Trump telling McConnell and his GOP senators what to do or not do reminds me of Reagan when he urged or told Iran not to negotiate with President Carter. So, the “GOP shenanigans” are not new! Power is more important than our democracy! 🤬
Not since since Eisenhower anyway. Not that Ike was a saint, but he cared about America and fought to save it. He had a sense of decency that Joe McCarthy lacked. Now McCarthy looks like the bush league compared to what the "Party of Lincoln" has become.
Unlike Trump, Ike felt he was president of all Americans and sincerely tried to do his best for all of them. Trump believed he was president of only the people who voted for him, that everyone who didn’t support him didn’t matter, and the press were “enemies of the people.” The last statement sounds dictatorial.
Proved by his statement 'anyone who donates to the campaign of his only 2024 Republican rival, Nikki Haley, "will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp." '
Sounds dictatorial, doesn't it? And it's another lie. He will gladly accept anyone who donates to Haley, along with their dollars, if she ends her campaign.
Ann, it sounds dictatorial because it is. Death star is full on fascist. I am glad that Romney spoke up. There really isn't any way for death star to get to him since he is not running again. Of course, he gets his minions to issue death threats to pols and their families and now have starting to swat certain people. I read a lot of history (reading about ancient Rome right now) and those who crave power will do anything to achieve it. I hope we don't end up with the bloodbaths that I have been reading about, but there are enough wing nuts to cause lots of problems. And then there is January 6th which was bad enough, but could have been even more bloody.
"So when I got in the cart with Eric," Dodson says, "as we were setting off, I said, 'Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.' And this is what he said. He said, 'Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.' Now that was [a little more than] three years ago, so it was pretty interesting."
Haley is already selling T-shirts on her website: "Barred. Permanently." and Make America Sane Again. I hope that's a sign she's going to start going for tffg's throat.
However, we shouldn't get flummoxed into seeing Governor "Slavery, what Slavery?!" as some sort of positive force, Alexandra. With the noted exception of her support for Ukraine and a general Cheney-esque view of foreign policy, her policies and positions are downright awful, and virtually aligned with Trump's. (to the extent he has any)
Those of us familiar with Trump and his various failed schemes over the years are only too well aware he can’t fix anything, but he can either cause it to fail or make it worse.
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger got as close to "off with their heads" as the RNC could currently manage. Their banishment was a classic "Kangaroo Court".
And of course that’s precisely what the maga republicans in Congress have been up to for decades. That’s nothing new. By the way, has any Democrat ever queried a republican cohort asking how either they or their witless leader plans to make America great again? And if not why not? The disfunction of our Congress is why we as a country are where we are.
The border is how they are going to make it better. Wait. They just turned down a bill that would give the border crisis a start at a solution. trump failed at a wall which Mexico refused to pay for. Mexico is working (and paying) for immigration solutions.
This is true, although the real damage started with Reagan and his economic and tax policies that heavily favored the rich at the expense of everyone else. Trickle-down economics consists of the GQP politicians and the rich using the rest of us as a public urinal. The snow job they’ve accomplished with getting working-class white voters to sympathize with the rich is absolutely amazing.
Snow job indeed. The comments made after they voted in IA and NH were mind-boggling. It's like they think Trump has never told a lie and January 6th was a peaceful protest at the Capital.
I agree about the economic damage occurred under Reagan that allowed the rich to get richer. Paul Krugman does an excellent job of explaining in detail each of these actions in many of his columns. But he is just as baffled as the rest of us about the mind-set of the white working-class voters.
Biden and the Democrats have many great success stories to tell and some excellent speech writers to tell the stories. But will they be able to convince this huge group of white working-class people that Trump was a terrible President who surrounded himself with morons and sycophants?
HCR has hundreds of thousands of followers and an excellent communicator. Hopefully her following continues to grow.
I don't think Reagan was that smart just like tfg. He was a movie star and everyone knew his name and he was charming. I believe there are the owners of the Steve Bannons and Stephen Millers that are truly running the show and deciding who they can put in front of the people that can somehow get elected by hook or by crook. I believe Putin is one of the big players. Just like Hitler. Chances are there will always be people wanting our amazing country. My great grandfather thought is was good enough to relocate with his little boys....one of them being my grandfather from England.
Because they got very smart at tapping in to "fear of replacement," which apparently is a real thing among white working class folks. When emotions are riled up, the practical stuff seems less important.
At the same time, ordinary folks are still experiencing food, gas and housing costs that, while they are going down, are higher than four years ago. Maybe there are "good" emotions (Love of country, love of democracy?) that we can rile up to balance this.
Here's a really good "lay language" explanation of the disconnect.
Tony Gonzalez (Rep from Uvalde, TX area. I think that is his name) Look for an interview on Firing Line a few weeks ago. The good ones are hard to find, but they are out there, trying to get things done.
We actually have Senator Patrick O'Connor in MA that is a good man and does good work locally and across party lines.
In 2020 I vowed never to vote for a Republican again. On election day I held firm, until I got to the machine to feed my ballot into.
I felt bad withholding my vote for Patrick and found the person in charge to trade my filled in ballot for a new ballot so I could change my vote. It just seemed wrong to me to punish a good man. I don't know if I did the right thing, it felt better though.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there are so few Republicans today that have an ounce of integrity and aren't cruel misogynists and MAGANAZIs so we don't have to consider voting for a Republican.
I have the same thoughts about IQ but that doesn't explain the cruelty. Maybe there should also be a CQ - cruelty quotient. I think most of us have fantasized about revenge but would never act on it. I'm not sure how we would measure it but I would ran the thousands of participants in January 6th who injured over 140 officers as having high CQs.
Google "Whitehouse Putsch BBC" to discover that the "Republican" deference to (or Star Council of) the Uber-Wealthy began much before Nixon. They simply waited too long in 1933, and, again, picked the wrong man to lead their charge - a real Patriot.
Money has polluted politics from the get go. Lincoln spoke of "the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." In many respects I think American oligarchs become de facto royalty. Nixon was a creepy manipulator yet showed some vestiges of concern for the common good. Reagan detested Lincoln's egalitarian vision, and sold government by and for the rich.
Teddy Roosevelt resented his party's turns toward courting the wealthy.
That’s true because he’s a malignant narcissist and a sociopath. Trump thinks people are there to be used, he expects loyalty from them, but he’s never loyal to others, he relishes the adulation of his groupies, and the only thing he truly cares about are himself and his bank account. Trump can never see that he is the cause of his own problems, so he resorts to ridiculous conspiracy theories to explain what’s happening to him, and he lies constantly. The only thing I think he is truthful about is what he plans to do if he becomes president again. He will govern out of revenge, he will destroy the government and civil service system, he will disregard the Constitution, laws and statutes of the United States and will refuse to faithfully execute the laws as the president’s oath requires, and he will govern as a dictator and expect people to swear loyalty to himself personally and not to the Constitution. In addition, he plans to institute the Heritage Foundation’s Heritage 25 program, which is a plan created by a private right wing think tank and does not have the force of law.
I agree, and believe America would be much better off if everyone took 1-2 hours to learn (from Wikipedia?) about personality disorders, and then about the specific type Trump has - severe narcissistic personality disorder. He literally has a brain disorder that drives him toward doing all the cruel and extremely selfish things he does. Huge numbers of people in our jails have personality disorders, and therefore believe that it's because of everyone else that they are in trouble. Excepting any responsibility and moving towards contrition is beyond them.
But, IMO, the difference with Trump is that he:
1) was born into great wealth,
2) learned from his father, Roy Cohn and others how to most effectively con &/or run over people,
3) built up enormous anger for being mocked in NY for decades (see Doonesbury).
Unfortunately, America was also, on the Right, steadily building up more and more anger, and desire for revenge. After 30 years of Reaganomics, racial preferences, failed wars, and the Great Recession, many millions of GOP voters were no longer enamored with the party. They were ripe for the plucking by a wealthy, cruel conman and demagogue.
And here we are. Fortunately, Trump always wants to be in the limelight as a provocative badass. That means he's always trying to push things slightly further. And he's become cognitively impaired. So he's going to sound dangerousl crazy all this year, which will cost him dearly in November. 🙏🏽
Kathy, Eisenhower was also unafraid to tell Israel no, Suez 1956. I wonder how long Ike would have delayed dispatching troops from Ft. Hood to provide security to federal border officials. Abbott may be campaigning for the V.P. nomination. In any event he is totally out of line. We have four states along the border of Mexico. Four interpretations of foreign policy by four different governors. Oh, Canada is too frightening to contemplate. 12 states bordering Canada.
Greg Abbott may believe he is entitled to decide the state’s foreign policy, but he’s not. The Constitution assigns this task to the Federal government. I think Biden should seriously consider federalizing the Texas National Guard to remind Abbott who is in charge of foreign policy.
We're still paying for his overthrow of Arbenz -- legally the Prez of Guatemala. Wonder what's in the future with Ukraine. Also didn't he start the Viet-Nam war?
"... and fought to save it." From what -- socialism?
bc thinks was great for the war companies, and is great now.
Last I looked the "Vietnam war" was started by Vietnamese trying to throw their French colonial masters out. The foreign-policy skulduggery of the '50s has filled hundreds if not thousands of books. Look up John Foster Dulles, Ike's secretary of state, then check out his brother, Allen Dulles, director of the CIA. As to antics that we're still paying for, I'd nominate the overthrow of democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in August 1953. That was to support the shah. We know what happened to the shah's regime in 1979, and a brief look at today's headlines will remind you what that led to.
The body count of the Cuban Missile Crisis was 1. When LBJ announced in so many words at an executive committee meeting of the President’s cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Defense that he supported a military invasion of Cuba he signed the President’s death warrant. That happened. U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war happened.
However, the Tet Offensive really opened LBJ's eyes - or perhaps the cynic might say Walter Cronkite's reporting of it on Nightly News. LBJ began secret negotiations with Uncle Ho to end the US's involvement in the Vietnam Civil War.
However, the secret got out - probably via some of the Dulles Brothers' holdovers still working in State or CIA to one 'Tricky Dick' Nixon. The 1968 Primary Season was already in progress, and in 1968 "Vietnam" not "the Border" was the Hot Campaign Topic.
To prevent LBJ from helping America, Nixon successfully sabotaged LBJ's Peace entreaty by Lying to Vietnam that if they would wait for his Election and they would get a much better deal from him.
When he did not pursue Peace in Vietnam, let alone offer a better deal, you understand why Vietnam became hotter after Nixon was Inaugurated.
The level of Republican "patriotic" behavior is seemingly stuck below Zero.
I am old enough to remember reading articles warning against getting involved in Vietnam. We had already gotten into a mess in Korea that was a similar situation. Oh, we were just going to send in a few "advisors"...
And then suddenly we were sending a whole generation to die in Vietnam or die more slowly from the chemicals we used there.
We can also thank the Dulles brothers "domino theory" for today's "border crisis" that is really a refugee crisis created by the corruption that is the inheritance of CIA actions in Central America.
Amen! I'm old enough, more or less, to have read those articles but, at the age of 12 or 13, I was already obsessed with the Middle East and totally clueless about Southeast Asia. 1968 woke me up and when I started college in the fall of 1969 I got active. At that point I fell in with civil rights activists, Old Lefties, New Lefties, etc., and my real education began.
I think he just picked up where the French left off. This was the war on communism based on the Domino Theory..
We keep trying to solve people's regional problems when we can't even solve on own.
We had to fight communism because it threatened capitalism. Political leaders conflated capitalism with democracy and we're off to war. Democracy can exist just fine without capitalism, but the profit margins of US companies would be laid bare to the threat of local governments taking ownership of foreign private enterprises.
There's a good argument that Eisenhower was not a republican. As a military employee he was discouraged from participating in politics. I seem to remember reading somewhere that both parties asked him to run?
I was fortunate enough to spend my formative years with Eisenhower as my president. He was the last respectable republican president since. He also signed In to law the first civil rights law since reconstruction and warned the nation about the military industrial complex. How does one teach kids about government with the republican Cult, for at least the last four decades, desecrating and making a mockery of the rule of law and everything our Democracy stands for.
"Honor" ; Ike had 'honor'. The gop leadership would only have honor if it could be bought. *edit > Honor and just a few other things I'll offer later when I've time to spare. Too much on my plate just now.
His move killed many more American soldiers than necessary, it failed to work, and he wound up bombing Cambodia and Laos. In Cambodia, it helped to put the murderous Khmer Rouge into power in 1975, and over one million Cambodians were murdered or died.
There was no need for any American soldiers to be killed in Vietnam. The French colonial war in Vietnam ended in 1954. France lost. The US, because of the paranoid Domino “Theory” promoted by the evil Dulles brothers, decided to take up the cause of colonialist sympathizers in South Vietnam. Eisenhower should have known better and put a stop to it. Same for Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon (who, after much gnashing of teeth, eventually bit the bullet), but it would have been easy for Eisenhower to get out early, so he gets most of the blame for the US backing the wrong side in a stupid war at enormous human and moral cost, and quite a lot of treasure, too.
Johnson decided not to run for a second term because of Vietnam, and he was aware Nixon had written to the South Vietnamese government requesting that they refuse to participate in peace talks. It was a Logan Act violation, but Johnson decided not to do anything about it. A historian found evidence for this in the papers at Nixon’s library. Johnson was concerned about the right wing’s reaction to withdrawing from the Vietnam War, and for that reason he decided to stay the course. Nixon and Kissinger had no plan to stop the war, and around 28,000 Americans and even more North and South Vietnamese died until U.S. troops pulled out in 1973.
Correct. Johnson was in a political trap. Kennedy, too, but less so. Eisenhower has no excuse. Kissinger was a thoroughly evil man, and vastly overrated.
Our recent history would be so much different had all this been more widely broadcast and known. Broadcast and free press has failed us for a very long time, and only gotten worse. We have lots to fix and have had; if only we had honest reliable partners. Share your knowledge; the people must be partners.
True. The entire idea as news as infotainment started in the 1970s, and Paddy Chayefsky’s “Network,” the 1980s series “Max Headroom” and Don Henley’s 1982 song “Dirty Laundry” all lampooned the change toward sensationalism and news as entertainment over fact. I personally found it rather uninformative and incapable of providing serious, detailed news coverage, while the broadcast networks found themselves competing among one another for coverage. Trump hates CNN, but he should remember that he got elected because Jeff Zucker preferred to cover him because he drove ratings very high, and it was all free airtime he never had to pay for. Whether it was in the best interests of the country was quite another thing, and in my opinion it wasn’t. I don’t even watch network news any more as I find it less informative than detailed newspaper coverage. The problem is that with the rise of social media, advertisers have fled print media for online media, and newspapers are dying slowly.
