family will all be flying in private planes.
'Tis Nazi U.S.A. as per Charles Mingus from fifty years ago. 😱
https://youtu.be/OTRf9Ef6nuA 😵
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7287916064569495552/ 🤢
What Trump just did with the pardons. 🖕
Remember the word "frag?"
Yup
Well one reason is that you are likely to get promoted, like Sean Curran who now leads the secret service.
Trump wants his own brownshirts.
Yep. Ironically, you're going to have to live by the creep's own words: "You're gonna have to fight like hell, or you're not gonna have a country anymore." By next week, Xitter and Facebook will be the official government communication tools, and every medium that doesn't say nice things about Donny-boy will be forbidden. Journalists who publish nasty things about him can expect the Proud Boys on their door steps. Honestly, I really fear for Professor Richardson's life (amongst others)...
I asked a Trump supporter today what she thought of him pardoning men who violently assaulted police officers on Jan 6. I was especially curious because she has spent years working in a prison. Her response was, it’s the same as Biden letting all those criminals across the border. That’s it for me. She’s clearly so brainwashed by the cult that she cannot remember what’s really important any longer. It did not give me a lot of hope that his supporters will have an issue with the pardons.
They have a pat answer for everything, don’t they. There must be a bathroom compendium of MAGA comebacks.
Yep they have a stupid, shallow, vacuous, and utterly irrelevant whataboutism for everything. Anytime one of them tries to run one up the flagpole with me, it’s an instant conversation ender.
🏆
Remember, they are the ones stupid enough to think the most willfully-ignorant moron in history is smart. Which makes them all "dumber than shit." I hope the birdflu virus kills them all.
It's a matter of time until they destroy each other. How much time? At what cost? No one knows. But stupidity and corruption this grotesque will not hold. To answer my own questions, I think it will take years and cost hundreds of lives (millions if it takes WW3 to end it).
So do I
Yeah, but the hope is that they don’t take any of the rest of us with them as collateral damage.
Did you remind her that more people crossed the border when Trump was in office 2016-2020?
Truly a delusional, gullible idiot, one who is deeply under the spell of Trump's hateful bullshit!
If Trump says it’s not a crime, it’s not a crime. If he says something is a crime, then it’s a crime. A very simple system. Divine right of Trump.
If Trump says something is a crime, it almost certainly isn't, and vise versa.
I get the same thing from my retired cop cohort. Utter and complete garbage.
Idiocracy is right. But my favorite part here is the quote by Heather Thomas: “So when all was said and done, the only country that opened [its] prisons and sent crazy murderous criminals to prey upon innocent American citizens, was us.” Exactly. And who did that? Trump and immigrant Musk.
Heather - or someone - has explained why he talks about immigrants including people "from mental institutions" - he doesn't know the meaning of "asylum".
Exactly right. As always, GQP accusations are actually confessions.
Oh the FOP’s are now upset about this release of prisoners? The FOP’s are who supported Trump, remember?
FAFO. I don’t feel bad for the FOP or the Police Union or anyone who voted for the convicted felon. They got what they voted for. All they had to do was listen to the felon and they would have known that this would happen. Oh well……
Susan, it is what they wanted; they believe the garbage they have consumed that there was a peaceful demonstration and a tour of the capitol. I am stunned.
What I see in my cohort (retired cops and their spouses) is that they firmly believe the firehose of disinformation that they have consumed willingly.
I am completely and utterly disgusted with them.
So part of his plan to dismantle the Federal government includes making it unsafe to fly? That ought to make for an interesting few years. Maybe he and his billionaire buddies want to keep the airways free for their private planes.
Well, yeah. Even better: make it so they are the ONLY ones who can fly from one place to another because they’re so very important.
With the damage he's doing to the aviation industry with those actions, even flying private will become markedly more dangerous. I'm retired from the airline industry and I'm starting to think twice about flying after that Executive Disorder.
This level of psychosis deserves its own chapter in the DSM-6 when it comes out. At the rate Trump is going, he'll be eligible for his third impeachment before another week is out.
I'm sure there are already more than enough diagnoses throughout the DSM to classify his aberrant behavior than there are potential articles of impeachment, but yeah let's add another one.