To me, the broadcast and press outlets are failing to perform their civic duties as news as news outlets by ignoring Trump’s dementia and his severe personality disorders, which make him thoroughly unsuitable as a presidential candidate. They also tend to find an excessive amount of fault with Democrats coming for chastisement under the both sides principle under faux balance. The truth they should pronounce is this: Democrats have not given up on constitutional government. Republicans have given up on constitutional government and want to create America’s first dictatorship. They want to abandon 247 years of constitutional government to let an incompetent wannabe dictator impose his whims on the country, and it will be an even worse disaster than his first four years. He will substitute his whims for constitutional government and laws enacted by Congress, he will wreck the government and the civil service system, he would ally ourselves with the most undemocratic regimes on the planet. He will unconstitutionally use the law to reward his cronies and punish anyone who criticizes him or his policies, and he will substitute the Heritage Foundation’s policies under the Heritage 25 program, for those legally enacted by Congress and the Senate. Finally, he will make himself dictator for life.
I think you’re right that in recent years news organizations, even prestigious ones like (especially) the NYT have failed us, especially in coverage of Trump/right-wing shenanigans. However, during the Vietnam war, the news organizations did a reasonably good job. The fault lies with white American voters, who were rabid anti communists, totally ignorant of world affairs (still are, largely). They cheered when the National Guard murdered four peaceful protesters at Kent State. This was the quintessential reaction that characterizes the bulk of white American sentiment in the Vietnsm era. Eisenhower should have known better, but willful, white American ignorance made it possible.
Unfortunately, yes, although Nixon had resigned and Ford was president when the Khmer Rouge took power. Nixon and Kissinger engaged in many dubious activities while in office, including engineering the coup that overthrew Allende in Chile, as well as supporting military coups in Argentina and Uruguay. Many people were made to disappear for good. What I find particularly frightening are the Trump supporters who advocate throwing their political adversaries out of helicopters the way the Argentine military did.
Evil is persistent and continuous. In this country, previously, evil was supported by southern Democrats protecting slavery. But in the 1960's, those southern Democrats morphed into Republicans. It doesn't matter what label these wealthy kleptocrats use, they are still the rich doing everything they can to steal from the middle class and the poor by amassing as much power as possible. They are traitors! They are acting contrary to the good of this country in order to score political points. Greg Abbott's actions are not a political stunt. He is ENDANGERING the country. He should go to jail!
It can. Ford and Kissinger turned a blind eye to Indonesia invading East Timor (a former Portuguese colony) and Indonesia’s bloody conquest of the country. It took some years to get the Indonesians out of East Timor, and hundreds of thousands of people died.
If Cambodia and Laos had oil or other resources American corporations could steal, there would have been no Khmer Rouge. But like Zimbabwe and many other countries that lack natural resources,, we allow atrocities to occur for decades unchecked.
Henry Kissinger, in orchestrating the carpet bombing in Cambodia, is infamous for saying " kill anything that moves" His spirit lives on in Vladimir Putin and other war criminals. Bibbi Netanyahu is employing the same tactic in Gaza. They must be held accountable.
And Bob McNamara, another example of why businessmen need to stay out of politics. The total lack of accountability he felt for his part in the Vietnam debacle as seen in "Fog of War" was appalling.
Once "THE Southern Strategy" was deployed the Republicans became the Party of Distruction". They are the equivalent of the toddler who destroys all their toys because they can't handle their emotions.
The Southern Strategy is responsible for every Republican victory since 1968. It’s their bread and butter. They know exactly what they’re doing and people who vote for them know exactly why they do so. They started with dog whistles but now use bullhorns, which are more effective.
Exactly. It’s been downhill all the way since postwar dreams (WWII: UN). I have a theory to test here: some GI’s came back, used the GI bill, went to college, university, got all kinds of degrees and many were those who have carried the country forward, made us more civilized. Then there were the ones who bought bulldozers and made fortunes which their only aim was to keep. It’s not hard work, but pure greed that is dividing and killing US.
I agree that greed is killing the US economy, but I doubt that returning GIs are involved much in the killing. My theory is that the population is divided because the primary motivator for most white voters (somewhere between 55% and 60%) is the preservation of systemic advantages for white Americans. The greedy SOBs who are ruining the US economy exploit that pervasive, endemic racism to win elections for Republicans, who then deliver greater and greater shares of US wealth to economy-destroying, greedy SOBs while also making sure to preserve or extend systemic white advatages so they can continue to exploit racism to win elections.
The bulldozer drivers are the uneducated to whom I refer. Civilization demands education. If you can make lots of money without a civilizing education, greed may make you just hang onto it, making sure you don’t share it with the “undeserving.”
Reoublicans have been engaging in behavior that actually endangers American lives simply to gain a perceived political advantage. Doesn't this seeems very close to actual treason?
The Republicans know they can't win without cheating and they are good at it. Does Mr. dirty tricks Roger Stone have a tattoo of FDR's face on his back? Is TGF not the protege of Roy Cohn?
The GOP itself has had some fine upstanding politicians like IKE, Romney, Rockefeller, and others. But when it started losing, it became the host for nefarious actors. Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich, and Leonard Leo, among others. It was a slow game. Cable news and talk radio had to be allowed to develop - so goodbye FCC. They finally rammed through the Justices who would march to their tune. The Court they wanted enabled the billionaires and dark money to buy their politicians thanks to Citizens United. Over-turning Roe v Wade I think was far more calculated than philosophical. And so it is: Trump is their useful idiot.
Oddly, I have had two neighbors that were politicians -- Tom Osborne and Tom Harkin, one Republican and one Democrat. They were both men of integrity and well, really good neighbors. I voted for both.
It's not often we get to sit on a politician's front porch and see who they really are when they aren't your representative in Congress.
But the MAGANAZIs have hijacked what was the Republican Party about 25 years ago when Newt told his colleagues not to associate with their Democrat colleagues. RBG and Scalia hung out with each other and their families socially, even though they rarely agreed on many decisions.
Today's Republican politicians are Trump MAGANAZIs from top to bottom. They are totally afraid of incurring his wrath -- cowards one and all. Even the few like Romney and Collins that don't support him, rarely poke the bear.
I would have said that my neighbor politician, Steve Stivers (R, OH), was a man of integrity too. And then Trump came along. Instead of speaking out for what was right, he resigned his congressional seat and now heads the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Despite being a general in the National Guard, he’s a coward. He’s not as bad as the others who live in my community: Lt. Governor Husted, OH Secretary of State Larose, and the winner of the slime contest, Vivek Ramaswamy. It’s amazing, because I live in a fairly progressive suburb of Columbus.
I have so much contempt for “good” republicans like Stivers who could have spoken out against Trump’s excesses in the early days and reined him in - and didn’t. Whether the calculus was not to speak out of fear or out of electoral expediency doesn’t matter. They’re cowards, and bear a great deal of responsibility for the place we are today.
Frank LaRose is a lousy Secretary of State and broke his own rules about August elections in order to get his attempt to make it harder to pass voter initiatives on the ballot. In addition, he and the Republicans wanted us to vote No on Issues 1 & 2 in November. Thankfully all of his proposals lost, but the General Assembly is showing it doesn’t care at all what voters think with the attempt to deprive courts of the ability to adjudicate abortion cases. They also ignored three separate orders from the Supreme Court of Ohio before the November elections to redraw 3 improperly drawn Senate districts, and they kicked the can down the road and completely ignored the voter initiative requiring nonpartisan redistricting.
Yes! Having us vote with unconstitutional maps which still aren’t fixed was infuriating. The corruption and nepotism rends Ohio undemocratic. The fact that Dewine’s son is on the OH Supreme Court and doesn’t recuse in cases involving his father is ridiculous.
I agree with you, and I’m frustrated with it. The Ohio Democratic Party needs to seriously meet their Democratic colleagues from Wisconsin and Michigan to help develop a serious plan to overcome the stranglehold the Republicans have on the state. One thing they can do is to start identifying good candidates for state offices like attorney general, treasurer, and secretary of state, as well as good judicial candidates. Retired Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor voted three times with the majority to require three state Senate maps to be drawn. She is a Republican and the party was displeased at her decision. Of course, the Statehouse Republicans did nothing, and kicked the can down the road. The Republicans refused to do anything until it was too late to fulfill the voters’ initiative to require the Republicans redraw statehouse maps with a nonpartisan commission, and the Republicans still have districts that unfairly favor them. Retired Chief Justice O’Connor has been working to draft and get signatures for another initiative to require citizen redistricting like that used in California, ut so far AG Dave Yost has rejected her efforts. Yost was also the guy who claimed the story about a 10 year old being raped and impregnated by her mother’s boyfriend was fake until the man showed up for arraignment in Franklin County Court.
The General Assembly and Senate seem to have a greater commitment to their lobbyists than the people whom they ostensibly represent. Despite Frank LaRose’s best efforts to call an August election to add a proposal to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution (after passing a law to forbid August elections,) Ohio voters decisively defeated it. We also passed Issues 1 and 2 despite the Republicans’ best efforts to put the thumb on the scale. Now a group of General Assembly Republicans want to introduce a bill to strip Ohio courts of the ability to adjudicate abortion cases. The problem with this is that the Ohio Constitution does not allow them to do this.
I agree they bear a great deal of responsibility for the place we are in today.
With respect, we are supposed to walk a mile in their shoes before we judge others. I don't know if or how these people were threatened, do you? Would you risk a threat against a family member? Not sure I would.
I am banking on karma taking care of this. I just hope it won't be too late as I fear it will.
As Harry Reid famously observed, Susan Collins is there when you don’t need her, polishing her claim to bipartisanship without actually, you know, being willing to cross partisan lines when it matters.
These days, Newt is a Trump groupie, and I’m not surprised. Newt took a meat cleaver to Congress and eliminated many of the Congressional aides and research sources designed to provide neutral and disinterested advice on legislation, and he went after Clinton for lying under oath about an affair while Newt himself was involved with his Congressional aide, now his wife, Callista. He encouraged Republicans to think of Democrats not as colleagues with differing views, but as enemies who needed to be destroyed. He encouraged Republicans to use hostile language and insults toward Democrats and Republicans still do so and accuse Democrats of being “communists” or “socialists,” which shows that they don’t know the real meanings of these words. In the end, Newt had to resign over scandal over his memoir, which was the same tactic he used to oust the previous speaker, Jim Wright. Dennis Hastert replaced Newt until we eventually learned Hastert had sexually abused members of his high school wrestling team and one of his victims was blackmailing Hastert over it.
My Congressman at the time was Doug Bereuter (R-NE). He had the seniority to become Speaker but he had a couple of major Republican character flaws that prevented him from being speaker -- integrity and intelligence. He had a master degree from Harvard in urban planning and seemed represent us and all Americans--probably another Republican faux-pas.
I met with him once to discuss the conclusion of the Congressional committee on National Security to outlaw the sale of 128 bit encryption software in the US. Congress and the NSA were concerned because it took days to deencrypt 128 bit military messages as opposed to minutes for 64 bit messages. My point was that if the software is available, you can't prohibit people from buying it especially foreign governments. We agreed to disagree, but we did have a good give and take discussion.
Anyway, Hasert undermined him and became Speaker only to be exposed as a pedophile. Bereuter resigned Congress at the end of the term disgusted with what the Republican Party had become.
The Republicans don’t want people with intelligence or integrity in the MAGA GQP. They want robots who will do what they’re told. I know there have been people with both in the Republican Party like former representative Bereuter, but they are definitely not welcome now and Trump’s groupies would call them RINOs. The Republicans with any intelligence or integrity have left the party and become independents. The odd thing is that some of the senators with Ivy League educations; like Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Tom Cotton; are among the worst in the Senate. Ted Cruz even has the peculiar distinction of being hated by his fellow Republicans.
Ah, yes. Newt had to resign because of his memoir, but not because the scumbag took divorce papers to his dying wife’s hospital bedside for her to sign. 🙄🤬
Thanks Gary. My family in a previous generation was chock full of politicians. The turn towards meanness and division has far surpassed policy differences. I don’t think “in the before times” any regarded their opponents as “the enemy”. The planned division by a few men has come to fruition.
Good men, both Toms. Harkin, I had the opportunity to present our National Association's Distinguished Service Award to for his work in support of disability rights and policies to support the full inclusion of people with disabilities. He was a champion and strong voice behind passage of the American With Disabilities Act. This was, of course, in a time where your word was your bond and bi-partisanship was the American way. Sure, we might have groused about what we didn't get codified, but respected the good that became settled law for America.
Thank you for reminding us of those opportunists in the past who used the Republican Party to gain power and a foothold with many.....in order to push THEIR agendas.
Politicians on both sides have used power and brainwashing and publicity to gain power.
We need a more engaged population who work to think for themselves.
We need leaders who study to form their opinions....who are knowledgeable enough through engagement with our citizenry as well as people, governments and power struggles going on all over this planet! Men or women who desire to be a part of leadership must be willing to acquire the experience to lead us...instead of using us to gain personal power. Many of the political candidates , it is heartrending to say....are empty.....filling themselves with someone elses ideas.....willing to be used for someone else's personal power/gain through them and through the position they are striving to win. So many of us are either "lazy" thinkers or would rather be a part of the group than learn to make intelligent, informed decisions on our own....or engage in informed debate.
We are self-destructing through our lack of knowledge and lack of character. This laziness is NOT going to strenghten us as a people or as a nation.
At this time in our history, I am very grateful for President Joe Biden and his team.
However on a painful topic that will not leave me.....Netanyahu needs to go. I cannot believe that all of the Israeli population agrees with the slaughter of Palestinians...or anyone.....as is being done in plain sight in Gaza. It is my personal speculation that Netanyahu set this up to do exactly what is happening in Gaza....and with the hostages....using our symphathies towards Israel....to participate in this slaughter of humanity. We have this blood on our hands!
Useful idiot is correct. I was just reading how Republican power attorneys are lining up ready to keep Agent Orange on the ballot. It's already over before it even starts. Moscow Mitch and his billionaires buddies own the court. They are Project 2025. We are so screwed. We have a corrupted Supreme Court.
I hope the 'power attorneys' are no brighter than his current attorneys. I have read any attorney with any self respect wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole.
The article is on the CNN news feed this morning reporting who the players are.
Side note. I contacted the NYT about their clickbait both sides bullshit reporting of Agent Orange and his cronies. They responded. They weren't very happy with me. They were very defensive. They posted to me about 10 articles to the contrary. I guess I got their attention.
And the Republicans act as if he is president, calling him "President Trump." There is only one president at a time. That the Republicans are now acting as if he is president and they are following his orders, they are creating a separate authority in the country that will exist regardless of the results of the election in November.
Exactly, and his biggest supporters in Congress treat President Biden as though he isn’t actually the president when he is. The Republicans in Congress think their job is to fall into line and follow Trump’s orders, so they carry out unethical stunts like trying to impeach President Biden despite the lack of evidence of wrongdoing, and they don’t want Hunter Biden to publicly testify so they can distort his testimony. I hope Jack Smith has been able to gather information to charge or at least subpoena members of Congress and the Senate who enabled Trump’s insurrection.
The Republican base is drinking Trump's poisonous Kool-aid because it is the only liquid available to them. The Republican base is being herded into one Trumpian corral. When will the Romney's, Flake's, Cheney's, Kinzinger's and so many others get back into the game? When will they tell Tump to take a hike or to F-off? It is not the time to be sitting on the sidelines, no matter how convenient that may be. With the possibility of a dictator grabbing the reins of power in November, this might be the last damn inning. Don't leave any of your time and energy on the field.
There is an EXCELLENT open letter to Nikki Haley in The Bulwark, written by Michael Wood in The Bulwark.
"This moment in American history calls for bold truth-telling, drawing lines in the sand, and cutting through the flood of BS coming from Donald Trump and his minions.
When, some distant day, you shuffle off this mortal coil, what will your grandchildren read in your obituary? . . . What did you do when a sitting president tried to steal an election, sent a mob to attack the people’s representatives in Congress, and pushed our country to the edge of a constitutional crisis—if not outright into one? A line from a future newspaper: “Haley then spent a year meekly using the passive voice and mumbling about deficit spending.”
Your life isn’t over and your obituary is not yet written. . . . Go to your home state and tell the truth. . . and say what you actually think: “He’s a moron. He’s a liar. He’s done grievous harm to our country. He dines with Nazis. He needs to be held accountable, both legally and politically. They’re not ‘hostages,’ they’re criminals. We don’t do dictators in America, even for a day.”
If she got up the nerve to do exactly this it would blow up the entire election. Even Biden would have to up his game big time. As the letter says, she'd never have to shrink down in front of her grandchildren and who knows, maybe some other Republicans would also find spine enough to echo her words. Nikki, go for it, push that lying swine into history.
Kathy, the 14th Amendment at Article 3 contains all the legal firepower the DOJ needs to remove over 100 members of the House & Senate that chose to support insurrection over the Constitution. Like tRUmp, and as Judge Luttig & Prof. Tribe (and Professors Baude & Stokes have written in the The University of Pennsylvania Law Review) the former President & any other “officer” engaging in insurrection against the US “unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty.”
I know it does, but I do not have much confidence that the courts would actually enforce this. I agree with Judge Luttig’s statements on the matter because his first loyalty is to the Constitution, as it should be. My concern is that the Republicans in Congress would never do this.
Is the DOJ the right department to initiate proceedings under that? The DOJ didn't come into existence until 1870; but I think that you're right, they are the agency to investigate violations of the constitution.
This is an important point, TC. Watch how quickly those other states start sending their national guard units to Texas, ostensibly to secure the border, but really to prevent federal border control from doing their jobs. Let's call this what it is: the insurrection continues and escalating. I live in one of those states. God help us all.
President Biden can end this in two minutes, the same wah JFK and LBJ did with the Failed Confederates called out their National Guard units to "stand in the schoolhouse door" 60 years ago: Federalize the guard and put them to work doing their actual job.
Yeah, but this article is from August and talks about how few soldiers were actually sent and how they do not qualify for the benefits they get if sent by the President instead of a Governor.
I read the article and it sounds like the guards under Biden who have been there for awhile get full pay and benefits and under the state have reduced benefits and lower pay. This is in the last two or three paragraphs.
I am appalled and disgusted at reports of Stefanik basically saying to declare Trump the nominee, right now. I hope this report is being overblown, I had hoped to see mention of it in today's letter. In the last week, I have lunched with two long time friends, both old school republicans. Foremost on their minds (both) is the "border crisis" and also that they despise Trump. I didn't push as to whether they would vote for him if he becomes the nominee.
He and his groupies are less a political group than cultists bent on helping Trump make himself dictator. Some of them are or have tried to join election boards to try to game votes, others cancel voter registrations without notice to affected voters. Trump is showing signs of both dementia and decompensation over fear of his impending criminal trials, and it shows at his rallies.
To be fair Joanna, he does control SCOTUS and half of Congress. Many of his actions, like putting DeJoy in charge of the USPS are still in force. The State Department is rebuilding but is a shell of what it was when Trump came to power.
And many of the red states bow down to their orange demagogue refusing to listen to the SCOTUS and the administration.
If you think Biden hasn't done a good job swimming upstream, just look at the amazing things he's been able to accomplish in spite of the MAGANAZIs and the white faux-Christian nationalists.
Think about exactly what rapist trump is telling McConnell and the GOP what not to do:
"Meanwhile, Ukraine is running out of ammunition."
First the GOP's stance is that they won't consider funding Ukraine (not standing up for Democracy) unless the border is addressed. Democrats finally agree to a conservative and imperfect border bill in order to send drastically needed fire power to Ukraine. And common citizen rapist trump orders the GOP goons not to pass it so that he can run on it? And they are listening to him?? This, out in the open, and they have no shame??? By bringing this out into the light, I believe this outrage will gain traction and will backfire into their ugly little heads....
Thank you Kathy! If the Defense Dept. wants to save money AND help stymie the genocide in Gaza, they can demand a complete cease-fire or stop funding the Israeli army....
-McConnell's comments on Ukraine, border deal 'flipped around' - report
After meeting yesterday with their leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans told Politico that earlier comments he had made expressing opposition at Donald Trump’s urging to a deal to arm Ukraine and Israel while enacting conservative immigration policies were misunderstood.
22m ago
09.09 EST
- Senate Republican leader walks back Trump-driven opposition to Ukraine and border deal
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday kicked off with the somewhat shocking news that Senate Republicans were, at Donald Trump’s behest, willing to walk away from a deal they had been negotiating with Democrats for months to implement some conservative immigration policies in exchange for approving new aid to Ukraine and Israel’s militaries. The reason, the Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell told his lawmakers in a private meeting, was that Trump wanted to be able to attack Joe Biden over immigration on the campaign trail, and passing the deal would undermine that. The comments unsurprisingly sparked outrage from Democrats and some Republicans, and later on Thursday, McConnell seems to have walked them back.
- According to Politico, he again convened his party to tell them that he was still behind the deal. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen – the odds of enacting legislation in an election year dealing with one of the most divisive issues in American politics, immigration, were also going to be long, but the parties seem resolved to at least try. We’ll see what more is revealed about this kerfuffle over the course of the day. (Guardian, copied in full)
Power has been more important to Republicans than democracy since the 1880s. The Progressives of the early 20th century, and Eisenhower, were exceptions to the general trend.
And, McConnell could have finished us with having to deal with tfg! I wonder what tfg and Putin have on McConnell. In his last election we had an excellent candidate running against him....I was sure she would win and I was so disappoint when he was re-elected. From what I read he was getting even with those that had made fun of him and shunned him. He is evil like tfg!
And he won. I fear the same will happen with TFG. The cases against him argument been brought much sooner. Now there is likely not enough time to get a conviction before the election. I hope I’m wrong.
Perhaps it's important to acknowledge and answer the Republican constitutional argument that the Biden administration is already failing to enforce the law and the constitution, so (they say) a new border bill isn't going to do any good. Following is the text of Texas Governor Abbott's recent press release. What is the rebuttal?
January 24, 2024
The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.
Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters—one of which I delivered to him by hand—President Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.
• President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.
• President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.
• By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border—bridges where nobody drowns—and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.
Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United
States.
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and
protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.
Something I don't hear much about is the long-term damage this divisiveness is doing to America on the international stage. No longer is the commitment of a president and congress to be believed. Our pledge is not worth the ink used to write and for our leader (President) to offer it. It isn't even a bond, a fidelity for the full term of our President. We have no honor now. Any member of a backbiting gaggle of opposition cand and now cancels it without cause or consequence. So doing means we act in bad faith and shall not be worthy of favored nation status militarily or diplomatically or economically. The price we would have to pay were we to be attacked by our friends or fellow nations at the negotiating table for presumed honoring of any promise should be expected to escalate beginning with the next administration. Our vulnerability to successful attack by our avowed enemies should be expected to increase as well because of our recent betrayal, real or presumed, of our allies and opportunities alliance we are likely perpetuate should Trump regain the White House. That a candidate can not only attempt to, but actually require presently serving congress persons to accede to his demands to block and destroy that which we elected the current administration to achieve on our behalf is morally bankrupt as a premise and gravely unlawful under the constitution to which those presently serving and promised to honor. Rump Trump was not elected, regardless of his presumed belief in his assigned leadership. Absolutely insame.
Americans, no matter where we live, the color of our skin, or what our background—we all believe in the freedoms that have been so hard won: equality before the law, the opportunity to pursue our dreams, the ability to be heard and make our voices count at the ballot box, the expectation to earn a fair return for our work—so we aren’t forced to choose between food, medicine, rent or an education, and the fundamental right to decide if, when and how to start or grow a family, to love who we love, and simply, to be who we are...
But day by excruciating day, we are seeing how a tiny minority, of white, wealthy, well-connected billionaires and price-gouging corporations, is turning our democracy into a fascist kleptocracy; they use racism, sexism, nativism and anti-LGBTQ fear-mongering to distract and divide us, so they don’t have to pay what they owe, don’t have to stop polluting and don’t have to be accountable for their crimes against our families—paramount of which was Tr*mp’s Jan 6 attack on our country, made possible by his MAGA co-conspirators in the Executive Branch, Congress, state legislatures, the military, and even SCOTUS.
But together, the many can and will defeat the moneyed, because time and time again we have before. This battle for justice and the promise of America, is as Heather’s historical letters show—it’s not a sprint, nor a marathon; it is a relay, where each of us has our leg to run...and our success happens as much, in the passing and taking of the baton, as in the carrying.
This is an excellent way of putting it. The saying that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” is not limited simply to military activity. As citizens, we have to engage in a relay to preserve government of, for and by the people and to prevent government by kleptocracy and dictatorship.
Yes. What our military has come to to "protect" since WWII is not as much "defending our freedoms" as it is in manipulating governments for fiscal and other gains. We must take up the mantle of eternal vigilance, or we will see our freedoms erode as the monied establishment takes over.
Indeed -- and I'm often reminded that Lincoln's admonishment was not that we WERE destined or already committed to a govt of, for and by the people, but rather that it was up to us to ensure that such a govt should continue to exist:
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us [...] that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, [...] shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
"It is not a sprint nor a marathon; it is a relay, where each of us has their leg to run...and our success happen as much in the passing of the baton as the carrying"
it is time for Ordinary folks to do Extraordinary things...
LOL! I'd prefer to say I'm 'singing' it vs preaching...as my hero Anat Shenker-Osorio says, the song we sing as the choir for progressive values (i.e., the activists) has to be catchy enough to be carried by the congregation (i.e., the base), so they sing it out in the world—carrying the message to the non-base, 'swing'/'persuadable' voters (i.e., non-ideological/non-partisan people who hear a statement and say 'that's a good point,' only to hear the opposite statement and also say 'that's a good point,' which is why our message has to be louder, more frequent AND better at landing than MAGA's).
Basically, if our words don't spread, they don't work...
'Why Wall Street is Surrendering to Trump' (The Bulwark)
by CARLIE SYKES
'One of the fondest bits of resistance fantasy has been the notion that the nation’s economic elites — the titans of Wall Street, the beautiful people of Davos, the economic masters of the universe— would, in our moment of peril, mount the barricades to defend democracy.'
'To which a reasonable person might have responded: Have you met these guys?'
'For about five minutes after January 6, it seemed that the business community had, in fact, found or fabricated a moral compass. “There are some members who, by their actions, will have forfeited the support of the US Chamber of Commerce. Period. Full stop,” the chamber’s vice-president, Neil Bradley, declared when the group announced a ban on contributions to representatives who had voted against certifying Joe Biden’s win.'
'There were full-page ads and ringing declarations. “This is not who we are as a people or a country,” insisted Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan.'
'Ah, but.'
'The chamber quietly dropped its ban on election deniers. The cash still flows. And last week in Davos, we found out how far Dimon had evolved on extraneous details like the peaceful transfer of power and attempted insurrections. Dimon now says that Donald Trump was right about lots of things and, like other moguls, is now okay with either Biden or Trump.'
“My company,” 'he said,' “will survive and thrive in both.”
'The only surprise here is that we are surprised. In a remarkable piece this week, The Financial Times’s Edward Luce reminded readers,' “The 1930s ought to have buried the idea that business is a bulwark against autocracy.”
'The Financial Times had only nice things to say about Benito Mussolini in a June 1933 supplement entitled “The Renaissance of Italy: Fascism’s gift of order and progress”. Trains were running on time, investment was humming and friction between capital and labour was a thing of the past. “The country has been remodelled, rather than remade, under the vigorous architecture of its illustrious prime minister, Signor Mussolini,” wrote the FT’s special correspondent. '
“Today’s America offers a reminder,” 'he notes.'
'Why is Wall Street so quickly making its peace with the twice-impeached, disgraced, indicted, authoritarian fraudster? Let’s divide the reasons into three buckets:'
Venality, rational self-interest, and fear.
'Let’s start with the obvious: Big business knows that Trump poses a threat to democratic norms and is a cancer on the national culture. But he’s good for the bottom-line, and that, after all, is the business of business. In their world, the trashing of constitutional norms is simply collateral damage.'