As a retired Fed, the requirement to rat on a colleague disgusts me no end. Gestapo, anyone? KGB?
Which won't happen and if it did would be a waste of time. Talk about impeachment when there are 66 Democrats in the Senate.
Punishment seems to escape him.
DJT is the Anti-Christ...
𝕐𝕦𝕡. i’ve been calling him Satan for years.
That will absolutely be part of the next four years at least once, and I’m betting sooner than later.
DSM-6 will be rewritten by PrezMusk’s AI to demonstrate Donnie’s brilliance soundness of mind.
Not only is trump and his administration threatening many (or even most) Americans, he is creating the potential for disaster in so many areas, particularly by silencing Health and Human Services. Does he want to make sure that we are all as unprepared for the next pandemic as we were for Covid 19? I suppose it's just more magical thinking on the part of FOTUS, who really doesn't ever think beyond satisfying whatever his latest grudge happens to be.
Maybe this time all the anti-vaxxers will die when they flunk evolution's IQ test. I hope so.
The problem with un-vaxxed nutcases: they infect innocent, vulnerable victims and perpetuate spread of virus worldwide.
He is going to face a bird flu pandemic and he and RFK Jr. will collectively handle it as incompetently as Trump behaved with COViD. He had a vaccine created, but it became an item of fealty to Trump not to take it, even as social media teemed with antivax nonsense.
Easy. If another pandemic breaks out, they'll blame it on the Dems and the illegal immigrants, and the Proud Boys will have all the more reasons to go out and lynch these people. Problem solved.
Thank you for commenting on this. I check the CDC website, and at least of this moment, the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report which would be published today is not up on the CDC website. I posted a link to the WaPo article about this yesterday.
He’s been even more hopeless than I expected, which took serious effort. Now we have a mob of Project 2025 henchmen surrounding their useful idiot in the WH and dropping their fever dream EOs in front of him, with little chance that his squirrel-like attention span will cause any sort of reflection before he wields the Sharpie. It’s going to be a long four years, or however long until Vance is installed while Mango Gramps shuffles off to his Florida senior living facility.
Damn. I have about 50 black Sharpies in my office. Does anybody have a line on an equivalent permanent markers I can use?
It ain't Sharpie's fault, any more that it is McDonald's fault.
I do get where you're coming from, though. Maybe stickers that say "not it" or somesuch.
It’s outrageous that these insurgents were pardoned and sentences commuted when only 2 out of 10 Americans support their release.
And they're probably all in the 30% who cannot read and comprehend at a 5th grade level.
He does not care.
We were all forewarned that (Liar, Fraud, Con, Grifter, Sex-abuser, Scumbag, Convicted Felon) Trump’s re-election would bring on another four-year-long shit show.
Sadly, we’re now just at the beginning.
RESIST!!!
And there’s no assurance it’s simply for 4 years…
My dad and I don’t think Trump plans on leaving office. After all, no one timely held him accountable for his first insurrection, and I would not recommend using their tactics.
He'll be dead before then
👊
Breaking News…it’s OK to assault police if you are white and hate blacks…and Jews…
When do Trump and his children receive their monthly stipends from Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Hungary? Has he decided which of those countries get the next Trump resort and golf course? Does Elisa Stefanik have a tip jar at her UN office so diplomats can express their appreciation for Trump? I assume Trump's tip jars are spread throughout the White House.
He doesn't need a tip jar anymore. He has his cryptocurrency. His preferred method of bribery.
until it vaporizes, then poof
I’m convinced that unregulated cryptocurrency will bring on Great Depression 2.0.
Please share any suggestions you may have for how individuals can be prepared for that possibility Kathy. Thank you
stock up on physical silver and gold
Eric is working very hard on Hungary.
Love Heather's litany of today's ongoing criminality from our convicted criminal in chief.
Best, for those of us keeping tabs, is not only how the billionaires suck up to the convicted criminal, but so, too, have a lot of mainstream, legacy media -- today's chief instance being CNN boss Mark Thompson redefining his journalists' need for “being open.”
As he warned Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, and other top journalists there, being open now means suck up, kiss up to the convicted criminal – ignoring, skittering around, playing dumb towards history, forgetting the convicted criminal’s still operant threats, vows, and public intentions.