'So, as Matt Yglesias notes in his Slow Boring newsletter, it is not shocking that' “rich businessmen remember they're Republicans.” Even though they might have preferred a less fascisty option, “they’re now reconciled to riding with Trump, who they see as a non-optimal candidate, but a lock for the nomination and perfectly capable of beating Biden.”
“And beating Joe Biden really is the important part…”
'Forget the eyewash about the border or concerns about the tender feelings of the MAGA masses, he writes.' “What Jamie Dimon really wants is the return of business-friendly regulations that will make more money for him personally, for his shareholders, and for his friends.”
'None of this is particularly mysterious. Writes Luce:'
'[For] all his faults, Trump would be better for business than Biden. Trump cut the top tax rate and improved their bottom lines. He is promising to do the same again. Trump’s railing against corporatism is just red meat for the base. He would also boost the fossil fuel industry and commercial real estate. The assumption of business leaders that Trump will fulfil these promises is almost certainly right.'
'They are also unfazed by Trump’s threats of big tariffs and renewed trade wars, because' “less globalisation is a price worth paying for lower taxes. It seems that almost anything is.”
'Elites tell themselves other stories too: They want a seat at the table. They want to be in the room where it happens. They want access. And they know that if they fail to fall into line now, they risk being cast into outer darkness. Or worse.'
'So, they are afraid. But perhaps not afraid enough, telling themselves that Trump’s “bark is worse than his bite.” In their boundless self-regard many of them (like their counterparts from the last century) seem to think that they will be able to control him or limit his damage. In his first term, the guardrails held, they tell themselves, so how bad could it be?'
'But Trump is openly promising a regime of retribution; and this time around he will have far more weapons to wield. As Protect Democracy warned last week, “A second Trump administration will seek to pierce the independence of federal agencies to expand presidential control over their activities.” That includes the DOJ, FCC, FTC, SEC, IRS and all the vast net of regulatory powers that can be aimed at both individuals and corporations who fall out of favor.'
'As both Trump and Florida’s Ron DeSantis have signaled, there is a ravening appetite on the right for the use of government power to punish ideological dissenters in the private sector. As the Protect Democracy report noted', “Trump made several attempts, with varying degrees of success, to crack down on the media during his first term.”
'He ordered a government review of postal rates and urged his postmaster general to double shipping rates on Amazon, as a part of his campaign to pressure Washington Post and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos to provide him with more favorable news coverage.'
'As a 2016 candidate, Trump threatened to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner because CNN was “wildly anti-Trump” and, after he became president, the Department of Justice challenged the deal. The New Yorker reported that Trump ordered top aides to' “get this lawsuit filed…I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”
'But the media is far from the only industry that Trump 2.0 could target. DeSantis famously went to war with Disney; and the Trumpian right seems spoiling for a fight with businesses that might take controversial positions on issues dear to the heart of the new MAGA elite.'
'What could Trump do? In an earlier report, the folks at Protect Democracy described some of the ways that the government could punish corporate expression:'
'Abuses of government power can take different forms, because government officials wield the power of the state in many ways. They employ rhetoric to influence a public debate, deploy administrative and agency power to gatekeep opportunities and launch investigations, and propose and pass laws that codify the rules of the game…'
'These include:'
'Rhetorical Threats: In response to a company’s (or company leader’s) disfavored speech or expression, a high-ranking government official may threaten that the government will take action to punish the company or make a statement directly intended to chill business expression. For example, in March 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tweeted that she would work to “break up Big Tech,” in response to critical tweets from Amazon about the senator’s characterization of the company’s tax liability. That same year, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned businesses that they would face' “serious consequences” for speaking out against a new voting rights law in Georgia and urged corporate America to “stay out of politics.”
'Administrative Tools: A government official may propose using the executive branch’s administrative or investigative power in retaliation for viewpoints it opposes….'
'Legislative Power: A lawmaker may propose legislation or initiate an investigation directly targeting a company as a result of its expressed views. For example, in 2018 the Georgia legislature voted to strip out from a larger bill a proposed tax exemption on jet fuel, originally intended to benefit Delta Airlines, in retaliation for the company’s decision to eliminate a promotional discount for National Rifle Association members following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. '
'In a second Trump term, this would be mere child’s play. But, by then, there will be little that the business elite can do about it.'
When we organize, we win...like we did in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and throughout 2023. Since Dobbs, EVERY Democratic candidate has outperformed Biden's margin in 2020.
The media is not covering our Democratic wins, because they NEED the horserace to drive click-bait headlines, which force binary narratives that rely on false equivalences.
If Biden's victory is going to be another one based on a RECORD turnout, a RECORD margin, and RECORD absolute vote count against a 2X popular-vote losing, 2X impeached, 4X criminally-indicted, and now convicted rapist, racist and traitor who conspired with MAGA Repubs in state legislatures, in Congress and even on SCOTUS to overturn our election, what would be the point of media's endless 'mad poll disease' coverage (and again, not only are polls inherently flawed, but even if 100% accurate -- they don't vote)?
Now, to be clear, I am not saying we don't have to do the work to vote, and help get out the vote -- especially given how the Electoral College is rigged against voters, or how gerrymandering is rigged against voters, or how laws to suppress access to the ballot box are rigged against voters -- but it's not the sturm und drang, anxiety-inducing fugue state the media would have us believe it to be.
We did it in the past by defeating the Southern slaveholders, but we failed to complete our task of protecting the formerly enslaved people by halting Reconstruction. We also elected FDR in 1932 after Herbert Hoover wrongly thought conventional economic policies would fix the Depression, but Southern members of the Senate and Congress ensured Black citizens would not entirely benefit from FDR’s policies. World War II was a necessary war to fight, and essentially it was a massive public works project that pulled our economy out of depression. Any economic policies we enact to help ordinary people must include all citizens without discrimination.
I'm not going to go as far back as the 19th and 20th centuries.
Instead, I will point out that in 2023, we held the VA Senate and flipped the House of Delegates and as a result, Danica Roem was elected the country's first transgender State Senator and VA's Speaker of the House, Don Scott, is a black man—for the first time in its 400+ year history!
This win meant Virginia stayed the last state in the South without an abortion ban, but it also meant that all the hard-earned progress from Democratic wins in 2017 and 2019 wouldn’t get rolled back, including:
- Medicaid for 700,000 Virginians
- Ratification of the Equal Rights amendment
- Increases to VA's minimum wage
- Funding secured for teacher pay
- Passage of first ever Climate Action bill in the South
- Protections against discrimination for the LGBTQ community
- Gun safety laws, and soooo much more for the Commonwealth
But in 2023, we didn't only win in VA (again), we also won in CT, KY, NJ, OH and PA!
Up and down the ballot, Americans came together to vote their values and defend their freedoms; they chose between "vision and division"—electing democratic judges, governors, state legislators, mayors, and even school board members!
And it wasn't just November 4, 2023. For all of last year, democratic candidates in special elections in Congress and in ballot measures have won, again and again and again—at margins higher than both Biden's win in 2020, or the predicted partisan lean of those places.
I will take these and all the other ACTUAL democratic election wins in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023 over "mad poll" disease any day; and I hope you do, too.
My favorite quote remains this from Anand Giridharadas:
"We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail."
Escape the media's perpetual doom loop of horse race politics (I saw so many headlines after 11/4/23 that started with why despite these wins, it's bad for Biden, the guy who won the most votes of any candidate ever, in the middle of a pandemic, and whose record of success is the best of any President in 60 years!) where their obsession with binary, conflict-driven narratives, which force false equivalences, hides the reality of a slow, but steadily growing blue wave that's been building since I began volunteering with Sister District Project in 2017.
I keep mulling over how a good many MAGA followers had family who fought and were possibly injured or died in WWI and/or WWII, for the freedoms you declaim here. It just doesn’t compute that they would abandon and disgrace their forebears sacrifices, and their country, to follow and encourage the total opposite of what America stands for. How warped their vision of America has become. I wonder what can encourage them snap out of it, stop being so irrationally fearful, and take pride in their country again?
I think the key isn't really to 'change' people's minds -- but rather, get the ones (who can) to see how the values you describe above, are not being support by their voting choices.
You inspired me to learn about the history of the term 'barnburner' -- thank you! And good company for my post to keep :)
h/t Wikipedia
The term barnburner was derived from a folktale about a Dutch farmer who burned down his own barn in order to get rid of a rat infestation. In this case it was applied to men who were thought to be willing to destroy all banks and corporations, in order to root out their abuses.
The Barnburners and Hunkers were the names of two opposing factions of the New York Democratic Party in the mid-19th century, in which the Barnburners were the radical faction, opposing expanding the public debt and the power of large state-established corporations. They also generally came to oppose the extension of slavery.
At the 1848 presidential election, the Barnburners left the Democratic Party, refusing to support presidential nominee Lewis Cass. They joined with other anti-slavery groups, predominantly the abolitionist Liberty Party and some anti-slavery Conscience Whigs from New England and the Midwest, to form the Free Soil Party. This group nominated former President Van Buren to run again for the presidency. Their vote divided Democratic strength. Zachary Taylor, the Whig nominee, was elected to office.
After the Compromise of 1850 temporarily neutralized the issue of slavery and undercut the party's no-compromise position, most Barnburners who had joined the Free Soil Party returned to the Democrats.
In 1854, some Barnburners helped to form the Republican Party.
Forget Laura Ingraham; she's a joke. But why does the Speaker of the House run things by Trump? Trump is an "ordinary" citizen at this point. The Speaker represents the people, no? So major decisions made by House Republicans are only based on the dictates of one man? There are a lot of Republican voters who don't support Trump, so why is Trump still making decisions for them? Unfortunately, not enough Republicans I guess.
The Speaker was ill-prepared for the job. He had little experience and really does not know how to lead or legislate. He does have a hidden ultra-conservative evangelical agenda and supported Trump’s insurrection.
Everyone knows Mike Johnson is a Dominionist and Christian Nationalist. He has provided information on his peculiar beliefs and lust for power. Kevin McCarthy wanted to be speaker so badly that he gave away most of his power to do so, and proved to less competent at the job than Nancy Pelosi was. It only took Matt Gaetz a few moments to oust McCarthy.
There is no leader of the 118th do-nothing Congress. The speaker is a toy the MAGAts throw out to those who used to be journalists to give the impression of a working Congress. The last Speaker of the House of Representatives was Nancy Peolosi, she knew how to run Congress. I hope we have a 119th Congress that returns as a legislative body instead of a ragged bunch of raving pre-teens,
I agree with your take on Hakeem Jeffries, he is doing a good job of holding the Democrats together, but we don't have enough votes to make a difference. This is one of the reasons I have suggested giving each Congressperson 1 vote for every 30,000 voters in their Congressional District. We'd still have 435 members of the House of Representatives but some would have more votes to cast than others - for example the one representative from Wyoming would have 19 votes, where as each of the 51 Representatives from California would have 25 votes.
Hmmm...no, the Senate needs to stay at equal representation for each state. The problem is the House was artificially stopped because it was getting too big. Giving representatives votes connected to the population restores the theory behind the House. Either that or go back to earlier numbers for each House seat and find a way to increase the size of the meeting room and numbers of offices.
Trump telling McConnell and his GOP senators what to do or not do reminds me of Reagan when he urged or told Iran not to negotiate with President Carter. So, the “GOP shenanigans” are not new! Power is more important than our democracy! 🤬
Nixon did the same to Johnson over Viet Nam. Republicans are not, nor have they ever been, honest brokers.
Not since since Eisenhower anyway. Not that Ike was a saint, but he cared about America and fought to save it. He had a sense of decency that Joe McCarthy lacked. Now McCarthy looks like the bush league compared to what the "Party of Lincoln" has become.
Unlike Trump, Ike felt he was president of all Americans and sincerely tried to do his best for all of them. Trump believed he was president of only the people who voted for him, that everyone who didn’t support him didn’t matter, and the press were “enemies of the people.” The last statement sounds dictatorial.
"everyone who didn’t support him didn’t matter"
Proved by his statement 'anyone who donates to the campaign of his only 2024 Republican rival, Nikki Haley, "will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp." '
He is saying "Either it is me or the highway."
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/25/trump-nikki-haley-donors-threat
Sounds dictatorial, doesn't it? And it's another lie. He will gladly accept anyone who donates to Haley, along with their dollars, if she ends her campaign.
Yes. There are two things Donald Trump cares about, himself and his bank account.
Ann, it sounds dictatorial because it is. Death star is full on fascist. I am glad that Romney spoke up. There really isn't any way for death star to get to him since he is not running again. Of course, he gets his minions to issue death threats to pols and their families and now have starting to swat certain people. I read a lot of history (reading about ancient Rome right now) and those who crave power will do anything to achieve it. I hope we don't end up with the bloodbaths that I have been reading about, but there are enough wing nuts to cause lots of problems. And then there is January 6th which was bad enough, but could have been even more bloody.
Seems like Trump will accept anyone's dollars.
"So when I got in the cart with Eric," Dodson says, "as we were setting off, I said, 'Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.' And this is what he said. He said, 'Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.' Now that was [a little more than] three years ago, so it was pretty interesting."
<http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/05/05/james-dodson-donald-trump-golf>
And maybe her for vice president! He wanted Pence hung!
Haley is already selling T-shirts on her website: "Barred. Permanently." and Make America Sane Again. I hope that's a sign she's going to start going for tffg's throat.
I'd like one of those T shirts!
However, we shouldn't get flummoxed into seeing Governor "Slavery, what Slavery?!" as some sort of positive force, Alexandra. With the noted exception of her support for Ukraine and a general Cheney-esque view of foreign policy, her policies and positions are downright awful, and virtually aligned with Trump's. (to the extent he has any)
Or "I alone can fix it".
Those of us familiar with Trump and his various failed schemes over the years are only too well aware he can’t fix anything, but he can either cause it to fail or make it worse.
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger got as close to "off with their heads" as the RNC could currently manage. Their banishment was a classic "Kangaroo Court".
And of course that’s precisely what the maga republicans in Congress have been up to for decades. That’s nothing new. By the way, has any Democrat ever queried a republican cohort asking how either they or their witless leader plans to make America great again? And if not why not? The disfunction of our Congress is why we as a country are where we are.
Robert🙏😳
The border is how they are going to make it better. Wait. They just turned down a bill that would give the border crisis a start at a solution. trump failed at a wall which Mexico refused to pay for. Mexico is working (and paying) for immigration solutions.
It seems to me Kathy, what has trickled down is that Republicans only represent the wealthiest of their constituents starting with Nixon perhaps??
Name me one Republican Congressman or Senator that represent the underprivileged or heck, even the middle class.
This is true, although the real damage started with Reagan and his economic and tax policies that heavily favored the rich at the expense of everyone else. Trickle-down economics consists of the GQP politicians and the rich using the rest of us as a public urinal. The snow job they’ve accomplished with getting working-class white voters to sympathize with the rich is absolutely amazing.
Snow job indeed. The comments made after they voted in IA and NH were mind-boggling. It's like they think Trump has never told a lie and January 6th was a peaceful protest at the Capital.
I agree about the economic damage occurred under Reagan that allowed the rich to get richer. Paul Krugman does an excellent job of explaining in detail each of these actions in many of his columns. But he is just as baffled as the rest of us about the mind-set of the white working-class voters.
Biden and the Democrats have many great success stories to tell and some excellent speech writers to tell the stories. But will they be able to convince this huge group of white working-class people that Trump was a terrible President who surrounded himself with morons and sycophants?
HCR has hundreds of thousands of followers and an excellent communicator. Hopefully her following continues to grow.
I don't think Reagan was that smart just like tfg. He was a movie star and everyone knew his name and he was charming. I believe there are the owners of the Steve Bannons and Stephen Millers that are truly running the show and deciding who they can put in front of the people that can somehow get elected by hook or by crook. I believe Putin is one of the big players. Just like Hitler. Chances are there will always be people wanting our amazing country. My great grandfather thought is was good enough to relocate with his little boys....one of them being my grandfather from England.
But not unprecedented. Tyranny could not be sustained without dupes.
Because they got very smart at tapping in to "fear of replacement," which apparently is a real thing among white working class folks. When emotions are riled up, the practical stuff seems less important.
At the same time, ordinary folks are still experiencing food, gas and housing costs that, while they are going down, are higher than four years ago. Maybe there are "good" emotions (Love of country, love of democracy?) that we can rile up to balance this.
Here's a really good "lay language" explanation of the disconnect.
https://apnews.com/article/economy-inflation-prices-jobs-income-recession-unemployment-e9e96643d8a1eb3ab2f57810219b8324
Tony Gonzalez (Rep from Uvalde, TX area. I think that is his name) Look for an interview on Firing Line a few weeks ago. The good ones are hard to find, but they are out there, trying to get things done.
We actually have Senator Patrick O'Connor in MA that is a good man and does good work locally and across party lines.
In 2020 I vowed never to vote for a Republican again. On election day I held firm, until I got to the machine to feed my ballot into.
I felt bad withholding my vote for Patrick and found the person in charge to trade my filled in ballot for a new ballot so I could change my vote. It just seemed wrong to me to punish a good man. I don't know if I did the right thing, it felt better though.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there are so few Republicans today that have an ounce of integrity and aren't cruel misogynists and MAGANAZIs so we don't have to consider voting for a Republican.
Alaska has Murkowski.
Isn't it amazing the low information voters can't see that? They just love the hateful language. I keep being reminded that the average IQ is 100.
I have the same thoughts about IQ but that doesn't explain the cruelty. Maybe there should also be a CQ - cruelty quotient. I think most of us have fantasized about revenge but would never act on it. I'm not sure how we would measure it but I would ran the thousands of participants in January 6th who injured over 140 officers as having high CQs.
Gary, it began long before Tricky.
Google "Whitehouse Putsch BBC" to discover that the "Republican" deference to (or Star Council of) the Uber-Wealthy began much before Nixon. They simply waited too long in 1933, and, again, picked the wrong man to lead their charge - a real Patriot.
Money has polluted politics from the get go. Lincoln spoke of "the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." In many respects I think American oligarchs become de facto royalty. Nixon was a creepy manipulator yet showed some vestiges of concern for the common good. Reagan detested Lincoln's egalitarian vision, and sold government by and for the rich.
Teddy Roosevelt resented his party's turns toward courting the wealthy.
Sorry, but I think anyone who isn’t him… doesn’t count.
That’s true because he’s a malignant narcissist and a sociopath. Trump thinks people are there to be used, he expects loyalty from them, but he’s never loyal to others, he relishes the adulation of his groupies, and the only thing he truly cares about are himself and his bank account. Trump can never see that he is the cause of his own problems, so he resorts to ridiculous conspiracy theories to explain what’s happening to him, and he lies constantly. The only thing I think he is truthful about is what he plans to do if he becomes president again. He will govern out of revenge, he will destroy the government and civil service system, he will disregard the Constitution, laws and statutes of the United States and will refuse to faithfully execute the laws as the president’s oath requires, and he will govern as a dictator and expect people to swear loyalty to himself personally and not to the Constitution. In addition, he plans to institute the Heritage Foundation’s Heritage 25 program, which is a plan created by a private right wing think tank and does not have the force of law.
I agree, and believe America would be much better off if everyone took 1-2 hours to learn (from Wikipedia?) about personality disorders, and then about the specific type Trump has - severe narcissistic personality disorder. He literally has a brain disorder that drives him toward doing all the cruel and extremely selfish things he does. Huge numbers of people in our jails have personality disorders, and therefore believe that it's because of everyone else that they are in trouble. Excepting any responsibility and moving towards contrition is beyond them.
But, IMO, the difference with Trump is that he:
1) was born into great wealth,
2) learned from his father, Roy Cohn and others how to most effectively con &/or run over people,
3) built up enormous anger for being mocked in NY for decades (see Doonesbury).
Unfortunately, America was also, on the Right, steadily building up more and more anger, and desire for revenge. After 30 years of Reaganomics, racial preferences, failed wars, and the Great Recession, many millions of GOP voters were no longer enamored with the party. They were ripe for the plucking by a wealthy, cruel conman and demagogue.
And here we are. Fortunately, Trump always wants to be in the limelight as a provocative badass. That means he's always trying to push things slightly further. And he's become cognitively impaired. So he's going to sound dangerousl crazy all this year, which will cost him dearly in November. 🙏🏽
And he really didn't care for anyone but himself and how he could be protected from losing his power!
Kathy, Eisenhower was also unafraid to tell Israel no, Suez 1956. I wonder how long Ike would have delayed dispatching troops from Ft. Hood to provide security to federal border officials. Abbott may be campaigning for the V.P. nomination. In any event he is totally out of line. We have four states along the border of Mexico. Four interpretations of foreign policy by four different governors. Oh, Canada is too frightening to contemplate. 12 states bordering Canada.
Greg Abbott may believe he is entitled to decide the state’s foreign policy, but he’s not. The Constitution assigns this task to the Federal government. I think Biden should seriously consider federalizing the Texas National Guard to remind Abbott who is in charge of foreign policy.
Because it is. An essential pillar of tyranny is the corrupt and violent enforcement of lies.
Yes, and not only do they "not matter," but they are vermin that need to be destroyed. I wonder who he thinks will pay any taxes if that happens.
We're still paying for his overthrow of Arbenz -- legally the Prez of Guatemala. Wonder what's in the future with Ukraine. Also didn't he start the Viet-Nam war?
"... and fought to save it." From what -- socialism?
bc thinks was great for the war companies, and is great now.
Last I looked the "Vietnam war" was started by Vietnamese trying to throw their French colonial masters out. The foreign-policy skulduggery of the '50s has filled hundreds if not thousands of books. Look up John Foster Dulles, Ike's secretary of state, then check out his brother, Allen Dulles, director of the CIA. As to antics that we're still paying for, I'd nominate the overthrow of democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in August 1953. That was to support the shah. We know what happened to the shah's regime in 1979, and a brief look at today's headlines will remind you what that led to.
The body count of the Cuban Missile Crisis was 1. When LBJ announced in so many words at an executive committee meeting of the President’s cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Defense that he supported a military invasion of Cuba he signed the President’s death warrant. That happened. U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war happened.
However, the Tet Offensive really opened LBJ's eyes - or perhaps the cynic might say Walter Cronkite's reporting of it on Nightly News. LBJ began secret negotiations with Uncle Ho to end the US's involvement in the Vietnam Civil War.
However, the secret got out - probably via some of the Dulles Brothers' holdovers still working in State or CIA to one 'Tricky Dick' Nixon. The 1968 Primary Season was already in progress, and in 1968 "Vietnam" not "the Border" was the Hot Campaign Topic.
To prevent LBJ from helping America, Nixon successfully sabotaged LBJ's Peace entreaty by Lying to Vietnam that if they would wait for his Election and they would get a much better deal from him.
When he did not pursue Peace in Vietnam, let alone offer a better deal, you understand why Vietnam became hotter after Nixon was Inaugurated.
The level of Republican "patriotic" behavior is seemingly stuck below Zero.
I am old enough to remember reading articles warning against getting involved in Vietnam. We had already gotten into a mess in Korea that was a similar situation. Oh, we were just going to send in a few "advisors"...
And then suddenly we were sending a whole generation to die in Vietnam or die more slowly from the chemicals we used there.
We can also thank the Dulles brothers "domino theory" for today's "border crisis" that is really a refugee crisis created by the corruption that is the inheritance of CIA actions in Central America.
Amen! I'm old enough, more or less, to have read those articles but, at the age of 12 or 13, I was already obsessed with the Middle East and totally clueless about Southeast Asia. 1968 woke me up and when I started college in the fall of 1969 I got active. At that point I fell in with civil rights activists, Old Lefties, New Lefties, etc., and my real education began.
I think he just picked up where the French left off. This was the war on communism based on the Domino Theory..
We keep trying to solve people's regional problems when we can't even solve on own.
We had to fight communism because it threatened capitalism. Political leaders conflated capitalism with democracy and we're off to war. Democracy can exist just fine without capitalism, but the profit margins of US companies would be laid bare to the threat of local governments taking ownership of foreign private enterprises.
There's a good argument that Eisenhower was not a republican. As a military employee he was discouraged from participating in politics. I seem to remember reading somewhere that both parties asked him to run?
Yes
Didn't McCarthy add new meaning to the word witch hunt?
I was fortunate enough to spend my formative years with Eisenhower as my president. He was the last respectable republican president since. He also signed In to law the first civil rights law since reconstruction and warned the nation about the military industrial complex. How does one teach kids about government with the republican Cult, for at least the last four decades, desecrating and making a mockery of the rule of law and everything our Democracy stands for.
Robert🙏
"Honor" ; Ike had 'honor'. The gop leadership would only have honor if it could be bought. *edit > Honor and just a few other things I'll offer later when I've time to spare. Too much on my plate just now.
His move killed many more American soldiers than necessary, it failed to work, and he wound up bombing Cambodia and Laos. In Cambodia, it helped to put the murderous Khmer Rouge into power in 1975, and over one million Cambodians were murdered or died.
There was no need for any American soldiers to be killed in Vietnam. The French colonial war in Vietnam ended in 1954. France lost. The US, because of the paranoid Domino “Theory” promoted by the evil Dulles brothers, decided to take up the cause of colonialist sympathizers in South Vietnam. Eisenhower should have known better and put a stop to it. Same for Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon (who, after much gnashing of teeth, eventually bit the bullet), but it would have been easy for Eisenhower to get out early, so he gets most of the blame for the US backing the wrong side in a stupid war at enormous human and moral cost, and quite a lot of treasure, too.
Johnson decided not to run for a second term because of Vietnam, and he was aware Nixon had written to the South Vietnamese government requesting that they refuse to participate in peace talks. It was a Logan Act violation, but Johnson decided not to do anything about it. A historian found evidence for this in the papers at Nixon’s library. Johnson was concerned about the right wing’s reaction to withdrawing from the Vietnam War, and for that reason he decided to stay the course. Nixon and Kissinger had no plan to stop the war, and around 28,000 Americans and even more North and South Vietnamese died until U.S. troops pulled out in 1973.
Correct. Johnson was in a political trap. Kennedy, too, but less so. Eisenhower has no excuse. Kissinger was a thoroughly evil man, and vastly overrated.
I agree. I didn’t cheer his death, but I was not sorry he was gone.
Our recent history would be so much different had all this been more widely broadcast and known. Broadcast and free press has failed us for a very long time, and only gotten worse. We have lots to fix and have had; if only we had honest reliable partners. Share your knowledge; the people must be partners.
True. The entire idea as news as infotainment started in the 1970s, and Paddy Chayefsky’s “Network,” the 1980s series “Max Headroom” and Don Henley’s 1982 song “Dirty Laundry” all lampooned the change toward sensationalism and news as entertainment over fact. I personally found it rather uninformative and incapable of providing serious, detailed news coverage, while the broadcast networks found themselves competing among one another for coverage. Trump hates CNN, but he should remember that he got elected because Jeff Zucker preferred to cover him because he drove ratings very high, and it was all free airtime he never had to pay for. Whether it was in the best interests of the country was quite another thing, and in my opinion it wasn’t. I don’t even watch network news any more as I find it less informative than detailed newspaper coverage. The problem is that with the rise of social media, advertisers have fled print media for online media, and newspapers are dying slowly.
To me, the broadcast and press outlets are failing to perform their civic duties as news as news outlets by ignoring Trump’s dementia and his severe personality disorders, which make him thoroughly unsuitable as a presidential candidate. They also tend to find an excessive amount of fault with Democrats coming for chastisement under the both sides principle under faux balance. The truth they should pronounce is this: Democrats have not given up on constitutional government. Republicans have given up on constitutional government and want to create America’s first dictatorship. They want to abandon 247 years of constitutional government to let an incompetent wannabe dictator impose his whims on the country, and it will be an even worse disaster than his first four years. He will substitute his whims for constitutional government and laws enacted by Congress, he will wreck the government and the civil service system, he would ally ourselves with the most undemocratic regimes on the planet. He will unconstitutionally use the law to reward his cronies and punish anyone who criticizes him or his policies, and he will substitute the Heritage Foundation’s policies under the Heritage 25 program, for those legally enacted by Congress and the Senate. Finally, he will make himself dictator for life.
I think you’re right that in recent years news organizations, even prestigious ones like (especially) the NYT have failed us, especially in coverage of Trump/right-wing shenanigans. However, during the Vietnam war, the news organizations did a reasonably good job. The fault lies with white American voters, who were rabid anti communists, totally ignorant of world affairs (still are, largely). They cheered when the National Guard murdered four peaceful protesters at Kent State. This was the quintessential reaction that characterizes the bulk of white American sentiment in the Vietnsm era. Eisenhower should have known better, but willful, white American ignorance made it possible.