Those of us who don’t get paid anything may say what we like to each other. We may note the fat orange felon’s continuing criminality, his longstanding stirring up of racism, goading stochastic violence, virulent hatreds, and his total absence of any concern for any public good.
Gotta love billionaires and kiss-ups like this CNN boss demanding bows to the world’s #1 criminal-in-chief.
No offense to the fat orange one’s pals Putin, Orban, Netanyahu, Xi, Kim, Mohammed bin Salman, Sisi, Erdogan, Duterte, Milei, and Meloni.
I think calling this gaggle of global gansters oligarchs has gone to their heads.
They may think it's a distinction, something like a higher university degree!
BS degree in gogg
Jim Acosta at CNN (who I love) won’t last long then. His contempt for TFG is deep…
Yes, I remember how Trump used to yell at him during those chaotic WH press conferences.
CNN anchor Jim Acosta repeatedly asked Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) whether violent Jan 6 insurrectionists should be let released. At first, Burchett said, “If they were truly violent, no,” but then immediately claimed that he just didn’t know if they were, in fact, violent. When Acosta noted CNNN was simultaneously airing footage of the violence and that Burchett was there that day, Burchett instantly tried a politician’s pivot by asking why Acosta wasn’t condemning Biden’s preemptive pardons. Acosta wasn’t having it and repeatedly pressed Burchett to “take a stand.” Burchett then tried dodging the question by asserting Trump hadn’t issued blanket pardons, apparently referring to the commutations of Proud Boy and Oath Keeper criminals. So Acosta asked specifically whether the leaders of those self-styled militias should be released. Burchett again dodged by peddling the lie that FBI agents “were in that mess” and should have been prosecuted. When Acosta asked how Republicans can still claim to support the police while also supporting Trump’s mass pardon of people who attacked police Burchett tried another classic “whataboutism” move by lying that nobody was prosecuted for violence during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. He then launched into a broad, fact-free attack on CNN, to which Acosta replied. “We (CNN) didn’t storm the Capitol. These people did! And President Trump let them out of jail! Why not just say: ‘You were wrong, Mr. President?’ Why can’t you say it?” Of course, Burchett couldn’t say it. Asked whether he is concerned any of the released insurrectionists would commit more crimes, Burchett insisted they’d “go back to jail” unless “Joe Biden appointed judges” or “Soros-backed” district attorneys oversaw the cases.
Thanks for this, Dave. It is similar to the jousting I have been doing with my retired cop cohort; in one, both a former rangemaster and a former coworker claim that Ashleigh Babbitt was murdered.
I told them (in much more detail than this) that if they believed that, I had failed as a use of force instructor.
Very good recitation on your part, Dave.
Truth has indeed taken a mortal hit.
From the Clarence court, which lies to the country as to favorite criminal being above the law, to Dems who did control the Senate but hadn't the heart to vote on the verity of the Constitution's Article 14, Section Three -- which would have disqualified that fat chunk of lard.
From most of mainstream, legacy media ever playing both-sides-ism to the billionaires insanely grotesquely backing only the criminal side.
From Republicans all sycophants for their lying fat orange guy to Dems with so totally zero grounding in any humanities as to America's working classes as to cede all that vote to the guy playing garbage man, the guy playing McDonald's French fry boy, the guy maligning all immigrants with the criminal status he himself has multiply earned for his own criminal self.
Accuse me, too, of both-sides-ism because I malign Dems for their out-of-touch elite dehumanization in the same sentence I malign Republicans for that and so much worse?
Thanks, Dave. The what about pivots are built into the psyche of those pulling their forelocks to the king.
Unfortunately CNN has relegated Jim Acosta to the graveyard shift in an attempt to please Trump.
Remember MSNBC's Brian Williams opening line for his show The Eleventh Hour during Trump's first term: "Day 3 of the Trump administration." Unfortunately, there's nothing even a little bit surprising about what Trump has done so far. All very consistent with what he said he would do and/or what other knowledgeable people said he would do. The people who got it wrong are Trump allies and apologists who said it was all rhetoric and he would never do any of it.
“Oh, it’s ***** being *****. I still hear it daily from too many.
Project 2025 is in full swing