Exactly Rex.
Another war criminal
Unfortunately, yes, although Nixon had resigned and Ford was president when the Khmer Rouge took power. Nixon and Kissinger engaged in many dubious activities while in office, including engineering the coup that overthrew Allende in Chile, as well as supporting military coups in Argentina and Uruguay. Many people were made to disappear for good. What I find particularly frightening are the Trump supporters who advocate throwing their political adversaries out of helicopters the way the Argentine military did.
Evil can last through different administrations.
Evil is persistent and continuous. In this country, previously, evil was supported by southern Democrats protecting slavery. But in the 1960's, those southern Democrats morphed into Republicans. It doesn't matter what label these wealthy kleptocrats use, they are still the rich doing everything they can to steal from the middle class and the poor by amassing as much power as possible. They are traitors! They are acting contrary to the good of this country in order to score political points. Greg Abbott's actions are not a political stunt. He is ENDANGERING the country. He should go to jail!
It can. Ford and Kissinger turned a blind eye to Indonesia invading East Timor (a former Portuguese colony) and Indonesia’s bloody conquest of the country. It took some years to get the Indonesians out of East Timor, and hundreds of thousands of people died.
Good point Jeri-
Bush the Senior continued may of Reagan's most heinous plots and even Clinton took a while to reverse many of them.
If Cambodia and Laos had oil or other resources American corporations could steal, there would have been no Khmer Rouge. But like Zimbabwe and many other countries that lack natural resources,, we allow atrocities to occur for decades unchecked.
So true.
No thanks to war criminal, Kissenger 😤
Henry Kissinger, in orchestrating the carpet bombing in Cambodia, is infamous for saying " kill anything that moves" His spirit lives on in Vladimir Putin and other war criminals. Bibbi Netanyahu is employing the same tactic in Gaza. They must be held accountable.
And Bob McNamara, another example of why businessmen need to stay out of politics. The total lack of accountability he felt for his part in the Vietnam debacle as seen in "Fog of War" was appalling.
Once "THE Southern Strategy" was deployed the Republicans became the Party of Distruction". They are the equivalent of the toddler who destroys all their toys because they can't handle their emotions.
The Southern Strategy is responsible for every Republican victory since 1968. It’s their bread and butter. They know exactly what they’re doing and people who vote for them know exactly why they do so. They started with dog whistles but now use bullhorns, which are more effective.
Exactly. It’s been downhill all the way since postwar dreams (WWII: UN). I have a theory to test here: some GI’s came back, used the GI bill, went to college, university, got all kinds of degrees and many were those who have carried the country forward, made us more civilized. Then there were the ones who bought bulldozers and made fortunes which their only aim was to keep. It’s not hard work, but pure greed that is dividing and killing US.
I agree that greed is killing the US economy, but I doubt that returning GIs are involved much in the killing. My theory is that the population is divided because the primary motivator for most white voters (somewhere between 55% and 60%) is the preservation of systemic advantages for white Americans. The greedy SOBs who are ruining the US economy exploit that pervasive, endemic racism to win elections for Republicans, who then deliver greater and greater shares of US wealth to economy-destroying, greedy SOBs while also making sure to preserve or extend systemic white advatages so they can continue to exploit racism to win elections.
I take racism for granted. It’s our BIG divider.
The bulldozer drivers are the uneducated to whom I refer. Civilization demands education. If you can make lots of money without a civilizing education, greed may make you just hang onto it, making sure you don’t share it with the “undeserving.”
Yes, he did!
Reoublicans have been engaging in behavior that actually endangers American lives simply to gain a perceived political advantage. Doesn't this seeems very close to actual treason?
The Republicans know they can't win without cheating and they are good at it. Does Mr. dirty tricks Roger Stone have a tattoo of FDR's face on his back? Is TGF not the protege of Roy Cohn?
Why does this not come out in a big way.
I haven’t voted for a Republican since voting for Eisenhower for president. Never! And reading “Democracy Awakening” I remember why.
Nixon, Reagan, Trump= Republicans.
Partisan over patriotism
The GOP itself has had some fine upstanding politicians like IKE, Romney, Rockefeller, and others. But when it started losing, it became the host for nefarious actors. Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich, and Leonard Leo, among others. It was a slow game. Cable news and talk radio had to be allowed to develop - so goodbye FCC. They finally rammed through the Justices who would march to their tune. The Court they wanted enabled the billionaires and dark money to buy their politicians thanks to Citizens United. Over-turning Roe v Wade I think was far more calculated than philosophical. And so it is: Trump is their useful idiot.
Oddly, I have had two neighbors that were politicians -- Tom Osborne and Tom Harkin, one Republican and one Democrat. They were both men of integrity and well, really good neighbors. I voted for both.
It's not often we get to sit on a politician's front porch and see who they really are when they aren't your representative in Congress.
But the MAGANAZIs have hijacked what was the Republican Party about 25 years ago when Newt told his colleagues not to associate with their Democrat colleagues. RBG and Scalia hung out with each other and their families socially, even though they rarely agreed on many decisions.
Today's Republican politicians are Trump MAGANAZIs from top to bottom. They are totally afraid of incurring his wrath -- cowards one and all. Even the few like Romney and Collins that don't support him, rarely poke the bear.
Disgusting boot lickers one and all.
I would have said that my neighbor politician, Steve Stivers (R, OH), was a man of integrity too. And then Trump came along. Instead of speaking out for what was right, he resigned his congressional seat and now heads the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Despite being a general in the National Guard, he’s a coward. He’s not as bad as the others who live in my community: Lt. Governor Husted, OH Secretary of State Larose, and the winner of the slime contest, Vivek Ramaswamy. It’s amazing, because I live in a fairly progressive suburb of Columbus.
I have so much contempt for “good” republicans like Stivers who could have spoken out against Trump’s excesses in the early days and reined him in - and didn’t. Whether the calculus was not to speak out of fear or out of electoral expediency doesn’t matter. They’re cowards, and bear a great deal of responsibility for the place we are today.
Frank LaRose is a lousy Secretary of State and broke his own rules about August elections in order to get his attempt to make it harder to pass voter initiatives on the ballot. In addition, he and the Republicans wanted us to vote No on Issues 1 & 2 in November. Thankfully all of his proposals lost, but the General Assembly is showing it doesn’t care at all what voters think with the attempt to deprive courts of the ability to adjudicate abortion cases. They also ignored three separate orders from the Supreme Court of Ohio before the November elections to redraw 3 improperly drawn Senate districts, and they kicked the can down the road and completely ignored the voter initiative requiring nonpartisan redistricting.
Yes! Having us vote with unconstitutional maps which still aren’t fixed was infuriating. The corruption and nepotism rends Ohio undemocratic. The fact that Dewine’s son is on the OH Supreme Court and doesn’t recuse in cases involving his father is ridiculous.
I agree with you, and I’m frustrated with it. The Ohio Democratic Party needs to seriously meet their Democratic colleagues from Wisconsin and Michigan to help develop a serious plan to overcome the stranglehold the Republicans have on the state. One thing they can do is to start identifying good candidates for state offices like attorney general, treasurer, and secretary of state, as well as good judicial candidates. Retired Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor voted three times with the majority to require three state Senate maps to be drawn. She is a Republican and the party was displeased at her decision. Of course, the Statehouse Republicans did nothing, and kicked the can down the road. The Republicans refused to do anything until it was too late to fulfill the voters’ initiative to require the Republicans redraw statehouse maps with a nonpartisan commission, and the Republicans still have districts that unfairly favor them. Retired Chief Justice O’Connor has been working to draft and get signatures for another initiative to require citizen redistricting like that used in California, ut so far AG Dave Yost has rejected her efforts. Yost was also the guy who claimed the story about a 10 year old being raped and impregnated by her mother’s boyfriend was fake until the man showed up for arraignment in Franklin County Court.
The General Assembly and Senate seem to have a greater commitment to their lobbyists than the people whom they ostensibly represent. Despite Frank LaRose’s best efforts to call an August election to add a proposal to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution (after passing a law to forbid August elections,) Ohio voters decisively defeated it. We also passed Issues 1 and 2 despite the Republicans’ best efforts to put the thumb on the scale. Now a group of General Assembly Republicans want to introduce a bill to strip Ohio courts of the ability to adjudicate abortion cases. The problem with this is that the Ohio Constitution does not allow them to do this.
I agree they bear a great deal of responsibility for the place we are in today.
With respect, we are supposed to walk a mile in their shoes before we judge others. I don't know if or how these people were threatened, do you? Would you risk a threat against a family member? Not sure I would.
I am banking on karma taking care of this. I just hope it won't be too late as I fear it will.
And between the two you cite at the end, Collins has the most to be ashamed of.
For sure Swbv. I cannot ever forgive her for being the deciding vote for Kavanaugh who lied to all of us about precedent and decided law.
Her 20 minute babble about her decision to support Kavanaugh was an embarrassment to herself and her constituents.
It was horrific. She sounded mealy mouthed and like a scaredy cat. Definitely not senatorial material.
She wanted Leo’s money. She got it. Beloved “lin” has been recounting this for years here.
As Harry Reid famously observed, Susan Collins is there when you don’t need her, polishing her claim to bipartisanship without actually, you know, being willing to cross partisan lines when it matters.
These days, Newt is a Trump groupie, and I’m not surprised. Newt took a meat cleaver to Congress and eliminated many of the Congressional aides and research sources designed to provide neutral and disinterested advice on legislation, and he went after Clinton for lying under oath about an affair while Newt himself was involved with his Congressional aide, now his wife, Callista. He encouraged Republicans to think of Democrats not as colleagues with differing views, but as enemies who needed to be destroyed. He encouraged Republicans to use hostile language and insults toward Democrats and Republicans still do so and accuse Democrats of being “communists” or “socialists,” which shows that they don’t know the real meanings of these words. In the end, Newt had to resign over scandal over his memoir, which was the same tactic he used to oust the previous speaker, Jim Wright. Dennis Hastert replaced Newt until we eventually learned Hastert had sexually abused members of his high school wrestling team and one of his victims was blackmailing Hastert over it.
My Congressman at the time was Doug Bereuter (R-NE). He had the seniority to become Speaker but he had a couple of major Republican character flaws that prevented him from being speaker -- integrity and intelligence. He had a master degree from Harvard in urban planning and seemed represent us and all Americans--probably another Republican faux-pas.
I met with him once to discuss the conclusion of the Congressional committee on National Security to outlaw the sale of 128 bit encryption software in the US. Congress and the NSA were concerned because it took days to deencrypt 128 bit military messages as opposed to minutes for 64 bit messages. My point was that if the software is available, you can't prohibit people from buying it especially foreign governments. We agreed to disagree, but we did have a good give and take discussion.
Anyway, Hasert undermined him and became Speaker only to be exposed as a pedophile. Bereuter resigned Congress at the end of the term disgusted with what the Republican Party had become.
The Republicans don’t want people with intelligence or integrity in the MAGA GQP. They want robots who will do what they’re told. I know there have been people with both in the Republican Party like former representative Bereuter, but they are definitely not welcome now and Trump’s groupies would call them RINOs. The Republicans with any intelligence or integrity have left the party and become independents. The odd thing is that some of the senators with Ivy League educations; like Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Tom Cotton; are among the worst in the Senate. Ted Cruz even has the peculiar distinction of being hated by his fellow Republicans.
Ah, yes. Newt had to resign because of his memoir, but not because the scumbag took divorce papers to his dying wife’s hospital bedside for her to sign. 🙄🤬
Thanks Gary. My family in a previous generation was chock full of politicians. The turn towards meanness and division has far surpassed policy differences. I don’t think “in the before times” any regarded their opponents as “the enemy”. The planned division by a few men has come to fruition.
republicans need him because of the base he commands.
Hopefully, they won't vote.
Good men, both Toms. Harkin, I had the opportunity to present our National Association's Distinguished Service Award to for his work in support of disability rights and policies to support the full inclusion of people with disabilities. He was a champion and strong voice behind passage of the American With Disabilities Act. This was, of course, in a time where your word was your bond and bi-partisanship was the American way. Sure, we might have groused about what we didn't get codified, but respected the good that became settled law for America.
SWBV,
Thank you for reminding us of those opportunists in the past who used the Republican Party to gain power and a foothold with many.....in order to push THEIR agendas.
Politicians on both sides have used power and brainwashing and publicity to gain power.
We need a more engaged population who work to think for themselves.
We need leaders who study to form their opinions....who are knowledgeable enough through engagement with our citizenry as well as people, governments and power struggles going on all over this planet! Men or women who desire to be a part of leadership must be willing to acquire the experience to lead us...instead of using us to gain personal power. Many of the political candidates , it is heartrending to say....are empty.....filling themselves with someone elses ideas.....willing to be used for someone else's personal power/gain through them and through the position they are striving to win. So many of us are either "lazy" thinkers or would rather be a part of the group than learn to make intelligent, informed decisions on our own....or engage in informed debate.
We are self-destructing through our lack of knowledge and lack of character. This laziness is NOT going to strenghten us as a people or as a nation.
At this time in our history, I am very grateful for President Joe Biden and his team.
However on a painful topic that will not leave me.....Netanyahu needs to go. I cannot believe that all of the Israeli population agrees with the slaughter of Palestinians...or anyone.....as is being done in plain sight in Gaza. It is my personal speculation that Netanyahu set this up to do exactly what is happening in Gaza....and with the hostages....using our symphathies towards Israel....to participate in this slaughter of humanity. We have this blood on our hands!
It must stop! We are creating enemies!!!!
Useful idiot is correct. I was just reading how Republican power attorneys are lining up ready to keep Agent Orange on the ballot. It's already over before it even starts. Moscow Mitch and his billionaires buddies own the court. They are Project 2025. We are so screwed. We have a corrupted Supreme Court.
I hope the 'power attorneys' are no brighter than his current attorneys. I have read any attorney with any self respect wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole.
The article is on the CNN news feed this morning reporting who the players are.
Side note. I contacted the NYT about their clickbait both sides bullshit reporting of Agent Orange and his cronies. They responded. They weren't very happy with me. They were very defensive. They posted to me about 10 articles to the contrary. I guess I got their attention.
Trump is already behaving as if he's president.
And the Republicans act as if he is president, calling him "President Trump." There is only one president at a time. That the Republicans are now acting as if he is president and they are following his orders, they are creating a separate authority in the country that will exist regardless of the results of the election in November.
This is how civil wars begin.
Judge Kaplan wasn't having any "President Trump."
When Habba called Trump to the witness stand as "President Trump," Kaplan very sternly corrected her, "Donald John Trump."
Good for him - I hadn't seen that in any transcripts.
Thank you for noting that, Steve. It is important.
All trials must be televised.
Exactly, and his biggest supporters in Congress treat President Biden as though he isn’t actually the president when he is. The Republicans in Congress think their job is to fall into line and follow Trump’s orders, so they carry out unethical stunts like trying to impeach President Biden despite the lack of evidence of wrongdoing, and they don’t want Hunter Biden to publicly testify so they can distort his testimony. I hope Jack Smith has been able to gather information to charge or at least subpoena members of Congress and the Senate who enabled Trump’s insurrection.
The Republican base is drinking Trump's poisonous Kool-aid because it is the only liquid available to them. The Republican base is being herded into one Trumpian corral. When will the Romney's, Flake's, Cheney's, Kinzinger's and so many others get back into the game? When will they tell Tump to take a hike or to F-off? It is not the time to be sitting on the sidelines, no matter how convenient that may be. With the possibility of a dictator grabbing the reins of power in November, this might be the last damn inning. Don't leave any of your time and energy on the field.
There is an EXCELLENT open letter to Nikki Haley in The Bulwark, written by Michael Wood in The Bulwark.
"This moment in American history calls for bold truth-telling, drawing lines in the sand, and cutting through the flood of BS coming from Donald Trump and his minions.
When, some distant day, you shuffle off this mortal coil, what will your grandchildren read in your obituary? . . . What did you do when a sitting president tried to steal an election, sent a mob to attack the people’s representatives in Congress, and pushed our country to the edge of a constitutional crisis—if not outright into one? A line from a future newspaper: “Haley then spent a year meekly using the passive voice and mumbling about deficit spending.”
Your life isn’t over and your obituary is not yet written. . . . Go to your home state and tell the truth. . . and say what you actually think: “He’s a moron. He’s a liar. He’s done grievous harm to our country. He dines with Nazis. He needs to be held accountable, both legally and politically. They’re not ‘hostages,’ they’re criminals. We don’t do dictators in America, even for a day.”
Full article: https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/an-open-letter-to-nikki-haley?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
If she got up the nerve to do exactly this it would blow up the entire election. Even Biden would have to up his game big time. As the letter says, she'd never have to shrink down in front of her grandchildren and who knows, maybe some other Republicans would also find spine enough to echo her words. Nikki, go for it, push that lying swine into history.
Kathy, the 14th Amendment at Article 3 contains all the legal firepower the DOJ needs to remove over 100 members of the House & Senate that chose to support insurrection over the Constitution. Like tRUmp, and as Judge Luttig & Prof. Tribe (and Professors Baude & Stokes have written in the The University of Pennsylvania Law Review) the former President & any other “officer” engaging in insurrection against the US “unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty.”
I know it does, but I do not have much confidence that the courts would actually enforce this. I agree with Judge Luttig’s statements on the matter because his first loyalty is to the Constitution, as it should be. My concern is that the Republicans in Congress would never do this.
Is the DOJ the right department to initiate proceedings under that? The DOJ didn't come into existence until 1870; but I think that you're right, they are the agency to investigate violations of the constitution.
TCinLA, that's a very succinct way of describing the surreal parallel to the buildup to Civil War that's unfolding.
Republicans and their wealthy patrons have spent years trying to rekindle the Civil War. Summoning the devil in the devotion to power.
They have, I noticed it when Obama was elected. Should have noticed trend with W/Dickie
This is an important point, TC. Watch how quickly those other states start sending their national guard units to Texas, ostensibly to secure the border, but really to prevent federal border control from doing their jobs. Let's call this what it is: the insurrection continues and escalating. I live in one of those states. God help us all.
Kristi Noem of South Dakota actually did this, and one of her wealthy campaign contributors paid for it.
President Biden can end this in two minutes, the same wah JFK and LBJ did with the Failed Confederates called out their National Guard units to "stand in the schoolhouse door" 60 years ago: Federalize the guard and put them to work doing their actual job.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/08/01/more-republican-governors-deploy-national-guard-troops-texas-border.html
Yeah, but this article is from August and talks about how few soldiers were actually sent and how they do not qualify for the benefits they get if sent by the President instead of a Governor.
I read the article and it sounds like the guards under Biden who have been there for awhile get full pay and benefits and under the state have reduced benefits and lower pay. This is in the last two or three paragraphs.
Gulp.
I am appalled and disgusted at reports of Stefanik basically saying to declare Trump the nominee, right now. I hope this report is being overblown, I had hoped to see mention of it in today's letter. In the last week, I have lunched with two long time friends, both old school republicans. Foremost on their minds (both) is the "border crisis" and also that they despise Trump. I didn't push as to whether they would vote for him if he becomes the nominee.
Mitch referred to TFG as President Trump in his comments about the border deal. That says a lot!
I heard the fellow who reports for PBS calling Biden "Mr. Biden" as he reported the NH voting.
Or dictator.
Yes, more like it!
He and his groupies are less a political group than cultists bent on helping Trump make himself dictator. Some of them are or have tried to join election boards to try to game votes, others cancel voter registrations without notice to affected voters. Trump is showing signs of both dementia and decompensation over fear of his impending criminal trials, and it shows at his rallies.
To be fair Joanna, he does control SCOTUS and half of Congress. Many of his actions, like putting DeJoy in charge of the USPS are still in force. The State Department is rebuilding but is a shell of what it was when Trump came to power.
And many of the red states bow down to their orange demagogue refusing to listen to the SCOTUS and the administration.
If you think Biden hasn't done a good job swimming upstream, just look at the amazing things he's been able to accomplish in spite of the MAGANAZIs and the white faux-Christian nationalists.
Of course he is. It's to be expected. The problem is not his behavior nearly so much as it is the Senators'.
Don, I agree! Without their bowing down to his every inane and dangerous whim, he would be spitting in the wind.
To many Republicans he is the president and he has declared war.
Exactly so.
Or perhaps misbehaving, as he were emperor.
I think he sees himself as an absolute monarch, like an emperor (as in Rome) or a dictator.
Think about exactly what rapist trump is telling McConnell and the GOP what not to do:
"Meanwhile, Ukraine is running out of ammunition."
First the GOP's stance is that they won't consider funding Ukraine (not standing up for Democracy) unless the border is addressed. Democrats finally agree to a conservative and imperfect border bill in order to send drastically needed fire power to Ukraine. And common citizen rapist trump orders the GOP goons not to pass it so that he can run on it? And they are listening to him?? This, out in the open, and they have no shame??? By bringing this out into the light, I believe this outrage will gain traction and will backfire into their ugly little heads....
https://snyder.substack.com/p/safe-skies-for-ukraine?utm_campaign=email-post&r=5v4jv&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Thank you Kathy! If the Defense Dept. wants to save money AND help stymie the genocide in Gaza, they can demand a complete cease-fire or stop funding the Israeli army....
Just in from The Guardian 26 Jan 2024
09.30 EST
-McConnell's comments on Ukraine, border deal 'flipped around' - report
After meeting yesterday with their leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans told Politico that earlier comments he had made expressing opposition at Donald Trump’s urging to a deal to arm Ukraine and Israel while enacting conservative immigration policies were misunderstood.
22m ago
09.09 EST
- Senate Republican leader walks back Trump-driven opposition to Ukraine and border deal
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday kicked off with the somewhat shocking news that Senate Republicans were, at Donald Trump’s behest, willing to walk away from a deal they had been negotiating with Democrats for months to implement some conservative immigration policies in exchange for approving new aid to Ukraine and Israel’s militaries. The reason, the Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell told his lawmakers in a private meeting, was that Trump wanted to be able to attack Joe Biden over immigration on the campaign trail, and passing the deal would undermine that. The comments unsurprisingly sparked outrage from Democrats and some Republicans, and later on Thursday, McConnell seems to have walked them back.
- According to Politico, he again convened his party to tell them that he was still behind the deal. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen – the odds of enacting legislation in an election year dealing with one of the most divisive issues in American politics, immigration, were also going to be long, but the parties seem resolved to at least try. We’ll see what more is revealed about this kerfuffle over the course of the day. (Guardian, copied in full)
Listen to the recording a call LBJ had with Everett Dirksen where he calls out his treason:
https://lbjtapes.org/conversation/treason
No it's not new. It's how republicans gain the presidency in modern times.
Power has been more important to Republicans than democracy since the 1880s. The Progressives of the early 20th century, and Eisenhower, were exceptions to the general trend.
And, McConnell could have finished us with having to deal with tfg! I wonder what tfg and Putin have on McConnell. In his last election we had an excellent candidate running against him....I was sure she would win and I was so disappoint when he was re-elected. From what I read he was getting even with those that had made fun of him and shunned him. He is evil like tfg!
And he won. I fear the same will happen with TFG. The cases against him argument been brought much sooner. Now there is likely not enough time to get a conviction before the election. I hope I’m wrong.
Perhaps it's important to acknowledge and answer the Republican constitutional argument that the Biden administration is already failing to enforce the law and the constitution, so (they say) a new border bill isn't going to do any good. Following is the text of Texas Governor Abbott's recent press release. What is the rebuttal?
January 24, 2024
The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.
Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters—one of which I delivered to him by hand—President Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.
• President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.
• President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.
• By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border—bridges where nobody drowns—and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.
Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United
States.
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and
protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.
Something I don't hear much about is the long-term damage this divisiveness is doing to America on the international stage. No longer is the commitment of a president and congress to be believed. Our pledge is not worth the ink used to write and for our leader (President) to offer it. It isn't even a bond, a fidelity for the full term of our President. We have no honor now. Any member of a backbiting gaggle of opposition cand and now cancels it without cause or consequence. So doing means we act in bad faith and shall not be worthy of favored nation status militarily or diplomatically or economically. The price we would have to pay were we to be attacked by our friends or fellow nations at the negotiating table for presumed honoring of any promise should be expected to escalate beginning with the next administration. Our vulnerability to successful attack by our avowed enemies should be expected to increase as well because of our recent betrayal, real or presumed, of our allies and opportunities alliance we are likely perpetuate should Trump regain the White House. That a candidate can not only attempt to, but actually require presently serving congress persons to accede to his demands to block and destroy that which we elected the current administration to achieve on our behalf is morally bankrupt as a premise and gravely unlawful under the constitution to which those presently serving and promised to honor. Rump Trump was not elected, regardless of his presumed belief in his assigned leadership. Absolutely insame.
I wondered if you were joking. i was thinking of Stuart Attewell, Diane Francis, Ellie Kona and others whose names I do t recall at the moment.
And more important than the lives of ordinary people
😤😖🤬
Same thing Nixon did!
Americans, no matter where we live, the color of our skin, or what our background—we all believe in the freedoms that have been so hard won: equality before the law, the opportunity to pursue our dreams, the ability to be heard and make our voices count at the ballot box, the expectation to earn a fair return for our work—so we aren’t forced to choose between food, medicine, rent or an education, and the fundamental right to decide if, when and how to start or grow a family, to love who we love, and simply, to be who we are...
But day by excruciating day, we are seeing how a tiny minority, of white, wealthy, well-connected billionaires and price-gouging corporations, is turning our democracy into a fascist kleptocracy; they use racism, sexism, nativism and anti-LGBTQ fear-mongering to distract and divide us, so they don’t have to pay what they owe, don’t have to stop polluting and don’t have to be accountable for their crimes against our families—paramount of which was Tr*mp’s Jan 6 attack on our country, made possible by his MAGA co-conspirators in the Executive Branch, Congress, state legislatures, the military, and even SCOTUS.
But together, the many can and will defeat the moneyed, because time and time again we have before. This battle for justice and the promise of America, is as Heather’s historical letters show—it’s not a sprint, nor a marathon; it is a relay, where each of us has our leg to run...and our success happens as much, in the passing and taking of the baton, as in the carrying.
This is an excellent way of putting it. The saying that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” is not limited simply to military activity. As citizens, we have to engage in a relay to preserve government of, for and by the people and to prevent government by kleptocracy and dictatorship.
Yes. What our military has come to to "protect" since WWII is not as much "defending our freedoms" as it is in manipulating governments for fiscal and other gains. We must take up the mantle of eternal vigilance, or we will see our freedoms erode as the monied establishment takes over.
Indeed -- and I'm often reminded that Lincoln's admonishment was not that we WERE destined or already committed to a govt of, for and by the people, but rather that it was up to us to ensure that such a govt should continue to exist:
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us [...] that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, [...] shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Thank you, Natalie. This is indeed a relay.
indeed!
Great words from Natalie...
"It is not a sprint nor a marathon; it is a relay, where each of us has their leg to run...and our success happen as much in the passing of the baton as the carrying"
it is time for Ordinary folks to do Extraordinary things...
It is time, again, for ordinary folks to do extraordinary things :)
Worth noting, it doesn't even take that many of us...
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world
Preach it, sister!
LOL! I'd prefer to say I'm 'singing' it vs preaching...as my hero Anat Shenker-Osorio says, the song we sing as the choir for progressive values (i.e., the activists) has to be catchy enough to be carried by the congregation (i.e., the base), so they sing it out in the world—carrying the message to the non-base, 'swing'/'persuadable' voters (i.e., non-ideological/non-partisan people who hear a statement and say 'that's a good point,' only to hear the opposite statement and also say 'that's a good point,' which is why our message has to be louder, more frequent AND better at landing than MAGA's).
Basically, if our words don't spread, they don't work...
https://youtu.be/xNLpoVY4LA8?feature=shared&t=10
I love that! And AOC is absolutely correct. Keep singing, Natalie and encourage all of us to join your choir!
'Why Wall Street is Surrendering to Trump' (The Bulwark)
by CARLIE SYKES
'One of the fondest bits of resistance fantasy has been the notion that the nation’s economic elites — the titans of Wall Street, the beautiful people of Davos, the economic masters of the universe— would, in our moment of peril, mount the barricades to defend democracy.'
'To which a reasonable person might have responded: Have you met these guys?'
'For about five minutes after January 6, it seemed that the business community had, in fact, found or fabricated a moral compass. “There are some members who, by their actions, will have forfeited the support of the US Chamber of Commerce. Period. Full stop,” the chamber’s vice-president, Neil Bradley, declared when the group announced a ban on contributions to representatives who had voted against certifying Joe Biden’s win.'
'There were full-page ads and ringing declarations. “This is not who we are as a people or a country,” insisted Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan.'
'Ah, but.'
'The chamber quietly dropped its ban on election deniers. The cash still flows. And last week in Davos, we found out how far Dimon had evolved on extraneous details like the peaceful transfer of power and attempted insurrections. Dimon now says that Donald Trump was right about lots of things and, like other moguls, is now okay with either Biden or Trump.'
“My company,” 'he said,' “will survive and thrive in both.”
'The only surprise here is that we are surprised. In a remarkable piece this week, The Financial Times’s Edward Luce reminded readers,' “The 1930s ought to have buried the idea that business is a bulwark against autocracy.”
'The Financial Times had only nice things to say about Benito Mussolini in a June 1933 supplement entitled “The Renaissance of Italy: Fascism’s gift of order and progress”. Trains were running on time, investment was humming and friction between capital and labour was a thing of the past. “The country has been remodelled, rather than remade, under the vigorous architecture of its illustrious prime minister, Signor Mussolini,” wrote the FT’s special correspondent. '
“Today’s America offers a reminder,” 'he notes.'
'Why is Wall Street so quickly making its peace with the twice-impeached, disgraced, indicted, authoritarian fraudster? Let’s divide the reasons into three buckets:'
Venality, rational self-interest, and fear.
'Let’s start with the obvious: Big business knows that Trump poses a threat to democratic norms and is a cancer on the national culture. But he’s good for the bottom-line, and that, after all, is the business of business. In their world, the trashing of constitutional norms is simply collateral damage.'
'So, as Matt Yglesias notes in his Slow Boring newsletter, it is not shocking that' “rich businessmen remember they're Republicans.” Even though they might have preferred a less fascisty option, “they’re now reconciled to riding with Trump, who they see as a non-optimal candidate, but a lock for the nomination and perfectly capable of beating Biden.”
“And beating Joe Biden really is the important part…”
'Forget the eyewash about the border or concerns about the tender feelings of the MAGA masses, he writes.' “What Jamie Dimon really wants is the return of business-friendly regulations that will make more money for him personally, for his shareholders, and for his friends.”
'None of this is particularly mysterious. Writes Luce:'
'[For] all his faults, Trump would be better for business than Biden. Trump cut the top tax rate and improved their bottom lines. He is promising to do the same again. Trump’s railing against corporatism is just red meat for the base. He would also boost the fossil fuel industry and commercial real estate. The assumption of business leaders that Trump will fulfil these promises is almost certainly right.'
'They are also unfazed by Trump’s threats of big tariffs and renewed trade wars, because' “less globalisation is a price worth paying for lower taxes. It seems that almost anything is.”
'Elites tell themselves other stories too: They want a seat at the table. They want to be in the room where it happens. They want access. And they know that if they fail to fall into line now, they risk being cast into outer darkness. Or worse.'
'So, they are afraid. But perhaps not afraid enough, telling themselves that Trump’s “bark is worse than his bite.” In their boundless self-regard many of them (like their counterparts from the last century) seem to think that they will be able to control him or limit his damage. In his first term, the guardrails held, they tell themselves, so how bad could it be?'
'But Trump is openly promising a regime of retribution; and this time around he will have far more weapons to wield. As Protect Democracy warned last week, “A second Trump administration will seek to pierce the independence of federal agencies to expand presidential control over their activities.” That includes the DOJ, FCC, FTC, SEC, IRS and all the vast net of regulatory powers that can be aimed at both individuals and corporations who fall out of favor.'
'As both Trump and Florida’s Ron DeSantis have signaled, there is a ravening appetite on the right for the use of government power to punish ideological dissenters in the private sector. As the Protect Democracy report noted', “Trump made several attempts, with varying degrees of success, to crack down on the media during his first term.”
'He ordered a government review of postal rates and urged his postmaster general to double shipping rates on Amazon, as a part of his campaign to pressure Washington Post and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos to provide him with more favorable news coverage.'
'As a 2016 candidate, Trump threatened to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner because CNN was “wildly anti-Trump” and, after he became president, the Department of Justice challenged the deal. The New Yorker reported that Trump ordered top aides to' “get this lawsuit filed…I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”
'But the media is far from the only industry that Trump 2.0 could target. DeSantis famously went to war with Disney; and the Trumpian right seems spoiling for a fight with businesses that might take controversial positions on issues dear to the heart of the new MAGA elite.'
'What could Trump do? In an earlier report, the folks at Protect Democracy described some of the ways that the government could punish corporate expression:'
'Abuses of government power can take different forms, because government officials wield the power of the state in many ways. They employ rhetoric to influence a public debate, deploy administrative and agency power to gatekeep opportunities and launch investigations, and propose and pass laws that codify the rules of the game…'
'These include:'
'Rhetorical Threats: In response to a company’s (or company leader’s) disfavored speech or expression, a high-ranking government official may threaten that the government will take action to punish the company or make a statement directly intended to chill business expression. For example, in March 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tweeted that she would work to “break up Big Tech,” in response to critical tweets from Amazon about the senator’s characterization of the company’s tax liability. That same year, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned businesses that they would face' “serious consequences” for speaking out against a new voting rights law in Georgia and urged corporate America to “stay out of politics.”
'Administrative Tools: A government official may propose using the executive branch’s administrative or investigative power in retaliation for viewpoints it opposes….'
'Legislative Power: A lawmaker may propose legislation or initiate an investigation directly targeting a company as a result of its expressed views. For example, in 2018 the Georgia legislature voted to strip out from a larger bill a proposed tax exemption on jet fuel, originally intended to benefit Delta Airlines, in retaliation for the company’s decision to eliminate a promotional discount for National Rifle Association members following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. '
'In a second Trump term, this would be mere child’s play. But, by then, there will be little that the business elite can do about it.'
'How do we know?'
'We’ve seen this play before.'
'Haven’t we?' (The Bulwark) Copied in full.
We have work to do!
The many, can and will (again) overcome the moneyed...
We hope
When we organize, we win...like we did in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and throughout 2023. Since Dobbs, EVERY Democratic candidate has outperformed Biden's margin in 2020.
The media is not covering our Democratic wins, because they NEED the horserace to drive click-bait headlines, which force binary narratives that rely on false equivalences.
If Biden's victory is going to be another one based on a RECORD turnout, a RECORD margin, and RECORD absolute vote count against a 2X popular-vote losing, 2X impeached, 4X criminally-indicted, and now convicted rapist, racist and traitor who conspired with MAGA Repubs in state legislatures, in Congress and even on SCOTUS to overturn our election, what would be the point of media's endless 'mad poll disease' coverage (and again, not only are polls inherently flawed, but even if 100% accurate -- they don't vote)?
Now, to be clear, I am not saying we don't have to do the work to vote, and help get out the vote -- especially given how the Electoral College is rigged against voters, or how gerrymandering is rigged against voters, or how laws to suppress access to the ballot box are rigged against voters -- but it's not the sturm und drang, anxiety-inducing fugue state the media would have us believe it to be.
Well said. Thank you.
Appreciate the feedback.
I could use some reminders of how we have defeated the monied. What worked?
We did it in the past by defeating the Southern slaveholders, but we failed to complete our task of protecting the formerly enslaved people by halting Reconstruction. We also elected FDR in 1932 after Herbert Hoover wrongly thought conventional economic policies would fix the Depression, but Southern members of the Senate and Congress ensured Black citizens would not entirely benefit from FDR’s policies. World War II was a necessary war to fight, and essentially it was a massive public works project that pulled our economy out of depression. Any economic policies we enact to help ordinary people must include all citizens without discrimination.
I'm not going to go as far back as the 19th and 20th centuries.
Instead, I will point out that in 2023, we held the VA Senate and flipped the House of Delegates and as a result, Danica Roem was elected the country's first transgender State Senator and VA's Speaker of the House, Don Scott, is a black man—for the first time in its 400+ year history!
This win meant Virginia stayed the last state in the South without an abortion ban, but it also meant that all the hard-earned progress from Democratic wins in 2017 and 2019 wouldn’t get rolled back, including:
- Medicaid for 700,000 Virginians
- Ratification of the Equal Rights amendment
- Increases to VA's minimum wage
- Funding secured for teacher pay
- Passage of first ever Climate Action bill in the South
- Protections against discrimination for the LGBTQ community
- Gun safety laws, and soooo much more for the Commonwealth
But in 2023, we didn't only win in VA (again), we also won in CT, KY, NJ, OH and PA!
Up and down the ballot, Americans came together to vote their values and defend their freedoms; they chose between "vision and division"—electing democratic judges, governors, state legislators, mayors, and even school board members!
And it wasn't just November 4, 2023. For all of last year, democratic candidates in special elections in Congress and in ballot measures have won, again and again and again—at margins higher than both Biden's win in 2020, or the predicted partisan lean of those places.
I will take these and all the other ACTUAL democratic election wins in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023 over "mad poll" disease any day; and I hope you do, too.
My favorite quote remains this from Anand Giridharadas:
"We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail."
Escape the media's perpetual doom loop of horse race politics (I saw so many headlines after 11/4/23 that started with why despite these wins, it's bad for Biden, the guy who won the most votes of any candidate ever, in the middle of a pandemic, and whose record of success is the best of any President in 60 years!) where their obsession with binary, conflict-driven narratives, which force false equivalences, hides the reality of a slow, but steadily growing blue wave that's been building since I began volunteering with Sister District Project in 2017.
Thank you for such optimism.
I keep mulling over how a good many MAGA followers had family who fought and were possibly injured or died in WWI and/or WWII, for the freedoms you declaim here. It just doesn’t compute that they would abandon and disgrace their forebears sacrifices, and their country, to follow and encourage the total opposite of what America stands for. How warped their vision of America has become. I wonder what can encourage them snap out of it, stop being so irrationally fearful, and take pride in their country again?
Hi Anne,
I think the key isn't really to 'change' people's minds -- but rather, get the ones (who can) to see how the values you describe above, are not being support by their voting choices.
If you have time, this is a great read:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ay4wn/how-to-change-a-voters-mind-is-deep-canvassing
But, ultimately, this is the most profoundly logical explanation I can find:
https://framelab.substack.com/p/understanding-trump-again
Thanks for articulating so well where we are at this moment and what we need to do to cross the finish line.
When we vote, we win. And when we organize, we win even bigger!
Natalie, nice barnburner, keep it up!
You inspired me to learn about the history of the term 'barnburner' -- thank you! And good company for my post to keep :)
h/t Wikipedia
The term barnburner was derived from a folktale about a Dutch farmer who burned down his own barn in order to get rid of a rat infestation. In this case it was applied to men who were thought to be willing to destroy all banks and corporations, in order to root out their abuses.
The Barnburners and Hunkers were the names of two opposing factions of the New York Democratic Party in the mid-19th century, in which the Barnburners were the radical faction, opposing expanding the public debt and the power of large state-established corporations. They also generally came to oppose the extension of slavery.
At the 1848 presidential election, the Barnburners left the Democratic Party, refusing to support presidential nominee Lewis Cass. They joined with other anti-slavery groups, predominantly the abolitionist Liberty Party and some anti-slavery Conscience Whigs from New England and the Midwest, to form the Free Soil Party. This group nominated former President Van Buren to run again for the presidency. Their vote divided Democratic strength. Zachary Taylor, the Whig nominee, was elected to office.
After the Compromise of 1850 temporarily neutralized the issue of slavery and undercut the party's no-compromise position, most Barnburners who had joined the Free Soil Party returned to the Democrats.
In 1854, some Barnburners helped to form the Republican Party.
Wow, that's a story! Wiki i see :)
Forget Laura Ingraham; she's a joke. But why does the Speaker of the House run things by Trump? Trump is an "ordinary" citizen at this point. The Speaker represents the people, no? So major decisions made by House Republicans are only based on the dictates of one man? There are a lot of Republican voters who don't support Trump, so why is Trump still making decisions for them? Unfortunately, not enough Republicans I guess.
The Speaker was ill-prepared for the job. He had little experience and really does not know how to lead or legislate. He does have a hidden ultra-conservative evangelical agenda and supported Trump’s insurrection.
Not so hidden...
Everyone knows Mike Johnson is a Dominionist and Christian Nationalist. He has provided information on his peculiar beliefs and lust for power. Kevin McCarthy wanted to be speaker so badly that he gave away most of his power to do so, and proved to less competent at the job than Nancy Pelosi was. It only took Matt Gaetz a few moments to oust McCarthy.
Because Gaetz blames McCarthy for the ethics probe into his sex trafficking.
And I read yesterday that the Feds are investigating Gaetz now.
It was just on hold for awhile with Santos.It started a while ago and has been reopened.
There is no leader of the 118th do-nothing Congress. The speaker is a toy the MAGAts throw out to those who used to be journalists to give the impression of a working Congress. The last Speaker of the House of Representatives was Nancy Peolosi, she knew how to run Congress. I hope we have a 119th Congress that returns as a legislative body instead of a ragged bunch of raving pre-teens,
There are minority leaders... I think Jeffries has done a helluva job wrangling the clowns. I want to see him shine brightly in 2025.
I agree with your take on Hakeem Jeffries, he is doing a good job of holding the Democrats together, but we don't have enough votes to make a difference. This is one of the reasons I have suggested giving each Congressperson 1 vote for every 30,000 voters in their Congressional District. We'd still have 435 members of the House of Representatives but some would have more votes to cast than others - for example the one representative from Wyoming would have 19 votes, where as each of the 51 Representatives from California would have 25 votes.
Jeffries is very good as minority leader, and he’s far more competent than Mike Johnson.
Fay, I love this idea. Do the same for the Senate, and we might have some real progress.
Hmmm...no, the Senate needs to stay at equal representation for each state. The problem is the House was artificially stopped because it was getting too big. Giving representatives votes connected to the population restores the theory behind the House. Either that or go back to earlier numbers for each House seat and find a way to increase the size of the meeting room and numbers of offices.
I hadn't heard this idea before. It makes sense.